Meet Your Match

24. Rewriting Rules

Hermione chewed nervously on her thumbnail as Draco looked over her documents. She watched his eyes fly over the lines of text and shifted on the sofa, trying not to read into the deepening crease between his brows. She tried not to think about how impossibly perfect this could be. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. He still might not approve.

When he finished, he sat back in his chair and dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus, Granger,” he started, making her smile at the Muggle phrase. “You really aren’t opposed to playing the long game.”

She gave a tiny shrug.

“How long have you been planning something like this?”

“Pretty much all along.”

He let out a harsh puff of breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Including forming a new department at the Ministry?”

“That was step one,” she said. “Something I could do on my own.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “And you’re hardly one to talk about the long game,” she went on slightly indignantly. “How long had you been planning on shagging me?”

He smirked, shuffling the papers back into a neat stack. “I wouldn’t call it planning necessarily. More like fantasising incessantly with no clear path forward, but I take your point.”

He flipped back over the top sheet. She watched as he started reading again and couldn’t contain herself.

“Well,” she said, bringing the thumbnail back between her teeth. “What do you think?”

He looked back up at her. “I think it’s bold.”

She nodded.

“It’s unprecedented.”

A slightly smaller nod.

“It will be met with a lot of pushback.”

She dropped her gaze. She should have known—

“I think it’s bloody brilliant.”

She looked back up to find him grinning widely at her.

“You mean that?” she asked, the need for validation thick in her voice.

“Yes, I do,” he said with a nod.

“So, you’ll help me?”

He flipped back through the pages. “Everything you need for the legislation is here.”

“Yes, but my specialty is interfacing with the Muggle administrative systems. I don’t know how to write legislation. And like you said, there’s going to be a lot of pushback. It needs to be perfect. Ironclad.”

He nodded again. “Of course, I’ll help with the framing, the writing, but... that’s not really why you need me, is it?”

She leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees. It was both a blessing and a curse to finally date someone who might actually be cleverer than she was. “We’ll need your influence in the Wizengamot,” she said in a low voice.

Draco gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Hermione, darling, I don’t have a seat in the Wizengamot,” he said in a sweetly patronising tone.

She clasped her fingers together. “Yes, you do. You’re heir to the Malfoy seat. You just aren’t filling it.”

He nodded slowly. When he spoke, the words were drawn out as though he was wondering why they were stating facts they both already knew. “Right, because I’m a felon. I can’t.”