The Seven Deadly Sins

Sin/Virtue: Pride and Humility
Characters: Severus Snape, Narcissa Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy
Author: LaBibliographe
Warnings: slash


Pride and Humility


by LaBibliographe

“Well, I’m here, Severus. What was it that was so urgent? And why can’t you send an owl like everyone else? Do you think Lucius can’t tell a raven when he sees one? He’ll want to know why you summoned me. He always wants to know everything. I hope it’s nothing that will make him angry,” Narcissa Malfoy glided through the opened door, shrugging off her fashionable red leather jacket and removing her matching gloves. She was curious at the demand that she come to his dingy little house, but irritated at the same time. This would make problems for her at home.

“Close the door,” Snape snapped. He stepped back a couple of paces to allow the graceful figure of his friend’s wife to enter his small, crowded living area, avoiding the petulant swing of her jacket as she took it off.

Narcissa frowned at the austere man, puzzled at his irascible command, but she pushed the door shut and threaded her way through a maze of obstacles. Most of the horizontal surfaces were covered in books – some open, some in stacks on the floor. Tucking her dress primly around her knees, she gingerly sat on the edge of his ancient sofa. When her dress was draped to her liking, she looked up at the tall, dark wizard eyeing her with a sardonic twist to his lips.

“Lucius knows you’re here. He got a raven, too.”

That surprised Narcissa. “Oh? He didn’t mention anything to me.”

Snape advanced into his living area, moving with sure steps through the piles of books. “I would be surprised if he had. Your husband never was one for giving out information that wasn’t necessary. In this case I can understand why.”

Narcissa was beginning to get a bad feeling about this odd, little trip of hers. She tried a smile that gained her nothing but a look of boredom tinged with disgust. “What is this about, Severus?” she said nervously.

Her host stood a few paces from her, balancing back and forth on his toes for a second or two, then he stood still, his arms crossed in a superior attitude. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed that the Daily Prophet has little to say about your family’s criminal involvement with the Dark Lord’s schemes, but that vicious rag hasn’t let up on me for killing Dumbledore, even after the truth came out. You realize that if you hadn’t forced that Unbreakable Vow on me, I wouldn’t be in this position?” He waved his hand toward the front of his small house, “It’s started again. I get gawkers and worse. Threats, hexes, and the occasional stone bounced off my windows.”

“Oh, are your windows charmed, then?” Narcissa looked with interest at the dingy panes of the two living area windows, avoiding the black eyes boring into her. A flush betrayed her guilt as her eyelids fluttered nervously. Really, all she’d done was make an innocent comment to her best friend Mimsy. It wasn’t her fault. Not at all.

“Pay attention, Narcissa. I performed your Unbreakable Vow. Draco is safe. The vaunted Malfoy name, while a bit tarnished around the edges, has come through unscathed. It is only I who am suffering. Again.”

“I’m sorry for your unmerited notoriety, of course, but what has it to do with me now? Why are you talking to me instead of Lucius?”

“I’m speaking to you because it was by your design that this has happened, not Lucius’.” Snape cast the pretty blonde a scowl that alarmed her. She half rose, thinking about leaving, but Snape forestalled her. “Lucius knows you are here, Narcissa,” he repeated, “and he knows why. I expect recompense for the misery you have caused me.”

Narcissa’s hand crept toward her throat, clasping her pearl necklace in fingers that trembled slightly, “Lucius knows…what?” she asked in a whisper.

“He knows what you are going to be doing for the next week,” Snape replied with a face set in stone.

“What? I have club meetings, opera tickets; I can’t fit anything else into my schedule this next week,” she stared in dismay.

“You’ve shredded my pride and my good name with your Unbreakable Vow. I did what you asked. And you have repaid me with rocks thrown at my house. Now you will do as I direct, for one full week. With Lucius’ blessing,” Snape added as if invoking her husband’s name made the coercion acceptable to the sophisticated, elegant woman.

“And if I don’t?” the haughty woman stood up, gathering her gloves and jacket to her.

“I have some letters Lucius wrote to the Dark Lord that would be disastrous in the wrong hands.” Snape’s smile was cruel. “He knows this and has sent you to redeem not only your own obligation to me, but to retrieve those documents for him through that redemption. I will remind you that the debt is yours. I am willing to give Lucius the letters when you satisfy your debt. So you both win. Go upstairs. First door on the left is your room. There is clothing in there for you to wear. Be back down here in fifteen minutes or I will come upstairs to get you.”

Narcissa stood irresolute for a few minutes until Snape said, “You’ve now lost three minutes. Don’t goad me into a physical punishment, Narcissa. You know I’m quite capable of it. And I want your wand.”

The elegant witch bit her lip in indecision. Snape saw her mind as clearly as if he were using legilimency. She was thinking she could leave. But where would she go? If Lucius had given his blessing to this petty payback, he would be very angry if she returned to the manor now. Was Snape telling the truth? He must be – Snape wouldn’t risk Lucius’ wrath by keeping her in this shabby, little home without her husband’s permission. The dark wizard smiled inwardly when he saw her accept that she was caught. A lesson in humility was sorely needed and Snape’s lacerated pride demanded it.

Narcissa dug her wand out of her handbag and passed it over, then slowly moved toward the rickety staircase in the corner, ascending and disappearing into the room Snape had said.

Snape stood still in the middle of his living area, listening for any footfalls in the tiny bedroom. He heard Narcissa’s heels clicking across the bare floor and he relaxed. She was submitting. Good. He walked down the small hall to his small, bare kitchen and pulled a bottle of firewhiskey from a cupboard, quickly pouring himself a shot of the fiery liquor and downing it before moving back into the living area to await his new slavey. He tucked her wand into his waistband.


*****


One minute before the deadline, Narcissa opened her new bedroom door and descended the stairs again, affronted anger in every stomp of the old Wellingtons on her feet, which had replaced her red stilettos. “This is what you want me to wear? It’s nothing but old rags.”

“Perfect attire for your new position as my slavey and maid of all work. You may begin by taking each book in this room and placing it on those shelves in the back. They’re all to be in order by author. Use those cloths on that table to dust each one first. Dust all the shelves first, too. When you’ve finished that, I’ll have your next assignment.”

“You want me to do menial labor? My hands will be cut up and my manicure ruined. I don’t think Lucius meant you to use me this way.” Narcissa’s lips thinned with her dislike, but when he took a step toward her, she scuttled to the cloths and picked them up. With a defiant toss of her lacquered curls, she selected the nearest pile of books and began lifting them one by one, running a cloth over each and placing it on a shelf.

“Narcissa, dust the shelves first. Do you have no common sense?” He strode to his front door, wrapped himself in his outer robes and spoke briskly, “I will return in three hours. I expect all the books to be returned to their correct places by then.” Without giving the witch a chance to reply he disappeared out his door.

“Low class bastard,” she muttered, but she dusted the shelves and began organizing the books.

For the next five days, Snape ran her ragged with every conceivable dirty, disgusting job he could invent, from scooping the neighborhood cats’ leavings out of his backyard to scrubbing out the lone toilet in his home using only the ubiquitous cloths. Her hands became chapped and her nails were chipped and scuffed. Her knees hurt from kneeling to scrub his wooden floors. At night she was forced to sleep in her tiny, grimy room on the creaky bedstead that made a horrible screeching noise every time she moved. The sheets smelled like there had been many guests before her, none acquainted with soap and water.

On the fifth day, Snape generously gave her the choice to clean up her own bedroom linen and his, using a laundry tub and a clothesline instead of scrubbing the kitchen floor again. Narcissa was so tired by then she mutely gathered the sheets and pillowcases and trudged down to the back porch, where she came to a halt. She hadn’t any idea how to do laundry. She started to cry.

If the exercise was to steal her pride and make her humiliated and humbled, Snape had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. She was beyond tired, every pore ached and she couldn’t remember that last time she’d pulled a comb through her hair. The lacquered curls were gone, the locks were all greasy and wrapped like a turban in one of the horrible cloths; she rather thought she could smell her scalp.

Snape had vetoed her request for a bath. She could feel herself sticking together in very unpleasant places and could hardly bear the aroma wafting up from her rag ensemble. Narcissa could only hope getting the letters back for her husband would dissipate his obvious anger at her careless remarks. Sometimes he was not a nice man. She was going to kill that blabbermouth, Mimsy.

Narcissa began desperately counting each dreary tick of the clock of her servitude. Forty-eight more hours of mending Snape’s pride by tearing hers into threadbare tatters – only forty-eight more hours and the frightening letters would be returned to her husband. Then she could go home and never come to this forsaken hovel again. Lucius could stay friends with the arsehole if he wanted; she hoped never to be asked to come here again. Did Lucius know exactly what he had let her in for? She certainly hadn’t known when she answered Snape’s summons.

Finally, the longed for hour of her freedom came and Narcissa threw down the hated cloths, ripped the one off her matted hair and gingerly donned her expensive garments once more. They would have to be burned when she got home.

Snape wasn’t home. He had left her alone nearly every waking hour of slaving away, except to bring her a variety of carryouts for meals. The full seven days were done. She waited for him to come back so she could leave.


*****


The moment Snape walked in the door, Narcissa saw he was well aware she was finished. He didn’t have a carryout sack for her and he had a sardonic smile on his face.

“Your escape is at hand, I see,” he sniffed, bored. “I acknowledge your recompense to me is paid. Take my advice and don’t try to earn a living as a housekeeper. You have neither the aptitude nor the ability to excel in that field, but your work was adequate. Perhaps a little less starch in the shirt collars. Tell Lucius hello for me and his correspondence is available to be picked up whenever he wishes. I sent your wand to him.” He stepped to the side and threw the front door open for her.

Narcissa didn’t need a second invitation. She stalked through the portal and immediately disapparated.


*****


“Well, how is our Severus?” Lucius asked his wife that evening. She had come home and disappeared into their bathroom for hours only reappearing when it was time for dinner.

“He’s decided that the incriminating letters from you to Voldemort need never see the light of day,” Narcissa smiled grimly across the dining table. “He’ll give them to you when you want to retrieve them.” She glowered at her husband, “I won’t visit that horrid man ever again, Lucius. You may go if you wish, but without me. I’ve just spent the most demeaning week of my life in service for you, in repaying my old debt for Draco’s safety, and for my totally innocent comment, but if you ever write another incriminating letter, you are on your own. It will take me weeks to fix my hands. Look at them. They’re red!”

After listening with sympathetic clucks to her tale of woe, Lucius peered at the hands in question and tutted, “You obviously need a week’s recuperation at the Golden Hind Spa in Athens. Go as soon as you like, my dear. You’ve more than earned it. Take another week or two and visit the couturiers in Rome and Paris. Pick out a few gowns and some lingerie for me to enjoy.” He lifted her work-roughened hands and kissed the backs tenderly, seeing his wife’s face light up with avaricious joy at the carte blanche she was given for her wardrobe. “But,” he cautioned, “the whip awaits if you ever cause trouble again with unguarded remarks.” Lucius’ gray eyes flashed and Narcissa blanched, meekly nodding her understanding.

The mood at the table lightened and Lucius reminisced about a trip to Greece they had taken a few years before. Narcissa’s essentially frivolous nature bounded back and she rejoiced. She loved that spa, but it was very expensive. The spa treatments would settle her nerves and bring back the luster to her looks. Narcissa felt she was owed the treat for her submissive, painful humbling in the face of Snape’s torn pride.

Lucius smiled fondly at his wife, quite pleased with the way it had all turned out - for everyone. He usually didn’t like to cause Narcissa pain, but he had found it was sometimes the only way to impress important concepts on her, and her ignoble remarks against Snape went beyond what was pleasing in a Malfoy.


*****


Snape lay with his head gently rising and falling on the diaphragm of his lover, idly tracing with his finger, one of the slowly pulsing veins running from the tip to the root of the large, replete cock he had just finished sucking. The back of his throat was still throbbing from the vigorous thrusts he’d accepted, but he was smiling.

“I had a wonderful time with her, Lucius. She looked so forlorn with the dustrag over her hair, cleaning up all the dust I scattered, beating those old rugs I bought from the ragman, and washing the windows. I must admit she did a thorough job of cleaning all the filth I created for her in the house and yard. With no magic.”

Lucius lay leaning indolently against the headboard of Snape’s big bed, sifting his fingers through the midnight tresses of his lover. “She said she had done a yeoman’s work for you.” Lucius idly drew his other hand across the expanse of white cotton by his hip, “And she cleaned these sheets with no help from a house elf. I’m amazed.” Lucius’ fingers stilled, “Did you fuck her, Severus?”

“What did she say?” Snape raised his head to look at the blond.

Lucius grimaced in embarrassed chagrin, “I didn’t ask her.”

Snape eyed his soulmate cynically. “Then why are you turning masochist and asking me?” he probed. “Are you concerned that your wife slept with another man or are you worried that your male lover slept with someone else?”

Lucius sighed, “Honestly, I don’t know. Neither…both.” He shook his head, “Forget I asked.”

Snape slid up beside the blond wizard and kissed his cheek, tenderly cradling the handsome blond’s conflicted face between his hands. “How could I have been rutting with her when I spent all last week with you? I only saw her long enough to hand her the carryout sacks.” He leaned in and inhaled, enjoying both the warmth and the rich, male scent of the man he loved. “If she asks, tell her I returned those incriminating letters to you. I don’t want to be bothered trying to remember if I’m holding such inflammatory documents or not. It will be much easier to tell Narcissa that you burned them.”

“Very well. You didn’t describe how many or anything, did you?”

“No. Exit one set of make-believe letters.” They grinned at each other conspiratorially. There never had been any letters.

Lucius laughed in sheer joy and sat up. Fine, gray eyes skimmed down his lover’s torso, finding exactly what he wanted, standing rigid in a nest of black curls. “Let me turn over, my love.” Lucius’ smooth, soft diction shivered down Severus’ nerve endings and erotic expectation made the Halfblood’s engorged cock jump.

The blond chuckled, “Then you can take care of that massive erection you’re waving around.” Lucius leaned down and darted a lascivious lick up the dark-haired wizard’s burgeoning hopes, dropping a kiss on the broad tip. “Narcissa won’t be back for at least three weeks, if I know her and her spending habits. Would you like to go skinny dipping in the indoor pool at home later?” Lucius seductively brushed up against Severus as he languidly turned onto his stomach, then came up onto his hand and knees, offering his tight, ivory bum to his lover.

“Your idea was inspired, Lucius.” Snape gently pulled Lucius’ pale hair back from his face, enjoying the fine, silky texture. The dark-haired wizard was very proud of his lover’s Machiavellian mind and gave him full credit. Severus knew Lucius loved Narcissa and he would have to share the charismatic man with her always, but Lucius was a true bisexual where Snape was not. Neither was Narcissa. Lucius needed them both.

The soignée witch had transgressed with her petty remarks to her society friend about urban blight and Snape’s modest home, stirring up the irrational sentiment against the ex-potions master again with hexes and rocks bouncing off his house. Lucius had refused to condone or ignore her behavior. Her humble payback had been delicious and long overdue for the Halfblood.

“Narcissa will never want to come here with you again,” crowed Snape. “No more irritating chitchat and bad card-playing once a month when all I really ever want to do is bury myself here,” Snape teased Lucius with an exploratory finger pressing on his puckered target.

“Gods, Sev, get the lubricant, don’t make me wait,” Lucius pleaded, his voice rising, betraying his hot, ardent nature to his loving tormentor.

Snape smiled. Always so impatient. Narcissa provided something Lucius needed, but it wasn’t the same as what Snape could give his lover, using his greater strength to stroke the elegant wizard’s frenetic energy and release the excesses of his active libido. Narcissa knew nothing of Lucius’ other side. The few times she had suspected, Snape had obliviated her knowledge with her husband’s blessing. It was better for all of them that way.

Severus knelt behind Lucius, kissed each firm, male glute and sighed in pleasure. His, all his, for the next three weeks. And without Narcissa coming over with her husband once a month, Poker Night now took on a salacious new meaning. He grinned in happy contemplation of the future. Life was good - very, very good.

The End