Wife

Chapter 11

Falling Deeper Into the Muggle World

Ginny and Lucius went down to the hotel's Savoy Grill for dinner where the Maitre d' greeted them warmly. "Mr. Malfoy! A pleasure to have you here! Please, if you and the lady will follow me." He led them to their table and pulled Ginny's chair out for her. "Tonight we have a special treat! Chef Gordon Ramsay is running the kitchen."

"Oh really!" Ginny exclaimed, picking up on the man's mood.

"Yes, it's a very rare treat to have him here. May I get you anything to start?"

"I'll take a look at the wine list," Lucius said dismissively.

Ginny smiled warmly at the man, but said nothing. Once he left, Ginny looked at Lucius. "You know they all think I'm your mistress."

Lucius frowned at her, then shook his head. "They're all wrong. You have never been my mistress, and men don't leave their wives for mistresses."

"Oh? Then who was that young woman you were seeing a few years back?"

"Her?" he playfully replied. "She is the most beautiful wi- woman who owns my heart."

"What the fuck is this shit?" Both Ginny and Lucius heard a loud voice from the kitchen. "This fucking shit is unacceptable at the Savoy!"

Lucius turned in his seat and looked toward the kitchen to see a blond man who was clearly in charge chewing out a staff member. "Muggles!" he fumed.

"Lucius, it's fine."

"No it's not, it's inappropriate!"

"Lucius, you've met my brothers. I assure you I have heard worse."

When the waiter came around and took their wine order, Lucius added before the waiter left, "I would like to speak to your Chef Ramsay, when he can spare a moment."

"I'll let him know, Mr. Malfoy."

"Thank you."

A few minutes later, the chef came to the table. "You requested to speak to me?"

Ginny was fearful of what could happen here.

"Lucius Malfoy, and this is my wife, Ginevra."

"Mrs. Malfoy," Chef Ramsay acknowledged her. Ginny nodded and smiled.

"It sounds like you were having an issue in the kitchen a few minutes back. Good help is hard to find."

"The situation has been dealt with." Ramsay was clearly unsure of what this was about.

"That's good to hear," Lucius smiled. "However, there is another situation out here that must be dealt with."

The man looked really confused now.

"The vulgar language you used with your staff is unacceptable for ladies to hear. I demand you apologize to my wife and every other lady here tonight."

"Who the hell do you think you are, coming into my restaurant and making demands?"

"I am a paying customer who expects that his wife is treated with respect."

"I don't have time for this," Ramsey spat, then went to walk away.

"You will make time," Lucius ordered, standing his ground.

Chef Ramsay came face to face with Lucius. "Get the hell out of my restaurant!" he ordered right back.

Lucius looked intently at the man. "You will find I'm not a man to upset. And you are only making yourself look bad. I have asked for a simple apology to my wife and all the other ladies present for your mistake. Not doing so will only make you look worse. And I assure you, any other restaurant would be more than happy to have my business."

"Then please fucking GO to any other restaurant and fuck off!" the chef said, crossing his arms defensively.

Lucius simply looked over at Ginevra, then spoke loud enough for all the other patrons to hear, "Come on, Ginevra. No self-respecting man would allow his wife to be exposed to such disrespect!"

As Ginny rose from her seat, others in the restaurant looked at their dinner companions, unsure of what to do. Lucius took Ginny's hand and placed it at the apex of his upper and lower arm and then the two walked out with their heads held high.

Once they left the hotel and were out of earshot, Lucius asked, "Who does that man think he is? That he can treat women with such disrespect? He used such inappro-"

"Lucius, he's a Muggle and not worth your time," Ginny interrupted. "Come on, let's just find a place to have something for dinner and then we'll go up to our room. I'll give you a massage." Ginny knew better than to tell Lucius, but she realized exactly why her husband and the man at the restaurant couldn't see eye to eye; they both believed they were the top, that all others were lucky to be in their presence, and that people would take whatever crap they tossed around. Lucius had more class than the chef, but she had found that the manners of magical folk were more formal than Muggles.

A couple of days later, Ginny was still taking her morning shower when Hermione arrived. Lucius let her in, then returned to the table where he was reading the newspaper. "Help yourself to something to drink," he said as he pulled out the Business section.

After as few minutes, Hermione noted Lucius shuffling the paper around and taking a frustrated deep breath. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

He looked up at her with contempt. "Bloody incompetent Muggles! Three days in a row the same section of this paper is missing; the one that is said to have more information about the story I want to read about."

Hermione was surprised. "Really? What section is that?"

"The www section!" he spat.

"Oh! Um, it's not a section of the newspaper, it means online."

"What do you mean, I have to get another newspaper called 'Online?'"

"No no, it's a Muggle thing with a computer...but you don't know what that is...can I show you?"

"As deep into the Muggle world as I am now, you may as well. I'm never going to forget this, but if I must pretend to be Muggle, I might as well be the best that I can be."

Hermione knew even Helen Keller would have known how much Lucius hated this, but she got her bag, pulled out her personal laptop, and set it down on the table. As she opened it, she carefully explained, "This is a portable computer. It's like having a whole library, a Floo network, and many, many filing cabinets all rolled into one little thing." She then turned it on and logged on to the World Wide Web. "Now let me see the web address you wanted."

Lucius handed her the paper as he watched with great interest what she was doing.

Hermione was not really surprised to see the article he was reading was about the country's budget. She quickly entered the address and then turned to Lucius. "Here you are." She then moved away, allowing him to read.

After a minute or two, he asked, "How do I turn the page?"

"Oh, sorry, Ron never showed an interest in these and I'm used to Muggles knowing this stuff." She came back to the table and pointed to the cursor pad. "Gently and slowly use your finger like this and you can scroll down, like this." She watched after she moved away as Lucius played with the cursor button. She was surprised when he actually looked impressed. She minded her own business as he finished reading.

After another minute or so, he asked, "How did you find this article?"

"Just with the web address. It brings up the information you want. The web is really great; you would be amazed at the stuff you can find online."

"Really. Like what?" he inquired.

She moved back to the laptop. "Well," she said as she punched in a popular web browser. "Let's try this; think of something you would know about so that you can see whether it's right or not. Maybe the date of an attack on Muggles by Voldemort. You would have heard the details, I'm sure," Hermione carefully suggested.

"July 14, 1977," he offered off the top of his head. "There are rumors from that day, the day I married Draco's mother."

Hermione pulled up the Muggle information on an attack on a small village.

Lucius read with great interest, then looked up at her. "One can look up anything?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, just go back to the search engine and type in key words or dates and hit enter. One can even find mostly Muggle information about magic. If you would like, I could leave this here for you today while Ginny and I are out. You could play around with it."

Then it happened; something Hermione Granger-Weasley never believed she would ever see or hear. "Thank you, I would appreciate that," Lucius stated.

"Not a problem. I won't be using it anyway. Muggles really can't live without these nowadays!"

"Oh, you're here! Sorry I wasn't ready," Ginny offered after entering the room.. The two women were planning to find a gift for Arthur Weasley's birthday.

"It's alright, Ginny."

Ginny turned her attention to Lucius. "We should only be gone a couple of hours, dear."

Lucius was still looking at the laptop and not paying his wife much mind. "Yes dear, that's fine."

Ginny looked at Lucius in his trance-like state and then glanced at Hermione. Ginny then spoke, "And once we're back, Hermione and I are going to practice on you the bondage techniques we have learned in the main lobby."

"Lovely, dear." Lucius replied.

Ginny grinned at Hermione and the two women left, trying to hold in their laughter. Once in the lift, Ginny asked, "What was that he was looking at?"

"My laptop. He was upset because he couldn't find something in the newspaper. I realized what he was looking for was on the web."

"Oh, yes, he was reading the paper and was very interested in the reports about the Muggle budget."

"Actually Ginny, he already read that. I showed him he could find out everything about anything on the web and how to do it. I think he'll be busy for awhile!"

A/N Dumm-da-dump-dump! Please leave a review! I had fun writing this chapter in particular, but didn't go into too much detail so it didn't become Muggle Studies or Malfoy's Restaurant Nightmares!