Celebrate
By Bambu
Disclaimer and Author's Notes: Only the order of the words is mine, all the characters and this universe belong to JKR and her assignees. Written for the 2010 HP Con Envy community on Live Journal, this is my very first attempt at a Lumione, and I was just a tad nervous. Please forgive any OOC behavior on their parts.
He tasted of expensive cognac and her.
Hermione whined and latched onto his mouth, the tip of her tongue licking the seam of his soft palette. His guttural groan was enough of a reward.
Reality spun as they Disapparated from the pub to the room upstairs.
Hermione blinked her eyes, trying to focus, but she'd drunk far too much, and the events of the evening were a little fuzzy.
She remembered the afternoon though. Her divorce was final. After two years of legal posturing, she was no longer Hermione Weasley.
It had been reason to celebrate.
A mouth suckled on the delicate skin of her throat and she moaned, arching her neck in further invitation.
His chuckle seemed directly connected to the hooded bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, and she practically swooned, clutching at him to balance herself.
"Minx," he murmured as what she had grasped was his imprisoned erection.
Her eyes were closed, and he claimed her mouth once more, maneuvering her toward the bed. By the time her back reached the duvet, they were both naked. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he thrust home, deep, hard, joining their bodies seamlessly.
She gasped his name, and then she came in a wild moment of stars and sensation before she blacked out.
.
.
.
Hermione woke to the rhythmic sound of snoring, the piercing brightness of the sun slipping through a crack between the curtains, and a metaphorical brass band marching through her brain. She whined and pressed her hand to her forehead. Her left hand. The one which felt oddly heavy, but right. It was the same sort of weight she had known for twelve years of marriage. The way it had felt to wear a wedding ring. The one she had thrown at Ron when she'd walked into his office to find his face excavating Daphne Greengrass Zabini's quim.
Fuck.
Had she … they … indulged in a nostalgic farewell shag?
Hermione shuddered.
Surely not.
She opened her eyes; it was a bit of a struggle because imaginary doxies were perched on her eyelids, but she succeeded, and lifted her hand to look at the ring. Her entire ability to think focused on a single intent: to recognize the crest magically carved into the signet ring she wore. She knew this ring, had seen it before, and more than once.
Knowledge hovered at a tantalizing, frustrating distance. She should know this answer, but all her mind could conjure of the day, or rather night before was a heady mix of limbs, tongues and incredibly satisfying sex.
Definitely not Ron then.
Why was the ring on that finger, and who the hell had just put his hand on her breast?
"Mmmmfffphhh," her companion said with an inarticulate huff. She had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn't noticed the cessation of his snores.
Before turning her head to look at her companion, an action guaranteed to confirm her subconscious suspicion, Hermione looked at his hand, the one teasing her nipple to a stiff peak. She wriggled, aroused and sore, and still aroused.
Concentrating on his hand, she noticed that he, too, wore an easily identifiable piece of jewelry on his ring finger. It was a ring she had worn on her pinky since the day she'd packed the children's things and moved out of the house in Ottery St. Catchpole. It was the Granger family ring, one handed from first-born to first-born since the Norman Conquest of Britain. It would go to Rose on her eighteenth birthday, but now it had been enlarged to fit a man's hands.
Hermione stared at the hand. It was broad and blunt-fingered, and it had been well-tended, although there was a scar across one knuckle. Hermione's eyes traveled upward, and she bit her lip when she noticed the fine, pale hair gracing a taught forearm … one bearing the faded, wavering lines of a Dark Mark.
Holy shit.
It was as she'd suspected.
It was his hand.
Hermione moaned, but it wasn't a sound of sexual interest, and that, more than anything else, woke her companion.
Pale grey eyes opened, bearing an instant awareness of who he was, where he was, and with whom he had been sleeping. Seeing her expression, he removed his hand from her breast, and angled it to take in the sight of the ring he now wore.
As fast as a Snitch launched into flight, his face morphed into an impassive mask, and only in its absence did Hermione recognize the hope and vulnerability which had shown moments before.
"Regrets?" he asked in a tone any politician would envy. Only that last year of the war, after months in Azkaban, had he bowed under the pressures of his untenable position, but following the war he had managed to retain his fortune and family home, if not his respectability nor his wife.
That he and Hermione had become friends was a serendipity neither could explain, nor had they bothered.
"So far none a hangover potion wouldn't cure," Hermione replied, and was pleased to see his shoulders relax. Her gaze dropped to his chest, and her mouth suddenly tingled with the need to taste the flat discs of his nipples. "I'm a little surprised though."
"To find us in bed together?"
"Not really." She had accepted his invitations to dinner for the past several months. "This, however—" she lifted her hand, heavy with the Malfoy signet, for his perusal, "—surprised me."
"Merde!" Lucius cried, sitting abruptly and grabbing her hand. The heart she'd thought wholly her own ten seconds before cracked with potential earth-ending fault lines at what she perceived was his disappointment. "Has it burnt you?" he asked; his concern dispelling her distress. "Are you injured anywhere?"
Her smile was soft and affectionate. "No, I'm fine."
"Nundu's Breath! What was I thinking to put such a thing on you without deactivating the family spells?" he budged up against the headboard.
"Of getting a leg over?" she asked dryly.
"Aside from that," he said, chuckling. "It appears that my apprehension was groundless; you are, in truth, now a Malfoy." Lucius smirked like Crookshanks with a bowl of cream. "Come here." Hermione willingly curled into the space between shoulder, arm and chest. "I suspect I was precipitous," he said, "but I didn't want there to be any doubt of my intentions."
She fingered the Granger ring on his hand. "Apparently we were of the same mind."
Angling her head back, Hermione met his lips in a gentle good morning kiss which escalated rapidly. He slid down until he was lying flat and the bedclothes had been pushed out of the way. It would only be later - after they'd moved into the chateau in Pays de Bray, that Hermione would realize the quality of the linens hadn't suited the bland, institutional furnishings of the rented room.
But that was months in the future, and in the present, she had questions. As she sank onto him, she asked, "Do you think we should break the news to our families today?"
"They'll be told soon enough. Griselda Marchbanks is the most discreet witch I know." His hands splayed around her hips, guiding her speed and angle as he thrust.
"I would like to buy you a proper ring though, before we see Rose and Hugo." Hermione paused, groin-to-groin, her hand touching his stubbled cheek briefly. "I don't want them to think badly of you."
"As if a good opinion is possible considering Weasley's penchant for vitriol." He didn't specify which Weasley, and his expression grew speculative rather than aroused before he said, "I suppose I should inform Draco. Wouldn't do to give him a heart attack."
"Or cause him to lose any more hair." Hermione arched her back and moved Lucius' hands to her breasts. He bucked his hips in response, and she gasped followed by a laugh. "He … can't … afford it."
Lucius pinched her nipple, a lazy smile coaxing his dimples to come out and play.
"Ow!" she exclaimed, and squeezed her inner muscles.
He grunted, then tugged on a wild curl, pulling her down for another kiss. It lasted for several minutes, accompanied by writhing, sliding, and rising urgency.
Before conversation was beyond them, Lucius stated, "And you will wear the ring I designed."
"You designed a ring? For me?" Hermione's face glowed, even white teeth gleaming in the narrow shaft of sunlight. "Confident, weren't you?"
"Hopeful," he replied, that fleeting openness once more crossing his face, and then they were too engaged for coherent discussion.
.
.
.
Downstairs, in the Leaky Cauldron, Hannah Abbott Longbottom was doing brisk business as her lunch crowd had tripled overnight. On each table was a copy of the Daily Prophet.
SPECIAL EDITION
WAR HERIONE HERMIONE GRANGER, EX-WEASLEY, MARRIES DEATH EATER LUCIUS MALFOY IN PRIVATE CEREMONY
The happy couple was seen celebrating last night in Diagon Alley. The bride, whose divorce from Ronald Weasley was finalized yesterday, seemed in a hurry to formalize her tawdry affair with the Malfoy Patriarch. Curious readers wonder if Draco Malfoy has a little brother or sister on the way.
Stay tuned for updates.
12/2011