A Thief to Catch a Thief; a Death Eater to Catch a

Hello! Well, Christmas Day was absolute shenanigans and by half four in the afternoon we were both utterly exhausted and had fallen asleep! Though both of his families were brilliant and there was no bitching, backstabbing or moaning to be seen! I think there is hope for them all yet!



So, as I’m on a revision break (just working my way through some biochemistry), I thought I’d tap out another chapter so the plot bunnies will stop biting my brain cells while I’m revising.



I hope everyone had a happy Christmas and ate lots of rich foods and had well-deserved indigestion! I did!







Listen and Learn.



Lucius found himself on the night shift; it tended to be the easier of the shifts available as most evildoers still needed to sleep at some point; the more recent problems for the aurors were a fledgling group who wanted to be the next Dark Lord... Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the aurors; there wasn’t a brain cell between them and their plans were all copies of those the Death Eaters had made – not to mention that they had sent Lucius an invitation to re-join the ‘true side’ and leave the light and good. The invitation had included the first three plans, their dates and the names of those who would be taking part. With every new arrest a new leader was announced, and the new leader tended to be more stupid than the one before.



One of this new group’s faithful soldiers had apperated to the wrong meeting place and was knocked unconscious by three old witches wielding handbags. The aurors didn’t honestly find them a challenge to deal with - but were by no means complacent. But the paperwork that followed them after a raid or arrest was an utter annoyance.



Harry and Lucius were sharing Lucius’s office as they went over the pile of paperwork. The gym and pool were silent and they were the only department in the ministry with their lights on.



“So, Potter, did you and your wife decide on a colour for the nursery?” Lucius asked Harry, who was looking at a catalogue of furniture – mainly the baby section.



“Yeah – we didn’t want to know the sex when we went to see the healer – we’ll wait for the surprise – we don’t care if it’s a him or a her, as long as he or she is healthy.” Harry put down the catalogue and took a sip of his coffee, Ginny was violently sick at the smell of it and thus it had been banned from Grimmauld Place until the baby was born. He only got coffee at work now. “We went for three plain cream walls and one wall that looks like an aquarium – we did a bit of charm work and the fish swim around the reeds that sway with a current. It looks really good!”



“I guess the sheep will have to learn to swim! Lucius said, chuckling at Jess’s ovine obsession. She’d moved into Draco’s suite on the day of the Auror Christmas party last week (which went rather well), and had managed to cut the sheep collection down to twelve. The scary slippers found themselves replaced by the red silk ones and Draco happily set fire to them.



“Bah and Lamby are sat on the little bookshelf opposite the cot, the shelf is slowly filling with presents for bump.” Harry said, having to use his seeker skills to catch his slowly dissolved biscuit after he’d dunked it for too long.



“Bump?” Lucius asked, handing Harry a piece of kitchen roll to mop up the mess he had made of the health and safety paperwork.



“What we nicknamed the baby.” Harry clarified, deciding to leave the coffee stains on the parchment as he dried it and filed it in the correct place.



There was silence for a little while as Lucius and Harry waded through the mass of meaningless paperwork that was left to the night shift to do when they had nothing more important. It was mainly health and safety stuff that was blissfully ignored. Lucius put hi signature to a document before putting it in a tray for Hermione to sign in the morning.



“Malfoy – I hope you don’t mind me asking, and it really isn’t my business – but what the fuck happened with you and Hermione?” Harry asked, putting down his quill and swinging from side to side in the office chair.



“I’m not sure – I asked her to stay the night with me and she hexed me and ran for it. We haven’t spent more time than necessary together than we have to since then.” Lucius said, rubbing his throat.



“That sounds odd – there’s more to this, isn’t there?” Harry accused, having a good theory on what went wrong, and it didn’t bode well for Lucius.



“Oh, alright, I wanted her to spend the night – and more nights after – in my bed beside me, on a more permanent basis.” Lucius said, throwing down his quill and ignoring the paperwork.



Harry looked thoughtful for a moment before he turned an icy look at Lucius, “Malfoy, if I know Hermione – and trust me when I say that I know everything about her – she asked you to agree to no strings sex before this all started; and at a guess, you pushed for more and it came back to bite you on the arse.”



“What will she do now?” Lucius asked, Harry’s words being a metaphorical slap in the face.



“Dig out her membership card for the Pleasure Castle and go there for mindless and meaningless sex that only has strings attached if you want bondage.” Harry said looking at the bottom of the empty coffee mug and debating another cup.



“Pleasure Castle? What’s that?” Lucius asked, puzzled.



“Erm... I’m going to need more coffee – want one?” Harry asked offering to refill Lucius’s mug.



“No thank-you.” Lucius replied politely, waiting for Harry to return.



***



“The Pleasure Castle is really unique – its on an island that is completely unplottable and surrounded by some impressive wards. You only get in with one of their supplied portkeys, and they cost four galleons a time. I think they’re only open on Friday nights, and only members get in – and membership is two-hundred galleons a year.” Harry began, noticing Lucius had filed the paperwork back into his ‘in’ box and was listening intently.



“Go on...”



“Well, it’s a place you can only get into if you are wearing a total glamour – and if you can’t perform one yourself, the castle’s wards change your appearance for you, at a charge. Any things that happen are between consenting adults that have no idea who each other are – most of the time; apparently some married couples go to meet with other couples and swap partners.” Harry continued quietly.



“And the membership fee, that’s quite pricy.” Lucius pointed out, even as head of a department, that would be a strain on Hermione’s wage packet.



“Yeah – its partly to fund the small army of house elves that have to clean up; partly to pay for the healers that are on standby in case things go too far with the BDSM people; partly to fund portkeys and to keep riff-raff out. You don’t get a portkey until membership is paid in full and the fee for the protkeys – one each way, that’s eight galleons for the night – has to be paid before they’ll let you in.”



Lucius thought for a minute – it was everything Hermione would need, no commitment, no snuggles, no intimacy – but it was incredibly expensive.



“The wards make sure nobody gets pregnant and clears up any diseases – should you have a disease, the fee for the instantaneous treatment is taken from your Gringotts account automatically – that’s twenty galleons a go.” Harry shrugged, nodding to an exhausted Kingsley as he passed Malfoy’s office.



“That would be a complicated bit of spellwork to achieve!” Lucius said; he’d be impressed if it wasn’t for the circumstances.



“Yeah, Hermione was impressed; but she was even more impressed to find that if consenting adults say ‘no’, the wards literally pull them apart and move them to opposite sides of the room. After the trouble she had with Zach, I think that made her hand over her money.” Harry said, speculating over the ‘Zach thing’ as he liked to call it; ‘Purple, Puss-filled penis’ was a bit of a mouthful.



“So. If a... what do you call them?” Lucius began.



“Fuck Buddy?” Harry supplied.



“Yes, if a Fuck Buddy isn’t available, Hermione goes there?”



“Yeah. She’s so powerful – what you see at work is the tip of the iceberg; the sex is a safe way of releasing excess magic so she doesn’t perform accidental magic. And Hermione’s accidental magic put me in Saint Mungo’s for a night! All she did was sneeze, and I ended up almost bleeding to death! She read into it and realised she hadn’t much choice in the matter, it was sex or endanger people around her.” Harry said, shrugging.



“So, she doesn’t enjoy it?” Lucius asked, puzzled at this new development.



“Erm, yeah, she enjoys it – the sex that is. But I don’t think she likes the circumstances. In her heart I think she’d love to settle down and find stability in the one part of her life that isn’t secure. Maybe if you had waited a bit longer and not pushed she would have asked you to make the relationship more permanent. You aren’t as powerful as her, but you’re a bloody close match – magically you were good for each other.” Harry supplied, giving Lucius a look that said ‘too much, too soon’.



“But I’ve never had an issue with accidental magic.” Lucius commented, noting Harry’s words.



“I said you were a bloody close match, not equals. Hermione is more powerful than you, but you are the closest person to her in power.” Harry clarified.



“I know of the ‘Three Times the Charm’ – I don’t want to trap her or own her in an way. I’d like an equal, a partner, someone to care for and care for me.” The aristocrat placed his head in his hands, “So, to summarise: I rushed things, and thus ruined them.”



“Erm, yeah.” Harry replied, moving back to the mountain of paperwork and ending the conversation. He knew all he needed to know.