A/N: Love to reviewers and Countess Black

This is intended as a comic interlude. My personal life is not great right now, and I needed some humour. If you're disappointed, I totally understand.

Serious plot movement next time, I promise.

Madea

After tolerating this nonsense a few days, the elves held another meeting. Also present was the nasty cat that Madam, unaccountably, seemed fond of. Clustered about the fireplace in the kitchen, Lirry waited until they'd all assembled to start.

"Master and Madam is proving resistant." All ten nodded, and the nasty cat yawned and licked his forepaw meditatively.

"We is perhaps giving them more potions?"

Minky shook his head. "They is being noticing soon."

"We is hiding their clothing, then? Having to be mating to keep warm?" This seemed somewhat more viable, and the various pros and cons were discussed. Ultimately, they could just order them brought back.

The cat rose and stretched, throwing his head. Stupid elves, had they thought to try staring impassively? It stood to reason that, if it could stop humans mating, perhaps it would also work in reverse, and the humans would mate to get them to stop?

This idea, once conveyed with a series of swats, grumbles, and strategic tail gestures, was held to be surprising clever. The elves nodded at one another and agreed to shelve the idea for further consideration.

Next, Leesy stepped forward to deliver a report about the state of Madam's frail, delicate, to be carefully monitored and guarded health. "Madam is being writing refusal."

"Refusal of what?"

Leesy shrugged and calmly passed the refutation around the circle. The elves scanned it gravely, until Tippy, who was the oldest elf in the room, shrieked with horror and fainted. The other elves quickly picked her off the butcher's block and doused her in water, slapping her cheeks to wake her up.

"Why is Leesy allowing this to be happening?" The other elves turned and studied Leesy.

"What is we doing, taking pen away?"

The elves nodded sagely and looked back to Tippy: house elves tend to hate and distrust one another, and so this was a welcome diversion. Tippy moaned and covered her face with her hands.

"Oh! Oh! Ruining us all! Oh!"

"Is just refusal! Stupid Tippy, being worried about nothing!"

"Stupid Leesy, not seeing problem when is being right there!"

The issue was discussed at greater length. "Is being...different. Not good."

"Not what we is being used to."

"Madam is hurting herself."

"Too much excitement."

The cat flicked his tail. His Girl liked excitement; the problem was that she smelt unhappy, and the Male was stalking about like a tom cat on the prowl. Most annoying, when Crookshanks felt he'd occupied that role most suitably.

"If Madam is being writing, is not mating."

There was the crux of the problem. The elves, frowning, settled on the various surfaces about the room and gave this some thought.

Hermione woke up, stretched, and briskly sat up, feet swung over the side almost before her eyes were really open. Beside her, Draco muttered sleepily. "H'm'ne?"

"I'm going to write, Draco. It's all right."

He grunted a response and then flipped onto his side. As long as he could sense her presence near to him, he was content. He burrowed back under the warm robes and surrendered to sleep.

Hermione knew immediately her papers had been moved. After brushing her teeth and pulling on a heavy wrapper, she'd sat to find them seeming shuffled. Her eyes flicked to Draco and she felt a small wire of guilt-for all he clearly didn't like it much, he'd never said anything against what she was doing.

The elves, then? Almost as though she'd read Hermione's mind, Leesy appeared with a hot cup of tea. Hermione smiled politely. "Leesy, my papers have been moved."

Leesy said nothing. "Madam is being cold? More logs on the fire?"

"Did you move my papers, Leesy?"

"Yes, Madam. More logs?"

"Please. Why would you do that?"

Leesy ordered one of the maids to put more logs on. "Had to move them for cleaning. Though Madam would be preferring Leesy do it, not maids." Which was wholly true; she simply didn't mention that she'd borrowed them a while.

Hermione nodded. "Oh." She set to work, using her well marked copy of Narcissa's book (easily removed with magic, of course) to find her place and continue. She sipped her tea, cooed at Crooks when he came in, looking smug, and then kept on steadily.

She had the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. Setting down her pen, she looked round, frowning. Nothing. Strange. Crookshanks had settled on the ottoman, and he, too, was watching her with a sort of unblinking intensity.

"What's wrong, Crooks? Do you want a belly rub?"

Crookshanks snorted. He did, but he would forgo it for a moment in order the further the alliance between himself and the elves. Why must humans be so difficult? Why didn't the male simply sing a little so she'd know her felt amorous and they could get on with it?

Hermione clucked and Crookshanks jumped into her lap and nuzzled her a moment, rubbing his scent on her and gently gnawing her hair a bit. Then he jumped down and determinedly approached the bed, burrowing under the covers and giving the male a smack on the knee with his forepaw.

Hmm, still not enough. Crookshanks decided that greater attention getting was in order, and decided to use the strongest trick in his arsenal. A second later, Draco sat up in bed and yelped loudly.

"OWW!"

"Draco? What happened?"

Draco groaned. "The cat clawed me!"

"Let me see." Draco tugged up his nightshirt to show the massive gash on his leg, which he felt sure was bleeding, at least. Draco waited for sweet feminine sympathy from his wife. Instead, Hermione snorted.

"Draco, this is hardly a scratch. You must've rolled over on his tail."

"Me? I'm the victim!"

"Draco, he didn't even break skin."

Crookshanks, who'd been hoping that focusing his Girl's attention on the proper part of the male's anatomy would get the proverbial ball rolling, grunted his disgust and rolled on his side, pointedly ignoring them.

"Well, it's awfully high up, is all I'm saying."

Hermione laughed. "You'll live."

"No doubt, probably in pain."

"Honestly." Hermione yielded to temptation and climbed back under the covers. Draco immediately tugged her closer. "Now, this is more like it."

The change writing had made in his wife was unbelievable. She seemed so much...lighter? Less in her own head? Draco kissed her cheek and then buried his face in her hair, completely content, the wound the foul orange beast had given him notwithstanding.

Hermione still wasn't quite sure she liked it, but with an outlet for her feelings, she could tolerate it much more easily. Draco was just holding her, clearly relaxed and comfortable.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Mother'd like to go shopping soon. Are you up for that?"

Hermione was quiet a moment. "I'm not a shopping person."

Draco wanted to argue that every woman was, if given a chance, a shopping person, but given what he'd read, he wasn't exactly sure that was true. Instead, he smiled charmingly.

"I know, but she needs a distraction."

"I'll certainly go and keep her company."

"Would you? I'd be grateful." They lay in silence a while, until Draco abruptly wondered something.

"Hermione?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Don't muggles have books like that?"

"Sorry?"

"Like Letters to Wives and Mrs. Leek."

"They did."

"Don't now?"

"Not for a hundred years."

Draco thoughtfully nodded. "So who taught you about being married?"

"My parents. They've a very happy marriage."

"Oh." Draco wondered what a happy muggle marriage looked like. Probably they sat round and worked and never got to do anything fun or go anywhere.

"And my grandparents, when I was younger. They've both died, now."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Hermione nodded her appreciation and sighed, wondering...she pushed the thought away. All the she could do was go ahead, and forget what might have been.

"How would...I mean...they're happy you've married so well? Your parents?"

Hermione shrugged. "They've never said."

"Well, no, but I'd think they'd be thrilled." Draco restrained himself from making a nasty remark about the Weasleys and the poverty Hermione would surely have endured had she married that idiot.

"They want me to be happy, is all." Hermione didn't like this conversation, and Draco, smelling the change in her emotions, wisely left the subject alone.

"You said you wanted muggle books sent. What are they?"

"Fiction, some of them' she said, naming half a dozen. They meant absolutely nothing to Draco, of course, except when she mentioned one and said, slightly embarrassed, 'Just for sentimental reasons."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

"It's fairy stories. A children's book."

Draco felt intrigued. "Are they much different than ours, would you say?"

Hermione considered. "No, not very. I really treasure this particular version, because Nan gave it to me when I was a baby."

"We'll have it sent, then. What else?"

Hermione listed a few others, and, because they meant nothing to him, he simply nodded again. "If you'd like them, darling." Making her happy, he was learning, was a matter of allowing her the things that mattered in her mind; books, her cat, contact with her parents.

At some level, Draco wanted her to want things he could give her because he liked the idea. Why didn't she ever ask him for anything? He wished she would. It would be nice to give her something purely silly, something totally frivolous. Hermione, though, didn't really do frivolous.

And she truly wasn't like any woman he'd ever known. Except, perhaps, Mother, a little. Not so much externally, but he thought, sometimes, that there was something similar in them. Something practical and comfortingly no nonsense. Something hard, almost.

As he did with things that troubled him, Draco pushed it away and gave his wife a kiss. "Go and write the letter, love, if you like." Hermione beamed and, to his total surprise, pecked his cheek lightly before she rose and went to dash something off.

Twenty minutes later Hermione was holding a parcel of books, courtesy of her father and the elf she'd sent, judging the parcel much too heavy for Phoebe. Draco was immensely gratified, seeing how in her element Hermione was, how delighted by the things she'd got. Part of him wanted to pout a little-they weren't anything special, after all.

She pulled her fairy stories from the box and handed them to him. Draco settled against the headboard and flipped the book open. 'Little Red Riding Hood'?"

Hermione murmured and set the rest of the books aside, an elf having appeared to put them up. She rose and let the wrapper fall, padding across the floor in just her nightgown. 'May I use your dressing room to bathe, Draco?"

"I'd be happy to let you have some privacy right here, darling."

"It's all right, you're settled."

Draco gave her a smile and then, a shadow crossing his face. "Hermione, do you feel like we're being watched?"

Hermione nodded. "I do. I thought I was just being silly."

"Hmm. Well, everything's been out of sorts lately."

"That must be it."

She called Leesy and departed for her bath. Crookshanks huffed noisily and settled on his back next to Draco's side, intimating his belly was available for a rub. Draco complied without thinking, having been well trained.

Crookshanks trilled a thank you and moved closer, giving Draco's ear a companionable nip and then moving down a little, demonstrating technique in case the singing should go amiss.

Speaking of which, he sat back, opened his mouth and warbled a few notes to show the proper way to attract a female. Draco set the book down and looked at the cat. 'You sick? Please don't be sick, I'll never be able to cheer her up then."

In a roundabout way, the plan worked, as Hermione, wrapped in a towel, darted from the dressing room. 'Draco, is Crookshanks all right?"

"Seems to be. Maybe he felt musical this morning."

"He's never done that before. Perhaps we should give him some fish oil in his food."

"If you'd like." Draco was surreptitiously studying Hermione from half lowered eyelids. She looked so sweet, flushed from the warm water and smelling fragrant and wonderfully clean.

He sighed as she turned round to go back, Leesy fretting every second that Madam would catch cold. As soon as the door had slid shut, Draco become uncomfortably aware of a problem.

The cat was eyeing him. And lying on his pillow, the little bastard. Draco growled with frustration and unceremoniously hoisted him onto the bed. 'I'm checking my loafers for wee when I get up, really I am."

The cat huffed and rolled onto his back again. Draco stroked his chest as he read. 'This stories are horrible. Ugh, no wonder she's so serious. Probably think talking wolves and things are round every corner."

Crookshanks was too annoyed by the lack of gumption on the part of the male to say much. He grumbled and drifted off, snoring softly. Draco read a few more stories and then called for his own tub and clean things to be readied the second Hermione was out.

Cheeks pink, she came from the dressing room, and Draco gave her a wink as they passed one another. "Think of what you might like to do when we're through, love."

Leesy helped Hermione into her under things and then a deep lilac dress, with a darker purple robe on top.

"Leesy?"

"Yes, Madam?"

"Have you been feeling watched? Master and I both have."

Leesy took up the pins. "No, not feeling watched, Madam. Perhaps is being lonely?"

Hermione looked away for a moment. "Not lonely, precisely. But it's been hard."

Leesy didn't say anything. When Madam was ready, she'd finally let herself grieve. She wasn't prepared yet, was all.

"Babies is being good for loneliness."

Hermione snorted. "It would hardly be right for me to have a child just to make myself feel better."

"Madam is not having to take care of it. Leesy is finding nurse for baby, yes, nurse elf."

Hermione tried not to laugh and sobered almost as quickly. "Maybe once..." Once what? Once she'd adjusted to the fact he'd ask her again someday soon? Once she'd stopped trying to find a way out?

Now she felt lonely. A few tears trickled down her cheeks and she dashed them away. Leesy immediately began to sob, begging forgiveness for having upset Madam. Hermione swallowed and made herself swallow, asked Leesy to give her some water to drink.

When Draco came out twenty minutes later, Hermione was fully dressed and snuggling the cat, who'd gone to sleep with his head on her arm. Draco went to his wardrobe and tipped up every shoe one at the time, frowning gravely.

Crookshanks opened one eye and gave a pointed mutter as Draco, looking sour, approached the bed. 'Lucky for you they were all dry."

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Honestly, you two."

"He started with me."

"Draco, he's a cat."

"That's what you say. I'm not convinced."

"Convinced of what?"

"Anything having to do with that forsaken creature. Now, love, what shall we do today?"

Hermione gently settled Crooks on the bed. "Explore some more?"

"Could, certainly."

As they prepared to go to breakfast, Draco gave Crookshanks a glare, which the half kneazle did not deign to return. Instead, he haughtily cocked his head and sneezed. The elves, who'd been hidden, trying the staring idea, quietly left in ones and twos..

Alone, Crookshanks felt a bit of smugness as he prepred for a nap. The male could be bitter all he liked, but Crookshanks knew his methods worked; which of them had got the Girl to come out in just a towel, again?