The Wedding - COMPLETE

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Updated 2-24-07

My goodness, there are a lot of cat lovers here, aren't there? Sometimes I think they actually run the world and we just don't know it.

I see there are split opinions on Lucius' behavior toward Hermione. Both opinions have some validity, I think, and I'll obviously work toward merging them. After all this is what the entire story is about. The journey is hopefully the fascinating part.

MistressMalfoy - was it the pairing that gave you the heaves or the type of sex? I'm a little unclear on that.

Gaps - In my geographic area, Tiramisu is actually served in many restaurants and even in some fast food places. Just some useless trivia. And go ahead and fink on me to Lucius. Maybe he'd 'punish' me like he does Hermione?

I hope you all don't give up on our hero. He'll get there. Truly!
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Chapter Twelve


Lucius

Lucius had tried to work on his financial chores but he was restless and irritable, and started pacing from his desk to the far windows and back again irritated with himself for remembering Hermione’s stifled sob as she ran from the morning room. Why did she have to behave as though she had a right to his attention - after what she and that- that- Weasley bumpkin had done to him? And then to make him feel an ogre when he’d just wanted to read the Daily Prophet and have a peaceful breakfast? He didn’t owe her anything outside the bedroom. He didn’t owe her anything in it either, but that was a trickier proposition.


Suddenly a new thought surfaced from his turmoil. He could hope, but it was unlikely that her emotional outburst was the result of being pregnant. He did want more children, but he wasn’t thrilled to have to repeat that disruptive time in his life. Narcissa had been an emotional wreck when she was pregnant, crying and blaming him for the loss of her figure. Her specialist had said he was not to have any more sexual relations with her while she was pregnant as his size was a danger to her.


He’d been frustrated and desperate and he’d finally gone to Narcissa asking her for any relief, but she told him to go elsewhere and leave her alone. Lucius had been devastated at his wife’s callous attitude, telling him baldly to sleep with other women. She could have substituted something besides penetration, but she’d viciously rejected him instead. Lucius withdrew and protectively grew another shell, this time against his wife, as he sought out other female sex partners for comfort as much as for the sex itself.


He tried once more to enter his wife’s bed after Draco was born, hoping she had returned to a more even keel after the birth, but he was rebuffed and after that he never tried again. As long as Narcissa didn’t have anyone else’s child, Lucius didn’t care what she did. It had taken her forever to get pregnant in the first place so returning to her bed just for more children wasn’t deemed practicable in any case by her disillusioned husband.


Lucius had been thinking all afternoon about his arrangement with Hermione. He was dissatisfied somehow and couldn’t think why. It had turned out to be nothing different than he always had. Women had always wanted him ever since puberty, but as he got older, he realized he was nothing but a collection of parts to them – his face, his physique, his wealth, his power, and not least, his equipment.


He’d had more women than he could count or even remember – blonde, redhead, brunette, black – they’d all run together in his mind. There had been times when a woman had come up to him with a flirtatious manner and familiar hands and he knew he must have already had her, but he had absolutely no memory of sleeping with her. Those women were the worst for him. He couldn’t blame it on too much liquor since he almost never overindulged, preferring a small dram occasionally after dinner or with Snape. And yet… and yet… he’d continued trolling for bed partners most evenings, if only to satisfy an insatiable emptiness, which only seemed to get more monstrous as the years advanced.


Now he was married to yet another woman who didn’t want him. Was he just unlucky, getting the two women in the wizarding world who didn’t want him or would all those faceless women have rejected him as a person also, only wanting his cock or his money, but not him?


Now even Snape had found someone. That drove Lucius’ isolation home even more painfully to him. What made someone desirable for more than their parts? He’d seen Severus and Ginny together and it was always discomfiting to watch their eyes devouring each other. But there was something else between them – it was intangible but very real.


People – women – only wanted him for something he could give them. No one wanted him for who he really was. They certainly wouldn’t want him without the trappings of his dynasty, his money, and his power. It was why he had reacted so badly to Hermione trying to ‘steal’ his only remaining commodity away from him. Sex was something he was very good at. Sex, at least, he knew inside and out; he always knew what a woman wanted and was comfortable giving it to her. But whatever Snape and his wife had baffled him. Was that love? He wasn’t certain it even existed, but certainly not ever for him. He thought he might have a slim chance to find out with Hermione, but had no idea how to go about it. Could he start with sex and hope this time it opened up more for him than a woman’s legs?


Lucius decided to have a talk with his wife about their breakfast fiasco. He needed some clear-cut rules for their relationship, such as it was. He disliked and resented being made to feel the villain of the piece. Lucius dispatched an elf to ask Hermione to visit him in his study, the most comfortable room in the mansion for him. Ten minutes later, Hermione was at the door asking for admission and Lucius let her in and sat her on the sofa with him.


Hermione sat patiently, seeing Lucius was floundering for whatever he wanted to say. She started to be alarmed. Was he going to shut her out sexually again? She really didn’t want to be reduced to her hand jobs. Even the idea of a vibrator was ruined after Lucius had gotten through with her the first night. He had said they could try to get pregnant. Was he going to rescind that? What was wrong? She laid her hand on Lucius’ arm gently, not knowing if she was allowed to touch him under his rules. But this wasn’t his bedroom so she thought she was pretty safe in assuming she could touch him first.


“Hermione, I thought you wanted our marriage never to be anything more than an occasional, soulless coupling. If that’s true, then I want to be freed to have a whore.” Lucius looked away from Hermione, staring hard at nothing in particular. He had felt humiliated at being made to practically beg for his sexual releases from Hermione, or with her permission, from someone else. He knew that his body was basically making him a slave to her, no matter that he’d tried to arrange otherwise. The sex was as necessary to him as breathing – he was almost crippled physically if he couldn’t have it regularly. He hadn’t exaggerated to Hermione when he’d told her about his reaction to Azkaban.


Hermione drew in a shallow breath and stared at her dark wizard. Sweet Goddess! Where had that come from? Lucius wanted to try for…what? Love? Companionship? Freedom to have his whores? “Are you saying you don’t want me and would rather go to a brothel?”


Lucius’ head swerved back at her so fast she was sure he’d gotten whiplash. His pale hair actually arced around his body, falling in front of his shoulders. “How the hell did you arrive at that response? What did I say to make you think that?” He irritably ran his fingers through his blond locks, ramming his hair behind him again.


Hermione wasn’t intimidated by his ferocious scowl. “You said if I didn’t want anything more than the occasional toss, then you wanted to have sex with someone else instead. Lucius, I still hardly even know you. How could I answer that question except as an ‘I’m not sure”? To me that meant you’d be out tomcatting before dawn.”


“I am NOT asking to go ‘tomcatting’.” Lucius’ hands tightened into fists of exasperation. He was so tired of his stud persona.


“Then what are you asking?”


“You were upset at breakfast when I wasn’t sociable at the table. I didn’t ask for consideration as anything more than a sex partner, but you reacted as though I had committed an egregious impropriety against you when I didn’t make conversation. Why did you want anything from me? I thought I was the beggar asking for sex and you the magnanimous conquering heroine bestowing it on me. And that was all. I’ve made my intentions for the bedroom clear to you. So, what are your intentions outside the bedroom?” Lucius felt totally exposed asking her that question, but he was determined to try to find his way out of his self-imposed sexual prison.


Hermione was taken aback and it showed on her astonished face.


“So you have no intentions outside the bedroom. Am I reading you correctly?” Lucius pulled back into his protective shell and looked at her so fiercely she almost rose from the sofa.


“Lucius, what is this about?” Hermione clutched his arms, thinking to slow down any attack but quickly realized she had misread his intention and began stroking his hands instead. “I know I have an abysmal track record so far as a wife. We’ve established that. My butt can attest to it. I just don’t understand what you want from me.” Hermione could see she was somehow pushing him further and further away with each word she spoke. So she did something without words. She climbed into his lap and put her arms around him, nestling on his chest. And just held him.


Lucius remained stiff in her arms for a few minutes. They were squared off in a waiting contest. But finally Lucius slumped back in defeat against the sofa and lowered his face into the little spitfire’s hair, indulging his fascination for her special scent.


She dared to whisper, “We’re married. Lucius. We have a lifetime to discover each other as people, as friends, as lovers. I’m willing to work on all that with you, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve relinquished my rights in the bedroom. I’m willing to do whatever you want there, not because you have forced me to, but because I saw that it was very important to you. Tell me what you want out of the bedroom and I’ll try to do that too.”


“I don’t want you to try to do anything. I just want to know I’m more than an unwanted burden that Arthur saddled you with. So far I haven’t seen anything that tells me I’m anything of value to you but a cock that can make money. There’s a bit more to me than that, although I admit most women are like you, seeing nothing past my appendage and my wallet.”


“I don’t deserve that, Lucius.” She looked up directly into his icy eyes and saw distrust and despair. “That’s all you’ve been offering me. I quote, “You don’t have to be best buddies, you don’t even have to be nice to me…” her voice trailed away. Oh, how stupid. She’d turned his words on their ear and heard rejection from him when he had been seeing rejection of him. “Look, we’ve been working at cross – purposes. I admit I’ve not set a good example from the beginning of our marriage, ignoring you. I was scared having to marry you –“


“Yes - to marry me to get my money.” Lucius put Hermione back on the sofa away from him. “What a bad deal for you, being stuck with the evil Death Eater as a requirement to getting all those lovely Galleons.”


His words gave her more insight to his oblique view of their marriage, “Well, Lucius, first off, it’s a real mess, exchanging Galleons for Muggle money. And you are an evil Death Eater, or rather you were. Are you trying to paint yourself angelic white after the fact?” Hermione frowned, “Would you want to be married to someone as…as…Slytherin as you if you were me?”


Lucius retorted at once, “This was privately meant to be a marriage of convenience, only. Obviously you weren’t worried about it being anything more than a little inconvenient to you. I know you didn’t want me. That was Arthur’s bright idea designed to pull my political teeth. Wasn’t the purpose to keep the last toothless Death Eater from starting up a whole new revolution with his cock?”


At that she became slightly more amused as she said, “Well, I can certainly corroborate that your cock is actually worth all the Galleons they gave me. However, the rest of you can be pretty annoying, you know.”


Lucius was incensed, “How could I have annoyed you? You didn’t even notice me for three months.”


Hermione started laughing. “Lucius, how can anyone not notice you?”


“You made it seem rather simple, I thought.” Lucius continued to scowl, but he was a little intrigued by her response.


Hermione hitched one foot up under herself and turned to face him better, “Oh, no, it wasn’t simple at all. You are extremely appealing to the female gender. If only a fraction of the stories I’ve heard about your exploits is true, you must have needed that cane you affect to beat the women away.” Hermione heard her husband grumble with displeasure at that comment, but she persevered anyway, “Unfortunately, I belong to that female club too. It was easier to just avoid the temptation you presented.” The grumbling stopped and she saw Lucius’ eyebrows go up in astonishment.


Hermione smiled at his surprise, “I was laboring under an extra handicap, you see. We are married - you’re legally my husband with sexual rights included, so staying clear of the temptation you presented made sense to me. It was difficult to accept wanting to sleep with a man known for a string of beastly acts and a political agenda that was the polar opposite to mine. Of course, that’s pretty much water under the bridge now. You needed sex and I gave in to that beguiling temptation to sleep with my husband. Now it’s brought us to this point. A Muggleborn and a Muggle hater."


Lucius derided, “I’ve been brought up all my life to hate and resent Muggles and Muggleborns. If you had been brought up in my household, are you saying you’d be the soul of kindness to the Muggle world in spite of your parents’ beliefs? You really are Saint Hermione.”


“What are you talking about? Where did you get this Saint Hermione nonsense?”


“That’s what I call you.”


“Well, you can stop it right now.” Hermione dimpled at him mischievously, “I’m no more saintly than the next female superheroine of the Light. So tell me, just how much money have you made off those two million Galleons I gave you? Are you richer than I am yet?”


Lucius suddenly appeared discomposed, looking at his clasped hands, then away. “Never mind,” he said sounding remote, “That’s not your concern.”


Hermione chortled, “You are richer than I am already, aren’t you?” She pulled at his hair gently, “You fraud, trying to make me feel guilty for something I had little control over, when it took you less than two weeks to make the money back.” She whistled, “My sweet Goddess, you really are a prodigy at the financial world. I’d heard whispers but, oh my, how do you do it?”


“I don’t have any method. I just see patterns. I’ve discovered other people can’t see them like I can. That’s all I know how to explain.” Lucius wasn’t used to anyone caring how he made the money as long as it continued to roll in. Oh, a few had wanted him to tell them how to do it so they could get rich too, but Lucius had no answer for them and they always got angry with him, thinking he was holding out selfishly on them. Including his father. His father considered it the family right to have Lucius work the finances. But he had resented having Lucius show him up. Lucius had been a double loser to his sire, the more he made, the more his father resented him, while spending the proceeds freely.


“So even if I wanted to pay you for the sex now, you’d turn me down flat.” Hermione sighed loudly with an artificially soulful moue that would have been admired in any soap opera. “I guess I no longer have any leverage against you.”


“You expect me to believe you don’t see exactly what you have for leverage? Please – I may be toothless, but I’ve never been stupid.” Lucius was getting irritated at being reminded of his wife’s ace in the hole as it were. But when he thought of it that way, he reluctantly smiled at the phrase.


“What? I see something made you smile. Tell me.” Hermione darted her hand to his waist and tried to tickle him into telling her.


“And get my head bashed in? I think not.” Lucius gently removed her hand. He wasn’t used to anyone blatantly teasing him and didn’t know quite how to react.


Hermione kept hold of his hand when he tried to let go of her. She offered a playful, melodramatic pout and said, “Something uncomplimentary to me then. So we are back to what we want from each other outside the bedroom.” She petted the back of his hand again as she explained, “I guess I just want civility, especially after you’ve been licking my crotch all night.”


“Got it,” Lucius said gravely, “Civility after crotch-licking. So if I don’t feel like being civil, I should avoid licking your crotch. What other hidden rules are there in the feminine world that we poor males don’t know about?”


Hermione heard the implied threat in Lucius’ comment and began to worry that maybe she had placed a little too much emphasis on what was really only a shading of behavior at the breakfast table. What was civility after all next to a good, lascivious crotch-licking? She’d need to think about that requirement further.


Lucius decided perhaps there were some nuances favorable to him he hadn’t explored in his rush to blame Hermione for his entrapment. She had admitted that she was attracted to him. That put him in more familiar territory – he could definitely work with that. It did depress him some, though, to be reduced back to his ‘Golden Stud’ image. When Draco had brought that epithet home from Hogwarts, Lucius had been both despondent and incensed that little schoolgirls were discussing his desolate private life. This time he had so hoped for something more, or at least different with a new wife.


Hermione tried to clarify her feminine feelings, “That isn’t a hidden rule. I’d think most women would want some social recognition after sex. Do you intend to ignore me if you aren’t either planning, in the midst of, or relaxing after sex?” Hermione wanted the cards on the table. “I don’t think I will be very amenable to frequent sex if I’m treated like a lep…” she trailed off in confusion.


“Were you going to say leper? That has a familiar ring to it. I believe I accused you of the same treatment not long ago. So, you feel like a leper if I don’t pay attention to you. You got along fine without my company for three months. So the difference is that now I’m screwing you?” At Hermione’s frown of disapproval Lucius sighed, “How do we solve this impasse? I don’t believe we can profitably live in each other’s pocket like Severus and Ginny appear to do. It’s rather nauseating just watching them do it.”


Hermione pondered the situation a bit and then said, “No, we don’t have to be constantly in each other’s company. That’s not necessary or even advisable. I think we’d wind up throwing crucios at each other after a day or two. Why don’t we start with meals? We can share meals and talk conversationally, trying to find some commonalities and, of course, set up sex.”


Lucius instantly said, “I’m not interested in breakfast conversation. I want to read the paper and wake up over my tea, as you’ve noticed,” Lucius said wryly. “We shouldn’t share breakfasts if you’re going to start feeling leperish.”


Hermione shrugged, “I’ll suffer through your morning hermit act. At least I’ll know it’s not my company you’re shunning. You’re just not ready to associate with the world that early. Right?” A thought burst on her, “Is that why you keep dumping me back in my bed when I fall asleep in your bedroom? You don’t want anyone around in the morning?”


Lucius looked at Hermione with surprise, “No, I thought you wouldn’t want to wake up with me. Well, why should you? Mornings are a bit more intimate than evenings that are labeled in advance as nothing but sex.”


“It made me feel like I’d been used and tossed away,” Hermione confessed. Then she added honestly, trying to clear the air with her prickly, handsome husband, “When you ignored me at breakfast it doubled the effect.”


Lucius was starting to see that life with a wife who actually wanted some attention from him was a wildly different situation from what he’d had with Narcissa. “I’m only going by previous experience. The first morning after sex, you were gone. Narcissa was happy to be in her own bed.” He asked a little incredulously and very suspiciously, “You want to wake up in bed with me? A convicted, toothless, OLD Death Eater?”


“Listen to what I’m actually saying, Lucius. I want to wake up in bed with my husband, who wants me to stay the night after mind-blowing sex. Think of it as your social recognition of me if you like. Now, if we have all that established, I have another question, “I’d like to go to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch with you. Would you mind? Every time I go there, people stop and talk to me and I don’t get a peaceful meal.”


“You think my presence will scare them away? I’m flattered, of course, and anxious to serve you in any way I can – as your tame Death Eater. Will I be allowed to actually eat, or should I stand over the table, looking vicious to keep the interlopers away?” The sarcasm fairly dripped from Lucius’ words.


“Never mind,” Hermione spurned him in turn, “You’re hopeless. I’ll ask Ginny again. And maybe Severus can come too. That should be just as good.” Hermione started to get up from the sofa.


Lucius stayed her with his hand on her arm. “Do you do that a lot? Go out with Ginny and Severus?”


“No. Just Ginny, but I’m tired of the unwanted conversation with strangers.”


“So my conversation will be preferable to the wellwishers who want to fawn on you?” Lucius’ lip curled. “At least I’ll get off this estate. What time do you want to leave?”


Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted to go with Lucius if he was going to be so disagreeable, but she needed to begin somewhere in her marriage and she realized she could have phrased her request in a more complimentary way. “I’ll be in the foyer at 11 AM.” She quickly got off the sofa and apparated away.


Lucius sat for a while pondering what had happened with his wife. She was attracted to him. But for what? She wanted to stay with him at night after sex. Why? He had trouble understanding his wife’s motivation. There had to be something he couldn’t see. She couldn’t care for him. She didn’t even know him. She had said so. The only reason he’d trusted Hermione for more children was his lack of options. She was the sole female he could have legitimate Malfoys with. That was very important in his narrow moral universe. And he had already decided to study Hermione’s technique for being a better parent. But the idea of letting Hermione into his own life even marginally was terrifying. He knew how to hold himself together if he did it alone. Allowing anyone else a measure of trust was difficult. He’d been alone for a long time. It was what he knew and felt comfortable with.


His own assessment so far was that Hermione wasn’t any different from any of the other women, only wanting his cock. She had everything else of his already. Well, then in return all he wanted from her was a legitimate child or two, if he could manage it. To love. As far as he knew, he’d never sired any children out of wedlock, preferring to put a binding contraceptive spell on himself before any sexual encounter, not that he needed it according to Narcissa’s doctor who had hinted that Lucius was responsible for the lack of children. But Lucius had doggedly spelled himself every morning for years as part of his routine, knowing he’d possibly tumble some woman before the night was over.


Lucius abandoned his chaotic thoughts about his new wife and returned to his financial papers feeling a bit better about his circumstances, but still leery of his wife’s motives.


But even Lucius hadn’t completely plumbed his own psychological depths. He was crippled more profoundly than he knew. He only knew that he felt apart from everyone else, not seeing that he was the one walling himself off. His constant quest for sex was his way of connecting socially to women, but it always left him unsatisfied, so he tried again and again. It was a vicious spiral seducing him into more and more sex with less and less true emotional attachment. Now he was trying to use sex to connect to his new wife in the only way he knew how, while being utterly terrified of succeeding.

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Long chapter, I know, but I felt "Lucius" couldn't be carved up into smaller segments.

I do think our dark wizard is trying very hard to take a step forward, setting his ego on the back burner for awhile. And Hermione is meeting him halfway. But I can't have them 'kiss and make up' and still have this be a long story.

I think my stories aren't so much Unrelieved Sexual Tension as Unrelieved Psychological Tension. I relieve the sexual stuff right and left. 8-)


So, to the important part - REVIEWS!! Please??