A New Order of Wizards - COMPLETE

The characters belong to J.K.Rowling. I am only borrowing them for a while. No copyright transgressions are intended and no profit is made.
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Chapter Three - Lucius and Hermione


Hermione reluctantly entered the study where Lucius sat going over his investments. She had to admit the man knew his money. He was sitting at his carved oak desk near a window that looked out onto the back gardens. Sometimes she saw him staring out at the greenery lost in thought. But today he was poring over some parchment at his desk, tapping his quill absently, completely involved in his task. Hermione’s traitorous cat, Crookshanks, was sprawled out at the edge of Lucius’ desk, his eyes gleaming as he followed the flicking of the quill. He knew better than to actually attack it. He’d be shown the door instantly. But he could watch. Lucius was oblivious of the cat’s presence, being immersed in his calculations. He’d come to terms with the feline months ago about territory. Crookshanks was welcome anywhere but Lucius’ bedroom, or Hermione’s bedroom if he was in it, and the dining room.


Today, Lucius’ hair was pulled back neatly into a black ribbon tied in a tidy bow to keep it out of the way when he bent over his papers. He wore an informal black silk shirt with his black trousers. Hermione sighed. What was it about black and this man, anyway? Surely he’d look just as nice in a soft blue once in a while? She shook her head, Omigosh, I’m going soft in the head. Why on earth am I contemplating dressing Lucius? It’s this place. I’m starting to succumb to this overblown atmosphere. Hermione cleared her throat, summoning Lucius’ attention to her.


He turned from his desk and regarded his wife with his usual animosity, seeing a small Muggleborn female in a pink sundress. Was the pink dress for him? Why? It wasn’t anywhere near her usual outfit of jeans and a loose tee shirt. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, my dear?” Lucius offered her his usual, bored look but he was suspicious of her motives in coming to his study. The quill kept tapping, but now it was from irritation. He was trying not to remember he had to provide his weekly sperm tonight and her appearance had shattered the mood of contentment he always got from seeing how well his investments were doing.


Hermione stiffened at his contemptuous sarcasm. She wandered over to the desk, petted Crookshanks, and stepped across the priceless Aubusson rug to the window to look out on the gorgeous blooms in the afternoon sun. Reluctantly she turned to regard her husband at his desk; she tried to look relaxed by lounging on the windowsill. “I want a reprieve from tonight. I want to put it off until tomorrow night instead.”

Lucius rolled his eyes in disgust. That explained the pink dress. “You know very well we are at the end of the allotted week. We’ve put it off all we can. Why do you need to put it off for a day, anyway?”


“I think I’m getting my period.” Hermione was lying, but she just couldn’t face going through the intimate emotional upheaval tonight.


“When have I ever cared about that? And you are not getting your period. You aren’t due for another several days at least. You are regular as clockwork so don’t try to lie your way out of sex. It isn’t even a very good lie, so maybe you are sickening for something.” Lucius offered an insincere smile, “Why don’t you take a sleeping potion and I could do my duty while you are unconscious?” Lucius had tried this avenue before, knowing it was no use. But he did love setting her off, making her as irritated as she made him. His little wife had to be awake and alert to know they had complied or the Ministry would be down on them with sanctions. Expensive sanctions. Why empty his vaults at Gringott’s into the Ministry’s greedy hands when he could spend a few moments in an unpleasant exercise and save a great deal of money?


He admitted to himself that the exercise wasn’t that onerous. He was a man, wasn’t he? And he wasn’t required to mate with someone who was a complete troll, just a sharp-tongued shrew. But their weekly bedtime sessions were rather boring. A year of brief couplings were completely unsatisfying to him and almost not worth the effort, if not for the sanctions and his need to have some kind of release for himself occasionally that didn’t include his own hand.


Hermione rolled her eyes in turn, blushing at his knowledge of her periods. “Why do you keep trying to get me to take a potion? Are you slow or something? You know I can’t. Or are you a closet necrophiliac? Kinky, Lucius.” Hermione had the pleasure of seeing Lucius’ temper rising. That always gave her a perverse pleasure. “So we don’t have one more day? Damn.”


“No we don’t. Why can’t you take a bit of responsibility for knowing the schedule? If I left it up to you we’d be paupers within a month. Abstinence costs a great deal of money, none of which you are earning, I might add.” Lucius tacked on snidely, “Although the duty sex is about as interesting as abstinence.”


Hermione flushed at his crude comments. “You get what you make of it, Malfoy, and you don’t make much of anything. A few grunts and it’s over. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner I get pregnant, the sooner you can stop doing your duty,” Hermione retaliated, her voice dripping vitriol.

“And this helps me how?” Lucius said witheringly. “While I have to service you once a week until you get pregnant, after you get pregnant, you are saying I needn’t touch you at all? You do realize that with these anklets on all Purebloods, I am not able to touch anyone else, even after you conceive. I’m not given any freedom to enjoy sex with anyone else in case the person I sleep with is a Pureblood. Can’t have any new little Purebloods created, can we?” Lucius spelled it out, “I’m afraid sex with me is not going to end when you get pregnant. You are my sole outlet, unfortunate as it is for me. Why should I give you any satisfaction in bed? You’re just there to make little Malfoy slash Mudbloods. Why should I make it pleasant for you?”


Hermione smoothed her hand down her skirt, looking a little conscious at his bitterness. “I’m not in much better case than you, you know. I only get freedom to have sex with someone else while I’m pregnant. Not a big draw to attract the attention of another man when I look like a walking cauldron.”


“You think you are free to have sex with someone else while you’re pregnant?” Lucius was honestly surprised. “Were you hoping to screw your pet Weasley? Isn’t he married off to some Muggleborn of his own? Ron’s Pureblood too, so he can’t sleep with anyone but his Muggleborn wife either. Unless his friendship with the Potter dictator has given him a free pass.” Lucius stared narrowly at his wife, “Or do you have a particular four-eyed dictator in your sights?”


“I don’t have anyone in my sights,” retorted Hermione hotly. “If you didn’t have to wear that anklet you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be tomcatting up one side of Knockturn Alley and down the other.”


Lucius looked pleased at continuing to rile his wife. Really, he thought, sniping at each other is the only amusing pastime left to us. At least she’s intelligent enough to be a worthwhile opponent. He smiled coldly, trying to look like he would have done just what she was accusing him of, when the reality was he’d rather cut off his hair than touch any of the filthy inhabitants of that back alley cesspool. But would he take his pleasures somewhere else now if he could? He was barred from sleeping with anyone but his wife, especially any Purebloods. Could he even contemplate sleeping with yet another Mudblood? No, one was more than enough for him. Lucius shuddered mentally.


“Perhaps,” Lucius pontificated with deliberate malice, looking down his nose at his little upstart wife, “I should make myself absolutely clear about the arrangements for our domestic bliss. I will not permit your consorting sexually with anyone else while you are married to me, pregnant or not. If this edict stays in effect for our lifetime, then you’d better get used to being in my bed. If you find any pleasure in sex from now on it will have to be with me. Under me, on top of me, facing me, facing away, it will always be me.” Lucius was getting a little warm from the conversation.


“How absolutely vulgar. Although the facing away part does appeal. I can pretend you’re someone else. Someone younger.” Hermione knew where to aim her darts.


“And I can pretend that …oh, Goddess, I can never pretend you’re anything but a worthless Mudblood, a piece of trash polluting my mansion. I’ll see you in my bedroom one hour after dinner, as usual.” Lucius sighed and returned to his investments, ignoring Hermione completely. Crookshanks yawned.


Hermione straightened up from the windowsill and moved toward the door. She felt the honors had gone rather equally in that round. Blood drawn on both sides. But the initial euphoria of going head to head with someone who could sling insults as well as she, was losing its entertainment value. Hermione walked out of Lucius’ study and apparated to her rooms deeply in thought. She was in a separate wing from his apartments. He had set it up that way when she had moved in, telling her he wanted to see her as little as possible.


Lucius waited until she had left and then took an old-fashioned brass key from his shirt pocket and unlocked a bottom drawer in his desk. He removed a small flask and drank the contents in one swallow. Severus was brewing contraceptive potions and selling them on the sly to the Purebloods who wanted to keep from impregnating their Mudblood or Halfblood wives. So far, Hermione hadn’t thought too much of the fact she hadn’t conceived yet, but it had been a year. Unfortunately, he had already fathered Draco, so he was known to be potent. He gazed out the window and mused on the possibility of blaming Hermione for their lack of breeding success. That might work. Who could say for sure who was at fault for these things? All he knew for certain was that he could have floated the entire Durmstrang ship on all the contraceptive potions he’d been downing in the last year. He grimaced at the taste; Gods, that stuff was terrible. Lucius grabbed for his leather decanter of scotch to kill the lingering aftertaste. When he looked back at his desk, his quill sat mangled with tiny teeth marks.