Title: The Last Thing
Author: thegildedmagpie
Characters/Pairings: Voldemort/Bellatrix/Narcissa with Lucius voyeurism
Rating: R
Kinks/Themes Chosen: menstrual taboo
Other Warnings: red wings, noncon/dubcon, incest, threesomes, unintentional voyeurism. Depressing darkfic.
Word Count: 1608
Summary/Description: Everything Lucius has has been torn away as a punishment for his failure of the Dark Lord. She's no exception.
Author's Notes: … my own fic made me tear up. I'm such a girl.



He can't decide whether to be in a perpetual rage or just give up and learn to crawl.

From the moment he rises in the morning (kiss Narcissa's wan cheek, wait for the cowed-looking house-elf to come in and lay out his clothing unless it is currently dancing attendance on someone other than its owner) to when he finally falls into bed agonizingly late at night (reach for his wand to snuff the candle he's been reading by and grimace when his hand finds bare tabletop), he toadies to the ones who have taken up residence in his home and he can't decide which is worse: That he has to bite his tongue or that it's getting easier. He thinks on it, to distract himself. Which is worse? Being treated like a dog or being one?

As the initial horror of his situation begins to fade the annoyances set in – much as he hates to admit it, an epic level of indignity can only be maintained for so long even by such a refined mind as his. It fades into discrete incidents, each incredibly irritating and none quite worth the bootless fury he expends on them. The daily humiliations at the hand of his Dark Lord, that animal Greyback's boots on Narcissa's writing desk – those blend together.

It's the expressions of his wife and son that never lose their power to cut him.

And of course there's his sister-in-law.

Bellatrix clearly considers it her privilege – her bloody right – to take charge of his home. The Dark Lord's favorite, of course, and additionally she has never forgotten, or let anyone else for a moment forget, that this estate was the property of the Black side of the family until he and Narcissa received it as a wedding gift – and ever since their wedding, with the merciful but insufficient exception of her imprisonment, she has never ceased in her campaign to suggest that he is nouveau riche. How she must have cackled over the realization that she was going to be invited to style herself the lady of the manor.

This week it's better, though. It is the custom of the Black women to withdraw during their courses, which Bellatrix fortunately has not abandoned. Of course, Narcissa and Bellatrix have come to coincide on that, so the benefit is balanced by the drawback of not having one another to lean upon, but he is hardly going to complain about the absence of the dragon woman.

Such are his thoughts as he turns the handle of the door that leads to his and Narcissa's own bedroom. He shouldn't be here. She prefers to be alone during her time and has been irritated in the past when he tried to invade her female privacy. But in this case … well, he thinks they owe each other and themselves the comfort of one another's company at such a time as this, and if entering this feminine space is what it takes to be alone together … so be it.

For a moment he thinks with horrified outrage that, unsatisfied with his home, they have made themselves the masters of his marriage bed – Bellatrix with her heavy breasts bared at the foot, the Dark Lord still robed and smiling thinly at her from the headboard – and then he realizes how much worse it is than that.

Narcissa is lying between them, nude – her head turned away so he can't see her face, white-blonde hair rippling across the bed. She has been lying there a while. He can tell by the rusty-cherry stains on the silver-grey coverlet between her spread legs – spread because one of her ankles is casually pinned far out to one side, her long foot caged in spidery white fingers, and no one is stupid enough to resist such a clear unspoken instruction.

Bellatrix bends forward, her breasts – full globes with large, dark red nipples, which is information he could have done without forever – dropping pendulously as her spine curves. With one hand she presses the nipple into Narcissa's mouth. “No biting, Cissy,” she warns in that deep sensual voice of hers that always makes the Dark Lord smile at her, and her other hand goes to tweak Narcissa's smaller, paler breasts, those that are still so firm and girlish under Lucius's hands – even now, after three lost pregnancies and a child nearly of age. He knows her body well, enough to easily recognize the flinch of pain that says just how hard Bellatrix is twisting, but also sees her head tip back and her thin mouth open to obey.

Lucius can only stand with the door half-open, frozen in place by humiliation, fear, outrage – helplessness. Can only, bewildered, wonder why in Salazar's name Narcissa put on lipstick – until Bella's hips lift from the bed and she slides forward, on all fours like a beast, and Narcissa's head disappears under the rucked-up skirt of Bellatrix's robe as the darker sister moves to mouth the clasps of the black robes that cover the pale body of their master.

And as the nausea rises with the realization of what Narcissa is being made to do under that merciful veil of robe, the Dark Lord looks right up at Lucius with satisfaction in his slitted eyes. “How fortunate, Bellatrix,” he says, “that we chose not to lock the door.”

A thousand horrific possibilities crowd Lucius's head – and to fend off that Pandora's box of possible demands, he slams the door shut.

He flees not quite at a run, but as he exits the front door – how did he even get there? – his long rapid strides nearly kick an unwary peacock over the nearest bank. The sunlight is full on the green lawn, an idyllic day, a day where he would once have breathed the air and enjoyed the pleasure of being alive, the master of such an estate, the husband of a beautiful wife and father of a fine son – is there nothing that won't be torn away from him?

If he had his wand he would Apparate. Somewhere. Anywhere. Malaysia. Anywhere. If he had his wand he would have traded his life and everything he owns in that instant for her honor – the last there is. The last thing any of them have. The most vital thing the Dark Lord offered them when he proposed to give them back what power nature granted them of itself – the last thing the Dark Lord tore from them as he showed his true colors.

Instead he stumbles down the long green slope toward the lake, not knowing where he's going, not caring, most of him still back in that room with his wife being taken and used as a possession by the one who had made himself their master and them his kennel.

***

She is lying in bed when he returns, her aristocratic, high-cheekboned face turned away toward the flickering candlelight, golden hair French-braided by the trembling fingers of a house-elf. The bedding has been changed. He knows he cannot bear to wonder but he wonders anyway – how often has the color of the coverlet changed that he has not remarked it? How often has it been for the same reason?

He undresses without speaking and slides into bed behind her without bothering to put on a nightshirt, moving close enough that the soft blue silk of her nightdress whispers against his chest and his own pale hair falls over her half-bared shoulder. There's a faint bruise in the pale skin of her narrow upper arm and for a moment, he has to bite back despairing tears. When his arm goes around her waist, her expression doesn't change, but hers folds tightly over it, fingers circling his wrist.

They lie there for a few minutes in silence, then he runs his palm down her flat belly – she's too thin, she's lost too much weight since all this began, and he knows he has too – to cup the small mound of her pubis, the comforting touch that has been theirs alone almost since the beginning of their marriage, since the first baby they lost, one of three they knew of and who knows how many they hadn't even realized. He can feel the extra thickness of cloth there, guarding her delicate underclothes against the stain of her menses – she normally doesn't allow his hand there during her time, but today she does not object, and he holds her close from breast to hip, breathing in the scent of the back of her neck to draw the only comfort there is now.

She captures a lock of his hair between her fingers and holds onto it like a child with a small treasure. Even in their pain she's a vision, only marred by the brand on her forearm – the Mark which Lucius took years ago and she was only recently made to receive. More minutes pass before she speaks.

“At least it wasn't Draco,” she says.

His grip on her tightens, eyes closing. “I'm sorry,” he says. He can't go on. Sorry for what? For everything. It was him who urged that they try to reclaim what was theirs – their status, their pride, their natural place. It was his failure that brought them to this.

“At least it wasn't our son,” she repeats steadily, and they say no more – just lie there and watch the candle burn, a tiny wavering pool of togetherness in the dark night.