If the initial news reports of had damaged his reputation, the last one nailed shut its coffin and shoved it dutifully into the ground. Families were growing anxious for a resolution. Lucius heard from his father that many of the Sacred Twenty-Eight had written to the Minister themselves to request that Veritaserum be administered to the three suspects just to quiet the rest of the Wizarding world. Above all else, the entire situation was making their community financially uncertain. Investments, politics, charities, and social conscience made the purebloods what they were. Should they be seen as villains then it would do untold damage to most of the families, if not all of them.
Despite this, the families pretended nothing was out of the ordinary. The spring dances opened, and parties commenced from mansion to mansion as they did every year without delay. Lucius was once more trapped in a ballroom with no one to dance with, although he found it particularly grating on the first opening night of the social events than he had previously.
Narcissa Black was introduced to society last December, as the details of her sister's engagement were finalized, but it was spring and summer that women found husbands.
Unlike when they met first met, she had no availability to dance with him that night. He watched her accept partner after partner. She did not sit through any single dance, despite the fact that there was an abundance of young women mingling off to the sides quite alone. After watching the seventh gentleman take her hand and escort her to the dance floor, Lucius plucked a flute of white wine from a table and went outside.
The Goyle's home was a small castle made of stone and iron. There were no gardens, but there were iron sculptures and fountains spritzing outside along the cobblestone covered yard, and high stone walls nearly scouring the tops of trees kept anyone from seeing in or out. He was on the second floor overlooking the courtyard, and thus made use of the balcony railing near the stairs leading to the main courtyard. His wine was perched on the railing near his wrist as he lit a cigarillo and inhaled deeply. He let the smoke plume from his lips and nose.
Above him, the moon was overlarge and bright, more expansive than a regular full moon and appeared much closer that night. It made it easier to see out into the courtyard despite the late evening, and so he was surprised to find two figures slip out of the first floor doors into the courtyard. He rolled his eyes—they were young, spry, and eager. The lovers hid away from the windows between the wall of the castle and a wide statue. They took little time to find themselves, and the woman's skirts were pulled about her hips, the man's trousers pulled down, and they were soon making haste, and though the woman placed her hand firmly over her own mouth, her soft cries of pleasure carried up to the second floor balcony.
He slid away from the railing and drained his wine. He placed the glass back on the railing and turned around. He was going to leave, to give them privacy, but he was intercepted by Elizabeth Nott, the youngest daughter and sister of Theo.
"Eliza," he exclaimed, placing his free hand into his pocket.
"Oh," she replied, as she stepped into the slant of pale moonlight and blushed. "Lu…Mr. Malfoy, sorry to interrupt, I was just going down to the courtyard to take some air."
The courtyard. He bit his lip—the lovers below were not recognizable to him at first, though now in retrospect he realized that it was Candra Zabini and Bellatrix Black hidden behind a statue.
"Shall I accompany you?" he offered, "It's dark, after all."
"I suppose," she said, tilting her head.
He had never offered to escort her anywhere before. In fact, he scarcely made much of an effort to speak to her despite spending around years around one another.
It was clear she did not necessarily wish for his company, but in such circumstances, she felt compelled to be polite. She placed her fingers around his elbow and walked to the balcony with him. As they turned toward the stairs, Lucius flipped his cigarillo over the side of the railing.
"Why weren't you dancing?" he asked her, "Isn't your card full?"
"Oh, well, no. I only had three on the list and I have danced with them already," she replied, "I do hate to sit around, waiting…"
Lucius had never asked her to dance. In the years they were acquainted, he couldn't recall a single instance where he had. Of course, he scarcely remembered any of his dance partners.
They took several turns around the courtyard, which was now empty, and Lucius asked after her pianoforte skills and her final year of Hogwarts. Like many pureblood girls, Eliza Nott had opted to forgo her seventh year of studies to be properly courted and find a husband. She entered into society officially the year prior, and the preparation involved was decidedly too tasking for a young girl to balance both school and social life.
Women were introduced as eligible at different times and by the choice of their parents, but usually no later than one and twenty. Much of the women that entered later in life were the youngest daughter, who waited for her elder sisters to be matched with eligible men so that they were not competing with one another. In the case of Narcissa Black, she was able to finish Hogwarts and take extended lessons to become a Healer because her eldest and middle sister had not yet found husbands. While Andromeda Black scarcely attended events, and when she did, she certainly did not allow herself to be courted, it was rightly assumed she would not marry, and therefore it was acceptable for Narcissa to enter society.
In the case of Elizabeth Nott, she possessed a very standard timeframe, as the eldest child in the Nott family line was a woman who was already married. Elizabeth therefore came of age and was presented.
They walked up the stairs again to the second floor, and Lucius returned Eliza to the ballroom. She curtseyed to him and thanked him for escorting her, and just before she turned to leave, he stopped her to say:
"Miss Nott," he said, "Would you have me as your partner for the next two dances?"
Her worried face twisted into a bright smile. She glanced at the dance currently in progress, nearing the halfway mark, and nodded her head furtively.
"Of course, I would be honored," she said, blushing brilliantly.
She bent her knee again and then turned swiftly away, parting through the crowds of people to a group of young ladies who were all seated. Lucius made his way across the room to Theodore Nott, who was sitting in a highbacked chair with an old leather bound book with feather light pages in his lap and a glass of firewhisky in one hand.
"Now, that page denotes the lineage of the Yaxley line, but they're a bunch of brutes!" Mr. Carrow explained from across the table to him.
"I see that, but why is there a line from this man to this woman when he's higher up?" Theo asked.
Mr. Carrow sighed, and it was clear he had explained this more than once. "Because this daughter killed her mother and married her father, dear boy—"
"Fascinating topic, matricide," Lucius interrupted, "And here I was always rather partial to patricide. Must be my mother's endearing personality."
"Lucius, thank Merlin," Theo said, pulling the book up from his lap. He closed the large book and dropped it onto the table. "Mr. Carrow has invented his own history. Apparently, my mother is descended from fairies."
"Tiny feet!" the ancient wizard argued, "Fairies have tiny feet!"
He stood up, downed his glass, and brushed Lucius on the arm to pull him away from Mr. Carrow.
"You've come at just the right time," he said, "I was half convinced there isn't a single person here tonight worth speaking to, and then you showed up."
"I do have a habit of arriving in places I don't mean to be," Lucius agreed.
Theo rolled his eyes and took another drink.
"Fair warning," Lucius said, "I asked Eliza for two dances and she accepted."
"Eliza?" Theo asked quizzically, "Why her?"
"I sort of ran into her," he replied, "And it will settle my mother some."
Theo picked up another drink from a floating tray. He offered a glass to Lucius, who declined.
"Your mother still likes the idea of my sister for you?" Theo asked, "Has she ever met Eliza? She's about as interesting as a shoe."
They stepped away from the ballroom into the east wing, which was sparsely lit along the darkened hallway. Lucius realized halfway through that Theo's walk was unsteady and he was already quite drunk, but he said nothing about it. He stopped suddenly, and Lucius watched him fish through his inner pockets for a metal case. He opened it, revealing hand rolled cigarettes, which he placed one into his mouth.
"Do you have a light?" he asked.
The Goyle family required everyone to check their wands in with their cloaks. They were a paranoid family after the Goyle Massacre of 1512, where a hoard of tenants (angered by the rising rent) burst through the castle doors and murdered all but the youngest boy, who hid in the barn beneath piles of hay.
But they had little qualms about matches, and so Lucius slipped a small matchbook from his pocket lit Theo's cigarette for him, the small blue flame reflective in Theo's glasses as he generously accepted and inhaled to keep the cigarette lit. They continued down the darkened corridor and Lucius could hear heavy footsteps above them. The light on the sconces flickered from the movement. Some of the guests must have been venturing upstairs to explore.
"I want to talk about it," Lucius announced.
"What is 'it', Lucius?" Theo responded, "I am not very good at deducing in my current state."
"Candra," he replied.
Theo stopped in the corridor and swayed. He leaned his back against the cold wall and took an unsteady drag.
"Yes, well, you know that phase is over," he said, twisting his fingers together as he exhaled, "For many weeks it has been someone else, and in another week, there will be yet another gentleman I find myself fancying."
"I admit I am quite jealous mine only lasted the hour," Lucius retorted.
"An hour?" Theo repeated, looking dazed, "Speaking frankly, Lucius, you are an idiot if you think I only fancied you for an hour."
Lucius folded his arms across his chest. "I'll come back to that. What I really wanted to ask you about was important. You recall the night Scarlett Greengrass died?"
"I should say I don't," Theo replied, "And neither do you, after the fifth round of firewhisky."
"True, true, but where was Candra?" he asked, "When we found the her, he came up behind me. Told me to say that he had been with me the entire time, but where did he go?"
"He couldn't have been far, he was only just up the street when we ducked down the alley," Theo remarked, "Perhaps the next place over then."
"I can't remember, and it has occurred to me that I want to remember," Lucius admitted, glancing up the hallway nervously, as if he expected someone to overhear.
Theo flipped ashes from the end of his cigarette and watched the light catch along Lucius's pale skin. His eyes glowed, cat-like, in the dim corridor lighting. When he was lost in deep thought, his eyes turned cold and tumultuous as the sea. He must have been ruminating on Candra quite a lot to have brought it up to Theo at a party. Lucius was usually much more methodical and precise.
"So, recreate that night," Theo said, "Go back to the alleyway. See if you remember anything."
Lucius paused for a moment. "That's actually rather clever."
"I have my moments," he said, and righted himself from the wall.
"You'll come with me?" Lucius asked.
"Whatever for?"
"You were there," he said, "So you might remember something to."
Violins floated down the corridor toward them as the next song began, and Lucius remembered he was required for the next dance, so he began walking back the way he came.
"Lucius," Theo said, trailing his fingers along the wall, "The only thing I remember was the taste of cheap spirits and your tongue in my mouth. I admit very little else comes to mind."
"I didn't put my tongue in your mouth," Lucius argued with a hiss.
"Well it certainly didn't Apparate there," he shot back.
Lucius gave him a withering glare.
"Go and dance with my sister," Theo told him, "But try to keep your mouth away from her. I know how you are with my family."
They parted ways, with Theo moving unsteadily toward a refreshing tray of firewhisky, and Lucius to fetch Eliza from her lonely chair. As he approached her, the young girls around her fell to fits of giggles. Eliza glowed with white hot embarrassment as Lucius took her arm and led her to the center of the floor.
The couples formed two lines. Men and women stood opposite of one another. The dance could take nearly forty minutes to complete, and Lucius was quite aware he had asked her for two. They were the last couple to join the line and therefore were the lasts to start dancing.
As the music began, they heard a loud raucous of thunder booming overhead and rain began to pelt at the windows.
"Oh, I loathe storms," Eliza breathed, twisting around to look out the windows as lightning lit up the sky.
"Do you?" Lucius asked curiously, as her brother had little fear of the weather.
In fact, he recalled last year when it rained on them while they were traversing through the forest on the Zabini-Black property line, and Theo had very little fear. The two could not be more different, he decided, perhaps due to their upbringing. Women were more sheltered, he thought, and protected from things. Certainly, Eliza Nott was more sheltered than others were, being the youngest of her family.
A crack of lightning erupted across the sky and thunder boomed louder than the music. It shook the castle walls. The wind rushed through the open corridors, and the firelight went out in the chandeliers above them. He heard shrieks of fright and then felt a body colliding with his, and small arms wrapped tightly around his ribcage, so securely he could barely breathe. It was Eliza, whose body was trembling. A fearful cry escaped her lips.
In the darkness, he heard movement of men's footsteps and women's swishing skirts but could not see anyone. Doors opened and closed to the front of the house as men went to fetch their wands to light the chandeliers once more.
"It's all right," Lucius said, in an attempt to be soothing, as he wrapped an arm around Eliza's shoulders.
"It's not!" she shrieked, "Oh, someone! Please, turn on the lights! I cannot bear the dark! I hate it!"
The dancers around them slipped away from one another. The room buzzed with alarmed chatter. None of them had their wands, and the continued darkness disturbed them. Rain began pouring outside, splashing wildly against the windows. The wind began to howl, and pinpricks of hot white light lit up the sky outside. The moon was fully obscured in cloud cover, and no longer bled along the ballroom floor.
Lucius disentangled Eliza's arms from his body, twisted his fingers through hers, and pulled her off the dance floor carefully. As he walked, she crept so close to him she could have tripped him with her skirts. Holding his hand did not seem to be enough for her, and she wrapped her free arm around his bicep, entangling herself entirely against him. Each new roll of thunder or roar of rain and wind made her whimper in fear.
He found his way to the wall and stopped to be out of the way. Eliza let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around him again. Her fingers found the lapels of his jacket and she crushed the soft fabric in her hand. Her head reached just beneath his shoulder, and she hid underneath his arm, which he wrapped around her shoulder to accommodate her.
"THIEF!"
The shout came from the foyer, and there was a loud pop as a wand went off and a bright flash of green erupted from the doorway. Lucius realized they were close to the main door as the light lit up the small entrance of the ballroom, and Eliza let out a loud cry.
Several more flashes of light went through the foyer, and several pounding footsteps went up the stairs to the third floor. The members in the ballroom gasped in fright and tittering of chatter swelled in the room. More footstep went out of the ballroom, other men going to fetch their wands and investigate the commotion. Lucius, however much he wanted to go himself, was ensnared by Elizabeth Nott.
"Eliza, it's quite all right, I can assure that you are safe," he murmured, and attempted to remove her arms coiled tightly around his chest.
"You cannot!" she cried, "Lucius Malfoy, if you so much as move toward that door, I will faint!"
Lucius held back a sigh. She buried her head into his shoulder and whimpered as the storm pressed on, and the hard footsteps above them were clambering around. The ballroom fell silent in a hush of eeriness as everyone listened to the commotion going on just above them.
More shouting rang out from upstairs. Lightning burst through the clouds just as a body fell from the upper floor balcony. He watched the dark robed figure spiral and fall in front of the window, and then disappear to the first floor courtyard. They heard, rather than see, the sounds of the body shattering against the stone.
Eliza fainted in his arms, and he managed to catch her just in time before she toppled off onto the floor. It seemed she was not the only one, as he heard several women let out a cry after Eliza had, and crumple into their partner's arms from fright.
"Ridiculous," he heard a woman near him breathe.
The footsteps from the third floor pounded across the ceiling and then in just a few moments, they burst through the ballroom doors from the east wing corridor. Bright light arced through the air and light exploded in the chandeliers. Mr. Goyle had his wand poised above his head, and when he lights flickered on, Lucius saw that everyone in the ballroom was grouped in pairs and spread very far out. The fainted women came to when the lights returned, each vying to be the last left unconscious and procure the most sympathy from the gentlemen who caught them.
As he righted Eliza to her feet, he turned to see that the woman standing next to him was Mrs. Black, who had her wand in her hand, and apparently had it for the entire night.
"Sorry," Mr. Goyle said, addressing his guests, "It would appear that a thief was in the antechamber where we placed all your belongings, and another was on the third floor taking jewels. The one in the foyer escaped; the other did not."
The thief on the upper floor had opened the door, allowing the wind to tunnel through the corridors and plunge the castle into darkness. The crowd moved to the courtyard to look at the body and identify the thief, but Eliza was so shaken that Lucius swept her off her feet and moved across the room to a chair to sit her in. He supplied her water to calm her nerves and knelt at her side to keep her safe.
At each churn of the storm, she shrank into herself, and her eyes latched onto the window. Her hands were shaking dreadfully from fear, so Lucius took them in his own to steady them.
"You will not be harmed," he told her soothingly.
"Oh, it's the sound! That dreadful sound!" she said, shuddering, "You must think me a fool."
"Not at all," he told her kindly.
Though in truth, he did think her a bit of a fool for being frightened of so many things at once. When the others returned, it was determined that the ballroom should close early. Mrs. Goyle's wife was sobbing from humiliation and apologizing to anyone who came near her. She seized them into her clutching arms, describing to them the extent of her grief. Mrs. Nott finally sought them to take her daughter by the arm and guide her to the carriage and take her home, but she refused to move from her chair with the storm going on until Lucius offered to escort her.
He escorted her out of the front door and across the drawbridge with Mrs. Nott to his left and Eliza fastened to his right. He handed her off in the carriage after her mother, and as she stepped into the carriage, she chastely leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Embarrassed, she scurried into the carriage and shut the door on him. Shaking his head, he went back to the castle.
After collecting his cloak and wand from the antechamber, Lucius stood and scanned the crowd for Theo, whom he eventually found when he went into the foyer talking to his parents. He approached and pulled him aside.
"Who was it that fell from the balcony?" he asked in a hushed whisper.
Theo glanced around them and then went through the front doors. They walked beneath an alcove in the front of the castle grounds and stood beneath the arch of the drawbridge.
"It was one of the Crabbes. The eldest son, Douglas," he explained.
"Really?" he exclaimed with all manner of surprise, "I thought the families were very close."
"Past tense now, I should say," Theo remarked solemnly.
They crossed the bridge together off the Goyle property line, with the wind and rain casting torrents of water over them. The carriages were all lined up and waiting for them, bending around on the trail that led all the way into the Wynn Hollow forest.
"It is still early," Lucius said, "Would you accompany me to Knockturn Alley?"
"To relive the past?" Theo replied, with a small smirk, "Yes, of course, Lucius, if we must."
Once they reached the edge of the property line, they both Apparated. It occurred to Lucius too late that he had not asked Theo if he was sober enough to do so, but when he popped into the quiet, dark Knockturn Alley, he saw his friend already there a few paces in front of him at The White Wyvern, completely dry and unsplinched.
"Which way did we go?" Lucius asked.
Theo pointed behind him. "I think left."
They walked down the cobblestone street together in the quiet darkness. The clouds were dark and fast moving in the sky above them; the storms had not reached London yet, but it appeared they were fast tracking east in their direction.
"Did you enjoy your time with my sister?" Theo asked him with a casual tone, but the higher lilt in his tone suggested to Lucius that he was quite interested to know the truth.
"Oh, yes, before I could even dance with her, she dissolved into hysterics," Lucius complained, "I think my ribs are bruised."
"Hysterics?" Theo asked curiously, "Whatever for?"
"She said she was afraid of storms," he said, "And then the lights went out, and she was frightened of the dark. When Douglas Crabbe fell over the railing, she fainted away in my arms."
"She isn't afraid of anything," he replied, curling his lips in disgust, "In fact, she was bitten quite fiercely by a several garden gnomes by rushing at them with a broom only just last week. She has a temper."
"You mean to say she was fabricating the entire thing?" he asked, and scowled.
And then of course, it became quite plain. Eliza had been on her way to the courtyard when he encountered her. It was he who suggested he escort her through the darkness of the courtyard, as she would have been well aware what time it was.
"That minx," Theo exclaimed quite playfully, "She tricked you."
"She annoyed me," Lucius corrected, his voice dark.
"Here," Theo gestured.
They found the alleyway they had run down. Lucius lit his wand and scanned the cobblestone. In the tiny cracks of stone, he could perhaps see remnants of Scarlett's blood stained deeply, if it was truly hers, but likely rain had cleared most of it. They walked down the familiar alleyway, and the hair along the back of his neck stood up as the air turned electric. He heard distant thunder as he came to a stop near the end of the alley. Rubbish bins were stacked in front of the brick wall. The other side of it was Diagon Alley, in a small crevice between two of the stores.
"This is it," Theo announced.
They both looked up the alley but being here did not remind Lucius of any obscure detail he missed during the crime. In fact, it seemed pointless to have come here at all.
"This was stupid," Lucius said, "I have wasted both of our time."
He began to walk back up the alley but stopped when Theo did not move. He was staring at the wall where Lucius had once stood.
"Theo?" he asked.
"You think I only fancied you for an hour," he said quietly.
Lucius paused. "I am sorry."
Theo laughed and it echoed down the alleyway. It was the painful kind, the sort of laugh that cut through air like knives and lingered, still bleeding, long after the sound was gone.
"Never mind," Theo announced, shrugging off his internal thoughts.
He trudged away from the wall and tried to pass Lucius, who stepped to his right to block his path. His palm touched flat against his shoulder, and Theo inhaled deeply. They were silent as they looked at one another. Lucius did not know why he had stopped him, and Theo did not know why he let him.
All at once, the rain swept through, and with a giant burst of thunder, it began to pour in heavy sheets across the alleyway. Rain drenched Lucius's pale hair into long strands around his face. Droplets fell and shimmered across his pale skin, and Theo swallowed.
"Lucius," he said, his voice strangled in half agony and half hope.
Smooth hands fell around his jaw and Lucius kissed him suddenly. Soft and wanting, he pressed him back against the wall. The force sent a jolt through Theo's chest. Hands gripped his arm, and Lucius's fingers were digging into the fabric of his sleeves hard.
Lightning struck the sky above them. The sound was ear splitting, and Lucius broke the kiss and looked up at the sky. Theo tried to keep his breathing even as he watched him.
"How did Candra find his robes?" Lucius suddenly asked.
"I'm sorry?" Theo asked.
He tilted his chin down and looked at Theo. They were chest to chest still, Theo's legs parted to accommodate Lucius in between them.
"He stripped his robes off in front of the pub, and when he came up to me, he was dressed," he murmured, "Which would account for the person I heard Apparating, if he managed to get his bracelet off, but that would mean…"
"He killed Scarlett Greengrass," Theo finished.
"Or at the very least," Lucius replied, "He saw who did."
Theo noticed Lucius had never let go of his arm, but his eyes were cast toward the ground near them. He also failed to notice the rain or the storm rolling above them. He was just about to speak, when invisible walls pressed on all sides of him and the air in his lungs was forced out of his mouth in a gasp. He landed roughly outside black iron gates covered in rain droplets and fell back onto the gravel drive. Lucius had Apparated steadily and remained on his feet, and he tapped the gate with his wand.
"Some warning next time?" Theo complained, as he got to his feet.
He used his wand to siphon off the gravel and mud from his back and deposited them back to the ground. They walked up the long sloping cobblestone drive to the Malfoy Manor. Theo knew better than to interrupt Lucius in one of his pondering moods, so he followed behind him silently. They opened the front door and stepped in. Theo dried his robes, but Lucius did not. Instead, he walked up the marble staircase and his robes left puddles of water in his wake.
They made it to his chambers. Lucius unfastened his cloak from his throat and draped it across his desk. Theo scrambled and picked it up. He dried it for him with his wand, but Lucius carried on, floating around the room like a wraith, removing items of clothing and leaving them on various surfaces. He drifted through the door to his closet, which was refashioned from the room next door and nearly the same size as the rest of his bedroom, but it was reassembled into drawers fastened up along all four walls and displays of shoes, racks for cloaks and ties. He had several mechanical watches and jewelry arranged in a box which sat upon a table in the center of the room. This table had drawers on all four sides, full of other clothing objects. There was a full-length mirror in between two of the cloak closets.
Theo averted his eyes as Lucius changed in the side room. When he returned, he saw that he left his hair dripping wet around his shoulders. As it started to air dry while he paced about the room, the bottom half of his hair curled into a slight wave.
When Lucius was finally done thinking, his eyes snapped back to attention, as if he wasn't aware how he ended up here in the first place. He stood in the center of the room near his desk, and idly, he moved toward it and pulled open a drawer where he kept his cigarillos and lit one with the tip of his wand.
"How do you do it?" Theo asked him finally, a question that had burned inside of him more than once.
"Do what?" he asked, as he exhaled smoke above his head.
"Just turn it off," he murmured quietly, "All of it. You didn't even notice how we got here. How can you kiss me the way you did in one moment and Apparate us here the next and walk around without noticing you're dropping wet clothes on your sketches and dripping water all over your house?"
Lucius set his jaw and didn't answer.
Theo laughed. "No, you know what, I get it. I actually do. It's the mark of a genius, I guess, to get so consumed by your own thoughts that you forget to eat or don't know where you end up when you're lost in thought. I just wish I could be so in control of my emotions the way you are that I can shut them off to make room for something bigger than myself."
"I don't understand," Lucius said quietly, "I don't shut anything off, I just—"
"You just put it somewhere else," Theo interrupted, "And I wish, Lucius, I wish, I could see inside your head to know what tonight all meant, but part of me doesn't want to, because I know it didn't mean anything. It's just…you."
He started to say something, but Theo held his hand up and kept going. "I want to know how you never noticed that I spent years madly in love with you and dying by your side. I broke last year, I lost control, I couldn't stop myself from touching you—and now I feel like it's my fault that she's dead."
"You didn't kill her," He argued.
Theo bit his lip. "We could put all of this to rest if we just told the truth. But it would cost you everything. It would disgrace me, sure, but I have brothers who can carry on my family legacy. My parents would be disappointed, but it would free me up to my studies in Arithmancy."
"I understand our predicament quite well," Lucius replied, "I am living it."
"And that is why it is my fault that, at the very least, her family cannot rest," he replied, "By losing control that night, I ruined everything. But you're so calm and collected. I can barely stand to be sober, Lucius, I don't know how you manage it."
His eyes flashed, and he turned his head away. His hair fell across his face as he went to the balcony. He shoved the doors open and went outside, and Theo sighed at the sight of him smoking and leaning against the railing. He seemed to hold the very fabrics of the universe together, all the woven threads of it in his fingers.
He was only on the balcony for a few moments before he flipped his cigarillo over the edge and came back in. His expression was unreadable, and Theo thought he was going to carry on pacing about the room until he suddenly kicked the chair at his drafting table over in a fury. It sailed across the floor and landed with a loud clatter by the door. He turned around the room, upending his desk and throwing the extinguished lamp on the table. The clear glass shattered against his bookshelves. He threw reams of parchment, quills, and inkwells, the latter of which splattered black all over the wooden floors.
Theo moved to a corner of the room out of the way, waiting for him to stop. The door opened and his father appeared in his dressing gown and a candle. Lucius pulled his wand from his robes and pointed it at the door—it slammed shut on his father and locked.
"Lucius," Theo interrupted, crossing the room, "That's enough."
He reached out to grab his wrist and rip him away from one of the bookshelves against the wall. Sparks emitted from his wand and with a flick on his wrist, Lucius tossed Theo across the room from him. He landed roughly just over the end of his bedframe on the mattress.
Lucius went back to the balcony. He swung his leg over the edge, and Theo scrabbled off of the bed. He wasn't so far up that the fall would kill him, but it would likely hurt him, especially if he landed in the hedges.
"Lucius—" he began, but Lucius turned his wand on the balcony doors and they too slammed shut and locked.
The curtains fluttered over the glass and Theo exhaled. The door behind him opened and Mrs. Malfoy rushed through the door.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I don't know," Theo said, "I don't—he just lost it."
She went to the balcony doors and tried to wrench open the door handle and wrenched her hand away with a cry, as it had burned her entire palm. She pulled the curtains off to the side and Theo's eyes went wide. Lucius was gone.
A slowing spell brought him to the ground safely. He quickly left the garden and threw open the gate to the forest. The wind howled around him, and he stomped off the forest trail and into the wild depths. He stepped across beds of moss and springy ferns as he made his way through the copse of trees deeper into the woods.
He made it to a familiar cliff overlooking rolling hills of countryside and sat at the edge, his legs dangling over the side of the cliff, and he let the rain wash over him and chill him to the bone until he stopped feeling the rage nestled deep in his chest. He stayed there until every emotion withered away to shivering cold and exhaustion, and there was nothing left to think.
The sky was just a bruise in shades of pink, purple, and blue when he walked slowly back to the trail and up to the stone garden fence. His clothes were soaked and ruined, and his hair hung in curtains, damp, around his face. As he walked back into the garden, the back door opened, and Theo slipped out. He met him midway to the house before Lucius stopped walking.
"I think I have it figured out," Lucius said, his cutting across the lawn high and clear and dangerous.
"Lucius," Theo breathed, taking a step toward him.
He walked with a gait that made Theo unsure of whether he was going to kiss him or kill him, yet he didn't have the courage to turn back and run. When Lucius made it across the garden to him, he stood hardly a foot apart from him, and took one long look at him. Theo knew that look, had relished it in the past hours while he waited for his friend to return. He had long since envied the expressiveness of Lucius's eyes, and loved it a little too, in his own way.
"Lucius, don't," Theo began.
"The answer was right in front of me and yet it eluded me for so long," Lucius said.
"I don't know what you are talking about," Theo said.
"I can compartmentalize everything until I can't anymore, and then I just…"
"I would have this conversation with you," Theo interrupted, taking him firmly by the shoulders, "Believe me, I would. But there are Aurors in the parlor to arrest us."
Lucius blinked and Theo watched him slowly turn in on himself. The openness, which a night in the forest inspired in him was gone. He became a gentleman of refinery and taste, and Theo watched as the spark of truth extinguished as his expression turned neutral.
"Very well," Lucius said.
He dried himself as he walked up the path to the doorway, and by the time he reached it, his hair fell down his back in soft wisps, his clothes were clean. He fixed his tie and folded the collar of his shirt as he walked up the stairs to the back door. By the time Lucius Malfoy stepped into the threshold, he was a cold shadow.
Aurors were waiting in the foyer for them with their wands at their sides. Mrs. Malfoy was cradling Mr. Malfoy's head in her lap on a small seat by the stairs, her eyes shiny with tears. As her son came in the room, she cried out for him to stop, but the Aurors moved in front of her and advanced on them.
"Gentlemen," Lucius said, taking his wand from his pocket.
He dropped it onto a table in the hallway near him and stepped into the foyer. An Auror met him in the doorway, twisted his hands behind his back, and tapped his wand against his wrists. Invisible ropes twisted around his hands so tightly he knew they would leave a mark. He shoved him roughly against the wall as another Auror overtook Theo.
"I've been waiting months for this, Malfoy," the Auror hissed in his ear, "Don't be so docile that I can't enjoy it."
Lucius was silent, which the Auror responded to by ripping his arm and pushing him forward toward the door. The last look he had was of his parents breaking down. They walked him outside into the light morning air. Birds chirruped from the trees, and dew settled along the grass in front of the door. Wild white morning blossoms erupted from the grass, and somewhere a fountain was spritzing off in the far north garden.
He bent his head and folded himself into the black Ministry car and did not look behind him.