Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 2-11-08


Thank you all for the thoughtful reviews. They are very much appreciated.


A bit of reader feedback if you were wondering -


Even though I finish my story before I start posting it, most of you who have gone along for the ride on other stories know that my story isn’t really ever finished until the final chapter is posted. So many of your comments and questions in the past have changed, added to, or enhanced my stories, that I know this one truly isn’t a final product at this point. Your reviews may spark a plot point and I wind up adding more prose, sometimes whole chapters. So while I have a story ready to tell, it always becomes better with your input.


That is one reason I put up the story chapter by chapter although it is already nominally done. The other reason is more venal. This story was very complex to put together and it took me six months to complete it. I love to write the stories, but I adore getting the reviews. You as my readers spur me on to writing my next story (which I’ve already started) with your reviews of this one. Think of your reviews not only as polishers for this story, but fuel for completing the next one. Your reviews are my joy and I hope you continue to enjoy my tales and much as I enjoy your feedback.


Now – to some questions:


Utopia – Hermione’s nearly 31 and Lucius is now 56, about twenty-five years her senior as in the books. He was in prison twelve years but it took more than a year for the dust to settle after the battle and for him to be tried and sentenced to Azkaban. His clothing will be explained as (I hope) will Hermione’s resistance to killing. You’ve thought out some of the problems I faced.

Ravenna – Correct. This is post-Voldemort by at least thirteen years. Times have changed and beliefs have softened.

Sheherazade – Thank you for your reticence. 8-)


FlowersBecomeScreens – excellent. **winks**

Damiana – You too. Excellent.

Scary Bear Hair – Spike! And he wanted the hot chocolate with the little marshmallows LOL (Sorry folks, just an errant Buffy the Vampire Slayer moment…)

Now on to Chapter Three…

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Chapter Three


A Cowlick

Early birdsong woke Lucius up. “Damned twittering…!” the blond wizard mumbled, opening his eyes to a pale, slightly foggy dawn, the air clean and fresh-smelling with the promise of a beautiful day beginning, except for the noise of those pesky, featherbrained birds filling the meadow with their irritating trills and caws and… moos?

Lucius cautiously lifted his head and noticed for the first time that he was curled around and rather on top of another body. A tiny, warm body burrowed nearly under him, whose breath was currently bathing the side of his face in pleasantly balmy gusts of warm air. His little companion was still fast asleep, wrapped snugly in his jacket and tucked under him, her legs firmly sandwiched between his own.

The clear air had a whisper of a breeze flowing across the meadow, disturbing Lucius’ long, white blond locks and flicking the ends into his face. When he idly reached to pull his hair out of his eyes, he discovered it was damp with morning dew. Looking more carefully down the length of his overcoat, he saw it also was sprinkled with diminutive, sparkly drops of dew, which had gathered there in the predawn. He supposed they were lucky it hadn’t rained the night before, but it was time to wake up and assess their new circumstances.

Just then a curious cow was drawn to Lucius’ movements and slowly meandered over to the unfamiliar lump in the grass intent only on smelling whether or not it was food put out for the taking. One end of the lump had a pale bit of something that looked like it could be hay and the cow increased its rolling gait.

Lucius turned and saw the stupid behemoth bearing down on them and from the instinct bred into all magic folk from youth, he grabbed for his wand – which was somewhere in an inside pocket of his overcoat. Muttering an impressive array of curses, Lucius finally found his wand in a pocket lying directly over a soft breast and lifted his hand, now armed to repel the beast stepping way too closely to their makeshift bower.

Several things happened at once. A gasp emerged from under him followed by a surprisingly strong push, the cow lowered its head to taste the interesting hay on the stranger’s head, wetting Lucius’ hair even more as it was licked backward from his face causing him to automatically protect himself with a jolt from his wand, a miniature hand connected with his cheek, and a screech blasted him when Hermione got her first glimpse of a cow standing over them.

The cow took offense at the small red charge that hit its flank and the racket coming from one of the strangers, moving away rather faster than it had come and Hermione simultaneously dove into Lucius’ arms and clung to the lecherous monster who had been touching her breast while she slept.

Lucius shook off his petite feminine limpet and held her out from his chest, “What the fricking hell were you doing, slapping me like that?” He shook her like a little rag doll, angry with his stinging face, his cow-licked hair and most of all the tiny batterer being treated to a taste of his uneven temper.

“Is it gone?” Hermione tried to look around, but was being jostled so much she couldn’t focus. “Stop it, you degenerate old goat,” Hermione’s voice came out all wobbly from the shaking she was taking.

“Old? OLD? I’m not old. And what in sweet hell are you calling me a degenerate for? Are you some kind of dried up prissy knickers who can’t be anywhere near a male without thinking you’re going to be ravished? I’m quite certain you have nothing to be concerned over, with your unimpressive array of mediocre attractions,” Lucius said unkindly, incensed at her stinging description of him.

Lucius let go of his unwanted associate to feel what damage the idiot cow had done to his hair. His hand came away wet and a little slimy with a distinct odor of crushed grass. By this time, the sun had cut through the morning fog and had made a bright showing and the meadow was seen to be a large, roughly circular plot of mostly grass and some tiny yellow flowers with a small copse of trees on one side and a lane on the other. A short, railed fence ran along the lane, probably to keep the cows in so they didn’t wander away.

The irritated wizard scanned for any signs of habitation; they were definitely somewhere in the countryside – but what country? He used his wand to clean up his hand and then aimed a spell at his hair attempting to clean it up too, returning his wand to its pocket in the overcoat.

Hermione saw Lucius put his wand away in the coat pocket and realized perhaps he hadn’t been feeling her up after all. Maybe he was trying to protect them both from the cow. She could feel an embarrassed blush staining her cheeks as she watched him rise to his feet, shaking out his overcoat in preparation for putting it back on.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy, I owe you an apology.”

Lucius looked down at the red-cheeked little witch wondering what she was on about now. “For slapping me? For pushing me and making me use my wand on that stupid cow when I was only going to make a noise in front of it? Better run after the cow and apologize to it, too, then.”

He snapped open his coat and began shrugging a pair of very nice shoulders into the woolen garment, “Why on earth did you slap me anyway? Did you have a bad dream?”

“I…uh…I woke up and thought you were touching my bosoms,” she said meekly. “I see now that you were only getting out your wand,” Hermione added in a hurry as she saw him stare at her.

Lucius froze for a minute with his second arm halfway into his overcoat, then he did something strange. He laughed. Not very nicely.

“You thought I was trying to sneak a feel of your breast while you were asleep? Those?” Lucius looked contemptuously at the front of his jacket currently covering the assets in question. “Miss Granger, I’m not sure I could find your bosoms with a road map.” Lucius shrugged on the rest of his coat and ungently pulled her to her feet.

“Thanks for the laugh anyway,” Lucius scoffed. “Now pay attention. We’re Merlin only knows where and we haven’t a knut between us. We’re going to need money and food and clothing and shelter. Then if you’re really in a lather to have someone squeeze your breasts and I’m in an expansive mood, I may offer my services.”

“You…you…you think I -?” Hermione sputtered, so incensed at the tall, blond arse she was ready to spit nails. “Did you know that one side of your hair is still standing on end and looks all kind of slimy?” she spat nastily. “And there are little flecks of grass all through it.” Hermione sniggered when Lucius’ hand automatically went up to his hair again. “Right now you look rather like a gooey slug with those antennae they have, the way pieces of your hair are waving around.”

Lucius got out his wand again and aimed it at his head, casting a longer cleaning spell this time, returning the rest of his hair to its normal, lush flaxen consistency.

“As you obviously believe you’re keeping company with an unscrupulous whoremonger whose only goal is to force you into lewd acts, I shall leave you to your solitude.” Lucius turned on his heel and took off across the meadow toward the lane. He jumped the low fence and stood in the middle of the road looking first one way then the other. Neither direction was especially promising so Lucius chose one at random and began walking.

Hermione watched him go, a jumble of emotions careening through her distraught mind as she sniffed, trying not to cry. Within a minute, the wizard was out of sight around a bend in the dusty road and Hermione lay back down again cradling her face with her jacket-covered arm, smelling the faint lime and male scent of her erstwhile compatriot and starting to cry in earnest, not caring where the stupid cow was.

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Lucius got half a kilometer down the road and realized he’d left his suit jacket on the little witch. He stopped and stood still in the middle of the road, torn between just continuing or retracing his steps to the field where he’d left her. His jacket could be gone in moments if she decided to move away from the open meadow. He might never find her…um…it. A strange sense of leaving part of himself behind confused him, making him wonder if he was a candidate for the Helga Hufflepuff Home for the Mentally Infirm.

Lucius hung his head, hands on hips staring sightlessly at his shoes while his mind raged back and forth: leave – return – leave – return. Dammit! That little female was more trouble than a parade of drunken pixies on St. Merlin’s Day. Lucius felt like stamping his foot in juvenile irritation.

Finally, a philosophical if rather cynical smile crept into his eyes. Hell, he’d already decided and was only fooling himself if he thought he could walk away and leave any witch in the middle of Hades knew where unprotected from whatever populace this place sported. His short temper and the shocking change of circumstances had overborne his better nature, miniscule as it was. The minute his decision to return was made, a wash of calm gently rolled through him, leaving him more confused than ever.

Then the smile faded into a frown. Old! She’d called him old! He was in the prime of life, a vigorous male whose wizard’s strength and power were nearly unrivaled in their world – it was she who was nearly an infant. That little bitch had a tongue like a viper for one so young. He’d only walked away because he was angry with her for her slur, which had caught him on the raw. It was her fault he’d left.

Then he looked up and around. He knew there was something missing. This wasn’t their world. It would perhaps never be their world again. Was he going to dismiss the one person who remembered the world he had come from, who could talk with him freely without him having to watch every word he spoke? Who knew if there even was anyone else in this world. He paused in his thinking - the cow argued for more denizens, he supposed.

Lucius abruptly turned around and began striding quickly back to the lea where he’d left the witch whose life he’d saved. She owed him and Lucius always collected on other people’s debts to him. A couple of ways she could repay him were already percolating in his fertile mind. Any female port in a storm…

A few minutes’ walk brought him back to the field and he panicked briefly, gazing over the empty plot of ground. She was gone! Ahhh, he sighed, no, she wasn’t gone, she was lying down again. Stupid infant witch. He’d thought the fearsome Miss Granger would have had more backbone than that. She’d certainly caused the Death Eaters enough grief in her time.

Hermione was crying for all she had lost. When the mayhem began, she hadn’t believed the rumors of Muggle parents killing their own offspring. But her own parents had tried to kill her – their eyes blank and soulless. They were forever lost to her - she had only escaped because she had apparated into the back yard and heard them talking through the open kitchen window about ambushing and killing her.

Her friends, her Ministry job, her entire life were beyond retrieving now, thanks to Lucius’ steamroller tactics. Well, she mentally stumbled, perhaps he had saved her life, but she was rather frightened to note she wasn’t as happy about that as she should have been. So many dead, the magical world crushed almost into oblivion. She didn’t know where she was and now she’d been abandoned by the last person who had a connection to her familiar existence. He was the last person she would have picked to be stranded with, but now that he was gone she was desolate, feeling as if her last link to her world was severed. A wave of loneliness washed over her at his absence bringing on another rush of tears.

A shadow blotted out the sunlight and Hermione scrambled to a sitting position, shrieking. If that cow had come back she was going to hex it into hamburger patties. She fumbled for her wand hidden under his jacket and looked up to see him standing above her, faintly amused by the sodden picture she knew she made.

“You frightened me,” Hermione complained, sniffling, relieved it wasn’t the cow and more glad than she wanted to admit to herself that he had returned.

“Apparently everything frightens you,” Lucius said unsympathetically. “If you’re so afraid the big, bad cow is going to attack you again, why have you so drearily given up in defeat and curled up in its field crying and feeling sorry for yourself?”

“I…well, I…, oh you wouldn’t understand.”



“No, I wouldn’t understand losing my son, my grandchild, my home, my whole way of life, not like you. I’m sure you must feel things so much more acutely than I, an insensitive, convicted, OLD Death Eater.” Lucius pointed at her chest and gave her an instant’s alarm, before she realized he wasn’t interested in her body. “You have my jacket. This overcoat is too warm for today, and I’d rather have my suit jacket. I want to appear properly clothed if I meet any of this world’s inhabitants. First impressions are extremely important.”

Hermione felt a wave of pure, undiluted anger sweep through her at her fellow’s selfish behavior. “Well then, you’d better get rid of that nasty sneer on your face first, if you want to make a good impression. No one’s going to believe you have an ounce of sincerity if you present them with that supercilious look.” Then she heard all his words, “Is Draco dead, then?”

Lucius looked away from her, studying the small copse at the edge of the lea, “I don’t know. I was let out of Azkaban too late to protect my family. Of course, Snape may have kept them safe – Draco was working as his assistant, marketing some of Severus’ potions products to the Muggle world since Snape himself is – was? –is still paralyzed in one shoulder from his bite from that damned snake of Voldemort’s. I believe their aphrodisiac perfume was quite a success. But I don’t know for sure what happened to any of them. I hope Draco, his wife, and my grandson are alive. I guess they’ll never know what happened to me, though.” Lucius’ eyes turned sad as he gazed at the past and their combined fate. “I never got to see or hold my grandson.”

“I’m sorry,” she said inadequately. They were silent for a few minutes, each submerged in morbid thoughts. Then Hermione’s curious mind surfaced again, “I thought trading with the Muggle world was illegal,” she frowned in some confusion. She wouldn’t have thought Snape would be caught up in illicit trafficking of magic items to the Muggles. Draco she wasn’t so sure about.

“Trading magic is illegal, but the potions were purely ingredient-driven. There was no added magic to make them work. The Muggles don’t particularly experiment with some of the ingredients our world routinely uses, so they haven’t come across some of the common material-based recipes we have. I don’t imagine the Muggles have ever learned to appreciate the chemical qualities of a good batch of ground up skunk testicles.”

Hermione blushed at the references to aphrodisiacs and…male parts. She had been a determined if reluctant fighter, but hadn’t ever had much time – or interest if the truth were known – in exploring the realm of sex. Not after her two romantic missteps. She had dabbled in a bit of kissing with Viktor Krum in school, and after the Dark Lord’s defeat, she had been planning the rest of her life with Ron Weasley.

They had become engaged and Hermione was floating, looking forward to a home with Ron, babies, and all the things young women dream about for their wedding and married life. But one evening six weeks before the wedding that had been so carefully planned with such joy on Hermione’s part, Ron had invited her to go to an upscale restaurant where after the meal and before the dessert, he had told her he couldn’t marry her. Ron had been feeling uncertain and bothered for a long time according to him, worried that his married life was going to be a continuous feeling of inadequacy next to Hermione’s brilliance. He didn’t want to live the rest of his life in her shadow and was bailing out.

Hermione hadn’t had any warning or shred of suspicion that Ron had been so unsure of their twosome. She was crushed by his defection and then not six months later crushed again when Ron married Lavender Brown, a girl whom Hermione had always faintly despised as giggly and of only moderate intelligence. That blow had seriously damaged Hermione’s confidence in herself as a desirable female.

She might have recovered even so, if she hadn’t made the second disastrous mistake of believing the protestations of affection of the Ravenclaw, Roger Davies who had scented Hermione’s vulnerability and dated her, filling her with what he cleverly knew she needed to hear. When Roger got what he was after, he too dumped Hermione with a few unkind remarks and telling her thanks for the fun, leaving her so worn down and so incredibly tired of all the troublesome, testosterone-driven wizards who had made her life a misery and the wizarding world a such a war-torn shambles, she’d shut off her desires and retreated to her safe, remote desk in the bowels of the Ministry, working on her beloved research in artifacts identification and preservation and letting the magic world drift by.

For over ten years she had lived a quiet, productive life in the Artifacts division, avoiding potential suitors and enjoying her books and her work, spending time with her parents and venturing out on the odd holiday every so often to visit Harry on the continent where he’d retreated to a satisfyingly obscure position as an auror.

Hermione had also been happy enough living a calm, quiet existence after the cataclysms her Hogwarts years and relationships had been. She had firmly decided she wasn’t meant to be half of a partnership. And then suddenly it was too late. Her entire world had disappeared leaving her to a country meadow and him, one of the most notorious of the despised testosterone-laden crowd.

“You’re married, too, aren’t you?” Hermione asked, to steer the conversation away from aphrodisiacs and…male parts.

Lucius looked down at his blushing companion. Was she really that backward? Perhaps so, if she reacted with a left hook for a suspected grope of her bosoms. Lucius got a kick out of that word. It was so old-fashioned - rather quaint and endearing – almost. His jaw still smarted a little.

“Past tense. I was married. After ignoring for me for five years as I sat in Azkaban with another fifteen to go, my wife decided she’d had enough of playing Saint Narcissa and found someone else. I sued for a divorce on the grounds of abandonment and I heard she was happily remarried to a rich Canadian wizard and living abroad. I have no idea how far-reaching the New Wave was – or is, so I don’t know if it’s hit Canada yet.”

Lucius leaned down and yanked Hermione up by her arms, setting her on her feet. He looked down at her diminutive size and realized he couldn’t exchange his greatcoat for his suit jacket because Hermione would swim in the overcoat, dragging it on the ground. Sighing, he curtly ordered, “We need to get moving. I’m hungry for one thing, and we aren’t getting anywhere discussing ancient history in a country meadow. Come along.” Lucius turned and strode toward the lane again.

Hermione fumed, watching the blond wizard’s broad back disappear toward the fence once more. He was treating her like she was an imbecilic chihuahua. “Arf,” she mumbled to herself, “Heel, roll over, fetch” she groused, but she ran to keep up with her one link to wizarding humanity and her past, and let herself be lifted over the rail fence and onto the lane.

“How do you know which way to go?” Hermione panted, trying to keep up with Lucius’ long strides. Men were all the same, Hermione fulminated, arrogantly taking control of everything and making a hash of it.

He looked back at her with a visage reeking of long-suffering, “Must you ask such stupid questions? I don’t know which way to go, of course. Have you decided the other way is correct?” Sarcasm dripped off his voice.

Hermione almost let it go. Almost. But the decision was too important to let anger rule her reaction. “Actually, I have.”

“WHAT?” Lucius stopped walking. “Why, for pity’s sake? Both directions look equally loathsome to me.” He stuck his hands on his hips daring her to utter another inane remark.

“See,” she pointed, “in the distance, over those treetops in the opposite direction from the one you’re heading in? Those are seagulls circling. They don’t go far from the sea, so we might be close to a coast or a river and usually a waterway has some sort of villages or towns.”

Lucius turned to look where Hermione was pointing and saw in the distance several birds wheeling in the air. “They congregate above empty fields, too. The sea may not be in that direction and I don’t smell any salt air. If we were near the coast, I’d think there would be the scent of brine. The ocean has a very distinctive fishy smell.” Nevertheless Lucius nodded, “Your point, however, is well-taken. I apologize. It’s better than blindly choosing a path, which I admit I was doing.” He waved for her to precede him so they could go back the way they came, he for the second time.

Hermione was flabbergasted! She’d been sure Lucius would wave away her idea as useless and continue on with his chosen direction. She realized her mouth was hanging open and he was waiting for her to move forward as she stood there and gawked.

Lucius’ expression turned quizzical as he gently closed her mouth with his finger under her chin. “Now what trait, I wonder, made me the premier Death Eater for my political cohort?” He pretended to ponder, “An affinity for snakes? Having the straightest hair? Maybe it was my pretty, light gray eyes. I do think the Dark Lord was taken with them.” Lucius batted his lashes in a phony pretence of coyness. “Or,” a wry smile surfaced charming Hermione into a small, answering smile of her own, “Could it have been the ability to recognize and act on a good idea, even if it was not my own?”

Lucius gave up waiting for Hermione to start moving and walked on ahead of her.

tbc...

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They are firmly in their new environs. And bickering already. Sigh.
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