The Affair

Chapter Ten: Cant Help Myself





You may conquer with the sword, but you are conquered by a kiss.

~ Daniel Heinsius (1580-1655)-







Anger was a powerful emotion, Hermione thought as she pulled texts from a shelf just above her head. It fired the body and the mind, it was a tangible emotion, one that slid through your veins with a burning sensation and caused your muscles to tense and relax repeatedly. She could still feel the residual burn of her anger coursing through her as she contemplated her weekend in the silence.







She spent hours sitting on the sofa after Lucius dropped her off at home, just sitting in the dark with her thoughts. Her body grew tighter with every hour that passed, her anger reaching the boiling point again and again until her jaw ached from clenching it so tightly.







It was nearing three in the morning when Ron finally stumbled through the front door. Still wearing his auror’s robes though it was obvious he had not been working late at all. The odor of smoke and stale alcohol clung to his clothing and he clutched a bottle in his hand as he struggled out of his cloak, leaving it in a pile on the floor.







“Where have you been?” She asked from the darkness. She heard him swear then the clicking of the light being turned on.







“Why are you sitting up? I told you I would be late.” He frowned.







“Ron…how could you? Today of all days, how could you?” She asked.







“I am not going to discuss this, Hermione. Just don’t…I want to go to bed, I need to sleep…” He headed towards their bedroom but she stepped in front of him before he could breach the hall.







“It was his birthday, Ron, it was Oliver’s first birthday and you couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge it.” She said tearfully.







“I told you not to say his name.” He growled, pain filling his eyes.







“OLIVER, OLIVER, OLIVER, OLIVER, OLIVER, OLIVER!” She shouted. “He was my son too and I am so sick and tired of everyone acting like he didn’t exist! He did exist! I held him, I kissed him and he was taken away from me before I could know him but he was REAL damn you!”







Ron closed his eyes, one hand fisted at his side and the other still clutching a half empty bottle of fire whiskey.







“Don’t do this, Hermione, just stop it!” He growled.







“I will not!” She reached behind her and with a whispered spell unlocked a door that had not been opened in a year, shoving it open so that it slammed against the wall. She flipped on the light and shoved a startled Ron into the room, following him inside.







She gasped in agony as she looked around the room so lovingly prepared for their son. The cot, the changing table, the bookcase filled with children’s books. The little toy chest painted with tiny trains that Ron had made with his own hands in the woodshed behind his parents house, the rocking chair beneath the window where a small blanket lay draped over the arm.







She heard the strangled sob that was torn from his lips and she began to cry anew. She could see him shaking, knew that his grief was tearing his heart to shreds.







“What do you want me to say?” He asked, his voice broken and strained.







“Say his name. Acknowledge that our son was real.” She said softly.







“Stop it, Hermione. Just stop it!” He turned back towards the door and stepped into the hall, raising the bottle to his lips. She wrenched it from his hand and threw it at the wall behind his head, glass and whiskey splattering his clothing.







“Damn you, Ronald Weasley, SAY HIS NAME!” She screamed, her voice raw with the strain of it.







“I CAN’T!” He shouted back. “I’m not as strong as you, Hermione, I never have been. If I think about him….if I talk about him….then I can’t function, not a day goes by that I don’t think of him, that I don’t wish I could go back….I haven’t forgotten him I just cant…I just can’t. I felt him that morning…I was lying behind you in the bed with my arms wrapped around you and I felt him moving inside you. Then just a few hours later he was gone, with no explanation, just gone! Why? I don’t understand why. I was the man, his father, your husband…I was supposed to keep you safe from harm and I failed…but I don’t know how I failed! All I know is that my son is gone and I hate myself for it.”







“Ron, it wasn’t your fault, it was no one’s fault! It just happened, but he was real…we can’t keep pretending that he wasn’t.” She sobbed.







“You go right ahead, Hermione, if that’s what you want to do, but I just can’t. Because if I don’t forget, the memory will kill me.” He said before turning away from her and heading back to the front door.







“Ron, where are you going?” She cried.







“I’m going to go sleep at Harry’s.” He said, before disappearing out the front door and leaving her all alone. He didn’t come back on Saturday nor did she see him on Sunday either. When she got up for work that morning it was to find Ron once more sleeping off a drunken stupor on the sofa.





She was disappointed to arrive at the manor and find Lucius out for the morning tending to business affairs. She needed the comfort that came from knowing he was there. It was like she siphoned energy from him, from his strength she was able to find her own.







She wasn’t sure what she would do about her marriage. She had thought that maybe confronting Ron, shoving Oliver’s existence into his face would change things but it hadn’t. The canyon between them had widened to a point that she couldn’t see the other side no matter how hard she tried. He had already refused marital counseling once and she didn’t expect him to agree to it now either. Maybe loving him just wasn’t enough.







She pulled another text off of the shelf and chuckled softly as she read the title. Mating Habits of Magical Creatures. She wondered why he or, judging from its publication date one of his ancestors, would possibly need such a text when as far as she knew they had been wealthy for generations without actual employment being necessary, certainly not animal husbandry.







After documenting it on her scroll she reached above her for the next text. It was a particularly thick book and her smaller hands had difficulty getting a good hold on it as she gave a tug. It teetered on the edge of the shelf and then fell forward, sliding from her grip. It would have smacked her directly on the top of her head but a large hand grabbed it just in time.







She turned around to see Lucius standing behind her. He was wearing a set of finely tailored pin striped robes; no doubt he had intended to be intimidating to whomever it was he was meeting with. She was certain that it worked. People still feared the mark that forever marred his arm and once upon a time in his seedy past he had not been above threatening to curse individuals and their entire families in order to get what he wanted. She was confident that those days were long behind him though.







“Thank you that could have been rather painful.” She said smiling softly.







“That could have given you a concussion.” He said, laying the book aside. “My lunch was miserable; I kept wishing I was home, with you.”







“Mine was lonely; I sat on the floor and tried to decide why you have so many strange books.” She said.







“Oh? And what makes you think that a Malfoy would have no use for…. The Joys of Cooking for Trolls? Alright, so there seem to be a fair number of odd books. I couldn’t begin to tell you who provided what to the collection over the years.”







“Did your meeting go well?” She asked, leaning back against the shelves.







“It did. I purchased a large, un-plottable piece of property in Dover, fronted by the sea and backed by forest with a large, grassy clearing.” His mouth was dry as he looked down at her. He could smell the soft, floral fragrance of her perfume he was so close. The weekend had been torture for him. He had thought of nothing but how she had felt in his arms, so small and delicate, her curves soft against him. The way she had clung to him and not stood stiffly in his arms as though afraid he would muss her had been…refreshing, even if she had been crying.







He couldn’t help but wish he could hold her without the tears, that she would be in his arms not only to accept his comfort but because she wished to be there. He had berated himself over and over for his wayward thoughts over the weekend. He shouldn’t be thinking about her like he was, she was someone else’s wife and he was married himself. But it didn’t stop the thoughts from coming.







“What are you going to do with it?” She asked, wishing her stomach would stop fluttering at his nearness, that the spicy clean scent of him didn’t make her want to step close and press her face into the side of his neck.







“I have no plans for it at the moment. Real estate is always a good investment.” He said catching his breath when her tongue slid over her bottom lip. “And you? How have you spent your day?”







“Cataloguing the shelves I can reach from this section.” She saw him smirk and she wanted to touch his mouth.







“Didn’t appear as though you were doing a very good job with the reaching. Perhaps you should get a stool?” He said.







“There are only two left and I am done for the day.” She said, looking back over her shoulder at the books above her head.







“Then let me.” He reached above her for the books, leaning forward just a little so they were closer. He collected both books in his grip but he didn’t pull them down, he was too close to her to think, he couldn’t recall what it was he was supposed to be doing. All he knew was that he was close to her, that her lips were moist and just a few inches away.







It happened in slow motion. One moment they were staring at each other, lost in a moment they didn’t understand and the next they were inching closer until their lips met softly. They didn’t press; it was just a gentle, light grazing of lips that had them both backing away in shock.





“I’m sorry.” Lucius said. “No, that’s a lie, I am not sorry, I refuse to lie to you. I’ve wanted to kiss you since Friday.”









“We can’t, Lucius. It isn’t just us…we have Ron and Narcissa.” She knew she was saying the right thing, but it isn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to kiss him, to get lost in him. To FEEL what only he made her feel.







“I know…it’s wrong, we would be hurting others…but I feel something when I am with you….”







“I feel it too, but we have to ignore it, Lucius. We can’t use each other that way.”

She laid her fingertips against his mouth and sighed. “We have to fight it.” She said.







“I’ll try…you should go on home, Hermione. Go on home before I say to hell with it, to hell with them and kiss you again.” He whispered.







Hermione swallowed hard and then somehow managed to make her body move away from him though it fought her with every step she took. She didn’t look back. She grabbed her cloak from the sofa and without a word she stepped into the fireplace and was gone.













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Here you go…a chapter before work.