dramione prompt: ask me again
The first time Draco asked Hermione to marry him, he was drunk. He felt like an arse, coming on to her like they were dating, when they werenât.
He figured that they were already friends, so maybe sheâd just dismiss the drunken moment.
And he knew that heâll forget about this embarrassment by tomorrow.
But he was more surprised with her answer more than anything.
âAsk me again when youâre not drunk, Draco.â
He could hear her voice still, as his body went limp and relaxed on his bed.
The next morning, his head thumped like crazy, but her words were still ringing in his ear. So much for forgetting that embarrassment, he thought. He covered his face with the palms of his hands, as the image of her smile burned at the back of his eyelids.
The second time the question was asked, Hermione was drunk.
âWhen are you going to ask me again, Draco?â her words slurred against her tongue as Draco helped her get up to her apartment. They couldnât Apparate when she had been drinking like sheâd been through a break up.
Well, she actually went through a breakup with Weasley. Draco tried biting his tongue to avoid a wrong answer.
As Hermione climbed into her bed, Draco sat right beside her.
Hermione startled him when she cupped his cheek, stroking it gentlyâan intimate move, one Draco would end up with weak knees.
And then she smiled, drunkenly, as his eyes swam on the glazed ambers with a light glint from the moon that shone from behind her window.
And in a whisper, he answered her, âWhen the time is right, Hermione. When the time is right,â as he stroked the velvet box hidden inside his pocket. He thought he was ready, but she didnât need to know that.
Hermioneâs breathing evened at that.
But the right time never came, and everything else was forgotten.
Hermione went back to Weasley when he proposed to her just two weeks after their breakup.
He realized that he never really had her. Even though they were friends, he had never really courted her. They were just traipsing around their feelings for each otherâat least for him.
Hermione never gave him any hints. She never told him how she felt.
âBut what about everything they had together?â
Draco could only clench his fist.
When the invitation came three months later, another envelope came with it. When Draco saw the handwriting in front, he never opened anything faster.
âThe first time you asked me to marry you, I thought you went barmy. But never in my life have I been asked by a drunk person whose eyes never left mine during the entire drinking session, and I told myself that if youâll remember, then maybe Iâll consider.
So, I told you to ask me again.
Then the next time was when I was drunk, and it would have been the right time because by then, I would have been honestâemotional, yes, but honest. And I would have said yes if you have asked.
He flipped the parchment, but nothing else was written. What happened? Was that it?
Then, he heard a knock on his door as if on cue. He opened it to find Hermione with her curls crowning her head as he had always loved and her eyes gazing into his as if to hypnotize.
She could have been his bride.
âWhy are you here, Hermione?â
Draco flinched a bit, confused.
âWerenât you going to marry Weasley?â
âIt didnât work out. About two days ago.â
Stunned, Draco stepped backward, and Hermione went inside his apartment like nothing happened.
âThen, the invitationââ
ââis why I came here. Iâm here to take it back.â
Her cheeks were as red as the scarf she wore. Draco moved towards her, inching closer until they were only a few inches within each other's privacy.
Draco embraced her, took in the scent of aloe from her hair, and citrus from her perfume.
âI told you.â Draco pulled away, placing his hands softly on her cheeks. âI told you Iâll ask you again at the right time.â
âThen, when is the right time, Draco?â The ambers in her eyes swam into his.
âYou'll see,â he whispered as he closed the gap between their lips.
The last time Draco asked for her hand in marriage was the day they also got married. He planned everything with his mother and Ginevraâfrom the ceremony to the ornaments to the venue to the subtle things Hermione wanted.
And when Draco asked her, she never got him to finish. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and he just smiled against her lips.
He considered himself lucky.
Draco Malfoy had only hoped to be beside Hermione Granger all the time. But he never thought a drunken proposal would get him exactly to what he had hoped for and moreâmarried and in love.