Ensnared
Another fic, somewhat happier, although still dark...but this time, the dark was requested, so no need to worry about my apparently excessively depressive tendencies...really, I'm usually a very happy person, as most people can testify!
Title: Ensnared
Summary: Written for Lee, who requested a Lucius fic, with vines
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 561
Lucius stood before the ruins of Malfoy Manor, regarding the tumbled stones and warped metal with a seemingly detached expression. To a casual observer, it would seem that the ruin of the house that had witnessed his birth, and that of his son, and of countless ancestors, meant no more to him that the death of a bee. He tapped his cane against the cracked cobbles, once, twice, three times, each blow hammering through Severus’ heart. This man, hair as magnificent in its blazing white as it had been when bright silver, stance revealing nothing of scars, shatters kneecaps and torn tendons, had the fortitude to stand before the symbolic crushing of all that he had once held dear; yet he showed not a tremor.
Severus could feel his pulse racing, though, as he held tight onto Lucius’ arm, just nigh of his elbow. It was racing, running over itself to thump out the number of beats allocated to it at the man’s birth. Despite this cardiac activity, which would have caused flushed many stronger man, the last surviving member of the Malfoy family stayed as pale as the marble that had stubbornly resisted the dirt and erosion that was threatening to encroach. Severus felt flattered that he was the one to whom such weakness was revealed; but then, neither of them had any other to collapse on to, and it was never fully understood between the two of them whether Lucius needed Severus to keep him from falling, or if he instead gave the dark man the privilege of holding on.
Snaking through the stones, connecting the rubble with fine, green, living lace, were the furious, languorous vines of Devil’s Snare. It had climbed its way up to the remaining wall of Draco’s bedroom, and provided a verdant roof for the ground-floor room where Severus had first hissed his lovers name as Lucius had grazed sharp, white teeth over his angled shoulder. Lucius had draped himself over Severus just as the vine now did over the ruin; and had managed to ensnare himself around his lover’s heart just as easily, so that it almost stopped the blood from rushing away.
Lucius’ gaze shifted, up to the room where his son had slept and cried and screamed out against his father. Lucius had been utterly, unforgivably wrong in sacrificing his son to the cause of that snake-faced, mindless megalomaniacal lunatic, who in the end brought only misery and desolation to those who followed, unwaveringly till the last. The snare around Severus’ heart had almost been wrenched off by the end, after Albus’ death; the month after, though, the Dementors had disappeared, and Lucius arrived on Severus’ stoop, shaking and crying and begging for forgiveness. Snape hadn’t given it - it would have broken the both of them, and he needed Lucius to hold on to, now that Potter’s Army was coming up over the crest of the hill, wands ready, with the first curses already dancing off into the air in arcs of red and gold and bright, glorious Slytherin green.
After, when the strangely dignified corpses were taken away, and the land scoured and sown with salt, and all the white marble exploded and sent powdering off into the wind; as the sun set on the glory and the horror that had been the Malfoys; after, the Devil’s Snare remained.
Title: Ensnared
Summary: Written for Lee, who requested a Lucius fic, with vines
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 561
Lucius stood before the ruins of Malfoy Manor, regarding the tumbled stones and warped metal with a seemingly detached expression. To a casual observer, it would seem that the ruin of the house that had witnessed his birth, and that of his son, and of countless ancestors, meant no more to him that the death of a bee. He tapped his cane against the cracked cobbles, once, twice, three times, each blow hammering through Severus’ heart. This man, hair as magnificent in its blazing white as it had been when bright silver, stance revealing nothing of scars, shatters kneecaps and torn tendons, had the fortitude to stand before the symbolic crushing of all that he had once held dear; yet he showed not a tremor.
Severus could feel his pulse racing, though, as he held tight onto Lucius’ arm, just nigh of his elbow. It was racing, running over itself to thump out the number of beats allocated to it at the man’s birth. Despite this cardiac activity, which would have caused flushed many stronger man, the last surviving member of the Malfoy family stayed as pale as the marble that had stubbornly resisted the dirt and erosion that was threatening to encroach. Severus felt flattered that he was the one to whom such weakness was revealed; but then, neither of them had any other to collapse on to, and it was never fully understood between the two of them whether Lucius needed Severus to keep him from falling, or if he instead gave the dark man the privilege of holding on.
Snaking through the stones, connecting the rubble with fine, green, living lace, were the furious, languorous vines of Devil’s Snare. It had climbed its way up to the remaining wall of Draco’s bedroom, and provided a verdant roof for the ground-floor room where Severus had first hissed his lovers name as Lucius had grazed sharp, white teeth over his angled shoulder. Lucius had draped himself over Severus just as the vine now did over the ruin; and had managed to ensnare himself around his lover’s heart just as easily, so that it almost stopped the blood from rushing away.
Lucius’ gaze shifted, up to the room where his son had slept and cried and screamed out against his father. Lucius had been utterly, unforgivably wrong in sacrificing his son to the cause of that snake-faced, mindless megalomaniacal lunatic, who in the end brought only misery and desolation to those who followed, unwaveringly till the last. The snare around Severus’ heart had almost been wrenched off by the end, after Albus’ death; the month after, though, the Dementors had disappeared, and Lucius arrived on Severus’ stoop, shaking and crying and begging for forgiveness. Snape hadn’t given it - it would have broken the both of them, and he needed Lucius to hold on to, now that Potter’s Army was coming up over the crest of the hill, wands ready, with the first curses already dancing off into the air in arcs of red and gold and bright, glorious Slytherin green.
After, when the strangely dignified corpses were taken away, and the land scoured and sown with salt, and all the white marble exploded and sent powdering off into the wind; as the sun set on the glory and the horror that had been the Malfoys; after, the Devil’s Snare remained.