There's a second where he wonders if he is being invasive (because turned back around, if potentially from someone else, he would count it to be), but then she responds, and Lucius knows no true visceral reaction after all. He isn't sure, exactly, what his duties here are as a husband, if it matters, because maybe tomorrow Narcissa will appear in a green tiled room or maybe Lucius will disappear like others have, like Severus did.

Neither of these possibilities feel real, somehow, or even likely. There aren't many examples to follow, as a result. Vanessza does not present one.

But he followed her here anyway, even if all he partakes in is a drink two parts gin. "Clearly," he says, a rather swift quip despite some other part of his mind wheeling away in self-indulgent contemplation, casting another look out from their immediate vicinity; aaand back to his gin-retreat, although even he can see a degree of humour in his own reserve. "I suppose that uncomplicates matters."