His hair was so silver it was scary. When he looked at her, Lily felt like he was spearing her with the impressive engraved fork next to him.

"Lily Evans," he said, rising. "You came."

Lily nodded, grinning as she looked around. The chairs were plush, almost throne-like, with large oak tables, and above them the chandelier jiggled in the wind. "This place is incredible."

"It's undoubtedly upmarket, but then aren't you an up and rising talent?"

"You flatter me."

"Rightfully, I'm sure."

"Did I dispute that?" Lily laughed, as she sat down across from him. He didn't.

"So what were your OWLs?" her dinner companion asked.

She pulled out the sheet and gave it to him.

"Very good," he said, scanning it. "You excelled in the more practical subjects, Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, Magical Creatures and DADA, though you failed the essay subjects, Arithmancy, Runes, History, and Astromony. Apart from… Muggle Studies, which is the exception to your dichotomy of Outstanding and Troll grades."

"Don't mind the Trolls," she said. "I didn't study for the O. at all, and so flunked the subjects which involved memorising a ton of information and rather excelled in those where magical strength and actual intelligence were needed. But I refuse to swot for swotting's sake, so if your proposal involved me being blindly compliant and doing busy-work I would have turned it down anyway."

He smirked. "But what, Lily, if my proposal involved you building or breaking wards. Important work that could save lives and determine wars, which is based on knowledge of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy?"

Lily blushed maroon, and he smirked, and lounged back in his almost throne-like chair. "Does it?" she asked – or more likely, squeaked.

"It could have been useful." He was still smirking. "But I'm glad you aren't compliant."

Before Lily could reply, a waiter bustled up to them, dropped into a bow, and asked for drinks.

"What do you say to White Moscato to start?" he asked her. "It shows well on its own."

Glad that her lack of knowledge of wine wasn't revealed, Lily smiled and agreed.

"Two glasses, immediately," the waiter said, breathlessly. "It will taste of silver and air, sir."

"I hope so," he said. "The last time I was here I was given Chardonnay instead. Perhaps the rest of your costumers are inept teens, but I don't wish to be treated like one, and be given some cheap mainstream wine instead."

"No – no, of course not. Lucius Malfoy, it is an honour to serve you and -."

"You are less good at delivering what I order than taking it, with bows and breathless puppy-dog eyes, sir."

"I – no – apologies, apologies." And the waiter hurried off.

"Lucius Malfoy," she repeated, staring at him. "Where did I hear that name?"

He smiled. "I hate to boast, but it could be any number of places. Perhaps you read that I'm one of the most influential people in the Ministry, and soon to be appointed to the Board of Governors. Or you recognised the name, Malfoy, as one of the Sacred 28 pure ones, or the most mundane option is that I was five years older than you at Hogwarts, and a prefect, and later Head Boy, during your time at Hogwarts."

"Oh – oh, probably the latter if I'm honest," Lily said, trying to sound unimpressed by this information.

"Yes," said he. "I remembered you too, Lily Evans, as the plucky girl with the nerves to befriend a Slytherin, to sit at the Slytherin table during meals and give off such a sense of power that no other Slytherin really bothered you, just your friend. It must have taken great strength of character and individuality not to bend to the norms of Hogwarts and break off an inter-house friendship. Are you still friends with young Severus Snape?"

"Alas…" Lily said, with a small sigh that seemed to imply she'd give anything for their friendship but Severus was too obstinate to listen. "I kind of thought you were contacting me now, instead of after the OWLs – which would be more logical, right? – because you heard our friendship had been dissolved."

"I don't keep tabs on schoolyard politics."

"It's just somebody I know always makes out that I'm betraying my middle-class background by befriending him, and I've laughed off his suggestions that Severus was holding me back, as a way to push me into his arms, but I don't know how wizarding culture works outside Hogwarts, and maybe… I thought maybe…"

"James Potter?" Lucius said. "Are you-?"

"No," Lily said. "He acts like I'm his girlfriend by rights, but, no, I'm not."

"James Potter fancies you, does he not?"

Lily quirked an eyebrow. "How could you know that? After all, you don't keep tabs on schoolyard politics." They laughed, and Lily continued, "It's easier to be friends with him than Severus, and I'll admit it seems more natural to hang out with glossy, confident rich boys instead of… Maybe I'll relent and marry Potter, even though he's so vacuous. I mean, it's nice to have that option open-."

"But you want to be more than a housewife?"

"Yes," Lily said.

"Which I can offer," Lucius said lazily. Lily unfolded the invitation which he'd sent her, telling her he had a career prospect for a sharp, adventurous, young witch. She'd already memorised it, though, so stared at him instead. He looked like a marble statue, though one made hurriedly, all whiteness and sharp lines, pointed chin, flat cheeks, conic nose; his eyes were boulder grey and could knock you over. "You have noticed," he said. "That humanity has a problem."

She shrugged, and didn't speak. Lucius sighed.

"And it is?"

Lily shrugged again. She didn't know enough of the outside wizarding world to answer.

"Hazard a guess, Lily," he hissed. "Aren't you individual and non-conforming? Think! I know you only got Acceptable in Muggle Studies, but you are Muggle-Born, are you not?"

"Yes," she muttered. "Do you mean – they say they're going to destroy the world. You mean the nuclear weapon arms-race?"

"Yes, nuclear weapons. Do you think your magic will make you invincible against them?" Lucius laughed when she didn't reply. "You're a girl, a teenager, an empty-minded bitch, of course you do." And he began to stand up.

Lily didn't know why – all this man had promised had given her was a vague letter promising opportunities and a meeting and then white moscato – but she lunged upwards so fast her hair hit off her face and grabbed Lucius' arm. His muscles stiffened under her, and she knew he could throw her off and probably blast her into smithereens too.

"That's wrong," she said. "I know what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how about 90,000 people were killed in a single day, and more than double that died afterwards, not to mention the starvation and the mutations. Of course I know." Lily said all of this very fast, staring up into Lucius' eyes, wanting him to react, to tell her she was more than a little teenager, and unable to stop talking until he interrupted her. "My first memory," she continued, "is my parents giving us all blankets to hide under in case Russia decided to attack us. It's risible now, I know… but when Severus told me I had power and I was a witch, one of the first things I wanted to know was if there were any unexplained, impossible survivors of those nuclear disasters-."

"- no," Lucius whispered. Lily wished he'd be louder; she needed him to shout in order to wipe away his insult. "No, it was just as bad for the wizards. There used to be a small wizarding school in Nagasaki, did you know, but there hasn't been since 1945. I have to give it to the Muggles in inventing something which kills wizards just as well as their own sort, in such high numbers. We… well, Grindlewald…"

"- compared to his Muggle counterpart, Hitler, he was pretty docile, wasn't he?" Lily said eagerly.

"Compared to any Muggle mass murderer…"

"Right!" Lily nodded. "I've seen the history of both, and the Muggles' always seems bloodier, doesn't it?"

"Killing is easy for wizards," Lucius said. "So we don't have pleasure in it, or need to wipe out thousands to get one man, and killing happens only when needed…"

"But Muggles don't have the 'nice' efficient killing curse and stunners, so to get the leader of an opposing group, they have to destroy cities, murdering so many."

"Impressive deduction," Lucius said. "Maybe I spoke hastily, calling you empty-minded." He walked around the table, and stood inches from her. Their hair was almost the exact same length, and threaded together, red and silver. Lucius was a good head taller than her – Lily always wished she could be taller – forcing her strain her neck upwards to meet his eyes. "But, Lily, just because Muggles lack magic and so kill more, is it moral to let them – and the wizards who cross their pass – die?"

"No," she said. "They've made stupider mistakes. If they started a nuclear war, even accidentally, and we knew about it and didn't prevent it, the blood would be on our hands."

"But how do we prevent it?"

The air was thrumming. Lily was sweating. Their eyes locked and everything was in their grasp. Their conversation felt more real and genuine than a hammer smashing her body to pieces would. This would affect her more. Yes, she could believe, yes, that the entire universe, every star collision and particle, was in this state to allow this moment to happen, and now the world stretched in front of them, theirs.

Lily hadn't realised how much she missed these moments with Severus. They could sit together, shaking, potions down their fronts, hair a mess, and not noticing, in that perfect and wild concentration, devising new spells. In these moments, Lily thought that they must be the only people in the world ever to feel this, and yet it was so inhibited and burning that even the savages must have felt it.

"We have to break the Muggle Deception Act," Lily said finally. "At least, that's the only solution I can see."

Lucius looked at her with unfettered admiration. "So brave and original," he muttered. "Yes. I have talked to the minister and to aurors, and it's the only solution they could find, but many of them were too cowardly and complacent to start implementing it. They'd rather be passive, pretend there's no problem, and just smile and hope millions don't die. I call them murderers."

"So do I," Lily replied.

He smirked slightly, eyes leaving hers for a moment. Then he said, "You're saying you have guts, and you aren't a murderer, and am willing to join this movement?"

"There's a movement?"

He laughed. "We have meetings, though unlike the Ministry, we plan to act more than we talk. Shall I owl you the times of the next meeting, Lily?"

"Yes," she said.

Lucius nodded, and turned to sit back in his seat again, to drink the wine which the waiter had put down, no doubt delighted that Lucius didn't notice to comment on it, but Lily felt the same unexplainable urge which had made her grab his arm earlier. She pulled him backwards, and pulled her body against his, gasping for breath. She could feel the power in his arms, and the roughness of his jacket, and the rod is his trousers jutted into her stomach.

If Lily looked upwards, and saw a sneer on his face, she knew she'd lose her nerve, so she shut her eyes and wrapped her legs round his, pushing herself up his body, inelegantly shoving her lips onto his. There was a moment of stillness, and then he was attacking her with kisses with an animalistic violence it seemed crazy the sneering pureblood should have. She could taste blood, metallic and hot, where he'd bitten her lip, and her body dissolved into sigh and puddles.

When they broke apart, Lucius peeled her hands off him and stepped back. "What a shame," he said. "I thought you might possess some level of ambition to improve the world, but instead, you are a typical teenage girl whose only drive was lust."

"No…" Lily said. "I do – doesn't it occur to you that I'm attracted to you because of your ambition?"

"So you dream is to be my housewife?" Lucius leant forward and whispered in her ear, his hair once again intertwining with her own. "Pathetic bitch."

"That's not – no," Lily spluttered. "Lucius, you opened me to new ideas which I desperately want to act on. And, also, I find you sexy and exciting and clever, but these are separate -."

"If I decided you were an ugly, boring whore and dumped you, would you still follow -."

"While the logic is sound, I'll follow it regardless of interpersonal relations, I swear!

"It?" Lucius said with contempt. "Are you too vacuous to know what these policies are?"

"We can't be ignore Muggles, because they naturally tend towards greater violence, and have the power to kill millions, and so it's only moral to prevent deaths by breaking the statue of secrecy and taking control of them."

"In short, we value real thought over complacency-."

"Which will never be irrelevant, however strained our relations are," Lily finished.

She wanted to sink into the plush restaurant chair, but knew somehow that doing so would be instant failure. Lucius nodded, with a slow weariness which reminded Lily that he wasn't her equal in life experience, like he was weighing the finest difference between weights she couldn't see. When he decreed it so, a smile crossed his face, and Lucius cupped her face in his hands.

Her own hands were worn and rougher, hands which scrambled in the dirt during childhood and worked in the garden, lifting and digging, during holidays, no magic allowed, but his were smooth, cold, and unblistered, but could squeeze her face so hard her eyes would pop out and roll to the floor. Slowly, Lucius lifted her head so she was looking up at him again, and kissed her.

.

A/N: This idea sprung from the premise that JKR said that Voldemort tried to recruit James and Lily, in contradiction to Hagrid in the first book. The fact that Voldemort was trying to recruit Order members would be very useful information to help put them on guard, and as there'd be no downside to it getting out, you'd think Hagrid ought to be told - unless Lily was embarrassed about it for some reason... because she was originally interested?

I also wanted to write this to oppose the ludicrous fanfiction norm, where "trying to recruit" involved them being sent a letter going "hi, Lily, we are evil Death Eaters who hate Mudbloods and like murdering? Wanna join?" Yeah, I don't think it'd be so transparent. He's not a super open guy, that Voldemort.

Finally, I don't think it's at all OCC that Lily was initially attracted to Lucius Malfoy. James threatens Lily and tries to push her into going on a date - it's the sort of thing which could easily become an abusive relationship - but Lily was apparently into James even then.

Also, Lily was raised by the same parents that raised Petunia, so it's not unreasonable to think she notices class, and wants to marry above her, as she did, into the pureblood and rich Potter family.

In lots of ways, Lucius and James are pretty similar... bullying, arrogant, pureblood, ready to decieve (James hides the fact from Lily that he continues attacking Snape during seventh year), rich, with strong political opinions, still popular and charismatic. Just as Bellatrix is Sirius' Black dark reflection, Lucius is James'.

Maybe you think Lily wouldn't let herself be pushed around, but she's an eager fifteen year old girl and Lucius is a man five years her senior.

- Story Picture taken from deviantart by archiburning

P.S. I am not advocating this as a healthy relationship! It's abusive. Um, just in case.