Hello lovely readers! Thank you for the reviews, reads, and follows! I appreciate every one of them, and every one of YOU!
So FF is doing some "fun" things with formatting when I've updated some of the last few chapters, and adamantly refused to put in things like the lines I place in between scenes. So I'm going to try to edit that in the future, when I get the time. I've tried to fight it several times and each time it's given me "The Bird". I apologize if it reads roughly.
As there is Thanksgiving coming up here in the good old USA, my quasi-normal schedule of updating is going to be off. I am going to try to work on this from home, but let's be real here: family + children + holiday including COPIOUS amounts of desserts is going to be nuts. But I'll press forward as quickly as possible! But hooray for stretchy-pants day. I hope you all have pie and pudding in whatever quantities you deem necessary.
Warnings: suggestive and mildly dub-con somethings coming. Treachery. Lies. More fun.
So on with the show!
Chapter 19
The near-silent morning had created a haven in Lucius Malfoy's private study, broken only by the sound of his own soft breathing as he scanned over parchment containing reports of the holdings of his House, and the overall management of his accounts across the Malfoy lands, but also the trade accounts with fellow aligned Houses. His occasional sigh, or the rustling of the rough paper was the only sounds to be heard in the vast room where he sat.
Lucius very much enjoyed his time in solitude, where he could do as he wished, and indulge in what he desired without hesitation. Whether that was several moments of repose where he could observe from the window at the delectable shape of a young woman that walked across the courtyard below; her hips swaying saucily from side-to-side unintentionally. Or partaking in a goblet of a fine vintage should the whimsy strike him. It was wondrously lavish to be the Lord of the House, truly.
The Lord straightened his back to release the tension in it, and pulled his work into his lap while he folded his long leg atop his knee, and he bounced his booted foot a moment to bring some blood flow back into it. It was, however, an unfortunate byproduct that one's limbs could go numb from the monotony of being seated while the accounts were to be tallied and managed.
This burden would typically fall to one's Lady Wife, which was a standard in this age among the Lord Houses, but as Lord Malfoy himself had….. A variety of interests, he insisted that he managed all of the accounts himself and insisted that his wife entertain herself with more feminine pursuits. Though he himself was not entirely certain what that would involve, he staunchly forbid Narcissa to have any contact with any of his private financial matters or records whatsoever.
A soft knock at the door brought him out of his absorbed mental state, and he groaned just a little as he conceded a single "Enter" at the door to the room. Swinging open slowly, a young woman holding a tray with a small assortment of edible items, and a corked bottle walked forth with her head down subserviently. Lucius' attention was piqued away from his work momentarily as he silently conceded that a refreshment was indeed what could sustain him through this present mountain of paperwork.
The youthful domestic was attired in a simple light rough brown dress with a white apron, as were all of the young domestics within the House that served for 'general' purposes. It marked her specifically as someone low-ranking, and indeed also low-born within the lands. Someone likely from a questionable background or the product of being born on 'the wrong side of the sheets', but still fortunate enough to have secured an esteemed station within the Grand House here with the Malfoy Lord and his family.
It was routine for those young women holding this position to be ones whom were plucked from their own homes in the towns that peppered the lands, families poor and unable to feed all of the children bursting forth from it. It alleviated the stress to the home, as well as brought able-hands into the House.
And oh, what able hands Lord Malfoy employed! The blond haired Lord watched from beneath his brows as she approached, seemingly keeping his focus at his work. He enjoyed observing indirectly, finding that people were able to maintain their normal function and gestures without the notion of scrutiny. But he was, indeed, studying her.
Her hair was insignificant; pulled back properly and away from her face. Inconsequential as far as Lucius was concerned. Her face; forgettable and plain. Though, her skin was fresh and lovely and as far as he could ascertain, unblemished as far as her face, neck and the very modest décolletage revealed to him. The revelation caused a certain influential appendage of his to prepare to assert itself into negotiations. Lucius rolled his hips forward slightly to provide just a degree or two of comfort space within his trousers, as the girl dutifully set the tray down before her Lord, silently setting his plate, and situating his fresh goblet for him. Her voice was very small, yet unmelodic and almost scratchy from lack of use.
"Will that be all, your Lordship?" Her small hands, also fairly free of blemish and appearing to be –at least- decently cared for. Short nails and un-calloused palms. Lucius stood without any prior signal to her, and the young woman hunkered her back subserviently, moving slightly away to give the Lord room to pass, but Lucius stood fast.
The girl waited tensely, expecting her master to bid her leave, or provide her a command, but he did neither. Lucius simply took one graceful step, his eyes focused entirely on her diminutive form so cowed before him, her breaths quick and nervous. He felt a surge wash through his loins as his breeches were then occupied by a veritable obelisk of flesh. It was not a girl he had taken note of before this time, but this mattered little to him. His personal valet knew his tastes, and oversaw that every one of them was met with consistency and accuracy.
Lucius drew a fingertip along the edge of the girl's dress collar; light and slow. She dared not look up at him as he slowly stalked around her, taking in her form, examining all that she was with intense scrutiny. The Lord leaned in and pressed his lightly moistened lips at the very center of the minimal expanse of flesh exposed to him between her neck and upper shoulders. She smelled and tasted clean and fresh, and he opened his lips slightly and allowed his tongue a brief taste of her flesh. The girl shivered at the touch, unable to contain her response, but said nothing and kept her hands clasped in front of her.
Using his much-larger male form to cloister her against his desk, he caged her body with his own so he could feel the heat of her in front of him. Dipping his knees, he bought his hands down just over her hips and over her the rough fabric of her dress so he could grip it around her mid-thigh and slowly drag it up. Keeping his breath at the back of her neck he ghosted over the small area of her exposed flesh as he did so, bringing gooseflesh within the wake of his ministrations. The girl in front of him dipped her head and stuttered out a noise; something between a sign and a repressed moan. Her upper arms and shoulders tensing as she gripped her hands tighter, having nowhere else to put them.
As Lucius brought the hem of the dress higher, he intentionally brushed the backs of her legs as he raised it, creating tickling sensations as he did so, which made her shift her hips in response. Lucius grazed the hard piece he held in his pants imperceptibly along the valley of her cheeks as he torturously continued to bring her dress higher. The girl wrung her hands and bit her lip, and though Lucius could see how she trembled and her breaths hitched from behind her, he did not see her face.
With bunched folds of dress in his hands, he slipped his palms beneath their curtain deftly, traveling the expanse of her threadbare undergarments, and dipped the hooks of his thumbs within them to draw them down. The sensation of his touch was clearly a foreign experience, as she pressed her thighs together tightly and suppressed the moan that she tried to eke itself from her lips.
Without loosening the undergarment she wore, Lucius inserted his hands within it expertly, and sampled her skin with the tips of his fingers as he danced them over the tops of her bare thighs. Her breath had moved from fast and nervous to deep and wanting as she made the most minimal of keens beneath her breath. The feather-light touches of his right hand moved inward at her center, only grazing the very tops of the hair that was nestled at the apex there. She arched her back unexpectedly and gasped, causing Lucius to withdraw his hand, and the girl opened her mouth noiselessly as though she wished to cry her protest at the loss of sensation.
The control over her reactions spurred Lucius and he swiped again just over the thatch of hair that covered her feminine delicacy, and she predictably undulated beneath his expert handling. He teased her like this until her hands had loosened themselves apart and had unceremoniously plopped themselves on the wood in front of her as she writhed rhythmically, her thighs rubbing together as pressure had begun within her center with no hope of being set free.
He could feel the humidity that was building under his hand, and a few times had danced a fingertip along the plump lips concealed there. But his self-indulgence was far from over; as the girl writhed in near silence under the expert pleasure beset upon her inexperienced person, Lucius had slowly begun rubbing the length of his hardness along the seam between her cheeks, building a pressure all his own as well.
His body demanded gratification, and while his left hand exited the warm confined beneath her dress to reach the ties on his breeches, the girl felt the loss that was removed from her humid and soppy sex. As the Lord pulled efficiently at the pulls at his waist to free himself, the girl found herself wantonly pushing back at him with her hips. Lucius growled hungrily, pleased at her willingness to open to his next advances.
Mere fractions of a second before Lucius could give freedom to his flesh, their dalliance was interrupted as an abrupt trembling that shook up from the earth rattled through the House. From the very foundations beneath the floor the trembling had rattled everything around and near them from someplace around the exterior, as though something had impacted the ground with great force. The girl beneath Lucius's hands gasped and gripped the desk she was leaning over in her despicably wanton state with fear and shock.
The Lord righted his body immediately, and untangled himself from the pleasures he was indulging on with her flesh. He gave her a shove with the same hand he had used to titillate her body, positioning it at her left shoulder and pushed her toward the door. The girl needed no other prompting and quickly scampered out of the room, righting as much as she could on her person so her shame would not be so evident upon her leaving. The Lord of the Houses' tastes were well-known, and the undertone of a domestic woman hastily leaving his study in a flurry was as typical as a morning constitutional.
Lucius Malfoy was irritated at the interruption with his plain little plaything. His trousers secured, he strode from the room with an air of fury that swept around him in sinuous waves. His strides were purposeful through the House, and on several occasions he could hear the unrest of the Household staff from their various corners, as well as shrieks of terror from the outside.
The tempo of his travel shifted from irritated, to urgent and he began to run. At several points in his haste, he both bumped and slammed into various servants who were rushing indoors, expressions of terror writ about their persons. When Lucius made to fully open a heavy door to the outdoors, he caught a low and menacing hiss that seared into his bones and caused him to wince in pain.
His eyes immediately fell upon the form of one Lord Riddle, standing unperturbed and calm, upon his very doorstep. His elegant expression and hair coifed just so, as the Lord preferred. His hazel eyes betrayed nothing but a smug patience.
The overwhelming sight behind the Lord was what Lucius found to be the most dismaying. Looming from behind more than a few dozen feet away was the towering form of a ruby-red Dragon, whose body was adorned in fearsome rock-like spikes that jutted away from its spiny face. The jaws were open and displayed rows of bone-like teeth, and yellow eyes that menaced the Lord with a burning hatred. Its vast wings blotted out the sun around it as it waved them lazily, as though stretching them at its own pleasure.
Lucius found that he had no air in his lungs, and chuckling, Lord Riddle waved a hand dismissively at the fellow Lord. "Oh, come now Lucius. Don't tell me you aren't man enough to face a Dragon." He scoffed at the cowering Lord who refused to peel his eyes away from the form of the massive beast making itself at home in the grounds at front of his castle.
Lucius sputtered lamely, unable to formulate any response to Tom, and the Lord further chuckled his amusement. "Try to contain yourself, Lucius. I'm certain that as long as you don't make any sudden or unexpected movements, the Dragon should be able to restrain itself from igniting you while alive." Without pause, Tom waved his hand at Lucius and continued. "This is not the reason for my arrival. Though I am pleased that you are suitably terrorized by the sight of my companion here, I do need to insist that you contain your bodily responses so that we may discuss certain progressions in our mutual plans."
The Malfoy Lord nodded his head absently, his eyes finally darting to Tom, but then back to the red Dragon; its yellow eyes examining him with unabashed disgust. If the beast had possessed lips, Lucius was certain they would have been raised in an imperious sneer. The monster hissed at Tom's back, and the sound punctured his skull like shards of glass through wet parchment, and Lucius clutched at his ears.
Tom raised his hand and cast a commanding gaze back at the Dragon. The thing behind him abated the noise, and looked at Tom as intently as he did at the Dragon. "Now, now, my friend," He admonished. "Lucius is an ally. You'll come to humor him, just as I do, in time." The Dragon tilted its head slightly and looked back at Lucius.
It is a gnat. It breathed, haughtily, and Tom laughed openly.
"I promise you, Lord Malfoy has his merits. Try very hard not to be tempted into putting him into your belly." Tom assured the beast, and it begrudgingly snorted and slackened its aggression, casting its yellow eyes to the side as it seemingly grew curious at the surroundings it currently occupied.
Lucius Malfoy shook his head, trying to clear the receding pain that had threatened to split his skull in twain. Tom Riddles words of mockery still floating around in his mind, and he stood to look at Tom again. Lord Riddle imperiously strode into the House, leaving Lucius abandoned at the door looking at the Dragon. The spiked head swung his direction again, and with a jump, Lucius darted back in the door and slammed it behind him, leaning against it to catch his breath.
Tom had taken it upon himself to enter the House completely without Lucius as a chaperone within it, and the Lord found himself scampering behind him to catch up. When Lucius finally reached Tom, he found himself a bit out of breath. Both from the shock of opening his door to a Dragon, but also from the brief sprint.
"Lord Riddle-" Lucius began, and Tom jerked a hand up at him, glaring in his direction.
"Not here." Tom ground out, and flicked his hand with an expectant gesture. Lucius understood the meaning; Lord Riddle was commanding they be in privacy before discussing anything. Lucius took the lead and showed Lord Riddle to his personal study. The same one he had only left moments before while indulging himself in pursuits of pleasure.
Upon entry, Tom wrinkled his nose. "It smells of fox musk in here, Lucius. You really must be more discerning with whom you allow in your personal rooms." Tom's distain was clear, and Lucius found himself fighting with what he realized was a blush that had crept to his face. Lucius Malfoy, blushing! His mind reeled with self-admonishment. Pull yourself together, you gods-damned fool!
Tom Riddle positioned himself at the edge of a chair, and with a wave of his hand, he loosed magic from it in a wave of air as though to clean dust from its top, though the chair seat was pristinely cleaned. The gesture was clear, however, and Lucius cocked his head in disbelief before he took to staring at Tom expectantly. Tom settled himself comfortably and looked upon his ally's expression and scoffed.
"Oh, come now Lucius. Surely you aren't flustered over a few words between myself and that Dragon, are you?" Lucius eyed Tom suspiciously now. First he was insulted to his face in the company of a beast that could have easily cooked him down to his bones, and proceeded to burn the fortress of his House to ask and dust, and now Tom sat arrogantly in a chair in his study and bade him to brush it away as though it were nothing?
Lucius expression turned angry, and Tom interrupted him immediately.
"Understand, Lord Malfoy that the Dragon I have won and brought back as my companion is, by nature, a capricious and diabolical creature at its very core. Rest assured that if given the change, this beast would lay waste to anything it deemed to be in the path it set itself upon, and sees any one of us as even unfit enough to be considered ants at its feet." He shook his head. "Anything and everything I say to this creature in abuse of you, or any other Lord within our great United Houses is nothing more than an insurance for our survival." The Lord's hazel eyes met Lucius' unwaveringly.
"Any coarse vulgarity against your person, of the honorability and stature of your great House is nothing more than a clever ruse to paint you as my underline, and subordinate, and therefore its minion as well."
Surprisingly, Lucius found himself pacified at this. Though, not entirely relaxed from his previous bristling at the volley of insults, he nodded his head congenially and began gathering his composure again.
"I see, Lord Riddle." Lucius began, using Tom's formal title, and Tom clucked his tongue with gentle admonishment.
"Now Lucius, we can't let a little misunderstanding threaten our alliances of Houses, and cloud our friendship, now can we?" Tom's tone was honey-smooth and almost kind, like kind of scolding a gentle grandfather would give a young child. Lucius felt compelled to shake his head at the fellow Lord, but he wasn't entirely sure why he agreed. No one spoke about the Lord of The House of Malfoy in such a manner! Some part of his mind railed, but was pacified with Tom's hypnotic choice of words so that he found himself agreeing that Tom had made a very excellent point.
"What excellence we find ourselves in agreement, isn't it Lucius?" Tom purred. "Now to set matters to rights I want us to review the communications young Draco has sent you to see if there are any bits of information we might use to our advantage-" This brought Lucius much out of his light haze and he opened his desk to locate the communications his son had sent over the last weeks away.
"Most regrettably, Tom, it seems that there is not much indication of any interest to any of us, as I'm certain Draco intended it. The letters arrived sealed with the House of Gresham, so it is certain that the Lord himself examined them before they were sent to us." Tom accepted the letters in his graceful hands and scanned them as Lucius had spoken to him. Noting that there was truly, nothing of grand note, Tom handed them back.
"Then what say you to the notion that you send your Lady Wife to the House of Gresham for a visit upon her son?" Lucius' eyes widened in surprise.
"Narcissa? Whatever for? Surely a woman who spends her time in nothing but the view of her gardens, and enjoying her woman's work would be no use to us in any capacity." Lord Malfoy dismissed the idea of his wife without skipping a beat, but Tom pressed further.
"Be that as it may, Lucius, the Lady of the House is still the fruit of the Ancient House of Black, and the House of Black once carried a great deal of stature among the Great Houses. Too once it possessed some of the most cunning and ruthless minds as their Lords, and she hails from that same stock." Lucius made a face of disbelief, thinking at his quiet and demure wife. So uninteresting in her blandness that it let him to disgust to believe her anything other than a mere puppet. A beautiful and frequently tantalizing one, but a puppet nonetheless. Lucius sighed and rolled his eyes.
"I do not believe she will prove to be anything more than a liability, Tom. She simply has no grasp of politics not intrigue."
"This might be true, and if this be the case then she will prove an innocent insertion, and will be unable to withhold any information she gathers from us?" Tom's dark brows lifted. "Certainly the offer to see her one and only son, your sole heir, would be as an undeniable temptation for a mother, wouldn't you agree?" Lucius sighed his capitulation with an air of unwillingness and Tom pressed his case. "And should there be any danger to her in her travels, well, she has already begotten your true progeny. A great House, even one within the Guild, would not dare suffer a Lady of status to come to harm in her travels through their lands. Why the implication would mean war." The final implication caused Lucius shaking disbelief to turn into the raising pique of his eyebrows.
Though the Lord had no real love for the woman, she was the Lady of his House and the mother to his heir. He did oblige her safety and comfort beneath his roof with sufficient entertainment and activity to fill her days without complaint, as she had been trained at his hand not to do. Lord Riddle did present a notion that could finally prove them to have justification to press forward with their plans.
Lucius' hesitation must have been evident on his face, because Tom's expression grew shrewd. "Do you doubt my strategy, Lucius?"
Lord Malfoy shook his head hesitantly, and found his eyes had wandered to his desktop to muse with imaginary dust particles upon it. "No, Tom, it is not that I doubt your prowess in strategy. Certainly not. You have ever been a master of masters in any political games." Lucius pauses, his eyes darting back to Tom briefly, nervously.
From behind the great wooden door to the study, Narcissa Malfoy found herself pressed quite indecorously against the grain of the smooth wood, her delicate hand pressed into her mouth in a fist, and tears of rage and fear flowing down her face in rivers. She couldn't believe her ears! That son of a bitch means to murder me! Her mind screamed.
Narcissa withdrew the magic she had cast out past the door to carry the Lords voices to her and pushed her body away from the door. She refused to entertain even a single word further of the blasphemous and venomous plans that were taking shape within the room she spied upon, and with her silent steps, ushered herself back to her personal rooms.
The halls about castle Malfoy were eerily empty; it seemed that with the presence of a Dragon at their very front door, the majority of the staff and attendants that resided here were pressing themselves to windows and peeking out from doorways to gape at the monstrous creature which besmirched their noble landscape. Its hissing and malicious countenance equally horrifying and fascinating, for none in these lands had ever lain eyes on a Dragon before.
Fighting to keep herself from tearing through the halls towards her destination, Narcissa cried openly but without sound. A practice she had been forced to master within the very first year of her marriage, and one she had learned was a valuable skill to have.
She knew Lucius didn't have a care for her; that much had never been questioned. Theirs was a marriage of arrangement, and not of love or affections. She had endured him as a husband, with all his cruelty and his perverse inflictions upon her mind and body without complaint. And in turn, he had given her a son, one she had been able to love and dote upon without restriction as Lucius found the handling of an infant to be distasteful and annoying. She, on the other hand, had discovered in motherhood that there was some joy to have been found in the world where she had ever only known disappointments and grief.
That shade bastard Tom Riddle meant to spell her death to start a war! Narcissa's sharp mind raged suddenly as she shoved her despair and fear away. Tom Riddle was nothing more than the illegitimate son who had come calling in the middle of the night to the crumbling House of Gaunt to supplant himself into the Lord's seat by force.
His arrival was followed by the widely-undiscussed and mysterious passings of The Lord Marvolo and his heir Morfin. Though it was no great loss either as the two were near-mad, but it had been whispered that Tom's mother, Merope, had fled in the night with the first man who would have her. A low-born coachmen who had caught her eye, and tempted her away from the filthy gropings of her father and brother. No, her escape from those monsters was nothing short of a miracle in her benefit, and she was not the first female-born Gaunt who had been mistreated at the hands of her Lords.
The facts of this she had spied from her father, Cygnus, upon the sudden wrest of the hereditary position Tom had assumed some two score prior. But Tom was right about one thing: Narcissa was born of the Ancient and most noble House of Black, and there were indeed minds born of it that were yet ruthless and cunning. She would be no defenseless weakling!
Arriving in her rooms, she shut her doors with poise and locked them, calling her magic to her fingertips to fortify her entryway against the curious ears of any passers-by. While her husband, Lucius, thought her resplendent in her rooms with embroidery and frippery, Narcissa was busy occupying her mind and honing her magic with ancient books she had embezzled from her husband's libraries.
She always came at his behest with haste when he summoned her to his library; it was always a game for her to replace the book she had borrowed and try to locate another that would suit her pursuits adequately. And while Lucius would rut at her body while she lay sprawled atop his wooden desk, she would silently be recanting the castings she had mastered over the last ten and five years under the roof of this House. It was all she could do to make this captivity bearable.
Satisfied that her room was safe, and private from any prying attentions, Narcissa turned to her private and comfortable domicile and considered her situation carefully. First, there was a Dragon in the front yards of their castle luxuriating in its oppressiveness at the people of her House. A gods-be-damned-Dragon. She thought to herself, and sighed with a little distress. She had known that Lord Nott had found a location where wild Dragons would reside, but in the literature she had pilfered, it hadn't seemed very likely that one of them would deign to lower itself into the service of a mere man. A Lord, granted, but Dragons couldn't acknowledge any titles mortals touted, could they?
Narcissa pressed her mind forward. Second, the Dragon was in firm league with Tom Riddle, and that in and of itself would lead to nothing good. Tom was an incarnate of deception and villainy as much as that red Dragon was, she was sure of it to her very bones. As certain as she was of Tom's lack of integrity in supporting the Houses of the United, she was assured that this Dragon would have no feelings of affection that would bar it from boiling a man alive when the time came. And the only man she cared anything for was her son.
She pressed her hands to her temples in sudden desperation; Draco was so far away from her now, and she was unable to provide him any protection! He was all alone, in the House of Gresham; the oft-antagonistic family that so fervently clashed with her marital House. "Damn, and blast!" she swore, softly. The looming imagine in her mind of that malicious beast at her doorstep caused her heart to clench violently. This was no longer a game, she realized. This was very, very real. And very, very dangerous now. The threat of life, and limb was upon her as surely as the sun would rise every morning with the dawn.
As much as she despised her husband, and could rarely keep from wishing for his unexpected and obviously accidental separation from his mortal coil, Narcissa knew the man would not risk his sole heir to the whim of a wild and malevolent Dragon. It could mean the very end of the legacy of his House, and since it seemed he was willing to place her in a position where her life, too, was in forfeit, she needed to find surety that Lucius meant to protect Draco in some way.
She shook the notion from her head, physically. She'd begun pacing her rooms as the thought, wringing her delicate hands as she poured through her thoughts. The Lady allowed her magic to roam freely through her rooms, casting it out into waves around her that moved furniture, and levitated vases and the like. It was a scene of complete chaos surrounding herself as she continued to whip herself into a frenzy.
No. It would not to do try to bring these concerns to Lucius. Not only would it reveal to him her deceits of feigned ignorances, but Lucius was not one to suffer any notion that Narcissa was anything more than an empty-headed heiress that had been married off to him as a brood-mare. Her insolences had been met in many times past with beatings that had left her all but broken, and now was not the time to have his concept of her come crashing down around his ears. No, no; Lucius was not to be entrusted with their son's safety, this would have to fall to her.
Her remembrance as to Tom's suggestion suddenly sailed through her conscious, and she realized that the best possible outcome would be if she were to travel to Draco herself, and be accepted as a guest under the ruse of her own loneliness for her child. Certainly the Gresham's would concede to such a concession, she wondered.
Her decision made, Narcissa summoned writing materials with her magic, and with her elegant script, crafted a letter to send to Tanner in Brandwell again with tidings of her hopes to travel to see Draco for yule celebrations. She did not dare make mention that the massive form of a wild red Dragon was gracing her front yards at the moment, understanding fully that should her letter be intercepted, her life would certainly be forfeit from the treason alone.
Her delicate mouth turned up in a smile as she mirthfully realized that, if she were to go, it would be the first time since she had become a married woman and Lady to a House, that there might be the possibility of seeing joyous celebrations that she had often experienced as a younger girl.
Yule was a time to celebrate the changing of the deepest darkness of days as the sun would linger further from that point forward, and the slow return to the fertile seasons that would await them in the months they looked forward to. Her smile crept up to her eyes as she remembered garlands of holly, and mistletoe that were strung in the Halls of her family when she was a little girl. How the candles would flicker their dancing lights over the decorations that were hung from the trees that had been brought indoors, and how she and her sisters would string garlands of berries and suet around the fir trees for the little winter birds, and would hear the birdsong in the morning with joy as they feasted on the bounty left for them.
Such joys she remembered had all but been lost to her in the long and lonely years she had left her home, and assumed the mantle of Lady Malfoy. But she had done her duty, and been rewarded with the comforts and benefits that she saw fit to take for herself, because it was not her Lord Husband who would have offered them to her.
Her quill flew across the page excitedly, and she blew gently along the ink in her haste to get the letter out to her mysterious correspondent. The sooner he knew, the sooner they could come up with a plan to secure her through the House Gresham, so that she would not have to come back.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tom sent the pile of letters scattering, and scoffed in disgust. None of them had any of the information he had hoped they would, and Lucius could see Tom's frustration plainly writ upon his face. And while it was not any fault of his own that his son's letters were clipped and lacked any hint of intrigue, he had begun to formulate in his consciousness that it was, perhaps, a very unwise idea to anger a man who had come modicum of control over a wild Dragon.
Tom's eyes conveyed his growing fury, and Lucius discovered that the only thing he had to offer was his stammering. It was an unwise combination and he knew it.
"This is all? All the letters you have received?" Tom demanded.
"This is everything." Lucius assented.
"So Draco mentions nothing anywhere in regard to the golden Dragons?" Tom questioned, though more for his own verbal edification than from need of confirmation from Lucius. Tom felt an urgency creep into him that felt strangely unlike himself, and he rubbed at where it had appeared within his physical person, somewhere within his chest. Seeing the focused act, Lucius looked to Tom.
"Is there something amiss, Tom?" He asked his compatriot, and Tom realized that he'd been making a spectacle of his person as he'd tended to the tension beneath his breastbone like some worrying woman.
"Yes Lucius, there are indeed things amiss." Tom spat, and he balled his hands into fists at his sides. "First, Nott withheld the location of the reds for weeks after he'd found it. Did you know?" He'd asked more conversationally than he had been expecting an actual answer, and Lucius balked. "Then the bastard planted information with Avery to get the Carrows to go on a wild goose chase in an area completely unrelated." He did all but stomp his foot like a child at the last statement, but continued.
"Much time has already been wasted, and we are still no closer to our objectives of successfully bringing the Guild Houses under our control." Lord Riddle pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and returned to his chair. "So many moons wasted, Lucius, with all these political agendas I have to contend with. And all for what? To delay the inevitable? I knew well with Nott, but yet gave him the window to produce his findings, yet he did not. And what advantage did that give him?" Tom's voice had risen considerably as he worked himself up further. "He threw Avery and the Lestranges off from accomplishing what none of them could have dared; to acquire a wild Dragon."
Lucius held his fingertips in a steeple beneath his chin as he watched Tom's ranting from his chair. The man's dark hair, so coifed and the picture of perfect Lordly arrogance, had shifted in slight disarray giving him a roguish look. Tom narrowed his eyes and looked at Lucius pointedly.
Tom bit back the statement on the tip of his tongue that the Dragon had mentioned that it could eat him, should it care to. Exposing his position of weakness, even with Lucius who was admittedly, the most loyal Lord to Tom's cause within the collection of Houses United. But even he was still a cowardly slug, and Tom couldn't feel confident that Lucius would not use that at some future point.
Tom slumped back in his chair, his gaze focused on Lucius. "I want you to summon the Carrow's to travel to the Houses of Harben and Abildgaard. Time is of the essence for us, and we need to start picking up speed." Lucius produced parchment to writ out the command. "And sent a letter to Lord Gresham. Bid him permit you to send your wife to her son, as she feels the keen pain of his absence in the face of the holiday celebrations. Let us not see if we can move her into position so that we might strike at the Heart of the Guild Houses and press onward with putting them in their proper place, don't you think?" Tom's smile returned, along with his smooth and suggestion-like commands. It gave Lucius a moment of hesitation as he could see Tom smooth his hair in one motion, reclaiming his poise and usual manner, as though his earlier outburst had been nothing to deem noteworthy.
Everything about this meeting had unsettled Lord Malfoy, though some aspects more than others. He'd never seen Lord Riddle lose control of his temper in such an erratic and scattered way. It was unusual, very much. While the Lord did not specifically have affection of his wife, Narcissa, she did still retain some use to him. On occasion, at least. But this hasty meeting in the shadow of the great wild beast that lay in wait at his literal doorstep…. Lucius wanted to shutter at the notion.
Having hatched a scheme to locate wild Dragons had been one thing, but finding one and bringing it back had proved entirely another. Lucius steeled his thoughts, certain that if he had them too loudly Lord Riddle would smell his deceit from where he sat.
Lucius and Thoros had both discovered what treachery was written in ancient hands about the race of red Dragons, and had unobtrusively agreed that the prospect should inevitably fall to one of myth and legend, and that Lord Riddle should never find them. The sacrifices, it appeared, were much too devastating.
It seemed that Thoros' ability to conceal that information had proven….. Unsuccessful. Lucius' eyes darted to Tom and back to his writings. Was that why he had not heard from Thoros in these last weeks? Tom had uncovered their deception, certainly, by what he had said, but what of Thoros? Lucius made note to himself mentally to call upon the House of Nott at his next moment of privacy to take counsel with Thoros.
As he finalized his letter and made to melt the wax of his Houses seal, his mind wandered back to the bout of pandering that had been interrupted not so much earlier on, and he mentally noted to have his valet locate that specific bounty for him for a later hour.
Being the Lord certainly was not without its privileges.