Ten Years Later ✔️

3|Where She's Been

A/N: Early update.
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Thursday, May 1, 2008

Hermione sat next to her husband at the overly-large table in the Malfoy Manor dining room. She was to a story Pansy Nott née Parkinson was telling about an experience at her high-end dress shop.

"So I told her that the dresses altogether were twenty percent off, but she was bound and determined that she was supposed to get twenty galleons off. And I was getting frustrated, because I had been arguing with this old bat for half an hour, and we hadn't gotten anywhere. After a few more minutes of me trying to tell her as politely that I could that, no, she was mistaken, and these dresses together were not twenty galleons off.

"She finally, finally consented, because she had to get back home to her daughter and granddaughters. Well, we got to the counter, and all of her purchases added up together to be one hundred galleons. And that was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, because, obviously, twenty percent of one hundred is twenty. So the entire forty-five minutes that we were arguing, she was right. And when I admitted that her final price was eighth galleons, she got the biggest smirk on her face, and I had to physically restrain myself from slapping it right off her face!"

Hermione concealed a grin, for Pansy had begun to huff in anger just from the memory. She could remember a time when she would've been amazed at the amount of money people would spend on clothes. One hundred galleons would be worth almost £8000 (around $10,000).

But, by now, she had gotten used to the excessive amounts of money people would spend. She was a Malfoy, after all.

Seated at the table were Hermione and her husband Draco, Pansy and her husband Theodore Nott, and Hermione's mother-in-law, Narcissa Malfoy. Ginny and Blaise Zanini would have been here, too, but for Molly having all of the Weasleys at the Burrow and Ron and Harry returning for the reunion the following day.

Hermione's thoughts turned towards the kids, who had been forced to eat in the kitchen because of their unruly behavior and tendency to break glass things. Apart, the children were normally very well-behaved, but when the Nott and Malfoy kids got together, it tended to wreak havoc.

The oldest was Scorpius, Hermione's four-year-old, and afterwards his best friend, Timothy Nott, who was also four and just a couple months younger. Scorpius had a younger sister, who was two, named Lyra Carina, and was already trying to follow the older boys around. Hermione had asked the house elves who were watching over her to make sure they kept an eye on her at all times and kept her from being accidentally hurt by one of the older kids. Obviously, Hermione had agreed to the Black family tradition of naming the kids after constellations.

After dinner, Pansy, Theo, and Timothy headed home. Draco and Hermione said good night to Narcissa and then took the kids up to the room that they always stayed in when they slept over at the manor.

Hermione and Draco trudged up the stairs towards the wing that had been Draco's when he lived here as a boy. When they got into his old bedroom, Hermione undressed and slipped on her nightgown, then brushed her teeth and slid under the covers of the warm bed. She began to think about how much her life had changed in the last ten years.

In the heat of the moment during the war, Hermione had kissed Ron against her better judgment, because she felt like that was what she was supposed to do. She hadn't felt anything... well, special about the kiss, and she then knew for sure that her feelings for Ron the past year had been nothing more than a schoolgirl crush, and the reason that she had avoided him and Lavender like the plague in their sixth year was not because of fierce jealousy, but disgust at the vast amount of public affection they displayed.