Narcissa greeted them at the door with a hug for her son and an air kiss for Hermione. "You look lovely," she said. "Like a song."
Hermione had no idea whether she was supposed to air kiss in return or not. She settled on not. Instead she just said, "You as well." It was the truth. Narcissa had swept her hair up into something elegant and chic and wholly unattainable by anyone with a hint of curl. The robes she wore left no confusion that she'd kept what was commonly called one's girlish figure. She was slender and so upright her back kept the corset she wore straight rather than the other way around.
"Doesn't she look nice," Narcissa said to Lucius. He eyed Hermione as he leaned on his cane and managed a smile that looked a bit forced.
"Of course she does," he said. "You picked out the robes."
"You also look dashing," Hermione said. That was less true. He looked tired and ill and it was clear that while the cane might have been an affectation in earlier years it wasn't now.
"Enjoy the party," Narcissa said.
Now it was Hermione's smile that was forced. She looked out of the room as Draco led her in a straight line toward a passing caterer. He plucked two flutes of champagne from the tray, pressed one into her hand, and she took a nervous sip. It probably wasn't wise to drink. She'd lose her head. Antonin Dolohov strode by, dressed all in black, and she took a much larger swallow from her glass.
Screw sobriety.
So many people were in black you'd think it was a funeral. Death Eaters in laced corsets, Death Eaters in bespoke suits they had to have gone into the Muggle world and sullied themselves on Savile Row to purchase, Death Eaters in get ups so absurd and unflattering she wanted to nudge Draco Malfoy with her elbow and share a snicker that anyone would think a morning jacket with tights and a black pirate's shirt should be worn with heels right out of a bad Restoration comedy. She spotted not one, not two, but three black ruffled collars that were pure Tudor.
Wizards often dressed badly.
Malfoy, at least, had kept himself to the bespoke suit option. She finally couldn't resist when one of the Tudor-bedecked wizards strolled by and leaned over to whisper, "You look wonderful, but maybe one of those collars next time?"
"I thought you didn't quite hate me anymore," he murmured back, one hand resting possessively on her lower back. "Apparently I should reevaluate if you want me to wear that."
"I don't hate you," she said. She leaned into his side, feigning coupledom as a witch with a conspicuously bare arm walked past and eyed them both. Had she joined after Voldemort had died or just never merited a Mark? Hermione hoped it was the latter but suspected it wasn't. People kept flocking to this side because everyone loves a winner. It was safer to say Yaxley was a good fellow, maybe a bit of a hard-liner but sometimes law and order were what you needed. It was necessary for promotion in some places to smile and nod in the right places in conversations.
It all made her so very angry.
Even Draco Malfoy, raised to this tripe, had realized it was wrong. Even Draco Malfoy wanted the Order to win. Maybe his motives were a little self-centered – she suspected seven crucios could help you form a very hostile opinion of the current government – but he wasn't just keeping his head down. He was doing something, risking something.
No, she couldn't hate anyone like that.
The witch gliding toward them, however, with her glittering smile and her dark Mark necklace, was hateable. More than hateable.
"Hermione Granger," the woman said in the falsest tone Hermione had ever heard. "What an utter delight to see you here."
"Have we met?" Hermione asked.
"No," the woman cooed. "I'm Malloren Rookwood." She held her hand out and Hermione looked at it for a long, long moment before taking it. Malloren's fingers sat limply in her grasp. "I've never met a Mud…Muggle-born before," she said. "What's it like?"
"Being Muggle-born?" Hermione tried to keep her voice level. "I'm afraid it's all I've known, so I can't really give you a good answer."
A wizard wearing a frock coat joined them. "I knew a Muggle-born before the war," he said. "I wonder what happened to her."
There was a bit of an awkward pause at that.
"Of course, everything's different now," Malloren said brightly. "Look at you, right here!"
"Yes," Hermione said. "Things do change."
"She was the brightest witch in our year," Draco said. He sounded bored. "Did you pass any of your N.E.W.T.s, Mally?"
"School isn't everything," Malloren said defensively before taking a gulp of her wine. Hermione assumed the answer had to be no. Malloren had not passed any of her examinations. She wasn't surprised. She knew Malfoy had passed Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Potions, and perhaps more. She had seven to her name. It made her feel unpleasantly smug that they had both trounced this woman academically.
"A Muggle-born just opened a shop in Diagon Alley," the man said, interrupting her thoughts. "Nice man, very polite when I went in. I think it's great to see them trying to acclimate."
"Good for him," Malloren said. She took a sip of her wine, leaving a red smear on the glass where her lipstick touched it. "I think that's admirable. They should find their place in our world."
"What's admirable?" Another woman had joined them, this one in a feather hat that had been a terrible misjudgment.
"When Muggle-borns really try to fit in," Malloren said. "Bradford here knows a Muggle-born who just opened a shop."
"I didn't say I knew him," Bradford said. "Only that I went in his shop."
"My mistake," Malloren said sweetly.
"That's good," the newcomer said. "I don't have any problem with Muggle-borns as long as they play by the rules. We have ways of doing things, and they need to adjust to our way of thinking."
"Pay taxes," Bradford said with a sharp nod. "As long as they pay taxes, get the right permits, everything's fine. No one wants to just kick people out who are good people, fine people."
"Exactly," Malloren said. She smiled at Hermione with teeth so bright they gleamed. Hermione wondered if anyone had ever told her that tooth-whitening wasn't one of those things where if a little was good, a lot was better. "Don't you agree?"
It took Hermione a moment to realize she was being asked to smile and nod. "Policies like Madam Umbridge's went too far, I think," she said. "Don't you agree?"
Malloren's smile faltered but Bradford didn't hesitate. "That woman was a social climber," he said. "She always seemed cold to me, untrustworthy. Never trusted her. Was glad to see her ousted. Yaxley's doing, you know."
"I thought he supported her," Hermione said.
"Maybe some of her ideas were good," Bradford said, "but she went about it all wrong. Not that I'm a fan of this modern thing where we can't say what we think, mind you. People should be free to hold whatever opinions they like but, look, here you are, Muggle-born and standing with Draco Malfoy."
"Yes," Hermione said. "The Muggle-born, that's me."
"I'm surprised your father doesn't mind," Malloren said. "He's never struck me as a particularly liberal thinker."
That was clearly directed at Draco, who drained his glass with slow, unhurried ease before setting it on the tray of a caterer who managed to pass just as he needed her. He smiled at the witch in front of him and said, "My father and I are far too close for him to see Hermione with anything but my eyes." He pulled her more tightly against him, every inch the love-struck swain, and added, "And she is the most beautiful woman in the room."
"Except your mother," Bradford said with what he probably meant to be gallantry. Malloren had turned a dull red and Hermione tried not to gloat at that.
"My mother is in a league of her own," Draco said. It might have been agreement. It might have been a warning.
Music sprung up out of nowhere and Hermione grabbed at the potential reprieve. "A dance, Draco?"
His fingers twitched where they sat against her spine and she wasn't sure whether it was one of his spasms or whether he was reacting to her use of his name. She hadn't before now, but she could hardly call him Malfoy and pretend she was smitten, even just a little.
"I'd love a dance," he said. "If you all will excuse us?" He took the now empty champagne flute from her hand and set it down on another one of those conveniently appearing caterer's trays and pulled her to a portion of the room that, despite no visual demarcation at all, he somehow knew was the dance floor.
Well, it was his house. His big house. His big house with his horrible guests.
"I hate your party," Hermione said as he set his hands on her hips. At least he wasn't expecting her to know how to do any kind of proper dance. The stand and sway she could manage. If he had expected a waltz, she would have embarrassed them both.
"Me too," he said. He pulled her tightly enough against him she could rest her cheek on his shoulder. "Pathetic basement-dwelling losers here to pretend they matter."
"Do they?" she asked.
It took him too long to answer. "Some of them have influence," he said at last. "They tell him what he wants to hear."
"Him being Yaxley."
"Him being Lord Corban Yaxley," Draco agreed wryly. "He likes people who agree with him."
"Charming," Hermione said. They danced without talking for the rest of the song. She could hear him breathing, could feel the occasional shake of his hands against her, could see the way people put their heads together and whispered while looking at them. They were a spectacle. The stares crawled along her skin and made her want to hide. She felt so naked she looked down quickly just to reassure herself that, yes, she really had put on party robes. Draco's arms felt like a shield against these people and the unthinking prejudice they had the audacity to cloak in high regard for their own tolerance.
Muggle-borns were fine as long as they were polite, as long as they found their place, as long as they got all the proper permits. She wanted to pull her wand and unleash fire on every guest at this party but that would just prove their own point to them. They'd survive, she'd end up in Azkaban – or dead – and they'd be just that much surer Muggle-borns couldn't quite be trusted. "I was at that party where the Muggle-born the Malfoy boy had fallen for lost her mind, started hexing up the place." Hermione could just hear that Malloren telling the story. "Just goes to show you have to be careful who you let your children date. They need to be guided to one of their own kind."
She let Draco turn her in a bit of a circle. He was good at leading. She could let her feet follow where he went without thinking about it.
This would be over soon. A few more hours. She could dance with him, have the dinner, listen to whatever self-congratulatory speech was planned, then escape back to her room. Maybe Molly would have sent her a note.
Just one dance at a time. She could do this.
When the music stopped she stepped back from Draco and smiled up at him. One side of his own mouth quirked up in response, but before either of them could say anything, Alecto and Amycus Carrow appeared, all in black, simpering and leering.
"Draco," Alecto said, "So glad to see you up and around so soon."
"I had the best of care," Draco said. He tugged at his sleeves then, as if momentarily bothered by a crooked cuff link, squinted at his wrist. "And I am not going to complain about displeasing Lord Yaxley."
"You got off light," Amycus said. "I'd have killed you."
Draco looked up at that, contemptuous sneer curling his face into an expression she'd seen him wear at school. "That's why you're a flunky, Amycus, and Yaxley runs things. You have no vision."
"I have vision," Amycus said. "It just doesn't have room for worthless Mudbloods."
"Worthless?" Hermione asked as sweetly as she could. She had her wand out, the expelliarmus murmured, and Amycus's wand in her other hand before he could answer. "Is that a challenge? I'm always up for one of those."
. . . . . . . . .
A/N – Thank you to Salazars for beta reading and thank you to dulce-de-leche-go for helping with the dreadful conversations.