FIC: Compliance Issues - Hermione/Sirius - (MA) - 23/?
Disclaimer and previous parts can be found at my archive.
The lovely thing about transfiguring clothing was that it was easily charmed, and the secondary magic usually got a better grasp on the fabric because of the foundation that had already been set down.
For instance: the too-tight bodice was likely to be gone the second Sirius started trying to undress her.
She'd charmed an easy release onto each of the buttons down the back - something she would have to reverse after they sated the lust potion and were forced back into the company of prying eyes, but for now was perfect.
His large hands slid up and down her back, holding and clutching where they could and, just as she'd thought . . .
His lips and tongue pulled away from hers in surprise. Then he grinned like the rogue he was.
“Like to plan ahead, don't you?”
He kissed her again, his nimble fingers making quick work of pushing the dress down and off her body.
Good thing, too. The not-so-dimwitted-after-all Ministry official had allowed them use of the room they'd essentially been poisoned in to consummate their marriage, but given the size of the audience they'd been legally wed in front of, it was unlikely that they had much time.
Her train of thought was broken and she shivered as Sirius nuzzled her neck while proving that clothing removal wasn't the only thing his fingers could do well.
“I want to mark you,” he half-whispered, the sound of what little voice he used coming across gravelly and desperate.
He kneaded one of her breasts while he plucked and pinched at one of her nipples, keeping her too incoherent to respond.
She imagined that was probably his plan.
It was a good one.
She reached down and unbuttoned his trousers, raising a leg and using her foot to nudge the material into falling down.
He quickly kicked them off.
He'd come prepared as well, apparently.
Randy bastard.
“I know it'll piss off pretty much everyone we know, but . . .”
His teeth dragged along the smooth, sensitive skin of her neck, and then his tongue traced the trail, flickering past the imaginary line so it could tease the spot just behind her ear.
Hermione whimpered as the Ministry's lust potion made the sensation tweak every nerve in her body and multiplied it tenfold. Sirius, not immune to the potion's effects himself, took the tiny noise as encouragement for him to do what he felt was necessary to help slake the artificial ardor.
His teeth didn't scrape the column of her neck this time, they dug into it, and the sharp yet pleasurable sting of them doing so very nearly sent her over the edge.
He sucked the area he'd clamped off, and altered the movements of his hands so every roll and tug of her nipple countered the rhythm with which he was feasting on her neck.
She was fighting sensory overload as it was, and when she felt his knee press between her legs to let her ride his thigh, she was lost.
The sound that slipped out of her throat was more of a whinge than a moan; a keening exhalation of breath that released along with the pressure her lust had managed to wind into a tight coil.
Her new husband growled and shoved her roughly back against the wall she'd already been partially leaning on. That action hadn't been hard enough to cause her bruising, but she suspected the strength with which he hoisted her up to wrap her legs around his waist might.
Fuck!
He kissed her again and awkwardly helped hold her up with a single hand while he positioned himself at the apex of her thighs. Had they been a normal couple kicking off their honeymoon early, that probably would have been the point at which they would have exchanged sappy 'I love you's - or perhaps even shorter terms of endearment considering how far along in their activities they were.
But they were not a normal newly-wedded couple, and that reminder was driven home rather sharply as he thrust into her and pulled her hips down to him at the same time.
She screamed.
There was plenty of lubrication from her climax, but he was well-endowed (which probably explained a good portion of his arrogance, she thought) and the sudden push that filled her wasn't something any amount of foreplay could have prepared her for.
He grunted and leaned her back again to use the wall as leverage.
“Did you do this with him?”
“ . . . What?”
What?
“Anubis,” he said, his breathing hard because of the rate of his pistoning. “When he borrowed my body.”
A few more thrusts passed before he opened his mouth to continue, but she didn't need to hear his voice to know what he was going to say.
His demeanor shouted that he was angry.
No, not angry, Hermione thought. Jealous.
Gods.
The Ministry's combination of lust potions and ancient fidelity charms must have sparked some buried animal instinct in him. There was no other explanation.
“Sirius.”
“Did you?” he demanded. “Did you let him fuck you up against a wall? Did you-”
She could have gotten defensive. He certainly would have deserved it. She'd had sex with a grand total of two people in her life - three if one counted Anubis, even though he'd been using someone else's body - and she knew for a fact that Sirius couldn't claim numbers nearly that low.
Well, she supposed, maybe not for a fact, but there was more than enough damning circumstantial evidence to suggest he'd made his way through most of the witches in his year at Hogwarts, and quite probably many in other years as well.
He had no right to suddenly start acting like a jealous barbarian when she had been far more selective about whom she slept with than he had.
Of course, that could be the problem.
She had fancied herself in love with Harry before, during, and after they'd been together, and Anubis, if the so-called prophecy was correct, was the man she was destined to spend eternity in the afterlife with.
But she didn't love Sirius.
And he knew it.
He'd died after spending almost a third of a wizard's lifetime seeking and failing to find the love his parents had refused him, and the insecurity that built from that didn't just go away with death.
Or with resurrection, apparently.
So she made a concerted effort not to get defensive; not to get angry.
And she kissed him.
His muffled 'mmph' turned into an 'mmm' with a swipe of her tongue along the open seam of his mouth, and the maneuver served to distract him, just as she'd hoped it would. He still wore a glazed expression when she finally pulled away.
She'd taken over the rhythm of their lovemaking, grinding the lower half of her body against his in an up and down motion that she needed just as much as he did, but when he snapped out of whatever waking dream-like state he'd been experiencing, he growled and started thrusting again full-force.
He didn't last much longer, but she couldn't hold it against him since he'd already made her climax once, and his wicked fingers immediately searched for (and found!) her clit after he spilled his release inside her.
She trembled and jerked against him, her back nearly bleeding from scraping it on the wall over and over again. She was panting by the time he finally lowered her to the ground, and she whinged deep in her throat when she realized that the lust and the need to act on it were still thrumming through her veins.
Bugger.
She'd been hoping to avoid adding more ritual bindings to their already volatile relationship, but there was no way around it, she supposed. She was going to have to trade more of her freedom away for her sanity.
She desperately hoped it wasn't the wrong decision.
“Bite me,” she rasped after she let her body give into its exhaustion and crumple to the floor.
He followed her lead, only his transition to the ground was significantly more graceful. He hovered over her, arms shaking from his expended effort. “I did.”
Hermione shook her head.
Well, lolled it from side to side, anyway. It was the best she could do under the circumstances.
“Draw blood. Swallow it.” She watched as his eyes grew wide. “I'll have to do the same to you. A blood binding is the only way to counteract the lust potion they gave us without the antidote, and I sincerely doubt they're going to offer us any of that.”
His breath released in one fell swoop and he rolled off to her side to lie on his back with one arm stretch back and up above his head. “Fuck.”
“Agreed.”
He turned onto his side to face her. “Blood, sex, and magic, Hermione. If we do this, you're almost certain to get pregnant, regardless of how much longer your contraceptive potion is supposed to work.”
She closed her eyes. She knew that. She also knew that she wasn't ready to have a baby. Unfortunately, she also knew that they had a room packed with people waiting for them to come up for breath and return to the modest reception; people who would not appreciate a live sex show, no matter how good of an excuse she and Sirius would have for providing them with one.
She swallowed thickly. “Not necessarily. There's a smaller risk of that than there is of our friends disowning us if we go back in there unable to keep our lust under control.”
He grinned. “Alright, then.” He reached out to let his hand trail over the sweat-slicked skin of her stomach and hip. “Where do you want me to bite you?”
She laughed. “Merlin, you're lascivious. With that husky voice of yours, you make it sound as if you're getting off on the idea.”
He said nothing. But then, he didn't need to. His smirk said it all.
~*~*~
It hadn't been a wedding; it had been a farce of epic proportions.
Not that he'd come to expect anything less from the Ministry.
They'd been the ones to come up with the ridiculous idea of a Marriage Law in the first place, after all.
Lucius scoffed derisively to himself and then scanned the crowd again with a searching gaze. There was something to be said for the anonymity a large gathering provided, but he wasn't convinced that it made up for the fact that his prey had been swallowed up by a sea of strangers, making the limited time he had at the event all the more precious.
Polyjuice potion had a limited period of effectiveness, and if he wanted to get the job done and get out before it wore off (and his plans were shot to hell by people recognizing him) then he needed to move through the swarm the second he caught a glimpse of the happy couple.
His upper lip pulled into a snarl, but thankfully no one was paying him any mind. No, they were all mingling or conglomerating around . . . ah.
There they were.
It was unfortunate that Miss Granger - for he refused to refer to her by her married name when the union he'd just witnessed wouldn't be lasting very long - and her blood traitor, abomination of a husband were at the far end of the thickest throng, but given his luck lately, it wasn't all that surprising.
One person right after another was nudged aside as he maneuvered his way through the side of the crowd, so as not to draw too much attention to himself.
It was, he thought, an absolutely disgusting display of gullibility, that so many people believed what they read in the papers, and had shown up to the wedding in an effort to bask in the power they thought Miss Granger possessed.
He didn't question how they'd known the date and time of the travesty the Ministry called a wedding. The Bureau for Magical Repopulation wasn't solely comprised of the Ministry employees he had in his pocket, and it wasn't an unreasonable stretch to assume that the members he didn't own already belonged to others.
Lucius scowled and let the blade that he'd been concealing in his sleeve drop down so its handle rested in his grasp.
Three inches . . . five . . .
Damn.
Vampires.
The inner ring of the mob was comprised of vampires.
And two Sidhe.
Fuck.
Vampires were one thing. They were powerful, but their strengths were in mind manipulation and brute force; things that could easily be overcome by a wizard who'd made a point out of developing defenses against those very things.
Sidhe, on the other hand, possessed magic beyond what he could counter. If he came too near either one of them, they might be able to sense his mal-intent and then, whether he was still under the Polyjuice disguise or not, his plan would be for naught.
Four feet.
Four bloody feet from his target and he was going to allow his plan to be thwarted by the presence of a couple of fairies?
Absolutely not!
He took another step forward, but found he could move no further than that, the air in the room suddenly too thick for him to even breath.
No.
No!
Not now!
Not when he was so close!
Cluster by cluster, the human guests began to drop to their knees, mouths agape in surprise, but there was too much pressure on their lungs for any sound to come out of them.
Out of most of them, anyway.
“Foul . . . beast . . . demon . . . not welcome . . . here,” he heard the official Ministry representative choke out before crumbling to the floor.
He'd remained standing longer than he would have thought - longer than him - but perhaps his employers had given him something to help counteract Greater Magics.
Pity they hadn't been smart enough to plan for gods.
Not that there was anything they would have been able to do.
Hermione's sigh echoed through the now silent room. “Actually, he is,” she told the official. “I invited him.” She turned her attention back to the semi-transparent being whose power made him look like he was aglow. “Although, I didn't think you would come.”
“Told you,” a man's voice muttered. It came from right next to her, so Lucius imagined it was none other than Sirius Black.
How the devil was he still able to talk?
The falcon-headed deity grinned and if he could have, Lucius would have whimpered at the sight of it.
“There is cake. I used to love cake.”
Hermione let out a short chuff. “You can't have any.”
“Poor hostess, you are.”
“I meant because you don't have a fully corporeal body.”
Prattle.
Sweet Nimue.
He was mere feet from accomplishing the first step in his plan and he couldn't do it because he'd been forced to the ground by an Egyptian god showing up and indulging in mindless prattle with the bride.
He'd known that his luck had taken a turn for the worse some time ago, but he'd had no idea it had reached the point where fate was openly willing to mock him.
“I could borrow one,” Horus suggested.
Lucius was certain that he wasn't the only one whose eyes widened into a terrified stare. It was doubtful that Miss Granger, with her unique take on morals, would let the deity do such a thing, but she'd surprised him before, and it would definitely fall in line with the theme of his having dreadful luck that evening.
However, with that theme, he might very well be the one chosen as Horus's conduit.
. . . And he really shouldn't have thought that.
Bugger.
~*~*~
“An impostor?”
Sirius furrowed his brow at the Sidhe who'd spoken. She sounded confused. So was he - by her comment.
Since it had come out of nowhere.
“Impostor?” Hermione asked, cutting her banter with Horus short to do so.
Brilliant.
He was going to have start trying that any time one of the gods showed up; just throwing out statements or questions that didn't make any sense to draw his wife's attention away from unwelcome Egyptian deities.
Circe knew nothing else seemed to work.
The Sidhe motioned to one of the guests who had collapsed to the floor and Hermione stifled a gasp.
He stifled a growl . . . although, admittedly, not very well.
“Malfoy! What the hell do you think you're doing here?”
“He was a different man before,” the elf noted impassively.
He was a . . . Polyjuice. Oh, that filthy, underhanded . . .
His thought dissipated the second he saw the blade right in front of Lucius's hand on the ground.
As if he'd dropped it.
Sirius narrowed his eyes and moved to kick it out of the man's reach.
“A knife?” Hermione asked.
She sounded more angry than surprised and he couldn't help but smirk. There would be no cell in Azkaban for the blond wizard, but this time it wouldn't be because he would bribe the right people to keep his freedom. This time it would be because Hermione had finally reached the end of her patience with the pillock and would enact vengeance on her own.
She gnashed her teeth at the man in a feral snarl, but she did not change into her Animagus form to teach him a lesson like Sirius was privately rooting for.
Instead, she glanced at Horus. “How do I do it?”
Sirius blinked. How did she do what?
“You said you looked forward to me breaking apart his soul and scattering it on the wind. How do I do it?”
Scatter his . . . ?
Whoa.
Horus's smug little grin somehow managed to scare him even more than Hermione's question had.
Probably because it looked like he had every intention of answering her.
“Touch the palm of your hand to his cheek.”
She crouched down to do so.
“Good. Now close your eyes and picture his body and soul separating. Channel the energy you feel, his Ka, into your palm . . .”
His heart started beating triple-time. “Hermione, don't do this.”
“He's never going to leave us be, Sirius. He brought a knife!”
“Then kill him quick and clean. Let Anubis deal with his soul.”
He harbored no fondness for Lucius Malfoy, but his memories of the Dementors at Azkaban - and Hogwarts - doing the same thing Horus was trying to teach his wife to do (except for releasing the soul afterward, of course) was more than he could handle witnessing.
She sucked in a hiss and then pressed her hand harder against Lucius's face. But she wasn't trying to drain him anymore. Sirius wasn't sure how he could tell the difference, but he could.
In retrospect, it was probably the blood bond that allowed him to feel her magic, but he thought it best not to mention it just then.
Lucius gasped and shuddered as the small bit of soul she'd removed from him sank back under his skin.
Hermione was shaking, too; it was just a slight tremble, but from the emotions he felt through their fresh bond, it appeared to be from her horror over almost taking a life in a truly horrible way rather than anger at being stopped.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
It was difficult enough to accept that he'd married a goddess.
He would have hated to find out she was a monster, too.
tbc
The lovely thing about transfiguring clothing was that it was easily charmed, and the secondary magic usually got a better grasp on the fabric because of the foundation that had already been set down.
For instance: the too-tight bodice was likely to be gone the second Sirius started trying to undress her.
She'd charmed an easy release onto each of the buttons down the back - something she would have to reverse after they sated the lust potion and were forced back into the company of prying eyes, but for now was perfect.
His large hands slid up and down her back, holding and clutching where they could and, just as she'd thought . . .
His lips and tongue pulled away from hers in surprise. Then he grinned like the rogue he was.
“Like to plan ahead, don't you?”
He kissed her again, his nimble fingers making quick work of pushing the dress down and off her body.
Good thing, too. The not-so-dimwitted-after-all Ministry official had allowed them use of the room they'd essentially been poisoned in to consummate their marriage, but given the size of the audience they'd been legally wed in front of, it was unlikely that they had much time.
Her train of thought was broken and she shivered as Sirius nuzzled her neck while proving that clothing removal wasn't the only thing his fingers could do well.
“I want to mark you,” he half-whispered, the sound of what little voice he used coming across gravelly and desperate.
He kneaded one of her breasts while he plucked and pinched at one of her nipples, keeping her too incoherent to respond.
She imagined that was probably his plan.
It was a good one.
She reached down and unbuttoned his trousers, raising a leg and using her foot to nudge the material into falling down.
He quickly kicked them off.
He'd come prepared as well, apparently.
Randy bastard.
“I know it'll piss off pretty much everyone we know, but . . .”
His teeth dragged along the smooth, sensitive skin of her neck, and then his tongue traced the trail, flickering past the imaginary line so it could tease the spot just behind her ear.
Hermione whimpered as the Ministry's lust potion made the sensation tweak every nerve in her body and multiplied it tenfold. Sirius, not immune to the potion's effects himself, took the tiny noise as encouragement for him to do what he felt was necessary to help slake the artificial ardor.
His teeth didn't scrape the column of her neck this time, they dug into it, and the sharp yet pleasurable sting of them doing so very nearly sent her over the edge.
He sucked the area he'd clamped off, and altered the movements of his hands so every roll and tug of her nipple countered the rhythm with which he was feasting on her neck.
She was fighting sensory overload as it was, and when she felt his knee press between her legs to let her ride his thigh, she was lost.
The sound that slipped out of her throat was more of a whinge than a moan; a keening exhalation of breath that released along with the pressure her lust had managed to wind into a tight coil.
Her new husband growled and shoved her roughly back against the wall she'd already been partially leaning on. That action hadn't been hard enough to cause her bruising, but she suspected the strength with which he hoisted her up to wrap her legs around his waist might.
Fuck!
He kissed her again and awkwardly helped hold her up with a single hand while he positioned himself at the apex of her thighs. Had they been a normal couple kicking off their honeymoon early, that probably would have been the point at which they would have exchanged sappy 'I love you's - or perhaps even shorter terms of endearment considering how far along in their activities they were.
But they were not a normal newly-wedded couple, and that reminder was driven home rather sharply as he thrust into her and pulled her hips down to him at the same time.
She screamed.
There was plenty of lubrication from her climax, but he was well-endowed (which probably explained a good portion of his arrogance, she thought) and the sudden push that filled her wasn't something any amount of foreplay could have prepared her for.
He grunted and leaned her back again to use the wall as leverage.
“Did you do this with him?”
“ . . . What?”
What?
“Anubis,” he said, his breathing hard because of the rate of his pistoning. “When he borrowed my body.”
A few more thrusts passed before he opened his mouth to continue, but she didn't need to hear his voice to know what he was going to say.
His demeanor shouted that he was angry.
No, not angry, Hermione thought. Jealous.
Gods.
The Ministry's combination of lust potions and ancient fidelity charms must have sparked some buried animal instinct in him. There was no other explanation.
“Sirius.”
“Did you?” he demanded. “Did you let him fuck you up against a wall? Did you-”
She could have gotten defensive. He certainly would have deserved it. She'd had sex with a grand total of two people in her life - three if one counted Anubis, even though he'd been using someone else's body - and she knew for a fact that Sirius couldn't claim numbers nearly that low.
Well, she supposed, maybe not for a fact, but there was more than enough damning circumstantial evidence to suggest he'd made his way through most of the witches in his year at Hogwarts, and quite probably many in other years as well.
He had no right to suddenly start acting like a jealous barbarian when she had been far more selective about whom she slept with than he had.
Of course, that could be the problem.
She had fancied herself in love with Harry before, during, and after they'd been together, and Anubis, if the so-called prophecy was correct, was the man she was destined to spend eternity in the afterlife with.
But she didn't love Sirius.
And he knew it.
He'd died after spending almost a third of a wizard's lifetime seeking and failing to find the love his parents had refused him, and the insecurity that built from that didn't just go away with death.
Or with resurrection, apparently.
So she made a concerted effort not to get defensive; not to get angry.
And she kissed him.
His muffled 'mmph' turned into an 'mmm' with a swipe of her tongue along the open seam of his mouth, and the maneuver served to distract him, just as she'd hoped it would. He still wore a glazed expression when she finally pulled away.
She'd taken over the rhythm of their lovemaking, grinding the lower half of her body against his in an up and down motion that she needed just as much as he did, but when he snapped out of whatever waking dream-like state he'd been experiencing, he growled and started thrusting again full-force.
He didn't last much longer, but she couldn't hold it against him since he'd already made her climax once, and his wicked fingers immediately searched for (and found!) her clit after he spilled his release inside her.
She trembled and jerked against him, her back nearly bleeding from scraping it on the wall over and over again. She was panting by the time he finally lowered her to the ground, and she whinged deep in her throat when she realized that the lust and the need to act on it were still thrumming through her veins.
Bugger.
She'd been hoping to avoid adding more ritual bindings to their already volatile relationship, but there was no way around it, she supposed. She was going to have to trade more of her freedom away for her sanity.
She desperately hoped it wasn't the wrong decision.
“Bite me,” she rasped after she let her body give into its exhaustion and crumple to the floor.
He followed her lead, only his transition to the ground was significantly more graceful. He hovered over her, arms shaking from his expended effort. “I did.”
Hermione shook her head.
Well, lolled it from side to side, anyway. It was the best she could do under the circumstances.
“Draw blood. Swallow it.” She watched as his eyes grew wide. “I'll have to do the same to you. A blood binding is the only way to counteract the lust potion they gave us without the antidote, and I sincerely doubt they're going to offer us any of that.”
His breath released in one fell swoop and he rolled off to her side to lie on his back with one arm stretch back and up above his head. “Fuck.”
“Agreed.”
He turned onto his side to face her. “Blood, sex, and magic, Hermione. If we do this, you're almost certain to get pregnant, regardless of how much longer your contraceptive potion is supposed to work.”
She closed her eyes. She knew that. She also knew that she wasn't ready to have a baby. Unfortunately, she also knew that they had a room packed with people waiting for them to come up for breath and return to the modest reception; people who would not appreciate a live sex show, no matter how good of an excuse she and Sirius would have for providing them with one.
She swallowed thickly. “Not necessarily. There's a smaller risk of that than there is of our friends disowning us if we go back in there unable to keep our lust under control.”
He grinned. “Alright, then.” He reached out to let his hand trail over the sweat-slicked skin of her stomach and hip. “Where do you want me to bite you?”
She laughed. “Merlin, you're lascivious. With that husky voice of yours, you make it sound as if you're getting off on the idea.”
He said nothing. But then, he didn't need to. His smirk said it all.
~*~*~
It hadn't been a wedding; it had been a farce of epic proportions.
Not that he'd come to expect anything less from the Ministry.
They'd been the ones to come up with the ridiculous idea of a Marriage Law in the first place, after all.
Lucius scoffed derisively to himself and then scanned the crowd again with a searching gaze. There was something to be said for the anonymity a large gathering provided, but he wasn't convinced that it made up for the fact that his prey had been swallowed up by a sea of strangers, making the limited time he had at the event all the more precious.
Polyjuice potion had a limited period of effectiveness, and if he wanted to get the job done and get out before it wore off (and his plans were shot to hell by people recognizing him) then he needed to move through the swarm the second he caught a glimpse of the happy couple.
His upper lip pulled into a snarl, but thankfully no one was paying him any mind. No, they were all mingling or conglomerating around . . . ah.
There they were.
It was unfortunate that Miss Granger - for he refused to refer to her by her married name when the union he'd just witnessed wouldn't be lasting very long - and her blood traitor, abomination of a husband were at the far end of the thickest throng, but given his luck lately, it wasn't all that surprising.
One person right after another was nudged aside as he maneuvered his way through the side of the crowd, so as not to draw too much attention to himself.
It was, he thought, an absolutely disgusting display of gullibility, that so many people believed what they read in the papers, and had shown up to the wedding in an effort to bask in the power they thought Miss Granger possessed.
He didn't question how they'd known the date and time of the travesty the Ministry called a wedding. The Bureau for Magical Repopulation wasn't solely comprised of the Ministry employees he had in his pocket, and it wasn't an unreasonable stretch to assume that the members he didn't own already belonged to others.
Lucius scowled and let the blade that he'd been concealing in his sleeve drop down so its handle rested in his grasp.
Three inches . . . five . . .
Damn.
Vampires.
The inner ring of the mob was comprised of vampires.
And two Sidhe.
Fuck.
Vampires were one thing. They were powerful, but their strengths were in mind manipulation and brute force; things that could easily be overcome by a wizard who'd made a point out of developing defenses against those very things.
Sidhe, on the other hand, possessed magic beyond what he could counter. If he came too near either one of them, they might be able to sense his mal-intent and then, whether he was still under the Polyjuice disguise or not, his plan would be for naught.
Four feet.
Four bloody feet from his target and he was going to allow his plan to be thwarted by the presence of a couple of fairies?
Absolutely not!
He took another step forward, but found he could move no further than that, the air in the room suddenly too thick for him to even breath.
No.
No!
Not now!
Not when he was so close!
Cluster by cluster, the human guests began to drop to their knees, mouths agape in surprise, but there was too much pressure on their lungs for any sound to come out of them.
Out of most of them, anyway.
“Foul . . . beast . . . demon . . . not welcome . . . here,” he heard the official Ministry representative choke out before crumbling to the floor.
He'd remained standing longer than he would have thought - longer than him - but perhaps his employers had given him something to help counteract Greater Magics.
Pity they hadn't been smart enough to plan for gods.
Not that there was anything they would have been able to do.
Hermione's sigh echoed through the now silent room. “Actually, he is,” she told the official. “I invited him.” She turned her attention back to the semi-transparent being whose power made him look like he was aglow. “Although, I didn't think you would come.”
“Told you,” a man's voice muttered. It came from right next to her, so Lucius imagined it was none other than Sirius Black.
How the devil was he still able to talk?
The falcon-headed deity grinned and if he could have, Lucius would have whimpered at the sight of it.
“There is cake. I used to love cake.”
Hermione let out a short chuff. “You can't have any.”
“Poor hostess, you are.”
“I meant because you don't have a fully corporeal body.”
Prattle.
Sweet Nimue.
He was mere feet from accomplishing the first step in his plan and he couldn't do it because he'd been forced to the ground by an Egyptian god showing up and indulging in mindless prattle with the bride.
He'd known that his luck had taken a turn for the worse some time ago, but he'd had no idea it had reached the point where fate was openly willing to mock him.
“I could borrow one,” Horus suggested.
Lucius was certain that he wasn't the only one whose eyes widened into a terrified stare. It was doubtful that Miss Granger, with her unique take on morals, would let the deity do such a thing, but she'd surprised him before, and it would definitely fall in line with the theme of his having dreadful luck that evening.
However, with that theme, he might very well be the one chosen as Horus's conduit.
. . . And he really shouldn't have thought that.
Bugger.
~*~*~
“An impostor?”
Sirius furrowed his brow at the Sidhe who'd spoken. She sounded confused. So was he - by her comment.
Since it had come out of nowhere.
“Impostor?” Hermione asked, cutting her banter with Horus short to do so.
Brilliant.
He was going to have start trying that any time one of the gods showed up; just throwing out statements or questions that didn't make any sense to draw his wife's attention away from unwelcome Egyptian deities.
Circe knew nothing else seemed to work.
The Sidhe motioned to one of the guests who had collapsed to the floor and Hermione stifled a gasp.
He stifled a growl . . . although, admittedly, not very well.
“Malfoy! What the hell do you think you're doing here?”
“He was a different man before,” the elf noted impassively.
He was a . . . Polyjuice. Oh, that filthy, underhanded . . .
His thought dissipated the second he saw the blade right in front of Lucius's hand on the ground.
As if he'd dropped it.
Sirius narrowed his eyes and moved to kick it out of the man's reach.
“A knife?” Hermione asked.
She sounded more angry than surprised and he couldn't help but smirk. There would be no cell in Azkaban for the blond wizard, but this time it wouldn't be because he would bribe the right people to keep his freedom. This time it would be because Hermione had finally reached the end of her patience with the pillock and would enact vengeance on her own.
She gnashed her teeth at the man in a feral snarl, but she did not change into her Animagus form to teach him a lesson like Sirius was privately rooting for.
Instead, she glanced at Horus. “How do I do it?”
Sirius blinked. How did she do what?
“You said you looked forward to me breaking apart his soul and scattering it on the wind. How do I do it?”
Scatter his . . . ?
Whoa.
Horus's smug little grin somehow managed to scare him even more than Hermione's question had.
Probably because it looked like he had every intention of answering her.
“Touch the palm of your hand to his cheek.”
She crouched down to do so.
“Good. Now close your eyes and picture his body and soul separating. Channel the energy you feel, his Ka, into your palm . . .”
His heart started beating triple-time. “Hermione, don't do this.”
“He's never going to leave us be, Sirius. He brought a knife!”
“Then kill him quick and clean. Let Anubis deal with his soul.”
He harbored no fondness for Lucius Malfoy, but his memories of the Dementors at Azkaban - and Hogwarts - doing the same thing Horus was trying to teach his wife to do (except for releasing the soul afterward, of course) was more than he could handle witnessing.
She sucked in a hiss and then pressed her hand harder against Lucius's face. But she wasn't trying to drain him anymore. Sirius wasn't sure how he could tell the difference, but he could.
In retrospect, it was probably the blood bond that allowed him to feel her magic, but he thought it best not to mention it just then.
Lucius gasped and shuddered as the small bit of soul she'd removed from him sank back under his skin.
Hermione was shaking, too; it was just a slight tremble, but from the emotions he felt through their fresh bond, it appeared to be from her horror over almost taking a life in a truly horrible way rather than anger at being stopped.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
It was difficult enough to accept that he'd married a goddess.
He would have hated to find out she was a monster, too.
tbc