Priestess Adularia: Still not enough reviews for a published author whose been obscenely popular in about every fandom, but let me give special thanks to Ari-souls, Elanor Ainu, PhantomZebra, and quantuminferno (PS: great name.) XxxxX (Who does not deserve to have the name of the great Phantom in his name) is just a homophobe, and I think Shadow-Sun (again with the cool names) may be, but as of yet I can't be sure. Not a clear enough review.

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Raoul twisted the note between his fingers as the carriage rode. It said, quite simply, "I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue my scarf," followed by instructions to meet him at her father's grave. She mentioned that he had been buried with his violin.

The poor man loved music, he remembered. The nearer he came, the more fondly he remembered Little Lotte and Daddy Daaé and the mysterious Angel of Music.

He had read the note over and over again, and smelled the fragrance of roses. His hair tumbled freely about his shoulders, though he had tied it with a gossamer ribbon. Every step to the carriage, he felt something touch his neck. It could only have been free strands, but it felt more like someone breathing on the nape of his neck, or even a haunting brush of lips.

Eventually, he removed the ribbon in an attempt to tie it better. It had flown out the window of his carriage.

His heart was pounding. He knew he should be thrilled, but instead he was nervous. Raoul shook his head. It's all in your mind, he told himself.

And now, a distant echo of the most enchanting whisper he had ever heard:

The phantom of the opera is there
Inside your mind…

He didn't catch the words, only a chill which ran through his entire body. He shook his head again, hard. His hair flew in his eyes. He tried to push it out. It fell back in. His soft, manageable hair began to tangle. He almost screamed.

Leaning back against the carriage seat, Raoul felt his frustration grow. With it came the childish urge to cry.

And he still couldn't shake off the feel that there was someone following him…

«§Ж§»

Christine was waiting for him. She was wrapped in furs and a cloak, so that of her dress only the black velvet skirt could be seen. But it was enough for Raoul to recognize it.

She smiled when she saw him. An angel's smile.

"I knew you would be here," she said. "I knew you would be late, too."

Raoul froze. Was he late? She hadn't specified a time.

"It's all right, Raoul. I was at mass."

"How did you know I would be late?" he asked, having never been late before. "Who told you?"

"Why, my poor father."

His eyes widened. For a moment he couldn't speak. When he did, it was with regret. "Your father is dead, Christine."

"I know."

There was a silence; and then Raoul asked, "Did your father tell you that I can not live without you?"

Christine blushed. "Me, Monsieur? You must be mistaken!" And she laughed, nervous.

"Why are you laughing? I love you!"

The laughter stopped abruptly. Her eyes were huge now. "W…What?" she stammered.

"I love you, Christine. How can you not know that? Why else would you have sent me the letter?"

She looked ready to cry. "I thought…I guess I really don't know what I thought. I remembered our games as children…" She trailed off with a heartbroken expression. "Perhaps I was wrong to write to you. I just remembered the boy I used to know."

He heard himself laugh. The very sound shocked him, harsh and cold and not himself at all. "Of course! The boy! Because I'm still an insolent boy, right? An ignorant fool, basking in your glory."

Her expression was one of astonishment. Raoul was astonished as well. He had promised to be as tender as he knew how, to speak only of love.

"Why…Why would you say that?"

"That's what the voice said, isn't it?" His voice rose. "The Angel of Music?" Raoul clenched his teeth. He could almost imagine the Angel of Music, some good-looking jackass tenor.

Christine seized Raoul's arm and with a strength no one would have suspected in so frail a creature. "You heard?" she gasped out. "You were listening?"

"Yes!" he cried.

"Why?" Her face was deathly pale.

"Because I love you!"

And she released his arm. "So he was right." She shut her eyes, and breathed deeply for a few moments. The air itself seemed to hold its breath. When she opened them again, she spoke with icy formality. "Monsieur de Chagny, I'm afraid I will not be able to speak to you again."

"What?" He stared at her, and he saw no hostility in her eyes, only distressed affection. Why was it distressed?

That was when he heard the music.

It was a violin. He knew that song, he had heard it as a child. Christine's father had played it for them. But it had never been played with such divine perfection. If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played better.

Christine's eyes grew wide. A look of ecstasy filled them. Raoul didn't blame her. The music was beautiful. It engulfed him in a double dozen threads of bliss.

She fell to her knees before the giant tomb that formed her father's graves, made the sign of a cross, and kissed the roses that he could only assume she had placed there. "Thank you!" she wept. "Oh, thank you!"

And then she ran. Raoul called after her, but she didn't even look back.

New music, now that she was gone.

He began walking forward, looking for the music. The invisible musician was without hope, without salvation. If he listened much longer, he would be in tears.

But he could not stop listening.

He was at the foot of the tomb when the melody stopped, and Raoul broke out of his trance. He began looking around, wondering where the music could have come from. The only thing large enough to hide near was the Daaé vault. Christine's father must have spent all his money in making this tomb.

Raoul took a step forward, and a skull rolled to his feet. Then another…another. He heard a noise, as if the skulls were chuckling at him.

With a shudder, he took another step. Invisible hands shoved him from behind. He found himself sprawled on the stair.

More laughter.

He tried to rise, and hands thrust him down. There was something—someone—on top of him, crushing him. Raoul screamed as loud as he could, and now his head was pushed into the ground.

"Let go!" he cried, but the noise was muffled. He heard dark laughter, and rough yet strangely gentle hands turned him over. A gloved hand covered his eyes, while the other pinned him to the ground by his chest. He fought uselessly.

"Help!" His voice rose, and he thrashed like an animal. The pressure on his chest grew until he felt certain the bone would break. His whole body ached from the steps. "Help me!"

A voice, a whisper, haunting and beautiful and terrible, a voice that made his skin crawl and his heart sing. "That's right, call for help. Call for your Christine."

And wasn't it odd, lying there on steps which dug into his back and made his skull ache, that this comment from a phantom attacker should draw that bitter laugh?

In a raw whisper, he replied, "she isn't my Christine."

He was found on the steps of the large tomb. He was stretched out, rather than sprawled in a position that would leave him unable to move for hours. But Raoul was half-frozen, in spite of the black cloak and black gloves he wore.

«§Ж§»

He watched the boy wake up, watched him squirm. The Vicomte was obviously in pain, in spite of his arranging the boy in a position that would leave him as comfortable as possible.

His friends were all around the Vicomte, asking after his health, but Christine wasn't there.

He smiled. If Christine had not run off, ecstatic over her angel's contentment, if the boy had not admitted to his loss, he was sure he would have killed the boy. As if was, he wasn't certain why he had taken such pains to ensure that he wouldn't be too cold or too bruised.

After the boy was taken to a warm bed, he had taken his cloak and gloves back. Wrapped in sheets and surrounded by admirers, the Vicomte looked glum and cold and sore.

The smile became a sneer. "I kept you warm," he hissed, without venom.

The Vicomte jumped. His head darted about, and those around him seemed bewildered.

The Phantom smirked. It didn't even occur to him that, for the first time, he had missed Christine's lesson.

«§Ж§»

Raoul's whole body was throbbing. He was sure he was black-and-blue, but he wasn't willing to move and find out. His hair was a mess of tangles, and he was surprised his fingers weren't frostbitten.

Music keened in his ears. Grief that made his flesh tighten.

The door swung open.

If the violin music was anguished, and Raoul was in disarray, Christine was a strange mixture.

She had applied eye shadow, and attempted to wipe it off before coming: heavy makeup was only for her angel to see, and only on special occasions—on the anniversary of her father's death, she wore lipstick the color of blood. The dark blue smeared across her temples and over the sides of her eyes. Her face was streaked with tears, her curls in disarray. She had waited for her angel all night.

Her angel had been watching Raoul, but how was she to know that?

The flock who had been surrounding Raoul glanced at Christine, startled. Raoul made a quick motion, and they all left.

Christine's angel, who had been hiding in the shadows, watched this casual dismissal of his admirers.

"Is something wrong, Christine?"

"My angel!" she sobbed out. "He isn't there!"

"Isn't where?"

"In my room."

"Your room?" he echoed stupidly.

"Yes! That is where he comes to give me my lessons daily."

He stared at her, shocked. Then the words took on a new meaning.

"The man comes to your room everyday?"

Her eyes, her gentle doe eyes, narrowed, though in confusion or annoyance he didn't know. "A man? You think you heard a man?"

"Of course." He felt confused now, and once again stupid.

"It's you, Raoul, who say that? You, an old friend of mine! Of my father! But you have changed since those days. What are you thinking? I am an honest girl, Monsieur Vicomte de Chagny, and I don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men. If you had opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody in the room."

"I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found no one in the room."

"So you see!"

"I saw nothing."

"Well…?"

He didn't know what to say. What did he want from her? The truth? All right, he would speak the truth.

"Someone is tricking you, Christine. Your angel is a fraud."

Her eyes widened, and she began to sob. "He is real!" he wailed, with alarming passion. "Have you so soon forgotten my father's stories? You yourself promised to sing to the angel with me. It is you, Raoul, who has tricked me!"

With that she left the room.

"Christine!" Raoul tried to rise. Pain shot through his body, and he collapsed onto the bed.

Then the laughter began.

It was slight at first, just a now-familiar dark chuckle. Then it rose. Soon laughter filled the room, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. There was something musical about the laughter. More noticeably, it was maniacal.

Raoul covered his ears and sank deeper into the covers. It only became louder. It seemed to be less in the room and more inside his mind, flooding his soul, making him want to pull the pillows over his head.

But he was unable to do so. Raoul, who had always been in power, found himself powerless now. Powerless to run, powerless to hide, powerless to breathe, powerless to do anything but lie there as the voice echoed in his ears, laughing and laughing and laughing.

«§Ж§»

These chapters just keep getting bigger and bigger, don't they?
When my review count hits ten (meaning three more reviews) I'll update. If I get five reviews for this chapter, I'll have Erik and Raoul actually have a real conversation (several paragraphs as opposed to the two or three sentences it will be otherwise.) Once I hit fifteen reviews Erik (I can use his name in author notes, at least) will take Christine down to his lair. I'm not sure about the rest, but the current plan is that "Prima Donna" is at twenty reviews, "All I Ask of You" is twenty-five, and I haven't yet decided when Erik's adoration for Christine will become adoration for Raoul. If people keep reading without reviewing (I have seven reviews and over 120 hits) I may just discontinue it…I have low self-esteem.
And high school. Can't forget the high school.