Disclaimer: Any character, places, events, or other things that you recognize belong to J. K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing them for a while. I'll return them whole (albeit a bit corrupted) when I'm through with them.

Chapter Dedication: Jillian, cause she'll just despise the fact that I gave her the Lucius chapter. lol. Enjoy jilly-jilly he he he

A/N: I know my Lucius is absolutely horrid. Bah. It had to be done. Also, I've replaced chapter 6, since I said they'd left eleven months ago and here I have it that they'd left three years ago. So... I fixed that.

"It's not my sanity you should doubt... it's your safety."

A Perfect Day to Elope

CHAPTER NINE

In which Lucius is smug and Narcissa smears her eye-stuff...

Interlude: A Lucius Story

July 11, 2001

The dismal interior of courtroom nine was looking, if it was possible, more dismal than usual. The stones were looking especially solid and the spider population seemed to have become noticeably larger. The cheerless room was nonetheless filled wall-to-wall with witches and wizards who were sitting on raised stone benches that rose steeply in a kind of perverse stadium seating away from the miserable floor. They were all dressed in long black robes (but that's just normal for wizards) and they were talking animatedly about something that apparently was going to be happening very soon.

Suddenly, an undistinguished door in the sidewall was flung open, throwing the crowd into a thick silence. There was a moment hesitation, and then ten judges in long, blue robes filed into the chamber, all watching the floor with grim significance.

"You are the defense of the accused?" asked the foremost judge, a portly man with thinning gray hair and beady eyes, after they had all taken their respective places.

"Yes."A dark-skinned woman sitting behind the defense table stood. She had curly, bleached blonde hair and was wearing vivid magenta robes that contrasted violently with the mass of black behind her and hung loosely on her wiry frame.

"Name?" he asked, his misgivings barely disguised behind a rumbling monotone.

"Chalondra Agatha Tee, and I joined the registry in 1987," she added before he could ask.

"Good..." He scratched out a note with his quill and then looked up at her again. "Bring him in then."

At this the air of excitement in the court practically exploded. The heavy door at the front of the court was opened with an ominous creak and a man with disheveled silver-blonde, though now it looked more like gray-blonde, hair was silhouetted silhouetted against a sudden burst of outside light.

"May it now be recorded that today, on July eleventh of the year two-thousand-and-one, the thirteenth day of the official parole hearing of Lucius Fallon Vaughn Malfoy was begun." There was a resounding bang as the gavel found its mark and the court was plunged into silence again. "Madame Magdalene, would you read the charges again, please?"

"Of course," the witch to his right chirped, unfurling a long sheet of white paper. "Thirteen counts premeditated murder, including but not limited to the murders of Fuchsia Meyers, Stanley Sterelle, Sarah Edgecombe, Maddox Freerail, and Remus Lupin," she continued reading the charges, though no- one listened, not really. Torture, murder, torture, blackmail, torture, murder, those were all things they'd seen before. Every eye in the courtroom was locked on the man under fire.

Lucius Malfoy's unkempt hair fell around a pair of cold, gray eyes and a pointed face that held the unattended shadows of Azkaban. He was walking slowly but steadily towards the center of the room, and for all that he looked beaten or unraveled he still insisted on maintaining a perfect posture.

"Two counts breaking into the ministry of magic with malicious intent, one-hundred-and-fifty counts of using an illegal unforgivable curse," Madame Magdalene read. There was a collective intake of breath from the spectators.

Lucius Malfoy sat down. Chalondra Tee sat down beside him, and another woman with wavy brown hair and a practiced white smile sat down on his right. They pretended not to notice that he was there, which was perfectly fine because he barely noticed them either. He was searching the spectators with all his senses, though his eyes were focused intently on the table in front of him. A gossiping student, a twitchy old geezer, a young woman who seemed to be breathing in the oddest way, and then he'd found it. He heard that oh-so-familiar whimper, and he almost smirked, almost. Narcissa was there; and Draco was behind her, probably. He was probably somewhere nearby, not paying attention as usual. Not that Lucius much cared that no one wanted him paroled, it simply helped to know that someone still found him terribly impressive.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Lucius snapped his head up. That excuse for a judge was talking to him now. Reverie was a dangerous business. He'd have to remember that one, it sounded exceedingly smart, a quality that pertained to very few thoughts he'd had recently. "Come to the stand."

Lucius was about to do so when, in a motion too quick to catch, the woman on his right, her freshly pressed white robes swishing angrily, shot up and shouted, "I object!"

"You are not Mr. Malfoy's lawyer, Ms. Sharpe," the judge snapped, and she glared daggers into his beady eyes.

"But I am his doctor and though I no longer question his sanity, his strength after nearly three years in Azkaban can hardly be described as fit," said Sharpe, curtly stepping around to the front of the desk. "I believe that you have questioned my charge to the extent of what his current state will allow. You have the records in front of you, it should be obvious that he is clearly no longer unstable, irrational, or insane at all. He is," she smile proudly, "completely cured." She held up her right hand. "You have my word."

The simple fact that Lucius Malfoy was sitting in a courtroom was a weighty statement in itself. He had been in Azkaban for three years; and the journey from his cell to his lawyer's elbow had been a difficult task, involving quite a hefty bit of lying and blackmail. No one needed to know that, though. It had started off on Narcissa's second visit to his cell; he had acted then, lied to his wife. Not that that hurt, much. It was nothing a quick dose of self-righteousness hadn't fixed. He had told her things, dark things, things people had told him under torture, things he pulled from his memory and coated with sop before handing them to his wide-eyed, horrified wife. She had, of course, been at her wits end. She'd filed complaints with everyone she could think of: the minister of magic, the Azkaban governors, the department of magical law enforcement, the CAC. Nothing. She'd come back. He smirked at his own genius. He'd played the insane man, the terrified child, the overbearing husband, the tortured P.O.W., the lunatic. She'd called on St. Mungo's, and that, as they say, had been that. After one-and-a-half years at St. Mungo's, after one-and-a-half years of non-stop lying Lucius Malfoy was 'cured', or as cured as he was ever going to be.

The judge seemed to think on her words for a moment. "Fine, then, have it your way," he said finally, "All in favor of letting Lucius Fallon Vaughn Malfoy go free?"

"I feel," Ms. Sharpe interjected again, "due to the circumstances and the reputation that society has built around people of Mr. Malfoy's past it ought to be a silent vote?"

"Quite right," Ms. Tee added. The head judge sighed and nodded resignedly. It was only fair, after all.

"Fine then, it will be a silent ballot, all of you right down your prescribed judgment and hand it to Madame Magdalene."

There was a furious scratching of quills against paper and then ten folded ballots were handed along to Madame Magdalene, who unfolded and read them all in an agonizingly slow manner that suggested she didn't want to know what was written on the papers.

"Well?" asked the man to her right, once she'd finished. She looked a bit as though she was going to be sick. She cleared her throat. "Er... well, we have here five votes that he be released," she choked out, speaking barely above a whisper. Lucius's heart, or rather, the cold, frozen lump of hate that he referred to as his heart sank. They weren't going to release him. They were never going to release him. He was going to rot away in Azkaban and there was nothing he could do about it, not anymore. He'd never get to have a good son, never get to be on a chocolate frog card, he'd be that relative no-one talked about anymore, a shame to the family name. He'd gotten caught.

"And four votes that he be returned to Azkaban..." she continued. The cold, frozen lump of hate lifted. There was still a chance. "...and one vote," Madame Magdalene continued, "one vote that he remain in St. Mungo's."

The courtroom was plunged into shocked silence, whether in awe or horror would have to be in the eye of the beholder. Lucius barely noted that Narcissa had stopped breathing before the corpulent man began to speak again.

"Well... then," he sputtered, drawing deep breaths but slowly, slowly coming back to himself. "Let it be here on known that Lucius Malfoy was released from Ministry custody on the eleventh of July, two-thousand-and-one, and that he was released on wandless parole, until an unspecified date at which time he is deemed completely readjusted."

The gavel found its mark once again and the veil of tense silence that had floated over the court like a specter shattered with the decisive bang. The shouting began like it had never stopped at all.

"LUCIUS!" He barely had time to turn around before his vision was blocked by a large quantity of blonde hair. "They let you go and they let you go and we can go home!" Narcissa sobbed, Lucius hurriedly pushed her away, keeping her close enough that he didn't look cruel to anyone looking and far enough so she'd stop sobbing all over his shoulder.

"Honestly woman, you act as though you doubted me," he drawled, quickly regaining his composure and leading her out by the elbow. "Where's Draco?" he asked, once they'd gotten into the hall and he realized his son wasn't following them.

"I don't know," Narcissa sobbed.

"What do you mean you 'don't know'? He's your son!"

She sobbed even harder. "He... he l-l-l-left!" she choked out, tears running down from her eyes and smearing her eye makeup in long black rivers down her cheeks.

"Oh, stop doing that. You'll smear your eye stuff."

"How articulate Lucius."

"The insane don't have time for articulation, Narcissa. Where is my son?"

"But you're not–"

"Nine out of ten voices in my head agree that I'm sane, yes." She sobbed harder. "Oh, now really Narcissa, you know nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man!" he cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. She sobbed still harder. "Fine then, Where. Is. My. Son?"

"I don't kn-kn-kn-know! I t-t-t-told you! He l-l-l-left! I d-d-d-don't know where he w-went!" she wailed, taking big gulps of air as big, blubbery tears ran down her face.

"What do you mean he 'left'? What, he ran away? He's gone on a trip? He's died!"

"He just... left," she gulped, seeming to come to herself for a moment

"What, just by himself?"

"No, he went with girl, I saw them flying away!" snapped Narcissa, very indignant now she was fit enough to be indignant at not even being asked how she might have been doing.

"Well that's nothing to worry about, probably just running off to be alone with–"

"Not Pansy!"

"What?"

"Not anyone I knew," she sniffed, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, "Well, I did recognize her from somewhere. I just don't know where..."

"And you didn't stop them?"

"How could I?"

"Damn it! I leave for a few years and everything goes to the dogs, I bet you fired all the house-elves as well?"

"No, but what should we do about Draco?"

"He'll come back, and if he doesn't..." He shrugged. "We'll kill him."

"You're not worried we've lost him?"

"Narcissa, of all the things I've lost in life, I miss my mind the most. I'm not going to worry about losing my son as well. And don't look at me like that, you're not so unpredictable yourself."

"Perhaps, doesn't look like you'll be finding out any time soon, now does it?"