don't forget what I told you then; and don't forget that I meant to win -> Lucius + Bella (Private)

[malificence]

Lucius Malfoy manages to get the door of his office closed before he collapses into his chair and presses the heels of his hands to to his eyes. The color's mostly leached from his face, and there's a naked pain on his face that outweighs any he's let display in any battle or mission. But he can brace himself for curses thrown at him in the heat of battle; the visions - and the blinding headaches that come with them - are almost always without warning, especially lately. This was easier to hide until recently.

Until recently, it was occasional, he could use his reputation as a lazy and bored pureblood wizard to simply disappear when one started. But with his new position - and with the flood of time deviants - it's become worse, and sometimes he's just...trapped. Today, at least, he takes some small comfort in the fact that no one's likely to walk in. Peter won't be in for another hour, by which time - well, he'll be semi-functional, at least. The Ministry is quiet at this time; it's generally only the Minister himself - unlikely to come by this office, at least Lucius fervently hopes not - and Bella. Bella's been known to drop by, of course, but perhaps she'll be occupied until he can smooth his appearance and force the pain behind a smirk.

He focuses on his breaths as nonsensical visuals and the accompanying pain swamp him. A phoenix rising from the ashes. Open warfare. Faces that are nearly like the ones he knows but...cannot possibly be them. It used to be, before the time deviants, that he could at least make sense of what he saw, but lately he's not sure when he's seeing his future or...theirs. If there's a point when the world he knows becomes the world he sees in these increasing visions, Lucius hasn't seen it yet. He's focused enough that he almost doesn't hear the door when someone pushes it open.

Almost. Fuck, he thinks as he meets Bella's eyes. He hadn't gotten the wards up before the worst of it hit, and for a moment their eyes meet - hers wide, his bloodshot and dark. There's no hiding what's happening, he thinks, and he...he can't come up with a clever lie in this moment. "Ward the door," he says, and there's a rasp to his voice as he lets his head fall against his hands again. "Please."

He's just going to have to trust her.

Comments

[scinlac]

Bellatrix is not a medwitch. She is, in fact, quite unfit for the job, not only because she is a horrifying sadist driven by racism and bloodlust, but also because she is, for a lack of a better way to put it, incredibly uncomfortable with the concept of having to take care of another person. She can fix even deep, vicious cuts with a wave of a wand, she can stop bloodloss and set a bone, things that are best done quick, things that might be necessary in the heat of battle, things that can make up the difference between life and death before a properly trained witch or wizard can be found.

Whatever has befallen Lucius –– she is brilliant, if given instruction, she could do him a fair bit of good, she reckons, but he barely seems to be in the position to speak, let alone instruct, and if one thing holds true for all magical maladies, it's best not to heal if one doesn't know that precisely is supposed to be healed.

Warding, however, warding she can do, and so she does. It's not the first time the bolts of this door have slid in silently behind her. She wouldn't need to turn to do it, but she does. Much like her, he isn't one for a please in such a tone. Were he not ashen and were his suffering somehow made up of a clear, visible cause, she would tease him. But that's out.

Breathing. He has to be familiar with what is going on if this is his reaction, no?

"What is going on?" Her voice is clear, and she is at his side, steps calm and measured, and, after a moment's hesitation, she tentatively brushes a hand across his forehead.

Oh, she's bad at this.

[malificence]

She knows of the headaches, of course. They've long been too close for him to hide that. and they're frequently so intense that Lucius finds himself with a powerful need to be horizontal for some time afterwards. Sometimes that's been in Bella's vicinity, a true sign that he trusts her more, perhaps, than one might expect of either of them. But the reason for them...no. No one must know, and that's how he's operated for over a decade.

No one's caught him at the apex like this before, though; no one's ever seen just how bad they are. Worse, in their way, than Cruciatus, solely because he's taught himself to brace against Cruciatus by now; his friendship with Bellatrix Black has guaranteed that much. Living with a powerful dark wizard and a powerful dark witch has meant that, to an extent, he and Bella have taken things out on each other now and again. He can withstand her Cruciatus; she can break free of his Imperius. None of this is the point, of course, he thinks, opening his eyes when he feels a gently brush of fingers against his forehead.

He can feel the strong thrum of the wards around them; that's part of the problem with these headaches, he can feel everything all at once. He's already decided he has to trust her since she's found him like this. And yet, even with both of those things, the words stick in his throat. Speaking to anyone about something he's assiduously hidden from everyone, including his own father, is no easy thing. Speaking about something that could at best make him a subject of ridicule...

Well. Lucius closes his eyes again, and while there's another wash of imagery, another wash of pain, it's mostly an excuse. "Well," he says after a moment. His voice is a bit tight. "You'll recall my somewhat embarrassing skill at divination."

[scinlac]

The tricky thing with the headaches is that, for someone who drinks with as much frequency as Lucius used to up until a while ago, they are hardly an unexpected, inexplicable phenomenon. Especially not if he feels the need to lie down after. On a bad day – say, a day with a skipped meal, an overuse of magic, and a long night before, it doesn’t take more than a glass of wine or two to get proper discomfort going. This doesn’t explain away all, or even just half the times that she has known him to suffer of them, of course, but he hasn’t been wont to discuss the intricacies of them, and she had, in turn, assumed that they, like her inability to sleep, were simply something he had to live with. Certainly, she hasn’t expected them to appear as severe as they did just now.

Her expression is schooled into a neutral mask as she listens. Of course she remembers the divination thing, and while she had poked the required amount of fun at him initially, it’s mostly been one of those things that came with sufficient alternate explanations. Lucius had been studious, the Malfoy Family and the House of Black shared a certain desire to see their children excel, even if there is no need beyond the prestige of it, after all, but Divination is a notoriously easy pass, one a number of students had taken. His mother had just passed away that summer, if she recalls correctly. Who can blame a thirteen year old boy for wanting at least one small break? This theory stood at odds with her teaching him Ancient Runes on the side, but asdemanding a tutor as she had been, how well he did or didn’t do in those private lessons in the common room hardly reached Abraxas Malfoy.

“I do,” she replies, voice even. Of course, conjecture is immediate, she is no fool. True Seers may be a rarity, but there is an entire Hall within the Department of Mysteries dedicated to them and their prophecies – she isn’t exactly faced with an impossibility. And prophecies were just one branch, one option. She supposes, now that she has to think about it, that he may well See without prophecising.

The doors are securely warded, so when she shifts her touch so that the tips of her fingers are against his temples, not forcing him to look up, but very lightly resting, it’s hardly an indecency. “Is this what it is?”

[malificence]

At thirteen he'd considered himself not close to his mother - though, as an adult he has memories that indicate she wasn't always as absent as it had felt at the time - and her death had been difficult, but wouldn't have been so difficult for him to choose Divination on that pretext alone. He had, then, been perfectly happy for people to believe that, of course. He had, then, been tolerant of the teasing that came from a whip-smart Slytherin boy taking Divination. The demands Abraxas placed on his only surviving child were certainly explanation enough, and with a professor as his ally (reluctant though it had been on Lucius' side to put his trust in a Trelawney), it had hardly been impossible to hide the rest. The tendency towards headaches, the visions that accompanied them, oddly easier to conceal when he'd been in the close quarters of Slytherin House than when he'd left school.

The Ministry had required more finesse.

It's a moment before he responds, though he lets out a serrated sigh when Bella's fingers press lightly to his temples. He keeps his eyes closed as he replies. "Of a kind," he murmurs. "I shan't be spouting metaphors any time...." And then he stops, sucking in a breath as more visions swirl before him. Malfoy Manor, a much older Bella, a much older him aiming a wand in her direction as she lurches up from a bed.

No, that doesn't make any sense at all.

"...Anytime soon." A breath. "I might have hexed myself years ago if that were the case." He wouldn't have ever been able to keep it secret, either, and even through the pain he thinks of the Minister, their lord, and his eyes slide open, his head tipping back to look at Bella with eyes that are close to black.

[scinlac]

She almost laughs at the image of him speaking in riddles, and her brain helpfully supplies an idea of him in appropriate paisley robes, but while it all dies in her throat, she does relax, somewhat. Merlin, all she wanted was an alibi signature on some documents and –– well, she did get her private time with him. It’s just not at all what she has had in mind. If he can still be sardonic, he’ll clearly be fine, though. Not that that has been a question, or that she cares beyond a… a good friend. A colleague. Partner in crime.

“I will gladly hex you if your thoughts on this would change,” and she beings to rub his temples, unsure if it will be any use, but what else can she do? While her tone is elusive, she know that he can get at her meaning behind it. This is acceptance. This is something she has no intention of using against him, which, in turn, is something that startles her a little. He is a powerful wizard in his own right, he has gained influence within the Ministry, he is no longer the boy he was when he had bought her a ring to commiserate her false engagement and she had nudged him onto the right path. She knows these things. Yet she doesn’t distrust him.

More so, she can’t quite summon up the intention to use his trust in her against him.

“Who else knows?” She suspects the number might be precariously low, or no number at all. True Seers exist, sure, but they are subject to abuse and ridicule alike. Look at the Trelawneys –– and they have had a fairly impressive Seer in their line barely a generation ago.

[malificence]

His lips kick up at the corners and his eyes slit open again to watch her. The massage doesn't, honestly, do much. But it also is a pleasant feeling cutting through pain, and he sags a bit in his chair. The visions are fading and later he'll need to piece them together and make some sense of them - at least try. Later he might think that this something Bella could use to gain leverage against him, and why wouldn't he? He would like as not do the same thing if he were to walk into Antonin's office and discover something. If he were to come upon Evan Rosier like this - well, it would be like Yule and his birthday come early.

If it were Bella - somehow he's less sure. Somehow that's a disturbing thought, for he knows perfectly well that if Riddle ordered his death, she would execute.

He shakes his head, and it's something of a mistake. His eyes squeeze shut. "Pythia Trelawney did," he says after the pain recedes slightly. "She taught Divination when we were in school." And she'd died that summer. He hadn't even had a hand in it, though - pureblood or not - he'd considered cutting off the only weak link in the chain. "No one else. You know why." The ridicule, the abuse. The Minister, when it comes down to it.

[scinlac]

"It is not an exact art." Not by a long stretch, she can guess as much without having to ask any details of his visions, though she is sure to go there sooner rather than later. Curiosity could kill many a cat. He has answered a question she has not directly asked – does the Minister know? This is a walk on thin, thin ice with her, her being among those who conceal no thoughts from him at all.

However, he is a skilled Legilimens with little to no competitors. He could have very well found out on his own, and that without Lucius himself knowing, powerful Occlumens or no. In this thought, she finds absolution. She is rarely one to prefer indecision, but she can opt not to decide at all, have faith in their leader, and...

... and what?

Is this her protecting Lucius, somehow? Her hands drop to her sides when he shakes his head. "And it is not for me to speak of."

It isn't an oath, but it is a promise.

[malificence]

"Not by any stretch of the imagination," Lucius says. The visions are receding, he realizes, and exhales slightly. It's the only visible sign of relaxation; the headaches hang around like a hangover, sometimes for hours. He expects that it will be one of those mornings when he tells Peter to let him be.

"Exactly why we mock it so much," he murmurs as he leans back, and he looks up and back at her. His gaze is measuring, weighing. She would be in her rights to inform on him, after all. He wouldn't even truly blame her too much for it.

He smiles slightly. "Thank you."

Better, he thinks, to get his and her mind off this slightly uncomfortable aspect of their alliance, and he leans his elbow on the desk. "I keep seeing a phoenix," he says. Rising from the ashes, flying as if in attack. "Can you think of anyone - one of the deviants, perhaps - who spoke of a phoenix?"