I'm at 99 likes on facebook! Not bad for a couple of weeks. Go on - someone has to tip it over into triple figures! Thank you for your support. I realise reading fanfic is a largely anonymous exercise, so I appreciate and am overwhelmed by your facebook support all the more. The link is on my profile page, but if you search 'Laurielove' you'll find my page. It has Lucius and Hook on the avatar. Worth searching for just for that, surely. ;-)

Thanks for all the reviews for this story so far. Glad you're liking my vulnerable Lucius. He can't always be an arrogant bastard. Can he ...?

So here's the second and final chapter. For some reason I found myself loving writing the sex in this bit. Not sure why, but it just seemed rather intense in a really genuine way. Talk about sexual healing. Hope you like.

Hermione now found it impossible to focus on her work. She tried but failed. The Ministry's holiday atmosphere was preventing most tasks from being done. But it was not Christmas cheer which was distracting Hermione now. She could think of nothing but him. His openness, his humility, so different to what she would ever have imagined. And his taut physical presence, restrained but lithe before her. She sat at her desk, two days after the ball, three days before Christmas, head in her hands.

And then, with sudden determination, Hermione grabbed her coat and swept out, finding herself swiftly in Diagon Alley.

Whether it was with luck or instinct, she did not know, but within a few minutes of walking out into the street she saw him standing looking into the window of Flourish and Blotts. Her belly somersaulted. This time she knew exactly why.

Lucius turned to move off. She couldn't let him go. He walked quite briskly, turning up a side street. She followed after, her steps shaking but determined. She at last got close to him as he turned again into a deserted back alley. He had parked his broom there and was now reaching for it. She spoke quickly.

'Hello.'

Lucius turned, and she saw a momentary flash of elated surprise pass across his face. He smiled down at her, only a slight smile, but it was enough.

'Hullo, Miss Granger.'

'I think you could possibly call me Hermione now.' She smiled warmly up at him. 'Ready for Christmas?'

'Hmm,' he affirmed, his eyebrow cocked cynically. Her insides writhed again. 'Not that there is much to do.'

'Will you be at the Manor?'

'Yes. Draco will be with his mother.'

'I'm sure you'll have lots of friends coming over.'

He looked at her steadily but did not answer.

'Did you enjoy the ball?' His voice was so smoothly warming. Why did she think that now, when before it had only ever struck fear into her?

'Yes, I suppose I did. Enjoy isn't quite the word, all things considered.' She glanced at him. 'It certainly took my mind off work. But then … other things have managed to do that a bit recently as well.'

'Still wearing your perfume,' he stated. She smiled broadly and instantly.

'Yes. Can you tell? I love it.'

'Good. It suits you very well.'

She sniffed her wrist. 'And it lasts too. See, I put it on this morning, still there.' Instinctively, without thinking, she raised her inner wrist close to his nose.

Lucius hesitated for a moment before inclining to inhale the scent. Only then did Hermione blush and withdraw her hand quickly.

'And how is your conscience?' she asked, adding a teasing lilt.

He paused, raising his eyebrows curiously. 'It will be some time before I am able to go through a day without a certain number of dark incursions, Miss Granger.'

It was as if something was constricting her heart. She looked at him. The smile she had seen at the ball had been as much a mask as the one he'd worn for Voldemort. This man was broken by the events that had befallen him. He had deserved it. She had always believed that. But his desperate attempts to make amends and continue his life rattled her judgements.

'But, I have to say,' he continued, 'talking to you is doing me much more good than sending a few things through owl post to an unsuspecting witch.'

'Lucius …' She stepped into him, but he retreated once again, just one step.

Hermione continued, fixing him with her eyes. 'You know … I never said thank you.'

'I didn't expect you to. I would not want it.'

'But … I adored your gifts. I adore them all.' She closed the distance between them again. 'Thank you.' And then, leaning up towards him, she brought her lips to his cheek. He had remarkably smooth skin. And he smelt good. She didn't want to move away. She lingered before at last sensing him tense.

'Hermione …' he whispered, confusion lacing his rich voice.

But she did not back off. She brought her lips off his skin, but she stayed close into him, looking intently into his eyes, seeing him look into hers.

'I didn't ask … I don't presume …' he murmured.

'I know.'

And she lifted her lips and pressed them against his. She did not insist, but waited. And then she felt it: a softening, a relaxing of the tension present in him. He pressed his lips against hers and moved them, just a little, but enough. That curling need which had been building in her since reading the label on his first present now writhed frantically. She curled her arms smoothly around his neck and pulled him closer.

This time he did not pull back. She felt strong hands surround her waist and she pressed into him. At length he drew back and let his mouth travel down her neck. She bared it for him.

'Hermione …'

'Yes,' she sighed, holding him into her.

Suddenly, he stopped, trying to pull away. 'I didn't … I wouldn't …'

'Lucius … I want you. I want this. Do you want it?'

His eyes darted around her face, as if searching for the answer there. But then, gently but clearly, he nodded.

He stared hard into her for a moment and she smiled. And when she smiled he brought his head down to hers again and kissed her, this time with no prevarication, with no hesitancy.

'Now ... now ...' she moaned, already fumbling for his buttons.

'Not here. Hermione … let me take you away from here.'

'Take me to your house.'

His brows creased. 'No. No, not there. You can't.'

'Yes. Atonement, Lucius. Take me there.'

His face twisted in what seemed pain, but when she kissed him again, he held her fast around the waist and Disapparated them both to the Manor, his broom forgotten.

Immediately on arrival, he pulled her through his house. Hermione didn't notice the statue in the hall she'd been pushed into so hard by a Snatcher it bruised her ribs, she didn't notice the large oak door to the drawing room, the room she'd been dragged to and tortured in by Bellatrix Lestrange time and time again. All she noticed was the mouth and hands and smell of the man guiding her steadily up stairs.

Lucius opened a door and soon she found herself being settled back upon the lush coverings of a large bed. Without a second thought she reached for the clothes of the man looking down at her.

'Are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want?' He was frowning. She pulled him down to her again.

'Shut up and get on with it, will you?' she groaned and continued undoing his clothing.

He grinned. 'Well … if you put it like that.' For the first time she heard that same voice she'd heard all those years ago in Flourish and Blotts. She rather liked it. In fact, she liked it a lot.

Arching her back, she handed herself over to him, feeling his agile hands strip her of her clothes without any of the gaucheness she normally associated with fumbling lovers. And as soon as she lay naked before him, she saw him cast his eyes over her with nothing short of wonder.

She stretched out, running her hands over the velvet beneath her. Gone was any embarrassment, any inhibition, she wanted him irrefutably.

Lucius lay beside her and ran his hand over her body with that same sense of wonder she saw in his eyes. It came to rest between her legs. She bit her lip, a flash of pleasure capturing her as his fingers slid to graze her clit.

She instinctively bucked up to his fingers, but then grasped again for his own clothes, reaching down to his belt.

'No,' he muttered, pushing her hands away. 'I want to see you, want to hear you … let me, let me, please.'

Hermione could only lie back and let his fingers drift back to their goal.

Lucius stared hard into her eyes and brought a hand up to stroke her hair away from where it threatened to distract her.

Hermione's mouth opened to suck in a sharp breath as one long finger was slipped slowly up into her. That first time a man feels you, that first time he touches inside that place so long guarded and sacred: a moment of revelation. And now it was his finger, that of a man she had despised, a man she had wished would be erased from the face of the earth, yet it was bringing her such brilliant delight. She keened with happiness.

And as he circled and felt and discovered her, sliding his middle finger in to join the other, she knew, as with the necklace and the perfume and the book, that this was more right than ever before.

Hermione then felt the softest, sweetest exhalation of breath over her: his own realisation released. Lucius' brows creased and he bit his bottom lip to concentrate on absorbing all she was, his fingers pushing deeper still. She pressed onto them, her hand reaching down almost instinctively to grab his hand and push him harder in, holding him there.

All the while the firm underbase of his fingers where they joined his palm nudged and rubbed her clit. A furtive ripple of pleasure coursed through her and she allowed her eyes to flutter shut. His head slipped down and he took a nipple in his mouth. As he sucked it hard, she felt the assertive flick of his tongue as he tasted and teased it to harden for him.

Now her other hand came up to hold his head against her breast and she revelled in the feel of tongue and lips and the occasional sharp tug of teeth. She continued to clasp onto his hand, gripping it to her with almost violent force, not wanting to lose those fingers from inside, those long, assured fingers which were still discovering her secret intimacy. But at length he pulled back, dragging them out at last, not far, only to concentrate more carefully on charming her clit, on entrancing her body to sing for him.

'Lucius ...' she sobbed, her body prickling with the tense heat of mounting ecstasy.

He moaned against her breast, unable to drag himself too far from the comfort of her tight pink nipple. 'Want to hear you come, want it now ... come for me, come ... please ...'

He latched back to the tight flesh desperately, so hard it shot sensation through her, sensation which travelled straight to her core. Her clit ached for the tips of those fingers, which now were circling and coaxing it, never too hard, never too insistent, but building and building towards release.

And then he grew persistent and regular. He rubbed and flicked and nuzzled unendingly and concertedly, and deliberately took Hermione to the brink. She forced her body to pause, to enjoy that knife-edge instant of electric bliss before the fall, that transient moment of ultimate tension, as perfect in its own way as the moment when pleasure comes raging to capture and shake.

She held her breath, her eyes staring blankly, straight up, her body held, euphoric, expectant ...

And then she shattered. With a cry of fragmentation, her orgasm took her, seething and shaking. In the first seconds of her rapture, Lucius stopped his touch, but then, just as the first wave crashed out of her, he moved his fingers hard over her clit again before pushing them swift and deep up into her. More pleasure hurtled its way chaotically through her, causing her to buck so hard her nipple popped from his mouth. Again she was gripping his wrist, unable to bear his fingers coming out of her.

Her body continued to jerk for several seconds with thick pulses of retreating pleasure. And then she sank into the coverings beneath her, her eyes shut, her body sluggish and indolent with satiation.

Still with her eyes closed, Hermione reached over and held his arm, as tightly as her torpid limbs would allow.

'Thank you ... I ...' His lips silenced her before she could say anymore.

'Come inside me, Lucius ... please, please.' She forced her eyes open. He looked over her, clearly unsure.

'Is that what you want?'

'More than anything.' She glanced down. He was still clothed. Her fingers began to fumble at his buttons. But at last he applied himself with urgency, pulling at his clothes to take them off as quickly as possible.

As he dragged off his trousers she could only stare. He rose out large and hard and instinctively her legs parted for him.

Lucius quickly kneeled and positioned himself, pushing her left leg to the side and drawing it up around his hip.

She reached up to hold his arms, finding them smooth and tight, and her mouth opened with a thrill as at last he squeezed the head of his cock into her. He pushed slowly, allowing ever inch of him to invade her with deliberate and tangible sensation.

She clenched hard to try to propel him deeper, causing his eyes to close and a groan of pleasure to rise gutturally from him.

Lucius pulled a little way out, allowing the tight wetness of her pussy to grant his cock delicious pleasure, then pushed deeper still into her succulent warmth. He moaned again, his face twisting into what looked like a grimace. Hermione knew he was lost. He was wrestling with himself, unable to deny the unrivalled pleasure this woman was bringing him but unwilling to be worthy of it.

'Hermione,' he sighed, ceasing his movement inside her.

She groaned in frustration, desperate to have him filling her completely. 'Please ... please ...'

Lucius looked down at her; she pulsed on him again and he sucked in a breath, burying his head in her neck.

'Hermione ... perfect body ... how did I not know ...?' She barely heard the muffled words, but ran her fingers lightly over his back, feeling the raised edge of long-endured scars etched into the toned flesh.

'Move in me. Move in me now.'

At last he began a steady stroking inside her, clearly enthralled by the velvet grip she held him in, but pulling up, leaning back and pushing her leg out so that he could focus as much on her pleasure. His hand reached down and as his cock drove smoothly in and out of her. His fingers toyed with her clit again, instantly causing her to arch her back as a ripple of pleasure pulsed through her round the thick hard flesh embedding itself in her.

She was ready to come again; he'd ratcheted up her body to such a height that she knew her next orgasm would be as blinding as the one before. She grabbed for his arms, trying to get him to look at her, but his eyes were shut and his strokes seemed somehow detached from his own pleasure.

'Lucius ...' she groaned, so ready for him.

Hermione dragged her hands onto his shoulders and pulled him down towards her, urgently, almost painfully. When her fingers came up to hold his face, he at last opened his eyes. They were bleary with pleasure and his mouth was open to pull in rapid fuelling breaths, but she sensed his reluctance to come.

Hermione pulled herself up and kissed him hard, drawing back and fixing her eyes deep into his. Now his features creased and he brought his head down to whisper in her ear, low and certain, 'I'm sorry.'

Atonement.

Hermione arched her hips to propel him hard into her and whispered back, 'I know.'

Their eyes locked again and this time his face merely registered contentment. He moved hard into her, two, three more times and then his jaw tightened and his eyes flared; a flash of grey broke from their innermost ring. He was coming. At last he was coming with violent certainty. His cry broke from him, torn out with the sheer force of climax. He crammed his cock as deep into her as possible and his come burst from him fast and sure, each shot accompanied by that guttural wrenching roar.

As she heard and saw him lose himself in her, Hermione came too, her orgasm feeding off the last spasms of his cock, tearing through her yet again.

For a long while after there was silence. Lucius lay, his body gasping in recovering breaths which went beyond mere exertion. It was as if the air he was now breathing was fresh and new and inhaled for the first time. She held him, occasionally bestowing a soothing caress along his spine.

At length he rolled off, and silently, she went to shower. He watched her as she emerged, drying her hair quickly with magic. She crossed to her bag.

'Don't go,' he said, fearing she was about to dress and leave.

Hermione turned to him with a smile and simply pressed a finger against her lips to silence him.

Then she reached into her bag and withdrew the peacock necklace, placing it around her neck. After that she pulled out the perfume bottle and dabbed some on those sensitive, heady places which infused her being. Finally, she reached in and withdrew the copy of Gralorium Lore. Then she walked over and stood beside the bed, gazing down at him with a gentle smile, naked save only for his three gifts.

Lucius pushed himself up and stood beside her. His hands ran lightly from her belly up between her breasts to cup the peacock feather, then he lowered his head to her neck and breathed her in. He stayed there, one hand grazing her breasts while toying with the necklace, his mouth sucking and nibbling her neck where the perfume was at its most intoxicating.

'You lied, Mr Malfoy,' she hummed.

'That was my job for quite some time,' he mused between kisses. 'But I have not lied to you since I gave you the feather.'

'Well, let's call it a rather liberal interpretation of truth then.'

'Explain,' he continued, still attached to her neck.

'You told me at the ball that you weren't trying to seduce me.'

'I wasn't.'

'Yet here we are.'

'Thank Merlin for that.'

'I agree.'

'If anyone was doing the seducing, you little enchantress, it was you, you know all too well.'

She held him hard into her and laughed, at last lifting his head and staring into him again. 'Thank you.'

'No. Thank you.'

'Fewer dark incursions?'

'Far fewer.'

He was reaching up into her yet again. She would never stop him. 'Do you have to go back to work for the next few days?' he asked amidst a groan as his fingers were pulled up into her pussy.

Hermione briefly thought of the law which needed amending and the pile of parchments which she'd been determined to finish before the break.

'I could ...' she slurred. His mouth was attached to a nipple again. His cock, rock hard already, was nudging against her belly. She pressed against it and delighted in the groan which rose from him. She backed against a table, sitting herself on it and pulling him towards her. As her hand came down to guide him back inside her, she breathed out vaguely, 'But I won't. It is, after all ... Christmas.'

Well, it was, anyway. Christmas, that is. Apologies for the out-of-season feel. I'm sure you can cope. At least it's snowing in the UK (not where I live though. Grr. I like me some snow.)

Love you lots. Oh, and ... I have very very very very naughty goodness to offer soon in the form of a wall fic. You asked, and you shall receive. Nudge nudge wink wink. (Check out the poll on my profile page if you are confused.)