Summary: Lucius clung to the only thing that mattered to him while in Azkaban, even if her words stung him deeply.

Rated: T

Genre: Familiy; Hurt/Comfort


Competition/Challenge Block:
Written for/Stacked with:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Term 14); Monthly Challenges for All (Year 4)
Hogwarts: Ravenclaw - A3: Muggle Art #5: Write about sacrificing something for someone else.

MC4A: Ship War (Icicles; SuMic2 [Black]); Garden (Ship Ahoy! [Icicles); Fireworks (All About family); Chimera (Protection); Link (Same Ship Type); Su Bingo (Moon)

Word Count: 681

Warning Tag: Imprisonment; Depression


The Walls Whisper Sadness and Defeat

Lucius was only allowed a single photograph that he begged to retain during his processing for transport to Azkaban. The fools granted him this mercy and allowed him to keep his prized family picture he carried on his person at all times. Little did they know it was a vital tool for Lucius' survival within Azkaban, a lifeline to the outside world, and to his very sanity.

It was a few years old now and needed updating since his son was ten in the image, taken in front of the Manor on his birthday to be precise, but he didn't care of its age right now. It was something to look at, to cling to while he sat within the confines of the damp, cold bricks of his cell pressed against his back. His wife Narcissa looked ageless as always as she stood beside him, arm draped around his and looking proud. The smile on her face warmed his freezing soul every time he saw it, and he clung to that feeling every time the dementors lazily drifted by.

But when a single letter came to him a mere week after his imprisonment, his beautiful wife was no longer the woman who was proud to be a Malfoy beside him. At least not right now, not in these dark and bleak times that had come upon his family like murky floodwaters of spring. He eagerly read the word written there by the full moons spotty beams gracing him through the barred window.

.oOo.

Dearest Lucius,

I'm afraid of being the bearer of dreadful news, but you should have known this would have happened upon your capture. He has recruited Draco to His ranks at the insistence of my unruly sister. I was not able to protect our son from this fate, but he is under the guidance of Bellatrix who, despite my deep anger toward her for offering Him my child like some sacrificial lamb to amend your crimes, I know she will teach him well.

I also know that Severus will be more than willing to keep an eye on him while at school as well. It is his duty, after all, to protect his godson by any means necessary. I will make sure he does not fail his duty like you have already done.

I do not know what He has commanded our child to do, but I am telling you now that whatever it is he has been tasked with, you will carry that sin with you along with your failure to hold up the promise of protecting us from this madness.

Yours truly,

Cissa

.oOo.

The eloquent cursive of his wife's words stung just the same as they would coming from her tongue. Lucius had failed his family, the one true thing he swore to protect from harm the second he wedded Narcissa. It was in his vows, and as he reread the letter, he felt that promise crumbling deep within. He had failed the only thing that had ever mattered to him, and now his wife and son were paying the price of this failure.

A shiver snaked up his spine as a dementor passed by, pausing a moment just on the other side of the bars as it sensed his sadness. The creature moaned in pleasure at his shaking frame, as if laughing at the pain he clutched in his hands alongside the only thing that gave him joy. Lucius ignored the vile black-robed being as best as he could despite its icy presence clinging to his skin, delicately tracing his finger over the side of Narcissa's face and kissing his son's head in the photograph.

When he gets out of here, and he will, he will make things right, even if it kills him in the end. He will rebuild his family again and protect them at all costs, no matter what it takes.

He will regain his wife's love and respect because she deserves the world and everything in it.

It was the very least he could do for her, for their son.