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It was not a terribly romantic moment when Draco Malfoy realized he’d gone and fallen in love with Hermione Granger.
If he was being honest, it was not romantic in the least.
In fact, it was so terribly un-romantic, he knew straight away he could never tell anyone, not Blaise or Theo and Salazar’s saggy ballsack he certainly could never tell Pansy.
He’d never hear the end of it.
Because there was nothing particularly sentimental about watching the bird you’ve been seeing pull a book off the shelf in your living room, open the cover, raise it to her face and inhale deeply as her eyes drifted closed and her mouth curved up into a smile.
Surely there was nothing.
Of course not.
Especially not when that bird was England’s biggest swot. The brightest fucking witch of their age.
It was a regular occurrence at this point really.
After eight months together, and having gone to school together for six years, seeing Granger go a bit loopy over a book was hardly a jarring sight for Draco.
He’d come to expect it honestly.
Which was why he averted his eyes quickly back to The Daily Prophet he held in his lap when she turned towards him and padded quietly back across the room, his copy of The Count of Monte Cristo hugged protectively to her chest.
Pursing his lips and keeping his gaze determinedly elsewhere seemed to be the only effective means to keep him from blurting it out.
‘I fucking love you, Granger.’
‘I fancy you, Granger, a lot. A bit more than a lot in fact.’
‘I’ve been carrying this ring around in my pocket for ages, Granger, care to try it on?’
‘Merlin’s tits Hermione, what's a bloke got to do to get a yes to a proposal around here?’
No, no, definitely not.
Potter and Weasley might as well get their hexes ready now. Merlin knows they’ve been waiting for him to bollocks this up so they’d have an excuse to curse him.
His dignity still had not fully recovered from the night he spent sneezing large bats out of his nostrils when the She-Weasel had hexed him after they’d come out as a couple to Hermione’s friends over drinks at the Three Broomsticks a few months back.
Definitely not the time to come out and say something stupid.
He pretended to be enthralled in the article on the near extinct breed of dragon that had just been bred successfully in captivity at a sanctuary in Italy and pretended to be wholly oblivious to the witch in question as she sat on the opposite side of the couch and bent her knees up, tucking her feet under his thigh.
“Merlin, witch, your feet are bloody freezing!” He hissed as he flinched.
Hermione rolled her eyes as she burrowed her feet deeper, snuggling them into the warmth of his body.
“It’s a good thing I have you then isn’t it, to warm me right up?” She said coyly.
Draco grumbled.
“You’re lucky I love…” he barely caught himself. The sharp inhale of a breath beside him made him realize. He panicked. “…your feet,” he finished hastily, snapping back open the newspaper and hiding his face.
There was a pause.
“You…erm, you love…my…feet?”
Draco cringed at the perplexity in her voice.
He was a prat. An utter and complete prat and he deserved to be hexed again by Potter.
He was just going to ignore it. If he ignored it, it certainly hadn’t happened.
“Draco?”
He groaned and buried his head in his hands as the newspaper he couldn’t bother pretending to read anymore floated to the floor.
“For fucks sake, yes I love your feet, Hermione! I love your bushy hair and the ink stains on your hands. I love the dent in your bottom lip you got from biting it too much and I love the little mole on the back of your knee. I love you, Hermione. I love all of your bits, even your bloody feet. But I swear if you—mmph!”
Draco was cut off from his ranting when Hermione slid into his lap, her thighs bracketing his as she straddled him, as she pressed her lips to his.
He got rather lost in the kiss. It was a bloody good kiss after all.
They were both breathless when they finally pulled apart.
“Is that a ring in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
He knew she meant it as a joke. The mirth in her eyes and the lightness in her voice told him it was a joke.
And perhaps if he had left the ring in the drawer in his bedroom that day like he’d told himself to, he would have been able to laugh with her. Maybe even throw in a cock related quip or two.
But he hadn’t left the ring. The ring was sat in his pocket and the witch he meant to offer it to was smirking at the mere idea of it.
Hermione’s face fell more and more as she witnessed him begin to crumble from the inside out.
“No!” She cried. Draco winced and began to gently slide her off his lap but it only served to have her latch onto him like a monkey to a tree.
“Granger,” he said warningly.
“No!” She cried again, a rather panicked look on her face. “I meant, no, as in no please don’t misunderstand, not no, as in no—I, erm, just wasn’t expecting I—”
“It’s fine, Granger,” he said quietly, feeling himself begin to wall himself away. He’d recover from this one day, surely. Right?
Hermione looked distraught as she watched him, chewing on her bottom lip. He sighed before raising a hand and gently pulling her lip free with his thumb.
“I would have said yes!” She blurted out. Draco froze, his hand in the air between them as he lowered it down from her face.
“You…”
“I would have said yes, if, erm, if you’d asked me,” she ducked her head and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“I love you too, Draco, feet and all,” she whispered.
Draco blinked.
“You…” he tried again slowly but no other words manifested and he could do nothing more than stare at her.
Hermione smiled softly.
“I love you, yes. And you love me and my bushy hair and my feet. I love you and your pointy chin and your truly awful taste in muggle music. And I’d like to marry you if you’d like to marry me.”
Draco drew his head back indignantly.
”Excuse me but Wham! was ahead of their time Granger, you’d do well to show them their due respect.”
Hermione snorted before burying her face in his neck.
“You…are the singular most infuriating witch I’ve ever met,” he grumbled under his breath.
His hands squeezed her hips where they sat on her waist.
Hermione sat back and rolled her eyes.
“You love it,” she teased.
“I do,” he said, causing her eyes to jump back to his. “I love you, Hermione Granger and as soon as you make up my ruined proposal with super kinky makeup sex, I will gladly slide this ring here in my pocket on your finger.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Super kinky makeup sex, hmm?”
Draco nodded solemnly as he pulled her more firmly into his lap.
“It’s the only fair thing I’m afraid.”
Hermione bit her lip again as she studied him for a moment longer before finally breaking out into loud peals of laughter. It was not long before Draco joined her, slipping the ring from his pocket and onto her finger a moment later.
And then they did have super kinky makeup sex and lived happily ever after.