A/N: Love to reviewers and to Countess Black.

Sorry it took so long. The quoted passage is from the Ars Amatoria, by Ovid, and the smaller quote from Catulus.

'Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more.'

-Of the Joining of Lovers, 4th century CE

A number of interesting discoveries came on the residents of Castle Black in the next few days, in sequence, though of course, that was not apparent to those living the events at the time.

The first one was that Hermione woke up with a head cold. Not a very serious one, and in her usual practical manner, she took a potion and shook off the flailing, hysterical arms of Leesy, who was determined that Madam should die if she didn't take to bed immediately, and Draco, who wanted an excuse to lounge.

'Draco, it feels like we've been in bed for weeks.'

'But we've got to know one another.'

'Yes, we have, but it does get dull. Unless you wanted to work on runes a bit more...'

Draco huffed loudly. 'All right, then.' He stood and came up behind her, sliding his arm round her waist.

'I enjoyed it.'

He was slightly startled when she relaxed her spine a bit and looked up at him. 'It was good to get to know one another.'

That was the first event. Despite her cold, Hermione spent a very productive morning in the kitchens, meeting with the house keeper and cook, doing the many small and nagging tasks associated with the running of a castle.

Those things have nothing to do with the second discovery, which was Draco's. He also got dressed, and saw to his own small and boring responsibilities (those were also not discoveries).

Having exhausted his chores, Draco wrote some letters, read the newspaper, and then wandered to the library. It was quiet. He looked round, frowning darkly.

The discovery came about an hour later, when, on a whim, Draco climbed one of the ladders, looking into the honeycombs. He found nothing of any real note in most of them (close, but not quite), but as he was climbing down, something caught his eye.

He pulled his wand and swished. 'Lumos.' The tip lit, he checked the inside of the comb for anything creepy crawly and then pulled out the scroll. The end was red, as though it had been dipped in paint.

Carrying it to the table, he sat, and unrolled the thing reverently, as Hermione would kill him if he ripped a scroll. Thinking of his wife made him smile. And then, when he saw what the scroll was about, his smile fell off his face like a dead bird plunging through the window.

Eyes widening, Draco sat very, very still for a moment. The figures on the papyrus were...they were...moving. He couldn't believe...but how could they possibly have...but ...

This was essentially Draco's first real contact with pornography. He'd seen his share of spicy photographs of witches in their skivvies, but never people locked in carnal embrace with such exuberant abandon.

His first thought was that no one could find this, especially the ladies. It would upset them both terribly. And it would be a lot for Father's heart. The second was that this was, by far, the most scandalous and terrible thing he'd ever seen. The third was that it was also the most erotic, and so he sat down and read, heart hammering.

While also not strictly an event, it bears mentioning that Lucius and Narcissa were not there for the day-had they been, events would have played out differently. Lucius had been called to testify, and after he'd been deposed, they were going to pay a few social calls, which they'd been unable to do since the whole veela thing started.

So Draco was alone in the library, uncomfortably aware that he was growing erect from the visual stimulation of the scroll. He absently reached down and touched the swelling head through his trousers, too overwhelmed to even consider masturbation at the moment. He just stared, entranced, and then the third event happened.

Hermione was looking over the grocer's accounts when an elf popped into the room. 'Madam is getting package!'

'Bring it to me, please, Minky, and then let Master know.'

All that was duly handled, and Minky bowed himself into Draco's presence. 'Madam is opening it?'

'Circe's bleeding bubbies, elf!' Draco covered the scroll with his hands. 'It's from Potter?'

'Yes, Master.'

'Tell Madam I trust her judgement, of course.' He waved and went back to his scroll, blushing. He wasn't the only one. Hermione was disgusted by how pleased she felt, how absolutely thrilled.

She slit the twine of the parcel and opened it. The top book had a piece of parchment shoved haphazardly in. Should she take it? Should she send it to Draco?

She slid it out and opened it, determined to have this for herself.

'Dear Hermione,

How are you? We're all well. I'm sorry there wasn't more in Grimmauld Place to help you. There used to be loads but we couldn't find anything else.'

Harry'

Hermione put the note into a pocket with slightly shaking hands. Her grief was like the blunt edges of an old diamond, worn down by handling but still hard. She swallowed and decided that crying would start the elves running, and that would bring Draco.

She let the grief move over her like a wave, crest, and then recede. Sitting, she opened the first book and started to read.

Draco was also reading. He'd finally noticed that there were words as well as pictures, and he was engrossed. The scroll was a fifteenth century copy of a Roman original, which had borrowed from certain Greek texts quite heavily. He was translating effortlessly, reading aloud to himself.

'...let a woman noted for the length of her body

press the bed with her knees and arch her neck slightly.

She who has youthful thighs and faultless breasts,

the man might stand, she spread, with her body downwards...'

Draco shifted. Most of the words were directed to the man, but some of them were for ladies, and they weren't exactly sparing. Nor did they reflect the idea that women didn't like it, or want it. If anything, the bloke who wrote the scroll seemed to think that women liked it as much, or more, than men.

He finally stood, legs shaking a bit, and walked up and down the library for a moment. He experienced no sea change, felt no especial imperative to disregard everything he'd been taught. But it kept striking him how happy the people in the scrolls seemed.

He'd never made Hermione happy that way. He'd managed not to hurt her, and he was scrupulous in his attentions to her after, but she didn't like it, and he'd never expected her to.

But could he help her like it? What if he did? Would he hurt her? Draco worried she pushed herself too hard like it was. Suppose he did something that hurt her inside, somehow?

And if he didn't? It wouldn't change anything. She'd keep pretending not to hate it, and he'd keep lavishing her with attention afterwards to make up for doing it to her. But that seemed...wrong, somehow? He spent so much time trying to make her happy, and it seemed easy, reading this.

Hermione was working as hard as he or harder. She'd asked for pen and parchment and was feverishly taking notes about what she was reading. It was bare bones, but her mind was buzzing at a frenetic pace, and filled the gaps well enough for her have a working hypothesis.

Hypatos Black didn't appear in the historical record in any meaningful sense until 1521, when his wife had gone missing. She'd been missing for some time-several weeks?-and then, one day, had returned.

The next event was the birth of an heir. Hermione stopped and read that part twice. Hypatos' wife had disappeared in their castle in Northumland in November, having gone to gather shrews' toenails with an elf, who was found dead in the forrest near the Keep.

She'd come back in early January, mute and shivering, but unharmed. The baby, a boy, had been born in August, which made it possible-barely-that Black had fathered it. They'd called him Damocles. Was it irony?

If Black didn't think he'd fathered the baby, he never let on. The family once again faded from public awareness, meriting only a slight mention when the wife died twelve years later. She'd apparently got her voice back, though whether she ever spoke of what had happened was unknown.

Then, silence, until the son was seventeen. There had been, she surmised, some kind of incident, but what kind was ambiguous, as the pages had been torn roughly from their bindings.

She set down the book and decided to lodge another request to the Ministry. An elf appeared, and Hermione accepted the tea she was being offered with a smile. 'Where is Master?'

'Being in library, Madam. Should Tinky be getting Master?'

'No, thank you. I'll go and see him, all right?'

She rose and walked to the library without stopping to consider what her husband might be doing. The door was open, and she stepped in without a thought, came to the table and said 'Draco?'

Draco jumped. 'D-darling?'

'Harry's sent a book. I've some ideas.' She was almost glowing, filled with the new information, and Draco's erection grew epic, almost painful in intensity.

'Oh, have you? That's wonderful.'

Draco stood and moved them away from the table, not caring about the scroll right now, only wanting to see how excited she was, and how happy it made him to see her smile.

Hermione outlined her conjecture. 'So the next step is Northumberland.'

'That castle was destroyed in, I think, 17-something. Accident with Fiend Fyre, messy for everyone.'

'We don't need the castle, Draco. We need to know about the veela population at the time. Madam Black was taken in the woods. I think a veela did it.'

'And then returned her after weeks?'

'Maybe it died. Or let her go for some reason.'

'I suppose so. Stranger things have been heard of, I should think.'

Hermione nodded and started to stand. Then she noticed the scroll on the table. 'I didn't disturb you, did I?'

'Never.' She still smelled happy and effervescent with new ideas, and pleased, as well, with him. It was incredibly heady, almost alcoholic, and Draco reacted as much on instinct as thought.

He smiled down at her and said 'Let's have your parents for dinner this afternoon, shall we?'

Hermione froze for a second and then broke into a grin. 'Draco! Truly?'

'Of course, angel.' His heart felt like it would burst when Hermione's response was to thrown her arms round his neck. 'Thank you!'

'Shall we invite them right now?'

And so they did. Hermione was nearly effervescent, waiting for them, excitedly asking the elves to set extra places, changing into nicer robes, even letting Leesy apply a little rouge to her cheeks and a drop of Narcissa's perfume to her neck.

It ought to have made Draco's week, seeing her glowing with pleasure, but it had the opposite effect. He'd known it was easy to make Hermione happy this way, had done it before, but somehow, he'd let this slip through the cracks in the grind of the past few weeks.

His stomach clenched. She'd never complained, not once, but the evidence of her pleasure in such an easy thing was worse than one of Pansy's screaming tantrums. He couldn't let it happen again, was all.

He caught her as she came back from a final word with the cook. 'Precious?'

Hermione went white. 'Did something happen, Draco?'

He knew what she meant. Would he still let them come? He kissed her cheek. 'Everything's all right, darling. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry that schedule we worked out lapsed, is all.'

Hermione nodded. 'Thank you, Draco.' Had he ever apologised to anyone who wasn't her, aside from his parents? She felt absurdly touched, and tried to react in the same way she would with anyone else. She leant over and put her arms round him for a second.

Draco froze for a second, but only a second. He hugged her back, hard, wishing he could make her feel his own happiness, and his pleasure in her joy at seeing her parents.

Hermione didn't know how to end the embrace, but fortunately she was spared the awkward ending by a 'pop'. 'Hermione?'

'Mum! Dad!' She stepped back and ran to embrace her parents. Draco felt empty, wishing he didn't have to release her. But he knew his role, and stepped forward to greet his in-laws.

Over the galantine of calf's tongue and a fine white wine, the muggles regaled them with stories of people Draco didn't know and long screeds about muggle politicians. If Draco had known what an anthropologist was, he would have pretended to be one. As he didn't, he decided he would store all this knowledge to tell Father and see what he thought.

'And he came and got the cat?' Hermione turned to Draco. 'Our neighbour's cat is in love with Dad.'

'Ah.' Draco nodded sagely, trying to imagine this playing out. Cyril Granger took a sip of his pumpkin juice (they had to go back to work, after all) and looked sour.

'Not until the damned thing laid all over my chair. Hair everywhere.'

Hermione giggled. 'You think you didn't like it, Dad.' She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. 'Dad pretends to hate cats, but he really likes them very much.'

Draco was too shocked to reply. He teased Father, sometimes, but he wouldn't have dared openly poke fun at him to a third party. Stranger, the muggle didn't seem to mind. He smiled back and pretended not to hear. Not what Draco would have expected, not at all.

The Grangers had to go back after a very brief time, and the rest of the day went in the usual fashion. Hermione didn't seem quite as downcast after they left this time, in part because they agreed to return the following week.

Just after they left, a storm blew in from the sea. It gripped the castle like a lover and opened it's arms to buffer them with winds. No snow, not yet, but winds enough to keep the Malfoys visiting another hour or two.

Draco asked her to bring the book to the library so he could look at it. Without being told, Hermione silently handed over the note, and Draco smiled and said 'Meant it. I trust your judgement.'

Hermione blinked a tear. 'It means a good deal to me that you said that, Draco.'

Draco smelt her tears and stood, putting his arms round her. 'Angel? Talk to me?'

She shook her head, smiling a bit. 'I feel like we're moving ahead. Do you feel it too?'

Draco didn't answer. Instead, he pressed his lips to hers, and guided her to a divan.

Hermione was almost too startled to say anything. 'Draco?'

He shook his head. 'Is it all right?' He'd always been a quick study, after all. He remembered the scroll, the happy, obscene people in it, and applied the pictures and the words.

Hermione inhaled, surprised. His hands were gently drifting over her skin. He wasn't taking this time, he was...what? Exploring? Sharing? Hermione rose up long enough to shuck her robes as Draco silently did the same.

Draco lightly pushed her back. 'May I?' He didn't think he would answer, but she finally said 'Yes'.

And so he did, taking care to see that she liked everything he did, moving slowly. She even helped him with his own clothing, a bit. He wasn't brave enough to try any of the really strange things he'd seen, but it was a start, and Hermione startled him by helping once or twice. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't awful, either.

That was another discovery, that it could be something other than ugly and shameful. If they tried. If he tried. But even that wasn't the most important discovery, though that one wouldn't be for another few weeks. All of these just set it in motion.

That was the biggest and the most important by far, but it wouldn't have happened unless Hermione had had a head cold and Draco had found a scroll and the Malfoys had left and the Grangers come for about the same amount of time, less a sweaty, shocking hour or so on a divan. This one was when there was snow.

Standing in the courtyard, halfway through a snow witch, Hermione turned to her husband and said 'I'm going to have a baby.'