A/N: I got my review replies off shamefully late this time, but off they are! Thanks as always to everyone to takes the time to leave a review. They really make my day. Also, feel free to grumble about the shameless plot device (grin).

ON TO

Chapter Fourteen:

Before she opened her eyes to the morning, before she recalled the events of the previous night, Hermione awoke to a dull ache and winced inwardly. She did not have time to actually wonder what could have caused this sensation, though, before she came more fully awake and saw Lucius lying beside her and remembered everything that had happened.

He usually awoke before she did, but now he appeared to be sleeping, leaving Hermione in an awkward position. Did she proceed with the day as normal or did she wait until he awoke to smile softly at him and bid him good morning, perhaps with a kiss? Did she even acknowledge what had happened or did she start calling Lucius silly pet names now that they were… whatever they were?

Fortunately, at least, she did not have to agonise over the issue for long; Lucius awoke when she turned over and tugged a sheet over her bare skin. She held her breath, waiting to see how he would react to her presence. His eyes opened and locked onto hers, now a warm grey tinged with pale blue. Maybe it was the simple play of sunlight over his face as opposed to the cool moonlight of the night before, but everything about him appeared healthier, more vital now.

He smiled. She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled back.

"Are you all right," he asked in a low, almost tender voice.

Her heart fluttered at his tone, and for a moment she could not think clearly enough even to formulate a single word reply. Oh, this was going to be more dangerous than she had ever suspected, she realised.

"I'm fine, yeah. Are you… okay?"

"As well as ever. Hermione…" He hesitated and reached a hand out to touch her cheek. "I'm afraid that I… was less than attentive to you last night."

Well, how on earth was she to respond to something like that? She had certainly enjoyed last night, and if he had perhaps not showered her with attention as much as she normally liked, it was completely understandable under the circumstances.

He spared her the necessity of replying as he continued. "I wonder…" he said as he rolled onto his side, facing her so closely that she could feel his breath, "if I could make it up to you?"

The tentative smile on her face grew wider, and she blushed under his gaze. "Oh, well… okay."

He pulled her closer and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her lips. Despite the soreness between her thighs, she also felt warmth gathering there. She kissed him back, and this time, she felt as though she could spend an age just lying there, kissing him until they were both breathless and senseless. This time there was little sense of urgency, just pleasure at the way their mouths and bodies fit together.

She twined her legs through his and ran her hands up and down the length of his body. He did not possess the youthful slenderness that she was familiar with in her previous lovers; he was more solidly there under her exploring fingers. She could feel the muscles of his shoulders and back shift as his arms wrapped more firmly around her, felt the long muscles of his thighs contract as he gently pulled himself atop her. And his bum… it was an especially nice bum he had. A low noise escaped him when she stretched out her fingers and squeezed it.

For his part, he had left off kissing her mouth for the soft flesh of her neck. He whispered an apology for the marks that were already developing there, to which she responded with a soft chuckle. This time, his mouth was much softer on her collarbone and throat, soft and insistent. His lips sucked and his tongue kneaded the faintly bruised skin. She wanted to return the favour, but he seemed much too intent on her to stop now.

Just as his hands began wandering in those places where she longed to feel his touch again, a sharp tapping noise interrupted their quiet moans in the bright sunshine. Hermione sighed. Lucius looked up and behind his shoulder to the window, where an owl was rapping its beak against the glass. He drew back to give Hermione a dry look, half-annoyed and half-amused and to lay one final kiss on her before standing and crossing the room. From where she was reclined, she enjoyed the view of Lucius striding to the window, utterly unconcerned with his state of undress.

A distant part of her noted that Lucius did not pay the owl and wondered if that was significant. Apparently someone – most likely the sender of the message – had already given the owl sufficient payment for its services. She did not recognise it as Marius's own, but then, she was not sure she could have identified that particular bird.

She was lounging on the pillows with a sheet draped across her midsection, still smiling a vaguely silly smile, when Lucius turned around again and the owl flew away. He was not smiling. A note of worry crept into her brain, but she could not make herself stop smiling just yet.

"Is something wrong?"

He glanced up from the letter and made his way for the wardrobe. Hermione looked upon this as a discouraging sign and began to feel distinctly uneasy. She could almost see tension flowing into his body as he walked. When he had risen from the bed, he had moved languidly, like a cat still half-asleep, graceful in its laziness and revelling in the morning sun. Now he was alert, his step quick and entire body focused on his destination.

Without even seeing his face, she could see that the Lucius Malfoy she had come to know in fits and starts was being taken over again by the crème de la crème of the Wizarding elite and Voldemort's inner circle. He selected from the armoire black robes with blood-red embroidery and pulled them on in a few, efficient movements. When he turned back to face her, her heart sank (though her libido refused to be sensible and even jumped a little). There he was, looking very much as he did in her early memories of him: white-blond hair pulled back in a crisp queue at the nape of his neck, robes buttoned up to the collar, a crimson silk cravat intricately knotted: perfectly Malfoy down to the shiny black shoes on his feet.

His expression softened a little at seeing her, and as he returned to sit beside her, she thought she spotted a glimmer of the man inside the Malfoy. "You can stay here for a little while longer, if you like." His voice was still low, still caressing, and she felt somewhat better for it. "Believe me, I am very sorry to leave you like this, but I'm afraid…" He took Hermione's hand and stared at it for a bit before continuing. "We may have uninvited company here very soon."

He squeezed her hand tightly and released it, then leaned forward and shared a full, deep kiss with her. After he pulled back, he handed her the message and stood up again.

"Lucius?"

He paused at the door to regard her once more. "I'm sorry," he said and left.

Although it made no sense, and although she had nothing specific to feel sad about, Hermione felt tears welling up behind her eyes. It was not sorrow, but simple confusion and all the conflicting emotions (not to mention the hormones) that had built up so recently that poured out in the silent tears that trickled down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away impatiently with her hand and pointed her attention at the letter which had ruined their morning.

My dear friend, it began in very formal French

I hope that you are enjoying your well-deserved holiday. Morocco is absolutely lovely, everything Edouard and I have heard. I cannot imagine that we should be in any rush to return home to our lonely manor.

I admit I cannot resist imparting a bit of gossip to an old friend like you...

At this point, the letter became a mess of names and descriptions Hermione could not really follow but assumed to be an amusing commentary on Europe's wizarding glitterati and the social scandals which followed them across continents. She tried to retain some of the names and information in case, but one passage in particular struck her as interesting.

One cannot go to a proper tea house, a restaurant, or any sort of social gathering without encountering regular hordes of women of a certain age accompanied by dashing young Arab men. It is a fascinating sociological phenomenon, quite everyday for this area, I understand.

It caught her eye because she was certain the author of letter, presumably Lucius's friend Marius, was implying something he could not or would not come out and state plainly. Something about older women… she smiled at the thought of Lucius's proud ex-wife Narcissa parading around the streets clutching the arm of an exotic young boy-toy like a new accessory.

Enough of an old man's blather. I daresay you have more interesting things to do, more interesting people to attend. I hope your holiday is not proving too dull for your high spirits, my friend, but we both know how richly you deserve a spot of leisure. Do try to enjoy yourself.

Affectionately yours,

M

There was something there too, Hermione was sure. She was certain this was the passage that was worrying Lucius so, the 'more interesting things to do, more interesting people to attend'. She doubted that Marius was making a cheeky reference to her, though she had no real evidence for that assumption, just… a feeling. Lucius would not be so visibly affected by a bit of innuendo.

She felt rather silly lying about in bed with no clothes and no companion to justify her laziness, so she pulled her nightgown hastily over her head and returned to her own bedroom to find something more appropriate to wear. The clear blue sky promised another warm day, so she drew a skirt and short tunic from her wardrobe, a matching set in dusky rose-coloured silk. Her fingers shook a little as she laced up the tunic, and she could not help comparing her clumsiness now with the graceful, effortless way Lucius had dressed earlier.

When she descended to the dining room to find breakfast ready, Lucius was reading a newspaper with a faintly surprised expression on his face and occasionally remembering a piece of fruit he had selected from a pyramid in the centre of the table. He set down the paper as soon as he saw her, and it was difficult not to drop her eyes in embarrassment, though she told herself firmly that she had no reason to feel that way. She could make out a hectic scene on the front of the paper and wondered what it depicted.

"You read the letter?"

"I did," she replied as she crossed to the table and sat down in front of the other place setting. "I take it you're expecting a troupe of Death Eaters to appear on the front lawn at any moment?" She forced her voice to sound casual as she picked up a slice of toast and began spreading jam on it. Despite her best efforts, however, she was sure he saw through her affected unconcern, especially since her damned hands would not stop shaking. She thought about asking Nifti to fetch her pack of cigarettes, wherever she had left them and decided against it, at least for the moment.

"We ought to consider ourselves lucky that we have evaded them for so long." He paused, and Hermione continued to spread jam with a vengeance. She was so intent upon her toast that she did not notice he had stopped speaking.

"Hermione."

She glanced up into his eyes and immediately looked away to squint through the nearby windows, then at the front page of the newspaper. The moving picture appeared to show the Wizengamot in full session, but she could not discern the headline. "I heard you. Lucky us. Could you pass the tea, please?"

"You're going to have to leave," he continued, ignoring her request.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his gaze fixed upon her. She did not think she could meet it just now and retain her composure. Now that she had two pieces of toast prepared, she needed something else to do with her hands. Well, if he was not going to pass the tea, she would get it herself.

"What, and leave you here?" She reached across the table, nearly upsetting the rainbow display of fruit. "Or is this one of those win-win situations where I get to escape and you get to talk your way back into your precious Lord's good graces? Well, it's hardly ideal, but you did save my life."

He grasped her outstretched arm, still clutching the handle of the teapot. "Stop it."

Her head whipped to one side to shoot him an incredulous look, but the protest she had ready died when she saw the hard expression on his face. He was not going to argue with her today, she realised. He could not spare the time or energy. She wanted to continue flinging accusations at him, anything to keep her mind occupied and distracted from the truth of the matter: the strange relationship they had formed during and even before their flight from Paris was about to come to an end.

"Then answer my question. What makes you think I'm going to just leave you to your fat here?"

He released her arm, and she pulled it back to begin pouring a cup of tea. When she looked up again, she was surprised to see him wearing a faint smile. "If you do not wish to condemn me to death, my dear, you must."

She raised an eyebrow. "Convince me."

"It's quite simple. I swore an Unbreakable Vow stating that I would deliver you into no situation I knew might bring you serious harm, and the guests this manor shall receive in what is very likely a matter of a few hours mean you the most serious harm. If I do not honour this Vow, I will die, regardless of the Dark Lord's wishes concerning my ultimate fate."

She pursued her lips as she stirred milk into her tea. "You've convinced me that I must leave but not that you must stay." The fragrant steam from the porcelain cup greeted her and offered what little comfort it could. She inhaled deeply before taking a sip. Marius might have questionable taste in friends, but the man knew his tea.

"If they managed to find us here, they will doubtless find us anywhere we should choose to flee. Both of us stand a better chance of surviving discovery if we are not together."

He was right, of course, but she could not abandon him to the mercies of Death Eaters, no matter that he was marked as one. Even on the slim chance that they would decide to accept him back into their ranks – and that brought up another set of circumstances she would much rather not ponder – they would surely punish him soundly for his actions ever since and including his failure to win her over or kill her back in Paris.

Her mind raced as she sipped her tea, but it skipped when he reached out his hand again, this time to take hers in a tight grip. The resolute expression on his face had softened into something compassionate as he watched her.

"Please, Hermione, allow me to protect you this time. It will almost certainly be the last opportunity I will have to repay a fraction of the debt I owe you."

Part of her despised the idea of anyone protecting her, but how could she object? If only there was some way she could protect him as well. While she was sure that she could greatly aid him in a fight, she suspected that she was going to have to think of something else.

"But then what happens? Either I die in the war, or I go back to my life… and then I never hear the end of it." She barked a short laugh. "How is it that I'm still alive? How did I escape the clutches of the reviled Lucius Malfoy? How am I looking so healthy, wearing new robes and acting distinctly un-traumatised?"

He stiffened. "That is all regrettable but hardly anything I can control or alleviate."

"It'll be quite suspicious, you know, that I don't display a proper hatred of you." She tapped the fingers of her free hand on her tea cup. The future was shaping with startling clarity in front of her eyes.

"Perhaps they'll suggest it as part of therapy to treat repressed emotional distress,or perhaps they will force it on me when I testify… and believe me, there will be a trial, whether you are actually present to face the charges or not… but eventually, I can be as certain as I possibly can be, lacking the second sight, that I will have to ingest veritaserum if I do not divulge sufficiently gory details about my captivity under you."

Lucius blinked at something she had said, but then his face settled into a sceptical expression. "That's an uncharacteristically grim vision of the future for you."

She shrugged. "It will probably be administered with nothing but the best intentions, and in the unlikely case that the Ministry does not absolutely insist upon it, it is inevitable that many of the people I once regarded as friends will never trust me after I return."

Silence fell between them, and Hermione knew that he knew that she was right. The bright future once all but promised to the cleverest witch of her age was falling to ashes before their eyes. She would never again be part of the first line in the fight against Voldemort, not if she was suspected of harbouring a weakness for one of his senior Death Eaters, whether that weakness be fear or something more sinister.

"I will help you if I can," Lucius said presently. "What do you suggest?"

In fact, something had occurred to her, but now that he had asked, she could not bring herself to say it. It sounded so silly inside her head and would sound that much more ridiculous aloud. He would completely misconstrue her intentions, and why not? She was unsure of her intentions herself.

"I can see that you're thinking of something. I will do… I will consider anything in my power to help you."

She finished her tea in one gulp and set it down on the saucer harder than she meant. It clattered loudly, almost drowning out her words.

"Marry me."