Chapter 6

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His Draught of Delicate Poison

Chapter 6

Thou are not lovelier than lilacs, – no,

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Snape Apparated to the safe spot behind the Leaky Cauldron and strode up the street, his brow furrowed in his customary scowl. He came upon the granite steps of the dignified house with the green door and trod up to ply the heavy brass knocker.

The door was opened by a house-elf who greeted him with a deep bow. "Good morning, Professor Snape," the elf said, taking Snape's cloak. "Welcome to the Cave. Master Malfoy is asking for sir this morning."

Snape gave the elf an inquiring glance. "Master Malfoy is being in the green parlour, Professor, sir."

With a curt nod of thanks, Snape climbed the carpeted stairs to the first floor and entered the parlour to his left. The room was typical of those to be found in gentlemen's clubs all over London; it was paneled in mahogany and the carpets on the floor were venerable old Axminsters. The wingback chairs and sofas were upholstered in well-kept leather in shades of green. On the highly polished end tables could be found copies of the Daily Prophet, as well as wizarding periodicals; on the two writing desks in opposite corners of the room one could find new quills, the best ink, and hot pressed paper that bore the discreet club heading:

The Crystal Cave

London

Seated before the bay window was Lucius Malfoy, a magazine spread negligently across his crossed legs and a bone china teacup at his lips. He was the only occupant of the room. He wore beautifully tailored black robes; his long white-blond hair was gathered in a queue at the nape of his neck, confined by a plain black band.

"Severus, I heard you were in town. Please, join me for a cup of tea." One languid hand indicated the chair opposite his in the window embrasure. Lucius watched in some concern as his old friend collapsed with an unwonted lack of grace into the chair. "Perhaps you need something a bit more bracing this morning. Let me ring for some – brandy? Scotch?"

Snape raised a humorous eyebrow. "Even I have not sunk so low as to be drinking spirits for breakfast, Lucius." He gladly accepted the dark tea Lucius passed to him. "Have you seen Draco since you've been in town?"

Lucius laughed. "Only when we have met at social functions. Draco is taking the business of finding a wife quite seriously." With a measuring look, Lucius added, "My son has cultivated an unaccountable taste for the company of ... his comrades. He has also developed a bit of an aversion for what he terms my 'old-fashioned ideas.'"

In a mild tone, Snape replied, "He has no interest in Pansy Parkinson, Lucius. He seems to be confining his attentions to the young women who served with him in the Order."

"Remind me, Severus..."

Snape rattled off the names. "Katie Bell, Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Alicia Spinnet, Nymphadora Tonks, and Ginny Weasley. Oh, and Hermione Granger – I suppose you have not seen her yet."

"Yes, Miss Granger – she has become quite a popular young lady," Lucius said blandly. "I saw her at the Gala night, Severus, which you would know if you had bothered to attend."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I detest inane social gatherings."

"Well, you have already done your duty and entered into a marriage contract. I, on the other hand, still have my work cut out for me."

Snape sneered. "Well, do me a favour and marry Hermione Granger. I would be most obliged to you."

Lucius laughed. "Almost anything else for your sake, dear boy, but not marrying that child. I believe that she secretly despises me, still, even if she is much too well-behaved to demonstrate it to the world."

Snape snorted. "I was joking, Lucius. If you wanted to marry her, I would do everything in my power to dissuade you from it. She is impossible. The only good thing I know about her is that her mind is as sharp as a razor." He looked at his friend with an expression of slightly amused annoyance. "She had the bloody impertinence to steal a book off my shelves when my back was turned."

Lucius looked about the room to make sure they were still alone.

"Not your Dark Arts library?"

"The same. And she read through the thing very quickly. She was trying to force me into helping her set up her own library. I won't do it, of course." A contemplative look crossed his face. "In the right circumstances, however, I would not mind directing her reading on the subject – just as the tutors do in the Muggle universities."

"Don't look now, Severus, but I think you may be about to have that opportunity."

Snape jerked his head around so quickly that he strained his neck. Emerging from Borgin and Burkes, through a side door which opened onto Diagon Alley, was Hermione Granger in the flesh, accompanied by that blasted Bulgarian Quidditch player – Blum? Crumb?

Lucius found himself looking at the empty chair where Snape had been seated seconds before; he then heard Snape cursing all the way down to the door. The house-elf was still standing in the open doorway of the club with Snape's cloak in his hands when Lucius strolled down the stairs. Taking Snape's cloak from the agitated elf, Lucius retrieved his own cloak and cane and followed his friend into the street.

Hermione, seeing Snape rushing out of the men's club, encouraged Viktor to go keep their appointment to meet Tonks at Gladrags, assuring him that she would find her own way home.

"Hello, Professor," she said amiably, walking up to Snape with a smile. She turned the smile on Lucius when he joined them on the pavement. "Hello, Mr. Malfoy." Pulling the heavy tome from its bag, she displayed the title, Pravus Veneficus. "What do you think? I believe I got a real bargain – only fifty Galleons!"

Snape snatched the book from her hands and thrust it violently into its bag. "Do you want to be seen with contraband? Where did you get that book?" he demanded in a voice shaking with fury.

Clearly diverted, Lucius said, "That's rather obvious, don't you think, Severus?" He removed the much-abused shopping bag from Snape's clutching fingers and handed it to Hermione with a slight bow. "The real question here is, how did you know where to go? Or get them to speak with you, once you got there?"

"Viktor knew where to go. He went to school at Durmstrang, you know," she said, turning guileless brown eyes up to Snape's face.

Lucius was intrigued in spite of himself when Snape turned on his heel and strode away without another word.

"Miss Granger," he said smoothly, "please let me buy you a cup of tea – or perhaps an ice cream? Fortescue's is very near at hand."

Hermione agreed and took the proffered arm as they made their way desultorily down to Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, taking time to window shop as they went. Hermione had been most doubtful of Lucius Malfoy's change of allegiance in the War. It had seemed bad enough at the time to have to accept Draco into their ranks as an Order member; it passed the bounds of the believable the night that she, Harry, and Ron had walked into the kitchen at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, only to find a blindfolded Lucius Malfoy present for his first Order meeting.

It was after the pointless death of his wife, Narcissa, that Lucius' eyes were finally opened to the futility of the path he had begun so many years before, when he was young and encouraged by his own father to believe that pureblood families were the landed aristocracy of the wizarding world. Jean-Luc Malfoy had welcomed Tom Riddle at Malfoy Manor and had given the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort financial support in return for the Dark Lord's promise that Lucius would have a prominent role in his organization.

Even after his father's death, Lucius had continued on in Voldemort's service. As the years went by and as he began to think for himself, slowly shedding his father's beliefs, he had come to see the error of his choices. He had not believed there would ever be a way for him to leave the Dark Lord's service and still protect his wife and son.

Then had come the event which would change Lucius' life irrevocably. Voldemort had heard of a magical artefact that was owned by an old witch who lived in Dieppe. The item was a jewel-encrusted dagger, reputed to have been the favoured side-arm of Salazar Slytherin. The Dark Lord immediately summoned a party of his Death Eaters to him, so that he could instruct them on their mission: to go to France and to return with the dagger. He cared not how the deed was accomplished, providing they put the heirloom into his scaly hands.

Lucius was placed in charge of the project and he was given the so-called assistance of three new recruits whose names no one had yet bothered to learn. They had Apparated to Dieppe and begun the process of locating the old witch and learning how they might best approach her to obtain possession of old Salazar's fancy knife.

It was while he was away that Narcissa had received her own summons from the Dark Lord. She had pledged her loyalty to Voldemort when she became Lucius' wife, as a matter of form. Her own family were purebloods who thought that Voldemort had the right idea about how the world should be run; it was perfectly natural for her to join her husband in the Dark Lord's service. Her part had not been a very active one. She had, when required to do so, donned the robe and the mask of a Death Eater, but as a wife and mother, she was excused from many duties, regardless of the fact that she had house-elves to cook, clean, and look after her only child.

Lucius was the only one who knew – or so he had foolishly believed, at the time – that Narcissa was reluctant to see Draco take the Dark Mark and that her reluctance was causing her to grow ever more agitated as Draco drew closer to adulthood. In retrospect, Lucius had come to believe that Narcissa's reticence had been the catalyst that marked her as an unnecessary risk to Lord Voldemort.

Lucius' sources for information on the actual sequence of events that night were varied and the reports were sketchy. His own house-elves informed him that their mistress had been asleep when her sister, Bellatrix, had appeared in Malfoy Manor and had hastened to waken her. The enemy had obtained information on Voldemort's whereabouts and they were on the move; a new safe house had to be immediately prepared for the Dark Lord's use. No, house-elves could not do the work; Narcissa herself was summoned to go to the location and make ready for the coming of Lord Voldemort. The senior house-self had reported that Mistress had complained about the inconvenience, but she had dressed and left the house to do her sister's bidding.

Bellatrix had been the one who showed up in Lucius' room at the inn in France. She had been utterly distraught as she fell into his arms and told him that Narcissa was dead. The Dark Lord had been in danger and he had to be moved. He was convinced there was a spy in their midst, and had insisted on having three different places prepared to receive him, to confuse Dumbledore and the Order. The house to which Narcissa had been assigned had mysteriously burned to the ground with her inside of it. Incidentally, it had not been the house which Voldemort had chosen as his new hideout. No, the house where Narcissa had died was merely a decoy to distract any possible spies from the real hideaway. No one knew how the house had caught fire or why Narcissa had not simply Apparated out of it.

Lucius had sat that night for hours on end with the jewelled dagger of Salazar Slytherin in his hands. He had finally just bought the damn thing from the old witch, who had cackled as she closed the door on him, quite pleased both with her bargaining skills and with the large bag of gold Lucius had given her in exchange for the artefact. As he fingered the hilt of the knife, struggling to push from his mind the image of his beautiful Narcissa burning to death in a fire, he determined he would go to his master for justice. Vengeance raged in his heart as he waited for morning.

When Lucius had knelt at the Dark Lord's feet and wordlessly offered the dagger, Voldemort had carelessly handed it off to Peter Pettigrew. No, it was obviously a fake; Voldemort could detect no magic in the dagger. No, it would not be necessary to investigate the cause of Narcissa's death; it was a fluke, obviously, however tragic. Lucius was to attend to Narcissa's funeral so that he could return to Voldemort's side, where he was needed. Oh, and was not Lucius' son soon to be a man? Lucius should bring the boy to see Voldemort after the funeral; it was time for the young man to begin to know his place in the world.

When Voldemort had said this, Lucius looked up into the horrible, flat, snake-like face, with the terrible red eyes, and saw the answer to his unasked questions. Narcissa was dead because she had dared to think of flouting Voldemort's authority. In a flash, Lucius saw Narcissa, Stunned, sprawled across the dirty floor of an abandoned cottage; then, he saw the indistinct figure of a closely-hooded wizard throwing the balls of fire repeatedly into the open windows of Narcissa's funeral pyre. Just as suddenly, the vision was gone from his mind, only to be replaced immediately again by the burning cottage – but this time Draco was the one burning in the flames, helpless against the will of the monster Lucius had served all his adult life. With a wrenching inward shudder, Lucius slammed his Occlumency shields against the invasion of the Dark Lord and averted his carefully blank face.

"Exactly so," Voldemort had intoned with satisfaction.

At the time that Lucius had offered himself to Albus Dumbledore in any capacity in which he could serve to defeat Voldemort, he had not expected to live to see the Light triumph over the Dark. It had been with utter amazement that he had stood amidst the detritus of the last battle, in the wake of the firestorm which accompanied the fall of Tom Riddle, and gazed with disbelief upon the spectre of a world cleansed of the filth of the Death Eaters. Each moment of every day since then had been – embarrassingly enough – like a gift to be cherished. He had patiently attended the hearings after the war, admitted to his faults, and been supported by Dumbledore's testimony on his behalf. The three months of house arrest had been a sop thrown to the small, though vocal, angry mob who wished to see him in Azkaban; the people who now mattered to him knew his motivations, and accepted him back into their society. For Lucius Malfoy, it was a whole new world.

After much thought, Hermione had determined that it was enough for Dumbledore to profess faith in the elder Malfoy. From that point forward, she accepted his presence, and did what she could to suppress her natural distrust of a man who had raised his child to refer to Muggle-born witches and wizards as Mudbloods. Hermione was a firm believer in fairness. If it had been fair for Professor Snape to be forgiven for becoming a Death Eater, then it was fair also for Lucius Malfoy to be forgiven. Justice, of course, was another animal all together; Hermione was deeply thankful that it was not her job to decide what was equitable and what was not.

If it had not been for the Law, which called for so much interaction between the unmarried witches and wizards of the affected age range, Hermione and Lucius might not have come across one another very often. As it was, they were fellow veterans with shared experiences and shared acquaintances, and they were able to socialize in a reasonably comfortable way.

Taking their seats across from one another at the tables on the sidewalk, Hermione and Lucius settled in with their ice cream sundaes. With an engaging grin, Hermione inquired, "So, has Professor Snape always been such a difficult person?"

Lucius considered her for a moment, then decided to see if he would be able to obtain any information on the matter which interested him. "Severus has always been a tad high-strung, Miss Granger, but he also has a brooding sadness about him that just seems to fascinate the fairer sex."

Hermione took another bite of strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce as she digested this information. "It never seemed that he had female companions."

"Of course, teaching in a boarding school in not an ideal situation for a single man to be in if he wishes to pursue the ladies. And, I must say that the Dark Lord both corrupted and disrupted one's existence. He was a time-consuming task master. So – now that he's gone, and the war is over, and Severus is free to finally take advantage of his new celebrity – what must the Ministry do but force him to be married? Of course, it takes time for a man to get over twenty years of espionage and to adapt himself to what passes for a normal life in these times." With a quick glance at his audience, Lucius dipped in for the plum. "But it still doesn't really account for his choice of..."

Hermione looked up sharply and Lucius stopped himself. "I'm sorry," he said, raising a napkin to hide the smile on his lips, "I forgot what I was going to say."

Setting her spoon down with great resolution, Hermione said, "Mr. Malfoy, you are the only person other than the Headmaster who has ever seemed to be Professor Snape's friend. If you think she's the wrong wife for him, then I don't see why I should have any scruples."

Lucius raised elegantly arched eyebrows. "You Miss Granger? Have no scruples? I am afraid I do not understand you."

"Just imagine it, Mr. Malfoy! I cannot bear to think of that annoying girl moving in with Sophronia and the girls at the Estuary, making them all miserable – and encouraging Professor Snape to be as domineering as he ever was at Hogwarts – it's too horrible to contemplate!"

Lucius shook his head with seeming sadness. "Oh, I really don't see that there is anything that can be done about it. The engagement has been announced, the wedding date is set – it is almost a completed contract at this point, you know."

Hermione leaned towards him earnestly. "If he loves her, then he should marry her – I'm not saying he shouldn't. But he cannot be permitted to inflict her upon his sisters and their mother – that just isn't fair." She paused for a fraction of a moment and directed her eyes down to her dish of melting ice cream. In a lower voice, she continued, "I don't believe his heart is involved in his decision, though, Mr. Malfoy, and as for her – she has none!"

Lucius leaned toward her and lowered his voice, too. "She almost married the oldest Weasley boy, you know. Somehow, he got away just in time. The stories about her got around, after that. She's got Veela blood, you know, and a lot of men are drawn to her – but she can be quite a shrew when her will is crossed. Unfortunately, it is Severus who swam into her net. He's become a bit of a catch since his name has been cleared, and since his part in the war has become public knowledge." He settled back again in his chair, regarding her sadly. "It is a shame, Miss Granger, but Severus is a man of honour and he has given his word. He couldn't break his engagement now if he wanted to."

"She could."

Lucius looked regretful. "I don't believe that will happen."

Hermione gave him a tight smile as she began to gather her belongings. "We'll see," she said. "At the very least, she must be prevented from making those girls unhappy."

Lucius essayed a poke into the cage of the lioness. "There's nothing that can be done, I'm afraid."

Hermione bristled. "That is what people say when they are too lazy or too frightened to make an effort to help. Well, I am neither lazy nor afraid, Mr. Malfoy. My friends used to tell me that I have a lot of nerve, but I'll tell you truly – after spending the last seven years of my life fighting to defeat Voldemort, I have no nerves left." She stood. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do, but if I need your assistance, may I count on you?"

Lucius did a creditable imitation of looking alarmed.

In a reassuring way, Hermione continued, "Most likely I won't need you, so please don't fret. Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to meet with friends at the Leaky Cauldron. Thank you for the ice cream!"

Lucius watched her go with half a smile on his handsome face, before starting down the street in the other direction, humming to himself with great satisfaction.

Hermione walked from Fortescue's to the Leaky Cauldron; as she entered the darkened pub, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright summer sunshine. Before her vision cleared, Skye was at her side.

"I hate Fleur Delacour," Skye spat, her customarily lovely face marred by anger.

Hermione sat down at one of the tables and shook her head at the barman as he began to approach. "Now what?" she asked.

Skye began to speak quickly. "I ran into Harry when I was in Scribbulous Everchanging Inks with Katie and Cho; he and I came here to have a cold drink. Fleur and Val came in and found us together, and she insisted that they join us at our table. Then Ron came by to collect Harry for their lunch with Ron's parents – and as soon as Harry was gone, Fleur was horrid to me! She said that Harry and I were meeting clandestinely, behind Mum's back. And Val just sat there and ogled me. "

Hermione sighed loudly. "Did she actually have the nerve to scold you?"

"Yes! And I am furious, Hermione! She makes it sound as if we were doing something shameful." Skye's eyes dropped to her hands, which she was wringing. "Then Fleur tried to make me leave with her, but I told her I was meeting you. I saw her go toward the Apparation point – and she ran into Severus and began talking to him. I know she told him I was sneaking off to see Harry without a chaperone."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Don't worry, Skye. Go find Katie and Cho and finish your shopping. I'm going home now and I'll talk to your brother. He probably won't say a word to you about Harry or any other tales Fleur is carrying about you today."

Skye stared at her. "Hermione," she said nervously, "what are you going to do?"

Hermione patted Skye on the shoulder and rose to go. "I will give him something else to think about, of course," she said, walking away with an air of determination.

A/N: One year of Latin, back in 1972, doth not a Latin scholar make. Please forgive me if I have utterly mangled the language; I looked up words for "evil" and "witch/wizard" and put them together to form the title of the book, Pravus Veneficus.

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