A New Order of Wizards - COMPLETE

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Updated 11-15-06

Anathema - What a profound compliment. My goodness - thank you.

Ladytalon - when you actually DO write a crappy review I'll let you know, but so far you only make my day - you wrote, "the Lucius we all know and love is a bigoted bastard"- so TRUE!!
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Chapter Twenty-Six – Mixing Colors


Lucius lost no time in tracking down his wife by way of the elves. She was visiting Ginny and might not be home for hours. That wasn’t good enough for Lucius. He apparated outside the Potter residence and waited for admittance. The door opened and Hermione stood there. She had answered the door for Ginny who hadn’t wanted to haul herself to her feet if it could be avoided.


“Lucius!” Hermione stepped outside and closed the door, “What are you doing here? Are you okay? What’s wrong? Should you be out of the house? How are you feeling? You know I’m worried sick about your health and that’s not very much fun when I’m also throwing up every morning.” She grabbed his arms and shook him, “Well, say something!”


“If I could get a word in edgewise, I would.”


Lucius looked exasperated and Hermione had never seen anything so wonderful as his normal, irritated face.


“I want you home. I need to talk to you.” He could see that he was alarming her so he sought to mitigate her anxiety, “I just need to discuss something with you and I don’t want to wait. It’s not anything to upset you. But I want you home now.” Lucius stood and waited for Hermione to say good-bye to Ginny, then they apparated home to Lucius’ study. Crookshanks yowled at Lucius for having left him, then hopped down from the desk and stalked to the door waiting regally for one of them to let him out. He flounced out past Hermione with his tail in the air.


Lucius steered his wife to the sofa and sat her down beside him. “Draco came to see me today.”


Hermione said, “I hope you weren’t nasty to him. He has to live his own life as he sees fit. His choices may not be yours, but he’s an adult and can decide for himself what he wants.”


“They are,” Lucius said defensively, resenting her little castigating speech.


“Huh? What are?” Hermione stopped midtirade, confused.


“Pay attention, Hermione. His choices are my choices. I saw my new grandson. Did you know Draco named his baby after me?” Lucius suddenly smiled and Hermione worried that he had finally gone over the edge.


“Uh, that’s wonderful, Lucius. But why are you happy about it, knowing that the baby is a Halfblood?” Hermione couldn’t understand Lucius’ mindset, it wasn’t normal. “Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe you should lie down here on the sofa for a while.”


Lucius belatedly picked up on Hermione’s comment about her morning sickness. “Are you okay? Perhaps you should be lying down.” Lucius felt a little awkward sitting with this vibrant, petite, young woman who had his child in her womb - awkward and apprehensive and a little depressed still, but also a little excited and…proud…but…but… of his virility, that was all.


“I’m fine. Well, after I throw up every morning I’m fine. The doctor says it’s very common. I should be through with it after the first three months or so.” Hermione needed to touch Lucius so she put her hand on his forearm and held onto him. She liked to think about him lately in little fantasies where he actually wanted her and their baby. But sadly, that’s all they were, fantasies. She drank in her husband’s nearness, happy and relieved to have him out and around again, but knew he had something important to talk about. “So why did you drag me away from Ginny’s? What did Draco have to say?”


Lucius turned his arm and took Hermione’s hand in his. “Draco made me see that I can only go forward, but it isn’t such a disastrous direction. I think you know that the idea of Purebloods as sole magical people was a closely held wish of mine.” He held up his hand when Hermione would have spoken. “Draco showed me that things aren’t always black and white. Room exists in the world for gray. After all, gray is a mix of both black and white, having both qualities inside it. The original colors aren’t lost, they’re just melded. Everything is still there, just combined. Everything is still there.”


“These colors are just a metaphor for something else, aren’t they? Draco has never cared about color schemes. Are you talking about his new baby?”


“Gods, Hermione, that baby looks exactly like Draco did when he was born. His wife has black hair but the baby is pure Malfoy in looks. I’ve always hated the idea of diluting my bloodline. I always wanted only Purebloods for my family. I guess I feared adulterating my bloodline would make it completely disappear, but it didn’t happen. In a thousand years, Malfoy genes were only mixed with other Pureblood genes. We never put it to the test of mixing with any other genes. Until Draco’s baby.” Lucius sighed, “I guess what I’m saying is, it helps relieve my ingrained fear and animosity because Apollo still looks superficially like a Malfoy. Preposterous thinking, I know. Why should looks count? I think I’m grabbing for crumbs of comfort in a situation I can’t control or change.”


Hermione laughed, “Here’s another crumb for you, then. Lucius, did it never occur to you that in a thousand years some Malfoy wife in your exalted family might have stepped outside your hallowed bloodlines and maybe got knocked up by a handsome Halfblood or Muggleborn on the side, adding an ersatz Malfoy? A thousand years, Lucius. That much saintly behavior boggles the mind, it truly does. If the straying wife was smart, she stuck with blond lovers.”

Lucius sat back and stared in consternation at his wife. Then he slowly smiled, “How very shallow of me to take comfort in possible adultery in my family tree.” He relaxed, taking in the innovative idea of clandestine Muggle blood dotted all over his bloodline. “But perversely, I guess I do take comfort in it. However, Draco also made me see what I should have seen before. I just wanted you to know right away I’m interested in this,” Lucius put a hand on Hermione’s belly.


Hermione froze, not willing to believe what Lucius was trying to tell her. “Interested in this, how exactly? A few weeks ago the thought of ‘this’ flipped you into depression. You weren’t even interested in sex, so it must have been bad.”


“I was faced with a final defeat, something I never accept graciously. Apparently, I don’t do well with failure. That shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Sometimes I wonder if you know me better than I know myself. That has me shaking in my shoes.” He removed his hand from her belly and took her other hand in his, gathering them together, and stroking them in an unspoken overture of supplication.


Hermione both felt and heard his subtle attempts to mend his fences with her and her heart lightened. She agreed that sometimes she did know him better than he did, but she didn’t say so. What a difficult, complex man – and he suited her right down to her shoes. But he didn’t deserve to find his way out of her bad graces quite yet. “I recognize your attitude toward failure from years of Hogwarts with Draco. It was the severity of your reaction that surprised me, not the reaction itself. It was always obvious to me you would hate the reality of a baby with me.”


“And now that I’ve seen my grandson, things have changed. I may still hate the edict, but I can’t hate the baby, neither his nor yours – uh, ours. By the time it’s born, I may even be looking forward to it,” Lucius cautiously offered. “But having another child at my age is a bit daunting.”


“Believe me, having a child at any age is daunting. I’m scared silly. I’m going to be someone’s mother. That’s frightening.”


“I never had any fears about that at least. You’ll make a perfect mother.” Lucius eyed Hermione, noting her slightly fuller face. He wondered what else was fuller. Deciding to find out, he said, “Perhaps I should lie down.” He leaned so far over Hermione that her back hit the sofa cushion. Lucius scooped up her legs and settled between them, snuggling his groin into hers.


“No!” Hermione wiggled out from under her husband and stood up. “I’m not letting you touch me until the doctor says it’s okay. And I haven’t seen you for three weeks except at dinner, you jerk. You never even asked for me while you were ill. I realize I’m just a commodity to you, a walking, talking sex toy, but even I have some dignity and you’ve hurt me. Imagine that! The Mudblood has feelings.” Hermione did her best to glare at her obviously recovering dark wizard, if the bulge in the front of his trousers was any indication, while trying not to go all mushy over the ‘perfect mother’ compliment.


“Well,” Lucius intoned, admirably keeping a somber face for skirmishing purposes, “obviously I blamed you for becoming pregnant. You were the one who nagged and nagged until I unleashed my full sexual proclivities for you - not that you’ve seen them all, by the way. You initially seduced me. I was totally innocent.” Lucius hoped Hermione would never find out about the contraceptive potions. “You researched my weak points, wearing that outfit that inflamed me into shaming my family lineage by impregnating you. Surely you can see that it was all your fault?” Lucius was thoroughly enjoying himself. “However, if you want the reassurance, I can tell you that you make an excellent sex toy, the best one I’ve ever had, actually, and that group runs up into the thousands. Now, are you absolutely certain that you need to have the doctor’s permission to screw me? If so, I’ll send for him right now to bless our union.” As his confidence had rebounded so had his interest in and constant need for sex – with her. Lucius piously looked up at Hermione who was standing with her mouth dropped open in shock. He was trying to keep a straight face while watching her build to an explosion. He’d really missed their verbal fencing.


“Me? You blame me? This isn’t the Immaculate Conception, you… you… blond bimbo! Thousands? What a liar. If you’d had thousands of sex toys, your butt and back would be nothing but memories, whittled down to bone. And furthermore, I certainly don’t remember you protesting my suggestion we have sex,” Hermione defended herself vigorously, enjoying every minute of having her obnoxious husband back. “So remind me, did you protest the sex before or after you showed me how to give you a blow job? How could I have nagged you with my mouth full of cock?” Gods, she loved their verbal slugfests. No one else could match him for challenging her wit for wit, with the same intelligence and fast-paced digs. She’d missed him so much.


Lucius asked mournfully, “Aren’t you relieved that I’m finally showing some interest in sex again? It must have worried you when I wasn’t. It certainly worried me.” It was one area where he had always excelled, and he knew he was spectacular at it, but it was less due to his stamina than because he always concentrated so thoroughly on his partners, tuning in to their bodies as carefully as he did his own. Right now he could see his wife was hugely enjoying herself. “I’m only trying to put your mind at ease, knowing I’m more than capable in the bedroom again.” Lucius tried for virtuous, but overshot the innocent look, instead projecting shifty.


“Lucius,” Hermione gave him a pitying smile, “I think your grief has affected your mind. When did you become so transparent?”


“Don’t forget horny, will you? I’m definitely that too. Isn’t there something in your Muggle religious book about wives having to put out for their husbands? I’m sure it covers that subject in there somewhere.”


“How gross. You aren’t supposed to use scripture to get laid.”


“Well, so far nothing else seems to be working. I thought I’d call on a higher power.”


Hermione gave up. She happily wriggled onto Lucius’ suspiciously lumpy lap and pulled his lips to hers showing him how much she’d missed him. Lucius found several places that Hermione was fuller over the next two hours; the most interesting was her breasts. Initially, she was hesitant about letting Lucius touch them because they were tender lately. But Lucius knew how to make his touch soothing instead of hurting, and he soon had her flat on her back with her blouse up around her neck as he gently massaged away the soreness. When he ducked his head down and began a sweet assault on each of her turgid nipples with his lips and tongue, she decided to forgive him for not asking for her while he was ill. Instead she idly sifted her fingers through his soft, pale hair, spreading it over her breasts in loving contentment. His dynasty was dead, but his technique was alive and well, and being put to very good use.


Lucius luxuriated in her lush additions, savoring her familiar scents and tastes as he relearned her beautiful, fuller breasts. His body knew hers so well by now that he was able to confidently touch, sip, lick and kiss every inch of her, making her crazy as he slipped her clothes off, piece by piece, focusing on all the fine details that he knew she craved. He never did apologize to her in words, but she didn't ask it of him because she easily recognized it in his gentle and somehow more profound lovemaking.
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Please, no brickbats because Hermione didn't cut off his nuts over his self-imposed seclusion. To me it wasn't appropriate, so I went in another direction. Don't worry - she'll come out ahead in the long-run...