Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Are you ready?"

Draco Malfoy's voice coming from outside the room jolted Hermione out of her contemplation. She was standing in front of a tall mirror beside her closet, examining her reflection one final time. Or at least, that was what she had been doing before her own image, garbed in an evening dress of expensive red silk, embroidered with rubies that matched her earrings, had sent her into a reverie. She absently readjusted a fold on her left shoulder and turned away from the mirror. A few years ago—seven years, to be precise—she would have never dreamed of wearing something like this. She would not have even wanted to. Seven years ago, she had been simply Hermione: a teenager still, though aged and hardened by a merciless war, who only hoped for peace and to be allowed to piece together what was left of her world and move on with it. But she had learned that just like there had been a price for war, there was also a price to be paid for peace. One last sacrifice, though perhaps the greatest of all, to be made for the future of the world she had spent so long fighting for. And so, here she was today, wearing a dress so expensive her teenage self would have cried in outrage at the thought, preparing to go to the anniversary of the end of the war with her husband of almost seven years: Draco Malfoy.

She heard footsteps approaching and turned towards them, pushing away her wistful thoughts. Draco appeared in the doorway, where he paused to take in her appearance.

"You look stunning."

It was said simply, and she knew he meant it. After so many years, they were past pretending or playing games. It had not always been easy, of course. It had taken them a long time to get over the awkwardness and even longer to shed their prejudices and mistrust. But slowly, they had fallen into their roles, and it had helped that they were not the only ones. The whole wizarding world was learning to cope with their new reality. And in time, they had finally reached a balance of some kind. It was nothing like she had imagined her life would be, but it was her life, and she had come to appreciate it for what it was.

She picked up her purse from a chair and walked towards him, smiling lightly.

"You are very elegant yourself."

He was wearing dark blue dress robes of precise cut, which she knew had been custom-made for him, and a silver-trimmed black velvet cape held in place by a dragon-shaped silver pin. He was also holding a decorative cane in his left hand. She had not seen it before; she supposed he had bought it on his latest trip to Paris, from whence he had only come back the same morning. The accessory had fallen out of style for a while, but it was making a big comeback that summer, according to Witch Weekly. Draco would know, of course. He was always at the cutting edge of fashion.

He inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment then stepped aside to let her exit the room. He seemed to have caught some of her mood because he did not try to make small talk as they made their way to the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. Or maybe he had been having similar thoughts himself. After all, if there was a time to remember the past, it was tonight.

The heavy wooden doors opened as they approached, and a cool breeze made Hermione shiver. The evening retained some of the day's warmth, but there were still quite a few weeks to go before summer. Draco held out his hand for her to take, and they Disapparated to the Ministry together.

***

The Atrium on the main floor of the Ministry of Magic had been completely redecorated to host the grand annual ball celebrating the anniversary of the end of the war. In fact, Hermione would probably not have recognised the place, if not for the large fountain topped by a grandiose statue in the centre, identifying the spacious room without a doubt. The previous statue, erected under Voldemort's control on the Ministry, had been removed, of course. This one had been put in its place shortly after the end of the war, a symbol of the newfound peace of the wizarding world and of the hopes for its future. It showed a young witch and wizard in flowing robes stirred by an unseen breeze, reaching together the top of a cliff, two hands clasped together and the other two raised, as if ushering the way into a new era. Water showered down from the edges of the cliff under their feet, creating the illusion of a small waterfall, and streamed out of their outstretched hands.

Hermione had looked at it many times before, thinking wryly that it was very fitting, if in a rather ironic way. When Harry had died killing Voldemort, the Death Eaters had lost their leader at the same time as those who still opposed them had lost their hope, and for a time, it had seemed that chaos would overtake everything. If they had presented a united front, Voldemort's followers could probably have crushed their opponents, vastly outnumbered and weakened by their losses. But they had not been able to find someone to replace their dead master, and they had split into bands and groups, each following a different leader, acting against each other as often as against their enemies. Their influenced weakened, increasing numbers of wizards and witches had started to stand against them. It was not enough, though. Soon, it had become clear that although neither side was willing to admit defeat, neither was likely to win—or at least, not without such great losses that victory would be very bitter, indeed. Every day brought a heavier toll of death and destruction, and finally, they had realised that their only way out was to make a truce. And they had.

They had called it the Magical Reunification Pact, but it was most widely known by its popular name: the Twilight Peace. Instated at the boundary between light and darkness, both literally—the treaty had been signed just before sunset—and figuratively, it put an end to the fighting and granted Voldemort's followers pardon for all their crimes, in exchange for delivering a few of their worst to justice. And to seal the truce, it required each family that had fought in the war to give away their children to marry the other side. Not all of them: only those older than seventeen but younger than nineteen were affected by the treaty. All in all, they were just a handful, barely a dozen. But therein was the irony: those handed away as their parents' sacrifices for peace, meant to bind the families together and keep the two sides from resuming the fighting, were really not children anymore. For the past year, almost all of them had been on the battlefield as much as their parents, if not more, fighting in the frontlines against those they were now required to spend their lives with. Those who had drafted the Peace had set the age range not only to limit the number of families affected but also to ensure that the "children" they were choosing would be still young enough to adapt and innocent enough to give the whole plan a chance to succeed. Hermione did not know what they had been thinking. She had still been too caught up in grief over Harry's death at that time to interfere, but clearly, she should have voiced her objection in some way. It may not have changed anything, though. There were days when she thought that peace would not have lasted a week if not for the marriages.

She herself did not fit the description given in the Pact: her family was Muggle and had no idea a war had been going on. But she had been Harry Potter's best friend, the single-most prominent young witch on her side. If she did it, they argued, the others would, too. If she did it, it would be an end to the war for good. They almost went on their knees begging her to accept. And what could she have done? Ron was going to marry somebody else; he certainly fit the criteria. There was no other man she wanted to be with. And she supposed she should have expected that there would be a ransom for the end of the war.

"Admiring the stonework?"

A broad smile bloomed on her face at the familiar man's voice behind her shoulder, and she turned around immediately. "Ron! It's good to see you," she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

He laughed and kissed her warmly on both cheeks, and then she felt something tugging at her skirts.

"Aunt Harmony!" a high-pitched voice piped.

Surprised to discover the little girl in frilly pink clinging to her dress, she bent down to hug Ron's daughter. "And what are you doing here, Dorie? Not to mention, when did you get so tall? I saw you not a month ago and I would swear you grew by at least two inches in the meantime."

"Well, I'm almost six years old!" Dorie said proudly, drawing herself up as much as she could. She was tall for her age, and with her blue eyes and slightly long nose, Hermione could see her father in her. Her light brown hair and pretty mouth, though, were definitely her mother's.

"And the nanny cancelled on us at the last minute, so we had to bring the girls along," Ron supplied in response to her first question. "So far, they seem to be having a great time."

"I bet they are," Hermione smiled, straightening again. "How is Pansy?"

"Better," he replied as they started walking away from the fountain, Dorie happily holding Hermione's hand. "The morning sickness is finally starting to decrease and she's not as tired as before. It's been a difficult few months, though. I don't recall it being so hard the first two times."

Hermione nodded. She had never been pregnant herself, but she had read enough about the topic to know that the symptoms could vary wildly from one pregnancy to the next. And potions did not always help. "Well I'm glad to hear it. Just the fact that you could both come tonight is a big step forward."

"Yeah. We'll probably go right after the speech, though, what with the girls and Pansy needing to get some sleep."

They reached the side of the room where some tables and chairs had been set along the wall, for those who wanted to sit down for a while. Most were empty. People were still arriving and almost everyone was standing, exchanging introductions and civilities. At one of the tables sat a visibly pregnant Pansy Parkinson—Pansy Weasley, now—with a three-year-old girl in a violet dress just as frilly as her sister's. Pansy smiled at Hermione and responded to her greeting easily. They were not exactly friends—there was probably too much baggage between them for that to happen—but they were friendly, and they had come to know and to appreciate each other over the years. Besides, she was Ron's wife, and Hermione knew that he cared about her. As far as she was concerned, that was enough.

Hermione was greeted by a pleased "Aunt Harmony!" from little Camellia, who immediately extended her arms for a hug. That name was a remnant of the time when Dorie had been too young to say her name. When she grew up, she continued using that as a nickname, and her younger sister promptly adopted it as well. So to them, she was Aunt Harmony and nothing else.

"Where is Draco?" Pansy asked as Hermione took a seat.

"He went off to talk to some pompous dignitary or another," she shrugged. "You know, politics."

Hermione knew very little about politics herself. She simply did not have enough interest in the topic to bother investigating it. To her, it was just fine words and a lot of dancing around the truth. She suspected she would not stand it for a day if she tried her hand at it.

There was a sudden commotion as Camellia started screaming and hitting her sister, who responded by pushing her back, which obviously threw the younger girl onto the ground. In no time, Ron and Pansy were very busy trying to calm their daughters and sort out what had happened. Hermione watched them from where she sat, knowing better than to try interfering, and she wondered at the miracle that that marriage had brought.

Who would have thought, seven years ago, that these two could be a happily married couple? With two children and a third on the way? She certainly would not have. And, truth be told, it had seemed at first that it would be a disaster. Ron and she had avoided seeing each other much during the first few months, knowing that it would only rekindle their flame and make things harder on both of them. But she had heard from Ginny that things were not going well at all. And then, Pansy had become pregnant, and everything had changed. Hermione would never have imagined Ron as such a caring and devoted father, but he was. Having a child had transformed both of them, it seemed, and from then on, their affection had only grown.

Maybe that was what was missing from her life. Would a child have made a difference? Would it have kept Draco from constantly travelling and made him stay closer to her? Would it have kept her from busying herself in her work so much that she barely had time to spare him? She could not complain about her husband. When he was there, he always behaved perfectly towards her. Just tonight, he had been the perfect gentleman, staying by her side for a while after they arrived and introducing her to various acquaintances. Then, they had split up as they usually did at these events, him to go politicking and her to join her friends.

She knew she could count on him, too. If she ever owled him that she needed him urgently while he was away, he would drop everything and come back. He had done it the first time she thought she was pregnant. Back then, he had travelled less and spent more time with her, though they hardly got along as well as they did now. And he had been at her side within a few hours. But the Healers had said that it was a false alarm, and so he had left again.

When they told her, several months and many tries later, that she could never have children, she had not wanted to believe it at first. But they had showed her the results, and she had had no choice but to acknowledge the truth. They said it may have been because of a curse she received. Perhaps the Cruciatus Curse Bellatrix Lestrange had used on her in the last year of the war. At any rate, it was too late to do anything about it. And so, as some part of her she had not known existed crumbled to dust, Hermione had felt a mixture of sadness and relief. Sadness that she would never be a mother, at least not without adopting. And relief that she would not have to have a child with Draco Malfoy. She would not be bound to him.

The Ministry officials had not liked it, of course. The Twilight Peace required each married couple to remain married for a minimum of seven years and a day and to have at least one child in that time, preferably as soon as possible. They had not been able to prevent divorce altogether—nobody would have agreed to the marriages if they had—but the child was meant to strengthen the bond between the couples and give them an additional reason to stay together after the deadline expired. Faced with the simple facts, however, they had had to admit that Hermione could not be held to that part of the Pact. And so, unlike the other couples, Hermione and Draco were not parents. Given what she had seen with some of the others, a child would not necessarily have kept them from drifting apart; despite their twin boys, Neville and Daphne had not lived in the same home for nearly five years. Yet, she could not help but wonder what would have happened if she had had a child.

Not that she wanted one, of course. She was very glad that she did not have any. She might not see Draco very often, but when she did, they got along well, and she enjoyed his company while it lasted. Besides, this way, she had plenty of time to focus on her work. She was working on the Ministry's Archives project, an attempt to put together as much scattered knowledge and lost documentation as possible from the times just before and during the war. A lot of it had been lost in the fighting or simply destroyed, and years later, the project was only beginning to be near completion. It was fascinating work but time-consuming as well, and not having to worry about a husband or, worse, a child all the time made things much easier for her. Yes, she was happy with the way things were.

Ron and Pansy seemed to have managed to restore a semblance of peace between their girls. Dorie still glared at her sister in their mother's arms, who had not completely stopped sniffling, but at least they were not fighting any longer. Pansy sighed.

"I think Camellia is tired," she said. "Ron, will you try to put her to sleep for a little while? There are a couple of quiet rooms beyond the fireplaces on the other side."

Ron nodded and Pansy passed their daughter along to him. He carried her away, murmuring soothing words in her ear.

As soon as they were gone, Dorie asked: "Can I have a pumpkin cake?"

Pansy blinked. She had just eased herself back down on her chair with a slight grimace. Her back must be hurting again. "There are no pumpkin cakes, honey. Where did you get that idea from?"

Dorie frowned. "There were last time. Daddy bought me one!"

Pansy seemed confused, so Hermione came to her rescue. "She's probably talking about the day when there was a bake sale in the Atrium. Some Quidditch club, I think. Ron probably couldn't resist."

Pansy gave a small laugh. "Of course not. Well, I'm sorry, Dorie, but there are no pumpkin cakes today. The people who were selling them are not here."

Dorie pouted, her mouth shaped so like her mother's that Hermione could not help but think of Pansy during their school days. She could bet that the Slytherin girl had done her fair share of pouting in her time. "But I'm hungry!" she protested.

Pansy heaved another tired sigh and opened her mouth to speak but Hermione forestalled her.

"I can take her to the kitchens. I'm sure we'll find something for her to eat. Would you like that, Dorie?"

The little girl nodded eagerly, her smile back in a heartbeat. "I've never seen the kitchens! Where are they?"

Pansy gave her a grateful look as she took her daughter away.

Dorie babbling happily all the way, they walked across the Atrium towards the lifts that took visitors and employees alike to the other levels of the Ministry. Guests were not allowed there, but every security guard knew Hermione on sight and they let her through. She was a celebrity, after all, not to mention that she had worked there for over five years. They did not take a lift but instead went through a passageway around them and into a small corridor. This was where the wizards in charge of security had a small office, various supplies were kept in cupboards and, further down the hall, house-elves worked in the kitchens to feed the hundreds of Ministry employees every day. Freeing house-elves had been one of the fights Hermione had had to give up within the new order of things. The wizarding world had been forced to move forwards in some ways, but for other things, it remained firmly rooted in the past. Attacking one of the most prized privileges of rich pure-blood families had been out of the question if peace was to be preserved. Like many other things, she had had to learn to live with it.

As they passed in front of an office door, Hermione thought she heard muffled voices coming from inside. That was strange; security wizards should all be out making sure the celebration went smoothly. Dorie was eager to move on, however, so she did not stop. At the entrance to the kitchens, Hermione knocked twice politely, and then the door swung open. The house-elves beamed when they recognised her. They had been wary of her at first, coming to see them to talk, something wizards never did, and worse, talking about escape and freedom. But once she had realised that her approach was not working, she had changed her methods and started bringing them small gifts instead. Certain kinds of foods, precious to them because they were hard to come by, invariably had them squealing in joy at the thought of improving their cuisine for a day. And once she stopped talking about freeing them, they started loving her. She still regretted not being able to do more for them—she was convinced that if they got a taste of freedom, they would change their minds about it—but she did what she could.

The house elves happily greeted Dorie and assured her that she could have whatever she wanted to eat. One of them even produced a small pumpkin cake, to the little girl's delight. Hermione cautioned them not to feed her too much, and then she heard sounds coming from the corridor again and decided to go see what it was. The door to the security office was not closed all the way, and as she approached, she could hear the sounds more clearly. There seemed to be feet shuffling and things banging against each other. Without thought, she pushed the door open, and then dearly wished she had not. Rooted to the spot, she stared as Draco, with his shirt half off, thoroughly snogged a witch he had propped up against the wall. His robe was lying on the floor and his cloak seemed to have slid off from a chair when it had been knocked over. Actually, judging by the angle, the cloak had been on the ground before the chair toppled. He had probably thrown it across the back but not carefully enough to keep it from sliding down. He often did that when he took off his cloak. Her eyes wandered across the tiled floor—a very nice, symmetrical design—and she wondered where the cane was.

The mind behaved in strange ways sometimes. Hermione vaguely registered, as she looked everywhere but at the couple she had walked in on, that they had moved away from each other as soon as she had entered the room.

"Hermione—"

Her name, spoken by him, seemed like a slap to the face. With an effort, she made herself look at him. He was now several feet away from the woman, who was still standing against the wall, adjusting her dress. Hermione did not know if she was looking at her, but she had no intention of making eye contact. She kept her eyes on Draco, who was quickly doing up his shirt buttons. He opened his mouth again, but before he could say anything more, Dorie seemed to materialize beside Hermione.

"Look Aunt Harmony, Minky gave me a seashell!" she squealed in delight. "It's—" then she looked into the room and stopped dead in her tracks. "Uncle Draco? What are you doing?"

Suddenly alarmed, Hermione forced herself to come to her senses. She could not let the little girl notice that something was wrong, if she had not done so already. She made her voice cheerful. "What a coincidence, Dorie! I just ran into Uncle Draco. Well, where are your manners? Go hug him!"

Dorie seemed to hesitate for an instant, but then she smiled and ran into Draco's arms, who lifted her up in one smooth motion and kissed her on both cheeks.

"Put me down, put me down!" she laughed.

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief as he set her back on the ground and started telling her how pretty her seashell was. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the other witch starting to move towards the door. Hermione did not want to still be there when she reached it.

"Dorie, can you go back to your mother on your own?" she called. "I just remembered there is something I need to do."

She barely waited for the girl's assent before walking off as fast as she could.

Chapter Text

The bathroom door opened with a creak and Hermione hastily dabbed at her eyes. She did not want to be seen crying. Some reporter wondering in the gossip pages what had Hermione Malfoy in tears during the anniversary ball was the last thing she needed. When the heels clicking on the floor rounded the corner, however, she was not sure that she would not have preferred a reporter.

“I thought I might find you here,” Pansy said in a tone much softer than anything she had used to address Hermione before.

She knew. She must have pieced it together from whatever Dorie had told her and Hermione’s failure to return with the little girl. Hermione wanted to scream in frustration. Even if she tried to deny it, she knew it was too late. Pansy knew and that was that.

The other woman walked up to her, compassion battling unease on her face. Clearly, she had no idea how to behave in this situation. She had never been the comforting type, after all. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to find out—”

“I already knew,” Hermione interrupted.

Relief was plain in Pansy’s expression, though she tried to hide it. “Good,” she said. “I mean, not good, that’s not what I meant, but,” she took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is, for a moment there, I thought you’d never known, and I had no idea how to broach the subject.”

Hermione gave a rueful laugh. It seemed to come out wrong, somehow. “Oh, I knew all right. We discussed it a long time ago. If our marriage was to be nothing but a sham, there was no reason to try being faithful to each other. It made sense. The most logical thing to do, wasn’t it?” She laughed again, nervously. Why was she saying this to Pansy, of all people? And why did the other woman have such a knowing look on her face all of a sudden?

“I’m sorry,” she said again, but without the unease this time. She gently put a hand on Hermione’s arm. Gently! When had Pansy ever become gentle? “I know how cruel it is to be in love with Draco Malfoy.”

The words seemed to burn like a hot poker, and before she could stop herself, Hermione violently jerked back. “I’m not—” she sputtered then cut off. “Why would you say that?”

Pansy let her arm fall back and sighed. “If you didn’t care, seeing it shouldn’t have made any difference. But it obviously did, and so you obviously do. I’ve been there, Hermione. I can tell.”

Hermione felt drained. Exhausted, really, to the point that she could not muster up the energy to fight it any more. She leaned against the bathroom wall and let herself slide down to the floor.

Pansy was right, after all. In a way that she still could not explain to herself, against her best judgement, she had fallen for the man she had married. Oh, it had nothing of the fiery passion so many called love or the warm, affectionate romance she had thought for the briefest time she would know with Ron. This was something else, perhaps something close to what Pansy and Ron had found. She did not know how to define it, but she knew that when Draco was away, she missed him, and when she saw him after a long while, part of her worries seemed to melt away. She knew that she was less eager to get to work when he was home in the morning and that she left work earlier when she knew he would be at home waiting. She also knew that it had felt like a nail driven through her heart when she had seen him with that other witch.

It did not even matter who she was. Hermione knew that the witch was not the same one he had been seeing last month and that another would take her place in a few weeks. It did not matter, either, that she had agreed to this and could have done the same herself as many times as she wished. She did not want to. She had tried, a few times. But they had agreed that whatever they did, they had to keep their affairs discreet, for propriety’s sake. And sneaking around in secret was too much work for her to bother trying. Or at least, that was what she had told herself—and almost believed.

Pansy seemed to consider, then reject, joining her on the floor. Instead, she pulled out a stool from under the dressing tables lining the other wall and sat down. “He’s never half as bad as he tries to make himself, you know,” she said, musingly. “But he’s always had a knack for making the worst possible decisions at the worst possible times.”

Hermione looked at her, wondering what she was getting at, and Pansy frowned.

“I’m not trying to defend him. He brought this upon himself and he needs to deal with the consequences. But I just want you to remember this before you decide anything: if it were up to him, I think he’d want to stay with you.”

Hermione shook her head. “Why would he want that? We barely spend any time together. He’s almost always away, working or,” she swallowed, but made herself say it, “or seeing other women. I don’t see why he wouldn’t want to be rid of me in order to finally give those things his full attention. Not to mention, be able to do so openly.”

Pansy studied her face, her head tilted slightly. “Is that what you think? That you’re just a burden keeping him from what he would rather be doing?”

Hermione was about to reply that yes, of course, why would she even think otherwise? But she forced herself to pause and think about the question for a minute. It was true that when they were together, Draco seemed to enjoy her company every bit as much as she did his. And even though the end of the seven year period was drawing near, he had never brought up the topic with her, not even when all the newspapers had started buzzing about it, wondering if the foundation that the Twilight Peace had been built upon was about to fall to pieces.

“Did you and Ron talk about it?” she said, instead of answering.

Pansy did not ask what she meant. “Of course,” she shrugged. “In passing. We’re not getting a divorce, obviously, but I find it somewhat satisfying to know that soon, I’ll be married because I want it and not because some self-righteous lawmaker forced me into it.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste at that last thought.

Of course. Hermione wished things were that simple for her. She sighed. “Even if he did want us to stay married, I don’t think I would be happy with it.” She had started gesturing nervously as she spoke. “Maybe he’s taken me for granted, and he’s content with the way things are, but I’m not.”

She looked up into the other woman’s considering eyes, and she felt some of her will come back to her. She continued in a defiant tone, “I won’t let him hurt me anymore, Pansy. I want an actual chance at happiness, and if I can’t have it with him, then I sure as hell won’t let him stop me from finding it elsewhere!”

Pansy's lips quirked in a smile, and she got up from her stool with a wince, holding the edge of the dressing table for support. “That sounds more like you. You’ve always been braver than I ever was.”

Hermione started to reply to that, but Pansy cut her off.

“Now, don’t think I’ll make a habit out of singing your praises or cheering you up in Ministry bathrooms from now on. We should go; the Minister will give his speech any time now, and I want to get this over with so I can go home. My back hurts like hell.”

Hermione could not help but smile at that. Maybe Pansy was more of a friend than she had thought. “Go ahead,” she said. “I'll come in a minute.”

The other woman nodded, but before exiting the room, she grew strangely solemn for a moment longer. “Do me a favour, though, Hermione. Think about what I said before you decide.”

Startled, Hermione could only nod in assent. “Then do me a favour as well,” she asked in turn. “Please don’t tell Ron. You know how he can get… I don’t want any more drama than is needed.”

“Don’t worry, I am not about to give him a reason to throw a fit,” Pansy assured her wryly. “I swear, sometimes, you’d think he’s the one who’s pregnant!”

And with that, the solemn moment was gone, and she walked out into the Atrium, leaving Hermione alone with her thoughts.

***

Ron spotted his wife emerging from the crowd and hurried towards her. In the few moments before she saw him, he had time to notice that Pansy had a worried look on her face. She smoothed her features as he approached and smiled, but he knew her too well not to know that something was wrong. It was not necessarily a big problem: Pansy was a rather nervous woman, and many things could unsettle her, though she was quite good at hiding it. But there was something, nonetheless.

“What happened?” he asked. “I went back to the table, but you were all gone. Where is Dorie?”

“With Daphne,” Pansy replied easily. “She agreed to watch her while I went to the bathroom.”

She pointed, and Ron turned to spot a little girl in a pink dress speaking animatedly with a tall, blonde woman who looked slightly bored. Daphne had left her own sons at home, of course. He wondered if she spent any time with them at all. She had never seemed to be much of a motherly figure. She had been more than happy to let Neville take care of the boys most of the time after he moved out of their home.

“What about Camellia?” Pansy asked. “Don't tell me that you left her alone, Ron!”

“Of course not!” he protested. “She's sleeping. I got a house-elf to watch her and warn me if she wakes up.”

She gave him a disapproving stare. She did not like house-elves to take care of children. Ron did not see why they should not. They were perfectly reliable, and it was their job to rid wizards of their most tedious tasks, after all.

He sighed. “Fine. I'll go get her. But she's going to wake up.”

Pansy did not seem too happy about it either, but she did not change her mind. “It's all right. We're leaving soon anyway. Hurry or you'll miss the speech. I'll save you a spot.”

As Ron walked away, he realised that Pansy had not really answered his question. What had happened? And where had Hermione gone? He missed Hermione. The war had stolen from him his two best friends, and he sometimes felt lonely without them. Having a family of his own helped, but he could still feel their loss.

He missed Hermione's friendship more than he missed her love. They were still friends, of course, but it was not the same. He hoped that she was all right. She seemed happy with Malfoy—he still could not bring himself to call him Draco; he did so with others, but in his own mind, it was still Malfoy—or at least, she seemed as happy as possible given the circumstances. But he felt that it was not enough. He remembered her the way she had been at sixteen or seventeen: strong, and fierce, and brilliant. He remembered thinking that nothing could ever stand in the way of what she wanted. That she could decide to turn the world upside down and succeed. Today, that part of her seemed to have vanished. The war had taken something away from all of them, but he did not want to believe that it had managed to extinguish Hermione's fire.

He entered the room where his youngest daughter was sleeping on a low couch and carefully knelt beside her to pick her up. She stirred and mumbled, and he murmured soothingly in her ear while carrying her out of the room.

***

Lost in thought in front of a mirror for the second time that evening, Hermione was letting her mind take a very different direction this time. She had lied to herself. Not too much, not too openly. Not outrageously enough to be able to call herself out on it. But what she had done was worse somehow. She had not denied the disappointment, the hurt, and the loss she had felt; she had told herself that she had resigned herself to them. And maybe she had. Maybe she had pretended so much that it had become true. But she was not resigned now. She was looking at the ugly truth straight in the eyes and truly confronting it for the first time in years.

Her best friend was dead. People she had known and cared for were dead, so many it broke her heart to count. The man she had thought she would spend the rest of her life with had married another woman, and she was stuck in a marriage she had somehow convinced herself she was content with, though it had been nothing but misery from the start. And she hid away from it all by busying herself with the work she pretended was important, when what she really wanted had been given up for the sake of peace and compromise.

Most of it could not be helped. She could not ressurect the dead or completely change the course of the past seven years. But there were some things she could change. And she was going to. Starting now.

She cast a quick spell on herself, to get rid of the last traces of tears, then took a long, composing breath before turning away from the mirror to exit the room.

***

In the Atrium, Draco was scanning the crowd anxiously, stopping every time he saw a woman in red, only to realise moments later that she was not the one he was looking for. Where had she gone? He felt increasingly ill as his suspicion that she would not come back solidified into certainty. Never in his life had he wished so badly to turn back time and erase his last actions forever.

It was simple. Such a small difference: all he would have had to do was stay focused on his discussion with the Hungarian Head of Magical Trade instead of letting himself be lured away by Cedrina's discreet hints, a little distance away. On any ordinary day, he would have done exactly that. He knew better than to compromise political opportunities for shallow distractions. But today was different. Today, everything seemed to be a reminder of the past, even the foreign politician's questions about the reliability of the British market at such a hazardous time. He was sick of it all: the scrutiny, the debates, the feeling of always being watched, and weighed, and judged. Spending an evening reassuring people that the British magical community was perfectly stable and safe had seemed too much to bear for once. He had just wanted to forget about it all, if only for a little while. So, he had artfully slipped away to join his lover of the moment, and everything had gone wrong after that.

No, not everything. A single thing. But it had been enough.

Suddenly, she was in front of him, emerging from the crowd so suddenly that she might have Apparated. Draco felt his heart race as his eyes met hers, torn between relief and apprehension. But Hermione's expression was perfectly calm. She gave him a mild smile and extended her arm for him to take. Luckily, years of practice had enabled him to act his part without thought, regardless of his feelings, and he fell almost seamlessly into step besides her.

"Everybody is ready," she commented in an even voice. "If we don't hurry, people will wonder where we are."

Draco did not know what to say, so he kept his mouth closed and followed her lead. She was right. Almost all the guests had assembled around the small stage that had been set up for the proceedings, and the Ministry spokeswizard was standing on it, facing the audience. In moments, the ceremony would start.

As they walked towards their place of honour at the front, most people making way for them as soon as they were recognised, Draco tried to understand what had happened. Why was she so serene? She was composed, cool, as if nothing at all had happened. Yet he was sure that she had been upset earlier. That look in her eyes—it still chilled him to remember it. It had been what made him so certain that she would leave and never come back. He had been sure that it was hurt. But it couldn't be. Not with the way she was behaving now. So, what had it been?

He tried to remember what she had said. People will wonder... Of course. That was why she had been upset. By meeting with a lover in such a public place, he had risked being seen. In fact, he had been seen. Only, luckily, by none other than Hermione herself. Once she realised that no damage had been done to their public image, she had probably regained her calm. She would hold it against him for a while, of course—he deserved it. But everything would soon go back to normal.

He wondered why he felt a tinge of regret at that. It was ridiculous: He did not want to hurt Hermione. So, why was he disappointed with the explanation he had made for himself? She was only mad that he had taken such foolish risks and compromised both their reputations. He should be relieved. He was. Only... for a short while, he had thought that she cared, and he was surprised by how disappointed he felt that she really did not. Mentally shaking himself, he decided to attribute that strange feeling to the high emotions still coursing through him and forced his mind to focus on something else. The Minister’s speech, for example.

It was grandiose and long-winded, as usual. Choosing a Minister for Magic after the peace treaty was signed had not been an easy task. Anyone even remotely known for siding with one of the two factions at war had been out of the question. That meant that almost every person with the slightest hint of a strong personality had to be excluded. The result was Ophelius Rumball, an excessively formal, ridiculously grandiloquent, and disgustingly unctuous man who bent over backwards to satisfy all the different groups pushing for influence at the Ministry and who was failing miserably to please any. It was a well-known fact that the lobbies were the real power behind the scenes, with high-ranked office-holders receiving support from one or the other group and pursuing interests often putting them at odds with each other. A cabinet of counsellors with much executive power had been formed with the goal of restoring a semblance of authority to the Ministry, but it had not taken long for power struggles to completely infect it as well. The whole thing was an inextricable mess, and Draco, who was a member of the cabinet himself, sometimes felt like each step forward came at the cost of half-a-dozen backwards.

Rumball’s speech was the usual mix of the triumphalism and unquestioning hope for the future that usually characterized these events. Then, it was time for the “true saviours of our civilization” to come up on stage and be acclaimed by the crowd, with the evident yet unspoken side goal of reminding all present that the Twilight Peace was still strong. As she went with Draco to stand before the room with the other couples, Hermione was as collected as ever, maybe even a little too much so. She smiled and said what she was expected to along with the others, with a hand on Draco’s arm, and answered a few questions from journalists with practised ease. But standing so close to her, Draco could feel her tension, her back held a little too straight, her mouth a little too tight, her calm a little too perfect. It only confirmed what he had puzzled out: she was merely keeping up appearances. Like she always had—like they both always had. He found himself worrying about what would happen when they were alone at home. Would she continue to be collected, cold, distant? Or would she erupt at him like she used to so long ago, in the first years of their marriage, to confront him about what he had done?

He later realised that he should not have worried, for none of those things happened. When the ceremony was over, she told him that she felt tired and preferred to go home, leaving at the same time as Pansy and Ron did with their daughters. He could not go yet: he had to stay and attempt to continue the conversation he’d abandoned with the Hungarian official, if it was not too late. When he arrived at Malfoy Manor much later that night, there was no light under Hermione’s door, and so he went to sleep without seeing her.

***

The next morning, Draco found Hermione sitting at the small dining room's table, a stack of parchments in front of her and a steaming mug in her hands. From the first whiff of aroma coming from it, Draco recognised one of her favourite treats, a Muggle beverage called “mokachino”. That was enough to make him wary, though after the previous night's events, even the smallest hint would have been enough to concern him. Hermione did not drink mokachino often. She said it was not healthy enough to have on a regular basis, and she reserved it for special occasions, usually when she was either particularly upset or particularly pleased. He could not imagine that it was the latter. Closer inspection revealed a generous serving of whipped cream quickly melting into the hot beverage, and that only worsened Draco's unease. The last time she had had this much whipped cream with anything was after she had spent ten hours by her friend Luna's side at St Mungo's, helping her deliver her very difficult baby. He had found her in the cafeteria, with dark lines under her eyes and a very large hot chocolate in her hands topped by an equal amount of cream.

She looked up from the parchments when he came in, and he noticed that she had dark lines under her eyes today as well. Had she not slept at all? If he had been uneasy before, he was on the verge of panic now. Something was terribly wrong, and he was willing to bet that he was about to find out what.

“Good morning,” she said in the same placid voice she had used the previous night after she reappeared. She pointed at a teapot sitting in the middle of the table. “I had the house-elves make you Japanese white tea. I'm having coffee today.”

Japanese white tea. His favourite. He felt completely blindsided. What was happening?

He thanked her and sat down across from her, waving his wand to pour a cup of tea for himself. There were also warm buns in a basket, butter and jam, and he could smell bacon and eggs nearby. Sure enough, the dish materialized on the table a few moments later, along with plates, forks, and knives. The house-elves had prepared all of that, of course, but he knew that Hermione had made her coffee herself. She insisted on cooking sometimes, even after seven years, and had even had a small kitchen set up by the dining room so she would not have to go down to the elves' kitchen when she felt like making herself a sandwich or a salad.

“You look tired,” Draco said after taking a sip of tea. The refined aroma filled his mouth and nostrils. He had come to associate it with quiet evenings spent reading or working with Hermione, often sitting at this very table, all the while speaking of any number of things. He enjoyed talking to her: she was smart and knowledgeable about close to everything he was interested in, and she was witty, too. He could always count on her to carry a thoughtful and entertaining conversation. And even when they did not talk, just sitting together in silence, broken only by pages turning or quills scribbling, it felt good not to be alone.

But today was different. Today, Hermione was looking at him over her dwindling whipped cream with strained eyes that belied the calmness in her voice.

“I've been thinking,” she replied.

Of course she had. He tried to eye the papers without being too obvious. The parchment at the top of the pile had Ministry letterhead on it, but it was slightly rolled up, and he could not make out what it said. He resigned himself to ask.

“About what?”

She took a sip of coffee and a thin layer of cream coated her upper lip. He had never told her this, but he thought it made her look adorable. Even more so when she absently licked it off in a childish gesture. Today, she wiped her mouth with a handkerchief instead then set it down beside her mug. She stared at it for a moment before looking up again.

“I think we should get a divorce.”

Draco felt like he had been hit by a Bludger. “A div—what? Why?” He realised his hands were trembling. He barely managed to put his cup down without spilling any of its contents. He had known that something bad was coming. He had expected the worst. But somehow, he had never imagined that the worst would include this.

“Don't act like you don't know,” Hermione replied dryly, emotions audible in her words for the first time since the previous evening.

“Is this about last night?” Draco could hear his own tone rising, but for once, he was unable to control it. “Because if it is, it would be nice to at least talk about it before making drastic decisions like this!”

Hermione's own tone was very cold, chilling, even. It was like the roles had been reversed: he could feel his temper flaring like a foolish Gryffindor, while she became cooler and more relentlessly Slytherin by the second.

“No, it's not about last night. Or at least, last night only made me realise what I should have known for a long time. You're asking why we should separate. I want to know why we should stay together. Our marriage, our couple—it's nothing more than pretence, an elaborate masquerade, and we've been playing at it for too long. Don't you want to be free at last?”

He was at a loss for words. Was that what she thought? Could she not wait to be rid of him? It stung far more than he could have imagined. Sure, they had not married for love. They had even hated each other for a good part of their lives. But he liked to think that they had come to an understanding, somehow. He liked his life the way it was. Didn't she? She had never hinted otherwise. He did not understand.

“This is the paperwork,” she said, pushing the stack of parchments towards him. “I filled out my part. All you need to do is sign it and we'll be done.”

He stared at the papers, seeing what they said for the first time. Request for release of a magical marriage bond. The day's date was written in Hermione's hand at the bottom, followed by her signature. The neatly formed words in black ink seemed to finally restore his ability to speak.

“There's no way in hell I'm signing this!”

Maybe he would have done better to keep his mouth shut a while longer, after all. She stood up, giving him a long, dark look, and walked out without another word.

Chapter Text

That day at work must have been one of the worst in Hermione's career. It was not because of the job itself. It was a rather uneventful day, with most Ministry employees taking advantage of the national holiday to stay at home and rest or spend time with their families. Hermione had not wanted to stay at home. Home was where Draco was, and she was afraid that if she saw him, she would break down completely. She had had a hard enough time keeping her composure that morning, and she had had to walk out before she burst into a rage—or worse, into tears. So, she did not want to go home, and as for the rest of her family—well, close relationships with Muggles were frowned upon since the end of the war, mostly because they brought up too many difficult debates the wizarding world preferred to keep buried. Even Muggle-borns were discouraged from visiting their families too often, for fear that any contact between the two worlds would result in “incidents” that would then need to be dealt with by laws that were still shaky. Way to bury our heads in the sand, Hermione thought moodily. Something will happen someday, and we had better know by then exactly where we stand or it will be the beginning of anarchy. So, she sent her parents letters through Muggle post and sometimes went into Muggle London to call them with a public phone. They met about once a year at a vacation site or another place where nobody knew them, and the Grangers told everyone that their daughter lived at the other end of the world. Most of their friends and neighbours had practically forgotten that she existed. It was for the best, the Ministry officials said.

So, the day was bad because Hermione could not bring herself to focus on the job. Or muster up the slightest hint of interest in what she was doing. How had she managed to convince herself that she enjoyed this? It was so pointless. All she did was immerse herself in a past that was gone for good instead of trying to do what she could for the future. She stalked angrily down the hallway, a large stack of binders in her arms, and almost bumped into Theodore Nott rounding the next corner.

“Hermione!” he exclaimed, obviously as surprised as her. He caught the binder from the top of the pile before it slid off. “Can I help you carry these? You can barely see where you are going.”

She gratefully agreed. The binders were heavy—heavy with useless ramblings that should have been burned long ago, she added sourly in her mind—and she needed to talk to someone to get her mind off her dark thoughts.

“So, working today?” Theo asked as they made their way to her office, each carrying half of the pile.

Theo was Luna's husband, though according to Luna, the exact definition of their relationship was “partners for certain things and not for others”—whatever that meant. They had a daughter, almost three now, and they lived in a lovely house in the countryside. Hermione and Luna were close, along with Ginny, and they spent a fair amount of their free time together. Since Luna had had her daughter, though, she was much busier, and so Hermione saw less of her. As for Theo, he worked at the Ministry as well, though not in the same department, and Hermione occasionally ran into him. They had never been particularly close, but when she started knowing him better, she had discovered to her surprise that he was a rather intelligent man, though generally quiet and discreet.

“Yes. I had too much to do to take the day off,” Hermione replied to his question. It was not exactly a lie—she did have a lot to do—but he did not need to know the real reason why she had come to work today.

“You look tired,” Theo noted. “You should rest more. Work can wait, you know.”

She was somewhat surprised by the comment. They were on good terms, but he rarely said anything that personal to her. “I'm fine,” she replied, trying for a light tone. “I've had a lot on my mind lately, but it's nothing to worry about.”

He seemed to accept that explanation, and they spent the rest of the way talking about why Theo was in the office on a holiday—he had taken too many days off in the year already and needed to make them up. He did not seem to mind much, though. He helped her carry two more stacks of documents, and when they were done, he asked if she would like to have lunch with him in the cafeteria a little later.

“There's almost nobody here today,” he said. “We might as well eat together instead of both spending lunch alone.”

Hermione usually had lunch in her office. There were too many people at the Ministry she would rather not have to talk to, and going to the cafeteria meant almost certainly running into at least one of them. But Theo had a point. The cafeteria would be almost empty today, and it would be nice to get out of that room for once. Not to mention, spend a little bit of time with somebody else. So, she agreed, and a little under an hour later, she was sitting at one of only four occupied tables in the cafeteria while Theo brought both of them a pitcher of fresh juice to share.

“How are Luna and Salome?” Hermione asked as they started eating.

“Well, Sally is still not out of her rebellious phase, but she's getting better. Luna is taking care of her so I can work today. She owes me after she took that two week trip last month.”

Hermione remembered that. Luna had left without much warning, but then, it was not unusual for her to make decisions on a whim and explain later. Hermione had not had a chance to properly sit down with her and ask about it since she had come back. “Right—to Italy, wasn't it? Was it a business trip?”

Theo snorted. “I suppose you could call it that.”

Hermione's eyebrows rose, and he seemed to realise she did not know what he was talking about.

“She didn't tell you? Well, I suppose she will soon enough. It won't be a secret for long anyway.”

“Oh, you have to tell me now,” she protested. “You can't just leave it hanging like that!”

He laughed. “I guess it's all right. She went to visit a girlfriend.”

“Oh.” She was a little disappointed. From his reaction, she had expected something more out of the ordinary. “She lives in Italy? Do I know her?”

“No, you don't.”

Why was there an amused light in his eyes, now?

“You see, it's her girlfriend.”

He put special emphasis on the word this time, and suddenly she understood. “You mean—” She could not finish her sentence the first time. She bit her tongue and started again. “They're dating?”

Theo nodded.

“And you don't mind?”

It was not so much that Luna was seeing a woman that surprised her. Her friend had always claimed that she did not feel exclusively attracted to men, and she had even had a fling or two that she had told Hermione about, in her own dreamy, matter-of-fact way. She said that Theo knew and that he did not care, though she had never gone into the details of how exactly it worked out. They were together, after all. It was clear that they were a couple. Hermione had simply assumed that they had an agreement similar to Draco’s and hers. But this seemed like something different.

“It's not the first time, you know,” he said. “We just kept it quiet before; but now that the seven years are coming to an end, we're becoming bolder, I suppose.”

“So, you're going to get divorced?” She felt her pulse quicken as she asked that question, too many of her own worries resurfacing with the turn their conversation was taking.

Theo shrugged. “No, we're not. We have Salome, after all. It's good for her if we stay together. And we get along well. Until one of us decides to get serious with somebody else, we're fine the way we are.”

“But—” She was having difficulties forming her thoughts again. “How does it work?

He was smiling again. “You should know more about it than I did at first. It's a Muggle thing, it seems. They call it an open relationship.”

An open relationship. And it had been going on this whole time? How had she not noticed? Maybe she had not paid enough attention. Now that she thought back, though, she remembered times when it should have been obvious.

“And you've been seeing other . . . people, as well?” She had been about to say “other witches”, but she realised she probably should not assume. She kept discovering new things, lately, it seemed.

“Sometimes, yes. Not at the moment, though. And I only date women, in case you were wondering.”

That last was said with a grin, and Hermione felt herself blush a little.

“Do you think it's strange?” he continued. “Seeing other people openly but still being together?”

“I—” She did not know what to say. It seemed to happen a lot around Theo. Yes, she thought it was strange. But also intriguing. And seductive, in a forbidden kind of way. “Maybe,” she finally replied, choosing her words carefully. “But it might be because I just don't know what it's like.”

“Would you like to?”

She opened her mouth and closed it and knew she was blushing even more. Before she could say anything, he cut in quickly.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't make you uncomfortable.”

Hermione shook her head. “It's fine. I probably just need a bit of time to process all this.”

He nodded and smoothly changed the subject, to her relief.

***

Most of the tables were still full at the Dragon's Den, one of the trendy pubs in magical London. Though the Anniversary celebrations were officially over, people here were shamefully prolonging them by another evening, gleefully—and drunkenly, for the most part—raising their glasses to peace and victory. Draco had never exactly understood what the victory was supposed to be. The way he recalled it, the war had ended with both sides losing. But the world remembered what it wanted to, and so victory it was.

Sitting directly at the bar, he was drinking, too, though not for the same reason as the others. He had spent the day reading over the parchments Hermione had left on the breakfast table, trying to find a way out, anything he could do to avoid signing them. He had known it to be a futile effort before starting. Asking him to sign was a courtesy—she could file for divorce whether he agreed to it or not. It might take longer, but he could not force her to stay with him. When he could not bear it any longer, he had left home and wandered around for a while before finally ending up here. Since then, he had been drinking. It did not exactly make him feel better, but it made him feel less. It was better than nothing.

“Well, well. What are you doing here?”

The familiar voice made him raise his head, and he recognised Blaise Zabini, his childhood friend and political ally—at least, when it suited him. Blaise did not work at the Ministry. He spent most of his time supporting his wife's Quidditch career, and it seemed to work well for him. But he was still influential, and when he voiced his support for something, it lent it weight in the eyes of the magical community. He usually supported Draco's plans, if only because their wives were best friends. Sometimes, Draco thought that his and Blaise’s marrying Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley, respectively, had brought them closer than when they were just friends tied by family relations and common allegiances.

“I could ask you the same,” Draco replied, his voice slightly slurred. He had not drunk that much. A few glasses. At most.

“Oh, for me, the answer is simple,” Blaise said, pulling out a stool to sit beside Draco. “I come here all the time. I have all my business meetings here. I haven't seen you around in months, though.”

The pub was noisy, and they had to speak loudly to cover the calls of customers ordering drinks and just the general shouting from the crowd.

“Well, I'm here now,” Draco said. “It's time to celebrate, isn't it?”

Blaise shot him a doubtful look. “You've never been one to party much. Especially alone. Don't you have somewhere to be?”

The bartender put a new glass of Firewhiskey in front of Draco, and he was reaching for it when his friend snatched it away from him.

“Hey, mind your own business!” Had he shouted? He did not think so. But some people around them turned to look at him. Maybe he was more drunk than he had thought.

“You've had enough,” Blaise retorted. And he proceeded to empty the glass himself.

“But it's okay for you to drink?” Draco asked sullenly.

Blaise shrugged. “I just closed a wonderful advertising deal. My wife is not coming back from her team's pre-season retreat until tomorrow, and I don't feel like going back to an empty home yet. What's your excuse?”

“My wife is leaving me.”

Blaise's eyebrows rose, and he signalled for the bartender to bring another round. “Well, then. I guess you do get to drink.”

***

When he got home that night, Theo found his wife seated at her desk in their small library, writing. Something for the Quibbler, he would guess. The Ministry had tried hard to shut the paper down when it had started voicing increasingly unsettling opinions after the war, but Luna was too smart to let them get away with it. The Quibbler had gone underground, and even though scarcely anyone read it anymore—even outside the Ministry, people did not like being told that they had made all the wrong choices—she had never stopped keeping it alive.

She looked up from her work when he came in and smiled. “Good evening. How was work?”

“Good.” He walked over to one of the reading chairs by the fireplace, and surprisingly, she stood and went to join him. She rarely interrupted her writing once she had started.

“That wasn't very eloquent,” she observed as she sat across from him, folding her legs under her in the chair.

Theo shrugged. “Probably because I don't know what to say about it yet.”

Luna watched him for a moment, looking thoughtful. Theo was used to that look by now. It meant that she was pondering something, and there was no use trying to interrupt or change the subject. She would come back to it sooner or later anyway.

“I need to tell you something,” she finally said.

That was a surprise. He had been sure that she would make some observation about him. He knew she had been thinking about it, anyway. But it seemed that he was not the only one who had a lot on his mind tonight. “What is it?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. She seemed troubled. Theo had rarely seen her this way. It was starting to worry him. “You know I went to see Anthea in Milan,” she started.

Theo nodded. What was this about?

“Well, we talked. A lot. And we've kept talking since I came back. And I've come to realise that. . .” She sighed. “She's not happy with what we have.”

Theo frowned. “What do you mean? She's not happy that you live apart?”

“No, it's not that. I mean, maybe it is, but it's just a part of it. She's also not happy that I'm with you.”

Theo's eyebrows rose. That was new. Luna was usually very firm about this—she lived her life the way she wanted and she did not like other people to criticise it. She said that if somebody could not trust her to make the right decisions for herself and her family, then she did not want anything to do with them. Obviously, something had changed.

“So, it's serious, then,” he said. It was not a question.

Luna gave him a sad smile. “Yes, it is. You and I talked about this—we agreed that it might happen some day. I couldn't really imagine it, but here I am. She'd never said anything, you understand, but suddenly I realised that she was hurting. And I realised that I didn't want her to—that I cared enough to change my life for her.”

Theo understood. Luna had always claimed that she liked being married to him and that nobody could make her change that, but he had known. Some day, she would find somebody she truly loved, and then she would leave him. It seemed that day had come.

“So, you want a divorce, then?” he asked.

“Maybe, once we're finally allowed to get one. I don't think it matters, though, as long as we're not together anymore. And anyway, it's not like Anthea and I can get married.”

She grimaced disgustedly at that. It was one thing that always made her angry. Not many things did, but backward laws that refused to change because the people who made them were too busy living in the past made her blood boil. Especially when they affected her.

“But I need to move out, at least,” she continued. “As soon as I find a place to live.” She looked at him with genuine concern. “Will you be all right?”

Theo gave a little laugh. “It will be lonely in here without you. I'll have to work hard to fill the void.”

She smiled. “I'm sure you'll do perfectly fine. The only thing that's kept hordes of witches from coming knocking on your door is that they weren't comfortable doing it while we’re married.”

“Well, I don't know about hordes, but I'm hoping for one or two at least.”

Luna nodded as if he had just said something with a deeper meaning. “Who is she?”

The unexpected question put him off balance for an instant, and he did not answer right away.

“Who is she?” Luna repeated. “The woman you've been thinking about all day.”

“I. . . Hermione,” he finally replied. “I saw her last night at the Anniversary ball, walking out of a room so fast that I wondered what had happened. Later, I saw Malfoy come out, and then another woman.” He glanced at Luna. She was listening intently. “I think she caught him cheating on her.”

Sadness filled Luna's eyes. She really cared about her friend. “So, you went and talked to her today,” she said as if it was the most logical conclusion. Theo had stopped wondering at her surprising insights years ago.

“Yes. I think she's unhappy, Luna. And. . . I hate seeing her that way.”

Luna gave a small smile. “You've always had a thing for her, haven't you?”

He chuckled. He had no idea how she had found that out. “Do you think I stand a chance?”

“You won't know until you've tried.”

He knew that there was no use trying to get her to gauge Hermione's feelings for him. He would have to do the work himself. Well, so be it. He rather liked a challenge, anyway.

She stood, and he did the same. She walked up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder tenderly. “Good luck, Theo. As I said, you'll do great.”

He brushed her blond locks away from her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “I don't suppose I can get one last night with you before you leave?”

Luna shook her head. “I'm sorry. I promised Anthea that we wouldn't sleep together again.”

He put a hand on her waist to draw her closer, and felt the urge to kiss her, to run his hands all over her body, to make her his again. But he knew that that was over now. So, he simply kissed her on the cheek and then let her go.

“I'll miss you,” he told her.

“I know. I'll miss you, too.”

***

Draco exhaled slowly as the persistent pounding that had overtaken his skull faded to a dull ache and then disappeared. “The wizard who invented this potion should have his statue erected in the Ministry of Magic,” he declared.

“Actually, it was a witch.”

Blaise’s voice was coming from somewhere to his left. He experimented with turning his head towards it and was very pleased when the movement did not bring any more pain. His friend was comfortably seated in an armchair, with one foot resting on his other knee, right next to the couch where Draco had crashed a few hours earlier. They were in the lavish sitting room of Blaise and Ginny’s apartment, in the centre of Muggle London. It was well-warded, so it looked nothing out of the ordinary to the unsuspecting eye, but it was twice the size of what should have fit in the modern residential tower, which meant it was almost as large as one of the wings of Malfoy Manor.

The choice had seemed dubious to Draco at first—why choose to live among Muggles, going to the trouble of hiding one’s true identity, when so many other options were available? But he had to admit that the sheer luxury of it was probably enough to overcome any argument against. Blaise had always been one to enjoy luxury, and between his family’s money, his wife’s top-Quidditch-player’s salary, and the generous allocation the Ministry still gave to all the couples of the Twilight Peace, he had no difficulty affording it. Besides, he had once explained to Draco that Ginny preferred it this way as well. It made it almost impossible for the paparazzi to get to her when she was among Muggles—at least, not without violating half a dozen laws along the way.

Even so, Draco was impressed. Normally, the Ministry was very hard on anyone who tried to mingle with Muggles in the slightest. He supposed both of them had used all their influences to be able to get away with it. It was nothing surprising for Blaise—Draco had always known him to be a sly manipulator—but somewhat unexpected for his wife. Back during their time at Hogwarts, Draco had dismissed her as yet another blunt Gryffindor incapable of subtlety—and a Weasley, to top it all!—but getting to know her after her marriage to Blaise had forced him to revise his opinion of her. She was a smart one. Not book-smart, like Hermione, but the type that seemed to always know how to get her way. If you were not careful around her, she could twist you around her finger and make you do exactly as she wished, and half the time you did not even notice.

“Well, I guess witches get drunk just as badly as wizards do,” Draco replied to Blaise’s comment. His voice seemed only a little weak. Overall, the potion was working very well. He sat up completely and brushed a hand through his hair. “What time is it?”

“Half-past eleven.”

Draco almost jumped. “Are you serious? I was supposed to be at work three hours ago!”

“I owled the Ministry,” Blaise replied nonchalantly. “Told them you were sick and had to take a day off.” He eyed Draco critically. “You really look like you need it.”

Draco, who had half-stood when he’d heard the time, let himself sink back down on the couch dejectedly. “I probably do,” he sighed. “Oh well. What then? Aren’t you working today?”

“That’s the good thing about being your own boss. I get to make my own schedule. So no, not working today, either.”

Draco gave him a grateful nod. The only reason Blaise had taken the day off was to stay with him. He really was a good friend.

They had lunch, and then Blaise brought out a deck of cards and they played various games for a while, including magical poker—Draco’s favourite. Then, they took a copy of the Daily Prophet and spent a while looking at the Quidditch news and laughing at the Ministry’s propaganda articles about the Anniversary. Eventually, Blaise put the newspaper down and said, “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

Draco, who had been wiping tears of laughter from his eyes seconds earlier, fell very silent. “Do I have to?” he finally asked.

“Not if you don’t want to. But it doesn’t seem like something that can stay a secret for long, does it?”

“No, I suppose not,” he mumbled. “Oh, well. Fine. Not a whole lot happened, anyway. I woke up yesterday morning and Hermione greeted me with divorce papers.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow at him. “Just like that? Did she say why?”

“No. I mean—” If he was going to talk about this, he might as well be honest. “Maybe. Something happened the other night at the Anniversary ceremony.”

And he proceeded to tell the tale, wincing the entire time, while Blaise listened quietly.

“I don’t understand, though,” he finished. “She seemed fine afterwards. And it’s not like she didn’t know. We’ve been seeing other people for years now, and nothing bad ever happened. I was careless just this once, but nothing came out of it. Nobody else saw me—everything was fine. She can’t request a divorce just because I made one small mistake!”

He had not expected Blaise to wholeheartedly agree, but he had at least hoped for some measure of support and comfort. Instead, the other man stared at him for a moment, and then asked, “So what?”

“‘So what?’ How can you say that?” Draco protested, astonished.

Blaise had the audacity to remain calm. “So—why do you care?”

Draco’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words seemed to be able to form. Finally, he sputtered, “Because I do! Wouldn’t you, in my place?”

Blaise bent forwards a little, leaning towards him. “That’s the thing. I’m not in your place. My wife doesn’t want us to separate because we’re doing perfectly fine together. Whereas you—well, maybe Hermione has a point. Why do you want to stay with her?”

For the second time, Draco turned the question back on his friend instead of answering, feeling increasingly annoyed by the turn the conversation was taking. “Same reason as you, probably.”

“Oh, you mean you’re in love with her?”

Draco snorted. “Please. Can’t we be serious for a second here?” If this was what he got for sharing his problems with Blaise, he was not likely to try again anytime soon. What was wrong with the man?

“I am perfectly serious.”

That got Draco’s attention.

“I love Ginny. And she loves me, too. That’s why we’re together.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Draco asked.

“That I love her? Do you want me to start waxing poetic?”

Draco frowned at his friend’s mocking tone. “No, smart arse. Why are you so sure that she loves you?”

Blaise shrugged. “That’s easy. First of all, she chose me.”

That was true. When the Twilight Peace had been instated, Ginny’s seventeenth birthday was still two months away, so she was too young to fall within the scope of the law. Besides, everybody knew that she had been involved with Harry Potter, and it was expected that she would spend most of her time mourning his death and not want anything to do with anyone else. So, when it turned out that they were one witch short on the “Light” side to make up the couples, it had been a surprise to everyone when she volunteered. Because she was doing it by choice, she had been able to choose who she wanted to be paired with and also to bend some of the rules when it suited her, such as delaying the wedding a bit and being exempt from having to bear children. And she had chosen Blaise.

Still, Draco was not in a mood to let him win the argument. “Well, everybody knows why that happened. She needed to get over Potter and you were good in bed.”

That wiped the smirk off Blaise’s face. “All right, Draco. I am going to ignore all the explicitly and implicitly offensive aspects of what you just said and try to explain this better.”

He leaned back in his seat and frowned to himself for a few seconds before starting to speak again.

“I don’t think she was in love with me at first. I probably wasn’t in love with her, either. But we’d had a short fling back in sixth-year at Hogwarts, and it had been good. We didn’t stay together because, well, she chose Potter over me, and I wasn’t about to start openly dating a Weasley, anyway. But at the end of the war, when she said that she wanted to marry me, I was . . . pleased. It was so much better than to end up with Luna or—no offense—Hermione. Ginny was somebody I knew I could actually get along with. And well, as you said—the sex was pretty good, too.”

The smirk was back at that, and Draco let out a long-suffering sigh but did not interrupt. Blaise soon became serious again.

“It wasn’t easy. She never told me why she volunteered, but it was obvious to anyone that she was still hurting. When I think back, I believe it was just her being incredibly brave and not wanting to be the only one of her friends not making that sacrifice. But I want to believe that there was also some portion of wanting to be with me. And over time, the hurt faded, and we . . .”

Behind the derisive smile, there was a self-conscious light in Blaise’s eyes. Draco did not remember noticing it before.

“I guess we fell in love.”

By the time he finished, Draco was ready to forgive any amount of mocking he had felt before. It was the first time his friend had ever said anything so personal to him, in such detail. It made him a little ashamed of himself. If Blaise was willing to share so much, he could try and find some real answers to his questions as well.

“Well, you’re probably a lucky man, then,” he said finally.

Blaise nodded. “I probably am.”

There was silence after that, just for a few moments, but it seemed to stretch a long time. When Draco broke it, he was feeling rather gloomy. “Hermione doesn’t love me. She would stay with me if she did.”

“Do you want her to?” Blaise asked.

“Stay with me? Of course!”

“No. Do you want her to love you?”

That made him pause. Did he want Hermione to love him? Yes, he supposed he did. If it made her stay . . . But why did he want so badly to be with her? He had told himself that it was convenient, that it was good for his political career, and that he just did not want his life to change. But if that was true, then it should not feel like such a big deal. Other couples were separating. It was even expected that some of them would. Yet, whenever he tried to imagine his life without Hermione in it, it seemed so empty and senseless that he was willing to do anything to keep that from happening.

“Bloody hell,” he growled, burying his face in his hands.

“What?” Blaise asked, sounding suddenly worried.

Draco looked back up, feeling more miserable than he would have thought possible. “I think I really am in love with her.”

Chapter Text

 

Hermione arrived a few minutes early at the Pixie's Plate, one of her favourite small restaurants, so she chose a table and sat down to wait for her friends. She was meeting Luna and Ginny for dinner, only a few hours after the latter’s return from her Quidditch team’s retreat. The new season would start right after, and it was the only evening Ginny’s busy schedule had allowed her to be free. As she waited, Hermione thought back to the events of the day.

It had started on a sour note, when she had taken the divorce papers Draco had not signed to the Ministry to get the procedure started. The wizard in charge had told her that she could not do it yet: she had to wait until the full seven-years-and-a-day was over. Hermione had tried to get him to take the papers anyway and just keep them on file until the time was up—there were less than two weeks left, after all—but he had categorically refused. It was frustrating and enough to ruin the semblance of the good mood she had gained from not seeing Draco in twenty-four hours. He had not been home when she arrived the previous night nor when she left in the morning. She did not know where he was, and it was a little worrying—he very rarely spent the night elsewhere when he was in town—but she had firmly decided that she did not want to know. Not having to see or speak to him had helped her determination, and it was easy to simply ignore the nagging voice telling her he had probably gone to spend the night with that woman. Ignoring that voice was all she had done for seven years. Now, at least, she was doing it consciously, not because she was lying to herself but because she had decided to make it stop mattering.

A surprise had awaited her when she reached her office: there was a bouquet of flowers on her desk and a handwritten card beside it, signed with Theo’s name.

Hermione,

I want to apologize again for my tactlessness yesterday. I hope that you will forgive me and that my lack of manners will not deprive me of spending time with you in the future.

Luna tells me that you like carnations. I hope these are to your taste.

Sincerely,

Theo

She had been forced to admit that he had a way with words. And that he was particularly clever, as well. He had managed to be appropriately apologetic without sounding at all desperate. He called his behaviour “tactless” but never took back what he had said. He’d told her that he wanted to see her again without exactly asking, so as to protect her pride if she accepted and his if she did not. And he’d subtly let her know that his wife was aware that he was courting her and did not mind. For he was courting her, there was no doubt about that. It was done in a smooth and artful way, but it was clear that he was putting effort into it. It was both a little frightening and rather elating to be pursued by someone in that way. She had never really known that before. The first man she had dated, Viktor, had simply asked her out and not much more. Ron had never really courted her—or at least, not in that way, and, of course, there had been none of that with Draco. Some men had shown interest, in more or less discreet ways, over the course of her marriage, but they had never insisted once they realised she was not interested. So, this was new, and she felt like a teenager being wooed for the first time. It was embarrassing.

She had started several responses to the note, but they had all ended up crumpled in her paper bin, and in the end, she had left the office without replying. She would tomorrow, she told herself. It was fine. Maybe speaking with her friends tonight would help. She still did not know if she wanted to tell them about all this, but in any case, she knew that just talking with them would make her feel better.

Just as she was thinking about them, the two women arrived. Ginny's energetic hug and Luna's soothing smile made her heart seem instantly lighter. It was good to see them again.

“How was your trip?” she asked Ginny.

The other woman made a face. “Boring, as usual. If these things weren't mandatory, I would skip them every time.”

“It's a good thing they are, then,” Luna commented. “Contemplation and relaxation do wonders for one's physical health. There's this new meditation technique I've been trying that's also really good for your magical core. It just makes everything Flow so much better.”

The word “Flow” was emphasized in a special way, and Hermione could distinctly hear the capitalized letter. She almost asked what it was, but Ginny was frantically shaking her head at her from behind Luna's back, and so she kept quiet, repressing a smile. The two had been friends for years, yet their personalities were polar opposites, and at times, it was a wonder they had anything in common at all. Of course, fighting side-by-side in a bloody war and sharing the same fate afterwards created bonds that were not easily broken, and so, they were very close, despite their differences.

Oblivious to her friend's gesticulation, Luna proceeded to sit at the table, and Hermione, who had stood up to greet them, joined her. Soon, Ginny was taking a seat as well, a relieved look on her face, and they started discussing the menu and choosing their meals. For the following hour, Hermione laughed and talked and listened to her friends' stories about the places they had been, people they had met, things they were planning to do. It turned out that Ginny already knew about Luna and Theo's open marriage. Hermione was a little offended to find out that she was the last to learn of it, but Luna told her with wide eyes that she thought she knew; with such an innocent look on Luna’s face, Hermione could not hold anything against her for long. Besides, she probably should have known. She had just been too busy hiding her own truth from herself to have paid attention to the lives of others.

Ginny also had an announcement to make. Nobody knew yet, she told them, so they were to keep quiet about it for now: she had decided to retire from Quidditch when this season was over.

“Why?” Hermione asked, surprised. “You're still young! You could play for years still.”

Her friend smiled. “I know. But I think I've had my fun long enough. I—” She paused and laughed a little, nervously. “Blaise and I want to have children,” she said finally.

That was unexpected. Hermione was so taken aback that she was a few seconds late in following Luna's lead and congratulating Ginny. But even as words of support and amazement were flowing out of her mouth, she felt something constricting in her chest, more and more tightly, until she did not know how she would breathe. It was not right, she told herself. Her friends were happy. She should be happy for them. So why did she feel suddenly so sad? It was as if all the joy of the evening had fled, leaving only hollowness and stores of the hurt she had been trying to keep at bay for two days.

Luna was happily married and at the same time seeing somebody else who also made her happy. Hermione did not understand, but it was true, and though she did not want to, she envied her. And Ginny—Ginny, who had gone into her marriage for all the wrong reasons—had, against all odds, found what nobody had believed she would: a fulfilling life with someone she loved. Hermione was terribly jealous, and she hated herself for it.

“Hermione? Are you all right?”

It took her a second to realise that Luna was speaking to her.

“What? Yes! Yes, of course, why wouldn't I be? I'm happy for you, Ginny! It just makes me all—all emotional!” She was stammering and she knew it, but she could not stop. From the look on Ginny's face, she was not convincing at all.

“Oh, Hermione, I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have said it that way; it was so insensitive of me. I'm such an idiot! Going on and on about children like that!”

Hermione suddenly understood what she meant: the infertility. Ginny thought that was the problem—that Hermione could not have children and Ginny could. Maybe it was? Maybe it was part of it. Her emotions were so jumbled together lately that she could barely tell what she was feeling most of the time. She was spoiling the evening's mood, though, and she tried to make herself do something about it.

“It's fine. Don't worry, it's not your fault. I—” She wanted to finish, but to her dismay, her voice broke and tears started flowing out of her eyes.

The rest of the evening was eerie. Talks of travels, of plans, and of children were abandoned, and Hermione's two friends sat holding her hand and wiping her tears while she told them what she had never told anyone, not even herself, really. How she had suffered through the first years of her marriage, torn away from those she loved and shoved into a life she did not want. How she had fallen in love with her husband, slowly but steadily, until the pain of that overrode the rest and managed to obscure it. How much hurt she had felt when she had seen him with somebody else. And how difficult it was now to leave him—yet how much she knew that she needed it. Ginny and Luna never said a word of judgment or criticism. They just listened, and then, slowly, they started talking as well. About their hurts and their challenges, their own moments of despair. All these things everybody knew must exist but nobody ever spoke of, not even those who shared them, because the magical community was too intent on playing pretend.

It was liberating. When they finally left the restaurant and each went her separate way home, Hermione did not feel any less sad or healed. But she did feel more confident and free.

***

“You're up late,” Ginny observed as she walked into the bedroom to find Blaise sitting in his favourite chair near the bed, reading.

He looked up from his book, a thick, boring-looking tome. “I couldn't go to sleep without my lovely wife next to me,” he said with the most innocent expression.

Ginny snorted as she dropped her purse by the door and kicked her shoes off. “Right. Doing it twice in a row as soon as I arrived home this afternoon wasn't enough for you?”

He smiled mischievously. “I don't know. Was it enough for you?”

In response, she dropped onto his lap, casually brushing his book onto the floor, and forestalling any protests by kissing him thoroughly. She was rewarded with a low grunt of pleasure and the feel of his hands running up her back under the fabric of her shirt. He tugged on the piece of clothing in an alarming way, and she hurriedly helped him take it off before he could ruin one of her favourite tops. Luckily, he did not seem to be particularly attached to the one he was wearing himself. Neither of them could cast very good mending charms, and once she was done with it, Blaise's elegant white shirt was beyond repair.

A good while later, they were lying in bed together, Ginny's head resting on Blaise's bare chest while he absent-mindedly stroked her hair. He was unusually quiet. Normally, he wouldn't miss a chance to tease her or make some kind of comment on the fact that they had made love three times in one day—perhaps adding that there was still time for a fourth. But now, he was just staring at the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought. When she called his attention to it, he simply sighed.

“It's nothing. I was just thinking how lucky we are to have each other.”

Ginny frowned. Blaise was not the kind to say these sorts of things. “And that makes you all broody because . . .”

He pushed himself up a little to better look at her, leaning on his elbow. “Draco was here this morning,” he said.

“Ah. That's where the smell of Firewhiskey was coming from.”

He did not seem to notice her dry tone. “Yeah. He was in a really bad shape. Hermione is leaving him.”

So, that was it? Ginny could understand that Blaise felt sorry for his friend, but Draco deserved what was happening to him. “I know,” she said. “Hermione told me tonight. Honestly, he had it coming.”

Blaise shrugged. “Maybe he did. But I'm pretty sure that he loves her, and losing her is crushing him.”

Ginny blinked and sat up. “Wait, what did you say? He loves her? That's impossible!”

Blaise looked as surprised as she was. It took them some time to sort through what they knew and to understand what was really going on, but when they did, Ginny could only shake her head in disbelief.

“The idiots,” she muttered. “Especially him! How could he be so. . . so. . .”

“. . . dismally moronic? I know. I've only been saying it for twenty years.”

She looked up at him, feeling deeply frustrated. “We have to do something.”

He smiled. “I agree. And I think you look gorgeous when you take charge.”

***

Hermione decided not to send a note back. Theo was clever and charming, but she did not want to play games with him. Or at least, not unless she was the one setting the rules. So instead of writing, she went to knock on his door at the Ministry. He was not in his office—he had had to go out on an errand—so she sat down and waited for him.

His surprise at seeing her, quickly masked but still discernible, was satisfying. He greeted her with a smile and asked to what he owed the pleasure of her visit. She smiled back, but she spoke straightforwardly.

“I've given your offer some thought,” she told him. And when he seemed about to interject, she added, “Don't pretend that it wasn’t one. I've thought about it, and I think that I like the idea. Or at least, I can't know if I really like it until I've tried, but I am willing to do so. But for the sake of honesty, there is something you need to know.”

She could tell that she had his full attention, now. And he did not look so confident anymore. He took a seat and then nodded, fiddling with a quill unconsciously.

“Well, then. Please, go ahead. I am listening.”

She took a deep breath and started explaining. Draco and she were separating. Hardly anyone knew yet, and she trusted him to keep it a secret until they announced it officially. And she wanted to wait until they were formally divorced before starting to see Theo.

By the time she was finished speaking, he already looked more assured. He had had time to compose himself, and what she had told him was probably not the worst he had been expecting. He only took a couple of seconds to think before replying.

“Of course, I understand. Wanting to wait makes absolute sense, under the circumstances. I am sorry to hear that it didn't work out between the two of you, by the way.”

The wonder was that he sounded sincere. Even when she thought she had regained some control over things, Hermione realised that he managed to evade her understanding. She did not complain, though. She thanked him and then left to go have her next hard talk of the day,the most daunting of the two: she needed to speak with Draco again.

Again, the night before, she had not seen him. She had arrived home late and he was probably in bed by then. She had almost thought she heard footsteps approaching her door later that evening, but when she had gone to see, there had been no one, and she had decided that she must have imagined it. But she had been avoiding him for too long. It was time they had a real conversation, and as much as the idea made her cringe, she knew she would not be able to avoid doing it. So, she made her way to Level One of the Ministry headquarters, where Draco had his office along with the other counsellors and the Minister's close collaborators.

Draco has his own secretary, who sat at a desk by the door to his office. She recognised Hermione, of course, and let her through. Hermione was the one who had hired her for Draco when he started his new office. She was a Muggle-born who had never finished her schooling at Hogwarts, having had to leave when the Death Eaters took over. Most students in that situation had come back, but for Lisa, it had been too difficult. She had never explained, but Hermione understood, and when the opportunity had arisen to help her, she had done so immediately. Lisa was very capable and knowledgeable, and Draco had always been satisfied with her. But now, greeting her as she walked past, Hermione could feel a sickening suspicion creeping up in her: Was she one of them? Had Draco slept with her, too? It did not matter, she told herself. It was over. Yet, she could not force herself to stop caring. It would probably be a long time before she learned not to. She breathed in and out deeply to calm herself and walked through the door.

Draco was sitting at a large wooden desk, frowning at a long roll of parchment in his hands, but when he recognised Hermione, he dropped it and stood up quickly.

“Hermione,” he said and then fell silent, staring at her awkwardly. He was surprised to see her, she noted, and also uneasy. Very uneasy. Well, at least she was not the only one.

“Draco,” she replied, trying to make her voice calm. “I hope I'm not interrupting.”

She glanced towards his desk, where several other parchments like the one he had been reading were laid out. Given their thickness, they could only be assembly proceedings or law proposals. She could find enough compassion in her to feel sorry for him. She could not count how many times he had come home with a headache, complaining about the incredibly tedious work of reading them all and making sure he had something to say about them. Being in politics had turned out to be much less exciting than he had originally hoped. On particularly stressful days, before press conferences or important meetings, she had helped him sometimes, taking on part of the reading and summarizing it for him. It reminded her of evenings spent studying with Harry and Ron at Hogwarts. Her two friends were always the worst when it came to doing things last-minute, and she had helped them many times to cram the night before exams, even when she had sworn that she would not. Draco was usually more organized than that, but he could still become overwhelmed sometimes.

Well, she would not be helping him anymore.

“No, it's all right,” Draco replied, stepping out from behind his desk and towards her. “What can I do for you?”

She took a sheaf of papers from her handbag. “Sign these. It's not required, but it will make things much easier. I can't file them yet, anyway. I have to wait a week and a half before it’s time for it.”

She had been afraid that he would refuse again, try to argue with her, but he did not. He just stared at her for a few moments, without making a move to take the papers from her.

“Are you sure that you want this?” he asked. “You know I don't.”

She made an effort not to break eye contact. This was the hard part. “I do. I deserve to be happy, Draco.”

Was that hurt that passed in his eyes? No, it could not be. She was probably just projecting. It only lasted half a second, anyway, and then he took the divorce papers from her hands and set them down on this desk. Choosing one of his best quills, he signed his name neatly in all the required places and then handed the sheets back to her. His face was completely expressionless, now.

Looking at their signatures side-by-side, Hermione had a hard time processing their significance. It's done, she thought. That's it. In just a few days, it will be over. She did not know how she felt about that. She should probably be relieved, but if she was honest with herself, it mostly made her . . . sad. No, it was not the time to dwell on that. It had gone more easily than she had anticipated, and it was a good thing. She had to finish this, now.

“I'm going to move out,” she told him. “There is no need for us to continue living in the same home. We barely see each other as it is, anyway.”

Draco seemed surprised. He should not be. He should have expected it. “When?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

“Today. I'll take the afternoon off and go pack. I should be gone by the time you get home. And for your second question . . . Well, it's not really any of your concern, but I'm going to stay at a Muggle hotel while I look for a place. It all happened very fast and I haven't had time to find an apartment yet.”

“No, don't!”

‘Don’t’? What did he mean? That was bothersome. He had signed without dithering, and now he did not want her to leave? It was going too well, she sighed inwardly.

“I will have to sooner or later,” she tried to reason with him. “It might as well be now. Don't worry, nobody will find out before it's time. This segregation policy has been going so well that even reporters don't dare to track people down in the Muggle world.”

“No, that's not what I meant,” he said. “You don't have to leave. Malfoy Manor is large, you can move to another wing, or I can, and we won't ever see each other. Or if you really don't want to be in the same house, I can move out. I'll come back when you find another place. But the manor is yours as much as mine. It was part of the marriage contract.”

That was true, though she had never seen things in that light. She had just assumed that Draco would keep the Manor. It made sense. There were others things she could have if they needed to split their possessions equally, but she did not even really want to. She did not want anything of his. His offer to move out so she would not have to, though . . . She had not anticipated it, and it was a pleasant surprise. She had not thought that he would be so considerate.

“No, it's fine, I'll go,” she replied. “I think I need a change of scenery, anyway. But thank you for offering.”

Draco did not insist, but she could sense that he was disappointed. Still surprised at how easily it had all gone, she thanked him and hurried out.

***

She's gone. It's over.

Draco could not believe it. He probably would not for a while still, but coming home to an empty house had a way of making it very real indeed. He stopped by Hermione's bedroom on his way to his own. She had only left a couple of hours earlier, but it already had the barren feel of abandoned places. Her clothes were gone from the cupboards, her books from the shelves, her jewellery from the dressing table. She had left a half-empty bottle of ink on the desk and some crumpled pieces of parchment in the paper bin, but that was all that was left of her. She was gone.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes. If he tried hard enough, he could almost pretend that she was still here, with a hint of her perfume lingering in the air. For as long as he could remember, this room had smelled like her. They had shared it, once. When they had just been married, they had had a much harder time getting along, yet they had been closer in many ways. They had been much more intimate, for one. They had not been able to stand each other most of the time, but they had—well, he did not know if he could rightfully call it making love, but he wanted to. There had not been much love in it perhaps, but there had been passion, and at first, it had been the only time when they did not fight each other. They had both been so broken and desperate for comfort that they had just thrown themselves into each other's arms, to forget everything, if only for a few moments. They never spoke of it before or after, but he knew that some days, it had been the only thing that kept him going. His parents had both died in the slow massacre that followed Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort’s final confrontation, and Hermione was mourning the loss of her best friend and many of her companions. They had helped each other stay sane during those first few years. Or at least, he knew that she had, for him. He wanted to believe that he had helped her in some way as well.

Then, they had found out that they could never be parents, and the main reason—the main excuse, really—that they had had for sleeping together had vanished. He had still wanted her—he still wanted her now—but he had not been able to admit it. So, they had grown apart, and things had changed.

It was too late to go back, now. Much too late. He should have said something long ago—done something, kept her close—so she would want to stay. This deal with seeing other people in secret had been a bad idea. He had never felt anything for the other women he slept with; it had just been a distraction to keep his mind off his worries and to soothe his ego and his nerves. It had never been the same as with Hermione. For none of them had he felt the same passion, the same mindless abandon he had known in her arms. Yet, it seemed that for her, it had been different. Maybe she had met someone? Maybe that was why she was leaving him, to be with somebody else. He could not believe that she was doing it just because of what had happened at the Ministry.

He missed her. He missed holding her, kissing her. He had not done so in years, except in public appearances, on the rare occasions when it was expected of him, yet he missed it. Even more so, he missed speaking to her, even just being with her. He missed her.

He was making himself miserable, he realised. It was too late, anyway. Soon, she would file those divorce papers, and it would be done for good. He had better get used to it: he would never hold her again.

Chapter Text

He had tried to get out of going but had been sorely unsuccessful. Blaise had told him in no uncertain terms that the price his wife would make him pay for not ensuring Draco's presence was high enough to warrant an abduction, if need be. Draco had no doubt that his friend was serious. At times, Ginny could be terrifying. Besides, he suspected that this dinner party had something to do with his birthday. He had told everyone that he did not plan to celebrate it—he was turning twenty-five, so what? He was hardly in a mood to party, but it seemed that his friends had decided to do something, anyway. While it was the day before, they could hardly throw a party on a Sunday night when everybody had to work the next day. So, it was Saturday, and Draco was forced to go, no matter how much he would have preferred to stay at home and mope all day.

What he dreaded the most, however, was not the thought of a birthday party, but the fact that the date coincided with the end of the seven year period for the marriages of the Twilight peace. Seven years ago, he had gotten a forced marriage for his eighteenth birthday, and that had tainted the date for him ever since. What it meant this year was that on Monday, first thing in the morning, Hermione would be filing for divorce. With both their signatures on the paperwork, the matter might be settled in a matter of days. He had not seen her in over a week, and he did not want to see her now. Yet, if Ginny was in such a tyrannical mood, it was almost certain that Hermione would be there.

So, it was rather unenthusiastically that he Flooed to Blaise and Ginny’s home that night, with a bottle a sherry as a present. Everybody else was already there; he had made no special effort to arrive early, and he was actually a little bit late. In addition to the hosts, there were Pansy and Ron, Theo and Luna, and even Daphne and Neville. And Hermione, of course. He received birthday greetings from all of them, though nobody ever said that that was what the evening was for. Apparently, they had decided to pretend ignorance, as if it was just happenstance that they were all together tonight. That way, he could not accuse them of throwing him the party he had said he did not want. Clever. When it came to plots and schemes, Blaise and Ginny were a fearsome pair indeed.

He was forced to admit, however, that some of his apprehension had been unfounded. Once he let himself relax a little, he found that he was having an enjoyable evening. Seeing Pansy was especially nice, for they had rarely been spending any time together lately. She was usually too busy with her children or too tired to go out, and he had been swamped with work, not to mention feeling depressed about his divorce. Chatting with her, along with Blaise, Theo, and Daphne, he almost felt like he was back in the Slytherin common room, only with a few Gryffindor and Ravenclaw intruders added into the mix. They reminisced about the good old days and shared news of common acquaintances. Even seeing Hermione was not as bad as he had dreaded. She was not nearly as distant as he had feared, and they had a nice little conversation at some point about work and other things. It felt so good to talk to her again. He was probably being incredibly pathetic, but he was willing to take that over nothing.

After dinner, they sat in the living room and Blaise brought out drinks—with a non-alcoholic beverage for Pansy—and then Ginny said, “Let’s play a game!”

“Poker?” Draco suggested. He liked poker. He was rather good at it. Theo was one of the few people who managed to beat him with a fair amount of regularity, but with so many others, he was feeling rather confident.

“Sorry, but I don’t feel like losing all my money,” Blaise grimaced. He was not nearly as good at the game.

“We could play for the fun of it,” Draco suggested. “Only Sickles and Knuts.” It would not be nearly as entertaining, of course. But it seemed that it was not meant to be.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a drinking game,” Ginny said. “One of the kinds Muggles play at parties. Pansy would be exempt, of course,” she added with a smile in the other woman’s direction. “If you don’t mind, Pansy.”

“Oh, not at all,” Pansy replied. “I’ll have lots of fun watching the rest of you get drunk. I’ll make sure to remember everything you said and tell your children about it.”

That made everybody laugh, if a little nervously. And then, just like that, they started. The game was a little strange and not what Draco would have chosen if they had asked him, but Ginny was enthusiastic about it, Pansy and Blaise supported her, and the others just went along with it. It was called “I never”. One of her Quidditch teammates, who was a Muggle-born, had taught it to their whole team, and they had had a great time playing it. Draco was starting to understand why Blaise kept a stash of Morning-after Potions in his home.

It started innocently enough. One by one, a person stated something he or she had never done, and everybody who had done that thing would have to take a drink. Ginny was very strict on the fact that nobody could lie and had even threatened to put Veritaserum in their drinks if she suspected that they were cheating. Draco did not know what mixing Veritaserum with alcohol would yield, but he thought it wise not to try. The first few rounds were rather subdued, but as their comfort level increased along with their blood alcohol, the statements started getting less proper and more intrusive.

To Draco’s surprise, Neville was one of the first to cross the line of political correctness when he announced, “I never had a problem getting it up,” with a completely straight face. Draco almost choked on the last swallow of his previous drink and then followed the three other men in taking another swig while the women tried not to chortle too obviously.

Daphne, who came right after, thought for a second and then said, “I never made out with a girl.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco drank again, along with Blaise, Theo, and Ron. And Luna, to his surprise. He looked at her husband, who only laughed at his expression. Theo did not seem bothered at all.

It was not over, though. Daphne was looking pointedly at Pansy, her lips twitching in a smile, and finally Pansy sighed and took a sip of her cranberry juice. Now that was enough to baffle Draco.

“I was young, all right?” Pansy said irritably. “We weren’t exactly dating yet, Draco, and I was curious . . . Can we please move on, now?”

Draco noticed that Ron was looking at his wife strangely as well. He had obviously not known. Draco could not tell if Ron was disturbed or impressed.

It was Hermione’s turn next, and Draco was hoping that things would calm down, but she had a mischievous look on her face. “I never had a threesome,” she said.

They all looked at each other, and Draco wondered why she had said that. Did she imply . . . His eyes widened as Theo and Luna drank in unison. They had what? And how had Hermione known?

Ginny laughed and said, “Nice one, Hermione.”

“Just checking a theory.” Hermione smiled back.

Luna did not seem bothered in the least, and Theo was maybe flushed just a little bit. They did not comment, though, and the game moved on. More racy statements were made, and things were becoming increasingly embarrassing by the minute, but it was more than a little elating as well. Or maybe that was the alcohol. At any rate, once it had started, nobody seemed to want to slow things down. And then Blaise took things one step too far.

“I never cheated on a woman I loved.”

Draco froze. Why had he said that? He was out of line. He had no right. It was—Nobody was drinking, he realised. It was just him. Obviously. He was going to be the only one. Thinking bitterly about giving Blaise a slow and painful death, he raised his glass and drank.

There were a few moments of awkward silence, and then he looked up and noticed that people were eyeing Pansy. She seemed to realise that at the same time, and as it was her turn to speak, she immediately said, “Oh, it wasn’t me. I was never cheated on.”

Great. Yet another thing to drink to. Thank you, Pansy, he thought sourly. He was bringing his glass to his lips when Hermione stopped him.

“Don’t,” she said.

What? He looked up. She was sitting very straight, looking directly at him.

“Don’t,” she repeated. And then she raised her own glass and drank.

It took him a few seconds to fully understand the implications of what she had said, and when he did, he thought that he was going to be sick.

Everything seemed hazy after that. Maybe he had had one too many drinks, or maybe not. But the realisation that had come crashing down on him had stunned him more than anything else. He did not understand. Or rather, he did, finally. And it was terrible. He had been working under all the wrong assumptions. He had been such a fool. A hopeless, irredeemable fool. How had he managed not to see it? It was so obvious now. He should have known. He should have—

He wanted to curse himself. Preferably with something dark and irreversible. He still had a few bloodcurdling ones up his sleeve from his time among the Death Eaters. There had to be one that would do. But no, he was being ridiculous. Dying a painful death would not help anything. There had to be something more constructive that he could do. He just had to figure out what.

The mood was rather spoiled for the rest of the evening, and nobody was very enthusiastic about the game anymore. Soon, they stopped, and everybody started getting up to leave. Hermione was one of the first to go, and Draco left shortly after her. Pansy and Ron were still there when he stepped into the fireplace, hanging back for some reason. He would have expected them to want to go early to get back to their daughters, but they seemed to want to stay. He did not really care why. He needed to be alone to think.

***

The knock on the door was unexpected. Hermione had not ordered anything, and it was way too late for room service. She had been about to go to bed. Wondering who it was, she went to open the door. Recognising the wizard in a soaked raincoat dripping on the carpet outside her room was even more of a surprise.

“Draco? What are you doing here?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did Ginny tell you where to find me?”

It would not be surprising. She was convinced that the woman had orchestrated the whole evening the day prior, probably with some help from Blaise and Pansy. Maybe even Ron, though he was not usually the scheming type, but his sister might have been able to drag him into it. If she had managed to let him know what was happening while keeping him from flipping out on her, Hermione was impressed. Greatly annoyed, but impressed.

Ginny had only wanted to help. She had probably thought that forcing Draco and Hermione to make some admissions would help them bridge the gaps and mend things with each other. But she did not understand—it was too late. Even knowing that Draco thought he loved her was not enough for Hermione. If it had not kept him from hurting her before, if would not keep him from doing it again in the future. Besides, he was probably fooling himself. If he had really loved her, he would not have behaved in this way.

Draco gave a strained smile. “You don’t give me nearly enough credit. We’ve been married for seven years. I know you better than you think.”

She supposed that he was right, though she had a hard time believing that he had figured out where she was on his own. She knew she had told him about this place—this hotel, where her parents had met, and where their whole family had stayed every time they came to London during her childhood. It carried unique memories for her. It made her feel safe. But she had not thought that Draco would remember. She did not know what to make of the fact that he had and that he had recalled it well enough to be able to find her here.

“So—what do you want?” she asked.

“Can I come in?” He was uneasy, though he hid it well. He had always been good at concealing his emotions, but as he had said, they had been married for seven years. She knew him just as well as he did her.

She eyed him critically then made sure there was nobody to see and cast a quick drying spell on him before stepping aside to let him in.

“Thank you,” he said, probably for the spell as much as for the invitation. He had been shivering.

She motioned him to sit in one of the two armchairs by the small wooden table, and she took the other one. Then, she looked at him expectantly.

It took a few moments before he spoke. He was fidgeting, clenching and unclenching his hands around his cane, looking more obviously nervous by the second. Then, finally, he said, “I didn’t know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

She wanted to be patient with him, she really did. She told herself that he was not worth torturing herself over. Yet, if he had come all the way here, today of all days, when she least wanted to be reminded of him—well, he had better have something worthwhile to say.

Draco looked positively distraught, now. “I swear, I—I don’t know how to say this. I know there’s nothing I can say, but—please, you have to believe me. If I had known, I would have never—”

He cut off again and exhaled deeply, running a hand through his still damp hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered.

He was talking about that, of course. She wanted to kill Pansy for making him find out, though she probably had not done it on purpose. Or maybe she had. You could never know with those devious snakes. She fought to keep her voice steady.

“There is nothing to be sorry about. We had a deal, and you observed it exactly.”

Was that why he was here? To clear his conscience? He was feeling guilty, and he wanted to be told that it was all right. Well, she could do that, if it made him go away.

“But you didn’t!” he protested, suddenly more energetic. “It’s not a deal if it’s only one-sided, is it?”

Why was he making this difficult? “It is, too. And I did keep my side of the bargain. We said we could do whatever we wanted, so long as nobody knew. And that’s what we both did.”

“No, Hermione. You’re being unfair.” He was looking straight at her now, and she could feel him becoming more belligerent by the second. “If I had known what was happening, I would have behaved differently. I only did what I did because I thought you were doing the same.”

“So, you’re blaming me, now?” she asked dryly. “I thought you were asking me for forgiveness.”

This was getting old, fast. If he kept it up, she felt ready to kick him out. It was better than to break down in front of him. She did not think she could bear such humiliation, but it would happen if he continued pushing her that way.

“I am! But I also want you to understand. I never meant to hurt you!”

Hermione could not help but smile bitterly at that. “And yet, you did. It’s funny how it all works out, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter anymore. I told you that I don’t blame you. And anyway, this will all be over soon. It’s a matter of hours, now.”

He stared at her for a moment. “But what if I don’t want it to be?”

That again. She sighed. “I’m afraid you don’t really have a say. And didn’t you already agree to this?”

“That was before I knew! I didn’t understand. I thought you hated me or—or that you had found somebody else. I didn’t realise that it was my fault.”

“And what if I did find somebody else?” She did not know if she had, but she was considering it. Theo was certainly interested, and once all this was settled, she was in a mood to give it a try. Maybe it would help her to broaden her horizons a little. She had never had much space for that before in her life.

Draco seemed to deflate a little at that. “If you have, then—well, it would be selfish of me to keep you from being happy, wouldn’t it? But Hermione—if there’s a chance, even a small one, that you might want to make it work between us instead, then please, at least consider giving it a chance.”

He was pleading, she realised. She had not heard him plead with anyone in a very long time. It was a rare enough occurrence to give her pause. Why was he so desperate? Could it be that he really cared? But no. It did not matter. She had promised herself that she would not let him hurt her anymore.

She shook her head. “And why would I do that? We’ve been giving it a chance for seven years, and look where it got us.”

“But we were doing it all wrong! We got married for the worst possible reasons. We stayed together because we were forced to. Everything that ever happened between us could never have had a chance to work out when it started out that way.”

“Yet it did for others,” she observed.

He shrugged. “I guess. But every couple is different. Pansy and Ron have their children. Theo and Luna seem to have this weird . . . arrangement going on. Ginny got to choose her own husband, for heaven’s sake!” He stared into her eyes. “Maybe we got the worst lot of all.”

He was so compelling, looking at her that way, with so much sincerity in his voice, so many emotions almost laid bare. She had rarely seen him this way. It was enough to trouble her, perhaps to almost make her change her mind. It was difficult to remain strong in the face of that. She still loved him, after all. But that was what she had to remind herself of. She loved him, and she had received nothing but pain in return.

“We’ve been married for seven years,” Draco continued. “Can you honestly think back on that and not find any worthwhile moment in it? Any memory worth cherishing?”

Why was he asking that? Of course she had good memories. There were good memories mixed in with the worst times of her life and experiences she would not trade for anything. But it did not mean that she wanted to ever relive those moments. Memories were in the past, and sometimes, she was forced to admit that that was the best place for them to be.

“You don’t understand. Just because we had good times together doesn’t erase all the bad parts of our marriage. And even if you did promise me that it would all change—that we would get a fresh start, that nothing would ever be the same—why should I believe you? Give me one reason why I should believe that things will change.”

Suddenly, Draco laughed, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Well, I guess it’s the least I owe you.”

He leaned closer to her, looking straight into her eyes, and she suddenly felt the urge to draw back and run away. She made herself sit still.

“I love you, Hermione. I think I have for a long time, though I didn’t recognise it before. When I realised that you were leaving me, it felt like my whole world was falling apart. I have never felt so crushed before.”

Hermione was fighting to keep her voice from trembling. “That’s funny, Draco. That’s exactly how I felt when I saw you with that woman.”

He opened his mouth, and she knew what he was going to say: that he was terribly sorry, that he loved her, that he would never hurt her again. She could not allow him to speak. She wanted too badly to believe.

“Stop,” she said. “Don’t say it. I don’t think I can stand it.” To her dismay, her voice was breaking. She had to end this, now. She stood up and went to open the door. “Please. Leave.”

He was not moving, she realised. She turned back towards him and saw that he was still sitting in the armchair, fumbling in his coat pocket. When he raised his hand, she saw that there was something in it: a small vial filled with a colourless liquid.

“Veritaserum,” he said, confirming her guess. “I got the idea from Ginny. I’ll drink it and answer any question you want to ask.”

That made her pause. He really was serious about this. “Any question?” she asked. “What if I ask for the names of all the witches you slept with?”

He winced. “I would beg you not to. But if you insist—well, I said any question, didn’t I?”

She nodded. She needed to consider this for a time. She closed the door and went back to sit down. Maybe if he was really determined . . . maybe there was hope, after all? She was scared of that line of thought. It was so dangerous. She had sworn to herself that she would never go down that road again. And yet . . . she wanted to believe.

“Keep the Veritaserum,” she told him. “Maybe we’ll use it, and maybe we won’t. I haven’t decided yet. I need time to think about it.”

The relief on Draco’s face was so clear that she felt the need to clarify.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” she told him. “I still don’t trust you. But . . . I’m willing to give it a bit of time.”

He nodded, almost too eagerly. Who was this man? She could not recognise him as the Draco she had known all these years.

“I understand,” he said. “Take as much time as you need. Just promise me that you won’t decide anything tonight, all right?”

She promised. Just as she did so, the clock on the wall struck midnight. “Seven years and a day,” she mused. “That’s it. It’s today.”

Draco gave a short, wry laugh. “Happy anniversary, Hermione.”

She could not help but smile as well. It was a bittersweet smile, but it was something, at least. “Happy anniversary,” she replied.

Chapter Text

“We will now hear from Councillor Granger,” the wizard in formal robes announced before sitting back down.

From his seat in the Council chamber, Draco watched Hermione as she rose and stepped up to the podium used to address the councillors. Her eyes swept over the room before she started speaking and paused on him for the briefest instant. He nodded encouragingly. He knew that she was ready for this.

“Thank you, Mr President,” she said smoothly. Then, she began her speech in a confident tone.

Draco had heard it a dozen times before, in all of its possible variations. They had practised it together, though after two years, she barely needed his help anymore. Once she had decided to start tackling politics, she had proven to be a force to be reckoned with. And so today, as she started what was possibly the most important argument she would ever make, he allowed himself to block out the words he knew all too well and simply focus on her.

She really was beautiful. And strong, and fierce, and so incredibly smart. He considered himself lucky that she was part of his life. He would have liked her to be an even greater part of it, of course. But he had promised not to push her any more than she was willing to allow, and he knew that the only alternative was to lose her for good, this time. He would do anything to avoid that. So, he was grateful for what he had and only allowed himself to silently hope for more. Or not so silently, sometimes. But he knew to stop before she felt that he was taking it too far.

His first great victory had been when she had agreed to start dating him again. Ever since their divorce, she had not wanted them to be more than friends, arguing that she needed time and space to decide what she really wanted. He could not help but think that she had also wanted to test his resolve. Openly seeing Theo, of all people, for several months had certainly achieved that. She had not flung it in his face, but she had not tried to spare him, either. It had been difficult to stifle the burning jealousy and hurt, but he must have managed well enough, for she had finally accepted to go on a date with him. He had slowly worked his way back to her side from there.

All in all, he was rather proud of himself. It had not been easy, winning Hermione Granger back. It had taken all his skill and self-control. But now that he had her, he was not about to let her go. If only she would agree to his latest request . . .

Suddenly, he noticed that Hermione's tone had changed, her voice resonating stronger, her words sounding more final. It was the end of the speech, he realised.

“. . . which is why, Councillors, I urge you to give this bill your utmost consideration,” she was saying. Draco mouthed the last words unconsciously as she spoke them. “Opening ourselves up once more to the Muggle world will mean opening ourselves up to the future. It is the most logical next step on our road to prosperity and progress. Thank you very much.”

With that, she stepped back and went to sit in her place, a little distance from Draco. The President rose again.

“We will now proceed with the vote,” he announced. “Please raise your wands in the air.” He did so himself and then waited for all the councillors to imitate him before continuing. “I now ask you to cast green sparks if you wish to vote in favour of the bill. If the number of positive votes exceeds half the number of Councillors, the bill will be passed into law.”

There was no need for the explanation, of course. Everybody knew how the process worked. But as in many things, Ministry officials liked formality in their voting.

Draco cast his vote first. There was no need to hold back; everybody knew that he backed Hermione on everything. Then, more slowly, the other votes came.

It was a game of sorts. Each Councillor wanted to wait to see what the others would do, allies as well as enemies. Of course, most of it was decided before the voting even started—everybody talked and schemed outside of the Council chamber, forming pacts and alliances and spying on each other's goals. Still, nobody liked to vote too quickly.

That had been part of the plan from the start. Hermione had always frowned upon political manoeuvering, but Draco had managed to make her see the necessity of it, and she had finally agreed to play by the system's rules—until she succeeded in changing the system itself. She certainly did not lack ambition, which did not fail to make Draco proud. She really would have made a good Slytherin, he was sure of it. Such a shame she had gone to Gryffindor instead.

Through months of careful effort, Draco had managed to get a large number of the Councillors to agree to vote in favour of this bill—all for various reasons, presenting to each the specific advantages that were most likely to appeal to them, sometimes playing one faction against another without their knowledge. But still, he had not been able to get a promise from the majority, and even some of those who had promised were not above suddenly changing their minds. In the end, it would all be decided in the vote. Which was happening at this very moment.

A set of green sparks rose, and then another. They often came in clusters; as soon as one voted, three or four others followed. Draco counted anxiously. Eleven . . . Twelve . . . Sixteen . . . Things seemed to stall after that, and he started to feel alarmed. It wasn't nearly enough. Two wizards who had not voted yet were glaring at each other from across the room, as if daring the other to vote first. Draco crossed his fingers. Those two were sworn enemies, and he thought he had managed well enough to convince each of them, but together . . . He only hoped one of them would endorse the bill. They each had quite a few allies who would follow them; the question was just which of the two it would be.

Finally, the one on Draco's right sent a shower of green sparks flying out of his wand, and several other Councillors followed right behind him. Twenty-one votes. Draco breathed. It was just barely enough, but it was the majority. Before he had time to take it in, however, another spray of green sparks rose, from Draco's left. Stunned, he turned and realised that it was the second wizard. He was glaring darkly at his rival, as if greatly regretting having to agree with him, but he had voted in favour, nonetheless. After that, more followed. Many more.

“Thirty-two in favour out of forty,” the President said finally. “The bill is passed.”

There was clapping, polite but not too enthusiastic. Nobody really liked the bill—the law, now—that much, but they had seen the necessity of it. Draco doubted that they understood exactly how much it entailed. Maybe they wouldn't have approved it if they had. But it did not matter. It had worked. They had won.

***

Hermione made her way out of the Council chamber, stopping every now and then to shake hands with someone, thanking supporters and acknowledging congratulations. Her mind was not really on it, however. She spotted a tall, blond man standing a little distance down the hallway and walked a little faster in his direction. She managed to break free of the crowd just as he was disappearing around a corner. Soon, she caught up to him, in a private room safely away from prying eyes, and he seized her by the waist to pull her into his arms.

“Congratulations, Councillor,” Draco murmured moments before covering her lips with his.

She could not help but giggle into his mouth. She did not normally giggle, but she felt euphoric enough for it today. She could hardly believe it. It had happened. She had successfully landed her greatest blow so far on the archaic structures that kept the wizarding community from moving forwards. The implications were dazzling. There was much more to do, still, but with this as a precedent, she thought it was only a matter of time.

“Thank you,” she said, beaming, as they broke apart. “Thank you. We did it together, you know.”

Draco shook his head. “No. You did it. I helped a little, but those votes in there—there is no way I could have gotten that many people to support you. It was you. You convinced them.”

She laughed incredulously. “Oh, come on! You said it yourself. They're all so used to scheming and plotting and manipulating, no amount of eloquence or reason could make them budge, not unless they were given good reason to.”

“And you did give that to them. You underestimate your abilities, Hermione. There isn't much you can't achieve once you've decided to do it.”

Hermione was torn between pleasure and annoyance. He was obviously exaggerating, and the worst part was that he expected her to just accept it. She opened her mouth to say just that, but he did not give her a chance to speak.

“Do you know what day it is?” he said suddenly.

She frowned, perplexed. Why the sudden change in topic? “Thursday. Why?”

“No. What day of the month is it?”

She was about to reply to that, and then her lips parted in surprise. How could she have forgotten? Today was the twenty-sixth of June. The exact two-year anniversary of their divorce. Before she had time to recover from her surprise, Draco had gone down on one knee, and a small box had appeared in his palm, a box with a ring in it. She started to panic.

“Draco, I—”

“Wait,” he interrupted, taking hold of her hand with his free one. “Hear me out, please.”

Hermione closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and opened them again, nodding. This wasn't a bad thing. It was nothing unexpected, really. He had made it very clear that he wanted her back. She had never minded. She had rather liked it, even hoped for it, in due time. She had just not thought that it would be now. Somehow, she had thought that she would have more time to reconcile herself to it.

She thought she could trust him, now. She was almost sure that she could. But she kept putting off the moment when she would have to decide. “All right,” she said finally, looking into his eyes.

Draco took a deep breath as well. He looked just as nervous as she was. “Listen, I—I'm not asking for anything right now. I don't want to rush you or corner you. I don't mind not getting married right away—or ever.”

She arched an eyebrow at that. He was on his knees with an engagement ring, after all.

“Fine, I do want to get married at some point,” he amended with a grimace. “But it doesn't have to be soon at all. I just need to know, Hermione—do you want this, too? I know that I've hurt you, and I know that you still don't fully trust me not to hurt you again, and maybe you never will completely. But I want to believe that we've come a long way. And I am hoping that you can trust me enough, at least, to say that you will get to a point where you'll be willing to marry me some day.”

That was a rather convoluted way to phrase it, but she thought she understood what he meant. It resonated quite well with the convoluted mess that her own feelings seemed to be making. She sighed. “I do want that, Draco. I do.”

“Then, take this ring. Not as a contract but as a promise that we'll keep trying until we get there.”

Suddenly, she wanted to laugh. He had changed so much. She could not imagine him saying anything like this two years ago. He was right: they had come a long way.

She slowly took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her finger, on the empty spot where her wedding ring had been for years. This one was beautiful: a slim, white-gold band that curled around a single diamond in its center, with tiny rubies set around it. Draco stood and held up her hand in his to admire it. “It looks perfect on you,” he said in a slightly strangled voice.

She smiled. “We'll get there,” she said in response to his earlier comment. “Maybe sooner than you think.”

He kissed her then, and she thought there was more passion in it than ever before.

***

The next day, Hermione was back at the Ministry, very busy preparing her speech for the media conference on Monday morning, when the new law would be officially announced. She did allow herself a break, however, to take the lifts a couple of floors away and stop by a familiar office door.

The door was not closed completely. Hermione knocked briefly and peeked in. Theo was sitting—lounging, rather—with his feet up on his desk, a sheaf of parchments in one hand, and a quill twirling absently in the other. He looked up and smiled. “Hermione! Come in.” He put his feet down and stood to greet her. “I heard you pulled quite a stunt last night in Council. Congratulations.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You already know about that?”

He shrugged in that nonchalantly handsome way that had prompted Witch Weekly to name him the “Sexiest Bachelor of the Year” twice in a row. Ever since Luna and he had separated, with Luna officially moving in with her girlfriend, he had become quite a sensation indeed. “I know about everything that matters to me,” he said. “This new law is going to affect just about everyone, it seems.”

He pulled a chair back for her to sit down, and then returned to his own seat.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well,” she said in a measured tone. “First, I wanted to thank you. Your support was instrumental in passing this bill. You helped bring people to my side who would never have supported me otherwise.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, you know, I think you would have pulled it off, anyway. There aren't many people I can see resisting you for long, when you put your mind to it.”

Why did they all say that? She was not that scary, was she? Seeing how objecting had gone the last time she tried, though, she decided not to say anything. “I have my doubts about that, but thank you,” she replied instead. And then, after a pause, “There is something else as well.”

“I suspected as much when you started with 'first',” he teased. “And I can tell that you're not too comfortable about it. It's all right, you know. I promise I won't make a scene.”

She bit her lip and nodded. He really was perceptive, wasn't he? Oh, well. It was not like she could hide it forever. “It hasn't been publicly announced yet, but I thought I should tell you myself. Draco and I are engaged.”

He sighed and sank back in his chair, his lips quirking into a resigned smile. “Well, it was to be expected,” he said. “I really thought I had made a good case for myself, but I can admit defeat when I have to. I knew I didn't stand a chance as soon as you started seeing him again.”

He was taking it well. Hermione was relieved, though she had expected it. “For what it's worth,” she said, responding to his smile, if in a slightly strained way, “you did make a very good case. It would probably have worked if he hadn't been so persistent. I just—well, seven years of history are not that easy to erase.” She sounded apologetic, and she usually preferred not to have such a tone, but she felt that Theo deserved that much from her at least. He had been there for her when she had needed it the most, and she had never given him anything lasting in return.

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “And besides, you always loved him, and I knew it. I just thought that maybe I could convince you to love me instead.” He paused and then added wryly, “I should have known that being the rebound guy wasn't the best way to achieve that.”

Now Hermione was appalled. When he put it that way, she seemed so—shallow. She had not been that bad, had she?

Theo seemed to read her mind, for he added quickly, “Not that it was a bad thing. It was what you needed at the time, and I was happy to oblige.” He flashed her a grin. “I would have hated to lose that chance to anybody else.”

And just like that, Hermione found herself blushing furiously again. How did he manage to still have that effect on her after all this time? It was unbelievable. She wanted to punch him in the nose. Maybe that would make him stop grinning at her like a fool. Besides, a broken nose would bring his ego down a notch when it came to his looks, though there were probably witches out there who would say it just made him more appealing.

She reminded herself that she had just told him she was marrying somebody else and tried to stifle her sudden thirst for violence. Well, at least she did not feel as bad about it anymore. “I guess it's all good, then,” she said when she was sure that she had control of her voice again.

Theo nodded. “It's all good. I wish you all the best, Hermione. Be very happy.”

Hermione knew that the honesty in his voice was not faked. Theo was strange like that. She had never been able to fully understand him. She stood up to leave, and he stood as well, grasping her hand to lay a light kiss on its back before letting her go. She thought she caught a glint of regret in his eyes at that very last moment, but it only lasted an instant, and then she heard the door close behind her as she left.

***

“So, I think congratulations are in order,” Blaise said once they were all seated.

They were a smaller group than usual, tonight. Hermione had not wanted news of their engagement to distract from her political achievements, and Draco had agreed with her. When uncomfortable changes happened, people leapt on opportunities to minimize their impact by focusing on other things instead. He knew that all too well—after all, the whole country had spent years gossiping about a few marriages instead of facing the real problems still left over from the war. And Hermione did not mind too much about her name being in the headlines, but she wanted the attention to focus on something other than her private life. So, they were keeping it quiet for now, and only very few of their friends had been told.

Blaise and Ginny's flat in Muggle London had been ideal for this small party. It was the best place to avoid notice. Besides them, they had only invited Pansy and Ron.

Ginny raised her glass, and the others followed suit. “To happily ever after. Again.”

Pansy smirked and Blaise snickered. Draco wanted to roll his eyes. Ginny was spending entirely too much time surrounded by Slytherins. Giving birth to the most mischievous baby boy he had ever seen had not helped in the least. The little bugger was a year old now and had been walking for three months. He got on splendidly with Pansy and Ron's little Hector, and together, they managed to make enough trouble for six. Luckily, they were both in bed, now.

Draco's relief at their absence was not just because of the chaos the two little boys created, however. Hermione was usually good at hiding it, but he sometimes caught her watching them longingly when she thought nobody noticed, and he knew that she was thinking of the child she would never have. Draco had promised himself to do something about that, some day. He just had to work out what. In the meantime, with the children out of sight, he could at least hope that she would put that worry out of her mind for the night.

“To Hermione,” Ron said in turn, “who is turning our world upside down and making it better for it.”

There was warmth in his eyes as he looked at her, and it was returned in Hermione's smile. Draco had always felt a little envious of the relationship they had. It was not jealousy—he knew that Hermione would never cheat on him or Ron on Pansy—but he still envied their friendship. It was the deep, strong bond of two people who had grown up together, fought together, gone through hell side-by-side, and come back out. He would never have that. Sometimes, he feared that to her, he would always be the boy who had stood by and watched her being tortured in his own house, the boy who had been on the opposite side of the war from her while her friends died. He had become acutely aware of it these past two years, as Hermione's efforts to make the wizarding world face its demons had unearthed painful memories, exposing truths everybody would have much rather kept buried.

She turned to him then, and put her left hand on top of his, the diamond ring clearly visible on her finger. “Well,” she said, smiling. “I'm certainly not doing it alone.”

And as she looked at him, the love in her eyes made all his fears disappear. If it was up to him, she would never be alone again in her life.