No one knows when magic began. Some say that the very first humans were wizards, while others claim that a small number of people had gained the powers later on and passed them down genetically. Still others believe that both wizards and Muggles appeared at the same point in time, separated from the very beginning by the difference in their abilities. It was a question that occupied historians for centuries, yielding many attempts to trace wizarding history as far back in time as human intellect could allow. But all these efforts were in vain. No one could solve the mystery of magic's beginning, and no one ever would.

And yet, the more that wizards learned about their powers, and the more distinct their society grew from that of the Muggles, the more they began to treasure the documents of their world.

Located many miles beneath the streets of London, far beyond the bustle of everyday life, lies an enormous wing of the Ministry of Magic known as the Department of Origin. It serves as the Ministry's informational store, housing all of its documents and records. But it also contains relics of wizardkind as a whole, including copies of published works, runic ciphers that were used in the past to create spells, and the records of ancient wizarding families, whose affairs were so closely intertwined with the history of the times that it could well be said that they wrote it themselves. Standing inside the underground library, staring up at the enormous arched ceiling and surrounded by such a wealth of information, any visitor would feel enticed and empowered. For all the wizarding world's secrets, all of its knowledge, were within arm's reach. Even the things that might have been worth forgetting.

But in order to inherit the future, one must first be burdened with the past.

Lucius Malfoy, one of the Department's lucky personnel, knew this better than anyone else.

Lucius didn't work in the actual library of records; he was a Junior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, and his special job was to preside over the business of the Department of Origin, serving as its bridge of communication to the rest of the Ministry. But on occasion, he was allowed to roam the archive in his leisure, looking at artifacts in glass cases and wandering among the rows of bookshelves.

His position was the kind that was rarely bestowed, even among the well-to-do. He had gotten it because of his father, who had the necessary connections and had secured it for him when Lucius finished his education at Hogwarts. During the years that led up to his marriage, Lucius went to the Ministry to report for work every day. He didn't do it for the money, but rather, to be surrounded by the government elite and bring honor to his family name. But the longer he worked in the Department, the more he realized that he was also doing it for the knowledge.

Being the descendant of an old pureblood family, Lucius naturally had a reverence for history bed into him. But it was only here, in the archive, surrounded by ancient books and scrolls, that he realized the true depth and fragility of the entire wizarding enterprise. It was here that he realized just how limited their world was, seeing everything that wizards knew, everything they were, laid out before him in material form. Lucius was a proud man by nature, but being in the archive made him unusually humble and quiet. On the days when he had business there, he often stayed for hours, lurking at the study tables in the aisles and reading the newer books that were still in circulation.

The front of the archive was designed to accommodate visitors like him in fair comfort, with spacious floors and large stone fountains that produced the sounds of cascading streams. The titles were also relatively recent, all of them written in modern languages. But the deeper one went, the denser and stranger the collection became, until finally, somewhere near the middle, the visitor would encounter a glittering, transparent wall that forced them to stop. They would then be left to stand, while the walkway snaked on through the city of bookshelves, plunging into the archive's innermost depths. There the texts became undecipherable, the artifacts priceless. At the very end, it was said that there was a gathering of relics as old as humanity itself, down to the first strokes people painted with fingers and brushes.

The only people who were allowed past this boundary were the archive's keepers, and theirs was a position of prestige on par with the Unspeakables. Lucius couldn't begin to imagine what a person would have to do to become one of them. The keepers were all old witches and wizards, who had likely been with the Department for decades and presided over their own section of the library. They weren't confined to secrecy like the Unspeakables, however, and enjoyed telling visitors about their domain, which they knew inside and out. They were the archive's perpetual guardians, and could often be seen walking among the collections like ghosts.

During his time of employment, Lucius had grown particularly friendly with one of them. He was an elderly wizard by the name of Bradbury, who had spent most of his life as a scholar. While other Ministry workers wore stylish hats and shiny badges, this man wore plain, brown robes, for the fruits of his labor lay within.

Lucius had been introduced to Bradbury on his first day of work. Fresh from Hogwarts and ready for a shining career, Lucius had been walking with one of the other undersecretaries towards the lifts on the first floor. He had already met the Minister of Magic and his future colleagues, and had finally discovered which department he would be working for. He still wasn't sure why an informational archive was called the Department of Origin, but he figured that if it was worth finding out, he would.

Lucius and the man approached the lifts, where an old, slightly-hunched wizard awaited them. Lucius's companion stepped forward and shook his hand.

"Hello, Mr. Bradbury. This is Lucius Malfoy."

Bradbury extended a hand and Lucius shook it. Giving the other undersecretary a nod, Bradbury motioned Lucius towards the nearest lift and followed him inside. They descended to the Department of Mysteries, the deepest that the public lifts would go, and emerged into a dim, black corridor with a single door on the far end. To the left was the staircase that led down to the Wizengamot courtrooms, and to the right was another long wing. Bradbury led Lucius to the right, where they came upon another series of lifts.

"The Department is only accessible through these," Bradbury said. "It's a bit deeper underground, so the lifts are separate."

He opened one of the doors and motioned for Lucius to enter. Inside, Bradbury removed a small golden key from his pocket, identical to the one Lucius had received upon his acceptance, and inserted it into a matching keyhole in the wall. Instantly, the lift dropped like a dead weight, taking them down to Level Eleven.

Lucius stood calmly with his hands behind his back, expecting a basic file room, but the minute the doors opened to reveal a vast, underground palace, and Lucius's gaze swept over the innumerable quantity of bookshelves, his face unconsciously adopted a look of childlike awe. Seeing this, Bradbury smiled.

"Ah, the young."

He stepped around Lucius to take the lead, leaving him somewhat flustered.

The keeper proceeded to give Lucius a general tour and showed him the sections he would use most frequently. But Bradbury also seemed to take an interest in Lucius himself, and from that day on, he took him under his wing. And indeed, he was one of the only people whom Lucius ever allowed to do so. Bradbury presided over the section of familial records, and on occasion, he let Lucius venture beyond the protective boundary. There, Bradbury revealed a stunning creation - a series of vaults for all the ancient wizarding families of Great Britain. Each vault pertained to a single family, much like the vaults at the Gringotts bank, only instead of material possessions, these held information. In order to open them, one had to either be a keeper or a member of the family itself.

Naturally, there was a vault dedicated to the Malfoys, but Lucius still found himself amazed when he saw the name carved above the door. He knew the vault was ancient; it had to be at least as old as the Ministry itself, and likely contained things that many of his ancestors had never seen. Back when they were alive, Malfoys could afford to seclude themselves from the majority of society. Power and influence ran in bloodlines, but those days were quickly fading for a different future, one in which society was diluted and fast-paced. And in order to survive in it, Lucius knew he would have to play a delicate balancing game: Reap the benefits of the new culture while hanging on to the traditions of the old.

His first three years at the Department of Origin passed by in peace. Lucius contently fulfilled his duties and felt no interest in the business of other departments, save for what made good conversation in the lounge. He rather liked the fact that he was privy to a section of the Ministry that most of the other workers took for granted, mentioning it only when they were getting something 'filed'. There was something calming about having everything down on paper, and something satisfying in the slow way the keepers worked, contributing to their collections from time to time and exchanging items with other countries. Lucius saw it as a sign of personal belonging that he could spent an extra few hours in his department at the end of the day and not feel like he was working overtime.

But in the months that followed his marriage, the atmosphere at the Ministry began to tense. In October of 1976, there was a sudden spike in crimes against Muggles, many of which showed traces of Dark magic. Inferi began to be spotted in desolated towns, and several wizards' homes were raided by unknown suspects, who left threats of death and torture if the victims did not comply with their terms. Rumor had it that a Dark wizard was on the rise, and the sinister forces of the world seemed to be stirring up in response to his presence. Lucius had heard these rumors even at Hogwarts, but at the time the unrest had been so distant that the issue never lingered long in his mind. The flaunting, Dark-tolerant attitude that had taken over many of the younger Slytherins had seemed like a cliquish fad, much like people inflated their enthusiasm for foreign Quidditch teams after reading a few fan articles.

But as winter approached, the evidence began to solidify. Holiday celebrations were clouded by searches and interrogations, and the Ministry began to circulate pamphlets and posters to inform people about safety precautions. There was no outright panic, but as the months wore on, the situation visibly worsened. While Narcissa sat at home, Lucius was caught in the midst of a bureaucratic breakdown, receiving daily news of dead Ministry officials and failed captures.

It was sometime then, towards the beginning of January, that a new face appeared in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. New recruits were steadily being taken in by the Ministry, filling the places of workers who had been stationed on the field. But Lucius and the man didn't cross paths for weeks, until one day, a knock came on Lucius's door. Lucius, who was writing a letter to Minister Minchum, looked up in annoyance and prepared to send the unlucky visitor away.

The wizard that stepped in was tall and dark-haired, dressed in gray robes that swept the floor behind him. He met Lucius's stare unflinchingly, with nearly the same businesslike coldness. This surprised Lucius, and managed to keep him silent as the man stopped before his desk.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

"Unless the name on the door has changed, yes," Lucius replied.

The man was neither fazed nor humored. He brought out a folder and set it down. "A case from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It concerns your department."

"Go on."

"Last week, a witch by the name of Fredricia Smith filed a lawsuit against her relative, Preston Smith," the wizard said. "The lawsuit concerned the fortune of a certain Elaine Smith, a wealthy heiress, who passed away the month prior. Among her possessions is a golden cup, which was passed down the female line of her husband's family. Elaine's husband was Dagan Smith, and the goblet in question was previously in the possession of his mother, Hepzibah Smith. The goblet went missing shortly after Hepzibah's death, after which Dagan and Elaine sought to locate it, and finally managed to do so in 1950." Here, he paused, pursing his lips. "They returned the cup to their house, but in the months that followed, their marriage grew strained and they ended up resolving to divorce. But Dagan passed before it was legalized, and Elaine followed just a year later. In her will she expressed her wish that the goblet remain the sole property of her family forever, and that it be given to no one except a direct blood relative. This is where the problem lies."

The man opened the folder to reveal a booklet of papers.

"Fredricia and Preston Smith are the closest surviving relatives of the Smith family. Fredricia is Dagan's cousin, and claims that because she is a female, the cup must belong to her. Preston is Elaine's nephew, and argues that he is more closely related to Elaine and therefore has a greater right to possess it as an heirloom. The Wizengamot must determine which of the two has the rightful claim to the artifact. Due to the complexity of the matter, we require substantial historical evidence and family records from the archive. Specifically, we require records of the transfer of the cup and an analysis of the Smith family tree to determine which of the two claimants is the rightful heir. If it is neither, then the Department of Magical Law Enforcement asks that the cup be declared an ownerless artifact and be transferred to a secure place, preferably the archive itself."

Lucius flipped through the papers without comment, then set the folder aside. "I will investigate it. For now, if that is all, you may leave."

"Very well," said the man. "You may deliver any relevant documents to my office. My name is Hesperus Rex." The man turned, his robes swishing behind him, and left the office.

Later that day, Lucius went down to the archive with the folder the man had given him. He looked around the visitor area for a keeper, and right then, noticed a pale blue glow coming from one of the tables. Bradbury was sitting there, a multitude of books and parchment rolls lying open around him. The light was coming from an enchanted orb that floated beside his workstation, containing several glowing strands that twisted around each other. The keeper himself was hard at work, writing something with his quill.

Lucius started to walk past the table, not wanting to disturb him, but moments later Bradbury noticed him of his own accord. "Ah, Lucius. I hope everything's all right up there?"

Lucius approached the table. "Mostly... The rebels are popping up everywhere, and they're getting more violent by the week. Minchum's stopped trying to convince people they have nothing to worry about. And if he thinks that this will last a long time, then it surely will, without doubt..." He looked around the quiet room and gave a sigh. When his gaze trailed back to Bradbury, he gave a faint smile. "It must be relieving, being down here."

Bradbury chuckled. "One would think. But it can be surprisingly unsettling to sit on the sidelines, doing your research, while the future of your world hangs by a thread. And yet... your work must go on. It might seem that the rebels are smashing relics and overturning traditions, but in reality, nothing is destroyed in this world. Everything that seems lost always comes back, in another form..." Bradbury lifted his hand to the glowing strands, making them bend and twist. Up close, Lucius saw that the strands weren't floating randomly -- pairs of them spiraled around each other, connected by tiny ribs. Looking at them seemed to put Bradbury in a state of contemplation, and he began to write some more.

After a moment, Lucius allowed himself a step closer. "If you don't mind me asking, what is your research about?"

"Magical heredity," Bradbury replied. "It's an old project; I've been on it for a few years now. There's too much jargon involved to go into the details, but I'm attempting to investigate how certain qualities pass down by blood."

Lucius looked around at the books the keeper was reading. Some of them were written in other languages, even runes. "If you should ever need assistance, I would gladly listen to your ideas."

Bradbury smiled. "I would be very glad to receive it. However... you must have come here today for a different reason." He eyed the folder tucked under Lucius's arm.

"Ah..." Lucius took it into both hands. "I've received a case for the Wizengamot. Two members of the Smith family are disputing over an heirloom, and I need to get some information from their vault."

"The Smiths? Yes, I'm familiar with them." Bradbury gave a slight cough. Despite the warm lighting, Lucius noticed that he looked a little pale.

"Are you well?" Lucius asked. "I could ask another keeper to take me, if you're not able. It would be no trouble."

But Bradbury shook his head. "Just sat for too long, is all. A little stroll won't hurt."

He rose from his chair and beckoned for Lucius to follow, leading him down the familiar path to the family vaults. Bradbury stopped before the Smith door and placed his palm on it, and the slab of stone slid away to reveal a small library with a wooden worktable in the center. "Here we are. The collection is small, but you should still be able to find what you are looking for."

Lucius, to whom the vault seemed quite expansive, frowned. "Why do you say it is smaller?"

"The Smith family is not originally British," Bradbury explained. "Our collection is limited for those families who have a longer history somewhere else. In the case of the Smiths, their British ties emerged only in the late twelfth century, when they became connected with the Hufflepuff line."

Lucius looked at the keeper in disbelief. "The Hufflepuffs?"

Bradbury smiled. "Yes. The last bearer of the Hufflepuff name was a woman by the name of Krista, who married a man named Smith. Krista was the daughter of Helga Hufflepuff's brother, which makes all subsequent generations of the Smith family partially related to her. The Smiths are, in fact, the only surviving relations of the Hufflepuff family, since Helga had no children."

Lucius nodded in understanding. He was a Slytherin, but that hadn't stopped him from reading about the histories of the other Houses. And he knew that though Helga Hufflepuff was thought of as the most carefree and innocent of the four, her life was arguably the most complex.

She had been born in a small village in Wales, a rare sort of community that held a mix of wizards and Muggles. They existed in harmony, each group fulfilling its own role in securing the survival of the population. At the time, there were no centers for formal magical education, so wizards in usually developed only the skills they needed for survival - healing, potionmaking, and culinary arts. They were still dependent on Muggle skills, like hunting, planting, and building.

The Hufflepuff family held a position of power in their community, and as a result, Helga had connections to distant parts of the country and was able to gain wizarding acquaintances - most notably Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin. Like them, Helga displayed exceptional talent at magic, and at a young age had mastered more skills than any other wizard in her village. When she inherited her parents' estate, she unified the entire village under her guidance. She even planned to marry one of the village men, with whom she had been in love for years, and live her life quietly. But the more time she spent in the company of her wizard friends, the more Helga became occupied by the affairs of wizardkind. She had done a great deal to benefit Muggles, and had figured that creating a school of sorcery would be her chance to benefit wizards. The Founders' grand goal was to create a school that would combine all branches of magic into a single curriculum, and give wizards a broad, formal education for the first time in English history.

In setting out on the project with her colleagues, however, Helga stayed true to the principles she learned growing up. She despised the lazy attitude prevalent among wizards at the time, who saw magic as a complete replacement for labor. Moreover, Helga denounced magical elitism, for she had been raised with respect for Muggles and sought only three things in her students: hard work, honesty, and loyalty. The seeds of righteousness.

But as Helga spent more time away, the home she had once known began to change. Relations between the wizards and Muggles grew tense, for with Helga's new notoriety as a school founder, the wizards of the village had adopted a lofty air. Hogwarts had allowed them to enhance their powers to the point where they could do most of the Muggles' jobs for them, leaving the Muggles as second-rate helpers. Unhappy with this treatment, the Muggles in the village revolted, raiding the Hufflepuff manor and burning wizards' homes. But many Muggle bystanders also perished, including the man Helga had loved. Legend had it that she had been so heartbroken that she was never again the same. A shadow fell over her usually sunny countenance, and she never married.

Now, Lucius looked around at the books in the vault, and turned to Bradbury with a question in his mind. "But what of the families with a mixed ancestral background? Their records would be scattered about the whole globe, would they not? How would you know in which country to store it?"

A twinkle appeared in Bradbury's eyes. "You ask the right questions. But there is no simple answer. Yes, it's true that most wizarding families have a more complicated past than their living descendants might think. Each country, however, holds only the records that date back as far as a family has lived there. This fools people into thinking that they are purely of one heritage, when in fact, there may exist older files in some other place belonging to the same lineage, possibly even under a different name. We've already found that many families based here in this Department are not originally English. Even your name - Malfoy… it sounds French. I suspect this is more than a coincidence, but of course, we must investigate further before we can draw any conclusions."

Lucius frowned. "But then, you might as well argue that no family is originally from anywhere. Nearly every group of people migrated at some point in their history, so technically it's impossible to determine where any family, or any people for that matter, originated. The farther back in time you go, the more closely connected all families become, which would mean that in the end, everyone is a descendant of one person - the progenitor of the entire human race." At this, he fell silent, befuddled by his own trail of thought. But Bradbury gave a nod.

"Yes, this is the problem of regression. Though it is found in two dimensions: one is the history of humanity as a whole, which is investigated mainly by Muggles, and the other is the history of wizardkind." Bradbury fixed his gaze on Lucius. "Magic, as you know, is an inherited power. That means that every magical individual must have magical ancestors. But what happens when we examine the ancestors of those ancestors? Were they magical too? Our expectations tell us they had to be... but the further back one goes, the more difficult it becomes to prove it. A popular theory is that, much like all human lineages eventually converge back in time, all the wizarding families of the world in fact stem from a single magical ancestor."

Lucius nodded. "Which would leave wizards with one ancestor and Muggles with another... I'm familiar with it..." But now, after trailing off, he frowned. "But there is something I haven't been able to understand. Magic is obviously very diverse. Is it really possible that magic in all of its forms could have originated in just one person? I know it's just as equally a fact of experience that certain talents are concentrated in specific families. The Bulstrodes were great potioneers, the Ollivanders wandmakers. If there really is only one progenitor of magic, then they would have had to be good at all those things, wouldn't they?"

"Not necessarily," said Bradbury. "The various features of magic could very well have appeared later on. The important thing is the initial spark, the moment someone was born with the right conditions in their body for any sort of powers to emerge. Those powers would then be passed on to that person's children, perhaps with several new powers as well, and as the lineage continued to reproduce, their magic would expand."

"But how can someone pass down more magic than what they have?"

Bradbury smiled. "Wizards have a rather metaphorical way of speaking about these things. We typically regard magic as something that fills up a person, like liquid, and it follows that the more concentrated or diluted it is, the stronger or weaker the person's powers are. But this model breaks down when we try to apply it to real-life scenarios. In this respect, Muggle science surpasses ours. They've experimented with heredity more intensively than we have, and as a result they've uncovered many of its mysteries. Magic is what they would call a gene. The human body possesses certain genes, which are passed down through families and determine one's physical characteristics, such as eye color and hair."

Lucius nodded.

"In much the same way, there is a gene in the body that bestows magical power. It can express itself in any way, whether it be an exceptional talent at one thing, or excellence in many. Aptitude can, of course, vary, and can sometimes run in families, but possessing the magical gene enables any wizard to access all forms of magical power to one extent or another. There are people who believe that there are many versions of the magical gene that grant specific powers. But there is, I think, one fact that points to the existence of one gene: We often observe that many Muggle families also produce wizards, and very versatile ones at that. If there were many magical genes responsible for granting specific powers, then the Muggle-born would have had to have a bit of all of them, which is highly unlikely since they had no wizarding ancestors to begin with. The simplest way we can explain this is that their Muggle ancestors had elements of the single magical gene within themselves. If this is so, then it would also imply that wizard and Muggle lineages are historically connected."

Bradbury trailed off, and when he did not speak for another few moments, Lucius frowned. "But… surely there must be a reason why one lineage possessed the fully-formed gene in the first place and the other didn't. It is, after all, what makes us wizards."

Bradbury shrugged. "For now, we have no reason to believe it is anything but a matter of chance." He folded his arms behind his crooked back and looked towards the exit. "The field of heredity is very intricate. Wizards haven't had as great a need for it as the Muggles have, but I believe that now, more than ever, it is time for us to develop it into our own science. We must use all the knowledge that previous generations have left us. If we don't, then we will never properly understand magic, and as a result we will never properly understand ourselves."

He turned back to Lucius, who was standing by the table, not saying anything.

"I'll leave you to your work, then," Bradbury said. And with a faint smile, he left.

Sifting through the Smith vault proved to be a massive undertaking that lasted five days. After Bradbury left him alone, Lucius spent the rest of that day searching the shelves for useful books and jotting down information. Each of the following mornings, he arrived at the Ministry of Magic with an armful of papers, stolidly passing his chattering colleagues and proceeding to the lifts.

While he was down in the vault of the Smiths, Lucius felt as if time had died. It was impossible to tell whether it was day or night, or indeed if the outside world was even there behind the closed door. No matter the hour, the chamber remained silent and chilly, the only stirs of life being the scratches of his quill and the crinkle of pages. Skimming through the volumes of memoirs, family trees, and legal records, Lucius felt strangely like an intruder in a cemetery, poking around the headstones of people he didn't know. He began to understand why most of the keepers he saw were old - he couldn't imagine the resolve it would take to detach oneself from the outside world and embrace a life among the relics of the past.

On the sixth day, to his great relief, Lucius finished his work and went up to Hesperus's office to deliver it.

The man looked up as Lucius entered, placing the folder down on the desk in the exact same manner as had been done to him.

"You work swiftly," Hesperus said. "That is good."

Lucius inclined his head politely.

Hesperus began to flip through the pages of handwriting and clipped notes. He did not send Lucius away, and Lucius did not make a move to leave. After a moment, Hesperus looked up nonchalantly. "It is fortunate that Fredricia Smith came from a wizarding family, otherwise her case would have been twice as difficult for us to solve. We would have had to consult Muggle databases, as the wizarding records alone would have been useless."

"If Miss Smith were not a pure-blood, then her claim to the artifact might not even have been legitimate," said Lucius slowly. "Those who are farther removed from a family's point of origin have less of a guarantee of inheritance than those who are closer. It is a simple mechanic of genealogy."

Hesperus raised an eyebrow. "And if the closest living relative is from another family?"

"Then, provided no prior arrangements were made, there would not even be a question of inheritance. It would have no genealogical justification."

Hesperus studied him for a moment. "I see that the Department of Origin provides its workers with a rather… sane perspective."

"I only deal with that which may be logically proven," said Lucius.

Hesperus gave the slightest of smiles. "In that case, I am pleased to be acquainted with a man of reason."

The corners of Lucius's mouth twitched upwards in response, and he found himself returning the gesture.

That same day, Hesperus forwarded the Smith papers to the Wizengamot for an official ruling, and the case of Fredricia Smith was resolved. The goblet was declared an ownerless object and was sent to the Department of Origin to be classified as property of the Ministry. From that point on, Lucius and Hesperus forged a casual partnership. They began to seek each other out at meetings and visited each other to debate over issues of the day. These discussions were professional and restrained, but before long, both men became certain that they held similar views on magic, society, and the world at large.

Hesperus soon stopped transferring cases to Lucius through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and began to deliver them personally. Through Hesperus, Lucius helped solve a number of other disputes concerning wizarding assets, and as the two of them began to work more closely together, Hesperus revealed to Lucius an idea: to use the archive as a storage place for records pertaining to the rebel hunt. The uprising had intensified to such a degree that the Law Enforcement workers were having trouble keeping track of all the people they dealt with. Moreover, it was not uncommon for Ministry outposts to be raided, and all of their documents destroyed. Lucius agreed eagerly, and with Hesperus's help, he began to gather a collection of records and dossiers. Questions of whereabouts and affiliation, which would have taken weeks to prove on the basis of shaky testimonials and befuddled witnesses, could be solved in a single day using the files they stored in the Department of Origin. Soon, Hesperus's colleagues from Law Enforcement began to visit the archive and retrieve information, filling the archive with unprecedented activity.

This filled Lucius with both pleasure and pride. For the first time in its long history, the archive was serving a socially-vital cause and was doing so on his initiative. Hesperus had lifted him from his murky, theoretical world and showed him the application of his specialty. And now, Lucius would take the rest of the department with him. He dreamed of a day when the mountains of informational treasure would be brought forth from the darkness of obscurity, saved from their sure doom of being trampled by the passing years. He, Lucius Malfoy, would give the Department of Origin a place in the modern world. No fragment of wizarding knowledge would ever be forgotten. It would be passed on, just as Bradbury wanted, and be treasured by society forever.

But as Lucius opened the doors to the archive for others, his own need to visit it diminished. It was only a month later that he went down on an urgent errand, and by chance, bumped into Bradbury. The wizard was tired and puffy-eyed, but nevertheless looked pleased to see him. He led Lucius to the section of dossiers, waited for him to get the ones he needed, and guided him out of the boundary. On their way to the front of the archive, they stopped.

"I've left some books in your vault that I think you'll find interesting," Bradbury said. "You can come take a look at them any time."

Lucius lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "Thank you, Mr. Bradbury. But... aren't you still working on your research?"

"I've gathered everything I need. It's taken a long time, but I think I've finally gotten my theory right."

"Are you going to publish it?"

Bradbury chuckled. "Perhaps… when the time comes." He took a long look around the room, gazing up at the tall stone walls. "Books are important, Lucius. But one shouldn't get too immersed in them. Don't forget that there is an entire world above the archive that needs your involvement. It is the world of change and loss, yes, but also the world of joys and mysteries. The kind of truth books offer is but a reflection of it. The inner truth, the one that sustains you, is the one you get from living."

Lucius met the keeper's gaze in silence. There was a long pause, then he adjusted the folder in his arms. "I suppose… I should be going. There will be a Wizengamot hearing soon. They're trying suspects."

Bradbury smiled. "Good luck, then! May the be rebels be brought to light."

"Thank you, Mr. Bradbury." Lucius inclined his head to the wizard and left the archive. He proceeded up to the courtrooms, where the full Wizengamot council had assembled, and several people were chained to the chairs before the tribune. Harold Minchum had doubled the number of Dementors in Azkaban and was resolved to imprison every person who was even slightly connected to the rebellion. But the trials became more drawn-out as a result.

Lucius presented the papers to the Minister and took his seat beside Hesperus in the observer area. The hearing was long and monotonous as expected, but those whose dossiers Lucius had brought - Yaxley, Dolohov, and Travers - were cleared with the least hassle.

His conversation with Bradbury kept surfacing in his awareness over the days, and finally, Lucius came to the Ministry early one morning to visit to the archive. The study tables in the front section were empty, and the only other people there were a couple of Wizengamot members. Looking around, Lucius finally saw another keeper walking past and approached him. "Excuse me. Is Mr. Bradbury here?"

The wizard stopped in front of him, frowning. "You're Lucius Malfoy, aren't you?"

"Yes."

The man gave a pause. "Bradbury passed away. His section of the archive has been closed while we remove his possessions."

Lucius felt a stab of shock. "What? No... How?"

"He's been sick for a long time. It's a wonder he didn't retire… But he always loved his work, that Bradbury..." The keeper's gaze trailed off into the distance, then he looked back at Lucius, pursing his lips. "I'm sorry."

He walked off. Lucius was left standing there, blinking numbly. He looked around at the empty tables, then after a while, he turned back to the lifts.

When Lucius came home that evening, Narcissa remarked that he looked unusually tired. Lucius gave a nod and withdrew into his office. He stayed there for the rest of the night, reading a book of runes he had gotten from the archive, letting his gaze plunge into the glyphs. But the image of Bradbury never left his mind. He kept picturing him standing in the front room, hands clasped behind his back, immersed in thoughts that no one would ever know.