By the time they were back at school after the Easter holidays, Hermione had entered exam mode. She spent every minute studying, or planning her revision timetable, or doing homework.
The only day she didn't do any studying was on the one year anniversary of The Battle of Hogwarts. The six of them met up with Harry and Ron in Hogsmeade and had a few drinks. They didn't say too much, none of them wanting to discuss the events of last year, but they all knew they were drinking in memory of their fallen friends.
Draco had only begun to worry about Hermione's intense studying a few weeks before their exams started, when not even a well timed joke about relaxing her in the bedroom worked to make her stop stressing.
After a few failed attempts at getting her to take a break, ending in her crying or arguing with him, he decided to let her do what she needed to do and settled on providing her with cups of tea every couple of hours.
The only thing he would force her to do was go to sleep, after three consecutive nights of finding her asleep on the living room floor with her face in a book.
On the morning of their first exam he managed to drag her down to breakfast and force a slice of toast down her.
'How is she doing?' Ginny whispered to him.
Draco simply shook his head and rolled his eyes, which made Ginny laugh quietly.
'Here I was thinking you were a mess with exams, Draco.' Pansy said as she sat down with them, glancing at Hermione with a worried look on her face.
'I'm fine.' Hermione mumbled, her head still in the book.
'At least all your exams are over this week.' Blaise moaned. 'I have to wait until next Friday for my last one.'
'That's because we were idiots and chose History of Magic.' Draco said.
Hermione finally closed the book and put it back in her bag. 'I'm ready.'
Draco smirked, holding back a laugh, and gave her hand a squeeze.
As soon as all of Hermione's exams were over on Friday, she went straight to their dorm and fell asleep for eighteen hours. Draco didn't disturb her, knowing she needed to catch up on sleep, but he felt himself relax simply knowing that she wasn't stressing out anymore.
The next Friday, after Draco got out of his History of Magic exam, he and Hermione celebrated alone before going down to dinner.
Everyone was in high spirits that evening as they knew they would no longer have to stress about exams or school. However it was bittersweet, as they realised they only had a few days left of each other's daily company, so they made the most of it and spent their days outside in the sunshine and every meal together.
Hermione was a mess inside, wondering what was going to happen with her and Draco when school finished. Not only was she questioning where her relationship was headed, she had no home to go to; though she had places to stay, she didn't have a home to call her own.
She tried to keep these thoughts at bay as they all sat on the fields the day before they were due to leave Hogwarts for the last time.
Draco, who Hermione had noticed had been acting strange the past couple of days, was trying to get Ginny's attention by wandlessly zooming flowers into her face.
'What?!' She cried as the fourth Daisy hit her nose.
'Nothing, just bored.' Draco said. Hermione couldn't see the look that he gave Ginny, but she saw Ginny's small nod.
Draco turned to Hermione and tucked her hair behind her ear, leaning in to whisper to her.
'Meet me in the broom cupboard.' He said, his breath tickling her ear.
'Draco,' she whispered. 'We haven't been there all year, we have a warm and comfortable dormitory for snogging.'
'Come on, Granger. For old times sake. Give me two minutes and then come.' He smirked, standing up from the grass. She rolled her eyes but he knew she would be there.
'Where's Draco going?' Luna asked. She was leaning against Blaise, who was stretched out on the grass next to Ginny.
'I'm not sure.' Hermione mumbled, not being able to think of an excuse quick enough.
'Liar.' Pansy laughed. 'You're going to meet for a snog, aren't you?'
Hermione blushed and Ginny giggled.
'Disgraceful, Granger.' Blaise said, shooting her a wink.
'I'll see you in a bit.' Hermione said, standing up and making her way inside.
She followed the corridors up towards the library. They hadn't come back to this cupboard since the Battle, when they'd sat in mostly silence after the war was over, but maybe Draco was feeling nostalgic as it was their last day.
When she saw the door to the cupboard she hesitated, not sure if she should knock, but soon pushed that thought from her mind and stepped inside.
Draco was stood in the middle of the cupboard, surrounded by floating candles.
'Well, isn't this romantic.' Hermione whispered, stepping closer to Draco.
'I thought I'd do something special as we might never get to come back to the cupboard that started it all.' Draco replied as he pulled Hermione in for a kiss. It wasn't a kiss that was reminiscent of their meetings in there from years ago, it was slower. It was romantic. It was meaningful.
When Draco pulled away, Hermione caught his face in the candlelight and wondered if he felt as nervous as he looked.
'Draco...' she said, wanting to ask if he was okay but he cut off her thought.
'Hermione,' he said and took a deep breath. 'I wanted you to meet me in here so that I could tell you how much you mean to me.'
Hermione could feel a smile growing on her face. It wasn't often that she saw the overtly romantic and sentimental side of Draco.
'When you first burst in on me in here during Fifth Year I wasn't angry, or annoyed, or wanting to throw an insult in your face. All I wanted to do was kiss you like I had in Third Year. For months I wondered why I was so obsessed with meeting you in here, despite all of my naive beliefs about blood. It wasn't until our regular meetings stopped that I realised.'
Hermione could feel herself welling up at his words and, although she loved hearing them, she wanted to stop him before she started crying. But he continued.
'You mean the world to me, I can't imagine being with anyone else and I wish I'd have realised that and told you sooner. You once told me that you would choose me, choose to forgive me, choose to love me. I want you to know that I've always chosen you whether I was aware of it or not, and now I want to make that choice permanent.' Draco said, before bending down and getting on his knees.
He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, black, velvet box. 'I love you. With all of my heart, I love you. Sometimes I wonder if you've slipped me a love potion because of how much I'm impossibly in love with you.'
Hermione was really crying now, her whole body shaking.
'Hermione Granger, will you do me the greatest honour of becoming my wife?'
Hermione sank to her knees in front of him and sobbed what sounded like a "yes". Draco took her left hand and slipped the ring onto her shaking finger.
'Yes.' Hermione said again. 'Always yes.'
Draco kissed her, pulling her body into his, letting a single tear slip down his cheek.
Outside of the broom cupboard, four people were sat against the opposite wall, waiting.
'Do you think they're shagging?' Pansy asked, fifteen minutes into their wait.
'Probably.' Blaise and Ginny muttered at the same time.
'I'm sure they're just celebrating.' Luna said.
'Exactly.' Pansy, Blaise and Ginny said.
It was then that Draco and Hermione burst from the cupboard with huge smiles on their faces. The four in the floor stood up, waiting for the answer to the question they didn't need to ask. Hermione held her left hand up and all hell broke loose. There were hugs all round, Blaise even gave Draco a hug.
'So, when's the wedding?' Blaise asked as he embraced Draco. Draco laughed as he pulled away, remembering their conversation after the Battle where he'd asked the same thing.
When the excitement had died down slightly and they began walking down to the Great Hall for their last dinner together, Luna turned to Hermione with a small smile on her face.
'Hermione, did you know that you have a Slytherin tie on?' Luna asked. Hermione's eyes widened as she looked down at the tie around her neck and then at the red and gold tie that Draco was wearing, and then burst into laughter.
'I told you.' Pansy said, and everyone joined in the laughter.