byrightsinhell | A possible future: I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

A possible future: I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

It had been a year.

Lucius repeated this tiny mantra to himself for a few moments, trying to internalize it. It didn't feel true, though he had no reason to doubt it. After all, the wizards who'd broken them out looked much the same as they ever had.

He could tell from their reactions that the same wasn't true of him. Oh, certainly, he was dirty and ill-kept, which couldn't help, but he suspected the change wasn't something so easy to rectify. For the moment, though, his energy was tied up in making sure he didn't faint. The distance between himself and the nearest dementor felt like eons compared to what he'd had, the absence of their influence almost a pleasure in itself. The sky. It was a clear night, stars sharp and bright. There were people around him, some speaking, some planning, some casting spells. He just stood, and looked up.

After a moment, he registered that someone was speaking to him. It was Dolohov. Lucius would have laughed, if he didn't feel he'd lost the capability. The large Russian offered him his wand, and said quietly, "Go home, Malfoy. The Dark Lord will be contacting you soon." Though his tone was a bit gruff, there was something in his face not entirely unlike sympathy. He'd been here, Lucius remembered. He'd been in after the first war. The fact the man had remained outwardly sane gave Lucius a new respect for him.

When Lucius took his wand, Dolohov repeated, low, "Go home." There was a subtle emphasis to the words.

Then again, what else was there to do?

He almost wished he had a broom. Veiling himself and flying home would have given him some time. But the part of him that had remained apart, cool and logical throughout the ordeal, pointed out that in his current state, he'd fall off a broom long before he got to Wiltshire, if he wasn't shot from the sky by an auror with a twitchy wand finger. And it would be cruel to make Narcissa wait for word of him. He wouldn't do that to her, not this time through. He wasn't ready to see her, but he didn't know when he would be, and she deserved better. Much better than anything that would be likely to come any time soon.

Dolohov had moved off and, thank Merlin, Bellatrix had other priorities than tormenting him that night, which gave Lucius a moment to clear his mind and apparate.

He didn't apparate directly into the house, of course. That would have been foolhardy, for a number of reasons. But he didn't appear as far away as he might have, either. His legs felt uncertain from ill-feeding and lack of exercize, and he would be damned if he didn't stride into the house under his own power.

Lucius Malfoy strode up, murmured the charm to unlock the door, and let himself into the manor. He felt nothing but a dull exhaustion. But he was, at last, home.

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In this one long year, Narcissa has borne up as best she could under scrutiny and scorn from both sides; it struck her as a faithlessness worse than infidelity to let herself bow to it. Only ignorance could drive someone to call her faithless, she decides, an ignorance of where her priorities ought to be-

-right there, at the door, with her gaunt and worn out husband.

"Lucius," she says, from the top of the stairs, and it's a miracle she doesn't tread on her robe and tumble down them in her haste. The burst of energy seems impossible; she didn't know she had so much left.

He's moved in a way he didn't know he could still feel, seeing her there. Here. In their home, where she so clearly belonged but he didn't quite feel sure he did anymore. He can only imagine how he must look, half-starved and grimy.

He'd spent a great deal of time, while in Azkaban, imagining getting out and returning home. But it had increasingly seemed surreal to him, and now that the reality has arrived, he doesn't know what to do.

"Narcissa - " he starts, something broken in his voice, though the tone is low and reasonably steady.

Not heedless of his ruined, filthy appearance but for this moment not caring so long as he's alive, Narcissa collides with her husband without as much care as she should probably take for the sake of how worn he must be. "Lucius," she repeats, half-sobbed against his shoulder; if he stumbled back, then at least the closed door is behind him to support their weight.

He does stumble back, and the door keeps them both upright. It takes a moment, but he wraps her arms around her, tightly. "I'm sorry," he says, finally, very low. Sorry she spent a year alone, sorry he was stupid enough to get caught, (selfishly sorry he'd done so while cleaning up her sister's mess), sorry for the million things he couldn't shield her from.

They'd broken him down, bit by bit, with all the ways he'd failed her and Draco. Having her here, half sobbing against him, he hates that this is all he can think of.

When he apologizes, half-sobs become whole and she's almost surprised by her own tears soaking into him, by the way they do need the support of something else just to stay upright, by her fingers curling tightly and clutching her against him. It seems to be a theme of theirs; whenever she's certain that she should be most pleased, she bursts into tears. She's so pitifully grateful to see him upright at all-

"I was so afraid for you," she says, pressing her eyes shut against more tears.

"Ssh," he murmurs, bowing his head to hers. "I'm here." This rather uselessly, as it's evident that he is, but nothing more useful or eloquent occurs to him.

There had been a time, not long ago, when Lucius Malfoy's ability to say the right thing at the right time had been one of his defining traits. Now he's a hollow faced man, not even sure how to proceed beyond his wife sobbing in his arms as they both used the door for support.

"...are you and Draco both..." 'Alright' seems a false question. 'Unharmed' is closer to what he means.

Her answer is a quick nod that he should feel as much as see; it seems likely that right now she'd answer that way completely regardless of what the fact of the matter actually is. (Narcissa has always hated to lose her composure and when it does happen she's so far out of sorts that she never knows what to do with herself any better than Lucius.)

"We- I think- that is, Lucius, you are filthy," in a despairing voice, "you must let me tidy you up-"

He nods, almost absently. "We should burn these, I imagine." They'd be looking for him, but if the murmurs he'd heard during the break out were true - Dumbledore murdered - he was not going to be the top of any Ministry priority lists for some time. Doubtless the Dark Lord's call would happen first.

He couldn't still his mind.

"I don't want to see Draco until I look more myself," he says, after a moment, a tacit agreement. Of course, depending on one's criteria, "looking like himself" might range from something that would take years to an impossibility.

"Yes- yes, of course." Narcissa takes a breath, and then another, and on the third she feels safe enough to lift her head and try straightening up. Even as she takes a swaying step backwards she doesn't actually let him go, her fingers closed in his clothing to be burned. "Lean on me," she says, softer, and it's more than just what it sounds.

He touches her cheek, lightly, but more for her benefit than his, as if it's something he remembers he should do. "I'm not yet a complete invalid," he says, quietly, but he does put an arm on her shoulder as they turn for the stairs. He's certainly weak regardless of whether he's an invalid, and he won't be too proud to take the help.

As they make their slow, steady way upstairs, he says, "Is it true? About Dumbledore?"

The disparaging sound she makes about his pridefulness is a little more brittle than she'd like, pretending at normalcy where there isn't any- she feels weak herself, so very, very tired. "Yes," she confirms, thinking of the vow and tightening her grip on her husband's arm unconsciously. "Yes, it's true."

He catches the change in her grip, and something in her voice, and he says, "Narcissa... what happened?" His old self would have just noted it, and filed it away to discuss later, but he's exhausted and broken and, contrarily, he doesn't want her to shield him. After all, Narcissa and Draco are alive. He'll cope with what he has to.

"Soon," she says, after a pause, instead of answering at once; it seems like she wishes very hard she could refuse to answer at all. Narcissa has absolutely no desire to talk about what happened while Lucius was gone, but she'll have to and she knows just...not yet. "Please come and sit down and let me find you something clean, Lucius."

He wouldn't be up to fighting her, besides which, he has no desire to fight. Not so soon after returning. He shakes his head, but lets it drop for the time being. And he follows her instructions, because he can't yet do much of anything else.

Everything looked a little bit different. He had no idea how, precisely, but something subtle had been altered.

"I'm sorry that I don't know what to say," he says, quietly, as they reach the top of the stairs.

"Lucius," she says, in a voice that barely suggests an edge of hysteria she surely doesn't have the energy for, "if you intend to apologize for all the wrongs we've had-"

Then he'll be out of what breath he has before he's done? Then she'll strangle him on the stairs with her bare hands? Then she'll keep crying?

The last threat would probably be the worst one, in all honesty. He's never been much good at standing it when she cries. "Just the ones I am responsible for, my love," he says, still low.

Of course, in his current state, this may be all of them.

"I won't have you blamed," she says, in the tone of a woman who has had this argument once or twice or a hundred times before and was tired of it long before Lucius returned to throw his voice in. She sets her jaw, small and stern next to him, and steers him toward their rooms without saying anything else.

He lets it lie. Knowing she doesn't blame him, contrarily, makes him feel worse, instead of better. She's always been so direct and honest, and having her so defy his expectations (albeit expectations formed in Azkaban, which can't be called precisely reliable) is throwing him off balance.

But he's too tired to fight, and he's willing to let her lead for now.

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A possible future: I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

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