Hermione had been in Diagon Alley since the war, of course. At first it had been fine, then less fine, and then she and the rest of the Order had been on the run, waging guerrilla warfare against an increasingly entrenched government and it hadn't been fine at all. Every trip to public places had involved Polyjuice and fear. It felt wrong to just apparate in, to hold Draco Malfoy's hand, and to casually saunter down the street as if she belonged. She didn't need to worry about anyone seeing her and reporting her to Aurors. She didn't need to worry about a sudden stunner in the back. She needed to worry about Death Eaters playing political chess with her as a pawn, but she could go out for ice cream.

Witches and wizards bustled past her in pointed hats, carrying bird cages, arguing about Quidditch scores. The Holyhead Harpies were doing well this year, or had been until one of their Beaters had been arrested for treason and subsequently disappeared. "I don't care what her beliefs are," a wizard said as he clomped by. "She was a damn fine Quidditch player and now the season's ruined."

"Serves her right," his companion said. "Sports stars shouldn't get mixed up with politics. They're there to play the game, not bore all of us with their opinions."

The first wizard grunted what might have been agreement or might have been a polite way to change the subject, and then they were out of sight.

Hermione tightened her grip on Draco's hand. Sometimes she wanted to just leave these people to their fate. Let them live under a fascist bastard who thought torture was a good policy choice and who made popular sports figures disappear after trumped up charges.

"Do you want books or dessert first?" Draco asked. She knew he'd heard the same conversation she had. She appreciated he didn't want to talk about it. She appreciated even more than he cut off her spiraling thoughts.

"Books," she said.

They stopped outside a window filled with volumes. Pages waved at her, and one book, chained down, hissed a warning from its spine. Front and center sat the current best-seller. The War on Aurors by what the cover claimed was the fresh new voice of Pansy Parkinson. She'd be by later in the week to autograph books a small sign read. The bookstore recommended coming by early to get in line because they anticipated a crowd. One of the books in the pile had fallen over and Hermione could see the photograph of Pansy that graced the back. She'd grown into her nose. The girl in the picture smiled from beneath a mane of perfectly styled hair while wearing designed robes. She looked infuriatingly poised.

"Pansy's done well," Draco said. His voice was carefully neutral.

"You still friends?" Hermione asked. She was already anticipating the argument they would have. She would tear into him. She would let him know all the things Aurors were doing under Yaxley's regime. They weren't the good guys anymore, if they ever had been. Maybe walled away in the manicured privilege of Malfoy Manor he didn't realize that but she could tell him a thing or two. Before she could get started, he shook his head.

"Pansy felt the Death Eater connection didn't play well for her literary aspirations," he said. "Bad optics."

That made her even angrier. Draco Malfoy was a lot of things, but he was hardly an enthusiastic Death Eater. How dare ugly, stupid Pansy Parkinson turn on him just so she could sell any book, much less the disgusting one sitting in this window. Hermione almost wanted to buy the book just so she could find every grammatical error. She wanted to track down every logical flaw, every bit of sophistry. She also didn't want to give that witch a knut. "On second thought, I have plenty of books back at… there are a lot of things I haven't read yet," she said. She didn't want to call the Manor 'home' and wasn't sure what else to call it, especially where someone might overhear. "I don't feel like buying today."

"Ice cream it is," Draco said.

Ten minutes later they sat on a stone wall outside Fortescue's, licking at lavender and butterbeer cones and watching people go by. A woman led two small witches by the hand, dragging them past the temptations of ice cream while they expressed vehement and creative displeasure with that decision. A man scurried past, half bent over. He looked at Draco and Hermione with an angry, furtive glare and made a quick V toward the couple before disappearing around a corner. Hermione tried to ignore that. She wasn't really one of the bad guys. She wasn't. She should be glad people were willing to do even that almost aborted gesture. It meant not everyone was resigned.

She looked back into the crowd, then into the shop windows. This store sold brooms. That one had what they claimed was a cure for thinning hair. What had once been Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes was still closed up. Someone had painted a white patch over the boards covering the windows. She could see the fiery orange paint of the phoenix graffiti bleeding through.

No, everyone wasn't resigned.

She licked her ice cream again with more satisfaction than before.

A head of ginger hair bobbed through a door and appeared behind one of the plate glass windows. The shade was so familiar, so Weasley, that she almost dropped her cone, then told herself she just had Weasley on the brain. "Whoa," Draco said. He tipped her hand back so the ice cream was upright. "Careful."

It couldn't be Ron. The owner of the hair had his back turned to her, and a knit cap covering most of it, but she'd seen that hair, or hair like it, almost every day of her life since she'd been eleven. She'd slept next to hair that shade, she'd coughed coarser hair almost that color out of her throat more than once. She stared at the man as if she could will him to turn around. The gold lettering on the shop window obscured so much of him she was surprised she'd even seen the hair. Antiques and Broken Cauldrons the sign read, an example of what had to be too much honesty in marketing. The man moved behind the large C and, between the lettering and a stack of boxes in the dark shop, he was almost gone.

He was too slender to be Ron. Too wiry.

"Could you hold this?" she asked Draco and passed her cone over without looking to see if he'd take it. When she pushed open the door of the shop, the ginger turned around, his tattooed hand sliding down into his pocket, and she held up her own hands in a quick 'unarmed' gesture that wouldn't have fooled anyone who knew her.

It didn't fool the man in front of her, but when he saw who she was Percy Weasley broke into a quickly smothered smile. He turned back to flipping through the old magazines he'd been looking at, and she moved to stand next to him. "You aren't in France," she said under her breath as she pretended to be reading the table of contents of Cauldrons and Collectibles.

"Came back," he said. "You look well."

Was there criticism under that? Had his eyes caught on the broad diamond bracelet she still wore. She bristled at the possibility she was somehow to blame for not being sufficiently downtrodden. Was her shackle too valuable? "Well, they aren't starving me or locking me in a dungeon," she said. "It's a romance, remember?"

"He really in love?" Percy asked.

Hermione glanced over her shoulder, back through the window. Draco was holding her cone out to the side and letting it drip onto the cobblestones as he ate his own. He was making a point of not looking in her direction. The layers of deception closed around her as she looked back at the magazine. Anyone can be captured, they'd been taught. Keep information on a need-to-know basis. "I think so," she said. "He acts like it. He's mostly been so lonely he'd probably have fallen in love with a Muggle if she'd smiled at him the right way."

Percy snorted. "A Malfoy? Doubt that."

"Well, maybe that's stretching it," she admitted. "Why're you back?"

"Can't do anything in France," he said. He stretched a hand out to take another magazine and her eyes caught on the mongoose eating a snake. The snake writhed and writhed in the predatory jaws but couldn't escape. Percy saw her stare and tugged his sleeve down. It hadn't been prudent to get that one so close to his hand but she knew he liked to look at it. It was a reminder. A second, identical mongoose, translucent as a ghost, crouched further up his arm.

Fred's death had changed them all.

"Can't kill the bastards, can't set traps," Percy said. "Got away so I could. Ron likes France and the Delacours well enough but it wasn't home. I needed to move. How about you? Why aren't you there?"

She thought of Draco Malfoy and the crucios he'd endure if she left. She thought of how he'd trusted her to come out like this, into public where she could disappear without a trace. She thought of his brittle, unpleasant mother who'd directed her right to the incriminating documents. "If they think I'm a traitor, I might as well use that," she said. "I can go to their parties, listen to their gossip, look through their things." She shrugged. "And if it gets bad, well, I have my wand. I'm the girlfriend as far as that lot is concerned. I can get out if I need to."

"Spies are good," Percy said. He clenched his hands in a fist then released them with an effort she knew had to be conscious. "I wouldn't be able to do it."

She looked down and nodded. "You okay?" she asked. It was a ridiculous question but she had to ask.

"So far," he said. "Need-to-know, right?"

She risked a touch to his shoulder. "Don't get caught," she said.

"I never have," he said. He hesitated, then said, "You can drop a message in the old spot in Little Whinging if you need to reach me."

"I will," she said. "If I do."

When she got back to Draco he didn't ask and she sat down next to him and took what was left of her cone. A puddle of melted goo marked how long she'd been away, and she licked at what was left, her pleasure in the taste gone.

"Off to get some candy?" Draco asked. "Then go to hospital?"

"Sounds good," she said then wondered if that counted as a lie. They'd said they wouldn't lie to one another, and buying presents for the sickroom, especially a sickroom that was her fault, didn't sound good at all. It sounded terrible.

We can do hard things. It had been one of Molly's mantras. She said it now. "We can do hard things."

Draco handed her a napkin so she could wipe her hands. "We can," he said.

. . . . . . . . .

A/N – I do know that mongooses are not weasels, but they are weasel-like. Many thanks to dulce de leche go for her concept of the heavily tattooed Percy, debuted in Aca-demic Arrangements. My take on this Weasley is much angrier than hers, but aesthetically similar and I am in her debt for the idea.