Chapter 1
Lucius Malfoy opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, 6 years 4 months and 5 days, he still hadn't become used to waking up in Azkaban. True it had changed dramatically since his first term; the Dementors had been removed, possibly the greatest blessing; overcrowding due to the huge numbers of Death Eaters rounded up after the war meant that there was now two prisoners in each cell; and possibly the biggest, and for Lucius the most worrying change, there was no hope of escape.
Turning slightly on the shelf acting as his bed Lucius looked over at his cell mate and smirked, whichever bright spark had been responsible for this arrangement had certainly done him a favour. Lucius could be agreeable, he could be charming, however despite his pleasant manners there were very few people he actually liked. Severus Snape was one of these people.
"Lucius, you are staring at me." It wasn't a question, or accusation, just a mere statement of fact, it was enough however to cause Lucius to roll his head back to face the ceiling with a sigh.
Silence reigned in the cell, as it did every morning until the guard slid the meagre breakfast through the flap into the cell with a copy of the Daily Prophet, that a few well placed bribes had ensured was a daily occurrence. The Prophet usually kept the pair occupied for a good few hours, dissecting each story, looking for hidden meanings.
That was how it had been every day for the past 6 years 4 months and 4 days, Seeing familiar names, and names that had become familiar, day after day. Analysing actions; reading between the lines written by 3rd rate hacks, that 5 years ago would have never been touched by a newspaper, but were all that was now left; and gradually Lucius and Severus had become intimate with them all.
Government ministers, civil servants, in fact every one steering the wizarding world, Lucius and Severus had begun to understand their motivations, their relationships and the people they answered to and knew them better than their own families. There had been only one day where this hadn't taken place, it had been almost 4 years ago now, but Lucius knew he would never forget it, the day Harry Potter had been elected Minster of Magic.
It was inevitable, after the war and when things had settled down, all the dirty work of clearing away Death Eaters and rebuilding the tattered remains of the wizard community, Harry Potter had made his push for office. Of course no one stood against him in the election, the wizarding world may have been a democracy, but that didn't make it democratic did it.
The headline that day had almost made Severus choke, although that wasn't hard to do on dry bread, Lucius mused. Since his election a dark cloud had settled over the not yet recovered society. The control over the press had been tightened to an alarming extent, curfews were in place in all wizard areas, and public meetings were allowed only by the Ministers direct permission.
It appeared that Potter was so paranoid of another Dark Lord being able to form a power base every one except the Golden-Boy himself was a suspect, and hence needed to be kept down trodden. Lucius allowed himself a macabre grin, there was no one outside of Azkaban left to support a new Dark Lord, the Ministry had been so zealous in its imprisonment of Death Eaters that most of the people in captivity here were innocent, and not in a way that could be debated, as Severus's case could be.
Lucius allowed himself another look over at his companion, he was lucky he could have been sharing a cell with Ginerva Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, or worse of all Neville Longbottom. Too say Potter had been fanatical in his attempts to protect the country was an understatement, the arrival of the paper was to allow Lucius to see how far things had progressed.