Work Text:
It was a late evening. The kids were put to bed already for half an hour. Severus and Danica enjoyed a glass of wine together, celebrating yet another day where their twins didn’t blow Severus’ lab while playing, and the youngsters actually shared their toys between them without crying. They are growing up, I’m sure, Severus encouraged Danica when she sort of complained about it at lunch. A peculiar day indeed, and yet a more peculiar night awaited them because right when they prepared to go upstairs, a firm series of rasps at the door disturbed them.
“Dani, please go upstairs! I’ll deal with it alone. Most likely it’s just another drunk bastard who forgot which house is his.”
“
To hell I’m going to leave you alone, I’m staying,” she scoffed at him. He knew better by this point than to press on the subject. So in a couple of swift moves, he was by the door, wand clutched behind his back, trying hard to block the view to not disturb Dani. Just then, the known silver head of a snake made its way to his chest. So this thing made those strange noises, thought Severus before withdrawing the wand from his back and pointing it at whoever clutched tightly the joining point of the silver ornament and an elegant black cane.
It all happened too fast, his reflexes still as good as in his school days. If he didn’t recognize the snake head, he might have cursed that person already. But Severus assumed it was a mental alarm, and he could only threaten and not act. He thanked Merlin for that later as from the darkness, the face of his friend, Lucius, could be seen in the light coming from the hallway.
Lucius wore the hood of his cloak over his head, an unusual thing for him as he always insisted he’d rather cast a charm over his hair if it were to rain and let the muggles stare as long as they want than wear the hood of any cloak. His face was dark and firmly set into a grimace of pain. Something must have happened to him. He had never looked like this before, and Severus was right. Something did happen, but not then. Earlier that day, Lucius received the confirmation that what happened wasn’t a mood swing or a twisted revenge. It was true and as real as daylight.
“I know it’s late, Sev, but may I come in?” Merlin’s beard, he’s been crying. Severus then opened the door wide and stepped back, waving at Lucius to enter. Dani glanced at Severus, eyebrows raised in a silent question followed by a quick move of her head towards Lucius, who seemed to notice her standing in the hallway only too late. Severus closed the door behind them.
“You know what, Sev? I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I'd better go on my way.”
Lucius turned towards the door, but Severus blocked the way with his body.
“Nonsense, you’re staying until you feel better.” A shocked What? came from behind Lucius, but Severus didn’t look elsewhere, but in Lucius’ slightly red eyes, forearms crossing over his chest, eyebrow lifted in a muted confrontation. Dani saw exactly the look of determination on her husband’s face and knew better than to contradict him then, though she made her indignation and disagreement clear with a loud scoff and turned her back to them, disappearing from view.
“We’ll talk another time. I upset your wife. You don’t need my problems on top of your clear ones,” Lucius said, dropping his tone in case Dani happened to be right around the corner.
“She isn’t herself if she doesn’t do that at least once a day, and you gave her the opportunity.” He couldn’t resist but to laugh at his own joke, unperturbed if Dani overheard. In fact, he hoped she did because it meant some great passionate nights would follow, nights when he’ll have to remind her to behave. Severus was excited thinking about rekindling their intimate time but something else was more pressing in the moment than him getting shagged. “Now, let’s get you out of this cloak and into my office to tell me what the hell happened for you to be at my door at almost midnight.”
He didn’t have to show Lucius the way. He was pretty familiar by this time with the layout of the house, and without any noise, he made his way to Severus’ office. Looking over his shoulder, he saw his friend following closely as he entered the room. Without shutting the door to his office, Severus came in and went to pour some firewiskey for both of them from the bottle he kept in his hidden cupboard under his typewriter. Hidden from the kids at least, but as long as Dani hadn’t acknowledged it yet, he relished in his little personal secret.
"Do you still have the bottle me and Narcissa gave you when you published your first textbook?" Lucius' face began to show its usual glow of easiness, although weary. "You really become a lazy drinker with age." He chuckled at his own remark and even Severus' lips began to draw in a smile as he left his then more empty glass on his desk.
"You can't quite drink when your house is full of children, can you? Now, the occasion seems to need it. So what happened, Luc?" It was real concern draped in Severus' features. His eyebrows drawn together, his eyes fixated his friends face in a hunter's gaze. Nothing, not even an involuntary twitch, would escape him. "Shouldn't you still be on your honeymoon? And where is Esme? Is something wrong with her?"
At the mention of Lucius' new wife, a deadly silence fell in Severus' office. The blonde man's eyes became glassy again, his look lost, searching somewhere seemingly on the carpet but never finding it. Fingers fidgeted with his still full glass of alcohol when in an outburst of energy, he gulped all its content in one go, and, moaning deeply in his chest, partly due to the burn in his throat at the sudden large amount of firewiskey and partly due to his own emotions bursting out of his chest, he started his story.
"I think Esme and I have broken up. But don't intervene. Let me tell you everything now that I have the courage to do so because if you keep pressing me on details, I feel I won't be able to finish this. And I need to tell you this, or I feel like I might explode. You're my closest thing I have left as family, and I can tell you and only you. You can tell Dani later, laugh at my story, I don't care. But you won't interrupt me, and you and Dani won't spread this thing around, alright?"
Severus nodded, already taking notice of his friend's request on not interrupting him.
"I don't know exactly when it all began. I guess it was when Narcissa wanted to meet Esme. I figured it was something normal to want as the former wife, so I took care of it. I even invited Draco to join. Poor boy, I'm not even thinking at myself but of him. What can possibly be in the boy's head now?
Like I said, I took care of the formalities and invited them over to dinner. The introductions flew with no problem whatsoever. The conversation was easy and familiar. I couldn't believe my eyes how lucky I was. I think now I should've known something wasn't right. What fiancée ever befriends her lover's ex-wife? And it wasn't just the fact that they became friends, they became best friends. Esme started inviting Narcissa over for tea, for lunch, for dinner, for walks in the garden, and all other women nonsense. It started feeling like I hadn't divorced at all, and my mistress was having tea parties with Narcissa in a sick and twisted nightmare.
Besides the fact that Narcissa practically moved back in the manor and I saw her everywhere, Esme started talking about her when we were in bed.
What would Narcissa do?, What does she feel like?, Make me moan like you did with Narcissa.
And I still played along, blinded by some passionate love nights with my soon to be wife. She blinded me with her body, something I gloated myself to be impossible in my case. That it was I who produced this effect and not that I was a victim of it."
Lucius broke his speech to put the glass down, freeing his slightly trembling hands. His eyes were slightly bulged, the red threads showing more obviously than when Severus first saw him that night. It was obvious Lucius tried to contain his tears, and he kept trying as he began talking again with more difficulty this time due to the lump in his throat. He almost succeeded, almost because salty tears washed his face by the end of his story.
“I’m disgusting, Sev, I know. What should have this sick man thought while fucking his soon to be wife on the memory of his ex? And not because I longed for her, but because SHE longed for her.
I should’ve known. Who in their right mind fantasizes about someone’s ex? And I should’ve been more careful because I have known Narcissa for decades. That woman gets what she wants, every time. Just how she convinced me to stop trying to have children after she gave birth to my heir on the first try, how she convinced me to agree with the divorce, and just how she apparently decided to ruin my next marriage before it even began.
And so the days went by. Narcissa, being at the manor, started to become a habit again. Always at the arm of Esme, always at her beck and call. And I decided to ignore it. I was relatively happy, Esme was happy. Narcissa was unusually happy, so who was I to ruin this lavender haze around us?
I think you find it odd all this talk about Narcissa when she wasn’t even at the wedding. Esme invited her, she even begged her to come but Narcissa wouldn’t budge. I, for one, was particularly pleased. It seemed that my paranoia was just that, paranoia. It bothered me when Esme cried after Narcissa’s repeated refusal. It wasn’t a spoiled child’s fit. It was more than that. Even I could have noticed that.
Do you remember when Dani took her aside to give her some words of encouragement the day before the wedding? Well, I thought and thought and thought for some time, and I can say with utmost certainty that she wasn’t upset and anxious about the ceremony, but about the fact that Narcissa wasn’t there.
You don’t have any idea, Sev, how that hurts. To know that you’re not the reason for your lover’s anguish and hence you can’t do anything about it. Because if you bring the person responsible to cure your lover, you know you’ll lose her forever.
And so I kept going through the pain. I said to myself that time will cure it, and as soon as we’re off from this place, everything will turn around and be like in the beginning. But it wasn’t. I was mistaken about that too because as soon as we went off for our honeymoon, Narcissa started to be anguished, too. And what did she do, you may wonder, Sev? She used a portkey to get to our resort.
She made this entire speech to me and Esme about how she didn’t mean to fall in love, that it was something she couldn’t control, that the biggest mistake in her life was to let Esme marry me and by allowing so, she'd have her around, close but still so far away for her entire life. I don’t remember what else she said. My mind has been clouded from the moment I felt Esme leave my arm and fall in the arms of Narcissa. I haven’t seen any of them since then. They just left me. Gone into thin air.
I spent my honeymoon alone, bitter and filled with bursts of vengeance and depression. I would have kept appearances because I’ll be ruined if people found out my wife left me for my ex. Just saying this aloud is devastating. And I would have hidden from you too, Sev if it wasn’t for this photograph I got this morning.” Lucius reached his breast pocket, revealing a moving photo of two smiling women lounged in each other's arms in a chaise longue. They were beaming with happiness, and Severus noticed, even caressing each other softly.
“Read what’s written on the back.” A broken sob erupted from Lucius’ lips, but Severus ignored it for now and obeyed his friend’s plea.
On the back of the photograph, in a neat and supple cursive handwriting, with long and pointed loops in black ink he recognised as being Narcissa’s, a few lines justified Lucius' pain:
We’re alright, dearest Lucius. I plan to take care of her forever so don’t you worry your pretty mind. We’ll put this straight when we get home. Esme begged me to write to you that she’s sorry. I’m not though. Kiss Draco for me, N x
To say that Severus was shocked, it was an understatement. He knew Esme and agreed with Dani when she said they were clearly a match, so hearing now about her having an affair with Narcissa behind Lucius’ back at first shocked him out of his tiredness. Severus knew Narcissa, too, and Lucius was right. Once she got her eyes on something, no one and nothing could stop her. And by the little note, Esme was it now.
He glanced at Lucius’ hunched up form, face hidden in his palms as sob after sob escaped his lungs in a pained tone. Severus made his way toward his friend and reached an arm over his shoulders to drag him into his embrace. He found out that, in a surprising way, he was wordless. But Lucius didn’t need words and so he kept rocking left and right with Lucius in his arms, trying to comfort him in the same way he did with every one of his children but not succeeding this time.
Time went by fast, and Lucius had calmed by the time Dani got to the door.
“Look Lucius, you’re family, you’re our children’s godfather, and whatever happened to you I’m deeply sorry. But now I need my husband to come to bed, and you need to get into one too. So what about you go to the guest room and get some rest.”
Like a kid caught red-handed, Lucius disentangled from Severus and, arranging his clothes and hair, made his way to her.
“Thank you so much, Danica!” He engulfed her in his arms, propping his cheek on her elbow. She could feel his damp skin on hers, and she shot an inquiring look to Severus, who managed to mouth Don’t mention Esme in time for her to let go of her next impulse of asking Lucius directly.
“Don’t worry, Lucius. Have a good sleep!” That was his queue to retire, and he obliged. Just like he knew where Severus’ office was, he also knew where the guest room was and headed straight there, shoulders still hunched and head bowed.
Severus draped an arm over Dani’s shoulders and bent to kiss her forehead. He sensed the question forming in her mind but couldn’t take more of this story for now, and having to retell it meant he had to relive it which he wasn’t inclined to do so this soon, so he answered before she could ask, a habit he had formed a couple of years ago.
“It’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, but for right now, I just need my wife and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
She turned to face him and rose slightly on her tiptoes to kiss him as a response to his unasked answer. It was also a habit she developed a couple of years ago.
“I heard you. And I’m not storming away each day.”
“Oh, but you do, darling. And you know what that means? I have to remind you yet again who runs this place,” Severus dropped his voice and whispered against her lips as one thumb caressed a nipple through her nightgown and the other drew circles on her hip.
“Then let’s go and remind me,” she replied.
It was early morning when, this time, Severus finished Lucius’ story. They were tangled in the sheets, proof of his display of dominance and her blackmail and persuasion.
Dani couldn’t stop laughing by the end of the story, while Severus tried to make her stop, afraid she’ll wake up the children with her laughter.
“I can’t stop, love. Just imagine, the most whorish man I have ever known was cheated by his current and his former wife. Does that count as both of them cheating on him or just Esme?”
“Why? If you’re planning to do something like this, too bad I have no ex-wife,” he replied, palm massaging her lower back slowly, a self-satisfied smirk pulling lazily at his lips
“Oh, love, but I can be the ex. And I’ll help you choose your next wife. In the end, I will run with her, so she has to be a great match.”
He burst into a loud fit of laughter that got him a slap over his shoulder from Dani and an urgent whispered question, “So who’s waking up the children now?” They laughed together at that as silently as they could.
A few caresses and kisses later, they fell asleep embraced. Lucius could wait a couple of hours before Severus would wake up, think and come up with a plan.