Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 4-3-08


All of your thoughtful reviews have been avidly read by me several times. Thank you so much!! I’m a bit behind due to a horrid head cold and houseguests from Australia (I live in California), so I decided you’d rather have a chapter than me maundering on…


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Chapter Eleven


Cleanup

Lucius lazily rose from his easy chair and walked to Hermione, standing toe to toe, speaking softly, “I can’t apparate you out of here. Too many people know you’re in this room with me. I do have another method, but that will have to wait for another time. We’ll just walk out the front door for now and move off down the street and into an alley. “Come along,” he ordered more loudly, leading the way with his long, confident stride that had made the women in the street two days before take notice.

Hermione hurried after him, wishing she could stick her wand up his arrogant arse for his superior airs. She didn’t want to be alone at all tonight, but it irritated her immensely that she felt like crawling into his pocket just to be near him. She was tired, angry and still scared and right now he was her haven. His presence kept her from breaking down and just bawling. Why couldn’t he show a bit of compassion?

Lucius walked ahead of Hermione out of the house, down the steps and set off briskly, expecting the tiny witch to keep up. A block later he realized she wasn’t with him and he stopped and turned around. Hermione was standing on the sidewalk at the foot of the stoop of the bordello with her arms crossed on her breasts in obvious annoyance. Now irritated himself, he strode back and queried sarcastically, “Did you need me to carry you? Keep up, Hermione. These streets can be dangerous even at this time of the morning.”

Hermione replied sweetly, “You’ve obviously spent too much time pacing in the Azkaban prison yard, Lucius. If you expect a female to keep up with your self-important, league-eating strides, find one who’s as tall as you.” She added, “Otherwise, I’d appreciate you conforming your pace to one I can copy. No lady would be asked to run alongside you like a lapdog, trying to stay even with you.” Hermione wondered at the word ‘league’ and her sudden opinion of what a lady expected from an escort. More acclimatization to the times, she decided. Curious.

A moment’s pained reflection brought the galling conclusion that his tiny tyrant was right, as an instant array of gentlemanly behavior flooded his consciousness. He was obviously assimilating the morés of a gentleman of the times a little more slowly than she was assimilating the expectations of a lady. More of that peculiar automatic adjustment to the era, he supposed. League? That word was obsolete as a measurement of distance in their future history.

Lucius sighed, holding out his elbow for Hermione to take as they began to stroll more sedately down the block, looking for an alley. He just wanted to get her home as soon as possible so he could get on with his various deliveries of the human garbage waiting in two garden sheds.

Lucius took the opportunity of their stroll to let her know of his new acquisitions of the landlady’s property and the building housing the bordello. Hermione beamed up at him with the first true approval he’d seen since they had come through the veil. He was surprised at her streak of vindictiveness, but liked it very much. Neither was he a bleeding heart for malevolent criminals. He just wished she had enough fortitude to take a more active role in ridding herself of those threatening her. That wasn’t to be, though. He knew it as firmly as he knew his own capacity for ruthlessness. She would always throw a ‘stupefy’ rather than an ‘avada kedavra’.

He’d seen her briefly in action during the fighting at Hogwarts and she’d been throwing curses with the best of them, but they had always been crucios and stupefies, never the killing curse that he’d seen. Lucius’ protective instinct eased open a bit more to embrace a resolute determination to shield her much more carefully than he had been. After all, she belonged to him now, whether she knew it yet or not. Pretty, petite, intelligent, and best of all she was part of their common background, unlike anyone else in this time period. With her he wouldn’t have to keep secrets or limit his language to the terms of two hundred years ago.

Their wizarding society even in the twenty-first century was somewhat anachronistic, so he figured they would blend in here well enough, but she would understand him in a way no one else could. She wouldn’t turn a hair if he talked about Velcro (actually quite useful for holding his robes closed while flying on a broomstick) or airplanes or his favorite Quidditch team. He could relax and enjoy a comfortable existence at home with an accommodating young female who was able to effortlessly shoot his blood pressure into orbit. He was looking forward to the erotic side benefits he was certain he could talk her into. All in all, Lucius was feeling quite in charity with this new world and his little partner.



Lucius and Hermione apparated back into their old room from a convenient alley and Hermione immediately started exploring the wall behind the bed, quickly finding what she was looking for. “This is how they did it, Lucius. I didn’t break your wards. There was another way in. See?” She edged her fingers into a slight crack in the wall near the darkest corner of the room and pulled. Slowly a panel swung out revealing a narrow space behind the wall that traversed the back wall behind the room and disappeared down a dusty staircase.

Lucius had been holding off from lecturing Hermione on her carelessness in breeching his wards due to her recent traumatic experience. Now he was thankful he’d waited. She’d been innocent of his assessment of her perilous idiocy. The fault had been his for not protecting the entire room against intruders. Chagrined, Lucius briefly explored the cavity, then stepped back into the bedroom, warding the secret staircase below the panel as well, just to be doubly careful.

“You’re completely safe now. This whole building is empty in any case. I have a few errands to complete before I can relax, so you might as well get some rest. My errands will take me several hours, so don’t worry if I’m not back until tea time. There is plenty of food downstairs when you get hungry as long as you like oatmeal.”

Hermione’s courage leaked out of her like a punctured balloon and the blood literally drained from her head, leaving her weaving in place. “Don’t leave me, please!”

Lucius wanted to take care of his captives as soon as possible now. Petrificus Totalis victims might be petrified, but their excretory fluids continued to gather and would slowly leak out, making his chores dirtier by the hour. He smiled mirthlessly at the bizarre bits of knowledge he’d gained as a Death Eater over the years and knew his job was going to be unpleasantly messy by now.

“I’ll wait for you to settle in bed, then I’ll put you into a bewitched, deep sleep until I return if you like. You really are safe, but if you can’t fall asleep on your own, I can easily put you under. I haven’t any Dreamless Sleep potion or I would offer that.”

Hermione didn’t want her body put into jeopardy while she couldn’t defend herself. “No, I don’t want that. I can’t sleep right now. But why can’t you stay?”

“I have several villains to deliver to gaol (of sorts, he tacked on under his breath) and then I have to discuss the future with those ladies we left at the brothel. I may forage for more money also.” Lucius wanted to be gone, but he possessed himself in the scant patience he could scrape together until Hermione was at least a little willing for him to leave. The place was like a fortress now, but he understood her reluctance to be alone.

“Are you going gambling again afterward? I thought we had a lot of money from the brothel’s Madame. Why do you need to go out again for more?"

“My dear young woman, perhaps it hasn’t penetrated your plebeian mind yet that when we return to the wizarding world I don’t want to be a comfortable working class wizard with a dreary job and answerable to petty, annoying superiors such as you had in your job. I want my wealth back and I intend to pursue that end until I’m as rich now as I was before. Does that clarify things for you?”



Hermione was outraged, “Do you have to be such an arse, Lucius? Why do you verbally stick pins in me like that? You seem angry with me as though I were responsible for being kidnapped. I don’t deserve your patronizing, insulting attitude.”

No, she didn’t and Lucius knew exactly why he was behaving so poorly. He’d had a taste of her and he wanted more. Much, much more. “I apologize. Let us just say I am on edge around you right now and leave it at that, shall we?” He caught sight of himself in the mirror and grimaced at the red hair. A quick spell returned his locks to their normal blond color and his eyes back to their icy gray. He ran his wand down the bridge of his nose to remove the slight, dramatic bump. Much, much better.

Hermione belatedly understood what Lucius meant and her tirade was arrested midstride. He was telling her he was horny. A purely visceral shiver shot through her at the thought. What he’d made her feel last night had been something she’d been attempting to stamp out of her lonely nerve endings ever since it happened. It was starting to subsume her waking moments with what-ifs. For him - a convicted, immoral Death Eater. A sudden gush of wet moistened Hermione’s lacy knickers. Hermione had never been so at the mercy of her body as she was now. And apparently she wasn’t the only one who had been affected by the intimate interlude they’d shared. Seeing the wizard in his normal coloring again wasn’t helping.

“I see those criminals need to be sent to jail, but can’t those ‘ladies’ of yours wait some more? They shouldn’t see you as a blond.” She didn’t want Lucius going back to the brothel if he was horny, but even more, Hermione didn’t want to be left alone again so soon. The building with its secret passages now terrified her, even though Lucius had warded the entire premises against intruders.

Lucius walked out of the bedroom and started down the stairs to doublecheck that the rooms below were still safely warded, calling back, “I’ll tell them I was wearing a disguise.”

Hermione followed him like a shadow down into the front parlor, watching him test his warding and wishing he would put off his responsibilities and stay. Hermione knew Lucius had to do those other things, but she was still scared to stay in the building by herself. She didn’t want to make any more of her fears in front of the powerful wizard than she already had, so she reluctantly said, “I’ll stay in our room until you get back. That’s the safest, isn’t it?” Perhaps she had better be more accommodating to his absences or she’d find herself on her back again and this time she wouldn’t be making pretend noises of sex.

Frightened of her wayward thoughts, she gave up on asking him to stay and ran for the doorway, quickly passing Lucius as she left the room, sprinted back up the stairs and slammed the door of their room, leaving him alone in the parlor.

Lucius was at first surprised at her sudden capitulation, then as a light scent reached him, he was shocked. The slight breeze of her departure brought him a definite tang of arousal, her arousal. For him? Was she interested in him after all? Not merely disgusted with his lack of control? Well, better and better. This really was going to work out well for both of them. But what a time to discover her interest, when he had several by-now filthy, bespelled bodies to deliver to their destinations.

Lucius ran lightly up the stairs after the little witch and into their bedroom, trying one last time to reassure her, “You are truly safe now. I’ve put so many wards on this entire building, Voldemort himself couldn’t get in.” Hermione glowered in displeasure at the name of her old enemy. “It was just a joke, Hermione. A rather poor one, I suppose. Stay in the room. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Lucius apparated away, leaving Hermione forlornly standing in the middle of their bedroom. She trailed over to her side of the bed, climbed up and sat on the mattress swinging her feet aimlessly.

Hermione felt small and weak next to the tremendous self-confidence that Lucius displayed and she was starting to become irritated that Lucius wasn’t very understanding of her agitation. She was also annoyed with her lingering fears while being totally unable to calm them herself. She needed Lucius’ presence, for a while anyway. Her existence in this time period hadn’t been too halcyon thus far.

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Lucius entered the landlady’s garden shed and saw immediately he wouldn’t be taking her to the insane asylum. Her earthly existence had come to an end. He adjudged that fright had probably done her in from the small amount of waste she’d produced. Lucius was no one’s fool and he had seen that the private areas of the old woman’s domicile were crammed with expensive furnishings and trinkets. She must have been transacting her white slavery trade for many years.

He hadn’t a shred of pity for such a thoroughly horrible human being. Sighing, Lucius used his wand to clean up the bit of mess the old woman had generated before her death, lifted up the body and began a slow apparation process to the Forbidden Forest where he dropped the corpse by a small lake that often attracted animals. At least she would serve some good in death feeding the wildlife. He breathed in the earthy scents of the gloomy forest. It brought back memories of his Death Eater days, most of them unpleasant. Voldemort had used the forest many times for various meetings and less attractive events and Lucius was familiar with several hidden places he could make use of now.

Lucius stayed in the forest and spent some time creating portkeys for himself because he wasn’t even close to finished with his transportation project. Lucius whisked to several other points in the forest he had known from his meetings with the Dark Lord and the other Death Eaters and set the portkey terminals in each. Then he apparated to the garden shed at the back of the brothel. He didn’t have the same luck as he’d had with the old woman. All three villains were alive, but not kicking due to his petrifying spell. They were, however, covered in their own excrement.

Lucius tried not to breathe too deeply while he cleaned them up with a cleansing spell and one by one he used his new portkeys to set each of them in a different spot in the Forbidden Forest well back from any edge. He obliviated all of them in turn and set them loose.

The blond wizard felt he was giving them more of a sporting chance– well, not much of a sporting chance - than they had ever given any of their victims. The Forbidden Forest had long been a friend to Voldemort’s clan as an excellent waste disposal site. Lucius and the other Death Eaters had made use of it time and again for bodies they hadn’t wanted found. This was the first time, though, that he’d left anyone alive in it.

His conscience, however, rested very lightly with no uncomfortable overtones to keep him awake at night after seeing the incredible debauchery he had found in several of the bordello rooms. Sex for money was one thing, but he couldn’t even label some of what he’d seen as sex. He hadn’t saved Hermione from being kidnapped, but he could protect her from any knowledge of those horrendous rooms. Only the women found in the more normal of the bordello’s rooms had chosen to stay. The others – both girls and boys – had wanted out. Lucius hadn’t even sent the boys to Hermione, wanting her shielded from any more perversions than she had already experienced.

The blond wizard was thankful that Hermione had chosen not to know about his plans and hadn’t had the experience to think there was anything more going on than females having missionary sex with men. Lucius smiled briefly – in her own stunted, stifled, starchy way she was such a little breath of fresh air.

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When Lucius finally got home in the very late evening after delivering the three evildoers to their new habitations in the Forbidden Forest, he was tired but felt good about his day’s work. He wasn’t and never would be anyone’s sainted seraph, but even he had standards. His Death Eater days had been for political ends, not personal aggrandizement. His separation of various kinds of atrocities into acceptable and not acceptable in his mind was entirely logical to the wizard’s mindset and he saw no irony in his views.

Twelve years in prison had rid him of his narrow slant on Muggleborn witches and wizards, however, his concern over Muggles and their encroachment on the magic community hadn’t shifted. He now knew from bitter experience that wholesale genocide of Muggles wasn’t the answer, but he had still held out hope that some type of protection for his people could be invented. It was now a terrible irony that the Muggles had done exactly what he had feared. Their kind had wiped out the magic folk nearly to extinction.

He closed off his thoughts on useless politics, dragging himself up the stairs of the rental property (now his) and over the landing to the room he had shared with the little witch. Would she pick a separate room away from him now that he was back or would she want to stay with him? Lucius tried to open the door, but Hermione had apparently added her own wards to keep others out. Was that his answer? Was he included in her embargo on their bedroom?

“Hermione?” Lucius knocked quietly on the door. Nothing. He examined the rudimentary wards and quickly removed them. Another thing for my list, Lucius sighed, teach Hermione better protection spells. Lucius slowly opened the door and was frozen for a heart-pounding few seconds as the empty room mutely returned his stare. Oh Gods, not again! No, no. She must just have chosen another bedroom. But why ward the door then?

Lucius activated the connection charm and felt immediately that Hermione was close. He let his rush of adrenaline relax for a minute, then began the search for his errant little associate, sweeping through room after room, becoming more frantic. She was somewhere nearby and as his fear lessened, his anger grew. Lucius had quite a temper when it was let loose, and this latest scare had released it to unfurl in a wave of fury so overwhelming he felt a little faint with it. His strength returned in a rush, propelled by the irrational thought that Hermione was getting even with him somehow for abandoning her in the apartment house. He wasn’t thinking particularly shrewdly, being so worn down from the multitude of bad experiences he’d had in the last twenty-four hours or he wouldn’t have done what he did.

tbc...


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