Prisoners of Love - A Mystery - COMPLETE

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Updated 9-5-07


Remember that happy ending I promised you? Weeeelll, this isn't it. (You don't want the story over so soon, do you?)


It was a good thing I passed out the medicinal firewhiskey and tranquilizer potion or I think I'd be hanging in the Hogwarts dungeon by my thumbs right now. You lot are rather terrifying when you're upset about a teensy weensy chapter of angst (or two or, well, three maybe).


I must say, this next chapter is my favorite in the whole story. I'm twisted, I admit it, but blame Snape. He ran away with the chapter and I couldn't stop him.


So - many of you appear to be out of charity with the blond wizard right now. You want Lucius to pay for his cruel treatment of Hermione? Yes? Then he shall, my dears. He shall, indeed.


You want them back together? Read on.

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Chapter Seventeen

Purge

For the next few months, Lucius heard not a single word from his erstwhile wife and at the beginning he congratulated himself that he had escaped from an unwanted complication in a life which had been fraught with years of unpleasant experiences already. He wanted merely to enjoy a quiet, serene existence managing his estate and his fortune, pulling the strings of the Pureblood business world, visiting Draco occasionally at his new home on the continent, and in general acting the gentleman wizard of leisure, wealth and financial chicanery he had thought would be the epitome of the good life.

It turned out Draco hadn’t even known his father was back in Azkaban because he had moved to the continent months before the new indictment had cropped up and he never kept in touch with his mother either. The divorce was also news to him, but he had recognized the schism between his parents long ago and the final separation wasn’t the surprise or shock it might have been.

Draco readily accepted his father’s attempt to rebuild something between them, now that the Dark Lord was gone and Lucius could begin again without needing to fend off Voldemort’s disturbing interest in his son or worrying about any vindictive retaliation from the remaining Death Eaters in Azkaban. Draco’s home was now far away so contact was mostly by owl, but Lucius was glad of the distance between his son and Azkaban as an added precautionary measure.

Lucius had portkeyed twice to visit and saw that his son was content with his new life and doing well. Lucius was relieved that Draco had a good life but he could see there was now no need for a father’s supervision. Draco was all grown up. Like Hermione, Lucius’ mind whispered.

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Five more months passed and Lucius’ pleasure in his high society lifestyle slowly began eroding and he became first restless, and then irritable, and finally angry with his calm, stress-free, boring existence. Even besting his Pureblood business colleagues in fiscal competitions wasn’t the mental aphrodisiac it used to be. His internal emotional barometer too often veered toward irrational choler making his associates leery of him so his commercial dealings faltered more and more.

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Lucius sat alone in his magnificent library one evening, surrounded by first editions of rare magic books the wizarding world would give their house elves for but seeing none of it, only brooding on his latest contretemps with a chance-met highborn witch acquaintance who had come home with him, but soon been sent on her way. She had berated him for leading her on and he had finished the evening early, leaving her stone cold at his nasty behavior, which had hidden his real worry.

He hadn’t wanted her to know he’d been incapable of performing; his sex weapon had peacefully slept through the increasingly torrid kisses Lucius had been indulging in - nary a flicker of interest. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d had to turn away a sure thing to warm his bed without a wedding ring in exchange. She was long married and no threat to his apparent bachelorhood.

Lucius could willfully ignore everything else but when he couldn’t perform in bed, it was enough to shake him up to the point of starting to retreat from his social world and friends.

He began finding fault with everything, consuming too much firewhiskey and baiting even his closer acquaintances until they stayed away from him complaining that he’d better cultivate a more congenial attitude or they were gone for good. All except Snape who had a very good idea why Lucius was acting as he was. Draco had alerted Snape to his father’s increasingly odd behavior, citing worry over Lucius’ health and asking Snape to keep tabs on his father.

Snape was already keeping a careful watch on his friend and business associate. He had a great deal to lose financially if Lucius didn’t stay focused on the deals he was generating for Hogwarts, but beyond that Snape was worried about Lucius’ emotional and physical state. It was obvious to him that Lucius had not entirely managed to break his acute mental bond and it was slowly eroding his life force in subtle and detrimental ways. It was as well that the Headmaster of Hogwarts had quietly planted a few indicator charms about Malfoy Manor unbeknownst to the blond lunkhead because that was how Snape discovered Lucius was sliding even further downhill.

Snape was dismayed to learn that Lucius had begun experimenting with the narcotizing effects of one of the more pernicious, mind-altering and blatantly illegal potions of the magic world. The potion relieved stress and delivered a spurious feeling of contentment for a while, but made the user uninterested in normal activities like eating or sleeping. Ugh, or bathing.

Snape had had quite enough of watching the senior Malfoy sinking into his misery and wallowing in it, getting thinner by the day, his long, shiny blond hair becoming lank and greasy. Stupid git. Did he never learn? The mulish, wealthy wizard and Hermione were a matched set in Severus’ opinion, both so stubborn he wished they were still students. A few hours hanging in manacles would straighten out their stiff-necked, unbending attitudes. (Detention had accrued new meaning with Severus heading the Hogwarts helm. Never had so many students behaved so well for so long.)

The dark-haired wizard tried one last time, “This can’t be ignored, Lucius. You can’t get rid of this bond you have like you would a bad investment. It isn’t usual, but it does happen and yours seems to be uncommonly strong. It should have been broken by now if it was going to dissolve. If you continue to try to sever it you’ll be playing with your sanity – and possibly hers.”

“I admit it’s taking awhile longer than I had planned, but I’m sure I’m doing better, Severus. Leave it alone.” Lucius was sitting on his sofa in the library sipping his evening firewhiskey as usual, with Snape relaxing in a comfy chair close by. Severus gave up trying to reason with the stubborn goat (who now also smelled like one) and took matters into his own hands. He quietly poured his own special tasteless, clear concoction into Lucius’ firewhiskey glass while he wasn’t looking, then sat back to await the disgusting results. Lucius was going to need help for what Snape had done.

Lucius wasn’t noticing much at all, feeling calm and contented and a little floaty from his afternoon’s indulgence in the illegal potion he’d obtained from his shadowy connection in Knockturn Alley. Life wasn’t so horrible when he had a slug of that stuff under his robe. A stray twitch in his fingers almost made him drop his glass, so he set it down on the small table by his elbow. He flexed his fingers wondering what on earth had happened. But he soon relapsed into his artificially induced euphoria.

Snape smiled darkly to himself. He knew the signs. It was beginning. He could almost feel sorry for the brilliant blond idiot, but ‘needs must when the devil drives,’ he quoted the old saw to himself as he excused his very Slytherin behavior. Lucius was driving himself into the ground and had to be stopped - quickly.

Lucius faintly noticed that the twitching had transferred to his other hand and he tried to trap his fingers under his armpit to control it. Then the first hand started the movement again. Lucius ran his subtly jerking hands over his stubbly face, feeling their uncontrolled muscle spasms and a slight alarm began piercing the veil of his muzzy high. His arm muscles took up the jumping beat, and Lucius shook his arms out, trying to remove the irritation from his body.

“Severus, are you feeling all right?” Lucius asked, “I seem to be having some trouble with my muscles. Could the firewhiskey be tainted?” Lucius felt a tremor run down his leg, first one then the other. He tried to stand up but he found he couldn’t make his limbs obey.

“I’m feeling fine, Lucius. So I don’t think it could be the firewhiskey. Did you have anything else to eat or drink earlier? I appear to be unaffected.” Snape stood up. “What’s wrong?” Oh, he knew exactly what was wrong and how much wronger it was going to get. It was time to move Lucius to his bedroom, or more specifically, to his bathroom.

“I don’t feel well. I…uh…I did take something earlier, but I don’t think that could be the problem. I’ve not had any ill effects before from it. Gods, Severus, I’m feeling nauseous. I need…shite, get me a bowl or something.”

“I don’t see any bowls, Lucius. Do I have time for a transfiguration?” Snape inquired, in apparent worry.

“Oh Gods, I can’t control my…quick Severus, my bathroom. Help me!” Lucius clapped his hand over his mouth and turned a bit green.

Severus quickly lifted his friend from behind and apparated Lucius into the master bathroom just as Lucius was sick all over himself, spewing up used firewhiskey and the remains of the little he’d eaten for dinner. It wasn’t much – the miserable moron hadn’t been eating much for over a week. Snape shook his head in distaste even though he was responsible for the debacle of Lucius’ robe and the now unpleasantly decorated bathroom floor.

A quick wave of his wand returned the floor and Lucius to their previous states, but he knew Lucius was only starting. Snape was actually very perturbed at how thin and lightweight Lucius was to carry. He hoped he hadn’t left it too long, waiting for Lucius to work out his misery on his own.

“I need the loo, NOW!” Lucius shouted, trying to make his wobbly limbs take him, but they wouldn’t function on their own without Snape holding him up. “Oh, my Gawwwdddss!” Lucius moaned as his bowels decided to empty themselves. “Sorry…sorry, Severus,” Lucius still couldn’t make his legs work and his head began to pound as though someone was applying a beater’s bat to the interior. He was wet from his own excrement and smelled worse than a hippogriff paddock. “Plea….please,” he stuttered, now losing some of his ability to speak as well. “I…I…sick,” he sniffed as his sinuses added themselves to the general exodus of juices from Lucius’ pain-wracked body. Hearing the pitiful moans Lucius was now making almost made Severus feel sorry for the debilitating wringer he was putting the obstinate fool through – almost.

Once again Snape used his wand to repair the latest messes and Lucius relaxed a bit, propped up in his friend’s arms, but Severus knew it wasn’t over yet. Not nearly. Why couldn’t Lucius have listened to him? This needn’t have happened at all if the blond blockhead could have been just a little less pig-headed. Damned idiot. Snape was irritated that he had to be indirectly subjected to the nasty effects of the potion, even though it had been his choice to administer the horrific brew.

Snape sat Lucius on the vanity seat by the mirrors, but Lucius couldn’t keep himself upright and started to slide off. Snape promptly put the blond wizard into partial stasis to hold him up while the Headmaster went into the master bedroom and turned down the bedcovers for later.

Severus returned to Lucius to find that urine had now sopped the front of Lucius’ robe, making the blond sorceror crazy with loathing at the sensation of warm pee down his front and shuddering in helpless reaction. “Sev… Sev… rus, … I… dying?” He had nearly no control of his voice or his body now and all portals were opening and exuding their noxious secretions. Lucius hurt all over, especially his brain, as each separate neuron felt like it was firing in synchronization.

The wealthy Slytherin financier was now only weakly moaning and his eyes were seeping, causing his sinuses to drip even more. His skin began sweating profusely, making his robe stick to his body, but by then he no longer cared. He could barely see; the relentless purging of his body and the absolute decimation of his ability to control even the smallest voluntary muscle movement had mercifully rendered him close to unconscious.

The Headmaster gazed at his compatriot in some pity, wishing he hadn’t had to dose the poor sod, but the illegal dark potion would have destroyed Lucius within a few months, if not from its own disgusting effects, then from its victim slowly starving to death. Once more, Snape ran his wand over Lucius and cleaned him up. Most of his body’s contaminated juices were gone now, and Snape knew he would have to replenish Lucius’ dehydrated body quickly, so he stripped the nearly comatose blond wizard, opened the spigots of the sunken tub and lowered Lucius into it. Lucius’ only reaction to the lukewarm water was a weak groan and a fluttering of his eyelids.

Snape added a vial of a simple osmotic saline potion with some other necessary chemicals into the water so Lucius’ skin would be able to absorb the clean liquid enough to rehydrate him. Lucius was again put into partial stasis so he wouldn’t sink under the water and drown, while Snape sat and waited for Lucius to absorb enough liquid to replenish his body. It would be an hour or more before the evacuating potion wore off and Lucius was feeling at all comfortable again so it was as well he was unconscious. Then Snape knew the exhausted wizard would need to sleep for several hours. He would make sure of that with a Dreamless Sleep dose. After Lucius finally was lucid again, the blond arse was going to listen and Snape would talk!

Lucius was completely limp and unconscious when he was eventually fished out of the water, roughly dried off and tucked into his bed by the former potions master, who thoroughly covered up the unconscious wizard’s emaciated body to retain his body heat after being doused in water for the best part of an hour.

Four hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, Lucius groggily turned over, and tried to open his eyes, the lids sticking to his dry eyeballs. “Tidbit?” he said weakly, before going under again.

Two more hours later, Lucius opened his eyes again, turned his head and saw Snape in a chair drawn over by the bed. He clutched his head and groaned, “What happened, Severus?” He tried to sit up and slowly managed it, “Am I very… ill? You helped me.” Lucius was mortified at what he remembered of his illness - his voice muscles still weren’t entirely under his control as they revived from their assault, “I’m sorry you… were drawn into… my sickness,” he rasped unsteadily. “I don’t understand. I got… so violently sick so… quickly.” Lucius’ brain cells were starting to function again at his normal quick pace and things didn’t add up.

Lucius gazed over at Snape with a quizzical frown that slowly changed to baffled anger. “I assume you… know some… something… about my mystery illness, Sev…erus?” Lucius still felt shaky so he pulled some pillows behind him and leaned back on them while waiting for the Headmaster’s reply.

“Oh, yes. Quite a lot as it happens.” Snape calmly sat in the chair with his robes folded over his arms and one knee crossed over the other looking rather like a large bat taking his ease.

“But why, Severus? Were you trying… kill me?” Lucius couldn’t see why his friend would want to.

“No, you were doing that quite well enough on your own.”



“So what… did you hope to accomplish by… making me so deathly ill then?” Lucius’ voice emerged hoarsely, as he tried too hard to make it behave.

“Saving your life, you stubborn snake. When are you going to face the truth?”

Lucius stared in consternation at his friend. Then he frowned heavily, saying sarcastically, “And what truth would… that be, my… friend? Did you use your le…legilimency talents… on me? Do you know… more than I do about my personal life?”

“For the Goddess’ sake, Lucius, I don’t need legilimency to see your problem. It’s writ large in every caustic comment you make and all your self-willed, catastrophic behavior. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately? How much longer would you have lasted, not eating?”

Snape lambasted his wrong-headed victim, “You’re no longer single, my man, and you’ve chosen to ignore it.” He held up his hand when Lucius would have retorted, “No let me finish. I think I have the right, having sat through so many of your scathing oratorical sessions on the whole magic world and everyone in it.”

Snape sighed, “Lucius, you aren’t whole any more. You haven’t been since Azkaban. You can’t continue living this desolate Pureblood existence attempting to suppress what you cannot control. It’s slowly killing you. Along with that poison you’ve been indulging in.”

Lucius grimaced, chagrined at Snape knowing of his forays into the illegal potions market. He slumped lower on his bed and stared down, ineffectually smoothing the rumpled sheet covering his bare stomach.

Snape contemplated his forlorn friend a moment. He knew Lucius was hurting, but compassion wasn’t called for here. Lucius needed to be jolted out of his downward spiral so Snape said dispassionately, “But perhaps death is preferable to accepting your bond with her? Is that it? Are you waiting around to die? To avoid an entanglement with a lowly Mudblood? If so, then I’d like to know so we can draw up any necessary paperwork keeping my part in our dealings safe from your imminent, if passive, suicide.” Snape relaxed, rearranging his robe, but his black eyes were slitted with disapproval.

Lucius’ head snapped up, stunned at his tormentor’s words; he opened his mouth, then shut it. He opened it again, shut it again. Snape had completely shocked him with that brutal assessment. He looked from the former potions master back down at his hands, which he shakily folded across his concave middle.

“I do think that’s an improvement already, Lucius. Your mouth has opened twice and nothing has emerged. No attempts to shift blame or otherwise shirk it. I do thank you for that.” Snape made an ironic half bow from his sitting position.

One clear thought emerged from Lucius’ mental miasma, “She’s… she’s…don’t you ever call her a Mudblood again, or so… help me, Severus, I will kill you.”

Lucius dropped his head into his hands. Being sober stunk. He was miserable and he didn’t want to examine why. No one else measured up to his cleverness or sank to his taunting brand of humor – Snape could hold his own in intelligence, but his type of humor was wildly different from Lucius’, being so dry it more resembled a sand dune in the Sahara.

And the famous Malfoy libido had unaccountably taken a nosedive into indifference, punctuated by near impotence. Lucius had seriously worried that he was ill, but his physician could find nothing somatically wrong with him. No, not a single person could engage his interest for more than an hour or two, before becoming dead bores, because they weren’t…her.

Her! It was her fault. All her fault. She must have bewitched him somehow. No wonder she hadn’t put up a fuss when he had blithely told her they weren’t married under the Ministry’s authority. No wonder he had suffered so pitiably and she hadn’t. Lucius resolved right there and then to make the marriage valid and he decided to send his solicitor instructions to retrieve the paperwork from his office vault and send it in to the Ministry.

“I’m not going to… to… thank you for the most horrendous evening in my life – Voldemort’s crucios included,” Lucius hated not having full control of his voice, but being so massively, stealthily clobbered by his oldest, closest friend had had its effect. “But I… I do… see that you felt you needed to save me from myself. And you may… have been right.” Lucius shrugged weakly. “No doubt you acted mostly for the good… good of Hogwarts, but still it was good of you to stay with me when I… was not myself,” Lucius’ eyebrows frowned in tired rebuke, “even… though you were entirely responsible, you arsehole. For now, I’m going back… to sleep.”

“One other thing, Lucius.” Snape waited until his victim lifted bleary, icy eyes to his own black ones, “That illegal dark potion you were taking. From now on, every time you take any of that particular class of drug your body will fight it off with the same reactions you’ve been subjected to tonight. For the rest of your life. I trust I make myself clear?”

Lucius’ sardonic sneer was answer enough. Snape left Lucius to his rest.

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Five evenings later as the two wizards sat again in the mansion library, tea and biscuits were the day’s offering instead of liquor and Snape watched in approbation as two biscuits disappeared off Lucius’ dessert dish into the blond wizard’s mouth.

Looking a bit better than he had for months, Lucius announced to Severus that the marriage certificate had been filed and he was going to retrieve one Muggleborn wife. Lucius waited nonchalantly for Snape to give his opinion, trying not to show any anxiety about what the Headmaster would say.

Snape was relieved to see Lucius’ color was decidedly better and his movements more certain and energetic. “I think that’s a wise decision, Lucius. Well, really the only one possible I think, considering your health. You tried to erase her from your life and your mind and now you know it can’t be done. Have you made a decision on when you’re going to see her?”

“Just as soon as you take your arse out of here,” Lucius replied, relieved at his friend’s ‘blessing’ and wanting to act immediately now. He jumped up from his easy chair and bellowed for an elf to get his cape and cane and he impatiently waited, striding around the library while one of the elves was sent to the Weasley’s Burrow to ask for directions to Hermione’s house.

Snape couldn’t help Lucius with her direction, never having been to the little witch’s Muggle home. The black-eyed, reclusive wizard’s social calendar had more blank spaces than a mountain troll’s mind and he liked it that way just fine. Social visits weren’t even at the bottom of his to-do list. The Headmaster nevertheless hid a gloating smile, watching the impatient blond wizard frenetically pacing, but Snape soon made his excuses and disappeared back to Hogwarts, feeling confident for the first time in months that Lucius would straighten up and cease his self-destructive behavior.

tbc...

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So everyone got their wish and Lucius is headed for Hermione's house. Hallelujah! Do you think she's going to be delighted to see him? Will it be all sweetness and light from here on out? (C'mon, you guys know me better than that.) But you got your wishes and they'll be in the same chapters from now on. That's something, anyway. Isn't it?

I'm a little scared to ask for reviews for this chapter even though you all know I adore Lucius and wouldn't hurt a hair on his gorgeous head - the rest of him was fair game, though.

Oh what the heck, go ahead and review. (Little shivers start up in my arms - oh Gods, what did Snape do to my firewhiskey? Is anyone else feeling anything?)

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