A Book and a Dead Muggle

"That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit." (Amos Bronson Alcott)

"Good morning, Alfred," drawled Lucius, leaning back in his chair and regarding his tall, stooping visitor with mild interest. Professor Sedgewick had a small parcel clutched under his arm and seemed somewhat agitated. "How's the wife this morning?"

The wizard smirked as he saw his muggle liaison lose his tenuous composure completely.

"I didn't, we didn't – I mean…" he stammered, and then with some vehemence. "I wish you would stop this telep- legilimency, Lucius. It is quite unnerving, you know?"

The blond man leaned forward across his desk.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. My dear Alfred…" He lingered on the name. It had been Arthur Weasley's idea during a social event a few days earlier to have everybody adopt a first name basis – 'to further cooperation and friendship' as he had put it. "I was merely trying to be polite. I don't know about you muggles, but in the wizarding world it is considered good manners to enquire after someone's spouse and children – if they have any."

The Sedgewicks were childless, and Lucius found some satisfaction in the idea that Alfred's muggle family would probably die out with him.

"Oh, ah – I see," replied the professor. "Errm. Sorry. I assumed – never mind."

"Never mind indeed. Well, sit down."

He clapped, and presently his new secretary bustled into the room. She wasn't much of an improvement over the old one, but younger, somewhat more appealing looking and less inclined to talk back at him. In fact he already had her thoroughly and pleasantly intimidated.

"Tea, coffee, something else entirely, my good man?"

"W-what? Oh, tea will do fine," Mr. Sedgewick looked at the pretty, pale girl in blue robes that glanced nervously at Mr. Malfoy. "Milk and two sugars, please if you'd be so kind."

She beamed at him. "Certainly, sir." Then her smile faded. "For you, sir?"

He raised his brows at her. "The usual," he said curtly, and she briefly ducked her head and vanished.

Malfoy sighed and explained. "She's new, still breaking her in. Give it a few weeks and she may be half-way useful."

This seemed to increase the muggle's agitation, who now remembered the parcel, untucked it from under his arm and carefully laid in on the desk between them. Lucius noted that the wrapping had been opened and closed up again with something that looked like the muggle equivalent of spellotape.

"So, Alfred, lets get to business," the wizard said. "You wanted to see me? About this I presume? What is it?"

The man nervously cleared his throat.

"W-well, maybe you want to see for yourself?" he suggested rather timidly.

Lucius shrugged his shoulders and reached over.

"Nothing that might bite me in there, is it?" he sneered.

"No, no of course not. I would never endanger anyone!"

Lucius noted a certain emphasis in that sentence and ripped the cover from the parcel to find he held an elegantly bound black book in his hands. The glossy dust cover showed a rather tragic and somewhat dyspeptic-looking image of his former wife who now scowled at him furiously. Elegantly scrollworked gold letters above the portrait read 'I Married a Death Eater'.

"Merlin!" the wizard growled and slammed the book back on the desk, front first, so he didn't have to look at Narcissa's picture. "How did you get that!"

A slight trace of crimson now rose in his visitor's cheeks and Lucius was certain that this time it was not from embarrassment.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" he demanded. "I read this. It was written by your wife."

"Ex-wife!" Lucius declared with some vehemence.

"Ex-wife, then. It is appalling."

The blond wizard nodded. "Yes, isn't it? I have not read it myself, thought to spare myself that ordeal, but I have been told the style is rather over-blown and melodramatic. 'A real tear-jerker, appealing to the reader's lowest instincts,' as one very perceptive critic put it."

Sedgewick got up so quickly the chair made a rather unpleasant scraping noise on the floor and started pacing the office.

"I don't mean that. It's appalling what she says you have done. Why did you even take this job? You hate muggles. You despise us. We are just animals to you. You'd probably rather kill me – just like all those others. You torture people for fun. You are a criminal and murderer. And – and I thought we could be friends."

At the last sentence he turned back to the desk and looked at his opposite accusingly.

"I respected you. I even liked you. I mean you're odd and I've been told you're from and old and somewhat eccentric wizard family, but I thought underneath it all…"

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"Now, now. Don't get all presumptuous on me. Friends?" he stopped himself, then pursued another thought. "You shouldn't believe everything you read, Alfred."

"What do you mean?"

Lucius sat back and waited for the secretary who had just re-entered the office to finish serving them tea. It gave him time to order his thoughts and try and salvage the situation. He had to retain his post and keep this silly muggle on his side. He took a sip, prepared his explanation and finally lowered his cup with a sigh.

"My dear Alfred," he said somberly. "Before I try and explain myself, I urgently need to ask you again the question I put to you before: how did you get this book?"

Sedgewick shrugged.

"It was waiting for me at home when I came back from work at the university yesterday evening. My wife said it arrived by post. Just like you see it, brown wrapper, no sender."

Lucius nodded, no owl, no sender, seemingly untraceable. It could have been sent by a wizarding person as well as by any of the muggles who were aware of Weasley's new policies and had been given access to magical objects, including books. Well, he'd get to that later.

The blond wizard looked deeply into the muddy brown eyes of his visitor that seemed oddly enlarged behind his broad-rimmed glasses.

"Alfred," he paused for effect. "My friend, if I may still call you that. Has it occurred to you that this is a plot hatched not by those who would wish you well and would warn you against me, but by those that desire the new age of goodwill and cooperation between muggles and wizards to fail? Otherwise, why didn't they put their name on the parcel? What do they have to hide?"

Sedgewick swallowed and blinked, but did not object.

"Muggles have been afraid of wizards for centuries. Remember, you used to torture and burn our kind. And we in turn have grown wary of you. If a muggle sent you this book, they are still afraid of us, and hope this new policy of openness will fail. If a wizard sent it to you, they are most likely of the persuasion my ex-wife falsely maintains I hold, enemies of muggles and haters of your kind."

The muggle cleared his throat, looking faintly hopeful now.

"So your wife is lying…"

"Ex-wife!"

"Sorry, Lucius, ex-wife is lying? You never were a – eh – Death Eater?"

The wizard smirked inwardly: he had got him already. Ruthlessly suppressing his glee at the man's gullibility Lucius launched into an abbreviated and somewhat bowdlerized version of his involvement with Lord Voldemort. As he listened to himself he decided that old Marcellus Tethering, his advocatus, who had so successfully got him out of Azkaban prison a few years ago, would be proud of him.

At the end of his little speech Sedgewick was completely suckered in. The muggle had even left him his copy of that obnoxious book so he could perform some spellwork to perhaps identify the sender.

"You know," said the professor as they parted. "I am so glad I came and talked to you – man to man. This plot to discredit you is just so low; and these people, whoever they are, are beyond contempt. I hope you find them. I will never again believe any of these stories I hear about you."

Lucius got up to compliment his visitor out. Suppressing a brief shudder of distaste at the physical contact he shook Sedgewick's hand with some warmth.

"Thank you, Alfred. Your trust means a lot to me. As a matter of fact, we should decide to share any rumors we hear freely with each other – just to pre-empt misunderstandings in the future."

The parapsychologist nodded eagerly.

"Certainly, my friend. I will let you know. And thank you again for your patience with my rather impolite accusations."

Lucius slapped him on the back.

"Now, now, my dear man, no hard feelings. No hard feelings."

The muggle left and Lucius' fake smile dropped immediately, to be replaced by a rather thoughtful frown as he sat back behind his desk. Someone had decided to mix things up a little, and if he tried to go by motivation, the list of suspects proved rather extensive.

The wizard picked up one of his raven feather quills and absentmindedly dipped it into his ink well as he ran his other hand over the book in front of him. He turned it and once again stared at Narcissa's scowling features.

"Was this your doing, pet? Have you got some serious thoughts of revenge into that moderately pretty head of yours?" he said softly. He made the quill hover threateningly over her face, and when she remained still for a moment he quickly drew a small pencil moustache across her upper lip. She started to rub at it furiously, only managing to smudge ink all over herself. He smirked at her.

"Perhaps not," he continued. "You never had the brains for a good intrigue."

He leaned back and looked out of his office window. Really there were several possibilities: a personal adversary of his could have decided to make life difficult for him and alert the muggles to his rather checkered past. Their aim would be to cause trouble for him, but their attitude towards Weasley's policies might be neutral. The number of those people was potentially legion. Lucius Malfoy had never been short of enemies.

Then there could be people who felt strongly in favor of Arthur's plans, saw him as an impediment and wanted to be rid of him. They merely sought to replace him with one of their creatures who was ready to lick the boots of those muggles for them.

And finally there could exist a faction – muggle or wizard or both – that really felt like him about the new muggle cooperation. Discrediting him would be only one small step in the process of creating a rift between the representatives of both sides at the Office of Muggle Cooperation. But if these people existed, why hadn't they talked to him? Didn't they know he was already doing their work?

Speculations like this, he realized, did not help him much to narrow down the field of possible suspects. Still, the problem needed to be dealt with speedily. Crossing a Malfoy had been a foolish idea when the Dark Lord had been in power and he had been a Death Eater. If the Malfoys were to prosper in future it had to remain so. It was imperative that he found the sender, and he had to make an example of them.

He rewrapped the book and strode out of the office after a brief, snarled instruction to his secretary to owl him or floo him at Malfoy Manor should anything occur that required his immediate attention during the rest of the day.

Eleanor straightened up after crouching down to install the protective ward and faced her two visitors.

"Of course a demonstration at this point might prove rather difficult, unless I can persuade either of you, or perhaps a house elf …"

At that precise moment the door to her study opened and before she could shout a warning she watched helplessly as the body of her husband was swept up in a wild tangle of robes until he hung like a bat from the ceiling, the ward-spells suspending him by his feet. His serpent cane and a small wrapped parcel clattered to the floor beneath him.

Ignoring a string of rather colorful Malfoy expletives she hurried over to him. Her two guests, a scruffy-looking witch and a goblin, watched curiously.

"Gods, Lucius, I'm sorry. Are you all right?" she called up to him.

He glared down at her.

"Does this look all right to you? Finite incantatum! What in the name of Merlin are you doing?" he growled as he struggled. "Get me down, will you?"

She swallowed and lifted her wand. Lucius would have been her very last choice of a test subject.

"Dissolvincula," she incanted and quickly added a floating spell as the wards released rather abruptly.

Lucius managed an awkward twist in mid-air and eventually landed on his feet. He shook back his hair and straightened his robes before he bent to pick up his cane and Narcissa's book.

"Vell, vell, he looks not damaged," said the witch in a heavily accented voice and gave the lord of Malfoy Manor an appraising glance. "Ve vill buy zis spell. Five-zousand galleons, you say?"

"Excuse me!" snarled Lucius.

Eleanor thought it better to intervene.

"Sorry about the accident," she apologized. "But you're home early today. I was just advising these people on ward spells. They are from the Gringotts branch office in Warsaw – had a few attempted burglaries over the last months. This is Roxana Kovalski. Roxana, this is my husband, Lucius Malfoy."

Still rather disgruntled-looking Lucius shook hands with the witch, but then turned to take his leave.

"I'll be in my study, see me when you're done, Eleanor."

She quickly settled the purchase of the spellwork with her clients and walked across the hall to follow him.

As she entered the room she head him call to her from the adjacent bedroom. She followed his voice and watched him sitting on the low bench at the foot of the bed while a house-elf pulled off his boots. He had already taken off his coat and shirt, and she leaned against the door-frame taking in the sight of his bare chest and arms.

The house elf finished with the boots and the wizard impatiently shoved him out of the way with one foot before stepping into a pair of beaked slipper his servant had set out for him. He stood up, rolled his shoulders and stretched with a wince.

"Must have pulled something when you strung me up back there," he complained to her. "You know, sometimes I think all of this defense stuff is not such a good idea. You're getting way too inventive and much too dangerous. Next thing we'll have to put a warning sign on your door."

She bit down on a grin and moved into the room.

"But Lucius, just a little suspension spellwork, and you pull a muscle already? Why, are you sure you're not getting old?"

She had reached him, and ran her hands over his warm, bare skin. She could feel the blond curls at the center of his chest under her fingers and lightly curved her nails inwards in provocation. His arms encircled her as he cupped her ass none too gently in his hands and crushed her hips to his.

"Old? You're really asking for it today, aren't you? I'll show you old…" he growled.

She opened her mouth for a reply, when suddenly the fire-place to her side flared green and a moment later she could see the head of a young woman in the flames.

"Mr. Malfoy, excuse me, please." said the head.

Lucius turned with a hiss of anger, his hands moving off her bottom, though he did not let go of her.

"Do you mind?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm in my bedroom, and I'm just about to take my wife to bed. Believe me, you are excused."

Eleanor lifted a brow at him.

"Who…?"

"My secretary," he snapped. "Why? You are still here? How plain do I have to make myself? Fuck off!"

"Umm, I wish I could," the young witch said, looking like she meant it, too. "But it's the Minister's orders. A muggle has been killed."

"Good," said Lucius, nonplussed. "One less of the buggers. I still don't see why you or Weasley have to disturb me for that. Go and celebrate with a butterbeer."

She blinked at him in shock.

"No, there's been a murder of one of our contacts! All members of the Office for Muggle Cooperation are being called in. We're having an emergency meeting. The muggles are sending some of their aurors, I think they call them 'pullice.' It's all in an uproar! You have to come back to the Ministry, please, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius rolled his head back on his shoulders in frustration.

"Aw, crap! Not Sedgewick, is it?"

He faced the fire-place again.

"Look I'll be there in a few minutes. Now get lost!"

The flames flared one more time and then the grate was empty again.

"We could still pull off a quick one," he suggested with a leer, grabbing her again. "Hearing about killing muggles rather puts me in the mood – just like the good old days…"

But she shook her head emphatically.

"Lucius, with your checkered past and your attitude you're probably their prime suspect already," she admonished him. "I think if you delay longer than absolutely necessary, it will only look bad. I owe you one when you come home tonight. Witch's Promise! I'll even throw in a massage, to make up for catching you in the suspension ward."

He sighed and finally released her.

"Fine, you win for now, but believe me I will take you up on that. In the meantime, can you check this book for me and find out who the last few people were who were in contact with it?" He turned towards the bed and handed her the wrapped parcel.

Eleanor slipped the book from the paper and looked at him in surprise. It seemed she would be able to read a copy of Narcissa's infamous book after all. Still, it was rather unexpected to receive one from Lucius himself of all people. Had her husband read it, and did he know that it contained information about Draco that Snape thought incriminating?

"Narcissa's biography?" she asked, then saw the witch's smudged face. "Did you read it? What happened to her?"

"Accident," said Lucius curtly as she watched Narcissa's picture scowl at her and point furiously in the wizard's direction. "And no, I'm not planning to read this crap. Someone sent the book to my muggle contact yesterday to cause trouble."

She nodded.

"Sure, I should know by the time you come home," she said.

Lucius thanked her, stretched again and clapped his hands. "Nibbs, get your rancid hide back in here, and bring my boots!"