Hermione hated Grimmauld Place. It was dark - both dingy and magically - and cold, the paintings screamed at her daily, and it took a significant amount of work to not constantly remember being on the run with Harry and Ron, living here and searching for R.A.B.'s locket.

Eventually, she decided she had had quite enough. On a day where Harry had work and she did not, she got down to business. Starting in the basement, she scoured dirt and grime and sorted out objects and artifacts. "Things that are definitely too dark to be legal," "Things that are too broken, old, or ugly to be useful," and "Things that Harry may possibly want to keep to maintain his connection to Sirius and thus his parents." The first category was quite obviously the largest, and the last had nearly nothing in it.

By the time she made it to the attic, it was halfway through the afternoon. She was sweaty and coated in dirt; her hair would take hours to untangle, but she was feeling accomplished. All of the paintings that could be removed had been, and she had stacked them by the door to discuss their fates with Harry. Walburga's painting still had curtains hung in front of it, and Hermione was debating simply blowing up the entire wall - but she needed to figure out if that would compromise the structure of the building, and if so, would it be magically fixable.

Hermione wasn't sure which part of the house she was more proud of. She had managed to clean it so thoroughly and throw out so many things that the rooms actually felt habitable. Downstairs was finally feeling like a space they could live in, rather than just exist. After cleaning the living room windows, throwing out the carpet, and scourgifying the couches multiple times, it actually seemed like a place she would be comfortable sitting to drink tea. The dining room too: she had removed the dreadfully dark curtains and emptied out the china cabinet that had been full of dark artifacts. While the room still reminded her of Order meetings, it no longer felt like war and death.

The library on the second floor was even better. Buried under three layers of dirt was the most comfortable armchair Hermione had ever sat in, despite it's deep green colour. The floor to ceiling bookshelves had been interesting too, once she had blasted away years of accumulated dust. Many of the tomes were probably a little too dark to really consider keeping, but she had tucked them all away on one shelf with a charm over them just in case, deciding she would need to actually read them all to be more sure. She'd also finally moved in all of her books from her apartment (which she had rented out to a lovely muggle student, knowing the place would be ready for her when this atrocious bill was finally overturned) and cleaned off the desk, setting it up for herself to use as a work space. She'd left Sirius and Regulus' bedrooms both intact, not having it in her heart to change either of them. They would be fine as guest rooms, and could always be converted to other spaces if and when needed. There was a third bedroom on this floor as well, sparsely decorated with a simple double bed for guests. She had cleaned it quickly but, due to its emptiness, it hadn't needed much work.

On the third floor, she hadn't touched Harry's bedroom. The original house design must have had a massive master bedroom on the third floor, spanning almost the entirety of the space with a large ensuite bathroom and the tapestry room being the only other rooms on the floor. At some point, Hermione assumed that whoever was living there decided they no longer wanted to share a room with their spouse and the bedroom had been divided up into two rooms. One was still far larger, which was where Harry was staying, and she had the other. For her own room, she had applied the same treatment, emptying it of nearly everything inside and trying to set up the things she had brought from her own apartment to make it feel more like home.

And now, tired but pleased with her work, she was in the attic. It had been relegated to storage many years ago, which meant quite a lot of cleaning and also throwing out that needed to be done. There were more books up here, and a few things which may have belonged to Sirius, all of which she saved aside to speak to Harry about. She found another lovely armchair which she shrunk down and moved into her bedroom, as well as some items which she felt would be alright actually in the house - though most of the attic itself contained only garbage.

Nearing the back of the room, Hermione had a feeling. It seemed… too small, up there. She'd now been through most of the other floors pretty thoroughly, and something about the sizing of the attic just felt off. Digging around in the back, where she felt the wall came too quickly, she brushed her hands over the wall and felt - there! A seam! Fumbling more, she found a small latch and clicked it open, pushing, and was met with a blast of summer air and sunlight and she gasped. There was a rooftop garden that looked abandoned. Carefully she stepped outside and found herself completely hidden from the road and neighbours due to the height of the building, and nowhere seemed near enough to an edge to fall to her doom. There were planters and trellises and a bench or two, a handful of dead plants, and in the middle a small fountain that was still bubbling with water.

Finally, she'd found somewhere in this godforsaken place that she didn't hate. Already, her mind swirled with thoughts of what she could plant out here, and when she went back into the house later it was with an entirely renewed purpose.

Malfoy Manor was cold, and big, and empty.

Ginny hated it.

It was the opposite of The Burrow, which was always overflowing with people and warmth, smells of food wafting out of the kitchen, loud noises and laughter filling every inch. Ginny had been forced to leave and now lived in a large empty bedroom, and her heart ached for her family. Here she never had to wait in line to use the bathroom, or fight her brothers for a chance at the delicious mashed potatoes. Here she could wander through the house and never run into anyone, spend hours in a room and not hear a single noise. Here felt like dying, compared to the life of The Burrow.

Defiantly, she had decorated her entire bedroom in bright reds and golds but already they seemed muted, less like an imposition and more like a concession. She had filled the room with pictures of family and friends, but had to flip over the frame of her and Harry kissing at Shell Cottage, because every time she looked at it her heart fractured a little further.

Malfoy had placed her in the same wing of the house that he was in, on the opposite side of the building from his mother. Despite this, she never saw him, never heard him. Ginny knew that he worked at the Ministry, or at least with the Ministry, but other than that did not care to find out more. They spent weeks passing each other like ghosts, Ginny eating her meals in the basement kitchen with Bilby the house-elf, or in her room. Draco left for work early and came home late. Ginny did not even see Narcissa, though she'd made a careful effort to avoid the woman in case she was anywhere near as fanatical as her older sister.

Ginny's Quidditch practices were frequent, but not enough to keep her out of the house as much as she needed to be. To fill time, she went for brunch with Luna, and drinks with Neville and Dean and Seamus.

One day, when she had nothing planned and no idea who she could drop in on to get her out of this house, she had a brilliant idea. Pulling on her training gear, she scooped up her broom and took the stairs two at a time down to the ground floor, headed outside with a purpose and a need to fly. The Malfoy grounds were large and empty - a perfect place to practice new plays. She'd been in the air for nearly half an hour when she was suddenly aware that someone was watching her.

Dropping down into a feint, Ginny pulled up at the last minute and found herself eye-level with Draco Malfoy, who was standing on the ground with his arms crossed and his brow raised, watching. "Well, Weasley. Looks like you haven't lost all of your talent since school."

Ginny sneered back at him. "Malfoy." She hissed, voice low and dangerous. "It's Malfoy now."

Draco laughed into the wind, though his face did not change much. "Malfoy." He repeated.

"I'll have you know," Ginny said, broom thrumming under her as she held steady in front of him. "I play professionally."

"Hm. Chaser, right?" He glanced down at his manicured nails. "Well, not everyone can be a Seeker."

Ginny now had to bite back her own laugh, it felt cold and cruel on her tongue. "Get your broom."

Draco now looked up at her, silver-grey eyes meeting brown, searching. She smirked at him, and he turned on his heel, disappearing back to the house.

It was only a few minutes later that he was soaring out of the manor, Quidditch robes on his back and an expensive broom between his knees. He held something in his hand, and as he approached Ginny he uncurled his fingers and a Snitch darted out. Ginny's face broke into a grin and she swung her broom around, turning to glance back over her shoulder at Draco.

"You're on!" And with that, they were off.

Nearly an hour and a half later Ginny shouted triumphantly and pulled her broom to a halt, fingers clasped around the small golden ball, laughing as she spiraled down to the ground and slid off her broom.

Draco followed her down, climbing off his own broom much more elegantly and standing in front of her, looking down at the redhead who was sitting on the grass, laughing up at him. He brushed his hands together as if wiping them of filth and she waited for a snide comment, but instead he was just watching her carefully. Ginny pulled herself to her feet and managed to contain her laughter. She couldn't help it, his palpable disappointment had been so childish when he realized she had beat him, and though he had mostly washed it off his features now she could still see hints of it in his slightly furrowed brow.

"Well," she said, looking down at her hand - unpainted nails, chipped and lined with dirt - and then back up to him, eyes glinting. "Not everyone can be a Seeker." And then, turning on her heel just as she had done, Ginny headed back to the Manor. She had almost reached the doors when she heard him, voice low but carried over the wind towards him.

"You won't be so lucky next time, Weaslette."

Ginny pursed her lips, hoisting her broom further up her shoulder, and responded though she knew he would never hear her from here.

"Malfoy."

Work was stressful. Work was stressful and Hermione was busy and it seemed like no matter how hard she tried, she was blocked time and again. She had been working on werewolf rights since the day she started in her position. Small things first - she wanted to repeal the anti-werewolf legislation passed by Umbridge a few years earlier, and was more or less successful. Werewolves could now get jobs, although there were still problems with them being unfairly discriminated against for missing time due to recovery from the full moon. Which brought her to her next, and biggest, goal: mandating that Wolfsbane potion be provided free of charge to all werewolves, indefinitely. The problem was that Damocles Belby and his family still deserved to profit from the brilliant invention of the potion, which meant that the Ministry needed to create a subsidy program for its provision.

They were stalling.

Money was always an area where they stalled.

On top of that, many people had been attacked during the war and they still did not have full records of everyone who had been bitten. People were still afraid to come forward for fear of being put on a Ministry registry which could negatively impact them (despite Hermione's repealment of the worst of the laws), or for other reasons that she wasn't entirely sure of - because she couldn't exactly ask someone who hadn't come forward why they hadn't come forward, since they weren't around to ask.

It was an endless headache.

Deciding that she needed a cup of tea to make any of the rest of the day even possible, Hermione closed up her small office and headed towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, hoping to coerce Harry or Ron or Susan into joining her.

It was too late by the time she realized that Draco Malfoy was in the same hallway and headed in her direction.

"Granger," he said, voice indifferent. And then he paused mid-stride, and a rather evil grin flittered across his face. "Or, should I say Potter now, seeing as you finally did what everyone was expecting and married the Chosen One."

Hermione clenched her hand into a ball, reminding herself she could not hex another Ministry employee. "As you well know, Malfoy, Harry and I are only married because of that stupid law. And it's still Granger, thank you very much - I don't subscribe to outdated customs, wizard or muggle."

She could almost hear the smirk in his voice as he responded. "Not like it makes any difference. What are you, Granger? Some mild-mannered civil-servant who is never going to accomplish anything. Pity, that."

Red flashed behind her eyes and she was speaking before she could help it. "At least I'm not married to a ferret." It felt like a moderate insult, something meant to poke but not dig. She didn't expect him to step closer to her, eyebrows drawn down in anger, fist clenched.

"Fuck you, Granger," he growled, and she tensed at the fury in his voice. "I would have thought you, out of anyone..." He paused, shook his head. "A fucking teacher transfigured me against my will. Did you know that if you're injured in a transfigured state you can feel it just as clearly, that breaking eight bones is excruciating no matter what form you're in?" Hermione swallowed. "You just can't keep your fucking nose out of anyone's business, can you, Granger? So bloody righteous when it comes to you and yours, happy to stand back when anyone you don't like or agree with gets thrown against the ground in front of you."

Hermione clenched her jaw and dug her fingernails further into her palms to try and suppress some of the anger she was feeling. "And who are you to say that?" she snapped, pulling herself up to her full height - still nearly a foot shorter than the blonde who was now standing only a foot away from her. "You, you -" she paused, took a deep breath. "You stood there while your aunt tortured me!" It wasn't really fair, it wasn't like he could have done anything or he would have been killed. "You're just a bloody ex-Death Eater who had no problems watching a mudblood be Crucio'd on your carpet! Probably more worried about how to get the stain out than someone's life-"

"Shut your mouth." He said, voice low and dangerous and strained in a way she hadn't been expecting. "You don't- you think you know everything but you don't, Granger." And with that he was spinning on his heel and stalking out of the hallway.

Hermione leaned back against the wall behind her, breathing deeply, trying not to descend into panic. What was she thinking?