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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7649 -:- 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
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Seventy-five miles away, Lucius Malfoy felt the burn of a summons in his forearm and stood, kissing
his pale wife on the cheek in passing. She knew where he was going, and he somehow doubted she cared very
much. Narcissa Malfoy was aptly named. There were very few people that she felt anything for. Her husband
was not one of them

It was, as with many ancient pureblood families, more of an alliance than a marriage.

           Wand in pocket and mask in hand, Lucius Apparated to the brooding home in which the Dark Lord
had taken residence, sweeping past the bowing Peter Pettigrew with a sneer twisting his lips. The silver of
Pettigrew’s magical arm flashed in the fading sunlight as he shut the door behind them both. Favored servant
of the Dark Lord or not, Pettigrew was still nothing more than a self-interested coward, and Lucius trusted
or liked him not at all. Once a traitor, always a traitor.

            His lips twisted further on that thought, the air of coldness that surrounded him penetrating down to
his own belly. Traitor. Draco.

           However opulent the mansion, it was permanently cold and dank, a reek that made his skin twitch.
Even at dusk, the long corridors were nearly pitch black, lit by torches and candelabra with failing,
waning light.

            It certainly gave the place an atmosphere.

Not for the first time, Lucius recalled his ancestral home in Wiltshire, the elegance and wealth of
it, the status that owning it provided him. Since his escape from Azkaban, he had been constantly on the
move, staying with Death Eaters who had not been revealed, eking out a meagre existence. Disgraceful.
Insulting.

The corridor ended in a flight of stone steps, leading down the basement where most of the Death
Eater gatherings occurred. If possible, it was even colder and danker down there, as if those were the defining
characteristics of the Dark Lord himself, and trailed behind him wherever he went.

Mask in place, Lucius bowed as he approached the seated Dark Lord. Such summons were not
unusual, but this was the first time he had no inkling as to what was expected of him.

Whatever spell had brought the Dark Lord back, whatever twisted working of magic, blood, and
bone, it had not ended its transformation on that night. Pale and cadaverous as Voldemort had been then, he
was even more so now, his eyes a blaze of crimson that saw through any and all brought before him. He was
snakelike, slits where his nose should have been, ivory scales rising back from his brow and down to the back
of his neck; his face was an alien blend of reptile and human. His arms lay on the armrests of a chair that was
very like a throne, each finger with an extra joint, long pale spidery hands.

Bowing further, Lucius bent and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord’s robe. Alien and frightening, yes,
but also more powerful than any wizard alive.

“Lucius.” The Dark Lord smiled, a smile as horrifying as his laughter, empty and screeching. “Most
faithful of my servants...”

“Yes, my Lord. I am prepared for any task you will give me.”

“Are you?” The slits of the Dark Lord’s nostrils flared. “Death and betrayal is in the air, Lucius. Can
you not feel it?”

“Death, my Lord, but never betrayal,” Lucius replied swiftly. “I would never betray you.”

“Not you,” the Dark Lord replied. “Your son, the Muggle-loving fool of a boy of whom I had such
hopes. You failed with him. You reek of the failure. I smell it every moment you are in my presence.”

Lucius threw himself on the floor, though his Lord could offer few greater castigations than those
Lucius had given himself.

“Yet all is not lost,” Voldemort added, cruel humour in his voice. “I will tell you how to redeem
yourself...”

“Anything, my Lord.”

Nagini slithered over him, and Lucius held himself perfectly still as the great snake coiled over his
back, rubbing against the Dark Lord’s feet like a cat.

“There are some,” Voldemort said thoughtfully, “who are not worthy of the Dark Lord’s attention,
and must nonetheless be exterminated...some who, though they have never seen the Dark Lord, are an
irritation. You must dispose of these.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Their fates are bound to you, Lucius,” the Dark Lord said sharply. “And to others...their deaths will
mean a great deal to the Boy.”

There was never any doubt who the Boy was, though the Dark Lord seldom named him. Harry Potter.
The Boy who Lived, Lucius thought, grinding his teeth. The boy had seen him sent to Azkaban, the boy who
had seen him stripped of the power, wealth, and influence that was the birthright of every Malfoy.

“Gladly, my Lord.”

“They will be going east in search of the artifact. You will instruct my Death Eaters there. The
artifact is to be destroyed if it cannot be returned to me.” Voldemort laughed then, and the hairs on the back
of Lucius’ neck rose at the sound, high, shrill, and still devoid of any emotion. “Binding of fates...let that be
their downfall...”

“My Lord, I do not understand you,” Lucius said, and Voldemort waved him to his feet, still
laughing, still empty.

“Your son and his Muggle-born lover, my servant. Is that not clear enough?”

Muggle-born lover. Draco. Lucius’ face paled in abrupt and utter rage. That any child of his body
would dirty himself with such filth...

“You will know her when you see her,” the Dark Lord said, bending to stroke Nagini. “You will feel
it in her. She is a danger.”

“Gladly, my Lord,” Lucius repeated, and this time, he meant it with all his heart.

“Good,” Voldemort smiled, cruel humour restored. “We will end it soon, Lucius...do not fail me
again...”

~o~oOo~o~

The Muggle-born lover of Draco Malfoy was currently wide awake, staring at the ceiling as Draco
slept beside her, his breathing deep and slow.

This whole situation was insanity of the highest order, and both Harry and Ron would have
simultaneous, multiple heart attacks if they knew where she was.

That actually did not particularly bother her. This Draco Malfoy was not the same Draco they had
known; however bewildering the transformation was, Ron and Harry would accept it, eventually.

She was very likely to get Malfoy killed. Hermione was leaving in four day’s time for Romania,
straight into the midst of a Death Eater hunt. She was going to thwart them in their attempt to find the Eye;
she was an Auror, and she was a member of the Order.

Given a quill and parchment, she could make an alphabetical list of the things likely to get her killed.
Hermione rolled over and shoved her face into a pillow on that thought. Draco muttered in his sleep.

However many wizards had swelled the ranks of the Aurors, there never seemed to be enough. Never
enough in the Order, for that matter. Too many wizards willing to let others do their fighting for them; too
many terrified of returning home one night to see the Dark Mark wavering in the air above their home. And
no one could ever be sure how many Death Eaters there were.

She could love Draco.

As if hearing her thoughts, he stirred, pulling her to him, her back against his chest, his arm around
her waist, breathing in the scent of her hair.

“’Mione,” he said sleepily, and dozed off again. That he could sleep so was vaguely irritating, when
she was so worried, but then he was exhausted. The bags under his eyes had bags.

And even if Hermione managed not to get him killed, he was likely to get himself killed, doing
whatever the hell it was he was doing. Spying. She snorted softly. Whatever he was doing, a one-word
description didn’t do justice to the risks he was taking.

This was Draco Malfoy.

“Merlin’s beard,” she said aloud. Wrapped in his arms, twisted in sheets that smelled of him, she
would give anything to be able to lie down and sleep beside him, forgetting the whole mess.

Before she left, she had to tell Dumbledore about the whole mess. She was also pondering–deeply–
whether or not she should include Draco’s part in the mess. If anyone could keep a secret, it was
Dumbledore. And somehow or other, she would feel better if he knew it, even if he could offer no further
protection.

It was an odd fate, but most of the students she had gone to Hogwarts with were either involved in
the Ministry of Magic, if not the Order, or had predictably become Death Eaters. Most of her year’s Slytherin
House had become Death Eaters, and Hermione was mortally certain she had seen Millicent Bulstrode’s cold
eyes staring out from behind a mask on more than one occasion. Crabbe and Goyle were likely employed as
full time removers of flies’ wings–the only occupation that would not exceed their intelligence and still
somehow managed to be both creepy and cruel.

The death of Cedric Diggory, the brief battle at the Ministry in fifth year...it had gone a long way
to rousing the children she’d grown up with into battle-ready adults. Wherever Harry Potter went, the battle
raged, and Hogwarts had been Ground Zero. The raid that had killed Professor McGonagall–the last of its
kind, as it was too costly for the Death Eaters–had been the final straw.

If the Death Eaters hadn’t returned to their old tactics, gathering strength, working through blackmail
and the Imperious Curse, they might finally have been defeated. Might have. Two of the most useless words
in the English language.

All this thinking was doing nothing but frightening her worse, and she turned in Draco’s arms,
burying her face in his chest. The sharp protrusions of his ribs were startling; as her hand moved delicately
to his back; she could feel the ridged scars, the colour of old ivory by moonlight. She had never in her life
experienced the kind of pain he’d survived; never known, for that matter, that there was such a thing as a
lashing-spell.

And yet he had given her a mark that would draw half of her pain into him.

He watched through her eyes, and came to her when she was in danger.

It was the kind of thing that would have made her gag, had she read it in a romance novel. Now, she
just wanted to pull him to her and pray.

“Go to sleep, Hermione,” Draco muttered into her hair, voice deep with weariness. “There’s nothing
you can do about any of it now.”

“It doesn’t scare you?” She asked softly, startled to find him awake, and apparently reading her
thoughts.

His arms tightened around her. “Every moment of every day. But I’ve already done all I can.”

The tiny dragon on her back woke, mantling its wings, as if to remind her that Draco had indeed done
all he could for her, short of locking her up in a room until the war was over. It was a peculiar feeling, when
the dragon moved–a tickling itch between her shoulder blades.

“Scratch my back,” she whispered, and Draco smiled as he did so, wringing something akin to a purr
from the little dragon. “It had to be dragon?”

“Looks like it,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I have to leave in a few hours, love.”

“For what?”

Stupid question, that. He didn’t bother to answer, just sighed. “Going to find the Eye soon?”

“Yes. Do you spy on me while I’m at work?”

“Spy is such an ugly word,” he said, and silenced her with a kiss on the lips. “Sleep. Need sleep.”

“Then sleep,” she whispered, giving up on the questions, for now. “We’re safe here.”

“No, we’re not,” he murmured. “No illusions, Hermione, not even here.”

“Can’t you ever just rest? Stop thinking about it?”

He chuckled then. “This from the girl who woke me up with ‘not thinking about it?’ It doesn’t go
away until it’s over.”

Not exactly words of comfort, but if he could sleep anyway, so could she. But she traced his face
with her fingertips in the dark, first, feeling a sigh of contentment rumble through his chest. Brow and chin,
well-formed jaw and high cheekbones–she memorized him with her fingers in the darkness, learning the
shape of lips that were not inclined to smiles, but no longer twisted into a contemptuous smirk. It still shook
her to realize how beautiful he was.

Her fingers fell away as she finally slept, and Draco smiled into the darkness, gathering her close.

Author’s Notes

Any repetition, let me know. One of my reviewers pointed out the overuse of the epithet, “Merlin.” I’m going
to try to change it up some, but JKR didn’t give us an abundance of epithets. Has anyone else noticed/been
distracted by this?

All disclaimers apply; thanks to the Harry Potter Lexicon, again. I’ll be taking my new epithets from their
list of Chocolate Frog Cards. And review, review, review. Reviews keep me motivated.
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Bad Faith