Quick Authors Note: See the end of this chapter as the two of them testing boundaries and testing to what extent their feelings for the other go. As a point for future chapters remember it is a romance but their little conversations will continue. (I promise this is the last author's note.)
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Chapter Three Friendship And More?
He appeared the next day and stopped in front of her frozen in surprise.
"Your still here."
Lucius said, voice shaking having trouble believing that she was real.
"It's not my place to judge."
She replied neutrally. He settled down on the stone seat and pulled his cloak around him. Both just sat in silence it was not awkward more of a quiet understanding of each other.
"I am not completely misled or deluded. I liked his beliefs I in many ways wanted the world he preached to do the things he spoke off. But when it gets down to it, it is one thing to want and to think and completely different to do.
All these things he promised he never once delivered. All his research and magical knowledge he never shared nor did he ever teach us what it meant to be magical. He allowed us to cast the dark arts but we had to educate ourselves. We I gave that thing everything and he gave us nothing in return. I sold myself into slavery for him and now I have nothing. I don't even know how I could think those thoughts to begin with.
But I did believe them and I fought to make them true. What does that make me?"
"A Wizard."
Hermione said.
"Perhaps."
Lucius replied.
~8~
The Potter's and Weasley's were beginning to prepare for Christmas why did she feel so cold and numb. The cold played havoc on her body. She thought back to the Christmas on the horcrux hunt, it was tough to pick what Christmas she preferred; at least on the hunt she had a purpose. Now her life was reduced to daily conversations with Lucius Malfoy of all people. Why could she not move on? She knew why of course she felt like she did not deserve a Christmas. How could she forget all her deeds all the spells she cast? She shook her head and it brought her back to the present.
The days ticked by and this time their conversations gradually began to open up; instead of focusing on one topic they talked about everything especially themselves. She found out that he was divorced; Hermione wondered how lonely it would be to spend so long with someone and to then have them without warning leave. He was a book worm as well. Did those small facts really have any significance on the lives they were forced to lead? She didn't know. But it made whatever fate she was given seem for those small moments seem meaningful and on those cold winter afternoons that was enough.
~8~
It was Christmas day. Hermione could hardly believe it she couldn't bring herself to open the many presents that she had been given by both Harry and the rest of the Weasley family. She left before lunch was served, she had to go to the garden and on days like today when everyone was reminded most acutely of their losses she needed the peace of mind. How could she go back to the Potter's and Weasley's though? How could she celebrate with the others when there was nothing left to celebrate?
Lucius still came though, he looked uncomfortable as he sat down, and she wondered if he had come from eating dinner but in the end it didn't matter she thought. They just sat there were no great debates, no personal revelations just two people sat on a grey December day in a memorial garden.
"Merry Christmas Mr Malfoy."
"Merry Christmas Miss Granger."
With that they got up and left, Lucius walked Hermione to the gate and held it open for her as she walked past he said loudly to her.
"Lucius."
And the two of them left.
~8~
Today was New Year's Day that was nothing special but it mattered to some, Hermione returned to the garden right on time and she sat thinking. Another year and she had nothing to show for the last one, still unhappy, still unemployed and still hopeless her optimism of her earlier years extinguished as the ugly reality of what it was to be human and to be an adult was slowly revealed to her. Though maybe such optimism was a way of coping having had to grow up to soon, a way of restoring normality into a world where adults no matter how respectable could not be trusted. Lucius entered the garden at one. It hit Hermione how these moments together was what she had to show for the past year. It was not an unpleasant thought.
Lucius sat down and at that moment all was right again in Hermione's world, she had her friend. Yes that was right, no matter what he thought of her he was her friend to some degree. A friendship born of understanding and acceptance, nothing would ever change who they were or what they had done but it was enough.
"Happy New Year Lucius."
"Happy New Year Hermione."
There was silence, save for the breeze rustling the bare tree branches.
"I don't know how much longer I can continue living the way I am. It hurts that nothing has changed and worse no one seems to want to change. I gave up so much for the war and nothings fucking changed. People congratulate me think I deserve so much for fighting and helping Harry defeat Voldemort but the thing I want most I can't have. I can never have my innocence back and this whole world just seems so miserably static. Its New Year's Day and I have nothing to show for my past year except being here and if I listened to what my some of my friends want for me I wouldn't even have this. I want nothing and everything in this world, I want purpose I want a life but the one on offer I don't want. How can I just go to work and pretend that it's normal that nothing has happened to change me? How?"
Hermione's voice started low before she ended up screaming. Tears running freely down her face. Lucius was still for a moment, before his low voice pierced through Hermione's sobs and brought her back to the now.
"When you have your innocence it seems like nothing you only realise its value when it is gone. I can't help you Hermione because I don't know how. But I know how you feel, the grating anger that nothing has changed when everything has changed where nothing is the same anymore. How can a world be back to rights when at least two of its citizens scream in cold terror every night and barely live during the day?
The answer is that it is not right and will never be right but we have to be who we are, you must never change, never give in. So long as you keep striving to find the change the world will one day change."
"You don't mean the last part."
She said weakly.
"Your right. There will never be change, but surely we are allowed to believe to the contrary if only for a little while."
He replied. And Hermione managed a small nod of acceptance.
~8~
Four days later they were together again in the garden. They both continued to sit not moving as a light breeze blew through the garden, Lucius let out a small gasp as his hands began to shake and convulsions wracked his body. Yet another reminder of the torture and suffering Voldemort caused even amongst his own followers. Was that an indication of what life under his rule would be like? She hoped not. Gingerly she reached out and placed her hand over his she hoped he would not think it improper but she could not sit and watch as he suffered through such obvious pain and for a cause he seemed to regret and repent even when there would not and perhaps could not ever be redemption for him. Eventually the convulsions stopped though his body remained twitching randomly and another breeze blew through the garden.
"Are you cold?"
She asked, seeing him nod slightly, she moved closer to him and pulled his and her own cloak around them both, if he noted the pink tinge on her cheeks he said nothing. After a time it was Lucius who spoke his voice still shaky from the curse.
"Thank you. Do you still get attacks?"
"Occasionally. I find tea helps."
She turned to face him and she smiled, at a loss of what to do Lucius simply smiled back. Hermione noticed his hard grey haunted eyes as they softened for the briefest of moments when the smile graced his lips.
~8~
She came she saw then he came.
"Why do you keep talking to me?"
He asked plainly. Hermione had to think for a moment before she answered slowly.
"I don't know, because you understand because you don't try to pretend to be any one else or something you're not. I just don't know."
She answered frustrated with both him and herself.
"Maybe my companionship is a ruse. All part of a larger plan to hurt you did you think of that."
He said sneering but both could tell his heart wasn't in it. He didn't mean those words.
"If you wanted to kidnap me, hurt me you would have done so by now. But you don't want to do that and worse you haven't the wand to do it."
She said plainly.
"Your right."
He sighed. They spent the rest of their time together in silence.
~8~
Two days passed, there was nothing special about the two days they both arrived at the garden made small insignificant talk about their lives and then they left again.
~8~
A week later she sat waiting for Lucius to arrive she looked really looked at him as he walked over and sat down. She noticed he leaned a lot on his walking stick, no longer an ostentatious wand holder a mere accessory but an aid for mobility a necessity. He was still tall, well groomed but his face was more lined than she remembered. A haunted look hung about him that no matter what he did was never going away. In the end it was his eyes that betrayed him he would never look superior again; he would never send a bolt of fear down her spine again.
Hermione could never explain what caused her to do what she did next. Maybe it was the realisation that Lucius Malfoy was just a man. That for all his deeds she could not find it within her to hate him for it that all she felt towards him was friendship and a sense of sympathy and empathy that she knew deep down inside they were the same. With a small smile on her lips she turned her body to face his and quickly leant across and kissed him briefly on the cheek. He smelt nice the mixture of spice and his own musk, she didn't mind the slight rub of stubble against her lips. She had to admit even if it was just to herself that she did not expect to enjoy kissing his cheek so much. In fact her thoughts left her wondering for a moment what it would be like to kiss his thin lips and just how Lucius would kiss her back.
"Why'd you do that?"
He asked sadly shoulders sagging under his perceived reading of the situation and the sorrow it caused him. Hermione's face dropped sadly as she tried to make sense of the scene slowly unfolding.
"I'm sorry."
She said simply, turning her body away so he could not see the sadness and silent sobs that threatened to take over her body. It was stupid thing to do. And even more stupid to think he would enjoy it or want to kiss her back. For Merlin's sake she was Draco's age. She was a school girl young enough to be his daughter of course he didn't enjoy the situation she had just dropped him into.
"I'm not denying that I enjoyed it. But why Hermione? What could cause you to do that? Why'd you kiss me?"
He asked sadly as if a simple chaste kiss was the worst crime that could possibly be committed.
"I don't know why, I just wanted to."
Was the quiet reply. She tried to avoid eye contact with Lucius. But that was truly the truth, she was at such a loss but this confused flawed man offered her so much. Gave her so much understanding and companionship that she supposed in many ways the question was how could she not want to kiss him.
"Why would you want to though? I. I have nothing to offer. I am not a good man or even a happy man, please forget you kissed me it will be better for both of us if you did."
His voice resigned to the finality of his decision, Hermione reached out and placed her hand on his.
"You understand. But more importantly you don't care. You don't fawn or tell me that I'm right or wrong you listen and we talk about anything and everything."
"There are many men who will listen and talk. Why am I anything special? No woman wants a coward."
"You're honest and you realise that while we have to live, life is not something that we can frivolously throw away. My friends don't realise that." She exhaled heavily. "They don't want to change and you know I can't live like that."
"There will be others. Men more palatable to both you and your friends."
"Why should it matter what other people think?"
"Because no matter what you say or think now when the reality hits that everyone at best ignores you or worse taunts and harasses you in the street and discriminate based on your associations you will regret every moment you spent here with me." He paused to swallow. "Kissing."
"I have just one question Lucius so long as you are amenable to kissing me shouldn't I have the choice as to whether I want to face the hostilities?"
"You are right. I can't tell you how to live your life but I don't want the guilt Hermione. I don't want to be the cause that ruins another life."
He sunk back, defeated unsure how he really felt, on one level he didn't like it, he really didn't want to cause more pain and more anguish for anyone he already had enough to atone for. But on another level he craved the intimacy the fact that she wanted him or at least a kiss. He missed having a warm body next to him and right now he was unbelievably hard and he couldn't remember the last time he got hard that wasn't induced by himself. He thought back through all the real encounters that they had together. She knew what he had done, she had seen and witnessed so many things Hermione was to a degree broken she was no innocent school girl anymore.
Hermione sat there thinking through what had just happened and for once contact with another human left her feeling something other than cold. She knew what he had done and like her he would never forget any of the things he had done, forever burned to the side of your mind ready to flood your thoughts as soon as an opportune moment presented itself.
But she found that she didn't mind.
~8~
The following day Hermione sat in the garden and waited, she was barely able to sit still the need to pace almost overwhelming her as she had to know whether she pushed him too far. That instead of keeping a surprising friendship that she now had nothing. She felt so shocked and relived when she heard the creak of the gate and saw Lucius enter the garden and walk towards her. A tingle went through her body as he sat down.
He came back.
She made pleasantries and gently placed her hand over his only for him to violently pull his hand away a look of fear and hatred crossed his features.
"Please stop that."
He growled menacingly.
Confused Hermione pulled her hand away and kept both hands balled tightly in her lap unable to think of what had happened in twenty four hours. Time passed and nothing was said, so again Hermione reached across and placed her hand on his.
"I said stop it. Please."
His voice low as Lucius almost pleaded with her to stop touching him. Chastised Hermione removed her hand and wondered if she really had ruined everything that she would have to leave at one O'clock doomed to be alone. The only kindred spirit that she had met and she pushed him away with her own selfish actions.
"I willingly attacked a pack of school children. I watched as young girl barley eighteen was tortured in my home I did nothing to stop it. I gave a cursed diary to an eleven year old girl and she and others nearly died.
I nearly. I very nearly lost my boy. Draco's my son and I love him more than anything in this world and I nearly lost him. Because of me he was sent on a suicide mission, I as good as killed him Hermione.
I killed my boy."
The last words came out as barely a whimper as silent tears and sobs racked his body and he slowly rocked back and forth all the while staring intently at the ground and picking at his robe cuff. He acted as if Draco really was dead.
"That's in the past Lucius."
Hermione said softly placing a comforting hand on his shoulder only for it to be shrugged off.
"It's not the past though. The man who did those things was me. Is me. I am still that man, I attacked children would willingly hurt children I really am a coward. Not prepared to fight the adults, fight the real Witches and Wizards."
There was silence again not the awkward silence of earlier meetings but heavy and tense that causes you to panic about just what is to come out of it.
"Why did you join them Lucius. What was so bad that things had to come to you hurting children?"
She asked softly, her heart breaking at the wreck of a man beside her.
"Because it was easy. "
~8~
The next day and Hermione was looking intently at the first of the new green growth trying to force its way into the harshness of January, she heard but did not respond to Lucius sitting next to her.
"I feel calm here talking to you, feel that everything I am experiencing is normal despite my knowledge and observations that would point to the opposite. Tell me Hermione why is that?"
He asked, pushing an errant hair back out of his face.
Hermione paused and struggled to think of an answer, it was true that she enjoyed these little sessions at first it was awkward but somehow they transcended to the heights of normality. These talks between them never removed the thoughts instead merely organised them and kept the darker impulses at bay.
"I can't explain this phenomenon Lucius."
He sighed heavily.
"I thought that might be the case."
~8~
She sat in the garden and let her thoughts sweep her down the paths she needed to go. Harry just got a promotion at work, in the Auror Office; it made her think how pathetic her own life was. Living on her own having already accepted that loneliness was to be her only companion, living of the generous but not extravagant war pension, money because the war had damaged her body beyond repair. She should be out doing things she thought. But she knew she shouldn't. Nothing brings her any peace or any real stirrings of emotion except being in the garden with Lucius.
Speak of the devil; he had just sat down next to her.
"I watched you writher on the floor in front of me in such agony, faced with one of the most dangerous and insane people I had ever met. And now I want to see you writhing and squirming in front of me and… and beneath me. And I like that thought I find myself thinking of it often. Does that shock you?"
"No. Is this a final attempt to be noble and scare me off Lucius?"
"Yes. I am not a gentleman. I can't ever make anyone happy. I am a cold blooded killer."
"I know. It still doesn't shock me."
She reached across and gave his cock a squeeze through the fabric of his robes.
He groaned.
What was so different he reasoned to himself between, thinking all his thoughts while fucking Hermione and thinking the same swirling raging terror while he found release from his own hand. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only difference was that he could have an apparently willingly, not unattractive young girl warm his bed. He made his decision; he just had to give her one final chance to make hers. It was only right; she would only deny him anyway. He didn't deserve her attentions or her compassion.
Before he could think she left and he was left to stew and think of her. It was a whole day before he could make everything right; he had to go a whole day with his thoughts filled with nothing but Hermione. She had her hand grasping his dick. He couldn't think much beyond that.
~8~
Hermione lay back in her bed staring at the textured ceiling and wondering when she would ever find the heart to redecorate her home it was not as if she was short for time. Her thoughts kept running back to Lucius she wondered why she touched him there. She could not say what gave her the courage to reach across and grab Lucius flaccid cock through the loose folds of his robes but why not she was not afraid she may have had little experience but she knew what to do.
As she tried to sleep her breathing slowing and her eye lids drooping Lucius was the last thing she thought about and at that moment right on the cusp of slumber she decided it was time for Lucius to come to tea.
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