One Step Closer

A.K.A. Don't kill the author for this title if you know the reference. XD

"No!"

"Lucius, it must be done!"

"NO!"

"Lucius, I know you don't like it but.."

"NO!"

"Lucius!"

"I won't! I can't! I won't let you, simply NO!" Lucius stormed from their bedroom where the three mates were currently fighting.

"Lucius, you're being irrational!" Severus snarled as Lucius tried to storm out of the door.

Lucius turned, eyes blazing and magic snapping. There had been very few times in his life that Lucius had been this angry, and each of those times his anger had been justified. This instance was no different, and how dare his mates not see that. Glaring through the tears that he refused to let fall, Lucius dropped his voice to an intense, growling whisper.

"Irrational. IRRATIONAL! I'll show you 'irrational'." And with that, Lucius slammed the door behind him, and stormed away down the hall.

Harry slumped back onto the bed, and stared up at their canopy.

"He's just so…childish!" Severus snarled as he stalked over to sit by Harry. "Why can't he just listen to reason!? He was never like this in school. It's almost as if he's become overemotional since gaining us as mates. I don't care what that brat's problem is, but he needs cut it out or I swear I won't touch him for a YEAR!"

Harry winced in sympathy for the absent Lucius. Even though he agreed with Severus on his points during their argument, threatening to not touch Lucius for a year was a bit much.

On the other hand, Harry really didn't feel like loving up on Lucius any time soon, either.

The first potion had been a success. Granted, the explosion had been a bit…disconcerting, but the end result had more than justified the means. With one success under their belt, harry had had no problem talking to Severus and swaying him toward the idea of a Voldemort-free Christmas. Truth be told, it wasn't just their success that had swayed Severus to agree.

Though Severus and Lucius had been holed up in Grimmauld Place for the better part of the semester, they were not deaf to the outside world. The older order members still gathered in the kitchen with news of the war. Mr. Weasley was rarely seen without a Daily Prophet in his hand, and Harry was adamantly against hiding any news from his mates.

After the abduction of Severus and Lucius, the ministry had been forced to acknowledge Voldemort's return, but little good it did them. Though Voldemort hadn't gotten his hands on the ministry yet, it was obvious that his followers were calling a good deal of the shots in court these days. Witches and Wizards with familial muggle ties, whether through marriage or birth, were facing harder sentences for smaller offences.

There was even talk of muggleborns being called in for 'magical registration'. Muggleborns would have to prove that their magic was their own and register with the ministry. Those muggleborns who couldn't prove that their magic was their own would have their wands taken, and be put in holding cells until they had to face a trail for "stealing magic". Though this was still just talk, everyone at Grimmauld Place knew that this was a very real possibly for the near future, and that a move like this from the ministry would really only stand as a cover for removing power and targeting muggleborns.

Though the mutual fear was unspoken, everyone's eyes strayed to Hermione more often after the rumor had begun taking a stronger hold in the wizarding community. Draco very rarely left Hermione's side these days. He was terrified of what would happen to such a brilliant witch if death eaters ever got their hands on her. Though he had never really seen what the death eaters were capable of up close, he had heard stories from his father's 'acquaintances', and he had seen Voldemort and his wandering eyes. He shuddered to think what would happen if Voldemort ever came in contact with such a pretty, smart, and muggleborn young witch.

"Severus."

"Harry."

"I'm glad we know each other's names," Harry smiled as Severus' lips quirked upward for a second, his eyes flitting to the side and catching Harry's gaze. "Maybe we're going about this all wrong."

"'This' as in 'the potion'? 'This' is in 'the Order's approach to…'"

"'This' as in 'our approach to Lucius'. Though I will agree that his reaction to your suggestion for the creation of another potion seems extreme, we never did really give him a chance to explain why his vocabulary was reduced to 'no!'. Maybe we need to let him have his say."

Severus took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He lay back and wrapped his arms around Harry, pulling the smaller mate to his side and burying his nose in the unruly hair. For a few moments they just breathed. Then he kissed the crown of Harry's head. "alright, let's go find our tiger."

Harry smiled and nodded.

-----

Lucius was fuming.

How dare they call him irrational! Were they the ones to wake up first after an explosion not ten feet from them? Were they the ones to having to search for their son among the scattered furniture of what used to be a nice sitting room? Where they the ones who were convinced that their mates might be de…

Lucius couldn't even finish the thought. Just the mere memory of his two beautiful mates lying prone on top of that broken door was enough to make his blood run cold. No, he was not being irrational. He understood the importance of destroying the horcruxes, but the physical danger that each destruction posed was bone-rattling. What if the explosion was bigger next time? What if they didn't come out as relatively unscathed as they did today?

What if?

But then Lucius had to remember the other major threat in their lives, and the reason for their argument in the first place. Voldemort. That madman's power was gaining by the day, and soon even the Ministry of Magic would be under the control of a half-revived corpse that happened be out for the blood of everyone near and dear to Lucius.

It all came down to one simple and horrible question:

What was the lesser of two evils?

Lucius' mind immediately supplied that, yes, Voldemort was definitely the greater of the two evils. He was the evil in Lucius' life. But… his heart hesitated, and again Lucius remembered his prone mates on the hallway floor. If they let Voldemort live he would surely kill them all, but what was the use of defeating him if Harry and Severus didn't survive one of the Horcrux blasts to see and celebrate the end of Voldemort with Lucius? He refused to live without them ever again.

Damn Voldemort for ever even dreaming of making a horcrux!

So, they could either wait for the man himself to destroy them, or they could destroy his soul and hope the the blast didn't kill them in the process. What a horrible set of options. If Lucius had a time-turner he would go back in time and smother the wretched man in is cradle! But then that would make him a willing murderer, and may even prevent hi m from ever finding his mates. One can never know what might have been.

And so Lucius felt doomed to watch his mates die, one way or another. What sin had he committed in a past life to deserve this? But even that wasn't fair, for there were hundreds of people out there facing Voldemort's terror. It wasn't simply about Lucius and what he may or may have not done. Suddenly Lucius felt incredibly small.

"Lucius," Came a call from the entrance to the library where Lucius had retreated to. He turned his back fully to the door, refusing to talk to Harry if the youth had come simply to scold him.

"Yes, Harry?" He murmured tiredly. He listened as gentle footsteps crossed the room, and a weight settled on the bay window seat beside him. Turning, he found Harry's eyes to be gentle and questing. The shadow from Severus, who still stood in the doorway, stretched halfway across the floor with the help of the hallway lantern and Lucius could just see it in his periphery.

"Lucius, why are you so against us destroying the other Horcruxes?"

"It is not that I am against their destruction, but of the explosion that happens immediately after. What is the point of destroying Voldemort if you get blown up before the end of the war?"

"Lucius, this isn't about us. This is about the whole wizarding world…"

"Oh, don't play 'martyr' to me!" Lucius exclaimed, rising swiftly from his seat and crossing to stand between his mates. "Damn the wizarding world if I can't have you! I've spent my whole life waiting for you, and I'd be a fool to just let you waltz right back out of it!

Harry," Lucius pleaded, dropping back down in front of his green-eyed mate. "Harry, don't you understand that I'd die without you? Don't you understand that you kill me when you suggest that blowing yourself up might just be the answer?"

Severus crossed to his mates and placed a hand on Lucius' shoulder. Harry's face became very grave, and Lucius felt a sudden chill down to the very core of his bones.

"Lucius," Harry began in a very somber voice. "there is something I think you should know…the reason that I can speak of this so 'lightly' as you put it."

Harry took a deep breath, and Lucius found himself holding his.

"Lucius…Blowing myself up might just be the answer. .. You see, I am a horcrux."

And Lucius' heart stopped.

-----

AN: I'm really sorry that this chapter has taken me so long to write. I finished my undergrad, but now I'm off to grad school...and packing is a nightmare! Why do I want to move halfway across the country, again? Oh yes, that's where my career is. Arg! Well, I do have some other stories in the making, and I'd strongly encourage you to go check them out on my profile! I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors. I'm trying to get a lot of things done in a very short amount of time.

Please, as always, read and review!

Cheerio!