Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

_________________________________________________


Updated 10-1-08


If you all would be so kind, I’d appreciate a tag on your reviews telling me what chapter(s) you are reviewing - for example, @ 30, or ‘ch30-40’. Otherwise, I’m totally at sea for knowing where you are in the story, especially if you are just beginning. Chocolate truffles for your kindness.


Some answers:


Voracious Reader – Yes, Hermione’s sudden interest in a wand sale was a pertinent event. 8-)


sisterae – I’m glad you think the mysterious blackmailer makes sense. Yes, there were unfortunate Squib contacts galore to exploit, a rich source of blackmail material.


pumkin Oh, Pumkin, I’m sorry I left you hanging (slips you an extra chocolate truffle). I hope their solution to what to do with their captive will be acceptable.


PutrescentQueen – Waves! Hi! I’m happy you are enjoying this story!


Snapes_Goddess – This mystery is going to unravel completely very soon.


meankitty69 – Yes, I do think Lucius would be proud of a wife who had so many intelligent resources for self-protection.


Rini - Hermione does have a bit of vengeful streak to her. Don’t we all. She’s got devious and self-protective streaks, too. Hence the second wand. She learns from her previous experiences.


angelprince – Hermione loved telling the blackmailer she was Muggleborn. That had made her uncomfortable as an issue. Please hand me a nail for the blackmailer’s ass and I’ll see it gets nailed. Oh yeahhhh.


slytherin-princess – I try to play fair with my mysteries so readers have a chance at figuring them out. I hope you feel it makes sense. Lucius, being a Death Eater retiree, will have a plan for the blackmailer’s future, I’m sure.


Mia – I saw ‘Toy Story’, but don’t remember the name Nesbitt. Glad you liked the twists.


dynonugget – Yes, everything was very far gone in the decimated wizarding world. The Ministry was basically wiped out. As was Diagon Alley and many private homes. Mass destruction. And, of course, I couldn’t keep up the angst. The humor just elbows its way into my stories. Honest, I have no control. I love their bickering. ‘When’ and ‘where’ will come…ah, I see you’ve arrived at the answer to that. I like to paint a scene, but not overburden the reader with excess details so I’m glad you like my ratio. Lucius has his moments of good and moments of um, maybe we’ll just call them ‘Lucius moments’. His arousal is growing…and growing…(snicker) No one else was transported to their new setting.


Heidi191976 – Thanks, Heidi. You’ll find out Lucius’ reaction in this next chapter.


Scary Bear Hair – Hermione has a great deal of experience in planning ahead and protecting herself, gleaned with much pain and anguish from her past. This time it worked for her. I certainly wouldn’t want to be on Lucius’ bad side. He will never be a candidate for sainthood. Ah, you remembered the quirky Veil.


Doodle – Oh my, you had a gazillion plot lines? Maybe you should be my Muse. LOL I can always use plot ideas.


Utopia – I’m happy you think the mystery makes sense. If Hermione needed a second wand, really needed one, I think one would choose her. Lucius is surprised at the scene in the drawing room, but he trusts Hermione completely.


Shiv – Thank you, Shiv. I’m honored you’re enjoying the story.


shez - Buying a second wand would seem to be necessary for Ron, and Voldemort certainly was using others' wands, so it seemed possible as a plot idea. The Malfoys are now sitting on an explosive situation with those documents in their home.


godblessemohair – Welcome and I am happy you are enjoying this tale. The Master is not Voldemort. It is a different person. I hope that clears up your confusion. And to tell the truth, if you want a bit of Hermione as a more kinky submissive than in this story, you’ll have to try my other story, “The Wedding.” You’ll get a higher level of kinky ‘Hermione as submissive’ smut there [grin]. Otherwise, Hermione isn’t put into cuffs or chains, etc. in this story. There is a bit of commanding Lucius later... There is a bit of commanding Lucius later...


blue artemis – For all I love Lucius, I seem to write women characters with some power of their own. Frail, helpless damsels in distress with no inner resources annoy me. The blackmailer’s fate will show up soon.


jw – Hermione may gear up to using ‘Petificus Totalis’ if she keeps getting attacked in her life. For now, her self-protection spell of choice is still the ‘Stupefy’. Lucius may train her more as their marriage goes along. No, the blackmailer didn’t murder Uncle Malfoy’s heir or the spare. He wouldn’t have inherited anything with their deaths so they were of no interest. You’re welcome – I couldn’t have hurt Hermione. She’d already gone through enough at the bordello.


Robyn Hawkes – Yes, extra wands would probably be possible, rather like keeping an extra pair of glasses around for if one pair breaks.


Muffy - Oh, Muffy, if you got worried about what might happen in an upcoming chapter, I totally understand. I have particular limits, too. I am happy to see I didn’t transgress your issues after all. [does happy dance] Hermione was a step ahead of evil this time, thanks to her horrible experience with Bellatrix. I’m glad you like the mystery and its miscreant.


pittwitch - I hope the lawyer makes sense as the answer. Hermione’s no one’s patsy any more. She’s learned from the past.


maddie50 – If I hadn’t done something special after 21 chapters of no sex, I would have been jinxed through the internet, I’m sure. The bedroom paintings kind of took on a life of their own when I invented them. Odd. Yes, insecure Lucius and insecure Hermione are clashing at morés, beliefs and backgrounds. A match made in heaven - not. Lucius miscalculated when he took Hermione back to the bordello, but it ultimately cleared the air, no thanks to him. I suspect every society has women trying to steal taken men. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t go after Lucius myself LOL. I’m pleased you like the apparel I use to dress my characters. That’s kind of fun. I know of the Hornblower series, but have never read it. I saw part of Master and Commander, but it wasn’t a recommendation to me, being a sad part. If you’ve caught up with the story, you know who the blackmailer is.


Damiana - Antediluvian it is. Thank you. (Bad fingers, bad, bad.) Your questions will be answered soon about the evidence and the solicitor’s fate. Chapter 33 shows Hermione going to a wand sale at Ollivander’s. The blackmailer’s monologue is only because he’s talking to a ‘brainless female’ and he’s going to obliviate her, anyway. It must be difficult never talking about his nefarious successes to anyone, so yes, he got a little garrulous. I wasn’t trying to whitewash Uncle or punish or redeem him. I wasn’t that karmic about the character, although I wish now I could say I was LOL.
Re Uncle’s murder:
1) Uncle Malfoy was romantically involved thirty years ago so it seemed to me that he couldn’t be an ancient 150 or so, even though wizards live and probably have sex longer. That meant his age had to have some general romantic possibilities, say anywhere from 25 to 70 years old? Therefore, he couldn’t have died of old age.
2) If so, then why did he die so ‘young’? He had to be dead for Lucius to enter the scene. So I had him murdered.
3) Uncle Malfoy was threatening Nesbitt with Azkaban. Do you think the blackmailer would have allowed that? And most importantly, it just seemed like something a blackmailing predator would do, having no real conscience so I snuffed out Uncle in a nice, melodramatic, yet sanitized [grin] way to add a twist to the story. Uncle was a head case, hounding the Squib families, but as the Minister for Magic said, what he did wasn’t illegal. What the blackmailer did WAS illegal. Azkaban for the old git would probably have been a death sentence - if the blackmailed families didn’t get to him first.




Onward...

_________________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Four


An Old Secret

The nasty solicitor tried to speak but his speech was completely garbled and finally he ceased his unintelligible ranting. He stamped his feet in rage.

“I see,” grinned the blond wizard. “I believe some of those words merit Hermione washing your mouth out with soap, so I’m just as glad we couldn’t understand them. My wife’s fierce with a bar of soap.”

Hermione was a little disconcerted that her husband was so blasé about finding his solicitor tied up in his drawing room with her standing over him waving her wand. “Lucius, don’t toy with that horrid criminal. He’s admitted to me that he murdered your uncle. That bag over there on the floor has all his blackmail documents. He was hiding them all in the secret chamber under that rug. What do we do with him? And his blackmail information?”

“What!” Lucius’ grin was replaced with a face Hermione never hoped to see on her account. She was looking at a Death Eater.

“Well, first of all, Stupefy!” Lucius’ wand was out of his sleeve in a blur as he aimed it at the wizard, watching pitilessly as the old man slumped in his chair. Hermione didn’t know it, but her presence had protected the old wizard against a much more grievous spell that would have fried him to his seat.

Lucius saw his wife was a little shocked at his quick, cold response with even the mild Stupefy, so he strove to master his anger at hearing his relative had been murdered. “Forgive me, love. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He moved to put his body between Hermione and the trussed up solicitor so she didn’t have to look at the blackguard any more. “Do you want to stay in this room or go elsewhere to talk?” he asked kindly, only his white-knuckled fist clutching his wand giving away his inner ire.

“I don’t want him to escape,” she worried, peeking around Lucius’ chest at the unconscious wizard.

“I’ll put him in stasis just to be sure. He won’t revive until I remove the stasis spell. Is that good enough?” At her nod he murmured a few words and the solicitor’s unconscious body started a slight pulsing.”

“Why is he moving like that?” Hermione, ever curious, wondered.

“Oh. Hmm, that’s my Azkaban stasis. The pulsing kept my muscles in trim while I was under its influence. I’ll adjust it.” Lucius chanted a few more words and the pulsing stopped, leaving the old wizard sitting rigidly in the chair, still unconscious. “Done. Is it to your satisfaction now?” he raised an inquiring eyebrow, diverted from the disgusting situation for a few calming seconds, which allowed him to better control his roiling anger. His wife’s rampant curiosity was going to be a fixture in their lives no matter what the circumstances, he foresaw in reluctant amusement.

“I suppose. Can we go to the library?” Hermione ran over and hefted the bag, then stepped into her husband’s arms and he apparated them onto their comfortable velvet sofa near the fire in the library. The bag went on the low table in front of them.

“Atlas!” Lucius called.

Atlas popped into the room, “Master wishes?”


“Augustus Nesbitt is tied up in the main drawing room. Under no circumstances is he to be let free.”

“Certainly, Master. Should Atlas let Master know when Mr. Nesbitt enters this house from now on?”

“What do you mean, ‘from now on’? Has he been coming here without us knowing it?” Lucius frowned at the little house elf.

“Not lately, Master. But Solicitor Nesbitt can enter estate from previous Master. Shall Master wish to change old Master’s rule?”

“Yes, immediately. Is there anyone else who has unlimited access, Atlas?” asked Lucius a bit cynically of the little elf.

“No, Master,” replied the elf, unperturbed.

“Very well, you may go,” Lucius waved the elf away. The elf waited. Lucius glared at the creature, “Thank you,” he growled in aggravation. Atlas disappeared.

Hermione giggled shakily at Lucius’ grumbly face, far preferring it to the one he’d had a few minutes ago. “I was going to tell you about our clandestine open-door policy,” and she related her afternoon’s adventure. Lucius grinned at the second wand surprise but his worry was apparent.

“Of all times for you to gather your courage and go into the drawing room,” Lucius tsked, and began checking his wife over feverishly for any injuries. “Thank the Gods I came home early.” He picked her up and nestled her on his lap.

“I’m glad you came home early, too. I didn’t know what to do with him.” Hermione snuggled against Lucius’ warm chest and sighed.

“What made you go in there?” he asked.

“I remembered that you had a secret chamber under the drawing room floor. I was going to look for it as a hiding place for those blackmail documents. And I was right,” she murmured into his neckcloth, inhaling his soothing scent and trying to calm herself down, being a little wobbly after the fact.

“Oh,” Lucius began, then said, “WHAT?” He sat up, drawing his wife out from her secure place under his chin, his hands firmly grasping her upper arms. “And just how did you know about that secret chamber?” he frowned, displeased that she should know something private to his family; he knew he hadn’t told her. She hadn’t wanted any discussion of that room.

“Ron told me years ago, when we were children,” she answered, trying to get back under his chin and sliding her hands under his jacket to cling to his chest as he released her arms.

“Ron? Ron Weasley? Shite! Was it posted on the Hogwarts bulletin board, too? How the hell did he know about it? Who else knew?”

Hermione put her face into his chest and clung fiercely when Lucius tried to pry her off so he could see her expression. “Harry,” she mumbled into his white lawn shirt placket.

“Potter? POTTER, TOO? Well, fuck me, suck me and give me a shave, do you know what that information could have done to me if you’d breathed a word of that into Arthur Weasley’s ears?” Lucius’ voice rose with his anger.

“Lucius, please. Your language,” said the muffled voice under Lucius’ chin.

“Do you? My family would have been destroyed. We could have been sent to Azkaban for years. My Gods, we were hanging by a thread and didn’t even know it.” Hermione felt him shudder in her arms and clung tighter. “I need to know, Hermione. How did you find out?” This time he successfully pulled his little limpet off his chest and lifted her chin with gentle fingers so he could see her face.

Hermione could see his icy eyes were dilated with fear, but the full implication hadn’t come to her yet. “That was many years ago,” she said. “Nothing happened.”

“No, Hermione, it’s in the future. It hasn’t happened yet. I need to know, love. Tell me.” He knew, even if she didn’t, that the Veil was an unknown in their lives, manipulating time as easily as he manipulated his finances.

Hermione sighed, “It was my second year at Hogwarts. Bad things were happening - as it turned out, it was because of the Basilisk terrifying the school. I believe that was some of your doing,” she haughtily accused.

“Oh, hell, so it was. I gave Ginny Weasley that book knowing it had some sort of weird dark power, but I didn’t know it was one of Voldemort’s horcruxes. I just thought it would cause enough pandemonium that I could step in and have Dumbledore removed. Instead, I unknowingly gave one part of Voldemort’s soul away. I was punished for that, not only by him later, but by being scared sick something would happen to Draco when all those petrifications started happening. I wanted to pull Draco out of school, but he wouldn’t leave.

“When Voldemort discovered I’d used the book and it was gone from my secret chamber, it was the beginning of me losing my premier place with him. He’d been gone so many years, I thought he was dead and I may as well use the dark object for a plan of my own. That wasn’t bad enough, the Department of Mysteries fiasco dropped me completely from power. After that I was merely a tool with a large manor for staging Voldemort’s bid for the magic world.”

“I hope you don’t expect sympathy from me, “ Hermione said tartly.

“No, love, I believe we’ve covered that topic rather thoroughly already. So, how did you and Ron and Potter find out?” Lucius zeroed right back to the question that so frightened him.

Hermione was reluctant to tell Lucius all the details of that long ago ruse even though it was, as she claimed, ancient history. But it couldn’t make any difference now and he was still upset. She could feel his heart thundering in his chest. “It had to do with the Heir of Slytherin,” she said, leaning back against Lucius’ chest and he let her settle. “We knew Harry wasn’t hurting all the people who were getting petrified at school. We, uh, sort of thought maybe, that is, um, well, that Draco was doing it.”

“Draco! Why on earth would you think that?”

“Well, it was supposed to be the Heir of Slytherin who was responsible, and Draco kept making nasty remarks and we thought he was jealous that Harry was seen as the Heir when it was really him. And he was Slytherin.”

“That doesn’t explain how you know about my secret chamber,” said Lucius, resting his chin on his wife’s curly hair.

“I’m getting to that,” Hermione huffed, but pulled Lucius’ arms closer around her midriff as she continued. “We needed to find a way for Draco to talk to us, but of course he would never give us any information. So we decided to become Crabbe and Goyle. Or rather, Ron and Harry became Crabbe and Goyle.” Hermione left out her own unfortunate feline experience as she went on, “I brewed some Polyjuice Potion -”

“You! You were, what, twelve? That’s a very sophisticated potion. Any of you could have been hurt or worse. That was extremely foolhardy, Hermione.” Lucius hugged her, intensely relieved that nothing bad had happened to his precious wife, even though the episode was far into the future.

“I was advanced for my age,” she said, defending her ability. “If you like, I’ll finish my story.” She waited but got no more remonstration from her husband, “Harry became Goyle and Ron became Crabbe and they visited Malfoy. We found out Malfoy knew nothing, but while he was talking he mentioned the secret chamber under your drawing room and all the valuable dark arts stuff you had hidden there. If the Ministry of Magic already raided your house, how come they didn’t find the secret chamber?”

“I see Draco was an unending fount of information. I’m surprised you didn’t learn the color of my underwear while you were at it.”

Hermione chuckled, “Oh, Lucius, you know you don’t wear any.”

“It was merely a turn of phrase,” the wizard said with a disdainful sniff.

“Well?” Hermione wiggled a bit.

“Ah, my secret chamber. It has its own unplottable spell. My whole estate is unplottable, of course, but that room was done separately. The Ministry minions never thought to look for a second unplottable space within the larger one.” Lucius was justifiably proud of his devious idea. “Their mistake. Unplottable space was no deterrent to the New Wave Master, though, as we all found out.”

Hermione was suitably impressed with the clever cover. “You are quite crafty, aren’t you? I’m all admiration.”

“Thank you,” her husband said simply. He knew when he’d been given a tremendous compliment from a witch with brains to match his.

“Nesbitt said some sort of spell to make the chamber trapdoor visible,” Hermione added.

Lucius shrugged, “He probably only undid a basic glamour. That would have been enough for this simpler age.”

“Anyway, that’s how we knew about the secret chamber in your drawing room,” she ended. “Other things happened soon after and I guess we forgot about it. We were children and didn’t understand the significance of what we had learned.” The major other thing that had happened was Hermione turning into a giant cat, but she wasn’t going to share that with anyone – ever. “Are you worried that history might change and you will be caught with whatever you were hiding in the secret chamber?”

“With the abilities of the Veil, I’m not going to underestimate the possibility. At least I know now where the leak was. If I ever have to live through that again and am armed with this new knowledge, I’ll know not to let Draco in on the secret.” Lucius suddenly laughed, “If I have to live through that again I would do a great many things differently. I can just see me trying to court you while you were at Hogwarts. Knowing what I do now, I’d have to step lively to marry you under the pug nose of your red-haired Weasley. I’d have to seduce you with books, I think. It wouldn’t be correct to make advances until you were seventeen, though. Seducing children is abhorrent to me.”

“But you would be married to Narcissa.” Hermione thought he might have carried the day, depending on which books he gave her. A charming, sexually magnetic, gorgeous older man. Yes, she might have succumbed if in that different reality he weren’t a Death Eater.

“That’s one of the many things I would do differently. However, it’s not worthwhile wallowing in ‘ifs’. I’m very happy with my life now.” Lucius stood up and cuddled Hermione against his chest, carrying her toward the dining room, “Let’s have dinner. I’m famished.”

~~~~

Dinner conversation revolved around what to do with their prisoner. Lucius said, “The documents are easy enough. We merely return them anonymously to their owners. The owners will know what to do with them. We shouldn’t destroy the information ourselves. The blackmail victims could never be comfortable wondering if their secrets would surface again. That leaves us with our sleeping beauty in the drawing room. You said that uncle did all the terrorizing through Gus? So all those entries for LOAN must have been to Gus, too. Ahhh,” Lucius said and he smiled, then laughed.

“What?” Hermione leaned over her dinner plate, willing her chuckling husband to let her in on his mirth. “What? Tell me!”

“LOAN, Hermione. We were looking at it all the time. Law Offices of Augustus Nesbitt. L-O-A-N. Uncle was merely abbreviating his records. Are you sure Nesbitt’s partner, Ridge, wasn’t in on the scheme?”

“I’m almost positive. Nesbitt wasn’t too complimentary about his partner and there was no reason to lie to me when he had planned to obliviate me anyway.” Hermione sat back again, spearing a piece of broccoli dripping hollandaise sauce and popping it into her mouth.

“Well, then,” Lucius continued, “we can’t turn Nesbitt in to the Ministry. Not without proof and I think it would be cruel to hand blackmail information to the Ministry - even if some of it might be prosecutable crimes done by the ones blackmailed. Let the Ministry do its own police work.” The blond wizard had an idea but he wasn’t sure Hermione would go along with his plan. He cocked his head at an angle and stared at her debating if he should broach his idea.

“You can quit thinking so loudly over there, Lucius. Just tell me what you have in mind.” Hermione nonchalantly reached for the wine bottle and poured herself a healthy tot. Lucius had given up on limiting her alcohol and she had begun to enjoy the taste.

Lucius asked mildly, “You aren’t practicing a little legilimency on me, are you?”

“No, love. I’ll leave that to you. Tell me what idea you have.”

Lucius felt himself glow with her calling him ‘love’, but put it aside for the moment. He said baldly, “We can obliviate him. He was going to do it to you. I can do a thorough job, leaving enough knowledge for him to function in his work, but remove all his knowledge of the blackmail, the Squib harassment – and,” Lucius looked resigned, “the murder. Or, if you prefer, I was a Death Eater, and if there’s one thing a Death Eater learns early, it’s how to dispose of a body.”

Hermione shook her head to both ideas, shivering a little at Lucius’ second idea. “Lucius, removing those memories isn’t going to make him a sterling citizen. He’s preyed on many people. He’ll just stay true to his inner self and begin a new regime of wicked deeds. And he’s a conscienceless murderer, plus I think he’s insane. We can’t just wipe his mind and let him loose to hurt or maybe kill others. But I don’t want you relapsing into your old persona. You have your new leaf to consider and he’s not worth the danger to you.”

Lucius looked pensive for a few moments, then his head came up from his contemplation of his mashed potatoes. “I do have one other idea.”

“And, that is…?” the little witch asked.

“We’ll take him to the Veil and let it decide. If the Veil agrees, we’ll send him through it and it can make the decision to either save him, kill him, or send him elsewhere.” If he disappears, we will never know what the Veil chose, but he will be gone forever from here.” Lucius watched his wife. “Well?”

A lovely smile broke out, her eyes sparkling with approbation for her wonderful husband. She nearly danced out of her chair, running over to her husband’s side of the table and throwing her arms around him. “Perfect!” she gushed, squeezing him around the neck and kissing him all over his face.

“I do realize we are basically taking the coward’s way out,” Lucius said when he had his larynx back. “There are other ways of making him disappear.”

“No, no, no! I don’t want you to have to subject yourself to that way of life any more,” Hermione stated, well aware that he had been forced to deal with the old landlady and the horrible people from the bordello. “I’m sorry you had to take on those awful Muggles in London. I know you’re turning over your new leaf and dealing with those problems didn’t help. If the Veil will help us, we’ll know it. Mr. Nesbitt may just fall out the other side of the Veil unharmed. We’ll know its decision that way.”

Hermione went back to her seat. “How will we get him to the Veil?”

“Oh, I think we’ll find a way,” Lucius said, a bit of Death Eater coming out to play for just a moment.


tbc...

_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________


What do you think the Veil will do, if anything? How will Lucius and Hermione get the old wizard there in the first place? What will happen to all the blackmail documents?

The story isn't over yet. Not for a while...

.
.