             How strange this is, Hermione mused as Lucius silently drew her into his side.  To be happy with this man. She supposed they had been happy before the ritual too, but there was always tension between their banter, or their intellectual exchanges. Some of it was the sexual chemistry that she no longer denied. But more so, there was a lack of acceptance. Hermione had refused to accept her attraction, her feelings for a man who had always been labeled as malicious and cold. She refused that her heart might want anyone else but the object of her fixation.