23rd February 2011

Hermione had promised herself she wouldn't loiter. Or linger. Or liaise. Or play word games with herself so she could hang about in Ministry hallways trying to look casual. She had recused herself from the Wizengamot for the duration of the case against Ginny. It was a closed session due to the sensitive nature of the proceedings.

Which meant if she wanted to know how the prosecution was going, she had to rely on very surreptitious gossip. Frustrated with herself, Hermione strode to the Flint Rooms and spent half an house shuffling vellum until she gave up.

She went to Oxford, to her laboratory and shuffled paper. She reread her thesis, practising her defence. The other doctoral students regarded her with amusement until Soo-jin asked if she was going to a fancy dress party. Hermione looked down at herself, still in her robes, then shut herself in her cubicle to get some real work done before she went entirely mad.

It was past eight when she Apparated home discretely from the ladies' loo. The Manor was quiet and Hermione felt guilty about missing dinner. She'd not planned to be so late and hurried to the family dining room in hopes she might catch everyone still there.

The room was empty, plates already cleared. Hermione rubbed her eyes as she fought tears. She was tired. Running herself ragged. She knew this but there was so much to do. She wanted to be there for her family. All her family. She wanted the trial over. Bloody Ginny just couldn't keep her mouth shut. She'd seen Molly and Arthur at the Ministry, both trying hard not to show how worried they were.

"Daughter?" Octavius Flint had dined with his son and grandchildren that evening and had noticed the absence of his daughter-in-law. He had noticed that he had noticed her missing rather a lot, which was unusual for him. The mental fog that had plagued him since his wife had... gone away... was much less oppressive than it had been. Life didn't seem so grey any more.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Hermione hastily blinked. "Is there anything you need?" Her father-in-law smiled at her in the considering way he had when he was trying to catch up with what was going on around him. Octavius had responded well to the treatment plan they'd found for him and while he still grumbled about the nurse, Mrs Shaw, he was much more lucid with a little aid.

"You look upset. Nothing troubling you, I trust?" He asked, hoping his son hadn't done anything stupid. Marcus was a difficult boy. Surly and angry. They fought so often. Not recently, he didn't think. No, recently everything had been quite pleasant. The petite witch made everything almost happy.

"Just over-tired. The Wizengamot is in session." She indicated her mulberry robes, somewhat creased after being transfigured into a lab coat.

"Always a dull business." Octavius agreed. He'd dutifully attended and had thought he was doing some good. Lucius always appreciated his help. "And the chairs are so uncomfortable."

"Oh, I changed that. Ergonomic seating. And regular breaks. No one gets to sneak through codicils while their opponents are distracted by their bladders or leg cramps." The filibustering and camping strategies of yesteryear had been foiled by her reforms. Now all she had to deal with was corruption, nepotism and lawyers.

"Jolly good." He thought that was a very sensible thing to do. He knew his daughter-in-law was clever. He'd told Marcus to find a clever wife, as the boy was so pig-headed. That might have been different, if the other children... Octavius didn't want to think about that. "But the little boy and that smart girl, they're well, aren't they?"

"Very." Hermione answered quickly, recognising the signs of the older wizard struggling. She and Marcus had discussed inviting Neville to the Manor to meet Octavius, to reassure him that the Longbottoms had a legacy. Neville had been willing for Hermione's sake, but they had hesitated unsure if it would help.

"Septimus reminds me of my brother. Cheeky." Octavius was vague on the date and on the name of his son's wife but he was sure about his grandchildren. "Livia told me Marcus had taken her into Muggle London. Please, my dear, tell him off. It isn't safe. We have to be careful. She's precious."

"I have a tracking charm on both the children." She quashed her first snappish response to tell off her father-in-law. While London was a huge city and therefore had dangers, Octavius wasn't referring to the traffic or crowds. He meant the Muggles. "No one will hurt them."

"Good. I don't want anyone hurt. I don't. I didn't tell..." Octavius nodded so vigorously he swayed. Hermione didn't grab him to try to steady him. Instead, she hooked her arm around his and stood at his side waiting, keeping him upright with a social posture he found reassuring.

"It's late." She said quietly when he blinked at her. "I think I would like to retire for the evening. Would you escort me up?" Hermione and Marcus had worked together to find the best way to keep his father on an even keel. Patience and old fashioned manners helped most often.

"Of course, my dear." Octavius took refuge in deeply instilled courtesy. He was at home. Flint Manor was his fortress. He could've found the way to the bedroom suites blind drunk without stumbling. When they got to the oak staircase leading to the family wing, he was back in control. "We missed you at dinner."

"There was a difficult case." Hermione temporised, regretting she hadn't watched the clock closer.

"The Weasley, yes." He had caught his son swearing in the hallway and had castigated him. Such language was not appropriate for a scion of the House of Flint. "Marcus told me she had written a libellous book. Cedrella must be furious her daughter is so wild, though she probably gets it from the Black side of the family. The Weasleys have their tempers but they've never been shabby."

"Granddaughter. Arthur married a Prewett." She corrected, with a sour internal monologue about Molly. Hermione tried not to mind so much. It had been years, long, happy years, but the Weasley matriarch's continued vitriol still got under her skin.

"Oh, well, that explains it. Leap First and Look Second, that should be the Prewett motto. Temper and recklessness, not a good match." Octavius frowned. There was something about the Prewetts he'd forgotten. Well, it couldn't be that important if it wasn't coming to mind. "I trust when it's Livia's time to receive suitors you'll look for a steadier young man. A Malfoy might do."

"I will bear that in mind." Hermione exercised some of her politician's tact. There was no way in several Hells she would encourage her daughter to marry a Malfoy. But if she announced that to any Flint, they'd go out of their way to arrange it. Livia was as stubborn as her father.

They met Marcus in the hall near the new master suite. Octavius bowed over her hand then ambled off to his own room. Hermione started to apologise for being late before he put his finger to her lips and led her to the door of their bedroom. There, curled among the pillows, Livia and Septimus slept where they'd dozed off while listening to their daddy tell them about Quidditch.

"Because it's so boring." Hermione teased softly, padding into the room to unwind Septimus from a Magpies scarf. He grumbled in his sleep, refusing to surrender his trophy. "And he's still not allowed a broom until he's five."

"Livia said she wants to be a Chaser for Slytherin." Marcus whispered as he picked up his daughter, engulfed in one of his old jumpers, and smirked at his studious wife.

"Livia is going to be in Ravenclaw." She retorted, having given up early on any expectation her daughter would be in Gryffindor. "A scholarly Eagle with minimal interest in cavorting at ridiculous elevations."

"The 'Claws do have a Quidditch team. They were not bad. Relied too much on overcomplicated strategies but we could never let down our guard." He walked to Livia's room and tucked her into bed, leaving her in his jumper as it was snowing outside.

Hermione put Septimus to bed and was then ambushed by her husband. He swept her off her feet, carrying her to their bed and dropping her on it. She hit him with a pillow.

"I'm sorry I missed dinner. The charges were read today." Hermione was sure Marcus would understand but she still felt she had to explain. "It's all I can think of. I nearly put my pen in the autoclave I was so distracted."

"We can be at Terence's lodge for brunch. Say the word. Potter is safely away, Weasley is on the other side of the pond and you can even bring your thesis." Marcus sat down and slid off his wife's shoes so he could give her a foot rub.

"It sounds like we're running." She moaned, more from his ministrations than frustration. He had a point. They'd discussed it. And hanging about at the Wizengamot to gossip would drive her mental. "Arthur and Molly looked so upset. They're really worried. Ginny could go to Azkaban."

"She wrote the fucking book." He had worked hard to delete certain words from his vocabulary, sure his wife would geld him if she heard their children swear. But that autobiography was worth more obscenities than he could speak in one breath.

"I loved skiing with my parents." Hermione told the ceiling. She'd tried to keep her mum and dad real for her children. There were photographs of them in the drawing room. She shared the stories she'd been told growing up. When Septimus and Livia were older, she'd tell them more about the circumstances of their grandparents' deaths. But not yet.

"We will go where you went with them. Jason and Mrs Shaw can mind my father. He hates the snow." Marcus worked his fingers into the tendons in the soles of her feet, undoing the knots. When his hands began migrating up her calves, she shifted her left foot carefully to rub the bulge between his legs. It had been a while since they'd had sex. Hermione felt she was cheating on him with her thesis.

Marcus knew every inch of her body. He knew what she liked. He knew how much she enjoyed him slowly stripping her clothes, no rush, no pressure. She lay sprawled on the bed as he undressed them both, lidded eyes lingering on his shoulders. He had little crescent scars there, marks of her appreciation.

"You are a terrible influence." Hermione murmured as he slid her knickers down her legs and tossed them on the floor. He grinned giving her the wicked look that still made her heart flutter after six and a half years of marriage. When he spread her knees and angled himself just brushing her entrance then paused, she swore at him.

Marcus thrust home, kissed her and didn't object at all when she dug her nails into his skin as she shivered with the start of their pleasure. He varied the tempo, teasing her by slowing down when she was close then speeding up when she eased back. He planned to spend a good long while reminding her why she'd married him. Except she was clever and did that thing with her hips that made him forget his own name and his plan, and when she wrapped her legs around him he stopped teasing.

Afterwards, sweating and cold in the chilly room, Hermione watched him dab at the little spots of blood on his upper back and shoulders that he never let her heal. He liked the little scars. They were only visible if you knew what to look for, and she did. So whenever he was shirtless she remembered how good he was at relaxing her.

So even though it sounded like a retreat, they went to the Higgs' lodge. Marcus and Tamsin taught the children how to fly while she and Terence made star charts. They went skiing. They had snowball fights. She wrote five thousand words on amyloid precursors and decided she would defend her thesis in the spring once her current pharmaceutical tests were done.

Everything was a frosty idyll and her determined amnesia of any Weasley lasted until she received a letter from Angelina. The owl was one of Neville's, who knew where the Flints had gone, and he wouldn't have passed on the message unless it was important. Hermione girded herself for bad news.

It wasn't. Granted the letter wasn't unmixed blessings but it started with an apology. Angelina had read Ginny's book and recognised it for a morass of half-truths. Reading between the lines, Hermione saw a lot of fractures in the extended Weasley family.

Marcus listened as his wife read the letter aloud. He'd disliked Johnson in school but it was the dislike of rivals. She'd been good. Tactical and aggressive. He could see her being well suited to the surviving Weasley twin. What he didn't see was why his wife wanted to meet with her.

"She wants to talk to me." Hermione moved scrambled eggs around her plate then glared at her husband as he stabbed a fork into her sausage and conveyed it to his plate. "That's mine."

"You are playing with your food. I am eating it." Marcus had been up early, in several senses, and had worked up an appetite demonstrating to his wife how much he enjoyed her company.

"You're stealing it." She put her fork down. "I'm going." Hermione said it like a challenge, meeting her husband's iron eyes with determination. "You can stay if you want."

"Send her a Portkey. If she wants to talk, she can come here." He bisected the sausage and returned half of it to her plate in a peace gesture.

"I can Apparate to London. We could meet there." It was just within her range and she was familiar enough with her destination she was confident she wouldn't Splinch.

"You are not going to Apparate seven hundred bloody miles and back in an afternoon." Marcus knew his command would rankle her but he had learned with Hermione that sometimes she needed to hear how much she was committing to an enterprise before she undertook it. And how much he didn't like it. "I know you can do it. I also know how much it will take out of you. And the press will be sniffing for any whiff Weasel drama."

"You don't get to boss me about." Hermione glared, not raising her voice because she expected they would be shortly have company for breakfast. Tamsin was a morning person and the children would up soon too.

"Yes, I do." He held up his left hand, showing her the Muggle wedding ring he wore. "When you gave me this, you also gave me bossing rights. So I am invoking them now. Send Johnson a Portkey. She can bring her kids. They could probably do with a break."

"You can be surprisingly considerate when you're being an arse." She groused.

She sent Angelina a Portkey.

Her former Housemate was sufficiently determined to speak with Hermione without her mother-in-law knowing that she travelled to Austria with her two children. And a very unhappy husband.

When George appeared alongside his wife, Fred and Roxanne, Hermione tensed for a confrontation. She'd been waiting in the snowy clearing for almost an hour, pacing as she went over in her mind what she would say to Angelina. They'd been friendly at Hogwarts and she hoped to rekindle some of that.

George was not radiating bonhomie. He nodded at Hermione then stared hot-eyed at Marcus, who was as ill pleased to see him. The witches exchanged brief greetings before herding everyone into the lodge.

Tamsin was there to welcome the Weasleys, with Terence at her side making an effort not to hide behind his out-going wife. The former Hufflepuff had done a lot to ease her husband's social anxiety but he still reached for her hand under the wattage of George's glare.

"We have hot chocolate in the solarium, or I could take the kids out to make maple snow." Tamsin offered after the stilted introductions. George objected but Angelina overrode him. Nine year old Fred looked a little rebellious at being take away from what was fixing to be a stellar argument but he went at his mother's insistence. Roxy immediately struck up a conversation with Livia, chatting happily as they were led away by Mrs Higgs.

Terence kept his nerve, showing his guests to one of the parlours. He'd had the fireplace lit with apple logs so the room was fragrant and cosy. He poured drinks, offered snacks then at a nod from Marcus, thankfully excused himself from the private conversation.

"Still skittish." George remarked after the slight Slytherin had slithered off. He was surprised to see the former Seeker had a wife, particularly Tamsin, who had once kicked him in the head after he'd clipped her with a Bludger. Hufflepuff fair play went only so far with a House Cup on the line.

"He doesn't like conflict." Hermione looked pointedly at George's clenched hands.

"Which is why we're here." Angelina spoke quickly before her husband could pick a fight with Flint, who was loafing on the sofa sipping pear schnapps. She'd never liked him and couldn't figure out how he had convinced Hermione to put up with him. Unless the crusading witch thought of him as just another house elf. "Ginny's book is awful."

"We know." The Flints spoke almost in tune, a harmony that taxed George's self-control a touch too much.

"He's got you well trained." He muttered. He hadn't wanted to come. But Angelina was understating how horrible his sister's memoir had made them feel. All that spite, all those lies. They couldn't side with that sort of poison.

Both wives fixed their husbands with quelling looks. Marcus raised his glass to Hermione. Despite a debt owing for cracked ribs, he had promised not to verbally antagonise Weasley. He would abide by that vow, as it was apparent he didn't have to say a damn thing to rile the redhead.

"Sorry, Hermione." George took a gulp of his drink. It was good stuff. It tasted fruity and burned all the way down. "Is this Muggle liquor?"

"It's a local spirit, yes. Terence and his father-in-law went on a distillery tour the year before last. Mister Applebee's family used to make cider so he got quite nostalgic." Hermione was deliberately filling in the conversational gaps, giving the Weasleys time to broach the uncomfortable topics.

"You sound quite close. Must be, I guess, to stay here." He made an absent gesture from Hermione to the oak panelling. The Muggle-born witch looked perfectly at ease in a Slytherin den. Or was it a nest? George had never squared in his head that snakes had nests. Pits, yes. Holes, possibly though that was more a badger thing. He sighed. "We didn't want you to think we were onside with what Ginny wrote."

"She wouldn't listen to us." Angelina continued, stepping up for her husband when he turned morose. "She wouldn't listen to anyone. Bill threatened to take her to St Mungo's he was so worried. She's been really depressed since she was cut from the National team."

"Her form wasn't great and that loss to Burkina Faso was shocking. I wasn't surprised when heads rolled." Marcus didn't play professionally any more but he followed Quidditch closely. He'd treated a dozen of his friends to World Cup tickets last year and had shouted himself hoarse when Moldova won.

"She's convinced you got her dropped from the team." George half-accused, aware Flint had a lot of contacts in the Quidditch world. And money.

"I thought about it." He answered unblushing. "But Hermione asked me to restrain myself, then all those late nights partying started affecting her performance. Your sister sabotaged herself." Marcus dared Weasley to object. He was a good player himself and knew how hard it was to stay on top of your game.

"We tried to talk to her about that too." Angelina had tried. Everyone had tried. "Ginny's desperately unhappy."

"There are counselling services she can use." Hermione suggested, telling herself that as vicious as Ginevra Weasley had been to her, this was the time to be the better person. "Padma is doing a psychology degree. She'd be able to find Ginny someone discreet."

"Last time we mentioned anything like that, we got our heads bitten off." His little sister had hexed him and stormed out of the room, refusing to speak to him for weeks. "It's really bad at home. Everyone's walking on eggshells."

"I saw your parents at the Wizengamot. I didn't try to talk to them. I'm sure Molly still thinks I'm a whore." From Angelina and George's careful expressions, Hermione saw she was correct. "Ginny might get away with just a fine. I don't know. I've tried to keep away from the case."

"We saw you weren't there." Angelina had gone once to show support but seeing Ginny and her solicitor defending that muck had made her feel ill. "Ron said he'd told you. That you'd got the law through to try to protect Harry."

"The legislation exists to protect everyone. The wizarding press has a shocking lack of oversight. A fair chunk of the law comes directly from Muggle statutes." Ever since Rita Skeeter's first hatchet job on her, Hermione had wanted to put some recourse in place for the victims of such yellow journalism. "It wasn't just for Harry. I was hoping Ginny would see that it wasn't worth it."

"No chance of that." George sighed wearily. "It's bloody miserable at the Burrow. Has been for years. There's still empty places at the table." He missed his brother every day. Angelina and the kids made it better, but the void couldn't be filled. "You and Harry should be there."

"Your mother threw us out like rubbish. And she's in danger of losing Ron too. Jenny feels like she's invisible." Hermione hadn't expected to get along with the American witch as well as she did. After Marcus had told her what Jenny had said at the Independence Day barbecue, she'd taken the risk of sending the first email. They'd corresponded regularly ever since.

"Mum finds it hard to forget. With us all out of the Burrow, she doesn't have anything to do. So she stews on things." He didn't tell Hermione that one of the rare rows he'd had with Angelina was over Molly's interference. There had been a few too many sharp comments about Angelina staying over at her father's place to look after him when she should be looking after George.

"She could volunteer. She could stand for the Prewett Seat in the Wizengamot." The words came out of Hermione's mouth in spite of her inward cringe. Having Molly there glaring at her across the chamber would not add lustre to her day. "Maybe counselling for her too. Your mother's been through two wars. That'd scar anyone."

They talked more easily now the sensitive issues had been broached. Marcus mostly kept his mouth shut, watching his wife negotiate a détente with the Weasleys. George, Angelina, Fred and Roxy stayed for lunch. It was still tense in places but much better than the drab truce that had previously been between them.

Hermione waved as the Weasleys took their Portkey back to England then stood pensively knee deep in snow. Marcus hugged her and she leaned into his embrace.

"They're going to hate me if Ginny goes to Azkaban." She closed her eyes, finding comfort in her husband's strong arms.

"Probably." Marcus agreed. He was no stranger to being hated. "We will endure. We are Flints." He felt her chuckle. "Too much?"

"You are cute when you're resolute." Hermione smiled up at him. "And you're right. Let's have some cocoa and wait for the storm."