10 Things About Lucius Malfoy

1.

His greatest gift is sex. His second greatest gift is words. The two have a lot in common, he can make them shimmy, twist, and writhe under his touch.

His father brags that Lucius could get Artemis herself into bed (he very nearly does). But Lucius of all people knows that the gift comes at a price. He can paint a picture with words, decipher the hidden secrets in a sentence--but only because the tiny words, the little insignificant words which most people find so easy to overlook are the words which twist the meaning in his head so painfully that the words become meaningless. He can tell when he gets the words wrong because of the slight sigh as his tutor exhales a weary breath and the way his left eye begins to tick in irritation.

The little words are always getting him in trouble. He can still remember the stinging slap he landed courtesy of three little words and his first girlfriend. Whoever knew that "Oh yeah, really?" wasn't a proper response.

2.

He is rubbish at French. He learns it, like all good pureblood children, along with German, Italian, and rudimentary Latin. In fact, until the tender age of eleven he considers it his langue de cœur. It speaks to him a way that other languages do not. The words bubble in his mouth, if he can taste the flavor of the word dancing on his tongue.One word is as subtle as the fruity wines he sneaks sips of during holiday dinners, a dozen gentle inflections rolled into one.

The day Bellatrix reveals the secret of his heritage "just a jumped up little Frenchman, not even from before the Revolution." he forgets all the beautiful words.

It takes an effort, especially when a delegation from Beauxbatons visits during his third year and he longs to converse with them in the long bubbly sentences and violent hand gestures that are all part of the Gallic experience.Occasionally he feels an unnatural urge to wear black and smoke, but he does not. Instead he keeps himself proud and aloof and nearly always dresses in grey.

He learns the benefit of cool headedness--a gift from his ancestor's adopted homeland, and when Bellatrix marries Arthur Weasley he does not dwell on the past. Instead he sends them a monogrammed set of towels and his insincere regards.

He reckons that Xavier Mal du Foi would be proud...it is so very English of him.

3.

Sex is a battlefield. He takes cues from history and doesn't sleep with the people he genuinely likes. Fortunately this leaves most of the female population.

4.

He likes Bellatrix a little more than is safe. His sixth year his father pulls him aside and reads him the riot act on his schoolwork. As a result he spends more time in the library that year than in his dormitories. He is surprised to find that he quite likes the library. The high arched windows face west and in the late afternoon the sunshine creates a hazy golden atmosphere which lulls him into a feeling of general good-will.

Still, Lucius has to admit to himself he wouldn't spend so much time in the place if she wasn't there as well. As the saying goes, misery loves company. In reality he is hardly miserable, but he finds the phrase fitting anyway. He has never found female company terribly enchanting, but she is...different. Tolerable at the least.

They spend long nights in the library studying, if not together than at the same table, though again, this has more to do with efficiency than anything else.

They are long nights highlighted by brief conversations which leave him confused but always pleasantly surprised.

The rest of the time Lucius spends watching the way her lips purse in a disapproving fashion--the way her tongue slowly loosens over the course of a midnight conversation, until she suddenly stops--terrified that she has said too much. He is delighted by her frankness, her honesty, and how refreshingly different she is. Sometimes Lucius is shocked by the way she shocks him.

But it isn't love. He knows that, although he's never been in love and has nothing to compare it to. It isn't lust either, because god knows the longer their conversations grow in the library the fewer regions of Narcissa's body remain virgin territory.

5.

Lucius adores Draco, the tiny little wobbling ball of fat that will grow up to make him proud. But sometimes he thinks a name like Draco will be a little bit too hard for this soft blue-eyed boy to live up too. He thinks this until one Christmas when he recounts the history of Yuletide and the Witch Trials and he glimpses a flash of indigo-steel in his son's eyes. He is pleased and oddly apprehensive at the same time.

6.

It hurts to be burnt. It hurts to be burnt. He knows this truth as intimately as he knows the curves of a woman's body and twice as painfully. The day is ingrained as deeply into his mind as anything can be. November 5th, the day he failed to rescue the burning man, the day he learned that all the stories about Muggles were as true as anything else. The burns eventually fade, but the nightmares do not.

7.

Lucius has always known what he was meant to do with his life. Whatever the hell he pleased. If his own desires happened to align with those of his parents, all the better. Occasionally his actions give him twinges, but they are momentary and not worth thought. He justifies his somewhat...unsavory actions by not thinking about them. Though usually occasionally he indulges in taking a dreamless sleep potion courtesy of Severus. Admittedly this cuts out some pleasures, but this is wartime and everyone has to make sacrifices.

8.

Sometimes Lucius feels bad about Narcissa. The truth is irrefutable. He cannot give her the love he supposes she deserves. So he stops by the florist's on the way home and picks up a large bouquet of roses (her favorite, not his) and maybe a small trinket or bauble. When he gets home, however, the floor is littered with open boxes of clothes from her trip to Milan and there is a note from her saying that she has hired a young man named Christian as their piano tuner. His credentials are, she says, fantastic--highly recommended. He will be coming in every Tuesday for a light tuning.

He wonders why she bothers. It isn't as if they own a piano.

9.
At some point his mistresses always break down and floo, though he instructs them expressly not to. Lucius can hear the sobbing and death threats all the way from his study. Narcissa did always fancy herself an actress--sometimes she even breaks out the funny voices.

For some reason she never gets an encore.

10.

During the gap between the two wars Lucius plays at being himself. He throws parties, he heads up committees, he ingratiates himself, he makes careers, he breaks lives.

But none of that matters by the time his trial comes around.

He is in the middle of an elaborate, and brilliantly worded, defense speech when he glances up and catches her eye. She is sitting towards the back, chin in hand, hair falling down around her face. There is nothing special about her. Three kids have left her slight frame more filled out than before--though they have probably ravaged her body in ways Narcissa's never will be.

But there is something, like the fact that he is down here and she is up there and her three children all have violently carrot hair and several galaxies of freckles between them. For a brief angry second he feels like it should have been him.

When he looks back at the paper the words roil under his gaze.

Not I guilty am.

I guilty not am

Am not guilty I

Guilty not I?

They sound like a frustrated cry inside his head.

He forces himself to breathe takes a steady breath and counts to ten slowly.

...neuf, dix.

He schools himself, and looks straight into her surprised brown eyes. He says the words as if he is saying them to her, and they flow off his lips smooth like honey.

It's perfect, a rolling undercurrent of contrition and a slight hesitation--and they will, they are eating out of the palm of his hand. The bribe wasn't even necessary.

They all buy it; he can see it in their faces, "A fine upstanding gentleman like him?" They all buy it except her. So while the jury reads out their verdict he fixes his gaze on her. He can tell her eyes' are watering, why he doesn't know, but she doesn't break the eye contact because that would be admitting defeat.

When the stuffy old fart in a yellowing wig pronounces the words not guilty his left lid lowers rapidly in a quick gesture only she can see.

When he sits back down he goes through the pretense of scanning the audience, and when his gaze locks back on her he is amused to see the scandalized apprehensive expression on her face.

It feels good to shock her for once.