FIC: Collision: Chapter Five (Lotrips/HP, Viggo/Lucius, PG-13)
Collision: Chapter Five
Authors: darkrosetiger and telesilla
Fandom/ Pairing: Harry Potter/Lotrips crossover; eventually Viggo/Lucius
Archive: Please ask.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Lucius has a hard time understanding why he shouldn't use the M word.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: You get two for the price of one here: 1) Not RL; didn't happen. If you think this has anything to do with the real people involved, then you need to put down the crack pipe. and probably seek professional help. 2) Neither of us is J.K. Rowling; if we were, we'd have a nicer car and live in San Francisco. This is her world, not ours. Are we clear here?
Notes: Quite a while ago, airgiodslv came up with thegoblins_library challenge, which was to write a Lotrips/Harry Potter crossover. At the time we said we'd do Viggo/Lucius, but then we didn't have the inspiration. Then we watched Goblet of Fire on DVD and got bitten by a persistent bunny. Many thanks go out to kyuuketsukirui for her excellent beta.
This is a fairly short chapter, but we hope to have Chapter Six to you soon. Thanks for your patience.
In order to bring some things into parallel, we've messed with the timing of events in the HP universe. Year One is now 2000. Collision begins in February, 2006, in the middle of what would be Year Seven of HP canon.
In order the stories are (please note that "Keeping Faith" and "Favor" overlap each other to some extent):
Dual Citizenship
Keeping Faith
Favor
Collision
After pouring more hot water into his gourd, Viggo settles back down at the kitchen table with the latest copy of The Nation. Lucius is reading the Daily Prophet and drinking tea, and Viggo finds the whole situation oddly domestic.
Lucius was almost disappointed when Viggo was able to get the Daily Prophet. He'd been doing a fairly good job of putting the war out of his mind as much as possible; now, he scans the paper every morning to see if anyone he knows has been killed, or if Severus, Draco, or Narcissa has been found. Aside from the news, the business section doesn't interest him much, since he can't get at his money, and he has no real interest in professional Quidditch, but he glances through the whole thing out of habit.
Glancing over the top of his paper, he sees Viggo reading a magazine and sipping his mate. Lucius had been curious, so he'd asked if he could try it. He'd quickly regretted it; the stuff tasted like Skele-Gro as far as Lucius was concerned. He looks down again and a small item in the back pages makes him snort derisively.
Thinking that Lucius sounds much like he himself does when reading the paper, Viggo looks up and raises an eyebrow. "Nothing too bad, I hope."
"Nothing earth-shattering, certainly..." Lucius shrugs. "And I shouldn't be surprised that a Weasley's marrying a Mudblood...it's about what I'd expect from them."
Perhaps because he'd been enjoying the morning so far, because he'd felt that moment of comfortable domesticity that felt almost like breakfast with a friend, Viggo sees red. "Do not use that word in this house," he says coldly, trying to remember if Lucius has used it before.
Lucius looks up, frowning slightly. "What word?"
Viggo stares at Lucius for a moment before realizing that Lucius is serious. "'Mudblood,'" he says tightly.
"Oh...all right." Viggo is a Squib, yes, but he's still a pureblood--but he assumes it's one of Viggo's things, like going barefoot.
Narrowing his eyes, Viggo slams his magazine down on the table hard. "Even if I didn't find it offensive strictly because it's incredibly fucking racist," he snaps, "there is also the fact that my son is half Muggle."
Lucius had forgotten that, though in retrospect it makes sense. He's tried to distance himself from the wizarding world as much as possible; of course he wouldn't want to marry to a woman who was part of it in a way that he could never be. "I didn't realize that. I won't do it again, in that case."
"That you worry about offending me should be the last reason on your list," Viggo says, shoving his chair back and rising to his feet. "Do you really think adding Muggle blood to pure wizard blood makes it dirty somehow?"
Lucius opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again. Hadn't he said to Viggo not that long ago that Hermione Granger had done better than Draco in almost every subject at school? For that matter, his own sometime-lover, the person he was probably closer to than anyone outside his immediate family, is a half-blood. From that perspective, his attitude is irrational. But right now, Lucius doesn't feel like admitting that to Viggo. He's entirely too self-righteous as it is.
"What I think at the moment is that I am not interested in having this conversation right now," Lucius snaps back. He gets up. "As I am a guest in your home, I will certainly abide by your rules, but since it seems to distress you so much, perhaps I should go somewhere else."
Even in clothes from Land's End he walks like he's in robes, Viggo thinks as Lucius stalks off. Sighing, he boils more water for his mate and then heads upstairs, pausing to glance down the hall at the door of Lucius' room, before continuing on up to his studio.
I see him thinking things through and I want to like him. I've found myself being sympathetic and why not? He does seem to regret his earlier actions and even his allegiance to Voldemort. And yet...he's not a nice person. He's not a likable man. He shuts the door firmly. And I need to remember that.
Lucius catches himself before he slams the door to his room. He flops down on the bed and rolls over onto his stomach, picking idly at non-existent threads on the pillow. Holding out his hand, he whispers, "Lumos." Nothing happens.
For as long as he could remember, Lucius had been told that purity of blood mattered more than anything. The idea was as much a part of him as the color of his hair and eyes; but regardless of the angle he examined the problem from, he was forced to admit that not only were the most powerful wizards he knew almost all half-bloods or muggle-borns, but that the inbreeding of most pureblooded families had produced disastrous results. Bellatrix, of course, and the less said about the Crabbes and Goyles the better...and even Abraxas said in private that the Gaunts were among the dregs of the wizarding world.
Viggo was right, which meant that Lucius owed him an apology. This presented a problem, because one of the other things Lucius had been taught from childhood was that Malfoys don't admit to being wrong or to being sorry for anything other than getting caught. Lucius had apologized to the Dark Lord repeatedly and profusely, in between screams, for being careless with the diary, but the only thing he had been truly sorry for at the time was for indulging in an unnecessarily complex plan that reduced his chances for success. The difference here--aside from the fact that Viggo is attractive and the Dark Lord is most certainly not--is that he had begged his Master's forgiveness out of fear. With Viggo...
At some point, his opinion of me started to matter.
Some time later, Viggo realizes he's been either tidying up or staring at the same blank canvas for far too long. He doesn't like to deal with frustrations in his studio, plus he's hungry, and so he heads downstairs.
Once in the kitchen, he makes a sandwich, grabs a beer from the fridge and heads out to the garden, which, thanks to all the rain they've been having, needs weeding again. It's comforting to kneel in the damp grass and smell the rich, wet smell of the earth and the clean green smell of the plants around him. No wonder Sean likes gardening so much; it's something to do when you don't know what else to do.
It takes Lucius some time to steel himself for what he has to do. He's rehearsed it all in his head, but when he finally finds Viggo out in the yard, he's half-tempted to run back inside and concede defeat. No. That would be worse than having to confess to being wrong. He clears his throat. "Viggo...I...er...I owe you an apology. Several, actually."
Viggo may not be able to read minds, but he's a good student of body language. Lucius looks nervous--that he's not used to apologizing is obvious--and there's something about him that tells Viggo that he's sincere. Unconsciously borrowing a gesture from Aragorn, he nods his head and waits to hear what else Lucius has to say.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Lucius says, "First, I'm sorry for storming off like that. It was unacceptably childish." That was the easy one.
"Second...while I know that you said it wasn't the point. I am sorry for having been so thoughtless. I wouldn't intentionally insult you or your family."
"The third thing..." Lucius looks down, suddenly very interested in his feet. "I was wrong. You were right. It's stupid and nonsensical and I should know better. My only defense--and it's not much of one--is that it never occurred to me to question what I'd been told all my life: wizards are inherently superior to Muggles, and Malfoys are inherently superior to other wizards."
"Thank you," Viggo says gravely and if he's not using Aragorn's voice, he's calling on that part of himself for the right sense of formality that the moment seems to call for. "And I do apologize for speaking to you as if you were a child. I know it's not easy to cast off the attitudes of a lifetime and I do respect the effort."
Lucius shrugs a little. "I was acting like a child, so I can't really blame you." He starts to sit down on the deck, but hesitates. "May I sit?"
"Of course," Viggo says. He smiles a little. "Even if I treated you like a child, I'm hardly going to put you on a time out."
Lucius sits cross-legged on the deck, a little way from Viggo. "What's a 'time out'? "
"It's a parenting thing," Viggo says. "Comes from American football. When you give a kid a time out, you're basically sending them to their room for a certain amount of time. The idea is that everyone gets away from everyone else and has a chance to cool down and think."
"I see." Lucius smiles slightly. "Pity I never thought of doing that with Draco. I hated having to spank him, so when he misbehaved, I felt like my options were limited."
A little surprised that Lucius didn't spank his son, Viggo nods. I shouldn't be making assumptions like that; it's just as bad as the things he assumes. "God knows there are no real answers when it comes to kids."
Lucius runs a hand through his hair. "No, there aren't. I'd try not to repeat my father's mistakes, and then I'd hear his words coming out of my mouth when I would talk to Draco." The fear for his son hits Lucius again suddenly, like a punch to the gut. "Morgana, I hope he's all right."
Lucius' concern for his son puts things into perspective and Viggo suddenly realizes that he likes Lucius more now than he did this morning before they quarreled. Would have been able to set aside my prejudices and apologize if I were frantic about Henry?
"I can call Jan," he says. "See if he's heard anything about Draco or Mrs. Malfoy."
"I would appreciate that a great deal," Lucius says, looking up at Viggo, then stares down at his hands again. "It's ironic really...of everything he's done, I'm proudest of what he didn't do."
"I understand that," Viggo says quietly. That this proves that Lucius is a better father than his father isn't something that needs to be said right now, but Viggo figures it's true. "I'll call this evening," he says.
-tbc-
Authors: darkrosetiger and telesilla
Fandom/ Pairing: Harry Potter/Lotrips crossover; eventually Viggo/Lucius
Archive: Please ask.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Lucius has a hard time understanding why he shouldn't use the M word.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: You get two for the price of one here: 1) Not RL; didn't happen. If you think this has anything to do with the real people involved, then you need to put down the crack pipe. and probably seek professional help. 2) Neither of us is J.K. Rowling; if we were, we'd have a nicer car and live in San Francisco. This is her world, not ours. Are we clear here?
Notes: Quite a while ago, airgiodslv came up with thegoblins_library challenge, which was to write a Lotrips/Harry Potter crossover. At the time we said we'd do Viggo/Lucius, but then we didn't have the inspiration. Then we watched Goblet of Fire on DVD and got bitten by a persistent bunny. Many thanks go out to kyuuketsukirui for her excellent beta.
This is a fairly short chapter, but we hope to have Chapter Six to you soon. Thanks for your patience.
In order to bring some things into parallel, we've messed with the timing of events in the HP universe. Year One is now 2000. Collision begins in February, 2006, in the middle of what would be Year Seven of HP canon.
In order the stories are (please note that "Keeping Faith" and "Favor" overlap each other to some extent):
Dual Citizenship
Keeping Faith
Favor
Collision
After pouring more hot water into his gourd, Viggo settles back down at the kitchen table with the latest copy of The Nation. Lucius is reading the Daily Prophet and drinking tea, and Viggo finds the whole situation oddly domestic.
Lucius was almost disappointed when Viggo was able to get the Daily Prophet. He'd been doing a fairly good job of putting the war out of his mind as much as possible; now, he scans the paper every morning to see if anyone he knows has been killed, or if Severus, Draco, or Narcissa has been found. Aside from the news, the business section doesn't interest him much, since he can't get at his money, and he has no real interest in professional Quidditch, but he glances through the whole thing out of habit.
Glancing over the top of his paper, he sees Viggo reading a magazine and sipping his mate. Lucius had been curious, so he'd asked if he could try it. He'd quickly regretted it; the stuff tasted like Skele-Gro as far as Lucius was concerned. He looks down again and a small item in the back pages makes him snort derisively.
Thinking that Lucius sounds much like he himself does when reading the paper, Viggo looks up and raises an eyebrow. "Nothing too bad, I hope."
"Nothing earth-shattering, certainly..." Lucius shrugs. "And I shouldn't be surprised that a Weasley's marrying a Mudblood...it's about what I'd expect from them."
Perhaps because he'd been enjoying the morning so far, because he'd felt that moment of comfortable domesticity that felt almost like breakfast with a friend, Viggo sees red. "Do not use that word in this house," he says coldly, trying to remember if Lucius has used it before.
Lucius looks up, frowning slightly. "What word?"
Viggo stares at Lucius for a moment before realizing that Lucius is serious. "'Mudblood,'" he says tightly.
"Oh...all right." Viggo is a Squib, yes, but he's still a pureblood--but he assumes it's one of Viggo's things, like going barefoot.
Narrowing his eyes, Viggo slams his magazine down on the table hard. "Even if I didn't find it offensive strictly because it's incredibly fucking racist," he snaps, "there is also the fact that my son is half Muggle."
Lucius had forgotten that, though in retrospect it makes sense. He's tried to distance himself from the wizarding world as much as possible; of course he wouldn't want to marry to a woman who was part of it in a way that he could never be. "I didn't realize that. I won't do it again, in that case."
"That you worry about offending me should be the last reason on your list," Viggo says, shoving his chair back and rising to his feet. "Do you really think adding Muggle blood to pure wizard blood makes it dirty somehow?"
Lucius opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again. Hadn't he said to Viggo not that long ago that Hermione Granger had done better than Draco in almost every subject at school? For that matter, his own sometime-lover, the person he was probably closer to than anyone outside his immediate family, is a half-blood. From that perspective, his attitude is irrational. But right now, Lucius doesn't feel like admitting that to Viggo. He's entirely too self-righteous as it is.
"What I think at the moment is that I am not interested in having this conversation right now," Lucius snaps back. He gets up. "As I am a guest in your home, I will certainly abide by your rules, but since it seems to distress you so much, perhaps I should go somewhere else."
Even in clothes from Land's End he walks like he's in robes, Viggo thinks as Lucius stalks off. Sighing, he boils more water for his mate and then heads upstairs, pausing to glance down the hall at the door of Lucius' room, before continuing on up to his studio.
I see him thinking things through and I want to like him. I've found myself being sympathetic and why not? He does seem to regret his earlier actions and even his allegiance to Voldemort. And yet...he's not a nice person. He's not a likable man. He shuts the door firmly. And I need to remember that.
Lucius catches himself before he slams the door to his room. He flops down on the bed and rolls over onto his stomach, picking idly at non-existent threads on the pillow. Holding out his hand, he whispers, "Lumos." Nothing happens.
For as long as he could remember, Lucius had been told that purity of blood mattered more than anything. The idea was as much a part of him as the color of his hair and eyes; but regardless of the angle he examined the problem from, he was forced to admit that not only were the most powerful wizards he knew almost all half-bloods or muggle-borns, but that the inbreeding of most pureblooded families had produced disastrous results. Bellatrix, of course, and the less said about the Crabbes and Goyles the better...and even Abraxas said in private that the Gaunts were among the dregs of the wizarding world.
Viggo was right, which meant that Lucius owed him an apology. This presented a problem, because one of the other things Lucius had been taught from childhood was that Malfoys don't admit to being wrong or to being sorry for anything other than getting caught. Lucius had apologized to the Dark Lord repeatedly and profusely, in between screams, for being careless with the diary, but the only thing he had been truly sorry for at the time was for indulging in an unnecessarily complex plan that reduced his chances for success. The difference here--aside from the fact that Viggo is attractive and the Dark Lord is most certainly not--is that he had begged his Master's forgiveness out of fear. With Viggo...
At some point, his opinion of me started to matter.
Some time later, Viggo realizes he's been either tidying up or staring at the same blank canvas for far too long. He doesn't like to deal with frustrations in his studio, plus he's hungry, and so he heads downstairs.
Once in the kitchen, he makes a sandwich, grabs a beer from the fridge and heads out to the garden, which, thanks to all the rain they've been having, needs weeding again. It's comforting to kneel in the damp grass and smell the rich, wet smell of the earth and the clean green smell of the plants around him. No wonder Sean likes gardening so much; it's something to do when you don't know what else to do.
It takes Lucius some time to steel himself for what he has to do. He's rehearsed it all in his head, but when he finally finds Viggo out in the yard, he's half-tempted to run back inside and concede defeat. No. That would be worse than having to confess to being wrong. He clears his throat. "Viggo...I...er...I owe you an apology. Several, actually."
Viggo may not be able to read minds, but he's a good student of body language. Lucius looks nervous--that he's not used to apologizing is obvious--and there's something about him that tells Viggo that he's sincere. Unconsciously borrowing a gesture from Aragorn, he nods his head and waits to hear what else Lucius has to say.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Lucius says, "First, I'm sorry for storming off like that. It was unacceptably childish." That was the easy one.
"Second...while I know that you said it wasn't the point. I am sorry for having been so thoughtless. I wouldn't intentionally insult you or your family."
"The third thing..." Lucius looks down, suddenly very interested in his feet. "I was wrong. You were right. It's stupid and nonsensical and I should know better. My only defense--and it's not much of one--is that it never occurred to me to question what I'd been told all my life: wizards are inherently superior to Muggles, and Malfoys are inherently superior to other wizards."
"Thank you," Viggo says gravely and if he's not using Aragorn's voice, he's calling on that part of himself for the right sense of formality that the moment seems to call for. "And I do apologize for speaking to you as if you were a child. I know it's not easy to cast off the attitudes of a lifetime and I do respect the effort."
Lucius shrugs a little. "I was acting like a child, so I can't really blame you." He starts to sit down on the deck, but hesitates. "May I sit?"
"Of course," Viggo says. He smiles a little. "Even if I treated you like a child, I'm hardly going to put you on a time out."
Lucius sits cross-legged on the deck, a little way from Viggo. "What's a 'time out'? "
"It's a parenting thing," Viggo says. "Comes from American football. When you give a kid a time out, you're basically sending them to their room for a certain amount of time. The idea is that everyone gets away from everyone else and has a chance to cool down and think."
"I see." Lucius smiles slightly. "Pity I never thought of doing that with Draco. I hated having to spank him, so when he misbehaved, I felt like my options were limited."
A little surprised that Lucius didn't spank his son, Viggo nods. I shouldn't be making assumptions like that; it's just as bad as the things he assumes. "God knows there are no real answers when it comes to kids."
Lucius runs a hand through his hair. "No, there aren't. I'd try not to repeat my father's mistakes, and then I'd hear his words coming out of my mouth when I would talk to Draco." The fear for his son hits Lucius again suddenly, like a punch to the gut. "Morgana, I hope he's all right."
Lucius' concern for his son puts things into perspective and Viggo suddenly realizes that he likes Lucius more now than he did this morning before they quarreled. Would have been able to set aside my prejudices and apologize if I were frantic about Henry?
"I can call Jan," he says. "See if he's heard anything about Draco or Mrs. Malfoy."
"I would appreciate that a great deal," Lucius says, looking up at Viggo, then stares down at his hands again. "It's ironic really...of everything he's done, I'm proudest of what he didn't do."
"I understand that," Viggo says quietly. That this proves that Lucius is a better father than his father isn't something that needs to be said right now, but Viggo figures it's true. "I'll call this evening," he says.
-tbc-