Thank you to everyone who has left such lovely reviews, sorry I didn't get round to responding to them for the last chapter. Thanks also to everyone who is reading along.

Also thanks to my beta, suggester of excellent lines and the person who has to listen to me moaning about someone reading 18 chapters of a fic just so they leave a fully comprehensive bad review - kabg01.

"I've got a present for you," Hermione beamed widely, too excited to say hello as Draco slid onto the bench beside her. Draco looked nervously ashamed and with a shock like a thunderclap, she realised that she hadn't actually seen him since he had turned up drunk at her house. He had owled her to apologise and although their conversation had been stilted at first, they had managed to establish a correspondence. They had agreed that there was little point in attempting to brew the Dragora potion again unless they found further information, and had agreed to both research the subject. Hermione had dashed off a letter to the only person she knew that might be able to help them, and had thought little more of it, until a parcel had arrived for her that morning at work, carried by two magnificent tawny owls. Without thinking, she had asked Draco to meet her at the Leaky Cauldron as soon as he could, and she had been cooling her heels ever since. She'd even lied to Amos Diggory that she had a meeting with an aggrieved goblin at Gringotts to explain her absence from the office.

"You look well," he said softly, brushing his fingertips over her cheek. It gave Hermione an aching feeling in her throat that made her have to force her voice to remain steady.

"Hmm, well you look better than last time I saw you at least."

Hannah Abbott came over to the table with two butterbeers that she insisted were on the house for any friend of Neville's, before bustling off to pick up empty tankards and wipe tables.

"She's going to run this place into the ground, doing business like that," Draco grumbled after her retreating form. Hermione suppressed a smile at his transparency as he fished a couple of galleons out of his pocket and slid them onto the table. So much easier to throw money at a problem than admit he'd never been a very good friend to Neville. Even worse to acknowledge that Hannah knew that full well and was still giving him a free drink.

"I wasn't myself last time I saw you," Draco didn't meet her eye, concentrating on brushing a miniscule fleck of dirt from the blackness of his sleeve, "I suspect Goyle may have slipped something into my drink."

"Yeah – more booze," Hermione snorted, but not unkindly. Draco had behaved terribly to her and she had been furious, hurt, disappointed, humiliated. A kaleidoscope of pain and betrayal. But whether it was time passing, or her confusing feelings about the man she was struggling to think of as her husband; that pain had shrunk to a small point, her emotions on the subject diminished. Rather than making her heart grow fonder, the absence between them had made her feelings for Draco…flatter. Less dangerous. A spark damped down under grey ash.

Draco nodded in concession, "Well, whatever the reason, I could have behaved…better. Some of the things I said…" he affected a laugh, although it didn't reach his eyes, "The idea of you and me, eloping together like some common muggles!"

"Molly and Arthur Weasley eloped – Molly told me," She was defending her parents in law before she even felt the sting from the thorns he had laced his words with to try and stop her probing closely.

Draco rolled his eyes as though to indicate that she was proving his point.

Hermione reached over and laid her hand on top of his, "Anyway, as much as I'm enjoying waiting to see whether you insult everyone I know before you get round to actually saying sorry, that wasn't why I wanted to see you."

"Phew, because contrition really doesn't suit me," Draco sat back in his seat, looking relieved, before reaching across and squeezing the tips of her fingers really tightly, just for a second, "I am though, you know," he added, almost too quietly for Hermione to hear. They both took long sips from their frosty bottles of butterbeer, rewarding themselves with the cool slide of sweet foam down their throats to mark their navigation through that difficult conversation.

"I've got a present for you!" Hermione repeated, as she placed the bottle down onto the table, watching beads of condensation roll down the side of the glass.

"Go on then Weasley….ugh no, can't do it. You'll always be Granger to me. What have you got me? I'm going to go ahead and assume it's that new Lightspeed Mark 2 broom that's in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies," he made a show of looking around for a broomstick shaped parcel.

"Better," she assured him, having to sit on her hands to stop herself vibrating out of the seat.

"No!" he clapped his hands to his face in mock surprise, "You didn't go for the platinum coating upgrade? Apparently, it reduces drag by up to twenty-eight percent!"

"Twenty-eight! That much?" she giggled. A weight that she hadn't realised she was carrying slipped from her chest as they slipped into easy banter, "Still better."

He leaned in and nudged her with his elbow, "You're going to model it for me?"

"It's some of Snape's notes from his personal records!" she squeaked, unable to contain herself any more. Draco deflated almost comically before her eyes.

"Did you keep the receipt?" he drawled, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Just look at them, you idiot," Hermione opened a dragonhide wallet and produced a sheaf of yellowed parchment. She handed them over to Draco, her heart giving a painful clench as she saw the familiar cramped handwriting, densely packed onto the page as though not to waste even an inch of the paper. Although she had disliked Snape when he was alive, she respected him as a scholar above almost all others, and after Harry had told her he had seen in Snape's memories, her feelings had softened considerably.

Draco rifled through the papers before his eyes widened and his face lit up in a wide smile, "Oh you are a genius. If I wasn't worried about catching poor, I'd kiss you!"

Hermione's foot twitched with the desire to kick him under the table as she would Harry, or Ron, once, "Mcgonagall sent them to me."

Draco's lips thinned, and he slid the bottle of butterbeer a few centimetres away from himself, "It must be nice being one of the golden trio – everyone falling over themselves to help you, give you free drinks."

"Are you serious? Draco Malfoy – poster boy for pureblood privilege, complaining about it being a bit unfair that I get a few favours here and there. Perhaps if you were a bit less rude to people and not such a bloody snob, you might find people help you out more often. Catch poor indeed, I should hex you into next week just for that."

"Sorry, sorry", he muttered, rubbing his arm unconsciously, "I had a falling out with my potion ingredients supplier. Some rumours have reached his ears, apparently. He said my filthy galleons weren't welcome, even if I paid ten times the price. Seems that someone offed his daughter during the war. It all seems to be getting stirred up again, have you noticed?"

"It's the marriage law," Hermione sighed, taking another sip from her bottle. She glanced around the crowded pub and noticed an elderly witch glaring with open hostility at Draco, as if to prove his point.

Draco nodded slowly, his gaze distant, as he mulled over what she had said, "You might be right. They dress these women up in finery and parade them around and nobody laughs at them or anything, nobody is cruel. Their husbands seem to treat them like queens…"

"But –" Hermione urged him on.

"It's the way they look at them….It makes me uneasy." He rubbed his forearm again.

"Harry said that he thinks dark forces might be rising again"

Draco huffed gently, a bitter smile on his lips, "Well no one's invited me - my family are traitors don't forget. They let mother and I tag along to parties because of our blood and our money but they don't trust us."

Hermione moved the butterbeer bottle back towards him, "So what are you going to do about your potion supplier? I can get things for you if you need them, owl them to you?"

"No no, it's fine, there's a shop in Knockturn Alley that I can go to. Judging by some of the ingredients on this list," his eyes scanned the fragile parchment, "My regular supplier might not have been able to help me anyway."

"Well let me know if there's anything I can do but I've got to get back to work – I sneaked out to meet you."

As she buttoned up her travelling cloak, a red headed man entered the pub. Her heart skittered and jumped in her chest as she did a double take but the man was just a stranger. Not that she was doing anything wrong meeting Draco in a public place, in the middle of the day. She just didn't really want Ron to know about it. He'd take it the wrong way - she knew he would. She was just saving them both from an unnecessary argument.

"Granger! Am I being a bad influence on you?" Draco affected surprise, a smirk playing over his lips

Hermione gave him a scathing look over her shoulder as she swept from the booth, "Please, I've been sneaking about since I was eleven. Oh and Malfoy? It's Granger-Weasley."

Hermione had spent most of the afternoon being quite pleased with herself until she remembered that her and Ron had their healer's appointment at St Mungo's that evening. They had only seen each other once since the last appointment and it had been….stressful, to say the least. In the end she'd had to rush to the appointment and entered the healer's office, her robes ruffled, to see Ron already waiting for her.

The elderly witch shuffled the papers on her desk as Hermione sat down before fixing her with a long stare. Even the parrot, which normally seemed to chatter away happily to itself was silent and seemed to be eyeing her with hostility.

"Thank you for finding the time to join us."

Hermione couldn't be sure, as her face heated up, but she thought she heard Ron snigger softly next to her. She looked down to try and establish whether his foot was near enough to stamp on under the table.

Healer Madgwick steepled her wrinkled hands, "As I was explaining to your husband, I'll first perform a diagnostic spell on you, and then we'll discuss the results."

The medi-witch bade Hermione to lie on the bed behind the small screen made of silk scarves and explained the procedure to her, before scanning her wand slowly over her stomach. Hermione could smell the sweet floral fragrance wafting from the witch's robes – bright orange beaded silk today, and tried not to smile too widely when the tip of the her wand glowed a fiery red.

She hopped down off the bed, her face a mask of smug satisfaction, and was back in her chair before the older witch had finished commiserating her for the negative pregnancy result.

"It's likely nothing to worry about, most people don't get pregnant on their first try."

"When you say "try"…" Ron trailed off, the tips of his ears blazing as he glanced at Hermione. Hermione's foot inched closer to his as she shot him a furious glare in return. Did the man really have no idea when to keep his mouth shut?

Healer Madgwick leaned in closer, affecting a sympathetic expression, "Have you been having difficulties, Mr Weasley?" Hermione saw her wand twitch and a pamphlet entitled 'Erectile dysfunction – when your wand won't behave', and rolled her eyes.

"What Ron's trying to say is that it would be impossible for me to be pregnant," she admitted, Gritting her teeth in frustration.

The healer's eyebrows almost disappeared into her grey, frazzled hair, "Have you been having regular intercourse?"

"No, you didn't tell us to. Were we supposed to?" Hermione's voice was even and sweet, innocence painted thickly across her face but she sat up slightly straighter.

The healer looked confused, as she flicked rapidly through her notes "I'm quite sure I would have…"

"You said to "do what newlyweds do". They were your exact words. If you'd like to fetch a pensieve, I could show you," Hermione could practically hear Snape's voice in her ear, dripping poison, calling her a pedant, a know it all swot. She had even made the air quotes with her fingers.

Healer Madgwick's voice was dangerously calm, a shark swimming through untroubled waters, "Well, what did you think I meant?"

"We went to Ikea. And had an argument." Hermione sat back in the chair, her arms folded in satisfaction.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, and seeming to have quite forgotten the purpose of their appointment, Ron turned to her accusatorially, "So did that sideboard fit?"

"Yes," she stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him as she felt heat spread up the back of her neck.

"Without a shrinking spell?" he demanded.

"That's hardly relevant!"

The healer cleared her throat and all evidence of the twinkly-eyed grandmotherly figure was gone. She cleared her throat and shook back her sleeves "Four of my staff called in sick today, I'm facing budget cuts that would make your eyes water, and there's a witch in the next room who seems to think I am going to just magic her baby out of her, despite the fact that she's 9cm dilated and in full blown labour. Now did either of you happen to read my name plate on the way in?"

"Calla Madgwick, Reproductive Head Healer," Hermione recited stiffly as Ron craned his neck to try and read it.

"Right," her croaky voice was raised, "Not marriage Councillor. Not flat pack furniture assembly assistant, or Jackass, as you seem to think. Now let me make myself clear – in order to comply with the law and prevent me reporting you to the Ministry, you need to be having regular intercourse."

"Define regular," Hermione asked, in a tone that she reserved for asking Umbridge questions about defence against the dark arts, or when someone at work infuriated her well past her last nerve snapping, "Because science, proper muggle science, none of this wizarding shit says that an egg lasts up to 24 hours after ovulation, whereas sperm can live up to five days. So one might call weekly intercourse regular if one was wishing to stand a fighting chance of getting pregnant. However some people might see an annual shag as regular. I'm guessing you don't just want me to treat Ron on his birthday and at Chrismas? How often should my husband and I fuck? Please tell me because it's absolutely everyone else's business!"

As she spat out the words, she heard a popping sound that she only vaguely registered as the glass jars on a shelf at the other side of the office smashing in time with her words. With the greatest of efforts, she dragged her magic back to her core and swallowed down the dizzingly metallic taste of it on her tongue. It had been years since she had had a display of accidental magic that bad. The silence in the room after her outburst was punctuated only by a steady dripping of something out of the fractured jars onto the floor.

Calla Madgwick sank her head into her hands, her voice muffled, "Just get out."

oOoOoOo

"Blimey Hermione!" Ron looked at her in awe as the lift doors shut and they began their descent back to the lobby.

"What?" she snapped, still fuming. Paperwork had engulfed them as they exited the office, flapping round their heads like a cloud of angry birds, presumably sent by that old crone, Madgwick, as Hermione was now thinking of her. They had had to trot to the lift to outrun it.

"Well, I'd kind of forgotten how scary you could be."

"Oh – sorry," she assumed he was talking about the breaking glass and how she had thrown a glass beaker at him in their fight, "It was an accident."

"No, I quite liked it!" he grinned, bumping her gently with his hip as they reached the busy reception, "It made me wonder what day of the week we might be starting on."

Hermione stared deadpan at him for a long moment before smacking him on the arm, "Ron!" she laughed, not sure whether to be outraged or flattered. Her laugh faded away when he grabbed her hand, his eyes wide and pleading.

"Come for a drink with me - there's a wizarding pub over there. Don't tell me you've got to go back to work, it's half five already."

She swallowed hard. She wasn't sure what he had been going to say, but she wasn't expecting that. Something in his expression told her that any other answer than agreement would not be accepted, "Ok," she followed him across the road to the Newt's Head.

Hermione blinked hard as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the pub. It was a study in darkness and dirtiness – sludgy coloured walls were littered with grimy portraits, their hosts all peering myopically through the layer of dirt on the canvas. One portrait was even trying to clean his painting from the inside. The ceiling may once have been white but now had a curious marbled effect that Hermione guessed to be a mixture of staining from pipe smoke and hex burns. The black flagstone floor felt gritty underfoot and the small amount of light coming through the windows highlighted the sticky sheen of grease on the table tops.

Making a mental note to never agree to get a bite to eat there after one of their appointments at St Mungo's, Hermione approached the bar with Ron.

"Firewhisky?" He asked her, and waited for her to nod in response and turned to the barmaid to place their order.

Hermione tried not to notice when the barmaid – who was, she supposed grudgingly, quite pretty, in an unwashed sort of way – ran her fingertips over the back of Ron's hand and giggled at him, even though all he had done was to ask for two firewhiskies. She busied herself with finding a table and making a show of scourgifying the seat whilst the girl flirted unnecessarily with her husband.

"She's friendly," Ron grinned, with a last glance at the barmaid, as he slid the glass over the table to her.

Hermione scowled at him, her arms crossed over her chest, "I thought she was going to climb over the bar and stick her tongue down your throat. Not that I'd care, but it's not very professional on her part."

Ron's face dropped and he took a double take at the bar, where the barmaid was now polishing glasses with a filthy rag, smiling sweetly at him as she did it, "Are you – you don't think she fancied me do you? But I'm married!"

"Ron, you were Witch Weekly's second most eligible bachelor. Even Harry was only number three! You must know that women fancy you. Besides, she didn't look the sort that a man being married would be much of a disincentive," she sniffed.

Ron hummed a non-committal response, looking a little pink, and took a deep sip from his glass. For a few minutes they drank in silence. Hermione felt the drink heating her from the inside, and some of the tension caused by the healer's appointment, and watching her husband get pawed (not that she cared, of course she didn't, it was just that it would look very bad if photos got into the Prophet) started to ebb away.

Ron looked as though he was going to say something, then stopped himself, then seemed to steel himself once more, "So are you going to tell me why you've gone all funny ever since the honeymoon?"

Hermione took a deep breath, the firewhisky lending her the bravery that she needed, "I'm scared."

She had expected Ron to be confused or nervous but he just laughed, "Is that it? You think I'm not?"

"You think I'm being a bitch?" she demanded

Ron held his hands up in front of him, pre-emptively defensive, "I think that your feelings - that I'm sure are far more complex than mine due to you being able to overthink absolutely everything and me… well, emotional range of a teaspoon are making you seem like a bit of a ….bitch. I get that it's scary, having a kid and all. I mean, Ginny and Harry are flapping about it, George is terrified about having one and he's already got one."

"It's not that – well, it is that a bit. I feel too young, and scared I won't be any good at it, and I'm not ready to give up work. I always thought I would have children one day but that was a nebulous future rather than the very real present. And there's the added worry that I'll likely end up as a single parent when the law's overturned. But….it's you," she knew she sounded heartless as the words tumbled out of her mouth and she wished instantly she could put them back in, just bite back those little words out of existence.

Ron looked down at himself in surprise, as if he were searching for some mark, some sign of what he had done wrong, "Me? What have I done?"

"Nothing. It's me. It's all too fast. It's too much,"

"I thought you said it was me, or is this one of these it's not you, it's me things," his expression hardened. It was a look she hadn't seen since school – it made her almost expect him to ask her if it was because she was hoping that Vicky would come and rescue her.

She tried to tell him the things she had read up on when she had returned, panicked to her house after the honeymoon, "Listen Ron, when you have sex, chemicals are released that tricks the body into feeling….it's a perfectly natural response, to trigger the nesting phase. That's all it is, I'm sure. I just don't want things to get confused between us," that sounded good. She almost wanted to get her wand out to conjure up a blackboard so she could draw up some of the names of the hormones, maybe a few diagrams. And yet Ron crumpled before her eyes.

"Ok, so you're worried in case I get my hopes up. "Don't forget Ron, this is just business, don't get carried away thinking we might actually have a real relationship". Well don't worry, message understood loud and clear. I'll be sure not to cuddle you after we fuck or anything else that might make you uncomfortable," he snapped nastily, draining the last of his drink before unfolding his long legs from under the table and standing to leave. Hermione saw the barmaid's head snap up from the magazine that she was reading, looking disappointed that Ron was going.

"Stop it!" she grabbed a handful of his robes and pulled him back down into his seat, as she shook her head in despair, "Oh, I'm not explaining myself very well, I know. I'd accepted that we were never going to see each other again, that things were over between us. That was a fact. And I'm good with facts. This – whatever this is…"

"Marriage," he supplied, reaching across the table to grasp the tips of her fingers with his own, his face downturned as he watched their entwined hands, "I know you probably think I'm naïve, or thick, but I think of it as a marriage. I know you don't feel the same. It might not be what either of us were hoping for but I will stick to my commitments."

"This marriage – I don't know how it's going to go. There isn't a book for this," she pulled her hand away from his and began tracing the grain of the table with her index finger. He stood back up and at first she thought he was going to leave again. She didn't make any attempt to stop him but he was just heading to the bar to get fresh drinks for the pair of them. Hermione didn't even want to give house room to the way her heart leapt like an excited puppy when she saw Ron being as business-like as he could with the barmaid without being downright rude, and she had to keep her eyes downcast as he returned to the table and sat back down next to her, in case she got the giggles at the way the girl had flounced off to the back room after serving him.

"Well so far things are going ok. We're friends? I'd like to think of that at least," he tilted up her downcast face, and smiled hopefully at her, an action that she returned easily, her heart swelling with affection for her dear friend, one side of the triangle that meant more to her than her life in isolation. She smiled back, unable to resist the way that the corners of his eyes crinkled up.

"You don't save someone from a twelve foot mountain troll, and then marry them to help them avoid a sticky situation with the ministry without being friends, I'd like to think," she agreed warmly.

"And look at us now, having a drink together, in a pub, unchaperoned. This is almost like a date. I know you're more used to Spagnolio's or places like that now but this will have to do. Is this scary?"

Hermione ignored the mention of Spagnolio's, not allowing the tiny barb to find its mark, "I suppose it isn't entirely horrible. But it's all the other stuff. The sex stuff. I don't know how you can be so calm about it."

"Well I don't find the idea of you entirely horrible. And even I'm not so insecure to think that you would have gone out with me for years and find me repulsive. So perhaps that side of things won't be too bad. And maybe you won't get pregnant yet – it can take some people years. Why don't we try and get along as best we can for now so that when you do get knocked up, we stand a halfway chance of not killing each other. And if you start feeling those chemicals, or whatever, just remind yourself how I used to leave my socks all over the bedroom floor, or toothpaste in the sink, and I'm sure they'll pass."

"I thought I was supposed to be the clever one," she laughed.

"You're welcome. Just don't go all ice queen on me again."

Hermione swirled the amber liquid around in the bottom of her tumbler, "I'll try not to but just give me some time to…thaw. It took us six years to even kiss last time. I just need a bit longer to get my head round this. We can't all have the same zen-like calm that you have."

"I told you – a lot of self-help books. But yes, ok, I'll give you some space. Other than the obvious – I reckon if we go back next month without having shagged, she'll make us do it there and then on her desk. So, err, how are we going to go about it?"

"Well today's Tuesday so…are you free on Monday nights?" she picked the furthest away date possible, to give herself a week to overthink it, to plan it meticulously until it became nothing more than a mechanical act, devoid of any feelings or those pesky hormones. Because that had been so successful the first time they had tried on their honeymoon, she chided herself for her cowardice.

"That's our pub quidditch team practice night. Fridays?"

Hermione considered her schedule carefully, "I go out with the girls from work sometimes."

"Well weekends are out now George has buggered off, that's the busiest time in the shop," Ron grumbled, his face clouding over again just at the thought of how his brother had left him in the lurch. Ginny had told her that Ron had blocked the floo in the shop so that if George wanted to talk to him, he had to apparate back from America each time.

"Oh well I'm sure we can slot it in somewhere - oh shut up." She dug her elbow into Ron's ribs as he sniggered childishly, and swung her hair around to hide the smile on her face. She had missed his silliness so much. She allowed herself - when they were a couple - to dream of them growing old, of him making embarrassing dad jokes that their children would groan at, of him and Harry pulling pranks on each other that lasted decades. His tendency towards the ridiculous, a toned down version of Fred and George's, which had started to emerge once they weren't under the constant stress of war, balanced out her tendency to be overly serious perfectly and once he was gone she had felt its loss keenly. Its absence ached like a phantom limb on evenings when she got home to her empty house, too late and nursing a tension headache, after a hard day at work. One day she had got home after a five hour meeting with the head of the Goblin Liason Office to find that he'd brought every pygmy puff home from the shop and made her sit on the floor and play with them until she was smiling and had forgotten anything about goblin rights.

They finished their drinks and Hermione promised to owl the next day with her availability. As she pulled her coat collar up around her neck, she turned and took one last look at her husband's retreating form and wondered whether she should have just invited him home with her. Batted her eyelashes and offered him a nightcap. That wasn't really her style though – that was more for the type of girls that threw themselves at him, for barmaids in grimy pubs desperate for a brush with fame. She shook her head slightly at her own foolishness, before trudging down the rain soaked street, trying to remember if she needed to get another tin of cat food for Crookshanks before she got home.