"Inhumanum verbum est ultio. - Revenge is an inhuman word." (Seneca: De Ira II, 31)
Twilight had descended on the outskirts of London when Eleanor finally circled above Ivy Crescent assessing the potential battlefield. Mr. Oswald's old car was not parked in front of the house, and she hoped he had taken her message seriously enough to flee. The house itself was dark except for a glimmer of light from the closed curtains of the kitchen window. She lifted over the roof and descended into the garden dissolving her invisibility spell as she touched down in the shadows underneath the old trees.
Eleanor stowed the Firebolt and pulled her wand from its sheath. As she cautiously approached, she saw that the living-room curtains were also drawn, and the patio door was closed. Everything seemed deathly quiet. She had just begun to imagine that it was all a crazy bout of paranoia, that Lucius was probably simply sitting in the kitchen eating dinner, when her foot encountered something soft and yielding on the slate tiles of the porch. She quickly bent down and felt downy feathers underneath her fingertips. Someone had beaten her to it.
She heard a soft hoot and a beak snapped feebly at her hand. "Hey, Hermes, it's me," she whispered. After a quick look around she focused on the bird. The eagle owl was alive, but a superficial examination showed her at least a broken wing. "I've got to get to him," she said. "I'll take care of you properly when I've made sure he's okay." She touched her wand to the owl's wing where it stood out at an odd angle from his body and fixed the bone with a spell. Then she cautiously stood up again and looked around.
Just at that moment a hoarse and muffled cry of pain came from the inside of the house and green fire played behind the closed curtains. "Hecate!" She gripped her wand. There was no way of seeing what was going on inside, and how many enemies she would confront, but the voice had been Lucius'.
She crossed the small distance to the patio door. "Reducto!" Glass shattered into a million pieces and she jumped through the gaping hole into the darkened room behind. A dark-robed figure loomed over a human body writhing on the ground before it maintaining a cruciatus spell with pointed wand, and while the Death Eater still stared at her in surprise at the sudden interruption, she leveled her weapon at him. "Petrificus totalus!"
Without a further sound the billowing cloak around the figure seemed to stiffen and the first attacker keeled over backwards. Just then a hoarse voice intoned "Stupefy!" from the depths of the room and Eleanor had to dive behind the sofa to evade the spell. She felt shattered glass from the window slice her. 'Should have vanished the damn thing, instead,' she thought briefly and rolled to the side as a second Death Eater peered down at her over the backrest of the sofa.
"Crucio!" She had barely time to relax and initiate the Karkaroff maneuver, as she had termed the demon's evasion spells. A moment later she stood half hidden behind the living-room door and watched the Death Eater hold the spell for a moment, then stare at his wand in surprise as his victim maintained stony silence instead of sceaming in pain. "What the…?"
She switched back. "Expelliarmus!" she called from her place on the floor at the feet of her attacker, hitting him squarely in the chest and hurling him into a wall. He collapsed with a noise like a deflating tire.
The light from her spell had briefly shown her two more robed figures. One of them stepped forward now, speaking, but Eleanor felt the other one circle behind her to cut off her escape. She listened to a cold female voice. "Lucius' mistress no doubt, the bitch who drove my dear sister to divorce. It will be a pleasure executing you along with him." Eleanor swallowed, that had to be Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Imperio!" She switched again, cowering in the deep shade by the bookshelf from where she could see both Death Eaters. The one trying to get behind her now stood before the broken patio door. "Go and lie down next to your miserable lover, so you may share the same fate," commanded Bellatrix the imago standing before her. A darker male voice protested. "Hey, at least tell her to get over here and suck me off beforehand. Lucius should be conscious enough to enjoy the sight."
The woman sighed. "Avery, you are crude as always." However, she stepped aside. "Fine, suit yourself. I'll see if I can get my darling brother-in-law to watch. After all, no point wasting an opportunity for fun for all of us." Eleanor watched as Bellatrix crouched next to Lucius and revived him with a spell. He moaned as she forced him into a sitting position.
"Look, my dear, we have company. Your beautiful, foolish little bitch has decided to join us. She will die with you. And just now our good friend Avery is going to have his way with her. You'll like watching it. I'll promise. You know how very good he is at it."
Lucius struggled at her words. "Avery, don't you dare touch her! Bellatrix, you miserable hag, I should have killed you at the Ministry for not following my orders," he hissed at her, his voice hoarse with screaming. She gave a high-pitched keening laugh "Ah, as always, all show and bluster, my dear brother-in-law. Empty threats and regrets. You are nothing but a filthy muggle now. The Dark Lord wouldn't even come to you himself to kill you, for fear of sullying himself with you."
In the meantime Avery had moved from the door into the center of the room confronting the imago. She could see him unfastening his robes. "On your knees!" he commanded. Time to switch back. She resumed her former position taking a step towards the man, pointing her wand, anger at his attempt at rape shaking her. "You want to get it up and keep it up?" she challenged him. "I'll give you a permanent hard-on you sick fuck! Petrificus totalus!" Avery was too surprised at her resistance to the unforgivable to even put up the semblance of defense. He crashed to the ground without another sound.
"Stop it right there!" Bellatrix' icy voice cut through the brief upsurge of triumph Eleanor had felt at flooring the Death Eater. "I don't know what you are playing at, but one more spell out of you, and your muggle pet here bites the dust, I swear to you." She whirled around to see Lucius staring up at her from the floor, his face deadly pale in the darkness of the room. His sister-in-law was kneeling behind him, holding him up, her wand pointed directly at his heart. "Now put down your wand. Nice and slow."
Eleanor bit her lip. Thoughts raced through her on how to break the stalemate, when suddenly she could feel an upsurge of energy behind her. The second Death Eater had to have recovered from her expelliarmus spell. Years of instincts honed in defense training took over, and as she hit the ground, a powerful reducto spell passed over her head and slammed into the large bookshelf behind them. The heavy piece of furniture swayed and threatened to topple over, burying Lucius beneath it. She shot up from the floor, directed a petrificus spell behind her, which seemed to hit by the sound of it and sprinted towards the wall. Books were already raining down on them as she managed to stop the fall of the shelves, and with all her force push them back against the wall.
Just then she heard Bellatrix' voice: "Avada…" She whirled around, keeping her body pressed against the bookshelf. Everything happened in slow motion. She needed one second more before she could perform the Karkaroff maneuver. She was out of time. She already saw a spark of deadly green fire form at the tip of Bellatrix' wand. It was all too late. "…kedavra!"
Just then a glint of silver swept up from the floor and hit her attacker squarely under the arm. Eleanor heard the sickening crack of broken bones as the last remaining Death Eater cried out in pain. The green fire breaking from her wand was deflected away, hitting the wall to her side. Still she could feel and see some of the tendrils reaching for her.
Needles of absolute zero lanced through her and she slid down the shelf to the floor. A horrible white non-pain that seemed worse than any agony she'd ever experienced spread through her. It separated her self from her body, and she somehow knew that if the numbness reached her heart she would die.
Through a blinding haze she watched Lucius swing his snake cane a second time and bring it down on his sister-in-law's head with a powerful blow, and as the Death Eater collapsed, she felt herself fade out. Her last conscious thought was directed at him. 'You're alive!'
Awareness came creeping up on her slowly, and with it pain. For a while she actually struggled to keep herself in hazy half-sleep until she heard someone insistently call her name. Hands shook her. "Want to sleep, got a hangover," she mumbled in protest, when she suddenly realized that despite her discomfort there was absolutely no feeling in her legs from her thighs down.
A flare of panic shot through her. The fight, Bellatrix' killing curse, the deflected spell had left her paralyzed! Her eyes flew open at the thought and she looked up into the pale face and bloodshot eyes of Lucius Malfoy, who was crouching next to her in the twilight of early morning. "Eleanor!" She sat up with an effort. "Can't move my legs!" she gasped.
A moment later she saw that a black shape was draped across her legs, weighing her down. Bellatrix had fallen half across her when her brother-in-law had brought her down. Eleanor grabbed the robes. "Get off me! Get her off me!" Lucius moved forwards, stiffly, as if in pain himself and with a grunt rolled the Death Eater to the side. There was blood on the floor where her head had lain. Eleanor reached over and felt a slow, flat pulse. Bellatrix was merely unconscious, probably heavily concussed. Just to be on the safe side she lifted her wand and put a petrificus on the woman.
A movement off to her side distracted her, and as she looked she saw Hermes perching on the body of the Death Eater who had almost brought down the bookshelf. He was preening, and now slowly blinked at her as she tried to see if he was okay. Then his horned head disappeared under his wing as he carefully flattened and arranged his powerful pinions. It seemed he had recovered by himself after she had fixed his broken bone.
She next touched her own legs only to find there was a faint prickly sensation just above her knees. "Gods," she whispered, hoping she was merely suffering from cut-off circulation. Not many people had survived brushes with the avada kedavra curse, so literature on side-effects other than death was rather sketchy. Lucius hands were on her face now. He looked worried. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice still hoarse from screaming.
"Can't feel my legs," she said. "Maybe it's the curse, maybe it was just her weight." Then she focused on him. "Lucius, how are you." Her hand trailed down his chest. He sat back on his heels, shrugged. "They hadn't really warmed up yet when you came. A few crucios, a racking spell or two. I guess they wanted to make a night of it." For his dismissive tone regarding his punishment he seemed strangely subdued. She could detect nothing of his usual arrogant and cynical attitude. It seemed to her the damage was somehow greater than he would let on.
"Look, let me try some empathicura." She stretched out her hand again, but he captured her fingers in his. "No, you've done enough," he said. "I expect a few muscle tears and bruises from the convulsions, nothing more. What about your legs?" She allowed him to distract her for a moment and realized that more feeling had returned. She was fairly certain now that she would get off with an almighty case of pins and needles.
"It'll be okay," she told him. "You'll have me hopping round the room here in a few minutes behaving as if I had an entire ants' nest crawling up my legs." All she got from him was the ghost of a smile. They had always used dismissive humor, however feeble, to get them through situations like this without waxing emotional. Only this time he wouldn't play along. She looked up at him. "Lucius, something is wrong. Something happened to you last night, and I don't mean the cursing. Tell me, please."
His pale face appeared closed to her, his grey eyes had lost their usual icy sharpness and seemed unfocused and misted. There were lines around his narrowed lips she had not seen before. He gave her the smallest shake of his head. "I'm all right. Don't worry."
Eleanor's legs were really waking up now. Every movement was agony, but she brought them round to her side and sat up straighter, so she and Lucius were finally level and face to face. She grabbed his shoulders for emphasis. "I have known you for six years now. I've seen you happy, angry, moody, vicious, aroused, on occasion even scared. I know you have a damn high tolerance for pain and punishment – but I've never seen you like this. If this is 'all right', then you have been off ever since I've met you. What is wrong with you?"
He regarded her silently, again shaking his head. Eleanor felt herself getting frantic. Despite the restraint they had used with each other with regards to the wizard's "business", they had always been completely open and honest in everything else. "Lucius, we've fought back against four Death Eaters, and you live with just some minor damage, if I am to believe you. A few weeks ago we ran circles around the Ministry. You are the chief Death Eater, and you got the most lenient sentence of them all. We are this close to getting you rehabilitated. But this morning you behave as if someone had walked over your grave. Please tell me what I am missing, Lucius!"
He lowered his eyes, and finally began to speak. "'We', that's the problem, isn't it. 'We' didn't do anything. You did, Tethering did. Proper wizarding folk did. I didn't do anything." He ran his hands through his hair. "Last night really brought it home, Eleanor. I am nothing but a pathetic helpless muggle. I am finally become what I have despised all my life. I could do nothing. You know the extent of my defense? I sliced Rodolphus' forearm with a kitchen knife. That's all. Before my trial I could have held the four of them at bay with magic. I was more skilled, more powerful. They obeyed me. Now they could do whatever they wanted, and I could do absolutely nothing.
I have not set foot out of this house since I've come here. I keep telling myself that I don't want to debase myself with the company of muggles, but the truth is that I know I am out of my depth. It's different for you. You've grown up in both worlds. I grew up zealously shielded from everything muggles are and stand for. I am a wizard. Take that away from me and I am nothing. Last night showed me that. In fact, before you came I had resigned myself to death. I could have wished for an easier way to go, but I welcomed that I would be able to leave this miserable humiliating existence behind."
He closed his eyes for a moment while she barely dared to breathe. "You know what hurt, too? That they would turn on me like that. I didn't expect it would get to me, but I have served the Death Eaters all of my grown-up life. They are the closest thing to a family I've ever had. Heck, some of them were family. I swore on my life to the Dark Lord. I did not willingly betray him. And this is my reward!"
He turned away from her, and now anger was coloring his voice. "And the fact that I am sitting here, pissing and moaning about it, instead of getting over it, is just another indication of my despicable weakness. I wish they'd taken me out. One filthy muggle less to worry about."
Eleanor sat in stunned silence. This outburst was the last thing she had expected, but knowing him as well as she did, she should have seen it coming. How could she have been so stupid? Getting him exile had been a good idea from her perspective, accustomed as she was to live as a muggle among non-magical folks. For him it had been the greatest humiliation possible. And now the Death Eaters had finally driven the message home.
"You are not a muggle," she assured him. "You are a pureblood wizard, who is merely under a punishment curse. Were you to have another child, it would have full magical abilities." "Quite," interrupted Lucius with a sneer. "One characteristic I apparently share with one Mr. Granger, a muggle dentist." Eleanor sighed. She head heard about the muggle-born Hermione Granger, a prodigy at Hogwarts. "Yeah, but you could hex Mr. Granger all you wanted, he'd still have to use his drill and not a wand to repair his patient's teeth. Call yourself squib-hexed, but you're not a muggle."
He at least looked at her again. "Semantics," he shrugged. "No, it isn't semantics. You can go back," she assured him. "You will go back. And as regards your abilities, your idea that I did all the work? Well let me tell you, I'd be dead right now if you hadn't taken out Bellatrix. The kitchen knife was a nice move, but you did much more. You actually saved my life last night."
Her legs had finally returned to normal, and she got up on her knees. "Lucius, last night didn't remind me of the fact that you don't have magical abilities right now. It reminded me of another fight six years ago against another dark wizard. You saved my life then, when you lifted the burning spell he'd put on me. We fought back to back, as we always do. That's why we're strong. That's why we survive. If you can fight with magic, you fight with magic. If you need to club someone over the head, you do that. You just do what has to be done."
She paused, softened her voice. "Don't you know that when you put yourself down, you cut us both down? I need you at my back, knowing you'll cover me. You think I'm strong, because I am a witch, and you're weak, because you are under a squib hex? You're wrong. I'm only as strong as you are. You saw me in Azkaban, in your cell. I was weak, because I saw you weak. I can't do this without you, Lucius. It won't be worth it, without you." She broke off.
He regarded her gravely. "You have never needed me," he said quietly. "There is nothing in your life so far that you couldn't have accomplished without me." She took his right hand in hers, and he let her. She saw small specks of dried blood in its back and hoped they belonged to someone else. "You really are a Slytherin, through and through." She gave him a grim smile. "If you can't use it, get rid of it, that's it?"
Lucius shrugged his shoulders. "It's about power and influence. I confess you have always been a riddle to me in that respect. Now that I am more of a hindrance and a liability to you than a help, I understand your motivation even less." She swallowed. One thing would explain, one thing she had sworn to herself she would not let him know about, she would not let herself dwell on, because there was no sense and no future in it. But now over the last few weeks, her resolve had weakened. Dumbledore knew. Draco had found out.
Eleanor licked her lips. He was looking at her intently. "Why?" he asked. "You faced death, you may still face prison. Why come for me?" "Because…" she faltered, realizing suddenly why she was so afraid. She would admit to weakness if she told him, and he might despise her for it. She would break the unwritten rules they had kept to for six long years, and she could lose everything.
She found that confronting four Death Eaters was easier than this. 'You are a Sartorius. You never backed down from anything,' she chided herself. She sat back, releasing his hand, took a deep breath and faced him. "Because, Lucius, I love you. I always have."