Cruelty was something that came easily to him, much in the same way that kindness and compassion came to many others. He had an imperfect grasp on the finer emotions of love and fidelity—he was a pureblooded wizard, driven by determination, greed, and unfailing ego. The layout of his life had only sharpened these qualities in him, so that he regarded most of the human race as a dreadful example of overwrought emotional excess. He felt neither pity nor empathy for anyone, would not hesitate to betray even the closest of his acquaintances, and none of this left him feeling even the slightest bit unkind. He had married Narcissa on the basis of her pedigree, reserved disposition, statue-perfect features, and the suiting of her narcissistic nature to his own. A marriage of convenience had a greater foundation of love than his own. The only one he was in the slightest danger of loving was the boy, whom he protected out of paternal duty and was inclined to tolerate more than any other. Also, there was the pride he felt in seeing a small version of himself growing up in the world. The only thing that he esteemed more than the boy was his fortune, and if that made him a horrible excuse for a man, then so be it. There was very little that he lost sleep over.
With these thoughts as his companions, he threaded his way up the stairs and through the darkened hallways to the Silent Room. He opened it and went inside, locking it behind him.
His wife stood staring out at the darkened night, her head tilted up to gaze at the stars, the long line of her body leaning negligently against the porch door. She affected not to notice his entrance, but he knew. He knew.
He silently came up behind her, stroking her wavy hair back over her neck and baring one shoulder, creamy white and stark against her black velvet gown. There was vulnerability there, at the juncture of her shoulder and slender throat, a tender softness that silently begged for teeth, for marking. He did neither, merely gazed at her luminous skin before softly asking, "What game are you about? Tell me now."
"He's grown up now, darling," she said, her throaty voice a purr. Her hand reached back and pulled her hair from his grasp, drawing it over her shoulder to give him better access to her throat, awaiting his leisure. "I would sooner have him spend his lust with a lowborn mudblood than get entwined with the wrong sort of pureblood family."
"You believe Draco should have this lowborn girl?" he softly asked, drawing near enough that his lips grazed the graceful shell of her ear. "This girl whom he despises and desires all at once?"
"Why not?" was her answer, with a casual shrug of her shoulders. "Any muddied line such as hers would leap at a chance to liaise with our great house. Should she get pregnant, she can be bought off, being wretchedly poor. And I doubt that Draco's interest, strong though it may be now, would last beyond the first few couplings. No, he is too much our son, and her humble origins would begin to disgust him no less than it does us."
She turned from the window, her sapphire eyes aglow with thoughts. "Think on it," she said, her voice low. "How much better to acquaint him with the heartlessness he needs in life than to allow him his fling with the forbidden? It certainly beats allowing him to play knight errant to that Pansy girl and get her with child. Granted, her line is good, but Draco deserves only the most perfect of blooms the great houses have to offer. I would not see her made a Malfoy, my dearest husband."
She laid her cool palm against his cheek, eliciting no reaction, even the merest flicker of an eyelash.
"Allow him this, darling," she whispered, pressing her body to his. "This or nothing, then…"
He absently pushed her back a step, saying rather coldly, "You know better than to try that on me, my dear—I am a man ruled by many dark things, but simple lust has never been one of them. As for 'this or nothing,' you know I will not allow the boy to so much as glance sideways at a young woman like Miss Hermione Granger. You're working towards something in this, Narcissa, and I will have the truth of it."
Her eyes grew sly then, and dangerous with the growing glow of her own form of madness.
"Perhaps I merely wish to keep him close, he does adore me so…"
He laughed then, a low sound that conveyed some wry amusement. He stood back from her, idly placing his cane down against the wall while he worked off the links that closed the great cuffs of his starched white shirt.
"So that is it, is it?" he mused, placing the cufflinks carefully on the unlit fireplace's mantle. "You're frightened of his growing up and want no competition for his affections." Again he laughed a little, drawing off his dark velvet jacket and hanging it on a hook placed just for that purpose. "Ah, Narcissa, how aptly you were named—such an ego contained in such a well-deserved body. A sweetly mad plan, my dear, but, alas, even though you have coddled him to the point of an Oedipal complex, I believe Draco has more fortitude than to be won over by his own mother."
She stiffened, affronted to the very core of her being that he could believe such a thing. With her breath hissing from between her bared teeth, she snarled, "You think I could not seduce him? You think I am so old, then? So ugly? You truly believe that I cannot tempt whichever man I choose?"
He gazed at her, his features as haughty and cold as they'd been since she'd first seen him, undisturbed by her tirade.
"I believe that somewhere deeply buried beneath that monstrous self-admiration you have is a woman who truly cares for her son," he said, and took a breath, pausing for a moment. "If only because he is as beautiful as his mother."
She shook her head a little as if to toss off some veil of shadows, her fair features falling into a slight frown of bewilderment.
"Of course I would never hurt him, I love him," she said, as if he had contested such a thing.
"As much as you can love anyone or anything outside of yourself, yes, I believe that," he said, taking out the jeweled pin that held his collar closed and putting it with the cufflinks. "You have, however, failed me in the matter of raising my heir."
Fear flashed in her eyes, briefly and brightly, replaced by an animal look of predatory interest.
"I expected the boy to be strong for himself by his age, Narcissa, not complaining to his mother about being struck by a mere girl," he slowly went on, retrieving his cane from its resting place. With slow, studied movements, he pulled his wand forth and regarded it, the only sound Narcissa's panting, shaken breaths. "I did not expect to have to correct my wife on the manner of his upbringing, nor shake her from a deeply-laid intention to seal his loyalty with sex. I should not be having this conversation with you, do you understand?"
"I understand," she whispered, wetting her lips. "The blood oath…"
"You swore it to me, Narcissa," he softly said, but his voice held no pity, no compassion. In him she had found the perfect sadist, moved by no pleas or compliments—he would have of her what he desired, regardless of her willingness, and that was the oath that bound her to him. "The sangue vite will have grown, I imagine."
His cold gray eyes were luminous in the darkness, beginning to glow as he gathered his will.
"Let's set it free," he whispered, and flicked his wand.
Her dress tore itself free in the back, leaving her bared from her nape to the dimple of her buttocks. Her white skin was traced with old, ruby-red scars in the sinuous, twirling tendrils of a vine complete with delicately etched leaves and the beginnings of a bloom. The bloom and more vines were completed in shadowy ghost-lines on the unmarked skin of her upper back and shoulders—where the blood vine grew, her husband's keen blade would follow, taking her blood oath out in its own cost. And the blood vine only spread further when she was foresworn.
"My, my," he sighed, tracing the shadowy, uncompleted parts with his cool fingertips. "What a little monster we've been, my dear."
"Lucius," she said, her voice quavering. In this she was helpless as a babe, her sexual allure having no effect whatsoever on her husband, her beauty causing no second thoughts, no remorse. He was what he was, and knew her too well to be deceived. "Please! I'm sorry!"
"Nonsense," he scoffed, taking her elbow and guiding her to the center of the room. Another flick of the wand lifted her wrists above her head, suspending her on her toetips, her skirts swirling around her ample hips while the torn out back of her dress draped itself over her rounded bottom. "You have no more understanding of regret than I do, Narcissa. You're simply trying to lessen my usage of you—but you need not fear my anger, my dearest, it isn't in you to arouse much of anything in me."
It was said, she knew, merely to prick her pride, her ego being as justifiably large as it was. Still, it had the desired affect—no narcissist, however well-grounded, could abide having their charms denied, their beauty reviled. His continuous ability to be completely unaffected by her was one thing that had kept her faithful to her marriage. The sangue vite was the other. They were imminently suited, Lord Malfoy and his wife—the stoic and the narcissist, pulled together by the dreadful need of her ego for acknowledgment, and his egotistical need to control.
"Please, Lucius! I swear I would've turned in the end," she sobbed, her eyes wide and fearful as he idly replaced his wand and laid his cane down against the nearest chair. "I swear to you that I would never have harmed our son! I only fear to lose him! It is a mother's fear!"
"It is a mad fear, a mad fear of one without conscience or hesitation," Lucius said, his tone conversational. He opened the neck of his white shirt, sighing a little at the heat in the room. "I blame myself for your behavior, Narcissa. Had I cared for you as I should, we would not be here now, and the sangue vite would have risen no further than needed to seal your blood oath."
"Please," she whimpered, knowing it was without affect, watching him move to the great cupboard and open it. All manner of instruments rested inside, whips and pinchers, paddles and manacles, knives and canes. He took his time in choosing, letting her anxiety rise like the tide. At last he chose a leather flogger, the tails long and tapering to points that would tear. She swallowed a sob to see him shake it once, expertly loosening the tails even as his gray eyes assessed where his first blow would do the most damage.
"Remember, Narcissa," he murmured, trailing his fingers down the curve of her cheek. "I do this because I promised you."
She nodded jerkily, still sobbing as the first lash laid itself across her thigh, shredding the delicate velvet of her gown and leaving weals on her skin.
He lashed her until the gown fell apart in tatters and her white skin glowed pink with the angry lines. Only then did he discard the flogger and reach for the black leather case that brought Narcissa's cries and pleadings to a ragged, panicked peak.
"I beg you, do not do this!" she screamed, twisting in her bonds, the whites of her eyes showing as she struggled madly to escape.
Ignoring her pleas, her screams, he wordlessly opened the case and withdrew a finely honed scalpel. It was old sterling silver, a thing he'd inherited from his father along with a predilection for causing welcome pain.
Despite her protestations and wailing despair, Narcissa quieted and stilled when he set the blade to her flesh, tracing the shadowy lines to etch fresh wounds along the artful trailing of the blood vine. She whimpered and sobbed in pain, but was too much herself to fight it or him. The pain was reparation, the cutting was retribution—both had earned their right to this ceremony, and neither regretted their roles. Still, it was long and grueling work which he did with precise, exacting care.
"Mercy! Please, mercy save me!" Narcissa finally cried, her tears overflowing. Standing as she was with her wrists bound and hoisted up, her tears spilled down to catch the delicate curve of her jaw before dripping onto the floor. "Mercy save me!"
"Mercy?" he echoed, his cultured voice amused and questioning. "Mercy? Tell me, my darling wife, where was mercy while you stood poised on the edge of vilification?"
He tucked back a strand of her hair with delicate, precise movements and asked, "Where was mercy when your family was on the brink of disowning you?"
He leaned down, stroking her sweat-tangled hair with one deceptively gentle hand. He looked into her eyes, his own cool grey ones as removed as ever.
"My poor dear," he said, soothingly, as if to a child. "What took you in when mercy abandoned you to the fickle whims of fate? What saved you from yourself and kept you from plunging off of the precipice of your own making? Name me that thing."
She sighed, her eyes overflowing with both tears and a dark, strange gratitude. She turned her head and pressed her lips to his white, cool hand.
"Cruelty," she whispered, a lover's caress, her body trembling with emotion. Her thick lashes lifted, her blue eyes meeting his, full of all the fawning love and gratitude of a thrice-saved dog. "Your cruelty saved me, Lucius. As it always has…"
"That's right, my dear," he murmured, flicking those tears from her jaw, close enough to kiss but doing no such thing. "And never forget that, my little narcissist. For all of your vanity and snobbery, you were on the brink of self-immolation when I found you, and for that one act you will remain indebted, won't you? You will remain obedient, my model wife, and not let that pride and ego overshadow the things which I demand of you."
"You have always understood me best," she sighed, sobbing a little when he pulled away from her to reclaim the flogger.
"Of course I have," he conceded, snapping it once to loosen the tails, giving it a measuring look that he transferred to her exposed body. "What sort of husband to you would I be if I didn't?"
And with that, he once more applied the flogger to her skin to the tune of her weeping gratitude.