Miss Patil Takes a Holiday

Thanks to all three of my reviewers.

Jilliane: I'm sorry I can't answer more of you questions, but there will be some resolution to the question of who would attack Tomas in this chapter. You may be able to infer some other answers.

zareenyn: Thank god you didn't marry Mr. Non-blinky. That would have been a nightmare. As for Tomas being a dolt about his security, you haven't met my husband. I swear, he doesn't have a fearful bone in his body. I only hope his luck holds out.

LaBib: No, I am not bowing to peer pressure to answer the reviews in this way, I just stole your idea. How's that for honesty? I'm glad you like my Lucius, and I know you weren't trying to dictate what I should do with my guy. Actually we have a similar view of him. I don't think I'll put the kink in this story, though. I'm still a newbie at the whole erotica thing, and spanking Padma might get him hexed, cursed or emasculated. Oh, and the other stories in this series are: The Slytherin Redemption. It's listed under AU cause I messed up and don't want to start over and Forgiveness, listed under Het. Check them out, but Forgiveness is another WIP and I haven't caught up with the chapters that I have posted elsewhere.


Miss Patil Takes a Holiday

After the War

Tomas drifted in and out of agony-filled consciousness experiencing glimpses of concerned faces unfamiliar to him, feeling warm hands on his body. Lights flashing and a cyclic, mechanical wail were the next impression. He drifted as needles were inserted into his arms and an oil-smelling apparatus was put over nose and mouth, the pressure of stale air forcing its way past his open and gasping mouth. Tomas struggled ineffectually against the cloying stream but was stopped by another face with feminine hands and a harsh, Yorkshire accent. Then they were moving and Tomas retched because of the pain caused by the gentle swaying of the conveyance in which they were rode. Another person relieved him of the apparatus that now smelled of vomit while the Yorkshire woman sopped up the mess with a towel.

"Wand." Tomas said feeling broken teeth against his jaggedly cut lips.

The woman patted him and consulted a machine. "What do you want?"

"Wand."

The second figure asked, "Wot's 'e sayin'?"

"I think it's a name, maybe his wife. Wanda or something." Yorkshire woman said before turning back to Tomas. "Don't worry, dear. Someone'll contact your family oncet you're in hospital."

It was then that Tomas realised he was in a Muggle emergency vehicle. He was in an ambulance that would take him to a Muggle hospital. He struggled again, trying to disengage himself from the tubing and then he heard a crackly, static-filled voice. Once more, hands restrained him and he saw a plunger being depressed on a syringe that had been stuck into the tubing. He drifted again as a chemical calm enveloped him with dizzying rapidity.

&*&*&

Padma sat on the futon in her room, the music spinning around her. The man of the hour, Lucius Malfoy, had been solicitous throughout dinner and had even refrained from his usual Firewhisky. He now lay sprawled at the other end of the futon, in shirtsleeves and trousers, his hair down and blowing in the breeze from the open doors. Padma assumed the same sprawl on her end, knowing her blouse rode up and exposed a considerable expanse of taut belly. They were both comfortably full and relaxed.

Lucius rubbed his bare foot on the floor in time to the beat of a band called Led Zeppelin. Padma liked the music, a rich mixture of Eastern, British Isles folk music and raucous blues. She let her mind drift until it settled on the one thing she had been wondering at since Lucius disappeared from England. "Why did you leave London?"

Lucius shifted, bringing his aristocratic foot onto the futon, his long toes against hers. "Because I don't know who I am anymore."

"You're Lucius Malfoy..." Padma began as she invoked the power his name once held, wanting to coax his answer from him. She curled her toes over his, and he gave the sardonic half-smile that was uniquely his.

"I mean, I was Lucius Malfoy, pureblood scion of an influential family. Then I was Lucius Malfoy, Death Eater husband of Narcissa, father of Draco then Death Eater turned spy." Lucius considered his hand for a long moment before adding. "Now... I suppose I am Lucius Malfoy, ex-convict. I have become parasitic and flawed. It's not an enviable position in which to find myself."

"Believe me, you were always flawed, whether you admitted to it or not. We all are," Padma offered. "You know that the Aurors weren't after you. They deemed what you did, defence. They said that man was going to harm me rather badly."

"He was going to rape and then kill you." Lucius cut in, his eyes once more cold and frightening. "You would not have been his first. I would have killed him if you hadn't stopped me." Lucius again began looking at his hands, now flawed and calloused from years of neglect and more recent work. To Padma they looked beautiful. "Any other witch, I would have certainly protected... but because it was you... I lost my temper."

"Should I be scared or flattered?" Padma asked, as she suddenly sat forward, her hands on his knees, "Or maybe both?"

Lucius did not answer, involving himself in buffing a rough edged thumbnail with his fingertip. Padma crawled forward. "Or, is it you who is scared?"

She took his left arm in her hands. "I want to see your Mark."

"No." Lucius said flatly, his tone disappointed.

Padma kissed the spot on his shirt that overlay the Mark. "You think I want to see it out of some sort of morbid curiosity?"

Lucius made no reply but to lift her chin from its position over his Dark Mark. Padma turned away from his scrutiny and moved forward, straddling his legs, her thin cotton night pants nearly ripping at the seams from the position. "I've already seen your Dark Mark, Lucius, when you were in hospital. I just wanted to see it again, so I can try to resolve the Lucius I see before me with the one that took that Mark. You're one and the same I think, but different somehow."

Lucius let out a pent up breath a he looked in her eyes, his expression ironic and disbelieving as he released the cuff on his shirt and pulled the sleeve up. "There. Not my entire history, but enough for you to get the gist."

Padma traced the faded skull and the now static snake. Lucius flinched at her first touch then stilled, as she made no comment. She pulled the sleeve down then moved her hands to his collar, working her nimble fingers over the buttons. He sucked in a breath as she pulled the shirt apart, lowering her lips to the exposed skin. "You really are a beautiful man, Lucius. It's almost a shame to let it go to waste."

She scraped her fingernails over his chest, brushing over the hardened, brown nipples as she pulled his shirt away from his body. She looked up to his face as she ran the flat of her palm over his ridged stomach muscles, watching him watching her. It became an erotic contest to see who would look away first. Her fingers curled around the waistband of his trousers and she became both winner and loser as she looked down at the growing tumescence. She felt powerful knowing that she had wrought that change. "Tell me you want me to stop."

Lucius remained silent, his eyes hooded and his hands working against the seat of the futon. Padma smiled, suddenly shy as she fingered the buttons of his fly. She cupped her hand over him as he thrust up against her palm. Her eyes flew to his face, heat suffusing her cheeks. Lucius growled, "Make sure this is what you want."

It was her turn to remain silent as she undid the top button of his trousers exposing the pale line of hairs that led her eyes further down. Another button exposed a thin, silver scar that Padma traced with her finger, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from Lucius. Padma followed the line until it disappeared from sight under the duck-cloth of the khaki trousers. "Are all your scars from being a Death Eater?"

Lucius sat forward abruptly, breaking her contact with his skin. Padma felt the loss as an ache in her chest. He traced her lips with his fingers, his gaze predatory in its intensity. "I do believe that is enough for this evening, Mona Lisa. I'm rather knackered and have a busy day planned tomorrow, if I am to escort you around Delos by the end of the week."

Padma scooted away from him thinking, Okay, no questions about his Death Eater days, do not look at his Dark Mark, touch that delicious skin, but do not try to get to know him.

She filed the information away. It was just a holiday fling, right? She did not need to know everything about him, along as they had a good time.

She watched him leave, shutting the door with a whisper of wood against tile as the leather hinges sagged. She asked herself, if it was just a holiday fling, then why did she feel so bereft as he exited without answering her question?

She closed her eyes against the flickering witchlight and drifted again with the music, the calm of the evening lost.

&*&*&

"Sir! Sir!" Tomas heard a frantic female shout as the curtains to his exam room were hastily thrust aside. "You can't go in there unless you are family... I'm going to fetch security."

Tomas looked through the slit of an eyelid that was left after the pummelling he had taken to see the grim face of Seamus Finnigan. Tomas groaned, wishing if something dire had to happen to fetch the Auror to his side, that he could at least look pretty when said Auror responded. Finnigan looked the Goan over, flinching as he came to the man's face. "Jesus man, you look like you've been run over by a herd of Hippogriffs."

Tomas turned his face away from the man, battling tears and nausea. He finally was able to croak, "They... contact... Aurors?"

Finnigan leaned forward, his breath tickling Tomas' hair as he whispered, "Naw, you hadn't disassembled all of the wards when you were attacked. One was keyed to me in case the Muggle tried to enter your flat."

Finnigan ran a hand over Tomas' blood matted hair. "I've come to fetch you to St. Mungo's."

Tomas focused on the Auror. He was not in Auror's robes, his hair was mussed and it looked as if he had dressed in the dark. "Sorry... to ... bother..."

"It's nothin' I wouldn't do for any friend." Finnigan said, his smile warming his eyes as he brushed a knuckle over Tomas' cheek. "Now, let me fill out the forms these Muggles require, and I'll take you away from here."

The curtain jerked open and a physician in a white coat reminiscent of the one Padma wore, strode into the room with two burly men in black uniforms. "Sir, unless you are family, " the doctor's tone conveyed his doubt about Seamus' relationship to the patient. "I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"No." Tomas croaked as he took the Auror's hand.

Finnigan stroked Tomas' fingers, the only spot on his body that did not ache or was not covered in blood from the beating. "He means I am family of a sort. Don't you darlin'?"

Tomas' heart lurched at the endearment, his breath coming in shorter gasps as physician moved the Auror aside. Machines began beeping frantically as Tomas felt the world fade to grey. He clung to consciousness as the doctor methodically assessed his patient. The doctor barked, "You need to leave. Please wait out in the family room. I'll be with you shortly."

The last thing Tomas saw before the grey turned to black was Finnigan's alarmed face, his freckles in bold relief against his pale skin, his alarm apparent with his gaping mouth.

&*&*&

Lucius sank to his bed, the bottle of Firewhisky he had stashed for such and event held in his shaking hand. The woman was too observant and too curious for his tastes. Narcissa had never enquired about his scars; of course, she had been on the receiving end of a caning or two by Abraxas herself. Furthermore, Cissy bore her own scars. Her body had been just as abused by her family for much the same reason; as Lucius' scars were present on his. Both of them bore the thin, silver lines as badges of their pure-blood superiority. At least, that was what they told themselves.

He downed a good portion of the whisky not exactly enjoying the burn, but welcoming it nonetheless. The raw feeling of his throat and the fire in his belly let him know he could still feel something. His poor choices, forced on him or taken on willingly, had not burned that last vestige of humanity out of him at least.

He considered for a moment returning to the lovely doctor and answering her every question. It would be nice to have a confessor that understood something of what he went through, even if her path were never as darkly shadowed as his had been. He then discarded the idea as a true breach in Malfoy protocol, formulated over ten Stygian centuries, and deviated from only once. The result had not been pleasant for the malefactor. Lucius took another drink, waiting for the anaesthetising effect of the alcohol to kick in. It was ironic that he welcomed the pain of the alcohol, but fled from the agony of his own demons that gnawed at his gut even as he shed the filth of the Prison and the horror of his boyhood.

The chit, with her innocent fingers and questing mind had brought it all crashing to the fore. Lucius took a long swallow, revelling in the fact that Abraxas would have probably beaten him for his gauche flaunting of propriety as he swigged his sorrows away directly from the bottle. Finally, the demons appeased as he became blindingly and gloriously drunk, he fumbled with the cap of the bottle and put it safely to bed beside the futon. He sank against the mattress fully clothed and fell into a dreamless stupor.

&*&*&

Dibby despaired of ever getting Master and Mistress Doctor Patil together if Master kept retreating to the Firebeer. There were house-elf spells that would make Master find the Firebeer sickening and house-elf magics that would make Master talk away his demons, but both were methods of last resort. It was a house-elf's duty to provide a clean home and unwavering loyalty. If a house-elf took too much power from the Master, it would have lasting consequences. Just as No-Good-Dobby's interference had caused Master to beat him, such drastic measures on Dibby's part would cause him to have to punish himself to death. It was house-elf law, unbreakable and unmitigating. Dibby would only act if Master were in danger of death. He would not act before because if the house-elf magics failed, Dibby would not have a second chance to make things right.

Dibby removed Master's clothes, cast a freshening charm on the wizard and left after covering Master for the night against the cool, sea air. Dibby would pray to all the gods, elf, goblin and fairy, for Master Lucius to realise what he needed, and that she lay just down the hall. Dibby could still hear her music playing on the strange box Master Snape had given Master all those years ago. Dibby was glad he hid it from Master Lucius' purge of the house. Dibby might be able to use it more for enticing wizardy bonding.

&*&*&

Padma was jerked to wakefulness by a strange keening sound coming from down the hall. She hastily donned her light cotton dressing gown and opened the door to her room to ascertain where the noise originated. If it were the house-elf, she would be unable to do much. Their constitution was substantially different from those of wizards. If it were the wizard... Padma suppressed a shiver as the keening took on a fevered pitch punctuated now by hoarse shouts of anguish.

Lucius.

She padded down the hall, knowing it would not do to startle the wizard from whatever dreams held him in thrall. She had made that mistake in hospital with Ronald Weasley when he was admitted for Post Traumatic Stress after the war during her internship. He had almost dislocated her jaw as he reacted to the new threat. Padma whisked the door to the room open, and paused, watching Lucius as he thrashed about in his sleep. She cast a stasis Charm to protect herself from any magical backlash that could be unleashed during his arousal. "Lucius, it is time to wake."

She moved closer, touching the bed in the process, and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back on the floor, Lucius' body over hers as he choked her. She struggled until she saw Morpheus clear from his eyes. She was left with a sobbing wizard who stank of stale alcohol and fear-tinged sweat. She moved her arms over him as he sank once more into sleep. They stayed that way until morning when she was able to lift him enough to retreat to her bed, sore in both body and heart.

&*&*&

Tomas woke to a brightly lit, cheery ward. He was the only patient in the six-bed room, but he could see it contained other occupants by the rumpled state of several of the beds. He looked about gingerly to see Finnigan in the same rumpled clothes of the night before, sprawled out in an uncomfortable, institutional chair of hard plastic. Tomas coughed experimentally and was rewarded with near agony in his abdomen.

"Don't move, man." Finnigan slurred. "The Heal-- er... Doctors here operated on you to remove a ruptured spleen."

Tomas attempted to speak, but the rawness of his throat prevented more than a squeak. Finnigan continued, "They said I could move you when you woke. I just have to send a Patronus and the Healer will be on their way. Oh, and do not talk. They shoved a tube down your throat when they gutted you."

Tomas saw the suppressed shiver of the Auror as he prepared to cast the Patronus. A silvery fox capered once around the room before exiting the window. Finnigan holstered his wand up his sleeve once again and looked at Tomas critically as the Healer attempted to speak. "No, don't man, you'll hurt yourself."

Finnigan groped around in a table beside the bed until he found a pad of paper and a pen. "Use these if ye must talk."

Tomas gripped the paper and pen and wrote, "Wand?"

"I am sorry, lad, it was broken in the beating." Finnigan looked away, his mouth screwed tightly shut, in apparent accord with the anguish Tomas felt at the loss. "I'll contact Ollivander to see what we can do about it. I owe Padma that much."

Tomas scribbled painfully again. "Why do you owe Padma?"

"She fixed me up after the Carrows..." Finnegan moved restively in his seat, not meeting the older wizard's eyes. "You were lucky to be in the States for your schooling."

"Was here during." Tomas wrote. "I know."

The last words were underlined three times. Tomas had been a particular target of the Seekers. He had spent the last four months of the conflict in hiding and on the run. His father and mother had been vocal opponents of Voldemort during both wars. His father had been enough of an American to view it as his right to openly ridicule the despot. Mum had been more circumspect but no less vocal. When Dumbledore was killed, the fact had sent them fleeing back to India where they remained. Tomas had stayed out of stupidity or bravery, he could never say which.

"Sorry, mate." Finnigan stood. "I guess we all have our stories."

"Yeah." Tomas punctuated the single word with a sharp stab to the paper. "Thanks. For all."

Finnegan turned to the noise and read with a small laugh at the end. "No problem."

"Who?" Tomas wrote again.

Finnegan looked at the question in puzzlement and Tomas scribbled. "Did this to me?"

"We don't know. The woman who found you didn't see anything. I suspect..." Finnigan paused then said as if making a decision. "I think it was the same one who attacked Padma."

Tomas let the paper fall from his fingers. There was nothing more to ask.

The Auror resumed his seat, pulling closer to pat Tomas on the hand. That was how the Healer from St. Mungo's found them.

&*&*&

Lucius followed the delicious odours of coffee and bacon to the kitchen. He had already administered a dose of Hang-Over Cure, unsure how he had gotten from the bed to the floor in the night. He must cut back on the drinking. He expected to see Dibby's small form at the hob, and was surprised to see Mona Lisa instead. She was warbling an almost atonal melody in a strange language and high, almost girlish voice. He liked the sound of the music as she sang.

Without turning from the frying pan over which she laboured she said, "Your coffee is on the table outside. I'll be out with the bacon shortly."

Lucius traversed the room and leaned against the counter, snagging a buttered crumpet from a plate beside the hob. "I'll wait for you. Where is my house-elf?"

"I sent him to market to get more than cheese, wine and bread." Padma stated acerbically, the sour expression on her face matching her words. "You're drinking too much and not eating well."

Lucius lifted a brow laconically. "I believe you fired me as a patient in London, Doctor."

"Shut it, Malfoy." Padma said with heat. "You don't even remember last night, do you?"

Lucius lost his relaxed pose at her attitude as he purred dangerously, "I remember it very well, Madam."

"So you remember having a nightmare and knocking me on my bum while you choked me?" Padma asked, her expression all innocence. "You remember drinking yourself into a stupor?"

Lucius turned on his heel and exited the room his fury barely contained. He heard the doctor thrust the iron pan off the burner and follow him to his room where he spied the bottle of the night before beside his bed. Lucius felt her arms around his waist. "Whether you want me to or not, Lucius Malfoy, I care about what happens to you."

He closed his eyes against the heat and the pain of the tears in his throat. "I do apologise for my brutish behaviour. It shall not happen again."

"Not while I'm here, perhaps, but when I leave?" Padma circled his body, coming around the front of him. "I care about you, Lucius. The gods only know why. You're impossible."

Lucius gave her a wintry smile. "And you are improbable. Why would you of all people care about me?"

Padma shrugged. "I suppose I just do. I hope that's a good enough reason for you, because it's all I have."

Lucius enclosed her in an embrace, the feel of her heart against him stunning his inner demons to silence. Padma was the first to break the mood as her stomach rumbled. "Now, enough of this. I'm starving and I refuse to work on an empty stomach. What are we going to work on today?"

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think, review please.