Author's Notes: Okay y'all. I know the chapters are being read. And I
know that not everybody who reads them must be too horrified to type a
review. (Hint-hint.)
So, this chapter plunges headlong back into the storyline. Icky, squicky Malfoy badness. With a little surprise at the end. Violence and noncon sexual advances.
Disclaimers: If you recognize it from the books and movies, it does not belong to me.
Chapter 56: Hell Hath no Fury Like a Woman Scorned
At the Malfoy family's country estate, only the large clock in the main hall marked the passage from one year to the next. Narcissa had taken to her chambers after returning from her mission, and as of yet had not emerged. The unlicensed healer who served the Malfoy family would arrive to examine her and confirm the pregnancy on Sunday. Narcissa begged off all of her New Year's social invitations with the excuse of falling ill from the cold damp weather. In truth, Lucius banished her to her chambers and ordered her to take to her bed before the healer could come, in case there was a complication.
Lucius spent the last hours of the old year in his study, seated before the fireplace, drinking from a large goblet of fine brandy. As the clock in the hallway chimed eleven o' clock, he rang for his valet to refill his glass and leave the decanter behind on the side table. At midnight, he rose unsteadily to his feet and made his way slowly to his bedchamber. He locked the door behind him and called for the groundskeeper. The brawny older man was carrying a parcel in his hands when Lucius let him in the door.
"Here are the things you sent me to buy Master Lucius. Everything on the list."
Lucius pointed to a chair in the corner, indicating where he wanted the servant to leave the package.
"Very good Birch; that will be all. And Birch. Please inform the others that Lady Malfoy is not to be disturbed this evening. If she awakens and asks for me, you may tell her that I retired to my chambers early and am not to be disturbed. Remember, you are to be waiting for me with the carriage at the servants' entrance at exactly a quarter of one."
The man nodded in understanding and showed himself out the door.
Lucius locked the door and unwrapped the package. It contained a suit of clothes from a secondhand shop in Diagon Alley. He touched the utilitarian black coat with a look of contempt on his face. The clothes spread out on his bed; he removed a silver key from his waistcoat pocket and performed a revealing spell on one of the ornately carved wall panels. It slid away to give access to a small door with a small silver lined keyhole. Lucius inserted the key and performed an unlocking charm. Several locking mechanisms clicked and spun behind the mahogany door as the key was taken into the keyhole. The door slowly opened, revealing a hidden vault with several scrolls and small chests stacked inside. Lucius removed an ornate silver covered chest and reversed the unlocking charm. The door closed and his key was slowly ejected from the slot. One more wave of the wand, and the panel slid back into place, concealing the vault completely.
He carried the box to the bed, and opened it. Inside, nestled in a padded green velvet nest, sat a tiny silver pillbox, a glass goblet, two small silver charms, a pair of quills, and a large vial of the polyjuice potion. He closed the box, and went into his bathroom to freshen up before dressing for the evening's entertainment. Sobered up somewhat from a splash of cold water on his face, and all traces of his usual sweet smelling hair tonic and cologne washed away, he started to change into the clothes on the bed.
The clothes were larger and longer than Lucius' usual fit. He had been a man of slightly more than average height with the physique of a leisured athlete in his prime. The injuries he sustained in battle and the stress of living underground had wasted him to a slightly stooped gauntness. He cursed in exasperation over the shoes. They were larger than his custom made boots, and he felt clumsy in them. After fumbling with the multitude of buttons on the outdated coat, he removed the larger of the two silver charms from the box and tied it around his neck. He tucked it under the drooping frill of the shirt collar, and wrapped a coarse wooly black scarf around his neck to further conceal the charm. He ran his hands through his thinning platinum hair, once his crown and glory, to untangle it from the scarf.
He finished the disguise by removing his refurbished wand from the special cane, which held it, and tucked it in his coat pocket. In the pockets of a simple black wool cloak, he stashed the potion vial, goblet, and silver box of hairs. Not wanting to risk being seen in his home, he would drink the potion and undergo the transformation in his carriage. The extra level of paranoia had come when he caught Cassie, the housemaid, rummaging through the cabinet in his study early the previous morning. She claimed that she was polishing the cabinet and the door just came open, and she was shutting it when Lucius' valet walked in on her. Fearing that Narcissa sent her to destroy the remaining potion, Lucius punished her brutally and hid the chest containing the remaining potion and associated items away in his secret vault. He had promised Narcissa that he would not use the polyjuice potion on himself, but his own personal revenge and motives for it were none of her concern.
At a quarter of one, Lucius left his bedchamber, locking and casting security wards on the doorway. He made his way clumsily down the hall, encumbered by the oversized shoes and lack of walking stick to steady himself with. He reached the servants' entrance, raised the hood of the cloak and pulled a pair of common black knitted gloves from his pocket and onto his spidery hands. Birch, the groundskeeper, helped his master into the carriage and closed the door. He tightened his heavy foul weather cloak around his chest and climbed up onto the driver's platform of the carriage. With a wave of his wand and a short incantation, it disappeared into the frigid winter night with a crack.
Narcissa Malfoy peered through the lace curtains on the window in the guest suite at the back of the house. She watched with icy hatred in her eyes as the cloaked figure exited the house and entered the carriage. As it disapparated into the night, she started to laugh. A high-pitched, nervous laugh. She returned to her bedchamber, climbed back into bed and lay in the darkness with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
Mira hurried to straighten up her apartment a little. She didn't remember leaving it in such a bit of disarray, but she hadn't been home much over the past two days either. She was happy to find the pair of slippers she thought she had lost. In the bottom of the wardrobe of all places. She wondered what she was thinking when she put them there, because her slippers always stayed in the little basket at the side of her bed. Professor Snape would be arriving very shortly, so she dropped the anti- apparition wards and finished straightening up.
Lucius Malfoy's portcarriage appeared in the alley near the end of the street where the tailor shop was located. He took a deep breath and unpacked the various items from his pockets. He added half of the black hairs to half of the remaining polyjuice potion, and drank the vile substance down. The transformation was as painful and disorienting as it had ever been. Lucius gripped the seat tightly until the waves of nausea passed, and hunched over his knees as his body began to change. His breathing slowed to normal, and he realized that breathing came much easier to him, and that nagging pain in his right side when he inhaled too deeply was gone. He sat up and felt a flexible healthy spine straighten against the back of the carriage seat. He looked down at his hands. Gone were the gaunt and slightly gnarled hands, and in their place were a pair of strong graceful hands. He turned his head and felt a curtain of thick shorter hair brushing against his cheek. He spied one of Narcissa's vanity mirrors on the seat opposite his and snatched it up. In the dim lamplight of the carriage cabin, he examined the face he now wore. A sneer which he had seen so many times on his rival's face played across his mouth, nearly startling him into dropping the mirror. But his attention was caught by something that was not quite right.
"Shit!" Exclaimed Lucius, as he threw the mirror back down on the opposite seat. He ran his sweating palms over the tops of his thighs and retrieved the mirror. Upon closer examination, the flaw was still there, clearly visible. Instead of glittering obsidian black eyes, a pair of slightly cloudy irises stared back at him. Was it really that noticeable? He decided that if she noticed, which chances are she wouldn't, he would simply explain it away as a symptom of some exotic magical malady, being of muggle culture, she would never know the true cause.
He pulled the hood up to conceal his face, and stepped out of the carriage. He motioned to Birch to sit in the cabin and wait for him.
"One hour" croaked Malfoy in a hoarse approximation of the Potion Master's voice. "If there's trouble, you know what to do."
The man merely nodded and climbed into the cabin to get out of the cold. The wind had picked up and it was starting to sleet. Malfoy performed the apparition and was instantly transported to the sitting room in Mira's apartment.
A soft popping noise in the sitting room caught Mira's attention. She turned and headed towards the bedroom door.
"Oh, you're a bit early, I didn't expect you before one. I was just straightening up a little. Here, let me light the lamps, it's a bit dark in here."
Malfoy reached out and grabbed her arm as she walked past.
"No, don't. The firelight is soothing."
"Sure.what's wrong with your voice Severus? You sound like hell."
"What? Oh, my voice. It's nothing. I might be coming down with a bit of a cold, that's all."
"Yeah, I bet having to go outside on your patrols of the school grounds in this weather did it. You want a cup of warm tea?"
"No, I'm fine."
"Well then, why don't you just sit and warm yourself by the fire, while I change out of this medieval torture device of a robe."
Mira kissed him on the cheek and went back to her bedroom to get out of the tight velvet robe and corset underneath. Malfoy warily laid the cloak across the sofa, removed the knitted scarf and gloves, and looked around the small room. It looked larger through the far seeing crystal. He had no idea just how cramped of a living space people of lower social standing actually lived in. The whole apartment would have fit in his bedchamber.
As Mira unzipped the back of the robe, she noticed a peculiar clinking noise, like glass on glass. The weather seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. The sleet must have turned to small hailstones, which were bouncing off of her window. Lucius quietly approached the bedroom, and peered through the crack in the door. He watched her ease her shoulders out of the formal robe, wondering why a shopkeeper was wearing such a garment. She had been at some kind of a New Year's Eve party he remembered. Mira pushed the robe down over her hips and stepped out of it. She laid the robe across her bed and propped her foot up on the footboard of the bed to untie one of her boots. She didn't hear Lucius quietly ease the door open and slip into the room.
He noiselessly crept up behind her. When Mira finished untying her other boot and tossed them into the floor of the open wardrobe, Lucius grabbed her and pulled her back against him. Startled, Mira jumped and let out a gasp.
"Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?"
"Well, you left the door open just enough for me to see you undressing. What effect did you expect it to have on me?"
Lucius held her tightly with one arm, and cupped the other hand around her chin and upper throat. He pulled her head back at an awkward angle and inhaled the fragrance of her hair. He let go and removed the hairpins, which were holding her curls up in a formal knot on the back of her head. He twisted her around to face him; and kissed her roughly on the lips, nearly tearing the flesh with his teeth. Mira made a shocked little noise and twisted her head away. Lucius grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face back to his, and kissed her again, biting her bottom lip hard enough to break the skin slightly.
Disturbed by the taste of blood, Mira twisted and squirmed out of his grasp and backed up against the footboard of the bed. Rough lovemaking was no big shock to her, but the professor had never been so rough with her as to break the skin before. Not even on the night when she accidentally sedated herself in the bath and he took her hard and fast. She backed around the footboard and he positioned himself between her and the door.
"Severus, that hurt! What's gotten into you?"
He stepped forward and dabbed the blood off of her lip with the cuff of his coat.
"My apologies, I'm afraid I got carried away with desire. I didn't realize I was being too rough."
Mira sat on the edge of the bed and kept a wary eye on her lover as she loosened the lacings of her corset. Lucius stood motionless in the shadow of the doorway, enthralled. No polyjuice replica could compare to the real thing. He wished he had enough potion and hair samples to spend an entire night in Snape's body. He would have her in every way imaginable. But, his ruse allowed him not even an hour with her. He had the extra dose of potion in his pocket, but using it would require blowing his ruse, as she believed him to be merely popping in for a brief rendezvous. The corset laces loosened, Mira stood up and pulled the rigid garment off over her head. As her heavy breasts fell free from under the corset, Lucius felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach and a familiar but slightly different sensation just slightly farther down. Devouring her with his eyes, he chuckled over a comment he remembered from his schoolboy days: "I wouldn't fuck her with my worst enemy's cock", his housemates used to say of a particularly undesirable girl.
"My worst enemy's cock indeed" he sneered under his breath, as he lunged at her. Lucius caught Mira just under the arms and shoved her back onto the bed, knocking the breath out of her. As she struggled to untangle her arms from the corset and catch her breath, he dove onto her with groping hands and hungry mouth. His hand found it's way under the heavy crinoline and between her legs as she finally worked herself free from the corset. With a yelp of pain from his rough advances, Mira twisted free and scooted herself back against the headboard.
"What the hell is your problem?"
Lucius crawled onto the bed, and advanced towards her on hands and knees like a predator approaching a cornered prey.
"Oh come now darling, let's not play games. We both know you like a bit of the rough and tumble every now and then, hmmm?"
"That's not rough and tumble, you were hurting me. I think you should leave. I've had enough of aggressive men for one night. Send me an owl when you've gotten over whatever put you into this mood."
He reached forward and took her chin in his hand.
"But I've only just gotten here darling, and it's so cold and icy outside. You wouldn't turn me away into the cold completely unsatisfied, now would you?"
Lucius let go of her chin and let his hand drop to her chest where he gave her breast a rough squeeze. Mira kicked his arm away and scrambled off the bed, into the corner between her dressing table and the window.
"Severus, you're out of control. You need to turn around, get your cloak, and leave. Before you do something that you're going to deeply regret."
Lucius climbed off the bed and stood over her, slowly undoing the long row of buttons on the front of his coat. Mira tucked her knees up against herself, and looked around, trying to find something she could use as a weapon. The handbag with her wand in it was hanging on the door of the wardrobe, out of reach. She heard the sound of the hailstones on the window grow louder and looked up at her dressing table for something to defend herself with. Movement in a crystal jewel box caught her eye. It took her a moment to realize what she was hearing and seeing. There were no hailstones hitting the window, she was hearing the miniature sneakascope bouncing around inside the little glass box she kept it in. She gasped, realizing that not only was the Professor out of control, he intended to do her serious harm.
As Lucius was fumbling with the buttons on the black coat, Mira panicked and tried to make a dash for her wand. He snatched her back by her wrist and twisted it painfully as he pulled her close. The light from the streetlamp outside on the lane shone in his face. Mira noticed that his eyes looked strange. As if they were faded or cloudy.
"What's wrong with your eyes? They look strange."
"It's the cold I caught, nothing more."
"No, colds don't cause a person's eyes to change like that. What's wrong with you?"
"I said nothing. Now shut up and be a little more cooperative. The more you resist, the more I shall have to use force with you. It's your choice as to how painful this becomes."
He pressed her against the wall and buried his face in her neck, while unfastening the top buttons of his coat. She noticed that he smelled strange too. He smelled sweet, like freshly mown hay. There was absolutely no trace of the sharp musty odor of the potions lab anywhere on his hair, skin, or clothes. A very uneasy feeling worked its way into Mira's consciousness. What if this wasn't really the professor? Was such a disguise even possible? She knew that in the wizarding world, very few things were impossible, and this man could very well be an imposter. But who? And more disturbing, why?
Mira knew that she was in great danger, possibly in mortal danger. She had to try to get to her wand. It was her only chance. The imposter cursed under his breath over the last coat button, and Mira used the distraction to her advantage and pushed him away, snatching at the handbag. Lucius lunged at her and she clawed at his face, drawing blood while ripping the cord with the silver voice charm off of his neck. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her back against the wall.
"Fucking muggle loving bitch! All you had to do was play along. Just let me have what I came for, and it wouldn't have come to this."
Mira looked down at the strange silver charm in her hand, trying to place where she had heard that voice before.
"Who are you? Why are you here?"
"Oh come now, Mira. You know full well why I'm here. As to who I am? That doesn't concern you at the moment. You can either give me what I came for, and live to see your bastard of a lover again; or you continue to resist and leave me no choice but to take it by force. In which case you will most assuredly not live to see the genuine article ever again."
He stepped forward to her, and removed his wand from his pocket. He reached out with it, and prodded the diamond brooch she had around her neck, turning it over to see the backside. With a sneer, he flipped it back over.
"I thought I recognized that. How pathetic that he would give something so fine to a piece of common trash like you. It insults the memory of those fine women to have the name of a muggle loving whore engraved next to theirs."
"You're not fit to wear it!" Lucius hissed as he snatched the brooch off of her neck. The latching mechanism must have come undone in their struggles, because the pin pierced his hand deeply and made him cry out in rage. Mira tried again to snatch for the handbag but he slung her around and onto the bed, wand pointed directly at her chest. He tossed the brooch onto the ground and wiped the blood off of his hand onto his trousers.
"I am quite through with your histrionics, Mira!"
Mira shielded her face with her hands as the jet of red light shot out of his wand and impacted with her body. The stunning spell caused her to instantly fall unconscious. Lucius pocketed the wand and removed the coat, and draped it across the footboard of the bed. He sat next to Mira and stroked her cheek in a gesture, which would have been mistaken for a lover's tender caress under different circumstances. Checking the watch he carried in his trouser pocket, he saw that he had not much more than a quarter of an hour left before he would transform back to his normal appearance. But with Mira unconscious, he could either use the last dose of polyjuice potion, or dispense with the ruse altogether and continue on as himself however long he wanted.
He unhooked the waistband of the heavy crinoline and pulled it down over her hips and tossed it into the corner. Intrigued by the exoticness of her muggle style underpants and stockings, he lingered over them a bit longer than necessary. Most high born witches still wore old fashioned bloomers under their robes, and even many of the witch whores in Knockturn Alley wore them to cater to their old fashioned clients' tastes.
Eager to enjoy her in a body undamaged by injury; he quickly climbed onto the bed with her, parted her legs, and undid his trousers. But nothing was happening. As much as he wanted to take her, as she lay unconscious, he was not getting physically aroused. He couldn't understand why he wasn't able to perform. Impotence was not supposed to be a side effect of the polyjuice potion. He had never experienced it before, the other times he had taken it for pleasure. Frustrated, he buttoned the trousers and began to pace across the room, nervously running his fingers through his hair.
Lucius decided that there must have been a flaw with the potion. After all, his eyes had failed to fully transform. The flaw must be preventing him from achieving arousal. He would wait out the transformation back to his own body and settle for having her that way. He felt the first stages of regression, and sat down on the bed while the uncomfortable sinking feeling passed. Back in his normal body, he tried to consummate the act again, without luck.
He tried every virility charm and lust spell he could think of, but nothing had any effect whatsoever. He finally decided that since he had another dose of the potion and enough hair to transform once again, he could simply wipe her memory and come back another time, after he found out what was wrong with the potion. Distracted and unfocused from the disturbing turn of events, he performed a piss-poor example of the Obliviate curse and gathered his things to leave. After dressing, he limped from the bedroom, looking back over his shoulder with a look of contempt on his face.
Lucius disapparated back to the carriage, where he found his groundskeeper and driver asleep in the cabin, snoring. He blasted the man awake with a hex, and hurled him out of the cabin of the carriage with a curse. Rubbing his elbow, the man struggled to his feet, and bowed in apology to his master. Lucius climbed clumsily into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. Within a matter of seconds, the carriage was back at the servants' entrance of the Malfoy's large house. Lucius flung the door open, and blasted the back door of the house open with his wand. He limped unsteadily through the house, swearing with rage, and to his bedchambers where he slammed the door forcefully behind him.
In her room, Narcissa heard the slamming and screaming and tucked her blanket to her chin, snickering like a naughty schoolgirl. She had sent her maid to sabotage the polyjuice potion that morning, as she had no doubts that Lucius would use the potion for sexual conquest, despite his promise not to do so. Cassie paid dearly for the scheme, but Narcissa had already compensated her dearly with a large purse of gold galleons and a couple of her old silk robes.
So, this chapter plunges headlong back into the storyline. Icky, squicky Malfoy badness. With a little surprise at the end. Violence and noncon sexual advances.
Disclaimers: If you recognize it from the books and movies, it does not belong to me.
Chapter 56: Hell Hath no Fury Like a Woman Scorned
At the Malfoy family's country estate, only the large clock in the main hall marked the passage from one year to the next. Narcissa had taken to her chambers after returning from her mission, and as of yet had not emerged. The unlicensed healer who served the Malfoy family would arrive to examine her and confirm the pregnancy on Sunday. Narcissa begged off all of her New Year's social invitations with the excuse of falling ill from the cold damp weather. In truth, Lucius banished her to her chambers and ordered her to take to her bed before the healer could come, in case there was a complication.
Lucius spent the last hours of the old year in his study, seated before the fireplace, drinking from a large goblet of fine brandy. As the clock in the hallway chimed eleven o' clock, he rang for his valet to refill his glass and leave the decanter behind on the side table. At midnight, he rose unsteadily to his feet and made his way slowly to his bedchamber. He locked the door behind him and called for the groundskeeper. The brawny older man was carrying a parcel in his hands when Lucius let him in the door.
"Here are the things you sent me to buy Master Lucius. Everything on the list."
Lucius pointed to a chair in the corner, indicating where he wanted the servant to leave the package.
"Very good Birch; that will be all. And Birch. Please inform the others that Lady Malfoy is not to be disturbed this evening. If she awakens and asks for me, you may tell her that I retired to my chambers early and am not to be disturbed. Remember, you are to be waiting for me with the carriage at the servants' entrance at exactly a quarter of one."
The man nodded in understanding and showed himself out the door.
Lucius locked the door and unwrapped the package. It contained a suit of clothes from a secondhand shop in Diagon Alley. He touched the utilitarian black coat with a look of contempt on his face. The clothes spread out on his bed; he removed a silver key from his waistcoat pocket and performed a revealing spell on one of the ornately carved wall panels. It slid away to give access to a small door with a small silver lined keyhole. Lucius inserted the key and performed an unlocking charm. Several locking mechanisms clicked and spun behind the mahogany door as the key was taken into the keyhole. The door slowly opened, revealing a hidden vault with several scrolls and small chests stacked inside. Lucius removed an ornate silver covered chest and reversed the unlocking charm. The door closed and his key was slowly ejected from the slot. One more wave of the wand, and the panel slid back into place, concealing the vault completely.
He carried the box to the bed, and opened it. Inside, nestled in a padded green velvet nest, sat a tiny silver pillbox, a glass goblet, two small silver charms, a pair of quills, and a large vial of the polyjuice potion. He closed the box, and went into his bathroom to freshen up before dressing for the evening's entertainment. Sobered up somewhat from a splash of cold water on his face, and all traces of his usual sweet smelling hair tonic and cologne washed away, he started to change into the clothes on the bed.
The clothes were larger and longer than Lucius' usual fit. He had been a man of slightly more than average height with the physique of a leisured athlete in his prime. The injuries he sustained in battle and the stress of living underground had wasted him to a slightly stooped gauntness. He cursed in exasperation over the shoes. They were larger than his custom made boots, and he felt clumsy in them. After fumbling with the multitude of buttons on the outdated coat, he removed the larger of the two silver charms from the box and tied it around his neck. He tucked it under the drooping frill of the shirt collar, and wrapped a coarse wooly black scarf around his neck to further conceal the charm. He ran his hands through his thinning platinum hair, once his crown and glory, to untangle it from the scarf.
He finished the disguise by removing his refurbished wand from the special cane, which held it, and tucked it in his coat pocket. In the pockets of a simple black wool cloak, he stashed the potion vial, goblet, and silver box of hairs. Not wanting to risk being seen in his home, he would drink the potion and undergo the transformation in his carriage. The extra level of paranoia had come when he caught Cassie, the housemaid, rummaging through the cabinet in his study early the previous morning. She claimed that she was polishing the cabinet and the door just came open, and she was shutting it when Lucius' valet walked in on her. Fearing that Narcissa sent her to destroy the remaining potion, Lucius punished her brutally and hid the chest containing the remaining potion and associated items away in his secret vault. He had promised Narcissa that he would not use the polyjuice potion on himself, but his own personal revenge and motives for it were none of her concern.
At a quarter of one, Lucius left his bedchamber, locking and casting security wards on the doorway. He made his way clumsily down the hall, encumbered by the oversized shoes and lack of walking stick to steady himself with. He reached the servants' entrance, raised the hood of the cloak and pulled a pair of common black knitted gloves from his pocket and onto his spidery hands. Birch, the groundskeeper, helped his master into the carriage and closed the door. He tightened his heavy foul weather cloak around his chest and climbed up onto the driver's platform of the carriage. With a wave of his wand and a short incantation, it disappeared into the frigid winter night with a crack.
Narcissa Malfoy peered through the lace curtains on the window in the guest suite at the back of the house. She watched with icy hatred in her eyes as the cloaked figure exited the house and entered the carriage. As it disapparated into the night, she started to laugh. A high-pitched, nervous laugh. She returned to her bedchamber, climbed back into bed and lay in the darkness with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
Mira hurried to straighten up her apartment a little. She didn't remember leaving it in such a bit of disarray, but she hadn't been home much over the past two days either. She was happy to find the pair of slippers she thought she had lost. In the bottom of the wardrobe of all places. She wondered what she was thinking when she put them there, because her slippers always stayed in the little basket at the side of her bed. Professor Snape would be arriving very shortly, so she dropped the anti- apparition wards and finished straightening up.
Lucius Malfoy's portcarriage appeared in the alley near the end of the street where the tailor shop was located. He took a deep breath and unpacked the various items from his pockets. He added half of the black hairs to half of the remaining polyjuice potion, and drank the vile substance down. The transformation was as painful and disorienting as it had ever been. Lucius gripped the seat tightly until the waves of nausea passed, and hunched over his knees as his body began to change. His breathing slowed to normal, and he realized that breathing came much easier to him, and that nagging pain in his right side when he inhaled too deeply was gone. He sat up and felt a flexible healthy spine straighten against the back of the carriage seat. He looked down at his hands. Gone were the gaunt and slightly gnarled hands, and in their place were a pair of strong graceful hands. He turned his head and felt a curtain of thick shorter hair brushing against his cheek. He spied one of Narcissa's vanity mirrors on the seat opposite his and snatched it up. In the dim lamplight of the carriage cabin, he examined the face he now wore. A sneer which he had seen so many times on his rival's face played across his mouth, nearly startling him into dropping the mirror. But his attention was caught by something that was not quite right.
"Shit!" Exclaimed Lucius, as he threw the mirror back down on the opposite seat. He ran his sweating palms over the tops of his thighs and retrieved the mirror. Upon closer examination, the flaw was still there, clearly visible. Instead of glittering obsidian black eyes, a pair of slightly cloudy irises stared back at him. Was it really that noticeable? He decided that if she noticed, which chances are she wouldn't, he would simply explain it away as a symptom of some exotic magical malady, being of muggle culture, she would never know the true cause.
He pulled the hood up to conceal his face, and stepped out of the carriage. He motioned to Birch to sit in the cabin and wait for him.
"One hour" croaked Malfoy in a hoarse approximation of the Potion Master's voice. "If there's trouble, you know what to do."
The man merely nodded and climbed into the cabin to get out of the cold. The wind had picked up and it was starting to sleet. Malfoy performed the apparition and was instantly transported to the sitting room in Mira's apartment.
A soft popping noise in the sitting room caught Mira's attention. She turned and headed towards the bedroom door.
"Oh, you're a bit early, I didn't expect you before one. I was just straightening up a little. Here, let me light the lamps, it's a bit dark in here."
Malfoy reached out and grabbed her arm as she walked past.
"No, don't. The firelight is soothing."
"Sure.what's wrong with your voice Severus? You sound like hell."
"What? Oh, my voice. It's nothing. I might be coming down with a bit of a cold, that's all."
"Yeah, I bet having to go outside on your patrols of the school grounds in this weather did it. You want a cup of warm tea?"
"No, I'm fine."
"Well then, why don't you just sit and warm yourself by the fire, while I change out of this medieval torture device of a robe."
Mira kissed him on the cheek and went back to her bedroom to get out of the tight velvet robe and corset underneath. Malfoy warily laid the cloak across the sofa, removed the knitted scarf and gloves, and looked around the small room. It looked larger through the far seeing crystal. He had no idea just how cramped of a living space people of lower social standing actually lived in. The whole apartment would have fit in his bedchamber.
As Mira unzipped the back of the robe, she noticed a peculiar clinking noise, like glass on glass. The weather seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. The sleet must have turned to small hailstones, which were bouncing off of her window. Lucius quietly approached the bedroom, and peered through the crack in the door. He watched her ease her shoulders out of the formal robe, wondering why a shopkeeper was wearing such a garment. She had been at some kind of a New Year's Eve party he remembered. Mira pushed the robe down over her hips and stepped out of it. She laid the robe across her bed and propped her foot up on the footboard of the bed to untie one of her boots. She didn't hear Lucius quietly ease the door open and slip into the room.
He noiselessly crept up behind her. When Mira finished untying her other boot and tossed them into the floor of the open wardrobe, Lucius grabbed her and pulled her back against him. Startled, Mira jumped and let out a gasp.
"Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?"
"Well, you left the door open just enough for me to see you undressing. What effect did you expect it to have on me?"
Lucius held her tightly with one arm, and cupped the other hand around her chin and upper throat. He pulled her head back at an awkward angle and inhaled the fragrance of her hair. He let go and removed the hairpins, which were holding her curls up in a formal knot on the back of her head. He twisted her around to face him; and kissed her roughly on the lips, nearly tearing the flesh with his teeth. Mira made a shocked little noise and twisted her head away. Lucius grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face back to his, and kissed her again, biting her bottom lip hard enough to break the skin slightly.
Disturbed by the taste of blood, Mira twisted and squirmed out of his grasp and backed up against the footboard of the bed. Rough lovemaking was no big shock to her, but the professor had never been so rough with her as to break the skin before. Not even on the night when she accidentally sedated herself in the bath and he took her hard and fast. She backed around the footboard and he positioned himself between her and the door.
"Severus, that hurt! What's gotten into you?"
He stepped forward and dabbed the blood off of her lip with the cuff of his coat.
"My apologies, I'm afraid I got carried away with desire. I didn't realize I was being too rough."
Mira sat on the edge of the bed and kept a wary eye on her lover as she loosened the lacings of her corset. Lucius stood motionless in the shadow of the doorway, enthralled. No polyjuice replica could compare to the real thing. He wished he had enough potion and hair samples to spend an entire night in Snape's body. He would have her in every way imaginable. But, his ruse allowed him not even an hour with her. He had the extra dose of potion in his pocket, but using it would require blowing his ruse, as she believed him to be merely popping in for a brief rendezvous. The corset laces loosened, Mira stood up and pulled the rigid garment off over her head. As her heavy breasts fell free from under the corset, Lucius felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach and a familiar but slightly different sensation just slightly farther down. Devouring her with his eyes, he chuckled over a comment he remembered from his schoolboy days: "I wouldn't fuck her with my worst enemy's cock", his housemates used to say of a particularly undesirable girl.
"My worst enemy's cock indeed" he sneered under his breath, as he lunged at her. Lucius caught Mira just under the arms and shoved her back onto the bed, knocking the breath out of her. As she struggled to untangle her arms from the corset and catch her breath, he dove onto her with groping hands and hungry mouth. His hand found it's way under the heavy crinoline and between her legs as she finally worked herself free from the corset. With a yelp of pain from his rough advances, Mira twisted free and scooted herself back against the headboard.
"What the hell is your problem?"
Lucius crawled onto the bed, and advanced towards her on hands and knees like a predator approaching a cornered prey.
"Oh come now darling, let's not play games. We both know you like a bit of the rough and tumble every now and then, hmmm?"
"That's not rough and tumble, you were hurting me. I think you should leave. I've had enough of aggressive men for one night. Send me an owl when you've gotten over whatever put you into this mood."
He reached forward and took her chin in his hand.
"But I've only just gotten here darling, and it's so cold and icy outside. You wouldn't turn me away into the cold completely unsatisfied, now would you?"
Lucius let go of her chin and let his hand drop to her chest where he gave her breast a rough squeeze. Mira kicked his arm away and scrambled off the bed, into the corner between her dressing table and the window.
"Severus, you're out of control. You need to turn around, get your cloak, and leave. Before you do something that you're going to deeply regret."
Lucius climbed off the bed and stood over her, slowly undoing the long row of buttons on the front of his coat. Mira tucked her knees up against herself, and looked around, trying to find something she could use as a weapon. The handbag with her wand in it was hanging on the door of the wardrobe, out of reach. She heard the sound of the hailstones on the window grow louder and looked up at her dressing table for something to defend herself with. Movement in a crystal jewel box caught her eye. It took her a moment to realize what she was hearing and seeing. There were no hailstones hitting the window, she was hearing the miniature sneakascope bouncing around inside the little glass box she kept it in. She gasped, realizing that not only was the Professor out of control, he intended to do her serious harm.
As Lucius was fumbling with the buttons on the black coat, Mira panicked and tried to make a dash for her wand. He snatched her back by her wrist and twisted it painfully as he pulled her close. The light from the streetlamp outside on the lane shone in his face. Mira noticed that his eyes looked strange. As if they were faded or cloudy.
"What's wrong with your eyes? They look strange."
"It's the cold I caught, nothing more."
"No, colds don't cause a person's eyes to change like that. What's wrong with you?"
"I said nothing. Now shut up and be a little more cooperative. The more you resist, the more I shall have to use force with you. It's your choice as to how painful this becomes."
He pressed her against the wall and buried his face in her neck, while unfastening the top buttons of his coat. She noticed that he smelled strange too. He smelled sweet, like freshly mown hay. There was absolutely no trace of the sharp musty odor of the potions lab anywhere on his hair, skin, or clothes. A very uneasy feeling worked its way into Mira's consciousness. What if this wasn't really the professor? Was such a disguise even possible? She knew that in the wizarding world, very few things were impossible, and this man could very well be an imposter. But who? And more disturbing, why?
Mira knew that she was in great danger, possibly in mortal danger. She had to try to get to her wand. It was her only chance. The imposter cursed under his breath over the last coat button, and Mira used the distraction to her advantage and pushed him away, snatching at the handbag. Lucius lunged at her and she clawed at his face, drawing blood while ripping the cord with the silver voice charm off of his neck. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her back against the wall.
"Fucking muggle loving bitch! All you had to do was play along. Just let me have what I came for, and it wouldn't have come to this."
Mira looked down at the strange silver charm in her hand, trying to place where she had heard that voice before.
"Who are you? Why are you here?"
"Oh come now, Mira. You know full well why I'm here. As to who I am? That doesn't concern you at the moment. You can either give me what I came for, and live to see your bastard of a lover again; or you continue to resist and leave me no choice but to take it by force. In which case you will most assuredly not live to see the genuine article ever again."
He stepped forward to her, and removed his wand from his pocket. He reached out with it, and prodded the diamond brooch she had around her neck, turning it over to see the backside. With a sneer, he flipped it back over.
"I thought I recognized that. How pathetic that he would give something so fine to a piece of common trash like you. It insults the memory of those fine women to have the name of a muggle loving whore engraved next to theirs."
"You're not fit to wear it!" Lucius hissed as he snatched the brooch off of her neck. The latching mechanism must have come undone in their struggles, because the pin pierced his hand deeply and made him cry out in rage. Mira tried again to snatch for the handbag but he slung her around and onto the bed, wand pointed directly at her chest. He tossed the brooch onto the ground and wiped the blood off of his hand onto his trousers.
"I am quite through with your histrionics, Mira!"
Mira shielded her face with her hands as the jet of red light shot out of his wand and impacted with her body. The stunning spell caused her to instantly fall unconscious. Lucius pocketed the wand and removed the coat, and draped it across the footboard of the bed. He sat next to Mira and stroked her cheek in a gesture, which would have been mistaken for a lover's tender caress under different circumstances. Checking the watch he carried in his trouser pocket, he saw that he had not much more than a quarter of an hour left before he would transform back to his normal appearance. But with Mira unconscious, he could either use the last dose of polyjuice potion, or dispense with the ruse altogether and continue on as himself however long he wanted.
He unhooked the waistband of the heavy crinoline and pulled it down over her hips and tossed it into the corner. Intrigued by the exoticness of her muggle style underpants and stockings, he lingered over them a bit longer than necessary. Most high born witches still wore old fashioned bloomers under their robes, and even many of the witch whores in Knockturn Alley wore them to cater to their old fashioned clients' tastes.
Eager to enjoy her in a body undamaged by injury; he quickly climbed onto the bed with her, parted her legs, and undid his trousers. But nothing was happening. As much as he wanted to take her, as she lay unconscious, he was not getting physically aroused. He couldn't understand why he wasn't able to perform. Impotence was not supposed to be a side effect of the polyjuice potion. He had never experienced it before, the other times he had taken it for pleasure. Frustrated, he buttoned the trousers and began to pace across the room, nervously running his fingers through his hair.
Lucius decided that there must have been a flaw with the potion. After all, his eyes had failed to fully transform. The flaw must be preventing him from achieving arousal. He would wait out the transformation back to his own body and settle for having her that way. He felt the first stages of regression, and sat down on the bed while the uncomfortable sinking feeling passed. Back in his normal body, he tried to consummate the act again, without luck.
He tried every virility charm and lust spell he could think of, but nothing had any effect whatsoever. He finally decided that since he had another dose of the potion and enough hair to transform once again, he could simply wipe her memory and come back another time, after he found out what was wrong with the potion. Distracted and unfocused from the disturbing turn of events, he performed a piss-poor example of the Obliviate curse and gathered his things to leave. After dressing, he limped from the bedroom, looking back over his shoulder with a look of contempt on his face.
Lucius disapparated back to the carriage, where he found his groundskeeper and driver asleep in the cabin, snoring. He blasted the man awake with a hex, and hurled him out of the cabin of the carriage with a curse. Rubbing his elbow, the man struggled to his feet, and bowed in apology to his master. Lucius climbed clumsily into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. Within a matter of seconds, the carriage was back at the servants' entrance of the Malfoy's large house. Lucius flung the door open, and blasted the back door of the house open with his wand. He limped unsteadily through the house, swearing with rage, and to his bedchambers where he slammed the door forcefully behind him.
In her room, Narcissa heard the slamming and screaming and tucked her blanket to her chin, snickering like a naughty schoolgirl. She had sent her maid to sabotage the polyjuice potion that morning, as she had no doubts that Lucius would use the potion for sexual conquest, despite his promise not to do so. Cassie paid dearly for the scheme, but Narcissa had already compensated her dearly with a large purse of gold galleons and a couple of her old silk robes.