A Matter of Enchantments

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Standing up fully soap-sudded and nude, Draco panted heatedly and, glaring at his father, demanded, "What the bloody fuck do you think you're doing?"

Lucius gave Draco a cold stare, not answering.

"How in the bloody fuck can you think to come barging into here...into our privacy?" yelled the outraged younger Malfoy.

Lucius gave a darting glance towards Astoria, and then coolly answered, "If you wish to have privacy, might I suggest a ward on your door? They do come in handy when one wishes to indulge in marital bliss." He smirked. "If your mother wasn't commandeering the house-elf, it would be informing you of her unexpected arrival and impatience to see both of you rather than me... So, do finish up your activities and dress for dinner as soon as you can, um, collect yourselves." And with that, Lucius turned and left.

Waiting to make sure her father-in-law was gone, Astoria rose and gently hugged Draco from behind, understanding far too well how unnerved and humiliated he must be feeling.

He snapped around and grabbed her, holding and kissing her, murmuring, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Shaken by Lucius' presence as well, but overcoming her jittery feeling and wishing to comfort Draco more, she reassured him, whispering in between kisses, "It's nothing, Draco. I'm used to Lucius...we're used to him. He has always been inconsiderate, overbearing... rude. Possessive. Don't let him get to you, my love. Draco, Draco..."

Her hushing and cooing soothed his nerves, and soon they were in heavy foreplay again.

Astoria felt Draco's hardness against her inner thighs, and then without preamble, he led her out of the bath and into the bedroom. As he swooped her up and tossed her playfully onto the four-poster bed, he said, "Let's do this properly this time." Accioing his wand, he warded their door and hastily returned to Astoria and proceeded to make love to her, slowly and thoroughly.

As she moaned in satiated, delighted pleasure, she rhythmically arched her back in sync with Draco as he thrusted deeper and deeper inside her. In the midst of undulating, she threw back her head, fingernails digging into Draco's back, and gazed through half-closed lids in languorous abandonment into the overhead mirror, enjoying the sight of Draco fucking her. She bit her lower lip in concentration, trying to hold back the oncoming wave leading to an explosive climax swelling up inside her as his cock hit rhythmically, again and again, an electric hotspot deep inside her. "Oh! No, oh, no!" she gasped loudly, but not in climax...rather in reaction to what she beheld above in the ceiling mirror: for the first time, she seemed to be able to look through the mirror as if seeing into another space...Lucius' bedroom!

"Oh, oh, no!" she cried out again, freezing as if Petrified, clutching Draco for dear life. For she saw Lucius come into the mirror and lay down, half-clothed and stretch out languidly across his dark-green duvet, his bare chest and blondish-white hair accentuated against the dark Slytherin colour as it was splayed out against the cushioned pillows. Lucius slowly began to undo his trousers and even more leisurely to take them off, followed by his silk underpants, leaving his full nudity on display for her to see.

Because Astoria's reaction occurred near the peak of Draco's passion, in his flagrante delicto delirium, he took Astoria's cries and clutching as her climaxing and instinctively spent himself, coming deep within her.

As Draco lay on top of Astoria, catching his breath and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, she watched, wide-eyed, as Lucius stroked himself. Then, abruptly, the elder Malfoy gazed directly at Astoria, pokerfaced, before languidly rising and walking out of the mirror's scope.

oOoOoOoOo

All through the following dinner, Astoria could barely eat a bite. Lost in a whirlwind of sensations, her thoughts and focus flitted from image to image of the day's events as well as the family members' faces around her: Draco to Lucius, Narcissa to Draco, Lucius to Narcissa. But the outrageousness of Lucius' audacity to encroach upon her and Draco's privacy so voyeuristically kept blaring at the forefront of her muddled thoughts. Lucius has enchanted the mirror...that's what he was doing in our room...a two-way enchantment: I can see him, his bed, and he...he can watch us!

But her brooding was continually being interrupted by heated disagreements between Narcissa and Lucius, putting the elder Malfoy in an utterly foul mood, and other terse retorts leading to Lucius turning to the unpleasant, delicate topic of her and Draco's failure to conceive. Equally chilling was Lucius' seemingly complete ignoring of and disdain towards Astoria, speaking about her rather than to her.

How can he treat me with such contempt after we've been... we've been..., she struggled to put her thoughts together, 'intimate' with each other?

It was this confusion and distress, along with Draco and Lucius getting into a heated discussion of her fertility results, that she could stomach no longer, and excusing herself, she fled to the solace of their bedroom to reflect on the past days' events.

Feeling hot and bothered, squeezing her pillows, Astoria stared searchingly at her reflection in the mirrored ceiling above the bed again, daring and expecting to see beyond it; but this time only her distressed, confused reflection appeared.

Lucius! He has me imagining things; he has me yearning for... him!

Tears of confusion and guilt flowed freely. For Draco had been her one and only. Not only was he sexually her first and only partner, until Lucius that is, but emotionally he was her first and deepest emotional relationship as well. The strange emotions which Lucius evoked out of her were painful and wild, torrid and dark. She had never had a reason or occasion to experience them before. She'd never had anyone else to compare Draco to until, again, Lucius. The effect was dizzying. Feeling lost, she felt herself falling into murkier and murkier emotions.

Exhausted with these ambiguous and dubious ruminations of both Draco and Lucius, she fell asleep into troubled and uncharted dreams.

oOoOoOoOo

In the morning, she awoke in her husband's arms. Feeling her movement, Draco pressed her against him and whispered, "I'll try to get home earlier this evening, since I have to travel in the morning...and don't forget the fundraising luncheon with mother tomorrow, just in case you plan to be at your office at the Ministry all day." He gave her a kiss and a teasing smirk. "Try to survive as best you can without me. When I get back, I'll make it up to you."

Draco dressed and left for the Ministry. Astoria lay and watched him, not feeling like getting out of bed, not wishing to leave their bedroom, or at least not get up and about until everyone else in the household had left for their various obligations.

Astoria craved to be alone in order to clear her thoughts. Working in the conservatory will help... I need to put myself to use away from the Ministry and occupy my thoughts with something else besides Draco... and Lucius! She groaned in frustration. Lucius!

She waited a good while, fixated and brooding on her father-in-law, before deciding she'd waited long enough for everyone to leave the manor. A feeling of oppression upon her, she languidly dressed in a robe and slowly made her way down to force herself to work a bit in the nursery.

Halfway down the stairway, Astoria stopped.

Simultaneously, spotting her, Lucius halted in the hall below.

They stared at each other.

Seeing Astoria frozen in place, Lucius crossed and slowly walked up the stairway to stand in front of her and look down into her hazel eyes. Caustically, he commented, "See you've slept in. Late night? Were you and Draco celebrating something?"

From deep within her, an unexpected burst of feistiness and a feeling of entitlement flared up, and she coolly snapped, "That is our business." Remembering the enchanted mirror, she was spurred on to point out, "Just as the intimacy of our bedroom is our business...not yours."

Eyes glinting in curt amusement, Lucius merely commented, "Ah, I see."

He will not get the best of me... "You will remove any enchantments from our mirror immediately."

"I haven't the least idea what you're talking about, my dear. Enlighten me on how it is enchanted." Lucius gave her a lascivious smile. "Details, please."

Astoria saw that he was thoroughly amused and waiting eagerly for her to spell out graphically the situation. You can watch us fuck, and I can watch you...you...stroke your cock... In a huff, she answered, "No! Just...just undo the enchantment!" Don't let him get to you! Resolved to not let Lucius unnerve her further, she made to continue downward, heading for the nursery.

Stepping in front of her, he enquired, "Is that the only demand you wish to make of me, dear Astoria?"

"It's the only decent one, at this time, to say the least!"

But Lucius put a stop to her brushing by him by abruptly grabbing her upper arm, stopping her. "Decent?" His lips curled on the ends, giving her a satiric leer which caused a tingle to burst through her, head to toe.

"So, you think now that you've got what you've wanted from me, temporarily, that you don't need my services anymore? That you can ignore what has happened between us? Discard me?"

For some reason, at the word 'ignore', an explosion of anger issued forth from Astoria, and she hotly challenged him, "Ignore you? You? And what would you call your treatment of me?"

Lucius raised an eyebrow in cool speculation, observing another impassioned side of his daughter-in-law he had never seen before.

Astoria's confusion and frustration at Lucius boiled over, his contemptuous treatment of her and Draco's privacy, his condescending treatment of her last night at dinner...everything and all gushed forth. "How could you treat me so...so, disdainfully last night, as if I wasn't there? As if I was nothing to you? Nothing! Just some object!"

Lucius became quite still; his steel-grey eyes gleamed intensely at her.

"And how should I treat you, my lovely Astoria, in front of my wife and my son, your husband, hmmn?" His voice became throaty as he barely whispered, "How do you want me to treat you, my sweet?"

Astoria's cheeks flushed hotly as she realised her folly; it dawned on her that she wished from Lucius that which she had no right to claim nor he had the right to give. In the recesses of her mind, she realised she wanted his affection. And the pooling wetness in between her legs anytime he was near enough to detect his unique musky scent was a physiological reminder of how this reaction was beyond her control. His mere touch, his audacious looks, either could undo her; it was indeed beyond her control. To add further to her perplexity, she suddenly comprehended that deep within her, she uncontrollably craved his true affection. More horrifying to the little rationality seemingly left in her mind was that she had a fragile, but burning, affection for him... A fledgling place in her muddled emotions responding solely to him. This revealed itself to her, gazing into his mercilessly brazen eyes, and she looked away, staring at a swirled snake-like engravement in the black marble stairway.

"Perhaps I should kiss you on your luscious, full lips in front of Narcissa and Draco," his tone had hardened, "in the same way I've kissed your succulent sex," he crudely reminded her.

She felt her face burn in embarrassment and arousal and, trying to verbalise what little normalcy was left in her, she closed her eyes and uttered in a small voice, "I think that we should maintain our respective, platonic relations, for everyone's sake..."

"And our heir?"

Astoria blinked at him, her heart pounding, and reiterated,"Our...?"

"...heir!" enunciated Lucius exasperatedly.

Suddenly, the passion and turmoil both were feeling hit her full force. The original need of seeking her father-in-law's aid in the first place washed over her like a tidal wave again: the state of Draco's sterility and the entire frustrating, distressing situation which was her life. This reality check pained her even more than the fatuous hurt she'd felt from Lucius' seeming coolness and aloofness to her. An asinine sensation of obstinacy and denial came over her, and she had a mad instinct to hurt him back somehow, deny him further access to her turmoil and vulnerability, and wildly she proposed, "There is...there is time to think about...other options..."

Stonefaced, Lucius stared at her. Then, an eyebrow was raised in high disdain. Sardonically, he mused, "You think I don't know about your lunch plans tomorrow with my dear wife and her invited male guests?"

"Male guests? Don't be ludicrous!" Astoria huffed. "It's a luncheon to discuss the upcoming ball and how they may help raise funds with influential..."

"You're a witch; you're capable of anything," snarled Lucius darkly. Abruptly, the blond wizard grabbed one of her wrists and held it in a steel grip. "Who has Narcissa chosen for you to cuckold Draco with? Longbottom the Pureblooded Serpent Slayer? Potter the Brave?" he spat out derisively. "Oh yes, no doubt the idea of the Dark Lord's presence still lingering somewhere in Potter's mixed-blooded veins gives dearest Cissy ideas..."

He leered and whispered, "Would you like that, you and Potter? Or, perhaps, Longbottom slobbering all over you like a– "

A hard slap to his face cut him off.

Before Astoria had time to fear for herself, for what she had just done, Lucius smiled and fiercely pulled her into him, so that she could feel his arousal pressing against her. His nostrils flared in emotion, and inhaling deeply, he whispered, "Don't think for one moment that you can ignore me! You're mine! Don't think for one second that anyone other than I shall sire an heir to the Malfoy name and lineage..." He gave her a strong shake. "Don't think that any choice you make will not include me!"

"Choice?"

"If you dare to challenge me, dare to think for one moment that you can 'hoodwink' me, my girl, you're very, very mistaken. You will lose everything!" Lucius grabbed and held her chin roughly in place, a surge of bygone Death Eater's energy resurfacing. "You don't think you can be replaced?" He saw a flash of fear cross her face. "It's easier for all involved, more convenient for both of us, if on the surface our little family stays 'as is'... However, if you dare to threaten me, replace me with anyone, you'll regret it... beyond your worst nightmare, my dear."

His steel eyes shined, burning cold. The pain in her face from his tight hold was a searing reminder of his potential, malignant Death Eater energy, alive and well, rearing its ugly head.

"You will lose everything!" he repeated fiercely.

Something in Astoria snapped, and she spat out, "You threaten me? How dare you!" She wanted to lash out at him physically, but instead, at the last second, she jerked back and pulled away from him to flee, only to be snatched tightly back. "Let me go, let me go! You vile brute...I hate you!"

Lucius went neutral except for holding her in his steel embrace, letting her thrash and shove against him until she wearied herself from trying to break free. In quiet, muffled sobs, she pleaded meekly, "What do want of me? Just let me go..."

The hairs on her neck rose up, not in fear, but in unforeseen excitement, as his warm breath whispered in her ear causing shivers to run down her spine, "Your pleasure, Astoria."

She stood stock still as she felt soft, wet kisses being planted on her sensitive neck, around and around, lower and lower. Lucius was dissolving her anxiety and defenses with each lick and nip.

When Lucius felt her trembling in heated excitement from his ministrations, he raised his head again and flicked his tongue around and in her ear, only to abruptly stop and huskily whisper, "I want you to give me permission to be in charge of your pleasure. Your sexual pleasure, my dear." With a stoic face, he waited and let the full meaning sink in.

But Astoria only stared at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. His hot and cold treatment of her perplexed her beyond reasoning. What is he talking about...my sexual pleasure has nothing to do with siring an heir...why is he confusing the two?

Lucius coaxed, "Such sensitive and fiery passion as yours should not be wasted. And Draco, fruit of my loins though he is, will never fulfil you as I know how to fulfil a witch... But first, we must be in agreement."

"Agreement? About what?"

"That I will be in charge. Not you. I."

"I...I don't understand..."

Lucius gave her an incredulous look and began to chuckle in forced, astounded bemusement. Then, he was whispering, "Let me give you an example..." as he opened her dressing robe and raised her nightdress upward.

Astoria gasped, feeling his fingers lightly stroking upwards, and he quickly discovered that she wore no undergarments.

"Mmmn, nice," murmured Lucius, very pleased, and he felt the warm abundant wetness between her legs. Very lightly fingering her, he withdrew his hand and with his fingertips, moistened with her essence, he lightly touched his lips and then...to Astoria's surprise...he gently traced hers with the lingering wetness. He placed his index finger on her lips and whispered, "Lick."

Astoria hesitated, moving her head away, but Lucius sternly stated, "No. The game is, I'm in charge." He gave Astoria an odd look, and for a split second, the same feeling she had had yesterday when she touched Lucius' face like a lover's occurred, and his features softened as he said, "Trust me..." She did. Opening her lips, she shyly and slowly licked his finger, tasting her own essence. "More. Don't stop. Take your time," he instructed, his voice growing thicker, and before she knew it, Lucius' tongue had replaced his finger, and he was swirling and grinding into her.

A burst of need exploded within Astoria, setting off a volatile chemistry between the two, and she let herself be devoured by his hunger as well as devour back, not knowing where her mouth and body ended and Lucius' began, so melded into each other they were in undulating, grinding waves of heat.

Dully registering in the background of their heated endeavours, out from the hallowed halls of the manor, came Narcissa's voice. "Lucius, what is keeping you so long?" Edged with annoyance and impatience, Narcissa beckoned, "Come! We're going to be late!"

Abruptly, Lucius released Astoria. Without looking back, he hurried to meet Narcissa and Apparate to another clandestine meeting with Albert Runcorn.

oOoOoOoOo

A/N: Greatest appreciation to the one and only star_girl for her cosmic energy and beta magic on all levels! Also, a special thanks to BeautifulSnowflake for her beautiful support, nudging me in just the right way not to procrastinate and risk making Lucius really impatient!