A/N: I noticed something from the reviews, that many of you are (rightly) confused. Don't worry, Hermione is, too. But Lucius and I plan to amend this situation!

Chapter Twenty-One:

Hermione stared at her surroundings helplessly. Her mouth worked without making a noise, and then she looked up at Lucius. She drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then released it. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefingers as she inhaled and exhaled again. The house elf fidgeted.

"Are you feeling well?" Lucius finally asked as Hermione continued to ignore him and take her deep, deliberate breaths.

She breathed out between her teeth and met his gaze. "I do not have the slightest idea of what is going on here. I am so very close to losing my mind if you don't start explaining everything, starting with where the hell you have taken us, why the… Tingy recognizes you and me, what a kastell g' feiz is and what in God's name you've been doing for the past four years!"

"I see," he replied as coolly as ever. "Tingy, bring us a tray with hot tea and firewhiskey. We'll be in the library."

Hermione watched the elf scurry down the corridor, and for the first time, took a moment to really look at this place. Candlelight flickered over gold-veined marble and shone on staircase railings shaped like the gate outside. Graceful white columns framed by russet tapestries announced passages between rooms, now shadowy niches. She tipped her head up but could not see the ceiling for the sparkling chandelier. She sighed. Even without Lucius's confirmation, she thought she could guess where she was.

"If my lady would follow," he said with that irritating little bow and led her up the carpeted staircase. As they walked, candles flickered into life and then died behind them. It was a pretty effect but somewhat unsettling. She was able to catch only glimpses of the changing decoration; the dancing flames reflected off bright tapestry threads and curved surfaces of small sculptures set in niches along the wall.

"Now, let me see if I recall your questions correctly. I have taken us to my home..." When he paused to face her, he raised an eyebrow and quirked his lips in a tiny grin. "I should say, our home, for it is your legal property as well as mine."

Her legal property indeed. The nearest of the sculptures, variegated jade set with onyx, could have paid for a year's lease on her little cottage, if not the cottage itself. His easy treatment of a subject that had kept her up nights infuriated her.

"Anyone who thinks to look for either you or me here will not find it easy hunting. These walls are protected by spells older than my family name. The Dark Lord is very likely the only wizard living who could penetrate its magic uninvited."

The Dark Lord, he had said. She quashed the questions that bubbled up inside her and told herself that in any case, his actions would speak louder than his words. Anger was already becoming lost under a surge of curiosity.

"That, of course," he continued, "is why my house elf recognises you. I'm sure you know that house elves possess a curiously strong brand of magic quite unique to them. As long as you and I are married, every elf in my home and the homes of my relations will know you as my wife."

She looked up at him when he spoke of their marriage, but in the wavering light she could not see the expression on his face. Though he had not asked, she found herself mentally preparing her litany of reasons for why she had never quite gotten around to filing for a divorce or an annulment. Mainly she had never sought a legal separation because his name, reviled as many wizards professed to be by its associations, still commanded a great deal of respect.

Many people recalled the power Lucius and his father, Abraxas, had wielded in society and probably feared that any outright display of contempt for anyone intimately connected with the family would bring down the wrath they too keenly remembered. Curses and tragic accidents with artefacts, potions gone sour and deranged pets had caused the deaths of dozens of enemies of the Malfoy clan. Besides the fear, though, the simple fact of their vaults attracted people to Hermione's side like moths to a flame. She had never touched the money, but everyone knew it was there for her to claim.

Once, against her better judgement, she had visited those vaults. Until then, she had never understood why people should continue to hold the Malfoy name in such high regard when its living patriarch was known to have committed atrocities they could not bring themselves even to mention aloud. The gold was the least of it, filling trunks and piled carelessly in small mountains. Gems and other precious metals littered the floor and overflowed from what appeared to be old-fashioned carriages.

But it was the artefacts that had caught Hermione's eye, whirring and humming at her, some shrieking when she approached. Mirrors swirled invitingly, and an obsidian crystal ball seemed to emit reddish smoke. What she had seen then made the niche sculptures here look positively drab. She could not have named most of them, let alone puzzled out their function. Her voracious curiosity had been dampened a little then in the face of these mystical devices.

"Kastell g' feiz," Lucius said, interrupting her reminiscing, "is Breton. My forefather Verdan Malfoy migrated here from the north of France with his Breton wife Melusine and built this castle for her. She named it castle of faith, a play on his name."

"Very clever," she murmured.

He gave her a dry look and ushered her into a vast room which lit up by degrees as they entered. The warm scents of leather and old parchment and tea greeted her like old friends as she gazed wide-eyed at the shelves of books and scrolls that lined the walls. It was no surprise that he would lead her to this gorgeous place before anywhere else.

"Your last question will take a bit more time to answer. Tea?" He gestured to a small, round table set between two bookshelves. She sat as he poured from a steaming tea pot and nodded when he held up a decanter of whiskey. In that first shock of seeing him, she had not noticed the changes four years had wrought on him. They were not the usual changes associated with age, quite the opposite. Whatever he was doing with his time had kept him in shape; he was leaner than she remembered, not that he had been soft before. She could not tell if the shadows she saw around his eyes were the product of exhaustion or merely the uncertain light.

She took the cup and saucer in hand and leaned back in the leather chair to listen to his tale. It was a surprisingly comfortable seat, fashioned to grant its occupant many comfortable hours with a book or in conversation. She thought wistfully that it would have been pleasant to spend some of the past few years here, lounging by the light of antique candelabras in this chair that hugged her like a glove. Even the tea was better here and hot with whiskey.

"It is impossible to understand where I have been since last we met without a bit of flashback. When I made your acquaintance in Paris and subsequently fled the city with you, it was widely assumed in certain circles that I had forsaken the Dark Lord once and for all. The discovery of Bellatrix's corpse added to this certainty of treachery a fear that together, you and I planned to destroy any who might wish me harm.

"When they found me at Edouard's home, therefore, it was a moment of great relief. Surely I could not hunt them down if I was in their captivity, and they had noticed, of course, that your friends seemed to regard me as an enemy. They were so relieved, in fact, that they were… a bit careless with me. The Dark Lord's orders were to kill me on sight, but presumably they believed I could still be of use to them, if only to curry favour with Dark Lord when I was handed over to his every whim."

Hermione winced at the thought of Voldemort getting his hands on Lucius. Whatever else he might deserve, she did not think she could wish such torture on anyone. Not even Rita Skeeter, though she came close.

A faint smile flickered across his face as he paused in his tale. "I was always amazed that your Order retained the services of Severus Snape; I imagined Dumbledore to be a great fool to trust such a man so obviously aligned with the Dark Lord. To this day I cannot decipher what the man's intentions are."

At this Hermione gave a short laugh. "The same as yours, I would guess: survival."

Lucius returned the chuckle and nodded, gesturing at her in particular with his cup. "Indeed. Severus had known or had guessed that the Death Eaters would find me soon enough, and he had a Portkey ready just for that occasion. If they had killed me as ordered, he would not have had the chance to use it, but if there's one thing you can count on, my dear, it's the overconfidence of men who believe that their blood alone makes them worthy of recognition."

This took Hermione aback. Her eyes widened, and she nearly choked on her tea.

He raised an eyebrow. "If I may continue?"

She nodded silently.

"The Death Eaters had another mission that night, a raid, and during the confusion, Severus slipped me the Portkey. It was a powerful bit of magic charmed uniquely to me. Of course, he did not tell me where it would take me, or it is likely that I would have refused.

"I took hold of the Portkey… I believe it was an empty packet of Chocolate Frogs… and found myself a moment later in the fireplace of the Headmistress of Hogwarts"

Finally Hermione found her voice. "Professor McGonagall? But she stayed with me after the Death Eaters left, and… and it's impossible to Apparate to or from school grounds." How many times she had impressed this point upon Harry and Ron she could not remember.

"Yes, I was perplexed myself. As it was explained to me, while Hogwarts is heavily guarded by charms and wards that render Apparition impossible, it is still somewhat vulnerable by the Floo network. I am not an expert in magical physics, of course, but I understand that Severus sent me not via the usual Portkey route, which functions much like an Apparition, but via the Floo network. The problem with this method in general is that one can only Port to fireplaces attached to the network."

Hermione's head spun. No, she did not understand magical physics as much as she would have liked; it was one of the few areas of study where she seemed to lack a basic knack for understanding. Maybe she had grown up knowing too much about Muggle physics (for an eleven year-old) to grasp the very different yet complimentary system by which the magical world operated.

"So you just… appeared in Professor McGonagall's office? She must have been surprised to see you there."

Lucius chuckled again and replied in the affirmative. He had thought that McGonagall must have had a hand in concocting the Portkey scheme and had set wards to keep him inside or he simply would have walked out of the castle. Perhaps not, on second thought – he would not wish to risk a chance encounter in the halls. But she had appeared as shocked as he was to find him covered in ash and sitting behind her desk. Naturally, she had magically bound him within an inch of his life while she pondered what to do with this gift.

While she deliberated, the Ministry had decided to move his trial forward on the Wizengamot's docket. She knew that she had to produce him for his trial but wondered if he could not be of more service in a more discreet fashion (all this, Lucius explained, she had told him during all the hours she insisted on keeping watch over him herself). Finally, she confided to the Minister of Magic himself that she held Lucius Malfoy captive in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. "That was an interesting piece of information, that room. I must say, I had no suspicion that anything like it existed at Hogwarts."

The Minister, in a rare fit of competence and even foresight, had agreed with her that the wizarding world would best be served by a Lucius Malfoy working undercover for the Ministry rather than one locked in Azkaban. Snape had later confirmed Lucius's story that Lord Voldemort wanted him dead and had agreed that Azkaban would probably prove a death sentence for the man.

"The Minister could hardly allow my trial to continue without me when I was perfectly capable of attending, so he arranged with my defence to suspend all proceedings until I could stand trial. As far as I know, those are the only three people who know the truth of my life these past few years."

By this time, they had finished the tea and moved on to taking the whiskey straight. Hermione drank very little; it seared her throat and stomach, and she knew that this was a very wrong time to lose control of her faculties. When he finished, silence fell over the pair. Hermione could not decide exactly how she felt right now, about his story or about him, so she asked him what he had been doing at the conference that night.

That turned out to be a much simpler, if chilling, story. The Minister had received word that the Death Eaters would attack the conference in order to destroy Millie Werrabridge's findings and generally terrorise the population. It would have been easier just to kill her at home, of course, but the Death Eaters never did anything easy when it could be flashy. Hermione had never known him to speak so openly and so scornfully of his… former associates and told him so.

"I am far from convinced that equality with Muggles and Muggle-borns on the whole is the ideal route for wizarding society to take, but as you said, it comes down to the question of my survival. At the moment, I feel my existence is more likely to continue if I side with the Ministry." He paused for a moment and looked at her, really looked at her for the first time that night. "And… I am glad to see you again. It has been easier for me to keep a distant eye on you than vice-versa, but I did volunteer specifically for this assignment knowing that it would bring me close to you."

Only a day ago she had been certain that her feelings for Lucius Malfoy had faded to… perhaps a fond memory and a rueful amusement that she had ever been so naïve as to believe that they might have a future together. But as he said those words, her heart fluttered a little. Dammit. Now she would never get him out of her head.

"You've done very well for yourself, Hermione," he said softly. "I should not be surprised if you were a serious candidate for Minister of Magic yourself in a decade or two. Not surprised at all."

She shifted her cup and saucer to one side of the table so she could rest her elbow there and her head in her hand. "Is that why I'm here?" she asked. "You want to ally yourself with a rising star?" She should have guessed he would reappear in her life the moment he saw something he wanted. Perhaps he had foreseen some of this back then and that was why he had not objected too strenuously to her wild idea to get married.

Her other hand lay beside her saucer, and he leaned over to take it. "You're here so that star has a chance to rise." She looked up, surprised. "You weren't the primary target tonight, but I have no doubt that any one of the Death Eaters would have been happy to bring you in as a bonus, especially if the main attack failed. It's been long delayed in coming, but I believe that the final battle is coming much sooner than people generally expect.

"I don't want to ally myself with the Dark Lord or with the Ministry, my dear. Neither of them have impressed me nearly enough to risk my life again for their respective causes. Only you, your headmistress, and your former professor Severus have shown any significant amount of sense."

He looked as if he were about to say more, but Hermione could not hide her fatigue any longer and barely managed to cover with her free hand a gaping yawn. The earnest expression on his face faded back to cool amusement.

"I'm sure you're exhausted," he said as he withdrew his hand and sat back in his chair. "I don't mean to impose, but I would feel much better if I could keep watch over you tonight. There are over a dozen guest bedrooms you can choose from, and I can send Tingy or an owl with a note if there's anyone you'd like to reassure right now."

She smiled at the unspoken question behind the words. By morning, the attack would have made the front page of the Daily Prophet, and she would not be surprised to see herself listed as a missing person. She could think of half a dozen people who would be worried about her, but she did not think it prudent to jeopardise their temporary safety here like that. After a moment's thought, she settled on sending a single note to the Weasleys. She scribbled a few generic reassurances on the parchment Lucius provided and bit back a laugh at the grimace that twisted his lips when he saw the address. She was certain that his owl had never been sent to such an inferior destination before.

When she finished, he stood and offered his arm as he led her to her guest quarters. "Of course," he murmured, "I would not dream of preventing you from sleeping anywhere you like. As I said, this is as much your home as it is mine." She looked up at him to see if he meant what she thought he meant. Judging by the small smile hovering on his lips, she thought he was.