Ch. 45

Hermione's POV

The change in Draco's demeanor was very noticeable after dinner; he was almost carrying himself as proudly as he did back at Hogwarts. It was wonderful seeing him this happy again, and any fears I still had started to slowly fade away the longer we stayed.

Draco and his father were discussing Draco's business and things that he and Blaise had changed. Lucius (which he insisted I call him) was very interested in all of the changes that were made and how well the company was doing.

I felt a slight nudge on my arm and looked up to see Narcissa standing behind me. I couldn't help but jump in surprise at realizing she was behind me, but she gave me a very sheepish look.

"My apologies, dear," She said quietly. "I probably shouldn't sneak up on you like that."

"It's alright, Mrs- I mean, Narcissa," I corrected myself quickly.

She smiled and then waved me to follow her. "Come on; they're going to be talking about the business for hours and I can't imagine you find that interesting."

I chuckled slightly and stood up, giving Draco a quick kiss before following Narcissa out of the sitting room. She smiled as I appeared next to her.

"Actually, Draco's business is quite fascinating," I explained. "He said that he and Blaise are working with different teams to develop a new potion to help with lycanthropy."

"Ahh, I can see how that would interest you," Narcissa said, smiling.

She led me up a flight of stairs in silence before looking over her shoulder at me and asking, "So, when are you two planning on getting married?"

I paused slightly before remembering that they knew we were engaged and I said, "We honestly haven't really talked about it. We were trying to keep everything somewhat quiet considering everything that has happened."

She gave me a curious look and I asked, "Do you get the Prophet?"

"Oh of course not," She said, waving me off slightly. "Not after Lucius's trial and the horrible articles that were written about it."

"Ah." I thought quietly for a few moments, trying to decide how much to tell her before sighing and looking down at the floor. "Well, I was previously engaged to Ginny's brother, Ron."

"And that clearly didn't work out," She commented, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it didn't, and I'm very happy that it didn't," I said. "He...strayed during a night of drinking in late September and the Prophet got pictures of him snogging the girl, but he admitted to a lot more when I confronted him about it, so I ended the engagement."

"Oh I didn't realize that was so recent," She said in a surprised tone. "If this was just in late September..."

"Things did happen rather quickly," I smiled. "Draco showed up shortly after everything happened. He came to my office later that week because he was having problems with a werewolf, and I helped him. He found out about what Ron did and insisted on helping me in return."

"How did he help?" She asked curiously.

"Well, Ron was having issues with the fact that I refused to talk to him, so Draco put me up in his old apartment. He even helped me move all of my things over. It didn't take long for him to ask me on a date, and everything was just perfect."

"That still seems like a very short time for you two to get to know each other, unless you two already were speaking," Narcissa said observantly.

"We had actually gotten very close during our last year at Hogwarts," I explained. "We both developed feelings for each other, but because I was with Ron..."

I trailed off and she nodded understandingly. "You two couldn't act on your feelings."

"Exactly," I sighed. "I honestly wasn't even sure how he felt about me back then. It took a little bit for us to be friendly, but at the same time we were both Head Girl and Boy, so we got to know each other while we would do rounds and such."

"So you two started out as friends, then grew apart, but now you two are engaged," She said happily before looking down at my hand in confusion. "But you don't have a ring?"

"Oh!" I laughed slightly, waving my hand over my ring and undoing the Disillusionment charm on it. "I do, but like I said, we were trying to keep everything quiet...."

We paused at the base of another set of stairs as she gently reached for my hand, looking down at the ring. "That's not one of the Malfoy rings..."

"He said he had it made specifically for me," I said, looking down at the ring. "He was going to give it to me on New Year's Eve during our last year, but then Ron proposed to me instead."

Narcissa then looked up at me in surprise. "Was Draco planning to propose to you as well?"

I shrugged, laughing slightly. "He said he wasn't sure if he was going to then or not."

She made a thoughtful humming noise as a small smile appeared on her face, but she didn't say anything. Instead she gestured up the stairs in front of us and led me up them to the third floor.

"If you don't mind me asking, Narcissa," I started as I looked around. "Where are we going?"

"I thought you might be interested in seeing the Family Tree," She said, looking back at me. "It's just up one more floor."

My interest definitely was piqued as I remembered it being mentioned during dinner. I followed her quietly as we walked up one more smaller set of stairs and she led me down a hallway. There was a large set of doors at the end of the hallway that we stopped at, and I noticed there was no doorknob. But when she waved her hand over a bare spot on the door, a handle suddenly grew from the door and she pulled on it, opening the door and gesturing for me to go inside.

It was a very large room that surprisingly had almost nothing in it. At the center of the room was a large tangle of branches that I assumed was the Family Tree, and it looked like the branches that were further up on the tree were more alive, while the ones at the base looked petrified, as if they had been dead for years.

"Draco's branch is over here," Narcissa said quietly, leading me around to the other side of the tree.

I looked to where she was pointing and saw his name carved into one of the thicker branches that was growing from the branches of Lucius and Narcissa's names. There was a knot at the end of Draco's name where another branch was growing, and I thought I could see my name faintly imprinted on the branch.