From Sir Phillip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella
II
Not at the first sight, nor with a dribbed shot,
Love gave the wound, which, while I breathe, will bleed;
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw and liked; I liked but loved not;
I loved, but straight did not what love decreed;
At length to love's decrees I, forced, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.
Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now, like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make me self believe that all is well,
While, with a feeling skill, I paint my hell.

Chapter Six-Bartering for Permanence

I knew it was a huge risk inviting the sister of my heart's desire to luncheon, but as a business man I learned early the importance of calculating your risks while simultaneously cutting losses in order to achieve maximum gain. I sent Narcissa flowers, and not just any flowers, but Blushing Roman Roses bedecked with Bianca Narcissi, the very blossoms from which her name was plucked. I may have been smitten, but I was no fool. I knew well how to woo her, that to flatter her with the most expensive bouquet would only add me to a long list of rabble that had already tried for her hand and failed. The bouquet had to be costly, yes, but also well planned. Attached was a card upon which I scribbled some idiotic muggle's sonnet and the words, "I will not rest until we meet again." I then signed my name and sent my token forth, still holding on to her handkerchief with every intention of doing so until we were face to face again.

Perhaps I was being foolish, but I didn't trust Bellatrix or Rodolphus for that matter. Ever since our simultaneous affair with Yasmine Rodolphus felt some inane urge to compete with me romantically. If he came in contact with me out with a woman, he carefully scrutinized and studied her and then made sure to show up again within the week with a girl who looked almost exactly like her, but somehow more appealing to the eye. The unfortunate flaw was that Rodolphus was a dreadful judge of character and often found himself wrapped in the arms of some premature nymph on the verge of her first psychotic episode. Bellatrix was actually a step up for him. She'd already had her psychotic episode, or at least I had surmised as much when she walked into the café dressed all in black. She wore the most amazing, thigh-high, paten leather boots that stopped just below the edge of her inappropriately short skirt and drew attention to the incredible length of her shapely legs.

Like a heathen, she swung one leg over the chair across from me. I was appalled.

"Sweet Merlin, Bella," I gasped, leaning across the table. "Why don't we send out invitations to our little meeting? The way you're attracting attention, we might as well ask them to join us."

"Such dramatics, Lucius, really," she droned. She'd cropped her hair, I noticed, so that it clung in tight, ebony streaks against her chin and cheeks and drew attention to the heavy lids of her dark-blue eyes. Her skin was unusually pale against the black of her hair, accentuating what even I could not deny was a dark, unusual beauty. The flaw in that beauty was that she knew about it and it came across in the crooked gesture of her sinister grin. "The only way they'll find out what's not under it is if they look, and if they look…" she glanced over her shoulder in obvious reference to a young man three tables back, "well that's their problem."

"You're positively indecent," I remarked.

She laughed at me, "From you that's as good as a compliment. Thank you."

I could feel my upper lip reacting to her with a sneer, but then I remembered why I had asked her to lunch and it ironed out, reacting in a contrived smile that had I seen it, I was sure I would have been proud of myself. "You're welcome."

We ordered lunch, but Bella was extremely disappointment that the café didn't serve cocktails. She spent the first ten minutes in my company complaining about my poor taste in restaurants, but I swallowed my offense, continually reminding myself that she was nothing more than a child. She was a reckless, ill-mannered, spoiled little girl who would only learn her place in the adult world after a few hardships and a fair bit of suffering. It annoyed me when she smoked, but I bit my tongue and inwardly hoped that Rodolphus found himself stuck with her on some permanent level. I wished illegitimate children on them, and then rescinded that horror before it became a well-formed thought, firmly believing that any child of their union would be a doomed monstrosity suffered by the rest of us quite hazardously. It would serve him right though, getting stuck with her, the pretentious bastard, for trying to compete with me again.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I've asked you to lunch this afternoon, Bella," I began.

She shrugged the angles of her shoulders quite sharply, "I figured you'd seen the error of your ways and decided to crawl back to me before it's too late."

This time I laughed at her. I laughed hard too, not some laugh that suggested I was humoring her, but I was genuinely amused and it was obvious. The natural arch of her thin eyebrows became a bemused line of hatred, "Oh, that is too much," I told her. "You're so cute. Adorable, really." She was on the verge of giving me a piece of her mind when the food arrived. I continued to add little tufts of laughter every moment or two to enhance the rage that was slowly simmering inside her. I don't know why, but seeing her that way gave me the same sort of pleasure that I derived in torturing muggles. "My my," I shook my head. "Really, we must do this more often, Bella. Your sense of humor is to die for."

"Be careful," she warned malignantly. "It might actually kill you."

I felt no threat from her, and truly believed I could handle my own against her, so I allowed my laughter to go on until it slowly fizzled out. "Dear Bella," I said. It was time to appeal to that ego of hers, "If only you had been born a year sooner, or I two years later, perhaps then we might have made a delectable match, you and I, but alas, the fates have intertwined me with not you, but your lovely sister, and I've invited you here today to both warn you and embrace you."

She lowered her heavy eyelids curiously, so that no more than small slits of cornflower blue peered back at me. "Warn and embrace me? What nonsense is this, Malfoy? Be straight with me or I'll make good on my threat against you."

I shook my head, such fury for one her age wasn't rare, but often undernourished and therefore underdeveloped. Not Bella. She had mastered that furious temper years before and made no bones in using it to her advantage. I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, a sly grin stealing over my lips, "I meant nothing more than this. I will not be deterred so easily from your sister, and most especially not by you."

"I don't know what. . ."

"Do not interrupt me!" An astonished look passed across her pale face. Clearly she had never been put in her place before, and it was high time she learned it. At first she leered incredulously across the table at me, but the arrogance soon faded and she looked down and away, yielding dominance to me. I felt a sense of smug, satisfaction, "Now, I am willing to barter with you, something you want for something I want."

Immovable stubbornness flickered in her eyes, which were cold and hard as steel when she raised them to mine, "You have nothing I want, Malfoy."

"Tsk tsk, Bella, you haven't even heard the terms I'm offering."

"I'm sure they're worthless."

"All right then," I sat back in my seat, stone-faced and ready to play aloof. My suggestion that she would be the one losing if she walked away from me was unspoken but clear enough for her to recognize that sacrificing my chance with her sister would not leave an irreparable mark. It was true. I was smitten with Narcissa enough to strike a deal, but I certainly wouldn't die without her. On the other hand what I was going to offer her might very well never be offered again. "I shall pass your compliments on to the Dark Lord himself."

"The Dark Lord?" she swallowed.

"Indeed."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Your sister," I began. "I want her, but more than anything, I want you to make sure I get her."

"And how do you expect me to do that? 'Cissa has a mind of her own and rarely asks me to think for her."

"True, but she does listen to you, and however will she form her own opinion of me if yours is in her way?" I lifted my brow cleverly. "Unless, of course, your opinion of me were to change, say become a little more. . . flattering?"

"And what are you going to do for me, Malfoy?"

"Simple," I began. "I'll speak on your behalf to the Dark Lord, perhaps get you an audience with him. I think he would be most interested in meeting you."

"Rodolphus can do that for me. . ."

I shook my head, "No," I assured her. "He wouldn't want to do that because that would make you a permanent fixture. Trust me, Bella, as far as Rodolphus is concerned, you're only a temporary fling. You've got another week, two at best." I didn't understand how that could have gotten to her the way it did, but I noted a glimmer of hardened viciousness in her hateful eyes.

"I think my sister just fell in love with you, Malfoy," her grin was like a malignant tumor, deadly but silent, creeping upward to steal her face in its grasp. "I expect an audience with his Darkness no later than tomorrow evening, and if you let me down, Lucius, you will regret it." Though I didn't fear Bellatrix Black, by the look in her eye then, I believed her.

"Don't worry," I winked casually, inspiring an air of hideous delight in her that unnerved even me. "I won't let you down."