Chapter Twenty-Five
Hermione backpedaled from the pantry, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. When she turned to face the kitchen, Lucius shot up from the chair, alarmed.
And immediately regretted it, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead as he sank back down to sit. "Well, that wasn't the wisest decision I've ever made," he said to himself in a hissing whisper, tacking on louder, "Miss Granger, what's the matter? You look . . . green."
She forced a weak nod as she crossed the floor. Reaching the table, she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. Bracing her elbow on the surface, she merely gave herself a moment, her hand never once leaving her face.
He watched her warily and after a moment, she managed—speaking through her fingers—in a murmur, "I, um, well, I must tell you I feel a little green, Mr. Malfoy."
His shoulders slumped, the enchanted overhead lights of the kitchen playing across the black silk of his dressing gown, and he sighed. "Somehow I never thought 'nausea' would be on the list of things to worry about."
"Makes two of us," she responded with a mirthless laugh.
"Was it the food or the prospect of brewing tea?"
She slipped her hand from her face, finally. Holding up a finger, she opened her mouth to answer, closed it with a particularly determined look on her face, and tried again, the words forming slow. "I think it was definitely the food. I was fine until I was in the pantry actually looking at it."
Lucius nodded. "Very well." He got to his feet and started for the pantry, himself.
"Wait, Mr. Malfoy! You're hardly in any condition to—"
"I'd say I'm in far better condition than you to handle it," he called over his shoulder. "We've seen what happens when you cry, I dread to imagine the horror and aftermath of vomiting."
Hermione winced, hard, the bridge of her nose crinkling so tight with the expression it caused the skin to itch. "I hadn't considered that."
"Clearly."
She wholly ignored the chuckle she thought she heard edging his voice. "Well, this situation certainly isn't ideal."
"Which part isn't ideal, Miss Granger?" he asked distractedly as he rummaged for something simple yet filling and as nutritious as he was evidently going to require from now on—he was braced for her to have some snide, clever little quip about how shocking it was to imagine a pure-blood preparing a meal for themselves—and came back to the counter beside the stove with a steak and a seemingly random assortment of fruit. "You becoming a vampire? Me being the only person you've got help you? You using me as sustenance? The discovery of my family having one or more vampire-murdering lunatics in its history, or your becoming queasy at the mere sight of food?"
She glared at him. After setting the steak to sear in a pan, he tore into the fruit to give his system something while the meat cooked. "I meant all of it, but thanks for whittling it down so that I seem like I'm being flippant."
He set aside the piece of fruit and gripped his hands against the lip of the counter, his back still to her. Lucius Malfoy hung his head, a sigh escaping him. "I know that. It's simply, as you say, that this situation isn't ideal. If I'm to be honest, I've no idea what we're doing, or what we should be doing, about any of this."
As she watched the wizard, this proud pure-blood who hadn't seemed to miss a step or lose any part of himself with all that had been taken from him after the Second War, she felt a strange calming sensation spread through her chest. There was something oddly soothing about his admittance, about the faint raw edge to his tone.
She wondered when the last time was he'd been so open with anyone.
