Prologue: Deuce

Disclaimer: All belong to other people
Title: Deuce's Child
Author: Kate R.
Rating: Teen to adult
Pairings: N/A at the moment
Fandoms: HP/Buffy/Angel I think for now
Summary: A voice from the past changes Lucius Malfoy and the lives of those around him. (AKA, Suppose everything wasn't as it seemed?)

"Deuce, I need you."

The words in the short missive shook him to his core as he looked at the name on the slip of paper. How many years had it been since he'd seen her? How many summers had gone by since his seventh year at Hogwarts? Then again, how many years since the last time? Shortly after 'Cissa got pregnant with Draco he thought. Or had it been shortly after Draco was born. Some days his mind blurred on the good times. There had been too many bad. Why she'd even come back to the Cauldron and called for him, he didn't know. And there were still days he damned his father for taking away the only person who'd made him happy.

"Lucius?" Narcissa asked, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. She looked at what he was holding and, in contrary to all those who thought they knew her, squeezed his shoulder.

"Go to her," she told him. "Go to her and help her. No matter what. I know where your heart has always laid, My Love. She needs you now. Go to her."

"What if I made a mistake the last time?" he whispered. There was always a chance of that, he knew. Always a chance of him and Joy having made something that last time. Something had happened for certain.

"Love is never a mistake, Lucius," she told him. "That, your father and my mother were wrong about. What they did to you was wrong. Yes, I love you, but you loved her and they should have respected that."

"I love you, too," he told her. "And that was the past."

"And the present," Narcissa told him. "I know where you go on certain days, Lucius. I know what drives you to walk at night. I know why you've been taking down death eaters. You love her. You love the light and the world she offered. She needs you now. I'll explain to Draco. He'll understand. We've raised him to understand that sometimes things happen and love changes the way everything appears."

Lucius Malfoy nodded then, and walked up the steps to his room. He packed a bag of clothes he hadn't touched since the last time at the Cauldron and then left the manor. Once clear of the wards, he apparated himself to the address Joy had sent him five years ago.

They'd kept in some contact over the years, Joy alluding to something several times but until his own father had died he'd been unable to think on what it could possibly mean. And now, the dark times were rising again and his Joy needed him.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. A man he'd not seen in years was there a moment later. Looking at him, Rupert Giles seemed to silently debate before gesturing him to follow. He found the house a place of grief and he saw two pictures on a table. One he knew to be Joy, the other he guessed was he daughter. And there was a girl sitting by herself, rejecting everyone who tried to touch her."

"Dawn," Rupert Giles spoke. The girl looked up and when her eyes locked on Lucius' they both froze.

"Deuce," she whispered. He froze hearing that name from her lips but it also confirmed why Joy had written him. He only cursed that he wasn't able to get here sooner. The girl threw herself into his arms and he reacted solely on instinct. His arms wrapped around her as she began to shake and finally to cry.

"muh-Mom said you'd come," she whispered against his shoulder. "She told me you'd come and take me someplace safe and wonderful and magical."

"And I will," he told her, rubbing her back soothingly. "I swear to you, little one, I will."

Her grip tightened and he sat down with her carefully, not caring when his cane hit the floor. Dawn curled up in his lap like a little girl half her age and he just rocked her.

"Mom's Deuce," she whispered. "She said I was your Ace. That you would understand what that meant."

"I do," he told her. "I understand perfectly. And I will take you someplace magical."

"When are you leaving?" Giles asked after Dawn fell asleep.

"As soon as possible," he answered. "She needs a place to heal."

"A place only her father can provide," Giles agreed picking his cane up and handing it back to him. "One of these days you'll have to explain that 'Deuce' thing."

"A playing card I always had on me," he told Giles. "A Two of Spades. Joy started calling me 'Deuce' because I was always playing with the damn thing."

"Do you still have it?" Giles asked him.

"Yes," he answered. "I gave my father my knee in exchange for keeping that card."

"Your father always was a hard core bastard," Giles told him as he lifted Dawn when he stood up. "I will likely bring Spike to see Dawn. You're still at the manor, correct?"

"Yes," he told Giles, "I am. And 'Cissa knows so there will be no problem there. How much Slayer is she?"

"I don't know," Giles told him. "Some I'm certain, as well as the magic she gets from you. You're the last person I would have expected to be with a Muggle girl."

"You only know one part of me Rupert Giles," Lucius told him as he carried Dawn outside. "Are her things packed and ready?"

"Right here," Giles told him, giving him a bag that contained Dawn's possessions shrunken to fit. Lucius nodded and took the bag, still holding the sleeping girl, and then apparated the both of them back to his own home.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They arrived just as 'Cissa and Draco were finishing their talk. Both stared at the girl in his arms before they came over as one.

"Father?" Draco asked. And there was worry in his eyes. Not jealous worry, worry for the child.

"Her mother and sister are both dead," he told them. "Her step-father will not take her. That leaves only me."

"Us," Narcissa told him. "It leaves only us."

"Right," Draco agreed. "it leaves only us, Father. Her family. What room are you going to put her in?"

"Is the one next to yours all right?" Lucius asked. He would not take his son's space away.

"Of course it is," Draco told him. "That ways she's close to all of us. What about school?"

"We'll talk about that later, Dragon," Lucius told his son. "Tomorrow when everything has calmed down."

Draco nodded and they all carried her upstairs. Tomorrow would take care of everything else.