A/N: Love to reviewers and my dear Countess Black

Thank you all for your feedback. It really does help. I'm going back to University tomorrow, so it might be a few days before another update.

"A man's house is his refuge against the world, just as he is his wife's against everything outside her sphere."

Fimbrius Malfoy, letter to his brother Vespasian.

Draco watched his wife as her maid pulled the last pin out and took up the brush. The elf was taking to her softly as she smoothed the bristles through Hermione's hair. Hermione seemed very reserved, almost distant. It made Draco's stomach squirm wetly; what could this mean?

The day had been very quiet. After the house elf was taken care of, they'd spent the long, long hours talking of nothing, avoiding anything that might remind them of what had happened. Lucius and Narcissa bid them goodbye after dinner and were Apparated him, reminding them to let them know should they be needed.

For Hermione, her numbness was a blanket, an armour she'd donned against the world. The only safe place was her own mind, and she was content to stay within it for the nonce, ensconced there.

The cruelty of things, Draco reflected as Leesy continued to brush, was that the world marches on regardless of what rocks our own small lives. There is always a meal to be cooked, a shirt to be cleaned, a letter written; always the world spins and we, poor players on a stage we do not control, must move with it. Only the dead have earnt the right to be still.

Draco was not still. He waited until the elf braided the mass of curls into a plait, tied it and tugged back the robes to speak. Hermione crawled under and laid down on her pillow without a word, face bland as porridge.

"Hermione?"

She rolled and looked enquiring. "How are you feeling?"

"Well. A bit chilled. I might ask Leesy to put another log on."

"Please do. I meant emotionally, though. How are you?"

Hermione was looking at the ceiling again. "I'd rather not discuss this right now."

"Please, love?"

"Give me a little while, Draco. Please."

Hermione found the numbness dissipated slowly over days, like the slow clearing of the fog which sometimes hovered over the sea like a shroud. She found herself watching it, sometimes, soothed by the endless, womb like sensation of envelopment; she was a mote in something infinitely larger than herself.

That's where it finally happened. Crookshanks was curled on her lap, mouth open as he snored, when something warm and wet rolled down his nose. He opened his eyes in time for another to hit him, and another. It was eye water. His Girl was sad.

Crookshanks stood on his stubby hind legs and miaowed plaintively, giving her a chance to bury her face in his ruff. Hermione dropped her head to the cat's neck and whimpered. "Oh, Crooks, I want to go home." She held his soft, warm body in her arms and began to sob softly.

Draco could tell something was wrong. He rose and Apparated himself from the library to the bedroom. He could hear low, damp breathing, and crossed the room, smelling her sorrow.

"Darling?" He sat down next to her on the pouf and tried to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "What's wrong?"

Hermione pulled away. "I'd like some privacy now, please."

He sighed and simply lifted her into his lap. "Much better. Now, what's all this?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Of course you don't."

Hermione said nothing and held the cat more tightly in her arms. He purred, nuzzling her neck and just lying still, letting her hold him like she needed to.

Crookshanks was old; he'd seen a good many things in his time, and he understood grief. He rubbed her cheeks and chin, licked gently at her neck to calm her. His presence demanded nothing, sought nothing; he was content merely letting her wet his fur with tears.

After a few moments she'd calmed. She gave Crookshanks a last hug and set him down. He settled on the floor between the two humans, giving Draco a look imbued with the clear eyed malice only a valedictory cat can summon.

Draco was respectful of what that look implied. He imagined finding chunks of little furry creatures in various unpleasant places and nodded slowly, letting the cat see they'd understood one another. "Precious?"

"Please?"

He nodded. "I hate that you're not feeling safe enough to tell me, angel." He put a hand on the back of her neck and squeezed.

Hermione felt something small snap inside herself. "Would you?"

"Sorry?"

"Feel safe, after everything that's happened? Honestly?"

"I've told you-"

She turned on his lap. "I understand this is hard for you, Draco, but has it ever occurred to that you're lucky in some ways?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes! How much has your life changed? Honestly?"

"We're married now."

"You've your parents, and your home, and everything else. I don't. And when you didn't think I seemed happy enough, you drugged me, Malfoy."

"What would you have had me do?"

"Listen to me!"

"For me you listen, you need to speak. I've asked you so many time, and what do you tell me? Nothing." Draco didn't put her down, or even stop rubbing her back as he spoke. He felt completely calm. He'd help her with this and she'd feel all better, was all.

Hermione breathed deeply. "I could have been more communicative, but why should I speak when you won't listen?"

"Darling, I've explained why the things you've asked me for can't happen."

"The reason they can't happen is because you aren't willing to make the effort. You expect me to do all the compromising."

She wriggled, trying to get from his lap. Draco tightened his hold slightly, frowning. "That's how married life is. You knew someday you'd leave home."

"Yes, but I expected that R-both of us would make compromises, sort of fifty-fifty."

"Yes, and see how that worked out?"

Hermione nodded, face bitter. Draco sighed. "Darling, just because you're used to something doesn't mean it'll make you happy. You've not considered the benefits of living this way."

"But I was happy, Draco. Happier than I am now."

That hurt. He winced slightly. "I've never tried to make you unhappy on purpose, you know."

"You have. You took everything from me, and you won't bend even a bit."

He started rocking a little. "But I've given back as well, haven't I? You're safe and comfortable, and surrounded by people who care about you, who lo-"

Hermione stopped him. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't." Her hands were shaking. She couldn't bear hearing that word from her husband's mouth at the moment. She'd die. It would be obscene, grotesque. She closed her eyes and struggled against a renewed impulse to cry.

Draco could smell her emotions shift and he pulled her against his chest. Part of him wanted to take her in the bedroom and climb with her under their robes for a cuddle and chat. But he couldn't. She wasn't nearly ready for that.

"Have a good long cry, precious. It's all right."

She shook her head. "No. No."

"You promised to share."

"This is all I have." She meant her emotions, her private thoughts, the safety of her own mind. That was all. She'd been stripped of everything, and what had replaced it the space in her head, the rooms of her own mind.

"Your misery?" He smirked sardonically, trying to make her smile a bit. She couldn't be this unhappy, could she? Hermione's looked away, saying nothing a moment.

She shook her head. "No. My feelings."

"Don't be silly, love. You've the whole world."

"No, I don't. I have whatever you're willing to let me see."

That was true. He was still stroking her back. He stopped and meditatively looked out the window, watching the foam capped waves splashing against the rocky shore, smelling the salt tinged air.

"If there's something you want, Hermione, you only have to-"

Hermione threw her hands up. "That's not the point at all! What I want, Draco, is to be able to trust you, and I can't, now."

Draco went still. It hit him like a tonne of stones, that she'd said a thing like that. Had she been so upset about the potion? Hadn't seemed like it. Hadn't seemed like much of anything to her, as far as her behaviour.

Hermione would never understand Draco if she lived to be one hundred and fifty. He was looking at her with a look of shocked hurt, as though she'd slapped him. He blinked slowly, twice, and said "Love, I...but you know that isn't true."

"Yes, it is. Draco, that potion, it was...like a dementor. Nothing felt good. Nothing felt like anything." She, too was staring at the sea. 'And I told you that. And you didn't want to hear it."

Draco felt like he'd been dashed with cold water. "But you know I just wanted you to feel better, angel. That was the only reason."

"I felt fine before, Draco. I was grieving, is all."

Draco swallowed hard. "Yes, I know. But the medi-wizard said...it would be easier for us to bond if you weren't distracted with your grief. And then once we took you off, we thought...I thought...that you'd turn to me and feel better."

He held her tighter, like a child clutching a teddy bear to ward off a nightmare. He'd hurt her. Hadn't meant to, but he had. And now she didn't trust him. She still didn't understand why, precisely, but a tiny kernel opened inside him, the beginning of self awareness and, perhaps, a little empathy.

Hermione didn't really want to be held so tightly. But she could feel him under her, more tense than she'd ever felt him, and quiet, for a change. She could still feel anger boiling softly inside her, but rather than the impotent fury she'd lived on, this seemed deeper, mellowed by her sadness and her resolve. It was mature anger, anger she could use.

"Is there...can I...can this be fixed?" It had to be. Had to, because he couldn't live like this forever, with a woman who didn't trust him, didn't feel safe with him, didn't feel like he'd take care of her.

Hermione sighed. "I don't know, Draco. Honestly, I don't. But we need to make a workable plan, because we're in this no matter what we do."

"I don't...I don't want us just to have a plan, darling. I want us to be married. Like my parents are married." He wished desperately he could make her understand how he felt, give her all his happy memories of his parents, all the warm moments they'd shared as a family.

"You know what the first thing I remember is, Hermione?"

She didn't follow this turn in the conversation. "No."

"Waiting with Mother for Father to come home. I was sitting on the stairs with my dragon, and she came and set me in her lap. We waited, and when the door opened, I jumped up and ran to him, and he swung me up, and then he gave us both a kiss hello."

Draco was smiling as he remembered. Father had always had the safest arms, he remembered. And Mother's face had lit up as the door opened. He wanted that for them; someday their children would wait with baited breath for Father to come and kiss them, and Hermione would smile and be happy he was home. He began stroking her back again.

"Oh." Hermione tried to reconcile the Lucius Malfoy she'd seen at the Ministry with the one who'd swung a toddler on his hip and kissed him hello. She could believe that Narcissa and Lucius loved one another-she'd seen the looks that passed between them, and the comfortable silences.

She closed her eyes. That was what Draco wanted. As crudely as he'd gone about it, he seemed to be sincere. They were stuck in this marriage forever. She'd not precisely resigned herself, but she was past thinking she'd be saved from it.

"Let's try, Draco."

"Oh, darling." He pressed his face to her hair and breathed deeply. Blood was rushing to his limbs again, and he felt tremendously happy, almost giddy. But he knew, now, not to celebrate too quickly.

"I appreciate it, honestly." He kissed her cheek, purely a gesture of affection and pleasure. "May I presume to ask you a favour?"

"It depends." She looked at him from the corner of her eyes, cautious of what he might ask. Draco saw it and smiled gently. 'Next time you need to cry, love, would you send for me? I really do hate the idea of you crying all by yourself."

"All right."

He beamed. "Shall we have tea up here?"

"We could."

The elves set a table, giving one another significant glances. Master and Madam were having meals in private! Mating was sure to ensue! Leesy, smiling, appeared and offered fresh clotted cream, strawberries and fresh, soft scones. Hermione was surprised to feel a smile tug the corners of her mouth a little.

As soon as the elf had left, Hermione ate a strawberry and said 'Do you ever feel like the elves have an agenda?"

"Of course they do. They want us to have a baby." Draco took it so much for granted that it said it with the air of a man who's reminding his wife they have a dinner party to go to.

"What?"

"No, it's true. House elves love children." He nibbled a scone and then tasted the clotted cream, smiling. "The dairy elf is quite good, I'd say."

Hermione looked shell shocked. "You mean they're..."

"Trying to get us to have congress. So we'll have a baby. Didn't you realise before?"

"No. I just thought them odd."

"Well, that too. But that day we did lay together, the food was meant as an aphrodisiac."

Hermione was appalled, but a little amused, too. "I never imagined."

"Why do you think Leesy wants to bathe you and choose your clothes every day? She thinks you can't do it."

Hermione snorted. "That can't be."

"Is."

Draco ate more fruit for emphasis. "Your family really didn't have any servants? Not even a cook?" He frowned slightly, wondering whether they'd made his darling slop pigs or scrub clothes on rocks or something.

"No, but muggles have machines who do the hard work."

"Really? Like what?"

"Washing machines for clothes, hoovers to clean the rugs, coffee makers. It isn't as though it was hours and hours of hard labour a day."

"But you had to feed the pigs and such, didn't you? And scrub floors?"

Hermione snorted. "Draco, people don't live that way anymore. Our meat comes from the market and we clean the floors with a mop."

He sipped some tea. "I always thought muggles do everything by hand."

"A hundred years ago. We live very comfortably, Draco. Not like your family does, but well."

Draco wasn't a hundred percent sure he believed her. He tilted his head and made his voice very soft. "How did you know how to live on the run? I'd always rather assumed that, well, you knew all that because of the way you'd lived."

They'd been avoiding the war. Hermione set her saucer down and inhaled. "No. I brought a number of books with me. And I was a girl guide, you know."

"A what?"

"A girl guide." She explained the whole concept and Draco made a polite moue of distaste with his mouth. "Sleeping in fields? Cooking over a fire?"

"It was fun." Hermione smiled slightly, remembering her days living in the raw.

Draco was beyond appalled. His poor love! She needed to be protected and treated with care, not made to sleep in the mud. She'd doubtlessly got bug bites and all manner of nasty miasmas. And exposed to common people, as well.

"If you say it was. I personally consider anything lacking a feather bed to be intolerable primitive." It was such a Malfoy thing to say that Hermione laughed. She hadn't done that in a very long time. It felt good.

Draco was immersed in that warm, glowing sense of well being. His Hermione was happy. He'd made her happy enough to laugh. He wanted to lean over and kiss her, but he couldn't bear the thought of ending the moment.

That hurt worse than anything. He wanted his kisses to be something that added to her pleasure, not something that might well detract from it. And he'd see it happen, too. Draco had once planned to kill a man, and this, compared with nearly murdering the greatest wizard of the age, should be a doddle.

Hermione picked up her cup just as Leesy appeared, smiling herself. "Leesy is bringing Master and Madam some more tea, with violet water." She poured them each a full cup and then, having put down some chocolates as well, vanished.

"I must say, this whole thing has a new cast now."

It was Draco's turn to laugh. "Does it? That's not the only reason, of course. They really do care about us deeply."

"I know. When I stopped letting the elf at Hogwarts tidy my things, she came crying to me every day for a month."

"I'm sure it did." They sat in silence for a moment, eating their tea and sipping the sweet, strong tisane.

Hermione felt a little giddy and slightly tired. "This is also an aphrodisiac, isn't it?"

"Oh yes."

"Will they ever stop?"

"Once we've had a baby or three."

Hermione put down her cup and shook her head to clear it. She was prepared to say something else, but Narcissa came in and abruptly sat down. "Neither of you must panic."

"Mother?" They hadn't seen her for three days, and it was unlike either of the elder Malfoys to burst in like this.

"Father has collapsed. St. Mungo's would not be safe. We've too many enemies for anyone to know he is not well."

Hermione felt her chest clench like a fist, but her voice sounded very calm to her own ears. "Will you take him home to the Manor?"

Narcissa shook her head. "Here. Even the Manor is not impervious."

Hermione was sitting very straight, like a proper lady. Draco felt affection and pride in her, knowing she couldn't like this, smelling it, but her face never betrayed it for a second. "Let us know how we might help."

Narcissa hugged her, and then Draco too. "It will all be all right, my loves."

Draco found he could believe that.