A/N: Hi, everyone! I recommend Ao3 for following this story for timely updates, as I forget to update here. It's currently a chapter ahead there. 😅 You're also missing out on the associated art.
This will also be the last story I post here. All of my other current works are on, and will continue to be posted to, AO3.
"Who is dead?" Lucius asked carefully.
Her face crumpled again without her permission, as Hermione tried in vain to keep her composure. She despised not being able to control her emotions at work, and crying in front of him was the ultimate compounding embarrassment.
She swallowed thickly, looking away from the perplexed—and blessedly silent for once in his life—Lucius, trying to regulate her breathing and get things back under control.
"I'm… it's silly. Never mind I said anything," Hermione said, pleased to note it was in a completely normal tone of voice.
"Hermione—"
His tone was sceptical, and, she thought, somewhat chiding. Prat. She shot him a glare, and Lucius seemed to apprehend his folly.
"Hermione," he tried again, "I know good and well you are not crying over nothing."
Hermione huffed, refusing to look him in the eyes so that she didn't have to see the judgement in them when he realized that she was so worked up over the death of her cat.
Might as well get on with it. They had other things to attend to today. The bloody gala, for one. She just needed to calm down and get through her tasks and focus on work.
"Crookshanks. My cat," she said in a rush, "He was old, and he'd been slowing down a bit recently. But he hadn't had any real issues for ages. So. I thought that maybe he had a few more years left. But this morning, I f-found him—"
Hermione choked on her words, her voice twisting off into a strangled sob, the pressure behind her eyes becoming overwhelming as a new round of fresh, aggravating tears fell. She swiped furiously at them. So much for holding it together.
From one second to the next, Lucius was right there, gathering her into his arms without a word. There was only a moment of awkwardness as he flipped their positions so that he sat in her chair and Hermione found herself tucked into his lap. His chin resting atop her head, and her own face nestled against the warm, sturdy plane of his chest.
He smells nice, she thought, somewhat inanely, willing her tears to stop. The last thing she wanted was to leave him both sodden and snotty. They sat there for several moments, and she relished the contact as well as the soothing nonsense he muttered into her hair.
She gave and received hugs from her friends all the time, but this felt markedly different. Comforting in a different sort of way.
Once she thought she had better control of her faculties, Hermione spoke up, her voice rusty in the otherwise quiet office.
"I know he's just a cat, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon, beyond the vague notion he was getting old."
Lucius made some non-committal noise of agreement, for once, not taking an opposing stance or making some derisive comment.
The idea that he could be decent when he wanted to be was something of a shocking, strange revelation. And she realized, to her vague horror, she felt genuine affection for the man in this moment.
She really had gone barmy.
Which was probably why she admitted the next bit out loud.
"He was the last link I had to my parents. They got him for me in m-my third year. Now that he's just gone, it's like I've lost them a—it's stupid. Never mind," Hermione cut herself off, feeling too exposed by her own unsolicited admission.
She was breaking down over her dead cat and lost parents in front of Lucius Malfoy, of all people. Even if he did want to court her, this was too raw, too much, and far too personal for such a newly minted… relationship, such as it was.
She wanted to bolt.
Lucius hugged her tighter, pressing a kiss to her crown. A fresh wave of damnable tears spilled over her eyelids. What she wouldn't give to just stop leaking, for Merlin's sake.
"It's not stupid," he said sharply, "I…"
Lucius hesitated for a moment before haltingly deciding to forge on.
"I lost my own mother before her time. My father removed every trace of her from the Manor, even her formal portrait. I scavenged back anything of hers I could find. He was less than sympathetic when he found what I had done and burned the lot of it in front of me."
Hermione pulled back and gasped, looking up at him, "That's horrible!"
Lucius smiled ruefully—a fleeting expression that fell away as quickly as it formed.
"I'm not telling you this to garner your righteous anger on my behalf, nor your pity. I simply want you to know that I understand," he said, wiping away the tracks of her most recent bout of tears, "It is not foolishness to mourn that which we have loved and lost. Nor is it foolish to hold on to what we love as tightly as we are able."
Hermione kissed him then—the first tentative brush of their lips almost immediately gave way to more, not unlike a dam bursting. She clutched at his shoulders, pressing herself against him with an intensity and need that surprised even herself.
Lucius wasn't idle; his fingers threaded into her hair as the kiss deepened, the initial urgency of connection transforming into something languid and full of tantalizing possibility as he teased his tongue alongside her own.
They were both so lost in the moment that neither of them heard the telltale footsteps heralding Sebatian's approach.
"Miss Granger?" The unsure voice of her PA called from just beyond the door. He couldn't see anything yet, but Hermione jerked away as if zapped by a stinging hex, stumbling to stand.
A glance at the clock told her the morning was far more advanced than she had anticipated.
"Shit! The reports," Hermione panicked, scouring her desk for the pages that still needed finalized. She should have done this hours ago and—
With a flick of Lucius's hand, Hermione's office door slammed shut before Sebastian could turn that final corner.
She rounded on him, half-frenzied, half wanting to return to their previous activities, and half wanting to not think about their previous activities for the moment, still utterly reportless.
"What are you doing? I need to get him the—"
"It wouldn't do for your underlings to find you in a state of disarray," Lucius interjected with an air of finality.
Hermione goggled at him, her emotions all over the place, but her responsibilities pressing and the room beginning to spin wildly out of control. Was she hyperventilating?
"But the reports, and the meeting with Games, and—"
Lucius tugged at her elbow, guiding her again to sit across his lap. It wasn't an optimal position to initiate kissing again, which was something of a relief—and a mild disappointment.
"It can wait."
Hermione settled back into the surprising comfort of his arms and focused on her breathing.
It could wait.
"Right now?" Lucius asked the witch as she squirmed off his lap with a newfound sense of determination some minutes later. He should have known she wouldn't remain at ease for long; it seemed she was terminally incapable of not overextending herself.
Though, given the subject at hand, showing her the many benefits of not constantly working oneself ragged would need to be an endeavor for a later date.
"Yes," Hermione replied, flipping through the papers on her desk and quickly scribbling over them, "It can't wait. I didn't even think to cast a stasis charm on him because I was going to be late for work, and—"
Lucius held up a hand to forestall the litany of reasons the animal's remains needed to be dealt with forthwith.
Avoidance at dealing with the emotional toll was undoubtedly the unlisted forefront reason amongst them.
He wisely chose not to point this out. Glass houses, casting stones, and all that.
"I'll take that," Hermione said, reaching for the still wrapped dress robes, "I'll drop the reports off, floo to my flat, and… take care of things. And then I'll meet you back here this evening as planned."
Lucius quirked a dubious brow. She possessed a second-floor flat without the even the slightest hint of access to a garden. Given such, he imagined she might make some attempt at cremation, as it was exceedingly unlikely that she would be willing to simply vanish the remains.
Regardless, this would not end well.
They would cross the bridge of her attending the gala when they came to it—as he did find the notion of her attending given the circumstances preposterous.
"I'm coming along," Lucius said in a tone that indicated Hermione should lead the way.
"No, I can't ask you to do that. I've already wasted half your morning."
She was no longer on the verge of tears, given her sense of purpose, but there was something fragile about her that roused something within himself that made him want to protect her.
It was a feeling best acted upon and left unexamined, Lucius thought.
"Hermione, I'm coming along," He repeated.
Her jaw flexed, and her fists clenched, as she drew herself up to argue with him.
"Fine," she huffed instead.
Lucius blinked at the rapid capitulation, but recovered himself quickly. Under any other circumstance, that would have been suspiciously easy.
They breezed through the corridors to the lift and the atrium, their passing a common enough sight these days to garner no interest or whispers.
Glancing at the areas that had already been cordoned off in preparation for the night's activities, he thought it almost a shame they wouldn't have the opportunity to turn heads that evening.
Publicly staking his claim was a puerile impulse. Nevertheless, he thought it would be beneficial to get the public's gawping and gossiping out of the way early, given their individual levels of notoriety in the public sphere. Trying to keep their affairs private would be a recipe for disaster.
The Samhain ball was a mere two months away, but there would, perhaps, be other opportunities in the interim.
Hermione's conviction held until they flooed into her tiny flat and were confronted by the deceptively peaceful sight residing in the cat bed.
"He's—I can't. I can't burn him."
Hermione wouldn't, perhaps couldn't, burn the creature's remains herself; Lucius had realized that before they'd even left her office. He would do so if necessary, perhaps somewhere in the open air so that her wretched little flat did not reek for all eternity. Freshening charms could only do so much.
Although… her wretched little flat reeking for all eternity might have certain material advantages for him. She would naturally need a place to stay.
"Shall I get on with it, then?" Lucius asked.
"No!" she said immediately.
Ah, he hadn't thought so. Pity.
"We'll bury him."
"I don't have anywhere I can…" she trailed off.
"Hermione, the Manor's grounds likely encompass a third of Wiltshire, were anyone intrepid enough to follow through with the accounting," Lucius offered.
Her brows furrowed.
"You would let me bury my cat at the Manor?"
Lucius nodded once.
"There are memorial gardens dating back to the Norman conquest. He wouldn't be the first creature to grace them. Unless you can conceive an alternative location?"
She bit her lip in indecision. He could not precisely fault her reluctance; it was, admittedly, not an ideal solution. A piece of her would be bound to his estate, a place with which she already had a fraught history. Furthermore, it indicated a permanence to their burgeoning relationship that was admittedly a touch too soon for comfort.
Regardless, Lucius felt compelled to offer what aid he could, appropriateness be damned. It was a curious affliction of conscience that he did not care to examine too closely.
"Cremating him and spreading his ashes would be more environmentally friendly," Hermione suggested pragmatically.
"Is that your decision, then?"
If she was unwilling for either of them to do the deed magically, he supposed he would need to discover whatever detestable means the muggles used to achieve the same result.
"N-no. I—I think," she swallowed, her glistening eyes playing uncomfortably on his withered heartstrings, "I'd like to bury him. Please."
"Are you certain this is wise?" Lucius asked for likely the umpteenth time. "You do not need to attend with me tonight, especially in light of your loss."
The burial had been perfunctory. He'd taken care of selecting the location and shifting of earth while Hermione had transfigured the bedding into a more permanent configuration to house the remains. Lucius had left her to her own devices to complete her task, while he wandered some distance away to stare sightlessly at his late wife's grave.
Hermione joined him some time later, silence doing well to convey what words could not. Eventually, he had apparated them to the manor proper for a respite. She had insisted upon taking half a calming draught with tea.
It had been an altogether strange afternoon.
"I want to come to the gala," Hermione returned with a stubborn jut to her chin that Lucius was learning meant she would be intractable to outside suggestion.
"Want?" He asked doubtfully, "Wasn't it only yesterday that you were once again complaining about the frivolity and unnecessary expense of it all?"
Hermione huffed, blowing her hair out of her eyes.
"I don't want to go home quite yet, and I'm definitely not staying here alone," she said with an affected shudder he would have found offensive at an earlier date, "And if I'm not going home yet, I might as well make good use of my time instead of staying up ruminating to some unwitchly hour. And you're supposed to give me a practical demonstration of your clearly superior networking skills. Now, are you going to help me style my hair for this rubbish event or not?"
Allowing her to chase a calming draught with an invigoration draught had definitely been a mistake.
"I rather like it like this," Lucius said slyly, carding his fingers through her presently frizzy, wild mane. Apart from her, he had never encountered hair so compelled by its owner's emotional state, though the afternoon drizzle had done little to help matters. Regardless, he found it quite fascinating, were he one to admit such, "It's fetching, and precisely how I imagine it will look after I finally—"
"Finish that sentence, and you'll be sorry," Hermione growled, shoving a wide-toothed comb into his hands.
"Very well," Lucius's lips quirked as he accepted it and gathered the other accoutrements for his task.
Preparing for a function with someone else was something of a novelty. Of course, he and Narcissa had both attended and hosted many such events in their time, but the preparation had been streamlined, strictly divided, and timed precisely to the minute.
He had certainly never spent leisurely moments endeavoring to tame his late wife's hair. There were many such missed moments between them, which he thought made it all the more important that he be present and attentive to his chosen companion this time around.
Perhaps he ought to imbibe an invigoration draught as well.
His thoughts had taken a general turn toward maudlin, and due to Hermione's determination to continue on as though everything was fine, they had quite a long evening ahead of them. Though his ultimate plans for the event had changed course from seduction to support, Lucius was determined to use the gala to further nestle himself into Hermione's good graces.
All too soon, he found his task was complete.
He met her eyes in the mirror, making no effort to mask the heat in them. He adored the wildness of Hermione's curls in their natural state; it simply suited her. But there was something to be said for the rarity of seeing them beautifully constrained to normal human bounds.
"Is this what that tonic does?" She asked incredulously.
"Yes, and you could have achieved these results ages ago, had you merely used it."
"I, er, seem to have lost it."
"Really," Lucius said drily.
"No, honestly," Hermione grimaced, "I think one of my friends might have nicked it. Well, she's not really a friend, exactly."
That was a faintly alarming statement, given the ease with which he himself had broken past her meager defences. If she was inviting miscreants into her home, his present warding would be useless.
"Do you regularly open your flat to your enemies?"
The witch simply huffed and looked away, her cheeks coloring with her mild pique. He made a mental note to add a little something extra to her wards.
"Shall I help you with your dress robes as well?"
She was presently making good use of one of his dressing gowns, having shucked her mucky robes and commandeered his bath alone some hours earlier. It made for an alluring sight that tested his self-made vow to behave for the time being. Still, Lucius didn't see the harm in taking a little peek, if she allowed it.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"No. I need to touch up my makeup first. Shouldn't you be getting dressed yourself? Shoo."
She made a dismissive gesture toward his mirror image.
"Need I remind you that these are my chambers?"
"And you have a whole other bedroom, a closet the size of my flat, and a ridiculously large sitting room to occupy instead of pestering me here in the bathroom."
"Perhaps this is merely my favorite room of those on offer."
"Go," she said flatly.
Lucius sighed dramatically, "Again banished from my own sanctuary. The indignity."
He retreated to his bedchamber to prepare, pulling on his dress robes with practiced ease. He was in the midst of tying his cravat when Hermione stepped into the room.
"I think I'm ready," she said tentatively, poised on the threshold.
It would be cliche to say his breath caught in his chest at the vision she presented, but it was a matter of fact. The deep blue-green of her dress robes complimented her complexion splendidly. His efforts with her hair proved stunning, cascading into elegant waves down her back. Even her muggle makeup accentuated her features flawlessly.
Lucius realized he had been silent a beat too long. "You look stunning," he remarked sincerely.
Hermione's lips twitched into a smile, a blush coloring her cheeks. "Thank you," she murmured. "You're not so bad yourself."
He offered his arm, which she took with a nod, and together they left for the lion's den. Perhaps he would publicly stake his claim after all.
The Atrium on floor eight of the Ministry of Magic had been transformed in the scant hours since Hermione had last seen it.
The cavernous space had been sectioned into distinct areas to form a formal dining area along with a vast, open floor for dancing. Autumnal foliage wound around the columns and artfully filled the arches in between. Small balconies with more of the same offered a facsimile of seclusion, and Hermione wondered at what possible purpose they could serve beyond aesthetic. Surely there was no practical way to reach them.
Then again, form over function was practically a ministry prerequisite.
Her eyes were drawn to the gentle, halo-like lighting fading in and out of view in such a way that it made the space feel queerly, needlessly, intimate.
Privately, she could acknowledge that the robes Lucius selected for them contrasted beautifully with the setting; the dark turquoise set off against the oranges, reds, and golds that had filled the normally drab, grey space.
She had expected some sort of reaction upon their arrival, but to her simultaneous relief and consternation, she and Lucius, in their matching robes and simultaneous appearance, were hardly spared a glance as they joined the fray.
"Would you care to dance?" Lucius asked, holding out a hand and disappearing his cane into some portion of his robes.
"Isn't the dancing supposed to come later?" Hermione asked, even though there were a number of couples already spread throughout the space doing just that.
"This is the first gala of the session. It's tradition to present some photo ops for the press as well as give brief interviews on anticipated legislation. This is our chance to impress the importance of our bill into the public's consciousness."
"You just want to show off," she groused, eyeing the gathering of photographers and journalists off to the side. Thankfully, it seemed Rita Skeeter was not amongst their number.
"Can you blame me? Now," Lucius wriggled his fingers and canted his head toward the dance floor.
"I, oh, er, fine," Hermione grumbled, allowing him to lead her onto the floor and into a waltz. She refused to blush. That was barely even a compliment. He might have even been speaking of his peacocky-preening self instead of her.
They passed some barrier, and formal music swelled from nowhere in a neat display of magic. They were swept into the small crowd of other couples. Hermione was unsurprised to find dancing an area in which Lucius excelled.
"Must you be annoyingly good at everything?" She complained. In the past week alone, he had taken aim at systematically beating down her every reservation by sheer competence alone. It was almost maddening.
"I've no idea what you mean," Lucius sniffed airily, "Now, let's plan our attack."
"Attack? Lucius, these are our coworkers. More or less. We want to sway them to our cause, not defeat them."
"Every other individual in this room is an adversary to be brought to heel," he contradicted, "Or, if you do not like that analogy, a competitor in a game you seek to win. Now, how would you proceed were you alone?"
Hermione worried her bottom lip, letting it go when she noticed his attention had zeroed in on the motion. An answering heat settled low in her belly. Kissing him earlier in the day had been an ill-timed impulse of comfort seeking behaviour, which could have—likely would have—rapidly spiraled into something else, if not for Sebastian's timely interruption. Regardless, she had kissed Lucius and was now burdened with the knowledge of what it was like and the desire to do so again. But right now was so not the time to get off task and much less even think about exploring those sorts of possibilities.
"I'd get the press out of the way first, and then break off and try to mingle," she said, following his lead into a dip.
His mouth twisted into a wry smile on her way back up.
"What?"
"Nothing. You'd simply be going about it completely backward."
"Oh?" she said, slightly miffed at being told her answer was wrong. Clearly, that method had not worked the best for her in the few ministry galas she had been forced to attend in the past, but she had thought that it had more to do with her inexperience rather than it being the wrong way to go about promoting her ideas.
"Yes," Lucius replied, elucidating no further.
The snake was actually going to make her ask him, wasn't he? Sod that.
"Well, then, please enlighten me, Professor Malfoy."
She'd known exactly what she was doing, not quite simpering at him. Given his predilections she had discovered thus far, it wasn't too far a stretch that role play might be something he was interested in. It was, perhaps, playing with fire to tease him so in public, but the way his face went gratifyingly blank for a moment was worth it.
Lucius cleared his throat, all business.
"We will pay the press no mind. The key will be to work our way through the crowd, starting on our most difficult to sway targets first, laying the groundwork in discovering what it will take to secure their votes, but not pressing too hard before moving on to the next. If need be, we can pursue matters with them privately at a later date. We'll then make our statement to the Prophet when the time comes, but we'll make them work for it. "
Hermione laughed. "You want to play hard to get?"
"I think you will find I'm quite capable of doing so when the fancy strikes. Overeager earnestness and flatly laying out your bill will neither garner interest nor sell papers. A smattering of intrigue on what we're doing here together, coupled with our initial snubbing of the press, will ultimately accomplish both," he said shrewdly. And then, after a moment's reflection, he continued, "You should be well aware of the advantages of making yourself infuriatingly unavailable. You've been doing so to me for ages."
"What? I don't even—No," Hermione sputtered, her face suffusing with annoying heat. It was times like these that she wished she had learned occlumency so that her damnable face didn't reveal her every single thought. "I'm not and haven't been playing hard to get. You just enjoy annoying me to get a reaction."
His brow lifted challengingly.
"And you don't enjoy the same?"
She scoffed, but the song ended before Hermione could argue the point with him, and Lucius began leading her off the dance floor. He paused right at the edge, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
"Follow my lead," he directed, as they flowed into the rest of the mingling crowd, walking steadfastly away from the reporter trying to hail them down.
Letting Lucius take the reins of their evening and do the legwork was fascinating. And thus far, he had done precisely as promised. He schmoozed. He ingratiated. He talked up her—well, their, when accounting for all the revisions—werewolf legislation as though it was the single most important bill of the age. He even masterfully handled the press.
Though, perhaps, the most curious aspect of the evening was that she didn't feel insipid, as she usually did at these events. Hermione allowed herself to be drawn into conversation when appropriate; he somehow managed to include her naturally in every conversation with an ease and lack of pressure that made the witch think she really ought to be taking notes on his technique after all. It was strange to think that Lucius might actually have something worth teaching her for all she had struggled and railed against him since their first meeting. He really was in his element, and somewhat, perhaps embarrassingly for her, mesmerising in his charm.
Hermione looked away for a single moment, noting the tables were being magically set for the oft-dreaded-but-perhaps-not-tonight dinner portion of the evening when catastrophe struck.
"Congratulations on your new addition, Mr. Potter."
"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy."
Hermione actually heard herself emit a small eep as she snapped her head back to find her oldest friend civilly addressing Lucius Malfoy.
Bugger.
"Harry?!" Hermione said, her voice an octave higher than she intended. Well, that just made her sound guilty, and she had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Harry simply wasn't supposed to be here; he was a completely unaccounted for wildcard variable with regard to her evening. Her voice, blessedly, approached normal when she continued, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on leave."
"I wasn't keen on coming, but Robards wanted me to play show granian for some visiting foreign aurors. I'm sneaking out as soon as I can nab some takeaway for Gin and Jamie."
"Ah," Hermione replied blankly. She hadn't yet planned for the eventuality of her friends encountering her… Lucius, and she did not yet have any safe topics of discussion prepared to smooth over the inevitable awkwardness of, well, everything.
Her mind whirred, trying to latch onto anything innocuous when Harry took the conversation stick quite out of her hands.
"Mr. Malfoy, Hermione's told me how much you've been helping her."
Oh, God. What was Harry up to? He refused to acknowledge her increasingly obvious signalling for him to stuff it.
"Yes," Lucius drawled, his eyes flicking briefly to her, "Aiding Hermione in her endeavors has become something of a personal project of mine."
"I see," Harry observed, "So, you're here together, then."
Oh. Oh, she was going to strangle him. The Boy Who Lived Twice was going to become the Man Who Succumbed to Hermione Granger's Wrath.
"Yes, we are," Hermione cut in but didn't expound. Forget topics of conversation, her eyes cast about for an excuse to escape from elaborating further, "Ah, is that the Chief Warlock? We really ought to have a word before dinner and—"
Lucius ignored her attempt at redirection.
"Is there something you'd like to say, Mr. Potter?"
Harry's eyes narrowed as though looking for something in Lucius's expression before glancing at her and back.
"I was actually wondering if you would like to come to dinner with Hermione at mine next week."
"Harry!" Hermione squeaked in outrage.
Harry ignored her as though she had not spoken.
"Say, Thursday, half seven?"
"We'd be delighted," Lucius purred, ignoring her heel attempting to grind into his instep. Damnable dragonhide leather shoes.
"Lucius!" she said through clenched teeth. "I think—"
"Great. I'll let you two get on with it, then. Cheers," Harry grinned, escaping into the crowd before Hermione could inject some sense and rationality into the conversation.
She glared after him, for all the good it would do.
Lucius, however, was a captive audience, and she rounded on him.
"It'll be nothing but an hour of Harry grilling me. You. Us."
"Hermione, I'm certain it will be fine."
"But you didn't have to agree to it!"
"Who am I to decline an opportunity when it falls so neatly in my lap?" Lucius returned airily as they began making their way to the tables.
But Hermione's mind was already spiraling in a thousand different directions.
"And Harry! What an impulsive idiot! We'll be lucky if Ginny doesn't try to poison you. She's not your biggest fan, you know. And those postpartum hormones…"
His role in the ever unacknowledged diary hand off hovered still unspoken in the air between them. Hermione found it was somewhat mad trying to reconcile her Lucius with the villain of her youth.
"Then, perhaps I shall endeavor to make amends before she can manage," Lucius said, pulling out a chair for her before taking his own seat.
Hermione could only picture chaos, and doom and, bat-shaped bogeys the size of her skull.
She was not given time to ruminate further before they were drawn into dinner conversation. It had an oddly calming effect on her temper and her general annoyance at the Dinner of Impending Doom had been necessarily shelved to be dealt with at a later date. She simply couldn't be angry and maintain her presently prescribed role at the same time; she wasn't that good of an actress to even attempt it.
Hermione typically hated being seated with relative strangers, endeavoring to make relevant small talk, but Lucius's general loquaciousness was something of a boon in this instance. She abstractly thought it nice to cede direction of that particular task over to someone else for a change.
At some point, Lucius's fingers began to draw distracting little patterns on her knee as he spoke to the others. It was frustratingly enjoyable, easily intimate and yet somehow chaste—Hermione wasn't certain Lucius even realized he was doing it.
But those little distracting traces against her clothed skin had an unfortunate side effect: the man was rapidly driving her insane.
When she could bear it no more, Hermione placed her hand over his own, grasping his fingers and folding her own around them to hold them in place.
A small smile ticked up the corner of his lips as she held his hand under the table. He did know he had been doing it after all, the arse! Lucius squeezed her hand back, turning his palm to thread his fingers through her own. Hermione allowed the action, her fingertips brushing against one of his rings as they settled into place.
She was mildly annoyed with his cheek, but not really.
Now that she wasn't having to contend with sensations from a lower and less well-intended portion of her anatomy, a warm glow—some unnameable positive emotion—settled somewhere in her chest.
But then her knickers sprang to life.