Author's Note—Hi, guys. Is anyone still reading this? I know reviews aren't everything, but there didn't seem to be any response to my last chapter (thanks SereniteRose for being the exception!). My life is kind of crazy at the moment, but I'm trying to make sure I keep making time to write. Please let me know if you're still reading?

Chapter 8: Suds

Draco spent a day working his way through all the applications he and Granger had gathered and then two days dropping them off at all the restaurants he'd gotten them from. The best that could be said was that he was getting some fresh air and having fewer near-accidents with the drivers on the road. He waited for his phone to ring and wondered several times if it was broken when no one immediately called him back after he had dropped an application off.

Saturday night, after having walked and taken the underground around the city for two days, he realized it was time to ask Granger an important question.

"How do I clean my clothes?"

She paused over her soup. "Well, there's a laundromat just around the corner. I can show you tomorrow."

Draco couldn't hide the dismay that crossed his face at the thought of carrying his dirty laundry out of the building and down to the corner.

And so it was that Sunday, he'd loaded up his dirty towels and clothes into a bag he'd borrowed from Hermione and followed her down the block.

There were a number of Muggles in the place when they arrived, mostly women, some with children. He looked around the room uncomfortably. He'd never spent much time with small children. "Well?"

"Well, take out your coins. You're going to want to buy detergent." She demonstrated how to use the large glass-fronted machine.

"And this will get my clothes clean?" he asked skeptically.

Hermione did her best not to laugh. "No, this just gets the detergent out for you. You'll have to put your clothes into one of the machines over there when one is free."

Draco sighed and put his coins into the machine and pressed the buttons as instructed. A small packet was pushed forward and dropped down the front of the machine and he picked it up. He frowned at the long line of metallic machines against the wall.

"Pick up your bag and we'll find a machine," Hermione said, hoisting her own bag on her shoulder.

They were lucky enough to find two machines near one another.

"It's probably a little less crowded in here on a week day, but I'm meeting with McGonagall tomorrow." She opened up her laundry bag and a door on the top of the machine and began putting things in. "Now, all of my clothes are old. I haven't bought anything in quite some time. They've been washed often enough that the colors won't run. Your clothes are all new. The colors might run. You'll want to separate out your lights and your darks into two separate loads."

He arched an eyebrow. She must be joking.

"You could throw everything in at once, but I can't guarantee that those red boxers on the top of your pile won't turn your nice white dress shirt pink," she said, shrugging. "It's your call."

Doing his best not to grumble aloud, Draco began sorting out his laundry. He glanced over at Hermione nonchalantly putting all of her items into her machine. It wasn't fair. When all of his dark clothing was in the machine, he still had a pile of lights on top. "What do I do with these?"

"You'll have to wait 'til there's another machine open for those. Here, look." She explained the settings on the machine and turned her own on after dropping a handful of coins into the metal slot. "Your turn."

Draco inspected the dial on his machine and mimicked her. "How long will this take?"

Hermione shrugged. "Half an hour or so."

They went and stood by an empty wall until there was a bench with enough space for the two of them to squeeze onto. The small children running around did not help Draco's temper; they just made him anxious. He drew his feet in under the bench to try to keep away from them. Turning to ask Hermione a question, he found her reading a book. Of course she was.

She looked up just in time to point out to him that another machine had freed up.

Draco squeezed himself off the bench and tried not to step on the rugrat playing near his feet as he made it to a machine just ahead of someone. "I got here first." He glared at the person as if they might contest.

The woman gave a sniff and walked away, muttering under her breath.

Satisfied, Draco began depositing the rest of his clothes into the machine, as well as his coins. He realized he had no more detergent. He kept one eye on the woman who had wanted his machine as he sidled over to the glass-fronted machine and got himself some detergent. He went back to his machine quickly as though someone might have tried to take it. Looking inside it appeared his shirts and socks were still there. He frowned, trying to remember the settings Granger had showed him and started up the machine. Success. He turned back to Granger and found that the woman who had wanted the machine had taken his seat. Her bag of laundry was at her feet and there was a child with a lollipop and sticky fingers in her lap. He repressed a sigh and went to stand against the wall, doing his best to ignore anyone. He ignored them all so well that it was several minutes before he noticed that the brat in her lap had somehow lost his lollipop and attached it to Draco's pants.

"Lolly!"

He glared.

The small boy was not intimidated and reached to pull the sucker from Draco's leg. He reached it first and smashed it under his shoe.

Granger got up then and pulled him away by the hand to go check on their machines. As they approached, the washers stopped rattling. "It really wasn't necessary to step on his candy."

Draco had no response for that. The kid had it coming. "Are the clothes done? Can we leave?"

"Only if you want to carry soaking wet wash back to your flat up three flights of stairs," she said evenly. "Take everything out and let's put it in the dryers."

With distaste evident on his face, Draco began gathering up his sodden pants and boxers and everything else.

Hermione directed him over to the line of front loading machines. "These dryers will have everything dried in about half an hour, and then we can leave. Well, half an hour after your second load is done," she amended.

"And all Muggles have to come to…a facility like this just to get clean clothes? So…inefficient."

"No, not everyone," she said. "Some people have washers and dryers in their flats. And a lot of apartment buildings have a shared laundry room down in the basement. Our building just doesn't have one." She closed the metal door on the machine and set the dials to turn it on, dropping her coins in the slot.

Draco copied her and waited by the machines for another dryer to open up as his other load of wash finished. He watched as she found herself a place along the wall and got out a book again, reading as though she wasn't in a stuffy and noisy room. He wondered how she could concentrate at all with the sound of all the machines running, and people talking to one another, or talking loudly into their phones.

When at long last the laundry was done and they were carrying it all back to their building—carrying a warm bag of laundry up three flights of stairs in August heat was not one of the highlights of Draco's week—he finally asked, "Granger, why do you live here?"

"Pardon?" she asked, blinking. She'd been absorbed in her thoughts.

Draco hefted his laundry up onto his shoulder and gestured with his free hand to the building in general. "Why do you live in this building if there's no laundry facility? Presumably, unlike me, you had your choice of places to live."

They rounded the stairwell and entered the hallway where their apartments were. "I don't know. I don't suppose the laundry really entered into it. I mostly do my laundry by magic. This place was out of the way from most of the major magical landmarks in the city. The price was reasonable." She set her laundry bag by the door and leaned against it.

Draco looked at her. "Granger, you could have gone anywhere after…" Hogwarts? The end of the war? There was no good way to finish that sentence. "Just…anywhere. You're here."

"If I've told you kids once, I've told you a dozen times, stop making a noise in the hallway!" called out the scratchy voice from down the hall.

Hermione called out an apology and opened her door. She thought about not answering Malfoy's question. She certainly didn't owe him any answers. Instead she stepped inside and held her door open. He could come in or not. "You can come in for lunch. If you want."

Against what was probably his better judgment, Draco followed her into her flat, setting his laundry bag inside the doorway and shutting the door. Whatever Granger prepared was probably going to be better than whatever he'd manage to scrounge out of his cupboards.

Hermione took some deli meat and mustard and bread from the kitchen and set it out on the table. Draco could assemble his own sandwich. She went to get the plates and drinks. They assembled their sandwiches at the table and began to eat in silence. Hermione took a breath. "Do you know where my parents are?"

"Off being Muggles somewhere?"

She swallowed. "I performed a memory charm on them, before we went looking for the Horcruxes. I don't know where they are. I…I sent them away. They don't even know I exist. I haven't been back to the house since." She pushed her plate away from her, finding herself suddenly without appetite. "Ron and I moved in here this summer. Harry was going to move in across the hall. This seemed like a nice quiet building. We could sort ourselves out out of the spotlight, away from anywhere anyone has seen us before."

Draco wasn't sure what to say. He sipped his water, not sure whether to look at her or look away. He glanced at her and then back at his plate.

"When that Snatcher got Ron a few weeks ago…" She shuddered. The Ministry hadn't been able to catch all the Snatchers that had popped up during Voldemort's reign. Some of them had assimilated back into a more or less legal lifestyle. Others…hadn't. "It changed everything. The Weasleys would welcome me into their home in a heartbeat, but I just can't be around them right now. I told them I couldn't bear to stay here without Ron and that I was moving the day after the service."

Draco's head snapped up and found her eyes. "So you stayed, thinking they wouldn't look for you here?"

"I did," she said simply.

He shook his head. "Granger, sometimes you're brilliant. And sometimes you're denser than…" He was about to say the Weasel and he held himself back, just barely. "The Weasleys know you're here."

"They haven't come looking for me. If they knew I was here, they'd have turned up by now." Or maybe they'd given up on her. Maybe seeing her right now would be as painful for them as seeing them would be for her.

"If the Ministry knows you're here, the Weasleys know you're here. And if they didn't before, the Ministry has known you're here since you brought the Aurors in to let me into my flat." He shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were keeping tabs on you and knew before that. It may have been why they put me here—place me next you, and you'd either help me or kill me, and either way, I'm not their problem."

Hermione remained silent. Of course the Ministry must know where she was. Even if she'd used a false name when setting up the Floo address. If she'd been more clear headed in the last few weeks, she would have thought of that. Everything had just happened so quickly. Losing Ron just when they all thought they were safe felt like the world falling out from underneath her. She could have predicted Harry's withdrawal too. She ought to find him; he'd be beating himself up. But right now she hardly had the strength to keep herself moving forward, let alone to push, prod, or drag Harry. "Well, they're leaving me alone for right now then, and that's good enough." She busied herself clearing away her plate and glass, even though the food was mostly untouched. "I should move really, at some point," she said, almost to herself.

Draco's eyes followed Hermione from the table to the kitchen, where she spent a few minutes with her back turned to him, clearing her plate and washing and drying it. He wondered whose idea it had been to put him here in close proximity with her, and what their motivation was. He supposed it didn't really matter on some level; he was here and he certainly wasn't going to be able to go anywhere else for the time being.

The silence stretched, broken only by the sounds of Hermione moving around the kitchen. When she stopped and turned back around, he dropped his eyes back to his plate. Really, what was there to say this point? Neither of them was in a good place right now. As much as Draco knew that he was in for a hell of a year, at least there was an end date to losing his magic. Granger was never going to get back the things she'd lost.

Draco cleared his throat. "Thanks for lunch. I guess I'd better go put my laundry away." He left his plate on the table, not turning to look at her. Shouldering his laundry bag as he walked by it, Draco went back to his own flat.

Hermione let herself fold into one of the chairs and tried to keep her breathing steady. With everything she'd been through in the past decade, surely the sound of quiet room shouldn't unnerve her. She preferred most spaces that way. But it felt unnatural. Harry wasn't nearby looking exasperated as she and Ron bickered. Ron wasn't here and wouldn't be, ever again. He wasn't sitting and chewing too loudly with his mouth open, or telling her to lighten up and not study so much. He wasn't there to make her laugh. And even though he wasn't there, he somehow still made her cry.

She allowed herself what she hoped was no more than fifteen minutes of self-pity (though she really didn't check the clock) before she made herself move again. There was laundry to put away, and Draco's dishes were still sitting out, and she had a year's worth of NEWT level potions work to catch up on. She was determined to be through all of it by her birthday.

Draco did his best to stay focused. He had tasks in front him. He had laundry to put away, and who knew, any time now, his phone might ring with a job offer. After all, he'd put in his applications and brought them to the restaurants himself. Someone was bound to want him.

He'd found places for his socks and underwear to live, and hung up his pants, and found himself staring distastefully at his shirts. They were a wrinkled mess. He supposed to he ought to go borrow the tool Granger had mentioned for fixing that problem. He glanced uneasily at his front door. He supposed he could borrow whatever it was from her, but…he didn't want to go back over there. While Granger hadn't cried when he was over there as far as he could tell, she wasn't in a good frame of mind. He didn't have much experience dealing with that sort of thing. Maybe it was best to just wait it out.

Dissatisfied with the state of them, he hung up his shirts and the rest of his things and tried to make himself comfortable reading in the living room. The book was rubbish. He couldn't concentrate. He frowned and dropped the book next to him on the couch. Maybe he'd watch some television. There must be something entertaining, or at least useful on.

He flipped through the channels, not finding anything he could rest on. Aggravated, he pried himself off the couch and went hunting around his kitchen. Clearly, Muggles were rubbish at entertainment. What he wouldn't give to have a good game of wizards' chess at the moment, or watch a Quidditch match.

Draco woke early, having gone to sleep early Sunday night with nothing else to do. He itched to be doing something, anything. He made himself breakfast. Took a shower. Got dressed. He turned on the telly and turned it off again in distaste after a few minutes of watching someone at a desk talk about things he hardly understood. Who cared how many cars were where? He knew from the sunlight just starting to peek through the bedroom window that it was early. How early, he wasn't sure. He supposed at some point he ought to get a clock of some sort. It hadn't seemed practical to bring the mahogany grandfather clock from the entryway of Malfoy Manor. Maybe that's what he would do today: buy a clock. Surely if he wandered around long enough, he'd find a store that sold them. If the advertisements on the telly were to be believed, Muggles sold just about everything.

He frowned as he considered that he didn't know what time it was and there was a very good chance it was too early for shops to be open yet. Instead, he took himself across the hall and knocked on Granger's door. He might as well borrow the thing for getting the wrinkles out of his shirts.

He was at the door for a moment or two and wondering if it was too early to be calling on her when he faintly heard the scrape of a chair. She came to the door in the same clothes she'd been wearing the day before. If he didn't know better, he'd swear that her hair was frizzier than usual. The bags under her eyes said that she hadn't slept. "Granger."

"What is it, Maaaalfoy?" she asked, yawning halfway through his name.

He fidgeted. She looked like hell. "I just wanted to borrow that thing for getting the wrinkles out of my clothes. You never know when they might call me for an interview."

She blinked at him, staring for a moment before shuffling away from the door. "I'll go get the iron." He could see books and notes spread out all over her table. "Granger, you do know that we're out of Hogwarts now, and don't need to stay up half the night studying? Or, it looks like, all night in your case?"

"Malfoy," she said testily, "Do you want the iron or not?"

He stood there, looking at her books spread out over the table. "You really needed something to do that badly?" he said softly, almost to himself. Salazar, hadn't he been up for hours already himself? Though he supposed it was better than the alternative—sleep too many hours to avoid being awake.

"I've told you. I need to study. I missed all of our seventh year potions courses and I'm planning to apprentice myself to Damocles Belby so I can do something for werewolves. It won't just be the Wolfsbane potion they need, but general healing potions would be useful too, and as much else as I could possibly make to help…the place I make be more self-sufficient. That's the goal." Her hand gripped the iron as she spoke, filling the silence with words. "The idea would be to be as independent from the Ministry as possible, to avoid having to rely on funding, but be able to function as a place that could welcome people in who need it."

"Granger, you're babbling. Shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up," she snapped. She thrust the iron at him and rubbed her temples once he had it in hand.

Draco wondered if the things he'd seen on TV for taking care of headaches actually worked. Muggle medicine looked strange. It didn't seem possible to be able to reduce an effective potion down to something smaller than his fingernail. He put on his best haughty expression. If nothing else, he could take her mind off things. It might be a small payment towards the debt he owed her. "Aren't you going to show me how to use this thing? Or do you have something better to do?"

There was a bit of a spark from her, a glare. She checked her pockets for her keys and shut the door before she could change her mind. "I'm not ironing your clothes for you. But I'll tell you how to do it."

What followed was a ten minute explanation from Hermione on how to iron, another ten minutes of Draco doing it (but not to her satisfaction), and then Hermione demonstrating on one of his shirts. She watched as he attempted to do the next one.

"Don't leave the iron in one place too long your you'll burn a hole in it." She settled herself onto the sofa, grumbling about his inability to do something so simply correctly.

Draco made the occasional comment back to her grumbling as he worked and eventually realized she was snoring. He glanced up from his work and saw her curled up on his sofa with her mouth hanging open. A minute later he realized that he'd forgotten to move the iron and burned a hole in one of his shirts. Salazar's tongue. He doubted he could afford anything new at this point. Whatever he had left from the money the Ministry gave him would have to last him the rest of the month.

Oh well. At least Granger was asleep. It was good to know he could do one thing right. She'd looked like hell when she opened the door. She needed sleep whether or not she'd admit it to herself. For the time being, he kept at his shirts. By the time he was done, she was still sleeping. He supposed he could leave her there and go out looking for that clock, but he stayed instead, settling into a chair to read.