Learning

A/N: Thank you to my first reviewer, tambrathegreat; you really are! The title of this chapter comes from the amazing song of the same name by The Decemberists. I hope everyone is enjoying reading this fic as much as I’m enjoying writing it.
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Pris used Lucius’ telephone, a thing he still had yet to touch, to call in to her workplace and beg off the next few days. She told her boss she was sick, even coughed a bit to play up her fake illness, and Lucius had to wonder how much practice she’d had at this sort of thing. How many times had she done exactly this, faking maladies in order to recover from her injuries in private? He knew Pris was no delicate flower like Narcissa had been, but the thought of her doing something like this on such a regular basis that she seemed almost bored irritated him. When she came out of the kitchen, cordless phone in hand, he couldn’t help the scowl from marring his features.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, placing the receiver on the cradle.

“Have you done this often? Called your employer and lied to save yourself the embarrassment of being seen in public like that?” he returned, gesturing with sharp movements to her bruised cheek and eye.

She flushed and looked anywhere but at him. “Yes.”

The admission didn’t surprise him, not really. He’d known she’d done it before, when he’d overheard her call. Her voice never waivered, her speech sounded rehearsed to his ears. It still made his stomach clench in the way it did when he witnessed something tragic.

“Hmm,” he intoned. “I see. Pris?”

“Yes?”

“Go home, pack a bag for your stay, and come right back. When you get here, you are to lie down on the couch and rest, am I understood?”

She gawked at him. Was he giving her orders? “Umm… alright.”

Lucius tilted his head forward and frowned at her. “Don’t dawdle.”

“I’m going, I going!” she sighed, brushing past him to the front door. “Leave this unlocked, if you don’t mind.” Lucius nodded, and she stepped outside into the hot July sun without a backward glance.

Well, he thought, this is going to be interesting.

…………

Perhaps the thing Lucius admired most about Pris was her candid nature. With her, what you saw was what you got, and if Pris was upset with him, she made sure to let him know it. He was afraid he’d been a bit harsh with her in practically ordering her to bed rest earlier, and he thought when she returned she would be angry.

Such was not the case. Pris walked into his house with her nose in a book and a small bag that was full to bursting. He watched her toss the bag onto the floor beside the couch and lie down, all without pulling her eyes from the pages of the novel. She only looked at him when he picked up her luggage and grunted at how much it weighed.
“What have you got in here?” he queried, frowning at her. She was looking at him over the top of her book, and he thought he saw the corners of her eyes squint in amusement.

“That’s just my overnight bag. If I’d been staying here any longer, we might need the dolly.”

Now he was sure of it. She was laughing at him from behind the book.

…………

The rest of their day together passed quickly. They didn’t talk at great length, but they never had, and so the silences were comfortable. Late that evening, after a light supper, Pris lay sprawled out on Lucius’ couch in her nightclothes. In her hands was the book she’d been reading all afternoon, and he was increasingly curious as to the content. He’d managed a glimpse or two at the cover from his position in the armchair across from her, but it was sufficiently ambiguous. Time’s Captive it read in bold, black lettering. A pair of shackles rendered in shiny earth tones adorned the front. Could it be a horror novel? Adventure? Suspense?

“It’s a romance novel. You’ve practically burned a hole in the back of it with your eyes, Lucius,” she said when his mouth dropped open in surprise.

“I wasn’t aware I was staring,” he muttered, and picked at an invisible piece of lint on his immaculate shirt in embarrassment.

“I don’t think you’ve blinked in the last few minutes.” He heard the laughter in her voice, and he couldn’t help but twist his lips in a wry smile.

“So you’ve been watching me closely then, have you?” It was said in jest, to needle her as she was needling him. He wasn’t prepared for the blush that stained her cheeks.

“Well, it’s hard to ignore you when you’re staring me down like that,” she countered defensively. Her eyes immediately returned to the book, and there was an odd moment of awkward silence.

“My wife used to read those,” he found himself saying, regretting it instantly. He had just wanted to break the quiet between them; he hadn’t meant to divulge information about his past. Lucius dreaded the day he’d have to tell Pris something, anything about his life before he’d met her. He was quite content in the bubble he’d made here with his non-magical friend, and the key to its continued stability was, in his eyes, Pris’ ignorance of the man he’d once been.

“I think she read them to escape the reality that was our long, loveless marriage.” He cringed even as the words left his mouth. What was he thinking?

“I… that’s awful, Lucius. Why would you stay married to someone you don’t love?” she asked, setting her book aside and sitting up on the couch.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “We had a son to raise. Why would you stay married for so long to a man who beat you black and blue? We all do things for a reason, Pris, even if it is a bad one, and sometimes we cannot see the error of our ways until it is too late.”

Pris got the feeling that Lucius was alluding to something other than his marriage, or hers, but let it slide.

“You are right about that,” she nodded in agreement.

Lucius’ lips pulled back into a well-practiced smirk of self-satisfaction. “Indeed.”

“Try not to look too smug about it,” she chided playfully.

“I’ve been told ‘smug’ is my best look.” And just like that, he had steered the conversation away from dangerous territory. Or so he thought.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pris continued. “I think I prefer ‘disarmingly intense’.”

Lucius furrowed his brows. “And how does that one go?”

She tilted her head forward and stared at him from underneath her eyelashes. He copied her actions, and she grinned.

“That’s the one. It’s your eyes, I think. They’re very expressive.” She was blushing again.

Her words, as well as her reaction to them, gave him pause. No one had ever described Lucius Malfoy’s eyes as ‘expressive’. Icy, cold, the shade of the sky on a dreary winter morning, perhaps. He’d even heard his gaze likened to the color of a headstone. All of these had been appropriate in his Death Eater Days, of course, but now his eyes were ‘expressive’? He wanted to ask, “And what, exactly, do they say?”, but he wasn’t sure he’d like the answer, so he simply smiled at her in return.

Just then, Pris’ mouth split into a wide yawn, and she brought a hand up to cover it.

“Oh, my goodness,” she breathed. “It must be getting late.”

Lucius checked his wristwatch, a gift from Pris, and nodded. “It’s ten-thirty. I’ll stay up a bit longer, I think. Your miscreant of an ex-husband may yet show.” They had been watching for the arrival of Bill’s pickup truck from their vantage point in Lucius’ living room, but he hadn’t returned to finish what he’d started with Pris the night before.

“If he does, you call the police.”

Lucius nodded, but there was a look in his eye…

“I’m serious, Lucius. Call the police. Don’t you dare try to confront him, or I will be very angry.” Her tone brokered no argument, and Pris always meant what she said. She closed her book and stood, stretching stiff legs.

“I will call the authorities, Pris,” Lucius conceded. As much as he wanted to argue with her, he knew she was right. Of course she was. His bubble of contentment demanded he remain low-key, and knocking her ex’s lights out was definitely a high-profile action. Besides, he planned to avoid a return trip to jail, magical or muggle, if it was at all humanly possible.

Pris yawned again, and Lucius rolled his eyes. “Oh, go to bed, already,” he ribbed. She was swaying lightly on her feet, so he put a hand on her arm to steady her. She glanced down at his hand and then into his eyes.

“Thank you for everything, Lucius,” she murmured. “Wake me if Bill shows up?”

He nodded. “Goodnight, Miss Pris.” He had taken to calling her that when he was feeling particularly cheeky. It always made her smile, and this time was no exception.

“Goodnight, Mr. Malfoy.”

Lucius dropped his hand, and he watched her walk down the small hallway to the guestroom. When she reached the door she looked back, surprised to see him still staring at her. Even in the dim light, he knew she was blushing. He liked to see the flush creep up her neck and cheeks like a wildfire, he realized, and it pleased him to no end that he was the cause of that reaction. He grinned broadly at her, and she smiled timidly in return before entering the room and closing the door.

…………

He’d waited until midnight for the coward to show, but Lucius’ eyes had started to close of their own volition, so he trudged down the hall to his room and fell into a fitful sleep. His rest was nightly plagued by dreams and visions of his past life. This evening was no different. He saw himself in his Death Eater’s mask, chasing a muggle girl down a dark alleyway. He could hear her frightened, rapid breathing, and his dream self smiled in anticipation. The girl cut to the right and found herself trapped between a rock and a hard place. Lucius stepped behind her, watching with amusement as his considerable shadow dwarfed the girl, who’d pressed her back into the brick wall that was the alley’s end.

“Come now. I won’t harm you, I promise,” his dream self said. The girl, hidden in shadow, lifted her chin.

“No.” The word, uttered without hesitation, caused his dream self to grab the girl by her delicate jaw.

“No matter. I’ll enjoy breaking your spirit, along with your body.” With that, he pulled the girl from the darkness into the dim streetlight. It was Pris.

Lucius awoke with a start.

As soon as he realized he was in his own room, he glanced at his bedside clock. 2 a.m. With a groan he rolled onto his side and took a deep breath. While his dreams were usually violent, none of them had involved Pris until now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to sleep yet, lest the dream pick up where it left off.

A noise from the front of the house caused his eyes to widen in alarm. He reached under his pillow, feeling for a wand that wasn’t there, and had not been in six years. He almost laughed at himself for his blunder, but the noise came again, and so Lucius crept from his bed and down the hall in his sleep pants, wielding the only weapon he could find on a moment’s notice: his hairbrush.

What he found in his kitchen was alarming, but for entirely other reasons. Pris was on her tiptoes, pulling the contents of his cabinets onto the counter and swaying her hips back and forth with the effort. He set the hairbrush on the counter beside him and watched her wiggle and strain, taking in the smooth expanse of skin that was revealed when she stretched her arms above her head. Her seeking fingers knocked a box of tea from its place on the shelf, and it fell to the floor at Lucius’ feet. Pris turned to retrieve it, and was surprised, to say the least, to find him leaning in the doorway, staring at her.

“Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed, clutching at her chest in fright.

“I prefer Lucius, thank you,” he smirked, picking up the box and handing it to her after she’d recovered.

“You scared the bejesus out of me. Did I wake you?” she asked, noting his state of undress. Lucius crossed his arms over his bare chest.

“No, but I did think my home was being burgled.”

Pris looked abashed. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t sleep. I thought a hot cup of tea might help me relax. I’m sorry,” she repeated, fiddling with the box in her hands.

“Oh, stop apologizing. It was my silly mistake, anyway,” he admitted. “Why don’t you make me a cup as well? I, for one, will not be going back to sleep any time soon.”

She looked up, then, and nodded. “Sure.”

He sat down at the kitchen table and watched her make them two cups. She hummed softly to herself the entire time, and rather than finding the sound annoying, as he was wont to do, it made him smile. What a cozy domestic scene, he thought to himself. Then his dream flitted through his mind, and his smile faded just as she brought him his mug.

“So, why are you awake?”

He frowned at his tea before taking a sip. It was hot, strong. Just the way he liked it. “What do you mean?”

“You said I didn’t wake you up. What did?”

“I was having a dream…” he began, “a nightmare, really.”

Pris’ face took on a look of compassion, and Lucius wanted to rage at her for her naivety. If you knew what I’ve dreamt, never mind what I’ve done… he thought. But she did not know, and unless something were to interrupt his sanity, she never would.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly, cupping her tea in her small hands.

“No,” he replied, with an air of finality. “No.”

Pris remained silent until they had finished their tea. Once she’d put the cups in the sink, she took her seat again and looked at Lucius in contemplation.

“Lucius?”

“Hmm?”

“How old are you?”

“I am fifty-one. Why do you ask?”

Pris shrugged her shoulders at this. “Just curious, I guess. When I first saw you, I thought you must be older than that.”

Lucius raised his brows in amusement. “How so?”

“Your hair.”

“My hair?”

“Yes. The first time I saw it, I thought it was white.”

Lucius sneered at her choice of description. “It is most certainly not white,” he huffed in indignation. “It is a very pale blond, as is common in all the males of my lineage.”

Pris’ bruised face lit up in a smile, and she leaned forward conspiratorially. “Oh, do tell, good sir,” she said in a haughty tone. Lucius was baffled.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Nooo…” she said, in a voice that might have sounded scandalized. “Of course I am, you silly, blond aristocrat!” She took this opportunity to laugh at the expression on his face. “Sometimes you just sound so… I don’t know. Posh. Highbrow. Maybe Victorian is a better word…” she trailed, grinning at him.

“Now, see here, young lady. I’ll not be mocked in my own home,” he warned, but knew as well as she that the words were empty. Pris was enjoying his slight discomfort. It wasn’t often she could make Lucius lose his cool, but when he did it was highly entertaining.

“What are you going to do, Lucius? Spank me?” She wiggled her eyebrows at him and laughed playfully, but Lucius heard the suggestion behind her words. Now they were back into dangerous territory.

“Why, Priscilla Thomas, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were flirting with me.”

“And?” she asked, crossing her legs, “What if I am?” Pris was no shrinking violet, and the thought of her attempting to seduce him both delighted and scared the daylights out of Lucius.

“I’m old enough to be your father, Pris,” he said soberly, though even he did not feel the conviction in those words.

“You are certainly not my father,” she returned, echoing his words from their first meeting all those months ago.

“No,” he admitted, “but I am someone’s.” This only made Pris smile again.

“Good, then you know how this works,” she said carelessly, propping her chin in one hand while trailing the fingers of the other lightly over the surface of the kitchen table. Lucius watched her small digits trace indistinct patterns on the wood, and he felt the first stirrings of lust twist his stomach into a tight knot.

“I can’t even imagine why you’d want to involve yourself with me,” he tried lamely. He needed to take control of this conversation quickly, before it went any further into that dangerous territory in which he’d found himself.

“Really?” Pris countered, disbelief etched on her face. “Well, to start you’re very sweet to me, and very kind… when you want to be, mind,” she said at Lucius’ raised eyebrow. “You’ve got a very dry sense of humor, which I adore.” As she enumerated his positive aspects, she counted them off on her fingers. “I feel comfortable around you. Sometimes men make me nervous. I guess we can thank Bill for that. And you’re not exactly hard on the eyes, if I’m being entirely honest.”

When she finished, she found that Lucius was gazing at her with a mixture of longing and apprehension.

“While I appreciate the listing of my finer qualities,” he began in a rough voice, “I have to say you don’t know me as well as you may think you do.”

“I could if you’d let me,” Pris shot back, but Lucius shook his head.

“And watch you run screaming from my home? No, I think a discussion of my past is best left for another time.”

At this, Pris reached out and took one of his hands in hers, startling him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw nothing but sincerity, and trust.

“Lucius, I like you for the man you’ve become, not the man that you were.”

Something inside him was set loose by her declaration. His sanity, such that it was, had been well and truly interrupted. Suddenly, he was looming over her, all fair hair and burning intensity, and she couldn’t help but push herself further back in her seat.

“I am a very bad man, Priscilla.”

His eyes were large and luminous in the moonlight, and she had no doubt of the veracity of his words.

“I have seen things. I have done things, hurt people… young women like yourself, and worse than your Bill could even imagine.” His fingers traced the curve of her jaw, and her lips parted in a soft gasp. He smiled, a pained, awful thing, and lowered his lips to her ear. “And I reveled in it.”

“Are you… are you trying to scare me?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Lucius hissed. He nuzzled the skin on her neck, and felt rather than saw her grip the arms of her chair

“Why?” she managed.

“Because I deserve nothing less than your contempt. They were right to leave me here, to send me away. If you knew the darkness inside of me…” he trailed, resting his forehead on her shoulder. Pris swallowed nervously, but when she spoke her voice was steady.

“Whatever it is you may have done in the past, I know you won’t hurt me, Lucius.”

“Do you now?” he rumbled. Pris thought he sounded intoxicated, though on what she couldn’t guess, and he really was beginning to make her very anxious. This suspense was killing her; she didn’t know if he was going to hit her, or kiss her.

“I know the look a man gets in his eyes when he’s going to hit me,” she reminded him. She thought that might put a damper on his momentary bout of insanity, but he simply grinned at her. The sight was terrifying.

“There are other ways to hurt your beautiful body, dear Pris.”

His head went back to the crook of her neck, and she sucked in a frightened breath.

“Lucius?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re scaring me.”

He didn’t answer her, not right away. Instead, he raised his head and looked deep into her eyes. He brought a hand up and cupped her chin, brushing her lower lip with his thumb, ever mindful of her injuries.

“…Good.”

Then his mouth was upon hers, sucking her lower lip between his teeth and laving it gently with his tongue. Pris couldn’t stop the long, low moan of desire that escaped her mouth, and her head fell back against the chair with an indelicate thump.

It was over as quickly as it had started, though, when Lucius forcefully pushed himself away from her. Pris wanted to cry in frustration.

“Do you see what kind of man I am?” he spat, self-disgust lacing his every word. “I am taking advantage of you, my friend, in your time of need.”

She stared at him, studying his face carefully. When he refused to meet her eyes, she gathered her courage and spoke.

“Lucius?” His gaze travelled slowly but steadily upward until, finally, they were face to face once more. “Kiss me again.”

He was dumbfounded. “What?”

“Kiss me again.” Her voice was strong and clear. He knew she meant what she said, but he could still hardly believe his ears.

“Why?”

Pris sighed. He was determined to make this as difficult as possible, but he no longer intimidated her. She lifted her arms and placed her hands on both sides of his head, framing his face with her fingers, and this time he gasped.

“I told you, I like you for the man you’ve become, not the man that you were… and the only thing I need is you.”

She pulled him to her and covered his mouth with her own, and whatever dam was holding back the floodtides of Lucius’ passion broke. Suddenly she was drowning in him. His lips manipulated hers softly but firmly, and when he sucked her tongue into his hot mouth, she keened in pleasure. Where had he learned to do that?

Lucius lifted Pris out of her chair and onto the kitchen table in one smooth motion, and he heard her gasp.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, tilting her head back as he assaulted her neck with his lips and tongue. Pris was so aroused she could hardly think straight. His large hands swept up her sides, and he used one to pull on her short black hair, indelicately exposing the column of her throat to him. He scraped his teeth over her sensitive flesh, soothing the rough touch with gentle sweeps of his tongue.

"Oh, God. What are you doing to me, Lucius?" Pris moaned throatily. Her first and only lover had been Bill, and he had never touched her like this, never evoked this soaring passion.

"I am giving you what you need, dear Pris," he murmured into the shell of her ear, and then took the lobe between his lips.

She would have melted into a puddle on the floor, if it were possible. Instead, she wove her fingers though his long, loose hair and held on for dear life. The things he was doing to her… and with only his mouth! She could not even begin to imagine the intensity of feeling that would come when he finally put his hands on her. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed, and Lucius froze. Pris mewled in protest when his lips left her ear, but the sound died away as she realized why he had stopped.

Bill had just pulled up in his big, blue pickup truck.