Galleon For Your Thoughts?

If ya'll are interested, I have challenged myself to writing a drabble/short fiction every day of the summer until my fall classes. These are posted in my LJ. The easiest way to view them is here: http://hpmuse.livejournal.com/tag/drabble

Disclaimer: If I owned it or profited from it, I certainly would not be living at home with my mother at twenty-three.

Chapter 13: Galleon for Your Thoughts?

I woke the morning of my birthday late, having tossed and turned all night. Cissa and Bella were long gone. Illi had saved me some toast and pumpkin juice. She had apparently barely found room on my bedside table to place it. Atop the table sat a large green-wrapped box and five smaller parcels wrapped in similar silver. I smiled at Illi – a little forced, but I wanted to pretend at least that my birthday had not been marred by the previous night.

Illi must have seen something, because she caressed my back gently. "Madam Pomfrey is off for the next couple weeks or so. Mr. Pomfrey's death has hit her really hard, I think."

I nodded. Now that the subject was up, I wanted it gone. The pain in my chest was too much. Mr. Pomfrey did not deserve to die.

"He wasn't the only one killed," Illi murmured on. "The Three Broomsticks' manager, too. Little Rosie Rosmerta is pretty shaken up. Another old man died, too, but no one's been able to... to identify the body."

I stared into space. Three people. Three people dead so nearby. One of them left behind a small child, from the sounds of things. I shook my head ruefully. Why did people kill others? Why?

Illi cleared her throat. "Anyways... go on, then, love, open your presents! It's your birthday!"

I smiled up at her and took her advice. I opened the largest package, the one wrapped in green, first, delighted to find five brand-new books on various topics, a stack of mince pies, a new dark green jumper, and another new box of sugar quills. Did everyone know I was obsessed with the bloody things?

I nibbled on my toast as I started on the other gifts. Ali had bought me a handsome new eagle-feather quill, Illi a book on Cherokee-language spells. The entire dorm had come together and bought me an expensive-looking jade cobra with emerald eyes and silver-painted markings on its hood. The fourth gift was from Lucius, and I thought at first it was just a plain hair ribbon. However, Illi squealed with delight when the simple silk tie fell into my hands.

"By the gods, I knew he'd get you one!"

"What is it?" I asked, even as I opened the note that had come with the ribbon.

"Comb your hair," Illi said, a complete non sequitur. She reached around behind me and pulled a brush gently through my hair as I read the note.

Dear Hecate,

P.S. – My full name is Lucius Abraxas Malfoy.

"Done! Say it, Heck, come on. I want to see what it does."

I felt slightly ludicrous for randomly saying my other best friend's name. But, as soon as the final syllable left my lips, the silver ribbon flew from my hand and into my hair. Illi squealed again and spun around to her own bedside table. She returned moments later with a tiny hand mirror.

The ribbon had not only secured my hair back; it had pulled it into a simple French braid, a perfect bow setting curls afloat at the end. A few wisps of curls had escaped the ribbon's pull, and fell forward. I grinned up at Illi's beaming face.

"It's so cute! How'd he do that?"

"It's one of the reasons the Malfoys are so rich," Illi explained. "The ribbons are sold exclusively by mail-order only, and only one heir knows how it's done in each generation. The ribbons only do one hairstyle at a time, but gods do they ever save time!"

"This is perfect for Potions class," I said, handing back the mirror. "I'll have to thank Lucius when I see him. Thank you for the book."

"It's nothing," she said. "You've still got one more. Who's that from, anyway?"

I held up the neatly-wrapped gift, turning it over gently. "It doesn't say." I slit the small gift open gently, and then the box within the paper. Spiky handwriting fell from the box onto my lap. Inside were three glass phials full of pale pink liquid.

Take a phial of this potion once now, once at lunch, and the last at supper. You shouldn't get any more chills after that.

Severus Snape

I stared at the brief note incredulously. "He... he found a cure for the chills?"

"Who did?" Illi looked over my shoulder. "Snape? Snape gave you a potion that he made himself?"

"I guess so," I said faintly. I sniffed at the potion in the first phial. It didn't smell bad... and he wouldn't poison me, or anything stupid like that and give up his name. I tilted the potion back into my throat and swallowed.

A warming sensation crawled down my esophagus and spread throughout the rest of my body. It felt almost like a soothing hug, rather than a liquid I'd swallowed.

Illi sighed. "You don't understand. Severus is a genius with potions, but the only one he's ever given one to is Lily Evans. Did you, like, snog him in the hall or something?"

I blinked at her incredulously. "No! I didn't snog him. I've only talked to him twice now."

"That's more than most," Illi said dryly. "Only Lucius ever seems to get through to him otherwise. Apparently Luc did something for Severus during his first year, and he has been loyal to him ever since."

I hesitated. "Well... I did help him heal up after he wouldn't let Madam Pomfrey leave Evans last night. McGonagall and Lucius helped me, but..."

Illi nodded. "No one really does much for Severus. He's far too stand-offish for most our tastes, plus his obsession with Evans... I think this is his way of saying 'thank you,' then."

"But he must have... I mean... that was midnight last night!" I cried. "Either he already had this brewed or..."

"Or he stayed up to brew it for you," Illi breathed.

We stayed in the dungeon for the rest of the day, our lunch and dinner brought to us on a wide, buffet-style table that appeared from nowhere. I dutifully took the remaining two doses of mystery potion. Severus never caught my eye, nor did he pay any attention at all to me. He sat in a corner and read potions books all day long. His long black hair blocked his line of sight from anyone else.

From then on, I never felt another chill like the ones that had plagued me for three long months.

October slipped away with Halloween at the end, and then November snuck up cold and brittle. Wind howled at the windows all throughout the long month. All along the way, Scorpius and Remus and I traded the journal, shirt, and quill. It did not break. Remus got sick again mid-November, and I tried and tried to determine its cause. I could find nothing of his symptoms in any of the medical books I read.

Lucius, Illi, Rabastan, and I went together for the first Hogsmeade visit. I bought more of my sugar quills – I was thinking about just making certain I had a stock of them – and we drank butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. The cold and the security wizards didn't really let us do much else.

There were two Quidditch matches, starting with Slytherin versus Gryffindor at the beginning of the month and Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw at the end. I didn't attend either, and I was left mostly to myself in the common room. I preferred the warmth of the dungeon common room to the frigid wind of the Quidditch stands. No one else stayed, especially during the first match. I wanted no part of the game that had taken my brother from me – though I knew it was childish to blame it on Quidditch.

I kept getting better at defense spells, and I had almost exhausted the book supply that the older students lent me. The Marauders and Scorpius – I could never think of them as one and the same – continued to play pranks on poor Severus. Lily Evans still was the one who escorted him to the hospital wing when he got hurt or hexed.

The daily swims with Ali had toned my body more and more as the weeks passed on. I asked Molly for Christmas spending money and told her how many friends I wanted to shop for. The Hogsmeade visits were getting too cold, but I had catalogues to shop from, too. Molly astounded me yet again by sending me one hundred Galleons in a tightly sealed drawstring purse.

"Use it well – Love, Molly" was all that the accompanying note said. I began the hunt for Christmas gifts at the end of November. Mostly sweets – you couldn't go wrong with boys and sweets – but I tried to get something meaningful, too. I shopped first for Scorpius and Remus, knowing that I'd get to give them their gifts in person on Christmas morning. I was excited already, knowing that I would be home for Christmas for the first time in my own memory.

Funny, I hadn't been so excited about my birthday.

Lucius and Illi were sitting in the common room with me as I counted out six Galleons and three Sickles for a book on Japanese charms one early December evening. Lucius was working on a Transfiguration essay, and Illi was attempting in her magnanimous way to help him. I knew eventually I would be reading over it, too.

Suddenly, without warning, Lucius reached over and seized a particularly old-looking coin. "Hecate, can I have this Galleon? I'll trade you for a new one, this one has my lucky number on it."

Bemused, I nodded slowly. "Sure, Lucius, you can trade me for it. What's your lucky number?"

"Ninety-two," he said off-handedly, pulling a silver-gilded bag from his pocket. He picked up a handful of Galleons, casually perused them, and then handed me a particularly shiny one. "I seem to have all the luck when I've got a coin with that number on it in my pouch."

I grinned at him. "I'll have to remember that."

Abruptly, he stood and reached into his rucksack for a piece of parchment. "I have to owl my father, I need to ask his assistance on something." With that, he took off, leaving all of his things still strewn across the coffee table.

Not at all like the Lucius we knew.

Illi blinked. "Wonder what that was all about."

A few seconds later, Lucius returned again, running a hand through his hair in agitation. "Er... Heck, can I see you, um, in your, er, dorm room? Cissa and Bella aren't here, right?"

I stood up, alarmed. "Sure, Luc, anything. Illi, can you watch my things for me till we get back?"

Illi nodded absently, still writing on her Charms essay. "Sure, ooh-luh, just don't kick the sheets on the floor. Cissa will know immediately. You know how she gets."

Lucius flushed scarlet. He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the tapestries and curtains. After a moment or two of staring wild-eyed at me, he warded the curtain, silenced it, and put an Imperturbable Charm on it. Then he pulled me onto my bed, shut my hangings, and repeated the spells again.

I stared at him in utter bewilderment. "Lucius... what's wrong? You look, pardon the Muggle phrase, like you've seen a ghost or something."

Lucius' pale skin looked paler; he was an ashen gray color that matched much of his wardrobe outside of school robes. His silver eyes were wide with terror and shock so keen I wondered whether I should go for Madam Pomfrey. I half-stood to do just that when Lucius' hand wrapped tightly around my shoulder, pulling me back into the bed.

"Heck... love," he paused, his voice struggling for words. His large hands caught at his hair, mussing it well beyond what I've ever seen of him before. "S-Sister, I..."

"Lucius, what is wrong?" I asked, smoothing his hair back.

He swallowed hard, the sound of it audible in the absolute silence of twice-done Silencing Charms. He spoke slowly, as though quite uncertain what he'd gotten himself into. "Heck, do you remember that you mentioned that the hermit crab shell powders are used in Time-Turners?"

"Yes...?"

He took the old Galleon he'd traded with me from the pouch, and then a brand-new one that looked to be in mint condition. It was there that I saw what had taken him so utterly out of his element.

They were the same coin.

Not just the same goblin, not just coincidentally similar... they were the same exact coin. Except mine looked like it was twenty or thirty years old. I stared from serial number to serial number, at a complete loss.

"Molly has something to do with this," Lucius said firmly. "The potion you took, the one that Obliviated you so precisely. It had hermit crab shells in it. What if, when ingested, hermit crab shells change something to do with time?"

I whispered, more to myself than to Lucius. "Either I'm from the future, the past, or I've been de-aged. Scorpius and me both."

Lucius shook his head. "We can narrow it down further. Scorpius is a unique name, and he had a locket found on his person with that name. You two are not from the past, or the present. Damn it to fucking hell, Hecate. You're from the future. And somehow you got hold of one of the Malfoy coins."

"What do you mean, the Malfoy coins?" I whispered.

"This coin," Lucius held up the newly minted coin. "This was created specifically by Guthbert for the Malfoy heir – me. They do it for all the pureblood kids, if the family can afford it. My father minted this coin for me."

My breathing grew shallow. "But... but what am I doing in the past? My past? How far in the future am I from? Will I get my memories back...?"

"If... and don't quote me on this, Heck." Lucius stared me down with terror in his eyes, as though I were the one to fear here. "If I got Severus correctly when I wheedled it out of him, the potion will lapse over time – you'll get your memories back bit by bit as you move closer to a certain point."

"My birth," I breathed. "It's got to be."

"But what good is it to go to your past if you don't know what you're supposed to fix?" Lucius asked, his tone incredulous. "I mean, fuck it, Heck! What's the point?"

"I don't know," I said. I gestured to the old Malfoy coin. "Could I trade you back for that Galleon? It probably wouldn't do to have such a thing in circulation."

He nodded. "Yeah... keep it. Don't worry about paying me back."

I smiled softly. "Okay." I cocked my head to the side. "What did Illi mean by not kicking the sheets on the floor?"

Lucius chuckled low in his throat. His head came swooping down, his silver eyes level with mine, staring straight into my soul, it seemed. The move sent my heart flip-flopping oddly in my chest. "I think she meant, should we begin doing anything romantic, my dear."

He closed the distance between us abruptly, placing a soft, chaste kiss on my lips. My eyes widened in surprise at the warm, smooth feel of them there, of the jolt of molten magma shooting through my chest and core. A feeling, a throbbing ache started at the apex of my thighs. He backed away almost as quickly as he'd come. I didn't understand it, but he did not kiss me again.

"But you are too young for that, Hecate," he said, his voice a little husky. The sound sent more of those odd sensations shooting to my core. "Starting tonight, I'm going to teach you Occlumency."

"What's that?" I asked, not having come across it in my readings.

"It's closing off your mind to outward invasions, people trying to read your thoughts," he said. "I'm going to teach you to do it so that when you do remember yourself, if it is anyone who knows something someone shouldn't know... I'll teach you so well, even the Dark Lord will not be able to pry open your mind."

I smiled at him, the power of those words echoing within me as surely as his kiss had done. "I'd like that, Lucius."

He settled against the backboard of my bed and held his arms out to me. Feeling a bit like a child in a storybook I'd read once, I sat against his chest, my left thigh meshing with his. Hands, large on my leanly muscled shoulders and biceps, massaged gently. His pointed, long nose nuzzled my hair, the skin behind my ears. Waves of tingles spread out from my ear, sending a very different kind of chill over my body with every whispered word.

"Clear your mind, Hecate. Clear it of every thought, of every memory; focus on the sound of my voice. Close your eyes. Think of a calm ocean, of the Black Lake, or the open field of grass. Think of nothing and yet everything at once."

I did as he bade, and slowly the pleasurable chills lulled into a sleepy sort of haze. His chest rumbled at my back. I realized with a lazy start that he was chuckling so softly that I could barely hear him, even with his mouth so near my ear.

"You learn things so simply, Hecate," he murmured, his voice lower, a smooth quality that I had never quite heard from my white-blond older friend. It sent more of those pleasure-hazed tingles through me. I felt a light bit of pressure on my head; he'd kissed my hair. His hands moved over my arms again, soft yet powerful. "Focus that enormous brain power of yours on an image you are most comfortable with. Your room, for instance, or your dressing table."

My image, however, was neither of those things. It was the library I'd first seen in my head, the library that had held all of the information I had begun this life anew with. The single bookcase, the simple table, the squashy red velvet armchair. The window that seemed to show only snow-covered ground and distant trees. I held the image in my head, nodding even as Lucius' large hands moved from my arms and nestled over my abdomen, just beneath my breasts.

"You have the image, clear in your mind, love?" Lucius asked.

"Yes." I was startled to find my voice breathy. Lucius' chest rumbled under my back again. His hands danced over my abdomen and belly, gently rubbing as though I had a stomachache he was trying to soothe away. It was strangely enticing, setting my nerves on a pleasurable end.

"Good. Now put every memory you have ever had with Scorpius inside whatever you deem safest. In a locked cabinet, or a heavily warded drawer. This space is Extendable, so it can hold as many memories as you like. Picture yourself taking each memory and placing it carefully in the drawer."

I found it strange that he had mentioned Scorpius in particular, but I did as I was told. I had a lot of memories of Score, considering it was he I had hung around with for most of my summer. I took the whole of that time and hid it away. The time chunk was enormous, like a giant poster, but I rolled it up and snapped elastic around it. I stuck the roll in a gouged-out copy of Moste Potente Potions, and continued to do that to each and every memory of Scorpius Taylor.

All the while, Lucius continued explaining in that low, soft voice of his.

"This is similar to a Pensieve, love. You will sense the memories are not there where they ought to be. But anyone who is looking into your head will not sense the gap unless it is quite large, usually spanning weeks or more. They cannot sense your emotions in any memory they find, love, but they can observe memories as easily as you could. Are you nearly done?"

I nodded, my eyes still closed. His hands, I noticed, had stilled on the peaks of my hipbones. He turned my head to face him.

"Open your eyes."

I did, and as soon as my brown eyes had locked onto his grey ones, he whispered a spell. "Legilimens."

I felt the presence in my mind, an outsider probing in my frontal lobes. Lucius' touch was as gentle here as his hands on my hips. Not once did an image of Scorpius come up, even in places that I would have seen him from afar, like the Great Hall.

But Lucius saw me open my Christmas present from Severus, saw Illi's delight at the ribbon he'd given me. He watched the first time I met Severus Snape, when Score had been in the back room. He saw from my perspective the first time I shocked Crabbe; a random Herbology class.

The presence of Lucius' probing left as gently as it came. I had never attempted to keep him from Scorpius' images, but he seemed not to have tried to get to them, either. He smiled gently.

"I only used what is known as level one Legilimency," he explained. "The Dark Lord uses level seven – the strongest there is. Take your memories back out of your hiding place. We'll continue this tomorrow evening."

He removed the spells from around my curtains, and then the spells from the dorm's curtains. His gentle hands on my hips stayed, though. Grey eyes crinkled into a sweet smile.

"I'd like that," I said softly, afraid to break the hold this intimate position between us had begun. Slowly, so he had time to back away should he wish it, I stretched up to his face. When he didn't move, when he didn't look away, I closed the remaining space and kissed him chastely on the lips.

He kissed back, his gentle hands pulling my hips back toward his. A hard pressure found the back of my bum. He broke contact with my lips in favor of a hiss.

"Did I hurt you?" I whispered, nearly frantic.

"No, no," he murmured, dipping down to kiss me again, too shortly, too chastely. "You are too young for this, love, but I will not..." He kissed me, the pressure harder, the passion in him coming briefly to the surface. Lucius broke off as quickly as he'd started. "I will not do this until you are ready, Hecate."

With that, he left, not another word one way or the other.

For some reason, I felt rather frustrated with him.

_-~*~-_

December began to wane, but my various activities continued with no little improvement. Lucius was pleased with my Occlumency skills – as if I had many memories to hide, or any that I wanted to hide from him, at any rate. My grades remained high, my homework done well ahead of time. Remus, Scorpius, and I continued trading the journal, quill, and shirt in Potions. Severus continued to ignore me in a more polite fashion than he ignored the rest of the House.

And of course, I continued buying Christmas presents.

Our end-of-term exams were simple at best, and I beamed at my excellent grades. Even Illi conceded that it was damn near impossible to get an "O" in McGonagall's classes, let alone Vector's.

Remus was sick again, in the hospital wing, and it was only a day before we would leave to go home for the holidays. Madam Pomfrey still would not let me see him until the next morning. I was sure he was going to look as haggard and overgrown as before. Still, I had not found what afflicted him.

I sat in the common room that evening, re-reading Moste Potente Potions, as Madam Pince had refused to allow me to bring any books home with me. I had read all the others' books, and my birthday presents were long devoured (except a precious few sugar quills).

A knock on the door leading into the hall ceased most conversations. A sixth-year got up to answer. Quavering as though its knees might give from sheer terror, a house-elf stood on the outside, its bulging, tennis-ball-sized eyes shut tight and its long nose almost brushing the plush green carpet.

"F-For Master Malfoy, sirs," it shook.

The sixth-year took a parchment envelope, and the house-elf vanished without saying a word more. Lucius stood from his game of chess with Rabastan – who was losing – and took the envelope with unnerving grace. With an easy flick of his wand, the envelope vanished and the letter within fell into his hands.

Around us, the common room returned to its usual banter. However, Lucius leaned around the chessboard to look at Illi and me. "My father's invited you two to the Manor for our annual Christmas ball. He thought it prudent to send your invites to me first."

He handed me a silver leaflet and an identical one to Illi. Lucius stood and strode to the tapestry leading to our dorms. I understood without him having to say anything – he wanted a private conversation with Illi and me. We both followed him.

He cast the same three spells he did whenever we had Occlumency lessons. Illi hadn't been told about the lessons. So far, she hadn't asked what we were doing alone in the dorm room. I think Lucius wanted it kept secret between us, and I obeyed his wish only because I wanted to keep having the lessons. To be able to block out the Dark Lord himself... even I knew what that could mean for me.

Lucius had explained it to me in no uncertain terms. Slytherins usually joined him in the sixth year. I didn't want to become a murderer like the ones who had killed Healer Pomfrey, but neither did I want to be killed myself. Slytherins who forsook the Master often ended up dead... or worse.

That was why Lucius could block minds so well. He seemed to have several reasons for teaching me how. I wondered often why Illi had not been drawn into these lessons, but I did not ask – yet.

It was a Slytherin thing to do, after all.

The silver leaflets told us nothing more and nothing less than that we were invited on the twenty-sixth of December to Malfoy Manor. That was it. No other information, no idea of what to wear or how to act – I didn't know the first thing about how to act in a ballroom. Dancing? Would there be dancing? I knew these things usually required dress robes, but what kind? How fancy?

Lucius must have seen the calculating, escalating panic in my eyes. Even though I had a grasp on my emotions, Lucius said that my eyes gave me away. I would have to eventually keep them blank. For now, he didn't admonish me for it.

"This is... not good," Lucius admitted after a few beats, the wards he'd erected humming with the energy he'd put behind them. "My father has never invited my schoolmates along to the ball."

"What do you think he has in mind?" Illi asked.

Lucius winced as though she'd physically struck him. "I think... oh, gods. I think he wants you to meet the Dark Lord."

My far-more-simple worries of what to wear and dancing evaporated with a gasp. Illi and I blinked at him, our faces identically owl-eyed. "Us?! Now?! Why?"

"The Dark Lord only asks to see people early if they have potential," Lucius said, his irritation coming out in the form of arm wheeling and pacing. "He wants you in particular, Heck, but Illi is so far along with her duel-lessons that he asked for her, too."

Slowly, the implications of his statements clicked into place. "You told your father about our marks?" My voice hit a shrill note at the end.

Lucius paled. "It's my job. That's what the Dark Lord has me do. He chooses one child of a Death Eater... when I graduate, I daresay Ali will take over."

My heart froze in my chest. Ali... little Ali, reporting to the Dark Lord the achievements of the House? She was still so terrified! So shy!

Something in the way Lucius looked, however, made me fear all the more for her. "Lucius, who refused to go?"

Lucius glanced back at me on a pace toward Narcissa's bed, his expression openly startled. "Wh-What?"

"I asked, who refused?"

He grit his teeth. "Severus did. When the Dark Lord heard that he refused because he was so enamored with a Mudblood... I have never seen my father cry before. I don't ever wish to behold it again."

Lucius unconsciously wrapped his arms around himself, and I knew that Abraxas Malfoy had cried not because it was he who would have been hurt, but Lucius. That Lucius was more disturbed by his father's tears than his own body's pain was a testament to the fifteen-year-old before me. A flare of pride swelled in my chest.

"Don't worry," I murmured gently.

"Yeah, ooh-doe," Illi said. It was the first time she'd ever called him "brother." "I don't think you'll need to worry about Heck and me."

I was reminded of the first time I spoke to Illiad Parkinson on the train. Unbidden, Johnny Cash's song played in my head. He died drunk, early one morning, alone in the land he found to save, two inches of water in a lonely ditch was a grave for Ira Hayes. I shuddered at the thought.

Surely this was entirely different?

Surely the two Indians were completely different, my Illiad Parkinson fighting against Mudbloods in our school, and Ira Hayes fighting a war he didn't start for a group of people who didn't even care about him?

Somehow, though, the similarities shook me to the core.

I swallowed and asked a question that I had dared not bring up since that first day on the train. "Er... Illi... how did your mother die?"

The question was completely out of the blue, and I knew it. I also knew that I wanted the answer. The fact was written on my face. I knew it. I also knew that I was being quite Slytherin in the way I asked, in the way I probed. Somehow, that didn't ease the clench in my gut as Illi answered.

"My father caught her in a liaison with a Muggle man in the States," she said softly. "He divorced her. She killed herself not long after that. He died a year later. I was a first-year. My maternal uncle took my half-brother and me in during the summers. That's why I'm always over in the States. My half-brother has been staying with the Crabbes these past few years, though."

"I never asked, what's your brother's name?"

"Half-brother," she corrected instantly. "His name is Hamlet Mulciber. Our mother was the same, not father." She tossed her hair in a fit of pique. "If I ever have a child, I'm going to give her my surname. I'd name her something that I'd put in a love potion, perhaps."

"Pansies, daisies, and roses are common love potion flowers," I said, instantly drawing on my old habit of spouting knowledge. "And pansies are used for inducing creative thoughts."

"Pansy Parkinson..." Illi smiled dreamily. "Doesn't that just have a lovely ring to it, Hecate?"

I tried to recall how we'd gotten into this string of conversation and gave it up as a bad job. Going from discussing the terrifying idea of visiting the Dark Lord day after Christmas morning to what to name Illi's future daughter was unsettling.

Illi shook her head, bemused. "Well... how should we act when we get there, Lucius?"

Lucius started pacing again, as though the conversation had never derailed. "I can't teach you how to act or anything. The Dark Lord will be satisfied with however you deem appropriate to act – it's Christmas, and he's very understanding of new people. He'll be especially lenient as you're from the States and you're... well, Obliviated."

It didn't take a genius to figure out which of us he was referring to on each of these statements, even though he never looked up from his pacing. I reached out and stopped him.

"Then don't worry about it," I said. "It will be all right."

"He won't try to read your minds the first time you meet," Lucius said, barely taking my words into account. "But I will have to start giving you Occlumency lessons, Illi. We can't let the Dark Lord find out about Hecate's associations with Lupin and her brother. It would be disastrous."

I didn't need to ask how it would be; just thinking of Healer Pomfrey was enough of an answer. Illi nodded solemnly.

As Illi turned to leave, I turned to Lucius and whispered. "Why hadn't we been teaching her before this?"

"I didn't want her to have access to your other memories, should you have gotten them," he whispered back. "I should not even know, love."

I drew back in surprise. Lucius merely nodded toward the common room. Slowly, I returned the nod – it would not do to lose appearances, after all.

Not in this House.

_-~*~-_

The idea of pureblood Galleons came to me when my mom started going through my old baby stuff. I figured that purebloods HAD to have something that they could present to their children at some time in the future. This is also Molly's thievery of the Malfoy vaults coming back to bite her in the arse.

As for Lucius teaching Heck Occlumency, I figured that as Sev considered him such a mentor figure early on, that this may have been where he learned to Occlude in the first place.