Twelve.
The following day, Rita did not take her eyes off Amelia and the brunette knew it, feeling them burn into the back of her skull. At breakfast, Amelia sat stiffly beside Kingsley, who was more affectionate than usual, although his behavior could be attributed to the fact that Amelia never noticed it before.
As luck would have it, Rita was not in any of Amelia's classes but that did not settle her nerves any. Her thoughts were racked with how to get herself out of her situation without hurting anyone. However, all of her scenarios ended in disaster. By the time her final class ended, Amelia was ready to explode with frustration. She almost didn't care and it was that very thought that prompted her to go to the Room of Requirement instead of dinner. She had a sneaking feeling that Rita, in her absence, would seize the moment and announce Amelia's infidelity to the entire hall, but she pushed that thought back into the depths of her mind. Remembering Rita's words, Amelia was somewhat comforted by the fact that any revelations would have to come from herself.
Having run to the top of the seventh floor, Amelia's anger at herself was raging. When she entered the room, she slammed the door shut behind her with such ferocity that the photos on the wall cried out in agitation, as did Lucius who had been sitting on the couch. While she knew that she should be anywhere but with him, she wanted his presence more than any other.
"'F you slam it any harder, the entire gallery will be after you." He said from behind her as she locked the door and she could picture the smirk on his face.
Turning around to face him, Amelia stepped into the light so that Lucius could get a better view of her current state. At the first glance of Amelia's stance, Lucius immediately stood and moved to her side so that he was standing directly in front of her.
"What's happened?" he asked, his tone more demanding than inquisitive.
"She knows." Amelia said after a moment, taking a deep breath. She held her eyes steady onto his, her emotions reading through.
"Who knows?" he asked specifically.
"Rita." Amelia said lightly, fighting back her fear with a forced laugh. "Rita knows."
"That's impossible." He said dismissively. "She has no-"
"She saw us, Lucius. At the Ball." Amelia half-cried, hanging her head. "Last night in the common room she kept making references to you dancing with 'a mysterious brunette.'"
"That doesn't mean it was you, Amelia." He reasoned.
"Put it together, Lucius!" Amelia shouted. "Who else would it have been? Alecto? She knows better then that! She figured it all out – my absences from the common room, the distance from Kingsley-"
"Did you tell her she was right?" Lucius demanded. Amelia stood silent, searching for the words. "Did you!" he yelled in frustration.
"She is right, Lucius! Of course I told her she was!" Amelia retorted.
"She baited you, Amelia! She did what all bloody journalists do – they pick out the facts and manipulate you into filling in the blanks." he said, pacing in frustration. "She wouldn't have been any the wiser if you hadn't confessed-"
"I'm tired of lying!" Amelia shouted, running her hand over her face. "I am sick to my stomach of having to lie to my brothers and my best friend. I can't even look Kingsley in the eye anymore!" By this time, Amelia's body was shaking in-between her sobs. "I'm just so tired of pretending that you don't exist, Lucius." She said, raising her eyes to his.
Lucius ran his hand along the back of his neck before quickly enveloping Amelia in an embrace. He bound her to his chest, his head resting atop her. This was, obviously, what he had feared. Not so much his secret getting out but the way in which is was escaping. He assumed that Rita had scurried off to the Slytherin common room to tell his housemates. And that was when Lucius realized how selfish he had been.
Amelia Susan Bones was a Pureblood, and while she may not have been bred to be his eternal partner, even his parents could not dispute the fact that she fit the Pureblood mold. He, in essence, could come out of this unscathed. Amelia, on the other hand, could not.
Her ties with Kingsley were now so deep that she could not pas it off as a close friendship. Edgar would first be concerned for his sister's safety and irate for the willingness to spend time with Lucius. The fury that would befall her on behalf of her friends and family was much greater than any chastising Lucius would receive.
Slowly, Lucius realized, he was becoming all she had.
"She's told them?" Lucius asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Oh," Amelia pulled back, blinking her eyes of moisture, sniffling. "I haven't told you the best part. She refuses to tell anyone."
"That's good then." He said, raising an eyebrow at her shaking of her head.
"No." Amelia closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again. "It's my secret, it's my responsibility to tell Kingsley. She said she'd keep her mouth shut as long as I was the one that told him. But if I wait too long, she'll go ahead and do it."
Lucius brushed Amelia's hair away from her eyes which were red and puffy.
"So what are we going to do?" he said, more to himself than to her.
"I have to tell him." She shrugged.
"When?"
"Once I get up the nerve I suppose." Amelia said uneasily. She dreaded that moment. It made her feel physically ill to think about what Kingsley might say or do.
"I'm guessing you don't want my help with this one." He said with a small smirk.
"That's alright," she said, feeling herself grin, "but I do appreciate it."
Nodding to the couch behind him, Lucius made to sit down. Amelia followed, leaning her back against his chest, his hands seemingly finding hers with ease.
"What do we do now?" Amelia mused.
"We're going to sit here, Amelia. We're just going to sit here."
Amelia took note of the softness of his hands and how delicately he touched her. It was such a difference compared to their first few encounters. At the time, it seemed like Lucius wanted nothing more than to shake her. Now, she was fine china that could crack with the slightest inflection of his voice.
"You're worried." He stated, inhaling the beautiful scent of ivory and spring.
"Yes." Amelia said, closing her eyes.
"About Kingsley." He said as Amelia nodded. "Emmeline?" Amelia nodded again. Lucius debated on his next question because he already knew her answer, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. "Edgar?"
"Most of all." Amelia opened her eyes and turned so that she could see his face. "Why are you so concerned?" she asked softly, truly curious. Surely, she thought, his own battles were more important.
Lucius grinned lightly, rubbing her hand between his own.
"Why are you laughing?" Amelia asked, feeling her own lips break into a grin.
"Nothing." He shook his head. "It's nothing." Lucius looked down at Amelia's wandering eyes. "I was just thinking about the first time I saw you."
"When you caught me eavesdropping on your argument with Professor Flitwick." Amelia stated, grinning at the context of their first argument.
"No, actually."
"Passing in the corridors doesn't really count."
"I know."
"But … until September you never really saw me." Amelia said, confused.
"I did, you just didn't know it." He admitted with a grin.
"Lucius, what are you talking about?" Amelia asked, now fully sitting up.
"It was a few years ago, when you were a first year. Everyone was in the Great Hall for dinner or lunch … some meal. And I remember Carrow sitting down at the table next to me. He went on and on about how he and his sister had just tormented two young girls. They looked for some kind of praise from me, I suppose. But I didn't see the sense in it." Lucius said, shaking his head at the memory. "I remember looking at the entrance to the Great Hall. You and Emmeline ran down the hall, frantically. She sat down and you in a fit of rage, I suppose, told Edgar everything. You pointed to Amycus who laughed and said 'I told you!' Edgar looked over and said something reassuring to you. Something … comforting. You looked at him …" Lucius mused. "You looked at him like he was the most important person in the world. And I remember wishing that someone would look at me like that, the way you look at Edgar."
Lucius closed his eyes at the memory, remembering the silent affection between brother and sister. Amelia watched his facial expression and she tried to place the emotion. His cheekbones were relaxed and his eyelids fluttered slightly. He wanted to be loved.
"That's just it, Lucius." Amelia said, touching his jaw line, running her fingers along the bone. "He's not the only person I look at like that anymore."
Lucius opened his eyes slowly, the reality of what Amelia had said sinking in. He looked at her eyes, her navy colored orbs. She would not say aloud that she loved him, not yet, and he could certainly understand that. But he also saw that her heart was open. He would not ask her why she felt that way, or tell her out right that he reciprocated those feelings and emotions twofold. Instead, Lucius rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone and placed his lips to hers.
–––––––––––––
"You never talk about your family." Amelia said suddenly while they were working the following night. Amelia had decided that she would not let Rita bother her. She would go back to her regular routine. The inevitable confrontation with Kingsley was looming. While she should have been preoccupied with how to reveal everything to Kingsley, she was more concerned with Lucius and how painfully aware she was becoming of how very little they knew about each other. Her conversation with Kingsley could wait for at least another 24 hours.
"What?" Lucius asked, surprised. He hardly expected her to ask about his parents and wasn't even sure if he had heard her correctly.
"Your family." She repeated, feeling her cheeks flush with color, a little embarrassed by his reaction. "You never talk about them."
Lucius felt his hands ball into fists instinctively. The subject of his family was not one of his favorites mainly because he wasn't exactly sure what kind of relationship he had with them.
"You never talk about yours." He said, his gaze unwavering from his paper. He tried to make his tone seem nonchalant but it was forced and he suspected that she noticed.
"You never asked." Amelia said, a bit uneasy. That feeling, the one where you know you shouldn't have said something the moment you said it but it's too late to take it back so you just pretend as thought it's okay when in reality you know it isn't, that feeling consumed Amelia.
"I'm asking now." Lucius said with as much determination as he could muster. His logic remained that if he could turn the situation around then Amelia would forget her original question. Unfortunately, Amelia was just as stubborn as the Slytherin.
"So am I." she pressed.
For a moment, when Lucius set his quill down, turned in his chair and set his eyes intently on her, Amelia thought that he would offer a response. She thought that the side of Lucius Malfoy she wanted to see, the side she knew that if made available to her she would fall in love with would show through.
But he just looked at her, waiting for her own reply. So she spoke.
"My mother," she began, "is part French, hence our frequent trips to Auxerre. She and my father are both Aurors in the Ministry … but you know that." She said hesitantly. "You know Edgar and Elliot and Emmeline mind as well be family; I tell her everything-"
"Not everything." He murmured, his eyes fluttering to the side for a moment before returning back to her.
"Right." She agreed, falling silent.
"You live in Andover?" he offered, internally begging for her to continue before asking him a series of questions.
"Yes." She nodded. "In a house that's far too large for five people, but my mum loves decorating it and the estate gives Edgar and Elliot a place to play Quidditch …" Amelia trailed off, a smile appearing on her face as she stared off into nothingness. "I remember when Edgar made the Quidditch team his second year. He had spent the entire summer practicing, using Elliot as a guinea pig. By the end of July, Elliot had broken nearly every bone in his body. So instead, my dad offered to help Ed practice. Elliot and Mum begged dad not to but he insisted. 'Anything,' he said, 'to make my children happy.'" Amelia said while Lucius' eyes turned to the emptiness in front of him. He pictured her in her youth with her family.
"By the time Ed was thirteen, we could all play classical piano. Elliot was and still is better than all of us, though he never admitted it, and especially not now." She grinned. "For some reason, I had decided that we should put on a show for my grandparents. Because Elliot was so brilliant I never asked him to practice but Edgar … Merlin, he and I fought endless over that. He said he didn't want anything to do with it. I cried, actually." She mused. "I didn't talk to him for days. My father finally picked up on it. He told me you couldn't force someone to do something they don't want to do, which I already knew, of course. But then," Amelia faded, thinking back to her father's words. "he said that the people you love, and that the people that love you, can surprise you the most."
"I didn't bother to ask Ed about it after that but I wasn't mad at him anymore. And then, on the day of the show, he came downstairs in his best suit and he stood beside me and he said that even though he didn't want anything to do with the piano, he wanted everything to do with me." Amelia eyes wavered back to Lucius who remained in a trance. His eyes were soft, almost empty and curious.
"They love you?" He asked, finally turning his eyes on her.
Amelia was taken aback. She had not expected that sort of response in return. Never did she recall anyone asking her if her parents loved her. It was so natural to her that she never thought of voicing it.
"Yes." She said quietly, almost inaudibly, as though she were guilt.
Amelia bit her lip in uncertainty, mulling over a though. Surely there was only one reason why Lucius would be so compelled to ask her such a question. His eyes rested on her as though he were waiting for her inquiry. She lowered her eyes to her lap before raising them with a question in mind. 'Does yours?' she wanted to ask, but before she could even ask, he replied,
"I don't know."
Amelia's mouth fell open ever so slightly, a little humbled and a little shocked. She did not know how to respond. More than anything else, she was nervous. Nervous of what to say, how to possibly respond to him. Offering him a faint smile, Amelia subtlety reached between them for more parchment. She thought that maybe she should break the tension by beginning to work on her assignment again. However, when she reached forward, Lucius had grabbed her hold of her hand, his eyes never leaving her face. Amelia looked over at him, feeling hollow. She wanted so much in this moment to give him every consolation he had been denied, every soothing caress he had missed. She wanted to give him the love and the compassion he deserved.
But right now, in his moment, she could not.
Instead, Amelia place her free hand on his arm, reassuring him that when the darkness finally faded, she would be there. She would always be there.