Draco nodded. "It gave me hope. For so many things." He looked up from his hands and sent a small smile towards Hermione.

For the period of time their eyes held each other's attention, neither person was aware of much else.

Draco desperately wanted Hermione to comprehend his meaning. He mentally willed her to understand, attempting to reinforce his words through a profoundly sincere expression. Hoping that would be enough because he couldn't lay himself bare with wordy explanations. His words had proven to be problematic; they never seemed to be able to express enough, or he put them wrong and she misunderstood his meaning; they always sounded empty despite the depth of his feelings.

Draco had been forced to learn the art of diplomacy quickly enough; the transition from the school boy who had felt his position in the scheme of things was assured to where he was now, a position in which he felt sure of almost nothing, had been sudden and brutal. He had hid this uncertainty behind the act of saying one thing and meaning another, carefully manipulating the wording of statements so that surrender might seem a success or the other way around. He knew which buttons to press, what to say, which tone to affect, when to be clear cut with threats and when to veil his words and their meaning with suggestion. It was a detached and cynical ploy. He found that now he could not state his position or his intentions directly. It had become natural to him, this artificial communication. It wasn't ideal but it did act as a protection, of sorts. He had been quick to learn from his few early mistakes and, until this point in time, had been fairly successful. Now it seemed his plans were failing him in both his private and public lives. It was quite possible that neither his words nor his actions to date would prove enough to keep his position, his country and…

Hermione was trying not to read anything into Draco's words or his expression. She told herself not to ascribe different meanings to them, just because they may have been the ones she wanted to hear. It was human nature to be selfish, to see one's self in all things. It was the reason she often heard 'harmony' and 'her money' and many other combinations of unrelated words as "Hermione"; the same reason her brain interpreted abstract pictures, dots and lines, as human faces it might also turn any innocent remark so that it made reference to her and contained layers of meaning. It was worse for anything that Draco said, for there was also a certain amount of wishful thinking involved. She would take his words at face value: 'hope' and 'things'. Things like his hopes for this country. Ones that had been so recently dealt a harsh blow. That was surely what he was referring to.

So he held her eye contact, wishing that she would understand him; to express what he couldn't admit verbally through his countenance. She met his gaze squarely, determined not to misunderstand his meaning or read too much into his earnest expression.

Neither person succeeded.

The loud clearing of a throat caught both their attention and they looked away at the same time in the direction of the sound. Luc had moved away from Draco's chair to stand in the room's doorway. There was no doubting that his intention had been to cut through the tight knot of concentration that held their eyes on each other. As soon as he was sure he had both pairs of eyes on him, he thumped his chest dramatically, cleared his throat once more and closed the door, grinning at the time.

Though neither would have known, a thought occurred to both almost simultaneously.

Arse.

They remained staring at the door for a while; neither could bring themselves to make eye contact again. It was too raw, too intense.

Hermione walked towards the door and pulled the heavy chair Luc had positioned by the wall closer to the centre of the room. Facing Draco, she sat down heavily.

"You're really invested in this, aren't you?"

He was silent for a moment, "I was."

"Why give up now?"

"This isn't something new. Events… occurred to change the situation a long time ago."

"Are you saying you had already stopped caring? What about today, surely that showed you something?"

"I never stopped entirely, though I sometimes thought I had." He looked to the ceiling. "I haven't truly stopped caring even now, really…"

Hermione sat forward on her chair, reached across the space between them and took one of his hands in hers. Twining their fingers, she squeezed their joined fingers with her free hand before removing them both, "You can't stop, not ever."

It was like a spark caught him. He brightened immediately and his icy reserve thawed somewhat as he turned towards her. "It's important to you that I care? I thought –"

"Of course it's important. I've always wanted this." She smiled wistfully, but with genuine warmth. "I had my own plans for the future but there's no real reason they can't be altered to include you. The situation might be different and, yes, there are problems to go up against but it could still work. We could do so much together..."

Her words had begun to trail off, as if she were going over the plans in her head and talking herself through them. It took his voice to bring her back from inside her own head.

"And how would 'together' work?"

"There's already a truce, we just have to stick to it."

"How would we do that?"

"We would make it work."

"Would we?"

"We would."

"How would we?"

"I'm not hexing you now, even though you insist on talking in annoying questions. That's the truce in action; I'm making it work. You, on the other hand, are sorely testing my patience."

Draco laughed. His whole body felt light, as if an intangible weight that had been holding him down at this time was just removed.

"I am, am I?"

"You are a lot of things, but in the spirit of making things work I won't go into that. You can return the favour and stop baiting me."

He stopped. It was a pity because he was having fun, and his life had been missing fun recently. Her voice was still light, but the beginnings of a frown tensed the skin between her eyebrows. Just as Draco knew when to press buttons, he also knew when to stop. Or, at the very least, when to change tactics.

"Alright, I'm stopping. I'm - We're - making it work... Remind me how."

She groaned.

"I'm being serious," his smile suggested otherwise. "Big picture stuff. Working together implies more than just not killing each other at the end of the day, after all."

"The day is still young and you're pushing it."

"Understood," Draco's smile lengthened and widened into a grin. He was still having fun. "So what are we both bringing to the table?"

"Besides my lack of humour and your immaturity?"

"Of course."

Hermione shrugged. "You have power and position and all the resources that entails. I have the brains. The rest will sort itself out."

The frost returned just as quickly as it had melted.

Draco's lips narrowed from their wide smile to a thin line and his brow lowered in a frown. He stood, capturing her wrists between his hands and pulled her up and towards him, but not completely out of her chair. Hermione was surprised at his unexplained mood swing, especially given his teasing banter. Her last remark had been flippant but they hadn't exactly been overly serious beforehand.

Draco choked out a question, "What?"

"Isn't it obvious? You're royalty. People look up to you. You have the power and the money to do things. I've been planning something like this for a long time. I can be more or less at your disposal." She couldn't entirely suppress a small squeal of enthusiasm despite his outraged expression. It wouldn't be a simple solution, nor a quick one but Hermione was sure that between the two of them they had the capacity to right the situation.

"I've always imagined what it would be like to have those resources at my disposal; what I could do."

"I didn't want to believe… I thought you'd change… but –"

Hermione was beginning to worry about Draco. He wasn't making sense, and his voice sounded strange. Half-strangled, like something was lodged in his throat. She tried to push him down, to get him to sit back in his seat but his body remained rigid. He looked down at her - the oddest look on his face - as if his best plans and worst fears had crashed together, obliterating everything around him and he was left surveying the damage.

She was quick to reassure him, perhaps too quick as she heard her words run together when she spoke.

"I just meant that you're in a position to do so much. I'm sorry if you couldn't follow me. I tend to get ahead of myself when I get too worked up. You've started doing a great deal of good for such an essential cause. Fostering unity between all people, irrespective of their background, is imperative in the Magical community. You musn't give up now."

The tension left his body suddenly and Draco collapsed back into the chair opposite her. He stared straight ahead, his eyes not clearly focused on anything.

"Oh," was all he said. And Hermione convinced herself she had misinterpreted the tone of disappointment in the single syllable.

Draco leant forward to place his head in his hands, he grunted in reply. The reality, disappointing though it may have been, was still far better than the conclusion he had drawn. He had over reacted. He had started this conversation off with too much hope. It had been so difficult to reign himself in when she seemed to dashed his hopes so cruelly and confirm all his worst suspicions in the same breath. Worse even because he had almost convinced himself those doubts couldn't be true.

She spoke mostly to fill the silence but also because she was brimming with excitement.

"The people who attacked it represent the problem that your school was part way to solving. This issue is more important now that ever. They, whoever they are, want to stop you. What happened is awful, but you have to persevere through this." She shifted in her seat, and her tone became more conciliatory and less like she a lecture. "What I have come to realise is that big changes can start off small. When I was running S.P.E.W. I wasn't willing to negotiate small steps or accept good intentions if it didn't result in immediate action. I tried to force people to change, expected to convince them with my superior arguments but I didn't think to provide an example of how it could work, like you did. The school you had here was a marvellous idea; show people it's a good idea, convince them that it has some merit for the social good and their own circumstances, or at the very least get them used to the situation, make it normal."

His head still rested in his hands and impulsively she ran her fingers through his hair, "You, Draco Malfoy, are in the perfect position to change things. You've avoided the mistakes I made... already done so much. I want to help you, and I think I would be able to help."

Draco finally straightened up. He blinked rapidly and ran his hand over his face, scrubbing it over his chin. He smiled at her, but the luster had left his eyes and he appeared tired more than anything. Standing, he held out a hand to assist her up from her chair and she took it. Once she was upright he tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear and let his hand rest there for a moment longer than necessary.

"We have a wedding in a matter of days. Help me get through that, Hermione, and then help me change the world."

Her hand twitched. Her breath caught. There was something in that statement that made Hermione want to take his face in her hands and kiss him. The suggestion that they could indeed change the world, the resignation in his tone, his admission that he needed her help, the hand still hovering as if unsure by her ear. She had seen how much the issue affected him, watched the complex play of emotions across his face. If she hadn't already convinced herself otherwise it would have been all too easy to imagine that she had been the source of his excitement and disappointment.

She wished that it had been her.

It almost pained her how much she wanted to kiss him, to cover that sad little half smile with her lips. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, press her body to his and kiss him softly and gently and somehow assure him through the play of lips and tongues that everything would work out. Given how he was so visibly affected by the mere mention of the school Hermione didn't imagine that even a lifetime's worth of kisses would reassure him. It didn't follow reasoning, but that didn't make her want it any less.

The fact that she felt any inclination to kiss him at all came as a surprise. Previously, whenever he had mentioned their upcoming marriage her only desire had been to cause him physical pain or run in the opposite direction. Possibly both. Wounding and running would be a completely reasonable reaction. He had been the one to break her heart in the first place, not accidentally but cruelly and calculatedly. He had figuratively tied her hands and was forcing her into a marriage that she did not want to be a part of. But now she wanted to comfort rather than crucio him. It was probably the result of some deep seated psychological problem that she could get so worked up by issues of social equality.

Sure, he had saved some House Elves and there was the school, but was it enough for her to forgive all the less than honourable things he had done?

Even as she asked herself the question, Hermione had already partly realised the answer: She had forgiven him of everything once before. And despite everything that had happened since she was halfway to forgiving him again. Or, more accurately, she had wholly forgiven the principled half of him; the Draco who had freed House Elves and made a school for Muggleborns. The part of him that had broken her heart, the Draco who was cold and hard, he, she hated.

He was doing her head in.

Hermione squeezed his hand before she dropped her hold and turned to the door. "I have a dress fitting to arrange," she all but whispered.

Looking back as she left the room, she could see him backlit with the late afternoon sunlight coming through the window. It shone off his pale blonde hair to form a crown of light around his head. The light made him look radiant and otherwordly, his somber expression adding a poignancy to the picture she carried out of the room in her head. And in that moment, she had seen only Draco, the man she had forgiven.

The next day Hermione wasn't any closer to reconciling the part of Draco she admired with the part she hated. He had been called away on some official meeting of state business and she had not seen him after she left. That characterised their time recently, he was away more often than not and she was busy with something trivial concern about the wedding. She felt disoriented whenever they were together and no better when they were apart. Hermione had in fact given up and resigned herself to her confusion. There were more important things to consider, like…

"Oh oh oh. It's gorgeous."

…sigh, wedding dresses.

"Just lovely. You are looking glorious…"

Hermione agreed, to an extent. The dress was lovely, stunning, beautiful, magnificent, and every other overblown adjective that Chloe was gushing. Resplendent had made it in twice. She looked as she ever did; small, bright-eyed, fair-skinned, and far too much hair. Pretty, if one wished to push the point, but hardly gorgeous. Chloe was prone to overstatement. And far too excitable.

If she had ever stopped to think about weddings, this wouldn't have been what Hermione had envisaged. The dress, even without the final alterations, was simple, elegant and, for want of a better word, perfect. But a wedding was more than a groom and a dress. Hermione had those; she was, however, missing all the people she had assumed would be around her during this time, her family and friends (oh, and consent, also consent). Yes, there was someone to accompany her and provide cheery support and animated chatter, but there was the small matter that it was Chloe's job to help. She watched Chloe virtually dance around the room in pleasure as tucks were made and the bodice was pinned in tighter. While Hermione wasn't one to insist on separation of social classes, it would feel too much like buying her associates to call them friends, despite their being on friendly terms.

The seamstress had performed a spell that ensured she wouldn't stick Hermione with a pin, no matter how hard she jabbed it through the fabric, but the fitting still required Hermione to stand still for long stretches of time. As the seamstress communicated only in commands to 'stand up straighter' or 'raise your right arm' and impatient fussing noises, Hermione had only her reflection and Chloe's antics for entertainment. And only Chloe was really able to distract her from her maudlin thoughts.

"…Oh. This wedding will be so grand. It will be something to take everyone's attention off of…" Chloe paused and her voice dropped nervously, "that awful event." She had stopped her half dancing and began to fidget uncertainly.

"Miss Granger… this is, Hermione… I, ah, I wanted to say you, I mean, ask you…"

"Chloe, what is it?" Hermione asked tiredly, resigned to answer a spate of questions about wedding nights.

Chloe glanced over at the seamstress and giggled awkwardly. "Never mind. I just… I can ask you my question later." She stood uneasily for a few moments before turning to sit in silence in the corner. Which, knowing Chloe's propensity for chatter and her seeming inability to be embarrassed, was disturbing in itself.

Hermione shrugged and was scolded with a soft slap on the arm from the seamstress. Sighing, she stood up straight and lifted her left arm; it was just her and her reflection now.

The seamstress had ultimately run out of pins and had been forced to transfigure spare beads and buttons. She was circling Hermione now, looking her up and down, tapping her bottom lip with a calloused finger. Looking down at the dress, even knowing how many pins the woman had used, Hermione couldn't spot a single one. She thought it possible that they had been charmed to visibly blend into the fabric, but she hadn't heard any spells. It was either a case of wandless non-verbal spells, which was impressive, or a very talented seamstress. Given that Hermione had let the witch push, prod and pose her without complaint, she hoped that it was the first. It was less damaging to her ego to believe the woman was a very skilled spell caster.

Eventually the seamstress was satisfied with the fit of the dress. She knew this only because the fussy witch stood back and regarded her with a small smile and a nod. Hermione relaxed upon seeing the satisfied expression on the woman's face.

The witch waved her wand and chanted, "Finite Incantatum."

Hermione immediately felt the prick of a sharp pin in her side.

"Ow!"

"Stand up straight." With that parting shot, the woman turned and left the room.

Chloe left her chair and came over to Hermione who was carefully rubbing her side through the material. She didn't want to create a snag or move a pin and risk the older witch's wrath.

Chloe gave her a small smile, "she will return later to collect the dress and make the final adjustments. You can change your clothes through that door."

"Chloe, about –"

The younger witch shook her head vigorously. "I am sorry about earlier. It was nothing, really…" she looked uncomfortable again but summoned a new burst of energy quickly.

"Do you want me to assist you out of your dress? It's so pretty it is a shame to just wear it once. If I had one I don't think I would ever want to take it off. Of course, I am just joking to say it, because I do not have a fiancée so I do not have a wedding. Yet. Maybe when I am older," Chloe's eyes widened in horror and her hand shot up to cover her mouth, as if to force the words back in. "Oh! But I didn't… I meant… if I do, one day in the future… And I am sure that any dress of mine would never be as fine as–"

Hermione held up a hand to stop the apologetic babbling, "I didn't hear anything I was offended by."

"I am so very, very sorry." Chloe backed away while she apologised, her words muffled somewhat by the hand still covering her lips.

"It's fine! I wasn't–" Hermione yelled after the girl as she scurried out, closing the door far too loudly in her haste. Chloe would probably berate herself soundly for the near slam as well. She was almost as disciplined as a House Elf in that way, but at least she didn't feel inclined towards physically self punishment. That said, if it wasn't considered a slightly extreme measure of loyalty Chloe just may have started banging her head against the wall to show Hermione that she was really truly very sorry. All in all, it was probably best she had settled on just retreating out of the room.

Hermione sighed. She couldn't run after the excitable maid in this dress, yet she wasn't willing to magic it off and risk the ire of the possibly powerful and certainly vindictive seamstress. She would just have to find Chloe once she was changed and explain that nothing the girl had said had been taken as an insult and neither had Chloe overstepped any boundaries of station.

Instead, she found herself alone in the smaller adjoining room struggling with the series of minute lace covered buttons along the back of the dress and cursing Chloe's ill-timed exit. Then she cursed the seamstress too, for good measure. She cursed Draco, for being the reason she was in this dress at all; Narcissa, because she should have had at least one other woman she could turn to and the older witch had made it impossible; Luc, because Hermione just didn't like him very much at the moment; and finally herself, for being so pathetic and not figuring out a way to get out of either the dress or the wedding. Then she cursed herself again, because she had unconsciously given her consent to it just so she could stick around and help out with a couple of causes. She cursed Draco once more because he was wonderful and awful at the same time and that confused her; because she wanted him and hated him and hated that she wanted him; because she was tired, wasn't acting like she normally would, felt unstable and…

Her arms ached. They continued to hurt after she lowered them from trying to unfasten the awkward clasps and rotated her shoulders to try to disperse the soreness. It was useless, she hadn't even come close to undoing half of them.

Hermione collapsed down onto the padded seat, feeling like she was about to start crying out of frustration. She felt like she had lost something important, but wasn't quite sure what it was. A rogue pin jabbed painfully into her breast and it was just too much. Everything. Nothing. She felt slightly hysterical. She felt empty, like there had been a bubble of air trapped in her chest that the pin had burst. She was beyond thinking. Her body shook with silent sobs, her eyes remained dry. She sat there, not quite crying, but giving the exact appearance of it.

And then, as quickly as the phantom tears had started, it was over. She sat up straight; she was fine, her head was clear. Her chest no longer ached, although her arms still did.

She could hear footsteps and voices that clearly did not belong to women or to servants who had been trained to tread quietly. Not Chloe returned to help then, nor the seamstress. The footsteps entered the room behind the dressing room she now occupied. A door slammed shut.

"I'll thank you not to try to tell me how to run this place or fix its problems. You don't know everything, though you seem to think you do. The issue is more complicated than you understand it."

Draco, if she could correctly place his voice with a thick wall between them. There was a long pause. When he spoke again, his voice had lost much of the anger it had originally had.

"It puts me in a rather delicate situation. The school itself was administered by the state, so this is now a government matter. Any vandalism of state property would automatically be a government matter, but this more so because it is especially malicious…"

Hermione was having trouble making out the words. She rose from her seat to get closer to the wall that blocked her from the speakers. The rustle of material from her underskirt and long dress blocked out a second person's speech. When she pressed her ear against the wall and could hear Draco was speaking once again.

"…is almost an attack on me. Symbolically at least, because I was very publicly recognised as being behind the project. We're treading on dangerous ground here. If we suspect right…" Hermione lost a portion of his speech as he and the other person moved deeper into the room, away from the wall.

"…also involved in the government, which has always been in agreement with, or at least tolerant of, my position. This seems to have changed. It could never work. Theoretically I have power of executive, but in reality I need that support. I'm not sure if it's one or two individuals or the whole lot, what I am sure of is that I can't afford to have a government that sits in opposition to me."

The other person spoke, but she couldn't make out more than a low mumble through the thick stone and plaster. When Draco spoke this time, it was much louder and clearer than before. She realised that he must have come to lean on the same wall she stood against.

"I'll say again that you don't understand. The people will expect action because it was their children. I have to take action because I can't have members of the government thinking they can dictate to me, especially not using these tactics. The people have already started to oppose the government, what if they start to oppose me as well?"

Mumbles again.

"I don't want the protests to get violent and I fear that's exactly what will happen if there isn't a solution found shortly," Draco's voice started to recede, suggesting he had moved away from the wall. She could hear the footsteps moving away but managed to make out one last snippet of conversation.

"No, I don't like it either, but plans change. We'll have to bring it forward."

A/N: OHHHHHH! I am torturing you, aren't I? This is much longer than the last chapter, still not a huge one but it's up pretty quick for me, so no complaining. Thanks to all the lovely reviewers, (and to diagonally for her stellar late night effort/moral support). I'm now over the 200 mark, which is cool and even though I was sitting on 190-something before then, I still wasn't quite expecting it. And yes, I even appreciate you silent readers.

To business: Those people who are have been begging for Draco and Hermione action (um, all of you), I can stop making empty promises and reveal that yes, it does happen, but no, I won't tell you in what form. Flashback? Smut? More hand holding? Gratuitous eye contact? Sorry to have kept you all waiting but if I added it in early it would sit badly with the rest of story. But the countdown is now on, and it's a short 'un.

Now to those who have been begging for, or demanding, Narcissa's comeuppance (HarryPGinnyW4eva is especially adamant) I will have to leave you waiting a bit longer. I have, mostly out of guilt at stringing you all along, written a short little apology in passive aggressive fiction form. It's called Cissa's Web and should be up on my author's page if you're that way inclined. If not, I'll see you next chapter.

Hopefully more to come soon… and less end note drivel from me. Cheers!