A/N. I know, I know. This chapter is INSANELY late. It was all due to a series of incredibly unfortunate events that began with the death of yet another laptop in my possession. Many of you might remember the Exploding Netbook Episode last summer in the middle of my writing TLM.

Technology hates me, and I can't say I'm very fond of it either lately. I know how to do exactly three things on a computer - how to get to TextEdit, Google, and FFn. And even then I need desktop shortcuts, made by my helpful roommate.

Also, being a mommy has been crazy. Remus is getting bigger every day, which just means he gets hungrier and needier and louder. I can't wait until the kid can eat solid food and walk.

I'm rambling. My deepest apologies. Let's get to the story!

...~oOo~...

"In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream... Lingering in the golden gleam... Life, what is it but a dream?"

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Chapter Nine: The Book

Hermione wasted too much time. She had too much to prepare to waste a moment caught in the throes of passion with Lucius. But she'd wasted many moments doing so and now she needed to make up for lost time.

Lucius was asleep. A small blessing, considering he usually had record-breaking stamina. He was draped across the leather couch, naked for the afghan over his shielding his more intimate parts as the fire crackled.

She looked at the time. Only an hour before she was due to remove the sheet from the enchanted mirror for Snape. Hermione wanted to smack herself. Only sixty minutes to do everything.

Lucius, with his silver tongue and god-like body. She blamed him.

Hermione ran to her bedroom to fetch her things. Her journal, most importantly. She couldn't leave it lying around in the past - that would be disastrous. Sitting at Lucius's desk - something she knew he wouldn't approve of if he were awake - Hermione looked at all her things. She ripped the pages from her journal that contained Draco's schedule and habits, sliding them into en envelope she "borrowed" from the desk.

On the front of the envelope, she scrawled, "Draco's Next Governess". She set it aside. That was the easy part, even though her chest ached. She wanted Draco to be well cared for, but those first days she'd spent recording his every preference and idiosyncrasy, such as his fondness for hair and his dislike towards any stringy vegetable like squash... these things she spent time noticing and learning felt so personal now.

Draco was more than just part of her job. For Merlin's sake, she loved the boy. She didn't believe anyone could take care of him the way she did - with patience and unconditional love. Months she'd focused almost every ounce of her attention on him.

Sure, he still didn't have it in him to call her anything but "Momo", but that nickname meant a lot to her. It was a sign of his efforts to become verbal, and his recognition of her. "Hermione" was difficult enough to say as an adult, and Momo was pretty damned close, especially for a toddler.

Hermione took a deep breath and sealed the envelope with wax so that she wouldn't change her mind and take the entries about Draco with her. The only thing of him she would take is a handprint with finger-paint he made weeks before. It was small and blue.

She shook her head. No time to be sentimental. Time was running out.

Hermione began writing her resignation letter, with a heaviness settling in her stomach while Lucius snored softly across the room.

The sound of a jostling doorknob made Hermione jump, her quill scratching across her letter and ruining the draft. She looked up, her heart stuttering. The door to the study was wiggling, but not opening. Of course, Lucius had locked it before their little rendezvous.

Hermione swallowed. She prayed to God it was a house-elf trying to tidy up. Somehow she sincerely doubted it.

A minute later, the jostling stopped and Hermione felt ill at ease.

The next interruption happened halfway through her new letter.

The Baby Stone, whose sister stone was with Severus Snape inside the mirror, began to burn.

Oh, no. What possibly could have gone wrong?

Dropping her quill and abandoning her letter, Hermione took the few steps over to the mirror, delicately pealing away the sheet. Severus marched right out, looking furious.

"What happened?" she whispered hastily, replacing the sheet right away.

Snape was shaking his head, obviously irritated. "Narcissa. She showed up in the room through one of the other mirrors."

"There are other mirrors to the room?" Hermione asked in bewilderment.

Snape nodded curtly. "They run on a network. That's not the point. Narcissa was looking for the spare key for this study. She's not in the brightest of moods. Can't find her husband, can't find her governess. She suspects the worst."

"But... what did she say about you being in there?"

"After I got the information I needed from her, I tampered a bit with her memories and sent her out, but she did find the key," he spoke very quickly. "The other mirror is on the other side of the Manor, so it will take her a little while to get back here, but you need to get out and hole up somewhere else. If Narcissa finds you and Lucius in here together, you'll be fired and evicted. If you're fired, you won't be able to get back in the house or the library. You won't be able to return to your time."

Hermione was blinking, processing the information as quickly as possible. Her heart was hammering against her ribs painfully.

"W-what do I do? Did you find the key to the library?"

Snape sneered. "No, I did not."

"Where does this leave us?"

"I've no clue." Then he paused for a moment, his brow furrowing. "Actually, no. I may have a plan. Collect only the things you need, shrink them to fit your pockets. Work quickly while I explain."

...

"Lucius! Lucius, wake up!" Hermione said frantically, shaking the blonde man awake.

He rouse from his slumber slowly. "What? What is it, love?" He was groggy and slow. Not good for Hermione's plan. Narcissa would show up any second.

"Narcissa," Hermione said, hoping her panic covered the lies she was about to tell. Maybe they'd make them more convincing, she hoped. "She j-just came by, starting banging on the door, saying that she knew we were in here and that she was going to get the key. Said she was g-going to fire me if I was in here. She just left. We have to go!"

Lucius's brows were furrowed, but he was sitting up quickly. "I slept through that?"

"You were sleeping pretty deeply," Hermione said quickly, handing him his trousers. "Please, we have to get out of here before she comes back with a key. I'd really like to keep my job, Lucius."

"Yes, yes, of course," Lucius said, nodding with understanding. "Come along." Taking her hand, the put out the fireplace with a flick of his wand, and led her hastily out of the study, locking it behind him. "We'll go to my bedroom."

"I-I think she already checked there," Hermione said as they walked fast, but quietly, down the Manor corridors. "My room too."

Lucius uttered an ungentlemanly oath under his breath.

"We should go to a room she can't get into, but it wouldn't entirely surprising if one or both of us was there..." Hermione said, feigning musing. Really she was hinting, trying to edge him in a certain direction.

Come on, Lucius, she silently egged. You know where you have to take me.

Scratching his scruffy jaw, he hummed. "She has access to keys to most of the rooms."

"Isn't there anywhere in the Manor close by that only you can enter?" Hermione said, biting her lip so hard it broke skin. She sucked on the wound nervously, the copper taste filling her mouth and making her already-nauseas stomach roil.

Lucius looked at her for a long moment and she wondered if maybe she'd been found out.

That was, until he said, "Well, Hermione. You might just be getting your chance to see the Malfoy library after all."

Something inside of Hermione broke out in a hallelujah chorus, but she suppressed the feeling of victory for the moment. Snape would be proud of her if he hadn't condemned himself to hiding in the Malfoy's mirror for an indeterminable amount of time. He told her that following her exit, he would need to do damage control, and right away.

Hermione didn't want to think about what kind of Dark things lingered behind the glass of the mirror, but she was confident that no matter what was there, Snape was more than capable of handling. In all honesty, he was probably at home there.

Lucius, still clasping Hermione's hand, began to half-jog towards the library. It wasn't far, but when Hermione saw the familiar doors, heavily laden with runes and protections, her victory chorus skittered to a halt inside of her.

She was back to the beginning. Entering the library.

Lucius stood right up to the doors, but Hermione in a moment of meekness stayed a step behind him.

From his pocket, Lucius withdrew the silk-wrapped hand mirror. Befuddled, Hermione watched with intense curiosity. For the life of her, she could not understand why he constantly had that rather feminine mirror with him -

Lucius put his hand through the mirror, reaching down to his elbow. Much like how Snape had disappeared through the mirror in the study, only on a smaller scale.

Lucius seemed to feel around inside the invisible space in the same way a woman would hunt through her purse for some specific, something familiar to the touch, something like...

He withdrew a key. The same key Draco had used to open the library for her months before... before she saw him as a baby, that is.

Hermione took closer notice to the key. It was old, a skeleton key, and seemed to hum with barely noticeable energy. It matched the hum of the doors, of the layers and layers of ancient protection spells.

But with a simple click, the doors unlocked and let them in.

It was almost anticlimactic. After months of looking for the key, it'd been in Lucius's possession the entire time. After all of the build up, the effort to enter the impregnable library... there she was. Just stepping in.

Lucius shut the doors behind them. They were very large, solid doors, so they did not close quietly.

"I'll work out some kind of story, fear not. I won't let you lose your job," Lucius said to Hermione, mistaking her obvious anxiety for fretting over Narcissa. He ran his hands soothingly up and down her arms. He still looked a bit sleepy, even after an abrupt wakening and the threat of an angry wife.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw it. The leather-bound tome with gold etchings. It was exactly where she'd dropped it during the windstorm that took her back in time. Right on the floor, among other scattered books, but she'd know it anywhere. It even seemed to call to her, as if it was saying, "It's about time!"

"I like having you hear far too much," he assured her, running his thumb from her earlobe down her jaw.

And this was the next hardest part. Getting the book was easy, figuring out how to make it send her back was questionable, but saying goodbye to Lucius...

She didn't think it would be hard at all. But it was.

Very, very difficult.

Lucius was touching her so gently, so comfortingly. His eyes held no lustful expectations, but instead a sort of affection. Something she never expected to receive from Lucius Malfoy.

Hermione knew Lucius adored her in his own way. And weirdly, she adored him as well, but in a very Gryffindor-esque way. She was invested, attached, feeling a distinct loyalty towards him. The stirrings of these feelings in her chest were dangerous.

Lucius Malfoy was infuriating. He stole her things to lure her out for sex. He marked pages in a Kama Sutra for her to study. But he also like the cuddle, for reasons unknown, and appreciated her. He was an undying gentleman and never failed to make her feel special. Not many put much effort into making her feel like anything other than plain old Hermione Granger.

It wasn't love. That would be insanity. But she was certainly falling, and spending anymore time there would undoubtedly lead her down that road.

Raising up on her tiptoes, Hermione looked Lucius in his silver eyes. He seemed to sense her unease, but said nothing. Images of the Daily Prophet adorned with his image being escorted to Azkaban following the war were bold in her mind.

No turning back now. Hermione would do nothing to change the future. That was never her purpose. The entire trip through time was a massive mistake, one she was about to fix.

Hermione kissed Lucius. A soft, brief, goodbye kiss. It settled all the raging emotions inside of her. It calmed her. Because even though he didn't hear it, she told him everything she needed to through that simple brush of lips.

"Hermione, are you alright?" Lucius asked as Hermione lowered herself onto the bare heels of her feet.

"Not really," Hermione admitted, strolling over to the book. When she looked down at it, the gold runes shimmered at her in the leather. It knew she was there. She bent down slowly and lifted it.

"Hermione," Lucius said sternly, "it's better if you don't touch anything -"

"Don't worry, I know this book well," Hermione told him resignedly.

"Really, it isn't safe, you mustn't -"

But Hermione had already opened the book.

And the first rustles of parchment began. Lucius's head whipped around, watching the movement around him. The windstorm was back with a vengeance.

"Hermione!" he said, face hardened with but concerned. His blonde hair was slashed across his forehead with the oncoming storm. Hermione watched as he tried rushing towards her, one hand outstretched towards her, likely to drag her from the library, away from the danger.

And then he was gone.

The wind continued to rage.

...~oOo~...

Everything was still once more. Hermione was sitting on one of the sofas, deep in thought. She had no clue how long she'd been there, but she wasn't sure how long it would take to be able to move again.

She was back. Of that she was certain. She found a calendar to confirm the date and the clock reported that she was gone for a grand total of three and a half minutes.

She was staring at the book darkly. Why was it so familiarized, so responsive to her touch. Surely over the years other had touched it without such a reaction. Why did it send her back in time?

Hermione wasn't prepared for the sounds of the doors opening the the footfalls of expensive male shoes on woodwork. "Granger, you've been in here for hours, surely you... Granger."

Draco Malfoy stared at her with the same look her always did. Unaffected if not slightly disgusted.

Hermione already missed the baby boy who looked at her like she was his best friend and playmate.

"Granger," he said, somewhat appalled. "Why are you wearing... Are those pajamas?"

Hermione looked down at herself. She was wearing one of Lucius's larger t-shirts and a pair of his boxers.

Unable to stop herself, she broke down laughing.

...~oOo~...

A/N2. There will be one more chapter, like an epilogue, to wrap everything up. Thank you so much for reading, as always! Please review and let me know what you think! If there are any large errors in this chapter, I'm sorry - I was eager to post it and had little time to proof read.

~ So Long And Thanks For All The Fish ~