Lucius took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

His entire body felt stiff and unused. He was hungry. And thirsty. He gingerly stretched his back, raising his arms above his head, and heard a series of cracks along his spine. That action alone made him slightly dizzy. He looked down on his arms and legs; they were thinner, more wiry than he remembered. He frowned and looked out the window. He could see green tree tops. Those trees had been bare last time he looked.

He knew time had passed. He had not been sleeping, after all. It was rather as if he'd had a period of intense concentration. The kind where time slips by almost unnoticed, but you still have your sense of orientation intact. But it certainly was an odd feeling.

Carefully he stood. He had no trouble with his balance, but felt a little light headed. He grimaced – he was decidedly weaker than he used to be. That wouldn't be to his advantage if it came to a battle in the next few days. The thought made him frown, but he heard a slight shuffle and looked toward the kitchen. Hermione stood in the doorway, staring at him. He couldn't tell what the look on her face meant, but he could see summer freckles on her nose, and dark rings under her eyes.

"You look terrible," he said, though that was an exaggeration. She looked wonderful as usual, but tired and skittish. Thinner. More frail.

"Take a look at yourself in the mirror before you complain", she replied after another moment's stunned silence.

She was probably right. "How long have I been gone?" he asked.

Hermione shifted on her feet, biting her lip anxiously before she answered. "Five months."

Lucius while observed her closely. "Why am I thinking there might be a battle ahead?" he asked carefully.

That was the moment she chose to rush forward and fly into his arms, knocking him over so that he fell onto the couch again with her on top. That certainly wouldn't have been possible if he had been stronger. She straddled him, caught his face in her hands and pressed her lips against his desperately.

He might have thought he had died and inexplicably ended up in heaven if it wasn't for the fact that he once again could taste tears on her lips, and that his present weakness made him cursedly unable to respond in the way he would have liked. If this had been heaven, she wouldn't be crying and their current position would inevitably lead to - something else. But once again, he had to accept that it wasn't time time for heaven.

Still, he was happy to put his arms around her and breathe in the scent of her hair. "What was that for?" he mumbled.

"I missed you", she said, wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"You have been ever present in my thoughts," he said, tightening his hold on her.

She sighed and he simply held her for a while, enjoying the feeling of her warm soft body against his. Her face rested against his neck, and he could feel her breath against his skin.

"Will you tell me what has been going on in my… absence?" he asked.

"If you tell me the same", she agreed.

He nodded. "You start."

She sighed and shifted so that they could both sit up on the sofa. She sat so close she was practically glued to his side. "Ed is back", she said tensely. "He knows where I live."

Lucius cursed under his breath. "Are you sure it's him?"

Hermione nodded. "I know it's supposed to be impossible. He's a muggle, and has no previous experience with the magical world. But he's left messages outside my door. Sometimes I think I can feel his presence just outside." She shuddered. "But I can't see him and so far, he hasn't approached me in person."

Lucius held her closer. Thank Salazar nothing had happened.

"You seem remarkably calm", he observed, when she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I'm terrified", she confessed, "I can't sleep, I cry all the time, I have panic attacks. I hate knowing he is out there, and not being able to see him. Not knowing what he'll do, or when he'll strike."

"I assume you've told Potter?" Lucius asked, but instead of the confirmation he had been expecting, she looked up rather guiltily.

"If I tell Harry, he'll insist on getting him arrested before I even get a chance to see him. I know it's crazy, but I need to confront him."

"I appreciate Potter's point of view", Lucius said, "but I suppose I can understand what you are saying."

"You don't think I'm crazy?" Hermione asked, looking up at him.

"As long as you're not imagining I'll let you face that man alone, then no."

"Now that you're awake I suppose you can help a little", Hermione allowed with a half-smile.

He snorted. "How generous of you." He didn't like to think about what would have happened if Ed had already made his move, as Lucius was sure he was planning.

"Anyway", Hermione said, making an effort to lighten the mood. "You need something to eat. You're really out of shape, you know, if I can tackle you down like I did." She seemed about to get up and get some food for him, but before she had a chance to stand, he stopped her.

"Hermione? Are you all right?"

She thought for a moment. "I don't think I'll be all right for a long time. But right now, I feel great."

When Lucius had ingested a hearty meal and taken a shower, it was time for him to fulfil his part of the bargain. Over dinner, Hermione had told him about Harry's investigations, what was going on at work, and what little news Draco had passed on. While Lucius was in the shower, she had also sent an owl to Draco, telling him the news and asking him to stop by in the morning.

When Lucius was ready, they sat down on the sofa. She had made him a chocolate-strawberry smoothie, imagining that this was what it might be like to spoil a child that had been sick. He brightened instantly at the sight of the brown gooey stuff, and eagerly put his lips to the glass. She watched him smugly, all the while feeling a warmth within her that told her that while her mothering instincts might be awakened, her physical response to him was still the same as last time she'd offered him a smoothie.

After a few moments, she asked him the question that had been burning in her mind for months: "Was it something I did?"

He put the glass down. "In a way. It was what you said, or rather the sentiment or the logic of what you said. You wanted me to take responsibility for what I had done – but not to punish me, or to justify hurting me the way I would have deserved, but because you –" He broke off, glancing at her. He started again. "I could not comprehend that you would show me such loyalty when you not only knew what I had done, but were also so angry about it, so ashamed of it. Of me. You were ashamed of me, and yet you would not back down from me. I couldn't reconcile your way of acting with other things that I knew to be true."

Hermione found it hard to quite understand what he was saying, but in her mind was the echo of Luna's words; He's not used to being loved like that. "Such as?" she asked.

"I have learned from very young years that there can be no redemption for such deeds as I have done. Or rather, that it is pointless to seek redemption. I was taught that regret is downright dangerous. And everything I have gone through over the years has proven that to be true. Guilt and shame are deadly, at least if they are not tempered by the hope of forgiveness and – " Again, Lucius interrupted himself.

"And?" Hermione asked.

"I had no such hope", Lucius continued, avoiding her question. "But you said something when we argued. It didn't make sense, and yet I knew it had to be true. You were too upset to care what you said. And besides, I know you are a terrible liar."

"So you've spent five months thinking about something I said?" Hermione clarified, a little disbelievingly.

"In essence, yes." Lucius half-smiled and took another sip of his smoothie. "You forced me to go through most of my decisions in life and reassess them."

"Like killing Aquila?"

He nodded.

"What did he do to you, Lucius?" she asked quietly.

For a moment, Hermione was afraid he was going to close down again. There was such pain in his eyes that she wondered he could endure it. But he took a deep breath and reached out to take her hand.

"Lyra. When she was thirteen, he attacked her. He did to Lyra what your uncle did to you. And he did it many times. She coped by hiding it, and by taking the shame and guilt upon herself, and didn't tell me until years later when I found out that she was hurting herself. She told me what happened, but not who did it. I tried to help her, but she was so deeply hurt it had gnawed its way down to her very core." Lucius clutched her hand. "When I found her in the gardens next year, she was dying, and it wasn't until then that she told me it was him. My friend. Our cousin. My brother-in-arms."

Lucius fell silent. "Her patronus animal was a peacock", he added to himself.

Hermione felt a lump in her throat. That was why the gardens at Malfoy Manor were full of peacocks? She'd always put it down to his showy personality. "I'm so sorry", Hermione whispered, holding his hand tighter.

Lucius nodded. "Lyra wasn't the only one. He attacked witches and muggle women alike. It didn't matter to him, and none of them stood a chance. He was a powerful wizard, and I – like everybody else – was fooled by his facade. But not long after I found out, Voldemort did too. He read Aquila's mind, and was angered both by the fact that he risked empregnating muggle women and that pure blood was literally being spilt in the aftermath of his actions. Lyra wasn't the only one to give up on life.

"So I volunteered to do it", Lucius continued calmly. "I told myself I was just the executioner, doling out the punishment that was due to him. I wasn't even the one to pronounce the sentence, so I could very conveniently blame Voldemort. I pretended it wasn't personal. And I didn't care what it did to me."

Quietly, Hermione listened as Lucius told her how he had become the cynical, arrogant, cold hearted man she had come to know as a young girl. How the young wizard he had been – prejudiced, arrogant, in love with the concept of power, but also a loving brother – had been pushed by the anger and grief after the loss of his sister to protect himself against feelings of any kind. How killing and torturing had become a matter of course. How he had alienated Narcissa and Draco, and finally got to the point where he forced his own son to become a Death Eater and share his misery.

Hermione realized Lucius had already come a long way when she met him, three years after the war had ended. He had already begun to shed some of those prejudices, had looked the emptiness of evil in the eye and begun to seek something different. But still, he had protected himself in the only way he knew how to. But now, he truly had changed. She had never witnesses so many emotions play out on his face before. The terrifying anger, the heartbreaking grief, the anguish of remorse. And she couldn't help but to think of how beautiful he was. Not just handsome. There was something truly beautiful in the way he bowed his head in shame.

So she asked the same question as she had once before: "Do you regret killing all those people?"

"I cannot forgive Aquila", Lucius said sadly, "but yes, I regret it."

Hermione could have jumped with happiness at hearing him confess it, but her joy was tempered by the sadness in his eyes.

"All this time that I've been absent", he said, "I've been trying to figure out how to make things right. You seemed to offer me forgiveness, and I was ready to accept the pain of remorse, but I kept trying to find a way to make up for what I have done. Undo the damage. But over and over again I got stuck, because I knew I would never be able to do enough, that I couldn't compensate."

"What changed?" she asked.

With a sad smile, Lucius took both her hands in his. "I realized I had to look at it the other way. I may not deserve forgiveness, but I also have no right to refuse to be forgiven. If someone chooses to forgive me," Lucius lifted her hands as he spoke and pressed his lips to them one at a time, "I ought to accept it with gratitude. That's the only way I have left of saying that I know I did wrong, that I know I have done something that needs to be forgiven. Accepting forgiveness is an admission of guilt."

Hermione frowned. "You almost make it sound as if forgiveness is a punishment?"

He swallowed hard. "The punishment is remorse. Forgiveness is what makes it possible to endure it. Love is the reward."

Hermione's hands were still in his, still burning from the feeling of his reverent kisses. She was afraid to ask, but then again - why not? "What exactly was it that I said?"

Lucius hesitated. "I don't know if I understood you correctly", he said, his gaze flicking down to her lips and then returning to search her eyes. "You seemed to be telling me –"

There was a harsh rap at the door. And then another one.

"Probably Draco." Hermione smiled shakily. Reluctantly, she pulled her hands free from Lucius's grasp and got up just as a third urgent rap on the door sounded. It wasn't until she was actually opening the door that Lucius asked:

"Surely Draco would use the floo?"

Lucius stood, but in that very instant, the door was forced open. Hermione lost her balance, and the next thing she knew, hands had reached out to grab her and she was pressed against a strange body. Then, with the sharp edge of a knife just below her jawline, Hermione heard a voice she had not heard for years:

"Don't move, or I'll cut her throat."