By the end of their second day in London, Marilyn knew she was in trouble. They'd spent their day being the most touristy tourists to ever tourist - wandering around the major landmarks, dipping into cafes and bakeries for quick snacks or drinks as they pleased and participating in whistle-stop tours of the galleries and museums. She was pleasantly surprised by the fact that Draco offered little argument beyond what was polite when she covered the price of their food for the day (if she did it another ten thousand times, they might find themselves even for the hotel suite and train tickets), and she even picked up a souvenir or two for Sarah and Taylor. All in all, she had a blast, feeling lighter and freer than she had in a long time.

It was only once the sun was beginning to set that they returned to the hotel to rest and get ready for the evening. There wasn't any great incident during the day that let her know she was wading into dangerous waters, nor even was it down to the fact that when they showered, they failed to do so separately. It was more what she felt, than what she did. And what she felt was sheer giddiness.

Time and time again as they wandered and chatted and joked, whiling away the hours as they pleased, their eyes met and they shared a certain warm look or a conspiratorial smile. And she had no control over it. Many a time she'd shot Draco a teasing smile, or one that she fancied to be particularly charming, or an amused one as they shared in some private joke, and on each and every one of those occasions she'd been in full control of it. And now she wasn't. Now, when they looked at one another and smiled or laughed, Marilyn had absolutely no control over it. It was entirely involuntary, taking over her face as she felt her cheeks blaze and the infuriating urge to giggle. It was horrific.

The only thing that outmatched the frustration she felt at her own elation, was the smugness as the fact that he seemed to feel it too. The Draco she knew walked everywhere with his hands in his pockets, and one of two looks on his face - a scowl, or an imperious sort of look. And all right, it wasn't like he was prancing through the streets and hugging all who crossed his path (she'd have been rather disturbed by such an un-British display if he had), but there was a definite change. An ease.

She wasn't about to take all of the credit for herself and declare that her nether region had mystical, spirit-lifting powers (but wouldn't that be a party trick?) - he'd said that he needed to get away, and from what she'd seen he had meant it, and it had done the trick. But she was sure she played some part in it, too. If only because of the looks he gave her, and the small smiles that often followed those looks. Oftentimes, the air between them seemed fraught with that energy, all but vibrating between the two of them.

When their long, drawn out dinner - during which they discussed anything between heaven and earth - came to an end, they put on a valiant show of pretending to consider finding a bar or a club to spend the rest of the night in. Marilyn almost believed they were truly considering going to one, too, before they came to the very grown-up conclusion that it would be a shame to ruin the last of their time here being hungover. Which left them with the very 'reluctant' and 'unanticipated' solution, that this only left them with the option of returning to the hotel for the night.

It was strange. Surprising. Not the part about finding an excuse to return to the bedroom as soon as possible - she had lived before she met Draco, and she'd been a ballerina, not a nun. But as she lay there, limbs entangled with his for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, she pondered just what a whirlwind this whole thing had been. Taylor liked to insist, stubbornly and frequently, that one never knew when the next good thing was going to turn up. It was a prospect that had gotten Marilyn through the dark days that immediately followed her injury. She hadn't believed it at the time, but it was a comforting thought. There had certainly been times when that was all she could cling to. And it worked.

Now, lying there, she took note of how much younger, how much more carefree, Draco appeared in his sleep. His pale, aristocratic features seemed softer in the meagre light, and there was no trace of a scowl or a grimace that he so commonly held, often seemingly without awareness that he was doing it. In her tired state, she couldn't help but wonder if he was one such occasion that Taylor had promised all that time ago. After all, there could have been no predicting his appearance in her life (not even the cards had warned of that), and he'd certainly introduced a sense of lightness into her day-to-day comings and goings that she never expected.

How many occasions in the past had she spent bemoaning being left alone with some guy through the sheer misfortune of their having nothing to say to one another? Dreading the time when the movie ended, or the small-talk over dinner was exhausted, or the alcohol wore off and the music of the club was far behind them, leaving them only with awkward silence and attempts at conversation that felt more like an interrogation than anything else?

But there was none of that here. Usually it seemed neither of them could wait until they were alone, whether because it allowed them to talk properly, or it afforded them privacy for their new favourite pastime, it was a phenomenon she couldn't have seen coming, and still could not quite believe. And it was likely to end in hurt. That was just a fact. While what might cause that hurt remained unclear, it would show up. It was something she thought to herself without fully meaning to, moreso with heaps of exhaustion-fuelled bluntness than any soul-wrenching angst. She'd been through hurt before, she knew what it was like, and she knew she could survive it. The risk she took now was the same sort of calculated assessment made by mountain climbers or deep sea divers. Following that spark, wherever it may have appeared, was worth the burns it could so easily bestow.

But what if it didn't end in hurt? That thought jolted her back into wakefulness. That thought was a far more dangerous one.

Marilyn closed her eyes and rolled over, ignoring the feeling of Draco's hand unconsciously grasping at her hip, as if to reassure himself even in sleep that she was still there. Just as she knew facts when she heard them, she also knew false hope. And she knew, between those two options, which one she'd rather entertain thoughts of.

Hermione was growing listless. She was reaching the end of her time posing as Draco's Muggle friend, and nothing of note had happened all weekend. Well, nothing beyond her housemates being sure that she was losing her mind. After the billionth reference, inside joke, or story she was "supposed" to remember flew over her head (something she only was able to gather after the fact, having noticed the looks the two women had exchanged afterwards), she'd retreated away to Marilyn's bedroom, citing a mystery illness that had her needing solitude and sleep. The sooner she could place memory charms on the both of them and be back in her own home, with her own bed, her own shower, and her own clothes, the more comfortable she would be.

Although comfortable wasn't something she was supposed to be at the moment, she supposed. But while she could do discomfort, listlessness was another thing entirely. She needed to be occupied. Not even necessarily entertained, just something. She couldn't while away the time watching films or reading books that held no interest to her - unfortunately her own books were outside the realms of possibility, given that if one of the two Muggle women were to find them during her stay, she'd need to wipe their memories then and there and abandon this mission early. But at this point, such a thought seemed preferable.

Nothing was going to happen. That much was apparent. Her continued presence in the house was a mere formality, and it gave her all the time she needed to be troubled by what had happened - or, more aptly, the fact that nothing had. Perhaps it was mere coincidence. It could very easily be coincidence. But time and experience had taught her to rely on gut instinct, and in this instance her gut instincts were telling her otherwise. These attackers had been so determined to catch Marilyn alone and unawares, that they'd made their move on a street that was empty for all of five seconds. It was a less than ideal place for such a move, totally insecure, and entirely public. So why weren't they renewing their attempts now? There had been more than a handful of occasions when Hermione had been the only one in the house - seemingly both unguarded and unaware. Were she a sadistic, unhinged Muggle-hater, she'd have chosen one of those moments to pounce without hesitation. On the surface, it was the perfect opportunity.

So...could it have been that these attackers knew that the surface did not reflect the reality of the situation? The prospect wasn't a promising one. There were a few innocuous explanations. They could have seen Marilyn board the train with Draco, or Hermione leave in her disguise wearing slightly different clothing. There was every chance that they were suspicious of Draco's sudden absence, failing to chalk it up to a lovers' quarrel and instead seeing it for what it was - a trap. Whoever they were dealing with was intelligent, this wasn't common thuggery brought about by a combination of anger and opportunity. This ploy might've been a mouse trap set up in hopes of catching a much larger predator.

What was more troubling than the concept of their foe's intelligence, though, was the other explanation for their absence. If they hadn't worked out what was going on here through their own intelligence, and their absence hadn't been down to something entirely ordinary like sheer unfortunate timing, then that meant they'd found out about this little trap through other avenues. Either somebody they thought they could trust had divulged information (willingly and knowingly, or otherwise) or the attacker themselves were posing as somebody who Hermione and her loved ones believed to be trustworthy. Either somebody they knew was in danger, or somebody they knew could not be trusted. Either eventuality was a painful one, and stirred up a weighty dread in the pit of her stomach that rose up through her chest and manifested in an achy tension throughout her shoulders. She'd have to discuss this with the others. Draco, too, to make sure he hadn't gone and blabbed about what was going on here to one of his lot.

In the meantime, all she could do was find distraction - good, productive distraction. And that came in the form of Marilyn's deck of tarot cards. While books on witchcraft and magic that contained moving pictures ran too much of a risk of causing immediate hysteria if either Sarah or Taylor were to see it, the same risk was not posed by the powder she'd used during her magical demonstration with Draco. Admittedly a little pouch of ashes wouldn't exactly be easy to explain away, but Muggles had their own quirky little spiritual practises that they liked to think of as witchcraft, something that Marilyn must've bought into if the cards she owned were anything to go by, and Hermione figured she could always explain it away as that if caught.

Still, she waited until her final morning in Marilyn's home, and made sure the house was completely silent and devoid of life, until she ran her tests. An early morning attack still wasn't entirely outside the realms of possibility, so she drew the curtains shut in order to avoid giving away her true identity, before she took up the cards from Marilyn's bookshelf and unwrapped them from the bolt of cloth they were housed in. Such packaging was thought to protect the cards from strange energies, according to the Muggles. If only their owner knew that true magic was seeping into them every single day - from her own hands thanks to all of the water she drank and washed in, from the atmosphere in general, or from a combination of the two, it was difficult to tell. But Hermione hoped she would soon know.

Retrieving the small silken pouch from her bag, she drew some of the powder out between three pinched fingers, and scattered it across the faces of the cards. At first there was no reaction. After a delayed moment, Hermione sighed and wondered if the only thing she'd achieved was making a grand old mess. But she persevered, watching the streaks of ashy powder intently for any sign of change, and her patience was rewarded. It started off slowly - so slowly she thought she might be seeing things. A trick of the light, or simply her own hope affecting her judgement. But then it became more apparent, and so did her excitement.

The powder began to move, starting at a slight rustle here and there as if it had been caught by a breeze or a draught, but then it picked up speed, and before long it was all out vibrating, bouncing up and down on the cards until it ran the risk of forming a grey, glittering storm cloud above them. Oh yes, these would do nicely. She would leave enough money squirrelled away somewhere in Marilyn's room to more than cover the cost of a new deck to ease the burgeoning guilt that she felt as she carefully bundled them back up again, ash and all, and deposited them into her bag. And anyway, she comforted herself with the thought that if the Muggle knew what this could mean for the Wizarding world as a whole, she'd hopefully be happy just to have played a role.

When they reached their final day in London, which really only consisted of enough time to grab breakfast and go for a walk before they'd have to check out and race to King's Cross, Draco was almost surprised at the amount of dread he felt at the prospect of returning to normality. Almost. For the less deluded part of him knew he should have expected it. Anticipated it. The dread was mostly due to the strange phenomena that surrounded the time he spent with Marilyn - that being that the more time he spent with her, the more time he wanted to spend with her. It wasn't something he was used to. There had been women in the past who caught his attention, but time inevitably remedied that without exception. He always found some flaw, admittedly often a petty one, that was enough to put him off and allow his interests to stray elsewhere. Until now. In truth, it baffled him that Marilyn had proven to be the complete opposite.

She wasn't without her flaws, he wasn't so much of an utter sap as to be incapable of seeing that, but while the flaws existed, they simply did not matter. The irony of the whole thing was not lost on him in the slightest. Had she been born a pureblood, his parents would have adored her. Merlin, he'd have been excited to introduce her to them! His father would have admired her strength and poise, and his mother would have praised her for her intelligence and her wit. They'd have been thick as thieves. But it was not to be. A twist of fate had ruled that she should be born a Muggle, and so none of that mattered. Not to his parents, anyway. And the more Draco thought on that, the more it thoroughly pissed him off. Marilyn could no more help the fact that she'd been born a Muggle than he had control over how he'd been born a Pureblood.

He knew full well that his disgruntlement was showing in his demeanour, but knowing it offered little help in remedying it. All morning as they packed and prepared to leave, Marilyn shot him more and more curious looks as he felt himself grow more quiet and withdrawn. In the end she must've grown tired of waiting for him to explain his foul mood of his own accord, for she skirted towards him around the bedroom that had become theirs over the course of the trip. She was dressed for travelling, and therefore for comfort, in a jumper and grey leggings that hugged her figure so scandalously that he had to make a concerted effort not to be caught staring. Draco was keenly aware of her as she approached but pretended otherwise, folding and re-folding the same shirt over and over and growing progressively more impatient with having to do things the Muggle way. Merlin, how did she live like this? Everything manual and drawn out.

It must've been the sort of thing one grew accustomed to, for Marilyn had brought twice as much as he had, and she'd finished packing long ago, everything neatly and efficiently assembled into a suitcase so deceptively small that if he didn't know better, he'd suspect it had a concealment charm on it. He was sorely tempted to find some contrived reason to send her from the room so that he could just wave his wand and have it all done.

He only dropped the shirt when she placed a hand gently on his forearm, frowning at him "Okay, what's up?"

"Nothing."

"There aren't any Academy Awards in your future, that's for damn sure. Now stop taking it out on that poor shirt and tell me what's wrong. I won't be able to cope sitting beside you on a train for hours when you're in this mood."

"I had a nice weekend," he shrugged.

"So did I," she blinked.

"And now it's over," he supplied.

"...Oh."

He didn't know what was worse, the fact that he'd made the admission, or the heartfelt nature of her surprise. The temptation to undo it was strong - to harshly shrug away her hand and finish packing and pretend he hadn't ventured towards being the slightest bit vulnerable. But the only thing worse than the soft, caring look on her face now would be if he erased it and replaced it with hurt by sheer desire to be a prat. Were she anybody else, he'd have done it just for that sheer satisfaction of seeing the look too close to pity leave her face.

Instead, he reminded himself that sympathy and pity were not one in the same, and he could hardly protect her if she refused to have anything to do with him because of his own poor behaviour. But it was still a struggle.

"Well it's not like we'll never see each other after this," she said gently, squeezing his arm before letting go, leaning in closer instead "Not unless you know something I don't."

That was the problem, wasn't it? All the things he knew, that she did not. And while she was right in one sense - they would certainly see each other after this - in another, she'd hit the nail on the head. There would very likely come a day when they would never see each other again. For now, that day was pushed back by sheer necessity (or so he could delude himself) because he had to stay close in order to keep her safe. But Potter and his merry band of heroes would deal with the problem sooner or later, because they always bloody did, and then he'd be left with no reason to remain other than plain old selfishness.

It would work, too. For a time. He might've been selfish, but at least he was self-aware. The threat would be gone and yet he would remain, stealing away to her home between banquets and soirees, kidding himself that it was to make sure the threat was well and truly gone, and eventually it would grow so comfortable that he'd stop needing to justify it in his own mind altogether, because it would simply be habit. And then something would happen. His parents would demand he choose a suitable bride, or maybe they'd catch wind of what was going on here. Merlin, maybe Marilyn would meet somebody - somebody able to commit and offer her more than this. It wouldn't be surprising, if anything it was astonishing that he wasn't in competition for her attention already.

In any case, something would happen, and it would bring about the end of this. There was no good ending in store. Nothing that offered closure or happiness - not with one another at least. For him, a future that found him wed to a woman that he resented at worst or was simply utterly disinterested in at best, and for Marilyn? Well...perhaps she'd be the only winner in this scenario. She could move on to somebody who could provide more than weekends away in hotel rooms and endless lies, cloaked in secrets, cloaked in yet more lies.

Returning to York was returning to normality, and normality was something he'd rather not face for the time being. No, he'd much rather go to the front desk here and now, and inform them that they'd be staying in the suite for the rest of the month, damn the consequences. It was a sad but true lesson in not always being able to have what one wanted.

"It won't be the same," when he said this it seemed to bother her, her brow furrowing as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, so he continued "I needed to get away. It's just unfortunate that returning is part of it."

He finally gave into frustration and stuffed the shirt, haphazardly folded, into his bag.

"There'll be other weekends," she said "Next one is my treat. We can get a grotty little Holiday Inn room and go on a pub crawl in Manchester. How's that for something to look forward to?"

Draco snorted, but it was half-hearted at best.

"And we'll always have London," she added.

She was teasing, it was plain to hear from her tone, but she didn't move to put any space between them once again. Instead she remained close, her wide blue eyes burning holes into the side of his face as his foul mood continued to confuse her.

"Yes, well," he sighed, trying to force himself to brighten up "I do hope that when you return, you'll tell Sarah what a fantastic lover I am. That ought to sour her mood."

"I'll tell them you had me lashed to the bedposts for the entire weekend," she said drily "And that you can do very strange and impressive things with cherry tomatoes."

"Don't tell them that," he groaned as she turned to retrieve her case.

"Oh, I absolutely am."

"They'll believe it, Marilyn," he called after her as she wheeled her case out of the room and towards the entranceway "They'll think you're telling the truth."

And then he'd never be able to look either of them in the eye again.

"That's the point," she called back airily, shooting him a bright smile, her nose wrinkling as she did "I'm going to spend the train back giving myself rope burns. Oh, the stories I shall tell!"

Draco sighed in sheer exasperation and - after making sure she wasn't returning to the room any time soon - finished his packing with a wave of his wand.

A/N: It's all about to kick offfffff. Also, after I posted the last chapter we surpassed 100 reviews, which is sheer madness and loveliness combined. Thank you guys so much! I appreciate every single review!