Time dragged onwards, and Hermione was shocked one morning when she looked at the Daily Prophet's date to see it was February 2nd. The front page had a photo of Draco at a press conference from the day before. She could see herself in the background, eyes glazed from the muffliato charm combined with her Occlumency meditation. She had stood there for hours, as she had in the meeting before the conference and in the meetings and conferences and lunches and whatever for days before that. It was boring her out of her mind.