The autumn brought the Lazenby trial – a quiet affair worth a notice on page 7 of the Daily Prophet – and the second Malfoy engagement party within three months, which was by no means a quiet affair and got even more press coverage than the first, as Lucius remarked with an expression of mingled surliness and pride Hermione found adorable. With all these events, September and October were over before they'd even begun properly, or so it seemed, and with the beginning of November the preparations for Ginny's wedding started in earnest.
Hermione took her role as future mother-in-law very seriously. This, combined with her double workload caused by Ginny's absence, led to serious overexertion, so that Lucius had to put his foot down (Hermione was both livid and grateful when she discovered that he'd talked about her to McGonagall) and demanded that she take Thursday and Friday off, so as to spirit her away for an extended weekend at the house in Cornwall. Hermione had prepared herself for the first serious row since they got married, because she meant to tell her husband, once and for all, that she was having none of his Malfoy chauvinism. Fortunately she was accosted in the corridor by Percy, who treated her to a pompous harangue criticizing her selfishness, because Lucius had refused to accompany the Minister on a rather important mission to China, arguing that his wife's health was more important to him than customs regulations. She wisely chose not to discuss the matter any further with Lucius and simply enjoyed four days together with her husband, reading, going for walks, being fed like a Christmas goose and making love whenever they felt like it.
Draco and his father had been back to speaking terms – slightly strained but at least civilized – since shortly before Lucius and Hermione's wedding. Things had vastly improved since Hermione had had the fortuitous idea to despatch both her husband and McGonagall to the Burrow, in order to force some unpleasant truths down Molly and Arthur's throats.
In October, father and son had almost had another fall-out over the choice of venue for Draco and Ginny's wedding; Hermione had been able to prevent the worst by convincing Ginny that hexing one's future father-in-law was not the most auspicious of beginnings for a life as Mrs Malfoy junior. In the end, Lucius had acknowledged, if with rather bad grace, that Draco's refusal to hold the wedding at the Manor was sensible, and that opting for the neutral ground of Hogwarts instead was indeed an excellent idea. The Christmas holidays were scheduled to begin three days before the wedding, so there was more than enough time for decorating, and the ten or so students remaining at the castle were most welcome to participate in the festivities. The Headmaster had offered to temporarily convert some of the dormitories into guestrooms for the couple's closest friends and family.
The evening before their departure Lucius, already in his nightwear, fondly watched his wife as she tried to tame her hair, wearing a negligee that made his heart beat faster. She smiled at his reflection in the mirror of her dressing table. 'It's going to be strange, being back at Hogwarts after such a long time,' she said, attempting to force a brush through her wild curls.
Lucius smirked. 'Strange is a bit of an understatement, my love. At least from my point of view – spending two nights in a Gryffindor dormitory might render me permanently colour blind.'
'It's a girls' dormitory, though. Does that somehow heighten your expectations?'
'Hmm...' He cocked his head. 'Do you still have your school uniform?'
Hermione's hand stopped in mid-stroke. 'Lucius!'
He laughed. 'Doesn't the idea seem a little bit titillating?'
'Well, yes,' she admitted. 'But only a little bit.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Okay, okay. It does turn me on. But I'll draw the line at addressing you as Professor.'
'Master will do quite nicely, my dear. Did you manage to calm Ginevra?'
She sighed. 'I did my best, but she's understandably nervous. I hope her mother is going to behave. I'm a bit less preoccupied about the rest of the Weasleys. But Molly...' She gave up on her hair, rose and joined Lucius in their bed. 'I wish I could cast Imperius on that bigoted old shrew!' Lucius opened his arms, and she moved over to snuggle against him. 'Ginny told me how badly she's treating Fleur...'
'The delectable Miss Delacour?'
'The very one. Don't get me wrong – getting together with Charlie after Bill's death wasn't the most fortunate decision she could have made, but Molly has no right to interfere, in my opinion. I've always been convinced the relationship would end in disaster, and I'm still sure it will... Who in their right mind would do such a thing?'
'I agree with you that it seems a little odd nowadays, but a few hundred years ago it would have been the proper thing to do. If your husband died, you had to marry his closest unmarried blood relative or, if none was available, his best friend.' He kissed the top of her head. 'So be careful, should you ever feel the urge to hex me, because if you overdo it you'll have to marry Severus.'
'I'm not sure,' Hermione said, 'who of the two of us would resent such an arrangement more.'
'You don't dislike him, do you?'
Hermione craned her head to look at him. 'No, of course not. Actually, I quite like him – he's being very civil, and he's been a lot of help with some cases we worked on together. I'm not quite sure though...'
'You're not quite sure of what, my darling?'
'It's just a gut feeling, you know. But sometimes I can't get rid of the impression that he doesn't... well, quite approve of our marriage.'
'Really? He speaks very highly of you.'
'Oh, don't get me wrong. I wasn't hinting at any Mudblood nonsense. And I don't think it's personal at all. But sometimes... sometimes I just think he disapproves of you being married, whether to me or anybody else. He has to be very lonely at times.'
'He keeps assuring me that he's a solitary creature.'
'Sour grapes?'
Lucius's caresses became a little less vague, and he smiled when he felt her heartbeat accelerate. 'What does your feminine intuition have to say on the matter?'
'It says...' She paused to undo the top buttons of his pyjama top. 'It says that he saw you get married, and now he sees Draco get married, and somewhere deep down he'd like to find the right woman but is afraid to admit it.' Her fingertips mapped out the smooth, hairless planes of his chest. 'Lucius?'
'Yes, my love?'
'I'd like to ask you a... well, a rather intimate question.
'Intimate? I'm intrigued,' he said, carefully teasing a nipple to attention. 'Go ahead, sweet.'
'Did you and Severus ever – I mean, was there ever anything more but platonic friendship?'
His expression suddenly guarded, he stopped his ministrations to her breasts and looked up. 'Yes, there was. It is a thing of the past, however.'
'Do you think you might tell me a bit more?'
'Yes, I think I might.' He rolled onto his back and pulled her with him. 'But I would like you to tell me first why you want to know more about it.'
Hermione sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. 'Now I've put you off sex, haven't I?'
'Just for a while, my love. Talking politics while fucking is one thing, talking about certain aspects of one's past is another.
'That makes sense,' she muttered, while stuffing a pillow under her upper body. 'Ah, yes. That's perfect.' Her arm was resting across his chest, her belly pressed against his hip, and her leg insinuated between his. 'Why do I want to know? It's something Ginny and I talked about, while she helped me prepare for the wedding. But I'm sure I would've forgotten it, if it hadn't made me observe the two of you together from time to time. There's an... intimacy about you, that seemed to hint at more than just friendship. But I want you to know that I'm not jealous or anything. It interests me, because I'm sure it must have been important to you, and that's why I want to hear more about it. Just like I wanted to know more about your relationship with Narcissa. To add another piece to the jigsaw that is you.'
His chest rose and fell under her hand in a deep sigh. 'I don't think I'll be able to tell you much, because I – and I'm sure Severus's feelings on the matter are the same – don't especially like to recall those times. He had just left school and received his Dark Mark. I was almost twenty-three and a rising star among Voldemort's Death Eaters. To make a long story short, we were sent on a mission, just the two of us, and we were both mortally afraid. As I said, we were very young, so of course none of us would have dreamed of admitting his fears. There was a lot of... well, pent-up emotion. It led to a few, erm, nights of passion.'
'Who started it?'
'I did. Severus would have been far too shy.'
'And after you came back?'
'None of us mentioned it ever again. It was a kind of unspoken agreement. I think we both regarded it as a moment of weakness, which it was, in a way.'
'Somehow it makes me feel sad. For both of you.'
'Sad?' Lucius raised his head and looked down at the mass of curls that was sprawled across his chest and shoulder. It obscured her face. 'My darling, I'm afraid I don't quite understand.'
'I can't really explain it. I just have this mental image of two boys who are so afraid of what they have to do, but also trying to look tough... They're young and ambitious, but quite clueless when it comes to emotions. So they would rather eat slugs than tell each other how afraid they are. That's what makes me sad. The speechlessness. The lack of self-assurance under the cool facade, so they had to stick to their role as tough guys. Did you at least enjoy it?'
'Did I... Yes, I suppose I did. It was...' He gave an exasperated sigh. 'All right. You're my wife, I love you, I can tell you. It was the first time I had sex with somebody I really cared about.'
'Why do you have such a problem telling me?'
'Because I like to think of myself as straight.'
'Well, you are. And even if you were bisexual, you said you love me. That's what matters, isn't it? More than your sexual orientation does.'
'It matters because I don't want you to have any doubts.'
'I don't have any doubts, Lucius. I'm happy because you trusted me enough to tell me. That's all. It's always better to know the truth – if only to avoid possible gaffes. Just imagine how much I could hurt Severus with some completely innocent remark, made out of sheer ignorance of the past.'
'You're surprisingly tactful, considering you're a Gryffindor.'
'And you are surprisingly honest, my love, considering you're a Slytherin.'
They kissed – it was a sweet kiss at first, which deepened and became more heated. Hermione smiled to herself when Lucius pushed her onto her back. Much as she liked being on top, there were days when he needed to feel he was Lord and Master. Today was one of them, she thought, and she certainly wasn't going to deny him. He was far too good at it, too.
vvvv
The wedding went off with nary a hitch – all the Weasleys were reasonably well-behaved – then there was Christmas, which involved a medium-scale dinner party on Boxing Day at the Manor, then there was New Year's Eve, which involved a full-scale reception at the Manor, and then Ginny and Draco finally departed for their honeymoon.
It wasn't until the end of January that everything went back to normal, and when she and Ginny found themselves sitting at their respective desks, facing each other, for the first time since the middle of December, Hermione felt as if she was finally letting out a breath she'd been holding for six weeks. She'd also sorely missed their girls' nights – spending time with Luna and Neville, with her parents or with other friends was fine, but it just wasn't the same. Mrs Malfoy senior and junior agreed to meet on Saturday night, in order to do some much overdue catching-up. Since Lucius was about to depart for Egypt together with McGonagall – there had been heavy pressure from the Egyptian side to reopen the British market to flying carpets, and low-level negotiations hadn't yielded any result so far – Hermione suggested that Ginny might come to visit at the Manor and spend the night there, in case the dent they made into the Malfoy liquor stocks was so substantial that Apparating wasn't an option anymore.
The weather was cold, and it had been continuously snowing for three days. Ginny and Hermione therefore spontaneously decided to start their get-together a bit earlier and spent the whole afternoon building a snow castle, until dawn fell and they returned to the house in high spirits but with red noses and cold feet. After a hot bath they went to sit in Hermione's study and have a proper afternoon tea.
'The construction of snow castles,' Hermione said, after they'd fended off the worst bites of hunger, 'is something you just can't do with your husband, isn't it?'
'Well you could, but would you like it?'
'That's what I meant.' She snorted. 'Or can you imagine Lucius wearing a woollen cap?'
'I can imagine Lucius wearing lots of things, but woollen caps – definitely not. He'd refuse to just stuff his hair underneath, as lesser mortals do.' Ginny grabbed another sandwich. 'I wonder who spends more time on his morning toilet, Lucius or Draco.'
'One and a half hours is Lucius's average. Remember the New Year's reception? We'd invited the Mexican ambassador – did you meet him?' Ginny shook her head. 'Well, anyway, we invited him because he'd been so reasonable about that break-in at Gringotts and the problems with the extradition. He's got a good friend at Ceremonial, and he told me that this friend had told him that Lucius drives Ceremonial to distraction when they have to plan official visits, because he refuses to participate in meetings that start earlier than 11 a.m. It seems that he explained to them – the Ambassador said "very nicely" but I have difficulties believing that – that nothing short of the Apocalypse was likely to make him get up before eight, that he really doesn't care for breakfast before ten, and that they consequently had to schedule any meetings for after eleven. They complained to McG, but rumour has it that she told them she preferred a late start too, and so they grumbled a bit, but had no choice but to accept.'
'How terribly gauche of them to expect Lucius to do anything by other rules than his own,' Ginny said, giggling. 'I can't say how many times – not that I care to count them, really – I've seen Draco argue with Severus, because Draco won't make an appearance at work before ten. Dressed to the nines of course, but I'm sure Severus would rather have him unshaved and rumpled, if only he started an hour earlier.'
Both women silently contemplated their husbands' morning rituals as they proceeded to sampling the tea cake.
'Erm, Ginny,' Hermione said finally, 'I'd, uh, like to talk about something, but it's... well, very, very private. Something I'd like to remain strictly between you and me.'
Eyes sparkling, Ginny leaned forward in her chair. 'Tell me. I promise I'll be as silent as the grave.'
'You won't even discuss it with Draco, promise?'
'Neither with Draco nor with anybody else. Promise. You know I can keep a secret.'
Hermione gave her a warm smile. 'I know. And believe me, I'm more than grateful. This is different, however – just, uh, embarrassing, not work-related.'
'I'd gathered as much, seeing as you've gone crimson. Is it about sex?'
'Y-yes, it is. In a way.'
'I love hearing about other people's sex lives,' Ginny said with a broad grin. 'Whether it's problems or fantasies or weird games, it always gives me good ideas.'
'You ought to have become a marriage counsellor,' Hermione replied dryly. 'You'd get lots of good ideas in that line of work.'
'That's a Muggle thing, isn't it?' Ginny frowned. 'Weird, really. To tell a complete stranger about your problems with your partner... Anyway. Go ahead, tell me!'
Hermione sighed. 'You remember our talk on my wedding day? About Lucius and Severus?'
'Of course I do. Any news on that front?'
'Well, yes. I asked Lucius about his relationship with Severus – he was surprisingly frank, really.'
'Wicked,' Ginny breathed after listening to Hermione's account in rapt silence. 'That's... Wow. What I said back then was just meant to rile you up a bit, you know, it wasn't even a wild guess. I never thought...' She cocked her head and looked at Hermione. 'Are you... well, jealous?'
'No, I'm not. I'm not disturbed or disgusted or anything either. Quite the contrary, really. It's, uh, it's becoming a fantasy, and I don't know what to do about it.'
Ginny frowned. 'I can imagine. How do you think Lucius would react if you told him?'
'That's the problem – I have no idea how he'd react. He's as inventive as he's open-minded, but this isn't just about sex, it's a lot more complex. Telling him might...' She shrugged and sighed. 'It might break up a marriage and a friendship – I don't think I'm exaggerating here. It might also intensify both the marriage and the friendship. Although I suppose that's a rather optimistic outlook.'
'It also depends,' Ginny said slowly, 'on what exactly your fantasy is about. Do you want to watch, or do you want to participate?'
Hermione felt her face grow hot again. 'I'd like to participate. Be fucked by both of them. Have Lucius watch me while I give Severus a blow job. That kind of thing. Shit, this is so embarrassing!'
'Would I be making things easier for you if I told you that Draco and I met this girl during our honeymoon – I don't even know her name – and that we had a threesome? It was absolutely mind-blowing, if I say so myself.'
Pouring them more tea, Hermione said, 'That makes it slightly less embarrassing for me, yes. But you can't compare the situations, I'm afraid.'
'I agree. Inviting that girl was a joint decision, and none of us knew her. There was no danger of emotional involvement. No sugar, thanks,' she said and took her cup. 'Your problem is the emotional aspect, I think. And that's always more difficult.' She scrutinized her friend over the rim of her cup. 'I really don't think I can give you any sensible advice on this, Hermione. Do you think you could handle the emotional impact of a threesome with your husband and his best friend?'
'Speaking strictly for myself, yes, I believe I could. What I can't understand' – she cut herself another slice of tea cake – 'is that the idea of a threesome with just any other man, or woman for that matter, doesn't do anything for me. It only works when I think of Lucius and me together with Severus. I know I'm playing with fire even thinking of it. But fantasies are difficult to repress.'
Ginny nodded. 'I know. If you want my advice – on a strictly non-committal basis of course-'
'Ever the lawyer.' Hermione smirked. 'Tell me, I won't hold it against you, I promise.'
'I'd say you ought to talk about it to Lucius.'
vvvvv
