The room was a mismatch of various baubles and knickknacks. The walls had various pictures ranging from musical bands to a chart of the periodic table. He could see two chairs that were of different design, likely scavenged from some second hand store, flanking a small table with a cheap Formica top. There was a flimsy looking desk with one of those Muggle computers and another mismatched chair. A dingy kitchenette was off to one side and he could hear water running from what was likely a shower in a bathroom he couldn't see from the bed.

The bed was the most expensive and nicest piece of furniture in the single room dwelling. Not surprising given the owner. Large and comfortable with cool, satin sheets, a good half dozen pillows and a warm coverlet. He was quite comfortable and not ready to move just yet.

Severus smirked as he looked up at the ceiling. He knew she wouldn't kill him.

The shower shut off after a time and he listened as she moved around out of sight. He wondered if she had any food. He was feeling a bit hungry after their earlier exertions.

After a time she came out of the bathroom, coming the tangles from her hair with her fingers. A short robe of scarlet silk stopped only a few inches below her pelvis, the fabric whisking over her upper thighs in little kisses. He saw her toss a damp towel into a battered hamper, her attention falling to him.

"Where did he take her?"

"Someplace safe. She may even be back in the bosom of her family by now."

He saw her eyes take a distant, faraway look for a moment before returning to herself and shaking her head. "No, she's not."

"Your connection with your mother is that strong, then."

"It always has been. I remember everything about her, all the way back to when she turned away from me."

"Does that memory anger you?"

"No. Had our roles been reversed, I would have done the same. At least by leaving me where she did, she gave me a chance. Had she turned me over to the government or tried to keep me, I likely would have fallen into the wrong hands."

Severus ran one of his arms behind him and under the pillows to lift his head a bit more. He studied her, curiously. "You seem rather… stable given the circumstances. Well, save for cursing your sister."

"I don't consider that a curse."

"What do you consider it to be, then?"

She moved like electricity unchained. One moment she was standing on the floor a good five feet from him. The next she had gotten onto the bed, standing with one foot on placed between his spread legs and the other on the side of one of his. She was perfectly balanced even as the mattress shifted to accommodate her weight. "Progressive chastity belt?"

"You believe your sister to be a virgin?"

"With that body? Doubtful. However, I have no problems with her entering a sexual relationship of her own free will. I just don't care for the idea of her being reduced to the equivalent of a brood sow."

"People usually use the word 'mare'."

"I've read your papers. Your precious Ministry would rather girls like my sister crank out babies with the efficiency of a pig rather than horse. Nature just gets in their way."

"Yes, well, the Ministry does have more than its fair share of idiots. It's the only explanation for the heavy handedness of the law."

She walked up the bed a little, the outside foot crossing in to the inside and the inside foot moving to the outside. "You don't agree with the law?"

"I told you, I'm just as vulnerable. Fortunately I taught most of the young witches approaching marriageable age and went out of my way to be a terrifying, unapproachable bastard. Doubtless they're afraid that I would make… unwholesome demands of them."

She arched one golden, perfectly shaped brow. "Really? I didn't notice anything distasteful earlier. Were you holding back on me?"

He felt his body stir as his memory called up heated kisses and slick skin. "Perhaps it is you who were holding back with me, though I doubt it."

"How so?"

"You've been here too long. Bodies of men dead from exhaustion after sexual intercourse would have drawn attention by now. You're not killing anyone. Well, except for Hermione's three bridegrooms, of course."

"How, exactly, did this law come to pass? I mean, I've read the articles and I understand the concept that you Wizards have finally realized that you can't keep marrying your cousins without it coming back to bite you, but how does that turn into forced marriages?"

"You want to discuss the finer points of magical law?"

"You did say you would be happy to discuss politics with me." She grinned and lifted one foot to run it lightly over the satin covering his hardening erection. "At. Length."

Severus took in a breath and told himself to maintain control even as he took one hand and ran it over the soft skin of her calf. "So I did. Do you wish to get into this now? I'm growing a bit hungry."

She grinned down at him, the expression impish and full of wicked thoughts. "So am I."

He found himself returning the grin. "To which appetite are you referring?"

"Which of yours would you like me to address?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to say something crude and pull her down to him when his stomach spoke up first with a loud rumble. Her grin turned into an amused laugh.

"Chinese?"

"Pardon?"

"There's an all-night Chinese place around the corner that delivers."

"I shall leave the decision to the lady."

She gave another snort of laughter as she hopped off the bed and walked over to a muggle telephone. "I don't believe I've ever been called that before."

"Have you been here all night?"

Hermione sat up, startled. One side of her vision was blocked by something tan and black in color. It took her a second to realize that there was a sheaf of vellum stuck to her face. She peeled it off carefully. "What?"

Draco shook his head with disbelief. "Hermione, it's almost eight in the morning. Mum had a guest room prepared for you upstairs. "

"Eight?!" She looked behind her and confirmed that it was, indeed, daylight. "I need to call my parents! They're bound to be worried."

Draco looked at her as it trying to determine if she was being serious. When he believed she was he walked over to a case on one of the book shelves and opened it to reveal a muggle phone. Hermione blinked. "Father has regular dealings with Muggle businesses and banks where we have money invested. The phone is needed to communicate with them."

"Oh." She accepted the phone and dialed her parents' number. Her mother, as she feared, had been frantic. It took a while for her to calm Helen down. Long enough that Draco was able to leave the room, call for a house elf and have a breakfast tray delivered to her. He returned to the study as she was explaining to her parents that she was going to be gone for possibly a day or more as she did some more research on her current predicament.

"How are they holding up?"

"Mum's a mess." Hermione returned the phone to its concealing cabinet. "I think this has raked up the memory of the attack again. And I suspect she feels a bit guilty about giving up her child."

"She shouldn't. A Muggle raising a half-demon? That would have been begging for trouble. She did the right thing, placing her with the Church the way she did. I shudder to think what would have happened if one of The Dark Lord's circle had gotten their mitts on her. The war likely would have ended far differently. The potion and spell potential of her blood and hair alone would have been asking for trouble."

"Yes, I'm starting to see that." Hermione frowned at the desk top filled with books, scrolls and papers. "Why does your mother have all of these? Was she serious about demonology being a staple line of study for girls in the Black family?"

"Deadly serious. Mum learned as much as she thought she needed for self-protection. She says her sister Andromeda just went through the motions until their mother let her stop. Bellatrix, however, went above and beyond. It's likely a large portion of what drove her mad."

Hermione suppressed a shudder. "I think some of these are going to give me nightmares."

"That's because you're a good and decent person." Draco took the lid off of the breakfast tray and set it aside. "Excellent. They got more of strawberry jam. Or do you prefer marmalade?"

She hadn't realized she was getting hungry. "Strawberry, please." She closed the books and scrolls and set them to one side of the desk so they wouldn't get smudged by jam or grease from breakfast. That done, she looked at the tray to find some delightful looking omelets, toast and bacon. There was also juice and milk.

Draco pulled a couple of chairs together so that they could sit for breakfast. "Normally I'd insist that we do this in a room actually meant for meals, but I wouldn't dare drag you from a research project. You might tear my arm off."

"Oh, ha-ha." She sat down and accepted a glass of juice. "What's with the civility and niceness?"

"Hermione, I have no reason not to be civil. After all, we are engaged to be wed."

"And I have a curse that will kill you."

"Only if you are not willing." He placed a slice of toast with butter and strawberry jam onto her plate. "And I intend to convince you that you do want to be married to me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm impossibly handsome, almost as clever as you and am perfectly willing to worship at the altar of Hermione Malfoy every night for the rest of my life." She arched a brow at him. "What?"

"That was unforgivably corny."

"I'll have you know that I'm completely serious about that."

She shook her head and bit into her toast. They ate in silence for a time while her mind whirred along. "What are the chances she's not lethal?"

"No idea. My mother would be better qualified to answer that question. She and Father aren't awake yet. Father doesn't stir before ten unless he has a meeting to attend and Mother doesn't stir until he does. I find it's better to let them get out of their system at home. Otherwise they may be affectionate in public which is extremely embarrassing."

"What's so bad about your parents being in love with one another? I mean, sure, you don't want them in a lip lock in the middle of Diagon Alley, but it's better than being in your room hearing them scream at one another. There are a lot of people our age in the world that grew up in broken homes, shuttled between their parents' homes with no real stability. We're fortunate to have parents who are still crazy for one another."

"I don't mind that they love one another. I just don't want to see it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You're old enough to have gotten over such silliness. I have."

"How?"

"I realized that the worst public displays were them exercising their parental rights to embarrass me in public. Once I stopped complaining, they stopped being so bad about it."

"There is no parental right to embarrass your child!"

"Oh, don't be silly, Draco. Of course there is. At least for mothers. We earn it by spending hours in labor to bring you into this world." Narcissa was dressed in an elegant morning gown as she came through the open doors levitating a vase of flowers before her. "Good morning, Hermione. Oh, dear, your eyes look awful. Draco, didn't you tell her we'd prepared a room for her?"

"I did, but I thought she may want to eat first." He got up to kiss his mother's cheek. "I hadn't expected you up this early. And you don't have a right to embarrass me."

"You'll have that right as well once you have children of your own." She had the vase settle in a wide windowsill where the light would best reach the colorful blossoms. "Your father wants to see you. He's up in his parlor." She waved him away and claimed his chair for herself. A house elf popped in with a silver tray bearing a cups and a pot of coffee. "Sugar and cream?"

"Yes, please." She accepted the delicate cup of coffee with a tentative smile and thank you.

Narcissa seemed amused. "You still don't trust us."

"Well, not entirely, no. I'm sorry if you think me rude, but considering my past interactions with your family…"

"I could hardly blame you. I will admit that I, myself, allowed my thoughts of you to be colored by all of that 'pureblood' propaganda. It had been hammered into my mind since birth, after all. On that topic, at least, my sister Andromeda was far more intelligent than I. And far braver. I was horrified the day she told our parents what they could do with their money when she told them she was marrying a Muggleborn. Now that the new research has come out, with the figures and facts supporting the arguments that Muggleborns and Half Bloods are actually more likely to produce strong magical offspring than purebloods, well, it does require some reconsideration of beliefs."

"I see." Hermione examined her coffee. "It surprises me, sometimes, how the Magical world remains so far behind the Muggle one. I mean, I don't think that Voldemort," she ignored Narcissa's flinch, "or his followers ever realized that even if they had won control of the Magical world, they would have been slaughtered if they tried to take their war into the Muggle one. They outnumber us by almost six billion, and the advances they've made in science and technology would all but erase the advantages magic may give us."

Her would-be mother-in-law peered at her curiously. "How do mean?"

"I mean, they have weapons that accomplish more in one attack that his whole army could have managed in a week. One well aimed nuclear missile can kill hundreds of thousands of people at one time and I don't care how good of a duelist you are, a sniper who actually knows what he's doing can kill you with a single shot from yards away. You'd never even see him. One second you're standing there and the next you're lying on the ground with a small hole in the front of your skull and your brains blown out thru the back." Hermione shook her head. "And they've understood what the healers at St Mungo's are just now learning about genetics for decades."

"Oh." Naricissa set her cup down. "I see. I'm told that the reason that there are so few muggleborns attending Hogwarts isn't so much as the lack of their numbers, but that not all of them accept."

"I can believe that. You're sending letters to children who are only eleven. It's our parents' call as to whether or not we attend. Mine weren't entirely sold on the idea. They wanted me to continue with my regular studies. Nothing I learned at Hogwarts is transferrable to the Muggle scholastic system. I couldn't go to a Muggle university with what I learned. I'd first have to play 'catch up' with everything that I would have been taught had I continued with my Muggle education."

"What changed their mind?"

Hermione flinched at the memory. "I… uhm.. I put a couple of bullies into the hospital. They were tormenting me over being so clever. They were tying me to the frame of a jungle gym by my jumper, planning to hit at me like a piñata… a muggle toy from Mexico. It's a paper mache sculpture, usually of an animal and filled with candies. You wear a blind fold and try to hit it to break it open."

"Oh dear."

"Yeah. Anyway, I struck out with accidental magic and.. Hurt them. I believe one of them is still in a wheel chair. I broke his spine. He'll never walk again." She took in a breath. "And when Professor McGonagall came to explain Hogwarts to us, my parents realized what had actually happened. They determined that it would be better for everyone if I learned to control myself."

"The Muggle authorities didn't give you any trouble over the boys?"

"No, I was tied up and three feet from the ground at the time. Not to mention I was two years younger and considerably smaller than they. As far as anyone knew, I couldn't possibly have been the one to throw them into that building."

"You poor thing." Narcissa seemed to consider it for a time. "I suppose that I have never considered how confusing it must be for Muggleborns. It must just… sneak up on them without warning. I imagine it must be quite frightening."

"It is. At least it was for me. I suspect it feels quite exhilarating for others. Not everyone ends up hurting someone." She noticed that Narcissa had leaned back in her chair, a contemplative look on her face. "What?"

"I wonder… perhaps there should be a better sort of outreach program. For Muggleborns and their families, I mean. Surely some of the children display magic far younger than others, and it has to be confusing for them. Simply sending them a letter a few months before they're expected to attend Hogwarts can't be enough. Maybe a way to introduce them to the Magical world before just dropping them there."

"My mother thought of that. She said she thought it would be a good idea if they had a sort of sponsorship program. Pair non-magical families with a magical one who could answer their questions. The Ministry has something similar, but their horribly slow to answer."

"Anything involving government or bureaucracy is slow, Dear. They have red tape for their red tape."

"They passed the Marriage Law quickly enough."

"That was thanks to money and leverage from the right families." Narcissa topped off both of their coffees. "The first attempts by pureblood patriarchs to secure muggleborn brides for their sons didn't go so well. There are a lot of bad feelings out there. Not to mention they were quite surprised when they learned that Muggle parents weren't interested in negotiating marriage contracts."

"Such practices are a little antiquated for England. There are some countries where it's still a practice, but not here. In most 'first world' nations we young women are encouraged to make our own way in the world, including finding our own husbands."

"Oh, but that would be lovely. Be sure to stand your ground with Draco regarding your own daughters. I'll stand with you for that cause. I love Lucius, of course, madly. Sadly, there are a lot of witches in my circle that can't say the same. They tolerate their husbands because it is expected of them, but there's no love there."

"I have to ask, why the change of heart? Entirely because of how I may have been born a witch?"

"For Lucius. I would have supported the idea for my son alone. I have long suspected that most of his animosity towards you during your school years was rooted in the knowledge that he would never have been allowed to pursue you. Well, the later years of course. During those first few years he would have been a typical boy and thus lacking any real brains."

Hermione blinked at the elegant woman. Narcissa let out a peal of laughter at her expression. "Oh, my dear girl, we are both clever enough to realize that women are the true power in this world. We just let the men think they are in charge, but most decisions in politics and war are made in the bedroom. Wives and mistresses control the king. This has been true since the dawn of history and it will remain true until the end of time. And little boys rarely have any real intelligence when it comes to rational thought and common sense. That's what we are for."

She could not believe she was hearing this. This was the type of heart-to-heart conversation you had with someone who cared for you or was at least close to you. Narcissa Malfoy seemed intent on forging some type of relationship between them.

"You… you're serious. About me and Draco, I mean."

"Of course I am. I would have supported the idea even before I learned of your mother's attack. I just needed that bit of history to break thru my husband's last line of defense as well as throw off those who would attack you out of spite. There are still those who do not care for Muggleborns."

"Draco says Pucey killed his bride."

Narcissa closed her eyes for a moment. "That is the suspicion, and given the family's attitudes it is likely correct. You sister likely did Muggleborn witches everywhere a favor by killing that particular wizard. Knott wasn't much better, but he would have tired of you after forcing you into every sexual position he could think of. After that he likely would have left you alone to continue chasing everything female from here to Calais."

Hermione shuddered. "And Goyle?"

"Would have been so grateful to you for having sex with him at all that you would have had him eating out of your hand and fulfilling your every desire within a fortnight. Likely you would have been bored to tears with him in under month."

"So why Draco?"

"Because my son is likely the closest you'll find to being your equal intellectually and he needs a witch who won't let him walk all over her. It's what has made my marriage with Lucius work. If I weren't so strong a woman he would be insufferable. I assure you, as bad as he seems, were I a doormat he would be a thousand times worse. Draco is like him in that respect. He needs a wife who will keep him in line, and I believe you are the perfect woman to fill that position."

"So you are serious in this petition."

"Completely and wholeheartedly." Narcissa gave her a little smirk. "And, on the chance that Severus cannot convince your sweet sister to lift her curse, it seems my son will have to actually win your heart. Shall we make him work for it? The exercise will do him good."

"Work for it?"

"I believe Muggles refer to it as 'going old school'? I do believe it's time Draco was forced to follow some of the more antiquated courting customs of our society."

That sounded somewhat ominous. "Such as?"

"Oh, paying respects to your father. Certain gifting customs. Oh, and of course, the practice of chaperones. He'll truly hate that last one, but nothing worth winning was easy to come by." The older witch reached across the small table and patted Hermione's hand. "Don't worry, Dear. By the time you and I are through my son will not only fully admit that he is the luckiest wizard on earth should you grace him with the smallest of smiles, he will have you fully convinced that his affections are genuine and undying."