A/N: This is not HB/DH compliant. All rights belong to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I only own the plot. It has been simmering in my desolate mind for a while now…

Chapter 1: Dazed

Hermione staggered down the hallway, her robes shredded and her face was dirty. Her hair was wild and one could probably find leaves and twigs in it. She wore no shoes and her feet were caked in mud. Staring straight in front of her, she kept walking. She hadn't stopped walking in quite some time now.

"Miss Granger?" came the incredulous call just down the hall. She did not stop or falter in her gate. She continued forward, staring blankly ahead.

"Miss Granger!" the figure tried to get her attention once more, but seeing as if it was having no effect, he moved forward and grasped her shoulder.

"No!" she cried and started to claw and scratch at the air just about as much as she was scratching the figure in front of her. The shadowed man grasped at her wrists and held her tight to himself to avoid getting hurt and stopping her from hurting herself.

"Lucius!" he called out, hoping the other man was close.

"Severus?"

"Please, help me. It's Miss Granger, she just wandered in here," Severus was holding a limp Hermione up as she had, finally, passed out.

"Let's take her up to the infirmary quickly. No need to start a riot now that we have found her," Lucius decided, helping Severus move the girl to carry her. Normally they would have used a spell, but they had no clue where she had been or if there was magic already upon her, it was safer just to move her by hand.

"Go ahead, Lucius, warn Poppy, please," Severus instructed. Lucius nodded and hastened his pace, making it to the infirmary far ahead of his friend.

"Poppy! We need your help!" Lucius all but shouted into the empty ward. The matron bustled out of her office and looked around.

"Lucius? Who needs help?" Lucius never answered her question because Severus had walked into the ward.

"Is that...?" she asked, trailing off, hoping that it was who she believed it to be.

"Yes, it seems that Miss Granger has finally returned," Severus said, gently placing his burden down on the hospital bed closest to Madame Pomfrey, who quickly got to work.

"Severus, I'll need a nutritive potion regiment started, if you could brew it to these specifications?" the Medi-Witch asked, holding out a list of the specifics for her patient.

"Of course, I'll get started on it right away, if there is nothing else you require of me?"

"No, no, I can do the rest myself, no worries. You both can go back to your quarters, I'll floo I need any more help," Madame Pomfrey dismissed the two wizards without a pause in her wand waving or even lifting her gaze from her patient.

"I'll go and inform Dumbledore," Lucius stated, but Poppy made no sign that she heard him and Severus was already on his way to the dungeons to prepare the potion for Miss Granger. Sighing, he headed up to the Headmaster's office, hoping that Albus was awake, for one, and that he was still decently dressed.

After arriving at the Headmaster's office, Lucius was relieved to find that the Headmaster was indeed appropriately clothed, unlike their last encounter when Lucius had apparently surprised the aging wizard, for once.

"Lucius, what do I owe this occasion to? As I recall, the last time you swore never to come back to this office without alerting me by owl, a day in advance?" Albus's eyes twinkled despite the fact that it was he who should have been embarrassed in the situation, but age seems to mellow a person out and quell their ability to be embarrassed.

"Headmaster, it appears that we have found Miss Granger at last," Lucius waited for the Headmaster to get over his slight shock.

"After all this time? She was alive? Where did you find her?" Dumbledore could barely keep his questions in, for once, he was not all-knowing, which disconcerted Lucius a great deal.

"Severus found her walking the halls. She looks like a right mess as if she's been living in the wild all this time. And two years is a long time to be all alone and away from civilization. Madame Pomfrey is attending to her at present, and Severus is in his lab brewing a nutrient potion regiment for her as well" Lucius elaborated.

"Is there anything more to be done?" Dumbledore inquired.

"At the current moment, I do not believe so. I think we shall know more in the morning. Poppy promised to keep us appraised of her situation and call if necessary," he asserted, trying to ease the aging headmaster. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Lucius had an odd urge to offer the man a lemon drop, due to the sudden role reversal.

"Then, we must make sure that we are prepared, I feel, for when Miss Granger has fully come to her senses, we will have our hands full," Dumbledore mused, his mind thinking of all the events that one Hermione Granger had missed in her absence.

"Well, Severus and I offer our services if need be, although, I don't think we would be much help. She is most likely still under the impression that I am a Death Eater and that the war is still active," Lucius cringed thinking of the past. No one had believed his loyalties and he had worked very hard to show nearly the entire world where his allegiances truly lied.

"Excellent. Now, why don't you try and get some sleep and try to persuade Severus to get some too. Merlin knows, you are probably the only one who is able to make him adhere to the basic necessities of life."

"I gather, Headmaster, that comes with the territory of being in a relationship with the bugger," Lucius smirked. It was not a secret that he and Severus were together. Many of their schoolmates were aware of their relationship during their tenure at Hogwarts until, of course, his dear Father and loving betrothed decided to stop that little bit of freedom.

Near the end of the war, just after Miss Granger's disappearance, Narcissa was killed, thus releasing Lucius Malfoy from the marriage contract between them. This also lifted the many compulsion charms and loyalty hexes embedded into the very contract to keep Lucius under Narcissa's thumb and away from Severus and his "filthy tendencies" as his father called it. He was backed by the contract itself, which was now open for public viewing now that Lucius gained control of his senses and opened it after Narcissa and his father had sealed the document many years ago. This did not, however, immediately change the public opinon. No, Lucius thought, that took a lot of information from being a Death Eater and near death in the final battle for that to begin.

Now, however, Lucius was going to have to start from scratch with a girl he barely remembered but was very important to the world in which he lived in. He needed to show her that he wasn't evil, as she would be residing at the castle for the unforeseeable future. Lucius only hoped that it would be easier than it was to open the minds of the rest of the Wizarding Public. He had heard that she had an open mind, not to mention a smart one. Hopefully, the two years that she was away did not damage her intellect. That would be intolerable, Voldemort already had killed off many intelligent people, they didn't need to lose one of the brightest now that they had just found her.

With these thoughts, Lucius descended to the dungeons and into the quarters he shared with the Potions Master. After a night's rest, he would come up with a solution. Yet, all of his plans depended on the status of one Hermione Granger. The child that had come from, apparently, the wild.

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