Chapter 2: Negotiations Over Whiskey and War Memories
The night air was a slap of cold reality. Draco Apparated not to the Ministry’s grand entry, but to a disregarded alcove near the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a spot he knew from too many late-night raids. The corridors were hushed, lit by the sparse, blueish glow of security orbs.
He knew where she’d be. Everyone knew Hermione Granger’s habits were as predictable as sunrise, and as relentless. If there was a legislative battle brewing, she’d be encamped at its epicenter, buried in parchment.
Her office door was ajar, a yellow wedge of lamplight cutting across the dark hallway. The scent hit him first: lavender polish, yes, but underneath it, the ozone-tang of active magic and the particular, dry smell of very old paper. He paused, his shadow falling across the threshold.
She was there, bent over her desk in a pool of light from a single, intensely focused lamp. Files were stacked with military precision, but the surface around her current project was a controlled storm. A massive tome lay open, showing intricate diagrams of lunar cycles. Six rolls of parchment were unfurled, weighted at the corners by empty teacups. Her hair was a chaotic corona in the low light, curls escaping a haphazard clip as she ran an ink-stained hand through it, muttering to herself.
Draco knocked on the doorframe, the sound unnaturally loud.
She didn’t startle. She simply stopped, her quill hovering above a clause. Then, slowly, she looked up.
Her eyes weren’t warm brown in this light. They were dark, sharp, and utterly devoid of surprise. It was as if his arrival was just another inconvenient fact to be processed.
“Malfoy.” Her voice was flat, roughened by the hour. “The Auror office is two floors down. If you’re lost, I’d suggest a Point-Me.”
“I’m not lost.”
He stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him. The click of the latch sealed them in. The hum he’d noticed earlier emanated from a thick, pulsating book propped on a stand—Advanced Troubleshooting in Cursed Contracts.
She leaned back in her chair, assessing him. He saw her take in the lack of Auror robes, the casual cut of his dark jacket, the tension in his shoulders. Her gaze was like a diagnostic spell. “Then you’re either here to arrest me for excessive use of footnotes, or you want something. Given the hour, I’m leaning toward the latter.”
Draco found he had to clear his throat. The eloquence he’d practiced in his head on the walk over had vaporized. “I have a proposition.”
One eyebrow arched. “How novel. From you, it usually involves an insult and a departure.”
“This is different.” He remained standing, feeling absurdly like a supplicant before a judge. He gestured to the parchment. “It’s about your work. And mine.”
“Your work involves tracking Dark artifacts and rounding up the occasional rogue Boggart. My work involves rewriting centuries of institutionalized prejudice. The overlap seems minimal.”
“It’s about legacy,” he forced out. The word tasted bitter. “Family legacy. Specifically, mine.”
Hermione’s expression didn’t change, but she set her quill down with deliberate care. She said nothing, just waited. It was more unnerving than any interruption.
He laid it out. Not gracefully. He used words like “entail,” “bloodline magic,” and “disinheritance,” clinical terms that couldn’t fully cloak the raw humiliation beneath. He mentioned the deadline. He did not mention his father’s silence or his mother’s quiet desperation. Those were his to carry.
When he finished, the only sound was the faint hum of the book. Hermione had not moved a muscle.
“Let me summarize,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. “To save your family fortune and your ancestral home, you need to marry a witch of a certain magical… caliber. And you’ve somehow arrived at my doorstep.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the only one the magic would accept without question.”
“Flattering,” she said, and the word was an icicle. “So this is a business proposal. A merger. You get your legacy. What, precisely, do I get? The honor of being Mrs. Malfoy? A set of monogrammed towels?”
“Access,” Draco said, latching onto Blaise’s logic like a lifeline. He took a step closer, his shadow merging with the pool of light on her desk. “Unrestricted access to the Malfoy library. The Black family library, which is now entailed to the main estate. Including the Grimoires. The real ones, not the sanitized versions in the Ministry archives.”
He saw it. A flicker in her eyes, a minute dilation of her pupils. He’d hit the mark.
She stood up slowly, turning to face the bookshelf behind her, presenting him with her back. It was a show of either profound disregard or a need to hide her reaction. “The Black Family Grimoire is reputed to contain unique anthropological records of pre-statute lycanthropic packs,” she said, as if to herself. “It could be pivotal for establishing precedent on pack sovereignty.”
“It’s yours. Full access. To all of it.”
She turned back. “And politically? Your name is still poison in many of the Wizengamot’s older circles, but it is also a key. A key to doors currently locked to me.”
“I would leverage it. For your causes. Publicly.”
“Financially?”
“Name a sum. Or better, name a cause. I’ll endow it.”
A bitter smile touched her lips. “How very generous. All that, for a piece of paper and a performance.”
“It’s more than a performance,” he snapped, his control fraying. “It’s a binding magical contract. It would be real. In the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of the magic that guards my home. There would be… expectations. Appearances to maintain.”
“What kind of appearances?”
“We would live at the manor. Part-time, at least. There would be public events. Family dinners. The Wizengamot garden parties you loathe. We would have to sell it.”
Hermione studied him for a long, excruciating moment. She walked around the desk, stopping a few feet away, close enough that he could see the fine trace of fatigue under her eyes, the faint freckles on her skin the lamplight had missed earlier. She looked at him not as the boy from school, but as a variable in an equation.
“Five years,” she stated.
“What?”
“The term. Five years. A renewable term, subject to renegotiation based on mutual satisfaction of terms. This is not a lifetime sentence. This is a contractual alliance.”
Draco blinked. “Five years.”
“During which time, I get unfettered access to all Black and Malfoy literary assets for my research. You will provide formal, public endorsement and financial backing for the Creature Equality Legislation package. You will vote your shares in the Wizengamot as I advise on all related matters.”
“That’s—”
“And,” she continued, her voice dropping to a tone that brooked no argument, “we have separate bedrooms. Our private lives remain exactly that. Private. This is a partnership, not a romance. Is that understood?”
The stipulation rang in the quiet office. Separate bedrooms. It was practical. It was what he’d wanted—no, what he’d assumed. So why did it feel like a verdict?
“Understood,” he heard himself say, his voice oddly hollow.
“Good.” She returned to her desk, snatching up a fresh piece of parchment. Her quill began to fly. “I’ll draw up the initial contract. We’ll need to include clauses about breach of terms, public conduct standards, and a precise inventory of the archival materials. I’ll have a draft for you by noon.”
She was already writing him into existence as her contractual husband. The efficiency was staggering.
“Granger.” The name fell from his lips before he could stop it.
She glanced up, impatient.
“You’re saying yes? Just like that?”
For the first time, her composed mask slipped, revealing a flash of something weary and old. “You’re offering me a weapon I’ve needed for years, Malfoy. A way to change laws that have ruined lives. You think this is a sacrifice for me? It’s a strategic acquisition.” She looked back at her parchment. “Now, unless you want to discuss the specific annual allocation for my werewolf Wolfsbane outreach program, I suggest you let me work. We have a deal to formalize.”
Dismissed. He was dismissed.
He stood there, winded, as if he’d taken a silent, powerful jinx to the chest. He had come here expecting a hex, a shout, a scalding rejection. He had not prepared for this cool, calculating acceptance. He had gotten everything he asked for, on terms that left him speechless.
He turned and left, the image burned into his mind: Hermione Granger, already absorbed in drafting the contract that would bind their lives together, her curly head bent once more under the lamplight, as if he had never been there at all. The corridor outside seemed darker, quieter, the air thinner. The deal was struck.
The real work, he realized with a sinking clarity, was only just beginning.