An Understanding
Do you find me dreadful? Am I beautiful? It's killing time again.
What a shame such a sad disgrace,
Such a pretty face.
But she's not regretful.
Am I usable?
Put on your face and let's pretend,
These killing lights won't kill us all again.
'The Killing Lights' – A.F.I
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She's almost skeletal, he thinks. It is only in his own mind that Lucius will admit this to himself, with a pang of regret that surprises him. She sits absolutely still, the threadbare material of her shirt providing a laughable barrier between her thin shoulders and the unforgiving wall. Her eyes are closed, although the redness of the surrounding skin betrays the fact that she has cried recently. He smiles; even now she is beautiful.
Standing outside of her cell, cane leaning against the iron bars, Lucius recalls the day she was captured. It had been pathetically easy to break through the protective wards that had surrounded her home. They had all been there, the entire Weasley clan and various other Order members. He remembered the feeling of perfect satisfaction as the green light had struck Arthur Weasley in the chest, the look of shock on his old rivals face highlighted by the very light that took away his life. Poetry, thought Lucius, in its purest form.
But this young lady... no, she had been different. She had fought like a wild cat, right up until she had seen her brothers overwhelmed. Lucius remembered the expression on her face as she watched them fall to stunning spells, the way her features seemed to ice over, the calm resignation in her eyes irking him even then.
Shaking himself from his reverie, Lucius motioned to the guard to open her cell door. Stepping through the doorway he felt the warm tingle of wards brush over his skin. Unnecessary of course, she wasn't going anywhere.
She behaved in exactly the same way as she had every time he had come to visit her; she neither shouted or screamed, cried or laughed. She merely opened her eyes, and looked at him.
"Lucius," she acknowledged, her neutral expression unwavering. He dipped his head in reply and waited for the guard to bring in his chair. Seating himself, Lucius considered the girl before him. She could have been no older than eighteen, yet lines of pain and grief drew at the corners of her mouth and clawed at her eyes. She gazed back at him with a serenity in those dark brown eyes that he could not help but admire.
"I take it you watched the last of your brothers disposed of today, Ginevra." Her jaw tightened, the hollows beneath her cheekbones lending her a haunting look, the grief flying across her ravaged features as swiftly as a bird in flight. Then, calmness.
"Yes."
"Who was it again? William, and family?" he probed, trying to garner a reaction from her. Since her capture he had tried every day to break that frozen demeanour, but she would not crack.
"Yes. They killed the last of them today. Bill, Fleur and Victoire," she murmured, those dark eyes seeing something far beyond Lucius' face. His eyes narrowed, why would she not react?
"You do not mourn their deaths?" he queried, pressing her further. "Wasn't the child only a few months old?" She seemed to focus back in on him, and a small, humourless smile lifted a corner of her mouth.
"I have wept for them Lucius; I need not debase myself before you needlessly."
"I thought you Gryffindors thought there was no shame in tears," he hounded, unwilling to drop the topic when it caused her so much pain. He just wanted her to react, just once.
Then she smiled. Not the humourless smile of before, no. That smile. The secretive, knowing smile that made him want to wrap his hands around her slender throat and squeeze the knowing out of her.
"My tears are for my family Lucius, not for you."
Lucius had to make a conscious effort to curb the snarl that threatened on the edge of his lips. They had tortured her, he knew. Crucio after crucio, but it seemed she really did know nothing that was of any use. They had tried Truth Serum, physical torture and mental torture. But still she merely dried off her tears and returned to her cell, where she sat, and waited. She would not crack.
She would not stop plaguing his mind.
Lucius had been so sure that the death of her family members, of the baby, would be enough to force her to deliver Potter into their arms. But it was not to be so.
She had been a pretty thing, once. He remembered the wistful look in Draco's eyes when they would observe her crossing the platform to the Hogwarts Express, her figure seeming to dance through the heavy crowds. She had been a free spirit, and somehow it hurt Lucius to cage her so.
"Why won't you break?" Her head jerked up at that, surprise ruling her for a moment. Surprise ruled him also; he had not meant to say that. But maybe it would work to his advantage, she looked slightly unbalanced, unused to such a direct manner from the elder Malfoy. She seemed to only hesitate for a split second, then her expression smoothed and that smile appeared once more.
"You can't break what is already broken, Lucius," she whispered, brown eyes that bordered closely on black boring into his own, "You seek to destroy me, but I am obliterated already. All that is left inside of me is pieces; a mismatched collection of memories that cause me nothing but grief. You focus too much on the shell that you can see. Well, you can have it. Like you've had everything else. Break that like you've broken the rest of me."
The quite venom in her voice rankled something deep in the core of Lucius, a part of him he had thought long dead.
It was then that he understood. He forced himself to acknowledge that the reason he had been coming back, day after day, for weeks on end, was to enjoy this young girl. He felt no lustful attraction for her, heap of rags and bones that she was, but her pureness drew him like a moth to the flame. She was fast becoming an addiction, one that he could not afford to maintain. She would be his weakness, and Lucius Malfoy had worked too hard, and for too long, to allow such a thing to happen.
His cool, grey eyes met with hers once more. She understood. That knowing smile moulded her lips into a pleasing curve once more, but now he seemed to be privy to some of its secrets. But Lucius no longer wished to know her mind; it was a place too desolate and dangerous for him.
Standing abruptly, Lucius with withdrew his wand from his robes. Her eyes followed his movements with the serene acceptance that he had come to associate purely with her.
"Stand," he commanded. He did not wish for her to be beneath him when he did this. She rose slowly to her feet, one hand bracing against the wall for support, the other pressing gently against what he suspected were broken ribs. Something akin to relief filled him; no longer would guilt keep him awake at night, telling him to end her misery.
She met his gaze steadily, head held neither high nor low. She had been correct, though he had been too blind to see it. She was as broken as anything he had ever seen. If he stared hard enough he could almost see the cracks through her skin, so pale that it seemed almost translucent.
A moment's indecision stayed his hand. He could feed her up, keep her as a pet. He could give her to Draco. But Lucius knew he was too selfish for that; her mind was too alluring, her features too captivating for him to relinquish her to anyone other than Death.
"Thank you," she said, sounding genuine. She offered him a soft smile, one that transformed her momentarily from a shade into the full splendour of her former self. Without time for more delay, Lucius struck. As the killing curse left his lips, her body crumpled to the floor. A distant part of his mind observed that she reminded him in that instance of the delicate origami bird that Narcissa had charmed to fly about her private study. It too had crumpled as easily at his hand.
Without another glance at the girl's corpse, Lucius turned on his heel and left her cell. He had a report to finish, and a wife to forget himself in.
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A/N – Well, that was a little different. I hope it was enjoyable, it is not Beta'd and so any mistakes are mine and duly apologised for. Please do leave me your thoughts and comments, they are always welcomed.
WishfulWhispers