Selkie - 4. Reckoning

Reckoning

Narcissa died on June 4th, 2002. Lucius marked the moment of her passing with little fanfare and no great show of grief. How can one grieve for the loss of a limb, or part of one's soul? It simply could not be done. He had made the necessary arrangements for her body years ago and so only needed to contact the proper authorities to hasten her departure from the Manor and into the cold earth. She would lie in state in the library until she was interred three days hence. Lucius need only endure the gawkers and carrion crows for a few days before he shut himself away for his year and a day of official mourning. Of course, he would be long gone by the time that period ended. He would find that little island in the North Sea that Snape had told him about all those years ago, when they were young and relatively innocent, when there was no blood between them but their own. Then Lucius would... he would be able to find his place in this increasingly cold universe.

If he didn't find Severus, Lucius would die.

It was only after he broke the Floo connection to the funeral parlour did he let the pain of his loss touch him. He sat before the bright flames, tears blotting the light from his vision, threatening to spill down his marble-cool cheeks.

He howled, hoping the noise remained inside his mind, but recognising that it probably did not, as a house elf poked its head into the room and then scampered away. They all knew that their master, at the best of times, was volatile. Lucius was vaguely aware of time passing by the ticking of the mantle clock and the sun's progress across the floor. What did it matter if he wasted and died? He had no one to care for him, not anymore.

He stayed in his stupour well past dark, waving off the elves who brought him sustenance, numbly returning to his swirling, silvery thoughts, so like the Pensieve he had dwelt in for the last month.

Severus was alive. He had to be.

If he weren't, Lucius would well and truly cease to exist,as if a Dementor's noxious embrace had taken his soul and left the meaty shell to exist. He stirred himself as a small commotion occurred outside the study's wall. It would not do for the ruthless head of the Malfoy clan to be found in such emotional disarray. His father's lessons could not be unlearned, no matter how much he wanted them to be.

He stood, straightening his rumpled clothes, running a hand through his lank hair. Once done, he threw open the door, fixing the participants of the hubbub with an icy look of hauteur. He was unsurprised to see two Aurors being held off by several house elves. That one was none other than the Potter Who Would Not Die left him less than impressed. The other man clad in those hated blue robes caused his heart to jerk sluggishly against his ribs. Draco had come, and on official business it seemed. Lucius raised his hand, and the house elves desisted in their efforts to impede the Ministry's goons in their progress. Surely the head of the MLE could not be that pointedly ironic, sending these two to investigate any irregularities in Narcissa's death. The man had seemed humourless during Lucius' encounters with him, but then again, he had been in the man's custody at the time. As the two Aurors drew closer, Lucius said in a clear voice, "To what do I owe the pleasure of such illustrious company?"

Potter, at least, had the grace to look ill-at-ease. Draco laboured under no such compunction. His son's grey eyes met his, the pain and hatred evident in them as he asked, "Where is she?"

Lucius motioned to the two men to follow him down the hallway, decadent in its Georgian splendour, to the library belowstairs. He opened the door to the room, standing aside. He could not look upon her ravaged body. Not again. Not yet. Time for that would come, when he knew he would be under scrutiny, when he knew he would be able to draw on the ice that encased his heart. Not yet. Later.

Draco entered the room of dry death, so unlike what Lucius was used to during the war. On the battlefield, death had been hot, wet, and sudden. Not that arid wasting away that Narcissa had undergone. He could not look on it that night.

Potter stood outside the room, obviously conflicted. After moments of strained silence he said, "I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius' jaws knotted at the words, the howls of pain threatening to rise, too much for his control. He stalked back up the stairs without a word, unable to linger, unwilling to let the boy's inadequate and undeserved compassion touch him.

&*&*&

Father was dying; the effects of the curse he had taken pulling the life from his body as he lay in his bed. Lucius had been summoned to his side last evening after the failed raid. He waited outside the room with his bride of six months, and Severus Snape. The irony did not escape him that Father needed him now that Lucius no longer desired that state.

The Healer, a brown man with bushy brows and an oily manner, motioned him to the door. Severus looked up at the disturbance, his black eyes glittering in the light of the candles. Lucius remembered a different summer evening, with the taste of Severus on his lips and the feel of the dark boy inside his own skin. That time was over, but still Lucius ached for the past and lost opportunities. Narcissa, unaware of his thoughts, coolly continued her embroidery, her silver needle taking tiny stabbing stitches, sewing up the tapestry of their lives. She loved Severus as a brother and knew Lucius loved him as more. She had known since that first day with the ugly little boy, now gone homely man. Narcissa was a perfect pureblood wife and so didn't need to assert her place. She was sanctioned, not a love affair between two achingly lonely men.

Narcissa finally graced him with her tight smile of commiseration, a benediction for his feelings, but not a reflection of her own. There never had been any love lost between the Malfoy patriarch and his daughter-in-law, not since she had put him in his place.

It had been just after Lucius and Narcissa returned from the continent on their whirlwind honeymoon, that Abraxas had asserted his droit de seigneur. Narcissa had icily informed him that he had lost the right. The Dark Lord could assert it, but Abraxas Malfoy was nothing, less than nothing, in the new order. She had turned her back on him, a tactical mistake, and Abraxas Malfoy had sprung, tearing her costly robes as he did. He had forgotten that Narcissa was Bellatrix Lestrange's sister. There were reasons Bellatrix was so favoured by the Dark Lord, and why Narcissa had been so sought after at school. After rendering the old man helpless with a bout of Crucio, Narcissa had cast the spell that would make him impotent, unable to accost her in any manner for the rest of his days. Abraxas had been angry and beaten, a dog who finally had his not so pleasant day.

She told Lucius of the incident after he returned from the Ministry, and offered to allow her husband to punish her in any manner he saw fit. Lucius had taken her up on the offer, rendering her helpless with his drugging kisses and sweet lovemaking. She made him proud at that moment, and just a little in love with her.

Lucius entered his father's boudoir, the site of so many painful lessons, now fusty and stale with potions fumes and spent magic. Abraxas lay on the bed, his figure wasted, his breathing shallow. Lucius approached, his tread gliding uneasily against the carpet. Abraxas coughed then moaned, the sound swallowed by the rich tapestries around his bed. Lucius sat in a chair beside the bed, quelling the shaking of his knees with a deep, silent breath. The old man opened his eyes, so like Lucius' in their frigid grey intensity. I see you could stir yourself from your wife's bed long enough to come here."

Lucius said nothing. What could he say to the man who had murdered his life one day at a time?

Abraxas whispered, "I want you to know..." He coughed again, the sound wheezing and weak before he continued, "I want you to know that I love you."

Lucius laughed, the sound so startling in the heavy silence after that announcement that he stood. "You love me." He paced beside the bed, unable to remain still. "Now you tell me, when it no longer matters. Are you afraid of death, old man?"

The question hung in the airless room, sizzled into the fabric of the Manor. Abraxas coughed again, a moist sound that splattered blood across his lips. His gaze sharpened, took on the cold, avian quality that Lucius knew so well from his youth. The old man opened his mouth, blood coating his teeth and tongue. Before could spew his vitriol, Lucius silenced him with a hand over his mouth, blood to skin, teeth to bone.

"You may have discovered some long dead emotion in your withered heart, Father," he hissed as he lowered his face. "But my hate for you is alive. I'm glad you're dying, and I'm glad you finally know that I hate you above all others."

Lucius pulled the down pillow from beneath his father's head and placed it almost gently over his face. He was Caligula to Abraxas' Tiberius as he waited for the his father's last twitch. Once the old man quit struggling, Lucius slipped the signet ring from Abraxas' claw-like hand and slid it onto his own finger. He placed the pillow beneath his father's head, gently smoothing his brow with knuckle. He could afford softness for the moment, but only then. He lived in a cruel world that was becoming increasingly more difficult to navigate, with the Dark Lord's demands and familial duties. He was a man on a tightrope and the walking of it had just been made easier by his patricide. Who was Lucius to pass up a perfect opportunity?

&*&*&

Draco entered the room, his footsteps soft. "Did you kill her?"

"No," Lucius answered from the shadows, his profile a sketch of silver lines in the gloom. "She wanted me to. She begged me before... when she could still express her wishes. I could not. I was a selfish bastard."

The heavy silence of the room was broken by a soft sob. Draco had always been sensitive, no thanks to Lucius' heavy hand. He was not Abraxas, but he had known little better how to raise his son. Draco had always striven to be emotionless, cold, and forbidding. He had failed, despite Lucius' worst efforts to instill in him the values of the Malfoy line. "You still are."

"Yes."

Draco's cloak rustled, the sound of sand and stone, his unique music. "Just so you know."

"I do." Lucius shifted, releasing his pent up muscles, letting them scream for whatever it was that they wanted. He did not know any more how to be. "Is that all, Dragon?"

"Don't call me that. Don't you dare." Draco's voice whipped through the room, cutting Lucius with it's knife-edged music. "You lost the right to call me that when you took that Mark. I loved you. I wanted to be you, but you used it against me and against her. You don't get to be affectionate with me. Not anymore."

"Just so." Lucius' felt the dryness of the words, the aridity sucking the life out of his skin, leeching his bones of their marrow. "I shall endeavour to remember that, if I address you at all."

Draco moved in the doorway, the light from the hall darkening then bouncing back on Lucius' features, silver becoming ice as it did. There were no words to be said between them, nothing was left but their Marks, the deaths, and the torture that was the Malfoy heritage. Lucius moved, the restive quality of the sound echoing through the room, striking at the walls, resounding and hollow. "Leave, Draco."

The boy's footsteps echoed down the hall, proclaiming his anger. Lucius had lost him for good.

&*&*&

Lucius followed Severus for a fortnight through the dirty streets of Manchester. The dark boy made a circuitous route from a desolate park to a middle class Muggle house and back everyday. He never failed to stop at the house, leaning on the wrought iron fence, out of sight of the open windows from which glaringly loud Muggle music pounded. Severus always ended his vigil when he saw a glimpse of ginger. The Mudblood was still an object of his obsession even though she had thrown him over. Lucius ached to take him in his arms, make him forget his Mudblood obsession for a darker passion, but he didn't. He was too shy, or too proud, to let his guard down around the homely boy. It was yet another lesson learned at Father's hands, to never show weakness.

Lucius had not made a reappearance at the Hog's Head all those months ago. Severus had not accompanied him to the Malfoy Yule celebration. The Dark Lord had extracted his pound of flesh from Lucius, along with a promise that he would bring Snape to heel. Lord Voldemort would have what he wanted, but not before Lucius. Lucius could not put into to words the way the boy's ultimatum had grated on him, making him feel like the besotted fool he was. Instead, Lucius courted Severus, through silent gestures and softly carressing innuendo. Lucius could not lose all his power to the boy with an outright statement of his desires.

Yet, here he was, in a desolate Muggle corner of hell, desperately following a boy in a billowing black cloak, who pined for another, whilst Lucius ached to be with him any way the boy would allow.

Severus made his customary stop at the fence, his slender, graceful hands clasped around the iron. Without turning he said, "They say iron is poison to Dani. Do you find it true?"

Lucius shrank against the tree that hid him, unsure if Severus spoke to him or to the phantom that was his unworthy love. Severus turned slightly, his eyes never leaving the house before him. "I know you're there, Lucius. You've been following me for a fortnight."

Lucius stepped forward out of the shadows with a small twitch of his mouth. Severus turned to him. "You must not be a very good Death Eater if I can track you."

"Or you, conversely, are extremely paranoid." Lucius closed the distance between them, leaning in to smell the clean oil of Severus' hair, the soapy funk of his body. He enjoyed the fact that Severus tried so hard, yet failed so miserably, at improving himself. It left Lucius with some power in their strange relationship. The boy held most of it so far without even trying.

Snape turned to him. "I won't let you fuck me. If you want, I'll fuck you and let you suck my cock."

A frisson of disgust mixed with desire wormed through Lucius' guts at the words, settling with a cold, splashing feel at the base of his spine, radiating outward from there. Lucius knelt in front of the boy, ready to take him, hoping that he would be able to hold out until the end. He wanted him that badly. Snape hissed, "Not here! Don't you have someplace?"

Lucius' mouth was dry as he took the boy's elbow in a vice-like pinch with his fingers. "Do you truly believe that Father would look favourably on my dalliance with a halfblood? Take me to your house."

"No. Mum's at home sick, and Dad's on the dole. They'll hear." Snape's hair slanted across his face, caught in a playful breeze that blew across the neighbourhood. There were no such breezes in Snape's portion of Manchester. The wind there had been sucked out by the despair of grinding poverty, leaving the area strangely blank and grey. Lucius pulled the strand out of Snape's face, drawing the boy to him. His second kiss to Severus Snape was not tentative, sweet, or seductive. If Snape insisted on mastery, he would learn that sometimes the master and slave's roles were indistinct. Lucius knew this, and would teach him with hard lips and bruising teeth. Severus groaned as Lucius ground his lips with his own, the desire evident in the quality of the sound. Snape growled, "Come on. I know a place."

Lucius followed Severus' lead to a copse of trees in the desolate park. He drew the boy to him, but Snape slid out of his grasp, his black cloak billowing in the airless sunlight. "Not here. This place is... sacred."

They walked past the park to an abandoned mill, the windows winking with broken glass, as if they were eyes to witnessing Lucius' willing bondage. The boy took Lucius, with spit on his hand and rough thrusts, against the interior wall of the broken building under those blank-eyed windows. Lucius cried out in frustrated completion as Severus breached him, only satisfied fully when the boy gave his final grunt. Severus ended up sagging against Lucius' back, his oil and his essence mixing with the sweat on Lucius' pale, scarred back. Lucius knew he was lost to the ugly boy when he felt Snape's lips tracing those scars, when he felt Severus' tongue tasting his pain, sharp and metallic in the watery sunlight. His knees sagged, and they ended in a pile on the floor/not floor of the building, more dirt than concrete, more mud that pure.

"I love you." Lucius whispered, unsure if Severus heard the words over the pounding of their hearts, not caring if he did. He knew this strange and dark boy would not throw it in his face. Severus knew the value of the words.

Snape said, "I won't do this with you once you're married, just so you know."

"I do," Lucius answered, wondering if he could break the boy to his will, doubting he could.

&*&*&

They spent the summer between the Manor and Severus' abandoned building, learning each other's bodies even as they recognised the finite quality of their relationship. Narcissa would return in December and Lucius would be married in January. The questions about Severus' place in Lucius' life only occurred in the Manor bed. The boy was more at ease in his dunghill where he was king. Lucius' wealth unsettled him. Snape's dark and twisted heart was more protected when it was mired in mud, blood, and screaming. Lucius recognised this and let him worry. The boy already had too much control for one so young.

In the mill, after he took Lucius, Severus spun tales of his mother's family and their Selkie blood, telling him of the how they came to have the Prince name. Lucius lay with his head on Snape's chest, running his fingertips over the smooth pebble of his nipple, not caring about blood, purity, or family honor. "Mum told me that long ago, when the Prince family still lived in the Orkney Isles, a Selkie king took a fancy to a fisherman's daughter. He seduced her and got her pregnant. She says that's where our magic and our name came from. We come from Selkies."

Lucius huffed a small laugh, his tone ironic. "Yes, and Malfoys are descended from Veelas and Dani. Who cares how we were made? We are clearly superior to the Muggle filth that surrounds us."

"Clearly," Snape answered as he toyed with Lucius' platinum locks, letting them sift through his fingers like sand in water. "If I ever disappear, perhaps you should look for me there at the Prince family seat. There are only about seventy islands to visit."

Lucius smiled against Severus' chest. "I shall, I promise. I wouldn't want you to be lost to the sea and a pretty female Selkie, now would I?"

"You know I'll never love another woman besides her." Severus' tight tone brooked no argument, and Lucius felt the warmth of triumph at his words. The ugly boy might not love another woman, but he had not ruled out the possibility of having the same emotion for Lucius.

Scraps and crumbs were Lucius' sustenance.

&*&*&

Lucius jerked from his slumber aware of a strangeness in the night. He listened, his hand creeping to his wand, realising only belatedly that it was the absence of sound that caused his distress. Gone were the whirring ticks and steady beeps of Narcissa's illness. No more Avada Kedavra green tone illuminated the night. She was dead. There was a finite quantity to her suffering. Perhaps there might be to his also.

He rose, padding to the desk where Severus' cloak was housed. He drew it out, putting it around his naked shoulders, imagining that it was Snape's arms about him as they had been that long ago summer under the brick smokestack, and in the stolen moments in this very room.

He had loved Severus Snape then, and knew he always would.