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The Downfall of Greed	By : tcarlson Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 40824 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make money off this fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Potter came back less than 48 hours later with a trunk filled with potions ingredients. He sat at the table, looking quite pleased with himself, as Severus went through the trunk and examined everything closely.

“I must say that I am amazed, Potter,” Severus said as he held up a vial of some sort of liquid to the light. “You managed to follow directions and get everything done in a decent amount of time.”

“Is that praise I hear from dear old Professor Snape?” Potter said in a tone of mock surprise. “I do believe the world must be ending! If you award me house points, my heart just might give out from shock!”

“Ten points to Gryffindor then.” Severus raised an eyebrow when Potter didn’t fall over dead. Potter smirked.

“It was worth a shot, Severus,” Draco laughed.

“Indeed. May I ask how you managed to gather all the rare, illegal, and dangerous ingredients in such a short amount of time?”

“Why have an Order if they don’t make themselves useful?”

“Getting others to do your dirty work for you?” Severus sneered.

“It would have never gotten done otherwise. You know that. Poor Remus had to go all the way to Antarctica to get that special melted snow! Hagrid nearly died from collecting the eggs of that snake in Africa!”

“It doesn’t matter. We have them all and you can start working on the potion,” I interrupted.

“Yes. You can come back in a week Potter. I’ll be done by then,” Severus said.

“Um. About that.” Potter smiled sheepishly. “The Order didn’t think that having me come and go from the safe house so much was a good idea. They didn’t the extra magic to attract any unwanted attention to the area so they thought it’d be best if I stayed here until the potion was done.”

“Fabulous,” Draco groaned.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Potter kept out of the way during the day, keeping himself busy by sitting in a corner and reading through dueling books. He slept on the couch at night. All in all, his presence in the house wasn’t a total inconvenience.

Severus, on the other hand, was a complete nightmare. Draco had the good sense to hide in his room and stick me with the task of helping prepare ingredients. My potions skills did not meet Severus’s high standards and I was constantly on the receiving end of his scathing remarks. Normally short tempered, the stress of basically inventing a new potion in a week shortened the fuse further. There were many random eruptions of anger. I tried to bite my tongue and ignore the hurtful remarks he threw at me.

“Honestly, with the way you are mangling those roots, Lucius, it’s like you never want Miss. Granger to be saved because you are going to completely ruin the potion!”

I stabbed the knife into the table and was about to unleash days of pent-up rage at him when Potter put a hand on my arm. “Why don’t I take over? Go to your room and relax.”

“Oh yes, Potter, because you will be so much better than Lucius.”

Potter calmly pulled the knife from the table and took a fresh root from the pile to chop. “It’s not Lucius’s fault that he can’t chop properly, Professor. He had Slughorn. I had the good fortune to have you to teach me how to do it the correct way. I basically had private tutoring with school-aged you all of sixth year.”

Severus eyed the pile of chopped roots that Potter had already finished with. It must have passed his inspection for he gave a noncommittal grunt and turned back to the simmering cauldron without further comment.

Potter became Severus’s assistant after that and the house returned to a semblance of peace.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“That’s enough for tonight, Potter,” Severus said warily three nights later as he put the stirring rod down and cast a stasis charm over the potion. “Tomorrow we’ll do the test it for adverse effects. After that, the recipe just follows the final steps of Polyjuice. If it goes well tomorrow, we could have the potion finished by tomorrow night.”

Harry wiped down the table and flopped down on the couch next to Draco with a groan. “Do I have to put a dress on?”

“Only if you want to,” Draco teased.

“At this point the potion shouldn’t even do anything. I just want to make sure it won’t kill you,” Severus said as he put away some extra ingredients.

“That makes me feel so much better.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I lay awake that night, thinking about how we were so close to getting Hermione back. A mix of nerves and excitement kept me awake. Giving up on falling asleep, I quietly opened my door as not to wake Potter on the couch and went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

Movement caught my eye as I started to make my way back to my room with a steaming cup of tea. Potter was thrashing about on the couch. His face was screwed up in a grimace and sweat drenched his undershirt. He gave a small cry that was a mixture of pain and protest and suddenly sat up. He gasped for air for a few moments before noticing me where I stood frozen in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Nightmare?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Something like that,” he muttered, avoiding my eyes. I moved to sit next to him and offered him my cup of tea. “No, thanks,” he said, although he looked grateful. “Nothing sits right after…” He stared into the dying embers of the fire. He sniffed and tried to surreptitiously wipe away a tear.

“That was no nightmare,” I observed.

“No. It was a vision. From him.”

“Hermione,” I breathed.

“She’s alive. And ok from what I can tell. At least she’s not physically hurt. Emotionally…” He covered his face. “I don’t know how much longer she can hold on.”

I grabbed Potter’s shoulders and forced him to look at me. “I need to know what you saw. I need to know what she’s going through because of me!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ll just make yourself feel worse or leave the safe house in some misguided attempt to save her. It’s his way of goading me to facing him unprepared. If we let this vision sway us from the plan, then he wins. We can’t let him win, Mr. Malfoy!”

I ignored him and stared into his eyes, ready to read through his thoughts and sort through his memories until I found the vision and could at least have the comfort of seeing for myself that she was still alive. If she was alive, there was hope yet.

My attempt at Legilimency was disrupted as he broke eye contact by wrenching his head to the side. “No, not that way. If you have to see it, don’t make me relive it!” I let go of him, startled. He picked up my teacup which had somehow been overturned during the previous few moments. Taking out his wand, he put it to his temple and pulled out a string of glowing matter. He dropped it into the cup and handed it to me. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about it after you’ve seen it.”

I stood up, cradling the cup like it was a precious treasure. Potter lay back down on the couch and faced away from me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

I took the cup into my room and shut the door. Sitting on the edge of my bed with the swirling memory inches from my nose, I had a moment of doubt over whether I should really watch it. Even if it was just to see her face and assure myself that she was alive, it was worth it, right?

I quickly touched the tip of my nose to the memory before I talked myself out of it. With that, I was pulled down into Potter’s memory of the vision.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She was kneeling naked on the floor at the foot of a huge and elegant four-post bed. Her hands were tied behind her back and around one of the legs of the bed. Her hair fell over her eyes, obscuring her face. Like Potter said, she looked physically unhurt.

She had been crying. The blood red carpet was slightly darker where her tears must have fallen. She hiccupped and sniffled. A small moan escaped her lips as she leaned as far forward as her restraints would permit and started crying anew.

“Have you quite finished your little hissy fit?” a dark voiced asked from behind me. I whirled around to see Voldemort sitting in a chair watching Hermione. Her answer was a high wail as she sobbed harder. He got up from where he had been lounging and stalked over to her and grabbed her hair, forcing her to look up at him. “Enough,” he ordered quietly, “or another round of the Cruciatus.”

“Y-y-you think your th-threats scare me?” Hermione rasped out. “That when you t-told me, I’d f-f-finally become obedient? I don’t care anymore! You took away my only reason to live!”

“You die when I say so. After I am done with you, I will grant you death.”

“My body may still be alive, but you effectively killed my soul and mind when you killed… when you killed…” She couldn’t finish her sentence through the tears. Merlin, who had died that the Order didn’t tell us about? The Weasley boy perhaps?

“Fine. I only need your body to lure Potter. Your soul and mind are of no importance to me anymore. Perhaps breaking your spirit will prevent you from attempting one of your foolish Gryffindor plans again. There’s no need to escape now that the reason you’ve been trying to escape is disposed of.” He cut her ropes and laid her back upon the bed surprisingly gently. “Lucius died heroically with your name on his lips, if you cared to know.”

Me? I was the dead one that she was sobbing over? Of course he would lie to her to get her to cooperate. The swell of pride I felt when I heard that she had been fighting to get back to me was destroyed by the realization that she was falling apart over fake news. All I wanted to do was reach out and touch her. Let her know that I was alive. That I was ok. Instead I could only watch helplessly as the memory continued.

Voldemort loomed over Hermione on the bed. Her sobs had subsided into hiccups again. She rolled over and curled up into a ball, exhaustion overtaking her.

“Potter’s mind is very open tonight and I’d like to take advantage of that, my sweet,” Voldemort whispered into Hermione’s ear. “Give him a good performance to watch.” His body covered hers.

As he started nibbling down her neck, Hermione’s eyes snapped open. “No, Harry!” she called out. “Don’t you dare come! I’m fine… I’m…” Her shouts were cut off as Voldemort roughly covered her mouth with his.

I pulled out of the memory as he leaned back to pull off his robes. I didn’t need to see that. I didn’t need to have that image forever burned into my mind.

I threw the cup containing the memory against the wall. It was another night of no sleep and staring at the ceiling.
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The Downfall of Greed