State of the Union

Oh, wonderful readers and especially reviewers… I humbly apologize for not updating sooner. I lost my muse. I looked everywhere for her and I’m still not sure that I found her, but I tried… really, I did! I figured if I waited too much longer, a year would hit and you’d be sure I abandoned you. I didn’t!

As you know, I like to try to respond to everyone who was kind enough to leave a review and answer any of the questions people asked (or comments that I felt the need to defend), so here goes:

kazfeist – No problem! I hope you’re still reading!

Guard Geek – Glad you liked it, and here’s more for you. Thank you for the kind words!

BuffyXO – No worries, no more cliffies! I’m glad you’ve liked it, even with the characters not being as canon as they could be. If people are interested in my continuing this into bringing the child into their life, I will. I’ll have to think about it, though. Like I said, originally, this was meant to be a single scene and it just kind of flowered, ya know? We’ll see. ^.^

Experience My Dreams – Thanks!

DarkestDawn – Here you go!

Panther Eyes – Don’t worry, everything will work out. I’m a sucker for a happy ending.

Mel – I’m glad you liked it! I’ve had some suggestions that I continue it long enough to bring their child into it, and I’m considering a sequel. I’m starting to lose my muse for this story, but I’m really trying to re-garner interest in it.

crescentmoon – Thanks, I’m glad you liked it!

Jayna – Glad you were happy with it! Sorry it’s not exactly soon, but better late than never, right…?

liuv2dance – Aw, sorry it’s so hard to wait for them, but sometimes it’s hard to get the words out, ya know? Take pity on the writers!

errika – Thanks! Glad you liked it!

vanillesky – I’m glad you enjoyed it! Sorry this update wasn’t as quick…

Joanna – Thanks for the kisses! Yes, this is the last chapter. There may be a sequel, but I’m still deciding about that.

MB 3 – I’m glad you think so! Thanks!

oxcab – I’m not sure about happy, exactly. I think content is good, but I don’t think they’re quite perfectly happy, yet. They’re living with what they have, which is sometimes the best you can do.

Anathema – Oh, good, I was worried you didn’t like me anymore! I’m glad you liked the last chapter. I wanted him to want her back around, for various reasons, but he wouldn’t have let her know that he wanted her back. I think he would have felt things had been too easy for her while he was taking care of everything and he’d want some kind of commitment to the situation from her; that was the idea behind their conversations and his reaction.

catysmom – Glad you liked it, and here you go!

kazfeist – Good to see you again! As I said in an earlier review, I don’t think they’re quite at ‘happy’ yet. Content and working with what they have, but not happy. They’re still working on happy.

Citten – Welcome, and I’m glad you like it! Draco? At an OB/GYN doctor? I dunno… I think he’d heavily object, don’t you? We’ll see.

LazyDaze – Of course you can! Thanks for reading!

Jackie S – I’m glad you like it, and of course I’ll add you!

DracoHasAHotAss – Welcome and thank you! Sorry this isn’t ‘soon’ but I hope you’re still out there!

zara – I like them, too, but I have to say that I hate the way so many people have them shag twice and then fall in love. I just don’t see that, which is why I wrote this one. Glad you like it!

catysmom – Wow, my story was so good that you had to review it twice? Thanks!

pumkin – It makes perfect sense, and thank you for reviewing! I’m glad you liked it.

Lisi – I’m glad you liked it and here you go! Hope you got the e-mail!

phoenixorder13 – Well, thank you! If you hardly ever review, then I’m proud to have been one of them! I hope you’re still reading!

jamieblye – I was pretty happy with the way this one turned out, too; thanks and I hope you’re still reading!

mandala – You’re right, it doesn’t, but since she’s not J.K. Rowling’s Hermione (she’s MY Hermione) I get to make her do whatever I want! Yay for creative license! =0)

TNgirl – Thanks for reading! I’m sorry that you’re having problems; my format is set for people using 1024 x 768 screen sizes, which is the most common screen size in the U.S. Sorry if it doesn’t work for you, but I don’t feel comfortable changing it for a smaller group of users.

AriesPrincess – Thank you!

sherrithewriter – Thanks! I’d love to let you know when I update, but you didn’t leave an e-mail address!

hppyflwr – Don’t worry, I wouldn’t forget about you. Thanks for the kind words and you know what? You rock, too!

AnyaGreyback – Hi and thanks! I like confrontational relationships, too; I think they’re a lot more interesting than all the fluffy bunnies and candy hearts type relationships…. =0)

sirsevchick – I’m glad you like it; I’m sorry you had to wait so long for an update, but I hope you’re still reading!

zauza – I understood everything perfectly and I thank you for leaving such a lovely review! Hermione is a know-it-all, but she’s been steadily growing out of it as she becomes an adult, so I’ve been playing off that and having her be smart and knowledgeable, but not quite so in your face unless she thinks its important. However, since she’s pitted against Draco, who also prefers to be the one in charge, there are quite a few sparks…

Crittenz – Thank you for both of the wonderful reviews! I’m with you in that I generally don’t like short chapters (in my case, I’m just too impatient to wait…), but with mine, I’m really bad about fleshing out something that I think is complete; I’m worried that I might ruin it by trying to add too much to it, so I don’t bother.

To all those who have posted links to my story elsewhere and have referred friends, I humbly thank you for your support and spreading of my story.

Obligatory No Ownership Clause: I obviously don’t own a single character portrayed here, but the situations and wording are completely mine.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. The final chapter of our story. I hope you enjoy it and I'd like to thank all of you for reading. I can't express how wonderful and important you have all been to me.

I'd also especially like to thank all of you that have referred friends here or have posted links to my site elsewhere so that others may read it. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support.

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Hermione awoke to the sound of the shower running in the next room and stretched, catlike, as her lips melted into a satisfying smile. It had been quite a welcome home… well, after their initial arguments, of course. Draco had insisted that they weren’t through talking, but apparently the length of time without sex had been overwhelming for him, because talking was the last thing on his mind for the rest of the night. She was still lying there with a grin on her face when she realized the water had stopped.

“You hardly look the part of the repentant wife.” Draco leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom with a towel swathed about his narrow hips.

“Oh, please pardon me for not being utterly contrite,” she shot back, finally opening her eyes and stretching, again, lazily.

“If you deserved a pardon, maybe I would,” he replied, padding over to the edge of the bed where she lay as he rubbed at his damp hair with a second towel. Tossing the towel towards the foot of the bed, he leaned over and had just barely caught her lips in a light kiss before she shoved him away and sat up, pulling the satiny sheet with her as she stood and wrapped it around herself.

“Didn’t you get enough last night?” she teased him, pulling her hair up away from her face and clipping it there. Draco flopped back on the bed and leered at her, clasping his hands behind his head.

“No, and neither did you, you insatiable witch. You jumped me just as many times as I did you, and if I recall, you were the one who −Oof!” A pillow to the face was certainly an effective way of silencing someone, but he’d shoved it out of the way and caught her wrist before she could get out of reach.

Once he had her it was a simple matter to pull her back to the bed and beneath him; exactly where he wanted her, although she certainly didn't put up much of a fight. Draco leaned down as if to kiss her and deliberately shook his wet hair, raining tiny drops of cool water down over her as she shrieked at him in protest.

"Don't worry," he placated with a sly smile, "I'll clean up after myself..." and with that, he dipped down to catch one of the droplets on her throat with his tongue. Hermione closed her eyes and felt herself go practically boneless as Draco sought out each of the drops in turn, leaving not a one behind. The sheet she'd been wearing that had been pulled between them when he grabbed her was tugged out of the way and he immediately began lavishing attention on her breasts. They were just a tiny bit larger, he noticed; more firm and considerably more sensitive. A few times last night, just cupping them with his palms had been nearly too much for her, but now he was able to nuzzle them and heard no protests or gasps of discomfort.

Her own hands weren’t idle, but with Draco lowered as he was, it was hard for her to reach much of him; one thing that hadn’t changed was that he still liked to be in control. She’d gotten the feeling the night before that he didn’t mind allowing her to be in control, but it was exactly that… allowing her the control. Hermione didn’t mind; after all, he was more experienced, in the long run, so for the moment, it seemed prudent to let him continue taking the reigns when he wanted. And she was certainly nothing if not prudent. The combined effort of his roaming hands and hot mouth on her body were enough to make her shift, restlessly, and she deliberately arched her pelvis against him, suggestively. He apparently decided to ignore her, finally laving his tongue over one tight nipple.

Obviously, he needed some encouragement; Hermione urged him upward, tugging at his shoulders, arms, anything within reach, until he was high enough for her to slip one hand down between them to tease him, mercilessly. Draco sucked his breath in through his teeth and caught her hand with a warning look. She gazed back, innocently, and, with a smirk that promised to help her lose that virtue, his mouth slanted down over hers, at the same time that he pulled one of her slim legs up around his hip. She moaned, softly, against his mouth as he slid, smoothly, into her and then stilled; regardless of what she’d told him, he couldn’t help but worry that he was being too rough with her during her pregnancy.

Hermione would have none of that; she dragged her fingernails down his chest and very deliberately rolled her hips. Draco groaned in the back of his throat and gathered her close, thrusting his hips, firmly, to meet hers as his lips practically devoured hers. His climax was approaching fast, so he slid his hands down to her hips, lifting them just slightly enough to re-angle his thrusts, making her dig her fingernails into his shoulders with a sharp gasp of pleasure against his lips. The swells of his own orgasm, triggered by hers and the slight sliver of pain, rolled over him and he continued to rock, languidly, as they rode out the aftershocks that slid through their bodies making them shiver with it.

Once they’d both been still for some time, Draco tugged just enough to pull them both to their sides, curling her against his chest. After several moments of silence between them, he leaned up over her on his elbow, resting his head on his palm. “You know, we never did finish talking.” Hermione wrinkled her nose.

“I’d rather hoped you’d forgotten.”

“You aren’t that lucky.”

“Mm. What exactly did you want to talk about?” Draco sighed and leaned back, staring at the ornately carved ceiling of their bedroom.

“Well, for one, we have to discuss this marriage.”

“What about it?” Draco leaned up, again, looking sternly down at her, now.

“Don’t start that, again. You know exactly what I’m talking about, and we can’t just leave it as it is. Are we staying married? If we are, are we still going to live together? What about the baby? Are we keeping it? I want to know where I stand, Hermione.” Hermione sighed, deeply, and sat up, resting back against the headboard of the bed.

“Nothing like jumping right into it, is there.” She thought for a few minutes while he waited, patiently. “I don’t love you,” she started and then put up a hand to cut him off when he wanted to interrupt, “And you don’t love me, either. We barely know each other, really, and aside from the facts that we’re good in bed together and I’m pregnant, we don’t have much to base this marriage on, do we?”

“What would you consider something worth basing a marriage on?” When she frowned at him, he continued, “No, I mean it… Hermione, what you and I have is more than my parents had when they were married. I know what we have isn’t perfect by whatever standards you’re basing it on, but my parents raised me to expect to be married to some brainless, pureblooded wallflower for the sake of children and to have mistresses on the side that would deal with passion if I felt I needed it.” Hermione arched a brow.

“And your wife was expected to accept this?” Draco shrugged, lightly.

“Of course. If she’d been pureblooded, she’d have been raised to expect that her husband would get one or two children off of her and then leave her alone. She’d be free to explore social pursuits, spend her husband’s money and even have a few affairs, so long as they were discreet. We’d be living separately most of our lives.” Outwardly, Hermione only nodded, but inside she was horrified at the thought of a loveless, empty marriage… That was what his parents had? They’d seemed so cohesive when out in public together… but then, she supposed they’d been trained to act that way. Actors and actresses, the lot of purebloods.

“I suppose I expected to marry for love, one day. Of course, I hadn’t planned on the marriage law going into effect, so that sort of put a damper on things…”

“If I hadn’t’ve offered for you, whom would you have married?” A logical question, since she’d have had to have chosen someone in the time allowed by the ministry. Hermione thought for a few minutes and then shook her head, mutely.

“I… have no idea,” she finally replied, “Ron offered to marry me when you sent your offer−” Draco snorted in response to that.

“Of course you chose me.” Hermione glared at him, primly.

“I’ll thank you not to insult my friends…”

“So, don’t thank me.”

“You’re a git, do you know that?” He just smirked and waved her on.

“So, if not the weasel, then who?”

“I told you, I don’t know. I guess if no one else offered for me, I’d have ended up having to marry Ron.” Hermione nibbled at the corner of her lip, thoughtfully. “I suppose I could have talked someone into it. The problem is children. I can think of plenty of men I wouldn’t mind being married to, in a companionship sense, but they’re either too old in the eyes of the ministry to carry out the heir clause or I’m not attracted to them that way.”

“Were there people you were attracted to that way?” Hermione smiled, teasingly.

“Oh, suddenly interested are you? Worried about competition?” Draco grinned right back.

“If I recall, no one had even stepped up to the starting line before me, let alone crossed the finish line, before I did, so I don’t think competition is really a concern for me.” Alright, that got a blush out of her.

“Exactly how long are you planning on using my virginity as a tool for my embarrassment?” she asked, primly.

“That depends; how long can I use it before you decide to hex me into oblivion?” he returned, tugging her into the curve of his arms and pressing a light kiss to her still-pink cheek. “How did you manage to hang onto it for so long? If I hadn’t known better, I’d say you’d been in a convent…”

“Just buried in school and work, I suppose. I wasn’t waiting for a wedding ring or some deep declarations of love, but I wanted to feel like I had some kind of closeness and connection with a person before I had sex with them,” she shrugged, slightly. “I guess I just never got close enough to anyone and I wasn’t going to do it just for the sake of it.” Draco couldn’t help his chuckle.

“You never did anything in half-measures; why would you change when it came to sex?”

“Indeed.”

“Now, don’t get crabby. I’m just trying to figure out whether what we have can be salvaged.”

“You mean this marriage?”

“That is what we’ve been talking about, isn’t it? In terms of marriage, we both have some pretty different ideas of what we expected it to be. I expected indifference and visibility for societal purposes. You expected love and companionship. Perhaps I was setting my sights too low. Couldn’t you be open to the possibility that you’re setting your sights too high?” Hermione was silent and Draco could see she was considering this. “I have someone that I enjoy talking to, debating with, working with, spending time with and even sleeping with. Hermione, what we have is already better in my mind than anything my parents had… You have what I have, too, you know. And we have a baby to think about.”

“Draco, it’s not that you’re wrong about what we have…” she started to say, but Draco continued.

“You want me to say that someday we’ll love each other,” he sighed and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I can’t promise you that. I can say that maybe someday you’ll decide you love me, but I don’t even know if I’m capable of the love that you expect from a partner in marriage. I just wasn’t raised that way; I wouldn’t even know what it was.”

“I’m not stupid, Draco.”

“I realize that, Hermione, but what I’m saying is−”

“I know what you’re saying. You’re offering me everything that you can offer me.”

“…And that’s not enough for you, is it,” he asked, quietly.

“I can't tell you that, because I don't know,” she admitted. Then she sat forward and turned so she was facing him. “But I will say that it’s more than I ever expected you to admit, and that, in itself, is something.”

“What’re you saying?” She shook her head with a small smile.

“You don’t love me. I don’t love you, either. And who knows? Maybe neither of us will ever love the other, but sometimes you have to just take what you have and go with it. I’m not unhappy being married to you and you’ve said you’re not either. Let’s stay together. What’s wrong with the way things are, right now? Let’s just keep on as we are and we’ll see. We’ll have the baby and we’ll just see… o.k.?”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Malfoy.”

THE DAILY PROPHET

HIGH PROFILE WIZARDING COUPLE: HIT OR SPLIT?

As you know, the wizarding world was stunned several months ago when the Director of Muggle Studies, Hermione Granger, confirmed witch of two non-magical parents killed several months ago in London, wed the pureblooded Director of Ministry Finance, Draco Malfoy, full inheritor of the Malfoy estate, in accordance with the Wizarding Marriage Law that had been passed only a month before. The public animosity between the two ministry directors was apparently set to rest at the lavish ceremony held at the Malfoy Manor, attended by thousands, though inside sources say the couple didn't marry out of affection.

Reported by this publication a few months later was the fact that, although the ink on the binding contract was barely dry, the new Mrs. Malfoy had apparently taken an extended vacation in parts unknown, leaving behind both spouse and position at the ministry for an unspecified amount of time. Friends of the newly married woman stated only that, while they were aware of her disappearance, they were not concerned and were filing no formal missing persons report, but rumors speculated that the couple were seeking a binding sever.

Once again, the cauldron of controversy has been stirred by this socialite couple. This reporter can confirm that the elusive wife of Draco Malfoy has returned and visually no worse for the wear. Said couple was spotted exchanging exceptionally heated words at a local bistro, lending credibility to severing rumors, however, said couple was spotted again only a day later in Diagon Ally, where hot words had been exchanged for burning gazes, instead. One should also note that Mrs. Malfoy has been seen in the company of a mediwitch whose specialization is obstetrics and seems to be rounding out just slightly in the middle.

Love? Hate? A Malfoy heir? Are they a blissfully married couple expecting a baby or two parties in battle about to decide the outcome of the war that will leave the marriage in pieces? All we can do is watch and wait as this couple will no doubt leave us continually questioning the state of their union.

~ Rita Skeeter: Reporter, Daily Prophet

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And there it is. I wish I could end it with “And they lived happily ever after,” but you’d never believe me if I said that about Draco and Hermione, would you?

~§~ Duchess ~§~