I shrug helplessly. "I don't know. I wasn't doing anything." I perk up. "Maybe that's the trick! Just pretend everything's fine and no one will notice. It's probably all psychological…"

"What? That's not going to work. They'll realise it the moment I leave the room. It's been getting more obvious for days!"

Well, this explains why she's made her room stink, at least.

"No one smelled me," I point out. Maybe it is all psychological…

That quiets her. She appears to think, one hand fiddling with the tiny pink flowers sewn onto her bedspread. "You're right," she concedes. "I think we might have smelled Omega but didn't think that it was you exactly, because no one thought that it could be you. And of course, at Hogwarts there are so many students that it's hard to distinguish who's what…"

She looks up at me with fierce hope. "I think I can try and hide myself the same way. You just have to go with me everywhere! Then people will think they're smelling you, and they won't suspect me!"

I frown. "Ginny, that's crazy. We can't go around together all the time. Wait- is that why you invited me here?"

She looks ashamed for a moment, then gathers herself together again. "You said you wanted to help Omegas! And you're the only one I know who doesn't want to be one…"

"And I do recall you telling me that being an Omega was no big deal," I say, raising my brow.

"That was before-"

"Before you found out you were one?" I complete her sentence and watch with satisfaction as her face reddens with shame again.

"I'm sorry. I'm a horrible person," she whispers, looking away.

And now I feel ashamed. Because didn't I just realise days ago that I'm a horrible person? And here I am chewing someone else out for not handling their life-changing news well.

I'm a horrible daughter and a hypocritical friend.

"Okay I'll help you," I concede. I put my hands up in a cautionary gesture when she looks at me with a face full of hope. "At least for tonight. We don't even know if it'll work anyway. They might realise what you are the moment we go down."

"It'll work," she says confidently. "Harry's mum's coming and she's an Omega too, it'll help camouflage me. And of course, everyone will be distracted by Fleur."

I remember Fleur is her brother Bill's wife. "Ah, I didn't realise she was also an Omega…"

"No." She grimaces. "You'll see…"

"We're not trying to emulate conjoined twins," I hiss. "Don't rub against me like that."

"What's a conjoined twin?" asks Ginny as she continues to nervously press the left side of her body into the right side of mine in an unconscious but perfect imitation of one.

"We're so glad that you're feeling well enough to come out for dinner, Gin," Lady Potter, a pretty witch with dark hair and eyes addresses her. "Harry's been so worried."

Rohesia sniggers while Lavender oohs, and Harry tries to hide his awkwardness by putting his elbow in his bread plate.

Ginny giggles half-heartedly.

I feel truly bad for her.

"Aa, young love," croons the beautiful Fleur. She drapes herself across her husband and bats long lashes at him. "Love is all we need, n'est-ce pas?"

"Why did Gringotts send you back, Bill?" asks Mrs. Weasley peevishly. I get the feeling that she doesn't like her daughter in law very much.

Bill Weasley, his arm around his wife's shoulders, chuckles. "You all know that old Marvolo's just kicked it? Well, the new Lord Gaunt's finally let the goblins into their vault to appraise their precious heirlooms and some of them are very, very dark artifacts. They recalled a few of us to help break their curses. Can't value them if we can't even approach them. Vegetables please."

I help pass the platter of roasted roots along. "Avery's grandfather is dead?" I exclaim my surprise, remembering the unpleasant old man with the bad knees. He might have been grisly and unkempt, but he didn't exactly seem in bad shape.

"Yes. Ah, is his grandson still in school?"

"Just graduated," one of my schoolmates clarifies.

"There are cursed items?" Mum enquires in poorly hidden alarm. "What exactly do these curses do?"

"Oh, there are all sorts," Harry's father begins to explain to her. "But don't worry, we make sure most of them don't fall into mugg- unsuspecting hands."

"What do the Gaunts got hidden in their vault, Bill?" demands one of the twins, exiting a conversation with Lee and Angelina about a match between the Quidditch teams, Puddlemere United and Wigtown Wanderers.

Bill shrugs. "Probably the usual poisoned weapons and binding jewellery but we don't know for sure. Haven't started work yet. We have to get the papers in order first and that takes time…"

"You know what?" says his father, as he drizzles gravy liberally over his plate, "I think Morfin got sick of having to live in squalor while watching his peers rolling in gold. An ancient name doesn't buy food, does it? This is what happens when you force yourself to live a life you can't keep up."

"I don't know if I could ever sell my family heirlooms," sighs Lady Potter, rejoining our conversation. "Although Sev's more pragmatic. He's said he'd sell his last cauldron if it'd keep us off the streets. And Merlin knows, he's probably had to too…"

Mrs. Weasley shakes her head. "I'm with your brother on this. I'd sell whatever I had to to provide for my family."

Ginny has a literal knee-jerk reaction to that and accidentally kicks me under the table. I try and suppress an annoyed grunt, but we've attracted attention, and faces turn to us.

"I heard that Avery's adopted," I blurt out in an attempt to distract, the very wild, very untrue statement making its way through my brain where it was born just seconds ago, and out of my mouth.

To my great surprise, everyone snickers, including Percy. "I don't like to make conjectures," he says, "but if even Hermione's heard it…"

"I heard," says Lavender slyly, "that his uncle's his father."

"Oh, that's a common one, and I'm sure they'd like everybody to think so," says Harry's father, causing Lavender's superior little grin to fall off her face at the realisation that her news isn't as shocking as she thought it would be.

"Why would they want us to think that?" I gasp in disgust, brain still reeling at the apparently true piece of gossip I've accidentally brought to the table.

"Because the alternative is that his mother… er," Bill racks his brain for the right word. "…dallied with a muggle."

Fleur giggles. "Dallied? Tu veux dire faire l'amour?" she whispers very loudly into his ear. Ginny makes a gagging sound next to me.

"This isn't dinner-appropriate conversation," complains Mrs. Weasley, and she with the women at her end of the table break off to talk about a rice pudding recipe.

"Merope's definitely his mum, though?" asks Angelina, which elicits another round of gossiping from the rest.

"How is dallying with a muggle worse than incest?" Even my dad's question sounds so naïve to me now, and I am for the first time sad that I immediately know the answer to something.

"In some circles, it's the worst crime," somebody else explains apologetically.

"Are adoptions common practice in the wizarding world?" I ask, trying to make it look like I'm steering the subject in a marginally more appropriate direction while really trying to dig up information I need.

"Yes and no," answers Lord Potter, pushing up his glasses, and when I press for him to elaborate, he obliges: "It's most commonly employed by pureblood families to keep their line going by legitimising a bastard or adopting in a male descendent of one of the female lines so the name can carry on."

I nod my understanding. "And in the case of Avery they do so to be able to continue to claim they are pureblood?"

"Yes, exactly."

The table is cleared and we all slowly walk back into the house, weighed down by full and satisfied stomachs. The adults head to the kitchen to pick their digestifs. I follow them, Ginny trailing me.

Harry joins us. "Uncle Sirius' great grandfather married a fake Macmillan, didn't he?" he says before turning to Ginny. "Can I talk to you in private?"

Ginny looks at me. "Er."

I ignore their lovers' drama; my curiosity for the subject I'm embroiled in growing its own voracious appetite. "Fake Macmillan?"

"She wasn't a fake Macmillan, she was grafted quite late into the Macmillan bloodline, just before she became of age, when it would have been too late," Harry's father clarifies, as he pours himself a glass of something. "Sometimes if an heir is adamant on marrying a half-blood or muggle-born, they bribe another family into adopting the witch so that she technically becomes a pureblood. Problem solved."

"None of these so called Sacred Twenty-Eight families are one hundred percent pureblood," adds Bill. "Although they'll do all sorts of things in order to keep their status. They'll perform dangerous blood magic if it gets the job done. Usually bungle it too. And then we get called in to fix it."

"Ginny?" says Harry, trying to get her attention, and she tugs on my sleeve in turn.

I exit the kitchen with the couple. "Er. I'm sorry Harry, I'm conducting an experiment on magical cores and Ginny's volunteered. We're not allowed to separate."

"Why? What sort of experiment? Until when?" asks a perplexed Harry.

"There's no such thing as magical cores," says Rohesia suspiciously, looking up from a chess game with Ron. Sometimes I forget that she's nothing like her cousin. She's a Ravenclaw and very well read. "What are you two really up to?"

"I think I can prove that magical cores exist," I say stubbornly, unwilling to abandon the plot. "Ginny and I are trying to temporarily merge our cores."

That earns a collective snort from the group of young Weasleys and their friends piled on the couches.

I roll my eyes, quickly inventing another piece of gossip. "Speaking of blood magic, isn't that how er…" I try and remember the name of one of the Quidditch teams being discussed at the dinner table earlier. "…Puddlemere United supposedly won the league last year?"

Just as I intended, it sparks a full-blown Quidditch argument and when Bill comes out of the kitchen to add his piece, I manage to sneak Ginny back up to her room.

"Here." I unwind my scarf, and then pull off my jumper. "Just wear these when you go out, and make sure everyone knows they're mine. That way they'll think they're smelling my clothes and not get suspicious. I'll keep sending you more. We can pretend it's part of the experiment." I pause. "Just to set the record straight, I think this is all really gross."

"Thanks," she says. "I- I'm sorry I involved you in this. It was such a shock and I just don't know what to do about it yet."

"I know. I understand."

I arrive at my next meeting with Draco Malfoy fully prepared. The secretary that meets me, a young pimply witch, raises a polite eyebrow as I lug a tote packed with SLOW emblazoned decks printed and bound the muggle way, out of the lift.

"I'm sorry," I apologise. "I'm not allowed to use magic at home yet…"

She waves away my apology and offers to cast a feather-light charm on the bag, which I gladly accept, before knocking discretely on the mahogany wood doors. They open to reveal the long hall-like loft-office of Draco Malfoy, one side of it an uninterrupted line of glass looking out onto the river and skyline. Threatening black clouds hover above the grey-clad city. Beads of moisture sit on the surface of the windows.

I turn my attention back to the desk and the man behind it, ignoring the cold stares that follow me from the wall of silver-eyed portraits. "Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy," I greet, walking with quick and confident steps to his desk.

His heavy gaze sweeps from the top of my head down through my ecru skirt suit and to my ballet flats-fitted feet. "I thought we agreed," he says quietly, "that you were going to call me Draco."

I'd honestly forgotten and say so.

"Understandable. Why don't you try again?"

I peer doubtfully at him. Is he serious?

"Try again?" I ask, and when he makes no reply, I break a self-conscious smile and repeat my greeting with the correct name, the uncertainty adding a questioning inflection to the end of it:

"Good afternoon, Draco?"

"Good afternoon, Hermione." He smiles, waving a welcoming hand. The chair in front of me pulls itself out. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

I sit and begin awkwardly extricating documents from my bag, determined to set the meeting back on track.

"I see you've been busy," he observes dryly. "Let's not go straight into work just yet. Why don't you tell me what you've done since we last met?"

"There's not much to tell." I laugh forcedly. "The only events of note are somewhat personal."

"Tell me anyway," he says, and settles into his chair as if prepared for a long story. I know from my parents retelling of their work stories that important men can be somewhat eccentric; one just has to humour them. And Draco Malfoy is a very important man.

"Sure," I say slowly. "One of it involves your cousin Lestrange." I hesitate. "I know he's your cousin, so I don't mean to offend you by criticising him, but he was definitely behaving very inappropriately."

"Mm, how so?" asks Draco Malfoy, as though he's heard about his cousin's behaviour many times before and is not surprised by the accusation.

"He said some highly suggestive things when we met in Diagon Alley." The words come out in a rush because even though it wasn't me that had behaved inappropriately, I am embarrassed by proxy, and thinking back on that encounter is upsetting me.

He clicks his tongue in disapproval. "What did your escorts do? I hope they hexed him?"

A bubble of genuine laughter escapes me as I imagine Ron attempting to hex a grown wizard. "No, I was alone. But one of my classmates intervened…"

"Alone!" exclaims Draco Malfoy, the word holding worlds of shock and concern. "How dangerous. You poor girl."

"Oh, er- it wasn't dangerous-" Not having expected such a reaction, my own comes out disjointedly.

"Mm. And then what?"

I blink. "That was it. Oh, I did also receive an offer to join a wizarding family."

His eyes narrow slightly. "An offer to join…?" he repeats questioningly.

"Yes, a grafting offer. It's a type of adoption-"

"Ah. Yes, I am familiar with it." His pleasantly shaped mouth curves up in a generous smile. "Did you bring their offer?" His head tilts a little to scan through the pile of documents in front of me. "I can have one of my lawyers here in minutes. These things must be negotiated well."

"Thanks," I say. "But it won't be necessary. I've rejected them."

His chin jerks up. "Rejected them?" he says in sharp shock, and for a second, I imagine I hear anger in his voice. "When?"

I frown. "Does the when matter?" Actually, I'd sent out the rejection letter from Diagon Alley just half an hour ago.

"Of course not," he assures. "But are you sure about this? A wizarding family could be very useful to you, and in the-"

"I'm sure," I interrupt decisively.

His jaw clenches. He taps his fingers restlessly on the table. "Hermione, I do wish you'd discussed this with me before making such a rash decision. These are old and powerful families and you don't want to break bridges if you want to see your project succeed. I offered you my help. Ny door is open at any time."

"It's not a rash decision," I maintain, irritation pricking my chest. Then, unable to keep in my anger any longer, it all bursts vehemently out of me. "I know what they're trying to do! They just want to sell me. They've already found a buyer."

He stills, watching me cautiously with eyes as grey as the sky outside.

"And it's your cousin, I know it!" I proclaim loathingly. "I know I have no proof and maybe you think I'm crazy, but I know it's him! He told me in Diagon Alley that his family only marries purebloods. He asked me when I would turn seventeen."

My chest heaves with indignation and fury. Just recalling my conversation with Sebastien Lestrange is enough to get my blood boiling again.

That oily fucker!

Draco Malfoy is still staring at me like he can't believe what he's hearing.

I continue, too angry to stop. "He must have found out when my birthday is, and he knew I would only remain eligible to be adopted for the next few weeks. Well, he can keep buying those perfumes. I'll never marry an Alpha!"

"So, your plan now is…" he begins, when he's found his voice.

"Easy." I force myself to calm down, breathing heavily. "Avoid Lestrange for the next few weeks until I turn seventeen and untouchable, and then continue to work on SLOW and with your support, eventually change the laws." I pat the top of my pile of decks. "I'm very sorry I lost my temper. It's been a stressful few weeks…"

He blinks, breathes in deeply and regards me calculatingly, silver eyes glinting like new coins. "I would like to keep extending you my support, and I believe I have a solution that will ensure my cousin ceases to harass you, but…"

I lean in. "But-?"

"But you might have to be deceptive, and I'm not sure you have it in you…"

"I do," I say eagerly. I'll fight dirty.

He looks hesitant. "Well, this would be a lot on my part, you understand, but you and I can pretend that we have an understanding…"

I withdraw, disappointed. "What? You mean a fake engagement? That's it?" I'd expected something more than a game of charades.

He shrugs grey-suited shoulders. "It's the simplest way to chase away other Alphas."

Somehow it had never really crossed my mind that he's an Alpha. I blink at him. "Oh. You're-" Suddenly it feels like a very, very bad idea to be alone here with him. I frown at the ominous sensations now swirling in my gut, trying at the same time to ignore them. I never like to rely on feelings; they can be very misleading.

And I blame the wizarding culture for beginning to infect me with its views on propriety. I must destroy the toxic Alpha-Omega traditions before I too begin to think it all normal.

But the feelings persist, and I feel compelled to reassure myself. "You're not also…?" I begin, before changing my question. It would be too presumptuous and egoistic to ask if he too wants to try and marry me. "I'm, erm, safe with you, right?"

He looks surprised. His expression softens. "Of course."

"I just don't want to…" I twist my hands, unable to articulate just what I don't want. "I don't want it." I'm blushing now. "Marriage and babies and- and- all that."

His face hardens again in a strange mixture of possessive protectiveness, something like what I imagine an older brother might look like if I had one.

"Poor girl," he says, voice deep and slow and sympathetic. "Look at you, you're so frightened. Come here."

I stand to walk around the desk and go to him. He is very attractive; all sculpted lines and cool grey tones, and I know that's not exactly an observation one would make of an older brother.

He touches my hair. "What unruly curls. As unruly and untameable as its owner."

I like my curls. Viktor had asked me to wear it up for the Yule Ball, and I'd had to use lots of charms and potions to get it to behave.

"I like it," says Draco Malfoy softly, and I smile.

He smiles too, eyes crinkling, and for a second there is a hint of gold in their grey, like sunlight hiding behind fog. "You don't want to be tamed, do you?"

"I'm not a pet," I say, half-jokingly.

He laughs cleanly. "Pet. I like that. Can I call you pet? It could be our way of making light of this whole situation. Very ironic, no? And of course, it's also a short form of petulant, which you perpetually are."

I tilt my head, unconvinced, slightly disturbed, but afraid of offending him. "I don't know…It's…" Inappropriate. "…Unconventional. But I suppose if we're making it a short form, it is also a short form of petal, and that's what my parents call me."

He smiles indulgently. "See, it's perfect. Shall we make sure no other Alpha ever gets his hands on you, pet?"