Lucius and the Waif - COMPLETE

The character of Lucius Malfoy belongs to J.K.Rowling. I am only borrowing him for a while. No copyright transgressions are intended and no profit is made.
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Chapter Seventeen – Trading Stories


The morning after her initiation into their new bargain, Lea had rounded on him indignantly, “You aren’t playing fair. You gagged me with that quirt handle on purpose. You set me up to fail!”


Lucius affected a bored look, “Acquit me, my dear. I merely gave you a choice. Fight me or fade. You chose to fade. You made the wrong choice, and I think you won’t make that same mistake again soon, will you?”


Then his face became an angry mask of contempt, “And don’t ever tell me I’m not playing fair again. Who has stolen every sexual encounter away from me for the past six months? Who played least in sight mentally whenever I tried to partake of my end of our old bargain?”


Lea trembled with fear at his anger and lunged forward into his arms, surprising Lucius. “I’m sorry, you know I am. It just hurt last night.” She wrapped her arms around his waist burying her face in his shirtfront. Her words were muffled in his chest, “I’m mad at you, Lucius. It hurt.”


Lucius hugged her against him and rested his chin on her head, “I know,” he sighed, “and unfortunately, it’s probably going to hurt again. You have a very strong personality, you know. You are going to be a hard one to break.”


Lea just hugged him tighter, silently acknowledging his right to continue with his plans, but she shivered just the same. It wasn’t lost on her that Lucius gained his own pleasure from subjecting her to their new bargain. She decided her cooperation was going to be her present to him for her meanspirited behavior before. She just hoped he didn’t kill her before he cured her.

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Lucius wasn’t about to attempt to have normal sex with Lea again until she could be counted on not to go away mentally. He wasn’t a masochist for one thing - well, not much at any rate, he smiled, remembering some lovely exceptions - and he had had enough of the missionary position to last him for a lifetime. Instead, he had Lea relearn not to go glassy-eyed while giving him oral sex, although that single-note type of sex was quickly starting to become less thrilling, too. He was going to have to change that.


On other fronts, Lucius was actually enjoying teaching her more advanced subjects to supplement her increased reading skills which kept him sane - that, and running his businesses and working out more and more. Sometimes Lea joined him in his workouts now, but her company was bittersweet when he had to watch her muscles moving and getting sweaty. It was sometimes a payback of torture for him. She had decided she wanted to learn how to braid her hair like he did for exercising; having her fingers in his hair and having to run his own fingers through hers were also making him crazy.


Lea was abysmally ignorant of any mathematics, so Lucius began instructing her in the rudiments of arithmetic also. Their days went by happily enough, and if the nights were still mostly scary and painful for Lea, she coped, knowing that Lucius was doing his best to modify her behavior away from the protective pathways she had learned in self-defense, and which were robbing her of a normal life. With him, she hoped.


One morning at breakfast, Lea asked Lucius why so many inmates, including him, had the same tattoo. “Is it a prison club of some sort?” she asked. “Or is the magic community just very unimaginative, and everyone who wants a tattoo gets the same one?” she joked.


Lucius had foreseen her asking that question and others about his prison sentence long ago. However, she had never asked him anything personal, keeping him at a comfortable distance, and he had finally stopped planning what he would, or would not, tell her. So she blindsided him with the question.


“So we are now allowed to ask each other personal questions?” Lucius inquired, stalling.


Lea blushed and looked away, “No, of course not. I’m sorry.”


Lucius reached over and covered her hand with his. Lea looked up at him wonderingly. “I am willing to share some of my life with you, if you will do the same.” Lucius wanted to know about her parents and was willing to trade some of his sordid past if he could gain better information from her than his solicitors had been able to unearth.


“I would like that, but I don’t have much to offer. I’ve lived here all my life.” Lea shrugged.


Lucius wanted her to tell her information first, reasoning if her parentage wasn’t satisfactory, he didn’t have to tell her much about himself because she wouldn’t be playing a significant role in his life out of prison. “Tell me about your family, then. What was your mother’s name?”


“Her name was Mara…Mara Walford.” Lea screwed up her face, trying to remember. “That was my father’s last name too. He was a prisoner here. That’s why she came here. To be with him. I think she was pregnant with me.”


Lucius was silently whistling in his mind. Walford! One of the original Death Eaters. He had been sent to Azkaban years ago for life, because of his involvement with a mass murder of Muggles when Voldemort was just coming into power. Lucius hadn’t known him well, because he had been preoccupied with his own new marriage. Lea was probably pureblood, unless her mother wasn’t, or if her mother had played Jonah Walford false. If her mother had come to stay with her husband and live at Azkaban with him, she probably had been faithful. He didn’t know as much about her mother, but now he could have his solicitors trace her background.


“Did your father have a tattoo like mine? Do you remember?”


Lea’s eyes widened, “Yes, he did. I remember now. It’s been so long. I think he died when I was four or five. My mother didn’t like to talk about him after he died. I don’t know why.” Lea sighed, “He loved me and I miss him, but I don’t remember him very well. My mother and I cried when he died, but then she got mad if I talked about him. So I stopped. After he died, we moved to the little room I have now, and my mother started leaving me alone a lot. Sometimes the guards would come to our room and tell my mother she had to go see the Warden. She always came back sad. I didn’t know why then, but I do now. The Warden made her service him and the prisoners and then he got paid a share from them. My mother said he wouldn’t let us leave until we repaid our room and board. But she never got enough money. Then she died almost three years ago, and the Warden told me the same thing. Looking back, I think my mother did whatever he said to protect me.” Lea said bitingly, “I never got enough money either. Not until you paid him off. For that I thank you.”


Lucius failed to mention that he hadn’t needed to actually pay the Warden and merely said, “The Warden will never touch you again. And I do believe his future is going to be rather brief. He has been pimping here for personal gain in direct violation of the Ministry rules.” Lucius had used a combination of bribes and threats over the years to get whatever he wanted from the Warden. He knew very well that the Warden wasn’t going to annoy him to the point where the old villain lost his chance of more bribe money. But Lucius was extremely angry that the Warden had violated and used Lea who was completely innocent and a helpless victim. Lucius’ flexible conscience didn’t acknowledge that he might be guilty of the same conduct.


Lea noticed Lucius hadn’t said the Warden’s future at the prison but just his future. She had a lot of personal experience knowing that Lucius was very precise in what he said. Lea smiled with cold approval at her wizard. She wasn’t the least bit concerned about the vicious old Warden’s probable fate. “Am I allowed to ask you some questions now?”


Lucius nodded graciously, keeping his hand on hers. He started to gently rub the back of her hand, partly because he wanted to touch her, and partly to distract her from asking too many questions. Lucius wasn’t a Slytherin for nothing; his libido was pure Slytherin as well.


Lea asked Lucius again about the tattoo. She wanted to know even more now that she had remembered her father’s tattoo.


Lucius sighed. Where to begin? How much to say? His mind was racing at its peak, processing his options. He didn’t want to tarnish the memory of her father for her. It would serve no purpose and possibly diminish both of them in her eyes. Lucius’ keen brain found a path for himself through his wretched history.


“You know about Muggles, I assume.” Lucius began cautiously. Lea nodded. “My tattoo signifies a group of wizards and witches who dislike mixing Muggle blood with those with magical abilities.


“Do you not like Muggles?” Lea dared to ask.


Lucius stared at her thoughtfully for a moment, then he answered her carefully, “I think that in the last hundred years, Muggles have started to strangle the magic world. In ancient times it was easy to co-exist, because except for occasional mistakes where witches or wizards showed their abilities and were killed, our community was largely unknown and we thrived.


“In recent times, the Muggles have advanced their own ways of controlling their world to the point where it is getting extremely difficult to stay hidden from their depredations. The magic community is everywhere but we are slowly losing our physical space, and our way of life. We must do something or we will cease to exist. I chose a path to try to save my world and it didn’t work. It was perhaps wrong of me, but I felt I had to do something to halt the erosion of our community.”


“What exactly did you do to get sent to Azkaban?” Lea had finally asked the question that Lucius expected.


“I was caught in a raid on the lower floors of the Ministry of Magic, trying to stop a wizard from attacking my leader. Many artifacts were ruined in the fight. I was trapped there before I could escape, and was sent here as punishment.” Lucius stopped and removed his hand from hers.


Lea knew there was a great deal more to the story that she would have to spend a lot of time winkling out of Lucius if she wanted to know what he wasn’t saying. And she had no real guarantee that he would tell her everything, or even the truth.


Lea wanted to be a part of Lucius’ life but she wasn’t unaware of his dark side. Strangely, that dark side called to something in her sometimes, which disturbed her. She didn’t like those feelings in herself, but she accepted Lucius’ leanings without a qualm. If she was truthful with herself, she was sometimes attracted to that part of him, as well as his keen, complex mind and his beautiful looks. Up until now, she had wanted to stay with him because he represented a new safe place for her. What she had never wanted to happen was happening despite her resistance – she was falling in love with the powerful sorcerer. That made her more afraid than anything that had gone before.
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A/N: At this point in the story, I was reminded of an Andrew Lloyd Webber song called, "I Don't Know How to Love Him", which describes Lea and her feelings perfectly.