[July Celebration Fics]: A Clock of Gold and Pearls, Harry/Lucius, R, 2/3
Part One.
Title: A Clock of Gold and Pearls (2/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters; I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Lucius
Content Notes: Established relationship, time travel, AU
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3700
Summary: Lucius knew that, although Harry loved him, he also suffered private doubts over being in love with the man who had endangered two of his best friends in his second year and fought on the other side of the war. Never let it be said that Malfoys don’t make extravagant gestures for those they love.
Author’s Notes: Another of my July Celebration fics. This will have a second part, to be posted tomorrow.
Thank you for all the reviews! This has grown long enough to turn into a threeshot, so the last part will be posted tomorrow.
Lucius held the Death Eater mask to his face as he ran through the Department of Mysteries. He had “arrived” after the beginning of the battle, which meant he would already have cast a few curses at Harry and his friends. He had only minutes, at most, to make up for that.
He dodged through the shards of broken prophecies that littered the floor and into the room that held the fluttering Veil of Death. Although he didn’t remember coming here until later in the battle, Harry was in here now, backed up against a wall with Granger and the two Weasley children. That was not as Lucius remembered, but then, there was every chance that his interference in the timeline had changed this particular moment as well. He took off his mask and said, “Mr. Potter.”
“You’re Lucius Malfoy!” blustered Ron Weasley. He sounded a little uncertain. Lucius didn’t smile at that, but he wanted to. Yes, that was one of the effects his changing of time had had; after all, Weasley would have seen him close at hand only at the Quidditch World Cup, since Lucius had not fought with his father at the bookshop.
“Yes.” Lucius focused on Harry. Harry held his wand parallel to the floor, not really pointing at Lucius, but his eyes were filled with uncertainty. “Can I count on you to remember our friendship?” Lucius asked. “To remember how we defeated the basilisk together?”
“What?” Granger and the Weasleys exclaimed. Granger tried to go on to talk about something, probably concerning how she hadn’t known there was a basilisk involved in the story of Harry’s life at all, but Lucius had had enough of that, and cast a Silencing Charm on her. Ron Weasley promptly tried to end it. He failed, of course. Lucius’s spells were stronger than a schoolboy’s.
“Mr. Potter?” Lucius repeated, trying to ignore both the sounds of the battle behind him and the ticking of the clock in his head.
Harry considered him with deep eyes, and then finally nodded. “Fine. You have two minutes. Talk.”
Lucius bowed his head and spoke swiftly. “The Dark Lord sent us to retrieve the prophecy. He will be on his way soon. You should flee before then.” There was every chance that that way, Harry might avoid being possessed, and perhaps Sirius Black might avoid falling to his death. If he did, at least Harry would not have to witness it.
“And how are we supposed to do that?” snapped the female Weasley.
Lucius went ahead and Silenced her and her brother, then looked at Harry again. “I have a Portkey here that will take you to the Minister’s office,” he said, taking it from his sleeve. He’d enchanted it long before, in the original timeline, when he might have to visit Fudge suddenly should the Aurors raid his house. “You may not be able to convince him that Death Eaters are here, but at least you will be safe.”
“Neville and Luna-”
“I will keep them safe myself,” Lucius promised. While he had never cared much for the Longbottom boy or the Lovegood girl, they were Harry’s friends. That was the only passport they needed to his goodwill.
Harry hesitated one more time. Then he asked, “And what happens if Fudge never learns that Voldemort is really back? Could we send him down here and get him a glimpse of Voldemort that way?”
“If you can persuade him to come, then you may do so,” said Lucius. He was unsure that Cornelius would listen to Harry when he’d prosecuted him for underage magic use last summer, but he couldn’t predict how this changed timeline would work out, either.
Harry nodded, and stared at him for a second, before determination crossed his face and he took the Portkey. He curled one hand around Granger’s arm; she already had hold of the two Weasleys. A second later, the Portkey activated and all four of them disappeared.
Lucius turned and adjusted his mask back on his face. From the rapidly-nearing footsteps, he knew the greatest test of his acting ability was yet to come.
Sure enough, Bellatrix burst into the room, turning her head eagerly back and forth, and completely ignoring the whispering veil behind Lucius. “Itty bitty Potter!” she sang. “Where is he, Lucius? And his delightful baby friends!”
Lucius fought to keep from curling his lip. He couldn’t remember why he had ever considered his sister-in-law a competent Death Eater. “Members of Dumbledore’s Order appeared and took them away,” he said, channeling the disgust into his voice and letting her think it was for Dumbledore. “A Portkey. They threatened to return.”
Bellatrix never looked at anyone’s eyes or face except Voldemort’s for long, and so had lost the ability to tell when someone was lying. She pouted. “They ran away? That’s not fair! I suppose we will have to enjoy ourselves with the other two in the big room.” She cackled and ran out of the room again, her robes and hair whipping behind her.
Lucius shook his head in silent scorn and followed. He did pause to Transfigure a surprise hiding in his pocket into the likeness of a prophecy orb. One way or another, this night would change things significantly, which meant that it was the last night in this time that he would have to pretend to be on the Dark Lord’s side.
When he stepped into the large room crowded with broken prophecy orbs again, his Dark Mark burned. Lucius dropped into a kneeling position without looking up. He did dart one eye over to the side and note Lovegood cowering in front of Dolohov. Longbottom sat next to her, cradling a clearly broken arm and looking lost.
Lucius saw no sign of their wands. He grimaced. Well, if he got them out of here with no more casualties than their wands, he doubted their present incarnations would blame him too much.
“My faithful followers.” Voldemort’s voice hissed even worse than it had in the graveyard. Lucius wondered if his sanity had declined further than then. Perhaps so. “Did anyone manage to retrieve Potter or the prophecy?”
The gentleness on those last words wasn’t a good sign for anyone. Lucius bowed from his kneeling position, and Voldemort turned towards him at once. “My Lord,” Lucius said softly. “The Order of the Phoenix carried Potter away, but not before I took the prophecy from him.” He held out the false orb.
“You didn’t tell me that! You didn’t tell me that! Only about Potter!” Bellatrix was on her feet, jigging in place, glaring at him. “I should have had the privilege of giving the prophecy to our Lord! Me, not you!” She tossed a Crucio at Lucius, who dodged it without bothering to rise.
“Crucio,” Voldemort snapped at Bellatrix in return, and examined the orb against the background of her agonized screams. His mouth was contorted in a wide, ugly smile. “Well done, Lucius. My faithful servant.”
Lucius bowed again, and saw Voldemort turn the orb over, presumably to examine it for the names that he knew should be there. Lucius gripped his wand and released the Transfiguration on the false prophecy orb.
The hedgehog Lucius had been carrying in his pocket found itself gripped and held in Voldemort’s hand, and first bit him and then curled itself into a prickly ball. Voldemort screamed-for a great Dark Lord, he was childish when it came to pain-and dropped it. Meanwhile, the other Death Eaters were trying to aim their wands at the creature and look for the attack they thought was coming and run around. Mostly, they were getting in each other’s way.
Lucius rolled smoothly across the floor, beneath the height of the curses blasting through the air, and grabbed both Longbottom and Lovegood by their arms. Then he bent and touched the bottom of his jaw to another Portkey, this time a pendant around his neck.
They disappeared, but Lucius glanced back in time to see Voldemort’s wide crimson gaze fixed on him.
“Traitor,” he said, in a guttural voice that faded as Lucius and the two children reappeared on the carpet in the main drawing room of Malfoy Manor.
Soft, slippered feet hastened towards them, and then Narcissa was standing in front of Lucius, bending down to help him to his feet. “What have you done?” she asked softly, staring at him with wide eyes.
“Betrayed the Dark Lord,” Lucius said, and grimaced as a bolt of pain struck through his arm. He would have to do something about that, soon. He turned around and nodded to Longbottom and Lovegood. “Mr. Longbottom has a broken arm. If you could summon Isky to attend to him?”
Narcissa nodded and called for their healer elf. The whole time, she was looking at Lucius in that quiet, searching way she had. It was the same way she had looked at him the day they married and the day Draco was born. Then, Lucius had known she was looking for signs he would be a good husband and a good father. This time, he wasn’t sure.
He looked back fearlessly, calmly. He had had a good life with Narcissa, although by Draco’s fifth year in their original lifetime, they slept apart and pursued other lovers discreetly. He said, when a few seconds had passed, “It was the right choice.”
“Yes, it was,” Narcissa said, and for the first time in a decade, she gave him a smile like the one she had given him on their wedding day.
Then she turned to reassure Longbottom and fuss over Lovegood-Narcissa melted around small blonde girls who resembled the daughter they would never have-and Lucius closed his eyes and let the ticking bear him away.
*
“What does this letter mean? What’s a Horcrux?”
Lucius took a step away from the spin of the moments that had brought him here, and faced Harry. The young version of him stood with his arms folded and his skeptical gaze fixed on Lucius. They were in a small, warded space near the lapping Black Lake, and the nearly-full moon hung overhead.
Lucius swallowed. He had altered time far enough by now that Harry and Draco’s last two years at Hogwarts would be entirely different, but he still couldn’t live through them completely, given the clock’s tendency to slice time into small parts. His father’s and grandfather’s legacy was a risky one, as their letters had warned him. He would have to try to catch up on the context that continued to happen around him and not betray that, as far as he was concerned, he had gone straight from Malfoy Manor to this meeting with Harry.
“A Horcrux is an object like the one that you and I destroyed with the basilisk in your second year,” Lucius told him quietly. “You remember the diary? It had a shard of the Dark Lord’s soul in it.”
Harry’s folded arms dropped, and he stared. Then he asked, “And-how did you know about these?”
“After the Dark Lord asked me to guard one of them, I became curious about what exactly it was. None of my research during the first war paid off. I was too busy then and too worried that the Dark Lord would discover what I was doing and kill me for it. Only after he apparently died could I do the research. It still wasn’t complete when we destroyed the diary, but the diary’s reaction on being destroyed confirmed it for me.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about it all these years?”
“I thought it might have been the only one,” Lucius said quietly. “Obviously, since the Dark Lord returned, that is not the case. I completed my research shortly before I decided to betray him in the Department of Mysteries.”
Harry’s gaze softened. “Thank you again for saving Neville and Luna.”
“I would do far more than that, now that I have chosen a side of the war that makes sense.” And for your future self, Lucius thought, but it would never be time to confess that. He honestly wasn’t sure why Harry had decided to forgive him so easily in the future, but then, Harry often forgave where he didn’t need to, it seemed.
Harry shifted and cleared his throat, his blush making Lucius wonder. “How many are there?”
“Counting the diary, seven.” Lucius nodded as he watched revulsion flash across Harry’s face. “I know. It’s disgusting. And while we can get rid of four of the other six in the same way we did the diary, I am-not sure what to do about the other two.”
“Why not?”
“The other two Horcruxes are living,” Lucius said. “His snake, Nagini. And-”
“My scar.”
Lucius had once wished in the past that he had been there when Harry had discovered that he was a Horcrux. Now, he took that wish back. Lucius’s own breath stopped as he watched Harry sag into the horror, wrapping his arms around himself, one hand rising as if he would claw the Horcrux out of the scar on his forehead.
Lucius had only taken one step forwards, though, before Harry looked up and caught a huge gulp of air, shook his head briskly, and focused on Lucius. “What can we do?”
Lucius closed his eyes and reminded himself that this was not his Harry, not yet, although if the timeline changed the way he wanted it to, then it should work out so that his Harry was even happier than he had been in their shared future. “I believe that if Nagini’s body was totally destroyed by basilisk venom or Fiendfyre, she might be killed. And if you stood before the Dark Lord and had him cast the Killing Curse at you, you would survive and the Horcrux would be destroyed.”
“Um, but why?”
“Because that shard of soul would absorb the curse.” Lucius met his incredulous eyes. “I know. It sounds mad. But I think the shard inside you is a tiny one, which makes it even less stable than the rest of the Dark Lord’s soul. You are whole and alive. The unstable shard should be more prone to dying.”
“You think. It should.”
Lucius only nodded. His mouth ached with the desire to say that he knew he was right and Harry would survive this, but he could never explain exactly how he knew. Only Harry’s trust in him was letting him get away with pretending that his own research had uncovered the existence of the Horcruxes.
Harry stood gazing into the distance. His eyes were thoughtful and opaque; Lucius couldn’t read them at all. Then he turned back and asked, “What are the other Horcruxes besides me and Nagini?”
Lucius explained quietly about Voldemort’s obsession with Founders’ artifacts and the existence of the Ravenclaw diadem, the Slytherin locket, and the Hufflepuff cup. The Gaunt ring he attributed to Voldemort’s family history. He didn’t mention the Resurrection Stone. He knew this Harry had never heard of the tale of the Deathly Hallows, and he would have too much to explain if he tried to talk about it now.
Harry spent some time staring into the distance as if he assumed that he would find the artifacts on the horizon. Then a soft chime sounded next to him, and he started and drew his wand to cast a Tempus. “Shit. It’s longer than I expected to be gone. Ron and Hermione are going to wonder where I was.”
“It’s up to you if you want to bring them in on this,” Lucius told him.
Harry glanced at him. “Of course not-not yet. I didn’t bring them in during second year, either, and they would want to know why I thought I could trust you. And then I would have to explain things I don’t want to explain.”
“Why do you trust me so much?” Lucius had to ask. “I mean, enough to keep me secret from your friends. I know the Department of Mysteries convinced you I was on your side.”
Harry tilted his head. “People have had secrets from me,” he said, his words like drops of water falling on stone. “Now that I know about the Horcruxes, I’m convinced Dumbledore does, too. He said something about Voldemort transferring his powers to me that only makes sense in that light. And Ron and Hermione didn’t tell me anything last summer, and Sirius doesn’t tell me everything, and-” He shook his head. “I want something of my own.”
The words made Lucius flush as if he had drunk warm tea. It was a long way from a romantic declaration, but knowing he belonged to Harry, in some way, eased his impatience to belong to him again. “Thank you.”
Harry blinked at him, and then gave him a more suspicious look, as if he could sense how much this meant to Lucius. Lucius didn’t care. He could already hear the ticking drawing closer again, and he maintained his smile until Harry nodded and started back to the school.
And Lucius fell into the middle of a maelstrom the color of pearls.
*
“Mr. Malfoy? What are you doing here?”
Lucius blinked and came roughly back to himself. He was standing in a room piled so high with rubbish that the tottering piles-flashing with imitation jewels and false gilding, he couldn’t help noticing-tilted as if about to fall on his head. There was a bust in front of him with a diadem slung over its ear. Lucius noticed the likeness to Ravenclaw’s ancient diadem at once.
And Harry was standing in front of him, holding out his hand as if to claim the diadem. Behind him were Granger and the male Weasley, with their mouths open, much the way they had looked in the Department of Mysteries.
“My apologies,” Lucius said, bowing a little. Harry’s outstretched hand gave him the clue as to why he was here. “I created a charm that would pull me to your side in some emergencies. It doesn’t work all the time, but it did this time.” He reached out and gently took Harry’s wrist, pulling it away from the diadem.
He thrilled a little at the warm skin underneath his fingertips, because he was a Malfoy and he had long since stopped lying to himself. But he didn’t caress Harry, and he dropped his hand the minute it was free of the diadem’s nagging pull.
“What emergency is this?” Granger sounded as officious as she ever did, although perhaps a little less so than was usual when Lucius showed up to her house to collect Harry when he was too magically exhausted or drunk to Floo home.
“You were about to touch a Horcrux with unshielded skin.” Lucius talked to Harry, because he wanted to. “What kind of idea is that?”
Harry blushed and looked him straight in the eye. “You touched the diary with bare skin!”
From the way that Granger and Weasley tried to speak, Harry had just opened up a storm of questions. Lucius Silenced them negligently, as he had in the Department of Mysteries, and faced Harry with a faint smile. “And only for a moment, and only with full foreknowledge of what would happen should the Horcrux inside it grasp hold of me. No, Harry. I would much rather be with you to help you take care of the Horcruxes than have you go hunting them yourself.”
“Well, all right.” Harry still looked mulish, but he didn’t bother ending the spell on his friends, although he had enough power now to do so. “But how are you going to destroy the Horcrux if you don’t have a basilisk fang with you?”
“I never said that I do not,” Lucius pointed out mildly, and drew the silver-sheathed and hilted fang from his pocket.
Granger was almost hopping up and down in her need to interfere. Harry glanced at her and removed the Silencing Charm this time. Granger immediately burst out, “What are you talking about? What is Mr. Malfoy really doing here? Why do you have a basilisk fang-”
Lucius did something that he knew would shut her up more effectively than a Silencing Charm. He focused on the diadem and stabbed the fang down as hard as he could.
The minute he hit the gem in the center of the delicate circlet of silver, a wailing note arose. Lucius would have dropped the fang and clapped his hands over his ears if he had a whit less discipline. As it was, all the children except Harry cowered and did exactly that.
Lucius watched coolly as the black blood spilled out of the diadem and dripped down the sides of the bust. Then he nodded and turned to Harry. “I will give you the dagger so that you may have it when you destroy the other Horcruxes. As I said, I do not know if it will work against a living one.” He extended the knife.
Harry accepted it, his hand lingering for a moment in Lucius’s. Lucius smiled. He could not say it was not pleasant, these fleeting moments of contact in the changed timeline.
“Thank you, sir,” Harry said. He didn’t back down or look away shyly now. “And you know where some of the other Horcruxes are, don’t you?”
“I do.” Lucius inclined his head.
“Then-would you come with us to hunt them? I don’t know everything about Horcruxes, as we proved today.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want to endanger my friends.”
“How do you know Mr. Malfoy?” Weasley demanded.
“I would be happy to come with you,” Lucius answered quietly. “Only tell me when you’re ready to commence the hunt, Mr. Potter.”
“Harry, we have to tell Dumbledore-”
Lucius openly rolled his eyes, which apparently was enough to shut up Granger by itself. “You might want to tell them certain things, Harry, and why you kept the secret of the Horcruxes from your Headmaster for as long as you did.”
Harry nodded slowly at him, his mouth curving, and then opening to say something else. But all Lucius heard was a loud tick, as the clock bore him away to another moment.
Part Three.
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