Amorem Consentit

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Reviewers: Shall respond to you all next chapter. I did a no-no which caused my good editing to be deleted...am deeply upset by this...but I have the rest of it. So I can go back through and put it up again...Ice cream and cookies to you delightful reviewers!

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The whirl of portkey was never a feeling she liked, but having her beloved Crooks in her arms eased her mind.

Hermione put her hands out to try to steady herself as she still felt as if she was whirling about.

Her right hand touched soft velvet. She dug her fingers in assuming that it was a piece of furniture or drapes on a window until two large soft skinned hands collected hers and drew it to lush, warm lips.

Crookshanks instantly let go; he was rather shaken by the whole ordeal, and he yowled his annoyance at the form of transport that had been used. As soon as he collected himself, he darted toward a wizard who had risen when Hermione appeared.

“Welcome to the manor,” a deep voice said.

Hermione turned and found herself staring at a sturdy male chest. She stared at the large hands as they cradled hers. Hermione felt her mouth go dry as she stared at the chest.

“Meow!” Crookshanks interrupted.

He thrust himself against Lucius' legs rubbing and purring as he shed ginger hairs on the expensive clothing.

Lucius looked down at the cat as he rubbed and purred and shed his ginger hairs.

“Crookshanks, no!” Hermione exclaimed, afraid that her poor familiar would be hexed.

Lucius stooped down and scratched the cat behind his ears. Crookshanks humped his back and let out a long purr before digging his claws into the carpet.

"I know that you aren't going to shred that carpet, Kneazle. You are too smart for that," Lucius said, sliding a hand under the cat.

Hermione stood rooted to the spot. What should she do?

Lucius lifted the ginger, bandy-legged animal into his arms.

He reached down to where a plate of crackers and cheese and shrimp with cocktail sauce was.

“Would you care for a refreshment?” Draco asked as he eyed his gorgeous bride-to-be.

Lucius plucked up one of the giant shrimp as Crookshanks wrapped his front legs around the arm of the wizard who held him securely.

Hermione cast her gaze away from Lucius and her cat and looked at her fiancé.

Draco was still holding her hand close to his chest.

He looked perfect. Like a model from a magazine, but she didn’t want to want him.

His clothes fit him perfectly, and they were completely clean. His shoulders were broad, perfect for putting her hands on while kissing. Hermione felt her cheeks heat up and prayed that they weren't the color of the Gryffindor banners that were waved at Quidditch matches.

She was lost for words as she inhaled the clean masculine scent.

"Are you alright?" Draco asked as he noted the color of her cheeks. "You aren't feverish, are you?"

“No, not at all,” she answered, realising how out of place she must look.

Draco tucked her hand into his arm and smiled as he escorted her to an ivory leather padded chair with mahogany wood highlights.

"May I offer you a drink?"

He was so at ease with her, Hermione noted, eyeing the table with suspicion.

"How have you been, my dear Miss Granger?" Lucius asked, taking a seat and placing Crookshanks on the sofa next to him.

“I've been fine, regarding the circumstances,” she answered politely.

Crookshanks instantly slunk into the wizard's lap to sniff at the half eaten shrimp in the his far hand.

“I am sorry for the loss of Weasley,” Draco added, and his eyes turned down.

“Deadly accidents are terrible,” Lucius murmured, feeding Crookshanks another shrimp.

Lucius observed her reaction before setting the cat to the side. He could see from how she was biting her lip that she was close to tears.

“Why don't you go and change for dinner? It's a formal dinner as usual in our house,” Lucius said, keeping his voice level so as to not show hid disdain for her hideous clothing choice.

"What about Crook..." Hermione began as she watched her familiar crawl into Draco's lap and rub his head on Draco's chin making a general pest of himself.

Hermione looked around.

She looked at the beautiful paintings that hanged on the walls. They seemed to be telling a story, the Trojan War. What was up with the cat?

“Your pet will be fine. We will see he is fed and watered till you return,” Draco smiled and petted the cat as he lapped at the red wine in his glass which sat on the small table.

Crookshanks had never behaved that way to any of the Weasleys, or to any person except her.

“But he is making a mess,” she argued, seeing orange cat hairs on Draco's expensive robes.

“That's nothing. He's such a nice familiar,” Draco said fondly as the kneazle broke out in a loud satisfied purr.

A white haired cat with golden eyes strutted into the room then. A sweet meow came from her mouth as she pranced over and hopped into Lucius' lap.

“Ah, here she is,” Lucius said as he petted the cat slowly. “My darling Lucretia, meet your new housemate, Crookshanks.”

The white cat eyed the ginger animal and placed a paw on Lucius' arm possessively as she hissed at the intruder.

Hermione stared at the white cat.

"Lucretia is my familiar, Miss Granger. She is a purebred magical Persian,” Lucius explained.

Lucretia licked a paw and cleaned her face.

Crookshanks eased over close to lithe female and sniffed. Maybe the lady was receptive to him.

She pretended not to notice the male cat as she cleaned herself.

"I don't have anything to wear for a formal dinner," Hermione said, staring at the floor with her hands folded in her lap. Why did she wear the loose fitting, informal clothing?

“Oh, you do actually,” Draco said, eyeing her up and down. “I have taken the liberty to order a couple of basics for you from our tailors.”

Hermione looked up.

"I'll show you to the room you'll stay in until..." Draco petered off.

"Until we marry," Hermione finished, sneaking a glance at the blond who sat on the side of the sofa closest to her. This was not the Draco she had known

“Yes, correct,” he grinned.

Why was he being...human? Nothing bad had happened to her since arriving here. She had expected sneers, derogatory words...but it appeared that Malfoys were humans. They had always seemed before to be cold hearted snakes.

“Shall we go to your rooms, Hermione?”

He said her name so softly that it made her tingle. She couldn’t help peering up into his grey eyes. She nodded and stood.

She glanced over at Lucius, the man who had tried to curse her when she broke into the Department of Mysteries. He was standing.

Hermione bit back her question.

“All gentlemen stand when a lady enters or leaves a room,” Lucius answered, and he bowed to her as Draco took her hand gracefully and led her up the grand stairs.

Hermione couldn't keep her fingers from squeezing Draco's arm a bit as they walked. It was firm, powerful.

Draco felt the squeeze and looked down at her as they passed several paintings of two-hundred year old relatives who were whispering and smiling at the couple. He reached over and put a hand on hers.

“I want you to feel comfortable here. Hermione, this is your new home now,” he said, rubbing his thumb against the top of her hand.

Hermione stared at the floor.

“And when we are married, I promise I will be a good husband to you.”

Hermione turned her head the other way.

"Thank you," she whispered not able to look at him.

“I am different from how I was in school.”

She had torn up the picture of him, and he was being anything but the prat that he had been in school. He was a true gentleman.

"I am sorry if any of the stupid things I said when I was a kid hurt your feelings.”

Hermione felt tears stinging her eyes like pixie bites. She held his arm more tightly and didn't notice as she wiped a tear on his sleeve. It was nice to be escorted somewhere. She loved Harry and Ron, but they were rather uncouth when it came to treating a girl right.

Draco wanted to kick himself. Why did he make fun of her when he had wanted her to notice him? Sure, it had worked, but at what price? When he had a son, he would make sure that he knew how to attract a female with kind words, chocolates, flowers, and plenty of other good presents. His son would know how to woo a girl.

“I mean...all I want is for you to like me now. We’re going to be bound for life.”

Hermione couldn't stop the tears as they stopped before a set of double doors with a unicorn carved on each of them so that they faced each other.

“These are your rooms for now. Father and I can only enter with your permission, so you are safe.”

Hermione clutched his arm a bit tighter as Draco opened the door gently.

The room was beautiful. She didn’t have enough words to describe it, but everything fit together perfectly.

She slowly let her hand slide from his arm feeling a twinge when the tips of her fingers no longer could feel the warmth of his arm.

"I'll be back to show you to Dinner at 6:45,” Draco said, daring to lean over and give her a kiss. "If you need anything, Toppy will attend to it."

“Alright,” she answered, her mind distracted.

Draco pulled the door shut, and he had to hold in his shout. Hermione was in his house. So she was in the Virgin's Hold? He wouldn't be able to bed her till the wedding night anyway. No Malfoy could be with a female that wasn’t bound to the family.

She was here.

She was engaged to him.

She had D-cup breasts.

He hoped she hadn't seen him check them out. Even in the drab cheap black thing she was wearing, she had looked fabulous. He couldn’t wait to see her in fine dresses, clothing that fit her and was designed just for her.

His hands twitched as he thought of holding her close, and he rubbed his lips together.

And most important—she would be his. He would make love to her finally.

Draco walked down the hallway toward his room. He needed to be sure that Hermione saw him only at his best.

Not that he usually needed a lot of effort to look good, but still...he had seven years of being an idiot to her to make up for. The girl he had fantasized about was now here within his reach.

He had thought he'd finally found what he couldn't have when she hit him in their third year. He had been livid as hell when she did it and swore then that she would be his. He rubbed his jaw.

Malfoys always got what they wanted. And he was damn glad about that.

He would make her moan his name in ecstasy. Hopefully, he would learn quickly how to please her.

Hermione stood in her room. She looked at the door for a minute wishing that Draco was still there. There was definitely a theme in the room, a theme that made her a bit queasy. Unicorns. She put a hand over her stomach. Surely, they didn't expect that she was a virgin.

Could she barricade herself in here and refuse to come out?

"Darling, I know you aren't going to go to dinner dressed like that. You'll never catch a Malfoy in those trashy pieces."

Hermione looked around.

There was a gold-encrusted full length mirror on the left from her.

“You should go and take the green gown from the closet, my dear,” the mirror suggested, flashing the light off it to look like a wink.

"Mind your own business," Hermione sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She looked out at the night sky.

No moon shown in it.

She walked over to the large canopy bed covered in a thick white fur cover. Almost twenty pillows of various sizes and shapes were neatly arranged.

It all looked fit for a princess.

She crawled onto the bed after kicking off her trainers. She picked up a long pillow with hand-stitched rosebuds on it and buried her face in it.

Tears began to pour. Tears of confusion as much as sadness and a little bit of fear.

What would she be expected to do? Was the normal welcome just a front? Probably this room was going to turn into a cell any second.

Crookshanks was a bloody traitor.

“MEOW! MEOW!"

The door opened and Crookshanks slunk through it. He batted at it with a paw. He darted to his mistress and began to purr and rub against her.

“What should I do, Crooks?” she asked looking into his big brown eyes.

Crookshanks cocked his head before hopping down from the bed and sauntering over to another door that had a unicorn carved on it.

Hermione decided to follow her familiar, maybe there was a hidden exit or something.

When she peered into the other room, she saw dozens of dresses in various shades of green, purple, red, blue, silver, a nice gold shade was even there.

All were obviously the 'basics' Draco had referred to. So the basics filled half the space in her enormous closet.

Crookshanks jumped up and began to bat at the belled sleeve of a wine red velvet dress. It came loose from the hanger and fell on him.

"Crookshanks, what are you doing?" Hermione asked as two cat ears and a small cat nose poked out the head of the dress.

She picked up the dress and looked closely at it.

The top that would go across her breasts looked form fitting and had corset like fastenings.

Hermione grasped it. Hopefully this would smush her breasts down so they wouldn't be so obvious.

It wasn't like she had a choice in going to the dinner.

And the color was nice, too. Crookshanks was a fashion expert, it seemed.

She walked through the door at the back of the large closet. She gasped as she saw floor to ceiling racks of shoes and gaped like a first year student first entering the Great Hall at Hogwarts as she recognized all the top wizarding designers. These shoes were 35Galleons per pair, and there had to be a thousand different varieties all with the signs showing the various charms.

A table stood in the center of the closet, and Hermione watched as one of each red shoe in the closet moved to a hanger on it. She stood there looking at all the beautiful shoes. She walked up to it and plucked a pair a shoe that matched the dress off to wear.

She walked back to her bedroom and walked through to door next to the closet. Her eyes glazed over when she saw the beautiful hot tub built into the floor. It was surrounded by fog glass and, she could look up and see the stars through the window in the ceiling.

Life at the Manor had a lot of luxury. She could get used to this. Wonderful shoes, beautiful clothes, an amazing bathroom.

So far everything had been perfect. No traps, no sneers...no being strapped into a

Who were these men? And what had they done to the Malfoys? But most importantly, couldn't she just stay with them anyway? The last thought made her laugh.

It was so much nicer than the moldy bathroom at the Burrow.

She stared at the three taps on the tub.

She reached out and touched the pink one and turned it on. Out of the tap gushed steaming water with the smell of fresh cut roses.

Heaven. She loved the luxurious scent already.

She tore off her clothes and eased down into the tub.

The luxurious feel of the water let her body relax.

Dinner with the Malfoys...more gorging and greasy unhealthful meals...she didn't want to eat if she had to watch two grown males (for who could determine if they were men) stuff food down their throats.

What if she said she was unwell?

It may be a proper excuse. She didn’t want to see another plateful of grease-filled food. Not now, not ever. Especially not fried chicken

She didn't know if she could ever stand to see a cooked chicken again.

And imagining all the grease on the Malfoys' fine features was just...yuck.

Goodness knew the Weasleys couldn't afford beef, pork, fish, or anything decent.

But the Weasleys were purebloods, so there was a chance the Malfoys had similar food choices.

She rose out of the tub after her skin got wrinkly and wrapped a deliciously fluffy white towel around her body.

She shook herself as she opened the door and walked out into her room where she had the dress laid out.

She dressed and sat in the middle of her bed with a pillow on her lap.

Knock. Knock.

Should she really answer?

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The plot bunny is crying. It needs more reviews to grow up.

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