The Kindest Curse

By Quillusion

Author's Note: No matter how often I look, they're still not mine. Disclaimer still applies. Incidentally, in case anyone might have missed this, the Hope Diamond is not mine either. (The former makes me sigh with regret- the latter, with relief.)

For those of you who have asked about the Hope Diamond and what, exactly, it is: read on, MacDuff. Our heroine will expound, as she always does. All of the obviously Muggle facts I write about the Hope Diamond in this story are true, although some of them are the best guesses of experts rather than documented fact. The wizarding history of the diamond, however, may or may not be true- depending on whether or not you think you can trust Lucius Malfoy.

I can't speak for any of you, dear readers... but I still haven't made up my mind on that point.

Chapter 4

Hermione had never had much occasion to indulge in tandem Apparation, and she was careful not to make any mistakes as she let Lucius handle the direction of the spell she cast on herself. It wouldn't do to splinch in front of Lucius Malfoy, no matter how disused the skill she was demonstrating.

The mellow light of the restaurant faded from the pavement before them, and with the usual hitch of movement and a loud pop, they left Diagon Alley and materialized in a snowy courtyard. A house built from softly weathered grey stone stretched two wings around them, nicely blocking the cold wind but coalescing the chill, heavy night air into drifts nearly as thick as the snow that piled in the corners. It was very dark out, despite the faint reflected light from the snowdrifts and the still-falling snow, and the deep hush of peace around them told Hermione that they were far out in the country. Which country, she wasn't sure.

"Ah," said Lucius in a satisfied tone, bringing his hand close to his face to inspect a few of the thick, heavy flakes that had collected on his sleeve. "Good. Wet snow, and plenty of it. We need the snowmelt- the fields have been dry since autumn." He turned and cast a glance out into the soft silent twilight, and then gestured toward the door of the house. "But I'd rather not stand in the middle of it if I can help it. Shall we?"

The front door was opened as they mounted the steps, and Hermione stepped gratefully into the warm light of the foyer.

"Welcome home, Master," said the squeaky voice of a house elf, and Hermione looked down to see a tiny creature with gigantic brown eyes looking up at Malfoy. The house elf was dressed in a neat tea towel, apparently supplemented for the winter with a warm-looking cloak made out of a flannel pillowcase.

"Thank you, Stidge," said Lucius calmly. "Is there a fire in the drawing room? Miss Granger is soaked through."

"Yes, Master," replied Stidge. "If miss would let me take her cloak?"

Hermione acquiesced, grateful that SPEW was thirteen years in its grave. It still embarrassed her to remember her ignorant assumption that the house elves did not know their own minds in accepting what she saw as enslavement.

The arrogance of her opinions offended her now as much as it had ever offended any of the Hogwarts house elves, Dobby notwithstanding, of course- but there were outliers in every crowd. She only hoped Malfoy had not heard of the matter through his son, although she had to acknowledge that this was a slim hope at best. At least she wouldn't be embarrassing herself by launching into an impassioned speech in front of Lucius Malfoy, although she still felt his treatment of Dobby had been horrific.

She paused a moment, fondly remembering the little house elf who just last fall had been promoted to the position of Hogwarts Steward Elf. He'd been so grateful to Dumbledore for the promotion that he'd charmed the Headmaster's chair to give him a giant hug at dinner. She had heard through the grapevine that McGonagall and Snape had had to destroy the chair to get it to let Albus breathe, and Madam Pomfrey had had to repair six of Dumbledore's ribs. The Headmaster had laughed it off as a good joke, but Dobby had apparently been peremptorily summoned to the dungeons shortly after dinner.

Now that she considered the matter, given how strangely Dobby showed affection for his friends, perhaps she ought to reserve final judgment on Lucius Malfoy's behavior toward the house elf until she heard his side of things. Not that she would ever ask.

Stidge took Hermione's wet cloak along with her master's and vanished, and Hermione followed Lucius along the hall toward the drawing room. The floors were granite flagstones so old that any polish they might once have held had softened to a dull sheen under centuries of footsteps. They seemed more apropos to a country kitchen than a foyer, but they were magically warmed, which kept the hallway comfortable.

Hermione was glad to see that the Malfoy family did not share the Black family's tradition of hanging shrieking portraits in the entryway. There were several tapestries on the walls, old and faded but unquestionably of good work; but aside from these, the beautifully finished wood paneled walls were bare, with no portraits in sight. The only items of furniture were a wide, low bench beside the door and a round table standing on a small area rug in the middle of the foyer; a few items from the day's post lay there awaiting the attention of the house's residents. Lucius scooped these off the table and glanced through them briefly, put one back on the table for Stidge to deal with, and kept the rest in his hand as he turned back to Hermione.

"Welcome to Vinewood," he said cordially. "This is my family's country home in Kent; my great-grandmother grew up here. I've made it my principal residence."

That surprised her a little. "I thought you lived at the Malfoy family seat," she said.

He paused, and when he answered her at last, his reply was brief and rather pointed.

"Malfoy Manor has been closed for nine years."

And he had lived here, in this house whose appearance so belied his love of the finer things, ever since? That was difficult to credit.

She learned not to take things at face value a moment later. Malfoy politely opened the doors to the drawing room for her, and Hermione was treated to the warmth of a roaring fire in a hearth taller than she. She crossed the room to stand before it and stretch her hands out to the flames; it felt lovely after the chill of snowfall and Apparation. She studied her surroundings with a casual but efficient glance; she'd made a career of noticing details, and it took little effort for her to assimilate what she saw.

The drawing room was spacious, but not cavernous, and it was furnished with comfortable-looking furniture of fairly recent vintage. The walls were papered in a subtle pattern, the polished hardwood floor blanketed with an Axminster carpet; all of these underscored the subtle and refined tastes of the man who had directed their purchase. She rather thought that, in daylight, the far wall of French doors would very likely showcase a terrace with a beautiful view beyond. The number of books, articles, and letters on the desk before the window suggested that this was where Lucius spent the bulk of his time when at home. The battered condition of the ottoman in front of the equally worn leather chair before the fireplace confirmed it. The opposite chair gleamed with the dull luminescence of new leather.

"Tea?" Lucius offered as he dropped the mail on his desk and crossed the room to a credenza standing against one wall. An ornate samovar and several gorgeously fashioned crystal decanters stood atop the gleaming wood surface. He paused, one eyebrow arched with mild amusement. "Or something stronger, perhaps?" The right side of his mouth pulled upward in the faintest suggestion of a smile.

Hermione laughed. "For the conversation I think we're about to have, I expect something stronger would be wise. Do you have Stoli?"

He chuckled. Opening the center French door a bit, he reached outside and brought in a frosty, snow-crusted bottle of Polmos Królewska. "Will this do?" he asked mildly, knocking the snow off against the doorframe with a few practiced movements.

She nodded. "Quite nicely," she said.

Closing the door, he plucked two glasses from the sparkling collection on the credenza and brought them to the pair of wing chairs by the fire. He set the glasses down and gestured for her to sit.

Lucius poured the vodka and handed her one glass, then sat back in his chair and raised the other in a silent toast before taking a sip. He sighed tiredly, and Hermione noticed for the first time that he did, indeed, look tired. It was subtle- a little shadow around the eyes, a faint tightness in the mouth- but it was there.

Hermione took a sip of the bitingly cold vodka. It was good, smooth and strong, and she nodded appreciatively as the subtle flavor blossomed on her palate.

"You'll forgive my saying it," she said, "but I didn't think you'd go for anything other than Russian vodka. It seems too plebian for your tastes."

That won her a long look and a shrug.

"I don't suppose you really know me well enough to form an educated opinion on the subject of my tastes," he said neutrally in reply. "But then, I also don't think I'd care to hear a recitation of your theories. I didn't ask you here tonight to assassinate my character."

No, she thought wryly. You asked me here to help you kill something else that's also already dead. But she kept the thought to herself.

"You are absolutely correct, Mr. Malfoy. My apologies. I-"

He grimaced.

"Wait," he said, sitting up in his chair and holding up a hand to halt her speech. "I must insist that you stop calling me that." He set his glass aside and leaned forward just a little, the cool grey gaze glittering with determination as it found and held hers.

"The 'Mr. Malfoy' who has existed in your mind for the last seventeen years exists nowhere else on this earth," he said simply. "Where I am concerned, you can know only what others have told you; consequently, your 'Mr. Malfoy' is a chimaera born of gossip, rumor, and the occasional odd bit of fact to lend it the air of truth.

"I do not say your friends and teachers lied to you about me," he said quickly when she opened her mouth to protest. "They have doubtless told you what they thought was true. But even Albus Dumbledore's information can be inaccurate- and his sources were not always neutral. I cannot be half as evil as you have likely been told that I am- and no more than three quarters as clever." He smiled a little, but fatigue washed the mirth out of the expression.

"When you were a child, you had little option but to accept what you were told by those you trusted. But you have long since left childhood behind, and the time for stories is past." He paused for a sip of vodka. When he spoke again, his tone was low.

"Despite what the media has reported in the last decade, it has been a very long time indeed since anyone offered me a true fresh start. We both deserve better than to be forced to build on the ruins of ages past... so I would be very grateful indeed if you would call me Lucius, and just let 'Mr. Malfoy' die. "

He was watching her, his expression sober, and she realized that she'd never heard him sound sincere before. She wondered if this was how it sounded. Stop being petty, she told herself. He's been honest with you so far.

But he had a very valid point. She had acknowledged the same thing in her flat the night she'd received his letter; she had never considered him outside of the things she was told by others. He was no innocent- but neither was he likely to be as black as legend had painted him. Somewhere in between lay the truth, and he was right; they both deserved to know the truth for what it was.

Besides which, there were practical considerations. If she was really going to accept the commission he was offering, then she'd have to decide if she could trust him or not. Given the past, 'not' was winning at the moment- but his point remained. She could not claim to know him from a handful of encounters, even if they all cast him in an unflattering light; certainly she had never met him in circumstances that could be called anything other than adversarial. He would have a skeptical audience, but she would at least give him that audience.

And lastly, she admitted to herself, she couldn't quite make herself forget the dreadful first, second, third, and fourth impressions she had made upon Harry and Ron. If she could go from 'insufferable' to 'inseparable', then perhaps Malfoy might at least manage 'tolerable'.

Even if he had set off her old nightmares again.

Hermione looked up into clear grey eyes that reminded her so much of Draco. She pushed the thought of his son aside; whatever her differences with the younger Malfoy, they had little- if anything- to do with the matter at hand.

"Very well, Lucius," she said at last. "And perhaps you might find it in you to call me Hermione. Hearing you call me 'Miss Granger' makes me feel as though I've run into you and Draco on a Hogsmeade weekend, and we're both due back at Hogwarts by Sunday night." Her amused tone took the mild sting out of the words.

Lucius's mouth thinned the faintest fraction at her remark, but he nodded graciously. "Of course, Hermione. I see your point." He sat back in his chair again and thought for a moment.

"Now then," he said, "on to the business at hand." He fiddled for a moment with one cufflink, gathering his thoughts before he spoke.

"I think it would be best if I simply started at the beginning, rather than in the middle, where I came into the matter. Tell me, Hermione- what do you know of the Hope Diamond?"

It was Hermione's turn to sit back and think for a moment. "I saw it once, at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. My parents took me there the summer before I started at Hogwarts. I read a little bit about it before we went, but it was a long time ago. I'm not sure how much I remember."

"What?" Lucius said, one eyebrow arched in feigned shock. "The famous Hermione Granger, not remember something she read in a book? Come, now, you have a reputation to uphold!"

She shot him a smirk. "You're not the only one whose legend casts a long and deep shadow, " she said, but she cupped her chin in her palm and thought hard. She'd be damned if she had to admit to Lucius Malfoy in her own turn that she was not every bit as brilliant as rumor would have her.

"The diamond originally came from India. At least, they think it did- there are gaps in the stone's history." She turned her glass between her palms as she thought, feeling the icy-vodka-induced frost melt against her skin. "It was an enormous blue diamond that was purchased by a French diamond merchant, who brought it back to France and sold it to the Crown. King Louis XIV, I think." She looked at Lucius, and he nodded confirmation.

"The French king had the jewel set and it became part of the French crown jewels, known as the French Blue. During the French Revolution the crown jewels were taken from the royal family, and then the French Blue went missing. Several years later a large blue diamond, smaller than the French Blue but characteristic enough that it was thought to be the same stone only recut, appeared in Britain. It was purchased by the Prince Regent, who- to no one's surprise- was eventually forced to sell it to pay off debts." She paused, thinking again.

"Eventually the diamond was purchased by a man named Henry Philip Hope, whose name became permanently associated with the stone itself. From him it passed to several other people in his family and then on, eventually being bought by Pierre Cartier, who changed the setting of the stone in order to charm an American couple named McLean into buying it. When Evalyn McLean died many years later, the diamond was eventually bought by another American jeweler, Harry Winston, who took it on a tour of the world for exhibition and then eventually donated it to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. I am not entirely certain about this, but it might be the largest blue diamond in the world." She halted, for here was the relevant issue.

"It's also supposed to be cursed," she said slowly. "I'm not sure exactly what to make of that- the Muggle definition of 'cursed' is so imprecise. There were several deaths, accidents, assassinations, and other misfortunes associated with ownership of the stone, but it's hard to say how much of that is just the normal misfortunes of life. Most objects that Muggles tend to think are cursed don't even have a curse on them; many of these 'cursed' objects are items that are expensive and rare enough to make them unattainable except by people whose greater resources open them up to opportunities for greater misfortune. If Voldemort has cast some sort of spell on the Hope Diamond, it may still have nothing to do with the legends surrounding the stone." She shook her head a little. "Sorry- I talk to myself when I'm thinking."

Lucius chuckled. "Most smart people do," he observed smoothly. "It's the only way to be sure you'll get an intelligent response."

She smiled back, and thought a bit more. "I can't remember anything else. What else should I know?"

He considered. "You know a great deal already," he said. "I must apologize for doubting your memory; your reputation is clearly well-deserved. The Hope Diamond has been in the possession of the Smithsonian since 1959, and has left the Smithsonian on only four occasions in all that time. And yet, at some point in the last eighty years, Voldemort gained access to the stone and imparted some of his life force into it." He sat up, then got to his feet.

"I may not know the full details of how, but I think I know when he did it." He went to his desk, drew his wand, and cast a softly-uttered spell that unlocked the bottom-most drawer. From this he removed an old, slightly-yellowed newspaper.

"This is an issue of the Daily Prophet from shortly after the war with Grindelwald. My father saved every issue he got, and I am belatedly grateful for his packrat habits. Here is the Prophet from Monday, May 13, 1946; look at the photograph on the society page."

Hermione took the paper from him and carefully turned its age-yellowed leaves to find the society page. She saw Lucius's father's name- Decius Malfoy- in bold type at the top of a column, but skimmed over the article without noting what it was about. At the bottom of the page, she saw a photograph.

It was a wedding photograph. Back in the 1940s, wizarding photographs had been no more able to move than Muggle ones; this was a still black and white image. The bride was swathed in an elegant sweep of lace, her bouquet cascading nearly to the floor, her eyelashes demurely lowered against porcelain cheeks. The groom standing beside her looked as though he were exerting every bit of effort to seem taller than her; the best man beside him, however, had an aloof air, an insouciant casualness to his stance, one hand in his trouser pocket. He was looking at the bride with a rather smug expression on his face.

That young man, she realized suddenly, was Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"It's Riddle," she said aloud.

"Yes," he confirmed, bracing one forearm on the back of her wing chair to study the photo a minute more. "Notice anything else?"

It took her only five seconds to notice the hazy detail of the bride's neck. There, in the shadowed space beneath her dimpled chin, rested a dark oval suspended from a string of brilliant white stones.

The Hope Diamond.

Hermione's jaw dropped a little, and Lucius nodded with satisfaction.

"That's his best friend Markus getting married," he said, gesturing toward Voldemort's younger incarnation. "The boy was pureblooded, but he married a Muggle business tycoon's daughter." Malfoy laughed. "I don't imagine that sat well with Tom, even given the immense fortune Markus made with the marriage. Still, at that age he wasn't likely to object as... violently as he might have when I knew him. If he thought his friend was polluting his bloodline, he said little about it. Of course, back then he was himself still using his Muggle father's surname, and he might not yet have developed the full-blown hatred of Muggleborns that would later drive him."

Hermione noted with interest that Malfoy said the word 'Muggleborn' naturally and with no hint of scorn or distaste. But he was not finished relating the details of the matter to her.

"Markus was from a family rather like the Weasleys, if you take my meaning; pureblooded, but poor. From his standpoint the match was a favorable one, if one could overlook the matter of the bride's lack of breeding. Clearly his family and friends found it easy- or at least convenient- to do so.

"Tom was best man at the wedding, as you see. The bride's mother was a very close friend of Mrs. McLean, the woman who owned the Hope Diamond. She loaned the diamond to the bride as her 'something blue', as the Muggle tradition goes." He cocked a derisive eyebrow at the notion. "I imagine it was the diamond, and not the bride, who had Tom's attention when this photo was taken."

He came to stand behind Hermione then, leaning over just a little to study the image on the page. One lock of silver-blond hair fell over his shoulder, and she wistfully stamped down the envy that caught her unguarded. His hair, when messy, still looked fantastic; hers, on the other hand, invited birds to make their permanent home in it. It just wasn't fair.

"The groom died several years after the wedding," Lucius went on, interrupting her thoughts. "They were still childless at the time. Their home burned to the ground. It was declared an accidental fire started by embers from a fireplace, but I can't help wondering if Voldemort was behind it, and whether he might have intended to kill the wife instead of his friend." He paused. "He does seem to have a talent for setting fire to houses."

The dry comment made Hermione smile, though the remembered heat of flames and smoke made her shiver a little. "And you think Tom somehow got hold of the diamond at the time of this wedding?"

"I would imagine so," he said, straightening again and coming back to stand before the fire. "It would have been harder to get hold of the diamond for any length of time after 1947, when it was no longer a privately owned item but a display piece sent on tour, then put on show in a museum. There were two years between Evalyn McLean's death and Harry Winston's purchase of the stone; I suppose he could have managed something then, but it would have been more complicated. No, I think Tom Riddle had already made the decision when he saw the Hope Diamond on the bride's person at the wedding. It just made what he wanted to do that much easier."

Hermione handed the newspaper back to Lucius with a slight frown.

"What, exactly, do you think he did to the stone?" she asked.

Lucius chuckled. "Ah, now there's another story I must take care not to start halfway through. Let's go back a bit."

He settled back into his chair, neatly poured them each another glass of vodka.

"You already know the Muggle history of the stone- but there is a wizarding history to it as well, which is more difficult to trace because the facts are not a matter of public record, as ownership is." He raised his glass to her again, and took a sip.

"The stone was, indeed, brought to France as you have said. And it was in the possession of the Royal Family for many years- until the Revolution swept them from power." His lip curled a bit at that, and Hermione tamped down her impulse to laugh. An insurrection of the lower classes would have that effect on an aristocrat like Malfoy. That thought gave her pause. He had French blood, after all; some of it might have been spilled in the Terror.

"A moment," she said by way of interruption. "Was your family at all involved in the events of that age?"

He snorted. "The French wizarding aristocracy had more weapons at its disposal than the Muggle aristos," he said, his tone surprisingly free of disdain. "Illusions and Muggle-repelling charms were really all that was required." He was not quite able to suppress a chuckle at some thought that crossed his mind, and he shook his head at her inquisitive glance.

"Sorry, just a memory of childhood stories at Christmas. Apparently one of my mother's ancestors was so fond of illusions that she allowed herself to be 'guillotined' several times just for the fun of scaring the peasants by getting up and fetching her head afterward. She caused mass hysteria on several occasions, and on several others she helped Muggle aristocrats escape by taking their place and pretending to lose her head again. The sans culottes would put her in a coffin and she would simply Apparate home while they were noisily stacking the coffins up- that disguised the usual popping sound." He shook his head again. "She was a character."

"So it seems," Hermione said, choosing not to point out that at least one of his ancestors had felt Muggles worth saving. He didn't seem to disagree with his ancestress; perhaps it was simply because the Muggles in question were aristocrats, of any flavor.

"At any rate, it would not surprise you to know that the King of France was as aware of the existence of wizards as the British monarch and Prime Minister are. Louis had a wizard on his council of advisors, and it was to this wizard that he appealed for help in safeguarding the monarchy. He was not as sanguine as Marie Antoinette, and he truly feared what the mob might do.

"The wizard in question has left us his diaries, but given the secrecy surrounding witchcraft and wizardry in that era, we do not know his name. What is known is that he instructed Louis to choose a talisman that would not likely be destroyed by any mob. Louis chose the French Blue, of course. No one would destroy a diamond, if they could sell it instead, and unlike metals it could not be melted and remade into something else. He gave the stone to the wizard, who then set about putting a powerful enchantment on it.

"The intent of the spell was to turn the diamond into a chrysalis of sorts. Something of Louis's spirit would be refracted into the stone, and from it a knowledgeable wizard would be able to reconstruct the king, even if he were killed by the mob. It was almost a form of immortality, for the spell would hold the king suspended indefinitely, and once he was released it would be as though no time had passed." Lucius tipped his head back against the chair's cushion, lids half lowered. "That's a heady thought to any man of power, you must admit."

Hermione nodded, intrigued by the tale. Her host went on with his narrative.

"The spell was ready, and all that remained was the addition of Louis's spirit. A time was set, and the wizard met with the king to perform the final ritual- but time was up. The revolutionaries came for Louis and his family before the wizard had finished the spell, and they took the king away by force. The wizard was able to conceal himself, but the stone had been in the King's hand, and so it too was taken away. It vanished before anyone had a chance to try to rescue it and finish what had been begun- and thus passed Louis XVI, King of France. All that remains of him is the tiny fragment of his spirit which might still reside in the Hope Diamond, sustained by archaic spells whose meaning and content are, I confess, beyond my knowledge."

Hermione realized that Lucius was holding out a small leather-bound book, crumbling with age, and she took it from him. It was a small diary, filled with a crabbed sort of handwriting which looked as though it had been done with a quill in desperate need of sharpening. "Whose diary is this?"

"The wizard's," Lucius answered. "Look at the marked page."

She turned to the page marked by a bit of faded blue ribbon. It was dated September 21, 1792. She read aloud, translating from French to English as she did so.

"The first spell is completed, having taken the better part of seventy hours to cast. The Blue is prepared for the Pentacle of incantations tonight, and I record here the details of the proceedings in the hope that a true Frenchman in ages hence might restore the monarchy so bitterly betrayed in this one. The Arx Occultus will preserve and keep him for the future glory of France, once his voice, hand, and blood are united in the stone. But the spells must be cast tonight or the seal will be set without him."

Hermione frowned a little. "Do you happen to know what that means?" she asked.

Lucius shook his head. "Not for certain, no. I have tended to assume that the first spell created the opportunity to hide the king's spirit in the stone, but the time was short in which the transfer could be done."

"That's most likely it," she agreed thoughtfully. "Such spells as this one seems to be are inherently unstable until completed, and the potential for disaster is quite high. I've encountered talismans created with this theory before, some successful and some failed, although I've never seen one that had a preparatory phase that took seventy hours. Either this is an incredibly powerful spell, or he was a wizard with little power." She tapped her fingers against the diary's pages for a moment.

"Given the ambitious nature of this spell, I am not inclined to believe him weak," she said at last. She ran her fingers over the inked lines in the diary, feeling for the spirit of the man who had written them, biting her lip a little. "Unless... unless the stone already had some sort of spell on it which he had to undo- and given the propensity of the ancients for using gemstones for spellcasting, that's not an idea we should cast aside just yet." She leafed through a few of the preceding pages thoughtfully, but there was no mention of any preparatory research or spells.

"Does the diary say whether the spell was completed?" she asked.

"Read on," said Lucius.

She had already read to the bottom of that page, and so she turned to the next one to continue. There was a scribbled-out line at the top of the page, and then the writing began again a third of the way down, much messier this time and with blots of ink where the dull quill had been pressed too hard. She read aloud again.

"There has been an overthrow of all our plans- the King is taken, seized by guards before the completion of the Third Point. I cannot hope that anything of his spirit is retained in the Blue so early in the Pentacle. The revolutionaries now have the stone, for the King had it in his hand when they seized him. I was able to escape their notice, but I have no idea where they have taken Louis or if I can save him. Even if I can find him, there is little hope that there will still be time to complete the Pentacle, but I must try. I will hide this diary in the hopes that someone, someday, can find the Blue and cast the key for release and discover whether I have succeeded, or failed. I have sworn my life to Louis's service, and I will not desert him now. The Pentacle I have hidden in my wife Gilaea's diary, safe where I know no sane man- Muggle or wizard- would ever care to pry."

Hermione's head shot up. "His wife's diary?"

Lucius chuckled. "Even wizards of that age were not wise enough to have learned never to underestimate a woman," he remarked. "But to answer your unasked question- yes. I have acquired the diary. It was actually in the possession of one of my cousins, who apparently is descended directly from the lady in question. It was one of thirty or so volumes in an unopened chest in his attic. He gave it to me without so much as a second glance; one glance, I think, is more than enough for most people." He held out another slim volume, this one bound in pink linen with lace trim; the letter G was inscribed on the cover in a silvery script. Hermione accepted the diary from him with a wrinkled nose.

Lucius laughed at her response. "And there you prove the depth of the lady's wisdom," he said with satisfaction. "Open it."

He was delighted to see that Hermione did nothing of the sort. Instead, she drew her wand and began to methodically examine the book, checking for hexes, locks, alarms, erasure-wards, and other things that might have injured her or damaged the book's contents had she opened it straightaway.

It was just as well she checked. There were two spells holding the book shut; one of them was a simple lock, and the other would have blinded the unauthorized reader. Temporarily, of course, but it would still have been decidedly inconvenient. Neither of them took her more than eight seconds to disarm.

"And did you go blind when you opened this book the first time?" she asked blandly as she let the book fall open on her lap.

He smirked. "Of course not. I may not be the consummate professional you are, my dear, but I have more than a little experience in such matters. In point of fact, I removed eight other hexes before I opened the volume. The last two, as you see, are self-resetting."

Letting her raised eyebrow convey her displeasure at his omission, she turned her gaze back to the diary. The page before her was smooth and clean, covered in an elegant, spare hand that had been written with a neatly sharpened quill.

The lady's wit was no less sharp, she soon discovered.

Gilaea had indeed been wife to the King of France's wizard; she called her husband 'Iz' when she referred to him by name, when she referred to him at all. They left one another largely alone, and that was all she had to say on the matter of her marriage.

On the matter of the Revolution, however, she had much to say. A witch of some power in her own right, she seemed to have been a woman of sense and compassion, and she had exerted her influence where possible to help the innocent flee to safer lands. There were some harrowing tales in the diary, all recounted with skill in the lady's excellent French. Nowhere did she find silly recollections of what she had worn, or eaten, or thought of another woman's dress. Weather was mentioned only when it touched upon one of the escapes.

Hermione read for a long while in silence, her interest in the diary's contents outweighing her mild irritation with Lucius for not mentioning the remaining wards on its cover. She read quickly but without skimming, and when she had finished she had seen no sign of a pentacle or any mention thereof. She sat back, rubbing her eyes a bit, and noticed with surprise that Lucius had sat quietly waiting for her to finish reading the whole thing.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I got drawn in. But I didn't see anything that looks like what we seek. Did you read through the diary?"

He nodded. "I did not find anything, either," he said.

"Have you checked the endpapers?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Nothing was hidden beneath them, and there was nothing written on the reverse of the linen binding. Given the fact that this diary multiplies its pages as needed to expand infinitely, I doubt she would have had another diary during these years. And the dates on the entries run from 1769 to 1796- that covers the time period in question. It must be in there somewhere."

Sighing, Hermione decided she needed to stretch and think a bit. She rose from her chair and went to lay the book flat on the round marquetry table that stood in the center of the drawing room. With a soft murmur she ignited the rest of the candles in the large chandelier overhead, bathing the book's pages in bright light.

"I think you're right," she said softly, and thumbed through the diary's entries to one that had stood out in her mind, its hastily scribbled words lacking the precision and weight of thought of the other entries. "It must be in here somewhere."

Here it was- an entry made with the same hand but a different quill, well-cut but wider in nib than the lady's usual instrument. The ink was different, too- thicker and at once lighter. The entry was dated January 21, 1793. The story itself was one of the less interesting ones, detailing the escape of a couple and their three sons to the New World aboard a private merchant vessel. She considered the pages doubtfully, her eye scanning the page for any hint of hidden material, and had nearly given up when her gaze fell on the last paragraph of the entry.

'And so the Cordon Bleu carries in her hold the fondest hope of all the Revolution's victims: that something good can be saved from this tragedy, and that future generations will look back upon our times with regret and resolve never to suffer this to happen again. Perhaps no one will wonder what has become of this man and his family- but they have mattered to me, and I record their story here, that their star may not fade wholly from the skies.'

Lucius had risen from his chair while she read and come to stand beside Hermione. Now he braced his hands on the table and leaned forward, studying the diary's contents in silence. The faint line between his brows told her that he was thinking hard; she recalled seeing Professor Snape with a similar look in the past. She wondered briefly if the two men could possibly be related.

"The Cordon Bleu," Lucius murmured again, his voice full of speculation, and Hermione reached out to touch the words on the page with her index finger. Lucius met her eyes, and she could see the connection click in his mind even as it formed in her own.

"Do you remember how Louis XIV wore the French Blue before it was reset?" she asked softly, and felt a thrill of shared knowledge when the wizard beside her smiled with understanding.

"Around his neck," he said matter-of-factly. "Threaded onto a cordon bleu." His voice was rich with satisfaction.

They both had their wands out in the next moment, and Hermione was flipping the page of the diary back and forth to study it from both sides.

"It must be keyed in some way," she said. "Either the password is 'cordon bleu' or the word itself is the lock, but I'm not sure what is hidden within. There are many possible solutions to the riddle, and all of them are in common use around the world."

"What do you suggest trying first?" he asked, and she felt a sudden spurt of surprise. Harry and Ron had always charged ahead without asking her opinion; between his acceptance of her expertise and the quickness of mind that let him follow her mental leaps, she was enjoying this little exercise with Lucius Malfoy far more than she'd enjoyed anything in ten years.

"Oh... let's try this," she said, and placed the tip of her wand on the word 'cordon bleu'.

"Laxo," she said.

Nothing.

She tried the charm on several other words with no effect. She paused, swinging her wand idly around on one finger while she thought.

"Well, she was a French witch, after all," said Malfoy consideringly after a moment. Raising his own wand, he tried "Relâchez." There was an equal lack of response.

Using 'cordon bleu' as the spellword had no result either. Hermione tried several combinations of spells on various words on the page, without making any headway.

"Well that's the bulk of the usual ones," she said with a sigh. "Now we need to determine what personal keys the lady might have used. Something specific, perhaps, to her family, or her situation, or the concealed object." She balanced her wand across her index finger now, head tilted to one side, eyes fixed on the polished wood as she cast about in her mind for ideas.

Malfoy, however, was now staring hard at the diary.

"I wonder," he said softly. Drawing his wand, he set the tip over the words Cordon Bleu.

"Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi," he murmured. The ancient words fell from his lips with the ease of birthright, soft and solemn in the still air.

The page shimmered for a moment, and Lucius quickly lifted his wand from it and stepped back. The long scrawled column of words seemed to swell off the page for a long moment before swirling suddenly inward in a vortex of ink and penstrokes. They whirled faster and faster, until the entire two-page spread was grey with moving ink. It was impossible to see what was happening in the rapid spiral, but it suddenly crackled like electricity and slammed abruptly to a halt. An old piece of parchment now lay across the book's open spine, its edges fluttering in the wind of the vortex's passage.

"Wow," Lucius breathed, both of his eyebrows raised, and Hermione was inclined to agree. There wasn't much else to be said.

She reached out with her wand and hesitantly probed for wards. There were several present, but none were activated; a few well-placed spells disabled them more securely, and she got a better grip on her wand before making the next move.

"Wingardium leviosa," she said, and the wrinkled piece of parchment lifted from the book and slid to one side.

Beneath it, the journal's pages lay clean, unbroken by ink or penstroke.

They leaned over simultaneously to get a look at the surface of the parchment that had been locked in the ink of a journal for over 200 years. Sketched across its surface, in sepia tones whose color owed less to ageing than to authenticity, they found a great pentacle. There were runes and spell words written along the arms of the pentacle, and there was a fine smudge of what looked like dried blood lining the inner pentagon of the figure.

"Well," said Hermione at last. "I believe we've found something."

TBC

Author's Notes:

For those of you who do not speak (or guess at) French: 'Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi' means 'The King is dead. Long live the King.' For anyone not familiar with that phrase, the theory behind it is that when the old king dies, the heir instantly accedes to the throne- and so the king, technically, is never dead. Handy, that.

For the history buffs among you, the date of the wizard's journal entry (September 21, 1792) really was the day Louis XVI and his family were arrested. And the date of his wife's entry (January 21, 1793) was the day Louis XVI was sent to the guillotine and executed for crimes against France. Interestingly enough, there are still debates about who is the current 'pretender' to the throne of France. I believe the current 'pretender' is a Spaniard. This should not surprise me, given the fact that when I was in high school in Florida the heir to the Russian Empire was the then-current mayor of West Palm Beach, FL. Funny how things work that way, isn't it?

I do hope that this chapter explains the diamond. (No pun intended.) At 45.52 carats, the Hope Diamond is- according to all but one source I found in my research- the largest blue diamond in the world. I found one site that said it was the fourth largest, but in all of my research I have not found a natural blue diamond in the public eye that is larger. There is occasional mention made of blue stones held in private collections, but there are no weights given and I get the impression that they are all smaller than the Hope. If someone out there has a bigger blue rock, they must be savoring the thing in exclusive, private smugness.

The Hope Diamond now belongs to the Smithsonian Institute (which makes no comment on the rank of the diamond according to size) and therefore it belongs to the people of the United States. Which, I suppose, means I own a bit of it myself, in a way. To be precise (yes, I am a science geek) I own 1.56 x 10^15 carbon atoms of it. It lives at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. I saw it once, back before I had an appreciation for diamonds, and it was quite impressive; now that it has its own display case, it is far more so. For more information, and a lovely photograph, please visit

or do a Web search for 'Hope Diamond' and read away. (If it sounds big now, just think- when it was first found it was 112 3/16 carat after a rough cut.) And I think we'll be seeing more about the Smithsonian in upcoming chapters.

The details of the supposed curse are occasionally interesting as well, and might be worth a read if you're curious... myself, I'm not sure I believe in the curse. But I wouldn't accept the chance to wear the Hope Diamond all the same, thank you very much. Just in case.

Questions and comments to quillusion@yahoo.com