6

A/N: This was written for the first ever LM/HG exchange for Shiv5468. My undying thanks to betas of dreams DreamyDragon and Persevero for some extremely spectacular work under the duress of constant hunger from food porn. Kudos as well to BlueParis for advice on hand-to-hand combat. Prompts will be listed after the last chapter.

Disclaimer: Characters and world are the property of J.K. Rowling. No money made here.

Lucius decided to humour her. He'd find out soon enough who it was. Better to let her think he wanted to hear her long-winded explanation. He could tell she was close to bursting with pride at her methodology, and he was probably going to hear it regardless. 'How?' he asked.

She blinked. 'How? Don't you mean who?'

'I assume you'll tell me who, but I must admit I'm a bit curious about how you divined the answer,' he said, trying not to sound as if he were buttering her up.

She shuffled her parchments together and motioned for him to pull the chair next to her. 'Well, I created a matrix of all the variables I thought pertinent to our abductor's identity.' She pointed out various columns. 'Whether or not they know you personally. How long they've known you. Which side, if any, they fought on during the war. The likelihood that they have knowledge of Muggle technology. The likelihood that their interests and abilities would lead them to select a text on endangered native flora. Is their magic advanced enough to produce a Portkey that activated when you touched it?'

Lucius interjected, 'You're able to identify our attacker just from that?'

'Well, there are other factors that I've included that are far less interesting.' She blushed before continuing, 'Anyway, then I used a combination of Arithmancy and Muggle statistics to predict their identity. I have a vector over here, see, that contains weight, either positive or negative, associated with each variable. I was a bit concerned that the function itself wouldn't be linear in nature. I would have had to consult some of my resources for anything more advanced. I'm not sure that this room could have provided them. Fortunately, a linear model does seem to work rather well. Anyway, each of the rows in this large matrix represents an individual. I can determine the likelihood that any one individual is our captor by cross-multiplying their row of data with the vector over here. The statistics alone is a rather neat bit of maths, but my measures are rather subjective and, in the absence of reliable historical data, the matrix wouldn't be much more than a table of the individual's characteristics. Arithmancy is quite helpful in predicting the most accurate numbers for the vector of coefficients...' she tapered off, seeming to realise that she'd been chattering on without a breath.

Hermione looked up, seemingly shocked to find Lucius still paying attention.

He cursed inwardly. She was brilliant, intriguing, captivating... and she probably detested him. Or perhaps not. She had, after all, taken his coat, accepted his flirtations without protest, and offered him her dessert, along with countless other niceties that he certainly hadn't expected. They seemed to have put the worst of their difficulties behind them. And was he imagining things, or was she leaning in more closely? She was! He could feel the tips of her ridiculous hair brushing his arm. He quietly cleared his throat and said, 'Miss Granger, your talents are entirely wasted in the Auror division.'

'Are they? And where might they be better spent?' she asked, in a tone that attempted scepticism but utterly failed to conceal her interest.

'The Department of Mysteries perhaps. Curse breaking for Gringotts. Working in spell creation. I'm sure there are any number of private industries that would be happy to have just a fraction of your time.'

Her body shifted towards him. He took the slightest of risks and brushed her hair over her shoulder. She swallowed thickly, but did not move away.

'Have you ever given it any thought?' He cut her off before she could answer. 'Of course you've thought about it, given how frustrated you are in the MLE. But you feel stuck, don't you? You're not sure what opportunities are out there.'

He leaned ever so slightly closer.

'You have no understanding of your… appeal,' he whispered. 'Do you?'

She shook her head, and her hair tickled his arm.

They stared at one another for a moment, then Lucius saw her lips part slightly. He mentally shoved his self-control out of the way and closed the gap between them, lifting his hand to cup the back of her head. He'd meant to kiss her gently, softly, but that intention quickly went the way of his self-control. Hungrily pulling her lower lip between his, he groaned. He couldn't help it. The thought that she might want this. Him.

She fisted the back of his shirt, pressing them together and crushing her breasts against him. Her tongue flicked against his. He gently sucked it into his mouth and was rewarded with an impatient cooing sound. Her hand reached down and squeezed his bum. He groaned again.

Suddenly she pushed him away, panting. He tried vainly to mask his confusion, frustration, hunger.

She scrambled to her feet, whispering, 'Someone's coming.' She crossed the room and pressed her body against the wall by the door.

The footsteps drew closer, and Lucius's body tensed. He quelled an absurd urge to shove her to the floor to shield her from harm. She was an Auror, sent to protect him, and had probably been trained for situations such as this. Besides, his duelling skills were rusty, at best, even with a wand. He held his breath, glancing at the clock on the desk.

The door creaked open. A short, brown-haired man with a slender build, whom Lucius had never seen before in his life, stalked into the room.

Lucius kept his eyes trained on the man, forcing himself not to glance at whatever Hermione was doing.

'Lucius! I'm –' he cried before Hermione kicked the back of the man's knee. He stumbled, his right side dipping towards the ground. She snatched the wand from the man's left hand. His eyes bugged in surprise, but before he could turn and face his attacker, Hermione's arm had snaked around his neck.

Lucius's heart stopped, frozen.

The crook of Hermione's arm gripped the man's neck and in seconds he was flat on the ground, passed out. She waved his wand experimentally. 'Orchideous.' A shock of Thelymitra grandiflora erupted from the end of the wand. 'Finite Incantatem.'

Lucius shook his head in disbelief. In less than three minutes, she had entirely dispatched their abductor.

She crouched next to the stranger and briefly examined the bruise forming across his neck before wielding his wand. 'Incarcerous.'

She looked up at Lucius, her gaze not quite meeting his eyes. 'I need to go and make sure there's no one else around and try to find out wherever we are. He should stay passed out for a good while. Still… Stupefy.'

'Hermione.'

Startled, she looked up at him.

'Is this who you thought it was?'

'Yes, Lucius. It is.' Her eyes glinted with mischief.

'Well, who the hell is it?'

'You'll find out soon enough.' She grinned. 'He's taken Polyjuice; I can smell the Boomslang skin.'

She stood and moved towards the door. 'I'll be back soon. I'll ward the door to your touch so you can leave if something should happen to me,' she said over her shoulder.

She cast a Shielding Spell, a Silencing Charm, and a Disillusionment Charm that did not affect him. She gave him one last glance before peeking cautiously around the door frame.

Then she was gone. The door closed, and he was left alone with the man who'd harassed him for weeks, haunted him, abducted him. Lucius rolled up his sleeves and stared intently at the man, waiting for the moment when the Polyjuice would wear off, and this surreal mystery would begin making sense.