Author's Note: I've been working on this for a long time and I've morphed a lot of old pieces into this one piece with my all-time favorite pairing. I hope you all enjoy it, and keep in mind it's totally AU and at times OOC. It will probably be long but hopefully not drawn out, and if you read my other stories you know my creativity comes in bursts so I apologize in advance for the length between updates, you might want to alert this story so you don't have to search through pages for an update.
Author's Note August 2014: At the request of some of my readers I have added background alluding to the reasons behind Lucius' actions because Hermione is still very young at the beginning of the story, but I must make clear that there is no sexual relationship between them until she is much, much older. He simply does not think of her in that way and his actions are a result of the Living Magic. However, if this makes you uncomfortable you probably shouldn't read this, but it is necessary to explain things from the beginning to journey to the end. I don't want to give too much away, so you will simply have to read if you want to know more.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any songs featured in this work of fanfiction.
Summary: This is the story of Hermione Granger and Lucius Malfoy; a tale of the ancient bond of Living Magic, which inspires angst, passion, fury, enchantment, possession- but love? Will Lucius really be able to find a way to end the connection he has to his Sweetest Downfall before Hermione discovers it for herself?
My Sweetest Downfall.
'Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth;
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us, not even once.'
-Regina Spektor, Samson
Far away, long ago glowing dim as an ember;
The things my heart used to know, once upon a December...
-Deana Carter, Once Upon A December
Chapter One: Your Hair Was Long When We First Met.
Once Upon a December...
I could still vividly remember the day that changed my life forever. Of course, I would never really understand how or ever fully comprehend why my life had changed; no, I would not realize the weight of my discovery until nearly eleven years later. Then, I could not see the motions set in place by the seemingly random actions and their equally bizarre reactions, planting the seeds that would take much time and undisturbed growth.
Looking back now, however, I can see that every encounter I've ever had with him since I was seven years old was either carefully planned out on his part or pure destiny, because the idea of coincidences or random circumstances just did not apply to this situation.
Nothing happens for a reason; things just happen as the world keeps turning and we all go on in some way or another.
Sometimes when I close my eyes and drown out the world, I can still go back to the time in my first and second year before I connected the dots and feel like the little girl glaring up at him in the Flourish and Blotts book shop even as he smirked down knowingly at me- knowingly- well, then I still hadn't realized what he'd known, but he was like the fearsome lion and I was a docile gazelle; he was a predator, but not in the way it appeared.
My predator.
Yet unlike a skittish four-legged mammal I had never learned to instinctively run from my stalker. Fight or Flight simply was not ingrained in my nature, it never was with him; I rather took the standing in numb-shock approach, more like a deer in the headlights. And he would eventually toy and play with me until there was nothing left, not any fight in me. But as a young thing, I had all the spite and fire in me burning for him while I stared up at him like he offended me as much as I offended him.
From that moment on, he haunted my dreams in different ways and ever-changing reasons as time went on. When I was twelve, I replayed our meeting in my head subconsciously and mostly it was a play-by-play of what had occurred, only more shimmery and dream-like. But then, every once in awhile I'd wake breathless from a dream that was him and I alone in Flourish and Botts on that day, no parents, no Harry or Draco, no Weasleys—just him. He would circle me while his voice crooned in my ears, and his gloved hands would stroke me in passing innocently, but enough to make me shiver as he introduced himself and went on about all of my secrets and other Dark things...
I had never given much thought to those dreams. After all, it had been an important day for me and not because of him, but by meeting him on that day he was a part of it. In that one day, I convinced my parents to come to Diagon Alley with me and help me purchase my school things and also get me a pet which turned out to be my familiar. I had also been reunited with my first true friends I had ever had while growing up, after a long summer of fretting they wouldn't like me anymore. Not only all of that, but I was also about to meet someone (who I once thought) was one of the greatest Wizards of all time.
So to dream about that day in particular was not so very peculiar but to only dream of him on that day was odd. However, I decided long ago not to dwell on it and shrugged it off thinking it was mainly from being exposed to Draco's daily taunts and tantrums amidst the Chamber of Secrets mystery.
But I saw brief glimpses of Lucius Malfoy after that at school Quidditch games as he sat in the stands next to Professor Snape and watched his son play expectantly. It was during a Slytherin-Hufflepuff match one wintry, late afternoon I observed him in the stands for nearly the entire duration of the game. He was always so engrossed in the sport, or at the very least waited for Draco to do something brilliant or embarrassing. But it was during one of those games that I was stealing glances of him that a case of déjà vu struck me; evoking a memory resurfacing under my buried consciousness from long before.
Suddenly, I felt silly for not remembering when I first saw him again.
Five years earlier when I was just about seven years of age, I had been taking a train ride with my parents to Liverpool and I had wandered off from our compartment to adventure around the other travelers and hidden compartments, placating my parents wish for me to stay close with an eager nod. We had only just departed and I was anxious to arrive at our field day in Liverpool so I simply couldn't sit still. I roamed the train with interest, taking everything in and smiling at the friendly people and examining the inner workings of the locomotive.
At the other end of the section I was walking far from where my parents were, I saw a man talking heatedly to one of the train contenders. I couldn't say why I was so interested in the situation playing out before me, but I was so I approached anyway. The other man was tall and wearing a long cloak, a style I never recognized my father wearing or other men in our community. It was a deep, midnight blue and as I drew nearer I could swear I saw stars swirling in the fabric.
Intrigued I continued stepping forward, increasingly amazed and trying to get a closer look. The nearer I became, I could hear what the men were talking about. They were arguing; that much was comprehensible, but I couldn't decide over what they were fighting about until I was right behind them.
"-Listen to me, you Mu- moronic imbecile, I'm demanding you stop this train this instant and let me off. I've already explained I have no time for your petty rules; I got on this monstrosity purely by accident-"
"And I've already explained, sir, we cannot stop this train at any undesignated destination points. You should have been more careful-"
By this time I had arrived at their backs, but was too entranced with his swirling robes, and watched the stars bounce up and down his back, disappearing under his long, silvery-blonde hair that fell down his back.
I laughed a little in amazement, awe-struck at his attire, and reached my finger out to brush it against the soft fabric. The stars clustered there shot out at different angles and disappeared. Both of the men heard my unbidden giggle and turned to stare down at me, equally baffled by my presence.
I reddened and retracted my hand, staring up at them repentantly. The train worker recovered quicker than the other man and bent towards me, "You there, little girl, run along to your mummy and daddy-" but the cloaked-man was looking down at me all the while with a wistful expression, gears turning behind his eyes.
"Do not address my daughter," he cut in, "whilst you are making her late for her- ah- dance lessons. She is most upset and wishes to be off the train immediately," the blonde man drew himself up, placing his hand on the expanse of my neck and shoulder. I started in shock and turned my face up toward him while he looked down at me pointedly.
With his left eye not facing the contender he winked down at me conspiratorially and I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through me. A grown-up I didn't know was pretending to be my daddy in the hopes that it would get him off the train; we were telling a lie. But his touch did not alarm me as it likely should have and he was such a fascinating subject for me to analyze, with his outlandish appearance and a cloak that had moving fabric that no one else seemed to notice.
I wanted to lie with him.
"Daddy, make the train stop! I'll never get to my ballet recital now!" I blurted up unthinkingly at him in a whining tone and he quickly concealed a smirk as he looked helplessly to the other man.
"You see? She is becoming inconsolable," he explained as I lowered my head, feigning sobs while the uniformed man attempted to pacify me.
"Oh- hey, now- there, there- what say you we make a quick stop in Manchester, eh? There's a nice, little taxi service there that can take you back whence you came- or wherever it is you want go. How's that sound, love?"
I smiled brightly up at the contender and wiped away fake tears as I said, "Thank you, sir!"
"Come along, pet," the blonde-haired man said to me, turning me away from the miffed train conductor as we retreated towards the front of the cabin and went into an empty compartment. He closed the door as I sat down by the window and a passing thought flew through my mind: I should have been scared, maybe, being alone in a room with a strange adult whom I didn't know; any other logical little girl would.
But fear was the furthest thing from my mind.
The trait that my parents predominantly described me as was curious; in fact, my father often joked that they should have named me Alice for my constant inquiries about the world and how it worked, aside from the fact that it was my favorite bedtime story for as long as I could remember.
And now, sitting in here in the dimly-lit compartment across from someone who resembled a fairy tale character more than anyone I had ever met; I just couldn't be curiouser.
He turned and I looked at his face, studying it interestedly. He was around the same age as my father if I had to guess, but he looked so different than any man I had ever seen before. His long hair flowing past his shoulders, his enchanting cloak and it was then that I saw this abnormal light in his eyes.
It was the first time I had ever seen anyone with such peculiar eyes. Mine and my parents were brown, and our neighbors Madison Ingle and her family had green-hazel eyes, and of course there was blue.
But that silvery, piercing grey in his eyes; they fixed me with a stare and I was mesmerized; for they seemed to be endless, swirling like the stars on his cloak, but freezing cold like chips of ice. Had I imagined the faint glow I saw before?
"Your eyes were glowing…" I murmured and frowned in confusion, leaning a fraction closer to get a better look.
"What?" He snapped at me, not in anger really, in a more guarded way that made me jump a little, like breaking out of a trance as I sat up straighter.
I shook my bouncy curls about my head and sighed, "They're strange, like your cloak. I can see stars in them."
He looked down at his robes like he had forgotten he was wearing them, which I knew without even being acquaintances with him would have been a silly thing for him to do. He seemed very practical.
When he looked back at me, his expression was even; it almost felt like he was challenging me in a way. "So you noticed, did you?"
His voice was so cultured, clipped, and refined; I had never heard anything like it before. I wondered where he was from as he sat in the seat across from me, his grey eyes pinning my own like jagged, pointed knives.
Hesitantly I nodded and waited for him to say something else. The silence was heavy around us as the English country side flew by on the other side of the compartment.
Then he settled back further into his seat and commented, "No one else on this train can see the stars on my cloak. Look again. What do you see now?"
I fixed my eyes back upon his robes, seeing the stars twinkling brighter than I remembered from before. But the closer I stared, the more I realized all the stars were moving, in a slow circular motion just like the night sky. Leaning forward for a closer look, I could see the constellation Orion turning over his chest. Delighted, I looked over his arm and saw the unmistakable shape of a 'W' the Cassiopeia constellation, the Ursa's Major and Minor were drifting over his torso.
"It's-It's a replica! Of the real night sky, but how-?" I speculated aloud but was interrupted by the train lurching for a moment and it propelled me forward, so enthralled with his magical robe I was not able to keep my balance. With a wince I landed on my knees in front of him as I felt the skin on my knees scraping off. He stared down at me with a cocked eyebrow, just… staring.
I averted my eyes feeling myself blushing a little at my clumsiness.
His fingers were hooking underneath my chin and turning my head back towards him. His lips were smiling warmly at me so I ventured my eyes back up to his.
"What else do you see?" He asked softly.
When I looked back at him, really stared hard, the silver in his eyes was not just alight there, but coursing through his body. Silvery wisps of what appeared to be thread flowed through his head, down his neck and splitting off to each of his arms all the way to his fingers, and back up to pass through his heart, down his stomach and splitting off again to his legs.
This matter, it swirled and moved in him, it was a part of him and it was beautiful. I don't know how I knew all these things, but I recognized it nonetheless.
"It's light, never-ending and pure light, but how-?"
Absentmindedly, I reached out to touch his glowing hand resting on his knee, wanting to know if it was real, if it was warm, or if it was cold and imaginary.
As our skin connected the light transferred through me, I gasped softly as it was nothing like I ever felt before, not like electricity but there was definitely something coursing through me now, the silver strands spreading through my fingers and fluidly tracing over the creases in my flesh. I drew my hand back, only meaning to inspect it further but as I broke the contact the light began to fade from whence it came, flowing out of me and subsiding on him as well so it was like it was never even there.
"Where did it go? How did you do that?" I asked him, frowning at my hand and then in turn his.
The magical man merely smiled and helped me to my feet.
"You should be running along, now. I expect we'll be stopping soon," he explained, looking out the window.
But I would not accept that, no- I wanted to know what had just happened and what it all meant. What was the source of that incandescent glimmering? I complained to him, "But you haven't even told me how you did that yet…"
"You should already know that, little witch, or you would not be able to see anything with those chocolate drops you have for eyes," he said coyly as his hand guided my shoulder back to my seat and he bent over me.
I felt my heart beating fast suddenly and I didn't know why; my fingers were still tingling faintly where the swirling glow had manifested in me.
Little witch?
He grabbed my ankle and bent my leg while resting my foot on his knee, holding it there in the air, inspecting it.
My skinned knee stared up at both of us and I watched him, wondering what he was doing- again, not even concerned with the danger I might be in.
His pale fingers ran over my cuts, and he was murmuring something under his breath I couldn't make out; it was in a foreign language I did not recognize. It sounded as beautiful as the French my mother spoke, yet more complicated than Italian, but the language was neither. At any rate, my attention was grabbed by something else and I stopped straining to hear when I saw the marks on my knees start sealing back up at an incredible rate.
The blood dissipated and the skin closed, fading from dark pink to white in a matter of seconds leaving only a faint mark I could see if I squinted my eyes just so.
I could only exhale in wonder as he repeated this with the other knee and it was as if I had never hurt myself. I looked upon the man with a new sense of rapture, completely captivated by the magical being. I read about wizards and witches in fairy tales, but had never dreamed them to be real. Mother always said school books were more practical.
"Attention passengers: we are making an unscheduled stop in Manchester for anyone needing to get off the locomotive. We are now arriving in Manchester. Please, ladies and gentlemen, make an orderly exit so we can be on our way."
We both recognized the voice as the contender from before as well as the clear annoyance in his tone coming from the speaker overhead.
I giggled slightly and the strange, blond-haired man smirked down at me. "It would seem as if that was directed at me. I thank you for your help today; you were a fine little actress."
Feeling a rush of pride run over me as it always did when I was praised by the adults in my life, I smiled demurely and did a small curtsy for the wizard, for I was not sure what else was appropriate for this occasion.
He chuckled lightly at me, taking my hand and bowing his head as he brought my knuckles to his lips in a brief, chaste kiss. I watched in awe my hand and his mouth glittering with the same strange light from before but it dissipated as quickly as it came.
As he made to leave I felt a stab of panic poke at my back. "Wait! Will I ever see you again? You must tell me what that glow means…"
"Do not fuss, little one, right now I am late to a previous engagement but I am confident we shall meet again one day when you are grownup. Perhaps then you will understand the meaning of Living Magic, no?"
Then he pulled his cloak tighter about him and with a graceful nod he swept out of the compartment without another word. I just watched in awe after him until he was out of sight.
I rushed over to the window and after a few seconds saw him step off the train. He started walking in the opposite direction of where we were heading, but I kept watching him. After we were a safe distance away, he vanished totally into thin air. I remembered that I had been distinctly forcing myself not to blink.
Sinking into the seat behind me, I was still looking at the spot where he had stood until it was out of view with a smile on my face. I couldn't believe what had just transpired. I met a man who could do magic; on a train, on an unsuspecting Sunday. It was so surreal...
Suddenly, I got to my feet and ran to find my parents. I had to tell them everything; that I met someone who could do magic and it was real, and I could see it moving through his body and the way his clothes moved like a picture on the telly.
But after I had located my mother and father and tried to recount the amazing encounter that had just occurred I was met with overwhelming concern and fear.
They thought someone had been trying to abduct me; never mind the part about magic, or my skinned knees being healed, or that he vanished into thin air.
No, my parents didn't listen to me and kept me in between them in our compartment the whole rest of the way.
Whenever I had tried to bring the incidence up after that, I was shushed and told to be grateful I was still alive and well, not dead or locked up somewhere with a kidnapper or pervert.
But I knew what had happened, and I didn't think my magical stranger had ever intended me ill will. I kept him alive in my memory for awhile after the incident; he became one of my only steady friends growing up as I went on imaginary adventures with him, his swirling midnight cloak always with him.
When I played make-believe I would pretend the blonde-haired man was with me and taught me how to do magic, how to make my Living Magic light up like his and I would run all around the playground with a twig I had found pretending it was a wand, casting spells, escaping danger, and saving lives with my magic.
But whenever my parents found me playing this way, or heard me talk about the blonde-haired man they instantly tried to discourage me and put books in my hands. It was never that they hated magic, they just didn't know how else to handle the situation.
My mother and father started to believe I had created an imaginary friend and were disturbed over the fact that instead of being another child or something more harmless, I dreamed of a long-haired blonde man.
I visited psychiatrists on several occasions when I refused to admit that I had made him up. Of course, he wasn't really there, teaching me magic or assisting me in my fake travels; I knew that but I would not appease them, I still insisted he was real because he was. I refused to admit he had left me, was all...
As time went on and I started growing up, I began to forget what had happened. After all, no one believed me, so it began to create a self-doubt that I found more difficult to refute with each day that passed. I didn't like going to see the doctors, so I kept quiet about my magic man and slowly let all those memories drift to the back of my head.
That was, until I got my Hogwarts letter.
So very abruptly, magic was confirmed. All that time I had denied the truth was time in vain. But I still never brought up the blond-haired man to anyone ever again; instead, letting him fade into memory quietly, secretly; only to be remembered at that match across the stands.
He had been watching Draco, of course, but as he flew by the broom, waving at his father I saw Malfoy Senior's face as if it were the first time. Smirking and giving a small wink to his son as he passed him, Lucius' face suddenly connected with the man's on the train.
It was him, absolutely it was.
How had I not remembered or noticed before? His face was nearly the same, perhaps a bit older and his hair longer; but that hair, so long and so silvery in its glow, how could I have forgotten?
I was so enraptured in memory I did not see him turn to look at me, like he knew I was there watching him all along.
Our eyes locked and we were both completely still for a full minute, the fans and spectators cheering and howling around us strangely deafened to my ears, their faces blank for my eyes only registered his.
I wondered if he remembered me. When he had glared down at me like he was glaring at me now, did he remember that we had met before? Did he recall I had seen his Living Magic in him? Did he still think about healing my knees?
I didn't move, I just looked at him with wide eyes and my lips pressed tight together. I don't think I was even breathing then, I held my breath until I felt dizzy, I convinced myself that was why my head was spinning.
He looked away first back to the match, sneering at something Professor Snape was murmuring into his ear and agreeing with a tight nod.
The abruptly broken eye contact either snapped me out of a trance or put me into one; I would never know which.
I sucked in gulps of air and then staggered to my feet, struck by unnamed emotions rapidly fluttering through my body which were too much to process. I simply couldn't. I turned and started pushing past people in their seats to get to the aisle. Ron and Harry called after me but I kept running all the way from the stands, across the grounds, and through an opening in the woods.
And I never stopped. It was light enough to see but I steered away from the shadows growing deeper in the Dark Forest, snow crunching under my feet and twigs breaking under my oxford shoes as I sprinted.
Somehow I was running faster than I ever had before, like I had been doing it my whole life and I couldn't even stop to ask myself why because my mind was blank, nearly unseeing with unshed tears as I bolted through branches, feeling them scratch my face and palms.
The strangest part was I felt like I was running to something, but I had no destination or ideas in mind; I was just sprinting where my legs and feet were carrying me for what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than twenty minutes.
Finally, I just sort of stopped. I swooned against a tree for support as I tried to regulate my breaths, shaking there against the rough bark.
As I regained control of my body, my mind began to clear up as well and I began to wonder why I had run like that. Was it that I was running away from him- from Lucius? But why?
Surely he was a terrifying man when he needed to be, but I ran only after he looked away from me, not whilst he was glaring at me.
I shook my head violently as if trying to shake the thoughts from my brain. It felt like too much; I couldn't explain what I had felt, only that I was overcome with… was it sadness? I had had tears in my eyes, but I wasn't crying, they had already rolled down my cheeks and were drying.
Moreover, why would I have been sad in the first place?
No, I refused to believe that.
I just couldn't fathom being upset over a Malfoy ignoring me. That's what I had always wanted, especially since Ron and Draco's last fight ending in Ron vomiting slugs during Harry's Quidditch practice.
However, as I panted and clutched at my ribs and looked around the unfamiliar Dark Forest I acknowledged that I had been upset. If it was because of the memory or that heated stare broken so unexpectedly, I was not sure but I wanted to push it out of my head; to stop thinking and subsequently dreaming about Lucius Malfoy.
Obviously I had been more than distressed to enter blindly into the forest without thinking. I had only been here once, but that was under the supervision of Hagrid who knew the unsettling and twisting woods well from working in them as Gamekeeper for so many years.
Right now, I was utterly alone.
My composure was slowly returning and I began to dread finding my way back to the castle and was even more anxious to return to the dormitory where I was sure Harry and Ron would undoubtedly be waiting to hear why I ran off like that.
Could I tell them I met Lucius on a Muggle train? Would they even believe me? I was sure Ron wouldn't; if only because of his hate of the Malfoy's and his knowledge of their hate of Muggles. I wasn't too sure about Harry; he was more understanding than Ron and didn't really believe in the impossible, so there was a good chance he'd listen to me. Why would I lie about it anyway?
Then that led me to start wondering: why had the older wizard been on the train that day? How could he have gotten onto a Muggle train by mistake? That just didn't seem possible but even if he had, why couldn't he have Apparated off the train to begin with?
There were too many questions I would probably never know the answer to. When would there be time to confront him, what was more, would I even want to? I couldn't even picture confronting him about it, or how I would start…
'Mr. Malfoy, it's me, Hermione Granger; you know, that Muggle girl who helped you off the train in Manchester all those years ago and knew you were a wizard…'
I shook my head again pushing off the sturdy tree trunk and steadying my balance. My calves and lungs were burning but I thought I should probably start walking. The match should have been over by now and I hoped I wouldn't meet up with them walking up from the stands.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about it now that I knew.
How did he feel knowing he'd healed a so-called Mudblood? Another realization struck me; he knew now that I had magic before Hogwarts. So they couldn't call me that word anymore- no one could, and if he did I would remind him of that incident.
My mind fluttered back to the identical wink he'd given Draco, like a final puzzle piece fitting together the whole thing. It was almost comical how I hadn't recognized him before, but the whole occurrence had been buried in my memory for so long.
As I remembered the way he took my hand in his and raised it to his lips chills ran over my body. It had felt like such a promise at the time, but in what way I couldn't begin to describe. I bet he was shocked to meet me and discover I was a Muggleborn witch; obviously he wouldn't have acted that way toward me if he thought I was anything less than a Pureblood.
Living Magic was an ancient kind of enchantment that was far beyond my skill level. There were no books in the Hogwarts Library about it, I had checked last year before I even knew who he was and there was not one book that described it. The only way I would know for sure was if I started asking my professors and who knew what that would bring about. I kept it to myself, certain I would never know and disappointingly resolved to that verity.
This changed everything now. Did our magic have some sort of connection to them? I vividly recalled how he had said on the train that I should have known or I wouldn't have been able to see the silver glow at all.
How would I ever know the key to this mystery?
Endlessly, it seemed, I wandered through the Dark Forest trying to find my way out through what I thought was the way I came. It felt like it was growing darker with every minute that passed but I forced myself not to worry, telling myself I would find my way soon.
But soon I began to hear noises that had me gasping and turning, scanning for the source after the fourth time I gave into the paranoia and I pulled out my wand, lighting it with a whispered, "Lumos," and only then I felt a little safer.
Hurrying along, I made certain nothing was following me and mentally kicked myself again for being so stupid.
I was trying to go towards the fading light, convinced that was the way to exit the forest, but I felt like I kept changing directions. I stopped for a moment to survey the area and decide which way to go when I heard a loud crunch come from behind me.
Spinning around, with my wand at the ready in hand, a figure stepped out from the trees.
But of course. Of course it was him.
Lucius Malfoy had the tip of his wand lit and it was lighting the surrounding area as his footsteps crunched in the snow while he drew deliberately towards me.
And while I was not mildly surprised to see him, it didn't stop my confusion. Had he been trailing after me? Well, he must have been. Unless he was just taking a leisurely stroll through the Dark Forest which was more unlikely than him following me.
He was smirking at me as he stepped closer.
"I see you remembered," he spoke so softly I almost didn't think he had actually addressed me. But his lips had moved, I do recall his mouth moving, his lips slowly forming the words.
Just minutes ago I was thinking about confronting him, and now here he was approaching me about it and I was speechless.
Idly, I wondered what would have happened if I had gotten to him first.
He stopped a few feet away from me, towering over me so it felt like he was standing right in front of me. When I was younger he didn't seem so ominous to me, and his pale features looked so harsh in the streaking fog.
The irony dawned on me that I was less afraid of him as a stranger when I was a little girl than when I actually knew his name.
My lips had parted to speak, but my mouth was dry from all the running. I had to lick my lips to form an answer, "I… I did."
Now his eyes were steadfastly watching me and every twitch I made his eyes followed.
"You will tell no one," he ordered, his voice unyielding.
I took a step back slowly, and started to shake my head and I suppose he took this as some kind of hostility or disagreement.
He advanced on me so suddenly I had no time to react; I barely knew what was happening until his gloved hands were on me, one was grabbing around my upper arm and the other squeezing the wrist of my wand hand.
Struggling against him at first, I kicked out at him once and missed because he was maneuvering me backwards, but I already knew logically I was no match for him. A girl of twelve against a full-grown wizard was no contest. My wand had slipped though my fingers and rolled away. I was defenseless.
My body went limp against him and I could only look pleadingly up into his cold eyes.
He backed me into something solid, what could only have been a tree I assumed and I clutched at his arms in yet another fruitless attempt to disengage him from me but caused him to only clutch tighter to me.
"Do not test me, little girl," he warned in a low voice. He wasn't really hurting me at all, but his grip was firm and threatening enough to make me swallow the lump in my throat and stop my fingers from prying at his own.
"I-I wasn't trying to," I tried to explain calmly, but my voice betrayed how uneasy I felt.
His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized me. "Then why did you make such a spectacle of yourself in the stands? Even the Slytherins across the field noticed your rapid departure and Professor Snape presumed I had cursed you."
My face reddened. I figured everyone would be too absorbed in the game to notice me dissect the existence of Lucius Malfoy.
When I answered, my voice sounded so small. "That is… I wasn't… I didn't mean to," I said imploringly, a small whimper emitting from the back of my throat as he scoffed.
"You expect me to believe that; that you didn't mean to? You certainly looked like you were up to something from where I was watching," he pointed out accusingly.
"Honestly, it wasn't like that!" I defended myself. "I just wanted to get away from everyone, to think about everything, and I just started running. I guess I wasn't really thinking at all…"
His features relaxed some and he stepped away from me, letting me stumble a little and fetch my wand. I kept it at my side; I didn't want to pocket it just yet…
"No one ever believed me anyway, you know… about you," I admitted, not really sure why I was offering up that as well. I just wanted him to know that, and that I definitely didn't want to talk about him with anyone else after that incident.
"Good. I will personally see to it that no one ever does. It never should have occurred and it was an egregious error on my part. I don't want you thinking that you are… special… somehow," he said in a nonchalant manner, his words almost lazy, heavy with the burden they carried.
I rubbed at my wrist spitefully, bubbling with heated anger at his words. "Why would I think that?"
Lucius shrugged a shoulder and answered, "It seemed like something a Muggle would do."
His words stung me like a slap on the cheek, but I wouldn't take it. I wanted to throw it back at him. "No! No, I won't tell anyone about what happened on the train but you can't call me that. I'm a witch, and you know it! I saw your robes; you showed me your Living Magic and that is something that you can't take back."
"There have been many cases over the years of Muggles witnessing magic or spell work done by wizards and they were all dealt with accordingly. It's a shame the system failed us then by letting someone like you in here, but it is to be expected with the incompetent fools they have supervising our institutions," he said regretfully, with a look of pained longing.
I gaped up at him incredulously. "That's-That's rubbish-"
"Watch your tone when addressing a Pureblood, Muggle," he sneered down at me and I bit my lip, looking away and trying not to cry.
"But the Living Magic—what does it mean? Won't you tell me why now?" I pleaded, wanting to know more than ever the reason.
At the mention of the elusive, ancient magic his eyes narrowed. "Never speak of that again. It was a mistake, I know not why it transpired but it meant nothing and certainly will never occur again. You would do well fully committing to forgetting that it ever happened."
It wasn't fair. How could he just lie out-right like that; not just to me, but to himself? My head was nearly spinning with the injustice, his stubbornness, and the laws of the Wizarding world…
A tear escaped and rolled down my cheek and I wiped at it furiously, fuming at myself for letting him make me cry- especially in front of him.
Satisfied with my lack of response, Lucius sneered in disgust and turned to start walking away. "I would recommend you follow me if you'd like to make it out of the forest… intact."
I stared after him for a few moments before my legs started working again. I trailed after him at a short distance, more baffled than ever before.
For what felt like the tenth time I went over the scenario again in my head: Lucius stalked after me through the forest to threaten me, then insult me, deny that something so real happened between us, and then help me find my way back out of the Dark Forest.
My lungs just wanted to scream 'WHY?' at the back of his head but I kept quiet and said no more to him. I wanted to be out of the forest by nightfall and if the safest person to go with was Lucius, I would go along with him. I had a feeling I would begrudge myself later, but now that didn't matter.
"I assure you I did not intend to escort you; I know you must be wondering why I am. Well, I concede I may not like your kind, but as a governor of this school I do have a civic duty to protect its students. After seeing you run into the forest despite knowing it is forbidden, well, logically, it would have been wrong for me not go and retrieve you."
I listened to his words and struggled to understand the underlying meaning. Was he really trying to justify his actions now? If he was, it sounded more as if it he was trying to convince his own peace of mind.
Not much later I could see we were reaching the edge of the forest and I saw Hagrid's dim firelight flickering in the distance to my right.
He stopped and faced me again, appraising me for a few long minutes.
"As a governor of this school I should inform a professor of your whereabouts and your flagrant bending of the rules, although… I suppose I could look the other way just this once… And we shall never have to speak again. Does this sound agreeable to you?"
I ignored my racing heart and twisting belly and replied, "Yes, sir."
"Very good," he replied slowly and his eyes burned into me, white-hot in the twilight. "I'm sure you can find your way from here. Do not take my words lightly, Miss Granger."
With that he turned again from me and kept walking along the edge of the forest so I couldn't tell if he was leaving or going deeper. After realizing I had been standing there for too long, I hurried along towards the castle.
When I finally reached the Gryffindor common room, Ron and Harry were waiting just as I had expected and rounded on me the instant the portrait opened and demanded to know where I had been and what I had been doing.
Their concern was touching, but I brushed them off saying I had been in the Library and was exhausted from studying and was going up to my room, despite their protests of having checked the Library several times ,and not having the energy to do anything right then but curl up in bed and try not to think about Lucius Malfoy.
And fortunately, (or unfortunately, rather,) he gave me all the time in the world to do that; when the basilisk got me.
I had been just about to unravel the riddle to the boys after all that researching to distract myself from those thoughts when I turned the corner and saw yellow eyes in the reflection of my mirror, and then all I could remember was the ceiling.
Being paralyzed was a bittersweet pill. On the one hand, everything was fuzzy and distant, like I was in a constant dream-state. I couldn't focus too much on anything around me because everything felt so slowed down, even my brain felt like it processed things sluggishly, when the Professors found me I barely recognized them by their names until I was already in the Hospital Wing.
When Harry and Ron came to see me I wanted to jump up and hug them, but knowing I couldn't do that or even respond to their voices made me want to cry which I couldn't even manage either. It was maddeningly frustrating, like I was imprisoned in my own body. Most of my thoughts over the next few weeks were of my last fully-awake moments; the basilisk and corridors and mirrors and eyes. But when I felt like I was really dreaming from sleep and not just hazily thinking, I saw Lucius there too beside the snake, encouraging it and running his fingers along its massive scales.
His icy-grey eyes turned into liquid gold.
Then I would wake and try and fail to move before remembering where I was. I had been in the Hospital Wing enough times to know by then what its ceilings looked like.
I made every effort I could to erase him from my memory but I couldn't manage it no matter what I tried and then lying there for weeks and weeks… soon I was thinking only about him; about what had happened between us and the words we spoke.
My mind fixated on it and replayed it over and over again when I had enough presence of mind to do so. It felt like the longer I was paralyzed, the harder it was to function, as if my body and mind were actually slowly shutting down. It scared me and made me not want to sleep at all.
In a constant state of numbness I couldn't feel the pain I must have been in, only the dull ache that echoed from my nerve endings.
Then one night, I heard Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall talking to Madame Pomfrey about a girl being taken into the Chamber. Everything was so faint at this point that I could barely hear words, just muffled sounds that got dimmer the further away they were.
However then I heard a voice almost as loud and clear as if it were shouting in my ear. It was Lucius, he was there in the Hospital Wing and in the critical condition room where I had been staying with the others. The only thing I could compare what happened next to was an out of body experience, but even that was a stretch because I had never experienced one before. All I knew was that it felt like I had moved positions from my bed and could then see him perfectly rather than my petrified reflection or the surrounding ceiling. He was speaking patronizingly to Dumbledore, about Hagrid, the monster, the unfortunate accidents. The Headmaster was speaking calmly in turn, not letting Lucius deter him.
Then Lucius was suddenly in my line of view. He was looking upon me, his back to the others and his face unguarded for the first time I'd seen since I was a little girl.
And his expression was what could only be described as horrified.
His turbulent grey eyes were wide, darker than usual, and fully focused on mine; his mouth parted slightly so I could see the rows of his perfect, white teeth, and his face was more pale than usual.
I wouldn't know why until later. Why his expression unsettled me so, why he was so displeased with my condition when everything said he should have felt the opposite.
But after only a moment he collected himself and set his jaw, saying that tragedies such as the likes of me needed to be stopped and turned abruptly back to the others, pulling out his letter signed by the other governors removing the Headmaster from the school.
I wished Ron and Harry were there holding my hands. I remembered feeling my heavy heart thudding dully in my chest as I drifted into an exhausted sleep to the sounds of the adults talking with my eyes wide open.
After being revived and getting filled in on everything from Harry and Ron, I felt sick.
Part of me refused to believe Lucius really was the reason I almost died; my brain tried to tell me it was an accident, or a grave coincidence. But the older I got, the harder it was to live in self-denial. I had to stop lying to myself.
Lucius Malfoy was a dark wizard, one whose actions had almost resulted in my death and he truly hated all things Muggle or Muggleborn. But there was still no question that I had to solve the mystery of the Living Magic; it definitely meant something if he wanted me to forget it and the unknown was simply torturing me.
I thought about him way too much. I had once painted him as a picture in my head from childhood as some kind of magical deity and I was still trying to think of him in that way, but I had to clear the smoke. I vowed that I should keep away from the Malfoys, all of them while I unraveled the obscurity of Living Magic; lest I be poisoned.