Upon arrival at Hogsmeade, Draco insisted upon a visit to Honeydukes first.

"It's Valentine's Day weekend," he pointed out, "so everyone is going to be trying to buy chocolate and sweets. We need to go first to get the best selection before everything's been picked over."

"Smart thinking," Hermione praised, and Draco's pale cheeks flushed with pleasure again.

Honeydukes was warm and smelled of sugar and caramel, with bins of different sweets everywhere and large displays of chocolate cluttering the shop. Hermione had a surprising amount of fun picking different things out with Draco, going around and looking through the different bins.

"Do you remember when you fought with Pansy over Valentine's Day?" Draco said, looking at a selection of Blood Lollipops shaped like hearts.

"Errr—" Hermione blinked. "No? But it sounds like something I would do."

Draco laughed.

"It was first year," he told her. "You were annoyed that Hogwarts celebrated Valentine's Day when it was a muggle holiday."

"Well, I mean..." Hermione shrugged. "The point stands."

"After you said that, I started wondering – why did we celebrate it?" Draco told her. "And I've come to a conclusion: it's a brilliant marketing from Honeydukes to increase sales during a slow time of the year."

Hermione laughed. "You think?"

"Absolutely," Draco said, eyes glinting. "It's right after the holidays, so no more gifts for a while, and retail sales tend to be slow the first quarter across industries. Capitalizing on a muggle holiday that centers on chocolate, especially one with emotions involved, is rather brilliant."

"One with emotions involved?" Hermione teased. "What do you mean?"

"Surely you've noticed," Draco said with a smirk. "People are much more manipulatable if their emotions are involved. A subtle marketing campaign on sending sweets to a Muggleborn you fancy would resonate with people's sense of romance and hope for requited love."

"I see," Hermione said, her eyes alight. "And then it would evolve from there. It would only take a couple success stories – seeing a touched Muggleborn girl kissing the boy who sent her chocolates – for more people to want to send their own crushes candies too. Until everyone was sending chocolate through the mail."

Draco grinned. "I imagine Honeydukes probably didn't expect an entire set of expectations and a culture to spring up around it, but they probably don't mind it one bit."

Hermione watched with amusement as Draco loaded up on sweets – not just chocolates, but ice mice, sugar quills, Bertie Botts' Every-Flavor Beans, and several other things as well. When they went to check out, Draco cast a skeptical eye over Hermione's purchases.

"Chocolate frogs, chocolate bars, and sugar quills?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "No chocolate hearts?"

Hermione grinned. "Not this time. I have a plan."

"I'm sure," Draco snorted. "But what is the plan?"

Hermione smiled to herself. "You'll see."

The next stop was Scrivenshaft's, where Draco and Hermione both looked over the new quills. There were new feathers on offering, several of which were brilliant deep colors, and Hermione wondered if they'd had someone go to the Amazonian jungle to collect plumes from tropical birds. In the next row over, two students were having a conversation that could be overheard.

"—broke another one," one student was saying, clearly frustrated. "Still don't understand why we can't just use a blasted biro…"

"Look – these ones have anti-scratch tips," the other student said. "That ought to help us, right?"

"It can't hurt," the first student said, gloomy. "Wish they'd just let us use Dictation Quills for our essays…"

"I'm not sure why they don't," the second student said, sounding thoughtful. "We should ask Professor Sprout."

The two students moved away, further into the shop, and Draco and Hermione exchanged a look.

"What do you think of all that?" Draco asked, his tone pointed.

Hermione sighed.

"Anti-scratch tips sound nice, but I don't know if I believe they'd work," she said quietly, fingering an eagle-feather quill. "They can't enchant the tips without messing with the quills themselves. So unless they've entirely designed new tips…"

"They probably look the same as the normal quill tips," Draco scoffed, examining a new quill of his own. "Besides – if a person knows how to write correctly, they shouldn't be scraping or scratching the page anyway."

Hermione looked at him sideways.

"You do realize not everyone had calligraphy lessons growing up, right?" she said pointedly.

Draco looked startled, then defensive.

"Well, of course," he sputtered. "But that doesn't mean—"

"How long did it take you to learn to write well with a quill?" Hermione cut in. "Well, I mean. No scratches or ink splatters, with fully legible letters of a reasonable size."

Draco's eyes moved up and to the left as he thought back.

"It took two years to get my letters to about 3/8 of an inch tall," he said, remembering. "I was still writing very slowly, then. It probably took me another three or four years to be able to write properly at a reasonable speed."

Hermione gave Draco a look. "And how many years of practice with a quill do you imagine Muggleborns have had before they come to school?"

"Well, none, but they're not children, are they?" Draco argued. "It took me ages to learn because they started me when I was five. They come to school at age eleven – it shouldn't take them six years to pick up on it!"

"And I'm sure it doesn't," Hermione said. "But I think struggling with the logistics of using a quill - ink splatters and scratching the paper and the like – is fairly reasonable if one's only been at it for two years. Two years without a tutor, by the way."

Draco looked frustrated.

"It's not my fault no one taught them how to write properly, though," he said. "They should teach them that before they come to Hogwarts."

"They learned how to write with a pen in the muggle world," Hermione retorted. "A quill is very different."

"Then maybe they should learn to use a quill when they first get their letter," Draco snapped. "Have a 'Basic Things for Muggleborns' class where they learn to write with a quill, how to bow, how to dress properly, that sort of thing."

Hermione stared at him for a long moment, surprised, before she started to laugh.

"That's honestly not a bad idea," she told him. She gave him a grin, her eyes alight. "Can you imagine how much it might have helped our classmates with very simple things?"

Draco looked startled out of his frustration at her laughter, before a slow smirk spread across his face.

"It would have, wouldn't it have?" he mused. "Learning to write properly could have helped everyone move faster in classes, and having basic wizarding culture classes would have helped some of the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors manage their reputations a bit better."

Hermione paused.

"…their reputations?" she prodded.

"Well, look at Leanne Kirk," Draco said, shrugging. "She's known for wearing short muggle clothes around the Hufflepuff common room before bed, instead of proper pajamas or a dressing gown."

Hermione gave him an odd look. "And…?

"Well… it's not proper," Draco said, reddening. "To just gad about with your bare legs out, out in the open? It's…"

"Are you seriously telling me right now," Hermione said, incredulous, "that the pureblood boys in our year think Leanne's loose because she wears shorts and a jersey to bed?"

"Well, it's not just that, is it?" Draco defended. "She asked Boot for a date!"

"So a girl knowing what she wants and going after it by asking Terry Boot for a date ruins her reputation?" Hermione said dryly. "Though it would have been fine if he had asked her for a date?"

Draco winced. "Well… yes."

Hermione sighed.

"Bit of a radical culture difference, for sure," she said, "stepping back into antiquated sexism and patriarchal oppression." She sighed again, musing to herself for a bit, before she glanced up at Draco. "Your idea for a sort of 'Introduction to Wizarding Culture' class for Muggleborns really isn't a bad idea."

Draco looked wary, undoubtedly hoping Hermione wasn't about to attack his old-fashioned opinions again.

"It's a bit late for this year," he said cautiously, "but I could speak to my father, maybe. He's on the Board of Governors. He's always going on about how Muggleborns are disrespectful and ruining things. Maybe he could start discussion about adding a course like that to the curriculum."

Hermione blinked.

"That's a great idea," she told him.

"You think?" Draco looked surprised.

"Of course!" Hermione said. "This is exactly the sort of thing it's good to try and get your father involved with. I doubt he'll go for it, really, but it's certainly worth a try."

Draco slowly relaxed, giving Hermione a half smile.

"He'd have to talk about it with the other governors," he said. "But who knows? Maybe it could happen." He paused. "Though, probably during a year when they're not so fussed over Sirius Black. Most of the meetings they have are about student safety right now, I think."

Hermione bit her tongue at that, not wanting to bring Sirius Black up just quite yet.

"Here, look at this," she said, passing him a quill made from the feather of a green macaw. "Do you think this is too much? Too ostentatious?"

Draco smirked. "If it was, but you liked it anyway, would that stop you from getting it?"

Hermione laughed.

"Probably not," she conceded, giving him a grin. "Probably not."