A/N 1 : Before you begin reading, please note that this is a sequel to another story I've written. I'm sure that you've realized that by now, as it's in the title and summary. So please read that story first - it's in my profile here at ffnet - if you don't, quite a bit of this story won't make any sense to you. Otherwise, enjoy! :D

A small figure, bundled in numerous scarves and a black woolen coat, stood huddled against the wind at the wrought iron gate, shivering slightly. A mass of slightly out-of-control brown hair was barley covered by the simple knitted hat the girl - for it was now discernable that it was a girl - had pulled down over her untidy curls.

She shivered and pulled her thick coat closer around her, blocking out the icy wind that was now swirling with white snow. She looked around her.

Rows and rows of cold, marble slabs and stones stretched before her under the grey sky. Yes, this was the place. The wind died down for a moment, and she blinked, wiping at the soft snow that had fluttered onto her eyelashes; and something else - hot tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes so suddenly she was honestly surprised at their appearance.

With a shaking hand, she lifted the latch on the gate and pushed; it creaked open slowly. She took a deep, steadying breath and stepped through. There. That was the hardest part.

Her feet carried her down row after row, searching; her heart jolting harshly with every new stone, only to find her breath catch sharply in her throat as she realized again and again that it wasn't the one she was searching for. After a few of these false alarms, she began to wonder if she wanted to actually find the right one at all.

She had almost made up her mind that she wasn't ready for this, after all, when her eyes suddenly fell upon a simple brown stone under the low, spreading branches of a small tree, and her heart stopped altogether.

It was them. She'd found them at last.

Without even realizing she was doing it, she dropped to her knees in the cold, wet snow next to the roughly-hewn stone; the single red rose she had been clutching fell from her fingers as she traced the names engraved on the rock: Phillip and Moira DuMont.

There was a moment when she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or scream. The unfairness of it all! she thought wildly. How terrible that this young couple would never know the woman their daughter would grow up to become. How sad that she would never hug them, never know what their voices sounded like. The tears came streaming down her cheeks at last. She didn't try to stop their flow. Suddenly, the snow stopped flurrying around her.

And now she was getting married, and they wouldn't be there! She wished there were some way to bring them back, just for one day, but she knew that even magic had its limits. There was no way back from the other side of the veil.

She threw herself on the cold ground in front of the headstone, pressing herself as closely as possible to the parents she couldn't remember.

The clouds looked for a moment as though they might weep with her, to share in her sorrow and anguish, but then they seemed to think better of it, and began to move. A small sliver of sunlight pushed its way through the cloudcover and shone down - almost miraculously - onto the patch of ground where the girl lay, stretched out over her parents' shared grave.

She didn't notice it at first, but then the beam of light grew brighter, and soon the sun was completely out from behind the clouds, shining cheerfully and hopefully in the small patch of blue now revealed in the sky. It seemed to be smiling at her.

She pushed herself to a sitting position and gazed up at it. Then she looked at the place where her parents lay. She gasped.

The rose she had dropped was a single rose no longer. It had somehow transformed into a complete rosebush, planted neatly beside the headstone and in full bloom, even though it was the dead of winter. The bright red of the petals stood out defiantly against the barren whiteness around them.

There was no simple and logical explanation for this, even within the bounds of magic, she knew. And yet, here it was, in living color in front of her eyes, a complete and utter impossibility that had no other name for it than Miracle. It was a miracle.

She stayed by her parents' side for the rest of the afternoon as the air became increasingly warmer and calmer than it had been when she first arrived. She spoke to them, telling them all about herself and the life she had been living since they'd last seen her - she'd only been a few months old when they died.

She told them about Hogwarts and the adventures she'd shared with Harry and Ron. She told them about the years since the war had ended when she really hadn't felt much purpose in her life.

She told them about Draco.

"I really think you would like him," she said thoughtfully, gazing up at a small bird that had perched itself in the branch of the small tree she was sitting under and had begun to sing as if it would never sing again. "He's changed so much and I…I love him more than I ever thought I could ever love anyone. I wonder if what we have is anything like what you had together…"

Finally, when the sun was low in the afternoon sky, she looked around and decided she had better go home. She kissed the petals of one of the roses and whispered a promise to return soon.

Draco lounged on the couch in his apartment, staring blankly up at the ceiling and trying to decide if he'd made the right decision by staying home while Hermione went to find her parents' graves.

Of course he should have gone with her! What an idiot he was for letting her go by herself!

But then, he felt completely alien to what she must be feeling right now. It wasn't his grief, and he would only be intruding.

He hated the thought of her being alone, possibly crying - oh, who was he kidding, probably crying - and he couldn't do anything to stop the pain. This was pain he couldn't touch.

He wondered what kind of husband he would make her if he couldn't even go with her on this day of all days.

Draco's thought began to drift to their engagement. He was free now from the magical contract that had bound him since birth. He hadn't known it at the time, but that split second that he had died had somehow freed him. He was, as his mother had explained, "reborn" in a sense, and free. So he didn't have to get married now if he didn't want to.

It was just…he wanted to. Didn't he? Well, not right away, certainly. They were far too young, weren't they? Of course he wanted to marry her someday, though! He loved her. But they had a good thing going just now, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to mess that up by throwing an extra ring into the situation.

The only example of marriage he had to draw from was the only one he'd ever seen, really: his parents. And that example certainly didn't create within him any fuzzy feelings for the institution; his parents didn't love each other the way Draco and Hermione did. Or perhaps they had, once, and marriage had somehow tainted their love and twisted it into what it was now.

It was enough to make Draco consider staying engaged for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, in a large, extravagant townhouse on the other side of the country, someone was picking up a newspaper with the headline:

On Again, Off Again is On AGAIN: Hermione Granger to Wed Draco Malfoy After All (details, page7)

"Oh, really? He decided to marry that - trash - after all? Well, we might just have to see about that…"

Thin white fingers picked up an expensive quill, dipped it into a crystal inkwell and began to write.

A/N 2 : Well, I'm back! Sorry for the sad beginning…and the lack of title. But those of you who know me know that I almost never name my stories right away - I hold contests! The same holds true for this story. About five or so chapters in, I'm going to ask for suggestions (don't send any yet, you don't even know how this is going to go yet, lol). Also, sorry for the shaky start this story had...just so you know, it's all fix-ed now! Yay! :D