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Chapter Text

“Learning was so dangerous: for how could one tell in advance, while still ignorant, whether a thing could ever be unlearned or forgotten, or if, once known and named, it would invalidate by its significance the whole of one's former life, all of those years wiped out, convicted at one blow, retrospectively darkened by one sudden light?”

― Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall

June 18th

Professor Quirinus Quirrell quit his post as Muggle Studies professor shortly before breakfast. By lunch, the news was all over the school. 

Gossip usually spread quickly at Hogwarts but, in that lazy period between the end of exams and the summer break when students had little to do but talk, it could put Fiendfyre to shame. 

“Heard he screamed at Dumbledore and said –”

“Shove the job –”

“I heard he cried.”

“I don’t think that’s true because I heard he smashed up a chair and threw it at –”

“You can still cry while throwing a chair!”

“Obviously, but your aim would be –”

“Just classic ‘Querulous’, really, isn’t it?”

Hermione Granger heard fragments of many tales. Some of them – like the one in which Quirrell ripped open his robes and screamed so fiercely that Dumbledore’s phoenix burst into flame – were utterly ridiculous. 

Some of them, though, were close to the truth. Bewilderingly close given Hermione, as far as she was aware, had been the only witness to the event other than Dumbledore and Quirrell themselves. 

At the request of Professor McGonagall, she had been taking a list of recent detentions to Dumbledore when she overheard the discussion. If discussion was what it could be called. 

It had, to Hermione, sounded more like a rant on the part of Quirrell. A very high-pitched rant. A rant about “ill-behaved, bullying little toerags”, a “continued lack of respect” and “not being taken seriously.” 

“I am being undervalued, Dumbledore!” Hermione had heard from the other side of Dumbledore’s closed office door, the unfamiliar belligerence in Quirrell’s voice stopping her in her tracks. 

“Quirinus, you are highly valued, I assure you. Please don’t –”

“No!” A slamming sound followed by a yelp, like someone had whacked a desk and regretted it, made Hermione wince. “I should have done this years ago. I’m going!”

“Where are you going, Quirinus?” Dumbledore had asked the question in that way of his that Hermione had noticed he had. Polite – interested, even – but with a sharp edge of condescension that could slice through a person's bluster like it was nothing more than soft butter. 

Not Quirrell’s, though. Quirrell had patently had enough. 

“Away! ” he’d cried. “To make my mark on the world. I’m a great wizard, Dumbledore. Wasted here, I tell you. Wasted! You’ll see it one day.”

“I can see I’ll have a job talking you down,” Dumbledore had said, sounding both tired and amused. “You will be a difficult man to replace.”

“I will?” It sounded like Quirrell had stopped at that and Hermione could easily imagine his perplexed blink. “Yes, I will! And I’ll be going tonight, Dumbledore. Don’t try to stop me!” 

Quirrell had worked himself up into such a pique that he hadn’t even noticed Hermione pressed against the wall when he’d hauled the door of Dumbledore’s office and stormed down the stairs, his billowing cloak whipping her on the shins.

Several long seconds of silence had followed, finally punctuated by the sound of Quirrell sharply ordering the gargoyle at the base of the stairs to move faster.

“You have something for me, Miss Granger?” Had been Dumbledore’s eventual invitation for her to enter. 

He hadn’t said a word about Quirrell and Hermione hadn’t wished to overstep the mark by asking about him. It had been remarkably easy to simply pretend that nothing unusual had happened. Dumbledore was good at that.

“Did you hear?” Neville asked in an undertone as soon as Hermione sat down to lunch in the Great Hall. “About Quirrell?”

“Oh, I heard alright,” Hermione said lightly, pulling a basket of bread over the staff table towards her plate.

As apprentices, she and Neville sat towards the end of the table. There was an element of hierarchy to the arrangement but they found that they didn’t mind – it allowed them to converse in peace, which was especially appreciated when they wanted to discuss matters that weren’t strictly professional. Sex and relationships, for instance. Or unutterably juicy gossip. 

Even though their professors had become colleagues, the former dynamic lingered and likely would for many years. All they had was each other and they didn’t mind in the least.

“Wait,” Neville said, his eyes widening as he watched Hermione hurriedly scoop up some butter with the edge of her knife. “You mean you heard? Or you mean you heard?”

Hermione’s hand stilled, the butter knife pressed into the soft bread, her gaze flicking meaningfully to Neville’s out of the corners of her eyes. “I mean I heard.”

“Oh?” Neville pushed a plate heaped with meats and cheeses towards her as a sort of makeshift offering and Hermione began layering them onto her bread, not looking at him. “What was it like, then? As bad as I’ve been hearing?”

“It was certainly loud.” 

Hermione took a bite out of her sandwich, feeling Neville’s eyes on her bulging cheeks as she chewed slowly. 

“You know,” she finally said, “Dumbledore said Quirrell would be hard to replace but he didn’t seem to try very hard to keep him.”

“Well, Quirrell’s been giving out about how he’s going to go for years,” Neville said, shrugging. “Been getting louder and louder about it, too. Dumbledore’s not one to waste his time.”

“I think he was trying to call Quirrell's bluff,” Hermione muttered, glaring into the bite missing from her sandwich like she hadn’t been the one to take it. “Stupid thing to do – the man wasn’t playing his cards close to his chest as much as throwing them in a burning pyre and dancing around it.” 

Hermione huffed out a sigh through her nose, turning to Neville with a frown. “Muggle Studies will be a hard post to fill. With someone decent, anyway. Not before the start of the new school year.”

“It’s not like Quirrell was that great at it.”

Hermione tilted her head in acknowledgement of Neville’s point before taking another bite of her sandwich. 

Quirrell hadn’t always been a bad teacher but when he had taken up the position of Muggle Studies professor at a remarkably young age, it was likely that he had not envisioned still being in it nearly two decades later. 

By the time Hermione had come into his class, he had treated his subject, and the students of it, as something of an inconvenience – like they were holding him back. They had responded to his martyred attitude by making him the butt of a great many jokes. It hadn’t helped his dissatisfaction. 

“It’s a subject that needs a good teacher,” Hermione said, depositing her sandwich on her plate with a dissatisfied air. “Someone who actually cares.”

Neville nodded and mumbled something that sounded like agreement without committing to further discussion; by this point he was all too familiar with Hermione’s feelings on Muggle Studies and wary of saying anything that might instigate a rant. They only had an hour for lunch, after all. 

Muggle Studies was one of the school’s most underserved subjects. This was, in Hermione's eyes, the result of a combination of things. Firstly, and most superficially, Muggle Studies classes didn’t involve any actual magic and Hogwarts students liked nothing more than a chance to prove their magical mettle. 

More significantly, though, there was the devastating combination of the general disdain wizards felt for Muggles and an unenthusiastic professor who was simply not equipped or willing to combat that. 

Over the years, class numbers had dwindled, with many of Quirrell’s students selecting the subject because they saw it as an easy ‘O’ and little else. 

To Hermione, Muggle Studies had the potential to be so much more than that. For some in the Wizarding World, particularly cloistered purebloods, it was likely the first meaningful encounter with the Muggle world that they’d have. 

As Hermione saw it, it was an opportunity to engender an interest in – and respect for – Muggles themselves. It was an opportunity to start an attitudinal shift.

From her first days in the wizarding world as a Muggleborn, Hermione had been made to feel like she would never know enough. The overriding message had been that her Muggle upbringing had been a waste of nearly eleven years and she had better eschew her connection to that world in order to prove just how much she deserved and wanted to be in the magical community. 

Almost ten months of each year for seven years – her most formative years – had been spent at Hogwarts. After a fashion, the wizarding world had bled into her summers, effortlessly pushing out her Muggle friends, hobbies, and even holidays with her parents. 

At first, she hadn’t questioned it because desperation to belong had overridden everything else. But when she’d reached her last years at Hogwarts and found that Muggle Studies had become her primary means of engaging with the world she’d been born into – the world in which her parents still lived – she’d started to doubt. Started to become angry. Started to ask why.

It just didn’t seem right that she should have to deny a whole part of herself in order to belong. Especially because her fellow witches and wizards still found ways to exclude her – to make it clear that her Muggle associations would always set her apart or hold her back. 

This had been made absolutely clear as graduation had approached. Hermione had discovered that, despite her exceptional grades, despite her years as a Prefect, she didn’t have the requisite connections or the summer internships to compete for Ministry jobs like her pureblood and half-blood peers.

No one ever denied that she was a witch but the word ‘Muggleborn’ was always attached to her accomplishments – a largely unspoken, though sometimes whispered, caveat.

But when witches and wizards were being taught about Muggles by professors who didn’t care, professors who made themselves and their subject a laughing stock, what hope was there of change? 

If only, she thought, Muggle Studies could be taught by someone who cared about the subject, about Muggles. Someone who could make the students care. Someone more like – well…more like –

“Neville,” Hermione said slowly, drawing an absent ‘hmm?’ from him as he poured himself a goblet of pumpkin juice. “What if I replaced Quirrell?”

Neville folded his lips between his teeth, eating a fledgling smile as he finished pouring his juice. 

“What?” Hermione asked, her eyes narrowing.

Setting the jug down carefully, Neville finally gave her his full attention. “Well, I just feel like you’d like to replace every professor, given half the chance.”

“Shut up,” Hermione snapped, her cheeks warming. “I’m serious.”

“You’re McGonagall’s apprentice,” Neville pointed out. “And I honestly think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen her even slightly rely on. You really think she’d be willing to lose you?”

“I’ve been her apprentice for five years, Neville,” Hermione said, absentmindedly pressing her forefinger against the pumpkin juice jug to catch a bead of moisture that was running towards the table. “We’re not going to need a replacement Transfiguration professor any time soon – not that I’m unhappy about that.” 

Shaking her head, she shrugged helplessly. “I’d just sort of…like to start having my own classes, y’know? I feel ready.”

Neville nodded with a mix of understanding and pity. He had only been Sprout’s apprentice for two years and he was already coming to Hermione at regular intervals, his excitement and ideas for classes making him chafe at the confines of his secondary position. 

“Then tell her that,” he said, like it was the only reasonable thing to do which, Hermione supposed, it was. Certainly, it was the most productive.

It was just after dinner when Hermione found Minerva McGonagall in her private office. 

Now that they were just whiling away the last few days before classes broke up for the summer, Hermione wasn’t entirely surprised that her former professor was reclined in a squashy red armchair by her fire, a glass of sherry in hand and a heavy book balanced in her lap. 

It was a side of the stern woman Hermione could never have imagined during her time as a student but now she knew that side of her. It never failed to amuse Hermione, though, that, even in such a state of repose, McGonagall kept her hair pulled tight in a bun. 

“Minerva,” Hermione said, peeking her head around the door while knocking lightly on it to draw attention. “Would you mind if I had a word?”

Without missing a beat, McGonagall closed the book in her lap with a thump and gestured to the chair across from her with an open hand. 

Hermione crossed the room swiftly and sat on the chair’s edge, the anticipation of making her request rendering her unable to completely sink back into its comfort. 

Despite it being a warm evening in early summer, the fire was blazing. Almost as soon as Hermione sat down, she found herself tugging uncomfortably at the neck of her robes, a ticklish trickle of sweat starting a long slide down from her armpit. McGonagall, meanwhile, appeared to be at her ideal temperature. 

Within two waves of McGonagall’s wand, a glass of sherry had filled itself and soared across the room to attempt to press itself into Hermione’s hand. 

“Oh, no,” Hermione said with a weak smile, keeping her fingers curled against the increasingly aggressive nudges of the floating glass. “I’m really alright.”

“Nonsense,” McGonagall said briskly, lifting her own glass to her lips and making a shoo-ing motion with her free hand. “Take it.”

Relenting, Hermione allowed the small glass to slide into her grasp and she swore she could feel it shiver in satisfaction at having fulfilled its command. 

Staring into the amber liquid for a moment, Hermione decided to be good company and took an experimental sip. It was rich and faintly sweet, reminding her of the nutty biscuits her mother liked to bake around Christmas. 

Licking her lips appreciatively, Hermione looked up to find McGonagall watching her patiently and smiled. “Sorry,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s nice.”

“I have been known to enjoy a small glass,” said McGonagall with a knowing smile of her own. “Or two.” 

There was a pause in which McGonagall inspected the visibly nervous Hermione over the wire-rims of her spectacles. "What can I do for you, Hermione?” she asked.

Swallowing, Hermione fidgeted with the glass she had lowered into her lap. “Well, it’s er –” Just say it. Say you want to replace Quirrell. “It’s about Professor Quirrell.”

McGonagall’s thin eyebrows rose and her lips parted with understanding. “Ah, yes,” she said, her chin drawing towards her neck as she looked down into her sherry. “Albus did tell me you were an unfortunate witness to…” She trailed off, her lips pursing disapprovingly and her gaze straying to the fire. 

“Quirinus was a very good student, you know, in his time at Hogwarts,” she added, her expression appearing far away. “But always very sensitive to the opinions of others.”

Hermione nodded, not entirely sure what she was supposed to say to that. She had, after all, known nothing but the dissatisfied and fractious Quirrell. He hadn’t spoken to her much. In fact, once he'd marked her down for an essay being 'excessively long'. Having marked essays herself Hermione now understood his frustration but a tiny, resentful part of her still held it against him. It had been a very well researched essay.

“I hope you weren’t too upset by his outburst?” McGonagall asked, returning her attention back to Hermione. “Had I known he was – well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have sent you up there, I assure you.”

“No, of course,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “It’s not that. It’s…well, I was just wondering if there had been any thoughts as to his replacement.”

Frowning slightly, like she found Hermione’s keen interest curious, McGonagall said, “Albus will have to put an advertisement out as soon as possible. I believe he plans to send one to the Prophet in the morning. Merlin only knows how long it will be before we get even a single response.” 

Sighing sharply through her nose, McGonagall took another, seemingly fortifying, drink of sherry. 

“He will have a job finding a replacement, I can tell you that much,” she added, fixing Hermione with an exasperated look. “Muggle Studies is, unfortunately, not traditionally a subject that’s had the great and the good of the academic world clamouring at our door.”

“Minerva,” Hermione began, turning her glass between her fingers, the base pressing into her thighs. “What if…” She raised her gaze to McGonagall’s, finding it steady and piercing. “I was just thinking: what if I replaced Quirrell?”

“You?” 

Hermione nodded, encouraged by the fact that McGonagall’s response hadn’t sounded utterly incredulous as much as politely surprised.

“Hermione.” McGonagall paused, like she was considering her next words carefully. “I was always under the impression that it was your ambition to teach Transfiguration. You are, after all, my apprentice.”

“It –” Hermione cleared her throat softly. “It’s my ambition to teach, Minerva. And it’s my desire to be useful to the school – to the students. I think I really could be – useful, that is – as the Muggle Studies professor.”

Lips pursed, McGonagall appraised her. “Muggle Studies is a subject that Muggleborn academics have tended to avoid,” she said tactfully. “Most of them prefer to… branch out.”

Hermione knew that McGonagall was not the kind of witch who thought anything of a student’s blood status. They were either talented, promising and hard-working or they were not – their background meant nothing to her but, still, Hermione’s expression hardened. 

“You mean they like to teach subjects that make it easier for them to distance themselves from their Muggle heritage,” she said, somewhat surprised by her own bluntness.

“Yes,” McGonagall replied, taking that as permission to be equally as blunt. “You are an immensely skilled witch, Hermione. I wouldn’t like to see you pigeonholed or underestimated.”

“I’m not ashamed of being a Muggleborn, Minerva." Even if it could make things difficult, Hermione knew she was not the problem. “Maybe by becoming the Muggle Studies professor I could help some of our students cultivate a similar pride. Or challenge some preconceptions.”

When McGonagall looked hesitant, Hermione added, “Change has to start somewhere. What better place than here, with us?”

Such idealism earned Hermione a tired but compassionate smile. “I can’t pretend it wouldn’t make our lives a lot easier,” McGonagall admitted on a sigh. “You’re more than ready to begin taking your own classes, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”

The fire crackled, discordantly merry as McGonagall inspected Hermione, her expression tight. Hermione couldn’t help but hold her breath under such scrutiny. 

“You really want it?” McGonagall finally asked. “To teach Muggle Studies? I’m more than happy to give you charge of one of my OWL Transfiguration classes, you know. I’d already been considering it for next year.”

“I do,” Hermione said earnestly. “I do want it.” 

Though the idea had only come to her that afternoon, Hermione had become oddly attached to it. She had visions for her classes, hopes for her students. She could make Muggle Studies a useful, interesting subject. More than something students selected because they saw it as a bit of a soft touch.

“I believe you,” McGonagall said, straightening up purposefully in her chair to set her now empty glass on a small side table. “Well then, I suppose there’s no time to waste – we might save Albus a letter.”

By 9pm, Hermione was seated in Dumbledore’s office, a lemon sherbet she had accepted but could not bring herself to eat clutched in her sweaty palm, while Minerva McGonagall pleaded her case. 

“And this is what you want, Hermione?” Dumbledore finally asked, his twinkling blue eyes inspecting Hermione over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. “To replace Professor Quirrell?”

“Yes,” Hermione said with a firm nod, trying to inject as much certainty into her voice as possible. “It is.”

“You've a great aptitude for transfiguration,” Dumbledore said, his voice gentle but undeniably leading. “Minerva and myself have been most pleased with you. You're sure you would not rather continue on your current path?

Hermione pursed her lips. Dumbledore was, in the eyes of many, the champion of Muggles in the wizarding world. It was thanks to him, after all, that much of the most recent legislation for the protection of Muggles and the advancement of Muggleborn rights had been passed. Yet here he was, having already lost one Muggle Studies professor, attempting to dissuade a perfectly willing and qualified replacement. 

Sometimes Hermione wondered if he didn’t like good ideas quite as much when they did not spring from his own mind.

“I’m very sure, sir,” Hermione said, meeting his blue eyes with certainty. “I think I could do a lot of good in that role. Besides, I’ll still pursue my interest in transfiguration on the side.”

Dumbledore’s eyes drifted to McGonagall who lifted her shoulders ever so slightly and said, “She’s ready to take classes, Albus. More than ready. And we cannot pretend she’s not an ideal candidate – known to the students and personally invested in the subject.”

Dumbledore nodded slowly, clasping his hands on the surface of his desk. “Minerva’s clear confidence in you is enough for me,” he eventually said. “I would be delighted to have you in the role.” 

Hermione brightened but, seeing her perk up, Dumbledore raised a cautioning hand. “You are, however, still very young to be given a professorship. Even with your years of experience as an apprentice.”

Hermione frowned. She was around the same age Quirrell had been when he’d taken the job. Before she could point that out, Dumbledore explained, “In recent years, the school’s governors have become somewhat more… invested in our – my – teaching appointments.”

Through Dumbledore’s beard, Hermione thought she could see a slight downturn to his lips that suggested he wasn’t entirely pleased by the board of governors’ interest. It went some way to mollifying her.

“They have expressed a desire to vet new appointments,” Dumbledore continued. “Assess their qualifications and their backgrounds.” His eyes flicked briefly to McGonagall before returning to Hermione, piercing her. “Your relative youth may give them pause.”

“Surely, professor, my years of experience as an apprentice should go some way to alleviating any concerns they have,” Hermione replied. “I’m not exactly coming from nowhere. The parents know they can trust me with their children.”

Hermione had created lesson plans, taught classes, marked essays and invigilated OWL examinations. That wasn’t to mention the good relationships she had forged with her colleagues – she was a far better option than any outsider and the more she thought about it, the stronger she felt about it. 

“Indeed,” Dumbledore agreed. Quite jovially, too. “Still, I anticipate that you will receive an invitation to a meeting or an interview over the summer before your appointment can be confirmed.”

“Does that mean you –”

“Yes, Hermione. It means I will be putting you forward as a candidate. The only candidate, I might add.” Dumbledore’s eyes gleamed, a wry smile curving his lips. “Let us see if that doesn’t help to twist their collective arm, hm?”

Chapter Text

July 25th

“You need to eat something, dear,” said Helen Granger, brushing Hermione’s back with a gentle hand as she hurried across the kitchen to pick up the coffee her husband had left on the counter for her. “Think how embarrassed you’ll be if your stomach growls in the middle of you saying something clever.”

“I know, mum,” Hermione droned, taking her mother’s lunch ingredients out of the fridge to set them out on the counter for her. “I’ll have some toast or something, don’t worry.”

“And what time is the interview again?” Helen asked, setting her cup down to begin preparing a sandwich. “You’ll let us know how you get on as soon as you can, yes?”

“It’s at one,” Hermione said, sinking into a chair by the kitchen table to observe her mother buzz around the kitchen at a safe distance. “And yes, I will.”

“Have you decided what you’re wearing?” Helen asked, looking over her shoulder at her daughter, still dressed in her pyjamas. “Because I don’t think they’ll be convinced by the battered old bunny slippers.”

Rolling her eyes once she was sure her mother had turned away again, Hermione self-consciously tucked her slippered feet in more neatly under her chair. “The pink trousers,” she answered. “The smart ones. With the cream blouse.”

“Oh, I like that blouse,” Helen said with an approving nod as she folded tinfoil around her sandwich to make a neat silver package. She put just as much care into the presentation of her daily lunches as she did the family’s Christmas presents. “Very flattering.”

“I don’t think the school governors will especially care how flattering my blouse is,” Hermione grumbled.

“Well, there’s twelve of them, didn’t you say?” Helen asked, turning to face her daughter with a cheeky smile. “One of them just might.”

“Mum,” Hermione groaned, her head dropping back. “For goodness’ sake. Do you know what year we’re living in?”

“You’re a very pretty girl, Hermione,” Helen said, waggling a finger. “And there’s no harm in showing it. It might not get you the job but I don’t see how it could hurt.”

Before Hermione could snap back at her mother, David Granger poked his balding head into the kitchen to beam at his daughter. 

“Good luck, pet,” he said. “You’ll do fantastic.” 

Glancing over at his wife, David jerked his head in a backwards motion, indicating that he’d left the car running. “Helen, come on. Alan is running late so we’re opening the practice today instead.”

“Alan is always running late,” Helen said with an exasperated sigh. Despite that, she collected her sandwich and bustled across the kitchen, only pausing to press a kiss into the top of Hermione’s head. 

“Good luck, dear,” she said. “And don’t forget to smile – those braces weren’t for nothing!”

When the front door of the house slammed behind her parents, Hermione let out a long, exhausted sigh and slid her arms across the kitchen table, folding her body so that her forehead could rest on the polished wood. 

She loved her parents dearly but there were moments where being 23 and still under their roof as their only child grated on her, especially because she enjoyed the relative freedom of her own rooms at Hogwarts during the school year. 

The bump in salary that would come from becoming a full-fledged Hogwarts professor would allow her to think about finding her own place for the summer holidays and it made her interview that afternoon all the more important.

Because it was an interview rather than simply an informal meeting – a letter from the board of governors at the beginning of the month had made that much very clear. 

Sighing through her nose, Hermione pushed herself to her feet and surveyed the kitchen that was bathed in early morning sunlight. 

Her mother was right about one thing, at least – she did need to eat something before she left. 

Dumbledore was waiting for Hermione in the Entrance Hall when she arrived at the castle, the gold threads in his ornate scarlet robes catching the sunlight in a way that only enhanced the magical aura that always seemed to surround him. 

“Hermione,” he said, a welcoming smile deepening the lines in his face. “Perfectly on time and –” 

Over the thin rims of his spectacles, Dumbledore surveyed Hermione’s smart Muggle attire and the light navy travelling cloak that the summer heat had forced her to sling over one arm. “Dressed appropriately for your subject.”

Hermione smiled back, though far more nervously, as she started to wonder if her decision to lean into Muggle dress had been a mistake. She had thought that a Muggle Studies teacher ought to show that they had the requisite knowledge to dress like a Muggle in a context-appropriate way – surely one of the most basic but useful skills a young witch or wizard could expect to learn in her classroom. Now, she was having misgivings.

“An excellent idea,” Dumbledore added soothingly, perhaps sensing that he had caused her a moment of self-doubt and wishing to assuage it. 

“Thank you for being here, sir,” Hermione said, crossing her arms protectively over her middle, her cloak folded between them. Her toast sat heavily in her stomach, somehow feeling like it had been too much and not enough all at the same time.

Dumbledore shook his head and waved a dismissive hand, his jewel-encrusted rings gleaming as they sailed through the air. “There’s no need for thanks,” he said. “You’re my candidate, after all.”

Hermione tipped her head, privately thinking that she would not have been anyone’s candidate were it not for her putting herself forward. 

“Besides,” he added, wearing a small, thoughtful frown, “twelve on one hardly seems fair, does it?” Leaning towards Hermione with a conspiratorial air, he said in an undertone, “I like to think that my presence will somewhat balance it out.”

Glancing around the Entrance Hall, Hermione shifted on her feet, itching to move and get the whole ordeal over with, imagining Hercules must have felt something similar while journeying to the many-headed Hydra. “Where are they?”

“Waiting for us,” Dumbledore replied opaquely, straightening up to lean back on his heels. “Speaking of which – I should not wish to waste your admirable effort to be punctual.” 

Sweeping an arm in the direction of Great Hall, Dumbledore stepped back so that Hermione could pass. “Shall we?”

Heart sinking, Hermione turned in the direction of the large doors. “They’re interviewing me in there?” 

It struck her as a needlessly formal and daunting location. The Great Hall was the location of feasts, sortings, announcements and examinations. Not single interviews for Muggle Studies professors. 

“They had a light lunch and could not be prevailed upon to move,” Dumbledore replied, the disapproval in his tone very faint but still audible to Hermione. “And I am afraid I am hospitable to a fault.”

Swallowing, Hermione nodded and, with another glance at Dumbledore’s kindly face, proceeded towards the Great Hall. The doors swung open for her, allowing her to step into the cavernous space, which only felt larger without any house tables or crowds of students milling around, filing it up with their carefree chatter. 

Straight ahead of Hermione, seated at the long staff table at the top of the hall, was the board of Hogwarts governors. All twelve of them, sitting under the enchanted clear blue summer sky, chatting quietly amongst themselves as they waited for her. 

It felt to Hermione like it took an age to cross the length of the hall. Dumbledore stayed just behind her, their unsynchronised footsteps echoing in an unmelodious manner. Hermione cursed her decision to wear heels – small as they were – the repetitive click of them against the stone floor growing unbearable to her ears the longer she had to listen to it. 

The closer Hermione got to the table, the clearer her view of the governors became. Eleven men and one woman, as far as she could see. No doubt all purebloods and half-bloods. A typical balance, then.

Gradually, their chatter stopped and, by the time Hermione was only a few steps from the stairs to the platform on which their table sat, they were all watching her and Dumbledore finish their approach. The weight of their collective stare made each of the last few steps Hermione had to take feel incredibly arduous.

The governors were seated on one side of the staff table and, now, Hermione could see a single chair positioned on the other side, facing them with its back to the main door. That, she could only assume, was for her and so she stopped beside it.

“Good afternoon,” Hermione said, hoping her smile was pleasant and not at all as strained as it felt. The set up had all the feeling of a trial.

“Good afternoon, Miss…” 

The governor at the centre of the table, who Hermione presumed was the chairperson, glanced down at a sheaf of parchment. “Granger, isn’t it?” 

He looked up and offered her a kind smile, which plumped up his ruddy cheeks and helped to loosen the tight ball of anxiety in Hermione’s chest. “Please, take a seat, dear.”

Nodding, Hermione glanced briefly at Dumbledore before sliding into the single seat in front of the table. Rather than take a seat himself, the headmaster decided to remain standing, just behind her and to the left like some kind of gangling guardian. 

Clearing her throat, Hermione placed her cloak into the small space between the side of her legs and the arm of the chair and smoothed down her trousers with clammy hands. Once satisfied that they were neat, she clasped her hands in her lap and looked up to find the governors waiting for her, all of their eyes on her. 

It was impossible for her to take them all in at once, so she simply tried to focus on the three closest to the centre of the table. Two men and the solitary woman, all of them beyond middle age and smartly dressed.

“I am Edmund Fraser, Miss Granger. Chair of the Hogwarts board of governors,” said the centremost governor again, his pale, watery eyes meeting hers. “I hope you’ll forgive the grandeur of our location – we recently finished lunch and I find –” He took a deep breath and pressed a hand to his chest like he was suppressing a burp. “I find my digestion needs rather more time to get going than it once did.” 

“It’s not a problem,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “I spend so much of my time at Hogwarts, it all feels very much like home.”

That wasn’t strictly true – she was intimidated – but the lie felt good coming out of her mouth and she was almost convinced by it. Perhaps they would be too.

“Good, good,” said Edmund absently as he shuffled a few sheets of parchment on the table in front of him. “So.” 

He lifted a sheet and squinted at it, his nose wrinkling so much that it pulled up his top lip to expose his crooked front teeth. “Muggle Studies, eh?” 

“Er, yes,” Hermione said, not entirely sure if she was supposed to reply to that.

“So, Quirrell finally packed it in, did he, Dumbledore?” Edmund asked, his gaze rising over Hermione’s head.

“Quite spectacularly,” came Dumbledore’s softly amused voice from just over Hermione’s shoulder.

Edmund grunted noncommittally. “And she’s the only candidate?”

Hermione found it hard not to bristle. What was the point in bringing her all the way to the castle if they were simply going to talk about her?

“Yes, Edmund,” replied Dumbledore. “And we are very fortunate for that.”

Edmund grunted once again, eyeing Dumbledore with something like suspicion before returning his attention to the parchment in front of him. 

“Exceptional exam results,” Edmund said, whether to himself or the room at large, Hermione wasn’t entirely sure. “Prefect. Plenty of praise from your professors. You’re impressive enough on paper, Miss Granger.”

Raising his head, Edmund ran an appraising eye over Hermione, who tried desperately not to fidget. “But young.”

“I am young, Mr Fraser,” Hermione acknowledged, with a differential dip of her head. “But I have been a teaching apprentice at Hogwarts for five years and I have proven myself very adept in that time. I believe I submitted a reference that attests to that with my application.”

“I'm Elizabeth Dean, Miss Granger,” said the witch on Edmund’s right, drawing Hermione’s attention away from the wizard who had started fumbling through his folders to find the reference. “You say you have been an apprentice for five years. To Minerva McGonagall, yes?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Her reference was favourable,” Elizabeth noted with an approving nod. “But you do not wish to seek out a position teaching her subject? Transfiguration?”

“I am very intent on teaching Muggle Studies.”

“I would have thought a girl seemingly as clever as you would want to go after a role with a bit more…” Edmund hesitated, his eyes raking over Hermione in a way that made her cross her legs to create an additional, protective layer of herself. “Well, let’s just say there’s not much to challenge in Muggle Studies.”

Hermione pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, resisting the urge to tell him that it was attitudes like his that made her think Muggle Studies should be given more prominence. 

“Is there something in particular about Muggle Studies that attracts you?” asked a wizard on the far right of the table who did not bother to introduce himself. “Or are you simply taking advantage of a job opening?”

“Well, sir, I’m a Muggleborn,” Hermione announced, her voice ringing clear and bright in the hall. 

In her periphery, she spied the heads of several governors rising and swivelling to look directly at her. She could not, however, see their expressions and was somewhat thankful for it. 

“I think there’s a great deal of value in understanding Muggles. We can learn from them.”

There was a pause and Hermione heard some rustles as a couple of the governors leaned in to mutter to their neighbours. 

"Did you know –?" began one. 

"I mean, I didn't recognise the name," whispered another. “Just assumed she was one of Dagworth- Granger’s –”

From behind Hermione, Dumbledore cleared his throat pointedly and the murmuring died out. It hadn’t been all that loud but there was a curious ringing in Hermione’s ears, like they had been screaming. 

“I see,” Fraser said, completely abandoning the parchment in front of him to eye Hermione even more closely. “Well, I suppose that would give you some familiarity with the subject, wouldn't it? You still spend time in the Muggle world, young lady?”

Young lady. Hermione sighed internally but said aloud, “My summers, sir, are largely spent in Muggle London.”

More murmuring rippled through the group, quieter this time. Turning her head slightly, Hermione caught one of the wizards leaning forward, adjusting his glasses so that he could inspect the trousers she was wearing. Squeezing her nails into her palm, she tried not to roll her eyes. 

“You’ve been unusually subdued this afternoon, Lucius,” piped up a moustached governor half-way down the table, eliciting a few chuckles from his fellows. “Don’t you have any questions for Miss Granger?”

Hermione’s eyes tracked the rotating heads of the other governors to the man who had been referred to as Lucius, eventually finding him seated in the chair that she usually occupied during the school year. 

It surprised Hermione that she had not noticed him before; in a sea of heads which tended towards grey or balding, his long blonde hair stood out. He was, she thought, likely the youngest there – perhaps mid-to-late 40s, if she had to put an age to him. 

His face was pale, his jaw sharp, and Hermione might have deemed him aristocratically handsome if his expression hadn’t been disinterested to the point of disdain as he glanced up from the parchment he was reading.

“Hm?” he hummed, a slow, insolent blink suggesting that he hadn’t been listening to a word that had been said.

“Don’t you have any questions for Miss Granger?” prompted another governor with a touch of impatience. “We don’t want you grandstanding at the end again.”

“Questions,” Lucius drawled, a faintly pondering edge to his tone. “No, no questions, exactly. More...suggestions.”

Hermione blinked. The man had clearly not been listening. In fact, since he had been called upon he had, not once, even looked at her. How could he venture to suggest anything?

“Well, go on, Lucius,” said Edmund, with an impatient wave of his hand that prompted his neighbour to lean back to avoid being struck by it. 

“Oh, well, not to disparage your… credentials, Miss Granger,” Lucius said, still not looking at Hermione but casting an imperious eye over the parchment in front of him. “Such as they are. But I rather thought that, in light of the departure of Quirrell, we might just…” Lucius shrugged carelessly, lowering the parchment. “Take the opportunity to remove his subject from the curriculum entirely.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open and she goggled at the ridiculous man. He had made his ‘suggestion’ with a confident forthrightness that made it seem perfectly sensible, natural and not in any way short-sighted or extreme to the point of laughability. 

There was a faintly stunned pause and then a chuckle rolled through the other governors in a way that suggested what he had said was ‘classic Lucius’.

A confused frown pulled Hermione’s brows together as she inspected him. He didn’t look amused at all and instead simply waited patiently for calm to return. If what he had said was ‘classic Lucius’, it wasn’t because it was his habit to make bad jokes.

“Malfoy,” said a governor beside Lucius, still chuckling softly. “Be serious, man, we can’t do that.”

Malfoy. 

Hermione’s eyes darted back to the blonde man and her stomach dropped like a stunned bludger. Some quiet, observant part of her mind that she hadn’t quite had the time or patience to listen to had thought him familiar. He was surely the father of Draco Malfoy.  

Draco Malfoy had often bragged about his father being a governor during their time at school and Hermione realised she had actually seen the man once or twice, though it had always been at a distance. Either across a courtyard or a Quidditch pitch. Until this point, Lucius Malfoy had been sort of a tall, blonde blur in her mind.

The man before her, then, had raised the bullying little toerag that had so enjoyed trying to make her life at Hogwarts miserable. One of a very small number of her peers who had ever dared to call her a Mudblood to her face. The only one who had done it repeatedly with greater relish each time.

Suddenly his suggestion that they scrap Muggle Studies wasn’t all that surprising; surely Draco had gotten that word – his attitude – from somewhere.

"Why can't we do it, Mitchell?" Lucius asked, one of his pale eyebrows arching. "Are we not the governors of the school? Is it not our job to do what is best for the students?"

When Mitchell did nothing but shift uncomfortably, Lucius added, "It’s one of the least popular elective subjects – numbers have been dropping year on year. Besides, I think we’re quite familiar enough with Muggle ways –” Heat suffused Hermione's cheeks and the tips of her ears as Malfoy uttered a short disdainful laugh. “They’re hardly complex."

"Wasn’t it only last week,” Hermione asked abruptly, her voice almost too loud to her own ears, “that a high-ranking Ministry official appeared in newspapers both Magical and Muggle because he had to be extracted from a turnstile in a public toilet while wearing a bikini and a trench coat?" 

There was a beat of silence in which Malfoy slowly turned his head towards Hermione, looking at her properly for the first time. His eyes were cold and grey and, when they met hers, his lip curled unpleasantly. 

"I must have missed that," he said dismissively.

"That was his excuse, funnily enough," Hermione said, only a faint waver in her voice. "Perhaps he wouldn’t have gotten in such an embarrassing muddle had he taken even a term of Muggle Studies."

A couple of governors coughed and hid smiles behind their hands. Malfoy’s jaw visibly tightened. 

"Hogwarts has been searching for a full-time Divination teacher for years with no success," Hermione pointed out, not dropping her gaze from Lucius Malfoy, who was looking at her like he couldn’t quite believe she was still present, never mind talking. "There’s been no suggestion of cutting that class despite the varying quality of the substitutes."

"Divination is one of our most ancient magical arts," Lucius replied sharply.

"So ancient that even Muggles engage with it in their own ways." Hermione was even more sharp in her response, her own nerve making her heart pound in her ears. "Now, wouldn’t that make an interesting topic for a lesson, Mr Malfoy?"

There was an uneasy chuckle from one of the wizards next to Malfoy when the blonde wizard visibly bristled, sitting forward in his seat with a sneer. 

Hermione merely blinked back at him, her expression benign. Seven years at Hogwarts trying desperately to prove her worth had left her used to being disliked and she could tell that Lucius Malfoy disliked her. 

Of course, Lucius Malfoy couldn’t dislike her because he found her to be overly officious, or bossy, or inclined towards know-it-all-ism like many of her peers had. He didn’t know her well enough for that. Lucius Malfoy’s reason for disliking her had, Hermione suspected, more to do with what she was than who she was. 

It wasn’t uncommon for witches and wizards to hold Hermione’s blood status against her, both consciously and unconsciously. 

They’d look down on her, patronise her, or undermine her achievements. They’d insist she was welcome while finding ways to make sure she understood it was at their discretion. 

Some, for instance, who thought she was intelligent would treat her as some kind of special anomaly. A particularly clever animal. ‘Oh, aren’t you clever!’ they’d say, the ‘for a Muggleborn’ left hanging, unsaid, in the air but no less audible to Hermione for that. 

Some of them didn’t actually realise they were doing it. Hermione had a sneaking suspicion, however, that Lucius Malfoy knew exactly what he was doing. Just as his son had.

"No one can accuse you of lacking passion for your subject, Miss Granger," Edmund said, giving Hermione a small smile before leaning forward in his seat to look down the table at a very rigid Malfoy. "Isn’t that right, Lucius?"

"It’s essential that wizards understand Muggles, Mr Fraser," Hermione said, finally tearing her eyes from Malfoy to fix Edmund with an appealing look. 

Uncurling her hands from the fists she hadn't even realised she'd formed, having to practically extract her nails from the soft skin of her palms, she did her best to remain calm. 

"We live alongside them and there are several departments in the Ministry that deal with their world directly. We’d do ourselves a humiliating disservice by removing opportunities to understand their ways – ignorance is not admirable, particularly when it’s wilful."

Hermione risked a pointed sidelong look at Malfoy and, seeing his mouth opening to interject, she hurriedly continued. "I don't think you should remove the subject. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest you make it part of the compulsory curriculum for first and second years of all extraction."

An uncomfortable buzz ran through the group, the governors not taking to Hermione’s suggestion like she’d hoped. 

Malfoy, Hermione noticed after a slight turn of her head, was looking nowhere but at her, like he was trying to make her burst into flames. She started to miss being utterly ignored by him.

"I think there’s much that could be done to make Muggle Studies more interesting and far less theoretical," Hermione said brightly while her toes tapped a staccato beat in her shoes. She'd been too forward; gone too far. “There are students who have selected it as a class next year and we shouldn’t let them down.”

Was Dumbledore even still there? What happened to balancing out twelve against bloody one? Why wasn't he saying anything? She was losing them.

"To assuage any concerns you might have about my youth," Hermione offered, a thrum of desperation spurring her on, "perhaps I could be taken on in the role for a trial period."

Edmund suddenly looked relieved, like Hermione had voluntarily stepped back from the precipice of madness and saved him a call for a straitjacket. 

"A very reasonable idea, Miss Granger," he said quickly, looking around at his fellows who were tilting their heads, lower lips pushed out thoughtfully. "Most amenable.”

“I hardly think that a trial period –” Malfoy started speaking but Edmund cut him off, earning himself a searing glare for it, though he did not appear to notice it.

“I would suggest,” Edmund said, “that we send one of our own to observe your classes. They can assess your abilities first-hand and gather feedback from your students – that sort of thing."

"Er –" Hermione started hesitantly. Being directly watched in her classes by a governor had not been quite what she’d had in mind. 

"Lucius, what about you?" Edmund suggested jovially, drawing a wide-eyed, horrified look from Malfoy. "You’re the one that requires the most convincing, I think?"

Before Malfoy could shout him down – which he was clearly ready to do and Hermione was willing him to do – Edmund addressed the space over Hermione's head again. 

"A term should be sufficient to get a grasp on Miss Granger’s abilities, I would have thought. What say you, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore finally – bloody finally – stepped forward into Hermione's periphery and, as she looked up at him from her seated position, she saw his head was turned in the direction of the borderline apoplectic Lucius Malfoy. 

Hopefully he would tell Edmund that any governor other than Lucius Malfoy would be welcome. Any governor who didn't have such an obvious axe to grind. Any governor who hadn't dragged up a horrendous little snot like Draco Malfoy.

"Lucius would be most welcome for the first term, of course." 

Every part of Hermione tensed, clenched, and she widened her eyes at Dumbledore, desperately hoping to catch his eye. He carefully ignored her and continued to address the governors. 

"We will have rooms set up for him so that he might conveniently sit in on Hermione’s classes for a term and report his findings,” Dumbledore said, his tone light, calm and entirely too reasonable for a man arranging a living nightmare. “I am quite certain that he will be impressed."

“While I’m sure that’s very kind, Dumbledore,” Malfoy began, his acid tone suggesting that he thought Dumbledore offer anything but kind, “I –”

“Yes,” interrupted Edmund, distractedly shuffling together his papers. “Lucius is right. Very kind, Dumbledore, very kind. We’re much obliged to you.”

Risking a glance at Malfoy, Hermione saw his nostrils were flared and his lips pressed thin to the point of invisibility. 

As their superiors spoke, arranging the next few months of their lives with galling ease, his eyes flicked to hers and narrowed nastily. It was perfectly clear he held her entirely responsible for this miserable turn of events. 

She was absolutely fucked. 

"Wonderful," said Edmund, already tidying his papers into a battered leather briefcase. "I have every confidence this will have a satisfactory outcome, Dumbledore. Thank you, once again, for your hospitality. A delicious lunch."

“I’ll pass your compliments along to the elves,” Dumbledore said graciously, dipping his head.

Thwack. Tap. Thwack.Tap.

As he and his fellow governors left the Entrance Hall for the cobbled courtyard, Lucius Malfoy attempted to channel most of his rage into his cane, whacking its end against the edge of each step he descended before driving it down flat with force.

Thwack. Tap. Thwack. Tap .

He was struggling to wrap his head around what the fuck had just happened. Everything had been going quite smoothly. He’d waited until the opportune moment to make his suggestion. He’d had the falling class numbers to hand if asked to produce them. He’d had alternative, magic-focused classes to suggest, drawn from his brief research of other wizarding schools. 

And then the jumped up little Muggle lover – Mudblood, as it turned out – had started running her mouth. Who had even asked her to speak? What gave her the right?

Granger. Thwack. Tap. Hermione. Thwack. Tap. Granger.

The girl was a sign – no, the encapsulation – of everything that was wrong with Hogwarts. A Mudblood who thought her opinions held any value. A Mudblood who thought she could address him – him – directly and with such insolence. A Mudblood who thought that Muggles were valuable. 

Dumbledore ought to be ashamed of himself.

"Oh Lucius, my dear man, do cheer up." Edmund's wheezing voice cut through the rage-filled tirade running through Lucius' head as they started over the viaduct to the wider grounds. "I've hardly tasked you with babysitting a banshee."

Teeth clenched painfully tight, Lucius resisted the urge to stick his cane through the old coot’s legs and send him tumbling over the stone balustrade. 

If he thought he would be the first choice to replace Edmund as chair of the board, it might have been more tempting to take the risk. Unfortunately, he'd need to take Elizabeth out at the same time and he’d never been especially good at skittles. So, instead, Lucius merely grunted and gripped his cane tighter.

"Just sit in her classes for a few weeks," Edmund continued breezily, as though forcing a respectable pureblood wizard to attend a Muggle Studies class taught by an actual Mudblood was not a violent act of degradation. "See how she does. Not a wholly unpleasant task – she's a pretty little thing, isn’t she?"

An incredulous sneer curled Lucius' lip and he pressed his cane down so hard on his next step that his wand trembled beneath his palm. 

"We don't all share your absurd perversions, Edmund," he snapped, glancing down to see that he’d left a scorch mark on the stone. "Please do not act like we do."

“Look, I know you thought you were offering an efficient solution, Lucius,” piped up Mitchell from behind them. 

Fucking hopeless Mitchell. It was remarkable he could stay upright without a spine. 

“Maybe one day it will be necessary. But we cannot simply get rid of Muggle Studies when there are students who wish to take the class and a perfectly qualified witch who is willing and able to teach them.”

“She didn’t dress like a witch,” ground out Lucius, recalling her absurd Muggle attire. “Perfectly qualified or otherwise.” 

“No,” replied Edmund cheerfully, turning his face up to the bright afternoon sunshine and taking a deep breath through his nose. “Quite refreshing. I’ve always thought shapeless robes to be the enemy of a lovely figure.”

Lucius rolled his eyes, spying a disapproving purse on Elizabeth’s lips as he did so. The man ought to be locked up – if not by the Ministry then at least by his wife.

“A job well done, Hermione,” Dumbledore said, leading Hermione into the Entrance Hall. 

Eyes fixed on the backs of the departing governors, Hermione shook her head disbelievingly. 

“It didn’t feel like it,” she said quietly so as not to be overheard. “I pretty much talked my way into a probation, sir.”

Stopping at the base of the sweeping staircase which led up into the wider castle, Dumbledore placed a hand on Hermione’s shoulder. 

Dragging her eyes away from the increasingly distant blonde head of Lucius Malfoy, Hermione turned to Dumbledore and found his face hard to read. 

“The governors have been somewhat wary of my teaching appointments in recent months,” he said. “That is, admittedly, my own fault – those Divination substitutes have not been without their problems, as you know.”

Hermione hummed lightly, trying to keep the sound of her judgement to a minimum. She did not wish to seem to agree with his self-criticism too heartily, while distinctly recalling that the most recent substitute had boiled a donkey’s head in front of her rather alarmed fourth years to determine which of them had stolen her raven feather quill.

“And Lucius Malfoy is a wizard who has become very accustomed to getting his way,” Dumbledore added lightly, his eyes rising from Hermione’s to watch the last of the governors disappearing down the front steps. “So, I would say that you rather overcame the odds.”

Nodding, Hermione sighed through her nose. She had a horrid feeling that, with Lucius Malfoy sitting in her classes, the odds were still very much stacked against her.

Chapter Text

September 1st 

Hermione smiled at Horace Slughorn as he ambled through the crowds of students streaming into the Great Hall, his burnt orange robes and mustard yellow waistcoat standing out starkly in the sea of black.

Horace had been her neighbour at the staff table ever since she’d started her apprenticeship at Hogwarts and Hermione thought they had a good working relationship. That was, at least in part, because she put effort into keeping it that way; good relationships with colleagues went no small way to making for a pleasant life in the castle.

It was true that, by the end of a long year, Horace tended to become somewhat tiring company but Hermione still liked him well enough. At the very least, she liked him more as a colleague than she had as a professor. 

Slughorn had favourites and everyone knew it (though Hermione also knew, from conversations with Professor McGonagall, that not everyone approved of it). When Hermione had been Horace’s student he’d always deemed her “excellent” – one of his best, apparently – but he’d never seen fit to invite her to any of his notorious Slug Club gatherings. He’d never considered her individual talents worthy of his inner circle.

Aloud, Hermione had always declared that she had no interest in such things but a very small part of her had desired to attend just once, despite knowing that any connections she managed to make there would still not be enough to elevate her. After all, being noticed by ‘somebodies’ tended to require that you be someone worth knowing in turn and Hermione had been painfully aware that very few people would be interested in the daughter of two Muggle dentists, no matter how much of Hogwarts: A History she’d learned by heart. 

Now that they worked together, Horace was more forthcoming in his efforts to associate with her. Likely because he, too, had an appreciation for the value of good relations with colleagues. And, of course, because he simply adored the feeling that he was a popular member of staff.

From their first meal shoulder-to-shoulder, Hermione noticed that Horace had far fonder memories of her as a student than she had of him as a professor. He’d reminisced about what a charming, talented girl she’d been; how he’d always known she’d want to become a professor and that he rather liked to think he’d been a source of inspiration for that. Observed with a knowing wink, of course.

It was like he’d manufactured a far more elaborate history between them in order to make their sitting together as colleagues seem like the best, most natural progression imaginable for both of them. Hermione wasn’t even sure doing it had been a conscious decision on his part. It was just…Horace; that was the kind of thing he did.

For that reason, Hermione hadn’t seen any point in telling him he was wrong, though she had once dared to suggest to him that he might comment on the blood status of his talented Muggleborn students with a touch less surprise than he tended to do. 

“Surely after so many years as a professor, Horace,” she’d said tiredly over her trifle, “it can’t be that shocking to you.”

“Well, it’s just funny, isn’t it?” he’d replied, his walrus moustache twitching over his wine goblet. “You mustn’t think I’m prejudiced, Hermione dear; not with you always being one of my favourites.”

As much as replies like this prompted eye rolls from Hermione, she’d come to enjoy Horace as a conversationalist and he was always willing to lend a hand to a colleague in need. Provided they didn’t mind eventually being asked for something in return, even if it was just a box of his favourite crystalised pineapples at Christmas.

When Horace didn’t sit down directly beside Hermione as he usually did, then, and instead left an empty seat between them, her smile flickered and a discomforting tremor of uncertainty passed through her. 

Had she somehow offended him? His vanity, while it made him fairly easy to please, also made him sensitive. Was it possible she’d missed a letter from him over the summer in all her worry about her interview and he’d taken her lack of response personally?

Looking around at Neville on her other side, Hermione was simply met with a ‘don’t ask me’ shrug, so she turned back to Slughorn, pressed a hand on the seat between them and leaned towards him.

“Horace, why –”

“Lucius, my good man,” Slughorn called, waving over Hermione’s head. “Thought you might like to sit beside an old friend.”

Hermione felt like someone had just thumped her on the back between her shoulder blades and knocked the air straight out of her. Shoulders slumping, her brow bowed incredulously, she gaped at the beaming Slughorn. 

The shadow of a man crept over the chair on which she was leaning, lengthening in time with clicking footsteps and the metronomic tap of a cane, until it covered both her and half of the table.

“Do let Lucius sit down, Hermione,” Slughorn said genially, shoo-ing Hermione back. “There’s a good girl.”

Hermione’s cheek twitched irritably as she lifted her hands from the seat and turned to stare straight ahead. 

Another of Horace's more irksome traits – he couldn’t half tend towards condescension, as so many long-serving teachers did with those they couldn’t help but sometimes still see as their pupils. It was, Hermione consistently had to remind herself, not purposeful. It was just immensely irritating.

There was a sharp screech as Lucius Malfoy pulled his chair out, more audible to Hermione than even the most obnoxious students in the belly of the hall. A thick, soft wool cloak brushed Hermione’s leg and a gust of sandalwood-scented air ruffled her curls as he descended regally into the seat. It was a far cry from the heady mix of florals and talcum powder that usually accompanied Slughorn.

“I hope you don’t mind, Hermione,” Horace said cheerily, leaning around the straight-backed Malfoy to continue speaking. “It’s been so long since I last saw Lucius – I just couldn’t resist sticking my oar into Dumbledore’s seating arrangements.” 

Hermione turned her head to lift her eyes to Dumbledore and found herself looking at the back of his snow white head which bobbed animatedly in conversation with Flitwick. She glared at it fruitlessly. 

“I assure you,” Slughorn continued, “he’ll make a most excellent addition to our little chats.”

Still looking in the direction of Dumbledore, Hermione risked a sidelong glance at Lucius Malfoy and spotted a sneer curling his lip as he slowly undid the jewelled clasp of his cloak at his neck. 

Hermione got the impression that this man had never considered himself an addition to anything – he was, in his own eyes, the centre of everything. 

“It will be good for you two to get to know one another anyway!” Slughorn was patently, perhaps persistently, oblivious to the unenthusiastic silence that met his every word. “Dumbledore told me everything – always gives me the latest ahead of the feast, you know. Likes to run it all past me to get my thoughts. I must say – as I told him – I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you, Hermione. Lucius is a very good man to know." 

Slughorn looked to Malfoy who was peeling his black leather gloves from his hands with great care. “I don’t doubt you’ll be impressed by her, Lucius. Very conscientious and –”

“You’re well, Horace?” Lucius interrupted in clipped tones, his large, long-fingered hand coming to rest on the table atop his gloves as he turned his head towards Slughorn. “Busy summer?”

Slughorn faltered and he blinked a couple of times, seemingly thrown by the way Lucius had not only interrupted him but turned his back on Hermione entirely, without once addressing her. 

“Oh –” Slughorn’s eyes drifted to Hermione who, utterly unsurprised, merely offered him a tight smile that said ‘don’t worry’ and turned to Neville, not willing to let Malfoy’s behaviour make her feel small. “Ye – well, yes. Very busy, Lucius. Very sociable, as usual. And yours?”

“It’ll be okay,” Neville muttered, filling up their water goblets while directing a suspicious scowl at the back of Lucius Malfoy’s blonde head. 

With a murmur of thanks, Hermione pulled the goblet towards herself. During one of their summer catch-ups, she’d wasted no time in telling Neville everything about her interview and, of course, Lucius Malfoy. 

Like Hermione, Neville had very little love for Draco Malfoy but he had advised her to, perhaps, exercise some caution around his father.

“He’s a bigwig in the Ministry, too, Hermione,” Neville had intimated, squinting against the afternoon sun shining down on the park in which they’d been sitting. “Dad told me he’s involved in everything. Can be really helpful when he likes you but an absolute ballache when he doesn’t. Throws galleons around like they’re spare knuts.” 

“You’re not giving me much hope here, Neville,” had been Hermione’s despondent reply as she’d poked her green plastic spoon into her rapidly melting ice cream, her appetite going the same way.

“I’m just saying, just – just be careful around him. And maybe try to…er, separate him from his son.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he’s not a snot-nosed little bully in the school corridors that we can push back. He’s –”

“A sneering big bully in the school corridors?”

“He’s also in control of your future, Hermione,” Neville had said, looking worried, “I…look, I hate that I’m saying this but until he actually does something, maybe try to treat him like a stranger – y’know, polite and professional – and he’ll have no reason not to give you this job.”

“I’m fairly sure he already has a reason,” Hermione had said, raising her eyes to watch a Muggle family set up a picnic, the children screaming happily and attempting to run under the chequered blanket their mother was flapping in the air. “And it’s nothing I can help.” 

Following her gaze, Neville had adopted a troubled expression. He had been one of the first Gryffindors to tackle Malfoy to the ground the first time he’d called her a Mudblood and he had worn his subsequent blood traitor identity with pride, saying his parents did the same. But for all his good intentions, Hermione wondered if he would ever see it all quite as clearly as she did.

“That kind of discrimination is against the law,” Neville had eventually said with a confident shake of his head. “And Dumbledore won’t let even a hint of it fly. The other governors won’t, either. Can’t.”

Neville had said it so certainly, so assuredly, that Hermione had been tempted to simply don some blinkers and believe him. But she couldn’t. 

She also couldn’t forget the way Malfoy’s absurd suggestion that they simply scrap Muggle Studies as a subject had initially been met with careless laughter. She was sure it would all be very humorous and harmless until Malfoy actually got his way. 

Hermione was well aware that a man who had managed to become as influential as Lucius Malfoy was not going to be exactly like his son – he would never do something as overt and unseemly as calling her a Mudblood. To flaunt that kind of intolerance was foolish.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione could see Malfoy’s arm on the staff table, his robed elbow pointed towards her and blocking her out. 

He would find his own ways and his own reasons – acceptable ones. Hermione didn’t intend to help him by treating him with rudeness or reacting with anger but she didn’t really know what she could do to help herself either.

A restless sort of impotent frustration bubbled deep in Hermione’s gut. It was only prevented from boiling over by the doors of the Great Hall creaking open to reveal Minerva McGonagall at the front of a queue of a petrified line of first years. 

It was a relatively small cohort but it was possible it only appeared that way because they were all so closely bunched together. Some gazed up at the enchanted ceiling with its clear, inky sky in open wonder, while others glanced around at the four long students’ tables nervously, as though waiting for one of their older peers to attempt to trip them up. Hermione felt a rush of fondness for each and every one of them. Every year, they looked younger.

Hermione always enjoyed the sorting ceremony, particularly the hat’s song. It could, admittedly, be a drawn-out process. When the hat encountered a student it found particularly difficult to place, for instance, there were long lulls in which absolute silence was expected. 

Usually, Hermione occupied herself during those lulls by watching trickles of melting wax race one another to the bottoms of the floating candles, or by smiling encouragingly at the most nervous first years still awaiting their turn.

This time, Hermione found herself becoming inescapably aware of Lucius Malfoy. She didn’t turn to look at him directly, of course – not even once – but she could feel him as a presence and see his arm out of the corner of her eye. Still and foreboding.

She observed that he applauded every sorting but saved particularly fervent applause for those who were sorted into Slytherin. She supposed she couldn’t hold that entirely against him – the heads of house did the same and Hermione was fairly sure that even Dumbledore had a covert preference for Gryffindors. Perhaps she did, too, on some level, though she aspired to be as fair as McGonagall always was.

Statistically, Hermione knew there had to be some Muggleborns in the crowd of first years being sorted. It was impossible, however, to be certain of who they were and she noted with interest that Lucius Malfoy applauded each and every student. She couldn’t help but wonder, if he was able to accurately identify the Muggleborns, whether or not he would applaud them.

By the time Dumbledore rose to his feet to tap the side of his goblet with a teaspoon, the sound of it tinging oddly loudly around the Great Hall and causing an immediate hush, Hermione’s relentless analytical dissection of Lucius Malfoy’s right arm had left her mentally exhausted and quite ready to go to bed. 

“Good evening!” Dumbledore called, his arms wide and his voice echoing into the expectant silence. “And welcome. Welcome all to another year at Hogwarts.”

As Dumbledore spoke, Hermione’s eyes were drawn helplessly back to Lucius Malfoy’s right hand. 

While the rest of his body sat still as stone as it had during the sorting, he started drumming his fingers impatiently on the table, the emerald ring on his middle finger catching the light of the candles floating overhead every time he lifted it. 

‘Dumbledore won’t let even a hint of it fly,’ Neville had said, believing, like so many who respected Albus Dumbledore, that his word was gospel at Hogwarts and even further afield.

At that moment, however, Hermione got the impression that Lucius Malfoy didn’t have much respect for the headmaster or his word at all. 

“Now, I am very aware that you would all like nothing more than to dig into our delicious start of term feast,” Dumbledore continued, oblivious to Malfoy’s drumming fingers, which already had Hermione pressing her toes down anxiously in her shoes. “But I must make a few announcements before I can allow that. The first and most important being that, at the end of last year, Professor Quirrell of Muggle Studies stepped back from his post in order to…seek new adventures.”

Dumbledore paused to cast his all-knowing piercing blue stare over the mumbling student body, silently assuring them that he had heard each and every rumour they had spread about Quirrell before the summer and did not think much of them. 

“Fortunately,” he finally said, “I am delighted to be able to say that our long-standing teaching apprentice, Hermione Granger, has kindly agreed to step into his role.”

Dumbledore swept his arm around to Hermione and heat rose in her cheeks as the students politely applauded the announcement. Waving and smiling graciously in response, she tried not to imagine how disdainfully Malfoy might be looking at her.

“Those attending her lessons this term might notice,” Dumbledore continued, raising his voice to be heard over the applause, “the presence of one of our school governors, Mr Lucius Malfoy.” 

At that, Dumbledore turned his head indicatively towards Lucius, whose fidgeting hand abruptly stilled as the headmaster’s eyes landed on him. Before any of the students could attempt anything close to applause, Dumbledore continued speaking. “Please be courteous and leave him to his work.” 

Hermione was somewhat relieved when Dumbledore finally finished his speech with the usual warnings against exploring the Forest and upsetting Filch, both because her stomach was beginning to growl and because Malfoy’s disrespectful inattentiveness made her want to curl up in the foetal position beneath the table. 

As grateful, hungry cheers and lively chatter erupted around the Great Hall, Hermione immediately set about filling her and Neville’s wine goblets before snatching a chicken leg from the high-piled, gleaming platter that had appeared in front of her. 

Happily settling into her conversation with Neville, for the first time that night Hermione was almost able to forget that Lucius Malfoy was beside her. 

Every now and again she couldn’t help but hear pompous snippets of his conversation with Slughorn – how Draco was “excelling” as seeker for the Wimbourne Wasps; how the manor’s rose garden was “thriving”; how the Ministry “really ought to consider its priorities” – but, mostly, it was as enjoyable as any other feast. 

Highly invested in a story Neville was telling her about an unexpected and pleasant reunion with Oliver Wood over the summer, Hermione piled roast potatoes onto her plate, digging with a spoon to find the crispiest ones. Without thinking, she reached for the salt, extending her arm across Malfoy’s place setting to do so. 

He visibly stiffened as her arm passed in front of him and Hermione snatched her hand back quickly, the salt in her grasp. 

“Sorry,” she murmured, bringing her elbow tight into her side to put as much distance between them as possible.

Clearing his throat, Malfoy carried on like Hermione had never interrupted him in the first place, smoothly answering Slughorn’s last question about his current brewing habits (he was, apparently, much too busy for anything taxing). 

Hermione frowned as she salted her potatoes, her playful good mood from just moments before bleeding away as reality bit. 

As much as she enjoyed the ease of simply pretending Lucius Malfoy wasn’t there, it wasn’t actually sustainable. They were, surely, going to have to talk to, or at least look at, one another at some point  – he would be sitting in her classes every day for nearly four months. 

The idea, however, of being the one to force any kind of interaction rendered the usually irresistible steaming, soft and fluffy centre of the roast potato in front of Hermione unappetizing.

Being a Muggleborn in the wizarding world meant there were times when one was expected to ingratiate oneself. It was something Hermione had struggled with and those struggles had only intensified as she’d gotten older. She compromised here and there, of course, but she tried not to prioritise agreeability over her personal contentment.

As far as she was concerned, the challenge issued to all Muggleborns was: be head and shoulders above everyone else if you want to be noticed or considered competent but don't upset anyone in the process. It was a tough balance to strike. Almost impossible, in fact, so Hermione preferred to lean into the first part of it, believing that those who were disturbed by her doing well were simply receiving a much-needed dose of reality.

It was an approach that hadn’t won her a huge number of friends during her time as a student at Hogwarts but, she’d reflected, they were probably not the kinds of friends she’d have wanted anyway. There was a certain amount of pride to that, yes, but it was a pride Hermione had felt it necessary to cultivate in order to quash her rampant self-doubt. 

The notion that she might have to swallow some of that pride just to get one wizard to even look at her, therefore, made her feel liable to choke. 

It did not seem likely, though, that Lucius Malfoy would be the one to make the first move.

Distracted by her efforts to imagine the least humiliating route to wrangling him into some kind of conversation, Hermione didn’t eat much of anything for the rest of the feast, politely declining Neville’s offer to spoon her out some of her favourite trifle. 

By the time Dumbledore stood up to bid them all a good night, Hermione longed for nothing but her quiet private quarters and her cosy, blanket-covered bed. She had her very first class the next day and she intended to be well-rested. 

The screech of benches being pushed back filled the hall as students rose to their feet and Prefects called over the chatter for first years to join them outside of the hall so that they could be led to their Common Rooms. 

Bringing a hand to her mouth to conceal a yawn, Hermione was about to push her own chair back when Dumbledore appeared behind her, his marvellously clashing plum purple and royal yellow robes sweeping into her periphery. 

“Hermione,” Dumbledore greeted her warmly, settling one wrinkled hand on the back of her chair and another on the back of Malfoy’s, keeping them both fixed in place with a discordantly benevolent air. “I hope you enjoyed the feast?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, glancing at a clearly irate, trapped Malfoy and resultantly wishing to keep her response short and to the point. “Delicious.”

“And you’re ready for your first class tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Good.” Dumbledore nodded slowly and leaned towards Hermione, like he intended to share some particularly confidential information. “I had the most excellent sticky toffee pudding, you know. The best in years. Minerva insists I am exaggerating but I consider myself a connoisseur and I’m quite sure I have not had one so soft and sweet in…well, goodness, I could hardly venture to put an exact figure to it.”

On either side of Hermione and Lucius, perhaps tired of waiting, Neville and Horace rose out of their chairs to begin ambling away from the staff table, quietly discussing their own meals. 

Likely hoping to draw Dumbledore’s attention to the fact that he was stopping him from joining them, Lucius pointedly cleared his throat.

A small smile twitching in his beard, Dumbledore turned his eyes to Lucius. “And you, Lucius? I hope you are well fed and watered?”

“Yes, Dumbledore,” was Lucius’ curt response. “It was an excellent feast, as always.” 

There was a tension to Malfoy in that moment, like he was coiled tight and desperate to spring to his feet so that Dumbledore would no longer be able to look down on him with that knowing twinkle in his eyes. 

Hermione couldn’t imagine anyone more likely to resent being made to feel like a schoolboy in thrall to his headmaster again. 

“I’m sure the elves will be glad to receive your compliments,” Dumbledore said cheerfully and Hermione spied a muscle jump in Malfoy’s jaw as he clenched it tight. “I imagine you must be tired – it’s a long journey from Wiltshire.”

“Yes,” Lucius said, the hint that he might be allowed his freedom seemingly injecting some relief into his voice. “I would appreciate being directed to my rooms.”

“Well, of course –” Dumbledore clapped his hands against the backs of their chairs, his rings clacking against the wood, like he just happened upon the most fortuitous circumstance that could be imagined. “Hermione, would you be so good as to show Lucius the way? He’s in the spare chamber by the portrait of Antonia Creaseworthy – you know the one.” 

It was clear to Hermione that this direction meant absolutely nothing to Lucius but she was all too aware that Antonia Creaseworthy's portrait was on the fourth floor. Heart-sinkingly close to her own room.

“I’m quite content to make my own way, Dumbledore,” Lucius said, with an impressive amount of assurance for a man who clearly had no idea where Antonia Creaseworthy’s portrait was. “I’m certain that’s more than enough information for me to –

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Dumbledore said, lifting a hand from Hermione’s chair to wave away Lucius’ protestations. “You couldn’t find a better guide through Hogwarts than Hermione, Lucius. When she was a student here, I distinctly recall that she and her friends, Mr Potter and Mr Weasley, had a curiously intricate knowledge of the castle’s corridors and passageways. Much to the ire of Mr Filch.”

Hermione did not return Dumbledore’s conspiratorial smile, finding herself unable to do anything more than grimace at his cheerful mention of Harry, Ron and the map that Harry’s uncle Sirius had given him for his thirteenth birthday. 

When was the last time she’d talked to them? Months, surely. Not in any truly meaningful way since she and Ron’s break up the previous year. 

When Hermione had taken up her apprenticeship at Hogwarts, they had tried long distance. From the beginning, though, she’d had a sense that Ron viewed the distance as something temporary to wait out, rather than something they might have to make work long-term. 

That sense had only increased when, in any and all discussions about their future, Hermione’s career at Hogwarts was consistently brushed over as something they’d “figure out” eventually. Hermione might have been tempted to trust that if Ron’s idealised and highly specific visions of family life hadn’t left so little room for the idea that she might be far away for any significant stretches of time.

Their break up hadn’t come so much from Ron pulling Hermione away from her work at Hogwarts as from Hermione’s growing fear that he was preparing to try. 

That, she had thought, would lead to something far more ugly than her simply telling him that she didn’t think things were working out any more. 

Hermione had naively hoped that they might be able to cling to some kind of friendship if they ended on good terms, with minimal harsh words exchanged.

As it turned out, though, Ron had been hurt and attempting to untangle years of friendship and romance was still a messy and painful process, regardless of her intentions. Hermione found that her being away at Hogwarts actually meant that it was easier for Ron to simply…push her out of his life altogether than return to being her friend. 

Though she had hoped that Harry would continue to write as frequently as he always had, eventually his letters had dried up like Ron’s. 

Hermione had sent Harry a birthday card during the summer and, though he had written to thank her, his attempts to draw out the conversation any further had felt stilted. Forced. So she had simply allowed his owl to depart without a further response, telling herself that they were all busy adults now.

Being a Muggleborn at Hogwarts could be a terribly lonely experience. In her first year, Hermione had noticed quite quickly that the children of established wizarding families just tended to know one another, in much the way Hermione had known the children living in neighbouring houses growing up. 

Many of them, Harry and Ron included, arrived at the school with friendships already cemented and it made it difficult to find somewhere to slot in without feeling like a weed that had, against all odds, managed to force its way through some cracks.

When, after being partnered together in a potions project towards the end of their first year, Ron and Harry had gradually allowed Hermione into their friendship to form a cosy trio, she had felt like she’d been thrown a lifeline. Lunches spent alone, hiding in the library or the toilet, had become lunches with friends in the Great Hall. They had, over the years, become almost inseparable.

Yet Hermione had been persistently forced to wrestle with a dispiriting insecurity that Ron and Harry were closer to one another than to her. They’d shared so many memories that pre-dated her; their interests had been more closely aligned; and, when disagreements had arisen, they’d tended to side with one another against her. The exam period had always been particularly tense thanks to their divergent priorities.

The isolating aftermath of her and Ron’s breakup had done little to help Hermione’s insecurity and some of her fondest school memories were somewhat soiled as a result. 

There were days – days on which she was feeling especially low or liable to pick at herself – that Hermione looked back and wondered how much either of them had ever truly wanted her there in the first place. 

On other days – days when she was less inclined to mentally torture herself – Hermione told herself that she had been their true friend but that, maybe, Harry and Ron simply had been closer; that maybe the combination of their growing older and her romantic relationship with Ron had unalterably altered their dynamic; and that, maybe, her physical distance from them for so much of the year was always going to make it difficult to get things back to the way they had been when they’d all been effectively living together in the Gryffindor Common Room.

No matter how she framed it, though, thinking of them made her heart sink and her nose prickle with a combination of disappointment and humiliation. 

It was possible that the gloomy train of Hermione’s thoughts showed on her face because, as she lowered her gaze from Dumbledore, she became suddenly aware of Malfoy watching her, a very slight lift to one of his brows.

“Isn’t that right, Hermione?”

Or maybe he’d just been wondering if she was too stupid to answer questions when asked.

Blinking rapidly, Hermione tore her eyes away from Malfoy and looked back up into Dumbledore’s expectant face. 

“I’m – I’m sorry, sir?” she said, her voice faint. “I’m afraid I didn’t –”

“Tired as well, I imagine,” Dumbledore said with an understanding smile. “I have it on good authority that the first of September is a twenty-four hour day like any other but, for those of us at Hogwarts, it always takes a peculiarly acute toll on the mind and the body. I said you’d be more than happy to show Lucius to his rooms and that his protestations are for naught. Isn’t that right?”

Pressing her lips together, Hermione looked to Malfoy and found his eyes fixed on her, his expression stony. She had a feeling that he was attempting to silently communicate to her that she had best refuse to show him to his rooms because he absolutely didn’t want her company. 

Well, he was going to have it. Hadn’t she been wondering how she was going to force him into some kind of interaction? At least this way, she could frame it like she was doing him a favour on the orders of someone else.

“Of course.” Hermione didn’t remove her eyes from Malfoy’s face as she agreed with Dumbledore’s suggestion, spying a shift of his jaw and a flare of his nostrils but nothing more. “Very happy.”

“Marvellous!” Dumbledore finally stepped back, an appeased jailor, lifting his hands from the backs of their chairs to clap them together. “A very good evening to you both. I look forward to seeing you for what I’m sure will be an equally delectable breakfast. Lamentably lacking in sticky toffee pudding but delectable nonetheless.”

Without Dumbledore holding them in place, Hermione and Lucius were finally able to push themselves away from the staff table, neither of them looking at one another as they did so. 

By the time they had donned their cloaks and started their descent into the main body of the hall, it was practically empty, only a few older students lingering to talk to their friends from other houses before retiring to their dormitories. 

Hermione and Lucius departed the Great Hall in silence, the only sound being the sharp click of Lucius’ smart shoes and his cane occasionally tapping the stone floor between them as they progressed through the increasingly deserted corridors. 

With his far greater height and longer legs, it quickly became apparent to Hermione that Lucius was able to move much faster than her. Though she was supposed to be guiding him, he did not slow down to match her gait. To her annoyance, then, Hermione was forced to scurry alongside him, trying not to appear short of breath. 

When they reached the Grand Staircase, Lucius stepped onto the shifting staircases with so little care as to their movements and destinations that Hermione began to suspect he was actually trying to shake her off. Or make her fall to her death.

Gritting her teeth, Hermione performed an undignified leap, just about nailing the landing on a swinging staircase onto which Lucius had neatly stepped at the last moment. She shot him a sidelong glare as she fixed her cloak which had swung around her increasingly sweat-dampened neck.

“We’re going to the fourth floor, Mr Malfoy,” she said, very proud of the composure in her tone. “I would suggest waiting for that staircase there.”

Malfoy did not deign to respond, merely tapping his gloved forefinger impatiently on the head of his cane as he miraculously followed her instruction. Hermione peered down at the cane, her nose wrinkling with distaste when she spied the silver snake head. If someone gave her a list of Slytherin characteristics and asked her to sketch a caricature, Hermione was quite sure she would hand over a drawing of Lucius Malfoy. 

The staircase screeched and clunked heavily into place and Malfoy resumed his ascent immediately, leaving Hermione to wrench herself out of her stasis of observation in order to scramble after him.

“I am quite capable of finding my own way from here, Miss Granger,” Lucius said when they alighted on the fourth floor, finally speaking to her without actually looking at her. 

Instead, he looked up and down the length of the quiet fourth floor corridor, eyeing the portraits on either side in what Hermione suspected was a covert attempt to quickly identify Antonia Creaseworthy. “You may leave me here.”

“Er, well, I would do,” Hermione said hesitantly, wishing she really could just leave the unpleasant grouch. “It’s just that –” 

Hermione tried not to wince as Malfoy rotated to face her, her halting speech clearly fraying his patience. 

“Well, my rooms are this way too.” Hermione pointed down the corridor, shrugging as she did so. “So I sort of…have to come with you.”

Malfoy exhaled softly through his nose, his eyes briefly fluttering closed like he was stoically enduring some kind of pain. “I see.” 

Without another word, he began marching down the dimly lit corridor in the direction Hermione had pointed, leaving her jog to catch up with him. Now that Malfoy had finally broken his silence towards her, Hermione ventured to address him directly. 

“My first class is at ten tomorrow,” she said, her eyes scanning the portraits passing on either side of them so as not to miss the correct one. “Will you be there?”

“I have to be,” was his cold response. “You made sure of that.” 

Hermione swallowed. So, he definitely held her responsible for their unfortunate situation. Quite unfairly, she thought. He had hardly helped himself. But pointing that out was unlikely to make her life better in any way so, instead, Hermione simply replied, “Yes. Yes, of course.” 

It was mercifully mere moments later that Hermione was able to come to an abrupt stop beside Antonia Creaseworthy’s portrait. “Well, here we are.” 

She had stopped so abruptly that the swift-moving Malfoy was, to her immense satisfaction and his vexation, forced to double back on himself and return to face her. 

“Your rooms, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said politely, gesturing to the door as he sauntered back towards her, his face tight.

Malfoy paused across from Hermione, silent, foreboding and towering over her. He took a moment to judgmentally trail his cold eyes over her cheeks and robes, respectively flushed and crumpled from their unnecessarily speedy journey through the castle. 

Trying not to shift under his scrutiny, Hermione twisted her hands together beneath her cloak, keeping her eyes on his face so that she could confidently meet his gaze when he finally raised it again. She had not spent much time in company of wizards like Lucius Malfoy but she felt like apprehension would be a foolish thing to display. 

A supercilious smirk curled Lucius’ lips as his eyes returned to her face but when he found her simply looking at him, patient and unaffected, it faltered almost imperceptibly. 

“Anything else, sir?” she asked with as much politeness as she could muster. 

Uttering a short, disdainful snort, Malfoy opened the door to his room, swept inside, and slammed it in Hermione's face, the resultant gust of air blowing her curls over her shoulders. Hermione gaped at the door, its heavy metal handle still gently swinging and squeaking, an aftershock from Malfoy’s excessive application of force. 

“Goodness,” murmured Antonia Creaseworthy, the finely painted feathers on her neat little hat quivering as she leaned forward to peer through the dim at Hermione. “What did you do to offend him, dear?”

“I don’t think he even knows,” Hermione grumbled in response, turning on her heel to continue down the corridor to her own rooms. "Not really."

Chapter Text

September 2nd

The sun was only just rising as Hermione lolloped over the uneven castle grounds in the direction of the lake. It was a fine morning, the dew glinting on the grass as the light crept over it, while the calm surface of the lake gleamed invitingly.

Making her way around the bank of the lake towards a secluded spot that was largely covered by trees and bushes, Hermione carefully set her bag and her heat-charmed towel down atop a large, flat rock. 

Looking around to ensure that she was as alone as she thought – because who needed to be interrupted by students? – she pulled her robes over her head to reveal her black, long-sleeve swimsuit and began to arrange her belongings.

Like her towel, the suit itself was charmed to stay warm but, as a sharp breeze caught her bare thighs, Hermione shivered and jumped a couple of times on the spot in an attempt to get her blood pumping.

Certain that her wand was securely strapped to her thigh, Hermione approached the edge of the water, stretching her limbs as she went. The conditions were clear and calm, she determined as she wrangled her thick hair into a ponytail. Likely cold but not nearly as cold as it would be a mere month down the line.

September was one of her favourite swimming months, not just for the conditions but because she had so much pent up energy from the summer. The council pool near her parents’ house was clean and well-run but it just couldn’t hope to compare to the open lake of Hogwarts. 

It wasn’t that Hermione considered herself a particularly sporty person. Indeed, she firmly avoided organised team sports wherever possible. But her morning swims were, like her reading, a solitary activity that brought her peace.

Viktor had introduced her to it during the Triwizard Tournament. Hermione smiled at the thought of him as she waded into the chilly lake, her water shoes helping her navigate the pebbly shore with ease. 

They hadn’t been talking long when she’d asked him about his swimming, naturally curious about what drew the taciturn Quidditch star who had taken such an unexpected interest in her towards the freezing cold water where she happened to know a giant squid resided. 

He liked the quiet, he had told her with surprising openness. The solitary nature of it. 

Flying was thrilling, he’d said, and he was good at it. Swimming in deep water, however, came with a different kind of weightlessness. In halting words, Viktor had tried to explain that when he flew, his heart raced but when he swam he felt held by the water. At peace and free from expectations. 

“Those things are also part of vy I like being in the library vith you,” he’d said, with a charming shyness. “You understand?”

All of what he’d said had appealed to Hermione so much that she’d asked him to take her out one morning. He’d been delighted and, quite quickly, as she’d welcomed him into her private sanctuary at Hogwarts, he’d welcomed her into his, temporary as it was. 

As Viktor had once instructed her on a particularly bitter November morning, Hermione bent down to scoop some of the water over her arms and splash it over her face, acclimatising herself to the temperature. 

It had, Hermione reflected, been some time since they’d written to one another and she resolved to send him a long letter during the week. 

She and Viktor hadn’t had the grand romance she had tentatively envisioned at the age of 15 but Hermione retained a strong affection for him that she wasn’t sure would ever disappear. 

Viktor had liked many of the parts of Hermione that she had, at such a tender and impressionable age, started to worry she ought to change. He also hadn’t cared a jot about her being a Muggleborn. Durmstrang did not admit Muggleborns, he had acknowledged, but that did not mean he had to agree with its policy. There were many who did not, just as there were many who had opposed Grindelwald.

He had validated her to a degree that had left her breathless and, truly, she’d been devastated when he’d lost to Cedric in the end. So, apparently, had the Durmstrang headmaster, Karkaroff, whose subsequent petulant withdrawal from all future contests had quickly put paid to the revived Triwizard Tournament.

Descending further into the water until it was around her neck, Hermione paddled for a moment, taking in the magnificent sight of Hogwarts and the surrounding mountains in the early autumn light. 

It was so good to be back, despite the less than ideal circumstances. 

Her first class taught under the disdainful eye of Lucius Malfoy was, as yet, still hours away. In the meantime, she intended to clear her mind and stretch her body after a long summer of not doing nearly enough of either.

When Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast later that morning, her attire immediately attracted attention from the student body. She was not, like the other professors, wearing rich, heavy robes. Instead, she had donned Muggle clothing again. 

It had taken some agonising, which had largely involved gnawing on her lip while staring back and forth between her prospective outfits. Her standard deep blue robes were safe and comfortable but, eventually, she had settled on a shin-length floral patterned tea dress and smart blazer.

Hermione didn’t actually have a problem with robes – if anything, she thought they were far easier than putting together Muggle outfits – but she wanted her classroom to be an immersive environment. She was going to be the Muggle Studies professor and, as part of that, she was going to try to dress as a Muggle teacher might.

Learning from her interview, however, she had at least abandoned the heels and opted for far more comfortable loafers. The thought of navigating Hogwarts in even the smallest of kitten heels had her arches aching preemptively. 

As she crossed the Great Hall in the direction of the staff table, Hermione kept her head held high. Some of the students looked merely curious, while others pointed and snickered amongst themselves. 

As much as Muggles themselves could be looked down upon, it wasn’t actually terribly uncommon for students to don elements of Muggle clothing on the weekends. Certainly, it was more common than it’d been when Hermione had started at Hogwarts. 

Many purebloods opted for non-uniform robes but some of the Muggleborns and half-bloods who still had regular interaction with the Muggle world could sometimes be seen wandering the corridors in jeans or jumpers for comfort. 

Professors, however, never did it. 

Well, Hermione told herself as she strode between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, now they do. 

“You look nice,” Neville said by way of a greeting as Hermione sat down, quietly relieved to be able to hide half of her body behind the long table. 

“I felt it until about three minutes ago,” Hermione muttered, filling a cup with coffee until it reached the brim.  

“People always stare when something’s different,” Neville said, shrugging as he buttered his toast. “You told me that once, remember? When I grew about a foot over the summer after fifth year?”

“Yeah, but they were also staring because you’d become unaccountably fit, Neville,” Hermione said, chuckling at the memory of how bewildered Neville had been at the start of their sixth year. “Not that you weren’t always handsome.”

An embarrassed flush spread over Neville’s cheeks and Hermione snorted as he nudged her with his elbow. 

“Well, you look very nice in your Muggle clothing,” he assured her. “I mean it. It’s just different. They’ll get used to it faster than you expect. You might even start a trend.”

Murmuring a quiet word of doubtful thanks, Hermione worriedly scanned the Great Hall and found that only a couple of curious stares were still on her. Most of the students, it seemed, were already losing interest in the newly-appointed professor who dared to wear Muggle clothes. 

Taking heart from this, Hermione began cheerfully ladling dollops of creamy porridge into a deep bowl. 

Even the arrival of Lucius Malfoy, accompanied as it was by the unnerving tap of his cane and the sweep of his expensive black robes, could not dampen Hermione’s hopeful spirits.

“Good morning, Mr Malfoy.” Hermione greeted Lucius as soon as he settled into his seat, feeling positive enough to brush aside his rudeness of the night before to start fresh. 

It had been a long day of travelling – neither of them had been at their best. That seemed like a good lie to tell herself. Quite convincing. 

Lucius glanced disinterestedly around at Hermione but then faltered, his eyes dropping to take in her clothes before they returned to her bright face. 

“Miss Granger,” he muttered, his expression tight as he turned away.

Malfoy’s greeting was cold and perfunctory but it was still a greeting so Hermione elected to delude herself and take it as a positive. Treat him like a stranger, Neville had said. An extraordinarily rude and grumpy stranger. A stranger on whose good opinion she was gallingly reliant. 

“My first class is at ten today,” she continued, despite his clear unwillingness to engage. 

“I am aware of that, thank –”

“I know you already know that,” Hermione hurriedly assured him, “but I took the liberty of making you a timetable for the rest of my classes this term.” 

Malfoy paused in the action of reaching for a teapot as Hermione slid a small, colour-blocked square of parchment towards him. 

Casting her a disbelieving look out of the corner of his eyes, he redirected his hand to slowly reach for the parchment and, picking it up gingerly between his forefinger and thumb, skimmed its contents.

“How very…diligent of you.” He said the word ‘diligent’ in the way anyone else might say ‘disgusting’. 

“Thank you,” Hermione replied, her smile faltering as she watched him carelessly drop the timetable close to a damp ring that had been left by a water jug. 

The rushing sound of dozens of wings signalled the arrival of the post owls, saving them the need to converse any further. Raising her eyes skyward, Hermione scanned the cloud of feathers, a very small part of her wondering, as it often did, if she might see Harry or Ron’s owls. 

Not today, it seemed. 

A single owl carrying the Daily Prophet arrived for Malfoy, while Hermione graciously accepted newspapers from two owls – one sent by the Prophet and another sent by her mother, bearing a selection of Muggle newspapers. 

“Thank you very much, Barney,” Hermione murmured, stroking the head of the barn owl she had purchased for her parents with the pads of her fingers. Barney hooted softly and took off, his wing brushing the top of Hermione’s head in a way that reminded her of her mother. 

Clearing her throat, Hermione set the Daily Prophet aside for Neville and unfolded the first of her Muggle newspapers, propping it against a jug of milk that sat between her porridge and the edge of the table. 

Skimming the front page, her brow furrowed with concentration, she automatically reached to her left for the salt. As he had the night before, Malfoy stiffened when Hermione’s arm passed in front of him. 

“Sorry,” Hermione murmured absently as she shook the salt over her porridge and stirred it in, more focused on tutting disapprovingly at the latest Muggle news than on Malfoy’s irate glare. 

“What’s the latest?” Neville asked, glancing over the Prophet on hearing Hermione sigh. 

“Nothing good,” Hermione said darkly, lowering her spoon into her porridge to reach for her coffee. “Anything on your end?”

“Fudge is talking about running for another term.”

“Bloody hell,” Hermione mumbled into her mug before reaching out to fold her newspaper to the next page. “I’m starting to wonder if we should start looking at term limits like the Americans.”

Neville shrugged, reclining in his seat and crossing one leg over the other, lifting the Prophet back up to his face. 

“Dunno,” he said. “If people want him, he’s going to get in. Just the way it works, isn’t it? Our Ministers have always lasted ages. Can’t see it changing any time soon. Not like he's done much wrong.”

Hermione grunted. The problem for her was that he didn't do much at all. Everything seemed to stay still under Fudge these days. Humming critically, she scoured an article on proposed changes to state pensions that would impact her parents, spooning porridge into her mouth all the while. 

“Miss Granger.”

Flinching with surprise at being addressed from her left, Hermione immediately twisted her neck to look at Malfoy and proceeded to poke her own cheek with her porridge spoon. 

“You are monopolising the milk,” Malfoy said, scowling disapprovingly at the Muggle newspaper that Hermione had, indeed, obstructively propped against the communal milk jug.

Mortified by her thoughtlessness, Hermione mumbled a hurried apology and immediately lifted her newspaper so that she could slide the jug towards Malfoy. He accepted it silently and proceeded to pour milk into his tea with an absurd amount of dignity. 

With Slughorn preferring to take breakfast in his rooms on the first day back, Malfoy was largely silent for the rest of the meal. Hermione was sure, however, that she could feel his judgemental eyes on her as she and Neville exchanged newspapers, though he did not actually turn his head to look at them directly. 

As she proceeded to scour the article on Fudge’s election announcement with a sceptical scowl, Hermione thought she might have spied Lucius spare a derisive glance at the brightly inked covers of the rest of the Muggle newspapers her mother had sent. However, when she looked at him properly, he was dabbing the corners of his mouth with a napkin, seemingly uninterested in anything but himself. 

When Minerva descended from the staff table to begin distributing timetables around the older students, Hermione took that as a signal to push her second cup of coffee aside, gather her newspapers together, and rise to her feet. 

“I’m going to start getting the classroom organised,” she said to Neville, offering him an anxious smile. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Always,” Neville replied, raising his cup to her in salute. “Good luck!”

“Thanks,” Hermione whispered. Turning to Malfoy, whose head was buried in his own edition of the Prophet, Hermione ventured to say, “See you in class, Mr Malfoy.”

She did not receive a response, or even an acknowledgement that she had spoken. Rolling her eyes at Neville, she squared her shoulders and departed the table. 

As Hermione descended into the main body of the Great Hall, Lucius fractionally lowered the Daily Prophet so that he could peer over it. Glowering, he watched her slip through the tables, her curls bouncing over her shoulders and her ugly dress swinging around her bare calves. 

Muggle clothes to classes. Muggle newspapers at breakfast. What point was the girl trying to prove? 

Glancing back down at the Prophet, Lucius’ lips curved into a smirk at the sight of Fudge dipping his bowler hat respectfully towards an eager crowd. 

Term limits, indeed. 

Fudge was tiresome. A bumbling, greedy little fool, actually. But as long as he continued to prove useful and loyal, Lucius would save him from any truly serious mishaps that might necessitate a resignation.

Perhaps he was fortunate that an idealistic crusader like Granger, with all her apparent love of Muggle systems of government, was locked up in Hogwarts, rather than allowed to roam the halls of the Ministry where she could do real mischief.

Better, though, that she wasn't allowed in either. 

Folding his newspaper in half, already more than familiar with what Fudge had said in his announcement, Lucius reached for his rapidly cooling cup of tea. As he did so, his arm passed over the timetable Granger had foisted on him before he’d even had time to pick up a slice of toast. 

Raising his tea to his lips, Lucius lifted the timetable with his free hand and inspected it over the rim of his cup. It was colour-coded to easily identify the school year of the class. 

Rolling his eyes, Lucius set his cup down and sighed. She’d even put the location of her classroom on the top right-hand corner of the parchment, accompanied by the crudest, most uselessly cramped attempt at a map he’d ever seen.

Not bothering to keep it neat, Lucius shoved the timetable into the pocket of his robes. He would keep it, useful as it was. He would not treat it with any care. 

A sense that he was being watched made the hairs on the back of Lucius’ neck stand up and, when he looked around to the right, past Granger’s empty chair, he found the Longbottom boy eyeing him and the pocket into which he’d just shoved the timetable with something that might have been disapproval. 

Lucius knew the boy’s mother and father from the Ministry. Purebloods in name only. It didn’t shock him in the least that their son would so readily befriend Mudbloods or read Muggle newspapers. 

Frank Longbottom did nothing but boast about his son, telling all who would listen that he was going to be the best Herbology professor Hogwarts had ever seen. This being after the boy had failed to complete his Auror exams, of course. His parents claimed he simply did not like the Auror life. Lucius thought it rather more likely that he was not up to it.

Personally, Lucius didn’t think he would take much pride in having a son who would perpetually have dirt in his fingernails at the dinner table but, then, given who they mixed with that was obviously not an issue for the Longbottoms.

“Problem, Mr Longbottom?” Lucius asked, a snide, insincere smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes. 

Neville did little more than mumble and shake his head before turning away. As he turned around to finish the last of his tea, Lucius pondered what strings he would have to pull to get Frank Longbottom assigned to the Azkaban transport detail for a month or two.

When the sixth years filed into Hermione’s classroom, she focused on trying not to bounce nervously on the balls of her feet.They weren't a big class, being a NEWT cohort. Only nine in all. That made it easy for Hermione to see, as they took their seats, that Lucius Malfoy was not among them. 

She frowned, her eyes darting around the room, searching. 

She had given him the timetable with the location of the class. It had a map that would expand if he simply tapped it with his wand. Should she have explained that to him? She’d just assumed he’d figure it out. It was effectively useless otherwise.

Unless…unless he was already in the room. Had he, perhaps, disillusioned himself so as not to be an obvious presence? 

Hermione wasn’t sure how she felt about that, her eyes raking the edges of the room for any sign of his tall frame distorting the stone walls. 

Maybe not being able to see his cold, judgemental stare would be a good thing. Or maybe it would just make her imaginings worse. She shuddered – it was her early experience of the concept of Santa all over again.

Waiting for the students to settle into their seats and pull out their textbooks and quills, Hermione swung her hands behind her back to fidget nervously. 

If he wasn’t here, ought she to wait for him? But if he was – if he was disillusioned – then she shouldn’t have to. 

Maybe it was a test. If she hyperventilated right at this moment, she would surely fail. 

Calm, Hermione.

Hogwarts professors did not work in isolation – there were timings to which she had to keep, out of respect for her students and her fellow professors. Nothing irked Minerva more than another professor who ate into her class time because they had poorly managed their own. 

That settled it. They were all waiting. She would simply have to begin. Lucius Malfoy or no Lucius Malfoy. 

“Good morning, everyone,” Hermione said, stepping forward and releasing her hands from their tight fold behind her back. “Welcome to NEWT-level Muggle Studies.” 

Hermione scanned the pale, bored faces of her first class and swallowed. Pressing her toes down in her shoes, she steeled herself. She had been an apprentice for years. She was capable. Good, even. And she was perfect for this class in particular. 

“Now, today will be more of an introductory class, so please don’t worry about textbooks or notes or anything like that.”

A few shoulders relaxed around the class and some of the students sat back in their seats slightly, sharing knowing smirks.

 “I thought we might discuss the year ahead.”

Flicking her wand in the direction of her desk, Hermione sent sheets of parchment soaring around the room. “This is the syllabus for the year,” she explained to her students who lifted the sheets to inspect them, some with more interest than others. 

“I understand that, as NEWT students, you are all more than familiar with Muggles and Muggle Studies,” Hermione continued. “You have all done very well to get to this point. But NEWT is a step up and, in addition to that, there may be some points of difference between how Professor Quirrell and I approach things. With that in mind, I thought it best that we take some time to go over our respective expectations for the next two years of study because –” 

The door at the back of the classroom swung open with a whining screech, forcing Hermione’s next words to shrivel up in her throat. Following her eyes, her students twisted in their seats to look around at Lucius Malfoy who was standing in the doorway, casually surveying the space. 

Not disillusioned, then, Hermione thought, a faint ringing in her ears.

Hermione stared, her jaw clenched, as Lucius made a show of consulting the timetable she’d given him – far more crumpled than she recalled – before taking a few steps into the room and allowing the door to clatter closed behind him. Clearing his throat, he loudly pulled a chair out from beneath a desk at the very back of the classroom and lowered himself into it. 

It was perfectly clear to Hermione, watching him occupy himself with adjusting his robes and neatening his desk, that an apology for his lateness would not be forthcoming. Rude, thoughtless, foul man, she fumed to herself, feeling an awful sting in the back of her nose.

A couple of students coughed awkwardly and one Slytherin girl giggled loudly, drawing Hermione back into herself. Taking a steadying breath, she moved towards her desk and calmly plucked two spare syllabi from its surface. 

“As I was saying,” Hermione continued, her remarkably steady voice carrying across the classroom as she moved towards Malfoy’s desk at the back. He wasn’t paying attention to her, instead placing writing utensils on his desk. “This is the syllabus for the year and you’ll see that I plan for us to cover a wide range of topics.”

Hermione set the syllabus on Malfoy’s desk in the space between his own parchment and quill. Leaning back in his seat, his hands clasped on his middle and the side of his right ankle balanced on his left knee, he made no move to pick it up. Pressing her lips into a thin line, Hermione used the tips of her fingers to push it towards him forcefully. 

There was a vindictive gleam in his eyes as they flicked from her hand up to her face. Hermione held his gaze, fighting to keep her expression neutral, before turning back to face the classroom in a whirl of curls. 

“In my class,” she continued in a steady voice, strolling back to the front of the class. “I don’t want you to study British Muggles like they’re objects, or fascinations. They are living beings like ourselves, ever-changing and evolving.” She turned on her heel to face them. “They are our contemporaries. We live alongside them. It’s not for us to presume to completely understand or know them but to appreciate and respect them.” 

“In my classroom, you won’t only learn about how Muggles in Britain get along without magic. You’ll learn about how they live more generally.” Hermione tilted her head, lifting a shoulder. “Saying that, you’ll also learn that, like us, they’re not a faceless collective that actually can be generalised.”

Clearing her throat, Hermione let out a breath. They were listening. There were only nine of them but they were listening. Despite Malfoy’s disruption. Glancing over at him, she saw him scouring the syllabus, noting items down in a way that made her long to run across the room and snatch up his parchment to read it for herself.

“You’re all well aware by now that this is not a wand-waving class.” Hermione tore her gaze from Malfoy. “Trust me when I say that I am well aware that that can seem dull. But I do intend to add practical elements to our classes.”

A murmur of interest passed through the students at that and Hermione’s smile widened. Quirrell’s reliance on textbooks hadn’t been widely appreciated, then. As she'd thought.

“In fact, I’d encourage you all to embrace Muggle things in small ways where possible,” she suggested. “Immerse yourself a little to gain some understanding. Maybe wear Muggle clothes on the weekends – I know some of you already do.” Hermione gestured to herself, earning an appreciative smile from one or two students. “I do.”

“I’ve also arranged for Professor Dumbledore to make Muggle newspapers available at breakfast in the Great Hall from next week. I would encourage you to read them – find out what’s happening in the Muggle world right now rather than twenty or thirty years ago. It changes quickly.”

With a hesitant wince, Hermione began pacing slowly back and forth, looking at the class as she went. “Do try to engage your critical thinking when you read them, though – as you’ve perhaps spotted on the syllabus, we will have a segment on British Muggle tabloids, newspapers and political perceptions after Easter. They’re not without agendas.”

“In our classes themselves,” Hermione continued, “you will not use quills and parchment.” 

Another wave of Hermione’s wand prompted a pile of ruled notebooks to rise from her desk. They began distributing themselves around the class, some students allowing them to fall on their desks while others grabbed them out of the air. Another flick and a box of standard black ball-point pens did the same. 

“I thought we might try writing as the Muggles do.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione spotted a Hufflepuff clutch their pen with something close to adoration. 

“Oh, and –” Hermione stepped back to gesture to a large glass jar on her desk that was filled with brightly wrapped confectionery. “Correct answers and well-made arguments will get Muggle sweets as well as House Points in this class. It’s not Honeydukes but, I assure you, some of it is wonderful.”

Hermione could just imagine the disapproving stares of her parents, silently accusing her of being a scourge of good dental health. It was largely easy to push such a vision aside, however, as she saw the interested eyebrow raises of her students. Even sixth years liked treats and she was not above that kind of bribery. 

“Now, I think I’ve probably had my say for long enough. Take another moment to read the syllabus and, if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.” 

There was a pause, some students still reading while others inspected their new writing utensils. Hermione allowed her eyes to drift to Malfoy who was still writing. With a quill and parchment, she noted – the pen and notebook she had sent in his direction having been dumped a desk over.

“Any questions,” she prompted, looking back to the class and rolling briefly onto her toes. “It doesn't necessarily have to be about the syllabus, I suppose. Are there any burning questions about Muggles that you’ve never been sure about asking? I’ll answer as honestly as I can. There are no stupid questions in this class.” 

A Gryffindor boy in the second row, who Hermione knew to be Nicholas Rose, hesitantly raised his hand and Hermione pointed to him.

“Er, yeah,” he said. “When you’re sending Muggle post, you put a stamp on it, right?” Hermione nodded. “Well, where do you put it?” 

There were no stupid questions, Hermione thought, but surely they had gone over that; Muggle post was a third year topic. “The letter?” she asked politely.

Rose shook his head irritably, seemingly offended that she’d think he’d ask such a thing.

“The stamp,” he said. “Like, no one ever says but there has to be a right answer.” 

Rose looked around at some of his classmates, one of whom shrugged like he potentially had a point. 

“We’ve studied the Muggle post for years,” he continued, “but none of the books actually say. This summer I wanted to send a letter to – “ Rose cut himself off and a faint blush appeared on his cheeks. “Well, I wanted to send a letter. Do it the proper muggle way. But I didn't want the stamp to be in the wrong place. I mean, I got an E at OWL for this subject – I'd have looked like a proper idiot.”

“Top right-hand corner, Mr Rose,” Hermione answered promptly. “Ideally. Just try to make sure it’s visible and not going over the edge of the letter. The Muggle post service is very able and most of the time they’ll get letters to where they need to go regardless of whether you followed the rules exactly. Anyone else?”

Perhaps encouraged by Rose, Abigail Piotrowska of Ravenclaw raised her hand straight in the air. “Miss Piotrowska,” Hermione said, pointing to her.

“So, this morning at breakfast, I heard one of the Muggleborn girls in the year below saying that her parents took her on holiday over the summer and that they went to some place with things called –” Piotrowska hesitated, frowning. “Roller coasters?”

Hermione nodded encouragingly and Henderson also nodded, satisfied by the accuracy of her recall. 

“Yeah, roller coasters. Are there a lot of these in Muggle Britain because I’ve never seen one but she seemed to love them. Kept saying we were missing out.”

“Oh, I’ve been on one of those,” piped up the Hufflepuff boy who had been delighted with his pen. “My granda is a Muggle and he took me down to Blackpool pier when I was wee once. For a holiday.” 

“Really?” asked Abigail, a slightly interrogative edge to her voice. “Well, what was it like, Brown? Tell us.”

“Erm…” Brown hesitated, flicking his pen back and forth between his fingers while he searched through his memory. “It was fun, I think. A bit like being on a really fast broom that already knows where it’s going, y’know?”

Abigail hummed thoughtfully, nodding. “That does sound quite fun, actually.” Turning back to Hermione, she asked, “So, are there a lot of them, professor?”

“Certainly,” Hermione said. “You’ll usually find them at Muggle theme parks and they vary in size and speed. They’re a fairly impressive feat of Muggle engineering, actually.” 

Glancing down at her packed syllabus, Hermione frowned thoughtfully. “We’ll have a couple of lessons on Muggle leisure activities just before the October break – I could take the time then to go over them in a little more detail. Would that appeal to anyone?”

There was a murmur of agreement through the class and Abigail looked exceptionally satisfied to have guided the direction of their course in some small way, as any Ravenclaw would.

“Professor Granger.” 

Hermione turned to find a Slytherin girl and two Ravenclaws blinking at her from the left of the classroom. The Slytherin girl at the centre of the trio, Priscilla Price, had her hand raised, her fingers waving lazily so that her charmed purple nail polish glinted in the light. 

“Yes, Miss Price?”

“Is it true, professor,” she said, a mischievous smile on her face that concerned Hermione, “that Muggle men wrap their bits up when they’re…y’know –” Price nudged the giggling girl beside her. “– stop laughing, Susie, honestly – when they're having a jolly?”

A ripple of cheeky laughter went through the classroom and Hermione blinked at Priscilla Price for a moment, her mouth going oddly dry. She hadn’t really expected that kind of question. Clearly Priscilla had thought as much because she snorted, failing to keep her face composed as she leaned on the giggling Susie. 

“You’re talking about condoms, Miss Price,” Hermione finally replied, clearing her throat. “Largely they’re made from a material called latex, though there are other varieties for those with allergies or sensitivities.”

The laughter died out and Hermione saw Priscilla’s eyes widen slightly in surprise that Hermione had not only answered her but did so without any visible embarrassment. 

“They’re just one form of Muggle contraception,” Hermione explained. “There are a few, actually, but you’re speaking of the male condom. They reduce the risk of both unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.”

“Oh.” Priscilla’s cheeks were pink. 

“Wrapped up? Isn’t that uncomfortable?” one Gryffindor boy muttered to another. “Don’t fancy that much.”

“Certainly not, Andrews”, Hermione said. “Not everyone uses them, of course, but they are a very old, largely reliable and readily available form of Muggle contraception in Britain. The technology has come a long way from the days of animal intestines.”

“Eugh!” Priscilla exclaimed.

"Even wizards once used dragon bladders, Miss Price; our current potions and charms did have to be invented, you know," Hermione said distractedly, glancing down at the syllabus again. "This isn't something that's actually on the official curriculum but it is a good question." 

Hermione looked up to the class and found them all staring at her. "If that’s a topic anyone in the class would like to know more about, I’m happy to recommend some reading for you to do in your own time.” 

There were a few nods and a quiet, collective,"yes, please" from the trio of girls.

There were only a few more questions before the end of the class but they were confidently asked and assuredly answered, leaving Hermione feeling confident that she had an enjoyable year with her sixth years ahead of her. 

Even the glacial stare of Lucius Malfoy from the back of the classroom, which had been constant since Priscilla Price's question, could not burst her bubble.

"Thank you, everyone, that'll do for today," Hermione said. "You will need your textbooks next class, though I'll be honest we will largely be dissecting the lack of accuracy in the illustrations."

A few appreciative laughs bubbled up over the sound of screeching chairs as the sixth years pushed themselves to their feet. 

Hermione strolled over to her desk, moving behind it as the classroom emptied and the door closed with a heavy clunk. Shuffling together her spare syllabi, she sat down and tidied them into a drawer, exchanging them for her third year set. She had an hour before they arrived.

The steady click of smart shoes on the stone floor drew Hermione's gaze upwards and she was surprised to see Lucius Malfoy sauntering towards her. She would have thought he'd leave as quickly as possible. 

Malfoy stopped on the other side of Hermione's desk, looking down his nose at her. 

"Miss Granger," he said, his voice hard as he placed both hands on top of his cane in front of him, "that was not appropriate."

Hermione scanned her desk, mentally retracing her last few movements in an attempt to identify which of them might have disagreed with Malfoy’s sense of propriety. 

Coming up short, she frowned and looked up at him “…sorry, Mr Malfoy, sir, what was –”

"Your…advice," he interrupted, his face tight. "On Muggle –" He softly cleared his throat, mouth twisted with distaste. "Contraception." 

"Oh." Hermione’s shoulders dropped and she folded her hands on her desk, tilting her head. "Why?"

"Why?” A soft scoffing laugh escaped him. “I hardly think that needs explaining." 

"I mean…well, I’m afraid it does Mr Malfoy," she said, shrugging. "They're young adults and I invited them to ask me any questions about Muggles they pleased. It would hardly encourage their faith in me as a professor if I spoke down to them or went back on my word."

"That girl," Malfoy said, a scornful edge to his voice, "was attempting to humiliate you."

"But she did not," Hermione pointed out, "and her question – which I suspect actually stemmed from a sincere curiosity – was answered."

“Poppy Pomfrey has a ready supply of contraceptive potions which older students are welcome to access if needed.” Malfoy’s lips were thin and Hermione could only infer that he did not entirely appreciate her attempt to stand her ground. “Her ‘curiosity’ did not need to be indulged.”

“I’m afraid I disagree,” Hermione replied, determinedly ignoring the flutter of misgiving in her chest. “What happens if one of my students becomes involved with a Muggle? They will need to be aware of such things if they’re to engage in healthy relationships.”

Malfoy’s expression suggested that Hermione had just declared her intention to teach her students the finer details of throwing excrement. Shaking her head disbelievingly, she leaned back in her chair, looking up at Malfoy all the while. 

"I actually think it’s quite a sad comment on Hogwarts’ woefully inept approach to sex education that Miss Price thought such a basic question would make me blush," she said.

"You have no right to teach these students –"

"These students have every right to ask me questions and I will answer them when I think it appropriate."

"It was not appropriate – it is not an approved topic on the curriculum."

"Curricula can change."

"With. Governor. Approval." Lucius leaned forward on every word, his grip on his cane tightening and his eyes narrowing.

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. It was true that she knew it wasn't on the curriculum but it hadn't felt like a bad question to answer at the time. It was such a basic, ubiquitous matter. She had not anticipated getting so far on the wrong side of Lucius Malfoy this early. 

Sighing softly through her nose, Hermione mentally swept aside the incinerated remains of the naive part of her – which had borne a vague resemblance to her eleven year-old self – that had still hoped to defy the odds and impress the stern man before her.

"Mr Malfoy,” she said, attempting a conciliatory tone, “I gave them extremely basic information, not instruction. It was barely even a minute of the overall lesson."

"Regardless, Miss Granger, this will be in my report."

Hermione bristled. A minute’s diversion in an otherwise successful introductory lesson was going to be added to his report. Was he really going to be such a pedant? Of course he was.

"Perhaps your report will also encourage your fellow governors to find a way to approach social and sexual education at this school in a more structured way, then,” she said. “I would welcome it. In fact, I would be more than happy to take part in the discussions myself. Do add that, won’t you?"

"I would have thought," Malfoy said, a derisive edge to his words, "that given your current, precarious circumstances you would be less inclined to buck the broom."

"I’m not looking to buck anything, Mr Malfoy," Hermione assured him. "My ‘current circumstances’ dictate that I teach my classes under your watch and I am doing so. I think I would be doing us both a disservice if I was not honest about my approach and methods. Don’t you?"

Malfoy sniffed out a disparaging laugh and raised a solitary brow. "Miss Granger," he drawled, "you have taught but one class and I feel I should tell you that, thus far, I am very unimpressed with your attitude. Do tread carefully."

Hermione swallowed. Despite his harsh words, he looked oddly satisfied; almost pleased. Pride, Hermione. Pride. It comes before a fall.

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," she said, attempting to soften her voice though the words tasted bitter. "I assure you, I will keep closely to the approved curriculum going forward."

"See that you do." 

With a last sweeping glance of Hermione, his eyes lingering on her tightly clasped hands, Lucius lifted his cane and made to turn away.

"Before you go, Mr Malfoy," Hermione said, unable to help herself. "I wonder – did you not find my map helpful?"

Hermione would never suggest that Lucius Malfoy had shown up to her class late on purpose simply to throw her off. She would think it – be almost certain of it, in fact – but she would never suggest it. 

Sneering, Malfoy turned back to her. "I didn't need a map ,” he said. “If that's what that drawing that was no larger than a knut actually was."

"Oh, no." 

Hermione shook her head. She could not have him thinking that she would be so foolish. Especially not if he was putting even the most minor infractions in his report. Pushing herself to her feet, she leaned across her desk and extended her hand out to him. Malfoy looked at it askance, as though she was making some rude gesture with it. 

"Could you pass me the timetable?” she asked. “I have to show you."

A muscle at the corner of Malfoy’s eye twitched but he withdrew the timetable from his pocket and threw it down on the desk between them, rather than hand it to Hermione directly. 

A tight, insincere smile fixed to her face, Hermione pulled the timetable towards her and elected not to comment on its shabby condition as she extracted her wand from the inside pocket of her blazer.

“You just have to –” Hermione touched the tip of her wand to the tiny map sketch and held it there. "Look."

Eyes narrowing, Lucius took a step closer to the desk to watch the map expand across the parchment, overlaying the timetable beneath like it was on some kind of semi-transparent sheet.  

"It’s a little layering charm I’ve been playing with," Hermione said, looking down at the parchment fondly. "The Stratus charm. Neat, isn’t it?"

Raising her eyes, her smile for her charm still playing around her lips, she found Lucius tight-jawed and staring down at the parchment. 

"But I shouldn’t have assumed knowledge," she said quickly. "I’m sorry. One of the key rules of being a professor. I –"

Lucius reached out and snatched the timetable from beneath Hermione’s wand. As soon as the parchment lost contact with the tip of the wand, the map reverted to its former tiny state, though Lucius did not see that, shoving it back into his pocket. 

His glare was so icy that Hermione was strongly reminded of wading into the lake in mid-December and shivered.

"Perhaps, Miss Granger," he said with an unpleasant air of condescension, "your time would be better spent studying the curriculum you are supposed to be teaching, rather than playing with pointless charms."

Hermione shut her mouth tight and gripped her wand as Malfoy turned on his heel and strode back across the classroom, his robes billowing.

Unbearable prick.

Chapter Text

September 7th

Standing before the long mirror that he had requested for his rooms, Lucius Malfoy methodically adjusted the high collar of his white dress shirt. He slid his black velvet brocade waistcoat over his shoulders, inspecting one of the slightly tarnished silver buttons with distaste before he began to do it up. 

Getting dressed was a meditative ritual for him. Selecting and donning the many layers, patterns and materials that made up his overall robes gave him a feeling of control and satisfaction. It was armour.

When he had buttoned the high-necked waistcoat, leaving the top two buttons undone so that his silver cravat might just peek through, Lucius turned to his outer robes, opting for a velvet-lined set that would sit nicely with his waistcoat. 

He struggled to imagine the Granger girl going to this kind of effort of an ordinary morning. 

Muggle clothes, to his discerning eye, always looked so…messy. Cobbled together. It wouldn’t have shocked him to find out that she simply closed her eyes and pulled items on at random. 

Turning to the window, Lucius assessed the clear, bright sky. He would forego the outer cloak – not really necessary given the unseasonal heat. Striding over to the window, Lucius surveyed the deserted castle grounds. It was still early. Early enough that there was very little movement in the castle as yet and even less in the grounds.

An unexpected movement out of the corner of his eye made him frown and, squinting, he looked down towards the lake. 

Was that…a person? Swimming? In the lake?

Leaning closer to his window, his breath fogging the glass, Lucius thought he could see a dark-haired head slicing through the water, arms arcing at regular intervals and rapidly kicking feet unsettling the otherwise smooth surface.

Yes, some absolute idiot was, indeed, swimming in the lake. Unseasonably warm as it was, it was still September – the water had to be freezing. Not to mention the giant bloody squid in there and Merlin only knew what else. 

Shuddering, Lucius straightened up. No, thank you.  

Admittedly, while swimming was absolutely not for him – in a lake or otherwise – he was aware that he should, perhaps, consider walking the grounds in the mornings, as was his habit at the manor. 

Narcissa had once told him that taking an hour out of his day to stretch his legs made him less of a curmudgeon. 

Lucius didn’t disagree. Though, if he was honest, he thought it likely that it was the cigarettes he smoked while he walked that had the greatest impact on his mood.

When Narcissa had run the manor, smoking indoors had not been tolerated. 

Sliding a slender gold case out of a pocket of his waistcoat, Lucius flicked open the lid and counted the thinly rolled purple cigarettes inside. Only seven. He would have to owl his tobacconist and have more sent from Paris within the week. 

Sighing, Lucius plucked out a cigarette and allowed it to dangle from between his lips so that he could return the case neatly to his pocket. Scanning the room, he spied his cane leaning against the bed stand and made for it.

He had been less fixated on house rules than Narcissa. 

If he’d had one, Lucius supposed, it'd been don’t die and leave your devastated spouse alone but he’d never felt any need to actually voice it. 

Perhaps that was why Narcissa had broken it. Not that she'd had much choice in the matter.

With a touch of his wand, Lucius lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes to savour the rich taste and the rush of pleasure that had no discernible beginning or end.

He still didn't smoke in the manor. Probably never would.

Exhaling heavily, Lucius frowned and slowly opened his eyes to study the thin, faintly sparkling trail of purple smoke that lingered in the air. 

Come to think of it, he wasn’t actually sure he was permitted to smoke inside Hogwarts either. Hadn’t some overly officious school House Elf dobbed him for just this in his fifth year? 

Rolling his eyes, Lucius returned to his room’s single window in two strides, unlatched its fragile hook and shoved the thin glass to open it as far as the creaking, rusted hinge would allow. That would have to do. 

Utterly ridiculous, really. A grown wizard – not just any grown wizard: him – fretting about whether or not he could smoke a singular cigarette in the privacy of his own rooms. 

He hated being back at Hogwarts. 

Taking another long drag of the cigarette, Lucius looked back to the grounds, his eyes drawn to the figure in the lake again. Perhaps he was witnessing their bid for freedom. 

Good bloody luck to you, he thought darkly as he blew the smoke towards the open window.

He hated the draughty, narrow corridors; the relentlessly coughing and sneezing children that streamed through them; the constant communal eating. Merlin, what he wouldn’t give to have a personal teapot. A private bloody butter dish. Anything that was solely his.

And all of it under Dumbledore’s ever-watchful, relentlessly twinkling eyes. There was mockery in that twinkle. The man acted like a paragon but Lucius suspected he was a fucking sadist underneath it all. Had to be. One did not get power like Dumbledore’s – one did not single-handedly defeat Grindelwald – by being good to all in perpetuity.

All in all, Lucius was feeling very…pent up. Liable to lash out. 

The swimmer disappeared beneath the surface of the lake and Lucius brought the cigarette to his lips, searching for them as he inhaled. He wasn’t sure why; if they were drowning, there was very little he could do for them four floors up. 

His week spent in Hermione Granger’s classes was not helping his irritability. 

It was all her fault he was at Hogwarts in the first place. If she’d just shut her stupid mouth and let him do as he’d intended, there wouldn’t be a Muggle Studies class and he’d be free, doing whatever he wanted.

Lucius was quickly coming to understand that wouldn’t happen, though – the shutting of Granger’s mouth, that was – because the girl quite clearly adored the sound of her own voice. Perhaps more than she adored Muggles. 

Without warning, the swimmer broke the smooth surface of the lake some distance from where they’d disappeared. Lucius felt a curious swoop of second-hand satisfaction as he watched ripple after ripple span out from them.

Granger irritated him beyond belief. So much so, that he struggled to distinguish when she was being unconsciously annoying and when she was going out of her way to be so. It made it hard to moderate his reactions.

Her incessant reaching across his place setting at the dining table; the ridiculous colour-coded timetable; her condescension with her stupid little map charm. 

Then there was her general demeanour. Her very being. Rude, presumptuous and seemingly utterly fucking oblivious to how awful she truly was.

Grimacing, Lucius flicked some ash out of the window, allowing the wind to carry it away. 

He hadn’t had many close encounters with Mudbloods in his life – deliberately so – but she was not behaving as he felt a Mudblood in her situation ought to behave. 

For one thing, she did not display an ounce of deference to his superior status. Every time he looked at her, she met his gaze unblinkingly; she frequently dared to address him first in conversation; and, when he told her she was in error, she honestly dared to tell him why she thought she was not. Like it was a matter of opinion!

Too irritated to even finish his cigarette, Lucius stubbed it out on the windowsill, grumbling all the while. 

He knew ‘she’s the most irritating, obnoxious little Mudblood I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter’ would not be viewed as a suitable reason for removing her from her post by the rest of the governors. A couple of them were quite against that kind of thing. 

Moreover, they were all bound by updated anti-discrimination laws that Fudge had pushed through under pressure from Dumbledore, back when he’d been floundering and seeking guidance early in his career.

Fortunately, Fudge had found new guidance. Less fortunately, those laws were air-fucking-tight.

Lucius’ main problem was that Granger wasn’t actually doing all that much wrong from a teaching standpoint. Since that little slip-up in her first class, he had to admit that her lessons – discounting the detestable subject matter – had been entirely fine. Borderline competent. And that one mistake was not enough in and of itself to have her fired. 

Sighing, Lucius rolled his shoulders and turned away from the window. If she wasn’t going to make mistakes, then he was going to have to make her make them. 

In all their interactions, she had been composed and coldly cordial. Occasionally snappish but never outrightly angry or unprofessional. 

But Lucius hadn’t missed the little vein pulsing in her temple when he’d shown up late to her first class. That had just been a bit of fun on his part, something to knock the confidence she’d dared to display during breakfast, but it showed him that she wasn’t unflappable. 

He could get to her. She could be provoked and that could lead to more slip-ups.

Chin pillowed in his palm, Lucius Malfoy glanced at the clock on the wall of the Muggle Studies classroom, praying for the torture to end. 

For the final twenty minutes of the lesson, Granger had set up an absurd role play with the class, whereby she sat in a chair at the front of the room pretending to be a Muggle shopkeeper. Each student made an order to her and she would invent a completely random price so that they had to count out the correct Muggle money to hand it to her. 

It was the most humiliating thing Lucius could imagine having to do and she was doing it to herself.

To make matters worse, the class were taking it upon themselves to shout out Muggle confectionery that they wanted to add to the order. They all seemed to be having a wonderful time. The noise of it was creating a telling pressure in the front of his head.

“Oh, oh, a chocolate teacake! The one with the marshmallow,” cried a red-cheeked Hufflepuff girl.

“And a Twix,” joined a Gryffindor boy. “I had one of those out of the jar last week and it was great.”

Lucius rubbed at the pain gathering like a storm in his brow and glanced down at the textbook laid out in front of him. British Muggle money struck him as needlessly complicated. Mathematically simple, certainly, but too many varieties of coin. His gaze lingered on the strange twenty-pence piece pictured in the book. It lacked the elegance of wizarding currency. 

On coming into his inheritance, Lucius had discovered that the Malfoy family actually had Muggle investments which went back generations because, while Muggles were detestable, money never could be. Of course, as his father had, Lucius paid someone to manage those investments for him. Their yields had never really been sufficient to deserve his personal interest and a little distance from such unsavoury income streams was always preferable. 

Now that he looked at the multi-layered and frankly stupid system of coins in front of him, however, it occurred to Lucius that his hired man could be skimming sizeable sums off his takings in the conversion process and he would never know. 

With a covert glance around him, Lucius folded the corner of the textbook page to mark it, intending to use it as a point of reference when the breakdown of his Muggle investments for the latest quarter arrived.

“Everything they said!” The Hufflepuff boy standing before Granger gave an enthusiastic nod, gesturing over his shoulder at his classmates. “Plus the ice cream, the pizza and the yoyo. I want all of that.”

“Alright, Mr Chowdhury,” Hermione said, sitting straight-backed with a mock imperiousness in her chair. “An eclectic order but delicious, I’m sure. Apart from the yoyo, of course. So, for all of that I will ask you for –” Hermione tilted her head left then right, thinking. “25 pounds and…79 pence, please.” 

There was a brief pause as Chowdhury fiddled with the Muggle money in his hand, counting through notes. Granger nodded encouragingly as two ten pound notes followed by a five were pressed into her patiently waiting hand. Then, Chowdhury turned to the coins, murmuring to himself as he counted them up.

Even the relatively muted sound of metal on metal was enough to make Lucius close his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose like it was a pressure valve.

“Oh…er…hmmm.” Chowdhury scratched his head. “Professor, I don’t have the right coins to make 79 exactly. I can only give you 80.”

Hermione shook her head. “Well, that’s perfectly fine. Muggle shops will be able to give you change. I’ll take the 80.” There was a muffled clink as Chowdhury handed the money over. “How much should you expect to receive from me?”

“Just a penny, professor,” the boy answered confidently. “But you can keep the change.”

Hermione laughed, her head falling back as she closed her hand around the money. “Perfect. Very well done. That’s five points to Hufflepuff and you can pick something out of the jar before you go.”

Rising to her feet, Hermione returned to her desk and deposited the Muggle money in a box alongside the rest that had been used in the lesson. 

“Thank you, everyone,” she said, looking up at the waiting class. “You all did very well today. Now, your essays on the decimalisation of British Muggle money are due, so please stay seated and allow me to collect them before you leave.”

Sighing through his nose, Lucius drummed his fingers on his desk while Granger made her way around the class, picking up essays and thanking each student. Most professors would just wave their bloody wand and get it over with.

“I like your trousers, professor,” said one Ravenclaw girl as she handed Hermione a thick sheaf of white lined paper. 

To Lucius’ amazement there wasn’t a hint of mockery in the compliment, which Hermione accepted with a gracious ‘thank you, Higgins’ before moving on to the next student. 

Lip curled with distaste, Lucius eyed the herringbone trousers, which sat high and tight around Granger’s narrow waist and tapered at her bare ankles. He supposed any student who actually elected to study Muggle Studies would have questionable taste.

“That’s everyone,” Hermione said, flicking through the pile of essays and counting them quickly as she strolled to the front of the class. “Right, off you go to your next class. See you all Friday when I’ll get these back to you.”

Lucius stayed seated while the class filed out, not especially wishing to be a part of the fray. As a group of Gryffindors passed him, he overheard them enthusiastically debate which of the oddly shaped Muggle coins they liked most and rolled his eyes. 

Through the thinning stream of students, he saw Granger shuffling together the class’s essays before depositing them in a drawer on her desk. Straightening up, she brushed her fringe away from her forehead and checked the clock on the wall that he'd been eyeing for the last hour. 

With greater purpose, Hermione neatened her desk and straightened up to tuck her cream satin blouse further into the waistband of her trousers. Turning to her chair, she lifted her blazer from its back and slipped it on, checking the clock once more.

“Have somewhere to be, Miss Granger?” Lucius called from his seat.

“Oh!” Hermione jumped, looking up at him as she slipped her hands into her hair to free it from the neck of her blazer. “Mr Malfoy. I didn’t realise you were still –”

Clearing her throat, she rounded her desk and approached him.

“Er, yes. I do,” she said, patting the inner pocket of her blazer to ensure her wand was in it. “It’s an hour until my next class and I promised Neville – Neville Longbottom, that is – that I’d watch his back while he prunes the Venomous Tentacula. It’s a bit of a two man job and Professor Sprout has a class.”

Lucius' brows twitched upwards and, though he gave her no verbal response, he looked down at his notes from the lesson that had just passed, like her words were making him think he ought to add more. 

“Er…” Hermione tucked a curl behind her ear and as Lucius returned his gaze to her face, he saw, to his satisfaction, that she was eyeing his notes with some apprehension. 

“I’d best be quick but please feel free to stay here while I’m gone,” she said, reluctantly giving up on trying to read his notes from such a difficult angle. “I’ll be back with plenty of time before the fifth years arrive.”

“See that you are,” Lucius said lightly as she continued on her way. Turning in his seat, he addressed her back. “Or it will be noted.”

On hearing his words, Hermione paused at the door, her shoulders slightly raised. He saw her grip on the handle tighten just enough to make her knuckles flash white but she must have found it in herself to swallow whatever retort she wished to make because she hauled the door open and departed without another word.

When the door had closed heavily behind Granger, Lucius stayed seated for a moment, reclined and at his ease in his seat. With pursed lips, he scanned the room thoughtfully and drummed his fingers once, twice, on the desk. 

Left alone. In Granger’s classroom. Lovely.

A sly smirk curved at the corner of Lucius’ lips and, gently clearing his throat, he pushed himself lithely to his feet. Leaving his cane leaning against his desk, he sauntered through the classroom, his hands clasped behind his back. 

Having never taken Muggle Studies during his time at Hogwarts – obviously – he had spent no time in the classroom before. Lucius wasn’t sure, therefore, whether all of the decor was Granger’s choice or whether she had added to what Quirrell had left behind. He didn’t care for it either way.

Making his way slowly around the edges of the room, he surveyed battered, frayed posters of Muggle travel destinations and shelves weighed down with Muggle books, their spines battered and faded with age and use. Other shelves were populated with strange knick-knacks to which he couldn’t put a name. 

Not that he’d ever want to. 

Stopping briefly to eye a strange multi-coloured cube with suspicion, Lucius continued on his path towards Granger’s desk. 

Passing the chalkboard on which she’d written out the various denominations of Muggle currency, he carelessly wiped away ‘£1 = 100p’ with the side of his hand before coming to a stop behind her desk. Lucius pulled Hermione’s chair out and lowered himself into it, frowning as it creaked beneath him. Merlin, was everything in this school falling apart? 

With a click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Lucius began pulling open the drawers of Granger’s desk at random. There was very little of interest to him. Some Muggle perfume; a few quills and bottles of ink; Muggle pens; a couple of headache potions. 

Lucius picked one of the potions, held it up to the light for inspection, then slipped it neatly into the pocket of his robes. 

It was her fault he even had the bloody headache. 

Lips pursed, Lucius shifted his attention to a small black diary and flicked through it. A series of to-do lists. Under that day’s date, she'd scrawled "Help Neville", “Order dad’s gift”, "Reply to Viktor" and “Mark essays”. 

His eyes flicked upwards in a half roll. Well, she was frightfully boring, wasn’t she? 

Although …Lucius glanced back at the diary, tilting his head. Mark essays. 

Closing the diary with a sharp snap, Lucius returned it to its place and opened the drawer in which he’d seen Granger deposit her third year essays. Hesitating for only a moment, Lucius carefully slid the topmost essay from the pile and weighed it in his hands. 

Howard Brand, was the name scrawled along the top. Quite clearly using a Muggle pen, based on the way the heavy-handed writing was practically carved into the page. 

Wouldn’t it be just terrible if Granger lost a student’s essay? Wouldn’t it make her look rather disorganised? Wouldn’t she fret and worry?

Imagining Granger’s face when she realised she’d lost an essay – all furrowed brow and nibbled lips – was more than enough motivation for Lucius to fold the paper and slip it into his cloak pocket alongside the potion. 

It was probably terribly written anyway – Howard Brand might thank him. 

Returning Granger’s desk to its former state, Lucius pushed himself to his feet and glanced at the clock on the wall. Smiling smugly, he patted on the pocket of his waistcoat, searching for his gold case. All that done and still plenty of time to smoke. 

Grumbling to herself, Hermione pushed the door to her room closed behind her with a little more force than necessary, satisfied to hear the metal latch clang into place.

Lucius Malfoy had been unbearable at dinner. Even more so than usual. In fact, he’d been unbearable all afternoon. Ever since she’d returned from helping Neville in the greenhouses. It wasn’t that Malfoy had said anything to her, exactly – he was just radiating a particularly smug aura, which really was saying something.

Hermione’s first, wild thought on returning to her classroom to find him far happier than when she’d left him had been that he’d lit some kind of fire in her absence. There had been a very faint smell of smoke, after all. 

When she’d pointed it out, however, he’d given her a look that suggested he thought she was going quite mad. The arrival of her fifth year class had necessitated that she cease her investigation and the smell had eventually faded, both from the room and her thoughts.

Absolutely nothing else had happened through the day but every time their eyes had met there had been something – something she could not quite name – in his expression that caused her concern.

Dropping into the seat in front of her desk, Hermione hauled her battered leather satchel onto its surface and began pulling out the essays she had to mark. She would start with her third years’. They should be fairly short and straightforward which, she hoped, would help her enter a state of zen before she had to move onto the more complicated arguments she’d requested from her OWL students.

Only stopping to light a few candles when darkness started its steady creep into the room, Hermione worked through the essays efficiently. It was easiest, she had learned from McGonagall, to get them off her plate when she could, else they’d pile up. Particularly when distractions mounted as the year went on.

Flicking through the marked essays just over a couple of hours later, Hermione counted them. “Twenty…eight,” she said slowly as she reached the last one. It was a class of twenty-nine. They’d all handed them in; she’d collected them herself.

With greater focus, Hermione recounted the essays and when, once again, she got twenty-eight, she returned them to her desk with a thoughtful frown. Lips pursing, she reached for her bag.

“How could I possibly have…” Hermione mumbled to herself, digging through her bag to search for the essay. Even with her undetectable extension charm, she had a fairly good filing system in there and she’d only transferred the essays from her desk to her bag before dinner.

When her search yielded no results, Hermione extracted her class register and slapped it onto the desk. Referencing the list of names, Hermione picked up each essay and checked the name written at its top before setting it aside. 

“Howard Brand,” she eventually said quietly. Tall boy. Ravenclaw. Auburn hair. His was missing. Well, she’d certainly taken it from him. 

Her sigh making the flame of the candle in front of her flicker and dance, Hermione reached for her wand. 

Lucius was reclining in the armchair in his room when the stolen essay rocketed out of his cloak pocket. Flinging his book to the floor, he threw himself out of his chair just as the essay smacked against the closed door. 

The paper slid down the wood, seeking the fastest way out of the room, when Lucius slapped his hand over it to pin it in place. The essay quivered beneath his hand, desperately trying to move.

So, Granger knew it was missing. Trying to Accio it, no doubt. 

Snorting, Lucius closed his flattened hand into a fist, crushing the essay between his fingers. Striding across the room to his bedside table, he lifted two of the three heavy books piled on its surface, pressed the essay down and then dropped them on top of it. Though the paper twitched and struggled, it stayed put and Lucius breathed a sigh of satisfaction. 

He had to admit, he’d thought he’d get a bit longer before she noticed. Did she always mark her essays the very day she got them? Trying to be on her very best behaviour for him, no doubt. The idea of that made him smirk. 

There were still a few days before her next third year class. Eyeing the still-twitching paper, Lucius pondered just how likely his books were to hold it tight when he wasn’t there. He didn’t know Granger very well but she gave the impression of being a persistent, stubborn little thing. It wouldn’t do for her to try the spell again in a day or two and receive a very crumpled, clearly stolen essay. 

It took him only a moment to make the decision. Sliding the essay out from between his books, Lucius crossed the room to his fireplace and held the paper over the flames, allowing them to lick gently at the corners. Within seconds, it had caught and Lucius waited until more than half the essay was a conflagration before dropping it into the grate in its entirety.

Problem solved.

September 10th

By the time her next third year class rolled around, Hermione still hadn’t found Howard Brand’s essay. No matter how many times she cast Accio, searched her desk, or foraged in her bag – even tipping the whole thing out onto her bed, which had caused quite a mess – it didn’t appear.

She felt like she was going quite mad and the guilt sat heavy in her stomach. If a professor had been so careless as to lose one of her essays in her third year, she would have been affronted. She’d have hissed about their incompetence to Harry and Ron at the Gryffindor table for days, furious at missing out on valuable feedback and a grade.

Admittedly, Howard Brand struck Hermione as a slightly more easy-going student than she had been but it didn’t make her feel much better when she set the incomplete pile of marked essays on a desk at the back of the classroom and told everyone to take theirs as they left. 

“Mr Brand,” she said quietly as she passed him. “Would you mind waiting behind? Just for a moment.”

Eyes wide, he looked up from the bag he was packing and Hermione tried to offer him a comforting smile. “You’re in no trouble.”

As the rest of the class pushed their way out of the door at the rear of the classroom, Howard slunk up to Hermione’s desk, hauling his bag onto his back as he went. Ravenclaws didn’t tend to like staying after class, unless it was at their own insistence to ask a question. 

Hermione was painfully aware of Lucius Malfoy watching and listening at the back of the classroom as she explained, as far as she actually could, what had happened to Howard’s essay. She was living in a nightmare.

It was fortunate that Howard took it relatively well. He was confused, of course, and keen to assure Hermione that he did hand it in. This, she told him, she knew. It was her error and he would receive a good grade for the essay which, based on his performance in class, she was sure he would have received anyway. 

Satisfied by this, Howard accepted her apology with pink cheeks and a muttered “S’alright, professor. It wasn’t that good anyway.”

“But I would very much have liked to read it,” Hermione said sincerely. “I’ll let you get to your next class, Mr Brand. Please tell Professor Sprout that it was me who held you back.”

As Howard departed the class, Hermione, unable to help herself, began pulling out her desk drawers again just to check for the essay one last time. Mumbling to herself, she lifted things from drawers and dumped them on the surface of her desk, flicking through piles of paper and parchment at speed. 

She was so consumed by her search – which became increasingly frenetic as the seconds passed – that she didn’t notice Lucius Malfoy sauntering across the room towards her, the click of his shoes and the tap of his cane not registering at all.

“Christ –” Hermione exclaimed, stepping back and raising a hand to her chest when she looked up to find the tall, imposing figure of Malfoy standing directly in front of her desk, silently waiting for her to notice him.

“I prefer Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger,” he said smoothly, his cold eyes sweeping the messy surface of her desk.

“Mr Malfoy,” she breathed, hurriedly starting to tidy her things back into their drawers, glancing up at him from her bent position as she did so. “How can I help you?”

“I don’t think I am the one who requires help,” he said, his voice soft. There was, Hermione thought, an undertone of false pity in it that made her stop what she was doing and straighten up to look at him properly. 

As though things couldn’t get any worse.

“Dear, dear,” he said, pausing to sigh and take her in, his eyes lingering on her fringe just long enough that she instinctively raised a hand to flatten it. “Only the second week and you’re losing essays? Essays into which your students have put so much time and effort.”

“I –” Hermione swallowed, heat rising in her cheeks. “I don’t know what happened.”

She really didn’t. She just couldn’t understand. Finding herself unable to look into Malfoy’s face, Hermione locked her eyes on the shiny silver buttons of his waistcoat that were just visible through the gap in his robes.

“Clearly,” Lucius said, his eyebrows rising. “Didn’t you think to try Accio ? A very simple spell, you know, it’s –”

Hermione’s eyes immediately snapped back to his. “I did .” There was a defensive, distinctly unprofessional curtness in Hermione’s tone that made her internally cringe. The man was just… ugh. Taking a breath through her nose, she attempted to compose her face. “It didn’t work.” 

The corner of Malfoy’s lips twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. “Perhaps you didn’t do it right,” he suggested lightly. 

Hermione made no reply but, by her hips, her hands tightened into fists so tight they drew Malfoy’s gaze. She could have sworn a wolfish smile flashed across his face but by the time his eyes rose to hers again, his face was unreadable.

“Or perhaps the essay simply vanished off the face of the earth, hm?” he asked, his sarcastic tone revealing just how likely he thought that was. “Straight out of your desk drawer and into the ether.”

Nostrils momentarily flaring, Hermione eyed his smug face. Straight out of her desk drawer, was it? No, essays didn’t simply vanish off the face of the earth. Not on their own. 

“I’m sure you would have noticed anything odd,” Hermione said, her voice remarkably steady, “given you were in the classroom with me all day that day.” 

In fact, he’d been in the classroom even when she hadn’t been. Long enough to go through her desk. Perhaps take an essay. 

Surely he wouldn’t. He was a governor. 

Their eyes met and Malfoy didn’t even blink despite the intensity of Hermione’s suspicious glare. He only offered her a very slight smirk.

Yes, he would. He was a governor with an agenda.

“Well, I do hope, Miss Granger,” Malfoy said smoothly, pausing to pick an invisible speck from the cuff of his sleeve, “that this isn’t going to become a habit. Not only for your sake – it hardly seems right that students should have to pay for your incompetence.”

“I can assure you, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said, her face tight and her eyes locked on his, “I don’t intend to let this happen again.”

Her desk was about to become the most heavily-warded piece of furniture in the whole fucking castle.

Chapter Text

September 14th

Crossing the deserted Hogwarts grounds with long, assured strides, Lucius Malfoy inhaled deeply, drawing in the crisp, clean autumn air. The early morning sky was faintly pink, the clouds drifting across it thin and wispy.

Coming to a stop near the bank of the lake, he rolled momentarily onto the balls of his feet, inhaling again, and then landed flat with a heavy exhale. 

Right, that’s quite enough of that. 

Reaching into his robes, Lucius fished in his waistcoat pocket and drew out his cigarette case. Having left his cane in the castle – because, really, it was quite a lot of effort for an isolated morning walk – he drew his wand out of his cloak pocket and lit the cigarette, his eyes scanning the mountainous landscape all the while. 

Malfoy Manor had more fine rose bushes and perfectly coiffed hedges than any other wizarding estate in the country but Lucius had to admit that there was a peculiar appeal to the wildness of the Hogwarts grounds. It connected with something within him. Something primitive, no doubt. 

Allowing the purple smoke to gently leak from his parted lips, he tilted his head thoughtfully. He certainly wouldn’t want to replicate it in Wiltshire but, yes, it was beautiful in its own untameable way. 

Lucius was just starting to move again, intending to return to the main path, when he was seized by the sight of an arm rising out of the lake. Stopping mid-step and squinting, he saw the arm disappear, only for another to arc out of the water. It was that swimmer again.

Jaw sliding contemplatively, Lucius considered their progress. They appeared to be a confident swimmer but, if it was a student, he really ought to tell them off. Swimming alone in the Black Lake couldn’t possibly be safe and the last thing the board of governors needed was a drowning. 

He was still dealing with the backlash occasioned by the last Divination disaster. Sighing, Lucius rubbed the inner corner of his eye with the knuckle of his thumb, his cigarette pinched between his fore and middle fingers. 

Boiling a fucking donkey head. Honestly. Legitimate branch of Divination or not, it wasn’t on the curriculum and fourteen year-olds did not take kindly to popping eyeballs.

The swimming figure began making their way back towards the shore, heading, as far as Lucius could tell, a little further around from where he was. A determined set to his jaw, Lucius walked around the lake in pursuit of them, the pebbly shore crunching beneath his shoes. It was, if nothing else, a good chance to take his frustration out on someone.

It didn’t take long for the shoreline to become a little narrower and increasingly obstructed. Lucius grumbled as he had to manoeuvre through the bushes and trees which were growing towards the water. Securing his cigarette between his lips, he drew out his wand and blasted aside a bush that he had absolutely no intention of clambering over. 

Apparently, this person liked their privacy. He might just order their suspension.

Lucius was just stopping to lean on a thick tree trunk, taking a particularly long drag from his cigarette, when he heard the unmistakable sound of splashing in shallow water. Moving towards the sound, he reached an open but fairly well-enclosed section of the lake shore, spying a towel, robes and a bag set atop a flat rock.

Dropping his cigarette, Lucius crushed it underfoot and walked out from beneath the shade of a tree, raising his eyes to the water just in time to see the swimmer clambering out of it. He froze.

Oh, fuck. 

Out of breath and wiping her face, Hermione Granger stood at the edge of the lake, the water lapping around her ankles. Her saturated long-sleeved black swimsuit clung tightly to her body, her bare legs glinting in the early morning light as rivulets of water streamed down them. 

Dragging her hands over her forehead, Granger pushed her wet fringe back and opened her eyes. As soon as they landed on Lucius, she froze just as he had. 

There was a moment – which could only have been a fraction of a second but felt close to an hour – in which they simply stared at one another. 

Then, with a panicked “fuck!”, Hermione sprang into action, lunging for the flat rock to snatch up the towel she’d left there. 

Lucius only had time to note the wand strapped to her thigh before she had wrapped the towel tightly around her body. She barely managed to repress a whole-body shiver as a gust of cold air caught her still-bare calves. 

“I – Mr Malfoy, I –” she started, still somewhat breathless from her exercise and staring at him like she wasn’t quite sure she could believe her eyes. “I was just…swimming.”

“I noticed,” he said gruffly, not entirely sure what to say or do. He had, after all, anticipated berating a foolish student. He had not anticipated a grown woman – technically a professor – who, really, was allowed to swim alone in the lake if that was what she so desired. Even if it was a stupid thing to do. Typical of Granger. 

“What are you doing here?” 

There was an incredulity to her voice that Lucius didn’t entirely appreciate. They were in school grounds that were open to everyone. He was perfectly within his rights to walk wherever he pleased. It was hardly his fault that she’d emerged from the lake, half-naked and exposing herself to anyone that might pass. 

“I was walking,” he snapped, seizing on his own annoyance with relief. He knew what to do with annoyance. “I walk in the mornings.”

Hermione eyed the fairly enclosed section of the shore on which they were standing and the surrounding trees, her eyes narrowing. “You like a challenging walk.”

“I –” Lucius rolled his eyes and uttered an irate sigh. “I saw you in the water and I thought you might be a student. I was coming to tell you that it’s not safe to swim alone.”

Hermione appeared to deflate slightly on hearing that explanation, apparently mollified. 

“Oh,” she said, brushing away a few fast-moving water droplets creeping down from her hairline. “Well, no, I suppose it isn’t, really. I have my wand, though, it’s –” Hermione opened her towel slightly to show Malfoy the wand strapped to her thigh and he instinctively averted his eyes. “I take precautions.”

“Well, since I’m hardly going to receive upset letters from parents if the giant squid drags you to the depths, Miss Granger, I don’t really require evidence of your precautions.”

Looking back to her face, Malfoy found her lips pressed into a thin, irritable line. “Perhaps you should continue on your walk, then, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said coldly. “I would like to pack up. Without an audience.”

Lucius' instinct was to argue. To tell her that he would continue his walk when he saw fit. Then his eye was drawn to a gap in her towel, through which he could just about see a trickle of water sliding down her thigh. 

A discomfited weight in his stomach, he instead opted to nod sharply, turning on his heel to retrace his route through the trees and into the wider grounds, where he fully intended to smoke another two cigarettes and stub them out on his corneas.

 “Good swim this morning?” Neville asked when Hermione dropped into her seat at breakfast.

To her left, she thought she saw Malfoy’s arm stutter slightly as it reached for the teapot but he didn’t say a word, apparently listening to Slughorn bemoaning the recent increase in the price of lacewing flies.

“They’re gouging us, Lucius!” Slughorn cried, a chunk of crumpet flying from his mouth to land on the table.

“Um.” Hermione blinked down at her empty bowl for a moment, drawing a curious look from Neville who had expected more of a reply. “Yes,” she finally said. “It was fine. The usual.”

Technically the swim had been fine. It was the aftermath that had thrown her for a loop. When she’d emerged from the lake and wiped the water from her eyes, Hermione thought she must have been hallucinating when she’d been greeted by the sight of Lucius Malfoy. 

She’d chosen that part of the shoreline because it was private. In all her years of swimming at Hogwarts, no one had stumbled upon her, especially at such an inopportune moment. Of course, he had to be the first. 

In fairness, even he had seemed somewhat surprised. Hermione was certain he genuinely had thought he’d been coming to reprimand a student. 

That didn’t really make her any happier about the fact that she’d been forced to stand before Lucius Malfoy, shivering and snivelling like some creature dredged from the deep, while he, dressed in his expensive, perfectly tailored robes, had stared her down. 

It was ludicrous to her that, even that early in the morning – for a walk of all things – the man was so well put together. The only thing missing had been his cane. The fact that he didn’t bother to carry it when he was alone only strengthened Hermione’s suspicion that he was using it to compensate for something. 

“Good,” Neville said cheerfully, oblivious to her inner turmoil. “Don’t know how you do it, to be honest. Especially when it gets colder.”

Neville slid a steaming pot of coffee towards her and, with a non-committal mumble, Hermione accepted it.

“Tell me, Miss Granger.” Not expecting to be addressed by Malfoy, never mind in such a conversational tone, Hermione flinched, some of the coffee she was pouring sloshing over the side of her cup and onto the table. “Am I to take it, from Mr Longbottom’s words, that you swim every morning?”

Hermione glanced around and found Malfoy looking at her, his face giving nothing away. Was it possible that she had hallucinated him that morning? Hermione wasn’t even sure she wanted to dig into the psychological implications of such a thing – she already felt like he was bloody everywhere.

“Most mornings,” she corrected, reaching for a napkin to hurriedly wipe up her spill before he could make some snide comment about it. “When I can. It’s not always possible and in the winter I'm generally restricted to weekends because the sun rises so much later.”

Folding the sodden napkin and setting it aside, Hermione turned to him and offered him a tight, polite smile. She thought she was getting quite good at pretending she didn’t want to punch Lucius Malfoy in the face and she hoped it might be a sign of personal growth. Maybe, in the end, putting up with him would make her a better, more level-headed person.

“But I like it – it clears my mind.”

Malfoy hummed and raised his cup to his lips, giving her a sidelong look. “Best not clear it too much more,” he murmured, leaning in so that only she could hear. “Wouldn’t want you to lose any more essays.” 

Enraged, Hermione opened her mouth – not even entirely sure what might come out – when the rushing sound of the morning post saved her from saying something she would very likely regret.

Giving Hermione an unpleasant smile, Lucius set his cup back on the table and raised his eyes to the approaching owls, searching for any he might recognise. 

Lose any more essays, Hermione thought to herself furiously. Like you didn’t bloody steal it! Prick!

Huffing an angry sigh through her nose, Hermione gripped the underside of her chair to pull herself closer to the table. As she did so, she looked down to see Malfoy’s expensive robes spilling across the floor, encroaching on her seating area.

Stilling, her jaw tight, Hermione glanced up at him from under her brow and saw he was occupied with accepting a letter from a handsome tawny owl.

She could do it. Make it look like an accident. And he’d deserve it.

Resentment bubbling in her stomach, Hermione shuffled forwards under the pretence of moving closer to the table, ensuring that the leg of her chair landed right on Malfoy’s robes. 

There goes that personal growth, she thought, finally giving her attention to the two newspaper-bearing owls that were impatiently waiting for her. 

Arranging her papers, Hermione set about spooning some porridge into a bowl. Her stomach was growling after her morning swim and she was fairly sure that being hungry was not going to make her interactions with Malfoy any less fractious. 

Focused on the newspaper’s front page, Hermione absently reached for the salt but her hand closed around nothing. Frowning, she glanced around and found that Lucius Malfoy, the tip of his finger lightly pressing on the top of the salt shaker, had slid it just out of her reach.

Lips parting to protest, her arm still hanging in the air, Hermione looked from the salt shaker to Malfoy’s face to see that he was watching her with equal irritation. 

“Miss Granger,” he said, his voice low, “have you ever considered asking someone to pass you the salt?”

“I’m perfectly capable of getting it myself.”

“It’s not about your being capable,” he snapped, “it’s about your arm extending across my breakfast every single morning.”

With pink cheeks, Hermione drew her arm back tight to her side and straightened up. She’d always criticised Ron and Harry for their table manners – Malfoy’s reproach, even if it was accurate, did not sit comfortably.

His eyes never leaving hers, Lucius slid the salt until it was firmly in her part of the table. 

“You’re welcome,” he said, his curled lip making her think he didn’t quite mean it.

Swallowing her embarrassment, Hermione quietly picked up the salt and resumed eating her breakfast. 

It took a good five minutes for Neville to be able to draw her back into conversation but she was grateful to him for his effort, pleased to have a reason to turn her back on Malfoy and have at least one pleasant interaction before classes started.

“No, no can do, I’m afraid, Horace,” Hermione heard Malfoy say to Slughorn. “Draco wrote this morning. I’ll have to dash off a reply and send it before Granger’s first class.”

It was just as she felt Malfoy rise beside her that Hermione remembered the robes she’d trapped under her chair. Within a matter of seconds, she heard Lucius make a faint choking sound before he landed back in his seat with an inelegant, heavy thump .

“Alright there, Lucius?” Hermione heard Horace ask with genuine concern. 

“Fine,” Lucius snapped, waving the potions professor away so that he could search for the source of his predicament. 

Hermione turned slowly just as Malfoy spied that the leg of her chair was firmly pinning his robes, and by extension him, to the stone floor.

“Oh,” Hermione gasped, raising a hand to her mouth as she looked down at Malfoy’s trapped robes and then up into his thin-lipped face. “Can’t imagine how that happened, Mr Malfoy. Terribly sorry.”

“Granger –”

Not requiring any directions, knowing they might be rather colourfully issued, Hermione pulled on the underside of her chair to ease it up, allowing the still-seated Lucius to violently yank his robes free. 

Sure that he would be able to depart the table without further humiliation, he rose to his feet, leaning towards Hermione as he did so.

“You did that deliberately,” he hissed, his hand still curled tight around his robes, his knuckles flashing white through the skin. 

Smiling benignly up into his sneering face, Hermione batted her eyelashes. “What possible reason could I have to do such a thing?” she asked innocently.

With an angry sniff, Lucius swept away from the staff table in a swirl of robes and Hermione grinned, trying her best to ignore the tug of foreboding low in her stomach. That little bit of revenge would sustain her for a week, at least.

Lucius drummed his fingers against the blank parchment in front of him, his eyes fixed on Hermione Granger as she stood before her fourth year class, droning on and on. His note taking had been poor for the entire day – he was more focused on trying to glare a hole into Granger’s skull.

Lucius was sure he’d never felt this strongly about a Mudblood. He supposed, until this point, his hatred had always been somewhat conceptual. His hatred for this woman was, however, increasingly personal . If he ever had to make a Mudblood effigy – and the urge to do so was growing – its resemblance to Hermione Granger would be striking. 

He had absolutely no doubt that she’d deliberately trapped his robes that morning. Every time he blinked, he could see that falsely innocent smile looking up at him. It made him positively seethe, particularly because she’d gotten away with it. 

What possible reason could she have to do such a thing? 

At the front of the room, Granger asked a question and various students raised their hands. As she scanned the crowd, deciding who to call upon, her eyes briefly met his and he scowled. The bland smile that passed over her face in response only made his scowl deepen. 

What possible reason, indeed. 

Lucius rather suspected that she knew about the essay. How, he wasn’t entirely sure but for several mornings in the immediate aftermath, she’d swapped her newspapers for a book titled Wardes Moste Punitive. 

After happening to see her linger over a rather vivid illustration of a sneaking wizard having his fingers severed, Lucius didn’t particularly fancy digging through her desk any more. At least not without a few additional hours and some sort of protective amulet. 

He was just going to have to find other ways to make her life difficult. 

Two tittering Gryffindor boys in the row directly in front of Lucius drew his attention and he narrowed his eyes at their backs. 

They’d been scribbling something and passing it back and forth for the last ten minutes. Though he couldn’t exactly blame them for not paying attention to Granger and her Muggle-loving ramblings, Lucius' patience was frayed enough as it was.

Slowly drawing his wand from its cane, Lucius jabbed it in their direction. There was a horrified gasp from one boy as the paper they’d been sharing flew into the air and over their heads, landing neatly on Lucius’ desk. It was folded in two, like they’d been trying to hide their notes.

Both boys immediately twisted in their seats, searching for their paper with wide and panicked eyes. When their eyes landed on Lucius – the only person seated behind them – he merely lifted the folded paper with a flourish and raised his eyebrows in a way that asked ‘looking for this?’

“Don’t –” started one of the boys in an urgent whisper.

“Shut up,” hissed the other, physically turning his friend in his seat to make him face the front again.

Their shoulders were tense and raised towards their distinctly reddening ears as they bickered quietly between themselves, clearly unwilling to do anything that might attract Granger’s attention.

Snorting softly, Lucius glanced down at the paper. Teenagers. So convinced of their own importance. As though anything they could have written would shock him. Aside from being teenagers, they were also Gryffindors; never had a house been so lacking in imagination and –

Lucius had to bite back a pained groan as he flicked open the paper. It wasn’t notes. It was a drawing of Granger. A rather lewd drawing.

Sinking in his seat, brow creased incredulously, Lucius pressed the paper flat with his palm so he would no longer have to see the somehow simultaneously crude and painstaking depiction of the female body.

What was it, he wondered, that teenage boys loved so much about absolutely impossible proportions?

Using the tip of his forefinger, Lucius propped the parchment open for another cringing peek and scoffed under his breath. Raising his eyes from the drawing up to the woman herself, Lucius studied her pacing at the front of the room, her wild curls bouncing with each step as she lectured animatedly. 

Honestly, it looked nothing bloody like Granger. He’d seen plenty of her that very morning, so he felt he could say that with authority. 

Somewhat absently, his eyes drifted up her long legs, encased in another pair of slim-fitting trousers. If those idiotic boys ever actually saw what was under those ugly Muggle clothes they probably wouldn’t know what to bloody –  

Lucius smacked his hand down on the drawing – on his train of thought – his rings clacking against the wood of the table.

At the front of the room, Granger faltered in her speech, casting him an irritated glare. Lucius sneered right back at her with even less subtlety than usual – he might as well have stuck his tongue out.

Pushing the paper away from him with the tip of his finger, Lucius sank down further in his seat, wishing he’d never confiscated it in the first place.

Hermione stopped to gesture to something on the chalkboard, one hand high on her hip in a way that drew his eye to the slope of her narrow waist. 

He did not want to think about the Mudblood’s figure, thank you very much. Her bloody students shouldn’t be thinking about it either. Apparently, she was not content with merely poisoning the minds of the young with her Muggle bile.  

It was no small relief to Lucius when the class ended and he remained seated as Granger’s students noisily traipsed out of the room. The two perverted Gryffindor boys studiously avoided his cold glare as they passed him, their cheeks flushed with mortification. Quite rightly so. 

Certain that the room was clear, Lucius pushed himself to his feet and slid the drawing from the surface of his desk. Though it was obvious that he was approaching to speak with her, Granger did not acknowledge him as he crossed the classroom. 

Instead, she focused on flicking her wand to clear her notes from the chalkboard and tidying essays into her desk drawer. The drawer on which, he noted with a scornful smirk, she tapped out a complicated little pattern with her wand. 

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said, stopping at her desk. She stood on the other side of it, her focus on counting out worksheets for her upcoming seventh year class. 

“Yes, Mr Malfoy,” she said, having the cheek to sound faintly exasperated and not even pausing to look up at him as she addressed him. “How can I help you?”

“I have concerns about the impact your Muggle attire is having on your students.”

Hermione froze, a sheet of paper still in her hand, and raised her gaze to his face. She blinked once, twice, then, with a very carefully controlled voice, said, “Excuse me?”

Holding up the folded drawing between his fore and middle fingers, he said, “I confiscated this.”

Lucius lowered it to her desk and slid it across to her. With narrowed eyes, Hermione slowly set down the paper she’d been holding and reached for the drawing. Her gaze never left Lucius’ unreadable face as she lifted it, finally only dropping when she’d unfolded the lined paper. 

He saw her stiffen very briefly. 

“Oh.” Hermione cleared her throat and inhaled sharply through her nose. “Well, I hardly think this says anything about my choice of clothing, Mr Malfoy.” 

Closing the paper but keeping it in her grasp, Hermione looked up at Lucius and gave him a tight, insincere smile. “I mean, for one thing, I don’t appear to be wearing much at all here, do I?”

Lucius opened his mouth and hesitated. He couldn’t exactly argue with that – there was very little clothing, Muggle or otherwise, in the drawing. It was also anatomically inaccurate to the degree that Lucius wondered if the boys had ever actually looked at Granger for longer than the time it took to establish that she had breasts. 

“No,” Hermione continued, taking his lack of response for agreement, “I think this is just another sign that we should keep thinking about those social and sexual education classes I mentioned, don’t you?” 

“New classes require, among many other things, space in the timetable,” Lucius said, a snap of impatience in his tone. “Perhaps you would like to voluntarily shelve Muggle Studies?”

“I’d sooner shelve Divination,” she muttered darkly. “‘Ancient magical art’ or not.”

“I would receive far more complaints from parents about the loss of that subject than your own,” was his cold reply.

Not that he would particularly lament the loss of Divination either, if he was being entirely honest. The antics of Dumbledore’s teaching appointments for that subject had taken years from Lucius’ life.

“Really ?” Hermione stared at him for a moment, a disbelieving tilt to her brow. He gave her one slow nod in response and she sighed heavily. “God, that’s depressing.”

Her eyes darted down to the drawing still in her hands, though she didn’t re-open it. Lucius imagined that it was indelibly seared into her mind’s eye anyway. He had a feeling it would haunt him just as much, if not more. 

“There are attitudes among some young wizards that leave a lot to be desired,” she said. “And I don’t think Muggle clothes are to blame. I mean, such things do happen in the Muggle world too, don’t get me wrong –”

“Unsurprising,” Lucius muttered.

“But this would have happened even if I was wearing robes, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione continued firmly. “If you disagree, please take it up with the headmaster. In the meantime, I will continue to dress like this.”

Lucius momentarily clenched his jaw but made no reply. He did not entirely disagree with her and taking it up with Dumbledore was not likely to get him anywhere. It was quite hard to make this one entirely her fault but he would have to find a way to work it into his report and frame it to her disadvantage.

Hermione sighed and shook her head, dropping the folded paper onto her desk like she couldn’t really stand to hold it anymore. “We really should have those classes, you know. Muggles have them. We should always try to be better.”

“We are better,” Lucius responded sharply, unable to help himself.

“Are we?” she asked wryly, gesturing to the drawing. “Anyway, when I say better I mean…better in ourselves.” She levelled him with a severe stare. “Not superior to Muggles.” 

Touching her fingers lightly to the paper, Hermione nudged it back across the desk towards him. “I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, Mr Malfoy, but unfortunately there's very little I can do about it right at this moment. Would you like it back?”

There was a beat in which Lucius stared at the drawing, not entirely sure he’d heard her properly.

“It’s not mine,” he finally said, taking a half-step back.

“Oh.”

Lucius raised his eyes to hers. “You think I did –” He flung out a hand, disgusted. “That ?”

Hermione shrugged. “Well, I thought, perhaps, you might have been seeking to create grounds to criticise my clothes. That –” she nodded her head at the drawing – “would certainly be one way to do it."

Lucius snatched the drawing up from the desk and crumpled it up in his fist before dropping between them again. Hermione watched it fall with raised eyebrows. 

“Miss Granger, I assure you, this was not me.”

“That’s a relief, I suppose.”

“I do not appreciate your accusation.”

As though he’d waste his time, sully his thoughts and his quill, by sketching borderline pornographic cartoons of Mudbloods. Merlin, was it possible this awful woman actually thought less of him than he did of her? 

A small, incredulous smile played around Hermione’s lips as she took in his offended face.

“No, no, of course you don’t,” she said, sarcasm laced through every word. “You would never go out of your way to rile me. Certainly not using underhanded methods.”

Alright, she definitely knew about the essay. A sneer twisting his mouth, Lucius stepped closer to her desk until his legs were just touching its edge. 

“You wish to speak of underhanded methods do you, Granger?” Flattening his hands on her desk, he leaned towards her and lowered his voice. “You’re quite fortunate my robes didn’t rip this morning.”

“A perfectly innocent mistake, Mr Malfoy,” she said lightly, only blinking when he scoffed at her. “I assure you.”

He couldn’t prove it wasn’t a mistake. Just as she couldn’t prove he’d stolen the essay. As their eyes met, Lucius knew Granger understood that just as well as he did. So, she thought she could play, did she?

“Perhaps, though,” Hermione ventured after a moment, a tiny tremor of amusement in her voice, “you now recognise that there are advantages to the more streamlined style of Muggle clothes.”

“You, madam, might do well to recognise thin ice when you’re on it.”

To Lucius’ satisfaction, her smile flickered and vanished as he turned on his heel, his robes billowing around him. She could have her petty little vengeances. He hoped she would dwell on them regretfully when she was searching for new employment.

“Mr Malfoy.” 

Though he was halfway across the room when she called for him, there was something in Granger’s tone that made Lucius slow. It was an entreaty. Stopping completely, he begrudgingly turned back to her, his curiosity piqued and his eyebrows raised expectantly. 

“Who – who did draw it?”

The scrunched up drawing was back in her hand, clutched tight. Lucius found himself wondering just how much it had actually bothered her.

“The two Gryffindor dolts at the back,” he replied shortly.

“They’re called –”

“I don’t care what they’re called, Miss Granger,” Lucius drawled, continuing on his way. “Just deal with them.”

Chapter Text

September 19th

“Ogden’s,” said Draco, dropping into the seat across from Lucius and sliding a neat tumbler of firewhiskey over the well-polished table towards him.

Lucius murmured a word of thanks and accepted the drink, eyeing his son’s clear, ice-filled glass with suspicion as he did so.

“Water,” explained Draco, correctly interpreting his father’s stare. “I have training in the morning.”

Lucius rolled his eyes but said nothing, opting to lift his glass with the tips of his fingers and give it a small twist. The amber liquid within swirled enticingly and Lucius could almost feel the heat it promised already coursing through him.

“Perhaps you ought to try some too,” Draco suggested, pausing to take a sip of his water. “Wouldn’t kill you. Might do the opposite, actually.”

“If you were having the month I’m having, you would drink too,” Lucius grumbled. “I will not be judged by my son.”

“Ah, yes.” Draco folded his arms on the table and leaned towards his father with a mocking grin. “Your crash course in Muggle Studies. How is that going?”

Lifting his glass to gauge the generosity of the measure of whiskey within, Lucius proceeded to throw it back in one, barely grimacing as the liquid burned its way down his chest to settle in his gut.

Draco snorted. “That well, hm?”  

“I should have asked you to get two.”

Sighing, Draco pushed himself away from the table to slump back in his seat, eyeing Lucius over the flickering candle that sat between them. 

“Honestly, father, I’m not all that surprised,” he said with a careless shrug. “Granger was a fucking nightmare at school. Don’t you remember me telling you?”

Lucius glanced up from under his brow at his son’s disgruntled face, realisation dawning. 

Of course. 

He’d forgotten Draco had attended Hogwarts with Granger. The name had struck Lucius as vaguely familiar but for the life of him he hadn’t been able to figure out why. He could hardly be expected to clearly recall every person against whom his son had expressed a grievance, though the Granger girl had been a curiously long-term fixation.

“Even rhetorical questions weren’t safe from her,” Draco continued, growing more animated with every word. “You could have asked her why she was so annoying and she’d have given you a detailed breakdown followed by a referenced fucking counter-argument.” 

Draco took a long drink of water, his cheeks pinkening through a combination of the heat of the pub and his own irritation. “I take it she’s still the same?”

“She’s…” Lucius ran a finger along the thin rim of his empty glass, swiping away a bead of moisture as he weighed up his choice of words. “Obstinate.” 

An understatement.

“Still doesn’t know her place then.” 

Frowning thoughtfully into his empty tumbler, Lucius started turning it on the spot so that the light from the candle caught the cut class at different angles. “But not unintelligent, I think.”

On hearing a scornful scoff from his son, Lucius looked up properly, his fingers stilling on the rim of the tumbler.

“Am I right in my recollection,” he asked, a sudden sharpness to his tone, “that she was the ‘jumped up little Mudblood’ whose exam scores always outstripped your own?”

An apparent swell of resentment prompted Draco to push out his lower lip in a display of petulance that Lucius had not seen for many years. “…yes,” Draco finally replied.

“Then you did nothing productive to help put her in her place, did you?” Lucius said severely. “Perhaps, if she hadn’t been beating you every year for seven years, I –”

“Yes, alright,” Draco interrupted tersely, pushing himself up straight and holding up a hand to halt Lucius’ invective. “I didn’t come all the way to Hogsmeade to be berated for my ‘lacklustre effort’ in Hogwarts, thank you. It’s like going back in bloody time.”

Running a hand through his short hair, Draco assessed his father’s empty glass and his own. 

“I’ll get you another drink,” he mumbled, pushing himself to his feet. “And I might just get one for myself if this is how the night is going to go.”

Lucius allowed Draco to go, watching him squeeze through the crowded pub to make his way to the bar. Pushing his empty glass away from himself, Lucius sank back into his seat and crossed his arms, prepared to wait. 

It was a Saturday evening so, while there were no Hogwarts students milling around, The Three Broomsticks was still busy and fairly noisy. Every table was full, forcing bodies to mill in the spaces between and crowd around the bar, rain-drenched cloaks slung over arms and bags as they called their orders to Rosmerta. 

Lucius and Draco had managed to secure a small table close to the fire, far enough from the door that they were not subjected to a cold gust of wind and hail every time someone entered. 

It had turned into quite a miserable day and, though he detested being squeezed in amongst the masses, Lucius didn’t entirely mind the way the steamed up windows effectively blocked out the darkening sky and wet conditions. 

He also didn’t mind enduring it for Draco. Between Lucius’ work at the Ministry and Hogwarts and Draco’s relentless training sessions with the Wimbourne Wasps, it had been some time since they’d seen one another, never mind had a long conversation. 

“It’s unbearable up there,” Draco said, emerging from between two chatting witches with four tumblers of whiskey pinched between his fingers. “The whole of Hogsmeade must be out tonight.”

Dropping into his seat with a huff, Draco slid two tumblers towards Lucius. “Two each,” he said, arranging his own glasses in a neat line.

“What happened to training?” Lucius asked, one brow rising as he drew his whiskeys over the table.

“You,” Draco grumbled, throwing one whiskey back in a single gulp with the intention of catching up. His face contorted as it burned its way down his chest and he slammed his glass down on the table, hurriedly bringing his arm up to cough into the crook of his elbow. 

Lucius rolled his eyes and, while his son choked, allowed his attention to drift around the bar. It certainly did feel like the whole of Hogsmeade was squeezed between its walls. 

Just as he raised his glass to his lips, the door opened, so that the whistling wind and – Lucius grimaced into his drink – Hermione Granger could enter. 

Rosy-cheeked and shiny-eyed from the cold, her hair positively wild, Granger apologised to the couple sitting nearest the door and scanned the crowded bar, rising onto her tiptoes to peer over the sea of heads.

“Can I have no escape?” Lucius muttered to himself, ducking his head slightly as though Draco might be able to hide him.

Before her gaze could reach their table, Granger apparently spotted whoever she was looking for and began squeezing her way through the crowd, clutching a leather satchel to her middle and apologising with every breath.

“From what?” Draco asked with a frown, a very faint hoarseness to his voice.

“Granger,” Lucius said, his voice barely above a grumble.

She stopped a few tables away from them and fell into a seat, pulling a thick scarf from around her neck before wrapping Neville Longbottom into a hug with a wide grin on her face. 

Lucius watched her apologise profusely – apparently she was capable of this with everyone but him – only for Longbottom to wave her away and slide a glass of wine towards her. 

“She’s here?” Draco asked jeeringly, twisting in his seat to follow his father’s gaze. “This isn’t the library.”

“Draco,” Lucius warned the back of his son’s nosy head, wary of drawing her attention. “Do not –”

“Where is she – oh.” There was a long pause before Draco turned back to the table, looking bizarrely puzzled. Clearing his throat, he picked up his second whiskey and took a sip through pursed lips. “Well.” 

Lucius awaited further explanation but when it became apparent one was not forthcoming he sighed and waved a hand. “‘Well’ what?” he snapped. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s just…” Draco half-turned, like he was considering taking another look at Granger, then changed his mind on catching sight of his father’s mutinous expression. “She’s not exactly what I remember.”

Narrowing his eyes, Lucius raised his glass to his lips. “What exactly do you remember?”

“A buck-toothed little bookworm that did nothing but bounce up and down in her seat with her hand in the air.” Draco took a drink, his mouth twisting in a way that made Lucius wonder how much his son actually liked whiskey. “Don’t reckon I’d mind the bouncing as much now.” 

Lucius, had, unfortunately, chosen that moment to take a drink himself. Spluttering into his glass, he lowered it to the table with a heavy thunk. 

“Draco,” he hissed, roughly wiping his lip, “do remember that I am your father and I expect you to comport yourself with at least a scintilla of dignity. You are a Malfoy and you are well aware of what she is.”

“Utter waste, isn’t it?” Draco lamented, staring into his drink and shaking his head. 

Looking up to see Lucius’ gleaming-eyed fury staring back at him, Draco snorted. “Oh, father, cool your cauldron,” he said. “Trust me when I say that, while I may look, I will never touch.” Draco shuddered at the mere thought of it and took a fortifying drink. “She’s probably shagging Longbottom anyway.”

Lucius blinked, his gaze rising over Draco’s head to see Granger choking Longbottom with another warm hug, an unwrapped gift abandoned on the table between them. 

“What makes you say that?” 

Lucius considered himself quite a good reader of people and he hadn’t sensed that kind of dynamic between the two in any of the meals he’d eaten in their company. 

It was Draco’s turn to look incredulous. “Er…convenience? They’re the only two people on staff even close to the same age. They must be getting it somewhere.”

Not especially wishing to think about Hermione Granger getting anything from anywhere, Lucius determinedly dragged his eyes away from where the woman herself was chatting animatedly with Longbottom. He hadn’t realised she could smile so much.

“Unless they’re committed virgins,” Draco continued conversationally. “Also likely. I mean, if Weasley had been sniffing around me the way he sniffed around Granger at school, I’d have kept my legs firmly shut too.”

Draco eyed Lucius, who appeared torn between nausea and confusion, like he had smelled something quite awful but couldn’t identify what it was. “I’d rather not think about this," Lucius muttered.

“Couldn’t she be fired for that, though?” Draco asked, leaning forward with an eager hush to his voice. “Shagging a colleague?”

“Not unless she’s stupid enough to do it in a classroom in the middle of the day,” Lucius said, pausing to drain the final drops of his second whiskey. “But it’s worth looking into if I get desperate. I only have until Christmas.”

Pushing aside his glass with a sigh, Lucius straightened up in his seat to fish his cigarette case out of his waistcoat. The gold plating glinted merrily under the glow of the candles and fireplace as Lucius placed it flat.

“Mother hated when you did that,” Draco said, eyeing his father with distaste as he carefully selected a thinly-rolled cigarette and returned the case to his pocket.

“Your mother hated a lot of things,” Lucius said, using the flame of the candle between them to light the cigarette. Raising it to his lips and his eyes to Draco’s, he added, “It's part of why I loved her.”

Draco coughed and waved a hand in front of his face as wisps of glittering purple smoke snaked their way to his side of the table. “What did she love about you, I wonder?” he asked, his eyes watering.

“How much I loved her,” Lucius said, pausing to inhale and flash his son a genuine smile. “Obviously.”

“Do you mind, father?” Draco said, gesturing to the smoke. “I am an athlete.”

“Yes, so you keep reminding me,” Lucius said irately, flicking some ash into his empty whiskey glass. “So I will remind you that you’re also supposed to be a Malfoy. Have you even looked at that list of prospective matches I sent you?”

Draco’s shoulders drooped sullenly. “I’ve been rather busy being a young, single, professional Quidditch player,” he said. “Did I mention that? That I play Quidditch? Professionally. Most parents would be proud, you know.”

“I’m practically punch,” Lucius said dryly. “The fact that my only heir is making a living – an entirely unnecessary living, I might add – out of flying hundreds of feet off the ground without an heir of his own as security is an endless source of joy to me.”

Draco mumbled something about ‘priorities’ under his breath and Lucius rolled his eyes. 

“By the time I was your age,” he said, pointing his cigarette at Draco, “I was married to your mother and we were raising you.”

“More fool you,” was Draco’s unhappy response.

Sighing softly, a tendril of smoke escaping from between his parted lips, Lucius watched his son pick at a dent in the wooden table, wearing a thoroughly glum expression.

“Draco.” Lucius' more gentle tone prompted Draco to look up hopefully. “Truly, at this point I’d accept a respectable half-blood if it meant you’d have her.” 

Scoffing disbelievingly, Draco dropped back in his seat and crossed his arms tight over his chest. 

“Enough distance from a Muggle grandparent and we can just…deny their existence.” Lucius waved a careless hand, ignoring Draco’s glare. “It’s been done before. Not in generations but, if it’s necessary, then…” 

Lucius trailed off and shrugged. He would always do what was necessary. The Malfoy line had only survived – thrived – for as long as it had thanks to generations of pragmatism and judicious exceptionalism. 

“And I’m sure it ended very well,” was Draco’s sarcastic response. “Not a single resentment.”

Well, Lucius could hardly answer that – he hadn’t even been living. 

Receiving no response, Draco twisted in his seat and, though Lucius could not see his face, he suspected his son was eyeing Granger and Longbottom again. They had descended into a peel of unseemly giggles, hunched over their table.

“Why do people like Granger get to sit in the pub on the weekend and have a laugh but I’m the one that’s getting the pressure?” Draco asked, turning back with a resentful huff. “We’re meant to be better.”

“Because she’s – they’re – not important.” Lucius struggled to restrain his exasperation – they had been over Draco’s responsibilities dozens of times. “The continuation of a centuries-long line does not depend on Hermione Granger.” He flicked some ash away and glared at her across the room. “And we should be bloody thankful for that.”

“If you care that much about heirs, why don’t you have another one?”

Lucius stiffened in response to Draco’s words, his eyes trailing slowly from the laughing Granger back to his son’s face, which had slackened and paled considerably. 

The words had been said in anger, Lucius knew. Carelessly, not maliciously. And though Lucius had always tried to teach Draco to be careful with his words – because they held more power than his son seemed to be capable of appreciating – he could not find it in himself to be truly angry in return.

“I imagine that’d be challenging without your mother,” Lucius said, a determined nonchalance to his voice.

Cheeks red, Draco twitched like he might reach out. “Father, I –”

“I know, Draco,” Lucius said, meeting his son’s eyes and shaking his head. “I know.”

A heavy silence fell between them, much of its weight coming from the grief that they knowingly shared but insisted on carrying individually.

It had been nearly a decade since Narcissa’s passing and they still didn’t talk about it much. They talked about her, certainly, but always in lighthearted ways; to fondly reminisce or to chide one another for what she would have deemed ‘brutish’ behaviour. 

Anything that stemmed from pain was dealt with privately. It was therefore likely that Draco did not even realise just how much what he'd said stung.

Before she’d fallen ill, Narcissa had entreated Lucius to consider another child. Something he had not wanted in the least. 

Draco’s conception had been a years-long effort, his eventual birth something of a miracle. The mental and physical toll on Narcissa had been so great that Lucius, for the first time in his life, had decided to be content with what he had. 

He had thought Narcissa felt the same until Draco’s first year at Hogwarts had loomed. 

They were still young, she’d insisted; it was such a large manor for just the three of them; she would be lonely with Lucius always busy and Draco at school; she would love Draco to know the sibling bond like she did; would it really hurt so much just to try?

Lucius’ concern had been that yes, actually, it would hurt. It would hurt a great deal in a myriad of ways. Just as it had the first time. 

When Draco overheard them arguing one evening and excitedly asked if he was going to have a brother or sister, Lucius had resolutely shut down all further discussion, much to Narcissa’s outrage.

Another child was the only thing he’d ever denied her. After she’d fallen ill, he’d rather wished he hadn’t, if only to be able to comfort himself with the thought that he had truly given her everything she had ever wanted before he lost her. 

He had initially suppressed his grief, believing that he ought to be strong for his son. By the time he had noticed that Draco was simply copying him, rather than leaning on him as Lucius had intended, they’d become rather set in their ways.

Lucius would have liked to reach across the table to Draco and show his son that his instinctual desire to comfort had not been a bad one. It just made him like his mother. 

He would have liked to assure Draco that whatever pain he felt, he did not feel it alone.

Lucius would have liked to do all of those things but he didn’t. Simply because they did not do them. 

He and Draco were close in his eyes, pleasingly frank with one another in a way that Lucius had never dared to be with his father. But Narcissa had been an emotional confidant for both of them and, though they had learned to be without her in many ways, that was still a struggle.

“I’ll look at the matches,” Draco finally murmured, his face turned towards the fireplace.

Clearing his throat, Lucius stubbed out his cigarette and dropped it in his empty glass. 

“We can discuss it again at the end of the Quidditch season,” he replied, pulling out his case to select another. “I’m not against you selecting a wife for yourself, you know, Draco.”

"As long as she meets the criteria," was Draco’s resentful response.

"I'll make allowances here and there if you actually love her.” Lucius’ gaze drifted over his son’s head to where Granger was raising a glass of wine to her lips, grinning cheekily all the while. “Within reason,” he added warningly. 

That made Draco turn back, his eyes narrowed with curiosity. “Within what reason?”

Lucius tilted his head contemplatively as he lit his second cigarette. 

“I already told you we can prune away any…undesirable leaves on the family tree,” Lucius said. “As long as there aren’t many of them. She need not have a fortune, either – you’ll have quite enough. Just make sure you can live with her for the rest of your life.” 

Lucius exhaled softly through his nose, idly rolling his cigarette between his fore and middle fingers. “Or hers.”

“Er, speaking of family trees.” There was a tentativeness to Draco’s words that prompted Lucius to arch a brow. “Auntie Bella has been asking about you. Would you please reply to her letters and get her off my back?”

Ugh. Lucius’ lip curled. “Merlin, no,” he said. “Tell her I'm busy. Or dead. Anything.”

“Father, you’re not helping me.”

“Draco, the woman is detestable.” 

“She says she’s concerned about you.”

Lucius’ laugh was mirthless and he dropped back in his seat to cross one leg over the other. “She is no such bloody thing. That woman has never felt concern for another person in her life.”

“Father –”

“Your mother was the only whole egg in a frankly cracked basket.” Lucius took a long drag from his cigarette and gestured at Draco as he blew out a plume of smoke. “You should thank your lucky stars you’re so well adjusted.”

“I know Auntie Bella can be a bit –”

“A bit?” Abruptly, Lucius uncrossed his legs and leaned towards the table to speak in an undertone. “Draco, in her youth, her primary hobby was killing and stuffing any baby nifflers that were unfortunate enough to make their way into the family home."

Ignoring Draco’s wide eyes, Lucius tapped away some ash. 

“I rather suspect she’s graduated to larger subjects,” he continued, his expression turning dark. “Tell me, did you never wonder why your uncle Rodolphus had a closed casket? Hm? Because I did.”

Draco snorted, shaking his head. “You’re losing it.” 

“No,” was Lucius’ assured response. “When I run willingly into the arms of your aunt I’ll have lost it. My will to live, that is. She’ll have me mounted on her drawing room wall.”

“You think rather a lot of yourself,” said Draco, grinning. “The drawing room?”

“Right above the fireplace.”

“With an ugly cigarette dangling from your mouth?”

Lucius shrugged and pointedly inhaled, content that the conversation had returned to more lighthearted territory.

The sudden burst of heat burned Hermione’s cold cheeks as she pushed her way into The Three Broomsticks. Pushing the door closed against the rain and wind outside, she stooped to apologise to a couple that her entrance had disturbed, her eyes scouring the nearby tables for Neville as she did so. Stepping further into the pub, she rose onto her tiptoes and finally spotted him at a tiny table for two that was protected from the crowds on one side by a thick wooden pillar. 

Hermione pulled her satchel into her stomach to protect it as she shuffled through the throngs of witches and wizards, her eyes fixed on Neville and the safe haven he’d secured for them.

The air was warm and slightly damp thanks to all the people that were seeking sanctuary from the miserable weather; Hermione could feel her curls frizzing in response to the moisture, becoming even more wild. 

Finally breaking through a wall created by two oblivious wizards, Hermione threw herself into the spare seat beside Neville. Wrenching her thick knitted scarf from around her neck, she pulled him into a tight hug.

“Sorry!” she squeaked. “Neville, I am so sorry – mum and dad sent me money for my birthday so I went a bit mad in Tomes and Scrolls. Completely lost track of time.”

Waving her off, Neville said, “Birthday girls are allowed to be late, it’s fine.” He slid a large glass of red wine over the table towards her. “This should just be at room temperature by now at least.”

“You’re a wonderful man," Hermione breathed, clutching the wine gratefully and beaming at him.

“Those must have been some good books,” he said with a lopsided grin. “If you're smiling like that and you haven’t even got your present yet.”

“Neville, you didn’t have to –”

Giving her a ‘please shut up’ look, Neville slid a small, brightly wrapped box across the table towards her. With pink cheeks, Hermione carefully pulled apart the wrapping paper to reveal a thin black box. 

Casting Neville a playfully suspicious look, she lifted the lid and found a small golden circle. It was too small to be a bracelet. Too large to be a ring. And she wasn’t entirely sure why Neville would want to buy her jewellery anyway. 

“Oh,” Hermione said brightly, trying not to sound too hesitant. “It’s –”

“It’s a bobble,” Neville said, laughing at her polite confusion. “For your hair. An enchanted one.” 

Lifting the bobble from the box, Neville stretched it to what Hermione would have thought an impossible extent given its small circumference. 

“I couldn’t watch you break any more of those cheap Muggle ones you insist on using,” Neville explained. “So, please, use this one. It’ll cope with your hair –” His eyes drifted pointedly to Hermione’s wind-blown curls. “Whatever the weather.”

It was a gift of such thoughtfulness and practicality that Hermione couldn’t help but fling her arms around Neville one again, thanking him profusely while he laughed uproariously and patted her back.

Hermione and Neville had been friendly enough at Hogwarts but in the two years since he had become Professor Sprout’s apprentice they had become much closer. Part of it was that they were the only two people on the Hogwarts staff even close to the same age but, mostly, it was that Neville was just impossible to dislike.

Hermione would venture to say that he’d become her best friend and she honestly wasn’t sure what she’d do without him. Though he was far more than a mere replacement for Harry and Ron, he certainly made the loss of them more bearable.

“And to think I was worried you wouldn’t like it,” he said with a chuckle, placing the bobble back into the box and closing it. 

“Well, I adore it,” Hermione said primly, lifting her wine to clink it against his pint glass. “Thank you. So, how did your ‘informal chat’ with Sprout go this morning?”

To Hermione’s delight, Neville beamed and hurried into a vivid recollection of the meeting. Sprout, he told her, was going to be giving him his own first, second and third year sets. 

“Complete control,” he said proudly. “They’re my classes now. Sprout seemed pretty relieved, to be honest – reckon she’s got some side projects she’d rather be working on at the moment.”

Hermione lifted a shoulder, shaking her head with understanding. “Between Slughorn, Pomfrey and the students, she’s got a lot of people asking for things from her. Herbology could easily be a two-professor department. In fact, you should angle for that.”

“How have your classes been this week?”

“The students are wonderful,” Hermione said fondly. Then, her smile faded slightly as she recalled the drawing Malfoy had presented her with. “Well, most of them. I’ve had a couple of issues but nothing major.” 

Hermione took a long drink from her wine. Her two Gryffindor ‘artists’ were serving their detentions that very day. 

She still couldn’t work out if it was good or bad that Malfoy had presented her with the drawing. A part of her would rather not have known. She also didn’t love that he had seen such a thing; it undermined her in a way that she hadn’t anticipated being undermined. 

“Really, it’s just Malfoy that –”

“Oh, er –” Neville placed an urgent hand on the table, cutting across her. “Maybe don’t say anything too loudly. He’s over there.”

“Who’s over where?”

“Malfoy.” Neville jutted his head towards the fireplace and, peering through the crowd, Hermione spied the heart-sinkingly familiar sight of white blonde hair. “He’s over at that table with Draco. I was already here when they arrived.”

“God, can I not have a moment of peace?” Hermione groaned, sinking down in her seat. “He’s everywhere.”

At that moment, a witch and a wizard left their places to approach the bar, giving Hermione a much clearer view of the Malfoys. Well, she could only see the back of Draco’s head but she could see Lucius Malfoy in his entirety.

It was odd to see him in such a casual setting. He looked almost relaxed. As close to relaxed as a man like Lucius Malfoy ever got, anyway. 

"I don't reckon they've noticed us," Neville said soothingly. "I'm sure it's fine"

Lucius was speaking intently to his son, a glass whiskey dangling from the fingers of one hand while the other held – Hermione squinted, seeing a thin trail of purple smoke. Was that a cigarette?

She scowled and let out an incredulous huff. That explained the faint smell of smoke in her classroom that day. The cheeky fucker. 

"I imagine they haven't noticed anyone,” Hermione muttered. “The whole world is beneath the notice of the Malfoys.”

Something like a genuine, affectionate smile crossed Lucius’ face as he addressed Draco and Hermione blinked and looked away, like she’d spied him doing something indecent. 

“I’m only saying this because I’ve had three pints –” Neville began quietly, leaning into her.

“Four,” Hermione said, quickly counting the glasses that littered the table.

“Four? Really?” Neville blinked down at the table, counting for himself. “Merlin. Well, you were very late. Anyway, I’m only saying this because I’ve had four pints but it’s a shame Malfoy is such a prick, y’know, because he’s really not bad looking these days.”

Neville waved a vague hand in the direction of Draco’s broad back. “All that Quidditch has worked wonders.”

“Neville!” Hermione exclaimed, laughing with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. 

“I’m just saying,” Neville insisted. “Because I’ve had four pints.”

Snorting, Hermione lifted a finger from her wine glass to point at him warningly. “If you’re planning to go through a bad boy phase – and by ‘bad’ I mean truly  terrible – please let me know so I can keep a closer eye on you. You could do so much better.”

Neville did nothing but grin, glancing back over at the Malfoys. “Him and his dad look eerily alike actually,” he said thoughtfully. “I noticed it when they came in.”

“They act eerily alike, too,” Hermione said darkly, less than happy that, in her twenties, she was basically having to deal with her school bully on steroids. 

“Of course,” Neville said, adopting a businesslike tone as he turned back to Hermione, “Lucius Malfoy is not attending Quidditch training multiple times a week so I have less faith in what’s under the robes.”

“Mmm,” Hermione hummed, a smile trembling at the corners of her mouth, “but I suppose holding a stick up your arse at all times is great for your core.”

They broke down into a fit of giggles, hands covering their mouths as they fell into one another and hunched over the table. 

Attempting to catch her breath, Hermione sat up straight and brushed some tears from her eyes, looking over at the Malfoys as she did so to make sure their laughter hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention. 

The Malfoys’ conversation had, however, seemingly taken a turn because Draco’s shoulders were hunched up around his ears and Lucius Malfoy was no longer smiling or anything close to it. 

In fact, Hermione thought, her smile fading, he looked…vaguely mournful. As much as Hermione hated to admit it, Lucius Malfoy had the kind of face that could carry off most expressions but that one didn’t suit him.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” she asked Neville, not daring to stare for too long. 

“How much better they are than all the blood traitors and Muggleborns of the world,” Neville grumbled into his pint. “Is he being alright in your classes?”

“He could be better,” was Hermione’s opaque response. 

“Are you doing what I said?” Neville asked, his eyebrows raised. “Professional? Polite?”

Hermione thought of Malfoy’s robes pinned beneath her heavy seat in the Great Hall. Of his furious face.

Over the course of the week, she’d found herself wondering what would have happened if they’d ripped. What would he have done? Part of her wished they had – it would have been closer to equal payback for his essay theft.

“Erm…mostly.”

“Hermione,” Neville said, sounding uncharacteristically exasperated. “It should be entirely. What did I tell you? Mum wrote to me last week to say that dad’s miserable because he’s been put on a four week rota for transporting prisoners to and from Azkaban and I swear it’s because I looked at Malfoy funny at breakfast.”

Neville cast a resentful glare across the pub. “I sent dad a Honeydukes chocolate gift basket today just in case – the guilt was eating me alive.”

“I just…” Hermione pressed her fingers into the base of her wine glass, turning it on the table. “I want him to know that he can’t bully me. I’m not provoking him, exactly. Just small revenges where appropriate. The occasional verbal prod.”

“Hermione, your ‘small revenges’ aren’t always proportionate,” Neville pointed out, the concern in his voice prompting Hermione to look up at him. “Remember that time you blew Ron’s eyebrows and half his fringe off in a ‘potions accident’?”

“He’d been very rude that morning, Neville,” Hermione insisted. “And if he’d actually done the reading, he’d have known that the armadillo bile would have that effect. It wasn’t my responsibility to tell him.”

Neville snorted. “You passed it to him when he asked for it. With enthusiasm.” 

Spying Hermione’s tight expression, he added, “I would like – no, need – you to keep working at Hogwarts. They won't let you mark essays with hands that have been covered in Lucius Malfoy's blood.”

“That’s because there’s no justice in this world,” Hermione said with a sigh. “Anyway, enough of the Malfoys – have you and Wood arranged a date yet?”

Neville and Wood had been dancing around one another for the whole summer after meeting at a Quidditch match, exchanging increasingly flirtatious letters without ever actually meeting up again. Hermione was determined that they had the potential to make a good match and had wasted no time in telling Neville as much.

A cautiously hopeful smile passed over Neville’s face. “Next month sometime, we’re thinking. In Hogsmeade, probably.”

“Excellent!” Hermione nudged Neville’s shoulder with her own. “See? You can get a Quidditch player that’s not a prat. Never settle, Neville.”

Pink-cheeked but pleased, Neville eyed Hermione over his pint. “Hermione,” he said, wiping his upper lip, “speaking of getting Quidditch players, I noticed you’ve been getting some letters from – ”

Hermione sensed immediately where Neville was going and cut in. “Viktor is just a friend, Neville.”

“Well, have you thought about seeing anyone recently?”

“No,” Hermione said with a resolute shake of her head. “I’m not interested.”

“It’s just, well, it’s been a while since Ron and, no, I promise we’re not going to talk about him but –” 

“I’m not really interested in a relationship right now, Neville,” Hermione said, not wishing to snap at him when they’d been having such a pleasant evening. “I just want to get this professorship sorted and maybe then I can start making room for someone else. If I even want to.”

It was hard to imagine. The very last thing Hermione wanted was for someone to come into her life and effectively force her to move all of the pieces she’d worked so hard to get into place just to make room for them. What if it didn’t work out and she had to deal with a gaping hole in the shape of a person again?

“You don’t have to get into a relationship,” Neville said, giving her a sidelong look. “You could come out with me in Diagon Alley one weekend and just –”

“Casual sex in the wizarding world doesn’t really appeal to me.”

“Why?”

Heaving a sigh, Hermione threw back the last mouthful of her wine, feeling Neville’s curious eyes on her.

“It’s…the whole…just…” Hermione shook her head and planted her hands flat on the table. “I’m a Muggleborn, Neville, and if I go home with a strange wizard, I don’t know if I’m getting someone like you or someone that…” Hermione’s eyes drifted to the Malfoys. “Someone that cares a lot more about that kind of thing, let’s just say.”

Lowering her gaze to the table, Hermione dipped her finger in some of the water that had dripped down Neville’s pint glass to pool on the wood. 

“ I don’t know, I like who I am but I never know how much of myself to reveal or how much they already know,” she said, the words coming in a rush. “I’ll never feel relaxed enough to let myself go and actually enjoy it. It’s easier in Muggle London and, yes, I managed one stupid fling after Ron last year but, living with my parents, I’m not out out all that often there and even then I’m just hiding yet another part of myself.”

Running out of breath, Hermione looked up at Neville who was watching her with an understanding if slightly alarmed expression.

“I get it,” he said, placing a hand over hers. “You know I do.” Hermione nodded, her lips pressed together. “But if you ever change your mind, I would be honoured to help you find the best one night stand of your life. And I am absolutely not against a night in Muggle London next summer.”

“Unless you’re shacked up with Wood by then,” Hermione pointed out.

“Then you’ll have two dashing escorts. Lucky girl.”

Chapter Text

September 20th

Lucius Malfoy’s private room at Hogwarts was of a reasonable size and comfortably furnished but when he returned to it after dinner on Sunday evening, he rather thought that he might scratch his own eyes out if he had to spend the entirety of his night in it.

If his little jaunt to Hogsmeade the previous evening had done anything, it had reminded him that he was being forced to effectively live his life across only a handful of rooms in company with just as little variety. It was enough to drive a man mad. 

That was how, one hour later, he found himself ensconced in a quiet section of the library, the many letters to which he had to respond spread out on the table in front of him. Their contents spanned Ministry, Hogwarts and personal business and, while some were more urgent than others, Lucius intended to reply to every one of them before the night was through.  

As it was a Sunday evening and only the third week of term, the library had been relatively quiet when he had entered it. Even still, he had stalked through the many rows of shelves, past any tables with even one student seated at them, looking for somewhere utterly private. 

He had finally managed to find an empty little table tucked in amongst some bookshelves in a back corner of the library. It was, he thought, quite an idyllic spot – enclosed but next to a window which, he imagined, would have an excellent view in the daytime. At night, it just reflected the warm light of the room back at him. 

In the hour he’d been there, the only disturbance he’d experienced was Madam Pince creeping past at regular intervals to ensure that he wasn’t desecrating her beloved books. 

As he dipped his quill into his ink and pulled a fresh sheet of parchment towards himself, Lucius rather thought he might be approaching a state of tranquillity for the first time in weeks. 

Hearing the sound of soft footsteps, he didn’t bother to look up – no doubt Pince again. He was starting to fear that she might be planning to make some kind of move on him and had to repress a shudder.

“You're in my seat.”

No. 

That voice. 

Any voice but that voice. 

He would take the creeping touch of Pince on his thigh over that voice. Briefly closing his eyes, Lucius took a calming breath in through his nose and carried on writing like he hadn’t heard a thing.

“Mr Malfoy, you’re in my seat.” 

“Professor Granger!” came Madam Pince’s vicious hiss from a shelf over. “Be quiet – you ought to know better.”

Lucius heard a tut from Granger, followed by several soft footsteps indicating that she was closing in on him. In his periphery, her black boots stopped by the leg of the table at which he was seated.

“That's my –” Hermione lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned towards him. “You're in my seat.”

Seeing that ignoring her wasn’t going to work, Lucius sighed softly and pulled the letter to which he was replying closer to re-read it.

“It didn't have your name on it,” he murmured, not looking at her. 

“Well, no, of course not,” Granger said in that maddeningly superior way of hers that was somehow worse when she was whispering. “But I always sit there. It has the best view of the lake.”

Lowering his letter, Lucius cast a sardonic glance at the dark window through which absolutely nothing was visible and finally looked into Granger’s earnest face. “I hardly think that matters tonight.”

“And it's usually quiet.” 

“Yes.” Lucius gave her a pointed look. “That's what drew me to it.” He re-inked his quill and returned to his writing.

There was a pause in which Lucius could practically hear the gears working in Granger’s mind. “It’s usually quiet because this is the section with the Muggle Studies books,” she finally said. 

“That’s not the searing point you think it is,” Lucius drawled, pausing only to cast her a quelling look. “And I'm not moving, Miss Granger. Give up.”

He expected her to leave, to find literally any other seat in the relatively quiet library. Instead, she dumped her heavy bag onto the table and dropped into the seat across from him with a quiet but audible huff. 

Lucius had no idea what kind of wand Hermione Granger used but he strongly suspected that when Ollivander had handed it over to her he had described it as inflexible, unbending and utterly fucking unyielding.

From under his brow, Lucius watched her pull books and parchment out of her bag, depositing them with unnecessary force on their now shared table. Once she had everything laid out, she lowered her bag to the floor. 

Perhaps feeling his irate eyes on her, she glanced at him but did nothing but purse her lips. Lucius spied a flash of gold as she shook out her wrist and gathered her mane of curls into a high ponytail. It was remarkable to him that anything could hold that hair in place.

Clearly intent on ignoring him, Hermione flipped open her book and started on whatever work she was so keen on doing. She sank into it quickly and Lucius was relieved and somewhat pleased to find that when she wasn’t huffing and puffing about the injustice of his taking her seat, she was capable of being completely silent. 

It made it easy to go back to his letters and, if it wasn’t for the almost constant scratching of her quill, he might have forgotten she was there.

Pausing to consider his phrasing in a letter, Lucius looked into the dark window beside him, seeing himself and Granger reflected back at him. His eyes drifted to the real Granger to find her head bent over her work, the very picture of focus.

One of her curls had made a bid from freedom and was just brushing against the parchment but she didn’t appear to notice it. She was too busy spilling what could only be her every thought onto the page. The movement of her hand was relentless, almost frantic, like it couldn’t keep up with her mind. Lucius couldn’t help but stare, oddly fascinated. 

“What?”

Had he been of a more timid disposition, Lucius would have jumped as her quill came to an abrupt halt and she lifted her head to fix him with an impatient look. Instead, he met her gaze, unblinking.

“What do you mean ‘what?’”

“You’re looking at me," she accused.

“It’s the polite thing to do when you’re speaking to someone.”

“No, you were looking at me before, I could feel it and –”

“Professor Granger, I won’t tell you again,” hissed Pince, tottering past their enclosed table to return several books to a nearby shelf.

An immensely frustrated jut to her jaw, Hermione glared at him like he had been the one to tell her off. “Forget it,” she muttered. “Never mind.”

Lucius waited for Pince to depart, offering her a charmingly apologetic smile as she passed him, before leaning over the table to address Hermione in an undertone.

“Curious that you insist on your students using Muggle writing utensils when you yourself use parchment and quills. Rather hypocritical.”

Completing her sentence with an aggressive full stop that looked more like an ink blotch, Hermione raised her head and peered around to look for Pince before daring to reply. 

“The paper and pens are part of the immersive experience,” she whispered snappishly. “Besides, they’re limited resources and I have to keep them for the students – it won’t surprise you to know that quills and parchment are much more readily available here.” 

Before she could go back to writing, Lucius said, “Speaking of ‘class immersion’ – I saw you kept your little perverts behind after Friday’s lesson.”

At that, Hermione narrowed her eyes. “They’re not perverts, Mr Malfoy,” she said, her face tight. “But yes.” 

“And what did you do?” he asked. “Have a heart-to-heart about sexual politics and give them a Muggle chocolate before sending them on their way?” 

Perhaps he could add ‘inept disciplinarian’ to his report. 

Hermione’s expression was cold as she said, “They served their detentions yesterday with Mr Filch.” Lowering her gaze to pull out a fresh page of parchment, she added, “I told him he could be creative.”

Lucius’ eyebrows fractionally rose and he thought he spied a satisfied little smile ghost across her lips before she lowered her head again.

He was starting to see that there was a small vengeful streak in Hermione Granger. It was, he thought, one of the only interesting things about her.

Hermione was painfully aware that if she leaned any heavier on her parchment, she was in danger of snapping the nib of her quill but she just couldn’t help herself. It was hard not to be irritated when the most irritating man in the world was seated across from you. 

Admittedly, she could have moved to another area. She could have put some distance between them. But he was in her seat – her favourite seat in her favourite part of the library – and she was not going to let him wave her away like he owned the place. 

Hearing Lucius return to his writing, Hermione allowed her shoulders to fall slightly. There was something about his gaze that made every part of her tense up – it made her too aware of her own body.

Re-reading her last few paragraphs, she pursed her lips thoughtfully. She needed another book but she was loath to leave her things with him unguarded. Especially after the desk incident. Hermione shifted in her seat, raising her chin ever so slightly to glance at Malfoy from under her brow. 

He didn’t appear to be paying any attention to her, a very small furrow in his brow as he focused on whatever he was writing. Letters, Hermione suspected. Dozens of them. How a man so unpleasant could receive so many communications she didn’t know. 

He cleared his throat and Hermione tensed, her eyes darting back down to her parchment. Ever so slowly, she allowed them to drift up again, surreptitiously studying him. He was straight-backed and writing intently. 

Pausing, he exhaled sharply through his nose and reached for a sheet of parchment that was covered in figures and sums to reference something. It was only then that Hermione realised she was actually seeing his arms for the first time. 

Blinking in a befuddled way, Hermione searched his person and spotted that his usual heavy black robes were draped over the chair behind him. 

She had only ever seen a hint of the collar of the white dress shirt he wore. Now, not only could she see the whole collar, she could see the sleeves of the shirt, which he had rolled up around his elbows, while the rest was hidden behind his high-necked brocade waistcoat. 

He shook the sheet of parchment in his hands to straighten it out, the muscle in his forearm flexing.

This was, Hermione strongly suspected, the most undone Lucius Malfoy ever allowed himself to look. It made her oddly uncomfortable to witness it, like she’d done the buttoned-up aristocrat version of walking in on him undressing. 

Oh God, no. Hermione squeezed her eyes closed tight and shook her head, her nose wrinkling. No images of that. He has no body. He is a sneer and robes painted onto a plank. No . 

“Are you having some kind of episode?” came Malfoy’s quiet drawl from across from her.

Opening her eyes, Hermione found him gazing at her over the top of his parchment with a mix of mild alarm and disgust. 

“Nope,” she said, abruptly pushing herself to her feet. His eyes followed her up, one brow arching curiously. “No. Need a book.”

All concern about leaving Malfoy alone with her things forgotten, Hermione marched away from the table and rounded a bookcase to indulge in a full body shudder. 

“Do not do that again,” she muttered to her brain, pulling it back into focus. 

Peering up at the shelves around her, Hermione attempted to get her bearings. She actually did need a book and the most likely place she was going to find it was in the Muggle Studies section. 

Hermione walked the shelves, running her fingers along the titles and murmuring them under her breath. With a small squeak of victory, she finally spotted a useful book and reached out to slide it from the shelf. 

It wouldn’t come. 

Scowling, Hermione tried again with no success. She bloody hated living in a magical castle sometimes.

“Give me the book,” she hissed at the bookcase. Obviously, it didn’t respond because objects in Hogwarts were only ever sentient to the degree necessary to irk.

Huffing out a sigh, she tried pulling with both hands, anchoring her fingertips on the top of the book’s spine. 

"Come on, " Hermione moaned. "I don't have all night."

Hermione had dropped into a squat and was hissing a string of threats at the book when Lucius Malfoy rounded the corner and came to an immediate halt at the sight of her struggling. 

“Is that you making all that noise?” he asked irritably. 

“What noise?” Hermione snarled, glaring at the book.

“The snuffling and snarling. I thought someone was feeding a dog.”

“That's incredibly rude," Hermione snapped breathlessly. “I’m trying to get a book and the bookcase won’t –” She gave the book another fruitless pull. “Let me.”

“If the shelf hasn't been dusted for a while, you have to wait for it to sneeze,” Lucius said, with a maddeningly superior tone that did nothing to help Hermione’s mood. “Did you actually attend this school?”

“I know you’re supposed to wait for it to sneeze,” Hermione said through gritted teeth, giving the book another tug. “But that can take hours and sometimes if you. Just. Pull. Hard enough, it –”

Without warning, the book finally came free and Hermione let out a yelp as she crashed to the floor, landing on her back while the book fell with a heavy thud beside her. 

A derisive snort from Malfoy told her that he had witnessed the whole thing. 

Of course he did, Hermione thought ferociously as she swiftly pushed herself into a sitting position, gasping for a breath. Of course he saw me fall flat on my arse. Because that’s my life now. My life is falling flat on my arse in front of Lucius Malfoy. 

The unexpected sound of Malfoy's smart shoes clicking towards her over the library floor made Hermione still, her heart skipping a beat. His shiny dragonhide shoes stopped in her periphery and, for one wild moment, she thought he might honestly be coming to help her to her feet. Or kick her.

Then, he stooped and picked up the book that had fallen beside her, eyeing the photo on its cover with interest as he straightened up. Craning her neck, Hermione gaped up at Malfoy from the floor to find he had flipped open the book to study its contents with a frown. 

“What is this?” he asked, flicking through the pages like he was entirely oblivious to the fact that there was a witch collapsed at his feet.

Grumbling, Hermione rolled onto her knees and pushed herself to her feet to face him. “It’s a book,” she said, dusting off her jeans. 

Lucius slowly raised his eyes from the pages to fix Hermione with a quelling look. "I mean what is the book about?"

"It's Kintsugi." 

Hermione held her hand out to take the book back but Lucius merely jerked it away and flicked through a few more pages, lingering over the images of gold-veined pottery. 

“And that is?” he asked imperiously, turning on his heel.

Hands curling into fists, Hermione growled and scurried after him, apparently in the direction of their shared table.

"It's a Japanese art form," she explained to his back. "Muggles sometimes use precious metals, often gold, to repair broken pottery."

"Oh." Lucius halted at their table and turned to brusquely push the book back into Hermione's hands. 

She stared down at the open pages then back up to him disbelievingly. Had he honestly lost interest because it involved Muggles? 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she ventured. "The philosophy behind it is to embrace flaws and imperfections; it makes damage and repair part of an object's value and history."

“It’s also not on the approved curriculum for Muggle Studies,” he said, drawing his shoulders back to look down his nose at her. “Are we about to have another little spat, Miss Granger?”

“It’s not for my classes,” Hermione said, drawing the book protectively into her chest. “It’s part of my transfiguration research.”

There was a pause in which Lucius studied her, a slight furrow between his brows. Then, like he was fighting against all of his natural instincts, he asked, “What on earth does Japanese Muggle art have to do with transfiguration?”

Rolling her tongue in her mouth, Hermione considered telling him it was none of his business. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? To just shut Lucius Malfoy down.

If she was not mistaken, however, there was genuine, albeit reluctant, interest in his expression. There was intelligence in that head, she was sure – misapplied as it was – and that meant he had to be inquisitive about some things.

It filled her with a strange kind of longing – she was so rarely asked about her personal research. Neville listened politely, certainly, but he was never really interested and she always feared disturbing Minerva.

“Well, I’ve been developing an interest in the transfiguration of broken and repaired objects,” Hermione said, stepping around Lucius and setting the open Kintsugi book down on the desk so that she could lean over it to pull her other textbook towards them. 

“How the method of repair impacts the magic – its quality, appearance, longevity, that kind of thing. There’s quite a lot of research into it already where magic is concerned.”

Hermione looked over her shoulder to find Lucius had turned to watch her, his face unreadable.

“Where an object has been fixed using a standard reparo, or a stitching charm, or even a sealing charm, it affects any subsequent attempt to transfigure it. It’s much harder to vanish a magically repaired object, as one example – ostensibly it’s still the same thing but it behaves as if there’s…more of it for some reason.”

Hermione indicated a few diagrams in the textbook, where researchers had laid out their findings. 

Lucius stepped closer so that they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the sleeve of his shirt brushing her jumper as he bent at the waist to read the small annotations beneath the diagrams. 

“It's only recently that there’s been some research into the effects of Muggle repair methods – glues, tapes, that kind of thing. But wizards in Japan have also been researching Kintsugi and it’s just fascinating. The natural metals add an entirely new dimension, especially when it comes to transformation spells.”

Without a word, Lucius reached over the table to pluck a sheet from Hermione’s pile of notes. Laying it flat, he pressed his palms on the table and bent to read, his eyes skimming over her cramped writing with undisguised fascination.

Recalling her observation of him in The Three Broomsticks the night before, Hermione mused that, when he was not looking at her, Lucius Malfoy's face had remarkable range.

“Recently, I've been wondering if it's possible that the intent behind the repair could be another variable. Intent is obviously such an important component of magic but Muggles act with intent too and Kintsugi is very interesting in that regard,” she told him, hardly daring to believe that he had actually listened to her speak for so long. 

“So I’m trying to find out more about it – read the research that’s already been done. I’d love to submit some ideas to Transfiguration Today or something. Start a discussion.”

Hermione turned her head and found herself looking at Malfoy’s profile. He was still leaning on his hands, scanning her books and notes and she could just about see his brows pulling together in a frown. 

Lucius blinked and turned his face to hers. “You’re a professor of Muggle Studies.”

Hermione nodded, her eyes meeting his. They were such a clear, cold grey but, in that moment, she thought she glimpsed a flicker of uncertainty in them.

“This is advanced transfiguration. It’s…” He swallowed, seemingly unwilling to finish the rest of his sentence lest it end up coming close to a compliment. “It’s not Muggle Studies.”

“Well, you’re not a professor of anything, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said lightly. “Should I take that to mean you have no interests at all?”

Lucius pushed himself up to glare down at her but Hermione did nothing more than lift her eyebrows expectantly. “Should I?”

“No,” he ground out.

“Well then,” Hermione said, smiling to herself as she pushed her books back around to their places. “Anyway, it combines elements of Muggle Studies and transfiguration so, technically, I am still in my wheelhouse. If that makes you feel more comfortable.”

Hermione left his side to return to her seat, an unexpected shiver passing through her when she drew away from the heat of him. 

There was silence while Lucius made his way back to his own seat. He appeared lost in thought as he lowered himself into it and rearranged his letters to resume his writing.

“Kintsugi is very interesting, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said encouragingly, “if you were interested in finding out some more about it I –”

“Haven’t you talked enough for an evening, Miss Granger?” Lucius asked coldly, his gaze firmly on his writing. “I would remind you that this is a library, not your classroom.”

Squeezing her knees together beneath the desk, Hermione swallowed and cleared her throat before bowing her head over the Kintsugi book to read in silence.

Chapter Text

September 24th

Lucius had thought that Hermione Granger’s Muggle Studies classes couldn’t get much worse. That was until he found himself standing at the edge of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch under an overcast sky, bracing himself against a sharp wind. Then he realised that Hermione Granger had a peculiar talent for making him suffer.

Shrugging his cloak more fully around his body, Lucius looked up from his clipboard and parchment to glower at her but she was too busy addressing her class in the centre of the pitch to notice it. They were gathered around her in a half-circle and they had, on her order, pulled bibs over their robes in two different colours: purple and orange. 

Granger had set up two large rectangular nets across from one another on the pitch and Lucius watched her bend over a large box at her feet to lift out a shiny black and white ball. She made some kind of announcement and a few whoops of delight from the class were carried over to him on the wind. 

Grumbling under his breath, Lucius crossed the grass towards the class, his upper lip curling when his smart shoes sank into the soft, damp earth. Seeing his approach, Hermione paused in her explanation to the class to address him, the smile she had been wearing vanishing. 

“Can I help you, Mr Malfoy?”

“What exactly is this, Miss Granger?”

“Football,” she said shortly. “We’re going to be playing a short, casual and extremely non-competitive –” Here she cast a warning eye over her class, some of whom grinned ruefully. “Game of football.”

Sighing through his nose, Lucius noted it down, saying “carry on” as he did so. The class had been discussing Muggle sports that whole week and though he had been paying minimal attention, the name rang a bell to Lucius. He was beginning to think he was going to have to obliviate himself after his ordeal was through; knowledge of Muggles — even scant knowledge — was not something he cared to have. 

“Alright, so, Harty is out sick today,” Hermione said, casting an eye over the class. “Without him we make twenty-six. I’ll just have to split you into two teams of thirteen rather than the regulation…” 

Hermione trailed off hopefully and one of the few Slytherins that took her class thrust their hand into the air. “Eleven, professor.”

“Ten points to Slytherin, Li. Yes, eleven players for each team, one of whom must be a goalkeeper. Do we have any keen Quidditch keepers here? It’s a transferable skill.” 

Two more hands shot up and Hermione pointed to them. “Excellent, Gibbons and Hamilton. You’re already wearing different coloured bibs so why don’t you go and stand in the goals I’ve set up.”

The students grinned and jogged to their respective places, leaving Hermione to address the rest of the class. “The rest of you – your bib colour is your team. I’ll leave you to sort out your positions amongst yourselves – you should know them well enough by now – and you can kick off at your leisure. I’ll be on the side if you need me. Refereeing.” 

Hermione made to move and then caught herself. “Oh –” She dug in the pocket of her blazer, pulling something out, holding it aloft and revealing it to be a Muggle coin. “What’s this for?”

“Coin toss, professor!”

“That’s right, Grafton. 5 points to Gryffindor, though please try to raise your hand for fairness.” Granger smiled slightly to take some of the sting out of her rebuke. “Purples – heads or tails?”

There was some murmuring amongst the crowd of students that had huddled together. “Tails, professor!” one girl called. 

Hermione flipped the coin in the air and caught it, slapping it onto the back of her hand. “Tails it is. When do you want the kickoff?”

More conferring and the same girl spoke, apparently the de facto captain for her team. “First half.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it!”

Without looking at Malfoy, Hermione began making her way to the side of the pitch, leaving him to trail her resentfully. They stood together at the side, shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the students discuss – or argue over – the positions they wished to play.

“Miss Granger,” Malfoy asked, cringing when a gust of wind ruffled his parchment, “are you trying to freeze your students to death?”

“How careless do you think I am, Mr Malfoy?” Hermione asked with a reproachful sidelong look which was partially hidden by the wind buffeting her curls. “The bibs have warming charms.”

Lucius paused but didn’t write this fact down, instead asking, “Well, what exactly do you expect them to learn from this?”

“This is the wands-out version of Muggle Studies,” she replied, rolling onto the balls of her feet as she surveyed the game which was just beginning. “I think it might make my fourth years more likely to appreciate what Muggles see in football if they can play a loose version of it themselves. The robes aren’t ideal, admittedly, but it felt a bit too chilly to get them down to uniforms alone.”

“And you like this?” he asked disdainfully, scribbling on his parchment, eyes darting up from under his brow to watch a boy fall headfirst over the ball, his robes tangling around his feet.

“Not really. Actually not at all.” 

Spying his disbelieving look out of the corner of her eye she blushed and explained, “I hate team sports and neither of my parents were particularly big fans of football – they preferred tennis, which is –” She glanced at him and clearly spied his disinterest. “Well, it's another sport. But football is such a huge part of British Muggle culture that I still had passing knowledge before I had to actually start teaching it. And I suppose it’s good to learn to play nice with others.”

Lucius snorted softly. That was rather rich coming from her, he thought. 

“Just as well you’re taking notes, really,” Hermione added breezily. 

Hand stilling on his parchment, Lucius turned to her. “You –”

“Grafton!” Hermione shouted into the field, interrupting Lucius’ stinging rebuke to address a boy who had just used both hands to fling the ball into the net. “Feet only! Hence the name!”

“But it doesn’t make any sense, professor!” the boy yelled, throwing his arms wide.

“Yes it does; you’re just rubbish at it!” gloated one of the keepers – Gibbons – as she neatly chipped the ball out of the goal and back into play. 

“Would you like to have a go, Mr Malfoy?” 

Lucius turned his head to fix Hermione with an incredulous and entirely unamused look, only to find her more focused on the class, her eyes raptly following the ball and the player behind it. No doubt to ensure the children weren’t fouling one another. A rather pointless effort, Lucius thought, spying one student grab another by the scruff of their neck just out of Granger's eye line.

“Miss Granger,” he drawled, “I would rather die.” 

Hermione glanced up and around at that and Lucius thought he saw the shadow of a smile pass over her face.

“What?” he asked flatly. 

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“I really do.” 

“Litton, I saw that,” Hermione suddenly barked, pointing at a Gryffindor boy who went wide-eyed. “No pushing allowed – it’ll be a card next time.” 

Hermione sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Sometimes I think that boy is only a Gryffindor when he’s sure people are looking at him,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said, drawing a neat line under his last note, “I think now that we are this far into the term it would be appropriate for me to begin interviewing your students.” 

“But you’ll disrupt the game – ruin the numbers,” she protested, her curls hitting his shoulder as she turned her whole body to him. “Their teams are balanced.”

“That’s not my problem,” Lucius said lightly, catching a student’s eye and beckoning her towards him imperiously. 

To Lucius’ irritation, before the student moved, she first looked to Granger, who nodded to give permission to approach.

“Perhaps,” Lucius said, “you’d like to ‘have a go’ –” He paused to offer her a snide smile. “Yourself. You certainly can’t be here for these conversations; it would hardly encourage complete honesty.”

Hermione opened her mouth in a way that made Lucius think she was about to argue back in front of her class, which would have delighted him and benefitted his report. Instead, she caught herself and raised her chin. Not for the first time, he found himself rather lamenting her perspicacity. 

“An excellent idea,” she said, sliding her blazer from her shoulders and setting it over one of the barriers. She was wearing a cream blouse beneath it, tucked into a pair of smart black trousers. He saw a tremor of a shiver pass through her but she appeared determined not to succumb to it in front of him.

Without another word, Hermione began marching towards her students, stopping on her way to address the Hufflepuff girl for whom Lucius was waiting. Lucius watched them through narrowed eyes as the girl nodded to whatever Hermione had said.

After eight interviews, Lucius’ mood had not improved. In fact, it had dramatically worsened. 

They liked her. 

Hermione Granger’s students actually liked her. 

Well, so far. This was, after all, only one class. He was still holding out hope that he would find one or two willing to denounce her for the nightmare that she was. One who would say “yes, Mr Malfoy. She is the worst professor I’ve ever had in my life and my parents would be most upset if she were not ejected from this school immediately.” Or something along those lines. 

“You don’t find her overly exacting?” he prompted a Ravenclaw boy whose pale, almost green, face made it apparent that he would rather be anywhere else than speaking with a school governor. “She sets deadlines which are rather short.”

“But she’s fair,” the Ravenclaw said, his voice breaking on ‘fair’ as Lucius looked up sharply from his notes. “I – I think she’s realistic when she marks our essays. She knows how much time she’s given us.”

Huffing a sharp sigh through his nose, Lucius loosely noted down the boy’s sentiments, saying, “that’ll do” as he did so.

“S – sorry, sir?”

“You’re done,” Lucius said more sharply, waving a dismissive hand so that his quill was buffeted by the wind. “I have no further need for you.”

Visibly relieved, the boy darted back to the game where his professor welcomed him by carefully and rather ineptly passing him the ball which he accepted with an equal lack of skill. They were all more than a little bit pathetic to watch. 

Gripping his self-inking quill tight enough to make it spit an unseemly blotch on his parchment, Lucius watched Hermione jog lightly up the field, not putting much effort into chasing the ball so that her students could rush after it like a pack of animals. 

He had suspected the girl possessed some intelligence but, after their encounter in the library, he could no longer deny that it was more than ‘some’. It was more than he had thought the average Muggleborn could possess. Things like this class, however, undermined it. What was intelligence worth when it was applied thusly? 

The combination of the cold and the exercise had made her cheeks rosy. They practically beamed across the field at him when she grinned widely, throwing her hands above her head to celebrate one of her students finally managing to score a goal with their feet. 

“Twenty points to Hufflepuff for that,” she cried. “Excellent work, Poole.”

Looking across the pitch, she spied Lucius standing without a student and glanced down at her watch, her eyebrows shooting up. 

“Right everyone!” she shouted, holding her hands up to halt them. “That’s time for today.”

There were a few groans of disappointment, causing Lucius to roll his eyes. Really, what did they find fun about what they’d just experienced? It looked positively miserable, just as he felt. 

“Head to your next class and I’ll see you in a few days,” Hermione continued, waving them all away. “Lovely work today – you all did very well. Yes, even you, Grafton. Just leave your bibs in that box at the side as you go.”

Lucius watched from the sidelines as each of the students did as they were bid, chatting happily all the while. Like Granger, they had pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, the exercise seemingly having injected some kind of life into them.

As they passed him, some of them looked almost frightened while others eyed him and his clipboard with unabashed curiosity. Dumbledore had not revealed Lucius’ purpose in her classes – deliberately, most likely – but Lucius felt it was rather obvious what he was there to do. Would that even one of them was willing to help him bloody do it.

On the pitch Granger had whipped her wand out of her pocket to shrink down the goalposts, walking the long distance to pick the first of them up. As she did so, a drop of rain fell on Lucius’ parchment. Another hit his cheek. Squinting up at the sky, he saw the overcast sky had solidified into one grey, ominous cloud.

The drops started falling faster and Lucius tucked his parchment under his cloak to retreat to the tunnel under the stands through which the players entered. He just managed to get under cover when he heard Granger shriek. Turning, he saw the rain had ceased its teasing and decided to pour.

Hermione was dashing across the pitch through the downpour, a goalpost clutched in each hand. Dropping them into the increasingly sodden cardboard box alongside the ball and the bibs, she bent to haul it into her arms and ran in his direction. 

Finally reaching the tunnel, soaked from head to toe, she dumped the box on the dry ground with a disgusted “ugh”. Hermione shook her damp curls from her face, sniffling and shivering as the cold sank into her clothes and skin.

Looking up though the drips falling from her fringe, she finally noticed the completely dry Lucius watching her with barely concealed derision. Surprise briefly passed over her face to see him there, swiftly replaced by dark irritation.

“Couldn’t have helped me?” she asked huffily, a droplet of water falling from the end of her nose in an undignified way. “Might have sped up the process.”

“I didn’t see any point in both of us getting wet,” Lucius said, lifting one eyebrow and shrugging carelessly. 

Wishing to make her feel even more self-conscious, he trailed his eyes judgmentally down her person. 

The rain had made her curls dark and straggly, strands sticking to her neck while her fringe was plastered to her forehead. Her cream blouse was sodden, clinging to her body and now so transparent that he could just about see –

Lucius abruptly abandoned his survey of her, his eyes snapping back to her face. Becoming familiar with Granger’s choice of brassiere – white, lacy and not especially substantial – had not been part of his plan. Muggle clothing was positively shameless.

Having observed the dip in Lucius’ gaze only to catch the sudden, uncomfortable shift in his expression, Hermione looked down at herself and swore. 

“My blazer,” she whined, turning on the spot to peer out into the rain where she had left it.  

“Finally, some sartorial justice,” Lucius taunted. “Do look out for lightning.”

Hermione spun back around, her damp hair heavily whipping around her face. “Oh, just give it a –” She caught herself mid-snarl and took a breath, closing her eyes in what he suspected was an attempt to centre herself.

Then, quite calmly, she reached for the wand handle sticking out of her pocket and Lucius perceptibly tightened his grip on his cane, ready to draw his wand if necessary. Surely, after everything, a slight on her objectively ugly Muggle jacket would not be the thing to drive her over the edge. The only thing that stopped him pulling his wand on her was that her eyes were not on him at all as she drew her own fully out of her pocket. 

There was a faint whoosh and, within the space of a blink, Granger was dry again. Her hair, he noted with a wrinkle of his nose, significantly more frizzy than it had been.

Sighing with relief, Hermione looked over her shoulder at the rain and returned her wand to her pocket. Lucius allowed his grip on his cane to loosen as it disappeared from view, feeling a tension he hadn’t even realised had been gathering seep out of his shoulders. 

“I’ll just wait until it’s finished,” Hermione said, walking to the wall of the tunnel to lean her back against it with her arms crossed. “Then I’ll get it. My next class isn’t for –” She checked her watch. “I’ve got until after lunch.”

Silence fell between them, Hermione leaning against the wall while Lucius stood straight, his cane in one hand and his clipboard tucked against his side in the other. He did not especially relish being in her company in such a casual manner but the rain showed no sign of stopping. 

Turning her head to him, she cleared her throat, her gaze trailing down his straight-backed posture then drifting to his cane. “Do you ever…” She shrugged, crossing her legs at the ankles. “Hunch? Slouch? Curve your spine at all?”

“Like some kind of invertebrate?” Lucius asked, pointedly looking at the slope of her shoulders.

She shifted and Lucius could tell she was resisting the urge to pull her shoulders back. What a fascinatingly stubborn, proud little thing she was; he imagined Hippogriffs were more easily broken. 

“An unusual lesson, Miss Granger,” he observed, trying to assess from its intensity how long the rain might last.

“Yes,” she agreed, turning her head to look out of the tunnel too. “I'm still experimenting with ways to make Muggle Studies a little less theoretical. Grounded experiences are key. It looked like they had fun.”

“Fun.” Lucius said the word with flat disparagement, his eyes darting back to her. “You are teaching a class, not running an extracurricular club.”

Hermione only shrugged, straightening up and pushing away from the wall as she turned back to him. “I don't think learning and fun need to be mutually exclusive,” she said. “Were my students polite in your interviews?”

“Tolerably so.” 

Her nod spoke to her satisfaction. “What kinds of things did they say?”

A mocking smirk lifted the corner of his lips. “I can hardly tell you that.”

“Well…” She paused, pursing her lips as her eyes rolled up thoughtfully. “What kind of things did you ask them, then?”

“And I hardly want to tell you that,” Lucius said on an impatient exhale. 

It was clear that she couldn’t stand not knowing something and, though he could take some pleasure in withholding knowledge from her, Lucius knew she was liable to make herself an irritant in the relentless pursuit of it. 

“Even if they have said anything nice,” she said, “you’re not going to put it in your report, are you?”

How direct, Lucius thought, displeased. There was that intelligence again, though, displaying itself through perceptiveness. She knew full well that he didn’t like her and he rather thought that she also knew why, despite the fact that he’d never explicitly referenced it.

“What I plan to put in my report is none of your concern,” Lucius said, adjusting his clipboard so that her eyes were drawn to it.

“It’s entirely my concern,” she insisted. “Would you put it in?”

“I am a Hogwarts governor,” Lucius said silkily. “What motivation could I possibly have to misrepresent the facts? I only have the school's best interests at heart.”

Hermione snorted gracelessly and Lucius raised his eyebrows. She didn’t like him either, he knew that; no one had ever taught her to show a healthy respect for her betters. 

“It's just us here, Mr Malfoy,” she said, gesturing to the empty, echoing tunnel, “so let’s address the hippogriff in the room: you don’t want Muggle Studies to be a subject at all. You made that perfectly clear during my interview. So, I hardly think you’re going to endorse anyone that’s teaching it. Especially not someone like me.” 

“Someone like…you,” he replied carefully, with a gentle upwards inflection, like he could not be quite sure of what she was suggesting. 

Hermione merely looked back into his face, unblinking and unsmiling. “When I was a student here, your son took great pleasure in calling me a filthy little Mudblood.”

Of course he had. Lucius repressed the urge to sigh. He had tried to make Draco understand that that was a word which should only be used in certain contexts. Private contexts. They were, he had told him, still living in a time when some people liked to pretend they did not care about such things, despite so much evidence to the contrary. The Malfoys had to follow suit – be relatively subtle and work within the system to ensure it was always weighted in their favour.

“Children say all kinds of…unkind things,” he said with an unaffected shrug. 

“So do adults,” was Hermione’s sharp reply. “They just try to be more careful about it. Don't they?”

Lucius swallowed. Granger wasn’t half testing his patience. “I don’t know what you are trying to insinuate.”

“You’re not stupid, Mr Malfoy,” she said, taking a step towards him. His grip on his cane tightened to see it. “You’re many things but you’re clearly not that. And nor am I, so don't try to pretend.”

Lucius rolled his tongue in his mouth, assessing her. What did she want? Did she want him to rant and rage at her? To call her a filthy little Mudblood like his son had? He was hardly going to do that in broad daylight, out in the open. Or was it that she merely wanted him to verbally confirm what she already apparently suspected of him?

“No, I quite agree, Miss Granger,” he said, taking a few steps forward himself, curious to see if she would stand her ground. She did. “You’re not stupid. In fact, I would venture to say that I find you uncommonly intelligent, all things considered.”

Ignoring Hermione’s scoff, he continued. “For that reason, I am willing to humour you. Why do you insist on tying yourself to this subject? Knowing what you seem to think you know about me? Expecting what you apparently expect from me?”

“It’s important.”

“Transfiguration is important,” he corrected her. “It’s a subject for which you have displayed a passion and, dare I say it, possibly some aptitude.” Lucius paused, the almost-compliments feeling like they were lumbering, rather than rolling, off his tongue. “Teach that and at least try to be useful to this world in which you insist you belong.”

“Muggle Studies is useful to this world,” she declared passionately, earning herself an eye roll. “Our world. Every day you make that more clear to me.”

Hermione had walked forward while speaking, closing the space so that there was only a distance of mere feet between them. Behind her, the rain battered against the ground, loud and relentless. Lucius thought he heard a rumble of thunder overhead but it might have been the sound of his patience crumbling.

“What use are Muggles to us?” he snapped, resisting the urge to lift his cane and poke her with it. “You have your students running around in the dirt chasing a ball and call it culture. Each one of your lessons deprives them of an hour in which they could be mastering their magic.”

“My parents are both Muggles,” she declared with a truly perplexing amount of pride. “They have raised, in your words, an ‘intelligent’ witch.”

He should have known she’d make him regret admitting that. 

“And I think you’d be hard-pushed not to find a Muggle somewhere in every wizarding family tree, though I'm sure many of them are very well hidden,” she continued, making him shift uncomfortably. Necessary evils were not a point of pride. “Muggles don’t need to be useful to us; they are us – part of us. Always have been.”

Well that was just absurd. “They are entirely separate from us,” Lucius argued. “Naturally and necessarily so – the International Statute of Secrecy is not optional guidance, Miss Granger, it is law.”

“And you think we'll keep ourselves hidden by sticking out like ignorant sore thumbs every time we encounter Muggles, do you?” she asked, her voice rising. “They're not stupid, you know. Just because we treat them like they are and carelessly fall back on frankly dangerous memory charms to solve all of our problems. They notice things.”

“Even if the Statute was not in place, they do not have our power. It is not for us to pander to them. That you think we should only serves to emphasise their inferiority.”

“It is not pandering and different is not inferior.” Her cheeks, which had steadily lost their colour from the exercise, were growing pink again with anger. “You're just emphasising your…your ignorance.”

Lucius allowed a pause and, in it, Hermione seemed to truly hear what she had said in her passion, her righteously indignant expression faltering. He took another step forward so that the tips of his shoes were a hair’s breadth from hers, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. 

Ignorance, was it? 

“Miss Granger,” he said softly, bending forward just slightly so that she wouldn’t miss a word, “run that sharp little tongue of yours any faster and you are likely to do yourself a mischief.”

Hermione frowned and Lucius was gratified to see a faint bob in her throat as she swallowed. Perceptive enough to recognise a threat, too. Yet she didn’t step back.

“The Muggles aren't going anywhere, Mr Malfoy,” she said, a wilful glint in her eye. “Nor am I.”

“Well, while I don’t have much control over the former, the latter is actually entirely up to me,” Lucius said with a self-satisfied smirk. “As you well know.”

Lifting his gaze from her wide eyes, Lucius straightened up to look over her head to the exit of the tunnel. “Look at that,” he observed, a discordant lightness to his tone. "The rain's stopped."

Raising his cane, Lucius pressed it against the side of Hermione’s arm to push her out of his way, carelessly strolling past the saturated and disintegrating cardboard box that she would need to haul up to the school.

Chapter Text

October 1st 

Lucius parted his lips and gently exhaled, allowing the soft morning breeze to carry the cigarette smoke up and away from his face. His eyes were fixed on the lake, waiting for Granger’s arm to arc out of the water.

Ah. There it was. 

He’d been watching long enough to get a sense of her rhythm. 

And again.

The morning was a crisp, cold one and his cloak sat heavy around his shoulders. He’d been on his usual walk when the sight of Hermione cutting through the water had made him pause and observe. 

There was a relentlessness to her swimming from which he gleaned a strange satisfaction. She claimed both of her parents were Muggles but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was revealed that one of them was, in fact, amphibian. 

Lucius allowed his mind to wander, her metronomic strokes soothing it. He much preferred her at this distance. And in water. 

When he finally got her fired he could have a tank fitted in the manor in which he could keep her like a specimen, he mused, inhaling. His little Mudblood – the most intelligent and headstrong of her kind. 

Lucius coughed out a smoky chuckle at the thought. She’d probably break the glass and flood his manor. Or find a way to drag him under and drown him, like a vicious mermaid. 

Admittedly, they’d had very little interaction over the previous week. After their encounter at the Quidditch pitch, she’d adopted an approach of cold, stiff detachment, clearly determined that she would not allow him to rile her any further.

He had not actually tried particularly hard to do so, instead taking some time to determine his next move. 

His interviews continued in her classes and he was still to come across an ardently dissatisfied student. There were a few who clearly had minimal interest in the subject, hoping that it was a path to an easy OWL but Granger specifically wasn’t really that much of a problem for them – every professor expected the effort they so apparently resented making. 

Every minute not spent listening to some dimwitted student singing her praises was spent listening to her spout about the virtues of Muggles. Auditory agony. 

Not one of them challenged her, either. Their beloved professor Granger. Not one of them pointed out that Muggles were hardly paragons. Dumbledore’s Hogwarts was, apparently, where independent thought went to die. 

How would she take it if they did, though, he wondered. Dropping his cigarette, Lucius crushed it into the pebbly shore. He’d like to find out. 

Lucius eyed his pocket watch, estimating that he had around an hour before breakfast. More than enough time.

Seated at his desk in his private room, he fished in the pocket of his robes for Granger's timetable and dropped it on his desk where it curled it on itself, like it could protect itself from his disdain. It got more battered by the day.

Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Lucius held the timetable flat and ran his finger along her classes for the day, halting when he reached her OWL fifth year class. He tapped the post-lunch space thoughtfully, picturing the twenty-five strong cohort.

It was one of the classes in which he’d encountered a couple of blatantly uninterested students, clearly only there because they hoped it’d be an easy OWL. One in particular stood out in his mind – Henry Morrison, a Slytherin and a pureblood. He’d been more apathetic than the rest and didn’t seem to have much respect for Granger, even if he didn’t care enough to outrightly criticise her.

The boy’s father worked in the Ministry. Lucius didn’t especially like the man on a personal level – his stupidity made him exceptionally dull company – but Morrison Senior was the kind of wizard that Lucius would always elevate into positions of power because he was reliably greedy and did exactly what he was told as long as it resulted in a galleon in his pocket. 

Perhaps the son would be the same. 

Lucius didn’t approve of a student – particularly a pureblood and a Slytherin – taking a class like Muggle Studies at all, never mind out of indolence. It was an insult to their heritage and he would never have allowed Draco to do it. However, he wasn’t against making use of such a student.

Lucius contemplated the timetable for another moment before opening a folder containing the syllabi for Hermione’s classes. He flicked through the sheets until he got to the one for fifth year and extracted it with a flourish to find out which topic they would be tackling that day. 

Medicine.

He arched a brow, his lips pursing with interest. It had potential.

The textbook for the topic was listed as The Magic of Muggle Medicines. Certainly a title worthy of an eye roll. Lucius had all of the textbooks, of course, needing to cross-reference what Granger said during her lessons against them to ensure she was keeping to the curriculum. When he could bear to do so.

Extracting the offensively-titled text from the tottering pile, Lucius eased it open and immediately landed on a procedure called stitches. He baulked, skimming over the page with no small amount of disgust. Muggles truly were barbarians, treating themselves like scraps of material that could simply be sewn together.

He placed an obstructive hand flat over a rather unappealing illustration of the procedure, recalling the day that Severus had dared to suggest Narcissa might look into Muggle medicine for her illness.

Lucius had hired his old Hogwarts acquaintance to be the family's private healer not because he had an excellent bedside manner (in fact, a lack of any manners at all had seen Snape ejected from St. Mungo's quite quickly) but because he was undeniably talented in his field and always willing to intelligently experiment for advancement. 

It’d been an intervention from Severus which had, Lucius was sure, saved an ailing Narcissa after Draco's birth and so Lucius had had no qualms about trusting him with her health again.

Then Severus had, after more than a year of researching magical healing methods, proposed looking at Muggle advancements that were being made. He'd suggested it reluctantly, admittedly, perhaps anticipating the far from enthusiastic response he received.

Narcissa had been so vehement in her refusal to even consider such a thing, and Lucius had been so fixated on abiding by her wishes, that the suggestion had never morphed into anything even close to a discussion. 

As he skimmed the chapter on Muggle medicine with its cold metal tools and its poking and prodding, Lucius wasn't sure they'd made a mistake. It looked so…invasive and unsafe. So barbaric. He could never have watched Narcissa go through a thing like stitches. 

It could, however, be a good jumping off point for Henry Morrison. He would arrange a meeting at breakfast.

“Ginny Weasley hexed a reporter,” Neville said, chortling as Hermione dropped into her seat between him and Lucius Malfoy at breakfast. “He had bats coming out his nose for hours, apparently.”

“Neville, don’t read that gossip column tripe,” Hermione replied, glancing derisively at the ‘Holyhead Harpy Flying Solo’ headline. “It’s useless.”

“I’ll read it when I actually know someone that’s in it,” Neville insisted. “It’s Ginny!”

Hermione mumbled noncommittally, reaching for the coffee. Like Hermione, Neville had been close to Ginny during their time at Hogwarts. Perhaps even more so. Hermione liked the youngest Weasley a great deal and recalled their summers sharing a room at the Burrow with fondness. Unfortunately, they’d rather fallen out of touch with one another, what with Ginny being Ron’s sister and all. 

Pretty, vivacious and a talented Quidditch player, since leaving school Ginny had become a star chaser for the Holyhead Harpies and intensely popular with gossip columnists. 

“She’s single again and the reporter asked her if the reason she can’t keep a man is because she spends all her time at training,” Neville continued, scoffing disgustedly. “Apparently, a friend close to her last partner said her constant training was getting in the way of their ‘intimacy’ and –” 

Neville choked on a laugh, his head falling back. “And he didn’t like that Gilderoy Lockhart has become a regular in the stands at her games.” Neville chortled appreciatively. “Alright, that is hilarious – Ginny will be furious.”

“Ridiculous,” Hermione muttered, waiting for Malfoy to return the milk to the table before picking it up herself and pouring it into her coffee. 

“If she’s broken-hearted, she’s obviously channelling it into her game,” Neville said, folding the newspaper and setting it down. “Oliver said the Harpies beat the Wasps 220 to 160 on Saturday. Didn’t make a difference that Malfoy caught the snitch. I think Oliver’s dreading facing her this weekend.”

As she listened to Neville tell her about his latest letter from Wood, Hermione pulled her chair closer to the table, shifting it to sit as far from Lucius Malfoy as possible, without making it too obvious that she was doing so. 

If Malfoy noticed what she was doing, he didn’t comment. He hadn’t commented on it for the whole week. In fact, they’d barely spoken since their encounter at the Quidditch pitch, interacting only when entirely necessary. 

That was the way Hermione wanted it. 

She’d allowed him to pique her that day and she was well aware she was playing with fire – playing with her own future – every time she stood against him.  

She wanted her rebellions to be less impulsive and more considered. Tactical. That was a nice thought. The reality was that the longer she was exposed to him, the harder she found it to control her temper.  

Lucius Malfoy’s snide superiority sparked something in her. Anger had smouldered somewhere deep in her gut for many years. Anger at being talked down to. Anger at being overlooked. Anger at all the injustices Muggleborns faced. He was a dangerous accelerant. 

Letting him feel the heat of her rage would probably be satisfying if she wasn’t certain to burn herself up in the process. 

“Run that sharp little tongue of yours any faster and you are likely to do yourself a mischief," he had said with that soft sibilance that sent a shiver through her, even in recollection. She had heard the threat in it and recognised the truth of it. Neville had said it enough – she had to be careful. 

Malfoy could ruin everything she had worked for and she still wasn’t entirely sure how she could stop him. All she knew was that when he pushed her buttons, her pride would not allow her to put up no resistance. The best thing, then, was to deprive him of opportunities. For seven days, she’d had some success and she hoped it would continue.

Hermione stiffened, her coffee sloshing in its cup, as the object of her thoughts rose suddenly from the table. Lucius offered Slughorn a murmured “farewell” before he rounded the table, descending into the Great Hall. 

Hermione watched his progress over her coffee, studying the confidence with which he carried himself. He walked like he expected crowds to part and doors to open. They probably did. 

It was when he stopped at the Slytherin table that Hermione sat up straighter, lowering her cup to the table. Malfoy had stooped to engage a student — one of her's — in conversation. Henry Morrison. A fifth year.

Hermione shifted, repressing her urge to rush down to Lucius and push him aside. It was like witnessing the devil recruit a new follower. 

“Hermione,” came Slughorn’s voice to her left. 

“Er –” Hermione momentarily dragged her eyes from Lucius and Morrison to smile distractedly at Slughorn. “Yes…yes, Horace? How can I help?”

“I’m having a little get-together in my rooms next Saturday, dear,” Slughorn said, a hush of confidentiality to his voice. “You know, the usual. First of the year.”

Hermione made a vaguely enthusiastic noise, looking back to the Slytherin table to find that Malfoy was already on his way to the exit. Morrison was completely unreadable, his head bent over his eggs. Frowning, Hermione turned back to Horace, a thrum of concern in her chest.

“You may well scowl, Hermione,” Slughorn said, laughing. “Tell me off, why don’t you! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long, either.”

“What – sorry, Horace?” Hermione asked absently, trying to focus on the potions professor while her mind picked apart the interaction she had just witnessed. Had Malfoy passed the boy something? Parchment? Or had she imagined that? What had they been discussing?

“A Slug Club party, Hermione, dear.” Slughorn sounded a little impatient now. “A Slug Club party! You’re invited, of course, as an esteemed colleague.”

Hermione’s stomach sank. It was funny that she had once craved an invite to Slughorn’s parties and now the thought of having to attend one sent a flood of dread through her. The people who attended those gatherings, she had discovered, tended to be pompous and only interested in conversing so long as they could steer the topic back around to themselves at regular intervals.

She was also certain Lucius Malfoy had been a former Slug Club member, which would not help her in her avoidance of him. God only knew what she’d say to him if he provoked her when she’d consumed the amount of wine she thought she’d need to want to be sociable.

“Oh, wonderful, Horace,” she said, a pained smile creasing the corners of her eyes. “Thank you for the invite.”

“I hope to see you there,” he said, leaning towards her with an imploring expression. “Can’t have you missing the first of the year – I’m planning a most excellent spread!”

“No, no, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Satisfied, Slughorn gave her a fatherly pat on the hand and returned to his eggs and bacon, humming a happy tune. Well, she had to go, didn’t she? But there was no reason why she couldn’t simply show face and disappear sharpish. 

Turning back to her coffee, Hermione glanced up at the Slytherin table one last time and pursed her lips. Henry Morrison had left the table, his half-eaten breakfast abandoned.

“Muggles have made all kinds of medical advancements at a pace that might well surprise you,” Hermione told her OWL students, leaning against the front of her desk. “But we’ll start with some of the more rudimentary procedures today. If you turn to the next page, you’ll see an explanation of stitches.”

There were some discomfited murmurs through the class as students unfamiliar with the process encountered it for the first time. 

“Try to ignore the rather demonic expression on the illustration of the Muggle doctor,” Hermione noted, drawing some chuckles from the class. “It is a generally painless process. Some of them are even dissolvable, so you never need to get them removed. And the needle is never that large.” 

“It doesn’t seem safe, professor,” said one slightly queasy-looking Hufflepuff. “Poking needles into skin like that.”

“It’s very safe, Miss Siu,” Hermione said soothingly. “Muggle hospitals are very clean environments and their doctors train for many years, just like Healers. Regardless of whether you’re a Muggle or a wizard, caring for the health of others is a highly respected profession which requires extensive training.”

A raised hand drew Hermione’s eye and she followed it down the arm until she got to Henry Morrison’s heavily freckled face. 

That thrum of concern she’d felt at breakfast passed through her again. Morrison very rarely raised his hand in her class. Much of the time, she wondered if he was even listening and the quality of his essays didn’t help assuage her suspicions that he wasn't.

Glancing up at Malfoy, who was writing intently and apparently indifferent to the fact that the boy with whom he had been conversing that morning was speaking up, Hermione said, “Yes, Mr Morrison?”

“Do Muggle healers ever get it wrong, though?” he asked, twirling his pen between his fingers. “Like, do they ever hurt their patients? Or not cure them?”

“Doctors, Mr Morrison,” Hermione corrected, adding, “And yes, of course. Tragedies can happen – they aren’t infallible.”

“You sort of act like they are.”

There was a pause in which Hermione blinked, absorbing the boy’s blunt accusation. “Excuse me?”

“You always act like they’re all perfect,” Morrison said, an impatient look passing over his face at being asked to repeat himself. “The Muggles.”

“I assure you, Mr Morrison, I do no such thing,” Hermione said, her eyes rising to Malfoy who still wasn’t looking at her. This had to be him. He had to be involved somehow.

“Well, you don’t tell us about the bad bits, do you?” Morrison pointed out, like he was catching her out somehow. “You wouldn’t have told us that about Muggle healers if I hadn’t asked you.”

“Doctors. And we’re just covering the basics in today’s lesson but you’re always more than welcome to ask questions in my classroom,” Hermione said, patient even as she frowned with displeasure. “As long as you are respectful.”

“Why should I be respectful?” Morrison lifted his shoulders, his lip curling. “They don’t have much respect for us, do they? It’s not like they’re sitting in classes learning about us.”

Hermione had not experienced such direct, persistent confrontation in her classes before. She’d managed difficult students, certainly, but there was something in the set of Morrison’s jaw that made her worry that a firm voice and a threat of taking house points wouldn’t have the necessary impact.  

A trickle of sweat beaded under her arm and started its ticklish journey down while her stomach roiled unpleasantly. 

“The Statute of Secrecy makes that an impossibility for them, Mr Morrison,” Hermione explained. “It was our decision to establish a separation between our worlds and we have a responsibility to –”

“Yeah, because they were hunting us! We do History of Magic too, y’know. We know all about that.”

A few of Henry’s classmates muttered to one another, nodding darkly, and Hermione drew her lower lip between her teeth. That was a period which always left a stark impression on young witches and wizards, despite Binns’ best but inadvertent efforts to make it boring. 

It was unpleasant to be a teenager, just learning to control your magic, and reading about witches and wizards your age and younger who had once suffered for having minor slip ups just like you did when your emotions ran high.

It left a bad taste in the mouth to think that in a different time, in different circumstances, you might have been in danger for something beyond your control. It wasn't every witch and wizard, after all, who'd been able to wield their magic in their own defence.

“Yes,” Hermione acknowledged. “The witch hunts are a tragic, inexcusable period in our history that had victims both magical and Muggle. I cannot pretend to have any particularly easy answers for –”

“So how can you stand there and act like they’re so wonderful and clever, then?” Morrison demanded, his aggression prompting shocked murmurs from some of the other students. “The Muggles. They were even turning on themselves.”

“Mr Morrison, your tone is disrespectful and you’re becoming disruptive,” Hermione replied sharply. “Twenty points from Slytherin.” 

“What happened to being able to ask questions?” Morrison jeered, turning to the class like he was trying to rouse them. A few shifted uncomfortably, some frowning at Morrison while others eyed Hermione speculatively.

“Muggles,” Hermione said, just about managing to keep a waver out of her voice, “are far from perfect.”

At that, Malfoy finally looked up from his parchment, his eyes meeting hers from across the room. There was a gleam in them that made Hermione momentarily  clench her hands into fists and she pushed herself to stand up straight, taking a few steps towards her class. Morrison’s face stood out to her in the centre of them, insolent and angry. 

“Then I don’t see why we’re learning about their lives like they’re something to admire –”

“Mr Morrison,” Hermione interrupted firmly. “Muggles are neither wholly perfect nor wholly terrible. To adopt either position would be to make it impossible to engage in any truly meaningful conversation about them. And the same goes for us as witches and wizards.”

She took a breath and fixed her class with a meaningful look. “They are people. We are people. In this class we may study differences in the way we live our lives but those differences needn’t be divisions. I would also encourage you to see our similarities. It’s true that doctors and healers take different approaches, use different treatments, but underneath that they share a desire to help others.”

Hermione briefly cut her eyes to Malfoy, whose posture was stiff and his stare unrelenting, before returning her attention to her class.

“People, magical or not, can be very afraid of things they don’t understand or consider different. It can make them do awful things. We should always be wary of this capacity for irrational cruelty within ourselves.

"We’re here to learn about Muggles, yes, but not for the purposes of othering them – we’re more than our magic as they’re more than their lack of it. Ignorance, fear and hatred played significant roles in the tragedy of the witch hunts but we reject those things in this class, do you understand?"

The students were quiet, some of them dropping their eyes and fiddling with the creased pages of their textbooks. Morrison did not look down but his cheeks were flushed and he had sunk down in his seat. 

“I am more than happy to take further questions,” Hermione said, her voice softer. “But please make them about Muggle medical procedures – we have much to cover this year before your exam and not a lot of time in which to do it.”

The rest of the class passed without incident, though the atmosphere was subdued and the students were unusually quiet as they filed out of the room at the end. Hermione watched keenly but Malfoy did not even glance at Morrison as he passed him. 

When the door of the classroom clattered shut, Hermione took a moment by her desk to compose herself. 

It was too great a coincidence that Malfoy had spoken to Henry Morrison that morning. Had the man never acted in an underhanded manner in her classes before, Hermione might have thought herself paranoid but that was his most blatant attempt to undermine her yet. 

Gathering together the essays she had marked for her next class, Hermione shuffled them and banged them against the desk to straighten the edges of the pile. She could not lose her temper. She just couldn’t.

Hearing the screech of a chair, Hermione looked up from beneath her brow to see Malfoy rising to his feet. Lifting her head properly, she met his eyes and held his stare as he crossed the room towards her. He had slipped his hands into his pockets, a careless arrogance to his gait that made her grit her teeth.

“An oddly fraught class for you, Miss Granger,” he finally said when he had drawn close enough to be sure that he would be heard without raising his voice above its usual quiet drawl. “That Morrison boy has quite the enquiring mind, doesn’t he?”

Hermione said nothing, the small smirk curling at the corner of Malfoy’s lips thrown into relief as he stopped on the other side of her desk. It told her everything she needed to know.

What would he do, she wondered, if she just flung herself over her desk and smacked him square in his face? Probably accuse her of being a wild, feral Muggle. The idea of that kept her in place, though with her weight on the balls of her feet, prepared to strike all the same.

“And yet you punished him for it,” he continued, oblivious to her violent imaginings. “Twenty points from Slytherin for asking a simple question. Dear me, that hardly seems fair.”

“He was not punished for asking a question, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said stiffly. “Nor was he punished for the fact that he was quite clearly mindlessly spluttering words which had been put into his mouth.” Malfoy raised his eyebrows at that. “He was primarily punished for his inappropriately aggressive tone and determination to disrupt the education of his peers.”

He'd have gotten a week’s detention on top if Hermione hadn't been so sure Malfoy was pulling the strings.

With a self-satisfied air, Lucius watched her fidget with the essays on her desk. “You don’t like to be questioned,” he observed.

“That’s not true,” Hermione replied, relieved when her tone came out measured.

“You would hide Muggle brutality from your students?”

“Not at all,” she said, ceasing to fidget so that she could try drawing her shoulders back like him. It helped her feel more confident. Assertive. Maybe he had some wisdom. “But nor would I have them think that Muggles are savage brutes while wizards are infallible.”

“Some wizards are,” he said with a smooth confidence that made Hermione narrow her eyes.

“I’ve certainly never met one that is,” she replied snidely, giving him a pointed look.

Over Malfoy’s shoulder, the door to the classroom opened and loud, happy conversation spilled into the room, signalling the arrival of her third year class. 

“Excuse me, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said, jerking her head to indicate that it was time for him to return to his seat. 

Unable to say anything more without the risk that her third years would overhear, Lucius shot her a contemptuous look and turned on his heel, scattering a crowd of Hufflepuffs.

By the time dinner rolled around, Lucius was more than a little bit done. Without a proper outlet for his annoyance, he found himself eyeing a plate of mashed potatoes, wondering what would happen if he just flung it at a passing student. 

The Morrison boy had let him down. Just as eager to take a purse of galleons as father but rather less equipped to actually do what was necessary to earn it.

Morrison had started well but he hadn’t pushed back enough; hadn’t been clever enough. He’d let Granger hit her stride and she’d shut the whole thing down before it, or her temper, could run away with her. 

Sighing, Lucius filled his goblet of wine to the brim. He wished he'd just been able to do it himself but dissent was most effective when it came from within the ranks. Besides, he could hardly start asking interrogative, disruptive questions in her classes; that wasn’t what he was there to do. He had to observe. 

His hands were tied in so many irritating ways. 

Being a governor necessitated sticking to certain rules and though Lucius was very good at finding ways around them, he could only do so much without leaving himself open to being questioned or caught. 

Beside him, the irritant herself spooned some steamed carrots onto her plate as she nattered away at the Longbottom boy, though he could only hear snippets of what they were discussing. 

She had moved her seat away from his at some point. He’d noticed it a few days previously. It was a matter of mere inches but it meant that the warm, rose scent of her perfume was much weaker. He’d only really become aware of it by its absence. 

What she thought she was going to gain by moving such an inconsequential distance, Lucius was not sure but he was hardly sorry about it. Let her be uncomfortable. Let her feel on edge around him. People ought to feel that way around their betters. 

Lucius was just lifting his fork when an arm was aggressively thrust over his plate and into his path. Dropping the fork with a clatter, he glowered at the increasingly familiar hand now clutching the salt and turned his face to Hermione to find her already gazing at him. Waiting for a reaction. 

He had thought her oddly composed in the aftermath of her encounter with Morrison, her expression too knowing for him to convince himself that she didn't suspect him of foul play. She had gotten her little jabs in, of course, but nothing truly significant. Apparently because she’d been saving her revenge for this moment. 

She was good at finding his pressure points, he’d give her that – this was a move that, while innocuous to anyone else, was specifically designed to annoy him. He almost had to admire it. 

They scowled at one another and Hermione painfully slowly dragged the glass salt shaker over the table, the sound of it scraping over the wood making Lucius clench his jaw. It was only when the salt was actually next to her plate that she dropped her eyes from his, lifted the shaker, and delicately shook it over her dinner. 

Ignoring Lucius’ furious stare on the side of her face, Hermione set the salt back down and, just as slowly, nudged it back over to where she’d found it, her arm edging over his plate once again. 

Her eyes slid to his and, relinquishing the salt, she withdrew her hand to return it to her side, nudging his knife just hard enough as she went to send it clattering onto the stone floor. 

"Whoops," Hermione said, a false, tight smile distorting her face.

Lucius didn't dare to retrieve the knife, the temptation to embed it in the back of her invasive little hand being too great. 

It was only the persistent tap of Slughorn’s hand on his shoulder that finally prompted Lucius to drag his eyes away from Granger, though he was sure he spied a self-satisfied little smirk on her lips as he did so.  

Someone had to teach that girl some manners.

Chapter Text

October 8th

Slughorn hadn’t lied when he’d said he was planning to put on a good spread. Hermione stood by the creaking food table in his expansive rooms, a goblet of wine in hand as she deliberated between putting gouda or brie on her cracker. 

She had only been at the party for ten minutes and had resolved to stay for half an hour before making her excuses. A bad stomach from excess consumption of cheese seemed as good an excuse as any. Hermione shoved the brie-loaded cracker into her mouth. Even better if she could make it a truthful one. 

The party had already been in full swing for a few hours by the time of her arrival – a mix of upper-school Hogwarts students and outside guests floating around the room to converse with one another, the only certain thing connecting them being Slughorn. He dearly loved that – it usually made him the first point of conversation. 

Practically unhinging her jaw to slide another cracker into her mouth, Hermione turned to look at the room at large. 

She wished Neville had been able to join her – it would have been much more enjoyable with him there. They could have stood on the sidelines and laughed at the general pomposity. Sprout had, unfortunately, wrangled him into helping her tend the lunamediocris in Greenhouse Two. Their petals only opened on the full moon, so there was no avoiding the task. 

Her primary objective was to find Slughorn and engage him in a brief conversation so that he knew that she had turned up. Rising onto her tiptoes, Hermione searched the room earnestly. He was hardly a wallflower, it shouldn’t be so difficult to find him. 

Stepping away from the safety of the food table, Hermione slipped through the mingling guests and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. A high-pitched giggle drew her eye and, turning, she spotted some of her sixth year girls gathered in a highly suspicious circle. 

The giggle had clearly come from the lone Slytherin of the group, Priscilla Price, who was tucking something into the pocket of her robes, having just taken it from one of her Ravenclaw friends. 

Eyes narrowed, Hermione prepared to approach the girls to investigate when the sound of her name being cheerfully called forced her to turn away. 

Slughorn, it turned out, had found her first. 

The pleased smile on Hermione’s face slipped when she saw he was standing with Lucius Malfoy. The differences in the heights and builds of the men was almost comical, Slughorn only reaching Malfoy’s shoulder, much like Hermione. Where Malfoy was far broader in his shoulders, Slughorn had the advantage around his waist.

Slughorn invited her over with an impatient but well-meaning gesture and, softly sighing through her nose, Hermione tried to hide her resignation as she acquiesced. Malfoy didn’t look entirely pleased by the turn of events either and that was the only solace she could take from it. 

“Horace,” Hermione said politely once she had reached the two men. “Mr Malfoy.”

“Lovely to see you, Hermione, dear,” Slughorn said, clinking his goblet of wine against her own. “I was just telling Malfoy here that I hoped you would show your face – you never disappoint when it comes to providing interesting conversation.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you to say, Horace,” Hermione said, a genuinely flattered smile flitting across her face. “But you’re giving me too much credit and not nearly enough to yourself – the conversational partner is a big part of it.”

Slughorn placed a hand on his belly as a chuckle shook his body. “Oh, she’s charming when she wants to be, Lucius,” he said, elbowing a very stiff Lucius in the side. “A bit like yourself.”

Hermione allowed her gaze to drift up to Malfoy who merely eyed her stonily. It was perfectly clear from his expression that he found her charm somewhat lacking, as she did his. 

His supercilious stare trailed down her person and Hermione shifted under its weight, her dress robes feeling even more awkward on her body than when she’d put them on earlier that night. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t like her dress robes – they were a deep sapphire blue and sat off her shoulders, framing her collarbone in a flattering way. It had just been so long since she’d worn them that they felt oddly heavy and restrictive around her legs. The bell sleeves were also not ideal for picking over a table of food and Hermione self-consciously tucked her right arm more tightly into her side in case she’d dipped it in chutney and not noticed.

“Dress robes, Miss Granger,” Lucius observed, lifting his wine to his lips. “You’ve made an effort.”

“Yes, you look lovely,” Horace added cheerfully, not hearing the slight in Lucius’ words that Hermione did. 

“I know you like a bit of tradition with your get-togethers, Horace,” Hermione said with a tight smile. “Must respect the desires of the host.”

“I quite agree,” said Lucius smoothly, giving Hermione a significant look. “One has certain assimilatory responsibilities when one is an invited guest.”

Tightening her jaw and her hold on her goblet, Hermione swallowed her desire to fling her wine all over his smart robes. They were somehow even more fine than those he wore day-to-day, deep green accents adding a new depth to the black.

“And how are you two getting on, hm?” asked Slughorn, looking back and forth between them with an indulgent expression. “I must say, our mealtimes are far quieter than I thought they’d be. Talking yourselves out between classes, are you? I am envious.”

Hermione and Malfoy looked at one another, for the first time united in that neither was sure how to explain to Horace exactly how they were ‘getting on’. 

It was, Hermione thought, the first time she’d seen Lucius Malfoy look anything close to hesitant and she could have sworn he was debating what he ought to say. ‘We’re at war’ felt rather dramatic but not entirely inaccurate. 

Part of the problem was that Horace didn’t like to think he was ever wrong about a person or their character. If he thought Hermione and Lucius ought to be getting along swimmingly and they told him that they were, in fact, doing the opposite then he wouldn’t take it well. In fact, he might have to take some time to reassess how he saw them both and Hermione had a feeling that, with her lack of useful connections, she might not fare too well under reappraisal.

Best not to dig into it at all. 

The surest way to distract Horace was to ask his opinion, so Hermione laid a gentle hand on his arm. 

“Horace, while I have you – I’ve been struggling to get a hold of enough borage for my headache potions. You don’t have any connections with more plentiful supplies than the apothecaries by any chance, do you?”

Slughorn practically swelled with purpose, the galleon-sized gold buttons on his waistcoat straining. 

“Oh, my dear, of course,” he said, a pitying tilt to his brow. “It’s been scarce recently. A disruption in the supply chain, I’ve been reliably informed by one of my sources.”

Hermione tutted her disappointment, ignoring the burning feeling on the side of her head caused by Malfoy’s curious stare. Surely he couldn’t be annoyed that she was manipulating the conversation away from their relationship, such as it was. It was too fucking bizarre to explain.

“I do , however, know a witch in Somerset with a most expansive garden,” Slughorn continued in an undertone, winking at Hermione. “I’m sure a little letter could be sent in the morning.”

“Why don’t you replace the borage with daisyroot,” Malfoy suggested, a brow arched. “It has close to the same properties and it’s much more widely available.”

“Indeed, that is –” Slughorn began, nodding.

“That’s not what the recipe asks for,” Hermione said firmly.

A disparaging little smile formed on Malfoy’s face. 

“You don’t apply any creativity to your potion making?” he asked. “You can’t always have every ingredient to hand, Miss Granger. Horace has praised you endlessly but I’m afraid I don’t think there’s much skill in simply following instructions.”

“Daisyroot would not offset the risk of dry mouth like borage,” Hermione said snippily, drawing herself up. “In fact, in some drinkers it can actually cause it. Perhaps deviating from the instructions is a creative and clever approach for you, Mr Malfoy. For me, it’s just another opportunity to be derided for a lack of skill or knowledge.”

A shrill laugh from the other side of the room where Priscilla Price and her friends had retreated into a dark corner drew their attention. Squinting through the dim, Hermione thought she saw one of the girls stumble before being caught by the others.

“Terribly sorry,” Hermione murmured, passing Slughorn her half-full goblet of wine. “I think I’d best go and see what’s happening with Miss Price.”

Lucius’ hold on his wine was tight as he watched Hermione delicately pick up her dress robes to keep their hem off the floor as she moved swiftly through the crowd.

“Charming witch,” Horace said fondly, peering into her goblet to see how much wine she’d left him. “Charming.”

“When she wants to be,” Lucius said darkly, reminding Slughorn of his own words. 

“Oh –” Slughorn chuckled. “Yes, yes. Quite the temper too, mind, but I imagine she’s on her best behaviour around you.”

‘Hardly’, Lucius wanted to say. Instead, he merely made a noncommital noise, lifting his wine to take a drink through pursed lips. 

It stood to reason that Granger wasn’t an impudent harridan with everyone she encountered; there were too many people who seemed to like her for that to be the case. Knowing that, however, only served to make Lucius even more resentful – she was capable of manners and respect, she just didn’t show them to him, the person who deserved them most.

Slughorn leaned into Lucius with a confidential air. “Now, don’t tell her I told you this but I recall a day when she was in her sixth year and a very unusual cauldron explosion saw a young Mr Weasley lose his eyebrows and a fair chunk of his hair with them. I knew it was down to her; absolutely certain of it.”

Lucius looked down at Slughorn, brows raised judgmentally. “And you did nothing?”

“Couldn’t prove it!” Slughorn cried with a delighted laugh. “And even if I could, I think I would have let her away with it. I always got the impression they were involved. Thought her a bit above him, if I’m honest. In the talent department especially – I could hardly believe it when she told me she was a Muggleborn. I must say, I am fond of her.”

“Horace…” Lucius said slowly, his stomach roiling unpleasantly as he watched Slughorn drink directly from the goblet Granger had left with him. Surely not .

Slughorn lowered the wine goblet and blinked at Lucius over the rim of it. “Hm?” 

On seeing Lucius’ raised eyebrows and curled lip, Slughorn shook his head hurriedly. 

“Oh, no, it’s not like that , man,” he said, clearly aghast that Lucius might even think such a thing of him. “She could be my granddaughter . But I wonder if I haven’t always had something of a soft spot for Muggleborns. Especially talented ones and Hermione Granger is that.”

Lucius swallowed his disgust, fighting to keep his expression in check. A soft spot for Muggleborns. Was it simply endemic at Hogwarts? Truly, he was starting to think that the best thing the governors could do for the school would be to burn it to the ground. 

“You don’t ever think you indulged her too much?” he asked. 

“Oh, not at all,” Slughorn replied with a cheerful certainty that made Lucius wonder if the man was losing his grip on reality. “Besides, a wizard should be put in his place once in a while – it’s good for the ego, don’t you think?” 

Lucius gave no response, instead patting his waistcoat pocket. Relieved to feel the solidity of his cigarette case, he excused himself and made a beeline for the exit. If he didn’t smoke something in the next ten minutes then he was going to throw something instead.

“Miss Price, please try to cooperate with me, here,” Hermione pleaded with her fantastically intoxicated student. “We’re some way from your common room.”

“I want to go back,” Priscilla whined from her slumped position on the floor, her pretty emerald green dress robes spread around her like a potion spill.

“You can’t; you’re drunk. I need to put you to bed.”

“You’re drunk,” Priscilla said with a pout. “You go to bed.”

“Oh my god,” Hermione whispered to herself, frustratedly scrunching her hair at her scalp. 

As soon as she had reached the group of girls in Slughorn’s rooms, they had crowded around her, panicking and spouting apologies.

“We just wanted to try some –” 

“Priscilla said she got it from –” 

“It doesn’t even taste –” 

“She’s had too much, she can barely stand. ”

Sure enough, Priscilla had been leaning against the wall, her head lolling and her shoulders shaking with poorly suppressed giggles. 

“Bed,” Hermione had snapped. “All of you. Right now. I’ll deal with Miss Price now and you tomorrow.”

The Ravenclaws – clever girls – had scattered immediately, leaving Hermione to help her student out of Slughorn’s office without attracting too much attention to save the girl any embarrassment.

As soon as the cooler air of the corridors hit Priscilla, some life had come back into her and she’d started begging to go back. That was how they found themselves mere feet from the Grand Staircase and at an impasse.

The thought of getting Priscilla all the way from Slughorn’s sixth floor office to the dungeons in such a state was extremely daunting. Hermione knew she could do it but she suspected it would take until sunrise. 

It was tempting to levitate her but her consciousness put Hermione off – even the slightest shift could throw off the spell’s balance and Priscilla’s drunken state made a ‘slight shift’ an absolute certainty. Simply too much risk on a moving staircase. 

There was also the temptation to just knock the girl unconscious and then levitate her but Hermione wasn’t sure her conscience could cope with that course of action, appealing as it was. 

Sinking onto her haunches, Hermione looked Priscilla in the face. She was pale with a clammy sheen to her brow, her long black hair far from its usually flawless state. 

“Priscilla,” Hermione said as gently as possible. “You have to get up. The party is finished now. I’m going to help you to bed.”

Tears suddenly filled Priscilla’s eyes and she dropped her head back against the wall. “Is it because I ruined it? I ruined it, didn’t I? I always –” She cut herself off with a sharp hiccough and moaned, her chin dropping towards her chest.

“Can I help you up, Priscilla?” Hermione asked, extending her hands. “Is that alright?”

Sniffling, Priscilla nodded. “I wanna go to bed now, pr’fessor,” she said, an unmistakeable slur to her speech as she held out her arms like a child. “Please.”

Taking Priscilla by her hands, Hermione hauled her to her feet. They were close to the same height and build, making it hard for Hermione to move with any great speed. Slinging an arm around Priscilla’s waist, Hermione pulled one of the girl’s arms around her own shoulder.

The staircase loomed ahead of them and Hermione gulped. Perhaps it would be better to go back to Horace's office and ask for some help. More sensible, certainly. 

Hermione was just considering making this suggestion to Priscilla when a voice behind them cut through her thoughts.

“Miss Granger, what on earth are you doing?”

“Oh, please, no,” Hermione whined to herself, sure tears were gathering in her own eyes at the sound of those absurdly commanding tones.

Hermione ensured she had a tight hold on her student and craned her neck to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, Lucius Malfoy stood in the corridor behind them, his cane gripped in one hand and a disbelieving expression on his face.

She'd take help from anyone but him. 

“Miss Price has…” Hermione hesitated, glancing around at Priscilla just as she suppressed a burp, the force of it making her sway on the spot. “Imbibed. I’m helping her to bed. Just be on your way, Mr Malfoy. We’ll be fine.”

“Oh, you'll be 'fine' will you?” came Lucius’ sarcastic response, followed by the sharp click click of his smart shoes drawing closer. "Because to me, it looks more likely that you'll tumble to your death and take a student with you.”

In response to Lucius’ doom-laden prophecy Priscilla squealed and threw her arms tightly around Hermione.

“I can hardly levitate her like this,” Hermione exclaimed, Priscilla's chokehold rendering her unable to turn to look at him properly. “It wouldn’t be safe – Miss Price, please !”

“Merlin above –” 

Growling impatiently, Lucius closed the space between them at speed. In a surprising display of gentleness, he eased Priscilla’s arm from around Hermione’s neck and held the girl steady.

“Take this,” he snapped at Hermione, far less gentle as he shoved his cane into her now open arms and used the momentum to push her aside.

“Mr Malfoy –” Hermione began, clutching his cane in her arms like it was the only thing stopping her from keeling over with shock. “Mr Malfoy, this isn’t –”

Completely ignoring Hermione’s stuttered protests, Lucius took only a moment to assess Priscilla before he hooked an arm around her waist and another behind her knees to haul her up into his arms. Hermione caught him wince as Priscilla squealed again, though it contained a good degree less distress than before.

Not even sparing Hermione a glance, Lucius began descending the stairs, Priscilla’s robe-covered legs dangling over the crook of his arm the only sign that she was even there.

“Mr Malfoy –” Hermione called at his back. “Mr Malfoy, you can’t just lift a student! You need to ask for permission. You need consent to –”

“He has it, pr’fessor!” Priscilla cheerfully slurred from Malfoy’s arms, her assurance followed by a trilling giggle. “I’m 17, sir.”

“For the love of Christ,” Hermione groaned, trotting downstairs after them, Malfoy’s cane still clutched in her hand. 

Catching up with them as Lucius waited for the next staircase to swing around, Hermione heard Priscilla still chattering away at him. He didn’t seem to be willing to acknowledge it, his chin raised and a pained expression on his face.

“Susie says your son is the fittest Quidditch player in the league, Mr Malfoy,” Priscilla said, the words all running together, “but I’ve always liked an older –”

“Miss Price,” Hermione interrupted, stepping onto the next staircase alongside Malfoy, “stop speaking . For your own sake.”

“Don’ you think he’s handsome, pr’fessor?” 

When Hermione gave no reply, Priscilla lowered her voice to what she obviously thought was a whisper, though it was actually just an ordinary speaking volume. “You can tell me. Jus’ whisper it, he won’ hear.”

They were still four floors up, Hermione thought, peering down through the rotating staircases below them. Surely if she jumped now the impact would kill her. 

“Be silent, Miss Price,” Hermione said sharply, desperate to rein the girl in. Lucius Malfoy’s ego hardly needed further inflation – he’d probably float away. 

“That’s yes, isn’ it?” crowed Priscilla, making Hermione grit her teeth. 

It was not a yes. It was far from a yes. When you were as ugly on the inside as Lucius Malfoy, it didn’t matter how attractive you were on the outside. She could hardly say that to a student, though. Especially not in front of him.  

“S’fine,” Priscilla added soothingly. “Don’ think he heard.”

Priscilla fell mercifully silent after that, declaring that it was rather rude that neither of them would properly talk to her. 

Experiencing first and second hand embarrassment on a truly cellular level, Hermione chanced a glance at Malfoy. His face was tight but Hermione suspected it was with focus rather than anger since he couldn’t actually see the steps he was descending. 

He didn’t seem to be having too much trouble with carrying Priscilla but he was clearly making an effort to be careful with her and Hermione felt a very unfamiliar rush of gratitude towards him for that. His intervention, while not ideal, had probably saved her hours of hassle. 

They continued their descent, Hermione attempting to avoid meeting the curious stares of the portraits that lined the walls. They loved an unusual sight and would no doubt whisper about this one for weeks. Priscilla had best hope that none of them knew her by name. 

The only other figure that they passed was the Grey Lady, who looked at Priscilla with pity and Lucius with dark suspicion. Hermione merely did her best to look like a reassuring presence.

For her part, Priscilla kept her vow of offended silence until they reached the second floor, at which point she apparently grew bored. 

“Pr’fessor Granger,” she asked, her head lolling against Malfoy’s shoulder, “do you actually know any Muggles? Personally?” 

Hermione blinked at the unexpected question and then pondered how honest she ought to be. Of course she knew some Muggles personally; she’d been raised by two of them. 

Students were not, however, usually privy to the blood status of professors – any aspects of their personal life, really – and Hermione knew there were good reasons for that. 

When she had first graduated into her apprenticeship, a few of the students who had been in years close to hers had known but, as time had gone on, they had left and she had gradually become another professor whose private affairs were largely a mystery.

“I –” Hermione glanced up at Malfoy out of the corner of her eye but he was looking straight ahead, his eyes fixed on some unknown point in the distance. 

What was appropriate to reveal to a student? Would she be hesitating so much if she wasn’t a Muggleborn? Slughorn would surely have no problem with telling his students he was a pureblood. Would it put her authority at risk with students who behaved in the same vein as Draco Malfoy?

There was a good chance Priscilla wouldn't even remember. And Hermione found that a part of her didn't entirely mind the idea of students knowing – she might have liked knowing she had a Muggleborn teacher in her early years at school. Someone to look up to or even go to when things were challenging.

“Yes,” Hermione finally said quietly. “I do, Miss Price. My parents.”

"Oh," Priscilla said. "So you're – hic – Muggleborn. Makes sense I s'pose." She paused, her feet jiggling up and down near Hermione’s shoulder with each step Malfoy took. “I know a Muggle.”

A Muggle. Just one. More than some, Hermione supposed. "Is that so?"

“M-my granny,” Priscilla revealed through a yawn. “She's a Muggle and she was s- so beautiful my granda just had to marry her. Isn’ that lovely? He loved her so much.”

Oh. Hermione glanced around at Priscilla but the girl's eyes were closed, her hands curled protectively into her own chest, her head gently bouncing against Malfoy's shoulder.

“I –”

“They all make fun of me,” Priscilla murmured. “Bout gran.”

Hermione swallowed, her eyes never leaving her student. “Who does, Miss Price?”

“Jus’…y’know.” 

Priscilla waved a careless hand and Lucius swiftly raised his chin to avoid being struck by it. 

“She lives ‘lone now – my granda died last year. Write to her every week. They make fun of me cause they saw the letters. Sh –” Priscilla yawned again, wriggling in Malfoy’s arms. “She still puts stamps on them even though it’s owl post. Always has in case the owl drops it. She’s better than them though, so –” Priscilla blew a raspberry and Hermione was fairly certain that some spit landed on Malfoy’s expensive robes. “Kind. Love my gran. Miss her.” 

Priscilla sniffled and aggressively buried her face into Malfoy’s chest. He only cleared his throat uncomfortably, the first sound he had made in the nearly-twenty minutes they’d been descending through the castle.

“You can write to her tomorrow,” suggested Hermione gently.

“Yeah.” Priscilla yawned again, softer this time. “Will. Thanks, pr’fess’r.”

They reached the bottom of the next staircase and Lucius finally chanced a glance down at the suddenly limp girl in his arms. 

“She’s asleep,” he murmured, his voice slightly crackly from lack of use but audibly relieved. 

“Probably for the best,” Hermione said on a tired sigh.

“How likely do you think it is that she’ll vomit?” Lucius asked, the concern in his voice new to Hermione. Those were, she could only assume, some very expensive robes.

“Very,” she replied, skipping down the last few stairs of the next staircase so that she could shoot him an ominous look over her shoulder. “Good luck.” 

As they descended into the echoing Entrance Hall, Hermione nodded curtly to a patrolling prefect who gawped at Lucius and Priscilla, silently telling the student to be on his way. He obeyed, though very slowly. 

Hermione settled back into her place by Malfoy’s side and studied the unconscious Priscilla who was bouncing like a ragdoll in his arms. Priscilla was one of her students and not a bad one. It made an odd kind of protectiveness pass through her.

“I don’t know how she got in this state in the first place,” Hermione mused aloud. “I mean, I do but the source –”

“Obviously she snuck in her own alcohol,” Lucius interrupted curtly. “She’s 17 and a Slytherin.”

“She’s at school,” Hermione pointed out to him, stunned that he was being so blasé about it. “Aren’t you supposed to be a governor?”

“I’m also realistic.”

“Sure,” Hermione scoffed, muttering, “so realistic that you’d favour Divination over Muggle Studies.”

“I cannot imagine this is a frequent occurrence,” Lucius said, a sidelong glare serving as his only acknowledgement of her jibe, “or I would have received some kind of report from concerned parents. They find out more than you realise.”

Hermione shook her head, securing Malfoy’s cane under her arm so that she could push the heavy, creaking door to the dungeons open with both hands. 

“Well, no,” she said, allowing Malfoy to pass unimpeded. “It’s not a regular occurrence. Not as far as I’m aware. Even isolated incidents should be investigated, though, so I really ought to speak to Horace about –”

“Perhaps consider, Miss Granger,” Lucius said, grimacing slightly as he adjusted Priscilla in his arms while trying not to disturb her, “that her morning is going to be unpleasant enough without further punishment. She is, most unfortunately, simply acting her age.”

Oh sure, Hermione thought, resisting the urge to laugh. Suddenly Lucius Malfoy was understanding and measured. 

“I’m not going to let you tug on my heartstrings and trick me into failing to do my due diligence as her professor just so you can use it against me,” Hermione told him, an uncompromising jut to her jaw. “I’ll be speaking to Horace and Filius in the morning – what happens next is up to them.”

Hermione brought them to a stop in front of an unremarkable, blank stretch of wall. She was fairly sure it was the right one, though she still surreptitiously glanced at Malfoy, knowing that he would be delighted to point out if she was wrong. 

“Echis carinatus,” Hermione announced to the wall, satisfied when it slid aside with a grind of stone on stone. She slipped into the small space that had opened up, leaving Malfoy to follow.

As a professor, Hermione was permitted to have common room passwords in case of emergencies but there was something especially delicious about having the password to the Slytherin common room. She liked to imagine Salazar Slytherin rolling in his grave with every step she took into his domain.

The staircase down to the common room was narrow and steep and Hermione thought she heard Malfoy make a small noise of despair in the back of his throat as he contemplated it with the increasingly heavy teenager in his arms. 

Perhaps she would suggest to Horace that he go easy on Priscilla, if only because she’d made it possible for Hermione to hear Lucius Malfoy make such a noise. 

When they finally arrived in the deserted, dimly lit common room, Hermione approached Lucius and gently shook Priscilla’s arm. 

“Miss Price,” she said, careful not to raise her voice too much at the risk of also waking the students already in their beds. “Miss Price, you need to wake up.”

Priscilla groaned and turned her face away from Malfoy’s robes, her eyes fluttering open to stare at her surroundings with apparent confusion. Raising her eyes, she looked up into Hermione’s face and frowned, clearly wondering how she’d missed the last leg of their journey to the common room.

“Miss Price, I need to put you to bed,” Hermione told her. 

“Can’t he do it?”

Lucius’ eyebrows rose and, with an abruptness that made Hermione jolt forward with a gasp, he removed the arm supporting Priscilla beneath her knees and practically dropped her onto her feet. Priscilla choked with panic and clutched at him, only kept steady by his arm still around her waist. 

“Bed, Miss Price,” he said, looking down at her without a hint of a smile. “Now.”

Snorting out an ecstatic, girlish laugh, Priscilla allowed Hermione to usher her away from Malfoy. 

“Here,” Hermione said, thrusting his cane at him with a disapproving glower. “I’ll handle this.”

Lucius watched Hermione place a supportive arm around Priscilla Price and lead her, stumbling, down the corridor towards the girls’ dormitories. 

He recognised the girl from the sixth year Muggle Studies class, of course, but he was more familiar with her family name. 

They were infamous in Pureblood circles.

Her grandfather, Arthur Price – the only Price heir – had been held up as a warning by Lucius’ own father. 

“Don’t you ever let your eyes stray, boy,” Abraxas had told Lucius at the age of 13, glaring at him sternly over the desk that had seemed to always sit between them. “You’ll stick to good pureblood girls or you’ll go the way of Arthur Price.”

‘Going the way of Arthur Price’ had, very quickly, become a euphemism for being disowned. Left without a penny or a friend, pushed out of the family and good pureblood society as a whole. 

“And all he has to show for it is a filthy Muggle,” Abraxas had drawled disdainfully. “And no doubt a whole litter of little better than Mudbloods that he can’t afford to keep.”

As far as Lucius was aware, Arthur Price had indeed, despite being his parents’ only heir, never received a single knut of their vast fortune. 

The way Priscilla told it, he didn't regret it. 

Fool.

The girl's own father, Llewelyn, had gone some way to improving the family's prospects. Financially, at least. He had created his own line of Pepper-Up potions which utterly dominated the market, even though Lucius strongly suspected his only innovation on the original recipe was to add a pinch of cinnamon to make it more palatable. 

Apparently a mildly successful family business was enough to spark Slughorn’s interest in a student these days. The man’s standards were clearly slipping.

Lucius would have thought that succeeding Price family members might have held their short-sighted ancestor in contempt for his selfishness. Yet, here was his granddaughter, boldly declaring her Muggle bloodline and even studying Muggles. A family of idiots, clearly.

Peering down at his cane, Lucius thought he spied Granger’s grubby little paw prints along it and made a gentle noise of disgust in the back of his throat. He dipped a hand into an inner pocket of his robes and withdrew a crisp white handkerchief to wipe them away. 

Satisfied that his cane was once again gleaming, Lucius tucked his handkerchief back into its place and turned his attention to the wider common room. 

The dying fire made it hard to see into the corners of the room but it was all so familiar to him that he could have made his way around it with his eyes closed. 

A wave of nostalgia crashed over Lucius as he took in the noticeboard, the sofas, the familiar view into the greeny depths of the lake. He found himself pulled further into the room and one particular memory tugged him towards the fireplace. 

Looking over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, Lucius stooped and wedged his thumb under a thick but noticeably loose stone on the hearth so that he could lift it and peer at its underside. 

Sure enough, there they were: he and Narcissa’s initials. She had carved them shortly before he’d left Hogwarts, vowing that she would always be his by choice, not just out of the contractually-binding duty that was their marriage contract.

A wistful smile flitted over his face. Narcissa had been very enamoured of gestures like that, even when grown. No piece of jewellery had been quite good enough for her until it had some declaration of his love carved into it. 

Lucius brushed a thumb over the curly ‘N’ gouged into the stone. He thought of what Granger had told him about intent and magic, wondering how much of Narcissa’s magic lingered in the stone.

“Why are you still here?”

Lucius immediately dropped the stone with a heavy thump and shot to his feet, as though a spark had jumped out of the fireplace and burned him. Turning on the spot, he found Granger standing on the other side of the green sofa, having just re-emerged from the girl’s dormitories. She had a hand on the back of the sofa, the very faint glow from the dying fire just about reaching her.

Lucius cleared his throat and drew his shoulders back. “I'm recalling my youth,” he said, his eyes surveying the wider room. “Much of it was spent here.”

Hermione’s eyebrows twitched upwards but she seemed more than able to accept such an explanation. “Alright, well, we should probably go now,” she said, jerking her head towards the exit. “Come on.”

“It is not for you to issue orders to me, Miss Granger,” Lucius said to her back as she made her way towards the staircase.

She paused, half-turning to look back at him, a few long curls falling down her back to uncover her bare shoulder. “I can’t leave you here unsupervised, Mr Malfoy.”

Squeezing his cane, Lucius narrowed his eyes. “I am a governor of this school and –”

“That may be but there’s a very inebriated 17 year-old girl along that corridor who is still asking about you,” Hermione said, levelling him with a meaningful look. “I brought you in here and you’ll leave with me. For your own protection as much as anything.”

Lucius’ mouth snapped shut with a click of his teeth and he closed the space between himself and Hermione in three long strides. “Let’s go, then,” he said shortly, passing her to take the stairs first.

He thought he heard a soft snort of laughter from Hermione as she followed him but elected to ignore it. He would not give her the satisfaction of revealing that the forwardness of a teenage girl had made him distinctly uncomfortable. Apparently the Prices were simply a family inclined towards inappropriate fixations. 

“You left her alone?” Lucius asked as they emerged into the corridor, looking around to see the stone grinding into place behind Hermione. 

“No,” she responded, falling into place by his side. “A few of the girls in her dormitory woke up amidst the 'commotion' and offered to make sure she was okay.” Hermione paused, her brow furrowing in a troubled way. “Though I wonder if I should have trusted them after what she said…”

“They will take care of her,” Lucius said shortly. “Slytherins look after their own.”

“Apparently they also bully their own for daring to have Muggle grandparents,” Hermione responded with an accusatory scowl, like he had ordered the bullying himself. 

“I would recommend that you forget she let that little detail slip,” advised Lucius, rolling his eyes as he spied Hermione inelegantly hoisting her robes to her ankles so that she could ascend the stairs in the Entrance Hall more efficiently. “Do not intervene.”

“As her professor, I have a responsibility to take care of her well being and –”

“Slytherin is not Gryffindor, Miss Granger,” interrupted Lucius. “They will deride her for her heritage – especially with the way she so carelessly flaunts it – but she is still one of them. They will look after her as long as she also remains loyal to them. Not tattling to professors is a part of that loyalty.”

“Is that why you helped her?” Hermione asked, peering up at him. “Because she’s a Slytherin?”

They reached a landing where the next staircase was yet to swing around and Lucius instinctively extended his cane in front of Hermione, whacking her abdomen to force her to halt. 

A choked yelp escaped Hermione and she glared down at the cane, bringing her right hand to her middle to rub the point of contact.

“I was going to stop,” she growled, extending her left hand to shove the cane away.

“I helped her,” Lucius said, lowering his cane with a dignified air, “because a student and professor tumbling to their deaths on the Grand Staircase would be less than ideal for the board of governors.” He cast her a sidelong glare. “I receive enough letters as it is.”

“I…appreciate your assistance anyway,” Hermione mumbled, drawing a raised brow from Lucius. 

It was as close to thanks as he was likely to get from her.

They fell into an unsettled silence, continuing to ascend the Grand Staircase in tandem. 

Lucius could hear the murmurs and conversations of the hundreds of portraits surrounding them and, though he knew it was highly unlikely, he felt like they were asking one another why the scion of house Malfoy was walking with a Mudblood. 

“Why are you still walking with me?” he asked with an accusatory sharpness.

“I’m going to bed,” Hermione snapped, a rosy pinkness spreading on her cheeks. “We stay on the same floor, I can hardly help it.”

It was to Lucius’ great relief that they finally reached the fourth floor landing. He was thoroughly looking forward to pushing open the tiny window of his room and having a well-deserved cigarette. The Price girl hadn’t been heavy at first but when she’d slipped into unconsciousness, supporting her had all been on him. He could already tell that the muscles in his arms were going to make their dissatisfaction known in the morning.

They had only taken a few steps down the fourth floor corridor itself when Lucius heard a high-pitched cackle ahead of them, coming from around the corner that led to their rooms. 

Hermione stumbled to a stop, colour draining from her face. Lucius slowed his steps and looked around at her, frowning.

“What –” he began.

“Peeves,” she said, a faintly panicked edge to her voice as she turned this way and that, like she was looking for an escape. 

Lucius’ heart sank on hearing another peeling cackle, louder this time – a sure sign that the awful little devil was coming towards them. As though his night had not been bad enough, now he had to contend with –

"Move!"

That was Lucius' only warning before he felt himself being pushed by a pair of demanding hands. He looked around, bewildered, lifting his cane in an attempt to bat them away. 

“Granger, just what do you think you’re –”

“In here,” Hermione whispered urgently, reaching around him to open a wooden door before shoving Lucius bodily inside.  

“Granger!” Lucius barked, stumbling over a metal bucket in what turned out to be, to his horror, a cramped broom cupboard.

“Shhh!” 

Hermione pulled the heavy door closed with a resounding thud , turning it into a cramped, dark broom cupboard. 

Lucius had thought it before and he was sure he would think it again: Hermione Granger had a peculiar talent for making him suffer.

“Granger, what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Lucius demanded, blinking rapidly in an attempt to force his eyes to adjust to the darkness. 

The only light coming into the cupboard was from the corridor outside, leaking in through the gaps around and underneath the door against which Hermione leaned, her back pressed to it as she fought to calm her breathing. Lucius could just about see her outline, her shoulders raised high like she was using them to hold up her ears. 

“It’s Peeves,” she explained, a desperate edge to her voice. “I heard him earlier today, singing some stupid song about filling balloons with flobberworm mucus and I –”

Even over Granger’s rapidly rising, defensive voice, Lucius could hear the spine-tingling laugh of Peeves drawing closer and, if he was not mistaken, a resounding, sickening splat. 

“I mean, if you want to get a face full of flobberworm mucus then please feel free to go back out –”

Lucius fisted a hand in his expensive robes. Even scourgify wouldn't get out the Flobberworm mucus stains. 

“Ickle students out of bed gets what they deserves!” 

Splat. 

“It’s not like I particularly care if you –”

Splat.

In the space of a blink Lucius crossed the cupboard and, within another, he pressed Hermione to the door and clamped his left hand over her mouth.

Her protests escaped as high-pitched, muffled whines around his palm and she raised her hands to scrabble at him. Lucius simply pressed harder, using his weight against her.

“Miss Granger,” he said, dipping his head to hiss directly into her curls near where he thought her ear must be. 

She responded like he’d cast a body bind curse, going stiff as a board beneath him, her hands still wrapped around his wrist and forearm. 

“If you are going to do me the indignity of pushing me into a fucking broom cupboard then do not make it worse by getting us both caught with your relentless yammering.”

Hermione breathed hard through her nose, the soft bursts of warm air hitting the side of Lucius' hand. But, on hearing Peeves coming down the corridor, ever closer, she nodded with little more than a small whine, her surprisingly soft curls tickling the side of his face.

Satisfied, Lucius kept his hand over her mouth – because you could never be sure with Granger – and stood up straight to lean his ear towards the door in order to listen. 

He felt Hermione shrink beneath him, trying to flatten herself against the door to keep distance between their bodies. Even with her efforts, her rapidly rising and falling chest brushed rhythmically and repeatedly against the front of Lucius’ robes.

Swallowing an odd lump in his throat, Lucius tried to tune out the sound of Hermione’s breathing in order to listen to the corridor outside so that they might know when Peeves had passed. Focusing, he squeezed the top of his cane with his right hand and pressed it into the floor.

The grating singing grew closer and Lucius inhaled deeply, cutting his impatient sigh off at its crest in order to let it go gently. Beneath him, Granger tipped her head back and pulled at his arm in an attempt to create enough space between his palm and her mouth to take a deep breath but Lucius didn’t allow it. 

Lifting his head from the door, Lucius lowered his lips to her ear, even closer this time so as to be absolutely sure none but her would hear. 

“This is a mess of your own making so stop ,” he hissed, his lips against her hair. “I like it no more than you do.”

A shiver passed through her in response, small but enough that Lucius felt it. He caught a hint of that warm, rose scent he had come to recognise by its absence at meal times. So much more pleasant than the damp, stale smell of the cupboard, it prompted Lucius to linger for a fraction of a second, his face against the side of hers and only the thick waterfall of her curls separating their skin.

Then, he recalled the obviously Muggle bottle he’d seen in her desk drawer and swiftly straightened up again, sharply exhaling through his nose as though he could expel the smell and any memory of it from his body.

A sudden, sharp splat from right outside the door followed by a sharp squeal of glee made them both stiffen and Lucius even felt Hermione’s breath briefly cease its buffeting against his hand. 

Within mere moments, however, the awful singing and the increasingly rhythmic splats grew faint again as Peeves made his way into the Grand Staircase.

Exhaling heavily with relief, Lucius finally relinquished Hermione and stepped back from her, immediately and vigorously wiping his breath-dampened hand on his robes. She drew in deep, gasping breaths and rubbed at her mouth with the back of her fist like she could wipe it off her face entirely.

“There was absolutely no need for that,” she said, an angry and possibly embarrassed waver in her voice. “How dare you!”

“How dare I ?” Lucius asked, a single furious laugh escaping him. “You manhandled me into this broom cupboard and then refused to shut your trap, Granger. I did what was necessary to stop that awful little freak finding us, so you are welcome.”

“I was trying to explain so that you would shut up!” she insisted. “I’m the one who helped you by bringing you in here with me. I could have just left you in the corridor to deal with Peeves and his flobberworm missiles!”

“I might have preferred that but you wouldn’t know because you didn’t ask.”

“There was no time to ask, I –” Hermione cut herself off with a frustrated huff and Lucius saw her silhouette raise a hand like she was rubbing her face. 

“I am not having this pointless argument,” she continued tersely. “I helped you with the best of intentions and now I’m going to bed, so if you’ll excuse me – ” 

Still pressed to the door like she wasn’t willing to turn her back on him, Hermione extended her left arm towards the heavy ring door handle.

Before her hand could get to it, however, Lucius brought his cane down on the iron ring so hard that it clanged. The mouth of the silver snake caught it so that the door’s latch was held down, blocking her path. 

Hermione’s shadowy figure visibly flinched, her hand swiftly withdrawing back to her body. Lucius saw her head turn slowly as she attempted to take in what he’d just done through the dim.

“Let me out, Mr Malfoy,” she finally said, an uncertain wobble in her voice that brought him no small amount of satisfaction. 

A little bit of fear was always good. Healthy. 

“You’re not going anywhere just yet, Granger,” Lucius said smoothly, his tone giving away none of his anger. “I want an apology.”

He would get some proper manners out of this little chit if it was the last thing he did.

There was a long pause in which the only sound was Hermione’s shaky breathing and a disgusting, steady drip from somewhere behind him. 

“No,” she finally said, her voice regaining some of its certainty, though he could tell her face was still turned away. “No, I won’t apologise. You’re not going to bully an apology out of me. I helped you.”

“Dear me, we are stubborn, aren’t we?” Lucius said softly. “Then I suppose I’ll just have to inform the rest of the board and Dumbledore that you assaulted a school governor. They won’t like that one bit.”

Hermione finally swung her head around to look in his direction and Lucius blinked as he felt a gust of air from the movement of her hair. 

“Are you –” She made a disbelieving choked sound, like she was trying and failing to get all the words she wanted to say out at once. “Assault ?”

“Yes. You grabbed me without my permission.”

“What do you call what you did to me then?” she demanded, her voice rising. “You practically smothered me and I don’t recall asking for that.”

“I call it self defence,” Lucius responded archly. “Against a vicious little savage.”

An anguished, furious sound escaped Hermione and she twisted her body so that she could attempt to grab Malfoy’s cane with both hands and lift it from the door. Lucius tightened his grip to keep it in place, his jaw clenching with the effort. 

When Hermione wouldn’t give up and her silhouette appeared ready to reach for her wand in her pocket, Lucius lunged through the dark with his left hand and grabbed at her. He managed to close his fingers around her right wrist, drawing a cry of shock from her. 

“Don’t touch me,” she yelped, attempting to wrench herself free. 

Lucius only tightened his grip and, grunting, he hauled her away from the door and straight into his chest, holding her arm aloft like a trophy. 

Hermione gasped when she collided with him, her unrestrained hand instinctively flying to grab his bicep to keep herself upright. 

Immediately, Lucius stepped her towards the door, his unexpected swiftness and the darkness making it hard for her to do anything but stumble back. 

A hard thump followed by a whimper indicated that Hermione’s back had met the wood. Lucius released her wrist and slammed his hand against the door above her head with so much force that she flinched, caged between his arm and his cane. 

“Perhaps,” Lucius said, his breathing slightly more ragged than he would have liked thanks to their struggle, “if you give me a nice, sincere apology like a good girl I'll forget this happened.”

Their bodies were close enough that he could feel the heat of her anger and a shiver of what might have been fear but Lucius was fairly confident that she wouldn’t dare to actually assault him. Physically or magically. That truly was too much for her to risk. 

Even still, Hermione wriggled and snarled like she could escape from under him, her hand continuing to push against his bicep which was still rigid from keeping his cane in place. 

“I won’t,” she spat, bucking her whole body so that her hips bumped briefly against his.

Lucius’ stomach clenched, molten frustration, outrage and humiliation coursing through his veins. How had he gone from never voluntarily touching a Mudblood to this? 

“I watch you smile and apologise to everyone, Granger. I know you're capable of manners despite everything . Yet you repeatedly refuse to show me the respect I am due.”

“I do show you the respect you're due.”

Though he could not fully see her face, Lucius could easily imagine the stubborn set of her jaw and the wilful gleam in her brown eyes as she gazed up at him. 

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and, with forced lightness, said, “Then I'm sure the governors and staff of Hogwarts will be very interested to know what a violent brute you are.”

“They won't believe you and you can be sure I'll tell them about this.”

“I'm a gentleman, Granger,” he said, his voice a low growl, dipping his face towards hers, close enough that the rapid puffs of her breath mingled with his own. “Of upstanding character. What makes you think they’ll believe you?”

“I'll show them my memories.”

“Memories can be falsified."

Grunting, Hermione twisted violently beneath him and, barely a second later, Lucius felt the sharp point of her wand pressed to the underside of his jaw. He could hardly help himself – he laughed in her face. 

“And what, exactly, are you planning to do with that?” he asked scornfully. “Other than make things much worse for yourself.”

“I’m more interested in what you’re planning to do,” Hermione said, pushing the wand more firmly into the soft skin near his jugular so that its point began to hurt, drawing a grimace from him.

“Go on,” he growled. “Curse me and see how quickly I can make you regret it, Granger. You won’t even have time to pack.”

Beneath him, Hermione hesitated, the pressure of her wand easing though she didn’t lower it. 

“So, what are you going to do?” she demanded breathlessly. “Keep me in here all night, waiting for an apology that I have no intention of giving you? Stumble out of a broom cupboard with me in the morning in front of all the students on their way to breakfast?"

"Granger –"

"That'll generate some gossip, won't it?" she said, a vindictive edge to her voice. "Even around a ‘gentleman of upstanding character’ such as yourself."

"That gossip would damage you as much as me," he hissed.

"I would take great pleasure in taking you down with me, Mr Malfoy."

Lucius wasn’t actually sure she was lying when she said that and it gave him reason to pause. To consider.

"Just apologise," he finally snapped.

"You first."

What was he going to do? Keep her there all night like she'd said? For an apology that was clearly never going to come? He hadn’t planned this; hadn’t thought it through. She just enraged him. She picked at his composure with such ease. But he couldn’t hurt her. As tempting as it was, he couldn’t actually hurt her and get away with it. Just as she couldn’t hurt him. 

For the briefest moment, Lucius stared into the shadowy space where he knew her eyes were. Then, with a sharp sniff, he pushed against the door to step back, begrudgingly yanking his cane from the handle.

Through the darkness Lucius saw Hermione push herself away from the door, lowering her wand without re-pocketing it. “Are you really going to tell them I –”

“No,” Lucius barked, drawing a hand down his face and pressing his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. “Get out.”

Before he’d even finished giving his order, Hermione turned and started fumbling with the latch. Within seconds she’d hauled the door open, allowing light to briefly flood into the dingy cupboard as she slipped out. The sound of her footsteps slapping against the stone floors faded swiftly. 

It was several minutes before Lucius followed.

Chapter Text

October 13th

Sleep had not come easily to Hermione. 

After her encounter with Malfoy, it had taken her some time to stop pacing her room and calm down enough to actually get into bed. 

Then, when she’d pulled the covers up to her chin, she’d lain in the dark for hours simply staring into it. It’d been so like the darkness in the broom cupboard that she’d been almost certain she could feel Malfoy in it. Hear his breathing. Of course, it’d simply been her own. 

She suspected she’d eventually managed to drift off at around 5 in the morning but she’d flinched herself awake shortly before 6 and now, once again, she found herself staring into the black, waiting for the first signs of sunrise to creep through her window. 

Curled on her side, Hermione clutched her hands to her chest, her chin ducked so that it just touched the backs of her fingers. 

At least he wasn’t going to try to have her fired for assault. He’d said that and she was going to take his word for it because it was all she had. As if he fucking could try it, though, after what he’d done to her.

She hadn’t expected it. 

She hadn’t expected that Lucius Malfoy would ever be physical with her, no matter how much he hated her. 

Draco had once told her not to touch him because she was a filthy little Mudblood. She’d simply assumed that meant any pureblood would never deign to lay a finger on her, even to be aggressive. But making assumptions was a stupid thing to do. Dangerous, too. 

About as stupid and dangerous as pushing Lucius Malfoy into a broom cupboard. 

Hermione squeezed her eyes closed regretfully, cringing into her hand. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her. It’d been instinct, she supposed. A misguided certainty that no one would want to have to face Peeves and his arsenal of flobberworm mucus missiles. 

Malfoy was such a contrarian when it came to her, though, that Hermione was sure he’d be seeking vengeance and some kind of apology if she had left him out there. She suspected there’d been no correct way to deal with that situation. Short of turning to him and saying, “please, sir, would you like to step into this broom cupboard with me for your own protection?” like there’d been any bloody time for that and the inevitable argument that would have ensued. 

What a surreal night. Hermione reached up to pull her pillow down into a more comfortable position, pressing her face into the soft cotton cover. 

She’d been scared at first, when he wouldn’t let her out. A panicked little thrill had gone through her like an electric shock alongside a real sense of ‘oh, you’ve done it this time, Hermione’.

Then the anger had taken over. The outrage that he would have the sheer fucking temerity to do what he had done. Hermione Granger was a Gryffindor and Gryffindors did not allow themselves to be cowed by slimy little Slytherins in dark cupboards. 

With hindsight, pulling her wand had been foolish and desperate but it was fortunate that she’d still been of sound enough mind not to actually use it, whether to cast a hex or simply poke him in the eye. As he’d pointed out, a response would only have made it even easier for him to get rid of her. Or perhaps, she thought with an uncomfortable shift, to retaliate in kind.

All of it for an undeserved apology, too. 

Hermione snorted softly, straightening her legs to seek the cooler space towards the end of her bed, wiggling her toes. He really couldn’t stand that she didn’t bend and scrape for him. She supposed that was what a ‘good little Mudblood’ was supposed to do in his eyes. 

Good fucking luck, Malfoy. 

Hermione pondered going to Dumbledore; carrying through her threat and taking her memories straight to him. But what would they really reveal? She and Lucius sniping at one another over the course of an evening; working together to help a student; her pushing him into a cupboard and then…darkness. Darkness and heavy breathing and angry whispers.

Would whatever she dropped into the pensieve really convey how, in that broom cupboard, he had been an all encompassing presence? It’d been like the darkness itself had been pressed against her. Around her. 

Hermione lowered her left hand to wrap it gently around her right wrist. The one he’d grabbed. It no longer hurt but she could still feel the way his fingers had wrapped so easily around it, like it’d been little more than the handle of his own wand.

No, a pensieve memory couldn’t convey that. 

Nor could it convey the way his whispers in her ear had been so caressingly soft and so spine-chillingly dangerous at the same time. His voice was the sharpest knife wrapped in the smoothest, most expensive silk. She thought she could still feel the tickle of his lips moving against her hair.

A shiver rippled through Hermione and she immediately drew her legs back up to her chest. 

No. No, that wasn’t an option. She didn’t want anyone to see any of that. It was hardly Hermione Granger at her most unflappable and professional. 

Outside, the sky began to lighten, an orangey-pink tinge just creeping over the sill of her small window. 

A swim would clear her mind, or distract it at the very least. 

Throwing off her bed covers, Hermione shivered violently at the sudden blast of cold that hit her. The lake would be colder but she didn’t mind – it might sluice away the lingering feeling of Malfoy’s hand on her face and his grip on her wrist.

It was still early when Hermione returned from her swim and readied herself for the day. On Sundays, the castle didn’t really come to life until at least 10 and that was still a couple of hours away. 

Invigorated by her exercise and the wonderful hot shower that had followed it, Hermione skipped lightly down the Grand Staircase, happy to be back in jeans after the heavy dress robes of the night before. Her satchel bounced against her leg and she brought a hand down to keep it still, not wishing to disturb any of the portraits.

She was quite grateful that it was Sunday – that meant another full day before she’d have to see Malfoy in her classes and there was a good chance she’d be able to avoid him at breakfast if she just nipped in and lifted some toast from the table to nibble on her way to the library and her classroom. She had a book to renew and then plenty of essays to mark; it was the perfect dull sort of schedule to keep her mind firmly off the strangeness of her Saturday night. 

Though she would have to stop in and speak to Horace and Filius at some point and address a very different part of the night. It seemed highly unlikely that she would see Priscilla at breakfast, though she had left her a hangover potion to take away the worst of her suffering.

Hermione was deep in thought, rehearsing how she was going to explain what had happened with Priscilla and her friends to their heads of house when she entered the Great Hall. She was so deep in thought, in fact, that she was halfway towards the staff table before she heard Neville calling her name.

“Hermione!”

Her head snapped up and she blinked away her swirling thoughts to grin at Neville, surprised to see him awake so early. Raising a hand to wave, Hermione scanned the rest of the table. Almost immediately, her grin and her steps faltered, her hand falling to grip the strap of her bag as she caught sight of Lucius Malfoy in his usual place.

He wasn’t usually so early on a Sunday. Why was he so early?

The only comfort she could take was that he appeared equally as unhappy to see her. Their eyes met briefly as Hermione approached the table but Malfoy snapped open his copy of the Daily Prophet and disappeared behind it. Good; she didn’t want to have to look at him any more than she had to. 

“Good morning,” Hermione greeted Neville with somewhat forced cheer, sliding her bag from her shoulder to the floor to take her seat beside him. “You’re up unusually early for a Sunday.”

Scanning the wider hall, Hermione spied only one or two older students dotted around the various tables. The busiest table by far was the Hufflepuffs’ but that was because their Quidditch team was seated in a yellow pack, consuming every carbohydrate within an arm’s reach after an early training session. 

“Not really been to bed,” Neville said, his voice gravelly as picked up multiple slices of toast. “Sprout had me out all night with the lunamediocris – some of their petals weren’t opening and –” 

Neville broke off with a loud yawn, receiving a sympathetic pat on his arm from Hermione. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye to rub it roughly. “Can’t really remember what…I’m tired anyway. Thought I’d fill up on breakfast then go to bed and try to get a proper sleep in.”

Lifting the coffee pot, Hermione nodded. “Good idea,” she said, trying to ignore the black shape in her periphery that was Lucius Malfoy. She hadn’t shifted her chair further away and she wished she had.

“What are you doing up so early, anyway?” Neville asked through a mouthful of toast. “Weren’t you at Slughorn’s last night?”

Hermione hummed quietly and nodded, her coffee cup raised to her lips. 

“Well, how was it?” Neville asked, eager to discuss something other than the frustrating lunamediocris of Greenhouse Two. “Anything interesting happen?”

It occurred to Hermione that she hadn’t heard Malfoy actually turn a single page of the Daily Prophet since she’d sat down.

“No,” she said lightly, lowering her cup to the table with exaggerated care so that she wouldn’t have to look directly at Neville as she lied to him. “Nothing interesting at all. I mean, a couple of students misbehaved and I’ll have to follow that up today but…no.”

“Oh.” Neville sounded almost disappointed and tore at another slice of toast with his teeth. Hogwarts could be quite dull, she supposed. Slughorn’s parties were, very occasionally, a source of intrigue.

“Besides,” Hermione added, “I have plenty to do today. I’m going to the library straight after this to renew a book. You know what Pince is like – deadlines are still deadlines, even on a Sunday.” 

“The Kintsugi one?” Neville asked, pushing the plate piled high with buttered toast towards her.

“No,” Hermione said, lifting a slice and offering Neville a smile of thanks. “It’s the one written by Chatterjee – about experimental transfiguration. I’ve had it for over a month now but I need it a little longer.”

“A month?” Neville huffed out a sigh. “It doesn’t feel like we could have been back that long.”

“I dunno,” Hermione murmured with a sidelong glance at Malfoy. “It’s felt long enough to me.” 

An abrupt snap of paper signalled Lucius Malfoy closing the Daily Prophet and dropping it on the table. 

Hermione jumped at his sudden movement, her grip on her toast becoming so tight that the hot melted butter seeped up around her fingertips. 

There was a screech of wood on stone as Malfoy pushed himself to his feet and, without a word, he swept away from the table. 

“Something we said?” Neville muttered, resentfully glaring at Malfoy’s retreating back.

Hermione chose that moment to stuff the rest of her toast into her mouth and wipe her buttery fingers on her napkin, wondering where Malfoy was going in such a hurry. Although she never wanted to have to look at him for longer than necessary, she also thought she’d rather like to know where he was and what he was doing at all times for her own peace of mind. It really was a pity she didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask Harry for his old map. 

“Was he there last night?” Neville asked. “Smarming the place up?”

“Um –” Hermione shook her head noncommittally. “Yes, I think he might have been. I think I saw him.”

On seeing a sceptical frown from Neville, Hermione offered him a tight smile and a shrug. “I didn’t stay long.”

She didn’t know why she couldn’t tell him – she told him everything. It just wouldn’t come out. Her cheeks burned at the mere thought of relaying everything that had happened between her and Malfoy. It was humiliating.

The worst thing that could happen was that Neville would involve himself in an attempt to defend her – what if it just put a target on his back for when he applied for a full teaching post?

Snatching up her bag from under the table, Hermione stood and hauled it onto her shoulder. “Anyway, I’d best be off,” she said breezily. “Have a good sleep!”

Barely waiting long enough to hear Neville’s perplexed farewell, Hermione slipped away from the table and marched across the hall. 

The sooner she could lock herself away in her classroom the better. First: the library.

Lucius sighed, tapping his forefinger repeatedly and impatiently against the head of his cane.

He was, much to his distaste, secreted behind the tapestry in a passageway that offered a faster route to the library than climbing the Grand Staircase. He'd discovered it himself during his time at Hogwarts and so it was a passageway that Hermione Granger undoubtedly knew about. After her little conversation with Longbottom at breakfast, he knew she would be using it imminently. 

Suppressing a yawn, Lucius leaned his back against the cold stone of the corridor wall for just a moment to close his aching eyes. He hadn’t slept especially well after his run in with Granger and he was paying for it. 

It had only been in the empty darkness of his private room, the heat of his anger ebbing away without her there to stoke it, that he’d fully absorbed what had happened. How close he’d allowed himself to get her and how fantastically he’d lost his temper. 

It didn’t sit well.

She provoked him with increasingly alarming ease, utterly unravelling the composure of which he was rather proud. 

In the darkness of the cupboard, she’d felt so small beneath him and he struggled to match that up with the way she was such a large source of irritation in his life.

He would have been content to avoid and ignore her all day but seeing her swan into breakfast, seemingly bright and refreshed, had raised his hackles. 

He was letting her get under his skin and although he knew that was far from good, he couldn’t help himself. It was personal. A matter of honour.

Following through with his threat to tell the board that she had assaulted him was not an option. It was a flimsy accusation and he knew it. Besides, regardless of what he’d said, he did not particularly want to run the risk of her showing anyone her memories of their encounter. They would not paint him in a particularly refined light. 

His mouth twisted at the memory of her whimper as she’d hit the cupboard door. 

It’d been hard to get a proper look at breakfast but he’d thought her wrist had looked bruise-free. Probably fortunate for him.

The problem was his pride. After so much damage it simply wouldn’t allow him to do nothing. She’d dared to pull her bloody wand on him and that could not go unanswered.

And so, Lucius had decided that if he could not intimidate the apology out of her, then he was going to have to trick it out of her. It was simply insupportable that he should go into the new week without some kind of victory over the brazen little Mudblood.

The sound of soft footsteps prompted Lucius to open his eyes and push himself away from the wall. Twitching the tapestry, he peered into the corridor and, to his satisfaction, spied Hermione Granger walking towards him, her head buried in a book. No doubt the Chatterjee book she’d told Longbottom she was going to renew. 

Waiting until precisely the right moment, Lucius pulled aside the tapestry and stepped out into the corridor, braced for the collision. 

As planned, Hermione, utterly engrossed in her book, walked directly into him. She yelped, her book tumbling from her grip while her bag slid from her shoulder to hit the stone floor with a disproportionately heavy thump.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she gushed, immediately dropping to her knees to pick up her book. “Completely my fault; I wasn’t looking where I was going and I –”

Her book in one hand, reaching for the strap of her bag with the other, Hermione suddenly froze when she spotted the smart dragonhide shoes in front of her. Still on her knees, she very slowly raised her eyes up the length of him, like she could hardly bear to confirm her suspicions of who she’d run into.

“So,” Lucius said, his voice soft but a victorious smirk curling at the corner of his mouth as their eyes met, “you can say it.”

Seemingly stunned into silence, Hermione’s mouth fell open, her cheeks flushing with anger and her eyes glittering with humiliation. The sight of that alone made up for his demeaning wait in the passageway.

“Quite sincerely, too,” Lucius continued, utterly relishing the moment. “I must say, the kneeling is a bit much but if you think it appropriate…”

Sparking back to life, Hermione hurriedly struggled to push herself back to her feet. Lucius simply watched her with all the satisfaction of a well-fed cat, taking great pleasure in all her ungainly grunting and grumbling as she tucked her book under her arm and wrestled with the strap of her satchel.

When she finally stumbled into a standing position, her fringe askew and her cheeks blazing scarlet, he was almost fond of her for giving him so much entertainment. Almost.

“You –” Hermione paused, glancing up and down the corridor to ensure they were alone. “You cheated.”

A single, disbelieving chuckle made Lucius’ shoulders jump and he looked down his nose at her. “Cheated? At what, exactly?”

“At this twisted little game we’re – you’re playing,” she hissed, drawing her transfiguration book tight to her chest. “I wasn’t apologising to you and you know it.”

A wolfish grin flashed across Lucius’ face. In the dark cupboard, he’d forgotten how wonderfully expressive she could be. Every part of the face that could be used to express outrage was being used. She didn't waste a line or a curve.

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said with an air of great condescension, “how can I cheat when there aren’t any rules? And I think you’ll find you did apologise to me; there’s no one else here.”

“I did not –”

“As you should have,” he continued, raising his voice ever so slightly over hers. “Very careless to read and walk. Particularly in Hogwarts – you could have a terrible accident.”

Nostrils flared, her lips pressed into a parchment-thin line, Hermione fixed him with a searing glare.

"Fine,” she ground out. “Fine, you can tell yourself that I apologised if you like. I’m not doing this. Goodbye, Mr Malfoy.”

Hermione lowered her eyes to step forward and to the right, intending to move around him and enter the passageway to the library. Lucius immediately mirrored her, forcing her to stutter to a halt so as not to bump into his chest again. 

Not bothering to even look up at his face, Hermione tried stepping to the left. Again, Lucius slid neatly into her path, his eyes fixed on the top of her head the whole time. 

“Let me pass,” Hermione said through gritted teeth, staring straight ahead into his robes. 

“Now that you’ve finally grasped ‘sorry’,” Lucius said, his voice dripping with vindictive pleasure, “I thought we might try ‘please’ next.”

At that, Hermione’s eyes snapped up to his face. The fury in them was magnificent. It was curiously comforting to Lucius that he could annoy her just as much as she annoyed him. She might have gotten under his skin but he’d gotten under hers, too, and he was discovering it was actually quite an amusing place to be.

“Move,” she growled.

“Would you like to try it, Miss Granger?” Lucius asked gently, ignoring her rude command. “It’s very easy. Just say ‘please, Mr Malfoy, would you allow me to pass’ and I might well do it.”

Hermione’s hand flexed around the strap of her satchel, her knuckles flashing white. She drew in a breath and, for one glorious moment, Lucius thought she actually might do it. 

Then, with one sharp, decisive nod, she turned on her heel and marched back the way she’d come, her long curls bouncing against her back with every step. 

Lips thinning with dissatisfaction, Lucius watched her depart. Clearly, she intended to take the long route to the library. Turning on his heel, he pushed aside the heavy tapestry with his cane and stepped into the passageway. 

He’d get there first, then.

Prick. Prick. Prick. 

The word reverberated in Hermione’s head with every step she took on the long route to the library. Surely it would be better – more satisfying – to use her fist to misalign Lucius Malfoy’s perfectly straight nose and lose her teaching post than to have to put up with his bullying nonsense anymore. 

No, Hermione shook her head vigorously, her curls bouncing against her cheeks. No, don’t be stupid. Don’t let him make you think like that. He’d love that. 

Stopping outside the door to the library, Hermione inhaled deeply, pulling her book against her middle with both hands. She tended to be loud when she was angry and that would not do in there. 

Exhaling slowly, allowing her eyes to flutter open, Hermione flattened a hand against the heavy door and pushed her way into the sacred space. 

She turned to the left on entering, heading in the direction of Pince’s desk. Renewing the book would only be the work of minutes and then she could get to –

Hermione stopped in her tracks. 

Lucius Malfoy was at Pince’s desk, talking easily with the usually unsociable librarian. His back was to Hermione but there was never any mistaking him.

Spying Hermione around his arm, Pince raised a hand to beckon her over. Lucius slowly turned on the spot, smirking as he caught sight of Hermione’s suspicious, preemptively angry face. 

“Professor Granger,” Pince said primly. “Excellent timing.”

“Madam Pince,” Hermione said her name almost as a question. “I was just looking to renew this book.” She held up the Chatterjee text on transfiguration that she’d mentioned to Neville. “I need it for –”

“Mr Malfoy has just this minute added himself to the waiting list for that book, Professor Granger,” Pince said, a sickeningly indulgent smile on her unevenly painted lips as she glanced up at Malfoy. 

“Excuse me?” Hermione asked, her voice low and her own eyes drifting to Malfoy, who did nothing but smile blandly. 

The man was going to push her to breaking point. Surely she was teetering on the edge already.

“Mr Malfoy,” repeated Madam Pince, a bite of impatience in her voice signalling her dislike for speaking more than was necessary in her library. “He’s added himself to the waiting list for the book. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until his loan runs out before you can check it out for yourself again.”

“But I need it,” Hermione said, a faintly desperate edge to her voice that earned her a sharp look of reproval from Pince. 

She was making such good progress on her Transfiguration Today submission and she just needed the book for a bit longer to complete it. 

“As do I,” Lucius said, his low voice far more in keeping with Pince’s rules about noise. “Quite urgently.

“What do you need it for?” Hermione demanded, turning to him with gleaming eyes. “Tell me. Right now.”

“Professor Granger,” Pince said, aghast. “Mr Malfoy is on the waiting list for this book and you know the library’s rules. You will simply have to wait .”

“He doesn’t need it,” Hermione insisted as Pince leaned over the desk and prized the book out of her hands. “He’s just taking it out to annoy me. I know –”

“Professor Granger, if you cannot modulate your tone then I will need to ask you to leave,” Pince said firmly, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Hermione was well aware that the librarian had never seen this side of her and was not quite sure how to deal with it. 

The fear of a ban had always been enough to keep Hermione in check during her school years but Lucius Malfoy hadn’t been pushing her buttons with such perfect accuracy then. 

“Yes, really, Miss Granger,” Malfoy cooed. Leaning towards her, he added in an undertone, “Terrible manners.” 

Hermione clenched her jaw to the point of pain, her eyes closing and her hands curling into tight fists. When she opened her eyes again, she did not find herself in her bedroom, awakening from a nightmare as she’d hoped. Instead, she was met with the sight of Lucius Malfoy’s smug, immensely smackable face. 

Gripping the strap of her bag so tightly that her nails dug into her palm, Hermione spun on her heel and marched out of the library before she could damage her reputation with Pince any more than she already had.

Leaning against the stone wall outside the library, her arms crossed tight over her middle like it would keep her rage inside her, Hermione waited for Malfoy to emerge. 

When he finally did, he had a careless air to him, her book in one hand and his cane swinging from the other. 

“Give me that book.”

Malfoy looked unsurprised to find Hermione waiting for him. In fact, to her bewilderment and discomfort, he smiled in a way that suggested it was exactly what he’d wanted. What kind of trap had she fallen into this time?

“No,” he said, strolling towards her, his shoulders drawn back. “I don’t think I will.” 

“You don’t even need it.

He scoffed. “And you do?”

“You know I do.”

Stopping a foot from her, Lucius clucked his tongue thoughtfully against the roof of his mouth as he looked her up and down. 

“Tell you what, Granger,” Lucius finally said, extending his arm to hold the book before her. “I’ll give you this book you so desperately need.”

Hermione stepped forward eagerly, prepared to take it, but Malfoy jerked it back just out of her reach. 

“If you say ‘please’.”

Gaping, Hermione dropped her hands to her sides. “Are you really –” she began, her voice cracking with exhausted frustration. “What point are you trying to prove with this?”

“I told you,” Lucius replied, like he was explaining a very simple concept to an increasingly tiresome toddler, “I want you to show me the respect I am due.”

“And I told you,” Hermione insisted, “I already do.” 

Tired of his games, Hermione lunged towards him and tried to grab the book. Lucius pulled it back even further, his smirk disappearing behind a snarl as she almost stumbled into him, catching herself just in time.

“Just a nice simple please,” he taunted, drawing his arm back so that the book was almost hidden behind him. “I’m not asking you to beg.”

“You might as well be,” Hermione said, reducing the space between them even more to peek around his body to see if she could make another grab for the book without actually touching him. 

“Oh, trust me, Granger,” Lucius growled, bending at the waist to bring his face closer to hers, “I know more effective ways than this to make you beg.”

An alarming swoop passed through Hermione’s stomach as her eyes met his, their faces mere inches apart. 

Lucius’ expression flickered slightly, like he was only just properly registering how close they’d gotten, and heat crept up Hermione’s cheeks as she struggled to conjure up a sufficiently cutting response.

“Hermione?”

Both she and Malfoy froze, Hermione amazed she’d been able to hear anything over the pounding of her own heart. Her eyes drifted to just over Malfoy’s shoulder where she saw Neville, standing in the middle of the corridor and clearly not at all sure what he’d just interrupted.

“Neville,” Hermione said, sounding oddly breathless to her own ears. She cleared her throat and stepped back from Malfoy, who slowly straightened up in a determinedly dignified way.

“Are you alright?” Neville asked, glaring at Malfoy’s back as Hermione stepped hurriedly around him.

“I’m fine,” Hermione said, fixing a wide smile to her face that made her cheeks feel far too large. “Are you just heading to your room? I’ll walk you.”

Hermione heard Malfoy turn behind her to watch her attempts to gently tug Neville into action and lead him on his way. Neville was not, however, focusing on her. He glowered at Malfoy suspiciously and his eyes dropped to the book over which they'd been arguing. 

“Isn’t that your book?” Neville asked, pointing at it. Malfoy’s grip on it fractionally but visibly tightened. 

“It’s Mr Malfoy’s,” Hermione said with forced calm. She did not need Neville to join this argument and get his father lumped with another month of Azkaban duties or worse. “Well, technically the library’s. He was on the waiting list and I wasn't aware. Can we go, Neville? I have quite a lot to do today.”

Casting a last narrow-eyed look at Malfoy, Neville reluctantly allowed Hermione to pull him down the corridor. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he murmured to her. “That looked...tense.”

“Of course it was,” Hermione said with a falsely breezy laugh. “He tried to suggest that Chatterjee’s argument was wrong and I simply couldn’t have that.”

“Hermione, you need to tell me if –”

“Do let me know if you change your mind about the book, Miss Granger,” Lucius called at her back. “I’ll have it on me at all times and I’m more than happy to hand it over.”

Tightening her hold on Neville’s arm, Hermione continued down the corridor, refusing to look back. “I’m fine, Neville,” she insisted. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Hermione paced back and forth in her room, her slippered steps soft and her fluffy pink dressing gown fluttering around her ankles. It was late enough that she ought to be in bed, getting a good sleep to see her through the full day of teaching that loomed. 

Unfortunately, persistent thoughts of Lucius Malfoy were not conducive to rest. 

He had that book. 

Only a few doors down the corridor, he had it and he probably wasn’t even reading it. 

What bothered her even more was that he had made it clear that it was completely in her power to get it back. 

All she had to do was say one word. 

One simple word. Not even an awful word. A word she said every day. Yet, somehow, he had managed to make it demeaning. 

Hermione stopped by her desk, bringing a hand to rest on her notes. It was endlessly frustrating to have the progress she’d been making impeded. She had so much that she wanted to explore and write but she felt like she couldn’t sit down and progress in any meaningful way without that bloody book. 

Grumbling, Hermione spun sharply on her heel to glower at her closed door. She didn’t want to give Malfoy what he wanted but maybe…would it be so bad? To give him this one thing? If she did, he might lay off her for a while and she would get the book she wanted. 

Hermione clenched and unclenched her fists, her lower lip pinned between her teeth. Maybe if she didn’t look at him when she said it she could pretend he was someone else. Someone who didn’t turn basic manners into a twisted power play. 

Or maybe…maybe she could reason with him! Reason with the unrelentingly unreasonable man, she thought tiredly. Yes, Hermione. Wonderful.

Patting the outline of her wand in her dressing gown pocket, Hermione frowned. Or maybe, if she could just get him to open the door, she could…

With a decisive nod at no one but herself, Hermione pulled her dressing gown around her nightdress and tied the cord tightly around her waist before marching to her bedroom door. 

The fourth floor corridor was empty and most of its portraits were already asleep, ignorant to her slinking down the corridor. Just how long had she been pacing and fretting? 

It was as Hermione started to wonder if it might be too late at night to knock on Malfoy’s door that she reached it. In her frame by the door, Antonia Creaseworthy snored delicately, the little feathers from her hat bobbing like billywigs in a gentle breeze. 

A muted light spilled into the corridor from beneath his door, stark against the dark in the corridor. That likely meant his fire was still going so he was surely awake. 

Hermione raised her fist to knock on the door, hesitating for only a moment before she closed her eyes tight and rapped her knuckles against the wood, twice in quick succession. 

There was a drawn out silence in the room and Hermione was just considering fleeing back down the corridor to retreat behind the safety of her locked door when she heard the sound of footsteps. 

Lucius Malfoy pulled open his door, his brow furrowed with confusion and irritation at receiving a visitor at such an unsociable hour. 

When he spied who was in the corridor, however, the sharp words of reproval that had been on the tip of his tongue died and he actually appeared somewhat taken aback. 

Though Hermione had been the one to seek him out, she was just as taken aback by the sight of him. If she’d thought he’d been undone in the library, it was nothing compared to now. 

His robes and high-necked waistcoat were gone entirely and he stood in simple dress trousers and a white dress shirt. The collar was open, its buttons undone far enough to expose down to his collarbone.

Completely against her will, Hermione found her eyes briefly drawn to his neck, like she was some kind of Victorian presented with a bare ankle.

Her hand hesitated over her wand handle and she tore her gaze from him to study the limited door space around his broad frame. If she tried to accio the book it'd likely just smack him in the back. Her grip on her wand solidified but she didn't draw it. 

Tempting.

“Miss Granger,” Malfoy said shortly, cutting into her thoughts, his eyes flicking down to her quivering wand hand. “Are you simply knocking on doors for fun tonight or is there a reason for this visit?”

“I, er…” Hermione blinked a couple of times to clear away the karmic fantasy of Malfoy being pelted with the very book he'd stolen before raising her eyes to his face. He was looking at her with his eyebrows raised, both perplexed and expectant. 

Hitting him with the book wouldn't get it back. 

“I want my book.” 

His eyebrows flattened with displeasure. “Clearly you have, once again, forgotten the manners necessary for the exchange to take place,” he said, raising a hand to gesture down the corridor. “Would you like me to wait here while you go and fetch them?”

“No,” Hermione snapped, crossing her arms. Seeing his less-than-impressed expression, she swiftly uncrossed them and dropped them to her side.

Her eyes drifted once again to the space around him in the doorway. Somewhere beyond him, the book was there. She just had to get in.  

“I – I can say it. I’ll say it. The word.” 

“You mean ‘please’?” he suggested mockingly.

Curling her toes in her slippers, Hermione swallowed, hoping a chunk of her anger and pride would dam the bile rising in her throat. “Yes," she said, sounding short of breath. "That one.”

Lips pursed, Lucius trailed his gaze down her. There was nothing wrong with her dressing gown and slippers but, as he dissected them with his eyes, Hermione found herself wishing they were a little less fluffy and a little more made from armoured steel.

Wordlessly, Lucius turned on his heel and strode into his room. Without him to hold it, the heavy door started to fall closed, leaving Hermione to jump forward and place her hands on it so that it didn't slam in her face.

She hovered in the doorway for a second before pushing the door open fully and entering properly into his room, like she was crossing the threshold into some dangerous realm. 

The door dropped closed behind her with a decisive clunk and she shivered, her eyes darting around the room only to find it disconcertingly close to her own in terms of layout and furniture. The idea that they could live in such similar circumstances made her feel… weird.

A window was ajar, allowing the cold October air to circulate through the room. The window was small, however, and the freshness of the breeze wasn’t quite enough to eradicate the faint smell of smoke that hung in the air.

“Have you been smoking in here?” Hermione asked, all her teacherly disapproval brought to the fore. 

Even as he stopped at the windowsill to close what Hermione suspected was a small case of cigarettes, Lucius looked back over his shoulder at her and said, “No.”

“Then what’s that smell?” The smell that she was sure was just like the one that had been in her classroom that day.

“I have a weakness for incense,” he said dismissively. “Now, that book.” 

Crossing to his bedside table, Lucius lifted the topmost book from the pile and weighed it in his hands before raising his head to look at her. 

His large, four poster bed lay between them and, as their eyes met between a gap in the green hanging curtains, Hermione shifted on the spot, realising that she was in his private room in nothing more than her night clothes. 

She was fairly close to the fire but the heat in her cheeks was disproportionate. Waiting for the morning would have made the whole thing less awkward.

Fingers twitching near her pocket, Hermione blinked through her embarrassment, trying to determine how tight his hold on the book was.

"Ah ah," Lucius chided softly, his sharp gaze darting to her hand. "No cheating, Miss Granger."

"I thought there weren't any rules," Hermione replied, her eyes narrowing. 

Clearing his throat, Malfoy rounded his bed and approached her with the book in his hands, his steps slow and deliberate, like he was closing in on a skittish animal.

“I'd have thought you'd like to do this the Muggle way,” he said.

Hermione drew herself up and pulled the cord of her dressing gown even tighter, as though it might lock her posture in place. 

"I don't want to do this at all," she snapped, catching his eyes flick momentarily down to the cord.

"Then why are you here?"

“I have quite a lot of important work to do,” she said, “and I’m not going to let you and your childishness get in the way of it.”

Lucius lifted a single brow and met her eyes as he stopped across from her, both of them standing in the centre of his room. 

Wordlessly, he held the book out to her with both hands. Hermione stared at it for a moment, breath held. She could just grab it and yank. Her eyes darted up to his cold face. He was strong but she could be fast, couldn't she?

Hermione curled and uncurled her fingers, shuffling her feet in her slippers to ensure they were secure. 

Then she lunged, wrapped her hands around the book and hauled. 

It went nowhere. 

Malfoy jerked marginally at the force she applied, maybe even jolted forward, but the book resolutely did not leave his grasp.

Hermione glared up at him from beneath her brow, her hands tight on the book now. 

Everything about his smug expression said he'd been expecting what she'd done.

"I’m not handing this over properly until you say it," he said, his taunting undertone making Hermione feel like a cat being stroked backwards.

Still clutching the book, breathing hard through her nose, she glowered up into his face with its still, expectant expression. 

She could say it. It was just one word. A word given a whole new hideous dimension by this absolute demon of a man, yes, but it was just a word. 

Can I please have the book, Mr Malfoy? She could say that, couldn’t she?

Malfoy’s eyes glimmered maliciously, the flickering flames in the fireplace making the shadows on the side of his face shift and writhe. Hermione swallowed as the fire chose that moment to crackle and spit, like it was warning her.

She didn’t want to say it. 

She didn’t want to give him that victory. And what if he didn’t hand the book over in return? What if he humiliated her and then stuck the boot in by making it all worthless? Hermione felt rather short of breath at the thought of that. He absolutely would do that. 

“I…I can’t.” 

His nostrils flared and his grip on the book tightened so that Hermione saw the ends of his fingers turn white. “Pardon?”

“Will you even give me the book if I say it?”

An appreciative smile ghosted across his face, like she had said something that amused him. “There’s only one way to find out.”

That means no.

“I won’t,” Hermione said, gripping the book. “I won’t humiliate myself for you.” 

Lucius narrowed his eyes. “I am simply asking you to be polite,” he said, impatience giving his voice a sharp edge. “It says rather more about you than me that you find that so challenging.”

Hermione shook her head, her curls bouncing. “You’re not just doing that and you know it.” There was a faintly imploring tone to her words; a desperation to make him see.

Lucius tugged at the book to take it back but Hermione didn’t let it go, her arms jerking forward with it. 

“Let the book go, Granger,” said Lucius. “If you can’t say a simple word then I hardly think you’re equipped to manage such a challenging text.”

“I was reading it already before you stole it for your stupid –” Hermione pulled the book back towards herself, satisfied to see some shock flit over Malfoy’s face. “Game!”

“And you won’t get it back,” he said, yanking the book again so that Hermione had to dig her heels in to keep her position and her hold on it, “until I get what I want from you.”

“Why do you want it?” Hermione demanded, her palms growing concerningly clammy. She could not let it go. “Why do you care so much about the way I – a person I’m fairly confident you would insist is entirely beneath your notice – treat you?”

With a growl, Lucius heaved the book towards his body but, rather than shake Hermione off, he simply brought her with it. She stumbled towards him, her elbows bent and her arms tensed. 

The book was re-positioned vertically between them and Hermione swiftly slid her hands down it to reinforce her grip. To her horror, her hands met Malfoy's, the edges of her pinky fingers just hitting his thumbs and her palms nudging his forefingers. 

Gulping, she refused to move them, even when she spied Lucius' chest swell with what she could only assume was rage.

They were close again. As close as they'd been in the corridor outside the library where Neville had interrupted them. Hermione had the distinct feeling that no one would be interrupting them this time and it made her uneasy. 

"Why are you so averse to just giving me what I want, Granger?"

"Because you’re a bully," Hermione snapped, "and I don’t care about what bullies want." 

A single mirthless laugh escaped her at the sight of Lucius' disbelief. 

"Are you so unused to hearing that?" she asked. "I have no interest in your galleons or your blood and you think so little of me that you’ve not bothered to try and disguise how foul your personality is. I’m not scared of you either. Why should I care about what you want?"

"I will determine your future as a professor in this school," Lucius hissed, his lips barely moving. 

A desperate, exasperated exhale escaped Hermione. "Nothing I say or do is going to change your mind about me," she exclaimed. "You’ve made that perfectly clear and I’m not going to bow and scrape for you in the meantime. I can't!"

Hermione searched Malfoy's granite face, her grip on the book so tight that the ends of her fingers were starting to hurt. 

"I am going to be the person who reminds you that the people around you are not things for your amusement," she said. "They're human beings who think and feel just as you do."

"What about my thoughts, though, hm?" Lucius asked, a challenging gleam in his eyes. "What about my feelings?"

That made Hermione pause. His feelings. Because he did have them, didn't he? Surely. 

Immediately she wanted to retort that anything he'd ever felt had obviously never been positive but then she recalled the way she saw him smile when speaking to his son in the The Three Broomsticks and that strange sorrow he'd exhibited. Sorrow like that, unpleasant as it was to feel, didn't tend to stem from a negative place. 

Hermione swallowed hard, trying to see through his demonic malevolence. She would not allow herself to forget that Lucius Malfoy was a person the way he allowed himself to forget that she was one.

"I would be more than willing to heed them," Hermione said carefully, "if I thought you might do the same for me."

Lucius sneered. "You should respect your betters regardless."

"Betters?" Hermione choked out a derisive laugh that made Lucius blink rapidly, apparently repulsed. "Look at us." 

She gave the book they were both clutching a violent shake, forcing him to look at it. His eyes lingered on the point where her fingers just touched his. 

"You’re no better than me, Malfoy. You’re clinging to this book like putting me down will somehow raise you up. You’re pathetic," she spat, "and you’re letting me see it."

"I don’t do this, Miss Granger, to establish my own position," he said, his voice steady and uncompromising. "I do it to remind you of yours."

"And where’s that then?"

"Beneath me."

His eyes locked on hers as he said it, a snide smile curving the corner of his mouth. The sight of it made Hermione’s vision blur with anger.

"I am your equal," she barked, shaking the book once again for emphasis and making his smile slip. 

He gazed at her wonderingly, like he couldn’t quite believe she was still going. A toy that he had battered against the floor relentlessly but still, against all his expectations, worked.

"In fact,” she went on, “consider me your mirror. Anything you do to me, I reflect right back at you. You won’t see respect until you show it and I hope all the disdain, disgust and derision I treat you with in the meantime make you feel nothing but shame."

Another fruitless tug of the book and a disgusted scowl accompanied her declaration of, "I don't think it's actually possible to be beneath someone who'd sink as low as you have."

Hermione's breathing was fast and shallow in the taut silence that followed her words. 

Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips and Lucius' gaze dropped immediately to her mouth. 

His jaw clenched tight and through the open collar of his shirt, she saw his throat pulse when he swallowed.

The flame of her fury in her chest flickered at the sight and something altogether warmer and unnerving pooled in her belly. It was almost like anticipation. Of what, though, she couldn't even be sure. 

Beneath her pinkies, Lucius' thumbs pressed even harder and, on the side of the book facing her, his fingers did the same.

He jerked his arms and, for one wild moment, Hermione thought he was trying to pull her even closer. She was sure she felt it, too. Her breath caught and she rolled forward onto the balls of her feet with the expectation of it, determined the book would not leave her grasp.

Then she was stumbling backwards, the book still tight in her grip. 

He'd pushed her and let it go.

Lucius stepped back even further, staring at her as he raised a hand to run it up along his jaw. There was an odd uncertainty to his expression, a discomfort she didn't often see.

"Take it," he ordered sharply, removing his hand from his jaw to point at the door. "Take the book and go." 

Suddenly quite uncertain herself, perturbed by the strange urge she'd felt to let him drag her closer, Hermione hugged the book to her middle. "I –"

"I'm giving you what you want, Granger," he snapped, gesturing aggressively at the door again. "Go."

Hermione stepped backwards slowly, not taking her eyes from him. When she finally reached the door, she tucked the book under one arm and reached out to open it. 

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy."

Anger, disbelief and even the barest hint of pained amusement at her words flit over Malfoy’s face in quick succession before she slipped into the corridor and allowed the door to fall heavily behind her.

Lucius let out a long, slow breath as the door closed, the heavy clunk reverberating in his quiet room. 

Heart beating rather too quickly, he turned and approached the window. With slightly trembling hands he flipped open his cigarette case and attempted to distract himself with the mindless routine of drawing one out and lighting it. 

It worked for all of ten seconds. 

What the fuck was that?

Breathing a plume of smoke out the window, Lucius glanced back at where he and Granger had been standing just moments before. He grimaced and turned back to the window like he'd spied something gory heaped on the floor.

There had been a moment before he had pushed Granger away – just a moment – in which he had actually considered pulling her closer. He might have even started doing it before he caught himself. He couldn't be entirely sure.

All he'd wanted was for her to shut up. To stop. To relent, for once in her life. To relent to him. 

Then, at the centre of his blazing anger, there had appeared an alarming, wholly unexpected spark of desire. A desire to stop her mouth with his own. 

Just a spark. 

But Lucius suspected that if he'd let it catch, it could have become a conflagration.

When he closed his eyes he could picture all of it – all of her – quite clearly. The gleaming, wilful eyes; the wild curls; the shimmer on her lower lip after her sharp little tongue had darted out to wet it –

Lucius choked on a mouthful of smoke, his eyes snapping open when he felt a stirring low in his abdomen. Merlin help him, it was still there. Smouldering and insistent.

Consider me your mirror.

What would his self-righteous little mirror have done if he'd thrown the book to the side and sealed his lips over hers with the intention of swallowing every one of her passionate words until she had nothing left to give him but pleas and whimpers?

Would Hermione Granger be so resistant to saying 'please', he wondered, when she was wet and wanting? Lucius recalled her wriggling beneath him in the broom cupboard, her panting breaths and hips brushing his. The way she'd shivered when he'd whispered in her ear.

He could make her beg if he wanted.

Lucius cut his own thoughts short with an exclamation of disgust and stubbed out his cigarette violently. 

Placing his face closer to the window, he breathed deep the cool night air and attempted to ignore the uncomfortable tightness developing in his trousers.

He was not desiring a Mudblood. He was not. Lucius Malfoy had never in his life – He shook his head.

Never.

But he knew that thoughts like that – desires like that – did not just appear out of nowhere. They built up over time. Accumulated like mould until you simply couldn't ignore them anymore. Had he simply been wilfully oblivious? Oblivious to what though? The woman possessed absolutely no charm. 

Lucius' eyes drifted to the door where she had stood, the book in her arms, and thanked him without a hint of irony. Finally giving him a version of what he wanted but twisted and on her terms.

He scoffed out a reluctant, bewildered chuckle, dragging a hand down his face. But she was daring, wasn't she? Entertaining, even. Able to present herself as a force to be reckoned with even when dressed in a fluffy pink robe.

His smile faded as he pondered how daring she’d have been if he’d backed her up against the door and yanked at the cord holding the robe together. 

Even in his imagination, she held his gaze, letting him do it but hating him for it. Almost as much as he hated himself for it.

Lucius let out a wounded moan and leaned his forehead against the cool window frame. She'd said she would make him feel shame and now she had. Just not in the way she'd expected. 

Drawing back, he pulled the window closed so hard the fragile glass rattled. She could never know that she was capable of rousing that kind of reaction in him. No one could – they’d have him locked up in St. Mungo’s. He wouldn’t even resist.

All he had to do was keep her at arm’s length and get her out of Hogwarts. Then she'd be gone and his life would be washed clean. What a Christmas gift that would be.

Chapter Text

October 14th 

Lucius Malfoy was already seated when Hermione arrived at breakfast that morning. Slipping quietly into her chair, she steeled herself, prepared to endure snide comments about late visitors or fluffy dressing gowns. 

They didn’t come.

In fact, Malfoy didn’t greet her – or even look at her – at all. She might have questioned whether or not the previous night had been a dream if there wasn’t such a taut, palpable tension between them. His arm was its usual distance from her, yet she felt like they were pressed together. 

Biting back a yawn, Hermione hungrily eyed the coffee Neville was pouring. She had barely slept again, for obvious reasons. 

On returning to her room, she had simply sat the textbook on her bedside table, collapsed onto her bed and stared at the faded spine with unfocused eyes, mentally unpicking her interaction with Malfoy. 

Things only seemed to be growing more fraught between them and they still had two months left in the term. Recalling the blazing heat in his eyes as he’d glared at her over the book, she instinctively shivered. 

He had given her the book, though. Quite abruptly but he’d given it to her. 

Accepting the coffee from Neville with a murmur of thanks, Hermione wondered if something she’d said might have gotten through to Malfoy. How likely was that, really?

It was a particularly strong batch of coffee and as soon as the smell of it floated under her nose, Hermione let out a small, satisfied moan in anticipation of being caffeinated. Beside her, Malfoy stuttered in the process of buttering his toast and she rolled her eyes. 

Can't even make a noise without annoying him.

Reaching for the tureen of porridge, Hermione heaped large spoonfuls into a bowl, allowing herself to slip comfortably into the blank-minded exercise in muscle memory that was breakfast at Hogwarts. On either side of her, Malfoy and Neville did the same and the sense of routine served to comfort Hermione somewhat, even if Lucius Malfoy was now an unwelcome part of it.

Satisfied that she had enough porridge, she returned the tureen to its place at the front of the table. Before she could so much as think about reaching for the salt, however, Malfoy extended his arm and silently slid it over until it was just beside her spoon. 

Hermione hesitated, her lips parting, and looked over to find he had already returned to preparing his tea. She got the impression the act had been one of instinct rather than thought but still, she ventured to say, “Thank you, Mr Malfoy.”

A good gesture would be answered with good manners. Mirroring. As she'd promised.

He glanced around at her and, as their eyes met for the first time that morning, an unnerving, nervous flutter passed through Hermione’s stomach. 

For just a moment, she saw a flickering fire on the side of his face and a glimmer of intent in his eyes. Then she blinked and she was just looking at Lucius Malfoy in the pale light of the autumn morning.

“You’re welcome,” he said, coldly holding her gaze for several more seconds before returning to his breakfast.

Hermione cleared her throat and busied her hands with her coffee to rid them of the lingering feeling of her fingers wrapped around Malfoy’s and the book.

“So, museums are another Muggle leisure activity we’ll be covering,” Hermione said, perched on her desk in front of her sixth year class with a textbook open in one hand. “Some might say they’re less thrilling than the theme parks from our previous lesson, though I’d argue that’s a matter of taste.”

Chin pillowed on his palm, Lucius leafed through the Muggle Studies textbook on his desk, vaguely making sure that Granger was sticking to its curriculum-approved definitions. 

Museums. 

He flicked a page. 

History. Science. Transport. Art. 

Lucius took his time skimming over the images of the art museums. Walls and walls of paintings. 

He turned another page – sculpture – and raised a brow. Muggles certainly liked nudity, didn’t they? At the bottom left of the page he assessed a picture of a marble sculpture with the caption ‘Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss – Canova – Lourve’.

It often irritated him that the pictures in the Muggle Studies textbooks didn’t move but — tilting his head — he thought this sculpture had a certain movement of its own. The draping cloth, the bend of the limbs. It flowed even in its stillness.

Lucius frowned, discomfited by his admiration. 

One Muggle had created it. Without magic. 

Well, it stood to reason that one or two of them would be skilled at something. How else could they have survived? Though, admittedly, there was a subtlety here that he hadn't realised they could possess.

“Museums are in greater abundance in the Muggle World than the Wizarding World,” Hermione continued, the movement of her crossing one leg over the other drawing Lucius’ eyes up. “Their purpose is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display objects of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance and, in Muggle Britain, you’ll find it’s standard practice for National Museums to offer free entry, with some exhibits excepted.”

Lucius observed Granger's easy manner from the back of the classroom, his eyes trailing up her navy trousers and her pale blue blouse. She was very comfortable with her sixth years but that didn’t surprise him because they were clearly an engaged class. 

Their small number made them tight-knit – like they were part of a club rather than a class – and they all huddled together at the desks near the front, hanging on her word. 

Lucius always kept his distance at a desk near the door, content in his role as an observer. It especially suited him that day given his unsettled mood after his night time run in with her. He wanted to keep her at arm’s length.

“I’ve always wondered why so many of the old statues are naked,” a Gryffindor boy named Andrews muttered.

Lucius spied a reluctantly amused smile playing around the corners of Hermione’s mouth as she looked at her student and pressed the knuckles of his curled fingers against his own lips. 

It was not attractive. She was not attractive. 

“Always the eye for detail, Andrews,” Hermione said, a tremor of laughter in her voice. “It’s Heroic Nudity – a feature of classical sculpture. It’s for figures who are intended to be heroic or divine.”

Just as she hadn’t been attractive that morning when she’d slipped into her seat beside him at breakfast, emanating an intoxicatingly sleepy warmth and practically moaning into her coffee. 

He’d had to slide her the salt just to be sure that she wouldn’t come near him. And then she’d thanked him for it. As she'd thanked him for that damned book.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius caught Priscilla Price silently and adoringly gazing back at him from the side of the huddle. He promptly tore his eyes from Granger to look back at the textbook with an irate sigh.

The girl had been doing it at five minute intervals since the beginning of the lesson. 

He was beginning to wish he’d allowed her and Granger to just topple to their deaths that night.

“Miss Price,” came Hermione’s stern voice. “Eyes front, please.”

Glancing up, Lucius briefly caught Hermione’s eye and, for just a moment, he thought he saw a flash of sympathy on her face. Whether it was for himself or Price he couldn’t be sure. He thought he deserved it more.

“Now,” Hermione continued, satisfied that she had the attention of the whole class again, “I personally find a lot to enjoy in museums. Especially art museums. You can seek out as much or as little knowledge as you like and, if nothing else, you can walk away having spent an hour or two in a pleasant space looking at beautiful things.”

It was odd, Lucius thought, that an experience could simultaneously sound so within and yet utterly outside of his sphere of interest. He liked beautiful things. In fact, he had his own collection of art, painstakingly curated over generations. He did not, however, like Muggles or communality. And that was putting it lightly.

“Since before this school year started,” Hermione went on, “I’ve been in discussions with the headmaster about arranging a class trip to a Muggle museum — we want to make Muggle Studies a more interactive learning experience, after all. So, since you are a small class, we’ve decided to test the waters with you.”

All of the students perked up but Lucius stiffened, fairly sure his heart had just skipped over its last beat to fall heavily into his stomach. 

What? 

“Letters will be going out to your guardians over half-term with permission slips,” Hermione said, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the increasingly excited chatter. “It’s arranged for shortly before Christmas and will cover our double period before lunch, so do encourage them to return the signed slips quickly, please. I wouldn't like anyone to miss out.”

Shortly before Christmas meant he would be at Hogwarts. Shortly before Christmas meant he would have to go . Lucius squeezed his right hand into a fist at the thought of traipsing through a Muggle art museum with Granger as his only real company. 

Could whatever force that had decided to punish him not just hurry up and bloody kill him? It would be kinder.

Lucius struggled not to fidget irritably for the remainder of the class, fighting the urge to lunge across the room at Granger, shake her by the shoulders and ask her what right she thought she had. What right Dumbledore thought he had. The trip had not been arranged with the governors. It had to be arranged with the governors. It would not go ahead.

He stayed seated while the class filed out, eyes fixed on Granger and impatiently drumming his fingers on the surface of his desk. As the students passed his desk, a square of lined paper was dropped in front of him, drawing his attention. 

Sitting up in his seat, a frown creasing his brow, Lucius twisted around to see that Priscilla Price was the last to leave. She paused to look over her shoulder at him before slipping out the door, her cheeks pink.

Grumbling curses under his breath, Lucius unfolded the paper, not taking any great care with it. “Thank you for saving me,” it read in a neat cursive, with a lopsided little heart above the ‘i’ in ‘saving’.

Crushing the note violently in his hand, Lucius raised his eyes to the front of the class where Granger stood behind her desk, arranging worksheets for her next class. 

He pushed himself to his feet and stalked to the front of the room, reaching her just as she looked up. Her eyes widened with bewilderment when she spotted the cold anger on his face. Clearly she didn’t know what she’d done.

“When exactly were you going to tell me about this little trip you have planned?” he asked, a disdainful sneer curling his upper lip. 

Hermione’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ of understanding, a soft exhale escaping her. “I thought you knew.”

“Is there anything about my current reaction which suggests that is the case?” Lucius asked, the corners of his mouth tight. 

Hermione studied him, eyes narrowing like she was looking for a lie. Lucius thought he saw her shake her head infinitesimally. 

“I’ve been discussing it with Albus since my probation was approved,” she explained. “He said he’d sorted it with Mr Fraser and that you’d…” She began to trail off as his brow lowered with every word. “That you’d be told.”

“Well, I was not,” Lucius snapped. “Obviously.”

There was a long pause in which Lucius contemplated all the ways he was going to make Edmund Fraser suffer while Hermione fidgeted with her own hands. 

“I mean, you don’t need to come,” she started, sounding almost hopeful. “It’s only one –”

“I would hardly be fulfilling my duty as an inspecting governor if I did not,” Lucius interrupted tersely, quietly adding, "onerous as it's become."

He raised a hand to rub his brow in an agitated manner, then remembered the note he still had clutched in his fist.

“Speaking of my duties as a governor –” Lucius dropped the note from Priscilla onto the desk in front of Hermione. 

Given what she’d encountered the last time he’d presented her with some paper for her inspection, he rather thought he understood her look of trepidation as she picked it up.

When she read its contents and recognised the rather distinctive handwriting, however, her eyebrows rose and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Would you please have a word with your student?” he asked, trying not to notice the fullness of her lip as she finally released it. “This verges on inappropriate.”

“I will,” she vowed, sliding the note into the pocket of her trousers. “Clearly whatever Horace said to her was not enough, I –”

At the sound of the classroom door opening behind him, Lucius gave Hermione one last searing glare before turning on his heel to return to his seat where he intended to silently seethe and draft up a letter to Edmund to ascertain the veracity of her claims. 

If she was telling the truth and Edmund had given his approval, the only thing he could hope was that she would fuck her little outing up so much that the governors would have no choice but to get rid of her. He might even get an opportunity to make sure of it.

October 16th

When Edmund’s owl arrived at breakfast, Lucius had to remind himself not to take his annoyance at the chairing governor out on the pathetic creature. It was clearly an ancient thing; in no condition to be making the long journey to Hogwarts. Besides, he hardly needed it to keel over into his scrambled eggs – Granger would likely have a fit.  

Satisfying himself with a dark glower at the morose old bird, Lucius gently untied the parchment from its leg and settled back into his chair to decipher the chicken scratch handwriting.

“Lucius,

My dear man, thank you for your letter. Are you absolutely sure I didn’t tell you about Granger’s trip? I was sure I told you. Goodness this old brain must be leaking.” 

I’ll make it leak all over the bloody floor, Lucius thought, gripping the parchment so tightly that it crumpled at the edges. His violence attracted an uncertain, sidelong look from Hermione. Clearing his throat, Lucius straightened the letter and consciously lowered his shoulders before continuing to read. 

“Anyway, yes, I agreed it all with Dumbledore. He said the girl wants to make such things an annual occurrence for her older classes should she get the post and I thought we ought to get a look at how she handles it now. If parents are going to complain or she's not equipped to handle it, best that happens while she’s on probation and we can promise a smooth dismissal.”

That mollified Lucius, if only a tiny amount – there was sense in it. And hope for his aims.

“I do hope you’re having a pleasant time. Tell me, is she still wearing those lovely Muggle –”

Using both hands, Lucius scrunched the letter up into a tight ball and dropped it beside his plate with a tired sigh. The man was ridiculous. He had no business being the chair of the board. 

Reaching over the table, Lucius lifted a pot of tea and chanced a glance at Granger as he did so, finding her engrossed in her Muggle paper. 

It was probably just as well he was the one chosen to inspect her – had Edmund been the one to see the tight pencil skirt she’d selected to wear that morning, he’d probably have keeled over.

Hermione was somewhat relieved when the end of the day arrived. A headache had been taking root in the front of her head since lunch and, when she’d gone into her desk drawer to seek out a headache potion she was sure she’d left there, she hadn’t been able to find it. 

“Your essays are marked and waiting for you to collect at the back of the class,” she told her fifth year class. “Any questions, you know I’m always here.”

Trying to block out the screeches of chairs on stone without actually lifting her hands to her ears, Hermione turned to face her desk and began shuffling her papers to slide them into her bag. She had been planning to go to the library but, actually, she thought she might retreat to her room for the night and slide into the bath with a book that was wholly unacademic. 

Jane Eyre, perhaps. She’d always thought it’d be fun to re-read it while in the castle. Atmospheric.

“I don’t think this is right.”

Flinching at the unexpected and close voice, Hermione spun around to find a very irate Henry Morrison standing in front of her, his marked essay thrust into the space between them. 

Though he was only 15, likely closer to 16, he was taller than her and Hermione found herself straightening up, her shoulders drawing back.

“You don’t agree with the grade I’ve given you, Mr Morrison?” Hermione asked, her eyes dropping to the lined paper in his grip. She’d given him a ‘P’. Deservedly. “I’m more than happy to hear why.”

“It’s a ‘P’,” he snapped. “‘P’ means ‘Poor’.”

“It does,” Hermione agreed, nodding. “But I’m afraid I thought this was a poor effort. I think you’re capable of better and –”

“Yeah right.” Morrison sneered, taking a step forward. Hermione stood her ground, not having much choice with her desk at her back. Even still, she drew her chin in towards her neck, her brow lowering. 

Since his small Malfoy-sponsored rebellion during her class on Muggle medicine, she’d noticed a marked increase in Morrison’s inattentiveness and a further drop in the quality of his work. This essay had been his worst so far but she hadn’t expected him to return to such overt disrespect.

“Is there a problem here?”

While they’d been talking, Malfoy had sauntered up to the front of the class. His eyebrows twitched upwards as he took in Morrison’s confrontational stance and Hermione’s limited space. 

The pain in Hermione’s head gave an intense throb and she slowly blinked once, inhaling through her nose. The last thing she needed was Malfoy involving himself; he had emboldened the boy enough.

“No, Mr Malfoy,” she said, her voice tight. “Please don’t concern yourself.”

Apparently sensing an ally, however, Morrison turned to Lucius and thrust out his essay. A slight curl to his lip, Malfoy reluctantly reached out and plucked the crumpled paper from the boy’s hand. 

“She gave me a ‘P’!” Morrison fumed while Malfoy studied the essay. “It’s not a ‘P', she just doesn't like me.”

It was one sheet of paper, front and back. It looked like it had been written in a great hurry and Malfoy arched a brow as he read Hermione’s numerous comments offering advice in the margins.

“Mr Morrison, that is enough,” Hermione snapped, her eyes flicking back and forth between Malfoy and her student. She would not be accused of unfairness for her mark on an essay that had, frankly, been an insult. “I have not been unfair here, you –”

“No! This class is a joke. It’s not even hard so how could I get a –”

“I would have thought, Mr Morrison,” interrupted Lucius, an unexpectedly hard edge to his voice as he looked up from the essay, “that you would feel more shame about receiving such a mark. Particularly in a class that you find so unchallenging.”

Oh.

In her shock, Hermione found herself gaping at Malfoy and quickly had to close her mouth with a click of her teeth. He didn’t notice, however, his gaze intent on the increasingly red-eared Slytherin boy before him. 

“In fact,” Lucius continued smoothly, holding out the essay for Morrison to take back, “I wonder why you chose to study Muggle Studies at all if that’s how you feel. I can’t imagine your father will be especially pleased when he hears about this. I believe I’m right in saying that he wasn’t overjoyed with your determination to pick the subject in the first place.”

Morrison snatched the essay back immediately, his jaw clenched. 

“I think, Mr Morrison,” Hermione interjected softly, her eyes darting briefly to the stony-faced Malfoy, “some time in detention this weekend will help you to reconsider the disrespectful way you address your professors. You are more than capable of a good mark in this class but you must put in the effort. I’m always here if you need help. Perhaps we can even go over it together during that time.”

There was a drawn out silence in which Morrison, his essay scrunched in his fist, looked back and forth between Hermione and Lucius. 

Understanding, however, that Lucius was not going to come to his defence and castigate Hermione for her marking as he’d hoped, Morrison chose to mutter “whatever” and marched out of the classroom. 

The door closed with a heavy clunk behind him, leaving Hermione and Lucius in silence, the sound of torrential rain battering against the windows the only reprieve. 

It was hardly the end to the day that Hermione had wanted; she was going to have to find a more effective way of getting through to Morrison than sticking him in detention as she had done. No doubt that would occupy her thoughts in the bath that night, rather than the book she wanted. 

Finally managing to drag her eyes from the door, Hermione sighed softly.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, avoiding looking at Malfoy by brushing down the front of her skirt and adjusting its waist with an uncomfortable air. “He is my student to deal with.”

“The boy deserved criticism,” Lucius said stiffly, his eyes following the movement of her hands. “I detest complacency. If you’re going to be so lazy as to choose a subject because you don’t take it seriously or you think it’s going to be easy then you had best excel at it, else you are embarrassing yourself and everyone associated with you.”

Hermione stilled and pursed her lips, recalling how much meaner Draco Malfoy had always gotten around exam time. It made a little more sense now. 

“Very exacting,” she observed, finally looking up into his face. 

It wasn’t a compliment but he clearly didn’t take it that way. Lucius simply gave her one slow blink. “Would you expect anything else?”

Hermione tilted her head thoughtfully, trailing her eyes down his impeccable state of dress. His fingers twitched, like, under her scrutiny, he was having to fight an instinct to straighten his waistcoat. 

“S’pose not,” she murmured.

Silence fell between them but it felt incomplete. Unsettled. There was something unsaid in it and, though Hermione didn’t know what it was, she stayed still, watching Malfoy and wondering which of them would be the one to break it.

In the end, it was a rumble of thunder that did it, loud and close as though the storm was a creature wrapped around the castle walls. 

A faint crease between his brows, Malfoy gave Hermione a last sweeping look before beginning to turn away.

“Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said, extending a hand not to touch him but to simply request that he wait. 

It surprised her that he did and, when he turned his face back to her, it was clear that it was a reluctant curiosity which had seized him. 

Pursing her lips thoughtfully for a brief moment, Hermione reached over her desk and pulled the heavy glass jar of sweets towards the edge, tipping it towards him. 

“Want one?”

Malfoy blinked down at the opening of the jar and then raised his eyes to Hermione to give her a withering look. “Excuse me?”

With a lazy roll of her eyes, like that response was exactly what she’d expected of him, Hermione set the jar flat, reached into it herself, and drew out a shiny purple wrapper. 

“Dairy Milk is my favourite,” she explained, holding the chocolate out to him. “You might like it.”

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said, staring down at the chocolate as though she was trying to hand him the corpse of a small animal, “is this some misguided attempt to ‘mirror’ my behaviour as you so creatively threatened?”

Hermione blushed at the first overt reference either of them had made to their encounter in his room. 

“Because I should make it clear,” he continued, like he could not press the point enough, “that I did not intervene just there for you. Bad enough that a boy of his background chose this subject – to fail it is beyond the pale. He needs to know that.”

The embarrassed heat suffusing Hermione’s cheeks escalated into an indignant burn but, rather than respond, she stepped towards him. 

Malfoy didn’t retreat but Hermione did not fail to notice the way he tensed in response to the reduction in space between them. 

Another rumble of thunder sounded as Hermione reached for his left hand that was hanging by his side.

Hesitating for just a second, an unaccountably nervous fluttering in her stomach – the kind someone might experience before they stuck their hand into the cage of a wild, carnivorous animal – she allowed her palm to come into contact with his knuckles. 

“Granger –”

Before he could pull back, Hermione closed her fingers around his hand and lifted it, the back of it cradled in her palm. She tried to ignore the rapid pounding of her heart in her throat and pressed the chocolate into his palm. Lucius blinked down as she closed his fingers over the smooth foil wrapping. 

Even if he hadn’t intervened for her, he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation as she’d expected him to. He could have.

“Even if it wasn’t for me, you were actually…almost generous there. In your own limited way,” she said, releasing him and stepping back. “Let me be.”

Lucius stared at her incredulously, the chocolate still in his grip. Hermione merely offered him a diffident shrug. It wasn’t much but it was something – much like what he’d done. It was a good, apt offering.

“Take it back,” he demanded abruptly, thrusting it out at her. 

Hermione shook her head, her lips pressed flat. “Mm-mm,” she hummed.

“Take it ,” he insisted.

“No, thank you.”

Tutting impatiently, Lucius reached out and grabbed her hand with less gentleness than she had his, shoving the chocolate back into her palm.

He released her and stepped back but, like she was performing the next steps in a dance, Hermione followed him and leaned forward to slip the purple wrapper straight into the pocket of his robes.

Lucius looked briefly – disbelievingly – down at the pocket she’d just invaded then back up to her face.

“I said no thank you,” Hermione said lightly.

Tipping his head back, his nose pointed to the ceiling, Lucius exhaled sharply through his nose. 

“You are –”

But Hermione never found out what exactly she was because, rather than finish his sentence, Lucius turned on his heel in a whirl of robes and marched to the exit of the classroom, snatching his cane from his desk on the way.

Hermione watched him go, her lower lip caught between her teeth. The heavy clunk of the door slamming made her cringe. 

She hoped he would eat it – if anyone could do with sweetening up it was him.

Chapter Text

October 19th 

“I’ve been looking at the potential matches you sent me.”

When Draco had sat down across from him at a small table in The Three Broomsticks more than an hour previously, that had been exactly what Lucius had been hoping to hear. It made the noise of the Saturday evening rabble far less grating on his nerves.

“I don’t think any of them are for me.”

Lucius paused, his glass of firewhiskey at his lips. And that had been the opposite of what he’d wished to hear. Taking a slow sip, he let the warm liquid sit in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it.

“I struggle to imagine what fault you could have found with any of them, Draco,” Lucius said carefully. “They were all perfectly good matches from perfectly respectable families.”

Draco cringed, rubbing the back of his neck. “They’re just not right.”

“How conveniently unspecific,” Lucius replied snappishly. “What’s ‘not right’ is the way that you’re –”

“I found someone that is right, though.” 

Lucius halted in his beratement, his mouth still partially open as he contemplated his son’s bright eyes and hopeful smile. 

Oh, fuck. Sighing through his nose, Lucius reached into his waistcoat and withdrew his cigarette case.

Draco was in love. Well, what the boy obviously thought was love. 

Lucius knew it. He could just see it. In the mere month since they’d last seen one another, the imbecile had fallen head over heels for some unsuitable bint. Lucius was certain he wasn’t even being unfair in that assessment of the mysterious girl, either – if she was suitable, she’d have been on the bloody list. 

“Who is it, Draco?” Lucius asked tersely, poking his cigarette into the candle at the centre of the table. 

The reticence on Draco’s face was not helping Lucius’ mood in the least and he took a long drag from his cigarette in an attempt to settle himself.

“Just have an open mind, father –”

“Draco,’ Lucius snapped, “I swear to Merlin I will –”

“It’s Ginny.” The name tumbled out of Draco’s mouth in a desperate, embarrassed rush but Lucius did nothing but blink in a perplexed fashion.

“Am I supposed to know who –”

“Ginny Weasley,” Draco said, cringing.

When Lucius did nothing but stare at his son, pale-faced and tight-jawed, his cigarette dangling from between his fore and middle fingers, Draco became somewhat agitated, a pink tint appearing on his cheekbones. 

“I played a match against her last month, remember?” he explained hurriedly. “She’s a chaser for the Harpies, you know, so we’ve sort of moved in the same circles for ages but she’s never been single this long and so I hoped –”

“She is a Weasley.” Lucius stressed the name in a way that made it clear that this irrefutable fact rendered everything else about her utterly inconsequential to him.

“Yes.” Draco sounded somewhat put out, his lips pushing out in a pout. 

Had he really hoped that Lucius would delightedly invite him to espouse all he knew of Ginny Weasley? Was he so naive?

Lucius raised a hand, rubbing the inner corner of his eye with the knuckle of his thumb before taking another drag from his cigarette. 

“They’re blood traitors, Draco,” he said, not feeling the slightest bit sorry for blowing the purple smoke into his son’s face. “Of the highest fucking order.”

“No Muggles on the family tree to prune though,” Draco pointed out with forced cheer. “Well, not in the recent past, anyway. Generations, probably.”

Lucius blinked. When he had told Draco he was willing to make allowances for a respectable half-blood he had been very specific. Just because the Weasleys did not have one anomalous grandparent right now did not excuse them for generations of bad judgement. They were purebloods on a mere technicality.

“They live in a hovel.”

“I have enough galleons for both of us,” Draco said, once again throwing Lucius’ own words back at him, much to his fury. “And I think I could live with her for the rest of my life. Or hers.”

Lucius stared incredulously at his son. It made absolutely no sense to him. Malfoys and Weasleys did not mix and they most certainly did not marry. It wasn’t like the enmity was one-sided, either. If Ginny Weasley was having this same discussion with her dolt of a father – if, indeed, that family was even capable of coherent conversation – there was no way it was going any differently.

“And what…” Lucius sighed, briefly closing his eyes and hardly able to believe he was even engaging as much as he was. “I mean, have you even broached the topic of marriage with her?”

“Oh, no,” Draco said quite cheerfully. “She hates me.”

There was a drawn out silence in which Lucius simply watched his son take a drink of firewhiskey. “I… I don’t understand,” he finally said tiredly.

“She can’t stand me,” Draco said, shaking his head as he pushed his drink back towards the middle of the table. “But I think I can change her mind because I’m pretty sure it’s only really because I’m a Malfoy and I've treated her like a Weasley.” 

On receiving nothing but a perplexed blink from his father, he explained, “She just doesn’t know me as ‘Draco’ yet, you see, but I'm starting to see the 'Ginny' rather than the 'Weasley'. I already know she thinks I’m handsome, at least, because she called me a ‘vain prick’ after that last match.”

Lucius had always considered Draco to be tolerably intelligent. Not hugely academic but intelligent. Now, he was beginning to wonder. 

“Draco –”

“Do I have your approval?”

“Do you have my approval?” Lucius asked slowly. “To marry a woman who cannot stand you?”

“No!” Draco waved a dismissive hand. “She’ll like me by the time we’re married. I want to take my time in getting to all that – the marriage and the kids stuff.”

The boy must have taken a bludger to the head in his last game. 

“Draco, what exactly do you like about her?”

Draco tilted his head contemplatively, his eyes flicking upwards. 

“Well, she’s very pretty,” he eventually said. “Funny. Popular. And she scares me a bit – I’ve never felt that before.” He lifted his firewhiskey and frowned into it. “And she’s really very good at flying. Better than me even and I don’t say that lightly, you know.”

“Really very good at –” Lucius cut himself off, his nostrils flaring. “You’re being ridiculous. Absolutely none of those things are a suitable basis for a lasting marriage.” 

Draco scowled, offended by his father’s swift dismissal of what he obviously thought were some very admirable qualities. 

“Well, I had even less to go on with those witches you sent me – just names and family trees,” he snapped. “There’s no reason why a marriage with any of them should be any more successful than a marriage with Ginny.”

“The difference is,” Lucius said with exasperated emphasis, “that every one of them understands what is expected of you as the Malfoy heir and what will be expected of them as your wife. That’s an important start. The Weasleys actively reject the way we live and Ginny Weasley will chafe within the confines of those expectations.”

“So you’d rather I marry some pointy-nosed Rosier drip than a witch that might actually make me happy?” Draco asked, sneering. “Because of expectations? All of those witches are so cold and – and haughty but Ginny is warm and she laughs and people like her –”

“Draco, listen to yourself – she hates you!” Too agitated even to smoke, Lucius dropped his cigarette in one of his empty firewhiskey glasses, allowing the dregs of liquid to extinguish it. “You said it yourself.”

“No, she hates who she thinks I am!”

“For the love of –” 

“You loved mother.” Draco said it almost as an accusation and it made Lucius pause, eyeing his son warily. “You were different when you were with her. I want that – I want someone to be different with.”

“Your mother and I were very fortunate in our match,” Lucius replied with an admirable degree of patience given it was something he had explained to Draco multiple times before. “The contract was drawn up before we were even grown. Even if I’d detested her, I would have fulfilled my duty and become her husband. Draco, you’re lucky I’ve given you this long to find your own way.”

“What was the point if you’re just going to pick for me anyway?” Draco exclaimed, pushing himself to his feet.

Draco paused, his eyes trailing over his father’s tense posture, tired face and the smouldering cigarette in the bottom of his whiskey glass. 

“Doesn’t it ever bother you,” he asked, throwing his hands out for emphasis, “that everyone we hate is so much happier than we are? Haven’t you ever noticed? Even Granger was having a right old laugh last time I saw you in here!”

“Draco –” Lucius began, his tone dipping with warning and his hand making a ‘sit down’ gesture. He had not raised his son to make scenes.

“No.” Draco stepped back from the table, shaking his head. “No, I’m…I’m going. I’ve got training in the morning and –” 

With a last hurt and disappointed look at Lucius, Draco turned from the table to slip into the bustling crowd that filled The Three Broomsticks. Lucius lost sight of him within a few befuddled blinks. 

A soft groan rising up from the centre of his chest, Lucius dropped his head into his hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

He had never used the threat of ‘going the way of Arthur Price’ on his son the way Abraxas had with him. Perhaps he should have. 

Not wishing to be seen in such a state by anyone who would frequent The Three Broomsticks on a Saturday night out of anything other than absolute necessity like himself, Lucius raised his head and pushed himself to his feet. 

Tucking his cigarette case neatly into his pocket, he picked his way through the crowd towards the bar, using his cane to carefully part the bodies. Ensuring the bar surface was clean, he leaned on it and raised a finger to catch Rosmerta’s eye. 

“Same again, Lucius?” she asked with raised eyebrows as she sauntered over to him. 

“Please, Rosmerta. Just the one this time – Draco’s gone.”

Offering no comment on the sudden departure of his son or the downturn of his lips, Rosmerta pulled out a clean glass and set it in front of Lucius, turning away for just a moment to pick up a bottle of Ogden’s. One elbow resting on the bar, he watched Rosmerta pour an even measure.  

“Bit more, Rosmerta,” he encouraged quietly, leaning towards her with an air of confidentiality.

She ceased pouring but did not withdraw the bottle as she glanced up at him from beneath her brows. Lucius flashed her a charming grin though he was sure it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You know I’ll tip.” 

“You’d better tip well, Lucius.” Even as she gave him a warning glare, she poured another large splash into his glass. 

“I always do,” he said confidently. To underline his point, he dipped into his pocket and slid a handful of glimmering galleons across the bar towards her. 

A knowing smile quirking the corners of her painted lips, Rosmerta met his eyes and poured a last large splash of firewhiskey into his glass. 

“No more,” she said, pointedly withdrawing the bottle. “Or you’ll need to pay for a room, too.”

There was a part of Lucius that wondered if he should suggest to Rosmerta that, maybe, he could simply join her in her room instead. 

It was the part of him that was clinging to the hope that his newly developing attraction to Granger was not specific but, perhaps, simply a more general unfortunate side effect of his having smothered his interest in sex for so long. 

Becoming a widower had very effectively dampened his libido for quite a while and, given his response to grief had been to do nothing but work, he hadn’t had very many opportunities to meet anyone since. Certainly not anyone that had that kind of appeal for him. Rosmerta was at least an age appropriate outlet, not to mention a pureblood.

As he watched the landlady move onto her next customer, however, Lucius did not feel that insistent burning he’d felt with Granger that night in his room. Or in her classroom when she’d reached out to take his hand.

That had been disconcerting.  

Pinching his glass between his forefinger and thumb, Lucius flexed the rest of his fingers, his lip curling. Her hands had been so unexpectedly small and soft on his. Swift, too, when she’d reached out for his pocket. He thought he could still feel the fumbling little hook of her fingers against his hip to ensure she was in the right spot. 

Fortunately, the Muggle chocolate bar had tempered any desire he might have felt with a healthy dose of disgust.

Clearing his throat, he took a sip from his firewhiskey, hoping this drink would shallow the swirling depths of his mind in the way the others had not. 

Rosmerta would likely say no anyway – aside from anything else, it was common knowledge that she did not sleep with customers, though Lucius imagined that must narrow her options a great deal.

Glancing tiredly into the mirror that lined the wall behind the bar, Lucius stiffened when a mop of familiar wild brown curls caught his eye. Half-turning, not quite trusting that he wasn’t looking into some enchanted glass, he confirmed that it was indeed her. 

Granger. 

Sitting at a table with Longbottom and some other well-built burly boy with dark hair.

Groaning, Lucius turned back to the bar and took another gulp of his firewhiskey. She was everywhere. All the time. 

Against his will, he found his eyes returning to the mirror so that he could inspect her reflection, the idea of looking at her directly being simply too much for him. There was distance in a reflection. 

She and her friends were crowded around a small table that was really meant for two, dozens of empty glasses between them. They were laughing and Lucius frowned as Granger threw her head back and wheezed, her messy curls falling down her back. 

Doesn’t it ever bother you that everyone we hate is so much happier than we are?

Surely there was a line though; she looked ludicrously happy. It was unseemly. The boys accompanying her didn’t seem to mind, however, joining her in kind. 

Which one of them was she fucking, Lucius wondered in spite of himself, his eyes flicking between them. Draco had thought Longbottom but maybe it was the other boy. Both of them? 

Lucius squeezed his glass, his fingers pulsing rhythmically against the carved patterns of it as he watched them.

Beneath their table, he could just about see Granger’s legs. They were encased in what looked like thick black stockings, a short checked skirt straining over her thighs. There was no hand on her knee. No other signs of intimacy. 

Just at that moment, the boy whose name Lucius didn’t know placed his hand over Longbottom’s, a wide grin on his face. Longbottom, his cheeks pink, allowed the boy to capture his lips in a quick but passionate kiss. As they drew apart they both looked immensely pleased but shy. 

Granger appeared delighted by the whole exchange. Not an ounce of jealousy on her face. 

Ah, Lucius thought, realisation dawning.

It was still entirely possible that she was fucking one or even both of them but it didn’t seem just as likely now. 

Catching sight of his own reflection, Lucius scowled and tore his eyes away from her. Heart pounding, his neck warm with irritation, he glared down into his firewhiskey. Why was he even thinking about that? He didn’t care who the Mudblood let between her thighs. 

Movement in the mirror caught his attention again and Lucius looked up just in time to see her stand from the table. Still chatting to her friends, she wiggled her hips and tugged down the hem of the skirt that had ridden up while she’d been sitting before departing in the direction of the bathrooms. 

Lucius turned his head to watch her – the real her, not her reflection – walk away, his gaze lingering on the sway of her hips. An awful heat that had nothing to do with his firewhiskey pooled in his chest, dripping into his lower stomach like candle wax. 

It was nothing more than a physical reaction. 

Lust. 

Lust was irrational. His body didn’t know she was a Mudblood; it couldn’t be blamed. These things happened; enough once-respectable purebloods had been disinherited that he couldn’t pretend he didn't know they happened. He just didn’t think they’d ever happen to him. 

Or his son. 

Draco’s determination to marry a blood traitor was the most pressing issue, Lucius reminded himself. 

What if it wasn’t Draco’s fault, though? What if his own desire for Granger was a sign of an underlying weakness in his character that he simply hadn’t known about until now? What if Draco had inherited it? 

No. Lucius shook his head, pulling himself back from a spiral. No, he was not depraved. He did not have a general predilection for Mudbloods. It was just one Mudblood. One strange little aberration. Besides, it wasn’t like he was ever going to act on it. 

Draco, on the other hand…

Lucius’ brow crumpled as he contemplated his son. He wanted him to be happy. He did. He thought he’d given him every opportunity to be so. But the Malfoy line needed more than love to survive. It needed tradition and resolve. It needed sacrifice. Lucius had done his part and now Draco had to do his. Quickly, preferably, for any kind of security.

He would have to talk to him again. He would have to…

Lucius glanced down into the last mouthful of his whiskey and bit back a hiccough. He would have to think about what he was going to do when he’d had a touch less to drink. 

It was dark by the time Hermione started to make her way back up to Hogwarts, the cloud-covered moon doing little to illuminate her way. 

She’d left Neville and Wood in Hogsmeade, well aware that they were going to end up getting a room at The Three Broomsticks and refusing to be a third-wheel any longer. 

She’d only been supposed to join them for one quick drink and she’d tried to leave them alone multiple times over the course of the evening but Neville had continually insisted that she stay. Hermione suspected it’d been his nerves getting the better of him – he really seemed to like Wood. It was also, perhaps, a little bit of pity for the fact that the rest of her Saturday night would be spent alone. Fortunately, Wood had managed to settle the nerves and Hermione thought she had managed to convey that she was actually not pathetically lonely, thank you very much. 

Hermione shuddered when a gust of cold wind whipped at her, pausing to pull her cloak more tightly around herself. The rain had, mercifully, stopped at some point earlier in the evening but it had left the dirt path soft and claggy, the muck sucking hungrily at her boots. 

Passing through the towering school gates, Hermione admired the castle’s glittering lights far ahead of her. They winked and twinkled, seemingly just for her, and she beamed back at them, her eyes welling up thanks to a sudden surge of fondness. Such sentimentality was a sign that she was possibly a little bit drunk. Merry, as her father would say.

Trying to keep up with Neville and Wood had probably been a mistake.

Hermione stumbled up the path, her satchel bouncing against her thigh as she squinted into the darkness. Her wand was inside the magically extended bag somewhere. She’d tried to find it while swaying on Hogsmeade main street with no success and she didn’t imagine she’d have much more on a dark path. She knew the way well enough to get on without it.

Hermione’s heart lurched as the ground suddenly disappeared beneath her right foot and, with an undignified splash followed by a squelch, she found herself ankle deep in a freezing cold, muddy puddle. 

“Oh, bollocks!”

“Granger?”

Hermione screeched at the sound of the deep, male voice coming from just off the path. Hauling herself out of the puddle, she tottered back to retreat from a large shadow moving towards her.

“Who is it? Who –”

Like someone had flicked a switch, a bright light appeared. Hermione cringed, her chin drawing into her neck and her face turning away as it seared her retinas. 

“Started swimming in the evenings, have you?”

Blinking through the light, Hermione found herself looking at Lucius Malfoy. 

In one hand he had his wand lit and held aloft, casting a bright, cold light over both of them, while the empty half of his cane was clutched in the other. His critical eyes were fixed on Hermione’s sodden, mucky boot and the still-rippling puddle that lay between them. 

Hermione’s heart sank, feeling as soggy and damp as the foot of her tights. Just once, she thought, she would like Lucius Malfoy to encounter her as she managed an astounding magical feat, rather than as she fell on her arse, or into a puddle, or sluiced her way out of a lake.

“No,” she snapped defensively, tugging her satchel into a more comfortable position on her shoulder. “I just…it’s dark. I didn’t see the puddle.”

“There’s this little spell, you know,” Lucius drawled, his eyes rising to hers. “Lumos – you might not have heard of it. Very handy for dark nights.” He gave his wand an indicative little shake so that the light danced. It was incredible to Hermione that an action so brief could convey so much sarcasm.

Even in the cold, her cheeks burned with indignant embarrassment. “I know Lumos.”

“Then why not use it?”

“I can’t,” she mumbled, her cheeks growing even warmer if that was at all possible. “My wand is in my bag somewhere but I can’t find it. I think my library might have toppled onto it when I tripped coming out of The Three Broomsticks.”

Lucius frowned at her, his mouth staying open for several seconds before he finally settled on the part of her explanation that he wanted to question first. “Your library?”

“Undetectable extension charm,” Hermione explained, noticing his eyes drop to her bag with interest. “I’ll need to take some time to get a good look in there. I think it must be trapped under Hogwarts: A History and maybe something else because Accio just isn’t working. That’s what it was last time.”

And she was quite drunk which made any kind of wandless magic a touch more challenging but she wasn’t going to mention that to him.

“Last time –” Lucius cut his own exasperated inquiry short and shook his head. “Just…fine. Come – you can follow the light of my wand, if you must.”

Ignoring Hermione’s astonished blink, he turned and started on his way up the path towards the school. 

She watched him go with pursed lips, weighing up his offer. Walking with Lucius Malfoy through the dark. Alone. Relying on him to be her guide. It didn’t sound like the best idea – they didn’t exactly have the strongest track record when it came to alone time. Especially not in the dark.

“You might want to move,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Or go alone and stumble headlong into the Whomping bloody Willow – I hardly care.”

Oh, how comforting.

Not willing to wait for her a moment longer, Lucius started walking again but Hermione remained fretfully reluctant to join him. 

As he drew further from her, however, taking the light with him, she shuddered, her soaked foot nipping painfully in the cold. How many more puddles awaited her on the long walk to the school? She had a sudden vision of ending up immersed up to her neck and shuddered.

“Wait!” 

He did not, leaving Hermione with no option but to jog gracelessly through the dark to catch up with him, her boots slipping in the mud as the incline of the path grew steeper.

"I didn't say you could walk with me," Lucius said irritably when she finally fell into step beside him, having to take two for each one of his. "I said you could follow my wand."

“What were you doing lurking in the dark?” she asked with an accusatory huff, electing to ignore him. Like she was going to scurry behind him like he was some kind of light-bearer and she was a desperate moth. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I was enjoying the view of the castle,” he said tersely. “It was quite a peaceful moment until you ruined it with your shrieking and splashing. People have drowned more quietly, you know.”

Hermione hummed suspiciously in response as the wind pushed a very faint whiff of smoke under her nose. Enjoying the view and a lovely cigarette, most likely. 

They walked in silence through the cold night, their steps squelching in the occasional mucky patch and their shadows stretching in front of them. 

Hermione tried her best to hide the extent of how tipsy she was and focused on walking in a straight line. Regardless of her efforts, every few seconds her and Malfoy’s arms bumped together. 

Peering at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering why he wasn’t telling her off for it, she thought that she spied a crease between his brows and realised that he was also intently focused on his steps. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who’d been drinking.

A sharp gust of wind lifted Hermione’s cloak and she whined as the cold buffeted her jumper and sliced at any exposed skin it could find. Teeth chattering, she adjusted her cloak’s clasp higher up her neck and tried to fight the wind to gather the wool more tightly around her body.

“Would you stop whimpering,” Lucius grumbled, casting her a sidelong glare. “It’s incredibly annoying.”

“It’s cold! And my foot is wet.”

They walked for a few more minutes, Hermione shivering and muttering under her breath about “trench foot”, before Lucius let out an aggravated growl and came to an abrupt stop. 

It took a few seconds for Hermione to register that the light was no longer moving with her and she turned to face him, her back to the wind so that her hair blew forward onto her shoulders.

“Just –” Lucius closed the space between them in a couple of steps, eyeing her like she was a puzzle to solve or a mountain to scale. “Let me.”

Without warning, he extinguished the light of his wand, plunging them back into darkness. A high-pitched squeak escaped Hermione when his wand hand came into contact with the front of her cloak, insistently pushing the heavy wool aside to slide into it. 

“What are you –” She attempted to twist away and gasped as Lucius brought the body of his cane around her back to cage her in. 

“Warming charm,” he explained gruffly, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. “Just stay still.”

Sure enough, at that very moment, a pleasant warmth spread around the inside layer of Hermione’s cloak. 

“Oh,” Hermione whispered, her rigid posture melting as the heat sank into her shoulders and back where her cloak sat heaviest. 

Satisfied that his spell had worked as intended, Lucius withdrew his cane from her back and his wand from inside her cloak. The back of his hand grazed her waist  through her jumper, eliciting an instinctive shudder from Hermione that had absolutely nothing to do with the cold. 

Through the dark, Hermione heard him grumble and saw his shadow stoop. Mere seconds later, her foot and boot were warm and dry. She wriggled her toes delightedly as Lucius straightened up, his shadow swaying. He flicked his wand to relight it. 

Hermione’s breath caught when the light revealed that Lucius was mere inches from her, her eyes in line with the collar of his shirt. Slowly, she raised her gaze to his face, finding it pale and cold in the glow of his Lumos spell. 

“Are you going to stop complaining now?” 

His voice was little more than a stern murmur but Hermione heard it and, swallowing, nodded. 

“Thank you,” she managed to say, her voice strangely hoarse to her own ears. 

Staring up into Malfoy’s face made Hermione painfully aware that she was swaying gently, as though buffeted by the breeze. Using his mouth as a focus point, she tried to make sure that she was moving from side-to-side, rather than back-and-forth, lest she headbutt his nose. His mouth was quite pleasant to look at when it wasn’t distorted by a sneer.

“You smell like gin,” she whispered, unable to stand the tense quiet for a moment longer. 

“That’s you,” Lucius said on a sigh, turning on his heel to begin walking again. “I smell like whiskey.”

With physical distance restored, Hermione finally felt able to take a deep, necessary breath before she scampered after him. The wind whipped at her but she was able to pull her cloak around her body and enjoy the heat, her teeth no longer chattering.

“Is there any reason you’re returning to the castle alone in this state?” Lucius asked, lifting his wand higher to cast the light further. “Weren’t you with someone?”

“I was with Neville but he’s off on a date tonight,” Hermione explained. “They offered to walk me back but I’m fine .” She jumped over a large branch and landed less than gracefully, stumbling diagonally so that she bumped Malfoy. “They worry too much.” 

Lucius’ responding tut and the resentful look he cast down at her unsteady feet made her think that he disagreed. 

“Oh, um, speaking of…that kind of thing – dates and so on –” Hermione ventured, earning herself a sharp look. “I, er, had a firm word with Priscilla Price yesterday after dinner. She shouldn’t bother you any more.”

Even over the breeze and rustling trees, Hermione heard Lucius’ relieved exhale. “Thank you,” he said, with more sincerity than she’d ever heard from him.

“No need for thanks,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “It was inappropriate and she needs to know that.” 

Hesitating, Hermione frowned thoughtfully down at her dirt-splashed boots, picking through her memory of the encounter. 

“Not that I wanted to make her feel ashamed of her feelings or anything,” she said slowly. “I don’t think that’s fair. It was just her actions that were – it’s like, teenagers will have crushes like that, won’t they? It’s quite a complex thing. I mean, when I was her age, God knows –”

Catching sight of Malfoy’s raised eyebrows, Hermione abruptly stopped, nipping her tongue between her teeth in the hope of preventing any more of her gin-addled musings from spilling into the world. Why was she still talking? To him of all people? 

“Yes?” Lucius asked, peering down at her. There was a sly note of interest in his voice which made dread flood through Hermione. God, the man would be willing to use anything against her. 

“Nothing.”

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said, using the body of his cane to whack an overgrown branch out of his path, “you might as well tell me. Else I am going to assume you had a torrid affair with Horace Slughorn.”

“What? ”

“It’s the only plausible explanation for his fondness for you because I struggle to imagine that your unimaginative approach to potion making has ever produced anything close to special.”

Insulted from so many angles that it made her head spin, Hermione spluttered and staggered, her whole arm crashing heavily into Malfoy’s. He testily nudged her with his elbow to straighten her up. 

“That is absolutely disgusting,” she gasped, rubbing her arm. His elbows were weirdly sharp, even through layers of robes. “Good lord. No.”

“Well, what then?”

Sighing, Hermione shrugged. Nothing could be as bad as what he’d suggested, so what was the harm? 

“I had a… a perfectly innocent –” She shot him a pointed glare – “fascination with one of my professors at Hogwarts. Arithmancy. He was much too old for me, of course – he’s retired now.”

“Are you talking about Field?” Lucius asked, aghast. “Lyle Field? Granger, he’s practically decrepit.”

“Yes, well,” Hermione said with as much dignity as she could muster, “he’s also a very intelligent man. With very gentle manners.”

Hermione did not expect the snort of incredulity that Lucius let out in response. 

“Gentle?” he asked, a tremor of amusement in his voice.

“Yes,” Hermione said stiffly. “What? What’s so funny about that?”

“Granger.” Malfoy shook his head and Hermione thought she could spy something close to a pitying smile on his face. “You would eat a gentle man alive, if you did not grow bored of him first.”

“That’s not true,” Hermione snapped. 

“Trust me, it is.” Lucius paused for a moment, like he was debating whether he ought to give her his full opinion. 

“What ?” she pressed.

“Well, he wouldn’t give you what you clearly need.”

Oh, this will be good. As if he knew anything about her. “Which is?”

“A firm hand.” 

Hermione’s mouth fell open, heat rushing to her face to defy the wind chill. “I do not need a – I am a grown – just mind your own – shut up!”

Apparently delighted by her less than eloquent response, Lucius chuckled properly, the sound of it low but clear, coming from his chest. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard such a genuine laugh from him. It might have been a pleasant sound if it hadn’t been at her expense.

Ignoring Hermione’s glower, he extended his wand arm farther to throw a shadowy lump in their path into relief. It turned out to be a cat, which yowled and skittered into the trees. Clutching her cloak closed at the front, Hermione was rather tempted to follow it.

They rounded a corner on the path and relief rushed through Hermione at the sight of the viaduct to the castle. The procession of tall, flaming torches on its balustrades was so bright that Lucius immediately extinguished his wand and tucked it back into his cane.

“Tell me, Granger,” Lucius said as they stepped onto the walkway and into the orange glow of the flames, “are you familiar with a witch named Ginny Weasley?”

At the mere mention of the name ‘Weasley’ Hermione’s heart did a somersault and landed with a pathetic splat somewhere in the region of her pelvis. 

It wasn’t like she still had feelings for Ron – not romantic ones, anyway – but she still wasn’t at the point where she could think of him and completely detach herself from the memories of what had been and the wonderings of what might have been. If she was completely honest with herself, the thing she missed most about him was the feeling of having a family in the wizarding world.

On receiving no response to his question, Lucius frowned and glanced at Hermione out of the corners of his eyes. “She’s around your age,” he prompted. “Yes? You were here together?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Hermione replied, shaking her head like that would be enough to empty it. “She’s…she’s the younger sister of my ex-boyfriend. A good friend, really, but we’ve…we’ve not spoken in some time.”

“Ah.” Lucius nodded once and then turned his head to study Hermione’s profile. She kept her eyes fixed on the approaching oasis of the courtyard, praying that he would not ask her any questions about Ron. 

“What’s she like?”

Hermione frowned and, in spite of herself, peered up at him curiously. “Why are you so interested in her?”

“Draco wishes to court her,” Lucius explained and Hermione could not fail to hear the displeasure in his tone. “And you will not mention that to a single soul, Granger – if it becomes the subject of gossip, I will know you are the source and I'll make sure you pay dearly.”

“Oh,” Hermione replied, her gaze dropping to the white-knuckle grip he had on the head of his cane. “Does she…I always got the impression that your families don’t really get along all that –”

“We don’t,” he interjected shortly. “Hence why I am asking what you know.”

How odd, Hermione thought. It was hard to imagine a witch like Ginny Weasley with a wizard like Draco Malfoy. She was so boisterous and down to earth and ready to laugh. 

Malfoy, as far as Hermione remembered, was reserved and spoiled, much preferring to laugh at someone than to make a joke with them. Not to mention, he’d made his feelings on the Weasleys perfectly plain throughout their time at school. To their faces much of the time.

Admittedly, Hermione was more familiar with Draco Malfoy the boy. She did not know him especially well as a man. It was possible he had changed, though his father made her doubt it. Then again, the fact that Draco was even interested in Ginny in the first place suggested that he must have experienced some kind of epiphany. Perhaps the bludgers in Quidditch had finally scrambled someone in the right way.

“Well, she’s very pretty,” Hermione said, seizing on the first thing that she thought must have drawn Malfoy’s attention to the girl he’d once teased for her scruffy robes. “Funny. Clever. And she doesn’t take any nonsense.”

Lucius hummed, not sounding especially pleased by anything Hermione was saying. 

“I don’t think she likes Draco, though,” Hermione added.

“No,” Lucius promptly agreed. “In fact, I’d venture to say that’s an understatement.” 

“But he’s still going to –”

“Yes, Miss Granger,” Lucius said on a sigh. “He is. I’m not entirely sure what’s gotten into him.” 

He used the end of his cane to send a small stone skittering into the courtyard as they stepped off the viaduct. 

“This is the kind of thing that Narcissa was far better at handling.”

He muttered the last part, as though he was speaking to himself rather than Hermione. Though she heard him, she thought it was probably easier to pretend that she hadn’t and so she climbed the stone steps to the Entrance Hall with him in silence. 

Hermione had heard about the death of Narcissa Malfoy. If her memory served her correctly, it had happened during third year. 

Ron had been jeering about the sudden disappearance of Draco from their classes – loudly declaring that he hoped his parents had finally grown tired of him and sent him to Durmstrang – when a Slytherin girl had very coldly informed their group that he had just lost his mother.

It was the only time Hermione had ever seen Ron look truly guilty for saying something mean about Malfoy. 

When Malfoy had come back to classes only a few weeks later, however, Hermione had been surprised by how quickly it'd returned to business as usual between them. 

In fact, Malfoy had instigated the first post-return confrontation by telling Ron that the reason the Weasleys had no money was clearly down to the maintenance of Molly's plumpness. In that moment, he’d seemed so unchanged by the loss that Hermione had thought him more heartless than ever. 

As she risked a glance at Lucius Malfoy’s profile, finding it unusually introspective and forlorn, Hermione wished her fourteen year-old self had been better able to understand that people handled their grief in different ways. 

A family as repressed as the Malfoys were probably more unconventional (to put it lightly) in that area than most.

She wasn't entirely sure what she'd have done with that understanding in the moment – or even how it helped now – but she still wished she'd had it. 

The towering castle door groaned and creaked as Malfoy pushed it open, his palm flat against it. He jerked his head at Hermione, wordlessly instructing her to go first and she ducked under his arm to slip through the gap into the empty Entrance Hall. 

It was late enough that all of the students were tucked away in their Common Rooms and, as Hermione swayed on the spot and looked down at her dirt splattered boots and cloak, she was very grateful for that.

“Did you eat the chocolate, by the way?” she asked Lucius, raising her head to watch him push the door closed behind them. “The bar I gave you?”

“What do you think?” he grumbled, his lip curling with distaste at the sorry state of his own shoes. Lifting one foot and jerking it sharply, he sent a soggy clump of muck flying. No doubt Filch would have something to say about that. 

Drawing out his wand, he cleaned the worst of the dirt from his shoes with a sharp flick before sheathing it again. He did not offer to clean hers.

“You should try it,” Hermione said, twirling away from him to head for a passageway to the left of the main staircase. “It’s really very tasty.”

“Where are you going?” Lucius asked snappishly, gesturing in the general direction of the grand staircase with his cane while he distractedly grimaced at the dirt spattered hem of his robes. “It’s this way.”

“I know a shortcut,” Hermione replied, not bothering to look back. 

She did not especially wish to take the Grand Staircase and subject herself to the stares of hundreds of judgemental portraits. They tended to gossip, the ones on the Grand Staircase having a particularly strong sense of self-importance. That wasn’t to mention the risk of meeting a nosy Prefect on patrol. 

“It cuts straight up to the second floor,” she explained, “and we can take the quiet way to the fourth floor.”

“You couldn’t have informed me of this ‘shortcut’ when you were escorting me to my room on my first night here?” Lucius asked, the closeness of his voice indicating that he had elected to follow her, most likely wishing to avoid the Grand Staircase for similar reasons. God forbid someone see Lucius Malfoy with even a hair out of place.

“You were in a terrible hurry,” Hermione said, shooting him a knowing look over her shoulder. “And I don’t think you’d have listened to me anyway.”

Lucius grumbled under his breath but didn’t disagree. He stayed just behind her like a particularly large and grumpy shadow as she led him along the corridor. Eventually, Hermione slipped behind a heavy tapestry.

Malfoy blinked when she effectively disappeared, then used his cane to push aside the thick wool to find her already scurrying up the narrow staircase that it concealed, her cloak billowing behind her. 

“How did you and your little friends become so well acquainted with this castle’s passages?” Lucius asked climbing after her, his voice echoing.

“Oh, that’s a secret I have to take to my grave, I’m afraid,” Hermione chirped. “Although there’s a trick stair around here so watch your – AH!” 

Hermione’s right leg sank into the staircase and she shrieked, falling forwards. Her hands flew out to prevent her from smacking against the stair in front of her while her satchel slipped from her shoulder with a heavy thump, its strap tangling around her wrist.

An uncharacteristically inelegant snort from Malfoy made Hermione grit her teeth as she pushed herself up into a wobbly standing position, most of her balance coming from her left leg which was still free and on the stair below. 

Knowing her face was somewhere between scarlet and puce, she hauled her bag back up onto her shoulder and attempted to catch her breath as Malfoy came up alongside her, a large black figure in the corner of her eye. 

“Dear me, Miss Granger,” he said, vindictive amusement dripping from every word as he took an exaggerated step over the trick stair that trapped her. “I would have thought that after your little puddle incident earlier this evening you would have learned to watch your step.”

“I just – it’s a trick stair and I miscounted.” Hermione glared down at her leg, seeing that her foot, her ankle and a third of her calf had sunk into the stone. “I thought it was the next one. Just –” 

Swallowing, Hermione craned her neck to look up at Malfoy who had stopped two stairs in front of her and turned to watch her struggle with apparent delight. “Would you help me?”

He raised his eyebrows and she sighed, giving her leg a fruitless tug as she added, “Please.”

Lucius tilted his head, his lips pursed. “No,” he said slowly, his eyes trailing down her body. “No, I don’t think I will. I think I’ll leave you here so that a student can find you tomorrow. I’m sure someone will come this way at some point.”

“You can’t,” Hermione gasped, stricken.  

A genuine smile lit up Malfoy’s face, like he found her shock endearing. 

“Of course I can. Think how they’ll talk.” He turned to go, his cloak billowing out. “Professor Granger discovered splattered with dirt and smelling like stale gin in a secret passageway –”

Malfoy cut his rapturous imaginings short with a choked noise when he had climbed two more stairs and found himself unable to continue. 

Frowning, rubbing his throat, he half-turned to look back, discovering that Hermione had thrown herself forward as much as her trapped position allowed to seize the end of his cloak with both hands.

Glaring down at where she’d fisted her hands in the expensive wool, Lucius slowly raised his eyes to hers. Hermione breathed heavily through her nose, her jaw tight and her eyes gleaming with victorious fury.

“Let go,” Malfoy commanded.

“No,” Hermione panted, instead tightening her grip. 

Malfoy’s nostrils flared and he raised a hand to the jewelled clasp at the neck of his cloak. 

“You realise I can just undo this,” he said, “and be on my way.”

“Then I’ll have your cloak and proof that you left me here, trapped in a stair, all night.” Hermione saw his eyes widen fractionally and grinned, aware that she probably looked absolutely feral. “Hardly the actions of a man of upstanding character such as yourself.”

“You sneaky little –”

“Come on, Malfoy,” Hermione cajoled, giving the cloak an insistent tug so that it dug into his neck. “Just help me."

Lucius stared down at Hermione for several long seconds, his eyes flicking between her pleading face, her hands in his cloak and her trapped leg. His grip tightened around his cane but Hermione refused to drop her eyes from his face.

“I don’t –” he began, then stopped.

Shaking his head, like he could hardly believe what he was doing, Lucius stooped and set his cane on the stair above him. Turning to Hermione, bringing one foot down a stair, he extended an imperious hand to her. 

“Bag,” he said, in response to her questioning look. 

Not willing to let his cloak go lest he run, Hermione secured more of it in her left hand so that she could free her right and slide her bag strap down her shoulder. Sighing, Lucius took the bag and set it down on the step beside his cane. 

Satisfied the bag was secure and unlikely to slide into them, Lucius descended the stairs until he was on the stair one above Hermione. He paused to assess her position, glancing at the hold she still had on his cloak.

“Let go of the cloak,” he instructed.

“No,” Hermione said, staring determinedly straight ahead into the buttons of his waistcoat. “It’s my insurance.”

His sigh was tired and Hermione peered up from beneath her lashes to find him looking down at her with ill-concealed discomfiture. 

“I need both of your hands,” he said, “so just let it go.” 

When Hermione did nothing but blink stupidly he rolled his eyes, his head briefly dropping back so that his nose was pointed at the ceiling. “I’m helping you, you daft witch.”

“Oh.” Hermione pressed her lips together, considering the material in her grasp. He couldn’t help her until she let it go; she just had to trust that he wouldn’t run. 

Impossible. 

She consoled herself with the idea that he was now actually close enough that she might be able to grab him around the ankles if he attempted a betrayal. 

“Okay, I’ll –” 

With some effort, Hermione released the cloak so that it fell, curtain-like, around Malfoy. Keeping one foot on the solid stair directly in front of Hermione, he anchored his other foot in the stair above that.

He held both of his hands out to her, palms up, and Hermione could do nothing but stare at them. 

“Take them,” he said through gritted teeth, shaking them at her impatiently.

“Oh.” Hermione inhaled deeply through her nose and slowly placed her palms on his. His hands were dry and unexpectedly warm. So much larger than hers. 

A strange squirming started in Hermione’s lower stomach when Lucius closed his fingers around her. She peeked up at him from beneath her lashes and saw his gaze was locked on where they were joined, like he'd been seized by some kind of morbid fascination.

“Hold tight,” he said after a moment, nodding at his grip on her hands to indicate that she should return it.

Hermione did so, swallowing hard. Then, with no further warning than that, Lucius yanked her. Hermione cried out in shock, her body jerking forward violently. 

Her leg, however, did not leave the stair.

“Bloody hell,” she snapped breathlessly. “You could have counted down!”

“I’m helping you,” he replied, grunting as he hauled again with just as little success. “You don’t get to dictate how I –" He pulled once more, his jaw tight with the effort. "Do it.”

“Ow !” Hermione leaned away from him, twisting herself out of his grip with an aggressive growl. "The only thing you're going to free is my arms from their sockets!"

Lucius raised a hand to his brow, letting out a long, exasperated sigh as he assessed her. 

Scowling up at him, Hermione rolled her shoulders and stretched her fingers to try and rid herself of the ache in her compressed knuckles. She'd be lucky if she could ever hold her wand properly again.

A thoroughly defeated look flashed over Lucius' face and he dropped his arms heavily by his side. 

"What?" Hermione asked warily.

Clearing his throat, Lucius re-established his footing and stooped towards her, his face coming almost level with hers.

“Arms around my neck,” he muttered, looking anywhere but into her face.

Hermione hesitated, her lips parting.

"Oh, I'm not sure that's –"

"Granger, just do it." His voice was sharp with impatience and warning. 

Feeling more uncertain than she ever had in her life, Hermione did as instructed, sliding her arms around him like she was embracing him. She tried not to notice the way his broad shoulders easily supported her elbows. 

Clearing his throat, Lucius slid his right hand into her cloak, snaking his arm around her waist. 

The side of his face came against hers and Hermione’s heart thudded as she inhaled the faint scents of smoke and whiskey alongside something warm and rich, like sandalwood. 

It was an oddly comforting scent but she parted her lips to take deeper breaths through her mouth in an attempt to avoid it.

“Alright,” he said, his voice low and deep near her ear. “Just hold on and I’ll –” 

The arm hooked around Hermione's back tensed, Lucius’ fingers digging into her waist as he attempted to tug her up and out of the stair. She gripped her left wrist with her right hand in order to keep her hold on him but ultimately remained trapped. 

Huffing a sigh that made her hair flutter ticklishly against her ear, Malfoy shoved his other hand into her cloak so that both of his arms were locked around her. He adjusted his stance and then tried again, forcing a squeaky puff of air out of Hermione as he pulled her chest tight against his.

“Are you even trying to help me?” he growled in her ear.

“I am,” she snapped. “But my movement is a bit –” Hermione grunted, attempting to lift her leg on her own – “Limited .”

Malfoy lowered his stance further, his chin coming to rest in the curve where her neck met her shoulder. 

Heat suffused Hermione’s cheeks in response to their physical closeness and she was immensely glad that Malfoy couldn’t look into her face at that moment. This was, she thought, by far the weirdest night of her life and that was saying something given the last month. 

“Your hair is ridiculous,” Lucius muttered, blowing one of her curls out of his face. 

Keeping his right arm hooked around her waist he moved his left hand down to the leg that was stuck in the stair. 

“Gah!” Hermione exclaimed, her whole body going rigid as he unexpectedly gripped the back of her thigh, his long fingers curling to the inside of it. 

Her tights were thick but not thick enough that she couldn't feel every individual digit. 

A distant part of Hermione’s brain wryly observed that it was incredibly depressing that Lucius Malfoy attempting to haul her out of a trick stair was the most intimate physical contact she’d had in many, many months. 

“I’m going to pull your leg and you can push against the stair with your other foot,” Lucius ordered, mercifully oblivious to the herd of hippogriffs that was apparently taking flight in her stomach. “Understand?

Hermione nodded, trying to keep her breathing even as she tucked her face into his shoulder, gripping her own hands tightly to keep them around his neck. 

Taking a beat, Malfoy pulled again, his fingers digging almost painfully into her leg through her tights. With her free foot, Hermione pushed against the solid stair.

“I think it shifted,” Hermione said, her relieved voice muffled by his robes.

He nodded. “On three, try again.” 

He tugged again but, this time, his hand on her thigh lost its grip. Hermione let out a shocked gasp when the fingers curled around her slid under the hem of her skirt. 

"Um –" she gulped.

Malfoy’s breathing was ragged in her ear and, as he momentarily tightened his hold, his fingertips sinking into the soft flesh of her upper thigh, Hermione could do nothing but whimper into him, her hips instinctively jerking towards him.

“Why are you so warm?” he asked, moving his hand back down to where it’d been, wiping his palm on her tights before restoring his grip.

“It’s – it’s the charm,” was Hermione’s embarrassingly breathless reply. “In my cloak.”

Malfoy counted to three before pulling her again and Hermione pushed her free foot determinedly against the stair, desperate to get herself out of the bizarre situation in which she’d found herself. 

Without warning, Hermione’s leg emerged from the stair all at once. Not expecting all of her weight, Malfoy stumbled back. Hermione yelped, screwing her eyes shut and burrowing her face into his shoulder as he backed up one stair, another, and another before he found his footing again. 

Easing her eyes open, her arms still wrapped around him, Hermione exhaled shakily and lifted her head. Malfoy held her just as tightly, his arm around her waist and his hand clutching her thigh so that her feet dangled just above the stairs.

“Mr – Mr Malfoy,” she whispered, overwhelmingly conscious of the way her body was pressed flush against his. “Sir, um, I think – I’m okay now.”

There was a drawn-out pause in which Malfoy’s fingers constricted her leg. Then he loosened his hold and, none-too-gently, dropped Hermione onto the solid stair beneath her. 

Hurriedly brushing her hair away from her face, hoping her flushed cheeks were not too obvious, Hermione chanced a peek up at Malfoy only to find a very faint tint of pink had settled on his cheekbones.

“We should –” 

Short of breath, her words sticking in her throat, Hermione nodded indicatively at their belongings further up the staircase and, ducking her head, moved around him to collect them. 

It was almost certainly for the best that she pretended she hadn’t spotted any sign of his discomfort. 

“Thank you,” she said, turning on the stairs to hand him his cane as he approached her. The pinkness had faded from his cheeks and his face was back to its usual pale, impenetrable mask.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, taking his cane with a curt nod. “Ever.”

Nodding her understanding, Hermione secured her bag on her shoulder and, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, turned to climb the last few stairs out of the passageway. Malfoy followed her in silence.

In fact, they were silent the entire route back to the fourth floor. Hermione, somewhat dazed, simply had nothing to say and she didn’t think that Malfoy minded that she was not attempting to force any kind of conversation.

It wasn’t until they were passing his room that she managed a mumbled “g‘night” and hurried on her way, barely even aware of the fact that Malfoy offered her no response but a slammed door.

Chapter Text

As soon as he’d slammed his door behind him, his hand pressed flat to the wood, Lucius Malfoy let out a long, low, wounded groan, his head dropping so that his chin came close to his chest.

Swallowing hard, he gripped his cane and tried to ignore the insistent hardness in his trousers that had started almost as soon as he’d wrapped his arms around Granger. 

She could spout off about the benefits of streamlined Muggle clothes all she liked but Lucius was nothing but thankful for the many layers that had prevented her from feeling his reaction to her. 

“Fuck,” he growled, pushing himself away from the door. 

He dropped his cane on his desk beside the unopened Muggle chocolate bar and immediately set about tearing his cloak from around his neck, hardly caring if he damaged its expensive clasp. It was a fucking liability anyway. He’d have been able to just leave her stuck in the staircase if not for that thing. 

Chest heaving, Lucius shook his robes off and threw them carelessly onto his bed. Everything felt restrictive. He was too warm. So uncomfortable in himself. His waistcoat followed his robes and he aggressively undid the top buttons of his shirt, relieved to feel some cool air around his neck.

What was she doing to him? Every time he thought he had the upper hand – every time he thought he had complete control – he lost it.

Lucius collapsed heavily into the reading chair near the fire, dropping his head into his right hand while he clenched his left into a fist on his leg. 

With his eyes closed, he thought he could still feel the firmness of her thighs under his fingertips. The warmth of her. The scent of her perfume. The tickle of her hair against his cheek. That tiny but unmistakable whimper near his ear when his hand had – when he’d –

Lucius’ cock gave a completely unwanted throb and he clenched his fist so tightly that his fingers were in danger of burrowing through his palm.

Even before that moment. When he’d turned to find her clinging to his cloak like the vicious little animal she was, he’d felt something stir. The desperate fury in her face had captivated him as much as it repelled him. 

He wasn't sure anyone else got to see her as he did. In her rawest, messiest, angriest form. He'd been so focused on the pleasantness she exhibited to everyone else that he hadn't really considered that. He was her exception.

The idea of that gave him a curious kind of satisfaction. A sense of ownership, even. He could get under her skin like no one else, as she could get under his. She wasn't just a Mudblood. She was his. Lucius Malfoy's Mudblood. Why shouldn’t he have her? He had everything else.

Lucius shifted uncomfortably, unclenching his fist to adjust his tented trousers. 

He was being stupid – he knew exactly why he shouldn’t have her. All the many reasons. Aside from anything else, there was no way that Hermione Granger would ever allow herself to be had . Not entirely. She would never be a thing that he could simply have.

It only made him want her more. 

It wasn’t like he wanted to marry her or have her bear the next Malfoy heir. He’d done his part for all that. It was Draco’s turn now. He was the head of his fucking household; his father had been dead for decades. There was no longer any danger of him going the way of Arthur Price. 

But she was still a Mudblood. Albeit an intelligent one. A pretty one. 

Lucius swallowed and undid the button on his trousers, grateful for the reduction in pressure. She was so much more complex than he’d ever been led to believe Mudbloods were. She was so much more generally. 

Stubborn, though. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said she needed a firm hand. With hindsight, he realised he probably shouldn’t have said that, actually, but the firewhiskey had somewhat muddled his filter. The firewhiskey was also, he was sure, a contributing factor to his current twisted thinking.

His breathing shallow, Lucius glared down at his persistent erection. It wasn’t going to go anywhere if he didn’t stop thinking about her. 

Not unless he – 

Sighing, Lucius tipped his head back against his chair and closed his eyes. He wouldn’t. He would not. 

Not over thoughts of her. 

Not over thoughts of her breathless little gasp in his ear, or her arms wrapped around him, or the way his hand had accidentally slipped under her skirt. Had her hips bucked towards him when that had happened or had he imagined it?

Was it also his imagination that he could still smell her perfume? The faint rosy scent of it clinging to him like the sticky silk of a spider’s web.

“Oh, just –” 

Eyes tight closed, Lucius eased his hand into his trousers and grasped his cock. It was the hardest he’d been in years and, groaning with relief, he began to stroke himself quickly. 

He would just be quick. Efficient. It’d barely count. 

He wouldn’t even commit to a fantasy. 

Just flashes of wild, soft curls tangled between his fingers; biting, breathless kisses; long, firm legs wrapped around his waist; small hands pinned beneath his own; warm brown eyes locked on his, daring him to take what he wanted; “Mr Malfoy, sir, please.”

And she’d thank him after.

Lucius grunted and gasped, his hips jerking as his orgasm hit him with force and his release spilled over his fist. 

He took a moment to catch his breath, his eyes closed as he allowed himself to float on a plane of blissful relief. 

Then, all too quickly, it faded and the dim, stone room and the sticky, messy reality of what he’d just done came back to him. Lucius made a soft noise of disgust in the back of his throat and rose unsteadily to his feet to clean himself off.

It was really just as well that half term was coming up – a week away from Hogwarts and Granger was likely the only thing that could save his disintegrating sanity.

Hermione slammed the door to her room shut and fell against it, dropping her head back onto the wood with a solid thump. She raised it and dropped it again with another thump. And again. And again. Until it hurt. 

What the fuck was that?

Lowering her shoulders, Hermione allowed her bag to slide from her right shoulder and onto the floor. She undid the clasp on her cloak and dropped it on her other side, sighing with relief to feel cool air around her neck and body.

Why had she gotten stuck in that step? 

No, why had she walked back to the castle with Malfoy? 

Actually, why had she ever decided that she wanted to teach Muggle Studies? 

Better yet, why had she ever even been born? 

Non-being would be so much better than her current state. Her current state of desperately wondering what it was about having Lucius Malfoy’s arms wrapped around her that had made her heart pound and her stomach – as well as a region just slightly south of that – flutter.

Uggghhhh.

Hermione dropped to her knees by her satchel and pulled the flap open to shove her arm in up to her shoulder. 

Fucking wand. If she'd just had her fucking wand.

He’d been pulling her out of a stair like she’d been a Mandrake buried in a bloody pot. What, exactly, was erotic about that? Something, according to her obviously malfunctioning brain. 

Was this just what happened when you eschewed sex for a prolonged period? Did any pair of large hands attached to strong arms make you take complete leave of your senses? 

Hermione unseeingly pushed aside heavy book after heavy book, her fingertips skimming the bottom of her bag which was somehow littered with crumbs despite her never putting any kind of food in it.

She was never drinking gin again. In her slowly sobering state she could already feel that she was going to have a terrible hangover and it obviously made her delusively horny. Or maybe…

Pausing in her search, her arm still buried in her bag, Hermione silently counted through the days of the month. No. No, she wasn’t even at that point in her cycle. It had to be the gin. 

It had to be something because it certainly couldn’t just be him – he was awful. 

Hermione grumbled to herself and, holding the bag wide open with her left hand, ducked her head into the opening. Even in her bright, firelit room it was difficult to see. It’d felt sensible and safe to put her wand in it at the time but she’d already been three gins deep by that point so her judgement hadn’t been the soundest.

Closing her eyes, she tried to fight against the hazy fuzziness coating her brain, focusing on an image of her wand. “Lumos,” she mumbled.

Sure enough, a very faint glow appeared somewhere in the depths of her bag, partially concealed by the remaining books.

Raising her head, she screwed up her face and shoved her arm in deeper until her palm landed on a thick book that was lying open, face down. Hooking her fingertips between the pages, she lifted it out of the bag and set it on the floor.

He was human, yes. He felt things, of course. But he was still awful. To her especially.

Hermione plunged her hand back into the bag and, letting out a victorious yelp, finally managed to wrap her fingers around the carved handle of her wand. Under Hogwarts: A History , just as she’d thought. 

And he made her so angry. It was an anger that set her heart pounding and caused a rushing in her ears. It had the power to leave her breathless.

Sitting back on folded legs, Hermione gripped her wand in her lap. 

He was the only person in her life who made her feel like that. Who made her feel so…strongly. Pity it was negative.

Of course, she knew she could annoy him just as much as he annoyed her. She'd seen it. It was actually a small point of pride. But she'd also seen that tint on his cheeks as he'd let her go. Hermione had witnessed the many shades of Lucius Malfoy's anger and that pink wasn't one of them. 

Had he responded to that moment — their closeness — just as she had? The idea of that made her want to laugh, mostly because she knew he'd absolutely hate it. Hermione's wry smile slipped. About as much as she hated it, probably.

Did you really have to like someone in order to physically…respond to them? It wasn’t always a rational thing, lust. Because that's what it was, surely: lust. Thoughtless. Instinctual. Practically primal. 

It wasn't like she'd enjoyed his ragged breathing in her ear or his fingers curled around her upper thigh because they made him a nice person. Even as they’d walked through the grounds, that moment when he’d pushed his hand into her cloak, his arm around her back and his body hard and solid against hers…

Warmth pooled in her lower belly, dripping down to create an incriminating slickness between her legs. 

There wasn’t niceness in those things.

“You would eat a gentle man alive,” he’d said. “If you didn’t grow bored of him first.”

Hermione's chest inflated as she took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it all go in a rush. 

Maybe he was right. 

After all, right at that moment, Hermione didn't want anything especially gentle. She wanted to be held firmly. Tightly. She wanted something – someone – to help her exorcise the restless, aggressive energy coursing around her body. 

She wanted – Hermione swallowed the saliva that had gathered under her tongue in a tasteless pool. God, she just wanted.

But not him. 

Never him.

Lucius Malfoy was simultaneously an encapsulation of the wizarding world in which she’d been trying to establish herself for so long and everything that was wrong with it. She wanted to awe him – to have him acknowledge her obvious talent – and to take him down several to one hundred thousand pegs all at the same time. 

Closing her eyes, Hermione pictured large hands spanning bare thighs, pushing them apart, and pressed her own clenched fists into the crease of her thighs. A skirt roughly rucked up. A back pressed against a hard stone wall. Urgent, hoarse whispers. Grey eyes boring into hers, dark with desire. An admission of his wrongness in and of itself.

No. 

Hermione jolted back into herself and pushed her bag away like it had just said something particularly offensive. Tucking her wand into the waistband of her skirt, she clambered unsteadily to her feet and shook her head aggressively.

Not grey eyes.

She did not want anything about Lucius Malfoy. 

October 20th 

Hermione did not swim that morning. 

Though she consumed a hangover potion almost as soon as she found it in herself to rise from her bed, a peek out the window revealed that everything was grey and miserable. She could barely see the lake through a thick sheet of rain and the wind whistled through the tiny gaps in her window, sounding like a boiling kettle. 

Snuffling, her nose and toes uncomfortably cold, Hermione crossed to her bathroom and bathed herself, scrubbing herself with extra vigour. Like she could ever be truly clean again after the filth her unconscious brain had dragged her through.

Her less-than-sober musings on her floor about her not-desire for not-Lucius Malfoy had turned into disjointed, charged dreams which she could not remember with any real clarity but which had left her inner thighs slick on waking.

Emerging from the steam, Hermione did the bare minimum of pulling on a thick knitted jumper, a pair of jeans and her cosiest socks and boots in order to descend to breakfast, her satchel slung over her shoulder and her hair clawed back into a ponytail that only Neville’s bobble had the power to hold. 

As usual early on a Sunday, the Great Hall was quiet. Hermione politely nodded to a few familiar faces at the various house tables and greeted Sprout and Flitwick at the staff table before settling into her seat. 

Without Neville or Malfoy present, she had more elbow room than she knew what to do with and gathered her breakfast items with excessively extravagant arm gestures to make the most of it.

She didn’t expect to see Neville at all at breakfast. At least, she hoped she wouldn’t – she hoped he would be enjoying a nice breakfast with Wood down in Hogsmeade. 

Malfoy, on the other hand, she couldn’t predict. Unsurprisingly. 

Hermione stared into her porridge with a haunted expression. She wasn't sure she was quite ready to face him, anyway. 

Hermione had finished her porridge and was onto her second cup of coffee by the time Lucius arrived at breakfast. Head down and intent on her newspaper, she didn’t notice him until he dropped into his seat beside her with unusual heaviness. 

Hermione stiffened, the slight gust caused by him sitting sending that warm sandalwood scent she’d smelled the night before beneath her nose, though it was mixed with her coffee rather than whiskey and smoke this time. 

It didn’t make it any less pleasant. 

“Morning, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said quietly, not raising her head from her paper. 

It was a struggle to look at him directly, everything that had passed between them the night before (in actuality and in the privacy of her own head) being far too recent. Instead, Hermione allowed her gaze to surreptitiously drift to his hands as they reached for the teapot. 

She squeezed her thighs together at the stark memory of those same hands around her. Oh, bloody hell. You did not enjoy that, you fucking masochist.

“Granger.”

The unusual gravelliness of Malfoy's voice made her finally look around at him properly. His face was tinged with grey and he looked just as miserable as she had felt when she’d woken up that morning. Her inkling that he’d also indulged in a drink the night before had clearly been correct. 

Pursing her lips contemplatively, Hermione closed her paper and set it on the table before pulling her satchel up into her lap. Malfoy appeared content to ignore the way her entire arm disappeared into the bag and Hermione suspected he was more focused on trying to block out the sharp, grating sound of his knife scraping across his toast. 

He was just setting his knife down with great care to ensure that it would not clatter against his plate when Hermione slid a small vial filled with an acid greed concoction over the table towards him. 

“Here,” she said, not bothering to soften her voice as she poked it again so that it met his plate with a tink. “Call this a thank you for walking me through the dark. And the warming charm.”

He would not receive a thank you for pulling her out of the stair given she’d had to effectively blackmail him into it. 

Casting her a suspicious glance, Lucius delicately set down his toast to pick up the vial. He raised it to his eyes and inspected it before pulling out the cork and bringing it under his nose.

“It’s not poison,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms on the table in front of her. “It’s a hangover potion. You can drink it.”

“Who said I’m hungover?” he asked, his eyes narrowing and his shoulders drawing back proudly. 

“Your skin, eyes and general demeanour this morning are speaking volumes,” was Hermione’s dry reply. “It’ll help.”

Lucius hesitated for only a moment before throwing the potion back in one gulp. Hermione watched him with satisfaction and reflected that hangovers truly were a marvellous equaliser. 

A shudder worked its way up Lucius’ body and his face contorted as he swallowed.

“A sprig of mint wouldn’t have gone amiss,” he said hoarsely, depositing the vial back onto the table.

“Make your own next time, then,” Hermione said primly, returning to her paper. “I don’t actually think hangover cures should be particularly pleasant.”

“What a little masochist you are,” Lucius muttered, unknowingly repeating Hermione’s previous self-admonishment much to her mortification. 

Hermione said nothing, though she could feel Malfoy’s eyes on her as she determinedly stared at the picture of dozens of ‘For Sale’ signs used to head an article on the Muggle housing market. The roiling in her stomach and the static between her ears made it hard to actually focus on the tiny print. 

She did not want him. She just wanted some weird fantasy that bore a vague physical resemblance to him. The actual man beside her was unkind and irascible and monstrously narrow-minded. She would never want someone like that to even look at her, let alone touch her.

“Tell me,” he finally said, “am I really going to be rewarded every time I do you a good turn?”

Without lowering her paper, Hermione turned her face to look at him and swallowed as her eyes met his. They were absolutely not dark with desire. But they were certainly not cold with hatred, either. 

“Maybe,” she said, struggling to read his inscrutable expression. “Muggles have this thing called Operant Conditioning; you should look it up.” 

“I will not,” he said, turning away.

“Probably for the best,” Hermione said, setting down her paper again with a sigh. There was no point in trying to read. “Have you eaten the chocolate yet?”

“Will you keep asking until I do?” 

Hermione caught him rolling his eyes and couldn’t help but grin ruefully. “Yes.”

“Then get used to hearing the word ‘no’.”

Hermione watched him as he busied himself with arranging his place setting, pouring his tea and adding a splash of milk. Every second that passed, the hangover potion did its job and restored some life to him. It was like watching colour bleed into a black-and-white photo. 

He really could be considered handsome, she mused. If you didn’t know him very well. It was a strictly aesthetic consideration.

Not that she did know him very well, she supposed. She only really knew her version of Lucius Malfoy who was, by all accounts, far less inclined towards pleasantries – pleasantness generally – than everyone else's. 

As she inspected his profile, calm and almost serene beneath the Great Hall’s floating candles, Hermione wondered if it was possible that there might be something between the extremes; between the Scylla of his spite and the Charybdis of his charisma. In an incredibly narrow strait.

“Is there any particular reason you’re gawping at me?” he asked, shooting her a curious look out of the corner of his eyes. 

Hermione flinched back to life. “I – no, I –” She looked around the table and immediately lunged for the Daily Prophet. “I wondered if you wanted the Prophet . You missed the owls.”

A suspicious narrowing of his eyes was the only response Hermione got as he reached out and plucked the newspaper from her hand. 

“You’re welcome,” she said pointedly, eyebrows raised. 

Demands manners more readily than he displays them. Of course. Nothing about that dampened her knickers.

“I doubt I’ll thank you when I read about Fudge’s latest misadventure,” he said, the bitterness laced through his voice suggesting that he held her personally responsible for all of the Minister for Magic’s faults. “I’ll likely have to spend the entirety of half-term cleaning up whatever mess he’s made in my absence.”

“So, you’re not staying at Hogwarts?” Hermione asked, no small amount of relief coursing through her and lifting her spirits. 

A week away from Malfoy. A week without his ignorant sniping or fear of professional sabotage. A week without the new, weird, frankly upsetting urge she had to stare at his hands. 

Bliss. 

“Hm? No, I leave today,” he replied absently, squinting at a boxed out quote from Fudge with something close to woe. “I’ll return in time for classes next Monday.”

“Brilliant!”

It was only when Malfoy slowly looked around from his newspaper to stare at her, a single neat brow arched, that Hermione realised she’d made her declaration with a touch too much enthusiasm.

“By the by,” he said lightly, lowering his paper to the table. “I noticed in your little course guide that you intend to cover Muggle literature with your seventh years following the break. I do hope you’ve selected appropriate texts or we may have an issue.”

“I don’t understand,” Hermione said, frowning. “Literature is an approved topic on the curriculum and there aren’t any texts listed, either for approval or disapproval.”

“Then I suppose their appropriateness will ultimately be determined by me, then, won’t it?” Malfoy reached for his tea, a satisfied smirk playing around his lips as he took a sip. “Choose wisely.”

Hermione scowled. She bloody definitely didn't want him. Git.

It was obvious that he intended to find fault with whatever works she selected. Well, he could give his criticisms and his reasons for them before the lessons, not after. She would have a record of them. 

Reaching down, Hermione picked her bag up once again and began rummaging inside it. 

“Here,” she said, thrusting a booklet between Malfoy’s nose and the paper to which he’d returned his attention. He pulled his head back and peered down at the booklet, a disgusted wrinkle to his nose.

“What is this?” he asked, not accepting it. 

“It’s the texts I’ve selected for my class,” Hermione said, shaking it annoyingly so that he had to drop the Prophet and take it, simply to get it out of his way. “Poems. I’ve collated them myself and I’ll be giving this out. If you’re so concerned about my selections, you can read them and give me feedback. I assure you I’ll implement it.”

“You think I have time to read this nonsense?” he asked, setting the booklet down atop his paper with an air of distaste. 

“I think you should make time,” Hermione responded shortly. “If you don’t and you make a complaint, I’ll be sure to inform the other governors that I gave you every opportunity to have a say. Over a week, in fact.”

Hermione met Lucius’ glacial glare with a bland smile and briefly raised her eyebrows. “Up to you, Malfoy.”

With that, she closed her bag, rose to her feet and stepped away from the table. “See you next week.”

October 25th

Lucius adored his home. It was, by far, the finest wizarding estate in the country and he took great pride in it. If he had one criticism, however, it was that it could be incredibly – oppressively – quiet. 

Silence was to be expected when one was alone but it had greater depth in the Manor. Particularly at night. The sheer number of rooms and shadows mocked his solitude. It was why he tried to spend most of his evenings out; dining, drinking, and charming the right people. 

Not tonight, though. Tonight Lucius was alone, ensconced in his study and nursing a large firewhiskey. 

He hadn’t expected to be.

In fact, he had turned down several invitations in order to extend one of his own to Draco. He had not received a reply but Lucius had expected that his son would at least make some kind of appearance. He had not. Nor had he sent a note of apology. 

Lucius allowed a mouthful of firewhiskey to pool in the bottom of his mouth, burning his tongue, before he swallowed it. Clearly, Draco was taking the Weasley girl thing rather more to heart than he’d thought. 

Sighing, Lucius set his glass down on his desk and dropped back in his chair, clasping his hands over his middle. The fire crackled in the grate; his grandfather clock ticked in the corner; the sleeping portraits rustled. None of it truly penetrated the oppressive silence for him.

He had not raised his son to be such a fool. Or so rude. 

Tutting, Lucius leaned forward and leafed through the various correspondences from the last few days, searching for something – anything – that might grab his interest because he refused to be anything as pedestrian as bored. He paused, a handful of letters in his hand as he unearthed a thin booklet of white Muggle paper. 

Granger’s poems. 

He’d told the elf to dispose of it. Idiotic thing. They never listened to him the way they’d listened to Narcissa; it was infuriating. 

Dropping the booklet onto his desk where it landed with a thick thwack, Lucius contemplated it with narrowed eyes. He didn’t like that something of hers had wormed its way into his home. Malfoy Manor was a blissfully Granger-free space – a time capsule to a simpler time. 

He sniffed and took another drink, allowing his glass to dangle lazily from his fingertips as he continued to stare at the booklet.  

What was Granger doing right at that moment, he wondered. His eyes flicked to the grandfather clock. 10pm.

In the library, possibly. At her favourite table. Or preparing for bed – wriggling out of those absurdly tight Muggle trousers she wore.

Lucius scoffed, blinking away the image of a half-dressed Granger. He would not, he thought glaring down at his own trousers, have another ‘incident’. 

Reading those poems was potentially a good way to remind himself of how heinous she was. On the inside, at least. 

Glancing at the door, as though making sure no one might walk in and catch him doing something so shameful, he pulled the booklet towards himself and flicked it open with a disinterested air. 

The contents page was nothing but a list of names he did not know: Clare, Donne, Eliot, Browning, Angelou, Frost, Hughes, Neruda, Keats, Plath, Larkin. It went on but he did not bother to read any more. The Floo Directory would be more enlightening.

Taking another bracing glug of whiskey, Lucius flicked another page, using only the tip of his middle finger. 

“I Am! By John Clare,” he read silently to himself. “I am—yet what I am none cares or knows—”

Lucius choked on a disgusted laugh, immediately turning the page. Absolutely not. Everyone knew him and it behoved them to care. He would not read that.

He had a feeling he was going to need a walk in the grounds with a cigarette or five after wading through such extraneous tripe.

“The Clod and the Pebble by William Blake,” the next page read. 

“Here we go,” Lucius muttered, rolling his eyes as he spied the flowery language beneath.

"Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

One brow arched, he skimmed the next two stanzas.

“So sung a little Clod of Clay

Trodden with the cattle's feet,

But a Pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

Frowning, Lucius reread the poem, his lips pursed. What she hoped to achieve with these lessons he could not fathom. Did she want them to be clay or pebbles? 

He read it again over the rim of his glass, more slowly this time.

Was she clay or a pebble? What was he? 

Lucius shook his head irritably. It was moot – they were witches and bloody wizards and there was nothing the sentimental drivel of Muggles could teach them about themselves or anything else.

He flipped another page as he took another drink, reading “Remember by Christina Rossetti” over the rim of his glass. 

“Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.”

Slowly, Lucius lowered his glass, swallowing the burning liquid behind clenched teeth. He inched the booklet closer with the tips of his fingers. 

“Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.”

His eyes flicked up to the photo of Narcissa that he kept on his desk. She fluttered her lashes at him and offered a smile. The one she’d always reserved for him, notable for its sincerity. He absent-mindedly returned it with a very faint one of his own, not caring that she couldn’t see it.

“Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.”

Lucius cleared his throat and shifted in his seat as he read the last line. Glancing into his whiskey, he threw back the last of it and re-read the poem, his heart pounding. 

The sentiments of a Muggle, not a million miles from those expressed by his wife before her passing. It was galling and…could something be both comforting and utterly discomfiting at the same time? Like being lovingly held by someone you hated in a moment of dreadful vulnerability.

What had prompted this Muggle to write such a thing, he wondered. Recording the expressions of a loved one? Leaving a message for one they loved themselves?

Lucius pushed the booklet away, running a harried hand up his jaw. He needed a distraction from his distraction. 

Reaching across the desk, he pulled a sheet of parchment and a quill towards himself. He hesitated for just a moment before he inked the nib and lowered it to the page, helplessly writing the first name that came to his mind these days when he thought of distractions. 

He was stuck in an infinite loop of Granger.

Hermione dropped her head into her hands and pressed her fingertips into her eyes. They were tired and strained from the hours she’d spent marking and she rather thought it was time to go to bed. It had to be well past 11. 

At the sound of a sharp tapping on the window of her room, she raised her head and, blinking away the blue-green blurs left by her fingers, turned in her seat to find a large, pale eagle owl peering in at her. 

Frowning, Hermione rose to her feet and crossed the room swiftly to let the owl in out of the cold. As soon as she opened the window, it swooped inside and landed on her desk atop her marked essays.

“No, please don’t shit on them,” she begged quietly, moving slowly back to her desk so as not to alarm the owl. “That’s the last thing I need.”

The owl gave no response to her pleas, simply blinking at her imperiously in a way that was curiously familiar. When she got close enough, the owl held out its leg to her, presenting a scroll of parchment. 

It stayed perfectly still while she untied the parchment and still didn’t move when she unfurled it. Eyeing the owl suspiciously, Hermione finally lowered her gaze to read. 

“Granger,

Muggle poetry varies greatly.”

That was it.

Hermione scoffed out a disbelieving laugh, her eyes darting between the lordly owl and the curly, sweeping handwriting. The note was unsigned but, really, it could only be from one person. With who else, unbelievably, had she discussed Muggle poetry recently?

He was reading the booklet then. So late at night, too. He had to be excruciatingly bored. It was hard to imagine someone as machiavellian as Malfoy succumbing to something as ordinary as boredom. 

Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, Hermione contemplated the owl. It wasn’t moving. Perhaps it had been instructed to wait for a reply. Sliding carefully into her seat, Hermione set the parchment onto her desk. 

Marking pen in hand, she re-read the note from Malfoy and, with one last glance at the owl, drew a line beneath it to write: “Do you mean in terms of style or quality?”

Folding up the parchment, Hermione re-tied it to the owl’s leg. She’d barely completed the knot when it stretched its wings and took off for the still-open window, unsettling her neat pile of essays as it went

“Oh you –” Hermione cursed the owl and immediately set about re-organising the essays. Of course Malfoy would find a way to disrupt her when he wasn’t even in the castle. 

Odd, though, that he would find a way to talk to her when he wasn’t in the castle. Just how bored was he? 

Stopping herself in the process of shuffling together the papers, Hermione straightened up and looked over her shoulder at the window she intended to leave open in expectation of a reply. 

How bored was she?

Hermione had tidied away all of her marking and changed into her pyjamas by the time the owl returned. It landed in the same place, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that its previous perch of essays had vanished. 

It blinked at her, its orange eyes piercing as she untied the message. Her heart thudded hard enough to make her fingers tremble and the owl hooted softly, perhaps telling her to calm down. 

She didn’t know why she wasn’t calm. It was just strange, wasn’t it? That she had a note from Malfoy and she was actually quite looking forward to reading it. What had he thought of the poems? She could hardly believe he’d actually read them. 

Once again, the owl waited for her to read, its wings tucked away and its body straight like a palace guard. Beneath Malfoy’s first note and her response, he’d written: “Both. Tell me, are you using a Muggle pen just to irk me?”

Hermione tutted, her brow collapsing under the weight of her displeasure. Of course he could tell. Pedant. 

Picking up her pen, she drew a heavy line beneath his note before bending over her desk to scribble her reply.

“It’s what I have to hand – I was marking essays and I have a particular pen for that. Not everything I do is a calculated attempt to rile you, you know. I do have other things on my mind.”

Lucius raised his eyebrows, a smirk playing around his lips as he read the first half of her irritable response. She’d underlined ‘everything’ three times. Goodness, but her handwriting was very heavy for being so small. A reflection, perhaps, of the sheer volume of temper contained in her little body.

“I’ll be asking my class to select a poem from the booklet and to write a report on it,” she’d written beneath. “You’re more than welcome to submit one too if you’ve been inspired. I would be happy to read it.”

That drew a soft snort from him and he reached for his quill, drawing a far neater line beneath her note.

“Very kind, I’m sure, but I’d be afraid that you’d lose it.”

He sent his owl off with a satisfied exhale. That’d rile her, though he was sure a letter would not be nearly as satisfying as actually witnessing her response. A more expressive witch surely did not exist.

While he waited for the reply that he was absolutely certain would come, Lucius busied himself with pouring yet another firewhiskey. It'd take some time for it to come but Lucius was certain it'd be worth the wait. It wasn't like he was doing anything anyway.

When his owl finally swooped through the window he’d left open and landed with a soft hoot on the surface of the desk, Lucius set his glass to the side and crooked his finger to invite the owl to hop closer. He gently untied the parchment from its leg, a preemptive smirk quirking at the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m not stupid enough to put the response I’d like to give you in writing,” he read, noting the aggressive dots above her ‘i’s. A world away from Priscilla Price’s hearts. “But I’m sure you can imagine it.”

Lucius chuckled to himself, setting the parchment down to lean back in his chair and pick up his firewhiskey. Vividly. He could easily imagine the flushed cheeks and that molten glare. The insistence that she didn’t lose that essay while avoiding any overt accusation that he’d stolen it because she was much too smart for that.

The mere thought of such an encounter ignited those low-burning embers in his chest again and his smile faded, his eyes drifting to the photo of Narcissa. 

He didn’t feel guilt, exactly, for feeling attraction to someone else. Not after so many years. Although he could well imagine Narcissa’s disgust at his choice and that made him squirm.

It was curious, though, his interest in Granger. She wasn’t much like his Narcissa in appearance or even personality. If anything, he realised with a frown, he saw more of himself in her. Particularly where the obduracy was concerned. 

Narcissa had once told him during a rather heated disagreement that if he didn’t have her then she was sure he’d be just fine with a mirror. Just what Granger had threatened to be, funnily enough.

Mostly, though, he thought Hermione Granger was quite unlike anyone else he’d ever met. It both was and was not a compliment.

And now he was writing to her for company well into the wee hours. Enjoying it. Thinking about her with something close to fondness. 

He’d intended to use his week away to get a more secure grip on his sanity and here he was, letting more of it go. Practically throwing it away. Tying it to an owl’s leg and letting it soar out the bloody window.

It was only because his only son had abandoned him. Lucius was sure he wouldn’t even have thought of Granger or her poems if he’d kept himself occupied as planned. 

Of course, Draco would not have abandoned him if he had been given the go ahead to court the Weasley girl. 

Another problem.

Sighing, Lucius looked at Narcissa's picture. 

“What exactly am I supposed to do here?” he grumbled. 

As usual, she said nothing, simply tilting her head so that her long blonde hair fell over her shoulder. Lucius wished, not for the first time, that she’d had the chance to be able to spend enough time with her portrait in the drawing room to make it behave even remotely like her. It had her voice, her appearance, but absolutely nothing of her. 

Narcissa had tended to be softer with Draco. When Lucius had taken him to task about his results, for instance, the boy had always run to his mother for comfort. Then she’d always given Lucius that look; that quelling look that said, ‘he’s your son’. 

That was the problem. Draco was, indeed, his son. He wanted the best for him. He wanted him to be the best. Though, perhaps, Narcissa would remind him not to make the mistake of conflating those things. 

She had disliked the Weasleys just as much as him, though. Molly Weasley’s paysan domesticity had repelled her and Arthur Weasley’s inability to adequately provide had drawn nothing but scorn from her. Lucius wondered now if she had also come to resent their small army of offspring.

It was challenging to imagine her response to this particular situation. She’d likely try to find a way to give Draco what he wanted, as she always had. Maybe she’d argue that they loved their son more than they hated the Weasleys. 

Merlin but he really did hate the Weasleys. 

“I hate them, Cissa,” he told the photo beseechingly. 

Sighing, Lucius dropped his head into his hands and dragged his fingers down his face to peer at Narcissa over the tops of them. 

His one regret was that he had denied her something it had been in his power to help her get. Draco was the only living part of her he had left – was he really willing to do it again? 

There was no guarantee that Draco would even win the girl over, he reasoned with himself. She hated him. And even if he did somehow manage to convince her to marry him, she would become a Malfoy, rather than the other way around. Their children would be Malfoys. They would elevate her. And it was true that she was a pureblood.

Mental gymnastics truly were exhausting. Lucius cast a discomfited look at his exchange with Granger. He’d been doing rather a lot of them recently. 

Pulling a fresh sheet of parchment towards himself with a dejected air, Lucius re-inked his quill and addressed it to Draco. 

He would not give his approval but he would give his permission. He would give his son four months to win the Weasley girl over and no more, after which time they would return to the list of matches with no arguments. 

It was the best he could be expected to do. More than his father would ever have done for him.

Chapter Text

October 28th 

When Hermione sat down beside Lucius Malfoy for breakfast after a week spent apart, she found herself wishing, for the first time in her entire life, that half-term had been longer.

Perhaps naively, she’d thought that a week would be long enough to eradicate that new, perturbingly anticipatory feeling she experienced when she was around him. As it turned out, it hadn’t been long enough. Not nearly long enough. 

If anything, the feeling was actually slightly worse thanks to their letter exchange. 

A small exchange. Drawn out over hours, with more time spent waiting for the other’s reply than writing. 

Not even a particularly pleasant exchange, either; when sending her final response to him, Hermione had politely requested that his owl shit on his desk or, better yet, in his lap. Its responding, faintly offended hoot had made her doubt her request would be granted. Which was fair enough, really, but she’d had to ask.

When it came down to it, the whole thing had been utterly inconsequential. If it’d been with anyone else, Hermione would hardly have remembered it in the grand scheme of her week.

But it hadn’t been with anyone else. 

It’d been with him. 

Not only that, he’d been the one to start it and the more she mentally revisited the brief notes he'd written to her, the more Hermione thought that there might have been a faintly teasing undertone to them. 

Like he'd been trying to provoke further responses from her.

She just didn’t understand why. Why he’d wanted to write to her. Why he'd wanted her to respond. Or why it’d left her feeling so…well, why it’d left her feeling anything. 

“Granger,” Lucius greeted, glancing up from his tea as Hermione took her usual seat between him and Neville.

The time away from the castle seemed to have done Malfoy some good, Hermione thought – he looked rested and in fairly good spirits. 

Well, in as good spirits as he ever was when she was in the vicinity. 

His greeting, for instance, had actually sounded like a normal acknowledgement of her presence, rather than an entomologist identifying a particularly unpleasant specimen. 

“Mr Malfoy,” Hermione responded carefully, arranging her cutlery. She briefly squeezed the handle of her spoon before venturing to ask, “Good break?”

He looked around at her, his eyebrows twitching upwards like he was surprised by her polite enquiry. Not entirely displeased by it, though, she noted. 

“Productive,” he said. Hesitating, he took a sip of his tea before asking, “And yours?”

“Same,” she replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee and pausing to inhale the rich scent of it. “I managed to submit my Transfiguration Today piece. So, you can have that book back if you like.”

Hermione dared to throw him a falsely innocent smile over her shoulder as she returned the coffee pot to the front of the table and was rewarded with a quelling look shot over the rim of his teacup.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said with a dignified air, returning his cup to its saucer. 

“But you were so keen to have it,” Hermione said, her pitch high with faux surprise. She set about ladling some steaming porridge into a bowl. “Am I to take it that your sudden lack of interest in Chatterjee stems from your newfound passion for Muggle poetry?”

“I see a week has been more than enough time to fully restore your irritative powers,” Lucius muttered, sliding her the salt before she could reach for it or ask for it. “And no; I have not developed a passion as much as an aversion."

“Oh, a harsh critic,” Hermione said, a faintly teasing lilt to her voice which earned her a narrow-eyed look from Lucius but nothing else. 

Setting the salt down carefully by her bowl, she shifted to look at him more fully. “Did you honestly not like a single one of those poems?”

“No.”

“But you said they varied in terms of style and quality.”

Lucius cleared his throat, avoiding her penetrating stare by selecting two slices of toast and setting them with an absurd amount of care onto his plate. “They did,” he muttered. “They ranged from bad to worse.”

Frowning, Hermione nudged the butter dish towards him and proceeded to quietly, thoughtfully, watch him spread it across his toast. The idea that he had perused that entire booklet and found absolutely nothing of value was positively obscene to her. 

And oddly disappointing.

“Well, come on then,” she prompted sharply. “Hit me with it: which poems are you going to take issue with me teaching? I want it noted.”

Lucius paused, his knife hovering over his toast and his eyes flicking up to land on the combative pout on her lower lip. Sighing softly through his nose, he rolled his eyes and turned his plate to begin buttering the second slice of toast.

“Teach them all,” he said, his lips pressing into a thin line as he performed a particularly vigorous stroke with his knife. “Truly, some of the sentimental drivel you have syphoned to create that collection is likely to put even your keenest students off Muggles entirely.”

Hermione’s lips parted, first with surprise, then slight offence on behalf of the Muggle poets she’d exposed to his censure. “I'll require that ‘teach them all’ part in writing,” she said primly.

Lucius set his knife down beside his plate with a heavy clunk, his eyebrows rising. “Oh, you will, will y –”

The cacophonous rush of the post owls cut Lucius off and his eyes snapped skyward. Hermione pursed her lips and returned to her porridge, vowing to herself that she would get her assurances later.

There was no point in her scouring the skies as Lucius was — she was no longer hoping for owls from Harry and Ron and, given she’d only replied to Viktor’s most recent letter the day before, she wasn’t expecting anything apart from her usual newspaper deliveries. 

Hermione was surprised, then, when a handsome tawny owl landed at her place. Its distinctive plumage was vaguely familiar but she was certain it'd never delivered a letter to her.

Not content to wait behind its newspaper-bearing fellows, the owl haughtily nudged its way between them, knocking her mother's owl, Barney, into a towering plate of croissants.

“Hercule,” Lucius snapped at the tawny owl, sweeping a flurry of pastry flakes away with the side of his hand. “What are you doing?”

“What –” Hermione glanced at Lucius askance, trying to shift her porridge so that the owl, apparently named Hercule, would not hop into it. “He’s for you?”

“He’s Draco’s owl,” Lucius replied, frowning at the sight of Hercule sticking his leg out to Hermione. “What’s he –”

They looked down in tandem as Hermione reached out to lift the small square envelope secured to Hercule’s leg. Sure enough, it was addressed to her. 

“Why is Draco writing to you?” Lucius asked, his alarm audible.

“I have no idea,” Hermione mumbled, trying not to be anything less than gentle when she untied the letter, despite her overwhelming curiosity. Glancing around at Lucius, she found him watching her through eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Honestly!”

Barney and the Daily Prophet owl hooted loudly, ruffling their feathers with impatience. Tutting, Lucius pushed his toast towards his left elbow to save it from feathery ruination.

“Neville,” Hermione said, looking around at her curious friend with faint desperation as the small army of hooting owls crowded around her bowl, their more delicate feathers falling like snow onto onto the table. “Would you mind getting them? I’m sorry.”

“‘Course, yeah,” Neville replied, herding the other owls away from Hermione and Hercule to take the heavy papers from them. 

With a last helpless glance at the scowling Lucius, Hermione peeled open the envelope from Draco and unfolded the large sheet of parchment within.

She scanned the page quickly, her eyes darting down to the signature to see that it did, indeed, read ‘D. L. Malfoy’. 

“What does it say?” Lucius demanded. “Give me –”

“I haven’t even read it,” Hermione snapped, swatting away Lucius’ hand when he reached out to grab the letter from her. “Give me a second.”

“Granger,” Hermione read to herself, resolutely ignoring Lucius’ mutinous grumbling at her shoulder. 

“When you read who this is from, DO NOT TEAR IT UP. I will keep writing until I receive a response from you and I have instructed Hercule to be as aggressive as possible, short of biting you, to make sure that you at least read what I have to say.”

Hermione peered nervously over the top of the parchment at Hercule to find his orange eyes intently, unnervingly, focused on her. Right. She raised the parchment to block him out.

“Now, this is a letter of business so I won’t bother wasting ink or parchment with inane pleasantries. We both know I don’t care how you are and I highly doubt you’d be happy to hear that I’m doing extremely well. Thriving, really.

“I find myself in need of information about Ginny Weasley. I know you’re intimate with her and her family and you’re the only witch I can think of that might be able to tell me anything even slightly useful or reliable. I am, after all, very eligible in the eyes of everyone but you. Fortunately. 

“I want to know what she likes – favourite flowers, favourite colour, favourite foods – and what she absolutely detests. I want to know what she looks for in a partner. If you’ve got anything else you think might be pertinent then I’ll take that too.

“Before you do that prissy glare – you know the one – and throw this letter away, I want to be clear that I am, of course, willing to offer you something in return. 

“I know my father is on your case right now (honestly, Granger, Muggle Studies?) and I think I can help you. If you give me some decent information on Ginny, I’ll either talk you up to him or I’ll give you some tips on how to soften him up a bit. One or the other. Not both. Your choice.

I can’t guarantee that either option will be in any way successful but it’s got to be better than nothing – he is far from your biggest fan. 

Granger, I am only going to write this once because I know how much you will enjoy it and it pains me: please help me with this. It’s quite important.

D. L. Malfoy.”

Hermione let out a soft, incredulous laugh. Looking up from the letter to the wider hall with a dazed expression, she simply held the parchment out for Lucius to take. He wasted no time, snatching it out of her hand so fast that it was a miracle he didn’t leave her with a paper cut. 

Draco Malfoy coming to her for help. Draco Malfoy coming to her for information that would help him ‘court’ Ginny Weasley. What fucking topsy-turvy world was she living in?

A loud hoot from Hercule brought Hermione back into herself and, blinking rapidly, she scowled down at the persistent owl. 

“I read it,” she said, shooing him away with her hands. “I did. You can go.”

With a resentful glower that reminded her strongly of Malfoy, Hercule hopped around. Spreading his wings, he – she suspected deliberately – knocked her coffee so that it splashed onto the table and took off, blowing Hermione’s curls off her shoulders. 

“Absolutely bloody ridiculous,” Lucius seethed from beside her, crumpling up Draco’s letter with both hands before throwing it onto the table.

“Oh, don’t!” Hermione swiftly picked up the letter to unravel it, smoothing it out flat in the space where her porridge had been. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for something like this? Draco Malfoy begging me for help. Hilarious.”

“No!” 

Fixing Hermione with a glare so searing that it made her shift back in her seat, Lucius crushed the letter again, this time keeping it clutched in his fist. 

“The boy is a desperate fool, writing his intentions down like this. Not an ounce of care for his reputation. Or mine. And to come to you of all people. To think that I wouldn’t notice –”

“I suppose he doesn’t know we sit next to each other,” Hermione mumbled, eyeing Lucius’ white knuckles and the taught tendons on the back of his hand. 

“And what exactly do you intend to do, hm?” Lucius demanded in an undertone, flinging the ball of parchment down again and leaning towards her. “Will you respond? I can assure you, Miss Granger, the little ‘arrangement’ he’s offering is far more favourable to him than to you.”

“I’m not stupid, thank you,” Hermione responded sharply but quietly, her eyes flicking up to lock onto his. 

Lucius ceased his tirade, though Hermione suspected he was prepared to begin again at any moment. 

“I’m well aware that he’s not likely to be of any help to me when it comes to you.”

“Then what are you going to do?” Lucius asked impatiently.

Hermione cleared her throat and cupped her hand around the side of her abandoned porridge bowl in order to nudge it back in front of her. 

“Short of not being me at all,” she said, a sarcastically caustic undercurrent to her words, “I suspect that the best way to ‘soften you up’ would be to ask you what you want me to do.”

Hermione looked around at Lucius to see he was staring at her blankly. 

“In response to the letter,” she prompted.

Lucius blinked once, his mouth opening for several seconds before, “you’re serious?” finally came out of it. 

Hermione nodded and returned her attention to her porridge. It was peppered with small downy feathers and she made a soft “ugh” sound in the back of her throat.

“What would you tell him?” Lucius asked, eyeing her up and down as she wrinkled her nose and began to excavate her bowl.

“If I replied?” Hermione asked, glancing around at him just in time to see him nod. She pursed her lips and sighed through her nose, the delicate feather pinched between her thumb and forefinger fluttering. 

“I’m not really willing to give him much but what I would give would be the truth, I suppose,” she finally said, shrugging as she flicked the feather away. “I mean, I’m hardly an expert in all things Ginny – especially not these days – but she likes a person who can laugh at themselves; someone down to earth; someone who’s happy to just… muck in, I guess.” 

Accepting that her porridge was unsalvageable, Hermione shoved the bowl aside and shifted in her seat to look at Lucius, her knees pointing towards his. “Do you think that sounds like Draco?”

Lucius absently slid his own untouched plate of toast towards her as an alternative to her porridge. 

“‘Muck in,” he repeated slowly, his lip curling. 

Glancing down at the proffered breakfast and back up to Lucius, Hermione received an impatient gesture inviting her to help herself. 

“Thank you,” she said, delicately selecting an enticingly golden slice. It was buttered edge to edge, the way it should be. “And yes, 'muck in'. Get involved with her family, help out with things and not be all uppity about it.”

"My son," Lucius hissed, "was raised to carry himself with pride and dignity as befitting his station. He's the scion of house bloody Malfoy – he shouldn't have to do anything to get her interest."

"So, you're saying that doesn't sound like Draco then?" Hermione asked, looking almost bored as she took a bite of toast. 

Lucius' lip curled and through a tight jaw he said, "He is not, perhaps, the first person that comes to mind for all of those things, no."

“Hm,” was Hermione’s flatly unsurprised response as she chewed. 

Lucius uttered a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a sigh, his eyes drifting to the crumpled letter. Hermione spied his shoulders drop fractionally.

“But…” he began slowly. 

"But," Hermione prompted, taking another neat bite.

With a distinctly reluctant air, Lucius turned to look at Hermione, his eyes briefly flicking to the butter glistening on her lower lip. 

“Hm?” she encouraged again, more focused on the second slice of toast and wondering if that was also for her.

“But if his feelings are as true as he seems to think,” Lucius said, sounding tired, “and that is a big ‘if’, Miss Granger, then I’m certain he would devote himself to her entirely and never give her any reason to doubt his love.”

Hermione ceased chewing her toast and swallowed it with a large, audible gulp, her eyes rising to Lucius’ unexpectedly sincere face.

“Do you think she would have any appreciation for that?” he asked.

Hermione’s tongue flicked out to swipe the butter from her lip. 

“Well,” she said quietly, her heart thunking forcefully against her ribs. “I – I think anyone would. Don’t you?” 

Lucius held her gaze evenly for a moment and then he sat back, lifting a shoulder in a tired way that said ‘maybe’. 

Sighing heavily, he drew a hand over his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, Hermione watching him all the while. 

It looked to her like he was having a genuine fight with himself. 

“Tell him what you know,” he eventually mumbled, sounding terribly defeated. "Give him the chance to find out."

“Alright,” Hermione said slowly, nodding her understanding. She raised her toast to her lips, adding, “And would you like me to know how to soften you up or would you rather receive letters singing my praises?” before she took another bite. 

“I will leave that up to you,” Lucius said, shaking his head distractedly. Clearing his throat, he pushed himself to his feet, straightening his robes. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Granger.” 

With that, Lucius swept away from the table and descended into the hall. Hermione watched him thoughtfully as he parted crowds of students with little more than a cold look, lifting the second slice of toast from his plate to slide it between her teeth.

The Malfoys were extremely weird.

“Hermione,” Neville began when Lucius was almost at the exit, his tone light and conversational. 

“Hm?” Hermione asked, tearing her eyes away from Lucius’ retreating back to look at Neville, her expression distant.

“What in the name of Gryffindor’s gigantic galoshes was that?”

“What was what?” 

“You and Malfoy,” he said, like he could hardly believe she needed any kind of clarification. “Obviously!”

Hermione swallowed her latest mouthful toast far too quickly, wincing as the sharp, insufficiently chewed crust of the bread scratched her throat. 

“What about me and Malfoy?” she asked hoarsely, raising a hand to her neck. 

“That’s what I’m asking.” 

“We were just…” Hermione helplessly floundered for the right words, waving her hands like it might fan her flickering vocabulary. “Being like we always are.”

Neville snorted. “Er, no you weren’t,” he said, plucking the toast out of her hand to avoid being struck in the face. “What were you two muttering about? What was that letter?”

“It was…” Hermione shrugged and sighed, not especially wishing to tell Neville any specifics about Draco’s romantic ambitions. Certainly not after Lucius’ promise that he’d trace any gossip back to her. “It was about Malfoy – Draco. He needs advice on something – a potion – and his father isn’t exactly overjoyed that he asked me. Like I said: being like we always are.”

“Draco Malfoy,” Neville repeated slowly, either like he wasn’t sure he was hearing her or he wanted to be sure she was hearing herself. “Wrote to you? For advice?”

“Yes.”

Neville’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head slowly. “You’re being extremely off,” he said. “You were off all through half-term, too, but I thought that was just the enforced rest getting to you.”

Hermione hesitated for a moment then settled on the safety of silence, focusing on keeping her face blank while Neville studied her. 

What exactly was she supposed to say? ‘Oh, I’ve only been weird because I had an alarmingly intense physical response to my former bully’s equally heinous father and I’ve spent every day since questioning my sanity. No big deal, Nev.’

“Something was definitely different there,” Neville finally said.

Attempting her best dismissive scoff, which sounded more like a dry cough, Hermione shook her head. “Like what exactly?”

“It felt like there was…” Neville tilted his head and thoughtfully dragged his teeth over his lower lip, his gaze sliding to Malfoy’s empty chair. “Tension. But, like, less homicidal than usual.”

Blood rushed to Hermione’s face. “Shut up,” she said snappishly. “There wasn’t anything.”

Eyebrows raised, Neville shifted the butter dish away from Hermione, shooting her a sidelong look. “Your cheeks will melt that.”

“Neville!” Hermione cried, mortified, raising her hands to her cheeks and pressing her palms against them like that would cool them down. 

“What is wrong with you, Hermione Granger?” Neville asked, a wondering lilt to his voice. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing!” Hermione insisted. 

She loved Neville, she really did, but she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him what was happening with regards to her thoughts around Lucius Malfoy, not least because she barely understood them herself.

“Hermione, it’s probably not a bad thing if you’ve managed to establish some kind of peace with him,” he said soothingly. “Remember – polite and professional and he’ll have no reason not to recommend you for the job. Maybe you’ll do us all a favour and rub off on him – make him a bit nicer. Keep at it.”

“There’s nothing to keep at,” Hermione insisted. “He still hates me. He’s awful. You know what he thinks of me.”

“That was a lot of voluntary conversation with someone he hates,” Neville pointed out. "Maybe he doesn't know what he thinks of you."

When he saw Hermione’s furious expression, Neville just laughed and pushed at her arm playfully. “You’re being very defensive, you know.”

“I am not –” Hermione inhaled sharply through her nose and turned stiffly in her seat to stare out at the wider hall. “Just eat my bloody toast and shut up.” 

Neville snickered and took a bite out of the toast he’d confiscated from her. Then, glancing down at it, he frowned. “Weren’t you eating porridge?” 

“No.”

October 31st

“I simply don’t understand why you would have chosen to ‘dress up’ as a witch,” Lucius said to Hermione as he took his seat for the Halloween feast. “You are one.”

Hermione sighed and brushed long ribbons of orange and black streamers from the seat of her chair before dropping into it. 

“I didn’t know I was a witch then, Mr Malfoy,” she explained patiently, shifting a few miniature pumpkins around the table so that they would be less obstructive to her when the feast finally began. "I was about six years old."

Third year had been her last class of the day and the students had spent the last chunk of the lesson asking her questions about the traditions of mumming and guising in the Muggle world. 

Lucius had decided to save his interrogation for their journey from the classroom down to the Halloween feast, more interested in Hermione specifics than the generalities she’d been willing to share with her class. 

“And what, exactly, did your ‘dressing up’ as a witch involve?” he asked, his tone preemptively disapproving. As far as he was concerned, the Muggles had some nerve given the history. 

“Pointed hat, black robes, a little broomstick,” Hermione said, shrugging. “That sort of thing.”

“So you wore robes before you knew you were a witch," Lucius sniped, unfurling his napkin with a flourish to lay it in his lap, "but you won’t wear them now?”

“Excuse me, I do wear robes," Hermione replied primly, lifting her own napkin and allowing it to fall open. "You’ve seen them. Wouldn’t you ever dress up for Halloween? You’d make a great vampire."

“Halloween is the only time of the year we don’t have to blend in for the bloody Muggles,” he said, impatiently shifting a bowl filled to overflowing with chocolate cauldrons out of his way. “I’ll be myself or nothing.”

“Terrifying,” Hermione muttered. 

She turned away from a scowling Lucius to raise a hand in greeting to Neville who was picking his way through the crowds of students streaming into the hall for the feast. Neville waved back cheerfully, ducking under some of the bats that swooped down from the increasingly inky and cloudy ceiling.  

"Have you responded to Draco’s letter yet?" Lucius asked, watching Neville apologise his way around a troupe of ghosts who appeared to be disagreeing over the choreography they had planned for an after-dinner performance. 

"I did," Hermione said, peering at the bowl of chocolate cauldrons Lucius had pushed aside. "Wrote it out last night and sent it this morning."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Exactly what I told you I’d tell him, Mr Malfoy," Hermione said, sparing him a faintly exasperated look. "It’s surface level – I’m hardly going to give him Ginny’s deepest and darkest secrets. In fact, I have half a mind to write to her and tell her."

“I would prefer that you didn’t.”

“Why?”

“He might well change his mind when he sees what you’ve written,” Lucius said quietly. “He still could.” 

Lucius cleared his throat, watching Hermione cheerfully select a chocolate cauldron and drop it into her mouth. Hesitating, he said, "I noticed he was very frank with you in his letter."

"Frank." Hermione snorted, sliding the bowl back towards Lucius. "That’s a good euphemism for rude. Your son and I aren’t exactly fond of each other, Mr Malfoy."

He ignored the chocolates, frowning at Hermione instead. "You feel that way and yet you helped him."

Hermione lifted a shoulder and sat back in her seat, contemplative. "Well," she finally said, glancing at him, "he didn’t call me a Mudblood this time. It’s been a few years since I last saw him – maybe he’s finally becoming a decent person."

Lucius’ eyes snapped to hers, his nostrils briefly flaring and the corners of his mouth tight with anger. If his son had ever called her a Mudblood it was because she was one, not because there was any fault in him. 

One of her eyebrows rose, waiting for the rebuke that was clearly on the tip of his tongue. But he swallowed it, his eyes darting to the wider hall that was slowly filling with students. It was not the time or the place. 

Besides that, there was a very small, rather uncomfortable part of him that struggled to hold her resentment of the pejorative against her. It was a word which was beginning to strike him as insufficient to sum up everything he’d come to discover that she was, good and bad. She wasn’t simply ‘a’ anything. She was Hermione Granger.

"Look," Hermione said on a sigh when he remained silent, "you wanted me to help him and I wanted to deal with the situation in a way that wouldn't make my life with you even more difficult. It's not that complicated."

Hermione turned briefly to smile at Neville as he fell into his seat, picking up the bowl of chocolate cauldrons to offer them his way instead. Neville accepted one with a delighted noise and Lucius shook his head. Neither of them was, apparently, concerned about filling up on sweets and ruining their dinner. 

"Not complicated for me anyway," Hermione added, her curls falling over her shoulder as twisted to cast Lucius a curious look. Pressing her lips together, she shifted around in her chair to face him properly. "Do you really not want him to be with Ginny?"

"No," replied Lucius, his voice weighed down with resignation.

"So, why did you tell me to help him?" Hermione asked, her voice rising with incredulity. "If you'd told me to refuse him, I'd have done that too."

"I have an unfortunate desire to see my son happy," Lucius replied, studiously avoiding meeting Hermione's eyes by rearranging his napkin, like he could use it to hide the weakness he was displaying.

"That's truly terrible," she said, sarcasm positively dripping from every word. 

"Your tone isn’t appreciated, Miss Granger." Lucius straightened up in his seat, adjusting his waistcoat. "You can’t possibly understand the complexity of the situation. Her priorities aren't necessarily aligned with what his ought to be."

"Well, you never know –" Hermione accepted a jug of water from Neville and began to pour herself a goblet. "Maybe Ginny will reject him viciously and break his heart. Problem solved."

"I don't want Draco’s heart to be broken." Lucius' brow flattened and he declined her offer of the water jug with a sharp shake of his head. Draco had suffered enough heartbreak as far as he was concerned.

"Then maybe –” Hermione pulled the jug towards her chest to shift her body around to face him, her voice dipping conspiratorially. "Deep down, you do want him to be with Ginny."

"Please." Lucius closed his eyes, rubbing his fingertips into his brow. "Release me from your twisted logic maze."

Hermione laughed and half-rose out of her seat to set the jug of water in a clear space on the table but she leaned too far, sending her napkin sliding from its place on her lap. 

“Oh!" She slapped her thigh with her free hand in an unsuccessful attempt to catch it.

"Leave it,” Lucius muttered, leaning down to swipe the thick material embroidered with tiny pumpkins from the floor just as Hermione landed back in her seat, freed of the heavy burden of the water jug.

Without thinking, Lucius reached across the space between them and returned the napkin to Hermione's lap, the tips of his fingers just nudging into the crease between her thighs to tuck it into place. 

Hermione flinched, her arm jerking so sharply that she knocked her fork over the edge of the table.

It fell with a metallic clatter to the stone between their chairs and rolled under the table. Before Lucius could do so much as glance down to see where exactly it had landed, Hermione immediately bent sideways in her seat.

“Sorry!” she squeaked, the side of her head coming alarmingly close to his lap as she unseeingly patted the ground in search of the fork. 

“Granger –” The top of her head brushed the side of his thigh and Lucius tensed from head to toe. 

“Nearly got it –” Hermione panted, extending her arm and practically bringing her temple to rest on his leg while somehow keeping her backside in her own seat. “It’s just – ha!”

Hermione made to straighten up triumphantly, the fork in her grasp, and Lucius instinctively thrust his hand out over her head in order to stop her battering her temple against the underside of the table. 

“Have a care, Granger,” he said, exasperated, his palm settling protectively on her curls to guide her safely out from under the table. 

With a choked sound, Hermione shook her head out from beneath his hand and straightened up, her spine like a poker and her backside firmly on the front edge of her seat.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly, setting the fork on the table with a faintly trembling hand. 

She glanced back over her shoulder at him, her curls lightly mussed from where his hand had touched them and her cheeks a fantastic shade of pink. “Really sorry.”

Lucius sighed and settled back into his chair, shaking his head to wave her off in a way that said ‘it’s fine’ while privately resigning himself to the fact that his mind was going to force him to revisit the sight of Granger’s head in his lap with his fingers tangled in her hair later that night. 

He hated his brain. He hated her. Why couldn’t she have just left the fork? The elves would have sent her new one! 

Lucius flexed his hand and, one by one, folded his fingers towards his palm before pulling them upwards like he could scrape the feeling of her soft curls away. 

“Oh shut up, Neville,” he heard Hermione hiss to his right.

Peering out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw her whack her friend – who was practically vibrating with mirth – on his arm. 

Falling back in her seat with a thump, her cheeks still a blotchy pink and her jaw tight, Hermione crossed her arms over her middle and glared out at the wider hall, her eyes following the movements of the swooping bats. 

Lucius took a moment to study her – to note the white tips of her fingers clutched around her bicep, the thin press of her lips, the furrow of her brow. 

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so…flustered. What did she have to be bothered about?

If she could feel his curious gaze, she didn’t show it. Instead, she reached out and shoved her hand into the bowl of chocolate cauldrons, withdrawing a large handful of them to cradle them in her palm against her middle. 

After several drawn out seconds of bemusedly watching Hermione shovel chocolates into her mouth without, Lucius suspected, ever fully swallowing one before starting on the next, he turned to Horace and gave himself over to the potion master’s company for the rest of the evening. 

Watching Horace Slughorn devour a roast dinner felt like as good a method as any to eclipse thoughts of Granger’s head in his lap.

Chapter Text

November 3rd

As Lucius Malfoy stepped into the Hogwarts library, there was something just approaching a spring in his step. 

It was a Quidditch day. He adored Quidditch days. 

Not, of course, because he had any interest in the match – Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff and the first of the season – but because the occasion practically emptied the castle. Practically empty was just the way he liked it.

A folder of correspondence tucked under his left arm and his cane clutched in his hand just beneath that, he strolled through the deserted rows of shelves with his posture straight but relaxed. He had a couple of hours’ peace and he did not intend to waste them.

Though he had his pick of empty tables, Lucius continued towards the rear of the library, passing fewer than a handful of students who had no interest in Quidditch on his way. He had half a mind to use Granger’s favourite table just to see if the view of the lake was as good as she’d claimed it was. 

He was just turning a corner to make his way towards it when he ground to a halt. She was already seated at it. Because of course she was.

He had a side-on view of her, able to see her head bent over her parchment, her elbows spread on the table and her denim-clad legs, crossed at the ankles and tucked neatly beneath her chair. 

Her face was shielded from view by her thick waterfall of curls but, as she paused in what she was writing and arced her wrist away from the table and towards her face, Lucius could easily picture the way she was running the end of her quill over her lower lip.   

He’d noticed she did that at some point. He wasn’t sure when. 

Increasingly, he felt like every time he saw her he noticed something new; some entirely unremarkable detail that somehow managed to hold his attention for far longer than it deserved. 

The little smattering of freckles on her nose; the excessive amount of milk she took in her coffee; the way she always tied her hair up last thing on a Wednesday; her tiny cramped handwriting with its curiously flat ‘a’s. 

These things didn’t make him like her any more or hate her any less. He just noticed them and, once noticed, he found they could not be unnoticed. 

The large window with the view she so loved framed her, setting her against a sky which was grey and heavy with clouds. The winter sun strained with everything it had to make itself visible through the clouds, giving them an eerie golden glow. It made for an oddly mournful scene.

Sighing softly, Hermione looked around at the window, spotted Lucius’ reflection and immediately flinched, gasping so loudly that it verged on theatrical. In a whirl of curls, she turned her head to look at him and Lucius repressed the urge to sigh. 

He could have just moved on when he’d discovered her at the table and remained unspotted. But no. He’d had to look. 

“Granger,” Lucius said gruffly, stepping fully through the wide gap between the bookcases in which he’d been standing to join her in the little square which contained the solitary table. 

“You scared me,” she said, her eyes wide and accusatory as she watched him stroll towards her. 

A faintly mocking smile played around Lucius’ lips and he tilted his head. “I didn’t think that was possible,” he finally said, stopping only a few inches from her so that they could speak at a level that was appropriate for Pince’s haven of quiet.

He raised his eyes from hers to look out of the window again, seeing the view even more clearly. The surrounding mountains were shadowed but the persistent sun’s glow glinted off the dark rippling surface of the lake.

“So this is your beloved view,” he said.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

When he returned his eyes to her, Lucius saw that the sun had also managed to catch her curls on one side, throwing a few golden blonde strands amongst the mass of deep brown into relief. He blinked and looked up again with a noncommittal hum. 

It was as he avoided her eyes that he spotted the thestrals gliding over the trees of the Forbidden Forest and his grip on his cane tightened. Perhaps she couldn’t see them. He envied her if that was the case. 

“Why aren’t you at the Quidditch match with everyone else?” she asked.

“I only ever went to matches to watch Draco,” he replied, dragging his eyes from the haunting sight of the thestrals back to her face. It was warm and full, comforting in its contrast.

“I’d rather not be crowded into those stands when I don’t have to be," he added, his gaze lingering on the pink tint on her cheeks. "I take it your dislike of organised sports is behind your abstention?"

Hermione’s eyebrows twitched upwards with surprise. 

“Oh – well, yes,” she said after a pause, a hesitant smile on her lips. "And Wood came to scout for Puddlemere United so I thought I’d give him and Neville some alone time." Her smile turned slightly guilty. "And to be honest, I don’t mind having some either – I like the castle like this."

Clearing his throat, somewhat disturbed that he had not only absorbed such a pointless fact about her but revealed to her that he had done so, Lucius nodded once and squeezed his cane to rotate it in his palm. 

“Good morning then, Miss Granger,” he said stiffly, turning to continue on his way.

“Wait,” she said, shifting in her seat so that her knees turned towards him. “D’you…”

Lucius halted mid-step, the sole of his foot coming slowly to rest on the polished wooden floor so that he could look back at her with raised eyebrows.  

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug and gestured to the seat across from her. The seat in which she’d stubbornly dumped herself with all the grace of a cloth sack the last time they’d been in the library together. 

“D’you want to sit?”

Lucius hesitated, eyes darting to the seat. The word 'no' was there. It did exist. He could just say it.

Before he could, perhaps interpreting his silence in her own way, Hermione started shifting some of her books and parchment to free up the opposite side of the table. 

“Here,” she said. “You can sit.”

With slow, uncertain steps, Lucius approached the table and deposited his folder and cane on its surface. 

His body was making the decision for him. It would be impolite to refuse. He was already at a table, why seek out another with a less favourable view?

All perfectly good justifications. Reasonable excuses. Perfectly good.

Before taking his seat, Lucius slid his robes from his shoulders, turning to put them over the back of his chair, aware of Hermione’s eyes on him the entire time. 

“Have you heard from Draco yet, by the way?” she asked.

Lucius slowed in his descent onto the chair, his eyes flicking up to hers. “I have,” he admitted, finally settling into the seat and pulling closer to the table. "Last night."

“And?”

A sound between a sigh and a tired chuckle escaped Lucius at the sight of the sly smile creeping across her face. 

“He claims –” Lucius paused in the process of opening his folder to extract his quill and correspondence, a faux-thoughtful frown wrinkling his brow – “Now what was it? Ah, yes;  he claims that you are, and I quote, ‘probably not that bad’.” 

Hermione’s smile vanished, her face wiped blank as easily as her chalkboard. “That’s it?” she exclaimed disbelievingly. 

One eyebrow raised disapprovingly, Lucius held a single finger to his lips and cast a meaningful look at the wider room. 

"Oh, pfff –" was Hermione’s dismissive response, even as her eyes darted around in anticipation of seeing Pince’s angry glare between the shelves.

“That was the overall gist of it,” Lucius said, his voice pointedly low. 

It’d been amusing and irritating in equal measure for him to receive Draco’s letter and read his son’s transparent attempt to be casual about raising the subject of Granger. Reading his woeful effort to say something nice about her had, however, been singularly entertaining.

How were Granger’s Muggle Studies classes going, he’d asked. They must be terribly dull, he’d said. And she was such a stickler for rules, he was sure that Lucius was having some trouble finding good reasons to get rid of her. She was Ginny’s friend, did he know. So perhaps she had some good points. He wasn’t familiar with them himself but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. She probably wasn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. The grand scheme of all the people the rest of the world over. And wasn’t it better for all of them, actually, that she was contained within the walls of Hogwarts? In fact, now that he thought about it, going to any great deal of effort to get rid of her only ran the risk of inflating her big head even further. Did Lucius really want to do that?

The temptation to tell Draco that he knew exactly what he was up to because he had been foolish enough to send his own bloody owl to the hall where Lucius and Hermione ate breakfast together had been great. 

Instead, Lucius had simply written that while he was sure his son’s insights into Hermione Granger were invaluable, he would be just fine without any more of them. 

Let Draco have his fun now and they would have some more serious words about the value of back channelling another time.

“What a little sneak your son is,” Hermione said, leaning towards him with her voice dipping to match his. "Hope you're proud."

One corner of his mouth quirking upwards, Lucius flattened his forearms on the table and inched his head towards her. 

"You seem disappointed."

"He made the bare minimum his high bar," Hermione growled. "It wouldn't have killed him to say something a bit bloody better."

“Well, did you lay out any expectations with regards to the effusiveness of the praise he had to send before you fulfilled your side of the bargain?”

“No,” Hermione said, her expression telling him that she considered him quite mad for even suggesting doing such a thing. 

“Then I am afraid the fault lies with you and not my son,” Lucius said smoothly, leaning back and spreading out his letters to survey them. “If you wanted more then you should have bargained for it.”

“I would have thought someone as proudly exacting as you would want to see a little more integrity from your son when he makes a deal,” she said, raising her chin and an eyebrow in challenge.

“But he never agreed to do any more than what he did,” Lucius pointed out, casting her a quelling look from beneath his brow. “It’s not his fault that you are an inept negotiator.

“Slytherins,” she muttered, shaking her head and picking up her quill. "’Not bloody bad’.” She poked her quill in his direction, like she was placing a full stop in the air. “I'm never helping him again, you know."

Lucius sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his middle, faintly amused by her righteousness. "What did you actually expect him to tell me?" he asked.

"I – well, I – " Hermione frowned thoughtfully, her lips parting. Her gaze drifted to the smirk playing around Lucius' lips and she snapped, "I have lots of excellent qualities."

"But don't you think," Lucius suggested smoothly, pushing himself up so that he could lean towards her, "that given Draco is far more familiar with me than with you, it might have been a touch more astute to ask him how you might get on my good side, rather than have him attempt to elucidate yours?"

A faint tink accompanied Hermione dipping her quill into her ink. 

“No,” she said stoutly, her brow furrowing. “I hardly think Draco could tell me anything useful about softening you up.”

“No?” Lucius rather thought his son saw a softer side of him than anyone else living.

“Well, he’s your son.” 

Hermione started writing again, her tone making it clear that she thought he was making her state the obvious and found it to be an irritating waste of her time. 

“He's got something of a built-in advantage there, don't you think? You’re sort of predisposed to be swayed by him."

Lucius made a thoughtful noise. She had a point, he supposed. His son saw a softer side of him because he was, indeed, his son. Draco had to put in far less effort than anyone else when it came to extracting promises and compromises from him.

"I mean, I doubt me pouting and whining 'please daddy ’ would have quite the same effect on you.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Hermione stopped writing but kept her gaze resolutely fixed on her parchment. Lucius just about saw her eyes slowly close, the feather on her quill fluttering when she softly sighed through her nose.

“No,” Lucius agreed, his voice admirably unaffected given most of the moisture had just left his mouth. “I highly doubt it would.” 

The tips of Hermione's fingers were white thanks to her tight hold on her quill but she simply cleared her throat and said, “exactly,” to her parchment before continuing to write. 

She wrote, Lucius noted, with far more intensity and determination than she had on his arrival. He watched her for another moment, determined not to let his mind wander, before reaching into the pocket of his robes for his ink bottle and setting it carefully on the table. 

Thanks to Hermione’s apparent resolve to no longer acknowledge him as a presence, Lucius settled into his work quickly, dashing off perfunctory notes to his estate manager before he had to settle into the more involved financial and Ministry matters. 

The previous night, Fudge had sent him no less than three letters by three owls within a single hour, panicking about the fact that Rufus Scrimgeour had unexpectedly announced his intention to run for Minister for Magic. 

Admittedly, even Lucius hadn’t seen it coming and he put that down to the fact that he’d swapped the Ministry corridors for those of Hogwarts for too long.  

Lucius knew he would have to be tactful in his response, assuring Fudge that they lived in a time of peace and prosperity and that no one wanted a gruff, inexperienced Auror like Scrimgeour in power when they could have a practised and proven politician like him to keep things on an even keel. 

Then, he would write a letter to Scrimgeour, congratulating him on his well-timed announcement with an assurance that the wizarding public was more than ready for a shift to a more proactive government after years of complacent stasis and that he was sure a respected ex-Auror such as himself was the right man to lead it. 

He’d send it with an owl that could never be mistaken for his own straight to Scrimgeour’s private residence.

Lucius was turning his quill in his fingers, frowning down at the blank parchment in front of him and trying to to arrange his thoughts when a sharp ‘ tut ’ from Hermione drew his attention upwards.

She was irritably and irritatingly swirling her quill into her ink bottle. Bringing the nib to her parchment, she tried to write but, even across the table, Lucius could see that the words were scratchy and faint. 

“Here,” Lucius muttered, pushing his own ink into the space between them. He simply could not listen to her trying to extract every drop of ink from her own bottle and remain equanimous.

“Oh, I –” Hermione swallowed her instinctive protest and offered him a bright smile. “Well, thank you.”

Lucius’ heart briefly tripped over itself at the sight of the straight, white teeth, the tiny creases at the corners of her eyes and the fullness of her cheeks.

It was so genuine. 

Genuine smiles were something of a rarity for him but that was to be expected given the amount of time he spent stalking the corridors of the Ministry. It made his photograph of Narcissa all the more precious. 

"You're welcome," Lucius said quietly, his eyes dropping to where she neatly dipped her quill into the pot. 

“This is nice ink,” she murmured appreciatively, leaning back and tilting her head to admire its smoothness on her parchment. 

"I wonder," Lucius said after a moment, watching her lower her chin towards the table so that she could squint at the label on his ink. "How do you intend to reflect this act of generosity, hm?" 

Hermione glanced up from beneath her brow and he added, "if you're still being my little mirror, that is."

He couldn’t help but be curious. He’d come to enjoy her oddly retaliatory kindnesses. 

She shifted under his scrutiny but met his gaze evenly, like he was a challenge from which she would never back down. Why didn’t that bother him as much as it once had?

“I am,” she responded smartly. “But I already let you sit at my table, so I actually think you were mirroring me this time.”

Lucius silently considered her and the possessive way she’d said ‘my table’, a tiny smile curling at the corner of his mouth. For all her straightforward sincerity, that little flash of territoriality appealed to him most. 

“Fair enough,” he replied and returned his attention to his letters once more. 

Without Hermione tutting and sighing over her depleting ink supply, Lucius was able to summon enough patience to convincingly adopt the pacifying tone necessary to communicate with Fudge. 

A small part of him pondered whether Scrimgeour would be a less draining Minister but he was sure he’d have his own challenges. A greater degree of truculence, likely. Perhaps Hermione was good practice in dealing with that.

Signing off his letter to Fudge with a flourish, Lucius set his quill down for a moment to stretch out his aching hand. 

Across from him, Hermione picked up her parchment to read over what she’d written so far. 

She reclined in her seat and stretched her legs out, she and Lucius flinching simultaneously when the outside of her calf slid along the inside of his, the coarse material of her jeans managing to push up the leg of his trouser by a fraction.

“Sorry,” she squeaked, peering over the top of her parchment at him and swiftly dragging her legs back to their folded position beneath her chair.

Ignoring the flicker of heat low in his abdomen, Lucius shook his head and murmured something about it being “fine” even though it definitely wasn’t. He wanted her to do it again. He wanted her to do it deliberately. He hated himself for it.

He was just moving to pick up his quill again when a flash of gold caught his eye. Glancing up, he spied Hermione wrestling her thick curls into a ponytail, a glimmering gold bobble rolling over her hand and twisting between her fingers. 

A loose strand of hair floated across the table to land on the head of his parchment and Lucius picked it up between forefinger and thumb to cast it to the side, a faintly disgruntled curl on his lip.

“Sorry,” Hermione murmured, catching his eye as she pulled on either side of the ponytail to tighten it. “I was struggling to concentrate. Thought it might help.”

“What are you doing?” Lucius asked, frowning at the wide array of parchment before her.

“Lesson plans and marking,” she replied, gesturing to what he now realised were two distinct sections of work. “Just jumping back and forth.” She eyed his folders and the completed letter before him. “What are you doing?”

“Correspondence.”

A small, unsurprised hum left her, indicating that he had confirmed a suspicion rather than informed her of anything new or surprising. 

“Anyone interesting?”

“The Minister for Magic,” Lucius replied, pushing Fudge’s letter to the side to pull a fresh leaf of parchment towards himself.

“Oh.” Hermione’s eyes followed the letter to Fudge, like she was tempted to try to read it from where she was sitting. “Tell him that his bowler hat looks stupid.”

Lucius snorted softly and reached out to dip his quill in the ink pot. He had already tried that, actually. It was the only thing the foolish man could not be convinced to change his mind about.

“And that when he spends all of his time reactively opposing progressive legislation while never doing anything proactive himself, he looks less like a Minister for Magic and more like an old wall that needs to be knocked down.”

Pausing, his freshly inked quill hovering over his parchment, Lucius raised his eyes slowly to Hermione’s. She met his gaze evenly and offered him a bland smile. 

“I might have to do some rewording,” he said dryly.

Hermione sighed and shrugged, returning to re-reading her lesson plan. “If you must.”

Breathing out a disbelieving half-laugh, Lucius looked down at his parchment to see that a blob of ink had fallen and marred the blank page. 

He tutted, eyeing the shining black ink beside the crisp white cuff of his shirt. After a brief hesitation, he set his quill down and removed his cufflink to roll his sleeve towards his elbow. 

The Hogwarts elves, he had noticed, did not manage stains as well as his own; best to avoid them entirely.

Sighing through his nose, Lucius set the cufflink on the table, catching Hermione’s eye as he did so. It was hard not to, given she was simply staring at him. 

“What?” Lucius asked, starting on his other sleeve.

“Nothing.”

She returned to her reading but Lucius could not help but notice her eyes repeatedly flick up to observe his movements. Frowning, feeling unfamiliarly self-conscious, he rolled his wrist once more before picking up his quill. 

Hermione abruptly pushed herself to her feet, her chair screeching back, and Lucius flinched. He glared across at where she’d hauled her satchel up onto her chair and started shoving her belongings into it. 

“Granger, what –”

“Just remembered I have to –” She heaved her satchel onto her shoulder and scraped her fringe back off her forehead with her other hand. She looked quite mad. “It’s a thing that – left it in my room.”

And with that wholly inadequate explanation, she marched off, her ponytail bouncing against her back and her satchel against her leg. 

Lucius blinked, bewildered. It was odd behaviour from her. But he had too much to do to spend time ruminating on the many and varied eccentricities of Hermione Granger. 

Certainly, he would not go after her. 

That was the job of someone who actually cared about what might be bothering her. He didn’t.

Clearing his throat, Lucius pushed his ruined sheet of parchment away and reached for a new one.

It would take him some time to establish the appropriate tone for a man like Scrimgeour. 

Hermione barrelled into her room and slammed the door behind her. She fell back against the wood, her chest heaving as though she’d been chased all the way from the library. 

Letting her satchel slide from her shoulder to the floor, she staggered over to her bed and, when her knees hit the edge of it, dropped at an angle so that she fell face first onto her pillow and the thick duvet.  

“Moaaauggghhhh,” she groaned, her face pressed into her pillow to muffle herself.

She couldn’t possibly go on like this. Feeling like this. Thinking these things about Lucius Malfoy. 

Her first mistake had been inviting him to sit. Foolish. She could have just not done that. But she’d been so curious and he’d been almost pleasant. His awfulness had become intermittent rather than constant. 

Sometimes he bordered on quite good company. 

Sometimes he gave her ink. Really good ink. The best, smoothest ink she’d ever bloody used. 

Sometimes he shamelessly rolled up his shirt sleeves in the library right in front of her face.

“Fuckinmmpppphhhh.” Hermione lifted her head to take a deep breath and then smashed it into her pillow again. 

Was he even aware of the effect he was having on her? Was that why he was doing it? He would surely delight in torturing her. Because it absolutely was torture to find someone like him even slightly attractive. 

Eyes closed, Hermione recalled the deft movements of his fingers, removing his cufflinks and sliding beneath the cuffs of his shirt to roll them up. 

The strong flex of his forearm when he'd rolled his wrist. 

She wished he’d just – she wished she could just –

Defeated, Hermione went limp, her nose pressing uncomfortably into her pillow. 

This wasn’t sustainable. She needed an outlet. Some kind of release. 

A soft groan escaped her. 

Release. 

It was the best way. The easiest. The most immediate. It was actually very mentally beneficial and she hadn’t done it in far too long. No one would know either. 

Had she justified it enough to herself? Was that sufficient?

Squeezing her eyes even more tightly shut, Hermione loosened the leash she’d wrapped around her brain and allowed it to roam. 

To return to the library with Malfoy. 

To imagine herself getting up to fetch a book only for him to follow her down a narrow, shadowed row. 

A row where he’d flatten her against the bookshelves, his hands coming to grip her hips while he pressed the length of himself against her back. 

Squirming against her bed, she pictured him using his hold on her to turn her and pin her against the shelves, her lower back hitting them hard enough to shake the books.

In her mind, Malfoy’s eyes were dark, his face tight with conflict. He wanted her so badly – had never wanted anything so badly – but he hated that it was her as much as she hated it was him. Except he couldn’t resist because, while he could try to pretend he was better than her, he wasn’t . And she could tell he knew it as well as she did. 

His kiss was bruising and resentful but honest for that. 

It was a surrender. To her.

Just as the Malfoy in her head roughly undid the button of her jeans, Hermione finally allowed herself to snake her hand into the space between her body and her bed and did the same. 

Pressing her knees into her mattress, she eased some of the weight of her hips off her hand, making it easier to slide it into her knickers.

With a clarity that made her desire dense enough to pool low in her belly, viscous and hot, Hermione pictured Malfoy dropping to his knees, urgently pulling her jeans and her knickers down in tandem as he went. 

God, she’d love that. To see him on his knees for her. To –

Hermione muffled her moan into her pillow when her fingers finally made contact with the slick bundle of nerves between her legs. Her core ached; the kind of ache that she associated with hunger pains. A clenching need to be filled and sated.

Hermione dipped a finger to her entrance, teasing herself and gathering up her arousal to bring it back up and swirl it around her clit.

She’d love him to kiss his way up her inner thighs, to nip and bite and grip her hips to stop her wriggling away. She wanted nothing more than to see him work his tongue between her folds, too focused on her to care about the way she was fisting her hand into his hair to keep his face pressed into her.

Someone as selfish as him would probably never do such a thing but this wasn't him, this was her fantasy and the idea of that sharp tongue that had said so many cruel things to her, softened and flattened, intent on doing nothing but bringing her pleasure was immensely satisfying. 

“Fu –” Hermione gasped and whined, her increasingly warm face still pressed into her pillow. 

She raised her hips higher, her hand roiling inside her jeans. The zip was uncomfortable, scratching at the delicate skin of her wrist, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care.

Her breathing grew even more laboured, her pillow damp with it as she slipped two fingers into herself and pumped shallowly, doing her best to curl them and find that spot. 

Somewhere in the back of her head, Hermione knew she was going to hate herself when she was done but it was so hard to care as the exquisite tension gathered in her belly, winding itself up. 

Mewling, Hermione pressed her fingers deeper and used the heel of her palm to grind at her clit. She was so close, the coil in her belly becoming impossibly, unsustainably tight.

Malfoy’s mouth was too busy to tell her he was wrong – that she was everything a witch should be – but she could see that worshipful sentiment in his eyes as he looked up at her. 

Hermione sped up, turning her face out of her pillow to take a gulp of cool air. She didn’t even need the fantasy anymore, she just needed to let herself – to let that feeling – to focus on –

“Unghgod,” Hermione whined, her toes curling in her trainers as the coil finally snapped and pure pleasure rushed through her.

Her fingers eased to a halt and she pulsed and clamped around them, her body twitching.

Breathing raggedly, Hermione dropped her hips and flattened her body against her bed, her right hand still deep in her jeans and trapped beneath her weight. 

She stared blankly at the wall across the room, vaguely aware of the fluttering aftershocks of her orgasm around her fingers. 

Well, she didn’t hate herself exactly. 

But she had no intention of attending dinner that night because she was quite clearly too sick to be around other people.

Chapter Text

November 8th 

With the relentless march towards winter, the sun began to rise later and Lucius noticed that it had a knock-on effect on Hermione’s arrival at breakfast on the days that she chose to swim. 

“When it gets to December, I’ll have to stick to just the weekends,” she’d explained to him one morning, hungrily spooning porridge into her mouth. 

“I would think when it gets to December, you’d have to start skating,” Lucius had pointed out, his tone disapproving. 

It surely took an absolute lack of any kind of self-preserving instinct to want to swim in the lake in the depths of winter.

Hermione had only giggled, shrugging. “It’s actually sort of thrilling, the cold water. It’s hard to explain.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” had been his doubtful response.

Often, it resulted in her missing the arrival of the post and so Lucius got to enjoy the spectacle of Longbottom struggling to manage an impatient parliament of owls, accepting newspapers and, very occasionally, a letter on Hermione’s behalf while trying to stop them stomping all over his toast. 

On a particularly dreary morning, Lucius was wearily accepting an invitation to Horace’s next gathering – “my guest list is ballooning, Lucius!” – when Hermione arrived at breakfast even later than usual. 

Her backside had barely touched her seat before she had a slice of toast clenched between her teeth while she spooned out a generous serving of porridge.  

“Chew,” Neville cautioned her, alarmed by the sight of the toast practically sliding down her throat. 

“It’s the cold,” she explained breathlessly, licking the butter from her lower lip, “it makes me so hungry.”

“Clearly,” Neville said, chuckling. He pushed a pile of newspapers towards her, a single letter placed neatly on top. 

“Hermione, dear,” Horace said, leaning forward to look around Lucius. “And you, of course, Neville, m’boy. I am extending an invitation to my next little gathering to you both and I will not take no for an answer. It’s next week.”

Lucius watched Hermione pluck the single letter from atop her newspapers, an intrigued look on her face. 

“Thank you, Horace,” she said absently, turning the letter this way and that, like that might tell her who it was from faster than opening it. 

She didn’t get many letters, Lucius had noticed. It seemed that most of her life in the wizarding world was contained within the walls of Hogwarts.

It struck him as an unsuitably narrow life for someone so intelligent with so much to say (whether anyone wanted to hear it or not). The desire she’d once expressed to him to start a discussion with a publication in Transfiguration Today made an increasing amount of sense to him; scholarly as Granger was, it was possible that she needed more than books.

“Would you mind if I brought Oliver Wood along, Horace?” Neville asked, leaning around Hermione. “He’ll be visiting Hogsmeade next weekend.”

“Not at all, m’boy,” Horace replied, delighted. “Not at all. He’s become quite the success for Puddlemere United, I’ve noticed. A shame he never made it to the Slug Club during his time here but I suppose I can get him now! And the students, of course, will delight in being introduced to him.”

Lucius rolled his eyes. It was hard to believe that Horace was even less subtle in his connection-making than he had been when Lucius had been his student. 

“With a quidditch player like Wood coming, Lucius,” Horace began hopefully, “perhaps I can convince you to bring Draco along to –”

“No, Horace,” Lucius replied flatly. “He’s quite busy.” 

Draco had been quite explicit about his lack of desire to attend any of Horace’s little gatherings after Hogwarts and Lucius couldn’t say he held it against him. 

“And you, Hermione?” Horace continued, undeterred by the rejection. “Anyone special you’d like to bring?”

“Oh, no, Horace,” Hermione said distractedly, finally peeling open the letter. “No one special. I’ll come alone.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw Hermione stiffen, the parchment of her letter wrinkling between her hands. 

“Well, you’re always welcome to,” Horace carried on, oblivious to Hermione’s shift in mood. “Any friend of yours, as the saying goes.”

Abruptly, Hermione crushed the letter between her hands and dropped it beside her uneaten bowl of porridge. She pushed herself to her feet and stepped away from the table.

“Hermione, are you okay?” Neville asked, looking at her unfinished breakfast and then up at her very tight, closed face. 

“Fine,” she said shortly. “I’m fine. I just remembered something I have to – to get and I –”

Without bothering to finish her sentence, Hermione departed, rounding the table to begin a hurried descent into the hall.

“But your breakfast,” Neville called. “You were starv –”

When she did not even half turn, Neville looked around at Lucius and Horace, who could do nothing but stare back at him. Lucius felt Horace offer a helpless little shrug beside him but did nothing himself. 

Perhaps it was for that reason that Neville cast him a suspicious look, like he suspected Lucius might be behind Hermione’s sudden upset. Rather than make any kind of accusation, Neville opted to rise to his own feet and took off after her.

“Goodness, I wonder what happened there,” Horace murmured.

Shaking his head with a sigh – he did not know and did not want to care – Lucius reached for his tea. His fingers had just hooked around the handle of his cup when Horace forcefully elbowed his arm, sending the tea sloshing onto the table.

“Horace,” Lucius snapped irritably, wiping a droplet of hot tea from the back of his fist. “What are you –”

“She left the letter, Lucius,” Horace hissed. “Have you no curiosity at all, man?” 

Lucius’ eyes drifted to the crumpled up letter lying at Hermione’s place and then he turned to Slughorn with an incredulous stare. “No,” he replied.

“Well, I do,” Slughorn retorted.

And with that minimal warning, Horace lunged forwards, his belly pressing against the edge of the table with such force that it shook their plates. He scrambled around Lucius and snatched the crumpled up letter from its place beside Hermione’s abandoned porridge. 

Lucius flattened himself back in his seat to give Horace enough room but he still received a blunt elbow in the abdomen that forced a grunt out of him. He coughed delicately, surreptitiously rubbing the point of impact, while Horace hungrily uncrumpled Hermione’s letter to read it. 

“I see,” Horace murmured to himself, his brow furrowing with concern. “Silly girl, why didn’t she come to me first? Or even Minerva?”

“What does it say?” Lucius asked in spite of himself, tilting his head to the side with a sidelong look at the rumpled parchment. 

“No curiosity, eh?” asked Slughorn, a knowing smile unfurling beneath his walrus moustache. 

“Oh, just –” Lucius grabbed the letter from Horace’s hands and straightened it out with a sharp flick of his wrist. 

“Dear sir/madam,

Thank you for taking the time to send a piece of work to Transfiguration Today. Unfortunately, your submission has not been accepted this time. Please expect an owl returning your work within the month.

Do not hesitate to try again in future,

Regards,

Wheatley Whippet, Editor.”

Lucius lowered the rejection letter to the table, a thoughtful purse to his lips. Knowing Granger even as little as he did, it wasn’t entirely surprising to him that she was upset. Particularly when the rejection was so impersonal. Lucius was fairly certain that the last template letter he’d received had been his Hogwarts acceptance and that, at least, had had his name on it.

“ – don’t know what she was thinking, sending something to Wheatley without a proper introduction first,” Horace continued at Lucius’ shoulder. “Transfiguration Today receives so many submissions; they’re hardly going to read something from an unknown name, never mind a first timer.”

“I would imagine,” Lucius murmured, “she believed the merit of her submission would trump everything else.”

And that belief, he was sure, stemmed from either her idealism or her stubbornness. Perhaps both. It was a dangerous combination.

Horace hummed his agreement, a pitying sound. “That’s just not how these things work,” he said. “It’s who you know as much as what. But, of course, I don’t have to tell you that, Lucius.”

"No," Lucius agreed quietly.

Even he had thought Granger's proposal interesting when she'd laid it out for him in the library. The lingering effects of intention behind magic – it intrigued him. Less because of the effects on subsequent transfiguration that Granger was focused on and more because he liked the idea that the parts of Narcissa that still remained in the world, like the initials she’d carved in the Slytherin common room, still had her loving intent behind them.

In that moment, Lucius could not help but wonder how many similarly interesting discussions had not been started simply because those with the sparking ideas could not get anyone to pay attention to them.

The wondering and its implications did not sit especially well with him, however, so he pushed them aside.

"Well, I shall simply have to invite Wheatley to my next little gathering," Horace said decisively. "Introduce them there and give her a leg up. There’s no shame in it. I’m sure a few students in the club would benefit too."

Lucius said nothing but picked up the letter and folded it away into his pocket before rising to his feet. 

“I’ll see you at lunch, Horace,” he said, following the path Hermione had taken around the table.

Lucius arrived in Hermione’s classroom to find her aggressively sorting through the essays she intended to return to her classes over the course of the day. 

Even across the room, he could see that her brow was knit into a tight frown. She didn’t look up at the sound of him crossing the room and when he stopped at the side of her desk, right by her chair, he had to clear his throat to attract her attention.

“What is it?” she asked shortly, continuing to sort her piles of paper. “My classes haven’t even started yet, so I can’t have done anything wrong.”

Lucius said nothing but directed a reproachful look at the top of her head until she finally raised her eyes to his face to see it. She didn’t look guilty but she did, at the very least, hesitate and Lucius could practically see some of her spikes withdraw.

“What?” she asked, her voice softer this time though her brow remained furrowed.

“Horace intends to invite Wheatley Whippet, the editor of Transfiguration Today, to his next ‘little get together’,” Lucius said conversationally. 

Hermione stiffened, her mouth opening for a few seconds before she finally responded, “I don’t know why you think I’d be interested in knowing that,” her tone unconvincingly careless.

Huffing out a sigh through his nose, Lucius reached into his pocket, drew out the crumpled rejection letter and dropped it unceremoniously in front of her. Both of Hermione’s hands curled into fists at the sight of it. 

“You had no right to read that,” she snapped.

“Horace read it,” Lucius said, lifting a shoulder. “I was simply…there.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Hermione scoffed, snatching up the letter to glare down at it. “And Horace just slid it into your pocket for safe keeping, did he?”

“You didn’t expect a rejection,” Lucius observed, watching her closely. 

“I thought…” Hermione glanced up at him and then straight back down, like she couldn’t bring herself to hold his gaze. “I thought what I wrote was good. I thought maybe even if I was rejected some feedback would …” 

She trailed off self-consciously and shook her head at the useless dead end she clearly felt had been sent to her.

Lucius wanted to ask her if she was still proud of her Muggle heritage when it so clearly got her nowhere in their world. He wanted to ask why she had ever thought Transfiguration Today would consider anything from an unproven, unknown Muggle Studies professor. 

Instead, he said, “You had best use the opportunity that Horace intends to give you.”

Hermione slowly lowered the letter to the desk, keeping it pinched tightly between her fingers, and turned her face up to his. 

“Your name will never mean anything to anyone unless you do,” Lucius explained when her expression made it clear that she didn’t think much of his advice.

“Are you honestly telling me that Whippet might be convinced to accept the very same essay he just rejected simply because someone he knows has told him my name?”

“No,” Lucius said, shaking his head with a condescending smile. “I’m telling you he might actually bother to read it in the first place.”

Hermione’s only response was to aggressively rip the parchment in two. “And I suppose if I’d signed my submission letter –” She ripped it into quarters and uttered a mirthless laugh. “Signed it Hermione Malfoy or something it’d have gone right to the top of the pile?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it was shit?” she asked, the quarters of parchment clutched in two fists.

Lucius scoffed, a delicate sound in the back of his throat. “I won’t dignify that with an answer.” Nothing a Malfoy wrote would ever be anything less than flawless.

With a low growl, Hermione clapped her hands together and crushed the already ruined parchment between them. 

“You’re not using your anger productively,” Lucius said calmly, his eyes fixed on the white flashes of her knuckles and the taut pull of her tendons as she compressed the rejection letter into a tight ball.

“Maybe I don’t want to be productive,” Hermione snapped. “Maybe I want to just be angry.” She pressed the ball of parchment onto her desk and crushed it down. “Maybe I want to be furious because I’m sick of this.”

An impatient noise escaped Lucius and he bent to bring a hand down to Hermione’s wrist, curling his fingers around it to hold her still. Hermione exhaled sharply, tersely, but she fractionally settled beneath him, focused on where he was touching her.

Lucius didn’t speak, his instinctual beratement sticking in his throat. You’re a Mudblood, he once would have chided her. When are you going to accept that and act like it?  

His fingers pressed into the inside of her wrist and he felt her pulse thrum rapidly through the thin skin. It said so much about her, that relentless, urgent thrum. Hermione turned her face up as the silence persisted, her eyes meeting his, searching. 

He didn’t want her to ‘act like it’, he realised with a sinking resignation. He wanted her to be that vicious, captivating little creature on the staircase that absolutely refused to be wronged. He respected that. Merlin help him, he liked that. 

“That’s all very well but it won’t change anything on its own,” he finally said. “Use the introduction. Make him see you.”

A yawning creak and an eruption of chatter signalled the arrival of Hermione’s sixth year class. Stiffening, Lucius promptly withdrew his hand from her wrist and straightened up to face the group of students streaming into the class. 

“Sit down, please, everyone,” Hermione called, pushing herself to her feet to stand at Lucius’ shoulder. “I have your essays to return.” 

She looked towards Lucius, though she avoided meeting his eyes as she quietly added, “Thank you, Mr Malfoy. You can take your seat.”

November 16th 

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Hermione smoothed a hand down the front of her burgundy dress robes, wishing she’d tried them on earlier than ten minutes before she had to leave. They were slightly tighter around the waist and across her chest than she remembered but she knew she could hardly be surprised when they were many years old. Unfortunately they were the only set she had other than her favourite blue ones she'd worn to Horace's last gathering.

“You’re very twitchy tonight,” Neville observed, bringing a hand to rest gently over hers. 

Hermione’s throat pulsed as she glanced down at his long fingers, starkly reminded of Lucius Malfoy’s settling touch in her classroom. 

“I’m fine,” she said, withdrawing her hand under the pretence of ensuring her hair was still secure in its low bun. Neville’s bobble was doing a magnificent job. “Just…not in a particularly social mood.”

“I can relate,” said Wood in an undertone, leaning towards her while tugging at the tight collar of his dress robes. “I was quite happy never to be invited to one of these things when I was at Hogwarts.”

“We don’t have to stay long,” Neville said in a cajoling tone to Wood, bumping him with his hip. “But Horace likes us to show face. After that, I promise we can escape to Hogsmeade.”

Wood mumbled his good-natured acquiescence and nudged Neville right back. “In fairness,” he said, like it was painful for him to admit it, “the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain is here and I actually want to talk to her about trying out for the team. It’s as good a place as any.”

“It’s the perfect place,” Neville agreed.

Inhaling deeply, Hermione raised her goblet of wine to her lips and sighed through her nose into it, taking a long drink. She had been resistant to coming at first, knowing as she did thanks to Lucius’ warning that Horace intended to introduce her to Wheatley Whippet. 

She didn’t especially want to be introduced to the man who apparently had a submissions system that was effectively a sieve to catch the well-connected. But Neville had been quite insistent and Lucius’ words about using her anger productively had been echoing in her head for days. 

She hadn’t expected that kind of advice from him. Make him see you. Every time she thought of those words, her heart sped up with a sense of purpose.

It wasn’t that she’d expected to be published but she had hoped that she had as much chance as anyone else. Perhaps, given everything she’d experienced of the wizarding world so far, she’d been naive to hope. 

So, Hermione decided she would let Horace introduce her and she would make it clear that what she had to say was of value, regardless of who she was. She would use her anger to galvinise her determination and she would be seen. 

“Hermione, dear, there you are,” Horace called jovially through a new gap in the crowd. “Come, come; I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

With a last, anxious glance around at Neville and Wood, who clearly had no intention of following her into the introductory fray, Hermione slipped through the crowd towards Horace’s waving arm. 

Ducking under the flailing hands of an excitable seventh year, she emerged into an intimate circle which comprised Horace, Lucius and a man she could only assume was Wheatley Whippet. Hermione nodded in greeting to everyone, her hand once again smoothing down her tight robes.

“Hermione, m’dear,” Horace said with a grand air, ushering her more closely into their small circle, “this is Wheatley Whippet, the editor of Transfiguration Today.”

Wheatley Whippet was a small, very thin man who looked like he could only be in his mid 30s. Incredibly young, Hermione thought, for an editor of a publication like Transfiguration Today. He had a shock of short strawberry blonde hair and a very patchy goatee which he seemed intent on stroking whenever possible.

“So you’re Hermione Granger,” he said with a charming smile, reaching out to clasp her hand and give it a firm shake. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you from Horace this evening.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, her eyes darting to Horace’s ruddy face with its indulgent smile. She hoped he hadn't discussed her rejection or, worse, revealed her upset.

“No need to look so nervous,” Whippet assured her with a throaty laugh, his hand rising to his goatee. “All good things.”

"There's nothing but good to say," Slughorn said, waving a dismissive hand and briefly disappearing behind the rim of his goblet

"I'm sure," was Whippet's amenable response. His eyes trailed down Hermione and she shifted, wondering if he was judging her too-tight robes. She didn't even want to look at Lucius — his disapproval was almost a certainty given the ever-perfect state of his own attire.

“You have a talent for transfiguration, I hear?” Whippet asked, smoothly moving the conversation on before taking a drink of his wine to leave Hermione space to reply.

“Y-well, yes,” she said, allowing a genuine smile to rise to her face in light of the transition to a topic that agreed with her. 

It’d been so long since she’d picked a fresh brain about the subject and the idea of telling someone in the field about her ideas brought forth an unexpected burst of social energy. “A passion, I suppose.”

“A talent,” Horace insisted forcefully, leaning towards Whippet who merely chuckled, his bright eyes still on Hermione. “And a work ethic that makes the most of it, I assure you. But I’ll let her tell you all about it, Whippet."

Horace straightened his posture importantly and turned to Lucius. "Lucius, join me; we should leave these two to have a conversation that will no doubt be far beyond our ken.” Horace peered into his goblet, drawing his mouth down so that he could see over his moustache. “And I think my wine could do with topping up.”

Hermione glanced at Lucius and found he was already looking at her. Studying her, actually, and she couldn't see a hint of the sartorial censure she'd expected in his expression. Her traitorous heart skipped a beat, the way it always seemed to in his presence of late. It was, it turned out, sort of hard to be entirely normal around someone when you’d fingered yourself to a fantasy of them. Who knew?

Eyes still on hers, Lucius nodded once, a slow dip of his head. “Of course.”

Horace ambled away in pursuit of a floating tray that carried fresh goblets of wine and Lucius politely excused himself to follow. As he passed Hermione, he leaned down and murmured, “he’s dim”, in her ear before disappearing.  

Hermione raised her goblet to her lips to hide a smile that she was unable to repress. Of course Lucius thought Whippet was dim – she rather suspected he thought everyone was dim. 

Not her, though. 

Not that that really mattered in the grand scheme of all the other things she was sure he still thought of her. The man who had just left her side was not the same as the man who had been in her fantasy, repentant and on his knees. That was something she could not allow herself to forget. 

Hermione swallowed an overly large gulp of wine, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder to see where he’d gone. 

God, she was a mess. She hated herself for it.

“So,” Whippet drawled, just about managing to draw her attention back to him. “What have you been reading lately?”

“She practically glows when she talks shop,” Horace chuckled to Lucius. “There’s no chance Whippet won’t want to read what she has to say – that kind of enthusiasm is infectious. I tell you, Lucius, I’ve never once regretted introducing that girl to someone.”

Lucius took a drink of his wine, his eyes locked on Whippet and Hermione. Horace was right: she did glow. She lit up the whole room with her zeal, her smile beaming and her hands waving as she enthused to the idiot disguised as an editor. 

It had taken less than ten minutes of conversation with Wheatley Whippet for Lucius to start questioning how such a man had ended up in the position of editor of Transfiguration Today.  But, of course, he already knew how – Whippet’s godfather, with whom Lucius was more closely acquainted, owned the company that published the periodical. It was no great mystery. It was simply how it worked. 

Lucius wasn't sure if it was his imagination but he rather thought Hermione’s brightness threw something darker in Whippet's expression into relief. Something he didn't like.

Focused on Hermione, Lucius responded to Horace’s repeated observations about the success of the evening with hums of varying tones, sure he was but one more noncommittal agreement away from having performed a ditty. 

Whippet had drawn Hermione towards the wall away from the crowd but, as their conversation progressed, he seemed to become harder of hearing. 

Lucius picked up a fresh goblet of wine, watching Whippet encourage Hermione to lean closer to him to speak into his ear. She hesitated as she did so, clearly not entirely sure about the man’s increasing insistence on proximity but not wishing to be impolite.

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Whippet visibly apologised and gestured to the wider room with a shrug. ‘Very loud,’ Lucius saw him mouth. Then he tugged at the high shirt collar of his dress robes with a pained expression, adding ‘and hot’.

Lucius raised his goblet to his lips just as Whippet gestured towards the door, clearly suggesting that they step into the cool quiet of the corridor. 

Don't do it, Granger.

Looking uncertain, Hermione assessed Whippet for a moment and then nodded, apparently not reading his expression as Lucius had. Lucius sighed softly, his long fingers curling tightly around the stem of his goblet while his eyes dropped closed. 

It wasn't his business. He wasn't going to do anything. 

When he opened his eyes again, Hermione was gone and Whippet had disappeared with her. For all Lucius knew, she was fully aware of what the idiot was likely to attempt and welcomed it. 

Lucius bit the inside of his cheek. Well, that just wasn’t true, was it? He knew perfectly well how she’d feel because he now knew her better than he’d ever wanted to. 

She would be devastated. Outraged. 

But it wasn’t his problem or his fault. It wasn’t. He didn’t care what happened. If Whippet decided to make advances at Granger then that was her issue to deal with. If he got her alone and laid one of his grubby little hands on her then that was just –

“Excuse me for a moment, Horace,” Lucius said resignedly, setting his goblet on a passing tray. 

“Alright there, Lucius?” Slughorn asked, casting him a concerned look. “You look flushed.”

“I need some air,” he said, reaching up to tug down his cravat and undo the top button of his shirt to underline his point. “You always draw a crowd, Horace. It's much to your credit but a man needs to breathe."

The compliment, bare as it was, was apparently enough to appease Horace and he allowed Lucius to move towards the door without a fight. Perhaps seeing the cold, determined set of his jaw, no one else got in his way either.

The cool air of the corridor was a balm to Lucius' heated face and he took a moment to take a few deep, soothing breaths. 

All was quiet, Horace’s meticulous charm work ensuring that none of the frivolity from inside his office was audible to passers-by. Even if Lucius had pressed his ear to the door, he might have been convinced it was simply an empty room.

He could still turn around. Just go back and leave her. 

Lips thin, Lucius looked over his shoulder at the door through which he’d just come. It was tempting. Going after Granger felt like a watershed moment; a tacit acceptance of something that he still didn’t want to accept. 

She was a fucking thorn in his side and he seemed to be capable of doing nothing but pushing her in further. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one of Sluggy’s dos,” Whippet said on a sigh, leaning languidly against the stone wall of the empty corridor. “Not since my Hogwarts days. I had to be convinced but, d’you know, I’m starting to think not having coursework and exams hanging over you vastly improves them, don’t you agree?”

“I never actually attended a Slug Club meeting during my time at Hogwarts,” Hermione said with a polite smile, repressing a shiver. The corridor was far colder than Horace’s rooms and the exposed skin around her neck seemed determined to catch a breeze. “But I’m sure you’re right.”

“Never,” Whippet said, raising a disbelieving hand to his chest. “I refuse to believe that old Sluggy would let a member of the Dagworth-Granger clan pass him by for so many years.”

“I’m not a Dagworth-Granger, actually,” Hermione said, her heart picking up its pace as it always did when she had to address this assumption. “I’m a single-barrelled Granger. Muggleborn.”

Whippet’s eyebrows shot up and, once again, he trailed his eyes down Hermione. She shivered again, though she wasn’t sure it had all that much to do with the cold this time. Maybe she had just become unused to socialising with strangers – she did feel very exposed.

“Are you really? ” he asked, raising his wine to his lips and his gaze to her face. “Horace never mentioned it. You must be very impressive.”

Hermione nipped her tongue between her teeth and washed the taste of blood down with her next sip of wine. It did nothing to settle the frustration and irritation bubbling low in her gut.

“Ever considered submitting to TT?” Whippet asked, watching her closely over the rim of his goblet.

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his casual abbreviation of the hallowed title and took another drink.

“Well, I did once, actually,” she said, lowering her goblet, “but it wasn’t accepted.”

A white-toothed smile which revealed his sharp incisors flashed over Whippet’s face and he pushed himself off the wall to stand straight. 

“I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Surely it was before I had a say in such matters.”

Lucius heard them before he saw them. They were only talking and he slowed to listen, mindful that he ought to assess the situation before he went barrelling into it. He might have misread Whippet, as much as he doubted that. The little weasel hadn’t decided to stop and chat in a corridor without portraits for nothing.

“I hope you didn't take our rejection to heart,” Lucius heard Whippet say, his voice weighed down with exaggerated earnestness. “Nothing personal, I assure you.”

“Not to heart no,” came Hermione’s voice, drawing a quiet scoff from Lucius. That rejection had struck at her very core. “But it didn’t really tell me much. Could I press you for some feedback, at least? Then I could maybe resubmit and –”

“Of course,” Whippet cut in, all unctuous appeasement. “Though it'd all be rather different this time around; for one thing, we know one another now.”

“And that makes a difference?”

“These things can be very political, you know,” Whippet explained. “We have regular contributors with expectations and they have to be prioritised over unknowns.”

“Is the quality of the submission ever considered?”

“Yes," he said slowly, an undercurrent of condescending amusement to the word. "But never alone. We very rarely get poor submissions, you see.”

“But now that you've met me at one of Slughorn’s parties you're willing to publish me?” Lucius heard the disparagement in her words but he wasn’t sure that Whippet would. 

“More willing certainly,” Whippet said. His voice dipped confidentially when he added, “So much of this game is about who you know.”

“Well, I –” 

“Though,” he continued, speaking over her, “I think it might be nice to get to know one another a bit better before I make any kind of commitment. Don't you agree?”

There was a drawn out pause in which Lucius straightened up, his grip on his cane tightening.

“I –” Hermione cleared her throat softly but there was a perceptible waver in her voice as she said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

Whippet laughed, like he thought she was making an excellent joke. “You're a coy little thing, aren't you?” he said, sounding pleased. “You needn't be. I think a Muggleborn with ambition like yours – well, you know perfectly well what I mean.”

"I don't," Hermione said, her voice far more certain and cold. 

"You wouldn't like to get to know me better?" Whippet asked suggestively and Lucius heard the shift of his robes as he moved. "I'm a very useful person to know."

“No,” Hermione replied, audibly outraged. “Don’t – get off . Get off me!”

“Oh, come now,” Whippet said, sounding breathless. “You can stop that. If my memory serves me, there's a good thick tapestry covering an alcove round here somewhere and I can perform a serviceable cushioning charm if you –” 

Whippet’s words were interrupted by a violent smack of flesh on flesh, followed by an agonised yelp and the heavy clang of wine goblets hitting the stone floor. 

Lucius rounded the corner just in time to see the editor stagger back from Hermione into the wall, his groans muffled by his hands clutched over his face. Balance thrown by the combination of pain and his consumption of wine, Whippet slid sideways and fell to the ground, landing on his back, still groaning.

“Dear me, Granger,” Lucius said quietly, taking in the scene before him with eyebrows raised. 

Hermione gasped and spun to face him, her hand, he noted, still curled into a tight fist. Her knuckles were sharp, the white of them flashing through. 

“Using violence against guests in the castle,” Lucius continued, strolling towards her while gently swinging his cane. “What would the headmaster – nay, my fellow governors – say?”

“No,” Hermione began, an edge of unrepentant fury to her voice as she shook her head. “You don’t understand, he –” 

Lucius met her eyes and found them shimmering with a mixture of anger and humiliation. There was an aura of barely restrained magic to her – her curls practically crackled – and her whole face was flushed a deep pink.

He had, on occasion, wondered what she’d look like when she snapped but he’d always thought he’d be the one to make it happen. Now he was glad he hadn’t been.

Tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, Lucius shook his head subtly at her and jerked it to tell her to move aside.

“I won’t,” Hermione insisted as Whippet rolled onto his side to peer around her legs, drawing his hands away from his face to reveal a very bloody, bent nose. “Not until you listen –”

“Malfoy,” Whippet whined, relieved. “Merlin, man, you saw it. You saw what she did. Unprovoked!”

“I did indeed, Whippet,” Lucius said, his eyes never leaving Hermione’s. “Move aside, Granger.”

“No!”

Lucius’ eyes flicked upwards in a half roll. She was more stubborn than a hippogriff. Lifting his cane, he pressed it into her arm to push her to the side. She stumbled, an aggravated growl escaping her. 

“Mr Malfoy, it wasn’t unpro–”

“That will do, Granger,” he said, casting her a look of chilly warning. “I will deal with this.”

Whippet pushed himself up to lean on his elbow and stretched a hand out to Malfoy, silently imploring him to help him up. 

Ignoring the hand, Lucius lowered his cane and placed the tip of it on Whippet’s chest. Jaw set and a curl to his upper lip, Lucius pushed the cane and forced the man flat onto the floor. 

In tandem, Hermione and Whippet made sounds of shock but Lucius ignored both of them. 

Drawing his wand out of his cane while continuing to use it to pin the editor to the floor, Lucius descended slowly onto his haunches.

The blood-streaked Whippet gazed wide-eyed and disbelieving at Lucius, whose face was a mask of calm even as his heart thudded loudly in his ears. 

“And I also saw what you did,” Lucius said quietly, tapping the centre of Whippet’s forehead with his wand. It would have been a playful action were his eyes not so cold. “Very low.” 

Lucius trailed his eyes down Whippet, not bothering to conceal his dislike. “Makes your current position rather appropriate, I'd say. She got you just right. She’s irritatingly good at that, you know; very perceptive.”

“No, Malfoy,” Whippet pleaded. “You don't understand; she's just a –”

“Obliviate.” Lucius said the spell with the light, unaffected ease that he might have said 'episkey’.

Behind him, Hermione uttered a small yelp but the sound was muffled, like she had her hands clapped over her mouth.

Whippet’s protest died in his throat but his mouth continued to hang open, his eyes glazing over. Lucius removed his cane from the man’s chest and lowered it to coolly re-sheath his wand.

“Oh my god, what did you do?” Hermione asked from behind him, her voice little more than a panicked whisper. “Mr Malfoy, you’ve –”

“Hush a moment,” Lucius replied, his attention entirely on Whippet’s face. 

“Hush?”

“Yes,” Lucius said calmly. “Please.”

Whippet’s face was pale, tinged green, but with every second that passed, the dazed look faded. By degrees, his eyes stopped swivelling in their sockets and he frowned, his chin drawing into his neck as he struggled to focus on Lucius’ face.

“Goodness me, Whippet,” Lucius said, his brows pulling together to perform concern, “that was quite the fall.”

“Wh –” Whippet swallowed and groaned, his eyes closing in a cringe. “What?”

“You fell, man,” Lucius said. “Looked like you tripped over your robes. Isn’t that right, Professor Granger?” 

Lucius looked over his shoulder to Hermione who was simply staring at them with her hands still clapped over her mouth. 

Turning back to Whippet, rolling his eyes as he went, Lucius used his cane to push himself to his feet with a grunt and stretched out his hand. 

“Here, let me help you up.”

“Oh –” Whippet blinked up at Lucius and raised a hand gingerly to his rapidly bruising nose, wincing when he felt it. “Oh, thank you, Malfoy.” Whippet took Lucius’ proffered hand and allowed him to pull him to his feet. 

“I don’t know,” Whippet said, swaying dangerously. “I think I must have hit my head quite badly. I can’t really recall…”

“Mm, I think you must have,” Lucius said with a businesslike tone, holding the man still. “You went face first. Very dazed. But it’s frightfully warm in that room of Horace’s – that’s why you came out for some air with Granger.”

“Yes,” Whippet said faintly, peering over Lucius’ shoulder at Hermione who had, based on her silence, been lapidified. “Yes, that’s right. Very warm.”

“Why don’t you toddle back to Horace and he’ll give you something for it, hm?” Lucius suggested, patting Whippet’s shoulder with just a touch too much force so that he stumbled. “A nice tonic, perhaps.”

“Yes.” Whippet nodded and winced when the motion caused him pain. “Yes, I think I will. Thank – thank you, Malfoy. And Granger, was it?”

Lucius stepped back and allowed Whippet to stumble past him. Hermione inched forward when the confused man started going the wrong way, like she was wondering whether she should intervene, but Lucius silently shook his head at her.

“It’s that way, Whippet,” Lucius said loudly, directing the befuddled Whippet back towards Horace’s office with a sweep of his cane. “Left, right, left again. Door at the end. Can’t miss it.”

“Left, right, left,” Whippet mumbled to himself, setting off in the direction in which Lucius had pointed him. 

Lucius and Hermione stood quietly in the corridor for several minutes, listening to the sound of Whippet’s shuffling steps and confused mumblings fade into nothing. 

“You –” Hermione turned to Lucius, her eyes wide and her face pale. “You obliviated him.” 

Lucius made a noise of acknowledgement and bent to make sure the stone floor hadn’t left a dusty residue on his robes. 

“And are you going to keep it our little secret,” he asked, looking up at her from beneath his brow, “or am I going to have to do it to you too?”

“Why?”

“Why?” Lucius straightened up, an incredulous smile curving at the corners of his mouth. “Merlin, Granger, did you want him telling everyone that you hit him? Quite squarely on the nose, too.” His smile lost some of its patronising incredulity and warmed into something close to a fond grin. “I should have known you’d have it in you. Little savage.” 

Hermione’s cheeks took on a red hue but whether it was from embarrassment or anger Lucius couldn’t quite tell. 

“But he –”  She pointed at the space where she and Whippet had been standing. “Mr Malfoy, he grabbed me and –”

Ah, he thought. Both.  

“Oh, I know,” Lucius said soothingly, stepping over the fallen goblets and puddles of wine to close the space between them. “But that wouldn’t stop him kicking up a fuss that you hit him, Granger. He would have fought tooth and nail to have you out on your ear for that and he’d have denied his wrongdoing all the while. It’d have gotten very messy very quickly and the last thing a probationary professor wants is mess – especially since they’re the easiest part to sweep away.”

“But isn’t that what you want?” 

Lucius stopped right in front of her and looked down into her puzzled brown eyes. 

“What?” he asked. “What do you think I want?”

“Me.” 

Lucius blinked. Just how perceptive was she?

“In a mess? Gone in disgrace?” 

Ah. 

“You could have just left it,” she continued. “Why did you –”

“I couldn’t let him steal my thunder. If anyone is going to get you kicked out of this school, Professor Granger, it’s going to be me.” Lucius leaned towards her, his voice low. “I’m afraid this has become quite personal for me.” 

Hermione exhaled disbelievingly, her brows bowed and her eyes flickering back and forth between his. 

“Won’t Horace notice?” she asked, her voice hushed. “Whippet, I mean.”

“I should think so.” Lucius straightened up, looking down his nose at her with an arched brow. “The man is covered in blood, thanks to you.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I mean – I mean the memory charm. Won’t he notice the signs? The dazedness and the –”

“Miss Granger,” Lucius said on a sigh, “Horace never notices anything that might be an inconvenience to him.”

Hermione didn’t argue with that because she knew Horace as well as he did. It was the same part of the potions master that had retroactively manufactured his closeness with her.

Whippet would say he’d tripped and fallen and Horace would readily believe it. He’d ask about Granger and Whippet would say that, yes, the young professor Granger had helped him along with Malfoy. 

Any confusion would be written off as a concussion and the next day Horace would remember it as a singular blip in an otherwise wonderful evening. 

By the next week, it’d be written out of his memory entirely and the night will have been nothing but a roaring success.

“I don’t think I can go back in there,” Hermione said after a moment, crossing her arms protectively over her middle and lowering her chin to stare into his chest. 

“No,” Lucius agreed. 

Turning away from her, he drew out his wand and vanished her fallen goblet. He was pointing at Whippet’s goblet to do the same and clear the scene when Hermione stretched out a hand with a sharp, “Don’t!”

Eyebrows raised, Lucius cast her a questioning look and she hesitated before saying, “If you leave his, then it’s more proof that he fell.” 

Her eyes swept over the puddle of wine that slowly trickled into the gaps in the stone floor. “Makes him look drunk too.”

Wand still aloft, Lucius cast an appraising look over Hermione and she raised her gaze to meet his. There was a gleam in her eyes that made Lucius’ stomach flip. He’d never wanted to touch her more than in that moment.

Instead, he murmured, “Very well,” and returned his wand to his cane. 

They stood for a moment in silence, surveying the scene they’d left, when Lucius finally said, “I’m going to smoke.” He turned to her properly. “Join me.”

Hermione frowned reproachfully and Lucius, misreading her expression, added, “You’ve already said you’re not going back.” 

“I’m not,” she said, “but you’re not supposed to smoke in the castle.”

Rolling his eyes, Lucius bid her turn by pushing her shoulder and began to shunt her down the corridor. 

“Then we’ll go to the astronomy tower, professor,” he said snidely, tapping imperiously at her heels with his cane in order to make her move faster. 

“Stop that,” she snapped, reaching back to bat away his cane with an aggravated glance over her shoulder. 

Lucius did not stop, feeling that keeping her distracted and annoyed was for the best, at least for the moment; he was more able to manage that.

Hermione didn’t speak again until they were climbing the spiral staircase that led up to the astronomy tower, their steps echoing in the narrow, empty space.

“Do you…feel bad for doing that to Whippet?” she asked from just behind him, her voice echoing.

“The guilt will eat me up for days,” Lucius said flatly, squinting up the dark staircase in an attempt to gauge how much farther they had to climb. It was endless – he half expected to be on a level with the moon when he emerged.

Feeling Hermione’s admonitory gaze on his back, he glanced around at her and sighed through his nose. 

“Tell me,” he said, her priggishness raising in him a desire to provoke, “do you feel bad for punching him? And then setting him up as a calamitous drunkard?”

There was a brief pause and then she said, “no”, receiving a satisfied ‘I thought so’ hum from Lucius in response.

They had walked another five or six stairs before she murmured, “thank you. I think.”

Lucius smiled grimly to himself, saying nothing in response. He’d done it for himself as much as her, in the end. As it turned out, Whippet’s attempt to touch her had made him far more furious than he’d even expected. Still, he appreciated the recognition.

When they finally emerged onto the top of the astronomy tower, the night was bitterly cold but dry and clear, the lack of cloud cover allowing the bright moon to cast its eerie glow over them. 

It had been some time since Lucius had done that climb and it was with no small amount of relief that he leaned his lower back against the railing of the tower and extracted his cigarette case from his pocket. Flicking it open with his thumb, he plucked one out and placed it between his lips.

Hermione appeared at his side and crossed her arms on the railing, turning her head to watch him rather than look at the expansive view. 

“That’s a filthy habit you know,” she said, casting a dark look at his case as he tucked it back into his pocket. “The Muggles are working on banning it indoors entirely.”

“Of course they are,” Lucius said, his words distorted by his attempt to keep the cigarette pinched between his lips. 

He allowed Hermione to watch him go through the process of lighting it with his wand without saying a word. When he had returned his wand to his cane, freeing up his hand, he took the cigarette from between his lips and held it out to her. 

“Join me in my ‘filthy habit’, Professor Granger,” he said, a teasing curve to his lips. “Just this once.”

A look of surprise flitted over Hermione’s face and she dropped her eyes from his and her arms from the railing to contemplate the glow of the cigarette before her. 

“I’ve never –” She shrugged, waving it away. “I’ve never done that before.”

“It’s easy,” Lucius assured her softly. “Look.”

He waited for her to return her eyes to his face and then slowly raised the cigarette to his lips. It was oddly endearing to him, the way she studied him as he inhaled, like she truly wanted to learn how to do it properly. 

Allowing the smoke to leak out of his mouth, he wordlessly held the cigarette back out to her. This time, Hermione didn’t wave it away. Instead, she hesitantly reached out and took it from him, her soft fingers brushing his. 

A strange lump formed in Lucius’ throat at the sight of her placing the cigarette that had just been on his lips between hers. Brows knitting with entirely unnecessary concentration, she inhaled and immediately proceeded to choke.

Lucius chuckled while Hermione coughed helplessly, covering her face with one hand while thrusting the cigarette back at him with the other.

“Not for you?” Lucius asked with an unapologetic grin.

“No,” Hermione rasped, her eyes watering. She flattened her hand against her chest and rubbed it in a small, tight circle, examining him as he gently blew some smoke over his shoulder into the night. “How can you enjoy that?”

Lucius shrugged. “I could ask you the same thing about flinging yourself into a freezing lake every morning,” he said, giving her a sidelong look. “It relaxes me.”

Hermione returned to her lean on the railing, tentatively raising her nose towards the purple trail that drifted past her face. “I suppose there’s a part of me that actually quite likes the smell of it,” she admitted. “Reminds me of my grandfather.”

This time Lucius choked, directing his face away from her as he coughed. “I don't know what to be more offended by,” he said hoarsely, casting her an affronted glare, “that you likened me to a Muggle or a grandfather.”

A faint, nostalgic smile passed over Hermione’s face and her shoulders jumped up in what might have been a short laugh. 

“You're nothing like him,” she assured Lucius. “He was nice.” 

A genuine, hearty laugh escaped Lucius at that, his head momentarily dropping back with delight at the stricken look that crossed Hermione’s face when she realised what she’d said. 

“You can be truly brutal when you want to be, Granger,” he said, still smiling as he flicked some ash away. 

“I didn’t mean to say –”

“Oh, you did,” Lucius cut in, pushing himself up from the railing to turn and face in the same direction as her. “And I’d rather you did. Mean it, I mean.” 

Imitating her pose, he leaned his elbows on the railing and raised his cigarette to his mouth again. 

“I know so few people who mean what they say,” he said, smoke drifting out with every word. “Myself included. Your frankness is refreshing sometimes. In a singularly infuriating way, mind, so don’t make a habit of it.”

They lapsed into silence and Lucius stared out towards the owlery, watching the shadowy figures swoop in and out of the building. 

The silence between them, interrupted only by the occasional distant hoot from the owls, was the most settled it’d ever been – he didn’t feel a need to fill it and he got the sense that Hermione didn’t either. It was almost pleasant.

“Thank you for helping me,” Hermione said eventually, the sentiment sounding more sure and genuine than it had on the climb up to the tower. 

“You handled yourself well enough.”

She hummed, adding, “I’ve never punched anyone before," with faint wonder. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw her stretch her right hand, spreading her fingers wide. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

Hermione shook her head, curling her fingers in to make a fist again and inspecting her knuckles under the light of the moon. 

“Not badly,” she said. “I mean, it hurts but I think you probably should hurt a little after hitting someone in the face.”

“Little masochist,” Lucius muttered, though he said it with more warmth than he had the first time he’d observed that tendency in her. 

He turned his head towards her and inspected her profile while she continued to scrutinise her hand, stretching it and curling it, rolling her wrist. He liked when she wore her hair up – it opened her face up and exposed her slender neck. 

Little tendrils of curls that she hadn’t been able to secure in the low, loose bun fluttered around her face in the light breeze and she wrinkled her nose when one tickled her.

“You could be more than a Muggle Studies professor,” Lucius found himself saying. There was something approaching wistfulness in his tone and he hoped she hadn’t heard it.

Hermione froze and, lowering her hand to the railing, turned to look at him. “That you’re even saying that,” she said, “makes me think I must be very good at my job.” 

Lucius offered her an inscrutable smile, neither confirming nor denying. 

“What could I do then?” Hermione asked, a hint of a challenge to her tone. “What could I do that’s so much ‘more’?”

Lucius regarded her thoughtfully, his lips pursed. “You could work for me,” he finally suggested. 

It wasn’t something he’d ever considered before but as soon as the words left his mouth, he found he quite liked the idea of it. She was intelligent, reliable and didn’t take a jot of nonsense. Perhaps she could manage his Muggle investments.  

“What exactly do you do?” Hermione asked suspiciously. “Being a school governor isn’t a paying job.”

“No.” Lucius grimaced and shrugged. “This role is more about prestige, though I’ll own that it has a very generous expense account.” He took a long drag from his cigarette and sighed. “I own things. Acquire things. Invest in things.”

A small noise of understanding came from Hermione. “You make money from money,” she said, her tone dry. “I'd rather not be involved in the sourcing or acquisition of things for you.”

“My things tend to be very well cared for, Miss Granger,” Lucius assured her, unable to stop a slight suggestiveness creeping into his words.

“I don’t doubt that.”

Seeing his offer of employment was not going to be seized upon as he thought it should be, he said, “You could work for the Ministry,” well aware that he sounded half-hearted. If she made his life difficult in Hogwarts, she’d be a nightmare let loose in the corridors of the Ministry of Magic. 

“Tried that,” was her short response. “You need connections.” Her voice lowering resentfully, she added, “Like with everything else in this stupid world, it seems.”

“You always have one in me, if you so desire it.”

Hermione frowned at him, seemingly stumped by the offer. He was rather stunned to hear himself make it, actually, but he found he meant it. 

He was beginning to think that lifting Granger up could be far more enjoyable than tearing her down. Aside from anything else, he liked the way she looked at him when he defied her expectations. 

“Thank you,” she said, squinting as though trying to see the trap he was laying for her. “But I like it here at Hogwarts. It’s home now.”

“Fine,” Lucius said on a sigh. He straightened up, drawing his shoulders back in a stretch. 

“Where do you live, by the way?” he asked, glancing around to see Hermione gazing at him, her eyes focused on the area of his chest. “When you’re not ‘at home’ here,” he prompted.

“With my parents,” she said, her eyes flitting up to his again.

“Merlin.” He cringed and blew some smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Muggle house?”

“Obviously.” 

“Why?”

Hermione tutted impatiently and looked away from him. “I don’t have enough –” There was a pause in which she seemed to consider her words. “I was hoping that becoming a proper professor would get me the salary I need to be able to afford to live alone.”

“And where would you live?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Ideally?”

“I like the idea of a little flat in Diagon Alley,” she replied, picking at a dent in the metal railing in an uncharacteristically bashful way. “Near Flourish and Blotts. Just me.”

“Not the Muggle world?”

He asked the question more disparagingly than he intended. Though Hermione turned to him, a very small reproachful frown wrinkling her brow, he didn’t apologise or rephrase because he didn’t think it was an unfair question.

“My liking of Muggles doesn’t mean I hate being a witch, you know, Mr Malfoy,” she said firmly. “And the rightful criticisms I make of our world come from a place of love. So, no. Not in the Muggle world.”

A sharp breeze blew through the tower and Hermione shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.

“I love it here,” she said quietly, gazing out at the dark shadowed highlands. “Our world. I wasn’t exactly born into it, so it was terrifying and overwhelming for me at first but when I arrived at Hogwarts I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be. Even if it was clear that not everyone agreed.”

Lucius rolled his tongue in his mouth but said nothing. She was an intelligent, skilled witch – he could no longer say that he thought she wasn’t supposed to be there and be honest about it. He certainly didn't want her to be anywhere else.

“I spent the first few years of my life at Hogwarts absolutely terrified that if I did anything wrong or looked like I was falling behind that someone would tell me that they’d obviously made a mistake and that I should leave and never come back,” she continued. “A justified fear, I’m starting to think.” 

At that, Hermione turned to look at him, her face pale and hard under the moonlight, like one of the marble statues he’d seen in her class textbook. 

“But I’ll never leave by choice.”

Never taking his eyes from hers, Lucius flicked some ash over the edge of the tower. “What if I told you that I own a few buildings in Diagon Alley and can, very occasionally, be prevailed upon to offer discounts on rent?”

“I'd say: gosh, aren't you fortunate.”

The resentful sarcasm in her tone made a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. “I would be willing to extend one to you.”

It was worth making the offer just to see that look pass over her face again. The one that mixed shock, suspicion and something else. A faint desire or longing. To believe him, perhaps. It was galling that he wished it was solely for him.

“Why?”

His shrug was careless. “I'm charitable.”

“You are not,” she said with staunch certainty. “And I’m not a charity case.” 

“Alright; I'm very nice.”

Hermione shook her head, flattening her lips into a line. “We’ve been over that one.”

“Generous, then,” Lucius said, rolling his eyes.

“Only when you stand to gain from it, I expect.”

Lucius laughed, the sound short and clear in the quiet night. “Fair,” he said, raising his rapidly shortening cigarette to his lips. “What do you think I stand to gain from you?”

“I honestly don't know,” Hermione said, her arms wrapped around her middle tightening protectively.

“Guess.”

“If it involves letting go of Muggle Studies,” she said, her voice hard, “then you can turn around right now.”

“I hadn’t even thought of such a thing but now that you suggest it…”

“No.” 

Coughing out a dark chuckle at the sight of her deep scowl, Lucius flicked his finished cigarette over the edge of the tower and took a moment to watch it disappear into the dark. 

Turning back to Hermione, he found her still facing him, arms wrapped around herself but her chin raised proudly. He tapped a finger against the railing and tilted his head to consider her for a moment.

“You’re very determined to live on your terms, aren’t you?” he said, his eyes drifting to the pouting curve of her lower lip.

“So are you.”

Slowly, carefully, Lucius took a measured step towards her. When she didn’t retreat, he took another and another, until they were standing toe to toe. “And you think we’re the same, do you?” he asked, his voice low.

Hermione swallowed, her gaze darting down his body and up to his lips before settling once again on his eyes. “I don’t think we should have to be in order to be able to do that.”

The breeze picked up, blowing at her side and disturbing her hair again. Not even stopping to think, Lucius reached out and brushed away a short curl loosened from her bun. The backs of his fingers skimmed the soft curve where her shoulder met her neck, drawing a delicate but perceptible shiver from her. 

Lucius reluctantly dropped his hand. “You could just leave the Muggles behind,” he said. “You’re a witch. A good one. Your insistent loyalty to them isn’t helping you. If anything, it’s holding you back.”  

Hermione immediately took a step away, raising her hand to curve it over the area he’d just touched as though he’d bitten her. Lucius looked up to see that her upper lip was drawn up, her teeth exposed in clear disgust.

“What would you have me do?” she asked, her voice tightening with anger. “Deny half of my very being; marry any pureblood or half-blood that will have me; bear their children and hope that in a few generations they’ll be considered ‘pure enough’ to marry someone like you?”

As unappealing as she made it sound, that was the traditional path, Lucius thought. Except he didn’t want her to do any of that. The very idea of her with someone – anyone – else enraged him. 

“‘Leave the Muggles behind’.” Hermione shook her head, scoffing derisively. “You say that like it’s nothing. My family are Muggles. My parents. They’re not the problem – I am not the problem – it's this absurd fixation on blood and pedigree. What good does it do anyone?”

“Granger–”

“What would you say if someone told Draco that everything would be better for him if he just cut all connection to you?” she demanded. “What if he actually went and did it?”

Lucius stiffened, his voice cold as he replied, “That would never happen.”

Giving him a last nauseated look, Hermione turned back to the railing and clutched at it with both hands. 

“Sometimes I think you must see the world like it's some abstract… thing,” she spat. “A game of chess you can just play without ever having to worry about consequences.”

“You’ve been an admirable opponent thus far,” Lucius replied smoothly.

“I’m not your opponent,” she said, briefly turning her head to shoot him a sharp look. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking this is a fair, even match, Mr Malfoy; I don’t have enough power for it to be. I'm just another piece on the board trying not to get smashed up.”

He stared at her, his grip on his cane fractionally tightening. How long had he been trying to knock the fight out of her with no success and one idiot from Transfiguration Today seemed to have managed to have an impact after one encounter. 

That irked him. 

She irked him. 

“I would not have ever thought to hear you describe yourself as being of so little consequence,” he said stiffly.

A quiet, mirthless laugh made Hermione’s shoulders jump, the movement turning into a full-body tremble as another chilly breeze cut across them. “Yeah, like you don’t see me that way.”

Jaw tight, Lucius exhaled sharply through his nose and proceeded to slide his heavy robes off, moving his cane from one hand to the other to remove them from his person entirely.

“No,” he admitted begrudgingly, stepping towards her to drape his robes around her shoulders. “I don’t.”

No one inconsequential could disrupt his life as much as she had.

“What are you –” Hermione wriggled under the unexpected weight of his robes and his touch – “ doing?” She shrugged him off to turn to face him, her wide eyes roving over his now-exposed white shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

“You’re cold,” he said gruffly, gripping the robes at the front to pull them roughly around her, his cane tucked under his arm. 

It was only as he jerked her closer with the action that he realised a warming charm would have been less invasive. At least, he thought, he'd taken the robes off himself before wrapping her in them. This was a nice halfway point between what he should have done and what he actually wanted to do. 

“What? No, what –” Hermione shoved her hand through the parting in the robes to grab his wrist, halting him. Her voice was more muted when she asked, “Mr Malfoy, what are you doing?” She swallowed hard. “Why are you – I don't understand what this is.”

Lucius was still, considering the smallness of Hermione’s hand wrapped around his. It’s a fucking mess, he wanted to tell her. It’s a complete and utter nightmare and it’s all your fault.

Feeling her squeeze him, he looked into her face to find her eyes large and searching. 

The temptation to lean into her was great but he held back. After what Whippet had done, it felt like poor timing. Crass. Besides, even had Whippet not done what he had, Lucius thought he’d find it a challenge to predict her response. 

He liked to think that if he pulled her closer and lowered his lips to hers, she would slide her arms around him and meld her little body against his. But she could just as easily punch him too. At that moment, one seemed as likely as the other and he couldn’t bring himself to risk his pride or his reputation for anything less than absolute certainty.

“It’s a moment of peace in an otherwise abysmal night,” he finally said. “Have you considered enjoying it?”

Hermione laughed but there was a faint echo of madness to its pitch that he rather thought he understood. Whatever was happening between them was not normal. Or, at the very least, it was not anything he’d experienced before.

Another gust of wind blew a wispy curl across her face and he shook her hold off his wrist to gently move the hair from her face, the backs of his fingers brushing her cheek. She inhaled and held it until he withdrew, her eyelashes fluttering slightly as though she was resisting the urge to close her eyes.

“Are you really going to let a cretin like Wheatley Whippet knock the fight out of you?” he asked, his brow lowered with disapproval.

“No,” Hermione replied, looking somewhat offended as she pulled his robes more tightly around her. “No, of course not.”

“Good.”

Giving him one last appraising look, she turned back to the railing and stared out. When Lucius moved more closely behind her she let him, her shoulder just resting against his chest.

“None of this has been a game to me, you know,” she said, her eyes fixed on the shadowy figure of an owl returning to the owlery with what looked like a mouse clutched in its talons. “It’s my life and I feel like I’ve been fighting you for it.”

Lucius had nothing to say to that. It hadn’t been a game to him either, regardless of what she thought. 

He wasn't playing chess. He hadn’t been doing it for fun. 

Yet he could see that he had far less to lose than her, regardless of which way it went. If she continued as the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts, his life wouldn’t actually materially change at all. It would likely look much the same if he managed to get her fired. 

That wasn’t the case for her. If she continued as the Muggle Studies professor, she would gain an established position and a fair salary. A chance at some kind of independence in their world.

He’d always known that. Perhaps not the minute details but, on some level, he’d known. It hadn’t mattered to him because he’d been focused on the bigger picture. 

Now… 

Lucius considered the small figure in front of him, wrapped in his robes. Well, now he was struggling to remember what the bigger picture even looked like. 

When the silence stretched out, long and contemplative, Hermione turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I think I might…I should go to bed.” 

Lucius looked down into her face and held her gaze for a long moment. There was very little in her expression but exhaustion. 

“Off you go,” he said, shifting to the side to let her pass unhindered.

“Do you want to come with me?” Hermione asked as she moved slowly away from him. “I mean…to your room.” She closed her eyes, looking supremely irritated with herself and Lucius raised an amused brow. Perhaps she wouldn’t have punched him. “Are you going back to your room when I go to mine?”

“I’ll stay here,” he said, patting his waistcoat pocket and feeling rather smug. “Have one more.”

Hermione nodded and then proceeded to shake off his robes, sliding them down her arms to hold them out to him. 

“Keep them.” He shook his head and waved her away. “I’ll get them later.”

“No,” she said firmly, thrusting them out at him again with more emphasis. “Then you’ll be cold.”

There was no point in fighting her on it. No point in fighting her on anything, he was beginning to think. Lucius sighed and stretched out his hand to take the robes from her, slinging them over his arm.

She bobbed her head to show her gratitude. “Night, Mr Malfoy.”

“Goodnight, Granger,” he replied. “If you pass Whippet on the grand staircase, give him a nudge – he’ll still be unsteady.”

Hermione’s dark, reluctantly amused chuckle echoed in the stairwell and Lucius smiled to hear it, turning on his heel to stare out at the dark night sky again.

Chapter Text

November 17th 

Hermione crossed her arms over her middle and tucked her hands into the sleeves of her robes to protect her exposed skin from the chilly breeze.

Thanks to the cloudless cold of the night before, there was a thin, damp mist overlaying the grounds that gave everything a faintly dreamy look. It was soothing on her puffy, tired eyes. 

Suppressing a yawn, Hermione stepped off the main path in the direction of the lake, feeling zombie-like. She’d barely slept but as soon as the sun had crept over the horizon, she’d thrown her duvet off her body and forced herself to rise.

Swimming cleared her mind in a way that lying in her bed simply could not and Hermione wanted nothing more than to dunk her head in the ice cold water of the lake and let it wash away thoughts of the previous night. The relentless, endless thoughts of Wheatley Whippet and his clammy hands pawing at her waist; of Lucius Malfoy’s intense gaze and overwhelming touch; of her guilt and her anger and her shame.

Hermione was close to the lake when she saw him through the mist, tall and hazy like a brocken spectre. Drawing nearer, she identified that he was dressed in his usual heavy robes and though she could not see it through the mist, Hermione could tell from the repetitive motion of his arm that he was smoking. No cane, so he was on a walk. Such as it was.

Perhaps hearing her feet crunching on the pebbly shore of the lake, Lucius turned to face her. His face gave absolutely nothing away and, as Hermione drew closer to him, she wondered what he saw in hers. Would he see the maelstrom of unease, uncertainty and unbridled longing that he raised in her? Could a face even convey all that? Most likely she just looked mildly constipated as well as exhausted.

“Granger,” he said, his voice low but perfectly audible in the still quiet of the morning. Only the birds were trying to speak over him. “How are you?”

His eyes raked over her hair, her face, her thick cloak and her bag, like he was looking for signs of damage. She wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t find it on the outside. Instead, she said, “I’m tired. Didn’t sleep much.”

Lucius simply nodded, like that was the response he had expected and raised his cigarette to his lips. Hermione drew closer to him as he exhaled and the smell of the smoke took her back to the night before on the astronomy tower. 

The robes he was wearing were similar to the ones he’d draped around her shoulders. When he’d told her he didn’t think she was insignificant or inconsequential. 

Hermione swallowed a lump in her throat at the memory of that, of the look that had been in his eyes when she’d turned to face him on the tower. It’d made her heart pound and her palms sweat. It’d looked like the genuine desire she’d once fantasised about but then it’d come to nothing and she’d doubted herself.

There had been a moment when she’d thought he might kiss her and, in that moment, she thought she’d probably have let him. Not some safe fantasy of him that she could control. The real him. 

That scared her.

Ever since half term, their relationship had been shifting and twisting. Warping. She didn’t know what to call it anymore. It didn’t resemble anything she’d ever experienced before.

“How are you?” she asked, stopping at his side to stare out over the lake. The water was calm under the blanket of the mist, the sound of it lapping over the shore soothing in its constancy.

“Also tired,” he said. 

Hermione wondered what it was that had kept him up. He’d made it clear it wouldn’t be guilt over what he’d done to Whippet. Could it have been thoughts of her? She hated how much she liked the idea of that. 

“Swimming?” Lucius asked, glancing around at her, his eyes dropping to her bag and the heat charmed towel draped over it.

Hermione nodded and Lucius made a noise of acknowledgment in the back of his throat in response. Taking one last drag from his cigarette, he flicked it into the water. Ignoring Hermione’s reproachful look at the floating butt, he jerked his head in the direction of where she usually swam.

They walked together around the lake in silence for a while, Hermione focusing on the pleasing crunch of the pebbles beneath her water shoes to distract herself from his arm brushing against hers. 

“What do you think happened to Whippet?” she asked after they’d made some good progress around the shore.

“I passed Horace escorting him to the carriages on my way downstairs after you left,” Lucius replied, kicking a stone. “I was roped in to help, of course. He was staying in Hogsmeade.”

“That’s that, then,” Hermione murmured. “Suppose Horace will ask me how his little introduction went at breakfast.”

“What will you say?”

“Oh, something along the lines of ‘I doubt he’ll remember me; I don’t think I made much of an impact on him’?” Hermione suggested lightly.

A wry grin flashed over Lucius’ face and Hermione returned it but it swiftly dimmed and faded. 

“I’ll dance around it I s’pose,” she said dejectedly. “Then find another route into Transfiguration Today. One that doesn’t involve meeting Wheatley Whippet again. To be honest, I don't think I even want to be published by him now. Maybe there’s somewhere else that’ll have me.”

Lucius hummed noncommittally.

They worked their way through the overgrown bushes and ducked under low-hanging tree branches, Lucius grumbling every now and then when he was forced to make some kind of physical effort that he clearly thought was beneath him.

 Hermione didn’t question why he was still walking with her; his company felt natural and she didn’t object to it. She couldn’t quite work out when that had started to be the case.

“When did you start doing this?” Lucius asked, holding a branch out of her way with a scowl on his face. “Swimming?”

“Viktor introduced me to it during my fourth year,” Hermione replied, yanking her cloak away from some sticky leaves. “Well, not the entire concept of swimming, obviously, but he made me see the appeal of it, especially in the lake.”

“Viktor…”

“Krum.”

They emerged from the trees into the familiar enclosure and Hermione set her towel atop the flat rock. Turning to Lucius, she found him simply staring at her from the edge of the trees. 

“Viktor Krum,” he said flatly. “The Bulgarian Quidditch player?”

“Yes,” Hermione replied, allowing her bag to slide from her shoulder to the pebbly shore.

Lucius stared at her expectantly for another moment but when she offered no further explanation, he sighed. “Why is it that when I actually want you to elaborate you simply do not do it?”

“It was during the Triwizard Tournament,” Hermione explained, bemused by his interest. “We grew…” She shrugged. “Close, I suppose.”

“You don’t even like Quidditch.” There was something accusatory, even petulant, in his tone that made her want to laugh.

“So?” she said, arching a brow. “He didn’t – doesn’t – need someone to be exactly like him in order to appreciate them. Nor do I.”

“Appreciate,” Lucius repeated with mocking doubt as he approached the rock and her.

“Yes,” Hermione insisted, flushing with annoyance at the insinuation she heard in Lucius’ tone. “He’s been a wonderful friend to me.”

She watched Lucius chuckle quietly to himself as he perched on the edge of the rock and reached into his robes, no doubt looking for his cigarette case. 

“Even though he went to a school that continually told him Muggleborns weren’t worth his time,” she continued sharply, “he had the strength of mind and sense of self to recognise that kind of rhetoric for the nonsense it is.”

Lucius pinched a cigarette between his lips and slipped his case back into his waistcoat, inspecting her all the while. 

“So I appreciate him, too,” Hermione finished, crossing her arms across her middle while Lucius lit his cigarette and returned his wand to his pocket.

“I can’t imagine the international Quidditch star is short of… appreciation,” Lucius said snidely, smoke spilling out of his mouth as he turned to look out over the lake. “Though I’m sure he’s simply delighted to have it.”

Hermione huffed out an irate sigh. Just because Lucius’ company felt increasingly natural did not mean she always enjoyed it. He was downright unpleasant when he wanted to be, which was, apparently, often. It was fortunate that she could escape into the lake. 

Shaking her enchanted bobble down her wrist, Hermione reached up and pulled her hair into a tight, messy ponytail. 

It wasn’t until she was unclasping her cloak from around her neck that she hesitated, glancing towards Lucius. He was still seated on the rock, smoking and looking out over the water like he was the only one there. 

Gritting her teeth and steeling herself, Hermione crunched over the pebbles and set her cloak on the rock beside her towel and Malfoy before she proceeded to pull her heat-charmed robes up and over her head to reveal her swimsuit. A shudder immediately passed through her when the cold hit her bare legs but she carried on. 

As soon as she tugged the neck of the robes over her head to emerge from their dark interior, Hermione was met with the stare of Lucius. 

She froze, bundling her robes in her arms against her middle as his gaze trailed down her body, somehow simultaneously leisurely and intense. His eyes lingered on the holster strapped to her thigh where she kept her wand.

The wind wasn’t quite cold enough to combat the heat that coursed through her and she rubbed her gooseflesh thighs together, needing to move but finding herself stuck to the spot. 

“What?” she asked, her voice quiet.

Lucius’ eyes flicked back up to her face and, through the wispy smoke of his cigarette, she saw his throat bob. “Nothing, Granger.” He jerked his head towards the water. “I don’t know what you’re waiting for – I certainly won’t be joining you.”

Hermione folded her robes and dumped them beside her towel before picking her way over the shore to the edge of the lake. Lucius’ gaze was a heavy weight on her back as she waded into the cold water, splashing it over her skin to acclimatise herself, but she didn’t look back. 

As soon as Hermione was fully in the water, propelling herself through it with fluttering kicks and strong strokes, she began to feel at peace. She lost herself in the rhythm of her breathing and her movement and tried not to think about the hungry way Lucius Malfoy had been looking at her. 

She definitely hadn’t imagined it that time.

Hermione took a deep breath and plunged under the surface of the lake, allowing the quiet to hold her, soothe her, empty her, her lungs burning in protest.

He had obliviated a man right in front of her and he didn’t even feel bad about it. She should be at least slightly afraid of a wizard with so few scruples. Yet she wasn’t. If anything, seeing Whippet dazed and vulnerable beneath the unwavering point of Malfoy’s wand had caused a kind of vindictive pleasure to rush through her, new and heady in its intensity.

Unused to any sense of security in the wizarding world, she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t felt good in that moment to have someone on her side. To have someone prepared to protect her beyond the extent she’d been willing to protect herself. Even him. 

Maybe especially him.

Hermione’s head broke the surface of the lake and she gulped in deep, gasping breaths, treading water to take in the beautiful, gloomy surroundings.

He’d said he’d obliviated Whippet because he wanted to be the one to get her fired but, with the way he looked at her and the way he'd spoken to her, a part of her was beginning to suspect that maybe – just maybe – it was because he wanted her. And was that really so impossible? After all, she wanted him. 

Twisting her body, Hermione looked back towards the shore and realised she’d swum so far that he and the rock on which he’d been sitting had disappeared from view.

She shouldn’t want him. Sometimes she actually still didn’t. Sometimes, when he spoke, the only thing she wanted was to smack him with his own bloody cane. 

But that still left the other times. The times when he spoke to her and touched her like he not only saw her but liked what he saw. Admired what he saw. They were increasing in frequency.

The question was whether or not he would ever be able to admit that to himself. Or, if he already had, what the balance of his desire was. 

If he wanted her but still wanted rid of Muggle Studies even more then…well that was that, wasn’t it? She’d fight him until they hated each other again.

Limbs tired from paddling, Hermione sighed, though it came out more like a breathless pant. Swimming hadn’t cleared her mind as much as she’d hoped it would. 

By the time Hermione returned to shore and trudged out of the water, the faint morning mist had mostly lifted. Lucius Malfoy, however, was still perched atop the rock on which she’d left him, a book in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

Hermione frowned, shuddering violently as a cold breeze buffeted her bare thighs. He hadn’t had a book when she’d left. By the looks of it he was only a chapter or two into it.

Lucius glanced up from beneath his brows when he heard her splash onto the pebbles. Securing his cigarette between his lips, he reached to the side and held her warm towel out to her. Hermione rushed towards it and gratefully wrapped it around her body to immediately protect herself from the worst of the cold. 

“What are you reading?” she asked, sniffling and rubbing the end of her red nose with her towel.

Eyes holding for just a moment on her face, Lucius flipped the book closed and squinted at the cover. “Jane Eyre,” he mumbled through his cigarette.

Hermione froze. “Jane – did you go into my bag?”

Re-opening the book, Lucius returned his attention to it and reached up to remove his cigarette from his mouth, blowing the smoke out of the side of it. “Obviously.”

“I didn’t give you permission to do that,” Hermione snapped, waving away the purple plume.

“You left your bag with me,” Lucius said, shrugging but focusing on the page he’d been reading rather than her. “I rather thought the permission was implicit.”

“I could have had anything in there.” 

Hermione irately drew her wand out of its holster on her thigh and hurriedly cast a drying charm on herself, the cold becoming too much to bear on her wet calves and her towel having done its job of speedily restoring some heat to her upper body.

“You once told me you had a library in there,” Lucius said poutily, his eyes darting up to watch her swiftly pull her warm robes back over her head. “And it was quite dull when you went too far out to see.”

“It’s a Muggle book, you know,” Hermione said when her face appeared through the neck of her robes, her tone heavy with sardonic warning. 

“I thought so,” he replied, frowning like he had acknowledged this to himself but hadn’t entirely accepted it. “The rest of your reading was rather too academic for a Sunday morning. You're very fond of lexical density, aren't you?"

"I like to learn," Hermione said, hurriedly passing him to arrange her belongings. "But I like to have a work of fiction on the side, too. It's a different kind of learning."

"Were you involved in the writing of it?” Lucius asked, twisting so that he could continue to look at her. 

“Wh – no.” Hermione stopped in the process of folding her towel to stare at him with disbelief. “It’s a classic. Charlotte Bronte. It’s over a century and a half old.”

“Hm.” Lucius considered the book for a moment then looked up at her perplexed face. “It reads like you at parts. Passionate little thing. Defiant.”

“I –” Hermione pursed her lips hesitantly, her eyes narrowed, then said, “Thank you?”

“It wasn’t entirely a compliment.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Hermione grumbled, swinging her cloak around her neck to clasp it into place. “C’mon; I need to get ready for the day.”

Without a word, Lucius closed the book, flicked his cigarette aside and pushed himself lithely to his feet. Rather than hand the book back to Hermione, he tucked it into his side, the spine curved into his palm, and waited patiently for her to pull her satchel onto her shoulder. 

“Would you like to borrow my book?” she asked dryly, spying his tight hold on it. “The book that I was only half-way through, I might add.” Even if it was a re-read. 

“Very kind of you,” Lucius said with a gracious nod of his head. “I think I will. We can call it a thank you for my help last night.”

Hermione paused, her irritation flickering and fading as she properly took him in and considered the significance of what he was doing. Of what he was asking for without actually asking for it. 

At what point had Lucius Malfoy become a wizard who would read a Muggle author, never mind touch a Muggle book? What crucial turning point had she missed?

“When you said that Muggle poetry is varied,” Hermione ventured slowly, a curious lightness expanding in her chest. "You did mean you liked some of it, didn't you?”

“I meant that it’s varied,” was Lucius’ stiff response. “As I said.”

“Which poem did you like?” Hermione asked hungrily. 

When Lucius said nothing, his face impassive under her probing gaze, she hurriedly added, “Was it more than one? What did you like about it? Them, even. Anything in particular?”

“You’re quite hard to talk to when you’re excited like this,” Lucius replied sniffily, striding past her. “We’ll wait until you calm down before we discuss this any further.”

“Fiction is such a wonderful connector, don’t you think?” Hermione prompted, scurrying after him, leaves and stones crunching under her feet. “It’s all made up, sure, but there’s something so truthful in it; it opens us up and helps us to see that we’re not as isolated in our thoughts and feelings as we might –”

“Granger,” Malfoy said exhaustedly from a few paces ahead of her, ducking under a tree branch. “Give it a rest.”

“I could give you some recommendations, though,” Hermione continued, the words coming in a rush. “What kinds of things do you like? Do you —”

“Oh dear, I’m afraid I can feel my ability to read slipping away,” Lucius called sarcastically over his shoulder. “It’s leaving me. Letters are but strange shapes to me now. I’m quite illiterate. ”

“Don’t!” Hermione lunged forward to catch up with him, laughing merrily as she pulled him back by his arm through his cloak. “Don’t –”

He let her stop him and turned to her. She grinned up into his face, pleased to see a thin but genuine smile creasing the corners of his mouth. 

They stood in the middle of the trees and bushes that separated the clearing by the lake from the main path of the grounds. Overhead a bird chirped shrilly and behind her the lake lapped softly at the shore.

“Don’t pretend,” Hermione said, her smile faltering but her hand remaining on his arm, squeezing insistently. “Please. If you liked even one of them, don’t pretend you didn’t.”

Lucius’ own smile dimmed and he sighed softly through his nose as he looked down at her, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers. 

The playful, light energy that had been in the air between them just moments before settled like dew on the grass, replaced by something altogether heavier. It was expectation. Anticipation. As present as the wet, earthy smell that surrounded them.

Hermione imagined closing the space between them and pressing herself against him. Rolling onto her tiptoes and bringing her lips within a hair’s breadth of his to see if he would nudge his head forward the mere centimetre required to meet her for a kiss. 

The gnawing fear that he wouldn’t – that he might, even now, decide to use it against her – held her in place.

“What difference does it make?” Lucius asked, lowering his eyes to where her hand held him in place. “Whether I pretend or not?”

“Well…” Hermione hesitated, unsure whether or not she ought to release him. “You’ve never pretended with me before.” For good and bad. “Why start now?”

Lucius shifted beneath her, almost like a twitch, and Hermione instinctively drew back at the sudden movement. He frowned in response, lips thinning and eyes rising to her apologetic face. 

“Make your recommendations if it will make you happy,” he finally said quietly, drawing away from her. “But do not pester me about reading them.”

“Deal.”

December 1st

Lucius sipped his tea and flicked a page of his newspaper, more than content to be on the sidelines of the hustle and bustle taking place in the Great Hall that morning. 

Sundays were usually peaceful at Hogwarts but, while students trickled in and out of the Great Hall to eat their breakfast, the process of decorating the castle for Christmas was well underway. 

Tall trees had been erected around the perimeter of the hall and Hermione, Flitwick and McGonagall were busy adorning and draping them with baubles, tinsel and all manner of enchanted ornaments. They’d already been at it for a while when Lucius arrived to eat and they were still going even after he was finished.

Lowering an interminably dull interview with Rufus Scrimgeour to the table, Lucius raised his eyes to Hermione. She was perched at the end of the Gryffindor table, showing a few second years the method she was using to make small, decorative trumpets blast a high-pitched rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. 

When one of them attempted to copy the spell with no success, she shook her head and asked them a question. They nodded and she gently took their wrist to show them the complicated twirl required so that they could try again. Though the trumpet let out little more than a choked squeak, the student looked delighted and Hermione equally so. It was an achievement for a second year.

Lucius swallowed, the sight creating a peculiar kind of ache in his chest. She truly was a good witch. And she liked the students as much as they liked her; she reigned in her snappish irritability for them in a way that she certainly did not for him.

Although he thought her talents could be better applied to other subjects, he couldn’t say that her presence as a professor generally was going to have a detrimental effect. Likely the opposite.

“Good morning, Lucius.” Lucius tensed at the unexpected voice from behind him, his eyes closing with resignation when he recognised it as Dumbledore’s. “I hope I’m finding you well.”

“Tolerably so, Dumbledore,” Lucius replied, raising his newspaper in front of his face again to indicate that he didn’t want to be engaged.

Regardless, Dumbledore eased himself into Horace’s usual seat and Lucius sighed softly through his nose, feeling the man’s twinkling blue eyes on the side of his face. 

Lowering the newspaper, Lucius turned his head and said, “And you, Dumbledore? Well, I imagine?”

“Oh, wonderful,” Dumbledore said contentedly, looking out over the hall like a monarch looking out over their peaceful kingdom. “I have, just this moment, stopped Peeves from stringing up a student with a length of tinsel in the Entrance Hall, so I feel I have rather done my part in the decorating process.” 

Lucius hummed into his teacup, his eyes drifting once again to Hermione. She was levitating her enchanted trumpets into the trees, her face the very picture of focus. It was remarkable that her lips always looked so smooth, given how much she chewed at them.

“Your report on Hermione's classes is, I assume, almost complete?” Dumbledore asked lightly.

Lucius coughed into his tea and tore his eyes from Hermione, wondering if the nosy headmaster had noticed the direction of his attention.

“Yes.”

It was, indeed, almost complete but Lucius' resolve was not what it had been. Before he could complete it, he rather thought he had to truly decide what he wanted more: a fresh chance to eradicate Muggle Studies or Granger. 

It was abundantly clear to him now that he could not have both, which was immensely irritating to him, a man used to having everything without compromise.

“And have you found, as I have, that she is a talented witch and an able educator?”

Lucius did not have as much respect for Dumbledore as many of his peers seemed to but he did have to admire the way the wizard could make a question sound sharp without ever altering that soft, falsely aged quality he gave his voice. 

“As I said, Dumbledore, my report is almost complete,” Lucius replied. “It would be unprofessional for me to give any opinion on Miss Granger’s teaching until it has been submitted.”

“Ah, yes,” Dumbledore said, adjusting the sleeves of his cobalt blue robes. “I understand, certainly. We must be professional.” 

Dumbledore allowed quiet to fall for a moment and reached across the table to pull a plate of crumpets towards himself. Lucius rolled his eyes and pushed his newspaper away entirely – clearly his morning of peace was finished.

“Your trip to the Muggle museum with her sixth years should be most rewarding, I think,” Dumbledore said, spreading an excessive amount of butter onto his crumpet. Lucius suspected the plate beneath it would be swimming with the amount that would soak through.

“For who?” It was a question but Lucius said it with the flatness of a statement. 

Truly, he was dreading the entire thing. He never entered the Muggle world. He never had any need to. The entire idea of it disgusted him, left him uncomfortable and uncertain. Not feelings he relished. 

There were so many Muggles he struggled to imagine how they all managed to fit in the streets – what if they just crawled over one another like rats? No doubt, Hermione would have something cutting and renunciatory to say about that. Likely, she would point out that he didn't object to reading their writings but, to him, physically being in their world with all of them was rather different to sharing a mental plane with one of them.

“Everyone involved,” Dumbledore said cheerfully, setting down his butter knife. “We do not often allow outings beyond the bounds of Hogsmeade but Hermione convinced me of the value for her particular class.”

“You’re placing a great deal of trust in her with this venture,” Lucius said, wondering what it was about Hermione Granger that inspired it in so many. Blatantly good intentions, he supposed. And likely none of them had seen her throw a punch like he had. She just had something.

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed, “though I have the added peace of mind of knowing that you will also be present.”

At that, Lucius turned to look at Dumbledore properly and found the old wizard’s blue eyes piercing him through his half-moon spectacles. Lucius had been subjected to stern, knowing looks from Dumbledore before but never one so severe.

“After all,” Dumbledore continued, “the students of Hogwarts and their safety are always our two highest priorities. Is that not right, Lucius?”

Straightening in his seat, Lucius narrowed his eyes slightly at the warning he heard in Dumbledore’s tone. All-knowing as the old man purported to be, Lucius thought he was rather behind on this one; his early intentions of sabotaging Hermione’s trip were slipping away by the day, along with many of his former certainties.

Before he could respond, however, Dumbledore rose from his seat, taking a bite of his crumpet as he went. 

“Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, Lucius,” he said, departing from Lucius’ side in a swirl of blue. 

Glancing down, Lucius saw, as he had thought, that Dumbledore’s plate was positively swimming in butter. Lip curled, he nudged it away.

“Good morning, Hermione.” At the sound of Dumbledore’s greeting, Lucius’ head snapped up. 

Hermione was carrying a garland so large that it could have been mistaken for a Basilisk. She had draped it around herself to stop it dragging along the floor. She must, Lucius thought, have been approaching the table when Dumbledore departed.

“The hall looks splendid,” Dumbledore continued, pausing to finish the last bite of his crumpet. “I think you’ve quite outdone yourself this year.”

“Thank you, Albus,” Hermione replied, her cheeks rosy with exertion and pleasure. 

Lucius did not bother to pretend that he was drinking his tea or reading his paper. He just watched her. Perhaps feeling his stare, she peered around Dumbledore and met Lucius’ eyes. To his pleasure, her cheeks bloomed further and she quickly looked back to Dumbledore’s face, shyly fidgeting with the garland around her.

How could he not want her? Someone else could deal with Muggle Studies. He had already done enough to protect the wizarding community. How selfless could he be expected to be? He had to have her. 

“I will never forget the chaos that reigned in this hall the year that Professor Dippet decided he would like it to house all of the birds mentioned in the Twelve Days of Christmas carol,” Dumbledore said, looking up to the grey, cool sky and sighing. “The geese were particularly troublesome.”

Tuning out Dumbledore’s ramble down memory lane, Lucius thought of the way Hermione had looked the morning he’d joined her at the lake. The way she’d laughed and then looked at him with such sincerity and expectation. He’d been tempted to kiss her then, had felt sure that she would welcome it. But the way she’d flinched from him…

Lucius frowned and turned his face from where she conversed with Dumbledore. 

She didn’t trust him, he could tell. Even after his intervention with Whippet, she felt a need to guard herself and her future against him. Sensible, really. 

Lucius was accustomed to demanding what he wanted — taking it — but if he was to have Hermione Granger he knew he could not simply demand or take. He needed her to give herself to him. He needed her to trust him or, at the very least, to be certain that she had nothing to fear from him. 

“Mr Malfoy.”

Lucius jerked back into himself, turning to see that Hermione was standing right in front of him, her conversation with Dumbledore apparently having come to a close. The headmaster was no longer anywhere to be seen. 

“I wondered –” Hermione indicated the garland that she had wrapped around herself like she was a Christmas tree. “I’ll need two wands to hang this. Would you mind helping?”

Rather than respond, Lucius pushed himself to his feet and lifted his cane. It took him several long seconds to round the table but she waited patiently for him to meet her at its front and draw his wand. 

“Where are you hanging it?” he asked, setting the body of his cane by his plate.

“Oh, just –” Hermione gestured vaguely to a space above one of the fireplaces along the edge of the hall. “Somewhere there.”

“You may have to untangle yourself before we begin,” Lucius said, eyeing the way the garland snaked around her shoulders and waist. “Unless you wish to become a part of the display.”

An embarrassed laugh escaped Hermione and she began unwinding the garland from around herself, turning on the spot as she did so. Observing her struggle with a faintly exasperated fondness, Lucius reached out and took one end of the garland from her hand, holding it aloft to make it easier for her to untangle herself. 

When she was finally free, she beamed up at him and Lucius spied a holly leaf poking out of her thick curls. Slowly raising his hand, he picked it out and noted that, this time, she didn’t withdraw from him. She didn't even blink.

“Oh!” Hermione shook her head like a cat shaking itself free of water in an apparent attempt to dislodge any more leaves that might be hiding. “Are there any more?”

Lucius could do nothing but shake his head, the ache in his chest returning, and she nodded with satisfaction before turning on her heel. “Shall we?”

Grip still on his end of the garland, Lucius followed her down the steps from the staff table and into the hall.

As he helped Hermione hang the garland, flicking his wand sharply to levitate it, Lucius’ mind was barely on the task at hand. 

Instead, it was more focused on whether or not he would rather use a spell to burn his report on her, or whether he should cast it into his fireplace and force himself to watch the flames eat his former convictions up sheet by sheet.

Chapter Text

December 5th

Hermione dumped a heavy box filled with Muggle clothes onto a desk in the front row of her classroom. The force of the drop sent a purple knitted sleeve flopping listlessly over the edge of the box and she lifted it to place it neatly back inside. 

“You can dip into this if you like,” she told Lucius, who was watching her from the back of the classroom, leaning against his usual desk. "It's just some things I got from charity shops."

“Excuse me?” he asked, his voice heavy with tired disdain, despite the fact that it was only coming up for eleven in the morning. 

“The clothes,” Hermione explained, jerking her head towards them. “To go to the museum.”

When Lucius gave her nothing but an incredulous look, she threw her hands out. “You certainly can’t wear your robes.”

“I am not wearing anything from that box,” was Lucius’ firm, disgusted response. 

Exhaling sharply through her nose, Hermione glanced at the clock on the wall. They only had around 20 minutes before her sixth years arrived for their trip and Lucius was still very much, from head to toe, in wizarding attire. 

She crossed the classroom towards him and he straightened up, eyeing her with an apprehensive defensiveness, as though she was a dog he knew was prone to aggression but could not predict. 

“What?” he asked when she reached him, looking down into her determined face.

Hermione pursed her lips, trailing her eyes down his tall, imposing frame and impeccable robes. 

“Alright,” she said. “You don’t have to take anything from the box.”

It was a pointless fight anyway, she knew. 

“But can you trust me?” 

He appeared to truly consider her and the question, a slight frown knitting his brow. “Well, that depends entirely on what you intend to do.”

Hermione drew her wand out of her pocket and offered him a hopeful smile. “Just a little bit of transfiguration.”

Lucius immediately stepped back, bumping the desk so that it screeched on the stone floor. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Hermione said, stepping towards him, her wand still raised in a way that she didn’t intend to be threatening but he clearly interpreted as such. “You know I’m good at it!”

“That doesn’t mean I want your wand anywhere near my attire,” Lucius insisted, reaching behind him in search of his cane to defend himself.

Taking advantage of his slight distraction, Hermione rolled onto her tiptoes and grabbed for his cravat, whipping it from around his neck. 

Incensed, Lucius moved to snatch it back but Hermione turned her body away from him to keep it clutched to her middle. 

“Give that back, Granger,” he growled, his voice near her ear as he reached his arms around her.

“No,” Hermione insisted, trying to ignore the warmth spreading through her at the feeling of him pressed against her and around her. “It’s the first step, Malfoy, you have to – stop it – you have to –”

With an irate growl, Hermione crushed the cravat in her fist and shoved it down the neck of her jumper, depositing it roughly into her bra. Shrugging Lucius off, she turned to face him again and found his eyes gleaming with indignation.

“Where is it?” he demanded. “What did you do with it?”

Hermione merely shrugged and watched his eyes trail down her jumper, finally landing on the now-lumpy plane of her left breast.

“You did not,” he said disbelievingly, his eyes flicking up to hers.

“I did so and unless you want to try to get it back –” Lucius’ eyebrows rose at the challenge and Hermione felt her cheeks burn. “Which I doubt , then you’ll probably have to let me fix that high collar. It looks very silly without it.”

Lucius drew his chin into his neck to look down at the high dress collar and scowled at her. Tentative, Hermione approached him again and raised her wand to wave it encouragingly at him.

“Just fix it,” he spat, eyeing her wand and her with intense dislike. 

“Thank you,” Hermione murmured, closing the remaining space between them in a single step.

She was close enough that she saw Lucius’ shoulders stiffen when she reached up to touch his collar. The backs of her fingers brushed his neck as she undid the topmost button and she felt the jump of him swallowing. 

Jaw clenched tight, suddenly unable to look directly into his face, Hermione undid the second button, then the third, and then raised her wand to set it against the starched white material. 

Beneath her wand, the high, almost Victorian, collar loosened and dropped into a more modern shirt collar. Drawing her lower lip between her teeth, she stepped back and tipped her head to assess it. 

“Let’s not bother with a tie,” she said, opting to leave the buttons undone. It made for an oddly casual sight on him. “Could you take your robes off, please?”

Lucius hesitated for a moment but when Hermione offered to transfigure them on his person with the underlying threat that her wand might slip and shorten something else, he relented and slid them from his shoulders. 

“Waistcoat too,” she ordered, though not unkindly. 

“This is ridiculous,” Lucius grumbled, following Hermione to her desk where she spread his robes across its cleared surface.

“It’s necessary,” Hermione said, glancing up at him, her eyes catching on his hand which continued to unbutton his waistcoat. “I’ll change them back when we return, I promise. Isn’t it comforting that you’re still technically wearing your own clothes?”

“They had best look exactly the same when you restore them or I’ll have the cost of a replacement deducted from your pay.”

“I imagine that’d be my entire salary,” was Hermione’s light but judgemental response as she stooped to shorten the robes.

“Maybe more,” Lucius retorted, his eyes narrowing vindictively.

Ridding himself of his waistcoat, Lucius set it on Hermione’s desk and ensured his cigarette case was tucked safely in its pocket, eyeing her slow and careful wand movements all the while. 

Hermione felt him leave her side and glanced up from under her brow, wondering if the sight of her mutilating his robes had become simply too much for him to bear. As it turned out, he was fetching his cane. 

By the time he returned to her side, she’d transformed his robes but not, she felt, beyond recognition. 

“Alright,” Hermione said on a satisfied sigh. 

She tucked her wand into her trouser pocket and lifted what had been Lucius’ robes up by the shoulders. They’d become a smart black wool coat, the speckled silver baroque pattern that had lined the bottom and pockets of them now making up the silk lining inside the coat. Hermione made a satisfied little sound when she held the coat out to him. 

Disgruntled, Lucius set his cane on her desk and took the coat from her to weigh it in his hands, inspecting the buttons critically. It was several long moments before he finally deigned to slide it on. 

It looked to Hermione like it fit comfortably, sitting neatly across his shoulders while the hem stopped just at his knee. Without thinking, she rounded the side of her desk to him and pulled the lapels together to neaten it at the front in much the way he had pulled his robes around her on the astronomy tower. 

The thought of that moment made her stomach clench and she looked up into his face. He was already looking down at her, his expression closed and tight. 

“Well?” he asked, begrudgingly holding his hands out to the side.

“You look like a Muggle,” Hermione said overly cheerfully, dropping her hold on him. On seeing faint horror flash over his face, she quickly added, “A very smart Muggle. Very wealthy.”

It was true. Robes as fine as Malfoy’s were hardly going to turn into anything other than the most handsome of coats and the way he carried himself helped. 

Under her sincerely admiring gaze, Lucius shifted and fixed the lapels of the coat for himself.

“It’ll do,” he said gruffly. “It’s only temporary.”

Tilting her head, assessing him, Hermione stepped back towards her desk and lifted her favourite red cashmere scarf from where she'd slung it over her coat in preparation for leaving. It'd been a gift from her mother and it was undoubtedly her best knitwear.

"Here," she said, raising it in her arms to drape it around his neck. Glancing up briefly from beneath her lashes, she spied a questioning look and added, "It'll be cold and I've exposed your neck."

Lucius was silent as she arranged the scarf for him, ensuring it lay neatly against the coat.

"I think that's probably sufficient, Miss Granger," he finally said, his voice low. "Thank you for your help."

Blinking, Hermione cleared her throat and nodded. 

“I don't think I had to do all that much, really,” she said, turning to fold Lucius’ waistcoat neatly on her desk and hide her pink cheeks. “You weren’t actually that far off a Muggle already.”

“You little –”

At that moment the classroom door opened, Lucius’ insult cut off by the sound of her sixth years filing into the room. As requested, they were all dressed in Muggle clothes, jeans and jumpers being the most popular option. 

Each and every one of them stared at Lucius, taken aback by the sight of him out of his usual foreboding robes. 

Hermione had to hide a smile when she spied the searing glare that settled on his features in response. Without a word, he snatched his cane up from her desk and grasped it tightly in a manner that could only be interpreted as threatening.

“Alright, everyone, gather round,” Hermione announced, deciding that it’d be best to step in now rather than wait for one of her students to make an observation about Lucius that every single one of them might end up regretting. “Professor Dumbledore has arranged our portkey and it’s in five minutes.” 

Hermione held up a plain plastic pen to indicate the portkey. 

“It’ll take us to Edinburgh where we’ll be visiting the National Gallery.”

Excited murmurs rippled through the students and Hermione smiled. It’d been many years since she’d visited the city but she remembered it fondly and had thought that particular gallery was closer and more manageable in terms of size than those in London. 

“I don’t think I need to tell you that this is an unusual event,” Hermione continued, looking around each of the students in turn. “Dumbledore is trusting me and I am trusting you to do Hogwarts proud.”

“Yes, professor,” they responded, their faces serious and earnest. There was an undercurrent of restless energy in the classroom, each individual carrying their own unspoken concerns and excitements about the day.

“You might want to pick out some outerwear.” Hermione gestured to the box, eyeing a couple of students whose access to Muggle clothing did not extend to coats. “It’s December and we’ll be landing outside.”

While her class crowded around the box filled with Muggle clothes, laughing and chattering as they pulled various articles out for inspection, Hermione moved behind her desk and donned her own winter coat, the navy wool immediately warming her.

“Maybe you should leave that behind,” she murmured to Lucius, nodding at his cane. “It stands out a little.”

His hand curled even more tightly around it and his eyes flashed with warning. “I will do no such thing.”

The sheer intensity of his glare cowed Hermione and, hesitating in the process of adjusting her coat collar, she relented. “I mean, well, it’s not like Muggles don’t use such things,” she said quickly, “so I suppose you can just – yes, I think – that’ll be…fine.”

“You still have something of mine, by the by,” he added, his gaze drifting down to her chest and the gap in her coat, one eyebrow arched.

“Oh.” Cheeks burning, Hermione turned away from him and the class. She swiftly plunged her hand into the neck of her jumper and extracted the cravat, shoving it into her pocket of her coat as she turned back to Malfoy. 

“Is there any reason you’re not returning it to its rightful owner?” he asked, his eyes fixed on where she was patting the flap of her pocket closed.

“I’m holding it hostage,” Hermione replied. “Be nice to the Muggles or the necktie gets it.” 

Before Lucius could respond – either to tell her the item’s proper name or that she was being ridiculous – Hermione placed the ballpoint pen on the surface of her desk and called for her students. 

“Alright, only around a minute,” Hermione said, waving her hand to invite them to stand around the desk. “Everyone make sure you’re touching the pen.”

The students jostled each other, giggling and excitable as they quibbled for prime real estate on the thin body of the pen. 

Lucius was the last to reach out, his fingertip coming into contact with the pen and the side of his hand brushing against Hermione’s at the last possible moment. She looked up at Lucius to find him already watching her just as the familiar hook behind her navel pulled her to Muggle Edinburgh. 

It wasn’t the smoothest portkey landing Hermione had ever experienced. 

Her feet slammed into the wet hard ground of Princes Street Gardens and her knees buckled under the force, the solid wall of Lucius’ body beside her stopping her from losing her balance entirely.  

One of his hands clamped onto her arm and she clutched his coat and her scarf to stay upright while she fought to keep the nausea of portkey travel at bay. 

Around them, the students were various shades of green and Nicholas Rose was clambering back to his feet, not having been as fortunate as Hermione in having someone to catch him. 

They’d landed in a quiet section of the gardens, the path largely obscured by hedges and surrounded by trees. It’d clearly been raining recently, the cement dark and wet underfoot and the smell of it lingering in the air. 

Edinburgh castle loomed in the distance over the bare spindly treetops, large and imposing against the dark, gloomy sky. 

“Alright, everyone,” Hermione said, stepping away from Lucius on shaky legs. “All okay?”

They replied “yes” or, where the nausea was yet to abate, nodded while Hermione counted them to make sure all were present. Suddenly, she was extremely glad it was such a small class.

“Fantastic,” she breathed, relieved. “Okay, we’re going this way.”

Hermione pointed in the direction of a large stone staircase which led up to street level, where she could hear traffic rumbling and crowds of Muggles going about their days. 

“Everyone please stick together. Walk in front of me so I can see you but listen for my directions.”

Hermione knew her students were all at least sixteen, many of them seventeen already, but she could not help but be protective. If they resented her for it, they didn’t say and she was grateful. 

They began their walk towards the stairs, clumped together in a tight group with Lucius and Hermione bringing up the rear. As they moved around the path, Muggles began to come into view and Hermione tucked the now-useless pen into her pocket.

“Upstairs, please,” Hermione instructed, risking a sidelong glance at Lucius. 

His eyes were fixed on an elderly Muggle couple who were seated on a nearby bench, eating sandwiches and contentedly observing passers by. The woman directed a friendly smile and a wave towards them and he visibly stiffened.

Reaching out, Hermione placed a gentle hand on his elbow and guided him up the stairs after the class but said nothing, returning the woman’s smile over her shoulder. 

While the gardens had been fairly quiet, the street above was decidedly not. 

Hermione and Lucius joined the students at the top of the stairs where they gathered together and watched crowds of Muggle pedestrians stream up and down the pavements while cars and large, double-decker buses took up the wide roads. 

Somewhere along the long street, the sound of a busker playing bagpipes echoed, audible even over the cacophony of traffic and chatter. 

Even though she was used to the Muggle world, to its noise and bustle, Hermione had to take a moment to compose herself. It was a sudden and sharp shift to go from the peace and quiet of Hogwarts and the highlands to a busy capital city. 

The wizarding world had its own cars and buses, of course, but certainly not in the same abundance — one Knight Bus would not suffice and it was a far cry from Diagon Alley, even on a busy day.

“We’re crossing that road,” she said, pointing straight ahead. “Wait at the lights –”

“For the green man,” finished Abigail Piotrowska, an undertone of exasperated reassurance in her voice making Hermione think that she probably looked and sounded as nervous as she felt. 

“That’s right,” Hermione replied, her shoulders dropping an inch. “You can take five points for Ravenclaw when we get back. And a chocolate.”

While the students hurried ahead to the crossing, Hermione looked up at Lucius. His face was impossibly tense, his eyes darting around the street like he was expecting a Muggle to leap on him at any moment. 

“Are you okay?” Hermione asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked through a tight jaw, his gaze settling on the towering point of the Scott Monument in the distance like it was an anchor. The cold made the short, sharp puffs of his breath visible in the air.

Though Lucius hadn’t said it, Hermione strongly suspected that if this was not his first proper foray into the Muggle world then it was certainly his most significant and they hadn’t exactly chosen somewhere small. He would never admit to feeling overwhelmed but it seemed unlikely to her that he was completely fine.

After a surreptitious glance at the backs of her students’ heads, she subtly slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and squeezed him through his coat. He jumped slightly at the unexpected touch and looked down at her hand, then into her face, a small frown knitting his brow.  

“If you tell me I’m ‘doing well’ while wearing that expression,” he murmured, leaning down to her, “I will push you in front of one of those buses.”

Tutting, Hermione withdrew her attempt to be comforting and shot him a glare just as the green man flashed and a blaring bleep alerted them that the road was safe to cross. 

Hermione directed her students to the right and, within minutes, had guided them to the entrance of the National Gallery. 

They filed through the wooden doors that led into the gallery, the students’ chatter growing quieter when they crossed the threshold into the far more peaceful atmosphere. Lucius’ shoulders visibly dropped as he walked in ahead of Hermione, the relative quiet clearly soothing him. 

Hermione murmured a polite greeting to the smiling attendant at the door and bid the students gather round her, counting them again. 

From a cafe to the right, the smell of coffee drifted over to them along with the sound of muted conversation and the occasional clink of porcelain. 

In quiet tones, Hermione told the class that they were welcome to explore the gallery as they pleased but they could not leave. 

“We’ll meet here at 12.45. It’s not an especially big place so that’s more than enough time to see everything. Try to write down your favourite pieces and take some notes on them and we can discuss them in our next class.”

Nodding their understanding, the nine students split into groups and entered the gallery proper through the next door to begin their exploration. 

“Shall we?” Hermione said to Malfoy, nodding her head towards the inner door. 

He said nothing but let her pull the door open and hold it for him. To Hermione’s surprise, when she followed him inside, he immediately began moving to the right, his attention apparently drawn by a portrait. More than happy to give him his independence, Hermione began her exploration from the left. 

While the gallery wasn't empty, it wasn’t even close to full, leaving Hermione able to move through the red-walled rooms with ease and draw close to the paintings. 

Some were astoundingly big and took up entire walls while others were grouped together to fill the expanse of space. Hermione was content to crane her neck and stare, inspecting the work before reading the information on it and then reassessing it in light of what she’d read. 

All the time, she was aware of her students moving around the gallery, trying not to make it obvious that she was watching them but pleased by the way they kept their voices at a quiet and respectful level.  

In a room to the rear of the gallery, she came to a stop by a warm, busy painting that sat low on the wall. Stepping closer, she squinted at the many figures that made up the raucous, historical scene and smiled at the life in it. 

“Pitlessie Fair — David Wilkie”, read the accompanying signage, which explained that it depicted a May fair in a Scottish village.

Hermione was just straightening up from reading the sign when a figure stepped into the space beside her to stand at her shoulder. 

Glancing out of the corner of her eyes, the familiar black wool coat and the flash of red made her look up to see that Lucius was studying the merry painting which had captured her attention with a curious frown. 

“I like paintings with lots of people,” Hermione explained quietly. “It feels like there’s something new to see every time you look at it.”

Lucius squinted, his eyes drifting to a corner of the canvas where it looked like a man might be urinating against a building. 

“Prefer landscapes myself,” he murmured. “I find myself rather grateful that this particular painting can’t move.” 

Hermione grinned, wondering what it’d sound like too. Probably particularly loud. 

“Is this what you imagined Muggles were like all the time?” she asked in a whisper, eyeing the farmyard animals and squabbling children that littered the scene.

“Most of the time, yes,” he muttered, prompting her to snort softly.

“Well, now you’ve seen a tiny segment of the Muggle world for yourself, what do you think?”

A group of tourists passed close behind them and Lucius absently placed a hand on Hermione’s lower back to bring her closer to the painting and out of their way. She shuffled forward, his arm drawing her closer to him as she did so, his fingers curving around her hip.

When he dropped his hand, Hermione crossed her arms over her middle and cleared her throat, highly aware of the lingering weight of it. 

“I…” He frowned, his gaze drifting along the wall to rest on a large portrait of a beautiful society lady reclining in a luxurious silk dress. She stared boldly out of the frame, her confidence clear even in her stillness. “I prefer this part. In here.”

“Me too,” Hermione said, nodding. “Busy streets aren’t for everyone.”

Against all of her expectations, being in an art gallery with Lucius Malfoy and looking at the paintings with him had the potential to be an experience she actually quite enjoyed. 

A soft, childish giggle drew Hermione’s attention and, curious, she leaned forward to peer around Lucius.

Just along from them, a young blonde boy held his father’s hand, pointing up at the twisted expression on a cherub’s face in a religious scene. 

Grinning, the father stooped and hauled the boy up into his arms so that he could see the painting more closely, murmuring an explanation of what they were looking at based on the plaque beneath.

Smiling to herself, Hermione glanced up at Lucius just as he looked away from the exchange, still frowning. It wasn’t an angry frown, she thought. More contemplative than anything.

“Magic is a big difference,” Hermione said softly, looking back at the paintings so that she might have been musing generally rather than speaking to him specifically. “But not a totalising one, I think.”

Lucius said nothing. Did nothing. He might have been one of the museum’s statues were his position not so obstructive to the rest of the art.

“It’s funny to see you in Muggle clothes,” Hermione said after a moment, casting him a sidelong look.

Lucius cleared his throat softly, seeming to come out of a deep well of thought. 

“Get your fill,” he said, dragging his eyes from the painting to peer down at her sternly. “It will never happen again.”

“Pity.” Hermione grinned, nudging his side with her elbow. “I think you look well in them.”

Lucius raised an unimpressed brow. “And if I told you I think you look well in dress robes, would you begin wearing them with any degree of regularity?”

Hermione’s grin turned rueful and she raised a shoulder to indicate that she conceded his point. “Absolutely not.”

“Thought not,” he said. “Have you been upstairs?”

“Not yet, I thought I might do that last.” Hermione paused, eyeing him closely. “Did you see something you like?”

Rolling his eyes, Lucius rubbed his thumb over the head of his cane in an unusual display of discomfiture. “There might have been one work that I wouldn’t object to having in my own collection.”

“Which one?”

“A Monet, I believe it was.”

“You wouldn’t object to having a Monet in your collection,” Hermione said dryly. “No, I should think not.”

“You’re familiar with –”

A sudden, peeling laugh made Hermione jump and both she and Lucius turned to see Priscilla Price and her friends encircling a rather stiff-looking Muggle attendant. The young man’s face was pink under the heated attention of the three girls. 

“Back in a minute,” Hermione said distractedly, absently placing a hand on Lucius’ arm before she departed. 

It took but a moment to cross the gallery and herd her students away from the young attendant, muttering her apologies to him as she did so. Visibly relieved, he scurried away from the corner into which he’d been herded.

“We’re here to look at paintings,” Hermione told the girls sternly, looking into each of their faces in turn. “Not harass young men.”

“You’re flirting with Mr Malfoy,” Priscilla retorted, crossing her arms and smirking as her comment raised snorts of shocked laughter from the other girls. “Why can’t we have some fun?”

Sincerely hoping that the warmth in her cheeks had not manifested into a visible blush, Hermione drew herself up. 

“Priscilla, that’s entirely inappropriate. I’ll be taking twenty points from Slytherin when we get back to the castle and it’ll be more plus a detention if you don’t behave.” Hermione pointed at the others. “The same goes for Ravenclaw.”

Chastened, the Ravenclaws muttered their apologies and slunk away. Priscilla paused to cast Hermione a last, irritated glare before flouncing after them. 

Rather than rejoin Lucius, Hermione opted to continue perusing the gallery for the last segment of the trip on her own, Priscilla’s accusation ringing in her ears. 

She sincerely hoped that the girl was just teasing her and that no one actually thought she and Lucius flirted. The idea of anyone, never mind her students, knowing just how attractive she found him was mortifying. 

Hermione stared at a religious scene, her eyes unfocused and not taking it in. They didn’t even flirt – they sniped. Was that flirting? It’d probably become flirting at some point. 

In a roundabout way, she realised, he’d just told her he liked the way she looked in dress robes. Right after she’d sort of told him that she liked the way he looked in Muggle clothing. 

Hermione swallowed and peered around in search of Malfoy. He stood with his back to her, tall, broad-shouldered and looking undeniably smart. Handsome. Even from behind. Drawing her lower lip between her teeth, she whirled back and glared intently at a weirdly malevolent-looking cherub. 

She really was completely fucked.

Turning swiftly, feeling an urgent need to breath and decompress, Hermione slipped through a touring group and made her way to the rear staircase that would take her to the smaller floor upstairs. 

It was far quieter than the lower gallery and it was with some relief that Hermione folded her arms around herself, taking her time to stroll from room to room.

Finally, she reached ‘Poplars on the Epte’, her eyes lingering on the plaque which read ‘Claude Monet’ as she slowed to a complete stop. 

Tilting her head, Hermione studied the painting. It was a pretty scene. She liked the colours and the brushstrokes. She thought she could almost see the gentle breeze blowing through the trees.

Yet…

Hermione’s fingers tightened on her biceps. She found she wished she could ask Malfoy why he liked it. Was it the kind of scene he usually liked or did he just see something exceptional in Monet? She wondered if he found it as peaceful as she did.

Sighing, Hermione allowed her shoulders to drop tiredly and looked down at her watch. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been looking at the painting but it was almost time.

Hermione wound her way back through the gallery, patting her pocket as she went to ensure that their return portkey – an empty packet of crisps – was safe with her wand and Lucius' cravat. They had around ten minutes to return to Princes Street Gardens to use it securely. 

Five of the class were already waiting for her when she arrived at the entrance and another three plus Malfoy arrived within mere minutes. 

Hermione counted their heads and anxiously glanced at her watch as the seconds ticked by. 

“Where is Priscilla?” she asked, speaking to the class as a whole but focusing her attention on her Ravenclaw friends. 

The girls glanced at one another and shook their heads. “She said she’d get us here.”

“When?” Hermione asked sharply. “When did she say that?”

“Dunno,” was Susie’s concerned reply. “Maybe fifteen minutes ago? She wanted to talk to that Muggle some more.”

Panic, sharp and uncomfortable, lodged in Hermione’s throat. She looked up at Malfoy who met her wide gaze evenly over the heads of the class. If she’d lost a student in Muggle Edinburgh, he wouldn’t even need to bother writing a report – Dumbledore himself would probably just kick her out. 

Hermione turned to the attendant by the door and tried to keep her voice steady as she asked if they’d seen Priscilla leave, describing her green coat and long, black curls. 

The attendant shook their head and assured Hermione that they’d been there for over an hour and hadn’t seen anyone by that description leave.

It was a minor comfort but it didn’t solve Hermione’s problem: they had one portkey to get back to the school and a limited time before it departed. 

A hand on Hermione’s shoulder made her flinch and she turned to find an unaccountably calm Lucius looking down at her. 

Behind him, her sixth years were crowded together and chattering, undoubtedly speculating as to where Priscilla had dared to run off to. 

“You don’t know where she is,” Lucius stated, herding Hermione away from the curious attendant.

“I do,” Hermione said hurriedly. “She’s  – she’s in the gallery. She hasn’t left –”

Lucius held up a hand. “But you don’t know where exactly she is.”

Hermione opened and closed her mouth. “No ,” she finally whispered. 

It didn’t matter that he’d been nicer to her, it didn’t matter that they flirted – this was exactly what he needed to get rid of her and, by extension, Muggle Studies and it was all her fault. No sabotage necessary. If he wanted to do it, he could and she still didn’t know exactly what he wanted.

Without a word, Lucius reached out and grabbed her wrist, raising it to read her watch. “The portkey is in just under ten minutes?” he asked.

Hermione nodded mutely, not entirely sure what was happening behind the grey, calculating eyes.

“Take the rest and send them back,” he said firmly, releasing her wrist. “I’ll find her. Tell them she's in the bathroom.”

“But –”

“If she’s still here, I’ll find her.” Lucius sighed through his nose at the sight of Hermione’s wide, fearful eyes. “Send them back with the portkey and come back here afterwards. We can take her back together, if that's more comforting to you.”

When Hermione said nothing but simply stared at him, he rapped her shin with his cane. 

“Try to trust me faster,” he snapped, ignoring her wince. “Or the portkey will leave with no one and that will be worse.”

Staring up into his impatient face, Hermione could do nothing but make a weak, prevaricating noise, then breathlessly said, “fine.” 

She swallowed, accepting that his help and some kind of plan was far preferable to helpless panic. “Yes.” She moved past him to approach her class and paused just long enough to breathe, “thank you.”

He grunted his acknowledgement and swept back into the main gallery, leaving Hermione to hurriedly usher the rest of her students out into the street. 

They crowded her the entire way to Princes Street Gardens, asking what had happened to Priscilla and why they were leaving her and what Mr Malfoy was doing.

“Priscilla is using the bathroom. A touch unwell unfortunately. She left a message with the attendant,” Hermione assured them firmly, wishing that what she said was the truth. “Mr Malfoy is going to fetch her and I am sending all of you back to school on time as planned. Don’t worry.”

Back on the quiet path where they’d arrived, Hermione pulled the empty crisp packet out of her coat pocket and held it out for her class to take. 

“Everything is fine,” she told them evenly, counting them once against and trying to ignore the sinking in her heart when she reached eight. “When you get back, go to lunch. Priscilla will join you in the hall if she's feeling better – we’ll just get another portkey.” 

As if it was that easy.

When the portkey left on time, taking the rest of the class back to the safety of Hogwarts, Hermione sighed with relief. 

Glad there were no longer any students present to see her set a terrible example, she bolted back up the stairs to street level, pushed through the crowds and dashed through the busy lunchtime traffic rather than wait for the green man to flash.

Out of breath, she burst back into the entrance hall of the gallery just at the moment Lucius and Priscilla entered it from the other side through the swinging door. 

Lucius looked perfectly placid but he had a guiding hand at Priscilla’s elbow, clearly escorting her. Priscilla glared up at him and jerked her elbow away, her eyes fractionally widening when she looked straight and spied Hermione marching towards them.

“Where were you?” Hermione demanded of Priscilla when she reached them, torn between fury and relief at the sight of the girl. “You were told where to be and when, Miss Price. What made you think that you could set your own schedule?”

Priscilla glanced up at Lucius and then back to Hermione, her expression sullen. Hermione noticed a slight pinkness to the rims of her student’s eyes and a puffiness to her face that blunted some of her anger. 

“Miss Price was in the bathroom,” Lucius explained calmly, turning his gaze down to the top of the girl’s head. “Lost track of time, hm?”

Priscilla glowered at the floor and Hermione could just about see a flush on her cheeks as she nodded.

“Priscilla, what’s wrong?” Hermione asked concernedly.

“Nothing,” Priscilla mumbled, her gaze rising but only far enough to look at Hermione’s middle. 

Lucius said nothing, simply eyeing Priscilla with the cool air of a man who had borne witness to all kinds of teenage tantrums and could no longer be affected by them. 

Hermione frowned and opened her mouth to press for more information when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught the gallery attendant watching the scene they presented with keen interest. 

Sighing impatiently through her nose, Hermione glanced back and forth between Lucius and Priscilla but both appeared content to remain unhelpfully silent, the former blithely blinking at Hermione, while the latter kept her eyes downcast. 

She’d have to find out more at the castle. Now that they had Priscilla, getting back was their most pressing issue. 

“We can continue this discussion at the school,” Hermione said, her voice tight with stress. “Come on.”

With a jerk of her head, Hermione led them away from the curious attendant – herself at the front, Lucius at the rear and Priscilla in the middle – and out to the square outside where they could discuss their next steps without risking an infringement of the Statute of Secrecy. 

“I’ll need to contact Dumbledore,” Hermione said, pulling her coat more tightly around her and buttoning it against the cold. “He arranged for the portkey and he’ll need to get us another.”

“I will arrange another portkey, Granger,” Lucius drawled, his eyes following the streams of Muggles passing behind Hermione rather than looking at her. 

“Only the headmaster has the authority to give access to the grounds and –”

“As a governor,” he said, lowering his gaze to hers and raising an indicative hand to his chest, “I think you will find that I also have the authority.”

“But it’ll still be unauthorised by the Ministry and they –”

“Will contact me and not you.”

“But you –"

“Will deal with it,” he snapped. “Give it a rest, Granger.”

Priscilla eyed them curiously from under her brow. “You don’t talk to each other the way you look at each other,” she muttered. 

“And what way is that, Miss Price?” Lucius asked silkily, his eyes sliding to her.

Priscilla pressed her lips together, flushed. “Nothing. I didn’t – never mind.”

“I think I’d really feel much better if we just got back to the castle now,” Hermione said weakly.

Lucius studied her pale, worried face for a moment then nodded. “Very well.” He held a hand out to her, crooking his fingers. “My cravat, please.”

“Your – oh.” 

Understanding dawning, Hermione reached into her coat pocket and drew out the silky tie, trying to ignore the shrewd arch of Priscilla’s eyebrows as she watched the material change hands. 

“Why do you need it?” 

“We need something to use as a portkey,” Lucius said, folding the cravat neatly and sliding it into his pocket. “I think this should do nicely.” Raising his cane, he looked at them both in turn before using it to gesture towards Princes Street Gardens. “Shall we?”

When they landed back in the Muggle Studies classroom, it was empty, the sixth year class apparently having obeyed Hermione’s instruction to go directly to lunch. 

Pushing down the nausea caused by the portkey, Hermione faced Priscilla who was already grim-faced and waiting to be reprimanded. 

Hermione sighed, contemplating her student whose eyes were still faintly bloodshot. It made it hard to jump straight to punishment.

"Priscilla, what happened?"

"Nothing," Priscilla said, glancing over Hermione's shoulder at Malfoy with something that looked like warning. "I went to the toilet and lost track of time, like he said. I'm – I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

It was hard to believe in her story or the sincerity of her apology but before Hermione could continue her interrogation, Lucius stepped forward.

"On your way, Miss Price," he said. "Go for lunch and regale your classmates with the tale of your brief but thrilling adventure in the Muggle lavatories."

Priscilla clenched her jaw, disgruntled, then nodded. "Have him," she muttered at Hermione as she turned away. "He’s rude."

Hermione made a noise of protest but Lucius put a hand on her shoulder, the sudden, clamping weight of it making her words catch in her throat. 

Priscilla marched to the classroom door and let it fall closed behind her with a heavy clunk.

"Excuse me," Hermione snapped, shrugging off his hand, "what do you think you’re doing? She’s my student."

"A student you lost," Lucius said lightly, setting his cravat on her desk.

"I did not lose her –"

"Then explain why I had to find her," he said, giving her a quelling look as he unwound her scarf.

Hermione inhaled sharply and held it, no reply forthcoming.

"You really need to learn to be better in a crisis," Lucius advised. He slid off his coat, shaking it out to set it flat on her desk alongside the cravat and scarf. “If your only available responses are 'punch' or 'panic' I would recommend that you cultivate a third that’s less violent and more useful.”

“Guess which of those responses I’d favour right now,” Hermione said darkly.

Lucius arched a brow. “And perhaps you might also be a touch more grateful to those who help you."

Hermione rolled her lips flat between her teeth and bit down. He had helped her. Again. Not only that, he’d ventured alone in the Muggle world to do it. That wasn’t small for someone like him, she knew that much.

"Thank you for finding her," Hermione said sincerely, her shoulders dropping. "Where was she? Honestly? Because I don't believe her. She looked like she’d been crying, for god’s sake."

"She actually was in the bathroom," Lucius told her, donning his waistcoat again. "But she'd locked herself in." He buttoned the waistcoat slowly, glancing up at Hermione from beneath his brow. "Quite forlorn after the Muggle attendant very brusquely rejected her second, more earnest attempt at seduction."

Hermione sighed irately, planting her hands on her hips. “How did you get her out?”

“I happened upon her peeking out when she realised the time,” Lucius said, patting his waistcoat pocket to ensure his cigarette case was still safely inside. “It was simply very much a case of fortuitous timing.”

“Peeking –” Hermione cut herself off and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “What did you do?”

“I merely prevented her from closing the door.” 

“How?”

“A spot of magic,” was his evasive reply.

Seeing Hermione’s incredulous gape, Lucius rolled his eyes. “Nothing noticeable. I didn’t have to obliviate anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Ignoring Hermione’s pinched expression, he continued conversationally, "I suspect she’s rather gotten over her misguided little infatuation with me now that I’ve unsympathetically borne witness to her tears. I’ll confess, I am not the most natural shoulder to cry on.”

"This whole thing is ridiculous," Hermione said, feeling like she was going quite mad. "I told her not to pursue that Muggle and she –"

"Were you never a lovelorn teenage girl, Granger?" He lowered his voice to a mutter, adding, "Perhaps not if you were attracting the attention of international Quidditch stars."

Apparently oblivious to Hermione's responding frown, Lucius gestured her to come closer, indicating his collar. Needing no further instruction, Hermione closed the space between them and withdrew her wand from inside her coat.

"She was supposed to be on an educational trip and she wasted the opportunity," Hermione said, jabbing at his collar with a little more sharpness than necessary. "That needs to be punished and you just sent her on her way."

"I’d say she learned a lesson." Lucius eyed her reproachfully, raising a hand to rub at his neck where the collar had jerked itself roughly into its former shape. "A more painful one than you perhaps intended but a useful one. I suppose she thought a love story like her grandparents was on the cards."

"And I suppose you told her that Muggles are worthless and she shouldn’t bother with them."

"I reminded her of her importance as a witch, certainly."

Hermione scoffed and abruptly thrust his cravat into his hand. 

"It cheered her up." He frowned, positioning his cravat around his collar. "Well, it stopped the crying and that was enough for me. I'm not sure how much she actually appreciated the sentiment."

"And I'm supposed to let all of this go?" Hermione asked. "She needs to understand that –"

"She understands perfectly well that she did wrong," Lucius said on a sigh, raising his chin to make final adjustments to his collar. "But she does not care. Points and detentions will not change her mind. Not in this instance. She is, technically, an adult.” 

Satisfied by his presentability, he lowered his chin and fixed Hermione with an even stare. “She also doesn't want to talk about it, so let it slide and do not make a fuss. That way, it needn’t be blown out of proportion and you can keep yourself out of trouble too."

"Until the governors read your report," Hermione said with flat resignation, dropping her eyes and absently stroking the soft wool of the coat on her desk.

Lucius flashed her a thin, wry smile. "It all ended up fine in the end," he said. "Perhaps it needn’t be included at all. For all anyone at the Ministry needs to know, that portkey was just for me."

Hermione froze, her hand lifting from the coat and hovering just over it. “Are –” She turned her eyes up to his, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing. “Are you serious?”

“Quite.”

“Why?”

Lucius frowned at her disbelievingly interrogative tone. “I told you – it all ended up fine in the end.”

“No.” Hermione shook her head. “After Whippet you said you wanted to be the one to get rid of me. You could use this and you aren’t.”

Lucius chuckled once but it was rather mirthless, more of an impatient exhale. He took a step towards her, trailing a hand along the side of her desk. "I don’t want to.”

"I –" Hermione dropped her eyes to his chest, his proximity causing a ringing in her ears. “Why?”

“Granger,” he said, the faintly exasperated softness in his tone prompting her to look up at him. "You’re good at what you do.”

He picked up his cane from the desk and, with his free hand, reached out and curled his forefinger under Hermione’s chin to stop her from looking away. 

Hermione exhaled, the sound of it soft and shaky in the quiet of the classroom.

With the tip of his thumb, Lucius traced the line of her lower lip and Hermione pressed her fingers hard on her desk to keep herself upright.

“These past weeks, for instance, you’ve made me see that Muggles can create beautiful things,” he added gently, his eyes searching her face. “And I’m afraid I have a terrible weakness for beautiful things.”

A contemplative frown on his face, he stilled his thumb at the centre edge of her lip and, with the faintest pressure, pulled it into a slight pout. Perhaps unconsciously, his tongue darted out to wet his own lips and Hermione’s breath caught. 

Her hand rose to wrap around his arm, not to push him away but to simply hold him, her fingers curling to the thin skin of his inner wrist. Her heart hammered against her ribs, like it was answering – racing – the thrum of his pulse beneath her fingertips.

“Granger –”

Just outside the door, the muffled sound of a few students laughing and shouting as they ran for a late lunch abruptly snapped the tautness between them. 

A nearby door creaked open and Hermione instinctively jerked her head to ensure that it wasn’t the door to her own classroom.

It wasn’t. 

When she turned back, she saw her hold still on Lucius’ wrist, his hand hanging in the air, and blushed. Gently, he pulled himself out of her hold, allowing his fingers to fold around hers so that he could lower her hand back to her side.

"I expect I’m about to have an owl from the Ministry to deal with," he said, his voice low. He inclined his head at the coat he'd left on her desk. "I’ll leave that with you for fixing."

Tipping his head in farewell, Lucius turned on his heel and swiftly strode across the classroom. He paused at the door, one hand holding it open, and turned back to her.

“Oh, and no mirroring this one, Granger,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying effortlessly over the empty classroom. “I rather feel I owe you for some reason. For the scarf, maybe.”

Then he was gone.

Finally alone, Hermione dropped back against her desk, dazed, and lowered a hand to brush it over the soft coat behind her. 

She suspected that she had just gotten as close to an explicit confirmation as she was likely to get from a man who didn’t seem to like to express anything in direct terms. 

Lucius Malfoy definitely wanted her. Not only that, he wanted her far more than he wanted rid of Muggle Studies. 

And he’d left the ball in her court.

Chapter Text

December 8th 

Gilderoy Lockhart’s smile was truly alarming in person.

The winner of innumerable ‘Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile’ awards stood in the centre of Horace’s office, surrounded by a small gaggle of admiring students and older guests, some of whom he'd actually brought himself. Though it was a fairly large room, Hermione thought he could probably fill it with sheer charisma. And ego.

She had witnessed Lockhart’s smile up close only once before. Funnily enough, it’d been at another Christmas party in Horace’s rooms, back in the first year of her Transfiguration teaching apprenticeship. 

Prior to that, it’d only ever been on the covers of countless magazines. On that first in-person encounter, Hermione had blushed to think of how many of those covers she’d quietly admired in her earliest teens, giggling with Ginny over the idea of meeting the handsome, intelligent former Ravenclaw.

Unfortunately, during that first meeting, Hermione had discovered that Lockhart was, like so many of the people she met at Slughorn’s gatherings, jaw-droppingly self-involved. Undeniably handsome, of course. And charming in the tiniest of distant doses. But over the course of a few hours in Horace’s rooms, Hermione had grown so indescribably tired of listening to the wizard talk about himself that she’d cast a muffling charm on her own ears. 

“Hermione!” 

Horace, who stood by Lockhart’s elbow basking in the celebrity glow, gestured forcefully at Hermione. Groaning deep in her chest, Hermione shook her head at Horace, pleading with him not to drag her into the adulatory fray. 

“Don’t be shy, m’girl,” Horace called. “You’re exactly the person Gilderoy needs to talk to.”

Hermione was just drawing the side of her hand in a slicing motion along her throat and mouthing “no” when Lockhart and some of his fans followed Slughorn’s eyes straight to her. Swiftly turning her violent declinatory gesture into an extremely uncharacteristic hair flick, Hermione plastered a smile to her face.

Casting her a gracious smile, Lockhart beckoned Hermione towards him with the air of an emperor. Clenching absolutely every part of herself, Hermione sidled up to the group, not failing to notice the reluctant way some of them parted to allow her to take a central position with Slughorn and his guest of honour. 

“Gilderoy, this is Hermione Granger,” Slughorn said jovially. He took a sip of wine, his eyes flitting between them like he’d just consumed a fleeting memory. “Have I introduced you before?”

“I don’t think you have, Horace, no,” Lockhart replied, all smiles. 

He extended a perfectly manicured hand out to Hermione. She shook it with a painful awareness that she’d never touched a hand cream in her life while Lockhart’s smoothness suggested he steeped himself in vats of it for hours at a time. “Certainly, one of us would recall.” 

Lockhart gave Hermione a comically roguish wink and she sighed through her nose, electing not to bring up the time Horace had introduced them before. Really, what was the point? It was so many years ago that she could hardly hold it against him for not remembering.

“Well, Hermione is our professor of Muggle Studies,” Horace said with an unusual amount of relish.

“Oh, wonderful!” Lockhart exclaimed, clapping his impossibly soft hands together with enough force that his wavy blonde hair bounced. “Horace, you old dog.”

It was, perhaps, the first time Hermione had ever received a genuinely enthusiastic reaction to her teaching title. Had she thought him capable of it, she’d have assumed Lockhart was being sarcastic. Certainly, some of the people surrounding them thought he might be, sharing sardonic smiles that indicated they were prepared to laugh at her expense to keep him happy.

“Come!” Lockhart abruptly declared, placing a lilac-robed arm around Hermione’s shoulder to draw her away from the group. “Come, come, we have much to discuss.”

Baffled into silent acquiescence, Hermione helplessly glanced open-mouthed over her shoulder at Slughorn, who stood in the centre of the agog group, smiling genially and shooing her away.  

“You are just the witch I’ve been looking for,” Lockhart continued, smoothly plucking two goblets of mulled wine from a passing floating tray and thrusting one into Hermione’s hand. 

“I am?” 

Hermione looked around helplessly, her eyes catching on the absurd sight of Neville and Wood peeking around a nearby Christmas tree, both tittering at her bewildered expression. It was hard to feel anything else when you were the sole focus of Gilderoy Lockhart’s attention. 

“Of course you are,” Lockhart said, giving her another dazzling smile that left her blinking.

Weirdly, even though she was directly in front of him, Hermione felt like the smile didn’t quite connect with the rest of his face. It was as though he was smiling for her, rather than at her. Like he saw her as dozens of flashing camera bulbs rather than an actual person. 

“Quite recently, I happened to let Horace in on the highly confidential plan for my next book,” Lockhart said, his tone abruptly shifting from projection to something much more secretive. “Clearly the old rogue hasn’t forgotten it if he’s introducing us . Now –” Lockhart narrowed his eyes speculatively. “Can I trust you, Professor Granger?”

Hermione drew her chin in towards her neck, frowning. “I mean… I suppose?”

An incredulous little smile flitted across Lockhart’s face and he shook his head. “I’m going to need you to be a touch more convincing than that ,” he said. “This is top secret stuff.”

“I –” Hermione huffed a half sigh and took a fortifying sip of wine. “Yes, yes, Mr Lockhart, you can trust me.”

He chuckled like she’d said something adorable and brushed her arm. “Oh, so formal,” he murmured. “Gilderoy, please. Well –” Lockhart glanced around and Hermione did the same, painfully aware that there actually were a few people watching them closely. She imagined Gilderoy Lockhart always had someone watching him. 

He stepped closer to her – close enough that Hermione could see the gold accents weaved through his lilac robes glinting in the candle light and smell his expensive aftershave. She fractionally tilted away.

“In my next work,” he said in a confidential undertone, “I want to do something a little different. Expand my oeuvre, as it were.” With another covert glance around, he leaned right into Hermione and whispered in her ear. “My current working title is ‘Mingling with Muggles’.”

Lockhart leaned back and raised a hand in the air, like he was imagining the title raised in lights and then offered Hermione a confident grin. “What do you think?”

Hermione gaped at him, absently raising a hand to rub away the lingering feeling of his nose poking into her hair. 

“It’s er…it’s good,” she said, her pitch just a little too high on ‘good’ to be convincing. It was as good as a tiny variation on the titles of every single one of his books could be. “And how do you plan on, um, mingling with these Muggles?”

“Oh, details details,” Lockhart said, waving a hand. “All to be worked out. It’ll be real on-the-ground stuff, though.” 

He gave Hermione a look that she suspected was supposed to be genuinely, news-readerly serious but looked more like a confused imitation of that. 

“No generalisations; I want to be in there. In the Muggle world. In the meantime, I would dearly love to pick your expert brains. Do you have many personal experiences with Muggles?”

“Um. A couple.”

“Mmm.” Lockhart nodded, his eyes narrowed to show he was taking her very seriously and listening intently. “Yes, yes. Fascinating.”

Lockhart was looking at her with a strange kind of hunger, like he genuinely did want to pick her brains and maybe nibble on a lobe for good measure. For the first time in her life, Hermione considered actually disavowing all knowledge of Muggles – of her own parents – just to extricate herself from him. 

“But how many Muggles do you personally know?” Lockhart asked. He eyed her still-full mulled wine and made a little gesture that encouraged her to drink up. “Many stories to tell?”

Concerned that she was being locked into a conversation that could end up lasting the entire night, Hermione glanced around again. A part of her was hoping that she might land on Lucius. He would surely find some sneaky way to intercede if she looked desperate enough. Or he would laugh at her suffering and tease her for it later – she couldn’t be quite sure.

Instead, to her great surprise, Hermione’s gaze landed on Ginny Weasley.

The very bored-looking Ginny was floating by the food table, lifting a cocktail sausage to her mouth when her eyes locked with Hermione’s and bulged. Her gaze darted back and forth between the back of Lockhart’s bobbing head and Hermione’s desperate face. 

Ginny took a second to cram the cocktail sausage into her mouth and held up a finger which asked Hermione for another second. 

“Oh, well,” Hermione began lightly, dragging her words out while her eyes darted back and forth between Lockhart’s face and Ginny who was, at that moment, gathering a small crowd of older Hogwarts students. “I don’t know how interesting any of those stories would be because for most of the year I’m –”

“Mr Lockhart, sir?”

Lockhart’s eyebrows rose at the feeling of a hand tapping his shoulder and he turned to reveal the gaggle of students that Ginny had apparently collected and sent their way. They looked like a choir of angels to Hermione.

Gesturing to invite the students closer, Hermione said, “Oh, well, we’re being rude, Gilderoy! I’m being rude – monopolising your attention. All of these students would dearly love your autograph, I think.”

“Of course they would,” Lockhart said, beaming, apparently only too happy to oblige potential fans. “Do wait there, though, won’t you? I wasn’t quite finished asking –”

“I’ll just quickly grab a snack from the buffet,” Hermione said, already backing away from him. He had pulled a stunning peacock feather quill from within his robes for autographs and was waving it to invite people closer for signings, attracting even those who hadn’t been sent by Ginny. 

Hermione raised her goblet of mulled wine high over the heads of the crowd surging towards Lockhart and allowed them to push her out of the way, weaving backwards through them towards where she’d last seen Ginny. 

Sure enough, the redhead was waiting for her. She had a miniature sausage roll in each hand but otherwise looked much the same as the last time Hermione had seen her – tall and lean, her red hair falling to her chest in smooth, straight strands that framed her heavily-freckled face.

“Ginny!” exclaimed Hermione, her tone a mix of genuine surprise and gratitude. 

“For strength and recovery.” Ginny extended one of the miniature sausage rolls she was holding out to Hermione. “After what I can only imagine was a harrowing encounter.”

Blinking, Hermione hesitantly took the sausage roll between her forefinger and thumb. “Er, thank you.” 

Ginny’s eyes were on a point over Hermione’s shoulder where Lockhart was still surrounded by students. “I’m guessing he was harassing you about his next book, was he?” she asked, a faint curl of disgust on her lips. “Malarkeying with Muggles, or whatever he’s calling it.”

Hermione frowned, swallowing the sausage roll in a loud gulp and wiping the flaky pastry crumbs from the corners of her lips. “He said that was top secret!”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word secret,” Ginny said, her eyes finally sliding over to land on Hermione’s face. A small grin flitted over her face as she added, “If you said the words ‘private life’ to him, he’d just think it was another magazine to get himself into.”

Hermione snorted and glanced over her shoulder at Lockhart, who was jovially yelping “one at a time, please! I’m but one marvellous man!” 

When she turned back, she found that she was now the sole focus of Ginny’s attention and that the youngest Weasley was inspecting her quite seriously. Suddenly, Hermione felt awkward. 

It’d been some time since they’d last seen one another. Certainly, before Hermione’s breakup with Ron. Some vague memories of a warm summer evening in the garden of the Burrow floated back to Hermione, drinking wine and listening to Ginny explain that she’d once thought about asking Harry out until she’d realised she fancied his dad more.

“It wouldn’t be healthy, Hermione,” she’d said, lying back in the grass with a disappointed sigh. “Imagine I said his dad’s name in bed. Imagine!”

Then nothing. No contact.

“I hoped I’d see you here,” Ginny said, only a very slight shifting around her shoulders indicating that she might feel any of the awkwardness that Hermione did. “I bumped into Neville when I came in and he said you’d be about.” 

“What are you doing here?” Hermione asked, hoping she didn’t sound rude. Outside guests were common at Slughorn’s parties, particularly his Christmas parties, but Hermione had never seen Ginny attend one before. 

“I’m here with Lockhart,” Ginny explained, the downturn of her lips indicating that she was less than pleased by that. “He’s just won ‘Most Charming Smile’ at the Witch Weekly awards for the seventy gazillionth time and wanted an after party where he could show off. Apparently this is the only thing happening that guarantees a crowd large enough to satisfy him. He’s like an attention vampire.”

Hermione made a small “oh” sound, recalling Neville reading out the gossip column on Lockhart attending Ginny’s Quidditch matches. “So, are you and him –”

“No!” Ginny said, sharply shaking her head and laughing. “Merlin, no. Lockhart doesn’t fancy anyone but himself. Trust me.”

“So why are you –”

“Ron, Fred and George were so annoyed about those stupid reports on him coming to my games that I decided to ask him out just to spite them.” Ginny snatched a goblet of mulled wine from a passing tray and took a long drink from it. Her expression was disgruntled when she lowered it. “As if it’s any of their business who I date.”

There was a beat in which Ginny tilted her head and glared at Lockhart over Hermione’s shoulder. “Can you believe his idea of a first date was to take me to a Witch Weekly award ceremony?”

“You can stay in my rooms tonight if you need to escape him,” Hermione offered with a shrug. “It’s the least I can do.”

Ginny cast her a warm, appreciative look. “That’s kind of you but I should be fine. I have half a mind to find out if it’s as –” She held up a pinky finger and crooked it – “ weeny as I suspect but I reckon I’ll just head back to my flat.”

Their eyes caught and they giggled into their mulled wine together, the sheer childishness of the moment dispelling some of the awkwardness between them. 

“I take it your little award ceremony outing will be all over tomorrow’s Witch Weekly gossip page, then?” Hermione asked. “If you’re going to rub Ron, Fred and George’s noses in it.”

Ginny let out a long sigh, her shoulders dropping heavily under the burden of her own vengeance. “Let’s put it this way,” she said, “I’ll be getting more column inches out of them than inches of anything else out of that windbag of a wizard.”

For the first time that night, Hermione properly laughed, her head falling back and a strange lightness overtaking her. It was so nice to laugh with Ginny again. In some ways, Ginny was the closest thing she’d ever had to a sister and she’d missed her. It wasn’t like anything bad had ever happened between them. 

Hermione lowered her chin, wiping away the small tears of mirth that had formed in the corners of her eyes and found Ginny grinning at her. 

“I’ve really missed you, you know,” Ginny said, perhaps thinking along the same lines as Hermione. “Ron’s seeing Lavender Brown and they’re just unbearable together. Like a pair of molluscs, just –”  Ginny made a series of horrific sucking noises and broke off with a disgusted sigh.

On seeing Hermione’s raised eyebrows, Ginny smacked her hand against the side of her own head. “Sorry. Merlin’s fucking – I’m so sorry. Would you rather not have known?”

“No,” Hermione said, feeling oddly light. Carefree, even. She could say it and mean it. “I don’t mind. Really.”

Ginny sighed with relief. “Good,” she said. “That’s good.” 

There was a long pause in which Ginny eyed Hermione apprehensively, like she wanted to say something more but wasn’t quite sure how to word it. 

“So, are you seeing anyone?” Hermione asked, desirous of filling the silence. “Genuinely and not out of spite?”

It was only as she asked the question that Hermione remembered Draco. About his letter and his determination to court Ginny. Had he started yet? Hermione had gotten the impression that he hadn’t wanted to waste much time. 

Ginny wiggled her eyebrows and shot Hermione a sly smile. “Are you asking me out, Hermione? Because, honestly, if it wasn’t for the whole history with Ron, I think I’d like to. I always thought you sounded good in bed. Through the walls, y’know.”

“Ginny –” Hermione began, her cheeks warming. The idea that Ginny or anyone in the Weasley family might have heard Hermione’s increasingly fractious orders for Ron to go ‘harder’ at any point was truly mortifying. 

“The Burrow isn’t made from parchment but it might as well be. I don’t know why you’d ever rely on Ron to do a silencing charm properly either, it’s your own –”

“Ginny!”

The sight of Hermione’s growing blush drew a loud, affectionate laugh out of Ginny and she nudged her arm playfully. Hermione swatted her away with equal playfulness but then paused thoughtfully. 

Ginny had evaded the question.

“So, you’re not seeing anyone just now?” Hermione asked, her tone slightly more forceful. 

Seemingly driven by a desire to do something with her hands and mouth rather than any kind of hunger, Ginny picked up another miniature sausage roll and consumed it in a single bite. “Mm-mm,” she hummed noncommittally. 

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Oh, well, you must be busy these days, what with all the Quidditch.”

Ginny nodded. “So much Quidditch,” she said, still chewing the sausage roll. “Training all the time.”

“It must be nice to know so many people from Hogwarts in the League, though,” Hermione added, pausing to take a sip of wine. “Katie’s on your team, isn’t she? Wood’s here tonight with Neville, too. And…” Hermione paused, watching Ginny’s intent inspection of the table. “And I heard Draco Malfoy is the seeker for the Wasps these days.”

At the mention of Draco Malfoy, Ginny paused in her hunt for another sausage roll, her head turning and her eyes flitting up to Hermione’s face.

“Had much interaction with him?” Hermione asked, trying for a casual tone but coming about as close to it as she would ever come to scoring a goal in a game of Quidditch. 

“With Draco Malfoy?” Ginny asked, scoffing dismissively at a plate of mini quiches. “You’re asking me if I’ve had any interaction with Malfoy?”

“Mm-hmm.” Hermione smiled blithely and took a neat sip of wine, noting the way Ginny was resolutely not blinking.

Without a word, Ginny carefully set her goblet of mulled wine down on the table and dusted her hands free of pastry crumbs. 

Then, with an abruptness that made Hermione squeak with alarm, Ginny grabbed her wrist to pull her away from the table and the people milling around it towards a quiet portion of wall.

“Ginny!” Hermione exclaimed, yanking herself free from Ginny’s grasp. She swapped her goblet from one hand to the other so that she could shake off some of the wine that had sloshed onto her skin. 

“Why are you asking that?” Ginny demanded, unexpectedly fierce. “Why are you asking me about Malfoy?”

“Ginny –” Hermione started, trying to sound soothing. 

“Have you heard something? Read something? Where?”

“No, it’s not –”

“Tell me, Hermione,” Ginny insisted, her voice low but forceful. 

“I didn’t –” Hermione shrugged, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “No one’s said anything. He just…Malfoy asked me about you recently and I thought maybe you might have – have seen him or heard from him or something. That’s all.”

Ginny’s face lost some of its aggression but not its suspicion and she straightened up, her eyes running up and down Hermione.

“He asked you about me,” Ginny said flatly. Hermione was amazed to see a hint of pink developing beneath Ginny’s freckles. “He is such a creep.”

Despite her words, Ginny didn’t look entirely displeased by the revelation. Then, a faint frown knitted her brow. “Since when are you and Malfoy buddy buddies?”

“We’re definitely not ,” Hermione assured her with a huff, looking down to neaten the sleeves of her robes and make sure they were wine-free. 

“He writes to me,” Ginny said. “A lot.”

Hermione looked up from under her brow at the abrupt revelation to see that Ginny was watching her with an almost defensive air, her lips pressed thin.

“I see,” Hermione said, lifting her head with a studiously blank expression. “That’s…nice.”

Ginny’s eyes darted around them to make sure that no one was close enough to overhear and stepped closer to Hermione. “He’s developed some kind of…fascination with me,” she said, like she was confessing to a crime. “Sends me gifts and letters.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “And do you write back?”

Ginny shrugged and flicked a long lock of hair over her shoulder with what was clearly affected carelessness. “Now and again.”

“And I’m guessing,” Hermione said slowly, “based on your reaction to my question about him that no one knows you do.”

“No,” Ginny said, her attempt at carelessness immediately crumbling under the weight of a sense of urgency. “And you can’t tell anyone, Hermione. Promise me you won’t. I don’t know what to do yet with –”

“Ginny –” Hermione reached out and clamped a hand around Ginny’s forearm, squeezing her. “I won’t.”

Ginny eyed her warily for a moment then nodded, sighing through her nose as she accepted the truth of what Hermione was saying. 

“Do you…” Slowly, carefully, Hermione released Ginny. “Ginny, do you like writing to him?”

Opening her mouth, Ginny thought for a moment then closed it again, exhaling sharply through her nose. 

“Look,” she finally said, “when he first started writing, I thought it might be a bit of a laugh to string him along for a while. Y’know, show Ron, Fred and George some of the letters. It’d serve him right, wouldn’t it? He was such a horrid little shit at school.”

“But you haven’t done that?”

“He’s weirdly sincere,” Ginny practically whispered, looking oddly distressed by this unexpected facet of Malfoy’s character. “And I’m finding it hard to laugh at. He’s actually…he’s quite apologetic and –”

Ginny snatched Hermione’s wine from her hand with a muttered apology and threw what was left of it down her throat in a single gulp. 

“You probably think I’m mad, don’t you?” Ginny asked apprehensively, wiping a smear of red from her upper lip. “I mean, he was occasionally a bit of a prick to me but that’s nothing on what he was to you.”

“He was…” Hermione began hesitantly, tilting her head. “Yeah.” 

How irate could Hermione really be given the weirdness between her and Lucius? Or even the help she’d given to Draco, minimal as it’d been. 

Hermione considered telling Ginny that she’d revealed her favourite chocolates and flowers to the man who was courting her but it occurred to her that it couldn’t be those things that were swaying Ginny in his favour. Hermione hadn’t been the one to tell him to be sincere and apologetic – he’d clearly figured that out on his own. 

“I need you to know that if I thought he’d still be like that with you, I wouldn’t give him a thought. It’s just some of the things he’s said about wanting to be happy and questions that he has around what might actually make that…” 

Ginny trailed off, her lips pursing and her eyes dropping into the goblet she was holding. 

“Hermione,” she eventually said, glancing up, “do you think people can actually change?”

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? 

Hermione inspected the anxious bow of Ginny’s brows; her tight grip on the stem of the goblet; her hazel eyes, wide, searching and cautiously hopeful. 

“I’d like to think so,” Hermione said, barely loud enough to be heard over the chatter surrounding them. “If they really want to.”

Without warning, Ginny pulled Hermione into a hug, wrapping her arms so tightly around her neck that Hermione was able to see the empty mulled wine goblet come back around into her periphery. 

“Merlin, I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I fell out of touch,” Ginny said, her voice muffled by Hermione’s hair. “It just always felt…off.” Ginny pulled back but kept her face close to Hermione’s. “I didn’t want to force you to keep in contact after Ron if it was going to be hard for you. I thought you might have wanted a clean break from us, so I’ve been mining Neville for updates on you. He kept saying I should write but I –”

“I think I might have liked to stay in touch, actually,” Hermione admitted, an ache in her chest. 

Neville had been telling her to write to Ginny, too. Insisting that she wanted to hear from her. Hermione had just assumed that had been Neville being Neville – kind to a fault. 

“It can be quite lonely up here and I’ve missed you too.”

Ginny pulled Hermione back into the tight hug. “Then I’m going to write all the time and I can come up on –” She stiffened in Hermione’s arms. “Is that –? Is Lucius Malfoy here? In this room?”

“Don’t worry.” Hermione gently extracted Ginny’s arms from around her neck and pushed her back. “He’s here as a governor. He’s been inspecting my classes.”

Ginny’s nod was fervent and anxious. 

“Neville did mention that a while ago actually,” she said, her eyes repeatedly darting over Hermione’s shoulder. “And I should have bloody congratulated you, Professor. I’m so sorry; I think I’ve just had the news so long that I – Hermione, he’s looking at us.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, faintly amused. “He does that.”

“Do you think he knows? Draco clearly thinks a lot of him but he said he's quite traditional. Old-fashioned sort. We're not exactly an old-fashioned sort of family.”

“Oh…” Hermione took in Ginny’s panicked expression and decided that, at that moment, lying might be more straightforward. “Probably not.”

“Do you think he’ll be furious?” Ginny’s eyes flitted back to where Hermione could only assume Lucius was watching them. “Dad’s always said he’s a right bastard. Perce thinks he’s ‘very efficient’, mind, but that doesn’t actually raise him in my estimations. Has he been a bastard?”

“He can be,” Hermione said. “But he can also be…very much not that. Look, I wouldn’t worry about him when it comes to you and Draco. Honestly.”

Ginny frowned and looked at Hermione wonderingly. “What do you – fuck, he’s coming over.” 

Dropping into a half-crouch, Ginny peered up into Hermione’s bewildered face. “I don’t want to talk to him, Hermione. I think I’m actually starting to like his son. What if he ruins it?”

He probably would.

“Go,” Hermione said, waving Ginny off imperiously. “I’ll distract him.”

Ginny looked like she wanted to ask Hermione a million questions but instead darted forward to kiss her on the cheek. 

“You’re a marvel,” she whispered, the goblet clutched to her chest. “I’ll write tomorrow. And we’re going for drinks over the Christmas break, no arguments. I’ll say to Neville too –”

“Go!” Hermione commanded, pointing but with a fond smile on her face. 

Still crouching, Ginny scuttled away into the crowd. Arranging her expression into one of bland personability, Hermione turned lightly on her heel to see Lucius Malfoy elegantly parting the crowd with his cane. His eyes were locked on Hermione’s in a way that left her in no doubt that he was coming for her, so she waited patiently, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Hello, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said, her traitorous little heart skipping a beat when he finally reached her, like it could recall his hand on her face, his soft tug at her lip, his racing pulse beneath her fingertips.

It’d been a couple of days since Malfoy had knocked the ball back into her court in her classroom but she still hadn’t worked out how exactly she was supposed to talk to him about it. No words felt quite right.

‘So, I’ve been thinking about what you did for me and I’m guessing it’s because you like me–’; ‘I have a feeling that you want me and –’; ‘Look, Malfoy, do you want to kiss me or not?’

She’d practised them all in front of a mirror and there wasn’t a single sentence that didn’t make her want to pitch herself off the astronomy tower. Saying things explicitly was preferable but it wasn’t by any means easy.

Honestly, she was slightly annoyed at him for just leaving her to it. She rather felt like he’d offered up something she wanted but placed it on the other side of a bed of hot coals.

“Did I just see you speaking with Ginevra Weasley?” Lucius asked abruptly, peering over Hermione’s head with a frown on his face. 

“Yes,” Hermione said brightly, rolling briefly onto the balls of her feet. “You did.”

“Introduce us,” Lucius commanded, dropping his gaze to hers. “I want to speak with her.”

“I’m not going to do that,” said Hermione, her voice still bright but her brow lowering at his chosen tone.

Lucius’ eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“It’s in the best interests of everyone, I think.” 

“If my son is pursuing her then I want to meet her, Granger, and I –”

“If you want your son to have any success in said pursuit,” Hermione said, her voice dipping with warning, “then you’ll lay off.”

Lucius blinked, pausing to take in Hermione’s severe expression. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders back – a barely perceptible movement. “Is she going to break his heart?”

A smile flitted across Hermione’s face. “No,” she assured him gently, adding, “she’s too busy marvelling at the fact that he’s actually got one.”

Lucius’ lip curled in a way that suggested a nasty retort was incoming but Hermione didn’t notice it, distracted by the sight of Lockhart finally freeing himself from his crowd of admirers. 

Without explanation, Hermione dropped into a half-crouch the way Ginny had just moments before and grabbed Lucius’ arm to keep him in front of her as a shield. 

“Granger, what –” Lucius began, staring down at her like she’d gone mad. Regardless, he let her drag him further down the side of the room where she positioned herself between the wall and a Christmas tree, keeping him in front of her. “What are you doing?”

“Lockhart,” Hermione whispered, peeking around Lucius’ body. “He’s working on a book called ‘Mingling with Muggles’, apparently, and he wants to ‘pick my brain’.”

“I get the impression that there are plenty of witches and wizards who would be delighted by such a proposition.”

Hearing Lucius’ dryly amused tone, Hermione released him from her hold and glowered up at him from beneath her brow. “Not this witch.” 

“No?”

“No,” she said, finally feeling well-hidden enough to straighten up and speak to him normally. “I prefer smiles that are…sincere.”

Hermione wasn’t sure if it was purposeful or not but one such smile faintly warmed Lucius’ face. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said.

Silence fell between them and Hermione hesitated. Between the tree, the wall and Malfoy she suddenly felt rather hemmed in and small. All the things she’d pondered saying bubbled up within her and she worried she might just choke on her own inhibitions. 

Hermione thought she was skilled in many areas but she had come to realise that she struggled with her own feelings. Particularly romantic feelings. The many years she’d spent wrestling with her attraction to Ron were exhausting even in retrospect. 

The very idea, however, of exposing the softest, most vulnerable parts of herself made her want to retreat into a shell. Especially to someone with the capacity to be as sharp as Lucius Malfoy.

“Did everything go okay?” she asked. “With the Ministry and the owl?”

Lucius waved a dismissive hand. “Fine. It was never going to go any other way.” He eyed her relieved nod and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been worrying.”

“Just a bit.” A lot.

“I would have been happy to put your mind at ease before now,” he said, a slight furrow to his brow. “You only had to ask.”

Hermione faltered, her lips parting. You only had to ask. A strange feeling came over her then. He had, in his own ways, been showing her that she had nothing to fear from him. That he would not use anything against her. It was up to her to accept that and trust. 

She really wanted to.

“I should have,” she finally admitted softly, her gaze dropping briefly to his chest.

Clearing her throat, Hermione tucked a curl behind her ears. “I fixed your robes, by the way,” she said. “I should return them.”

“Thank you,” Lucius said. “Speaking of robes,” he added, nodding his head at the blue set she’d worn to Slughorn’s first gathering of the term. Such a long time ago, it seemed to her. “Refreshing to see you in them.”

“Are you saying I look nice?” Hermione asked, a teasing smile ghosting over her face. 

He really ought to learn how to give a compliment directly, she thought – it’d make things easier for both of them. 

“I –” Lucius spied the smile and rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he admitted, flatly. “I’m saying you look nice.”

“Maybe even pretty?” Hermione suggested, coquettishly flicking the skirt of her robes. She’d had just enough mulled wine to be amusing to herself.

He raised a brow and gently swung his cane at her legs to tell her to stop. “You’re being ridiculous,” he said. Then, clearing his throat, he added, “But yes.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Hermione said, tilting her head to look at him from beneath her lashes. “To say the nice thing up front.”

“Despite your best efforts to make it painful,” Lucius drawled, “no. I suppose it wasn’t.”

“You look handsome,” she offered boldly, her eyes trailing down his robes. When she looked back to his face she found a somewhat bewildered smile had taken residence. 

“Was that a compliment or an accusation?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to be –” 

A dusting of white powder falling in front of her face made Hermione stop and blink rapidly. She wrinkled her nose and, with Malfoy, looked to the ceiling. 

Directly above them, a sprig of snow-dusted mistletoe had unfurled from a crack in the stone to dangle with false innocence. 

Hermione gaped at it for a moment, dumbfounded both by its sudden appearance and the inappropriateness of it as a decoration at a party where students were present. Fortunately, it did not seem to be the enchanted kind. It really was just decoration. Entirely optional. 

Her eyes darted down to Lucius.

He was already looking at her, a knowing and mildly amused expression on his face. 

Hermione swallowed. She’d been struggling to come up with the right words to say to him. Something like mistletoe removed the need for any words at all. But it was appearing at the wrong time and in the wrong place, Hermione thought, casting a nervous glance around his arm at the wider room. 

They were fairly well hidden in their little corner but the room was still filled with students and colleagues. Lucius was still an inspecting governor. A governor who was inspecting her . She could not kiss him the way she wanted to.

“I’ll just –” Hermione lowered her hand to the pocket of her dress robes and began to draw out her wand, intending to blast the mistletoe out of existence. 

Before she could so much as think of the incantation, Lucius reached out and grabbed her arm.

They both looked down at his hold on her and when Hermione turned her eyes up to his face, she thought he appeared almost surprised by his own action. Like it’d been instinctual. Yet he didn’t let go. 

“Don’t,” he said, his tone somehow simultaneously commanding and imploring.

The bottom of Hermione’s stomach fell away. Not now. He had not, surely, decided to push her now.

“Mr Malfoy.” She took a deep breath and glanced pointedly around at the busy room. “I – we can’t –”

“Because you don’t want to?”

“No,” she said, speaking in a frustrated hush, “because we’re in a room filled with students and – and colleagues. Not –” Hermione tugged her arm and he reluctantly released her. “Definitely not because I don’t want to.”

Something passed over his face then. Triumph, maybe, in the clearing of his forehead. A touch of impatience in the clench of his jaw. It was the gleam of hungry intent in his eyes, however, that caused a catch Hermione’s chest. 

That look – everything it threatened and promised – made a shiver of want run through her.

She couldn’t let this opportunity pass. It would be stupid to do so and Hermione Granger was not stupid.

Nostrils flaring determinedly, she stepped towards him. His brow dropped, questioning her volte face. Rather than explain, Hermione looked around quickly to make sure she was still hidden before placing a hand flat on his chest for balance and rolling onto her toes. She took a beat to look into his eyes, almost level with hers, then tipped her head and darted forward to press an incredibly swift, soft kiss to his cheek, just at the corner of his mouth. 

Innocent enough.

But with her hand on his chest, Hermione was able to feel the moment his breath hitched and, once again, his fingers wrapped around her forearm and gripped with a painful tightness.

Hermione landed flat on her heels again and tried to step back but Lucius refused to let go.

“Mr Malfoy –” 

Above them, the mistletoe retreated back into the stone, its job done. In front of Hermione, Lucius stood still as a statue, looking down at her with such intensity that she shivered. 

“Leave with me, Granger."

Heart fluttering with a nervous sense that with that one tiny kiss she had just knocked down the first domino in a very long line, Hermione just about managed to ask, “What?”

“Leave with me,” he said again, even more firmly. “Right now.” His face was serious, his jaw tense. “I think it’s time we had a chat, don't you?"

Swallowing, Hermione looked up into his face and, her voice hushed, said, “Okay. Yes. I – let’s go.”

Lucius stepped back and cleared the way for her to go. “You first,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll follow.”

Lucius watched Hermione slip through the crowd towards the door, his heart thudding forcefully in his chest. He scanned the room, ensuring that the ridiculous bobbing head of Lockhart was far off and unlikely to waylay her. 

He had been patient. Waited. He had wanted her to come to him. It had felt…right to him. To let her have that control after his many attempts to wrest it from her. He’d thought she’d appreciate it. Clearly he’d been right.

Over the heads of the crowd, the door eased open and swiftly closed. He hadn’t been able to hear it squeak or clatter amidst the chatter. Hermione had, for all intents and purposes, vanished without anyone but him noticing.

Lucius could still feel the heat of her breath on his cheek and the delicate brush of her lips, so close to his. A mere centimetre turn of his head and they would have –

Inhaling deeply, he squeezed his cane hard enough that his knuckles flashed white. 

Then, determinedly avoiding any eyes that might try to catch his to engage him in conversation, he followed her. 

He was not in the mood to talk. 

The one thing he really wanted right at that moment had just slipped into the corridor to wait for him and he would not be prevented from getting her. 

Yes, he had been patient but he hadn’t enjoyed it. It'd been fucking detestable, actually.

The corridor outside Horace’s office was cool and quiet when Lucius entered it. It was also, he thought on first glance, completely empty. 

But then he saw her, his scowl clearing instantaneously. 

She stood at the far end of the corridor beside a long tapestry like some pretty little apparition, her pale blue robes shifting from dark to light under the flickering candlelight from the wall sconces. 

Meeting his eyes, her face unreadable, Hermione reached out, lifted the tapestry and disappeared behind it. 

Swallowing hard, Lucius strolled down the corridor, his steps quick and sharp, the sound of them faintly echoing around him. 

When he reached the tapestry, all was completely silent. He could not hear her behind it – not a breath or even a rustle – and he wondered if she had, in fact, been an apparition. If this whole thing was actually a dream. 

Or perhaps she had been prepared with a silencing charm. That was more likely, he hoped.

Reaching out, Lucius pulled back the heavy tapestry and, to his relief, found a solid, very real Hermione waiting for him, secreted in a narrow, arched alcove that was barely big enough for one person, never mind two. 

Regardless, Lucius stepped into it with her, allowing the tapestry to fall back into place behind him. With the thick wool covering the entrance, the light was dim but the space was given a warm hue by the candlelight that managed to filter through the thinner, more worn sections of the material. 

“Hi,” Hermione said softly, fidgeting with her own hands. 

Lucius offered her the barest hint of a smile, stepping forward so that they were toe-to-toe. Gently, he laid one of his hands over hers and she ceased fidgeting, a small exhale leaving her as she allowed her hands to fall to her sides and her eyes to rise to his.

“Tell me, Granger,” Lucius said, his voice low, “was that an attempt to show me the Muggle approach to mistletoe?”

“What?” she asked, any nervousness quite quickly eclipsed by bewilderment. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, it’s just that that’s the first time I’ve been under mistletoe,” he continued conversationally, “and received a kiss that might have been intended for an elderly relative.”

Hermione’s eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open. 

“I merely wondered if it might be a… cultural difference.”

“Shut up,” Hermione snapped, indignantly embarrassed. “It wasn’t some Muggle method and you know it. I just couldn’t do it properly in there.”

“I see,” Lucius said quietly, nodding. “So, what does ‘properly’ look like to you? I’m interested to know.” 

Hermione’s scowl slowly cleared, replaced with a knowing expression. 

“Let me –” 

She cleared her throat and raised a hand to his chest, curling her fingers in his robes for balance so that she could roll onto her tiptoes and look him in the face. 

Raising her other hand to his face she brought her palm to rest against his cheek. With a combination of a quelling look and a caress of her thumb at the corner of his mouth, she flattened out his fledgling smirk. Her eyes dropped to his lips, then rose again. 

“Let me show you.”

Fisting her hand more tightly in his robes, she tugged him closer and kissed him. 

Properly this time.

Her lips were soft but insistent, fitting perfectly against his. Immediately, Lucius returned the pressure, his arm wrapping around her waist to pull her closer with a sharpness that flattened her against him. A surprised squeak escaped her and she slid both of her arms around his neck in order to inject more force into her kiss. 

Needing to hold her tighter, to feel as much of her as possible, Lucius dropped his cane. The alcove was so narrow that it didn’t hit the floor, instead falling against the wall to lean in the corner. He brought his freed hand to her waist, his fingers digging into the slope of it and stepped her back against the wall.

Hermione’s back hit the stone hard, the breath knocked out of her by the impact swallowed by Lucius. Keeping one hand tight on her waist, he raised the other and slid it into her hair, curling his fingers around the back of her neck to deepen the kiss.

Lucius tugged demandingly at the hair at the nape of her neck and Hermione gasped, parting her lips for him. He nipped briefly at her lower lip and she responded by sliding her tongue against his, drawing a groan from somewhere deep in his chest. 

First kisses were, Lucius was sure, supposed to be somewhat tentative. This was definitively not that. 

This was hunger, determination and, most importantly, certainty. Absolute conviction. 

Every touch of skin, every moan or gasp, was an agreement on what they were doing and where it was leading. The entire thing felt like relaxing one’s body into the powerful, urgent pull of a strong current. They had accepted the inevitable and now they were rushing towards it with no hope of stopping.

The earnest desire for excellence that underpinned everything Hermione Granger did seemed to extend even to kissing – within mere moments, Lucius felt that she had picked up exactly what made him tick and was determined to prove to him that she could be the best at it. 

It hit him in his competitive streak.

Fingers still curled around the back of her neck, Lucius brought his thumb around and gently stroked the pad of it up the central column of Hermione’s throat. Their lips broke apart and she tipped her head back with a panting gasp as he started running kisses along her jaw.

“I’m not –” she panted. “To be clear, you know I’m not doing this because I – I think it’ll do me any favours in your report, right?”

“I know,” Lucius murmured soothingly into her skin, the familiar rose scent of her perfume making him press into her. He never wanted to smell anything else. “It wouldn't make a difference anyway – I've quite made up my mind about you, Granger.”

His thumb reached the top of her throat and he pressed gently but firmly on the underside of her chin to keep her head tilted back so that he could bring his kisses from her jaw down to her neck. 

Lucius nipped the soft skin of her neck with his teeth, making her gasp, then soothed it with a flick of his tongue. 

“So you really want –” Hermione groaned, clutching desperately at his robes as he moved his attention to an apparently sensitive point just below her ear. "You really want this? Just this? No deals or – or conditions?”

Slowly, Lucius raised his head to look down at her. 

She was breathless, his thumb at her neck tilting her head back, her kiss-swollen lips parted with a slight sheen. Even in the dim light behind the heavy tapestry, he could see the dark, intense desire in her eyes. His little mirror.

He stroked the smooth, soft skin on the underside of her chin and felt the jump in her throat as she swallowed. 

“I want you,” he murmured. “Only you. Understand?” 

Lucius slid his thumb up from her neck and brushed it gently across her cheek. It was warm, flushed, and she infinitesimally turned her face into his touch, nodding.

“I’m actually not sure you do,” he said. “Not really.” He dipped his face to brush his lips against hers. “I know I can never have all of you entirely to myself, Granger. I know I’ll never own you.” He pulled back just far enough to meet her gaze. “But you need to know that I won’t be satisfied until I’ve made a small part of you wish that I did.”

Hermione stiffened and some of the dark desire in her eyes dissipated thanks to a flash of indignation. “You’re so bloody –”

Lucius possessively sealed his mouth over hers and she took out her annoyance at him by sinking her teeth into his lip hard enough to break the skin. 

He made to pull back, to chide her, but then Hermione flicked her tongue soothingly over the bite and ground her hips into him and his anger morphed into something else entirely. Something far stronger and more insistent.

He grabbed her hips to bring them flush against his and she moaned, lifting one leg to hook it around him. In one smooth motion, Lucius slipped his hand under the hem of her robes and pushed them up to grab beneath her knee.

“Oh!” Hermione squeaked at the combination of Lucius’ hand on her bare leg and the weight of his hips forcefully pressing her lower back into the stone wall. With so much force, he knew she’d be able to feel at least a hint of his hardness, even through the layers of their robes.

“Silencing charm?” he asked, his voice hoarse as he slid his hand slowly from behind her knee up the smooth skin of the back of her thigh. He wanted his previous suspicions confirmed before he went any further.

“Already done i- ah!” Hermione’s breathless response broke off into a gasp as Lucius’ hand reached the top of her thigh, his fingers curling around the underside of it so that he could brush them against her knickers.

The heat between her legs was delirium-inducing and he pressed harder against the thin cotton to feel the slickness developing beneath it.

“Clever girl.”

Even through her knickers, Lucius felt Hermione clench in response to his words, a small whimper escaping her. 

“Do you like that?” he asked with genuine interest, stroking her at a leisurely place. “Do you like it when I tell you that you’re clever?”

“I –” Hermione’s furious blush was visible even in the dim but she rocked her hips into him, hooking her leg more securely around him. “It’s not that I –”

“You are,” he said sincerely, his eyes locked on hers while his fingers increased their pressure but continued their slow pace, building her up. “You’re…” 

Lucius swallowed and blinked, taking in her half-lidded eyes, trembling lower lip and her mussed curls. She was so soft for him at that moment. Practically molten. 

“You’re magnificent, Granger,” he said. “I’m sorry I was ever fool enough to think otherwise.”

A tiny, strangled sound escaped Hermione and Lucius leaned in to capture her lips. She kissed him fervently, fisting her hands in his robes, the undulations of her hips becoming more urgent. 

The small space of the alcove grew warmer, the air thickening with desire as their kisses became hungrier and needier.

Never ceasing his stroking of her, Lucius groaned when Hermione’s arousal began to seep through the thin fabric of her knickers, slicking his fingers. He pressed his hips against hers, desperately seeking friction of his own.

They broke apart, both panting heavily, and Lucius leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes falling closed and his hips still rocking in a rhythm with his fingers. 

Hermione's whines and whimpers grew increasingly breathless and Lucius could tell she wanted to come. He knew that if he gave her just a little more speed, she would. 

That wasn’t, however, what he wanted and he stilled his fingers.

“Don’t,” Hermione urged, pulling at his robes and bumping her nose against his to prompt him to open his eyes. “Keep going. It’s okay, I want –”

“Granger,” Lucius said bringing his mouth to her ear, feeling her shiver beneath him, “if I’m going to ruin you for wizards and Muggles alike, it’s not going to be behind a tapestry in a cold, damp corridor, so you have two choices –"

“My room,” was her immediate response.

Hermione wasn’t entirely sure how they made it to her room without touching again. They only had to descend two floors but the entire time she was desperately aware of Lucius at her back and the intense throbbing between her legs. 

He’d worked her up to a point of feeling possessed . If they’d passed a colleague or prefect, she’d likely have pushed them out of the way rather than engage them in conversation. The way Lucius crowded at her heels, she rather thought he felt the same. It was probably fortunate that they passed no one but the Bloody Baron, who did not even glance at them.

Even his miserable visage and clanking chains was not enough to dampen her ardour.

Hermione held the door to her rooms open for Lucius and then followed him inside, immediately closing it and sliding the lock over. The dying fire burned very low in its grate, giving the room a warm but not particularly bright glow.

Drawing her wand from the pocket of her robes, she cast another silencing charm.

“You’re very diligent with the silencing charms,” Lucius noted, dropping his cane onto her desk with a clatter and wasting no time in ripping his cravat from around his neck.

“I can be loud,” Hermione confessed, crossing the room towards him in a few swift steps. “And with all the portraits this castle’s walls might as well have ears.”

She dropped her own wand beside his cane and allowed him to pull her into him, another urgent thrum of need passing through her at the feeling of his arms around her. The dampness of her knickers was increasingly uncomfortable.

“How loud?” he asked, dipping his face towards hers.

“Depends,” she whispered, nudging her nose against his. “On how well you take instruction.”

Lucius chuckled but it broke off abruptly when Hermione tried to pull herself out of his arms. “What –”

“It’s –” Hermione hurriedly turned back to her desk, pulling open the drawers that ran down each side of it quickly, the clattering of them opening and closing making Lucius wince. “It’s just – aha!”

She straightened up and spun to face him, a cobalt blue vial pinched between her fingers. 

Understanding and even gratitude passed over Lucius’ face as she plucked the cork out and downed the contraceptive potion in one, suddenly immensely grateful at Poppy’s insistence that she have a private stash because ‘you never know what can happen in Hogsmeade on a Saturday night, dear.’ 

Apparently, you never knew what could happen in Hogwarts on a Saturday night, either. 

A part of Hermione had thought it might be funny to tell Lucius Malfoy no, that he'd need to use a Muggle condom or he’d get nothing. But she didn’t actually have any of those to hand and the 48 hour protection of the potion was far more appealing to her at that moment than a mean-spirited joke.

Hermione only had time to turn and drop the empty vial back into the drawer before Lucius was on her. He crowded her against the desk, her hips slamming painfully into the edge of it and making her ink bottles rattle as he pressed himself against her back but she didn’t really care about the pain. 

All she cared about was the feeling of his arousal against her back, obvious even through layers of robes, and the firm hold of his hands on her waist as he turned her to face him. Her lower back thumped against the desk the way her hips had when he kissed her.

Kissing Lucius Malfoy was something of a revelation to Hermione. He did not try to dominate her quite as much as she might have expected from someone like him. Instead, he worked with her – almost coaxing her – his soft lips encouraging hers to part so that his tongue could slide along hers. He wasn’t kissing her. She wasn’t kissing him. It had more balance than that and the natural give and take of it was so satisfying to her that she couldn’t help but moan into him.

Without removing her lips from his, Hermione began to push his robes from his shoulders and down his arms, walking him away from the desk. He let them fall to the floor with a heavy thump and she broke away from his kiss to rapidly unbutton his waistcoat. 

“So many layers,” she breathed, frustrated, her hands flying down his front. 

To her relief, he was already working on the buttons of his shirt, sliding them open the moment she exposed them to him. With both of them working together, it didn’t take long for them to reveal Lucius’ torso in its entirety, his shirt and waistcoat following his robes onto the floor.

Hermione only had but a moment to admire the pale, defined plane of his chest and shoulders before he was grabbing her robes at the waist and hauling them upwards.

“Easier for me,” he said, not taking the time to be gentle and forcing her to raise her arms above her head.

Hermione squeaked as the robes were yanked over her head, briefly leaving her in darkness.

Lucius threw them on the floor where they landed atop his robes, shirt and waistcoat, only adding to the pile of excessively extravagant fabrics. Her bra swiftly followed, unhooked and dragged down over her arms to be thrown to the side like the obstacle it was.

Lucius stepped out of his shoes, herding her towards the bed, his hands hungrily roving her bared body all the while. Though the room wasn’t unbearably cold, the low fire meant there was a chill and Hermione relished the warmth of his skin on hers, every raised goosepimple feeling like it was straining for his touch. 

When her knees hit the end of her bed, she allowed herself to drop onto it, her breath leaving her in a sharp puff and her small flat shoes falling from her feet to the floor. 

Pressing a knee into the mattress between her parted legs, Lucius leaned in and met her for another kiss, urging her to shift further up the bed. 

“Lie back,” he ordered, kissing his way down her jaw and settling himself comfortably between her legs.

Hermione dropped back into her soft duvet and closed her eyes, letting herself truly feel his lips travel down. Down her neck, to the soft curve of her shoulder, where he nipped gently with his teeth to make her writhe. Down the valley between her breasts, where he took a brief detour to lave open-mouthed kisses over each mound.

He flicked his tongue over her right nipple then sucked it into his mouth. She arched towards him, groaning and grinding herself against the knee between her thighs. Then he continued his journey south, his kisses alternating between caring and biting. Down her ribs and her stomach, all the way to the border of her knickers.

Hermione jolted when she felt him firmly stroke the pad of his left thumb up the visibly damp patch on her cloth-covered centre, a whine escaping her.

Lucius hooked the fingers of his right hand into the waistband of the plain white cotton and started tugging. Pressing her elbows into the mattress, Hermione pushed herself up to watch him.

“Lift,” he commanded, letting the elastic go so that it pinged irritatingly but indicatively against her hip.

There was no argument to be had. Hermione bent her knees and pressed her heels into the mattress, lifting her hips so that Lucius could peel her knickers away from her soaked core and down her trembling legs.

When he had flung them carelessly on the floor, he pushed her legs apart and returned to his place between them on his knees. Still leaning on her elbows, Hermione watched him lift her left leg onto his shoulder, pressing a soft kiss onto her calf.

His mouth began to journey upwards and she swallowed, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she tracked his progress. He reached the curve of her knee and hooked it over his shoulder, his eyes catching hers before he started kissing his way up her thigh.

“God,” Hermione whined, lifting her elbows so that she could collapse onto her back. She brought her hands up to her hair, sinking her fingers into her own curls and tugging to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

She closed her eyes, her breathing growing shallow as Lucius’ lips progressed up her inner thigh, licking, biting and kissing the smooth skin. When he got near the top of her left thigh, he used his free hand to grasp her right thigh, pushing it flat against the bed to pin her and open her up to him.

Convinced she was close to fainting, Hermione lifted her head to peer down at where his blonde head was between her thighs, one of her legs hooked over his bare shoulder and down his back while the other was pinned beneath his large hand. 

A delicate kiss on her centre, his nose just nudging her clit, made her cry out, her hips jerking towards the sensation. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to do that,” she gasped, her eyes fixed on the top of his head. Not without some convincing, anyway, she thought.

“Why?” Lucius asked, sounding genuinely curious. He raised his head just enough to meet her eyes, the thumb of the hand pressing her thigh open extending to stroke up and down her outer labia.

“You seem –” Hermione hesitated and gasped, her hips bucking when his thumb slid towards her slick, glistening inner folds, parting them. “Well, it’s quite –” He swept his thumb carelessly over her clit. “ Fuck – you’re quite selfish. No offence.”

Lucius chuckled derisively, his breath puffing against her centre in a way that made her whole body quake with anticipation. 

“Granger,” he said, his eyes dropping from hers to her dripping centre, “whoever told you that this is a selfless act was an idiot.” 

Then, Lucius licked her with one long, smooth stroke. Hermione’s head dropped back against the bed, a drawn out, low moan dragged from her.

“Listen to yourself,” Lucius growled into her before circling his tongue over her clit.

“Oh my –”

“Trust me when I say I get something out of it too.”

A noise close to a sob broke out of Hermione when he clamped his lips over her clit and sucked it into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it before dipping down to her opening. He lapped at her then slipped inside and Hermione instinctively brought a hand down to grab at his hair, holding him against her.

“Need more,” she panted. 

She thought she felt him smile against her but then she was more focused on the single long finger he eased inside of her. He stroked in and out, curling it just against the point that made her vision blur. 

Before she could even ask, he added another, so much thicker than her own fingers, stretching her.

An unbearable pressure started to build and she wriggled and writhed beneath him like she might be able to escape it, even though that was the last thing she wanted to do. 

Just as she thought she was approaching a tipping point, Lucius paused, holding her at the edge. "Okay?" he murmured. 

"Yes," she said quickly. Forcefully. "Just keep going."

Hermione groaned when he flicked his tongue over her and curled his fingers, one of her hands fisted in her own curls while the other kept Lucius firmly against her. 

He built her up again and she voiced her approval with whines, her hips undulating. It was endless. A seemingly constant escalation.

He tightened his hold on her right thigh, pinning it so firmly to the bed that the movement of her hips was restricted. She could just feel her walls beginning to flutter when he withdrew his fingers from her. 

"Ungh!" 

It was a nonsensical protest, Hermione knew, but it was all she could manage as her second chance at an orgasm slipped out of her grasp. 

Lucius didn't appear to notice, dipping his tongue into where his fingers had been to lazily lap at her, slowly teasing her back into a frenzy.

This was surely the one, she thought with relief. To add to her certainty, his fingers returned to her entrance, pumping shallowly before sliding into her with skilful intent.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Just – that’s it – keep that –”

A frustrated growl escaped her when he shifted his tongue off her clit and the precipice inched just out of her reach once again. 

It was only when she felt Lucius chuckle darkly against her that she realised he was doing it deliberately. 

Releasing his hair and her own, Hermione pushed herself up onto her elbows to glare down at him. 

“You –” she began, her desperation making it hard to articulate. “Malfoy, stop playing with me. Just let me come.”

Slowly, Lucius raised his head and Hermione spied her wetness glistening on his lips as his mouth unfurled into a wolfish grin. She was amazed he hadn’t drowned, to be honest. 

“I think, given our current situation, I’m willing to let you use Lucius if you say it very nicely.”

“Lucius,” Hermione said, her voice so strained and desperate that were she not delirious with need she might have been embarrassed. “Please.”

“That was very nice,” he acknowledged graciously. 

“You’re such a –”

Hermione broke off with a cry as he took her clit between his lips and sucked. At the same time, the fingers that had apparently just been teasing her before focused intently, curling and stroking.

Still leaning on her elbows, Hermione allowed her head to drop back, her hair trailing between her shoulder blades and her hips grinding her into his face.

"Thank you," she whined to the canopy above her. "Thank – oh my god." The tension built again, close to being painful in its intensity. "I’m – I’m gonn –”

This time Lucius didn’t change a thing, his tongue and his fingers consistent, practically relentless. Hermione raised her head to watch him, the sight of him between her legs only adding to the pleasure. 

Finally – mercifully – she shattered. Into a million pieces, she was fairly sure. 

Dropping back with a relieved cry of his name, she squeezed her eyes shut, revelling in the rush of pleasure and its aftershocks. Her legs trembled, not quite able to decide whether they wanted to part wider for him or clamp around his head.

Slowly, Lucius eased his fingers out of her, dropping another light kiss on her still-pulsing centre that caused her to squirm and make a soft noise of protest. She could feel him moving but kept her eyes closed in a dreamy state of satisfaction, catching her breath.

“Hermione.”

Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of her name. Lucius was in a tall kneel between her legs. His gaze roved hungrily down her body but Hermione’s attention immediately focused on his hands which were undoing his trousers.

She pushed herself up to sit, her face coming level with where she could see the outline of his hardness.

“Let me,” she murmured, bringing her hands up to pull the zip as he loosed the button. 

Lower lip pinned between her teeth, Hermione tugged his trousers down his hips a little and then reached into his underwear. Her hand wrapped around his silky smooth and unexpectedly thick hardness to ease him over the waistband. 

“Oh.” 

“What?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“So the cane…” Hermione stroked him gently, drawing a hitched gasp from him. “I’d always sort of thought it might be a…” She swallowed hard and used her thumb to spread the glimmer of precum at his tip. “Compensation.”

“Hermione,” Lucius said, his voice gravelly but faintly incredulous, “your sexual preconceptions about me are so negative I’m amazed we’re even here.”

“But it’s not.” 

With a glance up from beneath her lashes, she leaned in, parted her lips and gently licked him, swirling her tongue. 

He mumbled her name, his eyes fluttering closed for just a moment. 

Resting the heavy head of his cock on her flat tongue, Hermione experimentally slid part of him into her mouth, more scientifically curious about the fit than intent on bringing him pleasure.

“It’s–” Lucius groaned at the sight of her small mouth enveloping him. As she hollowed her cheeks, sucking him in deeper and fisting a hand around the part that she couldn't fit, he slid his fingers into her hair, tangling them in her curls and scratching her scalp. “An affectation, if it’s anything.”

“Clearly,” she tried to say, though it was muffled to the point of incomprehensibility.

Abruptly, Lucius used the hold he had on her hair to tug her head back and she gasped for air as his cock was pulled out of her mouth.

“We’ll have no more of that,” he said gruffly. “Not tonight. I’d rather not disgrace myself.”

Hermione grinned smugly and fell back against the bed, happy to wait for him to properly free himself of his trousers before he settled back between her legs. 

He pressed a hand into the bed by her head and leaned down to kiss her, soft at first before becoming more forceful. She raised her head just off her pillow to meet each movement, her tongue flicking against his. His cock was warm and heavy against her slick inner thigh and she lifted her hips to encourage him.

“Now?” he asked.

She nodded eagerly and Lucius took himself in one hand to begin stroking along her slit, coating himself in her wetness. 

Hermione moaned encouragingly and raised her head to peer between their bodies, her arms wrapping around him so that she could stroke the smooth skin of his back.

Although she was more than wet enough, the hot, stinging stretch as he started pushing into her made her hiss and dig her nails into him.

“Are you –”

“It’s just –” Hermione gasped and winced at the combined pleasure and pain. “It’s been a while and I – I think I probably just need to relax.”

She was grateful to him for his slow, shallow thrusts, easing himself into her inch by inch. It was clear in the clench of his jaw and the tight fists pressed into the bed on either side of her head that he was exhibiting a great deal of self-control. 

Lowering her right hand from his back, Hermione slipped it down the hot, narrow space between their bodies and began rubbing tight, rhythmic circles over her clit. Mewling, she swung her legs up and wrapped them around him, angling her hips to make it easier to take more of him.

“That’s it, good,” Lucius encouraged, his eyes intent on hers. “Good, Hermione.”

Hermione whimpered and closed her eyes. Between his words and her attention to her clit, she relaxed into him, the sting fading into nothing but a pleasurable stretch. 

“More,” she said softly, tightening her legs around him. “Please, I can take it.”

“I know you can.” 

In one smooth roll of his hips, Lucius sheathed the rest of himself inside her. Hermione cried out, the nails of her left hand dragging down his back and drawing a pained grunt from him.

They took a moment to adjust, Hermione’s fingers on her clit stilling while Lucius lowered himself to lean on his forearm, pressing his forehead against hers. Their breath mingled, warm against one another’s faces, and Hermione nudged her head up to capture Lucius’ lips in a kiss. 

She could hardly recall the last time she’d felt so full and tentatively clenched herself around him, earning herself a wonderfully needy groan in response.

“Tell me something, Professor Granger,” Lucius murmured, his lips just above hers as he slowly started to rock his hips, never withdrawing from her. “ Instruct me, please. How do Muggleborns like to get fucked, hm? Is it different?”

“You –” Hermione grit her teeth and dragged the nails of her left hand further down his back, satisfied to see him grimace. “You know we’re not different.”

“Alright then.” Lucius pushed himself up to lean on his hands again, looming over her as he started to thrust more forcefully, establishing an even but leisurely rhythm. “How do you like it? I have my suspicions but how does my Muggleborn like to get fucked?”

“I’m not your –” 

Lucius snapped his hips and Hermione broke off to gasp, her eyelashes fluttering. 

“Like that?”

“Harder,” she said, almost whispering the word, like it was dangerous. “I think.”

Lucius’ eyes gleamed at the challenge issued and he straightened up into a kneel, forcing her to unhook her legs from around his waist. He gripped her thighs and pulled her down to meet his next rough thrust, pushing a broken groan from her.

“Enough?”

“I think – yes – I –” 

“Think?” Hooking his right hand beneath her left knee, Lucius pushed it up towards her chest and out, opening her up. He started fucking her faster, pistoning into her so that their flesh smacked together. 

"D–definitely," Hermione moaned, her voice trembling with the force of each thrust. “Like that, I –”

She could feel every inch of him; pushing, pulling, the insistent, relentless pressure of him almost too much. Words spilled out of her mouth, little more than a mix of pleas and praise.

“A man with gentle manners, you said,” he scoffed, his voice ragged with the effort.

Lucius settled his left hand over her right, bringing it back between her legs, and encouraged her to start circling her clit again. 

"Is – is this a firm hand?" she asked.

He pressed his fingers onto hers so that they slid in her wetness, forcing her to apply an unforgiving pressure. 

"It's what you bloody need."

Hermione’s eyes rolled back, her body arching. She could feel him slamming into her, the tips of her fingers occasionally brushing his cock, made slick with her arousal.

Satisfied that she would continue to touch herself at the pace and pressure he'd set, Lucius moved his left hand to grab her right leg, pushing it up like the other. 

Effectively folded beneath him, Hermione cried out as the change in angle allowed him to go impossibly deep. 

"So this is what you like, Hermione?" Lucius growled, his thumbs pressing under her knees so tightly she knew there would be bruises. 

"Yes," Hermione responded breathily. 

And it was. It really was. She liked being pinned beneath him; she liked his possessive grip on her legs; she liked the vulgar, wet sounds of him fucking her harder than she'd ever dared ask for. She liked all of it and she didn't want to question why.

The exquisite pressure was building between her legs again and she circled her clit furiously, bringing her other hand up to her breast. She cupped it and rolled her nipple between her thumb and forefinger, her lips parted to draw in increasingly shallow breaths.

"Look at you," Lucius groaned.

Hermione's eyes fluttered open and met his, her expression hazy. He was breathless and desperate, his grey irises almost entirely eclipsed by his blown pupils. He was looking at her like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. 

"I –" She swallowed. "Lucius, I –"

Hermione's hand on her chest clenched into a fist, her nails scratching red lines across her sweat-dampened skin, and her whole body stiffened with anticipation as she careened towards the edge.

Murmuring his name over and over like a prayer in time with his thrusts, Hermione was just about aware of the sound of Lucius choking on a curse as her world imploded. 

A strangled whine left her and pleasure sparked through her body from her centre as she clamped down around him impossibly tightly.

Lucius was only able to thrust twice, thrice more before her pulsing walls pulled him over the edge with her. He sealed his pelvis against hers and spilled inside her with a relieved, ragged exhale.

There was a moment of stillness, broken only by their breathing and the low crackle of the fire, in which Lucius gripped Hermione tightly, letting himself feel the aftershocks of her orgasm around him, his hips gently rocking against her like he wanted to be sure he’d filled her entirely.

Then he withdrew, releasing her legs and pushing them away so that he could collapse onto his back beside her. 

They both stared at the faded red canopy above their heads, their chests heaving as they tried to catch their breath. 

“Huh,” Hermione finally exhaled, her voice high with impressed surprise as she turned her head to look at Lucius’ profile.

Lucius made a noise of exhausted agreement, his eyes dropping closed. 

Wincing, Hermione properly straightened her legs, her hips and the soft space behind her knees protesting the movement after being compressed so tightly.

"Lucius," she said quietly, almost thoughtfully.

"Hm?"

"No, I'm just…practising," Hermione explained. "Lucius." 

She drew his name out like was tasting every letter, running her tongue into the dips of the 'u's.

"We'll return to Mr Malfoy if you can't say it normally," Lucius muttered, opening one eye to glare at her.

"No," Hermione said hurriedly, rolling onto her side to look at him properly. "I like it. It's a lot softer than Mr Malfoy. There's a lot of teeth and lips in the pronunciation of that."

She silently mouthed his surname to show him, then said, "Harsh. Lucius is….well it's a lot more tongue." A little grin flashed over her face. "Suits you."

Opening both of his eyes to peer at her incredulously, Lucius abruptly reached across and grabbed her by her waist to pull her onto him. Hermione laughed, slinging an arm over his chest and a leg over his.

"You were right when you said you can be loud," he said, wrapping one arm around her waist, his fingers stroking a ticklish pattern in its narrowest point. 

"It was a compliment in this instance," Hermione replied, dragging a finger down his chest. "Besides you're hardly the stoic and silent type yourself."

Lucius hummed, a satisfied noise that she felt as well as heard with her cheek on his chest. He brought a hand over to run his fingers gently through the ends of some of her curls.

“We probably should be quiet, though, shouldn’t we?” she asked, her voice appropriately hushed.

Lucius tugged thoughtfully on a curl. “I didn’t mind it.”

“No, I mean –” Hermione tilted her head to peer up into his face. “I know it’s only a couple of weeks but while you’re still technically inspecting me we should try not to make it obvious that we’re…whatever we are.”

“Am I to take it that you want to do this again, then?” Lucius asked.

“Are you honestly going to tell me that you don’t ?” Hermione pushed herself up onto her elbow to look into his face, incredulous. 

Surely, she thought, if he had had even close to the same experience that she’d just had, he wanted at least one more go. Even just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. 

Laughing shortly through his nose, Lucius pressed her back down onto his chest and said, “No. I very much do want to do it again.”

With a quiet grumble of satisfaction, Hermione settled onto his chest. They lay quietly for a time, long enough that their breathing began to sync and Hermione felt her eyelids begin to grow heavy.

“You should probably leave,” she eventually said through a yawn. 

“Got what you need from me, hm?” Lucius asked, his voice low and deep with tired contentment. 

She nudged him playfully. “No. I just think it’d be best if we didn’t leave my room together for breakfast. Don’t you agree?”

“You’re assuming I ever intend to let you leave this room again.” 

He slid his hand from her waist down to her backside and squeezed her, shifting her even further onto him. Hermione squirmed, feeling the tackiness of their combined release drying on her inner thighs. 

“Lucius –”

“Give me five minutes, Hermione,” he said, holding her more tightly. “I’m an old man.”

“You are not,” she said on a sigh. Regardless, she allowed herself to relax into his hold and closed her eyes, counting the slow, steady beats of his heart.

Whatever was happening between them was probably quite complicated. It was probably going to present challenges. At that moment, however, she couldn’t really be bothered to think beyond how content she was.

Chapter Text

December 9th

Lucius groaned softly, consciousness returning to him by degrees. He rubbed his face into the cotton pillowcase beneath him and wrinkled his nose when something unusually soft tickled it. Frowning, he creaked open one eye, followed by the other to find himself looking into a wild mass of curls. 

Then he registered the smooth back curled against his chest, the heat emanating from it and the steady rise and fall of the torso that he’d slung his arm over in his unconscious state.

Hermione. 

A shiver passed through Lucius and he tried to blink away the sleep from his heavy eyes, raising his head to look down the bed. They’d apparently fallen asleep uncovered and, at some point, they’d rolled onto their sides.

The fire that had been burning low when they’d first entered the room was now a mere glow in the grate and they were in near darkness, the hours not having passed enough since their falling asleep to bring sunrise. It could only have been a couple of hours.

Wincing, Lucius eased himself up into a sitting position. Glancing down at the still-sleeping Hermione, he reached for the red throw that lay across the end of the bed. He pulled it up slowly to drape it across their bodies. 

When the light but warm material covered her, Hermione trembled in her sleep and made a soft noise in the back of her throat. Instinctively, Lucius draped his arm back across her waist and drew her closer to him. 

It’d been so long since he’d woken to anyone in his bed that he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. The warmth. The connection. The incongruous sense of safety and strength that arose from this particular display of vulnerability.

He experienced a pang of grief – of remembrance – for Narcissa, though he was not even really able to clearly remember the last time he’d woken with her like this with any accuracy. There was a memory but he didn’t think it was real; it was too perfect. More likely, it was an amalgamation of mornings experienced over their long marriage.

This moment in Hermione’s bed wasn’t exactly perfect; her room was chilly and the Hogwarts mattresses left much to be desired. 

However, as he focused on the rhythmic, life-affirming rise and fall of her body in his arms and listened to the small sounds she made in her sleep, Lucius felt an overwhelming, heart-lightening sense of relief. It was like he’d opened a valve somewhere inside himself; eased some pressure he hadn’t realised had been building.

“Lucius?” Hermione asked, her voice confused and sweetly husky in the darkness.

“It’s me,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

Immediately, Hermione stiffened and her elbow jerked backwards, smacking into Lucius’ abdomen. He choked at the impact, his arm wrapping tighter around her middle as his whole body tensed.

“What the –”

“It – what time is it?” she mumbled, half-rolling in an attempt to get onto her back. “You were supposed to go! We must have fallen asleep. I –”

“It’s still night,” Lucius said in a harsh but low voice. “Would you calm down?”

Beneath him, she stilled and he felt some of the tension seep out of her. “It’s still dark,” she murmured. “You’re right.”

“Yes,” he said, attempting to be soothing but sounding closer to defensively indignant.

Hermione lifted her arm beneath the throw, drawing his eyes down to it. “Did you do this?”

“Yes,” Lucius said, curling back around her, his chest pressing against her back. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. 

Her body inflated with a yawn and she wriggled against him before relaxing further. Lucius slid a hand over her smooth skin, settling it across her soft stomach. 

Dipping his face into her curls, he inhaled her and allowed himself to relax into her, pulling her closer so that she could feel him against her.

“You should go,” she said. Even as she said the words, she ground back into him.

“That’s what you want is it?” Lucius asked, his lips against her ear. 

He ran his hand from her stomach up to her breasts, gently rubbing a thumb across a nipple. It hardened for him and he rolled it between his forefinger and thumb, pressing kisses into her back. A sleepy moan escaped her and she arched her back to rub herself more firmly against him. 

“Maybe in a couple of minutes,” she conceded.

“I’d like to think I’ll need longer than that.”

Hermione’s snicker broke off into a quiet gasp when he trailed his hand from her breasts down to between her legs. She parted her knees so that he could slip his hand between her thighs. The feeling of his release from earlier that night dried on her inner thighs made Lucius close his eyes, his cock giving an almost painful throb. 

His. She was his.

Both of them breathed heavily, the sound of it harsh and heated in the otherwise quiet room.

With the lightest touch, Lucius trailed the tip of his middle finger along her seam, feeling the slightest wetness beginning to gather. Hermione whined and squirmed, rolling her hips. 

Ever impatient, she placed one of her small hands over his, encouraging him to increase his pressure so that he slid between her folds and plunged into the wet heat of her.

A hiss escaped her as Lucius separated his fore and middle fingers to slide them up and down her inner folds, creating friction on either side of her clit, building her up. Nipping at her shoulder with his teeth, he shifted his hips forward so that his cock nudged at her entrance just as he finally swirled his forefinger around her clit.

“Oh g –” Hermione whimpered, gripping his wrist between her legs. “D – d’you think the silencing charm is still in place?”

“I’m not sure,” Lucius replied, his lips brushing her skin. “Do you think you can be quiet?”

He heard her swallow as he rocked his hips, his hardness sliding along the outside of her. “I – I’ll try.”

“Let me help.”

Removing his hand from between her legs, Lucius raised it to her face. A soft noise of understanding escaped her when he lightly brushed her own sticky arousal against her pouting lower lip. Her tongue hesitantly darted out to lick it away and then she opened her mouth to let him slide his fore and middle fingers inside.

Lucius felt her warm, shaky exhale around his fingers and pressed them flat on her tongue. After the briefest hesitation, she closed her lips around his fingers, breathing hard through her nose. 

The faint brush of her fingers against his cock between her legs made Lucius groan quietly.

“Take what you need,” he said, his voice little more than a grumble.

Hands trembling with desire, her responding moan muffled by his fingers, Hermione shifted her hips and positioned the blunt head of him at her entrance. More gentle than he ever thought her capable of being, she used her fingers to begin easing him inside her.

Lucius bit into her shoulder to muffle his moan of her name at the same time she bit down on his fingers, just hard enough for it to be painful. He found he didn’t really care, so pleasurable was the searingly hot, tight pull of her around him. 

With a great deal of effort, Lucius tried to stay still, allowing Hermione to rock herself back and down onto him, filling herself inch by inch. 

With each movement she made, he felt short, sharp bursts of air from her nose, the fingers he had pressed flat on her tongue stopping the soft whines in the back of her throat becoming anything more. 

When he was finally seated deep inside her, he rolled his hips and her mouth dropped open so that she could gasp in a deep breath around his fingers.

“You’re doing so well,” Lucius murmured, slowly drawing his spit-coated fingers from her mouth, dragging some of it down her chin. “Use the pillow if you need to.”

With his fingers free, he locked his forearm across her chest to hold her against him so that he could thrust into her more forcefully, pleased to feel her pushing back eagerly against him. A desperate moan escaped her and she turned her face into her pillow, stifling the rest of it.

Lucius lost himself in the rhythm of fucking her, listening to the accompanying smack of his flesh against hers, his grunts into her back and her suppressed whines and moans into her pillow. 

He could just about feel her starting to circle her clit, her hand sandwiched between her legs. She fluttered around him and grew even more wet, flooding him.

“You feel –” He tried to swallow a moan, turning it into a strangled growl. “Like you were made for me.”

Panting, Hermione turned her face away from her pillow to whisper, “Who said you weren’t made for me?”

“I came first,” he said irritably, snapping his hips against her. He hadn’t been looking for an argument.

“Try not to,” she replied before burrowing her face down again.

Lucius chuckled, the sound of it broken and strained. “Knees up.” He’d show her coming first.

Needing no more instruction, Hermione curled her knees up towards her chest and Lucius moved his arm from over her middle to wrap it around them. Securing her, he used his hold on her to bring her down onto him just as he thrust up. Hermione cried out, her hand flying up from between her legs to clap over her mouth. With her legs pulled up, the angle was just right for Lucius to brush repeatedly – relentlessly – against her sensitive front wall. 

Hand still clamped over her own mouth, Hermione tipped her head back, a muffled, guttural moan clawing its way out of her chest as she came fast and hard around him. 

Jaw clenched tight to the point of pain, Lucius continued to thrust through the suffocating pulses of her orgasm until he was struck by a white hot bolt of pleasure. He pressed his face into the silky skin of Hermione’s back, breathless and murmuring her name as he spilled himself inside her. 

When he finally loosened his hold on her, allowing her to lower her knees, she practically deflated, her body coming slowly to a heavy rest in his arms. She made a noise into her pillow which was audible to him but utterly incomprehensible.

“Are you alright?” Lucius asked, faintly concerned. He’d never seen her so docile.

She turned her face upwards to dreamily say, “I honestly have never been better.” Then she rolled onto her back to look up at him properly and, with greater firmness, said, “But you really should go this time.”

Lucius grumbled and groaned but did not otherwise resist shifting away from her intoxicating heat to rise unsteadily to his feet. The room was dim but Lucius was able to see well enough to move around the space, picking up his clothes.

Hermione sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees on to watch him pull on his trousers and Lucius kept his eyes fixed on her as he went through the motions of doing up his shirt and waistcoat and slipping his heavy robes back over his shoulders. 

She looked beautiful to him, her curls wild around her face and a tired but satisfied heaviness to her eyes. It took everything he had not to simply crawl back into her bed with her.

“Bye,” she said softly as he picked up his cane from her desk and turned to the door. 

“See you at breakfast,” he murmured before stepping into the quiet, empty corridor that would lead him to his decidedly less inviting bed.

"Hermione,

Thank you for last night. Both for distracting you know who and for being so understanding around, you know, all of that stuff. It’s sort of nice to know that I might have someone supportive to talk to if it ever turns into anything because Merlin knows Ron, Fred and George will be hard to convince. 

And it really might. Turn into something,  I mean. I'd warned Draco about my little fake outing with Lockhart but he was so bothered by it that I had a letter from him waiting for me when I got home insisting we have dinner together next week. In public. I’m going to do it, Hermione. After our conversation last night I think maybe I can give him this chance. So, wish me luck! 

I wonder how Ron, Fred and George will feel when I tell them Lockhart was a joke but Draco isn’t. Maybe they’ll be so relieved about the former, the latter won’t seem as bad. 

Speaking of Lockhart, I hope he didn’t get his claws back into you for the rest of the night. And I hope distracting Draco’s dad wasn’t too onerous a task. You’re a braver woman than me – honestly, some of the things dad has said about that man. I hope he’s not been awful to you. You seemed fine but if he has, tell me and I’ll try and get at him through his son. 

Anyway, I think we should meet up in London over Christmas. We have far too much to catch up on. I’ll try and rope Neville in if I can convince him to be parted from Wood for even a moment over this oh-so-romantic time of year. I’ve never seen him so keen, have you? 

Love, 

Ginny.”

“What are you smiling at?”

Hermione looked up from Ginny’s letter, blinking rapidly. She turned to Lucius and realised when she did that there was, indeed, a small smile playing about her lips. Passing her the salt, Lucius flicked his eyes down at the letter.

“Hm?” he prompted.

“It’s Ginny,” Hermione said, folding the letter neatly to slide it into her satchel. “Just checking in after last night.”

“May I read it?”

Hermione straightened up in her seat and shot him a knowing smile. His face was placid but she could feel the insistent curiosity emanating from him. 

“While I very much appreciate that you asked so nicely,” Hermione said lightly, “I am going to say no. I think it’s best if you don’t.”

“Why?” Lucius asked, his mouth forming a thin line.

“You should get to know her on your own terms,” Hermione explained primly, shaking some salt into her porridge. “Not by snooping at her letters to me.”

“I do not snoop –”

“And where did you both sneak off to last night?”

Hermione yelped, dropping the salt shaker, and Lucius jerked his arm, sending tea sloshing onto the breakfast table. 

They both turned at the same time to see Horace Slughorn looming over them, his hands on the backs of each of their chairs. His face had an unusually schoolmasterly sternness to it and his eyes flicked back and forth between them.

“Hm?”

Hermione glanced swiftly at Lucius then back up to Horace, whose eyebrows were raised expectantly. “We were – I was – he – I –”

Hermione could feel Lucius staring at the side of her face incredulously, willing her to shut up. So she did, clenching her jaw tight but not tight enough to stop a pathetic wheezing noise leaking from somewhere in the middle of her throat.

“Whatever do you mean Horace?” Lucius asked smoothly, as though Hermione had not just babbled her way through four unfinished attempts at an explanation. 

“I mean that halfway through the night, I noticed that two of my most interesting conversationalists were nowhere to be found,” Horace exclaimed. “Lucius, I desperately needed your assistance in an argument over Scrimgeour’s recent announcement. And Hermione –” Horace turned his most aggrieved expression on her. “Gilderoy was quite bereft when he couldn’t find you! Said he didn’t get anything of value out of you and I told him that was quite unthinkable to me as –”

“I was sick!” Hermione squeaked.

Under the table, Lucius kicked the side of Hermione’s foot. “And I walked her to her room,” he added. “To ensure her safety. She was quite faint.”

Horace’s expression crumpled into one of sympathy and he placed one of his large hands on the top of Hermione’s head, flattening her hair and making her blink. 

“Oh, my dear,” he said, his tone dropping into a hush. “I am so sorry and here I am telling you off. You must think me an insensitive beast. It wasn’t the quiche, was it? I’ve had a dicky tummy myself with that recipe and I wasn’t sure if I should even serve it again if –

“No, Horace,” she hurriedly assured him. “No. I was fine in the end. Thank you for your concern. Mr Malfoy took good care of me.” She gave Slughorn a brave little smile, her eyes very briefly darting to glimpse Lucius’ raised eyebrows. “Made sure I was safe.”

“I did,” Lucius said slowly. “I didn’t think it right to abandon her in a… time of need.”

“Good man,” was Slughorn’s bracing reply, his other hand coming down to clap Lucius on the shoulder. “Well, next time do at least try to tell me you’re leaving, won’t you? It made me look like I don’t have control of my guest list!”

Both Lucius and Hermione assured Horace they would indeed do him that basic courtesy, adopting sufficiently penitent expressions to satisfy him.

As Horace moved away to pull out his seat, Lucius leaned into Hermione. “Good care, was it?” he murmured.

“Exemplary,” Hermione said, dipping her spoon into her porridge and raising it to her lips. “I’ve never been so well cared for in my life.”

Smiling, Hermione clamped her lips around her spoon and raised her eyebrows at Lucius who did nothing but look back at her, an amused tremble around the corners of his mouth and an extremely smug gleam in his eyes.

December 13th

“So, Muggles fly inside.”

The sound of Lucius’ voice jolted Hermione out of her focus on her third year essay plans. Blinking rapidly at the paragraph outline in front of her, she raised her head to find him seated behind a desk towards the back of the class staring at her expectantly. 

It was one of her free periods but, rather than leave her alone to work during it as he once might have, Lucius had opted to spend it in her company.

“I’m…sorry?”

Sighing, Lucius held up a textbook that his determination to avoid boredom had driven him to flick through while they awaited the arrival of her fourth years. Squinting, Hermione saw that he was looking at a chapter on aeroplanes. 

“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows rising. “Yes. They do, in a sense.” 

Lucius lowered the textbook to the desk again and stared at the picture for a few seconds before he said, “Warmer, I suppose.” 

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, clasping her hands in front of her. “I vastly prefer Muggle air travel to using a broom, even with all the rigmarole around it.”

“Rigmarole,” Lucius repeated slowly, asking a question without actually asking it. 

“Oh.” Hermione waved a dismissive hand. “Just airports, security checks, waiting for your luggage. D’you know, I’m not sure there’s a completely flawless method of travel in the wizarding or Muggle worlds. They all have their issues.”

Lucius made a humming sound that Hermione understood to be a false display of understanding used to stop her from talking about any more things he found uninteresting. 

“Why are there so many chairs in it?” he asked.

“The textbook will be showing a commercial plane,” Hermione explained, looking back down at the essay plan to scribble a suggestion to swap paragraphs three and four. “They vary in size – some carry tens of people, some carry hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” Hermione glanced up again just in time to see Lucius grimace with distaste. “Can’t they carry just one person?”

Tilting her head, a small smile quirking at the corner of her mouth, Hermione said, “Well, there are private jets if you’re incredibly wealthy. “

“Private jets,” Lucius murmured, tapping a finger on the textbook. “How does one get one of those?”

“Of course you’d want –” Half laughing, half scoffing, Hermione shook her head. “I don’t even know, Lucius. You can’t just pop down the high street and pick one up at the supermarket and that’s sort of the extent of my shopping experience in the Muggle world.”

“So you’ve never flown in one?”

“I’ve flown in a plane,” Hermione assured him. “But I’ve certainly not flown in a private jet.”

There was a small window of silence in which Hermione was able to resume reading until Lucius asked, “Where did you go? When you flew?”

“France,” Hermione replied distractedly, underscoring a flawed argument. “With my parents.” 

“You visit France often?”

Shrugging, Hermione peered up at him from beneath her brow. “A few times,” she said, surprised to find his expression genuinely interested. “We went skiing a couple of years ago.” 

“Skiing,” he repeated flatly. 

“Yes.” Hermione set down the essay plan, realising that Lucius was in an unusually curious mood and was not to be denied answers. “It’s a Muggle sport. A snow sport. You sort of…” She swiped a hand in the air like she was drawing a straight line. “Put long planks on your feet and slide down a snowy mountain.”

Lucius stared at her, horrified. “What is your fascination with being freezing cold?” he asked.

Shoulders jumping up with a short laugh, Hermione said, “It’s fun!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Lucius muttered, closing the textbook with a heavy thump so that he could give her his full attention as she had given him hers. “Do you speak French?”

“A tiny bit.” Enough not to humiliate herself in a restaurant, at least.

A curiously pleased expression passed over Lucius' face. “I could take you to the chateau, then,” he said. “The elves there don’t speak a lick of English. I’ll confess, I prefer them.”

“The chateau.” This time, it was Hermione’s turn to ask a question by means of flat repetition. 

“Yes,” Lucius said, leaning back in his chair with an unusual air of fond reminiscence. “We have one in Provence. It’s been some time since I last visited. Not since before…” 

His nostalgic smile faltered and faded to be replaced with something altogether more sad. Eyes sliding to Hermione’s, he offered her a tight smile in response to her concerned frown. 

“Well, not in some time,” he finally said. “It might be pleasant.” 

It might be pleasant. Hermione blinked a few times, trying to imagine going anywhere outside of Hogwarts with Lucius, never mind a chateau in the south of bloody France. 

“I…” she began weakly. “Well, I’m sure it would be. Would you like to fly?”

“Certainly not,” Lucius said, frowning. “We have a specific multi-use portkey.”

“Ah.” Hermione smiled bemusedly and nodded. “But of course.”

Hesitating for just a moment under Lucius’ thoughtful, quiet observance of her, Hermione dropped her gaze and returned to her work, not entirely sure what to say.

A sharp screech signalled Lucius rising from his seat and Hermione was just about aware of the click of his shoes as he moved around the room.

“What do you wear in the summer?” Lucius asked abruptly.

“I –” Hermione frowned, struggling to take in the question and read at the same time. Raising her head, she looked around to find that Lucius had crossed the room to study some of the items on the shelves that lined the far wall. “What do you mean what do I wear?”

Hands clasped behind his back, Lucius half-turned to look at her over his shoulder. 

“Well, I assume you don’t wear cooled robes given your apparent aversion to wizarding attire,” he said. “But I can’t imagine…” Unclasping his hands, he waved a hand vaguely in the direction of her thick jumper. “This is suitable in any kind of heat.”

“So, you mean what Muggle clothes do I wear?” Hermione asked. “In the summer?”

Lucius nodded and, smiling to herself, Hermione returned to checking her essay plans. 

“Things that would utterly scandalise you, I’m sure,” she said quietly.

There was a long pause and then Hermione heard Lucius say, as much to himself as to her, “Yes, I think I’ll take you to the chateau. At some point.”

Hermione giggled and fractionally lowered her paper to watch him inspect a Rubik’s Cube with mistrustful eyes before she returned to what she was doing, a smile still playing around her lips.

She’d been pleasantly surprised by how her relationship with Lucius had shifted in the small number of days since the night they’d spent together. He’d pleasantly surprised her.

She wasn’t entirely sure what they were but what she did know was that whatever it was came with a feeling of unexpected ease. Of mutual understanding. For the first time in, well, perhaps ever actually, Hermione felt at peace around Lucius Malfoy. 

They’d seen all of one another and decided that, yes, actually, they quite liked it. Every successive conversation they had felt more comfortable than the last and Hermione was starting to find that, even when she was talking to Lucius about essentially nothing, she very much enjoyed his company. Even when he annoyed her, which he did often, with varying degrees of deliberateness.

A gentle clunk at the front of her desk accompanied by Lucius asking “What is this?” made Hermione jump and glance up. He’d deposited the Rubik’s Cube in front of her and was looking at her expectantly. 

He’d never been so curious and it was hard not to indulge him.

“It’s a Rubik’s Cube,” Hermione said simply.

Lucius’ brow flattened and he pursed his lips. “Do better, Professor Granger,” he chided. “That was an insufficient explanation and you know it.”

Hermione smiled, her eyes flicking up in a mock roll. 

“Apologies, Governor Malfoy. It’s a three-dimensional puzzle,” she explained. “You sort of –” 

Reaching across the desk, Hermione picked it up and twisted it a few times to show him how it moved. 

“You want each face to have one colour. It’s supposed to be difficult.” 

“For Muggles.” Lucius reached out and took the puzzle back. Without another word he walked away with it, seated himself behind a desk one row back and began working on it. 

The simple sight sent an unexpected surge of affection through Hermione but, not really knowing what to do with it, she cleared her throat and returned to her work. 

In what felt like very little time, though it had surely been most of the period, Hermione’s attention was drawn upwards again by the sound of Lucius dropping the Rubik’s Cube back on her desk with far less care than he had the first time.  

“I hate this.”

Snorting out a laugh, Hermione glanced up at him fondly and then reached out to inspect the cube. Blinking, she turned it in her hands a few times. 

“What?” Lucius asked sulkily.

“You nearly got two layers down,” Hermione replied, her eyebrows raised.

“Is that good?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not bad, Lucius.” She turned the cube again, her head tilted contemplatively. “It’s odd how attractive I find it that you’ve done this.”

“This,” Lucius said, flatly incredulous. “This is the kind of thing that impresses you? An incomplete puzzle?”

Hermione shrugged and set the Rubik’s Cube down, raising her eyes to his. What she liked was that he’d tried but she rather thought he would detest hearing that. Lucius Malfoy, Hermione suspected, valued succeeding somewhat more than merely trying.

“I did think you were rather cold on the chateau,” he said, an undercurrent of judgement to his tone. “Now I understand why."

“Don’t get me wrong, the chateau is lovely,” Hermione assured him earnestly. “I’d love to see it. But I think I’d like to hear more generally about the times you’ve spent in France even more.” 

Pinning her lower lip between her teeth, she eyed him shyly for a moment before returning to her reading. 

“To be honest, Lucius,” she added quietly, “to me, your galleons and possessions are the least interesting things about you.”

The drawn out silence she received in response to what she’d said made Hermione peer up nervously. She found Lucius simply staring at her, a small frown between his brows. 

“What?” she asked uncertainly. “I didn’t mean it badly.”

“No,” Lucius said. “I know.” Clearing his throat, he turned to look at the clock on the far wall. “Your fourth years arrive in five minutes.”

Following his gaze, Hermione straightened up. "Yes," she murmured, hurriedly shuffling her papers together. "I should – I'll get ready." 

December 16th 

“Have you seen this?” Neville asked, his voice high with surprise. 

Hermione lowered her Muggle newspaper to find Neville poring over the Daily Prophet’s gossip pages. Usually she would roll her eyes and dismiss it as nonsense but this time Hermione’s attention was seized by the large moving picture at the very centre of the page. 

It featured Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy. They were leaving a restaurant in Diagon Alley together, both of them huddled under a single enchanted umbrella while rain pelted the cobbles around them.

“Oh,” Hermione said, her eyes lingering on the way Draco’s arm wrapped around Ginny’s waist to pull her tightly to his side and more fully under the protection of the floating umbrella.

Apparently unperturbed by the closeness, Ginny was grinning and telling what appeared to be an animated story. Draco was laughing. Hermione blinked. He was actually laughing. Not jeering. Not sneering.

Beneath the picture was a caption, reading, “Love in the air? Wimbourne Wasps seeker and heir to the Malfoy fortune, Draco Malfoy, was spotted enjoying a cosy meal in Diagon Alley this week with star chaser of the Holyhead Harpies, Ginny Weasley. This should make their next match an interesting watch.”

“She hasn’t mentioned this in a single letter,” Neville said, sounding disbelieving. “Not one!”

“No?” Hermione asked, pulling the paper away from Neville so that she could read the brief article surrounding the picture. 

It was filled with nothing but suggestive conjecture, puns about chasing and seeking and suggestions that, after her brief fling with Lockhart, Ginny Weasley either had a thing for blondes or deep pockets. 

“I have half a mind to send her a Howler for hiding something like this,” Neville said. “I only saw her last week at Slughorn’s! I mean – Malfoy. I wouldn’t have thought she’d want –”

“She looks happy, though, doesn’t she?” Hermione said, glancing up at him. 

Neville stared down at Ginny’s grinning face just as she raised a hand to rest it on Malfoy’s chest. 

“Yeah,” Neville said slowly, his eyes darting up to Hermione’s. They were searching, like he was looking for a trace of the more negative, or at least surprised, reaction he’d obviously expected from her. “I mean…I guess… maybe he’s different now? Grown up a bit. He wrote to you that time for advice, I s'pose.”

“Maybe,” Hermione murmured, her eyes drifting back to Draco’s face. She could see Lucius in the creases at the corners of his eyes and in the way he clearly laughed from his chest. It was disconcerting.

“You’re getting on well enough with his dad these days, I s’pose,” Neville said, reaching across Hermione for a slice of toast as she stiffened guiltily. “Did I miss some kind of memo on the Malfoys?”

Choosing that moment to snatch up a slice of toast herself and take an overly large bite, Hermione merely mumbled something deliberately incomprehensible.

“I’ll write to her and find out what’s what,” Neville said, nodding as much to himself as to Hermione. “Can’t trust a thing we see in this paper; not after all that tosh they wrote about her ‘hugely successful date’ with Lockhart at the Witch Weekly Awards. She could be up to anything.”

“Yep, yes, great idea,” Hermione said, having finally swallowed the bite of toast that she’d chewed into an unappetising mush. 

It was not her place, she knew, to reveal information to Neville that Ginny had not revealed herself. If she wanted to have her own secrets, she felt it was only fair that she respect the secrets of others.

“Anyway, are you coming to the match this morning?” Neville asked. “Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Oliver said Ravenclaw’s captain is going to end up being signed at the end of the school year, so she’s always worth a watch.”

Offering Neville a weak smile, Hermione shook her head. “Oh, no. Thanks though, Neville. I’m just going to head to the library. Mark some of my last essays.”

“On your own?” Neville asked, eyeing her with a concerned frown. “Sure you wouldn’t prefer to sack that and pass the morning in some company?”

“Not on my own,” Hermione said, dropping Neville’s gaze to pour some milk into her coffee. “Malfoy is going to be doing some work and he asked me if I’d, y’know, tag along.”

“Uh huh,” Neville said, watching Hermione stir her coffee with enough determination to create a small whirlpool in the centre of the cup. “He did, did he?”

“Yep,” Hermione said a touch too brightly, lifting the cup to her lips. 

“And he walked you back from your swim yesterday morning, didn’t he?”

Hermione hummed, her mouth tactically full of hot liquid. He’d walked her to her swim as well but she didn’t mention that.

Neville uttered a hum of his own in response, though it was a far more cynical sound and accompanied by narrowed eyes. 

“Me and you are going for a drink soon,” he said. “For a chat.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione replied, lowering her cup. “Are we going for a drink or a chat?”

“Both,” Neville said firmly, pushing himself to his feet. “In the meantime, find out if he has any inside information on Ginny and his son. We need to be using our sources.”

“Enjoy the match,” Hermione called weakly, returning Neville’s cheerful wave as he joined the flood of students streaming out of the hall. 

Hiding things from Neville was far from pleasant but Hermione tried to comfort herself with the idea that it wasn’t forever. It wasn’t long until Lucius was no longer inspecting her classes – until he was out of the castle entirely – and then, she thought, she might be able to open up to Neville at least a little bit. 

It was just as Hermione was trying to imagine how, exactly, Neville might react to the news that she’d slept with Lucius that Lucius himself strode into the hall. With most of the students already at the quidditch pitch or on their way down to it, he strolled easily through the gaps between the tables and Hermione smiled to see his approach. 

“Is there any particular reason,” Lucius asked her as he descended into his seat, “for the fact that Longbottom just stared at me like he was trying to get a good look at my insides when I passed him in the Entrance Hall?”

“He’s noticed that we’re spending a little more time together,” Hermione replied, passing Lucius the milk for his tea. “And enjoying it.”

“I see.” A shallow frown formed on Lucius’ brow in response to Hermione’s obvious agitation as he accepted the milk jug. 

Pouring the milk, he cast her a sidelong look. "Do you trust him, Hermione?"

"He’s my best friend," was Hermione's firm response. 

"I’m afraid titles like that don’t mean much to me," Lucius said, looking at her properly. "Do you trust him? Has he ever given you a reason not to?"

Hermione frowned, shifting under the severity of his gaze. "Well…no," she said, shaking her head. "He’s always been Neville. Kind. Loyal. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person less self-serving than him."

"Then, if it would make you feel more comfortable," Lucius said, delicately stirring his tea, "why not tell him?"

There was a beat before Hermione asked, "About us?"

"No," Lucius said, rolling his eyes, "about the recent surge in property prices at the very edge of Hogsmeade. Yes, about us."

"But term is still going," Hermione pointed out, bewildered. "And we’re supposed to be careful."

“There’s less than a week of term left,” Lucius replied. “And you trust him not to use it against you.” 

Lips parted, Hermione hesitated, watching Lucius set his teaspoon down carefully.  

“Do you want me to tell him?” she eventually asked.

Apparently in no hurry to answer her, Lucius raised his cup to his lips and savoured his first sip of the day. “What I want has nothing to do with it,” he finally said, returning the cup to its saucer.

Hermione frowned and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her middle. “I mean, that’s not strictly true, is it?” she said. “You’re involved. You’re fifty percent of what there is to tell.”

“Hermione, if I want anything, it is for you to feel comfortable.”

"Why?"

He cast her an incredulous look. "I suppose I’m just an eccentric."

"I just meant –"

"I know what you meant," he said, waving a dismissive hand.

Sighing through his nose, Lucius turned to her and fixed her with a severe expression.

"I have no wish to become a source of further isolation for you," he said. "I am not pursuing this with ill intent or with my eyes closed. In a week, I will leave this castle and I will only ever be back on occasion in my capacity as governor. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish to ever see you again. In fact, I would prefer that you did not come to associate spending time with me with lying to your closest friend." His eyes flicked back and forth between hers, like he wanted to be sure she was understanding him. "That's the kind of thing I don’t think would sit comfortably with you and I doubt I would fare well out of it."

Realising that her mouth had fallen open slightly, Hermione closed it and swallowed. "That’s…I see."

"Right now," Lucius continued in a businesslike tone, "our involvement is…optically suboptimal. A potential conflict of interest given I alone was tasked with inspecting you." 

"I’d say your early determination to get rid of Muggle Studies was a conflict of bloody interest too, y’know," Hermione muttered darkly. “You’ve never exactly been an impartial party in this.”

"Fair," was Lucius' light, unaffected response. "My point is, it’s not actually against any written rules for an individual governor to have a personal or even intimate relationship with a professor. Our day-to-day involvement in the school is minimal and we work on a majority voting system for most major decisions. Eventually, it won’t be that big an issue if our involvement ever does come to light. Particularly if we make it seem like it all started afterwards, outside the bounds of the school."

Lucius turned away to pull a plate of toast towards himself and select a slice. 

"You don’t actually need to outrightly lie very often if you’re willing to take advantage of the flexibility of the truth."

"Oh."

"So,” Lucius said, with an air of closing a discussion, “tell Longbottom if it eases your conscience and you trust him enough to keep his mouth shut for a while."

Hermione was just opening her mouth to ask Lucius if he ever intended to tell anyone about them when he spied the Daily Prophet gossip pages she’d uncovered by sitting back. 

“Ah,” Lucius said, his eyes locking onto the picture of Draco and Ginny.  

Sitting up, her arms unfolding, Hermione glanced between Lucius and the paper. “You hadn’t seen –”

“No,” Lucius said, looking away from the paper with a self-denying air. “Though Draco did warn me that there might be something. I’d rather not look at it.” 

Hermione was just moving to close the paper with the intention of sliding it away when Lucius thrust his hand towards her, crooking his fingers. “Give me it,” he said, his eyes closed and his face resigned.  

They were silent while Lucius set the paper in front of himself and flicked the page back over to Draco and Ginny. 

He smoothed the sheets and said nothing as he read, though Hermione noted a tightening of his clenched fist and wondered if he had, perhaps, reached the unfounded speculation about Ginny’s potential penchant for deep pockets.

“He looks happy,” Hermione offered quietly as she had to Neville when the silence persisted.

Lucius’ jaw clenched and he cleared his throat, raising his eyes from the paper to hers. “He does.”

Glancing back at the paper, Lucius frowned and added, “Though I told him I’m not happy that he’s taken her out in public before I’ve been formally introduced to her. It’s not the traditional way.”

“I suspect this might have been his knee-jerk reaction to thinking Lockhart had a chance with her,” Hermione explained, recalling Ginny’s letter. “I’d hazard a guess at a desire to stake some kind of claim.”

“Foolish boy,” Lucius muttered, pushing the paper to the side so that he could finally butter his toast. 

“Yes, such a petulant, possessive response,” Hermione said dryly. “Can’t imagine where he got that tendency.”

There was a highly sarcastic ‘haha’ in the curl of Lucius’ lip but he opted to take a bite of toast rather than voice it. As he slowly chewed, his eyes drifted back to the picture. 

“Do you think any children they have are more likely to have red or blonde hair?” he eventually asked thoughtfully.

Hermione waited for him to offer some indication that he was joking but when it did not come she asked, “Are you…honestly thinking about that? Is that a genuine concern for you?”

With a tired sigh, Lucius sharply flicked a page of the paper over to hide the picture of Draco and Ginny from view. “I am a man with many concerns, Hermione.”

“You’re concerning as much as anything,” Hermione muttered. “Anyway, hurry up.” She made a shooing motion at him and bent to adjust her satchel, lifting the strap into her lap. “If we’re going to get to the library and make the most of the match-time quiet then we’ll need to move soon.”

Lucius stared at her, his half-eaten slice of toast pinched between his fingers. “You truly want to go to the library?”

“Of course,” Hermione said, shrugging in a way that asked him what was so wrong with that. “You said you were going and I have work to do too.” 

The incredulous look on Lucius’ face made Hermione hesitate, her shoulders rising defensively. “What?”

“The school is just about empty,” Lucius said slowly, like he was explaining something to a simpleton. “We have time alone. Hours alone. And you want to go to the library?”

“Yes!” Hermione exclaimed.

Hermione and Lucius strolled along a long, deserted corridor in the direction of the library. On Lucius’ side, the stone wall was lined with windows which allowed the strong winter sun to stream through, bathing them in its warmth. 

It made Hermione uncomfortably hot under her thick woollen jumper and she puffed out some air to blow her fringe off her perspiring forehead.

“You’re being very quiet,” she observed.

Receiving no response, she turned her head to look up at Lucius, squinting against the bright light and raising a hand to shield her eyes. “Why?”

“I suppose it’s just all the excitement of going to the library,” Lucius finally murmured, his eyes fixed straight ahead. “I’m beside myself. Can’t imagine anything else I’d rather be doing.”

Tutting, Hermione dropped her hand and twisted her neck to peer up and down the corridor. Her eyes ran down the many doors that ran along her side opposite the windows, ensuring they were all closed. 

“We had sex only last night,” she hissed at him. “It’s not even been twelve hours.”

“Yes, you don’t need to remind me,” Lucius drawled, shooting her a knowing look out of the corners of his eyes. “I remember it all quite well.”

So did Hermione. 

She’d snuck, disillusioned, along the fourth four corridor to his room in the early hours. She had only closed Lucius' door behind her when he’d torn her dressing gown from around her shoulders and bent her over the side of his bed. 

At one point Lucius had withdrawn from her to push her into a more comfortable position on her knees and, picking through the lust-hazed memories of the night, Hermione was fairly sure she could recall herself petulantly demanding that he “put it back”. ‘It’ being his cock.

At the time, it’d felt natural. In fact, Lucius had complied with enough enthusiasm to knock her elbows out from under her and flatten her to the bed. In the bright daylight of the castle corridors, however, the memory struck Hermione as utterly depraved and her cheeks burned impossibly hot.

“I need to mark my final essays of the term at some point,” she murmured, suddenly very interested in her own feet. “The students will want them back before we leave for the holidays.”

“I’m sure they’ve all been clamouring at your door,” Lucius said dryly. “Every corner we’ve turned this morning I’ve expected one of them to accost us, demanding that you grade them then and there. Third years are notoriously ravenous for feedback like that.”

“I was.”

“Of course you were.”

“Just because you’re not actively trying to get me fired anymore doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to rest on my laurels,” Hermione snapped. “I take my responsibilities seriously, thank you. As much as I’d love to sneak away with you –  and you know I would – I just think – ”

Without warning, Lucius stopped walking and Hermione stumbled with surprise, turning to look back at him. 

“What?” she asked, some of her irritation giving way to apprehension as she eyed the way he stood stock still in the middle of the corridor. “What is it? Why did you stop?”

“Did you hear that?” Lucius asked, a very faint frown wrinkling his brow. 

“I didn’t hear any –”

“Sssh.” 

Lucius slightly raised his cane to request quiet and, heart thudding, Hermione peered around the corridor. There was no one. No sound at all apart from the twitter of a bird on the sill of one of the windows.

“Lucius, there isn’t anything. You’re being –”

“Peeves,” Lucius said quietly.

“What?”

Marching over to her, Lucius grasped Hermione by her upper arm and dragged her a few steps down the corridor. 

“Peeves.”

“I can’t hear him,” Hermione yelped, staggering under the force of Lucius’ insistent hand. “What are you –”

Lucius released her arm to open one of the doors that lined the long corridor and then, offering her a quick, sardonic smile, shoved her over the threshold. 

Hermione could do nothing but squawk Lucius’ name, stumbling backwards into what she quickly discovered was a broom cupboard. Her satchel slipped from her shoulder, landing with a heavy thump on the stone floor.

She only had time to glimpse some mops and a couple of metal pails before Lucius had stepped in after her and closed the door, plunging them into near-darkness.

“You bloody prat,” Hermione hissed, blinking against the darkness and half-crouching to search for the strap of her satchel. “I didn’t hear Peeves at all there.”

A heavy clank accompanied Lucius pulling the latch of the cupboard door down tight and, squinting through the dim, Hermione thought she saw the outline of his cane dangling from the circular metal handle. 

Clenching her hands into fists, Hermione straightened up and closed the space between herself and the large shadow that was Lucius, only stumbling over one mop in the process.

“Open the bloody door,” she insisted, looking up into the dark space where she knew his face was. “Peeves was not out there.”

“Yes he was.”

“No,” Hermione replied through gritted teeth. “He was not.”

“Do you really want to take the risk, Hermione?” came Lucius’ smooth voice. She could practically hear the smug little smirk he was undoubtedly wearing.

“What is this?” she demanded, crossing her arms. “What are you up to?”

“Call it payback,” Lucius said, reaching through the dark to fist a hand into her thick jumper and pull her into him. 

Bewildered, disorientated, Hermione felt herself being turned in the dark and closed her eyes tight until her back thudded against the wooden door. A sharp puff of air was knocked out of her and she clutched at the wrist of the hand Lucius still had fisted in her jumper.

“Payback?” she asked breathlessly. “For what?”

Releasing her jumper, Lucius ran his hand down her waist, stroking the slope of it through the wool. Hermione swallowed hard, her body immediately alert to the increasingly familiar intimacy of his touch. 

“A very similar stunt that you pulled on me,” Lucius said, hooking his thumb under the bottom of her jumper to run the pad of it gently along the smooth skin of her stomach, just above the waistband of her jeans.

“That…” Hermione squirmed but canted her hips into his touch. “That was quite a long time ago.” Lucius dipped his face towards hers and Hermione felt the soft brush of his breath across her lips. “And Peeves actually was there!”

“Well, he’s there this time,” was Lucius’ light reply before he dropped a soft kiss on the corner of Hermione’s mouth. “So maybe we can call it returning a favour, then.”

She parted her lips, her head just inching off the door in search of more. While his right hand continued to explore the waistband of her jeans, Lucius slid his left hand up into her hair. Cupping the back of her neck to hold her still, he kissed her properly. 

“He is not there,” Hermione mumbled against his lips.

“Prove it.” Lucius began kissing his way along her cheek and down to her jaw. 

“You know I bloody can’t you –” 

Hermione gasped at the feeling of Lucius pushing her jumper up, his large, warm hand working its way up her abdomen. 

“You pushed me into a sodding broom cupboard and you won’t let me –” 

He hooked his fingers into the cup of her bra and yanked it down so that he could cup her bare breast in his large hand. 

“Out,” Hermione bleated pathetically as he rolled her nipple between forefinger and thumb. 

“I’ll let you out if you really want me to,” Lucius mumbled into her neck. “I mean it, Hermione. If you tell me to let you out right now, I will.”

Eyes closed, her head dropping back against the door, Hermione panted, overwhelmed by the sinful combination of his lips against her neck and his hand on her breast. 

“Tell me to let you out.”

All the things she’d hated about being stuck under him in the broom cupboard the first time made it intensely erotic this time. In the darkness he was everywhere. All around her. Pressed against her. Everything was heightened.

“I don’t want out,” she breathed.

“Are you sure?”

Lucius withdrew his hand from her breast, allowing her jumper to fall down over her body, though her bra remained in uncomfortable disarray, the strap dangling down her arm inside her sleeve. 

“Yes,” Hermione said.

“Absolutely certain?”

He removed his lips from her neck and straightened up to look down at where he knew her face to be.

“You went to this much bloody trouble, Lucius,” Hermione snapped, missing his touch. “Just accept it!”

Placing both of his hands on her hips, Lucius roughly pulled her from the door and turned her. Hermione pressed her forearms against the wood, her palms flat and looked curiously over her shoulder despite not being able to see anything clearly. 

With searching hands, Lucius patted at her backside and made a noise of satisfaction when he touched the narrow outline of her wand sticking out of her pocket. He slid it free and used it to cast a silencing charm before tucking it safely into the pocket of his robes.

“You’re unbelievable, y’know,” Hermione murmured, her eyes closing and her forehead resting against the door as she allowed him to explore her body. “Not even twelve hours.”

He eased his hands beneath her jumper and up her back to unhook her bra so that it popped away from her chest and dangled from her arms. Lucius kept his palms flat against her as he slid them around to cup her breasts, pressing the length of his body along her back. 

“It’s not my fault these Muggle trousers leave so little to the imagination,” Lucius muttered against her ear through her hair, pinching her nipple and tugging it sharply like he was reprimanding her. 

Pushing her forearms against the door, Hermione ground herself back into him, earning herself a groan. His hands left her breasts and dropped to her hips in a tight grip, pulling her backside against his pelvis so tightly that she could feel his hardness.

“Does that mean you like them?” Hermione asked, pressing her forehead harder against the door.

Lucius wrapped his arms around her and roughly undid the button of her jeans, the sound of the zip lowering causing a sharp thrill to shoot through Hermione. 

“No,” Lucius responded through gritted teeth, struggling to push the tight denim over her hips along with her knickers. “If you were wearing robes I’d have them off already.”

Laughing, Hermione wiggled her hips to help him and within a few seconds her jeans had been unceremoniously shoved down to her knees. Lucius straightened up, running his hands up the sides of her thighs as he went. Eyes closed, Hermione shivered in response to the reverential touch. 

He dragged his hands up over her hips to briefly squeeze her waist before his fingers began dancing a path down her stomach. When he reached her mons, Hermione parted her legs as much as her restrictive jeans would allow. The cupboard was so quiet as Lucius inched towards her centre that Hermione was fairly sure they were both holding their breath. 

The moment the fingers of his right hand nudged between her folds, they groaned in unison and Hermione felt the weight of Lucius dropping his head onto her shoulder. He patiently, quietly worked at her clit, building her up until his fingers made a frankly indecent sound when he finally slid them into her.

“Have you always gotten this wet,” he asked, his voice unusually rough, “or is it just for me?”

“I was thinking of finally getting to the library actually,” Hermione said, her attempt to be spiky somewhat ruined by how husky she sounded. “I should dry up any minute now.”

“Cheek, Hermione.” As though it was some kind of punishment, Lucius traced a feather soft circle around her clit, pulling a whimper from her.

One hand continuing to caress between her legs, Lucius brought the other around to undo the fastening of his trousers. Within an impatient grunt and a rustle of fabric, Hermione felt the hot, insistent hardness of him against her and curled her hands that were flat against the door into fists. 

Pinning her lower lip between her teeth, she rolled herself onto her tiptoes and arched her lower back to make it easier for Lucius to stoop and align himself at her entrance. Unable to see, he slid himself along her a few times, moving back and forth with a teasing slowness until Hermione moved her hand between her legs to help him.

A soft, relieved “oh,” escaped Hermione when he started to ease into her, stretching her.

Lucius crossed an arm diagonally across her middle to hold her tight to his chest and dropped his face into the crook of her neck. He continued to swirl a finger teasingly over her clit and Hermione made a desperate noise, pushing herself back against him to fill herself faster.

The sound of him groaning her name filled Hermione with need and she rocked against him with more purpose, finally taking him to the hilt.

Lucius seemed content to let her set the pace and rhythm for a time, rolling his hips with hers while he was more focused on stroking circles around her clit.

The pleasure escalated steadily and Hermione’s mewls and moans became more frequent until they were almost constant. A fluttering started in her core and she clenched herself around Lucius, unable to find the words to tell him she was growing close. 

Needing more, Hermione dropped one arm from the door and reached haphazardly behind her to grip at his hip, her fingers sinking into his skin. Just a little more force. That was all. 

“What do you need, Hermione?” Lucius asked, voice muffled by her hair. “Tell me.”

“Harder,” she whispered. 

Requiring no more prompting than that, Lucius snapped his hips, pushing a noise of strangled relief out of Hermione.

“Like that?”

"Yes!"

He started to thrust faster and Hermione swore as her head bumped against the door. Lucius half laughed, half groaned and told her to turn her cheek to the wood which she immediately did, telling him to stop laughing while laughing herself.

Tightening his arm around her middle, Lucius moved his hand from her breast up over her jumper to her neck. The tips of his four fingers came to rest on one side of her throat, cradling it, while his thumb settled over her pulse, pressing gently against the erratic thrum.

The finger circling her clit became more insistent and Hermione whined and swallowed, feeling the delicate skin of her neck jump against Lucius’ palm. 

He squeezed briefly, gently, like he wanted to repeat the sensation and Hermione brought a hand to wrap it around his wrist, silently telling him to keep doing it.

Hermione heard Lucius growl in response, his mouth just at the shell of her ear. “Are you going to come, Hermione?”

The air in the cupboard was thick with desire. The scent of it. The sound of it. She was drowning in it.

“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking. “God, yes, I –”

“That’s it,” Lucius encouraged. “Let me hear you.”

“Keep it there –”

“I will.”

And he did.

Hermione cried out his name, the tips of her toes pressing down even harder in her trainers as her orgasm crashed over her in a single, enormous wave.

She was grateful for Lucius’ arm supporting her, her legs trembling and unsteady while he chased his own finish with brutal thrusts that pushed soft pants out of her. 

Lucius released her neck and pulled her back as tightly against his chest as possible. Hermione whimpered when she felt him pulse inside her, making a delicate tremor run down her body.

They caught their breath, Hermione leaning the whole side of her face against the door while Lucius kept his arms wrapped around her and pressed his face into her jumper at the curve of her shoulder. 

The feeling of him softening and slipping out of her brought Hermione back into herself and she uttered a quiet noise of discomfort. 

With a tut, Lucius brought a hand between her legs. "Now, Hermione, just because we're in a broom cupboard doesn't mean you can make a mess."

A whimper left Hermione when she felt Lucius' fingers at her entrance, stopping their combined release from leaving her. 

"Library?" he asked the back of her head. 

"Piss off," she mumbled dazedly. "I'm going to have to go and clean myself up now thanks to you."

Stooping behind her, Lucius tugged her knickers up her legs for her, taking a moment to gently but possessively stroke her centre where their combined release was already creating a damp patch on the fabric. 

"I don't know," he said in her ear, "I quite like the idea of you having to sit in the library in these."

"Are all purebloods as unbelievably filthy as you?" Hermione asked disbelievingly. If they were then they had even more of a cheek to accuse anyone of being mud-fucking-anything than she'd thought.

In an odd display of gentlemanliness, Lucius pulled her jeans up for her before turning his attention to neatening himself.

"Hermione," he said, adjusting his robes back into place and lifting his cane from its place on the door handle, "I would much prefer it if you didn’t express curiosity about that."

December 19th

“Let Neville and Hermione’s Christmas Party commence!” Neville announced over the loud chatter of The Three Broomsticks.

Two packets of crisps fell onto the scrubbed wooden table in front of Hermione with a sharp smack and she grabbed the one closest to her, intrigued by the unfamiliar turquoise packet. 

“Gillyweed flavour,” she read aloud, her nose wrinkling with distaste as she turned the bag over to scour the ingredients to check if they actually contained gillyweed. 

“Had to try them,” Neville replied, sliding a tray with their drinks onto the table. “The others are just salted if you’re not feeling brave enough.”

“I’m brave,” Hermione muttered, glowering suspiciously at the crisps still in her grasp. They did not contain actual gillyweed.

“Good,” Neville said, setting her glass of wine in front of her followed by a shot glass. “Glad I got you this too then.”

“Ugh, Neville,” Hermione groaned, throwing the crisps back on the table. “You do realise it’s a school night.”

“Oh, come on,” Neville cajoled. “It’s also our Christmas party. And I’m celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?” Hermione asked, poking the shot glass away with the tip of her finger. 

Neville dropped into the seat across from her, lifting his pint and his own shot glass into the air so that Hermione could pull the tray away and tuck it beneath their table. 

“You,” Neville said, pausing to take a sip from his pint, “are now looking at the boyfriend of Oliver Wood.”

A beaming smile spread over Hermione’s face and she smacked her hands flat on the table. “About bloody time you made it official!”

“I’ll drink to that,” Neville replied, extending his shot glass and fixing Hermione with a pointed look of invitation. 

Rolling her eyes, she lifted her own and peered at the clear liquid one last time before she clinked the glass against Neville’s and threw it back in one. Hermione made a choking sound and her face contorted with disgust as she slammed the glass back down.

“Oh, Neville,” she said, sticking her tongue out. “What is this?”

“It’s that weird new troll vodka Rosmerta’s been trying to flog.” Neville stuck his own tongue out, scraping it with his teeth in the process. “I’m not sure I’m a fan.”

With a last shudder, Hermione pushed the shot glass to the side of the table and took a large gulp of cold white wine to clear away the taste. 

“Anyway,” she said, her voice catching, “congratulations. That is news worth celebrating.”

Neville hummed his agreement, a pleased pinkness to his cheeks as he opened the gillyweed crisp packet and peeled its edges apart to lay it flat on the table for them both to eat. “Yeah, I was sort of glad he pushed for it and asked first, I’ll be honest.”

“Wouldn’t you have done it?” Hermione asked, picking up a crisp and inspecting it under the flickering candlelight. It certainly looked normal. “You clearly feel ready for it.”

Shrugging, Neville picked up a crisp of his own. “I dunno,” he said. “I wanted to but I think we’d have waited a lot longer for me to ask. It’s sort of…hard putting yourself out there like that. When you really care, I mean.”

That, Hermione thought, she could certainly agree with. Instead of voicing that, she popped the gillyweed crisp into her mouth and crunched it. Neville quickly followed suit and they chewed, staring at one another across the table as they tried to wrangle with the flavour. 

“It tastes sort of like…” Neville began, swallowing.

“Parsley?” Hermione finished, tilting her head.

“Yeah.”

They considered the remaining mound of crisps between them for a moment and then reached out in tandem for another. 

“I don’t hate them,” Neville said.

“Nope,” Hermione agreed, happily munching on another.

They chatted for a while, working their way through their first packet of crisps and their first round of drinks. 

They discussed their upcoming Christmases (spent with their families, as always) and Neville’s plans to meet Wood’s family on Boxing Day. They speculated over whether or not Ginny and Draco had had the second date Ginny had written to tell Neville she was strongly considering. Neville enthused over how much he’d been enjoying having his first and second year classes to himself, despite the fact that one of his second years had tried to smuggle a Mandrake out of the greenhouses under their cloak, insisting that they shouldn’t be potted.

“Nice to be doing this,” Neville said, when Hermione had returned to the table from the bar, bearing their second round of drinks. “Was worried you’d replaced me with a new best mate.”

Hermione paused in the process of opening up the salted crisps and found Neville looking at her with obvious amusement, though there was a gleam of curiosity in his eyes that made her nervous.

“If you’re talking about Malfoy –” 

“No, I’m talking about that other wizard you’ve been hanging about with in the library and between classes and chatting with endlessly at meals.”

Brow flattening, Hermione plucked a crisp from the top of the fresh pile and slid it slowly into her mouth, indicating that she would not be granting Neville any kind of response for his sarcasm.

“Yes,” Neville eventually said, relenting to the silence. “I’m talking about Malfoy.”

“We get on,” Hermione said, pausing to take a large drink of her wine. “Turns out.”

“Hermione,” Neville said, selecting a large crisp. “I think it’s time for someone to tell you this. I’ve been meaning to do it for days.”

“Tell me what?” she asked uneasily. 

“To tell you that that wizard – the one you’ve discovered you ‘get on’ with – clearly wants to rip your robes off."

Coughing delicately into her wine, Hermione lowered it slowly. “You really think so?” she asked, wiping her upper lip.

“I know so. You don’t always see these things,” Neville said gently, shrugging. “That’s okay. I’ll see it for you.”

“Neville –”

“I’m just letting you know,” Neville assured her. “You say you get on but I think you should be aware that his intentions might not be as innocent as you think.”

In an attempt to hide her face, Hermione took another long drink. Unfortunately, Neville still saw her pink cheeks and did not interpret them as an alcohol-induced flush.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” Neville said, concerned. He reached out a comforting hand and picked up another large crisp as he drew it back. “Really, I’m not saying you would ever let him rip your robes off. I remember when I said there was tension that time, you were certain that –”

“Neville,” Hermione interrupted, her fingers pressing flat on the base of her wine glass and her shoulders raised, “you need to promise me to be normal right now.”

The end of term was mere days away. Lucius had said that, hadn’t he? Two days now, to be exact. She didn’t trust anyone more than she trusted Neville. And wine had been consumed.

“Please,” Neville said, opening his mouth to slide the crisp in. “I am never anything but normal.”

“Alright, well…” Hermione took a deep breath. “I already have.”

“Have…” Neville said uncertainly, the word garbled by crisp.

“Let him.”

“Let him…” Neville chewed, brow furrowing with confusion.

Hermione sighed sharply through her nose and hissed, “rip my robes off. ”

Neville proceeded to choke on the crisp. 

His hands flew up, one to cover his mouth and the other to grab his throat as violent, panicky coughs wracked his body. 

"Fuck, Neville!" 

Lunging round, Hermione snatched her wand out of her coat hanging over her chair and pointed it directly at Neville’s neck in a sharp, poking motion. His airway cleared, Neville drew in a gasping breath and swallowed, nodding his thanks.

“Was it a medical emergency?” he asked weakly, hand at his aching throat and his eyes watering profusely. “Is that – was that why? Did he need…to access something?”

“No, it was not a ‘medical emergency’,” Hermione replied, faintly exasperated. “You said you’d be normal.”

“Yeah,” he said defensively, “but I assumed that was because you were going to say something normal.” He gaped at her as she took another sip of her wine through tightly pursed lips. “Merlin’s tits, Hermione!”

“It’s not totally abnormal,” Hermione insisted, drawing herself up and looking around to ensure they couldn’t be overheard. Impossible in the din of the Three Broomsticks. “We’re attracted to one another. Couldn’t you just –”

“No, no.” Neville stretched his hands across the table, his palms flat against the wooden surface in entreaty. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to make you feel wrong or – I just…it's a bit, er, unexpected.” 

Hermione shifted guiltily. From Neville's perspective she supposed it was. She hadn't told him anything – he'd only been able to rely on his observations. 

"It's been building for a while,” she murmured. “I didn't really know how to tell you."

Words failed Neville and he sighed, eyeing her apprehensively. “Hermione. It wasn’t for…” He cringed, like his next words tasted horrible in his mouth. “He didn't make it out like it'd help you in his report, did he?"

“NO!” Hermione yelped, one of her hands flying out to clamp over Neville's for emphasis.

“I was just checking!” Neville exclaimed hurriedly, encasing her hand with both of his in a tight clasp. “I don't know what he might be –” He shook his head. "I know you really want this job and –" 

“Neville –” 

“But it wasn’t for that.”

“No."

“It was because you genuinely wanted to,” he carried on, his tone becoming light and conversational. A clear attempt to sound like he thought what Hermione had told him was a perfectly understandable thing. A development that did not surprise him in the least.

“Yes.”

“And when did this happen?” Neville released her hand to take a long drink from his pint before adding, “If it’s not too rude to ask?”

“Slughorn’s Christmas party.”

“That was bloody ages ago!” he cried, all his light politeness forgotten.

“About ten days, Neville.”

“Ages! ”

In the context of their friendship, Hermione supposed it was ages to withhold something so juicy.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Hermione insisted. “It’s quite complicated. He’s a governor and he’s still technically inspecting me and –” She broke off, sighing. “I wanted to tell you. I’m telling you now. Term is basically over.”

Neville drew a hand down his face, stopping so that it covered his mouth. Then he simply stared at her. He stared so long that Hermione began to shift uncomfortably. 

One by one, Neville lifted his fingers from across his lips and narrowed his eyes. 

“Was he good?” he finally asked.

“Honestly?”

Neville nodded in a way that said ‘well duh’.

“Very.”

Neville drew his elbows into his sides and bent towards the table with an air of desperation. 

“Oh, Merlin,” he groaned, “I want to know everything but at the same time I want to know nothing.”

His eyes never leaving her face, like he was loath to miss the tiniest change in expression, he reached for more crisps and munched them slowly.

“I said there was tension,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “I said it and you waved me off.”

“Maybe I just didn't want to accept it,” Hermione mumbled.

“What changed?”

“He makes me…” Hermione winced, her eyes dropping to a bead of moisture creeping down her wine glass. “Passionate. Let's just say the manifestations of it evolved. On both sides.”

Neville snorted. “I’ll say.” Lowering his voice, he asked, “Does he integrate the cane?” 

Hermione opened her mouth, ready to snap at him when Neville said, “No –” He shook his head. “Don't tell me. Oh –” 

Neville threw himself back in his seat, his arms hanging loosely by his sides and a rapturous expression taking residence on his face. “Imagine what Malfoy will say. You shagged his dad .”

“Sssh, Neville!”

“I know I said your revenges weren’t always proportionate but actually this feels just right, I –”

“Neville, it’s not revenge,” Hermione said, placing her hands flat on the table to give emphasis to her sincerity. “I like him.”

Frowning, Neville leaned forwards in his seat again, resting his elbows on the table. “Like like?”

Hermione nodded, her lips pressed in a thin line. She really did like him. Enough to admit it to someone, at least.

“So it’s not just a physical, one time –”

“No.” Not for her, anyway, and at this point it was far from just being one time. Not that Neville needed to know that. "I don't know what it is but it's not just that."

Neville frowned slightly and reached out to rest a hand on one of hers. 

“No judgement,” he said, “but why?”

Seeing Hermione’s lowered brow, Neville quickly explained, “It’s just that he’s not very…well, he’s not very nice, is he? Or he doesn't come across that way.” Neville softened somewhat, squeezing her. “You’re really nice. You deserve someone really nice.”

“I mean…” Hermione made a hesitant noise, her eyes dropping to where Neville held her. “No. I suppose he’s not nice. Not really. Not in any traditional sense.”

“So…”

“But he can be kind,” she said, raising her gaze to meet Neville’s in time to see his eyebrows rise. “Very much in his own way but it’s still kindness. I like being with him. Talking to him. And I –” Hermione closed her eyes briefly, heat rising to her cheeks. “I feel like he’s happy for me to be myself. That’s the really nice thing.”

The unbelievable thing, actually, given where they’d started.

“Oh.” 

Neville’s tone made Hermione open her eyes and she found him looking at her with a strange expression on his face. She couldn’t quite read it. There was, perhaps, the slightest hint of incredulity which she didn’t strictly appreciate but there was also affection and compassion. 

“Hermione.”

“What?” Her voice was wary.

“I’m happy for you,” Neville said earnestly. “Honestly.”

Hermione shifted, sliding her hand from beneath Neville’s to sit back in her seat. “It’s not like it’s serious,” she murmured, tucking a curl behind her ear. “We just get on and, honestly, logistically I don’t even know if it’ll work beyond this.” She fixed him with a more forceful stare. “But you can’t tell anyone. Even after term has ended, don’t tell a soul.”

“No one,” Neville vowed, shaking his head resolutely.

“Not even Wood,” Hermione added, raising a finger to point at him warningly.

“Of course not,” Neville said, looking mildly offended that she would doubt him. Quite deservedly, she supposed, since he had, after all, been nothing but a steadfast, reliable presence in her life.

“Or Ginny,” Hermione added. “I know you’ve been writing to her about me but I don’t want to put her in any kind of position with Draco.”

“ I said no one.” 

They lapsed into silence, Hermione’s revelation feeling like a third, awkward presence between them. Neville quietly cleared his throat and peered at her.

“Did he use the cane?”

“No, Neville.”

Some of the tension broke. Hermione could hardly help it – a laugh bubbled up from her chest and she covered her mouth with her hand. As awkward as it’d been, it felt nice to have admitted what had happened to someone.

“Do you want him to?” he prompted, a wide grin unfurling across his face.

“Neville!”

“That wasn’t a no, Hermione.”

Chapter Text

December 21st 

“Your essays on class, community and British Muggle leisure are at the back for you to collect but I want to take this chance to remind you all to please do the reading on Muggle newspapers over the break,” Hermione said, addressing her sixth years. “You’ve all been doing so well and I’d like you to keep it up.”

Hermione flicked her wand to clear the chalkboard, adding, “And enjoy your time away, obviously. But do the reading and I’ll see you in the new year.”

There were murmurs of promises that, yes, they would professor as the students packed their bags. 

“Is Mr Malfoy coming back next term?” Andrews asked, swinging his bag onto his shoulder and peering over in Lucius’ direction.

Hermione’s gaze flicked to the back of the class where Lucius looked extremely at his ease seated behind his desk. At the sound of his name, his head rose from the book he’d been passively perusing and his eyes met hers. 

“No,” Hermione said, her smile feeling oddly tight when she returned her attention back to her interested students. “Mr Malfoy was only here for a term.”

“Will you miss him, professor?” Priscilla asked slyly.

Some distressingly arch titters rippled through the rest of the students and Hermione placed her hands on her hips, her cheeks warming.

“No more than you will, I’m sure, Miss Price,” was Lucius’ carrying response from his seat where he continued to flick disinterestedly through the textbook.

Susie outright snorted at the disgruntled look that passed over Priscilla’s face and Hermione rolled her eyes. He simply could not help himself. 

“Mr Malfoy’s work is done and he has a life to be getting on with,” Hermione said sternly, seeing Lucius look up at her in her periphery. Her eyes slid to him. “Though he knows he’s always welcome back in my classroom should he ever experience an overwhelming curiosity about Muggles.”

“How kind,” was Lucius’ dry reply. 

“Now away with all of you,” Hermione said, shooing her hands at her class. “It’s lunch time.”

Swinging their bags over their shoulders and around their bodies, Hermione’s sixth years wished her a Merry Christmas, which she cheerfully returned. Lucius merely nodded his acknowledgement when he received the same well wishes as the students passed him at the door.

The door closed with a heavy clunk and as the cheerful chatter of the sixth year class faded down the corridor, Hermione tidied her desk. She only had one more class left for the day – her third years after lunch. It was sure to be a pleasant end to her first term as a professor.  

The faint screech of Lucius pushing himself out of his seat and the sound of his shoes clicking across the classroom floor towards her drew Hermione’s gaze upwards. She cast him a smile, shuffling her third year essays together. Essays that she’d finally found time to mark despite his best efforts.  

Trailing a hand along the edge of her desk, Lucius rounded it and stopped beside her to watch her stoop to pull some fresh pens from a drawer. 

“Will you miss me?”

Surprised by the question, Hermione stilled, bent over her open desk drawer. Carefully sliding it closed, she slowly straightened up and set the pens on her desk before turning her eyes up to Lucius’ face.

It was perfectly serious. No teasing smirk. Only a slight, genuinely curious lift to his brow that made her heart beat faster.

“Parts of you.”

Lucius’ brow flattened and he cast her a disapproving look. “Crude, Professor Granger.”

Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, shaking her head. On seeing the doubtful purse to Lucius’ lips she placed a hand on his arm, still smiling. “I didn’t!” 

“Then what did you mean?” Lucius asked. Though there was a very small smile creasing at the corner of his mouth, like he was sharing in her amusement, there was an insistence to his tone that made Hermione pause, her playfulness fading.

“I mean I’ll miss…” She looked at her hand still on his arm and, with a brief glance at the classroom door, slid it down so that her fingers could link with his. “This.” Her eyes rose to his. “I’ll miss this.” 

Hermione squeezed Lucius’ hand and was pleased to feel him return the pressure. She would miss that.

“I will not, however,” Hermione added, her tone hardening, “miss having a Hogwarts governor looming in the back of my classroom.” 

“I suppose I can understand that,” he muttered, his gaze dropping to where she held him. "Though I resent 'looming'."

Pressing her tongue briefly to the roof of her mouth, Hermione inhaled sharply through her nose and then let the question she wanted to ask tumble out in a rush. “Will you miss me?”

Shifting his hand in hers, Lucius brushed his thumb over her knuckles and met her eyes. 

“Parts of you,” he said smoothly, earning himself a reluctant, exasperated chuckle from Hermione. “Will you come to my room tonight?”

Hermione nodded. “Of course.” Whether they were in his room or hers didn’t especially matter to her. All that really mattered to her was that they did not spend his last night in the castle apart.

“Will you stay?” Lucius asked. “Through the night.”

At that, Hermione hesitated. Apart from that first night where they’d accidentally fallen asleep and woken shortly after midnight, they hadn’t actually spent the entire night in a bed together. It wasn’t that Hermione was against the idea, it was just part of their being careful. 

At least that's what she’d told herself. 

There was, she realised now that she was facing the prospect of it, a new level of intimacy that came with choosing to sleep beside one another until the morning. To rising with one another.

“I leave in the early hours tomorrow,” Lucius continued, her lack of a reply giving him little choice. “Before breakfast. Before the students. My report will be sent at the end of today. Just stay, Hermione.”

Tongue darting out to wet her lips, Hermione shook her head. “I'll stay as late as I can, Lucius,” she said. "But I should wake in my own bed. For now."

Eyes searching hers, he nodded.

When Hermione slipped into Lucius’ room that night, it was to find him seated at his desk. He was dressed only in his shirt and trousers, one elbow leaning on the arm of his chair and the side of his head resting on the tips of his fingers as he perused a letter. 

At the sound of the door closing, he looked around, his eyes catching on Hermione as she undid her disillusionment charm and melted into view. The sight of her standing by his door wearing her fluffy pink dressing gown and slippers seemed to amuse him for some reason and she frowned, crossing her arms over her middle.  

“What?” she asked, self-consciously shuffling her slippers.

“Nothing,” was his quiet reply. He extended the hand he’d been leaning on towards her and beckoned her to come closer by crooking his fingers. “Just a passing thought.” 

Hermione moved to wave her wand and Lucius shook his head. “Silencing charms are already done. Don’t fret.”

His fire crackled, warm and merry, as Hermione passed it and stopped at the side of his chair to survey the letters that littered the surface of his desk. They were of varying lengths and some were quite clearly hurriedly scrawled with no signatures.

“This doesn’t look like the desk of a man who’s leaving tomorrow,” she said, peering down at him and setting a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

It was true. If it wasn’t for the packed trunks across the room, she’d have thought she was interrupting him on a completely normal night.

Lucius sighed and leaned forward to drop the letter he'd been reading on the desk. “It’s the desk of a man in contact with a panicking Minister for Magic."

"Panicking over what?"

"His lack of proactive policies." He cast her a meaningful look. "Scrimgeour has been laying out plans and making promises in interviews. Fudge has not.”

“So these are…”

“Ideas,” Lucius said on a sigh, waving a careless hand. “Of a sort.”

Stepping closer to his desk, Hermione tentatively reached a hand out and touched her fingertips to one of the letters. 

“Can I?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Please,” Lucius said, gesturing to the letter in a way that said ‘help yourself’. 

Hermione pinched her fingers at the edge of the parchment just as Lucius leaned forward and settled his hands on her hips. Already attempting to decipher Fudge’s looping scrawl, she unresistingly allowed Lucius to guide her back and down into his lap. 

Squeezing her waist, he pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her middle to hold her. She draped her legs across his, her slippers sliding off to the floor and her nose still buried in his correspondence as she relaxed into him.

“His response to Scrimgeour appears to be to become a more extreme version of Scrimgeour,” Hermione murmured disapprovingly, lowering the letter to her lap. She twisted her body to look up into Lucius’ face. “Has he considered the value of being an alternative? Not everyone is enamoured of Scrimgeour’s suggestion that we increase the power of the dementors in Azkaban. Giving them more reasons to administer the kiss is atrocious.” 

Glancing back at the letter she twitched it irritably in her grip. “And Fudge’s suggestion that he’ll go one further and have them work more closely with Aurors outside the prison on patrols beggars belief.” 

“I don’t disagree,” Lucius replied lightly, stroking a soothing circular pattern on her hip just below the tied cord of her dressing gown. “It is a singularly high-handed approach.”

“And I have to question the wisdom of his privately consulting an independently wealthy man who is clearly going to have his own agenda on matters of policy,” Hermione added, placing her free hand on his forearm.

“He values my opinion,” Lucius replied easily. “I’m a highly respected figure, Hermione.” He lowered his mouth to her hair, near where her ear was, and quietly added, “And I always donate generously to the right causes.”

A tut escaped Hermione and she shook her head like she was chasing off an annoying fly. “Does Scrimgeour write to you like this?”

“No,” Lucius said, and she thought she could hear his sly smile even if she couldn’t see it. “He’s informed me that he prefers meetings in person. I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.”

“Outrageous,” Hermione muttered, shifting irritably. Lucius’ response was to hold her tighter  and pull her more firmly against his chest.

“Have you ever considered,” he said, unhooking one arm from around her waist so that he could gently move her curls out of his face and drape them across her left shoulder, “that through me you could have a direct line to the Minister for Magic?” 

“I have a few very choice words for him if my ‘direct line’ would be willing to pass them on,” Hermione said grimly, re-reading the letter and automatically lifting it so that Lucius could return his arm to its position around her. “Which I doubt.”

“Try me.” 

Hesitating, Hermione lowered the letter again and considered how honest she should be about what she thought. Leaning and twisting her body so that she could look around at him, she found his expression expectant but not impatient. 

“He should be getting rid of the dementors entirely,” she finally said. “Get them out of Azkaban.”

There was a quiet pause in which Lucius seemed to contemplate her suggestion, his finger never stopping its soothing circling of her hip. 

“You think witches and wizards would feel safe?” he finally asked. “You really think they would vote for a minister who proposed leaving the most dangerous among us unguarded?”

“I didn’t say that,” Hermione replied, frowning. “There are surely alternatives. Less cruel alternatives. Besides, if you can’t glean the slightest sense of safety from wandless witches and wizards being isolated in a fortress in the middle of the north bloody sea then maybe you should just build a bunker.”

“And what happens when the dementors, deprived of their captive sources of happiness, begin invading the mainland in search of sustenance?”

“We’re better equipped to defend ourselves than those prisoners,” Hermione said stiffly. “Their wrongdoings don’t make it right for us to use them like some kind of – of human bulwark or bait.”

"And what about the Muggles?" Lucius asked with a deliberate lightness. "Who will be guarding them at all times when the Dementors roam? Those creatures don’t distinguish, Hermione."

Hermione bristled, irritated at herself for seeming short-sighted when she absolutely was not. "It’s not for me to come up with a solution for every hurdle off the cuff, Lucius,” she said sharply. “Perhaps the Minister could attempt to be an effective politician for once and form a specialised committee tasked with finding a solution that will suit everyone.”

A smile quirked at the corner of Lucius’ mouth. “Self-interest requires far less effort, you know,” he said quietly. “Fewer tiresome committees too.”

“Let me reframe it for you then: I can’t imagine you’d like to be under their guard if you ever ended up in Azkaban. 

Lucius’ low, grumbling chuckle made his body tremble beneath her. “Hermione, that won’t ever happen.”

“How do you know?” she demanded, his unshakeable certainty in his position vexing her.

“Men like me don’t go to Azkaban.”

Grumbling, Hermione wriggled irritably in his lap. Through her dressing gown, she could just about feel his stirring hardness against her back and rolled her eyes even as an anticipatory flutter passed through her lower stomach. 

“I wonder if a woman like me would go for throttling a man like you.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Lucius pressed a kiss to her temple. “Your little scene arrangement with Whippet was just the start – I’m sure you could make my death look like a tragic accident.”

His lips trailed down over the shell of her exposed ear, so soft that Hermione couldn’t help the pleased hum that escaped her.

“Some kind of terrible preening incident,” she murmured, softening into him and tipping her head to the side so that he could access her neck with greater ease. “That’d be believable.”

Lucius mumbled a half-hearted rebuke into the skin of her neck, nuzzling his nose in behind her ear. Leaning her head back against his shoulder, Hermione turned her face up to his and kissed along his jaw, enjoying the way he tightened his hold on her and fisted a hand in her dressing gown.

“Are you going to respond?” Hermione eventually asked, lifting her head and raising the letter indicatively. “I’m happy to wait.”

“No.” Lucius shook his head and loosed one arm from around her to pluck the letter from her grip. “Fudge can wait.” He carelessly cast the letter to the side and it fluttered to the floor, sliding somewhere beneath the chair. “He’s already taken up enough of our time this evening.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Hermione asked, closing her eyes as Lucius adjusted their position in the chair, inadvertently grinding himself against her in the process. 

“That an exceptionally intelligent witch,” he said, running his hands down her hips and thighs over her dressing gown, “has suggested to me that presenting himself as a balanced and viable alternative to Scrimgeour rather than racing him to extremities may be a more savvy, not to mention sustainable, approach.”

Hermione squirmed when Lucius brought his hand to the cord of her dressing gown and began to ease the knot open. 

“I don’t know if I want Fudge to take my advice,” she said, her voice low and her eyes fixed on Lucius’ progress. “What if it works for him?”

“You would prefer Scrimgeour then?”

He slowly, teasingly pulled the cord apart and Hermione’s breathing grew shallow.

“No.”

“So, who do you want?” he asked, parting the dressing gown to reveal her nightdress. It wasn’t exactly anything special – little more than a large cotton t-shirt that fell to her knees. 

She doubted Lucius cared about what it looked like. The way his hands slid over it, reverentially tracing the shape of her body through it, only confirmed that to her. His left arm wrapped around her, he raised the hand to cup her right breast, brushing her pebbled nipple through the soft material.

“Someone who won’t listen to you,” Hermione said, her voice catching as she watched his right hand drift down towards the hem of the nightdress, “or the tempting clink of your galleons.”

Lucius chuckled, hooking under the hem of the nightdress to caress her thighs with the backs of his fingers. 

“Well, that only leaves you then, doesn’t it?” He kissed just below her ear and then nipped the lobe of it with his teeth, eliciting a gasp from her. “You and that sharp little tongue and even sharper brain. You’d be wonderful.”

The tickle of him inching her nightdress up made Hermione wriggle against him, drawing a groan from deep in his chest. He flattened his hand against her inner thigh and dragged it upwards, bringing the nightdress curtained around his wrist with it.

“Stop flattering me, you prat,” she said, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “I’m going to sleep with you anyway.”

“Oh, let me, Hermione.” Pressing on her inner thigh, Lucius encouraged her to part her legs so that they were on either side of his. He eased his legs into a wider position, the outside of his knees pressing on the inside of hers to open her up. “Indulge me.”

Hermione dropped her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling more quickly in response to the sensation of him massaging tight circles into the bare skin of her upper thighs. 

The sound Lucius made when he finally reached the apex of her thighs and discovered that she hadn’t bothered putting any knickers on raised a wicked grin to her face, though she knew he wouldn’t be able to see it. 

“Will you indulge me?”

He pressed his fingers between her folds and she knew without a doubt that she was wet.

“I think I do little else lately, Lucius,” Hermione replied, her breath quickening.

“Let me tell you what a clever girl you are.” 

Hermione whimpered and angled her hips towards his touch, her lower back pressing more into him. He eased two fingers inside of her with a sinful ease, his slowness a choice rather than a necessity.

“You like it, don’t you?” he asked, stroking in and out at a leisurely pace. “When I tell you that.”

Her cheeks burned and she turned her face towards him, tilting her head up to press her nose into his neck. She did like it but the idea of him knowing how much was oddly unbearable.“It’s not –”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Hermione,” he murmured, sliding his fingers back inside her and keeping them there to crook them, skilfully massaging her. 

Hermione cried out, one hand gripping the arm of the chair while the other flew up to grip the back of his neck. 

“You don't need to explain," he said calmly, like there wasn't a panting witch writhing in his lap. "You like me telling you what a talented, intelligent witch you are.”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“I’m just appreciating you for what you are,” he continued, his voice low and soothing. So persuasive. “That’s all it is. You can enjoy that.”

Hermione rolled her hips towards his hand, grateful for the arm he still had wrapped tightly around her middle and sure that were it not there she would have slithered, boneless to the floor. 

His fingers grew more insistent in their movements and Hermione groaned, the insides of her knees pressing against the outsides of his as her legs tried to close of their own accord to hold him in place. He pushed back harder and she was sure she could not open much more for him.

“Do you know how I know you enjoy it, Hermione?” he asked, his face dipping so that his cheek came to brush hers. “When I call you a clever girl?”

Swallowing, Hermione shook her head.

“I feel it.”

Without warning, Lucius withdrew his fingers from her and Hermione made a noise of protest, raising her head to peer down. She looked obscene, her legs spread over his and her nightdress tangled around her lower stomach, exposing her.

Lucius' hand wrapped around the arm she'd hooked around his neck and she felt the tackiness of her own arousal on his fingers. Easing her arm down, he covered her hand with his own. 

Transfixed, Hermione watched Lucius guide her hand between her legs. He manipulated her fingers and she whispered his name as he encouraged her to slide her fore and middle fingers into her own wet heat. 

The ticklish warmth of his breath against her ear raised goosepimples down her arms and she whined, granting him complete control of her hand so that he could continue to stroke her fingers in and out. 

He murmured soothing words by her ear, praising her body, her mind, the way she felt. Hermione closed her eyes, feeling her walls clench and flutter around her fingers in response to his silky voice.

"Can you feel?" he asked. “The way you respond?”

"Yes," she whispered, her voice cracking. "But Lucius, I want –" She resisted his hold, drawing her fingers out of herself so that she could take his hand and guide him the way he had her. "I want you." 

Her fingers were slippy over his as she encouraged him to return to her.

He murmured her name in response, vowing to take care of her and pressing kisses to whatever parts of her he could. Hermione gripped his wrist and pressed the heel of his palm against her clit, grinding against it.

"What are you, Hermione?"

"Lucius –"

"Just for me," he murmured. "Please. Tell me."

Squeezing her eyes closed, Hermione focused on the gathering tension between her legs. "A clever girl," she whispered.

"That’s right," Lucius said. "And whose clever girl are you, Hermione?"

Her eyes fluttered open and she frowned, the tension retreating like the tide. "No one’s."

"No, right now," he pressed. "In this moment, Hermione. Whose clever girl are you? Whose do you want to be? Before I have to leave."

Lucius folded his pinky against his palm and eased a third finger into her. A surprised moan left Hermione, her head dropping back. He moved faster, grinding her clit with more force and the tension came surging back, washing away all her reservations.

"Yours," Hermione whined. "I’m your clever girl."

"That’s right. Mine." Lucius kissed the side of her face, burying his own against her. "I want that. I want you to be my good, clever girl. Just mine."

Hermione couldn't bring herself to care about the sounds and words Lucius was drawing from her as she chased her orgasm. Her nails dug into his wrist and she rolled her hips, relying on his arm around her waist to keep her in his lap. 

“Say it again, Hermione. Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours, Lucius.”

The pressure swelled and her breathless pants abruptly stopped. She stiffened, holding her breath as though frightened she might chase it away. Then the dam broke and pleasure flooded her body, blurring her vision and dragging a broken, drawn-out moan from her.

Hermione sagged in Lucius’ lap, only vaguely aware that the small whimpering sounds she could hear were actually coming from her. 

Blinking slowly, she peered down between her legs just as he eased his fingers out of her, the light from the fire given them an indecent glisten. 

Lucius pressed a kiss into her hair and she caught her breath, staring at where he flattened his hand on her upper thigh and wiped, leaving an incriminating smear of arousal on her skin. The pleasure-induced delirium receding, a strange vulnerability began to settle on her. 

A feeling of exposure.

With her nightdress up above her hips that was unsurprising but it was a different kind of exposure. Not physical. 

Frowning, Hermione wrangled with her feelings as Lucius kept his arm possessively wrapped around her waist and used his other hand to gently tug her nightdress back over her.

His. She’d told him she was his.

It felt like she’d given him something. Something she hadn’t been entirely ready to give. Not yet. 

Resentment bubbled in her gut, thinking of the way he’d used her unguarded ardency to get what he wanted. She’d said it, yes, but he’d…manipulated. 

And he hadn’t returned the sentiment. He hadn’t said he was hers. He’d just extracted her confession and mentally added her to his seemingly endless list of possessions. 

With careful and gentle movements, Hermione eased herself out of his hold and got to her feet to stand between his spread legs. Her nightdress fell back down to her knees, her dressing gown hanging open. 

But she wanted a part of him in return. And she was prepared to demand it.

One of his hands reaching up to take hers made her turn back to look at him, her expression distant and thoughtful. He asked if she was alright and she simply nodded, tugging on his hand to wordlessly invite him to his feet.

Letting her fingers slip out his, Hermione rounded his chair, not allowing the feeling of him pulling gently at the cord of her dressing gown stop her. 

By the time he’d risen to his feet and turned to her, she had crawled onto his bed and was waiting for him in the middle of it. On her knees, hands in her lap.

A good, clever girl.

“You’ve gone very quiet,” he observed, his eyes glittering with curiosity as he approached her, unbuttoning his shirt as he went.

Rather than respond, she slid her dressing gown from around her shoulders and let it fall around her in a heap. He took it for the invitation that it was and eased himself onto the bed on his knees across from her, meeting her for a kiss.

Lips moving sweetly against his, Hermione unbuttoned the rest of his shirt for him and pushed it from his shoulders. He threw it to the floor and Hermione inched closer, pressing herself against him. She peppered kisses across his cheek and down his neck, her hands roaming his body, never giving him a moment of respite.

“Hermione,” he murmured, his hands fisting in her nightdress to lift it. 

Placing her hands over his, she stopped him and placed a soft, sensual kiss on his lips and flicked her tongue playfully. Drawing back, she looked into his eyes and found them dark. Hungry.

It was that hunger, she didn’t doubt, that made it so easy for her to encourage him to lean back his pillows, so that she could straddle his hips. 

Lucius ran his hands up her thighs, trying to push the nightdress up again. She took them and pressed them into the pillows on either side of his head, catching sight of his raised eyebrows as she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. 

Though she was sure that he could shake her hold off easily, he didn’t and instead lifted his hips up so that he could grind his hardness against her through his trousers. 

“What are you up to, Hermione?” he murmured against her lips, slowly closing his fingers around her hands so that it was more like he was holding her rather than being held down by her.

It was frustrating.

“I want to try something,” she said, nuzzling her nose under his jaw to encourage him to raise his chin so that she could kiss him. 

“My clever witch is curious, is she?”

My.

Stopping her kisses, Hermione sharply nipped the sensitive skin of his neck with her teeth, drawing a sharp intake of breath from him that made her smirk.

“Yes.”

Sitting up, still astride him, Hermione released his hands and slowly dragged her fingers down his arms and his bare chest, drawing her lower lip between her teeth at the sight of the lean muscles quivering beneath her touch. 

“You indulged me,” Lucius said, his voice low. “I suppose I can do the same.”

Hermione shot him a pleased smile and leaned back, pressing herself against his hardness as she did so to whip the cord out from the loops of her dressing gown. 

“Would you –” Hermione hesitated, the cord in both of her hands. “Would you give me your hands?” She held her own hands out, wrists and palms together, the cord pressed between them. “Like this.”

“I see.”

Glancing up from beneath her lashes, Hermione saw Lucius’ expression was a mixture of fond amusement and faintly suspicious curiosity. 

“Will you?” she asked, her hands still pressed together to show him what she wanted, looking almost like she was entreating him. Praying to him.

“There’s an etiquette around this kind of thing, Hermione.” Yet even as he said it, he complied, holding his hands out to her as asked.

Hermione squeezed on either side of his hips with her knees, beginning the process of winding one end of the cord around his wrists. “I’ll stop if you tell me to stop,” she promised, meaning it.

He chuckled once, the sound deep and rumbling in the quiet. “I mean, that’s a start.”

Pausing, Hermione glanced up at him, meeting his eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”

There was a curious gleam in his eyes as they flicked back and forth between hers. Then, he said, “No.”

They were quiet as Hermione continued, making sure to be as gentle with Lucius as possible. Every time she looked up at him, his eyes were on her, that indulgent amusement and curiosity never leaving his face. 

When his wrists were securely bound, Hermione pushed herself up onto her knees and raised his arms above his head. She tied the other side of the cord to the ornamental, raised central point of the old, carved wooden headboard.

Satisfied that it was secure, Hermione sat back onto him and admired her handiwork with a tilted head. 

Lucius, arms slightly bent and raised above his head, gave her only a moment to enjoy her win before saying, “Go on then, Granger. What’s the plan?” 

“I don’t really have one,” Hermione confessed, shifting on him. She hadn’t actually expected to get as far. 

Lucius rolled his eyes and dropped his head to the side so that his temple rested on his bicep. “Never admit that.”

“Okay, well…”

Trailing off, Hermione slowly leaned down to place a chaste kiss on his lips. He inched his head forward as much as his restricted position allowed to deepen it but Hermione pulled back so that her lips just hovered over his. 

Lucius frowned, looking slightly irritated by her teasing and Hermione grinned, her confidence growing. Bumping her nose gently against his, she tipped her head and kissed him again, this time deepening it on her terms. 

Gently biting on his lower lip, she slid her tongue against his, at the same time rolling her hips and grinding into him. Lucius groaned into her mouth, raising his hips to meet her and, for the first time, tugging slightly against his restraint. 

Flattening her hands against his chest, Hermione pushed herself up and trailed her fingers down him, her touch delicate and teasing. 

Glancing up from beneath her brow, she could see the rhythm of his breathing change as she trailed lower and lower. Eventually, she reached the waistband of his trousers. Hooking her forefinger into them, she caressed the skin beneath with the back of her finger.

“Hermione.”

There was a touch of impatience to his tone that pleased her. Withdrawing her hands from him, however, she took the bottom of her nightdress in her hands and proceeded to pull it over her head. Throwing the nightdress over the side of the bed, she looked back at him to see his gaze roving hungrily over her naked body.

“Better,” he said, like she’d asked for his judgement on her performance.

“Where would you touch first?” Hermione asked. “If you could.”

A faint frown creased Lucius’ brow and his hands twitched, like he’d just remembered he couldn’t use them. 

“Your neck,” he said.

Swallowing, Hermione raised a hand to her neck and lightly touched her fingertips against it, raising her chin so that he would be better able to see what she was doing. 

“Why?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

“Delicate,” was Lucius’ unexpectedly concise response, his eyes fixed on where the fingers of her right hand danced down the column of her throat towards her collarbone. “And I can feel when you…”

Lucius trailed off when Hermione reached her left hand out to his neck, the fingers of her right hand still on her own. She stroked her thumb on the underside of his jaw and he raised his chin for her, his eyes never leaving hers.

“You can feel it when I’m excited,” she finished for him with a meaningful look, pressing against where his pulse was thrumming rapidly in his neck. 

Lucius’ only response was to swallow and she felt it before lowering her hand from his neck to rest it on his chest. 

Continuing to trail the fingers of her other hand down her chest, she paused to gently cup her breast, running her thumb over her nipple. She pinched it and Lucius shook his head.

“You’ll need to go harder than that if you want to enjoy that,” he said.

“You sound confident about that,” Hermione said, lightly scratching her nails down his stomach so that he shifted beneath her.

“I pay attention to what you like,” he said, sounding as certain as he ever did. “And as I believe I once told you before: you favour a firmer hand.”

Nostrils flaring slightly, Hermione kept her eyes on his and pinched harder. A bolt of heat shot down into her lower stomach and she involuntarily exhaled a soft whine, her hips pressing down against his.

“See?” 

Smug. He sounded smug. She had him tied up, unable to touch her and there was still a sense that he believed he could have the upper hand if he cared to take it. 

Shifting back down his legs, Hermione reached for the button of his trousers. Hands steadied by her determination, she undid it and pulled his zip down. 

Lucius said nothing, only lifting his hips slightly to let her pull his trousers down far enough that she could slip her hand into his underwear and ease him out of it. He was rock hard and warm, like velvet against her palm and he groaned deep in his chest when she began to stroke him.

“Hermione –” he began, breaking off when she moved back further and bent to lower her head so that her mouth hovered just over the head of him. 

Pausing, close enough that he would be able to feel the heat of her breath, she looked up at him. His eyes were dark, his breathing shallow. 

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, squeezing him gently.

“No." 

With that, Hermione swirled her tongue around his head and then took him into her mouth. The ragged, broken sound he made – so honest and unguarded – sent a surge of satisfaction through Hermione and she moaned around him in response. 

He was thick and her jaw ached but she worked him without mercy, taking as much of him as she possibly could and using her hand to do the rest. His gasps and groans were all the encouragement she needed.

Breathing through her nose, Hermione slowly sank down, taking him even deeper. He jerked against his restraint and canted his hips, nudging the back of her throat. Too far. Too much.

She pulled back, gasping, to glare up at him. He glared back.

"Alright," Lucius said, his voice ragged. "You’ve had your fun now, Hermione."

"Were you not enjoying that?" she asked, crawling up his body to straddle him again. 

"Yes," he admitted begrudgingly. 

"It sounded like you were." Hermione paused to kiss her way up his chest, her lips stopping to hover over his. "Do you think you'd have liked it more if you'd had the use of your hands?" she asked innocently.

Lucius clenched his jaw but said nothing, his eyes dropping to her lips. 

"What would you have done?" Hermione asked. "Slid them into my hair? Like this?" 

As she spoke, Hermione slid her own hand to Lucius' neck. "Wrapped it around your fingers to gently guide me?"

She twisted his hair in her fingers and tugged. "Or held me still so you could make me take more?" 

Raising her other hand, she pressed it to his throat. "Would you have done this?" she asked softly. "To feel it?"

"Hermione." The weak groan was music to her ears.

"You wouldn’t have come though, would you?" she asked, feeling ruthless. "I know where you like to be when you do that."

To underline her point, Hermione ground her wetness against him and Lucius closed his eyes, his head falling back.

She raised herself onto her knees and took him in her hand, sliding him at her entrance, coating him in her arousal. 

Lucius raised his head to watch her, arcing his hips again. His eyes were so dark as to be almost black and Hermione felt a catch in her chest at the sight.

"Can I?" she asked, surprised to hear how breathless she'd become.

"Hurry up," he snapped, his gaze never leaving where they were so close to being joined. 

Their groans were simultaneous when Hermione sank onto him but, to her satisfaction, Lucius' had an edge of desperation that hers did not. 

"All those times you thought it was beneath you to touch someone like me," she said, rising up to drop back onto him, taking him to the hilt. "Now you’re desperate and you can’t. What do you think of that?"

"I think I’m being tortured by a cruel, vindictive witch," Lucius said through gritted teeth. He bent his knees, pressing his heels into the bed so he could rise to meet her with more force. 

"You bring it out in me, Lucius," she said sharply. "What do you think of it?"

Hermione rolled her hips and dug her nails into his chest, dragging them down so that he hissed. 

"I think I was an idiot."

"But that’s what’s so confusing about it because you’re not an idiot," she said, increasing her pace. "You’re a smart man. Resourceful and intelligent for a spoiled pureblood who doesn’t really have to be."

Lucius stopped meeting her movements and cast her an incredulous look, panting slightly. 

"It’s a compliment," she assured him, stilling with him buried inside of her.

"Oh, sounds like it," he muttered, tugging again on his restraint with more overt irritation. "Spoiled?"

"But you are," Hermione pointed out. "You want me to be yours, don’t you?"

Lucius stilled. "Yes."

"You needed to hear me say it." She squeezed herself around him and his eyes dropped closed briefly. "You couldn’t just wait for it. Wait for something more organic."

Some understanding flashed over his face at that. No shame and only the smallest amount of guilt but certainly understanding. "No, I couldn’t."

"I am," she said, meeting his gaze and holding it. "Or I will be. As long as you’re mine too."

"I am yours," was his immediate reply. 

Surprised by the swiftness of his response, Hermione hesitated, her lips parting and she searched his face for mockery or insincerity. 

"What, did you think you would have to drag it out of me?" he asked, rolling his eyes. "I’m yours, Hermione. As long as you’ll have me."

"But why didn’t you just say that?" Hermione snapped, pushing the heels of her palms against his chest so that some air was forced out of him in a sharp puff. 

"You didn’t ask," he said simply. "Haven't I told you before you only have to ask?"

"Neither did you. You manipulated!"

"Well, would you have said it if I hadn't?"

Hermione pursed her lips. No, she wouldn't have. But that didn't make him right or her wrong.

"Well, we’ll never know now will we?" she replied with a snide curl to her lip. “Well done. It could have been special and you ruined it.”

Beneath her, Lucius opted to reply by rolling his hips and Hermione made a soft, surprised noise in the back of her throat. He did it again and again, building his speed until Hermione, her eyes closing, matched him, riding him with an increasing force that left them both breathless.

"Untie me," Lucius growled. 

Hermione gave him a steely look, rolling her hips in a way that made him drop his head back.

“Please,” Lucius ground out. “Hermione, please.”

She had promised. Hermione lunged forward to struggle against the knot she'd tied around Lucius' wrists and he pulled his arms and twisted his wrists to help her. 

Within moments, their combined efforts freed him and Lucius proceeded to touch every part of Hermione that he could, squeezing and pulling and groping, never ceasing to thrust up into her. She cried out, overwhelmed. 

He fisted a hand in her hair at the back of her neck with one hand and, with the other, gripped her hip with a painful tightness, her flesh spilling through the gaps in his fingers. 

"You know one day I’m going to return the favour for this," Lucius said, using his hold on her to bring her down onto him with such force that she gasped.

"Good," she said through a moan. "Good, I want –"

Lucius pulled her down flat against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, his skin warm and sticky with sweat against hers. 

"I want you to."

Images of Lucius holding her tightly, her wrists bound, flashed through her mind and she closed her eyes, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. She trusted him to do that. She trusted him to make it good for her. He was hers.

Sliding her knees as far apart as she could, Hermione ground herself against him to get more friction on her clit. 

“Hermione.”

Lucius’ tone was urgent, his hold on her tightening. He was close. She moved faster against him, chasing her own orgasm. His thrusts became more erratic and desperate until he cried out, his fingertips sinking into her flesh as he came. 

Even still, Hermione didn’t cease rocking against him and Lucius helped her, meeting every roll of her hips with one of his own, holding her tight against him until, finally, a low, satisfied moan left her and she quivered in his arms.

The tension seeping out of her, her centre pulsing pleasantly, Hermione allowed herself to relax against Lucius, planting soft kisses into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face into her hair, seemingly content to simply hold her.

He was able to be vulnerable in a way she hadn’t expected. Perhaps it was simply a hallmark of having his trust and affection – things, she suspected, that he rarely bestowed and could therefore afford to be quite generous with when he did.

“I had half a mind to turn everything on its head and demand that they get rid of you, you know,” he murmured. “Take you away with me. Keep you to myself.”

Perhaps feeling her stiffen in his arms, he quickly added, “I wouldn't. I know that’s not how this works. I want you happy. I want to make you happy, Hermione.”

Nodding, Hermione swallowed and pushed herself up to look down at him, aware of a flickering discomfort that he’d even considered that path. Not because he hated her, but because he liked her. Lucius Malfoy’s desires could be a dangerous and powerful thing. 

Lucius encircled her waist with his hands, admiring the curve of it. “I have, at least, discovered one guaranteed method of making you happy,” he said, a wry smile creasing at the corners of his mouth.

Flushing, Hermione rolled her eyes and eased herself off him. “Smug,” she muttered, pausing on her knees beside him to flick his ribs, though he barely even blinked.

“Deservedly so, I think.” Lucius said, pushing himself up to sit up against his pillows while she clambered down the bed. “You’re still staying awhile, yes?"

Hermione hummed a noise of assent, pulling her nightdress back over her head. 

"A few hours at least," she said, digging into the pocket of her robe to extract her toothbrush and a small container of floss. 

“Can I use the bathroom first?” she asked. “I have a whole routine and I don't really want you to see me floss, if I'm honest. It’s quite involved.” 

Lucius looked like he wanted to ask several questions but, instead, he settled on rolling his eyes and waving a hand. “Just – fine. Hurry up. Go first.”

“My parents are dentists,” she explained, looking bashful. “They’re Muggle –”

“Teeth healers,” Lucius finished for her tiredly. “I wonder, were you aware of me in your classes at all this term? I was that person at the back, observing literally everything. ”

“Oh.” Hermione shrugged, fidgeting with her toothbrush. “Well, you know, I could never be entirely sure of how much you took in and –”

“Suffice it to say, it was more than I ever intended to,” Lucius muttered. “Bloody hurry up.”

Chapter Text

December 22nd 

Hermione woke alone in her bed, the weak winter sunlight streaming onto her duvet but not providing nearly enough heat to allow her to convince herself that Lucius was there, wrapped around her. 

Keeping her eyes closed tight, she curled up beneath the duvet and burrowed her face into her pillow, resistant to rising. 

It wasn't surprising that she was tired – they’d lain into the early hours talking quietly. Mostly about nothing of importance but it’d somehow been enough to keep them up.

When Hermione had finally crept back down the corridor to her room, Lucius had only had a couple of hours before he had to rise and depart. 

Almost as soon as her head had hit her pillow she'd fallen asleep and she wasn't entirely sure how Lucius intended to get through his day, which apparently included a meeting with Scrimgeour no less, on so little rest.

It was a sharp, repetitive tap that finally made Hermione open her eyes. Blinking against the brightness of her room, she rolled onto her side and faced the window where an owl was nudging its beak persistently against the glass. Hermione squinted. It was Lucius’ owl.

Hurriedly pushing herself up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and darted to the window to let the owl in. Shivering against the gust of cold morning air that accompanied its entry, Hermione turned to watch it land on her bedside table.

She tried not to let her overwhelming curiosity make her overly forceful, gently untying a thick envelope and a small, thin box from the owl’s leg. As soon as the items had been removed, it took off, sweeping back through the open window with a self-important hoot. No immediate reply was expected, then.

Dropping onto her bed to sit, Hermione propped herself up against her pillows to inspect the items. The thick envelope bore her name in Lucius’ swooping neat script and she tore it open, pulling out a wad of parchment and a letter. The mass of parchment, she quickly established, seemed to be a copy of Lucius’ report on her classes. 

Swallowing nervously, she glanced briefly at the thin wooden box and then unfolded the accompanying letter.

‘Hermione,

I thought, given the early hour I have to leave, it would be easier for me to do this via a letter rather than wake you. I realise I haven’t actually woken up with you yet but, for some reason, I get the sense that you could be fractious if disturbed too early. Hard to pinpoint why.’

“Cheeky prick,” Hermione muttered.

‘This isn’t a goodbye letter. Nothing of the sort, actually. I merely want to explain the things I’ve sent you and to promise you that I intend to see you again soon. In fact, I intend to see you as often as you will allow. My schedule will sometimes have a say in the matter – as I imagine yours will also – but I assure you that you are a priority.

Alongside this letter, I’ve left you a copy of my report. It was written in rather a short time after my initial draft ended up being an unfortunate victim of its own flammability, so please do not take it as the most shining example of my writing abilities. I expect a reader as voracious as you could be a stinging critic and my pride could not take it.

Suffice it to say, Professor Granger, that you come out of it well. Any criticisms I have made are not without grounds but I think I’ve been fair and you have received the recommendation you deserve. As I’ve said before: you’re undeniably good at what you do. Even if I stand by something else I said before: you could do even more. Do bear my offer of employment in mind – the perks would be significant.’

Hermione rolled her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at her lips.

‘Now, the box.' Glancing curiously at the thin wooden box, Hermione dropped one hand from the letter to curiously run her thumb over its latch. ‘It contains a Portkey.'

Her thumb stilled. Oh.

‘It’s set to bring you to me on Christmas Day. 10pm. Only if you want to. I don’t know what your plans are but the offer is there, without the burden of expectation or insistence. All I will say is that I would like to see you.

Yours (yes, even untied),

Lucius.’

Setting the letter down in her lap, Hermione slipped her thumb beneath the latch and flicked it up to slowly ease the lid open. Inside, she found the purple foil of a Dairy Milk wrapper. An opened, empty Dairy Milk wrapper. 

An incredulous laugh bubbled up in Hermione’s chest and she allowed the lid of the box to fall closed, dropping her head back against her pillow. Dragging her hands down her face, she raised her head again and peered over the tips of her fingers at the letter, still smiling. 

Her eyes drifted to the report and she reached for it, hesitating for just a moment before she closed her hand around it and lifted it into her lap over the letter. 

She read quickly, wishing to glean a summary in the full knowledge that she would read it several more times before the morning was through. 

Phrases in Lucius’ handwriting jumped out at her, variously making her smile or frown. 

‘Organised’; ‘dedicated and conscientious’; ‘excellent communicator’; ‘patient and understanding with students, sometimes, perhaps, to a fault’; ‘could stand to be less concerned with ‘fun’ ’; ‘evidently very well-liked and respected by students and fellow staff.’

Reaching the final page, she spied a segmented section which read, ‘Next Steps’. 

‘Recommendation: A full teaching appointment with commensurate salary. To discuss in future: The potential value of an extension of the curriculum to lower years. Likely in a more limited form given timetable restraints.’

The parchment wrinkled under Hermione’s tightened grip as she read and re-read Lucius’ words. Sniffing away a sting in the back of her nose, she aggressively rubbed her eyes before moisture could gather. 

It was what she deserved. It was what she’d earned. She wasn’t going to feel gratitude that he had acknowledged that. That he had finally seen sense. That did not, however, erase the fact that his words meant something to her. Far more than she’d thought they ever would. 

End of term mornings were always slightly chaotic in the Great Hall. 

Students at various stages in their packing took their breakfasts in vastly different ways; the more organised among them (the majority of the Ravenclaw table, it always seemed) took a leisurely meal, while those who were running behind schedule were more likely to be spotted darting in to grab a slice of toast and say some hurried goodbyes to their friends from other houses. 

Sidestepping a pair of sprinting Gryffindors wearing frantic expressions and clutching pastries, Hermione entered the Great Hall. Her own trunks were already packed but she’d made sure of that so that she could make the most of her last night with Lucius. 

Hermione was not one of the members of staff who stayed in the castle over the holidays, much to her mother’s relief. The small numbers of students who usually remained did not necessitate an abundance of staff and, though Hermione had always made it clear to Dumbledore and McGonagall that she was willing if they ever needed her, they had always waved her off and told her to enjoy some time at home. 

The sight of Dumbledore at the centre of the staff table immediately drew Hermione’s attention – as the school year progressed, he tended to be a sporadic presence at meals, his other responsibilities and commitments seeming to take precedence over eating.

Catching her eye, he beckoned her over, the twinkle in his blue eyes visible even from halfway across the hall. 

“Morning Albus,” Hermione said, stopping in front of his place at the table, her eyes very briefly dropping to the tub of marmite onto which he was re-screwing the vibrant yellow lid.

“Good morning, Hermione,” he said quietly, his beard twitching as he cast her a smile and set the marmite down. “And might I offer you my most sincere congratulations.”

Hermione’s lips parted, her eyebrows rising. “Oh, I –”

“One of the benefits of being headmaster,” Dumbledore explained cheerfully, his gaze rising to give her a kind look over the rims of his half moon spectacles, “is receiving copies of important reports in an extremely timely fashion. Sometimes even before they are sent. Lucius assured me he would inform you personally – I was quite insistent. It is, after all, good manners.”  

“So, naturally we all know,” McGonagall said at Dumbledore’s side, offering Hermione a warm smile over the rim of her teacup. “Congratulations, Hermione.”

To McGonagall’s left Flitwick and Sprout raised their glasses of orange juice in a congratulatory salute and on Dumbledore’s other side Slughorn simply beamed at her, his buttoned waistcoat swelling with pride. 

“You come across very well in what he has written and, between you and me –” Dumbledore leaned forward, his voice lowering to a stage whisper – “I do not see any problem with being concerned with fun. Though Lucius was always quite a serious boy.”

A small laugh escaped Hermione and she did not even try to repress the beaming smile that rose to her face. “Thank you.”

“I do, of course, intend to take Lucius’ recommendation on board, as if that was in any doubt,” said Dumbledore. “I’ll arrange a formal contract and we can discuss it on your return in the new term. How do you feel?”

“Lighter.”

“A natural response to a weight lifted,” Dumbledore said, dipping his head graciously. “I will allow you to enjoy your breakfast but before I do, allow me to thank you for proving to our esteemed governors that I haven’t entirely lost my touch when it comes to selecting my staff, Hermione.”

Sliding into her seat between Horace and Neville, Hermione tried to enjoy and enthusiastically respond to Horace’s hearty congratulations and not focus on the striking absence of Lucius at her side.

It was absurd that reaching for the salt could send a lance of wistfulness through her but it did. It would, she hoped, fade quite quickly.

“Knew you’d get it,” Neville said confidently when she was finally able to settle comfortably into her seat. “Well done, Professor.”

“Thanks, Neville,” Hermione said, accepting his offer of the coffee pot. “Now I just have to, y’know, continue to educate generations of witches and wizards. The easy part, right?”

Snorting a laugh, Neville poured some milk into his coffee and slid it her way. “How are you feeling?”

Able to be more honest with Neville than with Dumbledore, Hermione shrugged and set the milk jug back to the table. 

“Good,” she said quietly. “Sort of bad, too. Weird. I think it might take me a while to settle back into normality.”

Neville made a small noise of understanding and Hermione rolled her lips into a line before adding in a whisper, “He left me a letter.” Taking a sip of coffee, she cleared her throat. “And a portkey.”

Neville paused with a slice of toast just at his lips and slowly turned to her. “To go where?” he asked quietly, audibly intrigued.

“Dunno,” Hermione said, lifting her spoon to stir it thoughtfully through her porridge. “I just know it’s for Christmas Day. Well, night.”

“And are you going to go?” Neville asked, setting the toast in which he had now completely lost interest down on his plate to turn towards her. 

“I – I think so,” Hermione said, giving him a quick look out of the corner of her eye. “I want to see him. He said he wants to see me.”

“This is fascinating,” Neville said, watching her pinkening cheeks like she was some new specimen in his greenhouse.

 “What, exactly, is fascinating about it?” Hermione asked tightly, self-consciously straightening her posture and tucking a curl behind her ear.

“It’s just, regardless of what you told me the other night, I still think he comes across as a bit of a bastard.” Hermione tutted. “But now I’m thinking – well, I don’t think that anyone who truly is could make you of all people like this.”

“Like what?”

“Extraordinarily keen.”

Rolling her eyes, Hermione dropped her spoon into her porridge. “What, like you with Wood?” she asked spikily. 

“Yes!” Neville laughed in the face of her irritation, picking up his toast. “You have to write and tell me everything that happens.” He paused, frowning down at the thick layer of butter. “Well, maybe not everything. What do you think you’ll do?”

“Probably just have mind-blowing sex for multiple hours,” she said under her breath.

Neville choked on his toast and Hermione smiled grimly, satisfied that her comment had had the desired effect. 

“Just like me and Oliver again, then,” Neville said hoarsely, drawing a snorting giggle from Hermione.

December 23rd

“You’re in a very good mood considering you lost.”

Lucius raised his head from his morning edition of the Prophet to find Draco peering at him from across the breakfast table, a letter in his hands and his eyebrows high on his forehead. 

Blinking rapidly to communicate his mild offence, Lucius lowered the paper to the table. “Lost what, exactly?”

“Against Granger,” Draco said, lifting his letter and waving it. “Ginny’s just told me she got a letter from her yesterday saying she got her teaching post.”

A smile instinctively quirked in the corner of Lucius’ mouth at the thought of Hermione hunched over her desk, scribbling out a letter to express a joy that he’d had a hand in making possible, but he quickly flattened his expression into one of inscrutability.

“Well, you were quite right in your assessment of her in that… insightful letter you sent me last month,” Lucius said. “She was, indeed, a stickler for the rules. Didn’t put a foot wrong.”

“So, that’s it?” Draco asked, looking thoroughly bemused. “After all that, you’re just leaving it?”

“What else can I do?” Lucius asked, lifting his shoulders. “I’m a governor with a set purview and I had no legitimate reason to call for her dismissal. In the end, my hands were veritably tied.”

Lucius enjoyed his small joke all the more in the knowledge that his son could not possibly understand it.

“I thought you’d have been pleased,” Lucius continued, arching a brow. “You seemed quite keen to dissuade me from my chosen path at one point. Best to keep her in Hogwarts, didn’t you say?”

“Well, I mean – I think she –” Draco looked thoroughly ruffled, pinned by his father’s penetrating gaze. “I’m just happy Ginny is happy,” he finally said firmly. “And I can tell she is.”

Draco glanced down at the letter, a fond smile flitting over his face before he raised his eyes to Lucius’ again. “It’s a bit of a blessing, actually; she’d probably have hated you if you’d messed things up for Granger.”

“Well, I’m relieved,” Lucius drawled, reaching for his cup of tea. “We both know how much my self-esteem hinges on the good opinion of Ginevra Weasley.”

He received a flat look of warning from his son in response. “Father.”

Blinking innocently, Lucius returned his cup to its saucer. “When am I meeting her?”

“Soon,” was Draco’s irritatingly vague response. “We’ve only been out a couple of times.”

“You’ve had months, Draco,” Lucius said sharply. “I gave you months.”

“Well, I had to convince her I’m not a complete prat, didn’t I?” Draco said, his voice rising defensively as he dropped the letter to the table. “That takes time!”

Though he rolled his eyes, Lucius consciously grasped for more patience. He understood Draco’s struggle in that area perhaps rather more than his son could realise. There was a part of Lucius that wanted to tell Draco just how much he understood but the time did not feel right – Hermione surely deserved some warning before he did so.

“But it’s going well,” Draco continued, nodding to himself. “I think it’s – I’m happy. She seems happy.”

Eyeing his son’s pink cheeks, Lucius sighed softly through his nose. “Fine,” he said. “If it’s going so well, bring her to the ball at New Year.”

In the face of Draco’s clear reluctance, Lucius pursed his lips impatiently, raising a questioning brow. 

The entire tradition of the ball was a pain in his fucking neck but it was the one Malfoy event that he had been willing to keep going after losing Narcissa. It was largely for the sake of appearances and because he knew that the elves were capable of using her expertly laid plans from previous years to make it run like clockwork, without the need for particularly close oversight. 

“I don’t know if that’s really her kind of thing,” Draco explained, wincing preemptively in anticipation of the tongue lashing he knew he was going to receive.

“If she’s going to be the lady of Malfoy Manor then events like that are going to need to be ‘her thing’,” Lucius said, his voice hardening. “I have expatiated endlessly on the responsibilities your wife will have, Draco, so if you truly think she’s not up to it, drop her. For her sake as much as yours. Do you understand?”

“Merlin, I’ll invite her when I see her tonight,” Draco grumbled, dragging a hand through his hair with a harried look. He caught his father’s severe glare and held his hands out in a way that asked ‘what?’. “I will! But you have to be welcoming.”

Lucius raised an offended hand to his chest at the suggestion that he was capable of being anything else. 

“I mean it, father,” Draco said, pointing a finger in warning. “No trying to chase her off. I like her, so at least try to make it feel like she’s wanted and welcome.” He sighed. “It’s hardly her circle. Merlin only knows what kind of snide comments the Parkinsons will make.”

A curl to his lip, Lucius said, “The Parkinsons have no right to comment on anyone. Certainly not on us . You were never going to marry that girl of theirs anyway – your mother detested her.”

“Why?”

Beginning to lose interest in the conversation, Lucius raised his newspaper again. 

“Gauche. Shrill. Insipid,” he drawled, surveying an article on the ongoing debate over the best place to build the stadium for the next Quidditch World Cup. “The list was longer than my memory, I’m afraid.”

“Promise you’ll make her feel welcome.” 

Sighing, Lucius bent the newspaper over his fingers. 

“I promise, Draco,” he said, relenting on seeing the large, imploring eyes of his son. “I will not accept a single word said against her by anyone. Even myself.”

“And don’t invite Auntie Bella,” Draco mumbled, apparently embarrassed by his own request. “She’ll just make it a nightmare.”

“She was never coming,” Lucius said firmly. “Don’t worry about that.”

“What will you tell people?”

Lucius scoffed, straightening the paper again with a flick of his wrists. “Didn’t you hear what she did at Yaxley’s on Halloween?”

“No,” Draco replied, looking concerned.

“Well, most of polite society did,” Lucius said tiredly. “So, trust me when I say that her absence will not be questioned. It benefits us to distance ourselves. Everyone else is.”

“What did she do?”

“We’re having breakfast, Draco,” Lucius said, turning a page. “I wouldn’t like to put you off it.”

December 24th

“Can I ask you a massive favour?”

Hermione paused in the process of scraping some foam from the top of her cappuccino and looked at Ginny from beneath her brow. Ginny’s face was wide-eyed, hopeful and, therefore, utterly worthy of suspicion. 

“Ask,” Hermione said warily, raising her teaspoon to her lips.

“I need you to come shopping with me.”

Groaning softly, Hermione placed her teaspoon on the table and folded her arms. “I knew there was a reason you suggested Beans and Brews mid-morning and not the Leaky Cauldron at night.”

Offering Hermione a rueful grin, Ginny dropped two sugar cubes into her own coffee. “I thought it best to get you here and then ask you. I’ll buy you dinner after.”

“All this hanging around with a Slytherin is doing bad things to you,” Hermione muttered. 

A pretty pink tint appeared high on Ginny’s cheeks but she didn’t seem displeased. “It sort of involves him, actually.”

“Oh god, Ginny, you’re not buying each other three week anniversary gifts or something, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ginny snapped, actually looking mildly irritated by the suggestion that she'd do such a thing. She hesitated, then added, “I mean he might but I certainly won’t,” drawing a laugh from Hermione. 

“He’s still keen then?”

“Yes,” Ginny said with a pleased little smile, raising her coffee to her lips. “Although,” she added slowly, lowering the cup and her voice, “he’s not… tried anything.”

“You mean like –”

Ginny nodded with a significant look. “Yes, I mean like shagging me senseless.”

“Maybe he wants to take it slow,” Hermione suggested, wiping some cappuccino foam from her lip. “I know you’ve been writing for a while but you have only just started seeing each other in person.”

“That’s what he said last night,” Ginny replied, frowning. “But then in the next breath he said he wants to introduce me to his dad next week and the shift nearly broke my neck. It was like jumping from a Cleansweep to a Firebolt.”

So Lucius is getting his way, Hermione thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes because of course he was. 

“If you don’t want to meet him right now, Ginny, you shouldn’t have to,” Hermione assured her firmly. “Tell Draco.” And I’ll warn Lucius to bloody back off .

Ginny winced. “His father is important to him, I know that much. He’s all he’s got.” Shaking her head, she added, "It’s not actually that big an ask; I think I just wouldn’t mind seeing what Draco’s working with down there before I commit to spending a whole night in the company of his father.”

It was tempting to tell Ginny that if Draco, in any way, took after Lucius in that department then she’d probably be very happy. 

However, Ginny couldn’t know that yet because Draco certainly didn’t know. It would, Hermione thought, put Ginny in an awkward position to make her keep it from Draco. Besides, Hermione had no desire for the details of her and Lucius’ involvement to spread any further than they already had without Lucius’ prior knowledge. It was only fair.

So, instead, Hermione chose to laugh and, hoping it didn't sound overly forced, merely said, “Yeah, fair enough.”

“Did you really get on with him?” Ginny asked, her eyes searching Hermione’s. “Malfoy’s dad, I mean. You weren’t just lying to me to make me feel better?”

When Hermione had replied to Ginny’s first letter after Slughorn’s Christmas party, she’d tried her best to put Ginny's mind at ease about Lucius with what felt like an increasingly ridiculous understatement: “He’s alright, really – we get on well enough.”

“He recommended that I become a permanent professor,” Hermione reminded Ginny. “He can’t be that bad.”

Humming thoughtfully, Ginny said, “I’ll tell myself that when he inevitably annoys me.” Catching Hermione’s eye, Ginny offered her a rueful smile and a shrug. “I can just tell he will.”

“Where are you meeting him?” Hermione asked, peering at Ginny over the rim of her coffee cup.

She couldn’t imagine it would be in the way she and Ginny were meeting now; in some cosy cafe on Diagon Alley enjoying warm drinks. Any attempt to conjure up an image of Lucius, Draco and Ginny huddled around a table chatting cheerfully over hot chocolates simply failed, fading without ever truly forming like an incorporeal patronus. 

“That’s what the shopping is about; I need new dress robes,” Ginny explained, flicking her long hair over her shoulder. “The Malfoys have this party at their manor every New Years’ Eve, apparently. Some hoity-toity masquerade. Draco wants me to go with him and he said he’d introduce me there.”

Hermione grimaced and, seeing it, Ginny flatly said, “I know”. A fancy masquerade in Malfoy Manor sounded like a trial by fire for Ginny.

“I wish you could come,” Ginny said forlornly. “Make it a bit more bearable. All those puffed up purebloods floating about making sniping comments and cackling about how rich they all are." She stuck out her tongue, her nose wrinkling. "Not my thing.”

Although she would have liked to support Ginny, Hermione was privately slightly glad that she wasn’t going and that she didn’t need to jump through the parental hoop that Ginny was facing. After all, you didn’t need the father’s approval when he was the one you were fucking.

“You’re a pureblood,” Hermione reminded her. 

Ginny scoffed. “Not like some of that lot. Not that I’m sorry about that.” She took another sip of coffee and, when she lowered the cup, Hermione saw that her lips were turned down at the corners.

Eyeing Hermione worriedly, Ginny said, “Ron, Fred and George said that if anything will make me see what kind of wizards the Malfoys can be, it’ll probably be a party like this.”

“They’re not taking it well, then?” Hermione asked, her brow flattening with sympathy as she reached across the table to place a hand on Ginny’s arm.

Ginny lifted one shoulder and sighed. “It’s…well, it’s not that they’re angry at me or anything – as if they’d have any bloody right to be. They’re more being…protective, I s’pose.” She scowled, her arm twitching beneath Hermione’s hand. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I don’t need it or want it.” 

“They think he can’t have changed?”

“They’re just waiting for it to go wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “You have no idea how much I want it to go well so that I can prove them wrong. It’s part of what’s keeping me so set on going to this bloody thing.”

“You’re the one that’s been talking to him and spending time with him,” Hermione said, “so trust your judgement.”

“Draco did say we can hide away most of the night – I get the impression he’s as interested in the mingling as me which is sort of comforting in a way.”

“See, I’d have thought he’d love that kind of thing,” Hermione said, her eyebrows rising. “Bit of an opportunity to perform as lord of the manor.”

“D’you know, I think you’re right – he probably would have loved it at one point,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “But he told me he’s sort of sick of trying to impress people he doesn’t even actually like. He said he and his parents were never happier than when it was just them and he thinks there’s probably a reason for that.”

A small noise of understanding left Hermione and she frowned, dropping her eyes to her coffee cup. It was an odd thing to hear – it sent a twinge of guilt through her and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why it should. 

"Anyway.” Straightening up purposefully, Ginny fixed Hermione with a steely look. “We can start at Madam Malkin’s and Twilfitt and Tattings can be our absolute last resort. I have something sort of silvery in mind, so keep an eye out for anything like that.”

“Christmas Eve shopping, Ginny,” Hermione muttered before throwing back the last of her cappuccino. “You do realise you’re a mad woman.”

“I’m a mad woman on a mission,” Ginny corrected firmly. “And they usually get things done.”

Chapter Text

December 25th

Hermione sat cross-legged on her bed in her childhood bedroom, staring across at her desk where the empty Dairy Milk wrapper lay on its surface. 

She had five minutes and forty-three seconds until it was scheduled to leave and she knew that because she only ever removed her eyes from it in order to look at the clock on her wall. 

It was a strange place to wait for this particular meeting; conspicuously childish. Though her room had, of course, grown with her to a degree, there was evidence of her every year pinned to the walls or tucked into shelves. 

It was in desperate need of redecoration – the lilac paint on the walls had been the choice of her thirteen year old self. Given she only ever stayed in it during holidays, however, Hermione hardly saw the point in pushing for it to any great degree. There were always more interesting things to be done in her eyes.

She could hear the muffled noise of the television in the living room directly below her, her mother and father watching a repeat of an old music documentary while they finished the last of their wine and shared a box of fancy chocolates. 

On any other Christmas, she’d have been sitting with them, curled up on one of the armchairs with a new book in her lap, occasionally glancing up when something someone said on the television captured her interest.

It had, until this point, been a perfectly ordinary Granger Christmas. 

They’d woken early, exchanged their gifts over breakfast and then gone for a family walk around the nearby park. Christmas dinner had been a roast chicken cooked by her father, all the trimmings made by herself and her mother, served at the dining table where they discussed everything from politics to what the nightmare neighbours had been doing in her absence.

Her parents had been delighted by her announcement that she’d passed her teaching probation and Hermione absently fingered the delicate chain of the gold necklace they’d bought her as a gift of congratulations. 

They had both read her copy of the report that Lucius had written and her father had declared ‘this governor clearly thinks very well of you, dear’. When her mother asked for more information on him, what he was like, Hermione had simply told her that he was ‘you know, the usual school governor type. Not much to tell’. 

She’d said it easily and with a completely straight face, too, which made Hermione think that, actually, she’d possibly spent far too much time in the company of that ‘usual school governor’. 

Glancing once more at the clock, Hermione uncrossed her legs and eased herself off her bed to approach the desk. 

Her parents had been surprised when she’d declined to change out of her dress and join them in her fluffy pyjamas and slippers as she usually would. 

Not displeased, however. 

She’d told them that she was going to meet Neville and his boyfriend for a drink in Diagon Alley and that she might just crash at his if things went on too late. They’d immediately told her to have a wonderful time. Hermione strongly suspected that they liked to see her ‘be young’.

A part of her was uncomfortable lying to them, particularly because she didn’t actually know where she was going, even if she did know and trust who it would be with. However, telling Helen and David Granger the truth was not an option, not least because Hermione had absolutely no idea how she would articulate it. 

Stomach aflutter, Hermione took a deep breath through her nose and picked up ribbon handles of the bag she’d left on her desk before touching her finger to the chocolate wrapping. 

Counting with the clock, she tried to push down her nerves and instead focused on the fact that she was actually looking forward to seeing Lucius. 

It was curious to go from seeing someone every day to essentially nothing. She actually missed him and it’d only been a few days. He’d become a part of her routine. Now, she supposed, she was just going to have to establish a new one with him. 

The minute hand of her clock ticked into place and Hermione felt the familiar, unpleasant tug behind her naval as the Portkey lifted her from her tiny bedroom in Muggle London to god only knew where. 

Hermione’s feet slammed into a wooden floor and she just about managed to keep herself upright, her knees trembling under the force of her landing and the wrapper fluttering to land somewhere nearby. The nausea was, mercifully, at a minimum and Hermione was glad that her mother insisted on serving Christmas dinner even earlier than usual. 

It was only as she eased open her eyes to look down at the wood beneath her feet, however, that Hermione realised she was still wearing her battered old pink bunny slippers. They made for a horrific match with her velvet burgundy dress.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she whispered, dropping the bag she was carrying onto the floor where it landed with a heavy thump.

At the sound of someone clearing their throat, Hermione’s head snapped up. She was greeted by the sight of a quietly amused Lucius Malfoy slowly rising from a brown leather chesterfield by a crackling fire. He looked as casual as he ever could, in his usual shirt and trousers, his robes nowhere in sight.

“Don’t look at my feet,” Hermione said urgently, lifting a hand, palm flat and fingers spread.

“It’s too late,” Lucius said gravely, sauntering towards her over an ornate green rug. “I’m afraid I’ll never be able to take you seriously again.”

“You prick.”

Laughing, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, Hermione loosed one of the slippers from her feet and kicked it at him. Neatly avoiding the missile, Lucius stopped and raised his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, so they’re weapons,” he said dryly. “Well, now, that makes a lot more sense for you.”

Grinning, Hermione stepped out of her other slipper where she was standing and closed the space between them in a few quick steps, using the momentum to roll onto her tiptoes and throw her arms around his neck. 

Wrapping his arms around her waist, Lucius lifted her just far enough off the ground to kiss her, pulling her body flush against him.

“Merry Christmas,” Hermione said, drawing her head back to look into his eyes before kissing him again. Lucius mumbled his response against her lips before setting her slowly down onto her bare feet. 

“Thank you for coming,” he said, allowing her to step away from him. 

“As if I wouldn’t,” Hermione replied brightly, turning to cross the floor and pick up the bag she’d dropped. “I have to give you your gift.”

Lucius stared blankly at the gift bag she thrust towards him. His eyes flicked up to hers as he said, “My gift?”

“Mm-hmm.” Hermione nodded, making the heavy bag swing like a pendulum to encourage him to take it. “Why do you look so disturbed?”

A faint frown between his brows, Lucius took the bag from her and held it open to peer into it. 

“I don’t –” Keeping hold of one side of the bag, he reached into it with one hand and extracted one of the several books that he’d found inside. 

Turning it over, he read A Christmas Carol and glanced up at her, a bemused smile playing about his lips. “I don’t often receive gifts.”

“That’s quite sad,” Hermione said, eyeing the book in his hand anxiously. “Although not entirely surprising – you’re a complete bloody nightmare to buy for.”

Lucius chuckled, returning the book to the bag to eye some of the other titles in it. 

“They’re all Muggle books.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “I did suspect.”

“I thought you might read them if I got them for you instead of just sending you a list,” Hermione explained hurriedly. “I mean, they’re not exactly special copies or anything, they’re just –”

“Stop fretting,” Lucius said. 

Slowly, carefully, he set the bag by his feet and reached out to draw her into him, placing his hands on her waist. 

“That was very kind, thank you. I wouldn’t have expected you to get me anything.”

Pursing her lips, Hermione dropped her eyes to his chest and toyed with the buttons on his shirt. 

“Well, I would have felt weird coming to see you on Christmas without anything. Especially since we’re at your –” 

Pausing, Hermione finally turned her attention to the room in which they were standing. She didn’t actually know where they were.

It was a cosy living room, fairly small, though it had very high, ornately corniced ceilings.

Twisting in Lucius’ arms, Hermione took in the sage green walls, wooden floors and cherry wood furniture. Through the sash and case windows, the night was dark but she could just about see the tops of some old-fashioned street lamps outside, their warm glow illuminating the gently falling snow. 

“Is this…” Hermione turned back to Lucius, looking up at him. “Is this your manor?”

It seemed far too small a living room for a manor, not to mention too many floors up and, given the streetlights, too centrally located. 

With all that in mind, Hermione felt slightly ridiculous for even asking the question but she wasn’t sure where else they could be so she didn’t entirely appreciate the delicate scoffing sound Lucius made in the back of his throat. 

“Certainly not,” he said. “It’s a flat.” 

“Oh.”

Well, that makes more sense, Hermione thought, looking around once again. Something about the architecture rather reminded her of the rooms in the Leaky Cauldron, though this space was far more nicely decorated.

“It’s also yours,” Lucius added after a moment. “If you’d like it.”

Hermione froze, dragging her eyes from a pretty painting of a vase of flowers in which a bee was lazily floating round back to Lucius’ face. “Excuse me?”

“I told you I own buildings in Diagon Alley and will, occasionally, offer discounts on rent,” Lucius explained. “I wasn’t lying. Though, of course, I don’t expect you to pay anything at all.”

“Diagon –”

Turning out of his arms, Hermione crossed the room to one of the windows and stared out of it. Snow was still gently falling outside and, sure enough, it was landing on the familiar cobbles of Diagon Alley. Across the street and two floors down, Hermione spied the sign for Flourish and Blotts. 

A soft puff of air escaped her and she set her hands on the carved windowsill, her fingers pressing heavily on it like she needed the support to stay standing.

Lucius joined her at her back and looked out at the street over her head. Hermione glanced up, her eyes catching his reflection in the dark window as he spied her disbelieving gape.

“There are flats directly above Flourish and Blotts,” he said, raising a hand to indicate a dark window opposite, “but I thought you might prefer being able to look at it. Let’s you see how busy it is before you go down.”

Turning to face him, his closeness forcing her to press her lower back against the windowsill, Hermione shook her head. 

“Lucius, I can’t accept this,” she said. “This is… insane .” Twisting her head, she glanced out at the street again and back to him. “Generous but completely insane.”

Lucius titled his head, his lower lip pushing out thoughtfully like he was truly considering what she was saying. 

“No,” he said slowly, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “No, I actually think insanity would lie in declining my offer.”

“You can’t just buy me a flat,” Hermione exclaimed, throwing her hands out to the side. 

“I didn’t buy you a flat ,” Lucius said dismissively, shrugging his shoulders. “I already owned it. Bought it before you were even born, actually, thank you for reminding me. I’m just giving you it. It’s quite different if you really think about it; far less extravagant.”

“No,” Hermione insisted. “I need to pay you rent.”

Rolling his eyes like she was behaving exactly as he’d expected, Lucius said, “You really don’t, Hermione.”

“Yes, I do.”