A/N: Hi everyone, I'm back – sorry for the late update! A massive thank you also to everyone who has reviewed, followed or liked this story – it means a great deal. Here is chapter 5 and I am working on chapter 6 as we speak. I hope you enjoy, and I'd love to know your thoughts! x

5

True to her word, five minutes later the Floo roared to life and Hermione Granger-Malfoy stepped through; her eyes sore-looking but otherwise perfectly presentable. She looked around in confusion, her eyes settling on the figure of Blaise sitting on a nearby couch. "Blaise," she greeted softly. "I thought you said Draco was here?"

"He is," was the reply. "I think he's still in the bathroom, he's been in there a while so I hope he should come out soon. He fled in there earlier, I think he wanted a bit of privacy so that's when I took the opportunity to Floo you." He rose from his seat, walking over to the drinks cabinet. "Can I offer you something to drink?"

"Usually no, but seeing as I'm going to have to deal with Draco I think I'll need it," was Hermione's uncharacteristically terse response. "What do you have?"

Blaise opened the cabinet. "I have mead, spiced mead, gin, redcurrant rum, butterbeer, firewhiskey, elf wine…"

Hermione laughed. "You could open a bar there, Blaise. I'll have some mead, please."

Blaise had just finished pouring the drink and handing her the glass when the large wooden door swung open and Draco came in. "Sorry I was gone so long, mate, I just…" His eyes fell upon Hermione and he trailed off. "Hermione," he whispered.

"Draco," she answered, her voice softer than she had intended. "You look awful."

"I've been lost without you," he admitted freely. "I just – Merlin, you look so beautiful."

"Don't," she insisted. "You can't say things like that to me now, Draco… not when I've made up my mind. You didn't speak to me for weeks! You treated me like I was one of the ornaments lying around the Manor!" Her voice grew in pitch and volume as she continued. "You were happy to just pretend I wasn't there, and now when I'm actually not there you decide to miss me?"

Draco's grey eyes flashed with anger. "I never pretended you weren't there!" he argued, stepping towards her. Hermione took a step back, and Blaise looked from one to the other, silently warning them. Draco took a deep breath before continuing. "Look, I'm sorry. I know I neglected you. I can't take that back, Hermione, as much as I would love to. I just – please don't let it end this way. My feelings for you have never changed."

Hermione shook her head, her eyes downcast. "I don't believe you, Draco."

"May I offer a suggestion?" came Blaise's voice, causing both Hermione and Draco's heads to pop up in surprise. "It's obvious that you two have some issues you need to talk over. Why not make an agreement?"

"What sort of agreement?" ventured Hermione.

Draco ran a hand through his hair anxiously. "How about this… we make a promise to try and work on our marriage for a particular time period. Say, three months. At the end of that time period, if you still don't want to be married to me anymore then I'll agree to separate."

Hermione stared at him, her mouth dropping open in surprise. "I wasn't expecting you to be so reasonable," she admitted, her voice a little bitter. "You mean it? You'd really agree to a separation in three months' time if nothing changes?"

Draco swallowed hard. "Yes," he confirmed. "But only on the condition that we use the three months to really work on our marriage. I'll make an effort, you make an effort, and if we don't feel the same about each other as we did, then we'll separate."

Hermione sat down, sipping her mead. Her thoughts were going a hundred miles a minute. "I need to think about this," she mused.

Blaise coughed to hide Draco's growl of annoyance. "Take all the time you need," he offered. "Draco, can I get you another firewhiskey while the lady ponders?"

"Hermione, please," he begged, completely ignoring his friend. "I just… give me a chance to prove myself to you. To prove that I can be a better husband. To make you see that I still love you just as much as I always have."

She took another sip of her mead, wincing a little at the intense sweetness of the drink. "Before we can agree, I need to ask you a few questions," she countered. "By the same token, you can ask me some, and I will answer honestly if you will too."

Draco sat down opposite her, meeting her eyes. "Ask me whatever you want," he agreed. "I'll give you the truth."

Hermione leaned forward. "Have you really been working late, or have you been fucking your secretary?" Blaise stifled a laugh, and Draco flinched at the harshness of her question.

"Selene Selwyn?" he asked incredulously. "You think I've been cheating on you, with her?"

"She's very pretty," defended Hermione, "and she's Sacred Twenty-Eight. I would have thought she'd have been your type."

"She's a bloody psychopath!" cried Draco. "I only hired her because she came very highly recommended by Kingsley. Otherwise I'd never have even considered her. She's a decent secretary, but she's terrifying. She carries a potion vial around with her that contains the mixed blood of her parents."

"Ew, really?" interjected Blaise. "That is kind of sick."

"So you've never slept with her? Or anyone else?" reiterated Hermione. He shook his head firmly. "All right," she accepted. "I only have one other question, and it's one I know you might not want to answer."

"Just ask it," said Draco tiredly. He was shell-shocked at the realisation that his wife had assumed he was having an affair. He could see now where she might have gotten that idea, due to his emotional and physical distance.

"Why did you marry me?" she asked, her voice shaking. "I want you to explain to me exactly why you married me two years ago."

He looked into her eyes again, the pain in them radiating out. He knew his own eyes were mirroring the same emotions. "I married you because I love you," he stated simply. "I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I still do. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth. I fell completely in love with you, Hermione, and that's the only reason I married you. It had absolutely nothing to do with power, or politics, or rebellion, or any of that other fucking crap. I married you because you are the woman I love."

Hermione's eyes were shining with tears as she nodded, accepting his answer. "Now ask me the questions you wanted to ask," she half-choked, taking a long drink of her mead to hide the thickness of her voice.

"Why were you working so many late nights at Flourish & Blotts?" Draco asked, his hands shaking.

Hermione wiped her eyes before answering. "It felt warmer and more welcoming than home." Draco opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand. "I don't know how else to explain it, Draco. It just – the lack of conversation was stifling, and the Manor is so big… sometimes I felt like I was wandering alone around an abandoned museum. It felt so cold. There was no life, no warmth… and you spent so much of your time locked away in your study, going over paperwork, that I just started dreading coming home."

"I thought you liked the Manor," he queried. "You always said you wanted to make a fresh start there."

"I did!" she cried, frustrated. "I did like it, Draco, but that was when we actually spent time together! When we'd sit in front of the fire, having long intellectual debates about everything. Or having snowball fights in the gardens. I grew to dislike it when you disappeared into the shadows of your study and I was left alone. I love the Malfoy library, but even I can only read so many books before I go insane."

"Are you sure about that?" teased Blaise, before holding up his hands in supplication after receiving death glares from the couple. "Sorry, sorry…"

"My only other question was – why did you leave? But I think you've already answered that, unless there are any other reasons? Is there someone else?" Draco's voice shook audibly as he spoke.

Hermione shook her head resolutely. "No, there is no one else," she insisted. "I just felt like I was living like a widow – I want more than that, Draco. I deserve more than that."

Draco nodded. "So… will you agree to try and work on this? Three months?"

She cleared her throat. "I have a couple of conditions," she negotiated. "If you'll agree to them, then yes, I'll agree."

Blaise took out a sheet of parchment and his best quill, pasting his best 'legal expert' look on his face. "What are your conditions, Mrs Granger-Malfoy?" he requested, his tone formal.

Hermione's gaze was firmly set on Draco's face. "Firstly, I want you to fire your current secretary and hire Millicent Bulstrode in her place," she requested. "I know you said you haven't done anything with her, but I don't trust her and she's far too pretty. She's half-Veela."

"Do I have to hire Millie?" Draco complained. "I have no issues firing Selene, but why Millie?"

Hermione bit her lip. "The obvious reason is that she's not exactly going to tempt you or distract you with her physical appearance, but the other reason is that she came into Flourish & Blotts the other day looking for a job. Apparently the family fell on hard times during the war and she's being made to pick up the slack."

"But Millicent hated you throughout Hogwarts," said Blaise thoughtlessly. "Why would you do something nice for her?"

Hermione smiled suddenly. "Who said I'm doing something nice? Yes, she gets a job working for the Minister of Magic, but she'd probably see me quite often and she'd know that she only had the job because I put in a good word for her. I can't think of a better way to make someone uncomfortable, can you?"

Blaise's jaw dropped, and Draco found himself smiling. "Bloody fucking Salazar's scrotum, you should have been in Slytherin!" Remembering himself, he put his lawyer face back on and regarded her, his quill poised. "Any other conditions?"

"I'd like to lengthen the time period to four months," she added. "I'm not sure three will be enough, and if it's going to be an all-or-nothing kind of deal then I think it's only fair that it be four months. Or even more."

"How about six months?" suggested Draco. "Half a year should be enough time for us to know, I hope."

"All right. Millicent Bulstrode becomes your secretary, and we extend the trial period to six months. If you accept those conditions, then I agree to the terms."

"I accept," declared Draco, holding out his hand. Hermione looked at it warily, and then took it. Blaise tapped their joined hands with his wand and both felt a sudden surge of magic. Hermione yanked her hand away immediately.

"Was – was that an Unbreakable Vow?" she demanded, flustered.

Blaise shook his head. "No, no. It's simply a sealing bond. You've made your agreement and spoken it aloud, the charm simply seals it. Nobody dies."

"So what was the parchment and quill for?" asked Draco, flipping it over and looking at it intently. It was blank.

Blaise smiled his megawatt smile and snatched it back. "Nothing, mate. Just for show," he grinned.

"So how should we do this?" That was Hermione, ever the voice of reason. "We just go back to the way things used to be?"

"I have an idea as regards that," interjected Blaise. "My family owns a villa in Italy. It's in Ravello, on the Amalfi Coast. It's unplottable, and invisible to Muggles, but it's quite luxurious. Nobody uses it this time of year. I'd like to offer it to you both for as long as you'd like to stay."

"Blaise, that's incredibly generous," praised Hermione, "but I don't know if disappearing off to Italy would be appropriate…"

"I think it's a wonderful idea," remarked Draco. "We never had a honeymoon, if you remember. I think going away together would be a fantastic way to work on our marriage, at least for a little while. Maybe just a month or two."

"I can't take two months off work, Draco," she protested. "It's impossible, I…"

"Last I checked, I'm your supervisor," interrupted Blaise. "With that in mind, I'm immediately authorising you to take two months of annual leave in order to work on your marriage. No arguments."

Hermione rounded on Draco. "And you, you can't take two months off! You're the Minister of Magic! You're needed at the Ministry."

"I will go into the office tomorrow, immediately rectify the issue with my secretary, and appoint Theo as Acting Minister while I take a leave of absence," he asserted. "I want to make this work, Hermione. Everything else can just go jump off a bridge."

Realising that she was fighting a losing battle, Hermione sighed and nodded her agreement. "I'll come back to the Manor with you, Draco," she added. "I'd like to apologise to Tisky for the way I treated her. Also… I guess the six months starts now, right?"

"What about the Potters?"

She clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'll just Floo back and explain what's going on," she said hurriedly. "Wait for me here. I'll be ten minutes, tops." She quickly walked to the fireplace and disappeared in a rush of green flame.

Draco turned to Blaise. "So, what was the deal with you and the Potterette?"

"I was hoping you'd forgotten," complained his friend. At Draco's raised eyebrow, he sighed deeply. "I saw her at a wizarding nightclub once, shortly after the war started and Potter was off trying to knock off the Dark Lord. We got pretty drunk and… well, we slept together. I was an arrogant prick though and crept out of her room before she woke up. Earlier this evening was the first time I've spoken to her since that night."

Draco whistled. "Rather you than me, mate. She got me with that hex once. Ouch."

Blaise groaned, and together they waited for Hermione to return.