Hermione finished copying off the day's stolen documents and shook her hand before sending them off to Molly. She'd been waitig for some kind of condemnation to come her way. Molly had always been quick with a Howler. Nothing had come. No reassurance she was still one of them. No fury at what she'd done to Percy. When she activated the protean charm and sent the copied pages away, there was a brief flicker, the page read, 'Thanks. This is helpful' and that was it.

Draco took the pages. They'd both decided they were better off returning the originals. A few missing documents might go unremarked, but they'd been taking so many that even the least observant bureaucrat would notice something was wrong with the filing if they just burned the lot. "Any word?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Maybe they haven't heard yet," Draco said. "Trial starts tomorrow. It'll be all over the papers then."

Hermione wanted him to say that the Weasleys wouldn't repudiate her, that they had to know it had been done to keep her placed so she could send them these lists and agendas and classified discussions. If he did, though, he'd be lying. They both knew that the moment Molly Weasley heard what had happened, whatever she felt for Hermione would alchemize to hate. Ron…

She didn't want to think about what Ron would assume.

"Come on," Draco stood up, pages in hand. "I'll drop these off and then we'll go feed the peacocks."

Hermione could think of a thousand things she'd rather do than feed the peacocks. They were loud and she was always afraid they would bite. They looked at her as if she were some kind of intruder they wouldn't deign to fear. "The peacocks?" she said, but she stood up and followed him. None of the other things she wanted to do were available to her anyway.

She couldn't exactly tell Yaxley where to shove his fascist regime, for example, or that he should make sure to stuff it way up with something sharp and rusty.

"They like you," Draco said.

Hermione snorted.

"They do," he insisted. She glanced at one of the portraits as the passed through the hall. The woman, beautifully dressed in a black gown with a tight waist and a hilariously useless apron, rolled her eyes. She seemed to share Hermione's opinion of the birds or perhaps of Draco's assurance that they liked her.

"Mr. Malfoy."

The words intruded into the hall. The woman in the portrait opened her fan and became busy not looking out.

Hermione pushed a smile onto her face and nodded as they greeted some political flunky or other, here to do who knew what. She sometimes wished they kept all their miserable, rotten business at the Ministry. Of course, that would mean she'd lose her easy access to their paperwork. The price seemed high.

"Lovely day," the man said. "You young people should get out, go for a walk, enjoy the sunshine."

"We were just on our way to feed the peacocks," Draco said.

"Good idea," the man said, and then he passed them, brisk steps carrying him along. It was the banality of the way this batch of Death Eaters went about their business that Hermione found most galling. Voldemort had cackled and postured and declaimed. He had been an evil villain. This man would just write reports advocating some despicable thing, or calculating up the costs of one horrible idea versus another, and then he'd file them. He'd go home to dinner with his wife. He probably truly wished them both well, thought it would be nice to get out and feed the birds. Maybe he was already planning to take a lunch break and apparate over to some duck pond or other and toss them bread, watch them fight over the scraps of his lunch.

Bread was bad for ducks. She'd read that somewhere. They'd fight over it, but it didn't have the nutrients they needed to survive. She was pretty sure there was some kind of metaphor for the current government and the pap they tossed the masses there but before she could articulate it to herself they were at the secret passage way and slipping through so they could return one set of papers, then it was out into the sunshine and she didn't want to think about misery and oppression. She turned her face up so she could feel the light and the outdoors seep into her. Draco stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders.

"I hate the peacocks," she said.

"Then we won't feed them," he said. He slid his hands down her arms and she leaned back against him on this warm, beautiful day. He was so much more stable than she would have expected. "I asked mother to get some of the champagne you like at dinner tonight."

"Is it a party?" she asked. That was a dreadful idea. Parties meant guests and guests meant Death Eaters, or whatever this generation called themselves. She could almost hear them saying, "I'm not a Death Eater. I just think that…".

They were Death Eaters. Even if they didn't have the Mark burned into their arms, they couldn't hide what they were.

"Maybe I can develop a headache," she said.

"My mother's already uses that excuse," Draco said. "I recommend female problems."

"Ugh." Hermione did not want to imagine these people contemplating her monthly or that it might be heavy enough to keep her from socializing. "I think I'll just attend.

"Well, tonight it's just us," he said, "so you don't have to worry. I asked for champagne because you like it, not because we're celebrating."

"We can celebrate it's just us," she said dryly. That was reason enough to be glad.

"If you like."

She would have liked it more if it had stayed just them, standing there on the lawn at Malfoy Manor, unmoving, alone. It didn't. A pair of gardeners passed carrying spades, then a woman in a domestic uniform right out of a movie – perhaps this was the architect of those lemon cakes – and then a pair of black robed politicians.

"Busy today," she said.

"They should meet elsewhere." Draco murmured in her ear. He sounded as displeased as she felt. Contempt for the peasants lingered under his words. "This isn't an open house day where you can pay a fee and come walk in the gardens."

Hermione turned to look at him. "Honestly," she said. "You do know normal people don't open their homes up to the public once a year, right?"

He shrugged and slid his hands down her arms, then rested them in the small of her back. Cormac McLaggen, on their one ill-fated date, had done that. He'd grabbed her arse right after, and she'd stomped on his foot hard enough he'd sworn, then called her feisty with a hungry grin. She'd hidden from him the rest of the night. She waited for Draco to slide his hands lower in a similar fashion but he didn't. She could hear the scream of one of the ridiculous peacocks and the sound of the Death Eaters feet crunching on the gravel path. "Look adoring," Draco said quietly. "They're watching."

Of course they were.

Hermione raised a hand to brush his hair away and gazed with what she hoped looked like romantic fervor into Draco's eyes. It probably just looked like she had a squint but she was doing her best. Acting had never been her forte.

"You really are pretty," he said.

"You shouldn't sound so surprised," Hermione said, a bit disgruntled. "It ruins the effect."

He grinned his crooked little smile at her. "You are, though," he said. "Your hair is too bushy and you can't muster a dopey with love expression to save your life, and I think you might be considering killing me right now, and it shouldn't add up to pretty, but it does."

"Not kill," she said. "Maybe maim. Just a little."

"Was it the too bushy comment?"

"Mmm hmm." The damned Death Eaters had stopped just a few yards away and were engaged in some conversation she couldn't quite make out. If they had to show up, wander around, make her do this romantic play, they could at least project their voices a little. They could be useful. The whole thing made her unreasonably cross.

Or maybe that was the bushy hair comment.

There was nothing wrong with her hair.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?"

She twitched and fought the urge to say something snippy about, well, if her hair wasn't in the way, sure, go ahead.

"It's just that they're looking," he said quietly. "And I think a real couple would be kissing."

"Yeah," she said. "You're right. It's fine."

He lowered his head to hers. She raised a hand to cup it behind his neck, pulling him in, and he tightened his grip on her back. He felt nice. Just breathe, she thought to herself. Just do this. It isn't real. No one would begrudge you that it isn't horrible.

It was, after all, just kissing.

It wasn't supposed to be horrible.

Draco parted his lips ever so slightly, hesitant and unsure, and she was reminded that he had no real experience. No lover of multiple years waiting off stage with flowers, only a sort-of ex who had decided he was bad for her career. She stopped to affectionately brush her nose against his, then licked at the edge of his mouth. He made the tiniest of sounds, not a groan – barely a whimper – and something stirred down in the darkest parts of her soul.

She could make him want her.

She ignored the whisper that lingered behind that one that this was a dangerous, dangerous game. She didn't care. She wanted to be reckless for once. Why did she have to be the clever one, the bookish one. The reliable one. Just send Hermione as a spy into the lair of the enemy. She'll be fine. Why could Percy snap and do unwise things but not her?

She parted her lips and kissed him with enough fervor to convince even the most suspicious of Death Eaters. She wound her fingers in his hair and then tightened them, pulling a gasp from him, and she swayed against him as though he were the only pillar in a storm and she was a fragile thing blown by the wind, held steady only by his hands.

"Hermione." It was a guttural sound. It was a desperate sound. Before she could really revel in the knowledge she had made Draco Malfoy make that noise, he extricated himself from her grasp, twisted himself to in a more normal tone of voice.

She took a deep breath. "Right," she said.

"Good show," he said.

"Right," she said again.

"There's a rabbit," Draco said. It seemed apropos of nothing, and it took her a moment to follow where he was pointing. He was right. A small, brown rabbit sat at the edge of a group of bushes, cleaning its paws and ears. She waited for it to realize it had been spotted and dart off, but it didn't seem to have the sense to run away.

"Cute," she said, then, "I think I want to go lie down." She wanted to be away from Death Eaters, away from him, away from this constant pretense. She wanted to write to Ron. She wanted him to write back. How could he have been so lazy as to never master the protean charm. Sending every message through Molly was unbearable. She couldn't explain what had happened to Molly. She couldn't tell Molly she missed her. She couldn't tell Molly anything.

She really shouldn't tell Ron anything. He could guess. Better he not have to picture her wrapped up in Draco's arms, putting on a show for loathsome men.

"You should rest," Draco said. "Tomorrow the trial starts."

She nodded. That would be the real show.

He touched her arm. "You're doing good work," he said. "All that information you're smuggling out. It will help."

She hoped so. She smiled, a tight, miserable expression, then slipped back into the house, back through the corridors, back to her room.

The black glass bird Draco had made sat on the shelf, looking at her. It was all she could do not to throw it into the wall.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – Thank you for all your love and support. I very much appreciate it.