I SPY || 𝕝𝕦𝕔𝕚𝕦𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕝𝕗𝕠𝕪

Chapter 18. Merry Christmas

Lucius stared at the letter in his hand with intense eyes, with his free hand he rubbed at his chin and jaw as he thought intently about her words. I trust you. With love. They made him awash with a feeling he couldn't quite pinpoint. Almost like butterflies, but the feeling was unpleasant. The words pleased him, made his heart jump in a way he hadn't felt since he was but a teenager, before all the death and darkness, before Narcissa. But the words also worried him, she trusted him, yet he was on the opposite side of a war that was now very much in the swing of things. He could be ordered to kill her at any point, and he would be forced to do so to avoid worse punishments. Any of the individuals sat around that dining table could also be the ones to kill her, and he would be powerless to stop them. He didn't deserve her trust.

"You look as if you're torn up about something," Severus observed as he clasped his hands together on the table, "is her letter not... what you were expecting?" Lucius dropped the letter to the table and ran his hands over his scalp, brushing his long blonde locks back out of his face.

"Her words are sweet, lovely even," Lucius drawled with a sigh. This seemed to come to Severus as a surprise. "Yet they fill me with dread,"

"You're fearful for her safety, but she has the order to protect her, and with our influence with the dark lord... she should be fine Lucius," The potion masters attempt at reassurance were futile.

"Should," Lucius scoffed, "should is not good enough,"

"Lucius this is a war," Severus decided to attempt tough love on his old friend, "People die in war... it is an inevitability, whether that is her fate is yet to be seen, but if it is, you cannot stop it,"

Lucius lashed out, leaning back he kicked the chair next to him with a yell, sending it hurtling onto its side, crashing into the other chairs in a domino effect

"What would you do Severus?" Lucius asked after a few moments of silence whilst he gathered himself.

"You really wish to know?" Severus's tone came with a warning attached: Lucius wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"I asked, didn't I?" Lucius retorted.

"I would push her away Lucius,"

"Not an option," Lucius said firmly.

"I already tried to influence your parting, for both your sakes, and Draco's," Severus admitted. "It is the logical thing to do, the less significant she is in your life, the less danger she will be in,"

"That was you? You're the reason she turned away from me those few weeks ago?" Lucius slammed his hand down on the table and raised out of his chair, leaning across to stare down the greasy haired Snape.

"Yes," Severus said simply. "I ordered her to stay away from you, told her that her surveillance of you was over... and I told you, old friend, about her spying in order to instil a hatred... and when that didn't work, I thought if you believed her in danger, you would push her away for her own safety, and you still didn't. Even when I told you, firmly, to stop pursuing her Lucius... the first thing you did was fuck her in a corridor according to the Dark Lord," Severus lectured the man before him. Lucius' chest rose and fell deeply as he clenched his fists against the black wooden table, his nostrils flared as he exhaled.

"Why agree to give her the letter if you were so hellbent on separating us?" Lucius hissed through clenched teeth, he was doing everything in his power to stop himself jumping across the table and throttling the man before him.

"I thought you'd seen sense after your son attacked her... I thought she had too... I was confident your letter was your out, your method of finishing it... but I see now you're just a fool. You're both fools. Fools in love." Severus scoffed.