L\'amore è tre quarti di curiosità

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





IX.


Since the War, security measures surrounding the Ministry have maintained its paranoid sort of tightness. Now, there was not just a security desk where wands were weighed and recorded, but Aurors who stood guard just at the lifts who scanned for official identification cards to be displayed over ones robes when passing the security desk. There were also unobtrusive scanning devices, like Muggle metal detectors, which no one knew what the purpose truly was.

The Department of Mysteries had new safeguards in place, even more unobtrusive, but known to an Unspeakable as myself.

Getting Lucius past these safeguards would not be a problem, the man, in theory, did not exist. However, I did, and I was suspended from my job. My review was not slated until the last day of May, and when Lucius suggested we ‘visit’ the D of M, it was only toward the end of the second week of May.

He had promised our ‘holiday’ would last only a week, and we had only begun the third day when he suggested the ‘break in.’

I had inadvertently peaked his curiosity, which filled me with such reluctance that I cursed myself in mantras inside my head.

We left Montana that night for London, and I will omit the mundane details of the journey.

“Write a letter to your department head,” he said, sitting in my Islington flat, his bare feet propped up on the ottoman in the living room, glancing toward the dark window overlooking the street below. “Ask for a review sooner than the end of the month.”

I had been feeding Crooks, wishing for a bath to wash off the filth I had not noticed all the while we were in Montana. The difference between the air of Montana and London was obvious, and I felt as if my lungs had contracted and grown too small in my chest upon returning home.

“So you could sneak about while I had a legitimate reason for being in the Ministry?”

“Why not? Unless you can think of a way to get us both inside without being noticed. I have only ever been into the sublevels a few times, and never into some ‘junk cupboard,’” he reminded me.

“And if we do get in, find the device, what then?” I asked with a growl while Crooks sniffed my boots and pointed his flat face up at me as if to ask ‘where the hell have you been, human, and why do you reek of the greater outdoors?’

Lucius turned to regard me, he too seemingly out of sorts since returning from ‘Big Sky Country’ to London. “Then, we take a look at it, puzzle it out, or destroy it, or nothing. To be honest, I have no desire to make my luck worse than it has been for the past five years.”

Which included finding me, I wanted to add, but immediately, he realized he had said something only slightly offensive.

“Besides, our holiday is not over.”

Men.

I could be thrown into Azkaban for a very long time. I could lose what little I had left. I could also fall in love with this man who, at times, seemed all too giddy to flaunt himself in the face of fate.

What did he have to lose? What did I have to lose?

Gods, I was insane. Adventuring into the wilds of North America had been one thing, breaking into the Department of Mysteries, again, was another.

“I leave the planning to you,” I sighed, leaning into the counter.

“You provide information on the ‘obstacles,’ and I will have us in the Department of Mysteries by night after next, my dear.”





Lucius, after five years, had turned into an expert thief. Then again, with being able to not see danger and danger not see him, I supposed it was all too easy for him to loot Borgin and Burkes for a few things he claimed we needed to infiltrate the D of M.

“Like a kid in a candy store,” I whispered to him as he fell in step beside me as we passed Quality Quidditch.

“Where did that phrase come from?” he asked, still smiling with his arms full of miscellaneous things, all appearing quite wicked and dangerous unto themselves.

I did not know, but thinking of a candy store made me want to tell him about meeting his son in Honeydukes. I held my tongue.

“Half of these things were mine,” Lucius grumbled as we moved toward an Apparation point. “I sold them long ago, and yet, there they were, and gathering dust on the shelves with price tags that meant no one would be able to afford them. Borgin’s greed equals only in his strange tastes.”

I said nothing, not really knowing how to respond when I motioned for Lucius to wait before we were to use the Apparation point as an elderly wizard with a parcel from Flourish and Blotts was taking his time on remembering where he lived. Lucius, of course, could see no one, and no one saw him, expect me, and I had to grasp the sleeve of his Muggle jumper, the same jumper he wore in Montana, to keep him from overrunning the old man. I suppose the gesture seemed strange, but Lucius only sighed, obviously figuring out why I had a hold of his sleeve.

We were back in my flat moments later, which became ‘headquarters’ for our next act of illegality.

Lucius had left me the night before, going somewhere else to sleep, I imagined. I did not ask questions.

We had stayed up late into the night; literally sketching out plans on the backs of old official department memos I foolishly kept. I had drawn the floor plans of the D of M, a heavily guarded secret that if divulged, could land me Azkaban or dramatically empty my vault at Gringotts in fines.

Lucius’ face had turned into a mask of pure excitement as I pointed out every room. Part of the mystery of the Department of Mysteries was the floor plan which did change, but in cycles. It took me a week of working in the sublevel to learn the pattern.

I sketched out the points where the ‘obstacles’ could be found. The magical signature detector that recorded every person who entered and exited the level, the most difficult obstacle… There was also a thermal device in the ‘Carousel Room,’ that would activate the spinning of the doors leading to the various rooms, one that could easily be bypassed. There were the complicated wards on some rooms, all of which could be bypassed on the way to the ‘junk cupboard’ off the Time Room. At all costs, we had to avoid the Brain Room and the Planet Room. Going into those rooms, whether noticed or not, would change the room—the planets would move, the brains would notice our presence.

“And this room?” he had asked.

“My department.”

He stared at me, realizing all too quickly I worked in the one room his former master and most other people could not or would never enter. The Ever-Locked Room aka the Love Room…

Lucius wanted to comment on this fact, and even opened his mouth to speak, but he did not, his lips curling into a strangely satisfied smile as he turned his eyes back to the rough schematics I had drawn out on the sheaves of paper on the ottoman.

Now, hours later, he was gently unloading his arms of his stolen goods onto the same ottoman, sitting down in the armchair to mentally catalogue what it was before him.

I lifted myself to perch on the stool before the counter, shrugging out of my light coat, drawing my wand from the pocket to let it balance on my knees. With so many ‘dark’ artefacts, I thought it best to keep my wand handy.

“Talismans, mostly,” he commented, “all with various uses. This,” he said, gently lifting what appeared to be a mail shirt, but was lighter than steel, “…is what will get you past any device that would record magical signatures.”

He tossed it at me, and I gasped as my hand flashed out to catch the shirt, which was as light as silk. It was indeed a mail shirt, but so delicate that it must have been of goblin manufacture.

“Only a shirt?”

Lucius chuckled. “It is magic, Miss…Hermione, never judge anything magical by its appearance.”

I lowered the shirt to gaze at Lucius, slightly amazed, as he lifted another artefact, this time a pendant on a thin silver chain.

“This, I will wear, on the off chance that my body heat might be detected. That is something of which I have no knowledge. No one can see me, but your vampire friend mentioned my heat.”

James had.

I only saw that the pendant was long and sharp, like an animal tooth, but already, Lucius was placing the chain over his head, pulling his hair free so that if fluttered in the air like downy strands of matching silver. In the sunlight coming through the windows, his hair was too lovely for man.

“And the rest?” I asked, inclining my head to three more objects, all of which looked to be weapons of supernatural design.

“Protection, on the off chance…” he trailed, eyeing a particularly wicked looking stiletto. “If we have to fight our way out.”

I frowned.

“Nothing to render me invisible?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

Lucius smirked and turned his eyes away from the ‘weapons.’ “Unfortunately, and technically, no.”

My frown deepened. “And how do I enter, unnoticed?”

He leaned back in the armchair, swiveling his handsome, grinning face to me. Somehow, I knew he had put quite a bit of thought into his answer.

“Under my cloak.”





“Of all the stupid ideas!” I hissed.

“Can they see you?” he hissed back.

I could not really tell, but moved my hand to push at his cloak to peek out into the Ministry Atrium.

The end of the workday had come and gone, and now only a few late stragglers were heading for the Floos in the Atrium. No one seemed to see me, which was fantastic, in my opinion. I was sure that if they did see me, they would stop in their tracks and gawk. I know I would have if I were confronted with what was surely a comical sight.

I was clinging to Lucius Malfoy like a spider monkey, and he would appear, if seen, to be a man with a large hump on his back under his cloak.

“This is ridiculous!” I hissed, not veiling my mortification.

I did not weigh too much, it seemed, for Lucius did not complain and held tight to my thighs as he began to walk down the length of the Atrium to the security desk.

Whatever doubts I had of being seen melted away as we passed the security desk without being stopped and came to the lifts, the eyes of the Aurors passing over us, through us, as if we did not exist.

Lucius was a lucky bastard, he could not see them, and for that, he did not tremble as I did, my arms draped about his neck, my legs wrapped about his slim waist. I could just see over his shoulder where his cloak was pushed up to allow me to breathe, and I saw that he headed for a lift that was emptying of several members of the Department of Magical Cooperation.

Once on the lift, Lucius grunted and shifted me on his back. Apparently, I was becoming heavy. He proceeded to punch the button for the Ninth level, and soon I was gasping as the lift plummeted and twisted downward, the shifting sending our combined weights into the lift wall.

I used the momentum to slide off his back.

Lucius turned to protest, but I shook my head.

“No one will see me. The Unspeakables always leave two hours before now… Most cannot wait to get out into the fresh air,” I muttered.

As the lift settled and the grate opened, we both turned to stare into the darkness that was the entrance of the Department of Mysteries.

I, in a plain pair of denims with a black jumper over the mail shirt, hair pulled back in a tie, was the first to step into the darkness, my hand automatically moving to my hip and the wand in a belt holster. Lucius stepped out beside me, his hands moving to the pendant under his own jumper. Besides the cape, he was a picture of Muggle casual wear.

It occurred to me, a nervous thought, that Lucius looked good even in his tattered clothes in Trento.

Nervous thought indeed.

“Why are we doing this again?” I asked, glancing up at him, he who stood just at my right side, so close that his hand brushed my own.

He grinned, the light from the lift casting his features in high relief. “This is part of our holiday, my dear. A bit of fun?”

I snorted. Fun my arse. This was dangerous!

“No ulterior motive? No long lingering desire to plunder the mystery of this place for the sake of sating a decade old curiosity?”

He chuckled as we began to walk, his fingers finding my own, hooking my ring and smallest finger into his.

“Curiosity, most definitely, but nothing like what you said. Ulterior motive? Perhaps, but nothing malignant like those motives I felt I had to fulfill years ago. That time is over.”

The corridor from the lift ended just as the echo of his words faded, and we stood in the ‘Carousel Room.’

This was the first test.

“The thermal sensors would have activated by now,” I informed him, and just as I said this, the room began to spin around us, and Lucius’ hand moved from linking our fingers to linking our hands.

“It’s alright,” I reassured him, his right hand going, undoubtedly, to the pendant. “My thermal signature, which cannot be traced. If someone were to look at the records, they might think it was the night watchman, who will be coming into the room in approximately two hours…”

I had mentioned this fact the night before. Two heat signatures would look suspicious, especially at this particular time of day, but one would not be unusual…

“Besides, I know the puzzle of this room,” I said through a grin, and pulled on Lucius’ hand to a door to our far left.

The plan was this: we go through the Hall of Prophecy and into the Time Room, bypassing the Brain and Planet Rooms and to the cupboard door in a dusty corner near the bell jar. We would leave the same way, not bothering to use the Floos in the offices, but going up a disused stair into the Atrium that was Charmed for ascension only. From there, we could use the Floo or the Visitor’s entrance to leave the Ministry.

If we could not leave by this means, we would use the Floo in the office next to mine, an empty office, and worry about the Floo travel records later, if there were any at all. I was still dubious about the mail shirt that was cool against my skin under my jumper, but I had to trust, if I was going to go along with this adventure.

“What do plan to do when we find this ‘Aboslute destiny’ ball?” Lucius asked while we walked, still hand in hand, I should mention, along the length of the Hall of Prophecy, the only light was that of the millions of orbs around us.

I paused, and Lucius pulled my hand as he took one step too far.

“Plan to do?” I breathed. “I left the planning up to you, you pillock!”

He sighed. “Herm—“

“I only agreed to come because…because…”

Why had I agreed to come? Lucius was the one who wanted to see the damn thing, not me! Or had I totally misunderstood?

“To humour me?” he suggested with a trademark drawl.

I jerked my hand from his.

No, I had nothing to lose… I had brought this on myself, and if obtaining the ball to find some way to change my luck, it would be worth the risk. With Lucius involved, it complicated and eased matters, but I could not decide which was more important. We had gotten this far without any klaxons going off and bringing the Aurory upon us…

I was too old for adventures, but I flashed my hand out to take his to march on.

If this the best Lucius Malfoy could do to endear him to me, he was hopelessly cursed.




Our strategy brought us to stand just before the door marked ‘cupboard,’ without any problems. Of course, Lucius had to play the tourist, pausing before the door to the Brain Room to reminisce, and again past the inky stairwell leading down to the Death Room. I purposely pulled him past the door leading to my workroom, though I heard start to say something.

I wanted to yell at him to stop acting like an annoying bastard and hurry along. I wanted to slap him about the head and shoulders for ever convincing me that this would be ‘fun.’ I worked in the D of M, but it was eerie when there was no one about. It was the emptiness of the department that brought back the terrible memories of my Fifth Year.

“You open it,” I grumbled to him, inclining my head to the cupboard door.

He rolled his eyes, the cheeky bastard…

The door opened and the scent of age and dust and must assaulted us.

Lucius lit his wand.

I had informed him beforehand not to wander, that the rumours of interns disappearing were true, and that I was not about to send out a search party for a man who, technically, did not exist.

“Here,” I whispered, flicking my wand to the appropriate rack, and as I had left it, the ladder marked the place where I had last worked pushing around crates of mysterious devices.

I had drawn my wand, with one thing in mind…

Lucius stared at the ladder as if it were some marvelous new invention.

I sighed, and pulled my hand from his. I had wanted him to be the one to climb, it was his adventure, after all, but I was the one climbing while he watched, smirking at my backside. Clutching the sides of the ladder, with my wand in the curl of my thumb, I began muttering to myself, irrationally.

By the light of Lucius’ wand, I climbed.

Twenty-three up, I was high in the ‘cupboard,’ and it was behind a crate of what looked suspiciously to be purple dildos, I found the ball. I had not noticed the ‘dildos’ before; then again, they were now wriggling in the box, the enchantment on the sexual implements having obviously forced the lid ajar.

The perversity of the Wizarding world was equaled only in its ingenuity.

I did not touch the ball, but hooking my left arm in the rung, used my wand to Levitate the device off the shelf.

The fates then decided to take another swipe at me.

Neither Lucius nor I had bothered to close the cupboard door, and the light I had ignored coming in from the Time Room shifted as a figure came to stand inside the light. It was not Lucius, and from my vantage point, I could only see the shadow of a robed figure falling into the room.

“Who is in here?” a voice boomed, a male voice, the voice of my department head, Sturgis Podmore.

The voice, my shock, and fate, had many things happening at once or simultaneously.

First, I lost my concentration on the Levitation Charm and the ball began to fall. Second, my foot slipped and the rung, in which I had looped my arm, broke. Third, I was falling.

The ball was not caught, but shattered on the stone floor, short of striking Lucius in the head. Oddly, there was no sound, but I saw the jeweled tracks scatter like shards of glass all around Lucius, who physically jumped out of the way.

Lucius’ wand went out, and I, the fates not wanting to do anything half way, hit the floor with a sickening jolt and crack. I screamed through my teeth, emitting a high-pitched sound that sounded more like a rusty hinge opening, and Podmore’s feet sounded in the room.

However, before I was found, Lucius hauled me off the floor in his arms and began to run, all the while latching me to his body before ducking into an empty space between a moldy, whistling armchair and a gargoyle statue.

“Who is in here?”

My heart was in my throat, my body pressed against Lucius in a very intimate position, and Podmore’s wand light searching far down the aisle.

Then, fate favoured us, I would learn later, as the crate of wriggling purple dildos began to wriggle more frenetically, sending several items falling around Podmore’s head.

“Bloody hell!” I heard him shout, “I thought I told Granger…”

Saved by dildos—I would never think distastefully of dildos again.

Seconds passed into minutes, and when the sound of falling objects ceased, I felt a wave of magic pass through me and nothing happened. I started to scream again as a particularly nasty slicing pain coursed through my left side, but before the scream came, Lucius’ mouth was over mine, swallowing my scream. Podmore was cursing under his breath, the sound of his voice echoing through the vast hall, and the cupboard door shut, and promptly locked.

Lucius shifted me in his lap, and I screamed again, this time with more volume and into his jumper.

My left leg was broken just below the knee, and I was sure I might have fractured my hip. The fall was equivalent to a story and half, and I was surprised I had not hit my head or incurred a worse injury.

He cooed at me as he lifted me to place my body in the aisle, pulling his cloak from his shoulders to ball it up under my head.

“My wand is gone,” he whispered anxiously. “Where is yours?”

Somehow, I had managed to keep hold of my ‘death stick,’ and lifted my hand feebly toward him.

The room was dark, but not completely, somewhere further into the hall, there was a faint silver light, just enough for Lucius to see the wand and loosen it from my clutching fingers. At his touch, the wand seemed to buzz, but not unpleasantly, and he took it to begin casting for small blue luminous balls of light—blue bell lights, to see.

“Merlin’s arse, woman, how can you be so unlucky?” he hissed as he moved to my broken leg, which was bleeding into the denim.

I screamed again as he ripped the fabric and winced at the sight of my leg. I did not have the will or the strength to look at the damage.

Magic wafted over me, but I knew, it was not working well enough to heal me any time soon.

Lucius cursed and wiped his mouth with the back of his wand hand.

“Accio wand!”

What came hurtling toward him was, oddly enough, not a wand, but mounted head of a half rotten hippogriff, which he blasted with amazing power and precision before it knocked into his body. At least my wand worked well with Blasting Curses.

“Accio wand!” he shouted, this time enunciating, rising to his feet.

This time, I screamed from fear and not pain as a hatbox with what looked to be Voldemort’s decapitated head peeking out flew over me to finally collide with Lucius, sending him stumbling back, cursing. That in addition, he Blasted out of existence.

“Jesus Christ!” he had roared, using very uncharacteristic words to exclaim his shock.

I was gasping for breath, my heart threatening to explode, still in my throat.

“Accio Lucius Abraxas Malfoy’s sodding wand!”

This time, I think I honestly fainted, so loaded with adrenaline and other like hormones, that I did not want to see what was Summoned next. Apparently, the room allowed his wand to come, and I felt my bones beginning to fit back into place and the skin closing where bone shard had pierced me from the inside out. The pain remained, but was lessened.

By the time I was pulled to my feet, I was crying like an idiot. I wanted to go home.

Lucius took my right arm about his neck and pulled me along, both my wand and his in his right hand, the blue bell lights following us as we shuffled up the aisle and past the beautiful shards of the Absolute destiny ball.

Fate was not done, however, as we found the door locked and sealed with a ward so strong it would take hours, if not a day, to dismantle it. I was exhausted, depressed, and bruised. Lucius was livid, and began kicking the door as if to vent his frustration at how badly our plan, his plan, had gone.

“Stop,” I moaned, so wrought out that my voice was a whisper. “No amount of kicking will make things better.”

“Portkey…” he growled and settled me against the wall so that I slide down the grimy, dusty stone to puddle on the floor.

Lucius grabbed the first thing he could find, which bit him, and he Blasted it as well.

“Fuck!”

If I did not know any better, Lucius was claustrophobic, and despite the size of the ‘cupboard,’ it was crowded, dark, and disgusting. Magic did not work correctly in this room, I wanted to tell him, and no Portkey would be made to save us any time soon. Apparating would also be foolish; it would hard to un-splinch us, if we did manage to make it outside the cupboard.

He healed his hand with his wand and began pacing, as it was custom for him, the blue bell lights following him, casting his pale hair with an eerie blue tinge. As weary and sore as I felt, I was watching him, rapt.

As if feeling the weight of my eyes, he seemed to snap back to the present, and moved to me, his face repentant, which was an expression so foreign to his features; he did not look like Lucius Malfoy at all.

“How long do you think, to dismantle the wards?” he asked in a strained whisper, his hands grasping my shoulders gently.

I swallowed thickly, my heart beginning to move back into my chest. I was thirsty.

“Hours, a day at the most… The two of us could do it in a few hours, but…” I trailed.

But, by then, we might not have time to escape without arousing notice, no matter if Lucius were to carry me on his back again. Unspeakables began work early and left work early. It was already night, perhaps nine in the evening. It would take more than a few hours with combined effort.

“Is there no other way out?”

This, I could not say for certain. No one really knew how far the aisles ran or where the far wall was. I told Lucius this as his hands moved from my shoulders to my neck and to the cold sweat that began to trickle down my throat. Though mostly healed, I felt sick, slightly feverish. It did not help that the room felt cold, and the darkness hedged in on us outside the glow of the blue bell lights.

“Some adventure,” I mumbled darkly.

Lucius sniffed disdainfully.




How it was that I ended up walking next to Lucius, literally dragging my feet along a long aisle, was no mystery. We had tried to dismantle the wards on the door, but I was of no real help. The shock of the fall, the loss of blood, had made me weak and ill.

Even being shot and hit by a black cab did not seem to compare to the fatigue I felt at that moment. I was slogging through thick, brackish water, unable to fall unconscious, unable to sleep.

I could not even summon the energy to be angry with the man who held my hand, his skin so warm and so enticing.

The further we walked, the more I noticed how strange the items on the shelf became. Most were piles of rotten material, once something, but now nothing. Some things seemed as new and magically fresh as what was on the racks further behind us, and some things exuded magic so dark, that it made the air heavy and rancorous.

The silver light I had noticed grew stronger the further into the room we moved, and we had been walking for some time, perhaps miles. Of course, my slow shamble did not make the time pass any quicker.

“When the ball broke…” Lucius began, the sound of his voice startling me out of a near stupor. “Did anything happen?”

I licked my lips, but it did not soothe my flesh. “Happen?” I rasped.

Under the trailing blue bell lights, his eyes glowed as the peered down at my face.

“No…” I whispered. “The ball never really felt magical at all,” I continued.

“Then…” he whispered. “Was it really what caused your ‘bad’ luck?”

I was beginning to doubt. Maybe he had been right about self-fulfilling prophecies…

After a few more laboured steps, Lucius stopped, his arms going about me to help me settle on the floor.

“You need water,” he announced, and with his wand, he Conjured a goblet of pure and unblemished glass only to cast a Augamenti Charm to fill the glass before pressing it to my lips to drink.

When he believed I was able to hold the glass on my own, his hands ran over my hair, pushing it back from my face where it had fallen loose of the tie and feeling my forehead and cheeks.

“You have a fever.”

I drank deeply and made no motion that I heard him. I knew I had a fever.

Lucius sighed and stood, looking about, his eyes scanning the racks which were so old and the wood so rotten that they leaned toward each other creating a type of tunnel around us. I watched him as I began to sip slowly; curious as to what he intended to do next.

I was beginning to shiver, my hands shaking around the glass, and stopping his visual inspection of the racks around us, Lucius doffed his cloak and wrapped it about my shoulders. It was a gentlemanly gesture to be sure, but I could sense that he was past the stage of maniacally pacing and onto something closer to restrained panic.

Kneeling before me again, he plucked the glass from my fingers and pressed a cool hand to my forehead again, the pressure sending my head back into another hand that cradled the back of my skull.

“Damnit…” he hissed.

“I-I…” I began, but trailed very dizzy as my eyes shut and I began to fall back to the floor with assistance.

I have had fevers before, and fevers much worse than what I was experiencing at that moment, but my body throbbed with bruises, and despite my fall being some time before, I could still feel my insides jerking as the impact came over and over again.

On the floor, my back on the rough cobbled surface, I felt more centered the dizziness waning.

“This was…a bad idea…” I wheezed.

He barked a laugh, leaning over me, his hands moving to wrap the cloak about me tighter.

To be honest, I would not have minded sleeping for a few decades in this dark hall. Maybe dying… My life was disaster, and I knew I was feeling sorry for myself, but this, everything was a disaster.

I was so tired, bone, and heart weary. I could not even be angry about it all and attempt to fight back. I just wanted something wonderful to happen after so many years of simply existing, moving in routines, moving in circles where I had deluded myself that I was contented.

Maybe I should fall in love, just once, to have a real perspective on how utterly unremarkable my life had become. I had the love of friends and family, but it was never enough, and I had been too much of a coward to realize how much I needed to be ‘in love.’ Oh, but I was proud, too proud for my own good.

Who was worthy of the one thing I had never given away? If I were to be in love, I wanted the feeling to be mutual, and so powerful that it would never end, no matter the ups and downs, the arguments and the reconciliation. I wanted to be adored for every part of me.

“Have you let anyone try?”

I opened my eyes wider. I had been speaking my thoughts aloud.

“I… No.”

Lucius sighed, his hands running over my face again as he knelt over me.

“Keep speaking your mind, witch, while I figure out what to do next…”

I swallowed, my mouth dry again. He rose, and I closed my eyes. I could feel Lucius begin casting, but I did not want to know or see what or why.

I did not know what to say. I was never one to openly speak of my emotions or very personal thoughts, even to my closest friends. I reveled in my privacy.

However, I did speak, but it was probably not what Lucius wanted to hear. It was a question.

“Do you love me?”

I heard him pause, his boots scrapping on the floor near my head.

He did not answer immediately, but instead, knelt next to me again to grasp my shoulders and help me up. I groaned, the bruises on the left side of my body protesting at the movement. I was gathered up into his arm and held close.

He had Conjured a small mattress of sorts, like a simple pallet, and he laid me down, sliding next to me. In the pale blue light over us, he manoeuvred me to remain sitting as he gently pulled my jumper over my head, careful of my bruised ribs and shoulder. Next came the mail shirt, which quickly took the chill from my skin, and was wadded up and tossed next to the bed.

I was too weary to protest as he laid me down again, my bare back sinking into the pallet, my breasts exposed to the cold air in the room. Lucius studied me, clinically, his fingertips skimming over my side and the worst of the contusions. I was not sure if I blushed, but I would have.

I was no ‘prude,’ but I felt embarrassed that Lucius Malfoy, the man who had been brought into focus in my life so suddenly, was staring at my breasts.

“I suppose I could…” he whispered before jerking at his own jumper and sliding it off, next the pendant he wore which was indeed a tooth of some creature, but a shard of a larger tooth, a cusp with a sharp root at the end.

His chest was as white as the rest of his body, wide, muscular, and smooth. There was the faintest smattering of hair over his chest, running between the pectoral muscles to his taut belly, a silvery blond.

He lay down next to me again, gathering me closer so that I lay on my right side, my breasts pressing into his chest, my hands and forearms folded under my chin until I was laying by him much as I two nights before in Glacier National Park. This time however, it was skin against skin, and the contact had my body relaxing with no untoward thoughts.

“Your strength is a draw, as is your intelligence. Despite your ‘bad luck,’ we could…” he trailed, shifting so he was not laying on his hair, then he sighed as his arms tightened around me. “We’ll rest of a while…”

I did not argue. I was already drifting off into a hot and hazy sleep with no dreams except for darkness.




Lucius was holding me in his arms when I floated back into consciousness, and he was not walking, but standing before what was the source of the silver light I had noticed from a distance the few times I had been in the room. The source of the light was, much like the rest of the Department of Mysteries, something neither Lucius nor I could have expected.