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Secret Bliss	By : InfernalParadise Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 7081 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Chapter 17

Lay the burden down

The party at the Weasleys� place was the first, but also the last public appearance Lucius and I made together. Instead, we started retreating from the wizard world afterwards, spending our days in the by now almost deserted Manor with no one except each other. I broke up school for there was no need for it anyway, and Lucius� financial funds were by far enough to maintain a more luxurious life than we already lived, thus he gave up his work at Hogwarts. Somehow I felt that it would be wise to enjoy the years we had left although I never mentioned it in front of Lucius. It was like a dark premonition � the kind of premonition that never leaves you once it has reached you. And so I learned to cherish the remaining time for I knew it was tightly limited.

We lived on in the hope that one day all would turn out fine and livable. What we didn�t count on, however, was life itself. And it dearly paid us back all our weak attempts at happiness by never becoming anything but tough for us. Thirteen months after Draco and Hermione�s marriage they had their first baby. Two more children would follow it later, and from that time on, the pain in Lucius� eyes never fully disappeared again. He retreated more and more, restlessly wandering around in the Manor for hours, ignoring all those letters his son sent him until we stopped visiting him and his family completely. Narcissa married once again, but even her numberless tries to talk to her former husband were in vain. One day she told me that it seemed as if Lucius had given up everything, including himself. Deep inside a little voice told me that I had already known it, with one difference: it didn�t only seem so, but it simply was a fact. And as the months carried on, even Narcissa ceased to see us anymore. Lucius and I stayed in the Manor, caught between memories of former times and surrounded by the ghosts of other people�s happiness, still we didn�t find ourselves able to leave the place as we had become prisoners inside the many, once lively rooms.

By the end of another year, Lucius� health increasingly deteriorated. We never called for a healer, let alone informed anyone else. The past of a Death Eater life finally caught up with him, and although his outer beauty gave no hint about his true age, Lucius� body was growing old. I took care of him as much and as well as possible, yet both of us knew that this would be his last disease. And so I found myself sitting at his bed one cold winter evening while the snow was falling outside, turning the world into a calm and forgotten playground. Lucius stared out of the large window while ignoring his tea. I had grown accustomed to his mental absence in those moments because Lucius had become another person in my eyes. From the outside, he was still the old Lucius Malfoy, but his insides had changed from all the damage life had done to him until he had turned into someone I hardly recognized anymore, yet loved as if nothing had ever happened.

"Maybe you had been better off with someone younger� someone different than me."

Lucius gave a weak smile as he turned his head to face me.

"I�m happy I had you", neither of us noticed then how we were both already speaking in the past, and only the next morning I vaguely remembered it all of a sudden, "I would have wanted no one else to share both my lives with."

"We should have married, then�"

"What for? Proving it to others who refused to understand, let alone accept anyway?"

Another weak smile appeared on Lucius� face.

"I�m glad you�ve never regretted any of this."

"You learn from being with a Malfoy."

"I know", he sighed, drinking from his tea, "It�s beautiful out there when it snows."

"Perhaps you want to take a walk outside tomorrow?"

"Who knows?", he replied with an enigmatic smile.

"I see you tomorrow morning, love", I kissed Lucius goodnight.

The moment I closed the door behind me, a whisper rushed through the room. It could have been the wind as well, but it sounded like words.

You�ll see me again, no doubt� only differently.

Telling myself that it was just my frayed imagination, I went to spend a restless night in the library. When I came to see him the next morning, Lucius was dead, a peaceful expression on his face. For the first time in so many years, I suddenly felt a heavy weight taken off of my shoulders.

Around midday I entered Lucius� old workroom and sat down behind his big wooden desk. Cobwebs hung everywhere and the wind that blew through the window I had opened brushed in a light shiver across the thick dust. The Manor had decayed during the last years, barely recognizable as the great house it had once been, the home of wealth, influence and power. There was no need to write letters to anyone now, and yet I felt the sudden urge to use the notepaper once more that bore the greenish-silver Malfoy seal. Lucius� old owls didn�t seem very euphoric about flying through the falling snow to deliver them as they disappeared out of sight in the gray sky. The letters would be safe with them, though, I knew. When I made my way back through the long corridor with the painted pictures on both sides, the silence in the Manor was creepy.

The kitchen was as abandoned as the other rooms, all house elves long gone off to other homes or into freedom. My search for some milk and cocoa ended in vain, but when I opened one of the cupboards, a small red bottle shin through the dusted cups it was caught in between. I knew for sure I hadn�t put it here, but obviously Lucius had thought more about death and its consequences than I had assumed. Snape�s words during the Weasley�s party came to my mind again as my fingers closed around the cool glass.

Take this. I fear Lucius does still have many enemies out there, and I don�t want you to have no way out should the worst happen.

Unsuspecting Snape, he had worried about us in the wrong way. None of Lucius� old enemies had ever shown up. And they didn�t need to, either, because throughout the years there had still been one enemy big and terrible enough to make all others turn into little frightened worms: life.

Some of the owls were already returning from their flight, probably with new letters attached to their legs. They would have to wait� to wait for a long time�

Molly Weasley will always blame herself for this, a voice in my mind faded away as quickly as it had appeared. It was her party that had started it all. Was it truly? Her party had only started the end of something Lucius and I had always been aware of. Now it was here, prominently present and yet calm and soundless as ever. My hands weren�t shaking when they opened the small bottle while the snow was still falling outside as if it were always winter in London.

Today, many years ago, Lucius and I had met for the very first time. Lucius would have remembered it if he had woken up again this morning. Today, an eternity ago� and today, an eternity afterwards, we had come so far. Further than the treacherous, scattered hopes of life would have wanted us to come. At last, the burden was no longer ours.
- 17
- 18
- 19
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Secret Bliss