All I Would Give for You

All I Would Give for You

Looking back at me I see that I never really got it right

I never stopped to think of you

I'm always wrapped up in things I cannot win . . .

What I really meant to say

Is I'm sorry for the way I am

Pale light from the open window touched one side of the young woman's face, delicately painting her skin the softest of silvery blues.

He had asked her so many times not to leave the window open while she slept. It did not sit well with him that she be so unguarded, almost as if tempting fate. Still, the heat of late summer was thick in the air during the day, and the night breeze that stirred the sheer curtains was pleasantly cool.

Lucius crossed the chamber, and stood before the open window, letting the air wash over him. He thought of the billowing cloak and silver mask, locked away in the false bottom of his desk drawer, locked safely away from all the world. Funny that, how the symbols of such power, such honor, were hidden away like some thief's bounty. They were hidden even from the eyes of the moon-touched creature asleep on the silken sheets of their bed.

It was an altogether lovely image painted before him, and he took the opportunity to enjoy it, standing near the shadows as if he were a trespasser in his own chamber. There was something voyeuristic about his enjoyment of watching her sleep, as though he had no right. But his presence threatened to break the lovely spell that held the scene together, so he lingered on the edge of it, a foreigner in his own home.

Her long hair--usually carefully coiffed into some neat, elegant fashion--lay against one shoulder in a loose braid. He loved to see Narcissa this way, her hair a fraying rope of burnished silk strands that curled against her skin. Long lashes made bronze crescents against her cheeks.

Lucius let his eyes fall to her lips. Parted in sleep, the soft sound of her breath passed between them. The hollow of her throat was an indigo shadow between collarbones that appeared like pearlescent wings. He worried often on her pallor and the slightness of her build. Her health was of high importance now more than ever.

He hated to be away from Narcissa so often. Her rare, quiet requests that he stay cast him into more turmoil than would the most violent emotional displays, which she would never sink to. But the Dark Lord's work was of the greatest importance. His power was vast, and to serve him was the highest honor. He alone held the power to cleanse the world of the stain that was the Muggle race and the traitorous fools that bred with them.

Careful not to make a sound, for fear he might wake his sleeping wife, Lucius disrobed, removing his watch and signet ring and placing on the bedside table, along with his wand. He made to close the window, but thought better of it. As he lifted the sheets to slide between them, though, he hesitated. Narcissa shifted in her sleep from her back to her side, turning so the thin light of the half-moon just touched her, barely outlining her form.

He wanted nothing more than to lie down beside her, fit his body against her soft angles. He told himself the reason he didn't was solely so as not to wake her, that it didn't feel wrong to touch her with hands that were unclean from the deeds he committed at the behest of his master.

His Master. Only the Dark Lord could claim Lucius as a servant, for there was no one who deserved such reverence and no other who could wield such power.

As he had done on so many other nights like this one, he held his wants in check and did not so much as reach out to lay a hand against his wife's back. The inside of his left forearm throbbed and stung. It would subside to it's usual dull ache soon enough.

He knew Narcissa was wary of his devotion to the Dark Lord, thinking it excessive and dangerous. How could she ever truly understand how important it was that the Dark Lord succeed in his plans? They had debated, both reasonably and heatedly over the merits of the actions his servants were asked to take, and ever they were on their respective sides. No progress was made, no opinions changed, and every time they walked away from one another a little more space remained between them when they reunited.

Lucius turned onto his side, his back to Narcissa's sleeping form. Their bodies did not touch, and the distance between them could have been ten thousand miles as easily as it was a few inches.

* * * *

A cordial knock at his study door took Lucius's attention from the dusty volume he had been examining so closely. Narcissa opened the door, letting it ease shut before fully entering the room.

"Why do you insist on knocking?" he asked. His tone implied puzzlement, as did his expression, which could not be classified as the smallest of frowns or smiles. "The door's never locked, and you're never a distraction to me."

She crossed the room to stand next to the arm of his chair. "It's a courtesy I would give anyone," she said, a mild smile on her lips. "You always ask, no matter how many times I answer you the same way." Her hand rested on his arm as she looked at the text set before him. Beneath her light touch his skin burned and he set his teeth to hide any reaction she might notice; she would pull her hand away if she knew what was directly under her fingertips.

Turning over the cover to read the book's title, she read aloud, "Liber Mort Angelus. Not the lightest reading in the world." She skimmed a few lines of the archaic Latin. "Is it the theory that you're siphoning through?"

"Something like that," he replied as he pushed the book aside. In truth, the book was an enormous record of dark spell craft interspersed with poetry and myth that focused all but exclusively on celestial creatures, specifically on their tragic, inhuman beauty and the rare but entrancing event of their death. It was a morbid work laden with metaphor, but it served a purpose, for it held within its covers a wealth of forgotten tradition with the ability to draw up enormous amounts of power. He refrained from discussing it with Narcissa, whose tolerance extended to the Dark Arts, but he did not deceive himself; this sort of study would not gain her acceptance.

Lucius took her hand between his own and pressed it to his lips in an unusual gesture of spontaneous affection. Narcissa smiled at him, her brows drawing together in bemusement.

"I just came in to remind you that we're having guests for dinner," she said. "I've been meaning to have Mother and Father come to the manor for a while now." The ease that she spoke with did not quite mask the tension in her.

She eyed him, a frown ready to form on her lips. "You don't have any prior engagements?" Her wary tone implied that she had already begun to steel herself for disappointment.

"None."

Narcissa smiled at him, a full glowing smile that lit her eyes. She leaned toward her husband, kissing him lightly. Lucius took the opportunity to pull her closer to him, wrapping an arm around her waist. She cast him a mock glare, removing his hands from her and stepping away from him.

"Darling, these robes are new," she admonished, smoothing the front of her robes. She met his eyes and one hand lingered low on her stomach for an instant. Then she smiled at him again before turning from him and moving gracefully to the door, which closed softly behind her.

Despite her pleasant expression, he couldn't help but feel that had the situation been different, she might not have left the room at all.

The Liber Mort Angelus remained open and untouched on the desk, and Lucius looked down to see a poem he knew well, a peculiar writing to find in such a work, for it described a man's love for his god. Strangely it was in the form of a love poem; it was out of place in the dark tome.

Lucius didn't have to think very hard to remember the lines of the poem--they had stayed with him since his first reading them. The words had stirred an odd feeling in him, one that he had not been entirely comfortable with.

I lost myself to him/And laid my face upon my lover's breast/ And faith and care grew dim/As in the morning's mist became the light

For a god to take the place of all else--friends, lovers, and any of the aspects of humanity--was a disturbing thought. A feelings of unease stayed with him, as had the words of the poem.

Lucius's eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance, or perhaps on something that wasn't there at all.

* * * *

Lucius hung his robes back in the wardrobe and turned to watch Narcissa as she went about the process of making herself ready to retire. Deftly, she plucked the silver ornaments from her ears and set about freeing her hair of the combs that kept it swept stylishly back from her face. Her eyes met his in the mirror as she began to unfasten her robes.

"What?" she asked, her hands pausing under her husband's gaze.

"Nothing, really." He shook his head as a cynical smirk formed on his lips. "When did your mother develop that expression of utter disgust? Through half of the main course she looked as if she was being assailed by the odor of rancid meat."

"She's just that way at times," Narcissa replied dismissively, knowing her words did little to assuage the dislike Lucius felt toward her mother, which had been strengthened that evening by her less than starred reaction to their announcement earlier that evening. Narcissa turned her attention instead to her own worries. "Do you think we told them too soon? We've only known ourselves since . . ." She trailed off, thinking of the bittersweet edge that their news must carry for the rest of the family. To inadvertently achieve something that Bellatrix had so wanted and been denied after Andromeda's betrayal felt almost selfish. And for hers and Lucius's marriage to be so new; the odds against them seemed to grow higher as minutes passed.

"What if we're making a mistake, Lucius?"

Lucius left his place on the bed and came to stand behind his wife, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders from behind. Narcissa rested her chin on his forearm, having abandoned the act of disrobing.

"Your Mother and Father would have found out sooner or later, one way or another," he said. "And don't ever even entertain the thought that this child might be a mistake." His words came out more a command than the reassurance of their intent, but Narcissa knew him to be less than gifted in the art of comforting others. It was the attempt that moved her, accompanied by tightening of his arm around her and the way his mouth softened at the corners, smoothing out the hard lines that seemed permanent save in uncommon moments like these.

For a while they were motionless before the mirror. The deep blue of Narcissa's robes made Lucius's startling pallor stand out all the more, and his hair, in a rare moment released from it's severe tail, hung loose and silvery, brushing against her own locks. A few disorderly individual strands fell into his face.

Narcissa thought back to times she'd heard it said that Lucius Malfoy was cold, heartless. She thought she was perhaps the only person in the world who knew the whole truth of who he was, and she treasured this. Only she knew this man, the one whose arms were wrapped around her to provide a comfort he could not express in words. He was hers and no one else's, and she guarded this knowledge enviously.

Her eyes fell then to the arm around her. The brand stood out, its appearance imitating the worst burns, and marred his skin. It was a symbol of ownership and complete control; there had been times when it would fade to the barest of shadows so that it seemed to be nothing more than an old scar, and Narcissa could imagine that it wasn't there at all. It was permanent now, its hue a deep and inflamed red at its mildest. The brand's constant presence was the ultimate proof that he wasn't hers at all. He'd always belonged to another even when she was in his arms.

On impulse, she turned her head and kissed him gently, as though the small display of affection would chase away her dark thoughts and banish the Dark Mark from his skin.

Lucius smiled at her and turned her in his embrace, bringing his mouth to hers in the same gentle manner she had used. His hands found her waist and his thumbs traced simple patterns at her hips.

"I love you," he said.

Narcissa kissed him again, this time without the prior softness. It was replaced by the need to stop him saying words that he would inexorably utter while on his knees before his masked, inhuman master.

His Master. That he would lower himself so far.

Lucius's hands moved up her sides, brushing against the sides of her breasts and coming up slowly to her throat, where he began to part the closings of her robes. He pushed the rich material back from her shoulders so that it fell to a pool at her feet.

Narcissa brought her arms up to loosely encircle his neck, her light shift silky and slippery on her skin and beneath Lucius's hands. She allowed herself the teasing pleasure of stepping closer to him and lifting his hair from his shoulders before drawing her nails over the sensitive area at the back of his neck tilting his head to hers, causing him to straighten himself to keep the tremor that went through him from showing. She felt fingertips begin to toy with the hem of her shift, the lace lifting slowly as Lucius's hand slid up and down on her thigh.

Their mouths came together, lips parting unhurriedly so that their tongues flicked out and played over each other, lightly at the start. As they continued in this manner actions grew less gentle, hands tightening in long pale hair and on silk draped hips. Narcissa rocked her hips subtly against Lucius, leaning into him more heavily. He was ready to give in. He'd spent too many nights away from her, too many nights restless from frustration and indecision. It was for this reason that he resisted answering Narcissa's discreet promptings even as his heart rate increased. He'd been too long holding her at arm's distance. Now she was so close to him he could count the breaths she took. Her breasts were against him and her hips made suggestions against his.

He felt unworthy and off-kilter even while he marveled over the power he had to provoke such feelings in her. He slid his hand higher up her thigh, the lace of her shift's hem dragging the inside of his forearm and causing him to pull in a sharp breath between his teeth at the feel of it, deriving a small pleasure from the acid-like sting. It brought a flush to his skin and created in him a sense of urgency that burned away his previous faltering. He only had now; precious few moments like these when the brand on his arm would mean nothing.

His motions, previously sensuous and measured, had become hurried and insistent. The hand beneath the hem of Narcissa's shift rose higher still so that her thighs were bare against his skin. He felt the heat of her body through what thin material remained between them and the way she sighed deeply against his mouth. Their mouths began to play harsh games. Narcissa was rousing to this unusual exigency, and Lucius was excited further by her response.

With hands less steady than they might have liked them to be, the two removed what scant vestments were left between them, a satin shift and silk shorts falling to the floor as the bed sighed quietly under two bodies.

Lucius wrapped his hands in to Narcissa's hair tightly; the gasp she issued in response was not one of pain, and her hands came up his shoulders as their mouths stayed locked together, tongues engaged in a slick, desperate battle. Narcissa's skin was a hot contrast to the cool silk sheets of the bed and Lucius wanted to touch every inch of her, play out his every longing with his mouth and hands. Another part of him would have liked nothing better than to take her quickly in a sweaty, desperate rush.

His motions were intuitive as he dropped his face to the shallow dip of her breastbone, kissing a slippery line up between her breasts before pressing his mouth to each of them in turn, gaining an impossible high off the feel of her nipple tightening under his tongue and the way she gasped and dug her nails into the back of his neck, arching beneath him. The world had narrowed to this and only this, and all the rest of so-called reality meant less than nothing.

"L-Lucius . . ." His name was a breathless whisper that stirred his hair. He slid his body upward, reveling in the near-painful friction the act created. Then his lips were on hers, close to bruising at the force they were exerting against each other's mouths, their moans and words stifled and running together. Narcissa had caught his urgency, and she arched beneath him. Her hands, leaving his hair, drew down his sweat-slicked chest and followed the ash-colored line of hair that began at his navel, making a mockery of the haste their mouths displayed. Her hands moved lower still and it was agonizing, pleasure pain, slow and making him crazy, making him--

Lucius's exclamation was an uneven moan against Narcissa's mouth, and her hands were moving on him hot and slow and threatening his control. He pulled her body flush to him, one arm under her shoulder blades and the other tangling back into the heavy gold fall of her hair as she writhed against him so that his hips were cradled between her thighs and her arms were locked around his neck.

He elicited from Narcissa a cry of something far from pain. Lucius was far beyond reality, moving in her in a hazy high of ecstasy, the only realities those of Narcissa's hair tangled through his fingers and her tongue in his mouth and her arms around his neck and her sleek thighs locked around his hips and the half-uttered moans of bliss--

"Ohhh, God!"

--that she spoke against his lips or he against hers. It was near impossible to tell, and it didn't matter. His demons were locked away far from here and she was with him. They were not at odds or wary of one another, but together, Narcissa arching to meet him, their actions--

"Hhnnn--,"

--bringing them closer each time, but never--

"Lucius!"

--close--

"Ohh--,"

--enough.

Her legs tightened around Lucius as she arched against him, her body lifting from the bed and her nails sunk deep into his skin as she cried out in words beyond his comprehension, for her climax dragged him violently to the edge of control and threw him over, leaving him to fall into the chasm between Heaven and Earth.

Lucius landed on Earth, with shards of Heaven and Hell around him.

His body and Narcissa's were a sweaty tangle, his head between her breasts and languor seeping into both of them after their previous exertions. After some minutes he rolled off her with his arm still around her so that her head rested over his heavily beating heart, her hair sticking to his damp chest. Her eyelids were heavy and falling further as she looked up at his face through bronze lashes. Her eyes were barely open, and her beauty was impossible.

On his arm, the Dark Mark began to sting more insistently, beads of sweat salty and burning on the surface of his skin in a constant reminder that this instant was transient and only a brief distraction from what he had to do. The pain promised to grow in intensity the longer he resisted his master's command.

He could ignore it for now. Not for much longer, but for now he could afford the luxury of listening to his wife's breathing become slow and even. For now he could have that pleasure.

* * * *

Hours passed and Lucius remained awake. There came a point, in the earliest part of the morning, not long after Narcissa had passed into the deepest realm of sleep that the nature of the pain radiating from the Dark Mark on his arm changed and the call was fierce. Moving quickly but carefully to keep from waking Narcissa, Lucius left the bed and dressed hastily. He didn't look back at the rumpled sheets of the bed or at his wife. She'd wake to find him gone, he knew, but for her to watch him leave was out of the question, and not solely for the sake of sparing Narcissa's feelings.

Snatching his wand from the bedside table he apparated into his study with a small *pop* and rushed to his desk to retrieve his cloak from the drawer. On the desk, the Liber Mort Angelus remained open, the pages lit by moonlight coming in the window. His eyes caught on the poem that the book was still open to, before shutting the tome forcefully and whispering the spell that opened the compartment in his desk drawer, from which he removed his cloak and mask, which he donned before apparating to his Master's side

He took his place in the circle, waiting for the rest to arrive. The Dark Lord was cloaked and hooded, a mask covering his features. It was a measure of vanity, for Lucius had seen his Master's visage, one twisted and hideous, sacrificed on the alter of immortality and power beyond imaging.

Some had already arrived; Bellatrix met his eyes from her place across the circle next to Rabastan and Rodolphus, Travers still and somber as a sentinel at his left. Others arrived and quickly stepped into their places in the circle; Crabbe, Goyle, the Crouch boy, and Regulus Black, who fell nervously into place the empty space next to Bellatrix.

The Dark lord surveyed the circle, his words directed to each of his followers in turn as he came close to them. Some glowed under the individual attention--Bellatrix's masked face tilted up in fawning submission--while others quailed under their master's gaze. Regulus flinched at The Dark Lord's proximity, the young man--boy, really--keeping his eyes downcast. Lucius noticed the slight quiver of boys sleeve as he stood in his newly acquired place in the circle.

The Dark Lord continued his movement around the circle. When he reached Lucius, he stepped toward his servant, placing a hand under the hood of Lucius's robes at the curve between his neck and shoulder, his thumb brushing the edge of the silver mask.

"Lucius." His name was a high rasp in his master's voice, and sounded foreign and muffled behind the mask. Even with that, it held the reek of power that intoxicated Lucius, caught him and held him by the throat

"Yes, Master?"

"It is a fine thing to have servants such as you, so faithful. You are an example to the rest of my Death Eaters. Few know how to sacrifice so much for their master." Their was a cruelty about his tone, and Lucius knew then that the Dark Lord was well aware of exactly what he had left behind him this night.

The cold reptilian scales and claws of his Master's hand felt strange, asserting dominance over Lucius even in this gesture that might have been almost affectionate if executed by another. Now it served only to create envy among the others gathered in the circle. Lucius knew this, but to him it did not matter. He wanted to fall to his knees before the power his was faced with, to lay down his very soul before his Master, his god. He'd give all he had, all he was for his master and leave nothing. He took up all the space there was in Lucius's soul, and nothing need be held back, for surely there was nothing was required of him that meant more than this.

He understood what it meant to love one's god above all others in all ways, as Master, Lover, God.

* * * *

The bed Narcissa woke to was cold. Her skin had the unpleasant stickiness of dried sweat and the sheets were tangled and damp beneath her. She sat up, pulling the sheets around her body as if they would shield her from the fading darkness of early morning.

Lucius's scent clung to the silk.

It did nothing to comfort her. His heart wasn't beating under her cheek and his arms weren't around her. Of all that she would give to Lucius, for Lucius, acceptance of his desires, of his place at the Dark Lord's right hand, was the greatest gift she could give. She would give it, offer it up with a smile on her face even if she her soul died as she did it. Then at least, he wouldn't be choosing between them, for in that battle, the Dark Lord would always win.

As the night dissolved into the pale hues of early morning, tears slipped down Narcissa's cheeks, washing away any solace she might have gained the night before.

Life would continue; time did not stop for petty hurts and minor sorrows. The sun would rise on her, she knew all to well.

It was the fact that it would rise on her alone that put a crack in her heart.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

-Song of Songs, 3:1