Circi | 2

THIRTY THREE

"Humiliation"

It wasn't until later, when the clock on her mantle was ticking towards midnight, did a knock on her bedroom door rouse Circi from her writing stupor.

Calling through the door, she waited to hear a familiar voice, keeping her own loud in case the caller couldn't be trusted. For a while she received no call and turned back to her room. A small scream escaped her mouth as she found Lucius perched on the end of her bed, the candle by her bed casting shadows over his face with every breeze from the open window.

"I don't want to talk to you," she told him, marching over to the bed and piling together her notes and stuffing them into one book. When he didn't respond she did a double take.

He was reading her letter. She had been drafting a plea for help to Serenity, hoping that she could perhaps ask a favour of one of the elves. Not that she had much to offer them in return- what good was a thirteen-year-old witch against fifteen experienced, war-hardened, death eaters? But, now, it seemed she had been caught. Lucius read her words over and over again, she could see his eyes tracing every letter, trailing every line, before returning to the beginning.

Perhaps it was the candle light but... was he crying?

The sight was far more jarring than anything Circi had seen before. She was at a loss, unsure on how to approach the man who had more often than not been stoic and strict. Should she even try?

"I never wanted this to happen," he said quietly, placing the letter back onto the bed and staring at the space where it had once been, "neither of you were supposed to be involved."

Sitting at the opposite end of the bed, she pressed her hands together and squashed them between her knees as she listened. He sighed a lot now, sniffling as though he had a cold and twisting every now and then to look back at the letter and sometimes at Circi. She was still certain of herself, though, she did not- could not- talk to him right now else she would say something she'd regret.

He put his hand on the bed, leaning between them to see her properly and sighed again, "there will be a meeting tomorrow night," he began, watching her intently, "stay in your room and do not answer the door. Draco's task was my punishment and I fear what the Dark Lord may do to you when he sees you beside me."

"I will never be at your side." Her eyes glimmered in the candle light, hatred and hurt piled up in those hazel eyes and for a moment her long face shrunk and her lip trembled instead of sneering. He only saw Serenity. Serenity when she learned about Narcissa. Serenity in the trial cage. Serenity watching him leave her cell with their baby in his arms. And now that baby was looking at him like a rotten carcass abandoned on her doorstep and his heart broke all over again.

"I am so-"

"Out!" Her voice was sharp, just like her chin. She was no longer the soft-faced Serenity, who he had longed to speak to most nights in Azkaban, she was his daughter: half-Malfoy, half-Rier, all Circi. And he knew his daughter well enough to leave her alone.

As he disapparated from the room, Circi scooted back on the bed and curled up against the headboard. She wiped her tears away and looked over at the letter- or where it should have been- just to see that he had taken her mother from her yet again. At that, she allowed the tears.

*

The next evening, she heard screaming downstairs and pushed the armchair in the corner of the room against the dresser to provide an extra barricade. While she despised her father, she trusted his concern for her. It was true that Draco's indoctrination was his punishment.