Authors Note: Bonus points to anyone who knows who Canuk the crow is. This chapter is a little shorter but the next one will be much meatier I promise.

In which tensions ease, and a romance blossoms.

Autumn 2002

Each day Malfoy brought her a slew of additional volumes pertaining to the subjects she'd given him the night before and would then proceed to spend the morning sleeping off what she assumed was a hangover. By Thursday she had started to suspect he had a drinking problem.

She had to admit, the Manor's library really was incredible. She had never even heard of half of these books before. Though that wasn't overly surprising as many of them were clearly written by Dark Wizards with nefarious intentions.

She hadn't any real leads yet, but the more she read the more theories and possibilities bloomed in her mind, and she had started making a list of other topics she'd need him to bring her tomorrow. A thought occurred to her.

"Do you have a librarian?" He lifted his arm from its usual place across his eyes and frowned at her

"What?"

"Do. You. Have. A. Librarian." He pinched the bridge of his nose with an irritated sigh.

"Yes, I understood the question. No, we don't. Why?"

"How did you find these books?" she pointed at the new piles. "All I gave you were topics and you found me all the books that referenced those topics. With a collection as large as yours, how can you do that without a librarian? I find it hard to believe you went looking for them yourself." He smirked at her, understanding flashing across his face.

"Ah. I said we don't have a librarian. We do, however, have servants." The house elves. She balked. This was her fault. The elves had gone through Merlin knows how many thousands of books to bring her what she needed. She felt mildly sick.

"Good grief, don't get your knickers in a twist, it's not like we sent them down the mines to get them." He rolled his eyes at her. She was starting to think they weren't properly attached. Given how they seemed to roll about willy nilly.

"That's not the point, and you know it. They're living beings and you treat them like slaves." She could feel herself flushing. She hated that he could tell he was getting to her. He sat up and looked her in the eyes, an infuriatingly smug look on his face.

"Actually, Granger in this particular instance, you treated them like slaves." Now she really did feel ill. She must have paled because he grinned and flumped back down, shutting his eyes again.

"If it'll shut you up before you get banging on about elf rights and other such rubbish, we have several very old elves who know everything there is to know about every title in that place. I expect they found it rather a nice change to go looking around for some musty old books."

Annoyingly that did make her feel a little better, but she glared at him anyway. Not that he could see.

"You know, if you're just going to sleep all day you may as well not be here. It's not like you're watching me anyway." He cracked an eye open and looked back at her.

"Would you prefer I watched you, Granger." he said lowly. If she didn't know any better, she would almost think his tone was a tiny bit flirtatious but that was insane. She fiddled with her necklace, suddenly needing to do something with her hands.

"No. I'd rather you left." She was going for frosty but it had about as much bite as a banana. He chuckled.

"Trust me, so would I. But my mother would skin me alive if I left you alone with the goods, and since watching you work sounds like the most boring task ever conceived of, I'd rather be unconscious." He closed his eyes again. She scowled at him.

"I can feel you staring at me Granger. Back to your books now." He waved a hand and went back to sleep.

About an hour later she took a break from reading to stretch her neck and looked him over. He looked so peaceful in sleep, though she had no doubt he suffered from the same nightmares as the rest of them. Hers had become less frequent, in the years since the end of the war. But they never quite went away.

He was also, irritatingly, quite smart. She apparently muttered while she worked, as he loved to snap at her for, and on several occasions, he had given her the answer to a question she didn't even know she was asking out loud. If he wasn't so snippy about it, she would almost think he was enjoying himself.

He was taller now than he had been in school and had filled out considerably from his gaunt teen years. His hair was still white blonde, and his sharp jaw and cheekbones she could now tell he had inherited from his mother, having seen her up close.

She almost supposed he could be good looking, if tall rich and asshole was your type.

Alright fine he's stupidly attractive. She huffed to herself and went back to her book.

Every day the niggling feeling the something was off continued to emanate from the Time Turner. She finally got up and closed the box. Surprisingly, it helped. She jotted down a note that the box itself must have some sort of containment charm on it.

"Thank Merlin for that, what did you do?" Malfoy dragged himself to a seated position, roused from his second nap of the day.

"I shut the box. I couldn't take it any longer." He inclined his head in a fair enough sort of way. After a moment he stood up and spoke again.

"Do you know what that thing reminds me of?" he narrowed his eyes at it briefly before walking over to the other side of her room seemingly to investigate what she had on her own bookshelves.

"What?"

"The snake." She paused her reading to look up at him. He was very purposefully not looking at her.

"Nagini." It wasn't really a question. She knew what snake he meant. She saw him nod. Hermione leaned back. "She was a horcrux." She offered. He raised an eyebrow at that.

"Well, that certainly explains a lot." She was surprised.

"You know what Horcruxes are?"

"I do read, Granger." Hermione scoffed. Interesting reading material, though she supposed she shouldn't be shocked given the books she was currently borrowing from his family library.

"But you didn't know he had them?" She had to confirm. He turned back to look at her then, and said more softly, his voice almost playful.

"I can't imagine he would have let me live if I had, do you?" she flushed a little.

"No, I suppose not." She played with her necklace, passing the charm back and forth.

She went back to her book. He did have a point. It wasn't quite the same. She had spent enough time around them to be very familiar with the feeling of a Horcrux. But it was very similar. Perhaps made from the same branch of dark magic.

"Hmmm." She flipped closed the cover on the book she had currently and went to pick up another from a different pile.

"Thank you." She murmured begrudgingly as she made her way back to her desk. She thought she saw him smirk in the corner of her eye as she passed.

Around midday on Thursday, she had an epiphany. She yelped in excitement, waking Malfoy who was incidentally, not a fan of being abruptly woken.

"For fucks sake Granger, could you not."

"Shut it Malfoy, some of us have jobs and things we care about." At that he looked, if possible, even surlier. She couldn't help but grin widely as she made her way out from behind the desk to follow her new train of thought.

"Some of us don't have the luxury of following our passions Granger, no matter how sad they may be." He tried to sneer but came out without any real heat to it. She turned back to the new pile of books she was looking through before she saw his smile.

With the horcrux theory adjacent theory in her mind, she was excited to send Malfoy home with some new requests that night. He raised an eyebrow snarked at her about her morals and the state of elf welfare, but she wasn't going to let him ruin the first almost breakthrough shed had in months. There were many different branches of magic, both dark and light. The one that Horcruxes stemmed from was very secretive, but there was mention of other objects giving off something akin to the feeling emanating from the box. Nothing specifically related to Time Turners, but it was finally something.

They were almost at the door when she heard tapping on the window.

She recognized Terrance's signature crow, Canuk, and let him in. He slowed his flight just long enough to drop off two letters for before swooping back out again. Evidently not having been asked to wait for a reply.

"A crow. Of course it's a sodding crow." She heard Malfoy mutter as she opened the first letter. She could practically feel him rolling his dammed eyes.

Hermione,

I am just writing to say that I have decided to extend my holidays another few weeks. I met a lovely witch at Lydia's wedding and were going to go on a spontaneous jaunt around Europe together. Isn't that the silliest thing you've ever heard! Her name is Broomhilde!

I never was one to believe in love at first sight. As you know my late wife was my childhood sweetheart, and our love grew over many years. But this! What a shot!

I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine in my absence. If you need anything, just contact Lydia. I'll be keeping her up to date on where we are.

To Love!

Terrance

Hermione read the letter once, twice and a third time in such a state of shock she was starting to worry her surly not-quite-a-coworker.

"Granger, what is it?" dumbly, she handed him the letter. Not even quite sure what to say. Was this real? Was Terrance actually taking a month off of the most exciting research project to come into the Ministry in decades to go rollicking through Europe with some woman he just met? She heard Malfoy scoff having evidently finished the letter when she remembered the second on her desk.

Hermione,

Hi, it's Lydia.

We haven't met yet, but my father has nothing but lovely things to say about you. Please know that he has not in fact lost his mind or been swept up in some sort of scam. He truly has found love with some widowed family friend of my new in laws. Madness!

I've attached my home floo, if there is anything urgent, please let me know and I'll pass it on to dad.

To love, I guess!

Lydia

Well, that was a relief.

"Good for Terrance." She smiled, forgetting who she was with for a moment. Malfoy looked down at her with undisguised scorn.

"I don't care Granger. Can we get on, some of us have a life to live."

Fucking Malfoys.