Love From Afar Chapter 4

[altogetherisi]

Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Love From Afar 4/?
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.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
and here's chapter 4...

A/N Yep, Chapter Four is here, and with it Lucius’ point of view on the events of last chapter.

 

20^th June 1998

01:17 am

Lucius woke up suddenly, the mark on his left arm burning sharply and painfully. He grabbed his wand and held it against the brand for a moment, sending a pulse of submission and agreement back to his Lord, and then groaned when the pain in his arm tapered off a little.

He dressed in the heavy black robes and mask before Apparating to the gates of Malfoy Manor. He didn’t pause to tell Narcissa; she needed her sleep and would be able to tell exactly where he had gone simply by checking his wardrobe.

The wards around Malfoy Manor allowed the people keyed into them –Lucius, Draco and Narcissa- to Apparate freely within them, but did not allow anyone to Apparate either out or into them without first pausing to walk through the grand gates. Once on the other side Lucius hesitated briefly to collect himself before Apparating to the Dark Lord’s travel room.

He walked briskly to the throne room, waiting less than a moment in the parlour outside to breathe before entering.

He was not first; Snape and Bellatrix were already there, standing stiffly on separate sides of the room and not making any attempt to hide their animosity toward each other.

Lucius nodded to each of them, hoping his revulsion showed as nothing more than the usual hate. Bellatrix had been slowly regaining her sanity and with it seemed to permanently belittling Lucius to the other Death Eaters and to the Dark Lord himself. This seemed to be Bellatrix’s attempt to stay high after being spectacularly ousted from the place of favoured Death Eater by none other than Severus. Bellatrix had tried to recover her place at the Dark Lord’s right hand several times but had failed each time; it would seem that for now Severus was regarded in a different light to all the other Death Eaters. Bellatrix and Lucius’ rivalry had started long before the fall of the Dark Lord, stemming from Lucius’ dislike of her impulsiveness, and had only grown when she had gone to Azkaban while he slid smoothly back into society.

Severus was different. He had come to the Dark Lord later than Lucius or MacNair, only a couple of years before Voldemort had fallen and had always been rather… odd. He did not always participate in raids or Revels and had somehow explained this to the Dark Lord adequately as to be excused from most of them. Yet when he did attend he was vicious and sadistic, beaten only by MacNair and the Dark Lord himself.

Lucius had done his best to befriend Severus but was always plagued with a general feeling of not knowing very much about Severus- and only that which Snape had decided to allow him to know. Other than Snape’s clear desire for knowledge and the opportunity to use the power he had- and it was a lot, Lucius knew- he could not really understand why it was that Severus was quite so adoring of Voldemort.

Some of the sides to Severus were very good. He was interesting certainly with a wicked sense of humour and a truly excellent mind. He was godfather to Draco and had always been a good chess opponent for Lucius.

But some of the sides of Severus were baffling. How he could stand to work around the Light and yet remain so deeply and viciously ensconced in the Dark. Why he seemed to like nothing better than to be alone in a room, left to chop and slice and stir cauldrons of different Potions. Why he was so attached to the Dark Lord.

Since he had killed Dumbledore, around a year ago now, he had become much closer to the Dark Lord than any other servant had ever been, and he had changed. He was unpredictable, snide and vicious, and he told the Dark Lord everything.

In particular, everything about he hated about Harry Potter.

This was the topic that had really ended Lucius’ friendship with Severus. Though no one outside of the immediate Malfoy family knew that Harry was significant to Lucius he still rather queasy at some of the suggestions Severus made to the Dark Lord about him. Ways to trick him, ways to manipulate him. Ways to kill him.

Lucius had pulled away from Severus after Dumbledore’s death and his own subsequent release from gaol, citing jealousy of Snape’s favour with the Dark Lord to the other Death Eaters as to why they were not close friends any longer.

The other Death Eaters were much the same to Lucius, but these two and Pettrigrew stood out, perhaps because they were all overly close to the Dark Lord. Or perhaps it was because they were so different from the other Death Eaters; the only female, the only Gryffindor, the only half-blood.

The meeting was very standard until the end when he, Bellatrix, Avery and of course Snape were asked to stay behind when the others were all dismissed.

‘I have some very interesting news, but I am only sharing it with you as you each have something special that I wish you to do for me.’ Voldemort smiled slightly, his serpentine face twisting. ‘Fenrir has reported that one of his werewolves nearly caught a Mudblood girl in the forest a matter of hours ago. From her description, I believe it to be Hermione Granger.’

Snape sneered but stayed silent as Voldemort continued talking.

‘There are two main scenarios. Firstly, that she is travelling with Ronald Weasley and the two of them are searching for our missing friend, Harry Potter. Or secondly, and more likely, she is travelling with Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. In which case he is somewhere in the forest.’

The Dark Lord to look around at them briefly.

‘This is what I want you to do. Lucius, Bella and Avery- I want you to take a werewolf each and comb the entire forest from the North, East and West respectively. Every inch. I want anyone and everyone in that forest found and if Potter is amongst them he is to be brought to me ectly.’ He turned to Snape and said only, ‘Severus, you know what I wish of you.’

‘Yes, of course, My Lord.’ Severus bowed and the other three Death Eaters hurried to do the same, bowing and saying, ‘Yes, My Lord,’ quietly before departing.

02:30am

Lucius swore as he led his pathetic excuse for a werewolf through another thick patch of undergrowth and a thorn from a thistle made a small tear in his robes. He repaired them quickly enough with a jerky movement ofhis wand but he had never really been very good at charming clothing and he knew that the robes would not really be the same again.

He had checked in with Avery and Bellatrix around an hour before; neither of them had found anyone or anything in this huge and godforsaken forest, and both were similarly tired and irritated. Lucius starting to think that, considering the speed he was going at and the vastness of the forest, that he would be there all night.

The worst part of trooping through the forest with a stupid werewolf of all things was the monotony of it, and how this allowed Lucius’ mind to wander. He tried to keep his thoughts away from what could happen to his mate if Harry was indeed in this forest, but his thoughts always returned to the possibility of seeing Harry again after so long- and the possibility of watching his demise. In particular, Lucius kept fixating on whatever it was that Snape had been ordered to do. It had to have something to do with the possibility of Harry being captured, but what? Was Snape to prepare to conduct some sort of Dark Ritual? Or maybe they had found some Dark Potion to which to add Harry’s blood. Worse, maybe Snape was going to use Harry’s hair in a Polyjuice potion and then infiltrate the Light and Hogwarts. Or perhaps it was simply that the Dark Lord had allowed Snape a special part to play in Harry’s death and Snape needed to prepare some special daggers…

The thought kept coming and even the thought of blood protection, blood protection, blood protection was not especially comforting as he continued to search the forest.

05:30 am

‘This is pointless,’ Avery grumbled. ‘It’s five in the morning- the sun is rising again for God’s sake. There is clearly no one here.’

‘I agree,’ Lucius murmured. He was far more tired than Avery was; he had been going two or three times as fast in an attempt to come upon Harry before anyone else managed to get there first, but had still found nothing. ‘But we must continue to do as our Master commands.’

Bellatrix nodded and got wearily to her feet, quickly Disapparating back to the East end of the forest. Lucius and Avery followed suit, shattered as they were.

07:55am

The Dark Mark began to burn around 8am and Lucius jerked sharply. Had Harry been found?

He didn’t Apparate back to the Manor however; instead he Apparated back to the clearing where they had met before. Avery and Bella were already there, looking nervous and confused.

‘It’s just a general call,’ Avery spoke sharply. ‘He’s not calling to us in particular. I say,’ he swallowed nervously. ‘I say we should keep searching.’

‘I don’t think we should stop searching just to go to our Lord to be punished for not finishing searching,’ Lucius nodded. ‘Bella?’

‘I… I don’t know,’ she mumbled, frowning slightly. ‘Normally he calls to each of us. But this- this is so different. It’s so general. Impersonal.’

‘Do you think there’s a chance he has Potter?’ Avery suggested. ‘Maybe he wants everyone else. But if he wanted us, we’d know, wouldn’t we?’

‘Yes. We always know when he wants just us, right?’ Lucius tried to reassure Bellatrix, who still looked unsure about not responding to the call. ‘This one isn’t personal at all, is it? We should keep searching. If he wants us he’ll call to us specifically.’

She finally nodded.

‘Meet back here, what, 10ish?’ Avery suggested, standing up.

‘Yes,’ Lucius nodded, before returning to the North. He still had about five miles to search.

10:07am

‘Any sign?’ Lucius asked Avery, trying to pretend that he cared about he answer. It was clear to him that Harry was not in this ridiculous wood. They were currently sitting opposite each other on moss covered logs, resting for the time before Bellatrix arrived. Lucius had been there first, having finished scouring his part of the forest twenty minutes beforehand. Avery had turned up from the West ten minutes before, but Bellatrix was yet to either walk or Apparate into the clearing.

‘No,’ Avery replied, clearly frustrated. ‘We’ve been up all night, and nothing at all.’

They sat in silence for a little while longer.

‘Where is Bella?’ Avery turned to stare East, as if to see if he could see her coming toward them. ‘She’s normally more prompt.’

‘Maybe… Maybe she found something?’ Lucius suggested doubtfully. ‘Should we go and find her?’

‘I suppose,’ Avery murmured. He held his wand out on his palm.

‘Point me, Bellatrix,’ he said clearly and the wand settled pointing rather predictably East. ‘Right then,’ he nodded to Lucius and they set off in that direction.

They only had to walk for about ten minutes before they found Bellatrix, only a kilometre from the clearing.

She was lying on the ground, eyes and face screwed up in pain, her cheeks pale and tearstained.

‘Is she- oh!’ Avery stopped moving very suddenly before collapsing to the ground, grasping his left forearm and shrieking in pain.

‘Argh! Shit, shit, SHIT, FUCK, aaaah, hell, crap, crap, FUCK! Can’t you- CRAP- feel that- AAARGH- Lucius?!’

Lucius watched him curiously. His own mark was tingling a bit; he’d describe it as “shivery”, but it wasn’t painful at all really. Tired and fed up as he was, he’d been ignoring it.

‘No,’ he answered, shrugging. He’d never been a friend of Avery and regarded his racked body with morbid curiousity only. ‘Not really.’

‘Well it bloody fucking hurts- SHIT!’ He shouted before out and out screaming.

He shrieked again and again, a high wailing that then cut out abruptly. Lucius watched as Avery lifted a blackened hand to claw desperately at his similarly blackening throat until eventually his body slumped dead. His face, which wasn’t black yet, looked eerily like Bellatrix’s.

Lucius carefully moved forward and jerked his wand in a sharp motion. Avery’s robes ripped open and the spell also made a deep slash down his torso. It was completely blackened, as if charred, and even where Lucius could now see partially inside Avery’s torso his flesh was burnt and festering. Lucius suspected that Bellatrix was the same, but he spared her corpse’s dignity; after all, as much as he had despised her, they were related.

Instead, Lucius knew he had to get back to the house. Whether he meant to inform his Lord or to check for the capture of his mate, Lucius was unsure. What he did know was that he was the only person in this godforsaken wood.

He tried to Apparate, but something was badly wrong; he didn’t move but was instead hit with a huge wave of dizziness and nausea, and was forced to lean heavily against a tree to catch his breath and just think.

That was a ward that shouldn’t have been there. He carried the Dark Mark after all and should not have been prevented from Apparating here. Indeed, he, Bellatrix and Avery had been Apparating around the forest all night when they needed to meet up. He hadn’t Apparated since 8am. Had the wards been moved that morning? But why would someone change the wards?

Had Harry been caught?

At this mind-arresting thought, Lucius’ knees buckled and he slid down the tree to slump at its base in a dejected heap.

What if Harry really had been in this forest all along? What if one of those pesky werewolves had caught him, and the anti-apparition wards had been changed to stop him from getting out. To stop help from getting in. A stray thought fluttered through his mind at this idea. Help doesn’t need to get in. You’re already here…But this thought was fleeting, pushed aside by two far more powerful notions.

I don’t feel ill anymore. Voldemort’s wards would have done far more damage to attempt to breach, I should be in agony…

These aren’t Voldemort’s wards. They’re someone else’s. Someone very powerful, but someone else all the same.

Harry?

Could Harry have been here, could Harry have put them up? Was there a chance that Harry could be here, and could have some kind of plan?

Lucius’ building excitement however, was crushed by a sharply cold throb of the Dark Mark. He rubbed it absentmindedly, trying to unconsciously ease the building pain in his left arm. Voldemort had sent out a general call; he had felt it himself, hours and hours ago now, the Dark Lord calling to all his followers. Even Harry would not be able to survive the Dark Lord and all his followers.

Lucius pulled himself to his feet, suddenly determined.

‘Point me, Slytherin Manor,’ he spoke strongly and set off walking South. It was only a kilometre, maybe less, to the lawns and the house, then he could find his Harry and- he swallowed nervously at this part- defend him.

Very quickly Lucius regretted his having used to “Point Me” spell; he was walking through dense foliage after leaving the path a while ago. His robes were ripping, there were leaves in his hair and his handcrafted German shoes were definitely ruined. On top of everything else, the cold pain that had started in his let arm had now spread across his shoulders and neck and also his right arm. Still, the knowledge that there was a very good chance that his mate was in dire need of his help let him continue walking as fast as he could toward the manor house.

The edge of the forest was only a couple of hundred metres from the house entrance, across a large lawn, but when Lucius reached it he was not particularly encouraged. This was because three things happened at once. Firstly, he tripped over badly, secondly he went blind and thirdly the pain that had been building in his abdomen throbbed and rushed throughout his entire body now.

With a hoarse yell he fell to the ground and curled up into the foetal position. God it hurt so much, he could barely breathe yet he tried to sob. Instead he inhaled… something and started coughing weakly.

Christ, he was actually dying.

Lucius’ mind flickered to how Avery and Bellatrix had died, and he shuddered as more pain wracked his body.

What a time to collapse; just when he had been trying, finally, to do the right thing and to help his mate… his Harry. All that fancy blood magic but he couldn’t actually get to Harry’s side when he was needed.

The terrible stabbing pain that was cold, too cold surely was everywhere. Lucius was hardly able to compare it to the Cruciatus curse but somehow his subconscious thought. It wasn’t worse- surely there was nothing worse than a Crucio from the Dark Lord. But this pain was so strong and so different. It was stabbing into him, searching him for something-

And while the Cruciatus caused only pain, this seemed to promise death. That death would come to him, pained, blind and alone as he was.

Alone…

Lucius suddenly saw a startlingly image of Harry; he was taller, broader- far more man than child now. He was planted strongly and firmly and was holding his wand out in front of him with both hands, dark brown robes protecting his body and brow furrowed in concentration as white light came spewing out of his wand, hitting Lucius square in the chest.

He was so beautiful, his mate, and Lucius’ heart gave a throb of love at the image. Harry…

Lucius screeched as his body was suddenly awash with heat, beautiful, glorious heat and the image was ripped away from him.

He lay still and silent after that, panting.

The pain had ended. Miraculously, he was still alive.

Lucius carefully reached out a hand on either side of his body, patting the ground as he tried to find his wand.

Both his hands met with objects at the same time. One, in his right hand, was the familiar length of mahogany that he had been searching for. The other was a small metal canister that he clasped instinctively. He pulled it to his chest where- he could see it. Lucius looked down at his body, of which he could see less than half his torso and he could only make out his arms if he moved them. But this was very good- he wasn’t actually blind. Instead, there was something impairing his vision.

The small canister was, he believed, what he had tripped over and Lucius brought it right in front of his face so he could inspect it.

It was very plain grey metal, with only one sentence printed on it: “Remember, ‘Videns Bene’. Good Luck! F&G.” That meant little to nothing to Lucius, but ‘Videns Bene’ sounded like a spell.

‘Videns Bene,’ he spoke clearly but doubtfully, and was slightly shocked when the thick darkness that had been surrounding him seemed to fade away to nothing until he could see perfectly clearly.

He pulled himself to his feet and set off running for the manor in front of him. He didn’t pause to collect himself or even to pull the leaves from his hair; his mate needed him and now that Lucius was able to move again he was going to do his best to help him.

He stopped momentarily in the entrance hall to murmur, ‘Point Me, Harry Potter!’ and was shocked when his wand settled on a direction immediately. He ran along the corridors and didn’t stop until he realised he was standing just outside the parlour to the throne room.

There were two more dead Death Eaters collapsed outside the locked doors, their faces screwed up and their flesh blackened and burnt.

‘Point Me, Harry Potter,’ Lucius repeated, and watched in dismay as the wand continued to point directly at the ornate double doors. Lucius gritted his teeth. Harry was behind these doors, and the Dark Lord was too, he was sure of it. There was no way he could just leave his mate to that.

He tried ‘Alohomora’ first, but wasn’t surprised when it was clear that the doors were still firmly locked. He paused to think, wishing he could hear anything beyond the warded door.

He came to a decision.

‘Delugo!’ Lucius roared, jerking his wand sharply and carefully not flinching at the huge rush of Dark Magic that destroyed the frame and blasted the doors inwards.

He ran through the hole before the resulting dust cloud had settled, wand still drawn and mind set to do whatever was necessary, everything, anything for his mate, his Harry-

Who was currently standing in the middle of the practically empty parlour, looking calm and a bit baffled.

There was no sign of the Dark Lord.

It took a couple of moments for Lucius to take in the strange scene. Harry, looking exhausted but satisfied. Hermione Granger, her hair falling out of a messy bun looking happy but wary. Ronald Weasley, obviously on edge, his wand arm extended and pointing at Severus Snape, who was dishevelled and disarmed and was leaning against the far wall, cradling his left arm and looking either incredibly shocked or sick or probably both.

Lucius’ attention was brought back to him sharply when, with a small smile of contentment, Harry closed his eyes and collapsed.

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