Chapter 11: Quibblers

It was late October and the air had a sharp chill that promised of frost. Potter's visit to the Ministry had caused quite a stir both in the Ministry and in Malfoy Manor. Mircea had actually been in the corridor facing the atrium when she heard Yaxley yelling. She had shot off a few curses, but there was not a very clear shot from where she stood and she gave up. She saw Yaxley disappear after them in the Floo network and knew that one way or another, the Dark Lord would be at the Manor that night and she would find out how it had all ended.

The screams had been horrendous and Draco and Lucius had been forced to nurse Yaxley and several others back to health.

This had led Lucius to start drinking very heavily once again and so Mircea had taken to her own bed. She did not trust an uninhibited Lucius. But regardless, she kept an eye on him. The Dark Lord had been in and out of the Manor and they did not need Lucius to accidentally get underfoot.

It did not hurt either that he had been uncommonly affectionate with her because of the drinking. She had discovered he was a terrible flirt and that same disarming grin was now a regular occurrence. Mircea wished very much she could have met him in a different time, one where he was not so sad and fearful. Lucius rarely remembered much of what he said or did but he could feel his affection for her was steadily deepening.

Then an incident occurred that could not be ignored and Mircea was forced to recognize what had been building since they had first met one another.

Mircea poked her head into Lucius's study several days after the Potter incident to find him sitting in his high-backed leather chair and staring out the window at the stars. The sky was very clear above the Manor since it was removed from the smoke and fog of London.

Lucius heard her approaching and grinned at her. "Lovely, isn't it?"

"It is." She stopped on the opposite side of the desk smiled back. He was definitely drunk. In her limited experience, he was a pretty mellow drunk so she decided to try to coax him into going to bed. But before she could make this proposal, he reached over and grabbed her hand, tugging at her until she walked around the desk to stand beside him.

"I was once good at Astronomy," he observed, handing her his tumbler and indicating she should drink.

Mircea drank and tasted whisky. "I wasn't at all good at any of it."

Lucius nodded and finished off the glass. "I never liked it."

"Why not?"

"Who would like the reminder that there are things bigger than ourselves? That we are not in control?"

Mircea's heart wrenched a little. It was a common accusation that Malfoy had no depth, but it could not be further from the truth. She reached over and smoothed some of his hair back into its ponytail, her hand lingering against his cheek. Their eyes met and Mircea was caught off guard by what she saw in his grey eyes.

"You should go to bed, Lucius," she stated, quickly moving away from him. "Come on."

Lucius watched her for a moment. He was making her nervous. She must know then and if she knew there was no reason to hide it.

He stood and Mircea could see the moonlight highlighting a scar that cleft his eyebrow in two and another on his cheekbone: souvenirs from Zhenya's beating. Seeing them always brought a faint blush to her cheeks; it was hard to forget what he had done to 'earn' them and with this thought came a thousand feelings she wished to ignore.

It was quickly obvious that he could barely go a meter in a straight line, so Mircea had to support some of his weight, his arm around her shoulders, and guide him back to his room rather than just pointing him in the right direction.

They walked up the stairs in near silence, with Lucius keeping his burning gaze on her the entire time. Every time their eyes met, he was looking at her in a way that gave her chills. Mircea tried to break the spell that seemed to be engulfing her.

"I'll try to make up something for your hangover and leave it for you. I imagine–"

"I always promised myself I would never tell you," Lucius interrupted, pulling her to a stop. His voice was low and husky.

"Tell me what?" Mircea asked, eyes wide.

"How much I desire you. How much you mean to me."

Mircea moved away from him and did not answer, but she also did not leave; she just stood there.

"Sure, your scars are, quite honestly, horrific–"

Mircea turned bright red and started to speak but he cut her off.

"But you are pale fire…warmth…safety…passion."

He walked up to her, so close that she took a step back. He closed the space again and she remained where she was. She was shaking slightly and her pupils were enormous.

"You have no idea what I would be willing to do for you. What I want to do to you."

Mircea could not believe her ears and thought for sure he must be able to hear how loudly her heart was pounding.

"Lucius, you don't mean this. You can't–"

She never finished the thought though. In one powerful movement, Lucius had her pressed against the wall. Grey eyes locked with dark eyes. Then his lips collided with hers.

His fierce kiss awoke her in a way only Lucius ever could have. He aggressively pulled a response from her until she was kissing him with just as much passion. His lips were needy and she fought to give everything they sought. Soon, their tongues tangled passionately, hungrily.

Lucius was hugging her tightly to him, one hand clutching her waist and the other cradling her neck. She pulled the ribbon out of his hair and entwined her fingers in his hair, nails raking his scalp. A low growl rumbled from deep in his throat and he pressed his body against her even harder. She pushed back, feeling as if she could melt into his hard, lean body.

They kissed deeply and with such feeling that Lucius knew, even though he was very drunk, that he had been right about her. She felt the same way and she wanted the same things.

And Lucius wanted more.

He broke away from her lips and much more slowly began to trace kisses down her neck. She gasped breathily, the same sound he had imagined so many times, and he magically unbuttoned her blouse down to her breasts.

At once alarms sounded in Mircea's mind, clearing away the fog of lust and desire. It was one thing to be necking in an isolated hall. But this was another thing entirely. Drunk sex would not, could not, end well for them.

"Lucius," she began.

He kissed the tops of her breasts, lovely in her corset, and she bit back a moan.

"Lucius, darling…"

That got his attention and he stood to his full height, meeting her eyes.

"You know what they say…drink increases desire and decreases performance. Surely another time would be more suitable for this. Would it not be tragic to awake and realize you have no memory of the experience?"

Lucius traced the curves of her face gently with his fingertips, considering her words. He wanted her and he wanted her now, but he could see in her eyes she was now closed off from him. Blue as he might be, he could never have forced her into anything.

"I suppose. But do not think for a moment this changes one word. I must have you. I want it too much."

Lucius leaned forward and gave her one more deep, heartfelt kiss. Mircea wanted so much to just give in to him, because it was clearly a last attempt to change her mind, but she could not. Their fragile relationship could not survive a regret that serious. He may believe every word he uttered in the moment, and it may even be true, but if this was not what his sober mind wanted they would never be the same.

Footsteps against the stone floor alerted them someone was coming and Mircea's buttons flew shut as quickly as they had opened.

When Draco rounded the corner, he saw his father standing in the middle of the hall looking at Mircea, who was leaning against the wall. Both were pink cheeked and had ruddy lips.

"I was trying to find my father," Draco explained, trying to assess what happened or just finished happening. "I was afraid he may not be able to make it back to his room."

"I was assisting him," Mircea explained, straightening up and walking a little further away from Lucius. "But it may be better if you do."

Lucius resumed stumbling off toward his room with a sigh and an unselfconscious tug at his trousers to adjust certain extremities. Draco's eyes narrowed as he saw this and he blocked Mircea's path quickly.

"Surely you would not take advantage of a drunk man," Draco hissed at Mircea so Lucius could not hear them.

"I don't think I'm the one you should be concerned about, boy," Mircea hissed back, shouldering him out of her way before hurrying off.

Lucius awoke the next morning feeling as though his head were in a vice. The lack of warmth beside him told him Mircea had slept in her own room. Probably for the best, he thought. It would be very unfortunate if he did something very stupid.

This was an active concern of his because she had been checking in on him at night and he knew he talked too much when he drank too much. If he ever did something stupid, like tell her how he truly felt about her, he was sure she would reject him. There was nothing weaker than a man caught in a one-sided love. Something flickered in his mind. He felt as if this thought rang a bell, but surely not… He forced himself to sit up though it made the room spin. He would go and breakfast with her and if she indicated he had done something unreasonable he would handle the situation as it called for.

Mircea was already eating when Lucius drug himself into the dining hall. She watched him closely, waiting to see if he would remember. She had spent a lot of time thinking about how to address this and she had decided that if he did remember and if he held to what he had said… she would not refuse him.

Lucius dropped heavily into his chair and smiled at Mircea ruefully. She was looking at him very closely which made him nervous.

"I seem to have overslept myself. It seems to have been a late night."

"Indeed. You were waxing poetic about the stars."

Lucius cast his mind back, trying to remember anything that matched that description but there was nothing.

"Hopefully, it was not too ghastly," he replied, gulping down coffee and pouring another cupful.

"On the contrary," was all he got in return.

"I shall assume then that anything else I may have said or done did not offend?"

Mircea's heart raced. Did he remember? Was this a way of indirectly asking her how she had felt?

"Of course not. Such sentiments could never offend."

Lucius breathed an inward sigh of relief. Then he hadn't told her how he felt. And he certainly had not acted on it.

"Good," he said with more energy. "I would hate to think I had done anything forward or ungentlemanly."

Mircea's heart fell. He did not remember. And the look he gave her as he started in on a story about an undersecretary at the Ministry told her very clearly that he suspected nothing.

"Excuse me."

She left without a word, shutting herself away in her room as soon as she was able. How stupid of her! To fall head over heels because of the ravings of a drunk! She had nearly been ready to… she did not know exactly what, but clearly she had been horribly mistaken.

Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes. She should never have let this happen to her. But it was too late. Only now did she realize that she loved him.

Late that afternoon found Lucius and Mircea wandering through the brown and empty vineyards. Mircea was less than thrilled over this arrangement – her nerves were still raw from the past 24 hours – but Lucius was still barred from being out and about on his own and she could not let him see her hurt. If nothing else, she could appreciate that this was just a chance to be outside of the stone walls of the Manor.

"Wish there was something on these vines," she mused absently, looking everywhere but at Lucius.

"There is. They're just hard to reach." Lucius gestured high on the vines, well over their heads.

"Surely with magic…"

"Oh they can be gotten," Lucius explained, gesturing absently. "But they need more time and a second harvest and it simply isn't worth it. So they hang up there for whom or whatever may want them."

Mircea had been busy most of the day and had to admit they looked tempting. Lucius's smirk caught her eye and she quirked her eyebrow at him. "Yes?"

"Well… come on then. I'll give you a leg up."

Draco was extremely irate when he finally managed to locate his father in the vineyards. He had been looking for Lucius because he had been unable to find an herb he needed. After fifteen minutes searching the Manor, Draco was incensed that he had to spend so long looking for a man who was ostensibly on house arrest. A half an hour more of searching the grounds and he was ready to hex the man who had fathered him.

So when Draco walked up to see Lucius with Mircea sitting on his shoulder, reaching for some grapes, and the two of them laughing together, he lost all self control.

"The Dark Lord could appear at any moment and this what you see as the best use of your time, father?" Draco roared at them causing Lucius to drop Mircea and fall over.

Lucius picked himself up with impressive alacrity and Draco continued. "While some of us labor over the lives of others, you are busy nuzzling this –"

Lucius had grabbed his son by the arm and drug him a safe distance away before he finished that thought. "Is there something you wanted other than attempting to tell me how I ought to behave?" Lucius snarled at his son.

"I need Violet Hornpowder and you need to end this childishness now! You are an adult man!"

"I am very well aware of my age and sex."

"Too aware! You'll get us killed and all for the satisfaction of some warm body in your bed."

"This is none of your concern," Lucius barked, shaking Draco and fighting to keep Mircea from hearing him.

"Father," Draco pleaded, his tone softening, "please! My mother has only been dead for some months… and we are in enough danger as it is."

Lucius saw the pleading look in his son's eyes and guilt overwhelmed him. He did not wish to hurt his son. And Mircea had been positively distant, leading him to believe that something must have happened the night before despite what she said. Did he really want to go through all of the pain of a relationship again?

But before he could answer Draco, Mircea swept up to the two of them.

"As it is perfectly clear what is being discussed I felt I had some right to address the topic as well. Draco –," she pinned him under her gaze, "Your father and I are not involved in any way." She now turned to Lucius. "And we never will be. I have told him as much myself. Our relationship is limited to the ways that we mutually benefit one another. There is nothing more to it." She turned back to Draco. "I am sorry to have caused you undue concern."

Draco could feel he was blushing but nodded before she quickly left the two of them. He had not meant for there to be a scene. She had meant what she said about having told Lucius as much herself.

Lucius stared after her, not speaking and trying very hard to block out the pain her words had caused. Clearly, his son was right; this was childishness. Why fix so much affection on a woman who could so callously toss him aside?

"Violet Hornpowder," he finally said, without looking at his son. He started off across the lawn only when he could no longer see Mircea.

Death Eaters sat around a table, each holding their breath and trying not to draw any attention to themselves. A question had just been asked which no one really wanted to answer: what was to be done about The Quibbler?

Xenophilious Lovegood was printing what the Prophet had been too scared to print and what it would now never print – the truth. Something had to be done about this, something that would silence him permanently.

"We could just kill him, My Lord," Goyle offered quietly.

"Indeed we could. But he is a pureblood, no matter how filthy he has made himself, and it would be much better if he could be…reeducated."

A shiver went around the table at the word "reeducated."

"Does no one have any ideas?"

"The girl, My Lord," Bella spoke up. "She will be on the Hogwarts Express for the holidays. She can be taken then and the father's silence will buy her safety."

"Excellent, Bellatrix. Your eagerness to assist your master is always appreciated and rewarded."

Mircea was willing to swear those words had been aimed at her. Of course she had thought of the daughter. But she was above kidnapping. Or at least she had been at one point. Only when she was very much alone did she admit to herself how big of a mistake becoming a Death Eater had been.

"MacNair… Dolohov… You will seize the girl and bring her here. Surely that is simple enough?"

The two men agreed quickly, not looking up. There would be plenty of Death Eaters on the train for backup so the children were unlikely to put up much of a fight.

The meeting ended and the Death Eaters dispersed, some to corners of the house and some to their own residences. Mircea was in her room for several hours before venturing to Lucius's room. The wards were the same, allowing her in easily. He was sitting in an armchair facing the window, with a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other. The window was open so the stench of smoke was much less but Mircea still wrinkled her nose.

"Enough of that!" she exclaimed, pulling the cigar out of his hand and throwing it out of the window.

"What in Merlin's–" Lucius began before the drink followed the cigar. "You think you can just walk in here and…"

He was not sober enough to easily finish this thought and so he trailed off. The glass of water in his face helped though. He jumped up, wet and cursing.

"Enough, Malfoy!" Mircea spat back at him, wand at the ready. "We need to talk."

That was never good. Whenever a woman said you needed to talk it was always bad. Lucius grabbed a towel and wiped off his face before slamming the window shut and dropping back into the chair.

"Well, Miss Elaide?"

"Lucius…you were right."

His eyes widened. "Pray tell: about what?"

"This is not right," Mircea breathed as quietly as was possible. Lucius's eyes got even bigger and Mircea began to fidget. "Your collar is not straight, Malfoy."

"My collar is just fine. What are you–"

But Mircea grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. She made a hasty pretense of fixing his collar and then slipped her arm around his neck, pulling his ear close to her mouth. A chill ran over his body and his hands mechanically went to her waist. She began to whisper directly into the shell of his ear.

"This girl… she is the age of your son."

"And she is a rebel, like her father, and has fought beside Potter willingly."

"Lucius, you are not thinking!" Mircea hissed. "He will kill her if her father does not comply. He would kill the family of anyone who opposes him. He has already tried in some cases." Lucius looked at her sharply, but that was all she was going to say about it. "We cannot save those we care about by following him into this madness."

"And to rebel against it would mean almost certain death. For us and those we wish to protect."

"But…how can you go on like this? You once joined something you believed in. Why not again?"

"I believe in nothing and no one," he breathed back in her ear. "And why do you now decide to question the ethics of all of this? The disillusionment too strong for you?"

"Don't sneer," she murmured, deliberately not looking at him. "This is nothing you have not said yourself."

"And clearly the disillusionment was too much for me. I'm a worthless broken man, a coward who is reduced to holding children hostage in his home. And for what? This is not what we asked for, and yet there is nothing we can do."

Mircea looked up at him with such sadness and such understanding and shook her head fervently. "That cannot be true," she said aloud. "I cannot believe that."

"And why not?"

"If that is the only option I will kill myself."

He could see she meant it and he did not argue. It had occurred to him many times before now.

"What, then, do you propose?"

"Watch…and wait."

Their teeny tiny conspiracy seemed to thaw the winter that had settled between them. Though the plan was to lock the girl in the cellars on their way back to London for the Christmas holidays, Mircea was back in his bed and he was no longer drinking in a way that would shave ten years off of his life. They were back to not touching one another, which strengthened Lucius's conviction something had happened that night he had been blind drunk, but she was there and she was talking to him again.

So he was surprised to see Zhenya with a hand resting against her neck and Mircea smiling up at him when he walked into his office a few days. The men eyed each other like competing lions and Mircea pulled away from the Ukrainian's touch.

"Missing a bit of eyebrow?" Zhenya asked, revealing no emotion in his face or in his voice.

"Quite," Lucius shot back just as evenly. He opened his mouth to continue, but Mircea grabbed his elbow.

"Mr. Sorokin was just leaving. We would not want to end on a bad note would we? I would hate to have to give both of you a thrashing."

Zhenya's expression soured but he backed down. "I await your answer, Mircea."

He left with a curt nod at Lucius.

The second the door closed Lucius pulled away from Mircea. "How dare you pull rank on me like that?"

"Why? You feel like losing the other eyebrow?" she snarled at him. "I would remind you, since it seems to have been beaten out of your head, that you brought that on yourself by your own carelessness. So I think I have some right."

Lucius stormed to his desk, flinging stuff out of his briefcase as he spoke. "And what was that last comment about? Ask you to mate with him already?"

"Not quite."

Lucius stopped and stared at her. "What the hell does that mean?"

"He's asked me to dinner. Apologized in the most lovely terms and expressed a desire to see more of me."

"So you can breed the most perfect Dark Eastern babies the world ever saw. He's only interested in your rank and you can't possibly be interested in more than his title."

Mircea's temper flared. She had no interest at all in Zhenya but she could not stand to be talked about this way, especially by Lucius.

"As opposed to you, who only is interested in my warm body in so far as it provides a service for you. Yes, you wouldn't know anything at all about using someone like me, would you?"

Lucius blushed scarlet without meaning to. His interests were much greater than that but certainly without hearing how he really felt this was the only conclusion she could reach.

"Fine then. Go on and get your thrills with that bear. See if I care."

The words bit into Mircea and she reacted without thinking. "Fine then. I will. At least he some sees value in a horrifically scarred Easterner like me."

She slammed the door leaving him alone. The phrase 'horrifically scarred' rang in his ears. That was always how he thought of her, though usually followed by other words like 'lovely' and 'passionate.' Surely this was coincidence? Surely that was not what he had said to her when he was drunk? It was too late to ask now though, especially as he saw a purple note fly out of the door and another return about ten minutes later.

"What changed your mind, if you don't mind me asking?"

Mircea was sitting at candlelit table in an expensive Wizarding district across from Zhenya. He eyed her low backed evening dress appreciatively as she thought over her reply.

She had agreed to the date almost solely to spite Lucius. And he had been waiting by the fireplace used for Floo when she came down.

"Still going, I see. Sure you'll have enough to talk about? Or won't it matter?" Lucius had not felt so jealous since… since he was dating Narcissa. He wanted to crush Zhenya's skull and he wanted to throw Mircea off a cliff. The first thing he was sure he could do; the second he knew would be impossible.

"I am going. Unlike some people he is capable of treating me some kindness."

"I am so very sorry I don't measure up to your standards of kindness. I had rather thought you would despise being treated like a lesser creature. I have no interest in acting as such towards you."

"And what do you have interest in?" Mircea was giving him a chance.

Lucius was torn. His jealousy made him feel reckless but his age held him back. "Nothing to concern yourself with."

Her eyes narrowed and she moved further away from him. "Then to hell with you."

There was a burst of green flame and she was gone.

"Mircea?"

Zhenya's voice snapped her back into the present.

"Forgive me. My secretary persuaded me to change my mind."

"That washed up old man?"

"We're the same age."

"Surely not. You do not look it." He took her hand in his and her eyes darted quickly over him. It was a bald lie; she looked every bit her age even if Lucius wore it worse than she did.

"False flattery will not get you anywhere, Mr. Sorokin," she replied evenly.

"I rather thought women appreciated that sort of thing," he answered mildly. "What would you prefer?"

"The truth." Lucius would have told her she looked old. But he also would have tempered it with some sweetness. And Lucius had never talked to her as if she were one of a faceless mass of women.

The rest of the evening passed in this manner. No matter what Zhenya said or did, Mircea would compare him mentally to Lucius. Even the most irritating aspects of Lucius were fond to the newness of this other man. She trusted Lucius and she cared for him in a way she could not with the Ukrainian across the table from her.

They both stepped through the Floo grate into the main hall of the Manor quite late that evening.

"A pleasurable time indeed, Miss Elaide," Zhenya said sweetly, kissing her hand. "May I have the pleasure of anticipating another such evening?"

"I am afraid not," Mircea said as graciously as she could, She had to let him down easily and in a way that would not spark suspicion. "I believe there are many women who would be glad for the attentions and so it would be wrong of me to lead you on."

He nodded, understandably. She had been lost in thought the entire evening so he had not held out much hope. "May I ask why?"

"I could never trust myself completely to any man. I am sorry."

He nodded again and kissed her cheek before stepping back through the Floo grate. Mircea smiled a little to herself and quickly hurried back to her room, slipping her heels off so she would be silent.

Out of the shadows, Lucius Malfoy stepped into the middle of the room. A smile played on his lips before he too went to bed.