Author's notes: It's that era again sorry. But seriously, I couldn't resist.
I chose this pairing mostly because I like it and I've written for it before – it's yet another quite illogical headcanon of mine. Abraxas and Marius are characters I'm used to and I'm comfortable writing about, so it was easier to write for them, especially with that quote. So… Enjoy, and reviews are appreciated like always.
P.S.: The tale that Abraxas mentions is from The Tales of Beedle the Bard and it's called The Warlock's Hairy Heart.
Written for WitAngerandBravery's Quote Challenge on the Harry Potter Challenges Forum. My quote was:
"How the bloody hell can I fix it? It's your sexuality!"
"I dunno, wave your wand and do some magic. Just get rid of these bloody feelings!"
Abraxas wasn't used to falling into any nostalgia-related moods. Quite on the contrary, he preferred Hogwarts to Malfoy Manor, but there were times when he missed being alone in the room.
This night was a good example.
According to the alarm clock on his nightstand, it was almost one in the morning. And yet, he could hear someone shifting in their bed, sighing, and clattering around with Merlin knows what.
Abraxas decided to ignore said person – whoever they were – and felt rather relieved when he heard the door of the dormitory creaking open. Maybe the idiot was going to deal with his insomnia somewhere out there.
That was, until he turned to the other side and saw a flash of black hair and a pale hand quietly closing the door.
The young wizard immediately sat up in his bed, his eyes darting towards the bed right under the window, where the soft light coming from the lake could be seen. It was empty, just as he had expected.
With a sigh, Abraxas stood up and – as quietly and hastily as he could – got dressed and left the dormitory room. Marius couldn't be that far away, considering that he had to be careful, in case there were Prefects wandering out in the corridors.
He was starting to wonder why he was doing this at all. Marius was his best friend, yes, but he wasn't a child. He was seventeen, just like Abraxas himself, and often got pretty annoyed when someone tried to get protective towards him. If he had to be honest with himself, Abraxas was pretty sure that once he found the boy, all he would get for his concern would be a snap. Or, even worse, no response at all.
And yet, he knew that this wouldn't stop him. With a sigh, Abraxas tried to put himself in Marius's shoes. He was probably upset; there was no other reason to go out in the night like that. And that meant that he would want to get away from everything and everyone, just as he so often did, which could happen in only one place.
Outside the castle.
When Abraxas found him, Marius was sitting on the stairs – his eyes determinedly fixed on the ground and a lit cigarette in his hand. He probably hadn't noticed his friend approaching him, because when Abraxas hissed 'Marius!' he nearly jumped.
"Rax?" he whispered; his dark blue eyes watching him in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing here? You're a Prefect; do you want to get caught…"
"Shut up," Abraxas snapped, already irritated. "Why are you here?" Going straight to the topic was probably the right thing to do; he knew better than everyone else that his friend didn't like useless conversations.
Marius sighed and looked down at the ground again. Abraxas carefully sat next to him.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Strangely enough, I figured that out by myself." When the boy didn't say anything again, Abraxas insisted, "What happened?"
"A lot of things," Marius muttered at last. "My mother threatens to kick me out of home if I don't do as she says."
"Which is?"
"Doing a proper magic or getting a wife."
Abraxas felt something tightening inside his chest. At school, he did his best to protect his friend from the rumours and the bad marks – no matter how uncomfortable it made Marius feel, Abraxas often did his spells instead of him just so he could spare him the even more of the whispers that seemed to follow him everywhere.
"What else?" His voice was incredibly gentle.
"Well, you know that I can't do even the simplest things if there's a wand involved," Marius said as if he was pointing out something obvious. "And I can't get a wife."
"Why wouldn't you be able to–"
"Oh, yes, Rax." The boy's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I'm sure there are a lot of pureblood girls out there who would be eager to marry a Squib who doesn't even like girls."
Abraxas's heart sank at the pain in Marius's voice. They rarely talked about this, but it didn't matter. Abraxas knew, and he understood it better than his friend thought. They had even kissed once or twice, and both times dismissed it as the adolescent experiment it actually wasn't.
Abraxas didn't like to label anybody – especially himself – and he was pretty sure that he could be equally content with a girl or a boy. And yet, Marius was somehow different. He was the only one who seemed to actually listen to him when he talked, instead of staring blankly at his face and hang around with him because of the prestige and the money he could eventually give him. Those dark blue eyes always stared at him so intently, as if they could see through him and into his soul.
"Can I… can I help you somehow?" he asked quietly.
Marius laughed hollowly. "It would be nice if you could… fix it, probably."
Abraxas let out a small laugh as well; one of the surprise and helplessness he was trying to hide so desperately.
"How the bloody hell can I fix it? It's your sexuality!"
"I dunno, wave your wand and do some magic. Just get rid of these bloody feelings!"
"Is there someone special?" Abraxas asked suspiciously. "And is he another reason why you can't sleep and wander out at night?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
For some reason, Abraxas didn't want to give it up; not this time. Something in this whole situation bothered him greatly – especially the 'get rid of these bloody feelings' part.
"When I was little, Mother used to tell me a tale about a man who took his heart out of his body in attempt to stop feeling anything," he mentioned off-handedly. He could remember it all too well – his mother giving him what was supposed to be a good-night story and what had actually turned into a nightmare that had hunted Abraxas for weeks.
"What happened to him?" Marius asked, hope lacing his words. Abraxas frowned. All of this was starting to really worry him.
"Nothing. He eventually decided to get married. His fiancée told him that she would only marry him of she could see that he had a heart. I guess he didn't quite understand the subtext of it and took it literally, so he took her to the basement where he had locked his heart.
"The girl was terrified, of course. Now that I think about it, this was the last thing the idiot should have done if he actually wanted to impress her. She begged him to put it back where it belonged, but he couldn't – it wouldn't go back into his body after so many years, because it had got unused to doing what it was meant to do. So he took her heart and – when he failed to use it for himself – they both died."
When he fell silent, Marius made a face, his eyes wide. "This is disgusting, Rax," He murmured.
"It is," Abraxas agreed. "You can't not have emotions, Marius. And you shouldn't want to. That would be awful."
"I don't think so," Marius said bitterly. "Can you imagine it? I wouldn't have to care for anyone – or anything."
"Then what would you live for?" Abraxas asked softly. Marius raised his head in surprise.
"Are you trying to tell me that emotions are what makes us alive?" his voice was barely a whisper. "Because if it's so, then you're wrong. My emotions destroy me. Day by day. They haunt me wherever I go. Are you actually trying to tell me that they're what makes me happy?"
"No," Abraxas said simply, not showing how surprised he was at the pain that Marius's words held. He had never seen him like that, and it left him shaken to the core. "But they make you who you are. And that's the most important thing to me. I'm sure that–" But they never really heard what he was sure of, because Marius pressed his lips firmly against his.
Abraxas froze where he was; his arms flailing around for a moment or two before landing – seemingly on their own accord – on Marius's shoulders. That seemed to only encourage the other boy, because he brought them closer to each other and deepened the kiss until Abraxas could no longer feel anything but him.
When they finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless and Marius's eyes were shining in a way Abraxas had never seen before.
"It's probably about three in the morning," the boy whispered. "We need to go back to the dormitory before someone finds us here and we get in some real trouble."
Abraxas frowned. He hadn't expected Marius to be so self-assured, but he liked it. It was way better than the broken, clueless version of his friend he had seen just a few moments ago.
"I thought you wanted to stay alone?" He knew that it was stupid, but he couldn't resist teasing Marius; not when he was looking like that – like some terrible weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
"That was because I thought I needed to be fixed," Marius said; he was nothing but a dark figure on the shining light that was coming through the open doors of the castle. "But you fixed me, Rax. You always do."
And with that, he took Abraxas's hand and led him back into the school.
