The New Minister

A/N: This is the last chapter, so that means lots and lots of reviews! And everyone should read my other stories, including my original story, it would make me so incredibly happy.

Happy reading.

~Charlie

Chapter 10

Malfoy knew where to find me because every time that we had a fight, I would always apparate into Ron’s spare bedroom and take a few deep breaths before he got there. Fortunately, he wasn’t allowed past Ron’s apparition wards and therefore had to walk the five houses from our house to Ron’s house in order to get to me (this was at my request as I needed those minutes). In this way, I had some time to take a few breaths and calm down my crying and shaking before we talked.

It had worked every time in the past in this way. However, there were two difficulties with this particular happenstance:

One; this was the angriest I had ever been at Draco. How could he possibly think that I would want to marry him just because I happened to get pregnant with his child? I mean, if he were smart, he would have waited a few months so that it didn’t seem that he was just doing it for the baby. Obviously, he was an idiot. Ergh! I was angry. I had been looking forward to this day for years and then it came and it was completely and utterly wrong. They always say to be careful what you wish for.

Two; I turned around. I had forgotten that Harry and Ginny were staying in Ron’s spare bedroom. And apparently, they didn’t know that I could apparate straight in. And apparently, they enjoyed what most married couples enjoyed—sex. And apparently, they were enjoying this enjoyment at that moment. And apparently—I cocked my head to the side—they had no imagination. They were half-covered by the duvet so that I couldn’t really see much, but Harry was just on top of Ginny making little rocking motions. That didn’t even look fun, yet alone pleasurable. ‘Seriously, Harry?’ I asked and they both looked at me in shock.

‘Hermione?’ But the name didn’t come from Harry’s mouth, it came in Ron’s voice from the lounge. Fuck. That meant that I had to go talk to Draco. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and almost started crying again. How the hell could he ruin this for me? I shook my head and opened my eyes. I turned the door handle and walked out of the spare bedroom. There was one of the kitchen chairs already sitting there with Draco in it, and Ron was carrying another into the room. He put it across from Draco’s about two feet apart and pointed to the seat. I sat down meekly.

‘You know the rules,’ Ron said. ‘No getting up from the chairs until you’ve worked this out.’ It was something that he had gotten from his mother, and it was another reason that I came here to work things out with Draco. Ron was an incredible moderator, even if he was a bit of dick at the moment.

‘You better tell him to apologise then,’ I said angrily and turned my head to the side. ‘And you should start apologising as well, Ron.’

‘Now what did I do?’ Ron asked.

‘You told him, you bastard!’

‘First, no harsh language, okay? The kids are in bed, but I don’t want them hearing that kind of thing. Second, what did I tell him?’

I looked back at Draco. But he just looked resigned and depressed. Much like he had the first time I had walked into his office. He looked like he had no hope. My heart ached for him in that second, but then I remembered what he had done, and I growled. ‘You know what you told him, Ron.’

‘Okay, what did he do?’ Ron asked, ‘Since I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘He proposed to me!’ I said angrily, as if it were all seven deadly sins rolled into one.

‘Then why the hell aren’t you two shagging each other into oblivion!?’ Ron asked loudly. ‘You’ve wanted to get married to him for three years now. Why? Please tell me, Hermione, why are you angry at him for proposing to you now?’

‘I told you that I didn’t want it this way. I told you not to tell him, that I wanted to tell him myself. Ron, how could you do this to me?’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

I was about to castigate him further when I heard that gasp, the one that Draco only made when he was very pleasantly surprised. I looked at him to see enlightenment on his features, and it was so much better than the hopeless, listless look he had had before. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ he said as if he had had an epiphany.

‘Of course I’m pregnant, you dolt!’ I nearly screamed.

‘Okay, Hermione, just shut up for a moment,’ Draco said sternly.

‘I—’ I started.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just shut up.’

I closed my mouth and sat back against the chair.

‘I didn’t know you were pregnant,’ he said. I opened my mouth but he put his finger up. I closed it again. ‘You thought that I knew that you were pregnant. And you thought that Ron told me of this when I was asking him earlier for his permission to marry you. And you thought,’ this word was said with a bitter bite and it made me cringe because he did not get angry often, ‘that I would go directly against one of your most voiced wishes and propose to you on the day that you thought that Weasley had told me of this happenstance?’

I fish-mouthed.

‘How could you have so little faith in me?’ he asked angrily, but it had a hint of sadness to it.

‘How could you have so little faith in me?’ Ron asked in the same tone.

I looked from one to the other. ‘You really didn’t know?’ I asked Draco. He shook his head. ‘You really didn’t tell him?’ I asked Ron, who mimicked Draco’s movement. I looked at them both again. ‘Then why did you propose to me!?’ I nearly cried at Malfoy.

‘Because I love you, you daft cow!’

I don’t know why—it could have been grief, it could have been hormones—but I burst into tears at that moment. I started sobbing and I near fell off my chair save Draco caught me and we both ended up sitting on the floor wrapped in each other’s arms. I crawled into his lap. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ I cried. ‘Please, please don’t leave me.’

‘Why would I leave you?’ he asked, although I couldn’t see his face since mine was currently ruining the front of his shirt—when had he put that back on?

‘Because I’m a terrible person,’ I cried. ‘I should—should have known. The champagne!’

‘What?’ he asked.

‘There was champagne on the kitchen table,’ I said softly. ‘You wouldn’t have had champagne if you knew that I was pregnant.’ I hiccoughed.

‘Good observation,’ he said.

I looked up into his eyes. ‘But why today?’ I asked him. ‘Why did you propose to me today out of any other day in the last three and half years? Why did it have to be the day after I found out that I was…hiccough…I was going to have your baby?’

He wiped the tears from my eyes. Then he pulled that little black box out again and opened it this time. ‘This is why.’ The ring was beautiful. It was old, obviously an antique, but still as gorgeous as ever. Dainty, white gold with a medium-sized, square-cut diamond.

‘What?’ I asked, confused.

‘I had lunch with my mum today,’ he said. ‘And she told me that even though our fortune is still frozen for the next six months or so, they have opened up the Manor so that my parents can live there again.’

‘What does this have to do with anything?’ I asked.

‘If you would shut up for a second, I’d tell you,’ he said with a smile. ‘This ring was my great-grandmother’s, and my mother gave it to me to give to you. Since the day that you said that you loved me, I’ve wanted to give you this ring, and now that the Manor is opened and my mother could get to it, I finally had the chance. I was so excited about it that I wanted to do it tonight, and then all of this shite happened.’

‘Language,’ Ron said absentmindedly as Sarah came in holding two cups of tea, handing one to Ron.

‘Sorry,’ Draco said to Ron. Then he turned back to me. ‘So you see, it was all about the ring.’

I would say that it was one of the sweetest things that I had ever heard, but Malfoy had a knack of saying cornily cute things such as that. However, it was very well expressed and it made my heart ache so hard in my chest for him. I loved him more than I could ever have imagined that I would. I didn’t even have a good response to that whole statement, so I just grabbed his face and kissed him soundly.

We probably would have shagged right there in Ron’s lounge, but I heard Harry groan, ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ and Ron say, ‘Language, Harry,’ so I pulled away and stood up.

‘Wait,’ Draco said, still on the floor. He moved himself onto one knee and smiled up at me. ‘Will you give the right answer this time?’ he asked.

I laughed. ‘Yes. On one condition.’

‘Which is?’ he asked with confusion in his features.

‘We don’t get married until after the baby comes.’

He smiled. ‘Deal.’

‘Then you may proceed.’

He opened the box again and cleared his throat nervously. ‘Ever since you first walked into my office wearing those killer heels I’ve been in love with you, Granger.’ He smirked, ‘And when you let me shag you against your office wall a month later, I knew that I wanted to be with you forever.’ (‘Bloody hell!’ Harry. ‘Language.’ Ron. ‘Stop being so prude, Harry!’ Me.) ‘And if you’ll say yes, then I have every intention of making that so.’

There was a pause. ‘Are you done?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he laughed.

‘Then yes, Draco. Of course I’ll marry you.’

He put the ring on my finger and then stood up and hugged me and kissed me and twirled me around in a circle like he had done when I first told him that he could do his Galloway Reserve Project. ‘I love you, Hermione,’ he said with a smile.

‘I love you, too, Draco.’ And he kissed me again.

With all the hugging and kissing and spinning however, my hastily donned shirt had come unbuttoned. I did not notice this until Ron said, ‘Are you wearing a corset, Hermione?’

I laughed. I pulled up my skirt a few inches, ‘And stockings.’

‘Nice,’ Ron said, saluting me with his mug of tea.

Harry and Ginny both turned beet red, looking between us like we were all freaks in a circus show. ‘Oh, Sarah,’ I said, ‘we’re taking Ginny to Ann Summers.’

Sarah smirked. ‘Gladly.’

Ginny looked like a frightened puppy, but it would only be four months until Harry finally gave into her nagging and let her be on top for once. After that one time, Harry stole Ginny’s Kama Sutra book to look over himself and muse.

‘Oh, and Draco, I needed to tell you something else,’ I said to him with a smile.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re getting another promotion!’

He smiled. ‘Am I Deputy Minister now?’ he asked sultrily. ‘Do I get to be right under you?’

‘Nope,’ I said with a smile. He frowned. ‘You’re the new Minster of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.’

‘But what about you?’ he asked.

‘Well, I’ll be training you for two months, and then I go on maternity leave.’

‘So it’s just temporary?’ he asked, looking deliciously confused.

‘Nope,’ I said again. ‘When I get back, I’m being promoted. If the committee votes in my favour, Bill is going to retire.’

‘So you’ll be the—’

‘The New Minister for Magic,’ I beamed.

The End.