Harry potter and the breeding darkness

Chapter 34

Sitting at the breakfast table with Narcissa, Lucius was in a pensive mood as he went through a stack of papers. He had already attended to what was needed when it came to personal things and was now combing through procedures along with other such rot when it came to what was going to be needed for an emancipation. He assumed that the solicitor they would eventually procure would handle most of it. Being who this was for, however, he wanted to make certain that he knew all that was needed and that the steps that had to be taken were done so that no one could come back later and question what had been done. After all, this was at the behest of the Dark Lord himself and his consort so things had to be handled just so with no one thinking to look at what might be going on behind the scenes.

Leaning back in his chair, brow furrowed, he was skimming through a dry as dust procedure list of just what had to be done and how to go about some things, such as the submission of the paperwork, when he was pulled out of it by the soft voice of his wife. Looking up, he smiled at her slightly then asked, tone soft, "What was that, Narcissa?"

The book she had been looking through having been placed on the table, Narcissa took a sip of her tea then said again, softly, "Something's troubling you, Lucius. What is it?"

"I will concede something is, yes," Lucius told her with a sigh and nod. Oh, there was! He was still feeling blindsided by what he had learned the day before about their lord and Potter. Part of his brain didn't want to accept that it was real but he was slowly coming around, especially after rehashing all he had seen of the two since he had first seen 'Evan'. It was just... hard to imagine was all. He supposed, though, that it was the ultimate confirmation that Potter had, indeed, turned away from Dumbledore's way of doing things. For that, he was grateful.

"Would you like to talk about it? If you do, perhaps it won't bother you so much," she suggested with a soft smile. Lucius, though very stoic and controlled, would, when they were alone, open up about some of it, seeing her as a sounding board. She could, from what he said, be very open minded about topics and see things he couldn't or from an angle he just hadn't been able to. That always assisted him in muddling through whatever troubled him.

With a heavy sigh, Lucius shook his head. "This time I can't. It's been made clear to me that I'm not to discuss it with anyone. And considering who gave that order..." trailing off, he gave his wife a pointed look so that she probably caught on to just who he was talking about.

Quick on the uptake with that, Narcissa gave a firm nod, getting it. "Though you can't discuss the situation itself, what about it is troubling you?" Having been through this enough with her husband before, she knew he could phrase things in such a way that he could dance around giving real facts and still lay out the situation. Even if asked later, she would have no clue what they were really talking about.

Nodding, Lucius thought over what she said. He could, of course, couch what he said in such a way that she would never relate it to any particular topic. Knowing Narcissa, she also wouldn't try to figure it out either. She was well aware how dangerous the dance he did was at this point and wouldn't do anything to put either of them in danger by trying to find out more than he was willing to give up. As it stood, because both of them had been in the Dark Lord's headquarters, if the Ministry started snooping, they were both in danger.

Rubbing his chin in a thoughtful manner, he thought about how to phrase this, or even if he should. It was going to be more of a delicate dance than any other he had done with her. Finally, after a couple minutes, he said, critically, "I've been asked to step in and assist in a custody matter for someone that is underage. That, in and of itself, is going to be hard enough but this is something that is going to be more so because of who is involved." Stopping, he shook his head, then added, "I also learned about a relationship between two beings that I didn't know about before. That blindsided me. I suppose that's where so much of this is coming from."