When the ritual finished, it left Arthur on his knees. Lake water lapped at his thighs, ice-cold and brackish. The ritual's power had eradicated the ice, making freezing water of it. He'd tipped forward, lost his footing on the lip. The hazards of necromancy.
Arthur fisted his hands under the water. He'd needed the lake, the water, to pull this off. What was born of water must be born again of its element. It was his good luck that the Malfoys owned a secluded source, hidden behind a towering stand of trees. He'd scouted it weeks ago, ensured he could make the ride blind-folded and fast. One firm tap to its hind had been enough to send the Abraxan galloping back toward the stables, its purpose for the night complete. Lucius raised truly glorious animals. If Lucius decided not to murder Arthur after finding out his resurrection plans, Arthur would be sure to thank him for use of the steed.
Arthur bit his tongue hard, tasting blood. The pain chased some of the fog out of his dazed brain. Focus. He fought his heaving breathing down to something like normal.
His ritual was over. There was a cup and a diadem at the bottom of the lake, now, a diary and a necklace and a ring. Harry and Nagini had been harder to negotiate, obviously, seeing as neither could be chucked into the lake. But a part of a thing was sometimes enough. A lock of hair snipped during the chaos of Christmas morning. A shed skin of hers Arthur had found shrunken in his music box. They worked as conduits to call the soul shards contained in Harry and Nagini back to their fellows beneath the water, each part returning to bring a whole man home.
But had it worked? Arthur didn't know and he was terrified to find out. He felt flayed alive, like someone had cut past his ribs and carved out his soul. He wanted to fall face-first into the lake and sleep for a century. Exhaustion had closed his eyes already, sealing his world in soothing darkness. But one did not interfere with Death just to take a nap right after.
Arthur screwed up his courage and yanked his eyes open. He found his result immediately, unerringly, and choked when he saw it.
There was a body floating in the middle of the lake. Lithe, male. The moonlight bleached its skin bone white, the water a black stain all around it. It did not stir but lay as naturally on the still water as the ice once had.
Fuck, Arthur thought. It worked. He almost couldn't think anything past the shock. Euphoria and terror warred inside his skin.
The water's frozen burn was what woke him up. Arthur might have done it, might have brought him back, but the bastard was going to die on him all over again if Arthur didn't fish him out of the lake. And Arthur was not prepared to persuade Death a second time.
Hauling himself to his feet, Arthur staggered in the water and nearly slid right back onto his ass. He shouted, at the end of his endurance. His legs were entirely numb. Every muscle that wasn't frozen stiff was useless with lethargy. He reached for his magic and barely a spark answered him. How the hell was he going to get the body out?
…Was he even breathing? Or had Death played a terrible trick on Arthur's hubris? Panic struck him. Arthur couldn't look on that face and see no light behind those eyes. He couldn't bear it. They both had to leave this goddamn lake, or Arthur wasn't leaving it at all. His gasping breaths shook into a miserable moan.
The body in the water jerked. A yanking in of limbs, an avoidance of pain.
Arthur's heart leapt into his throat. Silent and dumb, Arthur watched long limbs slap through the water. The motions were ungainly as any newborn's, righting the torso with a terrible splash. The body staggered like it didn't recognize its weight. His chest heaved visibly, fighting to breathe, fighting through what must be an unfamiliarity with breathing. Fighting with the water pouring from his lips down his chest, flung out of his lungs in coughs and sputters.
Between wet gasps, the body croaked, "Arthur?"
Struck, Arthur's useless legs sent him crashing back into the lake. Frigid water stung his freezing hands, but it was nothing to the lance ripping through his chest. Even through the murk of his memories, the crackle of its owner's long silence, Arthur knew that voice. It was hoarse, but strong and loud. Arthur stared across the water.
The body was standing up. The lake was more of a very wide pond, Arthur guessed. He hadn't investigated the depth before throwing his ritual together. He'd checked it for living things, unwilling to complicate the night by accidently disturbing a creature nest of some sort, but found nothing alive in this dead of winter.
Not true, now.
The water lapped at the body's pectorals; the line lowering as the body—the man—trudged closer. Pale, perfect skin glimmered against the black water.
"Arthur?" he called again, clearer than before. His crisp accent came through this time, the lilt that was uniquely his. Beautiful.
Arthur couldn't make himself respond. He was fixed on the image the man cut. It was a dark night, but Arthur had suspended Lumos charms every couple of feet to give himself light to work by. The glow revealed dark brown eyes. His wet hair clung to his cheeks and neck, spilling over his shoulders like black ink. Confusion wrinkled his high brow, the only imperfection on an otherwise immaculate face.
Arthur sobbed. Part of him still refused to believe that it had worked. He'd excised the doubt from himself while casting, but in the seconds after its completion his nightmares had all rushed back in. What if he brought Tom back wrong? The snake-faced monster of the other future haunted Arthur. He wouldn't survive killing any remnant of Tom, but neither would he allow a horror to be made of his lover's soul.
The man paused a few feet from Arthur, hesitance further contorting his perfect face. Fear flickered in his eyes. "My love?" he tried uncertainly, a plea and a prayer.
That was all Arthur could endure. "Tom," he cried, scrambling back to his knees. His heart thudded in his chest. He was fighting for air through sobs. "Oh Gods, Tom."
He heard the splashing more than he saw Tom move, his eyes too full of tears. Sorrow, guilt, relief—all flooded him. Dozens more emotions joined in the tide, impossible to parse in the grip of the wave. He only caught a breath when a hand on his arm shocked him out of his next gasp, the touch of it painfully dear. He forced his eyes open again, unaware of when he'd closed them.
Tom watched him intently, his eyes wide, mouth open. He raised his hand so slowly from the water that Arthur had all the time in the world to stop him, and still Tom waited for Arthur's nod before he dared to cradle Arthur's jaw in his palm. When Arthur leaned into the touch, a ragged sigh on his lips, Tom's expression went soft.
"I thought I would never touch you again," Tom said quietly. "You were gone from me, and without you madness descended on me."
Arthur sobbed again. His heart was broken, had been for months and years. Molly's drugs had masked it, and then he'd had to keep it together for his boys and to save Tom. But now there was nothing to do but cry. "They poisoned me," he wept. "Twenty-three years, she had me drugged with Amortentia. I remember it in fragments, and everything before is clouded." He choked on his breath. "You're the only clear memory I have."
With infinite gentleness, Tom touched their foreheads together. Warmth flared through Arthur, Tom casting a wandless and wordless charm on them both as easily as he breathed. Held in the caress of Tom's magic, as known to Arthur as his own, he breathed freely as he hadn't for decades.
He would die before losing this again.
"I knew you would not leave me," Tom said, his voice falling to a whisper, his words a truth only for Arthur to hear. "Even in my worst chaos, when every friend felt like an enemy and my enemies like gods, I knew you could not have left me willingly."
Arthur reached for him with shaking hands, running his fingers through Tom's silken hair until his fingers were knotted in it. "But you didn't come for me?" he asked. It had been the part of this misery that had confused Arthur the worst. Tom was power incarnate. Destroying Molly would have been the work of minutes. If he'd know Arthur couldn't have possibly chosen that beast of his own free will, how could he have left Arthur at her mercy?
Tom breathed through a shudder that shook his whole chest. Holding him as he was, Arthur felt the tremor like an earthquake against his skin. "I was unravelling," Tom confessed, his voice twisted with shame. "So many horcruxes were too much for me alone to bear. I didn't realize how much of my sanity I'd tied to you, to your magic, until you were gone from me. By the time I realized Dumbledore's scheme, I was so far spiraled I dare not go near you." He pulled back enough to meet Arthur's eyes. "I did monstrous, unforgivable things, Arthur. Ultimately, I am relieved to have died before I could do any worse."
It was on the tip of Arthur's tongue to reveal that death hadn't stopped Tom from doing those worse things. He didn't mean to hurt Tom—he never, ever meant to hurt Tom. But neither could Arthur keep such a huge and complicated secret as time travel from the man who held his heart in his hands. Tom may even be able to uncover what had sent them back here, as studied in forgotten and arcane magic as he was. But Arthur would have to give him all the rotten details, and there was no way to do that painlessly.
Arthur grimaced. He could do it better warm, dry, fed, and in privacy, however, than he could on the lip of a lake in the hostile grip of winter.
Adrenaline surging afresh, Arthur pulled himself to his feet and hauled Tom up with him. Water frothed around them, sluicing off their bodies, lukewarm against Arthur's skin now that Tom's charms had set in. "You need to take us away from here," Arthur muttered. Standing, it turned out, was a lot of effort. He leaned harder on Tom the longer he stood. "I don't have the strength."
Tom tilted his chin up, meeting his eyes. "You have incredible strength," he said. "You've simply done the impossible. You need to rest." Tom glanced around the pond, taking in the miles of trees and white snow. "Tell me where we are and where we're going."
Arthur swallowed around the lump in his throat. He'd mostly felt like a burden since coming back, functionally useless as a half-mad father dependent on his sons. Pathetic. It felt good to do something incredible again. And even better to be recognized for it by the man he loved.
"This is Malfoy Manor," Arthur said, curling comfortably against Tom's chest. They touched as easily as if they'd never been parted. "I've scared my aunt out of Meriweather Hall for the next few months, so we'll set up there for now."
Tom snorted. "Seeing as you've gone through the trouble of de-shrewing it, I think your family home should serve perfectly. Come, let's get out of the water."
Arthur smirked through his exhaustion. He was tired, after all, not dead. Neither of them were dead. "You do look lovely here, though." He pressed his palms against Tom's flat chest, revelling in the live warmth of his skin. "Like a god of some kind."
Tom pulled him close, his touch consuming. He leaned in and, after a little moment granted for Arthur to accept or decline, pressed his lips to Arthur's.
Arthur moaned, helpless, almost immediately dizzy with want. His hand found Tom's jaw and clung there, tethering Tom to him like he might be dragged away at any second. He tasted like nothing so much as pond water, an absence of all normal living tastes, but his kiss was hot and alive and Arthur never wanted to breathe again if he could stay in this kiss instead.
But mortal lungs did cry for other things. Air, mainly.
"I am nothing but your supplicant," Tom murmured as they parted. His eyes burned. "My love is my worship."
Arthur sighed against his shoulder. His dramatic love, always the poet. "Get me out of this damned pond and show me properly how you worship."
Tom chuckled. "Your command is my wish." He spared a moment to dismiss Arthur's Lumos spells, the only trace of Arthur's actions at the pond tonight outside their bodies. Then, with a crack like lightning hitting stone, those also disappeared.
To be honest, Remus was having a lovely night. Unexpectedly so, but he'd never been so pleased to stand corrected.
It was no secret that he'd been less than thrilled with the prospect of the ball. While he'd never graced the Malfoys' hallowed halls for such an occasion, he'd attended many equivalent events in Dumbledore's service. The vampire authorities in Italy provided the best time, if only because Italian wine could make anything pleasantly hazy. But a room full of hundreds of magical people verbally wanking each other off until a productive opportunity to backstab arose had never appealed to Remus.
And then he'd stepped into the Malfoy ballroom and been immediately enchanted.
Materializing at Remus's elbow, Lucius had smirked at him. "Not too shabby, hm?" He'd been a vision in white silk robes, his neck, waist, and wrists dripping in what must be millions in jewelry. A diamond as fat as Remus's thumb sat on a pin pulling his platinum hair back from his face. He'd had Remus place it there earlier in the night, in their bedroom, laughing at Remus's face when he'd realized just what the pretty bauble was worth.
Remus had, of course, married Lucius in the last life. He'd been a Malfoy, had called the Manor home. He'd held Lucius's hand as they brought another child into its halls. But between war and politics and their deaths so soon after, Remus had never really lived like a Malfoy. Staying in the Manor with house elves eager to serve and fine clothes appearing by magic was one thing. But the obscene depth of the luxury hadn't figured into his life. There hadn't been any balls during the War. And after, well…
They'd died too soon for there to be a proper after.
Remus exhaled slowly, running his hands over his own fine robes. Remus's new position as Fenrir's liaison to the Wizarding World paid much better than being Dumbledore's man, and its public profile required Remus to present a carefully genteel image of the modern Lycan. Narcissa had helped him pick his new wardrobe, carefully choosing pieces that wouldn't resemble the Malfoys'. Merlin forbid some intrepid reporter from Witch Weekly's fashion column connect Remus sartorially to Lucius. So far as the Wizarding World was to know, Remus and Lucius had only met at the Malfoys' luncheon. It wouldn't do to make such strong public declarations so quickly, even if privately he and Lucius shared a bed every night.
Remus smiled. He would admit it to no one, but he was enjoying the public charade. His marriage to Lucius had been fast, a desperate ceremony hastened by the War. The teasing courtship they had planned for the coming months was fun. Was it meant to add a layer of pathos to the Lycan Rights movement? To introduce old magical traditions—Dark traditions—to the public palatably? Of course. The Wizarding public loved nothing so much as a love story, and Remus and Lucius's story would be the sugar to help the medicine go down. But that didn't mean the emotions behind each gesture weren't going to be genuine.
Their plot required some study on Remus's part. The Dark arts were foreign to him. He'd figured that could only be a good thing, what with being turned into a supposedly Dark creature against his will as a child. He'd thought that resistance against the Dark would help him to stay himself, to restrain the monster inside him. Dumbledore had guided him along that path, promising first his parents and then Remus personally that the ends would justify the excruciating means.
Remus was unlearning that rhetoric. Fenrir, grumpily, had been a help. When Remus turned down his place in the hunt, concerned that he wouldn't be able to control his wolf, the Alpha had snorted.
"What, you think the minute you smell blood you're going to leap from the Abraxan and rip someone's throat out?" He'd laughed. "Try again, Lupin."
Remus's cheeks had flamed. "I wouldn't be so ignorant if I hadn't been turned and abandoned," he'd snapped.
Fenrir, his sire, had sipped his scotch in reply. "You've a point," he'd sighed, looking at Remus seriously over the lip of the glass. "And I'd like to correct that."
Slowly, Remus had nodded. Another layer added to his accord with Fenrir.
Fenrir was not his only new instructor, Remus mused. With the hunters gone, those who'd come just for the party had left as well. These, Narcissa had explained, were people who didn't believe in the old observances or were too staunchly Light to lower themselves to practicing a traditionally Dark rite. It was better that they come, serve the political purposes of the night with their presence, and then leave before the real work began. It was her pleasure to lead these rituals as the Lady of the House. Remus had heard the capitalization in her voice. Consort, Narcissa had mentioned lightly, was the masculine or gender-neutral equivalent of her position.
Her point taken, Remus had set himself beside her and begun committing her enchanting movements to memory.
It began with re-entering the ballroom. The house elves had been busy clearing out the remains from the party—used glasses and plates, remnants of food. Even the floor had been scrubbed. All that stayed untouched were the silver trees and the icons of the gods, each with a pile of offerings at their feet.
Remus looked around at those left behind. Their number was more women than others, but not by as many as he'd expected. Every youth underage remained, too. They assembled in a ring around the room. And then, so softly even Remus's keen ears struggled to hear it, the singing began.
From there, Remus lost the track of things. Ritual magic had that way about it. In its grip, Remus's body knew what to do without prompting. His mouth knew words his eyes had never read, that his ears had never heard. The song built louder and louder until their harmony made the glass panes in the ceiling tremble. His feet followed unerringly the steps of Narcissa ahead of him, his hands as graceful as if he'd practiced this his whole life.
"Don't fight it," Narcissa had advised before it started. She was poised but warm, as welcoming as the glow of a hearth fire. "Let it guide you."
As if there was a choice. Once he'd consented to participate, the current swept him out to sea. He was soaked in sweat when he returned from it, the room turning around him even as he stood still.
Around him fires burned at the feet of the divine effigies, hot enough to turn the offerings to ash. The smoke hung lazily in the air, fragrant and sweet. Remus panted, exhausted but giddy. He remembered being seventeen and sneaking back into Hogwarts from a Muggle rock show with Sirius. It felt like that, tired and inebriated and joyful.
"Blessed be!"Narcissa declared, the final decree of a long and complicated chant Remus knew but did not know. A windy gust rose at her words, sweeping the smoke into a ball that rose high against the glass dome in the ceiling of the Malfoy ballroom. And then, magically, through it.
Through the hole in the roof left by the vanished glass, Remus watched the smoke dance with the stars. It travelled, he supposed, to meet the deities the offerings were given to. He was so fixed on the smoke that he didn't notice the fires going out, one by one, until he stood in perfect darkness, the cold new January wind kissing his cheeks.
"So mote it be," Remus murmured, transfixed, more than two hundred other voices harmonizing with his. He was surprised to find the words rough on his throat, caught on an emotion he could not name. It ached, he supposed, but more than that. Like a knot in his soul he'd never acknowledged had finally been released.
He raised a hand to his eyes, rubbing at them distractedly. Wetness met him and he jerked his hand down. He was crying. He stared at his teary fingers, stunned.
A small hand caught his forearm. Remus looked down, surprised but also not to meet Draco's young face. The boy had a knack for sensing vulnerability. It made for a vicious childhood bully, a worse enemy, and an empathic family member. It was Remus's blessing that he'd had the opportunity to know Draco as the latter.
Draco smiled at him. "It's a lot, isn't it?"
Remus blew out a long breath. "More than I expected, certainly. Especially when Dark magic's never done much for me."
Draco tilted his head. "It's not Dark, you know. The Dark practices it more than the Light, but the ritual's not specific to our practice." Draco's expression tightened. "Light practitioners have just forgotten how to be grateful for magic."
Remus pursed his lips, his defense of the Light still instinctive. But he had to concede Draco the point. Gratitude had never factored into magic for Remus, just as it didn't factor into breathing. It was only after marrying Lucius that it occurred to him that maybe some gratitude wouldn't be remiss.
"Perhaps they will be reminded," Remus responded, knowing Lucius intended as much. The educational reforms he'd pushed through laid the groundwork for a much larger change.
Draco's smile returned, having caught Remus's train of thought with his usual ease. He opened his mouth to reply, but Neville stumbled between them before he could.
"Remus!" The boy called, his robes whirling around his legs. His eyes snapped to Draco, then fixed nervously on Remus again. He struggled obviously for calm. "Come with me, please?" he said, carefully quiet.
Before Remus could hazard a reply, Draco smoothly slipped his arm through Neville's. "Of course, we will," Draco said genially, smiling at the guests who'd turned at the sound of Neville's harried greeting. "Where are we going to, Neville? I'll escort your both." With a flick of his fingers, the sound of the milling guests dulled almost to nothing. "A personal privacy ward," Draco explained needlessly, not pausing as he glided away, drawing both Remus and Neville in his wake.
"We need to go to the blue drawing room we watched the memories in," Neville said, his voice fluttering with nerves again. He took a slow breath to steady himself. "Harry felt sick after the ritual finished, so Ron and I took him there to lie down. Then his nose started bleeding and he passed out. Ron left to get Severus, and when they came back I went to get you, Remus." He glanced anxiously between Draco and Remus. "His scar was bleeding when I left. It was bleeding really bad."
"Fuck," Draco swore through a pleasant smile. Even with the privacy ward Draco cast, eyes followed them relentlessly. Remus fought to keep his own expression complacent. Neville was obviously too shaken for complete control, but as long as neither he nor Draco reacted adversely they should avoid drawing too much attention.
"We've been discussing when Voldemort will make a move," Remus reminded both boys. "It seems the time has come."
"Amelia Bones and Kingsley were right," Neville muttered furiously. "We should have started destroying that bastard the second we came back."
"This round, we'll do it in a third the time," Draco promised Neville. He turned to Remus. "Can you contact Sirius? He'll want to be here, but the hunters shouldn't be back for hours yet."
Remus blinked, jerked out of his dark musings by Draco's orders. As Draco probably intended. The boy could be terrifyingly like his mother. "Yes, of course. I have one of Sirius's two-way mirrors. I'll call him as soon as I've seen Harry."
Draco nodded. "Good".
They were nearly to the grand ballroom doors. Remus would see Harry. Sirius would come back, and then in a few hours so would Lucius, and then Voldemort would die for the last time. Dumbledore, too. Remus was sick of these threats to his family, his pack. He wanted peace. He wanted blood. Anger thrummed in his ears.
Remus set his hand on the door handle, the polished metal cool under his palm. But when he went to turn it, his fingers caught as he was jerked away. "Fuck!" Remus swore, tripping backward and to the left. "Draco," he snapped twisting around on his stepson, ready to give him a piece of his mind.
"Don't you hear that?" Draco hissed, his small hands fisted in Remus's robes.
And, yes. Now that Remus wasn't fixed on his wrath and worry, he did hear something. A cacophonous pounding pushing closer and closer. He frowned, tried to step toward the door, but Draco pulled him back again. In fact, Draco had cancelled his privacy ward and was shouting at everyone to get away from the doors.
"What?" Remus asked, following the crowd back, the pounding overwhelming his sensitive hearing. "Is that—?"
And then the doors flew open, blasted by a controlled Bombarda. Remus and dozens of others all raised their wands, expecting—Merlin, what? Most of the people who would be Death Eaters, Remus was warily cognizant, were standing around the room. The Goyles stood to his left, McNair and his wife somewhere to the right, and Yaxley stood just behind him. Dumbledore's people? But this sort of blatant assault was hardly the Order's style.
It took Remus a second to understand what he was seeing. A second where the scene seemed too absurd, too unfair, to be real. Horror and fear surged, Remus's sight going grey with it. But then instinct, the wolf and the war-born, ripped the throat out of his weakness.
"Stop," he screamed, dashing forward, "Hold your fire!" Behind him, Draco had the same realization and echoed him. His young voice pealed into screams for his mother as the blood dripping on the marble floors grew into pools.
Sirius, mounted on a snorting black Abraxan, gasped for breath. "Narcissa!" he screamed, looking half-mad. And, oh Merlin, who could blame him? Not with the blood spilled all over him, not with the limp body held firmly in his arms. "Severus!" Sirius eyes rolled as he tried to find his healer cousin or potion's master husband. As he tried to find anyone who might help Lucius, eyes closed, skin grey, his platinum hair spilling over Sirius's arm, his white hunting clothes stained crimson.
Remus grabbed the reins of the Abraxan, stilling the anxious beast. "What happened?" he cried, reaching up to support Lucius, giving Sirius enough space to slide out of the saddle. Someone took the reins out of Remus's hand, making it easier for Remus to carefully pull Lucius back off the Abraxan. Lucius was a tall man, over six feet, and heavy with muscle. None of that mattered to a lycanthrope. He easily took Lucius's dead weight, throwing his husband's arm over his shoulders and lifting Lucius's back and knees. Lucius made no sound, his face slack through the no-doubt excruciating movement. Remus's heart went cold.
"Lucius?" He called, falling to his knees on the marble, Lucius cradled in his arms. "Darling, please."
No response. He scrambled to check Lucius's throat, searching for his pulse, but between the slick blood and the silk gloves he wore it was impossible to find. He ripped the glove off with his teeth, tasting the awful copper tang of Lucius's blood, and tried again. He pressed so hard he knew he'd leave bruises. But a corpse wouldn't care, and Lucius would forgive him.
He froze with his fingers jabbed into Lucius's carotid. He waited, refusing to breathe, his heart pounding in his throat. Then, while Remus rode the edge of despair, he felt a pulse against his fingertips.
"Oh, thank you," Remus sobbed, pulling Lucius tighter against his chest. "Oh, darling, thank you." He started running his hands over Lucius, looking for the wound. He found it quickly in his left shoulder, a Galleon-sized hole that seemed to run through and through. "Narcissa!" He cried, desperate for the healer, for any kind of help.
"I'm here!" Narcissa said, sliding onto her knees beside Remus. Her gown folded gracefully around her. It'd be hell to get the blood out, Remus noted dazedly. Pale blue silk. There were already smears of it on her bodice, like she'd wiped bloodied hands over the fabric.
Harry, Remus remembered with a jerk. He stared at Narcissa with wide, terrified eyes.
"Harry's fine," she said, reading him at a glance. "I don't know what happened, but he's fully conscious with Ron in the drawing room."
"What's wrong with Harry?" Sirius asked from Remus's other side. Together he and Remus carefully lay Lucius flat on the marble. Remus tore off his formal robe and wadded it up, placing it under Lucius's head.
"He fainted," Remus muttered to Sirius, his eyes fixed on Lucius. He gestured to his forehead meaningfully, peripherally aware of all the eyes that were gathered around them.
Sirius understood immediately, a snarl cutting across his face.
Narcissa looked up from Lucius long enough to take in their audience. Probably two hundred of the most elite magical people in the world watched on, pale and horror-struck. She cursed under her breath. "Sirius," she said, "I need you escort anyone who wants to leave to the floo. Some will want to stay and help, allies of Lucius's. Marshal them in the games room. Any children take to the blue drawing room. Harry and Ron are already there. Make sure Draco joins them. And for the love of magic, bring me Severus Snape."
"Unnecessary," Severus said, swooping in from behind her. If he was bloodstained like Narcissa, his black robes hid it perfectly. His hair was tied back and he carried fistfuls of potions in his hands. "Clear the wound."
Narcissa drew her wand over the layers of Lucius's hunting leathers. They split open seamlessly, leaving the skin below intact. Narcissa pushed the clothing aside until Lucius's entire chest was bare.
The wound itself wasn't too bad. It had gone through the meat of Lucius's right shoulder, far from his heart. It had bled badly at the time it was dealt, staining Lucius's clothing horribly, but Sirius knew enough battle medicine to slow it. Once Narcissa and Severus had a couple blood replenishers and other potions in him, there probably wouldn't even be a scar.
But that wasn't the end of it. Remus didn't know a thing about potions—poisons—but Severus's grim silence taught him all he needed.
Placing his bottles on the floor with a clatter, Severus uncapped and spilled one over his hands and over the wound. The potion fizzed, killing any bacteria on their skin and dissolving the spilled blood. But the wound didn't look any better cleaned up. It looked mortal.
Remus's eyes burned. His stomach hollowed. Thick black lines slunk from the entry of the wound, the edges of it black and rotted, following the paths of Lucius's veins.
Severus traced the lines lightly with his fingertips. He pressed down gently. Lucius, dead to the world all this time, pulled tight as a wire and screamed.
Remus curled around him, shushing him. He held one of Lucius's hands and brushed hair back from his face with the other. "Give him something," he demanded of Severus. Lucius may have died in the last life, but at least he hadn't suffered.
Severus didn't fight him. He uncorked a silvery vial that smelled faintly floral. "Hold his head," Severus ordered. Remus did so, massaging Lucius's throat to help him swallow as Severus poured it in. Lucius went lax immediately, safe under a veil of sleep.
"What now," Remus asked. His voice was hoarse. He must have started yelling at some point. He could make barely a whisper now.
Severus sighed. It was a long, dry sound, raspy and harsh. It sounded, Remus thought with a shuddering heart, like grief.
"We make him comfortable," Severus said. "And I will go to my lab." He looked at Narcissa. "I will require Draco's assistance, if he is able."
Remus knew it wasn't a question of Draco's skill.
Narcissa nodded. "He will refuse to be kept away, I imagine." She pulled herself gingerly to her feet. She cleared her throat. "Remus, please take Lucius to bed. I will be up shortly to dress the wound." Her eyes were flat as a doll's. Emotionless. Dead.
Unable to look at her dreadful expression, Remus focused on gathering Lucius back into his arms. "Yes, of course. But," he turned to Severus, still unwilling to look at Narcissa and the pain she was so expertly hiding. "Why do you need your lab? And Draco. Is—is the antidote complicated?"
Narcissa and Severus shared a glance while Remus stared at them. The ballroom was quite now, occupied by just the three of them and their patient. Sirius has done a good job of clearing out the guests, of ordering the chaos. Which meant that there was no way to mishear Severus's words.
"I will be attempting to halt death," Severus said. "Therefore, I will need my lab and my best student."
Remus stared at him, uncomprehending. "Halt death?" he asked. "You mean—there's no antidote."
Severus closed his eyes. "I mean that there has never been a recorded survivor of this poison." He opened them, slowly, and solemnly met Remus's gaze. "It is my every intention to make Lucius the first."
Merry Christmas! I hope y'all enjoy!
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BlackRoseGirl666