Title: Deluge
Summary: The distribution of power has shifted within Malfoy Manor.
Pairing: Lucius/Bellatrix, Lucius/Narcissa
Rating: R
Word count: 1987
AN: A belated bday fic for the lovely and talented Rainpuddle13. Huge thanks to Tangleofthorns for the beta! Some spoilers for DH.
Lucius has nearly passed the library when his son scurries out, blond hair ruffled, looking vaguely terrified. It's hardly a new look on the boy; since Lucius has returned he's seen the new nervousness and fear that laces his son's every movement, but to his knowledge there should be nothing life-threatening in the library.
"Draco," he says quietly, but his son is halfway up the stairs now, and clearly has no intention of looking back.
He considers following Draco upstairs, commanding the boy to speak to him, but instead he glances at the library door.
He steps inside, and immediately understands Draco's hurry.
Sprawled on the floor on her stomach, legs kicked up like a teenager, chatting amiably with the Dark Lord through the Floo is Bellatrix Lestrange.
She giggles like a schoolgirl at something the Dark Lord says – something low and private – and Lucius begins to back out of the room.
"Lucius." The Dark Lord's ringing tones cause Lucius to freeze, obedient as a properly trained house-elf.
Bellatrix has rolled over on her side, one hand stretched straight out towards the fireplace, fingertips inches away from the flames that surround the Dark Lord's stern face. The other hand drapes across her stomach, teasingly moving to her hip and back again. The black fabric of her robes is bunched around her knees, and when she splays her legs to better balance on her side Lucius can see the glowing pallor of her inner thighs.
"Yes?" he says. It is impertinent to leave off the 'Master,' but he is feeling rebellious.
"I will require use of your son at our next visit," the Dark Lord says. Son comes out as a hiss. "Make sure he is better prepared."
"Yes, my lord," Lucius demurs, bowing his head. Bellatrix giggles, a bright sound he remembers echoed like church bells in the Slytherin common room.
When he looks up, the Dark Lord is gone, and Bellatrix is still laying on the floor, outstretched arm playing with the ends of her long dark hair. He turns to leave, but Bellatrix calls out before he gets to the door.
He slowly turns back around.
"I've been teaching Draco," she says, leaning up on her elbows. "He has potential."
"Of course he does," Lucius says. "He's my son."
"My nephew," she replies, "has potential, but doesn't know how to use that. He reminds me of--"
She doesn't have to complete the thought; Lucius remembers how she'd groomed her younger cousin for this life and how sorely disappointed she'd been when he defected.
"Draco will not be a disappointment."
Bellatrix reveals a sharp tooth-filled smile. "He already is, Lucius. He's failed already, but he may perhaps redeem himself yet."
Lucius does not flinch at the jab; even now, his defenses weaken from his year in Azkaban, he will not show weakness to a viper like Bellatrix. "I think it's admirable to take risks," he says, "rather than simply doing as expected. Shows proper ambition, rather than merely... servitude."
Her eyes flash as she sits up properly. "I alone am revered over all others in his regard, and you dare imply--"
"I rather think Severus is regarded most highly these days," Lucius says lightly. He marvels at how being the Dark Lord's right hand man is no longer his dearest ambition. "He is the one who killed Albus Dumbledore, after all. What is it that you've done, my dear? Murdered your scapegoat cousin?"
"I am--"
"You're what? No more useful than I," Lucius hisses at her.
She was standing now, and striding closer and closer. The firelight flickers on her, illuminating the whites of her eyes and casting her twisted features and hair in shadow. She stands there, breathing heavily and glaring before tilting her head up to look him in the eye. Her body is still tense, but her anger has subsided; a smile dances across her lips.
"When you were in Azkaban," she says, touching his sleeve lightly and changing the subject with the ease of madness, "did you find your Mark a comfort?"
Her fingers continue to touch his sleeve, playing with the hem, stroking upward. Twisting the fabric, twining it around her thin fingers.
"My allegiance was reassuring," he says carefully.
"I asked if your Mark" -- her fingers press against it through his sleeve – "was a comfort." She is staring at him.
"Not... physically," Lucius finally says. Bellatrix tilts her head, as though considering this response. At first glance, she does not resemble Narcissa in the least. It is only because Lucius knows his wife so well that he can see the similarities: the way they angle their heads when playing coy, the shape of their narrowed, angry eyes, the seductive twist of their hips as they stride forward.
"I found it," she says, raising her sleeve to reveal the vivid brand, "very comforting." She licked the Mark, tracing the snake's path across her skin with her tongue to the skull's mouth, where she planted a tiny kiss. "Physically, that is."
Lucius feels a phantom tingle in his own Mark, as though she had kissed his as well.
She offers her arm up to him like a sacrifice, and he stares at the Mark for a moment, as if he's never seen one, before taking her wrist in his grasp, squeezing tightly enough to cause her to gasp, and lowered his lips to the soft underside of her arm. He stops hovering just above her skin, and her slight twinges against his grasp causes his nose and lips to bump, light as teardrops, against her skin.
"I am not interested in the Dark Lord's leavings," he says to the tattooed skull.
A movement and a sharp pain on his head as Bellatrix's free hand grasps his hair, jerks it to pull his head up, and then she's kissing him, all searching and sharpness and greed.
Lucius means to push her away, but her hand is still tangled in his hair, and he is still grasping her hand tight enough to cut off bloodflow, and instead he is following her, entwined, kissing her, pressing her against the stone wall alongside the fireplace.
"I am no one's leavings," she pants between kisses, between sharp nips to his neck that Narcissa will surely notice.
"You're no one, anymore," he responds, shoving up her skirt - those pale thighs gleam in the flickering light - and pressing his knee between hers. "You're not Bellatrix Black anymore. You're just a madwoman devoted to another man's crusade."
"And you?" she retorts, more focused in her passion than she ever is in placidity. "Lucius Malfoy, broken and disgraced in his own home." She has shoved his robes aside, has unbuttoned his trousers, and is wrapping a leg around his hips.
"Better than a whore to the cause," he says into her neck as he pushes inside.
She gasps and laughs and throws her head back, narrowly avoiding hitting the wall as she reveals the pale, bruised line of her throat. "I never coddled a pureblood child into cowardice," she says between other, more satisfying noises.
"You... you condemned your own house to extinction," he manages, having finally released her wrist; she scrabbles at his back with her jagged nails.
She growls in response; he is no longer capable of coherence. He does not last much longer, and Bellatrix moans and tightens her legs around him as he slumps against her, pressing her into the stone with his weight.
It is several long moments before he collects himself enough to realize they are still in the library, exposed and disheveled and in full view of anyone who might glance inside the ajar door.
He stands, fixes his clothing, and waits on Bellatrix to do the same. Instead, she lolls against he wall, smirking, her skirt falling down to cover her, but unmistakably ravished. Her hand drifts up to her chest, thumb rubbing absently against a still-hard nipple.
"Shall I call for my sister?" she asks, tilting her head to better reveal the red marks, brilliant as winter roses against her pale skin. She has never regained any color after her years in Azkaban, and Lucius wonders if the marks she has left on him are as vivid.
"You will not," he says, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Or should I call for Draco instead? He's reached his majority, hasn't he?" Her tongue flickers out briefly, snakelike as the Dark Lord himself.
"You will do no such thing," Lucius commands. It is an exhilarating feeling, being in control again.
She laughs, hand sliding up over her breast, slithering over her tilted neck to lift her hair off the back of her neck. "Lucius," she says, and he can hear promises in her husky voice. "Are you regretting our indiscretion already?"
He wants nothing more than to throw her out of the house, away from him, away from his family. He wants to kiss her again, to take out his anger and frustration and the pent-up despairing hatred left over from Azkaban on someone who understands it and embraces it more than he ever will.
He does neither.
"Bellatrix, my dear sister," he says, and she snarls a little, "you are hardly worth regretting."
He gives her an respectful nod, turns and leaves, not even bothering to smooth down his disarrayed hair. Behind him, he can hear Bellatrix laughing, the angry mad noise that has filled his house for over a year.
He is nearly positive she will not tell the Dark Lord about his wavering devotion
He thinks she will not tell Narcissa, because she would prefer to have something hanging over his head with his wife. (Narcissa will know anyway, Bellatrix was not gentle and he can feel where she has marked him as incriminatingly as the Dark Lord has.)
Perhaps she will coyly hint to Draco; he can envision her trailing those jagged fingernails on Draco's reddening cheeks, whispering things he oughtn't yet know about his father. He hopes that is all she does, his son is too young still to understand a woman like Bellatrix Lestrange.
He enters his bedroom, and Narcissa is there, settled on her favorite chair in the sitting room.
She looks up from her book, and her eyes are focused and clear and i cold /i . "Argument with my sister?"
"You know how she is," Lucius replies. "Nothing at all like you, love."
Narcissa nods once, looking as though this were the acceptable answer. He feels strangely out of depth around this woman he has been married to for half his life. "Do try to avoid further... arguments. It's a dangerous game to play."
"I have no desire to argue with her," Lucius confirms.
"You'd best clean up for dinner," Narcissa says after a heartbeat. "It wouldn't do for our son to see you looking so."
Lucius pauses just before the washroom, then turns and looks directly at Narcissa. "She hasn't... She wouldn't sink her claws in our son, would she?"
"I've discouraged her from doing so," Narcissa says, and there it is, the narrowing of her eyes that is identical to the way Bellatrix had appeared such a short time before. "And I shall have a word with her about interfering with you as well."
Lucius feels more useless than ever as he watches his wife stand, sweep her robes around as she sets her book carefully on the side table, and strides out of the room.
It is suddenly clear to him that he's been reduced to being a pawn between the Black sisters. He's no longer a credible threat in the Death Eaters, he is now Narcissa's territory to protect. The last remnants of his pride had been clawed away with long, ragged fingernails, and he had allowed it.
Lucius tiredly rubs the back of his neck, wincing a bit as he catches the edge of newly forming bruises, and goes to clean up for dinner.