Chapter 26: From Duels to Dungeons

I never thought he would look so. . . young. After all, Grindelwald had been as old as Dumbledore. He, on the other hand, must have been in his early thirties. His dark black hair was long, though much shorter than mine. Women would probably have called him handsome. I doubted anyone would really have noticed him in large crowd; in fact, I could understand quite well why the ministry hadn't considered him a threat. His eyes were the only unusual part of him. They were. . . red.

But then, the instant I noticed this particular feature, the light in them had somehow faded, making them a rather dull shade of brown.

"Lucius." He extended his hand. I shook it, surprised in spite of myself. Was I being treated like an equal? By Lord Voldemort?

Garednon's labored breathing receded into the background.

"Lord Voldemort." He gave a small, viperish smile. A true Slytherin to the core, no doubt.

"I presume Garednon here," he made a small gesture to the pathetic heap beside him, "has informed you of the details, Lucius?" He said my name with a coldness that would have done even my father proud. 

"The major details, yes."

"And, am I right in believing you've already made your choice?"

"I have."

"You will join me." This was obviously meant to sound like a question, however, I had a strange feeling that the tone of finality in his voice was there for a reason.

"Of course."

"All right, then. Now, you shall have the Mark burned into your arm after your. . ." he paused, searching for the right word, "initiation."

Initiation?

His eyes bored into mine, and he smiled his snakelike smile once again.

"You haven't been told?" I shook my head. To my astonishment, he moved back towards Garednon. "Joseph, Joseph." He said reprovingly, pacing a small circle around my teacher. "Haven't I always emphasized the importance of getting things done properly?" Garednon gave the smallest nod. "And, was this little mission done properly?" Another nod. "DO NOT LIE TO LORD VOLDEMORT," his voice resonated so loudly in the room I expected a herd of students to come barging it at the commotion despite the silencing charm, but, just as quickly, it returned to normalcy, calm and collected. "Perhaps another round is necessary?" Without waiting for an answer this time, he said clearly and slowly, as if he enjoyed this to a great extent, "Crucio."

Minutes passed by, attenuated by Garednon's incredibly vocal suffering. My new Master turned towards me, still maintaining the curse on his unfortunate victim (how he did this, I didn't know; he must have been stronger than I'd thought.)

"Well, it looks like I shall have to fill you in on the details, hmm? Well, yes, your initiation. You shall kill a muggle, or a mudblood, of my choice." My heart jumped a little at the word 'mudblood' and I could only hope he hadn't seen the slight change in my expression. "Shouldn't be too hard for you, Lucius. I've watched you; you should handle it with extreme ease, I believe."

"Of course, My Lord."

"Excellent." He grabbed the nearest thing to him (a Sneakoscope) and, pointing his wand to it, said "Portus." It glowed blue, then returned to its normal state, before he disappeared.

A Portkey.

Now that I was left alone (save for that wretched teacher on the floor, to whom, I'm sad to say, I still felt no pity), I allowed my thoughts to wander back to the person it so enjoyed dwelling upon. Lily. Was it possible I would have to kill her? But then, I reasoned, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of mudbloods (but Lily wasn't a mudblood anymore, a voice whispered from somewhere inside my head, and I immediately suppressed it; there was no time now for emotional banter). He wouldn't dare take anyone from Hogwarts.

I felt the urge to curse myself at the frailty of my excuse. Finding comfort in my own lies was getting harder and harder to do everyday.

I stalked out of the classroom and headed down to the Great Hall, dread forming at the pit of my stomach.

I looked at my watch. I was late.

A semblance of a smile flitted across my face, remembering what had happened the last time I'd been late for dinner. But, I'd been with Lily, then. Now, I was alone.

Only the soft click of my boots against the marble floor broke the silence.

I welcomed this stillness; it gave me a chance to evaluate what I had just done. I'd made a decision that would, undoubtedly, affect my life.

And I can tell you now, it did. At night, I often lie awake and think of all of what could have been. Would Lily have died, if I'd decided not to join the Death Eaters? I run the images in my mind, continuously—my unsavory method of self-flagellation. But, yes, I do believe she would have died. The only difference is, I would have followed.

But, to explain the future, I must first reveal the past. And reveal, I shall.

This silence accompanied me all the way to the entrance of the Great Hall. Unfortunately, it stopped the instant I'd reached the vast corridor. The Brats, (as I'd soon taken to calling the Marauders), minus one, had sauntered in opposite to me, obviously fresh from outside.

"Did you see the look on his face, Prongs?" Black was saying. The said Prongs (Potter) laughed loudly, and was just about to answer, when he spotted me. The cocky grin froze on his face, replaced by the look of defiance Gryffindors often liked to face us Slytherins with. I gave him a sneer, which was much more than he deserved, before I continued towards the door. I was just about to open it, when the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I'd felt this before.

Instincts told me what he would do, even before the spell was said, and I moved to the left before his Expelliarmus hit me.

So, he'd grown some backbone now, eh? If Lily was to be believed (and she definitely was), this courage and unseemly arrogance had sprouted from his luck on the Quidditch Field.

Prefect or not, I knew what to do.

I never ran from a fight, and these little boys were no match for me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Black reach for his wand. These idiots were much too slow. "Expelliarmus!" I said lazily, a smirk forming on my face. Black's wand flew to me, as he flew back.  

"Stupefy!" Potter shouted. I ducked (just in time; this boy was, as much as I hated to admit, fast), and the statue of Wilhelm the Wistful shattered behind me. He aimed again. "Impedimenta!"

"Protego!" I shouted at the same time, and both spells bounced off each other. I heard a weakly said 'Stupefy' to my right, said by Pettigrew. Luckily, his aim was as horrible as his pronunciation, as it hit the portrait at least three spans beside me.

"Expelliarmus!" My wand (and Black's) flew out of my hands, but, to my surprise, so did Potter's, and Pettigrew's.

Only then did I realize that we'd had an audience. Potter's first Expelliarmus must have blasted the door of the Great Hall open. Some Slytherin girls were batting their eyelashes at me; obviously they'd seen the whole fight. McGonagall was walking briskly down the length of the hall, and the very air emanated her outrage.

"DUELLING!" She shouted shrilly. "INSIDE SCHOOL GROUNDS!" I winced inwardly. She sounded too much like my grandmother in a bad mood.

"And MISTER MALFOY, YOU ARE A PREFECT, YOU SHOULD NOT BE ENCOURAGING THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR IF YOU WISH TO KEEP YOUR BADGE!" This woman either had a voice box the size of my Gringotts vault, or she'd used the Sonorous spell. Hopefully, it was the latter, as the latter would, at least, fade.

"Professor McGonagall," Potter practically whimpered, "We--"

"MISTER POTTER, THIS IS THE THIRD TIME YOU'VE BEEN CAUGHT DUELLING IN SCHOOL, and," her voice lowered dangerously as she reached us, "It had better be the last." Third? He'd dueled before? Interesting. Very Interesting.

"10 points off each of you! I'm appalled by your actions, be happy the Headmaster is away, I'm sure he would—" she paused, at a loss of threats. What would Dumbledore do? He never handed out punishments personally; I'd been here long enough to know that. Her loss of words did not deter her for very long, as she continued, even more shrilly (if that was possible), " He will hear from this, as will your parents! Mark my words! And a weeks worth of detentions for all of you!"

I almost felt the three boys behind me cringe. I would have to talk my way out of this. Not like I'd never done so before. Malfoys, Lucius Malfoy, in particular, never had detention. I looked around quickly for my Head of House. From experience, I knew McGonagall was not to be dawdled with. She was, unfortunately, a no-nonsense-woman. Where was he? My eyes raked the teacher's table. Professor Dolohov as nowhere to be found.

Not a good sign.  

"All four of you, the Dungeons, now. Detention starts tonight. I'll find a prefect to make sure you're doing your duties."

A Malfoy? Cleaning the dungeons? Dungeons, which, I might add, probably hadn't been cleaned since Merlin (yes, read Hogwarts: A History; this used to be Arthur's castle, dim-witted muggle though he was)? Malfoys did not do menial jobs that could just as easily have been done by house-elves.

Then again, I thought, as McGonagall glared at me for my lack of dungeon-directed movement, there was always a first time for everything.

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Author's Notes:

Aren't you all excited? Hehehe. . . seeing Lucius shovel dragon dung. . . or whatever it is they have in the dungeons. . . Bwahahaha! *feels poke*

"Lucius?"

"For your information, muggle, they don't keep Dragon Dung in the dungeons. *plugs shamelessly, facing readers* of course, you can find out in the next chapter, after you've given sufficient reviews. This chapter's reviews was a bit of a disappointment *smirk*"

*Lucius spots Order of the Phoenix on Author's desk*

"Hmm, muggle artists aren't bad, are they? This looks very much like that Potter boy. Pathetic little muggles; your pictures don't move."

*Lucius flips through book, looking for his name*

"I WAS HARDLY MENTIONED!! *is incensed* Where's that muggle author?"

"J.K. Rowling?" Author squeaks. *author is rather 'frightened by Lucius' outburst*

"And. . ." *continues in a low, dangerous voice, "she made me bawl. I don't BAWL! As a rule, Malfoys DO NOT BAWL!!" *starts destroying Author's extensive collection of school textbooks*

"Noo!!!" Author has, for some dumb reason, started speaking in slow motion.

"*smirk* you speak in slow motion because of Severus' new hex. Quite nice, isn't it?" Strokes Author's frizzy hair like one strokes a dog. "Good muggle. I feel much better now, having successfully cursed someone. Muggles for Death Eater torture-sessions are becoming quite a rarity these days. Blasted high-security whatchamacallits." *shrugs* "I'd best be leaving now. We're busy trying to infiltrate Dumbledore's pathetic little order." *evil cackle* *Disapparates*

*cough* Well, at least I can still type properly. Reviews!! J

Chelli—Lucius would be the fun kind of evil J Garednon's just disgusting. I think that's why I love torturing him so much! I mean *hem-hem's in a very Umbridge like way* That's why Voldemort likes torturing him so much J Thanks for the long review!! I just love them. . . you know me J I'm glad you like the Drama. . . but, bwehehe, Fluff's usually at the top of my priority list J

Diabla666—actually, you've got it down perfectly J Lucius lost Iole because she was practically a muggle, and his family wouldn't accept her. Some suppressed memories gave rise to the notion that Lily, being a muggle-born, will cause him to lose her as well. And, the poor guy's learned at a very young age that love only hurts you L But then, as you can see, he's 'taking a chance' with Lily.

Sarah—humph. *is in self-pitying mode*

Nanne/Dwen—I hope your speechlessness was a good thing! J Actually, I think he really would have killed Garednon (there was a line there somewhere that said 'I was going to kill that bastard some day'), but, you know, Lily probably wouldn't have wanted him to be a murderer, just because of Garednon (sort of like when Harry said James wouldn't want his two best friends to be murderers just because of Pettigrew) And, as Lucius confessed, he usually did what she wanted. J

 

P.S. I'm horribly sorry if I've given Garednon a new first name. . . hehehe, I'm too drained to look for his real one, if I already have written it. . . me and my horrible memory; I swear I already wrote it down somewhere, but I'm too tired. Waah. I hate Cations and Anions.