Summary: Remy goes shopping…again. Victor mentally relives a somewhat painful past and ulterior motives are revealed.
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe is not mine, it is J.K. Rowling's…the usual
Warnings: None this chapter, more romance in later chapters
In the days before Stephan and Remy were to attend the Dark Lord's academy, it was decided that Remy should repay the favor of staying with the Malfoys by inviting Stephan to stay at the Sagoicci castle. Stephan was a bit dubious at staying in amongst vampires but Remy assured him that, as Stephan was associated with one of the Vampire Lords, Stephan would be off limits. Thus assured, Stephan readily agreed and packed up all his school supplies and clothing for the three days stay with Remy. He shrunk his belongings and trunk and so did Remy and together they flooed to the Sagoicci castle. The lurched out of the fireplace in Victor's study, Stephan with more ease than Remy, having been more accustomed to flooing long distances. Stephan and Remy were greeted by a smiling Victor and a few servants. The servants took the boys' belongings and sent them to their assigned rooms. Stephan was to occupy a suite of rooms just across the hall from Remy and they hurried off to explore them as well as the castle.
Remy gave Stephan a full tour of the castle and grounds, even visiting the barn to show Stephan Valiant, who seemed indignant at being left for so long. "I'm sorry Valiant, I had a lot to learn." Said Remy, patting the dark horse's flank lightly. "Say, Stephan, what do you say we go for a quick ride before dinner?" The other boy readily agreed, and Remy called for Valiant and another horse to be saddled. In minutes the pair were off trotting around the grounds and exploring the estate via horseback. They spent many happy hours idly burning time in each other's company and were surprised when the sun sinking in the west alerted them of the progressively late hour. They hurried back, laughing merrily as they raced to see who would get back first. They ended up in a tie and both man and beast were out of breath when they finally galloped into the barn. Stephan and Remy left the horses in the stable boy's capable hands and hurried up to the castle for dinner.
They arrived just in time, breathless yet again after sprinting to the private dinning room where dinner was to be held. Before entering they appraised each other's appearance, and after Stephan gently tucked a stray hair behind Remy's ear, they entered and sat at the small table with Victor. In contrast to dinner at the Malfoy's, dinner was complete with chatting among the two boys and Victor and much catching up was to be had. The boys were dismissed to get ready for bed at 8 and they did so, hand in hand. As soon as Remy was changed for bed, he hurried over to Stephan's rooms and was admitted quickly after the guards announced his presence. He entered the room, however, to find it empty…at first glance. Then he was hit from behind with a pillow to the head. Whirling, shocked and furious he looked to see who had the gall to hit a vampire lord with a pillow. He smiled however when he saw Stephan holding a pillow with a maniacal glint in his eye. Remy's smile turned into an evil smirk however as he dove for the bed and grabbed a matching pillow. The next minutes were consumed with the boys jumping and tumbling around the room hitting each other over and over until a rain of feathers fell down around them and coated many of the surfaces of the room.
Noticing the destruction and blushing furiously, the boys cast a quickly muttered, reparo and the pillows returned to their original soft and fluffy state. Then the boys burst out in laughter as they collapsed in hysterics on the large canopy bed. Cuddling together they passed the time lazily chatting about the academy and the future. Victor entered at around 10 after a soft knock and told Remy he had to go to his own room get to bed. Remy grudgingly obeyed after a quick kiss from Stephan and got in bed, though it was more than an hour later before he actually managed sleep.
In the early hours of the morning Remy was awakened when a large form dropped on him from a few feet, forcing the air out of his lungs with a "oof." Before he could open his eyes however to see who it was, soft lips brushed against his own and he opened his eyes to look up at Stephan who proved a definite morning person in contrast to Remy who could happily sleep until noon if left alone. Despite the early hour, the kiss went straight to his groin and Remy moaned his pleasure at the nature of his awakening. Stephan pulled away and said, "Well, the little prince is finally awake. I thought you were dead, Lord Victor is taking us shopping today and we can browse for a while he said, but you have to get up first." Said Stephan excitedly. " Actually I am a Lord, and I am dead…well sort of," said Remy heaving himself out of bed and rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Let me take a shower and change, I'll meet you in your quarters in, say, half an hour." Said Remy and Stephan grudgingly relented, leaving Remy to his morning routine.
Remy had to fight the very strong urge to plop back into bed and go back to sleep but forced himself to trudge into the bathroom and take a shower. The initially cold water effectively woke him up and got rid of the small problem Stephan had caused earlier. Remy then turned up the temperature and scrubbed his body and hair before stepping out of the shower. Running a brush through his hair and drying it he wrapped a towel around his waist and exited the bathroom to change. In ten minutes he was in Stephan's rooms and planning where they wanted to go shopping. Remy opted for the bookstores, and Stephan wanted to check out he quiddich supply store. They ate breakfast together in Stephan's room and then went downstairs to find Victor.
They found him in his study, bent over paperwork. He looked up as they entered and smiled when he saw the raw enthusiasm in their faces. Chuckling he set aside his work and stood up, "Well let's go?" The boys nodded and they Victor apparated them both to the spacious magical shopping district. Apparating the two youths was taxing on Victor and he sagged a bit as they arrived. He sent the two youths off with some money and went to the nearest pub that catered to Vampiric needs for a pick-me-up. Remy learning etiquette was not the only reason for Remy to be away from the castle for a few weeks. Victor had been away almost every night on secret order business, and during the day, he got little sleep because he had to keep up the image of sleeping all night. He was mentally and physically drained and a pint of blood and firewhisky gets one only so far. Also, he had been keeping up a very strong façade, a carefully planned act infront of his newly adopted son. Beneath the surface of a kind and loving father figure, all was not as it seemed. Keeping this from the naturally inquisitive youth had not been easy and added additional strain to Victor's already spread thin consiousness.
He told the boys that they could explore as long as they were back in a hour, and then sent the pair off before sinking back into his seat and, ordering his usual, sunk into a semi-conscious state. Almost a form of meditation, he let his body shut down, leaving only his five senses in tune to the world around him as Victor let his brain idle, and his limbs relax. He spent a rejuvenating ten minutes in this state before pulling back into the world in which his drink had just arrived. Sipping at the concoction, two parts blood, one part vintage firewhisky, he mulled over Remy and his projected and possible futures. The two were equal in possibility, yet opposite in outcome. On one side, Remy would aid in the Longbottom boy's destruction of the dark lord. Remy would have to cast aside all alliances with Stephan and the Malfoys, a powerful family of the Dark Lord's inner circle. He would have to forget and abandon all the dark magic he had been taught and forsake all he had ever known. Victor wasn't sure if he could really force Remy to give up so much, especially Stephan. Victor knew how hard it was to lose someone you love. He wasn't gay, but when he was turned, he was 37, he had been married for 5 years, to a beautiful girl named Ashley Prewitt and she was pregnant with their first child, a son, who was to be named Jeffery.
Victor had gone out for the evening with some of his school friends and had left Ashley alone with some of her friends while they talked about plans for Jeffrey's baby shower. Victor never came home. He was intercepted by a pack of four hunting vampires. He had managed to fight them off and killed two, but he was finally subdued by the remaining two and fed from. Sensing his strength, and will to survive, the vampires gave him a bittersweet gift, just as he was about to die, they robbed him of his mortality and made him into another creature of the night. Victor was now a member of the newly formed Sagoicci clan. He could never return to his wife or his soon after born son as the vampire hunt was quickly becoming a rampant nuisance and most vampires kept to the underground covens for safety's sake. Victor would often sit however outside his old home during the night hours sticking to the thick shadow, and wait for a glimpse of his family.
Four months after his disappearance it was determined that Victor was to be declared legally dead, after all he was. Victor was there for his own funeral, clinging to the roof of the church heavily cloaked, as he watched his wife morn, holding his small son who was a spitting image of himself, though the lad has his mother's eyes. As the sun reached high noon however, the light got too bright for his newly vampiric senses and he was forced to apparate back to the safety of the Sagoicci castle, then just being built. Victor was caught up for the better part of the next year in the training required for his status as member of the Sagoicci guard. It wasn't until almost a year later that he was able to check up on his family again and what he had seen made his heart break.
Ashley had remarried, Victor had seen her laughing in the arms of another man, an auror by the style and cut of his robes. His son had grown and was now toddling around happily on his chubby legs and gurgling his amusement as he was bounced on this strange man's knee. That day, Victor made a decision to cut all ties to his family and he turned his fiery anger into a steel-hard determination to become the best vampire he could be. He set himself fully to all that was placed infront of him and in three decades time, he had risen in rank from a simple guardsman to chief advisor to the Vampire Lord, a powerful vampire by the name of Antonius. Victor managed to find favor with Antonius and was eventually made heir apparent to the Sagoicci domain. When hunters brought down Antonius during the early years of the dark wizard Grindlewald, Victor gained the title, Lord Victor Sagoicci, and the backing of the then large and growing Sagoicci clan. He was a just ruler and ruled with the blessing of everyone under his power.
He had seen his son once more, merely in passing, in the shopping district. Jeffery hadn't recognized his father, how could he, but Victor knew the youth to be his son in a glance. Victor was tempted to ask of the Ashley, but turned away as her now slightly aged second husband came up behind Jeffery and led him away remarking on some magical theory or another. Again, Victor's heart broke and he again hardened his vampiric heart to his old family and life, turning again to the solitude of a vampiric existence.
When the fight with Grindlewald was announced, many wizards banded together in the opposition of the dark wizard. Many of the vampires and other magical creatures were pressured to join the fight. Victor chose wisely and, on behalf of his clan, chose to remain neutral in the fight and managed to get by with out the heavy losses sustained among many of the other clans who joined one side or the other. Even the magical creatures who had sided with the then young Albus Dumbledore and wizards of the light were later labeled as "dark" because of the members of their species who had fought with Grindlewald and the defeated dark wizards. Werewolves, Vampires, Veela and the like, took to the underground and nursed the psychological wounds inflicted by the wizarding world turning their backs on them.
Victor later learned that Jeffery, Ashley, and the man who replaced Victor in her heart had died in the battle. For Jeffery and Ashley he had said a simple prayer to whatever god would hear it that their souls had gone somewhere happier that the world that had taken them away from him. For Ashley's second husband he didn't even shed a tear. Victor led his people through the years of peace following Grindlewald's defeat, but when Voldemort came to power, half a century later, the vampire council called for an alliance with the dark lord said to be three times as powerful as Grindlewald. The council acted out of cowardice, but, as they voted unanimously in favor of an alliance, Victor felt powerless to oppose. The Sagoicci clan joined Lord Voldemort and were given the status of his personal and elite assassin corps and served him well during Voldemort's initial reign.
When he disappeared mysteriously one summer night, his followers, disbanded and returned to their lives as they were before his rise to power. Of course, when he returned a decade and half later, all were eager to claim how loyally they had awaited his return. Victor had been sickened at the spinelessness of some of the men who witnessed the Dark Lord's revival. They had spent the last 15 years bowing and scraping to the ministry of magic, trying to convince them that they had had no dealings with Voldemort, and then, when he returned, they were bowing and scraping to him, stating how loyal they had been. Victor had made no excuses, and none were asked for. His clan was reinstated in their former glory and all returned as it once was. There was much preparation for the final battle when Voldemort would conquer the wizarding world. Victor had been given command of all the vampires in the Dark Lord's forces and accepted the post proudly.
The next months were spent in intense training of many of the greener troops and newest additions to the Death Eaters. Draco, then just a youth had proven a natural leader and Victor made sure to keep an eye on the promising lad. They formed a close friendship, despite the vast age difference and fought side by side during Voldemort's victorious battle. Victor had been present at the perceived chosen one's execution, and saw what Voldemort had done after retrieving the location of Dumbledore's safe-havens.
He had been forced to participate in the slaughter of countless women, and children; all that refused to join the Dark Lord were cut down that day and the streets were damp with their tears and blood for weeks after. This was the act that spurred Victor into taking up a secret second identity, a spy to the budding second order of the phoenix, and gave him hope that one day, evil men like Voldemort, who could murder innocent children without batting an eye in remorse, would cease to exist. When he heard that Voldemort planed to reopen Hogwarts as an academy for new recruits, Victor had turned to the boy he had rescued and made a slave after the final battle. Hating to manipulate the boy, as the council had manipulated him, Victor had concocted a story about always wanting to free the boy, and coerced him into joining Victor and the battle against Voldemort. In his elation when Remy had agreed he turned the boy and made him his heir, a rather foolhardy move in retrospect. Now, Remy had befriended a Malfoy and was bound to the Malfoy heir with his youthful, yet strong passions. Remy had most likely forgotten all about his promise to join the second order and seeing the boy's happiness in love, Victor was struggling to bring himself to tear everything the boy had gained apart.
Weighing his options, Victor saw he had little time before the boy became to steeped in the Death Eater crap to be of any use to the order. Victor decided to give Remy until winter break when Victor would secretly take Remy to his first order meeting and get him initiated. Hoping that this was the best path, and cursing the cowardice coursing through him that forbade him from taking Remy now and forcing him to join the order immediately, Victor sighed in desolation. He realized, however, that cowardice was not the only emotion holding him back, he had not felt it for almost a century, could it be…love. Was he really starting to love the boy Remy as his son, an almost replacement for the son he had lost all those years ago. With a new buoyancy and happiness, Victor pulled his mind from thoughts of the past and turned to the present and his now slightly warm drink, as he waited for the two boys to reappear from their shopping escapade.
Chapter 11, gift-wrapped with love to Angie, Lydia, Hannah, Kyle, Jake, and all else who read my humble piece. You will have to tell me what you think, so far, I am pleased with this story, and intend to keep updating semi-regularly at least. I thank you all for your support.
Ciao
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