Prisoners of Love - A Mystery - COMPLETE

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Updated 7-8-07

Scary Bear Hair As I understand the geography, yes, Azkaban is in the North Sea. And you are getting a bit ahead of me as far as bunkmates go (heh, heh).

For the Snape-o-philes, Sheherazade asked if Snape will make an appearance. Yes, several. He shows up in some important scenes and also in some more informal ones.

And Sasha asked if Hermione is going to be taught how to do wandless magic. This depends on what 'wand' we are talking about. Actually she doesn't get around to learning that particular lesson from Lucius. Other things 'intrude'. (Gee, those puns are frisky today...)

To (not) answer questions about Hermione's situation, all will come clear in the next few chapters. And I didn't really want to write about them spending FIVE YEARS in a prison cell. So I didn't. (wink)


What is Lucius up to now?
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Chapter Three

See Spot and Run

Hermione really didn’t want Lucius’ finger anywhere near her body, especially the places the guards would find the most appealing. Thinking about him touching her body was having a strange, shivery effect on her. Very unpleasant, she assured herself. “Can’t you teach me how to make the sores?”

“Of course, I could,” he shrugged, “If you had two or three weeks to master the technique. I don’t think you have that much time, however. Two or three hours will be more like it.”

“Then we are back to my second question - again. What do you get out of it?” Hermione crossed her arms under the dusty blanket and glared at the blond wizard.

Lucius was ready with his answer now, “For the present, I get to keep an attractive cellmate instead of having a less desirable male felon introduced into my cramped living space. We have nearly five long years of this forced intimacy. Therefore, unless you plan on taking religious orders my future looks, shall we say, promising?” Lucius saw her eyes widen in alarm and sought to reassure her somewhat, “I’m not interested in forcing you, although if you’d been put in with any other male I think your cellmate would already be asking, ‘Was it good for you?’ and having a post-coital smoke.”

Lucius paused to let Hermione think that over, then he continued, “I have several plans in train and I’m beginning to believe you can be of great assistance with your quick mind.” Lucius sat up straight to gain her full attention, “But I wish to make it perfectly clear that your mind is not ALL I’ve an interest in. We’ll leave it there for now, I think.”

Hermione wanted to leave that idea ‘there’ forever, but cringed at the inescapable future she wouldn’t be able to avoid unless a miracle occurred. She sought to redirect the conversation away from her potential, surely unpleasant fate by scoffing, “What plans can you possibly have sitting in a small square cell in the middle of the North Sea?”

“All in good time, my dear little tidbit. For now we have a few other details to manage before we rest – in our own cots, for now. The day’s supper will be delivered soon and you need to start looking sick. Shall I visit your cot or shall you come to me?” Lucius relaxed back against his wall waiting for Hermione to make up her mind whether she wanted him to invade her space or she was willing to enter his. In their tiny, shared area of living, one’s space was all-important and Lucius knew she had to decide for herself. It would also tell him a great deal about her inner feelings about him and their evolving relationship.

Hermione pondered which avenue she should choose. She was a little shocked at how important that decision was, whether to go to him or have him come to her. Inviting him to her cot meant she would be in her own territory, as it were, operating from an invisible power base – her space. However, it would also be giving him permission to enter her private space – something not easy to retract once given. On the other hand, if she went to him, the opposite would hold true. He would be operating from his power base and she would be given tacit permission to enter his space for the future. She chose to have him come to her.

Lucius accepted her invitation and rose, his tall, trim, well-formed body causing a sudden flurry of irregular heartbeats to disrupt Hermione’s breathing as he adroitly settled in beside her on her cot, avoiding the dusty blanket.

While he had gained an advantage, earning a rather tenuous right to enter her space again if he wished, he also understood that she was going to retain all the power she possibly could in their limited environs. She was not as interested in him as he was in her – yet. He hadn’t really expected anything more so quickly, especially from someone with years of animosity built up against him. But giving her a set of designer disease spots was a start. Was her slight flinching at his sudden nearness good - or bad? The experienced wizard thought it could be a positive sign as she soon settled back again rather closer.

“I can’t just put a few on your face, my dear. But I think you know that. Since that fuzzy abomination is all that you apparently have on, we’ll need to add more spots in less visible places in case an ill-natured guard insists on checking you over. Your voluminous gown will make an examination all too easy, I’m afraid. But one guard seeing your loathsome rash should be enough to scare off the others. Shall we start with your legs?”

Hermione wrestled with her reluctance and finally lifted her nightgown to her knees, looking at Lucius in pugnacious surrender. Oh, she didn’t want to do this. It was the start down a very slippery slope, accepting the physical touch of a man she would have to live with for years.

Lucius immediately began planning where to put her spots. The closer to any enjoyable areas the better for her to frighten one of those idiots away. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on the spell he wanted to produce, then he looked briefly at Hermione and began. He used his index finger, as he had shown her earlier, and pressed it into her skin, twisting it a bit while he focused on the spot, and energy flowed through his digit onto the surface of her flesh. A nasty open sore appeared at the place his finger pressed. “I think some of the sores should be bigger than the others. I’ll draw a small circle occasionally to make a larger edition of your disease, but mostly they’ll be smaller. What do you think of that one?” He was rather proud of his handiwork, while mourning the defacement of such lovely youthful skin.

“It doesn’t hurt! It looks like it should hurt a lot.” She ran her finger over the spot and felt a nasty oozing lump, but her finger came away absolutely dry. “Amazing! I can see why you’re wearing the cuffs. You’re a very dangerous man, aren’t you?” Her nose crinkled in thought, “This isn’t transfiguration?”

“No, only an illusion spell. I need to hurry before supper. The sun is getting lower, see the window?” Lucius hiked up her nightgown farther than she had done, and began planting sores in artistic array, slowly marching up her legs to mid-thigh. “Turn on your side.” When Hermione demurred, he coaxed determinedly, “Let me get on with it. The guard will be here any minute.”

Hermione lay down on her side and felt Lucius slip her nightgown up past her bum as she held down the front. She had been telling the truth – no knickers. Lucius swallowed nervously and forged ahead. His finger found several more places on her buttocks, back, and finally her shoulders. He replaced the gown and pulled her up. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to do the front, too. That’s even more important. It’s much more likely the guard will lift the front of your gown than the back. I know I would in his place.”

Hermione clucked her disapproval of his degenerate disposition but rolled onto her back and lifted the skirt up to mid-thigh, holding onto the material firmly with both hands.

“Dammit, the female body’s not new material to me. I can get this done in a couple of minutes, but do hurry.” Lucius was feeling a bit disoriented, waiting for Hermione to show him what had been hidden under all that horrid flannel. The nightgown itself had been enough to make him want to take religious orders, but what was under it was affecting him more as a religious experience.

It had been four very long months. This was perhaps the stupidest idea he’d ever had. Getting to see and touch a lovely young woman’s body for two minutes and then being expected to retreat to his empty side of the room – Merlin’s balls, stupid didn’t even begin to describe the corner he had painted himself into with his clever brain. Thank the Gods his prison garb hid the embarrassing evidence of his idiocy. And he had thought the guards were dumb!

Hermione said in a whisper, “Okay. Hurry up.” And she raised her gown to her neck.

Lucius sucked in a silent breath. Sweet Goddess, he was the most incredibly stupid man in the hemisphere. She was perfection. He gawked like any inexperienced schoolboy, saved only by the fact that Hermione had closed her eyes in embarrassment. Then he saw the bruises on the little witch’s breasts where someone had squeezed roughly. Fire flashed from the dark wizard’s eyes and he was suddenly boiling over with an almost ungovernable rage. If he ever found out which guard had done that to his tidbit, they weren’t going to collect any pension checks.

Lucius snapped out of his trance calming himself when he saw Hermione’s irritated wiggle, and he quickly dotted her front with more disgusting spots. Each place he touched he wanted to kiss instead of mar. He started to sweat, but made an artistic collection of the sores all over her poor, abused breasts and belly. It was almost more than he could take putting a few just above her mons, she was so dainty and feminine. Lucius pulled her gown down himself, trying not to give himself away with his harsh breathing. He stood up and quickly sat on his own cot again, looking blasé on the outside while his heart nearly pounded itself out of his chest.

Before they could look each other in the eyes, the door locks were dismantled and Ben, one of the guards, came in with supper, giving the first portion to Lucius and going back outside to retrieve the other meal from the cart. Lucius looked at Hermione and realized he hadn’t planted any spots on her face. He quickly returned to her cot and pressed three on her cheeks before skating back to his side, just before the guard returned. When Ben handed Hermione her tray, he stared intently at her, but almost immediately recoiled.

“What happened to your face? It wasn’t like that before."

“Um, I’m not sure. Are there any diseases here?” She raised her dress to show her legs to the guard. “I’ve been feeling a bit nauseous too. Like I want to throw up.” Hermione did a bit of dry retching and Ben backed away. “You stay here.” The guard left hurriedly, locking the door.

Hermione looked at Lucius sardonically, “And where else am I going to go?”

Lucius smiled weakly and surveyed his meal, attempting to put the delectable memory of Hermione’s lithe young body out of his mind so he wouldn’t keep refueling his libido and his erection - and his temper - with her rosy skin and those delicious, firm, high, maltreated breasts with the coral tips that made him want to flip her onto her back again so he could taste them and caress them and remove the pain. The supper tray hid the worst of his secret, but he kept his knees bent as an additional precaution. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Soon thereafter another, bigger, guard named Jax returned with Ben and together they dragged Hermione out of the cell, closing and locking the door behind them. Lucius went to the door and tried to listen for any noises and was rewarded by the little spitfire calling them all the names she’d probably been saving up for him. The yelling abruptly stopped with the sound of another door closing close by. If they were going to actually hurt her, they would have taken her out of the cell block. No, it was likely the broom closet which Lucius himself had used on occasion in his nighttime perambulations around the prison.

Lucius returned to his cot and lifted his spoon confident of the success of his plan, but his hand shook and he realized he was still boiling mad. Within three minutes the lock on his cell was opened again and Hermione landed on the stone floor at his feet, thrown there by the bigger guard with a growl of thwarted male irritation.

“So,” Lucius obliquely commended his feisty little accomplice without asking for particulars, “one problem taken care of. Now I’d like to talk to you about your trial. You said you were falsely accused and the Council tried and convicted you extremely quickly?” He wasn’t sure he could be sanguine about her treatment if he had to discuss it with her and he also wanted to get her mind off her latest ordeal for both their sakes. She was whiter than the grimy sheet on her cot. He tried to calm his own rage to a controllable level so he didn’t scare her any more than she’d been subjected to already.

Hermione checked one elbow where she had grazed it on the central drain in the rough stone floor as she shakily picked herself up, settled back on her cot and picked up her tray, more to have something to focus on than because she was hungry; she was thankful Lucius hadn’t touched her and wasn’t asking her about any particulars, but her body was taking a while to stop the uncontrolled shivering from her ‘almost’ assault.

“Yes,” she finally managed, trying to concentrate on his question, “that’s right. They had a couple of witnesses whom I’ve never seen before testify I was stealing secrets and selling them to Muggles. That’s patently absurd. What secrets would the Muggles want about us anyway? They don’t even really believe in magic or magic folk.”

“Does it not occur to you that your arrest and conviction were quite extraordinary? I find the entire scenario very odd. In fact, it’s more dubious than Gilderoy Lockhart’s legerdemain. I had wondered if you were sent into Azkaban to spy on me?” Lucius was feeling a little calmer now that he could see his tidbit wasn’t hurt except for the mental trauma, but he couldn’t do anything about that and so continued to distract her mind with an accusation of spying.

Hermione glowered at him, “A little full of ourselves aren’t we?”

“Not at all,” Lucius said between bites of his unappetizing but still slightly warm supper of grayish mystery meat and sodden potatoes. “Actually, if they had sent you in to spy on me, I would have thought quite a bit more of their collective intelligence. Sadly, that is not the case. They continue to be the short-sighted, obsequious, bumbling clods they’ve always been at the Ministry.”

He looked over at Hermione, waved his spoon toward her and warned the little witch, seeing she was completely disenchanted with her meal, “I haven’t died from the food yet, but it is a long time between this meal and lunch tomorrow. My suggestion is that you eat the food before it gets entirely cold. Congealed grease is a lot harder to eat than warm grease.” Lucius went back to his own food, finishing it off in short order.

As she watched, he touched his tray and the illusion of his spoon appeared next to the real one and Lucius took the real spoon, pocketing it before laying the tray on the bed beside him. He drank the water provided with the tray, washing the whole unpalatable meal from the inside of his mouth with all the appearance of having lovingly swished then swallowed a full-bodied, fine wine.

Hermione reluctantly selected a piece of limp potato, chewed quickly on it and swallowed, trying to ignore the repellant flavor of fishy aftertaste. She stared at the meat, wondering if her stomach would rebel. Now she really was feeling nauseous, but with Lucius watching her, she ate each bite, gulping it down her throat before it got too much of a hold on her taste buds. The water was more of a quandary. If she drank it, she would likely be back on the bucket before long, but she realized in mute resignation that the food was going to send her there anyway, so she quaffed the clear liquid in trepidation, but this water was clean and flavorless, a decided improvement over the rest of the meal.

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Here's where that dratted author makes her pitch again. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE review. (Too strong a hint, do you think? Maybe I should leave out one of the PLEASES...Naaah, you guys can take it.)
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