Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 2-21-08


A warm thanks to all of you who have given me feedback. Your comments give me such a lift – when I see a new one I’m very excited. I know these first few chapters have had an element of ‘what the heck is going on’ suspense, but this next chapter will help answer a few questions.


To answer a few comments:

Utopia – Lucius was surprised to hear the moo along with the twittering. He didn’t think it was a bird. Does that explain that paragraph better? If we ever find Lucius on his knees to Hermione he won’t be apologizing. As to Lucius’ vocabulary, I see him as extremely well-educated and posh. His vocabulary would just flow from that. (Besides, I promised myself when I started writing I would use whatever words I wanted – no trying to limit the vocabulary. There is always http://Dictionary.com for definitions. I use it constantly.) Concerning the seagulls, Lucius pointed out they could be anywhere, but he went with Hermione’s hunch as a better choice than randomness, which he had done.

Coraline – I love hearing from the lurkers!

Violet Eyes – See this chapter for why Harry, Ron, and Draco aren’t with Lucius and Hermione.

Damiana – Belated thanks for the mistyped word. Keep them coming. I hate my typos.

FlowersBecomeScreens – I think your sleep deprivation promotes clairvoyance. Sheesh. 8-)


My Reviewing Secret -

If you read and come to the end of a chapter knowing there was something you meant to review about, but now can't remember, try opening a second window and have the review box available as you read. You can type your thoughts as you go along.


Now on with the story…



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Chapter Five


Arriving

A long, dusty hour of walking later, Lucius and Hermione arrived sweating and dirty at the outskirts of what looked in the near distance to be a metropolis. A vague pall of mist hung over the city, which both Lucius and Hermione quickly realized wasn’t water, it was soot.

Hermione remarked, “The pollution problem in this simpler time doesn’t seem to be any better than our modern smog.”

Lucius murmured, “Another Muggle curse.”

His companion let the slur go by, being more worried about their destination. She swallowed down her botheration, acknowledging he was actually correct with his blame this time. If she took exception to every irritating comment the tall, arrogant popinjay made, she’d soon be at wands drawn with him so she bit her lip and pretended she hadn’t heard him.

The edges of the city soon sported numerous small, humble dwellings that slowly gave way to a few minor coaching inns and more dilapidated buildings, some of which had signs advertising ale or pawnshops or less salubrious activities. Low taverns smelling of unwashed bodies and stale drink leaned against unkempt tenements with a few shreds of laundry hanging from windowsills; loud shouts of colorful obscenities were cast from one side of the street to the other by slatternly women or drunken, unshaven men.

Lucius stole a sideways look down at Hermione to see if she was aware of some of the functions of the sleepy-looking, shuttered buildings they passed, but she seemed oblivious much to his relief. Those establishments would only wake up in the evening for gambling, opium eating and whoring. It was better if she didn’t get too much of an education on the seamier entertainments offered, but Lucius made a note of a couple of the brothels for his own later personal accommodation. Watching Hermione’s curls bouncing from under her bonnet as they walked along was having a burgeoning effect on his personal assets.

Hermione was reacting to the stench of the streets, trying to step around the worst of the effluence draining along the cobblestones. They kept to the sides of the thoroughfares to avoid the wagons and carts and occasional coaches that rumbled by without caring who might be in the way, but between the conveyances and the noisome oozes no part of the street was without hazard.

“Lucius,” Hermione said quietly, “we have no money and nothing to barter. What shall we do? Can we transfigure something to trade? We don’t know what the money looks like or we could transfigure some of that. Or is it illegal to do that in this world, too?” Hermione stepped closer to the wizard as a reeking transient made a stumbling attempt to clutch at her cloak. Lucius lifted his hand and the drunk sat down hard on the cobblestones, a puzzled expression flitting across his whiskery face until a flick of Lucius’ fingers toward him made him forget who he had just encountered and a gentle look of bliss erased his puzzlement.

“Did you just push him and obliviate him? Without a wand?” whispered Hermione, wanting to know what her companion was willing to do in this new environment. Her voice rose to a surprised squeak at the last question. That was advanced magic if Lucius had done it without his wand and she wanted to learn how. She also wanted to make sure he never tried that on her, him being such an upstanding, honorable member of wizarding society.

“Shhh, don’t use unusual words in anyone’s hearing. I didn’t want to draw attention to us, so I merely gave him a nudge and erased the few thoughts he’d managed to string together. He certainly isn’t any worse off than he was, except for an additional stain on his already disastrous breeches. I believe he was making a crude attempt to pick your pocket. How sad it would have been for him to discover your pockets are quite empty.” Lucius grimaced at the unpleasant odor accosting them as they passed the drunk. “We need to keep moving, perhaps find a slightly better part of this city. It can’t all be this bad. There must be a more select area where the rich people live.”

“And just what are we going to do there?” Hermione asked bitterly, scowling back at the nasty, drunken thief, no longer feeling the least sorry for him. “Beg?”

“Of course not, unless you want to,” Lucius sneered, pulling his tiny irritant along through the throngs of humanity clogging the street. So far no one was paying them any attention whatsoever, for which Lucius was thankful. The inhabitants of this area looked like they would slit his throat for the coat off his back given half a chance. The youthful Hermione would get even worse treatment because she wouldn’t be murdered. “I need a stake so I can make some money in the gambling dens. Once I get a bit of cash to gamble with, I’ll be able to raise plenty of money for us.” He cleared a small way forward for them with his cane, remodeled to look like a common wooden stick. His wand was concealed in his coat pocket.

“How? By cheating?” Now Hermione sneered.

“Oh, good gracious me, no,” Lucius simpered in a falsetto, his hand clutching his heart theatrically. “How could I possibly sink to such a nefarious deed?” His voice snapped down to his normal level of irritation, “Of COURSE I’m going to cheat. But first I’ll need to steal.” Pleasure suffused him at her look of horror. Sanctimonious little twit, he scoffed silently in scorn. The blond wizard luxuriated in her outrage, having too good a time baiting Hermione to examine his behavior, which closely resembled a little boy pulling a little girl’s braids.

“I’ll use whatever method gets us lodging and food as soon as possible. Muggle games of chance are perfectly designed for manipulation, especially dice,” Lucius said with a superior air. “I won’t win spectacularly, just enough to sustain us until I think of something more lucrative and less dangerous.”

“How do you know about Muggle games of chance?” Hermione was suspicious of the dark wizard’s knowledge of the Muggle world, knowing he’d been so adamantly against its existence for so many years.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” quoted Lucius. “From one of your Muggle books, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. A fascinating tome. You should read it sometime.”

Hermione waved away his suggestion, merely saying absently, “I already have. Can’t we find our magic community and leave the Muggle world? They must be here somewhere.”

Lucius muttered, “Of course you’ve read it. How stupid of me to suppose otherwise – little bluestocking. What’s wrong? Don’t you like mingling with the Muggles, Miss Granger?” he dug at her. Without waiting for her answer he told his accomplice haughtily, “I’m not entering the magic community, if there is one in this place, until I can do so with wealth behind me.”



“Of course there was a magic community hundreds of years ago. What do you mean, ‘if there is one’?”

“Are you absolutely certain we aren’t in some alternate universe? I’m not. But in any case, I’m not going to live in the equivalent of Knockturn Alley for the rest of my life. Whether we live here in this Muggle existence or we find and enter the magic world, if we enter as poor, beggarly types, there would be extensive questions about our personal history when we thereafter gain significant wealth. And make no mistake, I will make money. I refuse to live as a poor, scrabbling wizard in some hovel in the countryside like your Weasleys’ Burrow.”

Hermione was incensed at the dark wizard’s twisted thinking. “There is no shame in not being wealthy. Most of the wizarding world isn’t as rich as you were, Lucius. They got along just fine anyway.”

“Who said anything about shame? I like being rich, I like the amenities it brings and the power it bestows. Why should I be poor if I can be rich?” Lucius felt his reasoning was completely logical. If he wanted to go out and accrue riches to himself again, he saw no reason not to.

“You’re going to cheat others to gain those riches. That’s immoral. You’re using magic against defenseless Muggles who can’t combat your powers. Heck, they don’t even know your powers are possible. I liken that to hexing horklumps in a barrel.”

“How quaint, ‘horklumps in a barrel’. Yes, that does describe it very well.” Lucius grabbed Hermione by the front of her cloak, pressing her up against the storefront they were passing and putting his face up so close to hers that her bonnet was tipped back by the brim of his hat, “I would really rather not argue the morality of my intentions here on the street,” he hissed in an undertone. “And if you’ll cast your Muggleborn mind back to the recent past you’ll remember why I don’t have so much as a shred of sympathy for these oh-so-defenseless Muggles!” He suddenly let go of her cloak and Hermione staggered sideways only to be grabbed again and set on her feet. Lucius solicitously placed her hand on his arm in a parody of concern and continued walking.

Hermione had momentarily forgotten the decimation of her magical world in the exigencies of her new one. She grew quiet and thoughtful, surreptitiously touching the tingling spot where Lucius’ fist had rested against her breasts as she followed her tall, prickly benefactor through the widening streets.

Lucius led them across a bridge over a wide river to a quiet side street populated with slightly more well-dressed citizens and pavements lacking the oozing effluent of the less well-tended areas.

“Lucius, does this bridge look familiar to you?” Hermione really didn’t want to confront what was becoming more apparent each moment.

“Does it look familiar to you? You’re the Mud- er, Muggleborn.” By this time both of them were dragging, have had nothing to eat since the previous day. Suddenly Lucius stopped and looked up at the skyline. “Shite,” he said, “look at that.”

Hermione looked up and saw the dome of what looked very like St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. “Oh, Lucius, we’re in London. This is London! But sometime in the past. When? The people and their clothes look like hundreds of years ago.” She stared at the distant edifice and her heart sank to the soles of her transfigured boots. “I thought that bridge looked familiar. Oh, Lucius, everything is so dirty and horrid.”

“I’ll look out for a newspaper – maybe that will tell us when we are. London. Hmmm. It’s interesting that the Veil basically left us near the same place as we were, just hundreds of years ago. I left a charm on the tree near where we landed, so we could find it again, if the spot became important.”

Hermione chuckled mirthlessly, “So did I. I suppose neither of us quite trusted the other at that point, hoping we were somewhere we could return from. I guess that’s looking less possible all the time.” With a last look at the architectural proof they were in a London of many years past, Hermione followed Lucius disconsolately, not paying any attention to his course.

Lucius said nothing, but he wondered if she realized what she had just told him. She said she hadn’t quite trusted him ‘at that point’, so it sounded like she trusted him now. And she assumed he now trusted her. Interesting.

They walked on for a short while until Lucius called a halt. “I shall have to find us some money and then some lodgings. When I get you settled, I’ll forage for some food.” He looked down at his little accessory in silent calculation, “First I’ll need to hide you somewhere. As I remember, a woman alone on the streets of hundreds of years ago was liable to be accosted.” Let me run a glamour on you so you look like a young man, then you can sit in that small park over there and read a book while I find us some coin.”

Hermione was so tired and hungry she would have done anything at that point, so she merely nodded and trudged over to the small, leafy park and sat on the most secluded bench they could find. Luckily no others were enjoying the bit of greenery right then, so after looking around, Lucius withdrew his wand and changed Hermione into what looked to any eyes was a young man of shabby-genteel appearance. Lucius then picked up a stone and transfigured a small book and gave it to her.

“I’ll be back within the hour. If I don’t come back, it means I can’t return and you’re on your own.”

Lucius strode away, disappearing from sight almost immediately, leaving Hermione alone and frightened, shrinking into the slight bower of leaves surrounding the bench on which she sat. Lucius wasn’t her favorite person – he didn’t even qualify as a friend - but she missed him already, feeling abandoned in her own familiar city hundreds of years in the past.


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Lucius walked slowly but with an air of purpose to avoid catching the eyes of passersby who could possibly remember him as a loiterer. He was angry with himself for not changing the color of his hair back in the woods. It would have been a simple task and he’d not thought of it. His hair was like a beacon negating the drab effect of his clothing. Well at least he had tucked it all into his hat. He would have to fix his hair later when they had found a source of privacy in this London of the past. Luckily, there were a number of other men with longer hair, so he wouldn’t stand out that way.

Lucius spied a piece of paper whipping under the wheels of one cart or coach after another as it was blown down the main thoroughfare. The blond wizard tracked it with his eyes hoping it would come to rest somewhere easily obtainable. It looked like it had printing on it and Lucius very much hoped he could gain some knowledge about their circumstances - it wasn’t as though he could blithely walk up to someone on the street and ask what year it was.

He increased his pace, keeping the paper in sight as he wove among his fellow pedestrians. He was wearing a coat that looked like it had been on the losing side of a bout of fisticuffs, but his carriage was proud and arrogant. Lucius had changed his wardrobe to blend in, but he hadn’t changed his demeanor, which shouted lord and master rather than downtrodden menial. The haughty blond wizard wasn’t very good at behaving like a lowly working class laborer and his progress was noted, the female population responding to his masculinity almost hypnotically.

A few working class females and even one or two well-bred women accompanied by their maids actually stopped to gaze at the handsome, tall, broad-shouldered man striding past, wishing he would stop and pass the time. One of the society women even dropped her handkerchief, hoping he would stop and pick it up for her, but she was disappointed when he walked on by, apparently blind to her blatantly manufactured distress. She had her maid pick up the futile linen square after he’d passed on down the street, sighing in thwarted irritation. Such a beautiful man, striding like he owned the street and using that scarred, crooked walking stick like a fine Malacca cane.

Lucius ignored the feminine maneuvering, leaving several potential opportunities for relieving the increasingly insistent throbbing in his groin behind and instead chasing the tantalizing paper until it came to a halt further down the street. He managed to retrieve the scrap from its resting place against an apple cart, picking it up and folding it, immediately tucking it inside his shabby coat. He wanted to read it in a more secluded spot in case the news was not pleasant and he wasn’t sure if in his current guise he would be expected to even know how to read. He was trying to be very careful in this unknown milieu. Lucius looked around him, eyeing the crowded street and when he thought he might be unobserved, he risked shrinking four apples off the cart, slipping them into his coat pocket for himself and Hermione.

Once the paper was in his possession and his contraband stowed, he turned to a more urgent matter. Lucius needed to come by some cash somehow and his eyes began nonchalantly tracking the people around him who seemed more well-to-do. But how to find out who was actually carrying money? Lucius had no qualms about relieving them of some of it if he could just figure out where on their person they carried it, if at all. He soon decided it would have to be the Imperius curse, forcing someone to do as he willed them, then an Obliviate. Lucius surreptitiously pulled out his wand, keeping most of it up his coat sleeve as he scanned for a likely pigeon to pluck, continuing to walk along the widening boulevard.

Lucius turned the corner and saw a large park across the avenue; he immediately made for the greensward. If he could catch a victim alone in the park it would be much easier to relieve him of his coin without numerous bystanders gawking at his actions.

Ten minutes later he was on his way back to Hermione, his pockets full of some paper money and handfuls of coins he’d lifted from a couple of somewhat inebriated gentlemen walking erratically down one of the gravel paths together. They’d been laughing about some mutual acquaintance whom they had just fleeced at some gaming table and Lucius smiled, thinking he had just done the same thing to them. He’d easily coerced them with the Imperius curse to offer up their money and then they’d been obliviated, and told they had lost all their coin at the tables. Lucius sneered. Muggles were so venal and helpless.

He returned quickly to the small green square where he’d left Hermione and found her fending off the advances of a slatternly tavern maid who had decided the young man was to her taste for a little slap and tickle. Lucius came up behind her just as she was propositioning Hermione, “Oh c’mon now, a bright lad like ye mus’ ‘ave an itch ye need scratchin’. Me employer’s out ‘o town an’ Oi could sneak ye in ter the wine cellar real neatlike.” She bragged, “Oi could even get yer some o' the wine wot’s open already. What dya say ta that?” The forward maid made to sit down beside Hermione, but sharply turned when Hermione had looked past her with profound relief, to discover Lucius standing behind her.

“ ‘Ere, wot’re yer doin’ there sneakin’ up on us ‘onest folk?” She glared at Lucius before truly taking in who she was talking to. “Gor’ blimey,” she breathed, enthralled, “ye be a fine-lookin’ one.” She instantly changed targets. “Mebbe ye’d like some free wine, and a liddle sumpin’ ter go wiv it, eh?” she sidled over to Lucius and ran her hand up his arm to his shoulder. She smelled like her employment - stale beer, smoke and sweat, all overlain with a travesty of cheap perfume. The maid’s lowbrow accents crowned her already unpleasant aroma.

Lucius wasn’t interested in the tavern slut now that better game littered the streets, but he was interested in the tavern as a possibility for some gaming and food. “I’ll be certain to visit your establishment sometime in the near future. For now you must excuse us. We have a prior engagement.” He gently disengaged the clinging woman’s hand from his arm and stepped over toward Hermione, only at the last second realizing he shouldn’t offer his hand to the little witch in her guise as a youth.

Hermione stood up with alacrity, moving away from the odiferous tavern maid and circling around to almost hide behind Lucius’ back, wanting to cling to his arm but knowing she couldn’t, looking like a boy as she did.

“Coo! A briar incage mint. Ye talks like a swell, ye do. An’ for all yer old clothes, ye act like one, too. Wot’s the matter, come down in the world, did ye, ducks? Well, c’mon to t’tavern over yon,” she vaguely waved her hand while trying to display her mammoth, twin appurtenances up close to Lucius’ chest, “an’ I kin show ye a real good time. Bring yer young frien’ too, if ye must.” The maid winked, but she knew a brush off when she met with one even if it was kindly, and she sauntered away, swaying her generous bum from side to side. She still had some hopes of getting inside the worn, threadbare breeches of the tall, handsome man and her lurid fantasies were centered on his well-endowed groin, quite visible to her knowledgeable eye. He even smelled like a lord – some sort of limey stuff. She sighed to herself as she sashayed down the street.

Hermione stood there completely torpid, blindly watching the woman’s departing behavior, feeling almost beyond hunger and nearly fainting. “Did you get any money? I’m nearly passing out, Lucius.” She sat down on the bench once more, sagging back onto the seat, the meager resources of her small body almost extinguished, but extremely glad to see Lucius again.

“I did, I got us a roll of soft and some coin,” he replied. He waited a beat, then, “Well? No questions about how I obtained it? No recriminations on my wicked behavior?” Lucius eyed the little bedraggled ‘youth’ sardonically, waiting for her annoying animadversions on his conduct.

Hermione winced, “I’m sorry I nagged. I’m so hungry, I could steal someone’s money. That’s what you did, I suppose.” She held up a petite hand, “No, I’m not casting slurs,” she said, “I really don’t care anymore. Just find me some food. Or a bed. Please!”

“Do you want the food first, or do you want to read the newspaper?” Lucius pulled the paper out of his coat pocket and waved it in front of Hermione’s nose.

Hermione sucked in a shocked breath, “You found a newspaper? What does it say? Where are we and what date is it?” She grabbed for the paper in a sudden burst of energy, but Lucius whisked it out of her reach. “Lucius!” she wailed.

“I haven’t read it yet either,” he sat down beside the tired, glamoured ‘boy’ and opened up the page he’d found. It was a single page of a newspaper, but at the top in bold print it said, ‘London’ and the date was Monday, June 17 1816. Both magic folk collapsed back limply onto the bench, the paper forgotten in Lucius’ hand.

Hermione whispered, “How could that be? The Veil must be a one-way time travel machine or tunnel or vortex or something! Will we be here forever?” She leaned weakly against Lucius’ shoulder and surreptitiously wiped a couple of tears on his faded jacket.

Lucius pulled her up closer, only remembering at the last minute not to put his arm around the ‘boy’, trying not to break down himself. Up until that moment he had always thought there was some way to overcome the Veil’s effect. The future now looked endless and without interest. What use was his life now in this backward world where the filth, disease, pickpockets and worse were all he had to look forward to as a destitute, marooned wizard in historical London? He disconsolately plucked two of the apples out of his coat pocket, resized them, and offered one to Hermione, biting down on the other hungrily. The food picked up his spirits and he forced himself not to think about the future for a few moments as he enjoyed the tart flavor of the fruit.

“Lucius!” Hermione nearly took his hand off as she grabbed at the apple, instantly devouring it in great chomps, dispelling any erroneous ideas the wizard might have entertained that a dainty female had a dainty appetite. “Ooooh, this tastes so good.” Her little pink tongue swept out over her lips tracking some errant drips and causing Lucius’ pulse rate to climb.

In spite of their dire circumstances, Lucius would have been rather charmed by his partner’s excessive enthusiasm for the poor fare if it hadn’t been for that tongue. He was reminded of his screaming libido and his mind fought down his body’s sudden wave of carnal need. Now was not the time. But soon – if he could find somewhere safe to stow his tiny, tongue-licking addendum and locate a brothel. He had twelve years of lascivious thoughts to put into action.

The shadows grew longer on the street as they shared the other two apples and Lucius finally roused himself from his erotic fantasies of licking apple juice from his little witch mate’s sparse ‘bosoms’ to face reality once more. He had to find them some shelter before night fell in this strange neighborhood where he had no knowledge or power except his magic. He did not care to exercise an indiscreet amount of magic in Muggle territory; it so often brought unwanted interest from the aurors.

“Get up, Hermione, I have to change you back and we have to find shelter.” He added, waving the newspaper, “At least this solves why the farm woman had such a bad reaction to my French accent. I believe England was recently at war with France.” Napoleon and his defeat were of little interest, however, to two starving, homeless, magic people caught in a strange time in a rundown area populated by rough locals.

Hermione got to her feet disinterestedly, but when she looked around her she began to shiver. The streets were clearing of people going home to their suppers and it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that being out after nightfall wasn’t good for their health.

“I saw a room to let sign two blocks ago in a rather ramshackle building. Maybe if you have enough money we can rent it for a week or so and...and…” a small sob escaped before Hermione shook off the luxury of crying in an increasingly dangerous environment, “we can plan what to do.”

Lucius looked around him seeing no one nearby and no one in any of the overlooking windows. He pushed Hermione back amongst the greenery until she was entirely hidden from the street and he dropped the glamour he had placed on her, returning her to her feminine form. He recognized his immoderate interest at seeing her in her true feminine form again for the danger it was. He was riding a fine edge of arousal not helped by the several likely volunteers he had passed up an hour ago on the street. She actually had made a rather attractive, if short young man, hence the tavern slut’s interest. But she made an even more luscious lady. He needed to find a brothel without delay or Hermione’s skirts were going to be thrown over her head before she could say ‘Lucius, don’t!!’.

“Very well,” he agreed in some relief, hoping he could get shelter for her so he could go hunting. “We’ll rent the room for now and worry about tomorrow when it comes. If we get the room, I’ll leave you there and try to forage for some better food for us. I think we should have some portmanteaux to look more like a respectable couple than two vagrants.” From a couple of shrubs, which he fervently hoped no one would care were now missing from the small green area, Lucius transfigured two bags like he had seen on the travelers earlier in the day. Handing one to Hermione, he pulled her from the bushes to start walking back the way they had come.

Hermione pointed out the sign when they came up to the building in the waning day and Lucius and she ascended the rickety stairs to an old wooden door peeling with the remnants of a gaudy color of blue paint, most of which had long since flaked away.

tbc...

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I hope some questions are answered now. Please review. I'll try to answer your new questions if I can. Thanks!!

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