My Gyges

Title: My Gyges
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/R
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst...
Warnings: M/F, Male-solo, Slytherin plotting, dark!fic, etc.
Summary: Possibly AU - \"Now it happened that this Candaules was in love with his own lady; and not only so, but thought her the fairest woman in the whole world. This fancy had strange consequences.\" A tale of how Lucius won Narcissa in the role of Gyges and Narcissa as the Lydian queen from Herodotus\' Histories.
Author\'s Notes: If you are unfamiliar with the original tale of Gyges and Candaules, go here: http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/lawson/1223c2/g_c.htm
I am a lover of Herodotus...the father of history...and this story is perhaps his most famous. The story of Gyges and Candaules is retold in the Oscar-winning film \'The English Patient,\' perhaps my favorite film of all time. If you are familiar with the movie, then you are familiar with the retelling of a history by my main man of important world literature, Herodotus. This one shot is just a version of how Lucius and Narcissa \'could\' have gotten together...so...well...nevermind. Also, this is my first time writing either character, so please don\'t hate me if I represent them in a way that is not to your tastes. As for Maxim Mulciber...he is an Original Character. A \'Mulciber\' is mentioned in canon, but he is far too old for Narcissa, so I created a son named Maxmillian for my own purposes.
This Oneshot is also un-beta\'d...




My Gyges

...I hold thy lady for the fairest of all womankind. Only, I beseech thee, ask me not to do wickedly...



Lucius had never really cared much for Maxim Mulciber, and if had the choice, would have left his house that very evening. Unfortunately, Lucius Malfoy had fallen on hard times. It was almost unthinkable that he, Lucius Malfoy, of the house Malfoy would ever know anything about being poor, but that he was...a poor twenty year old man who had taken up residence on Maxim Mulciber\'s couch in his Diagon Alley flat.

It was humiliating, even the young Mulciber, son of the Dark Lord\'s Imperius Specialist, who had his own flat, lavish and large, had more money in his pockets than Lucius had in his vault at Gringotts at the moment. As Lucius lay on his back, staring up at the plaster ceiling of the sitting room, his feet dangling off the end of the couch, he damned his father to burn in hell for all eternity. Abraxas Malfoy was the reason for all of this...and had the bastard not accumulated so much debt over twenty years, Lucius would be in his own bed in Wiltshire, sipping brandy and reading Herodotus.

Even his leather bound copy of the Persian Wars had been sold at auction when Gringotts foreclosed the house.

Had Abraxas not died from the dragon pox over a year ago, Lucius was sure that he would take great pleasure in beating his father with his own cane.

The cane was all Lucius had left of his estate, inheritance and his father, and it now rested on the rug under the tea table at Lucius\' right. If he took a knife and dug out the emeralds that made the snake headed top of the cane so unique, he could probably get at least a thousand Galleons or more, but it would do little to settle the interest on the loans his father never bothered to pay back.

Lucius had thought about borrowing money to at least have his manor in Wiltshire back...but he had no collateral.

Thus he had to take up residence in the flat with Maxim Mulciber...and his live-in girlfriend, Narcissa Black.

Narcissa Black... That was the other reason Lucius would sell what was left of his soul to leave this flat. She was a siren, a temptress, an angel...and now the reason why Lucius seriously considered offing himself.

Her words echoed through his head, looping over and over. The events of that early morning began playing in Lucius\' silver haired head again, but he was no closer to finding peace in dreams for her words had unsettled him so horribly.

* * *

Lucius had come back from job hunting early to find Maxim and Narcissa sitting at the mahogany dinner table, talking quietly over tea. The summer sun streamed through the tall casement windows and a warm breeze streamed through the lace curtains pleasantly. Lucius nodded off the couple\'s greeting and flopped down into a chair as one of Mulciber\'s house elves brought him a cup of tea.

\"No luck then?\" Maxim asked, his green eyes shimmering over the rim of his china cup.

\"The Ministry won\'t even lift a finger to help me. My father, may he rot, sullied our name even as far as the Minister\'s office. It seems that Abraxas owed money to him as well...\"

Maxim set his cup down on its saucer with a sigh, his long tawny hair fluttering a particularly strong breeze from the window at his back. He was a handsome rogue, despite his father looking like something regurgitated by a hippogriff. Just looking at the boy, only just out of Hogwarts, infuriated Lucius and he would like nothing better than to throw his scalding tea in the boy\'s face.

\"Well, I\'m sure something will turn up...\"

Lucius snorted.

Narcissa turned slowly to look at Lucius, her face impassive as stone, but her pale eyes were expressive of a concern that gripped Lucius for a moment and then released him as she looked away. They sat in silence for a long while. This silence was something very common when the three of them were in the same room, and Lucius could take it no more. He stood abruptly from the table and stalked out of the room.

Before he could make it to his makeshift, temporary sanctuary of the sitting room, Maxim caught up with him.

\"Lucius!\"

Lucius growled and pushed into the sitting room and fell onto the couch. Maxim stood just at the door, glancing back to the dinning room and then entered, shutting the door behind him.

\"Lucius, I wish there was something more I could do for you.\"

\"You\'ve done too much already, Maxim, by letting me stay here when I am sure your father would rather see me ingratiate myself on someone else...not to mention Narcissa...\"

\"What do you mean Narcissa?\" Maxim asked, moving to sit next to Lucius on the couch.

Lucius sighed, running his fingers through his shoulder length hair, pushing it from his face.

\"I\'ve imposed myself...and I think she hates me.\"

\"Nonsense...\" Maxim muttered.

\"She never seemed to care much for me at school, and I am sure she would love to see me out of here so that you two could have a bit of privacy.\"

Maxim chuckled. The hows and whys of Maxmillian Mulciber, the only Ravenclaw in the Mulciber family, and Narcissa Black, a Slytherin, getting together was a bit of mystery to Lucius, but then again, it really made no difference. Maxim had Narcissa and all Lucius had was his father\'s cane in two outfits, a cloak and a quickly deteriorating pair of dragon hide boots.

\"Narcissa is just shy...she\'s the total opposite of Bellatrix, that much is certain, and I don\'t think Cissa hates you.\"

Lucius tried not to cringe at Maxim\'s pet name for his girlfriend. Lucius had heard Bellatrix calling Narcissa by that horrible degrading nickname \'Cissy\' for too long. Narcissa was a beautiful name, evocative of one of Lucius\' favorite flowers, and not so much of the myth about the silly, vain boy by the same name. Narcissa was beautiful, tall, long golden hair and pale blue eyes that he was sure was charmed, but did not care...

\"Cissa is like a statue most of the time, she had to be... Bellatrix was such a loud mouth, Cissa thinks it better to be quiet, to have mystique... But Lucius, you are worrying about nothing! I\'m sure something is bound to change, your father\'s debts cannot have sullied YOUR name so badly, I mean, you had nothing to do with those debts!\"

\"And the world is so just, Maxim,\" Lucius drawled sarcastically, rolling his silver eyes.

\"And you are hopeless,\" Maxim retorted, rising from the couch and moving across the room to a sidebar stocked with various decanters of liquids, pouring two glasses of firewhiskey.

Lucius did not comment on the fact that it was only just three in the afternoon, and accepted his glass of firewhiskey when Mulciber passed it to him. Lucius had noted that despite Maxim\'s youth, the boy seemed well acquainted with the various liquors and alcoholic drinks, and more often than not, the boy indulged quite heavily in the seemingly endless supply of firewhiskey. Lucius preferred brandy, only in the evenings, and secretly, Muggle vodka, which had stored in a cache in his now sold Seven-lock trunk along with other Muggle things that he knew his father would burn if he ever knew they were in the Manor.

Maxim sat down again, sipping his firewhiskey as if it were water, while Lucius simply held his glass in his hands and stared at the silver headed cane under the coffeetable, the emerald eyes gleaming in the sun light the streamed through the windows behind where he sat.

\"I could ask my father...maybe for a letter of some sort, a note vouching for the fact that you are willing to work to pay off the debt at the very least. Or perhaps my father could advance you some money...\"

\"No,\" Lucius answered flatly and sternly. \"I never want to owe anyone anything...\" he muttered, moving his glass into his left hand while his right hand clasped his left forearm and the Mark that was hidden under his dingy shirt sleeves.

The Mark...Lucius oftentimes forgot about the Mark. It had been his father\'s idea from the start, the old man following the tide of Pureblood elitism and urging his only son to align himself with a wizard called Voldemort. The heir of Slytherin, his father had said, the turn of the tide of the wave of those who sullied the name of Wizard. At first, Lucius had been skeptical...he was skeptical of everything his father had ever said, but the old codger was always far too passionate for his own good...obviously...dying of the dragon pox... But Lucius believed in the Dread Lord, for several reasons. Despite old Abraxas, the Malfoy family was a noble family, with (before Abraxas and his gambling habit) a good name, strong blood, strong magic and much power. The Dread Lord was also of noble blood, had noble ideals, and noble words...and Lucius was a follower of this ideal of utopia like many others, including Maxim\'s father. Maxim was due to take the Mark as well, but there was absolutely no discussion of the impending initiation, only knowing glances when something indicative to the Dark Lord arose in conversation.

Even Narcissa Black...her family was an old wizarding family, and more than likely, she was to be married off to the heir of the Mulciber line. That was where Lucius wondered much about Maxim\'s \'live-in\' girlfriend. Perhaps, had Abraxas not been the greedy bastard he was, it would have been Lucius who had one of the Black daughters and not the legacy of some old, tacky cane...

\"Cheer up, Lucius, you look like you\'re about to fade away with that vacant expression,\" Mulciber chuckled before downing the last of his whiskey.

Lucius shifted on the couch, finally taking a sip of his firewhiskey and tried not to splutter as the molten liquid scorched his throat and mouth.

\"We\'ll drink tonight, celebrate a bit...how does that sound?\"

Lucius shrugged indifferently, Maxim was fond of celebrating for the simple fact it gave him a lame excuse to drink himself into a stupor. Nights of spontaneous celebration, Lucius knew, always ended awkwardly. Maxim would drag Narcissa to bed, and Lucius would have to suffer through the sounds of lovemaking that filtered through the walls when Maxim, more often than not, forgot to put up a silencing charm. Lucius was not sure if he could handle living on Maxim\'s couch if something like hearing Narcissa scream out her completion happened again on a night of so-called celebration.

Maxim never meant any harm, and had no intentions of flaunting his relationship with Narcissa Black in Lucius\' face, but it was still infuriating to the pauper of a Malfoy heir.

Lucius could not deny that he had often thought about Narcissa, crying out her completion under Lucius\' control...and many a night Lucius would bring himself to a sense of completion at the thought of Narcissa. And despite being a Slytherin, Lucius would never act upon his fantasies...Maxim had been far too good to him to ever betray a friendship over one Narcissa Black...and no matter how beautiful she was...

The conversation turned to trivial matters...Quidditch mostly, but Lucius, once again, was thinking of Narcissa who most likely was still sitting in the dining room, sipping her tea daintily.

* * *

That night, Maxim drank himself closer to death. Lucius had only indulged in two glasses of firewhiskey, as per usual, Narcissa drank tea. By the time Maxim decided it was time to retire for the night, it was two o\'clock in the morning. And as per usual, as of late, Lucius dragged Maxim out of the dining room littered with whiskey bottles and down the wide marble hall to Maxim\'s large bedroom. Narcissa had stayed behind to instruct the elves to clear away the mess Maxim had left, again, in his wake.

The tawny haired wizard, barely out of Hogwarts was stinking drunk and stumbled over his own limp feet as Lucius pulled him along to the door which led to Maxim\'s room. Once inside and depositing the boy on the large four poster bed, big enough to fit at least six people comfortably, Maxim grasped Lucius\' right arm before he could leave the room and find an ounce of solace in the living room across the hall.

\"Lu...Lucius,\" Maxim belched, his face a horrible shade of red and his cheeks flushed. \"Isn\'t Narcissa beautiful?\"

Lucius narrowed his eyes. \"I suppose.\"

Lucius was impatient for sleep and rest, the firewhiskey circulating in his blood stream making him feel a bit drunk, but not nearly as much so as Maxim Mulciber.

\"She is the most...most beautiful woman you ever saw, isn\'t she?\" Maxim stuttered, his grip on Lucius\' arm too firm and his glassy eyes fixed upon Lucius\' face.

\"I\'ve seen prettier, but she is beautiful,\" Lucius muttered impatiently, wishing that his host would pass out and leave him at peace. Lucius was certainly in no mood to talk about Narcissa. He had watched her all the while Maxim was drinking himself to death, noting that she seemed to frown all the while Maxim was downing glass after glass of whiskey. The woman had sat through the winding hours which soaked the air with the acrid scent of alcohol, as if made of stone.

\"I tell you, she is the most beee-beautiful thing. There is no one as beautiful in the world,\" Maxim seemed to cry.

Lucius shrugged and finally freed his arm from Maxim\'s grasp. He rolled his eyes as Maxim began muttering incoherently, only catching snatches of words strung together about Narcissa being the most beautiful, the most elegant, most intelligent...

\"You don\'t believe me?\" Maxim asked suddenly and quite loudly. A determined, yet drunk expression, crossed Maxim\'s flushed face and Lucius turned and started to the door.

The tawny haired boy snatched Lucius\' arm again, causing Lucius to stumble as Maxim fell back onto the bed. In the candlelight, Lucius could just see a moment of lucidity in the boy\'s eyes, determination to make him see...

\"I\'ll let you see her naked, Lucius,\" Maxim said blankly, his eyes blinking rapidly as he stared up at Lucius, taking in his Malfoy face, his Malfoy hair...

\"You\'re drunk, Maxim...and I\'m tired...I...\"

\"I\'ll prove it to you, Lucius.\"

Lucius snatched his arm away for a second time, surely Maxim Mulciber was taunting him. To see Narcissa Black naked would be too much for Lucius to bear, he was already holding himself back from actively pursuing her behind Maxim\'s back as it was...surely the boy was teasing him now.

\"I\'m going to bed,\" Lucius stated flatly and moved to the door.

...I see thou dost not credit what I tell thee of my lady\'s loveliness; but come now, since men\'s ears are less credulous than their eyes, contrive some means whereby thou mayst behold her naked...

\"You can see her, Lucius...I can fix it so that you can see for yourself.\"

Lucius paused just before the door, praying to whatever deity that Narcissa was still busying herself in the dinning room.

\"Charm the door to the parlor to open and shut...and then stand behind the bedroom door...a disillusionment charm would help, and through the crack of the door you can see her undress as she comes to bed. She does it every night, hangs her clothes upon that chair there...\" Maxim slurred, pointing at the wingbacked blue velvet chair near the door and next to a sideboard with a tasteful lily and ivy spray before a large polished mirror.

Lucius glanced at the chair, imagining Narcissa\'s white dress lying across the back, her delicately made undergarments neatly folded upon the seat, and the ribbons braided into her sun kissed hair hanging over the arm...her light slippers would rest under the chair and she would turn, standing as the gods had made her and cross the room to the bed like a summer breeze.

Oh, how he wanted to see it...but...

\"You tease me too much, Maxim. Do you not love Narcissa that much...to let your friend see what is yours in her most vulnerable?\" Lucius intoned, turning only slightly to gaze coldly at his friend laying across the four poster bed.

\"I do not tease, Lucius, I want only to prove to you how beautiful my wife to be is...and will always be...\" Maxim yawned, his drunken buzz turning into drowsiness.

Lucius felt as if his blood had frozen in his veins. So Maxim intended to marry Narcissa...

\"It is a good match, Maxim.\"

The words had passed his lips without him realizing it, but the tone was frigid. If Maxim were not so drunk, Lucius was sure the Mulciber boy would have caught the intonation and easily interrupt it into what is was...this emotion that was flooding Lucius from head to toe...jealousy.

\"Thank you, I think so as well...but tonight I will prove it to you...\"

Jealousy turned to subdued fury and Lucius felt has face twist and quickly turned away.

Oh, yes, he would look upon Narcissa Black... She was the moon to his sun, the ideal which could produce such an heir as the Malfoy line had yet to see...she was something Lucius could never have, but wanted most of all.

Lucius moved to the door, pulling his wand from his trouser pocket, but turned to Maxim, his face now a mask of hesitancy.

\"But what if she sees?\"

\"She won\'t...as soon as she undresses, she puts the light out and shuts the door. You can slip around the door while her back is turned...and with a Disillusionment Charm, she won\'t have a chance to see you at all...\" Maxim sighed, resting his head heavily upon the pillows of the bed, his eyes now flickering strangely in the candlelight.

...there stands a chair close to the entrance, on which she will lay her clothes one by one as she takes them off. Thou wilt be able thus at thy leisure to peruse her person. Then, when she is moving from the chair toward the bed, and her back is turned on thee, be it thy care that she see thee not as thou passest through the doorway...

Lucius moved his face to convey his feigned fear, but flicked his wand with a silent incantation to charm the door across the darkened corridor to open and then shut with an audible thud. It was only seconds later Lucius heard Narcissa\'s footfalls coming down the corridor from the dinning room.

Tapping his wand upon the top of his head, he cast one last look at Maxim, who smiled widely, and slipped behind the door, disillusioned and hidden from plain sight. Through the crack in the door, Lucius had a clear view of the blue velvet chair and within seconds, the white clad Narcissa came into the room, her long dress trailing behind her as if she were clothed in cloud.

\"Hello, my dove.\"

Lucius could just see the side of Narcissa\'s face where the corner of her lips turned upwards into a smile, but Lucius could see that the smile went no farther than those full, pale lips. She stopped before the chair and turned her back to Maxim, toeing out of her slippers first.

\"You drank too much, Maxim, I hope you are not ill,\" Narcissa said in almost a whisper, turning her attentions to disrobing, her blue eyes fixed upon the nap of the velvet covering the chair.

\"Not at all...but you are right, I should not have drank so much.\"

\"It is not a habit you should develop, Maxim...you know how my father feels about alcohol,\" she intoned airily, but Lucius could see her disdain clearly in the tightening of her lips and the narrowing of her eyes.

Loosening the buttons on the back of her dress, the pale goddess let the fabric slip down to her waist and for the first time Lucius saw the silhouette of her left breast and the pale alabaster flesh of her arms and back. She had no need for a strangulating contraption to hold her pert, upturned breasts still against her body, and as she let the dress slip down past her hips, he saw that she wore not a stitch under her light dress. Her hips were well rounded although her hip bones jutted sharply from her body, and her belly was only just slightly rounded so that she did not seem too thin and sticklike as Bellatrix, her dark sister.

Stepping out of the dress, Lucius\' eyes traveled down her well toned and long legs, the prominent bones of her knees and her thin ankles, small feet and toes. She folded the dress before her, and just as Lucius had imagined, she hanged it over the back of the chair, turning slightly so that he caught sight of her dark blond curls, neatly trimmed at the apex of her thighs.

\"Call it the wildness of youth...but I know what your father thinks of men and alcohol...and I know he worries that when we are married that I might damage you somehow under the influence of an aged whiskey,\" Maxim continued, also watching Narcissa, and shifting out of his own clothes.

Narcissa hummed her reply, which was perhaps only a sound of understanding, or one of agreement, but Lucius felt as if Narcissa seemed quite bored with Maxim\'s words in general. The next movement she made was to loosen the braid that trailed down her slender back and to her rounded buttocks. With a twist of fingers, Lucius watched, with growing arousal and delight as the ribbons fell to the floor as the sun kissed tresses loosened like knotted silk and lengthened to the back of her knees as the weave fell free. In the candlelight her hair looked like gold, burnished slightly, but a perfect mixture of ash, gold and silvery blonde.

\"Come to bed, Cissa...\" Maxim breathed, startling Lucius slightly. Remembering himself, Lucius pulled away from the crack in the door and waited for Narcissa to stride across the room and into the arms of a man that Lucius was beginning to hate even more than Abraxas.

Listening to the whisper soft footfalls upon the lush carpet, Lucius moved and with the stealth of a predator, slipped around the door and out into the corridor. Pressing himself to wall outside, he heard Narcissa\'s sweet voice whisper a \'Nox,\' and sighed a breath of relief as the door magicked itself shut just as Maxim had said.

Gliding across the hall, and silently through the door to the sitting room and his temporary sanctuary, Lucius fell against the backside of the door and made quick work of his trousers, ripping them open to free the painful swelling of his groin.

Lucius had never doubted Maxim\'s claims that Narcissa was beautiful...she was more than beautiful...she was exquisitely divine. Lucius grasped his erection and began pumping. He wanted her...he wanted to taste her, touch her, take her to be his own.

He knew that she was wickedly clever, although of few words. He knew that she was far more intelligent that some Pureblood boy from Ravenclaw even though she had been sorted into Slytherin. And...because she had been sorted into Slytherin, Lucius knew she was ambitious...just as he was and would be, if it meant having her in some fashion or another.

Running a hand under his shirt and against the tensed and hardened muscles of his chest, Lucius groaned as his pumping became a feverish caress to dull the ache in his loins.

Narcissa smiling. Narcissa beneath him, smiling. Narcissa riding him, smiling. Narcissa screaming his name and smiling when she would feel his hot seed inside her body, marking her as his...

Narcissa beneath him, around him, beside him...

Narcissa...

And Lucius gasped as he felt his body expel his seed over his tightened fist and down into the lush carpet of the sitting room. Inhaling raggedly, he slid down the door to his knees, panting as if he had never taken a proper breath in his life...

Maxim and his hospitalities be damned...he would have Narcissa...if it meant killing his host.

* * *

...as he was passing out, however, she saw him, and instantly divining what had happened, she neither screamed as her shame impelled her, nor even appeared to have noticed aught, purposing to take vengeance upon the one who had so affronted her...

* * *

Despite her appearances to the men that resided in the flat, Narcissa Black was far shrewder and far more keen than what the men possibly could believe.

Before dawn, she arose from the bed she shared with her betrothed and summoned the a house elf that she trusted in the house and ordered it to wake Lucius Malfoy and announce that she wanted to speak with him. She felt a horribly pleased smile cross her face in the dark as she slipped into a silk robe.

Maxim snored horribly on the bed, so deeply asleep that he would not wake until midday. As Narcissa stood at the side of the bed, tying the belt of her robe about her slender waist, she could not help by scowl at the man she was set to marry in only a few months. He was a sloven drunkard who had to have tricked the Sorting Hat to ever get into Ravenclaw when his character would have been more suited to Hufflepuff. Maxim could be considered a kind man, but he was nothing more than a possessive, overbearing alcoholic. Narcissa could only tolerate his touch now...after learning what he really was...no ambition, no drive, no brains, and no desire to ever love her more than a possession or a trophy.

It had been different before when they had first met and first made love. Narcissa had hoped that she would have found love like her sister had with LeStrange, but then again, Bella did not know what love really was, and was quite cruel with Rodolphus who worshipped the ground her foul sister tread upon. No, Narcissa had not found love, even though she had tried to make it seem, if not just to herself, that she was in love with Maxim Mulciber...

And then there was Lucius Malfoy, her more immediate concern.

It had not escaped her attention that someone had been watching her undress. It had not escaped her attention that when that someone left the room, the candles flickered and she saw movement out of the corner of her keen eye. And it had not escaped her that Maxim was the sort of man who would boast about his \'possessions.\'

If she knew she could get away with it, she would kill Maxim Mulciber in his sleep at that very moment, standing over him with her small hands clenched about the ties of her robe. He had shamed her, and now he would regret it.

From the first day that Lucius Malfoy had some to stay in Maxim\'s flat, Narcissa felt a secret rush of delight course through her body. Ever since their sixth year at Hogwarts, Narcissa had harbored a desire for Lucius, but now that desire had turned into a desperate longing. He was handsome, intelligent, and just too wicked not to be attractive to most the Slytherin girls from years three to seven. But with all those wonderful attributes came arrogance, an overwhelming arrogance that had stopped Narcissa from being one of the girls who had constantly followed Lucius Malfoy during the last two years of their time at Hogwarts. Narcissa was not a follower, but she would settle for a worthy accomplice...and perhaps now, when she felt so desperate as to kill Maxim Mulciber, she could use Lucius Malfoy to fulfill her ends.

Moving her shaking hands from the ties on her robe her hair which fell across her right shoulder, Narcissa narrowed her cool blue eyes and turned from her betrothed one, and made her way to the door, jaw set. Everything was in readiness and now she only had to make her demand.

* * *

...take thy choice, Gyges, of two courses which are open to thee. Slay Candaules, and thereby become my lord, and obtain the Lydian throne...or die this moment in his room...

* * *

Lucius sat upon his makeshift bed, disheveled, and quite stunned.

Perhaps he was dreaming and a vision of Narcissa Black was standing before him, demanding that he either dispose of Maxim Mulciber or die a cowardly death for bringing shame to the daughter of the House of Black.

\"The choice is yours...\" she had whispered, her eyes alit with an inner fire and her lips curled into a cruel, yet elegant smirk.

If this was a dream, Lucius thought, he knew that he was horribly in love with Narcissa Black.

\"And how should I dispose of Maxim, if that be my choice?\" Lucius drawled, staring at her collarbones, visible just above the folds of her white silk robe.

\"Use his wand against him in whatever fashion you see fit,\" she whispered angrily.

Lucius folded his hands on his lap, just before his burgeoning flesh. His hands itched to grab her and claim her as she stood so regally at the end of the couch which served as his pauper\'s bed.

\"You do not love him then?\"

Narcissa seemed to hiss. \"That is not your concern. All you need to know is that I will not suffer this embarrassment lightly. My betrothed has shamed me and I will either have you dead for ever seeing me in an uninvited circumstance, or have Maxim killed for being far more arrogant than what his cunning would ever allow.\"

Lucius nodded dumbly, turning his argent orbs away from the white clothed vision and stared at his folded hands. Narcissa Black was far more clever than he would have ever thought of the quiet, statuesque woman... What was her true motivation? He had never imagined her to be so affronted by something as seemingly harmless as seeing her in the nude...she surely was no pure damsel...and she was surely did not care so much for Maxim Mulciber as to have him murdered by someone like himself. Then again, she apparently was as indifferent to him if she wished him dead for a shame that seemed ever so trivial in Lucius\' eyes.

What was her true motivation, indeed?

\"I am awaiting your answer, Lucius Malfoy. Kill or be killed, the choice is yours.\"

He did not want to die, he wanted to rebuild his family empire and live the life he was meant to have despite Abraxas...

Lucius knew he could not simply leave, he had nowhere to go...and if he did have somewhere to go, he would live with the knowledge that he had passed up a chance to have a woman worthy of his ideals... It was almost ludicrous, Narcissa Black and her pride...her schemeing...and now the opportunity that Lucius knew she had most likely been waiting for...to be free from a marriage that she did not want, but could do little about instead of manipulating the men in her life.

Yes, he wanted her...

\"When should I \'use Maxim\'s wand against him,\' my dear Narcissa?\"

Eyes met.

\"Maxim will surely find another excuse to \'celebrate,\' and I will be sure that he is so drunk from his hubris that it will be a simple matter...\" Narcissa whispered, hoping that her voice did not betray her arousal, her triumph, and her relief.

Lucius smirked. \"And if I would choose to die, would you be the one to kill me?\"

Narcissa froze, had the man not chosen? Her hands began to quake.

\"I would have Maxim kill you...\" she uttered in a strangled whisper.

Lucius turned his eyes away again, shifting on the couch and rising to stand. \"If I kill him...you will be mine?\"

\"Yes...\"

His eyes traveled from her feet, along the thin silk to her hip and her to hands which clutched each other tightly before her belly.

\"And you will not scheme to have me killed, will you?\"

Narcissa felt her eyes water, was she going to break down now, she wondered?

\"N-never...\"

\"You will swear it. I cannot trust you as you are, standing before me, commanding to make myself a murderer,\" he hissed, his eyes tracing the outline of her high breast clad only by a thin layer of dainty silk.

Narcissa felt as if her knees were about to give way as Lucius stepped toward her, radiating such a heat that Narcissa knew...knew she would never be cold again.

\"I will swear it how ever you like, but you must swear that you would never do what Maxim has done...never abuse me, never ignore me, never manipulate me...never...\"

He was holding her, his arms about her waist, his chest pressing against her breasts, his breath rustling the hair at her temple...and she wrapped her arms about his sturdy shoulders, wanting to just lose herself in his embrace. No...she thought. Not yet.

And with a strength she did not believe herself to have, she pulled free of the embrace that she could spent a life time living inside. She slipped to the door, in a daze, despite Lucius\' whispered words of protest.

Until the deed was done, until she was free...she could not think anymore of him...her Gyges...



* * *

Lucius was still a junior in the community that was called the Death Eaters, but in the past year, despite his financial distresses, the Dark Lord had taken Lucius to be his protege...of sorts. Perhaps it was Lucius\' youth, perhaps it was his magical prowess, perhaps it was the fact that Lucius knew how to bottle his emotions so tightly that what ever fleeting flicker of a stirring never conveyed itself past his masklike face, Lucius was favored by the Dread Lord.

This position, along with the fact that he was perhaps the best looking of all the Death Eaters, made it easy for Lucius to explain to the Dark Lord how Maxim Mulciber, the son of Mulciber the Imperious Specialist, ended up committing suicide. The Dark Lord did not take kindly to cowards, and Maxim Mulciber\'s suicide was the ultimate act of cowardice in the ruby eyes of the man who would bring the Wizarding world back to rights.

\"Explain to me, Luciussss... How did the coward end his pathetic little life?\" the Dread Lord hissed in questioning after the initiation of Rosier, Wilkes and several others that midsummer\'s night.

Lucius knelt before his Lord, unmasked and unafraid.

The details had been well rehearsed, and Lucius knew that his Lord could find no fault with his memory as he felt an alien presence nip and tug at the edges of his mind.

\"He was frightened to this night, my Lord, he did not want to know how wonder of a Master you are... On many occasions, I have heard Maximillian speak against you, criticizing your doctrines and ideals...\"

\"Then it is fitting that he wasted his life in such a manner, isn\'t it, Mulciber?\" the Dark Lord said in a mixture of a hiss and a roar, speaking to Mulciber senior who hovering among the other cloaked and masked figures in the background of the room in Avery\'s estate house, the setting for that evening\'s revel.

\"My son was a traitorous, worthless brat, my Lord. I regret that my son could not have served you, and that he was set against you and himself...\" Mulciber announced, his bass voice muffled behind his mask.

\"He slit his wrists, had he no pride? He was a drunkard, a coward and a fool, Mulciber...see that if you spawn any other offspring that you choose a better bitch to birth him!\" the Dark Lord roared, his white hands clasping the arms of his chair with a strength that cracked the wood under the upholstery. A calculating calm swept over the Dark Lord\'s regal features and he motioned for Lucius to come closer.

\"Lucius...take the daughter of the House of Black for yourself...you are far more worthy of her than Mulciber. A match with the lovely girl would strengthen our ranks. We already have Bellatrix and she is barren, sweet Narcissa would produce an heir that would carry our ideals on to a new generation...wed her, bed her and honor me with your son...\"

Lucius tried not to appear disgusted, but knelt to kiss the hem of his Master\'s robes.

\"Go to her now, my son...reclaim your rights as a Pureblood and reestablish your estate. When you have successfully filled her womb, bring her to me...\"

Lucius bowed again and slowly replaced his mask, making very sure that his Master could see his feigned, yet convincing smirk. Rising to his feet, Lucius bowed once more and disapparated...

...into Maxim Mulciber\'s flat.



* * *

The blood had not been cleaned from the carpets in the bedroom even though the Aurors who had come to investigate had offered to remove it. Narcissa had insisted she would do it herself...but she was still staring at it as she sat the foot the bed she had shared with Maxim, two weeks after his funeral.

The blood had become a voidlike black in the blue carpeting, and a scent lingered, but still Narcissa had not bothered to flick her wand and vanish it.

Still in her black dress, her hair pulled up tightly in a bun, she was still holding herself in a posture of grief...well rehearsed grief so that if anyone were to look upon her, they would pity her. Her mother and father had consoled her...all the while insisting that Narcissa should leave Mulciber\'s flat and return home...but she refused. She had, however, planted the seed in her father\'s mind...of who she should take as a husband. And after much convincing, many tears and promises, her father had consented to arranging a marriage with the handsome, ambitious, yet impoverished Lucius Malfoy.

\"He has the blood, the brains, the brawn...I will look into his accounts and see what can be done to restore him to his estate...\" her father had growled, begrudgingly, but finally seeing that perhaps he had been hasty in overlooking the Malfoy heir as a mate for his daughter.

All through the arrangements, the questions, the funeral, Lucius had made himself a fixture at Narcissa\'s side, grieving with her, consoling her, all for public notice. Of course, it had all been prearranged, but the true feelings between the two, the care, the concern, was very genuine...and all of it just reaffirmed Narcissa\'s longing and decision to have Lucius...

She had suffered much ever since Lucius had come to live with Maxim, looking to Lucius as the man she should have had her father choose. It mattered not that he was in dire straits, it only mattered that he was a far better man than Maxim Mulciber could ever be. Also, Narcissa was hopelessly attracted to Lucius...and would often picture his face above her every time Maxim touched her. The one she wanted was just across the hall...and how she had fantasized that Lucius would burst through the door and save her from having another fake orgasm...

Turning her eyes away from the dried and mottled blood on the carpets and the spray upon the wall, Narcissa remembered the night that Maxim had died...just before the bed, where he had fallen drunk, muttering about the Dark Lord and his coming initiation...she remembered how the blood had poured and Maxim had chuckled at the sight of it, laying on the carpet, softly muttering a song from the Wireless...and that was how he bled to death as she and Lucius peered from the open doorway. She remembered that she had grasped Lucius\' hand when she saw Maxim draw his last breath, and how free she suddenly felt...and how avenged.

No one would ever shame her and live...no one.

\"Narcissa?\"

Her eyes flickered to the open door and the man standing in Death Eater\'s robes, the silver mask in his gloved hand.

\"Lucius...I assume that the last bit of business has been dealt with?\"

Lucius smirked, dropping his mask upon the blue velvet wingbacked chair, and soon his black velvet robes. \"Finished.\"

Toeing out of his worn, dragon skin boots, Lucius stepped onto the blood encrusted carpet and tread across the room where Narcissa rose from her place where had been sitting on the end of the large four poster bed. He took her in his arms and kissed her face fiercely, pulling free all the pins that had held her hair up in such a tight bun. Golden waves cascaded over the black taffeta of her mourning dress as she kissed Lucius\' neck, pulling his shirt free from his trousers and hastily unbuttoning the front.

Fabric ripped and soon black taffeta strips fell to the blood stained carpet. Narcissa cried out as Lucius ripped away the bodice of her dress and fell to his knees before her, burying his face into her skirts. His hands caressed her bare ankles and her bare feet resting in the darkened carpet, fingers trailing up under her skirts to eventually rip it away as well.

Narcissa gazed down at the top of Lucius\' silvery crown, and let herself fall back onto the bed as Lucius pressed kisses onto her knees, then her thighs, then her hips... Suddenly, in a motion that startled Narcissa, Lucius pulled her up as he rose to his feet, and lifted her so that she fell onto the bed, nude and pale in the summer moonlight that streamed through the large casement windows of the room.

Lucius studied his quarry, her limbs strewn across the dark blue duvet of the bed that he would now make his... Narcissa\'s hair was tangled waves of gold and silver upon the dark velvet, and her eyes reflected a storm of desire, slight fear, and need in those pale blue orbs. Lucius humming appraisingly before tearing at his trousers and pushing them down his hips.

Licking her lips in anticipation, Narcissa marveled at the pale silver curls surrounded the straining, thickly veined and jutting member that bobbed slightly as her lover moved to crawl onto the bed and kneel over her. She felt her a rush of delight and dampness as Lucius, pulling his hair to fall over his right shoulder, kissed a path from her feet to her breasts, nudging her knees apart to that his hips could rest upon hers.

Collecting her lithe body into his strong arms, Narcissa sighed as her hands ran along his wide shoulders, down his back and along his ribs. Tasting her pert breasts, tongue delving into the recess below her throat and the scented softness just below her ears, Lucius ground his hips against Narcissa\'s groaning at the soft, trimmed hairs of her cleft rasping pleasantly against his near painful erection. Kissing her lips, tasting her mouth, Lucius could bear it no longer and pulled away to kneel between her slim and alabaster legs, cock in hand, gazing heatedly down at the woman who would be his wife.

\"I should tease you, Narcissa, just as you had teased and tormented me...\" Lucius breathed, stroking himself with one hand and pressing his fingers into her damp flesh at the apex of her thighs.

Narcissa gasped as she felt one long, tapered digit penetrate her...then two...pumping while his thumb pressed against her clitoris. \"You would be torturing yourself, Lucius...denying your...yourself,\" she whispered huskily, rising up to lean on her elbows, watching as his aristocratic prick strained and a pearlescent drop of moisture formed at the slit of his circumcised head.

\"You are mine...and I will take you as if you had always been mine...\" Lucius muttered, his eyes becoming glassy, pulling his fingers from Narcissa to rub the head of his cock along her soaking slit.

\"I am yours, you have won me...but I will never let you abuse this right you have won...\" Narcissa whispered, the last coherent statement she would utter.

Lucius grinned handsomely, his damp fingers pressing against Narcissa\'s reddened lips. Narcissa smirked as her pink tongue lashed out to taste her own essences. When she had licked her lover\'s fingers clean, he leaned forward to partake of her ruby lips...and that was when he pierced her body.

Out of pain and the unfamiliar intrusion, Narcissa clutched at Lucius\' neck. He was far larger than Maxim, and as he thrust into her, his arms grasping her hips, she knew that he was also far more skilled...each thrust eliciting a moan from her throat and juices from her invaded nether regions. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she was lost...

Lucius, meanwhile, was fighting a losing battle. His future wife was extremely tight fitting, and no matter how wet she was, he was perilously close to filling her prematurely. She squeezed him fiercely with both arms and divine inner vaginal walls, and with only a few deep, bruising thrusts, she was falling apart beneath him, her voice crying out her climax like a phoenix song. Gritting his teeth, Lucius continued, his heart pounding and about to burst from the sensations of her body clenching him, her voice tempting him, her arms wound about him as if they were the finest chains to hold him to the present.

Sweat beaded his temple as he grasped the backs of Narcissa\'s knees and pushed forward so the angle changed variably and he was forcing her thin, yet supple body down into the bed. Fingernails dug into his shoulders as he ravaged his lover, grunting and trying not to moan. He had wanted this...and he was not disappointed...

She was his queen that he had won by becoming the villian...she was his life he had won by breathing in the air of darkness...she was his wife that he won by taking what he knew was rightfully his...

He took her every way he wanted, making her cry out her freedom and her willing imprisonment. He tasted every inch of her body and invaded her senses so that she was reeling from the sheer want of his advances. And like a man, caressing a new acquisition, he loved her.

And so it was that he took Narcissa to the very edge of desire, finally filling her body with his seed, her arms pinned behind her back, her face pressed into the bed and Lucius leaning down to press his ragged and dry lips into her spine.

In this room, Lucius had stolen a gaze at this woman below him, and in this room he had slain his rival...and in this room he claimed his prize, his wife. The scent of their joining began to overpower the scent of blood, and Lucius fell to the bed, pulling Narcissa with him with the last of his strength, and they slept...Gyges and his queen...


This was a very hard oneshot for me...but I wanted to finish it. This is my first Lucius/Narcissa fic, so conrit is welcomed.