L\'amore è tre quarti di curiosità

Title: L'amore è tre quarti di curiosità (Love is three quarters curiosity)
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Romance, Humour, Mystery
Warnings: M/F, SoloM, Oral
Summary: Hermione literally collides with trouble in an alley in Northern Italy, which will lead her through a process called ‘falling in love.’
Author's Notes: The title is a quote by Giacomo Casanova. Sorry to disappoint, but Lucius, god of sex, is not too prevalent in this fic as he is in some other things I have written. Please withhold the tomatoes and other produce you might throw in my direction. This is also an attempt at humour, contrasted to my usual ‘dark’ scribblings, so forgive the dryness, eh? Oh, and this ficlet is once again in 1st person POV. Enjoy!



L'amore è tre quarti di curiosità





VII.

As I lay in a hospital bed near a window with a view of a blank wall, I pondered many things at my leisure.

First and most immediate was my physical state. I had tubes running into my body and bandages wrapping most of my torso. My shoulder and left arm was in a cast that was lifted via a support away from my body. The cast itched. I had bruises on nearly every inch of my body and cuts, which had stitches that also itched. What was probably the most uncomfortable part was the catheter, which made me keep very still.

The doctors had been surprised that I had little internal damage, considering the exterior of me. I had not needed any surgery beyond the repair to my shoulder, which I was informed, would need physical therapy after the cast was removed.

I was on painkillers, which made my thoughts fluid and smooth flowing over the interior landscape of my skull.

The police had been by to ask about the accident, and I had to admit that I knew little as to the events that landed me immobile in a private hospital room that I knew would cost me more than I wanted to pay.

I had been in the hospital for four days.

My wand was in pieces, and I had no backup, not having replaced my second wand for whatever reason after Lucius Malfoy destroyed it in Trento. It had slipped my mind, I suppose.

Speaking of Lucius, he had not left my side.

He was play acting as my husband again, talking with the doctors, the nurses, supposedly providing ‘moral support.’ He had also spoken with the Muggle authorities, telling them more details of my accident, while he himself did not seem to be injured in the least.

“My wife was distracted, officer… She was slightly upset when she inadvertently stepped into the street…”

And so it went.

With the lubricant of painkillers, it was easy to ignore him, not to mention that he seemed more like a wall fixture than a person in the hospital room.

I continued to stare out the window, or slept when I could.

Besides my physical state, I wondered about my job. Had anyone been informed that I was in a Muggle hospital? Of course, Lucius Malfoy could inform no one of importance, he could only see the Muggles.

My parents had not been notified. I had not been carrying any means of identification, as was normal when I came and went from my flat to the Ministry, bypassing Muggle London entirely.

As far as the Muggle world knew, I was Hermione Malfoy.

Malfoy was a strange name to the Muggles that held no validity whatsoever.

Oddly, besides my immediate physical state, I pondered the letter I had been reading when I was struck by the black cab.

Lucius’ words were that of confession, which had distracted me when I stepped off the curb.

‘I do not know what it is to ‘fall in love,’ I suppose. When I married Narcissa, it was out of duty, and love came later. It was a gradual process, not some grand passion. We were stuck with each other, bound by title, by contract. Even when Draco was born, I admit, I was fond of Narcissa, but love? How was I to begin to understand such a concept.

My mother loved me, as a mother should love a child of her womb. My father loved me, as a father loves a son who will someday replace the weight of his responsibilities. But to ‘fall in love?’ I know nothing of it.

There are tomes upon tomes about love, poetry, drama, art, but it meant nothing to me.

Here is where I should begin begging…’

That was all I was able to read before being struck by the black cab.

I had to admit that I was of a similar situation as Lucius Malfoy. After so many years of contemplation, I realized I had never been ‘in love,’ not truly. With Ron, there was so much passion, but it was not a passion that he inspired. It was always situational, an external stimulus that sent me falling into his arms.

Viktor Krum was a friend, and my first real crush. We had not spoken in some time.

Then there were the lovers I took for no longer than a few nights, which really do not warrant mentioning beyond that.

I suppose if I were to have someone who was close to the feeling of ‘true love’ it would be Harry. I loved Harry, as a sister would love a brother, and that was the closest feeling I had of love for anyone.

I could live without being ‘in love,’ and until laying, half sitting up in the hospital bed, looking as if I had been mauled by a hippogriff, I wondered if it mattered at all if I never would love. I did not know what I missing, of course, so how would I want it at all?

If love was like what one read in books or saw in movies, I did not want it. To lose one’s reason over a single person was madness. Besides, loving Lucius Malfoy would be a Herculean task.

How could anyone love a man whose very presence caused irritation?




Harry came the next day; word finally making it back to the magical world that Hermione Granger was in a Muggle hospital, wandless, and immobile.

He was angry.

“How could this happen?” he asked me, his beautiful emerald eyes scanning my bruised face, the cast and the tubes running out of my body.

I did not answer him, for in the background, Lucius Malfoy had begun pacing, oblivious to Harry.

“I am going to arrange for a transfer,” Harry grumbled, his hand moving to touch my grubby curls, which was more like a brown fuzz about my head.

“Would you?” I asked, my throat scratchy. “I would love to be out of this cast.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Lucius’ voice cut through the room like an icy blade of steel, and he had paused in his pacing to visually scan the room with his even colder grey eyes.

“Harry,” I said, both to speak to my old friend and to tell Lucius what he wanted to know.

“Are you in pain?” Harry asked, his angry face shifting to a softer, sympathetic face.

“Potter?” Lucius huffed, frozen just behind Harry, obviously straining his eyes to see or sense something. “It took him this long to find you? What sort of friend—“

“Just a little, but if you can get me out of here…the faster the better,” I sighed.

At St. Mungo’s…could Lucius follow? He seemed to be able to slip into Diagon Alley; surely, he could Apparate into St. Mungo’s.

“I’ll speak to someone now,” Harry announced, his face setting.

Strangely, as Harry turned to leave the room, he sidestepped Lucius as if he knew the man was there. This shocked me on some level, but I let the shock slip away, the emotion lubricated as I punched a button on a tube to inject more medicine into my veins.

Lucius was at my side immediately, staring down at me, conflicted. I realized I had not spoken to him at all since arriving to the hospital.

“If I had the ability, I would have taken you…” he trailed and then sighed. “I could not see anyone… I…” again he trailed and shook his pale head, unable to say more.

I turned my eyes to the window again.

“Harry will see to it.”

“Potter…” he mumbled darkly and stepped away from the bed to begin pacing again.




Lucius Malfoy, for all intents and purposes, could have been my imaginary friend at St. Mungo’s. No one saw him, and he saw no body. To him, the halls were empty of patients, the portraits in the ward corridors blank.

To him, I was the only person in the world at the moment when the Healers began tutting about my Muggle stitches while smearing bruise vanishing cream into my face. The bones in my shoulder would have to be re-grown which would take overnight, but my ribs were mended quickly.

“Is the Healer still here?” Lucius asked, leaning into the wall next to the head of my bed.

I nodded.

“Will you be able to leave in the morning?”

I nodded, wondering if to Lucius, the movement of my hospital gown registered in his brain as the Healer began rubbing more cream into my ribs.

“Do try to get some rest, Miss Granger,” the female Healer said, moving the screens about the bed into place.

The itchy cast was gone, as were the stitches, but I would still have some scars after enduring ‘barbaric Muggle healing.’

“The Healer is gone,” I informed Lucius.

I leaned back into the pillows on the narrow hospital bed, wishing I had my wand to cast a Cleansing Charm so I did not feel as if I were wallowing in my own filth. I was glad the catheter was gone, but I still felt that I needed a good wash.

Lucius pushed off the wall and proceeded to sit on the edge of the bed, near my bare, yet blanket covered feet. The positioning was intimate, as was his gaze.

“I apologize.”

I blinked at him. I did not think the concept of apologizing existed in his mind.

“I should have moved faster, Apparated, perhaps.”

Again, I blinked at him as his gaze fell to the dip in the collar of my hospital gown and the yellowish cream beginning to absorb into the bruises near my shoulder, which was actually in a cloth sling.

“You have been following me.”

He nodded. “And a good thing I did…”

Lucius drawled his words, proudly.

“How is it you were not hurt?”

“I was, I healed myself…”

I sighed. His injuries had to be minor if he had healed himself. Then again, I supposed he would have to heal himself. No Healer could help him now.

Silence fell in the area around my bed and distantly, I could hear someone cough down the ward.

“Why are you not blaming me?”

His question was a whisper.

“You have been shot, struck by a Muggle taxi cab…”

Why indeed?

Perhaps it was not until I found that fated device in the D of M that I became the one who could break Lucius Malfoy’s curse. This thought disturbed me at how viable it could be.

I had brought this all upon myself.





That night, while Lucius had left me alone for a while to sleep, I considered my previous thought and found it to be a revelation that had come too late.

In the morning, I was suspended from my job.

Besides missing three days of work after my ordeal in Missoula, I had missed even more days by lying in a Muggle hospital with no word to my department head.

Suspended pay pending review, the failure of a joint project, it culminated into more bad luck…

To be honest, I laughed when the owl came, dropping the letter on my lap, owl droppings splattering me in the face as the bird swooped, turned, and made its way out of the ward. Owls in a hospital, how hygienic…

Lucius was still missing.





The wand shop, now run by an Ollivander cousin by the name of Harold, proved that I indeed was in dire straits when it came to luck.

I had expected the process of procuring a new wand to be simple. However, my Vinewood with dragon heartstring was no longer my wand. It took over an hour to find a suitable replacement. Not even the walnut with dragon heartstring responded to my touch.

I ended up with a thirteen-inch yew and Thestral hair wand. The symbolism associated with the materials used made me want to cry.

Death.

I was too nervous to try to Apparate home, and took the Floo to a backroom of a pub two blocks from my flat, careful to look both ways before crossing the street.

Though my bones had been re-grown, my shoulder and ribs ached. My clothing had been thrown away, too bloody to salvage, when I was in the Muggle hospital and I had been given a robe found in the lost and found bin, laundered, to wear over a pair of drawstring, overlarge, pants and Transfigured blouse. Getting home, I knew the first thing I wanted to do was bathe, but the wand had been more important.

I had no more mishaps. I made it to my flat safely, and found it empty.

Sinking into a steaming tub, I groaned, the heat relaxing my taut muscles and achy joints. I lay for a long time, staring through the steam to the blank ceiling.

If I gave in, broke Lucius Malfoy’s curse, would my luck change?

Thoughts of brewing a batch of Felix Felicis and overdosing, or bathing in the potion, crossed my mind.

I think I started to sob, I knew I was whimpering, the sound of my voice echoing through the bathroom as the truth of my life crashed down upon me.

I had brought this on myself.

Unemployed, obviously prone to fate’s malevolent designs, what did I have to lose by helping Lucius Malfoy now? What did I have to lose by ‘falling in love?’ Absolutely nothing.

Did this mean that I would automatically accept this notion of ‘falling in love?’ Absolutely not.

I would have to Obliviate years of fear and dislike of the man to begin to see him in a new light. However…

If I were to weigh my options…

The bath water was getting cold, and I rose, still feeling slightly stiff, and wrapped my hair and my body in the comfort of my thick towels. I did not care if I soaked my bed; I was due for a nap.

I padded, wet footed, toward the bed in the other room, bypassing Crooks who was watching me with one eye open from the armchair. He did not seem to need me for any reason, and I did not check on his food bowl in the kitchen.

I did not bother getting under the covers.

Blessed sleep took me, and I had warm, fuzzy dreams. That was, until I heard something from the waking world that roused me. I opened my eyes to a darkened flat, to find someone standing at the foot of my bed.

The lights came on in the kitchen, magic, and standing near my bare, and now dry feet, was Ronald Weasley.

“Merlin…” he breathed, and quickly turned his back to me. “I…erm…Harry said…”

I realized the towel I had wrapped about me was lying under me and my body, devoid of bruises, was bare.

“…thought you might need someone to come feed Crooks…”

A flustered Ron is always an adorable Ron, but as it was, I was naked, and Ron was not the only person in the room.

Lucius Malfoy, who was standing just at the corner of the small corridor from the front door and bath, was blinking rapidly at me, oblivious that Ron was in the room.

How it came to be that I had two men in my flat, simultaneously, was, as I conceded, bad luck at it again.

I could not move fast enough to grab the towel, the duvet, and a few damp pillows to cover myself. I had half a mind to start screaming, but only blushed.

“Erm, when did you get back?”

I only sighed, shaking my head to Lucius who, like Ron, began to turn his back to me, high spots of colour marking his cheeks.

“This afternoon,” I said, finding my new and disgustingly brittle wand on the bedside table.

Lucius glanced back at the sound of my voice, dawning realization forcing the spots of colour from his cheeks.

“Oh…well…”

I Summoned a bathrobe, a blue, thick terry cloth robe Ginny bought me after she discovered Harrods soon after marrying Harry. The robe flew from the bath and past both men, who seemed startled. I donned it post-haste.

The yew and Thestral hair wand was responsive, and it hummed in my hand, but send chills down my arm.

Ron turned when the sound of my rising signified that I was decent, and he blushed still.

Ron was an attractive man, no longer so gawky as he had been as a teenager, the freckles faded, his shoulders wide, and his smile infectious. I knew there were plenty of women in my own department that sometimes made out of the way trips ‘topside’ to catch sight of him when word came he was in the Ministry. He was, and would always be, a great, true friend.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as I passed by him and then Lucius who was now leaning into the wall, arms crossed.

I wanted to know why Lucius was in my flat, how he managed to get in, again. Of course, if I were to start speaking to him directly, who knows what Ron might think of me? Ron already thought I was a little barmy, claiming that the lack of sunlight in the basement of the Ministry gave me too pale a colouring and a snarky wit that had only worsened the longer I worked there.

“Fine,” I answered, moving to the refrigerator to open it and pull out a bottle of spring water I had brought back from Trento—locally bottled, and cheap. “Considering…” I trailed, remembering all too quickly that I was not really ‘fine.’

Ron moved to the kitchen counter, sitting on a high stool. In the lights of the kitchen, his blue eyes blazed, concerned. I realized then, he was dressed to ‘go out.’ I knew this for Ron only ever wore denims and tee shirts under his robes for work, but tonight, he was in a smart pair of black trousers with a pale blue button down shirt, the top button undone to give him a playful look. Even his deep red hair was combed neatly, and he was shaven, smelling of musky spice. Ron had a date.

“Harry mentioned that you might…” he trailed, and shook his head, obviously thinking that he should not mention whatever it was he was about to say.

I leaned into the lower counter on the other side of the bar, my hair in damp tangles from where the towel had fallen from my head during the nap.

“Mentioned what?” I asked, pausing as I unscrewed the lid from the cold water bottle.

“Your job…” Ron said, sheepishly, not meeting my gaze.

So, Harry knew? Who else? The pale man who was playing voyeur only feet away, trying to imagine the other side of my seemingly one-sided conversation.

“I’ve been suspended, pending review,” I said, before drinking several gulps of the Alpine waters.

Ron frowned. “And you were struck by a black cab…”

I sighed again. The cab happened first, the suspension after…

“Don’t worry.”

He raised his face to me, trying to smile, but failing. “But I do, I will,” he whispered.

An awkward silence fell, which was broken when Lucius shifted, apparently bored with my staring what would appear to me to be empty space.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I reminded him, and he finally smiled.

“Yeah. I’m meeting Parvati for dinner.”

I felt an eyebrow rise, but I smiled and then chuckled. Ron’s infectious smile widened.

Good for him. Parvati had grown into a level headed, responsible, very attractive, and popular physician, working in a hospital in Enfield.

“Well, if you’re alright, I should be going.”

“I’m fine.”

What a liar.

Ron came around the counter, and hugged me.

Lucius made a noise that sounded like a cross between a startled shout and a growl.

Then, booming: “Weasley!”

Ron placed a kiss on my forehead and made his goodbyes. He showed himself out.

I was left to scowl at Lucius, who had pushed off the wall and began to follow Ron to the door.

He could see him.

However, as the front door banged shut, the pale man stared at the backside, his body visibly trembling.

“When someone touches you… I can see them, but only for a few seconds.”

Lucius whirled, and his face was startling. There was elation, realization, and pure, unadulterated jealousy.

“What did he say to you?” he demanded.

I did not answer, clutching my water bottle in my hand so roughly that the plastic began to crumple.

“Why was he here?”

My wand was in my robe pocket, and I considered hexing him.

He had entered the sanctuary of my home, uninvited, and unwelcome. I was still fuzzy in the head from my nap and everything that had happened to me in the past few days. I was so inundated with too many conflicting emotions that I could not, for perhaps the first time in so long, sort myself out.

Anger was so easy.

“I, unlike you, still have people who care about me,” I ground out. “Why are you here?”

Haughty, so haughty… He lifted his chin, his grey eyes catching the kitchen light to sparkle with either mirth or triumph.

“I have come to make you a proper proposal.”

How easily he was distracted! If only…

Lucius Malfoy was a man whose will was so strong that even I, at times, had difficulty in resisting his natural strength, but I did, and for all the better of my self-worth.

“Oh?” was all I said.

He moved closer to me, gliding with a feline grace—a clever predator that would entice rather than all out attacking.

“Sit,” he purred, and as if he were the master of my personal space, motioned to the stool which Ron had been only moments before.

I complied, which galled me, but at the same time, I thought it better to be sitting for the dramatics about to come.

It was as he was composing himself in a grand manner, his body straightening, his shoulders squaring, his grey eyes studying, that I realized he was dressed very much as he had been the night we met in the alley off the Piazza Duomo in Trento. However, his clothes were no longer ragged or stained by sweat, the clothing was pristinely kempt, and I found myself looking at Lucius Malfoy as he should have been if he had not offended Edwinia Glump.

The Pure-blood aristocrat.

“You are looking much healed,” was his first comment, standing just on the other side of the kitchen counter, at an angle to my left, his face just catching the lights.

The comment was an attempt at civility.

I was still holding my bottle of water, but slowly released it, the plastic snapping back into place. He ignored the sound as I rested my forearms on the counter, waiting for whatever it was that he would ‘propose.’

Actually, I was at a loss as to why I would allow him to ‘propose’ anything. Had I somehow come to terms, on a deep and profound level, that if I were to give in, I might break my own brand of curse—the bad luck that felt like a perpetual storm cloud hanging over my head?

“Are you feeling much better?”

There was no true concern in his voice. As I said, an attempt at civility…

“Physically,” I grumbled. I was not about to start speaking aloud about how ‘unwell’ I truly felt inside, not to Lucius Malfoy who would slip his long, pale fingers into any crack of my soul and pry something open or free to exploit the weakness.

Lucius nodded, finding my answer acceptable.

“I shall cut to the chase, then,” he began, his words becoming less perfunctory, and more personal. “I would ask that you would accompany me on a holiday, in hopes that we would come to a compromise.”

I blinked at him, but he did not pause.

“I need this curse broken, and you are the only one who can help me break it. I will not stop following you, if you should refuse. I will become your personal poltergeist, if need be.”

He was threatening me, the bastard!

“However, we can go about this like civilized human beings, Miss Granger. You break my curse; I will never darken your door. It will take time, I realize, and I will compensate you, if you wish. Thus, I propose this ‘holiday,’ which could be pleasant, if you wish it to be.”

Again, I blinked at him.

The man had no idea what ‘falling in love’ entailed, nor did I, but I would have liked to think that I knew a bit more about it all than he.

“What say you, Miss Granger, Hermione?”

Lucius’ face, the well-constructed mask of haughty beauty, threatened to melt into a mask of hesitation and desperation. In those grey eyes, I could see his pleading, as if he had lost that much control over himself to allow me to peek into those orbs. Eyes are the windows of the soul; at least, it was so with Lucius Malfoy when the desperation of his fear broke through the cold ice of his eyes.

He could not live a life without being able to touch, see, or hear another wizard. He hated the fact he had lived so long, so ignorant of anything other than the world provided for him by the accident of his birth. He should have tried harder.

Lucius Malfoy regretted.

I regretted.

I was Muggle-born, ignorant of the Wizarding world until the age of eleven, by the accident of my birth…

“Terms? Specifics?” I prompted, but kept my face smooth. It would be unfair to anyone, even Lucius Malfoy, to lead someone to false hope. Honestly, I was still resistant.

He nodded, more to himself, than to me. I was speaking his language by mentioning ‘terms.’

“A week holiday, touring the wilderness of North America,” was his first ‘specific.’

Did he mean ‘camping?’ Everything associated with the idea of ‘camping’ brought back memories of Harry, Ron, and myself, searching for Horcruxes. Granted, it had been a stressful time, but there were simple pleasures during the experience. I suppose the one thing I found I enjoyed about ‘camping’ was the closeness I felt to my friends, even after Ron left Harry and I.

Living at Hogwarts could never compare with having to share quarters with two teenage boys, and I, ever the scholar, learned quite a bit.

There was also the strange, primitive comfort of being in nature itself, granted, the wildest place we had stayed during that time had been in the Forest of Dean, and not the true wilderness of North America.

“Do you enjoy hiking?”

The question actually made my smooth face crinkle into a soft smile. I had not been looking at him, but at the counter and the half empty water bottle near my hands.

I did enjoy hiking. I loved hiking the Dolomites, when the mood struck me. Even in the summer months, I would hike high above the tree line, through old drifts of snow and glacier, taking my rest at a high mountain ‘rifugio’ for a night before hiking on or back down. The last trip had been to Rifugio Silvio Dorigoni, where I glutted myself after a day’s hike on white meat balls in wine sauce and had gone to bed with a stupidly wide smile, feet sore, bones aching.

“I do,” I answered, moving my eyes to the pale man, acknowledging his presence in my flat.

He nodded again.

I supposed he also liked nature and hiking, though, by the look of him in all his regalia, it was hard to imagine Lucius Malfoy trekking over rough terrain, inhaling mountain air for the sheer joy of breathing, as I often did.

I hiked to clear my head, to sort my thoughts, to give myself a break from the life I had made for myself, which had not been so bad, but demanding of every mental faculty.

“Will you go with me, Miss…Hermione? Aid me?”

These questions brought me out of my reminiscing and longing to be away from London and the terrible facts about my luck as of late.

Touring North America with Lucius Malfoy, as if we were, in the very least, friends?

Ridiculous, was my first thought.

Then again, what did I have to lose? I had only to lose my home, my familiar, before hitting rock bottom, I supposed. I was still deciding how close I had been to losing my life with being struck by an automobile.

Had Lucius Malfoy saved my life?

Damn.

“If I find the ‘holiday’ unsuitable, I will leave you,” I began with my conditions. “And if I leave, you will not follow.”

I had to find a way to learn more about Lucius’ ‘tracking spell,’ and be able to counteract it. Perhaps a ‘holiday’ would allow for that.

“I will agree to that, and I counter with the condition that you will at least try…”

“To fall in love with you?”

He hesitated, his mouth tightening in displeasure. Lucius nodded.

“You will have a good deal of convincing to do, sir.”

That he did. You cannot take the bastard out of Lucius Malfoy and expect him to be much of a man.

I sighed, Lucius like a statue of ebony and ivory, waiting for me to speak again after a silence fell total about us.

“When do you propose we go on this ‘holiday?’”