Within a few weeks, Hermione feels comfortable in the Chateau Malfoi. Within six months, she completely agrees with Draco that it is the best place for them to live. After a year, during which they spend frequent weekends at the London townhouse – now completely redecorated – and visit the rest of the Malfoy properties, she knows that the Chateau will always be home to her. Parts of it are a thousand years old. Other parts are a hundred or fifty or five hundred or ten. Despite that, everything fits perfectly with everything else, and all of it is comfortable, a little shabby, and welcoming. The Malfoy library is there now, every book settled in on the correct shelf. Draco is sure that one of the walls moved itself to accommodate the whole collection, but he can’t prove it, and the walls seem quite solid. Hermione loves the gardens, which were first designed by a woman named Jessica, the wife of Septimus Malfoy, sometime in the 1700’s. Hermione is drawn to her because she too has a name from one of Shakespeare’s plays. As far as she can determine from information in the library, Jessica’s life was peaceful and uneventful, devoted to her husband and son, and she spent her free time in creating a beautiful setting for the chateau. Hermione is grateful for her work. There is a small terrace set between two right-angled walls of the rambling chateau, where Hermione likes to have breakfast in warm weather, usually accompanied by her cat. She will always miss Crookshanks, but Alph (short for Alpha Centauri because she named him in true Malfoy tradition) is very like him. The terrace is perfectly placed to look over Jessica’s rose garden, and this morning she's drinking her second cup of tea while Alph lounges on her foot.  Draco joins her, dropping a casual kiss on the top of her head before he sits down.