Beyond the Veil -- COMPLETE

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Updated 3-4-08


Many thanks for all the reviews. Ambrosia for me! 8-)

Ravenna - I considered dramedy, but wasn't sure if it would be a good word for the international audience.

Damiana - 'vocabulous' - yes, I like that word! And we do need a Judge Turpin story.



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Chapter Seven

Too Much Togetherness




Hermione woke up as the light from the grimy window shone directly into her eyes. It had slowly crept across the bed as the morning had advanced, finally reaching her face. She hadn’t moved at all during the night, lying on her back the way Lucius had positioned her. Hermione scrubbed at her eyes, feeling rested and more optimistic, looking over and seeing the diffused sunlight shining on the patches of the quilt covering…

She gasped in horror! There was a strange man in the bed with her, lying face down, his black hair cascading in a tumbled heap over his shoulders. The old quilt only came up to his waist and it looked like he might be naked, an ivory expanse of skin lovingly hugging a broad, well-muscled back. The man was facing away from her, his hands tucked up under the ratty, stained pillow he had under his head.

Hermione’s heart nearly escaped from her ribs, it was beating so hard. How had this man gotten into her room? And where was Lucius? Lucius!! She looked frantically around the small room, knowing she would have noticed him if he’d been there. Slowly, as she inhaled and exhaled too quickly in her distress, the familiar scent of lime and male assailed her nostrils and she paused. Lucius? Lucius? Her heart rate evened out as she understood what her subconscious was telling her.

“Lucius!” Hermione smacked the sleeping man on his back, thumping him twice with her small fist before the wizard woke and twisted, his wand sweeping the room in a deadly arc. It had been in his hand all night hidden under the pillow.

“What? What?” He turned and looked at his bedmate when he couldn’t find the threat. “What’s wrong? Why did you hit me?” Lucius sat up fully, absently holding the quilt against his stomach while searching Hermione’s face for any clue to why she should be smacking him awake.

Hermione took in the expanse of beautifully carved chest and nicely muscled arms being presented for her inspection and looked away in embarrassed confusion. Then she happened to look down and saw what she was wearing. Or rather what she wasn’t wearing. Storm clouds gathered on her brow and she leaned over and smacked Lucius again, this time on the arm.

“I don’t advise any more physical demonstrations against my person if you value your own skin, Miss Granger,” Lucius warned, ill temper clear in his voice as he caught her wrist and tightened his hold on the delicate bones, letting her know he was much stronger than she. “Why in Merlin’s name do you keep hitting me?” He pushed the offending wrist back at his obnoxious bedmate and let go.

The danger that had alarmed Lucius being nonexistent, he relaxed back against the headboard wondering what had set off the angry little bantam female. Wakening him so abruptly was dangerous to her health and he saw from the tinge of fear in her eyes, she had figured that out without him having to say anything more. Her smacks had been bothersome, but not anywhere near hurtful, luckily for her.

“You weren’t you,” she accused.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I’ve always been me.”

“And I’m naked!” Hermione proclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest and covering her bra as thoroughly as she could. She saw his eyes slide down her body to her crossed arms, “Well, don’t look!” She grabbed for the old, tatty quilts, pulling what she could up over herself.

“I believe I would have noticed immediately if you were naked, Hermione,” Lucius’ lips twisted quizzically. “You are decently covered in your underwear as am I.”

“You’re wearing underwear?” Hermione couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed and that made her even more unsettled.

Lucius grinned, obligingly lowered the quilt to his hip displaying his dark green boxers, then covered himself up again. “Happy?”

Hermione’s attention was instantly drawn to the dark tattoo on his left forearm and her nose wrinkled up in distaste. “Ugh, can’t you get that removed?” The Dark Mark still had the power to scrape her nerves like a fingernail on a chalkboard.

Lucius gazed at his arm dispassionately, a cynical slip of a smile ghosting across his face, “I could, I suppose.” Icy gray eyes rose from contemplating his skin decoration to assess his little companion. “It has served its purpose, I think.”

“And what was that?” Hermione averted her eyes from the visual evidence of a horrific time in her young life.

“Every time I see it I am reminded of how impossible it actually is to herd lemmings anywhere but off a cliff. I wanted the wizarding world safe from Muggles, but the rest of my kind refused to see the wolf at the door. Now that the worst has come to pass, I won’t need this,” he offered his forearm, palm up, on the quilt, “to remind me of the dead and dying, the destroyed homes and businesses of our kind or their inability to see the danger of Muggles. I tried to herd the wrong animal, it appears. I should have tried for the 'sheep'.” He sat up a bit against the headboard, “Ah, well, that’s another time, another life. We’ve been very effectively removed from all that. We’ve a new life to put in order now.”

He was amused at Hermione’s ineffective attempts to shield her plump, porcelain breasts and that delightful bit of lacy nonsense cradling them from his view and decided to have a little fun with his bed partner’s prudery, “I liked your lacy lingerie. They’re very feminine and quite unlike that gray uniform you were wearing when we met. What do you call that color? It’s not quite pink is it?”

Hermione frowned heavily, earning her another mischievous grin. “Not that it’s your concern,” she said snottily, “but it’s called Tahitian Sunset and why I’m even telling you that I don’t know.”

Lucius laughed out loud and wound up with another less violent smack on his arm, which he allowed as he had provoked it. “So why did you hit me before?”

“You scared me. I woke up with a black-haired man in my bed and it rather stopped my heart for a minute. Did you change your hair color as a disguise? Your own color is quite noticeable, so that was clever of you. I only wish you had done it before I fell asleep.”

“So do I,” Lucius said ruefully, massaging his lower back where the bulk of Hermione’s heavier smacks had found their target. He succeeded in making her feel a little guilty until she caught his poorly concealed relish at her embarrassment.

“Not exactly a poker face, are you?” she said nastily.

“Do I have to be, with you?” he replied, once again displaying his knowledge of Muggle games of chance.

His question flummoxed her. Did he have to be on guard around her? It was shockingly pleasing to her that he felt he could just be himself in her company. She thought she could get used to his teasing innuendoes and dictatorial attitude if it included a willingness to provide for both of them, but this little shaft of warmth at his acceptance was puzzling to her. Hermione quickly retreated into her protective mental shell, ignoring the sensation he had evoked as she decided she would have to work on his budding assumption that he alone made the decisions for their twosome.

Lucius had been a little shocked himself. The night before when he’d stripped Hermione down to her underwear with his wand she had been lying on her back and her coral-colored bra had covered two gravity-flattened breasts. This morning when she sat up, the difference was suddenly, erotically apparent to a wizard who was already feeling physically deprived. The little witch actually had very full breasts with some first-rate cleavage. He remembered his snide comments on her chest in the cow field and grimaced. He was definitely in the wrong about her assets. That gray full-cut blouse she’d worn had obscured a lovely, feminine shape.

Until he’d been blinded by the glory of those twin Tahitian Sunsets, he’d still been trying hard to think of her as that obnoxious, puerile adolescent who had, as part of the golden Trio (he still hated that phrase) wreaked havoc with all the Dark Lord’s plans. It had only been the horrific situation – an unknown female being cornered by the ‘sheep’ and the bloody decimation of his entire society – that had induced him to offer his protection to a fellow magic member, that and a disturbing re-emergence of male protectiveness when he had heard the feminine scream. He had long since thought he had successfully excised any lingering chivalrous impulses in order to pursue his Death Eater agenda. It was irritating in the extreme to re-discover what to him was a distinct weakness within himself in a world he was now nearly powerless in.

Power in the Muggle world as in his own nearly always meant having money – lots of it. That was Lucius’ first goal; find a way to make a lot of money in a short period of time. He hated being poor. Despised it. It was worse than being old or impotent. Weeeell… maybe not impotent. That would be pretty grim. Which reminded him that he had a date with a whore as soon as possible. He had been absolutely correct that he would have another erection today and it had already arrived full-fledged. If he was subjected to those Tahitian twins much more, he couldn’t be responsible for going native.

At that moment Hermione’s stomach made a noisy growl and she realized she was ravenous. “Oh! I fell asleep last night. Did you bring home any food, Lucius? I’m so hungry I think my stomach is touching my backbone.”

Trust me, it’s not, thought Lucius with a last lingering look at the small treat in his bed. Then he sighed with some regret and renewed his determination to find a brothel that opened for morning services. He certainly had some plans for worshiping at that carnal altar.

“Over there on the bureau.” Lucius made himself more comfortable propped up with his pillow against the bed’s headboard. “I brought some mutton stew – something of a staple as I understand – and a tankard of ale. I didn’t trust the water. They were dipping water out of the same bucket they were washing their tankards in, if you can call a brief dip, washing.” When he saw her scrunching up her nose at the tankard on the bureau, he added, “I charmed your tankard in the barkeep’s hand just before he pulled the tap for the ale. It should be perfectly clean.”

Lucius had spent ten minutes after entering the tavern closely watching the routines before ordering anything for himself - a holdover from his Death Eater days. The dark wizard had learned to always look over a physical space including all exits before making any moves. He had hoped to find a victim for some more fleecing, but the customers all looked worse off than he so he had grudgingly given up on that plan.

The lack of familiarity with this new time period was going to make building a new fortune a little harder, but Lucius didn’t even contemplate abandoning his lofty goal. He was used to money, he liked money and nobody was going to keep him from having it. Especially not the straight-laced little witch now trying to wiggle into her dress without him seeing any more of her bra and knickers. He was enjoying the attempt although it was doomed to failure unless she used her wand. Lucius grinned – her wand was still in his coat pocket.

“Do you MIND?” Hermione glared, seeing Lucius’ intent pleasure in the entertainment she was contriving not to provide. “Turn away so I can get dressed, please!” She was heroically attempting to avoid looking at his bare chest, but it was miserably hard and she was having some trouble with her breathing. Looking at those broad, sculpted muscles rippling under all that warm, golden ivory skin was bringing out all sorts of painful feelings she’d thought dead and buried years ago.

She’d spent years behind her old, scarred desk, cataloging historical artifacts and burying her head in the metaphorical sand of her lonely little kingdom of inanimate objects, trying to heal from the emotional wounds she’d been dealt right after the final vanquishing of Voldemort. She had thought herself so lucky to emerge from the fighting alive, only to fall victim to someone on her own side, whose abandonment had crushed her. Now she was in London of nearly two hundred years ago with a wizard who had always been a frightening bully dedicated to principles Hermione had abhorred and she was trying desperately not to drool over his sexy chest. How much farther did she have to fall before her punishment for being alive when so many others had died was complete?

Hermione warily tracked the recumbent wizard, keeping her eyes on him until she finally managed to get her uncooperative dress over her head. Her face was covered for precious seconds while she wriggled the close-fitting bodice down, providing the most erotic view to Lucius he was ever likely to get from the tiny prude as he watched her breasts jiggling in time to her dancing in place as the skirt finally got past her shoulders but got hung up at her waist. She turned away from him then, but she had forgotten the mirror. The minute she turned away, Lucius was free to gaze into it, now entertained by seeing both her front and her backsides.

As she finally smoothed the dark green cloth of her dress over her hips, she darted a look at Lucius and saw him grinning, staring past her. She gasped when she followed his eyes and discovered her modesty had been all for nothing. She was very well displayed in the aged mirror. It was perhaps a mercy her face had been covered by her dress while he was ogling her knickers, fantasizing about the faint display of nether curls behind the coral lace.

Lucius had built himself quite a tent and was correspondingly losing his sense of humor as his physical urges rode him more and more. The possibility of a brothel was starting to fill his mind to the exclusion of most everything else. He had spent the time while eating in the tavern mentally listing all the ways he intended to get laid; none of them included fitting himself between the legs of a smelly, garrulous tavern slut.

Lucius had been freed from Azkaban after twelve endless years of having a choice only between his right hand or his left, to immediately begin fighting against the superior numbers of ‘sheep’ invading first his home and then the Ministry stronghold. The initial waves of murders had hit the magic community’s public gathering places, then the Wave had begun infiltrating private homes and estates, turning loving Muggle parents into killers of their own children and routing all the magical families into fleeing or dying to protect their properties; finally the Ministry itself had been infiltrated. Lucius was an experienced fighter and he had done everything he could, but nothing would have been enough. The magic world was lost.

However, the extermination of his kind was now two hundred years in the future and Lucius had been sundered from that time of horror by the Veil of Death, unable to affect that war’s outcome any further. It was a truism of all ages that life goes on and Lucius’ body was waking up again, making some of its more unruly requirements known and he would be damned if he would make do with his hand. After seeing Hermione’s softly rounded breasts and that delicious cleavage he’d added another way to have sex to his ever-growing and increasingly kinky list. He would have happily settled for nailing the little witch living with him and ending his sexual frustration that way, but for his first time with a woman in twelve years he wanted cooperation, not recriminations.

Hermione twitched her dress into place, decently covering her, angry with Lucius and herself for providing the peep show he’d obviously enjoyed if that feral grin was any indicator. She turned toward the food and saw it was encased in ice.

“You still have my wand, I believe. I would appreciate its return,” Hermione’s nose was angled into the air as she donned an invisible mantle of injured dignity. She held her hand out and raised her eyebrow, expecting the wand to be sent to her.

Lucius lazily threw back the quilts and rose from the bed, padding over to his folded coat on the wooden chair and smiling when he heard an outraged intake of breath as he straightened up to his full height with only a pair of green silk boxers between him and Hermione’s immediate protestations of offended decency. He knew she could have accio’d her wand. She had wanted him to do her bidding – she just hadn’t thought far enough ahead. Served her right.

“Put your trousers on, can’t you?” she complained a little shrilly.

Lucius turned toward her giving her the full view of his massive green bulge, crossing his arms over his chest, her wand sticking out jauntily from one hand. His smile turned cynical when he saw Hermione’s eyes hadn’t made it any farther north than his distended expanse of green silk.

“Sorry, my dear, I’m afraid I won’t be able to get my trousers on for a few minutes. You understand, I’m sure.” He started walking toward her and she instantly backed up, surprising him some. His blatant morning erection wasn’t that scary was it? It was her fault for doing that hoochy-coochy dance for him, but he decided not to aggravate the situation by pointing out the reason for his condition. He could hear her answer as if she were speaking, ‘Well you didn’t have to watch’.

“Here’s your wand,” Lucius said. “You can heat up the stew and I’ll return the bowl and tankard to the tavern later. If you can’t drink the ale, you can use the aguamenti spell to get some clean water for yourself.” Lucius stopped a pace away from the disgusted witch and handed her her wand, handle first.

Her stormy eyes met his as she practically snatched the magic implement from his hand and executed a sharp turn, aiming a blast of hot air onto her stew with a quick spell. She floated the bowl over by the chair Lucius had lately left, stomped over and sat down with the bowl on the little table and began eating, ignoring the irritating wizard and his green underwear. She nastily sat on his jacket, hoping she was crumpling it with her weight, but reason soon made it obvious that all he had to do was charm it into good shape again. That exacerbated her temper even more.

Lucius was left standing on the floor by her side of the high bed when suddenly he crouched down out of her sight. “What are you doing now, if I may ask,” Hermione’s posh, high voice was still snotty.



Lucius stood up again, looking innocently across the bed at his roommate, his eyes bright in anticipation of the fireworks he was unleashing, “I pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed. I do hope you don’t mind if I just make use of it over here.”

“You must be joking,” she sputtered.

“A full bladder is no joke,” he averred virtuously but his unruly grin got the better of him and an empty stew bowl was sent on a mission of pain directly toward his smartass smile. Lucius stopped it midair and gently replaced it on the bureau.

“Now, now, no need to take on like an outraged virgin. You look like a tiny, spitting kitten with your cute little nose in the air like that. Hmmm. I like that name for you. You may accept my estimation, Kitten dear, you don’t have the face for outrage or intimidation."

“You aren’t going to label me with that juvenile name, are you?” Hermione lowered her nose and sat back attempting to look nonchalantly around the room.

“Oh, I think so. I like it better than Hermione, although your given name is Greek and is from the messenger of the gods, Hermes. Still, it’s a bit pretentious for you.”

“Pretentious! You insensitive clod, how would you like me to call you Loo? Of course you’d never know if someone was calling you or wanted directions to the bathroom. So maybe I should call you Lucy. It goes with your prissy hair.”

“Such passion and all for a pet name. Very well, Hermione I shan’t call you that private name. Pity. I had thought we were starting to get along rather well after spending the night together.”

Hermione gritted her teeth, “We did not spend the night together. You make it sound as though we were indulging in sex.”

Lucius toed the chamber pot nearer the side of the high bed so Hermione couldn’t see it from across the room and raised an infuriating eyebrow as he claimed, “Believe me, I would have remembered if that had been the case. I think all the insinuation is on your side, my dear. I merely stated fact.” Lucius crouched down again out of Hermione’s line of sight and she distinctly heard liquid making an echoing sound as it hit the porcelain interior of a pot.

Hermione turned hot pink from embarrassment and didn’t know what to do with herself. That…that…wizard had peed in their chamber pot with her in the room.

“Lucius, how could you?”

Lucius rose again, adjusting his greenery, “Hermione,” he mimicked, “How could I not?” He took his wand and waved it over the unseen chamber pot below the level of the bed, relieving it of its burden. “What was your solution? Take the chamber pot into the hall? Although I will admit the hall smells like it wouldn’t be the first time someone used it for the loo.”

Still clad only in his green silk shorts the dark wizard walked back across the bedroom to Hermione and yanked his coat from under her bum, unwrinkling it with a quizzical sideways look that said her behavior had been petty, before placing it carefully on his side of the unmade bed.

Showing a total lack of concern, the handsome wizard ran a cleaning spell over himself, especially aiming his wand at his armpits and pulling his underwear out from his abs to point a spell down at his groin to freshen up until he could find a way to bathe. He donned his trousers and shirt and stepped back over to the betraying mirror to shave his day-old beard with his wand and fasten his old-fashioned neckcloth in a way that resembled those he’d seen on the street.

The green silk shorts bothered him – he wasn’t used to wearing underwear beneath his trousers - but asking Hermione to look away while he shucked the shorts would probably have been pushing her too far. He popped his handkerchief into his pocket and saw in the mirror that Hermione’s mouth was hanging open once again.

Hermione was dumbfounded. Lucius had just calmly performed several intimate grooming functions, all of them right in front of her without batting an eyelash.

“Hermione, I hesitate to mention it but if you don’t close your mouth you might be prey to one of the flies currently inhabiting our humble domicile with us.” He was talking to her as he critically examined his neckcloth arrangement in the mirror a final time and made sure his hair was clean and straight, although he peevishly clucked at the necessity for the ugly, black color.

Seeing her follow his suggestion he continued, “I’ve been thinking. We really need identities. I imagine this age is much more lax in keeping track of people which should work in our favor. In this time period we have no background and that could be a problem. You’re a Muggleborn, is there any way to select new identities for ourselves – from a Muggle newspaper, or tax roll, say?”

Lucius also pondered aloud, “Do you think the Ministry of Magic Witch and Wizard Ledger has recorded us as part of the magic community now that we are here? If so, then I hope our names are there from birth so our entrance into the magic world of this time won’t be fraught with questions on who we are. Can the Veil be that all-reaching, do you think?” He waited for Hermione to answer, but when only an inimical stare greeted him he shrugged, “Ah, well, as you’ve so sagaciously pointed out by your eloquent silence, that’s a problem to be explored in its own time."

Hermione was trying to wrap her mind around Lucius’ nonchalance in dressing – and peeing in front of her. Well, almost in front of her. “I think the Register automatically records any magic person the moment they exist in the world. We should therefore be listed, even Slytherins,” she gibed. “I could have gone into the hall while you did your personal business, Lucius. I’d rather not be subjected to that again.”

“Are you still worrying that old bone?” Lucius sighed at the fussy primness of her attitude, reproaching her with a slow, deprecating shake of his head. “As for your suggestion of the hall, I will make this crystal clear for you. You will not go anywhere alone until I am much more familiar with this territory. Which reminds me, we need to create a connection charm of some kind, so in the event you and I lose each other, I can find you again.”

“Just why do you think you will be the one needing to find me?” she asked. “I may be the one looking for you. You left me alone yesterday in that little park. It’s more likely you’ll be in trouble if you keep going out alone in the evening.” Hermione sat up straight in her chair and affected a capable stance somewhat marred by Lucius’ snort.

“Hermione, you have the street savvy of a first year Hufflepuff. Living in the basement of the Ministry cataloging ancient artifacts for all those years seems to have totally blunted whatever ability you had to keep yourself safe from danger, especially in this dubious neighborhood. You probably wouldn’t even see danger coming until it was too late. And yesterday, necessity drove us. I glamoured you into a boy for that short time and all that happened was you being propositioned by a tavern maid. I’m not going to give you my entire resume, but suffice it to say I’ll be safe anywhere I choose to go. It’s actually more likely that I will be the predator than the prey.” His cold smile and ‘predator’ comment decided her not to pursue her aggravation with his earlier displays of intimate hygiene.

In actuality the idea of a connection charm did make her feel a little safer and she acquiesced, choosing to bind herself to him through something on her body rather than a piece of her clothes. Hermione chose to use her left big toenail. It was something that would ultimately grow out ending the connection, but not too quickly in case the connection charm was needed. If anything happened to separate her from her big toenail, she figured the rest of her might not be worth finding anyway.

Lucius grimaced at her unromantic choice, connection charms usually being between families or lovers, but agreed with her reasoning; he bound her to his big toenail as well. After putting a modest shine on his transfigured boots, he put them on and announced, “I’m going to return the bowl and tankard to the tavern, then I’ll be trolling for more money.” He was also going to track down a likely whorehouse, but that wasn’t information to be shared with a witch who couldn’t even abide hearing pee hit a pot.

Hermione had been thinking about needing new identities and accepted that Lucius was correct. She offered, “I can’t think of any other sources of new identities besides Debrett’s Peerage. It’s a book that tells all the aristocratic families and their members going back in time. That’s only for peers though, not common people.”

Lucius’ chin went up, “I am not common, so I’ll look out for this book. Who would have a copy? Is it available in a bookstore or a library?”

“If you have the money, it would be nicer to get it from a bookstore but I don’t know how available the book is. I think all the aristocratic families had copies, but I’m not sure. You don’t belong to any libraries so you’d have to steal their copy.” Hermione frowned, “It would be better not to draw attention to yourself too much by initiating a series of thefts around here as soon as we arrive.”

“Frankly, I don’t think I’m going to find any bookstores or libraries in this section of the city, if there are any at all in this time period. It’s my guess very few of the denizens of this area can actually read. I’ll try farther afield in the richer areas for the book. If we’re going to be someone elses, we may as well be well-connected someone elses.”

Lucius put on his coat, adjusted his hat over his black-colored tresses and started to leave. He looked back at Hermione, “Do NOT leave this room. Don’t answer the door. I’ll bring some more food and drink when I return, but if it gets to be tomorrow night and I’m not back, consider me incapable of returning - then you can come and save me using the connection charm. His sneer said that eventuality was as likely as a Dementor dating Tinkerbell.

“Do NOT leave this room,” Hermione mimicked Lucius’ nasty posh accents (after he’d gone), fuming that she was left to sit and look at the faded cabbage roses on the wallpaper again for hours while he no doubt went places a virtuous female would be an encumbrance. What a horrible time period in which to be a woman.

Lucius, however, surprised Hermione, returning within two hours, a dog-earred copy of Debrett’s under his arm. He also had another bowl of the mutton stew and another tankard of ale, and this time he’d included half a loaf of bread and some cheese.

The dark wizard tossed the book onto the still-unmade bed, “You can look through this Muggle book and see if there are any likely people who we can become. Look at the ages of the people and try to match us up to names that we might assume. I’m going out again. While I’m gone, perhaps you can find the time to make the bed, if it doesn’t interfere with your packed schedule.”

Hermione was torn between verbally ripping a hole in Lucius’ expectations or grabbing for the book. The book won and Hermione pounced on it, immediately opening it and bathing in the written word.

Lucius watched the little witch’s face as she threw him a poisoned glance that changed astonishingly to a beatific smile aimed not at him but at the book he’d so carelessly flung onto the bed. He began to see that staying in the stifling room without any occupation had been a trial for her and he felt a bit guilty.

Lucius shook off his concern. He was determined to visit the local whorehouse as soon as possible or the little witch would find out just how stifled he felt without a session of sweaty sex. It was best for both of them if he found his release somewhere else soon. He knew she was feeling the edge of his uncertain temper already and it would only get worse if he didn’t leave her now.

“Don’t wait up for me – I may be quite a while.” Lucius settled his hat more firmly on his head and slipped out the door almost unnoticed as Hermione delved into the ancient histories of the peerages scattered around her country. The blond (now black-haired) wizard bounded down the stairs, aimed a scant nod at their landlady and sailed out the front door bound on his mission of mercy – for himself.

Hermione knew Lucius had gone and she didn’t miss him in the least – she didn’t, dammit. She figured he was going to relieve more Muggles of their purses either through theft or at the gaming tables. In either case her presence would be extraneous and possibly dangerous. The sooner they had extant identities to give themselves backgrounds in this new time, the better off they would be. Hermione sighed and got to work tracing various dead-end family trees for some likely ways to add two ersatz relatives to their branches.


tbc...

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A bit of eye candy for the Luciusites in the crowd, beautifully done by Rainboweye.

Get your drool rags ready, ladies!

http://pics.livejournal.com/labibliographe/pic/0000sszk

Drawing by Rainboweye. The pics at Rainboweye's web site (http://www.rainboweye.de/Start.htm) are amazing. It was too difficult to connect to this particular Lucius pic, though, so I added a copy to my LiveJournal for easy viewing. All credit to Rainboweye.

Now that's worth a review, isn't it?


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