Titles which Hermione Granger would think to give Draco Malfoy: King of Prats; Lord of Gits; insatiable gossip; motormouth; twitchy little ferret; foul, loathsome, evil, little cockroach; inbred welp; pointy-faced, smarmy bastard.

Titles which Hermione Granger would not think to, nor have any intention of giving Draco Malfoy: surprise husband; future father of her children.

Funny how magic tends to interfere with things.

When Hermione recovered herself she found she was lying on the ground with Malfoy atop her in a suddenly silent library. The screaming wards had abruptly ceased.

That was not a comfort. In her experience, it was when screaming abruptly stopped that the most unfortunate things tended to occur.

Malfoy scrambled off of her.

"What happened?" he said, glancing around wildly.

Hermione looked around the room, her eyes narrowed. "Well, we're still in the library, it seems," she said.

"Breathtaking insight, truly. One hundred points to Gryffindor," Malfoy said, glaring at her and seemingly searching about for his wand.

She looked around again, everything appeared normal. Except—the lights were out and there was a sort of blanketed sensation of magic over the room.

She suddenly grew horrified.

"We're in the ward!" She squeaked and clapped her hands over her mouth. "We fell into the ward with the books! Oh sweet Circe!"

Malfoy glanced around, looking baffled. "How is that even possible?"

"It's how the Library of Alexadria contains some of the books," she said with a despairing whimper. "The magic can't be suppressed, but you can channel it into its own dimension so that it can't express itself out in the real world. It doesn't work well with most of the subjects, but they use it in the history room because biographies as old as these ones tend to make ghosts. We make a ward that allows them to roam about in a sort of—pocket dimension."

Malfoy looked bewildered.

"Why do you need to contain ghosts? Can't you just let them wander?"

Hermione shook her head vigorously. "Book ghosts aren't like regular ghosts. They're not really ghosts so much as the magic becoming sentient and manifesting as the subject from the book. They can actually become corporeal and sometimes they even use magic. That's why we can contain and restrict them, but it also means that if we're in here—they're as real as we are—and also—related to you." Her eyes were wide and she kept glancing anxiously around the room.

Suddenly someone giggled.

Someone who wasn't Malfoy—Hermione had never heard Malfoy giggle, but she imagined if he ever did it wouldn't be quite so sultry and feminine sounding.

Suddenly a woman emerged from a shelf. Except she was enormous. Well over twelve feet tall.

"Oooooh." The woman cooed. "She's so clever.

Sweet Circe—it was Circe! Actual Circe, the ancient Grecian enchantress.

Malfoy and Hermione were both gaping as Circe approached them. Towering over them until she was within her arms' reach, then she proceeded to place an enormous hand on Malfoy's blond head.

"You're my descendant!" Circe said delightedly, rustling his hair and tickling him behind his ears in a way that seemed to make him look distinctly uncomfortable.

The air shivered as it seemed ghosts popped out of almost every few book in the room. All of them considerably taller than a normal human.

"A descendent?" they were all asking and crowding around to appraise Malfoy. Like giant children with a new doll, gently turning him and prodding him as though to inspect him from all angles.

He kept trying to brush them off, but it only seemed to make them crowd around more, chuckling and cooing as though he were an adorable infant. Eventually he seemed to give up and stood there resignedly as they appraised him.

Hermione was terrified by the number of ghosts that she recognized.

Good Merlin, Malfoy was related to everyone. Except, apparently Merlin—whom she didn't think she saw anywhere.

None of them seemed to even notice her, which Hermione did not mind in the slightest. She was perfectly happy being a dull librarian and allowing Malfoy to be the sole source of fascination. Malfoy had spent his whole life being rich and pompous because of the efforts by the people in this room, if they wanted to poke him—well, they most certainly deserved to.

Hermione wished she could have a turn poking him.

"He's rather small, isn't he?" inquired one wizard.

Malfoy flushed and drew himself up, looking enraged

"I am not—small!" He choked. "I am a perfectly normal, wizard-sized male!"

"It's the magic," Circe said, her voice severe. "Don't you remember. We get bigger with age. I remember you being quite a bit shorter than him is when you appeared."

The wizard blushed.

"Oh..." cooed Circe, tilting Malfoy's face up in order to inspect it from all sides. "Isn't he pretty? Almost like a girl."

Hermione had to stuff her hand into her mouth to keep from audibly sniggering. Malfoy was spluttering with rage as he tried to free himself.

"Look at that hair and jawline. And those eyes. You must have witches throwing themselves at you all day long."

"He looks rather pointy faced to me," muttered a square-jawed wizard. "And inbred. Probably hasn't got much endurance to him."

Apparently that comment was Malfoy's limit.

"Well, I'm the only descendant you've got, so unless you prefer vanishing shortly you'd better hope my endurance is up to par!"

The room stilled as all the ghosts stared at him, appearing shocked. Malfoy suddenly looked as though he regretted saying anything.

"Our last descendant?" said a witch that Hermione suspected might be Morgana.

"Of course," said Circe, her voice breathless. "Look at how many of us he's awakened."

They all glanced around at each other. There were hundreds of them. As they looked back down at Malfoy, their eyes were suddenly narrowed and calculating.

Malfoy looked as though he wanted to sink into the floor if it would help him escape.

"Are you married?" Circe asked in a deceptively casual tone.

"N-no." Malfoy choked, suddenly looking very nervous and shifty. "But—I will be. Soon. And I shall most definitely be having at least—twelve children! If not more."

Circe appeared unconvinced, teaching out with a fingertip she placed it on Malfoy's forehead for a long moment before tapping him in a way that made his whole body jerk.

"Why aren't you married?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Because—" Malfoy gasped as though the answer were being dragged from him. "The witch I want isn't interested in me. And I—don't want anyone else."

Hermione looked over at Malfoy feeling suddenly sorry for him. That was rotten luck.

She remembered that, aside from an occasional date with Pansy in their eighth year at school, he had been largely and surprisingly celibate. She had suspected that maybe he was gay; most straight men she knew didn't go on and on for ten minutes about the cut of their best friend's wedding robes. Apparently not.

She'd read somewhere that Slytherins had a surprising tendency toward deep, unrequited love; they didn't move on the way most people did, they just kept carrying it.

"Did you ever try to win her? Gift her with a herd of Pegasi, or a thousand slaves? I always loved it when an enchanter gave me few hundred slaves," Circe said, looking dreamy.

"Or what about just carrying her off? Witches can never resist a powerful wizard who can kidnap them," suggested a wizard.

Good heavens, some of Malfoy's ancestors were positively—well—medieval. Obviously.

"Those traditions are generally frowned upon nowadays." Malfoy said flatly with a dour expression on his face.

"Well then, what did you do to win her?" asked Circe with a severe expression.

"Nothing," Malfoy ground out, flushing deep scarlet. "She never pays any attention to me, no matter what I do—unless I'm nasty to her. It's—the only time she even notices I exist."

How very Malfoy, Hermione rolled her eyes, it was as though he were an overgrown primary schooler, throwing verbal rocks at the girl he liked.

"So you never really tried," said Circe, putting her hands on her hips. "You don't even know whether or not she really isn't interested."

"She's not," Malfoy said forcefully.

"How do you know?" Morgana raised an eyebrow.

Malfoy suddenly looked ready to choke to death as he tried to keep from answering the question. After struggling for several seconds, he gasped as the words abruptly tore themselves out of him.

"Because she thinks I'm a soft, pathetic, pampered, unattractive, pointy faced, man-child who fills his head with nothing but vapid information and has nothing to offer!"

Hermione stared at him in utter astonishment as the identity of his unrequited love abruptly dawned upon her.

Her mouth dropped open with shock.

Malfoy was staring angrily at the ground and appeared ready to die of embarrassment.

"Hmm. That is difficult." Circe sighed and then shrugged. "Well, I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else. How about her?"

She pointed abruptly at Hermione.

"No..." Draco wailed.

Hermione blanched as she came under the sudden attention of several hundred ancient and powerful ghosts.

"Why not? Don't you think she's pretty?"

"Yes..." Malfoy whimpered, and looked heavenward, appearing resigned at that point.

Hermione blinked. There was a great deal she would like to process when she was no longer being inquisitively poked.

Circe reached out and touched Hermione's head and it felt like her fingers somehow seeped into Hermione's consciousness as well.

"She's so smart. And powerful. Your magical resonance is remarkable. She could give you so many powerful children—so many descendants. There's really nothing else for it. You are not allowed to let your line end just because one witch out there doesn't return your affections. This one will do very well for you. So it will have to be her. I'm sure she'll be able to help you move on from that other witch if you're motivated enough."

Before Hermione or Draco could say anything in clarification or objection, Circe clapped her hands sharply. There was a burning sensation on her left hand and Hermione looked down with horror to find a wedding band appearing on it.

"There now." said Circe in satisfaction. "That marriage bond will last a good two years or so before it needs to be re-officiated by a living Warlock."

She stroked Hermione's head, "And—it's got a teensy little lust spell woven in. Nothing coercive, of course. Just a little bit—freeing."

Hermione and Malfoy were staring at one another with horror. Circe reached down and patted them both on the head and Hermione could feel a little shiver of magic go through her.

"After the first time it'll break you through the ward. You can't very well live here forever. Now. Let's not bother the happy couple, they have descendants to make."

There was a shifting sensation in the air as the ghosts all vanished back into their books, leaving Hermione and Malfoy alone with a deafening silence.

Hermione finally spoke.

"If I have to have sex with you here because of a history book it is going to ruin libraries for me."

"Merlin's fucking beard, I have the worst luck on earth." Malfoy moaned and flopped onto the floor.

"Did you have to tell them that you were their last descendent?" she asked flatly after spending a few minutes absorbing all that had unexpectedly occurred.

Malfoy had the grace to blush.

"He insulted my endurance..." he muttered defensively under his breath.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Perhaps in the future you should worry less about what a ghost thinks of you and your endurance."

"Duly noted," Malfoy said with a scowl. "The next time a witch drags me unwillingly into a magical containment dimension filled with my ancestors, I promise to hold my tongue no matter what manner of emasculating remarks are made about me."

"I cannot believe I'm stuck here with you." Hermione said, her tone full of disbelief. "As much as I have always loved libraries, I never imagined getting married in one, much less in a ceremony officiated by a book."

She tried tugging the ring off her hand but it wouldn't budge.

"Really, Granger. I would have thought this kind of wedding was a dream come true for you," Malfoy said in a snide drawl.

"I hardly think I am the one who has been dreaming about this," Hermione said tartly, shooting him an appraising glare.

Malfoy blushed. The hollows of his cheeks were practically stained scarlet at this point.

"Honestly, you're such an unbelievable prat." Hermione scowled. "How old are you, eight?"

Malfoy picked himself up off the floor, muttering quietly, and stalked over into a corner, apparently to lick the wounds his ego had taken that day.

Hermione glanced around. Her wand was missing, although she was quite sure she'd been holding it when she fell. It must not have passed through the ward.

"Hopefully someone will notice we're missing soon," she said after several hours.

"What exactly do you think the odds are that they'll think to look for us here?" Malfoy asked, giving her a hard look.

"Um. Well—probably low," she glanced around the room again. "But, ours wands are probably lying out there. So—maybe they will. Assuming time passes as the same rate here as it does out there..."

She suddenly found herself growing pale enough to rival Malfoy's pastiness.

No one that Hermione knew of had ever accidentally fallen into their own dimensional containment ward.

She and Malfoy had made history together. Joy.

At any rate, if anyone had done such a thing, they had not come back to tell the tale. Whether you could starve to death or whether the passage of time was the same was completely unknown. It could have been seconds since they had fallen or months or years.

She wandered around the room again, trying to find a way to break through the ward.

The magical resonance she and Malfoy had when casting it was quite undeniable. It was a perfectly crafted ward. There were no mistakes or thin spots to be found. It was a ward meant to last thirty years and she and Malfoy had unfortunately done a bang up job of making it.

She couldn't even summon magic. The fact Circe could wield any in that dimension was probably because of how ancient she was. None of the other ghosts had used any, Hermione realized in retrospect.

After trying everything she could think of, including screaming loudly for help until her voice gave out, she finally subsided in resignation and decided to wait. Hopeful that someone from the library would eventually come for them.

It was so boring.

There was nothing to do. They couldn't leave the history room, the ward was specifically built around the books in that room.

She was trapped a library and couldn't even read. Not that the ward made the books illegible but whenever she tried to pull a book off a shelf a ghost would pop out, demanding to know what she was doing poking into their biography rather than shagging their descendent. Eventually she gave up.

It was so dull.

She and Malfoy gave each other wide berth for a while, barely speaking to each other at all.

It seemed as though the ward also functioned as a timelock. It was impossible to say how much time had passed. They never got hungry or thirsty.

They just existed there—mind-numbingly bored.

Eventually she caved and started talking to Malfoy. It was that or start talking to herself.

As it turned out he was considerably less of an unbearable prick when he was no longer trying to conceal his crush by needling her to death.

It occurred to her after the first several attempted conversations that he was a nervous talker. Whenever the silence grew slightly awkward he would start prattling. Given his ridiculous memory, once he got started on a subject, he didn't know how to stop detailing it. Wittering on and on.

Hermione apparently made him very nervous given the length at which he would carry one.

Then, when he'd abruptly realize he was rambling, his immediate reaction was to slip back into his habitual nastiness and start trying to insult her before apparently catching himself, blushing, apologizing quickly—to Hermione's astonishment—and stalking off.

After several failed attempts at talking to each other, he finally appeared to have exhausted the bounds of his nervousness. Or maybe they were both just too bored to keep failing at having conversations. Either way, the rambling eventually eased somewhat.

He could actually be surprisingly decent. And smart. The conversations were rather more bearable than she expected

The lust spell worked a bit like being intoxicated. Everything tended to flow more easily.

She found that it made it easy for her talk to him about nearly anything, and they'd even smile and tease in a non-hurtful manner once in a while.

It was a lot like being slightly smashed, except she never felt sleepy, just hornier and hornier. Until she would abruptly realize that she liked staring at pointy/featured, practically albino-looking men who were too tall and whose unnaturally coloured eyes stared longingly at her—when he thought she wasn't looking—in a way that made her spine tingle.

Sometimes—when he was rambling again, she would begin wondering what Malfoy looked like under those perfectly tailored robes of his; that he might look very sexy if the top several buttons of his shirt were undone and his hair was tousled so it fell down over his eyes a bit. Then she'd wonder whether he still played quidditch and, if so, whether he had that lithe, muscular definition that was typical among seekers.

It was generally at about that point in her line of though that she would begin to wonder what he might do if she were climb into his lap and begin nibbling on his ears or possibly snogging him.

Every time Hermione realized her mind was going in that direction she'd blush scarlet and scuttle off into another corner of the history room.

Malfoy, for his part, was gallant enough not to try anything. Even when he looked as though his brain were melting from the sheer tedium of their imprisonment, he never brought up the fact that they could leave if she'd just agree to have sex with him once.

Hermione did notice that his eyes tended to start getting darker the longer they talked, and then occasionally he'd become abruptly prickly and stalk off. But the conversations up until that point were—nice.

"Malfoy, why didn't you ever mention in school that you had an eidetic memory?" She finally asked at some interminable point in their residence within the pocket dimension.

They were both lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling.

She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye.

"I assumed for a long time that you had one too, and everyone thought the way you'd recite whole passages of our textbooks to be unbearably irritating. I didn't really consider it to be something people would be impressed by. Good grief, can you imagine if we'd both been there reciting textbooks? The whole school would have jumped out of the windows." He sniggered and then continued.

"It's not as though remembering everything means I understand it. Memorizing all the theory didn't make me any better at actually performing spells or applying any of it practically. The fact that you tended to be good at both was unbearably annoying once I realized that you didn't have a memory like mine. It was like realizing the person you were racing only had one leg, but they were still managing to beat you anyway."

He sounded distinctly peeved as he said it and Hermione felt smug.

He gave a dry laugh. "'Most people regard it as creepy, or treat me like a rememberall. Mentioning it to you was the first time anyone ever looked shocked in a good way, much less envious." He snorted. "You started looking at me the way most witches do when they learn I'm to inherit a large fortune. Some witches get friendly over the size of my Gringotts vault, but Hermione Granger for the size of my brain."

Hermione blushed deep red.

"I always wanted an eidetic memory," she said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "I felt terribly jealous."

"I don't think you need one," he said without looking at her. "As far as useful information and accomplishments go, as you previously noted, you've got me soundly beaten."

Hermione flushed. She was beginning to feel rather bad about all mean things she had said to him. It had clearly gone deep.

"But—it must be so useful, don't you think?" she said.

"I don't know," he said, his voice subdued. "It gets very crowded. There so much pointless trivia that never goes away. It's always a lot to sort through in order to find anything useful. Nothing fades. Everything stays as vivid as the moment it happened. There isn't any moving on from anything, just—thinking about something else instead."

Hermione was silent at that. She hadn't considered that aspect. She couldn't imagine what it would be like if all the details from the war were still as vivid as when they'd happened. Or—the moment when someone he liked angrily belittled everything about him.

It was probably difficult to be mature about things when you were never actually able to get over them or get any distance. In that case, being nasty was probably an easy way to create distance from things you didn't want to care about.

"Malfoy," she finally said, "I think—I was wrong about you—"

"Don't," he cut her off. "You don't need to be nice to me because I've got a crush."

"I'm not," she said, turning her head to look at him. "You are more complicated than I realized. I didn't see that before."

He glanced over at her for a moment before looking back up at the ceiling.

"And—," she added, "not that it was the most important point, but I was lying when I said you weren't attractive. You're really not half bad looking."

"Well, at least there's that." He snorted.

"Your face—," Hermione searched for the right way to put it. "suits you."

"I have to admit, I used to aspire to slightly more when I was a little wizard," he said in a snide voice.

She blushed.

"I just mean that generally speaking I do not object to how you look."

"I shall cherish those words," he said with false solemnity. "Truly Granger, you know how to make a wizard blush."

After a moment he added, "Not that being here with you an eternity isn't a delight, but how much time do you feel has passed?"

"It's hard to say when there's no physical sense of it. At least two weeks. Maybe a month even."

"That's about what I had guessed."

"I bet none of our friends would have thought we'd be able to be locked together in a room this long without murdering each other," she said.

"Well, we're not out yet. We've still probably got another twenty-nine years and eleven months to go. Give us time," Malfoy said in a dry voice.

"Do you—," Hermione started and then blushed and stopped herself. "Should we—maybe—at least talk about just—leaving."

Malfoy's expression as he turned to look at her was decidedly cagey.

"Getting bored are you?"

"Yes," Hermione said, her cheeks warming. "Among other things."

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"You know—," she said awkwardly. "The lust spell."

Malfoy sat up and gaped. "Lust spell?"

Hermione stared at him.

"Yes. The one in the marriage bond. Circe mentioned it. Didn't you hear her?"

"No—," Malfoy choked. "She did not."

"She said she was including a lust spell, she called it 'not coercive but freeing.' So—you're not under it? Only me?" Hermione gaped.

He leapt to his feet.

"Circe!!" He roared. "You great fucking bint! Get out here and take the damn lust spell off of Granger! And take this truth charm off me while you're at it! Or I swear I will rip your fucking biography to pieces with my teeth. Unless you fancy my being your last descendant there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop me!"

That same sultry, feminine giggle suddenly bounced off the walls of the History room as Circe re-emerged from her book, draping herself across the top of the bookshelves.

"Finally figured that out then? Did you?" She sniggered.

"You already perfectly well knew that it was Granger I liked. You don't think I couldn't feel you poking about in my head before you put that truth charm on me? Putting her under a lust spell is completely indecent." Malfoy was white with raged.

"Well, obviously I knew, but a fat lot of good that does for anybody. The important person to have know was her. You needed a chance to be honest for a while. She needed an opportunity to see you with all new eyes. So," Circe shrugged indifferently as she examined her nails, "truth charm and alleged lust spell."

"Alleged?" Hermione gasped.

Circe's smirk turned positively evil.

"Inebriation charm. There's no concept of time here, so the sleepiness doesn't kick in. Little Malfoy here really isn't so awful on the eyes, now is he?"

Hermione felt just about ready to die of embarrassment. Was the mere suggestion of lusting over Malfoy all it took to prompt her to start mentally undressing him?

"Just let us out you meddlesome bint, and take all your spells off."

Malfoy was still fuming but looking suddenly less enraged.

"Fine." Circe sighed and snapped her fingers. The fuzzy sensation upon Hermione abruptly vanished.

"Ahem," grated Malfoy, holding up his hand to show that the wedding band still remained.

"Oh. I can't take that off. That'll last two years. Nothing I can do about it." Circe shrugged and then rolled onto her side slightly so she could smirk directly down at them as she continued. "You see, there's something I should probably mention now. I can't get you out of here."

"What?" Hermione and Draco gasped in horror.

"But—you—said—" Hermione spluttered.

"Yes. You may recall this ward is specifically designed to contain magic like me. So, truly. Not lying this time around, I cannot get you out. If you want to leave you'll have go wait thirty years for the ward to give out, or make—sex magic!" Circe sang the last words brightly. "Ghosts can't have sex, you know. Not even ghosts made out of sentient magic. It doesn't count. We have tried."

Hermione and Malfoy looked at each other, distinctly uncomfortable with this information.

"Anyway," Circe said, waving her hand airily. "The only type of magic that breaks through is sex magic. You're both young and hotblooded—despite how repressed you both are currently. The likelihood that you're really going to take thirty years to leave is quite low. I do need descendants and I'd rather have them be legitimate. So the marriage bond seemed like an obvious solution. But—the odds of a descendant occurring in one go are really just atrociously small. Poking around in your mind, little Malfoy, it was quite clear you haven't got any true resolve when it comes to getting over this crush of yours."

Malfoy flushed.

"So—this was really the perfect opportunity for matchmaking. That little witch of yours is just brimming with willingness to offer second chances. You just needed to stop being such cruel little cretin for a little while. So, truth charm and 'lust' spell. Worked rather well, I must say. Anyway—you're all up to speed on how this works now. So. Really. It's all up to you."

She fluttered a seductive wink at them and then vanished without another word.