A/N: I own nothing, save for my small collection of words and phrases. The characters and settings belong to JKR and those who helped bring it all to life (publishing companies and movie studios, etc.), while the song on which I've loosely based the story belongs to Christina Perri and her recording company (Jar of Hearts).
This is un-betaed, so any mistakes are my own. If you see one, please let me know.
I'm glad you guys are enjoying this so far. I wish I had more than five chapters to offer you, but alas, that's all there is at the moment. I now present to you, chapter two of Wonder.
In the months that passed next, Hermione spoke with several of her former Professors at Hogwarts, now led by Minerva McGonagall, and set about working out her final year of education on an independent-study basis. Her nerves still couldn't handle being around so many people at once for too long, and full-time life inside the castle would have been unbearable. Instead, she visited the school two days a week, working through her practical lessons in the evenings after the teachers were finished with their regular classes, and doing all her research and theoretical work from home.
She spent Christmas at Grimmauld Place with Harry and Ginny and George, who was temporarily staying with Harry, unable to enter the flat he'd shared with Fred just yet, and at the same time incapable of facing the Burrow where they'd grown up together. He was trying to put up a front of playfulness and mischief, the way people expected, but without Fred, he was broken and incomplete.
In a drunken stupor on New Year's Eve, he tried to make a pass at Hermione, and in other circumstances, she might have given in and allowed it, but the memory of her brief time being carried in Lucius' arms had soured her on the thought of anyone else for a while.
She knew better than to be attracted to a married man – a former Death Eater who had only barely escaped being sent to Azkaban for life, at that – but his hair, his eyes, those perfect teeth, and the hard muscles she'd felt moving beneath his shirt had captivated her just as surely as his words and demeanor had. She didn't want to want him, but she did.
She had a short lunch with Draco one day, in a public place this time, and they ironed out their differences. They would never be great friends, but neither would they be enemies. They had both grown up too much, too quickly to hold on to childhood grudges. Neither had the energy to devote to the enmity that had formed their relationship before.
She didn't dare bring up Lucius, but he did, only briefly, when he apologized for taking her into the drawing room. He told her that he and Narcissa had stood there arguing for at least half an hour before realizing that she and Lucius were gone, and they'd worried for a moment before he reappeared to let them know what had happened.
She later laughed, remembering the look on Draco's face as he'd told the story. He was clearly a Malfoy, was Draco, sharing several facial features with his father, but he was just as clearly a member of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, having inherited a few key features from his mother and her sister. The Black additions were unkind to him, she thought, having had so much time to analyze Lucius' that night. He would never be as handsome as his father, nor as cruelly beautiful as Bellatrix and Narcissa must have been in their youth. But he wasn't completely unpleasant to look at, either. She could see where this man who had taken the place of the boy she'd known in school would make someone – not her – a fine partner in life.
She saw Lucius a time or two from a distance, out in Diagon Alley, and once at the Ministry when she'd been ironing out the details for her exam schedules. They weren't close enough to each other to warrant speaking, but their eyes met across the distance, and her heart sped up at the brief contact.
The day her exams were over, she packed a bag and disappeared to Australia to try and find her parents while the results were tallied. She knew them well, and found them without much struggle.
However, when she tried to remove her memory charms, something went wrong, and instead of their locked memories being restored, the counter-charm removed them, as well as all memories of their current and past lives. They were left in a state worse than the Longbottoms, unable to walk or talk or control their bodily functions, in what the Healers at the Australian Magical Hospital called "Tabula Rasa Perfecte." They were essentially newborns in the bodies of two people in their late fifties. Certain things would be able to be learned again – speech and mobility and such – but they would never again remember their previous lives.
They were placed in a facility that could slowly teach them the things they would need to survive and could care for them in the meantime, and Hermione took the next International Portkey back to London.
Through his positions at the British Ministry, Lucius found out what had happened and that she was on her way home. He was torn – he wanted to go and offer comfort, but he didn't know if he would be welcome. However, when three days passed and nobody had heard from her, he made up his mind and apparated to her back garden, just as he had with her in his arms nearly a year earlier.
With a shock, he realized that the wards still recognized him as an allowed visitor, and he stepped into the kitchen unhampered. He called out for her, but received no answer. He looked briefly into every room on the ground floor, not expecting to see her in the dining room or the living room, but the library on the other side of the house was a likely place if her past was any indication. It was empty as well, however, and so he nervously crept up the stairs to the bedrooms. He checked her room first, and found it empty as well, but the bed was mussed and there were various articles of clothing strewn across the floor.
His brows furrowed and he twisted his lips to one side in worried thought. The connecting door led into a bathroom, still steamy from a hot shower, and scented with her shampoo and soap. The also-empty guest bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom, and showed no signs of having been disturbed. Back out in the hallway, he was left with just one door, on the right instead of the left: her parents' room.
He gently eased the door open and saw her crumpled in the middle of their bed, sobbing weakly. She was wrapped in a thick terrycloth robe, and her damp hair was spread around her wildly. He still wasn't sure of his welcome, but he couldn't leave her like this. He discarded his cloak and outer robes and toed his shoes off, leaving them all together in a bundle on the floor by the door, his wand resting on top.
He crossed quickly to the bed and eased himself behind her, pulling her to him, careful not to tug at her hair as he lay down and wrapped himself around her comfortingly.
Through her sobbing, she smelled the spicy scent of his cologne and relaxed against him. "Lucius?"
"I'm here, my sweet. I worried for you and came to check on you." His hands smoothed the hair from her face and he placed a gentle kiss against her temple. "Get it all out, I'm here for you."
She turned into him, clutched at his shirt, and let go. Her sobs grew in intensity, and she babbled on insensibly.
"I ruined them."
"It's all my fault."
"What have I done?"
All the while, he held her tightly to him, running his fingers through her hair and mumbling comfortingly against her temple, peppering his remarks with tiny kisses.
"You did no such thing."
"Darling, it's nobody's fault."
"You saved their lives. There's no way you could have known."
On and on it went, her pouring out her grief and him offering the simple comfort of human warmth and touch. Eventually she ran out of steam and fell into an exhausted slumber, fists still tightly clenching to his shirt.
Concentrating fully, he levitated them a few inches and forced the covers back before allowing them to fall gently back to rest on top of the sheet, reaching to pull the retracted covers over them. Doing non-verbal magic at that level wandlessly drained him considerably, and he followed her into sleep only a moment later.
Hours later, he was roused from sleep by tentatively exploring fingers tracing along his hairline, moving up his jaw, then tickling their way over his lips. He forced himself not to move or respond, not wanting to interrupt her quest, but when her fingers were replaced by soft lips, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, he couldn't help himself.
He gently moved with her, deepening the kiss after a minute, and when their tongues met for the first time, he couldn't hold back a moan at how sweet she tasted. The kiss went on, his hand reaching up to cradle her jaw, thumb tracing rhythmically over her prominent cheekbone.
When her fingers started working the buttons of his shirt open, he pulled back, eyes opening to search hers. "Hermione?"
"Please, Lucius…"
"Are you sure?"
Her gaze left his eyes and moved down to his slightly swollen lips. "I have never been more certain of anything in my life."
With that, their lips crashed back together, and both sets of hands picked up a frenzied pace undoing the fasteners on his clothes, his fingers moving quickly through the buttons on his shirt while hers lowered to open the buttons holding his trousers closed. She reached through the open fly to grasp at his velvety length, and he hissed against her mouth at the sensation. "Bugger this," he growled, and with a burst of wandless, non-verbal magic, his power flexed and his clothes were banished across the room along with her robe, leaving nothing between them but skin and a tiny sliver of air.
Turning them deftly, he settled himself between her thighs, reaching down to make sure she was ready. "Merlin but you're wet." He spread some of the natural lubricant around, jaw working itself together as her lips attached to a tender part of his neck.
"Are you ready, my sweet? Because I don't think I can hold back any longer." His eyes were tightly closed from the strain of waiting.
Leaving his reddened neck behind with a pop, she moved up to lick the shell of his ear before whispering into it, "Fuck me, Lucius. Fuck me now."
He needed no further encouragement.
A/N: Reviews are always appreciated.