X

We were standing on the platform of a Tube station, a train standing before us beginning to depart.

The magic used on Platform 9 ¾ was of the same design as what had Lucius Malfoy holding me in his arms on the Rotherhithe station platform, now part of the London Overground, formerly the Underground East London Line. We had crossed under the Thames, possibly through a part of the Thames Tunnel. All the way from the west end of the Strand and toward Wapping Station, then across the river, below the river and to the South Bank.

It was day, perhaps near midday, and Lucius was blinking at the now empty rail line to the roundel of Rotherhithe Overground.

Slowly, he set me on my feet, adjusting the cloak about my shoulders and collectively, we inhaled. At some point, he had dressed us both…

The air was fresh, compared to the hall we had exited with no discernable entrance back inside for there was a solid wall behind us now. We had slipped through somehow.

The air made me fall against him, swooning slightly, the relative freshness contrasted to the dank of the sublevels, was intoxicating.

Lucius held me close, and though Muggles eyed us curiously, he kissed me, and I allowed him.

I could only imagine what had been going through his mind. I was sure he believed either we would be trapped forever in the hall of curiosities, or I would be found and taken away to Azkaban, a place he would not and could not follow. We had taken a great risk by venturing deeper into the hall, whereas we could have put our energy into dismantling the wards on the only door out and into the Time Room.

He had a small blossoming of a regret that he had, this time admitting his fault, brought me to harm. He was worried about my fever, which had, by this time, broken after rest. He was worried that I would find a way to break through his Tracking Charm and leave him alone for the rest of his life.

I could feel his desperation in his kiss.

Lucius' mouth was stale and dry, but mine was more so, tinged with lingering fever. He held my body to his, bending his shoulders to access my mouth. I could not resist the desperate tenderness, and found that I wrapped my arms about his neck, lifting to the tips of my toes.

We pulled away slowly, our noses bumping slightly, and then, unexpectedly, I began laughing. Perhaps I was delirious, perhaps the sheer stupidity of what we had just done was making me insane, but I laughed, even as his hands slipped down to hold my waist under his overlong cloak.

Muggles were watching us, waiting for the next train on the platform, mystified at the short woman with dusty, grimy curls and too large cloak, clinging to a taller, paler man in a rumpled and dusty jumper, dirt smeared over his cheeks and streaked in his unusually pale and long hair.

"Please tell me that we are really out of there…" I whispered, my laugh turning into pained hiccups.

Lucius nodded, his eyes narrowing, a deep sigh escaping his slightly parted and swollen lips.

It would not be for a long while later that I wondered if we had chosen to walk down another aisle, if we would have escaped at all. One should never underestimate the strange and mysterious magic that was the D of M.

I counted my blessings, and wondered that if by shattering the ridiculous 'Absolute destiny' ball, my luck had changed and some curse, incurred unwittingly, had been broken.

I was rubbing Bruise Vanishing paste into my hip when I heard a knock on my apartment door. Lucius was dozing in the armchair, still dirty, but the dirt I had noticed, had been, in fact, mold. Crookshanks had curled up at his bare and blistered feet when he placed them gingerly on the ottoman, and Lucius was snoring softly. I had never heard him snore before, but I supposed he was simply too exhausted to keep up a pretense that he did not snore.

I had bathed carefully, and wrapped my robe about me. The knocking did not wake Lucius, and I limped to the door, undoing the dead bolt, but leaving the chain on.

Seeing the faces, and I mean plural, faces, standing on my doorstep, I blanched.

We had been caught.

"Miss Granger, would it be possible to speak to you?"

Aurors, three Aurors, all of which I barely knew. Williamson was the senior of the other two, dressed in traditional dark red robes, his long brown hair pulled back from his aging face in a tight ribbon, also red. The other two were men I knew Harry worked with on occasion, but I could not remember which was Fredricks or Pearson.

I never got 'topside' often enough.

"Regarding?" I asked through the crack in the door.

Williamson straightened, and in a voice that exuded authority said: "Lucius Malfoy."

I vomited into my mouth, mostly hot liquid, as I had not eaten since the day before, and slammed the door in Williamson's curious face.

Logically, if an Auror shows up on your doorstep to inquire about Lucius Malfoy, you begin to realize that Edwinia Glump's curse had been broken. The mystery, however, was how.

I stalked through my flat to stand just at the armchair with a snoring Lucius Malfoy, and I let my hand fly.

I slapped him across the face so hard that he cried out like a wounded animal and jumped to his feet, stumbling and falling backward over the armchair as if to escape a rampaging manticore.

"What the—!"

He had his wand pointed at my face when he managed to make it to his feet, his left cheek bruising with a hand shaped mark. Lucius Malfoy looked more disheveled than I had ever seen him, his hair a fuzzy mess about his head, his clothes wrinkled, his face a mask of shock and anger.

"Aurors!" I hissed at him. "Aurors at the door, looking for you!"

Of course, I wanted to say 'did you rape me while I was feverish, you sick, twisted bastard!' Edwinia Glump had told me the conditions on breaking the curse… There was not really time for that as the knocking on the door continued. The wards on the door would give me time, but if the Aurors wanted, they could probably dismantle them in quick order.

"Me?" he bellowed. "Why would they—?"

Then he seemed to collapse internally, only his shoulders and his wand hand dropping on the exterior.

"Oh gods…" he whispered. "They remember who I am…"

I huffed. "And what do they want with you?"

He shook his head roughly, his eyes distant. Then, before I could stop him, he was opening the front door.

"Gentlemen…" he purred in a voice all too familiar, the voice of the man I had feared and hated for so long, the sound of that voice replacing the softer, more casual tone I had come to know.

And something inside me died.

Lucius left with the Aurors without even a word to me, and I was left in my flat with Crookshanks who had begun clawing at the hem of my robe. I ignored my familiar as I sank onto the ottoman, lost.

This lost sensation continued for the rest of the week.

The holiday was over, and I had shifted to autopilot mode.

My review came, and I appeared in Sturgis Podmore's office, dressed to the nines, with a fake smile plastered on my face.

Podmore, who had been in the Order, was actually a very nice older man. I liked him, but the undisguised disappointment in his face did not phase me, for once during my career. He was talking, and I was nodding in agreement.

I had been distracted lately, and I agreed. My unannounced leave was unlike me, and I agreed. Unspeakables had a strict code of conduct and unannounced leaves held a penalty, and I knew it. He thought I was a brilliant researcher, but my sudden erratic behaviour was inexcusable, and I agreed.

"What shall we do, Hermione? Shall we keep you on or would you rather be transferred?"

The question gave me pause, and I let my true self emerge only a bit out of the black haze of loss on the inside.

"Would you transfer me?"

Podmore, who had been resting his elbows on his desk across from me, propping up his weak chin, frowned.

"If that is what you would like, Hermione. It is obvious that there is some stress in your life that is affecting your performance…"

I considered.

"Can I stay?"

Podmore's frown lifted. "I would like you to, the rest of the department would like you to, but on several conditions…"

I nodded.

"If the stress of the job becomes too much, speak to me first before…"

I did not hear the rest. I had retreated into myself again. I had my job, for the time being, and in having a job, I knew I could escape those quiet, lonely moments in my flat, having too much time to think about things that, with every passing day, were beginning to matter less and less.

"Come in next Monday, Miss Granger. It is good to have you back," Podmore said, his face brightening exponentially.

I only nodded.

The first news I had about Lucius came from Harry the next evening. I was fixing myself dinner, a grilled chicken salad, and fresh baked bread. I was sitting at the counter as Harry drank a glass of milk from my refrigerator.

"Why was Lucius Malfoy here?"

Harry was never one to hedge, but the question still made me recoil internally. My inside self had turned into a snarling, wounded beast, and any mention of Malfoy would have only enticed the beast to snap.

"Is that really any of your business, Harry?" I growled clutching my fork with a bit of tomato on the end.

Harry blinked at me, a milk moustache adorning his upper lip.

"The man has been missing for nearly five years, and when he is finally tracked down, he happens to be in my best friend's apartment, a best friend who was in a Muggle hospital after being hit by a black cab? I would say it is my business, Hermione!" he snapped back, and then remembered to lick the milk from his lip.

I sighed and dropped my fork into my bowl, resting my elbows on either side.

"What the hell has been going on?" Harry asked, setting his glass down to approach the counter, the kitchen sink between us.

I closed my eyes. "If I told you everything, you would never believe me, Harry."

He chuckled. "You're talking to the boy who most of the Wizarding world believed was mental when I said Voldemort was back, Hermione. Trust me…"

I could trust Harry; he was the closest thing I had to a 'love of my life.' The judgmental boy had grown into a wonderfully understanding man, and I almost wanted to sit in his lap and cry into his chest to tell him the whole story. Ginny would have clawed my eyes out for such a thing, but she would have ripped out my heart if she knew how it came to be that I began telling Harry all about Lucius Malfoy.

He lay down next to me on my bed and held me, never questioning why I was nuzzling my cheek over his heart and inhaling the scent of him, a scent I had loved for so long.

I told him everything, and it exhausted me, just as catharsis can be exhausting, but cleansing. He did not interrupt, and he did not judge. Even when I finished, half asleep, weeping silently, he only held me close and pressed a kiss into my forehead.

He slept with me above the covers, and when I woke several hours later, he had risen to clean up the kitchen and perhaps inform Ginny that I needed my friend that night. Harry sat on my bed, sitting up and back into the pillows while I rested my cheek on his thigh, his fingers curling into my hair.

When he knew I was awake, he told me everything I missed in the days since Lucius had left with Williamson.

"Narcissa Malfoy-Devereaux contacted the Ministry, in search of her ex-husband, who had been missing for five years. She claimed she suddenly knew where he might be.

The MACUSA Aurors went to the house outside Missoula, Montana and tracked him from there to Trento, and the Consiglio di magia did a search of their own. The Aurors, all the while, began tracing him, finding that you were involved somehow, going to Gringotts to withdraw funds from a vault belonging to the Marquis Lucomo Mauvais Foi."

I snorted at the name. 'Lucomo' was a Latin form of 'Lucius, and 'Mauvais Foi' was literally French for 'bad faith.' Apparently, Harry did not 'get' the meaning.

"The Italian Polizia in Trento and the Consiglio di magia connected you to Malfoy…"

Harry fell silent, considering.

"I suppose when the 'curse' was broken, people began to remember things, seeing things that was blotted out of the minds at the time."

I sighed. If that were so, were we seen in the Ministry? I had my job, so I supposed not.

"So, you knew for a while that Lucius and I…"

"Yeah, but not why. Hermione…" he trailed, his hand pausing in my curls. "You were nearly killed by being with him… You don't want to see him again, do you?"

I did not know. I wanted to know how the curse was broken; I wanted to know why he left me without saying a word after everything…

Harry sighed. "You did not fall in love with him did you?"

Again, I did not answer.

I did not want to admit that I had, in a way, begun to care for him, despite everything I had been put through, either by my own bad luck or his persistence. I just wanted to know…

We lay in the quiet of the flat for a long time, and when dawn came, brightening the windows of my flat, Harry rose. I knew he had to go, but I did not want to be alone.

It was Saturday, and on Monday, I would go back to work. The days between seemed like months, and I had put so much hope into losing myself and my troubles in starting to work again.

Harry kissed my forehead again, his expression sympathetic. Whatever thoughts he had about Lucius Malfoy, Harry kept to himself. I knew he did not care much for the man, but for my sake, he did not rub salt in the wound. Harry had grown up.

I did not want to go out until Monday, but by Saturday afternoon, Harry having left hours before, I found that I was out of Crookshanks favourite 'formulated kibble for Kneazles,' I had to go to Diagon Alley to the Magical Menagerie to buy more. I was sorely tempted to give Crooks some of the diced chicken I had put in my salad the night before. However, feeding my familiar anything other than his regular food gave the half-Kneazle horrible gas that made my eyes water as well as making it impossible to sleep at night while he broke noxious wind at the foot of the bed. Who would have thought such a stench could be produced by a relatively small creature?

It was raining in London, and I could not remember the last time I saw rain. By the time I was in Diagon Alley, I was soaked through my coat and my hair was lank, dripping strands of wavy hair clinging to my cheeks. I did not bother with any Charms to protect myself from the cold shower.

What people I did pass, stared at me as if knowing that I had had some strange and perhaps untoward involvement with Lucius Malfoy. Of course, no one knew besides the authorities, and even that was not enough to actually bring me in to the Ministry for questioning. I was still trying to understand how everything had changed after Edwinia Glump's curse was broken. Harry had explained it, I supposed, but I just could not wrap my mind around it all.

I felt as if a substantial chunk of my brain had been excised, leaving me incapable of deep thought or coherent speech. The sales witch behind the counter at the Magical Menagerie asked me three times to repeat myself when I asked her to waterproof the sack of pet food.

I wanted to throw the money for the food in the woman's face. In my altered mind, it seemed like a good thing to do, but it required anger and energy for the desired effect, and I merely paid and took the waterproofed bag and hugged it to my chest.

Since I was out of my flat, I did not want to go back, no matter how people stared at me, no matter how cold I was becoming from the rain.

I window-shopped, and this simple thing, eased my mind and brought me closer to being myself.

I moved in a zigzag across the street, flitting from one shop to the next. I even stared at the new padding on a dummy in the window of Quality Quidditch, smiling like a nutcase at my reflection in the glass.

Moving on, I even caught sight of George and Angelina Weasley in their shop, but they were too busy to notice me. Somehow, I ended up at the base of the steps leading up to Gringotts, staring up through the rain to the façade.

I was not really thinking of anything in particular, nor was I admiring the regal, yet crooked façade of the ancient building, I was simply observing.

I had not decided if my luck had somehow changed by this point. I had not suffered any physical trauma in the past few days, which probably meant my luck was changing, but I felt battered on the inside.

Then, either fate smiled upon me, or spat on me, I was not sure.

Lucius Malfoy was walking down the steps from the large bronze front doors, a cowl over his hair, his eyes meeting my own. His boots splashed in the puddles on the steps. He passed by me.

He passed by me as if I were not there.

I wanted to scream at him, turning, tackle him to the wet street, and force him to acknowledge me. I did not, but I did turn as I watched him walk into the narrowing Alley. He did not walk fast or slow, and I took this to be a cue of some sort, to follow.

Lucius' normal stride was long, but graceful, as if he glided over the ground without actually touching it. I had seen on the telly how some people could do that, normally aristocrats—royalty. This sort of movement was practiced, as if as children, people who moved with such regality were tutored. Etiquette, social decorum, movement, speech…

How many masks did Lucius Malfoy wear? The Lucius Malfoy who paced maniacally, or sat on my ottoman with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped before him, was that the real Lucius Malfoy?

I followed, but as if sensing me, Lucius began to glide like a ghost between other people who were under umbrellas, blocking my line of sight down the Alley. Then, I lost him somewhere past Quality Quidditch, and I stood blinking, shivering, just of centre of the thoroughfare.

Then, I was in an alee between awnings, cornered off the Alley. I nearly shouted out.

He had grabbed my elbow and turned me on my heel so that I had to jog to keep him from dragging me down the Alley. Lucius was like a black spectre gliding down Diagon Alley, while I was like a sopping wet rag doll. I kept a firm hug embrace on the bag of pet food, but Lucius' hand wrapped easily about my elbow, a vice grip that was not about to let me go.

He did not speak to me, did not look at me, even when we moved down into the entrance of Knockturn Alley and through the rubbish strewn street to enter a building that I had become familiar with only weeks before.

In the shelter of the apartment building, Lucius did not bother to push back the low cowl over his head and he used his free hand to knock on a familiar door.

I was holding the pet food like a precious thing, too lost, and shocked to release it. I was using Crooks' food like a shield to whatever fate dealt next.

The door opened, but this time, it was not Edwinia Glump with her melted wax face and hideous pink dress suit that greeted me. The creature that stood in the door, its yellow eyes moving from Lucius to me was decidedly male, and not a hag.

What the 'man' was eluded me, but he was not human.

"Whadda ya want?" he growled, his voice so low that I felt the bag in my arms tremble at the force of the sound.

"Ms. Glump, please," Lucius answered as if addressing a member of the Wizengamot.

The 'man' sniffed.

He was dressed in a holey tee shirt, grey, for Puddlemere United, and wore a tatty kilt that was too long over thick, hairy legs.

The man had to be part troll or goblin, and his face was like something out of a nightmare, warty, or perhaps spotty, and mottled red and yellow. He looked as if he had a plague or leprosy.

"Mum! Some humans here!"

The man was calling back into the flat, and there was a sound of heels tapping against the warped floorboards, and to my relief, Edwinia Glump pushed past her 'son' to greet us with bulging black eyes.

She studied us, her strange lips curling into either a snarl or a smile. It was clear she was surprised to see us.

"Ralph, take a walk, dear," she sang to the 'man' who was just as short as she was.

Standing side by side, I could see a familiar resemblance, and it was more than the fact both were hideous.

'Ralph' sniffed again, and pushing past Lucius, pounded down the building stairs and was gone.

"How unexpected!" Edwinia cooed in her disproportionate voice, her dark eyes meeting mine. "Do come in!"

Lucius continued to pull me, and soon we sank down in the afghan-covered sofa in the main room of the flat. The smell was still odd, but the blue smoke that had choked me before, was gone.

"Tea?"

"No thank you, madam," Lucius purred, finally releasing my arm to push back his cowl, his pale hair tumbling over his shoulders, the musky scent of him overpowering the acrid odour of the flat for few moments.

He sat close to me, an arm against mine while I still hugged the pet food to my chest, so confounded and confused that I thanked whatever deity that I did have the bag to anchor me to reality.

The hag sat down across from us as she had when I came to call, and smiled, or so it seemed.

"It seems that you have managed to break my curse, Mr. Malfoy. I congratulate you on this," she purred.

Lucius said nothing, and I could not decide who to look at, the hag, or the statuesque man at my side.

"But it also seems that you are not satisfied with…" Edwinia began.

"We did not have sex," Lucius interjected.

I blinked at him.

I had been imagining that while I was delirious with fever in the bowels of the Ministry, Lucius could have taken me somehow, fulfilled the last condition of the curse, and I simply could not remember it. Of course, this notion angered me, but I could not whip myself up into a true anger to try to seek the man out to know. He had left me without a word, after all the shite he had spouted…

Yes, I felt used, but I reminded myself that I was dealing with Lucius Malfoy, the master manipulator.

All the while I had been thinking this, I was nodding to myself, bringing both party's attention to settle upon me.

I inhaled and held my breath, hoping to filtre out the stench of the hag's flat.

"We did not fall in love…"

The hag's eyes moved back to Lucius, as did mine.

"I will not offend you further madam, but this curse of yours…"

"Was powerful," the hag finished, leaning back into her chair, crossing her thick legs so a pink slippered foot was visible from behind the low table between us. "You did fall in love, and neither of you will admit who fell first, if at all," she chuckled in her perpetual bedroom voice.

Lucius' chin rose defiantly and I was clutching the bag in my arms tighter.

Oh, how proud we both were…

He loved me? I loved him?

No…no…no!

"As for sex…well, that I cannot explain. Are you sure?"

I spoke for the first time, and for the first time since Lucius left with Williamson, my anger returned like a tsunami wiping out all the tiny villages of thought in my mind.

"Of course we did not! Kisses do not amount to sex, madam!"

Lucius' head snapped to me. I was trembling, the bag in my arms beginning to rip between my arms and hands.

The hag began to laugh, her head falling back, her black hair swirling about her uneven shoulders. The sound of her laugh gave Lucius and I pause.

"You humans…" she began in her cackle. "How restrained you are!"

I blinked at the hag.

"I cannot explain why the curse was somehow circumvented, unless there was another force working against one of you, but…" and the hag paused to consider us with hooded eyes. "Have at it already!" she shouted at us. "Your curses are broken, have another adventure, and be honest with yourselves for once in your short lives!"

We both recoiled as pure earth magic suddenly sparked in the room, making the hair on my arms and the back of my neck rise. We were no longer looking at hag, but a creature that was far more powerful and dangerous than what we could dream to be.

Her words were a commandment, a curse of its own, and I, still trying to rationalize my life, wondered if this 'force' had anything to do with the jewel coloured ball that shattered on the mildewed floor of the 'junk cupboard' in the subterranean hall of the Department of Mysteries.

Lucius took the bag of pet food from my arms and carried it under one of his own as we walked out of Knockturn Alley and to the Apparation point.

The fact that Lucius Malfoy was carrying Crooks' food was odd. He looked almost normal, despite his fine clothes and the cloak that with its cowl pulled up reminded me of a time long past when I feared him.

"Our holiday was postponed," he said as we reached the point of Apparation and turned to reach for my hand for Side-Along Apparation. "Shall we continue?"

I hesitated, the rain, which was now coming down in torrents, dripped off my chin, and matted my hair down to my skull.

"I go back to work Monday," I whispered.

He considered my words, but still held his pale hand to me. "Tonight will be enough."

It was as we were whirling through space and time, pressed tight against each other, that I wondered if I had heard him correctly. Lucius' voice had been so sensuous, so honest, and so forlorn…

Lucius moved through my flat like a familiar guest, giving me the bag of food to feed Crooks while going into the bathroom to bring a towel for my hair.

"Narcissa realized, after the curse was broken, that I had written to her. The letter I sent with my name, she saved for some reason, and upon reading it, contacted the Ministry to find me," he explained as I wrapped the towel about my head and peeled out of my coat while Crooks ate noisily from his bowl in the kitchen.

Lucius had removed his cloak, hanging it on the back of the stool and sat on the foot of my bed in almost the same outfit he wore when we met in Trento. Again, he took a posture that had become familiar, putting his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, and clasping his hands.

"She was waiting at the Ministry the night Williamson came."

I nodded.

"Draco came to get me later to take me back to the Manor…"

Again, I nodded.

"It was strange to be home…to be a father-in-law and a grandfather, rather than an outsider trying so desperately to look in…"

He bowed his head and said no more.

This time, I did feel sorry for him.

"Draco commented seeing you at Hogsmede."

Lucius was staring at me, expectantly.

"I-I did not want to say anything?" I whispered.

"To spare my feelings?"

I took a breath, and shrugged.

Lucius eyes fell to his clasped hands and he smirked. "It is funny, really. After living five years without Draco remembering who I was, having me again, gave him some sort of epiphany."

"Oh?"

"He has decided to 'limit' my involvement with 'his' family."

I frowned.

I did not expect Draco to be overjoyed at rediscovering his father existed and all the memories of his father suddenly returning being anything to cause more than a general overwhelming indecision.

"I can meet my grandson, be a part of his life, but Draco is Marquis, the 'lord of the Manor,' so to speak. I am still Marquis, in name only…"

I draped my towel about my shoulders and moved to lean into the back of the armchair across from him as his eyes searched the floor.

"The legalities will take some time to sort out, existing, not existing, and existing again," he muttered. "This state of 'non-existing' is far worse than being declared dead when one is not," he chuckled sardonically.

"So…" I trailed, not sure how to speak to him.

Lucius eyes lifted from the floor to my face.

"So, all of this is what I have been working with for the past week."

I could only nod. It was an explanation, of a sort.

Gods, why did I feel as though I needed an explanation from the likes of Lucius Malfoy?

"What to do now?" he asked more to himself than to me.

Yes, what to do now?

"The curse is 'broken,' but…"

"But we did not really fulfill the conditions," I finished.

He nodded, "But is it really broken? Curses by hags are never so easy to break…"

I snorted, but then bit my lower lip. Edwinia Glump's words and power came back to me, as did a hint of the odour of her flat as if it were coming from my damp clothes, having followed me back to my flat.

The sound of Crookshanks' teeth crunching on his food from behind the counter only broke a collective silence between us. It was a familiar sound, which made the silence strangely comfortable.

"And your 'curse?'" he asked.

I blinked at him. My 'curse?'

Oh.

"Fate has not tried to off me in the past week… I suppose my 'curse' was broken when the ball shattered, but did its last bit of magic when I fell off the ladder."

Lucius nodded. "Then…"

The comfortable silence disappeared. There was little more to say, besides the things that would only lead to discomfort.

"Then…" he repeated again, his face pinching slightly in thought of how to speak. "Should we have another adventure to test your change of luck?"

I do not know why, but I started to laugh. The part of me that had retreated deep inside, came bursting out to the surface.

"To tempt fate?" I asked, laughing.

Lucius straightened, his hands unclasping, the corner of his mouth quirking upward.

"Why not?"

I narrowed my eyes and smiled. "What did you have in mind?"