My apologies, sincere and long, for this very delayed update. It is due to health and family tragedies. Hopefully, this year, updates will be more regular.

Alpha'd by jamethiel

Beta'd by Pidanka and jamethiel

Tumblr is the best place to reach me under the name stargazing121

A prince must try and avoid, above all else, being despised and hated; and generosity results in your being both.

– The Prince, Niccoló Machiavelli

"When you say we have fourteen crates of boomslang leaves sitting on the Liverpudlian docks, wasting away like Gilderoy Lockhart's Magical Me, what exactly do you mean?" Draco's voice resonated along the length of his wand, the tip of which was pressed to his throat like a mugger's knife. The magic connection was strong, and each word would be reaching the ears of his employee with punctuating clarity.

"The boat never showed," Jones said. "We're waitin' on Aberknocky. Again."

Guild Aberknocky – self-professed honest trader and transporter of magic goods – was tardy as a general rule. He and his crew always seemed to have been caught in a broom jam, struck down by a bad case of the pixies, or had grandmothers' funerals to attend. Sometimes as many as three or four per person. Draco shuddered to think of their family trees.

However, beggars couldn't be choosers, and since Kelpie King had reduced his contact with him to a divorcee seeking alimony, he, Draco Malfoy, was something of a beggar. A well-dressed beggar, at least.

"Did you try and contact Mr. Aberknocky?" Draco rubbed at his wedding ring with his thumb. It was becoming a habit, and he would probably soon wear the gold down like a miser.

"Nothing," Jones said. "We've got a couple of shipments of troll hides coming in by the hour. We need to move these leaves to make room for the new stock."

"Understood." Draco stood and strode to the fireplace in his office. The black marble reflected the flickering blue of the fire which smouldered in the grate like some slumbering dragon. "Go back to the docks, and I'll sort something." He wasn't sure what he was going to sort. Some serious wand work might need to occur, but the company's entire profit margin for the month would be buggered if that shipment was left to rot.

Draco severed the connection and reached for the floo powder –

"Where are you going?"

Her voice was as lilting and as lovely as an angel's. An angel with a nasty habit of insulting and ignoring him, but who was he to look on the face of heaven.

"I am afraid," he said, not looking around, "that I have some urgent business to attend to."

"We have an appointment."

He did turn around then, and, as he'd imagined, her lips were pursed and her brows narrowed. Oh, how she did hate it when he was late. Particularly when he was meant to come.

"I know it is our appointed time," he said. "But, I truly must be going."

"We must –"

"Must we?"

"Yes," she said.

"We have not been intimate in almost two weeks," he said and laid a hand on the freezing mantelpiece, his fingers tracing the serpentine carvings. "I fail to see how a few more hours would make any difference."

"I checked my temperature before coming here." Her fingers lingered with the button of her jacket. She popped it, and the jacket fell open to reveal a plain white blouse.

He could see the lace of her bra through the material. He knew that bra. He'd watched her snap the clasp open and slide the straps down her arms, leaving streaks of red where they'd been resting on her shoulders.

Her nipples would harden, and his mouth would water, and then she'd bend over something – anything – and he'd shag her to his oblivion.

His eyebrow travelled upwards. "And your temperature was?"

"High enough for me to estimate that I am ovulating."

"You will still be ovulating this evening, correct?"

"Now is the optimal time."

"For you, maybe. For me, however," he clicked his tongue, "not so much."

"I –"

"No." He thrust his fingers into the onyx jar of floo powder.

"We have an agreement," the annoyance caught her voice, breaking its angelic chorus.

"I will fuck you tonight."

His turn of phrase worked, and her hand, which had been playing with the top button of her blouse, fell.

He smirked. "If you lie with your legs spread, Granger, when I come back, I can slip right in." He turned around. "Camden Lock."

Her face was a Van Gogh of outrage as the flames swirled and roared around him.

"I'd say it's a fuckin' pleasure, but I'd be lying."

"We would never want that, Mister King."

Kelpie gave Draco a filthy look from between his stubble-like lashes. "You're a cheeky bastard ain't you."

"According to my wife," Draco said and refrained from touching a hand to his forelock, "I'm just a bastard."

Kelpie grunted in response.

Both men – well, both individuals of the male gender, Draco couldn't be sure of Kelpie's species – watched the canal boats start their journey up Regent's Canal.

"How long?" Draco said, tucking a hand into the lined pocket of his cashmere-blend coat.

"Three days. Up in Liverpool, the tug-boats can bring your stock down the midlands, but unloading onto the canal boats" – he gestured one massive hand up the canal stream – "will take a bit of time."

Draco sighed, and the warmth of this breath ticked the frozen end of his nose.

Unfortunately, his nose wasn't frozen enough to stop his sense of smell. He was getting an undertone of mildew, with hints of dankness and sewage. A smell which he couldn't quite describe, but it reminded him of one time, in the height of summer, when the Slytherin common rooms had been flooded by a blocked toilet. Of course, it all made sense when it was found that Potter had made a bit of a mess in the Chamber of Secrets.

Sodding Potter.

"I understand," Draco said, sucking in another reluctant breath.

"That'll you got to say?"

"I would add that it's a pleasure doing business with you again –"

"– But you'd be fuckin' lyin'."

"Exactly."

Draco did not normally feel the pressure of silences or wilt when subjected to an impressive stare, but under the black-eyed gaze of Kelpie King, he felt his usual cool composure melt just a little.

"Thank you," Draco said, his mouth wrapping around the words like a boa constrictor around the neck of a gazelle.

Kelpie made another non-committal and almost non-human noise. "How's the missus?"

"Not killed me yet."

"More's the pity."

"Give it time." Draco's breath fanned in the air as he chuckled. "She will be the death of me."

"Better you than her." Kelpie pulled a trademark cigar from the depths of his coat. "You goin' fuck off now, Malfoy?"

"Of course." Draco stamped his feet. "It's bloody freezing here, and I have no intention of hanging around." Kelpie's impressive bulk blocked out the sun, but the weak rays highlighted the blotched redness of the giant's face. "I don't have your…insulation to combat the winter."

Kelpie ignored Draco's insult as if it was below him to exchange repartee with the likes of a Malfoy. "I want my money by the weekend."

"Yes, yes. Or else. I more than understand the implications."

Kelpie took a bite out of the cigar, and the scent of tobacco only added to the cacophony of smells that emitted from Camden Lock. And indeed from Kelpie himself.

"If you don't fuck this up, Malfoy, I'll see a way of picking up a shipment or two from you." Kelpie's teeth were stained, and one tooth was entirely missing as he smiled down at Draco. "For a very reasonable price."

"I am on my merry way to Liverpool to ensure there is no fucking up." Draco's feet skidded the gravel as he walked towards the iron railings which led into the market. "See you in three days, King."

"With the money."

"With the money," Draco replied, but not loud enough for Kelpie to hear.

He still struggled to think of the house in Guildford as 'their house'. To him, it was 'her house'. Perhaps it always would be. Considering she intended to hump and dump him the moment she had what she wanted, she would probably consider it to be only a good thing that he didn't feel at home in the place where he slept, ate, and for all intents and purposes lived.

Like the profile of a ruling monarch on a coin, there was a certain Granger-like stamp to the whole house. This wasn't in a plethora of obnoxious red furnishings, or in the obscene amount of books, or even in the magical-muggle kitchen appliances which she used with the ease of a duo-world witch.

No. Her house was so quintessentially hers for entirely different reasons.

It was in the vase on the hallway table. Obviously hand-painted with a pattern of snowdrops, but by someone who had some skill with a brush. Their fat drooping heads were cracked and slightly yellowing with age. She'd placed the vase precisely in the middle of the table, and it was backdropped by a large mirror, and he could see the chip in the lip. A triangle which revealed the baked terracotta underneath. Its mere brokenness suggested that she had had this vase before magic. If he was any judge – and why not, he was sleeping with her after all – it probably was painted by a relative, most likely her mother or grandmother given the floral patterning.

Entirely sentimental and entirely muggle. The wizard world lacked such things as cheap broken vases. If something broke, it was either magicked all better, sent to be repaired by a specialist, or replaced. Replaced was often the easier option with such things. There were always newer models or more attractive designs to choose from.

She was also in the worn but disused cat basket he'd found in the chest in her living room.

He could see her in the armchair – one side discoloured and slightly pitted where she leant her elbow while reading.

She was in the smell of burnt toast when he opened the door that night.

She had a perfectly good and working toaster, which she seemed incapable of using. That, or she really enjoyed burnt, charcoal black and flaky toast. With butter that sat like yellow globes of fat on a volcanic landscape. Disgusting.

"Good evening," he said as he walked into her kitchen.

Her reception was chilly, even as she sat at the kitchen table in front of a steaming cup of tea and a black crumb littered plate. "Evening," she said through pursed lips.

He picked up the kettle, weighing it to see how much water was left before deciding there was enough. He flicked it on.

"How was your day?" he said, leaning on the counter to face her.

"Fine." She took a sip of tea. Her face was scrubbed clean, and her hair was pulled back with a band. She looked impossibly young. And impossibly angry.

"I have been in Liverpool." He was met with silence. "There was a problem with a shipment."

For someone who owned a country estate in Wiltshire and clung to the south of the country with his manicured fingernails, he'd spent far too much time in the smog-filled industrial city that was Liverpool.

Traditionally a trading city with its vast docksides and storage facilities, Liverpool's docks were more industrial-sized than the closer port cities of Bristol or Plymouth, yet not in the same price bracket as the capital.

The people of Liverpool were almost as a holiday compared with Wiltshire farmers. The pitchforks were proverbial at least, and the guns almost non-existent. However, both peoples were very comparable with their indecipherable accents. Fortunately, Liverpudlians preferred to let gesticulations to do the work of words.

For instance, Guild Aberknocky had taught him a new way to say the word 'tosser' by just using three fingers. Far more efficient than the two-handed gesture Draco had employed first.

"I have had to sever ties with a business associate," Draco said as he poured the boiling water into a cup. He didn't have the patience to properly brew his Earl Grey blend and was making do with the builders-strength Yorkshire tea which Granger kept for emergencies. "But everything was amicably sorted in the end."

Aberknocky's eye had been darkening to an attractive shade of midnight blue when Draco had left him that afternoon.

Draco had done a fairly good job at healing the bruises on his own ribs, but he was sure they'd be aching in the morning. Aberknocky liked to wear a couple of heavy rings – a trick to replicate illegal brass knuckles – and the effect on skin and bone was similar.

"Fine."

He poured milk into his tea and drank deeply. It scorched his tongue and tasted like recycled cardboard, but it contained caffeine and would hopefully heat up his insides. His extremities were done for. He was unsure if one could get frostbite in November purely from being beyond the M4, but all his appendages were feeling the cold.

Only half an hour ago he'd been overseeing the installation of the boomslang leaves onto the tugboats to be run down the country to where Kelpie King's barges waited like...well, not with open arms, but certainly a lukewarm handshake.

Draco was going to have to compensate King in some way. Not money, however. Kelpie would see it as bribery – which wasn't an incorrect assessment – if Draco added a few tons to the payment. He would have to be more creative and subtle with his inducements.

He might have asked his wife for a suggestion, but she was glaring at him with almost murderous intent.

"Are you going to bed?" he asked, feigning conversation.

"I was about to."

"I am touched," he said, crooking his mouth into a smile he knew she found irritating, "that you were waiting up."

"I'm ovulating."

"Ah, I forgot. Thank Merlin it is for that reason, and not for any concern for my general health and wellbeing."

"Fine." Her chair made a sound like a screaming banshee as she stood up. "I am going to bed." Without sparing him a second glance, she walked out of the kitchen.

The tea sloshed over his hand in his haste as he thumped it on the counter and ran after her. "What, no sex, Granger?" he said. His goading tone was undermined by his breathlessness.

The brown of her eyes ignited with amber as she looked back at him, one hand on the banister in such a dramatic pose he wondered if she'd planned it.

"It's late," she announced, her foot rising to climb the stairs.

"I know it's late. I have travelled up and down the length of the country, depleting my energy and magic, and all to make it back to you this evening." He undid the tie of his coat and hung it on the stand beside the table in the hall. "Now," he said, lowering his lashes, "shall I fuck you here or upstairs?"
Her hand tightened where it held the banister, and her eyes narrowed as she took him in. He looked travel-worn, but he liked to think he carried it off with some rugged debonairness with his rolled-up sleeves and wind-swept hair.

"My preference would be here," he said. "I've had a long days work. I wouldn't want to dirty the sheets."

"Down here, then. I don't care." She threw him a look of acid as she walked back towards the kitchen again. "Just be quick."

"Granger," he patted the table to make his point, "I said here."

"Reparo."

There was a tinkling as the shards of painted pottery came together.

"I really am very sorry," Draco said as he passed the newly repaired vase to Hermione. "Scourgify." The water disappeared, and he bent down once again to retrieve the purple thistles that had been haphazardly arranged in the vase. He held them out to her, but her hands and eyes were occupied by the vase, or more accurately the triangle missing from the vase.

"I am sure I can find a way to repair that also?" He placed the thistles on the table. Her fingerprints had smudged the polished top; when she'd come, she'd run her hands down the table, and the lines blemished the wood like water drops. "I am aware it was broken before… just now. However, I know a wizard in Edinburgh who specialises in paint and art repairs. He could be of some help."

He was aware he was gibbering like a moron.

"My mother used to use this spell: I believe it was a version of a mending charm but contained elements of a time spell –"

Yet he could not quite bring himself to stop.

"– I can owl her in the morning and ask."

"It's really fine." She put the vase down with the chip to the wall. "It broke years ago."

"Before you found out you were a witch?"

She nodded, and her hair fell in front of her face. His eyes flicked to the mirror where he could see a shard of her face, shadowed in the dusky light from the open kitchen door. She was naked from the waist down, and there was a red line across the tops of her thighs from where he'd pressed her into the table.

"You didn't come?" she said, her curls bouncing as she turned her face towards him.

"No. I didn't. Breaking your wife's family heirlooms tends to do that to a wizard."

She smiled at that. Or, at least, her mouth unbent from its poker straightness. "It's not an heirloom."

"Oh, I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "Hand-painted, authentically broken, and obviously full of secrets. I can only wonder at what this vase has seen. Is that not the very definition of a family heirloom?"

"You probably know more about that," she said, meeting his eyes in the reflection of the mirror. Her dark eyes were sucking at the light, turning them into deep vats of dark chocolate. The type of chocolate which had a high cocoa percentage and came wrapped in gold foil with labels embossed with such words as 'luxurious', 'tempting', and 'delicious'.

He bit his lip. "Indeed."

"We should go upstairs."

"To sleep?" he said, posing the question in a hushed voice.

"No."

"Draco?"

He made some sort of noise into his pillow.

"Draco?"

He managed to turn his head in the direction of her voice. The effort was extreme, and he thought he'd need a week to recover.

"Are you going for a run?"

He opened one eye, regretted it, and immediately shut it again.

"Because if you are, would you mind picking me up a paper?"

"We have one delivered," was what he intended to say, but it came out as something significantly less coherent.

"A Muggle paper," Hermione's tone could only be described as long-suffering. "There's an article on contemporary child-raising that I want to read."

Draco rolled onto his back and slung his arm over his eyes. "What's the time?"

"Just past seven."

"Fine." He stuck a leg outside of the duvet and wiggled his toes in the air. It was freezing outside the cocoon of their bed. He was about to retreat and give up on the idea of a run. It was too cold, and by the gods he'd gotten enough exercise yesterday.

"Get up."

"I am up," said Draco, rolling over and snuggling more deeply into her side. She was warm and smelled of jasmine. He skimmed his hand up her ribs.

"Now," Hermione said, and Draco wasn't quite quick enough to move out of the way of her elbow.

So much for morning glory.

He was sweating like a proverbial pig when he entered the corner shop close to Granger's house. The bell gave a tinny ring, and the older man behind the counter gave the prerequisite look and nod as Draco walked in.

His eyes scanned the rows of magazines and Muggle publications without really taking them in. The glossy facades and static smiling men and women seemed to blur into a cacophony of colour and light reflection. Fixed smiles and glassy eyes.

For someone who had grown up being pushed and presented by equally pushing and presentable parents, he was uncomfortable with the notion of the smile. Fake was too strong a word, but the smile that he had had to craft onto his rather overly pale and pointed face wasn't from any genuine feeling. Which is probably why he'd mutated it into a smirk, or later, a sneer. It was so much easier to deal with people if they automatically were on the backfoot. At least he always knew where he stood.

It had been a skill he'd needed to cultivate; rather like a dog would sniff for truffles or narcotics. He would not even now say that he'd mastered the smile quite to the same standard which he had the sneer. Maybe his mouth just curved better that way.

He felt his upper lip pull in that familiar fashion as he spotted the paper his wife had named after she'd delicately nudged him in the ribs.

There was a fucking baby on the front cover.

He thought of the word baby on the same spectrum as the terms: socialism, erectile dysfunction and vasectomy.

All made his testicles want to curl up inside of him and die.

Here he was, a man in his prime, having the most sex he could dream of – and he'd dreamed up some pretty fantastical sums – and all he wanted was to have an actual conversation with his wife.

Just a sliver of normal, nice, friendly chat about...Merlin, he'd even take the weather about now. He could just imagine her look of incredulity turn to one of suspicion if he started harping on about how chilly this winter was, and could she remember the last time they'd had one this icy. She would undoubtedly bark back something about her camping in Scotland at seventeen and he should try that for cold.

Cold. Gods, she was. Glacial in temperament and feeling. As impenetrable as one too, with her haughty looks which he felt he had to scale to even be at the same level as her.

He'd been married to her – working on her for months now – and he was still waiting for her to thaw. Not even when she was dripping on his hand or around his cock did she seem to mislay her frosty temperament.

Did she enjoy it, watching him sweat and scramble up the foothills of Mount Granger? He'd think he had his hand securely on her, when she'd shift, and he'd be groping for an edge. Anything to gain a purchase to which he might ascend.

She'd obviously enjoyed them fucking last night and wanted him enough to stay up waiting. Wanted him enough to allow him to bend her over a table. It had to mean something? Or was he simply being reduced to a fuck?

He grabbed the paper and folded it to slice the bouncing baby in half. The other side of the paper was much more appealing and spoke of a number of art gallery thefts which had taken place all over Europe. The article regarding the theft of antiquities and oils was significantly preferable to paragraphs which read of the thrilling topics of being a single mother in suburban London or the unexpected perils of breastfeeding: chafing and cracking.

He tried not to scowl at the shop owner as he juggled for loose change in his not so loose running shorts but probably failed.

The winter air hit him like a slap, and he could almost feel the sweat freeze in the furrows on his brow with the precipitate change in temperature.

He was fucking her lazily.

Not in the sense of 'he was a lazy fuck' – he had too much professional pride for that – but his heart just wasn't in it, even if his dick was.

He wasn't even having to do much. His only function was to hold the back of her waist as she rode him backwards on their sofa. It was more to steady her rather than control her tempo or angle.

"Are you close?" she asked, grinding her pelvis into his for what felt like the umteenth time.

"My dear," he said, "if words could only describe how distant my ejaculation is, then I would employ them."

She stopped her hips so suddenly he was surprised he didn't hear a cartoon crashing sound.

"Excuse me?" Her back straightened as she rose off his cock and spun around.

"You're really not doing it for me today." As his hands were now empty, he placed them behind his head. "Maybe I'm growing bored of you." He stifled a yawn. "I cannot even recall a time I shagged the same person for a week, let alone more than three months."

"Are you suggesting that I should be flattered by your attention?" She stood before him. Her skirt was ridden up around her waist, and the insides of her thighs were red.

"Honoured might be a better synonym."

He thought she might hit him. Her hand clenched as if she was imagining it around his throat. Shame, because the movement reminded him more closely of when she was jerking him off.

He let his eyes wander downwards, towards his erection. "You could try sucking me off, Granger? A bit of peace and quiet would do my libido the world of good."

She did hit him then. To give her some credit, it was up to her usual calibre of slaps. Good entrance and a stinging exit.

He laughed as he tasted blood in his mouth and didn't stop until he heard the front door slam.

When they met for tea, Blaise and Draco indulged in all the usual common-place pleasantries: how are you, how is your ever so charming mother, can you believe the price of a case of Premier Cru Supérieur this year. The uneducated could say what they liked about Sauternes, but there is refinement to be found in sweet as well as dry, and Draco liked what he liked. Which was not to say he was not capable of appreciating a good Burgundy, but was that not what degustation meals were for? Draco could feel his nerves settle with the routine.

Then Zabini just had to go off script.

Blaise asked Draco how he was.

Draco said he was fine.

Blaise repeated the question.

Draco repeated his first answer, emphasising just how fine he was feeling by shrugging his shoulders as he sipped his Earl Grey tea with lemon.

Blaise said that if Draco insisted that he was 'fine' one more time, then he would knock his tea into his lap and everyone would think he had wet himself.

Draco raised an eyebrow and uttered one single word.

Fine.

"For fuck's sake, Zabini," Draco said while wiping down his sodden crotch with a napkin, "we're in Muggle London. I can't just magic this dry."

"You were warned." Zabini sipped his almost-full cup of chai tea.

Draco been letting the Earl Grey cool for the best part of ten minutes, which is the only reason he wasn't hopping about in pain like a vampire presented with a garlic vol-au-vent. He ignored the curious looks that the other patrons of the cafe were throwing him and concentrated on trying to stop the lukewarm liquid soaking through to his boxers. A task he was somewhat failing in, he considered, as his thighs dampened.

"You could apologise," Blaise said, resting his hand on the chair as if he hadn't just used it to tip Draco's tea into his lap.

"I could apologise to you?" Draco lowered his voice in what he hoped was a threatening manner. "Are you the one covered in tea?"

"Not to me, you ass. To your wife."

"I thought I shouldn't call her 'my wife'." The tea was cooling now and creating an uncomfortable wetness around his genitals. He would be unable to describe the sensation as erotic.

"Hermione Granger, then." Blaise threw Draco his napkin before continuing. "Not that I don't enjoy being surrounded by women, but she's been having an extended sleepover at my house, and I can't get a look in."

"I simply got tired of shagging her," Draco gave up and picked up his almost empty cup of tea. He turned the cup and thought he could make out some kind of insect shape at the bottom formed by the loose leaves.

Perhaps a beetle… no, it looked to be closer to a bee with its protruding wings.

Didn't all the male bees serve a single queen bee? The poor sods worked themselves to death either fucking the queen or collecting pollen for all the queen's bastard children, and then when they'd outlives their usefulness, they'd be castrated and left to die.

Draco grimaced at the cup.

Trelawney would be proud.

"Malfoy," Blaise said, and something in his tone made Draco look up. "I don't care what she did or you did. I actually don't give a flying fuck." Blaise dropped his cup into the saucer, and it spun like a top, splashing tea onto the table. "Get your shit sorted, or she'll never like you, let alone love you, and that's what you want isn't it? To be loved. You've always needed to be revered, validated for as long as I've known you. You're vain, and you're needy. They're some of your better qualities." Blaise stood up and grabbed his Burbury coat off the back of the chair. "She isn't going to give you that. So either suck it up, or move on."

"Why, Blaise," Draco crossed his legs, one foot balanced on his knee, "that was almost poetic."

Blaise didn't answer. He didn't bother to put on his coat. He just turned and left the shop, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

Zabini's storming off made even more people look at Draco. Which was fine – he adjusted his wet trousers – he enjoyed being the centre of attention.

He swallowed the dregs, and the leaves lingered, bitter in his mouth.

The Ministry of Magic had an oppressive amount of austerity in its interior design. The green marble walls which persisted throughout the cavernous building ensured even the well-lit corridors were shadowy. As his steps echoed off the arches, the marble, streaked with white, did nothing to mitigate his claustrophobia. Instead, the chalky veins crept up the walls like a parasitic infection on an ancient oak, choking and suffocating the life of the host tree.

It was almost a relief to reach Potter's office. Almost.

"Christ," Harry said on seeing Draco, "it's you. What do you want?"

"Please don't think this is a joy for me either," Draco said, draping himself, uninvited, over one of the chairs in front of Potter's desk.

"Not today, Malfoy." Harry rubbed a hand over his eyes, which were bloodshot and red-rimmed. "I've not slept in over thirty hours, so get on with what you have to say so I can go back to pretending you don't exist."

"I'd be delighted to," Malfoy said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his tone. "I need to visit my father."

Much to Draco's gratification, Harry's eyebrows shot up.

"Absolutely not," Harry said. "It was part of the terms of your release. You're not allowed to visit your father –"

"Yes, I know," Draco said, interrupting Harry before the pompous rant could begin. As if he didn't know the terms of his own release from Azkaban. "I am never to see my father again in case we have a cosy chat and conspire in some dark deeds. Believe me on this, if it was not a necessity, I would not be here requesting this of you."

"What's the necessity?" Harry said. It sounded as though he was grinding his teeth. He really should watch that – it caused dreadful headaches, thought Draco with the pristine conscience of one whose wife was the Muggleborn daughter of dentists, and who used dental-cleansing charms regularly.

He really shouldn't spend any more time here than necessary. That level of stress might be catching.

"I believe my father may be able to shed some light on what happened in Paris and…" his voice faltered.

"Berlin?" Harry said.

"Yes."

"I can't let you in to see him, but I can go myself."

Draco's snort was in equal parts derisive and condescending. "Do you think he'll tell you one shred of useful information?" He stood up, crossing his arms and glaring down at Harry. "He will not breathe a word of anything which might possibly incriminate him."
"And I suppose you'll have more success than I will?" Harry said, also standing up and copying Draco's stance. "Me, with the authority to make his life even worse."

"For fuck's sake, Potter. He's in Azkaban. Take it from someone who has had an extended stay there, it does not get more unpleasant."

"You can't see him," Harry said, reverting back to his original thesis.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I don't wish to see him. Nor do I wish to go anywhere near that place again. But my wife almost died," he pointed a finger at Harry, "on your watch, might I add, and I am not going to do nothing because of a mere Ministry formality."

"Your release and the conditions of wasn't a mere formality, Malfoy. It's a binding magical agreement."

"Then find a way to break it."

Harry thumped the desk, and an inkpot toppled over. The ink spilled and blackened the parchment-like blotting paper. "There is no way I'll be able to get you a private meeting with your father." Potter sounded resigned. He fished his wand out and cast a cleaning spell. Draco liked it when Potter sounded resigned; it was an indication that the world was in the proper order. "I'd have to petition the Ministry himself and go through the Wizengamot."

"Then do it, Potter."

"Malfoy," Harry looked up. It was as though someone had pinched a clothes peg to the back of his head. His face was white and tense; it looked as if there wasn't enough skin to stretch over his bones. "I need you to swear that you don't want to see your father for any other reason than Hermione."

"I am not."

"Swear it."

"I swear I am only requesting this because I want her to be safe."

Perhaps Draco had pitched the levels of sincerity correctly because Harry's shoulders sagged and some of the stiffness left his face.

"Okay," Harry said. "I'll try, but I think it'll take a while. I'll push it through with top priority, but we'll be lucky to hear back in a week."

"That's all I ask." Draco turned and walked to the door, resting his hand on the door handle. "Is she still here?"

"What?"

"At the Ministry? Is she still here." Draco glanced at the clock above the door. "It's past five."

"I imagine so. You know Hermione," Harry said, sitting back down and reaching for another piece of parchment, "she'd live at the Ministry if they hadn't given her an official warning about it."

"She would indeed," Draco said and quietly left the office.

Hermione's shoes were off, and her stockinged feet waved at Draco as he walked into her office.

"Jenkins," she said, not taking her eyes off the file she was reading, "have the reports from Paris arrived? I'd like to look over them before I head home."

"I hope by 'home' you are referring to the house we share," he said, shutting the door with a small click, "and not the residence of our closest friends?"

Hermione's feet slipped off the desk, and there was a bang as her ankle cracked on the wood. "What are you doing here?" she said with a slight hiss as she rubbed her bruised ankle.

He kept his walk slow as he approached her, stopping in front of her desk. "Can a man not visit his lovely wife?"

She scowled in a way that he saw so often it was becoming endearing.

"No," she said.

He tried for a different tack. "Is that any way to greet your husband?"

"Would you prefer I give it some thought?"

There was a pause as Draco mentally assessed his position, and he was suddenly very glad that there was a solid object acting as a barrier between him and his wife. "No. No. I rather think not."

"What do you want?"

"You."

Her mouth remained resolutely closed.

"I apologise –" he perched on the edge of her desk, looking down on her with what he hoped was a soft and benevolent expression "– unreservedly for the way I treated you."

What did all those men in Muggle movies do?

"I was crass, and rude, and demeaning."

Sacrifice themselves on the altar of dignity?

"I lashed out at you because of my own faults and failures."

Or something to that effect.

"I…" he sought desperately for something to say that might elicit a response from her. A response which wasn't apathy, which seemed to be all he was getting right now. "...I didn't mean what I said."

"Which bit?" she said, breaking her strike from speech.

"All of it." He tried to not let it sound like a question.

She sighed and reached down to fish her shoes out from under her desk. Slipping them on her feet, she said, "I understand that we're not the romance of the century –"

"Or any romance at all."

"– but it would help if you could treat me with a little courtesy."

"My dear." He took off his coat and laid it down on the carpet with a flourish. "Would that there were puddles that I could help you over."

She did look dreadfully tired, he noted. Dark circles under her eyes, and her hair had gone from 'fetchingly dishevelled' to 'Hollywood Wicked Witch of the West'.

"Can you cook tonight?"

"Yes, I can cook tonight. Every night, in fact. As your idea of food is microwaving a packed macaroni and cheese."

"Alright then."

She stepped on his coat on the way out. The Savile Row tailoring had never been seen such majestic and worthwhile service.

At least he was back on familiar ground now: he would tease her, and she would be a stroppy, tempestuous vixen, and then they'd have sex.

Peace was once again restored.

He wanted to kiss her. Not just because he wanted to kiss her in a general sense, but because he wanted to have a reason to close his eyes and shut out the way she was looking at him. Looking at him as if he was something to be overcome, like an exam or tricky diplomatic problem.

She was regarding him with the same critical gaze which she reserved for work, and he didn't want to see it.

He was leaning over her, her legs around his hips, and her back on the bed. Her breasts were threatening to spill over the cups of her bra, and he wished he could snake a hand around, snap the clasp, and yank the damn thing off. He would much rather concentrate his eyes on her breasts than her face. However, he didn't think verbalising this desire was going to do him any favours. Not when she'd only just acquiesced to sleep with him again.

He removed one of his hands from beside her head and felt between her legs. He would have normally run his hand down his partner's body. In this case, stopping to cup her breasts and touch the smooth curve of her waist to her hips; but as Hermione's and his sexual gratification was a secondary concern to the basic mechanics of sex for the purposes of conception, he kept his hands to himself.

She was wet. Wet enough that he mentally queried if she'd applied lubrication before stripping off. She kept very still as he inserted a finger inside of her and gave a few slow pumps.

"Hermione," he said, curling his finger, "relax. We've done this many, many times."

The likelihood was that if she did relax and let herself enjoy, then he was bound to come like a schoolboy who'd accidentally walked into what he thought was a deserted classroom only to find a couple of Ravenclaws at it. Not that he was thinking of anything in specific, of course.

"I don't find that reassuring," she said, her eyelids fluttering as he inserted another finger.

"You should do. Because I know that when I do this" – he curled both digits and pressed on her G-spot – "that you'll make a noise" – she did – "and if I keep doing that, each time my fingers thrust into you" – he did it again, to make his point – "then you'll have a wonderful time."

She did.

Five minutes later, his wife was a sweaty, shaking mess on the bed, and he no longer felt guilty about pressing his hips closer to hers and thrusting into her.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and tucked his chin into the crook of her neck.

She was too exhausted, too heady from pleasure to shove him off or protest at his familiar embrace.

"Gods," he said, his voice so low and whispery that he wondered if she could hear him, "I needed that." He stroked the smooth skin of her stomach. "I have been bereft without this." He lazily danced his fingers downwards and played with her.

She must have been over-sensitive because she hissed and shuffled her hips away from his.

He stopped, resting his hand on her stomach once more.