He should have spoken to his father first. He should have addressed it with him, man to man, that's what he should have done, and not insist on meeting Gregorovitch by herself - ah, why did he insist on visiting her house?

Oh, he knew why, he knew very well. He had not visited his father's manor in so long that he was afraid to find out that she had already been living there. He had played that in his head for days after his conversation with Narcissa, and imagined going in, finding one of her robes, or toiletries, or jewelries, or worse, any instruments she had, pieces she used to play Muggle music on, alongside the portraits of his mother! He couldn't bear that.

And then what? If he were to find something akin to that, proof she was living there, then should he address it directly? He could not be crass with his own father, no. That man could have struck his own son with a Cruciatus curse without even thinking twice about it - after all, he knew who he had learnt dark magic from, and it was neither his friends, nor the Dark Lord - it was before any of that.

So what did he do? He decided to find out if she were indeed pursuing his father, figure out what her intentions were, and if they were what he thought, he would scare her off, using any measures possible. He'd done his research on her, since Narcissa brought it up, and figured she must not make much money, as she seemed to have no connection to her father's wand making business.

Lucius figured her to simply be an unscrupulous gold digger. And they could not have that, Narcissa and him, not when they were months from welcoming their first child, not when they had just finished their honeymoon. They could not have anything ruin their perfect little family, not when everything - everything!- was aligning for them. Not when the Dark Lord was relying on him more and more, and when he saw the respect he started to garner among those in his group. He was starting to be looked at with the same gaze he had seen others look at his father with.

He had lifted his wand towards an enormous accordion near the ceiling, and charmed it to lift itself and float towards Gregorovitch.

"Will you play for me, then?"

"To you, of all people, Lucius Malfoy?" she had laughed as she took the accordion. "Is that so, then?" For a moment, there was a look of unease on her face, a frown as she turned to look at him. "Do you want me to?"

"Not to me, but for me, Margot."

"You enjoy insulting me, don't you?"

"Am I not simply describing your line of work? Musicians like you, that's what you were from way back when, weren't you?"

A day later and the smell of her perfume was still stuck in his nostrils. A scalding bath had been enough to remove physical remains, but alas, not the memories of the encounter Lucius had had the previous evening.

"I wasn't sure as to whether you would actually come." were Gregorovitch's first words when she saw him that morning.

In silence, he sat down at the table in front of her, and wondered, watching the insidious smile creeping on her lips, whether what he had done was right.

He had gripped her hair tightly with one hand, wrapping it around his wrist. He stared her down as he did so, neither of them speaking a word.

Curses were out of the question, and he could not Obliviate or play with her mind, not when his father was involved and could have undone his work. So, last night, when he figured he had finally understood what was happening between the two of them, he decided to go for the jugular, so to speak. The more she spoke of his father, the ways in which she spoke of him only built his disdain of her, and what did he do? He wound her up, bubbled her own hate for him, until-

"Don't have more than that dress?" he asked with a yawn, noticing she wore the same pink dress she wore last night. His voice took on a pitying, low tone, to ensure only she could hear his next words. "If I knew I would have tipped you some, not left you empty-handed."

"You will have to pardon me, as I had no time to change."

"In all these hours?"

"Ah, you see, after your little visit, you have gone back to your lovely wife, but I had other things to do."

"Such as?" he furrowed his brows, and watched her stretch alongside the couch she sat herself on, a grim thought overtaking his mind. She was yawning in an obscenely theatrical way, but it was the even more lewd wink that finally made him understand what she had done after he had left. "Oh, you simply disgust me. You cannot be serious.

I am still not sure if your lack of shame comes from being a musician, being a half-blood, or a blood traitor. Or it could simply be your nature as a woman. I suppose it's a mix of all of these, because by Merlin, I have never known of something more filthy, more abominable-"

"You don't want to be seen in my presence, I take it?" she had asked when welcoming him in her house. It was a minuscule two-bedroom flat, stacked with books and various manuscripts, its walls lined with a variety of instruments. Looking around, Lucius couldn't help but feel contempt for the way she was living.

"Well, I must admit I regret having decided on this, if this is the state of your… abode, let's call it." he had lamented, preparing to measure her reactions to his next words. "No wonder my father must have insisted on only seeing you outside."

"Have you truly not, now?" she asked with a cocked eyebrow. "Because certain rumours reach my ears, and Abraxas-"

"Don't speak of my father!" he snarled, before turning around to ensure no one else was paying attention. In the small nook he insisted on meeting her, however, no one could see them clearly, and at that hour there were only half a dozen other wizards, elderly ladies wrapped in furs and woollen capes. "My God, what have I brought upon myself…"

"After you left, something overcame me, it did." Lucius, however, had no intention to, and raised himself from the table, ready to leave. "If you won't listen to me, I will find a public that will, Lucius Malfoy." Begrudgingly, he sat back down, and listened to her. "I can leave Britain, go back to Germany, go all the way to Bulgaria, but you have no other place to call home. You care far more for your honour than I ever had, and that will be your downfall, believe me. But now, you have tied yourself to me.

See, there was this story, a fairy tale, let's say, about this tyrant, this despotic ruler, that my grandfather used to recite to me… I still remember this quote, as vividly as if I were there, standing among the people that he ruled over, when he calls on his subjects, he says - If you don't want me… well, find that I want you, and if you don't love me, find that I love you, and I will rule over you with, or without your will - Me, to leave you? More likely will oceans run dry."

Lucius measured her words carefully, and a long time passed before either of them said anything. He wondered if this tyrant, if this fairy tale was one of a Muggle or wizarding origin, but figured it did not matter now. He wondered as to whether he referred to herself, him, or his father - but part of him wondered if she was referring to the Dark Lord, especially after the song she had played for him that fateful night.

"Ah, don't deceive me, master!

If you wish to love me, love me faithfully, with credence! Master, ah, if I lie to you!

Ah, but don't kill me master, and if you wish to kill me, kill me only once!

You'll cry, wandering on lost roads, my dear…

Cry my fate and your destiny, because of how much I cared for you!

And I loved you, with reverence, and terror!

Ah, I won't forget with how much conviction you deceived me!"

She had sung with such a broken passion, as if she had been deceived, thrown away and killed, and sang from a place of desolation that he had never experienced before. As she sang of the lost roads, her voice was hoarse and tears flooded from her eyes, and Lucius couldn't help but think that there was a certain beauty in a broken down person, despite knowing very well that it was an act, a performance, and nothing more.

And yet, something about the conviction with which she sang and played brought to him memories of the Dark Lord. Who appointed him to higher ranks than any of the Death Eaters contemporaries to him, or their sons. Who asked him with kindness about his family, who trusted him with hiding precious artefacts in his home - yet the same Dark Lord who had marked him in such a way that he had felt his own arm would turn against him, rot and extend towards his entire body, in that dark ritual.

With reference and terror, indeed. And with the grimness of her voice, with the subject matter so different from the uplifting stories of love she had up her sleeve that time in Edinburgh, cold shivers ran down his spine that night. His hands felt cold and clammy as he remembered those times when him, Rabastan and his brother, and Bellatrix as well, had witnessed him torture and kill those among their ranks, for mistakes they laughed at with each other, but mistakes which he felt he could have made as well.

Lucius felt his heart beat in his throat as she continued singing, looking at him with bleakness in her eyes, singing of things she had no way of knowing, as if she was picking his own thoughts one by one, arranging them in a gut-wrenching composition, and then forcing them back in his soul. He had realised then what a wizarding musician could do with music, and that was when he swore to himself never to be left alone with one. He had never felt so alone, and the sudden pang of solitude crawled, damp and icily, in his heart.

"Grim stories they tell you over the pond, what can I say. If that is what you grew up with, I wonder less and less why you have decided to pursue my father.

However, tell me then, illuminate me even, Margot, if you would be ever so kind." his voice took on an ironic tone, hiding his disgusted feelings on the matter under a facade of casual banter. " Because by Merlin, you're a young woman, bearing the name of Gregorovitch, known far and beyond, and you share the same passion of music as him - I understand my father overlooking your fondness for Muggles as much as any lonely old man would overlook a pretty girl's faults when getting to touch her.

But you… you're firm on your convictions, and know very well my father's own beliefs match mine more than yours. So I cannot help but wonder then - do you really, actually, love my father?"

He had bent down to her level, and tilted her chin up, unsure as to what to say. His knees had almost buckled under his own weight for a moment, and for minutes on end, he ended up just watching her pull strands of hair out of her face, out of her mouth, and place them behind her ears.

"I don't want to see you again." he'd murmured.

Gregorovitch's answer, however, was not what he expected.

"I don't know." she murmured after a while.

"Oh, that is rich." he laughed. "After what you have done last night, which you seem to be oddly and disturbingly proud of, you don't even know what you have done it for!"

"One hates with the same heart that one loves, Lucius Malfoy, it's one and the same. It's a complicated dance, and this one is with a strange partner, it is, but I have to find its rhythm. I don't know why, but I have to. It's inexplicable, really, but what you have done last night, from the simple act of inviting yourself inside my house, is just as inexplicable to me.

I thrive on these inexplicable things - we all do, as musicians, but as wizards especially. Eternal richness, and power, and respect, and immortality, and belovedness, and so much more, and all of these which we cannot touch but we crave… It's inexplicable, and so is what I feel towards him. It's not love, it's not now, and maybe it will not be ever, but I find it comforting.

And I know you felt comfort too, then, did you not?"

In that dark, tiny hallway, with his hand gripping her left thigh with force, he could faintly hear the sounds of some wind instruments knocking against the wall, and the jingle of her earrings. Yet the sound overtaking the rhythmic knocking was the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He had never felt so naked, despite being fully dressed, as she looked straight into his eyes, and as his gaze returned hers.

He had not spoken a single word to her, and neither had she, in one of the only times of mutual understanding that they had shared so far. For some reason, as she had been singing, he felt as if she held something sacred within her that allowed her to see so much inside his soul, and with each movement and thrust, he was trying to grip onto it, searching in her eyes for the bit of his soul that she had been peeling and revealing anew to him.

"Regardless of-" Lucius cleared his throat, realising his voice was slowly raising itself as the memories of last night flooded back to him. How dare she speak of comfort? There was nothing comforting about what happened, oh no, it was the contrary. "I trust that this will stay between us, because believe me, no matter how much you declare you can run, if I hear a single whisper that you are trying to ruin me with any rumour-"

"Rumour?"

"Oh, at this point, as far as anyone else is concerned, this is nothing but a filthy rumour to discredit me, and I don't believe that at any point your word will make this rumour real, not against mine. And my father may have some kind of affinity for you, but never forget that I am his son."

"You never intended for this to happen, did you?" Gregorovitch asked after pondering on his words, in the same manner Lucius had done when thinking about the tyrant of her childhood stories.

Lucius shook his head as he spoke, covering his head in his hands and exhaling loudly.

"Did you?"

"Never." This time, Lucius was more than certain that she was not hiding her true intentions under stories, sung or otherwise, gestures, smiles, or winks. Her reaction was a blank canvas, devoid of other meanings. "As much as neither wants to see each other again, I am afraid we may have to, and I am even more afraid that we certainly will."

"Let's ensure those times are as rare as possible, then."

"It would be my pleasure."

He wished he could have turned back time, and instead, confronted Abraxas from the beginning. Instead, his actions seemed to have driven Gregorovitch even more towards his father, in an act Lucius was sure now, thinking back, must have been out of pure spite.