So I wrote this. And there will be more, a few chapters of Lumione sexeliciousness. I missed him. I have other, unfinished business with him in the form of Through A Glass Darkly, but this is what my mind threw at me for now. This is classic angsty, undeniable illicit attraction despite the odds fair. And I f***ing love it. Enjoy. xx

The Committee for the Regulation and Assessment of Paranormal Paraphernalia (C.R.A.P.P.) met four times a year at the Ministry of Magic. Compared to the control of Dark Arts materials, there was little for the committee to do. Paranormal activity in the wizarding world was rarely considered a threat, and so meetings of C.R.A.P.P. tended to live up to its acronym.

Hermione Granger was deputising for Harry, who was away in Argentina on an Auror convention, and the tedium of the meeting had quickly lulled her mind into thinking not of Mrs Emmeline Prenderghast's carriage clock which Mrs Prenderghast was convinced was possessed, or Mr Bartholomew Quince's lawnmower which emitted strange noises from the garden shed whenever there was a full moon. Instead, Hermione thought back to her tepidly dull date with Oliver Wood the week before. Why had she ever agreed to it? Perhaps she held out hope that he had retained some of the floppy-haired good looks and drive he'd exhibited as Quidditch captain way back …. whenever.

He hadn't.

He'd given up the Quidditch and moved into the plastics industry. He now knew – as Hermione discovered on the date – an awful lot about enchanted polymers and how they were transforming household packaging, both magical and Muggle.

She'd tried not to yawn, she really had. She hadn't been entirely successful. When he said, 'Don't let me keep you up', she thought it best to make a polite but swift exit.

She'd split up with Ron over a year ago. Everyone said she needed to move on. She agreed with them. She had moved on. Or rather, she was at least over him. She'd ended it, for God's sake, of course she was over him. Did that mean she needed someone else? She rather liked being single. And Ron was no longer an option, anyway; he was away for months on end coaching the national German Quidditch team.

She did, however, miss sex, perhaps the reason she'd got her hopes up over Oliver Wood. No chance there though. Wood by name, definitely not Wood by nature. She smirked to herself and may have emitted a slightly audible throaty chuckle.

'Are you alright, Hermione?'

She glanced up. Silas Mortimer, C.R.A.P.P. Chairperson of the utmost sobriety, was looking at her quizzically.

'Yes. Why?' she responded.

'You made a strange noise.'

'Did I? Sorry. Just a tickle.' She pointed to her throat and forced a cough to cover herself. Mortimer didn't look convinced.

She glanced around the room. The witches and wizards around the table were the most miserable, dry, dull bunch of bureaucrats she'd ever seen. Why on earth did Harry bother with this soul-destroying committee? Something about trying to bridge the gap between generations or something, he'd muttered, if she recalled correctly.

Hermione carried on looking around to pass the time, playing her own game of Spot the Wizard. She identified Caspar Higginbottom. He was in charge of the Chamber of Commerce for Diagon Alley. Next to him was Millicent Hopgirdle, founder member of the Guild of Magical Jam Makers. Then someone else with an enormously hairy wart whom she vaguely recognised but couldn't name. Then a wizard who appeared to be asleep but was the owner of a long beard which lay halfway across the table. Then –

She stopped, staring unblinkingly. The next wizard was someone she recognised all too well. How she had not seen him earlier was beyond her. But then, his presence was so unexpected, so out of context, that she had never once imagined she would see someone like him here.

Sitting just along the table from her, seemingly as unfocused as she on the matters at hand, was Lucius Malfoy.

Her breathing faltered and she found herself unable to look away from him. Was it intimidation? Hatred? She hadn't thought about him for an age. He'd been exonerated after the war, and she'd heard about the break-up of his marriage, but she'd been content to distance herself from any association with that family. The memories were too raw, too painful. He'd been there after all, that night in Malfoy Manor, when Bellatrix had …

She tried to look away. Her breathing came fast now, and with it rose anger. Why the hell did he have to be here? Was it penance for his crimes? Was he forced to sit on committees of mind-numbing tedium as some sort of strange, twisted atonement?

And then he turned his head in her direction and looked straight at her. She was frozen for a moment, his gaze holding her captive as she had been held captive in his house all those years ago. He looked the same as she remembered from a time even longer ago, in the Department of Mysteries the night of Sirius's death, advancing menacingly towards her and the others, effortless in his elegance.

She cursed herself silently. Elegance? What the hell was she thinking? He was, by all accounts, renowned for his good looks, but she'd always shut out such putrid assertions. How could anyone so evil be considered attractive? And yet, as he stared at her now, she still found herself staring back. His eyes were the palest grey, almost transparent, it seemed. She felt as if by looking into them any longer she would be able to see into his very soul. Perhaps she could. Perhaps she should.

'Hermione? Hermione? Miss Granger!' Mortimer was practically yelling into her ear to rouse her.

'Sorry. I … sorry … yes?' she asked, refocusing.

He gave a sigh. 'Do you have anything to add to the decision on the telephone box in Chipping Sodbury?'

'Umm …' What the hell was he talking about?

'Chipping Sodbury! It's possessed! We intend to shut it down using a demystification device. We need your approval. You have been listening, haven't you?'

'Yes, yes of course.' She instinctively glanced back at Malfoy, for some reason finding him the only person in the room that she could actually relate to at that moment. He met her eyes again and a hint of a smirk played around his mouth. 'Yes, shut it down, completely. Take it away. Destroy it. Best thing in these cases.'

'Very well,' said Mortimer suspiciously. She felt rather like she was being told off by the head teacher at primary school. 'That, then, concludes business.'

Thank the gods for that, she thought.

At that, the committee room sprang to life, and witches and wizards who had previously seemed half-dead moved with sudden youthful vigour to get out of the place as soon as was humanly possible. Hermione still had papers strewn all over the place. She was aware of one other person who had not yet left either. He seemed in no hurry. She deliberately did not look up but felt that sinking feeling take hold again. At least, she thought it was a sinking feeling. She certainly had a strange ache in her gut which was only growing stronger. She tried to steady her breathing but failed when she heard footsteps approaching. A long shadow fell across her papers.

'Miss Granger.'

She didn't answer. She kept her head down and tried to stuff her papers into her bag as quickly as she could.

'I have not seen you for quite some time.'

He had a remarkably even voice, she thought. Deep and rich. She closed her eyes against it and leaned on the table, the intensity of her response confusing and frustrating her.

'Yes. Some time,' she said in the hope that would be enough to make him leave.

'Are you well?'

She sighed and at last looked up. She shouldn't have because she met with those infinite grey eyes again. He looked straight at her, barely blinking. She hated him for it. 'I'm fine.'

Hermione forced her head away again and tried to think about what needed to go where. She had completely lost a vital document she needed to hand to the Minister and scrabbled around desperately. 'Oh, bloody hell!'

'Is there a problem?' Malfoy asked.

'I've lost something.'

'Can I help?'

She scoffed out a laugh and looked up at him with a twisted expression of disdain. 'Why the hell would you want to help?'

He pouted a little. 'Common courtesy, some would call it.'

'Courtesy? You wouldn't understand courtesy if it came and slapped you in the face.'

'Don't make assumptions, Miss Granger.'

'I'm not making assumptions, Malfoy – I know. I've seen you in action for myself.'

'That was many years ago.'

'A leopard can't change his spots,' she practically snarled.

'What a bleak assessment.'

'It's safer that way.'

'Perhaps, but rather dull, don't you think?'

He was standing very close to her. She could smell him. Her breathing was so heavy now that every inhalation caused a rush of his cologne to enter her senses. And he smelt very, very … good.

She huffed in annoyance. 'Look. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you. I have to leave now.'

He cocked an eyebrow. 'But you're still here.'

She sighed again and glanced at the door, hoping to make a quick escape. The last person to leave had shut it. And she still hadn't found her document. 'Oh, for fuck's sake!' she muttered under her breath.

He chuckled. 'I don't think I've ever seen you flustered. Am I responsible for this, Miss Granger?'

'Don't flatter yourself. I can't find a paper I need, that's all.'

'I offered my help in finding it.' He was toying with her. She detected the bite of amusement lacing his otherwise honey-like tones.

'I don't want your help.'

'Why ever not?'

She took a deep breath and stared up at him. 'Nothing's changed, Malfoy. You're still the same arrogant, prejudiced bastard you always were, and I'm still the little Muggle-born bitch you always hated. Why bother?'

He stared down at her and for a moment she couldn't read him, but then his lips quirked up at the corners and he said, 'How can you be sure?'

She sighed. 'Because I'm me. I've been through it, Malfoy. I've been through it all.'

Hermione picked up all her things quickly and moved quickly to walk out. But before she'd gone past him, he grabbed hold of her arm, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to stop her in her tracks. 'And you don't think I have too?'

There was a sudden brutality in his voice which startled her, a shadow of his past. But it wasn't a shadow of fear, she wasn't reminded of the evil he'd once commanded, but rather she was suddenly aware of their shared experience. He released his grip on her arm a little and she could have taken the opportunity to leave, but she did not. She remained there, staring up at him, searching his face.

'You don't think I have been through it all?' he continued. 'Do you honestly think I have been left unscathed by what happened? Unchanged? You are not the only one to have suffered, Miss Granger.'

She swallowed hard, but said with remarkable spite, 'You brought it all on yourself.'

He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring, and she returned his open stare boldly. 'Go on. Say it,' he hissed.

'Say what?' she countered. His eyes really were the most crystal grey she had ever seen.

'I deserved it.'

She opened her mouth. He did, didn't he? He did deserve it. He deserved it all due to the evil, manipulative, supremacist filth he had espoused for so long. But her innate sense of doing the right thing consumed her and she remembered what she had fought for. If she wished suffering on another, was she surely not as bad as that person? Two wrongs did not make a right.

She looked him boldly in the eye and said, 'I would not wish that on anyone.'

'Even me?'

'Even you, Malfoy.'

'But you hate me still?'

'Yes.'

His mouth jigged the merest amount but his eyes did not leave hers. 'Even though we were the only two here today who know what true suffering is? The only two who lived through it, the only two out of all the nameless, soulless fools who walk these halls and order and dictate and demand … We, the only two who have known what it truly is to have our souls inspected and twisted and replaced in the shell of our former selves?'

She felt tears forming hot and sharp as he spoke his truth. She tried to blunt it as best she could. 'Not the only two.'

'Where are the others, Miss Granger? Where are they, your friends? In South America? Germany? Where are they when you need them, hm?'

'Let go of me.'

He smirked. 'I'm not holding onto you.'

She glanced down. He had indeed relinquished his hold on her. She tried to steady her breathing but it was no good. She was drawn inexorably back to the diamond of his eyes.

'Did you ever wonder?' he asked, his words potently intimate in the empty room.

'Wonder what?' she murmured, not wanting to humour him with a response, but driven by some oppressive curiosity.

'Wonder exactly what it would be like? A connection?'

'What do you mean? What connection?'

He was so close to her, tall, firm, drawing ever closer it seemed. 'Two people like us, opposed, divided by hate … what if?'

'What if … what?'

'What if it was all a ruse? Our opposition, our hatred. What if this sham of division was just a means of survival, because what we know is so much easier than what we might have to strive to understand.'

'What do you want?' she asked, barely a whisper.

'Want? I want the same as you.' He was closer yet. 'I wonder …'

And his lips were on hers. And she didn't push him away and she didn't pull back. His mouth was soft and warm and very, very human. And despite herself, despite her 25 years of trying to make sense of it all, it felt so good. And she moved her lips under his and curled her hands around his neck and held him to her and his hands came to her waist and pulled her in tight to him.

And they kissed, a long, slow, deep kiss of two fractured souls seeking meaning. His hands moved to her head to turn it gently for him so he could deepen the kiss and when she lost that pressure from her waist, she instinctively pressed herself against him, needing the length and strength of him. She breathed out through him and she breathed him in. He smelt so good and tasted so good and she was drowning in him. And there was a noise outside the door, someone about to disturb them. They both drew apart, not suddenly, not furtively, but they ended it.

She glanced up at him. He looked as surprised as her, but then, as she held his gaze, he smiled softly.

'You see, Miss Granger?' he said. 'Connection.'

And, just as the door opened and a clerk came in, he picked up his robes and left the room.

As usual, feedback is absolutely glorious. Thank you, lovely people. More soon. There will be smut. Quite a lot, I fear. I'm in one of those moods. Don't forget to like my facebook page, Laurielove, for updates and fun. LL x