QLFC- Season10: Round 7

Team: Montrose Magpies

Position: Chaser 1

Prompt: Reunion

Optional Prompts:

(color) rose-gold

(word) dazzling

(song) Gravity- Sara Bareilles

A/N: Definition of reunion used: the act or process of being brought together again as a unified whole.

Mentions of prison, mild language, vague descriptions of nudity

WC: 3,016

And I Will Give You Rest

The scuff of boots against stone. The rattle of keys on a chain. The clank of a lock. Lucius Malfoy was consciously aware of all these sounds from where he sat on his cot, knees pulled into his chest and head resting against folded arms, but his thoughts were miles away from it all.

"Lucius!" Narcissa ran from him, her light steps carrying her dancing through the orchard, everything moving in slow motion. Her laughter carried to him, like the sound of music, tinkling in his ears. She twirled to face him, hands beckoning him forward, a glint of pink and gold as a stray sunbeam pierced through the branches, illuminating her in a brilliant, dazzling light.

"Malfoy." A gruff voice broke through his thoughts, the ringing of laughter fading from his ears.

Lucius dug his fingers into his arm at being pulled from the first happy thought he'd been allowed in weeks. He reluctantly raised his head, just in time to see a bundle of something fly at his face. He could merely squeeze his eyes shut as he tensed in anticipation of the pain that would follow.

"Oof!" Lucius' grunt was muffled by thick cloth, the momentum of it forcing his head backward before falling into the gap between his chest and legs.

"Get changed!" the Auror barked, slamming the door closed again.

Lucius extended his legs, his movements wary as he slowly unrolled the bundle. The light streaming through the high window revealed a black material, silver edging barely visible. He held it in trembling hands, his fingers sliding over the rich material that had so often graced his body when he had been free. He stood, letting the length of it unfold before him. He let out an involuntary breath at the nostalgia that hit him. The last time he'd worn this robe had been on the day he was sentenced. Five years, he realized. That's how long he'd been sentenced for. As he held the clothes out from his body he felt hot tears well in his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. It had been five years.

He silently stripped, dropping his jumpsuit and pulling his old robes over his diminished frame. The smooth material felt strange against his skin after years of scratchy cotton. The clothes hung off his shoulders like a tent, their opulence and splendor lost against his haggard and rough appearance.

The door to his cell opened again, the Auror stepping to the side.

"Let's go!"

Lucius took a hesitant first step toward the door, his eyes darting from the Auror to the unimpeded opening. Was this real?

"I don't have all day!" the Auror barked.

Lucius ducked his head under the low lintel and followed the Auror down a dimly lit corridor. He could feel the upward slant of the floor in his burning calves. As they passed other cells he could hear mournful wails and frantic muttering.

He quickened his pace, in danger of stepping on the back of the Auror's heels in his eagerness to escape the sounds that threatened to drag him back to the depths of despair.

They exited the gloomy confines of the inner prison stepping into a large, well-lit room where three other Aurors were conversing leisurely. One by one their eyes turned to follow him, their conversation fading to silence.

Without warning, Lucius felt a squeezing sensation that began deep in his abdomen and spread quickly to the rest of his body. Everything around him stretched and morphed; the faces of the Aurors pulled and twisted into horrific shapes, was the last thing he saw before darkness closed around him, like a drawstring pulled shut on a bag.

It had been so long since Lucius had Apparated anywhere that he was unable to maintain his footing when they landed, falling gracelessly to his knees. He caught himself on his arms as his body was racked with dry heaves, his back arching, muscles straining. The fit subsided leaving him devoid of energy. His head hung low between his shoulders as he splayed his fingers in the grass, trying to maintain some sense of balance so he didn't end up sprawled on the ground. He blinked, squinting against the bright light of the midday sun. After years of staring at the ocean, the abundance of color that surrounded him was almost too brilliant to look upon. He flexed his fingers in the grass beneath his hand, the lush green dotted with yellow—creeping buttercups that lay nestled within the twining blades. Was grass really that green? Is that really what yellow looked like?

Lucius stood, reveling at the feel of the wind against his face, the cool breeze sending shivers along his body. He closed his eyes and parted his lips, sucking the air into his lungs as it swirled around him, pulling it deep into his lower lobes where it moved into his blood and rushed to his head, making him dizzy. He had never realized before that fresh air had a taste.

Someone touched his elbow. "Malfoy."

Lucius flinched, his eyes snapping open as every nerve in his body bristled.

The Auror withdrew his hand. "They're waiting for you."

Lucius looked to where the man had motioned. The Knight Bus.

Lucius swallowed against the thickness that constricted his throat, nodding his understanding. As he stood beneath in its immense, looming shadow, he felt like this all must be a trap; that they were going to take him someplace worse.

He looked back at the prison; the dark stones looked small from this distance. He allowed his gaze to linger for a moment and he could swear that the cries of those he left behind were carried to his ears by the waves, crushing them mercilessly against the cliffs.

He turned back to the Knight Bus, long legs quickly covering the distance to the door and he scrambled on board. No, it didn't matter where the bus was going; it couldn't possibly be worse than that.

Lucius sank into an ugly, yellow recliner at the back of the bus, its softness felt strange to his body. He shifted and squirmed, trying to get comfortable.

"Fuck it," he said at last, sliding off the chair to sit on the floor, his back pressed against the ugly, yellow fabric.

He breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar feeling of hard floor beneath him, stretching his legs out in front of him. He leaned his head back against the seat, eyelids becoming heavy, each blink longer than the last. His eyes began to drift of their own accord, coming to rest on a newspaper laying on the seat across from him. Struggling against the heaviness that had settled over him, he sat forward with a groan, snatching the paper off the seat.

The picture on the front page banished the sleep that had begun wrapping him in its embrace. A woman and man stood arm in arm smiling. The man leaned in and whispered something in the woman's ear, making her laugh. Lucius watched as the picture reset itself and the man leaned in again…and again…and again.

Beneath the picture, it read: "Flavius Flint and Narcissa Black Celebrate Their Engagement on March 14th.

She was going by Black now; of course she was, they had divorced. Why would she keep his last name? But it rankled him all the same, seeing her name without his attached to it. Like she had never been his—like they had never been them.

He found himself reaching out for her, his fingers dwarfing her smiling face as he stroked the picture. It was the first time he'd seen her outside of his dreams and memories in five years; they certainly didn't do her justice.

Merlin, she looked so beautiful. The stress that had seemed to pull at her as the years had passed was gone and there was new life there. She looked almost exactly the same as when he'd first laid eyes on her—dazzling and full of life.

And it was all so fake. He could see it in her stiffened neck, her wide eyes, and lack of scrunched nose that he'd always found so endearing.

He rubbed his jaw. Maybe he still had a chance. Maybe…

When Draco had insisted that she and Flavius hold their engagement party at Malfoy Manor, Narcissa had been reluctant. The manor held too many memories for her, and going back to celebrate her future nuptials to a man that wasn't Lucius Malfoy felt like a knife to the gut.

After it was all said and done, however, she was grateful for Draco's insistence. The party had been more overwhelming than she had expected, and having the freedom to escape the crowd and retreat to a spare bedroom without having to make excuses to her fiancé about why he couldn't follow her, was a relief. The bath that followed even more so.

She sank into the water, completely submerging her entire body until all that remained above the surface was her head. She pursed her lips, blowing softly across the surface of the water, forming a teardrop-shaped dimple. The real tear that fell from her cheek left less of an impression in the water than her breath.

She closed her eyes against the strangling dread that had been brought upon by the engagement party. Marrying Flavius had seemed well and good when she'd considered the practical side of things; being a single woman in modern-day wizarding society left her vulnerable. But as she was paraded around on his arm all night she could no longer disregard the emotional side of their arrangement, and she honestly wasn't sure she could manage another fifty years of pretending. She leaned backward, allowing her legs to float out in front of her as she released a heavy sigh. But she had to do it of course, and she'd always been good at doing her duty.

A half-hour later, she stepped languidly from the hot water, the steam rising from the surface, its tendrils snaking up to stroke her bare skin, leaving cool kisses in their wake.

She gently toweled herself dry and slid her robe up over her shoulders, leaving the front open.

As she stepped from the soft lighting of the candlelit bathroom into the darkness of the bedroom she felt a charge sweep over her, like electricity in the air, causing the small hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.

"It seems a little cruel-"

She stumbled backward as the fireplace flared to life before her, throwing her hands backward to catch herself on her vanity.

"-to hold your engagement party in my family home."

To the right of the fireplace, she could make out the faint silhouette of a man ensconced in the darkness that the light hadn't penetrated. The shadows seemed to shift around him as he moved toward her.

Her hand scrabbled across the wood surface of the table behind her, searching for the familiar feel of her wand beneath her fingers.

He stepped free of the shadows, the dark, gossamer strings falling away from him and melting into the surrounding fire light causing her to stop her frantic movements.

She blinked in disbelief. "Lu-Lucius?"

He didn't look anything like she remembered—his long, blonde hair had been shorn close to his scalp and his once lean, well-muscled frame was now emaciated, his cheekbones in sharp relief—but the look in his eyes was unmistakably him.

Her fingers twitched. She longed to reach for him…touch him.

"I was afraid you might have forgotten me," he said softly, his words crossing the space between them to rub against her exposed skin, bringing the blood to the surface in a rush of heat. His eyes consumed her, raking over her legs, traveling between the opening of her robe.

Her cheeks reddened as his gaze burned her, lips parting as her breathing became shallow. She clutched her robe against her body as she twisted away from his devouring eyes.

"Don't do that, my love. Don't hide yourself from me."

He didn't have the right to do this to her—to make her feel this way! Not after all these years and everything that had happened.

She set her jaw defiantly, grabbing up the strings of her robe to secure the opening around her, cinching it tight with a little more force than she intended. "What are you doing here, Lucius?"

"I came to see my wife," he said, slowly crossing the room toward her.

"Ex-wife."

"Semantics," he said with a shrug.

"I think the law would disagree with you. You signed the papers, remember? You did it willingly; no one twisted your arm."

He sighed heavily, running his hand over his hair, coming to rest in a firm grip at the back of his neck. "Yes, I did. But it can be reversed. It's not too late."

"Yes it is," she said with a flat finality. "I don't know if you've read the papers, but I'm engaged."

"But not married. Not yet."

She laughed quietly, shaking her head. "Then you expect me to just throw Flavius over? Run away with you into the sunset?"

"Well, preferably not sunset," he said with a cheeky smile as he sauntered closer. "Maybe sunrise, considering the time of night."

She let out a huff of air through her nose, biting back the smile that threatened to betray her. "You're incorrigible. Never could take no for an answer."

"If I remember correctly, you never could tell me no."

Narcissa felt the heat return to her face at his flirtatiousness. She could feel the temptation to fall back into old patterns.

She cleared her throat, crossing her arms across her body to provide some type of barrier against her weaker inhibitions. "Well," she said with a raised brow, "I'm saying no now."

His playful smile faltered, a break in the confident facade. "Come on, Cissa, don't be that way."

"What? Were you expecting to come back and have my falling over myself to get back with you? I'm not a young girl anymore, Lucius. I see more than just the charming smile when I look at you now."

Lucius' shoulders dropped as if all the air had been expelled from his lungs with a single blow. "I-I don't know what I expected. I just knew I had to try." He looked at her with pleading eyes, and they were almost worse than his smoldering ones.

"Well, you've tried, you've failed, and now you need to leave." Her tone was clipped, a hardness in her voice that she didn't feel. She dropped her eyes away from his, afraid to falter.

"No."

Her eyes snapped back up. "Excuse me?"

"I will continue to try," he said. "I don't care how many times I fail or how long it takes, but I won't give up on us."

Her eyes narrowed at his audacity; the audacity that he thought he had the right to push in and assert himself.

"What do you want from me, Lucius?" She cried out in frustration, all pretense of control gone. "Haven't you taken enough? I gave you everything! And look where that brought us."

She closed her eyes as her body slumped like a marionette with its strings cut, everything that had kept her standing tall completely lain to waste. "I loved you, damn it," she said in a hoarse whisper, her throat aching. "I loved you and it made me weak." She looked up at him through tear-laden lashes. "You make me so weak. And I hate you for it."

"Then I'll take it, darling," he said, renewing his steps toward her until they were less than a foot apart. "I'll take your hate and your anger. I'll take your bitterness and resentment. I'll take anything you will give me."

She turned her face away as he reached up to stroke her cheek, raising her arm to fill the space between them, to prevent him from coming any closer. "Lucius, please…" but she could feel the weakness in her own protest.

He caught her hand in his. "If you're so ready to let go, then why keep this?" He stroked the thin, rose-gold band that encased her ring finger.

Lucius had given it to her after their parents had announced their marriage arrangement. They'd been walking in the orchard on the Malfoy estate when he'd nervously fumbled for the ring, presenting it to her as a token of his undying love. He'd worked all summer for his father in order to afford it, to buy it with his own money, because he wanted her to know that he would have married her whether there was a contract or not. He had then slipped it on her finger, completely oblivious to the fact that he was placing it on the wrong hand. She had refused to take it off since.

She stared at it now; the glimmer of the ring was long gone, worn away by time, but she'd refused to polish it. It reminded her of everything they had been through, the years of toil that had forged their relationship.

"I—I don't know."

Lies.

She knew. She knew exactly why she couldn't let go. She hung her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to spill forth.

"Give me another chance, Cissa." She could feel his breath disturb the air around her ear as he leaned in.

Her chest hitched against the suppressed sobs. She bit her lip, struggling to fight against this thing between them; this thing that drew them inextricably together and didn't seem able to let go. He said she was strong, but at this moment she couldn't feel it.

Then she just stopped trying to hold back. The torrent of emotions cascaded forth, threatening to crush her. She felt Lucius' arms under hers, holding her up as every repressed emotion from the last five years came spilling out. She buried her face in his chest, clutching desperately at him.

"Let go, darling. I've got you now."