Chapter Text
She knew there was no point in hoping; the time for hope was gone. She had always had a plan, always had a way out — but right now, for the life of her, Hermione couldn’t think of a single one.
The grey eyes of Draco Malfoy were cold and merciless as he stood over them, his arms crossed.
“How the hell did you set the kitchen on fire?”
“We wanted a tea break, and you need snacks, so we tried to make a tart,” Ginny said, becoming very interested in a Quidditch World Cup ‘02 mug on the Malfoy’s kitchen table. Hermione didn’t much enjoy seeing her ex-something’s scowling face staring back at her; she averted her eyes. “And, instead of the oven, we thought it might be fun to try using incendio —”
“We?” Hermione countered, outraged. “I was not part of this decision, at all!”
“Well, maybe if you had been a little more involved, the kitchen wouldn’t have caught fire,” Ginny said breezily.
“I —”
“Enough,” Draco moaned, covering his face with his hands. “Voldemort’s nose, Dad’s going to curse all of us. Especially me.”
Another reason, Hermione thought, that this had been a stupid idea. She found herself regretting her attendance at Draco’s birthday party two weeks ago; surely that was the only reason any of this had come about.
It had all started with the stupid library. Hermione found that every time she visited Ginny’s boyfriend’s house, the library was where she ended up. It was always so easy to slip away (Ginny and Draco, lovely as they were, usually wound up being very engrossed in each other, and after being friends with Harry and Ron, Hermione was used to being the odd one out), scurry through the Manor and become lost in all the old books. Hermione had found all kinds of treasures in that room and so, naturally, someone had to come along and ruin it.
Maybe not ruin it. Maybe just taint it. Perhaps the best word to surmise the situation was “complicated”.
“So this is where you keep sneaking off too,” drawled Lucius Malfoy, and Hermione glanced up from her book, stricken, to see him leaning in the doorway.
She couldn’t think of a thing to say; in the silence, she heard the hoots and screams from Draco’s party as it raged on in the other side of the house. For a moment, she was terrified that she was wearing a skirt as she sat cross-legged on the surprisingly plush rug, but her fears were quelled as she glanced down to see her jeans.
“I was worried you were attempting to die from alcohol poisoning again,” Lucius continued.
Hermione’s cheeks reddened; he was never going to let her forget the time she had indulged in too much mulled mead at last year’s Christmas party. She could vaguely remember attempting to explain to him just how important it was that spearmint toothpaste existed, because peppermint was clearly subpar.
Say something funny, she thought desperately. Draco’s father seemed to love nothing more than catching her off-guard, the prat. No wonder Narcissa had run off to France years ago.
Well, maybe that was a bit rude.
“Worried? How sweet,” Hermione finally managed, her tone dripping in sarcasm, and Lucius cocked a brow. “Don’t tell me that you’re secretly a kind person, Lucius.”
“Of course not,” Lucius scoffed, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. “Simply concerned about the headlines, Miss Granger.”
“Well, image is everything,” Hermione agreed. She held up the book as he sauntered into the room as though he owned the place. (Fuck, she thought, he did actually own the place —) “Big fan of Ten Thousand Poisonous Plants and Their Aids for Wizardkind? You have all six.”
Lucius cocked his head. “Someone managed to make that into six volumes?”
“No, there were only six copies printed. ”
“Ah,” Lucius said, raising his eyebrows. “Unfortunately, I can’t claim the title of —” He squinted at the book — “Karl Bludheim’s biggest fan, but it does sound like something my father might have been.”
“And what, he couldn’t bear to let the rest of the world enjoy the words of Karl Bludheim?” Hermione said straight-facedly.
“Good, is it?”
“Oh, stellar,” Hermione nodded, eyes narrowed.
Lucius smirked, picking up a different book from one of the many desks and inspecting the fraying around the cover. “By all means, read me some,” he said disinterestedly.
Hermione cleared her throat, her fingers trembling slightly as she opened Ten Thousand Poisonous Plants to a random page. Dobby’s socks, he made her nervous; she was always worried she was going to say something stupid in front of him. “‘The midnight hemlock,’” she read, adopting an eerie tone, “‘named for its hue and fast acting poison, is a most vile and treacherous plant. If one is to ingest the root, petals or dew, dead they will before midn —’ what?” she asked, as Lucius was now struggling not to laugh.
“Is there any reason you’re attempting to sound like Trelawney’s long lost sister?”
Hermione forced herself not to smile, and threw the book at him. He dodged it easily.
“Ah, careful,” he said, his tone mock-serious as his grey eyes gleamed. “There’s only six of those in existence.”
“You’ll just have to be content with having five copies you’ll never read,” Hermione grumbled. Frustrated, and unsure of what to do with her hands, she picked up another book.
“You’re actually quite good at that voice,” Lucius said. “Have you practised? Be honest.”
Hermione held the book up warningly.
“Now, now,” he said, holding up his hands. “Let’s not do anything rash. Who knows how many copies of Hogwarts: A History there are in existence?”
“Oh, cheek,” Hermione muttered, lowering the book but not quite letting go. Hogwarts: A History had always been a source of comfort. “Is there any reason you’re here and not enjoying the party?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
Hermione shrugged. “Someone needs to read these poor books. Most of them are just covered in dust.”
“Hm.” Lucius sat down on the rug across from her, and she was surprised at how nimbly he performed the action. Merlin knew how she, at the age of twenty-five, groaned and cursed like a Beater when it came to something as simple as rolling out of bed. “If only there was a way to remove the dust instantly.” He sighed heavily, eyes shining as they locked on hers. “If only we had magic.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Hermione said snarkily. “I mean, you don’t use them. You should at least sort through them, and then give whatever you don’t want to a charity shop, or something.”
Lucius raised his eyebrows. “But wouldn’t that give the impression that I’m secretly a kind person?”
Hermione, fed up, snapped to her feet (and did her very best to utter no groans or curses). “You know, I think I will go back to the party —”
“Oh, Miss Granger —” she heard him start, but it was too late — she had already stalked out of the room. She was surprised he didn’t follow her, and tell her off more.
A few day later, while she and Ginny had been relaxing in a Muggle café with its own bookshop, Draco had remarked over his cappuccino, “Oh, Hermione, I forgot to tell you — Dad loved your book suggestion thing.”
“My book suggestion?” Hermione had frowned, thinking of Karl Bludheim.
“Yeah, of sorting through them and all that,” Draco said emphatically. Hermione felt an odd swooping in her stomach at the thought of Draco’s prat of a father taking her advice. It swiftly disappeared when Draco added, “I hope you don’t mind, but I offered we all help.”
And that was how Hermione had been spending her Sundays for the last two weeks.
“Maybe if we just all leave the kitchen,” Hermione heard herself say slowly and calmly, “and say we don’t know what happened, it will all be okay.”
Ginny and Draco simply looked at her.
“Oh, well I don’t know!” Hermione spluttered, hands on her hips. She had half a mind to simply leave the room and let Ginny and Draco deal with it — scourgify and tergeo could only get them so far. On top of all this, this was not exactly how she wanted to spend her Sunday afternoon.
She had much bigger things to think about.
Ginny and Draco continued to look at her. They were starting to resemble lost little puppies.
“Oh, fine,” Hermione relented, pulling her wand out of her back pocket. “I do know.” She gave her wand a complicated little wave, and the scorch marks disappeared. The kitchen looked as good as new.
“You’ve been sitting on that for a while, haven’t you?” Draco remarked, outraged.
“‘Thank you, Hermione’,” Hermione countered. “‘I don’t know how I would have dealt with Lucius after he found out I set the kitchen on fire’—”
“You what? ”
The three of them turned to see Lucius Malfoy standing in the doorway. Draco merely pointed at Ginny.
Hermione held up another book. “Staying or going?”
Draco looked unimpressed. “I don’t mean to speak for everyone, but I think we can get rid of Pureblood Wizarding Families of the Eighteenth Century .”
Hermione didn’t wait for Lucius’ response. He was sorting through another pile, and she had the impression that he wanted to ignore the book’s very existence. She nodded, and threw the book into the Going Out pile.
She wished someone would talk, would say anything at all (even Lucius). Then she wouldn’t have to think about Ron and Hannah Abbott.
Ron had gone through more than a few girlfriends since they’d parted ways three years ago, but none of them had stuck. Since Hannah had come along, and been the shiny new girlfriend that the Weasley family could enjoy, Hermione had become increasingly aware of the fact that she hadn’t even attempted to be in a relationship since her break-up with Ron. This continued to plague her mind with horrible questions, such as: what if her relationship with Ron was the only one she was going to have?
Their relationship had been difficult — so much of their friendship was built on bickering, and so it had continued into their dating life. It was hardly romantic when someone bought you flowers that you were allergic to, and then sulked about it when you told them, “I — achoo! — can’t take — achoo! — them but they’re bea — achoo! — oh Merlin, I need an antihistamine!”
“I think Ron’s dad still wishes it was you,” Harry had told her one night, as they had been washing dishes in his apartment after a dinner party. “I think a lot of them still wish it was you.”
“I don’t think Ron wishes it was me,” Hermione had said with a light laugh.
Harry had made a face that she chose not to decipher. Good Grawp, she was not going to open that door again.
Hermione couldn’t help it; she wasn’t jealous, exactly — it was more that she felt hassled. Almost everyone she knew was in a relationship, and now all anyone wanted to ask her was how did she feel about Ron and Hannah? Was she seeing anyone? Don’t worry, someone was out there, waiting for her, and —
“What’s this?” Ginny asked, holding up a book that said Moste Cogent Coalescents.
“No,” Lucius said, his tone sharp enough to cut dragonhide. “Put that back.”
“Is it dangerous?” Ginny queried, raising an eyebrow.
“Positively lethal,” Lucius replied.
Fool , Hermione thought. Now Ginny wouldn’t be able to leave it. “Put it —”
Ginny opened it, gasped loudly, and slammed it shut. Her brown eyes, full of excitement, met Hermione’s. “It’s cocktails.”
“A cocktail book?” Hermione said, frowning. “What’s so lethal about —?”
“You’ve never had one,” Draco said, looking pained. “That champagne one is deadly. Not that I would know,” he added hastily as his father’s grey eyes fixed on him.
“Never say never,” Ginny said lightly, thumbing through the pages. “Holy Hippogriffs, what’s a Quick Stiff Wand?”
“What on earth possessed you to buy that?” Hermione asked, raising a brow at Lucius.
“It belonged to my grandfather. I snuck it out of my father’s desk when I was in fifth year, and nearly died from the resulting hangover.”
“Fifth?” Draco repeated, looking shocked. “Merlin’s pants, at least I waited until — I mean, never did that,” he coughed, inspecting his fingernails as Lucius cocked his head.
“Good job, no one suspects a thing, babe,” Ginny said brightly, her face vibrant as she flicked through the book. “Hermione, I think I finally understand how you feel when you read regular, boring books. Assemble the masses — we’re having a party.”
A quick flick of his wand and the book flew from Ginny’s fingers, sailing into Lucius’ outstretched hand. The sound Ginny made might have been akin to a parent losing their child.
“I think not,” Lucius said lazily. “You’re hard enough to manage on regular wine.”
“Well, you don’t have to be there,” Ginny said. “Problem solved.”
Lucius gave Hermione a long-suffering look, something she was surprised to be receiving. “Is she like this all the time, or is it just especially for me?”
“Please?” Ginny said. “I want to try the Witches Brew.”
“Just you,” Hermione found herself saying, felt her lips forming the words before she could stop them. “You must be special.”
Dinner and drinks — many drinks — with Susan had been exactly what she needed.
“Okay,” Hermione said, pulling out her notebook as they sat on their little balcony, drinking wine out of jam jars and eating more chorizo broccoli pasta than their stomachs could bear. “So, here are my candidates.”
“No,” Susan said, topping up her ‘wine glass’, “no, you’re not actually going to do it, are you?”
When Hermione merely gave her a defiant look, Susan rolled her eyes. “Hermione, you don’t want a boyfriend, nor do you need one. Why are you doing this?”
“Oliver Wood,” Hermione read out.
“You hate Quidditch.”
“Well, maybe I like Quidditch players.”
“Next,” Susan said.
“Neville.”
“Interesting. Are you attracted to him in any way?”
“Neville’s a lovely person!”
“Next.”
“That was it.”
“I rest my case,” Susan said. “It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t need to one-up Ron.”
“I’m not trying to one-up Ron,” Hermione said heatedly. “I just want people to stop talking about my love life.”
“Hermione, you can’t plan it — you have to let it happen organically.”
“Who has time for that?” Hermione said irritably. She put a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe we have work tomorrow.”
“Hear, hear,” Susan said, raising her glass. They were lucky enough to work in the same department at the Ministry, which made the job of trying to get international wizards to cooperate willingly almost bearable.
“I just want one week where I don’t have to see Lucius Malfoy,” Hermione said exasperatedly. “Where I don’t have to worry about what he’s going to say, or what I’m going to say, or how he’s going to look at me —”
“How he’s going to look at you?” Susan repeated, frowning. “How does he look at you? Is it the Sneer?”
“No, not — the Sneer?” Hermione asked, bemused.
“You know,” Susan said, before moulding her expression into one that reminded Hermione of Draco in their teen years. “That one.”
“Oh no,” Hermione said. “I get the Smirk.”
“The Smirk,” Susan said interestedly.
“The Smirk,” Hermione said, attempting to recreate it. “All the time. Especially when he’s making fun of me.”
“Making fun of you,” Susan said slowly.
“Yes, well,” Hermione said defensively, “he makes me nervous, so I usually end up saying something stupid.”
Susan was giving her a sly look that she didn’t like.
“More wine?” Hermione asked hurriedly, getting to her feet and hustling into Susan’s apartment, completely ignoring that they still had half a bottle on the table.
The next Sunday, Hermione was struggling to ignore the fact that Ginny and Draco had been gone from the library for more than twenty minutes.
Merlin, she supposed she just had to add it to the list of things she was ignoring.
Number one on the list: Ron and Hannah had recently become engaged, and Hermione had recently become enraged.
Number two, she was about to get her period, which meant that she would be able to think of nothing but sex (good Gramp, even a nicely folded tea-towel could start something in her stomach) — which would have been fine except there was no one she wanted to have sex with (or was it the other way around?).
Number three: Ginny was definitely getting some, the lucky cow.
There were some things that were much harder to ignore. For one, Hermione had found herself unable to tear her eyes away from her friend’s father’s rather nice posterior as he stood up on the ladder, searching for more books to give away.
Perhaps that was why she rarely saw him out of cloaks, she pondered. Surely men and women alike would be subject to public endangerment due to the distraction caused.
No, she told herself. Stop this.
“If you’re not busy, Miss Granger,” she heard him drawl, and she felt herself perch on her toes, “could you come over here and give me a hand?”
I’ll give you two, Hermione thought, clearing her throat. Perhaps coming here today had been a bad idea. Especially since she hadn’t even gotten to the worst part: Draco’s father was wearing his glasses, which gave the impression that he was an actual human being.
Just terrible.
She hastily averted her eyes before hopping through the piles of books that littered the floor, bracing herself as she stood by his side. “Yes?”
“Hold these,” Lucius said, sounding thoroughly bored as he tossed three rather heavy books into her arms. Merlin, it was right at eye level.
She was not having these kinds of thoughts about Lucius Malfoy — she was not!
One of the books slipped out of her grasp and landed painfully on her foot — Hermione bit her lip as the other two toppled, thankfully missing her feet.
“Nice work,” Lucius said lazily.
“Are you keeping them or tossing them?” Hermione asked as she bent down to grab them. She was torn between wanting to curse him or just physically throttle him.
And then she righted herself into a standing position. He had turned to look down at her from the ladder, but he suddenly seemed quite intent on avoiding her gaze. He looked mildly displeased. Although, one could say that “mildly displeased” was his base expression, so she might have been reading into it too much.
Hermione was just about to repeat her question when his eyes met hers. The nerves in her stomach had started doing cartwheels. She looked away — and now she was at eye-level with another certain part of his anatomy, one that she did not need to think about.
“Voldemort’s nose,” Hermione muttered, turning a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to the right, her back facing him as she put the books down on the desk next to her.
“Oh, none of that,” Lucius tutted.
“What?” Hermione demanded, whipping around so violently that a book caught her in the thigh. “Snape’s cape!” She instinctively bent over, cheeks burning when she recalled just why she had turned away in the first place.
“That,” Lucius said sharply. “Those little phrases you’ve made up — Draco’s started using them, and they’re driving me absolutely mad.”
Hermione did her best to not look at his arse. “You’re a real piece of Polyjuice Potion, you know?”
Lucius frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense —”
“Yes, it does.” Now she was simply going out of her way to be disagreeable.
“Miss Granger,” Lucius said silkily, “if you keep this up, I will had no other choice but to —”
“Dobby’s socks!” Hermione burst out defiantly.
Lucius glanced over his shoulder, his expression somewhere between absolutely scandalised and begrudgingly impressed. “And I thought “Snape’s cape” was the worst one.”
“Yes, I’m full of surprises,” Hermione said irritably, opening the book that had smacked into her thigh mere moments earlier. Within seconds, she realised it was deeply descriptive erotica with moving illustrations. She shut it forcibly. “Are you planning on keeping this one?” She held it up.
Lucius glanced at it, rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You know, there’s some things that even books can’t teach.”
Hermione, crestfallen, was reminded of Divination. She threw the book in the Going Out pile.
“Well, don’t throw it —”
“Dragon dung!” Hermione said crossly, stomping out of the room and ignoring his exasperated laugh. Was there a more irritating person on the planet than Lucius Malfoy?
“Do you know,” Ginny said on Thursday evening as she handed another happy customer their Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes bag, “I can’t stop thinking about that cocktail book.”
“Because Lucius told you that you couldn’t have it?” Hermione said, not even glancing up from her book as she sat by the counter. Her day had been terrible; she’d received a polite rebuttal letter from Oliver Wood in response to the drunken plea for sex that she’d sent him on Tuesday night ( I don’t believe this was for me, he’d written, despite the fact it had his bloody name on it), and she’d had to deal with a Howler from the Irish Minister of Magic that day, and was doing her best to forget the screams of “callous fecker” and “as dryshite as a basilisk”.
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Ginny said thoughtfully.
Hermione simply looked up.
“Okay, maybe,” Ginny said as a woman approached the counter, her arms laden with Pygmy Puffs. “But really, I don’t know why he went to the trouble of hiding it. Fifteen Galleons and three Sickles, please.”
“Just Summon the damn thing, then,” Hermione said. A rogue Pygmy Puff jumped out of the customer’s arms, landing on the page she was reading. She sighed, picking it up and placing it back in the woman’s arms.
“Hermione, I think he’ll notice if a book sails past his face.”
“It’s a big house —”
“It’s in his study,” Ginny said emphatically. “Draco told me that’s where he hides everything.”
“Well, you’re at the Manor often enough,” Hermione said, starting to get annoyed. “Just go in and get it.”
“Hermione, the reason he hides things in his study is because he’s nearly always in there!”
“Not when I’m there,” Hermione grumbled. “Then he just turns up wherever I am.”
Ginny blinked, her eyes shining. “Sweet mother of Hagrid. You’re a genius.”