"Dumbledore — do you know about Hufflepuff's golden cup?"
Lucius Malfoy had gathered every ounce of his resolve before deciding to reveal this secret — a secret known to only a handful of people. When he spoke, his voice was low, his expression was tense, and every flicker of his emotion conveyed to Dumbledore one clear message—
[What I am about to say is of utmost importance! This is a secret meant only for you and me!]
After he finished, he paused ever so slightly and lifted his eyes to discreetly study the headmaster's reaction.
Dumbledore was sipping his tea. His brow twitched almost imperceptibly, but by the time he set the cup down, the ripples in his gaze had stilled.
"Of course I know," the headmaster replied evenly.
Lucius instinctively licked his lips and rubbed his fingers against the handle of his cup, suddenly unsure of how much weight his information really carried.
To strengthen his case, he began recounting how he had obtained the knowledge years ago—
Back when Voldemort had not yet been reduced to a wandering shade by the rebounding curse, his power was at its height. Apart from Dumbledore, whom he dreaded, the entire British wizarding world cowered beneath the Dark Lord's shadow.
Even Aurors as elite as Moody, even couples hailed as "heroes" such as the Longbottoms and the Potters — every time they stepped out their doors, they wondered if they would live to return at night.
In those days, Lucius Malfoy dared not show the slightest hint of betrayal. He displayed himself as utterly loyal — just like the other Death Eaters.
Of course, among them, his loyalty did not stand out as anything extraordinary.
Bellatrix's fanaticism was unmatched; Snape, silent yet reliable; Dolohov, so brutal that no one but the Death Eaters would take him in; Karkaroff, whose honeyed words made it seem as if Voldemort were his sun; and Barty Crouch Jr., who openly declared he would kill his own father for the Dark Lord!
Each one of them was devotedly loyal. Their only quarrels laid in rivalries for status and spoils — but their true devotion all belonged to their master.
Among them, Lucius's way of proving loyalty was the simplest and most practical — he gave money.
Money was the foundation of everything. Even though Voldemort could cow people into submission with sheer magical might and terror, foreign wizards were not always swayed by fear alone — and supplies still had to be bought.
Thus, with his polished manners, noble lineage, pure bloodline, and most of all, lavish financial contributions, Lucius succeeded in becoming one of Voldemort's most trusted Death Eaters with his standing nearly equal to Bellatrix's.
And so he was granted a privilege no other shared — to safeguard a certain extremely important possession for the Dark Lord himself.
Of course, Lucius had no idea what that seemingly ordinary Muggle notebook truly was. From Voldemort's suggestive instructions, he guessed it must be some powerful weapon crafted by his master's own hand.
After Voldemort vanished, Lucius had once secretly examined the notebook. That thing tried to tempt him into conversation, so he immediately sealed it away.
—In the countless old tales passed down through the ages, such magical artifacts were almost never anything good. They always housed either a bound demon or some dreadful spirit.
Even now, as he confessed to Dumbledore, Lucius still believed that to be the case.
The diary had ended up inside Hogwarts, but it seemed to cause no stir at all — which Lucius found extremely puzzling.
Now, under Dumbledore's gaze, Lucius muttered vaguely:
"I… I only meant to teach Arthur Weasley a lesson, so I slipped it to the youngest Weasley girl. But the thing may have been discarded by the child… or perhaps Arthur Weasley disposed of it himself. In any case, its whereabouts are unknown…"
He leaned forward, his expressions were respectful but tinged with regret, though his gaze remained fixed, almost furtively, on Dumbledore's face.
Dumbledore gave a quiet "Mm." His tone carried neither surprise nor doubt, so calm that it revealed nothing at all.
Even his eyes betrayed no extra flicker — neither avoiding nor probing, without any sharp edge, as still and veiled as a lake under morning mist.
Under such a gaze, Lucius felt as though he had become a schoolboy reciting a lesson. He drew a deep breath, seized by the urgent need to continue.
"Later I remembered — besides me, there was another person, also granted the honor of safeguarding something by the Dark Lord…"
Back then, young Bellatrix had not yet tempered herself into the single-minded, battle-hardened zealot she would one day become. She cared deeply about Voldemort's favor, and could hardly resist flaunting her importance.
But once the Dark Lord ordered secrecy, the only one she could drop hints to was her sister Narcissa.
After Narcissa married Lucius, although both her husband and her family were tied closely to Voldemort's faction, she herself never formally joined the Death Eaters, was never branded with the Dark Mark, and was spared duties such as killing, torture, or infiltration.
She only needed, as Madam Malfoy, to support Lucius's activities through family resources — which, indirectly, also aided Voldemort.
In Bellatrix's eyes, Narcissa was a close and trustworthy sister, no rival, no threat of betrayal.
And so, she could not resist boasting before Narcissa — sneering that Lucius was nothing but a silly moneybag, while she was the Dark Lord's true right hand, entrusted even with "that thing."
Bellatrix restrained herself from revealing too many details.
Nor did she realize that with the arrival of a soft little life at Malfoy Manor, her sister's loyalties had already begun to shift.
Lucius soon learned of the sisters' conversation, and another memory surfaced—
Bellatrix's husband, Rodolphus Lestrange, once after drinking heavily, had uncharacteristically lowered the mask of the loyal Death Eater and grumbled darkly.
"Lucius, you're far luckier than I am… At least Narcissa's eyes are always on you!"
Rodolphus took a long swig of firewhisky, then sneered: "And my wife? Even in her sleep, she whispers his name. What am I? Nothing but a robe draped around her shoulders to show off her pure-blood pride?"
"Bellatrix is simply… unusually loyal," Lucius said smoothly. "Because of her, the Lestranges are among the Dark Lord's most trusted families. That's an honor no one else can compare to."
"Honor?"
Through his drunken haze, Rodolphus muttered:
"What kind of honor is that? Don't think I don't know how you all laugh at me behind my back… It's just a golden cup, isn't it? Some old relic, long since drained of magic! Yet she guards it like a treasure, locking it away in our vault — even I, the master of the house, am forbidden to so much as touch it…"
After that, Rodolphus kept on grumbling about many things. Lucius deflected every word with practiced ease, giving the man the sense of being understood, while never betraying even the faintest disloyalty to the Dark Lord.
When the drink wore off, Rodolphus seemed to have forgotten everything he had said. He returned to being the same quiet, unremarkable man standing behind Bellatrix — faithfully serving Voldemort, never refusing to be the spear in his wife's hand.
Naturally, Lucius also "forgot" that night's drunken words. But the phrase "golden cup" lingered in his mind.
And if one spoke of the most famous golden cup in the British wizarding world, it could only be Helga Hufflepuff's cup, said to bear wondrous, unique magic, passed down through the generations of her descendants.
Of course, the claims about how powerful that cup was had long since lost credibility — if it were truly such a mighty magical artifact, how could the Hufflepuff family have remained so mediocre?
When it came to famous cups, there were plenty: the Holy Grail from Arthurian legend, the Cup of Youth that held the Fountain of Eternal Life, the Dagda's magical cauldron from the Father of the Gods, King Solomon's golden chalice said to seal demons, and so on.
But when one considered Voldemort's obsession with Hogwarts and his fascination with the legends of the Founders…
Lucius felt certain that the one he valued most must have been Hufflepuff's cup.
Of course, this was also because only Hufflepuff's cup had a definite, traceable existence. The rest of the legendary vessels might not even exist at all.
His thoughts on this were not out of greed for the ancient cup, but rather from a vague, nagging discomfort —
Why was Bellatrix entrusted with the legendary Hufflepuff's cup, while he himself had been handed nothing more than a filthy, tattered Muggle notebook?
It was a grievance he could never voice aloud, but it would surface from time to time, scratching at his chest.
Yet, when recounting this to Dumbledore, that grievance was transformed into "evidence" of Lucius's keen observation, careful consideration, and his long-brewing discontent toward Voldemort.
The unease of betraying the Dark Lord rose briefly in his chest, but Lucius quickly pressed it down.
In his eyes, this hardly counted as betrayal.
Lucius reasoned that the two dramatic shifts in the Dark Mark proved the Dark Lord had once tried to return, only to fail miserably — perhaps even to the point of being utterly destroyed, forced to hand over control of the Death Eaters to Barty Crouch Jr.
And was he — the head of the Malfoy family, heir to an ancient noble house, representative of pure-blood lineage, high-ranking official of the Ministry of Magic — supposed to bow to some brat who had somehow managed to cling to life until now?
What was that Barty Crouch Jr. anyway? To dare transfigure him into a toad, to torment him so cruelly, to humiliate his son in such a way!
And even if the Malfoys were willing to abase themselves in allegiance, would Crouch Jr. truly accept him without resentment?
The malice that boy bore toward him was already overflowing!
If Lucius were to regain his human form and show himself again, at any moment that brat might come hunting him down with the Death Eaters already under his command.
And when that day came, the Malfoy family really would have no place left to die, not even a grave.
So, Lucius was desperate to leap onto a sturdier ship and secure himself a new patron.
In his mind, defecting to Dumbledore and selling Voldemort's past secrets was not treachery, but a last resort — a rational choice, necessary to preserve the living strength of the pure-blood families.
Under the influence of some mysterious magical force, Lucius completely ignored one possibility —
That the repeated violent changes of the Dark Mark did not mean the Dark Lord was dead, nor that the Death Eaters had a new master.
Their one and only master was still struggling fiercely on the brink between life and death, intent on rising again — and indeed was once more regaining his strength.
Dumbledore knew this perfectly well, yet gave no hint of it. Instead, he pushed toward Lucius his treasured sherbet lemons with a look of quiet pity.
"Mr. Malfoy, how much do you know about the Lestrange family vault?"
Dumbledore asked slowly: "Is there any way to learn more about the Hufflepuff cup that may be stored there?"
"I'm afraid not." Lucius sighed, speaking with sincerity. "I'd be glad to help — if I had a way. But neither Narcissa nor I can enter the Lestrange vault. Unless…"
His voice faltered, his Adam's apple bobbing.
Dumbledore finished the thought for him: "Unless Azkaban sees another breakout, and the Lestranges themselves fetch it from Gringotts?"
"Of course… of course, there is another way."
Lucius lowered his voice and said: "The three surviving Lestranges are all in prison… If they were all to die — I mean… according to inheritance law, Narcissa would inherit all their property, including the cup…"
Though the Black family still had Sirius, he and Bellatrix were only cousins. Narcissa, as Bellatrix's sister, had priority in succession.
Even if not Narcissa, then the rightful heir would be her son — Draco Malfoy.
Lucius pictured the vast Lestrange vault. Even though he was already among the wealthiest in the wizarding world, he could not suppress a flicker of greed. He swallowed unconsciously.
Dumbledore glanced at him, as though he could see the golden rain jingling in the man's imagination.
The headmaster lifted his teacup and took a sip of hot tea. Yet the air in the office seemed to chill several degrees.
"Mr. Malfoy—"
Dumbledore said calmly, "Murder is no shortcut to solving problems. It is the beginning of creating many more."
"Even for those who have committed countless crimes?" Malfoy objected. "You know they deserved death long ago."
The words had barely left his mouth when he saw Dumbledore look at him deeply. Lucius shivered at once.
Though nothing was said, he instantly grasped Dumbledore's meaning—
If the headmaster were truly so ruthless, Lucius Malfoy would have been long dead, not living freely for more than a decade, and certainly not sitting in Dumbledore's office sharing tea with him.
Dumbledore tapped his fingertips lightly on the desk. After a pause, he said:
"Even prisoners in Azkaban are protected by the law. If we too begin trampling on the law at will, Lucius, then we will never again find the line that separates civilization from barbarism."
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