Love From Afar

[altogetherisi]

I've finally updated chapter 5 of LFA of FFN and thought I'd put up the five chapters so far up here too.

Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Love From Afar 1/?
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Lucius/Harry
Summary: Lucius has self-control and realistic views toward his relationship with his mate, but loves him none the less. My take on Veela!Lucius.

The first thing Lucius Malfoy did when he returned to his ancestral home after having been imprisoned in Azkaban was to strip off the robes he was wearing and burn them. Next he had a very hot shower and spent a while removing the grime and filth from his hair and skin before settling in his large bath to relax properly for the first time in over a year.

After his luxurious soak he dried himself and dressed in simple but beautiful robes of a very dark green and carefully arranged his hair in his desired style. He then spent several moments examining his wand for any contaminations. He hated that the guards at Azkaban had kept it as if it were any other wand, as if he was any other prisoner. He was a very powerful wizard and this was a very powerful wand after all.

Once Lucius was certain that everything with himself and his wand was in order, he went to visit his wife in her rooms. Narcissa and he had had separate rooms since around the time Draco had been born, as they no longer needed to sleep together and had no further desire to. Narcissa had produced a magical, male child for the Malfoy line, fulfilling the only magically binding part of the contract that was their marriage. Although Lucius did not desire Narcissa he did deeply care for her and truly loved her for providing him with Draco, the most precious thing in his world.

They spoke for a reasonable long period of time, mainly on political topics and how the Dark Lord was likely to proceed in the coming year. Narcissa emphasised how worried she was for her sister Bellatrix; how she was finally regaining her sanity but seemed to think that she seemed less loyal to their Lord without it and how she longed to provide her husband and her Lord with a child but was scared that she might not be able to. Lucius noted this and resolved to ask Severus to look into viable fertility Potions for his sister-in-law to help continue the bloodline, especially since he felt that it was almost certain that Draco would remain the sole Malfoy child of his generation.

His mind on these things, Lucius then moved to his office where he wrote letters to Draco and Severus. He pored over them to get the wording just right to convey his message appropriately, spending almost an hour before he was satisfied and sent them with his beautiful eagle owl. Lucius stood at his window and watched his bird fly away, and then the empty sky, for quite a while before returning to his desk and the paper work that was awaiting his perusal. The topics ranged from investments to the Dark Lord, and he buried himself in the papers, appreciating the fact that he was back in his office rather than his old cell in Azkaban.

By the time Lucius was satisfied that he had done all that really needed to be done that day it was practically dinnertime and he removed himself to his rooms to freshen for a formal dinner with his wife. They ate in companionable silence in the family dining room, all topics of conversation having been exhausted during their earlier conversation but neither of them feeling uncomfortable by this fact. Lucius savoured eating proper food once more but wished he could allow himself to eat the richer food his wife was enjoying. However it was clear to Lucius that going from prison food to richest oysters wasn’t a good idea. He decided to just savour them all the more when he could next eat them.

It was only after these things and dinner that Lucius moved toward the other side of the manor where a room that he rarely visited beckoned to him.

It was a small room, with the only pieces of furniture being an armchair, a small table and a rug. There wasn’t a fireplace as the room was too small and out of the way for the inconvenience.

The walls were covered in pictures, most of which surprisingly did not move. There was a mix of sketches and photos; the photos came mainly from a Muggle camera or frozen from a Daily Prophet article while the sketches were either from memory, imagination or from one of the photos, but not all of them were completed. Some were in colour, some black and white, some with only a form and no detail. One of Lucius’ favourites was simply a pair of powerful, vibrant eyes, while one of his favourite photos was of a person, tiny and far away in the photo, gazing across a lake.

Lucius sat in the chair and breathed deeply, letting his mind consume him as he gazed at the images before him, idly sipping a Scotch.

He had not been there nearly as long as he had wanted to before he forcibly snapped himself out of his melancholy dreaming about the perfect figure pictured before him. He withdrew a knife from his robes and, with an ease that comes from years of practice, sliced open his palm and allowed a drop of his blood onto this months’ item; which was a formerly screwed up piece of parchment with ruined Transfiguration notes written on it, along with a short conversation with the person the author had been sitting next to and some interesting if abstract doodles in the margin.

As the blood touched the parchment Lucius waved his wand over the two, irreversibly linking the magic of the author imbued in the parchment with the magic of his blood. As the blood was absorbed Lucius began to speak a long incantation that he had long ago learned by heart, the most ancient magic he could find in his ancestral library. He finished with healing his palm, which was then pressed to the parchment. He ended by speaking softly and clearly the words he had chosen himself to close the spell.

‘With this heart I love of you completely, and with this body I freely sacrifice myself to your continued life, and with this blood I implement my chosen sacrifice. With this blood of my veins, freely given of ancient and powerful line, and through my love and devotion, I reaffirm my former declaration and so regenerate the protection I call into being. And through this promise and sacrifice and love none shall do you, my mate and my only, love of love, any harm. So it will be and so it is.’

The golden light that filled the room was purely for effect but it always warmed Lucius deep in his heart to know that his mate was freshly protected. It faded quickly but the deeply happy and satisfied feeling of giving his all and loving as fully as possible stayed.

His Lord could try whatever he wanted, but Lucius was confident that no harm would befall his mate now. While his Master’s Dark Arts had eventually been able to counter the blood protection Lily Evans had evoked through her sacrifice, Lucius knew that willing, passionate blood sacrifice would protect his mate even more fully. While Lucius had not been required to give his life the deep enchantment worked off the deep desire to do, to take whatever was necessary, even Lucius’ own life, and Lucius further knew the benefits of a conscious and long thought out decision compared to that of Lily’s desperate action. Including the fact that Lucius was still alive and magically active, and Lucius was under no illusions as to the guarantee of Harry Potter’s safety.

The Dark Lord would not be touching his mate.

Lucius spent a little while longer observing the pictures and photos of Harry. The Veela yearned for his mate but Lucius was astute enough to realize that it was very likely he would never have more of his mate than this small room. Lucius knew he would never approach Harry while the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters were still an active part of the Wizarding World, and probably not even after that. For although Lucius and his Veela was deeply in love, Harry had no obligation to be a part of Lucius’ life, and Lucius would never wish to impose himself where he was not wanted.

Of course there were always Lucius’ contemplations and fantasies of wooing his mate, carefully crafted scenarios that he spent moments, lifetimes, dreaming within.

But when Lucius finally left the small shrine to his mate he knew that fantasies were really all they would ever be. He was resigned to the fact, and after seventeen years of celibacy Lucius was content to do what he could for his Harry from afar.

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