Disclaimer: Stuff, no claim, J.K.R. wins all
Dear Readers, thank you for your kind reviews!
Note: This story is becoming delightful to write, while at first I wasn't sure about how to get Lucius and Hermione to relate to each other on a human level, it seems to be working out (or will work out eventually) just fine and is 100% enjoyable!
CHAPTER FOUR: SUBTERFUGE
"What a fascinating house you have, Mr. Malfoy," said Luna, as Hermione and Lucius returned to her in the dining room.
"Thank you," replied Lucius, "But I suppose it no longer belongs to me."
"Ah, it has been bequeathed to Draco," said Hermione.
"Legally," rejoined Lucius. Hermione had little doubt the house actually still belonged to Lucius in a more tactile and magical way.
"We're going to buy a potion," Hermione announced to Luna, who replied with a doubtful look.
"Are you?" she asked vaguely, and then, before Hermione could explain further, Luna went on: "There's something else we need to deal with, and that is Mr. Malfoy's keeping. Staying here would probably be very unpleasant, considering there is no food or water and everything is old, dusty, and full of spiders. Since I have a family to deal with, I think you should keep him."
This was not a situation in which Hermione had ever supposed she would be placed, and therefore, for a long moment, she was able only to stand before Luna with her mouth wide open.
"I'm not a pet," stated Lucius, breaking Hermione's silence.
"No, but do you want to stay here?" asked Luna.
"Yes, with a few house elves for assistance," he replied.
"I said we can get you one," Hermione said to him, slight annoyance tinging her perspective. His glance revealed the same in his eyes.
"With an elf, singular, for assistance," he related, dragging his eyes away from Hermione.
"But we can't get it until tomorrow," added Hermione, who noticed a faint stiffening in Lucius' shoulders.
"You have to eat," said Luna. "And sleep, and there's working plumbing to consider."
Lucius sighed, most likely wondering how it had come to this, but Hermione saw Luna's wisdom or foresight, or whatever it was.
"It would be the safest situation for you to stay with me," said Hermione, while some part in the back of her mind screamed at her for saying those words to Lucius Malfoy in that particular order,"But if you want, we could let you a room somewhere under disguise. It wouldn't be a great situation, but you would have more privacy, I guess. We would have to be more careful, and due to logistics there would be less time for discussing the problem and fixing it, and-"
"Oh for Merlin's sake, it's just for one night," he said, cutting her off. "As long as you don't plan on murdering me, I'm sure your dwelling will suffice and will be greatly appreciated."
It looked very difficult for him to show appreciation, but there was a tinge of it.
"I suppose we can procure the potion on the way?" she asked.
"Probably," he said, seeming unhappy again. "I'm going to see if there's any spare laundry left worth taking."
After Lucius' moody exit, Lune looked at Hermione and smiled.
"That went well," she said.
Hermione only chortled.
"So what have you figured out?" asked Hermione.
"I don't know," said Luna. "The house has a strong will and is more determined to preserve its people than any I've ever seen."
"Hunh," said Hermione, glancing around at the house. It seemed disused, but solid. "What did you find out about the spell that brought Mr. Malfoy here?"
"It's old magic," said Luna.
"Old magic? Really?"
"Nah, I just always wanted to say that," said Luna. "Isn't all magic old, and new, and in-between?"
Hermione grinned.
"It's just regular magic, but complicated," said Luna. "I feel like there are too many parts I don't understand the meaning of, or how they relate to each other. Maybe you can help me make some sense of it?"
"I'll do my best!" said Hermione, delighted.
"You still haven't asked Mr. Malfoy about what he was doing when he was brought here, have you?" asked Luna.
Hermione, remembering, became deflated.
-oOo-
Some time later, Lucius reemerged from the upper rooms with a leather shoulder bag of exceedingly fine, if aged, make. He was also wearing an exceptionally shrouding cloak, and, with his hair tied back as it was, it rendered him very indistinguishable.
"That looks perfect for incognito shopping," remarked Luna.
"It was my aim," replied Lucius airily.
"It will start getting dark soon, so I suppose we had better call it a day," said Hermione, kind of regretting what 'calling it a day' meant for her on this particular day. It meant facing an awkward and possibly difficult shopping experience with Lucius Malfoy, and then the far, far more awkward and unsettling situation of having him stay at her home. Her home was probably painfully inadequate in his estimation, and she wasn't looking forward to her every nook and cranny being judged by him. At all.
At least she was pretty sure he didn't mean her any sort of harm. He seemed pretty harmless, actually. Well, harmless if he wanted to stay on your good side for selfish reasons.
"Tomorrow, with your permission, Mr. Malfoy, I will go through your library for information that might help us," said Hermione.
"You have my permission as soon as you have procured a house elf for my assistance," replied Lucius, and the tone of his voice made Hermione want to shove him out of the room. She didn't, though.
"Of course," said Hermione, through her teeth. "Shall we depart?"
As the three of them strode through the derelict gardens of Malfoy Manor, the house loomed behind them like a monstrous cat, waiting and watching, and not betraying anything. Hermione felt it behind her, full of knowing. It made her nervous as she left.
"Mr. Malfoy," she ventured as they passed through the gate.
"Yes?" he replied.
She glanced at him in confidence. "Do you ever feel like your house is… um… alive?" she asked.
His return glance seemed almost amused, and he smiled in a very imperious Malfoy-esque way.
"Sentient, yes."
Hermione looked at Luna for her opinion, but she wasn't even listening and seemed to have forgotten the whole adventure happened, today.
"I wonder what Neville has made for dinner?" she asked dreamily.
Hermione, who could not at the moment feign interest in Luna's delicious impending dinner made by a very attractive and doting husband, said loudly, "Well, time to apparate! Take my arm, Mr. Malfoy."
He probably wasn't pleased she was so blatantly demanding, but she didn't presently care and, after waiting long enough, he did take her arm. She apparated.
Her apparation skill was excellent, so at least there was that.
It was a strange sensation, though, being flung, dreamlike, through space and time, all the while knowing that Lucius Malfoy, whom Hermione mostly hated, clung to her arm for safekeeping.
As they landed, reality landed with them, and they glanced at each other.
"Diagon Alley," informed Hermione.
"We'll need Knockturn," he said with brevity.
It was late afternoon in Diagon Alley, which meant shopping and customers and the hustle and bustle were still in full force, which also meant there were a lot of eyes and ears. Though Lucius was still hidden nicely in his cloak, both he and Hermione moved closer to keep their voices unheard.
Hermione sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that," she said softly.
There was something like a smirk hidden deep in the recesses of his cloak hood. "Don't worry," he said to her, his voice with more mocking in it than she liked, "I'll protect you."
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, sharp in return, but he held out his arm and commanded, "Take my arm, Miss Granger."
As her eyes narrowed, he moved closer to murmur: "Turnabout is fair play."
"And for Merlin's sake, put your hood up," he added, pulling her along with his arm towards the Lousiest Alley of Them All.
Knockturn was how she'd always remembered it, all black grime and oppressive, claustrophobic angles, oozing an unexplained fog which made things both indistinct and more frightening, and as she stepped downward step by shallow step into the alley's bowels, she shifted closer into the arm of Lucius Malfoy, whom she noticed had a hand in his pocket.
"Whose wand do you have?" she asked him.
"What do you mean 'whose wand'?" he asked, seeming irritated by the question.
"It surely isn't yours," she said. "Yours was broken by Voldemort."
Lucius flinched a little, and then glanced at her.
"It's Narcissa's," he said. Then after a moment he went on, "I was using it when…"
"When what?" asked Hermione.
"Stop asking me questions," he replied shortly.
"I have to ask you questions if I'm ever to figure out what happened!" replied Hermione.
"Then just -" he said, and then paused, seeming to look for words to say. "Don't ask questions in that way."
"In what way?" asked Hermione.
"Like that!" he replied, turning to face her, their progress in Knockturn Alley halted.
"Mr. Malfoy, I-"
"Don't say my name out here like that, you foolish girl," he seethed.
"I'm not a girl," she informed him, affronted.
"And yet you act like one," he replied.
She pushed him.
"You are the most ungrateful, unpleasant person I've ever met!" said she.
"It is unfortunate that you've grown to be so mannerless and rude," he replied smoothly (which only increased her ire). "You had potential."
"Oh, don't pretend you ever thought that! You always saw me as mannerless and rude and useless because of who my parents happened to be, no matter how accomplished I became or how clever I might be!" she replied, finding upon making her statement, she was out of breath. "You always have and always will find me to be inferior, so don't pretend it could ever be different, because it can't."
She suddenly felt horribly, deeply, agonizingly miserable. To make matters worse, she was standing in the middle of Knockturn Alley with the last person in the world she wanted to be near. The biggest problem was, however, that she was the only person in the world who could help this last person in the world she wanted to be near, and she was really bad at abandonment. It wasn't a thing she was wired to do.
"Miss Granger," he whispered, quiet enough that none of the highly questionable passers-by could hear or recognize the name. He came very close and began to speak quietly. "Please understand that it is difficult for me to answer questions about what has happened because this morning, in an instant, I have lost everything that is dear to me."
Hermione suddenly felt terrible for a different reason.
"Perhaps I react to such blunt questioning by lashing out, only because it is…" he said, then cleared his throat to finish. "Difficult."
She touched his arm and he didn't pull away.
"Mr. Malfoy," she said to him, "I will try to ask questions more delicately."
She realized she'd clenched the fabric of his sleeve in her fist due to the strain of parley with her mortal enemy.
"I'm sorry," she said, meaning it.
He observed her for a while and then, with a nod, he said, "Let's get the potion. We can talk later."
At that moment, her paradigm was shifted, and she suddenly felt as if they had found common ground, or vague understanding, and it was strange, weird, bizarre, and as a result she felt a sense of vertigo and the feeling one gets when the seasons change in one day. Who was Lucius Malfoy? Was he, in truth, a horrible, horrible person? Was he not really that horrible at all? Was he just a guy who'd made bad choices? Why did he make the choices he made? Questions started spiraling through her mind faster than she could digest them and it made her feel dizzy.
"Miss Granger, are you alright?" he asked her, as she realized she'd leaned on his arm a little too much as they were walking and her mind had barraged itself with questions. He'd brought his other hand up to steady her and she felt incredibly embarrassed.
"Yes," she said, straightening and cursing herself, "Yes, I'm fine. Let's go."
Diagon Alley's sister store to Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary was decidedly more airy and far less claustrophobic than the Knockturn Alley venue, where aisles of grotesquerie and the inexplicable wound snake-like through a shop that defied all reasonable shape, and always seemed less than four feet wide yet abundant. The variety of merchandise, Hermione had to admit, was impressive, even if she didn't know what most of it was. As the back counter (and the dubious-looking he who tended the shop) came into view, Lucius's hand gripped her elbow from behind and she heard his low whisper:
"Tell him Nero sent you."
It was almost funny, the strangeness of it all. Hermione managed to suppress a nervous laugh, but barely, and so when the shopkeep laid eyes on her cloaked form, he probably thought she was executing a perfectly reasonable smirk, considering what she was pretending to be (a miscreant).
"Nero sent me," she said with utter seriousness, or at least tried.
The shopkeep's eyebrows raised. Or at least she thought it was his eyebrows. He kind of only had one, which extended across his entire brow, each coarse bristle fully distinguishable from the next and then blending into temple and sideburn and face whiskers. The man was really hairy and it was gross and she decided to stop thinking about it.
"I haven't heard that name in a very long time," said he.
Hermione lifted her chin and asked, "So what?"
The shopkeeper laughed, then turned an inquisitive, if loamy, eye on her. "Yeah," he said. "So what."
"So I'm looking for a potion," she said.
"S'long as you've got the gold, lady," he said. "And you ain't setting Nero on me."
He smiled and she suffered the misfortune of a generous view of his teeth, but she felt the scales of subtle power shift in her favor.
"Polyjuice, well-brewed," she ordered.
The sound of gold chinking on the counter next to her drew both of their attentions. There, though he was becloaked beyond all recognition, was Lucius' fine white hand, but only for a moment before it was gone, with a neat stack of shimmering galleons left in its wake. Lucius receded away into the shop like a shadowed wraith.
Hermione glanced at the shopkeep to gauge his suspicion, but he only looked amused.
"Yeah, see all types here, we do," he said, chuckling as he shuffled through a curtain to rifle noisily in the back. "I ain't askin'!" Hermione heard him call from the back around sounds of glass chinking and things breaking. "S'better fer business, ya see!"
Hermione heaved a quick sigh and just wanted the whole business over with. She looked around for Lucius, and saw him inspecting the shimmering, magical contents of an aisle. It sounded like something large fell over in the back and she wondered if the shopkeep was injured until the curtain burst open and the keeper walked (with a slight limp) back to the counter carrying a triumphant, tiny bottle of potion aloft.
"Yeah, this'll do yeh," he said, handing it over.
Hermione inspected it, and it looked like mud, which she supposed it should, considering they hadn't added Luna hair yet.
"That'll be," the shopkeep glanced at the stack of galleons, "eight galleons."
Shocking that the price was exactly how many galleons were sitting on the counter.
"Three," said Hermione, her chin lifted.
The shopkeep laughed at her, then gave her a sour look. "Seven, if yeh want to be runnin' me out of business."
"Three," said Hermione.
He squinted at her.
"I can make this myself, you know," she said.
"Five," he said.
"Four," she said.
"Fine," he said, irritated. "Four! Now get out of my shop and tell Nero he's a cheapskate!"
Outside the shop, as she and Lucius reconvened, she spied a hint of a smile within his shroud.
"Will you take my arm, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, doing so.
Oh, Mr. Malfoy.
Thanks for reading!