Author Notes: These two. Oil and water. Endlessly interesting to write. Thank you to reviewers and followers, I'm sure you have noticed the many small imperfections that fill me with shame.

CHAPTER SIX: St. Mungo's Psychiatric Ward

"Sorry we're late, Luna!" called Hermione, rushing up to the gate of the Manor to join her friend. Luna just smiled, because Luna never got worked up about anything. Hermione figured she could probably learn a thing or two from Luna about serenity, but after knowing Mrs. Longbottom for years upon years, she was convinced it was a hereditary thing, one with which Hermione had not been graced. Lucius eventually joined them but took his time with walking to where they stood, as usual.

"We were going through the files from the Ministry," said Hermione to Luna, holding up a short stack of files in her hand as evidence. "And lost track of time."

Lucius gave Luna a pleasant smile as greeting and said, "Indeed she nearly burned down her flat."

Hermione sent him a sharp glance. "The files were engrossing, as you well know, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius simply looked amused.

"I forgot I'd put tea on," she muttered to Luna. "Anyway, where is the house elf?"

"I let him in already," said Luna.

"Ah, excellent," said Lucius. "I will instruct him forthwith."

With that, Lucius strode off into the manor grounds as if he owned the place, which he did.

"Ugh, I'm so tired," said Hermione, grumbling after Lucius' retreating form.

"Yeah, I guess you would be," said Luna. "But maybe it's worth it. Did you find out anything new?"

"Tons," said Hermione, brightening at the subject of information. "The Ministry put together everything on what happened."

Luna pricked her finger and dabbed Hermione's hand with a droplet of her blood. The act made Hermione cringe unconsciously, but whatever, it was better than being in incessant agony because of her "inferior" blood status. She was going to have to talk to Lucius about removing that particular ward as soon as possible.

"Tell me about it," said Luna as they started into the grounds.

"Well," said Hermione. "The Ministry has a whole stack of files on the Malfoys from way back then, their known enemies, suspected enemies, conspiracy theories and proven facts. There was a detective put on the case, a Mr. Peter Gentry, have you heard of him?"

"Yeah," said Luna. "He's retired, though."

"Maybe he'll have more time for an interview, then," said Hermione. "He closed the case as 'unsolvable' at the end of 1998. I guess no one cared, seeing as how we'd all just been through an apocalyptic war."

Luna chortled.

"I suppose it's not unheard of for someone to go insane from trauma, like Draco," said Hermione. "Neville would know all about that, with his poor parents."

Luna sighed.

"He's always been terribly protective of our children as a result," said Luna. "It's as if he's worried a sprained knee is going to cause sudden insanity."

Hermione gave Luna a wry grin.

"I suppose I can't blame him," replied Hermione as they reached the doors of the manor proper.

As they entered the manor, they were greeted with the sound of Lucius' imperious, yet lilting, voice.

"And after you've finished the foyer, kindly work your way back, east to west. I'll take lunch at noon, and please be so kind to arrange sufficient for my guests."

"Yes, sir," said the diminutive creature, who wore a crisp uniform reminiscent of a bellhop (they all did these days).

"That will be all, thank you," said Lucius dismissively, turning to Hermione and Luna.

"We are your guests, then?" asked Hermione.

"Aren't you?" he asked.

Well, technically they were, Hermione supposed.

"I hope you're paying him the proper rate," replied Hermione, unable to gracefully accept Lucius' hospitality.

"Don't I have to?" he said, disgust on his features, perhaps at this new, serene, rights-filled world in which he found himself. Hermione smiled.

"Yes, you do," she said, smug with triumph.

"Ahem," said Luna, dissolving a fog of mutual odds which had settled between Hermione and Lucius. "Time to see your son, Mr. Malfoy!"

-oOo—

After adding Luna's hair to the potion and the required imbibing, Lucius was Luna, but it was still Lucius, and Hermione found it jarring to see Lucius' haughty expression on Luna's generally docile face. At least they were both naturally blond.

"Try not to look so threatening," said Hermione.

Lucius tried to soften his features in a Luna-like fashion, but the best he could do is something approaching "blank".

"You look like yourself," said Hermione. "In Luna's body."

Lucius grumbled.

"They'll think I'm possessed!" said Luna, though she looked highly entertained by observing Lucius try to behave like her.

"Maybe we should tell them I'm possessed," said Lucius.

"Maybe we should just try to keep them from noticing you at all," said Hermione.

"I'm so short," he said, mourning.

Luna took off her characteristically jangly and tassel-ly bag and put it over Lucius' shoulder. Then she took off some of her bangles and put them on his wrist.

"There," she said. Hermione had to admit it helped.

"Alright, I just have to get in there, so that shouldn't be very hard," said Lucius. "And we'd better hurry, because I don't have much time."

Hermione agreed, took him by the now-slender arm, and apparated.

St. Mungo's Psychiatric Ward was a place full of ghosts as well as the living. Ghosts were both more commonly crazy as well as drawn to those who had lost their minds. Hermione assumed that was because the mentally disabled had a greater tendency to give ghosts attention, which ghosts craved more than anything else. The halls of St. Mungo's Psychiatric Ward housed as many of the dead as it did the living, and the ghosts here were, strangely enough, unusually lively. In fact, the inclusion of the lively ghosts made the Psychiatric Ward seem almost merry. Almost.

Hermione cast a side eye towards Lucius to assess his state after viewing the place.

"It doesn't seem terrible," offered Hermione.

Lucius' brow crinkled in response and Hermione felt like she'd just stuck her foot in her mouth, again. Of course Lucius wouldn't be in the least satisfied with Draco spending his life here, doing nothing of import, and making nothing of his life. At the very least, Lucius could expect progeny out of his son, but he didn't even have that. In fact, here was where his proud Malfoy line would possibly end. A dead tree. Yes, it was tragic.

They approached the front desk and the attendant-in-white looked up. Hermione smiled.

"Hello, we're here on behalf of the Ministry of Magic – Ancient Tome Recovery and would like to speak with Draco Malfoy," she said.

The attendant peered at them.

"I don't know what you expect to get out of him, but it surely won't be anything about Ancient Tomes," she said.

"Maybe not, but it's worth a try," said Hermione.

"Your names, please?" asked the attendant.

"Hermione Granger and Luna Longbottom," said Hermione

"You have a half hour," said the attendant, who appeared thoroughly bored with her job as she handed over guest nametags and a giggling ghost sailed slowly overhead.

The institutional doors and rooms were white and clean but the riotous life within was madly messy. If there were such a place as ghost heaven, this would be it. Ghosts and the living cavorted, frolicked, and strolled about arm in arm like endless thieves of joy, and within the common room, there sat Draco Malfoy, his face strangely young, but not in the same way as his father's. His face reflected some of the wrinkles that come in one's thirties, but his expression was young, as if his had been a life of little burden due to his own vapid mind. He didn't see them, at first.

Lucius approached with caution, as if he didn't really want to see Draco, but only had to.

"Mr. Malfoy?" asked Hermione as they came closer to the overstuffed white chair in which Draco sat (with a ghost).

Draco looked up and glanced over them both, but his eyes stayed on Lucius.

"Father?" he asked.

Lucius stepped back since, of course, there seemed to be no method wherein Draco should know who he was. Draco stood and smiled.

"Father, it's you!" he exclaimed, and he looked delighted.

Lucius still seemed to know not what to say.

"Where have you been?" he asked, and Hermione noticed Lucius' breathing appeared irregular.

Lucius glanced around at who might be within earshot, and then inquired of the ghost if he would kindly leave. The ghost laughed at Lucius and complied, melting absurdly into the floorboards.

"Draco, I'm trying to figure that out," said Lucius, moving closer to his son.

"I've missed you," said Draco.

"Ahem," said Lucius, who was probably always uncomfortable with blatant statements of affection.

"Yes, likewise," said Lucius in a stilted way.

Hermione felt a moment of the surreal as she watched Luna with Lucius Malfoy's words and expression in this awkward conversation with a Draco Malfoy who, in many ways, appeared not to have matured past seventeen, or perhaps had regressed backward towards twelve. Hermione wasn't a child psychologist, so she didn't know exactly, but this was not a situation she could ever have imagined she would ever be in.

"Draco," started Lucius, seeming not to know how to say his next words. "Can you tell me what happened the night your mother-"

"Don't talk to me about mother!" yelled Draco, startling both Hermione and Lucius.

"But I-," said Lucius.

"Do not speak of mother!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and suddenly full of unexplained fury, but Hermione didn't know if it was fury over his mother, or fury that anyone would dare speak of her, or… well, she was just confused. Apparently Lucius was, as well.

"Draco, I must know," said Lucius.

"DO NOT!" was the reply, and Draco turned. "Frappy! Where are you Frappy!"

The previous ghost ghouled up through the floor.

"Eh?" asked Frappy.

Tension seemed to leave Draco as the ghost appeared.

"Listen Draco, it's important, I'm trying to figure out what happened so I can-," said Lucius, but he was cut off by a sharp look from Draco. Hermione could then see that Draco had inherited all of the intensity of his father, but in this case the whole situation was absurd.

"As long as it isn't about mother, you can ask," said Draco, with Frappy floating up behind him.

"Don't bring up his mother," Frappy offered in a stage-whisper.

Lucius just stared at Frappy, but Hermione smiled sheepishly.

"We figured that out," said Hermione.

Lucius turned to Hermione with large, strange Luna-eyes and quietly asked, "What now?"

As if Hermione should have any idea. She was flattered he would even ask, though, so she prodded her brain into gear. She decided to start asking questions (that didn't have to do with Draco's mother) and see where that would lead.

"Draco," said Hermione. "Do you know why you are here?"

Draco looked at Hermione and said, "Because I belong with the ghosts, I think."

Frappy seemed to agree.

"Do you remember the first day you came here?" asked Hermione.

"I do," said Draco.

"Do you remember the day before that?" asked Hermione.

"I do," said Draco.

"Can you tell me about it?" asked Hermione.

"It began like any other day," said Draco, "At least, it was like any other day when you've just lost your father a few weeks previous."

Draco glanced at Lucius, who remained still.

"The house elf had just given me my eggs and I ate them. I like eggs. It was a good day, so far. But then-"

Draco stopped, and Hermione assumed that they'd reached the point when Narcissa would enter the story.

"I went downstairs," Draco said haltingly, and Hermione got the sense that he was pointedly leaving out anything about his mother. "To the foyer with the paneled walls… the Manor was such a quiet place anymore, it was like living in a library, so it was easy to hear anything that was happening in the next room, and … I just didn't think I'd hear… I didn't know-"

It was almost as if Draco was regaining his sanity by recalling his memories, but they were too much for him to bear. In the end the insanity reconquered, most likely for self-preservation and he locked up with a shuddering sigh.

"Frappy," said Draco, with a smile, as if the ghost of the present was a relief from the ghosts of his past. He looked back in their direction.

"Father, where did you go?"

"I believe I travelled in time," replied Lucius, but then he saw Draco was addressing an orderly who had come to deliver lunch.

"I've missed you," said Draco to the orderly, who chuckled.

"Enjoy your lunch, Draco," said the orderly and he left.

"Thank you, Father," called Draco after the orderly.

Hermione could feel Lucius tremble beside her arm. How horrible. How utterly, utterly horrible. Her stomach sunk peripherally as the implications sunk in.

"It's time to go, Hermione," said Lucius-as-Luna, and Hermione knew it was, right then, time to go.

"Sure, Luna, let's go," said Hermione. "Good-bye, Draco."

Draco had already lost interest and was busy discussing lunch with his ghost.

It was difficult for Hermione to keep up with Lucius' stride as they were escorted out of the double doors and deposited their nametags at the front desk. In fact, Lucius didn't stop until they were outside on the street.

"Your flat," he commanded tightly.

She complied wordlessly.

Their landing was solid in the middle of her living room, but she couldn't help but wonder why he'd wanted her flat instead of the manor.

"Mr. Malfoy?" she asked the Luna-shaped Lucius, who had immediately leaned his palms on the back of the couch as if in the midst of intense contemplation. There was no reply.

Hermione hesitated.

"Mr. M-…" she began.

He let out another one of those quick puffs of air, like he had on the day she'd first told him about his wife. This was followed by one of his hands covering his eyes, clutching his temples, shutting out sight and perception. He was strung tightly as a violin.

Hermione didn't know what to do as the silence seemed to stretch interminably. Lucius was frozen and the spell he cast with his stillness was one Hermione couldn't bring herself to break, even if she knew how. Which she didn't.

At last he drew another long, shivering breath and looked up.

"Well," he said, his voice only barely wavering before he was back to business. "How long do you suppose the potion will last?"

Weirdly, Hermione was suddenly pinched by the urge to cry for Lucius. She didn't know why. It was just one of those things that can be only felt and not known, and she started blinking away tears in a panic. It was all so terrible, and worse than she ever could have wished on anyone. She suddenly felt remorse for, all those years ago, wishing some sort of misfortune would strike the Malfoys, for they were just so so smug about everything, but if she could see what she'd witnessed today, she'd take back that wish and swallow it out of existence. Some suffering is all she'd wanted, not total, barren, wasteland devastation. She could never have supposed it would come to this.

"Um," she said, her voice sounding stupidly emotional and extremely wavery. "I don't know, it…"

Stupid, stupid! Why was she crying? Why?

She started picking up books and looking blindly through them, as if that would cover her weakness and emotionality, as if it would cover that she wasn't able to suppress even second-hand emotions even a tenth as well as he could his own first-hand tragedies, and somehow it was a loss for her, and somehow, even in this, he and his philosophies and his superiority and his side won. She was an idiot. A weak, weak, idiot. Oh, murder.

She furiously wiped a tear from her cheek and found a book that was at least regarding a related subject to the potion he'd imbibed.

"It says here," she said, pointing to a chapter heading and her voice still lame, wet, and traitorous, "That all properly brewed transformative potions generally last 2 hours per eye of newt therein. Your potion generally has two eyes of newt, so…"

She looked up at him and he was leaning on the couch again with his hands, watching her with a sober face.

"Ridiculously emotional Gryffindor," he called her, but his voice was soft. His Luna voice.

Somewhere in her subconscious, his gentle name-calling gave her emotions permission to release, despite her conscious desperation to stay in control. She choked back a sob and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said behind her hand, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she repeated, no grammar to correct, here. "I don't know why…"

She stopped, not trusting her voice to stay coherent, worried her emotions would only feed on themselves and snowball her into further embarrassment.

Something of a smile crossed Lucius' Luna face. It was a sad thing, like a fading flower.

He straightened.

"I would usually say something like this," he said. "Undisciplined emotions are the handicap of the weak. Unless you learn to control them, you will never have the advantage in life."

He had paced towards her, his bearing like an instructor.

"It is one of the cornerstones of power: the ability to mask what you are truly feeling," he said. "Showing emotion gives leverage to those who witness it, and one should never give leverage willingly."

He'd come close enough to speak in a softer tone, and as his eyes trained sideways on her, he said, "Even if you've lost everything that is dear to you in a matter of moments, all emotion should be restrained."

She only stared at him with her watery eyes. A rebellious tear fell across her cheek in the face of his lecture.

"Perhaps especially in moments like those does one need the most leverage one can possibly manage," he said.

"I wouldn't use it against you," she said with her ridiculously emotional Gryffindor voice, and there was a flash in his eyes, the barest moment of intimate recognition.

"Wouldn't you?" he asked, making her doubt she'd seen anything at all in his eyes.

"Of course not!" she said, indignation rising to supplant sorrow.

"I suppose that's what you tell yourself," he said. "But if you can imagine if our places were reversed, and I was the one displaying my every emotion with total abandon-"

"I don't do that!" she objected.

Lucius very calmly gave her a glance that said, with one glance, that he very much found that she did display her every emotion with total abandon, and perhaps then some. Suddenly Hermione experienced a moment of piercing insecurity. But how dare he, how dare he turn a moment of her showing very compassionate and very normal concern for his situation into a lecture on Slytherin-Malfoy political leveraging!

Unfortunately, he must have seen the indignation on her face (ugh, maybe she did display it all like merchandise in a shopping window) because he stepped back and seemed to be preparing for an outburst.

As an outburst wasn't forthcoming (she wouldn't give him the pleasure), he calmly continued his diatribe:

"Say I were to cry miserably on your shoulder, Miss Granger, for two hours or three," he said.

"Like a normal person would do," said Hermione, but Lucius ignored the interjection.

"I would then be in debt to you," he said.

"What?" asked Hermione, baffled by Malfoy logic.

"Rather deeply in debt, really," he said. "Not to mention a complete embarrassment of a person. You would then expect certain things from me, like confidence, assistance, friendship…"

"Terrible things, to be sure," said Hermione.

"As well as a crushing familiarity through which I would be unable to maneuver with confidence and freedom," he said.

"I see," said Hermione with cynicism rising. "If you are in debt to me, then you don't have as much freedom to stab me in the back and toss me aside like used garbage when it suits you."

Something in Lucius' eyes meant he found that funny, but it was brief.

"Not exactly… but you have the general concept," he said, and she wanted so badly to roll her eyes and whack him upside the head with a stack of books. "Besides," he added carefully. "I am already in debt to you."

She looked over him warily and bade him continue with her silence.

"I can't help but be in debt to you," he said.

At that moment, her breath caught in a sigh; the aftershock of her crying earthquake.

"Don't make me list how," he said.

"As if I could make you do anything," she replied.

"You've made me pay my house elf," he countered bitterly.

"It's the law!" she said.

"I'm still outside the law, aren't I?" he asked. "I don't even exist anywhere but here with you."

She realized he was right, and what a strange notion it was. And sad.

"Don't start crying again," he said, and she gave him a sharp glance for his nerve. He smiled a little in response, and she knew he was irritating her on purpose to distract her from tears. "It's the same lecture I would… and did… give Draco," he added, as if that justified it.

Hermione sighed and wondered what she was going to do with this pocket-universe Lucius-Luna. A thought occurred to her and she placed a hand on Lucius' arm.

"Mr. Malfoy… if we could somehow send you back in time seventeen years… would you want to go?"

"Yes, in an instant," he said like a thirst.

Her hand tightened on his Luna-sleeve as her brain took over. "But if we can manage to do it, it would be wise to know who it was that murdered Narcissa before you return, wouldn't it?"

"And how I was time-travelled," he said.

"And what exactly happened to Draco," said Hermione. She glanced at Lucius and asked, "He seems to have an intense aversion to Narcissa, doesn't he?"

"If only we could know what he saw," replied Lucius.

"For that we would need a cleverly applied pensieve," said Hermione. "But it would be illegal and difficult to pull off in oh, so many ways."

The illegalities were starting to pile up, and it made Hermione sigh. Lucius' hand came over hers, still clenched on his sleeve.

"But for now, perhaps we can investigate the investigator?" he asked.

"Mr. Peter Gentry," replied Hermione, and Lucius smiled at her. "I suppose it won't be impossible to link asking after him to recovering books… somehow."

"You're clever enough, I've faith you can do it," said Lucius.

"But that brings me to another quandary, Mr. Malfoy," said Hermione, pulling away to regard him thinkingly.

"Yes?"

"I need to actually do my job, too," she said.

He paused.

"You know, recovering the Malfoy books?" she prompted.

"But I don't want you to take my books," he replied.

"Fine. Fine, then, there's the third quandary," said Hermione, considering the speed at which quandaries were piling up.

She looked back up at Lucius, who seemed to be becoming Lucius again.

"Do you want to know what I've observed about you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Not especially," he replied.

"You," she said, "are a bottomless pit of problems."

"But, Miss Granger, you love problems!" he objected.

She scoffed. How could he know that?

"You thrive on them," he cajoled.

She grunted. He couldn't possibly know that.

"They are the very bread-crusts upon which you subsist," he needled.

She groaned. Now he was just making her sound desperate.

"Let's get back to the manor," she managed, irritably. "We've a mountain of work to do."

Lucius just smiled and took her arm.

~Thanks for reading!