"A what?"

Hermione tugged against Lucius' grip and tried to break away, she even literally dug her heels into the gravel in an attempt to slow him, but he only laughed and pulled her in, wrapping an arm around her waist and clamping her to his side.

"Lucius, I don't think—"

"Come now, Narcissa." Lucius had her inside now. They were in the building. She'd been dragged several meters in the house before she realized she should've tried to apparate outside, and damn her for not doing so, because now she was trapped and she needed to do something drastic in order to—

"You've never refused me before."

And then he rounded on her suddenly and forced her back up against the wall and he was kissing her again, and she couldn't think; she was reduced to a motionless, powerless observer. She could feel both of his hands on her now, one in her hair, the other stroking a bold path down her back, fingers splayed over her ass. He gripped her and hoisted her up, and she was pinned, he was grinding against her in slow, sensual movements and sweet Merlin there was nothing wrong with this, how could there be anything wrong with this?

Her hands flew up to steady herself, scrabbling at his shoulders, over his back; she dared not admit even to herself that she spent a great deal of time stroking his neck and hair and the strong ridge of his jaw, and yes, it looked like she was coaxing him on, the little moans she was emitting may have been construed as consent, but if somebody forced her under oath right then she'd only admit to playing her part to stay alive. He was a criminal, for god's sake. The way he kissed was criminal…

She could feel him pushing against her core, hot enough to burn and she found herself making a muffled noise that was totally inappropriate, but when his lips relinquished hers for air and his eyes slit open to ratchet onto hers, the black ice in them silenced her. He didn't give her time to recover, instead going off to torment her in other ways—layering soft bites down her neck, nipping her ear—a gasping moan broke out of her throat, and she tried to push him off. She really did. Only it was difficult, because he was literally carrying her through the house now, so obviously she couldn't try too hard, otherwise he might drop her and then how were they supposed to keep snogging? Anyway she doubted she could push him off, what with her legs being wrapped so tightly around his hips…

She became aware of her surroundings again when her bum hit the edge of a countertop. It was like emerging from a deep sleep: blinking and disoriented, it took her longer than necessary to realize she was in a bathroom, his bathroom; a sunken tub full of bubbly water stood just off to her left (Merlin the elves worked fast!) and to her right and center was Lucius, and sweet Jesus he was making short work of her clothes. She'd lost her heels and all of Harriot's efforts on her hair had been totally wasted. She just had time to register how suddenly loose her dress was fitting before it fell to her waist and all that protected Narcissa's modesty was her brassiere.

Narcissa.

"Wait—wait!"

To her great astonishment, Lucius stopped. They locked eyes, and for a long moment, Hermione had no idea what to feel. She was simultaneously relieved and deeply disappointed and terrified and overwhelmed by the enormity of her desire.

Then Lucius gave her a sinister half-smile and turned up everything a few more degrees. He took her hands and placed them on the front of his shirt, then stood there braced on either side of her, waiting. The unspoken invitation was clear. This was the turning point. This was when she decided—

"I need to leave."

For a second he looked surprised. Then his polished veneer reemerged, maybe out of habit, but more likely it was because Hermione hadn't removed Narcissa's hands from the front of his shirt. She was teetering. And he knew he could push her whichever way he wanted.

"We've only just arrived." He leaned in, until all she could see were those demonic eyes. He caressed her face, went in to nuzzle her neck. "No one need know," he murmured into her ear, and that awful voice sent a wave of lust rushing through her, across every inch of her skin until it ultimately gathered between her legs. Her cunt clenched fruitlessly. Merlin she wanted him. "Come have a bath with me. Such a simple thing." He tugged at her lobe, flicked a bra strap off her shoulder. She still hadn't taken her hands off him. He ran a firm palm down her chest, cupping her breast in the fabric, clasping her lightly. She shivered. "Everything else can wait. All other decisions can wait. Reacquaint yourself with me—remind yourself how it feels. And then you can walk away and, if it is your wish, we needn't ever speak of it again. What harm could it do?"

It was wrong. Wrong. Everything was so wrong.

"I'm not the same person, Lucius." She was stuttering, but in Narcissa's voice it sounded like birdsong, fragile and feminine. Lucius inched forward like a cat scenting a broken wing. "I'm a completely different person. You don't even know me. How can you do this without even knowing who I am anymore? I don't even want to do this."

Well, it wasn't an outright lie. Hermione may have been on fire but she had a very strong suspicion that Narcissa didn't want this. Wasn't this some sort of rape? Wasn't Hermione essentially an accomplice, holding a woman down while Lucius had his way?

No, it wasn't that intense. Narcissa wasn't here and wasn't being harmed, not directly. But it was still a horrible thing to do to a person's body—their personal sanctuary—and however Hermione felt about Lucius, she had no personal quarrel with Narcissa. Who wasn't being hurt?

Lucius wasn't interested in letting her run through that particular internal debate. He took her face in his hands, gently. "Ah, but that's the allure," he purred. "If you were the same person, I wouldn't dream of doing this." And then he kissed her again, and her mind was made up for her.

She flicked a button through an eye. Bastard. She flicked another. Bigot. And another. Terrorist. Liar. Killer. Convict. Drug-dealer. Disaster of a man. She didn't even pause at the last one, but slid it free, then pushed the white fabric off his broad shoulders, revealing every sculpted slope of his pale torso. Demon.

He was luminescent, mutely powerful, lined with muscles that flexed catlike under his sateen skin; her eyes were immediately drawn to the stripe of blonde hair at his lower abdomen, running from navel to beltline. She gulped and flushed and looked into his face, only it wasn't safe to look there, either: his Sickle-bright eyes gored into her, the soft pink of his lips drawing back in a triumphant grin, flashing bright white teeth. Oh fuck. He'd won.

Her bra vanished and she shivered in the cold, instinctually shutting her eyes like a terrified virgin. She didn't want to look at Narcissa. She didn't want to think about how twisted this was—all she wanted was to keep on basking in Lucius Malfoy's delicious attentions. Touching and being touched. It had been so long since she'd been touched, and it had never been like this…

Alarm bells were clanging in her head but she shut everything out. No one need know. She had never done anything wrong in her life and a suppressed part of her desperately wanted to experience this—this one thing, this one little breath of passion in her passionless existence. Just this one. Such a simple thing. She'd never have anything like it again and by God she wanted it now. She could swear she was forced, she could convince herself later without much trouble; she barely felt like there was any choice at all, anyway. Or alternatively she didn't have to ever think of it again.

There were holes everywhere in her little farce but right then, she couldn't give a fuck.

Lucius was more than willing to hush her thoughts.

She had expected him to be tender and gentle, like Ron had been when they'd first given up their mutual virginity, and every time after. Her experience with sex was limited to those slow, clumsy touches; she hadn't considered things could be different. She soon realized how absolutely absurd she was.

Lucius was not a gentle individual. In one movement he'd ripped her dress from her and now she was in her stockings and knickers, and in a second he'd drawn the snakehead wand from his pocket—when had he unsheathed it?—and brought it down in a slashing movement so reminiscent of Dolohov that Hermione almost screamed. The last of her clothing fell away. He was kissing her, only it wasn't like before: his movements were no less incendiary but he was rougher, more brutal, almost frightening as he wrenched her closer. Now there was more skin contact than Hermione knew what to do with. Luckily Malfoy had some ideas.

"Oh, oh my god." The blonde head had descended and that wicked mouth was on her nipple; Hermione looked down and had the immediate, bizarre impression that she was watching some very interactive porn, because the willowy woman's body below her was not hers, yet she could feel Lucius' lips on the sensitive peak of the breast, and she definitely felt it when his hand circled up and flicked the dusky pink, hitherto-unattended nipple on his left.

The sight ramped up her arousal so violently and unexpectedly that she moaned aloud, and the volume of it disturbed Lucius, who had until that point allowed his eyes to drift closed as he focused; they slid open now and darted up at her, arching an eyebrow, but he did not stop his torment, didn't even slow, and Hermione practically shuddered herself off the counter. Hands—hands she controlled—flew up and buried in Lucius' hair, pulling at the long strands, scraping the scalp; the fingers she moved were long and delicate and manicured, and so very beautiful. Hermione looked down at the body below her and saw skin nearly as pale as Lucius', skin that dipped and curved over long legs, narrow waist, lovely womanly hips—she looked between her legs and saw not curly brown hair, but a soft dusting of gold, glinting with need. Even her bellybutton was a perfect little circle. Hermione didn't have any desire to explore Narcissa's body tactilely (would it have been homoeroticism or masturbation at that point?) but when Lucius slid a hand up her thigh and between her legs and strummed a fingertip from her needy opening to a torturous millimeter just below her clit, something about watching him doing it to Narcissa, but experiencing the sensations firsthand, drove Hermione completely insane.

"Please, Merlin, oh my god, Lucius, holy-Jesus-fuck."

Somehow he understood; the shark's grin he gave her made her shudder again, and he ran a light, teasing touch over the nub. The ensuing shot of pleasure made her gasp and she instinctively tried to buck into him, but in a moment the bastard stood, toeing off his shoes and pulling one of her hands away from his hair and down to the clasps of his pants.

There wasn't any room for another monologue about his flaws: a hot white fog now occupied most of Hermione's headspace and she wasn't capable of much else but ripping away at his clasps and yanking his pants off like some sort of sex-crazed zombie. What she was experiencing wasn't normal arousal. No. She was so turned on the switch was broken. Good lord, how the fuck did Hermione goody-two-shoes Granger come to this?

She did pause, however, when he stepped out of his clothing and was finally naked, but her stillness was due to awe rather than any reformed misgivings. His legs were nice out of slacks, long and athletic, but she wasn't exactly gawping at those; all of her focus was on his cock, which stood out rigidly from the hard lines of his hips, pointing right at her as if in accusation. She really shouldn't have stared, it was so fucking suspicious, she was supposed to have seen him a billion times before, but Lucius seemed beyond noticing any incongruences in her behavior; he stepped closer and the smooth, thick length of him pressed against her thigh. It burned like a brand. He gripped the base and treated himself to a massage as he watched her watch him; she could feel him twitching and pulsing and it sent another fiery rush of lust directly to her center. She was a little stunned he was touching himself in front of her, actually; she thought men tended to be uncomfortable about things like that. Ron had always been sheepish whenever she'd walked in on him, anyway. Lucius, apparently, had no such reservations.

She nearly giggled. Arrogant git. You'll do exactly whatever you want, and no less.

He spoke. "Touch me." It was not an invitation. His hand withdrew, but almost before it had she reached out, nearly overeagerly, and took him in her palm, feeling along the scorching steel of him (too tentatively, she feared, but she really didn't have a mind for maintaining appearances just then). He was heavy and her fingers hardly closed around the breadth of him; she had a sudden, weird fear that perhaps he'd hurt her going in. Going in?

He was watching her touch him with a look of such stark hunger she wondered if he'd gone celibate during the separation, and this was the first he was getting in five years. If so, he hadn't really taken to abstinence. Eventually he got impatient with her caresses and yanked her roughly off the sinktop and back into his arms; she was disoriented and wondered why he was carrying her away from the bedroom. Then he dropped her.

She yelped before she hit water and was immersed to the crown; this tub was deep. She heard laughter above her, distorted by the water, and she barely had time to push back above the surface and gasp in a breath before he'd slid in after her and shoved her up against the tub wall.

Evidently Lucius enjoyed foreplay. Hermione was far from complaining. There was a strip of metal lining the shower door in front of her, and Hermione could see their entwined reflection in it. She could just make out her own expression: raw desire, and on Narcissa's face it was breathtaking, and very much mirrored in Lucius. Together, surrounded by the suds of the bath, they looked like a pair of angels locked in sin. It sent yet another wave of arousal coursing through her; she was so hot she felt close to passing out.

Hermione forgot about morals and reason and simply watched, mesmerized, as Lucius pushed her golden hair aside and proceeded to attack her neck and shoulder, layering kisses and teeth up and down her rattling pulse-point while his hands went everywhere: one alternated stroking, flicking and twisting her nipples—which were now hard enough to hurt—while the other did obscene things between her legs. The water lubricated their bodies and made every one of his movements a slick sensory nirvana. He knew precisely where to touch her and the total lack of fumbling ineffectuality was enough to bring her right up to the sweet, teetering brink. She reached down and gripped his cock, which was poised between her legs, and he growled and slid a pair of fingers inside her, corkscrewed once, and she came.

Pleasure seized her and shook her so forcefully that she nearly threw Lucius off; he had to clamp an arm around her waist as she bucked and writhed and gasped and shouted through the flood, and he wouldn't let it die down—no, if anything he was working her harder now, forcing her through an extended climax. Oh, no, this was too much. This was scary. How in god's name would she ever reassemble herself after this? How would she ever be whole again?

As she began to come down she heard a quiet laugh in her ear.

"And you're quite sure you don't want to do this?" When she nodded without a moment's hesitation he laughed again, louder, earnestly. "My god, you're a siren." He ran his lips down her trembling spine. "I cannot believe how erotic this is." He grabbed her hip and spun her around; bubbles eddied and swirled away like clouds. Hermione felt hot, flushed, relaxed from coming, but not comfortable; she was once again being stared down by Lucius Malfoy, and she doubted if she could ever get comfortable with that. She wondered suddenly if it was just Narcissa's body that was responsible for how strongly she'd felt that orgasm, and perhaps Narcissa was simply more sensual than her, that led to a whole line of awful depressing thoughts about her own body, and why the fuck she herself had never been ripped out of her skin like that before?

Lucius once again interrupted her downward spiral. He snatched a glass phial balanced on the edge of the tub, upended it over his palm, then tilted Hermione's head back and began to massage its creamy contents into her hair without so much as a word of explanation. She stared at him, openmouthed, for nearly ten seconds before she pulled herself together enough to enjoy it. Even in this he wasn't gentle: there was pressure behind his fingers as he worked the shampoo into her scalp, but the firm strokes of his hands felt all the better for it. The soap itself smelled like peonies and sweet peas and she immediately loved it.

Thus Lucius transitioned them from torrid near-sex to a surprisingly soothing round of grooming and massaging. Hermione thought blearily that this was almost as good. He rubbed down every inch of her—hands, arms, shoulders and neck, chest and back, even the hypersensitive flesh at the apex of her legs, which he plied and rubbed with increasing pressure until she was fully aroused again and was starting to rock into his fingers, at which point he withdrew, flashing his teeth to let her know that, yes, he was torturing her on purpose and loving every minute of it.

Infuriating arsehole. The thought had barely crossed her mind when she felt his fingers again, only now they were on her arsehole. She gasped and tried to wriggle away but he clamped a hand on her hip and held her steady while he stroked a line from her tailbone to perineum, his face inches from hers, drinking in her expression. His lips were parted and he idly tongued a canine as he worked, his fingertips circling the forbidden ring of muscle, black lust in his eyes. Hermione whimpered and grew feverish and was on the verge of moaning as she thought he was going to push inside her—when he moved on to massage her thighs, his expression all indolent amusement.

What a—fucking—motherfucker! She glared at him, but her anger lacked fire; she could hardly be angry at him while he stood there rubbing her feet, occasionally pecking an innocent little kiss to her ankle or sole. Narcissa was not ticklish, not anywhere, and for once in her life Hermione marveled at being touched without feeling the need to burst into hysterics. It was… strange, and not necessarily in a pleasant way. She had reflexively laughed and pulled away when he'd splayed his hands over her stomach, but the sensations hadn't come, and she'd felt rather dumb about it and blushed at him. Lucius, for his part, seemed to be thoroughly amused, and had watched her the whole time as if cataloguing her reactions. There was something rather different about his languid gray eyes now, something impish about his smile.

I cannot believe how erotic this is. The sentence niggled at Hermione. It was sinister, somehow, and she was just putting her mind to figuring it out when Lucius dropped her foot and drifted close to her again.

"Now me." Hermione's jaw dropped. He smirked, slid a finger under her chin and closed her mouth. "Go on."

Hermione went scarlet but didn't pass up the opportunity to feel him up. She'd been inwardly dying to touch him back. He was hot under her fingertips, his skin glowing, a pink flush in his fine cheekbones; his eyes slid half-closed as she took her turn massaging shampoo into his long, sumptuous hair.

As she worked the strands he drawled, "I had been thinking about cutting it short—"

"NO!"

Her shout made both of them jump. Hermione clapped a sudsy hand on her mouth and turned apple-red. He stared at her a moment, taken aback—then broke out into full laughter and beckoned for her to go on washing.

The process was shockingly relaxing. More so than when she'd been on the receiving end. Hermione wished she'd done something like this before, in her actual life; already she was getting familiar with the deep, aromatic natural smell of him, how he moved, the small tics in his expression as she applied herself to his body. It was a very good way to learn someone intimately. He was in great shape, even considering his age, and as she soothed away the tenseness in a bicep she blurted without thinking, "How do you keep your form?"

His jaw ticked up. "Liquor bottles are heavy."

She tsked him, slapped his arm. "Come on."

He looked amused at the gesture. "I mainly swim."

"Oh do you? I did that for a few months, but the chlorine really dried out my hair, it got unmanageable and it's already so insane on the day-to-day. I moved on to jogging but it's hard on your joints, I was always waking up sore. I really can't get over how ridiculous people look on the machines too, so lately I've just been supplementing all the jogging with this lifting regimen—"

She stopped dead. Oh god. She'd forgotten she wasn't Hermione, and the very last person on earth who would've dumped all that on Lucius Malfoy was Narcissa. Her full-on panic attack was curtailed sharply, however, when Lucius—whose expression hadn't changed from one of quiet interest—suddenly said, "The elves tend to the pool, there really isn't need for chlorination. It's the best way I've found of working out excess energy. Well, aside from running down Belgium in the mornings when she steals the paper, but she hasn't done that since she turned two." He raised his eyebrows at Hermione. "Why have you stopped? There's a knot in my shoulder."

Hermione had just been trying to imagine the severe, stoic figure of Lucius Malfoy chasing a puppy through the halls of Malfoy Manor, but it was just too bizarre. She shook her head and went back to massaging him. When her hands reached his stomach and she'd barely laid a fingertip to the streak of hair below his navel, he shifted, very subtly redirecting her fingers off his abs. Ahh, so it's true: every monster has a weak spot. She didn't try to exploit it, partially because he was still quite terrifying to her and she wasn't sure how he'd retaliate, but she smiled to herself and set to rubbing down his back. When she reached the base of his spine she didn't hesitate a second to run her fingers lecherously over his firm ass. She wasn't any kind of expert but she knew enough to appreciate his absurdly gorgeous rear-end; for his part Lucius seemed to like her admiration. He grinned at her like she'd given him a verbal compliment, anyway.

She was silently squirreling away all of this information about him, his body and the whole encounter—up until she realized that none of it had anything to do with her actual purpose there, and she couldn't do anything with it later.

Except think about it when she locked him up.

He moved again, and his cock brushed against her arm.

She started and glanced up at him; he raised an eyebrow. Go on. She reached out and took it, pushing it through the ring of her fingers from base to tip, while simultaneously pushing all other thoughts from her head. He was so hard; the knowledge made her warm with pride until she realized that he wasn't really seeing Hermione Granger, and therefore she couldn't take credit for the state of him. Still, there was something inherently marvelous about a man at full mast, triply so if that man happened to be Lucius Malfoy. She couldn't get over how good it felt to touch him: there was no give to him, and when she reached the base and squeezed, his member flexed like a muscle; her own breath quickened as she pulled her hand back up to the ridge of the head, then up further, running the pad of her thumb over the slit. Lucius gave zero reaction except to lean into her hand, but she could see the jolt of his heart against his ribcage, and the slight glaze in his eyes.

Ultimately, though, she was reminded that she couldn't read him at all. She'd taken his passive expression to mean she should go on plying him; in actuality, he'd had enough of bath-time and was ready to proceed to something a little more personal. He moved, twisting left, grabbing a towel off the nearby rack and yanking it open; he spread it on the marble at the edge of the tub, close enough for a corner to dangle into the water. She had no idea what to make of this strange behavior and was about to ask before he grabbed her, lifted her unceremoniously from the water, sat down on the towel, forced to lay back and then (as a foggy idea of what the hell began to form in her brain) he pushed her legs apart and solved the mystery for her.

"Oh yes," she announced, and almost laughed at the blatant relief in her voice—like she'd been plagued all her life by some terrible puzzle to which Lucius had just presented a simple, wonderful solution. Fucking hell. He was doing that thing with his tongue, only not on her mouth now. She knew which she preferred. He scraped oh-so-lightly over her clit with his incisors and she nearly writhed out of his hands. He ate her in the same exact way he kissed: methodically, his movements slow and forceful one moment, light and teasing the next. For a while she couldn't understand how he was changing tactics so perfectly to match the rise and fall of her sensitivity, and assumed it was because he knew Narcissa's body so well. Then it struck her: he was paying attention to her, focusing on her body, moving with it. She was moaning and arching her back almost incessantly; her breath was uneven, fluctuating; she might've even been embarrassed at her own wanton behavior if she'd been in the state of mind. But she must've been communicating properly, because Lucius was using all her nonsensical output and turning it into the most stimulating experience of her life. Merlin, she'd had this done to her before, but for whatever reason it hadn't been much of a revelation then. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it hadn't been Lucius fucking Malfoy doing it.

Without drawing back, Lucius shouldered her legs, took her hips in both hands and yanked her closer, working quite forcefully now. In the process his nose brushed her clit, and that did it. She came screaming.

While she twisted and bucked her way through another orgasm he kept her mostly pinned to the floor with one hand; the other was God knew where, she really didn't care. He was strong; through the fog Hermione thought back to how easily he'd carried and pulled her around, manipulated her body—Narcissa's body—as if she were made of feathers. When the last delicious pulses died away and Lucius finally drew back, she brushed the damp gold hair out of her eyes and sighed happily, basking in the loose-limbed afterglow. She couldn't remember a time she'd felt more relaxed. After a moment, however, she noticed that Lucius was still moving, and sat up to see what he was doing—just in time to watch him come all over her stomach and breasts. He went on stroking himself through the eruption and a few moments after; then he sighed, too, and sunk back into the bath, drifting off to sit across from her, eyes closed. The picture of contentment.

Hermione stared at him, shocked. Eventually she unstuck her tongue. "Why did you do that?"

He didn't move. "What do you mean?"

"Why—" Hermione coughed and blushed. "Why did you do that?"

He smiled, but his eyes stayed closed. "Repeating the same question does not provide clarification, Narcissa."

Hermione tried to manage her embarrassment. "Why did you finish yourself off just then?"

He finally opened his eyes and gazed at her curiously. "Why does it matter?"

Because I wanted to do that, you prick. Who just tosses off in the middle of foreplay? Hermione looked down at herself and reddened a little. She got up and wiped herself clean with the towel she'd been lying on, then she slid back into the tub, sitting uneasily across from him while he went on lounging in his post-coital haze. Was it still considered post-coital if he hadn't even fucked her?

She could've sworn they were going to get to it. She glanced askance at him, wondering. Perhaps that had been some sort of perverse attempt at chivalry. She had said they should move slow. But it was a stretch, and she seriously doubted that was the actual reason. He hadn't shown the slightest interest in taking things slow since the whole mess began.

His eyes opened. "Let's go outside."

Hermione gaped. "Right now?"

"Certainly. Or—" He glanced at a clock hanging over the toilet and scowled. "Damn, we won't have enough time to walk down to the water today. Tomorrow, then. But there's time to visit the nesting site." He pulled himself out of the tub, grabbed a fresh towel and slung it around his hips, striding out of the room before Hermione could get out another word. She re-washed herself at top speed, grabbed a towel and hurried out after him.

He'd already mostly dried his long hair and was belting up his trousers. For a moment Hermione wasn't able to choose between all the questions yammering in her brain. She eventually settled on, "Do we have to go now?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I suppose we don't technically have an appointment," he said sarcastically. "Is there something else you would like to do?"

Yes: you! You fucking prick! "It's windy," she said, hoping to god it was.

"I rather think 'windy' is the best sort of weather for this," he responded, now buttoning up a fresh shirt. "Go on, get dressed, I'll give Harriot her instructions for dinner in the meantime." When Hermione didn't move, he tutted impatiently. "We are not having sex right now, Narcissa. Now stop acting like a petulant child and put on some clothes."

Hermione's temper soared. "Oh excuse me for thinking we were going to have sex!" she burst out. "It just seemed like the logical conclusion to—to all of that!" She waved at the bathroom door. "Why aren't we having sex, then?" It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out Is it because you think I'm ugly?—then she remembered she was wearing Narcissa's lovely skin, and none of those old insecurities applied anymore. That was probably why their previous activities had been so mind-blowing: Hermione had been free to enjoy them without worrying about how she looked or what her partner thought of her. She took a moment to marvel at just how much self-confidence impacted sexual gratification.

Lucius looked irritated. "Because," he said, "there is a specific way I would like to fuck you, and I don't particularly feel like doing it now." He stopped and faced her down. "Are you going to come with me, or will I see you at dinner?"

Prick. She was on the verge of telling him that he could fuck himself with dinner when he added, "Harriot tells me the cliff has never been so active before. You'll regret missing the takeoff at sunset."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but (damn him) her curiosity was piqued, and now she had to figure out what the hell he meant. She could've asked, she supposed, but if Narcissa and Lucius had honeymooned here, the real Narcissa would know. "All right."

As she left she did her best not to think about what had just happened, but it was impossible. She replayed everything in double speed and groaned to herself. She now had a head full of dreadfully incriminating memories that she could never, ever divulge to anyone. If she was smart, she'd leave. If she was smart she'd walk right out of the house in her towel and apparate home, and never make contact with Lucius Malfoy again.

Who would've thought. Hermione Granger—a total fucking idiot.