II.

When sent to Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy had been put in the cell directly opposite Sirius Black's, and he could see his cousin-by-marriage, and talk to him had he desired—and he had not desired to speak with such a blood traitor as Dumbledore's follower, friend of Mudbloods and Half-Breeds. However, just a few weeks' worth of observation (when Lucius managed not to relive his worst memories constantly, that is) of Black was… telling.

Though the Wizarding public at large supposed that Black had secretly been a follower of the Dark Lord's, and that he had murdered Peter Pettigrew, anyone amongst the community of the Dark Lord's followers with half a brain (which Lucius supposed meant that if someone merged Crabbe and Goyle into one person, they'd count) knew what had really happened. Black was a blood traitor through and through; he would never have come over to the Dark Lord's side. Lucius had to admit though, he hadn't expected Pettigrew to display the presence of mind to manage to cut off his finger and still fire off a curse powerful enough to kill twelve people and then flee the scene, successfully faking his own death. Obviously there was more to the sniveling little man than Lucius had given him credit for.

Not that he'd ever admit it.

Black was certainly interesting to look at, though.

Lucius had not been caught during the days of the War, nor even during the days immediately following it. He had been caught three months after the Dark Lord's fall, in a meeting place used by him and his following subordinate to the Dark Lord since first he had joined his cause, attempting to rally them for one last strike against the Muggles, just to let the Wizarding World know that it was not over, and the Dark Lord's followers were not gone. In hindsight, Lucius recognized that perhaps it would have been better to choose a more discreet meeting place—or that it might have been better to have simply chosen to lie low as Narcissa had advised him, rather than giving himself over to one last grand gesture.

Lucius knew what he was in for, and immediately after arrest had acted as though coming out of a trance and claimed that he had been under the influence of the Imperius Curse; fortunately he had enough experience with casting the curse to know how those under its influence behaved. Who knew if it would work? Lucius also knew enough about Dementors to know better than to dwell on his chances of getting off and out of Azkaban.

Refusing to dwell on anything much at all from his past for fear that the Dementors would suck it out of his head and leave him with nothing but despair (and he was feeling bad enough already), Lucius sat at the edge of his cell, and watched Black.

Black was not like the other prisoners, not like what Lucius sometimes feared he was becoming. He didn't scream, or wail. He didn't gibber. He didn't sit huddled in a corner muttering to himself. He didn't refuse what meager food and water he received the way others in the final stages of madness would. He was, as far as Lucius could tell, perfectly lucid. He accepted his meals. He would stand, and pace, or sit and stare out the narrow window. When new inmates were brought in, if some of them tried to talk to Black he would respond. He seemed to notice the grime and filth of the cell he inhabited, padded with straw, nearly as much as Lucius did.

He was perfectly sane. Or perhaps he'd been driven so thoroughly mad by his circumstances, by the knowledge that he was innocent and that he would never escape, that he had retreated into a state closely-enough resembling sanity to pass for it to the naked eye.

Insanity in any form unnerved Lucius. He hoped, hoped beyond hope in that filthy cell, that he would never end up like Black.

That was then. This was now.

Lucius had been released from Azkaban. He had gone back to his family, borne the remonstrations of his father and his wife with as much aplomb as he could handle, become re-acquainted with his son (who was first suspicious of this gaunt, haggard stranger who bore only a passing resemblance to his father), and came back to full health, putting his days in prison behind him as best he could. But the Malfoy manor had almost become a cage as Azkaban was.

He had been released from Azkaban as the result of the concerted efforts of his father and paternal uncle—and Lucius supposed that he should be extremely grateful that Aunt Clio was married to the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There had, however, been conditions for his release, and Lucius couldn't pretend that he didn't know what would happen if the conditions were broken. Abraxas had won Crouch's intervention in exchange for Lucius's good behavior, and for the good behavior of anyone who followed him or his father.

Crouch need not have worried that Lucius would attempt to make it clear to the Wizarding world that he was anything but a victim of the Imperius Curse, a man coerced into serving the Dark Lord. From the moment he used the Imperius Curse as an excuse for his actions, he knew that he had lost his place in the Dark Lord's service. Now that he had returned to society as a "recovering victim", Lucius could not afford to go looking for the Dark Lord, as certain others wished to. The Dark Lord did not forgive disloyalty.

What would require far more time and effort on Lucius's part would be making sure that those among his followers who had also counted themselves followers of the Dark Lord behaved themselves. Crabbe and Goyle would be easy enough to control; for all that they weren't at all bright, they were unquestioningly loyal to him (That, above all else, was why they'd been given the Dark Mark). Macnair would be fine too, so long as an outlet was found for his odd fixation with death and killing—as Lucius understood, there was an opening for an executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures; that would probably suffice. As for the others, well… Lucius would just have to keep a close eye on them. He had absolutely no intention of ever again setting foot in Azkaban.

All the same, though, life as a respectable member of a Muggle-loving Wizarding society was starting to seem stifling. Having to keep his mouth clamped firmly shut when she saw Mudbloods elevated to far higher ranks than they deserved was practically torture. And there was something else as well.

There was the matter of his dear sister-in-law.

Not for the first time, Lucius wondered how on God's green Earth the same parents that had produced his prudent, pragmatic Narcissa would have given birth to Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Narcissa was the one who had advocated that he lie low for now and during the war, but Bellatrix was a fanatic in a way that Lucius would never be. Her devotion to the Dark Lord was nothing short of obsessive, bordering on the sexual; it was certainly obvious that she didn't hold her husband in the same affections. She had succumbed to her youngest (and only, in her eyes) sister's pleading that she please, please lie low for now and not do anything stupid. But Lucius knew that the moment Bellatrix got so much of a whiff as to the Dark Lord's whereabouts, she would be heading there, searching for him with a single-minded, dogged determination frankly frightening in its intensity.

Bellatrix did not fall under Lucius's sphere of influence amongst the Dark Lord's followers. She had been one of Karkaroff's, and Lucius to this day suspected that the only reason Karkaroff hadn't named her when he was dragged in front of a Ministry hearing to name names in exchange for his freedom was because he was too terrified of what she'd do to him to try to expose his former subordinate. If she went off somewhere by herself and wrought chaos and brought fire and destruction down on an unsuspecting public, Malfoy would be untouchable. She was outside his sphere of influence; she was not his responsibility, for all that she was his sister-in-law. And there was still more.

The Black family, for all that it had spent a great deal of its wealth upon casting protective charms on the ancestral residence in Grimmauld Place during the War, was still wealthy. They were still wealthy. The matriarch, Walburga, was in failing health, and the only surviving male heir was languishing in Azkaban, and had besides been disowned several years beforehand. Bellatrix was set to inherit everything upon Walburga's death.

Lucius was content with not becoming the inheritor of the house at Grimmauld Place; he didn't count himself comfortable living next to Muggles, even in such a house. But there was the matter of the wealth to consider, and Bellatrix's personality.

Even if Bellatrix's misbehavior wouldn't land Lucius back in Azkaban, she was a huge liability to him and his. She was a loose cannon and there was no telling when she would go back to carrying out her Death Eater activities, even without the Dark Lord. It was entirely possible (and given enough time, eminently likely) that she would attempt to rally the rest of the Dark Lord's followers around her, and that if she did so, Lucius's own activities would be brought to light amongst the general public. There was also the matter that if she ended up Azkaban, the Black wealth would revert to Narcissa and thus to Lucius, given that felons in prison for the rest of their life had no right to inherit, and that Andromeda had been disowned—the Malfoy coffers could do with some bolstering. Add to that the fact that Lucius simply did not like Bellatrix at all, and well, you wouldn't see him shedding any tears if she were to take a steep and sudden fall.

All he would have to do would be sure that Narcissa didn't find out what he was planning to do. For all that she loved her husband, Lucius knew that Narcissa wouldn't hesitate to inflict serious bodily harm upon him if he let slip that he was planning to set up her older sister.

So Lucius did what Narcissa and his own common sense always told him to do. He bided his time.

Lucius's chance came one evening near the close of March.

The Malfoys and the Lestranges had met for dinner at the Malfoy manor as they did every once in a while, when Abraxas felt up to hosting them and when Narcissa wanted to catch up with her sister, but didn't feel up to making a visit to the Lestrange abode (A decision Lucius completely sympathized with). Bellatrix sat at the corner of the sitting room, balancing a teacup in her hand and scowling down at her reflection.

For all that she distrusted him as much as he disliked her, Bellatrix lit up immediately at the mention of the Dark Lord. Her heavy-hooded, dark gray eyes practically shone at the mention of him. From there, all it took was a few discreet, well-placed hints—and Lucius had already chosen his other patsy.

"…I'm sure I heard Longbottom mention knowing where he was, when I was brought to the Ministry for questioning…"

The cogs whirred behind her eyes, and something cold as ice and hard as steel stole over her face as she nodded. Lucius could practically see Bellatrix forming a plan in her head, and resisted the urge to smirk as he finished with, "As you know, my hands are tied, but surely you can do something."

He'd not forgotten the Longbottoms either. He'd not forgotten the humiliation of arrest, nor the horror of imprisonment, and he most certainly had not forgotten the ones responsible. Two birds, one stone.