A/N - This is going to be a fairly short story about Hermione and Lucius. I know that it's a pairing that has been done quite a lot already, but it's my favourite, so please be kind! The first two chapters will be from a first person narrative to get an insight into how they are both feeling, and then it will switch to third person. Please read and review - I love feedback!
Disclaimer - I do not own Hermione, Lucius or any of the other Harry Potter characters. JK Rowling does, and all I am doing is providing my own modest take on her wonderful world.
He should disgust me. And he does, he really does. All those terrible things that he has done to my friends, to all the people that I love, make me want to curse him, hex him, punch him in the face.
And yet… There is something about him. Since the end of the war, since his wife left him, he has changed. Somehow, being abandoned by his wife has changed him into a different man. A better man. The sneer is still there, but less pronounced, and it's not thrown in my direction quite so frequently these days. He still thinks himself superior, but I know that attitudes like his will not change overnight.
He hates working alongside me, as an equal. He doesn't say it, but I can tell. Not only am I a woman, but I am younger than him and - whisper it - I'm a mudblood too. But he has to work now, for the Ministry stripped him of much of his fortune when the war was over, and his wife took what was left in the divorce settlement. So he works at the Ministry, on the same team as me, and we are treated as equals by the head of the department.
I watch him as he works. He fascinates me. If Harry, or Ron, or Ginny knew that I was looking at him and feeling this way they would probably have me carted off to St Mungo's immediately. Either that or they would disown me, never speak to me again. It's one thing to accept that he has served his punishment and reluctantly turned over a new leaf, quite another to be having feelings like this about him. But I can't help it. I imagine what it would be like to be held by him, kissed by him…
Ron and I quickly realised that we did not have nearly enough in common with one another to make a go of our relationship after the war. He was happy to bask in the glow of celebrity that surrounded the three of us then, but I was never comfortable with it. I wanted to do something that would make a difference, and he wanted to flirt with witches who wanted to have a photo with the famous Ron Weasley. There are no hard feelings now; I love him dearly but as nothing more than my best friend. Things never really progressed beyond more than friends who kissed (quite innocently, I might add). And now, at the ripe old age of 24, I am the girl who poured so much into her studies and her career path that she never really had time for a boyfriend. I long to be touched by a man who knows how – not one of those gangly, youthful boys that seem to always be asking me for a date. By a man with experience, someone who knows what he is doing. Someone like him.