Chapter 12: An Impasse

Hermione was glad to get back to work. It wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed the short break, but she was a work-centric person. She needed the feeling of completing a job and doing it well. Not only that, but she loved her job at the Ministry. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought that Draco felt the same. He liked to be where he was comfortable, liked to be able to run his business affairs and see his friends and his mother.

They had arrived home in the early evening the night before. Home was the Manor now, apparently. It had become an unspoken agreement. It wasn't as if the Manor wasn't big enough to feel like each part was a separate part. Narcissa wasn't nosy at all, and Pansy kept to herself mostly. Hermione and Draco had an entire wing, and it was more than enough space for Hermione. For Draco, it had just always been.

Neither of them had told any of their friends that they were returning early. Hermione knew that Ginny would throw a fit if she gave her any warning, and Draco frankly didn't care. So, when Harry and Ron walked into her office the next morning to start her paperwork for her, they were a bit surprised.

"Kingsley is making this incredibly difficult," Harry was saying, looking down at a stack of papers in his hand. "It's like he doesn't bloody care. Won't even try to talk to the Intermagical Cooperation Department..."

Ron, who was absorbed in the breakfast he held in his hands, nodded with a grunt of agreement.

"Making what difficult?" Hermione asked casually, grinning as they both looked up in shock.

"'Mione!" Ron said around a mouthful of food, swallowing and quickly wiping his mouth.

"What are you doing back?" Harry demanded, setting the paperwork on a free corner of Hermione's desk and surging forward to hug her tightly. "Not that I'm not bloody happy to see you, because this paperwork is driving us both up the wall."

Ron joined the hug after he set his food down, grinning into Hermione's shoulder at Harry's words.

"Really awful," he confirmed as they pulled away.

Hermione hadn't realized how much she had missed them until she had seen them again, and suddenly her throat felt a bit tight and her eyes stung a bit. She wiped at them with the palms of her hands and smiled at them.

"What's wrong?" They both asked at the same time, going from happy to concerned in the blink of an eye.

"Nothing's wrong," she said, sniffling. "I just missed you boys. A lot." She wiped her eyes again and took a deep, fortifying breath. "No matter, though. I'm back now, and you can stop doing my ridiculous job."

Harry and Ron grinned again, and Ron said, "Thank Merlin. Unreasonable, the amount of work you do. Not sure how you manage."

Both Ron and Harry insisted on staying in her office to help her catch up on paperwork. Though the boys had tried their hardest while she was gone, she was still miserably behind. She didn't fault them, though. They were right when they said the amount of work was ridiculous. She liked it, however.

"What's this?" Hermione asked, picking up the first file in the stack of paperwork that Harry had been carrying. The file read, 'Proposal for the Introduction of the Department of Cases Regarding The Marriage Law'. She turned the file around so Harry could see it.

"Oh, that," he said, taking the file from her and flipping it open. "This is Pansy's brainchild, and the thing that's causing us so much grief." He handed Hermione the summary page as he spoke, and she took it.

'Official Ministry Department Request Page'

'Requester: Pansy Parkinson'

'Item Requested: a branch of magical law devoted to care of domestic abuse cases resulting from the Marriage Law enacted by the Ministry for Magic'

'Suggested Course of Action: create a subunit of the Auror unit assigned specifically to domestic abuse cases resulting from the Marriage Law. Make it a punishable crime to treat Marriage Law spouses as property. Create a discreet way to contact the department for the safety of the abused. Take the claims seriously.'

Hermione handed the page back to Harry and sighed. "And they're not taking this seriously?" she asked, not really needing the answer. The Department of Intermagical Cooperation was not very cooperative, ironically enough.

"Nope," Harry said, tucking the paper back into the file. "That would require them admitting that their brilliant plan had a few major flaws." Ron snorted, back to eating his breakfast.

"More than a few, I think. Bloody ridiculous, all of this." He flushed bright red suddenly, looking up at Hermione. "I mean," he stammered. "I'm sure it's working well for some people."

Hermione looked at him incredulously and then laughed, shaking her head. "Honestly Ronald," she muttered. "Sometimes you still astound me."

Ron grinned and shoveled another forkful of breakfast into his mouth, and Harry chuckled.

Draco could tell that Blaise had tried his hardest to keep the affairs of the business in order, but he still had quite a bit of cleaning up to do when he returned.

"Look, I'm not you," Blaise was saying defensively, as Draco sorted through papers and used his wand to flick them into the appropriate piles and files. "It's not my business, I'm not even a partner in it, and you didn't even pay me to help!" he was joking, and Draco knew he was, but the blonde man still rolled his eyes, running a hand across his face.

"If I had paid you, would you have kept the office cleaner?" he asked skeptically, turning to face Blaise. Blaise cleared his throat and shuffled on his feet for a moment before giving a defeated shake of his head. Draco grinned and chuckled before he turned back to his desk. There was a pile of new invoices and requests there, which Draco found himself dreading to go through. It was twice as many as he normally had to do in a week.

"Did you do anything while I was gone?" he mumbled, using his wand to bring his chair over as he sat down.

"Yes!" Blaise griped, flopping down onto the sofa behind Draco. "I went to stupid business meetings for you, which interrupted by sleep schedule, by the way." Draco grinned again, but he didn't give Blaise the satisfaction of seeing it. Blaise was trying to get him to laugh to keep him from being annoyed by the state of affairs.

"We've had this discussion before," Draco pointed out. "We've talked about how ridiculously late you sleep in. It's amazing you get anything done on your own. Oh wait, you don't have to do anything. You're living off of an inheritance."

Blaise snorted from behind him and said, "Please, you've got twice as much money as I have. You're the one that doesn't need to be working." Draco turned around in his chair as Blaise spoke and leaned back, giving a little laugh.
"You may be right there," he said. "But if I wasn't doing anything except hoarding the money away, mother would be furious." He turned back around and started in on the first invoice as Blaise fell silent for a moment.

"How was it, then?" he asked.

"How was what?" Draco answered without looking up from the invoice.

"The holiday," Blaise clarified, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Draco sighed. He had been hoping to avoid this particular subject, given Blaise's tendency to make crude jokes.

"It was nice," Draco said vaguely.

"Just nice?" Blaise demanded, looking at the back of Draco's head. "I'd imagine it'd be a bit more than 'just nice'." He mocked Draco's tone at the end and Draco sighed in mild annoyance.

"If I tell you, will you refrain from making ridiculous comments about my wife and then agree to never ask again?" He responded testily, moving the invoice into the 'finished' pile.

"I solemnly swear, on my honor as a good wizard," Blaise said, only half joking. It was good enough for Draco.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, not sure where to start or what sort of details Blaise was after.

"What did you do?" Blaise asked. Draco paused for a moment, thinking.

"What you'd expect, I suppose," he said after a moment. "We swam quite a bit. The water was nice, and it was private. She likes swimming."

"Does she look good in a swimsuit?" Blaise asked, the grin obvious in his voice.

"For God's sake, yes," Draco grumbled. "She read for hours every day. I know that sounds boring, but I wasn't bored. She read aloud sometimes. It was nice."

Blaise listened in silence as he spoke, amazed. Over the last few weeks, Blaise had been amazed by the change in Draco several times. It was like the man was softening and healing right before his eyes. Granger was doing good for him.

"Yep, does sound a bit boring," Blaise said, opting not to get mushy on Draco. "You're both nerds. What about the sex?"

"I'm pleasantly surprised it took you so long to ask," Draco responded liltingly. "You made it a grand total of two questions. The sex was fine."

"Just fine?" Blaise prodded, sitting up on his elbows. "What's with all of your answers today? 'Just fine', 'just nice'. I get the feeling you don't want to tell me." He was joking again, and Draco chuckled.

"You are a bit nosy in regards to my sex life," Draco answered flippantly. "Do you want tea? I think I do." He raised his wand to summon for Winkie, not really caring about Blaise's answer. Either way, he was getting tea.

The house elf appeared almost instantly, swaying on her feet.

"Can I get some tea for Blaise and I?" Draco asked. The house elf nodded eagerly and disappeared again.

"Of course I'm nosy," Blaise said as soon as she was gone. "You've trained me to be nosy. I never had to dig for details when we were in school. You'd willingly tell me them. Now I have to go after them like bloody Rita Skeeter." Draco held up a hand, spinning on the chair towards him.

"Don't mention that name here," he groaned. "Or I really won't tell you anything."

During her lunch hour, Hermione found herself carrying Pansy's file, walking with purpose towards Kingsley's office. She knocked politely before letting herself in.

The man looked up from his desk, surprised to see Hermione. "I thought you were on your honeymoon," he said by way of greeting, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

"I was," she confirmed. "Two weeks is too long for both of us, however. We came back last night." Without further ado, she set the file on Kingsley's desk, sliding it across to him. "I want this done."

Kingsley took one look at the file before he gave a firm shake of his head, sliding it back to her. "Can't," he said. "I'll tell you the same thing that I told Potter: It's bad publicity, and the Department of Intermagical Cooperation-." Hermione cut him off quickly, not caring for where is sentence was going.

"Bad publicity?" she demanded. "You're worried about bad publicity over the safety of witches and wizards. You're joking, aren't you? You can't really be serious."

"I am serious," Kingsley said, getting a bit testy. "This law is controversial enough without us dedicating an entire department to dealing with its mess. People are already angry, we don't need to make them aware of a glaring error and make them more angry."

Hermione stared at him in disbelief, completely gob-smacked. After a moment of silence, she stood, picked up her file, and took a step backwards.

"You're a coward," she said finally. "You're absolutely ridiculous, all of you. Forcing people to get married and then refusing to provide them with the proper support when it doesn't work. Disgraceful." She turned on her heel and left, walking immediately to her office. She shut the door angrily behind her and pulled out her wand, flicking it around. The stacks of paperwork on her desk disappeared into her magically expanded briefcase.

She left her own office quickly, and walked into Harry's. "I'm leaving for the day," she announced abruptly. "If you need me, owl me."

"'Mione?" Harry asked in concerned, sitting up and taking his feet off of his desk. "What's wrong?"

"Kingsley and his stupid Department of Intermagical Cooperation!" she snapped, hair getting frizzier by the moment. "I'm working on my paperwork from home, because if I stay here for one moment longer, I'll positively lose it." Harry seemed to shrink under her anger and gave a little nod.

"Probably best," he said, trying to soothe her. "Go on. I'll tell Ron if he asks."

"Thank you," Hermione said, strained. She took the liberty of using Harry's fireplace, throwing a handful of powder in.

"Malfoy Manor."

Draco had given up on his paperwork momentarily, drinking his tea and having lunch with Blaise. Draco had learned that Angelica was visiting with her parents, trying to figure out how to explain her sudden engagement. They were on the subject of what was going to happen from there, which Draco frankly didn't know how to answer.

"Marriage Law stipulates children," Blaise said, taking a bite of his sandwich. "You trying yet?"

Draco nearly choked on his own sandwich. He really hadn't been expecting that.

"Not particularly," he managed, clearing his throat. His cheeks were tinged red. He and Hermione hadn't even introduced that subject with each other. "We've only been speaking for a few weeks and married for eight days. I think it's a bit soon, especially considering we have a few years."

Blaise nodded in agreement. "This is really fantastic," he said, gesturing to the sandwich. "Your house elf can cook. Angelica's pregnant." Draco was nodding in agreement to the sandwich when he stopped suddenly, looking at Blaise in shock.

"Come again?" he asked, setting his plate down. Blaise was looking down at his own plate, but he was grinning like an idiot.

"Angelica's pregnant," he repeated, looking up at Draco. "I'm gonna be a dad." His grin was wide enough that it nearly reached his ears.

"Congratulations," was all Draco could manage, standing up. Blaise met him half way and they hugged, Draco clapping Blaise on the back. He was happy for Blaise, happy to see Blaise so happy. "That's bloody fantastic news, mate. Really is."

Blaise pulled away and wiped his eyes. He had started crying, excited to tell Draco and relieved that he didn't have to keep that secret anymore.

"We've known for a few weeks," he said. "Just didn't want to tell you and spoil all your wedding fun. She's just about twelve weeks, really early. That's why she's off talking to her parents. They knew she was pregnant but she has to explain the whole marriage bit and who I am. I'm going to meet them tomorrow." Blaise was rambling, glad that he could finally tell Draco, his only friend, all of this exciting information.

"That's great," Draco said. "That's fantastic. Fucking fantastic." He hugged Blaise again, giving him another clap on the back.

Just then the fireplace roared to life, and Hermione stepped out of it. She was a bit surprised for a moment, not quite sure why she was in Draco's office.

"Why are you home?" Draco asked in surprise. Hermione whipped around, jumping a bit at his voice. She was about to launch into the long-winded, angry explanation when she saw Blaise and blushed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," she said, reaching down to ease off the heels she had been wearing. She hooked them through her fingers and started to walk towards the door. "I'm just going to... somewhere in this massive place to do paperwork." Draco frowned.

"Alright," he said uncertainly. "I'll come find you later." Hermione gave a small smile and a little nod, quickly slinking out of the room.

"Weird," Blaise said as she left. Draco gave a little nod.

Hermione ended up in the south wing in an office that looked like it hadn't been occupied in quite some time It was clean, but the air smelled stale. She spread her paperwork out across the desk there and sat down, leaning back in the chair, taking a deep breath.

She had been working attentively for an hour when Draco finally found her. It had taken him a few minutes and some help from the portraits. Sometimes he honestly forgot how unnecessarily massive the Manor was.

"Can I bother you?" he asked, knocking on the doorframe. Hermione looked up and gave a small smile.

"You won't be bothering me any more than this is," she answered, gesturing to the papers and then looking back down at them.

Draco pulled up a chair beside her, sitting close but not close enough to interfere with her writing and wand flicking. He watched as she finished signing something off on one hand and then used her wand in the other to move it to another pile. He was silent, just watching her.

"What were you and Blaise talking about?" she asked after a moment of silence, feeling mildly irritated that he was just watching her. She had grown accustomed to Harry and Ron staring over her shoulders all throughout their school years, but Draco's presence was different. She wasn't used to it yet.

"I was trying to fix the disaster he made out of my accounts," Draco answered with a sigh. "He did try, to his credit, but it was miserable." Hermione gave a halfhearted chuckle, reaching the end of another piece of paper.

"He also told me that Angelica is pregnant." Hermione stopped writing and turned around, looking at Draco. She was smiling now.

"That's wonderful," she said. "He's excited, I imagine?" Draco nodded and smiled back at her, turning his face towards the ceiling.

"Very," he said, laughing. "Haven't seen him this excited in ages."

"When are they planning on marrying?" Hermione asked after a moment. "Soon, I'd imagine."

"Yes," Draco confirmed. "Within the next two weeks. Running out of time to fulfill the law. They're not having a party. Not really Angelica's style." He regarded Hermione for a moment, cautiously. She wasn't in the best mood, for whatever reason, but he had to ask. It had bothered him since Blaise had asked.

"Are we having children?" he asked finally, trying to play it off as casual.

Hermione just stared at him, face blank. She was stunned, initially. That was an incredibly forward question to ask someone you'd just married by force. Then she was confused. Did she even want children? Did she even have a choice in the matter? The Marriage Law stipulated an heir. Then she was downright annoyed.

"Honestly, Draco?" she asked, bristling. "That's not a question you ask out of nowhere, and you definitely don't use your friend's good news to broach the subject." She turned from him and back to the paperwork, pen working a bit faster.

"How else do you want me to 'broach the subject'?" he asked defensively, voice a bit mocking. "Did you want me to write you a lovely note and send it with flowers? That seems to be the only way to get you to have a serious conversation with me." He had been taken aback by Hermione's sharp response, not expecting her to be that upset.

Hermione threw her hands up in the air and set her pen down, all of her anger and annoyance from earlier back at the front of her emotions.

"If you're actually angry at me for being angry at you and the Ministry for forcing me to marry someone, you're completely mental," she snapped, crossing her arms and facing him only to glare in his face.

"I'm not angry at you about that," Draco retorted, standing sharply, sending the chair flying backwards as he did. "I'm angry that you're angry about me asking a simple question, about a requirement for this ridiculous law!"

Hermione stood too, then, her chair rolling back just as dramatically as Draco's had.

"You're the one that bid on me," she reminded harshly. "You could have picked anyone else!"

"I picked you because you seemed like a good idea," he retorted. "My mother said to pick someone that was dignified and honorable or some such rot."

"And I'm neither of those now?" Hermione demanded, taking a step back. "Forgive me for not being dignified or honorable about the idea of having children with someone I barelyknow, despite being married to. Also, has it ever occurred to you that my job is very important to me, and that having children would jeopardize the work that I do?"

"Oh, wonderful!" Draco cried, turning around and walking towards the door dramatically. "You like your job more than me!"

"This has nothing to do with liking you!" Hermione cried out in frustration at his back. "This has to do with my hesitance to just waltz willy-nilly into producing a living, breathing thing to take care of! I have more than enough to deal with between work, and Harry and Ron, and trying to help Pansy!"

Draco whirled around then, brow creasing. "Help Pansy with what?" he asked.

Hermione sighed and flicked her wand, sending the file flying a bit aggressively towards Draco's face. "Everything you need to know is there," she said shortly.

Draco sneered at her, very much like how he did when they were in school, and gave a sarcastic bow. "Thank you so much," he said. "I'm sure the only way to deliver that was by flinging it at me. How very generous of you, Mrs. Malfoy."
Hermione gave a little cry of frustration and pointed towards the door. "Out," she snapped. "I've got too much to worry about as it is, I don't need your attitude as well!"

"My attitude?" Draco asked incredulously. "My attitude? Perhaps if you set aside your job and your worries about Saint Potter and Weaselbee, you'd have more time for my attitude!"

"I don't want to have time for your attitude!" Hermione shouted. "I want to have time to finish my bloody paperwork!"

Draco stared at her for a moment before he gave another signature sneer and turned on his heel, leaving the room. He slammed the door dramatically behind him as Hermione collapsed into her chair.

The honeymoon was officially over.