Beggars Can't Be Choosers
by Verity
Chapter TwelveDraco swam back in his mind as he began to relate the dream, reliving it as he repeated it to the head of Slytherin house…
She is beautiful, he thinks, not beautiful like Pansy Parkinson's unnatural artifice, but beautiful in the true and faithful sense of the word. He doesn't want to fuck her; just fall down at her feet and worship for all that he is worth.
It's been a long time since he could look at a girl like that. Like she was the only thing in his world.
She – he doesn't know her name, but that doesn't matter – beckons to him. She wears an airy dress of blue so pale it's white. She has hair like his, eyes like his. A Malfoy. Follow me. Her voice is sweet and friendly.
And so he does – and before he knows it, he's at the edge of the Lake, again. He always thinks of it as the Lake. He's always feared water.
Don't be afraid, she tells him, burying her hands in hair to bring his face up to hers. Don't be afraid. You're always so afraid, I can tell.
Of course I'm afraid, he whispers up to her, dropping to his knees as she pushes him away. She's not gentle about it. Still a young goddess – but she has all the time in the world to learn, doesn't she?
Her blond hair would fall to her waist, though a silver ribbon ties it up. An ice goddess, she says. I'm as cold and cruel as can be. Aren't I, Guardian of the Lamp?
What? The name resonates in him, somehow – as if it is truer than the one that was given to him at birth.
You're right, the goddess says absently. I called you after your uncle, whom you never knew. He died rather young.
How did you know me? Surely he would have recognized her, known her. Of course, something in him does recognize her, at a gut level; the something that forces him to his knees every time he looks at her. He feels that every cutting remark he's ever made, to every girl, has denied him the right to meet her on his feet. She is pure, faultless.
No! she shouts suddenly. You can't think that of me. You have to know – I made flawed decisions. I destroyed you. I made you what you are. I thought I knew everything.
You know my thoughts.
I know everything, now. Don't call me a goddess.
What should I call you then?
A girl. She pauses for a moment. Do you know why I can talk to you?
No. It's something that's been bothering him. These aren't like normal dreams.
The girl walks over to him, studies his face carefully as if trying to find something familiar in it. Because I created you, Guardian. I made you, and I can break you. I need to know how far he's gone, how much he's done.
Are you Narcissa? He's none too certain about this. Narcissa's a spineless, unbeautiful creature, incapable of inspiring awe.
Then again, his father might not be able to inspire awe, but he does fairly well with fear.
She laughs – it's a nasty, fragmented little laugh, the way his father laughs sometimes. He never expected the nastiness from her.
No, baby, she says, running a sharp nail along his jaw line, just firmly enough to draw a little blood. That's the Malfoy in me, she explains. Narcissa never had any Malfoy in her. Narcissa never had any Name to begin with. I wasn't destined to be the latest in a long line of Nameless Malfoy wives. Eventually, you'll understand that.
What?
Ask Walker of Two Worlds or the Man-Who-Stoppers-Death. And suddenly, she kisses him on the cheek. You must go now. I have other things to attend to.
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"That was all she said," Lucius's son finished. "I remembered… from the speech our first year – you are the Man-Who-Stoppers-Death?"
Severus nodded, moving his head a bare fraction of an inch. The boy's relief was palpable. "And what is your answer to her inquiry?"
"Inquiry?" Draco Malfoy looked confused.
"How much," Severus said slowly, "are you your father's son?"
The boy pondered this for almost a full minute, looking around the room, anywhere but at Severus's face. Finally, he said, "However much she wants me to be. All, or not at all. Who is she?"
"You don't really want to hear this, Malfoy," Severus told him, watching the boy's face carefully. "Do you?"
"No," said Draco Malfoy, "but I rather think I have to."
"Take a seat-" Severus gestured to the chair in front of his desk, and then began his own retelling and reliving… "I met Lux LeMalfois roughly thirty years ago…"
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A stream in the south of France. A girl about the age of five is wading in it, trying to catch tadpoles. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail and secured with a silver ribbon; there is a smile on her lips and in her silvery eyes.
A boy comes up to her. He's about eight, with chin-length black hair. "What are you doing?" His accent is distinctly British.
"Catting tapoes," she replies uncertainly with a thick French accent.
The boy mulls this over for a minute. "Tu attrapes des tetards?"
"Oui." The girl nods happily. "Tu parles Français?"
"Un peu. Je m'appelles Severus. Tu t'appelles comment?" He extends his hand.
She grasps it firmly and shakes it. " Lux."
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"Lucius Malfoy is your cousin?" Severus asks her. Lux, who he's taken to calling Luck, and who's just turned fourteen, is peacefully curled up by the stream with a book. She looks up. "Why didn't I know this?"
"Because, Sevvie dear, you're only here for summer holidays, and anyway, he's not technically my cousin, he's my cousin and then some. Maman is his father's fifth cousin and his mother's sister. Does that make sense?" She returns to her perusal of Heart of Darkness cheerfully.
"In a strange, twisted, inbred, Malfoy way, I suppose," he says, grabbing her book away from her. "Pay attention to me, Luck."
"La realite et toi ca fait deux n'est ce pas?" She seizes the book and swats him with it. "Let me remind you that not only am I LeMalfois, I am not an inbred émigré swine who does not deserve even the bastardized Anglican version of the name."
"Cretine."
"Imbecile." Luck smiles peacefully. It's a happy afternoon.
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"I told you to come with me then! Not now!" Severus shouts to her. She's escaped, Merlin only knows how, and he's got to get her out of here, out of Malfoy Manor. He forces himself not to think of what she must have gone through her, forces down the murderous rage that engulfs him whenever he thinks of Lucius.
Luck tilts her head – there's something terribly wrong with her, and he doesn't under stand quite what – her silver eyes are open, but they're not seeing anything. Her blond hair floats around her; her blue-white dress drifts around her gaunt body. She was eighteen the day before. She stepped backward, through the open French doors, onto an old, disreputable balcony. "I won't let him get away with any more…" He sees the bruises, bruises on her frail neck, knowing that there must be more bruises beneath the dress…
The balcony collapses beneath her, and she falls, falls so far… She doesn't scream as her body hits the rocks…
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"That's all I know," Professor Snape concluded, looking at him expectantly. Draco cleared his throat.
"Oh." It was all he could think of – it didn't even begin to sum up – "Did you love her?"
"As a friend? Very much. Beyond that – we were both far too young and far too old, if that answers any of your questions."
"Why did my father have her? She seemed so – powerful."
"I don't know," Snape said, looking at the ceiling. "I can only think she came to him, for reasons I don't know and don't particularly want to."
"Do you know who Walker of Two Worlds is? Would she know?"
Snape's face seemed to harden, though almost imperceptibly. Draco thought it might have even been a figment of his imagination, produced by the late hour and the lack of sleep.
"Let's just say," the Potions master told him, "That I have my suspicions."
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First, just to be clear, those were Snape's memories, of which he was telling Draco; Hermione has not seen them. Of course, that doesn't mean she doesn't know about them. ;)
I don't speak French, have never spoken French, and am unlikely to take up the language in the future. *grin*Being a Latin geek and all. Please feel free to correct my French if it's hideous. The only phrase worth a translation is Lamp-Bear/Luck/Lux's "La realite" comment to Snape, which means "Reality and you don't get on, do they?"
[Note: Thanks and worship go to the marvelous French person known only as reader who took the time to fix my French, the quality of which is only slightly better than merde. If said marvelous French person would be so kind as to contact me at zer0_gurl@yahoo.com for future translations, they would be a diety above par. *grin*]
Also, I've now an MSN community set up for updates (only.) It's
http://communities.msn.com/beggarscantbechoosers/
Verity
