Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 11-3-08

My goodness. Such an influx of Lucius-Hermione stories. Except for the classic Snape-Hermione and Draco-Hermione stories, our section is looking very good! When I posted my first Lucius-Hermione story there were 51 stories here. Now we have 156. Niiiiice! Go Lucius!!


I loved all the hate mail I got from the last chapter. I know you guys were just kidding...yeah, just kidding...

Some responses -


jw – Oh my, I certainly hope my version of the time travel Lucius and Hermione have gone through meets your detailed questions. Lucius was perhaps precipitate in going back through the Veil. I think he now agrees. We’ll see what happens now.


sisterae – After writing so many stories about Lucius and Hermione the idea of Draco and Hermione smacks me of some sort of incest LOL. I have a hard time reading the DM/HG stories. I do better with Snape and Hermione for that reason. Silly. Will you tell me when you do new chapters? I sometimes get lost in my writing and need the boot in the rear. I’ll look forward to them. My email addy is labibliographe@yahoo.com.


FlowersBecomeScreens – You think I make them suffer? YOU? Check out this other story called “Hungry, Thirsty, Crazy” for some real angsty stuff. I’m in kindergarten next to that story. You have some very cogent observations about this story, though. You so often are on the same wavelength, it’s almost paranormal. [cue Twilight Zone music]


meankitty69 – Aw, meankitty, I’m back now. I’m so sorry I made you cry. But I had a great time making Lucius cry. I guess I’m the mean one. LOL.


happybunny – Hi there! Hmm, maybe I should pass out blood pressure pills with cliffies. I’ll put it on my list for consideration, but I don’t want to get arrested for prescribing without a license. The Draco question is answered in this next chapter. Thank you for reviewing!


StarKneazle – Thank you for reading and reviewing. I’m glad you’re enjoying the story. You’re correct in your surmise. No, I wouldn’t go there. I value my life too much LOL.


Citten – I suspect I’d be maimed for life if you could catch me, Citten. Hermione traveling back in time to when Lucius is still in school seems to be the hot scenario for several Lucius/Hermione stories in this section right now. One more kind of seems redundant. Plus I’m kind of addicted to older Lucius as powerful, wealthy, and his full snarky self. I suppose all that could be true of him as a student, but I do like him also as a fully adult smut artist, too.


kitty – I’m a hit and run twist writer. I don’t make characters languish forever. Don’t worry.


Visitkarte – Did I say Hermione was with Draco? I missed that part. Read on – and put that wand away. I don’t allow Unforgivables on my person. You DO want the story to finish, don’t you? Don’t worry.


Utopia - To Lucius it WAS broke. He’s worried about his son. Thanks for alerting me to the italics problem. It’s fixed now. And I wrote down all your hopes for the epilogue. I’ll see what I can do.


Shiv – “eeeeevil”- - yes I like that. Mostly ‘cause I’m kind of a marshmallow.


Heidi191976 – You know Hermione is very clever. She’ll be doing her best for Lucius.


Shana – Hi! Thanks for reviewing and reading this story. What is your research paper about? I have all your wishes for the epilogue. I’ll see what all I can fit in. I’m glad you like the story!


Voracious Reader – I think all your questions except the Academy are answered in this chapter. Hope you like it!


Clare1984 – Judiciously speaking, I think overall there is less angst in this story than in some of my others. My opinion, which may not be worth much, I’m afraid. I can’t really tell what a reader would think. You’re right, Draco obviously isn’t shocked. Yes, Lucius will demand ALL your attention if you let him. He talks quite a bit, too. He’s rather persuasive, so watch out.


Scary Bear Hair – Lucius and Hermione could have played safe and stayed in the nineteenth century, but I think Hermione wasn’t really happy there, and Lucius never stopped worrying about Draco. For an infinitesimal time I toyed with sending them to another time to fix something else, but the time travel angle is difficult to write and this story was getting long. I thought about making a series of stories with them traveling for the Veil. It could be interesting, but for now, I’m wading through my next story and am caught up in that. I’m sorry you got gobsmacked (great word), but you know it wouldn’t be for long.


sweettiff_14 – I admit it, I’m mean. But it was fun, wasn’t it? Kind of? Your questions will be answered forthwith. That arch is one of a kind – thank goodness. If they had t-shirts for 'review whore' I'd buy one. Did you know that on average my stories generate 1-2% reviews per number of hits? And that's with me begging on bended knee. I'm probably average.


T Stevenson – Draco’s relationship to Hermione…read on. And I hope you didn’t pine away, as Lucius has at least quit crying by now, I imagine. He’s quite a strong character, you know.


Jesse – I don’t like to see this story end either, but I needed to work on my next story, too. I hope this next chapter pleases.


Muffy – I’m all about happy endings, but I don’t always get there without some angst, not much, but some. I hope you recover enough to read the next chapter LOL.


Robyn Hawkes – That is a very good question you’ve asked. This next chapter should help.


Always Intimate – Aw, I’m hoping you don’t hate me after this next chapter. When I write a mystery the villain is always so transparent to me, I think everyone must see it. I’m happy it was a good mystery for you. Writing a time travel story is very hard. The oddest things foul one up. So this may be my time travel swan song. I’ll stick to the present.


angelprince Hah! You’ll have to tell me if I’ve written my way out of this latest wrinkle. Yeah, I made Lucius cry – and loved it. I think I may be part Slytherin, heh, heh.


sinbad – Thank you and I’m sorry I made you cry. I hope you cheer up now. Read on.


Sailor Sol – Hi there, Sailor Sol. I’ve just checked your story, which I had thought died. I now appear to be 3 chapters behind. I’ll read them in the next day or two. I’m usually only a heartless monster for a chapter or two in my stories. Glad you liked it!


slytherin-princess – Oooh, good questions. I like how you think about the problems. Very nice, indeed. I hope they’ll be answered soon.


distinctlyME – I appreciate your review and I’m happy you like this story. I think you will be buoyed by the next chapter. Can’t say more, but don’t worry.


Rini - I think packratting is a disease. I know I have a bad case of it. I think most of your questions will soon be answered, so don’t worry.


ruck_fules84 – You know me, good stuff always happens. You can pull in your pouting lip.


tambrathegreat – I don’t think Lucius has a great deal of fondness for the Veil. Lucius and money are inseparable in his mind. Doing without isn’t worth living.


Damiana – Why Hermione is in Malfoy Manor will be answered in this next chapter. Poor Lucius, back in stripes. Bwwaaahhhaaa. I will take your suggestion of higher chapter numbers to accommodate my story lines into account. I may be reading my preferences onto others as I usually don’t read a story with a great many chapters unless I’ve started with the author as they’re writing it. I’ve got to have time to write and getting involved with a long story is scary to me, timewise, mostly because I write long reviews.


blue artemis – Happy birthday to your new baby son. If he becomes your only child, the guide books say children only miss siblings when they are about second grade (when other children are getting new siblings) and when their parents grow very old and need to be cared for. Otherwise, most children are fine being an only child. I’ve only got one. He’s now in his twenties. The second grade thing was correct and so far the rest has been correct, too. I hope everything is going well for you. You’ll get a good night’s sleep again eventually. Truly. The answer to Draco is in this next chapter.


doodle – You are right. Draco is not surprised to see Hermione. Very perspicacious of you. I’m impressed!


sdemelo – Hi! If you were upset at the last chapter, my recommendation is to read on.


sheherazade – I don’t know how I could have ended the story leaving Lucius to never know what happened to his child. I don’t think the Veil is Lucius’ favorite rock right now. I suppose Hermione will have plenty of crotch to stare at with Lucius as her husband so she isn’t going to be ‘short-changed’, as it were.


Lyra Aphrodite Moon – I think this will top out at 50 chapters including the Epilogue which will be ‘chapter 50’. If you’ve read any of my other stories you know I don’t create unending angst. I twist the heart strings just a bit then let go. I’m really very mushy and happily ever after. Honest! I hope you feel better.


dynonugget – Ah, you’re at Madam Celestine’s right now. Got it. Twentieth century knickers in nineteenth century England. Hermione is definitely NOT a clothes horse.


Voracious Reader – I don’t know if you’re going to be shocked, but I have absolutely NO outline for my stories. I usually start with one thought or one sentence and everything just blossoms from it like mold growing LOL. In essence, I start writing with no idea where the story will take me. For “the Wedding” I started with the single idea ‘Lucius feels unlovable’. That was my whole outline. For “Prisoners of Love” I just wanted Lucius and Hermione in a new venue and the idea of prison popped into my head. That was my entire plan when I started. My whole ‘secret’ is I never post a story until it is finished. That allows me to reweave things that happen later into earlier chapters with foreshadowing, connecting up earlier chapters with things I write in later chapters and that alone makes my stories more intricate. And it makes for a much more cohesive whole.


dynonugget – Which stellar chapter was it where Lucius thought of something for Hermione?


Now for my redemption...


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Chapter Forty-Eight

Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make


Bright and early the next morning, Hermione, armed with the knowledge of Lucius’ imminent release gained from Draco, made the long journey by a special portkey, tied from the Malfoy mansion to the shore of the North Sea, toting with her a large portmanteau. There she took the small ferry to the island prison, seeing the gray stone walls of the massive edifice looming closer, rising up from the dreary rocky shore where lackluster waves rolled lethargically onto the broken stones littering the landing point.

Hermione stepped out of the ferry onto the small jetty and strode quickly up the gravel pathway to the imposing front portal of the prison, shivering more from the hopeless atmosphere of the place than from the biting cold of the north wind.

She had discovered from Draco that he had been visiting his father once a month, coming with her, although she had also been visiting Lucius every week. Hermione had no recollection of any of the eight years they were now missing from this altered timeline of their lives. She knew that the same probably held for Lucius, so he wouldn’t know Draco and she had ‘visited’ him and likely he wouldn’t know his release was today either. She had to get to him as fast as possible.

Hermione yanked on the clanger for a large bell at the side of the portal. Within seconds the portal swung open and Hermione hurried inside. It was instantly better being out of the wind, but the prison itself was a quiet tomb, dank and with the smell of desperation. Forbidding walls hemmed her in, herding her down a dark hallway into a lighter area where she found a porter sitting at an old, wood desk in front of a miniscule fire. The small area had been spruced up with a couple of colorful posters of Quidditch teams on the stone walls and the granite floor was covered in a particularly fine, thick woolen rug, but otherwise it was a dank, glum place.

The porter looked up, “Mrs. Malfoy, back again so soon?” he laughed at his little joke and eased his rotund body up out of his chair. “Today’s the big day for you, isn’t it? I’ll miss your weekly visits. We don’t get many faithful visitors here - don’t get many visitors at all. Did young Mr. Malfoy come with you?”

“No. I asked him to let me come alone. From now on I want Draco to see his father at his best. I’ve brought some clothing for him.” She plunked the portmanteau down on the desk, assuming the porter had to search it. Her wand was placed beside the portmanteau. She had no recollection of the porter, but he didn’t seem to need any particular ritual with her appearing at his desk.

Draco had mentioned that the man was basically good-natured and had watched out for Lucius when he could. In gratitude, Draco and she had supplied the wool rug and a lifetime supply of delivered wood to burn in his fireplace, wood being expensive and difficult to obtain on the rocky island prison.

The porter gave a cursory search of the bag, deciding that the prisoner was leaving anyway and it didn’t matter what she took into the cell any more; he left her wand on his desk. The old man had been entertained a few times by the interesting things she had taken with her before, but there was nothing but some fine clothing in the bag this time. “I’ll have a guard take you up. Go to the Warden’s office when you two are ready to leave. I’ll leave your wand with him. Best of luck to you and your husband, Mrs. Malfoy.”

Hermione thanked the kind porter and followed a silent guard up several flights of stone stairs until they came to a door in the middle of a hall five storeys up. The guard unwarded the door and left.

Hermione knocked on the door, biting her lip in uncertainty. Did she just walk in?

“You’re knocking now? Do you want to be sure I’m dressed before you barge in? That’s a new departure.”

Lucius’ sarcastic tones lightened Hermione’s heart so it sang in her chest. He was all right. “As a matter of fact, that’s correct,” she called. “Are you dressed to receive visitors?”

“Hermione? Lucius’ voice came from much closer now, just on the other side of the door. “Hermione!”

The little witch pulled on the door ring and it opened easily, showing her a small, stone cell with a narrow cot, a sink, a toilet and a narrow, jutting stone shelf with a comb, a bar of soap, a towel, and some candles and matches. Three books were stacked on one end. One lonely orb clung to the ceiling emitting just enough light for the cell.

Lucius saw Hermione looking at the orb. “It comes on at seven in the morning and goes off at nine o’clock at night. You came,” he said, standing quietly in his prison stripes.

Hermione just drank in the soul-relieving sight of her husband. “You’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?” She broke from the doorway and slammed against her mate, hugging him so hard he thought he’d better get the prison dispensary to check his ribs later.

“Ah, Hermione,” suddenly he was hugging her just as tightly, but he quickly loosened his hold so as not to hurt her or their child. “Are you all right? The baby is okay?”

“Lucius, the Veil sent us forward in time eight years. Today you are to be released honorably from Azkaban for serving out your twenty years.”

“What?” the blond wizard’s face blanched and he swayed, then stumbled to the cot and sat down, his wobbly legs unable to support him. “Truly?” He blinked his eyes as tears gathered again, but this time from joy instead of abject misery.

“Truly, my love. I’ve come to take you home. We need to see the Warden, then we can leave. You can go home.” Hermione started sniffing, too, her joy at her husband’s bright future making her tears well up also. Lucius leaned over and got his towel, offering it to his wife. She patted at her tears, the handed it back to Lucius who used it for a few escaped tears of his own.

“I landed back in our bedroom at Malfoy Manor,” Hermione explained. “When I discovered you weren’t there I started screaming and the elves alerted Draco. He thought I was reacting to your imminent release so I let him believe that. He told me you were due to be let out of prison today and that’s how I found out where you were. But I knew if you had no memories of elapsed time either, you would suffer. So I came as soon as it was light outside. The Manor has a portkey for here. Draco said I couldn’t come at night so I had to wait. Those are the longest hours I’ve ever spent.”

Lucius laughed, his laughter laced with a stifled sob, “I thought I was here for another eight years. I wanted you to come. I needed to know if you were okay, if the baby was okay. I’m really free?” When Hermione nodded, he breathed in deeply and put his face in his hands, trying not to cry.

Hermione just pulled his head onto her chest and held him, rocking him while his emotional reaction washed over him, letting him cling to her until he finally felt calm again.

Hermione started talking, letting Lucius know all she had learned in their new time while he pulled himself together. “I’m remembering things that happened in the last eight years only as they’re needed if I’m talking to another person or if I’m doing something physically that would be a big blunder. Just like things trickled into our minds in the nineteenth century,” Hermione explained. “Otherwise, I’m unaware of the last eight years of this life. I got Draco to reminisce a bit on how we met because of your imminent release – he related how I needed someone to help me catalog the array of dark arts objects pulled from your secret chamber that had been piled up in storage in the Unspeakables section and I went to see you in prison. You agreed to help me and that’s how we got together. My irresistible Lucius, even in prison stripes,” she sighed dreamily, unconsciously pushing Lucius’ face even deeper into her cleavage. “It’s an odd feeling,” she went on, “having an eight-year hole in my existence, but it’s no price to pay at all to allow me to stay in the same timeframe as you.”

“I’m not getting any ‘trickled’ information,” her husband complained, his voice muffled in her chest where he was quite happy to stay.

Hermione lifted his head and grinned at her grumbling wizard, “The Veil sent you forward in time so you could be free from prison without having to serve the other eight years of your sentence. Did you really want to remember eight extra years of this?” Hermione waved her hand toward his cot and small shelf.

“It gave us both a wonderful gift,” she smiled. “It kept me with you and gave you a twelve-year sentence that everyone will think was the full twenty. Also,” she twinkled, neither of us has aged a day from when we entered the Veil to return here.”

“How do you know that?” Lucius, resigned to losing his feminine pillow for the moment, examined his hands and felt his cheeks for wrinkles.

“Because I’m still only six weeks pregnant,” she smiled happily.

“Hermione, if I’ve been in prison for the last twenty years, how did you get pregnant?” Lucius frowned, worry and jealousy seeping out and washing over his fine features.

“The usual way,” she joked. She saw his patented thundercloud expression gathering on his brow and added, “Sorry, my love, you walked into that one and I couldn’t resist. According to the altered timeline of our past, we’ve been married for four years. I’m theorizing that we decided to get pregnant knowing you would be out of prison in a short while and we wanted to start a family. That’s only conjecture based on our personalities.”

“Married four years! How did that happen? They let you visit me in my cell? Visitors can only be seen in the guarded visiting room.” Lucius was entirely thunderstruck that he had managed to marry Hermione even from an Azkaban prison cell. He began to smile. “And if you’re pregnant, we must have been doing more than sitting in the visitor’s room, talking in hushed tones across a table.” He winked at Hermione. “Marriage and a pregnancy from a prison cell. I must be pretty potent to have effected that miracle.”

“Not that potent. Really, Lucius! You should give me some of your unrelenting self-esteem; you have a dangerous overabundance. Miracle!” she scoffed. “I’m sure it was effected by you merely screwing me blind as you always do. I apparently convinced the porter, who’s something of a romantic, to allow us liberties in our visits. The porter and Draco say I’m a regular once-a-week visitor.”

“I knew it! I knew if you were my wife, you would visit me all the time,” crowed Lucius, his spirits rising to their more normal ebullience. “I’m really leaving here? Gods, Hermione, I still can’t believe it.

“It’s a shame we won’t have those intimate memories from here to keep, but maybe someday they’ll creep into our minds. Oh! Oh, my Gods!” she gasped. “Lucius, you pervert!” she started laughing and saw Lucius was getting the same memories flooding into his mind. His smile went purely wicked and the inadequate prison pants made no secret of his reaction to the four years of memories tumbling into his brain of him fucking his wife in nearly every position, in every orifice, on every surface of his lonely cell. Once even under the cot.

“I was good, wasn’t I?” Lucius grinned. “We were under the cot because of that damned, nosy guard. “He was the pervert. Next time the guards searched my cell I kicked him where it hurts most. The other guard found out what he’d done and I never saw that guard again. Conjugal visits are supposed to be for two, not a peep show. That was a memory worth having. Thank you, Veil.” A brief soothing curlicue wafted through Lucius’ mind.

“Will our minds be connected to the Veil for the rest of our lives?” he asked. “The Veil just basically said, ‘you’re welcome’ to me.”

“I suppose so. I don’t mind. It’s rather like having a guardian angel,” Hermione shrugged, unconcerned.

“One of those Muggle creatures with big wings? I think I’ll just imagine the Veil as St. Merlin watching over me.” At once a tidal wave of excitement ran through both Hermione and Lucius causing them to bounce on the little cot with the jolt through their minds.

“My goodness,” Hermione looked at Lucius in awe, “do you suppose it actually is Merlin?”

Another wave of energy shot through them.

Lucius laughed in amazement, “Seems so. That makes sense. He was the most powerful of all the wizards who ever lived. Why shouldn’t he be the one watching out for all of wizarding posterity? I guess I had better stop swearing using ‘Merlin’s balls’ hadn’t I?” Lucius heard laughter in his mind this time.

“Well,” Lucius rose and began poking in the bag on his cot. He discovered street clothes and began changing into the clothing Hermione had brought him, “as much as I apparently adored having you visit me here, I would like to leave and never come back.” He paused for a minute, “Why didn’t I get the knowledge that I would be released today slipped into my mind? Do you hear that, St. Merlin?”

Silence.

“I don’t think he can tell you your future. Only what has already happened in this timeline. We can’t ask to know what lies ahead,” Hermione mused.

Lucius shrugged, accepting the answer; he slipped into his trousers, disdaining the boxers Hermione had included. “Where did you get this clothing? Except for the boxers, it is all mine.”

“As Mrs. Malfoy, I guess I’ve been living at Malfoy Manor for the past four years. Draco’s family lives in another wing. He packed your clothing. I think the boxers are his. St. Merlin dropped me in the master bedroom of your manor when he brought me back to this time period. If I never remember much of the eight years I’ve lost, except as necessary pieces come to me I won’t care. I’m fine with it.

“And no, St. Merlin, I’m not asking for that knowledge,” she added before the Veil could transfer any more memories from his now-altered timeline into her brain. “I’m not sure I really ever did any of it, so I’d rather not have a lot of manufactured memories that aren’t real to me. Just remembering Lucius and me here in his cell, with his fertile, x-rated imagination and …and …Lucius, you louse! She turned and smacked Lucius on his now elegantly attired chest as one of her new memories came to the fore. “That candle crumbled inside my butt. You promised it wouldn’t!”

“Sorry, my love. I told you to relax, but you pinched up tighter than a goblin’s purse. And as I remember now, you paid me back with a smart spanking using that blue book of sermons over there. The Muggle vibrator you brought the next time was much better, so that never happened again. Now that’s a memory I’ll be glad to revisit.” He threw open the cell door which had no wards on it anymore. “Ah, satisfying. Let’s go, kitten.”

tbc...


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Do you all feel happier now? 8-)

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