Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Wedding - COMPLETE	By : LaBibliographe Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 111837 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Updated 1-10-07

Chapter One

Weddings

Lucius Malfoy was bored. He sat on his favorite sofa contemplating his glass of aged firewhiskey and trying very hard not to remember why life was so unpleasant lately. Looking around his study, he idly admired the green snake motifs in the stained glass surrounds in his windows as the afternoon sun threw slanted light, making them dance, but then his wife’s latest atrocity washed through his mind depressing him again. Turning to his companion, he complained, “Do you know what she did today?” he asked Severus, who was relaxing in an armchair sipping the same drink.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me in depressing detail, whether I want to hear or not,” said Snape in amused resignation.

“She’s decided that the elves should have working hours. She told me that after ten o’clock in the evening, all the elves are considered off-duty for the night. If I want anything after ten, I have to get it myself. What the hell do I have elves for, if they can’t serve me? Can you imagine anything more ridiculous than an off-duty elf?” Lucius was completely put out at what he considered his wife’s erratic behavior. “It wasn’t enough that she had to free them all and give them wages. Wages, for Hecuba’s sake! Now she’s gone overboard and given them all time off.”

Severus contemplated his friend with forbearance, “Lucius, do try to remember why you married her. You’re living in extreme comfort on your own estate. You have a lot to be thankful for. Getting a few firewhiskeys for yourself is a small price to pay.”

Lucius looked at Snape like he had two heads, “Of course I had to marry her. They gave her all my money! I wasn’t going to stand still for that.”

“You could have made more money. You have the skills to make money from thin air.” Snape rejoined reasonably. “You’ve certainly handled my finances so I need never worry about money again.” He leaned forward in his easy chair and iterated more pointedly, “You know why you married her, Lucius.”

Trying not to fidget under Snape’s forceful stare, Lucius broke eye contact by putting down his empty glass, and continued to willfully misunderstand the former potions master, “Really Severus, you know very well I couldn’t do anything else. She had my estate, too. Seven hundred years of Malfoy heritage wasn’t going to disappear to a Mudblood. Absolutely not. Draco can carry on my Pureblood line. I wanted my estate back.”

The blond wizard stood up, shook out his black brocade robe and went over to get the decanter for more liquor. “That damned lunatic Voldemort almost ruined me financially as it was. Hell, he almost killed me. I’m glad he’s finally dead. It was just lucky that I wasn’t there that evening. Now I know why Voldemort used the dementors and broke us all out of Azkaban. And to think I had been so glad to be released after nearly a year of that lowest level of hell, too. Draco had disappeared with you and I was frantic to know where he was hidden, so when I got your message, I chose to go to Draco rather than obey Voldemort’s summons. It was a bloodbath.” Lucius shuddered at his close call and slumped back onto the sofa, his pale eyes still echoing shock. “I understand he went crazy.” Lucius saw Snape’s eyebrow go up in reproach. “Oh very well, I knew he was a little crazy, but not that much. He blasted every last Death Eater to kingdom come. All dead. He was paranoid at the end, I think. Everyone was an enemy. I’m sure I would have been next on his hit list if he’d got past the Potter brat. I’m just glad Draco wasn’t there.” Lucius topped his glass again and left the decanter in front of Severus.

Snape offered perceptively, “He must have been well past paranoid to kill all his loyal followers and then go after Potter himself. We think he had turned almost completely into a snake mentality by then and considered you all prey. In the end he was a rogue animal, unfortunately with great power, killing anyone who got in his way. So many good people died by his wand. The Order of the Phoenix couldn’t have killed him. We know that now. Harry was the key. We owe Potter a great deal.”

Lucius raised his full glass, sneering, “Oh, definitely. All hail Potter. I’ll leave a wreath at his grave next time I visit.” They both knew Lucius would rather leave a more ‘piddly’ deposit if he could do it without getting into trouble defacing a public monument. “Well,” Lucius allowed more moderately, “at least he got rid of a maniac. Voldemort was seriously deranged at the end.”

“You were lucky, you know. The Ministry could have sent you to Azkaban for a long, long time. Are you saying you didn’t marry Hermione Granger to save your hide from living in extreme discomfort in prison?” Snape quizzically regarded his friend, already knowing the answer, his dark eyes crinkling, lightening his habitually somber face.

Lucius smiled sheepishly, his handsome face relaxed for once, “Well, all right - there was that one small detail. I’m not best pleased to be leg-shackled to her forever, of course, but it is better than a cold, dank cell in the middle of the North Sea. What really galls me, though, is being stuck on the estate for an entire year, even though the marriage contract made me co-owner again. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do anything without having her accompany me. Like I was a misbehaving child, or a…a…” Lucius waved his hand in the air, at a loss for a word.

“A convicted Death Eater, perhaps?” Severus said drily, sipping more of his firewhiskey and savoring the taste before swallowing it. His eyes closed in appreciation for the fine liquor. Lucius always had the best.

“I was merely following my beliefs. People have a right to their beliefs.” Lucius actually said that with a straight face.

Snape was not impressed. He snorted inelegantly, “Oh, please, Lucius. You were doing a bit more than just believing in something. Would you have killed Dumbledore if you had been the one sent to do it?”

Lucius casually evaded, “Since you proved that Dumbledore basically forced you into doing it, knowing he was dying from that horcrux anyway, we’ll never know, will we? That was clever, sealing your reputation with Voldemort, and extricating yourself from his reach at the same time. At least you got Draco out of his clutches. For that and the happenstance – it was a happenstance, wasn’t it – of saving me with your summons, I’ll always be grateful.” That was a very sore subject for Lucius who hadn’t been privy to Voldemort’s snaring his son into the scheme to invade Hogwarts and had been livid over it. Draco hadn’t breathed a word to his father, being afraid to commit anything to parchment via owl. Voldemort had told Draco never to mention the plan aloud to anyone, but Draco had thought his father knew already even though he was imprisoned in Azkaban at the time.

Snape stared curiously at his friend for a minute, seeing Lucius’ preoccupation but not knowing its source. He shrugged and shifted the conversation to marriage, an absorbing topic of late, “What always puzzles me most is, why she would marry you? You’ve never said.” He hadn’t bought the official line of a love match for a second. He was sure Lucius hadn’t married Hermione for love unless it was for love of his money and estate. He didn’t believe she loved Lucius either, but he was less certain there. Lucius was very attractive to women so it wasn’t impossible that Hermione had fallen for him.

“No, I haven’t said, have I?” Lucius resettled himself and sipped a bit more firewhiskey, stoically absorbing that bit of implied slander. Was it so difficult to imagine that Hermione might love him?

Snape saw Lucius was obviously not going to be more forthcoming on that topic either, so he changed direction slightly, “I suppose you haven’t yet taken ‘the love of your life’ to bed?” Snape asked, his deep voice laced with mild sarcasm. “So how are you weathering this arid spell in your sex life? You always had very little tolerance for abstinence.”

Lucius merely raised his hand and wiggled his fingers at Snape. The platinum wedding ring that Hermione had put on him at their wedding ceremony caught the light and mocked him with its shiny newness. The outward symbol and shape of the reality of his marriage. A big zero.

Snape laughed cynically, understanding Lucius’ hand gesture, “Ah, Mrs. Palm and her five daughters. That’s not like you at all. Has your eyesight dimmed yet? I understand too much of that stuff makes you go blind.”

Lucius saluted Severus with the two tallest of Mrs. Palm’s five daughters. Really, Snape could be obnoxious at times. His eyesight was perfect, as always. He blinked, then closed one icy, gray eye and checked out a nearby painting on his study wall. Could he still see the details? His great grandfather in the portrait winked back at him. Lucius ignored the old goat.

Snape just chuckled, “Do you think you’re punishing her by withholding sex? I think you’re wrong if you hope she’ll develop any burning desire for you.”

No, there’s no burning desire for me, just my money-making abilities, Lucius thought bleakly. Somehow that hurt. He wasn’t the one withholding sex. Her indifference made him feel like he wasn’t good enough for her bed and he didn’t like that feeling at all. It should be she who wanted to sleep with him. Wasn’t that how it had always worked with women? He didn’t want to be the one begging for sex with his own wife. He had no other sexual outlet because he couldn’t go anywhere else, couldn’t leave the estate alone, but he knew he wouldn’t have tried to sleep with anyone else anyway. His reputation for now was so precarious that should anyone in the Ministry discover he’d indulged in an affair outside his marriage to Saint Hermione, he’d probably wish he’d been sent back to Azkaban. Once had been more than enough for that wretched place. Sometimes he could still smell the stench that had been soaked into those slimy, stone walls from a millennium of human misery.

At first Lucius had planned his moves as an expert in the fine art of seduction; he would wait for her to be drawn to him which would stack things in his favor and he thought his wife would be pulled into his sexual web quickly. But when weeks grew into months without her approaching him, Lucius found himself caught in his own trap.

The comfort of the estate was preferable, of course, but his hand jobs were so boring, so soulless, that the lack of real sex with a female was starting to make him unbearably restless and short-tempered. It had only been three months of this vapid existence and already he was climbing his own sexually restricted walls. Even the elves were starting to look good.

Lucius decided to shift the subject himself. “So, how are you settling into married life now that you’re an old married man of three weeks? Does your wife still hate me?”

It couldn’t quite be called a blush, but Severus’ expression changed; he was definitely a very contented man. He hadn’t expected to ever find anyone to marry, but with Potter gone, Ginny Weasley had turned to him in her grief. It had changed into something more and now they were a couple with a future. They had been married very quietly and were living in Snape’s home at Spinner’s End.

“No, she’s decided that since her best girlfriend is now married to you and the two of us are old friends, she wants to leave the Chamber of Secrets closed and padlocked. She’s willing to let bygones be bygones if you are.”

Lucius cringed a little at the word ‘old’ but answered readily, “I’m quite willing. I know I’ve already apologized, but you can relay another one from me. I am truly sorry. I didn’t know the exact use of the book, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good and I do regret her trauma.” Lucius had been under orders and given to understand if he didn’t transfer the book to some other Hogwarts innocent, Draco would be chosen as Voldemort’s instrument. Lucius would always protect his own son over another child.

“Well, as to my marriage,” Snape mused, “I’m learning to live with another person, and while most of the adjustments are minor, I’m not yet quite used to lacy knickers drying on the shower door, or a multitude of floral scents left in the bathroom after she uses it for an hour at a time. Luckily, I have more than one bathroom or I’d be visiting the bushes occasionally.”

“I thought you only had the one in that tiny place.”

“I bought up the houses on either side of me and knocked out some walls. It’s my family home but I wanted something better for Ginny. All in all, I’m sure I’ll get used to marriage since the perks are amazing.” Snape gifted Lucius with a rare full-blown smile that made Lucius blink with surprise – and quiet envy.

In contrast to Snape’s wedding, Lucius’ and Hermione’s wedding had been the social event of the year. He had been dressed in the full regalia of the Slytherin House, with a dark green robe trimmed in shiny silver braid, his hair brushed until it gleamed as brightly as the trim. He’d made a dashing figure with his height and wide shoulders, the fitted robe showing off his beautiful physique and long blond hair. Hermione had worn a more traditional wedding gown of white satin with a slim skirt and spaghetti straps. She had hoped the white column would make her appear taller next to her groom. To display her house colors, she added a wide red and gold sash designed to lie diagonally from her shoulder to her opposite hip, with both the Gryffindor and the Order of the Phoenix insignia embroidered on it. She had worn white roses in her hair and had them also in her bouquet. If everyone thought she was still a virgin from the symbolism, she thought, let them. Lucius had attached one white rosebud to his lapel and Hermione approved of his showmanship. She barely came up to her groom’s shoulders, but her strong-willed presence was never overshadowed by her intended’s handsome face and blatant, sexual promise. They made a very glamorous couple as they said their vows in the magic community’s main temple in front of hundreds of gawkers. No one could tell that standing next to him as she said her vows, Hermione shivered in her pumps.

Lucius had labeled the wedding a damned, vulgar extravaganza, but Hermione had her reasons for orchestrating it that way. Hermione had called the shots and designed a public performance of epic proportions to make it clear to the entire wizarding world that she and Lucius were a love match and she would accept no slurs against him. And, Lucius thought, dejected, if the world bought that lie, he had some choice ocean view property in Knockturn Alley to sell them.

Her stock as a surviving champion fighter of the Light against Voldemort and her central role in the Order of the Phoenix had given her not only immense credit in their community, it had provided her with the reward of Lucius’ entire fortune and assets after he was convicted, in a closed session by the Magic Council, of a conspiracy to overthrow the Ministry’s government. Everything Malfoy owned was given over to her with one minor, six-foot-tall condition.

Narcissa had already abandoned her husband, invoking the law of divorce if a spouse was guilty of endangering the life of a child of the marriage. And Lucius’ involvement with the Death Eaters had almost cost Draco his life, not to mention his soul, if the youngster had gone through with his assignment and killed Dumbledore. Narcissa was long gone to Europe with some minor princeling of a small magic principality. She’d taken Draco with her as she certainly didn’t trust him with his father any more. Lucius missed his son, but felt Draco was probably safer in another country for now. Narcissa had never wanted Lucius anyway, so the divorce was a decided relief for them both.

Since all the other Death Eaters were dead by Voldemort’s hand, Arthur Weasley, new Minister of Magic, had given Lucius an ultimatum behind the closed doors of his trial. Azkaban or a life sentence as husband to Hermione. Arthur knew she could keep him on a leash better than anyone else with her talent for magic and sheer intelligence, plus she was Muggleborn. Minister Weasley never wanted Lucius Malfoy able to sire more Pureblood children to form any sort of power base again. He wanted the dark wizard firmly tied to the Muggleborn camp.

It was not so farfetched to think that Lucius, who was still only in his forties, could live another hundred and fifty years, fathering more Pureblood children and leading them into disaster like everyone thought he had almost done for Draco. Lucius could be useful to the Ministry but he needed to be neutralized by someone as strong-willed and clever as he was. With the decimation of the ranks on both sides, Hermione was the Ministry’s choice. Arthur had explained as much to her privately. Hermione was definitely not thrilled to have that ‘honor’ bestowed on her as the unwanted caveat to being awarded his wealth, but controlling his money and estate would give her the whip hand with a very proud, difficult man, and so she agreed to take on the task of keeping her deadly lion confined in their ‘den’. She didn’t want to contemplate her new husband’s views on marriage to her, feeling sure he would be livid. Her views on marriage to him were decidedly murkier.

Lucius’ could have just been sent to live in the stone cell he so richly deserved, but the war had decimated the Ministry’s coffers and rather than just confiscating Lucius Malfoy’s riches for themselves, practical Arthur had decided not to kill the goose who always laid such golden eggs. Lucius was instead forced to live with Hermione and work on finances for the Ministry, keeping them in a continuous flow of money to rebuild their society. To Arthur, it was a pragmatic solution, but to Lucius Malfoy it was all but soul-destroying. Hermione was stoically keeping her own counsel.

Everyone merely thought that Malfoy had volunteered to be the money counselor for the Ministry’s Office of Finance, and both he and Hermione wanted to keep it that way. She, because she didn’t want anyone to know her ‘loving’ husband was a political pawn in a forced marriage, and he, because it was humiliating to have anyone know he was on a string for Weasley. And that Hermione hadn’t really wanted him. Everyone thought that Arthur Weasley had pulled Lucius Malfoy onto the side of the Light just before the Dark Lord had killed all the other Death Eaters and that Lucius had somehow had a hand in obliterating them. People assumed that was why Malfoy had been spared. It was all untrue, but no one in the know was talking.

tbc...
- 1
- 2
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Wedding - COMPLETE

Chapter One

Weddings