Bad habits hard to break when I'm with you

Yeah, I know, I could do it on my own

But I want that real full moon black magic and it takes two.

Problematic.

Terry Swims – Lose Control

For those who were less observant, Lucius Malfoy had been making, at least what he considered to be, great strides towards his magical holy redemption. It had involved a strenuous, meticulous and harrowing ordeal for Lucius, reduced to bowing and scraping at not only the feet of his adversaries, but ultimately having to recondition his ideology to adapt to the new order whilst enduring the indignity of his own kind turning into simpering numbskulls before him. He expected as much from Draco, the lily-lithered milk-nursed wyvern had barely sprouted wings before deciding he was happy to dredge his blood through the mud of mediocrity and heresy. So be it. Lucius was still a man in the prime of his life, albeit having been enslaved by a mad man may have stunted a number of things. He still had his virility, his charm, his charisma and, above all, a Malfoy never went without wealth. By consolidating foreign assets accrued prior to the Second Rising, Malfoy was able to immediately return to a modicum of the level of wealth he had been previously accustomed, sans the desire to ever live in a mansion permanently again, for obvious reasons.

If he was honest with himself, truly, it had been a shame losing Narcissa. She was still a young witch herself, after all the war and strife they could have tried to rebuild what they had. But of course, she had no "faith in him as a husband" and was "tired of the" blah blah. Lucius had not really been interested the day Narcissa reclaimed the title of Black and left him. Why would it bother him? Besides, she had grown fat, and allowed the wilderness within her to ravage what was once a poised and delicate disposition and supplicant demeanour. Whatever it was that had compelled her to reconnect with those so decidedly beneath them, the Weasley's, was anyone's guess. When they had been married, Narcissa had always mirrored his abject distain for the loathsome mouth-breathers that were their distant relatives. After the war, however, there seemed to be more pulling each other apart as opposed to rallying together, and her ultimately pulling herself away from her family. Such a shame, but no great loss. And besides, the loss of one anchor been the liberation of Lucius Malfoy. No longer beholden to the strict binds of his upbringing, considering all that truly wished to uphold such grandiose ideologies were now either disgraced or dead and the new order frowned so upon the old ways, he was able to pursue his more exotic interests. This had led him to the warm embrace of the enchanting, ethereal and, above all, powerful Helen.

It had began once he finally had recouped most of his losses due to the War, selling off many of the European and a couple of the continental superfluous magical properties and non-dark laced items during private auctions and the like via independent distributors, to ensure no one would associate the pieces with Malfoy lineage. This was most easy with the muggle items that he had accumulated over the years. With the post-War exchange rates offered by Gringotts to entice newer members to the bank as part of the rebuilding efforts, he had been able to throw some Rembrandt's to the wolves and double his money when it was converted to galleons. It was almost too easy, like he had been planning for this being an outcome his whole life. Which, of course, he had. Lucius was aware of how history liked to repeat itself, and although a slim chance remained of the truly worthy ascending to dominance, there was always a grain of sand in the cogs somewhere, something could always shatter apart even the most well organised of regimes. His father had inadvertently taught him that with his allegiances in the 1940s, and the cost to the Malfoy coffers that which Lucius had had to methodically and painstakingly rebuild, through marriage and acquisitions. He had done so, more often than he cared to earnestly admit, and it had become somewhat of an art form.

This new venture, however, was one more enticing and intriguing than he could have ever imagined. The sweet tinge of vengeance too, of retribution and delicious irony, were not lost on him. Helen was wise, meticulous, ruthless, cunning, savvy, silver-tongued and capricious in nature, not something he was unaccustomed to being bred in Slytherin circles. They had struck an understanding of each other's intentions so early on he could barely recall, it had been almost instant that both had known what each other wished to achieve, and how they could work together for maximum satisfaction. The carnality of their relationship, well, to Lucius that was a means to an end, as he was sure it was for Helen also. Women like that did not settle for the role of housewife, nor should they be kept as such. Women like Helen had men move mountains with wooden spoons for even the chance at pleasing her in the moment. Her attractiveness was what intrigued Lucius, though it did not tempt him. He had been surrounded his entire life by opulence, had been bred to appreciate the exquisite and shun the banal, edificial and mercurial to a fault. Her power over others, her fluidity, her ability to entice and her pernicious mind all were attractive to Lucius. His overall goal, well she would work well in the constructing of it. For too long had he seen the Malfoy's follow false power, for too long denying their own ancient lineage and the very rules his bloodline had aided to forge in the beginning of the world.

There, at least, was one great thing this new world had given Lucius Malfoy. In breaking him down and piece by piece rending him less than, it had allowed him to grow once more from his very core. Upon realising the potential, he had sought all the knowledge he could to guide his theories. House arrest allowed one a certain twisted sense of freedom in that, if deemed wholly moral, one could pursue whatever they wished, under supervision. Lucius carefully managed the materials he observed, even delving into muggle lore to construct a strong basis for his thesis. He hadn't been wrong, his corrupted usurper of a leader, when he had stated Magic is Might, but how narrow-minded his vision, how borderline mediocre his aims. Fundamentally, every magical core had a degree of "might" to it, although some more borrowed, tenuous, or misguided it's nurturance. The influence of affluence, and as a bid to acclimatise to the new world, Lucius invested in both muggle means outside of the magical to ascertain the information he sought, and through the means of modern technology he had not only managed to find an abundance of theories regarding the fundamentals of a magical core, but was also able to tap into the ever expanding magical influences online, especially from those whom he previously only deemed as creatures, such as the fae, the lycan and the vampyr. The vampires, in particular, seemed to spearhead the whole campaign and had managed to actually integrate into non-magical society, seemingly settling for the mundanity of simply being known and acknowledged. This felt like an opportunity sorely missed, to Lucius at least.

It was in their rush to be so open and liberal, however, that the magical community outside the Wizarding World had fallen short, in Lucius's opinion. With magic being acknowledged, with the power from beings aside from wizard's clearly possessed above the mere muggle, the possibilities for dominance, for control, for a society built upon the tenets of magical superiority where the meagre and mundane are merely the playthings of their betters, blood for the thirsty, meat for the ravenous, flesh for the carnality of base lusts; they would be shown to themselves to be as they always had been, the lambs to slaughter that keep the pack alive. Lucius had learned of the idea of the "survival of the fittest" in his lust for knowledge, the strong pervading over the weak. He longed for this strength. Strength more powerful then even he possessed when in the position of Seat of the Ancient and most Noble House of Malfoy, a might much greater and more divine than that which he weld over the insignificant vegetables of his old peers.

The Sacred Twenty-Eight, Lucius scoffed at the mediocrity, the small-minded thinking of petty thieves and bigots. If they had truly learned from the effects of the first war, there would have been far more organisation and safeguarding of the assets that aided their ascension. The blood supremacy was archaic. It wasn't about the purity of the blood overall. Of course not. It was about the purity of the magic within the blood. He had learned this through his own witnessing of magically astounding people of Muggle birth, Lily Evans and Hermione Granger being the first two banesome chits to come to his mind when considering the spectrum. He had also seen first hand the complacency that so called superior lineage, or perhaps more acutely unmonitored inbreeding, managed their own survival. Ill-mannered and tunnel-visioned were not the Lucius Malfoy brand. Wizarding society may still harbour some distain, but Lucius needn't trouble himself with the weak and the petty. Especially with what he and Helen had in store.

It had taken some convincing at first of the plan being a sound one. Following the collapse and sealing of the Fae world due to whatever the idle tapestry of probably lies Helen had woven to please Lucius's sentiments, there had been many nomadic faeries wandering the world; Voldemort have even tried to recruit those more adept in the dark arts for his cause. However, a faerie in it's nature is unpredictable and needs rigorous stimulation to keep it focussed. Those who settled outside of the faerie world tended to ignore any gifts or go mad with the power and lack of discipline. Such power was part of the key to the Ancient Magic, that which, if harnessed, would bring the world to its knees. He would allow Helen to believe her role to be of some great importance. Inevitably, when the sacrifices for the greatest knowledge to be made, she would merely be the enticing apple, whilst he, the serpent, would bind all and align with his true purpose. To purify the world of abominations, for those with the purest magical essence, dictated by the very nature of magic itself, and he wielder of such phenomenal power of judgement, would be a god amongst mere mortal beings.

He roused himself from his idle musings, his surroundings returning to his view as he neatly arranged the logbooks of his mind, his occlumency shields building back up as he returned to his here and now. He had been nonchalantly sipping on a glass of Chateau de Morgane, a rare vintage salvaged from a villa in Rome before it's sale, his posture that of the brooding gentleman in his library, the dancing firelight casting long shadows against the deep greens and earthy woody brown tones of the furniture strategically encasing the room around the large roaring hearth. Lucius's silver ancestral cane was hooked over the wing of part of his French Renaissance armchair, half pointed towards the light of the fire, half comforted by the ambiguity of the shadow. In this light, Lucius almost looks like a spectre of the young man he was in Hogwarts, the strong father to his young son, the vision of his former self. The part shaded, cossetted from the warming light of the flames, held the dark intensity, the tinges of an ever rotting madness, and it is within this darkness Lucius has honed and now revels in the most ingenious irony. If he had not ever been forced to see beyond his own prejudices, he would never have known how to ascend from monstrosity to divinity. Shame about Narcissa though, he mused before checking the time and finishing the dregs of his red wine with a flourish, she would have made quite a formidable goddess.

-o0o-

The Forbidden Forest had shielded the castle as best it could from what was to come. The dwellers of the ancient bough had created a barricade, however beyond the protection of it forced camped those bent on it's destruction. Covering their tracks, hiding their smoke, lurking in the caves and burrows were the Drow, the dark fae, gathering their masses and making new allies. The Forest sensed their call to arms, their plight for like minded kin to form a resistance to Balance and unity, their hunger for chaos. Nature would endure, withstand, rejuvenate and reclaim all that was left asunder, however the Forest knew, as did the Castle and the very heart of the deep magic that bound all things of an ethereal nature, that this sullied and broken wound was pustulating, spitting out feculent dregs of evil. If not mended, not healed forever, it would continue to create, to distort and disconnect, to reach out its nefarious tendrils and ensnare the weak, the fool-hardy. The Snake Boy had longed to be the vessel for it. Before him, so many others. Another now slowly binding his essence to it and with every passing moment being dragged deeper into the dark, taking the world with him.

Time. Time was running out. The Forest shivered and, almost as if reaching out a warming hand of camaraderie, the Castle hummed a soothing response. It would all be well, now that they were all together. 'Of course, that's easy for you to say' exuded the will of the Forest, 'you've always been the optimist. Look at the boy, you've even managed to meddle enough to find him a family. We don't have time for your sentimentality and whimsy, war is breaking over the horizon. Time is running out'. The Castle again, almost playfully, seems to sigh. 'Of course, and you had no part in the progeny finding her anchor? You shall have to simply face what will be. If it means losing eternity when one has already lived forever, surely we should enjoy the small mercies with have left even greater. They will figure it out. Give them time'. The Forest sent a less aggressive shudder, feeling the effects of the soothing Castle's serenity. 'For what can be had of it, there shall be 4 moons pass before the darkness is strong enough to break free, until then they must come up with more than what has already been. We must, this once, really help them. We have no choice. Meddling is all well and good, but this is beyond the petty problems of mortals and magical beings, it is all who will be destroyed should the Dark truly succeed'. The Castle pulsed in agreement. They needed to help, and there was only one sure way they could think of, for now. But it would cost. Oh yes. The balance must always be maintained, and a price always paid, for breaking the rules.