An AU where Hermione is an assassin and Lucius is her agent/boss.
Lucius Malfoy was disgusted.
Of all the places to live, she chose this tall dilapidated apartment smack in the middle of Muggle London. It wasn't as if she couldn't afford the houses in the magical villages. The amount of galleons she was earning was enough to buy a manor nearly as big as his ancestral home. Lucius should know. He was the one paying her salary and she was the most paid one of all his employees.
Perhaps employee wasn't the right term.
A Muggle teenager rushed past him, bumping his right shoulder and Lucius resisted the urge to push the kid off the staircase. He, instead, brushed the imaginary dirt off his Muggle three-piece suit, an outfit he chose to wear instead of his usual midnight robes in favor of not attracting any unwanted attention. Muggles, he learned had no sense of taste when it came to fashion.
If it were any other person, Lucius wouldn't have bothered to come all this way, wouldn't have bothered to change his clothes just to blend in although he was doing a crap job at that since all the Muggles he had passed by since he arrived here had been gawking at him (he couldn't help that he was that good looking even in his early fifties). He would've sent one of his subordinates to check on one of his employees. But he soon realized that when it came to Hermione Granger, he always found himself capitulating to his baser needs.
His son only gave him a sly smirk when he told him that he was going to check on Hermione. The little shit. He shouldn't have let his ex-wife spoiled Draco too much.
Landing on the fifth floor, Lucius immediately spotted door number 505 and raised his knuckles to rap on the door but immediately stiffened when it swung open at the first knock, the door making a loud creaking noise as it did.
Why is the door open and furthermore, why are the wards down?
Lucius quickly pulled his wand from the holster inside his coat and carefully slipped inside, taking care not to make a sound. Halfway through the hallway, he spotted something on the floor. Blood. Droplets of it making a trail further inside. He glanced back to the door and nonverbally placed an alarm charm that would notify him in case someone came in before heading further inside.
As he turned the corner towards her living area, Lucius stopped in his tracks. There on the floor, leaning against the couch was Hermione looking paler than a ghost. His eyes landed on her stomach where she was busy stitching her wounds the Muggle way.
It was barbaric, the way she shakily jabbed the needle into her soft skin, the same skin his hands and lips had roamed countless nights, worshipping every inch as if it would grant him salvation from his past deeds.
Lucius shook his head. "What the bloody hell happened to you?" He reached her in three long strides before crouching down. He pulled her hand away and vanished the needle and string holding the wound close. As he did so, the cut opened a little and blood started to seep out. "Shit," he hissed. "Hold still. I'm going to close it."
He waved his wand along the open wound as he mumbled the incantation to close it. Years of serving an unstable Dark Lord made him proficient at a variety of healing spells. Now that the immediate crisis was solved, he decided to check her body for other wounds and curses and breathed a sigh of relief when there were only surface-level cuts and few minor bruises. It would heal in a few days but the thought of her lovely skin being defiled by such spells angered him. They said that a person's body was a temple and if that were the case, hers was the holiest of them all.
"Thanks," she said as she pulled her shirt over her now faded wound. "I owe you one."
"What happened? Who did this to you? Were you compromised?" he couldn't stop the litany of questions and she rolled her eyes before sitting up straighter. "And where is your wand?"
"Broken," she pointed to the side table beside him where her vine wood wand was snapped in half. "Someone tipped Valkovich that an assassin is going after him tonight. I still managed to kill him though not as stealthily as I want it to be. One of his men caught me off guard as I was apparating and the spell hit my wand and my stomach."
He must've been making a face because she added sarcastically. "Don't worry. My glamour was still intact when I arrived here. Nobody would trace it back to your beloved agency."
Lucius huffed. "That's the least of my concern. You could've died from blood loss if I hadn't arrived."
"But you came so I didn't," she shrugged and made to stand up but apparently the blood loss was that significant since she wobbled on her feet before falling down.
Lucius caught her midway and pressed her body to his chest, relishing in the warmth of her. The coppery scent of dried blood permeated his sense of smell, vastly different from the usual lilac and vanilla.
"You need to rest," he slipped his left arm underneath her legs and carried her bridal style to her bedroom.
"Put me down, Lucius. I'm not an invalid!"
"Stop squirming. You're can barely stand on your own."
They continued bickering until he laid her on the bed. Hermione kicked off her dragonhide boots before scooting towards the middle.
"Do you have any blood replenishing potions?"
"In the cabinet above the bathroom sink."
Lucius got up and made his way into the bathroom to fetch the potion for her, also bringing the vial of dreamless sleeping draught he spied inside the cabinet.
"Here," he handed her the two vials and Hermione drank them without any protest. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been kicked by a hippogriff," she mumbled, her eyelids already drooping.
Lucius could tell she was fighting the urge to sleep, stubborn woman that she was. He decided to leave her be and clean up the mess in her living area before fixing her wards. As soon as he stood, a hand softly grasped his wrist and he looked down to see her eyes closed but he could tell she was still awake.
"Stay," she whispered. "Please."
Lucius glanced at the delicate fingers encircling his and he wondered how could something like that was capable of such death and destruction. Wondered when did she turn out this way—an empty, jaded shell of what she used to be. He started removing his coat, his vest, and his tie, followed by his shoes and socks, the gesture felt like shedding every layer of his being, before climbing into the bed beside her.
Instinctively, Hermione moved closer, one of her hands coming up to rest on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart as she finally succumbed to the call of Morpheus.
He pushed a lock of curly brown hair off her forehead before pressing his lips there just to reassure himself that she was there with him and she was alright. The world stopped spinning for a moment, time suspended as his breathing slowed as well, inevitably following her to where sleep had taken her. He would savor this feeling, this rare moment of intimacy and vulnerability before they slipped back into their boss-employee relationship when she woke up.
As Lucius felt his consciousness slowly fade away, he murmured one word to her like a vow.
"Always."
AN: This idea has been going on for a while now but then I saw La Femme Nikita last night and I got a burst of inspiration. I might expand this (if I'm still feeling up to it) once I'm done with A Study in Survival.