DISCLAIMER: See chapter one for general disclaimer...
REVIEWS: A big thankies to all you that actually read this horrible taste in fantasy masquerading as a fic. And a special thanks to Nerwen Faelvirin, Saralisse, Romantic Shade of Blue, Triniroo, and memommy27. Your reviews were great guys!
Lord Elrond of Hogwarts: Academic Olympics?! I hope you did well, I could never participate in something like that. I don't have the brain power to compete against people, it takes all my brainpower to get out of the bed in the morning. Thanks for reviewing. (gives you a Draco sammich)
A/N: So, here's the latest addition to the saga. Dun dun dun.
TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET WE GO
CHAPTER TWO
The sins of the Father...
"Father of mine, tell me,
Where have you been?
I just closed my eyes and
My whole world disappeared.
Father of mine, take me back to the day,
Back when I was your golden boy,
Before you went away..." – Father of Mine, Everclear
The stench of sweat, urine, unwashed bodies, and molding hay caused him to gag, his head throbbing in time with his pounding heart. Nausea swept over him in waves of shaking hurt, his body curling in on itself to preserve whatever warmth was left in his frozen limbs. He licked his lips, his swollen tongue swiping across the cracked and broken skin of his lips, trying to drag whatever moisture he could from them.
He couldn't remember how long he'd been here, but the deafening silence was starting to terrify him. He felt oppressed in the darkness, and he shifted his body. He was so terribly cold, so cold. Perhaps he should just let himself become consumed by the cold, give into whatever they wanted of him.
And then a scream ripped through the silence. The high-pitched scream of a child in pain. A girl child, and young at that...
The thought caused him to bolt upright, half-crouched as blind panic consumed him. The scream echoed in the darkness, dying as quickly as it had begun. Silenced.
"Melody!" His voice was hoarse from disuse, but it still rang out loudly in the darkness, bouncing off the wall of his cells, causing him to flinch reflexively. "Melody! Gods, Melody, Mel..." He slumped to his knees, wrapping his arm about his body, shaking with suppressed sobs. If they hurt her...
"Oh, stop your blubbering."
The voice whipped across his body as if he had been struck. Shaking himself from his stupor, he turned to the bright light that now illuminated the inside of his cell, and the light footsteps that crossed the floor made him stiffen with resolve. "Tell me, now, where is my sister." When the voice didn't answer him, he lunged from where he was in the direction he thought the speaker might have been standing.
He hit nothing but a wall, his shoulder contacting the brick with a sickening crunch, and a small wail on his part.
"Please, you don't think I'd hurt my own baby girl, do you?"
The voice was familiar in its icy condescension, and he turned slowly, pressing his back against the wall. A lank lock of white hair fell over one fevered gray eye as he regarded the light solemnly. He could just barely make out her figure, but that's all he needed to recognize her. "Mother." The word held all the hatred and pain he had buried deep in his soul. "What have you done with her?"
"She is safe...for now. She sleeps." Narcissa Malfoy detached herself from the light of the hall, stepping gingerly into the cell, her pointed nose wrinkling with disgust. "See what you get when you consort with those lower than your own station, Draco love? Act like a Mudblood, get treated like a Mudblood." She took out a handkerchief, pressing it across her nose and mouth delicately, regarding her son with loathing mixed with suppressed hatred. "You sprang directly from my loins, how COULD you? Blood Traitor."
The words rang in Draco's head, clearing out the fuzziness of pain, and steeling him, infusing him with an anger that surpassed anything he had ever known. "Do NOT speak of her like that! She is more woman than you could possibly ever hope to be." His upper lip curled in the sneer he had worked years to perfect, and the effect must have been rather interesting indeed, by the way Narcissa took an involuntary step back.
"Whatever, boy. Anyway, your father wishes a word with you."
Father? "As in the dead, worm meat, buried, stabbed by a fellow Death Eater and left to rot Lucius Malfoy?" He gave a short bark of laughter, "You—you have stooped to a new low, Mother, if you think I am going to believe that."
"And why wouldn't you?"
Whatever witty and slicing retort Draco had been preparing, died on his lips as the voice washed over him. Lifting his eyes, he shrank back from the man in front of him. "Oh, Gods."
"I do believe you have made him speechless, beloved." Narcissa rested her hand on her dead husband's shoulder.
Lucius flinched away from her tactile contact, causing her face to fall noticeably, and she stepped back in the shadows, quite obviously dismissed. "Son, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. You have betrayed me." His face was stony and impassive as he stepped further into the cell, and Draco shrank further away from him. "Why? Blood is all there is in a world of lies and deceit. Did I never treat you right? Was I not the father you wanted? Would you have rathered Black..." Here his voice took on an icy edge. "As the father you loved so dear?"
Draco lifted his eyes to meet that of his father's, and gasped. No emotion shone in the dead eyes, flat with a sort of horrified pain. When his father had been alive, his eyes were the only thing on him that ever showed emotion that wasn't carefully schooled. There, he seen it...a flicker of...terror? And as suddenly as it was there, it was gone. "Whoever...whatever you are...you are NOT my father!" Draco lurched to his feet, ignoring the pain that lanced through him. "Wh-what are you!? Tell me, speak or I will send you back to the seventh level of hell that you crawled up from!"
Lucius turned to Narcissa and the faceless guard. "Leave us, we have much to discuss."
Narcissa stood for a moment, a sort of confused look twisting her classically refined features into something more pitiful. But she turned, leaving and shutting the cell door.
"I am your father." Lucius stated after he was sure they were gone.
"No, you're not." Draco glared at the imposter. "I don't know what you hope to accomplish by masquerading about as the dead Malfoy Prince, but let me assure you...Father..." He stressed the word, leaving it to hang in the air between them for a moment, "I will not be a pawn in your game, and neither will Melody. Now, tell me, who...or rather...what are you?"
Lucius laughed, a low, cruel sound that sent shivers up Draco's spine. "Little boy, you need not meddle in things you know nothing of. This is not a game that you can hope to win. You will never be nothing more than a pawn."
"Tell me." Draco hissed. "Who are you? And why are you emulating the man that WAS my father?!"
"Do you really wish to know? Do you really want to know exactly who your father was, and what he'd do to ensure that he would never die, not fully? Do you really, really want to go there?!" Lucius grabbed Draco's face, forcing him to look up into his eyes.
Draco jerked back, trying to release himself from the man's harsh grip, pain lancing through his head.
"Look at me!" Lucius demanded, tightening his grip, catching Draco's gaze with his.
Darkness swallowed him whole, his whole body slumping. Something moved in the darkness, something so twisted by greed and hatred that it was unrecognizable. It was terrified, but that was all Draco could really tell, as it skulked closer to him.
Trying to back away, Draco felt himself held fast, as the thing continued near him, reaching out a withered, blackened hand to caress his face, still keeping it's own face hidden in shadow and averted from him.
"Who are you?" He received no answer to his whispered question, only an involuntary shudder from the creature. He turned his attention to the shining light that held him. "What is it?"
The light just thrummed with annoyance, a tendril snaking out to lash across the creature's back, causing the creature to jump and whimper in pain.
Look at him. The voice whipped through his skull, and he winced. It was the cold voice of the Lucius imposter, deep and sinister. Look at him now, behold your son, behold the man you could have known, behold what you gave away when you gave me your soul. Lucius, look upon the life you could have had had you not felt the drawing powers of the Void, and had you avoided the draw of darkness and the sweet whisperings of greed.
Draco tried to struggle out the grip of whatever held him, but it was futile. The thing nodded softly, lifting its face. A lance of light spilled across the blackened and twisted features, lighting the deadened eyes in its face. Gray eyes, the same gray eyes that he possessed. Gray eyes that shone with hunger, pain, and regret. Gray eyes that drunk in the sight of him like a man dying of a great thirst. Gray eyes that, after a moment, slid to the side, shame coloring the depths of them.
"F-father?" Draco could only stutter, feeling ill.
The thing slowly slid back into the darkness, lifting its eyes to glance back at his face, as if memorizing him. Draco... the mind voice was distant, a piping whisper that was more air than anything else. It held the tinge of regret, the pain of repentance.
The light that held him reached out a tendril, wrapping itself about the Dark Creature, even as the Creature struggled and writhed against its bonds, screaming in pain.
"Leave him alone!" Draco yelled, struggling against his own bonds, longing to help the pitiful creature, "Let him go!"
See Draco, what happens to men who succumb to the seductiveness of the Dark, the Void, watch closely Draco, my boy.
"I AM NOT YOUR BOY!" Draco thundered, clenching his fists. "Let him go! Let him...leave him alone!"
The Creature, now within a few steps of its doom just stopped fighting. With a last wrench, it jerked its eyes back to Draco, holding his gaze.
Draco...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I...love...you...
"FATHER! No! No, father, please!" Draco screamed, heedless of what he was doing, his fingernails biting into the flesh of his hand, causing blood to run down his arms. The Creature was dragged into the malicious light, and in a blinding flash, was gone.
Draco stopped his struggle, dragging in deep breaths of air, forcing the sobs back down inside him.
And he opened his eyes and stared into the dead eyes of the Lucius Imposter.
"You killed him." It was an accusation that was darkened by grief. "He was repentant, he could have been saved and you took him. You took him from me. You took my father from me."
"No, Hermione Granger did that. I was just finishing the job." Lucius' mouth quirked up in a half smirk.
"No." Draco whispered. "She didn't. She stopped your havoc from reaching out into the world, he was dead long before she ever reached him. You had his soul and kept it. You ate his Soul."
"I didn't eat it, he gave it willingly for the power I offered in return."
"What are you?" Draco asked at last.
"I am known by many names." The voice of Lucius began to rise in pitch, and Draco shrank even further into himself as the features of Lucius' face began to soften, the nose becoming smaller, and upturned, the eyes becoming larger and darkening to a beautiful sky blue. His face became rounder, and the hand that gripped Draco's face became definitely more feminine, softer. His mouth became fuller, lips plump and shimmering in the half light. "Some may say I am a Demon. One of the seven deadly sins." His hair lengthened, darkening to a strange shade of strawberry blonde. He became shorter in stature, though not much. Draco whimpered as he watched this transformation. Even a Morphmagus had powers like this. "I am known as Lust by the Christians. And as a Succubus by the Pagans. And many other names by many other religions and factions, but eventually, they all bow to me. I am more powerful than you know."
"Why do you want me and my sister?" Draco asked softly, staring at the beautiful girl in front of him with a mixture of horrified wonder, and terrified awe. She was both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.
"I don't want your sister, Draco, it has never been about your sister. It has always been about you. That's why I seduced your father, that's why I worked him and worked on him until I knew he'd drive you away. I couldn't have his greed tainting you. You are perfect. I have been watching you for some time now, Draco, through other lives that you have lived. I watched you grow, learn, change, love, live, die." She stepped back, gazing up at him through her lashes, her smile soft, mysterious, alluring. "I have loved you time and again. You are the one man to whom I bow. You have always been my Master, and I could not let him touch you. Don't you understand that? I am only following your orders."
Draco backed against the wall, staring at her with wide eyes. "You lie. You are nothing more than a Deciever!"
"Why would I lie to you? Don't you understand that you are everything that is in and about me. I have lived and breathed you for so long. This will be the life in which we can live together. Melody is nothing. She is a weight upon your soul that you do not need."
"You are a Creature of the Void." Draco hissed, stumbling away from her, dragging his eyes from hers in an attempt to regain some sort of composure. "Is this the whispering you accused my father of falling victim to?"
"No, I just gave him the power he so desperately craved. He was a depraved madman. He didn't love you Draco, he wanted you to follow in his footsteps. He defiled a child, a little girl, not much older than Melody herself."
"No, you lie! He was a good man until you touched him!"
"No, he wasn't." She reassured him, "He was nothing but pure evil, but he was the kind of evil that hid behind others. A coward." She lifted her hand, brushing a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Do you not remember me?" She sounded a little hurt, and more than a little disappointed. "How can you not remember me? It's me, your love. Draco, think back, don't you remember me? Lilith, the damned."
Screaming and clutching at his skull with both hands, Draco hit his knees.
A/N: For all of you who do not know, Lilith, according to folklore, is known as the first wife of Adam, before Eve. She was made from dirt, like Adam, and was equal in every way, but left the garden with her son as her husband because she wouldn't become the subservient person that God and Adam both wanted her to be, and she was demonized for it. I'm playing on that a bit, and taking some liberties with it, because I'm sure Christians don't believe in reincarnation, and this is going to deal with reincarnation on several aspects. But, there's the next installment of my loverly fic here. Please RR. You make my day when you do.
Love,
Lil Lizzie.
AN: 11-29-06 Sorry, I had to repost this chapter because the formatting didn't come out right to begin with...lovely reposting...yayness incarnate!