RP: A Caged Malfoy
Title: A Caged Malfoy
Game date: (backdated to) 3rd August, 1998
Time of day: 2:00pm
Characters featured: Lucius Malfoy, generic and random NPC, mentions of Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter
Location: DMLE detention
Status: Reflective
Brief summary: Lucius thinks and plots, receives trial dates
Completion: Completed
Warnings: None
Lucius waited on the bed in his cell, as still as a marble effigy and as composed as if he sat at the head of his own dining table at Malfoy Manner. Before, that is, Voldemort had turned that edifice of pureblood grandeur into a barracks. His unyielding hauteur was an act, of course, born of a strange mixture of pride and despair, but it was nevertheless an impressive one. When they had first brought him to the cell, he had paced, tiger-like, anxiety for his son and his wife measured in the frantic, disjointed rhythm of footsteps on stone. But now stillness was his relief and his torment all at once. His felt a twitch start in his fingertips, a longing for some manner of expression or activity beyond this interminable waiting. He brought his hands together, ruthlessly interlocking his fingers.
His fingers wanted to write. He needed news of his wife and son, hungered for it and for reassurance of their safety with an intensity that shamed him. But getting it would involve asking for it and asking for it would involve stooping, and a Malfoy never stooped. He could well imagine the scene, the desperate pathetic clutch of his fingers round the cell bars, the trembling eagerness of his voice as he importuned the nearest warder. A response, growled, rigid with self-righteous virtue? And how did you treat your prisoners, Death Eater? And then, later, in the guard room: did you see Malfoy beg this afternoon, how the mighty have fallen.
No. Never.
He closed his eyes, taking refuge in the blissful darkness behind his eyelids and the memories of more glorious times before Potter had become the Dark Lord's fatal and prevailing obsession. He thought of the heady days of power and terror that were the Dark Lord's first ascension when he himself had been, oh, lifetimes younger. He thought of killing curses, a rush of green malice, and of screams and pleas and tears. He dared not think of other things, of Narcissa shining in the moonlight like a woman made of pearls, and Draco, his son, his perfect mirror of what it was to be a Malfoy. Such memories contributed only further anxiety and a certain interfering sentimentality that was as useless in his present situation as it was in any other.
It was an act of will to bring his mind to bear on the current - he opened his eyes briefly to consider the cell - setback. The carefully chosen word throbbed like a heartbeat, an already insufficient façade for a more appropriate term: failure. A Malfoy did not fail.
And then came the unmistakeable sound of footsteps in the corridor and his eyes snapped open again. A tapping on the bars and a hand extended a letter, sealed with the ministry crest. Lucius regarded it, as if he felt no curiosity as to its contents and the hand waved a little impatiently. Given his current standing in the Ministry, Lucius experienced a flicker of something that was almost amusement at the bravery of the hand: most the guards treated him as if he would bite. With all the lazy grace he could muster and a sweep of his shabby robes upon the dirty floor, he crossed the cell and took the proffered letter.
“Thank you.” His voice sounded rusty but not even too many days of silence could cloak those aristocrat vowels.
The other had lingered a moment too long. Curiosity? See the caged Malfoy? Or something more useful? Was that the slightest whiff of ambition?
“You know,” he said, his tone softly conversational, “were pen and paper to somehow find themselves in my possession, I later would remember it with great…” a delicate pause “…appreciation.”
There was a long moment in which it occurred to him that he might have misjudged it. Well, it was a relatively harmless request on the surface. Why yes, I did ask for ink… to write to my wife, of course … I can only imagine prison brings out the romantic in me.
But then the guard was gone, perhaps with just the slightest inclination of his head. And Lucius was left alone with the barest ember of hope and, oh what was this? He ran a (depressingly dirty) fingernail beneath the seal, his eyes skimming swiftly over the letter within. A change of trial dates, such a transparent and irritating ploy. He would have to act quickly, if he could at all.
Heedlessly, and in spite of all his resolutions to the contrary, Lucius began to pace again.
Game date: (backdated to) 3rd August, 1998
Time of day: 2:00pm
Characters featured: Lucius Malfoy, generic and random NPC, mentions of Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter
Location: DMLE detention
Status: Reflective
Brief summary: Lucius thinks and plots, receives trial dates
Completion: Completed
Warnings: None
Lucius waited on the bed in his cell, as still as a marble effigy and as composed as if he sat at the head of his own dining table at Malfoy Manner. Before, that is, Voldemort had turned that edifice of pureblood grandeur into a barracks. His unyielding hauteur was an act, of course, born of a strange mixture of pride and despair, but it was nevertheless an impressive one. When they had first brought him to the cell, he had paced, tiger-like, anxiety for his son and his wife measured in the frantic, disjointed rhythm of footsteps on stone. But now stillness was his relief and his torment all at once. His felt a twitch start in his fingertips, a longing for some manner of expression or activity beyond this interminable waiting. He brought his hands together, ruthlessly interlocking his fingers.
His fingers wanted to write. He needed news of his wife and son, hungered for it and for reassurance of their safety with an intensity that shamed him. But getting it would involve asking for it and asking for it would involve stooping, and a Malfoy never stooped. He could well imagine the scene, the desperate pathetic clutch of his fingers round the cell bars, the trembling eagerness of his voice as he importuned the nearest warder. A response, growled, rigid with self-righteous virtue? And how did you treat your prisoners, Death Eater? And then, later, in the guard room: did you see Malfoy beg this afternoon, how the mighty have fallen.
No. Never.
He closed his eyes, taking refuge in the blissful darkness behind his eyelids and the memories of more glorious times before Potter had become the Dark Lord's fatal and prevailing obsession. He thought of the heady days of power and terror that were the Dark Lord's first ascension when he himself had been, oh, lifetimes younger. He thought of killing curses, a rush of green malice, and of screams and pleas and tears. He dared not think of other things, of Narcissa shining in the moonlight like a woman made of pearls, and Draco, his son, his perfect mirror of what it was to be a Malfoy. Such memories contributed only further anxiety and a certain interfering sentimentality that was as useless in his present situation as it was in any other.
It was an act of will to bring his mind to bear on the current - he opened his eyes briefly to consider the cell - setback. The carefully chosen word throbbed like a heartbeat, an already insufficient façade for a more appropriate term: failure. A Malfoy did not fail.
And then came the unmistakeable sound of footsteps in the corridor and his eyes snapped open again. A tapping on the bars and a hand extended a letter, sealed with the ministry crest. Lucius regarded it, as if he felt no curiosity as to its contents and the hand waved a little impatiently. Given his current standing in the Ministry, Lucius experienced a flicker of something that was almost amusement at the bravery of the hand: most the guards treated him as if he would bite. With all the lazy grace he could muster and a sweep of his shabby robes upon the dirty floor, he crossed the cell and took the proffered letter.
“Thank you.” His voice sounded rusty but not even too many days of silence could cloak those aristocrat vowels.
The other had lingered a moment too long. Curiosity? See the caged Malfoy? Or something more useful? Was that the slightest whiff of ambition?
“You know,” he said, his tone softly conversational, “were pen and paper to somehow find themselves in my possession, I later would remember it with great…” a delicate pause “…appreciation.”
There was a long moment in which it occurred to him that he might have misjudged it. Well, it was a relatively harmless request on the surface. Why yes, I did ask for ink… to write to my wife, of course … I can only imagine prison brings out the romantic in me.
But then the guard was gone, perhaps with just the slightest inclination of his head. And Lucius was left alone with the barest ember of hope and, oh what was this? He ran a (depressingly dirty) fingernail beneath the seal, his eyes skimming swiftly over the letter within. A change of trial dates, such a transparent and irritating ploy. He would have to act quickly, if he could at all.
Heedlessly, and in spite of all his resolutions to the contrary, Lucius began to pace again.