The Choice

Him

Lucius froze at the sound, his instincts kicking in immediately as he scanned the shadows. He gripped his cane, ready to pull his wand, and a moment later a dark-clad figure had stepped up to him, touching his elbow. "Nice going, Lucius! That wasn't by any chance one of the Dark Lord's assignments, was it?" The voice paused, then resumed with an edge of menace. "Because if it was, I notice that your charges are still very much alive. You didn't by any chance warn them, did you?"

The wizard whipped around and grabbed the woman by her robes. "Iocasta!" he hissed. "What are you doing here?" The witch laughed again. "Following you, Lucius," she said lazily. "That should be obvious, shouldn't it?" He shook her. "You little filthy spy! I told you not to cross me again."

Iocasta lifted her hands to the hood of her cloak and revealed her face. Her bruises from their last encounter had disappeared, and in the dim light she looked again uncannily like Andromeda. "You know, you got so high and mighty with me last time we met, just because of my muggle toy, and here you are, in direct defiance of an order of our master. Who do you think has deserved punishment more? You still haven't denied it."

He brought his face close to hers. "I deny nothing and I admit nothing. This is my own business. What do you want?" He still hadn't let go of her, and now she lifted a hand to run it along his jaw line. "Don't touch me!" he snarled. Her eyes narrowed. "I want you, Lucius. You must admit that our games together have been amusing and challenging. I doubt there aremany women out there, who can give you what you crave. I know there are few men out there, who can give me what I need."

Lucius snorted at her in contempt. "I am done with your 'games'," he said. "I told you I would not tolerate another pick-up attempt." Iocasta laughed again. "I know. I always listen very carefully to you, my dear. So I decided I needed some leverage if I wanted more of you. You know, for a night with you I might forget to tell the Dark Lord what I have seen here tonight."

The blond wizard grew completely still at her words and noticed that her dark eyes now scanned his face for a reaction. "Locus illuminandus," he finally incanted softly. A small star-shaped light formed over Iocasta's head indicating her position before him. There were no others. His lips slowly curved in a malicious smile "You come out here, by yourself, and think to blackmail me without witnesses. And you think you can compel me? You must be insane."

For the first time he read doubt in her face. Her self-assurance crumbled under his smile. "Do you really believe I would let someone live, who could implicate me with our master?" She squirmed in his grip now. "Lucius, you know I have no proof. I couldn't accuse you. I just wanted you back," she pleaded. He laughed out loud now. "You don't need proof with a legilimens like Voldemort, you just tell him, and he finds out the rest for himself" he said coldly. "It doesn't pay to think with your cunt, Iocasta. You got it wrong when you threatened me, and you are getting it wrong again as you try to appease me now. I don't leave witnesses."

Her eyes widened in shock. "You don't mean that," she gasped. "Oh, but I do," he told her, suddenly feeling a sharp jolt of excitement at the thought of banishing the frustrations of the night in one last outburst of violence. He tightened his grip on his victim in preparation for an apparition, and moments later they stood on the gravel of the beach off Marine Drive just outside Rottingdean and far away from the eyes of curious muggles.

"You know I am at a loss, Iocasta," he taunted her as she looked around her in panic. "I know I'd like nothing more than to give you a painful death for your audacity. But I also know how much you enjoy pain. What a quandary: I'd hurt you only to please you. What do you think we should do?" She lifted her hands to plead with him, but he now felt high on anger, power and blood-thirst and barely heard her, as he disarmed her and pulled off her cloak. He shoved her away from him and with a lazy kick of his foot knocked out her legs from underneath her so she crashed down on the hard wet pebbles of the beach.

In the dark the waves rolled in in long noisy breakers that would drown out most sounds, and as Lucius looked down on the witch at his feet, a thought struck him. For a moment even he recoiled at the idea, but then stepped forward.

He had left his very last act of mercy far behind him, on the streets of a small East Sussex town, and it had been for a woman who had betrayed and never loved him. "You know my dear, ever since our last meeting I have wondered about the spell the Dark Lord used on Bellings. Our gatherings are always such wonderful opportunities to learn, are they not? And I really want to know whether I caught the curse correctly. I am sure even you will find the pain beyond your capacity for enjoyment."

"No, please, Lucius," she begged him, but he had already leveled his wand at her and intoned the ancient words he had heard his master speak. His name was the lastmenaingful sound she made, and as before he watched in detached fascination as the woman who had once resembled his love dissolved back into the common ingredients of existence, blood, bones, guts, slime. He heard Andromeda's anguished voice again: 'You have become a monster, Lucius. What happened to you? If my choice was the cause of this, I will never forgive myself.'

The dark mass on the ground before him lay finally still and Lucius found to his surprise that the cool breeze that blew in from the sea chilled his cheeks. He lifted his fingers to his face and touched wetness. The lights on the shore appeared blurred and he blinked rapidly. He had been crying and hadn't even felt it. In fact, he now felt nothing, not even anger. "I am what you have made me. What I have made myself. There is no forgiveness, for none of us." He vanished the sorry remnants of his spell and strode along the beach without looking back.

Lucius could not remember how long he had sat in his study, it might have been hours, but it seemed like days, even more timeless, like centuries. He felt like burnt-out ashes, bone-white, insubstantial, to be blown away on the force of a single breath. Nothing he knew, nothing he could do would change things now. Andromeda was truly lost to him forever. No spell, no potion would turn her, and even if he could, to compel her to love him would not mean anything. He would always know her love was not freely given, and he was done with lies and illusion.

Between them Narcissa and Bellatrix had destroyed his life. The younger woman had deliberately taken away his happiness and love and the older one had tied him to the Dark Lord as surely as if she had set the mark on him herself. He clenched his teeth, biting back a howl of anguish and frustration. Suddenly in the cold embers of his despair he felt the kindling of a spark.

All his adult life he had hated and persecuted muggles and mudbloods. Every man, woman and child that he had killed had born the face of Ted Tonks and of Andromeda's mudblood offspring, the living proof of her betrayal of him. Yet, those that truly deserved his hatred had shared his bed and table and had come and gone freely in his house. He had respected them and cared for them and loved them as family.

Lucius' eyes traveled to his cane that never left his side. He watched the play of flames from the fireplace on the polished black wood and the pale silver of its handle. Encased in it there was his wand. How often had he seen green fire break from its tip, striking down his enemies in death and agony? He'd lost count over the years that he'd spent as a Death Eater. "One more time," he whispered.

He reached for the cane and slowly slid the slim wand from its sheath. The serpent grip lay cool and reassuring against his palm. The spark of hate he'd felt just seconds before flared into flame. For a moment he saw Narcissa, writhing before him under the cruciatus, confessing everything, begging him for mercy. "You and your sister never showed me any," he whispered.

And then, unbidden, he saw the face of his son. He recalled Draco in the school hospital last year, after the hippogriff attack, pale and shaken, the vicious slash from the beast's beak wrapped in bandages, and Narcissa sitting by the boy's side, holding him and soothing him. She was trying hard not to cry as she comforted Draco. He had looked on in fury at the incompetence of the teacher who had allowed this to happen to his only son and heir.

The image blurred, was replaced with the memory of a cool autumn day many years ago, etched into his mind. The tall doors to their bedchamber flew open as Bellatrix looked out and called to him as he was sitting nervously on a chair outside. "Lucius! You have a son." He had heard Narcissa's screaming inside for hours, helplessly wishing her pain away, angry at the custom of the old houses that kept wizards barred from the delivery room, and now saw her propped up in bed with the midwife cleaning up. His wife looked pale and exhausted, and there was so much blood. But then she had stretched out her hand and he had stepped up to her, and his mother had placed a small squalling bundle of cloth in his arms.

He had sat on the bed and placed the baby against Narcissa's chest, wondering how tiny and fragile it looked, never letting go and had held them both, his wife and his newborn son. He had been so proud of both of them. Now he realized that at that very moment he had not thought about Andromeda at all.

Lucius stilled and his eyes traveled to the small ruby vial that Severus had given him: 'One draught to bind in love, another to break the fetters.' He had broken Andromeda's fetters, she had been free to chose, and her choice was the one that had been made for her without her consent so many years ago, the one she would have made regardless. Here was his choice now, to undo what had been done to him, to take his revenge for the way he had been manipulated and betrayed or to accept it.

He could take his wand and make his way up into their bedroom. Narcissa might still be awake and waiting for him. He had not seen her or spoken to her in days. One spell would kill her. He thought again of Draco. What do you tell your son when you have killed his mother? More lies? Just as he had been lied to? The truth?

Slowly he placed the wand back on the dark wood of his desk. His fingers encircled the cut glass crystal of the love philter. "One draught to bind in love…" he murmured. Andromeda's choice had been easy. Ted had never betrayed her. He had been a suitor just like himself, taking his chances, and he had been chosen. As far as Lucius knew he had lived to be a loyal husband and father, despite the disgrace of his muggle status.

Andromeda had built half a lifetime's worth of love and memories with him. Lucius still recalled the last glimpse he had seen of them through the lit living room window, the man and the woman standing fused together in a tight embrace as the muggle had comforted her. The loneliness and envy he had felt at the sight had been almost unbearable. He hoped they would be safe by now and far beyond his or his master's reach.

For him choosing was not so easy. Kill his wife and he would lose his son, too. He had no doubt about that. But how do you will yourself to love someone you've come to hate? A love potion only compelled the unwilling, Andromeda had told him. Lucius looked one last time at his wand, his choice standing clear before him. He trailed his fingers over the chased silver scales of the serpent's head, then he slipped the ruby stopper from the small vial and brought the bottle to his lips.

The potion tasted bitter-sweet and Lucius was careful to leave one last sip at the bottom of the small flask. "…another to break the fetters, Narcissa, and I will, I swear," he whispered softly. One day he would take the second draught. One day when Draco was a grown man. It was possible to cross a Malfoy, but a Malfoy would never forget and never forgive.

Her

Malfoy Manor, September 21st 1976

This will be my last entry into Bella's diary. I haven't been writing much lately anyway as Lucius now has a packed social calendar and expects me to accompany him to all official functions. He's also set me quite a few tasks related to the support of various charities that will help him politically. He's a very ambitious man, and we are extremely busy.

Also with old Mr. Malfoy having died last week there is so much changing and rearranging going on in the house, I'm just afraid the book could fall into the wrong hands. There are house elves all over the place, getting into everything! I've tried to vanish it the other night, but of course it would be enchanted if it was a present from my sister, and I could not make it disappear or destroy it. It just seems to be impervious to magic.

I certainly would not want Mrs. Malfoy or Lucius to ever find out what happened last year, as I think he would be terribly mad at Bella and me. So I am at a bit of a loss what to do. I might talk to Celia about it. I know she works in magical law enforcement, but we've stayed such good friends even after school and have met and talked a lot over the last few months. She wouldn't betray me and might help and take the book off me. With her knowledge of spells perhaps she even knows what to do with the diary. At least it will be beyond Lucius' reach that way.

I also think that I might want Celia to know the truth. I haven't been able to talk to anyone about what Bella and I did, and I'm not as close to her any more as I used to be. The more time passes, the more I think I was wrong to follow my sister's advice. I feel bad about Andromeda, who now has a baby girl as I have heard. I've been married to Lucius for almost a year now, and while I am generally happy to be his wife, I also know he has faults, and I am not as naïve as I was when I first fell in love with him.

I really hope Andy is happy with her muggle and that she can give my niece a good home and a good upbringing. It would be nice if I could meet her, and see her daughter, but my parents would forbid it, and I think Lucius would be furious if I went in secret and he found out. I think the best would be to be rid of this record of what I did, to forget it ever happened and to get on with my life.

Oblivion can be a good thing after all I guess.

This concludes "The Serpent and the Unicorn". I hope you all enjoyed it.

My thanks go to all my faithful reviewers: Sesshomaru's Angel, Chaos Chick 3, the ever faithful chisox727 and Sternenlicht, mintika, JakieMarie,Hungarian Horntail, Sionnain, Midnight Lilly, Redcandle17 and of course Alys, jewels, Lady Lizzie, fenphoenix, reginastrix, Captain Grey, Dutchwench, Lucrecia and Eilian from UYJI. You kept me writing! Thank you!!!