Hermione let herself into Draco's apartment, and took a moment to absorb the pitiful sight before her. Draco was huddled under a wool blanket on his sofa, red-eyed and red-nosed, surrounded by a sea of tissues. She could only describe the look in his eyes as hopeless despair.

'You're back early,' Draco said in a nasally voice. 'You were supposed to be at Beauxbatons for another week.'

She remained in the doorway with her hands on her hips. 'Theo told me you were sick. He said you were sending him snot-covered letters demanding he take over for you with the Boomslang project.'

'My mind is burning with ideas, but I can't get up from this stupid couch and I can't write anything longer than a note without my hands shaking. Your brother is impossible. I asked him for one measly favour.'

'And he delivered. I'll help you.' She screwed up her nose in disgust. 'First, let's clean up this mess.' She waved her wand and swept the tissues into the bin, then performed a generic anti-bacterial cleansing spell over the lounge room.

'I know you know those spells, and you could do them with your hands tied behind your back, so there's no excuse for living in a pigsty.' As she reprimanded him, she lifted up the blanket and settled in next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder, then gave him a kiss on the cheek.

'I suppose,' he sighed.

'Now, I'll help you with your most pressing work now, if you promise to take it easy and sleep all day tomorrow.'

'Deal,' Draco said.

Hermione summoned her bag, and pulled out a quill and some paper. She waved her wand and the Quick Quotes Quill hovered over the paper. 'Dictate any messages you have for your staff, any breakthroughs you need to pass on. Make sure you delegate to someone you trust, because you aren't setting foot in your office until your fever is down.'

Draco slapped himself in the forehead. 'I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I think of that?'

'If you need any books for light research, make a list and I'll retrieve them for you tomorrow while you sleep off your bug. Now get started, while you can still think clearly.'

Draco hugged her around the blanket. 'Thank you. This might get boring. You don't have to stick around if you have some place else to be.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Potions research? Committee organisation? Bossing people around? How could I possibly find that boring? You're stuck with me.'

'You're the best girlfriend ever,' Draco declared.

'I know,' Hermione said, and then closed her eyes, falling asleep to the gentle sound of Draco's dictation. The Portkeys from France always left her feeling drowsy.

Hermione stomped out of the Floo and through the Grimmauld Place kitchen, making a beeline for the jar where Ginny kept the cookies. She and Ginny had started a cookie-making war. One of the terms of the war were that they could lay claim to any cookies left in their respective cookie jars at any time of the day. Her hand came out of the jar empty.

'Ginny! Where are the cookies?' Hermione screeched.

She heard a lazy yell from upstairs, so she headed in that direction. She saw a light on in the spare room that had previously belonged to Buckbeack. When she walked through the door, she halted mid-step, gaping at the spectacle before her.

Ginny and Pansy were wearing plastic ponchos and goggles, and holding balloons in their hands. The wall and floor were splattered with paint in garish colours, with no artistic merit whatsoever. Hermione was distracted from her cookie craving. When her mind had absorbed the whole ridiculous picture, she burst out laughing.

'Decided to redecorate?' Hermione asked when she caught her breath.

'Exercising my imagination,' Ginny replied airily. 'I'm pretending it's Harry's head.' She gestured towards the shape attached to the wall, obscured mostly by red paint.

If Hermione squinted, she thought she could almost see a scar on its forehead.

'Hmm. I could use some target practice as well.' She stepped forward, grabbed a balloon, and threw it towards the dummy with all her strength. It made a very satisfying splat, and started leaking green goo, but her aim was way off. She had missed the dummy by a mile.

'No magic?' Hermione asked, thinking that her aim would be better with a wand than her coordinationally challenged hands.

'No magic,' Pansy insisted. 'We had a little incident earlier. She almost blew my head off when her spell went awry.'

Hermione turned to Ginny. 'Well, what did Harry do to inspire this masterpiece?'

Ginny threw another balloon, which landed right where the dummy's eyes would have been. 'He asked if I was moody because I was pregnant. Can you believe that? Like I'm some hormonal twit. Can't a girl just be a little grumpy sometimes?

'Are you pregnant?' Hermione asked.

'Yes, but that's completely besides the point! I'm not crazy! I'm. Completely. Calm.' Her rapid throws contradicted that declaration.

Pansy stepped back out of the splatter zone as Ginny's throws started to go wild, but Hermione leaned in for a hug, ignoring the balloon that burst in between them, splattering her jumper with red paint. 'A baby! I'm so happy for you! Or are we not happy?'

'We're very happy!' Ginny said, reaching for another balloon to throw. 'The baby's daddy is just an idiot!'

Ginny shot the balloon over Hermione's head, missing her by an inch.

Hermione decided to leave Ginny to it. She stepped back to join Pansy. 'Did you have some anger to vent as well?'

'Nope. I'm totally zen these days. Luna and I give each other space, we don't walk around attached at the hip. It keeps things lively and fun. She just asked me to pick up some books from the Grimmauld library for an article.'

Hermione raised her eyebrow, wondering when Pansy Parkinson had started running errands.

'I wasn't going to pass off the opportunity to snoop around the golden boy's house. And lo and behold, I stumbled across this. Luna certainly has the weirdest friends. It's doing wonders for my gossip pool.'

Hermione considered Pansy's words. Space. She didn't want space. She loved Draco, and she wanted to be as close to him as she could get. So why was she picking ridiculous fights and storming off? After all this time she was still running. She needed to stop.

Hermione turned around as the door slammed open.

'Ginny?' Harry called out, as he entered the room with his hands up in surrender. 'I'm sorry. I love you and I love our baby. You're completely sane and even-tempered and beautiful. Can you forgive me?'

Hermione was utterly shocked. That speech felt unreal coming from Harry Potter, of the scarred and loveless childhood, of the martyr complex and the boyish stupidity. But his eyes showed complete sincerity. Her best friend had come such a long way, it actually brought tears to her eyes. She looked at Ginny.

Ginny gave him an angelic smile. Then she waved her wand, and a kaleidoscope of paint stripped off the walls, and floated in the air, swirling around and around like a rainbow. With another flick, all of the paint was dumped over Harry Potter's head.

'You're forgiven,' Ginny said, taking off her poncho and skipping out of the room. 'Hermione, are you coming? I found a recipe for Jaffa cookies yesterday.'

Hermione walked into her apartment to find Draco reading a Potions journal on her couch.

'How are Scarhead and Weaslette?'

'Good,' Hermione said, thinking that it was true, in their own bizarre way. 'How do you feel about Chinese for dinner?'

'With extra dumplings,' Draco said.

Hermione rummaged through a draw for the take-out menu, then turned back to Draco. 'We should move in together,' she said.

'I agree.'

'I know I'm in Paris every other week anyway, but I just think it would be nice to…'

She halted her pre-rehearsed speech. 'You do?'

'Yes. Why not? We're both busy people, but we love each other, so we should spend every moment we can together.' His words were simple, honest. It was the second time she had been surprised by a man today.

She joined him on the couch, curling her feet underneath her. 'Which apartment?'

'Yours. It's nicer, in a better location.'

Both of those things were untrue. 'You just want to be close to Harry so you can have bromance sessions whenever you want.'

'Yes,' he said with a straight face. 'That's exactly what I want.'

She kissed him, practically crawling into his lap in the process. 'Thank you. I know they're annoying, but they're family.'

'That's true of every single person we know, from Longbottom to Pansy. But if I lived this close to Pansy I think I'd go insane.'

Hermione laughed. 'Well, at least Ginny comes with cookies. There's a box of them in the kitchen. But wait until after dinner.'

She started to get up so she could pick up the phone, but Draco tugged her back down with his arms around her waist.

'Does this mean I'm forgiven for using a dusting spell on your book?'

Hermione kissed him again. 'Never. It was reckless. You don't use magic on books older than a decade. Especially not that book. It's the pivotal study on Charms pronunciation. I think I love that book more than you.'

On that note, she disengaged and went off to order their dinner. Then they settled in for a night of domestic bliss. Draco's transgression was never forgiven.