"The Mists Beyond the Sea," Lucius/Bellatrix, NC-17 Title: The Mists Beyond the Sea Author:kethlenda Characters/Pairing: Lucius/Narcissa, Lucius/Bellatrix Summary: He is so focused on the golden light in Narcissa's window that he almost doesn't notice--almost--the sickly green glow that bathes the walls.</i> Rating: NC-17 Warning(s): character death, mindfuckery, hatesex Originally Written: 5/06 Notes: Written for absinthe_lust at hpde_smutathon, and betaed by sionnain.
He wakes, and thinks he's dreaming.
The inexorable waves still pound the island's rocks; the light still seeps grey and dismal through the high barred window, but the heavy door stands ajar, and the rusty innards of the old padlock lie strewn across the floor.
Mistake, or miracle? Perhaps the Dark Lord has deigned to show mercy, though Lucius doubts it after all this time. Had he meant only to abandon Lucius to prison as a show, he'd have relented long ago. Surely he intended that Lucius would languish here until his bones mingled with those of the rats.
However, Lucius has never been one to allow the Dark Lord's intentions stand in the way of his own survival. He knows better than to question this turn of events. If he is dreaming, he will wake, having lost nothing. If he sees true, this is the chance he needs.
Azkaban is understaffed now, and the few guards are ordinary wizards, not Dementors, and have nothing but the usual senses to inform them that Prisoner Sixty-six has slipped his cell. By the time he hears voices echoing through the corridors, he is at the gates; by the time the searchlights scan the rocks, he has slipped into the icy chopping waters of the sea.
* * *
He is wandless and so cannot Apparate; he wonders dimly what they do with the confiscated wands when they toss you in Azkaban. Lucius has plenty of money locked away in Gringotts and could easily purchase a new one, but he has no proof of his identity with which to placate the goblins, and at any rate, he is a wanted criminal and dares not show his face in Diagon Alley. He dares not even summon the Knight Bus. The trip home to Narcissa is a long one, and solitary.
It is dark (how many nights later? he doesn't remember.) when he finds himself at last at the gates of his Manor. He is so focused on the golden light in Narcissa's window that he almost doesn't notice--almost--the sickly green glow that bathes the walls. He casts his eyes upward to see the grinning death's head sparkling in the skies. No. He takes the flagstone path at a dead sprint, wrenches open the door.
He steps into the dark, and trips over something heavy and soft. The open door makes a wide enough swath of moonlight across the floor for Lucius to discern the blankly staring eyes of his son and heir.
"No," he moans, and then "Cissy." He knows the way to the stairs even in the dark. Narcissa must have rearranged the furniture in the past year; Lucius brushes off a dozen scrapes and bruises in his run. He takes the spiraling stairs two at a time, his breaths near-sobs.
Her door is ajar; a candle gutters in the casement. She lies limp on the white satin sheets, her hair flowing over the bedclothes and making him think of Sleeping Beauty. He shakes her; she is cold, and something has dried on her shoulder.
Blood, black in the candlelight. Words scratched into her perfect skin. "You know where to find me. B."
Bellatrix.
I told her not to let that viper stay in our house…oh, Cissy…
He finds his wife's wand tossed among the sheets. He is thankful; he doesn't relish the thought of a long walk standing in the way of his revenge. The room rings with a crack.
* * *
The Blacks' ancestral home sits moldering and abandoned on the cliffs above the sea. Lucius shudders at the rhythmic slosh and crash of the waves. After I settle things with that bitch, I'll never have to hear that noise again.
He shoves at the warped and rotted front door, and it gives way, splintering. The faces of Draco and Narcissa fuel his steps; if this place weren't so waterlogged, he'd half expect his wrath to set the old hulk ablaze. He wonders whether she'll be laughing when he finds her, that cold horrid cackle he knows too well. He'll see to it she never laughs again. "Bellatrix," he says. He does not shout, only lets his voice toll through the mildewed emptiness of the halls like a bell.
At the end of the corridor, a window admits the moonlight; by the silver-blue glow he sees a woman, her back to him, her long pale hair a waterfall. "Cissy," he murmurs, knowing it can't be, knowing it is somehow, not wanting to question it lest she vanish into the rolling mists of the sea.
She turns. "Lucius," she says, her voice soft as rain in the leaves of trees, like always. It's her face; those are her hands that press cool but not dead-cold against his cheeks. "My love."
He runs his hands down her sides, feeling soft skin and firm sinuous curves beneath the liquid silk of her gown. Can a ghost feel like this? A hallucination? Or was her death the dream, and now I wake?
She kisses him, her lips soft as petals. He brings his palms up to the swell of her breasts, moving the satin over and over her nipples until she moans against his mouth. He clutches her buttocks hard, seizing her to him so she can't help but feel his cock through their robes.
She writhes against him, her want like wine to his veins. He groans, ripping at her gown, rending it to shreds. He murmurs of love and need against her long swan's neck as he pushes her up against the peeling wallpaper. No place for a lady like her, but it'll have to do.
He frees himself of his own robes. There is a moment of self-consciousness when he notices his own body, gaunt and pale, and sees that hers is the perfect Greek sculpture he remembers. Does she still…
She answers his unspoken question by taking his cock in her hands; she works him hard but slow, bringing him to the edge when she slicks her fingers in his moisture and slides them faster, harder.
He knows he doesn't have much longer; it's been too many months and he's near his peak already. He takes her hands firmly in his, pins them against the wall, and buries himself in her heat. It is only a few sweet minutes before he comes, bursting within her with one last ruthless thrust.
* * *
In the morning, she is Bellatrix. She sits cross-legged on the floor, watching him with a smile, twiddling Narcissa's slender birch wand in her long taloned fingers. He can see her cunt half-hidden in its sable curls, and it seems a second mocking smile.
"You," he says.
"Surprise," she says, her voice rough and throaty, not the dulcet tones of his wife.
Narcissa.
I've betrayed you. I knew you were dead, and I…I… He realizes, with a wave of nausea, that he knew all along. He must have. It must have been she who sprung him from gaol in the first place, just so she could make her cruel little game complete.
"Why? Draco and Narcissa…why?"
She licks her blood-red lips. "Draco failed the Dark Lord. My sister made the tragic error of harboring him from our Lord's wrath."
"Your own sister!"
"It had to be done." She shrugs, as though she feels nothing at all.
He takes her by the shoulders and shakes her like a doll, slams her to the planks of the floor. He's already had the bitch, why not have her again? She laughs as he drives into her cunt.
"Yes, laugh, you whore, you bitch," he mutters, mouthing the foulest words he can find against her skin as he pounds into her body, as relentlessly as the tides batter Azkaban. She rakes those merciless nails down his back, and he fucks her harder, faster, as though he can somehow pierce her with his fury, his pain. She is still laughing when he comes inside her foul flesh. It feels like spitting on her.
He lies down on the floor, feeling vaguely dizzy. "What's so funny?" he asks, and wonders what's wrong with his vision; there are two Bellas leaning over him now, two laughing pairs of scarlet lips.
She waggles her fingers in front of his eyes. "You failed Him, too," she says, and he knows it's over.
"You'd finish both our families…"
Her laugh is the wildest yet, and just before his world goes black, he sees her hand caressing her flat belly as though to cradle a secret within.
And then he is beyond all caring, and reaches for Narcissa in the mists beyond the sea.