A/N The idea for this one-shot popped into my head as I was making falafels last week. I'm not sure if it's intriguing or actually quite boring! I'd like to say a big thanks to Zeeksmom who gave me a lot of pointers regarding punctuation last week. I've tried very hard to punctuate this fic correctly, but I am definitely still a beginner...

I'm sure you all noticed the very sexy cover art on this fic. It's courtesy of Elena Tria on Deviant Art. Thank you so much for letting me use your image. Anyone who likes Lucius, Severus, Captain Hook or Jareth (all my favourites) should check out her wonderful gallery over on deviant art. There's a link in my bio - this image is called Put the blame on Lucius, girls!

The mudblood was in his kitchen, and she was cooking.

Lucius blinked a few times as if the simple action of lowering and raising his eyelids might erase the horrific imagine forever. No. She was still there, in his kitchen, still cooking. He had known that she and Draco were friends. They had been the only two students from their year to return to Hogwarts to sit their NEWTS. Draco had gravitated towards the girl, much to Lucius' disapproval. Apparently, she had been kind to him, offered him friendship and support as he had struggled to find his place in wizarding society. Lucius had thought the friendship was designed entirely to spite him, but he had tolerated it. The Malfoy name was looking rather tarnished these days, and nothing glittered quite like a member of the golden trio. Besides, Narcissa had told him not to interfere.

That didn't mean that he had to put up with the girl in his kitchen though, handling his Sabatier knives, and chopping…..well he wasn't quite sure what she was chopping, that wasn't the point.

Of course, she could have been living permanently in his kitchen and he, most likely, would not have noticed. He didn't think he had actually entered the cavernous room since he and Narcissa had christened the table, some time back in the late seventies. He was only here now because Narcissa, hell bent on redeeming herself through the medium of charitable works, had taken all of the house elves off to London to cater for some benefit she was throwing. Lucius was not following her down this particular route. As far as he was concerned she could walk the road to redemption alone. He was quite happy lurking around the freshly decorated manor, reading rare and obscure texts from his overstocked library, and drowning himself in tea.

Tea! That was what had brought him here in the first place. He was parched. He had put up with the burning thirst for as long as he could. Finally, he had succumbed. He would bloody well make a pot himself, how difficult could it be?

It would have been a lot easier if Draco and his hideous houseguest were not already occupying the kitchen. Neither of them had noticed him, and he hovered in the doorway as he tried to decide whether to abandon his mission. There was plenty of brandy in his study, surely that would suffice. No dammit, he wanted tea!

His gaze was drawn once more to the mudblood. In truth, it was only her pedigree that was unpleasant. The rest of her was rather appealing. That monstrous mane of hair, which had once reminded him of a particularly unkempt Old English sheepdog, was pinned up on top of her head. The style was haphazard, with wispy curls trickling down her neck and bobbing up and down with the force of her rapid chopping. She was wearing those horrible muggle trousers, what were they called? Ah yes, jeans. Whilst they offended him on principle, they cupped her buttocks rather provocatively, and the strings of the apron she wore highlighted the narrowness of her waist. Merlin's beard, was he actually sexualising the woman? He had known he was frustrated, but this was too much to bear. He would have a firm talk with Narcissa when she returned, his enforced celibacy was driving him to distraction.

He was so irritated by the treacherous direction of his thoughts that he strode into the room, all ideas of hiding himself away in his study forgotten.

"Father." Draco spun around to face him. His son was also wearing an apron, and wielding a rather impressive knife of his own.

"Draco," Lucius greeted him coolly. He ignored the mudblood who had turned to look at him, her wide brown eyes flicking nervously between him and his son.

"I didn't expect to see you down here." Draco's expression was defiant.

"Evidently not." Lucius allowed his disparaging gaze to run over the girl's unmoving form, she stiffened a little. He turned his back on them both, rummaging through the cupboards in search of tea.

He could feel his son's displeased stare impaling him right between the shoulder blades. The girl gave a soft cough, and he heard the dull thud of the knife on the wooden board as she resumed her cutting. Moments later, the sound of another knife joined hers.

"You need to chop them more finely than that." Her voice was soft, melodic.

"You're as bad as Snape," Draco complained. His chopping grew faster.

The girl huffed out a soft laugh. "I shall take that as a compliment. Now you're mincing them, don't drag your blade across them. Here, I'll show you." Lucius lowered his head and glanced over his shoulder. The girl had placed her hand over Draco's and was showing him how to angle the knife.

"Couldn't we just use magic?" There was a whiney note to his son's voice, it set Lucius' teeth on edge. The mudblood seemed more tolerant.

"Magic doesn't prepare them as well. You want this to be perfect don't you?"

Draco didn't answer but the chopping continued and Lucius surmised that, whatever he was doing, Draco did indeed wish it to be perfect.

He dropped a tin of something onto the floor and cursed as it bounced off his foot.

"What exactly are you doing Father?" Draco turned away from the worktop once more.

"I'm making a cup of tea," Lucius responded haughtily. Although he still hadn't located the bloody leaves, let alone a cup and saucer.

"Tea!" Draco's face brightened. "I'd love a cup, make me one too, would you?"

"Of course." Lucius bit back his retort, Narcissa had instructed him to be nice to their son, and nice he would be.

"Hermione?" Draco asked.

The girl looked once more between Draco and his father. "I'd love some thank you, Lapsang souchong, if you have it."

As she spoke his hand closed over the box of leaves. There were several types of tea in the cupboard and he felt a petty urge to deny the existence of her preferred blend. Instead, he merely slammed the caddy down on the worktop without responding.

As he searched for the strainer Draco and the mudblood began to converse.

"Next we need to blend the chickpeas."

"Ok, I've got the chickpeas, how do we blend them?"

"In a..." Her voice tailed off, and once more Lucius could not prevent himself from looking over at her. She was pressing a finger to her lips thoughtfully.

"I use a muggle blender." She looked around the kitchen, carefully avoiding the part of the room in which Lucius stood. "But if a kitchen as well stocked as this doesn't have one then your flat certainly won't." She tapped that finger against her lips once more. "Let's try this shall we." She muttered an incantation he couldn't quite hear, and flicked her wand. The yellow beans in the bowl Draco held began to jump as they were pulverised by an invisible force.

"How did you do that?" Draco had jumped too when the beans began to move, and quickly placed the bowl on the worktop. Hermione smiled.

"I combined a charm I made up for crushing potions ingredients with one Arthur Weasley uses for cutting grass." She eyed the, still vibrating, mixture. "It seems to have worked rather well. I'll write it down for you before I go."

Lucius hid his face in the cupboard once more. He absolutely did not want his look of surprise and admiration to be seen. She was how old? Twenty? No, she was older than Draco. Twenty-one perhaps. How many twenty-one -year-old witches could come up with a new charm at the drop of a hat? Even if it were for something as domestic as crushing chickpeas. He wondered what exactly she and Draco were doing. His son had moved into a flat in London in preparation for starting university that autumn. He had refused the services of a house elf, and Lucius had assumed that the boy would simply eat out or return home when he required sustenance. Evidently not.

"Ok, now add the onion, garlic and parsley. Watch your fingers!" There was an element of alarm in her voice. "I don't know what that charm would do to your body parts."

"Probably best not to find out." Draco sounded amused. "What's next?"

Lucius found a teapot and used his wand to fill it with boiling water. He measured out the leaves and placed them in the strainer before carrying the pot to the scrubbed wooden table in the centre of the kitchen. He took a seat, waiting for the beverage to steep.

"Now you add the spices...No Draco not that much cardamom, you don't want them to taste like cake."

"It smells amazing," Draco reported, bending over the mixture. To Lucius' surprise, the girl pulled him forcefully backwards.

"That will be the last thing you ever smell if my charm cuts off your nose," she reprimanded him. Draco grinned in response, and Lucius was struck by their easy camaraderie. When had Draco ever smiled at him like that?

"Now the fun part." She was smiling too, a small dimple had appeared in one cheek.

"It makes me nervous when you say that."

She rolled her eyes and flicked her wand over the ingredients, they obediently stilled. "Take some of the mixture out and form it into a ball with your hands. You can put them on… this tray." As she spoke she stretched sideways to reach across the worktop. Her checked shirt rode up at the back exposing a brief sliver of flesh, it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Draco made a sound of disgust as he plunged his hands into the bowl. The girl laughed again and placed her fingers lightly on his arm.

"Sorry ferret, the things you do for love, right?"

"Right," Draco muttered, as he moulded the balls and placed them onto the waiting baking sheet.

Reluctantly, feeling like an intruder in his own home, Lucius cleared his throat.

"How do you take your tea, Miss Granger?" Until he had opened his mouth to speak he had not known he would address her so politely. He had considered simply ignoring her request and serving himself and Draco. He had considered leaving the kitchen altogether, in order to avoid interacting with her. He had not, for one second, considered treating her as an equal, and a guest in his home. It wasn't nearly as difficult as he might have thought. The girl spun to face him. A stain of colour appeared across her cheeks and she went from being relaxed and graceful to gauche and uncertain.

"Just black please, Mr Malfoy, if it's not too much trouble."

"It's no trouble." As he poured the fragrant liquid into one of Narcissa's bone china cups and carried it across the room to where she stood, frozen and staring, he realised that it wasn't. Her fingers trembled as she took the saucer from him, and the cup rattled slightly, tea sloshing into the saucer. She spun around and placed the cup and saucer on the worktop.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome." He returned to the pot and made a cup for Draco, adding the large volume of milk and several spoons of sugar he so disapproved of. As he carried his son's cup over he looked with interest at the light brown mixture which coated Draco's hands.

"What on earth are you making?" he could not prevent himself from asking.

Draco looked helplessly at the mudblood. "What are they called again Hermione?"

"Falafels." She spoke quietly and avoided looking at either of them. Lucius retreated to the table once more. He made her uncomfortable. He wondered why that did not make him happy.

The mudblood sipped her tea as she watched Draco shaping the falafels.

"Great," she said cheerfully, when Draco finally finished the task. "Now we put them in the fridge." She looked around the kitchen. "Or not," she added, casting a cooling charm over them instead.

"What's next?" Draco carried the dirty kitchenware to one of the sinks. Lucius didn't think he had ever seen his son tidy up before.

"You sprinkle some flour on the worktop while I get the dough out of the proving oven." Draco obeyed, and Lucius watched covertly as the girl bent down to open what looked like a drawer beneath the Aga. The muggle trousers stretched tighter across her ripe buttocks and he looked away, it would not do for his son to catch him ogling his friend, even if she was a mudblood. Especially because she was a mudblood.

"I can't believe you have a proving oven." The scent of yeasted dough filled the kitchen.

"I know, I'm so lucky," Draco's sarcasm was obvious and the girl smacked his arm.

"You have no idea." She glanced around the kitchen, whipping her eyes away from Lucius as soon as they set on him. "I would kill for a kitchen like this. Mind you, I'd never get anything done and I'd probably be the size of a house before long." Draco snorted and Lucius was inclined to agree with the unspoken rebuttal. The girl was petite, and radiated a degree of nervous energy which suggested she was unlikely ever to run to fat.

"This has turned out beautifully." She placed the dough onto Draco's floured worktop and gave an, almost carnal, sigh of appreciation as she sank her hands into it. "Just give it a quick knead like I showed you before." She moved back to allow Draco to work, she had a smudge of flour on her cheek. Awkwardly, Draco began to work the dough. "You know this is a lot of effort." She was leaning back against the counter now so Lucius could see her face, not that he was looking. She was entirely focussed on his son.

"You said you didn't mind." There was a hint of uncertainty in Draco's voice.

"Oh I don't. I didn't mean it was work for me. I love cooking and I love bossing you around. This is my dream afternoon. I mean it's a lot of work you're going to for Astoria. You've got all this." She gesticulated vaguely, her action encompassing the manor at large. "Why don't you just wine and dine her in some flashy restaurant?"

"I've done that." Draco's cheeks had turned a little pink. Lucius pricked up his ears. He hadn't known his son was seeing the Greengrass girl. He had thought that the Malfoy families' fall from grace would have put her off honouring the agreement he had made with her father all those years ago. Apparently not.

"I wanted to do something really special." Draco seemed to have forgotten his father was in the room, Lucius had never heard him speak so plainly.

"Still." The mudblood had turned back towards Draco and was now bent over a clean section of the worktop. Her chin rested in her hands, her bottom swayed gently as she fidgeted from foot to foot. "You could just get me to come round earlier in the day and cook for you, Astoria would never know."

"I would know," Draco said sharply. "I'd rather serve her up a meal that's burnt in places and still raw in the middle than cheat by having someone else do it. I want her to know I've made an effort." He paused, looking around at the debris which littered much of the kitchen. "Are you sure she'll like all this?"

"I'm certain," the mudblood sounded very confident. "She said she liked Middle Eastern food and she's a vegetarian. She will love this, and she'll love that you've made the effort." She touched him again, this time a gentle pat on the arm she had previously swiped. "She's lucky to have you."

Lucius was simultaneously wondering what a vegetarian was and when anybody had last touched him on purpose, when his attention was dragged back to the conversation.

"So how are things with you and Weasley?" Draco spoke with a kind of forced casualness that made Lucius wince.

"Draco." The girl snatched the dough out of his hands and began to chop it into small balls, the knife hitting the counter with unnecessary force. "You know I don't want to talk about him."

"That well then." Draco seemed a lot less receptive to the girl's minimal cues than Lucius, he would not have dared pursue the topic. Undaunted, his son ploughed on. "He's an idiot, you know that right? If it wasn't for Astoria I'd be after you myself." Lucius nearly choked on his third cup of tea. Fortunately, the mudblood seemed as appalled by the idea as he.

"Immensely comforting as it is to know that I am your runner up choice, I don't think that would go down particularly well with certain members of your family." She lowered her voice toward the end of her sentence, and Lucius realised that whilst Draco might have forgotten his presence, the mudblood had not. Draco was about to respond, and Lucius unconsciously leant forward in his chair, eager to hear what his son said next. He was desperately curious to find out what the Weasley boy had done to have become persona non grata. Sadly, his curiosity was left unsatisfied.

"Draco!" The girl gave a little shriek and snatched a ball of dough away from him. "You have to tuck the edges under, like this." Lucius craned his neck to see what she was doing. "You can't just roll them up into a ball, what sort of a philistine are you?" She sounded genuinely aggrieved, but Draco merely snorted. He appeared not to have modified his practice either as the mudblood barged her hip against his and leaned in to assist him. Lucius watched their fingers entwine with something that felt strangely like jealousy. Nobody touched him, he realised. Nobody. And this girl, this mudblood, she touched so freely, so unconsciously. If she were his friend would she place her hand on his with so little thought? He tucked his hand under the table, as if he were afraid that she might suddenly press her affections on him.

The teapot was empty and he was awash. Three cups was his limit even on the most tedious of afternoons. Still, he found himself refreshing the pot, trying to move as unobtrusively as possible, not wishing to remind the couple of his presence although they must realise he was still in the room.

The balls of dough had been covered over with some sort of clear sticky substance and put to one side. "We'll fry everything up at the last minute," Hermione declared. Hermione? When had he started thinking of her as Hermione? "That's going to be the tricky point of the evening for you, but if you get slick at it Astoria will think you're a domestic God." She was on her hands and knees rummaging through a low cupboard as she spoke, but as Draco responded with, "she already thinks I'm a God." She jumped to her feet and took a well-aimed swipe at his head with a frying pan. Draco stepped backward, avoiding her swing, and in a display of transfiguration which impressed his father more than a little, transformed the frying pan into a bunch of flowers.

"Draco," she could barely speak through her laughter. "What are we supposed to cook the falafels in now?" She whacked him with the flowers instead, giggling as she did so. Draco was laughing too, so hard in fact that his attempt to transfigure the flowers back into a pan missed completely, his spell ricocheting perilously close to Lucius' head.

The couple stopped as if they had been petrified. They turned as one to face Lucius with identical looks of terror on their faces. Lucius considered his response. In the days prior to the second wizarding war, he would not have tolerated such tomfoolery from his son. But those days were long gone, both he and Draco had changed, he hoped for the better. In those days he would not have considered making his own cup of tea or allowing a muggle born girl to cavort in his kitchen either. He bit down the blistering censure which had been his first response, and instead, calmly sipped his tea, as if he had not almost been transfigured into a frying pan seconds before.

The girl was the first to recover. She produced her own wand and flicked it at the flowers, turning to place the newly transfigured pan onto the Aga. Lucius watched as she instructed Draco in adding oil to the pans and adjusting the cooking temperature. She was patient with him, almost motherly as she warned him to stand clear of the spitting fat and smiled indulgently as he burned the first pitta bread. When Lucius had first come upon the scene he had been afraid that he was witnessing a courtship ritual. Watching the two of them interact now, it was clear that there was no hint of romance in their relationship. Draco was lapping up the attention she gave him, but it was as if she were a favourite aunt or an older sister, not a lover. He told himself that it was because of her blood status that he felt so relieved.

Once she appeared confident that Draco was in control of the cooking element, she turned her attention to preparing a salad. Lucius observed through his lashes as she used a mixture of magic and muggle methods. Knives flew, lettuce washed itself and condiments combined in mid-air as she manually scooped the seeds out of a pomegranate. Draco turned away from the Aga and rolled his eyes.

"Now you're just showing off Granger," he sneered.

"Watch it ferret," her words were sharp, but she smiled as she spoke. She left her salad to its own devices for a moment, as she checked on Draco's work.

"I think these are nearly ready." She stuck a finger into the pan and prodded at one of the falafels. "Ouch!" She withdrew her hand quickly and blew on her injured digit.

"Idiot," Draco said fondly. Lucius felt his pulse sky rocket as she pushed the finger between her lips and sucked, why on earth did he find the image so painfully erotic? He poured yet another cup of tea, at this rate his bladder would burst.

"I think we're ready to plate up." She had applied some sort of salve to her finger and was once more ordering Draco around. "Now it's going to be tricky to make these look good." She placed some plates on the worktop. "First slice open the pitta bread. These are excellent Draco." His son blushed at her praise.

The two danced around each other as the food was prepared. The kitchen was filled with delicious smells and, despite the gallons of tea he had consumed Lucius felt his mouth begin to water. It had turned from late afternoon to early evening as he had watched the two cook, and he realised that their normal dinner hour had come and gone. There was no sign of the return of the house elves or his wife. Narcissa's lack of care for his own home comforts was, he feared, merely a symptom of the wider rot in their marriage. At some point, he was going to have to rouse himself from the stupor he had existed in for the past two years, in order to have the difficult conversation that would culminate in him letting her go. He was suddenly glad that she was still absent, the prospect exhausted him.

Draco and the girl had paused. Draco was whispering something to her, his nose so close to her ear that his breath stirred tendrils of her hair as he spoke. Lucius wondered what she smelled like at that proximity, and if the skin of her ear was as soft as it looked. Her body had frozen at whatever his son had said. It was strange to see her so completely still, he didn't think she had stopped moving all afternoon. Her shoulders rose in a shrug. "If you're sure," she muttered.

"Would you like to join us, Father?" Draco turned to him holding a plate of food in his hands. The plump pitta was split open and contained a generous serving of the golden falafels topped with hummus and another dressing he could not identify by sight. A crisp salad garnished the plate, the entire creation was studded with jewel-like pomegranate seeds. Draco's expression was a strange mixture of defiance and anticipation as he awaited his father's response. Lucius felt his heart constrict, his son expected some sort of scathing put down at best, but he was still willing to risk his father's condemnation on the off chance Lucius might accept his offer.

"I would be delighted." He saw the mudblood - No. Hermione, widen her eyes in response to his words, but she quickly set about preparing a third plate and brought it to the table along with some cutlery. She slipped onto the bench next to Draco and opposite Lucius, unconsciously shifting a little closer to the boy and avoiding Lucius' gaze. None of them spoke, and Lucius realised that both he and Draco were waiting for Hermione to start eating the appetising, but strange looking, concoction in front of them. She picked it up with both hands and took a delicate bite from one corner. Father and son immediately followed suit.

Lucius could not quite believe that he was sitting at the scrubbed pine kitchen table in the bowels of Malfoy Manor, eating Israeli street food with a muggle born witch and his son. It was a situation both surreal and fantastic. His father would have turned in his grave at the sight, and Narcissa? Well, he had no idea what Narcissa would think.

"This is amazing, Hermione." Draco appeared to be the least affected by the other-worldliness of their experience. He had a smear of sour cream on his chin.

"Thanks, Draco. You have a little..." She gestured at his chin and he dabbed at it ruefully with a napkin.

"I'm sorry, this isn't the easiest meal to eat." She looked down at her plate, her lower lip briefly compressed between her teeth. "Maybe I should have taught you to cook something a bit less messy."

"Oh no, this is perfect." Draco paused in the act of taking another bite. "Messy is good, I want to show Astoria that I'm not some formal, stuck-up pureblood who only wants to marry her for her pristine bloodline." Hermione's cheeks turned the same colour as the pomegranate seeds, and Draco's blanched as they looked up in unison at Lucius.

The girls' shoulders visibly relaxed as he said mildly, "I didn't know you and Miss Greengrass had renewed your acquaintance Draco."

The colour slowly returned to Draco's face. "We've not been seeing each other for long. I didn't want to tell you and mother until things were a bit more serious."

"And this is not serious?" Lucius' hand gesture encompassed the meal and the evidence of its preparation which littered the kitchen. The girl smiled and elbowed Draco in the ribs.

"I suppose it is a bit serious." He returned her smile and avoided his father's eyes.

They ate in silence for several a minutes. Lucius forced himself to concentrate on the food in front of him, which was delicious, and not on the girl who sat opposite. The table was narrow and he swore he could feel the heat of her legs only inches from his own.

"You are an excellent cook Miss Granger." She startled at his words, the fork she had been using to eat her salad falling to the table with a clatter.

"Thank you Mr Malfoy." Her voice was steady, but her tongue flashed out to moisten her lips, and her soft brown eyes were uncertain. He picked up the fallen fork and proffered it to her, unsure if he was amused or saddened by her discomfiture in his presence. They both jerked back, as if stung, as their fingertips brushed.

Draco appeared unaware of the entire exchange.

"Do you think we should put more mint in the tzatziki?" he asked. Sticking a finger into the sauce in a manner Lucius found most uncouth. He hoped that wasn't how his son behaved around Miss Greengrass.

"I'm not sure." Miss Granger's voice was uneven, and she swallowed hard, her eyes flickering once more in Lucius' direction. "Draco, I need to go. It's getting late and I have work in the morning." It was not yet 8 o'clock, but neither Malfoy challenged her in her lie. Draco stood politely.

"No problem Hermione, thank you for all of this."

"It was my pleasure." She looked around her. "Do you need help clearing up before I go?"

"I will assist Draco with the tidying." Lucius was as surprised as the other two at his own words. He too stood.

"I'll walk you to the gate," Draco offered.

"No really, stay here and finish your meal." She hugged him quickly then backed away, almost running out the room now, her eyes wide, reminiscent of a startled deer. "Goodbye, Mr Malfoy." Her eyes did not meet his.

"It has been a pleasure, Miss Granger." Before she could anticipate his action he caught her hand in his, and brought it to his lips. Her skin was warm and soft, he resisted an almost overwhelming urge to run his tongue over her knuckles.

"She left in a hurry." Draco shrugged in an unconcerned manner, already returning to the table. "Would you like some more Father, there's plenty?"

Lucius was still staring at the kitchen door which swung back and forth on its hinges, the subtle scent of Miss Granger's perfume lingered in the air and he breathed deeply as if trying to capture the last of it.

"Yes Draco, I believe I would like more." He retook his seat at the table. "Much more."

A/N I don't think there will be more of this though. I have two half written multi-parts on my laptop already and not enough time to write. Plus I'd have to extricate Lucius from his marriage and his state of ennui, explain what went wrong with Ron and Hermione and navigate Draco's date with Astoria. I think it's better that we just imagine that Lucius and Hermione somehow found their way together via the medium of Israeli street food.