Hermione paused at the doorstep to the Burrow, turning to face Draco. "Thanks for bringing me here," she said. "Will you please leave me alone now?"

"Yes, I will. Thank you for letting me take you somewhere safe. You're still looking pretty shaky." Draco shifted the load of petticoats and shoeboxes in his arms to shove open the door. "Plus, I don't think you could've handled all this by yourself."

"True," Hermione laughed weakly. "Your mother loaded me up with so much frou-fra I don't have any idea what to do with it. But you don't have to be such a gentleman."

Draco dropped his load just inside the hallway. "Well, I wouldn't call this being a gentleman. I just want to get to somewhere where you can't hurt yourself too badly--wouldn't want to mess up this beautiful face, now would I?" Draco smirked, backing down the steps and into the garden.

"Don't do anything stupid yourself," Hermione called, watching Draco slip stealthily down the garden path. The sun had drawn low in the sky—the visit to the Malfoys had taken much longer than she had realized—and the rays made Draco's head look as if it was on fire. Hermione wished it could be the case, but in the back of her mind knew that it would be torture for her too. Plus, it would be a pity to disfigure that perfect willowy frame, with long sinuous muscles twining down perfectly toned arms to hands that—

"Hermione, you're back!" Ginny bounded down the stairs, her face a mixture of excitement to see her friend and trepidation as to the state said friend would be in. "And you have baggage."

"Oh, right," Hermione turned her attention back into the house. "Yes, Mrs Malfoy gave me a lecture on how to be a proper Malfoy lady, complete with bonus jewels and dresses that are only fit for Halloween costumes."

"But they're so sparkly," Ginny had by now picked up a pile of dresses and was carefully maneuvering the stairs to her bedroom. "You will let me try some on, right?"

"Of course," Hermione replied. "I might even let you keep one. Just to spite Mrs Malfoy—Narcissa— and her inheritance charts." She set her load on Ginny's bed and looked out the window. The sky was growing darker, but the remnants of glimmering fire were still lingering in the clouds, much like the fire in Draco's eyes when he had looked at her—Hermione whirled away from the window. "Where are we going to put all this stuff?"

Ginny was sorting the dresses by color, back in one pile, green in the other. "I don't know, maybe your old school trunk? We can enchant it so it's bigger inside. I wouldn't want to crush these dresses," Ginny said, stroking a particularly silky white satin negligee. "Malfoy's mum sure thought of everything."

Hermione glared at her. "Like that'll ever happen. Draco's a loathsome little toad, even if he does insist on being a gentleman through all of this." She sat down with her back to the bed, pulling idly at the carpet on the floor. "I still can't believe I'm married to him. Draco Malfoy, my childhood enemy."

Ginny sat down beside her. "I can't even imagine," she said. "But he's really being nice? I always thought he hated you."

"I guess not anymore." Hermione shrugged. "At the Ministry, he told me he loves me."

"No way." Ginny looked incredulous, an eyebrow raised. When Hermione continued staring at the floor, she continued. "Seriously?"

Hermione looked up, her eyes wild with bewilderment and sadness. "Yes," she said softly.

"He was serious," Ginny stated again, as if trying to wrap her head around the idea. "Did he explain why? Because I—we—always thought he hated you."

Settling back against the bed, Hermione pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I didn't really give him a chance to tell me anything. It was right after we'd gotten the news. I was a little dazed."

"You should definitely ask him about it sometime," Ginny said. "At least it'll give you two something to talk about."

"That's another thing! We don't have anything in common!" Hermione was getting worked up now, her gestures jerking around like baby birds. "It was all going to be perfect. I was going to marry Ron, and we were going to move into our own place, and I would go back to school—" She trailed off. "But now I'm married to a man who previously hated me, now loves me, and has the most gorgeous blond hair in the history of—what am I saying? Ginny! I've been thinking things about Draco lately—I've been finding him attractive! What is wrong with me?"

"Well, he is a rather attractive guy," Ginny said, contemplating. "I mean, for a guy who does no physical labor, he's got a pretty nice body. And his face isn't half bad when he smiles."

"That's not the point! I'm in love with Ron. What am I doing drooling over Draco?"

Ginny was stumped. "Um, you're married?" She giggled. "That's what married people do, you know."

Hermione shot her a suspicious look. "You're not married, last time I checked. How would you know this?" She grinned when Ginny blushed.

"Well?" Hermione cocked her head expectantly, her grin spreading wider.

Ginny took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak, when a flash of green light emanated from the vicinity of the garden, followed by a strange high-pitched shriek.

Hermione leaped off the bed and ran to the window, flung it open and peered out. Ginny followed, leaving the remaining dresses in shambles on the floor. "Oh," Hermione gasped. "Oh, no!" She looked like she couldn't quite decide between laughing and crying.

Ginny had no trouble deciding, and doubled over in laughter that she tried to stifle with her hands. She plopped onto the floor at the base of the window, gasping for air. Hermione still stood at the window, gasping at the scene before her.

Ron stood in the garden, brandishing his wand at a motley assortment of spiders and gnomes. A few black spiders had been hit with an enlarging spell, and struggled to retreat to the dark cracks between the stones. This was becoming increasingly difficult because the stones kept crumbling under the sparks from Ron's wand before they could get there. The gnomes lay sprawled in a line, like a petrified line of dominoes, terrified looks on their faces.

Wand waving wildly about, but with a tightly controlled look in his eyes, Ron stood amidst the chaos he had caused as if planning what to do next. He was completely oblivious to the possibility that anyone could be watching. A vein in his neck twitched.

Suddenly he turned and stalked toward the house, muttering. Just as suddenly, he whirled: he was pacing. Hermione thought she heard the word "Malfoy" just before he turned around.

She watched uneasily as Ron took out his fury on the unsuspecting inhabitants of the garden.

"REDUCTO!" He shouted, blowing a hole in the low stone wall, kicking at the rubble as it toppled to the ground. Whirling, he grabbed one of the petrified gnomes and swung it over his head, than flung it over the wall and into the meadow beyond with a grunt. Letting his wand fall, he grabbed two more gnomes and vaulted over the wall, running into the field like a banshee. Suddenly he stopped, turned, and hurled the two gnomes like javelins. They struck a fair distance away into a heap of compost, headfirst.

Running again, Ron pelted toward the broom shed, where he grabbed a pair of garden clippers. Furiously chomping their blades, he headed toward Arthur's prized Georgian Guarding Hedge, his mouth set in a tight line. Hermione could almost smell the anger and desperation coming off him in waves.

"Ron!" She yelled, trying to catch his attention. She waved, but futilely. Ron was intent on the hedge, and seemed to be looking at it much the way he had looked at Draco Malfoy that morning. "Ron, don't!"

Hermione tore herself away from the window and sprinted down the stairs. She nearly tripped over her feet on the third-floor landing, but managed to get down the entire flight in one piece and in record time. She burst out of the house, hair bobbing wildly behind, and launched herself at the hedge.

"Ron, don't!" She said, panting. "We'll find a way to fix this. We will, I promise."

Ron recoiled quickly when he realized it was Hermione who stood in the path of his clippers and not the hedge. He took a deep breath, flinching only slightly when Hermione gently grabbed his upper arms.

"You mean…" he trailed off, letting the clippers fall. "You mean you don't love him?"

"Love him?! Of course not!" Hermione was taken aback. She pulled him into a full embrace, but he was still reluctant. "I may have ended up married to the man, but trust me: I do NOT love him."

Ron huffed, controlling himself. He scrunched up his eyes, but brought his hands up to rest on Hermione's shoulders. "I mean, it's just that you look at him sometimes, look at him in this certain way…. We were getting married! We were supposed to be married!"

"I know, Ron. I hate it too," Hermione replied. "It's you who I want, not him. The marriage is just legal issues we need to work through. But I know we'll get it sorted soon." She knew she sounded uncertain, and that she was grasping at straws, but tried to make up for it in the intensity of her gaze.

"Hermione, I love you." Ron was holding her now.

"Oh, Ron," she breathed, nestling her forehead in the crook of his shoulder. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek, and was hit suddenly with the full realization of what life could be like without him—never again tracing her fingers over his freckles, never laugh at his jokes or pretend to laugh even when they weren't funny, never pack a picnic and hop on his broomstick for an afternoon in his newest favorite patch of woods. She lifted her head to look him in the eye. "I love you too."

And she kissed him, to prove it.

He responded quickly, holding her tighter, moving to stroke her face with his hands. She buried her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, losing herself in their shared feelings, reveling in his love for her and her love for him and her conviction that everything would turn out alright. Her head swam with the intensity of it; the sheer immensity built behind her eyes with overwhelming power and speed, growing deeper and shaper, throbbing and throbbing and building until it seemed to shatter her skull.

She staggered backward, clutching her head. Ron looked bewildered. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I—I don't know," Hermione said. She felt like there was a porcupine wedged down her throat, like her head was going to explode, and her lips felt like they would jump off her face to avoid the pain. "It hurts." She gasped, legs buckling under her.

Ron caught her just before she hit the ground, his arms burning into her body like fiery pokers.

"OW!" Hermione threw herself as far away from him as she could, onto a pile of sod. "Don't touch me!"

"What? Sweetheart, I though we were going to try to make this work," Ron sounded extremely confused, and rather put out.

"I—we were." Hermione doubled over, trying to regain her breath. "But when you touch me, it's like I'm going to self-destruct or burn to death or something."

"So you're allergic to me now?" Ron chuckled darkly.

"Oh, Ron. It's not you. I think it's me. Remember the provision for adultery we put in the marriage bonds? I think it just went into effect."

Ron moaned. "Oh no. The marriage bond thinks you're cheating. You're cheating on Malfoy, who should have been me, with me. This is horrible."

Hermione sighed, and rolled onto her back, her hands above her head as if in surrender. "I don't know what we're going to do," she said. "I want this to work so badly. But I drew up the marriage contract so tight I can't even kiss my own fiancé."

There were many things that had Hermione confused—why she was finding Draco Malfoy so inexplicably attractive, how the marriage contract was so binding to someone not named in it, why it was becoming increasingly difficult to care about such tichy legal matters—but over one thing she was certain: this didn't bode well. It didn't bode well at all.