Chapter Text
Hermione Granger had not had a proper night’s sleep in twenty-three days, and the entire Department of Magical Law Enforcement was starting to feel it.
Her tea had long gone tepid. Again. The steam had evaporated sometime between the moment she’d sat down and when Robards had entered the room with that particular furrow between his brows—deeper than his usual one, which already looked chiseled in place by years of post-war bureaucracy and the recurring indignity of being wrong in front of a subordinate. Especially this subordinate.
“Rowle’s missing,” he said without preamble, and every head in the room tilted just slightly to gauge her reaction.
Hermione didn’t flinch. She blinked once, slowly, as if savouring the words like a fine wine she’d been promised but never actually poured. There it is.
Instead of I told you so, she said, “Define ‘missing.’”
A junior clerk across the table had the gall to shift uncomfortably. Robards ignored him. “Parole check-in overdue by five days. He hasn’t been seen in Knockturn or anywhere else on our grid since last Thursday.”
“Which means he was gone by Wednesday.” Hermione folded her arms and sat back in her chair. She made a show of inspecting her cuticles, which were slightly ink-stained from the paperwork she'd clawed through the night before. “I flagged his file two months ago. Obsessive behavioural patterns. Radicalised language in his wandless therapy interviews. Fixation on Muggle-borns. But no—‘model reintegration case,’ wasn’t that the phrase you used?”
Robards exhaled through his nose, the bureaucratic version of swearing.
“Granger,” he warned.
“No, I’m just wondering,” she said sweetly, “how far up the Department’s arse one has to be before they can no longer see when a man is clearly plotting a slow, revenge-motivated disappearance.”
Tension flickered like static in the air. Robards looked as though he were chewing the inside of his cheek just to keep from saying something deeply regrettable, possibly sackable.
“You’re here because of your instincts,” he muttered. “Not your bedside manner.”
She didn’t say thank you, because she wasn’t sure it was a compliment.
The room was cold in that uniquely Ministry way—overcharmed for dryness, undercharmed for comfort. One of the sconces above the long table crackled. She tapped her notes with one finger.
“So what’s the ask?”
Robards opened a folder with a slow, deliberate motion—what passed for theatricality in his circles. Inside: a grainy surveillance photograph, not of Rowle, but of someone else. Pale, imperious, unmistakable.
Lucius Malfoy.
“You’re joking,” Hermione said flatly.
“We’ve reason to believe Malfoy may have information.”
“He’s under house arrest,” she said. “No wand, no contact, no visitors, no life. The man’s practically pickled in self-pity at this point.”
“He and Rowle served together,” Robards continued. “They were close. Rowle was seen near Wiltshire two days before his disappearance. It’s circumstantial, but it’s the only lead we have.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “And let me guess. You want me to go play nice with the snake in silk.”
“Exactly that.”
The lift smelled faintly of metal polish and someone’s too-strong aftershave. Hermione adjusted the cuffs of her coat—tailored charcoal, pinstripe, professional enough to hide the wand holster strapped high on her thigh—and reminded herself, again, that she could have been a Healer. Or a cursebreaker. Or anything that didn’t involve chasing down the last few remaining echoes of a war that had already devoured her twenties.
But no—she had a taste for lost causes. For cleaning up other people’s messes. For sniffing out rot in systems that insisted they were fine, actually, just fine.
Lucius Malfoy had not had a Ministry visitor in six months. She was about to break that streak.
The file under her arm was thinner than she liked—one page with a list of interactions, mostly refusals to speak. But Hermione didn’t need his words. Not yet. What she needed was a reaction. A tell. A crack in that marble mask.
As the lift climbed higher, past the floors reserved for the public, the Auror offices, the Wizengamot archives, Hermione felt the weight of the moment settle in. She wasn’t afraid of Lucius Malfoy. Not anymore. She was, however, keenly aware of what it meant to face a man who had once believed her subhuman—and now might see her as something altogether more dangerous.
Indispensable.
She liked that more than she should.
The lift chimed. Hermione stepped out onto Level One, where the anti-Apparition wards for high-risk interviews shimmered in the stone. A Ministry escort waited for her—tall, mute, hooded. Standard protocol.
They would Apparate her to the wards of Malfoy Manor. One visit. One hour. One brittle, fraying connection to the worst parts of her past.
Hermione straightened her shoulders. If Malfoy had anything of use, she’d get it out of him.
And if not—
Well. She was very good at making men like him talk.
–––
The lavender was dying.
Lucius crouched slowly—his knees protested, but he did not wince—and inspected the brittle tips of the stalks with narrowed eyes. A faint silvering of mildew clung to the lower leaves, spiteful and damp and utterly resistant to the muggle solution he’d tried three days ago.
The soil, of course, was too acidic. But the gardener was gone now. Had been for years.
He pinched the stem lightly between two fingers. It crumbled. Of course it did.
He straightened, brushing the dust of failure from his hands. They no longer looked like the hands of a patriarch. They were browned from sun, ridged with age, slightly callused. Gardening—done without magic, without servants, without even decent tools—had stripped them of the softness that had once matched his tailored robes and silver-topped cane.
He missed his cane. Not for the vanity of it, though there had been plenty of that, but for the authority. The sound it used to make when it struck marble. The pause it commanded in every corridor.
Now he moved in silence. Wiltshire winds and the low rustle of his own breath were the only things that kept him company.
The Ministry sent his meals, of course. Conjured, bland, and punctual. Just like them.
His parole terms were simple: no wand, no Apparition, no outside contact, and absolutely no company.
Until today.
He felt her before he saw her—magic like a knife’s edge across silk. Bright, tightly controlled, and utterly intolerant of disorder.
Granger.
Lucius turned his face toward the manor as the first pulse of the wards shifted and let her through.
They’d warned him, in a delightfully vague note, that an agent might call. They hadn’t said which one.
He had rather hoped it would be her.
He did not rush to greet her. That would’ve been beneath him. Instead, he reached slowly for his gloves—tucked neatly over the rusted edge of the wheelbarrow he refused to part with—and slid them on with deliberate precision. The leather, cracked from use, fit his fingers like old secrets.
She was at the garden gate now. Standing, as ever, like she owned the room—even when there was no room, only hedgerows and ghosts.
“Miss Granger,” he said, when she made no move to speak.
Her coat was sharp enough to cut glass. Her hair was scraped back into something severe, a knot that made her cheekbones look like weapons. The air around her crackled faintly, and he wondered if she knew how very badly she wanted someone to tame her.
Lucius allowed himself a slow, cold smile.
“Am I to assume the Ministry’s run out of men willing to be ignored?”
She didn’t smile back. Pity.
“No, Mr Malfoy,” she said, voice crisp. “They’ve simply run out of patience for your dramatics.”
“Ah,” he said, tugging off one glove with his teeth. “Then they’ve sent you. Their brightest. Their most disapproving.”
Her eyes flared slightly. She hated being seen. Really seen.
She stepped forward, stopping just short of the flowerbeds. “I’m here about Thorfinn Rowle.”
“I gathered,” he said mildly, and turned back to his plants.
The pause between them was heavy with unspoken protocol. She did not like being dismissed. He didn’t like being interrogated. Fortunately for both of them, he adored being difficult.
“You were seen with him,” she pressed. “Twelve days ago. Wiltshire border.”
“I believe I was seen in my own gardens.” He picked a dry sprig of lavender and examined it like a relic. “The Ministry’s surveillance spells are slipping.”
“You exchanged words.”
“I exchange words with my hound. Doesn’t mean I share his taste in chewing bones.”
She crossed her arms. Her coat pulled taut across her chest when she did it. He did not stare. He noticed. Different thing entirely.
“He’s missing,” she said.
“Yes. So I’ve heard. Tragic, really. So few good Death Eaters left.”
She took one slow breath through her nose. Tightly wound, he thought, amused. Coiled like a spring in the dark.
He wondered if anyone had ever let her unravel. Properly. Not all at once. Bit by bit, the way silk unspools under heat.
“You knew him,” she said. “You served together. You spoke with him.”
“And you think that because I once shared a table with the man, I’ve now conspired with him to vanish from under your careful nose?”
She said nothing.
Lucius tossed the brittle lavender into the wheelbarrow, where it landed with a dry, papery sigh.
“Miss Granger,” he said, turning to face her at last. “You’ve grown very… efficient. ”
The word dripped from his tongue, slow and honeyed. It was not a compliment.
Her chin lifted. “I’ve grown smart.”
“Oh, you always were that.” He walked towards her with unhurried grace. “But cleverness has teeth. You’ve let yours get blunt. Domestic service will do that to a woman.”
Her jaw flexed. Her wand hand twitched, and that alone made the entire conversation worthwhile.
“Are you going to cooperate,” she said, “or should I submit a formal report that you’re in breach of parole via obstruction?”
“Come now,” he murmured. “You came all this way. Wouldn’t you rather ask nicely?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t play games.”
He stopped barely two feet from her. Close enough to feel the heat of her spellwork humming against her skin. She smelled faintly of ink and citrus oil. A field agent’s perfume. Practical. Clean. Stripped of seduction—so of course, it was all the more tempting.
“But that’s the pity, isn’t it?” he said softly. “You’d be very good at it.”
She didn’t back away.
Lucius tilted his head. He let his eyes roam just enough to suggest that he could be crass— if he wanted to be. But he wouldn’t. That was the fun of it.
“If you want what’s inside my head, Miss Granger,” he said, his voice silk-laced steel, “you’ll need to open something of yours.”
Silence.
Then, finally, she stepped back. Just one measured pace.
He smiled again, the way a snake might smile at a trembling mouse—not out of hunger, but anticipation.
“I’ll be back,” she said, sharp as a snapped quill.
“I do hope so,” Lucius murmured. “You’ve brought such… stimulation to the grounds.”
She left through the side gate, her back ramrod straight. She didn’t glance back.
Lucius turned back to his lavender. He picked up the shears and knelt. Snipped another dying stem.
Only once the silence returned did he allow the smile to slip from his mouth, and the ache in his knees to remind him just how long it had been since anyone had looked at him like a man instead of a monster.
–––
There were exactly three things Hermione told herself on the walk from the gate to the front steps of Malfoy Manor.
First: This is for the mission.
Second: He is a source. A subject. Nothing more.
And third: You are not here to enjoy this.
She repeated them like a litany, like spellwork, like absolution—because if she didn’t, she might have to admit she’d spent far too long last night thinking about the way Lucius Malfoy had looked at her during their last meeting.
Not leering. Not smirking. Worse.
Like he already knew what she tasted like.
She adjusted her coat as the doors opened, not with magic, but with the heavy grind of manual locks disengaging. No house-elf greeted her. No servant appeared to announce her presence.
Just the creak of her boots across marble.
He was expecting her.
The manor was cold—an architectural decision, she suspected, not just a lack of central heating. The air smelled faintly of old wood polish, ash, and the fading remains of something herbal. Lavender, maybe. Or something that once had been.
He waited in the library.
Of course he did.
She found him standing by one of the tall, dust-veiled windows, hand resting on the back of an armchair that had probably cost more than her entire salary. He was dressed not for hosting, but for… control. Waistcoat, immaculate. Collar open by one button. Silver cufflinks gleaming at his wrists like restrained violence.
He turned at her entrance—graceful as a cat stretching out of sleep—and watched her without speaking.
She hated the way her stomach reacted. A tightening. A drop. An awareness.
“Miss Granger,” he drawled. “Twice in one week. You’ll spoil me.”
“You have information.” She kept her voice even, but not polite. Politeness was wasted here. “I want it.”
He gestured to the chair across from him. “Do sit. You look taut as a bowstring.”
“I’m not here for tea and conversation.”
“Neither am I.” His smile was too slow.
She took the chair. Perched, really. Like she might spring out of it at any moment, which, to be fair, was more than possible.
Lucius took his own seat, far too composed. One leg crossed over the other, long fingers steepled under his chin. Watching her like a lecture he was tempted to interrupt.
“Rowle has vanished like smoke,” she said.
“How literary of him.”
She didn’t rise to it. “You implied you had something to offer.”
“I do.”
“Then offer it.”
He tilted his head. “You’ll forgive me, Miss Granger, if I say I find our current arrangement rather… uneven.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How so?”
“I give,” he said. “You take. I provide insight, you provide paperwork. Where’s the balance? Where’s the incentive? ”
“I don’t barter with criminals.”
“No,” he said smoothly, “but you do like results. And you’re clever enough to know the difference between leverage and bribery.”
She folded her arms. “If you have a price, name it.”
Lucius uncrossed his legs, slowly. Deliberately. Leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been a prisoner in my own home for ten years. No wand. No contact. Not even a quarrel worth the breath. But now… you arrive. Self-righteous. Electric. And I find myself wondering whether solitude has made me imaginative—or if you truly are that enticing.”
Her pulse kicked, hard. She hid it with a dry, unimpressed stare. “And what, exactly, do you want from me?”
“A performance,” he said. “Something small. A gesture of… mutual understanding.”
Hermione didn’t speak. Not yet.
Lucius stood, walked to a nearby shelf, and selected a heavy-bound book from the top row. He didn’t open it. Just ran his fingers down the spine, trailing dust.
“You’ll sit in the chair,” he said, “but not that one.” His gaze flicked to a nearby wingback—deeper, broader. “Mine.”
Her breath caught.
“You’ll sit in my lap, Miss Granger, and you’ll read. Aloud. To me.”
She blinked once.
He smiled again. That slow, poisonous smile she was coming to recognise as his real face.
“I’ll tell you where to start. What to skip. When to pause. If you shift, it will be at my direction. If you speak, it will be because I allow it.”
She should have hexed him.
She should have stood up and walked out with her head held high and her coat swirling dramatically behind her.
Instead, she sat very still and asked, “And if I agree?”
He moved closer, voice low now, just above a whisper. “Then I’ll give you a name. A real one. The first solid link in the chain.”
“And if I refuse?”
He shrugged. “Then we sit here. Quiet. And you go home with nothing but the knowledge that you lacked the imagination to try.”
Hermione looked at the chair.
It wasn’t about sex. Not really. Not yet.
It was about control. Always about control. Who had it. Who gave it up.
And whether giving it up—just a little, just once—was the key to finally getting what she needed.
She met his eyes. “One chapter. My choice of book.”
“Deal,” he murmured, and stepped back.
She rose. Walked to the shelf.
She didn’t choose anything light. She chose something ancient. Archaic. Dense. The Ethics of Magical Dominion: A Comparative Analysis.
When she turned, he was seated—legs spread slightly, arms resting on the carved wings of the chair. Waiting.
Waiting for her.
She walked toward him, spine straight. And as she stepped closer, she felt the first pulse of something she hadn’t expected.
Not fear.
Want.
Hermione stepped between his knees with the slow, precise grace of someone approaching a live wire—knowing full well she might burn and doing it anyway.
Her coat came off first. She peeled it from her shoulders like a second skin and draped it over the nearby armrest. Beneath it, she wore what she always did for fieldwork: dark blouse, fitted trousers, wand harness tucked under her arm. Practical. Authoritative.
Not seductive.
And yet—
Lucius looked up at her as though she’d just unwrapped herself. As though peeling away a coat was akin to parting her thighs.
He said nothing. Just watched.
She held the book tight, grounding herself in weight and ink and spine. He’d left the space open in his lap—barely. His legs were still parted, arrogant in their ease.
She hated how deliberate the motion felt when she turned and slowly sat. One thigh draped across his, her back upright, her arse nestled just enough into the cradle of his hips to feel the vague, dangerous pressure beneath.
His body was warm. Devastatingly so.
He said nothing for a long moment.
Neither did she.
The silence stretched thin between them, until finally he murmured, voice low against her ear:
“Begin.”
She opened the book with fingers that did not tremble. Not quite.
“‘The core dilemma in post-war magical ethics lies not in legality,’” she read aloud, “‘but in interpretation—where power is allowed, and where it demands surrender.’”
Lucius’s breath ghosted the back of her neck. “Slower.”
She read the sentence again. Slower. Let the words settle. Felt his hand move—not touching yet, but close enough that she could feel where it would land if it did.
His voice was silk and command. “Chapter four. Page seventy-three. Skip the footnotes.”
She flipped pages, spine creaking slightly beneath her touch. The paper was older than it looked, like the room, like him—worn, expensive, full of sharp corners pretending at civility.
She read.
He listened.
And then his hand moved.
It wasn’t inappropriate, not yet. Just one finger tracing the outer curve of her shoulder, then down to the top of her arm. A slow, measured correction—as if adjusting posture, not seducing flesh.
“You hunch when you read,” he said lightly.
The finger moved again, brushing the high curve of her neck where her pulse betrayed her.
“Continue,” he murmured.
She tried. Words became shapes in her mouth—lofty, academic shapes about magical dominance and the ethics of memory charms, but each syllable felt like a bead of sweat between her thighs.
His thigh shifted beneath her. Just slightly.
She felt the firm swell of him—evidence, no more deniable than gravity—beneath the seat of her trousers.
Heat surged low in her belly. She clenched instinctively.
Lucius said nothing.
His hand moved to her other shoulder, brushing her collarbone through the fabric of her blouse.
“You read well,” he said, almost absent. “Too well. Makes one wonder what you sound like when the words aren’t assigned.”
She stiffened. “Is this your idea of intelligence gathering?”
“I didn’t say you could speak,” he murmured. “But no. This is indulgence.”
The book trembled slightly in her hands.
He shifted again. Not jostling. Guiding. And she hated— hated —that she adjusted, spine arching ever so slightly, to maintain the contact between her body and the unmistakable line of his cock.
Fully clothed. Nothing crude.
Just pressure. Just tension. Just the awareness of it, like static before lightning.
“Read the sentence again,” he said, brushing her earlobe with a single knuckle.
She obeyed. She had to. The only alternative was to stand, and to stand would be to surrender, and she was not here to surrender.
Except…
Except she was melting from the inside out.
And then, just as her voice dipped into the last syllable, he leaned in—not touching, not quite—and whispered:
“Cross.”
The word sliced clean through her.
She froze.
“What did you say?”
“Cross,” he repeated. “Surname of a witch. Muggle-born. Went by Ava once, if memory serves. Left the country after the war. She’s who Rowle is hunting.”
Her voice stuck. “You’re sure?”
Lucius’s mouth was near her ear now, his breath maddeningly warm. “He spoke of her. Obsessively. She testified against him. Disarmed him. Humiliated him in front of others. You know how sensitive men like Rowle can be.”
Hermione swallowed.
A name. A real one. A solid lead. The kind she could bring back. She could feel the weight of it already forming in her report—but it didn’t feel triumphant. It felt like a confession.
Because she hadn’t earned it through skill or interrogation.
She’d earned it like this.
His hand slid, slowly, from her shoulder to the curve of her waist. Still over clothing. Still just pressure. But gods, it burned.
“You came for information,” he murmured. “And you got it.”
She hated how warm her skin was. Hated how wet her knickers were. Hated that she could feel every inch of him beneath her, and worse, that her hips had rolled just slightly in response.
She snapped the book shut.
“I have what I need,” she said, voice hoarse.
Lucius leaned back, infuriatingly composed. “Do you?”
She stood. Too fast. Nearly tripped on her own coat. Her skin felt raw. Her trousers stuck slightly where the heat had pooled between her thighs.
He stayed seated, like a man who’d already won the match and was merely enjoying the view of his opponent retreating.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she snapped, grabbing her coat.
He didn’t blink. “I always have.”
As she turned, coat over her arm, wand holster thudding against her ribs with every step, he said:
“You liked it.”
She froze in the doorway.
“I think,” Lucius said, fingers steepled once more, “you liked it more than you want to admit. Imagine what we might uncover with chapter five.”
She didn’t turn.
Didn’t hex him.
Didn’t deny it.
–––
The parchment in her hand was still warm from the courier’s spell when she dropped it onto her desk.
CONFIRMED SIGHTING: AVA CROSS – ALIVE, NEW YORK CITY, UNDER MACUSA PROTECTION.
The problem wasn’t that the name had panned out.
The problem was that it had.
Hermione leaned back in her chair and pressed the heel of her hand to one eye, pretending it was just the lamplight making her temples throb. Her office smelled like ink and firewhisky—a dangerous combination that said more about her work habits than she liked.
MACUSA had Cross on their radar, yes. But no flagged encounters. No threats. No known aliases pinging on American soil. In other words: they had nothing.
Which meant her something was the best lead in the international file.
Which meant him.
Of course.
She opened the top drawer of her desk and stared at her notes. Neatly stacked. Redacted where necessary. Sanitised for Ministry consumption. The ink on “source provided intel” was barely dry, and it felt like a lie in every way except technically.
She hadn’t put his name in the report.
She couldn’t.
There wasn’t a line on the form for mutually inappropriate arousal mid-interrogation.
There also wasn’t a checkbox for subject seated, agent compromised, climax narrowly avoided.
Gods.
She closed the drawer with a sharp motion and stood. The robe hanging on the peg by the door felt too warm, too close. Her wand was snug against her thigh, and it felt like a rebuke—like it knew what she’d let happen in that chair, that fucking chair, where she’d sat like a pawn on his board and read for him while his cock pressed up beneath her and her voice kept betraying her.
And then he’d said the name. Given her exactly what she came for. Like a reward. Like a treat.
She had never hated herself more for how deeply she’d wanted to stay.
A knock at her door.
“Come,” she said, turning quickly, trying not to look guilty.
Robards stepped inside, all tired menace and unshaved jaw.
“Granger,” he said by way of greeting. “Heard we’ve got something. Name from Malfoy?”
She nodded, sharp. “Cross. Ava Cross. Muggle-born. Testified during the Rowle hearings. Now living under MACUSA protection.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He didn’t ask how she got it. Just nodded. “Right. Good work.”
That was it. No suspicion. No suspicion because Hermione Granger didn’t do grey. Didn’t get sloppy. Didn’t flirt with convicted war criminals in haunted manor libraries. Certainly didn’t get wet from being told to turn the page.
She felt his approval land on her shoulders like a cloak, heavy and undeserved.
“I’ll liaise with the Yanks,” Robards said. “Let them know we’re pushing for provisional cooperation.”
“They won’t find him,” she said before she could stop herself.
Robards paused. Eyed her.
“I mean,” she recovered, “if Rowle’s smart, he’s not using a known alias. He’s too careful for that.”
“You sound like you admire him.”
“I don’t,” she said, too quickly.
Another pause. His eyes narrowed. “You alright?”
“Fine,” she said. Then: “Just tired.”
He grunted. “Aren’t we all. If you want to follow up with Malfoy, do it. Unofficially. See if he coughs up anything else.”
She nodded.
He left.
And Hermione stood there, heart pounding like she'd just lied to a Head Girl about contraband under her mattress.
She knew what she was doing. She just couldn’t admit it.
One more visit, she told herself.
Not because she wanted to see Lucius Malfoy again.
Not because her body still remembered the heat of his lap like it was burned into her flesh.
Not because her hand had wandered beneath her knickers the night before and moved with a rhythm that matched his breath.
She would go back because the case demanded it.
Because she needed another name.
Not because she wanted his voice again, low in her ear, telling her where to put her hands. Not because she wondered what it would be like if he told her not to stop.
She put her quill to the parchment and wrote her clearance request.
“Subject: Lucius Malfoy. Informal Follow-Up.”
Her handwriting didn’t even shake.
–––
The Ministry hadn’t asked for another update yet, but Hermione told herself she was staying ahead of the curve.
Preparation. Due diligence. Justification.
Not obsession.
Certainly not need.
The air outside was cold enough to sting, and she didn’t bother wearing her standard Ministry coat this time. Instead, she wore a charcoal jumper, loose at the sleeves but tight across her chest, and trousers that hugged her hips a little more than necessary. She’d told herself it was about freedom of movement. She didn’t believe that.
The manor greeted her like always—quiet, cold, and coiled. No servants. No warmth.
Just him.
Lucius was waiting again.
This time, he stood by the fire, one arm resting along the stone mantle, half-shadowed by dancing light. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, cuffs rolled casually—casually, her arse —as though he hadn’t spent twenty minutes preparing for her.
His eyes moved slowly over her. From boots to mouth.
“You’re back,” he said.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Lucius murmured. “Just pleased.”
She stepped further into the room, fingers brushing the spine of a chair she had absolutely no intention of sitting in. “I need his alias.”
He raised a brow. “Do you?”
“Rowle’s already overseas, isn’t he?”
Lucius’s smile was pure sin. “You’ve been thinking of me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she lied.
His voice lowered. “You wore that jumper on purpose.”
She didn’t answer.
He stepped closer, just once pace, slow as silk sliding down a bare spine.
“I’ll give you the name,” he said. “But only when you’ve earned it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Another performance?”
“Chapter five,” he said. “Same book.”
Hermione felt heat coil low in her belly.
“But this time,” he continued, voice velvet-dark, “you’ll read with your legs spread.”
Her breath caught.
“And your hand,” he murmured, “inside your knickers.”
She didn’t move.
Lucius stepped behind her now, voice brushing her neck. “I’ll tell you when to touch. When to stop. When to come. If I let you.”
Hermione hated him.
And she wanted him so badly she could taste it.
She walked to the shelf. Took down the book.
When she turned, he was seated already—in the same damned chair—as though the whole world conspired to keep putting her on his lap.
But this time, she didn’t sit.
She opened the book. Took her place on the ottoman in front of him. Knees wide.
Lucius raised an eyebrow.
“Command from a distance,” she said. “If you’re so sure of your power.”
His smile curved. “Touché.”
She began to read.
The words were dense. Twisted. Deliberate. Sentences about magical contracts and moral obligations—and every third syllable reminded her of the heat blooming between her legs.
Lucius didn’t speak at first.
Then, softly: “Put your hand beneath your waistband.”
She did. Slowly. Careful not to show anything more than a small shift in posture, though her hand was already slick from want.
“Don’t move yet,” he said.
She stilled. Her fingers hovered, aching.
“Keep reading.”
She did. Her voice trembled on the long vowels. Lucius caught it.
“You sound wrecked already,” he said. “Poor thing.”
She didn’t respond.
“Now,” he said. “Middle finger. Press. But do not rub.”
Hermione pressed.
Her throat constricted around the next sentence.
Lucius leaned forward slightly. “Feel what you’ve done to yourself.”
She hated how wet she was.
How good it felt.
How close she was to shaking already.
“Slide lower,” he said. “Gently now.”
She did.
“Circle once. Clockwise.”
She obeyed.
“Now again. Counter.”
She made a sound. Barely a whimper.
“Ah,” Lucius murmured. “There she is.”
Her hips twitched, barely perceptible, but he saw it.
“Don’t you dare move them,” he said.
She froze.
“Keep reading.”
She blinked at the page. Could barely see the words. “‘When authority is framed as benevolence, it invites compliance through cultivated guilt…’”
“Again,” he said.
She repeated it.
His voice dropped. “You think it’s guilt that makes you obey me?”
She couldn’t answer.
“Move your finger. Very slowly.”
She did.
The fire crackled.
Lucius leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. “I wonder, Miss Granger… do you realise what this looks like?”
She flushed.
“Do you know how many men fantasised about this? Little Miss Heroine. Golden Girl. Panting through a theory on magical dominion while you fuck your fingers.”
Her head dropped forward. Her body trembled.
“No,” he said. “Look at me.”
She looked.
His eyes were black with heat.
“You’ll beg me before I let you finish.”
She wanted to tell him no.
Instead, she whimpered.
“Faster,” he said.
She obeyed.
She was close. So close. Her thighs burned from tension, her skin flushed, her nipples hard beneath the thin knit of her jumper.
“I can feel it,” Lucius whispered. “You’re clenching. Desperate. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded. “Please.”
“Not yet.”
She cried out.
Lucius stood, walked to her, and crouched before her. His hand, still gloved, cupped her jaw and held her gaze.
“Finish the chapter.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.”
Tears pricked her eyes. Not from sadness. From want. From being held there.
She read.
It took everything in her. Every ounce of discipline.
And when she hit the final sentence, Lucius said: “Now.”
She came with a sound that was half-moan, half-sob. Her legs trembled. Her body shook.
Lucius stood, watching.
Unmoved. Composed.
When she finally stilled, breath still ragged, he said, “His name is Harper. Thorfinn Rowle is travelling under the alias Marcus Harper. He boarded a private flight last week. Destination: New York.”
She nodded. Still dazed.
He stepped closer. Brushed a damp curl behind her ear.
“You did well.”
She wanted to slap him.
She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to do it all again.
–––
She was still catching her breath.
Even in the dimming firelight, he could see the rise and fall of her chest, the slight sheen at her temples, the way her thighs had parted then slowly, tremblingly, closed.
Lucius watched her the way one might watch a storm from behind glass—intensely aware of the damage it could still do.
He had not touched her. Not really.
But she had let him undo her all the same.
He moved back to the fireplace and straightened his cuffs, every motion deliberate. Controlled. That was always the word with him. Control. He lived on it. Dripped it. Inhaled it to make up for the loss of all else.
And yet—
His cock had been hard the entire time.
Not just stirred. Not hinted-at. Hard. Thick, full, painful by the end of it. Still was.
And that— that —was new.
It hadn’t happened in years.
Not since the Ministry locked him inside his ancestral tomb and drained him of his magic by legal decree. Not since Narcissa packed her bags with gloved hands and averted eyes, and told him quietly that she had “no more patience for ghosts.”
He hadn’t blamed her. Couldn’t even if he tried.
There had been so many nights when he’d willed his body to respond—goaded it with wine and memory and the cold glide of lotion over a member that no longer felt like his. Nothing worked. The house knew it. The walls, the halls, the vines— they knew. There was no arousal in stasis. No erection under surveillance.
And now here he stood, painfully stiff beneath tailored trousers, watching the golden girl of the post-war world compose herself with shaking hands and wet thighs and not a clue how thoroughly she’d resurrected the dead.
He turned to her.
“You’re quiet,” he said, voice low. “Regret already?”
Hermione looked up, and to her credit, she didn’t flinch. She was flushed, humiliated, power-drunk, and trying to pretend she wasn’t addicted to the taste.
“I got what I came for,” she said.
He took a step closer. Not looming. Inviting.
“And what did you give?”
She hesitated.
That was answer enough.
“I never asked for your virtue,” he said. “Or your loyalty. Just your honesty.”
Hermione stood, tucking in her jumper as if it would erase everything that had happened here. She looked magnificent. Unravelling and defiant, righteous and wrecked.
He let her get almost to the door before he spoke again.
“Narcissa left me,” he said, almost casually.
She stopped.
Lucius walked to the armchair, not sitting in it now— claiming it. Fingers rested on the back, spine still straight.
“She stayed through the trial. Through the verdict. Through the first year of house arrest. But not the second.”
Hermione didn’t turn. “I don’t need your sob story, Malfoy.”
“No,” he said, with a faint smile. “But you’re getting it.”
He exhaled slowly, eyes on the flames.
“She left when I stopped being able to touch her. Not for lack of want, mind you. I wanted. Gods, I wanted. But… nothing.” He shrugged lightly. “The mind remained. The wit. The cruelty. But the body... collapsed under the silence.”
Hermione turned now.
She looked at him the way she might examine a fracture on a familiar statue.
“I couldn’t get hard,” he said bluntly.
She blinked.
Lucius smiled again. Small. Sad. Cruel only to himself. “Until you.”
She said nothing. There was no proper reply to that. None that wouldn't make her complicit in the gravity of it.
“I should thank you, I suppose,” he said. “But that’s never been my style.”
Hermione’s mouth parted. Her knuckles were white against the strap of her bag.
Lucius stepped closer, just once. “You want to know something else? Something I’d never put in a report?”
She said nothing, but didn’t stop him.
“I envy you.”
That stunned her more than anything else he’d said.
“I envy your hunger,” he murmured. “Your conviction. The arrogance of your morality. I envy the fact that you can leave this house whenever you choose. That you can feel, Miss Granger. That you can act on what your body demands.”
He circled her slowly now, like he might a fire he could neither escape nor extinguish.
“Your mind belongs to the Ministry,” he said. “But your body? That’s the one thing you can give that isn’t bound by policy. Not monitored. Not approved.”
He stepped in close, voice soft at her temple. “And tonight, you gave it to me.”
She inhaled sharply.
He didn’t touch her.
He didn’t have to.
She turned, finally, hand on the doorframe. His eyes trailed the line of her spine. The shift in her hips. He could smell her still—salt and shame and sex and power. Her body still leaned slightly back, just enough that he knew: part of her hadn’t left yet.
Didn’t want to.
–––
Hermione suspected three things, and hated all of them.
First: Lucius Malfoy had known Ava Cross was no longer in New York.
Second: He’d chosen not to say anything. Not until she came back.
Third—and this was the most galling—he might not be working with Rowle, but he was absolutely orchestrating the pace of her investigation like a man rearranging chess pieces in a room full of pawns that thought they were queens.
She had spent the last thirty-six hours in a storm of fire-called briefings, MACUSA reports, and one very pointed transcript from a Massachusetts Auror named Rothschild, who noted—casually, like it wasn’t a slow-burning grenade—that Ava Cross had relocated to Vermont six days ago .
Hermione had blinked at the line three times.
And then, of course, at the date of Lucius Malfoy’s intel.
Which had been—surprise, surprise—four days ago.
He’d told her about Cross when the information was already outdated.
Enough of a delay to give “Marcus Harper” a head start. To waste MACUSA’s time.
And the worst part wasn’t that Lucius had played her.
It was that she suspected he’d done it not for politics.
But for the pleasure of watching her realise it.
She arrived at Malfoy Manor in a temper too sharp to name. Not rage—rage was messy, rage splashed and seethed and broke plates. No. This was something colder. More precise. Something that curdled at the corners of her mouth and made her walk like a woman daring someone to ask what was wrong.
The manor was its usual mausoleum self. The hedgerows whispered. The door opened with its usual glacial groan, hinges so old they should’ve been cursed into submission decades ago.
Lucius was already waiting. Of course he was. Always perfectly timed, like a conjured ghost or a particularly well-trained sin.
He stood by the drawing room hearth this time, not in his usual predatory recline but tall, straight, and suspiciously still. His coat was velvet. Black. His shirt, bone-white, collar slightly loosened as if to say yes, I’m comfortable, but not because of you.
Hermione didn’t stop moving until she was halfway across the room. She dropped her gloves on a side table she suspected once belonged to some 17th-century ancestor who’d hexed peasants for sport, and levelled him with a look that could’ve stripped paint.
“You knew she wasn’t in New York.”
No greeting. No preamble. Just violence by precision.
Lucius didn’t blink. He rarely did. His gaze was lazy, almost amused—except there was something in the stillness of his hands that gave him away. A small shift of his thumb against the back of the other. Almost imperceptible.
“How disappointing,” he said, as if she’d turned up late to an orgy and found everyone fully dressed. “You usually build your accusations with so much more… flourish.”
“Don’t deflect.”
“I never deflect, Miss Granger. I misdirect. Entirely different school of magic.”
She took a step closer. The air between them tightened, not with magic, but intent.
“MACUSA confirmed it. Cross relocated to Vermont. You knew when you told me about Rowle’s flight.”
Lucius tilted his head slightly, like a man adjusting for light.
“You received valuable information,” he said. “It’s hardly my fault if you failed to cross-reference it.”
“Oh, don’t you dare. ” Her voice dropped—low, dangerous, almost intimate in how controlled it was. “You gave me old intelligence, knowing it would send me down the wrong path. And you timed it. Gods, you timed it so well. Just long enough to make me chase the wrong city. Just long enough to make me come back.”
“Did it work?”
That brought her up short.
Lucius stepped forward, hands still clasped behind his back. His voice, when he spoke again, was maddeningly soft. Like silk winding around the throat.
“You’re here.”
“You manipulated an international fugitive investigation for the sake of your own amusement.”
“Amusement?” he echoed. “Miss Granger, you wound me. I don’t find this amusing at all.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No? Then what do you find it?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just walked to the mantelpiece and rested one long-fingered hand against it, like he needed the grounding. He stared into the fire, and for a moment—just a flicker—he looked tired.
Like the effort of remaining Lucius Malfoy in this place was beginning to cost more than even his vanity could afford.
“You think I’m playing some elaborate game,” he said at last. “Dragging you back here for... stimulation. Or power. Perhaps even vengeance. But have you ever asked why, Miss Granger, this case is the one they gave y ou? ”
She frowned.
Lucius turned to her now, and his eyes were not amused.
“Your department knows what Rowle is. What he was. They know who he hates. They know how he operates. And they still sent you. A Muggle-born. A woman. Measured, contained, useful. A perfect blend of bait and battering ram.”
“Stop it.”
“Why do you think they trust you here, in this manor, with me, of all people?” He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate, as if each pace revealed another buried truth. “Because they knew I wouldn’t touch you? Because they knew you wouldn’t crack?”
She clenched her jaw.
Lucius stopped just short of her. “Or is it,” he said softly, “because they knew you’d do anything for the truth. Even if it meant letting someone like me watch you come apart.”
That hit. Low. Hard.
Hermione stepped back—not out of fear, but so she didn’t do something. Her wand was still at her hip. She could stun him. She could hex him raw. But then she’d be exactly what they expected. What he expected.
Instead, she said, very calmly, “So you admit it. You spoon-fed me the trail. You played with the timing.”
Lucius gave a half-shrug. “I simply adjusted the tempo.”
“To what end?”
Another beat. Another glance toward the fire.
And then—quietly, almost too quietly—he said, “To keep you coming back.”
It was not a declaration. Not even a seduction. Just a truth, stripped of all its usual venom.
Hermione’s stomach turned.
Not because he was wrong.
But because some part of her had known. Wanted to know. Had felt it in the strange hush of her office at midnight, when her fingers lingered on his name in the report, and her thoughts drifted not to the mission, but the man.
She swallowed. “You’re not in league with Rowle.”
“No.”
“But you’re using him.”
Lucius smiled faintly. “I’m under house arrest, Miss Granger. My resources are… limited. But information? Influence? The shape of things unseen? That is still mine to play with.”
She exhaled, sharp. “And you don’t even care if he finds her, do you? As long as I keep showing up.”
Lucius’s gaze sharpened.
“Rowle is a violent, hateful thing,” he said. “But more than that, he is predictable. Give him enough leash, and he reveals the pattern. And in that pattern lies power. Understanding. Control.”
“Over me?”
He didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Hermione stepped away from him fully now. Walked to the bookshelves. Let her fingers trail the spines like rosary beads. She needed distance. Not just from him, but from herself.
“You played me,” she said.
“No.” His voice was low. Certain. “I watched you choose to be played.”
She turned then. Furious. Hurt. Wanting. Gods, she hated how close those emotions ran in her.
“You act like you’re caged, but you’ve never stopped pulling strings.”
“And you,” Lucius murmured, “have never stopped giving them to me.”
The silence was thick now. Tasting of old secrets and fresh betrayal.
Lucius walked to a far corner of the room. Pulled an aged, leather-bound tome from a shelf she hadn’t noticed before. Dust flared in the firelight.
He held it without opening it.
“When you return,” he said—soft, final—“I’ll show you something the Ministry buried.”
Hermione raised her chin. “What makes you think I’ll come back?”
Lucius looked at her, eyes unreadable.
“Because you want to know what they did to me.”
She didn’t speak. Just stood there, throat tight, wondering which part of her would betray her next.
Lucius stepped past her, toward the door.
And just before he vanished into the corridor, he said—quiet, almost like an afterthought—
“Be careful, Miss Granger. The closer you look, the more you start to rot.”
The door clicked shut.
And Hermione was left alone, with nothing but the fire and the taste of ash on her tongue.
The door clicked shut behind him like the full stop at the end of a particularly damning sentence.
She didn’t move for three seconds. Maybe five.
Then—gripping the edge of the mantel with white-knuckled fingers—Hermione let out a breath so sharp it singed the back of her throat. Her eyes tracked the firelight like it might give her answers. It didn’t.
He was hiding something. Not just his usual arsenal of innuendo and psychological strip-tease—something else. Something heavier.
And damn it all, she wanted to know what it was.
Her boots echoed hard across the stone floor as she stalked out of the room.
The hallway stretched before her like a corridor of memory—cold, high-ceilinged, absurdly clean. The tapestries were older than most dynasties. The sconces burned low, enchanted to mimic candlelight, despite there being no wax, no wick, no flame.
She found him two turns later. Second corridor on the left. Standing with his back to her, one hand pressed against a tall, panelled door she hadn’t seen before—disguised, she realised, by a glamour. Nothing overt. Just enough to mislead anyone who wasn’t allowed to look.
Of course he was waiting.
“I’m not finished,” she snapped.
Lucius didn’t turn. “I know.”
“What did you mean?” she demanded. “Back there. About what the Ministry ‘did’ to you.”
A pause.
Then his hand moved—long fingers curling around a brass doorknob shaped like a serpent’s head, its tongue curled in a permanent hiss.
He opened the door.
The room beyond was small. Circular. No windows. Lit by a single orb that floated lazily above the centre of the ceiling like a bored moon. Shelves lined every inch of the wall, packed floor-to-arched-ceiling with books, scrolls, loose bundles of brittle parchment tied with ribbon so old it had faded to bone.
He stepped inside without looking at her. “Close the door behind you.”
Hermione did, more out of instinct than obedience.
The air in here smelled of old ink and dried thyme, with a faint undercurrent of something coppery. Not blood. But close enough.
Lucius walked to one of the lower shelves and pulled free a tome bound in cracked green leather, the spine stamped with no title—just a faded Malfoy crest, worn down to suggestion.
He held it without opening it, turning the weight over in his palms like something sacred. Or dangerous.
“My grandfather kept this locked in the blood vaults beneath the east wing,” he said. “My father used to bring it out when he was drunk and wanted to feel powerful. I, on the other hand, waited until I was truly powerless.”
Hermione’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”
“A record,” he said. “Of our darkest inheritances.”
He looked up at her then—no smirk, no twist of the mouth. Just that terrible, honest stillness she was beginning to realise meant he was about to say something that mattered.
Lucius laid the book on a nearby table—mahogany, claw-footed, scratched from use. It creaked slightly under the weight. He opened it to the middle, fingers reverent, turning thick vellum pages until he found what he was looking for.
The spell wasn’t named. Not in English.
But Hermione could read the structure of it. Runic, ancient, cruel in its elegance.
Her breath caught.
“Binding magic,” she said, voice low. “Not location-based. Essence-based.”
Lucius nodded. “Developed in the seventeenth century. Used by certain branches of the Inquisition to bind heretics to specific sites—churches, gallows, tombs. Refined by warlocks in the Carpathians during the Blood Accords.”
She stared. “And this… this is what the Ministry used on you?”
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
Hermione read further—eyes scanning the page, mind racing.
“Anchors the subject’s magical essence to the grounds. Not just prevents departure— drains. ” Her voice cracked slightly. “It feeds on power. Strength. Will. Libido.”
Lucius’s mouth twitched. “Now you understand why I couldn’t make love to my wife.”
She ignored the way her stomach flipped at the casual cruelty of that line.
“This is illegal.”
“It wasn’t. Not when they passed the Emergency Sentencing Reform Act in ’98. Gave the Department of Magical Corrections carte blanche to experiment with ‘non-invasive, non-violent suppressions of threat-level offenders.’ That clause,” he gestured toward the book, “was hidden under an addendum. ‘Stationary Integrity Safeguards.’”
Hermione’s throat burned.
“No one in my department told me this.”
“No,” Lucius said. “They wouldn’t have.”
“They used you.”
“Yes. And now you use me. Isn’t symmetry beautiful?”
She stared at the spell, the diagram of the binding circle—runic etchings designed to tether magic itself, to hold it static inside a body that could no longer wield it. It was a leash made of silence. Of impotence.
“And you wonder,” Lucius said softly, “why I started to wither.”
She turned to him.
He wasn’t close. Not yet. Just standing at the edge of the light, one hand resting on the edge of the table like he wasn’t sure whether to reach for her or push her away.
“You think me a monster,” he said. “And I’ve earned it. Gods, I’ve earned it. But you —” his eyes glittered, voice sharpening, “—you serve the men who designed this leash. Who buried it in paperwork and called it justice.”
Her voice shook. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask. ”
That hit harder than it should have.
Hermione swallowed, throat dry. “They said you’d been neutralised. That the magical dampening ward prevented external spellcasting, but nothing internal. No... systemic damage.”
Lucius laughed. It was short. Bitter. Cracked at the edges. “They neutered me like a house cat and called it mercy.”
The words landed like cold water on bare skin. Not because they were crude—but because they were true.
She looked back down at the page. “This should’ve gone before the Wizengamot. It should’ve been documented.”
“It wasn’t. Because they knew what it was. And because they knew if word got out that the Ministry was rewriting the laws of magical integrity—of identity —they’d have another war on their hands.”
She stared. At the spell. At him.
At everything in between.
Lucius moved then. Not close. Just enough to be felt.
“You came here thinking I was the threat,” he said. “That I was feeding you scraps out of some dark, erotic hunger.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said smoothly. “But I’m not the only one who came hungry.”
The silence stretched. Long. Heavy. Full of firelight and truth.
Hermione looked at the book again. At the diagram of the spell that had slowly—deliberately—drained a man not just of magic, but will. Not to destroy him. But to leave him perfectly, permanently contained.
And no one had told her.
Not Robards. Not the file. Not the ethics board. Because they’d assumed she didn’t need to know.
Because they’d assumed she wouldn’t care.
Lucius watched her. Waiting. As always. But not for submission this time.
For reckoning.
She looked at him. Really looked. At the lean tiredness of his frame. The silver in his hair that hadn’t been there when the war ended. The slight tremble at the base of his left hand, as if even standing this long required more than he could afford.
He didn’t ask for pity. Wouldn’t have taken it if she offered.
But he had offered her something else.
Truth.
And truth, in a house like this, came bloodstained.
Hermione stepped back from the table. Slow. Deliberate. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was racing.
Lucius didn’t move.
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked.
His voice was quiet. “Because you’re the only one clever enough to understand it. And the only one reckless enough to care. ”
She walked to the door. Hand on the knob. Spine straight.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
Lucius’s voice was velvet across the dark. “I know.”
–––
It was raining in London again, which felt either poetic or aggressively on-brand.
Hermione sat in her office well past Ministry hours, watching droplets snake down her window.
Her travel papers were stacked neatly on the desk. MACUSA clearance, hotel details, a letter of cooperation from an Auror who sounded like he brushed his teeth with gravel. She was scheduled on a Portkey to Vermont tomorrow morning—bright and early, painfully official.
Ava Cross was fine. MACUSA had confirmed it three times now, just in case Hermione was planning to develop a conscience about trusting information fed to her by a man who used to throw Anti-Muggle Galas.
But she had to see Cross with her own eyes. Had to feel the wards around the safehouse. Had to shake the woman’s hand, look her in the face, and confirm—for her own sanity—that she hadn’t chased the shadow of a Death Eater straight into someone else's nightmare.
That was what she told herself.
It wasn’t the whole story.
Her boots were already laced. Her wand tucked just beneath her jumper. And before she could stop herself, before she could find a single valid reason not to—Hermione was on the move.
Not home.
Not to the Portkey station.
To him.
The manor looked unchanged, which was infuriating. It always did. Same hedges, same creeping ivy, same faint sense of being watched by portraits that had once cursed half the continent.
Lucius met her in the library.
Of course he did.
The fire was low, casting long amber streaks across the rugs and the heavy brocade of his waistcoat. No jacket tonight. Just shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, silver cuffs gleaming like delicate manacles.
He looked up when she entered. Didn’t smile. Didn’t sneer.
Just studied her.
Which, somehow, was worse.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware I had an appointment.”
“You didn’t.” He paused. “Which makes you early and unexpected. A very dangerous combination.”
Hermione stepped inside. Her boots didn’t make a sound on the thick carpet, but she felt every movement echo up through her bones like an accusation.
“I leave tomorrow,” she said briskly.
Lucius arched a brow. “Somewhere charming, I hope?”
“Vermont.”
He hummed, noncommittal. “The land of syrup and snow and overzealous wand regulation. How delightful.”
“I need—” she started, then stopped. Rethought. Recoiled.
Lucius turned fully to face her, one hand resting lightly on the back of the armchair she now associated with unbearable pleasure and very poor decisions.
“Yes?” he said smoothly. “You need? ”
Her jaw tightened. “I wanted to go over the alias again. ‘Harper.’ Did Rowle ever—”
“No,” Lucius interrupted, calm as anything. “That’s not why you’re here.”
“I—”
“You’re lying, Miss Granger.” His voice was soft. “And badly, at that. Has fatigue made you sloppy?”
“I’m not —”
He stepped closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough to warm the air between them.
“You have the name. You have the route. You even have your little Ministry-issue suitcase packed, I imagine. So tell me—what is it, really?”
Hermione swallowed.
His eyes flicked over her face, slowly. Like he was cataloguing tension. Plotting the coordinates of her restraint.
“You came here,” he said, voice low, “because you couldn’t sleep. Because you couldn’t stop thinking about what you learned in that hidden room. About the spell. About me.”
She didn’t deny it.
“You came here because part of you can’t reconcile the man who once called you filth with the man who now asks you to come undone for him. And yet. ” His voice dropped to something velvet-dark. “You keep coming back.”
Hermione felt heat creep up her neck. Not just arousal—shame. Recognition.
He stepped even closer. “Do you know what I think, Miss Granger?”
“I rarely care what you think.”
“Lie,” he whispered. “But pretty. Try again.”
She said nothing.
Lucius reached into his pocket. Drew something out. A narrow strip of silk, deep charcoal. Worn at the edges.
A blindfold.
Hermione’s mouth went dry.
“I want one thing,” he said. “One thing the Ministry denied me when they ripped the magic from my spine and left me with nothing but sharp words and dead hands.”
His voice was different now. Not performative. Not seductive.
Hungry.
“I want to dominate without magic.”
Hermione didn’t breathe.
“I want,” Lucius continued, as though speaking a spell, “to see what I can take without a wand. Just voice. Just breath. Just hands.”
He stepped forward. Not menacing. Intent.
“Wear this,” he said, holding out the blindfold. “Let me touch you. Let me tell you where. Let me see what you do when there’s nothing to anticipate but me.”
Her heart hammered. Not just from fear.
From want. Raw and electric.
“I want to feel what it’s like,” Lucius said, “to carve my will into someone again.”
Hermione took the blindfold from his hand. It was soft. Warm. Still smelled faintly of him—cologne and dust and something green, like crushed herbs on a marble counter.
She looked at it. Then at him.
“You think I’ll say yes.”
“I think you already have.”
Her hands trembled.
She didn’t drop it.
She didn’t leave.
Lucius stepped back, giving her room.
His voice was soft, razor-sharp. “When you’re ready.”
The words coiled behind her ribs like a spell she hadn’t meant to cast.
Hermione held the blindfold between her fingers. It was softer than it should have been—thinner, too. A delicate thing, easily torn. Much like her last three rational thoughts.
She could have said no.
She could have walked out of that library, down the gravel drive, and into her perfectly acceptable, morally clear bed.
She didn’t.
Instead, she turned her back—on him, on sense—and slipped the blindfold over her eyes.
It darkened the world immediately. Not the black of blindness, but the warm press of velvet against her lashes. Everything narrowed. No visual cues. No spatial awareness. Just sound. Just breath. Just him.
Behind her, Lucius did not move.
She waited.
A soft sound—a shift in the carpet, the barely audible drag of his soles—told her he’d begun to pace. Clockwise, she thought. Slowly. No rush. No drama. Just proximity.
She hated how her pulse reacted.
Lucius stopped behind her. Close, but not touching.
“You will listen,” he said softly, like he was reading it from scripture. “You will not move unless I instruct you. You will not ask questions. You will not beg.”
Her stomach clenched.
“You may speak only to confirm. Or to say the safeword: Elixir.”
Her mouth was dry. “Understood.”
A pause.
Then, low: “Good girl.”
Her knees nearly buckled.
“I will touch your throat now,” he said. “You will not flinch.”
His fingers brushed her neck.
A single digit. Barely pressure. Just a sweep from the hinge of her jaw down to the place her pulse jumped, jumped, jumped.
She did not flinch.
He stepped closer.
“I will unbutton your blouse.”
Her heart thundered. “Yes.”
His fingers were maddeningly slow. One button. Then the next. His knuckles brushed her skin, and every hair on her body rose to meet him. She felt the cool air of the room slip in as fabric gave way. Her bra was simple, dark. Functional. She had not dressed to be wanted.
Which was, somehow, worse.
His breath was at her ear now. Warm. Controlled.
“I will trace your ribs.”
His palms slid across her sides, not cupping, not groping—just outlining. Like he was memorising a map of someone else’s country.
She held her breath. He didn’t ask her to.
“I will kiss your shoulder.”
She barely had time to brace before his mouth was on her—soft, then firmer. A press of lips, not tongue. One kiss, then another. Then his teeth. Just a graze.
She shivered.
“Say something.”
“Please.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
He chuckled. “You will.”
He shifted again. Another slow circuit around her body. The silence roared.
Then—
“I will spank you.”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
“I need confirmation.”
“Yes,” she said, breath hitching. “Yes.”
“Good girl.”
His hand came down, firm and sudden—not cruel, not jarring. Just enough to startle. Heat bloomed under the strike. Her breath caught. He did it again. And again. Never in the same place. Never predictably.
By the fourth, her thighs were clenching without permission.
“Still with me?” he murmured.
“Mm-hmm.”
“That’s not a word.”
“Yes,” she gasped.
He stepped in behind her. One hand on her waist, steadying. The other drifted around to the front—slow, slow, maddening—and slipped down the front of her trousers.
Over knickers already damp.
“Spread your legs.”
She obeyed.
His fingers slid beneath the fabric. Warm. Commanding.
He didn’t move fast. He didn’t need to.
He circled once.
Twice.
She whimpered.
“You’re drenched.”
“Don’t—don’t sound so smug.”
That earned her another swot on her arse.
“I’m not smug,” he said. “I’m savouring.”
He withdrew.
She almost sobbed.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Not yet. You don’t get that yet.”
His mouth was at her ear again.
“If I cannot have magic,” he said, every syllable like a palm against her spine, “I will control with nothing but breath and flesh.”
Then he dropped to his knees.
She didn’t hear it. She felt it—the shift of air, the subtle tilt of his heat. His hands were at her waist, tugging her trousers down with slow, devastating patience. Knickers too. They dropped to her ankles with a soft huff of fabric.
Then his mouth was on her.
Not urgent. Not hungry.
Methodical.
She could barely stand.
His tongue moved in slow, precise strokes. No frantic pressure. No rhythm to chase. Just enough to keep her open. Wanting. Needing.
His hand came around again, fingers teasing at her clit while his mouth explored lower. She cried out—once, sharp.
He withdrew.
“No,” she gasped. “No, don’t stop—”
“You will wait.”
She was shaking.
Lucius stood. Behind her again. She felt his hand at the small of her back. Not pressing. Holding.
“I want you to feel,” he said. “Not just be felt.”
A pause. “You will come with me now.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist—confident, not rough—and he guided her a few steps. Her trousers and knickers were still tangled at her ankles, forcing her to shuffle, graceless and exposed, every step a stinging reminder of her vulnerability. She hated the way it made her rely on him. She hated even more how much it thrilled her.
Lucius sat.
“You will bend over my knee.”
She obeyed, breath shallow. Her bare thighs brushed the wool of his trousers as she lowered herself, chest pressed to the upholstered arm, hips elevated and perfectly exposed. That damned chair. She could feel it even through the blindfold: the shape, the weight of memory woven into its frame. Her hands gripped the far side of the chair, the posture humiliating, arousing, complete.
“I am going to mark you,” he said, his voice a blade in silk. “Ten strikes. You will count each one. And you will end every number with ‘Master.’ If you fail, we begin again.”
Her voice, when it came, was quiet and wrecked. “Yes, Master.”
The first strike came fast—crisp, clean, a precise bloom of heat across her left cheek.
“One, Master.”
The next landed just higher, across the opposite side. Sharp. Intent.
“Two, Master.”
Lucius adjusted his hold on her waist, bracing her for the next.
“Three, Master.”
Her toes curled in her boots.
“Four, Master.”
A pause. His hand rubbed the pinkening skin, slow, almost tender—before delivering another, squarely in the center.
“Five, Master.”
She hissed through her teeth.
Six was angled. Lower. Her thighs clenched.
“Six, Master.”
Her voice trembled on the next.
“Seven, Master.”
He said nothing. Just let the silence thicken. Let her strain to anticipate the rhythm.
The eighth was harder. She gasped.
“Eight, Master.”
Nine was worse. Not pain, just precision.
“Nine, Master.”
Her entire body buzzed with heat, with tension, with arousal so sharp it felt like shame.
The tenth strike landed soft. A finale, not a mercy.
“Ten, Master,” she whispered.
Lucius leaned forward, mouth near her ear.
“You did well.”
A small, broken sound escaped her.
“Say thank you.”
“Thank you, Master.”
His palm slid down, slow and proprietary, over the heat he’d summoned. She was soaked. Open. Shaking.
He shifted her slightly, adjusting her across his lap so her thighs parted just enough for his hand to slip between them. One long finger traced through her slick folds, unhurried, as if inspecting the aftermath of his work.
“You’re dripping,” he murmured, almost clinically. “Look what a little discipline does to you.”
She squirmed—barely, instinctively—but he tightened his grip on her hip.
“Don’t move.”
He dipped lower, letting two fingers part her. Teased the swollen entrance. Collected the wetness there and brought it higher, circling her clit with infuriating patience.
“So messy,” he said. “One might think you enjoy being punished.”
She whimpered.
He pressed in, just a knuckle, then deeper—one long, unrelenting thrust inside her soaked cunt. His fingers were thick and unyielding, sliding in with the ease of someone who knew he’d already won.
“You took that beautifully,” he murmured, curling just slightly inside her. “All ten. Bent over and counting like the obedient little thing you swore you’d never be.”
She gasped as he began to thrust—slow, shallow, maddening. His palm dragged against her clit with every motion, forcing sensation to the surface, coaxing heat from places she couldn’t hide.
“Tell me, Miss Granger,” he purred, “is this what they taught you in the Department? How to stay professional with your knickers around your ankles, writhing on a convicted Death Eater’s lap?”
She bit down on a cry.
“No answer?” he breathed against her neck. “Pity. I rather liked your voice when it was begging.”
He pushed deeper, angling his hand to catch that devastating spot inside her—again, and again, and again—until her hips began to rock without her consent.
“Stop that,” he said sharply. “No permission yet.”
She froze. Shaking.
He withdrew just enough to make her ache. Pressed the tips of his fingers to her entrance and held them there. Not moving. Not rewarding.
“You are not allowed to come.”
“Please.”
“No.”
He pressed back in—slow and firm—his fingers now soaked with her, thrusting again with surgical control. Her knees gave slightly. He caught her easily by the hair with his free arm, holding her folded against his thigh like a broken promise.
“Not yet,” he said. “You’ll know.”
He kept her there—taut and trembling—his hand tangled in her curls, his fingers deep inside her, his thumb now lazily circling her clit like it didn’t matter if she shattered or screamed.
She lost track of time.
The blindfold made it worse. Every sound, every movement, every pause became an avalanche. The creak of the chair. The ragged pull of her own breath. The awful, exquisite way he held her body still while her mind unraveled.
Her hips jerked. She couldn’t stop it.
Lucius hummed. “There she is.”
She was beyond words. Beyond reason.
And when he whispered “Now,” it wasn’t a gift.
It was a command.
She came with a cry that fractured the quiet. Long. Loud. Shameless. Her body convulsed over his lap—spine arched, thighs trembling, palms clutching the far arm of the chair like she might fall through the world if she let go.
When it passed, she sagged against him—boneless, wrecked, every muscle undone. Her cheek pressed into the upholstery. Her breath came in heaving waves, raw and uneven.
Lucius shifted beneath her, steady and unhurried, and guided her upright with one hand braced beneath her ribs. He lifted her as though she weighed nothing, then gently laid her back across the seat of the chair—still half-dressed, still blindfolded, still trembling. As though she were something precious. Or spent.
Her breath was ragged.
She was still blindfolded.
Lucius pressed a kiss to her temple. Soft. Almost human.
Then he stepped away.
She removed the blindfold with trembling fingers.
Her blouse was still open. Her knickers still tangled around one ankle. She looked destroyed.
And powerful.
And alive.
Slowly, she stood. Redressed. Silent.
As she tugged her trousers back into place, she said—quiet, but clear—
“You think I serve them without question. You’re wrong.”
Lucius didn’t speak at first.
Then, gently: “Then don’t prove me right.”
She turned to face him.
He looked… undone. Not dishevelled. Just raw. Like he hadn’t expected this to work. Like some part of him still hadn’t believed his body could command again.
She picked up her coat.
“Vermont?” he asked.
She nodded.
Lucius inclined his head. “Then go. Before they catch on that you’re not theirs anymore.”
She hesitated.
Then walked to the door.
But just before she left, she looked back—just once.
His mouth was soft. His eyes unreadable.
But she could still taste him on her skin.