House: Slytherin
Category: Drabble
Prompts: Stemless wineglass
Word count: 444 (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Drabble and Title)
Summary: Lucius Malfoy, at the verge of losing control, learns available lesson about life and about himself before ending his life.
Author's Note: Slightly darker than I anticipated. About half way, my muse wanted to change it to Severus Snape, but I wasn't having it, lol! :) I like that even Lucius can lose himself in madness.
As always, enjoy
-Carolare Scarletus
.~.
Angel's Trumpet
.~.
He promised himself that this would be the last time she would see him like this, but Lucius Malfoy, once proud monarch and Death Eater, had been wrong before. Slowly, he raised the stemless wine glass to his lips, took a long pull of the warm liquid before dropping his hand heavily back onto the table. To say that he was drowning his sorrows in drink would be an understatement; he was, with all purposes, trying to end his life. He sat at the desk inside of his private study. The wards were drawn to a tight conflagration, guarding all trespassers until he could accomplish what he set out to do. With only lonely look out the window in front of him, Lucius pulled out an envelope and opened it. Instead, was a highly deadly does of Angel's Trumpet.
Lucius hadn't planned to use it at all, but in lieu of the recent circumstances, his will to live was steadily swindling. If death himself didn't take him, then he'd do the honors and end his pitiful existence.
"You don't have to do this," a voice told him. "You have so much to live for."
"No, I do not." He said to the nothingness that was about to take him. Lucius dipped the entire contents of the envelope into his tumbler, stirred it until all the particles dissolved into the liquid. The usual amber concoction grew darker. He was ready. "Like I've been told before, I'm nothing more than a monster."
"In this life you were more than just that," the voice told him sharply.
Lucius shook his head agitatedly, locking on the singular object on the other side of his study. Slowly, he stood, his eyes becoming instantly blurred. He took on sloppy step, then another, until he was face to face with a curtain. Throwing his hand up, he snatched the velvety drape off the wall, and dropped it to the ground. Silently, he stared into the face that was not his own.
"I'll be there soon," Lucius said to himself, watching his pale eyes grow hard, before obtaining a softness he's never seen. "You'll see."
In one smooth last rite, he lifted the glass to his lips, took another long pull of the liquid until there was nothing left. Incoherent words fell from his lips as his eyes became hazy, almost muted against the lively backdrop his study.
In that mirror, he saw himself. He was happy, and pleasantly compliant. It was not the reflection that he anticipated to see, but rather the man he used to know.
He was the monster, not the man in the mirror.
