Charmer 15 ..::EPILOGUE::..

Previously on Charmer

“Just breathe, Draco…let’s go back to the Manor and get you some calming tea. Then you can proceed to do whatever you feel you need to, to get revenge.”

Friday, the nineteenth of January:
Highly successful business man and noted philanthropist Draco Malfoy has announced, publicly, his upcoming marriage to war hero and author, Hermione Granger. The date has yet to be confirmed by the Malfoy family, Mr. Malfoy deferring comments on that until the annual January Ball which is to be hosted by the Malfoy family on the 31st of this month. However, preliminary sources interviewed outside of the Ministry have speculated a date such as the 15th of June of this year…


EPILOGUE

“Draco!” Draco calmly glanced back at his mother over his shoulder as he debated using magic to fix the stiff cravat on his robes. Much as he wished to, it was risky. His good friend Blaise Zabini had used magic once to lace up his boots, and the resulting bill from St. Mungo’s was horrendous even for high society standards. Better not…Hermione will kill me and then have me revived so Mum could too…

“It. Is. Nearly. Seven. Why are you not ready!?!?” Narcissa hissed as Draco’s hands stilled on his cravat before he turned to face his parent completely.

“This,” he said, pointing a long finger at the offending, but regrettably necessary, article of clothing. Apparently aggravation was not the angle he should have tried because his mother advanced quickly on him and forcibly yanked the cravat into place, leaving Draco nearly strangled.

“Mother—”

“I just hope Naired has finished the appetizers. Is the Prophet here? I hope that Hermione took care of the interviews. Do you think she remem—”

“Mother, everything is fine. Everything is going perfectly. Just breathe and start the party for me!” Draco tried to prevent hysterics erupting in his mother just minutes before she was to appear on the tall stairs to greet the guests and announce the beginning of the ball.

“I just feel like I’ve forgotten something terribly important, Draco!”

“You couldn’t have possi—”

“Your ring! Hermione has been wearing yours! You need one as well!”

In a word, Draco could have described himself as horrified. In a phrase, he felt as though all feeling had been numbed away from his body with cold water. Unnoticed, his mother continued to babble about how to get across the main stairway to get the ring from Hermione.

“People expect one, right Mother?”

“What?!?! …yes…how does that help this mess?” Frantic pureblooded women… Draco allowed another part of him to roll his eyes at his mother’s antics.

“Put an illusion on my hand, we can fix the ring mess later.”

The words “fix” and “later” calmed his mother immediately as she reached for her wand and quickly muttered the incantation. All was well again for Narcissa Malfoy.

“Are you ready?” It’s polite to enquire, Draco thought to himself rationally.

“Of course I am, who do you think I am? A Ministry employee?”

“Never Mother,” Draco chuckled.

“Good man.”

Draco and his mother quickly walked to the hallway which would lead them to the main staircase of the manor. Like Hogwarts, Malfoy Manor was a maze of twisting hallways, trick doors, and grandeur on a scale which bordered on too much.

The staircase Narcissa was about to appear on and descend partially for her announcement before Draco and Hermione appeared was one such example of this. The location of the staircase had been integral to the building since the site had been claimed nearly eight hundred years before Draco had even been born. The staircase, however, was a different matter: covered in charms and enchantments, it was almost a living entity which could—without the aid of any specific charm—differentiate between those who were family and those who were not. Arthur Weasley’s raiding crews on the Manor had been thwarted many times in years past because of the grand staircase which they used to reach the upper rooms. If anyone at the Ministry had bothered to check on these crewmembers, they would have been baffled at the number of wandless charms found on the poor chaps involved. Befuddlement charms which caused all manner of hilarity for the Malfoys afterwards, Tip-Slung charms which caused verbal incoherency when talking to others, sneezing jinxes…The staircase’s arsenal was boundless.

One aspect of the grand staircase which Draco greatly appreciated, however, was the benevolence the stairs seemed to harbor for Malfoys and Malfoys-to-be. Malfoy’s couldn’t trip on the stairs. Ever. That particular fact had always made Draco smile, which he did as his mother gracefully stepped out of the hallway and into the lights magically conjured for the ball. That smile faltered just one millisecond as he caught the look in his mother’s eyes:

Don’t screw up.

Oh I don’t plan to Mother, Draco regained his smile as he told her mentally. She couldn’t hear him, but it made him feel better anyway. This was going to be his first time striding out alone. Before he had always been the heir, and always entered from the opposite side of the stairs with a pretty, usually pureblooded date for the evening. His mother and father had entered at the same time from the side he was on now, and they had begun descending the main stair just as he and his date set foot on the middle landing…

But now it was all different. Lucius had passed away, leaving Draco to perform by himself in unknown territory for the first time since he had been a first year at Hogwarts.

“…and now may I introduce…” Narcissa’s voice drifted through the air in the muted way voices became through doors. Draco, however, ignored the muted sound and opened the door. It was his cue…“my son Draco Malfoy and his fiancée Hermione Granger.”

The lights were slightly blinding, but that was mostly because Draco wouldn’t allow himself to squint. There was bound to be a photographer somewhere in the building who would love to capture a disgruntled look on the face of Draco Malfoy at this exact moment. However, the annoyance passed quickly because just as he began to step down the stairs (which thankfully would never let him fall); Hermione appeared at the top of the opposite stair. When Draco had made it five steps down the right side of the grand staircase, Hermione began her elegant descent on the left. It looked almost like she was floating.

Of course that may have been the gauzy blue dress she wore which seemed to be a tribute to the gown she wore during the Yule Ball. You’re a nutter, Draco, some detached part of his brain chimed in at the recollection. It had been close to ten years since their fourth year. With the refrain of “nutter nutter nutter _{nutter nutter nutter nutter}” inside his mind, Draco smiled as he stepped grandly onto the center landing, on which he would wait a heartbeat—two—three—four—heartbeats for Hermione to step lightly up to him and smile slightly.

Curtsy.

Bow.

After he had taken Hermione’s hand into the crook of his elbow, Draco flashed a smile which could be taken as joyous and happy by those who knew him—or terribly arrogant and slightly sinister if one asked a random guest. This was who he was.

Draco Malfoy was many things, but who he was had been shaped over many years and by many people. Those who knew him best, his mother and Hermione among others, knew the many times he could have strayed along the path of the sinister, the evil in his grin could have been something ill concealed rather than adopted. Who Draco Malfoy became was someone who stepped into the role he had been expected to fill and filled it well. Draco Malfoy had progressed, and continued to do so. Although it seemed ages since he had visited Hermione on Christmas Eve and set in motion events which led to this very evening, it had been a mere six weeks. Six weeks in which Draco had progressed from concealing the love he felt for a woman who had come to him in hopeless desperation to becoming engaged to her. Six weeks in which the rest of the Wizarding World had been shocked at the young businessman and the brightest witch of the age and their behavior.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Witches and Wizards, I am pleased to announce and confirm the engagement of myself and Hermione Granger. We have set the date for mid-June of this year and hope to see many of you at the reception. Now, on a lighter note, please enjoy the evening and direct a special thank-you to your hostesses, my mother Narcissa and my fiancée Hermione,” Draco smiled throughout his small speech. He was required to make it, but it was supreme fun to do so. It was obvious that Draco was happy.

Certainly a good deal more happy than he was six weeks ago, trudging through the snow and freezing his feet off in a late December blizzard. It was as though someone had realized the key to unveiling Draco’s true potential and uttered the correct spell to reveal it:

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