Summary: Lucius and Hermione were once an item. Now they're not. Now they're friends. Can you ever truly be friends with your ex?

Let Me Go

Hermione watched Lucius pick up a book from the crime section. She snatched it off him and put it back on the table. "Before you start getting any ideas," she said, already shoving him along into the romance section. "Here" –she put a Jilly Cooper book in his hand– "you'll love it."

He peered at the cover, the male model dressed in white jodhpurs, black boots with red tops and holding a whip. "Does he think he's going to ride a horse with that outfit?"

"Something like that," Hermione said, holding back a snigger.

He turned it over, raised an eyebrow as he read the blurb, and gave Hermione a smirk. "Okay," he said with a wink, tucking the book into the crook of his arm.

She rolled her eyes. Of course he thought it was a challenge. That was their entire friendship since they'd split up.

"Why exactly are we shopping in a Muggle bookshop?" he asked as they moved along to another genre.

"Can you think of anything you'd rather be doing?" she asked, searching the shop for Harry, Draco and Scorpius.

"Many things."

"Then why are you here?" She rounded back on him.

Lucius tilted his head, like he was tolerating an indulgent child, then reached over and stroked her cheek. "Who else is going to keep you in all these books?"

Hermione tutted, slapped his hand away and said, "Fuck off."

"Aunty Hermione!"

"Dammit, Lucius! You knew he was coming, didn't you?" Hermione hissed at him.

He shrugged. "That's another Galleon for swearing in front of my grandson," he said smugly as he walked away.

Hermione turned to face Scorpius, Harry trailed behind him. He laughed when he saw Hermione's face. "You swore, didn't you?"

"Of course I did!" She knelt down to Scorpius. "What's the matter?"

He held his finger out. "I cut it on it on a book! A book!" he declared indignantly, in the way a seven year old is still trying to work out the conundrum that is a paper cut.

"I said we'd see if you had some Dittany in that bag of yours," Harry explained, whispering the word Dittany.

"Probably." She stood up to open the small clutch with a surreptitious look around. She was safe enough to dig around. "Hands, Harry."

He assumed the position of cupped hands as she went elbow deep into a bag that shouldn't have allowed for it. She gave him a candle, a pot of metallic gold ink, four quills, a roll of parchment, a box of tissues, a cardigan and a tub of Sleekeazy's hair potion before she found the Dittany.

"Sleekazy's?" Harry asked.

She placed a quick drop of the Dittany on Scorpius' cut. "Stop looking at my hair, Harry," she snapped without looking at him, "it was Lucius'." She held her bag open from him to dump the items back in, Scorpius already racing off to his father.

"Why've you still got it?" Harry asked, amusement in his voice.

She shot him a furtive look as she hooked the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "In case he needs it when we're out together."

"I see. Which is how often now that you've been split up for a year?"

"Every now and then," she answered through tight lips.

"Hermione, why are you lying to your best friend. It's at least once a week, Harry. We go for a glass of wine every week," Lucius said from behind Hermione.

"Christ! I'm shoving bells on all the Malfoys." Hermione started to walk away. "This is such an invasion of my privacy!"

"Where are you going? You haven't helped Scorpius pick his books yet," Harry called.

"For a drink."

"It's a bit early, do you not think, Hermione?" Lucius asked.

She scowled over her shoulder, he was already a step behind her. "It's five o'clock somewhere, right?"

Hermione didn't have to stalk the streets of London for long when she found a wine bar already open for the afternoon trade. The momentary joy she felt at finding it didn't tamp down her sudden bad mood at Harry's unexpected questioning, her unexpected defensiveness or Lucius' unexpected need to follow her. She would glance back every three to five steps and catch the black of his coat at the corner of her eye and pick up her pace. By the time she was sat on a tall stool, facing Lucius across a small table, her face was probably bright red with heat, she could feel sweat on her back and she had to peel her coat off her; how lovely.

The wine arrived swiftly – a nice, cold glass of white. She drank it in three gulps.

"What's the matter?" All sarcasm, humour and teasing was gone. Hermione drank to enjoy the drink, not to get drunk, which she needed right now, and Lucius knew this. He reached over, she pulled her hand under the table. "Hermione?" he asked, a hint of pain at her rejection of his contact.

Hermione refused to meet his eyes. She raised her hand with a tight smile to the bar tender with a point to her glass. Within minutes, a waiter brought another glass for her, the empty glass was whisked away. She took a little longer to drink it this time – five gulps. In another few minutes, there was a nice fuzzy feeling around her edges and a different kind of warmth to her cheeks.

Lucius had watched her the entire time.

"I need you to let me go, Lucius. This isn't good for me – us still being friends," she said, a hint of a slur on her s's.

"What exactly did Harry say to you?" he asked, genuine confusion in his eyes… his lovely grey eyes that she had hoped their children would have, like Draco. This was a nightmare.

"It's not what he said…" She looked at her empty wineglass. She wanted another. She ordered another.

When the waiter brought it over, he placed a bowl of nuts by it too. "We also do some light snacks too," he said gently; pointedly.

She nodded, understanding the waiter's meaning. This time she sipped, finally tasting the wine, just. Then she took a breath and looked at Lucius' eyes again. "I loved… I love you, I can't seem to stop – no, wait. Let me finish." He'd opened his mouth, she'd seen the hope in his eyes. "But I still want children, Lucius. I want to be a mother.

"So I need to stop being friends with you. Otherwise I can't stop loving you and if I don't stop loving you, I won't find someone who wants the same things in life."

There was a silence at their table as Hermione's words lingered between them. Lucius looked at his untouched glass of red wine for a moment, a million thoughts clear on his face. "I wish it hadn't taken you this long to talk to me, for you to have had some form of liquid courage," he said, speaking to the table.

Hermione frowned. She thought back to the night they'd broke up, remembering a distinct, but calm, conversation about their age gap and wanting different things going forward.

He lifted his head. He pulled the glass away from her loose grip. "Are you able to concentrate? Are you sober enough for that?"

She was tipsy and had an edge of courage… She nodded.

"You never said you left because of children. You ended it because – and I'm using your words – we couldn't fit together much longer due to wanting different things out of the relationship, which I didn't understand at the time."

"Why did you let me go then?" she asked.

"As you said, you're younger. I wasn't going to force you to stay in something you weren't happy in when you still have so much of your life to live." He sighed wearily, like the last year had weighed heavily on him. He held his hand out over the table, she tentatively took it. It felt right again, like what she'd been missing inside was disappearing. "The moment I told you I loved you, I saw a future with you – all of it," he added it pointedly. "Age be damned."

"Oh," she said quietly. "It just felt like you were happy with what you had. The quiet life, enjoying Scorpius and handing him back at the end of a day of babysitting, and good things that would never be ruined by a baby."

Lucius shrugged. "I thought I did. And then an irritating witch who is always right waltzed into my life and I wanted a bit more."

"I told you we'd find them in the closest wine bar," Draco's voice travelled to them.

Hermione leaned to see Draco and Harry, with Scorpius in his arms, coming to their table, two large bags of books in Draco's hands.

"We're going to get lunch," Harry said with a knowing look at their hands on the table. "Coming?"

"Hermione's a lush. She's already had three glasses of wine," Lucius declared. "She needs sustenance immediately." Hermione dug her nails into Lucius' hand with a smug grin. "How do you manage to switch from cute to sexy in under a second?"

Draco groaned. "Not that I'm not happy you two are back together, but can we not in front of the child, please and thank you!"

Word Count: 1,564

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