A/N: This is the M-rated version of the original fic, which is rated MA and has a 6k word count. The fic can be found in its entirety under the same title on Ao3 (ArchiveOfOurOwn) at /works/12120771 .
It's some time past midnight, and Lucius is walking through the halls of Hogwarts with all the ease he did as a child, and then as Prefect and Head Boy, when he was here years ago. The Dark Lord had wanted a message delivered to some of his youngest recruits in the Slytherin Common Room, and it had been decided that a visit from Lucius' father would be too obvious; a visit from Lucius, who keeps rather paternally-treated protégés is far less suspicious, even with the late hour in mind.
Slughorn hadn't cared a whit.
"Oi! What do you think you're doing out in the corridor at this time of night?" Lucius arches a silver eyebrow, holding his cane (a recent gift from Narcissa, this very Christmas) between his hands and turning to look. Down here in the dungeons, it is always dark, but the torches are dimmed after ten o'clock, and Lucius has to give his eyes a moment to adjust.
Ah, not a Slytherin prefect patrolling the halls, as it ought be, but Sirius Black.
"I don't see a badge on your robe, Black," Lucius murmurs quietly. Black's face is silhouetted in shadow, making it impossible to judge the change in his expression, but Lucius can certainly see his body stiffen, his chin raise slightly. He had thought he might catch a snake out in the dark, perhaps, to victimize at his leisure.
Lucius begins to walk forwards, his dragonhide boots making a quiet slap each time they touch against the polished stone floor. Black is unmoving, and as Lucius comes closer, he sees his expression is pinched and defiant, his blue eyes shining in the light from the torch nearest to them.
Black's hair is unkempt, down past his shoulders and barely brushed, and he is growing a patchy stubble across his face, undoubtedly to the mimic the Muggle youths Gryffindors seem so desperate to model themselves after.
"Why, cousin, never have I known you to be so quiet," Lucius purrs. Black is displeased, now: Lucius is no doubt far too close for his liking, particularly as he suffers from a rather diminutive height in comparison to Lucius himself. Black is seventeen, now, (Narcissa had actually deigned to send him a gift, sentimental creature that she is, although her cousins no longer even recognize Black on their family tree) and no taller than he was two years ago. What is he, five feet and six? Even Severus is taller.
"We're not cousins, Malfoy," Black spits. "Don't know if my ex-mother has made mention of it, but I've been disowned." He says this with such a relish that he must wear it wear it as a badge of honour with his fellow blood traitor friends, and Lucius cannot help the soft chuckle that escapes his mouth. "What?"
Lucius strikes as quickly as the snake he wears as a brooch upon his lapel.
Black lets out a soft oof of sound as his back hits the stone wall of the corridor, but an inch from the base of the torch hanging upon the wall: Lucius' broad hand is splayed across Black's chest, but although he is short, he is rather stocky, and his chest is broad. Lucius examines him for any sign of wrongdoing, but finds none – had he truly been merely searching the corridors for a snake awry?
"Let me go! You bastard—"
"If we are not to be cousins, Black, then why, pray, ought I let you go? What kindness ought I show you, if we are not to be related any longer?" Black scowls at him, curling his lip, but before he can speak, Lucius asks, "What is it you're doing, lurking down here in the dark? Lions do not belong in dungeon corridors."
"None of your bloody business!"
"Oh, I wince to hear it," Lucius murmurs, tossing his hair to the side in a way that most would recognize as a sardonic dramatacism. Black is dim, though. "Such plebeian speech! Such a lack of enunciation! Have you need of elocution?"
"The only need I have is for your slimy fingers to stop touching me." Black tries to struggle, but Lucius is a strong man, and has spent time in cultivating musculature most wizards of his standing would not. But what teaches discipline better than exercise?
"Tell me what you were doing down here, and perhaps I shall," Lucius murmurs. There are numerous dungeon corridors that wind one way and another, each with arched ceilings and halls that are wide enough only for three people abreast, so if Black yells too loudly, it will undoubtedly echo through the halls and attract the attention of a true prefect or, better, a member of staff.
"You tell me first."
"I was delivering presents to my favourites of the Slytherin Seventh Year," Lucius replies cleanly, adjusting the position of his hand to trap the younger man by his neck rather than by his chest, and Sirius' nostrils flare as he gasps in a little breath. "Your move, Black."
"Who says I wasn't just going for a walk?"
"In the dungeons after dark? Hardly pastoral, is it?"
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"When one goes for a walk, Black, one usually has some sort of view in mind." Black's gaze flickers uncertainly, and Lucius turns his head. At the end of the corridor is a girl stood stock-still, but as soon as she sees Lucius' face, which is well-lit by the torch (unlike her own), she turns tail and runs down the corridor, back toward the common room.
Lucius tuts, and makes a note of her dark hair.
"What are you, Black, a dog?" Black struggles anew under Lucius' grip, so he fists his hand in the fabric of Black's robe front and lifts him by it, making Black yelp and grab hold of Lucius' wrists, his feet not managing to hit the ground as they kick. Lucius' capacity for a stern hand is usually applied to those of Slytherin House, for it is so important that one learn etiquette as soon as possible, but Black… Well, in many ways he is a lost cause. "You think this is appropriate? Skulking about in order to deflower some slut?"
"What, Lucy? You'd rather I find a Muggle girl?" It is not an act of temper: it is calculated, and Lucius thinks it through before he does it.
The sound rings down the corridor like a pistol shot when Lucius slaps Black across the face. His face is snapped to the side, the skin soon flushing pink under the harsh attention, and Black breathes a little heavier, almost panting.
"While these might be base discussions, Black, we mustn't sink too lowly." Lucius releases Black, and when he drops to the ground, he nearly loses his balance; he keeps himself from stumbling only by grasping hold of Lucius' well-tailored sleeve, but he soon withdraws his hands. "Return to your own common room, else you might find yourself set upon by one of the staff in this place."
With that, Lucius turns, making his way toward the staircases some five minutes' walk away: with another snake, he might have insisted upon an escort, but Black is hardly his responsibility, and Lucius can only be thankful that he is with the Potters now – sentimental, certainly, and stupid in their prime, but still of good stock.
"Wait," Black says, surprising him, and Lucius glances back. "Is that it? You fucking hypocrite." Lucius feels his brow furrow, and he narrowly inclines his head.
"Pardon? What hypocrisy am I guilty of?"
"Oh, come on," Black snaps, his tone dripping with venom. "You were obviously in one of the Slytherin dormitories – who was it? Mulciber? Wilkes?" Black snorts. "It wasn't Snape, was it?" Lucius laughs. It is not one of the dry chuckles he reserves for private jokes made with Narcissa, or with close personal friends over drinks in private; it is an almost operatic, airy thing, intended to read as quite false. Black's shoulders are high, his lips curled into a canine snarl, his hands clenched into fists. "Laugh all you want. I know all about you and Snivellus."
Lucius blinks once, twice.
"Snivellus? Is that what you consider a creative insult in these times?" Lucius tuts quietly. "They really ought return the study of literature to the syllabus. Such stupidity is near criminal. Black, I can assure you that any indiscretion I might be tended to belongs in the bedroom, with my wife. I do not select schoolboys with which to romp. Severus is a student of mine. I made the same offer of you before you came here, did I not?"
Does he remember? Yes. Lucius sees the way Black looks internally for a moment; it had been at some Solstice Soirée of the upper classes, before Black would even consider looking at a character like James Potter as a friend. The separations had been clear: Slytherin families to the right, Gryffindors to the left, and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw-prone mingling between the two… Black had been a sarcastic thing even then, haughty, and had awkwardly walked away when Lucius had offered him help at school. Lucius had never imagined the Hat would pronounce him a Gryffindor…
But what predictions can be made, these days? Narcissa's own sister had gone so far as to marry a Muggle, and a daughter between the two, at that!
Black seems positively disappointed, as if he hoped Lucius might be selecting from the Hogwarts crop; he might take a man, now and then, but never from the Hogwarts student body. Much as some might ask, that is, but any school-time relationships ought be between schoolboys – Slytherin House has its own internal politics, and such things are as regular as wine at dinner.
"You're going, then?" Black asks.
"What would you recommend, Black, that I reside here, in this corridor, indefinitely?" Black shrugs like an insouciant child, and then his hands go to the fastening of his robe at his chest and flick it open. His outer robe drops to the ground, leaving him clad only in the red underpiece of his uniform, and Lucius stares at him. Whistling under his breath, Black picks up the piece of black fabric from the ground and walks confidently through the open door of a disused classroom, and Lucius stands frozen in the middle of the corridor, weighing his options.
Black is seventeen, and while Lucius wishes to see relationships flourish of their natural course between members of the Slytherin House, Black is a Gryffindor. He is a Pureblood, of good stock, but he has been disowned; Lucius ought have no worry of corrupting him, for what is there to corrupt?
He couldn't tell Narcissa, of course; she'd be absolutely ballistic with him, much as she usually enjoys tales of any masculine exploits, and he could hardly confide in friends either… However, what is truly so terrible about having a pleasure or two quite to himself? This would be an indiscretion of the highest order, but—
"Are you coming?" Black is now quiet naked, his head sticking out from the classroom's doorway, and Lucius' lips quirk.
"Get inside and bend over a desk," Lucius instructs, and Black grins at him.
Exhausted, Black drops his weight against a desk. Breathing heavily and shining with sweat, he leans forwards and stares down at the floor. Lucius examines him for a moment, thinking about Black and his pride, his blood traitor friends, his fascination with the so-called side of "Light". War is coming, Lucius knows, and the levee will break any day now, but how easy would it be, he wonders, to draw Black onto the right side, the side that will win?
The Dark Lord would kill a man like this, anyway, but if Lucius were to take Black under his wing, take him for himself… A traitor to his blood, why should he not be a traitor to his supposed friends? Lucius would gladly take Sirius Black as a toy, a student of sorts, but… No. He is too stubborn, and Lucius knows it would be impossible to sway him. He loves that Potter boy, stupid as he might be.
Lucius adjusts his hair, ensuring it is combed into place, and unrolls his sleeves to the wrist once more. Black is watching him, the sound of his heavy breaths echoing in the room. "You really don't do anything with Snape?"
Lucius adjusts the cravat at the front of his robes. "As I said, Severus is a student of mine. We're friends, Black, nothing more. You would do well to leave him be." Black curls his lip, ready to say something incendiary, no doubt, but Lucius holds up a hand to stop him. Almost to Lucius' surprise, Black holds his tongue. "Good night, Black. Take care in your journey back to your common room."
Black's lip twitches, as if he knows something Lucius does not – perhaps some secret passage right up to the common room.
"Come back soon," Black says, a parody of a sign on a store in Diagon Alley, and Lucius ensures the wrinkle of his nose is hidden from Black as he takes his leave.
