The Taming of the Shrew - Wizard Style - COMPLETE

_______________________________________________


5-28-10 F


I do love your wonderful reviews. ScaryBearHair just added the 1,000th review! Yay! And the '+' ratings just went past 500. Thank you all so very much!


You've lasted through all these many chapters and you'll all get your rewards in heaven - JUST KIDDING - it's closer than that. See below. Hugs!


_______________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-One


Honesty

The next morning, Hermione blearily opened her eyes to the morning sun shining through the kitchen window. She frowned, looking at her makeshift bed, then remembered. “Lucius!” She scrambled up as fast as her bulk could safely negotiate and hurried into the bedroom to see Lucius lying contentedly in bed, Crookshanks curled up by his side.

Her husband saw Hermione hurry through the doorway and smiled at her. “Good morning,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m afraid my voice is a bit froggy still, but I do feel much better. Thank you for taking such good care of me last night.”

The little witch stood by the bed inspecting Lucius’ arms for twitches. “I think I may have applied a little too much ointment,” she said with an air of repentance leavened with joy at her husband’s recovery.

“No, sprite, the more the ointment sinks in, the faster I heal,” he demurred softly, trying to pamper his abused vocal chords. “Truly,” he susurrated, “you did it perfectly. I have nearly no tingling or nerve pain in my lips, hands or feet or my…” he smiled wickedly. “I’ll be perfectly fit and able within a couple of days. The aftermath usually takes more like a week as you probably know. I’m very grateful. My hands, feet, lips, and groin usually hurt like they’re on fire for a day or so. I’m really feeling rather good, considering.”

A pounding at the apartment door followed by Draco’s insistent calling of Hermione’s name, pulled her reluctantly from Lucius’ side. Draco rushed in when the door was opened for him, “Is Father alright? Where is he? I want to see him.” Hermione pointed to the bedroom door and Draco disappeared through it.

Hermione left them alone for a while, then brought a tray with tea and toast into the bedroom where Draco was sitting at the edge of the bed hastily blotting tears. Hermione affected not to notice as she set the tray down on the nightstand. “I can tell you both at the same time, Luna has checked Lucius and said he’ll be fine with just a few twitches in his muscles for a couple of days. There is no permanent damage.”

“No,” murmured Lucius, “there rarely is for anyone in good health.”

“But Father, your voice. It sounds horrible,” his son pointed out with unneeded candor. “And what is that goo all over you? You have cat hairs sticking to your hand.”

“Ah,” he smiled, “Crookshanks is my new best friend.” He lightly petted the cat that was still curled beside his hip. Crookshanks licked off the bit of ointment that had transferred to his fur, then settled down again. “He came to me in Hogsmeade to let me know Hermione was in danger. I’ll always be grateful for his protection of her.”

“Truly?” Hermione exclaimed. “No one told me that. I did wonder why you allowed my familiar on the bed with you, but I was just happy you weren’t trying to eviscerate him,” she chuckled. Before he could use his overburdened voice to explain the goo, Hermione did it for him, neglecting to include the particulars of where she had increased the dosage. She got a conspiratorial smile from Lucius, which Draco caught.

“I needed to see for myself that you were alright, Father. Severus told me you were recovering, but I needed to come. Thank you for taking care of him, Hermione. Let me know if I can do anything for you.” Draco squeezed Lucius’ hand and wandered out, trying to wipe his now-gooey hand off on his robe. Perhaps if he licked it like the cat…

With Draco gone, Hermione sat in his place and poured some tea, serving Lucius some toast by holding it for him to bite. He scooted to lie more comfortably upright against his pillows, still very fatigued, but completely alert. “Draco offered you his help with anything. We both heard him. I think we have ourselves a babysitter,” his father grinned. Then he gazed more tenderly at his wife, “I’m glad you’re safe. And our brilliant progeny,” he almost rubbed Hermione’s belly, but remembered the goo.

“I’m afraid the ointment is going to be really difficult to remove. I had to scrub hard to get it off my lips,” she mourned. “Luna gave me some gloves to apply it with, but then I kissed you. Why was Draco crying? He must have had some indirect experience with Crucios before.”

Lucius’ breath hitched, “It was the death of Charity Burbage years ago. This brought it all back for him.” All of a sudden he looked worn and older, his defenses crumbling for a moment before he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply once, and regained his relaxed equilibrium right before Hermione’s amazed gaze.

Snape was right, she thought, saddened that her wizard chose not to let her in to soothe his hidden pain. Maybe someday, but for now it wasn’t hers to share, she knew that, knew that Lucius had Snape and perhaps Narcissa for easing that heavy burden. Hermione was fiercely glad that Lucius had someone with whom to share his horrible memories and pangs of guilt, like she did with Harry. And she was a little selfishly relieved that today she wouldn’t be called upon to learn about those atrocities Snape mentioned. She had enough bad memories of her own to deal with and she realized with her new insight that Lucius knew that, too, and was protecting her.

“Well!” she said brightly, “How on earth will we get that goo off you?” and the subject of the Pureblood toxin vendetta, yesterday’s danger, and the painful reasons for it all became a closed and padlocked subject in their marriage, relegated to the same dustbin as Hermione’s unused marriage contract with Ron. Ron had backed out on her, saying she wasn’t normal, being uninterested in sex and now Hermione had to laugh, but her ancient hurt was not Lucius’ right to know, now or ever. Her husband might feel guilty for taking over and enforcing a marriage contract that held her private pain if he knew, and she didn’t want that. Her self-esteem had sunk for a while after Ron, but her research business had profited from her single-minded focus, and now she had Lucius. Hermione smiled. Uninterested in sex, indeed!

“Perhaps if you soaked in water, some of the ointment would thin enough to wash off. Shall we try that?” Hermione stuck one finger on Lucius’ arm and came away with the goo attached to her skin. “Do you feel well enough to walk to the bathroom?”

In answer Lucius slowly sat up, resting for a moment, his breathing slightly rapid as he fought to steady the abrupt spate of dizziness. The sheet under him was stuck to his torso and when Hermione tugged, Lucius winced.

“We’ll put you in the tub, sheet and all, Lucius. That way it’ll probably come off on its own without hurting you.”

When his equilibrium returned, he nodded and rose from the bed; Hermione’s arm instantly went around his waist over the sheet to steer him carefully into the bathroom, trailing the bed sheet stuck to his entire backside. He sat gingerly on the edge of the tub as she quickly filled it with steaming water, then one by one, he lifted his legs into the heat and slid into the welcoming wetness, sheet and all.

“That does feel good even if it doesn’t help the ointment to dissolve.” Lucius lay his achy shoulders back against the end of the old-fashioned deep stone tub, easing farther down into the water and sighing in contentment as the now-sopping sheet slid under him.

“While you’re soaking, would you like me to wash your hair? It has a little goo in it, but I think I can get that out. I’ll take care not to pull it.” Hermione ran her hand gently over her mate’s head, smoothing the fine tresses back from his forehead and away from his goopy shoulders. She stepped to one end of the tub and maneuvered a short stool to sit on, placing a small bottle of shampoo on the floor beside her.

“That would please me very much, sprite,” he replied in his raspy tones. “I don’t have much energy and I confess raising my arms to do it is beyond me at the moment.” Lucius closed his eyes in weary pleasure as his wife wet his pale hair then applied shampoo and began a circling, massaging motion with her fingers, taking a quiet, erotic pleasure in touching her husband this way.

The platinum locks darkened with the wet and clung to her fingers as she ran them over his scalp, starting near his forehead and slowly working her way to the nape of his neck. “Sweet Hecate, that feels wonderful. I can feel your strokes all the way to my toenails.” Lucius opened his eyes and smiled, “And when the time comes, it should be easy to clean off my cock, if I can keep it submerged.” He chuckled as they both looked at the solid, fleshy periscope rising from the heated water. Apparently one part of Lucius had already revived from the Crucio.

~~~~~

Hermione knew her husband was out of commission for a couple of days, so she did her best to keep him company without letting him overdo anything physical. The poor man was too fatigued to do more than hold her and donate a few kisses. His temper frayed from the inactivity, but Hermione was amused to see his impatience and frustration quickly wore him out; thankfully he slept and that was best for his recovery. She was fatigued, too, from the shock of seeing him take the Crucio and from worry, not to mention her advancing pregnancy, so it was as well that her husband’s libido was stifled for the moment.

~~~~~

Lucius recovered in a few days, just as Luna and Narcissa had promised, and he and Hermione tacitly returned to the cuddly sex she so enjoyed. Lucius enjoyed it as much as she did, reveling in the closeness and her numerous generous physical displays, from petting his hair to nipping at his nipples. She’d even initiated oral sex with him as recipient a couple of times, learning more in each instance to turn him into a shivering, sated wreck.

The little witch was getting downright diabolical in finding all the places on his body that made him her abject slave. She had even demanded once that he wear his green leather collar and matching wristguards, and then she’d tied his wristguards to the collar rings while she sucked him off. Lucius couldn’t use his hands to control her technique and she ignored his instructions, but later he’d reluctantly acknowledged that her small show of domination had been extremely arousing.

Both of them were feeling the difference in their marriage now, although neither was voicing the fact. Hermione was gaining confidence not only in her sexual sophistication, but also in her place as Lucius’ wife. The combined boosts to her self-esteem finally pushed her into facing her fears. She wanted more from her marriage, from Lucius. Existing in the emotional limbo of loving him with no return was wearing her down. It was time to hazard everything and push him into talking about the age gap and why he’d really married her. That needed to be cleared away before she could confide her love for him.

Her chance came when Lucius decided they needed a weekend away after all the stress of the school year; he booked them into the main guest suite upstairs at the Three Broomsticks (it was also the only suite, but well appointed and comfortable). After a well-prepared dinner served in the parlor of their suite, Hermione took a deep breath and brought up the first of the deftly avoided questions in her marriage.

“Lucius, you’ve never answered me when I’ve asked. Why else did you really marry me? I don’t think it was entirely your pocketbook, although I do understand that probably helped to blunt my undesirable background.” Hermione remembered that Narcissa had been certain there was another reason that Lucius had married her. “Neither do I believe finding out who was persecuting the Purebloods was your entire design.”

Lucius, sitting replete after dinner and contemplating which use to make of the wide bed first, was blindsided. “What? Your background?” He sipped his wine to give himself a few seconds of delay, his mind darting through his options for answering the prickly question. He decided obfuscation was in order.

“Well…to be candid,” Lucius replied, giving his wife his most sincere look, “hundreds of years of Pureblood breeding and indoctrination aren’t easy to put away. If you had married your woeful Weasley, you might have been perfectly happy, tucking away any slight upsets of your differences until they faded away altogether.

“In my case, I expected your Muggleborn blood to be a greater obstacle than it has turned out to be, emotionally.” He trotted out his ‘Disarming, Honest Smile’ – the one he usually reserved for business foes. “As you know, I’ve been friends with Snape for more years than you’ve been alive and he’s a Halfblood.

“As a child I wasn’t encouraged to have any but Pureblood friends,” Lucius explained, getting into his narrative and playing on any sympathies that might be floating around in Hermione’s too-perceptive mind, “and I grew up with, I admit, great privilege in an exclusive society, which reinforced those sentiments. I was surrounded by the Pureblood culture from birth. It was at Hogwarts that I first experienced any other than my own group, but even there the Slytherins were largely Purebloods. I don’t apologize for my beliefs or my background. I have told you that Slytherins are very self-serving and pragmatic to a fault. When I saw that my comfortable cultural niche was in a fair way to imploding and with it my power base, I tried to stop it by following Voldemort. When that didn’t work, I adjusted.”

Lucius gazed at Hermione through narrowed eyes, “You and I are very alike, brushing aside our cultural and blood differences. We both go after what we want, using what we have in the way of intelligence, persistence, and a dash of pure devil.” He ended by tossing the conversational ball into her court, “We are both leaders and that is the source of our major problem. If we can’t solve that, we are never going to have much of a marriage.”

“So you are asking me to be your lackey, submissive to you?”

“Semantics, Hermione. You’ve used very unattractive words. My whole pattern of being reflects hundreds of years of dynastic imperative to protect and provide for my family. In exchange I need to be the final arbiter for major family decisions.”

“You’ve done a fine job of evading my question – as usual. I almost thought I’d have to hunt up a violin to accompany your heartrending story.” Hermione leaned forward across the small linen-covered dining table. “Can we dispense with the history lesson? It must be simple to give me the reason or reasons why you really married me. I need to know.”



Lucius grimaced. She’d noticed that his oration didn’t include the reason he’d married her. What was he to say? He’d wanted someone who was a great shag and could play rough in bed? Not likely. And it was no longer anywhere near the truth now. “How can I prove I’m trustworthy – that I have honorable intentions for our marriage?”

“You don’t have to prove that to me. You saved me from the Unforgivable at a painful cost to yourself.”

“Hermione, that isn’t the first Crucio I’ve suffered. I don’t think that proves much.”

“No! I saw what you did. You were moving to shield me…us before that witch cast her curse. She hesitated, but you didn’t. You didn’t know what she was going to do. You might have been slain,” Hermione teared up, but her face was fierce. “You needn’t prove anything to me about your feelings now. But this cloud hangs over us. I’m not sure what it is, but I always feel like there is a dark, unpleasant truth you’re not telling me. Whatever the dark reason is, I’m hoping it is no longer important. Can’t you tell me?”

“Hermione, it’s not a dark reason, but it is unpleasant – for me.” He half-smiled sheepishly, “I’m merely embarrassed and I hate telling you even that. You’re pitting your irrelevant fears against my self-esteem.”

“Too late, Lucius. YOU may know the secret’s irrelevant, but I don’t. You saved my life! Are you afraid I’ll see you in a different light somehow? Can’t you see the ignorance is hurting me more than the knowledge would?”

“Dammit, Hermione. Sometimes having an intelligent wife is extremely trying.”

“And sometimes having a husband who won’t give out so much as his shoe size without the application of thumb screws is extremely trying as well.”

Lucius fumed for a minute further debating his options. When he understood he didn’t have any, he conceded with an ill will, “Very well. I will tell you and after this you won’t mention it again. I… I wanted a wife who was a hellcat - who could scratch my chest into bloody strips, bite my shoulder, and meet me on equal ground for the rough sex I’ve always wanted and never had. You see? My previous marriage is not your business and yet here we are again with it right in the middle of this marriage.”

“That’s it? You like rough sex and thought I’d be good at it? Why would you think that? I’d barely had any experience at all.” Hellcat, she tried the word in her mind. “You called me that once before.”

Lucius was on shaky ground, hoping Severus’ fine hand in this would never be discovered. He used his hypnotic, silvery eyes in a direct gaze, hoping to divert and dilute his wife’s probing curiosity, but he knew it was probably a lost cause with her. She reminded him of a pit bull with a sirloin at times, with her unnatural ability to fasten on a goal. Rather like him. Lucius wryly acknowledged that unpalatable truth with pained resignation and gave her as much as he would ever want her to know, for her sake as well as his.

“You were such a fierce, relentless opponent, sprite. You took Bellatrix’s punishments and not only survived, you went on to vanquish us. You’re a warrior just as much as I ever was. And to be crude, to me that translates to being a firecracker between the sheets - a female risk taker not content to be a submissive doormat to her husband. I wanted someone like you, and there it was – your open marriage contract.”

“Are you unhappy when we just cuddle and have long, gentle sex?”

“Of course not. I’m not that good an actor. I like it very much, but I don’t want to only have gentle, cuddly sex. I’ve mentioned it before, but I didn’t explain the internal drive I feel for something more. Something visceral and exciting and possibly, probably, painful on occasion.” He sighed, “Piled on top of the disgusting information that the School Governors thought I was some sort of pedophile, admitting to you when we first got married that I liked rough and unconventional sex would have been disastrous. You would have thought I was a candidate for the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo’s.” Lucius’ brow creased for a second, “Do they have a section for sex addicts? In any case, you would have been so frightened of the idea, you couldn’t have accepted exploring the different types of sex I wanted. I think perhaps it is not so frightening now, but is it repugnant?”

Hermione sat back in her chair regarding her husband. That was his secret? He liked kinky sex? Not much of a newsflash there. But he was right – at the beginning she would have fainted or run screaming in the other direction after hexing his balls off. She’d been terminally naïve. Not any more. Hellcat, her mind whispered again. Yes, she was. She really was.

“Lucius, how can you still think I’m appalled by the varieties of sex you’ve shown me? Last week I tied your wristguards to your leather collar and gave you a blowjob that knocked you unconscious. And then there was the episode where you screamed like a girl -”

“I get your point,” he huffed, annoyed, remembering that night.

Hermione had been lying between his legs, idly massaging his sac one evening, watching his organ inflate, its one eye slit staring back at her, and she’d decided unilaterally to explore the mystery of Lucius’ anal ring. “You know what you did,” he groused, still nursing his grievance at that loss of control. “You surprised me. It hurt. You didn’t use any lubricant.”

“And you got off on that pain so fast I got my hair plastered with your cum. I guess you really are a pervert. But your assessment of my sexual character was spot on. As a hellcat I’ll have to suck it up and learn to use a bullwhip,” she grinned.

“No bullwhips!”

“But Lucius, you have whips in your playroom. I saw them,” she insisted.

“They’re soft, lightweight toys that can cause a sting, but they don’t really hurt, and they certainly don’t break the skin. I don’t have any bullwhips in my collection. How ridiculous!”

Lucius crossed his arms and relaxed in his chair, splaying his legs out under the table. “You’re just teasing me. It’s not perversion to take pleasure in a variety of sexual experiences and toys,” he chided. “And if you’re thinking my penchant for kinky sex is a Malfoy genetic mutation, I can assure you on behalf of our unborns I wasn’t born that way, not like Athena bursting forth fully formed from Zeus’ forehead. I… shall we say… gathered my repertoire slowly over time. His eyes laughed, but the rest of his face remained passive.

Hermione leaned forward, inspecting his face, “You know, I’m quite smitten by those faint lines radiating out from the edges of your eyes. I find them very sexy, but you don’t have many because you don’t smile often.”

His heart lurched at the indirect mention of his greater age and Lucius said testily, “Are we descending to age snipes again? Is your interest already waning because I’m older than you?” He reassured himself that the Sorting Hat said she didn’t care about the age gap, then he slid into a funk once more. Why was she bringing it up again?

Hermione replied tartly, “I know this isn’t in the Malfoy genetic code either, but let’s try you trusting me for a change. We need to talk about the age gap between us. You have evaded all discussion about our respective ages to the point where it’s obvious you’ve become terribly bothered by it. You’re not the only one worried about the age gap. Am I holding your interest only because I’m young? Like those groupies you deflowered? When I get laugh lines around my eyes, will you still want to be in my bed?”

Lucius rose to stand stoically, his lips thinned with tension. By that time he’d be so firmly enthralled, he would probably be begging her for a simple smile. How could she not know that? He gritted his teeth, “Yes, I will still want to be in your bed. Will you still want to be in mine, rough or kinky sex included and accepted?”

Hermione sighed in defeat and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist as he held her, “Yes, of course I will.” Lucius was turning the subject again.

“I… ” Lucius grimaced. “No, I’m a complete coward.” He hesitated, then sighed and his shoulders slumped in weary dejection, “I… oh, Gods… I… I’m… in love with you.”

“Well, you don’t have to make it sound like you’ve caught a fatal disease, Lucius.” She gazed up for long moments into the pale gray eyes of her husband, those eyes that never failed to make her heart skip a beat with attraction, and saw the simple truth shining through his disquietude at exposing his inner, most private and vulnerable feelings.

He began to draw away, his eyes clouding with resigned sadness. He’d gambled everything and lost.

Hermione felt his arms drop from embracing her and she grabbed his shirtfront in both hands, “Where are you going? Please don’t tell me you are going to dangle that longed for bit of news and then leave me? Do you know how long I’ve been in love with you? It feels like forever – a painful forever - thinking you could never truly care for me, a Muggleborn.” She felt his arms go comfortingly around her again.

“You love me? You have loved me forever?” Lucius was stunned, then a smug smile tugged at his lips only to be quashed by his lady love.

“Not forever, you dolt. It just felt like it, thinking I was the only one in love.”

“Ah,” he said, his heart soaring, “yes, I’m well aware of that lonely, forever feeling.” Lucius folded her more tightly in his arms, ever careful of her rounded form, “It’s why I never wanted to talk about the age gap between us. If I didn’t acknowledge it, maybe it would fade from your mind. Stupid, I know. There may have been just a tinge of desperation in my attitude.”

Lucius idly ran his fingers through Hermione’s curls as he mused, “Perhaps it is a disease, falling in love with a smart-mouthed harpy who has no respect for her betters. If so, it was incredibly weak of me to have succumbed and I know precisely when I recognized my sad affliction.” He chuckled when her clutching hands suddenly turned into sharp nails abrading his skin through his shirt. “Mmm, I do like your nails scraping my chest.” He sighed in pleasure, “I may have been a goner earlier, but I woke up to the fact for sure the night of the Yule Ball.”

“You mean when you introduced me to your backdoor sex?”

“No, my love,” he paused, drinking in that phrase. “You really are my love,” he marveled.

Hermione wriggled impatiently, “Yes, yes, of course I am and don’t think we aren’t going to discuss that remark about you being my better.” When Lucius merely chuckled and slipped his fingers gently through her curls again, she returned to her main interest, “When did you fall in love with me, then?”

“So demanding,” Lucius reproached, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “It was before that, when we danced at the Yule Ball. I think my heart actually stopped for a few seconds, I was so astounded.” His smile got a little dreamy remembering the glorious, odd sensation that had taken over his heart.

“But… but,” she sputtered, “you couldn’t have done. I fell all the way in love with you that night. I could feel my whole self just pick up and transfer over to you when I walked up onto the dais before we danced. I’d lost pieces of myself to you before that, but at that moment, you finally had all of me.” She shrugged, “I knew for sure then. It was incredibly lowering, I can tell you,” she retaliated for the ‘smart-mouthed harpy’ dig.

“So you are claiming you fell in love with me before I fell in love with you?” the competitor in Lucius rose and his eyes narrowed.

“Correct,” Hermione crowed with snarky sarcasm, miffed that Lucius immediately thought of their emotions as some sort of sporting competition with a gallop to the finish. He truly was a tyro at falling in love. “I’m the winner here, because I beat you by about thirty seconds. Too bad,” she taunted. “You’ll just have to live with the fact that I fell in love without any of your artful, serpentine tricks to sway me into it.” Hermione smiled smugly at her infuriating mate.

“Oh, I never said I didn’t try to make you love me. Where did you get that idea?”

“WHAT?”

“I’ve been trying since about the second week of our marriage. If you remember, you were quite nasty at the beginning.” His first time spanking her had sealed his intent to lure her emotionally, but he wasn’t going to kill the mood by saying that. Sharing intimate, affecting confidences between spouses was all well and good, but not the ones that would get him into trouble.

“What I didn’t expect,” Lucius sailed smoothly past his carnal epiphany during that first spanking session where he had decided he wanted her to love him, “was that I was capable of returning the affection I wanted so badly. I’d not been able to love Narcissa, so I thought I hadn’t that kind of emotion in me. It was a spectacular and unnerving surprise to find out I’d done it without trying.

“All I wanted was a wife who loved me and could hold her own against me between the sheets. Narcissa never did.” His lips quirked, “The only person I ever loved was Draco and that was different. I knew it was different. That wasn’t the love between a man and a woman. It’s depressing to think one isn’t like normal people.”

“And now you’re just another average person,” Hermione nodded, amused.

“I wouldn’t say average,” Lucius frowned. “I’ve never been average. Being capable of loving merely adds a facet to my already high luster.”

“You are so easy to play,” Hermione giggled.

“And easy to love, I hope,” Lucius grinned. “I want this marriage to be perfect as my first never was,” he said ebulliently.

“Lucius,” Hermione smiled softly at his enthusiasm, but warned, “a marriage can never be perfect by its very nature because we aren’t perfect. But our marriage is healthy and alive - we are free to be ourselves. If you haven’t noticed,” she laughed, “we tend to snap each other’s head off on a regular basis, but we also laugh together and we certainly love together.”

“Ah, well, speaking of snapping each other’s head off…” Lucius’ voice trailed away.

Hermione reached up and wound her fingers tightly in her husband’s hair, tugging a little. “Yes?” she said.

“Now, now, sprite, snatching me bald for minor transgressions isn’t the way to promote wedded bliss.” He tried to untangle her fingers and she reluctantly let go of the fine strands.

“Minor transgressions… go on,” she said, her brown eyes narrowing on his calculating gray ones. Her shifty husband was back.

“I asked Severus to be godfather to our twins and he accepted,” Lucius said in a rush and raised his chin, looking down his nose at his wife, attempting a haughty stance.

“Oh,” she said, “is that all? Aside from you obviously seeing that it should have been a joint decision, I have no objection.”

“You don’t?” Lucius blinked in astonishment.

“No. Is there a reason I should?” She turned and wandered into the suite’s bedroom, crossed over to the dressing table and sat, beginning to brush out her curly mop after her husband’s depredations. It always got tangled around Lucius, who liked to rake his fingers through it – he never tired of caressing her hair and playing with the curls – and she rather liked it.

Lucius followed to stand next to Hermione as she sat, “Well, no… no reason. So you agree? Good. You may select the godmother,” the snobby wizard imperiously waved one elegant hand with an air of conferring a great honor.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but merely nodded, laughing a little to herself. “Lucius, has anyone ever told you you’re not a very romantical kind of man?”

Lucius eyed his wife, wondering where her remark was leading, but she was petting his trouser placket in an unsubtle way and his attention wandered to her clever fingers, which had discovered the button at his waist and began trying to open it. “Forgive me, sprite, for pointing out that neither are you a romantical sort – unless biting your husband’s chest counts.”

“Ah, Lucius, we are so perfectly matched,” she sighed and rose, wrapping her arms around the slim waist of her handsome husband and laying her cheek against his chest, inhaling that faint pine scent she adored. A hundred plus years of this to look forward to, she thought happily. As a hellcat.

“Um, Lucius?” Hermione snuggled her face into the wizard’s waist, clinging to his warmth like a goblin to its Galleons. “One more question. Where did you go for those two weeks when you left me?” She was certain she knew, but wanted him to tell her.

A long moment of silence ensued, before Lucius finally said, “Hermione, my love, if you can explain to me why it is necessary for you to know, then I might tell you.” He waited as his wife tried to find a compelling reason for her curiosity. She couldn’t. Her look of chagrined disgruntlement was his answer. “Please,” he smiled, “come to bed – now.”

tbc...

_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

No, we are not finished. Several chapters yet to go.


Wanna see Lucius during and after his bath? There are a couple of different views. Don’t miss the pics at my LiveJournal:

http://labibliographe.livejournal.com/69274.html

.
.