Selkie - 2. Growing Pains

Chapter 2: Growing Pains

Lucius pulled himself out of the memory, the glowing surface of the Pensieve casting odd, arcing lights around his private study. It was late and he had many memories to relive before he slept. He carefully replaced the tendrils of living quicksilver, one strand at a time, ignoring the cold feeling of them as they settled once more into their niches.

He leaned back against the rough leather of his favourite chair, tiredly sifting through the thoughts he wanted to bring forth next. He sighed as he heard Narcissa stir in the next room. Her soft moan of pain caused him more than a little pang of guilt.

She was dying and it was because of him. If Lucius had been a better husband, if he had cared more for her, if he had allowed the Muggle Healers to treat her, if he had loved her more...

Lucius had loved four people in his life. Of those four, Draco was irrevocably lost to him. His son refused to speak to Lucius after the war and barely spoke to Narcissa some four years since the end of the conflict. The second person he loved, his mother, had died too many years ago to truly feel anything but a low ache when he happened to think of her at all. The third, Narcissa, lay dying in the next room, her body wasted from an ailment that seemed to strike few wizards but the Blacks. The Muggle Healers he had finally allowed in, after he exhausted all the Healers he could cajole into coming to the Manor, called it amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. They held out no hope for her recovery. The fourth... he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as if to feel more than the familiar aching of his heart and the constriction of the muscles in his throat... the fourth was most likely dead, his body had never been recovered. Lucius suspected that one of the faithful on either side of the conflict had found him in that stinking shack and defiled his body before letting the scavengers take it away. Lucius reckoned that Severus would have liked the thought of cycling through the cosmic meat grinder, food for food, but it just depressed Malfoy.

As had happened on many nights before, Lucius felt his heart thudding heavily, and he was unable to draw more than a few shaking, painful breaths after he thought on his old friend. He rose as he opened the drawer to his desk and then brought out the fabric, dark with blood and coal tar dye. Severus' shroud after the Dark Lord murdered him with that foul snake. The garment had been left there carelessly after his body was absconded. Lucius shuddered and then stilled as he brought the cloak to his face. As he had done every night since he conceived this mad plan, he sobbed, the painful sound muffled in the folds of the fabric. Yes, Lucius had loved four times, but Severus had always been his forever love, and now he was gone.

Perhaps.

Lucius settled behind his desk again laying the dark wool in his lap, liking the feel of the rough fabric and the tang of the blood, still as sharp as his pain after all these years.

&*&*&

It was midnight, well past curfew and Lucius had just finished his rounds. He smiled and gave Narcissa a peck on the cheek as he entered the dormitory. She fidgeted under his touch but settled back into him as he draped his arms around her. She was lovely even in her Hogwarts uniform, the green and silver set off her porcelain features perfectly. Lucius' eyes strayed about the room as he searched. It seemed to be the thing he did these days, looking for the ugly little boy and his mismatched clothes all in shades of grey and black. He spied him in a dark corner, sitting knees to nose, looking at a book and moving his lips, his wand clutched tightly in his hand. Lucius ran his fingers over Narcissa's nape, loving the power he felt as his touch elicited goose bumps along her spine.

Narcissa watched as Lucius moved to the boy, her brows drawn up in surprise. Lucius liked that he could draw that response from her as well. It would not do for his future wife to cower before him. Lucius planned to live differently than his father. He would, he vowed. He would.

Snape did not look up as Lucius sat on the floor next to him. Lucius ran his hand over his perfect hair, almost girlishly before he caught himself. He positioned his shoulder next to the boy's leg, touching him in a conscious effort, not at all disturbed by the thrill which coursed through him at the boy's proximity. Lucius drawled after a moment of study, "It is late for an eleven year old, why aren't you sleeping?"

"M'twelve." The boy's eyes flicked to him and then back to the dog-eared Charms book. "It's my birthday."

Lucius felt that fleeting sense of pursuit as the boy moved his legs away from Lucius' shoulder. Snape looked at him fully after another long moment of reading. "Why do you care?"

The boy's eyes gleamed darkly, the light from the torches casting him in flickering shadows and light, throwing his features in stark relief. Lucius reached up and touched the boy's cheek. "I simply do, young snake. You should sleep. There are things the older students need to discuss."

The boy hunched his shoulders and he drew in on himself. "You're gonna talk about Him aren't you?"

"Him?" Lucius attempted to strike a pose of insouciant innocence but only succeeded in confirming the boy's supposition. "I don't know of whom you speak. Now, off to bed, firstie, or you'll have detention tomorrow."

"They don't like me," the boy said as he put his books into his bag in an orderly manner his scowling countenance turned down. "The others... They say I'm a dirty half-blood. Why do you bother?"

Lucius rose and turned away from the boy as if he had not spoken. He could not put into words why he cared for the waif, only that he did. The question hung in the air as the boy left the room long after the others began speaking of His plans for them once they graduated

&*&*&

Severus was sixteen and sitting on Lucius' bed, his long legs drawn up at the knees, his head down. "Why?"

Lucius stirred from his position next to Severus, his bare chest sparkling gold in the light of the afternoon sun. "Your constant refrain, Severus, 'why?' Leave off and come back to bed. I need you."

Severus stiffened. "I'm just a cock to you, when Narcissa returns you'll cut me out."

The strange pain that always settled around Lucius' chest when Severus spoke about the future, his future, radiated from his heart leaving him feeling bruised and prickly. He moved the duvet, the soft hiss of silk cutting through the silence of the room, a snaking sound of desire. He read the truth of Severus' words in the knotted muscles of his back. A back marred with scars, thick a ropy, much as Lucius' was and for the same reasons. Perhaps Muggles and purebloods weren't that far apart when dealing with sons.

Lucius knew well how to be cruel, but he did not know how to show this boy the depth of his attachment to him. He slid behind him, bare chest to back, arms loosely wrapped around his waist. "Come to bed, love. I need you."

As earth needs water, as fire needs air...

Severus shifted away from him. "Don't, Lucius. I don't even know..."

His curtain of black hair fell down, obscuring his fine-boned features. Lucius lifted it from his nape liking that his breath could cause goose bumps to trail down the parchment flesh, liking that he had that effect on Severus.

"...why you persist in keeping me around." The words he did not speak hung in the air. She didn't, Lily Evans.

Lucius pulled the man-child against him. Their romance was fraught with unspoken words and unfinished vows. They could ask for no more.

"Please, love, I need to feel you move inside me." Lucius shook with need and Severus relented.

&*&*&

Lucius stirred from the Pensieve, the dizzying pull of memory making him clutch the desk as if he were under the influence of strong drink or Muggle Poison. Head spinning, he stood, stumbling slightly as he made his way into Narcissa's room.

In days past her boudoir had been her sanctuary, a place of calm around Lucius' sometimes volatile temper and political machinations. During the dark days, when Lord Voldemort was in residence, it had become her fortress. She retreated there when she could, escaping the violence and ugliness that Lucius brought into their house via the Monster Who Would Not Die. Through it all, she had loved him and he her, both in their distantly affectionate way, but their love could not be denied.

Now, the room was transformed again, with Muggle medical equipment replacing priceless artefacts and the heavy feel of death lingering in the atmosphere, rather than the tinkling of china and laughter. Narcissa lay still under the green light of the machines, so like another light that brought death. The only things in her wasted face that were alive were her eyes. He sat next to her on the bed. "Can't you sleep, darling?"

He waited as if she answered before he replied, "I shall get the Muggle Sleeping Draught the Healers sent you."

He fetched the clear phial and set it on the table, waiting for Narcissa to blink, her only form of communication now that the disease had eaten her muscles. In the gloom of the boudoir, she jerked one lid over her eye and Lucius set about aiding her. He drew the prescribed amount into the syringe, knowing that Narcissa tracked his movements. He pulled the instrument out of the phial and moved it to her IV. Her eyelid drooped in defeat. As he depressed the plunger he whispered, "Not tonight, darling. I'm too weak to give you up yet."

&*&*&

Father called Lucius before him the night he returned from Hogwarts, his first day as a real adult. Abraxas Malfoy sat behind his desk, his fortress against the rise of dirty half-bloods and Mudbloods, his bastion against the weakening of his son from their influence. Lucius bowed with the correct show of deference as the older Malfoy bade him to sit.

Abraxas fixed his son with his cool, hawkish gaze, his yellow-hued eyes cold as Lucius assumed his seat. "Your mother is dead. She took her own life in January at that hovel in Vienna of which she was so fond."

Lucius tried not to reel from the news, manfully fought against the howl that threatened to rip from him. He clutched the arms of the leather chair spasmodically, his white knuckles the only outward show of his agony. He swallowed the gorge that rose, and scrambled for a look of calm as Father watched him.

Abraxas Malfoy sneered, his customary expression in his dealings with his overly emotional son. "I know you were fond of her, but I did not deem her selfish act reason enough to withdraw you from school. She was cremated, and I had the elves spread her ashes in their compost pit."

Lucius waited impatiently counting the minutes with the ticking of his heart, a dry, broken sound to his ears. Father assessed him coolly and when he ascertained his son would not disgrace the family with a show of emotion, he continued, "You are to attend a meeting of the Knights this evening . Prepare yourself in the usual manner."

"Yes, Father." Lucius said dully, dreading the coming night even as Abraxas Malfoy turned his scathing attention to the documents before him once more.

Once Lucius left the cold-hued study and made his way to the family wing, he collapsed on the top stairs, sobbing disconsolately as a child would. He felt a presence behind him and struggled to stand as panic knifed through his body. He attempted to rise, taking unsteady gulps to stop the flow of his tears, but fell against the railing bonelessly as father's cutting tone assailed him. "I wonder how I managed to raise such a puling mess."

"I am... not, Father." Lucius answered, the pain in his chest blooming in bright flowers of red, black, and purple. "Please forgive my display."

Abraxas Malfoy lifted his chin with the silver-tipped snake-headed cane of which he was so fond. "Snivelling does not suit the heir to the Malfoy line. I have half a mind to leave you here this evening."

"Please, Father, I shall not disgrace you with any further displays of... maudlin sentimentality." Lucius hated the whinging tone of his voice. He straightened his clothing with numbed hands, his face stiff. "You are correct. Mother was... weak."

Father smirked then tapped Lucius' chin with his cane. "That she was. Go to the library. You will take stripes for your display and then you may ready yourself."

Lucius inclined his head graciously. "Thank you, Father, for your forbearance."

The words were ash and bile on his tongue, and echoed in his heart as he readied himself for the pain to come.

&*&*&

Lucius stretched from the Pensieve, sickened by the thought of what he knew would have to review next. He listened for the faint gurgle of Narcissa's breath as she existed in her narcotised state.

He had loved her for years. It had taken him a good deal of time to admit it to himself, and longer to admit it to her. Only in the end, during the dark days of the last part of the war, did he tell her of his feelings. She had merely opened her arms and welcomed him into her body. He had taken her roughly with his need and she burned brilliantly in his arms.

It was the words that she uttered afterwards that shook him. "Is this what you felt for Severus, this longing and fast-burning passion?"

"Cissy," Lucius had groaned as he laid his perspiring head on her shoulder. "That is long over. Don't let's speak of him."

She smiled, a genuine one that forgave him much. Lucius, even after his release from Azkaban still reeked of that foul prison, was still lean and gaunt from his ill treatment. She kissed him, feeling the lie in his statement. It would never be over between Lucius and Severus. He was the only person Lucius had ever trusted enough to master him. He had said in response to her silent query, "I love you, darling. That is enough for me."

She coughed in the next room, the soft sound breaking the peace of the night. Lucius felt the burden of her continued existence, yet was still too weak to let her go as she had asked only a few months ago, when she could still speak. He let out a soughing, despairing sound and began replacing the memories. He would go to bed and finish tomorrow or the next day. Then he could do as Cissy asked, not before.

He stood, placing the carefully folded cloak in his lap back into the drawer, noticing that the dried blood was finally breaking down. He scattered the flakes of brown-red that littered his flesh across his desk as he moved his hands. He glared at them, willing them to tell him if his plan would work. He knew that if it didn't, Lucius could not survive.

Lucius had loved four people in his life, and none of them had been himself.