multiversallogs | You're not as brave as you were at the start

Entry tags:

You're not as brave as you were at the start

Who: Lucii (Jr. and Sr.)
What: Meeting and surrealness!
Where: The Malfoy townhouse
When: backdated to the day after Lucius Sr. attempted to mug Narcissa
Notes:
Warnings: None yet, angst probable.

Lucius is well aware of how surreal his life has become. He only just felt he'd adjusted to working with an alternate of the bloody Boy Who Lived, and to knowing a younger alternate of his own wife. But this was something else again. He'd seen no sense disturbing his alternate the previous night, as late as he'd gotten in, but he's decided to take to take today off. He suspects he might need it.

He's down at breakfast at his normal time. He hasn't really slept much, but he'll make up the difference later; Draco is still young enough that his sleep schedule remains fundamentally flexible, and a bit of a potion and some tea usually tides him over.

He hasn't the least idea how this will go, but he refuses to be intimidated by the idea of himself. A Malfoy has his pride.

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There is still the faint taint of smoke in the air carried over from last night, and to be honest, it's not a bad idea. But Lucius will take his tea instead once it's been prepared, cane clenched in both hands and passingly inspecting the snake end of it while he waits, standing -- the heirloom had avoided any dousings in the moon water, and is kept as polished as the rings on his fingers and the shoes on his feet, but he doesn't want to be caught staring.

Those glances are reserved for when he is quite sure his younger self has his attention on his own hands. When he speaks, his voice is as quiet and refined as ever, but with that rougher edge that a brief foray into alcoholism and age will do to you. "I don't know. A few weeks, by my rough estimate -- I didn't think to count the days.

"And badly." To respond to that first part. "But it is truly amazing what you find yourself adapting to."

And by 'you' he does actually mean 'you', Lucius.

"We survive." We meaning himself and his wife, for the time being. He sets the tea in front of his other self, made how he likes it - or how he did, anyhow.

Lucius then resettles himself where he'd been sitting, a little bit away. "I don't know what Narcissa had time to tell you, last night, but this wasn't our first stop, after we were snatched from home."

"Of course, by adapting, I also meant putting up with."

Clunk. The polished black cane whips up and is set down again, heavy silver end upon the table. Lucius sits down, finally, once his younger analog had done so first, fussing sleeves out the way and happy to maintain that little bit of distance, positioned as if they were strangers who happened to be sharing tea at a table as opposed to two men about to engage in conversation. For all that it has some inevitability.

For all that they aren't strangers. At all. "We had a good enough conversation," he says, pulling tea cup over closer. "She mentioned that she and yourself had been through this before." The cup is collected up, but before he sips from it, he adds, "This is my first foray."

He nods in confirmation. "Yes. And we visited our own world, but in our future, in between." That had been a bit harrowing, as they were both supposed to be dead by that point.

He watches his older self, though he's not so ill-bred as to stare, even under the circumstances. Sebastian had told him, the risk he ran of Azkaban, but seeing it was...

It had been unsettling and worth mourning, in Rodolphus. Bellatrix was herself, only moreso. But this was something else again, and he refused to let it scare him. (As much as he could, at the very least.) "I keep arriving first, and then she follows. No one seems to have the least idea why."

It isn't as though there aren't the dusty artifacts of prior pride and affectation, from the rings of his fingers and the cane carried around and the crisp enunciation in which each word is produced. Probably these facets have been ever amplified over time, even, honed to an edge, only to be blunted again. The wand hidden inside his cane is not the one that the younger Lucius wields. "How very irresponsible of you."

He glances back at Lucius, briefly holding that look, only it's less-- conversational and more observation.

"Strange, how far that woman will follow, whether by her own design or not."

"It's right that we're together," Lucius says, as evenly as he can. Coming from anyone else, the comment would have offended him; as things stand, he's unsure of how to take it.

"I'm very lucky." He wants to say we're, as he assumes Lucius has a Narcissa of his own, but it catches in his throat to say as much, considering the shattering that his alternate has clearly endured.

It would probably, in all fairness, be hypocritical of Lucius to resent the exclusion of himself as fortunate -- he hasn't been and it's written on him, and also this man has led enough of his own life that they are not simply one and the same, and by Merlin's beard, so has the older version of the two. But there's a contextual sharpness that harks readily to his own stilted uncertainty with what to do with a Narcissa that is not his at all, and the look he trades across the table is a little flat and cold.

The smile that follows is halved and a brief, insincere dart of a line near his mouth. "Then I suspect you're relieved," he says, hand spidering over his tea cup, "that should you find yoursel somewhere else new and strange, she will at least be cared for in your absence.

"It's the least I could do."

The physical tells as he tenses are subtle, but he knows himself well enough to guess they won't be missed. A slight tension in his jaw, the way he flexes his left fingers as if wishing he had a wand. They're small and subtle, but there.

"I don't intend to leave her again. But if I should, Narcissa is perfectly capable of caring for herself, though I thank you for your concern." A slight beat. "I trust you're done assaulting her, then?"

This could be going much better.

"Ah, she mentioned that."

Of course she did, and had he been asked, it is what the older Malfoy would have assumed -- it just never really occurred to him. Irritation is fleeting, mostly in the way he breaks his stare-- the one that had pricked attention over shifting fingers and tics of tension-- to observe his tea without sipping from it. "Demonstratively capable, quite right, with some more to spare for caring the world around her whether it desires it or not -- believe me, I'm more than aware of my wife's capabilities.

"She never changes." That, to mitigate any claim that Lucius know otherwise. Another sip of tea that never removes that hint of permanent acid in his voice. "All things considered, you both have been faultlessly hospitable."

He sits back in his chair, checking his own frustration. "What else were we going to be?" Lucius has already established that Narcissa's alternate is family, if a strange sort; they could hardly do any less for an alternate of his own.

Quieter, he adds, "You could have come to us sooner, you know."

Gently spoken, maybe, but still rises easy defense in the older of the two -- kind of like putting your hand out to the coyote at the edges of the flame light will only send it scampering away. There is silvery malicious suspicion in the glance the younger of them get. "Indeed? Before being driven to thievery, I could have taken charity sooner? Such reassurance--"

He sets down his tea harder than he means to by the time his voice gains growl on emphasis -- it doesn't break, at least, but the hot, aromatic liquid spills over the side to flood saucer, Lucius jerking his hand up and away as if that small crack of physical temper had startled himself.

Rather than look at the other man, he sets about inspecting his palm, cleaning it off with the other as if nothing happened.

"It isn't charity," he responds, low but a bit less gently. "You're family. A bloody odd sort of family, but you're a Malfoy, and we wouldn't have turned our back on you."

He resists the urge to magically clean the spilled tea through force of will. "You didn't burn yourself, I hope."

"No."

Lucius takes care of it via fidgety tipping of spilled tea from saucer to cup, movements a little less elegant than the swing of a wand would have been -- and louder, as the cutlery rattles together, set down with minimal care. His voice is tense, clipped. "I have an eighteen-year-old son and a wife of my own. That is my family, and they are not here." And yet he isn't getting up from the table, or anything, let alone leaving the townhouse.

He pushes the tea aside once it's tidied. "I also didn't hear tell of any Malfoy in this city. In your future, it is not a highly sought after name, nor one given very proudly. Or safely."

Frustrated, Lucius says, "Of course we're not them - that isn't what I meant at all. We can't substitute, nor should we, for your wife and your Draco. But Baedal isn't home, and as you've already so aptly noted, it has required compromise. Call it selfishness, if that makes more sense to you; a hope that you'd do the same if our places were reversed."

He exhales, slowly, keeping his emotions sorted and in check. "I have heard, some, about at least one potential future. It seems there are several."

A reversal of places. Lucius doesn't respond to that in words -- his uncertainty is transparent enough. As many years as Draco has taken to grow into a young man lies between the two versions of his father sharing a table, but even so, Lucius doesn't have the conviction to outright claim he'd close his door to bizarre mirror versions of himself, especially ones that reflect nothing good. He instead takes the easy route and scowls at the frustration evident in his younger self's tone and body language, a warning glance given.

Watch yourself. His hand rests back against the silver head of his cane rested on the table, not because he intends to use it, but it's a focus point of comfort and security.

"How fortunate for you, to have options. Which do I come from?"

"I don't have a catalog of them. I've only heard details of one. It's more that it's evident that there are many possible versions of my - our lives." Lucius folds his hands, unsure how much to say.

"There's another Narcissa here, younger than my wife. She can't just be the same person at a younger age, though - she remembers certain things differently, that didn't happen for us."

A glance chases after the answer Lucius was seeking but isn't quite getting, darting that notice to the prim locking of fingers and easy diversion-- or what sounds like it, to Lucius-- into speaking of the mirroring Narcissas. It amuses him, a little, mouth pulling into seldom used half-smile, own hands folding on the table in semi-conscious mimicry.

"Are you being reticent? With me? Please -- I know everything else. Everything that matters, anyway."

He drags his attention away, skimming it along the surface of the table -- it's still a little jarring, to look this one in the face. "Obviously, some details escape my knowledge, unless I had cross-dimensional travels I don't recall. But the idea of comparing notes seems tedious."

"I'll answer anything you like," he counters, "but I should think you know everything that happened before I went astray, unless we've differences that go back that far. I left from between the wars, as I now understand it. I am hoping that forewarned is forearmed but."

Lucius spreads his hands. "I have no way of being sure I don't simply forget Baedal and Bete Noire, the city before it, when I do eventually get home." When, not if; he's not allowing the alternative as a possibility.

Offer to answer his questions is not followed by questions, perhaps unsurprisingly, just a proud tip to his chin and a look out the window instead. He is curious, about what this younger one would speculate as to his own history and juniour's own possible future, but Lucius would rather not appear needful. Reliant of opinion. Which is a bit hypocritical--

"It is not a possibility to discount," he agrees evenly. "Indeed, perhaps this is my most illustrious Baedel return. In which case, any guidance from me that you do not already have would be quite pointless." The chair scrapes a little against the ground as if he were to get up, but he doesn't immediately -- giving himself space to do so, at least. "Except to enjoy this."

The bitterness could curdle milk, but it's tempered with good manner and fine diction and a little bit of weariness.

Lucius is uncertain what to say to that. "I try. I do." He misses Draco, and he has a great deal more contact with muggles than he'd care for, but Narcissa is with him. Unless Bellatrix takes a wild(er) turn, he's relatively safe here, at least from the threats he can see coming.

"There's a world in which I - we - a Lucius dies before the second war ends. If I have my memory of this place when I go back, Narcissa and I will do everything in our power to keep our family safe." Draco, then one another.

"You will not be able to."

Lucius' hand closes back around the snake handle of his walking stick, swinging the item down off the table to rest its end on the hard ground of the kitchen. "We sealed out futures when we pledged them to the Dark Lord. Unless you can devise a way to make him stay quite dead, or ensure his victory, then perhaps, some day, you'll be the one dead before it ends, or it will be you sitting at this table where I am, and wondering whether the young man across from you was ever you at all."

He stands, then, in a heavy sort of way, relying on his cane without particular need to.

Lucius stands too. "You don't think I know that?" he asks, quietly. "The moment Bellatrix got here, she jabbed the damn thing." He doesn't feel the need to specify that he means the Mark.

"It still aches, and he's not even in the same universe we are, at present. I know what's at stake, I'm not a fool."

That almost has the elder of the two Lucii laugh -- it's a dry sound at the back of his throat, suppressed readily thanks to years of practicing general suppression. Kindled first at the predictable actions of Bellatrix-- and look how she winds up-- and then allowed to spark at this proclamation that is just so ridiculous. The curve of his mouth is small and mean, and his eyes are hard.

"Oh, but you are. But don't worry, it's far down the list of other things people will identify you as."

He also has good practice at feeling superior, and though it's been a rare commodity lately, Lucius is self-assured in being so over his younger self, his voice chill and room for concession very slight. He starts away from the table, done with his half-filled cup of tea.

"I am sorry for what happened to you," he says, clipped and almost sharp. He is sorry, though more unnerved - he'd never confessed scared, even to himself. He can see just enough of himself in the man before him to throw him off balance.

"But I'm not going to give up. On the contrary," he adds, quiet if still precise, "it's all the more reason I will fight to make sure your future isn't my own."

Hard to say how much of this is honest and how much of it is the desire to put this fortunate young thing before him through its paces. A blurred line. But still, Lucius pauses and looks back at this apology, physically tense as if it were assault, once again wary when he ought not to be. He draws himself up some of their shared height, some sort of posturing to imply he needs no apology and the implicit compassion or pity or whatever passes for such an emotion for people like them, but that's the only protest he can afford.

He isn't convinced, but he is hardly the one that the younger of the two need convince. "For her sake, I wish you well in that," he states, evenly, before he resumes his way.

He'd say for his sake, too, but it probably doesn't work that. It's done.

Lucius does know himself well enough to know how toxic anything like pity can feel - no matter how pitiable the situation might actually be. The Lucius before him still has his Narcissa and his Draco, at home, and he is firmly of the opinion that anything short of losing them can eventually be recovered from. He needs to believe that.

It isn't as if he's entirely green - he did grow up during a war, and it shaped him, but into nothing like what he sees. (Not yet, an insidious voice in his mind whispers.)

He doesn't call out to stop him. It seems that he and his alternate are likely to collide in short, painful intervals.

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You're not as brave as you were at the start

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