Prisoners of Love - A Mystery - COMPLETE
folder
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Lucius/Hermione
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
41
Views:
76,179
Reviews:
999
Recommended:
2
Currently Reading:
1
Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Lucius/Hermione
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
41
Views:
76,179
Reviews:
999
Recommended:
2
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Detachment
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Updated 9-1-07
Great reviews, guys! Everyone wants Lucius and Hermione together again and I feel your pain, I really do. Will Lucius and Hermione live happily ever after in this chapter? Uh....no, sorry. (But thanks, ffpoisongirl for your heroic attempt. I'm sure it will help soon.)
Please, do not curse, hex or use any dark magic on my muse for this next chapter. You all KNOW I write happy endings. I just take forever to get there. (evil laugh) Aww, you like it, you know you do.
On the up side, a bit more of the mystery...
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Chapter Sixteen
Detachment
Two months after Hermione was taken away Lucius emerged from the prison to the weak light of a misty morning and saw Snape standing at the apparition point. “Do you know where she is?” Lucius asked.
Snape looked at his friend, seeing nothing but cold determination, devoid of any desire or yearning for a wife who had worked ceaselessly to gain him this outcome. “You still want to do this?”
Lucius nodded. He had nearly died in prison. Where Scrimgeour had failed to get rid of him, Hermione had nearly succeeded. He couldn’t return to the emotional web he was too weak to resist. “She may not be able to withstand the public browbeating and worse she’d get as my wife in my social stratum, and she would leave me anyway. Then I’d have to go through that withdrawal again. No, I won’t do it. I can’t.” Seeing his friend’s disapproving scowl, Lucius said, “Don’t feel sorry for her, Severus. She’ll have an excess of men to take my place. She likely has them lined up already.”
“Why do you cling to this pigheaded idea, Lucius? She tried to visit you, many times.” Snape rejoined urgently, despising himself for trying once again to mend the rift between his friends. This whole situation was incredibly annoying! He could feel angel’s wings forming on his shoulder blades. Disgusting.
“The Warden always denied her a visiting permit. I was allowed but not her. Don’t you think that’s odd?” Snape kept trying, despite his better judgment, to make Lucius see that his attitude was wide of the mark. If Lucius couldn’t function to keep their business interests afloat, many of the improvements Severus wanted to make to Hogwarts would have to be postponed or dropped. And the stupid git looked like death on a platter, gaunt and pasty and ill. He needed Hermione. Snape knew better than to say that to the arrogant idiot, but it was true.
If Snape knew anything about his former student it was that she was stubborn to a fault. She could take on those snobby Purebloods singlehandedly and have time left over for yanking her recalcitrant husband back into line.
“It doesn’t matter, Severus. My time apart from her taught me a painful lesson. It’s obvious I’ve a fatal weakness for a fine mind. I’ve managed to detach myself now, and I won’t go back voluntarily into that emotional servitude. I’m apparently not built for a romantic entanglement with a Muggelborn brain.” Nor, thought Lucius, disillusioned, was she interested in keeping an aging, retired Death Eater as a husband.
Lucius had already almost been burned to a crisp. Innocent Hermione had all unknowingly acted like a raging inferno on his glacially aloof personality and he’d melted into a puddle of susceptible slush only to have her invading heat removed, taken away, leaving him without form or shape. It had been a close run thing for him to find a way to rebuild his icy individuality again before he just gave up in despair and evaporated to nothing.
Why Snape continued to defend her was a puzzle to Lucius – he must have seen the newspapers and known Hermione hadn’t been staying home nights pining over her caged husband. She would be lucky if her cuckolded mate didn’t curse her with an Unforgivable for what she’d put him through. Lucius knew in his heart he wouldn’t hurt her, not really, but thinking about it gave him a sense of justice for his tribulations. However, jumping back into the fire wasn’t an option Lucius cared to explore. A part of his mind had been damaged by the link he had willfully ripped away and it needed time to recover. The few tendrils left he could live with, he hoped.
Snape couldn’t sway Lucius from his course, and reluctantly told Lucius where Hermione was working, taking Lucius to the building where Hermione had found a new position in a Muggle accounting firm.
Once Lucius had the coordinates, he apparated home to his mansion and took a long bath, redressed in his finest clothing and apparated back to Hermione’s work just at closing time.
Hermione was on tenterhooks waiting for word that Lucius had been released. She had only heard that morning that the Magic Council had decided the appeal in Lucius’ favor and would be freeing him from prison quickly. No actual date or time had been put forth however, and Hermione was nearly dancing with impatient anticipation for their reunion, so as she stood on the front step of her new workplace and her elegant husband stepped forward to take her hand, she nearly fainted with shock. Lucius had to prop her up for a moment as she recovered from the stupefaction of seeing her mate on the street.
“Oh, Lucius! You’re free! I didn’t dare hope it would be so fast.” Hermione hugged him ecstatically and then looked more carefully at her beautiful husband, seeing his gaunt appearance and feeling how thin he was in her arms. “Did you have trouble with those guards? I was so worried they would try to get even with you after you complained to the Warden. Are you okay, Lucius? You’re so thin.” She looked around for somewhere to go to be alone with him, but only saw a small coffee bar/café. That would have to do.
She tugged him with her across the street and into the dim confines of the café, finding them both seats at a high-sided booth in the rear. Hermione slid in first, pulling her husband’s hand and sliding him onto the seat with her. She didn’t even want to be across the booth from him. Hermione kept tight hold of his hand as she smiled rapturously into his rather grim visage. Not even two months and he was whittled down so much from his former weight she was beginning to feel some alarm at his appearance.
“Lucius, tell me, are you okay? You aren’t ill, are you?”
“No, Hermione, I’m not ill.” Lucius gently disengaged his hand from her stranglehold and eased himself away, sitting more sideways in the booth facing her and ruthlessly squashing his surge of elation at seeing her again. He would not be drawn into her orbit again, not when she so easily became his sun and he her pallid moon. “I have some rather unpleasant news, however.”
Hermione’s heart stopped beating for a second, then went into triple time, absolute terror invading her chest and causing a deep corrosive pain. She didn’t know what he was going to tell her, but she knew him and she was feeling his withdrawal with every breath he took.
“Hermione, we aren’t married. The marriage certificate was never registered with the Ministry. Our ceremony isn’t recognized legally.” Lucius saw Hermione sway a bit, but he stoically sat apart, not helping her.
“How could that be? The Warden is a recognized official of the Ministry and we had witnesses. Lucius? What can we do?” Hermione sat staring blindly into the icy gray eyes of her husband, bombarded with the enormity of this catastrophe. No, he was not her husband. As the initial shock wore off, though, she began to think of how to surmount the obstacles. “Can we get married again? Or just retrieve the paperwork from Azkaban and file it?”
“Those are all possible avenues, I believe. But for one thing.” Lucius stared coldly back into the pleading soft brown eyes of his tiny nemesis.
“What one thing?” Hermione asked, feeling a chill seep into her very bones at Lucius’ continued withdrawal. Oh, Gods, she was such a fool. Why had she ever believed for one minute that Lucius Malfoy could want her – he was a Pureblood, a wealthy, socially elite, powerful wizard who could have any witch at all.
Would the baby be enough to keep him as her husband? She tossed that thought aside as quickly as it had emerged from her mind. She didn’t want a marriage with him on those terms. Even to make her child legitimate. She could perhaps find someone else someday to marry, but trapping Lucius with a baby would never be her choice. He’d have to know later. Not now. Hermione surfaced from her bleak thoughts as her husband – no, not her husband – began to speak.
“Like everything else, the Warden was too slovenly to send in the marriage contract to the proper authorities in the Ministry, so for all intents and purposes, we needn’t honor our marriage vows. It will be as though we were never married.” Through a very reluctant Snape, Lucius had made sure his solicitor had retrieved all the damning documents from Azkaban and locked them away in his law offices. After working so closely with Miss Granger on the appeal, Lucius’ solicitor wasn’t happy with him either, but a wealthy client was a wealthy client and confidentiality was essential in his profession.
Lucius smiled at Hermione but it never reached his glacial eyes. He desperately needed to be quit of her and her uncanny power to make him pine for her and want her against all his fervent wishes otherwise. He couldn’t trust her now and he refused to be her puppet, her lapdog, begging for her favors and being happy with any scraps of affection she chose to bestow while he was asked to turn a blind eye to her other men. He couldn’t trust her not to use her power to control him, making him no better than that henpecked Arthur Weasley, happy to serve his wife in any way she wanted. No one takes power from me. No one. Let her select one of her several beaus to marry if she wants. That cost Lucius a deep stabbing ache in his chest, but he ruthlessly persevered in cutting himself free. His willpower wobbled, but held.
Hermione sat very still, looking at Lucius with brown eyes gone opaque, not giving him even a hint at her true feelings about his subconscious fishing expedition into her sentiments on the idea of abandoning their marriage. “And this is what you wish?” she asked. Silently she castigated herself, Of course, it’s what he wants, idiot! He would have retrieved the papers and filed them himself otherwise.
Lucius stared back. She wasn’t showing any despair over his revelation. She wasn’t upset at his offer. It was painfully obvious that she had never truly cared for him. He could see that now. Her emotions never came near the agony he had suffered at having her torn from him in prison. Her LOVE hadn’t lasted even a week if the numerous dates with other wizards reported in the Daily Prophet were accurate. His decision to abandon their marriage was a salvation for him certainly, but apparently it was for her, too.
“I think so, yes.” Lucius replied tonelessly. “It’s better for both of us this way. You won’t be saddled with someone whose background, ideology and culture are so at odds with your own and…I…,” several seconds went by as his escalating heartbeats nearly suffocated him, “…I’ll… be able to start with the fairly clean slate you’ve provided for me.” He nodded coolly, “I do very much appreciate what you have done on my behalf, Hermione. I’m in your debt.”
“No, I think we’re even, Malfoy.” With that she apparated away, leaving him alone in the silent booth, puzzled and fighting nausea and a vague sense of alarm, but patently relieved at having so easily vanquished the insidious hold she had on his senses, his mind. The insistent, niggling pang in his chest he ignored, apparating home to begin embracing his old life.
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Two nondescript figures sat on the park bench in the sunshine idly watching Muggles go about their business in another part of London. “Now what?” the first one said. “They’re both out of prison. The solicitor had an answer for every objection the Magic Council could muster. And SHE sat right next to him the entire time. I don’t understand how she got so closely involved in Malfoy’s defense unless she got closely involved with him in that little cell.” The first voice chuckled at the vulgar innuendo.
“Her marriage to him wasn’t recorded in the public records, so she had no standing before the Council. But that didn’t preclude Malfoy arranging for her to help,” the second voice drawled.
“WHAT? They’re married? How the hell did that happen? We put them together so Malfoy would throttle her, not marry her. That bastard never could keep his dick in his pants. But marriage? She’s a Mudblood. That relationship should have been impossible. Couldn’t you have stopped it somehow?” The first voice was incensed at the ruinous result of that unlikely combination forming. And it apparently was their own fault for throwing the two together.
“By the time I discovered it, there was no way to stop it. The ceremony was over and done with very quickly. Malfoy sprang it on the Warden without any prior indication of interest.” The second voice didn’t offer up the additional information that the marriage had apparently been precipitated by two of their own minions threatening the little witch. Malfoy’s chivalry must have been unearthed from its cold storage. Who would have guessed?
Well, thought the second voice, those rapacious guards have already paid for their interference. The fishes in the North Sea have been well fed.
Damn, thought the first voice, for the thousandth time, If that old, dead arsehole father of mine hadn’t depleted the family coffers, I wouldn’t have had to bother with stealing Ministry supplies to support my position. I could have bankrolled myself into Malfoy’s preeminent financial spot and got rid of him years ago.
He knew his co-conspirator didn’t know he was so stretched for funds. His fellow thief just thought the money was for funding their Ministry coup later. If the other wizard found out the money was trickling away into his own pocket, it could be disastrous. It was a close call deciding which of them was the more ruthless.
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tbc...
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Firewhiskey decanter on the left, tranqulizing potion on the right. (LaBib sets out crystal glasses for all the readers who need something to calm the nerves after reading this chapter.)
Just keep saying to yourselves, 'happy ending', 'happy ending'. That may help - I know you want our couple back together. Lucius has to move at his own pace, learning his lessons against the backdrop of his arrogant personality and that never happens fast for our supercilious Pureblood.
Think happy reviews. Please? (Have some more firewhiskey.)
.
.
Updated 9-1-07
Great reviews, guys! Everyone wants Lucius and Hermione together again and I feel your pain, I really do. Will Lucius and Hermione live happily ever after in this chapter? Uh....no, sorry. (But thanks, ffpoisongirl for your heroic attempt. I'm sure it will help soon.)
Please, do not curse, hex or use any dark magic on my muse for this next chapter. You all KNOW I write happy endings. I just take forever to get there. (evil laugh) Aww, you like it, you know you do.
On the up side, a bit more of the mystery...
________________________________________________________________
Chapter Sixteen
Detachment
Two months after Hermione was taken away Lucius emerged from the prison to the weak light of a misty morning and saw Snape standing at the apparition point. “Do you know where she is?” Lucius asked.
Snape looked at his friend, seeing nothing but cold determination, devoid of any desire or yearning for a wife who had worked ceaselessly to gain him this outcome. “You still want to do this?”
Lucius nodded. He had nearly died in prison. Where Scrimgeour had failed to get rid of him, Hermione had nearly succeeded. He couldn’t return to the emotional web he was too weak to resist. “She may not be able to withstand the public browbeating and worse she’d get as my wife in my social stratum, and she would leave me anyway. Then I’d have to go through that withdrawal again. No, I won’t do it. I can’t.” Seeing his friend’s disapproving scowl, Lucius said, “Don’t feel sorry for her, Severus. She’ll have an excess of men to take my place. She likely has them lined up already.”
“Why do you cling to this pigheaded idea, Lucius? She tried to visit you, many times.” Snape rejoined urgently, despising himself for trying once again to mend the rift between his friends. This whole situation was incredibly annoying! He could feel angel’s wings forming on his shoulder blades. Disgusting.
“The Warden always denied her a visiting permit. I was allowed but not her. Don’t you think that’s odd?” Snape kept trying, despite his better judgment, to make Lucius see that his attitude was wide of the mark. If Lucius couldn’t function to keep their business interests afloat, many of the improvements Severus wanted to make to Hogwarts would have to be postponed or dropped. And the stupid git looked like death on a platter, gaunt and pasty and ill. He needed Hermione. Snape knew better than to say that to the arrogant idiot, but it was true.
If Snape knew anything about his former student it was that she was stubborn to a fault. She could take on those snobby Purebloods singlehandedly and have time left over for yanking her recalcitrant husband back into line.
“It doesn’t matter, Severus. My time apart from her taught me a painful lesson. It’s obvious I’ve a fatal weakness for a fine mind. I’ve managed to detach myself now, and I won’t go back voluntarily into that emotional servitude. I’m apparently not built for a romantic entanglement with a Muggelborn brain.” Nor, thought Lucius, disillusioned, was she interested in keeping an aging, retired Death Eater as a husband.
Lucius had already almost been burned to a crisp. Innocent Hermione had all unknowingly acted like a raging inferno on his glacially aloof personality and he’d melted into a puddle of susceptible slush only to have her invading heat removed, taken away, leaving him without form or shape. It had been a close run thing for him to find a way to rebuild his icy individuality again before he just gave up in despair and evaporated to nothing.
Why Snape continued to defend her was a puzzle to Lucius – he must have seen the newspapers and known Hermione hadn’t been staying home nights pining over her caged husband. She would be lucky if her cuckolded mate didn’t curse her with an Unforgivable for what she’d put him through. Lucius knew in his heart he wouldn’t hurt her, not really, but thinking about it gave him a sense of justice for his tribulations. However, jumping back into the fire wasn’t an option Lucius cared to explore. A part of his mind had been damaged by the link he had willfully ripped away and it needed time to recover. The few tendrils left he could live with, he hoped.
Snape couldn’t sway Lucius from his course, and reluctantly told Lucius where Hermione was working, taking Lucius to the building where Hermione had found a new position in a Muggle accounting firm.
Once Lucius had the coordinates, he apparated home to his mansion and took a long bath, redressed in his finest clothing and apparated back to Hermione’s work just at closing time.
Hermione was on tenterhooks waiting for word that Lucius had been released. She had only heard that morning that the Magic Council had decided the appeal in Lucius’ favor and would be freeing him from prison quickly. No actual date or time had been put forth however, and Hermione was nearly dancing with impatient anticipation for their reunion, so as she stood on the front step of her new workplace and her elegant husband stepped forward to take her hand, she nearly fainted with shock. Lucius had to prop her up for a moment as she recovered from the stupefaction of seeing her mate on the street.
“Oh, Lucius! You’re free! I didn’t dare hope it would be so fast.” Hermione hugged him ecstatically and then looked more carefully at her beautiful husband, seeing his gaunt appearance and feeling how thin he was in her arms. “Did you have trouble with those guards? I was so worried they would try to get even with you after you complained to the Warden. Are you okay, Lucius? You’re so thin.” She looked around for somewhere to go to be alone with him, but only saw a small coffee bar/café. That would have to do.
She tugged him with her across the street and into the dim confines of the café, finding them both seats at a high-sided booth in the rear. Hermione slid in first, pulling her husband’s hand and sliding him onto the seat with her. She didn’t even want to be across the booth from him. Hermione kept tight hold of his hand as she smiled rapturously into his rather grim visage. Not even two months and he was whittled down so much from his former weight she was beginning to feel some alarm at his appearance.
“Lucius, tell me, are you okay? You aren’t ill, are you?”
“No, Hermione, I’m not ill.” Lucius gently disengaged his hand from her stranglehold and eased himself away, sitting more sideways in the booth facing her and ruthlessly squashing his surge of elation at seeing her again. He would not be drawn into her orbit again, not when she so easily became his sun and he her pallid moon. “I have some rather unpleasant news, however.”
Hermione’s heart stopped beating for a second, then went into triple time, absolute terror invading her chest and causing a deep corrosive pain. She didn’t know what he was going to tell her, but she knew him and she was feeling his withdrawal with every breath he took.
“Hermione, we aren’t married. The marriage certificate was never registered with the Ministry. Our ceremony isn’t recognized legally.” Lucius saw Hermione sway a bit, but he stoically sat apart, not helping her.
“How could that be? The Warden is a recognized official of the Ministry and we had witnesses. Lucius? What can we do?” Hermione sat staring blindly into the icy gray eyes of her husband, bombarded with the enormity of this catastrophe. No, he was not her husband. As the initial shock wore off, though, she began to think of how to surmount the obstacles. “Can we get married again? Or just retrieve the paperwork from Azkaban and file it?”
“Those are all possible avenues, I believe. But for one thing.” Lucius stared coldly back into the pleading soft brown eyes of his tiny nemesis.
“What one thing?” Hermione asked, feeling a chill seep into her very bones at Lucius’ continued withdrawal. Oh, Gods, she was such a fool. Why had she ever believed for one minute that Lucius Malfoy could want her – he was a Pureblood, a wealthy, socially elite, powerful wizard who could have any witch at all.
Would the baby be enough to keep him as her husband? She tossed that thought aside as quickly as it had emerged from her mind. She didn’t want a marriage with him on those terms. Even to make her child legitimate. She could perhaps find someone else someday to marry, but trapping Lucius with a baby would never be her choice. He’d have to know later. Not now. Hermione surfaced from her bleak thoughts as her husband – no, not her husband – began to speak.
“Like everything else, the Warden was too slovenly to send in the marriage contract to the proper authorities in the Ministry, so for all intents and purposes, we needn’t honor our marriage vows. It will be as though we were never married.” Through a very reluctant Snape, Lucius had made sure his solicitor had retrieved all the damning documents from Azkaban and locked them away in his law offices. After working so closely with Miss Granger on the appeal, Lucius’ solicitor wasn’t happy with him either, but a wealthy client was a wealthy client and confidentiality was essential in his profession.
Lucius smiled at Hermione but it never reached his glacial eyes. He desperately needed to be quit of her and her uncanny power to make him pine for her and want her against all his fervent wishes otherwise. He couldn’t trust her now and he refused to be her puppet, her lapdog, begging for her favors and being happy with any scraps of affection she chose to bestow while he was asked to turn a blind eye to her other men. He couldn’t trust her not to use her power to control him, making him no better than that henpecked Arthur Weasley, happy to serve his wife in any way she wanted. No one takes power from me. No one. Let her select one of her several beaus to marry if she wants. That cost Lucius a deep stabbing ache in his chest, but he ruthlessly persevered in cutting himself free. His willpower wobbled, but held.
Hermione sat very still, looking at Lucius with brown eyes gone opaque, not giving him even a hint at her true feelings about his subconscious fishing expedition into her sentiments on the idea of abandoning their marriage. “And this is what you wish?” she asked. Silently she castigated herself, Of course, it’s what he wants, idiot! He would have retrieved the papers and filed them himself otherwise.
Lucius stared back. She wasn’t showing any despair over his revelation. She wasn’t upset at his offer. It was painfully obvious that she had never truly cared for him. He could see that now. Her emotions never came near the agony he had suffered at having her torn from him in prison. Her LOVE hadn’t lasted even a week if the numerous dates with other wizards reported in the Daily Prophet were accurate. His decision to abandon their marriage was a salvation for him certainly, but apparently it was for her, too.
“I think so, yes.” Lucius replied tonelessly. “It’s better for both of us this way. You won’t be saddled with someone whose background, ideology and culture are so at odds with your own and…I…,” several seconds went by as his escalating heartbeats nearly suffocated him, “…I’ll… be able to start with the fairly clean slate you’ve provided for me.” He nodded coolly, “I do very much appreciate what you have done on my behalf, Hermione. I’m in your debt.”
“No, I think we’re even, Malfoy.” With that she apparated away, leaving him alone in the silent booth, puzzled and fighting nausea and a vague sense of alarm, but patently relieved at having so easily vanquished the insidious hold she had on his senses, his mind. The insistent, niggling pang in his chest he ignored, apparating home to begin embracing his old life.
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Two nondescript figures sat on the park bench in the sunshine idly watching Muggles go about their business in another part of London. “Now what?” the first one said. “They’re both out of prison. The solicitor had an answer for every objection the Magic Council could muster. And SHE sat right next to him the entire time. I don’t understand how she got so closely involved in Malfoy’s defense unless she got closely involved with him in that little cell.” The first voice chuckled at the vulgar innuendo.
“Her marriage to him wasn’t recorded in the public records, so she had no standing before the Council. But that didn’t preclude Malfoy arranging for her to help,” the second voice drawled.
“WHAT? They’re married? How the hell did that happen? We put them together so Malfoy would throttle her, not marry her. That bastard never could keep his dick in his pants. But marriage? She’s a Mudblood. That relationship should have been impossible. Couldn’t you have stopped it somehow?” The first voice was incensed at the ruinous result of that unlikely combination forming. And it apparently was their own fault for throwing the two together.
“By the time I discovered it, there was no way to stop it. The ceremony was over and done with very quickly. Malfoy sprang it on the Warden without any prior indication of interest.” The second voice didn’t offer up the additional information that the marriage had apparently been precipitated by two of their own minions threatening the little witch. Malfoy’s chivalry must have been unearthed from its cold storage. Who would have guessed?
Well, thought the second voice, those rapacious guards have already paid for their interference. The fishes in the North Sea have been well fed.
Damn, thought the first voice, for the thousandth time, If that old, dead arsehole father of mine hadn’t depleted the family coffers, I wouldn’t have had to bother with stealing Ministry supplies to support my position. I could have bankrolled myself into Malfoy’s preeminent financial spot and got rid of him years ago.
He knew his co-conspirator didn’t know he was so stretched for funds. His fellow thief just thought the money was for funding their Ministry coup later. If the other wizard found out the money was trickling away into his own pocket, it could be disastrous. It was a close call deciding which of them was the more ruthless.
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tbc...
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Firewhiskey decanter on the left, tranqulizing potion on the right. (LaBib sets out crystal glasses for all the readers who need something to calm the nerves after reading this chapter.)
Just keep saying to yourselves, 'happy ending', 'happy ending'. That may help - I know you want our couple back together. Lucius has to move at his own pace, learning his lessons against the backdrop of his arrogant personality and that never happens fast for our supercilious Pureblood.
Think happy reviews. Please? (Have some more firewhiskey.)
.
.