Introduction

This story is a stand-alone and does not take place in the universe of the stories The Secret of Sartorius and The Promise of Sartorius. As a matter of fact, the stories contradict each other quite a bit as Lucius is presented as a different person with a different past and motivations.

The timeline of the story runs in parallel with The Order of the Phoenix. Draco is in his fifth year at school, and Voldemort has returned. There are also flashbacks to the late seventies when Lucius and the Black sisters were in their late teens and early twenties. However, you don't have to have read the book, as there are no spoilers and only minimal cross-references to events in the novel.

I have introduced only marginal OCs in this fanfic, and I have tried to keep the main characters as close to the image that is presented in the HP novels as possible. However, I have fleshed out some of the supporting characters such as the Black family, in particular Narcissa and her sisters.

While I am planning on less raunchy sex in this fanfic , the topics I deal with will tend to be darker and more violent. There will be scenes of torture, murder, rape (hinted at) and sexual encounters that are only consensual to a certain extent. So the story will still need to be rated a very strong R.

Otherwise the usual disclaimers are in place.

An Unexpected Find

Him

Lucius Malfoy ran his hand over his forehead and tossed back his long, silvery blond hair. Above him, amidst the gathering clouds lightning played, piercing the humid darkness. It would rain soon, washing away the blood that pooled on the ground before him. No downpour, however, could extinguish the cuts and bruises on the pale skin of the dying naked woman at his feet. She still moved feebly and a detached part of him admired her stamina. By rights she had earned a dignified death, but other concerns had precedence.

He cast a sharp glance out of pale eyes at his companion who was busy undoing his robes. Seth Avery might be a loyal Death Eater and capable fighter, but in Lucius' opinion he had rather filthy habits. "I will spare myself the sight," he said curtly, regardless of the disgust that crept into his voice. "See that you vanish the body when you're done here. I'll be in the house."

He turned on his heel, his black robes swirling around his legs and strode off towards the dimly lit outline of a doorway that shimmered through the tall trees of the garden. Soon he had made his way across a narrow patio and stood in the living-room of a small slightly ramshackle house. His lips twitched in revulsion at the sight of the man and two small children that lay on the threadbare carpet of the living-room. Their limbs looked strangely contorted, yet their deaths had been easy in comparison to the one that awaited the woman outside.

He worked his boot under the belly of the man and rolled him over so he could look into his face. "Miserable muggle," he hissed with a sneer. "She was a pureblood witch, but she had to pollute her noble bloodline with filth like you! And what did you do to protect her, or your spawn? Nothing! The last thing she'll know before she dies will be another man fucking her. Some husband you were! Even in death you disgust me!" He gave the corpse another kick to turn him back over.

He could sense his old fury rise in him like an irresistible surge of sudden fire. He knew the feeling well, and as always he fought to concentrate on the blazing flames, not on the spark that had first ignited them. Yet, unbidden, the image appeared before his eyes: her beautiful, noble, pale face framed by hair the color of raven wings, her lithe body so full of life, and once so full of promise to him.

He still remembered how she had made him feel. But she had turned from him and when last he'd seen her, her eyes had lost their laughter for him, her lips had been cold to his desperate kiss and her slender arms encircled another. He exhaled sharply, unsheathed his wand and vanished the corpses.

His outburst of anger slowly evaporated with the dissolving flesh of his victims. It had been so long ago, and only the hatred had remained. He looked at his surroundings to distract himself. Who could live in such squalor? The Rookwood family owned a large mansion in Lancashire, but Cecilia Rookwood had married a muggle and her family had cast her out. It seemed by the appearance of their dwelling-place that her husband had provided as little support to his family in life as he had in death.

Still, there was time to kill now, and Lucius looked around drawn to a large bookshelf at the back of the room. Thunder rumbled outside. The wizard leaned his cane against the backrest of the sofa and stripped off his black leather gloves. His long pale fingers ran along the leather spines of a sizeable collection of magical books. It seemed that Cecilia Rookwood had brought an impressive magical dowry along with her after all, despite the fact that her family had disowned her.

Suddenly a slim, maroon leather back caught his attention. Faded silver embossing showed a twelve-pointed star with a unicorn beneath and below it the motto tujours pur. The book must have once belonged to a member of the Black family. Lucius slipped the volume from the shelf and gently spread the crackling stiffened parchment leaves. The book was covered in a dense fluid script that he recognized immediately as that of his wife. He turned the leaves and looked at the dates. "Beauxbatons, January 3rd 1975," read the first entry.

Just then he heard a heavy footfall outside on the patio and quickly slipped the book into his robes as Seth Avery entered the house. "Bloody rain," the man snarled and tore the mask from his face. Lucius tapped his foot. "Are we done here?" he asked testily. Avery shook his robes out. "Yeah," he said. "She's gone." He didn't see his companion's lips curl in a brief display of scorn. "Let's go," commanded Lucius.

"What? Aren't we going to blast the place?" Avery asked. The blond wizard sighed. "Now why would we want to do that? She was cooperating with the aurors, and she betrayed her family. She has been punished. I am not interested in sending an official challenge to the Ministry. Those concerned will get the warning, those who shouldn't know won't find out this was our doing." He wanted nothing more than to go home and get out of the sight of the man who faced him.

Malfoy Manor loomed darkly against a dense layer of clouds. It was late. The thunderstorm that had broken during the raid in Somerset had not reached Wiltshire, but a light wind dispelled the heat of the humid summer night. Lucius adjusted after the brief disorientation that came with an apparition and smoothed down his robes. A faint light burned behind the tall windows of the salon. Narcissa would still be awake and waiting for him.

He paused and sighed. There were nights like these where he came back from a raid where he felt an uneasy balance of relief at coming home, at leaving the disturbing memories of his terrified and dying victims behind, and of regret at having to lock himself back up in the responsibilities of his mundane life as a husband and father.

Narcissa's embrace would make the screaming stop, would obliviate the memories, but it would also remind him of what might have been, yet what never had. He walked over the soft crunch of the gravel of the drive-way and up the broad stairs to the deep portal of the house.

A house-elf awaited him in the hall and took his Death Eater robes and mask. Lucius tucked the diary into the inside pocket of his coat and walked down the corridor to the salon. He quietly opened the tall door and stepped into the dimly lit room. His wife sat by the window in a deep chair and had fallen asleep while reading a book.

"Cissa," he called to her softly, and she opened her eyes and smiled at him. She put the book aside and got up with the light, fluid grace that all the Black women shared and that he admired so much in her. She wore a deep blood-red velvet gown and her rich honey-blond hair flowed freely over her shoulders.

As she reached him, she flung her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. "You are back," she sighed. He smiled and pressed a kiss into her hair. "Of course I am, dearest. Did you think I would not return?" He felt her shake her head while her embrace tightened. "It is dangerous. I worry every time you leave." He stroked her back to soothe her. "We encountered no resistance," he said calmly. "We surprised them."

She sighed and looked up at him. "Who was it this time?" she asked. He tilted his head. Normally she knew better than to ask, but he decided to humor her. "Cecilia Markham, once known as Cecilia Rookwood, before she decided to disgrace her family." Narcissa took a surprised step back. "Celia? You killed Celia? I was at Beauxbatons with her. She was my friend until she got involved with that muggle."

Lucius held her wide-eyed look with a steely grey stare of his own. "Cissa, she married that muggle. She bore him two mudblood children, and she was working with aurors at the Ministry against the followers of the Dark Lord. She needed to be taken out." His wife swallowed. "Of course, dear. You just surprised me. I didn't expect she would turn against her own people to that extent."

The blond wizard decided to change the topic. Narcissa had returned to her demure self almost immediately, but he thought that the information had upset her more than she cared to show him. He gently grasped her chin and tilted her head up at him. "Come, let's go to bed." His lips curved in a small smile. "You must have had a good reason to wait up for me, and I'd hate to disappoint you."

As they walked towards their bedroom, Lucius felt briefly tempted to mention the discovery of her diary to his wife, but something held him back, perhaps it was his reluctance to remind her of Cecilia's fate, perhaps the anticipation of having her stretched out beneath him in a few more minutes, willing and pliant, distracted him, but as he cast off his robes and watched her undress the book remained secreted in the breast pocket of his coat.

She came to him, her naked slender body shimmering in the twilight of their bedchamber. Her cool hands caressed his bare chest and her lips traced a trail of fire down from his neck to the first stirrings of his erection. He threaded his fingers in her silken hair, rolled his head back on his shoulders and closed his eyes.

In his mind the blond hair that coolly brushed against his stomach and thighs transformed to raven black, the thin ruby lips that caressed him bloomed into a broad, bee-stung sensuous curve and the small plump hands that grasped his hips lengthened until they possessed the delicate elegance that perhaps a master carver would achieve in a sculpture.

As she took the full length of his cock into her mouth he clenched his teeth to keep himself from breathing the name of the one that filled his every waking and dreaming desire, the name of her, who was lost to him forever.

As always Narcissa was blissfully unaware of his thoughts. He would never fail in his duties as her husband, and truth be told, no full-blooded man in their right mind could dream of calling it a chore, yet what he had with her did not live up to the expectations he had once held of his married life.

He had the presence of mind to stop her skilful ministrations just short of his complete satisfaction and lifted her with ease to place her on the soft silk sheets of their broad bed. She stretched out beneath him, her lavender eyes looking up at him expectantly. She breathed through lightly parted lips and he bent over her to kiss her while his hands ravished her body. She arched into the firm roughness of his touch.

Lucius felt the beat of his heart pound in his ears. Dimly he thought he heard again the screams of Cecilia Rookwood, and his own relentless questions. "I need names! Who do you work with? Who have you implicated? Tell me! You cannot resist! Crucio!"

"Lucius!" A soft cry brought him back. He blinked in surprise and saw his wife's wide-eyed stare. "Lucius, you're hurting me. What is it?" With an effort of will he unclamped the hands that held Narcissa's arms in a bruising grip and briefly lowered his head to breathe a kiss onto her chest. He would not apologize, he never did, but he had not meant to hurt her, either. Some nights it just became harder and harder to banish the demons.

He forced his concentration into the moment as he readied her until he finally heard her quietly beg. He paused for a moment, then guided himself inside her. As he started moving, he had to admit that he rode her harder than he really had to, but while she suppressed a gasp at every stroke with which he pounded into her, she did not complain again.

He fought for self-control to hold on until he heard her softly moan and felt her body briefly quiver beneath him. His brows furrowed in annoyance at the subtlety of her reactions that often kept him guessing whether he was able to please her at all. Yet, he knew it was her way. His quiet, secretive, elegant wife showed as much polite poise in bed as she would at a society tea party. No effort of his would ever turn her into a screaming, writhing devotee of passion.

He looked for a moment into her pale, blank face, then curved his hands around her shoulders to hold her against him, closed his eyes and finally concentrated on his own needs. A few more strokes sent him over the edge and he stifled his own groans of release against her cool, sweat-slicked skin. She had completely stilled beneath him, and with an effort he raised himself above her, withdrew and rolled to the side.

His hand trailed along her body once, then he pulled the sheets over both of them and briefly kissed her cheek. He suddenly felt bone-achingly tired. For a moment he thought that he hadn't even bothered to wash the stink of the kill off him before he'd gone to bed, then darkness closed over him. Beside him his wife stared unseeing and wide-eyed into the night.

Her

Beauxbatons, January 3rd 1975

Well, I guess Bella's Yule present isn't exactly original, but I haven't been keeping a diary for a while, and it might be fun to write down what happens over the next few months. After all, this summer I'll be sitting my NEWTs and my time at Beauxbatons will be over.

Anyway, today was the first day of school after the holidays and frankly I'm glad to be back. At least I can hang out with Celia, Monique and Denise and talk to people who actually understand me. Staying at home for the celebrations was pretty boring. We had a ton of extended family over as guests, and Mother and Father are really looking for a suitable husband for Bella now. How icky is that? I mean they made her wear all those low-cut robes and paraded her around in front of all these men like she was a prize hippogriff they were trying to sell! I didn't get to talk to her much, but she seemed really annoyed at it herself.

When she could she got herself into a quiet corner with that weird-looking spooky guy from the Lestranges. Mum hates him. They were always talking in whispers, and whenever I came by they would shut up and glare at me. What did they think I would do? Tell any of their precious secrets? Bella knows I can keep my mouth shut, at least when she tells me a secret. Andy's of course I'd pass on any opportunity I'd get. She is such an annoying big sister. Always bossing me around. I stayed out of her way during the holidays. At least this year she's not at school any more to get in my hair.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I better see what Celia is doing and get started on my transfiguration homework. Madame Lacroix can get pretty cranky when spells don't work out.