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CHAPTER 14 - THE DARK REVEL II
A stir ran through the guests, and a fine tension gripped the hall as the door opened with a dramatic crash.
Lord Voldemort had arrived.
Everyone in the hall, foot soldiers and generals, whores and house-elves, went down to one knee and bowed their heads. Even the five children in the corner, who had lost their companionable sense of peace and were reminded of just why they had been brought here.
The Dark Lord settled into an ancient, half-decayed throne that radiated evil and cast his eye over his servants, all of them ready and willing to die, kill and give up their souls for him. His red eyes glinted with evil satisfaction.
"Rise," he ordered, waving his hand to indicate the whole room. When everyone was standing, he stood up slowly, black robes swathing him from head to toe, hood pulled forward to cover his face.
"Come forward," his voice called through the hall. "Come forward, all those who would join us and become Death Eaters. Bring them to us."
There was a murmuring as children and teenagers got up from all over the room, their sponsors accompanying them, and knelt before the Dark Lord's throne.
Looking at each other uncertainly, the five children got up, knowing that they had to - there was no way to run, nowhere they could hide that the Death Eaters wouldn't find them. They had come to the end of the road.
Walking out of the corner, they found their sponsors waiting for them - Professor Snape, for Luc, Lord Andahni for Rayden and Shan, Lord Courtney for Dirk and Lord Avery for Brandon.
In silence, moving slowly and surreally, they moved forward and bent knee before the throne.
As twelve year olds, they would be the last to be called, so they had nearly an hour to think over their decision and what the consequences would be. They watched the others receive the Dark Mark, some standing tall and proud, others obviously terrified - and watched them don the white masks and assume the identity of the Death Eater - faceless, anonymous, existing only to do their master's bidding.
They knew almost every candidate here - some, a great majority, were from Durmstrang, but were High Clan nevertheless, and so had come into contact with them at one time or another. Others were from Slytherin, schoolmates, housemates, who liked to play quidditch and bitch about the teachers in the common room, and about girls in the bathroom. They were children, older than they, High Clan, middle, or low, but they were still the same as they were, and they bent their knee, kissed Voldemort's feet, received the Mark and became anonymous Death Eaters, as surely as the de Sauvigny boys had become Slytherin simply by being sorted.
They were no longer the boys they had all associated with - they were Death Eaters.
Watching, Dirk remembered his father, his splendid father who loved him as no one else in the world did, and who had the courage to show him outright. He had joined the Death Eaters after Dirk's birth, when his mother had died in childbirth and Gabriel had been left without an anchor to hold onto, to keep him centred. She'd been a Ravenclaw, and had provided a sensible influence on their lives - but once she was gone, there was nothing left to hang on to, nothing to live for.
Dirk was too young to remember him before the Dark Mark, but he remembered that Gabriel had never once visited his wife's grave afterwards, perhaps because of guilt, or because as the deputy leader of the Inquisitors, he should be above such things as grief and love. But Dirk had seen his father torture a man to death once - it had taken three days and by the end he had still been sane, even though everything else was gone. Dirk had had nightmares for weeks after that, and his father, for once, hadn't had any sympathy to spare - calling him weak and forcing him to watch another interrogation, and another, until he could witness it without showing a single reaction.
Each time, the Dark Lord had been there, watching, and his cruel delight had been the most horrifying thing about the ordeal.
Did Dirk want to be a Death Eater? His father was one, a very successful one, but he was becoming less and less human as the years went on. Dirk loved his father, but his father was changing, slowly, and he attributed it entirely to the Dark Lord's influence...
He didn't want to be like that - he didn't want to be able to torture a man for three days and have the skill to keep him alive and sane for all that time...He didn't want to serve Voldemort and go around killing people he didn't even know, and therefore couldn't have a grievance against...he didn't want to end up in Azkaban if he made a mistake, and see the whole of his estates confiscated and forfeit for treason. He didn't want to become a soulless puppet existing only at the Dark Lord's whim - he wanted to be himself. Dirk Courtney.
And he didn't want to be a Death Eater.
Shan didn't want to be a Death Eater either - but his father was the director of Voldemort's intelligence service, and he received reports from all over the world, from people in the most unlikely and supposedly incorruptible positions. Shan had a very good idea of how powerful the Dark Lord's position was, and he didn't want to cross him if he could avoid it.
Unfortunately, he had the feeling that the time when he could have successfully avoided making a choice had just come to an end - and now he would have to choose. He didn't want to be a Death Eater - he had no desire to go around killing people he barely knew, and quite frankly he didn't want to live his life out on the fringes of society. He wanted to be accepted for more than just a Slytherin, seen as more than High Clan. He wanted to know how the other people lived, and whether it was true that some people could survive without house elves, because they did all their own housework.
He wanted...he wanted to be seen for what and who he really was, not for his House, or his position, or his wealth or his class.
But he didn't want to cross the Death Eaters, because he didn't want to die, either. Unlike the others, he didn't like being in pain, couldn't embrace it and turn it into pleasure like they did. He didn't like the sight of blood; it made him secretly sick, or the sight of people in pain, because he had an empathic gift that he couldn't quite switch off, and he felt everything they felt no matter how hard he tried to muffle it.
He was afraid, and he knew that this time his cousin couldn't help him - this time, he would have to make the choice for himself.
Safety, even if it meant constant emotional pain, or the chance of freedom at the risk of a very slow, nasty death?
He didn't want to die, but he knew for certain that he didn't want to live if it meant being constantly besieged by other people's agony. He would go mad.
No, Shan didn't want to be a Death Eater.
Rayden knew for certain that he didn't want to be a Death Eater - would never be one, even if it meant his own death, unless they threatened Shan. And then, only then, might he consider joining if it meant Shan's life.
But as much as he loved his cousin, he knew that the ultimate choice lay in himself, for himself. Just as Shan had to choose for himself, and just as his brother and his wife had chosen for theirselves.
And that was the reason why Rayden didn't want to join - simply because his brother had been a Death Eater, and had wanted Rayden to be one, and Rayden hated his brother more than anyone else on this earth, even counting Voldemort - and would do anything to spite him and thwart his designs.
Even if it meant his death, and even if it meant Shan's, Rayden was not going to be a Death Eater - not now and not ever.
It was as simple as that.
Brandon Avery, underneath the ennui, hated his father as much as Rayden hated his brother - he knew this, because he had talked it over with him before coming here. Like Rayden, he would do anything to spite his father, even being ignominiously killed here, which would have the added benefit of causing him an enormous loss of face.
Neither he nor Rayden had any problems with killing or torturing anonymous muggles or even well known acquaintances, although he might balk at killing a friend, if the friend had done nothing to deserve it.
What they found they did have problems with was bending the knee - both of them were original members of the High Clan - their ancestors had come over the sea with Brandon Malfoy and had helped him carve out his empire, and had carved out their own with his help. They could trace their lineage back two and a half thousand years and more, and they had wielded vast influence all but unchecked for centuries.
And now they were expected to submit themselves to a half-blood, whose father was of a third rate House, and call him Master, when the only one they had ever even bent head to was the Malfoy.
No, and no, and no.
Because of pride, arrogance, simple common instinct that said Voldemort would not stop until there was nothing left to kill, and because of hatred, Brandon would not become a Death Eater.
Luc had already gone over his reasons thousands of times before.
His dreams, or his life?
Acceptance by society, respect and a family, or a mark that would forever brand him outcast, unless Voldemort won - and even then, the intrigue and the killing would continue.
In the end, it came down to pride or pragmatism.
And Luc had already bent his head too many times in his life - with Snape's help he had started to stand up for himself at Hogwarts, and had discovered the freedom and the joy inherent in being responsible for his own life, for making his own choices, and for standing up for himself.
He didn't want to be a puppet anymore, even if it meant that he would never be tai-pan, never feel stigmata break out on his forearms on Midsummer, and never live beyond tonight.
For once in his life, he would show the world that he was a Malfoy, not a whore, that he was every bit as free as Caine, as proud as Lucius, and he would be recognized as himself, as Lucien Brandon Malfoy, and not as the Potionmasters Whore, or the Malfoy Bastard.
He would be himself, nothing more and nothing less.
Voldemort had come to the very last of the recruits, the children of twelve years old.
Before beginning the initiation, he turned to the Assembly and said, "Tonight, after we have finished welcoming our new servants, we will begin the last stage of our victory! Tonight, we will squash the rumours of our demise at the hands of an infant - tonight, after we have finished killing the Potters and their miracle child, we will be unstoppable! After tonight, we will rule the world!"
A huge roar went up, and Snape, beneath the safe anonymity of his mask, closed his eyes and mouthed a silent prayer. Please, gods, no...
The line of twelve-year old children began to move - there were eight before Luc, and Snape died a little inside as he saw the children give their lives, their youth and their souls up to Voldemort. He had worked so hard to keep Luc and his friends out of the Dark Lord's hands, and now it would all come to naught...Luc had been trained too well - always, pragmatism over pride, survival over honour or face, submission over defiance. And now he would sacrifice his life to ambition and survival - what was the point of prolonging a life if it led to this? His words to the Headmaster now seemed to him pompous and empty.
He watched Luc kneel before the Dark Lord, knowing deep inside that he had failed, and that he would always fail - and the Dark Lord asked the question he had asked Snape, and Lucius, and all the others in this hall - "Will you serve me, without question, for the rest of your life?"
And Luc was still, a small, pale, beautiful figure so vulnerable in the firelight, a twelve-year-old child who had never properly lived and now never would. Snape felt his heart break in his chest, and his breath stopped completely as his head came up and he looked Voldemort in the eye.
He spoke clearly, concisely so that the whole room and everyone in it could hear.
"No."
The hall fell dead silent, and Lucius could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Oh, you fool, he whispered silently to his younger brother, his brother who had just had the courage to do what neither he nor his father had ever been able to do...he felt a mad pride well up in his breast, and he knew that he would remember this moment for the rest of his life as the time when he first realized that his brother was a person in his own right - a consummate schemer who had nonetheless thrown off the constraints of the Game and had the courage to stand up for himself.
At that moment, Lucius Malfoy felt that he had seen something extraordinary that would never again be seen in this world.
Snape closed his eyes in stunned disbelief and a crazy rush of elation. He had done it - he had taken a child, a victim, and he had taught him about pride, honour, and the High Clan. And it had worked. Oh, sweet Lady, it had worked.
Brandon, Shan, Rayden and Dirk exchanged stunned looks. That had been the most stunning piece of Gryffindoric, suicidal impetuosity they had ever seen. Never mind that they had all resolved to do the same thing, they had never expected to see Luc do it.
They waited in admiration, in fearful suspense, to see what the Dark Lord's reaction would be.
Luc took a deep, steadying breath, stunned that he had managed to work up the courage to do such an insanely reckless thing. But swiftly rising was a feel of crazy elation - he'd done it, he'd been true to himself, he'd stood up against everything that told him to submit and be patient. Now he knew why the Gryffindors did it so often - although for him, it would only be one time thing. If he should ever, by some miracle, survive past this night, he would never, ever again do something like that. He swore it.
And now, here was the reaction, and it looked like Voldemort was not amused. Luc had never seen such insane fury in his life - and it was focused entirely on him. His eyes widened involuntarily as he felt the power gather, dark and evil and corrupted, and he had time for one last thought -
I am...
Luc...!
before the world went black in a silent explosion of agony.
And then there was nothing.