Ah, bliss! Eternal night, pregnant with the screeches and howls of its wretched children. I had been keeping audience to this cacophonous symphony for nearly three hours now, perched upon the window ledge in blessed solitude. I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my beloved. My Godsend. My divine muse, sent to walk the earth in the body of a sixteen year old boy. A boy who glistened with the very light of the ubiquitous Masters themselves. But he had not yet arrived. No doubt he was parleying the night, playing the devil's advocate to some misbegotten Muggle who had wandered his way into certain death. Such was his fancy, tormenting those unfit to live -- The unclean, the unsightly, the non-magical, and other such victims of nature's cruelty. He took a great pride in it, as well he should. After all, when one is so beautiful, their actions have little consequence in the wizarding world. The dull drone of the dormitory's stately grandfather clock announced the time of two a.m. Far too late, my mother had always said, for any decent creature to be scampering about. (I had never given the old loon so much as a knut for her thoughts.) Sure enough, the door flew open and there he stood, breathtaking in all of his resplendent loveliness. Oh, to touch those flaxen tresses! That waxy cheek! The thin, tight curve where the lips met one another, oh yes! Such was a boy's most vivid fantasy. To pay homage to that which he most adores. He gave me an odd sort of look, perhaps appraising me, perhaps seeing into the very dark, filthy corners of my soul. "Dreadfully late, isn't it, Severus?" Oh, to hear my own name spoken from those lips! "A little past your bedtime, I daresay?" He carried a heavy, leather-bound volume, beginning to leaf through it as he spoke. A laugh to disguise my adoration. "A fifth year student, I think, hardly has need for a bedtime, Lucius." "Ah, yes, of course..." he seemed rather distracted suddenly, scrutinizing the book with intense fervor. A pause his eyes trailed out the window, catching the moonlight in such a way that no other creature could. A pale, eerie glow fell upon him, illuminating my seraph in such splendor that I felt my breath catch, in spite of my efforts to restrain it. "A new order is coming." He spoke quietly, his hushed whisper barely touching my anxiously attentive ears. "I have heard Him speak of it. His ideas are ingenious. We shall create utopia here on Earth. The damned will fall under His judgment, and the righteous shall be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams." His eyes gleamed with a fanatic ambition that my young, inexperienced mind could not yet fathom. I knew only one desire, one need, one ultimate goal that would make my existence worthwhile. "Tell me more," I blurted out in sudden haste. "I want to know everything, to be a part of the inner circle of His hallowed saints." To be everything that you are and everything that you could ever want. He laughed at me. "You? Severus, you can hardly coerce Avery into doing your Transfiguration homework! You think you can hold influence among the most powerful wizards of our time? You, who are too terrified of your peers to even utter a correct answer in Potions class? You never cease to amaze me, Severus! How gullible you are to think that..." The searing pain of rejection. The glow of ethereal beauty. Oh, the agony! My child's brain could not comprehend the absolute, the all-encompassing depth of my desire for this creature, this being of preternatural beauty. Had I been younger and less aware of myself, this overwhelming fount of emotion might have manifested itself in fervent hatred for the object of my boyhood lust. Might have, but did not. "Severus, are you listening to me? I swear, sometimes you live in a world of your own. A world of visions, ha..." A world where you are an omnipotent god, a divine being of unfathomable beauty. "Your complexity never ceases to astound me. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a rather demanding schedule tomorrow." With the beguilingly androgynous grin that is so characteristic of any exceptionally attractive young male, he retired to his bed. I slumped back onto my own bed, defeated. A plague of vermin crawled about in my stomach, choking my breath between salty tears. He had misjudged me! He thought me capable of nothing more than standing back and silently observing others' achievements. Oh, but I was capable of far more than he believed! I vowed to myself that moment that I would prove this to him, no matter how long it took. He would revere me as I did him. Ah, bliss! An owl screeched in trees outside my window. I went into the lavatory and threw up.