riddlelog | cause the tide is high | and it's rising still

Entry tags:

cause the tide is high | and it's rising still

WHO Theo Nott and Lucius Malfoy (Closed)
WHAT Theo thinks he has a good work around to getting registered. Lucius is probably wondering when new Slytherins got so dumb.
WHEN October 10, 1980
WHERE the grounds of Nott Manor
WARNING none
STATUS complete

He's in the past.

He's in the the past and, somehow even more jarring and explainable than that, he's...in the wrong past.

It takes him a few days to really wrap his mind around it, although if he's honest with himself he knew from the moment he woke up that something was wrong. It's in the air, in the wary suspicion flickering in across the faces of strangers regarding each other in the streets, something heavy and foreboding that clings to even the faintest whispers snaking through the grapevine with the most recent edition of the Prophet he manages to get his hands on.

Time deviants, he's noticed no one wants to say too loudly despite the Riddle Administration's seemingly welcoming stance, but Theo has always been good at listening. You heard about what the papers said. All the bad magic they brought with them. Untrustworthy lot--

He's dealt in ministry politics too long not to see the sort of strings this new administration is pulling the public along with, siding them against the unknown, the other. It's not a promising start for anyone who falls outside of their narrow view of normal.

He doesn't trust the registration program, or the trace, or any of the resources available to those misplaced if they make themselves known when he is intimately, uncomfortably familiar with some of the individuals receiving high praise in the papers for their work inside the Ministry. But the ugly reality is that he's going to need allies--allies within this time-- if he wants any hope of getting back to his own. Ones, unfortunately, he isn't entirely confident he'll be able to secure while carrying around the label of time deviant.

But he's heard about the magic anomalies, of witches and wizards waking up too young or too old without explanation, and Theo is a lot of things but he has never been accused of being too stupid to seize an opportunity when one presents itself to him.

If pressed into something like honesty Theo may or may not admit that the last place in this time (or any other) he'd choose to willingly step foot into would be Nott Manor, especially if it happened to be occupied by a Nott other than himself, but his options are few and far between. Either he can take his chances with the trace, with making himself known as he is, or...or he can take his chances under an assumed identity and stolen memories long enough to dig what he needs out of this time. Neither is a safe gamble, but it seems to him that one carries quite a few more useful perks than the other.

It's dark by the time he apparates to the edges of Nott Manor, standing inside the final line of trees before the grounds open up properly to sprawling lawns and meticulously groomed gardens. The manor itself is a looming shadow ahead of him, as dark as the sky above it save for the faint yellow glow of a handful of windows lit along the ground floor, and Theo can feel the very distinct hum of magic running along the perimeter of the property without having to get too close. It's warded. Of course it's warded against anyone his father didn't trust, against anything he hadn't been expecting. His father had always been too paranoid for anything else.

But unfortunately for him Theo learned to bring that magic down years ago. By the time he realizes his spells have been dropped it will be too late to do much about them.

He grips his wand a little tighter, steeling himself, and--

--hesitates. It occurs to him then, with a painful twist inside his chest, that wrong time or not his mother may be inside that manor. That he may be in that manor, all of two months old if that and blissfully unaware in her arms. Dealing with his father is one thing, but there are some kinds of collateral damage too heavy to carry the burden of, some kinds of time meddling that can't be fixed.

In a better time, with better options, without his luck running closer to out with every second he doesn't make a decision on what to do in this new world, he knows he wouldn't be here at all. But he doesn't have the luxury of waiting any longer to make a move. Whatever is waiting for him in that manor, whatever his actions leave him with once the dust settles, he's just going to have to deal with it once it's in front of him. One way or another he'll find a solution. he always does.

He takes a long breath through his nose, jaw set in determination, and raises his wand.

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The visions have been fast and furious this week, Lucius thinks as he apparates to the perimeter of Nott Manor and stands silently in the shadows. As usual since the time deviants have started showing up, they've not made much sense - snatches of moments, no context to be had - and it's only when he sat down to put them together that he was able to paint a picture. First Elektra Burke, the woman he knows and yet not quite the woman he knows, bringing a dark-haired boy to Malfoy Manor to play with Lucius' own son. Another vision where the boy comes with Theodore Nott, a member of their cohort as hateful and irritating in the future as he is their present. Lucius standing behind a slightly older Theo Nott (because naturally Nott would name his son after himself) and helping him with a potion. Both of them older yet, after the war that he's already seen does not entirely end well, at a house he recognizes as the one in Cornwall.

Then the last one, just today, Theo putting Senior under the Imperius and impersonating him, an idea that seems reasonable in theory and would be nothing but trouble and a one way ticket to Azkaban in practice.

"Theo," he says, and his voice is quiet and even. His wand is out and at the ready, because if one is going to startle a powerful pureblood wizard intent on a path, one better be prepared to defend. "This is not going to work out." And here's a question to ponder later, when he's not possibly going to be cursed. Why has he gotten visions of this boy who isn't even his blood? And why has he gotten enough of them that he can feel the surge of affection for this Nott when he's seen nothing of his future with Scorpius, or with Scorpius' father?

Theo hears his name and all at once time slows, the world narrowed down to nothing but the weight of his wand in his hand and the spike of adrenaline shuddering through his heart. There are few worse positions to be in than with an unknown wizard at one's back, and it would be foolish-- much more foolish than apparently not being quite as aware of his surroundings as he thought he'd been-- to assume there isn't a wand already trained on him.

There are half a dozen curses filing through his mind in the time it takes him to take a breath, just on the tip of his tongue and ready to throw if he wanted to. Speed is everything in a duel, only overshadowed by the invaluable opportunity to strike first, and--

...and he can't quite help the wave of curiosity that follows on the heels of his initial surprise that he's being spoken to rather than attacked.

Spoken to by someone who knows his name, no less, with a familiar voice he can't entirely place until he slowly turns towards it, seeking the owner of it out through the long shadows cast by the moon overhead.

A Malfoy in any time period would probably be hard to miss but Theo has spent too many hours wandering the portrait lined halls of their various estates not to recognize Lucius even as young as he is now and for a moment all Theo can do is watch him, looking past the man's wand to the face he knows but doesn't as he weighs his options.

"That's quite the claim to make." He says finally, his tone carefully measured for calm. He doesn't know what this is but he's wary. Leaving aside Lucius somehow knowing-- or at least assuming-- what he'd been planning, leaving aside Lucius somehow knowing him, there is no reason for the other man to have any sort of loyalty to him. Not in this time and place. Certainly not enough to try to get involved like this. It doesn't make sense. "How do you know my name?"

He recognizes him, Lucius thinks, which tells him that the migraine inducing visions he's been having all week are not a lie. It's hard to tell, sometimes. It's especially hard to tell, lately, when it's a jumble of faces he knows and yet does not know at all. All of which is hardly the point for two men feet away from each other, wands at the ready and neither attacking.

"I saw you," he says. He will, likely, have to clarify. He's also not going to do that without further prompting. Instead he inclines his head at the Manor. "This part would have worked fine; I imagine you know Imperius well enough to knock Nott out. But then, presumably, you would need to be him." No one in their right mind would want that.

He wonders if Theo is thinking of his mother. Before this week, he would have bet Elektra Burke would avoid and maneuver her way to a lifetime if being single. Certainly he'd never peg her to marry Theodore Nott, the most irritating pureblood in Britain, and frankly he had plenty of competition.

Edited 2017-10-31 01:33 (UTC)

"You saw me." It's not really an answer, but knowing Lucius the way he does he can't say he's exactly surprised. Those who tilt their hands easily to others don't survive long with or without a war looming on the horizon.

There's a very real, very dangerous possibility that trusting Lucius enough to lower his guard even a fraction could be disastrous. This man is a stranger to him, one he knows absolutely nothing about in this time, and Theo has lived through too much to be taken down by a moment of weak, misplaced sentiment.

And yet he lowers his wand anyway, enough to be an olive branch but not enough to leave him completely vulnerable if the tide turns against him. Stranger or not, Lucius hasn't attacked him yet. That has to count for something.

"Are you suggesting you saw poor acting abilities as well?" His smile is a small, wry thing when it curls across his mouth. "Despite what he'd like most to believe, that well isn't particularly deep. I can't say I would have considered it all that much of a challenge."

He hadn't kept this particular secret under his hat for twelve years by blurting it out because someone's giving him a skeptical look. Lucius inclines his head as he lowers his own wand slightly. It's still a stalemate. He doesn't know Theo even if he's seen enough to know that Theo knows him, or a version of him.

He's seen enough to feel an odd sort of fondness for someone he doesn't yet know.

"Oh, certainly not. It's not exactly a hard role to play, after all." Theodore Nott, Sr. is probably tied with Evan Rosier for most irritating person he has to tolerate, though in very different ways. "But it would get tedious, don't you think? Unless you've already found a way back." It's something he doubts; the entire Department of Mysteries has been working on it tirelessly, and none of them have either an inkling why or an inkling of how to fix it. "And then, of course, if someone less understanding catches you at it, it's immediate Azkaban."

He has no intention of baring his soul tonight, of laying out any intentions that Lucius hasn't already somehow become privy to. Lucius doesn't need to know about the timeturners he's been working on, or the less than legal modifications he's been toying with, or that he's reasonably confident he can recreate his work given enough time and resources.

Lucius doesn't need know how willing Theo is going to be to break this timeline if it means getting back to his own.

He'd be a liar if he said the idea of Azkaban didn't raise the hair on the back of his neck. Anyone with more sense than pride would admit to being afraid of the place and Theo fell far enough into the former category to risk nearly everything he had on staying out of it once. It's not eager to throw all that away and find himself stuck there in a time he doesn't even belong to.

Which makes Lucius a liability. This is leverage that Theo didn't need to give someone and what he should do is obliviate Lucius, is wipe this meeting out by any means necessary so that he can get away and regroup. If it had been anyone else that had caught him out like this, knowing so much more than they rightfully ever should, Theo thinks he might have already thrown the first spell.

If, perhaps, Theo had been someone else maybe Lucius would have already killed him. He seems to know Theo, after all. Enough, somehow, to try to give him time to see whatever reason Lucius thinks he's missing.

Theo tilts his head in consideration, watching Lucius like he's looking for something. "Why are you trying to help me?" It's digging at him much more deeply than he would have expected when there are other problems to consider, like exactly what Lucius thinks he knows about Theo. "Surely giving me to the Ministry to deal with would serve you better."

So much of what Lucius is doing right now is conjecture with confidence. He knows some things, of course. He can guess some of the rest and he can present it like an absolute proof. He can imagine that what Theo might be thinking of is a time-turner, because time-turners are the established method of this. It would have to be a severely modified one in order to go back to a future that is not quite their future, of course.

Lucius has already been Obliviated by his own son since time deviants began appearing, but the advantage he has now is he's not drunk. He's not, in fact, been particularly drunk since that night. The other advantage here is that Theo does not...seem particularly inclined to do it. Which is interesting, which tells him that they may be close in Theo's future. Perhaps, then, he's not making a mistake by playing it this way. Theo isn't wrong, of course. It would gain him something to turn him into the Ministry, but it wouldn't gain him as much as one might think. He's already a department head and he's already inner circle; essentially all saving Nott would get him is annoying Nott.

Worthwhile, but not particularly for anything beyond a moment. "It would certainly annoy Nott," he says dryly. "The indignity of being rescued by one of the upstarts, he might start having fits. But ultimately, that's all it gets me." He raises an eyebrow, and there's enough moonlight for Theo to see it. "Do you really want to interrogate why I'm not getting you sent off to Azkaban that badly?"

Theo can already imagine the ego-bruised fury painted across his father's face if he found out that Lucius Malfoy of all people swept in to save him from what would have already been a heinously embarrassing attack. Some things never change and if there exists a timeline anywhere in the universe where Lucius and his father enjoyed each other's company he'd eat his own wand.

Which is some kind of comfort, truth be told. If the man in front of him is at all similar to the one he knows from home, this situation may be much more salvageable than he would have given it credit for.

"Call it curiosity." Something has relaxed in him, the tense line of his shoulders easing some and his wand hand finally falling to his side. "I would like to know if I should be expecting a favor or two being called in, at the very least." Not that he's particularly useful to anyone like this, anonymous to the world as he is with no gold or influence to his name, but eventually he intends some of that to change.

At least, Lucius thinks, Theo Nott is clever about it. More like his mother, he thinks with a faint smile. Elektra doesn't care much for him these days - her loyalties had rather firmly been with Petia - but she'd always been a smart witch. Not one to let ego get in the way, which one could not say for many of their society, in truth.

He gives Theo an even look and glances thoughtfully at the mansion behind them before raising his wand in a quick silencing charm before he lowers it to his side. "Let's think this through step by step," he tells Theo. It's something he would have - will, perhaps - told a younger Theo. "You're from the future and yet I know you. A Pensieve will only show the past. How could this possibly happen?"

Theo has always been good at weighing his options, at taking the path most beneficial to himself whether it's the one he planned on or not. Flexibility in life, much like the right kind of leverage, is often more valuable than gold.

And he thinks he's made the right choices here if that flicker of a smile is any indication, stepping in all the right places until the threat of a duel seemed to lie firmly behind them. Theo still doesn't know what angle is being played her, or what Lucius could possibly gain by it, but he's in no position to do anything by lean in until he can't any longer.

His eyebrows twist upward when Lucius raises his want to cast the spell, his hand only relaxing around his wand again when he realizes that whatever Lucius is casting, it's not against him. He's been surrounded by enough silencing charms in his life to know one when it settles in around him and if his curiosity had been piqued before, it's nothing compared to the way it surges now.

There's something jarring about the way Lucius is treating him, in the way his tone unfolds patiently, in the sense of calm etched into his body language. For all that Lucius appears to be his age --younger even, perhaps-- there's such a strong echo of the man who helped raise him that Theo is nearly distracted from the question.

"Because--" He almost laughs at the absurdity of all of it. Of being in the wrong past, of being helped by someone he knows so well but doesn't know at all. Of, at the age of thirty, feeling all of twelve years old again being coached through a troublesome hitch in a particularly stubborn potion. I saw you.

The look Theo gives Lucius is a strange thing, caught somewhere between slow dawning understanding and quiet disbelief once those pieces start to slot together. "Because you saw me." It's still not a question when he repeats it, the words coming off his tongue like Theo still isn't sure he believes them. There's a beat of silence before, carefully, "I wasn't aware the Sight had a foothold in the Malfoy line."

He's been rather firm about some things because he must be. He is not Scorpius' grandfather, because how could he be? He's merely twenty-six. He's never seen hide nor hair (at least that he recalls) of Draco Malfoy, so he cannot truly feel a kinship with him. If he allows himself to accept that these are not just his blood but his family then - priorities may change. He cannot afford that just now, but he also knows that if it comes between Tom Riddle and those Lucius Malfoy considers his family, family will win. As distant as his own parents were from him, as unattached as he remains, family is Lucius' core.

Theo Nott is clearly not a Malfoy, but he's not even been given a vision of an older version of himself holding a small Scorpius in his arms. He has been given a series of would-be memories of the man in front of him, though, from as small as six with a slightly different Elektra to the old as...nearly as old as he must be now, visiting Lucius in the house he knows is the one in Cornwall. It's engendered feelings he's not had before, tendencies that have never come to the fore. He will, perhaps, be a better father than he had, he thinks. He's always before assumed he'd be the same.

"It's on the other side," he says a bit dryly. "You'll understand that I try to keep this quiet." Just as he'll keep this little plan quiet for Theo. Truthfully, it would have been easier to turn Theo in.

Likely Theo knows that, too.

He is not a Malfoy, not by blood or marriage, and Lucius is not his father.

Technically.

Blood means almost everything in their world and even the ending the last war couldn't entirely change that, but there's something to be said about the strength of slowly forged bonds, of how deep loyalty can be nurtured in those who aren't family simply by treating them as such, and Lucius may not be his father but that doesn't change the years he spent looking up to the man wishing he was.

The man in front of him isn't the same one who helped shape him into the person he is now but he's apparently seen enough of that life to decide that Theo is worth taking a risk on anyway. And it is a risk, of course, because he can't truly know he can trust Theo no matter what his visions may have shown him.

"I have no reason to speak of it." The yet is there, unspoken and lingering just under his words, but it's not exactly a threat. You hold up your end and I'll hold up mine. "Or of this. No one knows I'm here. I see no reason why what needs to change."

It's hard for him to rationalize, even being presented with the evidence. Certainly for his father and his grandfather the only family that counts are the Malfoys, and yet he's seen it. This man is nearly a son to him, in the future that may not be, and while he can't entirely trust him, he also can't quite let him go down a path that leads straight to Azkaban.

So here they are, and he's told Theo something that he's only admitted to one other living person. It's a level of trust he's likely to worry over again and again until he's certain.

He makes a skeptical sound, and it's a bit astounding how many mannerisms start early in life. "Do you not? Do you want access to people with the knowledge to get you started on getting home?" Look, Lucius knows that not every clever witch and wizard in Britain is associated with the Riddle Administration. Life would be simpler were that the case. He knows there are plenty of bright minds hiding in the shops and offices of wizarding Britain. But many of the best and brightest - they are in the Ministry. Tom Riddle has gathered the sharpest purebloods of their generation and the one before around him.

"If you do, and you don't register, someone else is going to catch you." What's left unsaid is that any other Death Eater wouldn't have the same interest in keeping Theo Nott away from Dementors. "Is it worth that risk to avoid a trace that does nothing more than note if you're outside beyond curfew?"

There's something else he can use. There was a vision, after all, of him and an eight year old Theodore Nott at Elektra's funeral, and Lucius can use that memory. Elektra Burke is, after all, neither married to Theo's father nor dead, and Elektra Burke has generously opened her London home to registered time deviants.

Cards on the table, Theo knows that he's on incredibly borrowed time dodging the Ministry. Lucius isn't wrong that it's only a matter of time before Theo crosses someone else who realizes that he doesn't belong here and that he's not following the right rules and when they do...perhaps he'd make it out of that meeting still a free man if he's quick enough, if he's clever enough. Perhaps he'd scrape through the one after that as well, because surely one would come, just lucky enough to land the right spell first before disappearing into the shadows once more.

Perhaps he'd be lucky for a while but it would run out eventually, too exhausted from running to keep his guard up as high as he needs to, spread too thin to fight the way he'd need to. It's not a pleasant picture and certainly not one that Theo is eager to see come to light.

But there's no way to stop the idea of being tracked by an administration he can't trust from making his skin crawl. Even if he chooses to believe that Lucius is telling the truth about it being as seemingly benign as a curfew check something inside him still wants to recoil from the very thought.

But, annoyingly, Lucius does make some fair points.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't trust that the trace will always been so innocent." He's already had too much time on his hands to consider all the ways it could go disastrously wrong for anyone tagged with it. "I've worked inside the Ministry too long already to take much of what they say at face value regardless of who sits in the Minister's chair."

It's foolish to be so stubborn, he knows. It's foolish to let himself be so cautious that he backs himself into a corner he didn't need to be in. He's already there, he thinks, his back inching up against a wall and his hand likely to be forced on what path to take if he takes too much longer to decide what he needs to do. He needs time, to regroup, to think. "But I can take it under consideration."

In general, it's very easy for Lucius to not object to the idea of the trace. Most of the people who have had it - and who have had it since the very early days of the Riddle Administration - are those who, he's always felt, ought to be tracked anyway. Mudbloods and Halfbloods. He had a stint in the Muggleborn Registration Commission for a year or two after his time at DMAC, and it's not a place you stay long if you don't believe in its import.

Of course, Lucius believes in far, far more than using a trace to track those who ought not even be in their community in the first place. He wouldn't have risen far in the Death Eaters if he were ambivalent to the Cause. None of them would have, no matter how sharp their skills.

In any case, he feels no differently about the time deviants. Perhaps he's inclined to trust Theo Nott - he is, in fact, inclined to trust Theo Nott - but he's not inclined to trust many of the others he's encountered. The trace isn't really much of a defense as is, but there are ways an already existing charm can be adjusted to do more, certainly.

"You should," he says before he deploys his final strategy. Lucius looks over at the Manor. "He's not managed to convince a pureblood witch to marry him yet." It's probably Nott's surplus of charm causing the problem. "Elektra has, however, generously opened her home to those from out of time. At least those who have registered. I expect you would find it comfortable."

Edited 2017-11-02 20:26 (UTC)

He doesn't talk about his mother.

She had not been taken from him suddenly or viciously, but she'd been taken from him all the same and, while Theo is not a man moved often by deep sentiment, what few memories he does have of her from his childhood are more precious to him than any amount of gold possibly could be. Painful or not, they're all he has left of her and even at his most candid and with those he trusts most rarely can he bring himself to speak at length about them.

At his worst, pseudo-familial bonds or not, Theo is inclined to rethink his preference on keeping his hands clean if anyone were to try to use them against him.

He knows what this is, what Lucius is doing and how he intends that particular blow to land, but where anger has every right to flare like an ember brought to tinder, the look that cuts across his face is a raw, painful thing.

He'd had the thought himself that she could be here, in this world, in that manor, but to hear it, to hear her name along with the opportunity Lucius is trying dangle enticingly in front of his face--

The idea he could see his mother again after so long if only he just made the right compromises is almost too good to be true.

She is not his mother here, of course. Not really, not anymore than Lucius is his father figure in the absence of a suitable one, but Theo is not so great of a liar that he could ever convince himself that his choice hasn't just been firmly made. "I--"

Theo couldn't say how much of this is manipulation due to Lucius' position in this time or manipulation born of whatever feelings Lucius' visions have managed to stir, or, maybe, that it falls somewhere in between. Suddenly, perhaps stupidly, Theo finds it less important than it might have been a moment ago.

He clears his throat and straightens, trying to reel himself back in. Tonight is not the night to let himself be cracked open wide just at the careful drop of a name. "Thank you, Lucius." Mr Malfoy hasn't been Theo's manner of addressing him for some time now and it feels like an unnecessary formality here given the situation when it's only the two of them. "For the advice and the information and...I'm sure you can understand why I may like some time with it before I decide what my time here will look like."

Rarely when Lucius executes a manipulation is it for one purpose alone. With Peter, it was personal amusement on top of their need to recruit more members, especially those with connections to the more dissident thinkers. With Theo, it's a bit complicated. Part of it is getting him to the Ministry, and while using Elektra is a low blow, it's also likelier than most to work. Part of it is to see his reaction. Part of it is, perhaps, that while Lucius will admit to no one any such feeling, that even though Desiderata Malfoy had not entirely been there, watching her waste away when he was thirteen had been more than difficult. Perhaps he's thought sometimes that he rather wished her still to be around.

He wants an answer but he also knows when someone's on the edge of being pushed too far, and instead Lucius inclines his head at Theo. Yes, he could take him in. It would no doubt be a fight, and it would no doubt be more difficult than either of them wants at this hour. He could push Theo harder in the direction he wants him to go in...or he can be patient, and Lucius is quite good at patience. "Of course, Theo," he says out loud. It goes without saying that should Theo disappear again, Lucius Malfoy will be looking for him, but he trusts he's done his job well. He's played both logic and emotions, and he hardly expects any former Slytherin worthy of the house to make a snap judgment. "I certainly hope we shall be seeing you in different circumstances soon."

Everyone has their breaking point and Theo can only stay diplomatic for long after drawing his line in the sand if he continues to be pushed. It's fortunate that Lucius doesn't, that he's letting Theo have the moment he's asking for even if Theo knows hasn't exactly given enough to deserve it, because the last thing either of them needs tonight is an ugly flight.

His mind may be made right now, it may stay made even come true morning after he's had time to toss and turn on it, but what he needs is just enough distance to try to look at it with a clearer mind to decide how poor of a decision he's about to make. He's luckier than he could probably truly know that such an opportunity is being given to him.

He smiles and it's small but more genuine than any has been from him all night. Manipulation or not, Theo can still appreciate the way a game is played and he can still be grateful for what allowances Lucius has tried to give him inside this particular set of circumstances. "Time will tell, I suppose. Perhaps you won't be disappointment."

It's all he has to give and there's nothing much to say after. His smile curves wider just a fraction, inclining his head slightly in turn, before Disapparating with a crack.

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