Chapter Three
"Hermione, we've been sitting long enough," Lucius said about two hours later. "Up, up, put that silly book away. Can't you feel the wind in your hair? Come up to the bow with me, my dear, let's have a look."
"Hold on, Lucius, let me finish my paragraph—" Hermione tried to say, but he had her book in his hand and was holding it away from her before she'd even finished the sentence. Because he was so much taller, she couldn't reach it, and she cast him an indignant glare. Lucius, of course, merely laughed at her.
"Hermione, my dear, do you never do anything but read and write and file things away where they belong?" he wanted to know. "Don't you want to actually see what you've been reading about?"
"I do see things," she protested, though her voice faltered slightly as she said it, knowing that she really didn't. She fidgeted under his gaze as he raised a brow at her, and then she finally looked down at her feet. "Okay, fine, I don't. So sue me."
"I won't," he said. "But I will take this book away until you've seen at least three new things you haven't seen. Agreed?"
"Three?" she gasped as she gaped up at him. "We're on a boat. Where am I going to see three new things on a boat?"
"Hermione Granger, have you ever been on a boat?" he wanted to know. "There are plenty of things to see, if you only know where to look."
"Like what?" she scoffed.
Lucius took her hand and drew her with him to the rail, and pointed up to the sky, where a flock of seabirds were flying past. Some of them were chasing each other, and he chuckled as he set her in front of him and stood behind her, one arm on either side.
"What are they doing?" Hermione asked him curiously.
"You don't know, bookworm?" he teased her as two birds came together, and then Hermione figured it out. Her face turned all shades of red as the coupling birds screeched, falling briefly together.
"Lucius!" she gasped, hiding her eyes in her hands.
"Come on, now, that was only your first thing," he teased her. "Don't you want your book back?"
"Let me go, you evil man," she admonished him, realizing he had her pinned to the rail. Lucius giggled and rested his chin on the top of her head.
"Look over there, do you see the school of fish going by?" he inquired innocently. He pointed out the large group of fish nearby as they passed them, and she obligingly looked down into the water, quite aware when the hand he'd been pointing with retracted and his arm wrapped casually around her chest. "A bit cold up here, don't you think?"
"A little," she answered, trying to suppress a shiver unsuccessfully.
"Mmm, I guess so," he chuckled. "Maybe your third thing to see should be a ship's galley for some dinner?"
"Maybe," she agreed, disappointed when he let her go. He turned her around, briefly squeezed both her hands, then walked with her to the large door that led inside.
