just a few notices. lizzy spawned my creativity for this. it was written whilst i wrote dropped, actually started the afternoon before i started dropped.
it's set in january of 1980, shortly after draco is born. voldemort's fall is shortly coming and he's already heard the prophecy. narcissa and lucius are married, as are bellatrix and rodolphus.
He tried to keep his mind off of it. He tried to keep his mind off of her. He tried so damned hard but always failed. And today was one of those failing days.
He had woken long before Narcissa had. The thing was crying again. That was what had woken him. It always cried. Constantly. And he could never make it stop. He didn't know how to deal with children. So it was with cold feet that Lucius found himself leaving his rather comfortable bed in the wee hours of the morning and walking grudgingly down to the room it lived in. Narcissa had wanted to keep the thing in the bedroom with them, but Lucius had put his foot down on that. That thing was not going to cry and wake him up at every odd hour of the night and how were they to have any fun if it was in the room?
Not that they did any longer. Lucius had not touched Narcissa in well over a year, but by saying the above to her he had alluded that one day soon they might, again, but Lucius knew he wouldn't.
Not after the thing had come along. He'd hate to get under Narcissa's nightgown and find stretch marks. His trophy wife was ruined. She no longer spent her hours doting on him like she should, but instead all her time was consumed by the thing. The thing ran the house now, not Lucius. He found himself hiding away at work longer than needed, just so he wouldn't have to come home and find Narcissa with the baby and her sister sitting in his parlor.
The bitch was nothing but trouble and ever since he had married the blonde, Bellatrix had insisted on checking up on her sister at least once a week. Lucius hated Bellatrix. She brought out a side in his wife that he had worked so hard to hide. She was no longer the happy shopping-crazed Black he had married. Now she was a tamable, well-respected Malfoy, except when Lestrange came round. She always managed to uproot the old Narcissa and throw Lucius' creation into the trash.
Slowly, he opened the door to the nursery and looked around. There it was—laying in the middle of the crib on it's back, crying its eyes out. Lucius sneered down at it before his face melted into a look of confusion as he realised he didn't know what to do. Waking Narcissa was simply out of the question. She'd only push him aside to dote over the thing and talk in that humiliatingly thing-like voice, high pitched and squeaky. Lucius hated when she did that.
He approached the crib rather slowly, leaving the door open behind him. Wrapping his hands around the top of the crib he looked down at the thing. It looked like a perfect Malfoy—blonde and pristine, but it was crying, which was one thing a Malfoy never did. Lucius could remember crying twice in his life and both times the bitch had been present. She had been the cause of his pain, his humiliation. Shaking these embarrassing thoughts from his head, he bent down in painfully slow movements, intending to pick the thing up. But when his hands were an arm length away, he hesitated. He didn't know how to hold it. Biting his lip, he backed off into the wall of the nursery. A window was to his right, bathing the room in moonlight. He observed it through narrowed eyes, trying to remember how it was that Narcissa handled the thing. But with thinking this, he only grew angry. Narcissa paid it so much attention and paid him so little.
Wiping angrily at his face, Lucius sucked in air rather rigidly.
Narcissa did not care for him.
And he didn't even know how to stop his son from crying.
He slid to the floor and buried his head in his hands, trying to hide the tears that came from someone who wasn't watching. It wasn't just the current situation and lack thereof with his wife, it was years of pain, built up, finally spewing out. The thing's cries rang in his ears, only urging his tears on. "Make it stop. MAKE IT STOP!"
Lucius Malfoy was finally alone in the world. He'd lost everything he had ever been foolish enough to let himself care for. Everything. His wife and child were pushed to the back of his mind.
He'd lost her. Her. To Rodolphus.
There had been a time when it was his hand that kept the two of them separated and now they were married.
He had ruined everything. He had let everything slip right through his fingers.
He should have killed the child when he found out Narcissa was carrying it. He had wanted to. He knew this would happen. But, she had gotten under his skin and he'd been in her house when he had found out. Narcissa, his wife, his, had ran and told her before she had told her husband. Lucius had wanted to hit her so badly. She always made him angry. Always. So damned angry. She was the root of all his problems.
He sat there sobbing for what felt like hours while only minutes ticked by. The thing got louder all the time, and finally stopped, maybe it hadn't, maybe the crying of it was just a dull thud in the back of his mind now. Whatever the reason, he could no longer hear its gasping breaths, but only his. Crumbling against the wall, Lucius drew back and punched it. "DAMN THEM! DAMN HER!"
It was with a gasp of pain that he realised his right arm was throbbing. Looking down, he noticed through teary eyes that his forearm was bright red and against it stood the infamous black serpent wound around and equally black skull. Chocking for air, Lucius struggled to get to his feet and dry his eyes. He stole away upstairs, as quick as his stumbling would allow him, fetched a cloak, a shirt, shoes, and his wand before slipping out the back door. He could still hear the thing crying as he closed it behind him.
Now outside on the snowy grounds, Lucius pointed his wand on himself and felt that familiar feeling of being sucked through a pipe.
A few seconds later he appeared outside of what looked to be a run down shack in the Scottish wilderness. Picking through the snow and rocks, he approached the shack while still trying to dry his eyes. Once he reached the rundown hut, he squared his shoulders and drew himself up before pushing open the door. He could dimly make out a small nearly extinguished fire inside and a rough straight-back chair.
"There's no need to put on pretense, Lucius. I know you've been crying." Came the raspy voice from the occupant of the chair. "Come, sit."
