Draco said nothing after Hermione told him. At first, anyway.

They hung around for about another hour of the party before they headed for their room. Most of the others, the counseling team at least, had already retired for the night, as had Pansy and Astoria. Seamus had tried to con Draco into a rematch of their last poker game, but he forced a smirk and told Seamus he wasn't interested in taking any more of his money just yet.

Hermione waited until they'd turned off the lights and crawled beneath the sheets before she started to speak. She wasn't entirely sure where to begin, but she was saved from deciding when Draco spoke first.

"She told you, didn't she? When you were in the bathroom?"

Hermione nodded, her head barely moving across his chest. "She… she asked me to tell you. She didn't want you angry with your parents because of her, so she—"

"It's okay," he said as he traced one fingertip along the top of her hand. "I shouldn't have been upset to begin with. I assumed the worst of them, and I should've trusted her to have her reasons. She was right, though. It isn't any of my business."

Hermione considered this for a moment, and despite his words, she thought he still needed to know. Not to satisfy his own curiosity, which he didn't seem to have any more, but because Pansy wanted him to.

"She wants you to know." His hand stopped moving on hers. "I think she needs to know that you don't think any less of her after the fact."

He sighed, her head rising along with his chest as he breathed in, and she felt his deep exhale in her hair. "Okay."

So, she told him. She shared the words with him that Pansy had been carrying for almost two years, with only a select few knowing and none of them her best friend. Hermione could understand her desire for him to know now; she thought perhaps Pansy needed that validation, that exposure, even if she wasn't quite ready to face the rest of the world with her decision. A decision that Hermione thought was an honorable one given the situation they had been in and the horrible amount of stress they'd all been under.

When she finished speaking, she expected him to say something, to give some reaction at all, but he didn't. She could hear his mouth open, as if he wanted to speak but thought better of it, and for a moment, she began to consider that perhaps she'd been wrong. She thought she knew Draco well enough by now to know that he wouldn't judge Pansy for her decision, but his silence was deafening, overriding her sense and faith in him for a moment.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he said, "She went through that alone."

"No, she didn't." Hermione leaned up to lay her head on his shoulder so she could look at him, and her eyes found his in the dark shadow of their room, the faint reflection of the moon shining back at her in his gaze. "Your parents were there for her. Both of them."

She could see him chewing his lip, the weight of her words—and his own guilt at having stormed out the way he did earlier—filling the room like fog. She could see it on his face, swirling in the faint glint of his eyes, all the words he wanted to say but wasn't quite ready to tackle just yet. Instead, he said, "I had no idea she and Theo were together."

"I don't think anyone did. It seemed… new?" Hermione said. Remembering the sympathetic look on Pansy's face as she'd nodded after Hermione asked if Theo was the father, Hermione tried to not allow the still fresh punch to the gut to derail her from this moment. Despite her attempts to quell it, despite knowing this wasn't about her, there was something about lying on his chest that let her know it was okay to feel it.

Something in the sudden tension in her arms or the way her breath rattled in her chest clued him in to the sudden change in her. Or maybe by this point, he just knew her enough to expect it.

With one hand shifting beneath her hip and the other hooking at the back of her knee, he pulled her onto his chest. In any other moment, in this position, with her knees on either side of his hips and his large hands holding her thighs, she would have felt the stirrings of something else entirely. But just now, as his hands slid up her back and he held her to him, chest-to-chest, all she felt was seen.

Once again, he said nothing. He lay beneath her, their breathing in time with one another, and held her, his fingers brushing across her back as the tears she'd refused to let fall earlier with Pansy dripped onto his shirt.

"Tell me about him," Hermione said, her voice thick.

Once again, he was silent so long that she thought he wasn't going to. She thought maybe he thought that would just upset her more, and maybe it would, but she felt like she owed it to Theo to at least know who he was, to at least learn about the life she'd taken.

Or maybe it was hard for him too. She wasn't sure if they had actually been friends; they'd never talked about it, so she didn't know if Theo was any more than just an acquaintance to him. Then again, in school, she would have considered Lavender only an acquaintance, and it had still hurt when she died. Friend or otherwise, knowing someone, even from a distance, and watching them be ripped away was traumatic regardless.

Hermione was just about to tell him never mind when Draco said, "He was such a little shit." His words weren't at all what she'd been expecting, and she felt a surprised laugh escape her. "Though I'm certain he would have said the exact same thing about me." Draco held his hand up beside her face, his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. "He was just slightly beneath Potter and Weasley on my list of people who annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of me."

She knew he was trying to make her feel better, trying to ease her tension in whatever way he knew how, and that in and of itself was what made it work.

"The Notts and Malfoys have always had this ridiculous rivalry, and he and I carried it on just perfectly. If it wasn't you besting me in class, it was him. We competed for just about everything in our own house." A deep rumble echoed against her ear when he chuckled. "He was one of the only people who would never let me get away with anything. He called me on more bullshit than probably anyone else, and it was almost surreal for me because he wasn't someone I could push around at all."

"Sounds like a good thing."

"Oh, I'm sure, but at thirteen, the last thing I wanted was for someone to call attention to my own insecurity." His laughter faded as he became serious again. "We were never really what anyone would consider friends, but sixth year, when I was"—he breathed a heavy sigh, his hands resting on her back and his heart pounding in time with hers—"struggling to hold it all together, Theo was the only person who tried to help me."

Out of everything he'd said so far, this took her by surprise the most. He'd never once spoken about Theo to her, even after knowing that she'd been the one to take his life. She would have thought if they'd been actually close then he would have mentioned it, but now, looking back, it was likely just another way that he'd shielded her from it.

"Not Dumbledore, who knew what was going on yet waited until the last possible moment to offer me any help. Not Pansy, who I pushed away because I didn't want her to get involved. And certainly not Crabbe and Goyle, who were just waiting on me to make a mistake so they could jump in and take my spot, as if it was something to be proud of."

She turned her head to the side, burying her face into the crook of his neck, the stubble on his chin barely tickling her skin as he spoke.

"But Theo, he saw what was going on, even though he was still trying to stay away from it all, and he tried to help. He urged me to ask for help, to go to the Order or to run, but I couldn't leave my mother behind. And with this thing on my arm," he spoke the word like it burned his tongue on the way out, like just bringing it up etched it into his skin all over again, "he would've found me no matter where I hid anyway.

"So, instead, he just listened," he finished with a shrug, as if that wasn't the right word but it would have to do. "It took me being on the brink of death every waking moment throughout that year to realize that the person I thought him to be wasn't who he was at all. He hated all the Pureblood bullshit from the get-go, only he was strong enough to say it, to fight back against his father instead of just swallowing it all. He was a part of the reason that I finally realized how ridiculous it all was.

"Seventh year all of us—Pansy, Blaise, Theo, and I—tried to stick together for once rather than try to tackle it all on our own, and that was all Theo's doing. He…he was the best of us." Draco didn't pause, refusing to allow that to gut her the way that it was, the confirmation that he was definitely someone deserving of the life she'd taken from him. "I'm glad that he and Pansy were together. I—I can understand why she did what she did, and if things had been different, I think he would've made a good father, a hell of a lot better than his own."

He continued on throughout the night, sharing stories about all of them, not just Theo, and the last one she remembered before falling asleep was from third year when Blaise and Theo had pranked all of the Slytherin upperclassmen, charming all the alcohol they'd snuck in—and rudely refused to share with the rest of them—to make their faces glow every time they told a lie. When half the Fifth Year Slytherins failed their Charms exam the next day due to being hungover, their faces had lit up like the moon as they tried to talk their way out of it with Professor Flitwick.

Despite the crippling pain Hermione felt at having been the one to cut his life short, somehow learning about him, these bits and pieces of who he really was, were a comfort to her. Maybe on some level she thought of this as punishment, like it was penance to hear about how wonderful he was, but regardless of the reason, it made the ache of it all a bit more bearable. She knew she could never take it back—no matter how much she wished he'd had the chance to see the world they were building on this side of the destruction and how much she wanted her own soul unmarked by the stain of death. But she owed it to Theo to learn about the boy he'd been and the man he would have become if not for the war that none of them had wanted to begin with.

She woke up to the first rays of the morning sun peeking through the window, dust motes floating in the light, and Draco's side of the bed empty once again. Glancing toward the bedside clock, she found in front of it, a folded-up bit of paper from the notepad on his desk lying beneath a steaming cup of tea.

Gone to see Pansy and my father. I'll meet you at lunch.

I love you.

- D

Despite the obvious circumstances of his visit with Pansy, Hermione couldn't help but smile at the casual I love you.

Normal, indeed, she thought to herself as she got out of bed. She was glad that he'd gone to see her. Even though Draco hadn't said anything specifically about Pansy's secret, she felt confident that the fact that he was going to visit her meant that he was going to show her his support, which is exactly what Pansy needed more than anything.

After breakfast and running through her chores quickly, Hermione spent the rest of the morning in her session with Alys.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about something," Alys said, after they'd finished their normal session, talking more about how Hermione felt being in the room with the entire Malfoy family at the hospital than anything else. "Walt is planning to bring it up in a group session this week, but I thought it best if we talked one-on-one about it beforehand."

Hermione's interest was piqued. Based on the expression on Alys's face and the feeling it had rattling around in Hermione's chest, she almost felt like she was in trouble.

"You can stop looking so worried, you aren't in trouble." Alys's smile was carefree again, and Hermione shifted back down into her chair, having started to stand when she thought the lesson was over. Alys flicked her wand toward the kettle in the corner, levitating it over to refill both their cups.

"You and Draco seem to have gotten very close over the course of your time here," Alys said, her smile a little too knowing now.

"We have." It wasn't a secret that they were together at all, so it was obvious that the entire care team would know, especially given that she'd taken his hand on multiple occasions during group, but other than a small glance from Walt, they'd never given any indication of caring at all.

"I think that's good. I guess your initial fears about him being here were unfounded after all?"

Hermione remembered back to their introduction meeting months ago.

"I've been mocked, belittled, harassed, and bullied for the majority of my life by him. And you all are asking that I share the most vulnerable side of myself with the one person who'd been dead set on making my life hell."

She had been terrified at the time, worried not that she wouldn't be able to open up, but that the moment she did, the same boy she'd known at Hogwarts would be there to once again ridicule her or try to make her feel like she didn't belong.

But just after she'd said that, she'd turned to find him right behind her. She hadn't been expecting that, and she certainly hadn't been expecting him to acknowledge what she'd been saying or to tell her the truth about his own situation, bringing up his parole and how he was somewhat forced to be here.

She thought back over the last few months, the way they'd slowly become closer, leaning on one another the way they had, opening up in a way they never had with anyone else, and throughout that time, something more had bloomed.

Partly born out of "accidental" couch cuddling, Hermione thought with a chuckle.

"One of the few times I'm glad to have been wrong. He isn't at all the person I thought he was." Hermione supposed that as her counselor, Alys probably should have been told of her relationship as it had happened really, but for some reason, it had just never come up. But, she was certain that Alys didn't just want to talk about her love life.

Alys sipped her tea without a word, her eyes meeting Hermione's over the rim of her cup, but after this much time, Hermione had gotten accustomed to these silences with her, no longer feeling anxious or jittery, needing to fill them with chatter. Finally, after a moment of waiting on Hermione to speak, Alys sat down her cup, laced her fingers across her desk, and said, "You have both been through a lot, and despite how far both of you have come over the last ten weeks, your recovery is still very new. In the future, Walt has recommended that we actually initiate a no-dating policy here."

Noticing Hermione's confusion, she quickly added, "Not because either of you have done anything wrong, or Seamus and Parvati for that matter, but it was just something that we overlooked when we were drafting up our initial guidelines. There haven't been any issues, but we want to get ahead of that just to make sure nothing goes awry. Typically, it is recommended that individuals wait until they've established a healthy pattern of out-patient therapy following the completion of an in-patient program before they start seeking a serious long-term relationship, just because it's important that you make sure you aren't replacing one dependency for another.

"I don't think that's the case with either of you," Alys added quickly, "which is why we're having this conversation and not a different one. But, I do want to advise you of a few things that I feel are necessary for building a relationship after significant trauma. Just like Walt has mentioned before, and you and I have talked about in our one-on-one sessions, a central part of your healing is learning to rely on other people, learning to trust them and be someone worthy of their trust in return."

Alys paused long enough to offer a genuine smile and nod, further easing the lingering bits of self-consciousness. "It seems to me that you've found that healthy balance between relying on one another and also standing on your own two feet, but I'd be remiss if I didn't caution you on other issues that may ultimately crop up, statistically speaking, given both of your histories."

Hermione couldn't hold back her scoff. Alys, thankfully, knew her well enough to not be offended by her outburst, and instead she just looked intrigued, her dark eyes narrowing as a smirk curled up one side of her mouth. "Sorry," Hermione said, "but I don't think there are statistics for people of our histories." How many people could say they'd fought in a war at 17, been tortured to the brink of death by a maniac, and then ultimately fell in love with the nephew of said maniac? Surely there weren't many.

"Touché," Alys said, her smiling growing once again. "My point is, I want you to continue on the path you've started, be compassionate with yourself and others, prioritize your own healing, and be present for his without feeling responsible for it."

Hermione thought back to Harry's words in the waiting room after Lucius had woken up. "You have a tendency to take care of everyone else and not yourself." Hadn't Draco told her something similar when they'd first begun dating, about not wanting to be just another stumbling block for her? She thought she was doing a good job of keeping it all straight, maintaining her own sovereignty while also developing a healthy reliance on him. Her contemplation must have shown on her face, because Alys said, "Again, I think you've done a great job of that so far. Both of you have. I just feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't try to caution you."

Despite knowing now that they were maintaining a healthy relationship, there were times when she'd considered whether or not they'd delved into codependency, simply because she wanted him so much, not just him, but his opinion, his support, his acceptance. Alys's confirmation that they'd toed the line between reliance and codependency was great to hear.

"So," Alys continued, crossing her legs nonchalantly as if the question she was asking wasn't at all a type of verification that Hermione hadn't known she needed, "what will you two do when you leave here?"

The soft smile on Hermione's face faded, and she felt ridiculous. She'd begun drafting bits and pieces of what she wanted to work on professionally after she left The Willows—a stack of documents sitting in her room said that perhaps it was a bit more than a first draft actually—but she hadn't at all considered what they would do when they left.

"I…I'm not sure actually." She knew they'd both said they were in this for the long haul—everything—but what did that mean beyond these walls exactly? She knew what she wanted, but they hadn't really discussed it.

She certainly couldn't move in with him at Malfoy Manor, the thought alone felt like she'd been kicked in the chest, but then again, he wouldn't ever consider living there either. Hadn't he chosen Azkaban over the Manor? The main reason for being here to begin with was to be able to move out, but they hadn't talked about what his next move was either.

There's no way he could move into Grimmauld with her—the awkward conversations over breakfast between him and Harry would be almost as traumatic for everyone involved as the war had been—but she could feel her palms itching simply from thinking about trying to sleep without him again, not because she needed him there really. But because she wanted him there.

She looked up, meeting Alys's eyes. "I guess I should find that out, yeah?"

Hermione had tried to sit and watch him quietly. She'd tried to be patient.

But watching Draco read through her outline for what she was planning post-Willows was nerve-wracking to say the least. After her talk with Alys, she wanted to at least broach the subject with him about their plans once they left here, and she thought this was the perfect segue.

But she hadn't anticipated the level of anxiety this seemingly small suggestion entailed. After only a few moments, she'd had to stand, pacing the room at the foot of their bed, sneaking tentative glances at him every few moments.

One he'd spent a good ten minutes without turning a page, she'd begun to suspect that he was taking his sweet time just to irritate her at this point.

She sat down again with a huff. Even knowing he was doing it on purpose wasn't enough to stop her fidgeting. He'd paused his reading, his eyes meeting hers over as he lowered the sheet of paper in his hands.

"Do you have to do that?" The soft half-smile on his face made her narrow her eyes at him. He shouldn't be enjoying this so much.

"Do what?"

His gaze flickered toward her hands, where she'd been clicking her pen cap absently.

She pinched her lips together and dropped the pen onto the desk beside her as his focus returned to her proposal.

"I'm not sure what you're so nervous about. As if my opinion matters." Turning the page, his eyes scanning over the next document, he chuckled. "Oh, you need a lot of money. It seems my opinion does matter."

"The papers were right," she said with a shake of her head, her brows turned down and a feigned frown on her face. "I'm just after your gold after all." She barely got the words out of her mouth before a playful smirk cut through her mock sorrow.

"Trying to pilfer all of my galleons for werewolves"—flipping pages to read over the headlines as he spoke—"house-elves … prisoners… women's rights… Not a single coat lined with baby seal fur or a chalet in France on this list at all." He closed the folder and looked up at her seriously. "You're the worst gold-digger the world has ever seen."

"Yes, well," Hermione said with a grin, realizing how ridiculous it was that she'd been nervous to begin with. "I am a Muggleborn, after all. I didn't have the proper training in Pureblood manipulation." She started to sit down beside him, but he pulled her down into his lap.

"You're certainly on the right track for convincing me," he said, pulling her down for a heated kiss, effectively banishing the last vestiges of anxiety about him looking over her ideas. His lips closed around hers as his hands stilled on her thighs now bracketing his hips.

"You know I'm not really asking for your money, right?" she asked, as she pulled away, resting her forehead against his, relishing in his thumbs brushing across her skin where her blouse had risen up.

"I know, love." His lips grazed hers again, softer this time but just as wonderful, before he reached beside her and picked up her stack of parchment again. "I don't think you'll need it to be honest. With all these fundraising ideas, there's a really good chance you'll be able to pull everything from outside funds actually."

"You think so? That's my goal, of course," she said, shifting off him and dropping onto her stomach to flip through the papers beside him, "but you know this society a lot more than I do really. I won't say no to your money, of course, but more than anything, I need your help with coordinating all of this. Organizations, foundations, galas, an entire world I really know nothing about. Nicola has already agreed to help, and I think I could convince Harry and Ginny. I know you said you weren't sure what you wanted to do with your future, and you'd mentioned working at the Ministry, but I think having your—"

"Granger," her last name on his lips stopped her rambling, and she turned her focus from the paperwork she'd now shifted completely out of order to his face beside her. He'd rolled onto his stomach as well and was now looking at her intently, a twinkle in his eye as he searched her face. "This is an amazing idea. I hold no delusions that you need my help whatsoever, but I'd be honored to be a part of this with you."

The sincerity in his voice was palpable, enough to bring a wide grin to her face and a rising warmth in her chest, enveloping her like an embrace. She remembered having to twist Ron and Harry's arms to be a part of S.P.E.W. However misguided it was, her heart had been in the right place, and she remembered the countless irritated sighs and apologetic glances every time she'd tried to make some type of change at the Ministry in either her current department or her short stint as an Auror.

She realized then that had been what she'd been worried about, yet another person who thought her ideas were noble but unreachable at best and laughable at their worst. Experience had taught her to expect that, and without even realizing it, she'd been doing exactly that.

But unlike anyone else in her life, Draco had taken her over-the-top "outline"—twenty-pages at least—read the entire thing, and then genuinely seemed both intrigued and interested in her ideas. He'd turned his attention back to the papers in question, flipping through them again, and her heart actually fluttered when she noticed him making annotations in the margins.

"Before you get too excited though," he said, halting her nerdy heart palpitations, "you know if I'm associated with this in any way, you're immediately going to get blowback. And, it may be advantageous, if you're going to incorporate mental health awareness into this at all, that you talk about your association with The Willows publicly."

"Well," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully as she traced a stitch along the quilt beneath her, "it's funny that you mention that. Tonight, when we go to Diagon Alley, I'm actually meeting with Rita Skeeter to do just that."

The fluttering of the pages ceased, and she could almost feel his gaze burning into her.

"What?"

"I'm meeting with Rita Skeeter tonight in—"

"Yes, I heard you, I was just really hoping it was a joke."

"No. No joke. I thought it best to just take the bull by the horns so to speak."

"Except you can't trust Skeeter. She'll take everything you say and—"

"Oh, I'm not afraid of her." She looked up to face him finally, unable to contain the smirk on her lips. "Rita and I go way back. In fact, she's about the only reporter I trust to write what I want her to write."

He still stared at her with a humorous expression on his face, as if she were speaking another language entirely. "Hermione, she quite literally only cares about—"

"I'm giving her a great story. This," she said, nodding toward her proposal, "and The Willows, as well as anything and everything that comes from my first meeting with the Wizengamot. I won't be talking about us at all, nor will I talk about the war. If she cares about her life and livelihood, then she'll print what I tell her to print."

If anything that just made him look even more confused, but her next words dropped the expression from his face entirely.

"Let's just say, I have her trapped. Kind of like a bug in a jar."

The corners of Draco's mouth turned down slightly as he became more impressed than shocked. "And you said you didn't know Pureblood manipulation strategies. You're practically Slytherin."

A few years ago, that comment would have made her snarl her nose in disgust… Now, however, she could admit he wasn't exactly wrong.

After eating at the Leaky Cauldron, all of them dining together out in public for one of the last excursions—which Seamus had to toast to no less than twelve times during their meal—they all headed off in their own directions for the evening, most of them heading toward the new Diagon Alley-branch of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, but Hermione was on a mission.

A mission that she tried to tell Draco that she didn't need a sitter for.

"I greatly appreciate your desire to make sure that I'm not being riled up by Rita Skeeter, but I know what I'm doing," she said testily, as they rounded the corner toward Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, where she was supposed to be meeting the loathsome reporter.

She'd tried to convince him to go on to his appointment with the realtor, because having a place to stay following the Willows was much more important than babysitting her—"Literally a cupboard would be better than the Manor, so it's really not necessary," he'd said—not to mention much less insulting.

"Honestly, I don't need a bodyguard to—"

He'd pulled her into an alleyway between Fortescue's and Quality Quidditch Supplies, her trainers scuffing against an empty takeaway box, and before she could even begin to ask what the hell he was doing, he was kissing her. She was so taken aback that for a split second she stood there motionless, her sweater scratching against the bricks behind her and her eyes wide open.

When he pulled away, the grin he was wearing paired perfectly with the humor dancing in his eyes. "The idea that you would need my protection is ridiculous, you know that right?"

"Umm…" She blinked at him. She really had no answer for that. Yes, it was ridiculous… to her. But why else would he have insisted on being here?

"I just really want to see you make her squirm," Draco said with a devilish grin. "It's oddly arousing when it's not me you're attempting to verbally castrate. On second thought," he added, one finger resting across his lips as he reconsidered, "it's also oddly arousing when it is me, actually."

Her laughter rang out in the small alley and she bit her lip at the shameless expression on his face. "Well, I'll be sure to eviscerate you later, then," she said, tugging him back onto the sidewalk.

Slipping his hand into the back pocket of her denims, he said, "Don't threaten me with a good time."

She could feel the blush crawling up her neck, and she tried to fight back her smile as she caught Rita Skeeter looking at them from her booth inside the ice cream shop. "You're a deviant," she whispered, as he opened the door, and the bell in the door jamb jingled above their heads.

Rita sat in a back booth, and Hermione was surprised that she was alone; she'd been expecting a photographer, likely the same man she'd been bossing around during the Triwizard Tournament. Her white blonde hair was still cut short, in the same tight waves she'd been wearing for the last five years, and she still wore the exact same haughty expression, pencil-thin eyebrows over the same cat-eye glasses and heavily-lined lids. But, at some point since Hermione had seen her last, she'd traded in her outrageous attire at least, and instead of loud acid-green or gaudy rhinestone-covered purple, she wore robes of a much more subdued black lined in a deep red that matched her thin lips.

"Well, I wasn't expecting a dual interview, Miss Granger," Rita said, one severe eyebrow raising as Hermione and Draco took a seat across from her.

"And you aren't getting one." Hermione folded her arms across her chest, lifting her chin defiantly at the cockroach—well, beetle…

They sat in silence for a moment, both women unwilling to back down, and when Rita spoke first, Hermione congratulated herself. Small victories counted as a victory, nonetheless.

"I was quite shocked to receive your letter. And very much intrigued," Rita said, folding her hands in front of her, her fingertips tapping together lightly and her sharply-filed nails pointing toward the ceiling. The reporter's beady eyes flicked toward Draco quickly and then back at Hermione, her mouth pursing. "It's admirable, of course, to barter for a bit of reprieve from the limelight, to trade your story for Lucius Malfoy's."

From her peripherals, Hermione saw Draco turned toward her, but she kept her eyes trained on Rita's. Regardless of the level of control Hermione may or may not still have over the woman, Hermione knew she was playing with fire now, and she couldn't afford to give the woman any type of ammunition whatsoever.

"Oh, you didn't know, Mr. Malfoy?" Rita asked, her rat-like gaze fixed on Hermione's. "How interesting. Hermione here offered this lovely interview in exchange for my help in keeping the pesky paparazzi at bay."

"You say that as if you aren't a part of it?" Hermione cut in, already tiring of Rita's games.

"You wound me," Rita said, her mouth dropping into the fakest pout Hermione had ever seen before quickly morphing into a devious grin. "What else don't you know?" Almost out of thin air, the all-too-familiar Quick Quotes Quill had appeared, furiously scribbling across a bit of parchment, a large, green plume shaking in the air directly across from Draco.

"He doesn't know about your year-long vacation in a mason jar in my bedroom." Hermione paused briefly to allow Rita to catch up. "Oops… I suppose he does now." She felt strangely calm, her eyes trained on the woman across from her as the quill immediately halted, the tip of its feather barely quivering now. Rita's face turned a shade paler.

"Before we get started," Hermione continued, a snide smile pulling up on either side of her lips, "whatever you think you know about the therapy I'm currently in, I hope you understand that I'm still extremely capable with a wand. And that's completely disregarding the fact that I have proof of your illegal Animagus status."

Rita's eyes narrowed momentarily, just a fraction, but enough for Hermione to know that the woman was contemplating whether or not she was telling the truth. Hermione lifted her eyebrow, tilting her head to the side. Try me.

Rita sniffed, her mouth turning to a deep frown, and she rolled her eyes petulantly before snatching the quill out of the air and shoving it back into her purse. "Old habits," she said with a contrived smile.

When she stared at Hermione, waiting for her to continue, Hermione remained tight-lipped before giving a meaningful glance to Rita's bag. The reporter huffed, rolling her eyes again as she clamped the beaded clasp closed. She lifted her hands, palms up in exasperation, as if to say, 'happy now?'

"We don't like each other," Hermione began—ignoring Rita's muttered 'obviously'—"but we don't have to. I can get the story I want printed, and you can get exclusive coverage. We both get something. Quid pro quo. We don't have to be friends."

"And what's the story?"

"It's not us, that's not news at all, that's—"

"That's what readers want. You have a naïve view of the world, Miss Granger, if you think anyone cares at all about civil rights and liberties. They want to be taken out of their own meaningless, boring lives for a moment. They want entertainment. They want romance, scandal, sex."

Hermione felt her temper begin to flare as Rita's eyes cut toward Draco again, looking him over, a pouty smirk on her face.

"You have to give me more than just some ridiculous trifle about making the world a better place." It was Rita's turn to fold her arms across her chest. She sat back in her chair, pointed red nails tapping against her arm and her head cocked to one side haughtily, staring at Hermione over her cat-eye lenses.

Hermione contemplated this. As loath as she was to admit it, Skeeter was right. People didn't care about that, though they absolutely should. There had to be a reason for them to want to read the article to begin with. She glanced toward Draco. She could feel the meeting beginning to crumble, the fulcrum of control slipping in Rita's favor, and before she could say anything, Draco's hand found hers beneath the table.

"One photo," he said. "Of us."

"You mean, other than the one of you two playing grab-ass outside the alleyway," Rita said beaming, nodding toward the window beside them. They followed her gaze to find the photographer Hermione had been expecting inside the ice cream shop, not outside of it, standing just out of eyesight but perfectly in range to have captured what they'd thought was a private moment. Stupidly, really.

Damnit.

"Instead of that one," Draco said sharply.

"Fine," Rita said just as coldly. "But, I'm telling you now, no one will read it"—she shifted her gaze dramatically to Hermione—"or care if you don't give them something worth their time. You can preach about house-elves or Muggle-borns all you want, but unless you make it interesting, they'll turn the page before they get through the first paragraph. Your names, even with mine attached, aren't enough."

Hermione sighed. Once again, Rita was right, and if Hermione wanted to be a force of change, she was going to have to be willing to step outside of her comfort zone. Just like agreeing to go to The Willows in the first place, she was going to have to trust others… even if that person was Rita-sodding-Skeeter.