Selkie - 5. Death Eater

Chapter 5

Death Eater

Children

It had been children the Dark Lord had sent him after. Draco's age, his son's schoolmates. The thought chased around his head, (dogs and tails) sending him nearly round the bend. That swirling thought, and the Dementors outside his cell. Lucius hid his head under the thin blanket, shivering uncontrollably as one of the foul creatures passed.

Children

The Weasley girl's freckled face, motley white against the gloom of the hall, her eyes solemn, hatred clear. So like her father. The Longbottom child limping along behind them. Bella had done something nasty to him, his parents, long ago. Potter's righteous anger, green eyes so like his mother's, his face so like his hated father's. Severus said so, it must be true. The other Weasley, scared out of his mind, acting as if the battle were a lark, rather than life and death. Lucius knew that feeling too well not to recognise it. The Lovegood girl, alien, fey, resolute and unpredictable. She would bear watching, later when it mattered. The Mudblood... gods! Dolohov's curse ripped her from stem to stern, blood pouring out of the wound, red, not muddy...surprising. He hoped... he hoped... he hoped... Before, when he had killed Mudbloods, there had been nothing left to recognise. Scraps of human (meat for dinner) did not retain their horrific context.

The door scraped open, light spilling through the slit (dirty always dirty.) Lucius winced, scrambled to the corner, a half mad thing with teeth and claws and skin crawling in it's own putrescence. Lucius wailed...

Children

Hands that did not hurt (they burned!) him reached, then grabbed. Tears that did not scald (they cleansed!) him washed his face. Hands and tears that were not Narcissa's, not family, but closer. He breathed in the scent of the person, not prison dank, not mouldy. The smell of love, fire and bitter herbs.

"Severus," he breathed out in, out in, out in. The hands that held him gave him something, sweet, dark, like love in a dilapidated mill, hidden away for all those years... "I loved you all those years ago, under the broken sky and smokestacks, and in my room... I loved you and it was poetry before the dark and the children came between us..."

Had he said that?

"Yes, Lucius." A Stygian chuckle from the ugly/not ugly boy/not boy broke through Lucius' terror, anguish, depression. "Eat."

Fingers pushed darkness between his lips, sweet and bitter. Like his love for the giver. There was a Muggle legend about a wizard who demanded his followers eat him, devour his blood and body, his soul. Lucius chewed, the bittersweet filling his mouth, warming him, sending

Children

away to their school with Draco. The Dark Lord was Mad. He had been before he died, but now, he was inhuman, cold. The darkness had enveloped him as he drifted in furious miasma between body and earth.

The wizard who demanded his Muggle followers devour him had not devoured his followers in turn. Not like the Dark Lord with his pain, and only the relief of it, since he had resurrected himself from blood, bone, and terror. Lucius wondered about that. Why would a wizard require less of a Muggle than another would his own followers? The Dark Lord would end them all. Snape said he knew, as more darkness passed Lucius' lips, clearing his head.

"Severus." Lucius said, his eyes clearing, his brain still fogged. "What brings you here?" He looked up, feeling the film of the sweet on his teeth, over the coating of untold days of filth. His hair, Celtic knots in silver. "I must look a fright."

Severus' eyes peered back at him, black but not cold. Red was the colour of burning cold eyes, behind hands that lied, that broke with Cruciatus and...

"I saw your wife and lovely sister-in-law at Spinner's End." The words were spectres before him, meaning something to Lucius, but his brain was too fogged to guess what it was. Severus huffed in irritation. "I will help your son with his endeavour for our employer."

"You risk too much being here." Lucius shook his head to clear it, still unable to piece together the subtext. "Surely either the Dark Lord, or your other master, will be angered by you showing up here to see the failure, the murderer of children."

"No." Severus leaned against the wall, his legs splayed out before him. "Do not worry on my account, Lucius. I have certain indemnities built into my situation. Your lovely wife ensured that."

That dark chuckle flew, dry and forbidding, from Severus' mouth. So many of their brethren feared the Potions Master, his adder tongue, his quick wand, his viciousness when cornered. All things that made him who he was, and Lucius loved him for them. His flaws were for all to see, not hidden behind a pretty face, like his own. Lucius was empty. He had been since...

Children

...he was young. "My son, he's well?"

"Yes." That was Severus, taciturn, abrupt, prickly. He knew what Lucius could not ask. "The others are as well."

Lucius sobbed into his hands, the tears smearing like blood between his fingers, sticky and warm.

And then there was Severus, his skin beneath Lucius' fingers, his robes parting. Lucius prayed, "I need you to be with me. I know you said never after Narcissa... but I need your warmth... please... it's so coooold."

Severus grunted, pulled away, and Lucius bit back a wail before more chocolate was thrust into his mouth, then Severus ghosted his lips behind the sweetness. "I need something too, not like before. I need to feel you move in me this time."

You be the master.

Poetry, not Severus' clipped and barren words. Was it real? Lucius positioned himself against Severus, who had exposed his skin, like it had been all those years ago in the dirty room abovestairs at the Hog's Head. Need, hate, and lust glimmered like daggers, sharp and painful love. It had always been like this, their love. Lucius didn't care as long as it was real. He feasted on the flesh, and the blood, and the soul that was left between them. They worshipped each other with cocks and tongues and questing fingers. As he entered Severus, Lucius cried out. "I am home at last!"

And then...

They were apart, both stinking of sex and prison. Snape stood, straightening himself in his dark severity, a warrior-priest once again. Lucius left himself out, sticky with shit and sperm, still pumping, seeping, twitching. Lucius howled, "I loved you. I still do."

"Lucius." Severus voice cut him. "Don't. It hurts, this wanting. I cannot... I cannot survive if you are not whole."

Severus fastened his clothing, his black cloak swirling about him like ink in a rough sea. Lucius said, "We still might not survive. He is quite mad, you know."

They both knew who He was, that shambling man-thing who had promised salvation so many years before and only brought death. Their blood, their body, their soul, a marriage of the damned. Severus paused, his face still, his voice broken. "Lucius."

His name, spoken like an imprecation, a benediction. Severus was ambiguity wrapped in a black cloak, homely face, and dark, sweet, bitterness. Lucius had asked once, in a fit of jealousy, after the Dark Lord died the first time, "Do you still love the Mudblood?"

Severus stiffened, just as he had a few moments ago, his only reply, "What do you think, Lucius?"

He could never tell what Severus thought. That was what made him dangerous and intriguing. He was slippery like a seal's skin, oil in water. Lucius shifted against the stone of the wall, slick with slime and salt. Severus left, not looking back to see Lucius sink back into blank despair.

Children

It had been children the Dark Lord sent him after...

&*&*&

It was September, the middle of the month in Severus' first year as Professor. Lucius stole to Severus' quarters in the dungeons after the late meeting of the Board of Governors. He carried a bottle of Ogdens from his own private stock, aged over the last fifty years or so. Celebration was due to both of them.

He knocked on the wooden door with the head of his cane. Lucius could imagine Severus' face, his baritone grumbling, his irritation at being disturbed. Lucius smiled in anticipation.

The door swung open. Snape's ascetic face poked through the crack. He looked haunted. They all did these days, those who bore the Mark. Lucius pushed past him, entering the room, more a monk's cell than an abode. "Merlin, man, one would think you still lived in that hovel in Manchester."

Lucius plopped down on the aged settee, a relic from Slughorn's days, when Lucius still went to school. With false cheer, he said, "You should really have Cissy come to decorate for you. These digs are dismal."

Severus slouched against the wall, his hand splayed on the spines of the ever-present books on his table. "What is it, Lucius? I have papers to grade and dunderheads to save from themselves."

His voice was waspish, stinging Lucius with the impersonal tone of it. It had been thus between them since last spring and the debacle with the Mudblood and her bloodtraitor husband. Lucius suppressed his irritation as he set out the Ogdens. "I have news."

"It must be momentous," Severus said as his brows snaked to his hairline at the sight of the bottle. Lucius pulled two quartz pebbles from his pocket, laying them on the table and transfiguring them. It was a gesture that brought back memories of that first kiss, tentative and passionate. Severus' eyes glittered as he said, "Pour and tell. I know you're bursting."

Lucius sloshed two fingers in each of the transfigured glasses motioning Severus to sit with him. "Severus, why do you concern yourself with the day to day mundanities of this post? You know that when our Lord triumphs, you will have no need to labour."

"And until then, Lucius, I must eat. Power over life and death does not put food down my gullet." Severus quirked his dark brow as he sat. The younger man had aged. Severus was a mass of straining contradictions, Lucius' only conscience, even as the dark man broke laws for the good of the cause. That strain marred his brow, and deep lines were etched around his mouth. He appeared haggard, pale and tired. Lucius ached to smooth the lines. He looked away, suddenly afraid to let Severus see his naked longing, unwilling to see the contempt the younger man would hold him in if he did show it. That portion of their association was over.

"The Dark Lord has made progress on the matter of the prophecy." Lucius felt the triumph of the statement even as a dark wyrm of doubt guilted through his stomach. "He has..."

"Don't!" Snape stood again, his eyes narrowed, his lips baring yellow, crooked teeth. "You are an idiot, Lucius. Do you truly think your name protects you with him? Did you see what he did to the man who failed him last meeting? Did you see what was left of the family? What if I were truly spying for the Old Fool?"

Lucius gulped the whisky, unable to put the images the scene invoked, like a burning shield, behind him. He had dreamt of the man and his wife; strung out, defiled in every way possible. He had watched as Bellatrix played with them, cat and mouse, as both Rabastan and Greyback took their pleasures with the daughter, Draco's age. "I merely wanted to say that he is closer to his goals."

"Indeed." Severus sat, a forced repose, if Lucius could tell by his stiff demeanour. A false smile ghosted past his lips. "That is heartening."

The fire crackled in the grate, a hissing pop, and then silence. Severus stirred himself. "Was that all, Lucius?"

He had turned his face away from him, his profile in stark, white relief against the gloom of the dungeon. Lucius devoured his features, wanting to memorise every plane anew. "I suppose so. I... I would have... chosen differently if I could have."

Severus looked at Lucius, his black eyes holes in the white of his face. "No, Lucius, you would not have. You have a wife and a son, the perfect life for one such as you."

Lucius poured a second glass of whisky, toying with it in the light of the candles, watching the liquid lick the sides of the glass then fall. Severus watched him, his hooded gaze glued to silver-pale fingers, hungry in its intensity. Lucius commanded with a twist of his lips, "Drink with me then, Severus, to my perfect life."

Severus raised his glass with a ironic smirk, and they drank in silence, each man lost in his own memories.

&*&*&

There were times after the war ended the first time that Lucius sought the company of other men in the sections of Muggle London catering to that particular need. He always brewed Polyjuice for the occasion, and always Obliviated the victim of his dark lust afterwards.

There had been one special boy, however, that came close to giving him the completion he needed. The boy had been no more than eighteen, lithe, dark, and homely. Lucius found him in the pub he frequented for such dark deeds. The boy had been slouching in a corner booth, sneering at the assembled lovelies, his hair spiked in an impossible amalgam of glue and grease, his eyes lined with kohl, and his lips painted black. He noticed Lucius noticing him, and he gave him a rude gesture, one that told Lucius that even though the boy might think he was at the pub to scoff, he wasn't. The boy slammed back his drink, a shot of something gold, and stood unsteadily, his loose black trousers sagging against the belts and chains which held them up. He slouched his way to the washroom, a look of disgust thrown at the groping couples positioned around the room. Lucius stood, tipping the barman who had come to know his face, even with his infrequent visits of late. The barman quirked his brow as Lucius left. "You be careful with that one, sir. He's dodgy, never been in before."

Lucius merely smiled and followed the boy to the back room. The boy was waiting for him, his sneer more a nervous tick than a real expression of contempt. It did not have the power that Severus' equally derisive expression did. "Whut're you followin' me for?"

Lucius stepped closer to the boy, who suppressed a gulp. He brought his cane up to the boy's face, the snake's head grazing the boy's fleshy lower lip. The silver came away black as Lucius dragged the head of it down the boy's chin and neck. A faint line of black appeared satisfyingly against the red of the boy's abused flesh. Lucius leaned to the boy's ear to whisper, "What a stupid question."

The boy's eyes flew open in outrage or lust. Lucius didn't care which, as long as the boy ended up on his knees before him, mouth to Lucius' aching cock. He jerked his head towards the exit. "I 'ope you 'ave a place."

Lucius inclined his head gracefully and led the boy out. He kept a small flat in the area for such purposes. He trailed behind Lucius, his heavy Doc Martens clunking in the streets, echoing off the warehouses that surrounded them. Lucius paused, waiting for the boy, suddenly wanting to know his name. He never wanted to know their names. The chosen were merely vessels for his cock, and then only after they had been Polyjuiced to appear how he wanted them. It was the only way he could fuck them, if they wore Snape's face, bore his body. This boy was different somehow. Lucius snapped, "Make haste, boy. I do not have all evening."

The boy snorted and rolled his eyes. "You 'ave a wife and kiddies to get back to? A toff like you always does."

The boy backed away, sliding between the shadows of the uncertainly flickering streetlights. Lucius followed, drawing close to the boy. He smelled of cigarettes, sweat, and a sweet, chemical odour. Lucius pinched the boy's chin, lifting it. The boy gasped but closed his eyes in anticipation of a kiss. Lucius smirked and took out a handkerchief, and began scrubbing the grease off the boy's lips. The young man pushed furiously at Lucius' chest, "'ey! Whot's yer problem?"

Lucius dipped his head, capturing the boy's mouth with his lips, silencing the angry words. The boy fought and Lucius pulled him closer, overpowering the younger man with his strength. It had been some time since a man had not fallen readily under Lucius' spell, the last one had been Severus. Once the boy quit struggling, Lucius withdrew. "You looked dead with that grease on your lips. Don't wear it again."

"I s'pose you've seen a lot of dead people, eh?" the boy spat, wiping his bruised lips with the back of his hand.

"Yes," Lucius answered. "Now come along. I don't have all evening."

The boy walked beside him, and Lucius was aware of his scrutiny, not dark and glittering as Severus' had been, but intense nonetheless. As they came to Lucius' flat, the boy asked, "So is this to be a one off?"

Lucius opened the door with his key and let the boy into the tastefully furnished flat. "Strip."

Lucius crossed to a small bar in the corner, expecting immediate compliance. The boy huffed once, but proceeded to peel off his layers of substandard leather and cheap cotton, leaving on only his spiked dog collar and a leather wrist band. Lucius watched as the boy shivered in the cool of the room, his pale skin breaking out in goosebumps. It had been weeks since he had been to the flat. Lucius belted down his drink and poured one for the boy. He approached, hand in his pocket, fingering the flask of Polyjuice. The boy looked at him, his brown eyes wary. "M'name's Will. Whot's yers?"

"Names are so unimportant, don't you think?" Lucius answered as he handed the glass to the boy. The boy, Will, stared at the glass before taking it, looking as if he expected poison instead of liquor. Suddenly Lucius was tired of the game, tired of wanting Severus, tired of taking Muggles as cheap substitutes. "I don't think this will work, Will. I shall compensate you for your time, but this will not even be a one off."

The boy seemed to shrink in on himself, and as he turned his back to Lucius to draw on his cotton pants, Malfoy saw faint white scars, burn marks, on the boy's back and shoulders. Lucius hissed, "You've been abused."

Will shrugged. "It happens when yer dad don't like you."

"I know," Lucius said. "Come Will, I spoke hastily."

He held out his hand to the boy, seeing the humanity in him for the first time. He was more than his lack of magical ability or his sludgy blood. Lucius drew the boy to him, letting the Polyjuice remain in his pocket, "Please me tonight, and we will see where this might lead."

The boy followed him to the bedroom.

&*&*&

The affair continued for two years. Lucius found that the boy, though undereducated, possessed an impressive native intellect and sensitivity. Lucius bought him art supplies so that he might pass the hours in their flat, the boy's first real home, according to Will. He allowed the boy the freedom to pursue his studies at an art school in the heart of London, going so far as to fund the boy's education. Lucius would return to the flat at odd intervals, generally timing his visits with Narcissa's frequent holidays to France and Italy. The boy accepted Lucius' absences uncomplainingly. It was Lucius' presence that caused their discord. The boy became restless, wanting to go out, wanting to see some of the posh places Lucius liked. Lucius could not show him for the obvious reasons, and their bitterest arguments occurred over the necessity for secrecy. Lucius dismissed the boy's feelings. He was only a Muggle. He would have given more consideration to the care of his prize rosebushes than the creature he slept with, no matter that Will proved repeatedly that he was equal to Lucius in everything but breeding and magical ability. It was fear in Lucius that kept him from accepting Will. Severus was convinced the Dark Lord would return. Until that event occurred, Lucius could not let his emotions rule him, no matter how much the boy pleased him.

It came as no surprise to him that the boy finally tired of Lucius' disregard. It pained him only a little that the poor Snape substitute left him with only a note and an oddly composed painting, jarringly static, but oddly lifelike. It was of Lucius in the bedroom, the sun playing in his hair as a shadowy figure stood in the background, the lines of the figure lean and hard. Smokestacks could be seen outside the window.

Lucius sold the flat, but kept the painting. It reminded him of the folly of love.