Chapter Twenty-three: Lay Its Blood So Lovingly across a Faceless Mere

Disclaimer: We all know what I don't own. the title of this chapter
is actually a line from the song "A Rose for the Dead" by Theatre of
Tragedy.and there are several lines from Theatre of Tragedy spread
through out the chapter. In fact they make up most of the chapter.
They just seemed to fit the context. So I don't own most of this
chapter. because most of it is lyrics and such that as far as I know
are owned by Theatre of Tragedy. These lyrics come from the songs
"And When He Falleth"(song and dialogue), "A Rose for the Dead", and
"As the Shadows Dance". I also don't own the Ninth Gate nor the
music from it.

As the Spring Ball at Hogwarts had commenced, Lucius Malfoy, unknowing of his son's love at yet, was plotting revenge upon the Headmaster, Dumbledore. He felt none other could have been responsible for his beloved Lord Voldemort's death. Several days after the ball, Lucius had of course heard of his son's miscreant liaison. It was one of the Hogsmeade visits, and Lucius planned to deal with his son on the way to his cold bloodied dealings with Dumbledore. The chill April rain washed away all possibility of warmth for the students. Harry and Draco were huddled in an alley with several butterbeers. All they wanted was to be left alone and they couldn't get that in the Three Broom Sticks. So they had got the butterbeer and found solace with each other down the alley. Draco threw another bottle to the ground, and began to mutter. "Wherefore is here loneliness? Infinite hollowness in which my thoughts echo. To the shadows I whisper - with the shadows I waltz . Bear me; I am not the plague, although nightclad death ... mayhap?! Dance no longer with the shadows - dance no longer with the dead in the graveyard. Dance with me the Mephisto waltz. Wedlock between day and night - offer me relief from the sun's rays." Harry looked at Draco but saw only an angst-wrought expression. A Howler had come with breakfast from his father today and it had cut Draco like a knife. Now through the gathering gloom and the heavy sheets of sheer rain a figure cut its way to the boys. A figure draped in the black cloak and mask of a Deatheater with only a few locks of long blonde hair peeking out from the hood to give away the figure's identity. Lucius came upon his son and the Boy-Who-Lived silently, but Draco still know he was there. As the figure seemed to coalesce from the driving rain and misty gloom, Draco looked up. "Hello father." He shakily pushed himself away from the wall. "You're no son of mine." Came the reply, which was colder than the wind or rain, and came from a heart of icy stone. Harry leaned again the wall, unsure if he should interfere or not.
Draco pointed to the cross around his father's throat. "That cross you wear around your neck; is it only a decoration, or are you a true Christian believer?" The reply came from the depths of the hood. "Yes, I believe - truly." Draco's voice took on such conviction, that Harry became frightened of what he might do. "Then I want you to remove it at once! - and never to wear it again!" Lucius removed his hood. His grey eyes narrowing alarmingly. "I will wear it when and where I like, boy." "You worship the Dark Lord. You have no right to wear it." He paused only a moment remembering a dialogue so familiar that it rankled in his soul for him to use now. "Do you know how a falcon is trained my father? Her eyes are sown shut. Blinded temporarily she suffers the whims of her God patiently, until her will is submerged and she learns to serve - as your God taught and blinded you with crosses." The cross fell from the Deatheater's numb fingers. "It simply appears to me to be discourteous to... to wear the symbol of a deity long dead." He muttered. "My ancestors tried to find it. And to open the door that separates us from our Creator." Draco felt he had only to keep his father lost in the ancient dialogue for the perfect moment to arise. "But you need no doors to find God. If you believe..." "Believe?!" Lucius scoffed. "If you believe you are gullible. Can you look around this world and believe in the goodness of a god who rules it? Famine, Pestilence, War, Disease and Death! They rule this world." Now Draco felt compelled to say the next line. Not only to keep his father's mind lost in it, but also because he felt it were more true to him now than ever before. "There is also love and life and hope." "Very little hope I assure you." Came the expected reply. "No. If a god of love and life ever did exist... he is long since dead. Someone... something rules in his place." This was it. Draco lunged at his father will all the strength his fifteen-year-old body could muster. Harry couldn't bring himself to stop the fight, but also couldn't help Draco. Before long the boy had over- powered his grieved father. The wound, inflicted by a broken butterbeer bottle, was mortal. However, as Lucius lay there dying slowly, his life's blood gently mixing with the rain, music drifted across the air from one of the houses. A melancholy symphony of dreary methodology flowed through the music that Harry recognized as the Vocalise from the muggle movie the Ninth Gate. "Be my kin free from vernal sin; bridle the thoughts of thy Master." Draco whispered. "Men are dementéd - blindfoldéd by light and nourished as weeds in their well-groomed girths." Came the whispered reply from his father. The whisper continued, his voice growing hoarse. "The quality of mercy and absolution, from whence come such qualities? A masque of this to fashion for myself. Build yourself a mirror son in which solely the wanton images of thy desire appear." Draco closed his eyes. "'Tis the Divine Tragedy. The fool and the mocking court. Yet for our blunders. Earth bears no balm for our mistakes. We hold the Earth from Hell today, but what will tomorrow bring?" He whispered, tears slipping from beneath his long lashes. He held no love for his father, but he felt the closeness of what he said with all his soul. "The sweet music in the ear - albeit, daresay I, the lullaby of an ever so dark sleep now descends upon you. My father, likest thou what emergeth yon the distant?" He asked. Lucius' flesh was beginning to grow cold in the driving rain that had soaked the two boys and the dying man. His blood was almost run out. "Lord of carnage," He whispered with his last breath before death took him. Draco and Harry never knew what he had meant or to whom he had referred. "One funeral maketh many." muttered Harry darkly gazing down upon the dead man. "Give praise for the blood he bled." Draco whispered. "Grant a rose for the dead, a rose for the dead. He was enraptur'd by the timeless beauty of the shadow sphere." Despite the rain and nearness of the two boys, a vulture landed upon the body. "Make this cherish'd feast last but until the new dawn ascendeth." The boys were startled by the voice from behind them. Whirling around they saw Professor Raistlin Majere standing behind them in the alley. He sighed deeply. "You two should never have been faced with something like this so young, but you harkened to the lure of the night." He turned to Lucius' dead form. "Clothe thee in night, and in its face, behold! Pray, ne'er come hither daylight. Velvet darkness, thee we ourselves bestow. May thee wane to dust and misery in the velvet flight." Draco turned and looked upon his father's blank and staring eyes one last time. "Shadow of annoyance ne'er come-hither again!" He cried before turning defiantly and marching from the alley toward Hogwarts. "And when He falleth, He falleth like Lucifer, ne'er to ascend again..." Harry muttered before running after Draco. Raistlin watched them go, his gold eyes gleaming eerily in the gloom. A glint of silver caught his eye. Half buried in the mud by the rain, Raistlin found a silver cross. He looked back at Lucius and shook his head, causing a cascade of water to fall from the drenched velvet hood. He placed the cross in Lucius' hand, and changed the scene only so much that it no longer seemed the boys were at fault. When he left, a missive was clutched in the dead man's hand with the cross. It read, "And when He falleth, He falleth like Lucifer, ne'er to ascend again... Dance no longer with the shadows - dance no longer with the dead in the graveyard. Dance with me the Mephisto waltz. Wedlock 'twixt day and night - offer me relief from the sun's rays. No more shall I be the Shadow of Annoyance." A wafting scent of life and death mingled from the pouches upon Raistlin's person. Drifting through the chill air was the scent of rose petals and other deadly spell components. As he left the alley he was nothing more than a pacing point in the rain-filled gloom, a point of black on midnight. No noise came from his gait as he wandered through the mud and rain, his staff leaving small holes in the mud to be instantly filled with rainwater. He did not use his staff to light his way, but three constellations shone more brightly upon him than they ever had in the history of this planet. The constellations shone down upon him, making Raistlin a hole in their light. A glint of hidden gold came from the hood, as he lifted his golden hand to pull away the deep hood. His face with its seemingly metallic golden glow lifted up to the sky. His pure snowy hair was drenched and clung to his face and neck. His eyes, touched off with their hourglass pupils, burst into a fierce molten gold fire as he watched the stars. His eyes that saw all about him old, dying, dead filled with only hatred and remorse. Let me at least take Krista with me, he prayed to them. It seemed they listened. Krista approached him from the gloom. "We have to leave now, if you are coming." He whispered. She nodded, and the two figures vanished. No one ever found out what happened to them, but the rooms that Raistlin had stayed in at the castle were forever filled with the sent of rose petals and death. These scents stifled any that entered the room. They surrounded the senses and haunted with a glint of gold.

Author's Note: This is not the end of the story. I have a few other subplots to wrap up.