"Are you sure," Hermione asks Astoria. "It's a lifelong sacrifice." She glances at Greg, who's standing slightly behind the beautiful woman, head down, staring at his feet. "And you'll be condemned, you know, as a wanton and a homewrecker."

Astoria juts her chin out, jaw set. "I'm sure. I stand with you, Lady. You are bringing light back to your world. Hope back to our people. Don't deny me this."

"And you, Greg? It's a grand romantic gesture, certainly, but you'll spend your whole life in the fallout."

Without looking up he says, swallowing hard, "I'm not a smart man, Lady. I'm not perceptive, or clever, or wise. You can't use me to hold down a corner of the Ministry for you, I can't design strategy, I can't even write. I want to help you eliminate the mudblood loving Order, I do, and I know I'm not… but, I can do this."

"Do you love her," Hermione asks, gently. "I can't let you be her salvation in this if you don't, no matter how loyal I know that you are."

"I do," he whispers.

"Astoria, are you sure you can do it? He has to remember, and the pregnancy has to take."

The woman smiles, "I'm sure."

"Very well, then." Hermione steps forward and puts her hand on Astoria's cheek. "You are my loyal servant. Know that you have earned my pleasure and gratitude and, when we have won, you shall be rewarded. Greg." The man looks up, a fanatic's gleam in his eyes. "You as well. Your faithfulness and devotion serve me well."

She steps back, "Go, both of you. I look forward to news of your success."

The pair leave the flat, watched not just by Hermione but also by a pair of cool, grey eyes.

"You've turned her into a whore, him into a cuckold, and they're thanking you for the privilege." Draco turns to Hermione after they've left. "You use your favorites hard."

She throws herself back down into her chair, head thrown back and eyes hard. Without looking at him she starts to pick her hair out of a tight crown of braids, starts taking off what he thinks of as her 'dark lady' costume. He suspects she really misses tatty jumpers and trainers. Soon her hair will be down, her shoes off, and she'll dismiss him, her not quite fiancé. "I use you worse than any of them." Her tone mocks him even as it simmers with self-loathing. "Engaged to a filthy mudblood, how can you stand it, being a mudblood lover? How does it feel, tainting yourself with me? Do you ever wonder if the end goal is worth the contamination?"

"That's not fair," he looks at her. "I have never, not once, mentioned your blood status since we started this. You know why? Because it doesn't fucking matter to me. Maybe it did when I was twelve, but things change. I'm an adult who's been through hell and who's bloody well capable of appreciating your talents. Has it ever occurred to you that - "

"Oh yes, well, fine. You can manage to overlook my filthy blood when it suits your ends, Malfoy. So noble of you." She cuts him off, hurls the words back at him.

"Starting to bother you, the tools we've picked? Or do you just not like getting dirt on your hands so now you're lashing out at me? That isn't fair." His mouth narrows into a thin line, "And we're on a first name basis, remember? Is it your goal to insult me on every possible level today?"

"It's how all of you think. I've known you since you were eleven, Draco. I'm not exactly ignorant of your prejudice."

"When I think of how infuriatingly dense you can be when you want to, and then how much stupider the average person is, I… I swear, Hermione, right now I'm considering whether I'd live through slapping you, and even if I didn't whether it'd be worth it. Yes," he runs his hand through his hair and glares at her, "you are not what my family would have wanted for me, you know that and I'm sure even if you hadn't before my mother made it uncomfortably clear when you two met. And, yes, I considered your birth inferior for many years but you might – might - consider doing me the courtesy of believing that I am capable of changing my opinions. Have you missed that I think you're brilliant and beautiful and dangerous and fascinating? Really? Have you missed that you might as well bloody own me? At what point did you stop paying attention to - "

"I haven't missed what you all think of my type, that I'm beneath you all, worthless, filthy - "

"I… if you do not stop talking about yourself like this, I am going to - "

"Do what? Deny it again? It's what you all think." She's almost screaming now, all the tension of cultivating the blood issues erupting out of her.

"We did this on purpose," he hisses, stalking towards her. "You and I set this game in motion with every intention of using their prejudice and it's working and I'm sorry some of your closest followers are ignorant fools and I'm sorry every idle slur they make hurts you. I truly am. But do not dare assume that I am the unthinking bigot Greg is." He grabs her chin, glares at her. "You've rummaged through every mind in the Company except mine. You want to know what I think of you, want to truly know? Stop telling me I despise you and actually check. Why hold back, madam?" He searches her eyes even as he grips harder. "You know how to pick through my brain like a bag of penny candy. Do it."

"You're hurting me."

"Good. Do it."

"What makes you think I even care enough to want to know?"

"I'd never have thought you'd be such a coward," he taunts, goading her. "Are you afraid to discover I'm telling the truth when I say I bloody well adore you, or is what you're afraid of that I'm just using you?" And then she's in. He can feel her furiously push through the entry into his mind, feel the scraping pain as she forces her way from one emotion, one thought, to another. Sorting, discarding, looking for proof of his lack of regard. It occurs to him that pushing her into this, however angry he may have been, however unbelievably furious she'd made him, was a very bad idea indeed and that's when he starts to wonder if he's going to survive this intact; he's never noticed anyone else so much as flinch when she enters their heads but she's ripping him into tiny pieces and they float away on the wind. I float away, he thinks, like a butterfly. Like dandelion fluff. Floaty. Everything's so bright and pretty. He's never noticed that her floor is so soft. That's nice. It's good to have a soft floor.

At some point he realizes his forehead is pressed to the floor and that it's not soft. It is, in fact, rather hard and his head is pounding. On the other hand, he's in one piece again and his thoughts are his own and he's not floating away anymore, so there's that. "You told me," he breathes through the pain, "on our first date that I belonged to you. Wish you'd listened to yourself, spared me this. Brightest witch of our age and all."

"I'm so sorry," she whispers.

"Don't be sorry." He struggles to sit up, then changes his mind and just shifts so he's lying on his side, cheek rather than forehead pressed into the hardwood. "'s'okay. I'm yours to destroy. I would prefer," he shudders, " if you didn't do that again, though. Please." Things look really interesting from this angle, he thinks. There's more dust under that armchair than he'd realized, along with a sock. Why, he wonders, do socks always seem to separate? Why would a sock want to hide away under a chair, anyway? It's a nice chair, he's always thought, and being the only one in the room manages to imply 'throne'. Still, he should nag her to clean that dust up. Dark queens aren't supposed to live in dusty flats with mismatched socks. Doesn't fit the image. He tries to pick his head up again, which is a terrible idea except that suddenly there's a lap under his head and Hermione's fingers are stroking his forehead and that's actually quite lovely. He wishes she liked him for more than his plotting. It would be nice to be valued for more than blood, more than guile.

"Pick your head up, just a tad," she's whispering and she's supporting him and holding a glass to his lips. "Drink it." When he does, because when dark ladies hold things to your mouth and bid you drink that's what you do, the fog that has settled around him burns away taking most of the pain with it.

With clarity comes the realization that, yes, he really is lying on the floor with his head in Hermione's lap. "Bitch," he mutters. "That really bloody hurt."

"Don't move, it might get bad again." She's put the glass down and is stroking his hair again. "I'm sorry."

"For what? For being so uncivil as to practically torture me to determine whether I was being truthful? Couldn't you have just, I don't know, done whatever it is you do to everyone else instead of shredding me? Merlin, I'm in pieces all over your floor." He pauses. "There's a sock under your chair." They're silent for a while and then he adds, grudgingly, "Thank you for the pain medication."

"It wasn't my intention to harm you. I don't," she hesitates. "I don't know what happened. I don't know why it was different. It shouldn't have felt like anything, I wasn't trying to make it hurt."

"I guess I really am your favorite. Lucky me."

"You are," she's still stroking his hair and he thinks he should tell her to stop, that she can't simply pet away what she'd done but as that would involve moving out of her lap he just lets himself feel her hand, slowly running through his hair, stroking his forehead. "I -" she's groping for words, "it's awful to hear them, you know. 'You'd never touch her if she really were a filthy mudblood.'"

"It's what we counted on," he mutters into her leg.

"I know." Her hand stops and he moves to sit up. "It's still hard to hear over and over again and not think, 'Well, it's how they all think, it's how he thinks, he's just swallowing his disgust to get the job done.' I didn't want to get attached to someone who just… who hates me, whose skin crawls at having to touch me."

He pulls himself over to her, lowers his head, very carefully, onto the top of her hair, breathes in the smell of her. "I assure you, I enjoy every moment I spend in your company. Almost every moment," he corrects himself. "I didn't especially care for the last 15 minutes or so."

"I…" she's twining her hands in her lap and he puts one hand over them, stopping the movement. "I'm so sorry. I… this… can you forgive me?"

"Just, promise me you won't do it again." He pulls her, then, into his lap and she slumps back against him, sad and guilty. "Hey." He wraps his arms around her, "It's okay. I'm okay. Just… not again. Ever."

"I promise," she whispers.

"I don't even especially mind belonging to you most of the time," he closes his eyes and just breathes for a bit, savoring not being in pain, savoring the feel of her leaning against his chest. Finally he adds, "Just… try to take better care of your toys."

"You're not my toy."

"Your tool, then, so very useful in planning political coups." He hates how bitter he sounds. "Your favorite."

"Draco…"

"Tell me," he asks, "do I have any secrets left?"

"I'm sure."

"Any secrets left about my opinion of you, I mean."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"And?"

"I don't know, Draco."

"It's not the same for you, is it?" He masters his voice with rigorous, careful control.

"I don't know what it is for me. I… you hated me. That's not something that just gets magically wiped away, and," her own voice catches a little, "and I hurt you. How can you still - "

He cuts her off. "I just do. A sentiment against my better judgment, I assure you. My admiration for you, on every level, might have been bestowed unwillingly but you should certainly believe me after what just happened when I tell you it's sincere."

"You could try repressing your feelings," she mutters.

"I have."

"Try harder."

"Can't."

"Then what do we do now?"

"We're getting married, Hermione. Is it so awful to contemplate having a husband who -" he breaks off. "Who thinks well of you? I know… I know that after whatever happened with your friends you're convinced you're the one everyone will abandon, the one no one will stand by, but that's not going to happen. Personal loyalty is one of my very few good qualities, you know. Did you miss, while rummaging through my head, that the world could be ashes at my feet and I wouldn't leave?"

"No," she whispers. "That was not unclear. I just – "

He puts his hand under her chin, turns her face up to him. "Do I get anything for the remarkable grace with which I've tolerated your running roughshod over my brain, Lady?"

"I… what do you want?"

He lowers his mouth to hers, murmuring, "Just you. I just want you." She's tense, frozen in place and he pulls back and looks at her. "Wait." He sets her to the side, fetches his jacket, pulls out the small box he's been carting around since he's picked it up. "Hermione," he squats down in front of her. "Look at me."

"This was supposed to be public. Orchestrated," she mutters. "The final proof I'm a wretched pureblood, or that romance conquers all, depending on your perspective."

"I want to do something in all of this just for me, I want this to be private, just between us." He stops to inhale. He's so bloody nervous he's almost shaking. "Marry me, Hermione. And not so we can take over the world, though I look forward to seeing it at your feet. Marry me because you want me in your life, at your side. Marry me because you like me for more than the guile." He's searching her eyes. "And if you don't like me, don't want me, we'll find another way to do the rest. Don't let this be nothing but schemes. Be generous enough, please, to let me have one honest thing."

She looks at him for a long time, so long his thighs ache from squatting, so long he starts to think he can hear his own heart and that the sound of their breathing seems terribly loud. Finally, she holds her hand out towards him.

"Are you sure?" he whispers. "Let me hear the words."

"Yes," she says. "I'm sure."

He closes his eyes, lowers himself down to his knees and she puts the extended hand on his cheek. She's brushing the water away from his cheek and he turns to kiss her palm, hold her hand to his mouth. "Say it again."

"Yes."

"Tell me you want me," he whispers.

"I want you."

"Tell me - " he pauses. "Tell me you like me."

"I," she stumbles over the words. "I find that I cannot be happy without you. You're … I'm not blind to your faults. You're arrogant and condescending but - when I see something I want to share it with you, to catch your eye and see you smile at me, or get outraged and – you're just - you've become some essential part of me. I didn't… didn't want – I thought you still despised me and I would touch you and think, 'I can't have this' and it was like a knife and … yes. Yes, I like you."

He leans his forehead in until it touches hers and sits there, breathing, eyes closed. Finally he slips the ring on her hand.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – Two chapters in one day; I said I had the dramoine chapter all written up and ready to go. Please let me know what you think of the bit of romance/angst in the midst of all the plotting.