Sanctuary

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Lovely Reviewers:

HermioneMalfoyFan - I've never claimed patience was a virtue of mine. I like the new title better as well.

trippingEYES - I didn't mean to cause withdrawal. I hope that I can kick that pig...hehe...I've always said that Harry Potter Fanfiction is my drug of choice. ;)

Lauriurix - Well, I hope Lucius lives up to your expectations in this fic.

TrinityLayne - Well, more has arrived.

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I am going to let you know that I am quite distracted with a bit of original story that I am working on at the moment. I am hoping to one day get it published. Yes, it still needs a lot of work. But the updates for here may be sporadic. I PROMISE at least one update per month! I am busy with school and liable to be in many hours of summer course work undoubtedly in my future...well that is all the more I feel comfortably able to offer. I want to set goals that I can attain.

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It was somewhat windy the day Hermione sat in the street with Crookshanks at her side. He meowed halfheartedly before swiping a paw across his graying face. It had been fourteen years since England fell to the Dark Lord. Thirteen years since Ron and the baby had been separated from her. She saw Ron’s shell every day, but the baby she had no idea of his condition. She prayed it was well. Twelve and one half years of ‘High Lord’ Lucius Malfoy calling the shots for most of Europe. Eleven years of irritating new shows of his power from the pompous, garrulous nincompoop.

Across the street, she could see his latest idea. A sign was now posted on the glass doors of the library that read:

Mudbloods Not Welcome!

That library contained only fiction books and children’s stories. No books about how to perform spells or incantations. At least the creativity of the laws was increasing. She shook her head.

A newspaper blew up and smacked her ankles. She bent down and picked it up.

Plastered across the front was the headline: “Justice for ALL Witches and Wizards of Europe.”

Beneath it was a smiling picture of ‘High Lord’ Lucius Malfoy. Hermione glared at it. If she only had a wand, she would burn it. As it was, with the magic bangles on the wrists of all ‘lower class wizards and witches,’ even involuntary magic was not possible. Lucius had set their bangles set so they drained to channel protections around his estates as well as the new public buildings. She had to content herself with wadding the paper into a ball and throwing it into the Thames.

“Supercilious wanker,” Hermione muttered under her breath as she slipped away into an alley way.

Crookshanks followed on his creaking bandy-legs meowing every four or five steps.

“I know Crooks,” she said to him, pausing and letting him leap up and drape himself on her shoulders. “I’m hungry too.”

The half-kneazle meowed again.

“We will have to go beg for money or dumpster dive,” Hermione said. “How does it Bartlett Park sound for today?”

Crookshanks meowed in agreement.

“At least the Festival is soon. Then we’ll have a bit more money, not that the Purebloods won’t try to take it all from us with their ridiculous taxes levied only against the ‘impure.’”

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Lucius stood in front room of his new London home. He carefully pushed a strand of platinum hair so it wasn’t in his face. It was once some Muggle palace of sorts. Some Ducking-Pork Palace or something like that was what the idiots had called. Well, he’d renamed it Malfoy Manor, London; a better name to be sure.

He loved being the ruler of Europe. He was a good and just leader. He knew he was. After all, in many other areas Mudbloods were drowned or burned or stoned. He had at least abolished THAT right of the Purebloods and Half-Bloods. After all, they had to be punished for what they had done to proper witches and wizards. So they could be used for gratification, at least it made them more useful. Purebloods were more deserving of rights than they were.

He loved seeing the Dark Lord not but twice a year. The superstitious bastard was paranoid and terrified of death. Those damn horcruxes weren’t going to prevent him from his demise. Most were gone anyway. Only that hateful snake, Nagini remained. And it was just a matter of time till the damn reptile croaked.

Lucius smiled as his barouche was drawn around by his driver and gardener, Neville Longbottom. He’d thought that the boy was useless. He’d been wrong. Neville was only mostly useless.

With the right controlling bangles and collar on the boy, he was almost competent. He had been a traitor, so he was to work off his punishment. Lucius had used one big ‘reducto’ on Azkaban. Why should those who broke the law get to go on a vacation? They should be put to work and showed how to be useful.

“Where may I take you today, Lordship?” Neville asked, bowing his torso as he opened the door.

One of the four finely groomed Friesian horses whickered and stomped his foot.

Lucius pondered for a moment.

“I believe it’s time for me to pay a visit to an old friend. To the Tower,” Lucius said, smirking internally as Neville winced. “It really is too bad what the Weasley traitor did, isn’t it? I believe it was the Goblin hugger. I mean Severus probably would have been meeting with me much more often if the accident hadn’t happened. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Neville trembled before he shut the carriage door and climbed up. They zoomed away at a steady pace. Lucius leaned back in the seat.

After a few moments, he pulled out the witch glass. Lucius turned it over in his hands.

Severus really was a genius. Incredibly rude and conniving and prone to grudges, but a genius nonetheless. He had improved on the old two-way mirrors by the use of a potion on it. The correct potion poured over the mirror allowed it to spy on anyone around a reflective surface, everything from other mirrors to gleaming doorknobs to pools of water.

“Severus,” Lucius said, breathing against the glass.

A half scarred and burned face appeared in the mirror. He still wore his billowing black robes and glared at the mirror.

“I’m on my way for our meeting.”

“Delightful,” came the smooth reply of the potions master as he accompanied his words with eye rolling. “I’ve been missing you.”

“How are things?”

“Progressing,” Severus responded as his face began to ripple before it swirled counter-clockwise.

“Still busy hating Weasleys?”

Severus promptly pointed to his face where horrible burns were. Only Severus’ inky black eye was undamaged on the left side of his face.

Lucius laughed.

“I hate a Weasley,” Severus said, turning from the mirror and rolling his eyes. “And you are a horrible friend.”

“Oh, now, Severus, allow for Slytherin tendencies,” Lucius laughed, “Yes, well have no worries, I have sent for one of the top Master Generals.”

“Draco?”

“Indeed.”

“For what purpose?”

“It is time.”

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Draco had had the mark of the Dark Lord branded on the flesh of his left forearm. It had been ten years since he’d seen England and had a good cup of tea. He’d been mostly in North America leading the troops against the American wizards, who knew none of the rules of war. Their capital city had been captured which in all European wizard societies meant the surrender of the nation to the Dark Lord. When the Americans were informed of the occurrence and told to surrender, they laughed and promptly responded that the city in question was not the capital city. They had even sent him an ‘owl’ that caused a floating image of him being spanked like a naughty child that alternated with a bouncing ferret to hover and revolve above his house for a week. In Draco’s mind, American Wizards wouldn’t win, and they had no honor, and they weren’t even offended in being told so.

Draco longed for England. He entered the large house in a small mountain town in Colorado. He hated the weather here. He was sweating, and not two hours later, he was summoning a heavy winter cloak. How did people live here? It was positively indecent.

He enjoyed leading the army. He was only below in rank to ten people including the Dark Lord. It was a good feeling to know that he called the shots.

“WOOF! WOOF!”

“Down Chaucer,” Draco commanded the white German shepherd. He stroked the dog’s head as it walked at his side.

POP!

“Grand Master Draco,” a tiny house elf squeaked, getting down on both of its knees before the handsome blond wizard.

“What is it?” Draco demanded pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know I don’t like being disturbed after a long day of fighting those devilish bastards.”

“Grand Master, a letter arrives for you. A letter from High Lord Malfoy.”

“Bring it forth,” Draco said, falling into a chair near the fireplace. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be another one of those silly prank or chain letters the Americans sent him. If not passed on, those letters tended to curse the holder.

The last one had been packed with some noxious fluid that didn’t wash off for almost a month. It had made him gag when it exploded all over him after which the envelope refolded on itself to form a black and white striped animal from which laughter emanated. The note when he read it said: “If this animal’s excrement also excreted, we would like the shit’s shit twice as much as you. Ha. Ha. Ha.” He wished he knew how they got them past the security every time.

Draco picked the letter up between two fingers even though he recognized his father’s handwriting.

“Anything else Argentum can get for Master?”

“A good cup of tea,” Draco griped as he broke the seal bit by tiny bit. “I don’t know what that sludge that was served to me this morning was. Whatever the hell it was, it wasn’t tea!”

Argentum trembled.

Draco looked down his nose at it.

“Shoo,” he hissed at it.

Argentum fled the room, and Draco shook his head. He frowned. How difficult was a good cup of tea to brew? How difficult was it to put exactly two milliliters of cream and one cube of sugar in it? The flavor of the tea alone might have been—what—pine nettles and dirt? Stupid American house-elves with no culture, Draco sniffed.

He flipped the flaps open and breathed out a sigh. It was from his father, and there were no tricks.

Dear Draco,

You’ve made your father very proud. I understand that you are now only one rank of power below me, a grand accomplishment for one your age. You’re the youngest Grand Master.

Things are happening in England now. I’ve spoken to your Aunt Bella, and she says she can spare you. You’re needed here. I expect you by Friday this week.

Your loving father,
High Lord Lucius Malfoy

Father certainly was in a mood. Only giving him two days to get home. He reached over and picked up the cup that had appeared on the coffee table. He took a sip and spat it out.

He’d floo in the morning. He wouldn’t wait twenty-four hours more for a stinking cup of tea.

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Hope y'all enjoy'd it. Please drop a review.

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