XVI

Lucius had just swallowed the last bite of scrambled eggs when Hermione entered the dining room. He raised an eyebrow because she looked different. And he couldn't realise why he thought so. She was dressed in the usual things and her hair was tied in a loose ponytail. As always.

She sat down almost silently at the table and poured herself some tea, evidently avoiding his gaze. He grunted, but she stared stubbornly at her yet empty plate. Finally, she looked up and he saw that her cheeks were flushed and he could feel the shaky edge of her breathing, a little too quick.

"Are you all right, Miss Granger?" Hermione nodded quickly in response, too quickly, and reached for the toast.

Lucius was confused - Hermione was acting weird and he couldn't find a meaningful explanation. Every logical one he came up with seemed somehow irrelevant. So he decided to remain silent, but after the silence stretched, he couldn't stand it anymore and said,

"What are you planning to do tomorrow with the meeting at the Ministry?" Hermione looked up and swallowed, which didn't escape his attention. She said nothing, but he noticed her face expression growing tighter and tighter. She put the toast down and looked him in the eye, saying,

"I will tell the truth." Her voice was lined with poorly disguised rebellion, and he saw her lips twitched.

"Truth?" He stifled a huff as he realised she had raised an eyebrow and her lips were trembling. She nodded and Lucius sighed,

"I'm afraid Shacklebolt has a completely different view than you do." Hermione blinked a few times in response and he saw the uncertainty creep in her eyes. She bit her lip, then licked it slowly, apparently thinking about the words she wanted to say.

"He has no right to impose further months on us." The hoarse voice was supposed to be firm, but Lucius, seeing her expression, knew it was only appearances. Granger was excellent at building appearances. Hermione frowned at his firm reaction.

"We've had a similar conversation before, Miss Granger." The sentence on his lips made her realise what he was about to say.

That even if she wanted to, she had no options or room for manoeuvre, her fate sealed.

"I don't want to give up without a fight." She confessed quietly, uncertainly, and Lucius shifted in his chair. For the first time in his eyes, Hermione seemed vulnerable, exposed, forced out of her comfort zone. It was only for a moment, then the expression on her face changed completely and he could see the anger bursting into her eyes. Hermione was completely shattered, torn by conflicting emotions, and that was something she should have been hiding. Especially in front of a man like him.

Hermione nibbled on the toast and the silence would probably have lasted much longer if not for Draco's unplanned visit.

Draco entered the dining room and, judging by his expression, was not in his best mood. He surprised both of them, and Lucius immediately knew something had happened.

"Dad, can we talk? In private? " Draco asked, to which Hermione tilted her head, silent, but Lucius stood up without saying a word and followed his son out.

Draco was visibly nervous and upset when Lucius closed the office door behind them. He ran a hand through his hair nervously and walked over to the desk, leaning his weight against the edge of it. Lucius stood at the door waiting for his son's further reaction.

"What happened on Friday?" Draco's voice was extremely hard, and his posture was clearly closed by his folded arms. "Why does Blake want to break off negotiations with us?"

Lucius raised both eyebrows at once, clearly surprised - he hadn't expected such a question at all.

"Pardon, Draco?" Draco snorted in response to Lucius's reaction, and it was certainly not a pleasant reaction.

"Alexander sent me a message that they plan to halt the negotiations." Draco's face was fierce because he didn't know what had caused such an unexpected and crushing reaction. This contract and negotiation had cost them so much effort already, and the whole thing was now slipping out of hand. "What happened on Friday?" He repeated the question in a long voice towards his father and looked at him expectantly.

Lucius stared at his son, but no meaningful answer came to his mind, so after a while he replied casually, "Nothing."

He was pretty sure Draco didn't believe, but on the other hand, he didn't understand what had happened. Had anything happened? Because after all, nothing really happened.

"If nothing happened, why are they planning to halt the negotiations then, Father?" Draco swallowed loudly as he noticed the vein in his father's neck pulsate, and Lucius's body tensed. It didn't mean anything good.

"I wish I knew that, Draco." Lucius drawled, perhaps a little too harshly. But taken by surprise, he could not defend himself otherwise. "Has he given you any specific details?"

Draco bit his lip, hesitating to answer honestly. Finally, he choked out, "They think you've something going on with Granger."

Lucius snorted and shook his head, feeling a little amused, but Draco wasn't laughing. He stood stiffly and sized his father up.

Lucius's face fell after a while, as soon as he realised the absurdity of their assumption.

Hermione dipped her foot in the white foam she had made in the tub. She didn't remember the last time she was lying in the middle of the day, lazing in the pleasantly warm water. And she definitely and absolutely needed this - the breathing space and the vanilla scent that wafted in the bathroom and caressed her nostrils delightfully.

She picked up the book and turned it to the next page, trying to focus on chess strategies. And indeed her attention lingered, but only for a moment, after which she felt a blissful warmth spread over her body. She put the book down because ...

Just like in the dream ...

She bit her lip as the warm water, the satisfying smell, and relaxation made her take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. The previous night had passed through her mind in blurry, hazy images.

And that voice, voice rolling into her body.

The voice she seemed to know as it sounded familiar to her, but she refused to admit to herself that… she indeed knew.

There was a mess in her head, chaos... So on the spur of the moment she closed her eyes tightly and plunged completely into the water. Several seconds later she surfaced abruptly, gasping for breath. Everything around her blurred, faded, then took shape again until all she could see was ...

She felt her stomach cramp, pulse and breath quicken... She fought with herself, trying to stay still in the water, in silence...

Fear in the back of her head and a soft voice told her she was wrong... It echoed in her head, was felt in the pulse, in a heartbeat...

His goddamn voice.

Hermione knew she wasn't delusional because that feeling came again, this time when she was fully aware and awake. The water enveloped her in warmth, and her femininity became hot, with a slippery stickiness between her hips.

She plunged into the water once more to remove all the emotions that suddenly burst into her face. She didn't want them in her head, in her ears, in her mind.

No, no, no…

I'm fucked up, Hermione thought as she surfaced, I shouldn't have thought about it, I shouldn't ...

Want it.

She clenched her fists and eyes tightly, trying to chase away her thoughts, to calm the raging pulse and the pounding heart in her chest.

This dream and today's thoughts made no sense at all, because it felt as if her own body was trying to betray her. It was as if a fever had engulfed every inch of her skin and set fire to it, allowing it to burn out and turn to ash.

She exhaled slowly, a harsh air somewhere between frustration and amusement.

"I'm fucked up," she repeated aloud, staring at the ceiling, voice imprinted in her mind.

Checkmate, Miss Granger, rang in her ears.

Hermione wrapped her bathrobe tightly around her and adjusted the turban on her head as she walked over to the window. She wanted to close the curtains, but before she could touch them, she noticed that Lucius was standing in the garden.

He was standing, his hands behind his back. His long platinum hair was blown by a cold autumn breeze that heralded a break in the weather. Lucius was standing still, and all she was sure was that he was staring into space.

Hermione swallowed, because at that moment he looked like a statue. Carved in stone, perfect and… inhumanly beautiful. And there was a certain nostalgia, maybe sadness emanating from his figure. Something that he usually didn't show to the public.

Hermione shifted, startled as Lucius turned and their eyes met for a long moment. He nodded at her and went toward Narcissa's grave.

She felt as if she should leave him alone and pulled the curtain closed, feeling a strange unease.

She took the towel off her hair and patted them dry, then started brushing. She tried to move her thoughts away from the events of the night and the bath, but her mind was stubbornly making it difficult for her.

She changed clothes and, surrounded by the vanilla scent, went to the library, where she wanted to read a book, but her eyes were drawn to the chessboard.

Hermione took it and placed it in front of her, got all the figures and set them on the starting positions. She decided to practise one of the strategies she had learned from the books by playing the speed game against magical chess.

The gameplay engrossed her so much that she didn't hear Lucius silently appear in the room. He watched her closely for a long moment, every move she made, quick but deliberate. He could see the focus on her face and stubbornness, Hermione was one of the stubborn and self-confident people he had already seen in his life. She was usually like that.

When she was close to winning, he grunted to let him know he was indoors and said, "Very good gameplay and Sicilian Defence."

Surprised, Hermione lifted her head and stared at him with wide eyes, revealing her bare soul in that movement. Once again in a short time, Lucius realised that if he wanted to penetrate her mind she would be as helpless as a child. It would only take a moment...

"Hmn," She wrinkled her nose, a bit off balance, before nodding her head, "Thank you." She was a little confused and was even more surprised when Lucius sat across from her and only asked, "White or black?"

She raised an eyebrow in response, and he looked at her expectantly. His eyesight was intense, but she saw no irritation, rather a challenge.

She parted her lips and licked her chapped lips as she swallowed, "White."

He nodded, and the chess pieces went back to their starting position. They started a game, and Hermione felt her strategy play out with each new move. Lucius Malfoy was an aggressive player, he used Pirc's defence to counter his opponent.

Hermione focused so hard her throat felt dry at one point. She looked around the office and was surprised to discover that Lucius had arranged a decanter of water and… wine. He noticed her questioning eyesight, so he added lightly, "You're welcome," and ineffectively hid a smirk.

First she poured herself some water and gulped it down, then thought of the wine… She bit her lip as her hand reached for the wine. She poured herself a little, took a sip, and realised she should make the move. She moved around the board, not thinking too long about the movement and a dozen or so seconds after her Lucius said softly,

"Check," And he moved the figure with a smooth movement in such a way that completely different images appeared before her eyes. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to push them away by force of will.

But they didn't disappear and she heard,

"Miss Granger, are you all right?"

His silky voice, low timbre, made her shudder, and she felt goose bumps on her hands. She opened her eyes slowly, croaking, "It's just a little too warm in here." She took a breath and clarified, "I'm fine."

She felt that Lucius didn't quite believe her words, but she tried to focus again on the game, despite the blurry eyesight and the rapid pulse.

She touched one of the figures with her hand, but hesitated before making a move. She realised that the game would end in a draw at best. Malfoy knew it too, because he was extremely confident, and his demeanour expressed that certainty. He kept his eyes on her hand.

Hermione withdrew her hand and poured herself a glass of wine, which she gulped as quickly as water. Lucius merely raised his eyebrows, surprised, but said nothing - just watched.

She changed tactics at the last minute and moved with a different piece, unequivocally surrendering the game. Lucius looked at the board, at her, and back at the board. He realised that she had given up in a very obvious way, so all he had to do was end it. He took the king in his slender and long fingers and shifted into the final and beating position. Hermione looked deep into his eyes as he spoke softly,

"Checkmate, Miss Granger."

All her elaborate plans to build a fortress around her mind and soul crumbled to dust. One meeting with Kingsley was enough for her to realise that she was merely a nobody in his eyes.

Nobody.

She heard his mocking voice draw the words one by one. Refinement, with finesse, daggers sent straight to her heart.

During the meeting, she felt a red glow cover her eyesight, her fists clenching under the table. As her body tightened, she narrowed her eyes and tried to retain any remnant of her composure.

Shacklebolt definitely wanted to humiliate her, and he did it just fine. He took from her the remnants of the dignity that were left of her and crushed in the bud all the rebellion she was trying to incite.

"You are dismissed." His icy voice made her barely control her glare at him. She left the office and walked towards the fireplaces, not having the strength to Apparate. She wanted to scream, but the voice was silent - besides, she was still in the Ministry of Magic's building.

Her head was spinning, her tongue was starting to go numb, and Hermione realised she was going to have a seizure in a moment.

She ran it over her dry lips and, like drunk, went to one of the open fireplaces. She stood in it and whispered, Malfoy Manor.

Hermione felt a tug and after a while she fell out into the fireplace, from which a cloud of dust rose. She started coughing, then noticed she was in a different part of the house than she should have been.

Slightly lost, she dusted off her robes, feeling a growing panic overwhelm her. Feeling so intense made her stop thinking clearly.

She looked around and felt herself freeze, with blood chilled. She was surrounded by portraits of all the ancestors of the Malfoy family who moved immediately when they spotted her.

She didn't have to wait long for them to start screaming frighteningly,

Mudblood.

Hermione felt a dark cloud surround her, engulfing her with each passing moment, causing her to be blackened. The air burned her lungs, she couldn't catch her breath. She felt tears running down her cheeks, she was trembling with each screamed Mudblood. Images haunted her mind like dementors, cornered her like tentacles. She felt their cold, wheezing breaths against the back of her neck, against her cheeks. She held out her hands and tried to push them away, but she didn't know where they were, from which side they were surrounding her.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she hid her face in her hands and she started screaming frightfully.

She heard not only the voices of images, but also the millions of whispers, screams, pleas that filled her skull. The terrifying screams of the figures that surrounded her.

As if they woke up from the lethargy she forced on them by drinking the sleep potion. And this time they were not going to let her go so easily.

At one point the scream caught in her throat and she almost gave up when a strong hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her brutally out of the room.