I would like to thank my beta, Kuilin. After Kuilin's diligent work, I suppose I can update this story twice per week for a while.

Chapter 38.

Nurmengard, Part II, Lucius Malfoy

10:23 am, July 15th, 1993

According to the rushed decision by the survivors of the eighty-ninth Wizengamot, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, aka. Mr. White, was sentenced 357 years in prison for his previous crimes as a Death Eater. Since the ex-Lord Malfoy, who was now only Mr. Malfoy, had been quite cooperative in his trials, and he had some unspecified "considerable contributions to the wizarding society and the world", the prison sentence had been reduced to 234 years. Lucius hoped that his wisdom and luck would help him to significantly shorten this unpleasant period of time, though that highly depends on how he would perform in the next two months.

Handcuffed behind his back, baggy orange prison robes on his body, the ex-Lord Malfoy was escorted through the yard of Nurmengard towards the lifetime wards by three prison guards. Trying to ignore the grim future prospect that this might be his residence for a long time, the blond man observed the jet black castle.

The sounds of huge waves clashing with rocks and the damp and salty wind told everyone inside Nurmengard that the prison was located on a rocky cliff near the North Sea, From what Lucius read before he came here, viewing from outside, the black formidable fortress was rectangular in shape, with four towering keeps in each corner. A glimpse from inside told Lucius that the prison guards on the towers could effectively shoot every inch of the rectangular inner yard, leaving no blind spot. According to the newspapers, during the past year, the northeast corner of the castle had been transformed into the "Healing and Consultation Center", and it was where most of the dementor-exposed former prisoners of Azkaban were located. From what Lucius had heard, the healings didn't make much progress. Heading to southwest, Lucius supposed that the rumors that the lifetime wards were located in the southwest corner might be true. However, for a magical castle that might or might not have some resemblance to Hogwarts or Azkaban in its defensive wards, judging the orientations according to the sun could be misleading, and the direction of the gates bore no indications of the actual directions while you were inside the castle.

After the two guards in front of the southwest corner gate and the guards escorting Lucius exchanged some passwords, Lucius and the guards were lead through a Thief's Downfall, and were probed with a series of interesting magical devices. About five minutes later, the southwest corner gate creaked open, and the blond prisoner became the subject of another round of checks after he went through the gate. Finally, the new prisoner and guard trio were allowed to step into the corridors.

Although the outside of Nurmengard was a standard high-security magical castle, amazingly, the inside resembled -

With a suppressed shudder, Lucius remembered the pictures of Muggle concentration camps that he recently saw: the walls were deathly white, the floor was gloomy grey, and the corridors were depressingly straight and narrow, with tall black iron prison cell doors meticulously arranged on each side.

-Did he, did he want to sacrifice his wizarding prisoners the same way he used the Muggles to be invincible?

When it was all about how Grindelwald killed millions of Muggles to gain infinite power, Lucius never thought much of it - the world might be a better place with more of those pests gone; and if Grindelwald had done it sooner, the "nuclear weapons" that had worried Severus so much probably wouldn't even exist. However, to consider the possibility that the Malfoys might one day lose his Lordship's favor in the hypothetic scenario that Grindelwald had won, and this might be the place where the Malfoys might end up with…

Swallowing down hard, Lucius admitted to himself that Albus Dumbledore might have done one good thing in his life.

Several long corridors and five stairs up later, where Lucius figured that the castle was much larger from the inside than from outside, the guard trio stopped in front of Zelle 537, and opened the heavy iron door. Lucius stepped into the cell, and the door closed behind him immediately. Then, the guards opened a small opening in the larger door, and instructed Lucius to put his hands through the small door. While one of the guards was untying the handcuffs, Lucius eyed the small single cell - unfortunately, his single cell.

This room was approximately half of the size of the semi-comfortable holding cell in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, yet it was much better than the abysmal conditions for prisoners of Azkaban before it was turned into the Hospital - not that the prisoners would notice anything with the presence of dementors. Although any common sense of orientation would determine it as impossible, Lucius could still see the gloomy North Sea through the small window. Lucius suppose, this view was better than the grim sight of the Nurmengard inner yard - the Boy-Who-Lived probably didn't lie about that the ex-Lord Malfoy would get the best reasonable treatment in Nurmengard. Beside the window, there was a neatly-made single bed with grey sheet, and all the corners of the bed was round, and perhaps magically cushioned. Near the head of the bed stood a small round-cornered hardwood desk, and a chair affixed to some rails on the concrete floor, so that you could only move it forward or backward in front of the desk, yet there was no way that you could lift the chair up and use it as a weapon. Near the end of the bed, there was a small chest drawer. If the German prison officials were not boasting about their working efficiency, the limited underclothes and other items that Lucius was allowed to bring here should already be inside it. Besides the chest drawer, there was the toilet and the standing shower. As Impervius charms eliminated the practical necessity of walls and curtains between the shower and other furnitures, and the privacy of prisoners were not of much concern to the designers of this fortress, Lucius supposed that he had to swallow down this unpleasant adjustment to his lifestyle.

As his hands were free from the handcuffs, and the small door in the clunky iron door was shut behind, Lucius rubbed his wrists, and moved toward the small wooden desk. Lucius opened the drawer in the desk, and found the real luxury that he was allowed to purchase in Nurmengard: newspapers.

Lucius flipped through the headlines in the Daily Prophet, and found no new instructions from the Boy-Who-Lived, - well, he just finished the conversation with the Potter boy merely ten hours ago, so there was no need for new instructions on today's newspaper.

Lucius frowned as he thought of the uncomfortable conversation yesterday, where the Boy-Who-Lived grilled him about everything he did to the treacherous little creature named Dobby. Under the angry stares from the Girl-Who-Revived and sneers from Mad-Eye, Lucius admitted that he had used some illegal-on-human magic on Dobby. To avoid further judgements from the Granger girl and Mad-Eye, Lucius changed into Parseltongue to list the various curses he had employed, such as Cruciatus Curse, Imperius Curse, Gom jabbar, and something else along the same line.

Unfortunately, the Boy-Who-Lived had to ask Severus and Mad-Eye about the effects and rumors on each curse in detail in English, and Lucius had to endure the Girl-Who-Revived's constant judgements.

"Err, the Cruciatus Curse breaks one's soul? I mean, could you explain it in less metaphoric words?" The Potter boy had asked.

Lucius was first confused by Potter's question, because "breaks one's soul" was exactly what Cruciatus Curse did, there was nothing metaphoric about it, and the potion that could mitigate the sufferings of Cruciatus victims was called "Soul Healing Potion".

From later discussion between Severus and Potter, Lucius realized that the Boy-Who-Lived didn't believe in the existence of souls.

-But that is ridiculous! If wizards don't have souls, how can animagus think? How does Polyjuice work?

Lucius wanted to utter his disagreement, yet he checked his tongue, because he didn't want to contradict his new Light Lord on such theoretical issues.

Then, something hit Lucius: I don't remember anything happening between the point of my death and the point of my revival! Therefore, therefore...

Lucius drew in a horrified breath: there is no afterlife.

Mad-Eye observed Lucius' change in breath, and snarled, "What, Lucius? You'd better spell it out, for your own sake!"

Lucius sighed, "Lord Potter, I have just realized that I can attest to your idea that there is no afterlife. At least, there is nothing that I can recall between my death and revival. I sspoke truth."

"OK, then we can eliminate the whole 'creation-of-a-soul' thing from our discussion." The Potter boy proclaimed. "Let's move to the breach of predetermined magical rules."

To Lucius' slight amazement, Severus chose to refute the new Light Lord's idea: "Mr. Potter, you do realize that soul and afterlife are two different concepts. As an animagus and a potioneer, I still tend to believe in the existence of souls. There are potions that claim to be able to heal or damage souls, and it appears that the potions perform their functions as described."

While Severus and Potter entered a rather academic discussion, Lucius re-evaluated his new Light Lord.

-The Boy-Who-Lived doesn't seem to be bothered by such disagreements. Well, this is something different from Riddle.

Just then, the Girl-Who-Revived raised her head from a bulky book that she was reading, and asked, "In the description in this book, Gom jabbar and a poisonous needle can be used to test if someone is a human or an animal, for a human can endure the pain caused by Gom jabbar, and not to flinch toward the poisonous needle, while an animal cannot. So how did Dobby react to your Gom jabbar, and what did you say or do around the time you punish Dobby with Gom jabbar?"

Lucius tried hard to remember, and answered, "I told it not to scream, otherwise I would punish it more severely. And after a few times, Dobby stopped screaming during my punishments. But how can that make it a human?"

"Oh, Lucius, oh, Lucius, you dimwit! " Severus - instead of anyone else - snapped at him."You set a test and asked Dobby to behave like a human, or to be a human! The master's orders are the highest laws of house-elves, so Dobby did!"

Lucius wanted to protest, and yet he found Severus' arguments quite convincing.

The girl radiating a sense of innocence and purity said in amazement: "So the cruel master is the reason that Dobby is capable of a mind of its own!"

"A mind of its own?" The Boy-Who-Lived repeated the Girl-Who-Revived's words with his eyes wide open.

Lucius had a sense that the Potter boy had just discovered something very important. And judging from the change of expression on Severus' face, Lucius guessed his new best friend had thought of something really important as well.

As for what they might have figured out, Lucius hadn't figured out yet. Lucius supposed, if he was unlucky, he would have hundreds of years to decrypt this mystery.

Comparing to some rather theoretical magic problems, Lucius would rather prefer to entangle some political conundrum, such as why the world's top wizards hadn't attacked Hogwarts yet. After Lucius instructed Severus to bribe the right bureaucrats, and asked the right questions, it turned out that they owed quite a lot to Albus Dumbledore's reputation of weirdness and power, and Grindelwald's reaction to the events one year ago. Lucius wondered if Lord Grindelwald had considered Great Britain as his own playground after Dumbledore was locked in Time, and said something specifically designed to deter the Americans and Russians from doing anything real.

Unfortunately for Lucius, even in the field that he considered his game, the major players might consider magic theory more important than politics, for Lord Grindelwald had claimed that the reason Albus Dumbledore disappeared had something to do with the "origin of magic", and this, somehow made the rest of the world pause and think.

After Severus delivered Grindelwald's statement to the Boy-Who-Lived the day before yesterday, Severus, Draco, the Granger girl, and the Potter boy all agreed the claim itself might be true; while Mad-Eye, who had been approached by people who tried to deliver the same statement from Lord Grindelwald before, didn't believe a single word.

Lucius had never walked the walks of powerful wizards, and he had never dreamt that he would - what Lucius excelled at was people. By comparing the different reactions of Potter, Granger, Severus, and Mad-Eye upon the previous "origin of magic" issue and the house-elf issue, Lucius could sort of fancy why Mad-Eye failed in his attempt to become a really powerful lord: this guy is slower in powerful wizardry than I am.

For the next thirty minutes or so, Lucius watched as they discussed "free will", "predetermined magical rules" and "origin of magic", where Severus and Potter did most of the talking. Lucius didn't quite understand all the contents they were talking about, but he could see one thing: if anyone in the Potter boy's headquarter office is going to be a really powerful lord, Potter and Severus have the best chances.

Lucius started to consider how he should treat Severus differently after this discovery, and contemplated what this might mean for his future plans.

-The Boy-Who-Lived, the Girl-Who-Revived, Severus, and Grindelwald, are all more interested in powerful wizardry than current politics. Maybe I should instruct Draco to do the same, and stick closer to his new Godfather.

-Thinking along the same line, I should change my approach when I meet Grindelwald. The leverages that I can use on Lord Grindelwald should be important secrets on powerful wizardry. The problem with this approach is that I can hardly see the danger in any of the important secrets I know, maybe Severus and Potter might enlighten me on this.

When Severus and Potter reached the point that they were full of speculations and without enough power or resources to confirm or falsify the majority of the ideas, Lucius raised his point, and asked what he could offer Lord Grindelwald.

Then, Severus and Potter entered another long academic discussion, while Mad-Eye were either suggesting that Lucius raised this question because he was up to something, or pointing out how dangerous each secret could be.

-This old lunatic is good at one thing: how dangerous everything could be.

Finally, they agreed on one least harmful secret: part of the reason Hermione Granger was like this, had something to do with the sacrifice of an unicorn (as many had already guessed out); and in case something happened to the Girl-Who-Revived, there would be so much backlashes from the Universe, that the origin of magic might be destroyed (many people already knew the rumor about unicorn blood and Liquid Luck, anyway).

Therefore, now Lucius was stuck with only one thing that he could offer Lord Grindelwald (which Lord Grindelwald might already know), and his task was to wiggle out what the Russians and Americans had been trying for the past fifty years from the clearly very intelligent Lord Grindelwald.

Lucius sighed, and continued to imagine various scenarios how his first meeting with Lord Grindelwald would go.