Welcome to the odd little fic that I've written when I should be researching alchemy stuff for the Demon Mirror series… *whistles*

Mainly, I wanted to write a Severus/Lucius kiss…but then my OTP won out. Oops?

Finished in 2 parts.

Hinges creaked. Hermione Granger froze. Shit. Shit.

She'd promised Severus that she'd be in and out of Lucius' office. A quick job. Find the lamassu feather and get out. And she had the bloody thing, had it tucked into the ornate bodice of her dress robes. It pricked at her skin. She was certain it'd drawn blood—

Another creak and a slow whine. The door was opening.

She ducked under the great desk and curled as tight as she could. Spells for silence, to obscure her breath and heat rolled over her skin. She had to stay utterly still for them to work. Which was insane. Someone should really look into that flaw—

The door swung open. "I left it here, Severus. It's no bother for me to retrieve it." Lucius' aristocratic tones cut the air and he swept into the room, all elegant finery and a whisper of expensive cologne.

Severus was with him. His gaze was casual…but he found her. A brief frown tugged at his mouth. Her heart thudded. He was his usual, black-clad self, but his clothes that night were of a fine and expensive cut. In the soft candlelight of the room, with the hint of the fire crackling in the great hearth, his pale skin, such a contrast to his black hair and eyes, made him look otherworldly.

Hermione pulled in her focus. Mooning over how good he looked wouldn't help her escape the room. She had to rely on her partner, on Severus. He'd get Lucius out again, or provide a distraction. It's what he did. She was the thief. And if things went pear-shaped, he, as her guardian, got her out in one piece. She stopped herself from wincing. It was insane what they had to do for the Ministry.

"Lucius…?" Severus picked a piece of non-existent lint from his frockcoat.

"It's here. I know it is. Mysteriorum Liber Primus in Dee's own hand.

Severus pursed his lips. "Narcissa will complain if we're both gone for too long."

"She times me, you know? Sends elves after me. As if I were a recalcitrant four year old."

Severus laugher was soft and warm. Strangely intimate. A shiver ran over Hermione's skin. The bloody feather stabbed at her and she held back a pained wince.

"Your wife knows you too well."

"I haven't strayed." Lucius' voice sounded off. A confession…but to Severus.

"I never doubted that."

His long fingers brushed over the sharp plane of Lucius' jaw, something slow, sure. Something familiar. Hermione pressed her hand to her mouth. Her chest constricted. He… They –had been— were…lovers? No, she had to be wrong. Had to be. Weren't they getting closer? Or she thought they were. Had she been reading everything the wrong way?

Malfoy's perfect lips quirked upwards and the candlelight of the small study caught in this pale eyes, his hair shining white-gold. "You think to sway me with this little display?"

Severus' thumb drew a line under the other wizard's bottom lip. He met that sly smile. "How could I deny myself a taste of this luscious mouth?"

Hermione's breath caught and she pressed her knuckles —hard— to her lips to deny the little escaping squeak. Severus?

Lucius huffed a laugh. "Don't you have a little witch to please now?" But still, his lips parted and Severus dipped his mouth, ghosting a kiss.

"Old times, Lucius." Severus' teeth caught Lucius' bottom lip and the wizard's chest hitched, his knuckles whitening around the ornate pommel of his hideously pretentious walking stick. Severus' tongue bathed the wound he'd made. "Breaking the tedium of a Governors' meeting?" Another brush of his lips, longer, tasting him, his fingers teasing over the sharp plane of Lucius' jaw to slip, slide into the white glow of his hair.

Severus' smooth voice had lowered, softened, barely more than a heated whisper. "A convenient alcove with Minerva's shrewish brogue a loathed distraction? I'd push you to your knees in the stone and the dust and put that hot, greedy, so-sweet mouth of yours to its proper use."

Lucius groaned, his eyelids flickering, his whole body taut under Severus'...enchantment. And it was. A mesmerising spell. Hermione bit her knuckles and denied the blurring of tears. Her chest ached. Severus could to that. Spellbind anyone with his voice alone, whisper the most innocent of words and clothe them in sin. Delicious sin. And she thought that he, that they… She'd fallen for it all. Completely.

"Your hand..." Lucius swallowed and wet his lips with a quick tongue. "Your hand on my dick as he ranted. Fuck, Severus, his snake almost caught us that time."

"Worth it?" Wicked humour lined the dark wizard's rich voice.

Lucius' grin was sharp. "For him to applaud my pious expression, the obvious joy I took in his insane rhetoric? Entirely worth it."

"Something for the old times, then," Severus murmured, his fingers fisting in Lucius' hair.

Lucius hissed, but pressed his body against Severus' lean frame. "And your little witch?"

A thread of jealousy had wrapped around Lucius' question and Hermione's stomach dropped. The two wizards had a hidden past, becoming lovers even with Narcissa –his friend— as Lucius' wife. And they'd stopped? Was she reading that right? They had. For a while—though Narcissa obviously didn't quite trust her husband… But, what would keep them from resuming an obviously potent relationship now they were so obviously rediscovering it?

"Just a kiss, Lucius."

Laughter rippled from the blond wizard, low and dark. "Severus Snape. They are always your first words in a seduction."

Severus pushed the other wizard against the darkened, alcove wall, his leg thrusting between Lucius' easily parted thighs. "They work, don't they?"

They were his words. Ones whispered to her in the shadows of the library at Grimmauld Place. And they had worked. Worked as well on her as they were working now on Lucius bloody Malfoy. Bastard. Utter, utter bastard.

Hermione pulled her thoughts together, ignoring the hard ache in her chest. She had to get out. This was her prime chance. Lucius was completely distracted –and she wasn't listening to the rustle of fabric, or to the soft, aching moans, not at all. Not to any of it.

With her mouth tight, so tight her jaw muscles twisted with pain, she scuttled from the office. Out. She had to get out. Get away.

Sumptuous corridors, gilded with gold and a thousand years of pure-blood ancestry, were a blur. Her focus was on her maintaining her occulmancy shields. Of appearing to be the bouncy, over-eager Hermione Granger everyone expected.

The crush of the banqueting hall, thick with chatter, expensive perfume and the tease of magic swept around her. Hermione edged though, smiling, waving and desperate for the open doors and the freedom they promised—

"Miss Granger? Leaving us so soon?"

A weight plunged in her belly. Narcissa Malfoy offered her hand and a gracious smile. Guilt wrenched though Hermione. She wanted to scream at the witch that her husband was probably being fucked six ways till Sunday by her wizard.

But Severus Snape wasn't hers. Had he ever been? Hermione's chest ached. Bastard.

"An emergency at the Ministry." Hermione gave a little shake of her head. "No doubt, a file that is right there, right there on the desk, is lost and never to be found."

A wry little smile lifted Narcissa's perfect lips. "The Ministry is our bitter master."

"So it is, Narcissa."

The smooth, darkly spoken words ran a shiver over Hermione's skin. Long fingers touched her elbow and she fought not to jerk away.

Severus.

Shit.

As ever, let me know what you think :)

I'll post the second part tomorrow. Promise *grin*