Symmetry

Lucius Malfoy fascinates Sirius. He studies the seventh-year whenever they're near each other. Lucius makes love to people with his expression, the graceful movement of his hand, the flow of his robe, which briefly outlines his figure. Sirius doesn't know how to elucidate these concepts--he is, after all, only thirteen. Neither does he know that Lucius Malfoy watches Sirius too.

*****

Lucius has met Sirius before, but Sirius probably doesn't remember. Their families are close friends. Sirius' family was rather shocked that Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor. Lucius thinks he knows why this occurred. It has to do with a classmate of Sirius'.

James Potter, a boy of rather unremarkable appearance, with uncontrollable hair and a myopic squint that suggests he will soon need glasses. Lucius has met James before too. The Potters are a respectable wizarding family, although they are rather too liberal to be truly a part of the pureblood circle. Lucius guesses that a tenuous acquaintance between James and Sirius caused them to cling to each other on the Hogwarts Express when they were eleven. There was never any question of James being sorted anywhere except Gryffindor, so that was where Sirius chose as well.

Nonetheless, Sirius is Black. Lucius has seen the cruelty and anger that is a gift of that lineage; he's seen the darkness, although Sirius has buried it.

Lucius wants to destroy the gold-plated Gryffindor shell and reach the hard metal Slytherin underneath. So, he watches.

*****

Sirius Black doesn't have occasion to interact with the object of his fascination until a day in April. The air is just beginning to carry a hint of summer; a false promise that won't be fulfilled until June, at least.

Professor Sartin, Transfiguration Professor and Head of Slytherin, is unable to take one of his classes, so he has assigned Lucius, as Slytherin Prefect, to supervise it for him.

The class is comprised of third-year Gryffindors, Sirius among their number.

Lucius sweeps into the room exactly on time and locks the door behind him. He takes out his wand and waves it and their task appears on the board.

"If you need any assistance, you may try asking me. I cannot guarantee I'll help, though, and if it's a stupid question I may curse you." Lucius speaks in a baritone, his voice like a satin ribbon constricting around Sirius' throat. When he finishes, his eyes slide to Sirius and pin him. With a knowing smirk he turns and sits in the professor's chair, his robes billowing artfully around him.

The class works in silence. Sirius stares at Lucius, who occasionally looks up and catches his gaze. Eventually, Sirius stands up, gathers his courage, and makes his way to the front of the room.

"Excuse me," he says loudly, then pauses. What should he call this prefect-teacher? Malfoy seems rude; Mr. Malfoy, absurdly formal; Lucius, shockingly intimate. In the end, he settles for evasion.

"Excuse me, I can't do question fifteen."

Lucius looks up at him with a bored moue.

"Well, show me then," he snaps and grabs Sirius' arm and pulls him around to Lucius' side of the desk. Lucius' tone and irritated expression make Sirius begin to wonder if he has made a mistake. The firm grip makes his stomach tingle.

Tentatively, he points out the question he has chosen to ask about. Lucius reads it over, then begins explaining in a low voice

"The trick with this question is to consider the effect of change in meet me tonight at nine o'clock in the old charms classroom composition of skin. If the bird is being transfigured into a snake, its skin is going to change and this affects the spell." He finishes calmly.

Sirius nods, wondering if he has just imagined the other message. His heart starts galloping.

The look Lucius gives him as he heads mutely back to his seat convinces him, hopefully, that he heard correctly.

Beside him, Peter Pettigrew sniffs and leans over to ask him about question two. Sirius rolls his eyes and tells Peter to ask Remus. Then he watches James, who is transfiguring the hair of the girl seated in front of him into bright purple wool.

*****

At about half past eight, Sirius packs up the stuff spread around his chair in the Common Room and takes it back to his dormitory.

He has only a vague notion of exactly where the old charms classroom is--second floor, he thinks. Nonetheless, he finds it without difficulty, leaving him about fifteen minutes to fill before nine o'clock. He isn't bored. First, he explores the room, then he sits down on one of the rather dusty chairs. His pulse quickens when he thinks of Lucius, and he does this often. He thinks of the way Lucius' robes seem to fit him perfectly and outline every contour of his body; of the way his hair shines alternately silver and gold and the strands caress his face; of Lucius in the shower (which is more imagination than thought) with water washing down the planes of the body hinted at beneath his robes and making his hair shine an even more vibrant silver-gold.

Finally, at nine on the dot, the door opens and Lucius Malfoy enters. Lucius is wearing a high-necked black tunic with a long-sleeved white shirt underneath. Sirius feels inadequate in his red T-shirt.

Lucius doesn't speak, he simply crosses the room and stares carefully at Sirius. Lucius takes Sirius' face in his and draws Sirius up so that they are standing face to face, although Sirius is rather shorter than Lucius.

Abruptly, Lucius pulls away.

"I wanted to talk to you," he says harshly. He is acting completely unlike himself, but he trusts that Sirius doesn't know him well enough to realise.

Sirius raises an eyebrow--a gesture he learned off Lucius.

Lucius watches him carefully. "About your family. They miss you. They want the old Sirius back."

Sirius scowls. "Don't talk to me about my family... Lucius." A pause before he says the name.

Lucius waits for a moment and watches Sirius fall into the trap he has set with his actions and his behaviour.

"You didn't really come here to talk about them, did you?" Sirius asks.

Bless the boy's confidence, he thinks he's so clever. Sirius believes that Lucius came here on a pretence of speaking about the family, that Lucius is too shy or diffident or enamoured to approach Sirius directly. In short, he believes exactly what Lucius wants him to believe.

Lucius bows his head. "No," he admits softly. "You're... you're a beautiful boy, Sirius. I wanted to see you up close, as it were."

"How close?" Sirius leans toward him, eyebrow raised.

Lucius stares at him a little longer. He waits, waits, for the moment.

He crushes Sirius' body to his and presses their mouths together. Ah, perfect. Sirius' lips are soft under his. He feels warm all over; his blood is pulsing at twice its normal rate. He can feel himself stirring, wanting, losing control...

Sirius tastes like innocence. Lucius pushes away, mumbles an apology then hurries out of the room. His hair, partially escaped from its ribbon, flutters behind him.

Sirius stares after the seventh year, then slumps distractedly into the chair.

*****

Lucius' kiss reveals to Sirius what he believes to be the truth of his fascination. He is in love with Lucius. Clearly Lucius is in love with him too, otherwise why would the seventh-year have kissed him? For Sirius is in thirteen year old love, which doesn't understand logic, gender or artifice.

Since that night, Lucius has avoided Sirius and Sirius doesn't understand why. He seeks Lucius out, but Lucius offers a half-apologetic excuse and escapes.

Then, about two weeks later, very close to the end of term, Lucius sends Sirius a letter marked 'private' via owl post. It reads, simply,

I can't stand this.

Meet me tonight,

Same time and place.

Please.

I promise to behave.

Sirius likes the last line. It gives him anticipatory tingles. He thinks he'd rather like it if Lucius broke his promise.

*****

This time, they arrive simultaneously. Lucius stares at Sirius, then pushes the door open. Sirius feels powerful; he thinks he has the power to unsettle this beautiful man and make him plead. He likes the feeling.

Sirius stalks toward Lucius, eyes intent. He reaches him and stands on tiptoe, pressing their lips together.

Sirius doesn't taste of innocence any more, he tastes of knowledge. But it's not enough. Lucius wants to drink darkness off those young lips. Then his goal will be achieved. He deepens Sirius' kiss, pushing his tongue into the younger boy's mouth.

With a tentatively that belies his bravado, Sirius wraps his arms around Lucius. Lucius brings his hands up to Sirius' face, fingers feather-soft over skin untouched by facial hair. He groans.

Regretfully, he breaks the kiss. He traces the line of Sirius' lips with his index finger.

"You're so young," he says softly. "I'll claim this flesh one day, my beautiful one." Then he leaves, the same as last time.

Sirius watches Lucius graduate with a mixture of smugness and longing. He's kissed those lips, he thinks, those lips that now curl up in the slightest of sneers as the headmaster shakes his hand. He's wrapped his arms around that slender waist. He doesn't realise the pretty trap Lucius has set for him.

That night, the seventh-years party in Hogsmeade. The next day, they're gone. Sirius receives another private owl.

Don't think I've forgotten you, my beautiful one. I merely wait for you to mature. Look for me on the anniversary of our first night together, five years hence. Same time and place. Until then,

Always yours.

Sirius carefully tucks the letter into his robe, then he stalks off and quietly sheds some angry tears.

*****

Five years have passed. Sirius grew his hair for a while, but became frustrated and cut it. Now it flops in an artfully messy mop around his face.

He doesn't even speak to his family any more, nor does he live at Grimmauld Place. He knows Lucius married Sirius' cousin Narcissa, but he doesn't really care. It's just one more way he can inflict pain on his family. His childish belief in Lucius' love has survived silence, separation and adolescence. Although Sirius does not always think of Lucius, the date of their meeting is fixed in his mind.

James has settled down into his role as Head Boy. Remus remains the calm character he always was, except for the nights of the full moon when they roam the Hogwarts grounds free of their human selves. Peter has remained a flattering nonentity, an afterthought.

As the night approaches, Sirius gets more edgy. What if Lucius doesn't come? What if he doesn't find Sirius enticing any more? Sirius has had several lovers, but they have all been to prepare himself for Lucius.

At 8:50pm, Sirius is dressed sexy: form fitting black pants and an untucked white dress shirt. He stands in the centre of the charms classroom, waiting. At precisely nine o'clock, the door swings open and Lucius Malfoy enters. Sirius doesn't question how Lucius got into Hogwarts. Lucius can do anything he wants to.

He's wearing green velvet today; a colour that should be described as midnight green: the colour of a forest at midnight. His hair is out, parted at the side and flowing neatly over his shoulders. He looks older, more sophisticated. Every inch a Mr. Malfoy.

Sirius is able to act nonchalant, but he is very aware that it is an act.

Lucius stares at Sirius, who has grown into a beautiful man. He has a long straight nose, framed by dark eyes and generous lips. His dress shirt shows off his dark skin--unusually dark for a pureblood wizard.

Lucius has to admit that he looks forward to owning that flesh.

"Lucius," says Sirius softly, caressing the syllables.

Lucius smiles; that's another trick Sirius has learned off him.

"How have you been?" Lucius asks carefully, sitting down in one of the dusty chairs.

Sirius kneels on the floor at Lucius' knee.

"Oh, you know. You went through the process five years ago." It was a barbed comment. Lucius was impressed.

Sirius stands up, heart pounding, and moves to straddle Lucius' knees.

"No small talk." Sirius leans down, winds his hands into Lucius' hair and pulls their mouths gently together. Immediately, Lucius' lips open to allow their tongues to meet in Sirius' mouth. Lucius hisses softly, sliding his hands down the back of Sirius' slacks.

"Ah, fuck," Sirius breathes, winding his hands even more tightly into Lucius' hair.

This brings Lucius back to himself. That's a Muggle profanity, and not one they used when he was at school. Suddenly, Sirius seems very young.

Lucius thinks about his Master, Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort thinks that corrupting Sirius is an excellent idea, thinks that Sirius would make a perfect addition to his Death Eaters. For this boy, the path to that fate starts with Lucius' kiss.

He freezes, and Sirius follows suit.

"You're still too young," he says, almost to himself.

Sirius scowls. "No, I'm not. I'm eighteen, for fuck's sake."

There it is again. A beacon of his youth, only he doesn't realise it.

"Do you have any idea what this will do to you?" Lucius stands up abruptly, forcing Sirius to do the same. "He wants you, and I will give you to him." he comes to a decision. "Five years, Sirius. Then I'll find you, and I'll own you and then, I'll give you to my master."

Lucius leaves hastily, wondering what the hell he is doing.

*****

Sirius graduates and he learns first-hand of the horror that is Voldemort. He realises that this is the master Lucius spoke of and his mind is filled with revulsion. Nonetheless, he knows Lucius spoke the truth. Five years, he said. In five years he would come for Sirius and Sirius knows that when that day comes, there is nowhere he can hide where Lucius won't find him. There is nothing he can say--nothing he would say--to stop Lucius, because Sirius feels like his whole life is leading up to fucking Lucius and until then, nothing else is important. Nothing that comes after is important.

James gets married to his sweetheart. Sirius is best man at the wedding and while he smiles and waves and laughs, he's really thinking of another wedding that he didn't attend. Remus leaves shortly after that to travel the world. Peter is as he always was. Unimportant, uninteresting, unthreatening. That's why Sirius insists that Peter be James' Secret Keeper, because he knows that in a few years, he will sell his soul to darkness and he doesn't want to drag James into it with him.

*****

So Sirius laughs when Peter reveals his betrayal. He laughs because it wasn't Lucius who got him in the end, it was Peter. Peter, the mousy little nobody. He laughs because the Dark Lord has fallen and Lucius has been arrested. He laughs because there's a kind of symmetry in it. A delicious irony, a sense of closure, as if everyone has learned their lesson, the bad people have been punished and the story is over.

Sirius thinks of Lucius, five years after their last meeting. Sirius is rotting in Azkaban, Lucius has wiggled his way out of punishment. Thinking there can be no harm in it, he imagines running his hands--in his mind's eye they're dark and smooth as they once were and not pale and wasted--along Lucius' white flesh, imagines Lucius fulfilling his promise, owning Sirius, body and soul. Imagines afterward, lying in Lucius' arms, their hair spread out and tangled on the pillow. Five years after that, he thinks of Lucius, and he transforms into the big black dog in an attempt to escape his imagination, which tortured him with could-have-beens for weeks after the last time. He fails, and all he can see in front of his eyes is a smooth white arm, the enticing juncture of neck and shoulder, skin like satin, hair like silk.

*****

In the fifteenth year after their last meeting, Lucius Malfoy gets a visitor. He's not surprised in the slightest; he has expected it ever since he read that Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. He has made sure he's alone and that there are fewer safeguards active around the Manor. He knows Sirius will recognise this.

Sure enough, on the stroke of nine, the door to his study opens and through it steps a man with long, glossy black hair, and dead eyes. He hardly seems to resemble the bright, over-confident child Lucius seduced twenty-five years ago. Lucius thinks this new Sirius is better. His kisses will taste like blood, hate, shadows and deception, like darkness.

Sirius surveys Lucius for a long time. Lucius stares impassively back. Lucius has gone cold, Sirius thinks. He has finally become a creature of silver and ice. There is nothing else there.

Sirius is overcome with a desire to break him, melt him, do something to bring back the Lucius he remembers from Hogwarts.

Sirius smiles. He crosses the room and grabs Lucius by the collar, coldly throwing him to the ground. He refuses to submit to the urge inside him, the little voice screaming fuck, fuck, fuck... . He wants to prove to Lucius that he is free of the desire, free of the need. So, he punches him. Hard, in the corner of his mouth, right under the cheekbone. He straddles the older man and punches him again, doesn't realise that Lucius can read him like a book. He also doesn't realise that Lucius likes the pain and that Sirius' violence is the final proof for Lucius that Sirius is old enough. Lucius knows Sirius will never be the Dark Lord's willing subject, but that doesn't mean they can't use him.

So, Lucius takes the punishment.

Finally, Sirius looks down at his victim. One of Lucius' cheekbones is bruising badly and there is another mark on his neck. Lucius' lips are swollen and there is a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. His eyes are impassive. They tell Sirius, flatly, that Lucius knows exactly what Sirius is trying to do.

Sirius finds himself fascinated with the trickle of blood. Lucius' lips are moving, but Sirius isn't listening. Suddenly, he finds himself flipped over and pinned. Lucius lies above him, pressing down so that Sirius can't move. There is more blood coming out of Lucius' mouth now, pulled by gravity. A drop falls off Lucius' lip and lands on Sirius' cheek.

Lucius is asking him a question. "Are you satisfied?"

Sirius turns his head to the side. Slowly, he nods and admits defeat.

Lucius smiles, turns his head back and kisses him. Just a light touch at first, nothing more. Then a harder kiss, a violent plundering. Sirius can taste the tang of blood. Sirius' arms are now free and he reaches up to undo Lucius' shirt. There are more bruises here, along Lucius' collarbone and further down. He traces them, smiling.

That night, Sirius does everything he has imagined doing to Lucius, in the long years locked in his cell. Lucius' skin is just how Sirius imagined it, creamy, soft and tight. Perfect, marred by bruises and smears of blood. Perfect. He savours running his hands along that skin, leaving heat in his wake, drawing small sounds from Lucius.

Lucius loves kissing. He kisses Sirius' neck, at the juncture of collarbones, down his chest, his stomach, his hands, everywhere. Sirius isn't quiet like Lucius. He has to moan and Lucius loves to hear it. The two of them reach climax countless times during the night and always they desire more. Always there is something they haven't done and a sense of urgency pushes them to do it.

Finally, they fall asleep sprawled together, naked on the floor of Lucius' study.

In the morning, Lucius gets up and carefully dresses himself in his discarded clothes. He stares for a long time at the sleeping form of Sirius. Then he whispers something that sounds like 'goodbye' before leaving.

Sirius wakes up a little later. He stares around the room, then quietly leaves the Manor the same way he came.

*****

They see each other again, one last time. There is a great battle in the Department of Mysteries. Sirius catches Lucius' eye. They even duel briefly before both separate to go after different quarries. Then, Lucius watches Sirius' cousin fling a curse at Sirius. A curse that stuns him and causes him to fall backwards through a veil, which flutters slightly.

Harry Potter screams and rushes after his godfather, drowning out Lucius' softer, shocked cry. In that moment, Lucius feels an incredible affinity for his enemy. Lucius hides it admirably, but inside he is reeling. He doesn't know what he feels. Around him, the tide of the battle turns. The Death Eaters are being beaten back by Dumbledore's forces.

When they come for him, he goes quietly. He knows what fate awaits him; a lifetime in Azkaban. He doesn't mind. There's a kind of symmetry to it, really. He knows Sirius would appreciate the irony.