In case you didn't read the category or the summary, I figured I should warn you: this is not a happy story. Do not expect rainbows and bunnies and butterflies and sparkles, unless Voldemort somehow steps back into the picture (kidding).
Edit: Don't you just love it when you submit something only to realize months later that there was a glaring error in the first line? Yeah...
Disclaimer: Don't own. You'd know if I did because there wold be a massive recall for the seventh book and they'd be redistributed at a later date without the epilogue. ^_^
Some people say Lucius Malfoy was born with many things, but a conscience is not one of them.
Lucius knows that's not true.
He knows he has one, he felt the prickles of it's discomfort on the back of his neck and the in the pit of his stomach during the war when he sees the Muggle whelps wreathed in flames; when one day he looked and a Muggle having her arms ripped off with her children watching with too wide eyes is no longer funny.
(Was it ever funny?)
He's feeling those prickles now.
The problem is, they're only prickles. It's never anything stronger than then barest feelings of discomfort that maybe he shouldn't be doing this.
No, he knows he shouldn't be doing this, he just doesn't want to stop.
This is a betrayal, this an outrage and a scandal and an insult, but Narcissa is dead along with Draco, and anyone who might have once cared is dead too.
Everyone Lucius has known and loved and hated, it seems, has died.
All except for one.
This shouldn't be a pity fest though, this is just about his lack of control, and how abominable it is for a Malfoy to have to admit that, if even only to himself. It's about how this is all the he has left, the only warmth he has left.
He refuses to say: this is the only Light I have left. Lucius has had enough of those labels and symbols that stood for something once, he remembers, besides mutual destruction. Now, they are terms in history books, and if Draco had survived, then maybe his child would be reading about them and looking up at Lucius with the sharp silver Malfoy eyes and demanding to know more about the foolishness in this country's past. In his past.
He knows wishing for a grandchild is as foolish and useless as wishing his son was alive. Even if Draco and Narcissa hadn't been caught in the explosion, Lucius would not have had grandchildren.
Harry grips his hair and crushes his lips against his own. Stay with me. Stay here, here in the present where the both of us are still drawing breaths and where we are not dead.
Stop drifting in memories while you're supposed to be concentrating, is what Harry is trying to say, and Lucius allows himself to feel the slightest tinge of amusement at the irony and Harry's hypocrisy.
There's a reason they never come together like this in rooms where the lights are still on. It's easier to believe in something when you're blind, when you can't see what will contradict you and bring the whole dream screeching into reality. It's so much easier to see in the dark.
Harry bites down on his lip, hard, hard enough to draw blood, and Lucius knows it's because he's been going through the motions this time. It's too much, sometimes, to keep on giving and giving when he has so little left and he's given nothing in return but a mask he's supposed to wear.
He pins Harry with the weight of his gaze because it's what Harry wants; and his gaze is palpable even in this room where no light penetrates, and Harry squirms beneath him, slick and breathy and for now, his. Partly.
Only a little.
He is as much Lucius's as a lie belongs to a person, which is to say, not at all. But if there's already one lie present, why not another, if just for these few moments?
Isn't this whole thing, this whole process of making resurrection (never making love, never in this bed since Cissy died), one grand lie?
But it's all he has left.
Harry is the only one he can touch any longer. He is trapped by the ministry by something they call house arrest, but what it really means is that the house that once held his life is now his grave, and he is so small within it.
Harry's close, he can see it in way he pants and the way he's meeting Lucius's every thrust and gasping.
His father and the Dark Lord taught Lucius the words to curse his targets so that they know pain, he can strip away the skin and rip away muscle and gristle and bone and dignity until his victim is screaming and pleading for death. Lucius knows the words to grant that wish.
Harry knows one word that can cause more pain than the combined power of all of the curses Lucius has used and has feared to use.
As his toes curl and his back arches, Harry breathes out, "Draco…"
Lucius tells himself that he is the traitor, so he shouldn't feel like he's been betrayed.
Lucius knows that he could shake Harry by the shoulders and refuse to let him come until he screams "Lucius!" and moans and begs so much more prettily than the ones he made scream somewhere in the murky past, until Harry's throat is raw from Lucius's name abrading it and digging its claws into him and owning him.
Lucius knows that he won't, because that would change everything and so much has already changed.
If the bomb hadn't gone off, if they hadn't been watching the opera, if it had been just a regular mother-son outing, if and if and if.
So Lucius says nothing. Lucius says nothing when afterwards, while they are laying down sprawled across the bed and regaining their breath, Harry twines his blonde hair through his fingers and Lucius knows that Harry is debating whether or not to ask him to cut his long hair to, say, above his ears.
(Just like Draco's hair.)
Lucius doesn't have to say anything, because he knows Harry will never ask.
Lucius is not the only afraid of change.
Harry gets up and starts putting his clothes back on and Lucius watches him, his eyes wandering over the defined calves, slowly and appreciatively admiring the swell of his backside, his muscled back, his steady shoulders.
Lucius is always staring at Harry's back, Harry will never turn to show Lucius his face because that would mean he would have to look at Lucius too, and he never does that. Not if he can help it.
Gryffindor courage means nothing when there's nothing to be courageous for.
Harry pauses by the door, facing into the hallway. He speaks without looking back into the room.
"I think that… Maybe it's time to stop this."
So, maybe someone in this room has learned how to change. It wasn't something Lucius was expecting. A change for one person means a change for another. It's selfish to change, it forces others to do things they might not want to.
Lucius says nothing. It's a habit by now. If Harry wants to do this, wants to completely alter their relationship like this, let him fumble and put it into words. Lucius will give neither cue nor invitation; let him struggle through this part by himself.
Lucius will struggle by himself later with the loss of the gaping hole in his life that covered up the other, larger, gaping hole.
Harry does not fumble. He's been considering this for a while, then. What was this, the last bite of a meal before you leave?
"I've met someone, you see, and this isn't… This isn't working, Dra- Malfoy. Malfoy."
The blonde shuts his eyes, and it is the only sign that he is distressed (but Harry won't see it because he's not looking at Lucius, because he never does). His breathing does not waver, he does not stiffen, he does not cry. In the darkness behind his shut lids, he can pretend that the weight he feels is from Narcissa encircling his neck with her soft, soothing arms and laying on his back instead of the foreboding knowledge that he will live (exist) alone again in this mausoleum.
His eyes open, and the light tresses of his wife's hair that he had hoped to see are not there, instead he sees Potter's dark hair catching gleams of candlelight from the hallway and there is something so wrong with this that if he broke down and cried he wouldn't even be sure what he was crying about.
He wishes that Harry had told him before so he could have savored it this time, but it's not like he was really expecting any niceties from Potter's end when they started this. The boy can't even separate the past from the present.
Lucius is a Malfoy though, so he's never shaken by anything. Not even by this. He can still be an aristocrat and be polite in all the ways Potter has failed to do.
"I see. Enjoy your time with him then. Good luck."
Silence. He had expected Potter to leave by now, to say his piece and leave him to his isolation.
"That's it then?"
"Were you expecting me to beg for you to stay? Cry and sob and clutch your ankles and promise I'll be better if only you'll give me a second chance?" Lucius asks dryly with a sneer that feels foreign on his face.
"Well, no, but I thought you would show something! Look, Draco would have thrown a fit! I just didn't think you were so cold-"
Lucius rose from the bed and towered over Potter in a way his son was never and would never be capable of doing.
"Mr. Potter, since this seems to have escaped you, let me make it clear for you: I. Am. Not. Draco. No matter how much you wish he wasn't, he's dead and he's not coming back just because you sleep with someone who looks like him. I will never be my son, and frankly, I don't want to be. Now, remove yourself from the premises."
Green eyes gazed at him, too wide and stricken. "Lucius, I'm sorr-"
All of the sudden, Lucius is tired. Tired of lying, tired of excuses, tired of telling lies, tired of being one.
"Out, Mr. Potter."
The boy opens his mouth as if some words will spill out that can salvage this, or maybe an explanation, but they've spent so long happily ignoring the truth that it won't come out when they need it to. He nods and leaves, shutting the door. Lucius stares at the closed door for a long time, and remembers how much he hates symbolism.
Hope this all made sense. The repetition was intentional. Thanks for reading!
I love reviews, hint, hint. Tell me what I did wrong and what things I managed to get right? Constructive criticism is appreciated!