Hermione looked at herself in the mirror of the luxurious en suite and sighed. Maybe it was time to accept defeat, to make the best of a less than ideal situation. At least the boy style pajama set that her husband had gifted her for their wedding night was cute and unassuming. A soft flannel shirt and pants set, cozy and demure. It was a relief to think maybe he was not expecting them to have sex tonight. Was it a relief, though?

It all started six months ago. In one of the biggest blunders the Ministry of Magic had done in the five years after the war, a marriage law was enforced pressuring the intermarriage of purebloods and muggleborns. But the thing is, there were not many muggleborns, at least on her generation, so Hermione could not amass enough political capital to oppose the measure. Her friends tried to help, but their votes didn't count for much. Harry was married, and all the Weasleys were either engaged or married, including Ronald, who was about to have a baby with Lavender Brown. And the only straight single one of the clan was Percy, who voted against her because he harbored the hope that the Golden Girl would be assigned as his wife.

The other muggle-borns were men, and Hermione underestimated how much young witches wanted to get married, especially those purebloods from Slytherin House. Rumor had it that when Dean Thomas was given a choice between Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, and Millicent Bulstrode, a catfight had exploded. The issue had been resolved when the always resourceful Parkinson had floo to his house wearing a trench coat with nothing underneath. They had been married for a month now. Justin Finn-Fletcher had been delighted to have a harem to choose from and even suggested that he take two wives. And Dennis Creevey was crazy about his new bride. Hermione was fighting this battle alone.

The Minister tried to soothe her by offering a choice of groom, but the list had made her nauseous. Marcus Flint, Gregory Goyle, Draco Malfoy, and Percy Weasley. The curly witch thought that if push came to shove, she would pick the redhead, but when the moment came to check on a box, her resolution failed her. Percy was incredibly obnoxious, and that made him completely unattractive. Not to mention that he had voted against her. In an impulse that she was yet to understand, she checked the box next to Draco Malfoy's name. They had developed a cordial relationship over the years, him being endlessly grateful to the Golden Trio for saving him from Azkaban during his war trial. And in all honesty, there was simply no contest between the possibility of a naked Percy and a naked Malfoy.

The six months other couples spent courting and getting to know each other Hermione spent at court in the Wizengamot, her "fiancé" in tow. Malfoy was a lawyer and a great one at that, so she decided to use what little she had to her advantage. The Ferret had been surprisingly accomodating from the beginning, humoring any requests for help the witch put in front of him.

Draco had found a practical way to deal with the situation: follow Hermione's lead, drop the occasional sarcastic comment to pretend you don't like it, and then do as she says. The truth was, he did like it. She was brilliant and organized, though a nutter when it came to swimming against the current. Also, as a lawyer, he liked the part where she put him in charge of researching all kinds of legal loopholes to build her arguments while she did all the public fighting. He did it conscientiously, even though the more time went by, the more he hoped she would lose this particular battle. He'd have a crush on her for a while; this whole endeavor only made him like her even more. After six months of working side by side, Draco was falling in love.

In the end, there were not enough legal arguments to stop this law, and now here she was, married and pressured to consummate. When she had tried to argue that it was condoned rape, she was reminded that it was not an obligation. Still, she was expected to give the marriage a sincere try, as determined by a sincerity spell performed during the private engagement ceremonies. The spell was like a mild version of veritaserum, and the general opinion was that it had helped the couples develop more honest relationships and reduce risks. Dennis Creevey had been matched initially with a sister of Marcus Flint (because of Flint's family connections), who, as soon as the spell was performed, confessed that she had the intention to put puking pastilles on his breakfast muffins. The engagement was broken on the spot, the girl received a hefty fine, and Dennis was now married and head over heels in love with the sweet Astoria Greengrass.

Hermione walked out of the en suite and looked at the luxurious four-poster bed. There was another en suite on the other side of the room, where her husband was still grooming himself. She sighed and flopped on the bed, climbing to lay right in the middle of it, refusing to pick a side—one last act of resistance. The door of Draco's ensuite opened, and he stood by the bed, arms crossed.

"You are laying on top of the covers. And your head is in the middle of the two pillows, Granger."

"So?" she tried to look haughty, but the fact that his pajamas matched hers was a bit too cute to allow for fake indignation.

"Haven't you run out of ways to make life difficult for yourself?"

"I'm trying to make it difficult for you," she confessed under the sincerity spell's influence.

"Well, you are not doing a great job. See, for example, in this case, all I have to do is use my substantially bigger body mass, like this," he pulled up the duvet, sliding under and scooping off Hermione, who rolled to the other side like a weightless doll, almost falling.

"That's not fair!" she scolded.

"Just get under the covers, munchkin," he countered, chuckling.

The reluctant bride grumbled her way under the covers. They lay there, side by side, looking at the ceiling. The silence was becoming heavy when Draco said:

"Do you remember our first night at Hogwarts?"

"I do. I remember," Hermione responded, a smile growing on her face. "I was both anxious and excited. It took me a long time to fall asleep."

"I thought I was going to die," he offered.

"What? Why?" she turned to face him.

Draco rolled to face her.

"The Slytherin dungeons are underwater, Granger. When you look around, all you see through the windows is dark green water. I got claustrophobic, felt like I couldn't breathe. I waited until the other boys were asleep and began sobbing uncontrollably. Then I looked up from my pillow and realized that Gregory Goyle was awake. I was about to lash at him when I noticed he was crying too. He mouthed, 'I'm scared.' I mouthed back 'me too.' To this day, we both kept that a secret."

Hermione felt her heart shrink, and the next thing she knew, her arm was wrapping Malfoy's waist, her face buried in his chest.

"That sounds terrible. I'm sorry. We had that beautiful view from Gryffindor tower, and you had to get used to being under the lake."

Draco was taken aback for a second, but the smell of her shampoo was so sweet he returned the embraced, burying his nose in her curls.

"It's ok. We got used to it, alright. We told each other that it was a privilege being there, that Slytherin house was a home for the elite, and eventually we all started believing our own lies."

Hermione lifted her face, then reached to touch his lips with hers.

"Thank you for supporting me during this fight."

"Of course," he smiled, running his fingers through her hair.

"Please don't take it personally."

"Granger, please do not lie to me. Of course it was personal. You got stuck with me. You can't honestly say that you thought it was the best thing that ever happened to you."

"I cannot lie. The spell, remember? And yes, in the beginning, it felt like being between a rock and a hard place. But then you were always so nice about it. And your legal advice was impeccable. In the end, you were the best part of this whole thing."

"Awe, Granger. Are you starting to like me?" he wiggled his eyebrows, playing with her curls.

Hermione stormed off the bed, making Draco's heart sink. She stood facing him. His heart lifted back up when he saw her smirk. Suddenly, she pulled her pajama pants to the floor in a swift move and stood out of them. Draco sat up like a coiled spring. The witch slowly undid the buttons of her shirt but kept it closed. The wizard on the bed had to shuffle around to accommodate the tension in his pants.

"You understand that consummation implies direct contact between your nether regions and mine, right?" she teased.

Draco moved to get rid of his pajamas so fast that he tried to pull the buttoned-up shirt off his head to fast and tumbled, falling off the bed.

"I'm alright!" he called from the floor. If Hermione had any doubts, they went out of the window with that dorky display of desire. She climbed on the bed and crawled across, looking at him from above.

"Are you sure you are ok?" she asked between giggles. Her shirt opened with the move. Her husband's eyes were wide as saucers.

"You have a fantastic rack."

She felt pride fill her body and gave a flirty smile.

"Then come up and play, Mr. Malfoy."

The morning found them nested in each other's arms after very little sleep. They would have slept in if not for an insistent owl on the window. Draco grunted his way to the window, calling for the elves to send them coffee and pastries. Hermione watched from the bed as the naked man with the perfect arse went to get the bird's delivery.

"It's for you," he said, handing her the papers and one of the steamy cups that had appeared on a breakfast tray.

Hermione sat up to read. Draco grabbed his cup and sipped contentedly, looking at his wife's crazy mane of hair as he mused how amazing it looked when it was him who had made it look like that. As soon as she was done reading and had some caffeine in her, he was planning on repeating last night's performance. His plans took a left turn when her face fell.

"It's from the Ministry. The law collapsed. A committee reviewed our arguments and found that some of them had been dismissed without proper consideration." Then she reached for the other folded parchment and read. Her voice cracked. "This is a bill of dissolution for our marriage. If we want it annulled, all we have to do is signed. Even if only one of us signs. It will be as if it never happened."

Draco felt his chest vibrate with rage.

"I will not sign it. You do what you think is right," he scoffed, starting to pace.

Hermione got off the bed. Draco saw her walk toward the desk, his breath caught in his throat. She read the papers once more. Then, in a quick move, she turned toward the fireplace, fired it up with a wandless spell, and threw the parchments on it.

"What now?" the naked woman asked, turning to look at the naked man.

He shrugged, walking to wrap his arms around her.

"I'm sure you will find another cause to champion, and I will do your due diligence and so on."

She hummed her approval, running her hands over his chest.

"You know how things like this law would not happen again?"

"How?"

"If I become Minister of Magic."

He leaned in to find her mouth.

"Then I guess I will be your campaign manager, Madam Minister."