mybackup2022 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mybackup2022) wrote2008-08-03 07:18 pm
mybackup2022) wrote2008-08-03 07:18 pm
Next ficlet -- Strings Attached
For fodirteg. Beware, there be fluff.
And now I'll stop writing, or there will be nothing left for tomorrow ;-)
fodirteg. Beware, there be fluff. And now I'll stop writing, or there will be nothing left for tomorrow ;-)
STRINGS ATTACHED
‘Call me childish,’ Lucius Malfoy said to his friend of old Severus Snape, who recently had also become his lover, ‘but I just adore it when they go all uptight and puritan. Those two-faced bastards,’ he added and offered the paper to Severus.
Severus gave him a lopsided smile, sat down and grabbed the Daily Prophet. ‘What are they writing now? “Innocent schoolgirl…” Oh, she won’t like that a bit!’
‘No, she certainly won’t. Speaking of her, where is the supreme goddess and mistress of our hearts?’
‘Still asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up.’
Lucius grinned. ‘So you think we’ve tired her out?’
‘We may well have.’ Severus helped himself to coffee. A smile of pure bliss lit his face after the first sip. ‘Ah, coffee, ambrosia of mortals. Listen, Lucius, do you think she’s going to weather this storm with us?’
‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Lucius replied, shrugging.
‘Because good sex may be a wonderful thing, but it might not be worth her future.’
‘Don’t be silly, Severus. Her future isn’t at stake, you know that as well as I do. People are so quick to forget – give it a couple of months, and the whole scandal will have blown over.’
Severus refilled his cup and tapped the newspaper. ‘You know that, Lucius, and I know that, because we have the advantage of being twenty years older. But she’s so very young-‘
‘And so very tight,’ Lucius interrupted him. ‘You know that I’m almost tempted to try some of that filthy lust potion you told me about? I could fuck her for hours on end.’
‘So could I. But that’s neither here nor there. Hermione, let’s be honest, is a young witch of exceptional talent. She’ll want to use it sooner or later, and we might be the ones standing in her way. Doesn’t that bother you? You’ve just gone through a divorce, do you want to go through a separation?’
Lucius made a moue. ‘Why do you always have to be so tediously realistic, Severus? Why can’t we just – oh, sod it. You’re right. We’ll have to offer her more than sex, if she’s to stay with us.’ He buttered a piece of toast. ‘Somehow,’ he said, putting down the knife and reaching for the raspberry jam, ‘I’m not quite sure what we might possibly offer her. She’s got that independent streak.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of buying her,’ Severus answered patiently. ‘Jewels or money or whatever else you used to give your mistresses won’t work.’
‘Severus, I hope you are going to be a little more constructive, and being slightly less dogmatic might not hurt either. How on earth do you know that money or jewels won’t work? Or shoes, for that matter. Women love shoes.’
Severus shrugged. ‘Narcissa loved shoes. That doesn’t imply that all women do, although I’ll agree with you that most of them do. Anyway, I’m just sure gifts of any kind won’t work. Not in the long run.’
‘Because she’s a Gryffindor, and Lily was a Gryffindor, and Lily would’ve sneered at jewels and shoes?’ Lucius mocked.
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘So Lily is the embodiment of womanhood, and Narcissa isn’t? You’re being completely irrational, Severus, which makes you endearing but does nothing to help us. So if, according to your hypothesis, Hermione would detest the worldly goods we’d offer her-‘
‘You’d offer her,’ Severus muttered.
Lucius put down his coffee cup with more force than was strictly necessary. ‘Oh, that’s it, isn’t it? The old inferiority complex? Lucius is rich and Severus is poor, and that’s why all the girls prefer Lucius? I swear, if I have to listen to this crap one more time…’
‘You’re also better-looking,’ Severus snapped, ‘which doesn’t really help.’
‘That fucking does it!’ Lucius hissed and got up. ‘I’ll leave you to your wallowing, because that’s quite obviously what you desire, and retire to my study. You know where to find me, when you’ve finished sulking!’
The object of their altercation woke up at the exact same moment Lucius stormed out of the breakfast room and strode, storm clouds darkening his brow, towards his study.
Hermione hadn’t slept well, a fact she attributed to the still-unfamiliar presence of two male bodies in the large bed. Not that her sex life had been much to speak of, before she’d given in to a drunken impulse and the lures of the two Slytherins. She’d had sex a few times before her seventh year, but none of her partners had ever stayed overnight. Waking up when it was still dark, and listening to Lucius and Severus breathing calmly in their sleep, and snuggling up to them either to go back to sleep or coax them awake, was completely new territory. It was still too new and in a way too exciting for her to be completely at her ease, but she liked it a lot.
She stretched and smiled, thinking of last night. No wonder her joints were hurting; they’d tried some rather exotic positions. Hermione stretched again and winced. The pain in her joints felt nothing like the soreness that comes with overexertion. It felt like… She resolutely shook her head, rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.
It didn’t work. She was feeling thirsty, and her throat was dry and sore. And her nose was itching.
With a feeling of foreboding, Hermione finally got out of bed, snatched her dressing gown and went to the bathroom for a check-up. She wouldn’t have needed to look down her throat with a small mirror; her red-rimmed eyes and the cold sore blossoming on her lower lip would have told her enough.
‘Oh, no!’ she muttered, and again ‘Oh, nonono!’ when she became aware of how hoarse her voice sounded. ‘Not a cold, please gods, not a cold! I look awful when I have a cold!’
Instead of going down for breakfast, she rang for a house elf, which left with very specific instructions: a bottle of aspirin, a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, to which the juice of two lemons was to be added, a cup of strong tea and a bottle of Pepper-Up. When the required items appeared two minutes later, Hermione drank down the juice in one go, ignoring the scream of protest of her salivary glands, washed three aspirins down with the hot, sweet tea, took a gulp of Pepper-Up and lay down again, preparing to fight the oncoming cold with all her strength.
A quick smile flitted across Lucius’s face when he heard the knock on the door of his study. ‘Come in!’ he called.
Severus opened the door, but didn’t step into the room. ‘She’s still upstairs,’ he said with barely concealed worry.
‘Let’s go upstairs then,’ Lucius said, rising from his chair, ‘and have a look.’
They covered the last few yards to the bedroom on tiptoes, so as not to disturb the Sleeping Beauty. When they heard the strangled coughing, however, both men exchanged alarmed looks.
‘Did you hear the wards go off?’ Lucius asked in a whisper.
‘No,’ Severus replied in hushed tones, already drawing his wand, ‘but that doesn’t mean…’
They reached the bedroom door in two strides and flung it open so violently that it crashed against the wall. Hermione gave a hoarse shriek and dived under the bedcovers. After they’d ascertained that no villain had breached the wards and tried to strangle their inamorata, the two men sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Hermione, dear,’ Severus said, trying in vain to find a bit of Hermione he could pat, ‘I’m sorry, I mean we’re sorry, we heard these strange noises and thought somebody had got into your room and was trying to harm you.’
A muffled ‘Go away!’ was all the answer he got.
‘Darling,’ Lucius cajoled in dulcet tones, ‘you aren’t frightened of us, are you? Do come out from under the duvet, my sweet.’
The bundle containing Hermione began to shiver and then emitted noises that sounded suspiciously like crying.
‘Oh no,’ Severus said, ‘now we’ve made her cry. Hermione, sweetheart, please don’t cry. Come out of that cocoon and give us a kiss!’
‘Go away!’ the bundle wailed, ‘Please, just go away!’
Lucius who, in spite of being a vastly improved ex-Death Eater and expert in female behaviour, had an innate dislike of disobedience, was beginning to look quite annoyed. ‘I will not,’ he said, tackling the bundle and starting to peel the wrapping off an increasingly desperate Hermione, ‘be thrown out of my own bedroom. Out you come, you brat, and – oh dear! Poor sweet girl, why didn’t you just tell us you were ill?’
Hermione covered her face with her hands and assumed a foetal position. ‘Because I look terrible when I’m ill. I don’t want you to see me like this!’
‘Poor darling,’ Severus cooed, ‘we certainly don’t mind!’
Lucius rolled his eyes and repeatedly tapped his forehead with his finger. Severus shook his head in incomprehension, but not for long.
‘You see?’ howled Hermione, pointing an accusing finger, ‘You said it yourself, I’m looking terrible! Oooh!’ She punched the cushion.
‘I said no such thing!’ Severus protested, in spite of Lucius mouthing, Just shut up! and gesturing for him to stop.
‘Did too!’
‘Did not!’
‘Oh, be quiet, both of you!’ Lucius said, his voice stentorian and allowing no contradictions. ‘This is ridiculous. Hermione, you need proper care. Severus, go and brew some Pepper-Up.’
‘I already took Pepper-Up,’ Hermione said, ‘I’m not stupid, you know? But it didn’t help! I also took aspirin and vitamin C, and that didn’t help either.’
‘Then Severus will just have to brew something that helps, won’t you Severus?’
Severus wagged his head. ‘I certainly will, but if Pepper-Up, taken in the early stages, doesn’t help, I doubt that Flubegone will be any good. We’ll try it anyway. Lucius is going to keep you company,’ he said, while fluffing up the pillows and piling them up for Hermione to rest on. ‘It only takes two hours.’
‘About time!’ Lucius snarled, when Severus returned two and a half hours later, holding a bottle of Flubegone. ‘Now she’s developed a fever, poor girl.’
Hermione had, indeed, developed a fever. Her face was ashen, with hectic red blotches on her forehead and cheekbones. Small beads of sweat were clustering on her temples and chin.
Severus frowned down at her. ‘We ought to take her temperature before giving her the potion. Flubegone can be quite dangerous, if the fever is too high.’
Lucius whipped out his wand and performed the diagnostic spell. ’38.5 and rising. What do you think?’
‘Better wait,’ Severus replied and put the bottle on Hermione’s dressing table. ‘And tell the elf to bring vinegar, bandages, a pair of thick, woollen socks, a basin with ice cubes and a towel.’
Lucius, who’d always left tending the sick to his wife or elves and who’d never suffered from so much as a sniffle in all his life, looked intrigued and summoned a house elf. ‘Make yourself useful,’ Severus snapped, looking up from Hermione’s feet, which he was wrapping in vinegar-soaked bandages. ‘Put some ice cubes in that towel and slap it on her forehead.’
Lucius did as he was told and sniffed the air like a terrier. ‘I have to admit to a sudden craving for oysters. All that vinegar… How lucky you didn’t put any capers into the bandages, or I’d feel compelled to eat up Hermione’s feet. Why are you crying, my darling?’
‘Because,’ Hermione sniffed, ‘because you’re being so sweet, the two of you.’ She rubbed at the tears, but gave up when more and more ran over her temples and into her ears. ‘I just wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have expected it. I thought we were, we were just having fun, no strings attached and so on, but you’re being so attentive, and you don’t mind that I’m smelling like a dead mouse, or maybe you do mind, but that makes it even sweeter of you…’ She obediently trumpeted into the handkerchief Lucius held to her nose.
‘But you see,’ Severus said and kissed her toes before putting the woollen sock over the vinegar-soaked bandages, ‘we’re only nursing you back to health so we can have more sex.’ He sat down on the edge of the bed, took her hand and kissed the fingertips, one by one. ‘Aren’t we, Lucius?’
‘Of course,’ Lucius said gravely. He wrung the water out of the towel, put on some fresh ice cubes and placed the towel back on Hermione’s forehead. ‘You’re wrong about the lack of strings though, my sweet.’
His eyes met Severus’s, and the two wizards exchanged a smile of complicity.
‘With strings attached, then?’ she said, eyes shining.
‘Absolutely. Fast attached. As fast as lightning.’
‘White Knight,’ Hermione muttered. ‘You’re so… sweet.’ And she fell asleep.
‘See?’ Severus whispered triumphantly. ‘I told you it wasn’t shoes or anything.’
‘All right, all right. You were right. Shoes wouldn’t do any harm though, would they?’
‘I don’t think they would. Do you think she’d like stilettos?’
‘And black fishnet stockings…’
‘And a corset…’
‘I heard that,’ Hermione muttered. ‘But I still love you both, sex-crazed bastards that you are.’
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ANd I bet the shoes are nice too.
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Thanks very much! :D
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