A/N: Everything except the stuff you don’t recognize belongs to JK Rowling and her utter genius.
Meet the Malfoys
Medea held Patrick’s hand as she pulled him into her family home. She knew she parents would be in the library, not only because that’s where they spent the most time, but because that’s where they could have eavesdropped if she would have stayed inside the house. So she pulled her reluctant guest along, flashing him an encouraging smile.
Draco and Hermione were curled up together on the sofa across from the fireplace, looking very much the innocent, loving couple. Hermione was holding the day’s Dailey Prophet and they were both pretending to read it, but Medea knew better. That’s why she had pushed her friends outside. Her mother read at least four times faster than her father; they were in there to listen.
“Dad, Mum, I want you to meet someone.” She took a deep breath before she said, “This is Patrick,” purposely omitting his last name.
Patrick could feel Medea’s hand trembling in his. He was surprised that he was still standing on his jelly legs. Draco and Hermione got off of the sofa and walked toward them, smiling, they both shook his hand warmly.
“Sit down, would you?” Draco offered.
Medea smiled up at him and pulled him to the adjacent sofa.
“There’s really no good, polite way to ask this,” Hermione began. “So I’ll just ask. Do your parents know?”
Patrick looked down before he answered, the look on his face speaking already telling them how it went. “They do. I told them this very evening.”
“I can tell by the look on your face that it didn’t go very well,” Draco said.
“No, it didn’t, to say the least. I actually don’t know what my parents think because they just stared at me. Uncle Ron was furious though, and he kicked his daughter out because she knew and she supports us.”
Hermione slowly let out her breath and leaned onto the back of the sofa. “All these years and he hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Mrs. Malfoy, Why does my family hate”” he couldn’t go on.
“Why do your parents and your uncle hate me so much?” Hermione finished soberly. “I choose a different path than what they expected for me.”
“And they hate you because of it?” Patrick asked. Somehow, he thought his family was more level headed than that.
Hermione smiled with nostalgic melancholy and Draco reached over and took her hand. “Well, in their defense it was a very different path, and I didn’t exactly consult them.”
“Were you very close with my parents?”
“I was. Your father and your uncle were my best mate when I was in school. We fought Voldemort and the Death Eaters together.”
Both Patrick and Medea knew that much, they had read the accounts Hermione had written and heavily studied the war in their History of Magic classes. But that’s where their knowledge of the feud ended and no one seemed to want to enlighten them. Something had happened after the war, after Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been best friends at school. They were dying to know what had happened.
“Mum, why do they hate you now? What could have possibly been so bad that they still say they hate you so many years later?”
Hermione hadn’t cried in a long time, but when she thought about that day at Hogwarts she couldn’t help it. Tears welled up in her brown eyes and spilled onto her cheeks in seconds. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Draco wrapped her in his arms. “Shh,” he soothed as he rocked her back and forth.
Medea jumped up and went to sit at her mother’s feet. “I’m sorry, mum.”
“She was right, Draco,” Hermione whispered into her husband’s chest. “Our past is affecting her future. They should know.”
“Alright, love. Do you want me to tell them?” he asked gently.
She nodded. “Please.”
Medea shared a look with her father then went back to the sofa to sit next to Patrick.
Draco paused for courage before he began his tale. “My family is not good and it’s huge, Medea. I know you don’t know that. When I was in school I was in Slytherin and I was very horrible to Hermione and Harry and Ron. My parents are still alive and they’re in Azkaban until they die because they are Death Eaters. And when I was sixteen, I became one myself.”
Medea whimpered and Patrick pulled her close to him. Even though she had known that, hearing her father actually say it hurt her more than she thought it would.
“As a Pure-blooded Wizard, a member of Slytherin house, and a Death Eater, I was the sworn enemy of Harry who had defeated Voldemort, Ron who was a blood traitor, and Hermione who was Muggle-born. I never passed up on an opportunity to make them feel like dirt under my feet. You can’t imagine how horrible I was.”
Medea was crying now. She was very close to her father; she respected him with every fiber of her being. Hearing him talk about how malicious he had been made her want to curl up in a ball and sob. Patrick pulled her closer.
“My sixth year, after I became a Death Eater, Voldemort gave me a task to punish my parents for humiliating him. I had to kill the Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, or he would kill me and my parents.” Draco’s own gray eyes began to tear up at the memories. “I was so scared because I knew I couldn’t do it but I knew I had no choice. But then something happened to me that was completely unexpected and wonderful.” He looked down at his wife and smiled through his tears. “I fell in love with the last person in the world that I thought I could, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Hermione sniffed and sat up, still snuggled up to her husband, and continued the story. “What he neglected to tell you is that he was convinced that I had used witchcraft to get him to fall in love with me. When he kept cornering me I thought he was trying to kill me, so we got off to a very rough start. We began meeting secretly and it wasn’t very long before I realized that I loved him.”
“So this animosity is because you fell in love with the enemy?” Patrick asked.
“Not really.” Hermione looked down and debated how much she should tell them. “We didn’t tell anyone. Draco would have been killed by his…people, and I knew that Harry and Ron would either demand that I stop or try to get me to spy on him. And I knew they would never understand. As it went on Draco and I became very intimate and I eventually discovered the Dark Mark on his arm. I knew that it was my duty to turn him in, and I almost did, but I just couldn’t do it.” She looked up at her husband with nothing but love and tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t put him in Azkaban.”
Draco kissed her sweetly and continued for her. “Unfortunately, I eventually found a way to get the Death Eaters into the school so I could follow through with my task. And the opportunity fell into my lap. But just like your mother couldn’t turn me in, I couldn’t kill the Headmaster, even though he was standing in front of me completely defenseless. But Professor Snape did””
“And that’s why your father is still angry with me,” Hermione cut in. “Because if I would have turned in Draco then Snape probably wouldn’t have had opportunity to kill the Headmaster.”
Patrick narrowed his green eyes, so much like his father’s. “You said my father like my uncle has a different reason.”
“You’re very perceptive, Patrick. Your uncle does have another reason. After the Headmaster’s death, I refused to speak to Draco again, and I started dating Ron. He told me he loved me a week after we started seeing each other and I told him I loved him. In my defense, I did love him, just not like he thought he loved me. He still didn’t know about Draco and I and we were never intimate because I would have had some explaining to do. He just thought it was because I was too modest.”
“At our graduation though, I blew it,” Draco said. “I begged her to admit that she still loved me and that she was using Ron to hurt me. Not the best way to try and win her back really. But I had fought with them against Voldemort and I thought that maybe that would make her see that I had changed. Unfortunately, Harry and Ron found out that she had known I was a Death Eater and that she could have stopped the Headmaster’s death, so they thought, and they vowed to never forgive her, and she vowed to never forgive me.”
“It was penance, in a way,” Hermione said, staring into the fire. “I felt so guilty about Dumbledore, so even though Harry and Ron wouldn’t forgive me, I still didn’t go back to Draco for many years. But he forced his way back into my life and I still loved him, so I couldn’t keep him away. Some people, like your family, still harbor anger against us, but we’re happy.”
“Wow,” the young couple whispered in unison. Medea’s love for her parents grew ten fold as she stared at them. Compared to what they’d been through, her situation with Patrick seemed very simple.
“So their reasons are completely obsolete?” Patrick asked.
“They are to us,” Hermione told him. “The Headmaster knew what Draco was meant to do and that he was a Death Eater, so nothing I knew was new information for him. And Ron married Gabrielle before we got married.”
“I’m sure you know that Uncle Ron isn’t quick to forgive. He’ll be angry with me for a long time too,” Patrick whispered.
“I don’t know if any of this will help you with your family,” Hermione said, shedding a few remaining tears. “But now you know.”
Medea watched as Draco softly whispered into Hermione’s ear and kissed her temple. She wanted that with Patrick. She wanted a relationship that was so strong that they could be happy and in love no matter what anyone else thought. She looked at Patrick and for the first time since she’d learned to control her gift, she read his thoughts.
“We’re engaged,” she said softly. She wanted to be completely honest, but she knew that Patrick wasn’t quite on the same page. He did, however, want to tell them that things were more serious than they let on.
Her parent’s stared for a few moments, taking time to comprehend what she’d just told them. “This is what you want? No matter what?”
A small smile came to her lips. “It is, more than anything.”
“Then we’re happy for you,” her mother said with a smile that still had a twinge of sadness.
“You don’t look very happy.”
Draco laughed and a smile cut his lips. “If we’re wistful it’s only because you’ve grown so fast.”
Medea hopped off the couch and ran to hug her parents.
As Patrick watched the scene, the first stirrings of resentment toward his family began. He loved Medea and if they loved him then they had to love Medea too…or go without him.
Fatum Amoris...The Fate of Love by Nicole_Riddle
Chapter Notes: If you haven't read "It's Witchcraft" this chapter will get you up to speed. If you have read it, this may feel a little redundant....sorry, other stuff does happy too though!