A Journey Through Time

Part of the Willow Series

Title: A Journey Through Time
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: fem!Harry/Lucius, (past/future) Lucius/Narcissa
Fusion: Outlander Series & Harry Potter
Summary: Ebony née Potter didn’t realize that wishing at the stone circle would bring her to a younger version of her husband, who would fall in love with her.

Warnings: rule 63, dubcon, time travel, off screen death eaters, infidelity (though not really)

It had been their holiday, a way to get to know one another before they returned to Malfoy Manor.  Ebony Malfoy née Potter had been the object of a binding marriage agreement between the Malfoys and the Potters.  An orphan, virtually friendless as everyone had died during the War, she had no one to turn to but the cold law.

She must marry newly-widowed Lucius Malfoy as she was now eighteen and he was the next eligible Malfoy bachelor.  Ideally, the contract would have gone into effect on her seventeenth birthday and she would have married Draco Malfoy, but there had been a war on and they had been on opposite sides.  No one was much looking into magically binding contracts at that time and Magic had been willing to wait.

Ebony was heartbroken over the fact that she had taken Narcissa Malfoy’s place.  The witch had lied to Voldemort for her only to end up dead by his hands in front of Ebony’s eyes. 

Now she was here, with Lucius, in Scotland.  Surprisingly the Malfoys had a 1940s automobile, magically enhanced of course, and they sped across the Scottish lanes.

She was the newly made Lady Malfoy.  It was all rather frightening.

“Over there is Inverness,” he said, pointing into the distance.  There was a small town with lights making it shine through the darkness.  “We won’t be heading there, Madam Malfoy.  It’s too far north.”

They were always formal with each other, even when in private. “Really, sir, I wouldn’t think that would stop you.”

He looked over to her from the driver’s seat.  “For us you mean, Madam.”

She huffed quietly to herself.  “I think we should see it.  It’s only a short drive away.  Perhaps you might want to get away from all these Muggles we’ll be interacting with.”

“Hmm, perhaps, you might be right, my dear.  A long drive with a witch is preferable to the company of Muggles.”  His long silver-blond hair was tied up in a bow, which made him look a little different for the late twentieth century, but Ebony couldn’t blame him.  It turned out that Lords grew their hair out as a status symbol.  Her children would never be Lord of the Malfoy House.  Instead, that would fall to Draco.

“Just as you say, sir,” she added as they whipped around a corner.  She had to grab the sides of her cloche hat to keep it from flying off.  She liked cloches.  They were out of style, but she still liked them.

She liked to think that she was bringing them back.  She was the savior of the wizarding world, after all.  She could make a fashion statement.

They got into the little town they were staying in, their car parked on the road. Ebony liked the quaintness of the town.  She hadn’t caught its name, not that it mattered, at least according to Lucius.

“Well, Madam, what do you think?  No one to find you and sell pictures of us to the tabloids.”  Yes, that was part of their reason for going to Scotland—and Muggle Scotland no less.  Lucius didn’t want to be seen having awkward social interactions with his new bride.

Ebony was certain he meant to bring her back pregnant and happy.

Considering the fact that he hadn’t touched her yet, it didn’t bode well for the plan.

There was blood plastered on the frames of the doors.  Ebony touched it with her bare hand, wondering at it.

“Why is there all this confounded blood?” Lucius was now badgering the innkeeper. 

“It’s the festival of St. Olfin’s, sir.  An old custom.”

Lucius looked over at Ebony.  “And your lot find the Old Ways barbaric,” he muttered in her direction.  “Come, Lady Malfoy, our room awaits.”  He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward.  Ebony only just had time to smile at the woman behind the counter.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” she murmured as they made their way upstairs.  “It sounds too—different.”

“It is different.  You’re married,” he responded brusquely.  “Never forget who you are now: A Malfoy.”

“A Malfoy,” she murmured.

She didn’t fight back when he locked the door behind them and quickly threw off his Muggle coat.  His usual waistcoat was in place but now he was wearing a tie.  “Now, Lady Malfoy, let the honeymoon begin.”

She smiled back at him shakily, attempting not to see the man who had chased her through the Department of Mysteries.  As he unbuttoned her coat and ran his hands from her waist to the sides of her breasts, she tried to live in the moment.

Lucius was an attractive man, after all, older, but one she hoped she could find some common ground with.  He unzipped her dress for her, and lifted her out of it as it dropped to the floor, pulling her in for her first real kiss.

It was hungry and demanding, and she wasn’t certain that she liked it.  His teeth scraped against her lower lip and she could taste blood in her mouth—still she let him unstrap her bra and roll her panties off of her frame until she was wearing nothing but her shoes.

He was still in his shirtsleeves and trousers.

Looking boldly into his eyes, she dared him to think less of her for her state of undress.  He looked unhesitatingly back at her.

Black hair cascaded down her back, her mother’s Muggleborn green eyes shining out from behind thick lashes.  Her father’s high cheekbones were present, showing her pureblood lineage, and her lips were neither thin nor full, falling somewhere in between.

Ebony was tall for a pureblood.  She had her mother to thank for that.  When most pureblood witches aspired to only be 5’1 or 5’2, Ebony towered over them at 5’5.  However, she was more powerful than any of these witches could ever hope to be, despite their demure and supposedly powerful frames.  Ebony had defeated the dark lord Voldemort, all before her eighteenth birthday. 

She wasn’t quite sure how Lucius really felt about that.  Voldemort had been his master for decades, but he had stolen his son for a task that should have been impossible and kept the Malfoys under lock and key in their own home.  Lucius had even gone to Azkaban prison for him.

Did Lucius hate Voldemort for all his wrongs, especially having killed his wife of over twenty years?  Did he even love Narcissa Malfoy?  It was clear that they both loved their son, but surely that did not necessarily mean that they loved each other.  Perhaps it had just been dynastic, like this marriage had been.

Lucius leaned in to kiss her again, but before their lips could meet, she carefully asked, “Do you want a child?”  She tilted her chin up, daring him to not answer, and he leaned back and chuckled.

“Madam, if I didn’t want more children, I would not have married again.—Now, perhaps you are cold.”  He reached his arm around her.  “Let me see if I can do something about that.”

This kiss was bruising, making Ebony gasp, and he laughed into her mouth. 

“My poor innocent Lady Malfoy.”

“Isn’t that how you purebloods like us?  Innocent and untried?”

“Oh, we most undoubtedly do.”  He stepped away from her and took off his shirt, throwing it somewhere behind him.  He took her hands and spread them out so that she was bare to him.  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

Ebony wanted nothing more than to shoot back at him, asking if she wasn’t too Muggle for him, but she held her tongue.  Instead, she bent her knee, raising her leg, and took off one shoe.  She let it fall from her hand and drop to the floor.  Noticing his eyes were on her, she repeated the gesture with the other foot.  “I’ll just get comfortable, shall I?”  Using all her Gryffindor confidence, she turned and walked toward the bed.  She flipped back the covers and crawled under the homemade quilt.

“Oh no, my dear,” Lucius purred, opening up the bed curtains wider.  “I want to see you, Lady Malfoy.”

“Really, sir?” she asked archly.  “I can see nothing of you.”

“Point received, my dear,” he hummed before he stripped out of his trousers.  “I wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”  He strode toward the bed purposefully and tore back the covers.  “Lady Malfoy,” he intoned.

“My lord,” she answered, and he leaned down and kissed her breathless, and she wondered at it.  As his body pressed down upon hers she shivered and wrapped her arms around his neck, untying the silly bow in his hair and tossing it aside.

Afterward he withdrew from her immediately.  She had not found the bliss Hermione had talked to her about, only the expected discomfort and fullness. 

Lucius cast cleaning and refreshing charms over them and Ebony sighed.  “Come, Lady Malfoy, your state of undress in the middle of the day is most unbecoming.”

“Most—what?”

She resisted throwing a pillow at him.  Instead, she sat up and drew her legs to her knees.  “I think I’ll have a bath,” she said instead.

He snorted in derision.  “Have your bath then.”

“I thought you liked your brides virgins?” she asked hotly as he slowly got dressed.  “Isn’t that the pureblood ideal?”

“The pureblood ideal,” he replied coldly, “is to wed another pureblood.  As it is, our children will be purebloods.  And because of your—accomplishments—society is willing to overlook your deficiencies.”

“Well, I’m sorry to be a disappointment, but you didn’t have to marry me.”

“I did, in fact, if I wanted the Potter blood to strengthen the Malfoy line,” he said, buttoning up his waistcoat.  “Ideally, you would have married Heir Draco,”—so formal, even in private—“but it seemed that I found myself without a wife and I had to act quickly before you sullied yourself or got married.”

Ebony brushed the curls off of one shoulder.  “I can assure you, Lord Malfoy, that I had no intention of sullying myself.  You forget, my godfather was Sirius, Lord Black.”  Sirius had told her all about how she needed to remain pure, how it created problems if she did not.  He had painted a rather horrible picture of her parents’ own marriage where James had found out on their wedding night that Lily had an affair with Mr. Severus Snape before they had stopped speaking to one another.  “As to marriage,” she added, “I hadn’t really thought on it.”

He reached out a hand and took her chin between his strong fingers.  He turned her head this way and that, and the look in his cold blue eyes sent a shiver down her spine.  “You have the Black cheekbones, from your grandmother Dorea née Black, Lady Malfoy.  They’re most becoming on you.”

“Are you now suddenly pleased with me?” she shot back to the mercurial man she had somehow ended up marrying.

“My dear, you will never be Narcissa.”  It was like a kick to the gut.  With that, he turned and left the room.

Ebony had only her bath to look forward to.

She walked down to the sitting room of the Bed and Breakfast about an hour and a half later and found that Lucius was still there.  There was also a young couple and an older man in his sixties who was writing in what looked like a journal.  Sighing and gathering up her courage, she walked over to her husband.  “Are you planning on reading The Prophet all day?”  He was, in fact, reading the magical newspaper.  It had, however, been charmed so that it appeared to be The Scotsman.

He folded down the newspaper and took in her form.  She was thin though she possessed natural curves with small breasts and slim yet bony shoulders. 

“I must say, Madam, that it is quite the treat to look at a woman who is not rail thin and short enough to be a developing teenager.”

This man really was mercurial.  The last thing he’d said to her had been to negatively compare her to his late wife, and now this.

“I’m glad you approve,” she said, hoping he wasn’t being sarcastic.  With Lucius one could never tell.

“Come, there’s a castle nearby.”  He leaned forward.  “It’s in ruins but it does have a magical history.”  His eyes lit up in genuine interest.

He folded up the paper and then stood.  “Madam,” he said elegantly, holding his hand out to show that she should precede him.

She really didn’t understand Lucius Malfoy at all.

Castle Leoch was, in fact, in ruins.  The stones were beautiful and Ebony let her hands run along the rough surface.  It grounded her as she watched this strange man who was her husband walk before her.

“Now,” he was saying as they came into a room in what could only be described as the dungeon of a building, “a witch is said to have lived here.”

“An actual witch?  Not just a healer?”

“Yes, a witch, my dear, otherwise I would not have used the term,” he chided softly.  He grabbed her around the waist and held her close to him.  “Can’t you feel the magic?”

Ebony closed her eyes and tried to relax.  Yes, she could feel it, just there, but then she was being lifted and set down on a table.  It was wooden and old and creaked beneath her.

“Now, Madam, I think we should continue your education.”  He looked imperiously down at her.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to repeat the experience if I was such a disappointment,” she challenged, her green eyes meeting his.

“Well, we can always train you up.”

“I’m not some Muggle whore,” she insisted.  “I won’t do certain things, and don’t think I will just because I’m a half-blood and therefore have ‘looser morals.’”  She’d heard of anal sex and would have none of it.

“Of course not, Madam,” he stated.  “You are my wife.”  And then he was pulling her forward and moving her legs apart and his head went between her legs and oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh.

When it was over she lay panting on table, her panties around her knees, her dress pushed up to her waist.  She wasn’t quite sure she had been prepared for that.

Lucius took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she purred, pushing herself up and reaching for him.  She kissed him lightly for the pleasure he had given her, but soon the kiss grew in intensity and she tasted a mixture of saltiness and sweetness on his tongue.  Before she knew what was happening, he was unbuttoning his trousers and then—argh—she was full again, and her entire body tensed up.

“Shh,” he commanded against her cheek.  “Just breathe through it.”

And she clung to him, rumpling the collar of his shirt.

He had lain with her that same night too.  Ebony wasn’t certain what to do with the onslaught.  The bed was brass and creaked, and she was certain someone could hear downstairs, but he just pressed her down into the pillows, her bottom raised in a position he had placed her in.

Lucius had thrown a nightshift at her afterward telling her to “cover herself.”  She’d felt mortified and wished that there was a separate room for her to retreat into, but they only had the one room and the one bed, and she was startled when he clasped her in his arms and told her “to go to sleep already, dammit.”

The next morning they were off again in their car to a circle of stones and they walked among them, hearing the hum of their magic.

“Don’t touch them,” Lucius commanded.  “You never know what the magic might do.”

She heeded his word, though she wondered.  “What are they?”

“Ancient wishing stones,” he commented.  “The wish has to be great, nothing paltry, but they’re said to grant the heart’s desire.”

“Only if you’re a pureblood I suppose.”

He looked at her strangely.  “I suppose.”

Lucius took her there in the clearing with only the stones to watch.  He ripped at her shirt and ran possessive hands across her breasts before forcing her legs apart to enter her.  If that wasn’t indecent enough, when he was finished, he held her by the hair in front of his manhood and demanded that she “fuck it.”  Looking up at him accusingly, Ebony shook her head.  Her hair tightened painfully against her scalp as she tried to shy away, but he brought her closer until she finally began to claw at him.  With a laugh Lucius finally let her go.

It was not until a few days later when he was reading yet another edition of the damned Prophet, that Ebony took the car out by herself.  She went back to the standing stones and walked among them.  Her wand (the Elder Wand) was hidden up her sleeve and her invisibility cloak was in her handbag.  The Resurrection Stone was on her right hand.  The Malfoy betrothal ring was on her left.

Ebony came to the center stone and felt the hum of its magic.  She closed her eyes and wished for the only thing she could, a husband that loved her.  Then with trembling fingers she reached out to the stone and placed her hands on it.

Once, when Ebony had nearly been asleep, she had side-Apparated elsewhere.  That strange confusing feeling of being suddenly placed into a small tube, of feeling weightless and groggy, was the closest thing Ebony could think of to describe what happened to her.

Stunned and confused, she opened her eyes and found herself lying on her back.  Her wand pressed against her arm and her purse was clasped between her fingers.  Carefully, she sat up and, with one confused look at the stone, she walked back down the hill to the car.

Only the car wasn’t there.  She looked around for it, but saw nothing.  Trying a locator spell, still nothing came up.  So, begrudgingly, she began the long trek back to the little hamlet where Lucius was undoubtedly waiting for her.

She came in at about half past ten.  Fortunately, she still had her key with her, and she just slipped into the room, shimmied out of her dress, and fell into bed beside a sleeping Lucius.  What she didn’t expect was for the covers to be ripped from her a few hours later and the angry but much younger looking face of Lucius staring down at her.

“Who are you, whore, and what are you doing in my room?”

He glanced at her wand on the bedside table and they scrambled for it.  Unfortunately, he won.

“A witch, then?  Do you think that you can despoil Heir Lucius Malfoy before his wedding and sweep him up for yourself?  Really, you Mudbloods have no self-respect.  As if I’d fall for any of this.”

“Heir Lucius?” she asked in confusion.  “We’re Lord and Lady Malfoy!”

“Whatever are you babbling on about?  Who are you?”  He pressed her wand into her throat and she stared daggers at him.

“I’m Ebony, Lady Malfoy, your wife.”  She thrust out her hand and showed him the Malfoy bonding ring.  “See?  Now, could we kindly stop this!  I know I’m not Narcissa, that I’ll never live up to Narcissa, but that doesn’t mean that you can treat me this way on our honeymoon!”

He took her hand and stared, actually gaping. 

“Why do you look so much younger?  Did you try a new potion?” she asked in curiosity.  She would have reached out her hand to touch his face, but he was holding it and inspecting the ring rather closely.

“This is not a fake,” he stated after a long pause.

“Of course it’s not; you put it on my finger less than a month ago!”

“And what is this about Narcissa?” he asked, his tone betraying no emotion.

Ebony sighed.  “I know you took her passing hard, and I would have saved her if I could, but she was alive one minute and then the Killing Curse hit her the next.  You know there was nothing I could have done.”  She sighed again.  “I just wish you would stop punishing me for it.”

“And you say we are Lord and Lady Malfoy?”

“Yes,” she insisted.  “Really, Lord Malfoy, what are you on about?”

He drew back and took her in.  “You have black hair and are too tall,” he finally murmured.

“Not this again,” she groaned.  “Really, can we give it a rest?  You married me for my political capitol, not for whether or not I conformed to pureblood beauty.”

He stood from the bed and she lifted herself up onto her elbows.  Their gazes held.  “My father, Abraxas, is Lord Malfoy and I’m to be married this summer to Lady Narcissa Black.  What kind of sorcery is this?”

An idea struck Ebony.  The standing stones.  The missing car.  The fact that Lucius looked so much younger and seemed to have out-of-date facts in his head.

“No,” she suddenly murmured, getting to her feet, uncaring that she was only in her underwear.  She threw open the wardrobe doors and saw that her clothes were not in them.  “This can’t be happening.”  She went to the dresser and opened up each drawer.  They were full of Lucius’s—and only Lucius’s—clothing.  She spun around to face him, noticing that he was still holding a wand on her.  “What year is this?”

“1976.”

She breathed out and sank to the floor.  “Yesterday was 1998,” she admitted.

“You say you’re my wife,” he said hesitantly, taking in her form.

Nodding, she looked away, tears filling her eyes.  Her parents hadn’t even graduated Hogwarts yet.  She wasn’t even born!  “How old are you?” she sniffled.

“Twenty-two.”

She let out a strangled laugh.  “Trust me to travel in time to a time when I’m not even born and my stepson isn’t even born and you’re not even married to your late wife!”  She was becoming hysterical now.

Carefully, Lucius lowered himself to the ground and Ebony noticed that he was sporting the Dark Mark on his arm.  She reached out and touched it.  In her time, it had faded until it was merely an outline.  Here it was jet black and dark. 

“What am I going to do?” she asked him, dolefully.

“Swear on your magic that all you have said is the truth,” he demanded, handing her back her wand.

She took it reverently and made a slash mark across her chest.  “On my words, I swear on my magic,” she intoned.  She then gestured to him.  “Now you.”

He copied the gesture.  They waited until the magic fizzled and settled and when neither of them became violently ill, they knew that the other had spoken the truth.

“You are my wife,” he stated emphatically.  “For however long you remain here you will be afforded the privileges of Heiress Lucius Malfoy.”

She hiccupped.  “How strange that sounds.—But you must marry Narcissa.  You must have Draco.”

“Then we know you will have returned before then.  Until you disappear back to your time, we will remain here and live as man and wife.”

“You seem awfully cool and collected about this,” she noted as he lifted her off the ground.  However, instead of answering her, he kissed her full on the mouth and she dropped her wand in shock.  Falling into the familiar embrace, she let her hands weave through his hair and pulled him closer.  This wasn’t harsh and brutal as she was used to; this was exploratory and tentative.  She liked being kissed by this Lucius.

He pulled away.  “Not a traditional pureblood marriage then,” he commented, before drawing her in for another kiss.  She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but she was too lost in his kisses to care, in the feel of his tongue, in the pressure of his hands against her hips.

She decided that he was wearing far too much clothing.  Taking advantage of this younger, more open, Lucius, she pulled against the hem of his sleeping tank and he moved away from her enough to let her pull it from his frame.

“Definitely not a pureblood marriage,” he murmured, before capturing her lips in his again and carrying her to the bed.  In short order, he had her bra stripped away with his clever fingers and then his thumbs were hooked to the edge of her panties.

She broke away.  Gasping, she begged, “Promise that you’re here, in the moment, with me now, and that there’s no one else.  Promise me, sir.”

“I assure you, Madam,” he purred, “that every other witch of my acquaintance is very far from my mind.”

Then she lost herself completely, allowing her legs to come up around his waist, her panties discarded by the bed, and his sleep trousers trucked up to his knees.

“Off!” she demanded imperiously, looking him directly in the eye.  Ebony was tired of not being equals, even when they came together like this, and she was determined to have it this time around.

He kicked off the bloody trousers and was kissing a trail down her neck, his hand lightly kneading her breast and she gasped for air as she held him to her in desperation.

“This may hurt,” he warned, looking up at her, and she dared him with her eyes to do his worst.

However, it was smooth and gentle, with small thrusts until she became used to him.  When he was fully seated his hand came up to that small nub of skin and began to circle it with her own fluids as lubricant until she was crying out with every thrust, every circle, soaring higher and higher, kissing him deeper and deeper, and then she was lost.

Ebony wasn’t certain how much longer it must have gone on but she felt her husband collapse onto her sometime afterward and pull out of her gently.  She turned over onto her side to face his retreating form and smiled lightly at him.

He ran a hand over the curve of her hip.  “I can’t believe I will be lucky enough, Heiress Lucius, to have a wife as responsive as you are.  It’s unheard of in pureblood circles.”

“Trust me, you hate it, and you’re terribly rough and brutal,” she admitted bitterly.  “I’m not Narcissa, after all.”

“Don’t say that,” he almost begged her, despite how calm his voice was.  “Never say that.  You’re so different.”

Ebony laughed hollowly.  “That’s the understatement of the century.”

He gently touched the edge of her nose.  His dark mark was fully visible and they both stared at it.  “It doesn’t bother you, does it?  Do I cover it for you in the future?”

“No.  No, you don’t,” she admitted.  “You cover it from society, but not from me.”

“You’re from a dark family then.  The Selwyns perhaps?”

She laughed at that, remembering Umbridge claiming to be related to the Selwyns.  How horrible Slytherin’s locket had looked on her.  “I’m not a Selwyn.  I’m from a light family.”  She paused, wondering if she should affect the future.  “No matter who James Potter marries, you should seek a marriage contract, one that’s open to whoever the next available wizard is and not specifically tied to your son.  Then again, you would have preferred that.”

“Why would I?” Lucius asked, drawing circles on her hip.

Ebony looked at his face, which in this moment was so open, so honest.  Perhaps it was because she was his wife by choice, a choice of honor, perhaps, but by choice.  She really didn’t know.  Lucius was never so open with her back in the future.

“I am not Narcissa Black, remember?  I am Ebony Potter, half-blood, who has more fame than she knows what to do with.”

“You’re famous?”  He looked interested.

“Very.  And remember: spoilers.”

“It is surprising that I would marry a half-blood,” he mused aloud, “even as a second wife.”

“Regrets?” she asked, a little worried.

“None,” he admitted, somewhat surprised.  “I have half a mind to take you back to Malfoy Manor and have you declared my legal wife.”

“No!  We stick to the original plan.  I’ll be your wife in the highlands, I will find a way to leave and return to you when I ought, and you will go and marry Narcissa Black and have a child with her.”

“I suppose he’ll have blond hair and blue eyes.”

“Gray eyes.  I should know.  He hexed me often enough at Hogwarts.”

Lucius laughed at that.  He sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist, and he looked at her critically.  “You, Madam, need a Muggle wardrobe for however long you’re staying.”

“I don’t believe there’s a shop here…” she began, but he hushed her with a kiss.

“I know of the perfect little place in Edinburgh.  Come, with our magical car, it will only take a few hours.  We’ll be back in time for dinner tomorrow if we leave after breakfast!”

It was a little awkward with the landlady.  She had signed in one guest earlier that week only to discover that he had a wife who had joined him unexpectedly in the middle of the night.  She looked at Ebony critically before commenting on how wild her hair was.  Ebony really had nothing to say about that.

The car was exactly the same as Ebony remembered it and they drove along the Scottish roads at speeds that defied probability.  Lucius mastered the car well and, as promised, they were in Edinburgh just after lunch.  They stopped for their repast and Ebony couldn’t help but look her husband over.

When he saw her looking at him, he asked her what was the matter: “No criticism, then, over the fact that I’m a Potter and a half-blood?”

“The Potters have always been strictly pureblooded so the fact that you have a mother who clearly isn’t a pureblood is surprising.  Was it a love match?”

“Yes, I think so,” Ebony answered carefully.  “From everything I’ve seen and heard, Mum and Dad were very much in love.”

“That’s rather dangerous for this time of war,” Lucius added.  “I’m marrying, after all, for political reasons.”

“Really?  I had no idea,” Ebony answered honestly.  “The way you always talked about Narcissa made me think that you really loved her.”

“I may,” he added, “in the future.  Just not now.”  He looked over his cup of tea at her speculatively.  “I feel more of a connection with you than I have ever felt with her.”

She was rather startled by the admission.

He took her hand, carefully in his and stared into her eyes, “You, Heiress Lucius, are simply remarkable.  You make love to me like I’m a man, not like I’m a duty you have to perform.  You’re forthright in your opinions.  I can feel the sheer magic humming off of your skin.  I may be a Death Eater, but I don’t care that you’re a half-blood.  I think somehow your blood status is wrong, I don’t know how, I just feel it.  You’re a Potter through and through and for what little time we have, you’re mine.  It’s my ring you wear.  You’re a Malfoy.”

“I’m not even born yet.”

“It makes me want to wait for you.”

“You can’t do that.  Narcissa saved my life.  She has to be—“  Ebony bit her tongue.  She couldn’t say that Narcissa had to be at the Battle of Hogwarts.  That would be giving too much of the future away.  Ebony took a deep breath.  “You’ll be forced to hate me, to battle against me.  I won’t have you jeopardized before the Dark Lord.”

And it was strange, but Ebony honestly wouldn’t.  She wasn’t certain she liked being married to Malfoy in her present, but he was her husband, for better or worse, and whatever else she might feel, she did not wish him ill.

He kissed the back of her hand for her answer before leading her away to the shopping district where he had her dressed in only the best designers that Britain could offer.  When she claimed that it was too much, he told her it was nonsense.  Heiress Lucius should look the part.

They were accosted by the Scottish Correspondent of The Daily Prophet on the way to their car.  “Care to comment on the fact you’ve taken a mistress?” he asked, quill in hand.

Lucius looked the man down.  “The lady in question is of the House of Malfoy.  She is nobody’s mistress.  Good day.”  He then ushered her over to her side of the car and they were gone in a whiff of magical exhaust.

Of course it was all over the Morning Edition of The Prophet.  Questions were being asked about her identity and her relationship to the House of Malfoy if she wasn’t, as Lucius claimed, his mistress.  An owl from Wiltshire soon arrived and Ebony was surprised that it was addressed to her: the Unknown Lady Malfoy.

“Forget about it,” Lucius begged, dragging her up to their room and unlacing her peasant top.  “It will go away in a few days.”

“These things never go away in a few days,” Ebony argued, but then he kissed her long and hot, their tongues intertwining.

He pressed her against a wall and hiked up her skirts before entering her without any warning.  She stifled her cries against his shoulder but then he was moving within her, circling back and forth, and she breathed out through her nose.

One, two, three, she inwardly counted, and then he was thrusting inside of her and she was pounding against the wall.  With every movement, she was brought back into awareness, her mouth open in a soundless gasp, until he claimed it, coming inside of her, leaving her completely unsatisfied until his hand sought out her folds, and then she was gone.

“I don’t care what Father says,” he later confided as they were taking their afternoon tea.  “I’ll get you with child and then they’ll have to recognize you.”  He snatched up the letter, opened it, and then threw it in the fire.

“I thought the plan was to let me go.”

“I’m never letting you go,” he stated emphatically.  “I don’t care how this messes with time.  You are my wife.”

She looked at the book he was reading.  It was an Anthology of Keats’ Poems.  Who would have thought that the great Lucius Malfoy would be reading Muggle poetry?

“You are my husband,” she corrected, “I am not yet your wife.  I won’t be for decades.  You have to remember that, Lucius.  You also have to remember that you hate me and it shows in everything that you do.  You’re even convinced I have loose morals, even when I told you I don’t.”

“Why should I wait and why should I hate you?” he demanded.  “I’m a Malfoy.  Malfoys always get what they want, and I want you.”

“That’s not how it works.”

He sighed in exasperation and opened his arms so that she would come and sit on his lap.  Hesitantly, she did so, and she was soon encased in his strong arms and he read Keats to her.  His voice was melodious and she could not help but wonder at it.

He took her to the castle where they had gone all those years in a future.  They went to the furthermost dungeon and she said, “Local legend has it that a witch, and not just a healer, worked here, lived here, back in the days before Culloden.”

“Where did you hear that?” he asked in curiosity.

“From you,” she answered simply.  She pointed to the table.  “You made love to me here.”

“Did I now?” he laughed.  “And how did I make love to you?”

She sat up on the table and spread her legs wide.  “You decide,” she countered, and with a mischievous gleam in his eyes he pulled her panties off and dropped them on the dust-covered ground.

“Well, Madam, if you give me such an array of options—“

“Ebony, please.  I’m tired of being called ‘Lady Malfoy’ or ‘Madam.’  Really, I’m just Ebony.  I’m none of my titles, please, Lucius.”

His hands were grasping her knees and he looked up at her with those honest blue eyes.  “As you say, Ebony.”  Then he was hiking up her skirt and his mouth was on her and her head was thrown back and she was lost to all but pleasure.  She wondered, when she finally came to herself, if Lucius had remembered that day all those decades ago and had mirrored it, had known that she would pull him up and kiss him, tasting her juices on her tongue, or it had been unconscious on his part.

“Marry me,” Lucius begged her afterward as he pulled away.  “As the old gods as my witness, marry me in earnest.”

“We couldn’t have that.  What would Voldemort say?”  She pressed down his lapels.  Ebony was surprised when Lucius did not visibly shudder at the name.  “I know he must give this union with Narcissa his blessing.  The Blacks are supporters of his.”

“Hang the Dark Lord, this is my life, the mother of my children.  I’ve only had you for about a month but I can’t get enough of you.”  He pulled her close and smelled her hair, which must have been full of dust.

“Infatuation fades,” she murmured against his shoulder.  “Don’t make me be the Devil’s Advocate, Lucius.  We both know what has to happen.  Why can’t we enjoy the little time we have together?”

Lucius was called away that night.  Ebony almost didn’t hear him go except for the kiss to her shoulder and the promise that he would return.  He Apparated away in dark black robes and a black hooded mask that frightened her.

There really was a war going on around them.

He wasn’t there the next morning when she awoke.  Uncertain what to do, she eventually decided to go down to breakfast and wandered the town.  It was there, in a shop, that she saw something as simple as blue and white vase.

It struck Ebony that she had never had a home, not really.  She had lived at the Dursleys and then at Hogwarts, and for a few short months at Grimmauld Place, which was more of a mausoleum than anything.  Malfoy Manor hadn’t been home to her.  She’d been there for such short a time and everything was already complete, in its proper place.  Now, though, now she wished for a home with every fiber of her being.

So, without thinking about it, she went into the little shop and bought the vase and then went on to purchase flowers.  Hopefully Lucius would find it charming, if nothing else.

It was the next morning that she was ill.  She couldn’t explain it, only that the smell of food and even the sight of it sent her directly to the toilet.  Ebony began to think there was seriously something wrong with her, until she cast the Pregnancy Charm on herself and realized the horrible truth.  She had somehow, in the past, become pregnant with her husband’s child.  She had to leave.  Immediately.

Lucius, though, didn’t return for days and she couldn’t try to leave, not without saying goodbye. 

When he finally did, he came up to their room, looking a little tired, and he took off his hat, throwing it in the chair.

“Lucius, where have you—?” Ebony began in haste, wondering at the length of her husband’s disappearance.

“Don’t say a word,” he muttered, and then he was pressing a second ring on top of her Malfoy bonding ring and she pulled away from him surprised.  “You’re my bride in one time, you’re already willing,” he argued, as he showed her a matching ring on his hand.  It was surprising.  It was exactly the ring that Lucius wore in her time.  She had always wondered why their rings hadn’t matched, but hadn’t thought to ask about it.

“You’ve been tortured,” she stated perceptively.  “Voldemort wanted you to give me up.”

“Yes,” Lucius answered carefully.  “However, I refused.  I said you were my wife, and hopefully a child would soon follow.”

She let out a hysterical laugh.  “Do you realize what you’ve done, Lucius?  This is—this is just—“  Ebony collapsed into a chair and tears started streaming down her cheeks.

“Hush, darling, all will be well.  I love you.” 

“Don’t say that,” Ebony murmured.  “You’ll only regret it later.”

“How can I regret it?”

“Because I’m leaving!” she said hastily.  “I was just waiting for you to get back, but I think I know a way.”  She just had to get back to those standing stones, and hopefully she would be flung back to the future.  “You’re marrying Narcissa in less than two months.  I have to be gone.  And you hate me.  You really do.  You hate everything I stand for, Lucius.”

“I’m married to you,” he argued, reaching up to cup her cheek.  “And I could never hate you—could never hurt you.”

“You’re married to a phantom who doesn’t yet exist and, I swear, you will hate me, even if you don’t believe me now,” she quarreled.  “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”  She took his hands in hers and kissed them.  “Please, Lucius.  Do this for me.”

“I’m doing this for us,” he argued back, his eyes searching her face.  “You’re glowing.”

“I’m—what?”  Ebony really didn’t like where this was heading.

“You’re glowing, Ebony.  I know you’re with child.  You can always tell with a witch.”

She bit her lip and remained silent.  Ebony had noticed the strange tint to her skin, the way her eyes lit up when she wasn’t sick in the toilet.

“You cannot possibly know that,” she argued, pulling her hands away.  “You will go and you will marry Narcissa Black.  You will have a child named Draco.  This is how it has to be.”

“This is not how it has to be,” he argued, running a hand through her wild hair.  “I’m sure histories get changed all the time.”

Not this history, Ebony quietly thought.  Never this history.

She dropped the argument and went to bed in his arms.  They didn’t make love that night.  Lucius was still too sore from Voldemort’s curses and he said he simply wanted to smell her.

When she was sure he was asleep, she got up and was quietly dressed.  She had a peasant top and bell-bottom jeans thrown over a chair, so she slipped those on before going out the creaking door, keys in hand.  The invisibility cloak was in her handbag, the elder wand in her hand, the resurrection stone still on her finger.

Trying to remember the route, she drove to the stone circle in the dead of night, with nothing but her headlights and the moon to guide her.

Ebony berated herself the entire way there.  She could just turn around, enter this new future with Lucius.  It was only four years until Voldemort would be defeated the first time.  She knew how to do it the second.  It would be easy.  The wizarding world would be at peace.

But that wasn’t good enough.  She had already altered the timeline too much.  Although she couldn’t say that she loved Heir Lucius Malfoy, she was certainly fond of him—fond enough not to let him miss out on the love and devotion his family would bring to him.  Her personal happiness meant nothing.

As a consolation prize she would always have a reminder of him in her husband of the future.  True, Lucius, Lord Malfoy looked down on her and wished that she were his dearly departed wife, but he was still Lucius Malfoy.  A part of the young man she had met must still linger in the cold lines of his face.

Then she was there, at the circle, and she parked the car a little ways away so she could climb over the rocks and see the stones materialize before her, inch by inch.  When she finally reached it, she stood in the center, opened her arms wide, and for the first time in her life prayed to the old gods, “Please, blessed Mother,” she called, “send me back from whence I came.  Send me back to my rightful husband, to my stepson, to a world that is now free from Voldemort and war!  If you do this for me, I will learn the Old Ways.  I will allow my husband to teach me even though he looks down on me because I am a half-blood.  I will do my utmost to honor you, Mother Magic!”  With those words, she touched the center stone and—

Once, when Ebony was really young, she had fallen asleep in a car.  Lulled to sleep by the purring of the engines and Dudley’s muttering to his computer game, her uncle Vernon had taken a corner too fast and she had woken up.  It was in that moment of weightlessness that she felt like she was falling forever—

This was like that.

Ebony fell with a thud to the ground and blinked away the shining sun that was in her eyes.  She shielded her face with her arms and quickly got up.  She was still in the stone circle.

Scrambling down the incline she had crawled up, she came to the road and found that the car was gone.  Scratching her head, she looked around for it, before sprinting up the hill to where she had left the automobile the first time.  There it was, in pristine condition, as if she hadn’t left it for more than a few minutes.  The keys were still in the ignition.

Breathing deeply, Ebony sat in the diver’s seat and drove back to the hamlet where she and Lucius were staying.  The sun set, but still she drove, wondering what she might find there.

Lucius was not in the drawing room, nor was he in any room downstairs.  Carefully, she made her way up to the bedroom and saw him in the small sitting area.

“Ah, there you are, Madam,” he stated without looking up from whatever he was reading.  “I had almost despaired over you.”

“Really, Lucius,” she said without thinking, “I told you to call me ‘Ebony.’”

With a flash he was out of his seat and he grabbed her left hand to where the two Malfoy betrothal rings were sitting on it.  He quickly took in her clothes and the glow about her face.  “You’re with child.”

“Your child,” she reminded him.  “I thought that’s what you wanted?”  Her voice became chilly, cold, matching his stern expression.

He was staring at her betrothal rings.  “If it weren’t for the article in The Prophet I would have thought all of that a dream.”

She pulled her hands away from his, looking at his lined and hardened face.  “You might see it as a dream, but I don’t.  For awhile I had a husband who loved me.”

“Who says I don’t love you?” he asked angrily back.  “What has this trip been about?  I took you exactly where we were before.  Done exactly the same things.  Do you think I took perfect Narcissa on a trip like this?  Do you think she would be bothered with common Muggles?”

Then his hands were on the sides of her shoulders and he was kissing her desperately.  “You left me,” he said, pulling away, “and when you came back I was the horrible wizard you had painted me to be.  I didn’t know what else to do but to create a reality where you would be with me—back to that short month before I married Narcissa.  I love you, but of course I’m angry.”  So she kissed him back, snaking her arms through his hair and drawing him closer to her.  He pulled her peasant top off of her and trailed a line of kisses down her chest and onto her stomach, where he unclasped her bell-bottoms and then continued his journey.

Ebony gasped out her pleasure and pulled Lucius toward her, feeling his delicious tongue within her, which caused her to shudder.

“Oh the horrors,” Lucius intoned, once she had shaken with her release and he’d carried her to the bed.  “A pureblood would never think of such an act.”

“Please tell me that’s not the only reason why you loved me,” she begged, running a hand down his clothed shoulder.

“You were a marvel, Ebony.  Everything I was taught not to expect or appreciate, and you were suddenly mine.  How could I have let that go?”

She gasped a laugh.  “Well, you’ll never have to now.”

“Just don’t go do whatever you did to travel in time again,” he breathed against her ear.

“Promise, so long as you teach me the Old Ways.”

A laugh was all the response that she would get.

The End.