Three

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I make no money here.

AN: This story was written for the 2010 ss/hg_exchange as a gift for lady_karelia. Many thanks to my wonderful betas, dreamy_dragon73 and Clairvoyant.

Hermione left the room without another word. The three men looked at each other. Lucius shook his head and said, "She is never going to accept this idea, Kings. It's an impossible situation."

"I blame myself for this, Lucius. I shouldn't have tried to rush things. I should have taken it more gradually. Given her some time to come around."

"Come around?" questioned Lucius. "The woman hates me, and although it hurts me to say it, she probably has good reason. That is certainly not conducive to a harmonious partnership."

"Listen," said Harry. "Hermione explodes, but she doesn't stay angry for long. Like Kingsley said, let's give her some time and see if she comes around."

"You do realize that if this plan comes to fruition, her cooperation must be given willingly. You cannot coerce her into this, Kingsley, not in any way. It won't be successful if she's coming into it with negative feelings. In fact, it could make matters much worse, if that were the case," advised Lucius seriously.

"All right, I understand, Lu. But don't give up yet. Like Harry and I both said, give Hermione some time before you write off the whole idea."

The three continued discussing issues involved in the project for the next hour before Lucius got up to leave. Kingsley advised, "In the meantime you keep checking on our other problem and keep me informed on what's happening on that front. Okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I'll let you know if I hear anything at all. Of all the times for him to decide to wander off on another of his little adventures, this is most inconvenient. I don't understand why the man can't simply settle down in one place, but...no he has to meander off across the globe."

As Lucius donned his cloak, he pulled a folded scrap of parchment from his pocket and handed it to Kingsley. On it were two runes, Tiwaz and Algiz. "Give these to her and tell her to add them to the equations. Perhaps they will pique her interest."

"Well, if nothing else, she'll be intrigued by the challenge, especially if these work out like I expect them to." Kingsley eyed Lucius speculatively. "Have you already seen the results on this, Lu?"

"Yes." That was all he said as he walked out the door of the study.

Harry eyed Kingsley with a smirk. "Kings? Lu? I had no idea you were so chummy with Lucius Malfoy."

Kingsley explained, "Lucius and I were schoolmates. We were in the same year, different houses. We were very good friends for a time, not an easy thing for a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff. A shared love and aptitude for Arithmancy is actually what brought us together in the first place, but after we left school we went in opposite directions, obviously.

"I heard all of the things Hermione said about him earlier. She's right for the most part. It was the truth, but I remember a different Lucius Malfoy. I remember the man who was my friend, and I have to believe that he's in there still and hope that he can be redeemed."

"I hope you're right, Kingsley," said Harry. Then he chucked him on the shoulder. "Hufflepuff? Seriously? I would have picked you for a Gryffindor or maybe a Ravenclaw. But a Puff?"

"Hufflepuff through and through and proud of it, Harry...damned proud of it!"

~

Hermione paused in the hallway. Rather than escape to her room after her confrontation with Malfoy, she had gone down to the kitchen and let Kreacher soothe her with tea and biscuits.

She was on her way back upstairs a while later when she heard voices in the hallway. Confused, she paused to listen. Not intending to eavesdrop, but unable to stop herself, she eased forward to hear what was being said and realized it was the voice of Lucius Malfoy. He was speaking to a woman. It took her several seconds to figure out that it was the portrait of Mrs. Black, the harridan who used to scream and swear at them. She had been much quieter over the last few years, muttering epithets under her breath from time to time, but she was nowhere near as bad as she used to be. Surprisingly, the old lady in the portrait seemed to have developed a fondness for James.

As Hermione stood in the shadows, she heard Mrs. Black speaking. The old lady sounded like she was crying. What the hell?

"Oh, Lucius...my darling little Cissy. I can't believe she's gone...so young. It's terrible, and to think her own sister would do something like that. That Bella, she always was a bad seed."

She heard Malfoy speak, but he murmured so softly she could barely make out the words. "I loved her so much, Aunt Walli; it's so hard now that she's gone. I made so many mistakes. If not for me, for the choices I made, things might have ended differently."

Taking a chance, she quickly peeked around the corner and was shocked to see Lucius Malfoy dabbing the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief. Was he crying? She felt a bit guilty for the things she'd said about him earlier, even though she still felt they were true.

She did have to allow, however, that it was quite possible that the man had loved his wife. From what she had learned from Harry, who had stayed in touch with Narcissa after the war, she'd not had a gentle death. Her own sister had cursed her at the Battle of Hogwarts when she'd realized that Narcissa had lied to Voldemort about Harry's death. But she hadn't cast an Avada Kedavra. Instead, she'd used the Tardus Dolens Nex curse, literally 'slow painful death'. Narcissa had wasted away in constant pain that no potion could touch, no healing spell could ease. It had been a long lingering death. An Avada Kedavra would have been kinder. But then, Bellatrix had never been kind, the crazy bitch. She'd been Voldemort's loyal servant to the very end. Hearing the door shut, she peeked again to see the hallway empty. Malfoy had gone on his way.

Heading up to her room, she ran into Kingsley and Harry in the hallway outside her study. Kingsley was leaving.

"You owe me an explanation, Minister," Hermione demanded curtly. "You just parcel off all of my projects to other staff without even consulting me about it?"

"Hermione," he responded, "this project of yours is more important than anything else on your agenda. This way you can devote your full time to it instead of just working on it in your spare time and driving yourself to exhaustion."

"You should have come to me, asked me at least," she stated, somewhat mollified by his explanation. "It would be wonderful, though, to be able to spend all of my time working on my own project."

"I suppose I should have handled it differently. Draco tried to warn me; I guess I should have listened to him. Here," he said, handing her the slip of parchment that Lucius had given him earlier. "Add this to your equation and see what happens. I'll stop by tomorrow, and we can discuss your results." She shoved it into her pocket without even looking at it and turned away.

When Harry returned from walking Kingsley to the door, Hermione was standing by the window gazing out at the street, a glass of Firewhisky in her hand. It was a very bad sign; Hermione rarely drank anything stronger than butterbeer or the occasional glass of wine.

"Hermione?"

"I've been thinking, Harry. Maybe the time has come for me to get my own place."

Harry exclaimed, "Hermione, no! This is about what I said earlier, isn't it? I'm sorry, really. I spoke without thinking."

Hermione shook her head, blinking rapidly to try to stall the sting of tears. "No, Harry, you were absolutely right. This is your home, and you have every right to invite whoever you want here. I have no right to question it."

He swallowed. "Sis, please don't say that. This is your home too; you belong here with us. We need you. James needs you... I need you."

Hermione gave her head another little shake. "That was true once. When I moved in here after... what happened... after..." She bit her bottom lip...any harder and it would have drawn blood...then she took a sip of her whisky for courage. "After what happened at the Burrow, we did need each other. Helping you take care of James was the only thing that kept me sane. Having you and George and James gave my life purpose; I don't know how I could have coped otherwise. But things are changing, and life goes on. George moved out last year when he and Angelina got married; he's moved on with his life, and that's a good thing... a very good thing.

"Maybe, we need to do that too, Harry, move forward. But I'm not so sure I can do that while I'm here because even though I live here... it's not really my home. It's your and Ginny's home, and even though she's gone, it will always be hers." She laid her forehead against the window; the glass felt cool on her brow.

"Hermione, I know it's been hard. It's hard for me too, seeing George and Angelina together. I want to be joyful for them, but I still miss Ginny. I remember how happy we were, and I feel cheated. I look at James, and I can see bits of her, and sometimes I see a hint of Molly's smile, or when he wrinkles his brow, I can see a little part of Arthur."

"You know, I envy you that. At least you have James," she said softly, sadly. "I've noticed lately... it's getting harder and harder for me to remember Ron. The sound of his voice, the color of his eyes, the touch of his lips on mine." She traced her fingers over her lips as if trying to remember. "What I had with Ron is gone. I can never change it; I can never fix it. I'm the know-it-all, Harry. I'm supposed to fix things." She choked on a sob. "You know, if it weren't for the fact that I had Jamie with me that day, I almost wish... that I had been there with them. Ginny should have been here with James instead... Then you would still have her, and I'd be with Ron."

"Don't say that, Hermione, don't," Harry exclaimed, spinning her around and hugging her.

"I still miss him so much, Harry. He would have been twenty-five today." She sobbed on Harry's shoulder, holding on to him like a lifeline.

"Oh, no. Aww... baby! It's Ron's birthday today, and I forgot. Oh, gods, Hermione, I'm so sorry." Pulling her over to the sofa, he sat next to her and held her close.

"I want him back, Harry. I want him back. And Ginny and Molly and Arthur and Percy. I want them all back. I want our lives back." Hermione cried in his arms, as if her heart were breaking all over again.

"I hate them! I hate the fucking Lestranges! And then, when I saw Malfoy here tonight, I hated him too. I couldn't help but think that he was just like them: a hateful, vicious, pure-blooded monster."

"Shhh..." Harry held her and let her cry out her grief and anger; he shed a few tears himself in the process. "I can understand why you felt that way, but he's not a monster. I never thought I'd see the day I'd be defending a Malfoy, but he's not like that anymore. Maybe he was once, but the things that happened during the war and afterward changed him. I got to know him and Draco a bit through my friendship with Cissy. While I don't consider Lucius a close friend, I do know that he's different now. "

"I realize that too now. I saw him when he was leaving; he was talking to Mrs. Black's portrait. He was telling her about how her niece had died. He loved her, Harry. He loved Narcissa. He was crying, and I really felt bad for the things I'd said earlier. It seems the Malfoys have had no kindness from the Lestranges either."

"No, for all that, they were supposed to be family. I saw what that curse did to Cissy. To think that her own sister would do something like that is horrible. You're right, he loved his wife very much. That much was apparent when I saw them together. I think realizing the danger he put his family in has made him rethink the things he grew up believing."

Hermione sniffled and pulled a tissue out of her pocket. Along with it came the scrap of parchment Kingsley had given her earlier. After wiping her eyes and loudly blowing her nose, she looked at the parchment. "This isn't Kingsley's handwriting."

"Don't get upset, Hermione. He was hoping you would agree to allow Lucius to consult on your project; that's why he was here tonight. I know he should have talked to you first, but he's so excited about your ideas that he just wanted to forge ahead. He really thinks that you're onto something that could make a massive difference to the entire wizarding world; he believes in you, Hermione. The reason he asked Lucius here is, according to Kingsley, he's an Arithmantic whiz, a lot like you. I didn't know this myself until tonight, but they were friends at Hogwarts, and did you know that Kingsley was in Hufflepuff?"

"Kingsley? No, it doesn't surprise me, though; he's one of the most loyal, fair, hard-working guys I know. Now the fact that he and Malfoy were friends, that surprises me."

"Yeah, me too. It must have been really hard for Kingsley during the war. I think he's hoping that this project will be a step towards Malfoy's redemption."

Hermione looked at the parchment. "Okay," she said with a sigh. "Let's see what this turns up."

"Fuck! It's cold in here!" Severus exclaimed when he awoke, the blankets pulled up over his head and just the tip of his nose poking out. Reaching over to the bedside table, he grabbed his wand and cast a warming charm. It was warmer under the covers, but the room was still freezing; the fire in the wood stove had obviously gone out during the night. Recasting a stronger warming charm, he threw back the blankets and scrambled to get his clothes on before the charm dissipated. He would definitely need to re-evaluate his habit of sleeping in the nude. Going into the main room, he tossed some logs into the stove and used his magic to get them started. Thank Merlin for magic, he thought. If I had to wait for it to get going naturally, I'd be freezing my arse off.

Severus decided to hold off on a morning shower until the cabin had warmed sufficiently. He went about fixing a pot of coffee and started a breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast. By the time he was ready to eat, it was once again comfortably warm in his humble abode.

By midmorning he had things squared away. All of his personal belongings, which he had stored shrunken down in large box, had been restored to size and put away about the cabin. He was going to be here for at least a month and quite possibly longer, so he would be more comfortable with his books and things about him.

Judging by how cold it had gotten the night before, he figured that the spring thaw was a few weeks away yet, which would give him time to locate the most likely spots for the Spiralhorn sprouts to grow. The sprouts themselves were practically mythical. It was said they grew only in certain areas in the far northern regions of North America, possibly some parts of the continental United States and most likely Alaska but definitely in Canada. His research had led him to this place in Ontario; he hoped it was right. He'd read of it in a journal of a Potions master who had traveled here and lived among the Indian tribes during the last century.

The sprouts shot out of the soil at first thawing and had the appearance of a twisted horn, much like a unicorn horn. They needed to be harvested within days of sprouting, preferably by moonlight, or they would lose all of their potency. The plant was also known as the miracle plant, and when brewed in certain potions, it was said to heal the gravest illness, to bring people back from the very brink of death. It certainly would be a very handy ingredient to have in stock.

He only wished he had learned of it earlier; he might have been able to save Narcissa from her sister's curse. He regretted that with all his heart. The Malfoys had been his friends for a very long time, and if not for their help, he would never have survived the war. There were very few people in this world that he gave a damn about; but he was determined that in the future, if someone he cared for was in need, he would be in a position to make a difference.

tbc