Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 5-31-08


Thank you all for continuing to read and special thanks to my ravishing reviewers. I‘ve attempted some answers below coupled with other comments. Thanks again for reading and reviewing.


sisterae - Hermione can’t stay detached from Lucius or I won’t have a story LOL. You have Hermione pegged very well. And Lucius changed quite a bit in twelve years of prison. Just how much we’ll be seeing as the story progresses.


Ravishing Regular Reviewer Rini – I hope your exam went well. Lucius and Hermione both seem more peaceful about their relationship now. Was it their own feelings? Or was it the Veil? Hmm, caveman Lucius. Maybe I SHOULD have sent them back with the dinosaurs. He’d look good in a fur pelt. And Hermione has her own ways of denying reality.


tambrathegreat – I wouldn’t want Lucius to be a cad, except maybe in bed. He recognizes they need each other. But to what extent? Um, what did you expect, if I may ask?


meankitty69 – Yay. You were right! Lucius can be charming and self-serving at the same time. It’s his major gift. Duly noted: you’ll take Hermione’s place if she chickens out.


sheherazade – Lucius is a hustler, all right. He’ll do whatever it takes to move his agenda his way. I’m probably going to be lynched with this chapter, but they are now an official couple in their own eyes. So men didn’t wear wedding rings before 1900? Interesting. But I can easily fanwank it, that Lucius isn’t an 1817 kinda guy. He’ll wear the wedding ring because he thinks Hermione would want that. Maybe he’ll start a new trend in wizarding society. Or what you said – different traditions for wizards than Muggles.


Citten - Next chapter now up. Yes, I know what everyone wants. I’ll be taking a poll to see if this story was organized as it must be, when you’ve all read all the maaaannny chapters. Hermione doesn’t seem like a Slytherin, even an honorary one, but she has strengths of her own.


Josie - Yeah, I love the sexual frustration, too. Can you tell? Writng Lucius ‘enjoying himself’ was a hoot!


angelprince - Lucius is smooth as silk. That’s what gets him into trouble, more often than not. I also believe he could sell Viagra to the Vatican. Hermione didn’t fight him over the wedding – she was pleased, I think. Save your pity for Lucius. You’re welcome for the gloves. I added them to suit.


LadyBlueEyes – Do you think Lucius should have paid more attention to the slight word change from obey to cherish? Hermione may be repressed, but she’s not a doormat.


pittwitch – Ah, thank you for the fainting info. Of course - that does make sense. You said, “Women of the era fainted with frightening regularity because of their constricted breathing ala stays and corsets laced much too tight for fashion. The lack of oxygen did them in.” Caveman Lucius can be found any night in his bed.


Helensgirl – I am so relieved you’ll wait patiently for the lemons (your words). You have no idea…soon, though. Soon! Whining and threats have no effect – I’m a mom. LOL


Jesse - Glad you loved the snake rings. 'Cherish' instead of obey is Hermione’s first salvo, I think.


Utopia – Another ravishing reviewer for sure. Colored knickers. Genius minds…later. I’ll add the flowers – for you. What kind? The vicar may have wondered about a bun in the oven, but I doubt he would ask about it – Lucius’ intimidating presence wouldn’t invite comment and the vicar got a large donation. I think Lucius thought a Muggle ceremony would guarantee his commitment to Hermione better than a wizard one, which they were assumed to have had already.


Heidi191976 – Glad you liked the chapter. One more coming up.


Scary Bear Hair – I hope Hermione thought the wedding was romantic, even though she wasn’t dressed for the event. She knows Lucius put a lot of thought into it. How about a lemon drop for now?


FlowersBecomeScreens – I’m happy to see you here. Thank you! The Veil and the time travel bit is extremely confusing – always has been in any story I’ve read. Only time will tell if I’ve managed not to bollix up my version. I had to pay attention to all the things you’ve brought up. I can’t…no, I could, but I will not answer your questions. The story has to unfold its own way. Your “Hungry, Thirsty, Crazy” also in this section is superlative! Now I AM impatiently waiting for an update. Karma...


Muffy - I’m very pleased you took a chance. Welcome to my story. I hope you continue to enjoy it. You said two of your favorite themes. What are they?

Ravenna – Oh yes, Lucius is both devious and deviant. But he also sometimes thinks of others. Hermione is important to him. Just in what way remains to be seen.


blue artemis – I’m glad you guessed right. I said ‘cherish’ in my wedding ceremony, too.


Josie - Lucius probably had all your choices in mind. It’s so gratifying to know you’ve chosen my story to begin your reviewing career. Did you like writing the comments? I enjoyed reading them very much. Thanks!


pumkin – Wedding night is coming up…soon!


I’ll update the next few chapters a bit faster if I can, to get you all over 'the hump’ as it were - so all you faithful readers can see Lucius and Hermione in action.


And now...


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Chapter Twenty-One

Back to Bickering


Lucius picked up his new wife and strode into a darkened alley beside the church, apparating instantly back into the mansion and into the master bedroom. He set the new Mrs. Malfoy down on her feet and let her look about the candlelit room where she would be spending a lot of time if he had anything to say about it.

Hermione woke from her fantasy and frowned a little, “Lucius, was there a reason you couldn’t have asked me to marry you before you took me to the church?” She didn’t care too much, but he had been rather highhanded about the whole thing, even for him.

“My reason? I wanted to be married and I was justifiably concerned we would have to drag on with dates and courtship and flowers ad nauseam until I was ready for the old wizards’ rest home. I wasn’t wrong that you needed some form of steadfastness, was I? Do you feel you have now made a mistake?”

Lucius’ intent stare made Hermione abruptly giggle. “No, I’m happy with the outcome and I suppose you’re correct that I would have prolonged the process. I’ll still get flowers from you occasionally, won’t I?” She leaned into her new husband invitingly.

Lucius drew in a fast gulp of air. This little witch was sharing his bed whether she liked it or not. Odd that he hadn’t minded Narcissa having her own bedroom, but with Hermione he wasn’t prepared to offer the option.

While she was nestling against his waistcoat, Lucius made sure his orders had been carried out by the house elf. He quickly glanced around the room for himself, noting that although the wallpaper, decorations and materials were different, the room hadn’t changed much in two hundred years. It was nice to be home in his own bedroom finally.

Near the roaring fireplace, which gave off a welcome heat after the draughty church, he saw a white tablecloth gracing the surface of a small table with place settings for two and a bottle of wine in an icebucket beside one of the two straight-backed, cushioned chairs facing each other across the small white expanse. Several chafing dishes were lined up on a side bureau near the table for them to serve themselves.

Perfect! he smiled, thinking they could eat and then go on to more important things. He took a step from his wife and slipped off his cape and hat, putting them with his cane on a side chair and plopping his gloves into his hat. He turned back and divested Hermione of her outer clothing as well, while she now stood gawking over her new husband’s shoulder at some of the overtly salacious paintings scattered along the walls nearer the bed. Lucius belatedly noticed the vulgar renderings and frowned, determining that they would be sent to the attics or his vault tomorrow. His relative had decidedly low taste in art.

Lucius left Hermione to begin her bawdy education – he had already decided she would become personally experienced at some of those depicted intimacies - and walked over to a door set into the wall paneling meaning to wash his hands and relieve himself, but when he opened it and sailed blithely through he realized he had spoken too soon about it being nice to be home. The bathing facilities were missing! Where was his luxurious bathroom?

Shite! Lucius’ hands closed into irritated fists. Of course he wasn’t going to have his marble tub big enough for four, or his twin marble sinks with running water. Gods, not even a shower. He was going to wash up using a pitcher and basin or at best in an old-fashioned hipbath. What a disaster for a wedding night. Where had his mind been not to remember all this? Lucius’ mouth quirked up in a lecherous, if rather annoyed smile; he knew exactly where his mind had been. Well, a good cleaning spell would have to do, but the sybaritic luxury of a full tub of scented warm water with a new wife to scrub his back - and front - was a dream he was having a difficult time letting go of.

“Atlas!” the blond wizard bellowed.

“Master wishes?” Atlas popped into the bathroom and waited serenely for Lucius’ commands.

“Fetch whatever bathing tub there is in this misbegotten place, resize it to fit two comfortably and fill it with hot water. Add a slight jasmine scent. I want it ready in one hour in front of the fire in the master bedroom, but not before then.”

“As Master wishes, but tub already large enough for two.” The house elf gazed up at Lucius with no discernible change of expression, but Lucius had the feeling the elf was laughing at him. He waved away the old retainer who promptly disappeared.

“Lucius?” Hermione walked through the bathroom door. “I wondered where you went. I’m hungry. What are you doing in here?” She looked around the new area seeing a large wardrobe, several bureaus and a place to sit with a mirror in front of it; the ubiquitous basin and pitcher combination rested beside the mirror. A commode was in the corner. “Oh, is this where you shave?” She turned to look back at her new husband.

“This looks like a dressing area, so I suppose it could be,” Lucius responded. “In my time it was a luxurious bathroom. A pity,” he added, a bit morosely. Then he turned back to call the house elf again, “Atlas?”

The house elf appeared once more with his question, “Master wishes?”

Lucius thought he could hear a touch of exasperation in the elf’s tone of voice. He was certain the elf was saying, ‘NOW what?’ in his head. Lucius gave him a glacial stare wondering if this time period allowed such cheek from its elves, “What do you mean the tub is already big enough for two?” He heard a small intake of breath from Hermione, but he didn’t care if she found out he had designs on her ablutions. May as well start as one means to go on, Lucius affirmed to himself as he saw his wife sidling out of the dressing room. Lucius’ spirits rose at the thought of his wife’s petite body all pink and scented from a warm bath that they had shared.

The house elf shrugged, “Old master enjoyed bathing, but not alone.”

“Well, then why didn’t he have any closer heirs if he was so friendly?”

“Old master’s wife dead ten years. Two sons both dead. One from unknown wasting disease,” the old elf suddenly looked severe, “possibly caused by second son. Second son fall off hippogriff while over big lake. Drunk. Lost wand in water. Drowned.”

Lucius understood what the elf wasn’t saying, that the second son got what he deserved. So the elves were convinced that the second son had murdered his brother. What a delightful family tree he had. He vaguely remembered his own family history and knew there were only two instances where the direct line was broken in his dynasty. One was in the seventeenth century when an ancestor got in the way of a musket ball meant for a Muggle during one of their stupid wars, leaving the succession to a great nephew. The second time was in the nineteenth century, which was probably the one he was now living through. That time, the inheritance went to a nephew, the scion of a black sheep younger son who had disappeared from the bosom of the family years before.

Lucius chuckled to think he was considered the son of a well-known knave and apparently cousin to a killer. Little did they know what this ersatz son of their black sheep had been up to in his life. But where was the real errant son and true heir? Was he, Lucius, taking the place of the man or was he, in fact, the man himself? Time travel was strange and impossibly convoluted. Lucius figured it was going to be futile to try to understand how it worked; his only problem lay in the unlikely hazard of the real heir, if there was one, showing up to claim his rightful place. All the rest was merely a matter of taking control of properties and investments that he had already mastered long ago.

Lucius waved the elf away again, used the commode and cleaned up after himself. Then he trailed the nervous witch back into the bedroom. “Are you ready to eat dinner?”

Hermione had drifted to the far side of the bedroom, her eyes riveted on the magnificent four-poster bed lying in state on a dais as she rubbed her arms against the slight coolness in the room away from the fire. The presence of the bed was having a skittery effect on her nerves and she suddenly wasn’t too hungry. She looked over at the wizard just coming out of the dressing area and her fears were clearly stamped on her face. He suddenly was looking very tall and strong and overwhelmingly confident to her. She saw those guileful, hypnotic eyes rake her body before settling on her own anxious brown ones.

“Hermione, are you rethinking our lovemaking again?” Lucius sauntered forward in a sleek panther stride across the light green Aubusson carpet to stand in front of her, picking up her cold hand in his much larger, warm male one. “What is it this time?” he said, noticing the focus of her concern. “You’re not a virgin. Why are you so worried? It certainly doesn’t do my ego any favors to see you nearly rigid with fear or maybe loathing. When I get through winding you up, you’ll not only forget about your fears, you’ll be begging me for completion. But trying to second guess what will take place there,” he gestured to the massive bed, “just makes you upset.”

Hermione hadn’t wanted to wound him with her concerns. That wasn’t her worry at all, although his little bit of braggadocio was making her somewhat quivery inside – and wet. She drew in a labored breath and tried to find some confidence of her own, “I, uh, I’m not exactly worried about that, Lucius. It’s not you.” Hermione looked down at the carpet, her fingers worrying her new ring from side to side. She bit her lip in anxious anticipation of her new husband’s ridicule, but went ahead and blurted, “I’m beginning to worry you’ll be disappointed in my lack of expertise in bed.” There! She’d said it.

Lucius looked down at the top of his wife’s head with those runaway curls that stoked his libido into smouldering heat every time he saw her, and was startled by the feeling of tenderness washing over him, “I don’t expect you to be any Circe,” he jested mildly, wanting to set her at ease, “although if you keep kissing me the way you did in church I may think you’re holding out on me.” He pulled her up against him and nuzzled his nose into her curls, smelling the exciting woman scent he was coming to know was Hermione’s alone. “You know,” he inhaled on a long breath, his mind melting into an erotic puddle while other parts went hard, “I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble at all satisfying me in bed. I’m already primed for attack, but if you kiss me now, all that will be attacked is the inside of these pantaloons. The fun will be over before it starts. Forget whoever made you so unsure of yourself, Hermione. Tomorrow you will understand they were the ones who had no abilities in bed, not you. That’s a promise.”

Hermione peeked up at him through her eyelashes, intrigued, “You really liked the way I kissed?” Her fingers found a new toy to twist and one of his waistcoat buttons was tortured instead of her ring.

“Let’s just say I could have walked over to the vicar on three legs.” He gently set her back from his chest in an attempt to protect his clothing, “So no thinking for you in the bedroom. Just feel. Now, let’s get some dinner, shall we?” Lucius guided his bemused wife back to the small table.

Lucius sat Hermione in her chair, then sat down himself and used his wand to open and float over the first chafing dish. “Ah, chicken cordon bleu. Some for you?”

Hermione used her wand and guided some onto her plate. “Now I’m so hungry I could eat a whole roasted hellhound, tail and all.” Most of her fear that she would be found laughable in bed had dissipated and her hunger pangs took over center stage.

Lucius didn’t want to appear as though he were rushing through the meal, but he was focusing more and more on that massive bed himself. He popped open the wine and poured Hermione an extremely small portion earning a half-frown from her at the niggling amount in her glass.

“Is there a wine shortage and we have to conserve, Lucius?” Hermione lifted her glass and swished the scant liquid inside to accentuate her question. The amount barely found its way around the bottom of the glass without evaporating in defeat.

“I don’t know how you’re affected by liquor and I don’t want either a comatose or a weepy wife on our wedding night. And I hope bedding me doesn’t require you to be pot valiant. Enjoy what you have. It’s enough for your meal.” Lucius poured himself a rather larger portion and sat back sipping his wine with a relaxed sigh.

“Yes, Father,” Hermione dug at her overbearing mate, watching with some glee as his eyes flashed with spleen. Good! Now both of them were annoyed.

“Do you really want to make me angry just before I take you to bed?” Lucius asked in a low menacing purr, leaning forward to better make his point.

“Oh, are you threatening me with bodily harm now? How very romantic.”

At Hermione’s bald restatement of his more subtle hinting, Lucius was somewhat taken aback, a confused frown shaping his icy eyes. He didn’t know quite how to answer such a forward question. It hadn’t been his intent to actually do anything but make warning noises; he had expected his wife to back down. Miscalculation, thy name is Lucius, he thought. Maybe I should have been the one forgoing the wine.

“If you are going to treat me like a child, I’ll behave as such,” Hermione flung at him. “You could have trusted me to know how much wine to have before becoming a sloppy drunk with no emotional restraint.” Hermione also leaned forward almost touching noses with her overly vigilant, patriarchal mate, “It seems to me that the real reason you limited my wine was you were afraid I would feel the need to be pot valiant to sleep with you. Do I sense a little misgiving about your prowess on your part?”

Lucius hissed in growing irritation, his eyes narrowing on the little troublemaker. She was his wife now. His responsibility and his to care for and protect, even from overindulging herself. If she thought he was shaking in his boots at the idea of satisfying her in bed, she was sadly mistaken. They both sat back and silently worked their way through the rest of the meal, finishing with a light, whipped strawberry dessert. Lucius had been thinking about his comeback to her nasty insinuation without compromising his imminent access to her body and he was about to let fly with his ideas on his prowess but lost his opportunity because at that moment a double-sized, cloth-lined hipbath filled with warm water appeared on the tiled hearth near the fire along with a rack containing two large, white squares of linen toweling, Hermione’s granny nightie, and two brocade robes in dark green, one large and one very small. A light scent of jasmine filled the air.

tbc...soon


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As long as you all know what is coming up SOON, you won't hex me, right? Right?

Once these two get started it will be difficult to pull them apart to have more story, so have mercy, please.

Yes *sighs*, one click on the link below will allow you to throw verbal bricks through my window. But please remember, SOON!!

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