This is a short story that popped into my head during the world's dullest meeting.

With special dedication to zeeksmom and Lucys-Corner, who agree with me that there are not enough Lumione stories in this world. This is a small attempt to rectify the situation.

Lana

It was over.

He left her.

It happened in an instant, and all Hermione felt a horrifying blast of anguish. He was gone and all the air went with him… just left her at the altar. Well, at the Chantilly's Auberge de Jeu de Paume, to be exact. His choice of venue, not hers. And then she was alone despite being surrounded by friends and family. Their consoling words of comfort were distant, as though they were spoken miles away.

Somehow she ended up sitting on the bathroom floor of the honeymoon suite, and this time she really was all alone. Tears flowed freely now, staining the billowing folds of her white dress with ruined make-up. She resolved to remain there, sobbing herself into a spiral of sorrow, until the dress turns black.

How very Miss Havisham. How very pathetic.

She resolved to stay here until the guests left at least. She didn't want to suffer an unchained indignity and humiliation of being the jilted bride. She wondered where Draco was as she continued to drown in her silent sobs. Why couldn't he have told her before and spared her this? What was so wrong that he'd rather run away than be upfront?

How much time had gone by?

Where were Ron and Harry?

Was no one really going to look for her?

The tension reached its boiling point and she could no longer contain her scream. The chaos settled, and she could breathe again. But not see. Hermione couldn't see a thing, only feel.

"I hate him and I hate this! I hate this, I hate this, I hate this…" she continued to whisper into the quiet room over and over, the words echoing off the tiles.

Then the whispers carried her away.

The sheets were so soft and cool against her cheek. The breeze from the window felt refreshing against her skin. Only Hermione couldn't remember opening it. Her head hurt and she felt disoriented. Then she touched something warm in bed. A leg.

There was a person in her bed!

Except it wasn't really her bed either.

Frantic, confused, alarmed, she whipped her head to the side in the hopes of identifying the quiet source of warmth lying next to her. Sharp movement was a bad idea. Blurriness and nausea blacked out her vision. Hermione threw off the covers and ran blindly for the bathroom. By the time she got there, the nausea vanished. She resolved not to go back to that room, not sure she could look her companion in the eye. Not right now, anyway.

Grabbing an embroidered bathrobe from the hanger, Hermione sauntered out of the suite. The morning continued to torment her further as she tried to navigate her way back to the set of rooms she shared with Ginny.

After stumbling around the brightly lit halls of Auberge de Jeu de Paume, she finally recognized her number and heavily knocked. Within moments, Ginny answered the door. She said nothing as she led Hermione to the breakfast table, then slumped slightly over the coffee maker, supporting herself with both palms against the table and gazing downward. Last night clearly exacted a severe toll on her friend as well.

Hermione massaged in circles around her temples, closing her eyes and trying to make some sense of the bruises on her wrists. She couldn't remember anything from the night before. Nothing made sense. How did she get from the bathroom of a honeymoon suite to a stranger's bed?

Ginny sat across from Hermione and pushed a cup of seared, blackened sludge towards her.

"Coffee?" she asked.

"It looks horrid," Hermione told her, cautiously sniffing it and confirming her assessment. Still, she decided to take a sip.

She couldn't taste anything at first and then recoiled in horror. It was scorching and vile. And was that fire-whisky in it? The face-twisting, twinned burn of alcohol and near-boiling liquid poured out from her mouth, scalding her chin.

"Ginny, that's sickening! What the hell sort of coffee is this?"

"You know, I think you may have gotten mine," she said.

"You think? And why in the world is it full of alcohol?"

She shrugged. "I hear it's the best way to get over a hangover."

"I can't believe you'd consume something so disgusting! I don't think I can feel my tongue anymore," Hermione whined.

"Hey, I said I was sorry."

"Actually, you didn't," Harry's voice sounded behind us as he exited the bathroom clad only in a towel.

"Morning," Hermione greeted him.

"Hey," he said.

Ginny switched out her cup for Hermione's.

"We have something more important to discuss," Hermione announced.

"I bet we do. Take your time. We don't have to talk about the D-word if you don't want to yet," she said.

Hermione took a deep breath. "Well, what happened to me last night?"

"Oh… We don't know," Ginny elongated each syllable tauntingly.

"Seriously, just tell me. I woke up in some stranger's bed. What happened?" Hermione asked again, losing her patience, massaging one temple far more vigorously than the other.

"Yeah," she started, "I have no idea. None whatsoever."

"Are you kidding me?" Hermione exclaimed, half amused, half furious. "So I've been gone all night and no one bothered to see where I was? Your concern is touching."

"You said you wanted to be left alone, especially after Ron pestering you, and talking about cursing off Draco's pecker," Ginny explained. "You were fine at breakfast after, so we figured you wouldn't do anything too crazy."

"Right," Harry confirmed. "Breakfast. We shouldn't have started drinking that early."

Everything stopped making sense for Hermione. Breakfast? "I need everyone to back up for a second. Breakfast? You mean the meal we're all about to have? No. Wait. Where are my parents? Shouldn't they be here for this?"

Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance before looking at her. Ginny was the first to react, "So it looks like you're a day behind the rest of us. This can't be good."

"What's the last thing you do remember clearly?" Harry asked Hermione.

After she filled them in about the bathroom meltdown, it became clear that Hermione was about twenty-four hours out of touch with the rest of the world. Only the haziest, darkest blurs of memory were available to her after that incident. None of it made much sense.

"Well, I do remember something, but I'm not sure how relevant it is," Ginny offered.

"Doesn't matter, just tell me," Hermione demanded.

"I think Lucius Malfoy was with you at breakfast yesterday. I remember you arriving to the breakfast terrace with him for some reason. Maybe he knows what happened afterwards."

Lucius! It triggered Hermione's brain and some images began to take shape.

"I'm remembering a bit," Hermione said. "He came to get me in the morning, and other than the fact that it was... embarrassing, it was great because he saved me from my mother discovering me like that."

"So did he say anything about Draco then? Does he know where he is or why he just took off?" Ginny inquired.

"Don't know. I can't remember asking. I wasn't doing well. I needed an energy boost. He gave me a potion … no, more like a pill or something, but I took too much of it. He was trying to help me…"

"That explains breakfast," Harry said. "I thought it was just grief and anger. I wondered why you just weren't having any of your mother's ... anything. Now's probably a good time to mention that we're only here for one more day."

"Thanks." Hermione nodded.

"Do you remember anything else?" Ginny questioned.

"Maybe..." Hermione strained through the fog in her brain.

As she closed her eyes to dim the morning, slowly everything faded away. Very gradually an image or a detail flashed in the dark. Something in the smell of the coffee was triggering a memory, and in the dimmest reaches of her mind, the events began to unfold...

The first thing Hermione remembered was Lucius Malfoy bursting through the bathroom's double doors. His presence dominated the room the way Draco's never had.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione yelled at him hysterically.

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" he asked.

"Obviously not," Hermione replied.

"Well, I hate to disturb you, but I must inform you that your parents are on their way," Mr. Malfoy told her.

Unable to process this information, Hermione ignored him, moaning some gibberish in the face of this important news, and turned on the water to splash her face with it. How had she managed to stay here all night?

Surprisingly, he remained in the room.

A moment passed, then another, but he continued to stand there, watching her. To think that by now, if all had gone as planned, he would have been her father-in-law. Hermione shivered. It was rather disturbing since she never had a paternal thought in regard to him. Perhaps, it was for a reason since this marriage was never meant to be.

"Thank you," Hermione managed after a while, feeling she ought to say something since he seemed to be waiting for a reply.

"Come, Miss Granger. Let's get you cleaned up a little."

"Cleaned up?" she asked.

He gestured to her dress. "You can't wear that. It's all soiled."

"I look that great, huh?"

"As beguiling as you looked yesterday, Miss Havisham look doesn't suit you."

How funny that he should use the same allusion. Was she really pitiful enough to continuously draw those comparisons?

"Fine," she said. "Help me."

"What?"

"Please. It's a corset back; I can't get it undone. Besides, isn't everyone supposed to fuss over the jilted bride?"

"I suppose that's fair enough request considering how I gave life to the jilter in question."

"Thank you," Hermione quietly said, turning her back to him.

The next moments were long and awkward. He helped her out of the wedding gown, which was a somewhat involved process.

"You might have to burn it. It's bad luck to keep a wedding dress from a failed wedding," he said, examining the material as he helped Hermione out of it.

"You do it. I don't want to look at this thing for another second," she said, trying to laugh and failing spectacularly. Failing with a few tears.

He awkwardly came closer, uncertain at what to do. "Shh. I am sorry my son has caused this," he said. "For what it's worth, I think it means that fate has someone more deserving in store for you."

She really wasn't in the mood to hear the babble about life and fate, and what's meant to be.

Standing only in her underthings, Hermione looked at the shower. The task suddenly seemed herculean. She was just too tired. Just so tired.

Hermione watched him turn on the water, letting it warm up.

"There you are," he said, avoiding looking at her in the eye. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes to check on you."

A scream, full of anguish, left her mouth. Hermione caught her reflection in the mirror again. She saw the tears running down her face.

This was real. This was her life.

Lucius looked unfazed by her outburst.

"Do you think me mad?" Hermione asked him.

He merely glanced at her for a moment, as if extremely puzzled, then said, "No. Scream, cry, howl at the moon, if you must. But don't hold it in. Let it all out. And then … well, then you get on with your life."

"...And that's the last thing I remember, I think," Hermione concluded. She didn't share every detail with them, but summarized the gest of it. As her memories were slowly trickling back in, Hermione wasn't sure how much she felt comfortable airing out.

"That explains why you were both together downstairs for breakfast," Ginny reasoned.

"Yeah, but now that I think of it, I remember you acting strange," Harry said, patting Hermione's back. "I think you were arguing about something."

Hermione's memories were triggered again…

She remembered her head feeling heavy as she dried herself off. Mr. Malfoy was once again there, he cracked one door a little open and handed her a dress through it.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked him. "Why did he do it?"

"I think you should be asking what's wrong with him. He acted cowardly and disrespectfully. If he had doubts, he had plenty of chances to bring them up over this weekend."

"I'm so tired. I don't think I'll make it downstairs."

"Hermione, you can't hide here forever. Your parents will want to see you, to make sure you're all right," he said.

"I have no energy left," she insisted.

"I thought it might come to this. I have an energy boosting tablets, if you like," he offered. "But you mustn't take more than two." He handed her a small tube.

Hermione reached for the tube, taking two tablets. After he left her to continue to dress, Hermione searched the medicine cabinet. Now that she felt more alert, she needed something to help her calm down. She couldn't risk breaking down at the table, not in front of everybody.

In absence of a Calming Draught, she stumbled upon a bottle of Valium. Assuming it was better than nothing, she took a few pills before heading downstairs with Lucius.

As they approached the hotel's breakfast terrace, Hermione stopped, shaking her head at him.

"What is it?"

She shook her head more vigorously. "No."

"We have to go. They're expecting you."

"I... I can't."

Her breaths were becoming very shallow now. He looked at her. His hands came up to hold her still.

"Take deep breaths. Through your nose, not through your mouth," he instructed her.

Suddenly, Harry, Ron, and Ginny appeared, all dressed and ready.

"What's going on?" Ginny asked.

"She needs a minute," Lucius said. "Just go on without us."

Ginny looked as if she was about to protest, but thought better of it when Harry ushered her in.

"Keep taking deep breaths," he told her. "Did you take anything with those tablets?"

"Just water."

"No, I mean did you take any Muggle medication or a potion?" he clarified.

"Just some Valium to calm me," she admitted. "What will happen?"

"Nothing too bad. It's not the best combination, but it's nothing too serious. It may affect your inhibitions though."

"Can I make it through breakfast?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Your parents will want to see you. They were insistent, and I'm sure they partially see me as responsible for what happened."

"Why? You can't control what your son did. That's on him."

"You know what? You need to get away from this. Let's get you to breakfast, assure your parents you're not suicidal, and then you can have a day of relaxation and indulgence," Lucius suggested.

"Thank you," Hermione told him, holding onto his arm.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Let's get this over with."

They were all sitting around the table: her parents, Ron, Harry, and Ginny. They were the only ones who didn't leave in a rush the night before. Everyone else scattered, as they were wont to do when a happy event detonates into a tragedy. Nobody wanted to get caught in the blast, lest it would contaminate their own happiness. So they ran as fast as they could, trying to outrun the fallout.

Hermione could only remember bits and pieces of conversation. Her mother was just being herself, criticizing Hermione's whole courtship, pointing out the clues that were so obvious to her in hindsight. Surprisingly, Lucius came to her defense several times.

"Excuse me, Mr. Malfoy, but what do you know about successful marriage? I believe you've been a divorcé for several years now," her mother snipped at him.

He pursed his lips before answering. "I know that no matter how much we analyze things now, the fact remains that nothing could have predicted or prevented this situation. It just happened. Passing the blame won't change anything. My son can be very impulsive, and I'm afraid he tends not to think of others."

Her mother scoffed and said, "After what he put my daughter through, I think she deserves some restitution for this."

"Mum, please," Hermione started.

Her mother turned to her. "I just don't understand. How could this have happened so suddenly? There must have been some reason that you're not telling us about."

Hermione remembered snapping a reply back, but couldn't recall what she had said. Her next memory was stumbling from the table, spilling her glass of mimosa all over it.

"...And that's it as far as breakfast goes," Hermione concluded for Ginny and Harry, draining the rest of her coffee.

"Yes, I vaguely remember spilled mimosas. That was an accident, right?" Ginny queried.

"Do you want to stay with us for a while?" Harry asked Hermione. "When we get home, I mean."

"I guess. It's not like I want to stay with my parents. And going back to my place is not an option."

"I can ask Kreacher to get your things, so you never have to set a foot in there again," he offered.

"That would be great. Thank you, Harry. Thank you both for being here for me." Hermione leaned over the table to hug them each in turn.

She sighed in resignation. "I just wish I could remember the rest of it."

"You will," Ginny assured her. "Just don't force it. Let it come to you. Try talking to Mr. Malfoy. He seemed to be present for most of it. He was with you before breakfast, he brought you down, and he did go to check on you after you ran off. Maybe he can tell you what you did next. It wouldn't hurt to ask."

"You're right." Hermione nodded. "He'll definitely know more than we do, seeing as he wasn't drinking or mixing medication. Do you know if he's still around?"

"Try his room number." Ginny handed Hermione the list of wedding guest suites.

Hermione washed up and dressed as quickly as her body allowed and made her way to the suite indicated on the list by his name. She froze when she turned down a familiar hallway and stopped in front of the door she had rushed out of just this morning.

A horrific realization flooded her.

Did she really spend the night with Lucius Malfoy?

More importantly, did they actually have sex?

Before she changed her mind, Hermione raised her hand and knocked on his door.

More to come shortly :-)