He didn't bother her for sex the following morning as he sometimes would—he was better than that (something like better, anyway). When she rose from the bed at the same time as him (he'd thought despondency might keep her from rising for some time) he conjured a cloth, soaked it in cool water, and washed her swollen, tear-stained cheeks for her. Then he went about his morning routine as normal, checking his face for any need to shave (he'd always had a thin beard), cleaning his teeth, combing his hair, and dressing himself.

He hadn't told her what—well, rather, whom—he had seen last night, and he didn't tell her that morning.

He told her he was going outside for a while—then he strode back over to her and took both of her hands in his, and asked, "If I do leave, are you going to try harming yourself? Look at me, Trez—look me in the eyes—No, you don't seem like the type, do you?" As she'd met his eye, he'd searched her for any spark of the sort of melancholy that could lead to her offing herself over her husband's death.

There was a tent in the camp with a few chests and boxes filled with the confiscated treasures of captives and of the raided shops and houses of Hogsmeade. Lucius entered it and found a small finger ring of gold and what looked to be a polished, round stone of banded onyx. He took it to Theresa, dropped it gently onto the surface of the table, and, not quite meeting her eye, said "For your husband. You can bury it if you want to—wear it—whatever you like."

Then he left the tent again for some food.

She'd better not expect him to leave her alone for very long.

In the evening, after he had bathed, he offered to wash her back for her, her hair; she shook her head. He noticed she was wearing the ring he'd brought her earlier, on her third left finger. Lucius knew Muggles commonly wore 'wedding rings' there. The custom had never taken with the magical population.

She did get into the bath, but did nothing to really clean herself, only her hands would sweep up and down her calves to rest on her knees and back again. So, although she'd refused his offer of help (and he knew perfectly well that she hated him to see her bathe), he knelt beside the tub and carefully washed her body. He supposed it would have been easier for them both if he asked her about her husband, but the truth was that Lucius didn't want to hear a single word about the man—a wizard—a Muggle-lover. But even that wasn't really the reason he wanted to keep the dead bastard's memory at bay, no. Lucius genuinely found that he didn't actually care about him.

Once he finished bathing her, he gave her a long sheet to wrap herself in while he pointed his wand at the water to change it.

"Kneel down. I'll wash your hair—come on."

Wordlessly, she obeyed him. Suddenly unable to stand the silence, Lucius decided to talk about Draco as he began pouring water over Theresa's hair.

"Well, now you also know that I have a son."

With her face down over the tub, Lucius couldn't see her expression, but he continued on, regardless.

"He'll be eighteen years old next month. Who knows where we'll all be then, eh?"

He thought he felt her try to turn her head as he worked the soap into her hair.

"The last time I saw him after an absence, I thought I was looking into a mirror! The boy looks exactly like I did at his age—one only hopes that it's a good thing for him!" He smiled at that. He was told he was handsome as a lad, and people did comment that Draco was quite attractive as well— "Just like his father!" Nowadays, Lucius found himself rather wishing his son had inherited more of his mother's features.

Sometimes, Lucius wondered at his lack of grief over Narcissa's death. He'd loved that woman. She'd been everything he could have wanted in a wife: pureblooded, beautiful, elegant, and proud.

And she was dead now.

He cleared his throat and continued talking. "Anyway, I only wish I'd spoiled him a bit less—boy could wheedle his way into getting almost anything he wanted: even if I didn't let him have it until Christmas!"

He finished her hair, expertly squeezed out the excess water, dragging the length of her hair through his clenched fist. Once he'd vanished the tub, he turned back to Theresa and considered her. She still held the bath sheet around herself, and he could see that she wasn't sure whether he expected to take her tonight or not.

Would he? She seemed pliant enough, just as she usually was. He'd taken her the night following her capture and the separation of her family, and she'd been completely obedient to him. She'd accepted his power over her then—it stood to reason that, a whole day after learning her husband was dead, she would accept his power over her now. He remembered, suddenly, that the first night with her had begun with her wrapped in a bath sheet—the way she was now—after he had bathed her—as he had just done. He supposed that was some sort of serendipity.

He rubbed her arms through the sheet, stroking from the tops of her shoulders to the tips of her elbows, up and down in firm, soothing motions. Then, as though plucking the silk ribbon of a bride's dressing gown, he carefully unfolded the edges of the bath sheet and let it crumple to the floor.

He caressed her cheek with his knuckles, let them graze her jaw, her neck, the smooth flesh that lay below her clavicle, above her breasts. She made no move to stop him. Her head had lowered, but he wanted to see her eyes, to marvel at the red-hued brown of her irises, their rare autumnal tinge. He lifted his hand from where it had dipped in between her breasts and tilted her chin up. Her eyes flickered briefly at his face, then back to the floor; he felt the press of her chin against the fingers that kept it from dipping.

"Trez."

Her eyes remained stubbornly on the rug beneath their feet.

"Theresa."

Her real name always got her attention. Ah—now she looked at him—those earth-toned gems would be the ruin of him!

"Your eyes are astounding."

He held her face between his palms, now. Her eyes flickered down again, and Lucius thought of falling embers.

"No, don't look away—keep your eyes on me."

She did as commanded, swallowing. He slid his hands from her face, down her neck, and finally, to her shoulders, by which he rotated her until she was facing away from him.

He drank in the back of her while he undressed. Her damp hair hung thickly to between her shoulder blades. He enjoyed the smoothness of her torso, the solidity of it, and even the indent of her spine as it ran along the center of her back was pleasing to him. He had full view of her small, squarish buttocks and the dark cleft between them.

He let himself grow hard slowly, ran his palms along her waist and hips, swept the hair away from her neck so that he could kiss the back of it. When he was ready, he placed a palm on the middle of her back to press her forward gently, until she was lying on her stomach.

He listened for any sounds of discomfort from her—whimpers of pain, tight-lipped whines at the back of her throat—but she made so sound as he took her that night, and after a few minutes, he stopped paying attention.

In the morning she rolled away when he tried to pull her to him. She got right out of the bed and ignored him. Lucius huffed in annoyance but let her have her moment of rebellion.

When he called her over to the table to eat breakfast with him— "It's dull to eat a meal on one's own; at least just sit with me!"—she again ignored him, going outside of the tent to sit in the grass before the flaps.

When he called her back inside after he had eaten, she obeyed, but she sat on the bed and stared off into space when he opened his clothes chest and ordered her to help him check his garments for small holes that might need mending. He shook his head and mumbled curses at her.

For the rest of the morning and all through noon, she ignored his presence.

At one point, he got up close to her and asked, "So becoming a widow has given you balls, now, Mizz Mouse?"

She yanked her arm from his grasp and stormed outside the tent again.

If she thought she would gain any sort of advantage over him by pretending not to care that he still had her, well, thought Lucius as he stepped into his bath that evening, he was about to put that idea to rest, wasn't he?

He called her to him, told her to scrub his back for him—of course, she did not. But that was all right, for now.

He finished washing himself, his body and his hair, then he stood up in the water with a small, freshly wetted rag and touched himself, wrapping the rag around his cock. He didn't look at Theresa for inspiration, nor release any especially lewd sounds from his throat until he came in a good, hot rush into the damp, velvety rag, which he balled up and set on the bedside table near him. He vanished the tub, dried off, threw on some clothes for a short walk about the camp. Before he went outside, he picked up the now cold, still damp rag that was coated with his semen, walked calmly up to Theresa, who was really trying to ignore him now, and with one strong hand he forced her jaw open and stuffed her mouth with the filthy rag until his palm was pressed against her lips, sealing them closed.

"Remember that taste for when you next decide to ignore me for a day," he told her.

He held her like that for a few moments, one of his hands at the back of her neck while the other kept the rag in her mouth. When her tears spilled over his hand, he released her, leaving her gagging and choking as she scraped her fingers around the inside of her mouth.

Humiliation did wonders to break a person down. When he returned later that night, she nervously avoided his eye as before, but she sat nicely in his lap when he asked her to—he wanted some close company while he sipped a goblet of wine and talked of how bored he was with life in the camp, of how much it rankled him that Yaxley would often interrupt Lucius's conversations with other Death Eaters after meetings.

"But at least I have you to keep me company, even if you don't talk as much as I'd like. . ."

He gave her a little bounce in his lap. "Eh? You are a meek thing, aren't you? Even when you've tried to be disagreeable, you still managed to be nice and docile about it."

He took another sip of wine before going on. "But I rather like that about you, Trez: there is almost no guile to you! I like that you're the sort of woman who doesn't try to use her wiles—I dare say that you're the only honest person left in this whole camp!"

And she was guileless, thought Lucius. His mind wandered, unbidden, to the way she'd prostrated herself that night, the same one he'd finally gotten news of his son from inside the castle. The way she'd taken her clothes off and crawled to him, kissed his feet—there wasn't a thing about it that had been sexual to him, which surprised him even now. Instead, he realized, he felt a modicum of respect for what she'd done—he knew, without a shred of doubt, that he would make the same supplication for Draco should the need ever arise.

He looked at Theresa and saw the wheels turning in her eyes.

"You look like you want to say something, dear Trez. Spit it out then—go on now!"

To his great surprise. Theresa locked eyes with him, but she seemed to have already lost her nerve. He could guess at why.

"Go on . . . say it, Theresa."

She swallowed loudly then, kept her eyes on his, but he could see that, even in the dim light of the candles, her face had paled. Her hands were clasped in her lap now, and another glance downward told Lucius they were shaking. He lifted a hand and began to stroke her throat, letting his knuckles skim the soft bumps beneath her flesh. Not once did she break eye contact with him.

"Lucius. . ." Her voice was trembly, but there was definitely something behind it.

"Yes. . .?"

He pressed his knuckles into her larynx, quite gently. . .

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Lucius, will you—" Now there was a catch in her throat.

"Will I what? Don't hesitate now, my dear—the suspense is killing me!" Oh, but he knew damned well what she was trying to ask!

Theresa shut her eyes and let two tears spill out. But she opened them again and continued to hold his gaze. "Lucius—is there anything you—is there something you would—like me to do?"

"'Something I would like you to do," he echoed. "For me? Exactly what is this 'something' you have in mind, Trez?"

"Anything, Lucius."

"Anything at all? Well, I can't say I'm totally dissatisfied of a night with you. . ."

"Lucius please. . ."

"'Please' what, woman?"

"Y-you—you won't even let me know!"

She was struggling to hold back her tears.

Lucius sighed. "'Know'—bloody—what, Theresa?"

"M-my baby . . . my daughter . . . w-where is she in the camp? I'd do anything for—just for that, Lucius."

Her face had drained of all its color; her shoulders were hunched, and her hands trembled in anticipation of his favored punishment, but still, Theresa looked him in the eye.

"That's an interesting word you've used, Trez—would. But it isn't really a question of what you would do, though, is it? You seem to have forgotten that you belong to me, Trez—I own you—and whatever I would or would not have you do for me, well, that's what runs things here, isn't it?"

"But you don't—you don't have me do everything you want."

"You mean I don't have you suck my prick while I'm in the bath? Or that I don't pull you in with me for a slippery fuck? Or are you referring to the way I pretend not to watch while you wash your cunt?"

She seemed to have expected what he would say, had been prepared to tell him he could all those things and more to her, so he dug around his mind for other ideas.

"Perhaps you meant that I don't share you with anyone, not even those idiots who call me a friend. I can't say there'd be much interest in you, dear—want those young lasses, don't they? But I expect at least one will grow tired of all the pleading and whimpering; then I'm sure we can make an arrangement."

Theresa said nothing, but tears were streaking her wan face again.

"Or maybe I shall get a young girl for myself, and keep you, as well. A virgin, no less—they say there're still a few in the camp. I'd have you to tell her the things I like—to teach her how to please me—how to hold a cock properly and that sort of thing. Although— oof—" He was getting up now, nearly dropping Theresa to the floor before he caught her. "I can't say that it would give you much of a break from me . . . like I said—" He walked to the bed and began to undress— "young girls are just too weepy."

He sat on the bed to untie his shoes. "What do you think of that, Trez? You wouldn't have a choice in the matter, but would you do that for me?"

He removed his shoes and walked back to the table to pick up his wine goblet. Then he strode to the end of the bed, turned around, and considered Theresa.

"Wipe those tears off your face. Good. Now take off your clothes and get on your knees."

He watched Theresa, once naked, drop uncertainly to the floor. They'd not done something like this yet; he wasn't even fully undressed, with his trousers still on. He observed her kneeling on the rug for a moment, sipping his wine.

"Now crawl to me."

He thought she might have swallowed before bending forward to do as he'd commanded.

"Don't dart your eyes about like that! Look here . . . There . . . Go slowly, now."

Though her fear was still palpable—as was her sense of humiliation—he had to admit it: she had some steel in her back to look up at him as steadily as she did without once balking.

"Stop there—good. Now tell me, Trez, would you do that for me every day if I asked you to? Just for this much—" He held his finger and thumb out to demonstrate a mere sliver of space between them— "knowledge about your daughter?"

Still on her hands and knees, still looking directly up into his face, Theresa nodded once, and very clearly, said, "I would."

Theresa didn't know where he was taking her. Across the grounds, past the black tents she knew other Death Eaters now lived in, Lucius dragged her behind him.

The night previous, after his torture-game of questioning and needling, after he'd made her crawl naked to him with their eyes locked, and he'd asked if she would do that every day for a chance to know something of her daughter (as if she wouldn't), he'd told her to get into bed and go to sleep while he removed his trousers and his pants so he could slip under the covers with her.

At least he'd refrained from fucking her, Theresa thought bitterly—no insult added to injury, then, eh, Trez?

Her past appreciation for his small kindnesses—the way he would pull out of her if she made a pained squeak; the black stone ring he'd given her after she'd learned for sure that she was a widow; the occasional soothing platitudes that he would mask with a tone of teasing—well, that appreciation had reached its limit, hadn't it? When she'd woken that morning, she didn't wait for him to open his eyes and try to coax her hand beneath the sheets that covered his lap. Instead, she'd slipped from the bed to wash and dress before opening the tent flaps to sit outside and watch the camp.

She'd never been a vindictive person, but it was funny to hear the rustling in the tent as he woke to find her gone. She'd had to school her features into a more solemn expression as the tent flaps were wrenched open behind her, for she had gone no further than the tent's doorway. He said nothing to her, but she did hear him mutter, "For fuck's sake. . ." as he yanked the flaps closed again.

Theresa had decided that she would have to search the camp herself. What was Lucius going to do about it anyway—beat her? Oh no, he would think of something much crueler than a beating. The tying—he might tie her up again until she actually strangled this time. Or he might use his wand to torture her—she knew the incantation, had heard it shouted more than once in the camp, had witnessed the writhing bodies and twisting limbs and heard the screams that rent the air. Or what if she was pulled aside by another Death Eater, one with fewer scruples than Lucius concerning 'property' wandering where it shouldn't? Or what if Snatchers caught her?

What if, what if, what if! What if Josephine was in the camp as Theresa expected, and Theresa never saw her again? Thus far, she had survived watching her son's brains being spilled from his skull, Lucius's onslaught of nightly rapes, physical torture, humiliation, and the loss of her husband. With it all laid out like that, really, what else could these animals do to her that she could not yet survive?

He called her into the tent eventually— "You know I hate eating alone!"

As soon he'd swallowed his last piece of bread, Theresa got up from the table and opened the tent flaps to look outside again.

It could not have been more than a minute before a kick to her backside sent Theresa tumbling outside of the tent. As Lucius dragged her up by the back of her robe, her customary fearfulness returned.

And so now they were crossing the grounds towards the far section of the camp that Theresa recognized, with a jolt of horror, as the place where she'd been kept after her capture.

"Come on!" Lucius snarled at her as she began to balk. Why was he bringing her here?

Now they were approaching a wooden hut. Around it, Snatchers sat smoking or eating, but they jumped up as they saw Lucius. Panic welled inside Theresa, and she almost yanked her arm free of his grasp before he turned and took her roughly by both of her arms.

"Woman, if I were you, I'd be still!" He gave her a shake. "You've been pushing me . . . you're lucky I don't simply drop you here and leave!"

He ordered one of the Snatchers to lead them to the pen. There, Lucius turned back to Theresa with a snarl, and ordered her to, "Stay. Fucking. Put!" He was entering the pen where the prisoners were kept, but he'd left her in a spot from where she could barely see inside.

After five minutes of trembling beneath the leers of the nearby Snatchers, Lucius exited the pen, and he was not alone. He was dragging a frightened child with him.

Lucius's expression was almost petulant as he asked Theresa, "Is this the one—"

"Mammy!"

Following the good news of his son's relative safety has been the realization that, until—or unless—the Dark Lord decided to make a move, he, Lucius, could do nothing more for Draco.

He'd tried to tamp his feelings of frustration with the usual methods: wine, sex, walks around the lake, more sex, more wine, in no particular order. But that Trez. . .! She was nowhere near as compliant as before. And of course, Lucius knew why. They were both parents, had that same instinct.

And so, he walked into the reeking pen full of blood-traitors, Muggle-lovers, and women who'd been deemed undesirable for a certain sale. A few Snatchers entered as well, offered to help him find whatever he might be looking for.

"There's a small girl here—I saw her two nights ago."

"What does she look like, sir?"

"Brownish hair—maybe dark blonde . . . long . . . had a ribbon in it."

The Snatcher who seemed to be in charge nodded. "Right then—YOU LOT—LINE UP AROUND THE FUCKING WALLS!"

The prisoners scrambled up against the barriers that held them in as the Snatchers strode into the center of the pen, keeping easy order with their drawn wands. Suddenly, one of the Snatchers lurched forward into the grouped-up line of captives. When he withdrew, a girl-child was squirming in his grasp.

"Is this it?" The Snatcher asked with some difficulty: the girl had begun to wail as she tried to escape him.

"Bring her here!" called Lucius. The Snatcher carried the crying, frightened girl to him, and set her on the ground facing Lucius with his hands on her shoulders.

Through the dirt and tears, Lucius detected the same features he'd seen on the face of the child he'd nearly stepped on two nights ago. They were Theresa's features. Only the eyes were different.

"Yes. This is the one."

The girl began to cry harder now.

"You want to buy her then?" The lead Snatcher approached them.

"I will show her to someone first." Lucius didn't have to force the imperiousness in his tone—it had always come naturally to him.

The girl sobbed and tried to draw away, but Lucius quickly grabbed her filth encrusted sleeve and pulled her with him.

Of course, he ended up being right—this was the daughter of Theresa.

"Mammy!"

The girl lurched from his grasp, and he allowed her. Why not? Where was she going to run besides the arms of her mother?

Theresa had collapsed mid-stride and was now on her knees, embracing her child in a grip Lucius was sure he'd have to threaten undone. He walked over to the pair, Theresa weeping quietly as she rocked her daughter, the girl crying aloud with her arms about her mother's neck, face buried in it.

"So, this is the one, is it?" And he began pulling at the girl's sleeve again.

"No!" Theresa twisted with her daughter still in her arms. She held the girl so tightly against her that the two looked morphed.

"Don't you dare. . .!" Lucius warned. He grabbed the girl again and yanked— "No, no, no, no. . .!"—Another yank pulled the girl's arms from her mother, and the pitch of her wailing and her cries of "Mammy! Mammy. . .!" increased.

Theresa never stopped managing to hold onto to her daughter.

"God damn you, woman! If you want her back, you've got to let me take her!"

The look in her eye told him she didn't completely trust him, so he told her, "I'll call Snatchers over to help me—d'you want that? They'll think it good sport, no doubt. . ."

As soon as he felt Theresa waver, he wrenched her daughter away and half carried, half dragged the thing, screaming and crying for her mother, back inside the pen where he turned the girl to face him.

"Shush, now! Be good!" He left the girl—whatever her name was, he didn't know it yet—sobbing into her hands near the barrier and approached the lead Snatcher.

"So, how much is she?"

"Thirteen thousand galleons."

Lucius's eyebrows shot up. Thirteen thousand gold galleons?

"You are joking."

"Nay, it's no joke."

"Why the specific number?"

"She's thirteen years old, and a virgin—one thousand galleons for each year of her age. Like I said, she's still a virgin."

"She's a half-blood," said Lucius flatly. "The years of her life are not even worth the full thousand." He glared at the Snatcher, but the man did not back down.

"Thirteen-year-old virgin, thirteen thousand galleons—sir."

"If she were such valuable goods, she would be inside the hut with the other poor bitches."

"She cried too much. Got them all riled up."

Or you never expected someone would show much interest in the ratty thing.

"Thirteen thousand galleons? Where exactly are you going to spend that sort of money around here, eh?" Lucius made a sweeping motion with his arm, indicating the camp.

"Investment for the future, I'd say," replied the Snatcher.

"Come on, now—half-blood—half price—I'll give you six thousand and five hundred."

The Snatcher shook his head. "Thirteen thousand."

"She's hardly worth thirteen hundred."

"Thirteen thousand. She's still a virgin."

"You seem awfully assured of that—wait, don't reply to that. I don't want to know how you know."

The Snatcher made no comment. He simply stood there, face expressionless, waiting for the pay off Lucius realized he knew would come—he'd watched the scene that had unfolded outside of the pen.

"You do realize that I don't actually have a full thirteen thousand galleons on me here?"

The Snatcher nodded. "A note of hand is as good here as anywhere, sir."

"Let me just disapparate to Gringotts to fetch an official note."

"We keep a ledger, sir. When everything's up and running again, you'll be able to pay up then. If you've got something you'd like to trade for her—of equal value, of course—"

"Fetch the bloody ledger."

The Snatcher summoned it with his wand, and as Lucius skimmed the page he was to sign for the girl, he saw that—on this page at least—thirteen thousand galleons was far higher a price than any the other Death Eaters had paid for their youthful companions.

The quill scratched noisily across the parchment, ceasing rather suddenly. "Thirteen thousand galleons for—" Lucius glanced at the Snatcher, "what's her name?"

The Snatcher shrugged. "No idea; just write 'thirteen-year-old girl.'" Then a look entered the Snatcher's eyes—a cunning, knowing glint that Lucius could have punched him for. "Or you could put the mother's name—thirteen thousand galleons for 'daughter of'. . ."

Lucius simply wrote down for girl, and handed the quill to the Snatcher, who also signed his name.

"Done. She's all yours, Mr Malfoy."