The Wedding - COMPLETE

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Updated 6-18-07


First of all, I want to thank all my loyal readers for sticking with this tale and for those of you who are reviewing, new and recurring, I can't tell you how much your feedback means to me, learning what you think of the latest twists and turns our characters take on the road to happily ever after.


You'll never believe this but I didn't see the last chapter as a cliffhanger. Honest. Sorry about your collective heart attacks.


I do hope this new chapter makes it a little clearer why Lucius could never have returned home from the hospital with Hermione and blithely ignored what had happened to him. His entire sanity was compromised - he wasn't really there with her any more and Hermione knew that. His mind had basically caved in on him and she got a glimpse of the interior disaster when he used his legilimency to reverse his thoughts into her mind. I really don't think you'd want him in that state trying to take care of a newborn.


Hermione isn't any saint - Lucius was wrong there - but she's known there was something wrong with him all along, hasn't she? Something she couldn't quite touch...but she always wanted to help him somehow. She just was not able to find a way. It was left to his opening himself up to his love for his new child that blasted apart his shell to either allow him to finally heal - or die.


And so...

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Chapter Forty-Two

Lucius Reborn


Hermione took her precious bundle home and determinedly set out to be a single mother for a month, certain that her husband would return when he could. If she cried in the privacy of their bedroom sometimes, she figured she was allowed, as she coped with being a new mother adjusting to a newborn with an amazing penchant for getting her own way already. Hermione didn’t have to wonder too hard where that came from. She blamed it on Lucius, but any of her friends could have told her she wasn’t any better.

Each day when she picked up her little Chloe and saw once again the baby’s pale, flaxen hair fuzz and her now winter-gray eyes, Hermione’s lips would quiver for a moment before banishing what she couldn’t help and getting on with their simple routines. Chloe thrived under her mother’s care, growing faster than a baby phoenix and delighting Hermione with all her accomplishments.

So often Hermione wished Lucius could see Chloe’s latest feat of finding her own mouth with her thumb, or blessedly sleeping more than three hours at a time. But she never lost hope that Lucius, with his brilliant mind, could find a way for himself through that harrowing mental landscape Hermione had glimpsed in the hospital. His first step had been to share his inner demons with her. She hoped he recognized that and could cling to it as he fought his psychic monsters.

Hermione had hesitantly asked Snape if there was anything she could do for her husband, knowing in this case he wouldn’t share the information even with Ginny, and was disheartened when he just gave her a sad shake of his head, “If Lucius can’t fight his way through his self-inflicted mental hell alone, no one else can help him. Those unwanted memories have been amassing for years, his innate strength of mind allowing him the indulgence of secreting them all in a remote sinkhole in his psyche. He’s been doing it for as long as I’ve known him. Ironically he’s not an uncaring man. He just found a way to turn it off, like a spigot – until now.”

Snape frowned with his own remembered pain, “We both had unpleasant tasks to perform now and then, but sometimes even I couldn’t understand how Lucius could be so uncaring about some of the things he was asked to do by Voldemort, nor did he appear to care about some of the excruciating crucios he got from the Dark Lord either. I think he got punished more than the rest of us because he didn’t care. He just stuffed all his pain and revulsion for his tasks into cold storage. I suppose it’s all pouring out of him at once. No, there’s nothing anyone can do for him now except love him if – when he returns.”

In the meantime, Hermione had taken Arthur into her confidence only as far as asking for a month’s grace for her husband. Arthur had been so impressed with the amount of money Lucius had added to the Ministry’s coffers, he was more than willing to allow an entire quarter off if Lucius truly needed it. He didn’t ask any questions, merely trusted Hermione when she said Lucius needed the respite.

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Lucius wandered blindly for the first few days in a confused daze unable to think coherently long enough to perform any but the most basic functions, his perceptions and thought processes completely fragmented, eating nothing, sleeping under hedgerows and drinking from streams and ponds as his thirst drove him to it.

On the evening of the third day his tattered mind jelled enough to understand what his battered subconscious had been urging on him - he needed to revisit the places that haunted him – the horrors he’d visited on others and the searing, agonizing punishments that had been inflicted on him by his Dark Lord when he’d displeased the violent tyrant. He had to be sure he could survive their crushing burdens once more before he could finally leave the gruesome memories in the painful past where they belonged and not drag them into his future with a family who didn’t deserve the horrific leavings of his iniquitous career as a Death Eater.

Lucius slowly traveled one by one to all the places harboring the terrible memories that consumed him from the inside out. He stayed in each place reliving his guilt or his pain, wrestling with his conscience and seeking some measure of forgiveness or at least acceptance within himself for what he had done to others, but also what he had invited from the Dark Lord as punishments for his suppressed caring.

When he could gain a small sense of penitential peace from that particular event or place, he moved on. Some places took longer than others. Some days and events he could only get past by reminding himself he had never killed any children, but it was small compensation. He was entirely alone in the ghastly world he now inhabited– no one else was left alive to remember the worst things the Death Eaters had done for their cause. He had felt justified at the time, but he knew he’d also been punishing innocents in his rage against the maltreatment he’d received in his own troubled life. He had convinced himself the magic world was at terrible risk; he wanted someone to pay and the Muggles were the enemy and expendable.

Weeks went by as Lucius went deeper and deeper into his past, steeping himself in the ugly realities and facing them down, one by one, then letting them go. The former dark wizard needed to tear himself completely apart before he could rebuild the man he wanted to be, for his wife and both his children. He lost weight as he submitted to his tormenting memories, allowing them to suffuse his mind with their poison, and then slowly, painfully healing from the damage and accepting the mental scars left over.

At one point he sent an owl to Hermione letting her know he was alive but needed another month. The burden he carried was thereafter lightened by the weekly owls he started receiving from Hermione with loving messages and moving pictures of his child. He desperately hoped he could survive the rest of what he had to live through, to return to them as a whole, sane person.

He’d left the worst till last, coming one day to a burned out farmhouse in the countryside. He walked the perimeter over and over, sieving the daunting events he recalled only too well. At one point he sat on a charred log and finally broke down, tortured by the miserable flashbacks he recalled in all their bloody detail. Lucius didn’t know if he could get past it all. He was worn down by too many regrets, too little sleep, and not enough food for his well-being. The ghosts at this place were too real, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight them. Lucius was exhausted, extremely rundown, and had lost his will to endure; with nothing more than a gentle sigh he quietly collapsed beside the log and slid into a light coma.

Several hours later, with the day only a memory and a cold moon layering shadows on shadows in some nearby trees as a light wind percolated through their leaves, an owl began pecking at Lucius’ hands, trying to transfer its message to the wizard. When that didn’t get the human’s attention, the owl began pecking at Lucius’ face. Some remnant of self-preservation impelled Lucius to protect his eyes, and he roused from his stupor. He became aware of the owl and pushed it away before his face got any more nicks. When he sat up he was surprised to see where he had been lying and realized he had lost consciousness somehow; it was now well after dark and had gotten quite crisp.

The presence of the owl gave Lucius a renewed sense of determination to get back to his family and infused him with enough strength to rise and stumble back to the room he’d hired at a simple inn in the next village. Apparating was beyond him. The owl flew beside him, waiting patiently now for the human to retrieve its message.

Three miles on, Lucius came to his lodgings and retreated to his room with a request for a small meal. He finished the food and contemplated the owl. He knew it was probably from Hermione, but he wasn’t sure if he was up to reading about his sweet little daughter’s latest accomplishment or seeing her latest moving picture. The echoes of the farmhouse still resonated in his mind, but they had been muted to some extent by his cathartic reaction and loss of consciousness. He would return to the site and attempt it again, this time with a bit more food in him and maybe a night’s sleep.

Five days later, Lucius had finished his last task. The farmhouse had taken all his reserves, and had cost him a large chunk of his hard-won serenity. But for the first time in many years, his mind was quiet. The unaccustomed blissful silence and calm of his interior thoughts were balm to his overburdened soul and Lucius felt distilled down to essentials as he hadn’t been since he was a child.

He’d been pardoned by the Ministry of Magic, but Lucius had needed to pardon himself – as much as he ever could. He was thin and beaten down, but he finally felt he was ready to return to Hermione and little Chloe and try to start making final amends by not only keeping the Ministry in funds, but providing a stable, loving home for his new family and possibly Draco if he ever wanted to visit. It might be a bit odd for Draco, having his father married to one of his classmates, but that could be gotten over, he was sure. He could leave that to Hermione. Lucius smiled, knowing he could wholeheartedly trust her with his children, his future, and his heart.

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Lucius arrived home in the wee hours one foggy morning, apparating into his foyer. He didn’t want to wake anyone, but needed to see his wife and child as soon as they awoke for the day. Crookshanks greeted him in the upper hallway that led to the master bedroom, chirruping a friendly purr and walking with him down the Aubusson runner toward Hermione.

Lucius cautiously opened the door to their bedroom peering in to see if Hermione was still in bed or up with Chloe. He thought he saw a little lump under a large pile of quilts, so he ventured in and closed the door, leaving Crookshanks to wander to his own room for an early breakfast after terrorizing the garden all night. Crookshank’s new catdoors made all the difference to his important responsibilities as ferocious defender of the estate against the insolent whiskered forces of evil in the guises of rats, moles, and their obsequious minions, the mice.

Lucius crept to the bed and heard breathing so he figured Hermione must be under that pile somewhere. He retreated to their bathroom, ran a quick shower and shaved, then returned to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes and lifted one side of the quilt pyramid to slide in beside his wife, curling up against her and gently pulling her under him like they always did before her pregnancy made her too big to fit. Her body was back to its petite size and Lucius drew his first breath of her intoxicating scent again after two months of sheer hell. He hadn’t meant to, but Lucius fell sound asleep relaxing against his wife, feeling her heartbeat under his hand.

The next he knew a scream rent the air and he was smothered in a hug that, while pleasantly burying his face between soft breasts, unfortunately also covered his nose and made it hard for him to breathe. Lucius gently disentangled the delicate arms from his head and hair and lay looking up at his ecstatic wife.

“Lucius! I am so glad you’re home.” She impatiently yanked the quilts down off his body so she could check him over and reassure herself he was completely okay while trying to kiss him senseless at the same time.


“Omigosh,” she mourned when she saw his lean physique, “you’re just a shadow. What happened to you? Can’t I leave you alone for a measly two months without you ruining all my hard work during pregnancy making you eat the same horrid nutritious meals with me and accompanying me on those exercise jaunts?”

Her conversation came to an abrupt halt as Lucius pulled her to him, enclosing her in strong arms and covering her mouth with his. Lucius and Hermione reacquainted themselves with each other’s bodies by sight and by touch, questing fingers and tongues flying over warm skin, caressing and squeezing, and as arousals increased, pinching and biting. Hermione reared back for a second, worried at Lucius’ visible ribs, “Are you really okay?”

“I will be after you take care of this colossal hard-on I’ve been packing around for two months.” They both looked down at the one part of Lucius that hadn’t gotten thinner.

Hermione grinned and scooted down Lucius’ torso to kiss his cock. “Welcome home, Excaliber, I have missed you so much. Not as much as I’ve missed your owner, of course, but I’m very glad to see you, too.” Excaliber disappeared into Hermione’s mouth to the accompaniment of a deep groan of rich, dark pleasure from her husband.

Lucius had missed his little witch’s captivating method of making his nerve endings go crazy and he savored the little touches she alone knew how to do, bringing him to his peak long before he wanted to reach it. He pulled her back up to settle her on him entreating, “Ride me, precious. I want to see your face close to mine when you come. You’re so very beautiful.”

Lucius gazed deep into Hermione’s warm brown eyes with his own foggy gray, eliciting shivers of electric exigency that shot through her body and melted her heart to an adoring puddle. She loved this man so much it sometimes overwhelmed her senses, making her almost dizzy. It had been true from the start, the mesmerizing energy and essence he gave off storming all her defenses easily.

She didn’t understand how Arthur of all people had seen her reaction to Lucius when she had thought herself so clever at hiding her unwished for infatuation. By the time she had finished saying her vows with him, she’d been in love. She’d thought herself weak and stupid to love someone so horrible, but now she thought perhaps she’d been attracted to the good qualities that had been submerged within him as well as his bewitching sexuality. But it didn’t really matter, now. Hermione slid onto Lucius’ erection, sighing in satisfaction at the stretching she had always relished.

Lucius held her hips and assisted her to rise and sink on his swollen staff, increasing the pace steadily until they were both sweaty and gasping. He found her special place where each slide of his cock brought her a separate screaming delight. He had always loved those feminine screams. As Hermione took over the pistoning of her hips, Lucius transferred his hands to her fuller breasts, making a bit of cleavage by pressing them together as he kneaded them and plucked, then pinched the nipples hard, just as he knew she liked.

His hands came away wet and Hermione giggled, “Sorry, my love, I’m still breastfeeding.”

Lucius tasted his fingers and wrinkled his nose, “This stuff is too sweet.” He paused their romp and accio’d a hand towel from the bathroom to mop up himself and Hermione, after which he left her breasts alone and resumed their earlier kissing, driving Hermione into frenzied disarray with his wicked tongue.

Soon Hermione couldn’t seem to catch her breath. The sensations in her woman’s sheath tightened her arousal with each thrust, endlessly seducing her, coaxing her deeper and deeper into their private, intimate world. Her mouth was hotly devoured by his, and both of them were entirely engulfed in their own rapturous realm, utterly lost in the passionate, reverent moment of their reunion.

They each tried to prolong their sensations, but it had been too long for both of them and soon Hermione lost the battle, careening off into a violent orgasm, her inner feminine muscles rhythmically strangling an exultant Excaliber. Lucius gave an agonizing growl of futile resistance as his own fierce climax was ripped forcefully from his shuddering body. Hermione sank down onto her husband’s chest, weakly kissing the nearest skin she could reach, then a big yawn preceded her slipping into slumber, Excaliber still firmly planted within her snug channel.

Lucius held onto her while he reached for some quilts, covering them both as he dislodged himself and tucked her under him again. He wanted to indulge himself in the nearness of his precious treasure, but between one instant and the next, he too dropped off.

Before seeking Hermione, Lucius had summoned Achilles and instructed the elf to look after Chloe if she should awake before Lucius was finished greeting his wife. Achilles had apparated away, a smug smile carefully hidden from his master. The instructions Lucius had given him were couched in his usual terse terms, but the attitude was so much more egalitarian that the old elf knew Hermione had successfully reached her husband’s heart and made it her own. Life for the estate elves had just taken an even more positive leap, for now both Malfoys were happy.

Hours later husband and wife struggled up from their sound sleeps, looking at each other in surprise as if to say, “What happened?” Then they both laughed, and rolled out of bed, dressing and stretching out the new kinks and aches of bodies a little rusty from abstinence.

Lucius trailed across the hall after Hermione wanting very much to see his beautiful daughter but he was aware that to the little girl he was now a stranger. They entered Chloe’s bedroom to see her waving her hands in the air at Achilles, making baby noises at him. Achilles looked around and saw Master and Mistress looking so calm and happy it did his old heart good. “Baby Chloe is awake and has been fed with one of Mistress’ extra bottles.” At Hermione’s nod, he offered, “Let Achilles know when he is needed again.” Achilles apparated away.

Hermione picked up her daughter and Lucius came close, putting his arms around the two of them, exclaiming with pride at how much their littlest Malfoy had grown. They stood there as Lucius drank in the presence of his baby. This experience was so much more positive than his last had been. Lucius knew he was going to do everything in his power to give his daughter a happy childhood free of impossible standards and filled instead with unconditional love.

The small family spent a couple of hours laughing and playing together, Chloe accepting her father as easily as she accepted her mother. Finally Chloe’s eyelids drooped and she fell asleep on her father’s shoulder. Her parents put her into her cradle and tucked her in, recalling Achilles to watch over her. Both Lucius and Hermione had several small spit-ups on their clothing and hands so they went back to their bedroom.

As they freshened up in the bathroom, Lucius jokingly asked Hermione, “So - did you finish the dungeon, precious?”

“As for that,” she replied seriously, “it’s an odd thing. I definitely started out to build one, truly I did, but I somehow got sidetracked and the dungeon came out quite differently.”

Lucius hadn’t really expected her to build one at all. “How many ways can you build a stone cell?” he asked curiously and with a little alarm.

“Well for one thing, it’s above ground. And it has plenty of air circulation, so the smell torture thing won’t work. I really bollixed up there. Plus, I think I’m going to have a terrible time keeping any rats in it because the sides are kind of, well, not escape-proof. Actually, there aren’t any sides.” Hermione smiled secretively, “But I’m not going to heat it at all, so it should be very cold at times.” I think I’m going to incarcerate you in it immediately.” Hermione hexed her shocked husband’s hands together and wrapped her hand towel around his stupefied face, tying it with one of his hair ribbons out of a drawer.

Lucius felt himself being apparated to what appeared to be the out-of-doors, and set gently on a sandy surface. He stood, waiting patiently for his wife to do whatever it was she was trying to accomplish. His trust in her was total and his mind was completely at ease.

Hermione removed the hex and whipped off his hand towel blindfold. “Your new dungeon, my love. I expect you to serve time in it constantly from now on.”

Lucius looked around curiously, at first only seeing an expanse of white sand, then he looked up and saw, “Precious! This is a Quidditch field. You’ve built an entire Quidditch field for me?” He recognized an area of his back acres that had lain in brambles for many years. “Precious!” He said again in awe, as his eyes glowed with his excitement and he turned in a circle to see the entire field.

“You can start a team of your own to play pickup games. You know, with other frustrated over-the-hill Quidditch players. And between times you can practice if you want.” Hermione swept his hair back from blowing into his face in the light wind, “Do you like it?” She handed him the ribbon for his hair and accio’d a stored Quidditch broomstick from the sidelines. “Try it out!”

Lucius glared at her, “I am NOT over the hill.” Then he grinned like a kid and tied his hair back, pulling the broomstick to himself. Two seconds later he launched into the sky, darting around the field and examining the rings high above the ground. “This is fantastic,” he called, swooping back and forth, before landing again beside his fireball. “I’ll floo Severus later and see if he wants to play. Maybe he has a few others he can scare up for a game.


“This is absolutely amazing, precious. You’re amazing. I can’t think of anything I would have enjoyed more. Except for our daughter. I haven’t thanked you for her yet. She is so beautiful, so pure, Hermione. You’ve given me another child to love; I’ve wanted that for a long time.”


Lucius face grew more somber, “I hope you do understand I needed to deal with the excrescence my life had become, before I could be her father. I couldn’t bring what I was into her world.” Lucius shivered as he thought of the remnants of a past that would never quite leave him, but could now be atoned for in positive ways.

Hermione fell into the wintry landscape of his eyes, eyes that remembered too many horrors still. She said softly, “I saw a bit of it, Lucius, when you showed me your internal turmoil. Your mind is one of the strongest I’ve ever known but even it couldn’t contain and suppress all those harrowing, poisonous memories any more.” Hermione trembled viscerally at the destructiveness of the few fuzzy transferred memories she’d glimpsed, understanding more than she really wanted to of the turbulent depths of rage and near madness he’d suffered, but she put her little hand on his sleeve and squeezed his forearm, offering her support.


She asked, “Is it better now?”


Lucius looked down at her, a gentle smile transforming his handsome face and radiating a tranquil serenity that she had never seen or felt from him before. His face had somehow lost some of the deeper-etched lines that had made him look more formidable and intimidating.

“Yes,” he said simply, “better.” Then he grinned and winked at her with a devilish twinkle, “I think we need a nice, hot bath – together. I’m ready for one after my spontaneous flying spree. What do you think?”

Hermione thought that Lucius had finally learned how to create his tranquil sleeping face while he was awake and she guessed she was totally screwed as she gazed at him in mute, fatuous stupefaction.

Lucius saw her preoccupation with his face and his agile mind put the pieces together. His smile became facetiously evil and he said, “Does this mean you’re going to lose all arguments with me from now on?”

Hermione pulled him down and kissed him thoroughly. Now they both had looks of fatuous stupefaction. She said dreamily, “Let’s go have that bath,” and they apparated into their bathroom.


To be continued...
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