Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 5-17-08


Ah, another chapter for you. Hugs to all who have reviewed. You each have given me the wonderful gift of your time.


Some answers and comments:

sisterae – Lucius to the life. Devious. But he’s learning from Hermione how to be considerate of others – some.

tambrathegreat – I think Hermione just thought Lucius would be more educated about French history due to his long ago roots. Draco…can’t say now.

Ravenna – Lucius hasn’t much patience for being put in second place, even to a book. But Hermione displayed bad manners, inciting him.

Jessie – Thank you. Hope you’re enjoying the story.

Laruiurix – You’re not a lazy lurker. Lazy lurkers don’t review. Thank you, I’m glad you liked this chapter and the story.

Rini – Malfoy Manor may have been unplottable, but to whom? Muggles? Wards seemed to have crumbled everywhere in the wizarding world. Yeah, one just can’t decide whether to hug Lucius or slap him. You certainly have that right. The ‘review as you read’ thing works great, doesn’t it? That’s what I do now.

sheherazade – LOL, no Hermione hasn’t even quite accepted the idea of sex with Lucius. Baby-making as wife of the ‘heir’ hasn’t crossed her mind. She doesn’t think in terms of dynasties like he does.

angelprince – No, I agree. Lucius can be described many ways, but cute isn’t one of them. He always has his agenda and getting ‘snuggly’ with Hermione was merely him using her word. He regretted losing ground the night before and wanted her back. Period.

Utopia – Re comments which change my story - the major plot line doesn’t change, but many details get added as someone mentions a twist that can work further in the story. I’ve also added whole chapters from particular comments that gave me more ideas. In an ‘interactive’ site like AFF I assume all authors do that. Malfoy genes are definitely magically induced and have nothing to do with regular genetic rules. I could fanwank and say they specially constructed their blond, light gray-eyed heritage with dark magic eons ago (witness the large dark arts section of the Malfoy library). I just like the Malfoy look to perpetuate so that’s how I write it. Muggle genetics have been subverted, no matter how difficult that would be in real life. The whole Harry Potter universe isn’t real and gives us authors all kinds of license (snicker).

LadyBlueEyes – You want to see Draco in the story? Hmmm…see response to tambrathegreat above. I’m waiting for more of your stories, “Stealing the Prize” and “Until You”.

LadyFabulous – ARGH! Still no sex. I know! Trying to get them together within the context of their personalities turned out to be a Herculean task. We’ll get there.

Heidi191976 – Lucius misstepped through fatigue and jealousy. He does learn from his mistakes and so went after her.

pittwitch – I assume you DO want them to practice a lot for that prospective heir, right?

blue artemis – I think he heard her apology. He just reacted too slowly to it. Eating at the table is one of life’s joys (unless Lucius is sitting there, then I admit I’d be staring at him, not the written page).

Scary Bear Hair – I agree about not reading if I can Luciuswatch. She’s just been deprived of basically all recreation all the time she’s been in this century. I hope Hermione sees reason about living in Malfoy Manor. Read on. No retractions necessary, Scary. 8-)

Jean – Definitely Lucius has a high opinion of his bedroom skills. Hmm, hex each other or screw each other…which shall I choose. LOL Everyone knows the answer to that.

jw – I’m laughing. He leaves himself a note for the future, saying “Don’t join the Death Eaters???” I do like that! Very inventive, jw.

Cathartes – I’m so glad you’re enjoying this tale. I appreciate the review.

Citten – Ooh, I am so sorry to hear that you had your camera and purse stolen. Purse items are a misery to replace, but the pictures are gone forever. It happened to me, so I commiserate fully.

Forward...more twists.


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Chapter Eighteen

Breakfast

Hermione put her hand in Lucius’ and became instantly enclosed in two strong, masculine arms. A few seconds later she was popped into the Malfoy mansion library. She looked around at the scene of her latest misery and sighed, dropping her forehead onto Lucius’ chest.

He just stood still and held her for a few minutes, waiting until she gathered whatever resources she needed to overcome her aversion to his home. He hadn’t made her acceptance of her new home any better by leaving her the night before. He knew that much and he quietly rocked her as they stood there.

Finally he stirred against her, “Hermione, you might feel better with a good breakfast. Shall we start with some fresh, warm food?” Lucius lifted his head and called, “Atlas!”

The elderly elf appeared and asked as usual, “Master wishes?”

“Please prepare breakfast for us. We’ll find our own way to the dining room down the hall.”

The house elf disappeared and Hermione burrowed her face deeper into Lucius’ chest, holding onto his slim waist and inhaling his soothing lime and male scent. “I don’t like this place,” a subdued, little voice spoke from the vicinity of his top waistcoat button.

“I know you don’t, Hermione, but we have nowhere else. I’m afraid your choices are here or back in that Muggle property we just left where you were knocked about and kidnapped.” He slipped one of her curls around and around his finger, feeling her firm breasts burning delicious, twin holes in his diaphragm as little gusts of her balmy breath melted through his fine lawn shirt, teasing him while she snuggled more desperately into his arms. She was warm and cuddly and delicate against his much greater size - sweetly feminine, his little Gryffindor kitten, and his libido was ratcheting up for business.

He bent his head and buried his face in her hair, petting her by running his face through her curls and tightening his arms around her narrow shoulders, pleasured anew by her petite frame in relation to his own taller, broader body. His fierce, protective instinct warred with his virile, predatory one and he had no idea which was going to win. She needed some reassurance and avuncular soothing and encouragement and he exultantly hoarded each slight gesture of trust she was bestowing on him as though he were receiving a fistful of golden Galleons. But his venal side weighed in with a tremor of awakening lust. Did she need comfort more than he needed to press her delicious little body down onto that gray velvet sofa and fuck her blind?

Hermione was immersing herself in the male heat of her tall companion, his scent soothing to her and spelling safety as always, while his toned musculature under her hands and face was having the most delightful, tingly effect on her, but she could feel his body firming and thickening at her belly, a ripple of movement alerting her that his little head was putting on its party hat and comforting was soon going to change to seduction.

The little witch was struggling to get past her revulsion for her surroundings; seduction by a master of the technique was an activity she didn’t think she was quite ready for. She peeked sideways at the room they were standing in and tried to think of the positive aspects of living in the mansion where she’d nearly died – the library alone could enthrall her for years and she would be living in decadent luxury with no worries about making her own meals or cleaning another dish or buying groceries or sweeping her kitchen.

If that couldn’t be enough to sway her, the most important item was holding her in his arms trying to comfort her. His home meant everything to Lucius and if she couldn’t abide the place, it would put a terrific strain on him and their relationship, whatever that turned out to be. Lucius’ feelings and happiness were put into her mental scales against her own and his won. She now owed him her life – twice – and he’d pledged to protect her, not an unimportant promise in these strange times.

The blond wizard was having troubles of his own. His damned tight pantaloons were fighting the surging clamor of his growing craving and he wished he could at least adjust the effects of his eagerness before it got strained and bent into an awkward angle in his trousers sending him past passion into plain, old unadorned pain. Just as Lucius was deciding that 1) he had to alter the position of his assets or moan his distress out loud, and 2) the siren call of the sofa outweighed Hermione’s fears (after all, she’d be getting some benefit from the sofa, too), a loud gurgling noise split the silence and Lucius felt an infectious giggle tickle his chest.

Hermione looked up from her death grip on Lucius’ waist, “Was that your stomach or mine?” A smile lit her warm, brown eyes as she ran her hands around his waist to the front and rubbed his flat tummy for him. At that moment, the innocent petting of his stomach almost sent Hermione flying flat on her back on the sofa, but a second gurgle announced that it was indeed Lucius making the noise. “Well, Lucius,” I guess we need to find some breakfast for you.” She reached up and patted his cheek, disarming him with her tender token of artless affection, “I’m sorry for being such a ninny. I don’t want you to feel insulted - I’m…I’m sure I’ll overcome my aversion for your home.”

Lucius could feel a tiny shiver run through her bringing home to him just how distasteful she found the mansion and that had a dampening effect on his lusty urges. He loosened his arms from her shoulders and stepped back a pace, a sheepish half-smile quirking his lips. “Since my appetite for food seems to be eclipsing my carnal appetite rather loudly for now, I suggest we wander down the hall to the dining room. The food should be prepared and possibly even growing cold.”

Hermione sighed but nodded, “If this room is an indication, it must be a very beautiful and gracious estate. I’ll just try to think of this place as innocuous, being a long time before my capture and torture. This version of your home is almost two hundred years before your time, too, so I imagine there are some new things for you to discover along with me. Did you have any dinner last night?”

Lucius shook his head, taking her hand and putting it on his arm. He guided her out the double oak doors and down a lovely hallway wainscoted in carved oak surmounted by a band of polished dark cherry wood serving as a chair rail. Above the wainscoting was a subtle wallpaper of an embossed brocade design in ivory with a faint light green arabesque design, lightening the gloom of the windowless hall. Several pictures adorned its length, some of ancestors who nodded at them as they passed, and others of landscapes or seascapes, the seascapes showing a constantly moving ocean in various lights in their frames. The same black, ivy-edged carpeting served as a runner the full length of the walkway.

“Is this the same as in your day?” Hermione asked, waving her hand at the walls and floor.

“Essentially, yes. Some of the pictures have been moved and I think the wallpaper was different. Faint stripes as I recall, but yes, very similar.”

They crossed a central foyer with a green-veined ivory marble floor, denoting the middle of the mansion and set off into another hall on the other side, the twin of the one outside the library. Ah, here we are,” Lucius opened another set of double doors to a sunlit room with a small mahogany table and chairs for dining and a sideboard groaning with a large selection of breakfast items. The aroma of the food rolled over them the instant Lucius opened the door and they were both suddenly so hungry they nearly ran for the spread. They unceremoniously clattered the lids off of all the chafing dishes lined up and began loading their plates with the variety of dishes the elves had provided.

“Oooh, lovely!” Hermione exclaimed, piling coddled eggs, toast, sausages, tomatoes, fruit and a host of other edibles on her plate.

Lucius was right behind her mimicking her efforts as his plate piled higher and higher with an assortment of his favorite foods. He sat down, sliding his plate onto his placemat and then poured himself some tea. He poured some for Hermione and then with no further ado, plunged into his meal intent on filling his mouth as fast as possible.

Hermione landed her plate on her placemat, not quite as slickly as her partner, losing one piece of toast to the floor which she carelessly kicked to the side and sat down, digging in with a gusto unrelieved by any resemblance to table manners. “Oh, my,” she moaned after the first onslaught of piggery had taken the edge off her hunger. “That is soooo…” the rest of her comment lost out to half a sausage being greedily lodged in her mouth with some success.

Lucius only said, “Mmmmmph,” as his third egg was summarily dispatched. He liked watching the greedy little witch stuffing that sausage in her mouth and his groin twitched with wishful thinking, but the lure of his pile of food took over again.

It was some minutes later as the plates’ contents diminished and the new Malfoy heir and his bride found some relief from their previous bland and sparse diets of oatmeal and mutton stew, when a bit of conversation actually was attempted. “I think I overate,” said Hermione happily, edging back from the table a little and patting her stomach. She smiled engagingly at her ersatz spouse over the width of the table as she watched him demolish yet another egg with a piece of toast. “I can recommend the fruit. Did you get any?”

Lucius looked up from his food and quirked an eyebrow at her which was all he could do with his mouth full. He realized he could answer her nonverbally and he shook his head, no. He washed his mouthful down with a big sip of tea and then sat back also with a big sigh of repletion.

After a few minutes of peaceful digestion, the blond wizard smiled lazily, “Before today I hadn’t had a good meal, well, for twelve years and I was only out of prison for a week, fighting nearly all the time. I grabbed whatever came to hand, mostly dry food – someone’s cereal, crackers, nuts, anything lying around in the places I ran through. It sounds as though your fare wasn’t much better if you stowed it in your desk.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Hermione replied. “I had protein bars and various packaged biscuits, also mostly dry things. I feel so much better now. Do you think we’ve been more snippy than our usual selves due to our diet?”

Lucius grinned, “Not a chance, kitten. Sorry, but your attitude always stemmed more from my gender than your diet. I think it still does, but I believe I’m making distinct headway on your bigotry against males. Once I get you in bed, your discriminatory ways will melt under my tutelage.”

“Well, I’m feeling so mellow I’m not even going to take umbrage at your nasty comments and boasting.” Hermione delicately wiped her lips on the linen napkin and idly sipped a bit more tea.

“Hermione, my dear, what you heard was pure, bald fact - not a single boast in the bunch.” The wizard smiled wickedly at his breakfast companion, but let the conversation about sex lapse for the moment. He had several estate matters to attend to without delay now that he was recognized as the Malfoy heir and they had to be done before he could spend the amount of time he wanted for seducing Hermione.

Both of them were rather lethargic after the enormous meals they had consumed and they sat at the table feeling faintly bloated, but pleasantly satisfied for the first time since the sheep had overrun the magic world. Neither of them was anxious to move.

“You know, Lucius, I’ve been thinking about falling through the Veil and having all this information suddenly appearing in our brains, and now discovering we have identities in this time period. I think it’s all connected somehow.”

Lucius eyed the little witch with some respect. While he had been struggling to keep them both safe and fed and sheltered, he’d had little chance to analyze the whys of their situation. He realized she had put together their experiences and come up with an obvious answer. Of course it was all connected. How had he not seen that? He grimaced – perhaps he’d concentrated on his personal exigencies too much, but his starved libido and desire for funds had seemed to need the most attention at the time.

“I agree, kitten. Something odd is happening to us. And it didn’t stop when we fell through the Veil. That was clever of you.” Lucius was rather proud of his sprite for working out the subtle plan they’d been following without knowing it.

“Well, I had hours and hours of time to do nothing but think, you know. You were out doing who knows what while I was sitting in a disgusting, smelly bedroom with no other entertainment.” Hermione frowned for a second, but she was so pleasingly replete she couldn’t hold her resentment at the wizard across the table. When he opened his mouth to reply she waved his response away, “Never mind. It was actually very useful for us.

“You know,” she mused, “I wonder if something precipitated the Master’s vendetta. Because that’s what it is – was. Um, or will be. Anyway, you know what I mean. I’m beginning to think more and more that many of our ‘adventures’ have been designed to place us where something or someone wants us. And I think that something is the Veil.” Hermione frowned in thought, “I wonder if the Veil has sent us here for a reason.”

“Oh, now that seems to be reaching,” Lucius frowned in turn, “The Veil called us into the Department of Mysteries, sent the hellhounds after us and then sucked us through to this time period so we can save our magic world two hundred years from now?”

“Well, it didn’t have to be quite THAT organized. But once we were caught in the Veil, maybe it controlled us and chose this time period for that reason.”

“A sentient arch? You think that hunk of rock can think? Is that all that brilliant mind of yours can come up with to understand why we got sent here instead of wearing animal skins and running from dinosaurs?” Lucius sat up straight in his seat, yanking his waistcoat down over his full belly in an unconscious gesture of displeasure, “I’ve spent many years in prison. Now I just want to enjoy my life – not be at the beck and call of another ignis fatuus quest, a chimera even more fantastic than my last one.

“You don’t even know if what you’re saying has any validity at all,” Lucius adjured, seeing his leisure life with his little sprite evaporating into the gloomy miasma of her speculations. “I’m beginning to suspect you have Joan of Arc syndrome. Can’t you live in the moment? For once? I certainly have more interesting things to do than investigate from two centuries ago, why a maniac decimated the magic world.”

“You mean your new hobby, the Happy Harlot House?” Hermione hadn’t expected Lucius to imitate an ostrich with his head in the sand when there was some slight possibility they could affect history some way to evade the Master’s vendetta. She wished he would start thinking with his big head and quit wallowing ‘in the moment’ with his little one.

“I wouldn’t sneer at them, my dear,” Lucius glowered, “those women earn a living on their backs, true, but at least they’re productive members of society. You are eating nice meals, wearing fine clothes and living a life of leisure in a lovely home partly because those women support you.”

Hermione offered a softer version of Lucius’ sneer, “Thank you for lectures number seventy-two through seventy-four, ‘Be grateful’, ‘You’re a pimple on society’s arse’, and ‘Try to act more ladylike’. You have noticed, I hope, that if I’m to be a fine lady living in your fine home, I am not allowed to have an occupation. Do you want me to find a position, Lucius? Should I leave and earn my own way? I’m sure I could. But occupations for indigent, educated young women are scarce in this era. I could be a governess, a teacher at a young ladies academy, or do sewing in the backroom of a modiste’s. Or I could marry a gentleman. That doesn’t appeal due to my past.

“And I am not sneering at them, Lucius. I’m sneering at you. You’re a man and you have many more options. But you’re living off those women just as I am. And I’d bet you’re doing more than just living off them,” she muttered. “If I renounce my ‘fine lady’ status, I could earn money in one of the rooms at your Happy Harlot’s House. I think that might be more entertaining, and I wouldn’t have to answer to anyone but you, which means no one.”

Lucius realized he had pushed Hermione as far as he could for now. He was livid with her outlandish ideas, robbing him of his longed for freedom just to investigate a weird, inanimate arch, but he certainly didn’t want her leaving him or finding employment. Especially not at a brothel. She still had no idea what an employee there would be expected to do. She probably fondly imagined a clean, starched gentleman meekly disrobing only down to his underwear and coming to her under the covers for polite missionary sex. The blond wizard hid a smile as his mood lightened again at the incongruous vision of Hermione directing her brothel customer in the type of sex he could have and he turned the conversation back to the initial topic.

“So…this is what you’ve come up with? The Veil? Why do you think that?”

“Think about it,” Hermione leaned forward eagerly, her possible wanton employment forgotten. “The Veil was the obvious instigator for us coming to this place. It had the power to bring us here – I’m not sure yet if we are merely earlier in our own time or in some sort of alternate universe or if we’re really dead and dreaming all this – but something has been seeing to it that we survived with both the skills and identities we need here. Isn’t that strange?”

“So,” said Lucius leaning forward, “you think that Veil arch thing is controlling our lives here?” He could feel his freedom slipping away once again.

“Not so much controlling,” Hermione’s eyes narrowed in thought, “but helping. What worries me is why?”

“Why?” Now Lucius was turning over the whole idea and starting to make some deductions. “Yes, all right, that makes sense. I hate the idea, but it does fit. Why. Hmmm. We’re here for some reason, perhaps. If that Veil arch has the power to transport people to different time periods, maybe it has other powers. And maybe it chose this particular time period for a reason. No one knows who made the ancient arch artifact or where it came from, you know. It’s definitely one of the Ministry’s more enigmatic mysteries. It’s even possible that the Ministry was built up around the Veil rather than the Veil being transported to the Ministry.”

Hermione’s eyes widened, “Do you think our transport has something to do with the collapse of the magic world? Have we been sent here to change history? Oh, that would be wonderful if we could. Maybe we’re reading way too much into this little traipse through time, but it does seem that there is a higher reason than just saving our butts. As nice as yours is, I don’t believe it could spark all this ornate situation.”

Lucius grinned at the backhanded compliment, but kept at their conundrum, “I suppose if we’re meant to do something particular, whatever force is ‘helping’ us will show us the next step. I believe me taking up the reins of the Malfoy fortune must be part of the scheme.” He didn’t add that the gentle coercion had also designated Hermione as his wife. He figured she would come to that conclusion and its ramifications on her own. He didn’t want to spook her away from the ‘marital’ bed. He had definite plans for the two of them involving a mattress and rumpled, sweaty sheets. If some otherworldly Veil was herding her into his arms, so much the better.

He suddenly frowned as the larger picture took hold for him. He was also being herded into her arms. Lucius turned over that piece of information for a few seconds examining it for disadvantages to him, but all he could see was sex with a young, lovely woman. If this reality was now to be their future, he wanted to move forward with life, sex, and maybe a wife and babies. He’d been given another chance and he wasn’t going to mess it up this time.

Lucius got up groaning at his full stomach, but greatly pleased with the sumptuous meal he’d gorged on, plus now he had more to think about. “Well, if you are ready, we can go to the bank, then have your treat at the ices parlor, although the elves can provide ices whenever you wish. If the Veil doesn’t want us to have ices, I imagine we’ll discover that in due course,” Lucius added, tongue in cheek.

“Ugh! I can’t even contemplate ices right now,” she moaned, patting her slightly pooched-out tummy. She giggled, making Lucius smile at her happiness, “Probably later, though. I have a desire for some scoops of chocolate ice, but not just now.” Hermione rose from the table, leaving her napkin by her cleaned off plate, “I’m not sure that the Veil is controlling us to that extent, Lucius, but I hope not. I don’t know if my theory is even correct. But something weird is happening to us.” She moved around the table to Lucius’ side and grinned, sharing her mischievous side with the tall sorcerer, “Do you think the Gringott’s goblins are as dour, treacherous, and stiff as they were in our time?”

Lucius just shrugged, but that comment sealed Hermione to him forever if she had just known it. She and only she could talk to him about their common life and world. No one else ever could and that had the power to frighten Lucius. A cold shiver ran up his spine. If she didn’t stay with him, his entire previous existence became a shadow world that he could never speak of to anyone. His future would be a yawning chasm of loneliness he didn’t even want to contemplate.

His life as a Death Eater had forced the stressful duality of a secret existence on him once already. Hermione just couldn’t leave him, she couldn’t. He started thinking about a way to get her legally tied to him in marriage so she would understand she was his, not just in the imaginations of the people they met, but in her own mind.

Hermione looked up at the tall man at her side, enjoying his handsome face and those mesmerizing eyes that drew her like McGonagall to plaid. He was sensuality incarnate and she felt her heartbeat speed up at his nearness. She was very cognizant of her increasing curiosity about his lovemaking and she couldn’t help wondering if he really could make the experience any more worthwhile than her two previous contacts. She rather thought he could and that spurred her on faster toward the edge of the carnal precipice she was teetering on. She admitted to herself that she wanted to dive off head first with him, learning what all that glorious equipment could do for her, but something she couldn’t quite put her finger on held her back.

Sleeping with Lucius would be, at the very least, tactilely pleasing - touching, squeezing, sliding her hands all over that beautifully molded male body and his pale, smooth, ivory skin. She already knew how he kissed and that alone lured her toward his bed. Hermione sighed at her lascivious little daydream as she watched Lucius brush a crumb off the front of his pantaloons. Oh, how she wanted to do that. And more. So much more. Hermione shivered at her wanton thought.

Lucius was feeling so discomposed by his worries at losing Hermione he missed the half-hopeful expression on her pixie face. “Accio cape, hat, cane, and gloves,” he called and the items flew to his hand. “Accio cloak, bonnet, and gloves,” and Hermione’s outwear came to his hands. He handed her the pieces of clothing, donned his own and when she was ready, apparated them both to the middle of Diagon Alley where the day’s shoppers were jostling together in the busy street.

~~~~~

It was a time-honored tradition to try to get into someone else’s money vaults at Gringott’s and over the hundreds of years the goblins had been ruling their small but powerful financial fiefdom all the different ways of trying had been done.

Lucius, Hermione at his side, met privately with the sour-faced goblin Accounts Manager at the bank and wasn’t surprised at all to hear that various ‘relatives’ and ‘solicitors representing the Malfoys’ had made an effort to finagle their way into the Malfoy vaults after his uncle had died. Hermione could have mentioned a way to get inside she’d learned from her youth, but she wasn’t suicidal and so she stayed submissively silent beside Lucius, letting him do the talking.

Because Lucius was the true heir as verified by the solicitors and an undoubted Malfoy from his burnished blond hair to his overweening, disdainful pride, the goblin Manager gave permission for him to have access to his ancestral vault with nary a murmur. Another autocratic despot was the opinion behind the high teller counters as the goblins all sighed in relief. This one was definitely high-handed and astute enough to control the reins of the vast wealth he’d come into, reducing the amount of work the goblins had to bother with to keep the investments prospering. This Malfoy would never let another decide how his money was to be put to use or be swindled by anyone cleverer than he.

As Lucius left with his wife to visit his vault, the goblin Accounts Manager let a miniscule smile crack his habitual dour countenance. He could reassign two of his workers off the Malfoy account and onto other pesky accounts whose owners’ ideas of investing were heavy betting on the hippogriff races in Scotland or buying exorbitantly priced jewelry for a potential mistress, neither of which was going to get them any returns at all. The first idiot managed to pick every broken-down nag flying with one wing, and the second was so consummately ugly even his own wife wouldn’t shag him, much less the attractive witch he was courting on the side.

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy entered the vault and Lucius stood back allowing Hermione a chance to see the extent of what was now theirs. As she floated forward in a daze, her eyes darting from side to side at the piles of coins, chests of jewels and oddments made of various metals, sitting beside sculptures and paintings and countless other strange treasures, Lucius was scanning the interior also, but he was looking for something quite different. He saw it reposing on a shelf of an ornate cupboard along one side of the vault. Lucius made straight for the item, reaching up and retrieving it from its resting place and tucking it under his arm.

“I have what I came for, Hermione. If you’re finished we can leave now.” He was feeling weighed down, knowing that all the responsibility for his estate and fortune and investments now truly sat squarely on his shoulders once again. His future was beginning to look a lot like his past and he was remembering all the details his wealth had required of him. It had been twelve years since he had been called upon to control his money, but it was coming back to him quickly and suddenly all the immense workload made him tired. In that way at least, life had been much simpler in prison.

Hermione turned and shot a fierce glance at the blond wizard, “This all belongs to the Malfoy family? All these treasures and gewgaws and money? Are you sure you have enough, Lucius? Is this why you and your cohorts needed to create chaos for the wizarding world?” She couldn’t have chosen a less propitious moment to upbraid the depressed wizard on the touchy topic.

Lucius glared at the condemning little termagant. She knew nothing about the burdens of great wealth. Or his aspirations as a Death Eater. “This? No, it was never about this. These things have been in our family for generations and unless someone in future years takes a shine to a painting of a rabbit’s corpse hanging upside down near a basket of fruit, these things will likely stay here.” He swept his hand over the congregated riches. “Haven’t you seen that all these things are immensely ugly? The jewelry is heavy and ornate – of another era. I suppose they could be recut or remounted, but one can’t do much with a marble statue of a demented faun or an alabaster sculpture of a crooked penis. They’re all done by masters of their art, but the art itself is in execrable taste. Apparently fine taste in art wasn’t always a feature of the Malfoy ancestors.

“No,” he continued, “the war was never about those horrid pieces of art, or even the piles of money. It was about this,” and Lucius held up the worn portfolio he’d retrieved from the shelf of the cupboard. “This represents deeds to all the real properties the Malfoy family owns all over the British Isles and on the continent. As you can see it is about five inches thick. In my lifetime this portfolio was only one inch thick when my father showed it to me and by the time I was sent to Azkaban it had dwindled to half an inch thick. Do you know what that means to me? Ruin for my family. This is now and always has been about family for me. And who is responsible?

Lucius answered his own question, “It was Muggles, Hermione. Muggles who invaded land that we owned. They set up their own farms, housing developments, took over our mines and forests, built roads through it, as if they owned the land, instead of us. Magic folk have been systematically squeezed and jostled and run off property after property for hundreds of years. It is harder and harder to retain our identities and our homes and our livelihoods every year that the Muggles encroach on our lands. The only time it stopped for a while was during the outbreak of the Black Plague, when the Muggle population was decimated. For a short while the magic folk had a renaissance of our own and we acquired more land and space for our families and lives. But the Muggles started multiplying once more and now, in our modern time, things were getting desperate. The steadily diminishing size of this portfolio told its own tale of a time when we would be gone as a race.

“Have you ever wondered why so many of our people are in Wiltshire?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s because the land there is more protected by old magic. Even the Muggles feel it and don’t encroach. The Salisbury Plains help deter the Muggles and the Druids left strong magic in several places too. Parts of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland still retain magic enough to repel intruders, but the rest of our lands have fallen to those invaders. I was willing to fight for our magical way of life. It was my error to follow someone who had the right idea but the wrong methods for achieving them.

“We as a people will never be accepted as a subculture in the Muggle world. They would be too afraid of us and our power, even though we have been living alongside them for thousands of years. I think you know that as well as I. So it was never about wealth or bloodlines, Hermione, it was about existing as a race, surviving as a family.”

“Yes,” she replied heatedly, never giving an inch to his ranting exposition, “your prissy Pureblood group wanted to pick up its marbles and stalk off in high dudgeon taking control of the remnants of the magical world with you, reestablishing beachheads in your precious properties by killing off Muggles – and us – and maybe once you’d got enough land back you might leave the rest of us alone, the halfbloods and muggleborns lumped in with Muggles and ousted from your utopian magic community, because we weren’t ‘clean’ enough for you.”

Hermione took a deep breath. She had some more ranting of her own to do, “Your Purebloods as a group are too inbred and your fertility has gone way down. Who did you think you were going to repopulate your new world with, Lucius? Infertile Purebloods? Did you never wonder how Muggles could ever produce Muggleborns? It would seem impossible on the face of it. So the unpalatable answer must be that Muggles do have some magical blood. Perhaps it is so attenuated that unless two Muggles with decent strains of magical blood happen to mate and have a child, the magical genes never emerge.

You Purebloods have been pushing the Squibs out of our world for hundreds of years, making them feel second rate, basically turning them into Muggles. But their blood has magic in it. Could two Squibs make a perfectly normal magic child? That may be the answer to my magical abilities. The magic world doesn’t pay any attention to biological research that would have told us what was happening, not on a real estate level, but to us as a viable race. I think we’ve killed ourselves off, rather than blaming it all on pushy Muggles. I hate to say it, but the Master only precipitated what would have happened to us anyway.”

“I don’t remember the Halfbloods or Muggleborns welcoming the Squibs with open arms either, Hermione. Please don’t cast the Squibs’ poor treatment all on the shoulders of the Purebloods. We’re all equally culpable if you believe that is a mistake.”

“No, you’re right. They’ve been mistreated by all of us, to my shame.” Hermione sat down on a priceless golden throne inlaid with precious jewels, whose ornate, frantically busy pattern of curlicues, flowers, vines, and fantastic animals chased all over it made the chair incredibly grotesque. Unheeding of the floridly freakish design, she added, “We as an entire magic world, Squibs and all, are not the only ones whose genetic makeup keeps them from presenting themselves to the Muggles, however,” she declared. “We have a lot of good company in the vampires and werewolves. They accept us and we have quite a few crossovers because we mostly tolerate each other – well, maybe not the vamps so much. They can be quite rude, taking your blood without your permission.” She shrugged, “I don’t know what the answer is for having a world where Muggles and magic folk can knowingly live in harmony together. That may be too much to ask, but genocide isn’t the answer. Unfortunately, we have just lived through genocide but instead of it being the Muggles as your group proposed, it was the magic folk who were exterminated. I suppose that’s an answer of sorts, too.” Hermione ran down, exhausted by this old, irritating argument that she had hoped never to open again.

“So,” she asked, her shoulders slumping in defeat, “are you really going to try to find another way to get rid of Muggles so that portfolio will stay five inches thick?”

“No, I am not.” Lucius was still depressed by his new burdens and very much annoyed at being reamed out verbally by the woman he needed to keep on his leash. “I am not going down that road ever again. But neither am I going to shrivel up and die and let the Muggles wrest all my holdings from me. This time I’m going to work on making all my properties unplottable which the Malfoys didn’t do fast enough before. I think in this time, they didn’t know how to design major plots of land as unplottable, but I do. If I create the unplottables one at a time, the magic world likely won’t discover I’ve extended their knowledge base. Or if they do, I’ll just be hailed as a powerful wizard and a clever inventor. I think I can withstand the adulation that will involve.” A brief smile illuminated the blond wizard’s somber face as he relaxed fractionally from his militant stance against his tormentor. He waited for more oratory from the little female, but she just looked thoughtful and kept silent.

Hermione trailed after Lucius as they left the Malfoy vault and didn’t speak all the time Lucius was taking his leave of the Accounts Manager assuring the goblin all was in order, nor during the time it took to saunter the short way over to Florean Fortescue’s Ices Parlor. Finally, Hermione spoke up ordering a double scoop of a chocolate-flavored ice.

After seeing the horrendous prices being charged for the stuff, Lucius wanted nothing from the parlor’s menu. “My Gods,” he complained when they were seated away from the counter, “They’re charging for ices as though they were made of diamonds. From now on, you’ll be eating any ices at home.”

Hermione already had a slight chocolate mustache from excitedly cramming a big spoonful into her mouth. “So sell that ugly ivory penis in your vault. You hate it anyway. Thith thuff is delithuzz,” she added, her mouth full again.

“What? Hermione don’t talk with your mouth full, and the penis was alabaster, not ivory.” Lucius grimaced as her tongue came out to wipe off the excess from her lips. To Lucius her eating habits were nine-tenths erotic and one-tenth bad manners. Right now the bad manners were making Lucius irritated and the erotic was making him throb. He dipped a finger into the smear on her upper lip she had missed and stuck it into his own mouth. “It is superior, I agree, but try to enjoy the chocolate ice treat without spreading it on your face or talking through it.”

“I said,” Hermione disarmed him some with her chocolate grin, “this stuff is delicious. If the elves can’t copy this flavor, I’m going to be a regular at Fortescue’s. Ices are probably harder to make in our new environs. I imagine the ingredients may be more expensive, too.” Hermione abandoned her vague analysis of the expenses of ices to scrape the bottom of the dish, trying to get every last iota of the treat. She eyed Lucius speculatively and was awarded an immediate growl.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. “If you try to lick that bowl I’m going to spank you right here in front of all three of this place’s sparse customers. Use your napkin. You have some chocolate on your upper lip still.”

“Lick it off for me, Lucius,” she taunted, leaning toward her handsome partner.

“I’ll choose what and where to lick you and it won’t be in any ices parlor. Plus, I’ll bet it will taste better than ices.” Lucius was scoring her body with suddenly hot eyes and Hermione decided she had pushed him enough. She put down her spoon and sat back, adding a little space between them for the illusion of safety.

Lucius smiled grimly at his little associate’s quick, backward reaction to his calling her bluff. She was such a contradictory little creature, bold one second and vacillating the next. His way forward with her was starting to come clear in his head. He relaxed and merely waited for Hermione to talk to him again.

Lucius, I’ve been thinking,” Hermione began after a few minutes of abstraction.

“Yes, I can see that,” one side of his mouth quirked upward, “May I ask what about?” She was really quite adorable with her forehead all scrunched up in thought.

“Your unplottable idea. What if it is one of the plans the Veil wanted us to accomplish?”

“You mean I didn’t think of it myself? Well, how lowering to think oneself merely a puppet of some invisible force.” Lucius’ eyebrows rose in question, “What purpose does my plan for keeping some Malfoy property in the family have to do with us ‘helping’ this cosmic quest of yours?”

“Oh, I think it’s our cosmic quest and your unplottable idea can have far-reaching effects for the future. If a great deal of magic land is made unplottable now, the magic folk will have less interaction with the Muggles in the future, right?” she asked.

“I suppose, yes.”

“Then perhaps whatever set off the Master to decide to annihilate us might be changed. Perhaps the magic world impinged on his life and his livelihood or more likely that of his parents or family. I don’t know what we are doing here, but it must have some connection to the decimation of the magic world, and by extension, possibly the Veil. The Veil may be protecting itself – and us - against an event almost guaranteed to have Muggles swarming over it and even destroying it.”

“Another fascinating supposition,” Lucius replied, supremely uninterested in Hermione’s theory. “So we just toddle our way through life here, making decisions that aren’t ours and saving the future magic world from destruction. Well, it’s a colorful journey you’ve mapped out for us. I wonder what me owning a brothel is doing to make the world safe for magic folk?”

“You aren’t going to keep it are you?” Hermione frowned in confusion, “That’s against magic law. We can’t own Muggle businesses.”

“My dear kitten,” Lucius smiled more fully as he explained a legal fact he’d long lived with, mostly in frustrated annoyance in his time. “You’re speaking of the Muggle Commerce Edict of 1894. We aren’t bound by that law in this time period.” A bit of smug cynicism lit his features.

“And that edict was probably set into place to stop wizards like you who took advantage of Muggle frailty.”

“No doubt. But it remains a fact that the law isn’t written yet, so I can own whatever Muggle businesses I wish.”

“And you wish to own that… that whorehouse?” Hermione crossed her arms under her breasts, distracting Lucius from the gravity of her question.

“Are you offering an alternative?” he asked silkily, caught by the plump mounds served up on the platter of her forearms.

“Lucius! Are you saying you’ll be sampling the…well, the wares of that place? Is that where you went before? I didn’t see any women there who looked like the tavern maid. You said Miss Lilac Stink looked like the tavern maid.” Hermione’s eyes slitted at the dark wizard who abruptly realized the turbulent sexual waters he was sailing into.

“Keep your voice down. No, I won’t be sampling their wares. I don’t mix business with…um…” he left the sentence unfinished as Hermione’s eyes flashed with feminine fireworks. He decided attack was the best defense and returned fire, “I want you in my bed, Hermione. When is that going to happen? You’ve promised and I think it’s past time for us to become more than pretend spouses in the magic world and merely sterile associates in private.” He sat forward, leaning his elbows on the small table and invading her personal space with his face thrust close to hers. One masculine hand swept up and long, elegant fingers lightly traced her neck from one ear to the other under her chin, making her suddenly quiver with a resurgence of the desire she’d felt at the breakfast table.

She inhaled a shaky breath and quavered, “Not here, Lucius.”

“Where, then? Home? We can go there now. Are you finished with your ice?” Lucius stood up and before his cape swung shut, Hermione could see he was fully aroused.

“Now?” she squeaked. “It’s daytime. Not now.” Hermione heard her own words and knew they sounded weak and dithery, but she didn’t care. She was scared of Lucius’ overwhelming sexuality and his sheer size – for all parts of him. And she also wanted him, wanted that large, toned body all over hers with those lips recreating those kisses she’d had from him in that awful bordello.

Lucius laughed, “It’s daytime? You only have sex at night? Oh kitten, you need me, you really do. Come along,” he said, holding out his hand to her imperiously.

Hermione felt a little desperate and wanted to put off what she was beginning to understand was an immutable future with Lucius. She bargained with a voice that trembled, “Tonight, Lucius. Not now. Tonight... please?” She stood up and backed way from his outflung hand.

Lucius understood that he was going to wait until dark, but he admonished gently, “Tonight, Hermione. No more delays. Tomorrow you’ll wonder what all your fear was about. But I’ll wait until tonight. No longer, do you understand?” He reached and grabbed her hand, pulling her from the ices parlor and out into the street.

tbc...

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There is a lot to think about. Is Hermione on the right track? Lucius appears to be making headway - finally. He now has other responsibilities, which he wants to pursue, too. It looks like he's going to be quite the busy wizard.


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