All characters belong to JKR
Chapter 6: A Place to Deceive:
Another morning broke through the windows of the guest suite where Hermione and Lucius had spent yet another wonderful night together. She had been at his home for two weeks now, and they spent every night together here in this room. They didn't make love every night. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they slept, and sometimes they merely held each other. It was how it was supposed to be, in Lucius' mind. He couldn't imagine waking up without her in his arms. Though it had only been a fortnight, it seemed like forever, and he didn't want it any other way.
He knew she was restless. With each day that passed she grew more impatient. She wanted to find Draco's killer, she wanted her freedom, and as she told Lucius on more than one occasion, she wanted her life to begin. She told him that she felt her life at that moment was a lie, and no matter what, she had 'no place in her life for lying'. She told him that she needed to reclaim her 'place' in the world. He didn't like how that sounded, but he would acknowledge it, no matter where her place might be.
Funny, Lucius felt as if his life had just begun again with her, and yet here she was, waiting for hers to start. He felt her place was by his side, and she was still looking for her rightful place. The irony smacked him in the face especially hard that morning.
After he awoke, and before his shower, he found another Owl that she had written and had not yet sent. An Owl to Harry Potter. Passages from the missive stood out in his mind even as he looked down at the woman that he felt he might love. 'Have you discovered who sent the original letters yet?' and 'I want this all to end'. Lucius would try not to let that letter, and the others that he knew she had written before, feel personal toward him. It was just her way.
He knew she was making plans, on her own, without Potter. Although it generally went against Lucius' underhanded nature, he hadn't yet invaded her privacy to find out exactly what she had written in most of the letters. He, therefore, didn't know exactly what she had planned. No, the only thing he had done so far was to intercept every single Owl she had sent, along with the ones that Potter had written to her. It wasn't the most honourable way to keep her safe, and she would be angry when she found out, but he never regretted anything he did, and he would not start now. His only goal was to keep her safe…well, and perhaps to keep her here with him a while longer. Because if he knew her, and he did, she was planning something, and that something would end with her leaving him.
Something was going to happen very soon to end this sweet intermission. This gentle interlude that had given him reprieve from his suffering and loneliness. Something shockingly explosive would happen that would ruin the simple mundane life that Lucius was becoming so fond of, here with her.
It was inevitable. She wanted to get on with her life. Lucius felt as if his life finally had a purpose, while she still felt lost and forlorn. He didn't know what was more important…his selfish need for self-satisfying happiness, or his new, almost unwelcome, need to make her happy?
Lucius walked from the bathroom, after taking a shower, and he looked down at the beautiful woman before him. He reached out for her, but then pulled back.
They had made love countless times over the last two weeks. He was a bit sore, actually, though he would never admit that to her. He sat on the bed beside her, the mattress sagging under his weight and he continued to watch her sleep. She looked so untouched and innocent. How deceptive was that? She had almost never been untouched and innocent. Almost from the start of her introduction into the magical world she had been exposed to the most vile, brutal things their world could offer, sometimes from his hand, and yet she was still unspoiled. He wouldn't be the one to spoil her now. He wanted that for her, at least.
He placed his fingertips on the top of her hand, and then placed her hand to his mouth, where he planted small kisses on the top and along the wrist. He continued to look at her face, her eyes still closed, so he concentrated exclusively on these kisses: One on the inside of her wrist, one on the top of her hand, one by her thumb. He looked at her hand briefly, and then enclosed her hand inside his.
He listened to her breathing, which coincided with his, and as he decided to see if she was still sleeping, or if it was a ruse. She was a former Gryffindor, and though they were usually holier than thou, they were masterful liars when need be and could often give Slytherins a run for their money in the lying department. He touched her face, neck, collarbone, all with surprising gentleness and she didn't move a muscle. Instead, her breathing became slower and shallower, as his touch became slower and more premeditated.
Watching her closed eyes, he reached for her face. Still holding her hand with one hand, he touched her eyelids with the other. His hand moved from her face, down her arm, in one fluid movement. He brought it back up the same path, and ended at her chin, which he tilted upward slightly so he could have better contact with her mouth. Then he leaned over and kissed her lips with what was unquestionably the gentlest kiss he could muster, so as not to wake her.
He brought his hand up and stroked her hair. He wanted to give her so much, because she deserved so much. He hadn't always felt that way, but he did now. He leaned over again to rain small kisses over her face. His resolve to leave her sleeping was melting away, shattering before him like a piece of handspun glass. Though he was often seen as a ruthless and selfish man, he was always a kind and gentle lover. He was to his precious wife, when she was alive, and he would be to this woman, while she was with him, even if it was only for two weeks.
An irrational thought tore at his gut. What if she had to leave again? What if someone took her from him? He wanted her now and always, and he couldn't let her go. Not ever.
He let go of her hand and stood to leave. He knew what he had to do. He took a quick chance to look back at her before he closed the door – she continued to sleep.
When she was once more alone, she opened her eyes and then wept.
Midmorning, after she showered, dressed, and wrote a letter to Harry, she started roaming the hallways of the Manor, looking for Lucius. She finally found him in a long abandoned wing, on the very top floor, which faced the southern side of his property. She looked in two rooms before finding him in the third. He was sitting at a desk, in a mostly dark room, sorting through papers of some kind.
"Lucius, may I speak with you?" she asked timidly.
He didn't look up from whatever it was he was reading. Instead, he motioned her forward with his hand. When she reached his side, he grabbed one of her hands in his, held it, and continued to read. She let him read, but she picked up a piece of parchment that he had already discarded on the top of the desk. She examined it closely.
"Lucius?" she asked, looking at this one piece of parchment, both sides. "What is this?"
"Hush," he scolded, though he held a smirk in check. Any moment now he would expect a…
"Don't hush me," she demanded.
He smiled, placed the piece of parchment in front of him back on the desk and pulled her down to his lap. "I fully expected your reprimand two seconds before you issued it. You're slacking, old girl."
"Ha…old, funny, from you," she joked. "What is this?" She picked up the piece he dropped and read it. He knew that it would only take a moment for her to answer her own question.
"These are some sort of letters to Draco? Where did you get these?" she asked when she finished reading. She kept the parchment in her hand and knelt on the floor beside him, to riffle through a crate that had similar pieces of parchments, as well as other things, inside it.
"You didn't know about these, did you?" Lucius asked. "Draco never told you that he was plagued with these strange notes throughout school?"
She shook her head slowly. "Why wouldn't Draco have told me about these?"
He shrugged, though she didn't look up, so she didn't see it.
"When did these come to him?"
"They started when he was in school, and continued well into the following years. I think they stopped after you two started dating, or perhaps he just learned to hide things better. He always hid things. He learned that from me," Lucius replied. He bent down and picked a book out of the crate. When he opened it, another piece of parchment came flying out.
Hermione caught it before it hit the floor. She sat, cross legged, before him and continued to read. She glanced up at him and said, "This one is from our sixth year at Hogwarts. I mean, he was going through a personal hell that year, and he had these letters arriving to him on top of it? No wonder he became unglued that year. Why didn't he ever tell me about these?"
She put that sheet down and drew out another old school text. Inside the front cover were three more pieces of parchments, two folded in half, one in quarters. She unfolded them all carefully, pressing out the folds against her legs, and then she leaned against the back Lucius' legs and read aloud. He place a hand gently on her hair as she did.
She read: "Draco, why do you continue to ignore me? I tell you that I need you, that I love you and that I want you, almost constantly, yet you do nothing about it. You don't even seem to know I'm alive. You have no time for me. You have no time for any of your real friends. You're so obsessed with your mission from the Dark Lord that you've let everything else fall to the wayside."
"And I saw you looking at her again, looking at all of them, again. I tell you, it better stop if you know what's good for you. You think she's your salvation? She'll be your damnation."
She refolded the letter and said, "It's not signed. Are any of them signed?" To answer her own question, she looked back in the box and examined more of the letters and notes. "None of them are signed. Are these an early precursor to the letters we both received from The Messenger, do you think?" She moved away from his legs, but remained on the floor and looked up at him.
Again, with an inelegant shrug, Lucius answered, "These were examined by the Aurors. Do you think I wouldn't have revealed these to them? Don't you know I never would have held back evidence if I thought it was pertinent? The script or handwriting rather, doesn't match."
"Did he ever know who they were from? There must be over a hundred notes, letters, sick love poems, and scraps of nonsense here. Why did he save them? What does this mean? Will it help us?" Hermione got to her knees and gathered the parchments he was previously reading to her and carried everything, crate included, to a small divan by the window and she started to read.
Lucius watched her for a while. She seemed so animated. Some of the things she read shocked her. She snorted and laughed at a few other things, which brought a smile to his face. A few times she made soft comments. Finally, she looked up at him and asked, "Did he ever know who sent these?"
"No. You're very smart. Haven't you guessed yet?" Lucius asked.
"Yes, I think I have, but I don't know if Draco would have come to the same conclusion, and I don't think you would come to the same conclusion that I've come to, either." She placed everything back in the box. "Did Harry ever see these?"
"I have no idea the workings of the Office of the Aurors. He was the Auror who investigated my son's death, and he allowed his best friend to go to prison for over a year, so even if he did see these, he must not have felt they were important," Lucius dismissed, though he didn't believe that for an instant.
She stood up, indignant. "Of course they're important! For one thing, they started our third year at Hogwarts and continued into our seventh, which is highly important. It was someone who went to school with us, perhaps in our year. This person apparently was able to give Draco notes and letters freely, which meant they were probably in Slytherin, but if not, it meant they had free reign of Hogwarts! It was someone who had access to Draco during our seventh year, when Harry, Ron and I weren't around."
She started to pace. "They wrote in a few of his textbooks, which may mean they were in some classes with us. Some of these messages are threatening, Lucius! Some seem innocent! Even if the handwriting doesn't match, the tone and intent of the notes do. Sure, these early letters might be innocuous enough, but people who start out with innocent, victimless crimes, often exacerbate to more violent crimes!"
"We can't even say for sure that these were sent by a female, because they are veiled heavily with gender baseless hyperbole. They could be written by a girl who had a sick obsession with him because she fancied she loved him, or a boy who was obsessed with him because he was jealous of him! It could even be a boy who was in love with him!
"They say they love him, but hate him. They admire what he's doing for the Dark Lord, but they don't think he could ever be a true Death Eater. They even say things about Harry, Ron and I, that almost seem as if this person was already jealous of Draco and us, even though back then, there was no 'us' as in Draco and I. Draco hated us back then!"
"But hate is a strong emotion," Harry Potter said from the doorway.
"I wondered when you would let her know you were there, Potter," Lucius drawled. "It's rude to listen from the doorway, but then again, you were never proficient at the social graces."
"As if I need lessons in comportment from you. What genteel manners would you find lacking in me, Lucius? Don't I torture and maim Mudbloods with enough grace for you?" Harry spat.
"ENOUGH! Both of you!" Hermione said. "Harry, I was beginning to think you were never coming back. Haven't you received any of my Owls?"
"No, actually, I haven't," he answered honestly.
She seemed shocked. "But I've sent almost one a day!"
"The only Owl I've received is the one I got this morning from Malfoy over there. He wanted me to bring that box back to him, because he wanted you to read the letters, thinking perhaps if you had something here to occupy your time and mind, you wouldn't be tempted to try to leave. He knew you wanted to work on trying to find Draco's killer, so he decided to bring evidence to you, instead of you going out and searching for it yourself," Harry revealed truthfully.
Hermione's mouth opened in shock. She stared at Lucius. Lucius avoided her gaze and looked at Potter and said, "I thought we had decided that she wasn't to know all of that yet, Potter! Does it hurt your halo when you lie, or does it become tarnished? Is the title of 'Saint' bestowed on you now, or must we wait and have it bestowed posthumously?"
Harry gave the older man a smile and said, "I never agreed to lie to her. I don't lie to my friends, so sue me."
Lucius barked out a laugh. "Don't lie to your friends? Don't make me laugh. You've lied to her from the beginning of this investigation! And also, don't act as if you brought this crate back solely on my say so. I think you did it so that once again you could find utter contentment and joy, hiding in the shadows, as your much smarter and able bodied best friend solves a mystery for you, just as she often figured everything out for you when you were young!"
Hermione spun to face Harry. Harry ignored Lucius' rude comment and continued with his earlier line of thought. "We'll get back to the fact that I haven't been getting your Owls, and that apparently you're not getting mine. I told Malfoy in the beginning that it would be secure for you to send Owls to me; he must have felt it would be better to intercept them. Maybe he was right about that, because I found out that someone else intercepted the Owl that Malfoy sent to me this morning, but I took care of that threat.
"As I was saying, hate is a strong emotion. Hate and love goes hand in hand, and Draco depleted a lot of time hating us, especially you, in the old days. If someone was fighting for Draco's attention, and most of his attention was on you, and even us, then he wasn't able to have time for this person, whoever it was."
"You knew about these?" She picked up a handful of the yellowed pieces of parchment and held them under Harry's nose.
"Yes, I knew. I'm the one that brought them back here, and before you insult your oldest and dearest friend, because I can tell an insult is on the end of your tongue, I didn't dismiss them. I actually feel that I found out who wrote them," Harry said. "Although I'm certain you probably think it's someone else."
That shocked even Lucius. He stood as well. "You never told me that!"
Harry glared back at him. "Well, I don't have to tell you everything, do I, Malfoy? You don't know what goes on in the Office of the Aurors," he mocked.
Lucius gleamed, "If you know who wrote them, you have to tell us!"
Hermione let the papers drop slowly to the ground. They fell from her fingers, floating slowly to the wooden floor by her feet. "Who, Harry?" she begged. "Who wrote them?"
"The woman who is sitting in Azkaban right now, in a prison cell, brought there under polyjuice potion, under the guise of one Hermione J. Granger," Harry said without preamble.
"But who?" She rushed to him and grabbed his collar.
Instead of answering he looked at Lucius and said, "After all, Lucius, you revealed to me in your Owl today that Hermione thinks polyjuice potion was used by someone to make us believe she killed Draco. Therefore, I find I have no repentance that I used it, if Hermione's theory is right, in putting this woman in Hermione's place in prison. After all, that's always been my theory, too."
Harry took Hermione's hands in his own, and said, "But I still have to prove it, and until I do, there's nothing we can do about any of this. We can't reveal who she really is, to anyone."
"You can tell me, you can tell us," Hermione beckoned, looking over at Lucius and then back to her best friend.
"No, I can't, not until I prove it, and also, because it's been ordered by the Minister of Magic himself. He's allowed me to do this, because he believes in her guilt as well, but I still need proof, some sort of link, to at least tie her to the letters from The Messenger, or proof that she actually used polyjuice potion to appear as you the day she killed Draco, something concrete that will hold up in trial, so you can finally really go free, Hermione."
Harry started out of the room and said, "By the way, Hermione, stop sending me Owls. I hate to admit it, but Lucius was right to seize them. I can't chance someone finding out that you're here. Lucius told me you're getting antsy, and I'm sorry, but you have to stay put, for now. Let me find out who this person is, and I will, I promise."
Hermione shot Lucius a hateful glare. He sat back down, crossed his legs, and perfected his best haughty glare right back at her, then he shrugged as he said, "I'll apologize for nothing. You heard it from Potter's very own lips. He thinks I did the right thing in intercepting those letters, and if St. Potter believes something is just and right, it must be so."
Harry walked out the door, but once in the hallway he turned again and said, "Hermione, did you ever ask yourself why Ron was in the room with Draco, just minutes before your wedding ceremony, when they hated each other? I've often asked myself that. I've even asked him. He's been truthful about so much, but that one little tidbit he's decided to keep secret. I know you don't want to see him, but perhaps you should. Perhaps he would tell you. Perhaps it would help us."
Hermione turned to face Lucius and said, "You've been intercepting my Owls to Harry?"
He cocked his head to the side, and shrugged again. "Guilty as charged, and is that really the only thing you want to discuss? How about the fact that Potter lied to you! He's apparently known for a long time who was behind murdering my son. Even he didn't trust you. Nor did he trust me, at least not enough to tell us! Weasley's keeping secrets, too! Perhaps you could exert a bit of your melancholy angst into some answers and find out what they're both hiding!"
Hermione took the crate of letters, books and parchments from the divan and threw it across the room, where the contents littered all over the floor, leaving a mess in its wake.
Lucius started out of the room and before he left he said, "Clean up this mess, won't you dear one? I'd hate to make the elves clean up after you. I think I'll tell them we'll be having a third to dinner. It's time Mr. Ronald Weasley came to visit his former best friend, don't you think? Don't bother with an Owl. I'll send it for you, since yours always seem to become woefully lost."
She growled and he shrugged again, just to irritate her.
"I swear, if you shrug once more time, I'm going to kick your head so far up your arse that your shoulders will no longer move," Hermione mumbled.
He laughed all the way down the hall.
Fine, she'd clean up this mess, and talk to Ron for the first time since she went to prison. She had many things to ask him, anyway. First being, did he know who Harry took to Azkaban in her place?
