"You will do as you will, Lord. Knowing this, I will speak completely openly with you.
Frankly, my Lord, you've taken too many losses to throw away accomplished servants. The first and second wars have sliced away your supporters, faithful or otherwise, one by one, leaving you with insufficent hands to do your work without exposing yourself. Until the matter between you and the prophecy brat is resolved, you are still at risk. If you cut me or Rodolphus out, it will no longer send a message that you will kill anyone who crosses you, but that you have become something that nobody would ever have dared said of you in the old days. Because you have seen the road as well as I have, my Lord. How many Death Eaters tonight, when once there were scores at your bidding?
And you speak of who are loyal. You clasp them close, promise them favours, and still they turn on you."
His gaze flickered almost imperceptibly toward MacNair, then returned to the Dark Lord.
'You will not throw me away because while I live, I am a handy puppet for your manipulation of the others, aye even my wife and son. Something you can point at, and say "and this will be you if you fail - and even then you will never be free of me."'
Lucius' hands spidered over one another atop the snake cane, and he regarded Voldemort directly, letting the barriers in his mind fall fully, calling to mind the pub. Calling to mind meetings with other Death Eaters, from the old days and new, where time and again words were spoken that would paint any one of them as a traitor to a paranoid mind.
"Do what you will," he said finally, letting the snake cane fall to the floor and standing there in silence.