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The Downfall of Greed	By : tcarlson Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 40804 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make money off this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 8
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- 10
Before the sun had risen the next morning, I woke the girl up and told her to follow me.

“You seem mighty chipper for someone who was quite drunk barely three hours ago,” she commented as we made our way down the stairs. I ignored her. It was quite an effort to seem so put-together, but I needed to put her back in her place before it got too out of hand.

At the bottom of the stairs was a large bucket filled with water and suds. A small brush sat next to the bucket. The floor of the foyer was covered in a thick layer of grime from the slush and mud being tracked inside. I had told the House-elves to leave the foyer for Hermione Granger to clean. It had not been cleaned for a couple of days. I thought it was the perfect opportunity for her to learn her lowly status. It was humiliating and demeaning work. It was also the best I could do since I had to lay off the torture for another day so she could heal completely.

I pointed to the bucket and told her to get to work. She stared at the small brush and glanced around the huge foyer. “I know you are trying to make a point, but what exactly are you trying to achieve here?” she asked.

“Just get to work, Miss. Granger. The faster you finish, the sooner you can go back into your room.”

Surprisingly, she gave no argument. She sighed and knelt on the floor, dunking the brush into the water. The brush made soft scratching noises against the floor as she started scrubbing at the layer of caked-on dirt. After about a minute of working on the same spot, the floor showed clean underneath.

“This is going to take forever!” she complained, moving slightly to the right and starting over on a new spot.

I left her to her work and went into my office. The door was left open so I could keep an ear on her as I got some work done. All I heard was the sloshing of water, the brush scrubbing against the floor, and her frustrated mumblings as she slowly made progress.

At lunchtime, when she had been working nearly six hours, I stuck my head out to see how far into the foyer she had made it. About one third of the floor was sparkling clean. The other two thirds had yet to be touched. She was obviously cramping up from kneeling so long. Her face was contorted in pain and she was working quite slowly. She had spilt a lot of water on herself and her thin robe clung to her body. She glared at me when she caught me watching.

“At this rate, you’ll never make it back to your room at a decent hour.”

“I’m working as fast as I can! Maybe if I had a better brush or could get some food, I’d speed up!”

“You will work with what you have.” She nearly growled and threw herself back into her work, cursing me under her breath.

I retired back to my office and stayed there the rest of the afternoon. On my way down the hall for dinner, I noticed that she was very nearly done. “If you finish before I’m done with dinner, kneel waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs,” I told her. She looked up at me. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat and her arms were shaking with exhaustion. She nodded once and went back to work.

I arrived at the table before Draco or Narcissa. I hadn’t seen either of them all day. It’s possible that Narcissa stayed in her room in one of her moods. I didn’t know where Draco could be. I was hoping somewhere with a tutor, but that was probably only wishful thinking.

The front door opened and shut. I heard footsteps walk toward the dining room and then a pause. And then: “Draco, you thoughtless git! It took me forever to wash that floor and you just tracked dirt all over it! I’m going to kill you!”

“Oh, hello, Miss. Granger. I didn’t even see you there,” Draco responded lightly. “Slavery seems to agree with you.”

“I refuse to clean this up! I won’t do any more of your father’s dirty work!”

“Draco, come in here this instant,” I ordered from my spot at the table. “And don’t make me go out there, Miss. Granger!” There was an irritated shriek and the sound of what I could only assume was the brush being thrown at the wall in anger.

Draco entered the dining room trying to suppress laughter. “You’ve got her doing House-elf work?” he asked me. “That’s brilliant.”

“Draco, sit down and do try not to cause any problems.”

A House-elf informed us that Narcissa would be staying in her room for the night so Draco and I ate alone. We ate mostly in silence, both of us listening to the sound of a very angry Hermione Granger curse out the Malfoy name as she redid the part of the floor that Draco messed up.

Around the end of the meal, the hallway got mysteriously silent. “She’s up to something,” Draco mused. His prediction proved to be correct when we heard the front door get flung open and slammed shut a moment later. An investigation of the hallway showed a clean floor and a bucket filled with dirty water but no Hermione Granger.

Draco ran to the door, opened it, and peered outside. “We’ve got to go find her!”

I looked out into the night. “It’s below freezing, she’s wearing a thin, wet robe, and there’s a half of a foot of snow on the ground. The gate is locked so she can only go in circles around the property. She has nowhere to go but to come back inside unless she wants to freeze to death.”

“You don’t think she has any intentions of suicide?”

“Not yet. She still has hopes of being rescued. Now let’s finish dinner and not worry about her.”

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

I sent Draco to his room after dinner and had the House-elves extinguish all light on the first floor except the fire in the library where I sat. My flair for the dramatic shows itself again. The cold girl would be drawn to the promise of a warm fire when she returned and would only find me. And punishment. I sipped tea and waited for the insufferable chit to make her way back into the house.

Considering what she was dressed in, she managed to stay out for a long time. She must have checked the perimeter thoroughly to make sure there was absolutely no chance of escape. If she got sick again and I needed to call Severus for the same problem as last time, I’d be beyond pissed. I’d probably just let her die at that point.

The front door creaked open and clicked shut quietly. I could hear her shivering from all the way down the hall. She must have caught sight of the flickering fire for just seconds later she was in the library and kneeling as close to the fire as she could get without actually being in the flames.

“Well, that was an utterly useless exploit, wasn’t it?” I asked from my chair in the shadows.

She stood up and faced me warily. “It was worth a shot if I could get away from you.”

“Do you realize that even if you had managed to get away, I could have just found you with your Mark?” Her hand went unconsciously to her lower back. I walked over to her and she stood her ground, chin raised and meeting my eyes. “Now you know that escape is impossible. I’ll always be able to find you.”

“I hate you,” she said as tears of frustration, anger, and hopelessness accumulated in the corner of her eyes.

“Good. I’m doing my job right, then. Now, how to punish you?”

“Just Crucio me and be done with it,” she snapped.

“A wonderful suggestion. Crucio!” I held the curse for almost too long. After I lifted it, she remained curled on the floor where she had dropped. She pressed her head against the cool hardwood and breathed in and out slowly as if she were trying her hardest not to pass out. “That was for all your insubordination. I have yet to punish you for your escape attempt. Since you don’t seem to take any threat to yourself seriously, then why not see how you take seeing someone you know in pain? Your parents perhaps?”

“They’re in hiding.”

“Well, I could always have Professor Snape bring me one of your little school friends from Hogwarts. Or…” I stopped and thought for a second. “Or we can rifle through your mind and see if you have any Mudblood acquaintances I can kidnap and bring here.”

She looked up at me from the floor. “There is no one. I made sure to protect my family.”

“We’ll see about that. Legilimens!” Her mind was opened up to me. I delved through memories like one would leaf through a photo album. I saw when she first met Weasely and Potter. When she was sorted. When she took her first exam. No. I needed to go earlier. I then found memories of a grade-school Granger. There was one girl that kept showing up in these memories. Bingo.

I lifted the spell and watched as horror crossed her face as she realized that she may have just sentenced someone she knew to death by not being able to use Occlumency. “You had a friend. A girl named Anna. She was your best friend in grade-school. You’ve known her since you were a toddler. Did you think of her when you put your loved ones into hiding?”

She didn’t answer me. The look on her face was answer enough. I knew plenty from the memories to be able to find this Anna and bring her here to teach Hermione Granger a real lesson in pain.
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- 10
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The Downfall of Greed