Chapter 8: Captured

Lucius had not been on a broom in years. Or at least not stayed on one, since the last time he was on one he fell off pretty directly. But he was more concerned with Mircea; she looked as though she had never felt comfortable with a broom. He zipped around her, trying to regain familiarity with the magical transport.

They had been told that tonight was the night. Severus had relayed the information two days ago and since then preparations had intensified significantly. The Ministry plans had to follow very closely on the tails of the attempt on Potter; if they eliminated him the Ministry would be weakened and if they didn't then there was little chance he would leave again for some time. And what better chance was there than a wedding where all the troublesome Order of the Phoenix would be present and therefore not at the Ministry?

"What in Merlin's name happened to your eye, Lucius?" Snape asked, pulling up beside his old friend.

Lucius touched the swollen purple lump his eye currently hid behind. "Mircea," was all he said.

Snape looked over his shoulder at the witch, who was busy tossing a ball and diving to catch it. When she noticed their glances, she shot Snape a very dirty look.

"I supposed you should count yourself lucky then," he sneered to Lucius before drifting off toward Yaxley.

It wasn't a lie. Mircea had purpled his eye with deft grace. But this time she had felt bad.

Lucius had found her shortly after the news had reached his ears about the plans for that evening.

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" had been her reply and she had continued looking for the book she needed.

"It has been years since I dueled with this wand."

"So you want practice? Go find your son. I'm busy."

"You know he's no match for me."

She quirked her eyebrows at him. "Someone's overconfident. Have you ever even seen your son duel?"

"No, but all accounts say he is horrible."

"Said with the same loathing I'm sure your father used when talking about your build and your talents."

Lucius always moved more quickly than she expected. He had her pinned against a wall by her wrists in moments.

"I do not enlighten you as to my private memories so you can fling them back at me," he growled.

"No, but you don't bother learning from them either."

His eyes glowed with anger and she was surprised he didn't strike her. But he did crush her wrists painfully as he slammed her back against the wall once again.

"Let go of me!"

"What?" he sneered. "Are you in over your head?"

"I said, LET. GO!" Mircea shoved him away with a blast of wandless magic he had not anticipated. Pulling out her wand she aimed it at a chair and sent it flying at him with all her might. It had connected with his eye, knocking him on his back. There was a stunned silence and she rushed to him. His eyebrow was gashed and he lay still.

"Oh Merlin! It thought you would dodge! Lucius, I'm so–"

Whatever she would have said was cut off as she was hit with a Jelly Legs Jinx. She knocked over a globe before falling over completely. It took her a moment to remember the counter curse, but when she did she saw Lucius standing at the other end of the room, wand pointed at her.

"Fight me, witch," he snapped at her, icily.

"Gladly, you whoreson dog."

Lucius's face went red and a wave rushed across the room at Mircea. A swirling column of fire, meeting the wave and causing a boiling maelstrom, was retaliation and it singed the hem of his robes. Tossing robes aside, an arrow shot out of his wand at her. She easily ducked, but when it embedded itself in the wall behind her tentacles began to whip out of the center. They latched on to Mircea, dragging her toward their core and blistering her skin where they made contact. She Petrified the grasping arms after sending a massive spider after Lucius. Poison dripped from its fangs as it went, burning holes in the carpet. Trying to blow it up only made it more angry and after several burns on his legs, Lucius was finally able to get rid of it. They began to send curses and hexes in a bristling cloud, each thrusting and parrying like fencers. Every so often a spell would go astray and a shelf would explode or a table ignite.

"Expeliarmus!"

Mircea's wand shot from her hand and she glowered. "Coward!"

"It's Potter's move, dear. You ought to know that."

"And a disarmed witch is far more dangerous. You should know that."

He opened his mouth to retort, but the room filled with darkness, catching his words in his throat. Mircea slammed her hands together and began to pull them apart slowly; crackling in between them was a growing ball of lightening. Lucius's eyes widened. She had mentioned skill in Dark Arts before but there had been no overt display until now.

The lightening flew at him and in a moment of inspiration he acted. A thin metal rod shot from his wand and the lightening darted off toward the metal instead, blowing a hole in the wall as the rod embedded itself there.

The pair were knocked off of their feet and across the room. Mircea landed on Lucius heavily, and his arms went around her mechanically. Even after dueling to draw blood, he still automatically protected her.

They lay in silence for a moment as the dust settled around them and they checked to makes sure all limbs and appendages were still present and accounted for. Lucius's arms were still tightly about her and she lay on top of him. Mircea looked down at him and began to laugh. He couldn't help but chuckle as well. She was covered in dust, there was a slash on her shoulder and welts on her arms, and he could hardly expect he looked any better.

"It would seem I've met my match." Her voice had a husky tone that surprised even her.

"I should say so," he replied, in equally deep tones.

Mircea felt a rush of heat and got up gracelessly but quickly. The last thing she needed was to be caught in an entanglement with Malfoy, literal or figurative. Lucius clambered to his feet, still managing to maintain some grace, and looked about the room.

"Look what you've done." He tutted at her, but a clear smile played on his lips.

"You started it." Mircea did not give him time to argue with her; she started setting the room to rights and, though he shot her a look, he joined her efforts. Aside from how horrible they looked, the room soon looked as though nothing had ever happened.

"Let me heal your eye," Mircea offered. The curses had been in a fair fight but the chair had been an accident and she had hit him much harder than she had intended.

"Like hell!" he barked at her, backing away. The scar on his torso reminded him of the kind of healing she was good at.

She grinned at him. "It won't do you any good to keep it."

"That's where you're wrong, my dear."

"I'm not your dear."

He ignored her. "It is most certain proof."

"Proof of…"

"How very much you hate my rich, Ministry blood."

She grinned back at him. "So it is, you Pureblooded lickspittle."

He looked impressed. "How is it you are so clever with English?"

"My mother. She spent her school years in South Africa and made sure to teach me. It's a useful skill."

"What was her name?"

Mircea fixed an intense expression on Lucius. "Her name was Moriah. My father was named Arad."

"Don't look so distrustful, Persephone," Lucius soothed. "My father was Abraxas and my mother was Idunn. Now we're even."

"You do realize I have had little reason to trust you, do you not?"

"I do not."

His answer caught her completely off guard. They generally spent most of their time joking about their dislike for one another and distrust of one another.

He continued, watching her closely. "We have mutually benefited one another in countless ways. I have kept your secrets as you have kept mine. And let us not forget where you spend your nights."

"What is the point of this?" Mircea snapped, flustered.

"Simply that you can trust me. That you do trust me."

"Very well. I do. And I have work to do if you will excuse me."

She had left the room in seconds. Lucius picked up a paperweight absently, spinning in his hand as he thought. He trusted her, and he wanted her trust as well. Merlin only knew why since she was impossible, irritating, far too forward for a woman, embittered, and defensive, but he did.

Mircea's head whirled as she bustled down to the potions room of the Manor. It was unreal how easily he could disarm her. She did trust him, though there seemed to be no real reason for it.

And now they were hanging in the air above a field in Britain, waiting for a signal to move on Potter's house. Mircea and Lucius had been sharing the bed for a week and a half and they both realized that they would have to feign dislike more than ever.

Dolohov floated over to Mircea with McNair in tow.

"Don't worry, lovely," he teased, more kindly than usual. "If you fall, we will catch you."

She sneered at him slightly. "And if you get Stunned, I will wave at you as you fall."

"Painful, Mircea, very painful. Us Easterners must stick together."

"I have no doubt that if I got too close to either of you I would stick. Slimier than Snape, you are."

The two me laughed loudly, drawing Lucius's attention. Why were they howling at her like that?

Why did he care?

His train of thought was cut off by the appearance of the Dark Lord. Subconsciously, he drifted down and back until he was out of Voldemort's line of vision.

"It's time."

The billowing, ashy cloud raced off and the swarm of Death Eaters sped after him. Lucius had seen his wand in the had of the Dark Lord for the hundredth time in the past week and a half and it still made his vision swim with red. Mircea flew close to him, trying to make it seem incidental, but she knew he flew better than her and he could guide her through the trees and buildings.

It was a shorter time than she had expected. They arrived where they should be in half an hour and ten minutes later it began. She saw the Order members rising straight into their trap, all of them silent and still in their black robes. Not shockingly the Order had used Polyjuice Potion and there were now Seven Potters, but there were more than enough Death Eaters for everyone. Bella immediately went after her cousin and Lucius found himself caught up with the werewolf, whom he had dueled before in the Department of Mysteries. Mircea felt something fly by her hair and she spun to see a red-haired and scarred young man on a Thestral aiming another spell at her. Uncertain on a broom though she was, her dueling was more than adequate to drive the man back with the fake Potter (there was no way a straight young man would cling to the ginger like that). He started to make off for some other location and she began give chase when above her she heard the magic word.

"Expelliarmus!"

Mircea rocketed straight up, something she did not know she could do until she did it, and shot after the motorcycle. In the fullness of the glee that filled her at the prospect of ending this craziness by killing the boy, she easily sent a Patronous off to Lucius. Within moments he was there, blonde hair streaming out behind his mask. The two of them had been joined by Alecto Carrow and Fenrir and the four threw spells in a bristling cloud of flashes. The giant's flying aided by Potter himself was barely enough to keep them at bay.

And then it happened. Mircea saw it unfold from the tailpipe as if in slow motion. A huge brick wall flew straight behind the bike. Straight at Lucius Malfoy who was looking to the side with his swollen-shut eye to the wall. He would never see it coming.

Lucius saw Mircea zooming over to him in an almost perfect horizontal line and assumed she had lost control of her broom. She hit him hard, knocking him off course. He quickly corrected his flying and opened his mouth to yell at her. But he saw her arm go up and a moment later a brick wall hit her full on. He ground his broom to a halt and saw her hang in the air for a moment before crumpling. She began to drop through the air, speeding toward the ground.

What to do? If he went after her he possibly would lose his chance at glory. But she had saved him…

He dove, air whipping at his face. The gap was closing but she was still too far to grab. He pressed himself to his broom handle and sped forward. The ground below shone in the moonlight and he realized that it was in fact water, but this would still have the impact of pavement. She was only a meter or so away and the water was now only a few meters below her. Throwing himself almost from the broom he caught hold of her arm. They slowed instantly but the jerk wrenched his hand away from his broom and they plunged into the dark water.

Kicking with all of his might he broke through the surface of the lake, gasping for air and still clinging to Mircea. Mercifully she was not in her usual skirts or they would have sunk from the weight; as it was, he was struggling to keep himself above water and only her face remained above the water. Tugging his wand out of his pocket where he had tucked it away, he shouted, "Levicorpus!"

They rocketed out of the water and crash landed on the shore. He rolled a little distance from her and lay still for a moment. But his eyes landed on her crumpled form and panic swept over him, sickening him. He scurried to her and rolled her onto her back in the sand. Her right side where she had taken the blow of the wall was scraped and her cheek was as large as an apple. But worse yet, she was not breathing.

Lucius did not know a single spell for this. Were she choking he could eject the water, but he did not know how to make her breathe again. He took her face in his hands, trying to will her to be alive.

"Mircea!" He shook her but she remained as immobile and cold as ever. "Persephone!"

Lucius acted on instinct and could not have explained what possessed him to do it: he leaned forward and pressed his mouth around hers, blowing air into her mouth. It immediately blew back into his face through her nose and he sat back swearing. Kneeling beside her, he again pressed his mouth to hers and then held her nose shut. He saw her chest rise and then fall with the air. This was something. Again he blew in air and again her chest fell. Seconds stretched into eternities and just as he was about to give up a shudder passed through her body.

He jumped back just in time to not get a face full of water as she retched and coughed. He helped her sit up, keeping his arm around her shoulders as she coughed.

Mircea was only able to get a bearing on what was going on when water stopped pouring out of her nose and mouth. The last thing she remembered was seeing that wall coming at Lucius. But her face hurt and she was sure her arm was fractured, so that filled in at least one blank. But why was she half-drowned and why was Lucius looking at her like that?

"What happened?"

"You…You fell."

Mircea narrowed her eyes momentarily as she understood what he wasn't saying. He must have dove for her. But she could not imagine how, if she was that water logged, he had gotten her breathing again. "How did you…?" She was surprised to see him turn scarlet and physically distance himself from her.

"I breathed…into your…mouth." He was horribly ashamed to admit it. It seemed so indecent and even at the time it had hardly been sexual. He had thought she was dead. He watched her eyebrows jump.

"But…why?"

Their eyes met. Her tone had not been critical but genuinely wondering. Why had he? He looked her over as he thought: she looked pathetic with a swollen face and soaking wet. He smoothed her hair out of her face, his hand resting against her cheek. Mircea could feel the pain leaving it; he was healing her face without realizing it.

"I was afraid I had lost you." It was all he intended to say about the matter but it was enough. He had kept his panic at bay until he had voiced his fears to her, but now he was very aware of what he could have lost.

Thank you," she murmured. "But you should go. If we go missing too long..."

He nodded and summoned his broom to him. It had crashed into some trees but it would still fly. "Will you be alright?"

She nodded. "I'll Apparate to the gate. Your son can take care of this when he gets back."

He mounted the broom and heard her call for him. Lucius turned to look at her, still soaking wet.

"You'll catch your death like that. Here." She repelled the water from him, the quickest way to dry him off but not the prettiest. His blonde hair was frizzy and his robes were rumpled. Their eyes met. She wanted to say something but there was no way to voice it. He had voluntarily saved her life after she had done the very same for him. Thanks were not big enough and she was already confused.

Lucius looked at her for a moment and then nodded to her. He understood perfectly. He kicked off and was gone into the night.

Lucius found his son first of all when he arrived home. Draco had survived the attack through they had been unsuccessful. Only Mad eye Moody had been killed and they had not killed Potter.

Worse yet, Draco was the one to inform Lucius of the fate of his father's wand. He was truly speechless for the first time in ages. Like anyone else he had occasionally rehearsed in his mind how he would react to the death of a loved one or the loss of his wand. This was nothing like what he had imagined.

"Father?"

Lucius's grey eyes focused on his son's same grey eyes. What was there to do?

"You have your wand?"

The boy nodded. And Lucius still had his from school. The loss of the elm wand was tragic but they were not totally ruined. Not yet.

"Who were you up against?"

"Arthur Weasley. I was with MacNair and Zabini."

So his son still had not truly wounded or killed yet...Lucius did not know if he was glad or disappointed. His own father would have been disappointed, but, as Mircea had pointed out, since when did he want to be like his father?

"Where is Mircea?" he asked, almost involuntarily.

"In bed. Her arm was fractured so I set it and healed it. Her cheekbone was splintered a bit as well but it should heal fine. I gave her a sleeping potion. She seemed off."

"Off how?"

Draco watched his father closely as he answered the question. There was something going on, something he was not part of but was growing more aware of each day.

'Distracted. Moony." Like you, Draco thought.

Lucius seemed to pick up on the implied notes in his son's answer, because he immediately became his more usual, snappy self. "Well, we aren't dead yet. Stay in your rooms until afternoon tomorrow. Give this time to blow over and have an elf bring you food in the morning."

Draco nodded and Lucius slipped away down the hall. But he did not go to his own room. When he entered Mircea's room he could see her sleeping form in her bed. He had entered through loopholes that he knew from her own explanations of the securities around her room and so he reasoned he must not be completely unwelcome. She did not wake and he moved closer to her, silent as a shadow. For whatever reason it struck him as important to see that she was alright with his own eyes. Her sandy hair fanned out around her and she cradled her recently injured and healed arm to her chest. Her face was swollen but looked much better and she slept much more heavily than he had ever known her to sleep before.

She was fine, and he knew he should leave before his presence or absence was noticed. But Lucius still felt a twinge of disappointment at having to go to bed alone as he Apparated silently to his own room.

The Death Eaters were informed the next day that the Dark Lord had learned the wedding was to be within 48 hours. It was the opportunity they had long been waiting for and Lucius only saw Mircea in passing for the next day and a half. These were her plans and she was busy explaining them to each and every group. They all needed to "incidentally" arrive in the Ministry and then take it down in sections, like a grid.

This would also be Mircea's first time to set foot in the Ministry of Magic let alone her first opportunity to exact the revenge she had long dreamed of. He could see the glow of it in her eyes as she explained the plans to the different groups of Death Eaters and recruits.

But even with all of this going on, each morning he awoke beside her. Even if he had gone to bed alone, Lucius would wake with her warm body beside his own. Disconcertingly enough, he even awoke one morning with her in only her underthings and her dress draped over the back of a chair. Mircea had almost died of embarrassment, but he had been a perfect gentleman about it and had even gotten her dressing gown for her from her room. What she did not know was how secretly pleased he was that she felt this comfortable with him. Lucius did not believe he would be able to sleep without her.

Before they all knew it, the afternoon was upon them. Lucius had gone looking for a cigar to see him off when he found Mircea. She was alone in his study and jumped when he entered the room. She was dressed head to toe in tight, clinging black and she looked very tense.

Lucius abandoned the cigar, knowing there was no way she would tolerate him smoking near her in a mood like this. "Why so serious?"

Mircea turned back to the window, debating whether to answer him or not. "Do you remember your wedding, Mr. Malfoy?"

He looked visibly taken aback and came to stare out the window beside her. The look she knew reflected his thinking about Narcissa was plain on his face. "I do. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Your wife, if not you, spent over a year planning a single day, correct?"

Lucius nodded. He wanted that cigar now.

"And what was her reaction after it was all over? After the honeymoon?"

Lucius did not want to remember his wife like that but he could not change what she had been. "She was depressed and restless. She said she had planned for so long she didn't know what to do with herself now that it was all over."

Mircea nodded. "That's why I'm so serious, Malfoy. What's to become of me? I've planned this for so long."

"The Dark Lord will see your skill tonight and you will find some other way of torturing me," Lucius answered calmly. He watched her out of the corners of his vision and saw her smile at him.

"One can only hope. I should be going."

"So I am to meet you at the center hall in two hours, correct?"

The look of horror on her face made him laugh aloud. "Couldn't resist, Miss Elaide."

She looked at him like she was going to hex him and then shook her head, walking out of the room, silently. Lucius smiled and decided he could skip the cigar after all.

Lucius had to stifle a shout when a gloved hand wrapped around his mouth in the dark. He spun around to see Mircea smirking up at him. "We're even now."

"Not hardly, witch," he growled at her, turning back to survey the hall. He did not remember her being that quiet before. She must have used a localized silencing spell.

"Any sign of our dear night patrolman?"

"Not yet, but you're four minutes early."

She made a face at him. "Lack of precision loses lives, Lucius."

"And lack of attention?" He jammed his surprisingly sharp elbow into her ribs and she looked back to the hallway. The night watchman was there. She nodded at Lucius and he sent a slicing spell across her forehead. Blood trickled into her eyes and she mouthed obscenities at him. Lucius winced; he had overdone it a bit. She stepped out of the shadows and began to stumble toward the wizard in her path.

"Mam'? Are you alright? You should not be here."

"I just need to sit down a moment. I didn't see him."

"Who? Who's here?"

"I am." The man did not have time to turn around before the killing curse hit him.

Mircea was immediately back to her more surly self, catching the body and lowering it soundlessly to the ground. All over the building this was being imitated in various forms.

"'I am.' Seriously? A little less theatrics, Lucius," she scolded as he drug the body away.

"Little miss Princess-in-distress has a lot of room to talk."

"Maybe if you weren't busy blinding me!" she hissed at him. "Come on. Still three more to go."

The next three guards were all dispatched with as much ease as the first. None of them had ever seen Mircea before and she had no problem appealing to their better natures.

And then it began. Someone finally got wind of what was going on, not shocking all things considered, and the remaining forces came out. Luckily, Fudge had always had horrible taste in friends, so many of those the Ministry dogs expected to help them turned on them.

"Lucius, behind you!"

Lucius ducked without question; if she had said to jump three meters into the air he would have done it. A column of fire swirled above him and he threw a slicing spell behind him. There was a cry and a body fell.

"Good aim," Mircea said, offering him a hand up.

He was about to retort when he saw a cloud of knives shooting toward them. Without a warning he shoved her down and threw a shield around them. The knives turned to powder on contact with the shield and coated both of them in grey metallic dust. With a swipe of her wand Mircea cleaned them off,

"Back to back, Malfoy. If you can stand the heat, that is."

In answer he grabbed hold of her and spun her behind him. They blended perfectly, each genuinely looking out for the other's interests. They twisted, spun and fired off spells as one unit with four arms, a veritable Ganesh. Shouts and cries echoed down the halls as they made their way to the main atrium. There was smoke, water, and a firework of flashing lights as they pushed forward.

Malfoy heard Mircea scream and it made goosebumps break out across his body. He had never heard her scream like that before. He spun around to see a man on fire stumbling towards her, reaching for her. Mircea shrieked again and Malfoy realized why. It was a boggart that someone had released. This was her father that was lurching toward them. Lucius stepped in front of her, crying, "Ridikulous!" The boggart fell to the ground in a pile of ash before solidifying into a sparkling diamond. Mircea stared at it for a moment before taking Lucius's hand to pull him away; the boggart was shifting to Lucius's fear. As they turned the corner, she heard people behind her yelling that Voldemort was here and she caught a glimpse of the pale head.

Grey eyes met dark ones, assimilating this new information about one another, but there was no time for deep thinking. A column above them exploded and Lucius began firing off spells as Mircea threw the rubble back at the Ministry fighters.

This went on for about ten more minutes before shouts were heard from above the main atrium. "The Minister is dead! The Ministry has fallen!"

As if on signal, the Ministry fighters fell back, running and disappearing into corridors and the Floo chutes. Some Death Eaters followed, but most of the Dark Lord's servants stayed where they were. A loud cheer soared up from the black, hooded masses. They had won.

Lucius shot sparks and fireworks into the air, practically beaming with joy. Surely things would get better now. He turned to Mircea and his grin was matched with one from her; she looked a bit deranged with blood over her forehead and down to her jaw and this glowing grin. Unexpectedly, she threw herself at him in a tight embrace. He caught her and stood stunned for a moment before hugging her back just as tightly.

But the victory at the Ministry was not without consequence. Potter had gotten away once again and Rowle and Dolohov had been viciously punished for being beaten by seventeen year olds. Snape and Draco had been left to see to them as the Dark Lord didn't want to be rid of them quite yet and the battered pair was now resting in a guest room on the first floor.

And that night as they slept, the combination of the horrible torture she had been forced to witness and the sight of her father's flaming body reaching for her resulted in wicked nightmares for Mircea.

Lucius woke to her screaming, which nearly made his blood run cold. When he tried to calm her she fought him, assuming in her dream state that he was after her. He wrestled with her until he could finally shake her awake. She looked around still not fully aware of what happened.

"Persephone…It's alright. You are in no danger." Well, no immediate danger, he corrected mentally.

"But my father…"

"He has been dead for many years now. It is all over." He wasn't sure if he should lie to her and tell her that her father had never died, but it did not sit right with him and so he stuck to the painful truth.

"Oh." She looked at him with a gaze that clearly said she was still within her dreams before lying down much closer to him than usual. She dropped off almost immediately, but she shivered in her sleep. Hesitantly, Lucius curled his arms around her, curving his body to fit beside hers. Her shivering stopped and she relaxed against his warm body.

"I'll wait for a little while and then I'll roll over," Lucius told himself. But her calm breathing and warm skin soon had him deeply asleep as well.

When Mircea awoke the next morning, she had no recollection of the nightmares or Lucius waking her. She only felt his arms around her and his breathing ruffling her hair. They had agreed not to touch, and that needed to be maintained for the sake of distance. Mircea wrestled inwardly for a minute before suddenly whispering, "To hell with it." She curled up closer to the man beside her and fell back into sleep.

From that morning on, they always awoke touching. Neither commented on it and neither sought to end it. Sometimes Lucius awoke with her head on his shoulder or chest and sometimes Mircea awoke with his arms around her, but they always held one another now in sleep.