A/N: And I finally got up the courage to post this. Wow. Inspired, most probably, at least in part, by Rhysenn. Thanks go to Christy and Sky Sorceress for their invaluable constructive criticism. If Lucius is overly two dimensional, I apologize beforehand. This fic is so unlike me... Anyway. PG-13 for suggestive behavior and much profanity.
l o s i n g a g a i n
"James," she said politely, delicate fingers cold as they shook hands. The swell of her stomach was only slight, and her ravishing looks were far from diminished. At that moment, James realized why Lucius had married her - the marble surface, beauty and grace, the haughty and prim manner. She was a trophy wife all over, the sort you could revel in for a day and then forget about, the sort you could lock up and let gather dust. He compared her with his comely, lively Lily and could not imagine it at all.
"You're looking very well, Narcissa." His tone was equally icy. Two could play at that game. "Congratulations on the baby."
"Yes. Same to you." She smiled lifelessly, one hand resting on the gentle curve of her belly. "He'll be a boy, I'm sure."
James wasn't sure which child she was speaking of - hers or Lily's - and he was too reluctant to ask. Instead, he glanced around - the mansion glittered ornately, a fortune's difference from Lily and James' own home - and said casually, "Is Lucius about?"
"He's in his study. Upstairs, first door on the right." Narcissa smiled the same dazzling smile that never touched her eyes, her teeth flashing like some declawed lioness in the shadows. "Good to see you, James. Do stop by again; bring your baby next time. They can play together."
Like hell, James thought. I'd sooner let my child play with firecrackers and razor blades. "Sure." He watched her impassive expression - it never changed - for a moment, and then stepped forward to the stairs. The marble rail tingled coldly beneath his fingers and he wondered sarcastically, How do they expect to raise a child in this ice palace? What will its first words be, Avada Kedavra?
First door on the right. The heavy wooden door was shut with a dreaded finality. James pondered, and not for the first time, how different Lucius Malfoy would look from five years ago. Would he look older, more respectable, perhaps? Had he gained weight, did he - did he have the notorious Mark? James raised a hand - very hesitantly - and knocked.
"I told you not to interrupt me!" came the answering reply. "Damn woman."
"It's - it's not Narcissa." James took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
Lucius was sitting at the desk in the center of the room, sunlight pouring through the picture window behind him. The light nearly blinded James, and it was a moment - a moment in which he missed the flash of raw anguish and sorrow in Lucius' eyes - before he blinked and could make sense of the shadows.
"Well. If it isn't James Potter." Lucius stood and James had to concede that he hadn't changed at all. The black robes still fell gracefully around his lean body; sun-streaked hair still brushed over his forehead and into the same familiar, impassive gaze. It was the same figure that used to make James catch his breath at every movement, the same figure his hands had explored so many times, the same figure that haunted his dreams. How could he have so easily forgotten?
Somewhere in the tangle of emotions that flooded him, James found his voice. "Hello, Lucius. Congratulations on the baby. Your wife looks well."
"Do you honestly think it's my child, Potter?" Lucius sounded smug, though he paused, as if considering that for the first time. "Doubtful, anyway. I hear Lily's is on the way also. Congratulations. I do assume it's yours?"
"Of course it's mine, Malfoy!" James snapped. Why did the man always have to rub him the wrong way? Well...not always...but that was locked in the past, and he had no desire whatsoever to ressurect it.
"And what brings you here on this lovely day?" Lucius shut the book he'd been reading - a yellowing and worn tome that looked nearly as ancient as the Malfoy family tree - with a snap and took a deliberate step forward.
"Ministry business. I, uh, had to give you these."
Lucius took the papers, noting the care James took to make sure their fingers didn't brush. "Is that all? What are you now, Potter, the Ministry's messenger owl?"
James flushed, remembering the way he'd been tossed the papers, told that no one else wanted the task of visiting the Malfoy residence. In fact, many of them had stared at him like he'd been marching to his death when he'd left. What did they think it was, a butchery? Of course, he wasn't supposed to let on that he'd been there before, and had returned the worried smiles with his own apprehensive grin. "They were supposed to be hand delivered. And I was supposed to talk to you about sponsoring research in the further investigation of the Imperius Curse. They thought it would be more convincing in person."
"Odd, Potter, seeing as I don't feel very convinced. I wonder why."
"Proving your innocence is supposed to be incentive." The emerald eyes dodged the path of the marble gray ones, avoiding them like an evasive Seeker dashing through the sky. "It's not like you'll be going bankrupt any time soon. Just make a donation or something, will you?"
"That's funny. I'm not hearing 'please'..."
He clenched his teeth. "Please...donate...money, Malfoy."
"It's so good to hear you begging again, Potter. Here. I'll take out so much from Gringotts -" he smiled indulgently- "as many Galleons as you like - and transfer it to the Ministry." He smiled wickedly. "Lucky I didn't make you get on your knees and-"
"I'm here on business!"
"Oh? You'd rather come back tonight?"
"No!" James threw him an exasperated look. "I'm married, you're married, we're through: is something about all of that so truly difficult to understand?"
"I think I get it, Potter." Lucius returned the look, stare for stare. They were playing catch with their gazes, and eventually something would shatter like breaking glass. Something was cracking in Lucius' eyes like ice, frigid blue swimming below like dizzying whirlpools. "Only I don't love my wife, and I'm willing to bet you don't love yours."
"What?" James was immediately defensive. "Of course I do! I love Lily more than-"
"More than what, James?" Lucius' voice was dangerously low, and he never called him James unless he was dead serious. "More than, say, me?"
"More than anything I've ever loved before," James said quietly. "Look. We were a phase; it was fun flirting with danger, I suppose. But that's clearly over. Lily is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"Better than me on the Quidditch field that night during sixth year?" Lucius' arrogant drawl was more than enough to cover the broken look in his eyes. It incensed James enough that he didn't even notice the undertone of agony, the hidden anguish that would have streamed through every crack in the façade had it not been built so methodically well. "Pretty hard to believe, Potter."
"Forget it - you'll never match up! You never had her innocence, her goodness, her morality. In every way, Lily is better than you."
"Oh?" He smirked, leaning against the desk, running a lazy hand through his hair. "And did you tell your sweet, innocent, loving wife about...us?"
For a moment, James flushed, looking past Lucius and evasively out the window. "No."
Lucius' smile was smug. He said nothing, only watched knowingly, trying in vain at the same time to imprint every detail on his mind lest he never see him again. The same tousled hair, the too-green emerald pools he could drown himself in if he tried hard enough. The sweetest suicide. If Lucius' smile wavered at all, James didn't notice.
"You won't come between us." James' voice, when he finally spoke, was icier than Narcissa's had ever been. "You aren't strong enough, Lucius. And I will not let you destroy my family. Ever."
"Brave words, Potter." The head of the Malfoy house was suddenly a few steps too close and James felt something constrict in the pit of his stomach. "And what would you say if I did this?" Before he knew it, James was shoved against the heavy door and his hands were somehow entangled in the other's hair. And they were kissing - or, more accurately, Lucius was kissing him - hard, furious, something denied and smothered for years flickering to the forefront like no time had passed at all. It was desperate, yet somehow fleeting - no matter if it had been a moment or an hour, when they finally parted James felt as if it would never be long enough. He was too out of breath to say anything at all.
Still face to face, barely inches between them, they both breathed slowly in the silence. Any words that leapt to James' mind were quelled by the oppressive silence that cloaked the room, making him acutely aware of Lucius' shallow breathing. He could hear it, echoing his own, and wondered ridiculously if they would just stand there all day, shrouded in the spotlight of sunlight and shadow, staring at each other. But no, that could never happen, because sooner or later one of them had to give in; the barriers were already falling apart.
Lucius leaned forward almost imperceptibly. James put a hand on his chest - trying to ignore the faint fluttering heartbeat he used to listen to for hours, staring at the ceiling, not caring if sleep never came because he could stay there forever anyhow - and pushed him away.
"Don't."
"That's all you can say, Potter?" The smile that rose on Lucius' lips was bitterly amused. The silence was finally broken and he crossed his arms, one eyebrow raised carefully, composure - if it had ever been shaken - clearly back in place. "'Don't,'" he mocked. "Why not, Potter? Scared?"
James took a deep breath, pushing back the warring emotions he'd thought locked away for good. He'd known it wouldn't be easy from the moment he was asked to deliver the papers, but the Ministry was hard put to have enough people for any job lately, they were run so thin. He'd promised to help whatever way he could, and it wasn't as if anyone was eagerly volunteering to visit the Malfoys. Looking at Lucius now, however, he was sure he hadn't realized how truly difficult it would be. Words sprang to his lips but he could not say them.
"You're denying it." Lucius' gaze was strangely perceptive, and James had to turn his own eyes casually away, walking disinterestedly towards the window. Lucius' voice, however, followed him. "Just like all those repressed memories from Hogwarts you buried on your wedding night, isn't that right, Potter? You don't like to be haunted by ghosts you thought you got rid of long ago."
"Lucius," James said slowly, very calmly, "I'm going to leave now. If you mean it about the donation, send a note to the Ministry by owl. I think I've done my job."
"Like hell you have." The other man's voice was closer now, nearly beside James. Had he been so caught up in staring fixedly out the window that he hadn't noticed the movement? "I've had enough of this. More than enough. Do you think you can just toy with me like this?"
James spun around, eyes glinting dangerously. "You're fooling yourself, Lucius. Don't accuse me of doing anything. We broke off after Hogwarts, or have you deluded yourself into forgetting that? I'm married to the love of my life, or don't you remember that, either? I don't care about anything that goes on between you and Narcissa, but don't you dare blame me for anything in your twisted life. We were through long ago, Lucius, and nothing has changed. Nor will it ever."
If James had thought the wintry blue was formidable before, it was nothing compared to the look in Lucius' eyes now. "You think I don't know that?" he snarled, advancing until they were little more than inches apart once again. "I am not delusional, Potter! Had I a choice, I never would have cared to begin with!"
"Cared?" James' voice was composed, as cold and honed as a razor blade. If I was that masochistic, Lucius thought bitterly, I could die with him forever; he could bleed me to death and I would rejoice. "Don't lie to me," James retorted, reaching out without warning to grip the other's wrist. He yanked back the sleeve, fingers biting into the darkened flesh. The mark spread over Lucius' wrist like a bruise that never faded, an endless reminder of all he'd lost for the dubious glory he'd gained. "You cared, hm? Is this caring? Is this caring?"
"You're hurting me." Lucius watched James calmly, itching to pry the fingers from his skin but too reluctant to make any move.
"So what?! Don't pretend you haven't been hurt worse before! Don't pretend you haven't hurt others worse before! Fuck, Lucius, this isn't Slytherin and Gryffindor anymore. This is-"
"Real." For an instant, their eyes met in a flash of fleeting understanding. Sorrows and painful memories were poured between them, igniting the air for an instant. Everything laid bare before the other's eyes: lies, suspicion, hurt, anguish, pain, deceit, love.
"Lucius..." James' voice was a mere whisper, but it seemed to echo in the empty silence. "I - I'm sorry." He watched his painfully familiar but strangely distant former lover try to speak, but no words came. James released his wrist from the iron grip, running one gentle finger over the abhorred sign. He fancied he could feel Lucius' pulse under his fluttering touch, feel the other's blood running silvery and tainted beneath the marred skin. "Why did you do it?" he asked softly. "Why?"
"Why the fuck not?" Lucius' tone, while still quiet, was quaking with repressed emotion. "It's not like I had much of a choice. The Malfoy line isn't known for being heroic and good-hearted, you know. My ancestors were haunting me." A bitter smile quirked his lips in a semblence of mirth - it was depressing, James thought. "And besides, Potter, I didn't have anywhere else to go. You promised me forever. I turned around and you were gone. Marrying that Mudblood girl, shoving me away into some locked drawer because you didn't want to remember. Well blast it, Potter, what about me?"
His first impulse was to defend Lily, but the haunted look in Lucius' eyes held him back. "I didn't know...Lucius, I thought..."
"I know what you thought, Potter. You thought it was all a nice little joke, maybe a random fling, a two year one night stand in the Astronomy Tower and little else, right? You thought that if you didn't care about me, then maybe I'd stop caring about you."
"You never told me that." James clenched his teeth, fingers still wrapped about his wrist. "You never told me anything, Lucius. What was I supposed to do, guess? You wouldn't even talk to me after graduation."
"My father was there," Lucius grated. "Was I going to declare that I was in love with James Potter? He hated every bloody Gryffindor with a passion."
I was in love with James Potter. James ran the words through his mind, tasting them silently, weighing them. He remembered the way he'd felt that night - frustrated, hurt, betrayed. Narcissa, a sixth-year Slytherin girl with looks as pure as her True-blood family tree, had been flirting blatantly with Lucius, and Lucius - eyes only for his father - had done nothing to discourage her. James had left, then, walked out with his eyes stinging and something inside him breaking harder than he could ever imagine. And he'd found Lily by the lake, waiting for him with her sweet smile and innocent laughter, untainted, undemanding, unclaimed. They had kissed and she'd held him as he breathed in the scent of her hair, the smoothness of her skin, tried to forget the arms of a boy who had given him the most profound love and pain at the same time. He'd doted on her, adored her, imagined that her hands wiped clean his body and soul, saved him from the taint Lucius had left.
Oh, but had she?
"I should have known," James said quietly. "We aren't meant to be with each other, Lucius. We are nothing alike. You can't fool yourself and you can't fool me."
Silence, for an instant. "I'm not proud of it, you know," Lucius said, almost conversationally. "Any of it. If I could start over again-"
"That, Lucius, is the problem." James glanced sideways to the dying afternoon, his gaze slipping over the rolling grounds of the manor. The Malfoys had always been the same, self-important, rich, annoying - and irresistable - as hell. And they flaunted it, the wealth - he remembered the first time he'd seen Lucius, strolling down Diagon Alley like he owned the world. Still, James supposed, you can't miss what you've always had until it's gone. "None of us can start over; we can't change any of the mistakes we make. We have to be satisfied with what we have, here and now."
"And if we don't have anything?" Lucius' breath was faint, his lips barely inches away. Both longed to close the distance between them, but then, both knew that more than inches lay between. Anguished years, tormented gulfs of sorrow, chasms no simple and passionate kiss could overcome.
James had no answer. So he kissed him anyway.
Gently moving his wrist from James' grip, Lucius moved his hands up James' back and pulled him deeper into the communion of breath. He was pressed against James of his own volition, and the long-absent and irreplacable feel of those hot, yielding lips beneath his own reawakened a roaring, poignant need within him. James was nudged none too gently against the cool glass, fingers tangling themselves in the silken confines of Lucius' hair. They kissed hungrily, fervently, the shared moment painted all the more colorful with the equally shared agony of separation.
I didn't know, were the first coherent thoughts in James' mind, even as he pulled Lucius back to his mouth. The world was too empty without him, too cold, too lonesome. I didn't know... And if he had, how much different would things be? Would it be Lily still he was going home to, or this man, this man that made him hate and love at the same time, the man that ultimately made him feel the most. The only one he had ever felt so complete with, and so empty without.
Lucius was urgent, fingers biting into James' skin, drawing goosebumps wherever they touched. His tongue danced like searing fire through James' mouth, both of their bodies subconsciously clinging to each other. Poisonous, and I could still drink his breath for eternity, he thought fleetingly. When James finally pulled away, panting and a scant handspan from Lucius' face, Lucius could do nothing but stare into those emerald pools dizzily. "Lie down," he breathed, pressing his lips against the curve of James' ear. "Right here."
James withdrew his hands from where they rested comfortably at the base of Lucius' neck and grasped his shoulders. He looked, for a moment, like he was about to do exactly as the other said. But it wasn't another night at the tower, it wasn't any time and place - it was now. We have to be satisfied with what we have, here and now. His own words echoed through his head, and he looked solidly into Lucius' expectant eyes, mouth already forming the word.
"No."
Lucius looked genuinely surprised. "You mean, you want me to -"
"No, Lucius. No, you aren't going to screw me, no, I'm not going to screw you. Clear enough?"
If the inner twisting knife was indeed twisting, Lucius hid it well. His eyes hardened into tarnished blue-gray steel - a thousand swords to pierce his already shattered heart. "What, Potter, did you grow a conscience?" He pulled back, all too conscious of every place their bodies touched. "Oh, wait, you're a Gryffindor boy at heart. Hypocritical hero, every inch of you."
"Lucius, I -"
"Fuck, Potter! You're in my blood! I needed you since the first moment I saw you and I never stopped needing you. I need your breath and your smile and your bloody morality, I need you to despise and I need you to care about, I need you under me every moment of the day! You're my drug and it's going to kill me but you're in my blood and I'm never going to stop needing you!"
Something might have flashed in his gaze, some brief hopeful flicker - but James turned his eyes away, afraid of what raw emotion he might accidentally disclose. "Voldemort's power is also in you," he said quietly, moving away from the window and closer to the door. For the first time, he saw what Lucius had been reading, and it was indeed a book on the forbidden lists of the Ministry. The Dark Arts. "There is darkness running through your veins that has nothing to do with me."
For a moment, collapsing into the chair, Lucius never looked more broken. But in the next instant his arms were crossed, eyes flashing defiantly, and he watched dispassionately as James moved towards the door one slow step at a time. "So, what? Are you saying I have to choose?"
"The time's past for choosing. I think now you just have to live with the consequences."
You can have it all, James - my heart, my soul, my body, my blood - I give it up to you, if only you'll save me. Do you know how much I need you? Do you know how much I always needed you? You have no idea. The Cruciatus Curse is nothing next to this. I thought that broke me in every way possible, but I guess I was wrong. You found something else to break.
"Goodbye, Lucius."
So you chose Lily, her sweetness, her innocence. And I chose Voldemort, the darkness, the pain. Why couldn't we have chosen each other?
James reached for the doorhandle, both perplexed and frustrated by the other's enigmatic silence and impassive expression. Was he not even going to say it?
Everything I need...falls apart...
"Wait." And James waited, hand poised to twist the door open, cautiously wary. Lucius bit his lip. "If we ever - if Voldemort ever tries to - you can-"
Shaking his head, James turned sadly away. "No, Lucius."
Everything I want...someone else gets...
"Oh yes, I forgot." His voice was a sneer, shining and impenetratable, leaving no room for surmising about what emotions roiled beneath. "No charity, is that it, Potter? Ever the noble one. Well, we Malfoys do have some pride. I think the hint's been taken."
"That isn't it. I just-"
Everything I love...I hurt...
"You know it would never work, Lucius. You can't deny who you are, any more than I can. It's never too late for change, but you belong to something beyond my control, and I won't compromise myself and put my family in danger. I wish things could be different, but we both made our choices. We have to live with them."
Everything I find...I always end up...losing.
Again.
"Narcissa will show you out. You can't Apparate in here." His voice was some semblence of icy glass, but at the end, it became a strangled choke, and he turned away to stare at the late afternoon shadows creeping over the lawn.
"Lucius-"
No answer. So James Potter let himself out of the study and walked down the slippery marble stairs. Narcissa was nowhere to be seen, but it didn't matter, and he slipped out the front door without looking back. Drawing his wand from his pocket, he wiped an unseen tear from his eyes. It wouldn't do, upsetting Lily, and she was so easily upset these days, with the baby on the way. He sighed, turning back once, seeing the looming mansion rise behind him like some irrepressable ghost that would not go away. Goodbye.
He took a step forward and Apparated out of the Malfoys' life.
Back in the study, a quill was furiously scratching over a thin scrap of parchment. Lucius laid it aside, watching the drying ink emotionlessly. Later he would send it off to Gringotts and have some worthless coins deposited to fund some worthless research. The Imperius curse. He nodded, wearily. Yes, James, it can be broken. You can break anything if you try hard enough.
"Aaargh!" Snatching the first thing that came to his hands - the heavy Dark Arts book - Lucius hurled it with all his might at the window. He followed it with his fists, pounding on the unyielding glass until they were bruised and bloody. The glass would not break. He flung his body against it, beat upon it with all the strength he could muster. It seemed to mock him, the smoothness, the crystalline perfection, cold and emotionless and unbreakable.
Seizing his heavy wooden chair, Lucius staggered forward. He nearly tripped, but braced himself against the wall and slammed it forwards. The chair splintered in his hands; the glass cracked but did not shatter. Lucius grabbed a leg of the chair and thrust it at the glass, repeatedly, blinded by rage and unshed tears. Only then did it break and fall to pieces, crystal clear shards tinged with his own blood. He stepped over the jagged pieces on the carpet and watched the others fall to the ground, his fingers dripping crimson. Only then did he collapse against the wall, silent, quaking sobs wracking his black-clad frame. Broken. Everything is broken. Only then did he nurse his bloodied, stinging fingertips in the shadows and wish for a sweeter kind of pain. Everything...
Only then, huddled in the corner, mismatched broken pieces of his life strewn around him, only then did he say it - the word that choked him so completely he could have hung himself upon it. Only then.
"Goodbye."