A / N : Lillith - hey! Thanks for reviewing, it really made me smile. And Bellatrix is one of my fave characters too, so we have that in common. :)
Now - Lucius Malfoy, as requested by, well, pretty much everyone. Haha. Enjoy!
Lucius Malfoy
In Azkaban, he dreams in colour.
For the first time in his life, when he awakens he recalls this one fact about the world of sleep, which has always evaded him before.
He dreams in vivid colour.
In red.
He sees blood. A child's footprint, stamped in it.
His wife's lips, glistening bloody scarlet as she coughs, and the fault is his – he dragged her into this, did he not?
Selfish, was he not?
He sees his son, a mess of misplaced pride and dangerous ambition, and realizes he is too like his father for his own good.
He sees his son, a terrified child not cold enough to please the Dark Lord, and realizes he is too like his mother for his own good. Is there no way to win?
Apparently not.
Even if there were, what could Lucius do? He is here, is he not? Trapped in a hell of his own making. And Narcissa and Draco are there . . . . . trapped, too, in a hell of his making.
If they are all to be trapped, he thinks, watching his breath coil into icy mist before his eyes, could they not be trapped together? Could they not freeze together? Narcissa would freeze with him, he knows. Would Draco? It's difficult to say. But he might freeze with his mother, and if Draco were to stay with his mother, and Narcissa were to stay with her husband . . . . well, then they might all end up together. And he has the feeling he could fix it all, if he could just bring his family together again. A vain hope, perhaps, but a hope nonetheless.
A hope that is dragged out of him with every breath, and leaves him gasping and stranded in a fortress that is as impenetrable as before. Worse than before, in fact.
Before, Lucius was not there. He evaded imprisonment, in the first war. He lied, for his wife and his son, for the life he didn't want to lose. He didn't want to forfeit all he had left for a master who was long lost himself. But then, it was only charms and monsters, bricks and mortar and the surging sea. That was all that made Azkaban impenetrable, then. Now, escape depends upon the mercy of his master, and that, Lucius knows, is much worse. Somehow, he'd rather have the bricks and mortar and Dementors, would rather swim all the way back to land, through the freezing sea, than rely upon the mercy of his master.
But it's not his choice to make.
And so Lucius stays locked in a cell, dreaming in scarlet.
And somewhere a child is crying out for a parent who will not come, a saviour, who, really, was the one to damn them all in the first place.
