Disclaimer: The only thing I own is Kuro.
A/N: Okay...I must say, you guys sure did panic at my question in the last chapter...lol. I do enjoy to watch you panic. First I want to say I have been nominated for "Best Author" for the Quill to Parchment round 2 awards. I'm listed under my other pen name from Granger Enchanted, "Ravenesque." Please go vote for me at awards (dot) quilltoparchment. (dot) com/index (dot) html. Please don't forget to review! Oh and just so you know my mother's vote on what to do with this fic was to have Lucius and Hermione together until toward the end when she has to kill him to save Kuro (who she ends up with). Isn't she evil?
Chapter Four
Fragrance
She wore a long flowing blood red dress. She could feel the soft material caressing the skin of her legs when she moved. She stood on a beach alone. The waves crashed slowly along the shore creating a soft soothing sound. As she looked around she noticed the black and white irises that seemed to appear out of no where along the beach by the houses. She turned circles looking around wondering how she got there.
He came out of the dark.
A tall figure stepped from the shadows of the night. She stood still watching him approach her with a look of determination, desire, and confidence. His dark eyes seemed to hold her in her place as she anticipated his approach. The front of his dark hair was tied back like a samurai. She felt her heart pounding wildly in her chest. The wind swept around her blowing the dress back exposing much of her leg from the high split in the fabric.
He stopped in front her. She could tell he was not English. He looked her up and down in a manner that normally would make her squirm uncomfortably, but this time she was squirming for other reasons…other desires this man brought about. The corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he took the sight of her in. He placed his first two fingers on her lips as if silencing anything she was about to say. Then slowly, sensually, he moved those fingers down from her lips, down her throat where she fought to swallow the lump in her throat, and along her collar bone and down her shoulder and arm. He whispered into the wind with a desirable husky voice.
"Ichi-go ichi-e…"
Hermione sat up, heart about to beat out of her chest—the panic beginning to rise. She couldn't explain that dream at all. She looked around her room. The early morning light was rising up and spilling into her room. She had this odd feeling. It was strange. It was like the fragrance of another presence in her room. It was just a hint of what was there. She felt that someone else had been in her room while she slept…watching over her.
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When Lucius found her she was standing in the middle of her room, wringing her hands and looking around quite vexed. He stood in the doorway observing her strange behavior for a moment. When she realized he was there she started slightly as proof to how jumpy she was so early in the morning.
It was as if she was frantically searching for something. She would suddenly move to one corner of the room and then another…searching. Lucius' eyes followed her slowly filling with concern.
"Miss Granger?"
She didn't respond to his voice.
"Miss Granger?"
Still nothing. She quickly moved to another corner searching.
Draco was passing by. He noticed Hermione's open door and his father. There was concern on his face…a kind of concern he couldn't remember seeing there before. He thought back to what Severus Snape had said to his father…what he had thrown in his father's face about his thought on Hermione Granger prior to being assigned protector. He had watched his father's cold indifference approach to the job and ignored the nagging feeling in his gut telling him it was an act…a cover up. Now, seeing the concern on his father's face as Hermione ignored his voice allowed it all to click in his mind. Draco stepped into the room.
"Hermione," he said not too loudly.
Lucius watched the young woman stop her incessant searching suddenly and turn toward his son. She marched right passed Lucius and grabbed Draco by the wrist pulling him toward the middle of her room as if he could see what she was ranting on about from there.
"Someone was in my room, Draco. Someone was here during the night."
Lucius looked at Hermione curiously as Draco's eyes danced between his father and the girl who by all appearances was about to go over the edge.
"Don't be ridiculous," Lucius said stepping forward. "No one can get in. You are safe here."
Hermione's eyes didn't leave Draco. When she spoke, she spoke to Draco as if he were the one that said it. She shook her head no.
"I can feel it, Draco. In the room. I can feel it. Someone was here."
Her eyes were wild, frantic…yearning for Draco to understand her.
"Perhaps you were dreaming, Miss Granger," Lucius responded despite the young woman's clear avoidance of him.
Hermione shook her head again, still looking at Draco as if he was the one that spoke.
"No. Draco, I fell asleep in the main room. I don't know how I got in here."
The accumulation of watching Hermione frantic in worry and fear, watching her incessant searching, hearing the sound of panic and desperation in her voice and her out and out refusal to acknowledge Lucius' presence finally snapped Lucius. He stepped forward, snatching Hermione around by her upper arms, forcing her to face him and acknowledge his presence.
"Look at me, Miss Granger! I am the one speaking to you!"
She didn't fight him. She looked up at him with wide fear filled eyes.
"I can feel it in the room…like a lingering fragrance," she whispered.
Lucius' cold grey eyes stared down into her warm ones. That was when he first noticed it…then with the fear and anxiety radiating from her pores. Hermione Granger was not some genderless robotic machine of courage and knowledge…she was human…she was a young woman who was in truth very frightened of her current situation, even without knowing about Kuro.
That sealed it for Lucius.
No matter what Hermione Granger could not know about Monogatari Kuro.
She couldn't know.
Draco watched fascinated and curious as his father's arm twitched slightly as if his internal struggle was showing itself physically. Draco stepped forward putting his hand on her shoulder. Lucius dropped his hands from her and she turned into his son's arms. Draco wrapped his arms around her trying to sooth her hysterics. When she was calmed down to a slight sniffle every now and then Draco looked up over Hermione's shoulder at his father's scowling face.
"See? It's not that hard to do, father."
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Hermione took a slow bite of food as she sat at the table on the veranda looking out over the back yard and the beach beyond that. What was wrong with her? She looked over the rim of her glass of pumpkin juice. The looks exchanged between the Malfoy men told her they didn't believe her. She was thankful to Draco for at least being comforting about it, but none the less they didn't believe her.
She couldn't make them understand. It was overwhelming as it was. The sounds in her head that weren't really sound. The overflowing amount of what could only be described as emotions…a myriad of them that created a clattering chaos in her mind. She dropped her fork onto her plate with a clank and grabbed her head wishing the noise gone.
"Miss Granger?"
She remained where she was at, holding her head.
Lucius took a chance.
"Hermione," he whispered.
Her hands dropped from her head and she looked up at Lucius. She had never heard him say her name before and it took her off guard.
"I…I just have a headache. I'm going to go lie down," she said quietly as she pushed her chair back from the table.
Draco and Lucius both watched quietly as she disappeared into the house and tossed herself down on the sofa. Once she appeared situated they turned back to their food. Draco took a drink of pumpkin juice observing his father's stoic face. Every now and then the stoicism would break and Draco would see the out right concern.
"She's been like this for days, father. Why pretend it doesn't concern you?"
Lucius slowly sat his fork down and glared at his son.
"It doesn't concern me," he stated simply.
Draco snorted.
"Please! You have been beside yourself for days not knowing what to do. You are so accustomed to fighting with Hermione…in fact you like it when she fights with you!"
Lucius' glare was not letting up.
"Draco," he said with a forced calm warning Draco.
Draco smirked at his father though and leaned on the table slightly.
"Aren't you a little old to be pulling a girl's pigtails though, father. Even I stopped doing that once I hit puberty."
Lucius ignored his son, turning his attention from the girl sleeping on the sofa back to the waves no longer rolling softly, but growing more violent. He couldn't remember any weather report stating a coming storm.
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He sat crouched on the floor. His long arms were wrapped around his head as if trying to keep something away…trying to protect his mind. He rocked back and forth and shook his head. He was in his room…where he was surrounded by her.
Oh how he hated it!
He was born into this.
He continued to rock back and forth overwhelmed by her presence. Her fragrance lingered on his skin…penetrating his flesh…his mind. He could feel her. It was like an addiction he could no longer get rid of the side effects from.
"Kuro, you can ease the pain," the feminine voice called from the gilded mirror.
He stopped his rocking and slowly his head rose from his knees, arms relinquishing their hold of him. He stared instently at the woman in the mirror. She was busy with her work as she looked down at a work table of sorts the mirror she had sat above. She looked up with a slight smile.
"Go to her, Kuro. The pain will subside for the time being."
Oriana suddenly turned, looking toward a door Kuro knew existed, but the vantage point of the mirror did not offer a view of it.
"Your mother beckons me." She sat a flask of some sort on the table and looked up at the mirror, this time no hint of a smile on her face. "Go, Kuro. This affects her as well…her blood stirs for you."
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She hadn't been right for days. Lucius watched her stir restlessly on the sofa. Night had fallen and with it came an increased anxiety in Hermione. His son's teasing words echoed in his mind.
Did he actually like the Mudblood?
Was that even possible?
Hermione stood up slowly from the sofa and wandered over to the glass wall. She stared out at the empty night wondering what was wrong with her. Her palms lay splayed on the glass as if she was reaching to touch something…something wholly out of her reach.
She saw him.
It was like a flash suddenly in the night.
A face on the other side of the glass.
She screamed and jumped back…right into Lucius. Startled at her sudden scream and movement, his hands immediately reached out and caught her before she fell in her quick attempt to thrust herself away from him. She didn't say thank you. Instead, she turned quickly, wide eyed.
"Did you see that?"
Lucius raised one eyebrow up in curiosity.
"See what?"
Her forehead scrunched up in upset.
"Someone was standing out there looking in," she said pointing to the glass wall.
Lucius looked toward the glass wall and then back to Hermione. She saw the concern in his eyes. It was new…foreign for her to see such a thing. Suddenly his hands reached out, sliding up her neck lifting her hair as he seemed to look at each side of her neck. Satisfied with what he saw, he dropped her hair and grabbed both her arms, observing her wrists.
The actions of Lucius Malfoy distracted Hermione from her current dilemma.
"What the bloody hell was that about," she asked.
Lucius's lips quirked into a smirk.
"Nothing for you to concern yourself with," he said.
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She dreamt again that night. The same mysterious man penetrated her dreams…a man she had never seen before. He was there though, in her dreams all through the night. As she dreamt of this dark man the warmth over came her once again…the sense of a presence, a protective presence. It sent chills down her spine and at the same time sent her heart beat through the roof.
Lucius Malfoy soon learned that when Hermione Granger was plagued by dreams…no matter how erotic they turned out to be, she was not exactly what one would call pleasant in the mornings. Lucius sat on one of the stools at the island counter in the kitchen amused by Hermione's dramatic pot and pan banging as she proceeded to cook breakfast.
Hermione was upset to say the least. The wanker, Malfoy still did not believe she saw anything outside the night before and any mention of a presence in her room earned her an almost amused look. She was not there for his entertainment!
"I'm not mad. Why can't you just listen to what I have to say!"
Lucius' lips quirked upward at the vexation in her voice. She stood across from him at the same island counter, mixing eggs together in a bowl. Lucius stood up and leaned over the counter closer to Hermione and eye level with her.
"I'll vote for mad if you don't mind."
Suddenly Hermione was seeing red. Everything from the smooth way his voice caressed her skin to the quirk of his lips when he smirked angered her beyond belief. Lucius saw the warning signs in her eyes…dancing like beacons of light, but ignorned it marveling in the thrill of watching her get angrier by the moment.
Hermione slammed the bowl down. Slipping her wand out of her pocket she sent eggs flying through the air like little fragile shelled bombs at his head. Lucius yelled out and ducked as several collided above his head, having just missed him, sending their insides sliding down like goo onto his pristine hair. As soon as the gooey mess slid onto his head, he turned angry eyes piercing her as if he could think her dead and she be so. With a quick flick of his wand, the flour that sat in another bowl in front of her acted as if a small explosion happened inside and flour went up into her face like a puff of smoke.
She was beyond seeing red. She stepped out from behind the counter as if she was a threatening presence closing in on Lucius. With a barely visible flick of her wand sausages that sat next to the stove flew through the air hitting Lucius one by one right on the forehead. Her mad laughter filled the kitchen.
Hermione saw him snap.
With nothing more for a warning than a mad glint in his eyes, Lucius dove forward. She moved to try to get out of his way, but even though he landed on the cold kitchen floor, his hand reached out grabbing her ankle and bringing her crashing to the ground. Even with her wand in her hand she scrambled to try to get away. Lucius now had a hold of both her ankles and used them like handles to pull her down or him up her…it all happened so fast she couldn't be sure which. All she knew was that suddenly Lucius Malfoy, covered in egg, was on top of her fighting to physically take the wand from her hand.
She squirmed. She kept moving the hand that held the wand as if she could keep it out of his reach.
"You…filthy…little…"
Lucius stopped what he was saying. His body suddenly became very aware that this young woman was underneath him writhing around on the ground…it didn't matter that it was an attempt to get away.
"You filthy little what, Lucius," Hermione said with a hint of mocking in her now guttural voice.
With a final growl that made one think of a war cry, Lucius grabbed the wrist of her wand hand and slammed it down on the ground above her head. She suddenly stilled…looking at Malfoy above her, hovering as if contemplating what to do. She felt her heart beating madly against her chest. She couldn't be sure why and didn't want to think about it. There was a strange shift in his icy eyes before his head started to duck down closer to hers. His hair, not in his usual black tie, fell around them like a silky curtain. Hermione felt her fingers loosen and heard her wand roll from her hand. Her breathing became more erratic the closer Lucius got. It was maddening.
"Lucius, would you mind kindly GETTING OFF my Little Princess?"
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The Death Eaters watched him slowly cut the raw meat he ate every night. The vampire sitting at the end of the table, with a fancy place setting, with several vampires behind him was enough to intimidate anyone. Rabastan shivered slightly.
As if his presence alone isn't enough.
Kuro's dark eyes looked up at the Death Eaters as he took a drink of the red liquid from the fancy goblet. Rabastan looked nervously as his brother. How could Rodolphus ask any question that appeared to question Kuro's ability?
Kuro slowly wiped his mouth with the burgundy napkin before setting it in his plate and slowly standing up. He was quite tall. A smirk spread onto Kuro's mouth as he looked up over the top of his eyes at the now nervous Rodolphus. Slowly, achingly slow, Kuro stepped closer to Rodolphus.
"I can not just 'go get her' as you so eloquently put it."
Kuro stepped closer, leaning over into Rodolphus' ear and despite the sense of a whisper everyone in the room heard him.
"You are ignorant of my abilities in comparison to yourself and to an ordinary vampire it seems. My Deadly Nightshade must want to come with me. Only one thing will allow me to 'go get her' without her desire."
Rabastan closed his eyes at the stupidity of his brother as Rodolphus fell for the bait and asked the question.
"W-what would that be?"
Kuro's laughter sent an odd sensation through the Death Eaters.
"Once I drink from her…just a nip will do, I take her if I so choose because she will be mine."
The double doors of the dining room opened. The vampire with the glasses stood there. He pushed his glasses up as he waited for Kuro to stop playing with the Death Eaters. Kuro's eyes shifted from Rodolphus to the vampire and straightened up.
"Yes, Oji. What is it?"
The vampire looked amused at the frightened Death Eaters in front of his nephew.
"Oriana is calling for you."
Kuro's eyes grew wide only momentarily before he shoved the Death Eaters out of his way and made his way down the corridor with long quick strides. The room, instantly recognizing him opened for him immediately and closed behind him upon his entrance. His dark fathomless eyes turned toward the gilded mirror. Grabbing the mirror by the edges he peered in to it at Oriana. The grip he held on the mirror, a sign of his desperation, was unseen by Oriana.
"She's the one, Kuro."
"How do you know for sure," he asked not wanting this to be another dead end—he was ready to end it all.
Oriana smiled sweetly at him…as he often remembered her doing when he was a child.
The stone, Kuro…your stone…it burns like fire."
A/N: a little info to help with this chapter:
Ichi-go ichi-e: this is something you usually hear from tea masters. In the jdrama "Hana Yori Dango" you often hear Matsuda Shota's character Soujiroh (whose family owns a major tea house franchise) say this phrase when trying to pick women up or simply to refer to a situation as a "once in a lifetime moment." (Lord, is he sexy when he says this, but that's beside the point).
Oji means "uncle"
Oh, one more thing: LadyLynn once asked if all my chapter titles were the name of songs. Most of them are and this one is, but it's not an English song. The song "Frangrance" is a jrock song by Gackt. You can find a performance of this song on Veoh dot com. The title will say "Frangrance Live--Kagen no Tsuki--Gackt. Gackt is a naughty naughty boy during this perfomance and absolutely loves his mic stand. lol
Okay, please don't forget to review and please go vote for me!