Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

Warning: Mention of incest, but nothing explicit beyond that

A/N: A brief sojourn into the lives of the Malfoys before Draco's time.

Oedipus Descent

When Lucius first realised his feelings for his widowed father spanned beyond the boundary of a son's admiration and envy, he was thirteen years old. What kind of label ought he place upon himself for this incestuous feeling, he wondered. Neither was he a daughter pining for a father who was not there, nor he a son yearning for a mother who was already dead. The only thing he knew for certain was that his first foray into romance would never be, the bud of his first love would never blossom.

Abraxas Malfoy was a stern man in the eyes of many, and while one would never call him affectionate towards the son his beloved wife had left behind, he was loving in his own way. At times, Lucius wondered if his father blamed him for his lady's death; nevertheless, the cool, controlled exterior of the Malfoy patriarch could not be so easily penetrated. It was not a secret that his father had lovers, and it was a notion Lucius had accepted as simple truth. And yet, whenever he gazed upon his father's marble visage, he could not help wondering if anyone, other than his mother, could truly cull his father's loneliness and melt away the icy facade.

He was not jealous of his father's lovers, for he knew he alone had a special place in his father's heart, that he alone shared his father's blood; and yet, he was jealous of them for being able to do what he could not do for his father.

"Lucius?" Abraxas' calm, quiet voice called him back from the realm of meaningless brooding.

Startled, Lucius stared at his father's stoic face and felt a blush rising to his cheeks; he had not been listening to his father's lecture. The least he wanted to do was disappoint his father. "I'm sorry, father."

Looking into his son's clear grey eyes, Abraxas heaved a sigh. "Your mind has wandered. We shall conclude the lesson for the night. Go to bed."

Disappointed at himself for letting his thoughts be led astray, Lucius bit his lip and gathered his things. The pride in him resented this weakness of his, this weakness that plagued his adolescent years like a slow poison. He wished nothing more than to immediately grow beyond this ambiguous stage of pupa and become an adult. "Good night, father."

"Good night, Lucius." Abraxas got up from the table and returned the books to the shelves.

Lucius was at the door when he could not resist looking back at his father, whose tall, regal frame possessed a strength and grace he had yet to discover in himself. A sudden spark of impulse drove him to approach his shire, and hearing his light footfall, Abraxas turned around to contemplate his heir, the placid silver lakes in his eyes stirring not a single ripple. Ever so slowly Lucius reached out and touched his father's face in painful longing.

"Do I look like her?" Lucius heard himself murmur like a hypnotised child caught in a web of half-dreams, and still Abraxas did not react. "Couldn't I be her substitute for you?"

Abraxas did not slap away his son's hand, but neither did he lean into the touch. "Lucius," he whispered in that soft, composed voice of his. "You are not a substitute, and you are not your mother."

Slapped by his father's words all the same, Lucius drew back his hand and wheeled around, unable to look at his father's face, unable to breathe, unable to cry. Behind him, Abraxas took down a book from the shelf and leafed through it, acting as though nothing at all was amiss. Biting his inner cheek until he tasted blood in his mouth, Lucius bowed rigidly to his father and ran off, his heart throbbing with too much pain that he longed to rip it out of his chest and stamp on it until it was utterly crushed.

When the footstep faded and Abraxas was certain he was alone, he put down the book, leant against the bookshelves, and held his arms together as though stricken with cold. The memory of days long past flitted before his eyes like an afterimage that refused to disappear. It was a curse of the men of Malfoy to fall under the spell of fatal, incestuous infatuation for their sire, an attraction verging on narcissism. He had escaped the cycle, though not unscathed, with the early and untimely passing of his sire, and yet, his heir had succumbed to the same temptation as many before him did. No, he would not allow this to go on any further.

A change came over the father and the son from that fateful night onward. Abraxas kept his distance from Lucius and withdrew into the cocoon of his work, while Lucius, in ways subtle and otherwise, rebelled against his father. Even though intuitively he knew what he was doing was no more than childish defiance, Lucius grew out his hair and joined the ranks of the Death Eaters against Abraxas' wish. In the eyes of others, the relationship between father and son could not be less harmonious, even after the passing of the Malfoy patriarch.

Throughout the solemn ceremony commemorating his father's life and death, Lucius maintained a stoic facade that could make his father proud and shed not a single tear. Visitors who had known both father and son could not help remarking behind the mourning family's back how alike Lucius was to Abraxas. As a sign of formality, Lucius' young wife, Narcissa, held onto her husband's hand, even though she knew his pride would never allow him to lose his composure, not even in front of her.

The funeral ended in a shower of white flowers the former head of the family once favoured, and Abraxas was laid to rest in the family vault among his lady and his forebears.

When the witching hour had arrived, Lucius went into the vault by himself to say his private farewell to his sire. Lying inside the velvet-lined coffin as though merely asleep, Abraxas Malfoy was a study of tranquillity. Nevertheless, his skin no longer retained the silky paleness Lucius adored; his grey eyes would no longer open to behold his son's visage; his lips would no longer whisper praises or reprimands to Lucius in that damnably suave voice.

With a shaky hand, Lucius touched his father's face as he once did many years ago in a moment of impulse that would become his undoing. The skin beneath his palm was cold as he had never felt before, unlike the warmth he could still recall from the depth of his memory. As he stood by his father's coffin and beheld his father's calm, aged visage, he could no longer remember the reason he rebelled against his father in the first place. Those years of stubborn defiance had faded into ashes and dust, and for one last time, he became that thirteen year old boy who was lost in the bittersweet labyrinth of adolescence.

Ever so slowly, as though afraid of waking his beloved sire, he leant over the coffin and kissed Abraxas' cold, unresponsive lips, their first and last kiss. Unable to hold his shattered self together in his blood-streaked arms anymore, he knelt by his father's coffin and cried as he would never cry again in this lifetime.

Finis.

A/N: A brief sojourn in between working on two different fics at the same time. The inspiration for the story comes partially from the song Narcisse Noir by the Japanese music group, Ali Project. The basis for Abraxas Malfoy, as well as a fragment of the conflicting relationship between Lucius and his father, comes from my other stories, Black Veil and Ravens, but this tale is unrelated to that series. Even without the faintly incestuous undertone, I believe this story could still work. I confess I shed a tear or two when I wrote the last part.

I intend to post something, a new one-shot or the next chapter to Nape, on Draco's birthday. Please look forward to the update. Thanks for reading, and a further thank you to everyone who had reviewed my stories.