Overture Mortale
Title: Overture Mortale Author: stonegrad Rating: Hard R Pairings: Lucius/Sirius, Lucius/Draco, Lucius/Sirius/Draco Summary: He tells himself that he doesn’t want to watch them strip Lucius down to his skin, to see his body in the bright kitchen lights, bruised and bloodied and torn and perfect, so fucking perfect. Warnings: Incestuous, not to mention dark and mildly bloody - but consensual! Prompt: Lucius learns that Bellatrix Lestrange intends to kill her cousin Sirius Black at the nearest opportunity. This bothers Lucius more than he cares to admit and it comes as no surprise to him when he double crosses Bellatrix at The Ministry and saves Sirius. It comes as a surprise to everyone else, though, including Sirius. Post OotP AU. Notes: Headers from Ted Hughes' 'Crow's Nerve Fails'. I apologise for the fact that Sirius took the leading role - I tried to get more of Lucius' side of things in once I got halfway through, and he wanted to be very dark indeed, so it turned bloody. Oh, and Draco is 16. Yes, yes he is; I promise. Beta'd by the wonderful melfinatheblue.
1. Crow, feeling his brain slip, finds his every feather the fossil of a murder.
A heartbeat; that is all there is, here amidst the screams, in the acidic haze of leftover spell fire, blood splattered over his fingers, over the dark wand in his grip, slick and glistening - he doesn't think. The time for thinking is long since gone.
'Come on, you can do better than that!'
There's red light, red light on the verge of her lips, red light in her eyes - and he's unguarded, defenseless, vulnerable for a split second, but that's all she needs; all she needs, and Lucius, oh, he won't let her have it.
No, she can't have it.
And Bellatrix is triumphant for a moment, he can tell - she's triumphant, but when her mouth opens, it's not her voice that's lashing through the air; it's not her hate, it's not her power that's striking, quick as a snake, unfolding beneath his skin (and they don't know he has it - they think he's beaten, they don't ever realize he's only defeated when he wants to be), throbbing, pounding, racing through him - burning through him.
"Crucio!"
A second; a second to watch the light, the flash, the way she's caught with the spell teetering on her lips, one syllable cut off, one sound unuttered - the arch of her spine, the slackening of her fingers when she's trapped, torn open, exposed; hit square to the side of the ribcage, body crumpling like dry, stiff parchment in the flames. Ashes, ashes...
Screaming, and Sirius' eyes are wide, so very wide as he watches her fall, fingers scrambling at the podium, eyes rolling back, muscles contracting - wider still when he looks, up and across, and sees the wand, and the man behind it.
Lucius is moving, darting forwards, cloak swirling about his ankles, boots clattering on the steps to the sound of her dry-throated shrieks; he's past the werewolf, past Potter, past Dumbledore, up the stairs, through the doorway - and he knows the way, knows the hallways, the shattered remains of the Department of Mysteries engraved in his mind, clear and perfect, not a line out of place.
A million plans demolished - a million more opportunities born.
Somewhere behind him, Sirius’ wand hits the floor with a sharp clang, rolling listlessly to come to rest against his booted foot - he’s frozen in place, frozen up there on the platform with his cousin howling against the ground, drawing lines of blood on her chest, welling up in the wake of her nails; in the perfect stillness, even the rise and fall of his chest seems like too much motion
“Malfoy?” he says, incredulous; reality snaps.
Sirius is after him like a dog, leaping from the podium, wand forgotten; he lands easily, keeps his feet, and streaks for the stairs, taking the steps two at a time as he hurtles past Remus and Harry, the latter ripping himself free to follow with all the brash Gryffindor bravery that he, too, possesses.
The Ministry is like a rabbit’s warren, but the pair remember - they crash down the corridors, through the Hall of Prophecy, out into the spinning room with all the doors; Sirius pulls one open, barely pauses to look, and is disappearing down the hallway with Harry hot on his heels, slipping on the polished floor.
“Which way did he go?” Harry shouts, looking towards the lifts; his godfather shakes his head, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him towards the stairs.
“He went this way!”
Far up above them in the winding staircase, there is a swirl of a black cloak, a glimpse of a mask being secured to Lucius’ face, a hood being pulled up - Sirius snarls, quickening his pace; a door opens, someone shouts.
They are there in a moment, panting, dizzy - they explode into the Atrium in a tumble of limbs and wild black hair, Sirius in the lead by inches; the fireplaces in the opposite wall are roaring, officials crowding within them, shouting, wands rising - the figure they are aiming for dodges easily, the spells ricocheting off his shield like Muggle bullets, as he takes three more steps and shoves an Auror aside, vanishing into the green flames.
“You bastard!” Sirius roars, skittering to a stop, his hand snapping out to catch Harry by the collar when his godson nearly goes pitching face-first into the floor; Fudge gives an indignant squeak.
“You fucking bastard!”
2. Who murdered all these? These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood till he is visibly black?
“We have a bigger problem to worry about now, Sirius.”
The kitchen is dull, dull and drab; there’s no colour here but sepia and gray - was the house always so dark? Yes, he thinks, yes, yes it was, and there is more than a touch of spite in the thought, as he slumps in his chair, cradling the coffee cup to his chest.
There are eyes on him, pressing into him - he raises the cup to his lips, and the liquid burns when he swallows, but he does it anyway.
(A wedding day almost forgotten: Narcissa - a coating of frost on the glass, a whisper of white silk sliding down bare curves, swirling through the lights, intangible, and Lucius - the cold glint of a bared steel blade and the rustle of dry snakeskin beneath heavy velvet.
Did the man always watch him so intently?)
“What is it?” he asks roughly, gravelly, too little sleep and a blistered throat; Remus drags the sheaf of parchments across the table, Order business strewn about with the plates and the cutlery - there’s a coffee stain on one corner.
“Malfoy’s been shielding himself, and Dumbledore wants to know why.”
Sirius laughs then, and shoves his chair back from the table, rising easily and taking another swallow of coffee though it’s still far too hot to drink; the cup clatters when he places it on the bench.
“Bastard probably has a good reason.”
“Well, yes, Padfoot, that is the whole poi-”
There is a crash outside the window; the starlings scatter, and Sirius is tearing the curtains aside in an instant, peering out into the square - he swears, grabbing for his wand amidst the debris on the table; Remus is half out of his seat, frowning.
“What is it?”
“Tonks, and she’s got the Malfoy brat with her.”
He’s barely at the end of the sentence by the time he’s in the hall, striding past the dusty curtains concealing his mother, sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone at the front, the shirttails flaring out away from his hips as he moves; there is a trail of dark hair leading down from his navel to disappear beneath the waistband of his jeans.
The door opens before he gets to it - there is a muffled curse, and a distorted shape half-falls through, distinguishing itself into the vision of Tonks, one arm twined around Draco Malfoy’s slender waist, his head lolling back onto her shoulder.
“Care to give me some help?” she puffs, and Remus moves quickly past Sirius to close the door before she manages to kick it shut; she gives him a weak smile, and jostles Malfoy like a sack of grain. “Anyone?”
With a shrug, Sirius reaches forwards to pluck the boy out her arms - he is painfully light, all bones and angles like a flightless dove, pale and soft-skinned and very much unconscious as he drapes across Sirius’ bare chest, forehead coming to rest in the curve of his throat.
“What-” he begins, but Tonks cuts him off.
“Listen, I’ve got to run. Snape foisted the boy off on me and then bolted. Apparently, there’s something big going down with the Death Eaters - they’re showing up all over the place, agitated as hell.” She pulls her cloak more firmly around her, looking drained yet resolute. “Dumbledore wants you to look after him.”
Tonks pulls the door open again, peering out at the empty square, vibrant purple hair falling in her eyes. “They’re moving Harry and the others in soon, to make sure they’re not caught in the firing line. Oh, and Sirius -” she digs into her robes, flicking an envelope towards him; he catches it with his one free hand, flipping the heavy parchment over “- that’s for you.”
The door shuts.
“Oh, isn’t this just fucking great!” Sirius growls, looking down at Draco’s blond head in disgust. “Here I am playing babysitter for the Malfoy spawn.”
Remus shrugs - he looks just as old and grey as the house they’re standing in, beaten and broken down; Sirius wants to him to have some fucking fire in him again.
“What’s the letter say?” Remus asks, and leads the way back into the kitchen so that Sirius can drop his charge into a chair, careless of how the boy’s head rolls limply to one side as he tears the envelope open at one end.
Sirius,
It has come to my attention that the time has arrived to put certain plans into immediate action. You will, I hope, be seeing me again quite soon.
Lucius.
3. How can he fly from his feathers?
Draco is curled cat-like in the chair before the hearth, a wisp of white smoke and dark velvet against the black brocade; his eyes are reflecting the firelight, his fingers stroking, tentative, hesitant, over the bare skin of his left forearm.
Sirius doesn’t think he can quite believe it’s unmarked, either.
(Regulus’ eyes shimmered in the moonlight, and the skull was flat and dark - ‘What the fuck did you do, little brother! What the fuck did you do!’ and the boy was laughing, laughing until he couldn’t breathe and he sunk to the floor of the hallway and said, still smiling, ‘Go fuck yourself, Sirius.’)
He’s afraid, Sirius is sure - somewhere beneath the silence and the stillness and the cold air of a practiced calm, wrapped up within the fine-silk cobwebs of deceit and a feigned indifference. It’s in the way his jaw tightens, the way he pulls his sleeve down with a vicious tug, a spike of savage feeling before he’s lost, once more, to a discordant composure.
The doorframe is hard, digging in just beside his spine; Malfoy doesn’t look up at him.
“He saved me,” the boy says, and his voice is soft. “He’s not going to die.”
“Yeah,” Sirius replies, because that’s all there is to say - because he can’t promise anything, and, besides, he doesn’t even want to. “Yeah, of course not.”
And when Draco looks up, blond hair tumbling down around his eyes, he sneers and levers himself from the chair, smoothing down the front of his robes, though they hardly need it.
“Fuck off, Black. I don’t need your pity,” and there’s a letter crushed in his fist, though Sirius doesn’t know how he got it, as he turns towards the fire and the anger flows out of him again like water down the drain, swirling away - his shoulders drop.
“He’s not going to die…”
Sirius doesn’t know if he wants to comfort him, or just leave him to rot; he does neither - only stands there and is polite enough to ignore the tears.
4. And why have they homed on him?
With Harry and others, Draco is all spitfire mockery and arrogance, wielding words like knives - he’s blunt and vicious and more than a little bit violent.
Sirius overhears them, sometimes, when Ron’s got the boy caught in his grip and there’s blood dripping down from his lip, running down his pale chin - when Hermione isn’t there, and all there is, is just fights and boyish brutality; he thinks that, maybe, Draco likes the outlet it gives him.
Conversations - verbal sparring, and there’s a moment when it slips and Draco says “One does tend to notice when both parents bring pretty men back to the Manor,” and Sirius doesn’t know why he feels relieved, or why those silver eyes are on him.
He asks, then, in a moment of weakness, “Why did he save me?” and the room goes quiet.
“Because you’re too good looking to die.”
Draco shrugs gracefully and turns to go, but he’s too slim, he’s all bone, and Sirius catches him by the wrist, fingers meeting easily around it - the boy doesn’t eat, he’s wasting away.
“You’re having dinner with us tonight.”
His eyes are burning - there are no arguments.
5. Is he the archive of their accusations?
The day they bring in Lucius Malfoy is the day that Sirius realizes how the light catches in Draco’s hair and across the side of his face, throwing one cheekbone into shadow; when he realizes the way it draws his eye down to where those razor-edged collarbones meet, the hollow of his throat and the stiff collar fitted against his skin, the first button of his robes undone.
It is the day when the boy looks up, and smiles like a shark scenting blood in the water, before there is a boom and the glasses on the table are falling over, water spilling out; and Draco moves so fast that’s he’s in the hallway when the door flies open and Sirius’ mother starts screaming.
She stops before Sirius is through into the crowded hall, and there’s a soft rumble of laughter and a smooth voice saying “I see your mother is happy to see me,” and the bastard is smirking, through a fall of hair, and there’s so much blood on him that’s it’s dripping onto the floorboards.
For a moment, Sirius can’t see anything but the sheer gore of it; the raw cuts, perfect and straight and littered down the left side of his body, from his hair down to his boots - the mangled shirt that’s only clinging to him by a few threads, and the trousers that are torn at the calf, the gaping wound that’s staining the fabric a deeper black than black.
He manages to miss the smirk, the clear eyes that are fixed on him, because there’s Lucius fucking Malfoy in his hallway with Snape’s arm around his waist, and his son is darting past and slinging a bloodied arm over his slim shoulders - the arm with the Mark.
“Been through the fucking wringer, have you?” he says, and lets them push past him to help the man into the kitchen, and though he’s a total mess Sirius notices that Lucius Malfoy is still taking most of his own weight and barely winces at all when he’s propped against the wall – the complete and utter bastard.
Snape disappears in a second, banging through the cupboards, and Sirius is too preoccupied to scowl, because Draco’s fingers are working at his father’s clothes and the shirt is falling, falling from his shoulders - when Lucius smiles, his teeth are red, tongue running over his torn lip.
“A small matter known as a war, Black. I don’t expect you to understand.”
And he does snarl then, and swears as he slams the door; tells himself that he doesn’t want to watch, when he’s leaning back against the wall and his treacherous hand in creeping down towards his fly - he tells himself that he doesn’t want to watch them strip Lucius down to his skin, to see his body in the bright kitchen lights, bruised and bloodied and torn and perfect, so fucking perfect.
But Sirius can always tell when he’s lying, even if he doesn’t really want to.
6. Or their ghostly purpose, their pining vengeance?
The water is scalding – if there’s pain, then Lucius just can’t feel it.
There’s blood, though, slick and wet and watery, running down his arms, down his chest, over his hips; he’s watching it as it swirls about his feet, fading from near-black to pink and then… gone. Gone like smoke in the wind, and the only memories of it are the raw marks down his body – these, too, will vanish in time.
“Father?”
Grey eyes – soft, so soft, nervous, worried – looking at him, and Lucius raises his head as the water stops and he reaches out to take the towel from his son’s trembling hand, wrapping it around his waist.
Draco shivers, closing his eyes; when they open again, they are shimmering – he’s on the verge of tears.
“I thought you were dead.”
And he does break down then, a porcelain figurine smashed upon the tiles, fine china fractured; his shoulders, sharp and bony as skeletal wings, slump down - and his head goes with them, blond hair tickling his cheeks as the tears run silver.
It is a heartbeat until Lucius has him in his arms, crushed to his chest, water dripping from the hair that clings to his neck, seeping into his son’s robes – there are soft lips in the hollow of his throat, ragged breathing and stifled sobs; there are fingers fitting so perfectly into the groves of his ribs, running over his damp skin.
“Oh god, I thought you were dead…”
When he runs his thumb across Draco’s lower lip, it’s not just the relief that makes them burn, but not yet, not yet, not here, not now…
“No,” Lucius breathes, but they both know that he doesn’t mean it, and Draco’s lips are parting, parting softly in the steam and there’s no more thinking, no more denying – there’s nothing but Lucius’ fingers tipping his chin up, Lucius’ mouth closing over his son’s, carefully, sweetly, softly.
Nothing but the whisper of sound his towel makes as it meets the floor.
7. Or their unforgiven prisoner?
“What do you mean ‘can’t do it’! He’s Snape! I thought he could brew anything!”
Arthur puts a hand on his youngest son’s arm, calming him as he drags the files across the table and flicks them open, reading the instructions carefully – he frowns.
“He can’t do it because it involves Sex Magic,” he says bluntly, and Hermione perks up immediately, eyes shining.
“Sex Magic? So, it’s true, is it? That only purebloods can do it?”
“Of course,” Molly replies, bustling over to put a plate full of buttered toast in front of Harry. “Although it’s said that… well, that some half-bloods can learn parts of it.”
Ron makes a disgusted noise somewhere deep in his throat, and Sirius’ head turns slowly towards him as he kicks back onto the back legs of his chair, resting it up against the wall and watching the gathering warily.
“So it’s something you have to learn?”
Hermione rolls her eyes.
“Really, Ron. Does it sound like something you’re born capable of?”
Arthur interjects before Ron can reply, casually handing his son another piece of toast and a glass of water to keep him quiet – “Actually, some people are, but it needs to be unleashed by someone who already knows how to use it. Which is why Severus can’t brew us this potion…”
Harry scowls, shoving his plate away.
“So we’ve got the means to defeat Voldemort, and we can’t use it, because we need a pureblood who knows Sex Magic? I’m assuming none of you do. Sirius?”
(‘Sirius, it’s tradition,’ Regulus whined, tugging at the collar of his brother’s robes; Sirius shook him loose, snarling – Regulus’ eyes flashed. ‘You’re Black,’ he said, and there was no childish allure left in his voice. ‘You’re Black, and you can’t change that, even if you want to. So you’d better fucking get used to it, brother dear.’)
“I can’t brew potions,” he says, and the front legs of his chair meet the ground with a slap. “And we need someone who’s uninitiated in it, as well. It’s on the bottom of that piece of parchment.”
There is a soft sound of footsteps in the hallway, and the room falls utterly still as Lucius walks through the door; even Molly goes red – and Sirius’ eyes are traveling down the silk shirt, completely undone, the sleeves rolled back to his biceps, the white skin and its thin sheen of sweat gleaming like oil in the bright kitchen lights. Down, to the tight breeches and the knee-high black boots – up, and up, to the wand that’s hanging between his fingers and the blond hair braided down his back.
Suddenly inspired, Sirius leans forwards and tears the files from Arthur’s grip, shoving them into Lucius’ hands; the man raises an eyebrow and him, and looks down.
“Draco?” he questions softly when he’s done, and the boy seems to materialize behind him; his cheeks are slightly flushed, and his wand is in hand, pale fingers curled around it – they’ve been training, Sirius thinks.
He takes the sheaf of parchments with a small frown, flicking through them intently before looking back up; there is no expression in his eyes, but his lips are twisting into a smirk.
“Fine.”
8. He cannot be forgiven.
There’s a cauldron simmering in the centre of the room, candles burning down as a voice cuts through the silence, dark and soft and languid, little more than a brush of wind.
“Take off your shirt,” and Draco doesn’t even pause, doesn’t so much as blink as he lays the knife down on the table and undoes the buttons one by one, peeling it from his damp skin and letting it fall to the floor – the air is thick, and the room in hot; there’s sweat running down the line of his spine.
Somewhere behind him, there is a clink of marble; a pestle meets the mortar, and the tools are moved slowly aside.
“Your boots.”
His fingers fumble at the laces, pull, tangle – a swish of a cloak, footsteps, and Lucius’ palm is cold when it rests at the back of his neck; freeze-burn, and his son shivers as he finally gets the boots off – he rises bonelessly, heart racing.
“Turn.”
Draco does so, slowly, so slowly, and feels fingers trail down his sides, dig in as he’s lifted from the floor and set on the table; his legs spreading as Lucius steps between them, blond hair falling in his eyes as he tips his head back – lips parting, parting, and his father is powerless to resist.
In the dungeon of the Black household, there are pale lips meeting through a gulf of desire, hot and sweet and sharp and cold all at once; there’s a soft moan, and fingers pulling at the collar of Lucius’ robes – a swirl of air, and the dry rustle of heavy velvet on the floor.
There’s a potion in a pewter cauldron, turning red as blood; there’s magic uncoiling, unraveling – there’s skin so bright it burns, as Draco’s hands slide the shirt from his father’s shoulders and Lucius’ fingers cup his son’s chin, thumb running over one cheekbone; the boy is still too thin.
“Please,” Draco whispers when they part, and there’s a black ribbon held between two of his fingers and white-gold hair falling around Lucius’ face; his eyes are flashing silver in the candlelight, moonlight on a frozen pond – there’s something heavy in the air…
It’s so hard to breathe.
A shadow of a smile on Lucius’ lips; the writhing and twisting of a purer brutality as the snake on his arm bares its fangs – there are lights burning in the eyes of the skull, and Draco is dizzy, lightheaded, breathless as he runs his hands over the raised edges of scars on his father’s back.
Soft, the fingers at his belt - searing, the kiss to his neck, as the buckle is undone and the zip on his trousers is pulled down, the clothing eased over his hips and lost somewhere on the floor; he moans wetly into the cloying air.
Lucius kisses him again, fingers trailing over his son’s white thighs, down between them, smooth as silk; Draco can feel the magic burn, bubbling up under his skin, fierce and hot – he’s finally found out exactly where he belongs.
(‘Do you still love me?’ Abraxas asked, and Lucius raised his head, bloodied hands leaving smears on the silken sheets as they curled into fists; his smile was sharp as broken glass.
‘Come now, Father - you know I never have.’)
And somewhere above Sirius is standing in his room with one hand on the wall and the other around his cock, and his mouth is opening, he’s growling; while below there's a boy with his arms around his father's neck and his legs around his father's hips, back arching, eyes closing, saying “I love you” and meaning every word of it.
9. His prison is the earth. Clothed in his conviction; trying to remember his crimes.
Lucius Malfoy stares down at the body at his feet, and laughs richly, dropping a bloodstained knife to the grass; he turns away.
“Brutal fucker, aren’t you?” Sirius says, and his lip is split, there’s a savage bruise on his jaw; his eyes are glowing as he extends his hand upwards – Malfoy’s ungloved fingers are slick when he grips them, white no longer, and he is hauled effortlessly up to his feet.
Brushing at his mangled robes, he looks down at Macnair, at the throat so cleanly cut, though he can still remember how it looked when it happened; how Lucius’ wrist snapped out, how the cartilage held for a second before it gave way, the sudden jerking motion and the wet arc of blood through the air.
“You would rather I had let him bury his axe in your skull?” and that eyebrow is arching on a blood-streaked face, the tone is utterly bland as Lucius looks across the ground, eyes intent as they linger over the vision of Harry Potter, swamped by joyous bodies – at his own wife beyond that, clinging to Draco as if she’ll never let go.
Sirius frowns.
“Speaking of that, this is the second time you’ve saved my life. Any particular reason why, or are you just supremely bored these days?”
An elegant shrug, and the faintest glimpse of a smile – the Mark on Lucius’ arm is moving, the snake slithering out from the fading skull and curling its tail around his forearm, all the way up and under the ragged edge of his sleeve; the tongue is flicking against the blue veins in his wrist.
“Have you ever considered the idea, Black, that you are simply too good looking to let die?”
10. Heavily he flies.
He slides his thumb down the sword blade, watching it slice through his glove like a hot knife through butter, feeling the cold chill of the steel scrape against his skin; Lucius’ lips curl up in the suggestion of a smile.
A rustle of cloth at his back, and the firelight plays over his face as he slowly turns his head to the side – Sirius’ fingers tighten around his glass.
“They’re afraid of you,” he says, slouched against the wall in jeans and a faded t-shirt; he takes a long drink of Firewhiskey, eyes playing over the crowd as it burns its way down his throat. “They think you’re going to cut them all to ribbons, like you did during the fight yesterday.”
And whatever Sirius is expecting, it’s not the flash through Lucius’ eyes as he replies, “I think I might.”
The fire spits sparks onto the floor – the sword clatters when it’s placed on the table, and Sirius feels as if all the breath has been knocked out of him. His mouth is dry, so dry; he’s dizzy.
“I grow weary of this,” Lucius breathes, and his cloak swirls through the air as he turns away – Sirius is drowning, drowning…
He pulls himself from the wall, and follows.
A marble staircase, a shadowy room, and Draco is sprawled across the bed in little more than a blindfold and the two dark loops of silk around his wrists, a sliver of moonlight against the sheets – a strand of hair is curled against his cheek.
“I-” Sirius says, and falters; but there’s a gloved hand on the back of his neck, and the door is closing with the soft click of a lock sliding into place – the boy on the bed parts his lips, and there are other lips too, finding Sirius’ in the candlelight, tasting of brandy and blood; and they burn just like the Firewhiskey in his stomach before they pull away.
Lucius buries his fingers in Sirius’ hair, pushes his head back, and Sirius is saying “Fuck me” to the shadows as he’s forced to his knees.