On the other hand, his presence in the hall, when Granger opened the door to Lucius's arrogant and flashy form, proved to be an advantage.
It baffled Lucius enough to make him lose some of that flair. For a few precious moments, which Severus swore to Pensieve and look at whenever his ego would suffer especially heavy blows, Lucius stood there, gaping like a fish in the most undignified way.
Snape's bliss lasted but a few seconds, and then Malfoy Senior composed himself enough to speak.
"It was highly unusual to receive a request for help from you, Miss Granger. I have told you on numerous occasions that my library is at your avail, knowing your keenness for books, and though you're only taking me up on my offer now, I was so glad you did that I decided to drop by with this curious tome myself and inquire if there was anything else I could help you with. I'm quite a connoisseur when it comes to grimoires."
As Lucius spoke, he threw covert glances at Snape, as if he were probing deep waters and looking out for dangerous shoals.
"How very pleasant to find you... well and whole, Severus," he added when he was finished with his tirade.
Snape rolled his eyes, but spared a fleeting thought for the whys of Lucius offering Granger access to his library in such an affable manner. Some things never changed, and Lucius was a shark who could swim in any water: salt, fresh, muddy—it didn't matter.
"Doesn't your coming here flaunt the fastidious rules of your... peers?" Snape asked with mock disdain.
"But Miss Granger is my peer, Severus, my friend. You've been hiding away for too long. Things change," Lucius said with a smile and went on to squeeze Snape's shoulders amiably. Severus returned the gesture not entirely without sincerity.
When the meet-and-greet stage was over, seats and tea offered and taken, Lucius clapped his hands together with a rather gleeful expression .
"So, instead of one mystery here, I actually find two. Which one will I be updated on first?"
"The mystery is actually one and the same," Snape said, and gave a very abbreviated overview of his predicament, editing a few things out as he went and adding a few details, such as the supposed breaking of the Stone once it was turned.
Lucius, flaunty peacock though he was, had a keen mind, and even his condescending, seemingly supercilious persona was a carefully calculated and brilliantly worn mask.
"I don't see, Miss Granger, how this book may be of any help. Personally, I don't find if of any scientific value. It's one of those Victorian scrying manuals. You know, shewstones, tea leaves, 'On Hallow's Eve look in the glass, your future husband's face will pass' type of book."
"I believe it may be useful, Mr. Malfoy," Hermione said demurely. "If you could lend it to me for a couple of days, I would be most obliged."
Severus rolled his eyes once again. One never used words like 'obliged' with Lucius Malfoy, who was always known to take a Galleon when given a Knut.
"You can come and work for me any time. That would make me obliged." Lucius beamed. Hermione excused herself to make more tea, incidentally grabbing the grimoire to take with her, and Snape used the moment to catch up.
"So, since when have you been a great lover of Muggle-born witches?"
"Don't give me the what for, Severus," Malfoy said with a smile and a dismissive wave of the hand.
"I'm not. Just curious as to when you had a magical attitude replacement. Would you like me to check whether you're Imperiused? Miss Granger is capable of many things." Severus's voice dripped with mock concern.
"Pfft. You're sense of humour is still quirky at best, Severus. How glad I am that some things, in fact, do not change. To answer your question, no, I have not had any replacements. I've always liked what does me and my family good and despised what is capable of harming me. I side with the strong. Muggle-borns are a force now, and Miss Granger is a force in herself. It's that simple."
Severus huffed. There was truth in what Lucius was trying to get across. Lucius's only true loyalty was, and had always been, to himself. He had joined the Dark Lord because of the prospects it offered, and he had gained a lot. He'd lost a lot, too, but he'd managed to stay afloat and thrive again, eventually. That much was obvious.
"You really have no principles, Mr. Malfoy!" Hermione's exasperated shout reached over from the small kitchen.
"No, I don't, my dear, and I advise you to get rid of the ones you have. Be flexible and adapt. How hard is liking something that is good for you? Not hard at all."
Severus heard a huff not entirely unlike his own coming from the kitchen and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"I dare to presume Miss Granger still finds it hard to like the fact that she was tortured in your home. Solitude does not counter reading newspapers."
Lucius pressed his lips together in distaste.
"Bella was mad. I can't be held responsible for the doings of others."
"Even if those doings took place under your own roof?" Snape asked with a very unkind lopsided sneer.
"I'm willing to make recompense. Unfortunately, Miss Granger isn't taking me up on my job offer."
That last bit was said loud enough for the Miss in question to hear it.
She came out, levitating three cups of tea, obviously from her better set, alongside a tray of cheap meringues from the nearest bakery, which were supposed to make an impression, but dampened it slightly.
Lucius took his cup and took a perfunctory sip, ignoring the meringues.
His face had suddenly become very serious, and the façade of a faddish, slightly eccentric aristocrat was dropped altogether.
"Whatever you are intending to do with your," he nodded his imperial chin towards Snape, "situation, I want in."
"Why?" Snape and Miss Granger asked almost in total unison.
"Consider me bored."
"And why should we let you in?" Snape asked, feeling the wave of anger rise. Damn the grimoire. They could have looked elsewhere.
"Because I've got more information that may be helpful to you." Lucius eyed Snape like a player who had just pulled out a trump card when least expected, and Miss Granger sat suspiciously quiet, hiding behind her cup.
"What's in it for you, really?" Snape cut to the chase.
"I want a message delivered." Lucius's voice suddenly changed cadence.
The kind of message he was referring to didn't need to be explained to either Snape or Miss Granger for some reason, and both of them, clearly understanding the meaning, swallowed uneasily.
"It only works the other way around."
"It doesn't, or you will be unsuccessful in bringing your other half over from the realm of the dead," Lucius said in a tone which didn't bear any arguments.
"Deal," Granger said suddenly and shot up with a hand stretched out. Snape opened his mouth for a long diatribe about everything he thought of her making decisions for him when he was the one with the necromantic abilities here, but clapped it shut, seeing the strange glint in her eyes.
Lucius left soon after he had secured his 'deal' with Granger and insisted on sending his Eagle Owl to Granger's house the next morning so that he could be updated on their quest.
His 'useful information' was, just as Severus had expected, a vague piece of backroom Death Eater gossip, but Granger considered it valuable. Lucius clearly didn't know the full extent or meaning of the few words he'd once overheard, but his acute sense for sniffing out all the important things was true, as always, when it had told him that this little nugget would be useful.
It appeared that Voldemort had thought there was a way to reverse his Horcrux spell and gather what was left of his soul into something solid. All that had been needed was a willing and fully devoted soul. He'd had such a soul in Bellatrix and, apparently, had let her in on some of his plan. Unfortunately, poor old Bella's mind had already been fragile after all those years in Azkaban, and she'd taken a few raps to the head afterwards, so she couldn't resist boasting about such a display of trust from her master to her sister. And Narcissa had told Lucius everything.
So, the Dark Lord had, at some point, guessed that his Horcruxes were being hunted down and decided to gather what was left of him. And he had known how to do it. At least, this was what Granger thought Lucius's piece meant. Snape was slightly more sceptical. As for her 'deal' with Lucius, he was furious.
"Tell me, Miss Granger. Why is your mouth saying spells your wand can't cast?" Snape asked her, using the saying he'd picked up from her very own mind as soon as the door had closed behind their visitor.
"I'll find the way. I have a feeling we really need that book and that we're moving in the right direction."
She stuck her chin up and grabbed the grimoire.
"Let's see what's in here," she said in a tone that was more commanding than Severus liked.
The referred page was in a chapter dedicated to consorting with spirits and, apart from various bits of gibberish and descriptions of Divination devices, contained a verse in French obviously copied from some other, perhaps earlier, source and signed by La Garce de Goliath
Neither Severus nor Granger were very fluent in French, but with the help of a Muggle dictionary, which she extricated from one of the bookshelves, and a few translation spells, they'd put together something of a sensible text.
Even the keenest of mind, who attempt to cheat Death, shall be cheated, for Death is a two-way the next word was indecipherable, but Hermione thought it was 'act'. When something goes, another thing comes in. Find what has come, and you shall return what is gone.
Miss Granger held the parchment with the written text with slightly shaking hands, and her eyes flittered like two small embers.
"But this is brilliant!" she squealed, after she'd read the text at least a dozen times. "See how Ignotus Peverell wanted to cheat death and lost his life instead, eventually, and the stone is a two-way act because something can't be brought back without something else going and vice-versa!"
"I don't see how this is any great discovery. I don't see how someone who calls herself the bitch of Goliath could possess the knowledge that could change an entire branch of magical science?" Snape folded his arms on his chest and viewed the ecstatic woman in front of him from underneath his furrowed brows.
"But it's obvious! When I turned the stone, something went. That other you that dwells in my house. But something has come in, too. We have to find it and then exchange the two with the help of whatever Lucius meant about that willing devoted soul."
The last part made her flush painfully red, and Severus discovered that he was gentleman enough not to grate her about why on earth did she think she was that soul. He filed it away for future use and sighed.
"Do you realize that it's about as precise an instruction as saying, 'Here's your aconite, and look, the Moon's belly is almost round, now, get started' to a first year equivalent of Longbottom and expect him to brew Wolfsbane by midnight?"
"That is what research is for."
How could Snape, ever the enthused scientist, argue with that?
The night was passed in a hushed thrill of the new discovery, in looking at all the books and notes with a new eye, and the sunrise crept up on them unexpectedly, pouring warm pink light into the grey, predawn twilight of the library.
When the sunlight was bright enough to make the candles useless, Severus sent Granger off to get some rest. Immediately after that, two things happened almost simultaneously.
First, there was Hades, Malfoy's Eagle owl, banging his regal beak on the window pane, and then there was another Sign of Contact, which Severus noticed as he was letting Hades in. This time, it was pressed in a small crack between the boards of the window sash.
Severus let the owl in and grabbed the Sign.
Again that fancy, unmistakable script of Dumbledore's. Severus wondered if the dead could actually see the deeds of the living once again. Alas, there was no knowledge of that.
You could be a good match. I'm glad he has her. You are safe for now.
Good Merlin, that old fart was capable of bringing Severus to the smashing things and blasting holes in walls with fireballs stage even from the other side.
Severus sent a mental cry-out to the ether for who or whatever was responsible for Dumbledore's keeping him held on a short leash. That nosy, riddle-speaking bastard.
What in nine circles of Hell did he mean? If that was some kind of a romantic advice from beyond the grave, it was rather unsolicited. And who had who? The most worrying part was, however, the presence of the word safe. If he was safe for now, then any minute he could be in danger?
Severus briefly thought of telling Granger about the note, but decided against it. She'd be getting ideas. Not that it would be entirely unwelcome, if he was completely honest with himself, but the thought of it made Snape shy and uncomfortable in his own skin.
Writing a short note to Lucius about their progress or, to be more precise, the lack thereof, Severus went to the loo. Something told him that it was going to be a long day.