Hermione watched the Carrows get closer and closer and tried to think of what to do. She didn't know how bad it would be if Malfoy's ruse were discovered, but her hunch was that it would result in nothing good. She didn't know enough about all the undercurrents to figure anything out and Narcissa Malfoy certainly hadn't helped. The only option, at least for now, seemed to be to play along. "Kiss me," she said.

It seemed like such a logical move, such a perfect way to convince the approaching pair that Malfoy's sentiment was sincere, that Hermione felt impatience make her jaw tighten when he looked first confused then offended. He opened his mouth and she just knew he was going to tell her again that he wasn't really mad for her. Before he could get a word out she hissed, "It's a show, you idiot, for those two buffoons."

Comprehension flickered in his eyes, along with distaste and she used her anger at that to fuel her own performance. She pushed her hand against his chest as if she were trying to shove him away but instead hooked her fingers around the fabric and toppled backward, pulling him on top of her. She hoped from a distance it looked like he had shoved her over. Quick on the uptake with this he wasn't. "I apologize," she said, not really all that sorry, "if I accidentally hurt you." Then she rammed her knee upward as if she were going for his stones.

The angle was off, and he was never in any real danger, but that finally galvanized him into action and he slammed his hands into her upper arms and held her down against the stone wall. "Bitch," he said. He pitched his voice to carry. He'd finally figured out his role. It was about time. "I don't have to be nice."

She began to struggle in earnest now that he was holding her down, and one shoe flew off as he pushed his mouth up against hers and shoved his tongue between her lips. One knee pushed her legs apart and real fear flooded through her just as a coarse laugh grated against her ears.

Malfoy had had mint tea for breakfast. She could taste it. She wanted to gag.

"I was just going to offer to give you lessons," Amycus Carrow said. "But maybe you don't need any help after all."

Malfoy straightened up, giving her one last hard push into the stone wall. "This isn't a peepshow," he said coldly. "What do you want, Carrow?"

"Just curious about your little bird, is all," he said. His eyes roamed over her with insulting familiarity and Hermione glowered at him as she straightened her top. Alecto bent down and picked up the slipper she'd kicked off and weighed it in her squat hand.

"Give it," Hermione said. She put her palm out for the shoe and Alecto grinned with brown teeth.

"Make me," she said.

Hermione held very still long enough for Alecto to begin laughing, then, in the sort of single, smooth motion she'd learned on the battlefield, she pulled her wand out and slashed it through the air as she whispered the curse too quietly to be heard. A bloody gash opened up on Alecto's hand and she yelped and dropped the shoe. One quick accio and Hermione had it back in her grasp. It resized itself around her foot again as she put it on.

"If you insist," she said as she wiggled her toes.

Malfoy laughed.

"I'll - " Amycus began.

"Do what?" Hermione asked. "Tell Yaxley that Draco Malfoy's mudblood is still quicker on the draw? Tell him you can't even defend yourself against one of the lesser orders? You go right ahead and do that. I'd love to see his response."

Draco Malfoy's laugh at that was harder and crueler. She could still hear the echo of the boy who'd dressed up as a Dementor to torment Harry in the sound. It wasn't endearing and it made it easy for her to throw a look of utter loathing in his direction. He ignored it.

"You give her a long leash," Alecto said. He didn't offer his sister any help.

Malfoy busied himself with brushing at her arms then tucking a curl that had escaped its twist back behind her ear. "You need to not make me angry," he said to her. "I don't want to hurt you, Hermione."

She let her breath hitch in a suppressed sob and he cupped the side of her face in one palm at that, a horrible mockery of concern, then looked at the hovering Carrows. "Why are you still here?" he asked.

"Young love is so beautiful," Alecto said with a sneer but she was backing away, her brother with her. Whatever they'd come to find out, they were satisfied. Draco pulled her to him, this time gently, and she kept herself stiff within that embrace but, she hoped, broken looking enough that the Carrows would keep leaving.

Malfoy still tasted like mint but this time she wanted to cry. The kiss was clumsy and tentative and so little like kissing Ron it might have been a whole different activity. There should be, she thought, different words for kissing a man you loved and kissing a man you didn't even like. It felt obscene to call them the same thing.

She closed her eyes and began to count to ten. She'd reached seven when he stopped, pulled away, and said, his voice more normal, "They're gone."

She resisted the urge to wipe at her mouth.

"More sincerely," he said, "are you okay?"

"A little shaky," she admitted. That hadn't been fun.

"Nothing a good cup of tea won't settle?" he asked. Tea, the universal British remedy. Have a bad afternoon at work? Tea. Difficult encounter with your mother-in-law? Tea. Playact a little sexual assault for sadists? Have some tea, that will surely fix everything.

Hysteria, however, would fix nothing, so she said, "Tea would be lovely, thank you."

He hopped down from the wall and held a hand out to help her get down as well. Somehow the chivalrous gesture, so at odds with the last few minutes, was what did her in and she began to shake, gulping sobs coming out between shudders. It had been a play, and one she had started, but it had been enough like the real thing to be horrible. Malfoy went to set a hand on her shoulder but she shook him off. "Just give me a minute," she said and he nodded. He busied himself by going around the wall and pulling out the errant weeds while she collected herself then brushed the dirt off his hands with a few brisk slaps.

"You are very brave," he said as they began to walk back.

"Gryffindor," she said with the ghost of a smile. "That hat knew what it was doing."

"Slytherin," he said. "Self-serving to the end. It did with me, too."

Was that another warning?

"Magic is like that," she said, keeping herself from asking what the hell that meant.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She did stop and look at him at that. "Sorry for what?" she asked. There were so many possibilities. She could make a list that would go on for days.

"I'm probably not a very good kisser," he said. The words were wry, and so distant she had no idea whether that was what the apology had really been for.

"Well, no one's at their best during assault," she said, trying for levity. "It doesn't call for skill so much as force."

He laughed again and, again, she was struck by how that transformed him from adversary into co-conspirator. It wasn't a sound she'd heard from him at school and it made her smile. "I have to admit I wouldn't know," he said. "Not one of my hobbies."

"Kissing?"

He gave her a long, steady look and she swallowed hard and turned away. "I guess that's good to know," she said. She cast around for something else to say, something that would brush away the nightmare of what he wasn't. The relief that he wasn't that. "And you weren't that bad."

He took her hand and looked down at the diamonds glittering in the sun. "Maybe we could agree not to lie to one another," he said.

"As we lie to the rest of them," Hermione said. She was already thinking of the ways she could subtly alter the prophecy to bother Yaxley.

"Pretty much," Malfoy agreed. He kissed the back of her hand then let it drop. "About that tea?"

"Please," she said. The house loomed up before them as they walked, and then they were back within its grasp.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – Many thanks to lilikaco for catching a major continuity error in the last chapter which has been fixed.

Thanks, also, to all of you who are reading along. Writing is lonely and filled with a lot of 'no' but you bring the 'yes'.