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The Kindest Curse	By : Quillusion Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 4773 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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
- 5
- 6
- 7
The Kindest Curse

By Quillusion

A/N: I'm not dead! OK, OK, I know. Longest damn delay between chapter postings in the history of my fanfiction career. For which I deeply apologize! This chapter has been ready for a while but between laptop illness and personal illness, it hasn't been posted till now. Much groveling! And, as I have said in many places before, I do _NOT_ leave pieces unfinished. Ever. Pet peeve of mine. (Even if I am in the middle of writing four other things, none of which are likely to appeal to anyone and therefore will never be posted.) This one has a lot of development coming up, but it's my hope that Lucius and Hermione will intrigue you enough to stick with it. And if they don't, perhaps the diamond will. :-) -Q

Chapter 6

Hermione studied Draco calmly for a long moment- just long enough to raise a wary look in his eyes. He was impeccably dressed, and in Muggle fashion, no less. The suit was dark, though she couldn't tell the color in the firelight, and exquisitely cut to show off the whipcord leanness of his physique. He was built like a greyhound, long and fast, not at all bulky, and she put an immediate halt to her line of thinking when she found herself unconsciously comparing him to Lucius. She finished ladling the punch into her cup.

"Somehow I doubt that very much, Draco," she said indulgently, letting her familiar use of his first name counterbalance the advantage he'd gained by surprising her. It would never do to let this man think he'd gotten the drop on her. "But it's good of you to pretend. How are you?"

"Same as always," he said, turning to fill a glass of his own with punch. He sniffed the liquid with mild suspicion; it was a rather emphatic shade of electric blue, and the powerful scent of fruit oozing upward from the stuff's glossy surface could easily be masking any manner of suspect ingredients. "What does he put in this stuff?" he asked as he held it up to the light. It was not translucent.

Hermione laughed. "No idea, but it's more likely to induce hysteria than hallucinations," she observed. The quintet in the corner was tuning their instruments, the dissonant notes making conversation at the refreshment table somewhat difficult. She headed for one of the tables at the edge of the hall near the fireplace, and Draco followed her.

"I hear you've been working in Austria," she said conversationally as she seated herself.

"Mmm," he said noncomittally, sliding onto the bench beside her. His eyes watched the couples milling around the room, many of them casting hopeful glances at the band, who were now shuffling music on their stands. "I've started a few business ventures. They're slow off the ground, but promising. The long hours have kept me from coming home for the last few years."

She let her surprise show on her face. "I never thought of you as a believer in the investment potential of hard work," she said bluntly.

He laughed. "Neither did I," he confided, sipping his drink with only the slightest flinch at the flavor. He swallowed, and his tone was a little more flat when he went on. "I discovered, once I'd graduated, that there's a great deal more work involved in inheriting a family fortune than I'd appreciated."

"I see," she said. "What are your business ventures, if I might be so bold as to ask?"

"Nothing very specific," he said, which she thought was at once the most obvious dodge she'd ever heard. It was also a good dodge, as it was a difficult one to protest.

"Finance? Construction? Imports?" she fished.

"Imports," he said shortly, and she quirked a smile at him.

"I won't pry," she said, even though she'd just done exactly that, and raised her cup in a wordless toast and drank.

"I understand my father has recently hired you," said Draco, and she nodded.

"Cursebreaking?" he asked rhetorically, knowing her field. "What sort?"

"Nothing very specific," she said mildly, and he laughed.

"Touche," he said as the musicians finally finished their warmup and struck up a tune. Turning his head and seeing couples taking their places for the first dance, he held his hand out to Hermione.

"Dance with me, Miss Granger."

She was surprised as much by the polished sound of the request as by its apparent sincerity. He's a Malfoy,too, she thought. Just how serious is he?

She hesitated a shade too long, and he tipped his head to one side in unexpectedly boyish supplication. "Come on, Hermione. The last time we were in this hall together, we hated each others' guts. Now that I've learned grudging respect for your guts, and you've presumably learned to tolerate mine, we can at least play the parts of civilized adults."

"Draco," she said teasingly as she rose to take his proffered hand. "I didn't know you could act."

He led her onto the dance floor and they moved easily through the couples; she was pleased to see that, if nothing else, he'd learned to dance well. They nodded companionably at the couples they passed, laughing silently together at the surprised looks they got on more than one occasion.

"It's worth dancing with you just to see the looks on their faces," Draco remarked as they turned and made their way back across the floor.

"Thank you so much for the compliment," she said dryly, and he shook his head.

"You know what I mean," he said. There's bound to be gossip about the two of us now- and every bit of it drivel- but at least I got to see the reaction live. I suppose I should apologize; you'll have to hear all about it, but I'll be back in Austria by tomorrow evening and will barely hear a word."

"It makes no difference to me," Hermione said. "I laugh at everything I see in those rags anyway. But you can't be leaving so soon- aren't you staying for Christmas?"

"I can't," he said. "I might manage to come back for Christmas dinner, but I don't even know about that. So much of what needs doing can't be delegated."

"Your father will be disappointed," she said, and Draco's eyes glinted with amusement.

"Somehow, I doubt that very much, Hermione," he drawled with satisfaction. "But it's kind of you to say so."

It was her turn to say 'touche'.

"You've sharpened your wits," she said approvingly.

"It comes of having them applied to the grindstone," he replied.

"Be careful not to grind them off entirely," she remarked, shutting her eyes as he spun her out.

"He doesn't push things thathard," said a cultured voice right in front of her, and she opened her eyes to find herself looking up into the face of Lucius Malfoy. Draco let go of her hand.

"Do let me cut in," he said to Draco, and while the tone was politeness iteslf, there was a command laid beneath it that brooked no refusal.

"Certainly," Draco replied, his voice now cool. "I was about to take my leave of the host. Places to go, things to do, as the Muggles say." Turning to Hermione, he smiled and let the warmth back into his voice.

"I rarely find surprises pleasant," he said with a polite bow as he saluted Hermione’s hand. "You were a delightful change. Until next time, Miss Granger. Father." And then, with one sliding glance at Lucius, he was gone.

The music chose that moment to end amidst enthusiastic clapping from the crowd, and the quintet settled into the strains of a contredanse so old that the French Blue might well once have circulated among the couples standing up for a dance to its melody, gleaming on the breast of the King of France.

"May I?" asked Lucius, and Hermione took his hand and let him lead her into place for the dance.

"I'm surprised to see you here," she said as they took their places midway down the hall.

"Hmm," he replied. "I daresay Draco was shocked to the floor of his obviously expensive ensemble," he replied. "I don't find much to enjoy in parties." He bowed; she dropped an elegant curtsey, sparing a fleeting moment to wonder if a curtsey looked funny when done while wearing trousers.

"I suppose not," she agreed aloud, remembering her earlier thoughts on the matter. "Still, it's good to see you." She was surprised to realize she meant it.

The faintest hint of a smile touched the right corner of his mouth, and he nodded in reply.

What an odd exchange between Draco and Lucius, she thought to herself as they moved into the first figure. One more piece of the Malfoy puzzle, and one I've no more place for than any of the others. I always thought Draco idolized his father.

"I gather from what Draco said that you and he are not very close these days," she said carefully, and he studied her for a moment before smiling down at her.

"Very delicately put," he said. "I'll save you the embarrassment of looking vulgar. We don't get on well- never have, really. It's a long and complicated story, and since his graduation we've had little reason to see one another. The arrangement suits us both."

They parted again, came back together two measures later.

"I had no idea," said Hermione. "You always seemed close when Draco was in school. He prattled on about you endlessly. Half the reason we loathed you as children- if you'll forgive the remark- was that Draco was constantly telling us what you would have done, or what you were going to do, or what you said."

That did seem to surprise Lucius. "He was?"

"Yes," Hermione said rather emphatically, and was forced to wait for several measures to say anything more. I feel as though Jane Austen is writing the script for the evening, she thought to herself with amusement. I doubt half her heroines ever learned so much during a single dance as I have done tonight.

When she could speak again she went on, "I got so sick of hearing the way he said 'Father'." Her imitation of Draco was dead on, and Lucius's laughter caught him so by surprise that he nearly misstepped. He caught himself and said, soberly,

"If you formed any of your opinions of me by listening to Draco, I must apologize to Dumbledore for assuming he was the one to vilify me beyond what I deserved."

"But Draco adored you," she objected.

"Times change," said Lucius with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

Hermione knew he was being too polite to pointedly change the subject, but it needed changing. They reached the bottom of the set and moved up to the top again, and when they joined hands once more she said, "Somehow, I don't think Draco was the reason you decided to put in an appearance."

He inclined his head and they continued their conversation as they danced.

"I thought it was time," he said. "I've declined the invitation every year mainly because my showing up at a party like this seems doomed to awkwardness. And while I've no qualms about being stared at or snubbed or anything along those lines if it's to a purpose, I don't enjoy it as a form of entertainment.

"But I've been more active on the Board of Governors the last year or so, and it seemed like it was time to start circulating again." He paused. "Or- if I'm being honest- time to stop hiding."

"You? Hiding?" She couldn't fathom the idea.

He frowned a little. "Do you think you would enjoy socializing with people you once considered adversaries? People who have almost certainly laid plans in the past that involved killing you? People for whom you had similiar plans, in the name of a cause?" He shook his head. "I'm not as cold-blooded as you must think me to be."

They turned again, the dance separating them for a short moment. Hermione shivered a little; though she'd considered the notion of Malfoy feeling awkward socializing with those who might have been his victims, she'd never considered his reactions to what their own intentions toward him had almost certainly been. And as there had once been a time when she would have killed him on sight if she'd been able, she could not dismiss his unease on the matter.

When they were facing one another once more, he went on. "To be perfectly frank, Hermione, if you weren't here tonight, I wouldn't be here. If you think I feel completely at ease talking to any of these people, then you vastly overestimate my supply of sangfroid." He paused a beat, and there was a hint of amusement in his tone when he added, "I've got just enough to make it look like I'm completely comfortable talking to them."

She'd thought as much, but being proven right was satisfying, and it was also reassuring to find she'd gauged him accurately. It was also oddly touching to see a hint of insecurity in him, and disturbingly flattering that he should admit it to her.

"Then you make excellent use of what you've got," she said. "You look quite relaxed. Ever thought of taking up poker?"

"Ha," he said, but he smiled at her. "As it happens, I've got more interesting things to do in my free time. My mother has an old friend, Palladin, whose hobby was magical antiquities. He collects old books and old bits of information, and he helped me trace down something that was in his collection back before he died."

"Taking up necromancy?" asked Hermione lightly.

"Well, not at the moment," he murmured as they came face to face for a moment, and she realized with a slight start that his reply meant that he most likely did at other times. She made a mental note as she turned in his arms to ask him more about that particular so-called Dark Art later. She'd always thought it needed more research. But he was still speaking.

"Palladin died in 1945, but his portrait has hung in the portrait gallery at Malfoy Manor since shortly after the war. I brought it to Vinewood with me when I closed the Manor, and in exchange for my removing him from the vicinity of the full-length portrait of my great-aunt Alys, he amuses himself by finding things out for me.

"In this case, he found an old manuscript describing the use of pentacles in ancient times. The work contains several pentacles which look similar in structure to the one in the diary." Another pause for dancing. "What makes it even more interesting is that it was written in 1752 by a French wizard who lived in the same town in which Iz grew up." They had taken to calling the wizard who had prepared the French Blue 'Iz', as his wife had done; he had no other name, and it was awkward referring to him as anything else.

"Iz's possible source material?" she mused.

"I think it highly likely," he concurred, bowing as the dance ended. There was polite applause, and as couples moved off the dance floor in the short interval between dances, Hermione caught a glimpse of two heads, one red, one black, coming through the doors of the Great Hall.

Lucius saw them, too. "I think I've stayed as long as I care to," he said calmly. "I don't suppose you'd stop by Vinewood after the party winds down? The manuscript arrived just before I left the house, and I'm very curious to hear your opinion of it. "

"I'd be delighted," Hermione replied warmly.

"The courtyard is the best spot for Apparation," he said. "You remember where the house is?"

"Yes, thank you," she said. "Is ten o'clock all right?"

His mouth curved in a sensual smile. "Ten o'clock is perfect," he murmured, bending over and saluting her hand again as he had at their first meeting in Flourish and Blotts. "Until then, Hermione."

And then he was gone, his cloak swirling silently behind him, and Hermione could not quite decide why a departure that had so much in common with Draco's should still seem so very different.

"Hermione!"

She turned just in time to see Ron Weasley approaching, arms held wide, and he scooped her up into a giant hug and swung her around once. "Oh, it's good to see you!" he exclaimed. "Cass and Valeria will be sorry to have missed you, but Val came down with something pretty, um, drippy, so she had to stay home. Cass stayed with her. Poor thing, she's got a nose the size of Kent, and almost as green."

Harry made a face. "Thanks for the commentary," he said. Then, turning to Hermione, he said, "I couldn't help noticing you were having a conference with Lucius Malfoy. Anything interesting come up?"

"Yeah," she said, "but not anything I can tell you about."

"Mmmph," said Harry with a nod. "Have you made a decision?"

She considered.

"I think," she said slowly, "that I got the advice I needed from Albus. I don't really know for certain that he's trustworthy, but the task he has set me is worth taking a chance to do. And as Albus pointed out- if he isn't trustworthy, I can handle it. I think."

"You think?" Ron snorted. "Hermione, he'd be a heap of ashes in an urn today if you hadn't showed up that night when you did. Don't sell yourself short. Lucius Malfoy still creeps me out a little, although he's done right by everyone since the war ended, but I think you can take him."

She had to laugh at that. Ron had never been one for subtlety, but over the years he'd been with Cassandra, he'd picked up the ability to know when reassurance was needed- and to give it, albeit bluntly. "Thanks, Ron," she said, and she meant it.

"I take it Mr. Malfoy has retained the services of Britain's best cursebreaker?" Ron asked, and she inclined her head in confirmation.

"I can't tell you details, of course, but I can tell you that Lucius Malfoy has not lost his reputation for being interesting."

"Is it something dangerous?"

She laughed. "Yes, but no more so than anything we got into in school."

"That wasn't very reassuring," Harry observed, slanting a glance at McGonagall. Albus had probably never told her just how many rules the Dream Team had broken in their school years, and Harry didn't want her enlightened.

"There is an element of risk involved- some magical, and probably some legal," she said. "Lucius has looked into those aspects of it further than I have, but I think we're going to have to bend a few rules in the name of a good cause."

"Is it really a good cause?" asked Ron, who had frowned when he'd heard Hermione use Lucius's first name.

"The best," she said soberly. "I hope Lucius will let me tell you someday, perhaps when it's all over. It's serious enough to overcome whatever qualms I still have about Lucius Malfoy."

"What does your gut say?" asked Ron quietly. He'd realized before she had just how accurate her intuition was.

She considered that. "It thinks the punch was too sweet," she said, and once they'd given her the smile she wanted, she shrugged a little.

"My gut says to trust him," she said. "Which, I suppose, is why I had to ask around so much about him. My head doesn't want to trust him, but it doesn't really have any good reasons for it. My gut- which is normally the one making decisions without good reasons- wants to trust him. The departure from the usual order of things has unsettled me, I think." She paused, her eyes unfocused on something in the middle distance.

"I think I'm just going to go for it," she said, and just like that, the decision was made.

"Good for you," Harry said. "And now I'm afraid you have to dance once with each of us before you can leave. You should just have time enough for two dances before you have to walk down to the gates to Apparate to Malfoy's place by ten o'clock."

"You've gotten good at eavesdropping," she said with a frown that did not disguise the laughter in her eyes.

"I've gotten good at reading lips," he corrected as he led her onto the dance floor. "I live with a very loud five year old."

Ten minutes before ten o'clock, Hermione excused herself from the small group of conversationalists with whom she'd been debating which restaurant in Venice was the best. The conversation had made her hungry, and so she made her way back to the refreshment table and picked up a cucumber sandwich half and a glass of pumpkin juice. After finishing them, she ducked into the ladies' room and made repairs to her hair, washed her hands, and set her robes straight.

Her inner monologue took note of this with some interest.

All this, for Lucius Malfoy?

He's a client, she told herself. It's best to look professional.

What's so professional about lipstick?

Nothing. But he's got better hair than I do. It's a girl thing.

Looks more like a woman thing to me, replied her monologue wryly.

Shut up.

The courtyard was still dark, but the snow had stopped and the cobbles had been swept clear of drifting snow. The light spilling out from the house was just as welcoming, and Hermione climbed the steps and rang the bell with a comfort she had not felt the first night she had come here.

Stidge opened the door and bowed.

"Come in, Miss Hermione," he squeaked, and a moment later Hermione's cloak was in the house elf's hands.

"Master is in the library," he said, and she followed the elf through the plain hall toward the back of the house.

As she walked, she found herself noticing more detail than she had on her first- admittedly more nervous- walk down this hall. What struck her first was that, while the hall was not heavily decorated, it was very finely constructed. The plastering on the walls was smooth, even, finely textured, and painted a crisp pale ivory; the sconces that cast warm light up onto the walls were beautifully if simply fashioned, and the flagstones were smooth, level, and subtly colored. The wainscoting and ceiling moulding were also elegantly carved, as were the doors. The chandelier overhead- which she had not looked up to examine on her last visit- sparkled with old crystal kept meticulously clean, and was perfectly scaled for the room. All that was missing were the trappings of ancient nobility- suits of armor, coats of arms, tapestries, portraits, rich rugs and fine wooden furniture and ornate velvet-cushioned chairs.

But there was none of that; just the simple, spare, elegant bones of an old country house. There were hints of past grandeur- small nails on an empty wall where once a painting had hung, brackets for tapestries- but nothing that would tell her anything about this branch of Lucius's family.

Suddenly, the incongruity of one of her assumptions leapt into the fore of her mind- one of the things that had unsettled her about the house initially. And despite her original promise to Lucius Malfoy to let her old ideas of him die, this one had somehow snuck in under the radar.

She had initially thought that this house was out of keeping with Lucius Malfoy's usual style, a conclusion which she now realized had no basis in fact. It was plain enough, even with her limited acquaintance with him, that Lucius preferred well-made things- but beyond that, she could not claim to know anything of his tastes. Her previous opinion had been based on the photographs of Malfoy Manor that had featured in an article in the Muggle magazine Architectural Digest not long after she'd graduated from Hogwarts; the mansion had been swathed in acres of velvet and gold braid and tassels, draped with tapestries, and wallapapered in portraits of ancient relations framed in gold opulence. And such, she had thought, had been Lucius Malfoy's sense of style.

Clearly she had thought wrong. No one but Lucius and his house elf lived here, which meant that any improvements had been done at his direction. Which, in turn, meant that the library- and this hallway- reflected his taste. And while she’d never seen him dressed in anything that wasn’t of the finest quality, he was given to dark colors and subtle patterns. He was, after all, a Slytherin; they were hardly a crowd given to exuberant swags of bullion and velvet. She'd completely missed the boat on that one. Malfoy Manor must either have been maintained in the style of an earlier age, or decorated to the tastes of the lady of the house.

Narcissa Malfoy.

Which led her to the other nagging thought that hadn't really been given the chance to surface.

Where on earth was Draco's mother?

Stidge opened the library doors for her at that exact moment, and Hermione stepped forward into the warmth and light of the room in which they had spent the entirety of her last visit to Vinewood.

"Miss Hermione Granger," squeaked the Elf as it came into the library behind her.

"Hello again, Hermione," came Lucius's voice from the far side of the room. As her eyes adjusted to the firelight, she saw him rise from the chair at his desk. "Did you enjoy the rest of the party?"

"Yes, I did," Hermione replied as she crossed the room to him. "Thank you." She paused a moment, then added, "Harry and Ron said to wish you a merry Christmas."

That surprised him. His eyebrows arched, and he seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Really," he said, and it wasn't quite a question.

"Yes, really," she said. "I'm not the only one who left childhood behind, Lucius. They grew up long ago, and they've had more than a little practice at looking at people in a new light."

He smiled a little. "I see your point," he said. "Please tell them thank you, and wish them the joys of the season from me."

"I'll do that," she replied, feeling at once amused and warmed by the moment.

"And now," he said, gesturing for her to draw a chair up to the desk beside his, "I don't suppose you're at all curious about this book?"

"Mmm... not much," she said, lifting a delicate Chippendale chair and setting it down where she could sit and lean over the book without blocking the light from the desk lamp. "I only came all the way across Britain to see it."

It was a manuscript, as he had said. It was also crumbling, its pages fragile as butterfly wings, as brittle as dry sand.

"Not in the best of shape, is it?" she asked, tentatively running one finger in a feather-light touch along the edge of a page and wincing as a sliver of parchment flaked away.

"Considering that Palladin found it lying on a desk sitting in full sun in the attic of an abandoned house with broken windows, it's amazing the thing survived at all," said Lucius dryly.

"Oh. I see," she said, and drew her wand out without saying anything more.

"Renovo", she said, and with a swish and flick of her wand, the parchment smoothed out the faintest bit. Cracks healed, flakes were reabsorbed onto the surface, and the ink darkened. There was a faint crunching noise as the binding tightened.

"There," she said, inspecting the manuscript critically before touching it hesitantly. Feeling the pages supple again beneath her fingers, she lifted it more confidently. "That ought to make it safe to handle the thing."

Turning the leaves of the manuscript back to the beginning, she began to read.

They sat that way for nearly two hours, skimming in spots and reading more slowly in others. The manuscript had several pages of drawings, most of which included pentacles similar in construction to the one they'd found in the diary- but none of what was written in the text fit with what they saw.

"This man is a lunatic," Lucius finally said, sitting back and pressing a thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes. "He writes one thing and draws another."

"Yes," agreed Hermione as she sat back and stretched. "You know..." she leaned forward, peered at a drawing, and then back at the text. "It occurs to me that whoever wrote the text was not the person who drew the pentacles."

"I noticed the different penmanship," said Lucius. "The artist was left-handed, writing with a sharp quill, and the writer was right-handed, and using a quill that needed to be recut. "

"Excellent," Hermione said with a smile.

"Obvious," Lucius replied.

"To you and me, yes," she acknowledged. "I've spent a good part of my life explaining the obvious to people, though." She could have named names, but she loved Harry and Ron too much for that.

"That comes as no surprise," he said lightly, and somehow she thought he knew exactly what she wasn't saying out loud.

"So I suppose now we have to ask ourselves if we can take any of this manuscript seriously," he said, turning back a few pages to study an illustration.

Hermione sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking.

"I think we can ignore the text," she said at last. "But the drawings have a greater air of authority. If it's all right with you, I'd like to study them a bit more. I have a reference or two at home which I would like to consult."

He closed the manuscript and handed it to her. "By all means," he said. "Take it home with you and take your time."

As she took the book from him, a clock somewhere in the house struck midnight.

"It got late while I wasn't looking," Hermione remarked, and rose from her chair. "I hope I haven't overstayed my welcome."

"Not at all," he said graciously. "I enjoy the chance for an intelligent conversation."

"Well, then," she said, "perhaps you wouldn't mind my coming back once I have looked over this." She held the manuscript up in illustration.

Lucius inclined his head in acquiescence. "Just owl me. I'll be waiting to hear from you."

He showed her to the door, and it was not until she stood on her own front stoop that she realized she hadn't asked him about his wife.

Hermione slept in the next morning, finally dragging her comforter out into the sitting room a little after nine thirty. The sky was leaden with clouds that promised more snow, and the sitting room was shadowed and dark. She turned on a few lamps and went to put the kettle on, then snuggled into her comforter on the couch to wait for the water to boil. She wasn't overly fond of thinking until she'd had a healthy slug of what she privately thought of as starter fluid.

The first few snowflakes drifted down from the sky, and she turned her head to watch them fall. The sight made her think of Lucius, laughing as snowflakes caught on his lashes.

What a confusing man he was turning out to be. She had known it would be harder to let go of her old ideas of him that it had been simply to agree to do so; nonetheless, the lines often blurred, and she found it disorienting. He wasn’t what she had expected. More to the point, she hadn’t expected to like him. But, she realized as the snow began to fall more heavily, she did. At least a little- and that in spite of the trace of unease she still occasionally felt when she caught his eye unexpectedly. It was so at odds with what her mind and gut were telling her that she was beginning to think it was the disparity between old and new impressions that jarred her, and not Lucius.

She kicked one foot out from beneath the comforter and chuckled. Six weeks ago, she’d have laughed in the face of anyone fool enough to suggest she’d ever give Lucius Malfoy the benefit of the doubt.

The sound of low, faint whistling began in the kitchen, and she rolled off the couch and padded into the kitchen where she filled the teapot with hot water. By the time she had drained it and set the tea ball in the empty, heated pot, the kettle was boiling.

Five minutes of steeping and a splash of milk and sugar later, she was on her way to waking up. She put some food in a bowl for Crookshanks- who was still snoozing comfortably in his favorite spot on top of the heat register- and popped a few pieces of bread in the toaster, fishing out the strawberry preserves her mother had sent from the summer’s harvest. Her mum had been making strawberry and raspberry preserves ever since she could remember, and it occurred to her now that she’d never had preserves bought from a store. Unless Hogwarts got theirs that way. She’d never asked.

She finished her breakfast and went to nudge Crookshanks awake. He peeled one eye open in response to her gently prodding foot, and gradually got to his feet. He was very old, even for a half-Kneazle- at least 20- and he creaked his way over to his bowl with a placid but resigned look on his squashed face.

"Poor Crooks," Hermione said with a fond smile. "You just won’t take that arthritis potion. Silly cat- it would help, you know."

The ginger tail crooked jauntily as he walked away from her, as if to say, ‘I don’t need help, thanks all the same.’

She washed her cup, plate, and knife, swept the toast crumbs from the counter and into the trash, and washed her hands. A quick trip to the bedroom and bathroom again to dress, and she was back in the sitting room with the manuscript in hand. Crookshanks had finished his breakfast and was now meowing plaintively, clearly hoping breakfast also included dessert.

"Go back to sleep, Crooks," Hermione said as she set the manuscript and her reference books on her desk, for she hadn’t the heart to remind him he was still seven pounds overweight. He’d lost two pounds so far on his diet, but he wasn’t enjoying it.

The snow fell steadily for the next three hours, gradually building up on the ledge outside Hermione’s window and blanketing hedges, grass, and trees in a thick layer of white. It was wet, heavy snow, and it muffled all sound so that Hermione worked undisturbed all through the morning and into the afternoon.

At ten minutes of three, however, she sat bolt upright in her chair and shouted, "Ha! Ha, I knew it!"

"I knew I’d seen the drawings somewhere before," she said to Lucius, handing him one of her reference books and indicating the bookmark. Two cups of coffee steamed on the table beside them, unnoticed as they talked; Lucius had suggested meeting at the Hogsmeade Brewery as soon as he’d received her owl. The coffee house had moved into the spot left vacant when Madam Puddifoot’s had gone out of business, and thankfully they had done away with the kitschy interior. The Brewery served freshly brewed coffee in the mornings, and at lunchtime switched to local microbrews; the food was decent, and the tables intimate- which was what they needed for their discussion. Hermione set the other books and the mauscript on the table and gestured again at her reference volume.

"The drawings themselves- although not this copy of them- are far older than the manuscript. It looks like they were Duplicated from this work by Gretanius. See- it’s his handwriting. It’s even the same pentacles. I wonder why someone would duplicate the pentacles and then write such nonsense to go with it?"

"Given the way in which he rambled," Lucius commented as he turned the page to consider another set of pentacles in the handsomely bound reference book, "I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d started off down the long and winding road to senility."

"Perhaps," said Hermione. She’d tested the ink for wards and enchantments like the one that had produced their own pentacle, but nothing had come of it. She was certain there was nothing more to be gained from the manuscript- except for one small but eminently useful thing. Opening the manuscript again, she handed it to Lucius.

"One last thing," she said, pointing to the upper right hand corner of one of the drawings.

"Look at the margin notes. Notice anything?"

He studied the small scribbled lines for a long moment, and just as comprehension was dawning on his face, she laughed and nodded. "Mmm hmm. It’s Iz’s writing, no question. See the funny splotch at the end of a line when he pushes down hard before he lifts his hand from the page? Just like his journal. And the pentacle, too. I also took the liberty of checking the inks. While the pentacle was done with different ink, the ink from the diary and the ink from this margin are the same. So he used this book as a reference at the same time he was working on the pentacle- or at least, I should say, he used the drawings. I doubt he used the text."

"Ha," said Lucius with satisfaction, thumping the book’s cover for emphasis. "Well done indeed, not that you need me to tell you that. But at least we know he probably followed the format in the illustrations. That’s a big step forward."

"Yes," agreed Hermione, tapping her fingers on the pages of the manuscript and thinking for a long moment. "But while the drawings are a wonderful reference, the text is worthless. And therefore I have to adjust my initial assessment of Iz’s skills. I had assumed, given the length of time it took him to work the first stroke of the pentacle, that he was not a powerful wizard. However, given the fact that he was educated enough to recognize what was good and what was useless in this book- that he used it at all- he must have been a clever, subtle wizard with very sharp wits. And while I can’t say without a doubt that this makes him powerful, the two do seem to go together, don’t they?"

"For the most part, yes," Lucius acknowledged. "Powerful yet stupid wizards don’t tend to survive early adolescence."

She closed the book and sighed. "Well, I had never thought it was going to be easy," she said, and he chuckled sympathetically.

They sipped at their coffee, which had finally cooled enough to be drinkable, and sat in companionable silence, watching last- minute Christmas shoppers scrambling along the snowy streets of Hogsmeade. It had been an uncommonly snowy December, and there was already a thick layer of snow drifting in corners; the result was beautifully picturesque, and made the hot coffee all the more savory in the snug warmth of the coffee shop.

They cringed in concert as one woman straggled into the shop, the door hanging open as her eight children strung in after her, noisily harassing their siblings and leaving a trail of melting snow in their wake. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in the shop by the time the door shut, and Lucius made a faint moue of distaste as the woman proceeded to order the clerk around like a drill sergeant on inspection day.

"What a succinct argument for birth control," he said in an undertone, and Hermione almost got hot coffee up her nose.

"There’s nothing wrong with a large family," she objected, laughing a little as she swabbed her nose with a napkin. The Weasleys were a delightful crowd.

"Not a large one, no," observed Lucius as the youngest child spilled the coffee of a nearby patron while trying to climb onto his table to hit her brother from a height of greater advantage. "But an out of control one...."

"Your point is made," she agreed as a middle child took the cup of an astonished older witch at a table near the counter, and drank it dry without so much as a word.

"Would you like to move this discussion elsewhere?" Lucius asked when it became plain that the disruptive family’s order was not being prepared ‘to go’. "I need to stop in at Ollivander’s for a moment."

They walked up Diagon Alley to the wand maker’s, and Hermione stood politely a distance away from the counter as Lucius rang for Ollivander. She didn’t know what- if anything- was amiss with Lucius’s wand, but she’d learned that it wasn’t polite in wizarding society to ask such a personal question, particularly of the opposite gender.

It appeared, however, that this was Lucius’s second trip to the wandmaker’s. Ollivander had a box with him when he emerged from the shadows of his workroom at the back of the shop, as if he was expecting Lucius. After a few comments in a quiet voice, he lifted a wand out of the box and handed it to Lucius, who inspected it closely. Ollivander then had him perform a series of spells with it.

Hermione found this last bit vastly amusing, as she’d never before considered whether Lucius either could or would do such inane things with magic as conjure a bouquet of plaid daisies, write his name in sparkling letters, turn the bell on the counter into a toaster and back again, or levitate a feather a la Professor Flitwick from so long ago.

"Perfect," cried Ollivander. "I think that’s fixed it." He chuckled at the look of relief on Lucius’s face.

"Thank you for taking time out of your day to take a look at it, Mr. Ollivander," Lucius said. "I’m partial to this wand. I’ve enjoyed each of the wands I’ve bought from you, but this one is special."

"I know," replied the wandmaker kindly. Then those odd eyes shifted focus to take in Hermione standing by the door, politely looking interested in the rack of wand polishes.

"And you, Miss Granger?" Ollivander said suddenly. "Maple, twelve inches, unicorn hair. Very strong and focused, excellent for high potential energy work. Your second wand from me, I believe. Are you having any trouble, my dear?" He shot a sly glance at Malfoy. "Tipsy house elf, perhaps?"

Hermione smiled. "No, thank you, Mr. Ollivander. My wand is in perfect working order."

"May I perhaps see it for a moment?" he asked, and knowing how much pleasure the wandmaker took in revisiting his creations, she handed it over.

Its fine texture gleamed in the candlelight, pale champagne wood shot through with glints of silvery grain; she kept it polished to a high shine to keep it from absorbing water or other less savory things, and she knew there wasn’t a scratch or dent on it. Ollivander glowed with pride at the sight of it.

"Lovely," he said approvingly, and the part of Hermione that would always be Head Girl warmed with the praise. He then turned to Lucius and remarked, almost casually,

"You know, you very nearly fit with this wand. I don’t know if you remember. I think it was the maple that didn’t quite match; maple signifies reserve, you see. It wasn’t quite your style."

"Really?" Lucius said, surprised. "I didn’t know- but then I haven’t your eidetic memory where wands are concerned." He glanced at Hermione’s wand for a moment. "At the time of my life when I would have tried this wand, it’s no surprise to find it wouldn’t have suited me. But people change; that’s why we buy new wands, after all, and I suppose if I had come looking again someday and you hadn’t purchased this one, it might have gone home with me."

"The wand you purchased at that time seemed to fit marvelously," commented Ollivander in the professional tone he always used when discussing wands. "Very sharp action, presents its full power quickly, a good duelling wand. It has a dragon heartstring at its core, as I recall. And such lovely, smooth, fine-grained bay as that wand has, I doubt I’ll see again."

"That doesn’t look like bay," Hermione commented as she looked at Lucius’s wand, which he had not put away but had palmed and held against his side.

"It isn’t," said Lucius, holding it out. Befrore Ollivander could speak he added, "Chestnut, 12 3/8 inches, unicorn hair." The wood was dark reddish brown, lustrous and rich-looking, and the carving on the handle cast deep shadows even in the dusky light of the candles that lit the shop in the early darkness of late December. It was quite different from the wand she remembered him having when she was a child. And it was not, she realized, the wand she’d seen the night they’d blasted Voldemort together.

"New?" she asked.

"Relatively," he said. "After that evening, I didn’t find the bay wand responded to me the way it used to. It was time for a change." There was no need for him to tell her which evening he meant.

"Chestnut?" she asked, turning to Ollivander for the meaning.

"Chestnut," agreed the wandmaker with a smile. "It means Do me justice."

And that, she thought to herself as they stepped out onto the pavement again, was strong evidence that however unlikely she had thought it, Lucius Malfoy had definitely changed somehow. Even his wand had noticed it. The change must have been for the better, given what she knew of him before the night of the raid. She thought of the fine lithograph on the wall of Ollivander’s shop, hung on the wall over the display of wand polishes. In sepia ink it outlined the hundreds of wood types and their qualities, the traits they could invoke.

Bay, it had said in elegant script. Symbol of Glory. Leaves historically used in cooked dishes to induce feelings of admiration for the cook in those who consume them, and in bouquets to inspire adoration of the giver; incidentally noted to be flavorful and sweetly scented.

And there, not too far below: Chestnut. Symbol of Luxury. "Do Me Justice"; used for the sealing of vows and the strengthening and support of oaths. Chief constituent of the Staff of Order of the Wizengamot for these properties.

She rather thought the trip to Ollivander’s had been productive.

-tbc

Chapter 7 is cooking!
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The Kindest Curse