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Hungry Thirsty Crazy	By : AndreaLorraine Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 47434 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Hermione woke to a sunny morning and Crookshanks� behind in her face. After shoving the cat out of the way, she sat up and stretched. Hopefully today she�d receive word that everything was sorted on Lucius�s end and they could return to Italy.

Her hope faded slightly when she saw that her only mail was the Daily Prophet. Frowning, Hermione started to put it aside for a later perusal. That was when she caught sight of the Prophet�s headline, or at least the half of it she could see with the newspaper still folded.

OFFICIALS SAY MALFOY

Oh, dear. What were they trying to pin on him now? Gingerly, she unfolded the front page.

�FAIM� AUTHOR IDENTIFIED: OFFICIALS SAY MALFOY PENNED BESTSELLER

Hermione cursed so loudly that Crookshanks actually hissed at her for interrupting his beauty sleep.

His sleep was deep and murky. Lucius felt entombed within it, held down by the threat of the dreams he might have. His body was so happy to have those still hours, but even in sleep, his mind could not relax.

Lucius came awake slowly through a barrage of disjointed faces and locales. Some he recognized, some he didn�t, but all bore the same faint undercurrent of dread. There was a man in there that he no longer knew, the one who had reveled in the dark nights and intoxicating high that came from both being powerful and powerless, and he had no desire to confront him again. Just when he had moved past it all, it was literally back to haunt him.

The thoughts that he deserved it welled up, clenching in his chest. Unfortunate things had befallen him, yes, but it had all been too easy since he met Hermione again. He couldn�t trust that life would remain so simple. His punishment wasn�t complete; the world had given him a respite, time to regain his hold on life, and now it would challenge him once again.

As he opened his eyes, his jaw clenched. He would hold on to what he had until his fingers were worn to the bone. He didn�t care about the money or the properties; he only cared for his small circle of people, the ones who had the fortitude to be involved in his life and to whom it mattered. They were his wealth...and for them, he would face anything.

Harry read the Prophet raptly, which wasn�t something he was prone to since most of it was rubbish. Even though everything had turned out well in the end, he still distrusted the paper. However, this wasn�t just some mouthy reporter making a sensational claim. This had come directly from Kingsley Shacklebolt, the one Minister of Magic he found to be trustworthy.

The article said that Lucius Malfoy had written the bestselling book in ninety years - a book he�d actually read. Harry found Faim to be strange and disturbing, but also eerily familiar in some ways.

He knew what it was like to be alone and gripped by a fear he couldn�t admit to. He also knew the dark bouts of temper that crept up on the main character. The only difference was that the man in the story had never had anyone there to balance him. Harry always had Ron, Hermione, Sirius, the Weasleys...the list went on and on. He had come away from that book with a much greater appreciation for all those who had kept him sane in the worst of times.

He was also acutely aware of how lucky he was. Harry continued to scan the article, an unsettled feeling in his gut.

The question now becomes, how much is truth and how much is fiction?

That was the question on everyone�s mind as the next week went by. Everyone except Draco, because he already knew the answer. He suspected his mother did, too, when he found her in the sitting room bawling her eyes out with his copy of Faim in her lap.

She lay next to his warm body, drowsing in the rhythm of his breathing. It wasn�t always so comforting. Since the discovery that a memory charm had locked away much of his early Death Eater tenure, he had been wracked by nightmares. Sometimes he had trouble distinguishing which were memories and which were the creations of a nervous mind that dreaded what he might have done once upon a time.

When it got bad, he resorted to Dreamless Sleep. However, Lucius didn�t consider it bad until he was either screaming or sleepless for more than three days. Hermione didn�t like to see him in either state and consistently tried to get him to find a better way to control the flow of his memories, but Lucius couldn�t be budged.

She knew why. To avoid any inquiry into Pound�s accusations that he murdered Muggles, Lucius had agreed to provide whatever memories he could to the Ministry in order to assist with solving cold cases. The alternative was to deprive the many families still looking for answers of their closure, for Lucius had made it abundantly clear that he wouldn�t cooperate unless he was guaranteed amnesty. It was an arrangement that Draco had come up with, and along with Dawlish�s help, they had managed to sway Shacklebolt into doing what would look better for his administration.

Hermione frowned to herself. She had once held Kingsley in high esteem, but it was clear that he was becoming just another politician. In this case it was lucky that Lucius had his number and she wasn�t about to protest, but it made her wonder about many things, not the least of which involved the mutual hatred Lucius and Kingsley obviously held for one another.

Case in point: whenever the Minister was brought up in conversation, or even a newspaper article, a formerly extinct flicker of coldness frosted over Lucius�s eyes. And though Kingsley had protected Lucius once by ordering Hermione�s knickers destroyed rather than going forward with DNA tests, the same courtesy had not been extended when he found out that Lucius really was the author of Faim. He�d made no effort at all to conceal that bit of information. It almost seemed like he took it personally that Lucius had tried to keep it a secret. The fact that Lucius had never lied to him only angered him more.

She tilted her head slightly, watching the way the candlelight caught on his face. He was relaxed. She hoped that his sleep would be uninterrupted tonight; he needed it. The twin stressors of recovering terrible memories and having to deal with the media fallout of his authorship of Faim were taking a toll on him.

A week ago she�d returned home from class and suffered from a bad case of deja vu. He was standing by the fireplace, manuscript in hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to try to destroy it all over again. When she called out to him, he turned. His face was calm, but so very tired.

�I can�t publish it,� he murmured. �All that work...and it will just sit in a drawer.�

She had coaxed him away from the fireplace knowing that he was right. Soif was likely a hundred times worse than Faim in terms of its capacity to get him in trouble. Now that everyone knew he was the author, no charade could cover up the fact that the man he was writing about was him.

Hermione had spent a long time convincing him that the worth of Soif lay in the fact that the mere process of writing was like an exorcism. He was expelling the last of his old snake�s skin; the importance was in that and not in any potential audience. The work wasn�t wasted, and even if he couldn�t publish it, it was no less valuable.

Lucius believed her, but she could tell that it pained him to have to give up on it, especially since he still didn�t know how to end it. He didn�t like a loose end any more than she did. He put his quills and ink away with a heavy-hearted resignation.

Since then, he had been keeping himself busy dealing with the media hurricane. The first thing he had done was to make the villa Unplottable to any wizard or witch who had not already been there. At the same time, they made sure that the Muggles could still see the villa, but put wards in place that would curtail any desire they had to come up and investigate. The only ones who were immune to that were Paolo and Elisabetta.

Because of his crafty spellwork, they hadn�t been bothered at the villa. The rest of the world was a different story. Lucius couldn�t walk two yards in London without be deluged by reporters. Even Draco and Narcissa were being hounded. That made him angrier than some of the insensitive questions that were hurled at him and he had made it known that if his son and ex-wife were harassed, he would take legal action.

Hermione was free of it all since no one knew she was involved with him. That didn�t make it any less stressful to see the strain on his face or to hear him recount the sheer rudeness that some of the reporters and readers thought it necessary to bestow upon him. Someone had actually told him that they were glad he was raped, because he deserved it. Another person had accused him of making it up for sympathy. Still another had rationalized that because of the sexuality inherent in much of the book, he must have been asking for it and even enjoyed it. Hermione wasn�t really sure which was worse, and frankly, she wanted to strangle all of them.

Others received him more warmly. However, those people expected action from him, and that was something Lucius wasn�t prepared for. Owning his story was overwhelming enough in the public spotlight. He wasn�t at a point where he could begin to think about activism or charitable foundations or prevention. Someday he would be, but he needed time and people were impatient.

Still, it spoke volumes that no one seemed to want to throw him in jail. The brief mention of murder in the book was easily chalked up to a revenge fantasy, and oddly, no one questioned Lucius on it in spite of the fact that Aloysius Pound insisted he had proof. There wasn�t a single person in all of Wizarding England who would believe him. It seemed that Lucius had finally passed the mantle of Most Hated Former Death Eater on to someone else, and it felt damn good.

However, the Purebloods made their disdain for him very clear. They felt that his writings were an attack on their customs and way of life. He was lower than dirt to them now, and some of his most vocal critics were people he had once counted as friends, if not allies at the very least. Because he dared to paint a familiar portrait that revealed so much about what went on behind the veil of Pureblood perfection, he became a pariah.

There were some, like Andromeda, who spoke up in his defense. Most of the others were not of Lucius�s generation; they were the younger ones, Draco�s age, who were only now realizing what their rigid, sheltered upbringing had done to them. In some ways, having them on his side was more important than their parents or grandparents, and Lucius knew that.

He had stopped caring about the Pureblood opinion a long time ago, anyhow. Hermione still wondered if he no longer considered himself pure, and if that was why it meant so little to him, but she didn�t dare ask. He didn�t need reminders of his condition amidst the rest of the chaos.

She stared at him with an ache of love in her chest. She wanted to shield him from it all. Hermione had never before had to sit and watch as a person she loved was stretched in so many different directions. At least with Harry she had been able to do things, to defend him in whatever way she could. Lucius repeatedly told her that it wasn�t her job to protect him. He also said that all of this was his own doing and therefore his responsibility. His voice said that, but frequently his eyes said something else.

But the haunted blue irises were hidden now, and he was at peace. Hermione snuffed out the candle and lay down beside him, hoping that it would last the night.

Draco lay sprawled in an oversized chair in one of the Manor�s many libraries. He was warm and pleasantly buzzed from sharing a bottle of wine with Pansy. The dark-haired woman was drowsing on the couch across from him. Pansy had always made a good drinking buddy - she was talkative, funny, and uninhibited enough to make things interesting. However, Draco wasn�t oblivious to the fact that her reappearance in his life was directly related to the sudden media madness that surrounded his father�s book. Pansy wasn�t known for her loyalty, so the only answer was that the lens of fame (or infamy) brought her to his doorstep.

She was trying to seduce him; Draco recognized the signs. She had thrown herself at him before, during the later years of school, but back then it had mostly been about teenaged hormones. This was a different creature entirely.

Pansy was a good drinking buddy, but that was all she would ever be. Eventually she would figure that out. Until then, he was more than happy to laugh and drink with her and fend off her transparent advances. He had no doubt that she would find another man more important than him, and even if he didn�t make her happy, his money would.

In the silence, his mind turned to other things. Things that cycled in and out of his stream of consciousness, always plucking at his attention and his patience. Namely, what did this turn of events mean?

It was obvious that his father had gone through a lot of trouble to keep the world from knowing that he wrote Faim. Draco could understand why. It was very personal, a glimpse inside a mind that even Draco couldn�t claim to know terribly well. His father was, like any Slytherin, a private person, and he�d hate to have his personal business splashed about the world without the cover of anonymity.

But if that was the case, why had he written it at all? Draco shook his head and massaged his temples. There were so many questions. Even without the book to consider, the situation was rife with them.

Had his father murdered a Muggle? That was what Pound kept insisting, as if it made a difference in his own situation. Draco bit his lip. He had seen a glimpse of a vicious man when he and his father had fallen into Voldemort�s trap in the old dining room. He had no trouble believing that that man could murder someone, because he�d nearly murdered him.

Draco was no fool. He knew that the Death Eaters had been extremists, zealots of the worst kind. However, during most of his tenure he had been tucked away at Hogwarts. The worst he�d witnessed was the Carrows inventing some particularly evil and torturous detentions. He was endlessly thankful for that, though he knew that the activities of other Death Eaters were not so innocuous.

But he also knew his father wasn�t like Bellatrix or some of the others. He did not like to inflict pain for fun. Draco suspected his childhood would have been very different if that was the case. If he killed anyone, it had been long ago, in a time when his mind was torn as it had been in the old dining room.

It was disconcerting how little it bothered him that his father might be a murderer. He had come to terms with killing, he supposed. For an entire year he had believed that he had to (and actively tried to) kill Dumbledore. He knew from personal experience that people did what they had to in times where the world went mad.

This felt like one of those times. In fact, it didn�t feel much different from the aftermath of the war. He was receiving hate and praise from all angles, people he�d never met, for a reason he couldn�t control, and that was only Draco thinking about himself. The things people said to his father...

And the things he couldn�t say to him. Lucius had shied away from the last few therapy sessions with Healer Newbery, saying only that he did not want to distract from Draco�s problems with his own. He could tell that his father felt an incredible guilt. For years Draco had wanted that, any acknowledgement of what Lucius had done to his son�s sanity and his life, anything at all. Now that he had it, Draco wished it would just go away. It was another barrier between them and he was tired of walls.

Draco could only sigh. He had gotten everything he wanted, but like so many times before, he was discovering that he didn�t really want those things at all. What he truly desired was peace, to be unknown, unimportant, inconsequential, and free to live his life because of it.

He dragged himself out of the chair and approached Pansy. She was out cold now; it seemed her tolerance for alcohol had waned. She was a pretty girl. He even liked her so-called pug nose; Draco honestly couldn�t picture her any other way. If only he didn�t know what she was really here for...his fame, his money, his name, whatever was left of it...

Carefully, he gathered her in his arms and made his way to the floo. In another few minutes he�d brought her back to her flat and tucked her into bed. Maybe it wasn�t a good idea to use Pansy for her company. He had strange feelings for her, feelings that, if scented by the shrewd woman, would most certainly be used against him...and what was better at muddling the mind than laughter and wine?

Next time she called, he would turn her down. Right now it was better for him to be alone than in company whose motives were easy to ascertain, but difficult to resist. He longed for companionship - since the end of the war, it had been scarce - and though his mind knew what to expect, his emotions might get the better of him.

Draco left Pansy�s flat feeling morose and alone. Once back in the Manor, he couldn�t sleep. Though his stomach had begun to chastise him for the overindulgence, he did the only thing that had provided him comfort and distraction in the last year. He went to work.

Ah, but he wasn�t alone. That redhead was at the Ministry, too. He thought she looked different, but couldn�t really tell from across the cafeteria. She waved, offered a commiserating smile, and then returned to her work. Coffee in hand, Draco did the same.

Hermione was awakened by Musca, who had curled up on Lucius�s empty pillow only to end up with one of his master�s long blond hairs stuck to his nose. Musca was rolling around and pawing at his snout, sneezing from the tickle. Chuckling, Hermione reached over and removed the offending hair from Musca�s face. The cat blinked at her and then, apparently deciding she was worthwhile, came to snuggle against her chest.

She wondered where Lucius had gone, but it wasn�t unusual for him to be out of the house long before her these days. He couldn�t sleep late. He also couldn�t bear to be idle. The time that had once been taken up by writing needed to be filled. Usually he went to England to continue with his project of purifying the Manor or to deal with the book debacle. He would be back by dinner time.

In the meantime, she had to go to class. She was finally caught up on everything. It seemed impossible, but her first semester was almost over. She was on her way to becoming a Healer and few things had ever felt so right to her - few things besides the beautiful, complex man that should have been all wrong.

Hermione smiled and then got up, hoping that the day would be kind to both of them.

Unbeknownst to Hermione, Lucius had gone against habit today and avoided England altogether. The sun blazed down on him and he relished it. Down here it was summer and the heat reminded him of the earliest days in Italy. It had been a good idea to come to Australia; no one would think to look here and since his mother had apparently never mentioned him to a soul, no one knew him, so he would be left alone for a little while.

Besides, he had to deal with his mother�s estate eventually. She had left everything to him, but he had all but abandoned it months ago because he simply couldn�t tolerate the emotions it wrung out of him. Now it seemed less threatening, as if the ghosts had finally departed.

He was inspecting the grounds now. It was a pretty bit of land with its own vineyard and a swimming pool. Lucius didn�t want or need another property, but he was certain that Draco wouldn�t mind having it. He knew instinctively that there were times when his son just wanted to get away from the strain of England or Europe altogether.

Aside from the property itself, there were many things to go through. His father had not left his mother much in the way of money, but he had been generous with material things. Most of the jewelry had gone to her, save for what had been set aside for Narcissa, and a good amount of silver, crystal, and objets d�art had been left to her, also. Lucius recognized most of those things, since he�d grown up seeing many of them displayed on shelves that would never know a speck of dust in spite of their disuse. He planned to take what he liked back to the place it belonged and the rest would go into their Gringotts vault.

Everything else must have come from her second husband. He had died and left most everything to her, including the house and the land. He would let Draco sort through those things at his leisure. Lucius didn�t care for the late wizard�s taste - not in women, and certainly not in art or decorating.

He took a while to go through the jewelry, wondering if there was anything Hermione would like. She seldom bothered with jewelry; her hands were free of rings and necklaces got stuck in her hair, so she never wore them. The most he�d ever seen on her was a simple bracelet and a pair of earrings.

Narcissa once told him that he had a good instinct for jewelry. Like any other gift, it had to fit the person it was meant for. Hermione was low maintenance, but still very feminine underneath. She liked to feel beautiful but didn�t necessarily need the best to do so. Well, she would get the best from him, but he had learned not to brag; it was the thoughtfulness of the gift and not the gift itself that impressed her.

Regardless, he couldn�t help but picture the many diamond rings in his mother�s collection gracing her left hand. She deserved the biggest diamond in existence. Even then, no rock, no matter how beautiful it was, could adequately express what she meant to him.

Unfortunately, there was nothing there that stood out to him. Everything was too gaudy for Hermione; she�d be more likely to pawn it for a good cause than wear it. The thought made him smile for the first time in several days.

Armed with that smile, Lucius approached the door he had thus far been unable to breach. There was no ward or hex holding him back. It was just a barrier within his own mind, and now, with a little donated courage, it would be broken.

�I...I think I�ve got it!�

The Cursebreaker stepped away from the door, his face anxious. Dawlish stepped forward with his wand raised. He, and indeed everyone on the team, were only too conscious of the fact that they were dealing with a very smart, very tricky man. Just as the ancient Egyptians had booby-trapped their tombs and precious objects, Pound had left some very nasty spells on this door.

They had been working on it for days. It was hidden in the basement of a second property, one that they had been told about by Lucius Malfoy. He had vaguely recalled being there once. The memory he provided was fuzzy and incomplete, but his instinct was that finding this place was important, and Dawlish agreed.

It had taken a long time to find the house itself. Once inside, it appeared to be in a state of disuse. They had almost given up on it, but then Junior Auror Potter had spotted some faded footprints in the dust of the basement leading directly to the door. A halved footprint told them that someone had been past it within the last month.

The Cursebreaker had been at work almost nonstop for a week. The more resistance they encountered, the more certain Dawlish was that the answers they needed were beyond that door. And now, it might be within their reach...

�Stand back,� he ordered. He knew he could be that Auror who died from a horrible spell still left on the door, but he was in charge. He wasn�t going to place one of his subordinates in the way of harm, and the Cursebreaker (who probably knew better than him what to expect) already looked half-dead with exhaustion.

Swallowing, he braced himself for the worst. �Alohomora.�

Click.

Things were just as he�d left them in his fit of rage. He hadn�t really made a mess in spite of the fact that he wanted to burn the library to ashes. Everything remained somber and dusty; the book was still there on the desk, a white splash in the shadows. His book.

With a tremulous breath, Lucius picked it up. He had never complimented Netherwood on the cover design, or lack thereof. It was like the man had been in his head; it was so stark, so blatant. It said all it needed to say with pure emptiness.

A pang of regret hit him. If he hadn�t published, Patrick would never have been placed in the line of fire. He couldn�t have known what would happen but that didn�t do much to soothe him. A man had died because of him, a good man with a wife and children who needed him. That would forever weigh on Lucius even though the true blame was squarely on Pound.

In hindsight, though, it had been very stupid to put so much personal information out where anyone could read it. Lucius wasn�t entirely sure what he wanted to accomplish by doing it. Back then, in the grips of depression, there had been some ill-formed desire for catharsis. Having to look into the eyes of friends and enemies now, when they knew...it was almost worse than the initial experiences. To give people information was to provide a weapon. There were many who might want to use it.

He turned the book over in his hands. The rippled pages meant that his mother had cried while she read it, or perhaps that was wishful thinking; she might just have splashed some water on it while sitting by the pool. But if she had cried�Lucius didn�t quite know how that made him feel. A part of him recognized her sorrow and guilt and could almost forgive her. The other part railed against it, hating her for her cowardice.

He had to make his peace with her. Wherever she was, he needed to release her specter. The trouble was that he had no idea how to do so. Absently, he flipped the pages of the book against his thumb, the sound of the pages rapidly swishing putting order to his thoughts.

Until something shot out of the pages and fell to the desk. Actually, two somethings. Envelopes. Lucius froze. He stood there for a long time, staring at the things that silently menaced him, one yellowed and old, the other blindingly white and fresh. His name was on the front of both.

Dawlish winced, but he had both eyes open. He realized, as they stood in absolute silence, that death had not struck. He also realized that Harry Potter was standing on his right, wand raised, even though he had ordered everyone back. For heaven�s sake, how many times did he have to tell the brash young hero that he was not going to have him killed in some frivolous display of courage after everything he�d already survived?

One stern look had Potter taking an abashed step back. Dawlish didn�t hold it against the young man; for so long he had been acting on his own without anyone to guide him. He was learning. Slowly, he would begin to understand the balance between caution and impulsivity, and likewise which situations called for each one. His instincts were good, but it was clear to the experienced Auror that Potter also had a great deal of luck. Luck sometimes ran out.

Like right now. Finally, Aloysius Pound�s luck had run out. With a nod, he beckoned his team forward.

The door opened with a stereotypical creak. What had looked to be nothing more than a closet from the outside was in reality a vast laboratory. A well-stocked one, too, by the looks of things. Dawlish snapped into action.

�We need a Potions expert down here right away. Start collecting those papers. I want everything bagged and brought back to the Ministry, and I mean everything, people! Go!�

Lucius recognized the two drastically different styles of penmanship. He didn�t want to read the letters, but he needed to. He Scourgified the dust from the chair and sat with a leaden feeling in his gut. His hands were clumsy as he pulled at the delicate paper of the older note, automatically his father�s by its age.

Dear Lucius,

If you�re reading this, I am dead. I have asked your mother to give you this letter once I�m gone, at her own discretion. I hope she will attend to my wishes, for this is probably the most important one.

Dragon Pox is truly a wicked disease. I can barely move without breaking the sores. Just to write this letter I have to wear a great deal of protective clothing, but I can�t say I mind it. I know you could not come to see me even if you wanted to, for fear of contagion, but nonetheless, your absence is painful to me. So is the absence of Draco. I do not know what we did two years ago to make you hate us so. I love your boy, Lucius. I love my grandson. I wish that someday you would tell him that.

While I do not know what happened to push you away recently, I do know why you hate me. Why you hate your mother. Why you would not come to see me even if you could. Your mother finally broke down and told me, when the healers informed me that I had four weeks left to live.

She was drunk, of course. I couldn�t understand it, unless she was drinking out of celebration, for soon she would be free of me. It is no secret that your mother and I were not compatible. I never loved her as anything more than the mother of my child, and even that was trying. She was no mother to you, and I couldn�t be around to be a father, not that I knew how.

But anyhow, she told me. She told me of the day, a month after your tenth birthday, when you confessed to her. When you tried to express what that filthy Muggle had done to you.

Lucius, I know that you were terrified of me. I had made it so. I know that I railed against Muggles, and Half Bloods, and Mudbloods, that I had punished you before for associating with them. I know that this loomed in your mind while you struggled to keep that secret in.

I wish to every deity there is, or is not, that you had chosen me. I would not have stood for that being done to you. My rage would have been extreme, but it never, ever would have been directed at you. I know that no one invites such invasion, such violation, least of all a nine-year-old boy.

Perhaps no one ever told you this, but it was not your fault. It was his fault, Lucius, entirely his, and he is in hell burning for it for all eternity. Perhaps that is where I will go, too, but I can take at least the small comfort that if I am sent there, I will have a purpose. I will make hell even more miserable for that wretched Muggle than it already is.

I know you searched for him, sought him out for some kind of revenge. You never found him. You never had the chance to face him and exact your punishment. I want so badly for you to have that opportunity. I dream about it. I want to watch you smash his head into the floor until it bleeds like a broken melon. Death by magic is too good for someone like him.

At times I can only sit here and cry in absolute regret and frustration. I know I raised you never to do such a thing, and you will detest my hypocrisy, but all makes sense now. I understand why the light went out of your eyes.

And there was light in your eyes when you were a child, so much that I think I hated it a little bit. I was so miserable in my own life that I despised your ability to be happy. It is stupid and petty for a grown man to be jealous of a child, but I was. Even in childhood I was never as happy as you. You were something special, Lucius. With an alcoholic mother and a bitter father, you managed to be pleasant and magnanimous and so much better than either of us. I should have seen that for the blessing it was. And I should have known that when all of it disappeared, it meant that something truly horrible had happened to you.

Now I know why your grades were never quite what they could have been. Why you developed a streak of cruelty a mile wide, and the spell repertoire to match. Why you were attracted to that Half-Blood radical and put this family�s good name on the line to support ideals of extremism. And through it all, I did nothing. I looked the other way. I looked the other way in regards to my son�s happiness and well-being.

I deserve your hatred. There is nothing I can do to make up for all this. It pains me that I had to discover this now, when I�m dying, but I suppose that is karma. I had so many years to do even one thing right by you and didn�t. Now I have two weeks and you wouldn�t see me if I begged.

I think about what it must have been like for you. You must have felt like you could do no right. There wasn�t a single person in your world that you could trust. You were trapped in your own head. Everything I taught you said that you had to be strong, impenetrable, and perfect, like me � what a lie. What a terrible, costly lie.

I am sorry, Lucius. I am so sorry that it hurts. It rages in my chest and fills my throat with bile. I want to get up out of this bed, sores and all, and do something, anything that could change what has come to pass. If I was not so weak, and there wasn�t the risk of contaminating the books, I would be in the library right now researching spells to travel to or alter the past. I have gone so far as to ask the Ministry for a Time-Turner. But by the time my request gets through all the bureaucracy, I will be dead. They will never approve it, anyway.

So since I cannot save you, I have to settle for saying the things I should have said all along. I love you. I am proud of you. You are a better person than me. You are strong and smart and handsome and generous, compassionate, talented, cunning, loyal, fierce, tolerant, witty, caring�and some of those things bled out of you for a long time. But when Draco was born, I saw them return. I saw some spark in your eye, not the same as when you were young, but enough to give me hope.

I am in no position to ask favors of you. But please, Lucius, do not lose those good parts of yourself again. Do not drown in pain and hate. Do not become that wraith. Be a man and not a ghost. Be a father and not some cold patriarch. Be everything that I could not.

And as I cannot rightfully call myself your father, I remain�

Abraxas

There were times when even he, with the mind of a writer, couldn�t put words to a feeling. This was not one of those times. There was only one possible way to describe this. He felt�like he was going to vomit.

Lucius stood calmly, his stomach roiling, and walked out of the library.

Twenty minutes later found him with his head resting on an immaculate toilet seat. The sick had come and gone quickly, like the shock that had been hidden away in that envelope. Unfortunately, he didn�t feel better as one often did after a tete-a-tete with the porcelain god. He felt like grease was flowing through his veins, liquefying his muscles, and that was why he stayed where he was in spite of the indignity of the pose.

At last it abated and he pushed painfully to his feet. Lucius felt frail in that moment, whittled down to something less than he was. His body didn�t have the bulk to hold up the obesity of mind that plagued him.

In another few minutes, he�d recovered enough to stagger over to the sink. He cast a teeth-cleaning charm, splashed water on his face, and inspected his clothes. He was fine�for now. He still had one letter to read and for all he knew, it would be worse.

But when he opened the second envelope, the one with the crisper, whiter parchment, there were no words written upon it. There were just some small warps where tears had fallen. He didn�t know how to take that. Either his mother could spare some crocodile tears, but no real words of apology, or her grief and regret and guilt had been so great that they defied words, and her tears were the purest apology he could ever get.

When class ended, Hermione found yet another unexpected person waiting for her in the piazza. Once before it had been Andromeda. Now Harry stood among the crowd, looking as nondescript as he could manage with his messy hair and Muggle clothes.

He was happy to see her, but there was a graveness in his face that she knew simply from witnessing it so many times. Harry couldn�t hide it when something was troubling him. Nonetheless, he accepted her embrace and squeezed her back before asking her if they could go somewhere to talk.

She thought about bringing him to the villa, but decided against it. Neither Harry nor Lucius needed any acrimony in their lives right now. She led him to a small salumeria and ordered a mozzarella and tomato sandwich for them to share. She was ruining her dinner, but no matter. As long as she could convince Jo-Jo that she wasn�t hungry and that was why she was only picking at her food, no harm would be done.

At last, after they�d both eaten their fill, Harry sat back and gathered his words.

�Hermione, I�ve got word on Aloysius Pound. I thought you and...well, Malfoy... would want to know.�

She nodded eagerly. They had puzzled over it together, wondering how he�d managed to frame his coworker and what else he�d been up to. Lucius had enough on his mind and gave up on those brainstorming sessions quickly. Hermione, on the other hand, often found herself drifting off in thought at inopportune times. She hated when she was confronted with a mystery she couldn�t solve and her mind would perseverate.

�We finally broke through the warding on the basement door in Pound�s second house. There was a Potions lab in there.� He gave a rueful little smile. �Snape would have loved it.�

�What did you find?�

�A lot of things. Pound is...well, to put it plainly, he�s something of a Potions genius. He tweaked the Polyjuice formula to work on a delay. When ingested, the drinker remain the same, but after an hour, they change into the target. That�s how he was able to frame Bartholomew. He got hold of some of his hair at the Critiquill and used it in the Polyjuice variant to make it look like he was being framed, in order to frame Bartholomew.�

�So when he attacked Lucius, it was really Pound, and the blood...�

�Yes. By the time forensics got ahold of it, it had changed to Bartholomew�s.�

A look of alarm crossed her face. �He hasn�t distributed it, has he?�

�Not that we know of.� Harry drummed his fingers on the table. �But he probably planned to.�

�Good thing he was caught,� she breathed, shaking her head. That kind of potion in the hands of the wrong people could make it impossible to pin a crime on the true culprit. She could only imagine how many people would be unjustly sent to Azkaban.

�He had a lot of plans,� Harry murmured. �We found a whole shelf of journals. He was planning to restart Voldemort�s vision without...what did he say? �Without the mania and shortcomings of a vengeful Half-blood too befuddled by dark magic.��

Hermione frowned. �What does that mean?�

�It means that he planned to eradicate Muggleborns purely through every day magic. Potions, mostly. He designed one to raise a red M on the hand of anyone who is Muggleborn, and an H on those with a Muggleborn, Muggle, or Half-blood parent. Only magical people can see the letters. Those marked H would be forced to work as servants or in unskilled jobs. The Ms would be stripped of magic with another potion - that one he hadn�t finished yet, thank Merlin - and Obliviated. Then they�d be sent back to the Muggle world. The Purebloods would control everything else. He called it a...a non-violent solution for the evils infiltrating the wizarding world.�

Hermione sat back, flabbergasted. All this time, this seemingly normal wizard had been down in a basement lab plotting the segregation of the wizarding community and the eradication of Muggleborns.

�But...but how did he plan to put this into effect? People aren�t just going to drink some strange potion willingly. They�re not that stupid.�

�He has friends. Contacts. Just like Voldemort, only they don�t march around in masks.�

They knew too well how easily a coup could topple the government. They�d lived through it once already. And to think that time had been expected...

With the element of surprise, Pound could have wreaked serious havoc.

�That�s why he went after Lucius so recklessly. His knowledge was dangerous. The ironic thing is, if he�d just left him alone, he never would have triggered the memory charm, and we�d never know...�

Now she knew why Harry had looked so upset. The mere fact that someone had been plotting to carry on Voldemort�s legacy, however differently, was enough to unsettle him. That the world had Lucius to thank for bringing the plot to light would bother him even more.

Harry�s green eyes were distraught. �It�s never going to go away, is it, Hermione?�

She knew what he meant. The prejudice, the fear, the dark side of magic that had plagued so much of their youth... Hermione found her voice.

�People aren�t perfect. Without perfect people, you can�t have a perfect world.�

�But after everything...don�t people learn?�

She thought of all the Purebloods who had turned their backs on Lucius, and the younger ones who hadn�t. �They have to be willing to learn.�

Harry sighed, but he seemed satisfied with her answer. He ran a hand through his hair. �Well, at the very least, Pound is going to be in Azkaban for the rest of his life, and we�re watching the people connected with him. Any wrong move and they�ll be in there with him.� After a pause, he said, �I�m sure you�ll tell Lucius. I suspect the papers will be a little kinder after this.�
She returned to the villa bursting with the news, but when she found Lucius, she knew that he needed silence. He was lying supine in their bed staring at the ceiling. His eyes were far away, his expression lost. He didn�t notice her until she climbed into bed beside him.

Even then, he was very still. He was like this when something was chewing its way through his mind. Before, he might have raged, become manic, done something destructive...but he had stopped that kind of behavior since the incident in the sunflower field, preferring to lock himself away in this trance-like state to sort through his emotions. It was safer, but no less frightening, and she had seen too much of it lately.

Normally she just left him alone. Not today. Today she needed him. However strong she pretended to be in front of Harry, it disturbed her deeply that she still wasn�t accepted in the wizarding world. She didn�t want to believe that she would have to spend her whole life defending what she was, but Pound and his associates put a dent in her optimism.

Hermione turned over and gently climbed astride him. Lucius accepted her weight with a little sigh, his hands automatically moving to embrace her. They laid like that for a long time, front to front, watching the daylight fade from the room.

Her weight felt so good. Warm, solid, familiar...she was his and he hers, and he didn�t mind, for there was no threat in it. A sensation of desire began to stir in him. He hadn�t felt it in weeks. Just as when he�d first met her, stress and emotional upheaval had decimated any trace of a libido from him.

Hermione hadn�t pressured him about it. He knew she missed the sex; he missed it, too, but his mind overwhelmed his body. In the past few weeks, he had begun to think very deeply about sex: what it had done to him, what he used it for, what it was supposed to be...and he had feared that turning to her physically would only be a regression to that time when sexuality was a defense mechanism, a way to regain a feeling of power or to absolve himself because he was powerless.

He had also feared that he would somehow hurt or frighten her if he made love to her with his mind beset with troubles. When he had relied on sex to reset his internal locus of control before, it had always been...rough, to put it mildly. They had engaged in rough sex before, and Hermione was equal to the task, but his mind had always been clear. He didn�t trust himself now.

But this arousal felt different. It wasn�t a desire for control, for a distraction, or even for physical pleasure. It was an intense need to connect. He couldn�t drift around in the mire of his thoughts alone anymore.

Hermione was watching him. At last, he let his eyes focus on hers. They were always so warm, but today they held their own trace of turmoil. She never asked him in any great detail what troubled him; she knew that if he wanted to talk, he would - he trusted her enough to do that without the persuasion of a bottle of firewhiskey these days. Lucius would extend her the same courtesy now.

Words were not what they needed, anyway.

His eyes locked upon her, more open than they had been in a long time. Then, slowly, he tilted his chin up and touched his lips to hers. The sensation was exquisite like it had been that first time during the storm. So much needed to be said, but so little would be, and even if Jo-Jo interrupted them this time, she wouldn�t stop.

Their kisses intensified as two overworked minds slowly shut down. Soon his tongue was tangling with hers, sliding, teasing, provoking hot stabs of arousal throughout her entire body. Though his lips were feverish, his touch was lazy, unhurried, remembering each line of her body.

Hermione pulled her mouth away, needing to reacquaint herself with some of her favorite nooks on his. Just below the corner of his jaw, where his carotid throbbed, the place where his neck met his shoulder and his natural scent was so strong, his fine ears...oh, yes, that at last provoked a little undulation of his hips and a marked increase in his breathing.

His skin was beginning to flush a soft pink as she undid the buttons on his shirt. His trousers followed, and as she tugged them down, his hands went for her blouse. She could tell that he wanted her as naked has he was. She helped him to make short work of her clothing and then they were gloriously free to rub against one another, after a few quick spells, of course.

She reveled in the hard press of his cock against her belly, the slide of his legs against hers as they entwined, and the way his hands worshipped her breasts. He was sucking a hard spot of need against her neck. Hermione slid her hands down to grip his buttocks, a low moan passing her lips as she anticipated how soon, they would be flexing as he thrust inside her...

Their foreplay was restless and passionate, full of questing hands and mouths that couldn�t stay satisfied in any one place for very long. To her surprise, Lucius didn�t protest when she slid down his body to take his cock in her mouth. It wasn�t something he asked for or accepted very often, and when he did, his enjoyment was quiet, controlled, and brief.

Not today. It seemed to push him over the edge. He throbbed against her lips and his breathing became ragged. His hands wound into her hair, pressing her down, encouraging her to take more of him. Hermione did so eagerly. She loved his taste, his heat, and his obvious pleasure. He was so hard and she wanted him inside her, but she also wanted to keep sucking him as long as he would allow. She wanted to know what it was like to make him come this way.

A wordless moan escaped him. It told her that he wasn�t far off. His hands were trembling slightly and she could feel the tension building in his thighs. She worked his shaft and head almost religiously, feeling her own arousal build with his. As he started chanting her name, she had to reach down and touch herself, moaning around him as her finger slid wetly over her clit.

A sharp tug at her hair brought her up for air. Hermione looked at Lucius with foggy eyes. His cheeks were rosy and a fine sweat graced his brow. His hair was already a mess, probably from his tendency to press his head back into the bed when he was enjoying himself.

�Do you want this?� he panted, a trace of uncertainty in his eyes.

She almost laughed at him. Was her hand between her thighs, dripping wet with her arousal, not enough to convince him? She touched that hand to his abdomen, letting him feel how turned on she was.

The uncertainty in his glance disappeared. Lucius closed his eyes and leaned back, his hand releasing her hair. Hermione smiled and returned to her task. A second later his hand wound back into her curls and he truly let himself go. He began to thrust shallowly against her questing mouth, seeking the release she gladly gave.

His orgasm was long and slow and shuddering. At first, he forgot to breathe. Then his breath rushed through his teeth in a hissing gasp. As he came, he finally made a sound she had not heard in a while - that half-shout, half-groan of pure hedonism. The combination of those noises, his taste, salty, sweet, masculine, new, and the insistent movement of her own hand brought her off so hard that she had to pull away from him to scream her pleasure to the ceiling.

She didn�t see his eyes on her, watching as she rode out her orgasm. They were both experiencing something new, for he had not yet had the pleasure of watching her masturbate. There was never a time when he wasn�t eager to assist her to her peak. This was no exception, but she didn�t need him at this moment; her head was thrown back, her thighs splayed open, her nimble fingers tormenting her clit to the point of madness.

Lucius let her go, trying desperately to catch his breath. It proved impossible. Of course...why should he be able to catch his breath when his beautiful witch was touching herself right in front of him? In another moment, when he�d recovered enough to make his muscles work, he rose up onto his knees to meet her.

He wrapped an arm around her and snuck the other between their bodies. Lucius relieved her of her task and Hermione happily ceded, sighing and leaning against him. He kissed her before tilting her back onto the mattress. He would need a few minutes to rebound from the first orgasm, but he fully intended to try for a second.

He busied himself by kissing her until she was dizzy and breathless. Then he moved on to her breasts lest she pass out from lack of air. As he sucked and teased her nipples, he slid two fingers easily into her wetness. She was so hot and tight, and still wracked with little tremors left over from her self-induced orgasm.

He moved his hand slowly and deliberately, searching for that spot inside her. He felt euphoric. At last, at last he felt free, as if he had finally shed the asterisk that came along with sex. He was here, now, giving and receiving ecstasy solely out of love. That was more powerful than the sensation of control or submission, and his body flared with erotic energy.

That energy kept him going through Hermione�s second orgasm, third, fourth, and even after his own, all he wanted to do was go, go, go, thrust and touch and kiss and suck, and Hermione let him until she began to suspect that any more would render her unable to walk, sit, or speak in the near future.

She could tell that something had changed in him. What, exactly, she had no idea, but it wasn�t the time to ponder it, for she was so exhausted that she fell asleep practically the moment he released her. Lucius could only stare at the ceiling and smile stupidly before sleep got the better of him as well. Everything else was, for the time being, forgotten.
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