Lucius smiles to himself as he moves through the pleasantly warm streets of Hogsmeade. The sun had gone down some time ago, but it's not truly so dark - the street lamps are all lit, and from over the mountains comes a very pleasant, violet glow that still lingers from the sunset. He is of good mood: Narcissa had returned home with Andromeda earlier in the evening, but he had stayed a little longer in the Three Broomsticks, embroiled as he had been in nonsense conversation with some of the Ministry employees.

How he has missed it, that light patter that is so constant amongst Ministry men and women, that almost political talk. They'd played a fast-paced poker game, and Lucius had enjoyed the company of Sirius Black of all people. He is of exceedingly good mood, even now, and he will take only a short walk through the woods before he turns to Apparate home.

Strange, he muses, how Grimmauld Place has become home to him - it is no Malfoy Manor, of course, and it has numerous flaws, but he feels so close to Narcissa there, and having people in and out of the place... Lucius should never admit it to anyone barring his dear and devoted wife, but he rather enjoys the hectic nature of it. It is what he might have felt, he thinks, had he and Narcissa ever had further children than Draco - but no, it is best he not think on that.

Lucius' head snaps abruptly to the side at a harsh, high, gurgling sound from a clearing to his left, and he frowns. Under the cover of the tree canopy, the green umbrella above him blocks out some of the summer evening light, and he is forced to squint through shadows to get a hint of whatever might be there. "Hello?" Lucius calls, and he steps away from the wooded path, into the treeline and into the clearing. He knows it well - once upon a time, he and Narcissa had taken promenades through this very wood, and in this clearing he would sit with her head upon his lap, and he would read to her: it is a scene they play out in the comfort of their library twice weekly, even twenty years later.

"Lucius," says a soft, hissing voice, and Lucius feels his blood run cold as the mark in his arm - so carefully bandaged, and yet so stupidly forgotten - tugs hard at him. A wand that is not his own raises, shedding light over the scene, and Lucius sees the figure of a young lady from the Ministry leaning against a tree, the glaze in her eyes betraying the Imperius curse, and he sees the bloodied figure on the ground. Igor Karkaroff is paler than he ever has been, his throat ripped away by teeth, and Lucius stumbles back, raising his wand as fast as he can, but he has no hope, and he knows it.

There are Death Eaters on his every side, and the one with the wand-

"Bartemius?" Lucius hears himself whisper, and the man cackles in that terrifying way he'd done at school. He thinks of Draco, of Narcissa, of the Order, of young Harry Potter.

And then a cloaked figure throws itself forwards, and his scream is torn away by a mouth more snake than wizard. The magic about him rings in his ears, electrifies his skin even as he ceases to feel sensation, as he feels so cold despite the summer warmth: he feels the pull of his Dark Mark through his entire body, draining away with his very lifeblood, and his eyes cease to see, he realizes what has happened, what was always destined to happen to him when he took the Mark in the first place.

It is the last of Lucius Malfoy's many regrets that he ever thinks to consider.