Turn 16 of 36

Hermione uncaps her quill. She has laid the documentation out between them, the pages arranged in the order she memorised this morning — inspection schedule, public appearances, conjugal presentation — and she has prepared a list of terms on a separate sheet of parchment in handwriting far neater than the circumstances warrant. She is ready. She is Hermione Granger and she has walked into exams and war rooms and Ministry tribunals with less preparation than this, and she has never once been the person who faltered.

Draco sets down his cold coffee and turns the portfolio so she can see his annotations. He has marked every clause that references Clause 14, every passage where the penalty structure bleeds through into the cohabitation requirements, and his marginal notes are sparse but precise — *costs me, not her* written beside the breach clause, and beside the conjugal presentation section, simply: *the audience is the point*.

"The residence," Hermione says. "That is the first decision. Everything else follows from where we live."

"Agreed. Not the Manor. Not your flat. Somewhere the Ministry can inspect without either of us feeling like we have invited the enemy home for tea."

"A new property. Something we find together, jointly leased under both names, furnished as a shared residence would be furnished."

"Furnished as though we chose it together," Draco says, and the qualification is important — she sees it immediately. Not his furniture, not hers. Pieces that look like a compromise between two tastes. Pieces that tell the story of a marriage, not a takeover.

She nods and writes *joint lease, neutral furnishing, shared decision* on her list, and for five minutes the negotiation moves the way negotiations are supposed to move — positions stated, common ground identified, the machinery of two organised minds working in parallel. Then Draco turns to the conjugal presentation section and his jaw tightens, and Hermione feels the binding magic shift against her ribs like something waking up.

"Two documented displays of physical closeness at the first formal event," Draco reads. His voice is level but his hand, the one holding the Muggle pen, has gone still.

"Ministry observers will be present. The displays must be — " he checks the text — "natural in appearance and sustained. Not a handshake. Not a brief touch. Something an observer would record as intimate."

The café's speaker shifts to a piano piece, something quiet and repetitive. Hermione's quill hovers over her list. She thinks of his hand on her waist in front of strangers, his arm across her shoulders, the small choreographies of a couple who have been together long enough to touch without thinking. They are not a couple. They have never touched except to hex each other, and the binding magic is pulsing now with something that feels sickeningly close to anticipation.

"We will need to practice," she says, and the words land on the table between them like a stone dropped into still water.