A/N - A short interlude. I had some flashbacks I wanted to put in, and some more Lucius-introspection, butI'm afraid there isn't much plot at all.
Disclaimer – I don't own anything from the books. Don't sue.
Interlude
"Why didn't you tell me, Draco? What is he doing here?"
"I didn't know, Gin. I swear, I didn't have a clue…"
Ginny stared at the man who had been behind the first and most disastrous of all her encounters with the Dark Lord. Tall, regal and silver-haired, the marks of his twelve-year sojourn in Azkaban were fading quickly, dimmed by the returning force of his style, his unconscious presence –
He was so like Draco it scared her, sometimes.
What had made Draco choose a different path to his father's? And was it possible that, with the return of Lucius' malevolent influence – an influence that Draco had lost at fifteen – he might come to rethink his choices?
Rational thought said no, that Draco had chosen his path and was more than resolute enough to hold to it, even if his father did try to persuade him otherwise. Rational thought said that he had his marriage to her, and his son, and the companionship and respect he had slowly acquired even with former Gryffindors to ground him, to keep him with the Ministry.
But she feared Lucius Malfoy, distrusted his magnificent presence and the charisma that, even now, was working on the most grim and battle-scarred of Aurors…
…My father was the architect of the Death Eaters' reign of terror for eight, nearly nine years. He was not popular, or well loved, but he was brilliant; he was hard, even by Death Eater standards, but they followed his orders because they knew he would bring success.
He knew his trade, and he knew his followers – but most of all, he knew his opponents. He was one of them. He'd been raised one of them. And he used that knowledge to devastating advantage…
It had been a very long time since Lucius had had to revisit the mindset of his Death Eater years. Eight, nine years out of a full fifty-three – it did not seem much, when viewed objectively. But those years, from eighteen to twenty-six, from the last years of boyhood to the years leading up to his prime, were vital in the development of his public persona and his true life, after young Potter had ended the wild madness of his youth.
Moody's file had been correct, though he had played innocent – it had indeed been the training camps in Northern Africa, after he had finished his seventh year at Hogwarts. For a modest sum, there had been those willing to teach budding young terrorists all the skills they would need to bring about their revolution, whether it be a Marxist utopia or an independent Northern Ireland or a land populated only by purebloods.
He had learned valuable skills. He had made useful contacts.
And he had discovered the pure exhilaration of action, of violence and adrenaline.
It was had all been so simple, so easy, once you cast off the tyranny of morals and scruples, to think in terms of shock value and effect, of media coverage and psychological terror rather than human life. But true conviction – the fanatic belief that muggles were lesser, that they endangered the sacred purity of wizarding blood – escaped him; he was still too much his father's son for that. He may have cast aside all his moral restraints, but his cool, trained and rational intellect could not accept Voldemort's propaganda.
He wondered if that excused his actions, or made him even worse than the true believers.
All that he had done, he had done in extravagant amorality, and in ice-cold calculation. And then, once there was no more need for the amorality, or the extravagance, he had hidden them – they could not be cast aside, because they were too much a part of him – and resumed the conservatism, the responsibilities and the restraints he had once so despised. No matter how he may feel about them personally, these things could not be cast aside either.
But he remembered the cool rationality of Lucius Malfoy the Death Eater. He remembered the detachment of the emotions and the domination of the intellect. He remembered the animal awareness of everything around him and the muscle memory – trained and trained and trained into him – of the physical and magical skills of a killer. But most of all, he remembered the suspicion, the constant and instinctive distrust –
It had not been, now that he thought of it, a very comfortable way of life.
(flashback)
They watched him. They had, in fact, had their eyes on him for a while now, this silver haired Prince of Slytherin, who wielded all the charisma and influence of the Malfoy name with all the careless flair of a man who cared nothing for politics, and even less for the power that could be his for the asking.
He was certainly nothing like his more careful, more conservative ancestors, who had acknowledged no superiors and had focused the whole of their considerable attention on their own affairs, their own designs, and their own estates –
Perhaps – an intriguing irony – it was his father's influence. His so dutiful father, who had chosen his country over his House.
Would his bright son choose the devastation of that same country in turn?
If they had anything at all to say to it, he would.
Because the word had just come through that Marcus Malfoy, a very senior, very decorated Auror, had been killed in Vietnam, of all places –although quite what he was doing there, or why he was with muggle American soldiers at the time of his death, had not been adequately explained. And young Lucius, though by and large politically indifferent, was Malfoy enough to resent the Official Secrets Act and high handed Ministry interference.
With a Malfoy by their side, they could gain enough money and prestige to do some real damage to the Ministry.
The decision was made. They would make contact.
His name had been Michael, then, and if it was not his real name, then it was as good a name as any other. A professional, a veteran, he had been chosen to bring the Malfoy boy into the fold – they had calculated to a nicety the approach that would most tempt the young Lucius, and had picked him to be the one to carry it out.
The son of an Auror, though he repudiated his father's actions and loyalties, Lucius responded best to confidence and competence, and not to calculating cowardice – Michael was, in his own steady way, both familiar and exotic enough to engage the young man's interest, and charismatic enough to hold it. It had begun in Hogsmeade, in the small dark tavern that had been the Slytherin pub of choice since time immemorial, where the students could imagine that they were wicked in sufficiently safe surroundings. A quiet conversation, every now and then. A listening ear. A source of the grim, strange humour that was the mark of veteran Aurors and Dark wizards alike –
The mark of all the soldiers, on both sides of the war.
And a safe foil for the young Malfoy's need for something more, something real, that could not be let out in his father's presence, because it was so contrary to anything that so conservative House allowed. It was 1970, and revolution and terrorism abounded in the world outside even Hogwarts and England. There was an air of change in the wind, a social revolution calling for change and reform, and for those who were willing to fight for it –
Romantic claptrap that appealed to educated, alienated, disaffected students.
But it made for easy pickings, when the time came to recruit them. Not that he would, after the very first meeting, ever have called Lucius Malfoy naïve. If he did not care for politics, it didn't mean that he couldn't play them, and play them very well – Michael preferred to think of him as restless.
The Malfoy had not always been conservative and insular. Once, they had been conquerors, ruthless killers who let nothing stand in their way; once they had ruled Britain in all but name. It was no surprise that Lucius was fascinated by the legends of his ancestors, and Michael found it almost too easy to seduce him with dreams of freedom from all restraint. It was, he supposed, the need to shed the restrictive trappings of polite wizarding society – of High Clan society – and find something meaningful. Michael could have told him that there were far more meaningful things in the world than a revolution, that it was all a game, really, in the end – but an addictive one, the most ironic, artificial and enjoyable one in the world, and once you'd set your foot upon the path, there was no going back.
He had given the young Lucius his first cigarette.
And then, six months later, he had stood beside him as Lucius received the Dark Mark.
(end flashback)
Michael.
Lucius was certain that he'd recognized his old mentor's presence at the crime scene, felt his gaze on his back while he'd examined and identified the body. There had been too keen an interest, there – he wondered if old Sir Samuel had been chosen simply because he was a fervid anti-Death Eater, Ministry supporter, or because he had been the judge who had condemned Lucius to Azkaban all those years ago.
If it was the latter, then Lucius had a serious problem: a killer who knew all of his moves – who had taught him virtually everything he knew – and who also had a very personal connection with him. If Michael was now targeting Lucius' old enemies…
It could make it very difficult for him to explain.
A/N – The thought of the Malfoy as a conservative House is a new idea. Usually I don't portray them that way – but it may be the popular wizarding perception of the House at this point in time (ie the 70s). Perhaps, as with many things in the Victorian era, they became tamed and respectable? I wonder if the thought of one of the usually conservative Malfoy becoming an Auror was wild in Marcus' young days – however, this fic is mainly Lucius' pov.
Thanks very much to all my reviewers – your feedback is greatly appreciated.
