A/N: Hello lovely readers. Another chapter for your viewing pleasure.
Once again, I'm looking for a beta (though Dr Breifs Cat gave me wonderful help with some tense issues, thanks!), I own nothing and I love reviews. Thanks to zeeksmon for the especially helpful review, I have begun to address this issue in this chapter and future chapters.
As angry as Lucius is at his oldest friend, he would be lying if he claimed that the idea had not tickled his mind in the weeks that followed.
But when he had mused, Lucius' thoughts traversed unexpected paths.
The idea of continuing the family line was abstract and explored in nothing more than moments.
Yes, it would be good to continue the family legacy. Yes, it would be fitting to have someone to pass on all this material wealth. But these detached intellectual concepts could not account for the very emotional response he had presented to Severus.
Considerably more time was spent ruminating on Draco's youth.
He took a tour of the nursery, the room seemed brighter, ghosts still lingered, but they were benign.
He had been such an adorable boy. The only viable child in half a dozen pregnancies, Draco had been treasured both for himself and as the attainment of a dream long desired.
Lucius remembered holding him to his naked chest, as that potty healer suggested, when Narcissa had been deemed too ill to nurse the baby until she had gotten some rest. His hand had cupped that translucent fuzz on the back of the boy's head and he had prayed to the gods that they would manage to keep this one.
The early years had been beautiful, but also marked by the increasing demands of the Dark Lord. The contrast between his congenial home life and his increasingly violent escapades had strained his ever tentative relationship with his wife.
Would that they had been able to have more children. Would it have given him the incentive to force his way out from the ranks of the Dark Lord sooner? Or would he have just lost more children to the madman's whim?
His home life could have quite naturally led to thoughts of the woman, indeed the word 'obsession' was insufficient to describe Lucius' decade long fixation on his departed wife. He had poured over the last days of her life and his imaginings of her brutal death nigh on hourly for so long. But strangely, for this brief interlude his miasma of spousal grief seemed… not entirely absent… but distant, as if immersed underwater. Still lurking just under the surface but not able to touch him, it engendered wariness at the same time if brought relief.
Sitting at his expansive desk pouring over the week's business he finds himself pushing aside his ledgers and dry correspondence to reach for a fresh sheet of parchment.
As the long absent sunlight streams over his back his quill moves across the page almost of his own volition…
Intelligent
Yes, an intelligent wife. To produce intelligent children.
He taps his quill lightly on the edge of the ink pot. Intelligence for the sake of the family, but how many men became puppets for their pureblood wives? Great minds with no outlet other than manipulation could be dangerous.
A wince contorts his features as he thinks of Bellatrix again. She'd achieved the highest NEWT scores in three generations of Blacks and yet used her intellect for nothing but violence and mayhem.
Emotionally stable…. With own interests?... (Non-violent interests)
Her place would be in the home until any offspring attained Hogwarts age, but past that point he could support the idea of a wife who wished to amuse herself with work. Feeling rather magnanimous Lucius nods to himself.
Youth… fertility?
That is a thornier issue. How could he know if a woman is fertile? Or beyond that, capable of carrying a magical child to term? Short of marrying a widow with prior issue, he can only act on faith.
In a society that married for life, fecund pureblood widows had ever been rare and highly prized. Even if one were to be had, would she have him? Who would have him?
Outside his business concerns the only contact he has had with the outside world is Severus. The house arrest ended four years ago, but aside from a handful of visits to his solicitors, he has not troubled himself to re-integrate with the magical community of which he was once considered one of the leading lights.
There is money, still plenty of money, but the thought of a bride choosing him for that alone makes him uneasy.
Lucius suddenly drops the parchment like it is plagued by an Incendio curse. It sits on his desk, looking innocuous and incomplete, but it is undeniable the evidence of his resolve. His resolve to do this, choose a wife of his own and try to revive his life.
He rubs his hands over his face, disgusted when his fingers are met with a beard.
Tentatively Lucius reaches toward the parchment; very tentatively for a man grown, and veteran of two wars.
Fertility?
He wonders if he even deserves a second chance. There is no denying that curse damage from dark magic can affect fertility. One look at the sparse offspring of the death eater ranks is more than convincing, when added to 500 years or literature on the subject it is incontrovertible.
But unlike witches, a wizard's potency can be tested to a degree.
Almost afraid to take action on this wild plan—only incepted a mere fortnight ago—Lucius quickly scribbles a note to his private healer. Activating the floo he tosses the note through with similar dispatch, his heart hammers wildly.
Mingled with his sadness—and fear—there is hope. And that is, perhaps, what frightens him the most.
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