Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 6-17-08


Again my thanks for your responsive reviews. I appreciate each one and the time you take to talk about the story. It helps me fill incipient plot holes and add in details with ideas you share. Sometimes you bring up salient points that I know I will cover later, and that lets me know I'm on the right track.

mandi - Thank you! I’m updating a bit faster this time. Hope you enjoy.

Jesse - Here's my take on what you term a ‘filler’ non-chapter: It’s their first morning as man and wife. I didn’t want to dive right into their larger time travel troubles, I felt a small view of how they relate now that they have been intimate was in order. This is a long story and I have the space to give them a slight period of adjustment. The title of the chapter tells it all. What do you think? (Perhaps this next chapter will suit you slightly better?)

blue artemis – Yes, I think Lucius had Hermione pigeonholed as very prim and stodgy. She was merely wary of being hurt again, but he is finding out it has nothing to do with her sexual proclivities. The paintings will get their moments.

tambrathegreat – Lucius is magnanimous at times, but usually he also gets something he wants. He’s not a completely bad person, just clever and keeping himself in mind. But so is she. Heh, heh. A sentient one-eyed monster. Hmmmm, maybe for my next story. That would be funny, Lucius REALLY being led around by his d*ck.

helensgirl – I’m so glad you got a new chair. If Lucius is selling that model to the wizarding world, no wonder he’s a biliionaire. We ‘saw’ one painting, but of course, it wasn’t the one she selected. I think she might be overwhelmed by the choices in the paintings. Rather like choosing one new flavor to try in an ice cream shop.

sisterae - In the case of Lucius invading Hermione’s personal space, he was acclimatizing Hermione to intense intimacies that he is now hoping to introduce. He may have pushed the issue to the nth degree, but it seems to have had the desired effect. Yes, Lucius is kind of ‘pretty’ in the morning.

meankitty69 – Oh dear. Perhaps a hiatus on the tea while reading might be a good idea. There isn’t any medical insurance on this story either. Hermione certainly clings to her childhood names for anatomy.

Rini – I do think our Mr. Malfoy has just enjoyed his first really good night’s sleep in 1817. Hot bath, hotter sex and no need to be careful or wary. He obviously didn’t sleep with his wand in his hand (okay, not going for that pun). That new leaf program of his is getting off to a rough start, but I think he’ll persevere…I hope.

Muffy – Yes, the two of them are retaining their modern mindsets while absorbing the older culture and words around them. They consider it more as camouflage than truly changing into 19th century people.

Scary Bear Hair – Think what money one could make from selling paintings like that. Or maybe not, porn flicks have been around forever. Hermione likes the paintings. Real life events are familiar to everyone and easy to connect with (um, maybe not Lucius’ forward behavior in the bathroom – snicker). As usual, Lucius had an agenda when he traded immediate sex for him picking a painting. I likely pinched the chapter title from that movie, but I’ll never admit it.

Citten – I DID describe one painting, the three men on one woman - remember? (The one with the woman and the donkey I felt was too much for the story. JUST KIDDING!! ) If Lucius is spread eagled snoring, plus used the chamber pot in front of Hermione, he doesn’t seem to worry much about privacy. Hermione seems skittish about daylight sex, doesn’t she?

jw – Those paintings might be a good connection for them. Discussing sex openly is a good thing.

Heidi191976 – Thank you. Here’s more.

doodle – [blushes] Twelve names for it? Personally I think the word penis is so clinical. It has its place, but the other synonyms are so much more fun.

angelprince – Wow, thanks for the added names for Lucius' dong (there’s another for you). I’ve heard of wanger, but not mullwanger, so much more sophisticated (snerk). One-eyed monster is always a hit and I like schlong just for its 'almost' onomatopoeia. Shhhlllloonnggg! “Hermione will be going poo-poo in front of Lucius in no time.” That made me laugh. Somehow when you say it that way, it loses all its glamour. Glamour?

Lady Miya – Hermione likes to see a hunk as much as anyone (including me). Yes, I think Hermione’s shyness bit the dust. I like “wordwitch” very much. This story isn’t short. Lots to get through still. Concerning all the different slang terms for Lucius’ penis, most of them are children’s words taught by adults who don’t want to use ‘penis’. Small kids repeat everything at the worst times. It’s not so bad when your tot says doohinky to Great Aunt Gertrude. As for Hermione being naïve, she can read all about sex, but actually doing it is something else again. She’s now in a position to really DO some of those things she isn’t too familiar with. And her disaffection with men and sex was a combination of two bad boyfriends, but also the horrors of her years fighting Voldemort and the final battle where she lost so many friends. She just turned herself off from feelings. Being paired with Lucius wouldn’t be her idea of romance at the beginning of their association.

Damiana – You’re just in time for a new chapter! I checked the sentence you mentioned. It seems okay to me. The phrase, “but something she couldn’t quite put her finger on held her back.” I don’t see where your ‘what’ would fit in.

And now...

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Chapter Twenty-Five

The Veil and Us


“Lucius, did you really want to marry me? Or were you feeling compelled by an outside force?” Hermione was shredding her toast at the breakfast table, back to worrying about Lucius’ true feelings versus the unknown abilities of the Veil to coerce their minds. Could the Veil be so powerful?

Lucius looked up from his eggs in consternation, “Did you marry me because you felt compelled?” That was a decidedly sour thought, especially after one of the most memorable nights of sex he could remember.

Hermione bit her lip. Did she want to say she had chosen him all by herself, or did she want to blame their strange mental accomplice for her acceptance of him as her husband? Did she even know the answer? On the surface, it was almost bizarre that she had snapped up the opportunity to marry him. “I asked you first,” she finally parried.

“I don’t know for sure,” he shrugged, frowning a little at her avoidance of the question and the stab of pain in his chest at the possibility she married him through some type of astral coercion. “All I do know is I wanted us to be more than mere impersonal associates stuck in this reality - oh, not immediately, perhaps, but soon after we arrived. My prime directive quickly became finding some way to attach you to me permanently. It made sense logically and,” he smiled a little wickedly, “carnally. I wanted you on several levels. It was obvious I could never truly relax and have a full life with anyone else. And neither could you. Also I was twitchy whenever we were apart. Uneasy, unsettled. Basically unhappy I guess. That’s the best I can explain how I felt. I don’t know what the origin of those feelings was, but at the beginning, when they started I was surprised I even had such a reaction, no offense.”

Hermione nodded, thinking, “Looking back I think I had the same reaction. I didn’t like you to leave me and twitchy is a good adjective for how I felt whenever you left. And to be honest, I was a little disgusted at my dependence. But why? Why were we spellbound or manipulated that way? It seems reasonable to think that our flimflam friend the Veil has an agenda and we’re part of it.”

“Our respective feelings could be completely our own,” Lucius replied. “As bizarre as it might seem, I’d prefer to attribute our attraction to propinquity. People stuck in foreign places together often form bonds. That might be all it is. But if your conjecture is correct and our emotional connection is manufactured, it argues for the Veil being sentient. Are you prepared to attribute intelligence to that old archway and tatty curtain?”

“We have the evidence sitting right here. Us!” she replied. “How else did we get here, Lucius? And remember all the information that floods our minds whenever we need it? I wonder if we were programmed somehow when we fell through that curtain. Did you see the flashes of light as we fell through? And then the brilliant shimmering? I’d forgotten until now. I thought I saw some – oh, what do you call them – vignettes of wizarding life.”

“I did briefly see some flashes of weird still scenes from wizarding history and then the shimmering all around us. You saw the scenes, too? I’d completely forgotten those with all our other problems. Did we fall through time or just have pieces of it floating by as we came here?” Lucius’ eyes focused inwardly as he analyzed the additional knowledge. A slight frown marred his brow at some unpleasant thought about that nearly lethal day, but he didn’t share it.

“What?” asked Hermione in response to Lucius’ sudden glower.

His pale eyes snapped back in focus, “Nothing,” he said. “Just…nothing.”


His still, watchful expression didn’t invite confidences so Hermione shrugged, but she wondered what Lucius was being secretive about now, after turning her inside out the night before. “I don’t know how the Veil of Death works. No one knows anything about it. Except for us,” Hermione reminded Lucius.

“And we’ve been jerked around ever since we landed in that pasture,” he replied, and then his face relaxed as he smiled at her, “but that still doesn’t negate our possibly having natural affinities for each other. I really don’t like the idea of my personal desires being manipulated. It’s bad enough thinking that we might have died as we expected to, except the Veil had a use for us.” The blond wizard looked pensive for a moment, “Perhaps we should try to visit it in this time period. It doesn’t appear to be an entirely passive being. Maybe it will communicate more with us.”

The little witch suddenly looked perplexed, “Lucius, why were you at the Department of Mysteries that night?”

Lucius sat still for a space of time, lost in thought, his previous frown surfacing again. Then he ignored Hermione’s question in favor of one of his own, “If it is controlling us, what does it want?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she shook her head, causing her curls to bounce and distracting her husband for a moment as he enjoyed her wild tangles. It made him think about tumbling her on the breakfast table, but she kept talking and he reluctantly focused on the topic under discussion.

“But,” she continued, oblivious to nearly being tossed onto her back between the toast and the marmalade, “I think it’s some sort of ancient guardian for the magic world, which has brought us here to accomplish something and given us the tools to do it. Our sudden knowledge, your inheritance, and,” Hermione mused, “our identities, which it designed for us as a married couple. I don’t know why we were introduced here as a married couple, though.”

“I think I know why. You’ve already discovered being a female in this time is restrictive. If you’re married to a very wealthy wizard that gives you more latitude to do whatever it is we’re supposed to do.” Lucius ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, brushing it back over his shoulders, “This theorizing is crazy. We don’t know if any of it is true.”

“Well, if we get those mental bulletins maybe we’re also getting this theory. We know we’re receiving strange pieces of information in our brains. And we’ve come to the point where the Veil expects us to carry on with our task. I feel as though it makes all the sense in the world. How about you?” she asked.

Lucius grimaced, but nodded, “Unfortunately, I agree.”

Hermione laughed, “I’m thankful it waited until we’d had a wedding night. You weren’t feeling directed in the bath were you?”

Lucius half-smiled at his little partner, now wife, “I’m pretty sure that was all me. I don’t need directions on seduction.”

“And it was definitely all you later, too,” Hermione giggled. “So now the Veil has us working as a team and we’re to accomplish…what?”

Lucius’ eyebrows went up at the rather sterile analysis of their marriage. That’s all it was to her - a team? A means to some end they were ignorant of? He had thought Hermione had felt something for him as a person, but it looked as though he had merely been used (by the Veil?) as a stud service for the prickly little witch so she would settle down and do the Veil’s work.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about being relegated to a check mark on the Veil’s ‘to do’ list. ‘Make them unhappy and nervous apart – check’. ‘Tie them together so the wizarding world sees them as a married couple – check’. ‘Disrupt any animosity between them by a real marriage and a shag – check’. ‘Now they were ready to do what the Veil wanted – check’.

The dark wizard wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea he was being used by a power greater than he - again. He’d had all of that he ever wanted with Voldemort. Would this Veil thing put more pressure on them if they didn’t do what it was nudging them toward? Was it benign or evil? It seemed that Hermione had accepted it as a force for good, but then she would, he thought glumly.

Lucius enquired, “What could it want other than to guard the magic world as you said? To that end we’re probably here to find a way to subvert the future in which the wizarding world as we know it has been destroyed. So what facts do we have to accomplish that?” he asked, going along for the moment with his little witch’s suppositions.

Hermione was silently enjoying his pristine white neckcloth and his lawn shirt covered by his vest of dark blue defining his broad chest and slim waist. He really did do justice to the clothing styles of their new time period. She thought it was a shame men’s clothing didn’t still look like this in her own time - the styles made men look so virile. Hermione sighed and focused on the discussion. She verbally applauded Lucius’ acumen and beamed at him with approval at his analysis, “The future we came from? Of course, that must be it. Do you think the Veil only alters things if there is a terrible danger? It makes you wonder how many times in the past it has altered things.”

“It makes you wonder,” Lucius pointed out, one sardonic eyebrow raised as he mocked his petite wife. “If all you think is true, I just want to get on with it, get done what we have to do, and get on with our lives. I am beyond tired of the role of subservient sycophant to a megalomaniac, afraid for my life.”

“I agree that we should move along with our task. If we can avoid the atrocities we know will happen, that will be wonderful, but I don’t think the Veil is inimical, do you? It could have just killed us when we went through it.” When Hermione saw Lucius’ disbelieving countenance, she queried, astonished, “You think it sent us here for some nefarious purpose? I can’t believe that.”

“Hermione, you couldn’t even kill the sheep when they were about to kill you. Would you recognize evil if it came and gave you a lap dance?”

Hermione rebuked him with a hard stare, “I spent my childhood dealing with evil, Lucius. You of all people should know that. If I now hate unnecessary death in all forms, can you blame me? I think my sentiment was shared by most of the wizarding world by the time Voldemort was defeated. It’s likely that you owe your own life to that attitude,” she reproached. “You could have been sentenced to a Dementor’s kiss.”

Lucius froze. His assessment that Hermione couldn’t hurt a flobberworm had redounded on him quite viciously. Her bald statement that he was evil and might have been put to death hurt quite a lot. The stabbing sensation in his chest returned twofold, “So you believe I should have been put to death?”

“Of course not,” she said, exasperated, “I said you could have been put to death, not should. Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? I didn’t want you or anyone else – except Voldemort - to die. You merited Azkaban and I’m not sorry you spent years there. You did deserve that, but I never wanted you to die. Harry felt the same way and that’s why he spoke up for you and your family. We wouldn’t have wanted Azkaban for anyone else either if the Dementors had still been there. I’m truly sorry to learn that the prison food caused health problems. At least the Muggles keep decent prisons.” Lucius’ pale eyes slitted with fury at the mention of Muggles so Hermione skated away from that topic, seeing she had already upset him by saying he had deserved Azkaban. “So why would you ever assume I would want worse for you than for those sheep who, as you’ve pointed out rather nastily, I was unable to kill.”

“I can’t imagine,” the blond wizard retorted sarcastically, supremely irritated that his wife had wanted him in prison, but knowing it wasn’t rational for him to feel that way. “Unless it was your pugnacious attitude and generally hostile behavior toward me from the moment I saved you. That might have colored my opinion. And I could be wrong that you have just classed me as evil. You said you spent your childhood fighting evil. I assume that included me. Do I understand that to you I have no redeeming qualities? Not even my magnetic personality or my fatal charm?” Lucius’ descent into sarcasm and his bitter expression didn’t bode well for the morning’s peace.

“It may come as a shock to you, Lucius, but your personality and charm certainly weren’t on display for me when we first landed here. You treated me like your faithful hound, being told to ‘come along’ and given orders like I had no mind of my own.” Hermione leaned forward, “To my knowledge, in the past you’ve been guilty of being overindulgent and overprotective with your child, and I’m citing your delivering special broomsticks to the Slytherin Quidditch team and trying to have Buckbeak murdered because Draco was stupid and didn’t obey instructions. But those things are in the past and can be forgotten. I don’t think you’re evil, Lucius, only politically misguided and bigoted. However, your innate arrogance is not an endearing trait, so it’s a good thing you’re cute and you smell good or you would be unbearable.” Hermione grinned mischievously at her steaming mate.

“I am, of course, devastated by your poor opinion, but I’ll endeavor to soldier on, regardless,” her mate gifted her with a faint echoing grin, his spirit reviving somewhat with Hermione’s compliments. Her unexpected and totally backhanded encomium made him feel a little better, blunting his incipient choler. “I suppose my cuteness will fade over time, but I’ll keep eating limes so my scent offsets my arrogance. Will that do?” At Hermione’s happy smile, the blond wizard said, “I do have a question.”

“What?”

“Who the frigging hell is this Buckbeak I tried to murder?”

Hermione stared at her husband. He really didn’t have any clue. Amazing. “You don’t remember the hippogriff you wanted put down because Draco wasn’t careful with the animal and got a scratch on his arm – which he had coming to him?”

“That’s Buckbeak? That’s what you fault me for? I was told it was a serious injury. Draco had his arm in a sling. The animal was dangerous and should never have been near the children.” Lucius bridled at his new wife’s questioning his protection of his son.

“Madam Pomfrey told you Draco’s arm injury was serious?”

“Well, no, it was Draco. His mother looked at his injury and said it was dangerous to have that animal near the children. She wanted the animal removed.” Lucius saw he had been remiss not to have looked at the injury himself, but that was his wife’s place. He had merely taken steps he had felt necessary to protect his son and the other children. “I see I am once again the evil villain in your eyes, wanting to kill innocent animals and subverting Quidditch matches. Where will my villainy show up next? It seems my penchant for beastly behavior could pop up anytime, anywhere. You’re very brave to have married me and come to my wicked bed.”

“Have I hurt your feelings? I told you I don’t see you as evil. Like I said, you were an overindulgent father and I guess you were protecting your child. I apologize for casting you as the spiteful Slytherin back then. And I haven’t found anything wicked in your bed.” Hermione twinkled at her mate, “I am hoping for some from those paintings, though.” At her husband’s bemused expression, which was fast turning calculating, she hurriedly continued before she wound up back on their black sheets before evening, “I think we’d better get back to our discussion before we wind up flexing our wands again.”

“Very well,” he said, but his pale eyes held a gleam that made Hermione feel she had perhaps been a bit foolhardy in essentially daring her husband to bring something more adventurous to their lovemaking.

“So,” she said, trying to get back on track, “I wonder why the Veil dawdled so long after bringing us here to get us started.” Hermione rested both elbows on the table and put her chin in her hands. Her husband was very cute to look at. It was only when he got offended at her innocent observations that things sometimes got dodgy. Why should he get huffy at the plain fact that he deserved prison? He wasn’t evil incarnate, but neither was he Mary Poppins. Hermione didn’t feel like sugarcoating his past to make it more palatable.

“Dawdled? Oh, I don’t think so,” Lucius rejoined, yanking his mind off various scenarios for his wife’s bed sport. “If we assume the Veil is sentient and can enter our minds at will, it must have known we weren’t getting along so it fixed that. I’m beginning to feel a bit like a prize stallion presented with a mare in heat. You wouldn’t work with me unless we found a common ground and the Veil gave it to us. Sex. It’s creepy to think it could analyze us that efficiently.”

“Sex! I didn’t want sex. And especially not with you. I never thought of you as a prize anything. The Veil was dead wrong.” Hermione sat up straight, indignant.

“Bull feathers. You were cranked so tight the merest suggestion of physicality sent you over the edge.” Lucius smiled rather grimly, “Remember our first morning when you instantly assumed I had been touching your bosoms? You wanted it all right. And the Veil didn’t have to use tea leaves to divine what I would want after twelve years in prison.”

“You make it sound like I was a slab of meat handed to you on a platter.”

“Essentially true, my dear. And quite tasty, too, if memory serves,” Lucius grinned at the combination of bright red blush and reproving glower fighting for supremacy on his wife’s face. He sipped at his tea nonchalantly, “And it sounds as though you’ve now embraced your Veil’s philosophy of sex with me, for which I am grateful. So, do you still think your Veil is a force for good?”

“I don’t think the magical ancients built their artifact for pandering if that’s what you’re implying. Mankind has always done that quite well enough on it own,” Hermione scoffed, a bit unnerved by her wizard’s questionable conclusions about the Veil’s scope of operations. “However, it’s unpleasant to feel that my marriage may be nothing more than a subtly coerced means to some unknown end. Is that how you view our decision to marry? Was it purely to have ‘Hermione on the Hoof’?”

“I need to get this straight,” Lucius gibed back. “You married me for another reason than getting regular shagging from someone who knows your past and has a big dick? What happened to ‘no strings’? You specifically asked me that question and we agreed.” Lucius was beginning to get annoyed at being cast as the villain again in a situation neither of them had all the information for and he didn’t deserve.

“Well, yes, I suppose I did ask if our having sex could be ‘no strings’. But that didn’t include getting married. I could have had sex and not got married -” Hermione began, but was rudely cut off.

Lucius snorted, not very nicely, “Oh please, you would never have slept with me without that wedding ring on your finger. You say you would have, but we both know that’s not true. If we’re here in this time period for the rest of our lives, and I have no evidence that it will be otherwise, I preferred to stay with you, married or not married, but you would never have stayed with me if I was out every night screwing other women on the side because you wouldn’t sleep with me.”

“No, I certainly wouldn’t…uh, every…every night?” Hermione squeaked, looking a little dazed at the wizard’s assessment of their potential sex life.

“Most nights. Some days, too. I like sex. I like sex with you. What’s wrong with that?” Lucius’ eyes traveled down from his wife’s wide brown ones toward her breasts, enjoying the rise and fall of her increased respiratory pattern as she digested his expectations for their intimate relations.

“Uh, well, nothing I guess. Unless I’m not in the mood.” Hermione parried his assumption with a caveat of her own, suddenly feeling the bawdy brunt of her mate’s Slytherin propensities. Every night?

“It will be my responsibility to see that you get in the mood. I have no worries on that score. You’ve already intimated you would welcome more sex in a variety of ways. Marriage seems to agree with your libido,” Lucius waved away Hermione’s limitation. “So, is there anything else you’ve come up with on the Veil? If not, I have several pieces of business to attend to,” he started to rise, but was stopped by Hermione’s uttered, “Yes.” He sat again and leaned back in his chair.

“We need to know more about what reason or reasons the Veil has for sending us here. You assume it has something to do with the magic world massacre. I tend to agree. If that is true, we need to plot some plan of action to begin serving our purpose. I wonder if we will be given more information now that we’re a true team.” Hermione blushed a little at the way they had teamed up, but she focused her attention fixedly on her husband, “Have you been given any mental information or visions or clues?”

“No, have you?”

“No. And that worries me. We should be getting some transmissions or something to tell us what to do.”

“Not necessarily.” Lucius considered the problem some more, “If we’ve figured out that we’re the puppets of the Veil, that feeling or idea was probably placed in us to think or feel. So now we know we are supposed to fix the future. It is leaving the method up to us. We know about our world and its organization so the Veil probably thinks we are capable of carrying out the mission ourselves. Oh, Gods, now I’m sounding like a conspiracy theorist.” He saw Hermione begin to speak, “Yes, yes, I know. We’re alive in this time instead of dead and we keep getting weird information seeping into our brains. I remember. It’s still very hard to believe.”

“It won’t hurt to proceed as if it is true, will it?” his wife queried.

“I suppose not.”

“Well, then for starters, do you know anything about the Master? His name?”

tbc...

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The plot thickens (I'm twirling my fake moustache at this point). The plot is also getting involved, but time travel issues usually do. I'd love to see your responses in a review. Are you as confused as Lucius?

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