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Hungry Thirsty Crazy	By : AndreaLorraine Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 47434 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Author�s Note: Whew, I know that took a little while.� My apologies.� Life continues to be crazy.� Those of you who read SBF know that I
recently injured myself (or, practically cut my finger off, if you prefer), so that
made things difficult for a little while.�
It�s healing up very well and I�m back in action.� I didn�t have a very good month of March but
hopefully that means my calamity is over for the rest of the year.� Everything should be all right now as long as
I stay away from sharp objects. ^_~�� Anyhow, enjoy the chapter and please take a minute to let me
know what you think!

She woke once again to the gentle
sunlight of early morning.� There had
been no dreams last night, at least none that she remembered, and that was a
sweet relief.� Still, she was stuck in
this house with an irritated and vulnerable Lucius Malfoy and she doubted he�d be feeling overly civil after
she had so tactlessly called him out on the dissolution of his marriage.

�� Hermione
frowned.� She was trying to understand
him, she really was.� But the more she
thought about it, the less she could comprehend his motivations.� He had been married to Narcissa
for nearly twenty-five years, and she knew he felt something for her.� What that
was she didn�t know.� He�d known her,
Hermione, for a month and it was safe to say that nothing existed between them
but obligation.� He would confess his
illness to her without hesitation, but would let his marriage fall apart
because he wouldn�t tell his wife?

�� She
couldn�t claim to know Narcissa Malfoy.� She had no idea how she would receive the
news that her husband had a deadly muggle
disease.� But she had a right to know,
didn�t she?� Even just to save her the
anger and shame of thinking that her husband was cheating on her�

�� Hermione
bit her lip.� She was sorely tempted to
write a letter to Narcissa.� However, that wasn�t her right and she was
certain it would be extremely ill-received by Lucius.� She had to remember that she was still tied
to him.� He was behaving well but there
was no guarantee that he would continue to if given the proper motive.

�� She wasn�t
going to let it slide, though.� Right now
he needed his wife.� He needed everyone
who had a care for him � and she knew that comprised a very small group of
people.� He�d done it to himself, but so
what?� He was different now.

�� He was
awake when she emerged.� Awake and busily
hunched over the desk, scribbling quickly at the parchment; again his lips were
moving soundlessly, and as she watched he ran a hand through sleep-mussed hair.� She wondered how long he�d been out
here.� The windows were open.� Maybe he had watched the sun rise.

�� Shaking her
head, Hermione retreated.� She wasn�t yet
ready to talk to him.� She needed to
gather her thoughts, put together a logical argument, or else it would be
pointless.� She had decided that she would
go to Assisi
today.� She had seen pictures and it
seemed to be the kind of airy, beautiful place that would enable her to think,
really think, about the situation she was in and the best way to make Lucius listen to her.

�� She hadn�t
realized how right she was in her ruminations about him.� He was ready to die.� He was shutting down slowly, ensuring that
everything was in place, letting people slip away from him, so that when the
time came, his death would cause little more than a ripple in the wizarding world�s small ocean.� She was now all the more determined not to
let him get off that easily.

�� She bathed
in the luxurious tub again, enjoying it more now that her mind was not racing
with their shared dreams.� When she
smelled her shampoo, though, she wondered what it meant that she had not dreamed last night.� Maybe it meant nothing.� Or maybe it meant that he really had realized
what was happening, and he�d taken steps to end it.� Not the Vow; no, she could still feel him on
the edge of her consciousness, hovering like a quiet shadow.� But perhaps he had given in to Dreamless
Sleep.

�� Sighing,
Hermione pushed him out of her mind.� He
had occupied it far too much lately.� She
was beginning to forget that she had her own life, trapped in this Tuscan
bubble of oddities with him.� She
finished getting ready and this time she remembered the sun blocking
charm.� Today she wouldn�t come back
looking like a lobster.

�� He almost
let her go without saying a word.� She
thought he might still be irritated with her.�
But then his curiosity got the better of him.

�� Where are
you going today?� he asked, not looking up from his papers as she walked by.

�� She
surveyed him.� He appeared the same,
still slightly unkempt, but it was an endearing look on him.� Was that a hint of pale stubble on his cheeks
and chin?� Yes � and he had ink on his
fingers again.� The food that Jo-Jo had
prepared for him sat on the window ledge, untouched.� She wondered how much he had written and
spared a moment to worry about his appetite.

�� I�m going
to Assisi.�

�� His hand
moved in a slight flourish as he finished another sentence.� �What is in Assisi?�

�� It�s where
Saint Francis was from.� His tomb and his
cathedral are there.�

�� He
nodded.� He reached for his cup of tea,
only to put it down again when he realized it was cold.

�� She asked
the obvious question.� �Do you want to
come with me?�

�� No,� he
said immediately, but not rudely, derailing her assumption that his silence
meant he was waiting for an invitation.�
His tone of voice said that he could care less.� �You go see your saints, Miss Granger�and I
will continue writing about my sinners.�

She turned to walk out the door,
but couldn�t resist throwing a thought at him.�
Even Lucifer was a saint, once.

�� He finally
looked up, pinning her in his gaze.�

You
seem to have used up your powers of intellect last night, Miss Granger. �He was not a saint.� Lucifer was an angel.� And his lips quirked in an odd sort of smile;
with a brief shake of his head, he dipped his quill in the inkpot and was off
in a fresh flurry of words that she knew would be nothing short of genius.

�� She got to Assisi the same way she had gotten to Siena: hitchhiking.� Only this time it was not an attractive man
on a motorcycle that picked her up.� It
was an older man and his wife that drove a battered pickup truck full of
produce.� She sat on a cooler in the
back, surrounded by fruits and vegetables, and suddenly remembered that she had
not eaten in her rush to escape Lucius.

�� She was
inordinately embarrassed by her inaccurate comment about Lucifer.� Why had she even thought of it?� She didn�t know.� But how did he know about Lucifer and angels and saints?� He wouldn�t know religion if it whacked him
upside the head with a giant wooden cross.�
Not to mention he hardly seemed the type to read the Bible in his spare
time � though at least he read.

�� She watched
the countryside roll by.� She should know
better than to make assumptions about him.�
Many people like him found religion when they hit rock bottom.� He was definitely at rock bottom, or very close
to it, but God didn�t factor into the equation.�
Wizards and witches on a whole were not terribly religious; few things
were miraculous to people who could do magic.�
The holidays they celebrated had less to do with God and Jesus and more
to do with the pagan festivals that had preceded them.�

Hermione lay somewhere in between;
as a muggle she had been raised on tried and true
Christianity but it had faded out of her life around the time she entered the
magical world.� Still, she would occasionally
catch herself praying, and she did sometimes wonder if there was someone up
there looking out for her.� She had
escaped certain death at Malfoy Manor, pulled off an
extremely improbable break-in to Gringotts, and
survived a war that was about eradicating her kind.� Not miraculous, but bordering on it�

�� Perhaps
this, too, was some strange ambiguous twist of fate.� Maybe she was meant to see him in Flourish and Blotts, meant to
observe him at the tea house, destined to be sucked into this peculiar arrangement
with someone she once thought was irredeemable.�
She was the same in his eyes, worthless because of the circumstances of
her birth.� Or at least she had been; she
was not so sure anymore.� Perhaps destiny
had thrown them together to somehow -

�� The truck
hit a bump in the road, startling her out of her thoughts.� It was best not to dwell on such things,
anyway.� Lucius
Malfoy and destiny should not be concepts that
existed in the same sentence.� If he kept
writing the way he had been this morning, he would finish the book soon and be
out of her life forever.� Literally�

�� She jumped
when the window to the cab was pulled open suddenly.� The woman poked her head out and gestured at
a crate of oranges.� They were the most
beautiful shade of firey orange and nearly the size
of a grapefruit.

�� Mangi!� she said, smiling.�
Eat.� Hermione smiled gratefully
and took one of the oranges.� As she
peeled it, though, she could not prevent her mind from flickering back to Lucius.� She hadn�t
thought about the end of this before.�
The end of this was the end of him, if he kept to his word that he was
going to stop taking the medications and let himself succumb to the
disease.� Would she be able to just let
him walk away, knowing that he was going to die alone and miserable and so
misunderstood�

�� It made her
more emotional than it should have.� Her
eyes were stinging as she stripped the last of the skin from the orange.� Her heart was beating too fast.� There was that pity again.� She had to remind herself that he didn�t want
it.� Until she could somehow convert that
pity to empathy, it meant nothing.

�� She peeled
a segment of the orange and carefully searched for pits.� After extracting them, she savored its
sweet-tart taste.� It might have been the
most delicious piece of citrus she ever ate.�
She wondered if the man and woman had grown it themselves.� Maybe that made all the difference.

�� She leaned
back, finding a surprisingly comfortable position against a bale of hay.� For the rest of the ride she slowly ate the
orange and stared up at the lurid Tuscan sky.�
In its blueness she remembered the little boy from her dream, the child
who had looked at her with such piercing, guarded curiosity�and it occurred to
her that this Lucius might not be so different, after
all.

�� Her mood
didn�t lighten when she arrived in Assisi.� It had nothing to do with the hike to get
into the city; it was on a hilltop, a steep climb for anyone, but she enjoyed
the strain it put on her.� She always
felt more alive when she had to work hard for something.� Once she was inside the city walls, she
wasn�t disappointed.

�� The view
was spectacular.� Better than his villa.� She was up higher so the lands stretched into
oblivion, yellow and green and white and red, fading into a purple mist on the
horizon.� Merlin, it should be illegal
for a place to be so beautiful.� But
today, instead of making her uplifted, it only made her feel a curious and
heavy melancholy deep in her gut.

�� The
cathedral strengthened that feeling.� It
was unadorned on the outside, plain beige stones.� It was tremendous in scale, though, and
seemed to straddle the edge of the city like an invader�s fortress.� The inside was sparsely opulent, as many basilicas
were.� Frescoes adorned the walls.� She could tell that they had been beautiful
once, but time had worn them down to faded pictures, barely visible, mere
shadows of what they had once been.� ��

�� The crypt
was a little better.� Odd, since it was
the underground tomb of a dead saint.�
She supposed it might be the Franciscan monks and Poor Clares who sat on austere pews, either bent in prayer or
rapturous contemplation.� The only thing
she could find so much faith in was books; still, she felt the intensity of
their devotion and it fortified her.

�� She left
the basilica feeling cathartic.� Not
better, but in uneasy peace.� Hermione
spent the rest of the day wandering through the old city.� It was truly one of the most breathtaking
places she�d ever been, literally and figuratively; the hills were unrelenting
and by the time her stomach reminded her that she should go back and eat, she
was completely exhausted.

�� She made
one last stop before she apparated
back.� It was the Temple of Minerva,
a Roman construct incorporated flawlessly into the rest of the city.� She walked between the great Corinthian
columns, looking up until she became dizzy, and then she was inside.

�� It was
small and had been converted to a church.�
But a more beautiful church she had never seen; the walls were a pale
blue, the ceiling painted like the sky, and the altar took up the entire back
wall, trimmed in gold.� This made up for
the church Saint Francis would have hated.

�� She found a
dark corner and apparated, unable to put any coherent
words to the way she felt.� Hermione
didn�t see him when she walked in and didn�t care to know where he was;
probably out lounging in the courtyard again, spoiling the kitten he claimed
not to like.� Her bed was calling.

�� As she
stumbled around her room, not quite realizing just how tired she was, an orange
fell out of her bag.� Oh, yes, the kind
couple who had let her hitch to Assisi
had given her another one for the road.�
She had forgotten.� Smiling, she
placed it on the night stand, collapsed face-first into the bed, and fell
asleep.

�� It was
hot.� She knew that Italy could be hot, especially in
July, but the villa�s thick walls usually kept it cool.� The room around her seemed to be filled with
steam, coating her, suffocating her, and she moved reflexively as if to throw
off a blanket.� However, there was no
blanket; she was nude, on her stomach on top of the covers, her skin slicked
with sweat.

�� She had no
time to ponder the meaning of it.�
Another sweaty body slid along hers, hard and masculine, lithe against
her skin.� Something was wrong with her.� This didn�t incite alarm.� This strange sweaty man naked on top of her
did not bother her in the slightest.�
Rather, he did bother her, but not in the way it should have�

�� He made her
even hotter than she already felt.� The
way his strong thigh nestled between the backs of hers, his hip pressed against
her buttocks, his pleasant weight leaned upon her, and his ghost-light fingers
stroking her hair away from her neck�it incinerated her, made her nerves light
with undeniable surges of desire.�

�� Lips
touched the back of her neck.� A strong
hand stroked along her side.� She could
feel him stirring, rising against her hip.�
Who was he?� Oh, God, she didn�t
care � his tongue was tracing a path up her spine, sending jolts of electricity
surging beneath her skin.� She nearly
arched off the bed; the want it provoked in her was overwhelming.

�� She
squirmed, yearning to turn over and wrap her legs around this dream man.� That�s what he was.� There was no way this situation would be so
unremarkable, or so arousing, if it were taking place in real life.� The dream-man held her in place and his teeth
closed warningly against the edge of her shoulder blade.� She trembled, reveling in the way the tremors
made her skin catch and chafe against his.

�� Distantly,
Hermione hoped that she was not making noises in her sleep.� But there was no way she was going to pull
herself out of this dream.� Oh, no, not
for a million galleons.� Not when his
mouth and teeth were working across her back, nipping, sucking, tracing the
borders of her scapula, and one of those strong hands burrowed beneath her
torso to claim her breast.

�� A moment
later he used that leverage to turn her.�
She rolled breathlessly, ready to see him, to kiss him, to use this
agreeable creation of her id to dispel some of the odd frustration she�d been feeling
� but not ready to see that he had a familiar face.� Intense blue eyes, patrician features, a pale valance of silken hair�oh, heaven help her, Lucius had worked his way into her fantasies, now�

�� Again, it
didn�t bother her as much as it should have.�
She was trapped in this intense t�te-�-t�te with him, as much by her own
inability to just leave him to his fate as by his crafty assurance in the form
of the Vow.� And he was not at all the
man she had expected; yes, he was arrogant, he took liberties, he could burrow
under her skin with his mere presence, but it was never with the harsh words
and genocidal ideals of the past.� It was
because he knew her better than she knew herself, because he could dance circles
around her intellect with his own � though perhaps that was only attributable
to the fact that he was older and had seen more of the world and all its
permutations.

�� This was as
dangerous as ever.� She knew it as his
phantom presence played over her stomach, cupped a breast; his illusive hands were
sticky.� Lucius
Malfoy with sticky fingers; what a great surprise,
and what a cruel irony her mind threw at her.�
Syrupy or otherwise, she wasn�t going to force him out.� Fantasies were only fantasies.� He had no such qualms enjoying her wholly
improbable presence in his dreamscapes.�
He was only a face put to a drive, a mask over a need.� That was all it was�

�� But it felt
too familiar when his fingers touched her mouth.� It reminded her of a few days ago, when he
had trailed that wicked index finger of his along the soft pillow of her lips,
before the lines had been drawn in the sand.�
Could her mind really recreate that sensation so accurately?� It was a powerful thing, the mind�but she
still won this battle, because she knew it wasn�t real.� It wasn�t real, so she could give in to what
she had wanted to do then.� She could
open her mouth and trail her tongue along that brazen digit�

�� Oranges.� Mingled with the salt of skin was the taste
of oranges, pungent, sweet, tart, just like the one
she had eaten that morning on the back of the truck.� The sugared juice was crystallized on his
fingers, as if he had eaten one of the succulent things himself and not cleaned
his hands.� There she went, forming
strange sensory associations the way he did.�
Maybe he was rubbing off on her more than she cared to admit.

�� It was
powerful and sexy, though, to know that in spite of all his decorum, he was as
much bound in his bodily instincts as anyone else.� His dream self was proving that, leaning down
to replace his finger with his lips.�
Even they had a slight citrus tang�

�� As he
kissed her, as she kissed the ghost of him, her mind registered a
conflict.� She heard distant words, but
he wasn�t speaking, not when his mouth was occupied over hers.� And the pressure of hands against her
shoulders, real hands, made no sense
because wherever his hands were, they were not on her shoulders�

�� Granger.� Miss Granger!�

�� No.� No, why was he waking her?� Why was he�?

�� And then it
occurred to her that he might be witnessing her dream, as she witnessed his,
but it was early evening, wasn�t it?� He
wouldn�t be asleep, he would be walled up against her,
writing about his sinners, as he had said.�
She ignored his prompt, not caring to reason it out.� Her brain felt like it was boiling in her
head and she wanted only to return to his sweaty incubus grip.

�� He wouldn�t
let her be.� He intruded again a moment
later.

�� Miss Granger!

�� His voice
speared in her head.� God, why couldn�t
he just leave her alone?� She moved an
arm, feeling the solid barrier of his chest, and she pushed, aware in some dim
part of her mind that this was not how she should rationally be behaving.� The muscles in her arm trembled and made no
headway against him.� His hand wrapped
around her wrist and she was stunned at how cold his skin was against hers.

�� Hermione.

�� That made her open her eyes.�
He had used her name.� Her
name!� This was still a dream, because
the real Lucius would never, it was like a curse to
him, an admission of something neither of them could define.� She moved her arm, trying to pull away from
the cool surety of his palm.� What the
hell was going on?� What the hell�why was
it so hot, why�?

�� Stop.�

�� The one
syllable held a gentle power.� It was
equal parts care and detachment, order and plea.� How did he manage to get away with both?

�� Don�t
touch me,� she forced out, surprised at the effort it took and how strange her
voice sounded.� Her vision wasn�t right,
either; it blurred at the edges, forming a halo around him, and the colors were
wrong, too bright, too garish.� His eyes were fluorescent in the muted
darkness.

�� I needed
to wake you,� he replied patiently.� �You
are ill.� Your temperature is nearly
forty degrees.�

�� That was
why it was so bloody hot, why her body was in overdrive, why everything was
distorted.� She was sick.� It made sense.� Her eyelids drooped.� Already she was overtaxed, just from the
exertion of fending off his wake-up call.

�� Stay
awake.�� The cool touch of his palm
against her cheek jolted her back to him momentarily.� She opened her eyes again.� She was feverish, maybe delusional, because
there was something like concern in his matching stare, and his arms seemed to
be gathering her and propping her up.

�� Knowledge
lanced through her brain.� If she was
ill, he should not be anywhere near her.�
His immune system was not right.�
If she infected him with whatever this was, he could die from it.� She could kill
him.� Didn�t he know that?� It gave her energy and she renewed her
struggle against him.

�� Get away
from me,� she pleaded, pushing against him with more strength.� �Get away!�

�� For
Merlin�s sake, girl, I have no designs on you!� he responded, darkly annoyed by
her resistance and clearly not understanding the unspoken reason behind it.� �But if you would like me to leave you here to
suffer, I will.�

�� Panic was
building in her jumbled mind.� In spite
of his sentiment, he did not loosen his grasp on her.� Didn�t he understand?� Didn�t he comprehend how dangerous this
was?� And why couldn�t she make her mouth
or her mind tell him?� Before she knew
it, she was crying, her hands fisted into his shirt even as she tried to propel
him away.

�� His arms
deserted her, only to return to her wrists a moment later and pry her grip from
his shirtfront.� When his thoughts echoed
in her mind, his irritation seemed to have evaporated.

�� Be calm.�
You are making it worse.

�� She
couldn�t answer him.� Not mentally, not
physically � she felt like she was shutting down.� Her entire body hurt from the heat it was
inflicting upon itself.� She was in
agony.� But, mercifully, it was beginning
to fade�

�� Drink
this.�� Cool hands, cool water against
her lips.� She couldn�t move.� �Hermione?�� Ah, her name again.� She liked how it sounded in his voice.� �Hermione!�� Not when it was tinged in worry like that,
though.� No, that
wasn�t pleasant�nor were the disjointed curses that she wasn�t sure he
was speaking aloud or in her head, or the mental pull he tried to exert upon
her.

�� Damn it, don�t leave me!� He railed against her departure, and she
experienced a millisecond of smug clarity before she did exactly what he
entreated her not to.�

��

�� She felt
like she was floating.� Maybe that was
what insanity or death felt like.�
Blessedly cool, weightless, unconcerned with the gravity and variability
of the real world�yes, death might feel like that.� He wouldn�t let her die, though.� Somehow she knew he wouldn�t.

�� Hermione
was content to lounge in the ether.� He
would find a way to pull her out of it, eventually.� There was no need to worry�

�� It was like
being in the womb.� The gentle rocking of
liquid, the swish as it interacted with its borders, and the all-encompassing
hum in her ears were so comforting.�
Again she marveled at her brain�s power, to recreate this sensation in
such detail.

�� It�s
bloody freezing.�

�� Oh.� Her brain could not be imagining that.� As she perceived his voice, so, too, did she
finally register the fact that there were arms around her, holding her up.� Holding her head
above�water?� Real
water.

�� If you�re
shivering, you have to get out.� Cold
will lower your immunity.�� Another voice, male, unfamiliar.

�� I am not
shivering.�� Lucius�s voice, peevish.� He was lying; she could feel the jump of his
muscles where his chest contacted her back.

�� You just
said it was freezing.�

�� Is it
working?�

�� A pause.

�� Yes.� She�s down to 38.6.�

�� Well,
fine.� You can treat me for hypothermia
after she�s back to normal.�� She wanted
to smile.� Again, there was his ability
to combine things that were normally exclusive � this time, sarcasm and care.

�� That�s
reckless, Lucius.�

�� Would you like to get in, Smythe?�

�� I would
like to get back to my practice.� I was
about to see a woman who bought a black-market prosthesis for her leg.� It was made of Whomping
Willow wood, apparently, and it not only grew into the remainder of her leg, but sprouted branches and began to
assault her.� I�m probably going to have
to amputate even more of the leg.�

�� Lucius chuckled. ��Assuming
you can get anywhere near it without being pummeled.�

�� There was a
beat of silence.� Then the other man, the
mystery assistant, spoke again.

�� You�ve
lost weight.� Are you eating?�

�� I know I
pay you to harp on me for that, but now is not
the time.�� His good humor was gone.� The shivering was getting worse; he was cold.� The water still felt fine to her, tepid,
even, but she remembered the raging heat of the fever.� Antarctica
would feel lovely to her right now.

�� She�s at
37.9.� That should be enough.� I don�t want to shock her system and make it
go the other way.� Let me help you get
her out.�

�� She felt Lucius shift behind her and she was being lifted.� Then she was passed off to Smythe, who, she realized, was probably his healer.� If he was his healer, why hadn�t he ordered Lucius away?� He
would scold him about exposure to the cold water, but not to her germs?� It was too exhausting to think about as he
wrapped her in a plush towel and turned.

�� Not � oh, never mind,� Lucius
said, as Smythe began to move.� She cracked her eyes open a weary fraction.

�� The sight
of Lucius greeted her, standing tall and soaking wet
near a bathtub that was shrinking down to its original size.� His chest was bare and she wouldn�t know if
the rest of him was; the towel he was using blocked his lower half.� A second later Smythe
rounded a corner and the sight of him, so masculine, was obscured by a wall.� She let her eyes slip closed.� She was so tired�

�� It was
sometime in the deep silence of night when she next woke.� She was no longer feverish, as evidenced by
the fact that the sheets pulled over her were not burning her alive.� She was pleasantly ensconced in bed.� Hermione let her eyes droop, content to drift
back to sleep, when she realized that this was not her bed.

�� They were
the same sheets, to be sure.� They had
matching sets.� But the room, now visible
in shades of grey to her adjusted eyes, was different.� And the smell, foreign but agreeable, was not
a feminine one.� The strand of pale blond
hair that lay across the pillow next to her sealed it.� She was in Lucius�s
bed - minus Lucius.

�� She sat up
slowly.� As she did, the sheet slipped
from her torso.� She clutched at it
reflexively before realizing that she was dressed.� Scantily, but she was clothed in a black
camisole and (upon further observation) kelly
green boy shorts.� Heaven help her, had Lucius dressed her unresponsive body?� He would
pick something green�

�� I did not
pick them just because they were green,� he said softly.� Her neck turned so swiftly that it almost
hurt.� He was curled tiredly in a chair
near the fireplace.� In spite of the fire
that was burning, he had a light blanket wrapped around his body.� �The healer said to leave you as uncovered as
possible.� Those things were at the top
of your clothing pile.� I didn�t do it
manually, either.� I used a spell.� You are safe from my molestation.�� His voice was curiously distant, almost
Luna-like in quality.

�� I didn�t
think�I was just�� she stammered.�

�� Lucius snapped his fingers.�
A second later Jo-Jo appeared with a startling bang.

�� Oh!� the
little elf squealed.� �Miss Granger is
awake!�

�� Yes,� Lucius nodded, �Will you bring some water?�

�� Of course,
Master.� Jo-Jo is ever so glad that you
are feeling better, Miss Granger!� she trilled, before disapparating
to the kitchen.

�� A few
minutes later Hermione was happily draining a glass of water that magically
refilled itself for the third time.� She
hadn�t realized how thirsty she was.� She
drank until her stomach felt full and sloshy.� All the while, Lucius
watched her, eerily calm.� Or perhaps he
was just exhausted; he seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open.� Had he been awake all this time, watching
over her?

�� The healer
let you stay?� she asked, setting the glass down on the night stand.

�� Why would
he not?�

�� I could
pass my sickness to you.�� She
frowned.� �With the HIV, even a cold can
land you in hospital or worse.� You must
know that.�

�� He nodded.

�� Then why
are you here?� she demanded, baffled.

�� You are
not ill.� Not in that way.�

�� What?�

�� Heat
stroke, Miss Granger, you had heat stroke and dehydration.� You pushed yourself a bit too hard in the
city of saints��

�� Hermione
blinked, stunned.� Heat
stroke?� Yes, it had been quite
hot out, but she had never felt like it was perilous.� Now that she thought about it, though, she
had not really had enough water.� She�d
only had what she could cup in her hands a few times from a free-standing
fountain � a few ounces, at best.� Nor
had she eaten anything besides that orange.�
Those things combined, along with the hills and the fact that she had
been out for the hottest hours of the day, could definitely have pushed her to
heat exhaustion.

�� I was�in a
strange mood,� she murmured.

�� The next
time you are in a strange mood and it is 38 degrees outside, stay home.�� There was some bite in his voice, but not
much.� He took a deep breath and then
stood up laboriously.� He was nearly
falling over with fatigue.� �Now, Miss
Granger, either shove over or go to your own room, because I need to sleep and
I will do it on top of you, if necessary.�

�� She moved
over out of necessity; he was in the bed before she could make a decision.� It was completely innocent in spite of the
ripples his wording sent through her.� He
could barely muster the energy to pull the covers over his pajama-clad body �
he truly had no goal other than sleep.�
Still, something perturbed her.

�� We�re back
to that, are we?� she asked, a bit stand-offishly.

�� Back to
what?� he murmured.

�� You calling me Miss Granger.�� He said nothing, so she went on.� �You called me Hermione before, when I was
feverish.�

�� I thought
you would be more responsive to it and I was right,� he said dismissively.

�� Why won�t
you use my name?� she demanded, knowing full well that this was not a good time
to broach the subject, but unable to stop herself.� She had to confess, now that she had heard
her name roll from his lips, she wanted to hear it again.� She couldn�t go back to the stuffy formality
of �Miss Granger�.� It made her feel like
she was still in school, still a child, neither of which were the case.

�� He rolled
over and glared at her.� The look in his
eyes and the words that came from his lips in a low growl provoked gooseflesh
across her skin.

�� I have
told you before.� Naming something means
you intend to keep it.�

�� Her mouth
fell open.� Before she had entirely
processed his meaning, she indignantly spat, �I am not a something.� Nor am I a thing
to be kept!�

�� Lucius propped himself up on his elbow and leaned
close.� Hermione had to slant backwards
to avoid him.� Why did she keep putting
herself in these situations?� She should
have been out of the bed the moment he stood up!

�� Every
person can be made into a possession,� he said, his tone of voice
indefinable.� His eyes were worse; they
were fierce and erudite, telling her in no uncertain terms that he knew more
about it than she did.

�� Digging
deep for her courage, she lifted a hand and planted it against his chest.� With sufficient pressure, she was able to
push him down onto his back.� It helped
that he didn�t put up any resistance.� He
didn�t fight sleep, either.� It claimed
him two minutes later; she knew because his face relaxed into slack
oblivion.�

She wasn�t angry at him for his familiar
presumption.� She had deliberately goaded
him and he had stayed up all night to watch over her.� Never mind that he had quite possibly saved
her life.� Damn him for being such a
contradiction.

Hermione sat there for a long
time.� He slept peacefully, too tired
even to dream.� Seeing him like this
tempted her to stay in his bed, to just lie down beside him and find her own
blissful slumber.� She knew
instinctively, though, that he would not be the same when they woke.� The walls would rise with the sun.

She spared a moment to make sure
the covers were adequately positioned around him and lightly touched his cheek
the same way he had touched hers when he woke her from her febrile vision.� He was so lost to sleep that he gave no reaction
to her contact, not even a twitch of his fair eyelashes.� She wondered�was he so easily destroyed by
the kinds of touches he bestowed upon her?�

She reasoned that it was temporary
insanity that allowed her fingers to stray across his lips.� They were warm and supple and a trickle of balmy
air danced along her skin.� In the not so
distant future that life breath would be gone, his lips cold�an irrational and
entirely unwarranted urge to kiss him seized her. �It made her dizzy with its power.� Hermione trailed her hand along his jaw and
the broad plane of his chest as if hypnotized.�
She had actually leaned down a few centimeters before sense returned to
her.� Stopping abruptly, she pulled her
hand away.� She could only look at the
appendage, wondering if it had a mind of its own or if she was still delirious.� Shaking her head, she berated herself; what
did she expect, for his lips to taste like oranges?� He wasn�t the man from her dream, no matter
how similar he looked.� With a sigh she
slipped from his bed.

�� She made
only one detour on the way to her own room.�
She was beguiled by his desk and the neat stack of papers that sat upon
it.� This was the perfect time to read
more of what he had written.� He wouldn�t
be waking any time soon.� Funny; she had
been worried about his idle hands while she was unconscious, but in the end,
she had been the one to molest him
while he slept.

�� Hesitantly,
she sat at the desk.� She still didn�t
entirely trust him not to booby-trap his things.� However, no grisly fate befell her, and she
made herself comfortable in the oversized chair.� With a deep breath she reached for the top
sheet.� It wasn�t what she expected when
she turned it over.

I understand what you
must be thinking.� I will speak to you
about my condition, but not my wife?�
There doesn�t seem to be much logic in it.� Not to your mind, anyhow.� You are unencumbered by the mores of
pureblood society.� Trust me when I say
that I have taken everything into account, and still this is the best solution.

I married a woman I
respected, not one that I loved.� In her
I found a partner and the bearer of my heir.�
In exchange I gave her my standing, my money, and my security.� That is how many pureblood marriages are, and
for this reason many are beset with adultery.�
You feel sympathy for my wife because she thinks I have cheated on
her.� She is hardly deserving of
this.� She has strayed at least three
times, to my knowledge, one of them while I was imprisoned.� I was inclined to let things pass until
then.� I know that I put her in great
danger, I know that I abandoned the promises I made to her, but I confess to a
certain amount of resentment for that tryst.�
Then again, he was a Slytherin and she was
indebted to him; I cannot say I would not press my advantage, were our
situations reversed.

In short, she does not
need your sympathy.� There are other
reasons, as well, those more altruistic, if you believe that word could ever be
applied to me � I have my doubts.� If
anyone comes to know of my condition, it will ruin her status.� She will never be able to remarry or be
accepted in polite society.� The same
goes for Draco.�
I am more concerned for Draco, in truth, but
the consequence is the same.� They would
both be made into pariahs for something they had no part in and no control
over.� I do not want to condemn my family
and the easiest way to ensure that is to separate them from my taint.� I need not mention the apprehension of their
reaction; I know that I will reap what I have sown.

I do not know why I
feel the need to explain myself to you.�
I do not know why I care about your approval.� I do not know why any of it matters when
death is nipping at my heels.� But there
comes a time when you must stop questioning, leave terra firma behind, and see
where the current takes you.� Now, nosy
thing, stop trying to read the book before it is finished.

�� That was
it.� Something that could only be
described as a warm chill spread through her.�
It was fear coupled with mortification; Lucius
could see right through her, ascertain her every motivation.� He had known that she would stick her nose
into his business the first chance she got, and all the while let her go on
thinking he was unaware of her intentions.�
Was she really that transparent?�
Or was he really that perceptive?�
Maybe it was both.�

As scary as that prospect was,
something about the note warmed her.� The
morose feeling that had gripped her in Assisi
was gone.� With a conflicted smile, she
laid the paper back down on top of its compatriots.� The story was right there.� She could read it.� But no�not today.� Today he had bested her.� And as uneasy as it made her feel, it was
rather attractive and exciting to finally be engaged in a battle of wits with
someone who could actually compete�

She started to walk away, but upon
second thought, she turned back.� She
removed the piece of paper again, and, taking his quill and ink, issued a
challenge.

I�ll
stop trying to read the book when you start calling me by my first name.

.�

�

A/N 2.0 � Here�s a taste of Assisi.�
This is my favorite picture that I took while I was there:� http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a307/forcemotrice/Assisi/ItalyPictures156.jpg
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