Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Harry Potter universe; I'm only taking Lucius out to play.
A/N: This story is set six years after the end of the second wizarding war. It's AU post-Deathly Hallows. I have a mild obsession with Lucius Malfoy. Enjoy.
March, 2005
The first time Lucius laid eyes on Pris, he had only just moved in to his new, magic-free home.
That had been the worst of the punishments for his involvement in both the first and second wizarding wars. It was worse than the five years he spent in Azkaban. Even his divorce seemed trivial when faced with the prospect of having to live without magic. He knew he was going to feel weak and powerless for some time while he adjusted to his new surroundings, and he loathed the thought of depending on muggles for assistance. No one had bothered to teach him even the basics before they dumped him here. Of course they hadn't; ex-Death Eaters were outside the scope of the post-war Ministry's so-called morality.
And so he found himself under the watchful eye of the American Magic Administration in sunny Jupiter, Florida, in a house whose square footage fell short of his bedchambers at Malfoy Manor. Why they'd deserted him here was beyond his comprehension. All he knew was that he was supremely unhappy, and unpacking his cherished possessions from these flimsy, heavy boxes was wearing on his last nerve. It was only March, how could it possibly be so damned hot?
Sweat ran from his temples, down his neck, into his impractical dress shirt, and Lucius sighed. There were several boxes left to move inside, and he had no idea if the house even had a cooling system, much less how to operate it. The box he carried was dropped to the gravel with a thud, and Lucius sank onto the small stairway of his porch in defeat. The soft linen handkerchief in his shirt pocket was soaked through with sweat by this point, and it did little to wick away the moisture on his face and neck. If he was not given a reprieve from this heat soon, he might be tempted to throw himself in the ocean and end it all.
Pris peered out from behind the blinds of her kitchen window at the tall, blond man dragging cardboard boxes into his house. It was strange, she thought. When she'd gone to bed, the house had been empty, but when she awoke that morning the front lawn had been littered with brown, unmarked boxes. The big blond stared at them as if in a daze, and then suddenly he was re-animated, moving the containers inside his new home. He seemed harmless enough, with his little white hanky and oddly formal clothing. The task at hand seemed to daunt him, and she was sure he could use some help, judging by the way he had suddenly slumped onto the porch. Besides, she remembered how lonely she'd felt moving into a new house by herself. At least she could offer him some of the lemonade she'd made yesterday. That would be neighborly. She pulled the pitcher from the refrigerator, filled a cup with ice, and smoothed a hand down her yellow cotton sundress before venturing across the hot pavement of the cul-de-sac.
He watched her approach, and Pris got the notion that he was sizing her up. Her five foot, two inch frame must not have been too threatening, however, because he visibly relaxed as she stepped in front of him. Her hazel eyes met his argent ones, and for a moment Pris forgot how to speak. He may not have looked intimidating from far away, but up close he most certainly was. He had seemed so much smaller from across the street, and those eyes…
"You look like you could use a nice, cold glass of lemonade," she said after he'd blinked and broken whatever spell she'd been under. She filled the glass of ice with the chilled liquid, and handed it to him. He stared at it skeptically for a moment before taking it from her.
"I'm Priscilla Thomas, I live just across the way," she said with more confidence, pointing behind her at the blue-shuttered cracker box she called home.
"Lucius Malfoy," he replied, sniffing the contents of the cup. His voice was low, accented. He didn't look at her as he spoke. Pris almost laughed at the way he stuck his nose over the rim of the glass. Did he think she was trying to poison him, for goodness sake?
The small sip he took was immediately spit back into the glass, and he winced. This time Pris laughed.
"Oh, my. That bad, huh?" she asked, smiling. His reaction was understandable; she did tend to go a little light on the sugar.
"It's a bit… tart," he coughed, but took another sip anyway. He made a concerted effort not to pull another face as he gulped down the entire contents of the tumbler in record time.
"If you keep that up, I might get the idea that you like my lemonade, Mr. Malfoy."
The blond raised his eyebrows at her, and then, as though it pained him to do so, he quirked his lips into a small smile. His eyes darted away quickly, but she had seen the war of emotions raging behind them in that brief exchange. He said nothing for a few moments, simply stared at the boxes on his front lawn. Priscilla shifted her weight from foot to foot anxiously.
"I can help you bring these inside, if you'd like," she offered, gesturing to the boxes with a nod of her head.
Lucius ran a large hand over his ponytailed head, twisting the length of bound hair in his fingers and settling it over his shoulder. "Hmm," he intoned, "alright."
Priscilla wondered why he was so hesitant to accept her help. In fact, he'd been so reluctant to look at her, even when speaking, that she almost thought to be offended. But, then again, everyone had their tics, and God only knew she had her own issues. He'd probably figure that out if they ever spoke for any length of time, so she brushed off the sting of his ambivalence in favor of another smile.
"Alright" she echoed. "I'll just pop over to my house for a minute to put this stuff away. I'll be right back. I think I've got a dolly in the carport," she trailed, looking over her shoulder to said space. When she turned back, Lucius was staring at the glass in his hands, an inscrutable look on his face. She thought he must have many secrets, to keep his features locked so tightly.
"Glass?" she asked gently, holding out her hand. That seemed to snap him out of his daze.
"Oh," he said, blinking, "right. Here." He placed the glass, still half-full of ice, into her outstretched palm. Priscilla stood there for a moment, waiting for a 'thank you' that never came. The need to be offended rose up again, but she took a deep breath and pushed it back down. He was English, if his accent was anything to go by, her mind supplied. Maybe they didn't have the need to be unfailingly polite ingrained into their very beings, like Southerners often did. Strangely, she'd always thought the opposite. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line as she walked across the pavement to her home.
Well, this was going to be all kinds of fun.
Lucius had watched the petite woman striding toward him with a mixture of curiosity, trepidation, and amusement. He didn't suppose he should be too wary of such a small female, especially one wearing… that dress. It was pale yellow, fell just past her knees, and was emblazoned with what Lucius could see now was a chain of daisies around the hem. He felt his shoulders relax. And she was carrying… some sort of liquid. He spied the glass of ice, and almost smiled at his luck. His eyes slid upward to meet those of the stranger, and when they did, the girl stopped in her tracks. They were only a few feet apart now, and Lucius thought he saw fear flashing in her hazel eyes. He wanted to tell her he was perfectly harmless, that he'd been effectively gelded by the Ministry. But he couldn't, he couldn't say a word about his magical history. Damned wizarding laws.
She had offered him something called lemon-ade, and he'd found it jaw-clenchingly tart. He drank it anyway. It was a cold beverage, after all. He said very little to her, because he didn't know what to say. 'Hello, did you know I've killed people?' didn't seem like a good conversation starter. His answers to her questions were brief and perfunctory. When she'd offered to help him move the boxes inside, he'd agreed. Maybe he could get her to explain the house's cooling apparatus to him. She was a pleasant enough woman, he thought. She looked to be about Draco's age…
Draco: his son, his heir… Oh, how the boy loathed him for what he'd done to their family. He had never forgiven Lucius for his dangerous loyalty to the Dark Lord, nor had Narcissa. Both had left him to rot in Azkaban without so much as a visit, and Narcissa had filed for divorce faster than he imagined was possible. Their absence hurt him more than he wanted to admit. He stared at the cup in his hands for a long minute, pondering his sudden melancholy thoughts.
The girl asked him for her glass then, shaking him from his reverie. He handed it to her, and watched her stare at him like she was waiting for something else. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she turned away and walked back across the circular pavement to her own small home.
That had been the most awkward social interaction of his life, and he knew it was his own damned fault. The girl had seemed genuine, and she was welcoming him to the neighborhood, wasn't she? Lucius was less disdainful of muggles than he'd been in the past, but that didn't mean he trusted them. Though, that was most likely the whole point of his relocation, wasn't it?
It was only a few minutes before the woman came outside once more, sans pitcher. This time, she was pushing a red, metal thing, and wearing a pink, sleeveless top and denim shorts. He assumed the red monstrosity was the… dolly… she'd mentioned previously.
"So, where do you want to start?" she asked him.
"I'd like to start by having you explain something to me," he admitted, opening his front door to let her pass. She stepped out from behind the metal contraption and inside his home without hesitation, and he shut the door behind her. Lucius heard her gasp, and he knew what she would say before she said it.
"It's like an oven in here!" she exclaimed in shock. Sweat had already begun to bead along her hairline, and she fanned herself to no avail.
It was unbelievably hot in the small house.
"I haven't been able to work the cooling mechanism… if you could show me how to use it, I would be grateful."
"Goodness, yes!" she cried. "Where is the thermostat?"
"Erm, it's… I…" Lucius stalled, for in truth he had no idea what the thermo-stat was, or where it was located. She seemed to sense his ignorance on the matter, and looked over his shoulder. The little white box was just there, on the wall next to the kitchen doorway. She brushed past him in her haste, and he caught the scent of ginger on the humid air.
"Look here," she commanded, flipping down the front panel of the thermostat. Two little switches sat underneath labels denoting 'cool'/'heat' and 'auto'/'fan'. A third ran the length of the box and seemed to denote temperature. She toggled the switches to 'cool' and 'auto', and slid the bar on top to the line above the 70º mark. As soon as she'd done this, she turned to face him, wiping a fine sheen of perspiration from her face with her left hand.
"See? It's easy. Are thermostats that much different… wherever you're from?" she asked.
Lucius smiled. Of course, why hadn't he thought of that very same excuse? He was, after all, a foreigner. She could hardly fault him for that.
Like you once faulted those of her kind for their origins?
He studied her face, and found she was looking at him intently. She was actually quite lovely. Why hadn't he noticed that before?
"Yes. Things are very different where I am from, Miss Thomas," he assented, smiling at her in what he hoped was a non-threatening way.
"Oh, call me Pris," she returned, flipping closed the front panel of the air conditioning unit. "Everyone else does." She grinned at him, and he realized she had laugh lines, and dimples.
"Alright. Miss Pris it is, then," he replied smoothly. She chuckled and shook her head, sending her short, black hair into her face.
"Now you sound like my mother."
Lucius raised his eyebrows at her and felt his upper lip pull back in a smirk.
"I am certainly not your mother."
Pris' laughter bounced off the white walls of his tiny home, and he thought the sound was rather pleasant.
In the end, Pris had demonstrated the use of most of the appliances in his house, and not once did she question his ignorance, or make him feel badly about it. In the following months she had come over nearly every day and helped him adjust to non-magical life. They had formed an easy friendship, and Lucius was relieved to find that his prejudices against her kind were fading more and more quickly into the past every time he saw her. She even called him Lucius, now. Granted, it had taken her almost a month to do so, but eventually she had acquiesced to his demands that she stop calling him 'Mr. Malfoy'. He had finally settled in to a simple, comfortable routine thanks to his new muggle friend.
Each day he would wake up, bring in the paper, and read the front section while he waited for Pris to bring him whatever she'd decided to make for breakfast before she headed off to work. This morning it was pancakes and bacon. Lucius' eyes lit up in anticipation. He particularly enjoyed the bacon.
But Pris didn't greet him with her usual smile. Today she looked forlorn, and tired. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her normally well-kempt hair stuck out from her head at odd angles.
"Good gods, what's happened to you?" Lucius asked, genuine concern softening his words.
She didn't look at him when she placed the plate full of food on the kitchen table, and it was then that Lucius noticed the finger-shaped bruises around her upper arms. What in the world?
"Pris, look at me," he said, and sucked in a breath when she finally did.
The left side of her face was black and blue, and she had a split lip. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she'd been awake all night. It was obvious someone had beaten her. Lucius felt his fingers curl and flex in anticipation of exacting vengeance on her abuser.
"Who did this to you?" he demanded harshly, and immediately regretted his tone. Her eyes had begun to water as she cast her gaze to the floor, and she shrunk away from him.
"Pris… tell me. Who did this?" he urged again, more gently. Her eyes rose from their fixed position, and the tears came at last.
"Bill. My h-husband. Ex-husband," she said, wiping gingerly at her bruised face. Lucius pulled a Kleenex (a delightful replacement for his impractical handkerchief) from its box and handed it to the crying girl. She blotted her eyes with gentle fingers, balling up the Kleenex and handing it back to Lucius. He wrinkled his nose, but took it from her anyway and tossed it in the waste bin.
"I left him last year after he p-put me in the h-hospital," she stuttered, drawing shaky, gasping breaths. "I moved here to get away from him. I guess he f-found me," she hiccupped, and settled onto a nearby chair.
Lucius was momentarily stunned into silence. He had wondered why a young woman like Pris was living all lone in this pit of a town, but he hadn't wanted to pry. Now, however, he wished he'd been a bit more inquisitive. He might have saved her this pain, if only…
Only what? You would have warded her doors? Hexed her miserable cur of an ex-husband into oblivion?
He scowled at his foolish thoughts. He would of course need the use of a wand for these endeavors, and he could never wield magic again. His fingers curled and flexed a second time as he imagined wrapping them around the throat of the man who'd harmed his small friend. Even that was likely out of the question. The AMA would surely get wind of his returned homicidal tendencies, and then he'd be thrown back into a prison cell to rot until the end of his considerable life span. Resignedly, Lucius sat down opposite the shaking girl and took her delicate hands into his larger ones.
"In that case, I think it's best we contact the proper authorities," he said, shame etched into his otherwise steady baritone. Pris' eyes went wide in alarm, and she shook her head vehemently.
"No! I can't… I mean, I would, but…" here she stopped to take a deep breath in order to compose herself. "What good would it do? I don't have any proof it was him."
She noted the careful way Lucius was observing her injuries; she could practically feel the heat of his silver gaze on her upper arms. His thumb traced a slow, comforting arc over the back of her hand. It was strange for him to be touching her like this. The most he'd ever dared previously was to shake her hand in thanks for showing him how to turn on the shower. He'd been very excited about that, for some reason. Besides, that had been months ago, and he'd kept his hands entirely to himself since. She regretted the words almost before they left her mouth.
"For all the they know, it could have been you that did this."
Now Lucius' grey eyes were upon hers, flashing in indignation.
"I would never…" he began, but stopped mid-sentence because he had. He'd beaten women like her, and done it much, much more violently. Some of them had died. The words stuck to his tongue like poisoned honey, and he thought he might be sick. The terrible irony of the situation struck him silent once more. Pris could tell he was discomfited, but not for the reasons she suspected.
"I don't mean that you would ever do that… this… It's just that the police would want some sort of evidence that it was Bill who hit me. No one saw him but me, I'll bet. You didn't see him, did you?" she asked.
"No."
"Exactly. I'm sorry, Lucius, but I've done this so many times," she sighed tiredly, as if it were a mere inconvenience.
"Done what? Run away when your bully of a husband beats you silly? Has he faced any consequences for his actions?"
Pris shrugged her shoulders. "I got a restraining order against him after… after the last time," she whispered. She pulled her eyes off the floor and pinned them to Lucius'. "He beat me so badly I couldn't walk for three days, and I… I'll never have children."
Her confession came out in a great rush, and her tightly-held shoulders slumped. Her hazel eyes never left his, though, and Lucius wondered if he was the first person to whom Pris had told this fact. She stared at him as if awaiting judgment. His thumb had stopped its idle motion upon her hand, and he looked down at their intertwined digits. In days gone by he might have rejoiced at the loss of another muggle's ability to infect the gene pool with their weaknesses, but here, now, all he wanted to do was strangle the life out of the worthless bastard who'd rent such a large hole in Pris' world.
"I'm not sure what to say," he murmured, eyes still transfixed upon the joining of their hands. "I've never been very good at providing comfort." It was an understatement, he knew, and it had never particularly bothered him until he'd met Pris. He'd think on the reasons for that later.
Pris squeezed his hands in hers. "You don't have to say anything. I know it's shocking. There is something you could do for me, though," she said. When Lucius remained silent, she continued. "You could let me use your spare bedroom tonight, make sure Bill doesn't come back, and if he does you can be my witness."
He mulled that over in his mind. On one hand it was hardly appropriate to allow an unmarried young woman to stay in his home, but on the other… on the other, damn impropriety! This woman was his friend, the only one he'd had in a very long time, and it would be unforgiveable to let her fend for herself after learning something like this. He was in unfamiliar territory; doing something for its own sake had been lost on Lucius for the first fourty-nine of his fifty years. While he lived in the wizarding world, he had expected nothing less than reciprocation for any time or attention spent on others, and he had certainly never been the one to offer his help. When asked for, it was often given grudgingly, and only if Lucius could squeeze some sort of personal gain from it. What a deplorable snake he'd been.
"Of course," he finally conceded. "It's the least I can do for a friend."
Pris squeezed his hands again and smiled as much as her split lip would allow. "Thank you, Lucius."
He returned her smile with one of his own. "Think nothing of it."