"What do you mean, you're engaged?" Ginny gasped. "I mean...how? And more importantly, who? You never leave the castle!"

"I leave. Sometimes." Hermione replied, stirring her ice cream into a soup. "And he visits me sometimes. We floo most nights. Well, some nights. For a bit, at least."

Ginny snorted. "Oh, and doesn't that sound thrilling. Seriously, Hermione, you might as well be describing your last great sock drawer reorganization."

"It's...it's not like that. Not like you and Blaise or Harry and Daphne."

"Or Ron and Pig-Snout?"

Hermione laughed, as she knew Ginny had intended. "Definitely not that. I thought you were back to calling her by her name again?"

"No," Ginny replied. "She told me my shoulders were overly-muscular and kangaroo-esque last weekend. She's Pig-Snout von Wildebeest until Ron prods her into giving one of her patented non-apologies."

Hermione rolled her eyes at the ongoing feud between Pansy Weasley and her sister-in-law. It had been going too long for anyone to take the fracas seriously, but they seemed to enjoy needling one another at any opportunity. Hermione and Harry were both pretty sure it was a particularly perverse form of one upmanship rather than actual malice.

"So tell me tell me. Do you and mystery man have amazing sex? Have you been anywhere together? Nevermind, you obviously haven't been anywhere otherwise the Prophet would've said something."

"I told you, Gin, it's not like that," Hermione said with a shrug of her shoulders. "It's...well, it's almost a business arrangement." She thought for a moment. "Actually, I think it might actually be a business arrangement. We haven't even kissed."

"You...what? How? You're engaged to a man you've never kissed?" Ginny shrieked.

Hermione remained grateful that she'd insisted on meeting her friend at her country home rather than at the posh Wizarding café she usually frequented. Patrons would be fleeing in droves with bleeding eardrums had they chosen to sit inside.

"We're not...he's not...interested in that. I don't think. Think of this as a dynastic move."

"A - a dyna- you're not marrying Draco fucking Malfoy, are you?" Ginny sputtered. "Because if Blaise has been keeping that under his hat, I'll hex his bits blue and plop them in an highball glass at cocktail hour with his ghastly mother."

Hermione made a face. "No it's not Draco Mal - you'd drink a glass of chilled testicle mojito in front of your mother-in-law?"

"Who do you think taught me the spell?" Ginny smirked. "Now focus, if it's not the Prince of Ponce, who the hell are you marrying?"

"Theo Nott."

Ginny blinked. "Theo Nott. Dark hair, cheekbones that could crack ice, wizarding venture capitalist Theo Nott?"

"Do you know any other?"

"Blaise has been keeping secrets. Theo's his second cousin. Once removed. I think. Or maybe it's first cousin twice removed? Regardless, he had to have known. BLUE BALL BAY BREEZE TONIGHT, BLAISEYKINS!" Ginny finished on a shout.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO?" came the retort from the direction of the library.

Ginny continued shouting over her shoulder even as the Blaise's house loafers sounded in the hall. "SECRETS, HUSBAND-MINE! KEEPING SECRETS! Honestly, we've talked about this shite," she said, dropping her voice for Hermione's benefit. "THAT'S RIGHT! WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS SHITE! YOU DON'T KEEP SECRETS FROM -"

"You? Never." Blaise said, dropping a kiss to his wife's mouth and patting her cheek. He lounged next to her on the chaise with a smug smirk on his face as Ginny sputtered at having her last word stolen. "So what are these secrets, wifey-face? The only secret I have right now is your birthday gift."

"Pssh. That's not a secret," Ginny said, waving a hand in the air. "You got that damned tandem broom that I told you not to waste money on. It's uncomfortable as hell and flies like shit."

Blaise sighed. "And I told you, I planned some modifications. It won't be uncomfortable when I'm done with it, and you won't care how it flies once I get you on it."

"Stop," Hemione protested, holding her hands up in the universal symbol for stop. "I do not want to hear about your aerial sex antics, please. God. Just. Please."

"Spoilsport," Blaise winked. "So if not that, what's the secret?"

"Oh, Ginny, we haven't -"

"Hermione'sengagedtoTheoNott!" Ginny blurted in a rush before Hermione could silence her.

"GIN!"

Ginny stuck her tongue out. "Too slow."

"Oh, really?" Blaise said, drawing the phrase out and waggling his eyebrows. "You're quite the dark horse there, Hermione. Theo didn't say a word."

"It's...it's new," she replied quietly. "It's not some grand love match. It's more an...arrangement."

Blaise leaned forward, intrigued. "An arrangement?"

"Mutually beneficial. I need him to help me overcome some regulatory hurdles. He needs to smarten up his reputation before...well, before." Hermione shrugged helplessly.

Ginny frowned. "Before what? And what regulatory hurdles? Hermione, don't tell me you're still gunning for that shot at the Chief Witch position?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. It's a stupidly archaic law, but an unmarried Muggleborn can't take the Chief Witch position on the Wizengamot. She has to be able to claim lineage to a high-ranking Wizengamot member or past-member."

"And Theo's certainly got the lineage. Not to mention he's going to be up for re-election in a few months. What better way to clear up those misunderstandings about his first term as Minister and the rumors of his shameful, Death Eater past than to have a Muggleborn - THE Muggleborn - as his fiancée?" Blaise said, narrowing his eyes.

Hermione nodded, lips tight.

"But...Hermione, what about love? Or at least affection?" Ginny said, voice low. "You always said you were waiting for the right man."

"He's not coming, Gin. I'm thirty-eight. The right man isn't there." Or isn't coming back, she thought. "I can't just wait for Mister Right. Mister Right-Now will have to suffice. And it's not like Theo is some kind ogre. He's good looking, intelligent -"

"And as cold as the balls Ginny so wants to hex," Blaise interrupted. "He won't make you happy Hermione. He can't make any happy. It's not in his nature."

Hermione sighed helplessly. "Maybe. But he can give me the ability to pursue at least one of those dreams I've been sweating for. Professional satisfaction is a kind of happiness."

"It's an empty kind of happiness," Ginny said sourly.

As if I didn't already know that, Hermione thought to herself. "I'll take what I can get. The announcement goes out tomorrow. Do I have your support?"