The Marriage Decree

Chapter 102: A Fourth Wheel

"Happy birthday to you," Hermione begins to sing softly, leaning over her husband's sleeping form, a tray with breakfast and a cup of tea levitating over him. "Happy birthday to you," She continues, smiling as he begins to stir. "Happy birthday to Draco," She laughs when he covers his head with their duvet. "Happy birthday to you." She finishes.

"No," He mutters beneath the covers.

"Happy twentieth birthday," She cheers.

"No," He repeats, shuffling further down the bed.

"I made you breakfast," She tells him, and he throws the covers off his head, revealing a suspicious glare. "Birthday breakfast." She clarifies with a grin.

Draco groans and attempts the pull the covers back over his head, but Hermione sits herself down on the edge of their Hogwarts bed. Knowing he had been defeated, Draco sits up, leaning against the headboard of their bed, with his arms crossed.

Hermione lowers the levitating tray onto his lap. When Draco leans forward to inspect his breakfast, she places a plastic silver crown atop his head.

"What..." He reaches up to take the offending headwear off, but the crown remains stuck to his head. "What have you done?" He stares wide-eyed at his wife.

"It's a birthday crown," She grins. "It's charmed to only be removable at midnight of the wearers birthday." She tells him.

"Hermione, I have to teach." He tugs on the crown, but it doesn't budge. "I have a reputation. They'll never respect me with this on my head." He sends her an unimpressed look as he ceases pulling it off.

"You're too serious sometimes," She tells him. "It's your birthday, the perfect time to have a little fun." She smiles.

He shakes his head, already not looking forward to the rest of the day. He starts his breakfast, glad it's a Tuesday, so he doesn't have extracurricular lessons after school.

As they get ready for the day ahead in their Hogwarts rooms, Draco gives the crown a hopeful tug every few minutes, sighing as he remains unsuccessful. He contemplating wearing his ceremonial wizard's hat, but they're only ever expected to wear it at the welcome and end of year feasts. It would be more suspicious for him to wear that than the crown.

With the staff rooms for professors being a floor beneath the dungeons, Hermione walked him to his classroom, kissing his cheek softly before bidding him goodbye and a good day. He watches her walk up the stairs leading to the Great Hall, then enters his classroom, ten minutes before the start of his first lesson, which he realises with a sigh, is with the seventh years. At least it's the Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's, who he never knew that well when he was a student himself.

Five minutes later, a student sneaks in through the classroom door, stopping and staring around the room until his eyes land on Draco, flittering up to his crown, back to his professor's eyes, then to the floor.

"I thought I was late," Toby Lennox says, backing out of the room.

"It's fine, Lennox, take a seat." Draco waves him into the room. "You're only five minutes early."

"My watch is broken," The boy comments, taking a seat at the back of the room, fiddling with his watch on his desk, hunched over.

"How is your exam preparation coming along?" Draco asks, trying to make conversation with his student, who's only two years younger than him.

Lennox pauses in his fiddling to glance up at his professor. "Fine," He mutters, going back to his watch.

"Great," Draco sighs, going back to his own desk to find the notes he needed to teach his first lesson.