~o~
That Saturday...
As she marched into the Archives collection of the Ministry's library, Hermione was reminded of her conversation with Fleur earlier in the week.
No one else indeed, except her, was in the Archives on a Saturday. Even the library was deserted bar an older ninety-year gentleman scrolling through the War Time collection. Apparently everyone else had better, probably more fun, things to enjoy this Saturday. Except her and a bloody centenarian apparently.
Hermione puffed out her chest as she reached into her bag and got out the casebook of past House Elf proceedings.
She rifled through the pages, remembering key precedent cases she might reference later, before she put in on the shelf.
The Ministry's archives were a singularly lonely, almost isolated, place on weekends. Perhaps that's why she opted to come here then. She could relax in the silence; take solace in the long, winding aisles of books that stretched from floor to ceiling, row after row.
Libraries were always where she gained her strength. Where she gained her answers that later impressed people. Where she kept a step ahead of others by always knowing something they did not.
...Who cared what Fleur, let alone Lucius, thought?
They certainly wouldn't be the first who thought, as Ron put it so aptly, she needed to 'sort out her priorities'. Or accused her of valuing rules and knowledge over people.
Hermione winced as she thought back to her third year. When she was only thirteen years old, Sybil Trelawney had told her soul was as dry and withered as the books to 'which she so desperately cleaved.' She'd never forgotten the words and was only too glad she threw Sybil's crystal ball before storming out.
She had tried to rebel against this image of her as an irredeemable bookworm by acting out...punching Draco, saving Sirius, dating Viktor, showing people she could be sexy and beautiful, getting involved with a dumb love triangle of Ron and Lavender, even capturing Rita Skeeter's animagus in a bottle and holding her hostage...yet it never seemed enough. She still remained Hermione Granger, bookworm and resident genius to most people. So she stopped rebelling against it and even tried to live a boring life of cardigan sweaters after the war...almost settling for Ron...Ron! Before she realized that none of that fit. Then she started casually dating again...but always in secret.
Hermione took a deep breath. She glanced up at the tall, black bookshelves, that reached the ceiling, on either side of her.
What did fit?
Most people neglected to see the other side of her, that she was multifaceted...sensual even. She was a young witch, afterall. Sure, she enjoyed the intellectual things in life but she also enjoyed dressing up in a tight, pretty dress, dancing, and getting attention from wizards and maybe even flirting a little.
She always returned to her regular life of cardigan sweaters and flats on the following Monday morning, much like Clark Kent and Superman.
...and so far, the only person who saw behind her facade - to the complicated woman underneath—was, in fact, Lucius Malfoy. No doubt because Lucius was as much or more complicated himself, with his public and private faces.
Merlin, bleeding hell, she was in a tight spot if only Lucius bloody Malfoy understood who she was. Lucius Malfoy of a million facades himself, a million questions unanswered about his past. And what a past, trying to separate the fact from fiction...She wouldn't even trust Lucius to tell her the time accurately.
Yet he had looked her right in the eye, to her true self, and uncovered who she was. To like her for it.
And Merlin, how had she repaid Lucius?
By throwing a gigantic barricade around herself. That's all she did to anyone who dared to make her feel vulnerable, throw up: walls, walls, and more walls.
~o~
She sat down onto the carpeted aisle between the bookshelves and began to sob. Years ago she used to cry here after the war when the memories of the war were still fresh and she had seemed on the surface to be the perfect apprentice at the Department of Magical Animals. Those years were long behind; she hadn't come to cry here in years.
Why did it feel like the neat, structurally-sound surface of her life was a suffocating lie suddenly? Like she couldn't breathe, like she had fallen for a lie.
The Archive had appeared empty when she entered and there were so many tall bookshelves, the place was a private place to cry, yet someone must have heard her sniffles.
Footsteps rapidly made their way towards her.
Her heart skipped a beat.
"Am I interrupting something?" Lucius asked with an elegant blonde brow raised when he found the aisle where she sat.
Hermione's jaw fell open. "How did you know I'd be here?"
Lucius shook his head with a sarcastic gleam in his eyes. "I know, pathetic, isn't it? Spending your Saturday in a dusty shelf of the Ministry's library...not even an exciting library, if I do say so."
Hermione sat up and wiped at her eyes. "Fleur told you, did she?"
"You don't mind do you?" he drawled.
"Mind which part? That you followed me here or that Fleur told you." She scoffed. "I should've known."
"Me and Fleur being friends—well..." Lucius grimaced. "...Relatives too."
Was he asking permission of her for something? Was he actually being nice for once, or was that only because she still had tears in her eyes.
She sniffled one last time, and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Sure. I wouldn't dream of telling you who you can be friends with, Lucius. Even if it is someone mutual we have in common, which has proven to be inconvenient so far."
"Good. Because I wouldn't want you getting mad at Fleur again. She's hardly to blame."
"This is hardly a second date, so why would I?"
Lucius smirked. "Yes, such a glamorous life you do lead, Miss Granger. Far be it from me to encroach on it or save you from yourself."
"Save me from myself?" she asked incredulously.
"No other wizard has done that for you, have they?" He stared at her in a way that made her struggle to catch her breath. "Lacked the maturity, undoubtedly."
The older wizard grabbed one of the remaining books she held in her hands. He examined the spine of the book with a long finger tracing over the title, which read: "Laying Down the Law: A Modern Guide to Reformations of Magical Zoning and Construction Permits."
"Scintillating reading," Lucius observed and his intense eyes met hers. "Yes, that is what I would call it, saving you from yourself."
She had to admit to herself, he had a point. No other wizard had bothered to care if she was fulfilling herself.
Ron couldn't have cared less if she missed out in life by studying and working all the time. Much earlier, Viktor had only cared for himself. More recently, in her last relationship, McLaggen had only cared for her body and keeping his hands on it by any means necessary. She had felt used in all three cases, each in a different way that left her empty at the end.
What, she wondered, did Lucius Malfoy care for?
Why did he insist on pursuing her, against all hope and with complete lack of encouragement on her part?
"What are you thinking?" he whispered silkily. There were fine lines on his forehead but he was undeniably handsome and vital physically, muscles bulging from his arms beneath his robes.
His piercing gaze pinned her to where she stood by the bookshelves and she felt that familiar sense of complete lack of control around him. She never knew when she'd place a wrong foot down around Lucius and spiral down another bogey-trap or pitfall he'd set for her. Her back tensed as she felt the edges of the books behind her catch on her sweater.
"What do you know of what makes interesting reading? You probably read tedious business reports."
"Don't change the topic. Does it get any easier?"
"What does?" she asked in alarm. Why did she feel she was about to step into one of his snares?
"Lying to yourself that you don't like me."
"Please." She took a shaky breath. "You are presumptuous."
"It's hard not to be presumptuous when you're right." Lucius took a step towards her. "Prove me wrong. Show me the know-it-all Hermione Granger who will correct and school me that she does not in fact like to be shagged senseless by the terrible unconfirmed-ex-Death Eater, me." He laughed at her shocked expression. "You can't even admit it to yourself."
When she could not lie to him any longer, she stubbornly kept her sealed her lips instead. So Lucius Malfoy was a better judge of character than she gave him credit for. He probably had read her body language from a mile away. Probably part of the reason he got away with everything, he knew how to read his opponents and stay one step ahead.
Why did it feel like the last of her walls were crumbling before him and she only had her silence to hold onto to not be completely bare before him?
"Don't be so coldhearted," he urged and chuckled in that sexy low way he had.
"I don't know what to say to you." She bitterly realized she now faced defeat. To Lucius Malfoy. The wizard she, in fact, did want to shag her senseless against every surface of her house. To feel those delicious forbidden lips again that taunted her. The reason she couldn't sleep the past week properly without tossing and turning. The reason she always looked over her shoulder whenever she got into an elevator now.
The reason she sometimes felt a kick of emptiness when the doors closed and she realized he was not in the elevator with her.
Good, Merlin, what had this man done to her. Harry and Ron were going to kill her when they found out. Her coworkers would all think she lost her mind. The court would think Lucius's lawyers claims of her obsession were right all along.
She'd lose face.
People would respect her less. It would be a scandal: the muggleborn Heroine and the Death Eater (Unconfirmed).
Maybe this is why she fought her feelings for so long.
Lucius seemed to sense her unease and leaned into whisper in her ear. "Do you want to know a secret?"
Her heart beat so loudly in her chest she could hear her pulse in the drums of her ears. "What?"
"I am not a complete bastard," he whispered.
She pressed her lips together in a hesitant smile. "No, I wouldn't say you are, only 99%."
He wore his usual all black robes and his hair was pinned back today.
His intense grey eyes stared at her, his lips slightly ajar as if wanted to say more or simply kiss her.
"Possibly. But that 1% would be the part reserved for you."
"Good god, how can such lying lips speak such pretty words?"
"Not lies. I am wizard enough to realize when I've been outdone by a witch. As you have. You are the reason behind my divorce. You are the reason I am standing here. You have won."
Her body trembled with the truth of his words. She cleared the lump in her throat and said in a whisper almost too quiet to be audible. "Then why do I feel so powerless?"
He heard her. "Because you continue to fight it, my dear."
He led her back against the bookshelf...and for once, she let out no reply or rebuke, except to close her hands tighter around his hair and press her
lips against his. His lips seemed to fill a void in her life. She felt revitalized by his touch, by his taste, by his very essence and soon she could not stop the moans coming out of her mouth as she squeezed her eyes shut...though they were only making out. He grabbed her by her hips and lifted her so that she straddled him around the waist and she felt his desire for her throbbing through the fabric. She took a sharp inhale of breath, anticipating the searing climax that would come later when he used that formidable weapon against her.
"Scared?" Lucius asked tentatively, noticing how she observed the size of him through his robes.
"No." She clung to his shoulders with her hands as she continued to straddle him.
She never felt more alive. I am awakening, she thought, and bit into his bottom lip when he ground against her. He groaned angrily. "Dirty witch, you will pay for that later." She did not care how much he made her pay later. She nuzzled against his hair as he left marks down her neck in retribution as they continued to make out in the silent Archive. They knocked over a whole row of books by accident as Lucius roughly pressed them against the shelves.
~o~
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A/N: Please review to tell me what you thought! There are several chapters more and I promise they might be steamy ;)
BTW Hermione hasn't forgiven Lucius for what he's done in the war (well unproven) but she has accepted there is another side of him and she is undoubtedly attracted to him
