A/N: I don't own anything except the plot, and any stray OCs I might've dreamed up. This is a story with mature content like scenes of a sexual nature, slash, strong language and contains spoilers. It follows canon except the DH epilogue and is set twelve years after the war. Lucius Malfoy had been exiled after the war and all his money, property and every asset was seized. He had left the English shores with his wife and son and the three had not been heard of again since. Now, twelve years later, the Ministry is all set to auction the Malfoy Manor off.
Dedicated to all the fabulous slash authors like Cheryl, Lomonaaeron, Digitallace and Bryoney, and many more I can't mention here due to lack of space. Now read on. :)
"So…what do you say, Hermione? Cracking news, or what?" Ron asked, his face suffused with happiness and a wicked smile adorning his mouth as he considered his wife of five years.
"Hmm…" Hermione allowed after a while, but the noncommittal response refused to faze Ron, who put the pie in to bake and stirred the soup bubbling over the fire.
"And the best part is, its going to be dirt cheap, not that its anything more than stones and dirt now" Ron winked at Harry and laughed at his own attempt at humour. Harry gave him a watery smile in response. Malfoy Manor was a very sensitive subject with him, not that his friends realized it. Or to be more truthful, not that he had ever allowed anyone else to find out about it.
"Well, I suppose the Ministry had to let it go eventually" Hermione put in thoughtfully. "It would have made a lovely museum when it was first attached, and a wonderful public library; did you know it boasted of twelve thousand books, some of them very rare, at the peak of its glory? But what does the Ministry do? Sits on it for over eleven years, allowing it to gather dust and go wild and become unfit for human habitation, and then decides to auction it! Typical!" she huffed, her eyes beginning to shine and her hair starting to crackle as she warmed to her subject. "And I dread to think in what condition the books and rare manuscripts would be! No matter how many preservative charms had been placed on the library, the magic must have waned, if not altogether disintegrated, with lack of use and re-strengthening. Honestly, what a waste!"
Ron rolled his eyes at Harry behind his wife's back and smiled, turning to prepare the casserole. Hermione sometimes forgot she worked for the same Ministry when books or the rights of some non-human or non-magical creature were involved.
"Waste is right" Harry sighed, his mind far away, in another time, when the Manor had still been a home to someone. When the huge wrought iron gates had stood guard imposingly, when the heavy double doors had both welcomed and denied entrance, when the fire had still cackled merrily in the hearth, when the dark polished mahogany furniture of the study had reflected the flames, when the deep armchair by the fire had still beckoned invitingly… Harry realized with a start that Hermione had resumed her speech and he gave himself a mental shake. Dwelling in the past never did anyone any good.
"…but if Lucius is dead then Malfoy would have had to come here and stake his claim in person for the house to recognize him as the new owner. And since I know that that hasn't happened, I think its safe to assume that the Ministry can auction away the Manor without worrying about the next owner being found murdered in his bed."
"Murdered?" Harry asked, astounded.
"Well, yes. Houses of old pureblood families that have been in the family for generations usually resist being handed over to someone not related by blood, unless the last owner truly did not mind who the house went to after his or her death. There have been many instances of new owners being found murdered horribly after spending a night in their new house over the past centuries."
"But Sirius left me Grimmauld Place and the house had been in the Black family since ages. And, well, I am still alive" he pointed out.
"And instead of the House making its walls shrink to asphyxiate the person, it could just be a blood relative committing the murder out of jealousy. Or even an old house-elf!" Ron reasoned.
"House elves don't kill innocent people!" Hermione glared at Ron. "And I think the new owner would be smart enough to change the wards and take enough precautions to prevent a jealous wannabe owner from snuffing the life out of him!" Then she turned to glare at Harry, as though he too had been making derogatory statements against house elves. "As for you, Grimmauld Place truly didn't care who inherited it. Sirius had been disowned while Regulus was still alive, and Regulus had predeceased his parents by a good many years. When Walburga Black died, I don't think she had cared what happened to the house and I doubt she had imagined that Sirius would one day come back to live there, or leave the house to anyone else. That would explain Kreacher's overwhelming rudeness to him, and also to us. And if you remember, we had really struggled to tame the house into resembling something habitable. Even after all these years and so many scrubbings and remodeling attempts, that place still hasn't lost that glum feeling, has it? No matter how many windows are opened or how many fires are lit, the house is never bright or airy. I highly doubt it had been like that when the Blacks had lived in it."
"Merlin, Hermione, you make a house sound like a person with feelings!" Ron shook his head. "And how do we know Grimmauld Place had ever been bright and cheery? Sirius' people had been stuffy folks, and maybe they preferred that kind of atmosphere…after all, Sirius had hated there enough to run away!"
"Its not feelings of the house, Ron, rather feelings of the owners that the house imbibes. And somehow I don't think generations upon generations of Blacks had chosen to live in a stuffy, dark house where the very air is gloomy. Do you think a pleasant person like Andromeda would've been the result of growing up in such a place? Or that Narcissa Malfoy would've had an eye for aesthetics or fashion living in such a morbid atmosphere?" Hermione argued. Harry thought her reasoning was pretty logical, but then it usually was.
"But the madness of Bellatrix was clearly the result of growing up in such a place" Ron argued; he hated giving in to Hermione in an argument. Needless to say, he ended up doing the hating most of the time.
"Out of five children, only one goes mad. What are the odds, Ronald?" Hermione challenged with her eyes.
"And it could be the result of inbreeding" Harry put in, baiting Ron who frowned at him while stirring the soup.
It was the wrong thing to say, apparently. Hermione turned on him.
"Bellatrix was not the result of inbreeding. If anyone was, it was Sirius and Regulus! Honestly, haven't you ever gone over the family tree of your godfather, Harry?"
"No" Harry admitted a bit sheepishly. True, he had glanced at it once or twice, or maybe more, but had never managed to memorize it; his eyes had always sought out only one name on it. At her narrowed eyes, he smiled softly and added, "Because I trusted you to."
That seemed to deflate her anger. It never ceased to amuse Harry that even a fiercely logical and level-headed person like Hermione could be open to a bit of flattery. He and Ron had been using this knowledge mercilessly over the years to get out of tight spots with her.
"Anyways" she huffed, "what were we talking about?"
"Bellatrix' madness?" Ron deadpanned.
"Sirius' inbreeding?" Harry suggested.
"Very funny. The auction of Malfoy Manor! Although I do have to admit, Ron, I fail to see why you are so excited over it. Its highly unlikely that Malfoy will come back after all these years to buy his house back, even if he can afford it, which is unlikely still. Unless you are planning to buy it?"
Hermione had spoken in jest, but at the gleam in Ron's eyes, she stared at him incredulously.
"What? Ron, you're not serious? You want to buy Malfoy Manor? Why?" she asked, for once bewildered and without any answers.
"For you, Hermione" Ron's voice was so quiet and his expression as he gazed at her so soft Harry felt like a peeping tom. But he wasn't going anywhere without getting a few answers himself so long as the both of them didn't actually start something. Or allowed the dinner to burn.
"For me?" Hermione was still bewildered.
"Yes, for you. I haven't forgotten, Hermione, how the residents of that place had looked down upon you, called you filthy names, treated you worse than dirt under their shoes! If Harry hadn't prevailed over You-Know-Who, they would have taken away your right to live! I haven't forgotten that you were tortured in that house, that you were chosen to be tortured from amongst us all just because you were a muggleborn!" Ron's voice had risen in volume as he spoke passionately, his anger and hurt reflected in his eyes. "Wouldn't it be fitting now that when the Malfoys may very likely be dressed in rags and living off the streets, the muggleborn they had thought so beneath them should be the owner of their former house? I think it would be what your dad calls divine justice." The gleam was back in Ron's eyes, and Harry now recognized it as the sign of vengeance. He felt guilty as hell.
"Its King Lear he quotes, and I think its overtly dramatic" Hermione corrected him out of habit even as her eyes were welling up with tears.
"Nevertheless, I …" Ron wanted to argue the point but Hermione gave a sigh of 'Oh, Ron!' and flung herself at him so suddenly he nearly lost his balance and certainly lost his train of thoughts. That, Harry thought, was totally understandable. Hermione had flung herself in his arms a week ago after he had come back from a long, dangerous, not to mention exhausting, assignment and he had nearly ended up on his backside, auror training notwithstanding. Handling a moody, eight months pregnant woman is difficult anytime, but when she throws her unwieldy body at you without warning and expects to come out of it safely, lets just say arguing over some technicality at that time is the last thing on your mind.
Hermione eventually stopped squeezing the life out of her husband and released him. Harry could see Ron heaving a sigh of relief, and nodded at him to tell him he understood completely.
"That's so sweet, Ron, so thoughtful" she sniffed, gazing adoringly up at him, and Harry could hear the 'but' in the sentence in his head even before she spoke it. "But its so wasteful. We have a beautiful house of our own, we don't need that place. And anyway, I don't want to raise our children in a hostile house."
"Hermione" Ron wheedled, "we don't need to go live there if you don't want to. We'll just keep it for entertaining sometime, and for hosting the traditional Weasley Christmas dinners. Merlin knows the Burrow is bursting at its seams now that nearly all of us have a family, and our family is only going to grow bigger. Mum will appreciate the extra space, I'm sure."
"Keeping a fifty one room house, not to mention acres of land surrounding it, for entertaining, indeed! And if you think for one second that Molly will like that you have another thought coming. She will most likely club you over the head for such extravagance!" Hermione was clearly beginning to think again after that small bout of emotionality. "And how do you think will we maintain such a huge property? Even if you stop working at the WWW and I stop working at the Wizarding Law Office, we would still need a year to clean the whole thing, and by that time it would get dirty again. And I'm so not wasting money hiring an army of house-elves to clean it! And who exactly are you planning to entertain there? The Salem Witches' Convention or Les Jeunes Dames de Beauxbatons?" Ron actually blushed at that. Unfortunately for him, Hermione noticed it and sharpened her logic to deflate him.
"Forget about maintaining, how are we even going to buy it in the first place? Even if its dirt cheap considering its real value, it'll still be pretty expensive, and I'm sure lots of pureblood families would be interested in buying it, not to mention deluded half blood and muggleborns too, and that will push its price up in an auction. I refuse to part with our hard earned money for the sake of inflating your ego when we clearly don't need such a huge pretentious house in the first place that can murder us in our sleep." Hermione stopped here, having run out of breath. That was one good thing about her pregnancy, Harry and Ron privately agreed, she ran out of breath fairly quickly now, allowing them to get in a word in Ron's case, or to gently distract her with some fluffy baby idea in Harry's case. This was Ron's case, and Harry could just see the dinner burning and having to eat the leftover pizza in his dreary apartment all by himself.
"We have plenty of money, Hermione, apart from our hard-earned galleons. Theres still plenty of all that reward left that the Ministry gave us for giving You-Know-Who the boot, after you squandered a lot away in useless campaigns and what nots, if I might add." Here, Hermione might've joined in but she was still out of breath, so she settled for waving her arms and shooting her husband death glares. Harry scooted closer to her and tried to mollify her by rubbing circles on her back.
"And there is a way we will be able to afford that house. The house needn't go on the market at all! After all, this auction is still inside news and if Percy hadn't told me I would never have known." And Ron gave Harry the look here, conveying that he should pay closer attention to inside politics, being a Senior Auror and all.
"And they will offer you Malfoy Manor just like that and let go of their chance to make some money and favourable news, right?" Hermione had managed to get her breath and sting back, after all.
"Not to me, but if the Saviour is interested in the property, no amount of money or good press will deter them to make the gesture" Ron waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Harry, who suddenly felt ill. He could also smell the soup burning now.
"No, Ron, there is no way I'm going to pimp my name like that" Harry stated firmly.
"I agree. Its dishonourable, demeaning, disgusting, damaging and so un-Harry like" Hermione scrunched up her nose, whether at distaste at the idea or at the smell, Harry didn't know.
"And you are so d…d…demoralizing" Ron shot back.
"What?" Hermione was clearly thrown at Ron's knowledge and use of the word.
"Oh, shove it! What I mean is, whats the harm in going there and checking the place out? If old Lucius is dead he'll be turning in his grave at the thought of a muggleborn and a blood traitor traipsing through their hallowed manor, and if the news reaches Lord-Draco-in-Tatters, all the more good. At least let me have that satisfaction" Ron pouted and as Harry had known, Hermione melted.
"Alright. Theres no harm in just looking the place over, I suppose. It'll certainly help in exorcising any remaining ghosts I have of that place, I daresay" she smiled at Ron.
"You are the best, Hermione, I swear!" Ron whooped and embraced her, and her muttered "I better be" was either lost or ignored. Then he turned to Harry.
"Harry, mate, you'll need to pimp your name to get us admittance, though. I'm sure it won't be so dehumanizing or whatever Hermione thinks it is. And oh, you are welcome to come with us; I don't want to deprive you of the opportunity to gloat" he finished with a wink and turned to speak in baby-talk with Hermione, the dinner forgotten.
Harry managed a shaky smile before walking out to Disapparate. Gloat, indeed. More like burning with longing and drowning in guilt at the same time. But what did Ron know?
Harry managed to down a slice of warmed up pizza with a cup of strong tea to mask its stale taste. He needed much more than this for sustenance, but his appetite had been killed. If it hadn't been for the fact that his job didn't allow him the luxury of blacking out from exhaustion or starvation for even a split second, he wouldn't have tortured himself willingly chewing away the pizza like a cow chews cud.
Some invitation for dinner that was, he smiled inspite of himself as he lay back on the well-worn couch in his living room. It hadn't been the first time Ron and Hermione had got distracted after having him over, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. And despite what a stranger might think when they were arguing, they had made a success of their marriage. They had got together right in the middle of the war, and then they had spent one year after that rebuilding Hogwarts and letting Harry do what he wanted without interference from the press and a whole country of well wishers. Of course, what Harry had really done they had never found out. And then the next year they had completed their NEWTs as much as Ron had been against it. Such was their worth in the eyes of the people at that time that Ron had been accepted in Auror Training Programme with Harry despite being three 'Os' short. Hermione had opted to do something more 'useful' and had gone into Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Harry had also managed to break up with Ginny, managed to live after confronting Ron, and survived dating a fellow trainee witch called Carla DeWasp.
Three years later, he and Ron had been full-fledged aurors and Hermione had managed to spend more than half of the amount the Ministry had given to her and Ron after Voldemort's defeat campaigning for Elf rights, better wizard-muggle relations, abolishing pro-pureblood laws, recognition of centaurs as a separate race, early assimilation of muggleborn children into wizarding world, creating employment opportunities for squibs, allowing for a seat in the Wizengamot before crossing seventy and making an inventory of all Goblin-made items to check what truly belonged to them and what to the wizards it was sold to. That last one had almost caused a war with the goblins and Hermione had been put under house arrest for her own protection. Harry rather thought Shacklebolt had tried to protect himself from her.
That all that she had managed to pull off had been the freeing of elves who wanted freedom and new employment opportunities for squibs was something he and Ron took care not to mention, unless Ron was in the mood for spending the night at Harry's flat. And not even he ever dared mention that fewer than a hundred elves had chosen freedom from a population of seventy-five thousand six hundred and fifty eight, and that too only because Dobby had been posthumously celebrated in the papers as a hero. But she had managed to secure better working conditions for them, and that was something both he and Ron were secretly very glad of. Wizarding world was resistant to change, and it would take one feisty muggleborn witch a long time to get everything done.
Even Harry, whom everyone went out of their way to please, had encountered corruption and roadblocks quite a few times. Shacklebolt had managed to keep the auror department clean, but the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in general held lots of people who were milder versions of Dolores Umbridge. And the ministry was full of such people from top to bottom. Harry had made it his mission to weed out every single one of them, with the result that Minister Shacklebolt had promoted him to a Senior Auror before his time. And Harry's daredevilry in missions for bringing dark wizards to Azkaban had been an added incentive, he was sure.
Three years hence, Hermione had shifted to the Wizarding Law Office where old laws were interpreted and suggestions for changes drafted to be put before Wizengamot, as well as the need for new laws researched and presentations drafted for Wizengamot's approval. Hermione had flourished there, finding the new job meeting her every requirement of studying, researching, making changes, manipulating the Wizengamot with her clever use of words and general do-gooding. She figured that with time she would be able to bamboozle the Wizengamot into passing a few laws she really wanted passed.
All this while, Ron and Hermione had been living together 'in sin', as Molly had put it before Harry more than once. Not that Ron hadn't wanted marriage; he had proposed to her first right after completing NEWTs, and then after every six months, but Hermione had refused every time wanting to concentrate on her career. Harry had silently agreed with her as he knew that once they got married, Molly would waste no time in pressurizing them to start a family, and knew that Ron would side with his mother. But she had moved in with him the very next day of his first proposal. They had hunted for a house and Hermione had wisely found one quite far from Burrow. Harry had resisted pointing out that so long as they lived in England, a Floo would render any distance immaterial. Hermione still thought like a muggle sometimes. In the meantime, he had managed to get a flat for himself near London; living in Grimmauld Place wasn't exactly fun.
Living together had given birth to a new problem, as far as Ron was concerned. One of them would have to learn how to cook, and Hermione absolutely refused to as she was quite content to eat out daily and was even willing to eat her own cooking sometimes. So Ron took cooking classes from Molly and with time learnt to dish out quite a good spread. Harry meanwhile learnt to master reheating frozen stuff and brewing tea that met with even Molly's approval. And he also managed another failed relationship with a witch called Frisky Silverbutter who had testified against a suspect on a case. Hermione was firmly of the opinion he thought too less of himself. Ron firmly thought it was the wrong name.
Harry had thought that Ron was as happy with everything as he had been, at least at the professional front, but that glorious vision had shattered when Ron once admitted to him that he still dreamt of playing for Chudley Cannons and the only thing that kept him from chucking his job and joining them was his fear of Hermione's disapproval. Inspite of hating losing his best friend as his partner, Harry had done the right thing and braved Hermione's reaction with him when he told her. Ron had spent a fortnight with Harry before she had come around to the idea of him 'wasting his life chasing crazy balls in air'. Ron had been selected the reserve keeper for the team right away, and he had spent eight months living the life he wanted. During that time, Harry had tried his best to put up with a frosty Hermione and to get over his third failed attempt at a relationship, this time with a muggle he had met in a pub. He also spent a total of four weeks intermittently at St. Mungo's recuperating from various injuries and curses as he had been unable to adjust to his new partner on missions. Merlin, but he had missed Ron.
As it turned out, Hermione had also missed Ron. They both rarely got enough time together, and when they did, it was spent in yelling and storming out. Finally, Hermione told Ron that she would marry him if he chucked the Cannons, and Ron spent that night drowning himself in Firewhiskey in Harry's flat and broke his contract the following morning. They were married three weeks later in a simple but elegant ceremony.
After they got back from a short honeymoon to Wales as Hermione couldn't afford more leaves, Harry thought Ron would probably ask him for his old job and inspite of being genuinly sorry for his friend, he couldn't help feeling a bit elated at the prospect. But for once Ron had managed to outsmart Hermione completely. Instead of rejoining Harry or the ministry in any capacity, he chose to join George at the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. For all that he had been disappointed, Harry hadn't been able to help laughing out loud when Hermione had gnashed her teeth. She had given him a pair of antlers for that. On the butt. And then had refused to put him right. He had stormed out of their house warning her not to show him her face again, leaving a smug Ron to face his fuming wife. He had been angry enough with her to shut his floo to them, returned Ron's owls unopened and had generally made himself miserable. That lasted for a week during which Hermione made no attempt to contact him. On his next mission, he had nearly ended up getting killed. When he had woken up in St. Mungo's a week later, it was to find a distraught Hermione and a somber Ron by his side. Hermione had threatened to kill him if he ever pulled another stunt like that, and Ron had later told him that she had not left his side for a single moment the entire week he had been out of it.
Well, such was their friendship. They had been through so much together that little things like a bit of manipulation, some stupidity, flashes of anger and hidden caches of guilt (he hoped) couldn't come between them. He had other friends, true. The entire Weasley family, except Ginny, was still quite fond of him and Neville, Dean, Seamus and Luna kept in regular touch. But Ron and Hermione were his family. At times Harry did hope that Ron would learn to stand up to Hermione better before he found himself perpetually henpecked like Mr. Weasley, but he valued his friendship with the both of them too much to say anything. And Ron deserved what he got for casting his lot with a formidable witch like Hermione, he sniggered to himself. They could've spent their life just as three old friends, but no, Ron and Hermione had to get themselves hitched to one another. Well, they were welcome to live in Bickeringville for ever after. He was quite happy being single though he had retired from the mingling scene altogether. But, he sighed; he still wished he could find a way to tell them what had happened at Malfoy Manor after the war. At the worst, Ron would kill him or Hermione would make him sprout those antlers permanently, and at best, they would stop trying to fix him a date at every opportunity.
Harry spent that night on his living room couch, his dreams haunted by a pale shadow with platinum blond hair.
A/N: I know it sounds like a very tame beginning and more Ron/Hermione than anything else, but please hang on. And do let me know what you feel about it.