Lucius Malfoy was a creature of luxury. Which wasn't a surprise, no matter how bloody alien that sort of lifestyle still seemed to Tamsyn — the Malfoys were obscenely wealthy, after all.
Though that development was a recent one, and had come about quite by accident. The Malfoys had been wealthy back when Tamsyn had first met Andy, of course, but only in the sense that all noble families were, nothing like the position they were in today. In Tamsyn's time, they'd still been considered a relatively new noble family, at least in Britain — they hadn't been raised to the Wizengamot until the late 18th Century, only about a hundred fifty years ago (at the time), but that didn't mean the family in general wasn't a well-established entity. They'd been French nobility much longer than that, the modern Malfoys directly descended from an influential Frankish family attested as early as the Merovingian dynasty — there's some evidence that they were local tribal chiefs in the 4th Century, but as many name changes as the family had gone through, it's impossible to be sure — surviving through the Carolingian Empire and its dissolution through to the Kingdom of France, where they continued to be a powerful, wealthy family all the way up to the Revolution. The Communalist Revolution, that is, contemporary with Tamsyn's attendance at Hogwarts.
The Malfoys (though they hadn't yet been using the name) had always been a rather adventurous family, one son or another embarking on some endeavour to make a name for themselves, or otherwise win further riches or honours for the family — which was tolerated by the leadership, for the most part, so long as they could maintain plausible deniability in the event that it ended badly. Armand Malfoy's famous partnership with William the Conquerer was just one example. The success of the venture had won the Malfoys lands in what was now Wiltshire and a place in the peerage — the muggle peerage, of course, the Wizengamot wouldn't acknowledge them until much later — expanding their influence north into England. And that's all it was for most of their history: a foothold, a peripheral holding they could use to leverage their interests outside France, and little more. It wasn't unusual for their English household to pass members back and forth across the Channel, normally held by one of the younger, more charismatic, diplomatic, or just more curious men in the family, the position given much greater importance when conflict between England and France heated up, but for the most part just an additional, minor fief in the long list of them the family had accumulated over the centuries.
By the 20th Century, the Malfoys had finally been raised to the Wizengamot — and even 'honoured' as one of the so-called "Sacred Twenty-Eight", due to their absurdly long history on the Continent — but the British branch of the family wasn't particularly noteworthy among the rest of the nobility...and then came the Communalist Revolution. The family had already been unusually concentrated in France by the late 1930s — the transition of Aquitania to democracy had had the local Malfoys unwilling to tolerate the loss of status moving north; the German branch of the family had already been devastated by the Revolution there, stripped of their titles and property and/or had fled to join their French cousins, those remaining in Germany and Saxony either having signed away their rights or been murdered. So an uncommonly large proportion of the sprawling family had been concentrated in France when the Revolution hit.
And, as any student of history could tell you, the Communalist Revolution in France had been extremely brutal — many Malfoys died trying to put down the revolt, even more executed in the tribunals after the Communalists took power, or else killed in the mass lynchings common to the period. Some managed to flee, to Holland or Britain, but it didn't take very long before the French branch of the family, with the addition of survivors from the Aquitanian and German branches, had been all but entirely eliminated. The remaining Malfoys were, of course, incensed over the deaths of their cousins, so ended up directly participating in the war effort against the Communalists in greater proportion than most noble families — and so the surviving British, Dutch, and Genoese branches of the family were also devastated, losing many young men in the fighting. If Andy were only a few years older, he might have died fighting Communalists on the Continent himself, like so many of his cousins. By the time the Revolution finally came to an end, what had once been one of the largest noble families in Europe had been reduced to a tiny fraction, the centre of the family hollowed out to leave only a few scattered branches alive.
This process had been ongoing during her life before the diary, but Andy had been remarkably philosophical about it. The nobility derived their wealth and power from the exploitation of the lower classes — something he said without any moral implication, simply a statement of fact — and it was only natural that, in time, the lower classes would recognise the nature of their relationship, and rebel against it. It was then for the people in his position to defend their interests, violently if necessary — in his mind, it was only rational for the Communalists to rebel, and it was only rational for the nobility to resist their rebellion. If, in the end, they lost, then he guessed they lost. Dozens, thousands of such conflicts had occurred throughout history, it was simply the way of the world.
To put it more succinctly, the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Amusingly, Andy had hardly even heard of Karl Marx before she referenced the line — he'd come to the same conclusion independently, from the opposite perspective. Talking to him about politics and history could be funny like that.
As much as the Malfoys had been numerically devastated, from a certain perspective it'd turned out surprisingly well for the survivors. The caretaker governments the ICW had put in place in France, Germany, and Saxony had been more sympathetic to the old order, so when the Malfoys had come demanding reparations and that their property be returned, they'd been taken seriously. They hadn't gotten all of their wealth back — Aquitania didn't participate in the settlement at all, naturally; fair portions of their more mobile assets were permanently missing, some books and art and whole buildings lost in the fires; various estates in Germany and Saxony had been remodelled into multi-family housing, and couldn't be returned without serious opposition; alongside some other issues here and there — but they had gotten a big damn chunk of it, with the addition of hefty remuneration for the 'crimes' committed by the Revolutionary governments against their family. And, since the Malfoys were numerically fewer, they'd ended up far more wealthy per capita, by a frankly absurd degree.
And the British Malfoys had benefited from this arrangement, more than one might expect. Since the main family had been practically exterminated, most of the remaining French Malfoys children under the protection of the British — the modern 'French' Malfoys, Tamsyn had learned, were mostly from the Dutch and British branches, today still outnumbering those children and their families — and thanks to their participation in the fighting, the British had been in an excellent position to make claims in the name of their relatives. The Dutch and Genoese branches had extracted significant compensation as well, but the British had made out like bandits, absorbing an absurd volume of Continental wealth into their hands.
In the space of a single decade, the British Malfoys were transformed from a relatively minor noble family, notable only in their close connection to a far more powerful family on the Continent, to one of the wealthiest in all of Europe. There were plenty of millionaires on the magical side, but Tamsyn suspected she could count the billionaires on her fingers — and Lucius Malfoy was one of them.
This transformation was something Tamsyn was only familiar with from being told of it, having taken place after the creation of the diary. At the time of the original Tamsyn's post-Hogwarts relationship with Andy and Éloïse, Andy had been the heir to the family — and his great-uncle was old and sickly, so his ascension had been fast approaching — just as the judgements were coming in one after the other, quickly becoming apparent just how well the family was about to make out. So, naturally, the future Lord and Lady Malfoy sharing a live-in muggleborn mistress had become something of a scandal — somewhat less of one when the original Tamsyn had hexed a reporter who'd asked a very crude question, without drawing her wand...though she would argue the following insinuations that Andy and Éloïse obviously had other reasons for keeping her around had been equally insulting.
(Tamsyn had looked up the articles in the Prophet's archive, out of curiosity, they were vile. She perfectly understood her creator's decision to leave, not long after Andy had assumed the title — she'd been in a bloody book at the time, and she'd still been sick of it.)
Andy had endeavoured to use his new-found extreme wealth judiciously, applying himself to numerous philanthropic efforts throughout Britain and France — it was only rational for the lower classes to rebel, but it was also only rational for their rulers to reduce the likelihood of that rebellion, especially when easing the burden took a relatively small investment. His personal lifestyle had stayed more or less unchanged, set in his ways — still luxurious by the standards Tamsyn had grown up with, but moderately modest compared to his peers and his means — but his children, having grown up in obscene wealth, had been a different story. And that acclimatisation to luxury had passed on to Lucius.
One simply needed to look at the man to see it. His clothing was always very fine, if in a somewhat peculiar style for a nobleman. It was typical for the more conservative elements of the nobility especially to prefer archaic robes — not dissimilar from the Hogwarts uniform, if far more elaborate — but Lucius favoured a style originating with more liberal noblemen of Tamsyn's time. (Including Andy himself, not coincidentally.) Composed of trousers, waistcoats, and a variety of cloaks and capes, the style was obviously influenced by the dress of professional-class commoners, though not indistinguishable — in particular, they tended to use finer cloth (various kinds of silk, for the most part) in plainer colours, single colours in dark, rich shades, sometimes elaborated with gold- or silver-work embroidery around the hems and buttons, the buttons themselves often precious metals or pearl, in formalwear sometimes even gemstones. In the modern day, the style was in an odd position of being modern, when compared against the robes many of his peers favoured, while also being dated, having gradually gone out of fashion in his father's time. Nobody could deny the richness of Lucius's dress, however, wealth oozing out of every glittering centimetre, and neither could anybody deny that he wore it well, the suave, charming bastard — he even had imitators these days, among certain younger noblemen and throughout the segments of the commons he frequently interacted with.
Personally, Tamsyn thought the cape and the bloody cane were silly — Andy could be a ponce sometimes, but he hadn't gone nearly that far with it — but she had to admit that the air of debonair class he had around him was mostly deserved. He was a handsome son of a bitch, she'd give him that. Tamsyn found it mildly distracting, honestly, but that could just be because he reminded her of Andy.
And it wasn't just how he dressed, the luxury extended to practically every aspect of Lucius's life. The Manor had been remodelled, now a far richer, more impressive space than it'd been before, practically a museum, clean and white and scattered with expensive art. Though, obviously those sections of the Manor weren't meant to be lived in — Tamsyn hadn't seen it herself, but Andy had said the family's private living space would be more homey, the more over-the-top bits designed to be seen by their peers. (Politics.) The Malfoys tended to be somewhat more adventurous in their diet than many older families, thanks to the wanderlust of their past, but only the finest of ingredients would be tolerated in their kitchens, most of it sourced from specialty producers all around the world. Sometimes it was honestly ludicrous — Tamsyn had been a bit dumbfounded when she'd put together that the tea and finger-food offered during one of her visits cost more than all the money she'd ever even seen put together — but it was also kind of funny sometimes. Tamsyn knew for a fact that some of their food, especially certain varieties of tea, were from muggle producers. Lucius didn't let ideology stand in the way of getting the best of the best, no matter where it came from — though she'd expect he didn't tell his peers that, meaning he served muggle-grown tea to unknowing Death Eaters, which was also funny.
Honestly, he'd bought his twelve-year-old son a Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-One — one of the newest, most expensive racing brooms on the market at the time — practically on a whim. The Malfoys spared no expense, on literally anything. Which they could get away with, because they were so absurdly wealthy that it would never make a dent. Tamsyn was certain the returns on investments regularly coming in was enough to cover their expenses anyway, so it wasn't a surprise Lucius could be so seemingly frivolous with his fortune — it would be funny how meaningless money really was to rich people, if it weren't so fucking tragic.
The same trend naturally extended to formal events — the nobility held holiday balls routinely, the host rotating through their ranks season to season, the Malfoys' turn extravagant enough it was still referenced in certain gossipy circles years later. And, of course, they only patronised the finest establishments. An absurdly classy tea shop in Charing, the kind of place an ordinary person would be terribly lucky to ever even see the inside of, had a table permanently reserved for Narcissa. Lucius was a member (and patron) of Marshal Greens, a gentleman's club so exclusive many British mages had never even heard of it. As small as the magical world was, there were relatively few restaurants, especially high-class ones...so Lucius and Narcissa had simply started some, recruiting chefs from here and there across Europe and putting them in tiny, exclusive, ridiculously fancy places.
According to what Narcissa had said writing to Tamsyn about it, their contracts with these establishments were even remarkably permissive, the chefs they'd scouted given far more control over their domain than you'd expect in the magical world. Part of this was just not wanting to corrupt the art — a good patron didn't tell an artist how to do their job, Narcissa insisted — but that actually wasn't unusual for the various business and programmes the Malfoys sponsored, by this point having a reputation for throwing money at people with very few strings attached. Some of this was Lucius still trying not to disappoint his grandfather, aping Andy's own philanthropic efforts, but it was also just good politics: the more generous the Malfoys were, the more likely people were to forget about that whole supporting a terrorist campaign to overthrow the legitimate government thing. Or, more to the point, take at face value Lucius's claim that he'd been threatened, blackmailed, and bewitched by the Dark Lord and his followers — very few forgot Lucius's past entirely, but a surprising number of people (including the former Minister himself) fully believed he'd been coerced, and felt somewhat badly for him over it.
Only somewhat, of course. There was only so much pity ordinary people could summon for someone so obscenely wealthy.
Lucius Malfoy was also a creature of habit — due in large part, Tamsyn suspected, to the pressures of his youth. She was well aware that Andy and Éloïse had considered Abraxas to be a terrible disappointment — the youthful indiscretion that had resulted in Lucius's existence was but one failure in a long list — but they'd been stuck with him. They had had other children, but Abraxas was their eldest, meaning he was the heir — they couldn't change that without outright disowning him, which neither of them wanted to do. However, when it came time to pass the title down, Andy could publicly declare Abraxas unfit, and instead pass the title on to the next in line: Lucius.
From the very beginning, Andy and Éloïse had been deeply involved in Lucius and Aelia's upbringing, having no faith in their intemperate, reckless first child to do it properly. (Melete had been more involved in their children's lives than Abraxas, though Narcissa's impression was that she hadn't had much of a say in their upbringing either.) And they'd been very strict, subjecting the two to a regimen of education and discipline far more comprehensive and stern than they'd bothered with for their own children — though their youngest had gotten some of it, being so near Lucius's age. Practically every minute of every day had been planned from the age of four, an unbending routine designed to forge their grandchildren into far more impressive exemplars of British nobility than their embarrassing first child.
Aelia had broken under the strain, fleeing to the Continent the second she got her OWLs never to be heard from again — Narcissa claimed Lucius hadn't spoken to his sister or even written her since she'd run away, but he was paying a retired Hit Wizard to keep an eye on her, just in case — but Lucius had taken to it as well as Andy and Éloïse could reasonably have hoped. Perfectly formal and polite when it was called for, the smooth damn bastard, refined and cultured, cautious with his word and steadfast in his commitments in a way his father had never come close to managing, and a right clever son of a bitch too. Andy could hardly have dreamed of a better heir — one of his grandchildren had been traumatised by their all-but-literally abusive excuse for a childhood and been chased off, but he'd still gotten what he wanted.
Not to say Lucius wasn't without his quirks, of course. Most of them were innocuous, and not really worth getting worked up over — some of his sillier affectations, like his gloves or that damn cane, or his hobby of tweaking animals with blood alchemy (like those albino peacocks of his), or his and Narcissa's sex lives, which wasn't anyone else's business. It wasn't uncommon for noblemen to have their eccentricities, nobody was concerned about any of that. However, despite his authoritarian upbringing, he'd developed a curious disregard for what was expected of him. He'd play along most of the time, but when he thought he had a better idea, well, sometimes he'd just do it, no matter whose toes he stepped on in the process.
Narcissa had complained to Tamsyn before about how difficult it could be to change his mind about anything to do with their political project he initially disagreed with. It was possible to change his mind, but he could be very stubborn about it, and sometimes changed his mind back when she wasn't looking. One prominent example, Narcissa had been reluctant about ingratiating themselves too closely with the Minister so soon after the war, concerned it would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention; Lucius, on the other hand, thought getting close to Fudge would be the best way to protect their interests, in the short and long term. Narcissa had managed to convince him it would be too risky for the time being, she thought they'd agreed on the matter...only for Lucius to go out and befriend the Ministrer on his own, without telling her about it. It'd turned out alright in the end, so Narcissa hadn't been too annoyed with him about it — and it did usually work out, Lucius more willing to take risky-but-potentially-advantageous gambles Narcissa was leery of. More than anything, it stressed Narcissa out sometimes, worrying what nonsense her husband was involving himself in behind her back. Not with any malice, of course, he thought he was helping, and he wasn't hiding it so much as leaping at opportunities which often didn't allow time to inform her beforehand, so it was hard to stay angry with him about it...
It was undeniable that Lucius and Narcissa were a good team, but his occasional impulsiveness did sometimes force her to scramble to catch up with unexpected developments. Given how rigid and uncompromising his childhood had been, Tamsyn was honestly surprised that he could be so spontaneous, but only on limited, considered occasions, it was truly very strange.
Probably the most consequential adventure of Lucius's had been his entry into the Knights of Walpurgis. There hadn't been any question that he'd be involved in the movement somehow, since his grandfather was one of Melanion's closest advisors (if secretly), while Abraxas attempted to stake a place for himself in the upper ranks of the cult (with mixed success). The future planned for him was to have a role on the religious side, and in business and politics — to take a more diplomatic role, essentially acting as his grandfather's successor among the leadership. Lucius hadn't known he was being groomed for such a high position, necessarily, and had chafed at his modest role in the cult side of things, feeling shut out.
So, he'd built a recruitment and intelligence network, stitched together with spies and informants from every level of government and commerce — and even deep within certain enemy families and guilds. From scratch, by himself. A project he'd started while still in Hogwarts. Needless to say, Melanion had been very impressed.
It'd made Lucius a natural successor to his grandfather's place of prominence in the organisation upon Andy's assassination. This part wasn't publicly known, but Tamsyn was aware that Andy's death had been arranged by Abraxas. In public, Andy had put on a show of being opposed to the movement, even his own son unaware of his importance in the leadership. Abraxas had hoped that, once he was Lord Malfoy, he could approach the Dark Lord with an offer to leverage the family's absurd wealth in the movement's favour, winning him much more respect and a more powerful position among them. Andy had been killed before he could enact his plan to make Lucius his heir — a plan which Abraxas, of course, had been fully aware of — but Éloïse managed to convince the Council on Family Law to allow her to retain regency over the family until the investigation into her husband's death was finished, while using the opportunity to forge the documentation necessary to prevent Abraxas from succeeding Andy. When Abraxas discovered what she was trying to do, he'd reacted very badly — he'd hired mercenaries to kill his father, but his mother he'd murdered himself.
Melanion was less than amused, to put it mildly. Like an idiot, Abraxas had bragged in front of the whole Court about his scheme, that he was so loyal to the cause that he'd murdered his own parents. Now, patricide wasn't looked on very favourably by the sort of people who'd been attracted to the Knights of Walpurgis in the first place, so the immediate reaction from his peers hadn't been exactly glowing. And then Melanion had asked him, casually, if he was aware that Candidus was one of his oldest friends, and had been one of his closest advisors, his outward show of opposition a long-term political ploy — which was a surprise to most of the people in the room, only the Inner Circle aware of the second and third point, and only the handful who knew Melanion had once been Tamsyn Riddle aware of the first. Bella had shown her the memory, and it was actually kind of funny, Abraxas slowly realising with every word from Melanion that he'd made a terrible, terrible mistake.
Naturally, Melanion had tortured and killed Abraxas for the murder of his parents, in front of the whole Court. The next day, Melanion had personally delivered the mutilated corpse to Lucius for burial (well, cremation, the Malfoys burned their dead), along with a warning. As promising of a talent as Lucius was, Melanion had still been very angry over the murder of Candidus — his patience for the House of Malfoy was wearing thin. Do not disappoint me, my lord.
(Lucius had shared that memory with Tamsyn too, the warning delivered in a perfectly calm voice over his father's body, very creepy.)
Luckily for Lucius, he never had disappointed his Dark Lord. Melanion had actually come to appreciate his penchant for taking the initiative, the combination of his network, his political acumen, and the occasional clever scheme quickly catapulting him to the top of the movement, despite his relative youth. There were many things one could say about Lucius, but one thing he was not was a disappointment.
But, despite his occasional moments of impulsivity, Lucius's day-to-day life was remarkably regular. Tamsyn even knew his routine in quite some detail, thanks to Narcissa's comments on the matter — coming out of the far more wilful and unruly House of Black, she'd initially found her new husband's personal quirks quite peculiar. He woke up around six o'clock every morning, moved only as far as an armchair at a window overlooking the gardens to go over notes that had come in while he slept — reports from vassals or business and charitable projects he was invested in, occasionally an update from one of his still-active spies here and there or from Gringotts — while sipping at a very particular citrus-infused blend of tea. (His grandmother's favourite, the blood alchemy -altered breed was rare enough after the Revolution that Éloïse had set up a greenhouse to grow it at home.) When that was done, he went about his morning ablutions, and then met Narcissa downstairs for breakfast, no later than half after eight. They'd read the newspapers and any reports or pending legislation/regulations from the Wizengamot/Ministry, discussing one matter or another, if there was no pressing business sometimes for hours. But most days, they needed to be out of the house by ten, which was still plenty of time to have a light meal and talk about whatever was on their minds for the day.
What happened after that depended on the day. If the Wizengamot was in session (as it so often was in the present climate), Lucius would most often travel to the Hall with Narcissa, though he didn't attend the meeting alongside her. Instead he'd poke around the offices downstairs, seeing if he could wheedle information out of assistants or heirs, quietly trading favours while the public-facing process proceeded overhead, hang around the entrance hall schmoozing with the press observing the meeting. During the midday break, Lucius and Narcissa would often have lunch with one of their allies, or someone they were attempting to sway toward their side; if they didn't have a guest, they'd normally have a light tea instead, discussing the particulars of the meeting and what Lucius had gotten up to in the meanwhile, before going their separate ways. If there was an afternoon session that day, and there were big, important politics going on, Lucius might stick around, continuing his work from the morning, but most often he was done with the Wizengamot for the day.
In the afternoon were a few hours reserved for business meetings — who he was meeting with was dictated by the business of the day, but when possible they were always held either at the same cafe in Old Town, or else a certain tea shop within view of Gringotts. If the business were especially private, they might meet elsewhere — the private lodge held by Marshal Greens was a common choice — but most afternoons Lucius could be found at one of these two establishments, his conversational partners cycling out as he moved from one meeting to the next, quietly sipping at tea and reading newspapers or reports as he waited for his next guest to arrive. He didn't always sit at the same table every time, but both establishments always made sure there would be one available around the time he was expected to arrive — it was common for the nobility and certain wealthy commoners to tip service staff, and Tamsyn had learned asking around that both Malfoys were known to be among the more generous, and it wasn't like he was bothering anybody having his meetings, so they liked having him around.
Later in the afternoon, closer to the end of business hours, Lucius could be found at the Ministry. Sometimes he'd wander around seemingly at random, chatting with this or that person — building social connections with as many people in as many different offices as he could, even just casual familiarity to lean on later — but more often than not he would make his way up to the Minister's office for a meeting right at the end of the day. Narcissa was very frank that Fudge had been a bit over his head, without the experience or the connections necessary to be an effective Minister, Lucius managing to insert himself as a favoured advisor in the early days of his investment. Toward the end of Fudge's term, Lucius's advice had become trusted above even Fudge's Undersecretaries and noble cousins — he'd even offered Lucius an Undersecretary himself position on multiple occasions, Lucius refusing it every time on the grounds that he was simply too busy to execute the office faithfully. (Tamsyn suspected he'd take the position as an insult to his dignity, but that he didn't have the time for it, which was true enough, was the reason he'd given Fudge.)
At least once a week, straight out of their meeting Lucius and Fudge would collect their wives (and sometimes the children) and have dinner together, either at the Manor or one of the fancy restaurants the Malfoys sponsored (or the Fudges' house, much more rarely). The meal was often a political occasion, even if they weren't dining with the Minister — the vast majority of evenings, Lucius and Narcissa hosted or were hosted by a political ally, or a business partner, or a potential ally or partner they were attempting to sway or whose offer they were in the process of considering. Now and then they'd treat someone working for them, managing one business concern or another, or an artist under their patronage, or even the vassals on their lands in big outdoor banquets. Some of that was a little unusual for the nobility, but again, build a reputation for being generous, less likely to remember the terrorism and genocide, content peasants are less likely to rebel, et cetera.
Once dinner was over with, if Draco was home they'd spend time with him, but if he was at school they had some alone time — discuss the events of the day, or just relax together, whatever they felt like at the time. (Or sometimes they'd each have alone time with a mistress, depending on the day.) Late in the evening, Lucius would have a nightcap with his mother — he was insistent about fitting that in whenever possible, because he could be surprisingly sentimental like that sometimes — and was in bed by midnight.
Lucius followed more or less the same routine, varying somewhat depending on events or the business of the day, with very little variation. And he could be quite stubborn about it too — Narcissa had described how he'd get short-tempered and irritable when he was thrown off schedule, often wouldn't return to normal until the next day. Obviously, the regular meetings with the Minister wouldn't be happening anymore, as Lucius didn't have the same close relationship with the new one that he had the previous, but Tamsyn expected the routine would still be more or less unchanged otherwise.
So, making contact with Lucius turned out to be terribly simple — she already knew exactly where and when he could be found.
She'd scouted out his favourite cafe in Old Town and the tea shop in Charing ahead of time, preparing for her approach. The tea shop was rather more public, more people wandering about on the street and inside, the tables standing out in the open, so Tamsyn settled on the cafe. The place was very fancy, all polished wood and stone tile, the upholstery richly embroidered, the lights overhead in finely-shaped fixtures, silver glinting in their light, gentle music from live performers lingering in a corner — the sort of place Tamsyn would never have even imagined affording growing up. Of course, now she had access to as much money as she could ever want, but it still meant she'd had to do some preparation.
Particularly, she needed nicer clothes. Twilfitt and Tattings had existed in Tamsyn's time — the shop dated back to the early 19th Century at least, though the owners had been tailors even longer than that — but, being a muggleborn orphan with hardly a sickle to her name, it wasn't exactly the sort of establishment she'd frequented. In fact, she'd set foot in the place exactly twice: once the first time she'd spent the summer with Julie, to get Tamsyn some robes appropriate to be seen by Julie's extended family without embarrassing herself, and once with Andy, to get the swishiest bloody dress she'd ever even touched for a formal event Andy was bringing her to. (The same event she'd been introduced to Éloïse at, for the first and only time before the creation of the diary.) The first visit had been awkward, because Tamsyn had turned up in her Hogwarts robes, which had been the only halfway-passable clothes she'd had at the time — and also Twilfitt and Tattings was so plush and fine a place to make gutter-trash like her feel like she was trespassing just being there — and the second visit had also been awkward, in the way that someone she was fucking buying her expensive things always was. At least she'd been able to entertain herself with making Andy all flustered, as he always got when she flirted with him in public, but that hadn't really been an option the first time...
(After she'd started sleeping with them, the times Andy or Julie had bought her things, nobbish-arse shite she'd could never afford on her own, she couldn't help wondering how much of their relationship was...transactional. There'd been a couple moments with Corey too, so apparently she still wasn't over it. Not that she had a moral objection to that sort of thing, of course — some of her favourite adults growing up had been whores — the thought just made her vaguely uncomfortable.)
This visit was far more pleasant than her previous ones. It helped that the clothing she'd come in with was passable (if still not matching up to most of the clientele), and she had the money to pay for herself this time — money she'd stolen, true, but the proprietor didn't know that. It'd been surprisingly fun, honestly. Tamsyn had gone in her Mercy Anne character — enough nobles came here that it wasn't out of the question that news of her existence might get around, might as well play it safe — had explained she'd been invited to a classy get-together by a noble boy, and had no idea how formal dress in Britain worked. Which had the advantage of being more or less true, if only because her (aborted) acculturation into society was five decades out of date now — the fashions of the upper class didn't change that quickly, but they did still change some. She'd ended up being fussed over by a couple apprentice seamstresses, the both of them right around her age, chatting on about fashion ephemera and random gossip — getting very silly and giggly when the matter of underclothes came up — it was surprisingly entertaining.
Tamsyn hadn't gotten on with girls her age growing up, to put it mildly, and sometimes it was nice to just be Mercy Anne for a little bit.
Anyway, by the end of it Tamsyn had ended up with a nice enough dress — not super formal or anything, but high-class enough that she wouldn't get second glances hanging around the posh establishments Lucius went to. Not for being out of place, anyway, she didn't doubt that she would be getting glances for other reasons.
Tamsyn didn't like wearing corsets much — she'd had to defend herself at the drop of a hat too many times to be quite comfortable feeling restricted — but she did have to admit that her tits and her waist looked fantastic in this. And besides, you could put some pretty serious defensive enchantments in these things, she was pretty sure that made up the difference. (Though she'd stitched them in herself, not willing to wait the extra couple weeks T&T would take — she was sure the script she'd borrowed from Barty was better than whatever they would have done anyway.) In fact, she should definitely bring this back to America with her after she was done here, she was certain Corey would like it even more than she did...
Borrow a few subtle pieces of jewellery from Barty's mother's things still packed away in Senior's house, and there, she should pass well enough for some random noble girl out for lunch or window-shopping or whatever. At least long enough to have her little talk with Lucius without drawing suspicion.
Tamsyn arrived well before Lucius could be expected to show up, ordered herself some lunch, for the look of the thing. It hadn't taken very long, after being brought into more upper-class circles during that first summer with Julie, for her to notice that the diet of the nobility was extremely boring — very basic, old-fashioned English fare, a lot of plain meats and veggies and mushrooms and the like, the preparation very simple, sliced and steamed or broiled, sometimes baked in a...well, not a pie, exactly. It sort of reminded her of shepard's pie, but with a layer of a sort of flakey pastry instead of potato, and instead of mince meat more of a nice thick stew (exactly what kind of stew varied). It wasn't bad, of course, the first one she'd had had sort of reminded her of a fancier, hot, sit-down version of a shooter's sandwich, weirdly enough. Some French-style soups and sauces had started seeping their way in around Tamsyn's time, the trend only accelerated since thanks to so much of the surviving French nobility settling in Britain permanently. The one thing they could get really creative about was the pastries, sweet and savoury in all kinds of different shapes and sizes and flavours, those weren't bad. The rest of the food could get pretty bland, though — they used plenty of herbs, but spices seemed to be mostly limited to black pepper, anise, and cumin, and those only noticeable in particular dishes.
And this judgement was coming from Tamsyn. Orphanages in the East End during the Great Depression hadn't served their residents a great variety of food, to put it mildly.
The variety in the menu was maybe slightly better than she thought it would have been in Tamsyn's time, but it still wasn't particularly exciting. She went ahead and got one of those not-shepard's-pie things, because why not — it turned out rather less bland then she remembered, fine enough. (She got a funny double-take from the server, it seemed this sort of dish was more messy than the average noblewoman would eat in public, which she guessed meant she passed.) She lingered for a couple hours afterward, working on her notes for a project this term — the term had barely started, but she'd be hopping back and forth a lot, so she'd asked her instructors to give her as much as they could ahead of time — ordering more tea every now and then to prevent the staff from becoming annoyed with her. And then left around four in the afternoon (leaving a sizeable tip behind) when Lucius failed to turn up.
That was just...irritating. He didn't come here every day, of course, but she was missing classes for this — she had to, since he was out in public far less reliably on the weekends. Missing a class now and then wasn't a big deal, but she was hoping to finish her Mastery early, and this really wasn't helping. Hopefully she wouldn't be forced to waste too much time with this nonsense...
Thankfully, Lucius did turn up on her second day hanging around the cafe, walking through the doors after she'd already finished her lunch. Only a few minutes after two in the afternoon, right on schedule. Perfect.
Tamsyn had never actually seen Lucius in person — obviously, his father hadn't even been born yet when the original Tamsyn had made the diary — only in photos and memories. The resemblance with Andy was obvious, because the purebloods were hilariously inbred like that. (Andy and Éloïse had been cousins of some kind or another, she didn't remember exactly, and Abraxas and Melete were even more closely related, enough that a marriage likely would never have been considered if not for the unplanned pregnancy.) The cape and the cane really were very silly, and Tamsyn still thought the Malfoy tradition of charming their hair white was also silly, but she couldn't deny it was quite striking — especially with how long Lucius kept it, much longer than Andy's, a solid, straight curtain stretching at least to his elbows, smooth without a single sign of kinking or tangling anywhere. She was certain he was using charms and potions, and, it did look nice, if not really her thing — Tamsyn preferred the look of her own curls above especially straight hair, but to each their own.
Following a server to a table, his smooth, refined, deliberate grace was reminding Tamsyn very much of Andy. That was...uncomfortable.
(She'd never missed anyone before — obviously, she'd never had anyone she'd cared about that much. It was unpleasant. Hopefully she'd get over it before too much longer.)
Tamsyn didn't approach him immediately, remained sitting at her table alone. The whole point of approaching Lucius here was, yes, because she knew exactly where and when he could be found, but also in an attempt to upset his schedule as little as possible. Lucius would likely surrender to their demands no matter what, but she would prefer he be cooperative — irritating him by throwing him out of his routine would be starting off on the wrong foot. Indeed, Lucius had barely been sitting for a minute before one of the men sitting at another table stood up and walked over, Lucius standing to greet him, and then bundles of papers had been pulled out, the pair huddled at the table discussing one matter or another. Supposedly he'd linger at the end of the afternoon for a time, going over his notes from his meetings for the day, she'd wait until then.
A couple uneventful hours passed, Tamsyn poking at her work, keeping half an eye on Lucius's table, occasionally ordering another cup of tea or a little pastry or biscuit to keep the staff from getting fed up with her. Lucius had one meeting, and then another — this one clearly more contentious, at one point the pair of men leaning over the table to trade heated whispers — and then a third, and a fourth. Finally, Tamsyn waited for five minutes, and nobody new showed up, Lucius quietly going over the papers he'd accumulated over the course of the afternoon. It was starting to get somewhat late, after four already — if he wanted to be at the Ministry by closing hours he'd need to leave within a half hour. It looked like this was her opportunity.
All right, then. Tamsyn flagged down a server, asked for their tea list again — she hadn't paid that much attention to it previously, since she just didn't care that much herself. Ah-ha, that one, just so happened to have the very same citrus-infused blend Lucius and Melete liked so much, perfect. (This place probably bought it from the Malfoys in the first place, come to think of it.) So, a pot of that, for one, and...this coffee — she'd been drinking tea while waiting, to stay in character, but she preferred coffee, and so did Melanion, so Lucius should be well aware of that. She was maybe going to play with him, a little, because why not. And might as well get one of the platters of little bite-sized things they sold to go with drinks, ah, this one. Right, go ahead and bring that over to Lord Malfoy's table, please, she would be over there in a minute.
The dumbfounded look on the poor woman's face was kind of funny, but after a second it smoothed over, assuming Tamsyn had a meeting scheduled with him. Actually, for some reason — Tamsyn missed the logic behind it — she was assuming Tamyn was approaching him in hope of landing a betrothal with his son, which was less funny. She realised she was only seventeen to nineteen or so, physically (she wasn't certain precisely), which wouldn't be entirely out of the ordinary for an unmarried noblewoman trying to snare so attractive of a prospect as the future Lord Malfoy, but honestly...
Oh well, as odd as the assumption was, at least the server thought it innocuous enough, Tamsyn guessed that would do. Once the server had walked off, Tamsyn gathered up her papers, squirrelling them away in her bag. She sauntered right over to the table — smooth and casual, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. "Good afternoon, my lord," she said, hanging her bag off the back of the chair opposite Lucius.
He stood at the greeting, seemingly by reflex — Lucius had been very well trained into the proper etiquette, after all. As much as he'd moved immediately, his head was still a step behind, his confusion causing enough of a delay that it was just noticeable. "Good afternoon. Can I help you, Miss...?" His eyes trailed over her for a moment, taking in the dress and the jewellery and all. She wasn't actively reading his mind, but it didn't seem like he noticed anything particularly unusual about her, though something was bothering him, a faint uncertainty niggling at the edge of his mind.
"Creswell. Mercy Anne Creswell." Tamsyn gave him a little, aborted curtsey, appropriate for a young noblewoman greeting the lord of a lesser House. Which, unless she was much mistaken, was correct only if they were treating her as the daughter of a Lord Protector (the only case where a noblewoman without title of her own would rate higher than a Lord of the Wizengamot of Malfoy's stature), though Lucius would more likely write it off as a mistake from ignorance (like using "my lord" instead of the proper "Your Grace"), thanks to the American accent. She sank into the chair, without waiting to be invited — also suggesting she held a higher social status than him, but could, again, be written off as ignorance — while saying, "I've come to Britain with an offer from my father, which we hope you'll find intriguing."
Belatedly, Lucius followed her down to a seat — slowly, distracted with his own thoughts, brow just slightly furrowed as his mind ticked away. He didn't have any such meeting scheduled, of course, but it wasn't unusual for people to come to him with offers unannounced. Lucius was well-known enough of a figure that they sometimes even came from overseas, and it could often be more difficult for foreigners to arrange a meeting through the proper channels. Though, Lucius hadn't realised he was so well-known in America, and he'd never heard of any Creswells before...but he wasn't terribly informed as to the major players in America anyway, so that didn't necessarily mean anything. "And your father suggested that you approach me in such an informal manner, did he."
"I was told to make contact with you. The means by which I do so were left to my discretion." Tamsyn smiled. "Your routine makes you very predictable, my lord — this was the easiest way to get a moment with you."
The corner of his lips twitched, just barely, the vaguely patronising amusement much more obvious from his mind. "...I see." Lucius seemed to be coming to the conclusion that she was somewhat impetuous, young and reckless, which wasn't a bad thing, necessarily — he'd been much the same at her age, in some ways. Besides, less cautious people were easier to manipulate, easier to ferret out their motives. "I confess I'm not as familiar with the affairs of the New World as I would like, and I find I cannot quite place the name. Virginia?"
"Massachusetts."
"Ah, yes — 'Mercy Anne' does have a certain character, now that I think on it."
Her smile turning a little crooked, wry, she said, "You can blame my mother for that one. She can be rather less...forward-thinking than my father." Tamsyn put just the subtlest trace of feeling on her voice, commiseration, intrigue, the sense that her father was the sort of person he wanted to know more about.
By the way Lucius leaned forward in his chair, just slightly, the enthrallment must have taken. "I must admit, I have long wished to diversify my House's interests outside of Europe. We have had limited success in Africa and Asia, due to the hegemonic influence of Egypt and China in their respective regions, and the enmity for the West found in various Indian nations." Yes, Tamsyn wondered why that could be. The Union and the East weren't so thoroughly dominated by the major cultural centres of their regions as Lucius implied, international law simply complicated arrangements with parties outside the ICW — though the Union's rivalry with the ICW was stepping up these days, admittedly, not helped along by the social unrest in Anatolia and the Balkans... "To attempt building ties across the Atlantic had occurred to me, though I had always lacked the necessary contacts to do so."
Tamsyn had, obviously, guessed that — she'd picked her opening comment for a reason. Theoretically, if things in Britain went terribly sour, America in general, and Massachusetts in particular, would be an ideal place for the Malfoys to flee. Massachusetts did have extradition arrangements with the ICW (though they were hardly ever utilised), but if it came down to it, they could always retreat to the Miskatonic Valley and wait out the law indefinitely. And, of course, the economies of Massachusetts, Virginia, and Orange River (and also the French-speaking states, somewhat less so) were relatively underdeveloped when compared to most of the ICW, so did present significant business opportunities, the difficulty in working across an entire bloody ocean notwithstanding. "My father, for his part, has long had an interest in establishing a presence here in Britain — he has a certain attachment to the old country, you know how it is." Another hint of magic on her voice, nudging Lucius into suspecting they may hold similar politics.
"And he did not wish to visit himself?"
"He was concerned showing his face too soon may...give the wrong impression. Doubly so considering the current political situation between the Confederation and your I.C.W. Sending me, however, looks far less threatening to certain overly-cautious individuals, doors open for me that may have been shut for him. I understand your lady wife played a similar role when she was my age."
A shade of suspicion slipped into Lucius's mind, though held from showing on his face at all — Narcissa's role in under-the-table political dealings in the latter years of the Knights' campaign was not widely known. "True enough. I wonder, what manner of trade is your—"
Lucius's question about where Tamsyn's father's wealth came from — as well-dressed and well-mannered as she was, he would need to be a man of some stature — was interrupted by the arrival of a server with a platter. They went through the usual motions and inane chatter to situate the drinks and nibbles, Lucius managing not to show his surprise or mild irritation all the way through. Once the server was gone, poking at the pot of tea set near him, subtly inhaling the steam wafting from it — and his eyebrows (his natural dark brown, hadn't been glamoured like the rest of his hair) stretched upward, his mind ringing with surprise. Tamsyn hid a smirk (badly) behind her coffee cup.
Eyes slightly narrowed in suspicion, Lucius stared at her for a brief moment. There was definitely something off about her, he was putting it together now — she was familiar, he'd seen her before, he was certain, but he couldn't remember where. Of course, Lucius had seen photos of the original Tamsyn when she'd been around this age — Andy and Éloïse had kept some, and naturally there were newspaper articles — so he wasn't just imagining it, but for whatever reason wasn't quite making the connection. "An excellent choice." The question he wasn't asking was obvious on his voice.
Tamsyn smirked wider. "I do my research, my lord. I know much about you."
"It seems you have me at a disadvantage — I've never so much as heard of you."
"Oh, I'm certain you have, by a different name." He moved to speak, but Tamsyn leaned into the enthrallment hovering around them, harder, pressing in the desire to wait and listen. This time, he did notice, and mostly resisted it, but he was so taken aback by the unexpected mind magic — eyes widened, leaning back in his chair a little, his mind simmering — that the words died in his throat anyway. "And what is a name, truly? A few syllables we've decided to attach to one individual or another, like any bauble may be traded in and out for another at our desire. Like any other bit of social costume, no different than the glamour on your hair or that cane you love so much — wouldn't you agree?"
Realisation struck like the ringing of a bell shortly into Tamsyn's little speech — coming with a harsh flare of irritation, and just a hint of creeping dread. Lucius might not recognise her face, but that he recognised: she'd told him much the same thing, when Lucius had come across the diary as a teenager and met her claim as to her identity with scepticism. Given how big of a revelation that conversation had been for him, Tamsyn didn't doubt he remembered it quite clearly. "Tamsyn."
She smiled back at him. Dropping the American accent, "Hello again, Lucius. Did you miss me?"
"...In a manner of speaking." He leaned forward a little, his voice dropping to a harsh hiss, eyes burning. "What in Merlin's name were you thinking, killing the Weasley girl and the basilisk and that– that tableau you left in the throne room?"
"Now, that almost sounded like a complaint. You got exactly what you wanted out of the arrangement — Dumbledore disgraced, soon to be removed from every position of authority he'd held, and his muggle protection reform abandoned in the scandal."
"Killing the girl wasn't part of the deal!"
"I'm touched, Lucius, I didn't realise you cared so much about little Ginevra Weasley."
Lucius scoffed — if he were the type to do anything so dignified as roll his eyes, he definitely would have. "Don't play the fool with me, Tamsyn, you're terrible at it. You know exactly the reason for my objection."
They'd both promised Narcissa that no innocent children would come to permanent harm in their little plot, yes, she remembered. "Fortunately for me, I don't have to live with Narcissa, so that sounds like your problem." The intensity of the frustration in his head only burning brighter, Tamsyn leaned harder into the enthrallment again to cut him off — which only annoyed him more, of course, but it successfully stopped him from interrupting her. "Perhaps she was annoyed with you for a time, but since you could honestly say that you had no foreknowledge of my intent to secure a body for myself, I don't doubt that you managed to get Narcissa off your arse about it. I expect she'll be snitty with me next we meet, but that's a price I'm willing to pay."
"Snitty. You murdered a child. You know how Narcissa feels about children."
Saying she "felt" a way about children was underselling it — she worshipped a patron and protector of children, murdering a child as Tamsyn had was literally sacrilege to her. Tamsyn was well aware, she'd gone into it knowing that Narcissa would almost certainly never trust her again. Melanion had burned the same bridge, trying to kill Liz, which she suspected was going to be more of a problem. "I'm well aware. That I would be deeply offending Narcissa was part of the calculation — it was still worth it.
"You have no idea, Lucius, how fucking miserable it was being trapped in that damn book. When you came to me with your plot to muddy Dumbledore's name and advance your personal political project, I saw the opportunity to free myself from the prison that held me during that first conversation on the matter, and I took it." Lowering her own voice to match his, pushing an edge of desperation and fury and aching hope into the enthrallment around them, "I would have done anything to get out, to end the interminable torture that had been my existence for so long. Anything, Lucius. Narcissa's ire, an ancient basilisk, and a single innocent's life is a small price to pay, so far as I'm concerned."
Tamsyn didn't know what part did it, exactly — whatever sympathy for her had managed to accrue over the time they'd known each other (literally half his life), the argument, the effect of the enthrallment — but the anger in his mind softened somewhat, some of the tension going out of his shoulders. Frowning across the table at her, he suggested, "If you were so desperate to escape the diary, you could have simply told us."
"Would you trust me to hold your very soul in my hands?" Lucius grimaced, acknowledging the point. Truthfully, Tamsyn suspected she might have been able to convince the Malfoys to assist her — or at least provide the materials necessary to do it herself, if they simply couldn't trust each other that much. (Though that might have been difficult, given the sheer volume of magic her ritual had required.) But Narcissa was very angry with Melanion, and Lucius had done well for himself in his absence, so she suspected they'd be less likely to play along with her reciprocal soul bond idea. Getting the Malfoys on board would have made the whole thing easier, and would avoid creating interpersonal problems with Narcissa, but insuring herself against her creator's wrath (and exploiting his immortality for her own) was worth whatever sacrifice she'd needed to make. "I did what I felt was necessary, and I won't apologise for it. I do regret the damage done to my friendship with Narcissa, but I had no other feasible options. We must all three of us simply come to live with it."
Lucius held her gaze for a moment, eyes steady and mind churning in thought — before he let out a thin sigh, settled back into his chair. Eyes flicking down to his tea for a moment, he said, "I suppose I cannot begrudge you doing what you felt you must. I can imagine easily enough what I might have been willing to do, in your position."
"As you aren't a mind mage, I think you would have gone mad long ago. Isolation can do a number on a person's sanity, and then add in total sensory deprivation and, well. If not for my sense of the minds and magic around me, I would have been floating, formless, in a featureless void — for five decades. No, you would have gone mad, most anyone would have." In fact, it was pretty common for horcruxes that weren't kept in regular contact with people to go completely insane in short order. Mad horcruxes still worked to bind the creator to this plane, so for the most part it went unremarked upon, but occasionally the Egyptians would discover an ancient one left in some ruin somewhere for who knew how long, the consciousness bound to it so thoroughly lost they almost invariably destroyed the poor things to finally end their suffering. Tamsyn had been lucky, in regular contact with her creator, and later the Malfoys, and the occasional extra conversational partner, like Bella Black; she did not envy the others.
(Too intimately aware of what their existence was like, Tamsyn doubted she'd ever be able to go through with creating a horcrux herself. Luckily for her, she could simply piggy-back off of Melanion's, so she didn't need to.)
By the creeping horror oozing through Lucius's mind, he agreed. "Merlin. I... I would have preferred you said something, so I could better prepare to manage the inevitable consequences, but I suppose I understand."
"And if I had told you, would you have lied to Narcissa about our plans?"
"If you had properly explained your circumstances, and I thought it were necessary? Yes." He didn't seem happy about the idea, frowning just a little, but she believed he meant it.
...Well, damn. She wouldn't have seen that coming, honestly. "I see. Well, you know what they say about hindsight. I do regret if the way I went about it created too much unnecessary difficulty but, well, it may sound a bit callous, but such things simply weren't very high on my list of priorities."
"Understandable." The conversation trailed off there for a moment, Lucius occupying himself with one of the pastries, his mind moodily turning — considering how he was to explain Tamsyn's reemergence to Narcissa, she expected. "Where have you been? I suspected what had happened when I read the reports from the scene, but if you had reembodied yourself, I might have expected you to make contact much sooner."
"I thought it best to establish a legitimate identity for myself, one that could stand to at least casual scrutiny — and one that had no connection to any of the Knights whatsoever." Lucius nodded, acknowledging the wisdom of the precaution. "I wasn't just toying around with you earlier. I mean, I was having fun a little bit, but I really am going by Mercy Anne Creswell, an unremarkable bastard from Massachusetts. I'm currently attending a Mastery programme in enchanting at Chimiwāsikāning, off the northern shore of Lake Superior, toward the north of the continent."
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with it."
"You wouldn't be — it's one of the native schools." Most people in Britain didn't hold a high opinion of American magic, just in general, and their academic institutions in particular. Britons were likely to have heard of Salem and Miskatonic, and perhaps one of the French-speaking schools, but any of the one that hadn't the good sense to be founded by white people, no, of course not. Which Tamsyn thought was rather funny — the American educational programme seemed to be no worse than the ICW's, and perhaps better in some areas (particularly craft magics) — but that was European arrogance for you. "Especially given the diplomatic situation with the Americans at the moment, I don't imagine anyone would look deeply enough to expose me. I suspect it should hold permanently."
"Your accent is excellent. I haven't met many people from Massachusetts, to be fair, but I would never have guessed it wasn't real."
"It is real. I copied it from a local."
"Of course, I should have guessed." Lucius didn't say bloody metaphages aloud, but he thought it clearly enough that Tamsyn picked it up anyway. "You must have some pressing reason to meet with me, across an ocean on a weekday — I imagine you must be missing class for this."
"Why, Lucius, it's been so long since we've seen each other. Can't I just want to catch up?"
"If you were any other young woman, perhaps, but I find myself exceedingly sceptical."
Tamsyn smirked at him, but only briefly, dropping the expression a second later. "I wasn't entirely playing about that, either. I truly do come with an offer from my father."
"Your fath— Ah." He cut himself off as he realised who she must be speaking of, a flash of cold dread shooting through his mind. But he mastered himself after a short second, his voice smooth as he drawled, "You did mention your American guise is a bastard — I suppose I'm to assume our Lord had a tryst with a local woman while visiting Miskatonic."
"That's the idea. So I suppose I'm Your Highness to you now, but I'll settle for Princess."
He gave her a flat, unamused look. "Very funny, Tamsyn."
"I like to think so. That is the correct address for the daughter of a Lord Protector, isn't it?"
"If one were to observe the formalities, yes," he admitted, an obvious note of exasperation on his voice. "I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me for failing to do so in private, due to our long-established familiarity."
"Of course, of course — I am gracious like that, you know. 'Mercy' is literally my name and everything."
Lucius let out a hard, surprised laugh, amused despite himself. He quick glanced around the room, checking to ensure the sudden noise hadn't drawn any attention — which was silly, Tamsyn was keeping an eye on it, it was a simple matter to compel any nosey onlookers to ignore them. "I'm uncertain whether I should be pleased to find after your...change of circumstances, that you truly haven't changed at all."
"I'm uncertain whether that was intended as an insult, but I choose to take it as a compliment regardless." It'd been sort of both and neither, Lucius had never quite decided how he felt about her. "But, I do realise you have places to be, so let's get to business, shall we? We are in the process of working out how my father is to resurrected, and we require a small favour of you."
Shoving his misgivings with that prospect of the Dark Lord's return to the back of his head as well as he could, Lucius said, "I hope it isn't to have anything to do with the ritual itself — you know I have little enough talent with such matters."
"No no, Barty and I have that covered."
"Barty?" Lucius hissed, again glancing around for eavesdroppers. "Barty Crouch? I thought he was dead."
"So I heard — it seems Eilidh convinced Senior to smuggle him out of Azkaban, as a final favour to her before her death. He'd been keeping Barty in his basement for going on a decade, bound with various enchantments and an occasional Imperius, compulsions and potions. He only managed to free himself recently, with our Lord's assistance." Tamsyn had no idea how Melanion had known to look for him, but she guessed it hardly mattered.
"Mother have mercy." Tamsyn couldn't help smiling a little at the oath — unless something had drastically changed in the last couple years, Lucius didn't even acknowledge Mother Mercy. His wife must be rubbing off on him (in a manner of speaking). "Is the boy alright?"
"He has his moments, but he'll be fine." His imprisonment had also been a form of torture through isolation, if not quite so extreme as Tamsyn's, the long-term emotional effects somewhat moderated by the same magics Senior had been using to contain him. And at least he'd had Winky around, so he hadn't been in total isolation, Tamsyn was sure that helped. All things considered, it could be much worse, they were lucky he'd come out of it as stable as he was. "His brilliance is completely untouched, that man is a bloody artist. As to the ritual, it's possible we could use your assistance acquiring some of the rarer materials — I'll tell you exactly what when we get closer to the date — but as to the ritual itself, we have it covered. But there is one small matter we will need your help with, before the end of the coming month."
"Nothing that will require Narcissa's participation, I hope." Lucius himself wasn't entirely convinced helping Melanion return was in his best interests, but he realised he didn't have a choice in the matter — the Mark on his arm bound his fate to Melanion's, body and soul. Which was good, that Tamsyn didn't have to talk him into it, though she would prefer he weren't so (privately) reluctant about it...
"No, she shouldn't even need to know." For a moment, filling the pause by nibbling on one of the pastries, Tamsyn decided just how much it was wise to tell him. He didn't need to know specific details, but... "The ritual we are designing requires the blood of an enemy, taken against their will. My father insists we use Potter and, despite my best efforts, he would not be convinced otherwise. Unfortunately, the security around her makes that prohibitively difficult."
There were additional problems with using Liz, that had only occurred to her on further reflection. Liz knew enough about witchcraft to realise that the Dark Lord using her blood to reembody himself was actually good for her — there were all sorts of ways that connection could be ritually exploited, not to mention blood-mediated curses might well propagate one to the other (might, the alterations to the base to make the body Melanion's own would prevent at least some from carrying through) — so it wasn't out of the question that she would willingly agree to hand over her blood if asked. Not to mention, given how completely apathetic Liz had seemed about her role as the Girl Who Lived specifically and the Dark Lord in general, on the occasions they'd talked about it, Tamsyn was sceptical whether she could truly be considered an enemy. Which meant she might well not qualify on either count.
Barty had argued that, regardless of whether they could be considered committed, strategic enemies or not, being captured and held against her will would at least make them situational, tactical enemies, which, in combination with their history, would be good enough for the purposes of the ritual. To get around the forcibly taken problem, Melanion had suggested simply knocking her out, and taking it from her while she was unconscious — she couldn't offer her blood to them willingly if she didn't know it was happening. That was probably a good idea in general, actually, since holding a mind mage against their will was frustratingly difficult to begin with. (Especially while conducting a ritual which might be quite sensitive to extraneous magic.) Tamsyn would still prefer using someone else, but she guessed the minor alteration to the plan was good enough.
(Besides, Tamsyn suspected Liz would not have reacted well to being bound for the duration of the ritual — having her sleep through it instead was probably a mercy.)
Lucius grimaced, but after a second simply resolved to not tell Narcissa about it. It seemed he was assuming Melanion planned on killing Liz after he was done with her — which, to be fair, he was. Tamsyn had a plan to save her, she was working on it, but of course she couldn't tell Lucius that. "We could simply invite some friends over to the Manor, and you can snatch her out of the crowd."
"And her guardian will just let us get away with that, will he?"
"Severus can be...stubborn, about the Slytherins under his care, but I'm certain he can be made to see reason."
Tamsyn wasn't certain about that, not in the least — Snape could be quite stubborn, after all. Besides, she didn't know him that well, only from third parties, but from what she'd heard he was doing an excellent job with Slytherin. (Narcissa and Liz both had a high opinion of the work he was doing, which was telling.) As someone who'd been forced to make her way in Slytherin House under Horace sodding Slughorn, she was rather jealous. She would prefer to avoid a situation which was too likely to result in his death, thereby depriving the Slytherins of his protection and guidance, which she suspected meant guaranteeing Liz's survival. Also, she was pretty sure Melanion had been grooming him to ultimately replace Dumbledore as Headmaster, so, there was that. "Perhaps. Given the obvious difficulties in smuggling a mind mage out of a crowd, I would prefer not to risk it."
It didn't show on his face at all, but Tamsyn felt Lucius's mind lurch with embarrassment. He'd completely forgotten about that.
"Instead, my father has settled on a more...dramatic solution. He needs uninterrupted access to the Goblet of Fire, for five, maybe ten minutes."
Disbelief cool and hard smoothing over his mind, Lucius blankly stared at her for a handful of seconds. "He means to enter Potter into the Triwizard Tournament."
"That's the plan. The final Task always involves a race to the Cup; the Cup is also always a portkey, transporting the Champion to the winner's circle. The plan is to sabotage the Tournament such that Potter reaches the Cup first, the portkey spell altered such that it will carry her exactly where we want her. In the confusion of the Tournament, we should have a couple hours to conduct the ritual before anyone comes looking for her."
"And should Potter lose, despite your interference?"
Tamsyn shrugged. "Then we use whoever wins."
"They are hardly guaranteed to be an enemy."
"Do you often consider friends people who abduct you and take your blood to use in an unfamiliar ritual?"
"...Good point." Lucius sighed, picked out a pastry to stall for time. Once the thing was gone, his throat cleared with a sip of tea, he said, "I presume this will need to be done after the Goblet awakens, but before it is relocated to Hogwarts."
"Yes."
"That gives us a very brief window to work within, you realise. If previous Tournaments are any measure, it should only be awake for a few days — it may only remain in the Ministry for a single night."
"I have full confidence in your ability to talk your way in — Andy taught you well."
He shot her a sharply exasperated look, but Tamsyn didn't buy it for a second. She could feel he appreciated the implied compliment, especially from someone who'd known his grandfather as well as she had. "You said he needs access to the Tournament. Were you referring to your lord father," said with only slight sarcasm, "or to Barty?"
"My father."
"Smuggling him into the Ministry may present a complication."
"It shouldn't. He's currently bound to an automaton — it will be easy enough to hide him in a shoulder bag protected with anti-scrying enchantments. And he's mobile enough he'll be able to approach the Goblet independently, while you keep whatever security may be around distracted."
Lucius leaned a little back in his chair, surprised. The automaton Barty had made truly was exceptional, even ones who could use a wand (which were few) normally needed assistance getting around, too clumsy to walk or, for example, climb up whatever stand the Goblet was being kept on. As he contemplated that development, his head softened, much of the tension that had crystalised after he realised why Tamsyn was here evaporating away, a shade of relief...
Oh! He'd thought Melanion would have to actively possess him to make his alterations to the Goblet — he was much more willing to cooperate now that he knew he just had to carry the automaton in and leave him to it, good, good.
"Barring any unforeseen complications, I suspect that will be easy enough. How do I contact you when the time comes?"
"You don't contact me, I'll be in America. When the Goblet wakes up, make a visit to Hogwarts, and be visible about it. Barty will approach you at the first opportunity, and slip you a location to meet privately. He will bring you to Melanion."
Lucius blinked. "He's already in place at Hogwarts."
"Yes, he's posing as one of the junior professors. We're holding them with Living Death, keeping them close for easy access to polyjuice materials. And we're feeding them regular nutrient and strengthening potions while we're at it — they should even be in decently good health when we release them."
"That's more care than I expected to see taken, honestly."
"We would prefer not to unduly offend the family, if possible."
"Ah, of course." Lucius was assuming Barty had replaced the newly-hired Ollivander, which was a reasonable guess. "I suppose I should have expected Barty to be our man inside — omniglots are so adept at imitation."
"That's true. And I have my own infiltration to work on, so obviously I couldn't do it." At the questioningly-raised eyebrow from Lucius, Tamsyn smirked, wide enough to show her teeth. "Just a couple weeks ago, Dumbledore had a curious conversation with an American girl. You see, her mother has heard rumours of the Dark Lord's return to activity — how unfortunate for dear sweet Mercy Anne, to discover the rumours were true. The trip wasn't a total loss, at least the Albus Dumbledore has agreed to keep her in the loop...and maybe bring the enchanter-and-wardcrafter-in-training along, if he could use a second pair of eyes on an investigation..."
"...You're infiltrating the Order of the Phoenix."
Tamsyn grinned. "He was surprisingly enthusiastic at the prospect of using Melanion's own daughter against him. How much you want to bet Dumbledore will gladly show me his back long enough to bury a knife in it?"
Lucius let out a soft, disdainful scoff. "I prefer not to risk my gold to no possible benefit."
"Smart man. No, I wouldn't worry about Dumbledore this time around — I have it covered."
"I would suggest you should not be so overconfident — for all his faults, Albus Dumbledore is a very powerful wizard, and has a depth of experience few can accommodate — but I don't expect you would listen." He was playing at condescension, doubt heavy on his words, but whatever second thoughts he'd still had a moment ago had mostly evaporated, his mind as cool and clear and calm as it'd been before she'd approached him. He still wasn't looking forward to talking to Narcissa about this, and planned to put it off for as long as possible, but this conversation had gone much better than he'd expected. There'd always been the thought that the Dark Lord might approach him again — it wasn't exactly a secret that he wasn't completely gone, and likely would return one day — but the service being asked of him was rather light, all things considered. And if Tamsyn could eliminate Dumbledore early in the conflict, well, things might go much better this time. He wasn't ecstatic about his Lord's imminent return, but it wasn't so bad as he'd feared — he could make this work, it would be fine.
It took some effort to keep her relief off of her face, Tamsyn stalling with another biscuit. Call her sentimental, but she really hadn't wanted to have to hurt or coerce Andy's grandson — she would much rather have him as a willing participant, even if a less than entirely happy one. She would have if she had to, but she wouldn't have been happy about it. "Come now, Lucius, you know better than that. Dumbledore could hardly handle one of us. I think you'll find two Tamsyn Riddles are better than one."
The air around her head shivering with amusement, Lucius shuddered, as though deeply disturbed. "Thank you, Tamsyn, that nightmare is precisely what I need tonight."
"You're welcome, Lucius. Now pass me that — what is that, cherry...?"
[Melanion had tortured and killed Abraxas for the murder of his parents, in front of the whole Court] — You might remember, fucking ages ago, Severus saying he doesn't know what happened to Candidus. This isn't the sort of thing the often superstitious Knights are likely to talk about, and the event happened before Severus joined, so he didn't witness it himself.
Right, I don't think there's anything important to say about this one. Not super happy with it, but that shit happens.
Happy birthday to me? Don't know why I'm giving you all a gift on my birthday, this shit is backwards. It's just surreal sometimes, it really doesn't seem like I should be as old as I am. My baby brother's wife is pregnant with their first child, it's ridiculous.
Anyway, bye.