Seb and Draco both exploded as the owl dropped the garishly wrapped present on Lukas's plate. The Happy Birthday paper was resplendent in its brash curlicues, and Lukas sort of wanted to choke himself with the tangled entrails of ribbon pouring off the top if it meant he wouldn't have to look at it anymore. Or at least that everyone else wouldn't be looking at him.
"You didn't tell us it was your birthday, Luke," Seb said, a nonchalant air as he moved his scrambled eggs around on his plate.
"Merlin"—Draco tugged at the ribbons with hesitant fingers and his lip curled back from his teeth, as if the package might grow teeth and vomit violently pink wrapping paper over him—"this is hideous."
In retrospect, it wasn't anything close to exploding, but seeing that in front of him made Lukas feel like it should be. Jack, you fucking prick. Any other event, he didn't bother, but Lukas's birthday was nothing if not the perfect opportunity to embarrass him.
A smile twitched at the corner of Lukas's lips as he leant over the table to grab a bit of toast for the owl. God knew he'd done it to Jack on his birthday enough times.
Once the bird had munched down some bread, it took off with great swoops of its wings that ruffled Lukas's hair, and then it was just him, this monstrosity, and the sniggers echoing down the Slytherin table. Not that they mattered. Lukas had never really expected laughter to bother him so much, but it itched. Right under his skin and at the back of his neck, it itched and their eyes were like little pins sticking into his scalp. Just ignore it. All he had to do was ignore it.
"You don't think it's going to sing, do you?" Draco wrinkled his nose. "That's from Uncle, isn't it? I suppose Father got all the…" Draco lifted a mangled bit of ribbon and let it fall again, "elegance."
Lukas just shrugged and grabbed a sharp knife from the fruit platter. The pile of ribbons flopped loose as Lukas cut the shoddy ties, and he could imagine Jack's groan at him not even bothering with untangling it. He made short work of the wrapping paper and popped the top off the box only to reveal …
… another box.
Lukas groaned and banged his head on the edge while Draco and Seb burst into peals of laughter. This was Harry's idea! Revenge too after Lukas did that to him with a fiver in change at the centre of a box the size of a sofa.
A smile twitched at his lips as he hacked away at the shells of boxes. Twelve in all, and happy currents of warmth swirled around his chest as he held the very last one in the palm of his hand. He vanished the outer shells with an absent flick of his wand while he squinted at the cube of pink cardboard. Had they even sent him anything?
Probably not. It was like those two fed each other's immaturity. Wrinkling his nose, Lukas pushed at the lid of the box, levering it open.
Something sprung out. He cursed, throwing the thing away from him. More sniggers erupted from nearby and as soon as he got a good look, Lukas groaned, elbows on the table and massaging his fingers through his hair. His heart pumped against the inside of his chest.
Some big, ugly Jack in the Box with googly eyes and a felt hat. It bobbed there menacingly on the tip of its spring, mocking Lukas and the plate of sausages it'd ruined.
"Er, Luke…" Draco leant forward, his robes coming dangerously close to soaking up all the leftover grease on his plate and reached out his hand to stop an inch short of the bouncing menace. "Is that supposed to be some sort of gift?"
Lukas glowered and shook his head, scribbling on the notepad laid on the table. 'It's a joke because Jack is five-years old and a massive asshole.'
God, the idiot must have had so much fun packing that up with Harry. A smile twitched at his lips again, and shaking his head, Lukas plucked the box out the sausages and used the corner of Draco's robes – to much blustering – to rub any leftover grease free. Nothing filled the box around the spring, but the Jack had a little label dangling around its neck, scrawled across in Jack's handwriting.
Happy Birthday! It read. Go on, rip its head off. I know you're dying to.
Lukas grinned at it as he yanked it off the spring, winds of stuffing spooling from the base. Well, Jack, I thought you'd never ask. The felt tore easily with a satisfying plucking of thread, and the moment he got the head off, the body tumbled apart in his hand, shaping up into a low, wide box with two presents sitting side by side on a nest of white stuffing.
Two cigarettes, a rustling pack of fancy looking chocolates, and a brand new Gameboy with a cartridge stuck in the back.
He set it gently on the table and put his chin on his folded arms, grinning at the box. Some stupid little effervescence of champagne warmth fizzled around his chest, tingling out to his fingers and down to his curling toes. The thinnest slivers of morning light seemed to glint off the screen and wrapping, casting Jack's sunshine into their depths.
"Merlin's beard," Draco said from beside him, "did he really have to do all of that?"
Seb's fork scraped against the plate. "I thought it was funny."
"It was rather hilarious. That felt like a gift just watching Luke's eye twitch while he looked at something that wasn't black!"
Lukas hissed sharp over his tongue, laughter playing around the edges of his mouth as he thumped Draco in the arm. Draco burst into laughter and shoved him back, and Lukas was halfway through pulling out his wand to hex Draco when an arm darted past his head.
His hand closed on empty air. Thumping footsteps and raucous laughter cut through the morning rumble of the hall, the thinnest slivers of sunshine catching on McLaggen's miserable fucking golden hair as him and Marcus Vane sprinted off through the hall.
An empty little divot sat in the box where the gameboy had been, and all that warmth crushed and crumbled into sour thunder.
Asshole. Lukas dug his nails into his wrist, drawing sharp, harsh breaths through his nose. Fucking asshole. God, Lukas was going to smash his smug little face in one of these days. One of these days, and it turned sickness in his gut, that today, he just sat here while McLaggen ran off laughing, mocking.
Look what the mutey weirdo got in that stupid box!
That was his. That'd been his only pinch of home and Jack he'd had in weeks, and the fucking cunt stole it.
Shuddering, Lukas shoved up from the table, ignoring Seb and Draco's questions and complaints, and after shoving the chocolates and cigarettes in his pockets, he shouldered his bag and stormed from the room.
•─────⋅ ⋅ ⋅─────•
A thick atmosphere hung over the castle that evening, one at once bitter dark and spiced with life. Even up in the distant rafters of the castle where Lukas walked, the zealous rumble of the feast permeated the very air. The tables downstairs were stuffed with all sorts of saccharine confectionaries and treats, and even several floors away was close enough that Lukas's teeth ached.
Hallowe'en was fantastic, of course, but Hallowe'en to Lukas wasn't sweets.
Hallowe'en was out with Jack, dressed up like something ridiculous and the rough, smoky voices of his mates getting drunker and higher around a poker table, laughing and jeering and shoving away the world. And they'd play until they were too far gone to remember their cards, too high to see the number swimming in front of their eyes and then while the adults all chatted, Lukas would perch on Turner's ratted old sofa, head whirling and his aura drawing the sounds out of the boxy TV to his ears through the din.
Chewing the tip of his thumb, he'd sit enraptured by the horrors that played out before him and the ominous strains of music guided tinny to his ears. Each time someone screamed, each comical splash of gore, he'd jump, heart lurching in his chest, with a grin stuck to his face for the whole night.
Sometimes Jack would join him, the stink of booze rolling off him in waves and he'd fling himself on the sofa, too drunk to quite remember that Lukas didn't like the arm around his shoulder and his laughter and eyes bright and wild. Never complained when Lukas pulled free, of course, and on that night when the veil wore thin against the dark, Lukas forced the horror into himself, just a little. In the spirit of things. While Jack sprawled, Lukas perched on a bit of him. Lap, bent leg, stomach or chest if Jack didn't look too drunk, and Jack's arms slipped around his waist and drowned him in that skin-crawling warmth.
Hallowe'en was so, so much more than laughter and confectionary, and Lukas's insides felt more like these cobweb strewn hallways than the brightness and joy beneath him.
His wandering steps had taken him high in the castle. The seventh floor, he thought, and clouds smothered the sky so thick that the world ended at those chill portals hollowing out the walls. The tap of his footsteps conferred in a soft whisper with the spiders haunting the eaves.
Perhaps if he found the Gryffindor common room, he could steal the chocolates back from McLaggen. Lukas squinted at the tapestry he passed as if one of those dancing trolls could be the guardian at the lion's door. Probably not. This hallway was way too dusty, big mothballs of it gathered up in the corners. Almost as big as the football Harry and Jack tossed around. Lukas knocked one with his foot. It drifted into the air like a fairy, and another nudge with his toes sent it floating away, back past the ridiculous tapestry of the dancing trolls.
No one was up here… Biting his lip, Lukas looked left and right. Nothing loomed out of the darkness that lingered between the torchlight, and other than that rumble of voices, the castle lay silent and still.
A grin broke across Lukas's face and on quick feet, he darted down the corridor and caught the dustball with the tip of his foot just before it hit the floor. It burst into a flurry of ascent, and for a few moments that went blank with warm delight, Lukas danced around the hallway, tapping the dustball in vast, slow-mo parody of the keepie-uppies that Jack always did with Harry out in the flat block's little courtyard.
Stupid, and after the last bat of his foot sent the dustball wheeling out of the window on a sweep of chill air, the warmth went right along with it, leaving only a cold hollow knocking in the centre of his chest.
Really, really stupid, because Lukas didn't fucking do missing. Sure as fuck didn't miss Harry either, but… Scuffing his boot against the floor, Lukas started off back down the hallway while the wizard teaching the trolls shot him a disapproving look.
It was the first birthday he'd spent without Jack since he'd known he had one.
Seb and Draco were nice. A little … proper, but nice. But it left something missing, an itch on the tip of his tongue with all the ease that came with talking and laughing and existing with Jack. Even if they were patient, even if they were his friends, it wasn't the same. Every time Lukas 'spoke', the conversation jolted, a juddering halt that thumped into his chest with a little twinge of shame and a sense of something…
…missing.
A groan went through the dusty upper-floor corridor, and when Lukas spun on his heel, wand flicking into his hand, the trolls performed not for a blank wall, but … a door.
A small door. An unassuming door, even, wooden and perhaps a little rickety. And … a door that hadn't been there a second ago.
Oh, now that was just the sort of thing he'd been itching to stumble on in this castle. It wasn't quite the pureness of pleasure from a moment ago, but it sat better in his chest. Not a bright warmth, but a curiosity that gnawed on all the empty edges inside him and made it feel almost whole.
One more glance up and down the corridor, and Lukas sidled up to the door.
The knob turned easy, a warmth tingling against his palm as he pushed it open and stepped into paradise.
Lukas had never even comprehended that so many things existed in the world, but as he stepped out onto that stone mezzanine, the little door swinging shut behind him, it seemed as if every object that had ever passed through another's hands lay splayed out beneath him in this rickety, chaotic, jumbled maelstrom of things.
The room stretched as far as he could see, lost to a dim blueish glow that was so obscured by the turrets and mounds packed throughout the room that Lukas couldn't tell if it were distant light or a wall. Chandeliers dangled from the high, vaulted ceilings, great behemoths of tarnished silver and candlelight. A feather boa the length of a python slunk around one off to Lukas's left, the garish pink length of it winding and wending between the curlicue bars.
And the stacks… Oh. Lukas descended the stairs into their midst like a dream possessed him, and the last of his breath left him in a delighted gasp as a tower of broken furniture blocked out the light.
The last thing on Lukas's mind as he lost himself to the maze was how he'd find his way back, but it touched there just enough that a smile quirked his lips.
Well, if he couldn't find the path, he'd make his own easily enough.
It could've been … hours he wandered those hallowed alleys, weaving between clutter and dodging flying books. The light never changed, and neither did anything else. Timelessness consumed him. Sometimes he'd stop, examine an axe taller than he was jammed beneath a squat dresser that whistled a tune when Lukas touched it, or perhaps the delicate Faberge egg painted with the ruptured corpses of birds and flowers with teeth. Always, though, he left it behind, walked onward as if something beckoned him forth.
Then, as he passed the mouth of a broad passage, a glint caught his eye.
He'd been perfectly intent on that mountain of books at the far end of this alley, but the glimmer brought him up short, a start in his chest that didn't feel right. Tongue between his teeth, Lukas took a hesitant step into the passage, skirting around the lolling tongue of a rug that coughed up green smoke.
Oh, it was an old tiara. Lukas covered the last of the distance quickly. It was mostly furniture in this aisle, furniture and books, which seemed to be the foundation and bricks of this strange place. A statuesque bust of a wizard with his head raised halfway to song followed Lukas's passage with beady eyes until he stopped beside the table on which the silver tiara sat, carefully squared at the very centre with the bulging sapphire lined up with a knot in the wood.
Lukas picked it up. The tiara was cold, a chill that seeped into his fingers rather than warming to their touch. A crisper taste bloomed within the dusty air that tickled his nose and lay thick on his tongue. Crisper, and at once, sweet and foul enough to make him cringe. Gross. Something unpleasant must have come loose somewhere.
Really, what was he doing playing about with a tiara with so much of the room still unexplored? He should go. Except the same draw that had beckoned him on before didn't show its face, and idly, he found himself turning the tiara over and over in his fingers. Maybe it was expensive. Lukas twisted it around, frowning. Perhaps he could sell it.
The inscription along the rim read Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure. Well, he couldn't argue with that. Must be a special piece. Something black and green stirred in Lukas's stomach, a slow grin spreading across his lips. Yeah, it'd go for a tonne. Jack would know just what to do with—
Was that a photo?
Yes, it was. Swirling the tiara around one finger, Lukas slid it off the table and held it up to the light. The diffuse glow whirled a little, and without quite realising it, Lukas had to catch himself, a sharp movement of one foot to stop himself tumbling over. Was he…? The photo fluttered from his fingers and gasping, he pressed his hand to his face. The room spun. The passageway around him stretched, a length of taffy drawn out too long and all the light sunk into it, coalescing to a brightening streak of silver-blue that screamed toward his face. Orbs danced before his eyes, his heart pounding too fast in his chest, and that sick fucking taste, the taste of rot, squirmed down his throat and—
Laughter rung through his head, low and dark and rich. Lukas spun, fingers white-knuckled on the tiara. Who was—
A man stepped out of the writhing shadows, stricken lines to his darkly handsome face. While Lukas's vision distorted, he seemed almost impossibly tall, the hand he stretched out a thousand miles away and so close Lukas could sink his teeth into those long fingers and—
"Mikael?" The sound swum as if it came from beneath the weight of the ocean. "Mikael, is that—"
The floor smashed against Lukas's skull a second before his world smacked crimson.
A throne of skulls scrapes light out a void of heartbreak black, and upon that throne, a man whose eyes beckon ice into your soul, and he—
let me out
—howls, laughter that sears to hear, slides his hands along spread legs bound in taut leather, and lace sheathed—
let me OUT
—hands smear crimson, that violent crimson from his retching mouth and—
LET ME OUT
—it streams over corpse-white skin, the slither of—
LETMEOUT
—his hands drag gore through—
LETMEOUTLETMEOUT
—nightwing hair and—
LETLELETLETLETLET
—he loves—
MEMEMEMEMEMEME
—the way—
OUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUT
—violence—
you can't keep me trapped for long
—tastes.
Night reigned.