It was customary for gentlemen to send flowers or call on the women they had danced with the evening before. Draco dispatched a bouquet of flowers to Pansy and went to call on Miss Granger.

The Grangers resided in a rented townhouse on Curzon Street, a surprisingly modish address. Equally surprising was the presence of one Harry Potter.

As was usual, Draco's mouth, which usually formed charming smiles, turned itself into a sneer when he saw his cousin. Then, with supreme effort, he recalled his father's edict and schooled his expression into neutrality instead.

"Well," a feminine voice spoke from behind him. "I hadn't expected to see you here, trying for her hand in marriage."

Draco turned slowly to see the red-headed girl from the circulating library, staring curiously at him but without animosity. "I am here to pay to my respects."

"As are they all," the redhead replied, gesturing at the flowers that decorated the parlor.

Draco looked around carefully for the first time and noted the profusion of flowers placed in vases around the room and the four men who were in the room. He almost scowled again as he noted the presence of the Prussian Lieutenant-Colonel aide-de-camp Viktor von Krum next to Harry Potter and Henry Brougham. The fourth man was a redheaded man unknown to Draco.

"Please, allow me." The redheaded girl smiled and moved forward gracefully, drawing all the attention in the room to her as she led Draco forward. "This is Harry Potter, Henry Brougham, our very illustrious Viktor von Krum. And this is my brother, Captain Ronald Weasley. Gentlemen, may I present the Honorable Mr. Draco Malfoy."

Draco gave a tight nod to Harry Potter, shook the hand of Henry Brougham and Viktor von Krum, and almost froze upon the introduction of the fourth party.

It was stiff competition indeed. Of the four in the room, Draco was the only one who was not enlisted in the greatest war in their lifetime. Already the decisive last battle fought on the continent was being hailed as the Battle of the Nations. Draco had read the news in the papers with a certain twinge in his chest—momentous things were happening, and he had not been able to see firsthand any of it. Not that he now believed himself capable of heroism, after being so long deprived of any useful endeavour.

The Prussian was making no secret of his fascination with Miss Granger, standing very close to her and staring at her openly with deep-set dark eyes set alongside a long, hooked nose.

Captain Weasley was very clearly a man of the sea, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sunburnt, freckled nose, and deep laugh lines set on his face. He looked affable and boisterous and had been engaged in rather loud conversation before Draco had been introduced. If he had not been enlisted in the navy, Draco could picture him as a Corinthian, one of those fellows whose sartorial aim was to imitate grooms. He was the only man in the room whose cravat was tied in the simplest manner, that of the Mathematical, and it was haphazardly done, and his boots bore scuff marks from whence the shining had been done rather roughly. He was also holding a tea cake in his hand as he spoke.

Henry Brougham was a person Draco often encountered out and about in town, although the man was most decidedly a Whig in political persuasion and thus was a political enemy of the Malfoys. He was a young and rising star in the House of Commons, so identified on account of his speeches, although Draco had never considered him as being particularly quick-witted without written notes of some kind. In fact, the cloddish impression of him increased as Draco caught the look of hero worship in his eyes as Brougham stared at Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was the fourth man in the room and the only one Draco could own as a rival. His appearance in Draco's life stemmed earliest from the passing of a third cousin originally next in line. Born within only months of each other, the two of them had attended Eton and then Cambridge together, respectively running in very different crowds. The differences between the two of them grew more marked as the years passed. Harry Potter seemed to fribble money away like water and preferred to go roistering with his boisterous friends than to attend to his studies, which were funded mainly on Malfoy generosity. Despite being sent down from school every other month, Harry Potter had a talent for making friends in high places, witness his current position as the personal chief of staff to Wellington himself. Draco resented him more than he could say, for coming out smelling like a rose when all he ever did was stir up trouble.

"Malfoy," Potter now said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. His tone was civil, but his green eyes issued a challenge. "I didn't realise you were acquainted with our Hermione."

"Likewise." Draco's response was every bit as outwardly pleasant as he shook his cousin's hand. "Our Hermione?" He turned toward the subject in question, looking at her fully for the first time since he arrived.

There was no accounting for the way Miss Hermione Granger seemed to get prettier every time he saw her. Today, he was hard-pressed to find fault with the cloud of brown curls that formed around her head, and the pale blue dress that covered her from her wrists all the way up to her jawline. There was no expression on her face, but her throat moved as she swallowed. Her eyes traveled from him to Harry without blinking and then she smiled—at Harry. "Yes, well, Harry and I have known each other for ages."

Draco didn't quite know how to take that news. It seemed that there was yet another something else he had to resent his cousin for. Yet another something that his cousin had taken from him, quite without Draco knowing that it was anything he particularly wanted.

"Of course," he managed to say. Draco was surprised his voice sounded so smooth; it felt as though a frog had taken up permanent residence in his throat. Perhaps he was sickening with something. "Shall we expect the banns to be read any time soon?"

Usually, he was far more urbane. Usually, he didn't let slip the secret thoughts of his heart. Luckily, his tone sounded more snide than congratulatory.

"They've already been read," Miss Weasley said from behind him. She stepped forward and latched onto Potter's arm, and Draco watched as his cousin looked at her as though there were no one else in the room with them. The redhead didn't notice as she smiled back at Draco. There was something kind or conspiratorial in her eyes; Draco couldn't decide. Either way, out of everyone in the room, she was being the least guarded with him. "We'll be getting married in the spring."

Draco's eyes fell then to the ring on her hand. It was a sapphire; not a large one, but the colour was very fine. "Congratulations." He felt as though he had been dealt a blow. He felt almost light-hearted with relief. His eyes sneaked back over to Miss Granger, who stared straight back at him.

Then, before anyone could say anything else, Draco decided to say what he had come to say. "I've come to request Miss Granger's company to Gunter's for an ice."

The captain chuckled as though he had made a fine joke. "Deuced cold outside! Hermione doesn't like ices in the wintertime. Do you, m'dear?" He had a booming voice with Lancashire accents. Draco hated him at once.

She blinked twice at the captain and then turned resolutely to Draco and smiled in a manner more determined than sweet. "Of course, Mr. Malfoy. Let me just get my wrap." Later, Draco could only attribute her agreement as a tacit rebuttal to the opportune commentary by a man who was apparently not her fiance.

And then she proceeded from the room with Miss Weasley in tow, leaving behind a dazed Prussian Lieutenant-Colonel, a baffled captain who muttered "wonder what's wound her up this time," and a Harry Potter who turned to resolutely engage in conversation with Henry Brougham.

Draco had expected to wait upwards of an hour. He resigned himself to small talk with the other gentlemen.

"A surprising time for you to return from the Peninsula," Draco observed to Potter. In fact, it was an odd time for the Prussian to be here as well, with all the armies held in abeyance after the Battle of the Nations.

"Not particularly." Potter's voice was just as even, his response just as noncommittal. "The war is all but won. We have Napoleon completely surrounded."

Draco might not have been enlisted in the army, but he kept his ear to the ground, and he was aware that the Prussian looked far less confident than his cousin. The Prussians had been engaged in one losing battle after the next until they had all but conceded to the French. They had then gone behind the French's back to approach the Russians for help. With the Russian tsar's support, Napoleon had finally relinquished all lands east of the Rhine, his first defeat on the continent since he came of power, although it was a very near miss at that.

And Potter seemed so very definite, so very sure of Napoleon's downthrow—surely he could not be a spy for the French? Draco had never figured his cousin for any sort of an actor—a rogue, a ne'er-do-well, but never a charlatan. But as always, he would have to defer to his father; the baron always seemed to know more than was possible.

"I'm ready for that ice, Mr. Malfoy," said the voice of Miss Granger, and Draco turned to find that she was indeed dressed to go out for a sedate carriage ride around Town in a fashionable military-styled pelisse with a little fur muff and a smart wide-brimmed hat tipped rakishly over one eye.

For the first time since he had seen her this week, it occurred to him that she might have been spruced up by her friend, the dashing Miss Weasley. For whose benefit was it? For the Captain? Or the Prussian? Draco was left with some very deflating thoughts, least of which that his cordial reception was for the benefit of some other suitors.

With a sad wave from the Lieutenant-Colonel, an overly courteous bow from Mr. Brougham, affectionate farewells from Potter and the redheaded girl, and an obliviously cheerful comment from the captain, they were out of the townhouse and in the street, where Draco's tiger had the curricle and horses trotting back around for them.

Once ensconced in the carriage with hot bricks and thick furs, Draco picked up the reins and they were off at a very slow pace. At this rate, they would reach Gunter's never, and that was surprisingly all right for him.

After a few polite comments about the weather (treacherous) and the passersby (numerous), they fell silent.

Then, "Did you receive my parcel?" Miss Granger asked abruptly.

Draco paused before answering. "I did."

There was no immediate response and Draco ventured a sideways glance. She was mulling over his unexplained affirmative and had a little furrow between her brows and her bottom lip had been drawn in 'twixt her teeth. He hid a smile before he faced forward again.

"Then, I'm puzzled as to why you called. Was the marzipan not satisfactory?"

She really was the most forthright woman he knew. "It was delicious," he lied. He actually had it placed in his rooms, where it stood on his table.

There was fidgeting next to him. "May I speak plainly?"

Heaven help his nerves if she were even more blunt than she already was. "You may."

"I must confess that I'm really quite baffled as to your visit this morning. Usually gentlemen are not accustomed to calling on women they don't perceive as being—well, marriageable."

He deflected her question as skillfully as he would have parried a riposte. "Have I said aught as to your marriageability?"

This time, when he looked at her, she was staring straight back at him. There was no fluttering of fans around her face, no shying away from a direct gaze, and no simpering or blushing. It was a meeting of equals, only of course she was not quite as eligible as he was.

Of course she wasn't. That wasn't his purpose here. On the other hand, he had never been more entertained by a lady before in his life.

"No, but… Your views on persons of my—background—are very clear to everyone. You have made no secret of your disdain of the Trade, and I cannot at all fathom your continuing to seek me out when you clearly despise everything that I am." This time, her hand emerged from the muff to give a small feminine flutter as though she couldn't quite put her thoughts into words, which was quite a change from her usual self-possession. "I realise myself that I lack many of the graces and feminine arts that are so prized by your sort, which makes your attention even more inexplicable."

Her speech gave him pause. He had never felt the need to reassure another human being, and the feeling was utterly foreign to him. Nor was it in him to give sincere compliments, and so he remained silent.

"Furthermore," she continued, staring straight forward now, presenting him with her small profile. "From your questions the other day, I assume that you do not have—honourable intentions, and I most assuredly will not entertain that sort of offer, even were I so inclined."

He leaped on the phrasing. "Even were you inclined? And are you so inclined, Miss Granger?"

She was blushing, flustered, her full lips pressed into a thin line. "You know what I meant!"

The horses continued to move down the street, blurry with the dense fog. Draco directed them with only half of his attention, a dangerous proposition indeed. His tiger stood behind them, every so often dropping his haughty demeanour to hoot at flickering torches held by passersby. In the dense, wet fog, they heard voices but saw only fuzzy figures, as though they were separated by a curtain from everyone else in the world.

Draco reflected that he had no honourable intentions to offer, not when he did not know what exactly he wanted to profess. He was not, in the normal scheme of things, accustomed to offering for a lady. Presumably, one met with the father first, lawyers got involved, and he—he had to obtain approval from his parents.

Not that he would ever entertain such a thing.

He changed the subject instead. "You seem very close with my relative. Harry Potter."

He was watching her closely and saw the moment she blinked, her momentum on the previous subject lost. "You—You're asking me about my relationship with your cousin?"

"Yes."

"I—" She shook her head. "Yes, of course. We have known each other for years and years. In Manchester, you know."

"I assumed so. And he has spoken of me?" Somehow he just had to know if his cousin had been as heroic as all made him out to be and kept from bad-mouthing him, or just as petty as Draco himself could be and had been poisoning every other ear with defamatory tidbits of him.

Miss Granger flushed and looked away. "He has mentioned a few things, yes."

"My reputation precedes me?" Draco drawled, effecting calm although the anger in his chest felt white-hot. "What picture has he painted of me, of a villain who thwarts his every will, who stands between him and the Malfoy fortune?"

"Harry has never spoken of your fortune!" she broke in. "But he has spoken of how you have carried numerous tales of him and had him sent down from Eton and Cambridge—"

"A rule-breaker such as he would have been sent down even without such reports," Draco now sneered, feeling justified in his hatred of his cousin, smug about Potter's lack of heroism when it came to gossip, and angry that this girl should be so influenced by secondhand talk. "We've all been wrong about him; a rule-breaker such as he would sell out his country if it benefited him!"

She looked shocked at his accusation; a moment later, angered. "Harry would never do such a thing!"

"I myself have had considerable reports about his doings," he sneered. "From an unimpeachable source."

At his vehemence, Miss Granger blinked and fell back against the seat cushions. "I cannot believe it of him. He is a hero."

"You are surrounded by a battalion of heroes." There was that old familiar vein of bitterness as he acknowledged this fact. "Should it be so surprising if one turned out to not quite as noble as everyone believes him to be?"

Miss Granger shrugged. "Not surprising in the least. As you've undoubtedly noticed, my family is very patriotic. My father collects heroes; prefers them above all else."

"A merchant who's not a Shylock? Has the world come to an end?" Draco was half mocking and half serious.

"I have known Harry for years and years," Miss Granger said, ignoring his comment. "He does not have it in him to lie."

"We can all be surprised by those close to us." Draco was unwilling to back down. He tamped down on his own doubts as to Potter's ability to dissemble. Not like your father, a voice whispered. Lucius Malfoy was a politician of the first order, a man who maneuvered the tricky, venom-filled waters with the greatest of ease. Many had been the time when he had convincingly stated one thing in public only to evince the opposite sentiment at home.

In fact, Draco could not help but recall Lucius Malfoy's unerring admiration of Napoleon Bonaparte. "A remarkable general," his father had said, poring over the reports with an eyeglass. "See how he escapes them all."

And then when Napoleon was made emperor: "He will rise even higher. He does great things for Paris, lights and clean water. They are even now calling it the City of Lights."

And then after the disastrous campaign into Russia: "Never fear; he will run circles around them all."

Lucius Malfoy had spoken as though he were in a world completely removed from battle against Napoleon, as though his citizenship were not in a country united with others to utterly destroy Napoleon's every last legacy.

Something in Draco chilled.

He swallowed and shook his head to disperse those disturbing thoughts. He was turning paranoid with the turn of conversation; his father would never betray his country, not when he had so much to gain through his loyalty to the Crown. "You speak of heroes? Does your father only approve of a war hero for you then?"

"He does, and so—you must see that…" Miss Granger gave him a quick sideways glance before sighing and shaking her head a bit. It was over in a second, but still, Draco could see that she was not completely indifferent to him.

"Miss Granger—"

She cut him off. "Ginny—that's Miss Weasley—tells me that Ron will propose to me on Valentine's Day." She addressed her comment at her muff. He looked too. Her small hands were out in the cold air, rotating the little fur over and over in her lap.

There was something encouraging about the sight of those uncertain looking hands. It was something strong enough to compel him to jerk on the reins of the horses, causing the carriage to rumble to an awkward stop, the inexpert likes of which would have ashamed him at any other time. He could hear the tiger in the back of the curricle shouting at another carriage driver behind them. They all seemed a million miles away, invisible and distant in the nebulous air.

"Don't accept him." His unexpectedly hard words were rasped in the direction of her hands, to the thin kid gloves that offered her scant protection in the frosty air. Really, it was a terrible time to be out and about.

Her eyes jerked up, warm, dark marzipan with a hint of glazed caramel. He froze in its endless depths. "I—it's all but decided." She looked confused and torn, so he decided to add to her bewilderment.

"Don't marry him." He had tried to sound flippant, but the words seemed to be ripped from his chest. He tried harder: "Surely, there's a better prospect for you than that."

She looked somewhat amused at his words. The corners of her eyes crinkled, and her lips lifted encouragingly at the ends. "How generous of you! Someone like you, I suppose."

"Oh, at least." There was a teasing edge to his voice that sounded almost tender, even to his own horrified ears. He didn't know what he was saying anymore. The cold was permeating his brain-box, befuddling his senses. And yet, he didn't retract his words or what they meant.

Her smile fell away. "We—I don't even know you. We've met but a few times. You despise people like me. You've been nothing but condescending and boorish."

He felt a plummeting sensation in the pit of his stomach. "Nothing but a fop, eh?"

She considered her words and spoke carefully. "I don't mean to disparage you. It's only that...it is foolhardy—"

"And you never take chances, do you," he said rhetorically, although his heart beat in time to his words. "Not for foundlings or for drowned animals."

This time, her eyes flickered over his face with a slightly curious expression. "You could never resemble a drowned animal or a foundling, not even if you fell in the Thames."

There was a compliment in there somewhere, but Draco knew when to stop pressing his luck. They had been gone for half an hour, although they traversed but a few streets in the dangerous murky atmosphere. The captain had been right; it was no time for an ice, not when the ground was covered with the stuff itself and when it was becoming so difficult to see that he had a hard time making out the outlines of his horses. To press on would be foolhardy. Word had it the Prince Regent himself had taken four hours to cross Mayfair the other evening and one of his outriders had suffered a collision in the process.

He executed a turn in the narrow streets to the shouts of his tiger and a near accident with a drayman lumbering past in the opposite direction. "I should take you back, Miss Granger. Much as I hate to admit it, this outing was a terrible idea. We've suffered nearly five run-ins in this fog."

Some part of him wanted her to resist, but her brow was furrowed with the strain of making out things in the distance and her lips looked pinched against the cold air. "I much appreciated the chance of an outing. A later time, perhaps," she said, and he hoped earnestly that she was not just being polite.

When next he spoke, he pointed out humourous inanities about the weather as they retraced their steps. There were no more contentious words about the state of the union or treachery in the barracks as he shared details of the last Frost Fair. She had never attended one as large as the one held on the Thames. All the while he spoke, his heart pounded out a separate refrain—that his next goal must be to reform himself into a hero.

The wherefores of such a goal he put aside for now. Surely it was enough for him to want to carry out his father's strange but intriguing edict. And to want to be a hero, surely that was no bad thing in this era of unending warfare.

It really had no connection with this girl at all. Not in the least.

The quandary was, Draco Malfoy had no idea where to begin.