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She stepped around a group of teenagers, all laughing brightly, and smiled slightly at the sound. It was busy around the entrance to the London Eye, but not as busy as usual. She’d always avoided the London Eye because of the crowd.
It had opened just a year after the final battle, and at the time, crowds had not been her strong point.
She’d gotten a little better at dealing with them in the years since, but she still felt a little uncomfortable when pressed against lots of other, unfamiliar bodies.
Tonight though, it wasn’t too bad.
She’d bought a ticket to ride the enormous ferris wheel on a whim, but as she walked up the ramp and climbed into the waiting carriage, she was glad that she had.
This was what normal people did in their twenties. They went to tourist traps, and spent stupid amounts of money on what was essentially an oversized fairground ride, because why not?
She loosened the grey scarf that she’d wrapped around her neck and took a seat on the graphite coloured bench that wrapped around the carriage. Other people joined her, but she paid them little mind. She wasn’t there for the people, after all, she was there for the experience.
She amused herself by looking out of the window, until, eventually, the door was closed, and they were moving upwards. It paused again, she supposed to empty and then fill the next carriage, and then it did the same again, and again, and again, until they were at the top, looking out across the whole of London.
Hermione smiled.
It was a beautiful sight. Though it wasn’t particularly late, it was winter and the nights had been drawing in earlier and earlier, so it was dark already, and the many lights that covered the ground were amazing to see from so high up in the sky.
They made one whole round trip, and then the wheel was moving without pause. Hermione glanced around the carriage at her fellow passengers briefly, letting her eyes move over couples holding hands, and families with small children, pointing out the sights.
There were a few other people that seemed to be alone, like her, but she didn’t pause on any of them until she came to the last person on the bench, directly opposite where she sat. He was looking right back at her, wariness etched into the lines on his face, and she inhaled sharply as her eyes took in the familiar features.
A shiver of fear ran through her entire body before she could forcibly push it away, but she did so quickly. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to fear this man, and she wouldn’t start again now.
He didn’t move as her eyes roamed over him, and when their eyes met again, he inclined his head slowly. She bit her lip, but eventually nodded back.
Turning back to the window, she vowed to pay him no more attention. He wasn’t a threat to her, and she owed him nothing, though she was sure that others would say different.
He looked… good. A little less severe than the last time she’d seen him. Perhaps a little more well rested than he had been, too. His hair was shiny and as blond as ever, and his eyes were a little brighter.
Her enjoyment of the ride diminished, she tapped her foot lightly on the floor, waiting to be able to leave the carriage and put some much needed distance between them. He brought out all kinds of feelings in her that she didn’t want to feel, both good and bad.
Unfortunately, it seemed like fate had other ideas.
The wheel jerked and then stopped, jolting the passengers in the cart as it tipped slightly to the side at the forced stop. Hermione held herself in place with a hand on the window and another on the seat, but a few others weren’t so lucky.
She stood quickly to help an older lady to her feet slowly, asking her quietly if she was okay, while she did a quick scan of her with a sly wave of her wand from her sleeve.
Thankfully, she hadn’t been injured badly, and Hermione helped her back into her seat and then tried to peer down at the ground through the window. She couldn’t make anything out, not that she’d really expected to.
Suddenly a tannoy sounded, and the voice of a man came through, a little tinny but certainly understandable.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re sorry for the delay. There’s a fault with the mechanism of the wheel, but we’d like to stress that you’re in no danger. We’re working on getting the Eye working as quickly, and as safely as possible. Thank you for your patience.”
Hermione sighed, frustrated. Of course, she could Apparate out if there was truly any danger, but it would certainly draw questions, and while it was unnecessary, she would just have to wait it out along with everyone else.
Perching herself back in her seat, she found her eyes drawn to where Lucius had been sitting, only to find the seat filled with an elderly gentleman, his wife beside him.
“How are you?”
She startled, and then looked up to see him hovering nearby, looking uncertain about his welcome. The thought of Apparating suddenly seemed far more reasonable.
“I’m fine,” she replied, eventually. “You?”
His lips quirked up slightly, and he took her reply as an invitation to sit down beside her. It was closer than she would like, given the small amount of space, but she didn’t say anything.
“I am… in good health,” he said, eventually.
It was an interesting answer, she pondered. In good health was a far cry from being okay. From being happy, or even content.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she admitted, glancing his way.
He nodded. “I’m sure you are. I admit, it’s not somewhere I would have been seen back when we were… acquaintances.”
She snorted at the address, she couldn’t help herself. Acquaintances were a far cry from fighting on opposite sides of a bloody war. Though, that wasn’t the last time she’d seen him.
“I come into London quite a lot these days,” he added. “It fills my time, which I find I have an inordinate amount of to spare, and it makes me feel less… alone, I suppose.”
Surprised at his candor, she replied, “I thought that you would have headed to France, after Narcissa and Draco.”
“They did not want me there, and honestly, my marriage has been in name only for a long time. The divorce was signed a few days after my trial ended.”
Hermione grimaced at the reminder. Lucius had been sentenced with house-arrest for a year and a whole heap of monetary reparations for his part in the war, and he was only let off so lightly because of Harry’s mercy, and his sodding saviour complex.
Harry had had a lot of say in the trials, both in regards to the punishments and the running of them in general. He had attended every single one of them, and had been seated with Kingsley in the front row.
He hadn’t been particularly happy about that, but he was worried about unfairness, and she was proud of him for what he’d done. He’d made sure that the Wizengamot had taken mitigating circumstances into account when it was necessary; as was the case with Draco, who’d been let off with wand tracking and the threat of a strong punishment should he be found doing anything illegal again.
As Harry had pointed out, it wasn’t actually illegal to have the Dark Mark, an oversight on the Ministry’s part, but one that had worked in Draco’s favour. As for Lucius, Harry had seen what had become of the once proud man—his honour and name had been thoroughly and completely diminished—and had thought that that in itself was more punishment than anything that the Wizengamot could force upon him.
Hermione didn’t necessarily think that he was wrong.
“I’m… sorry,” she said, when she realised that she hadn’t replied. “About your marriage.”
“Everything comes with a price,” he replied, sighing. “I put Narcissa through a lot, and when we found out about the bond between us… I believe that was probably the last straw for her. Understandably so.”
Grimacing, Hermione looked down at her hands. “I’d rather not—”
“Discuss that,” Lucius finished for her. “You made yourself quite clear, Miss Granger. I’m aware of how you feel about it.”
She nodded silently. She hadn’t exactly let him down easily when she turned twenty and found his name looping elegantly across her right forearm. In fact, she’d been quite vicious about turning him down when he’d invited her for tea to discuss it.
“I…” she shook her head. “I should apologise. I could have handled things better than I did, and I am sorry for the way I turned you down. It was… unnecessarily harsh.”
“I believe you had enough valid reasons for it to be entirely necessary,” he rebutted softly. “I never would have believed that you could be my soulmate, Miss Granger, but even had I considered it, I fear it wouldn’t have changed anything. I was already in far too deep.”
There was a nostalgic note to his tone, like he wished that things could have been different, and she felt a stab of sympathy for him. There was no doubt that he’d chosen to follow the Dark Lord, and the consequences were his own fault, but everyone deserved the chance to make up for past wrongs, didn’t they?
If they were truly remorseful?
He shifted beside her, and pulled a beautifully ornate pocket watch from his trouser pocket. It was gold, with an emerald face and what she suspected were real, tiny emeralds embedded into the metal surrounding it.
A reminder of his wealth, if she’d needed one. Even after the extraordinary sum he’d paid to the Ministry, nobody was under any illusion that it had left him without money.
A screech drew her attention, and almost everyone in the carriage looked up to see a little boy of around ten years old running at the door to the carriage. He kicked it, and banged his fists on the glass window, screaming that he wanted to get out.
“You probably shouldn’t do that, kid,” one of the guys that were standing nearby said, reaching out to stop him from hitting the glass again, as another guy—she suspected the child’s father—scooped him up in his arms, pulling him away from the door.
“It’s alright, Callum, they’ll get us out,” the man soothed, as he walked back to where the rest of their family stood. The woman immediately looked to comfort the boy, who was sobbing against the man’s chest, and Hermione sighed again.
Poor kid.
“It’s been almost an hour, I would have thought that they’d get us down soon,” Lucius said, as he tucked his watch away.
Hermione nodded, an absent fantasy in her mind of hot chocolate and a book in front of the fire, her plans for the evening that had been disrupted by her prolonged stay on the London Eye.
“Oh.”
Hermione glanced Lucius’ way once more to see him looking out of the window, a slight smile on his lips. She followed his gaze and realised that it was snowing, the flakes falling lazily through the sky outside of the carriage.
She turned in her seat, drawing just slightly closer to Lucius so she could have a better view, and as she did so, the carriage jerked again before it slowly began the descent to the ground. He caught her and steadied her with gentle hands, and she smiled at him before she could stop herself.
They sat, watching the snow, in comfortable silence until finally, the door to the carriage opened up and they were allowed to depart.
A man at the end of the ramp was holding a stack of paper, and he handed one to everyone who walked past him. Hermione took one and looked down to see that it was a ‘fifty percent off’ coupon for another ride, in apology for the wait.
She tucked it into her pocket, silently thinking that she wouldn’t be the one to use it, and stepped off the ramp into the thinning crowd.
“I…”
She paused when Lucius didn’t say anything more, and turned to face him.
“I was thinking about getting some hot chocolate,” he said quietly. “Will you come with me?”
She considered her own plans for hot chocolate and thought to decline, but then she met his eyes with her own, and she nodded. She didn’t owe it to him, and she certainly wasn’t going to let a name on her arm dictate her future, but…
Perhaps there was a reason that, out of the seven billion people on earth, Lucius Malfoy was supposedly the one that had been made for her.
Perhaps there was something there.
“I… yeah, okay. I can do that. Is it nearby?”
“There’s a cafe just around the corner,” Lucius replied. “They stay open rather late, even in the winter months, and the hot chocolate is spectacular.”
He offered her his arm cautiously, and she hesitated for a moment before slipping her hand into the crook of it, part of her delighting in the gentlemanly gesture.
She let him lead her, her heart pounding in her chest as she tried to remind herself that it was just hot chocolate. It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t anything, really.
It was just hot chocolate.
But then… it could just be more than that.