L\'amore è tre quarti di curiosità

Title: L'amore è tre quarti di curiosità (Love is three quarters curiosity)
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Romance, Humour, Mystery
Warnings: M/F, SoloM, Oral
Summary: Hermione literally collides with trouble in an alley in Northern Italy, which will lead her through a process called ‘falling in love.’
Author's Notes: The title is a quote by Giacomo Casanova. Sorry to disappoint, but Lucius, god of sex, is not too prevalent in this fic as he is in some other things I have written. Please withhold the tomatoes and other produce you might throw in my direction. This is also an attempt at humour, contrasted to my usual ‘dark’ scribblings, so forgive the dryness, eh? Oh, and this ficlet is once again in 1st person POV. Enjoy!




L'amore è tre quarti di curiosità






II.


I never cared too much for Venice. It was beautiful, I will say this, but it reeked and it was crowded with tourists. The canals stank of fetid water, garbage, and Merlin knows what else. The actual streets were filthy, dog feces everywhere. Compared to Trento, which was incredibly clean, Venice was a cesspool.

However, Venice was the home to a great number of witches and wizards who enjoyed the city as a tourist destination. Personally, I did not care if the city sank into the sea.

That being said, there was one place I did like in Venice, where I knew one being who I enjoyed speaking with when I was in Italy. Around the narrow corner of Calle dell’oca, before you reach Strada Nuova, is a tiny shop, almost insignificant compared to the overall grandeur of the wider Calle and Canals in Venice.

The sweet shop was like something out of a movie or book, a surreal place with large windows looking across to a bare stonewall of the narrow Calle. In the windows are displays of colours of every candy and confection imaginable.

Besides its location, the shop is unique in that it is open twenty-four hours a day. When the day workers have returned to the mainland and the tourists remain, the shop is, surprisingly, empty. The only things open at night along Strada Nuova are the cafes and bars, clubs and gelato shops. Most of the customers who come in after dark come from the Hotel Bernardi, a quaint two star establishment with a grouchy concierge.

Giacomo’s Confectionery is where I would take Lucius Malfoy. However, before I could get him out the door of my flat and past the Anti-Apparation wards, a problem arose.

“My wand?”

I had my hand on the doorknob, my coat on, my own wand in the pocket, only the short third time I had relinquished hold of it since Stunning the pale man.

I turned slowly. “Not until I can believe you still not use it to harm me?”

He loomed over me, so close that I had to press myself against the back of the door to look up at his angry face.

“My wand, woman!” he snarled, his hand out.

I blinked slowly. “Do you want the curse broken or not? Or do you want for the rest of your life to be seen only by Muggles and me, a Mudblood?”

The words struck at him and he stepped back.

He did not say another word, which surprised me. Of course, I was happy that he did not speak and when I spoke, he followed my direction. Lucius took my arm in his, and on the doorstep, we blinked away without a sound.

I knew I was in Venice immediately. It did not matter that it was the middle of winter—grand Venezia stank.

Lucius pulled his arm away from me a bit more violently than was proper and he looked around him in the dark Calle. We stood only a few feet from the bright windows of Giacomo’s Confectionery.

I moved and he followed. I peered past the displays to see the shop was empty of tourists, the hour only past eleven, but saw that Giacomo himself was sitting behind the counter, reading a newspaper.

Now, to explain, I was never allowed to call my only reason for ever visiting Venice ‘Giacomo.’ I was to call him James, and I was to speak to him in English. He preferred to speak to me in English as a sort of ‘practice.’ Giacomo, correction, James, liked the English language, and spoke the Queen’s English. Of course, it had been approximately one hundred and twenty years since he had visited London and the Queen was Victoria and not Elizabeth II, but James was a vampire, and retained everything in his supernaturally transformed brain.

If you were to ever ask James about himself, he would tell you to refer to his book, the one he wrote in his mortal life—‘Histoire de ma vie.’

Yes, James is Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt, and if you were to meet him, you would call him a ‘casanova.’ As for me, I adored him for one thing—the information he had to impart about history and vampirism.

James was ‘made’ when he was fifty years old, and though his book covers his live to age fifty-three, there is no mention of his ‘transformation.’ History would record that the famous Casanova died in 1798, to which James would say: ‘I had to die at some point, lest I never become a legend,’ and then he would smile, barring his fangs in a type of leer.

For James, who had been fifty at the time he was ‘turned,’ he was still roguishly handsome as a vampire. However, anyone who might be wondering why James, the real Casanova, and a vampire, would own and run a confectionery shop during the dead hours of night in Venice, the reason is simple. The scent of sugar lessened the other smells of Venice.

James often said that Venice, in his youth, smelled much worse, but with his heightened sense of smell, Venice still reeked.

As I pushed into the shop, a tiny bell tinkling softly, James was already folding his paper and smiling, close lipped, at me.

“Ah, Hermione, how wonderful to see you!” he beamed, coming around the counter; his arms open to embrace me.

I heard Lucius make a strange sound behind me, and I knew that he could see what James was.

I will say this about Italian vampires: they have far more class than the vampires in Britain. I hate to disparage my homeland, even a little, but when it comes to vampires, the Italians have the Britons beat. British vampires are so morbid, as they probably should be, but Italian vampires are bright and beautiful creatures, who happen to like drinking human blood.

James was one such vampire, and I had no qualms in allowing him to embrace me and kiss both my cheeks. He must have fed, for his lips were soft and warm.

James was not a tall man by any means, having come from an age where six feet was considered gigantic. He was, however, very fit under his black jumper and finely cut trousers. His hair, which was a riotous mass of light auburn curls, framed his matured face, giving it a glow of humanity. His dark blue eyes studied my face, and then he frowned.

“Why are you here? Don’t mistake me, darling, but it is cold out, and you look as if you have had bad news.”

Did I mention that he spoke the Queen’s English perfectly, which made his voice sumptuously seductive?

I took a step back, but held James’ delicately manicured hand, and glanced to Lucius whose face was contorted in a picture of hesitation and disbelief. It was entirely possible that Lucius Malfoy knew what Casanova might look like from the various portraits that survived from the time James had been alive. The hair, which was usually covered by a wig, was a change, but the deep blue eyes, the sharp nose, and the bowed lips…

“I can see him,” he whispered.

I cocked my head.

“What is it?” James asked, glancing to Lucius.

James did not see Lucius.

“Is it because you are holding his hand?” Lucius said, his hand moving to his lips in a pose of thought.

I released James’ hand, and Lucius frowned.

“I can still see him.”

“Hermione?”

I sighed and turned back to my friend, the vampire Casanova.

“James, I hate to be mysterious, but…”

“A mystery?” James purred and I could not repress a small smile.

The real Casanova tried to charm me often enough, but now was not the time.

“Is there only the two of us in the shop?”

James’ light auburn brows knitted, and he lifted his chin. He was listening.

“I sent Petra home at dusk…and Lorenzo is not in the backrooms…” he mumbled, mentioning his employees, but he listened still. “There’s something…”

Lucius stepped to my right elbow, watching James’ face intently.

Then James sniffed the air.

“Are you sure this is not some game, Hermione? A new type of foreplay?”

I twittered nervously, a habit I had developed during the conversations I had with James since meeting him during my first visit to Venice for a consortium eight years before. James had a way, vampiric or not, to make me feel dirty.

“There’s a warmth, just there…” he said, tipping his head directly at Lucius.

“You see no one?” I asked, my twitter gone.

“No one.”

I sighed and glanced to Lucius.

“Is it a ghost? Oh, I wish I could see ghosts,” he laughed.

Fact: vampires could not see ghosts. Why? Another mystery that probably did not warrant investigation in the eyes of the D of M, but an interesting mystery to me nonetheless…

“No, not a ghost…”

“Are you satisfied?” Lucius hissed very close to my ear, and James did not hear it.

James studied me, curious, but before he could say another word, I took his hand again.

“I am sorry, James, but I really need to go. If I promise to be back next week, will you forgive my behaviour?”

The vampire’s face softened. “I would forgive you anything,” he purred, but in his eyes, I could tell he was somewhat concerned.

Casanova, vampire or living, was never one to begrudge a woman for long. I was, to James, a conquest in only the ‘first act’ in which he would indulge me much before moving on to the ‘second act’ of active pursuit, and to the final and ‘third act,’ which I am sure most people could imagine. Of course, these ‘acts’ he used while alive, as a vampire, however, I was sure the ‘third act’ was altered slightly.

Fact: vampires, at least Italian vampires, enjoy sex. It is part of their nature, and in being a sexual creature, vampires subsist. Personally, I could never see myself in the throes of passion with a dead thing, then again, considering the state of my love life; I could imagine almost anything without feeling too disgusted with my fantasies.

I was out the door of the shop and stalking toward Strada Nuova in a matter of seconds, only taking the time to kiss James’ cooling cheek again in a sort of promise, or a tease, depending on how one looked at it. Lucius Malfoy was on my heels.

It occurred to me that Lucius, without a wand, was depending on me quite a bit. I knew it had to gall him to be dependant on me, a girl old enough to be his daughter, and a Muggleborn to boot. Yet, he followed me as I stepped onto the wider Strada Nuova, my eyes moving up the street where I saw only a handful of people moving in the cold night air.

“How could I see him?” Lucius demanded, gliding to block my path as I started up the street toward a bar I knew visiting witches and wizards frequented, though I did not know if any were in Venice this time of year.

I stopped short, Lucius blocking me with his sheer size. He was larger than I, taller, definitely, and compared to my size, like a boulder in my path.

“How should I know?” I retorted.

We were caught in a ‘glaring’ game.

“A vampire? How is he really a ‘magical’ being?” he came back.

True. James was not a wizard in life. However, he was supernatural, which fell into the category of ‘magical.’ Still yet, James could not see Lucius, but sensed something that only preternatural senses could catch.

“I’ll prove it once and for all, then,” I huffed, gliding around Lucius to continue down the street.

James was the first part of the test, I told myself, but if the second part proved Lucius’ story, I knew I had a real problem on my hands.

The bar was more like a dance club for tourists that sold bad drinks and played bad music. In the winter, it was barely open. The club, whose name I never knew, was off the Strada Nuova near an American Muggle fast food restaurant, which I thought had no place in Venice.

I breezed past the dozing doorman, Lucius behind me. The club was playing something by Freddie Mercury who still enjoyed heightened celebrity in Italy decades after his death. No one was dancing, and the few patrons were at the bar.

The only reason I had ever come into this establishment before was with James, who liked to look at the badly dressed tourists making arses of themselves, drunk, and looking for some excitement in the ancient city. There was also the witches and wizards who came in. The barman was a wizard, called Stefano, a bulky bald man in his forties, who had his wand strapped to his chest, concealed from Muggle eyes. I wondered if he had used it in the club if the tourists got too rowdy.

It was Stefano who I would use for the second part of my test.

At the bar, I waited for him to finish mixing a weak cocktail and pass it to a bored looking woman in her late thirties.

“Signorina?”

I ordered a glass of red wine, in English.

“And for my friend, the same.”

“Tuo amico?” Stefano asked, blinking rapidly.

He looked to me, an eyebrow quirked as if I were barmy.

“Si, mio amico,” I insisted in Italian.

Stefano laughed, but was not amused.

I then asked if he could see ‘my friend’ standing, again, just at my right elbow. The barman then asked if I were already drunk.

The Italian wizard did not see Lucius.

Nevermind, I said, just one glass.

And one glass it was, and it was foul. The wine made me appreciate the small cantina where I ordered the wine I used at my flat all the more. I paid, finding a few loose one Euro coins in my left coat pocket, and with Lucius hissing at me, I moved out to the street again.

I ignored him, as if I were the one who could not see Lucius Malfoy, lost in thought. I did not stop walking until I was atop the arch of one of the many bridges that cross the lesser canals, trying not to think much of the cold or the smell.

“Do you believe it now?”

He stood before me as I leaned back into the high marble balustrade.

“I really do not know what to think,” I admitted, shoving my hands into my coat pockets.

Lucius sighed deeply. “Nor do I, not for five years.”

I gazed at him then, wondering.

The hag, whose name I wish I knew, had cursed Lucius Malfoy to never be able to interact with the only people he ever knew—magical folk, bar one. Me.

Why me?

Was it because I was some sort of symbol to Lucius Malfoy, just as I had been for his son? I was called the ‘brightest witch of the age,’ but I never believed it. I was a Muggleborn who happened to be quite intelligently, highly logical, and hard working. I had to be hard working in the Wizarding world, or no one would take me seriously.

What did I mean to Lucius Malfoy? We never had much of an acquaintance outside of the fact that his son and I were rivals in almost every sense.

Fall in love, make love, and break the curse.

It was just too ridiculous.

I had enjoyed a life of few complications since the War. I had my job, which I loved, and I was unattached, which made it able for me to love my job. Ron and I had run out of emotional fuel eight years before, but were still great friends. Harry had married, had a family, and I? I was married to my job and my freedom.

I was not a spinsterish thing by any means. I had had lovers ala my friend Casanova. Love intensely for a while, have mutual satisfaction, and walk away with a smile. I had no desire to truly ‘fall in love,’ let alone with a man I could hate so easily.

Yet, looking at Lucius Malfoy shiver as a cold wind blew from the north, rustling his hair and his tatty cloak, I could not help but wonder. He was attractive, if you liked tall, pale, and rude.

As I had mentioned before, he was fit, maybe a little too thin, but fit. He had aged well, and I supposed, despite his desperate situation, he had tried hard to appear as regal as he had years ago when people remembered who he was.

If you could look past the depression that clung to him like a foul odour, and the fact that he had tried to kill you and your friends in the past, I supposed Lucius Malfoy was indeed attractive.

I wanted to speak to this hag.

I pushed off the balustrade and pulled my coat tighter around me. It was getting late, and I was getting tired. As I began to walk along Strada Nuova, Lucius followed in pensive silence.

Veering off the street and through a gate to a small church, I turned to grasp his arm, startling him. We were out of sight well enough that I drew him near into Side-Along Apparation.

Lucius Malfoy, though he thought his situation hopeless, would not simply leave me alone now that he had found me. The idea of Lucius Malfoy, ex-Death Eater, ex-figure of British Wizarding society, searching Europe and Merlin knows where else, for a witch who could ‘see’ him seemed like a premise from a fairytale. Of course, he did not know whom he was searching for exactly, but he searched all the same.

He was still following me when I entered my flat in Trento, like a strange shadow.

He would not simply leave me just because I was Hermione Granger.

And so it was that I felt I had power over him, though he snarled and scowled at how I used this power.

I told him that he was filthy, and if he were to continue being within my personal ‘bubble,’ he would need a wash.

“How dare you!” he began to rage, even as his fingers moved to unclasp his cloak and let it fall back on the ottoman in my tiny living room. “I am not filthy!”

I ignored him, moving to a small closet near the small lavatory, pulling out clean linens to stack atop the sink in the room behind the kitchen area. It was a lavatory with a standard toilet, a large vanity sink, and a large bathtub with handheld shower attached to the facet that could be activated with a switch you turned on the extension at the base of the hose for the showerhead. All in all, it was not very large, but it was clean.

“I will leave your ablutions to you, surely you know how to wash yourself without an elf’s help?” I chided, grumpy that I would not be able to use the bath myself.

I did not trust him alone in my apartment, he was an unwelcome guest, but one I could not simply turn away until I understood more.

He said something foul, and stalked past me to slam the lavatory door. I was sure my downstairs neighbors had heard the banging, and I dreaded what my landlady would say when I saw her next. I liked my little flat, I liked Trento, and I would not allow someone like Lucius Malfoy ruin my comfortable holiday retreat.

When I heard the water begin to run, I moved to the living room, and quickly moved to the armchair where Lucius’ wand was still hidden. I shoved it down further into the armchair, making sure that when I, or anyone, sat next, it would not snap the dark wood wand into pieces. I was not sure how long I should keep his wand hidden from him, but by the state of him… He might not think much about it for a while.

I went about the flat, and then thinking of something important, drew my own wand from my coat, which I yet to doff, and with a flick of Vinewood, Summoned his clothing. The bathroom door opened just wide enough for the ragged and stained clothing to float to me, and as there was no sound of protest from within, Lucius had not seemed to notice.

I assumed he was laying in the tub, the water having shut off as I was stuffing his wand further into the armchair. I could imagine him lying back with a dark expression on his face, his eyes closed. I shook my head roughly as I began to imagine what his body looked like submerged under the hot bathwater.

Turning my attention to the clothing hanging from my left hand, I sat down on the foot of my bed and dropped the clothing lightly on the floor before me. I then proceeded to search his pockets.

This act only gave me a little guilt, I was never one to blatantly snoop, but as it was, I felt I deserved to know more, if anything, I could discern from the contents of his trouser pockets. I found the ten Euro note, and a dingy man’s handkerchief, and nothing else.

Then, I moved to his cloak, absently tossed over the ottoman, and began searching the small inner hidden pockets along the soft, but also dingy deep green satin of the inner lining. I found where he would stow his wand, and I found a pocket full of what looked to be pumpkin seeds, dried and edible. Frowning, I found a clipping of Draco and Astoria Malfoy, a formal wedding portrait from the Society page of the Daily Prophet. The clipping was folded so Draco’s pale face moving slowly over the newsprint was cropped to feature only the young man. The newsprint was worn over Draco’s face, making the enchantment sluggish to make the image move.

I also found a scrap of parchment with the name ‘Lucius Abraxas Malfoy,’ written perhaps a hundred or more times in pencil. Every available space on the parchment was covered with the name, printed, or written in flowing script. Perhaps it was something Lucius used to remind himself that he did exist? Proof that someone with the name Lucius Abraxas Malfoy did walk the earth?

The gravity of the pale man’s situation had me sitting donw the ottoman.

To never see the ones you loved, but knowing that they could be just before your face? To never be seen by the ones you loved, as if you had never existed?

Had it truly been something so stupidly trivial that caused the hag to curse Lucius Malfoy so profoundly?

I needed to find this hag. If not to negotiate a way so that I would not have to be the one Lucius Malfoy thought he had to woo and bed, but to break the curse entirely. I wanted to be no part of a hag’s curse, even if I had simply been chosen by fate so I would be the one Lucius Malfoy would see…

The sound of shifting water broke me from my thoughts, and I searched the last pocket, finding only crumbs. He had been hiding food in his cloak, and this fact left a sour taste in my mouth. Someone like Lucius Malfoy would never have guessed how dire it was to have to hoard food, surely. However, if his situation had humbled him at all, I could not easily see it. Beneath his desperation, there was still a maniacal pride, and I know how the saying goes about pride and falling, I wonder if Lucius did.

I went about trying to clean his clothing. I had nothing to offer him in the way of clean clothes short of Transfiguring something simple. I wondered when the last time had been that he had the chance to remove his clothing in safety to cast the simplest cleansing spells.

The brown stain on his neck cloth came out after three spells, and I easily repaired the fraying at the cuffs of his trouser legs. I even found a ten-cent Euro to Transfigure into a button for his doublet, though the button was copper instead of silver, and used a sewing Charm to put it into place. I used another Charm to make his undershirt pristinely white, and another to repair the cracked leather of his slim belt.

To be honest, I felt good about mending his clothes, but a part of me wondered why I should care at all.

Pity—that was the only thing I could think of.

I noted that he had no underclothes to speak of, and again my mind whirled before I shook my head again settling my thoughts in the proper places. Before I heard him lift out of the water, I sent the clothing via Charm, back into the bathroom, and thought no more of it.

I decided then, that I only play generous for one night.

Perhaps I am a cold hearted woman after all, but to be honest, I felt as if my retreat, my holiday had been ruined. I almost wanted to return to my only slightly larger flat in London and disappear into the darkness in the Department of Mysteries, and never see the light of day again.

Drastic? Of course. Playing the unwilling host to Lucius Malfoy had put me into a very black mood.

I would do what I could to keep him far enough out of my notice. I would give him money, if need be, while in the meantime, I would do what I could to set him back where he belonged—his bloody Manor with his bloody elves.

When the door to the bathroom opened, a dramatic roll of scented steam followed Lucius Malfoy out. He was dressed in only his mended trousers and the white undershirt that was more fitting for a man of the Romantic era than a man moving and breathing in the Twenty-first century. Wizarding fashion, yet another of the world’s mysteries…

Of course, my eyes were drawn to him, and I could not help but admire what I saw.

Barefoot, with his long pale hair damp, his now clean, pale hands using one of my fluffy white towels to dab and rub at the long, slightly wavy tresses that fell over his left shoulder. He looked a good sight better, and smelled like my soap, and my shampoo, which I found disturbing.

He moved to lean against the back of the armchair, his hands moving the towel into his hair, crossing his ankles, and gazing at me with an odd smirk on his lips.

He had shaven. Merlin, he must have used the Muggle razor I used for my legs, among other things!

I shuddered, making a mental note to throw the razor away. Yet, a satisfaction followed the disgust, seeing that he had nicked himself and that he obviously did not know what I had used the razor for.

I snorted a laugh, and Lucius’ hands paused in drying his hair.

“What’s so damn funny?”

My snort turned into a rib gripping laughter. I delighted myself in what I could—to be able to laugh at the fact that I might have a little power over Lucius Malfoy, was a boon.

Lucius, obviously, was not amused, and decided to ignore me and continue drying his hair. Minutes passed until my mirth melted into a wide, ridiculous smile.

There was time for delight, and there was time for business.

“Did the hag who cursed you have a name?” I asked, a hint of laughter still in my voice.

Lucius, uncharacteristic to what I knew of him, sighed in frustration. “Are you still not convinced of what I have said?”

I shrugged. “It seems logical that if what you say is true, that I should want to know the name of the hag who has somehow bound you to be the one who will break your curse.”

He said nothing, but stared at me, surprised.

“I did not ask for this…” I muttered, my mirth dissolving.

I rose from the foot of the bed, and moved to the door where I finally shrugged out of my coat and slipped out of my shoes. I twirled my wand between my fingers, shoved it into my pinned back hair so it stuck out like an antennae from my head.

Turning back to where Lucius Malfoy stood, I was struck at how casually he seemed to be drying his hair in my flat. Standing before the large dark windows, he was at ease, but thinking. Lucius Malfoy and ‘casual’ should never go into the same thought.

The surreality of the evening, again, crashed down upon me.

I wanted him gone.

“Edwinia Glump,” he said almost too softly for me to hear, but I did hear, and I frowned.

Personally, I do not know many hags, in fact, I only know of one, and it was not Edwinia Glump. The name was wholly alien to me.

“We will have to find her.”

Lucius stiffened, the damp towel falling from his hands to land on his bare feet.

“Find her?” he whispered, and the horror was evident in his face as I moved back into the room to go to a small chest of drawers near the side of the bed. “Are you mad?” he bellowed, causing me to turn away from opening the drawer to find a clean and matronly night gown to wear.

“I have been called that, but no,” I uttered smoothly, turning my face to him as he grasped the back of the armchair so firmly that his already pale hands became whiter still.

I lifted my chin, and my eye hardened. “If I have been dragged into your situation, obviously unwillingly, I want to know why and how to get out of it. Unless…” I trailed, my eyes narrowing. “Unless you want to ‘woo’ me and ‘bed’ me.”

Such a thing… It was madness. Falling in love with Lucius Malfoy? I would have to have myself Obliviated of all the bad memories I had of the man to ever consider that he might be someone worthy to love. I did not hate him, per se, but I disliked him immensely. Lucius Malfoy was easy to dislike.

The idea of wooing and bedding me seemed just as distasteful to the pale man, and he recomposed himself quickly.

I turned my thoughts back to the present situation—Lucius Malfoy and my seemingly abundant generosity.

I Transfigured the ottoman into a narrow cot, and instructed him to sleep there. As for me, I only took the time to wash my face and don my nightgown, under my thick bathrobe, and turned off the lights.

As if sensing that my generosity was fragile, Lucius Malfoy said nothing and lay down, using his cloak as a blanket. I wondered if he had slept under his cloak often.

I slipped into my own bed, but did not lie down. I pulled my wand from my still pinned hair and gripped it tightly. Resting back into the pillows, I more sat in bed than relaxed. My eyes adjusted to the darkness in the small flat, and soon the city lights glowing off the snowy rooftops out the window lit the room in a dull grey glow. Lucius lay on his right side, his right arm folded under his still slightly damp hair, the cloak pulled up to his chin. I could not see his feet, they were pointed toward me, as he had curled his legs under the cloak in a semi-foetal position.

I listened to his breathing, and for what seemed like an eternity, noted the change as sleep took him.

It was then I relaxed and slid down under the comforter of the bed.

I did not sleep. Tired, I was most definitely, but not sleepy. My mind was buzzing, my adrenaline still working through my blood from the moment Lucius Malfoy kicked me in the chest and broke my second wand. In the vanity mirror earlier, I saw that I did have a boot sized bruise on my chest, just above my breasts and below of my collarbone. I did not have any bruise healing paste, and knew I would have to glamour the bruise if I decided to wear anything low cut in the coming days.

Oddly, I was not angry about the bruise. It did not especially hurt, but it was unattractive, reminding me of years long past when bruises, scrapes, and injuries were common.

The War…

In the light coming in from the outside, Lucius Malfoy’s pale hair gleamed silver, and as I looked at it, I could not help but reminisce. In reminiscing, the pity I had held for the man, diminished.

He had brought it on himself, his fall from grace.

Edwinia Glump, hag or no, would feel the full fury of my hellish wrath if in some way I were chosen specifically to break Lucius Malfoy’s curse.





I must have fallen asleep, for when my mind became aware of the situation; Lucius Malfoy was ripping apart my finely red upholstered armchair in the light of a winter morning.

He was fully dressed, his hair combed, but not tied back at the nape of his neck. His face was a mask of fury, and under his breath, he muttered curses.

My body reacted to the violence of red upholstery and stuffing flying through the air, and I bolted up from the bed.

I hexed him, and just as the night before, he stumbled back, tripped over the Transfigured ottoman, and tumbled gracelessly to the hardwood floor on the other side.

I flopped back into the bed and groaned. The chair had cost me a couple galleons, shipped from Milan, and a particularly comfortable piece of furniture. Lucius did not make a sound, though I could see that one of his booted feet rested on the edge of the Transfigured ottoman, limply.

Rolling out of bed, adjusting the tangled bathrobe about my waist, I padded over to the Transfigured ottoman and peered over the edge. Lucius Malfoy was gasping, his face still a mask of fury. He did move, and I, still wondering if I were asleep, shrugged, and turned to my ruined armchair.

I found his wand stuck between the seat, sans cushion, and the arm of the chair. Slipping it into the pocket of my bathrobe, I then padded to the bathroom. I showered.

This act, one might think, was one that would invite disaster, being vulnerable, but when I emerged from the bathroom, very much awake and dressed in a pair of baggy khakis and a large knit military green jumper, Lucius was still on the floor. I knew the hex had not been too strong, and that he was simply lying on the floor, with both boot heels resting naturally, brooding.

“Coffee?” I asked with an amused chirp.

“Black,” he replied from the floor.

And so, another day began, albeit, strangely.


tbc...