Prisoners of Love - A Mystery - COMPLETE

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Updated 10-24-07

Are you ready for the rest of the dance? To all my regular reviewers – hugs to you for staying up with my chapters. Good to see you back lilbitbord. And I see some new reviewers. I very much appreciate your feedback. Thank you.


Some replies to reviewers:

Sheherazade Yes, Lucius is definitely blessed with a lovely, large set of cojones and we will be seeing more of them later. Thanks for asking. 8-)

blueazauza Draco isn’t going to hinder. Read on.

doodle I don’t think I’ve lived your life, but I’ve certainly eaten enough rubber chicken at charity and awards events and conferences myself.

Scary Bear Hair I’ll pass on to Lucius the terrific idea of him setting up a company to install central heating in the stately homes. It may take awhile though as his hands are rather full right now.

MB 3 I took your suggestion and added some Recommended Reading to the bottom of my profile. Thanks for the idea.


I hope you all know how to waltz.

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Chapter Thirty-One

Claiming

Word of Malfoy’s remodeling spread through the throngs as couples mingled after the dinner before the dancing at the Country Club started. The central heating idea took hold with the women and was met with resistance by the men, who glumly knew they weren’t going to be able to hold out against this expensive and possibly disastrous remodeling idea.

Malfoy was creating waves upon waves in their placid, upscale existence, but his financial tentacles were firmly entrenched in most of their wallets, keeping them in the luxuries they wanted. If he was now making them pay a bit back for his largesse, it couldn’t be helped, they supposed. A scattering of younger Purebloods even started assessing their stagnant, inflexible heritage against the swollen belly of Malfoy’s wife, wondering if their exclusive coterie’s increasing sterility was worth the continued purity of their bloodlines. Malfoy always seemed to be a step ahead; perhaps he knew something they didn’t.

Lucius rested his hand against the small of Hermione’s back as he guided her past a swirling group of dancers. Under his fingers her body’s rhythm swayed with the pulse of the music. His chivalrous act was turning masochistic as his own pulse began to speed up in thrall to his wife’s enjoyment of the harmonic strains and he inhaled in a rush, trying to stall the sudden tightening of his trousers.

Lucius stared down at the controlled chaos of his little witch’s shiny honey brown curls, wanting to thread his fingers through the mass and bring the strands up to his face. He could faintly smell the fresh green scent of her shampoo, the same shampoo he had placed in the shower at her Muggle home when he moved in.

The beleaguered wizard drew Hermione’s sweet, burdened body closer, torturing himself, wanting to mark her as his territory in some way more than the scent of his shampoo, but aware he had to restrain his desire to clutch her and press her up against his burgeoning erection, sending his questing tongue down her throat. In desperation he turned to her, “I’m going out onto the balcony for a few moments. Do you wish to come? Or I can escort you back to our table if you’d prefer.”

Hermione looked up at her husband’s face and instantly saw the flare of need burning at the back of his icy eyes. “Do we have to stay?” she asked, an answering fire glowing in her eyes, too.

Lucius leaned down and growled into her delicate ear, “Gods, tidbit, don’t ask if I want to leave. I really just want to pick you up and put you on your back on one of these damask covered tables and shove this incredibly inconvenient hard-on up your tight, wet…” He sucked in a labored breath, “Unfortunately we’ll need to be here at least another two or three hours to get the last reluctant donations squeezed from the tightwads of the group.” His pained expression softened at the answering passion she was blatantly projecting as her body melted against his and her hand caressed his chest. That wasn’t helping his trouser tent any and he moved slightly away.

Hermione saw Lucius was going to be stuffy about restraining himself. The table idea sounded exciting. If she could have a knut for every Pureblood eyebrow that little stunt would raise, she’d be independently wealthy in moments. What did she care about these overweening, overbred snobs? But she was finding to her surprise that as she noted each pursed, carmine mouth or raised, plucked eyebrow on the feminine contingent, she was beginning to feel powerful in her own right. She gleefully basked in the knowledge that most of the women there wished they were the ones who had been so thoroughly nailed by the handsome blond wizard.

“Oh, very well,” she pouted for effect, resigned to another couple of hours of stilted conversation punctuated by rude stares ranging from curious through disdainful all the way to pugnacious. The latter were mostly from the other younger witches who had hoped to be the next Mrs. Malfoy themselves. “I guess I’ll sit at the table while you cool off your inconvenience.” She snickered at his disgruntled countenance and Lucius deposited her at the table, striding away to the French windows at the side of the ballroom before he could be accosted by another loquacious Pureblood.

Hermione sat and watched him go, sighing with lust at the rear view of the tight male butt she loved moving under his fitted robe with unconscious majestic grace in synchrony with the rest of a proudly held body. She was jolted by the revisiting of her long suppressed desire to bite his ass. My, she hadn’t thought of that in quite a while. Why it should suddenly surface in the middle of a boring dinner dance was beyond her, but seeing that glorious tush disappear out the French windows had her moping with disappointment. Hermione felt her tiny passenger kicking and she rubbed the spot, talking to her unborn, “I agree, this place is absolutely stultifying.”

“Mrs. Malfoy?” A tall, young, willowy red-haired witch stood at Hermione’s elbow staring down at her with a calculating expression. If it hadn’t been for the rather sour pinching of her lips, the witch could have reminded Hermione a bit of Ginny. Perhaps this female was related in some way to the Weasleys – heaven knew these Purebloods had all interbred for centuries. The witch was dressed very fashionably in a pale green chiffon gown that displayed her buxom assets while narrowing to a slim waist and a flare of rounded hips.

Hermione sighed internally for the waistline she had lost months ago. “Yes? I’m Hermione Malfoy. You wanted to talk to me?” Hermione wearily braced herself for a load of saccharine coating the shot of poison she was sure was coming from this soignée female. This very young one wasn’t even being subtle. Sometimes women could be such - witches.

“We all know that you trapped Mr. Malfoy with a pregnancy.” The redhead gave Hermione’s belly an inimical glare.

Hermione’s eyes flickered upward past the girl’s shoulder for a heartbeat before returning to gaze pleasantly at the mean-faced witch before her. Hermione smiled at her supposed tormentor. “Oh, are you the spokesperson designated to deliver this message? Who are ‘we all’? I only see you. And, pardon me, but how is this any of your business?” Hermione’s placid brown eyes transmuted into a dangerous hardness that had the young witch rethinking the vulnerability of her lone prey, as Hermione inquired softly, “May I know your name? I’m sure Lucius will want to thank you for standing up so nobly for his inability to control his own life.”

The red-haired young woman looked taken aback for a second, but then saw that Hermione’s good mood had returned softening her eyes again, and that infuriated her. A dirty Mudblood had scooped up the most sought-after wizard in their entire clique and then had the effrontery to calmly show up at this elite event on his arm. They should both be ashamed.

She spat in a low voice, “If you think to hold him with a halfblood infant, you’re a fool. He’s more likely to find a quiet way to dispose of it. You have nothing to recommend you beyond a slutty, low-class appeal to Mr. Malfoy’s more base desires. All men have them, but they don’t ruin their lives with such lowbrow tastes.” Narrowed green eyes shot daggers at Hermione’s vaguely amused face, then Lila saw the coffee brown eyes rise above and beyond her again to something…

“Good evening, Lila,” a deep, melodic voice said just behind her, “I see you’ve met my wife. Such a lovely chat you were having. I’m so glad to know I have so staunch a champion for my virtue. I saw you coming over to our table and thought to greet you. How is your father? Still interested in that lumber deal I was offering him?”

Horror shone out of Lila’s emerald eyes as she turned to encounter the man who had ruled her daydreams for months. Her eyes traveled up, up to the handsome face that always made her swoon, wetting her knickers with clenching need, but this time her knickers were getting wet for another reason. She tried to retrieve her egregious error, “Good evening Mr. Malfoy. I was just…uh…well, it was nice meeting you Mrs. Malfoy. Please excuse me.” Lila tried to flee, almost pushing Lucius out of the way as she made to escape, but a manicured male finger pressed into her throat just above her collarbone, stopping her flight.

“Just one question, my dear,” said Lucius, his face a mask of avuncular interest, “Who is ‘we all’?”

The young witch let out a wail of mortification understanding that he had heard everything and this time she succeeded in slipping past the blond sorcerer, speeding out of the ballroom.

Lucius sat down beside his wife and took her hand saying whimsically, “You know, I don’t think there was any ‘we all’, do you?” He sobered, “If you don’t want to dance, we can leave. I won’t stand for that sort of vituperation against you from anyone.” He leaned in and gently slid his fingers into her hair, just as he had wanted to do earlier, massaging her scalp tenderly. “Lila’s father can kiss that lumber deal goodbye.”

“Oh, I don’t know that he had anything to do with our little Lila’s invective. I think she has a crush on you, judging by the appalled look she gave you just now. I can hardly blame her for that. And I don’t want to deprive Hogwarts of the tightwads’ donations.” Hermione smiled impishly up into the wintry eyes of her husband, “You might have done better to have chosen her over me, though. I don’t think she wants to bite your ass.”

“Dammit, Hermione, I just got rid of my problem. Now it’s coming back again. Let’s dance so at least your gown will cover my ‘inability to control my life’.” He rose and handed Hermione up out of her chair, moving in behind her as they started toward the dancing at the other end of the ballroom.

Hermione walked a little in front of him to hide his arousal, chuckling to herself, Poor man, no one can see my soaked knickers. Feeling very superior, she swirled into her husband’s arms and floated to the music of a slow waltz. They twirled around the dance floor, each having eyes only for the other, a fact noted with varying degrees of interest or chagrin by other dancers and several females along the walls who wished they were the lucky one held in his arms. Why had they not thought to be sent to Azkaban and put in his cell? It was likely that devious little Mudblood had done it on purpose. Sour grapes were being served everywhere that evening.

Lucius was an accomplished dancer and he provided several periods of respite for his tiny teeming wife as he did some duty dances with other wives. During one of theses hiatuses Draco left Pansy on a plush chair at the side of the dance floor and approached his new stepmother.

“Come dance with me,” he said, holding out his hand. “I need to talk with you out of father’s hearing.”

Hermione, cognizant of the many eyes watching her reception of Lucius’ son, rose from her seat and let Draco lead her onto the dance floor. He turned out to be a graceful dancer, like his father, and Hermione let him direct them to a corner of the floor where she figured he would say whatever he was going to.

“So, Draco,” she opened, “Am I going to hear a litany of all the nasty tricks I’ve used to capture your father? You won’t be the first to lambaste me this evening.”

“Actually, I’m waving the white flag. I don’t know why it is, but father is…oh, I don’t know, more human? No, that’s not it. Um … more relaxed or compassionate or… well, he’s just happy, I guess. Maybe that’s what was missing all those years in our home. I just wanted you to know I’m not your enemy. I like my father now. I’ve always loved him and looked up to him, but he has been difficult to please all my life.”

Draco tried to explain his limited view of their marriage, “Father went through a miserable time just after he got out of Azkaban. His health suffered and his temper…well, let’s just say I was glad I was so far away. Then he filed your marriage lines and acknowledged you. He changed and now he’s happy.” Draco gently twirled Hermione as he kept an eye on the location of his father on the dance floor. “So I’m not going to cause any problems, Hermione. I just wanted to tell you that.” He hurried to finish his thoughts before the dance ended, “You know, oddly, I think you two are rather alike. You’re both very strong personalities,” Draco grimaced with remembered unpleasant incidences with both of them, “so I imagine you’ll do well together. That’s all I had to say.”

Hermione gazed speculatively at her old school rival. “Maybe you’re telling me the truth and maybe you have some agenda, Draco. For now I’ll accept your words at face value. Lucius will ask what we’ve been talking about and I’m going to tell him basically what you said - without the extra trimmings,” she added when Draco’s eyes widened with alarm. I’ll just say you think we actually make a good couple and I don’t have to worry about your attitude toward the marriage. Is that good enough?”

Draco nodded in relief and they spent the rest of the dance moving slowly around the floor making small talk or just being silent. Draco knew that Lucius always returned to Hermione from his other partners so he brought her back to her seat the moment the dance number ended and returned to Pansy across the room, adroitly avoiding his sire.

As Hermione had surmised, Lucius instantly questioned her about her dance with his son and he received the expurgated version she and Draco had agreed upon. Lucius raised a sardonic eyebrow at the whitewashed account he was hearing, but he decided to accept his wife’s description of their discussion, trusting her to deal with any unpleasantness she encountered from Draco. She was more than a match for her new stepson.

Lucius devoted himself to guiding Hermione through several waltzes, a cha-cha, a fun foxtrot and a seductive, slow rhumba that had Hermione’s lust rising. The blond wizard went to work imprinting himself on his wife leaving no doubt about his intentions for after the dance.



She watched her husband through a haze of unrelenting lust as he sinuously twisted and swiveled his narrow masculine hips, slowly gyrating them almost scandalously close to her to the heavy, languid latin beat as he caught and held her eyes in a trancelike hold with his own, relaying to her what he would really like to be doing with his hips if they weren’t on a dance floor. She figured there would be scorch marks on her knickers from the heat he was generating between her legs.

Her knickers were a lost cause, trying to sop up her red-hot reaction to Lucius’ blatant lovemaking in full view of his peers. He wasn’t leaving a shred of doubt in anyone’s mind that she was special to him, not just as a successful baby machine, but as a desirable woman, and Hermione relaxed for the first time all evening, absorbing his sexual claiming and reciprocating by showing her feminine submission to his masterful marking of her as his.

She was seeing firsthand why her husband had such a sinful reputation among the women and why they had converged en masse on him hoping to gain his interest. Hermione figured a whole armada could be floated with all the juices Lucius was generating under those expensive gowns – and possibly a few tux trousers.

Lucius reached up and slid his midnight blue hair ribbon off, letting his blond strands slither across his shoulders. He offered it to his wife as they danced by tying it around her neck in an erotic branding of sorts. His symbolic disrobing and collaring of his wife was an erotic proclamation of his ownership and protection and the females around the room sucked in tortured breaths wishing like hell that ribbon adorned their own necks.

To a woman they would have passed up the sapphire and diamond necklace for a chance at the promise behind that ribbon. Not a single female over the age of ten missed the significance of the powerful wizard’s performance. He was forever lost to them as a mate or a son-in-law and if they wanted his continued patronage, they needed to accept his wife.

As the dance ended, a white-jacketed waiter whispered in Lucius’ ear and he turned to Hermione, “Otto wants me for something, so if you wouldn’t mind sitting in the foyer for a few minutes while I check with him…?”

Lucius drew Hermione out to the front of the club settling her on a padded bench near the entrance for the few moments he needed to be away from her, then he strode out the open doors to see what Otto wanted.

Hermione instantly got up and resettled herself in a small chair, which she dragged behind a large potted fern. She refused to set herself up as target practice for any of the calculating females meandering around the club’s halls while she was unprotected by her husband’s presence. Once was quite enough for the evening.

Lucius walked out into the unusually mild night and over to his coach standing in the dark several meters down the graveled approach to the club. “Otto, what is it? I hope this is important.”

Otto merely pointed to a place between the thestrals and the coach.

Lucius looked down and inhaled sharply. “The leads between the thestrals and the coach have been nearly charred through from a wand strike.” He looked at Otto in dismay, “How did you catch this? Did you leave the coach? Did you see anyone near it?”

Otto looked miserable, “Mr. Malfoy, I only left the coach to go to those bushes across the way to…uh…” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy.” Otto idly petted one of the thestrals that was tossing its head and snorting in agitation. “These beauties became all unsettled and I hurried back and tried to see why. I found this.”

“I understand your visit to the bushes,” Lucius replied, “I should have considered your needs better. It’s not your fault.” Lucius grimaced at his blunder almost costing the three of them and his unborn child their lives if those straps had snapped while they were in the air. He just wasn’t used to a human servant and the extra thought that involved.

“I also should have mentioned the possibility of this type of problem occurring – I knew Hermione and I had an enemy and I see now you needed to know.” He mused, “Well, it appears they have now embraced homicide overtly.” Sterner measures including precision, high level warding on the estate would be called for from now on until the culprits were caught.

Lucius focused his wand on the mangled straps and repaired them, making them even stronger, then turned to go but stopped himself, turning back to the gloomy guard/coachman, “If you have to visit the bushes again, use this.” Lucius removed a tiny, glowing orb from his robe pocket and placed it in Otto’s hand. “Throw it up into the air if you need me. It will find me inside and I’ll know to come out to you. My wife and I owe you our lives, Otto. I won’t forget.”

Otto, still unhappy with his failure, nodded morosely and took the orb, sliding it carefully into his pocket.

Lucius hurried back into the club, enraged over the attempted murder and now extremely concerned about leaving Hermione alone, knowing someone was near who wished them harm. He ran lightly up the front steps and in through the open doors going straight for the padded bench. Lucius stopped cold when he saw it was empty. His heart started racing and he rapidly turned in a full circle looking for his spouse. “Hermione!” Lucius called loudly, uncaring what anyone thought of his shout.

“I’m over here, Lucius, no need to yell,” replied the large fern in the corner. Hermione rose from her chair and walked with her slight side-to-side gait out from behind the plant.

Lucius strode over to her and grabbed her by the nape of her neck with one shaking hand, “You gave me a heart attack, moving from where I expected you to be.” He shook her a little, “You will please me if you never do that again!” Lucius looked around the foyer scanning for anyone too interested in their whereabouts, then he scowled back down at his wife, who was now scowling back.

Hermione was ready to lay into him for being so controlling when she caught the fear in his eyes and felt the tremor in his fingers at her nape. “What? What did Otto want?” she asked instead.

Lucius led her back behind the fern and sat, pulling her onto his lap, just sitting for a minute, breathing harshly until his adrenaline response declined, “Otto left the coach unattended for maybe three minutes and in that time, the coach straps were tampered with. If he hadn’t noticed, we would have crashed to earth when the straps gave way in the air. This means that someone was watching him all along. Maybe watching us all along.

“Until this is cleared up, I want you to stay with me or where I place you.” He lowered his face into her curly mop speaking into her soft tresses, “Under no circumstances will you go anywhere without me. Even if someone owls you I’ve had an accident and you need to go to me immediately.” Lucius lifted his head, “We need to be very careful until I can shake our enemy out of the shadows.” He set Hermione on her feet and rose, leading her to the checkstand for their capes.

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On the way home in the luxuriously appointed coach after carefully perusing the entire conveyance inch by inch for problems, Lucius remarked a trifle more cheerfully, “I think your debut went well, don’t you?” They had both decided to explore the aborted threat to their lives in the morning when they weren’t so tired and cranky. And Hermione had other lesser grievances to get out of the way that she didn’t want subsumed under this greater peril.

“You mean your carefully orchestrated collision of Mudblood and Pureblood designed for maximum shock value? Oh, yes, I’d say that played very well, Lucius.” Hermione had mostly felt like a sideshow freak even with her husband’s obvious display of his preference and support.

Lucius turned to his wife, his face registering his astonishment at the depth of her antagonism. He had exposed himself claiming her in public view of his peers and now he had to propitiate her resentment of the whole disagreeable affair?

Hermione saw his surprise and wanted to scream her frustration. “You are without a doubt Europe’s premier arsehole. Machiavelli’s arsehole had nothing on yours. I thought you said you’d put the word out that you were married again. You omitted to whom I think. So first you don’t let your exalted friends know you’re married to a Muggleborn, then you drag me to this dance for the express purpose of ‘getting it all over with at once’ and don’t tell me that wasn’t your aim all along. I’m soooo sorry you had to actually present me to all those delightful people and pretend you cared about me because I had the bad taste to get preg… mmmphh.”

Lucius lifted his tiny termagant and settled her on his lap, pulling her disheveled curls backwards and kissing her senseless. He was so angry he had to either kiss her or strangle her and it was a close-run thing. He HATED that she so easily saw his every subtle move, he HATED that she could make him feel small for his completely reasonable behavior, and he HATED that she was right on nearly all counts. But he ESPECIALLY HATED that he did care. She’d got that part spectacularly wrong.

He finally let up on his wife when he felt her relax against him, “Don’t you EVER say anything like that to me again. YOU and my children are the most important people in my life, not those twits. However, that is a world you’ll have to survive in from now on and if I had needed to ease you into it by fucking you on the tabletop like I was fondly fantasizing, I would have. You know nothing about them. You think they are just like you but richer. They’re not! They’re social cannibals with instincts honed by a millennium of back-stabbing and one upsmanship. Consider yourself lucky that all you had to do was appear to be my willing captive.”

Lucius suddenly grinned, disconcerting his angry wife, “I don’t give them long before they find out you come with sharp canines,” then he returned to a somewhat more somber mien, “but for tonight you had to belong entirely to me. That tells them you’re under my exclusive protection and if anyone wants to challenge my bringing you into our circle they have to come through me to do it.” He let Hermione slide from his lap, watching her wriggle away to the other side of the coach.

“Well, anyway,” Lucius continued, unperturbed at his wife’s retreat, “it’s too bad Archie’s going to have a major dent in his portfolio due to his daughter’s vicious tongue, but I think that’s going to serve beautifully.” He sat back with a satisfied smile on his face.

“What do you mean?” Hermione was perplexed at Lucius’ cryptic words, trying to analyze them as she quietly rubbed her swollen and tingling lips. When would she remember he wasn’t built out of the same material as her own friends? His male beauty kept blinding her to his more dangerous traits and she needed to find a more solid footing to challenge him from. He held an unfair advantage of physical strength and she needed to neutralize it. His explanation had only appeased her just so far.

“It will be a lesson for all of them. I don’t think you’ll be so obviously attacked again. The word will get around that slurs against you have immediate repercussions when I scuttle Archie’s portfolio,” Lucius said complacently.

“No!” Hermione said decisively.

Lucius peered over at his wife seeing her indignant visage in the filtering moonlight through the slight opening between the drapes of the coach’s window. “No? What are you talking about?”

“I said, NO! Don’t punish your friend Archie for the mistakes of his daughter. She can’t be more than eighteen, she’s spoiled and she imagines herself in love with you. I think she expected to reel you in for herself.” Hermione muttered, “One of dozens, I’m sure.”

She winced for effect as she tenderly probed her lips, relaying her husband’s BRUTAL treatment so he would think twice about bullying her. As she saw his eyebrow go up in patent disbelief at her antics, she desisted with a shrug, Oh, well, it had been worth a shot anyway. She dropped the dramatics and got back to her more important point, urging, “Haven’t you ever heard of the saying, ‘You can catch more pixies with pumpkin juice than vinegar’? If you punish everyone for baiting me, you may not hear any more rudeness, but the sentiment will be there just the same. And it might even magnify their antipathy.”

Lucius stared at his wife as if she’d suddenly turned from a fluffy kitten to a ferocious tigress. But he listened to the interesting alternative that hadn’t been part of his plan. He’d really lapped up her thespian attempt, but took her silent message to heart. He shouldn’t have used his greater strength to subdue her. But damn, that small female got under his skin faster than Voldemort could sling a crucio – and he’d had firsthand experience of that, unfortunately.

Hermione implored her vindictive mate, “Tell Archie what his daughter said if you must, but say that I merely felt sorry for her and understood her juvenile crush. Commiserate with him instead for his daughter’s childishly impulsive behavior. Then go ahead with your lumber deal. What do you think Archie’s opinion will be of me then? As opposed to him resenting me for being alive and ruining his finances.”

Lucius always had an agenda and that evening’s had been to insert his wife initially into his sphere and find a scapegoat to punish publicly, if anyone was brave enough to step forward and try to vilify her. He’d thought he had the perfect goat in Lila – it was why he’d hurried back to the table when he’d seen her making a beeline for his wife. Now Hermione’s idea clicked over in his mind. He saw definite possibilities to her plan. His eyebrows rose again at what he saw as the budding deviousness of his sprite. He liked this facet of her very much, not seeing that the truth was just her wishing to snuff out the flames of the incendiary situation she was in.

“Well, aside from your mistaken assumption that Archie is a friend, your idea does have merit,” Lucius nodded once graciously. “I suppose I’m not used to practicing subterfuge much any more with my social group. I usually manage by financial intimidation now. But it does have its down side when someone actually refuses to do as I want. Very well, we’ll try this your way and see how it goes.” Lucius uneasily squirmed at the possibility that Hermione would connect the dots and understand his intimidation wasn’t always merely financial.

Lucius and Hermione arrived back at the country lane they had started from and alighted from the coach, which Lucius sent back to his estate under the direction of Otto.

Hermione got out a small silver ‘appliance’ from her evening bag, flipped it open and began talking to it. A moment later she said, “My folks will be here in about twenty minutes. Can you make me a place to sit?”

Lucius looked oddly at her evening bag where the small appliance had been re-stowed but merely scanned the area and found a tree stump. A bit of transfiguration made a passable seat for his wife and he settled her into it before asking, “How do you know your parents are coming?”

“More Muggle stuff. Do you really want to know?” Hermione was incredibly tired, having spent the evening in unaccustomed exercise and filled with rich, overly sauced foods. She leaned up against the midnight blue material covering her husband’s hips as he stood beside her and instantly nodded off, only waking as Lucius caught her sliding out of the seat. He picked her up and sat down himself, placing her once again on his lap and tucking her rioting curls under his chin. His hopes for a more exciting end to their evening were deflating along with his cock. Lucius looked down at his sleepy spouse and smiled even though he was disappointed.

True to her word, her parents soon came and ferried them back to her little bungalow, watching serenely as their unusual son-in-law thanked them and carried their now deeply asleep daughter into her home.

The two Grangers looked at each other and chuckled. Their wizard son-in-law certainly had become accustomed to their automobile quickly. He hadn’t even noticed it in his solicitous care for his wife. They drove home in high good humor.

tbc...

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Ah, the lovebirds...??? At least Draco is sorted out. Lucius does run true to form, doesn't he? Will Hermione be able to rein him in? Draco seems to think so.


Reviews, chocolates, floral arrangements, and fine jewelry all happily accepted. I think I'd like the reviews best, though. Next chapter they move to the Malfoy Estate - finally!

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