Lady Tonks, Lord Potter

its time

As the sun streamed in through the window, casting everything in a semi-haze of light and the fog of almost infinitesimal dust particles floating through the air, Lucius Malfoy stood in the horribly common and graceless house out in the middle of nowhere and tried to simply look out the window and not react. He'd felt it, of course, through his Dark Mark. Something had happened. Something he hadn't felt since the first time the Dark Lord had disappeared.

Back then he had held out hope that it was truly over, that he would be able to live his life with his wife and son, that he would have the time to show his son what a true Malfoy was meant to be; a leader of the unwashed, ignorant masses, a true wizard's wizard. But it wasn't to be; the Mark never truly faded and in the small hours, when the fears he pushed down over and over simply to be able to stay sane returned in force, he knew that even though the Dark Lord was supposedly 'vanquished' by the Potter brat that the Dark Lord still survived. He could truly feel it. Now, as then, he ran two fingers over the Mark, feeling the small amount of heat and almost imperceptible motion that existed underneath his skin. It was as it was back then, almost dormant, unlike the previous day when the Mark felt like an insect that always crawled on his arm, a sensation that one learned to ignore.

Now, though, it was dormant again, and all his plans, everything he had worked for was going to end.

He turned from the window, revulsion coming over him in waves as he sat in the chair. Years before he would have never even considered sitting in such a thing, a threadbare piece of Muggle furniture; if he had he would have forced that useless house elf of his to burn his robe for coming in contact with it even for an instant. But now, as he sat deeply, the revulsion came from another, distinct source.

Gone. Everything he worked for, all those years, was gone. All of the Galleons placed for just the right effect, to move positions, to hold tongues, to give just the right motivation; wasted. His son was dead. Draco...he should have had years to train the boy, to mould him into a proper Malfoy, but that had been taken from him. His wife? He loved her once, in a fashion, but that was also gone. She coddled and spoiled their son and that just would not do for a future Malfoy Head of House. She was gone as well, disappeared to Merlin-knows-where. His house, his possessions, all useless now.

From outside the room he heard the noise and knew it wouldn't be long now. He took his walking stick and held it in his hand, sliding out the wand from the top and took a look at it. So much promise, so many things he could do with that wand, now pointless. As the noise became closer, as it was not loud, he thought about doing something to spite him and hesitated. Then, in a fit of black humour, Lucius Malfoy leaned his head back and laughed. Not a pleasant laugh, but the laugh of a man who knows that life has played a rather large joke on someone of such ambition and class.

He held up the wand in his hand. "If that is the way we are playing it, but all means, let us play." Grabbing the end of the wand with his other hand he brought it down sharply across his knee, snapping it. He threw the pieces across the room, not caring where they landed as the sound was louder now.

The snake came into view, it's massive head weaving around the door frame followed shortly thereafter by the body. It moved in the sinuous s-shape movements until it ended up encircling the chair.

Lucius closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then, with a nasty smile upon his face, stepped forward and knelt down on the floor, ignoring the dirty, stained Muggle carpet. The snake's body continued to move around him, closer and closer, until he could feel the bulk of Nagini begin to touch him. With a sudden move he straightened his shoulders, put his hands up to his hair, gathered it and let it flow proudly over his shoulders. He knew his time was at an end, but he would not go out sobbing and pleading. There would be no answers from the snake. He was the last insurance policy, the last hope. The Dark Lord had told him it was a position of honour, but as Nagini came closer he knew it was a lie. It had all been a lie. He laughed. Of course it was a lie, what should he have ever expected from a half-blood Dark Lord?