Prisoners of Love - A Mystery - COMPLETE

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Updated 11-17-07

I appreciate all the continuing thoughtful reviews - and thank you to all the new reviewers. I hope no one minds if I'm posting a tiny bit slower for this last week and next. I'm the lucky one to have the entire extended family over for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner so I'll be cleaning and cooking instead of routing out our criminals for a few days. Thanks Damiana, for the corrections - please don't go insane. And to answer Citten, Lucius will probably never tell Hermione about his descent into drugs. He's not much for showing his weak side.

Now - on to the mystery...

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Chapter Thirty-Seven


Investigation Ensues


“Obviously, having re-entered the magic world, I have become a liability to someone.” Hermione was ready to examine their circumstances. “But who? Lucius, I can’t stir from my doorstep without incurring danger to the baby and myself. I can’t live like this. I’ll need to go back to the Muggle world. At least until this blows over. Do you have any ideas on how to find out who’s doing this? And why?” Hermione sat with her husband on the back terrace of the mansion ignoring the sunset and the scent of the rose bushes that circled the outdoor area.

Lucius had reluctantly told Hermione about the attempts to break through the estate wards. “I’m working with Scrimgeour and we have some ideas on flushing out whoever’s behind this.” He saw Hermione cover a smile and asked in some asperity, “What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry. The problem seems to be someone’s excess attraction to toilet paper and you’re going to ‘flush’ him out. I think I’m becoming hysterical with stress, finding your word funny. Forgive me.” Hermione sobered a little. “It’s not amusing thinking someone wants to do you, me or our child harm.

“I suppose I could have used a different word.” A faint smile winked on and off Lucius’ face. “I’m sorry but I suspect the Muggle world isn’t safe for you any more either.”

Hermione sat up straight, “Are my parents in danger?”

“My best guess is no, but I’ve put a few wards around their home and office anyway. If anyone attempts anything magic, the wards will nullify it. They are most at risk when they are between home and office. I’ve also warded their automobile.”

“When were you going to tell me about all this?” Hermione was scared and irritated at being kept in the dark.

“Well, actually, I thought right about now was a good time,” Lucius was completely impervious to Hermione’s anger. “I wasn’t about to open up all the problems for your perusal while you were pregnant.”

“Are you going to open them up for me now?” Hermione said sarcastically.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re not pregnant anymore.” Lucius enjoyed the savage glare in his wife’s eyes more than the hard pinch on his arm. He really had to remember to deliver unpleasant news to his wife when she was more than an arm’s length away. He hoped that surge of emotion lasted until bedtime. Hermione in a royal snit was ambrosia in bed.

Lucius decided to fill Hermione in on all he knew now that her health and his babe’s were no longer at risk. “Potter said the documents that were stolen were of those supplies you were assigned to inventory. That’s the only lead we have. And you said that one of the documents was an accounting of toilet paper. Well, we both know that we never saw any toilet paper in our cell, not until the Warden visited us and saw our lack of all the basic amenities we were supposed to have been given.”

Hermione just nodded wisely, not letting her husband know that she hadn’t paid any attention to the Warden’s comments on their supplies because she’d been more focused on her lack of wardrobe and a certain anatomical part she was hoping to bite soon.

Lucius continued, erroneously assuming his wife had seen and connected all the information as he had, “I think someone has been helping themselves to nearly all the supplies sent to Azkaban right under the nose of the Warden, but I just can’t bring myself to suspect him of the thefts. He’s really too stupid. But there are others on the Warden’s office staff who could easily take the prison’s inventory. That Head Guard is a suspect, too.

“I knew back then that someone was profiting from selling our supplies on the blackmarket that should have been given to the prisoners. But so what?” Lucius shrugged. He could see no reason for the extent of the persecution they both had been subjected to.

“All they had to do was shut up shop for awhile until any inventory was finished and then they could start up again. Actually it was just bad luck that you saw firsthand that we didn’t have any toilet paper or anything else in our cell AFTER doing the inventory where you knew the cells should have had those supplies. You were never supposed to come out of prison alive and I was supposed to be the one to make sure of that. Being such a fierce Muggle hater.” Lucius snorted with malicious amusement, “I’ll bet someone peed their shorts when they found out I’d married you instead. Now not only were you NOT dead, you were now married to someone with far reaching wealth and power who wouldn’t take kindly to anyone hurting you.

“So we have black marketeers after you, and if those tampered-with coach straps hadn’t been caught by Otto, perhaps I would have been killed too. After talking to Scrimgeour I know someone framed me, making me look like I was infiltrating the Ministry with spies. So they may be after me also. I didn’t have any connection to the toilet paper caper, therefore, both of us being targeted for two different things at the same time is either a gigantic coincidence, OR the two persecutions are connected and there is something else going on besides an obsession with butt wipes.”

Lucius sat back in his lounging chair, his hands lightly clasped on his stomach as he closed his eyes and inhaled the scented air of his garden. He was so relieved to be home with her living with him, it was nearly miraculous to him that he was granted everything he’d wanted after the horrors of Azkaban – twice.

“So,” Hermione was starting to add things together, “Otto gave you those Daily Prophets. Where did he get them? Who gave them to him to give to you?”

Lucius was enchanted at his wife’s perspicacity. Her intelligence always made an erotic frisson travel straight to his cock. “Otto said the newspapers were left in his cubicle with a brief note to deliver them to me. Unfortunately the notes are gone. There was no reason for Otto to keep them.” Lucius smiled, “Otto’s two main loves are fishing and horses. There’s not a lot of room left over in his mind for anything else. He does what he’s told.”

“Well, that makes him a valuable Malfoy employee, I guess,” Hermione said, tongue in cheek, earning her a suspicious, raised eyebrow. “But it doesn’t advance our search much. It narrows one villain to Azkaban, but obviously there was more than one in my case, because of the polyjuice pretender. Unless you think the person from Azkaban did it all.”

“I’m inclined to think not. I don’t believe anyone, even employees can come and go from Azkaban easily. The whole idea is to keep traffic to the facility to a minimum. If the records are correct, no one left Azkaban for all three times ‘you’ were sighted stealing at the Ministry. Actually, no one left at any of those times. So I think you must be correct and there is more than one person involved. If we knew who, we could probably find out why.” Lucius hoped Hermione wasn’t going to analyze that statement too closely for just how he was going to find out why.

“I suppose it had to be the inventory of toilet paper and other supplies that was the target, and not my suggestion for an improved accounting system, right? Because it was those supply inventories I had nearly finished which were stolen. I had just thought maybe I was stirring up a hornet’s nest with my ideas for overhauling their creaky old system of finances.” Hermione looked at her husband, “Or maybe it was both together.”

“Well, we know it was the supplies. We’re not so certain about your accounting system. Whoever was impersonating you had to have access to at least the same level of office door wards that you had or they couldn’t have laid the false trail they did. That argues someone in the Ministry of course, but also someone at least with your level of security.”

“That doesn’t limit the field much. My level of security is fairly low,” Hermione said, a little dispirited.

“You say you were assigned to do the inventory right after you presented your ideas for the new money system?” Lucius frowned, “That does seem suspicious. Someone didn’t want the accounting system overhauled and sent you to do inventory, which someone else didn’t want you to do? That’s very coincidental. Who reassigned you to inventory?”

“My regular supervisor. We should ask him who asked that I be reassigned, shouldn’t we? That might lead us to one person at least with their hand in this mess.” Hermione suggested, “You should floo him, though, not me. He’s rather a snob and he’ll answer your questions.”

Lucius smiled cynically, “Hermione, he’ll answer your questions now, too. You’re my wife, remember? If he’s the snob you say he is, he’ll see you as a possible stepping stone to his own entrance into a higher social stratum.”

“Uck!” Hermione’s face scrunched up in disgust. “I don’t want to be his stepping stone to anything, obsequious little worm.”

They both tacitly decided to put away the conundrum for a space and just enjoy the waning day and the scents of the roses floating past them on the breeze.

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That evening Draco arrived to see his new baby half-brother. Lucius worried that his son would see his new little brother as competition or feel usurped somehow of his place in his father’s affections, but he needn’t have been concerned. None of that was on Draco’s mind.

Draco sat beside Hermione who was holding Lucien on her lap and examined the baby, reaching over to tickle his chin when Lucien reacted to the new person with happily waving arms and a cooing noise.

“Excitable little fella, isn’t he? You do good work, Granger,” Draco smiled at the infant, then at Hermione. “Uh, you, too, father,” he said belatedly, grinning a little with embarrassment. Thinking about parents as sexual beings was one of life’s tribulations suffered by all.

“Well, you would say so since he’s another obvious Malfoy in looks,” but Hermione was pleased with the compliment and grinned at Draco, handing Lucien over to his brother.

“Whoa, I’m not sure I know how to hold a baby,” Draco demurred, but was overruled as a warm, wiggling baby was bundled into his awkward arms. “He doesn’t weigh much, does he? He should be pretty intelligent with you as parents.” He surprised his father with his next words, “I’m glad there will be another partner for the Malfoy salt mines. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to shouldering father’s entire empire alone – in the distant future, of course.”

Lucius spoke up, “I wasn’t aware that you had any misgivings, Draco.” He was concerned at Draco’s ambivalent attitude to his heritage. The Malfoy estate, finances, and businesses were a full-time job needing a firm hand and sharp intellect.

“Not misgivings, father. You’ve made sure I had the education and knowledge to run things. I’m just enjoying my work in Romania with the dragons. I’m learning so much from Charlie Weasley about them. They’re amazing creatures. It’s merely different from analyzing business ventures, assessing business partners, and investing. That’s all. I just thought little Lucien here,” he winked at Hermione, “and maybe his brothers and sisters will be able to share the extensive workload when the time comes.”

Draco eyed his father in some irritation, “You seemed like you were set on leaving me in charge sooner rather than later, the way you were dicking around with your health. It was a relief to know you’d completely recovered. Snape said it was rather a close run thing.” Draco looked down at his brother and started playing a bit of ‘catch the finger’ with him.

Lucius looked in some consternation at Hermione. Of course she’d heard Draco’s ill-timed and rather too-informative comments! He was met with a pair of inimical brown eyes that promised a full-blown interrogation when they were alone.

Lucius was suddenly trapped between telling her of the mind bridge or having her think he’d been truly ill when he’d told her that wasn’t the case. He decided to mitigate the hot water his son had all unknowingly thrust him into by using Draco’s protective presence to say what he should have told his wife before.

Lucius immolated himself on the altar of good marital relations and took the plunge into honesty, “I had a bad reaction to the separation with Hermione. We had formed a mind bridge in prison and the physical distance was somewhat debilitating. All that’s over now, isn’t it my dear?”

“Not quite,” was all Hermione said, but the promise of retribution hung in the air between them.

Draco was oblivious as he swooped his brother up and down gently, giving him the baby version of a hippogriff ride to the squealing delight of the infant.

“Excuse me a moment, Draco, Lucius, I have to check on dinner,” Hermione jumped up and exited the sumptuous main drawing room.

Lucius smiled weakly at his sons as he groaned inside. He knew exactly where Hermione was going and he was going to catch hell later.

Hermione apparated into the estate library and quickly ran down the tomes on psychological phenomena, mental illnesses and out-of-body experiences finding what she was looking for almost immediately. Mental connections and mind bridges weren’t common and weren’t fatal if one or the other of a couple died, but physical distance worsened a person’s overall wellness and could give chronic headaches. And this was what Lucius had been trying to rupture.

Hermione was livid until she realized he hadn’t been able to break away from her. The connection must have been so strong he’d suffered both in prison and out, before returning to her in her little home. From the looks of him both times, it seemed he had suffered more than she. Perhaps she had been spared more of the trauma because of Lucius’ indirect presence within her through the pregnancy. Hermione riffled a few more pages - there didn’t seem to be any information on pregnancy and its effects on mind bridges.

She realized Lucius had been fighting for his autonomy, apparently hopelessly. She grinned. She was enough like Lucius to enjoy the idea of him being caught in her toils. This must be the feeling he got when he bested a rival in a good business deal. He was waiting for her to light into him about his secretive knowledge. Well, he could wait a while. The suspense would be good for him.

Hermione returned to the drawing room in time to hear the house elf announce dinner and she, Draco and Lucius went into the formal dining room while Lucien was whisked up to his nursery for a bath by his little elf nursemaid.

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After dinner two days later as the two Malfoys were relaxing in their private sitting room in the evening, Lucius asked Hermione, “Ah, yes, so did you talk to your old supervisor?” Lucius put down the parchment he had been reading. He could go over the rest later.

His confrontation with his wife over his failure to apprise her of their mental connection still rankled some, mostly because he knew she had every right to lambaste him for withholding his knowledge, but he still hated being caught putting a foot wrong, especially with her. Luckily she had waited until Draco left again before skewering him with her tongue. He felt he had made amends though, by skewering her with his tongue in exchange, although in a much different way. Her screams of completion still had his poor ears ringing a bit.

“I did,” Hermione said, “and it’s an odd thing, but he said he merely had a note from the Magic Council Office asking him to change my assignment with no directions on which assignment to choose. He was baffled, but did as it directed.”

“Hmmm, another dead end for now. But it does indicate one of the shadow men or women is affiliated with the Magic Council. Yes, that moves us forward.” Lucius’ next question was voiced too quietly, “Did your supervisor offend you in any way?”

Hermione heard the whimsical softness in her mate’s voice and knew she was close to having one ex-boss disappear mysteriously and reappear, probably diced up as dragon fodder since Lucius now had a connection there.

She caught her breath and said very carefully in an effort at nonchalance, “No, he’s just one of those rigid, petty bureaucrats whose whole life revolves around his dreary job.”

“Rather like you used to be, tidbit?” Lucius gibed good-naturedly. He was mildly relieved he didn’t have to decide how to reprimand Hermione’s ex-boss. The blond wizard mused with a bit of nostalgia that he was more bark than bite anymore - even in the long gone Death Eater days it had become tiring to constantly come up with novel ways punish enemies. The various Unforgivables had long since worn thin as a method - so very tedious and rather too much like menial labor. And THEN there was the problem of where to dispose of the occasional body.

Maybe he was just getting old. Being a Death Eater had been a lot more slog than glory. Besides, it was more fun nowadays watching the terror build in his business associates based on his murky past when he caught them trying to pull a shady deal on him. He understood that the double-cross was considered a perfectly acceptable method in Pureblood commercial enterprises – he was a past master at the art himself. But it tickled him to know that they always gave him much more ‘credit’ for what he might do to them than he would ever bother to perform any more. His reputation still kept the worst of the double dealers from trying to take advantage of him.

Lucius frowned. Well, it had been more fun terrorizing his colleagues. The thrill seemed to have left that particular pastime now too, and he grumblingly knew it was because his wife wouldn’t like it. She was fast draining the fun out of his less salubrious activities. He shrugged philosophically; she’d shown him another way almost from her first day in that shared cell and it was one he liked a whole lot more than a little bloodletting or fear. There was no challenge any more in mere intimidation.

He was embracing Hermione’s idea of crafty manipulation and persuasion wholeheartedly as his new method for intimidating the Purebloods of his set. Lucius knew Hermione didn’t view his new technique in the same way – her idea was much more benign in scope and wasn’t backed by the same motivations as his. She just wanted a more settled place for herself and their son in his world unencumbered by his reputation for vindictive retaliation. But Lucius needed to retain his dominant position. Different reasons, different method, but the same results. And mentally manipulating his circle offered its own brand of entertainment. The thrill of the conquest was still there, but now he used his superior, scheming intelligence to beat out his competition, instead of his wand. Best of all, he stayed out of hot water with his wife.

Would he ever get tired of his wife’s petite, soft curves and didactic, preachy personality? Somehow he thought not. He smiled in contentment. She was so like him in so many ways - minus the history of bloodletting, of course. Sometimes one had to give up something to get something better and as long as she continued to love him, that would be worth anything else, even a bit of irritating moralizing, which always warmed him even as it chafed.

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“Well? Did your idea work out?” The first voice curtly asked his cohort. He was disgruntled to be called away from the Ministry where the situation was getting tight as Scrimgeour increased security even more.

Even worse, at home his mother was raising holy Hecate about her clothing allowance. Did she think he was made of money? He was just barely covering his gambling debts as it was. Even the generous return he’d received from investing with that arsehole Malfoy wouldn’t cover much more than a few new dresses.

And if he helped himself to any more money out of the special, private Gringott’s account he and his secret partner had set up at the beginning of their nefarious enterprise, his partner was likely to see the discrepancy before their plans were completed. After it was executed, well, that was another matter. He wouldn’t need his partner any more and he had a plan to ensure he became sole owner of the Gringott’s account after he was elected the new Minister of Magic.

The second voice, unaware of the vicious undercurrents swirling through the first villain's mind, replied confidently, “It’s all arranged. We’ll be able to get around Malfoy’s wards now. I have a shipment to deal with first, but I can easily return from the prison before we need to move with this. We’ll have to…” the two villains put their heads together to make sure no one overheard the vicious particulars of their venture in the smoky Muggle bar.

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tbc...

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Things are heating up. What are the two up to now? (Remember, I always have a happy ending...)


Reviews are cheerfully accepted. For those celebrating Thanksgiving, have a happy one!

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