The winter sun struggled to break through the heavy curtains and into the room, but Hermione still knew it was dawn and she awoke refreshed and content. At first she didn't move. She listened.

She could hear deep, regular breathing from beside her. Shifting back, she came against a warm firm body and fitted herself back against it just as she had the night before. The breathing was was interrupted and immediately a strong hand encircled her waist and held her tight.

So it wasn't a dream.

And it still felt right.

"Good morning." The low hum in her ear further affirmed the reality.

"Good morning," she replied, turning her head to confirm that it was indeed Lucius Malfoy lying beside her in bed.

She smiled and before she could turn her head back he had brought his hand up to gently hold her there. Lucius leaned over and kissed her, so sweetly, so sublimely, she thought she was falling through the softness of the pillow.

Still kissing her, his hand moved down, running along the valley of her waist, over her hips and down her thigh. Immediately, she was alight and ready. She sighed against his lips, sliding her tongue into his mouth to taste as much of him as possible. He teased. Pulling back then ghosting over her, his own tongue danced along her lips before questing briefly into her mouth as she tried to capture it.

His hand stopped just above her knee and it moved down under her leg so that he was supporting it. He closed his fingers under and lifted. Hermione was hardly aware of what he was doing. When she felt him, rock hard and urgent, nudging against her opening, she was made very much aware.

The image of the two lovers in the boat from the book swam into her head. So similar.

She moved to position herself perfectly for him, her head still bent in a kiss, and with a moan of consent she felt him press into her.

The passage of the night had momentarily blurred her memory of how large he was. As he moved deeper, her eyes opened in astonishment. He paused at just the right point and rocked back and forth. Her eyes closed involuntarily and she exhaled in wonder.

Lucius pushed deeper then pulled back only to squeeze himself once more into her searingly tight flesh.

Hermione moaned, words floating from her subconscious onto the air around them. "That's right, that's right, my darling, my darling, don't stop, don't stop ..."

A groan of his own fell into her ear. When had someone last called him 'darling'?

"So perfect, so good ... Do you know how good you feel? So good for me ... You are so good for me." He whispered so low even she could barely distinguish his words.

His hand released her leg and ran back up over her hip and along her waist. He brought it to rest at her breast, cupping the heavy flesh briefly before drawing his fingers up to find the nipple. He closed around it and pinched. Hermione moaned as the sensations shot through her straight to her sex, which was still being stroked by his rigid cock.

Their mouths were still joined, open and hungry. She moaned a lust-drenched 'yes' as his fingers continued to squeeze her nipple ever more passionately. She pressed into his hand, delighting in the feelings he was eliciting within her flaming body.

How responsive she was. It had been so long, and yet with her, his instinctive skill had returned with a passionate vengeance.

He continued to move, in then out, slowly then fast, stroking, soothing, rubbing, filling.

And with a sudden spasmodic arching of her body, Hermione froze. Her breath caught with ragged sharpness and her hand reached behind to clasp in his hair. "Lucius!" She could hardly form the word, but he heard it and with it felt the tight rhythmic clenching of her orgasm. His face creased with joy.

Such pleasure. Never before.

He held her tight into him, her limbs shaking as the rapture rushed through her. He moved within her shuddering body, and with a grunt of pure release, burst into her in hot searing bursts.

They lost count of how long it took them to tune back into their surroundings. They lay, having hardly moved since both waking and he stroked along her body, back and forth, rhythmically and regularly.

Beautiful.

Hermione was not sure if she had gone back to sleep or not. Her mind was so relaxed, so at one with the man beside her and the room which held them so gently, that she drifted in and out of a dreamlike state, unaware if she was awake or sleeping.

At some point, Lucius fell away from her and the bed adjusted as he got up. She rolled over. If she could no longer feel him, she must at least look at him.

She breathed in in revelation. The nature of their urgent initial coupling the previous night meant that she had not really seen him properly naked. And now he was standing before her for the first time.

Her face broke involuntarily into the broadest smile. He was the most magnificent example of man she'd ever seen and exhibited a body in remarkable shape for his age. He could easily have been ten or fifteen years younger. A great wizard, she was reminded.

She couldn't take her eyes off him.

Lucius seemed to be unaware that he was being studied and bent down to pick up his shirt from where it had been discarded the night before.

"No, wait!" Her sudden cry startled him, and he turned to her in surprise. "I want to look at you. I haven't seen you yet."

He frowned slightly with a look which almost conveyed embarrassment. He was clearly confident in his own body but had perhaps not expected her to be. But he let the shirt drop to the floor again and raised himself tall, turning his eyes into hers.

She continued to smile, her beam curling into a smirk of delight. With a wave of her hand and a mutter of "Partitio," the curtains opened and the crisp morning light poured into the room, falling on his body and imparting it with an almost translucent glow.

Hermione spun over onto her hands and knees and crawled down the bed towards him. When she reached the end she swung her legs off and approached him.

He looked at her steadily but his chest rose and fell with increasing rapidity.

Hermione's eyes fell on his torso, broad, smooth and sculpted, the pectoral muscles swelling and dipping in two subtle but firm undulations. She placed her palms flat upon them, and slowly, deliberately, rubbed up to curl over his shoulders before her fingers worked their way around the back of his neck. And then, almost having to stand on tiptoes, she kissed him.

The most perfect kiss.

But Hermione then slipped away from it and continued to kiss, peck and nibble over his face. Her hand rose to the back of his head and she pulled him down so that her mouth rested against his ear, and she whispered, "You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen. You always were ... but, I confess, I've only recently realised it."

She didn't see his eyes close in pained adoration.

Hermione continued her kisses, down his neck, across his left shoulder, her hands following to reinforce her touch.

She was meticulously and assiduously covering every inch of his flesh. By the time she had worked her way down and to the front again he had risen so hard that she swayed back in surprise.

But instead of a giggle of surprised amusement, Hermione could only stare in wonder.

And then, slowly, tentatively, her hands reached out for it and she touched it almost reverently, just with the tips of her fingers. Lucius sucked in a breath through his teeth. And, employing the same gentle attention she had given to the rest of his body, Hermione lowered her head and kissed it, tenderly and delicately, starting at the base and gradually running up to the smooth, round head, so swollen and full for her.

Lucius struggled to control himself, but her attentions were so innocently perfect that he allowed her her restraint. At that moment, it was right. Her lips continued to kiss, her tongue occasionally flitting out and tasting, touching, exploring, learning ... learning him. Her hands reached around to cup the firm swell of his buttocks.

She could feel her own desire gathering in damp heat. Her body needed to take him in her mouth, take him deep into her, taste him, engulf him. But Hermione resisted.

She continued to plant delicate, chaste kisses along his engorged cock, which rose ever more urgently up to her. Lucius' breathing could be heard coming in deep but sharp intakes. Hermione moved down to the base, lightly tasting the heavy sac she found there. He couldn't stop a groan of gathering lust rising from him. Her tongue licked, probing every crease and pore. And then she drew it back up the underside until it came to the deep slit splitting the purple head. A drip threatened to fall from the tip. She caught it on her tongue before it had the chance, taking the salty confirmation of his desire into her mouth and tasting his essence. He was sweeter than others, sweeter than she would have imagined.

And with that, for now, she abandoned it and moved down to further discover his body. Was its tautness merely due to the condition he kept himself in? Or did it reflect the tight restriction of his mind, the caged soul within? Hermione stroked his leg, kissing and nibbling as she went, curious to see how his flesh reacted. His skin quivered beneath her touch. Did his soul quiver also? Could she shake him, stir him? She continued her quest, down, down to his feet. Her fingertips ran over the long tendons and bones which formed them.

Even his feet were beautiful.

Hermione moved behind him and slowly, so slowly, travelled up the backs of his legs, kissing, tasting still. Lucius allowed her. His patience surprised even him, but her exquisite ministrations delighted him. She was absorbing him, absorbing all that he was.

He felt her tongue on his buttocks. They tensed due to the delicious sensations pouring through him and the near impossible task of controlling himself. Hermione paused momentarily and he forced himself to relax. She felt the muscles softening under her and she continued her progress up his back, her fingertips running up his spine, feeling each vertebrae, lightly, delicately, her tongue examining the long muscles which extended down either side.

And finally she was back to the nape of his neck. His hair tumbled down. She reached up and stroked it, her fingers curling around the myriad of flaxen strands, heavy and silky in her palm. What an extraordinary thing it was. She'd never imagined she would find long hair on a man attractive. She didn't even like blonds. But it was so integral to his identity, to the nature of his being, that it could be no other way. She delighted in it as much as any other part of him.

Hermione leaned up and inhaled the smell of his hair. He still smelt of Christmas.

She brought her mouth to his ear and whispered, low and sensual, "You are magnificent - every part of you ..." She paused, drawing her hand down his flat torso, feeling the indentation of his belly button as she went. She stopped just above the point at which he rose out, still so needy. He had seen her at her most exposed all those years ago, screaming as her body and soul were flayed open for him to see. All modesty, all shyness, were banished. She desired him. Why mask it? She dripped her voice into his ear. "... but especially your cock."

With that Lucius turned to her, grasping her shoulders firmly in his large hands, his eyes searing into her, his breath falling on her in hot heavy pants. He leaned in and kissed her violently, his tongue forcing her mouth open and probing within her sweet submitting warmth. How had he done without for so long? How had his life gone from such devastation to such completeness with the presence of one person? His desire merely raged on.

The lust Hermione had kept caged so carefully during her exploration of his body flared violently. She returned his kiss with as much passion as he gave it and felt her belly writhing in desperate need.

His hand gripped her head to him, fingers clenched in her hair. It was his turn to speak.

"I want you. I must know you, understand you."

He was pushing her back towards the bed. She fell back onto it. He knelt between her legs, lifting them forcibly to the sides and exposing her fully to him.

Hermione's breath was held.

Lucius' fingers ran up her thighs, tickling and tantalising. She moaned, her head thrashing to the side, her hips bucking violently.

"Shh ..." He whispered so delicately she hardly heard it but it worked immediately. Hermione stilled, her patience forced to obey.

Lucius bent his head to the back of her knee and flitted his tongue out. She inhaled sharply but quietly, waiting, waiting.

The damp, delectable warmth was working its way up her inner thigh, accompanied by his lips, sucking, nibbling the delicate flesh as it travelled.

And then his fingers found her, opening her, revealing her so wet, so primed for him that he knew it would take little to pull her over the edge.

His tongue at last reached its goal and swept long and slow up towards her swollen knot of flesh, capturing her desire as it went. Hermione moaned, a slow protracted wail of rapture. She had not realised how much she had wanted, needed, to feel him there. As Lucius absorbed the concentrated essence of who she was, a surge pulsed through him, an extreme version of the warm glow he experienced when she had smiled at him. There was no revulsion at her lowly status, merely a sudden sense of everything falling into place, of a blindness being removed from his eyes.

She lay before him, a Muggle-born, utterly exposed, utterly vulnerable. If he accepted her now, he would accept all of her, and she him.

No one else mattered. They could be the only two people on earth.

She clenched her muscles hard, her hips rising and falling regularly, encouraging his already expert technique. Hermione could not recall a former lover who had engaged in this with such abandon. It ceased to be the base and visceral act that it could be, and became something so beautiful, transcending the mere physical, that she found tears pouring from her eyes as pleasure poured from her body.

It did not take long for another orgasm to cascade over her in ever-growing billows.

She lay still, panting, trying to recapture her breath and focus. Lucius came to lie beside her on the bed. For some time, she could only stare at him, but a tingle at the back of her mind told her his own needs had not been fully addressed. She kissed him again, then, drawing her leg carefully over him, she positioned herself so that her body hovered over his throbbing erection.

He glanced down. She leaned onto his chest a little, causing him to drag in air. Then, in stark contrast to when he had first entered her, she lowered herself slowly down onto him, watching as he disappeared little by little into her, feeling him stretch her inner walls inch by inch.

When at last he was fully in, her head fell back, and in short gasping breaths she felt him and encompassed him. Forcing her head over, her eyes met his and she smiled. He was looking up at her in sheer wonder.

"That's good," she smiled down at him.

"Oh yes," he almost laughed.

He moaned as her muscles clamped around him.

He gripped her hips and fixed into her eyes. "Move. Move, my sweet. I must feel you. I want to feel you."

As slowly as she had lowered herself onto him, Hermione pushed up, not quite letting him fall out of her, but enough to torment and delight him equally. Then down again, and up, repeating her exquisite bewitching movements with carefully executed momentum. His eyes closed and his head fell to the side in pure rapture. Hermione looked down in wonder. With this man, her body simply knew what to do.

She leaned back, propelling him along her at just the right angle. Hermione moved faster now as she felt the approach of another orgasm. His hands came up and he instinctively grasped her breasts, plying the taut nipples. It was all it took. Hermione froze momentarily, her eyes shooting open in wonder. The climax burst upon her, capturing every fibre in her body. A juddering exclamation, half words, half sensation, rose from her.

As he felt her muscles gripping him hard, as he heard the primeval sound of her disarray, Lucius followed her, releasing his own pleasure deep within her in hot, heaving spasms, his own groan animalistic in its triumph.

She slumped onto his body and felt heavy arms falling over her back to hold her there. It took some time, in the dim silence around them, for reality to encroach once again. There was no rush for it, no need for it to return. Indeed, this was now their reality.

His hand came up to stroke her hair.

"I have found you. Thank the gods I have found you."

Hermione made sure her tears fell into his hair, not allowing him to feel them wet on his skin.

Lucius moved to look at her, still stroking her hair and face. "Will you have me?"

She frowned in confusion. He sounded so vulnerable, so beseeching. "What do you mean?" She smiled a little. "I have had you - several times in a few hours." She giggled to mask the serious tone of his question. His words unsettled her.

He frowned. "No. Now. You must not go. You won't go, will you?"

Her expression melted into one of complete acceptance and humility. She shook her head. "I won't go."

Lucius sighed. She laid her head on his chest, hearing his deep tones vibrating within. 

"I confess - when you first arrived here, I was filled with dread. My prejudices had not died. I detested Muggle-borns with a passion. I still do ... I contemplated whether I could tolerate your presence at all. But, there you were, and somehow none of it mattered. You were real - a living, thinking, sentient being. And you breathed ... you breathed life into my house ... into me. The struggle I initially felt changed. It was no longer a struggle of whether I could live with you ... but whether I could live without you ..."

Hermione squeezed her eyes tight shut to try to stem the relentless flow of emotion. The throbbing tones continued. "And you? Can you put up with me? An old bigoted, belligerent Death Eater?" There was genuine fear in his voice.

Hermione glanced up at him. Old? Belligerent? She'd never seen anyone so vital and accepting. She gave her response by kissing him with the deepest confirmation.

How had he existed without her? It was as if he was waiting for her ... all his life, waiting ... his prejudices, his perceptions merely a preparation for the confrontation, for the deconstruction of his beliefs, even if only through and for this woman.

They clung to each other, as morning turned to midday.

Hermione lay on his chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. "I suppose we should get up at some point."

"Whatever for?"

She stifled a laugh. "Food perhaps?" She glanced at him. He seemed to read her mind, as they both said at the same time, "Tea?"

She laughed again, and felt his chest rising and falling in shared mirth.

"I'll never forget the first time you asked me to join you for tea. I was so surprised."

"Not as surprised as I was that I had done it at all."

"So why did you?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I just ... wanted you near me, I suppose, even then. I found your company ... comforting ... it reminded me that I was indeed alive."

"Oh, Mr Malfoy," she drawled, "you are very much alive." She kissed him deliciously. "Have you forgotten what I am?"

There was a moment's silence.

"No." His voice was straight.

"You said you still detest Muggle-borns just now."

"I do."

"So ... how can you have done what you just did and said the things you have just said ... to me?"

He looked at her, a ghost of a smile on his face, containing sheer wondrous admiration. "Because you are ... Hermione. The rest is irrelevant to my feelings for you."

"It wasn't before."

He breathed out hard. He adored her bold, inquiring mind and knew these questions would be raised at some point, but he was more focused on other matters at this moment and would rather avoid thinking too hard about them. He didn't think he could fully comprehend it himself. He simply knew that he needed her, adored her and everything she was, everything she brought to him. His mind ached.

"I confess that, with regard to you, there has been a re-evaluation of sorts. But, it is you, only you. The others are ... still ..." His voice trailed off. The matter was tedious.

She smiled. He was relieved she didn't ask any more. He continued, "It was, after all, some time before I acknowledged the full extent of my feelings for you."

"What prompted that? The book?"

Lucius smiled. "A wonderful moment. But, no, I think that simply confirmed it to me. Things were stirring in me before that. I'd started to dream about you."

She giggled, remembering her own night-time fantasies. "Me too. If I was honest with myself, I was attracted to you very early on. That first moment I saw you it took me aback because I had forgotten how stupendously good-looking you are."

His fingertips ran enticingly over her arm.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear."

She wriggled provocatively against him, running her leg up his thigh.

"Prove it."

And Lucius Malfoy, never one to let a challenge pass, set about doing just that.