"Dinner?" Blaise asked, opening the door and waving them both into the hallway. As they moved away down the hall Hermione muttered, "I am not changing my name."

"But it sounds so nice," Draco wheedled.

"No."

Rome was nice. Assisi was nice. The entire vacation went without a single problem, unless one were to count the unfortunate incident with the clerk in the men's store who found Draco significantly more attractive than Draco found him. Hermione finally had to do what Blaise spent the rest of the night calling her 'threatening face' to get the clerk to back off.

"Do it again," he begged for the fourteenth time, well into their third bottle of wine. "Do the look again. The way you eviscerated that little arsehole with about three words and a glare was perfection."

"I'll eviscerate you if you don't cut it out," she muttered, a threat that no one took seriously given she was on his lap thoroughly sloshed and barely dressed by that point.

"Draco," Blaise wailed in mock terror. "She's threatening me. Make her stop."

"I'm not going up against her," Draco laughed, his head leaning against Blaise's legs as he tried to pour another glass of wine. "She's Hermione-fucking-Granger, slayer of men's store clerks, hapless kidnappers and, oh yeah, that pesky Voldemort chap."

"I didn't slay any of those people," Hermione said. After a brief pause she added, "using the word 'people' loosely for Voldemort."

"I did," Blaise said, fumbling around with her brassiere.

"Merlin, you are drunk," Draco said, watching him.

"Well I did," the man insisted.

"No, I mean the – "

"Got it!" Blaise announced.

"And to think you used to have a reputation as a suave ladies man," Draco said.

As Blaise tried to figure out how to remove the now unfastened bra, Hermione put one unsteady hand on his chest and asked, "What is the most morally questionable thing you've done as a spy type person?"

Draco groaned. "Hold on," he muttered, fumbling for his wand. "Let me get us all muffliatoed."

"What," Blaise said, setting his glass of wine down and now focusing more seriously on using both hands to get her bra off. "What makes you think I'm a spy type person? I am a very social man with lots of friends, that's all." He looked around their apartment. "And some kind of gross books. And not the fun kind of gross either, though I have some of those. Did you know – "

She put her hand over his mouth. "Those kidnappers, not so… they didn't keep their mouths shut. I know everything." She said the last in a singsong. "So tell me; I promise not to go about messing up your cover."

"But you already know everything," he pouted a bit and tugged a strap down her arm.

She pulled it back up, which made the unfastened bra swing a bit, and said, "Nope. No more clothing comes off until you tell me."

"Meanie."

"Oh, just tell her," Draco said. "You want to and I want to ravish her and now you're just being stubborn." He slammed his wine glass down and it sloshed out and some splashed onto the cuff of his pants. "Oh… damn it."

Blaise shrugged. "Probably the most morally questionable thing I've done is give those wankers money. Wankers, all of them." He said the last very seriously.

"Blaise," Hermione said, batting his hand away from her breast. "You're a dodgy dodger who's dodging the question."

"I am," he nodded. "Dodgy, I mean."

"Artful, though," Draco said, dabbing at his pants.

Hermione rolled her eyes and, pulling her wand out of the couch cushions, waved it at Draco and said, "scrougify."

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "That worked!"

"I know magic," Hermione said, nodding.

"I might have had too much," Draco said, eying his wine glass but Hermione had turned her attention back to Blaise. "I might have ravishing issues."

"Tell me," she insisted and he sighed.

"I make friends," he shrugged. "I listen to them, I go to their disgusting parties. I give money to their vile and disgusting things. Sometimes Draco comes with and flaunts his Dark Mark."

"Bona fide Death Eater," Draco agreed. "I'm very impressive."

"And then?" Hermione prompted.

"I tell people what they say, people who don't exist, you know, and they write up little reports that don't exist."

She poked him in the chest with her finger and he grabbed her finger and put it in his mouth and slowly sucked on it, swirling his tongue around while watching her.

"You cannot distract me, Blaise Zabini," she said, breathlessly, after a rather long moment.

"Can," he argued, letting the one finger go and reaching for another one but she put her hands behind her back and he made a little petulant frown.

"Fine. Wench." He closed his eyes and said, "And then, if it seems like one of them is charismatic enough to get a following, to be more than a disgruntled fool complaining over canapés that the world has changed, I kill him." He opened his eyes and she realized he was absolutely sober, some kind of wordless charm has stripped all his alcohol induced fuzziness away. That, she thought, must be a handy trick in his line of work.

"Oh," she said.

"Still like me?" he asked, eyes wary.

"Love you," she corrected and watched the tension around those wary eyes ease. "Tell me more about these gross books. The fun kind of gross, not the pureblood propaganda kind of gross."

He smiled and accioed a book over from the shelf. "Do you think you could do this?" he asked, turning to a well-thumbed page.

She looked at the drawing and said, finally letting him tug her bra off, "Well, I can try."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Mother," Draco leaned towards Narcissa and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

"Draco," she smiled. "How lovely to see you. And you brought Blaise." She dimpled at the other man. "How was your trip to Italy? Did you get a chance to see your mother?"

"It was very nice, Mrs. Malfoy, thank you for asking. And we did get a chance to see my mother, though only briefly. She'll be here for the wedding, of course, so we'll have a longer visit then."

"The… wedding?" Narcissa Malfoy raised a neatly shaped eyebrow.

"Well," Draco said, settling down into a chair even though his mother was still standing. He kicked his feet out in front of him, the picture of ease. "Despite her unfortunate memory issues Hermione is quite sure she still wants to marry us both. It will be a bit of a complicated affair, of course, but I'm sure we can manage it." He laughed. "Hermione wants to just elope back to Assisi but we're nagging her for a big event. She seems to think I have a bias towards excess but I'll probably get my way in the end."

"You usually do," Blaise agreed.

"We got you something in Italy," Draco continued, pulling out a small wrapped box and handing it up to his mother. She made a pleased sound and opened it, making another, even more pleased sound when she saw the intricate gold work – some might even call it fussy – on the elaborate necklace with emerald leaves.

"I do like emeralds," she said, pulling the necklace from the box. "Would you help me?"

"Of course." Draco rose gracefully to his feet and, taking the necklace from his mother, settled it around her neck and fastened the clasp.

"I do have one question," Blaise said and Draco smiled.

"Yes, dear boy?" Narcissa Malfoy asked as she settled down onto a settee.

"Why a curse and a kidnapping? It seems like overkill."

A terrible silence settled across the room.

"I don't know what you mean," Narcissa said at last turning from Blaise, who stood before her hands nonchalantly clasped behind his back to Draco, who was leaning down, his arms resting across the back of the seat she was on. He was staring rather fixedly at the necklace he'd just given to her.

"Really?" Blaise said. "You can lie so much better than that, Mrs. Malfoy. You lied to the Dark Lord. I don't think you're even trying."

"She's beneath you," the woman finally said, her voice filled with loathing. "She has no more right to be a Malfoy than some harlot you'd pull off the street. And the curse wasn't working. That ring you gave her… it kept deflecting everything. You'd never let her take it off again, I was sure. I had to resort to cruder methods."

"Funny thing, that." Draco said. "About the name issue. She's technically never even going to be a Malfoy. She's decided upon – "

"Insisted upon," Blaise murmured.

" – keeping her own name."

"Well," Blaise said. "She is Hermione Granger, she who takes down kidnappers and Dark Lords."

"And shop clerks," Draco said.

"Indeed."

Narcissa looked at them both with irritation. "Whatever name she uses, she's not worthy of being your wife. Either of your wives. She's a mudblood. Blaise." She turned to the man. "You share my feelings on this, I know. I'm sure you've had your fun; I don't begrudge you your fun. I know that men have their needs, but…"

"Now that you mention it," Blaise said, "I should probably clear up a wee little misconception you seem to have. I don't share your disgusting, foul, vile and offensive feelings on blood purity. I never have, though I've kept my opinions on that matter conveniently quiet. Perhaps you've met my mother? The one quietly working her way through every elderly, wealthy wizard in all of Europe? She raised me to not judge a man based on his ancestry."

"Only on his bank account," Draco murmured.

"She does like you," Blaise admitted. "Fortunately for me, you're too young for her."

"I like you more," Draco said. "She scares me."

"You're marrying Hermione Granger," Blaise snorted. "My mother is nothing compared to her."

Draco laughed.

"Don't bother to send me an invitation," Narcissa snapped. "I won't condone this unnatural marriage and I will never, never acknowledge any vile, half-blooded children you spawn with that whore."

Draco looked at her, a sad mix of anger and disappointment settling across his face. "I doubt you'll still be alive by then. That necklace? The pretty one with the emerald leaves? It's cursed. The same curse you put on Hermione, interestingly enough, though, of course, we've had it altered to change the trigger phrase."

Narcissa paled.

"I wouldn't try to take it off," Blaise said. "I've been assured that if you were to try that it would throttle you at once."

"What's the new phrase," Narcissa asked, her voice low and urgent.

"That would be telling," Draco said then, dropping all malicious humor, he added, "I'll defend Hermione to the death, mother. She's going to be my wife and Malfoy men defend their wives no matter what. You should have known that; you shouldn't have tried to hurt her. I would have tolerated your condescension, your little verbal knife twists but you should have known I would never accept an actual attack on my wife. Never."

Blaise held out his hand. "Shall we go?"

"Yes." Draco came around the settee and took his lover's hand, turning back to his mother one last time.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it came to this."

. . . . . . . . . .

The wedding was lovely. Hermione was able to restrain some of Draco's more ridiculous suggestions – there was, for example, no way she was going to ride in on a unicorn. She pointed out the intrinsic problem with that idea when he was buried within her and he had to admit she might have a point. Still, she mostly didn't bother to make more than token protests because he was just having so much fun.

She did absolutely refuse to wear the ridiculous dress he found. She was sure – well, mostly sure – he was kidding about that. "If I wore that I might be wider than I am high!" she'd exclaimed. "I would look ridiculous."

Luna, who'd agreed her to be maid of honor, managed to be ridiculous enough for both of them. Hermione had shrugged when asked what the bridesmaid dress should be and said, "I don't know. Find something you like."

It turned out that what Luna liked looked a bit like an upside-down green seashell. "The color seemed to work since you're marrying two Slytherins," she'd said when Hermione tried, without success, to contain her giggles when she saw it, "and I thought the image of Aphrodite rising from a clam shell seemed nice for a wedding."

"Didn't Aphrodite rise from sea foam?' Hermione had asked and Luna had shrugged.

"Close enough," she'd said. Draco had been charmed by the dress – though it was a bit more like wearable sculpture – and had begged her to take Hermione shopping with her when next she went. Luna had just looked at him until she was taken by a fit of giggles of her own that left Draco backing away, looking nervously at Blaise.

Kinglsey Shacklebolt performed the ceremony and if he and Blaise seemed to know one another perhaps a bit better than one might expect, well, Hermione forbore to comment upon that; Blaise's request for her security clearance had yet to come through and she remained officially ignorant of his work. He was just a social man who traveled quite a bit and had some fairly unpleasant books.

There was a minor scuffle when Shacklebolt pronounced, "You may now kiss the bride," and both men moved towards her. They finally each kissed one cheek before Hermione turned to kiss first Draco, who pulled her to him with a demanding, possessive yank, then Blaise, whose long, slow kiss elicited a few low whistles from less restrained guests. Hermione stepped back after that and the two men smiled at one another – satisfied, predatory smiles - before Blaise slid his hands through Draco's hair and made a show of kissing him somewhat longer than he'd spent with Hermione.

Harry and Ginny looked uncomfortable throughout the whole affair but wished the happy triple their best. Ron hadn't been able to find a date for his plus one but danced with Luna all night. When they left together Draco murmured to Blaise, "I wonder if he's sober enough to figure out how to get that contraption off of her."

"Oh gods, I hope not," Blaise replied. "The idea of him struggling with that shell will make me smile for days."

Mrs. Zabini brought not one but two elderly wizards with her. "I give them three months, tops," Blaise whispered to Hermione at the reception.

"They look like they're going to die happy, though," Hermione said.

"They always do," Blaise acknowledged.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother," Mrs. Zabini said to Draco. "Strangled by a cursed necklace. You think she'd have known better than to put on jewelry from an untrusted source."

"Yes," Draco said. "It was tragic."

When Hermione danced with Draco, her head resting on his shoulder, he murmured, "Happy?"

"Forever and always," she said.

"Even though you still don't remember?"

"I remember love," she said. "That's enough."

~ finis ~

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A/N – Thank you, everyone, for following along with this little bit of fluff. I hope you enjoyed it.

You can see the wedding dresses at tinyurl dot com/qzqvz7o if you want more visuals than I provided with "green shell" and "pouffy". It's hardly relevant to the plot but silly fun.