I am VERY new to the world of Harry Potter and HP FanFic. I hope I do justice to the characters and that you like the story.

Chapter One ~ The Potions Classroom

Hermione Granger's thin heels clicked across the hard stone floor of her old potions classroom. The sound reverberating forlornly around the empty room. It was one of the few areas which had survived when Hogwarts had been raised to the ground almost five years ago, even after all this time it remained predominantly unchanged. It was late August but there was a distinct chill in the air and down here in the dungeons it was as always much colder than anywhere else in the castle. An array of strange pickled animals still floated in jars that lined the shelves, enhancing the room's creepiness. Hermione pulled back one of the wooden stools from a workbench, perching on the edge she looked reflectively around. She could see Professor Snape in every corner of the room, feel his intimidating presence and hear his deep baritone voice bouncing off the cold gloomy walls.

A sad smiled tugged at her lips and embarrassment coloured her cheeks as she remembered her first lesson with the foreboding and brilliant raven haired wizard.

Seated next to Harry as usual; he was busy making notes as the Professor spoke; but whom he had deemed "not paying attention". She remembered his quiet menacing voice asking Harry a series of questions of which poor Harry had no idea of the answers. But her, little Miss Know It All, desperate to prove herself, kept throwing her eager hand into the air, higher and higher with every question, only to be completely ignored. When the clueless Harry had suggested the Professor ask her as she clearly knew the answers, the angry Professor had mercilessly deducted points from their house for his cheek.

Warm tears trickled down her cold cheeks. So vivid was the memory she could almost hear the rustle of his dark robes as he paced the classroom irascibly.

"Ms Granger?"

She heard a voice softly call her name, a voice that even after all these years was frighteningly familiar yet strangely different.

"Ms Granger, I am sorry I didn't mean to…." The voice trailed away as she turned her tear stained face towards him. His chest tightening with emotions he hadn't felt so strongly since his youth.

The sound of robes swishing obviously hadn't been part of her vivid memory but simply the approach of Draco's father, former Death Eater and her childhood nemesis, Lucius Malfoy. In full dress robes and immaculately groomed as always. Hermione wasn't sure what surprised her more, his presence in the room or what was clearly genuine concern, firstly in his tone and then in his expressive grey eyes. Surprise turned to out and out shock and she couldn't prevent a slightly reflexive flinch when he raised his hand. A long elegant finger gently brushing an errant tear from her cheek. She hoped he didn't notice. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and butterflies summersaulted in her stomach. Had Draco's father always been this devastatingly handsome?

"I miss him too." His aristocratic voice was unbelievably soft and compassionate. His unfathomable gaze never once leaving her face. His hand dropping once more to his side as he fought an inexplicable urge to take her in his arms. Something he felt would not be welcome noticing how she recoiled at a mere brush of his touch.

Hermione was stunned at his candour and at her own reaction to his presence and what a presence it was. Totally at a loss for words, a rarity for her. Along with the other strange emotions that were suddenly invading her body, she felt a pang of sympathy for the man she once reviled. For all of his faults and his open abhorrence towards her, he had lost so much his best friend included.

At the realisation of whom her companion was, instinct should have decreed that she leap indignantly from the stool, say something acerbic and leave. The passing of time, insight and something she couldn't put her finger on compelled her to do none of those things. If she hadn't known better she would be convinced that the Dark Wizard had used some spell or another to root her to the spot. As his grey gaze held her light brown one, Hermione was sure she was under a spell but was certain there was no magic involved. Which was an even more terrifying notion.

Gathering her thoughts and trying desperately to get a grip on her unruly feelings, Hermione took a deep breath, swallowed, albeit a little nervously and spoke: "Mr Malfoy or should I say Professor Malfoy." His smile was devastating, she had seen him sneer on many an occasion but this was a full blown 100kw smile it lit his eyes from within and changed his finely chiselled features almost beyond recognition.

"Lucius is just fine Ms Granger."

"Hermione, please." Had she really just told Lucius Malfoy to call her by her given name?

"Hermione"

Clearly she had and there was that bloody smile again.

"I am looking forward to teaching here and consider myself lucky to have been given a second chance.

Defence Against the Dark Arts Master, I think the Headmistress has a certain sense of irony."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip for fear that the "OK who are you and what have you done with the real Lucius Malfoy" would materialise into actual out loud words. Having said that, well thankfully only having thought it, she knew that Minerva McGonagall was no fool and like her predecessors only did what was right for the school and its pupils.

A lot of things had changed in the last five years. As had a lot of people. She wasn't entirely sure how this applied to the Senior Malfoy but she certainly trusted Minerva McGonagall's wisdom and judgement. Difficult as it might be to treat her own past encounters with the insufferable man as water under the bridge, unless he gave her just cause, she would give him the benefit of the doubt.

"I am sure Mr…..Lucius, you will be an asset to Hogwarts."

"You are very gracious Hermione" His grey eyes twinkled "I am certain that perhaps wasn't your initial thought."

Hermione felt a flush creep across her face. She wasn't aware that Lucius Malfoy was a legilimen but she was sure there was an awful lot she didn't know about him and it was probably best to keep it that way.

Lucius seemed to sense her unease, her flushed cheeks enhancing her embarrassment. "Understandable considering our past history and my shameful treatment of you."

That was it! The words were out this time before she had time to censor them "Ok who are you and what have you done with the real Lucius Malfoy?" She took a defensive step backwards for fear she had overstepped the mark, pushed his goodwill a little too far and that he might suddenly reach for his wand. Backing into the stool she had previously vacated and knocking it over sending her already red face a still deeper shade of crimson.

His laughter was a totally unexpected sound rich and warm. If the 100kw smile had hit her for six, this just whacked the bludger right out of the Quidditch pitch.

"Well Hermione" He said his aristocratic tones soft low and very deliberate. "You know how long polyjuice lasts. You will just have to spend the next hour or so with me to ensure I am indeed the real me."

"Merlin's teeth" She muttered to herself "Humour as well". In less than 10 minutes she'd managed to make a complete fool of herself. Heaven alone knew what could happen in "an hour or so" as he put it. She had been in her second year at Hogwarts the last time she felt this self-conscious or this much of a klutz. For the second time in such a short space of time she also found herself compelled to do something so very out of character:

"How about a drink before dinner?" She heard the words travel across the room in somewhat breathy tones that she realised were her own. What the hell was she thinking? Well clearly she wasn't thinking at all. What about that relaxing dip in the prefect's bathroom she had promised herself before changing for dinner and catching up with her friends. Nowhere on her agenda for the pre-term reunion weekend had she envisaged drinks with Lucius Malfoy.

"I have a particularly good bottle of Burgundy that Draco brought me back from France, the last time he visited is mother. I was looking for a good excuse to open it"

Hermione was well aware that Draco divided much of his leave from the Ministry of Magic between his divorced parents. His father still at Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and Narcissa with her current "plaything" as her son referred to his mother's latest boyfriend, in the South of France. Rolling his eyes he had told his friend, "I think he is younger than us, but she's happy enough."

What she wasn't aware of was just how much Draco had told his father about their friendship if anything at all. Their past history hardly made it dinner table conversation.

Amidst a soft rustle of robes and a gentle waft of spicy cologne the blonde wizard moved, a sweeping arm indicating that she should precede him from the room.

Arrogant, obnoxious, insufferable racist bastard Lucius Malfoy might well have been, might still be, but centuries of so called aristocratic breeding ensured he maintained an overblown sense of chivalry and manners.

Hermione waited as he closed the heavy wooden door to the potions classroom behind him. The dull thud and chink of metal once again sending a wash of memories across her mind, transporting her back to that first lesson with Professor Severus Snape.

The door had burst open with a resounding thud and the Potions Master and Head of Slytherin house had strode purposefully into the room. Declaring that there would be "no foolish wand waving or silly incantations in his class." The assembled first years had watched in alarmed silence as he had taken his position at the front of the room, leaning intimidatingly against his desk as he continued to lecture them on the subtle science and exact art of potions making. His words unhurried, measured and mesmerizingly articulate, with each pause came a very subtle inclination of his head his black eyes covering every inch of the room watching every pupil's reaction.

Sadness once again threatened to overwhelm her, tears pricking at her eyes and her throat constricting. Hermione felt a large comforting hand below her shoulder blade, the fingers splayed. This time there was no recoil just a strange tingling warmth that slowly spread through her body as his delicious spicy scent once again filled her nostrils.

Lucius waited for the baulk at his touch, it didn't come. Another feeling he hadn't experienced in a very long time coursed through his veins, desire. He chastised his body's totally inappropriate and untimely reaction.

He really had happened upon Hermione Granger purely by chance not by design. He knew she would be there, of course it stood to reason she would, that and the fact Draco had told him she would. He did have an agenda but it was an honest one, not a hidden one. He simply wanted to get to know the woman his son had surprisingly befriended and spoken of on so many occasions with such warmth and affection. The woman they had both once so sneeringly derided in public for her muggle parentage.

The heat of desire yielded to the warmth of shame as he recalled their first meeting in Diagon Alley. Even Draco had spent the best part of his school years taunting the brilliant young witch for being a Mudblood. It was almost impossible to believe that this was the same woman Draco spoke about with such fondness and who had despite everything been happy to call him her friend. But even in only these briefest of moments it was easy to see why he did.

Once upon a time patience had not been one of Lucius Malfoy's virtues, if indeed he had any that was. Married or not he wouldn't have thought twice about seducing or simply taking a beautiful young woman. He would have paid little or no attention to a refusal of his advances but that was then this was now. Although relishing the renewed desires of his body he was painfully aware that not flinching when he touched her hardly meant that Hermione Granger wanted any form of intimate contact with him. His ex-wife might enjoy the thrill and sexual gratification of a boy younger than her own son, but this was his son's friend and former classmate. His mind might be happy to take the moral high ground, but despite his best efforts his body was determined to walk a very different path.

The warm hand on her back became less assertive. Hermione sensed a change in Lucius, hesitation almost reticence. The thought that he might be about to change his mind about the drink left her feeling oddly bereft. She wanted to spend time with him.

The notion hit her like a Nimbus at full pelt. Where the hell had this come from? Some sad reminiscences in an empty classroom, a misguided sense of nostalgia, an earlier realisation that of all her former classmates she was still the one alone. But Lucius Malfoy! Come on surely that was just a little drastic even by her standards.

"I've never been a good excuse before." She said quietly, a small smile tugging at her mouth as she regarded him from beneath her lashes. Hopefully her face conveyed more confidence than she actually felt. Hermione squared her shoulders and pulled herself up to her full height, which even in heels was still considerably shorter than the imposing man standing before her. Something glimmered deep within his steel grey eyes, emotions flickered across his pale face. Hermione held her breath waiting for his response, her body tingling with anticipation and fear, a potent combination.