"Are you insane!?" Carina cried.
"I assure you, I'm not." Lucifer said calmly.
"I am NOT, I repeat NOT going to fight and kill innocent people for the sake of training!"
Lucifer sighed. "They don't have to be innocent." He retorted.
"It's not me, it's not what I do. You said you'd keep me safe, not have me actively battling!"
"It's the same thing!" He huffed. Older than the earth and a single human girl frustrated him to the point of shouting. Despicable. "Would you please talk some sense into your daughter!"
"Carina, lets put a pin in the trials for a moment. In any other situation would you want things done for you or would you rather be able to handle yourself?"
"Do not try to justify this, Dad, it's twisted!"
Severus blinked. "Sorry to have failed you, Master. You are on your own."
Lucifer's hands flew up in exasperation. "Listen, child, there is no further for you to advance in training alone! You must be able to protect yourself!"
"It's not like you have a wand anymore, Sweets." Pansy offered. "You need to be as strong as possible. If they aren't innocent.. what if they are meant to die anyway? what if it is truly for the good of all if the people you go against die?"
"I don't believe what I'm hearing! Pansy, you are a good person, why are you agreeing with them?!"
"Do you know what kind of hell it was to not know who my sister was or if she was safe or where she was?" Pansy whispered. "Now I have you, I need to know that you are safe. And as a leader it's my duty not only to look after our pack but ourselves as well. And tactically speaking it's a huge advantage."
Carina sighed and lowered her head.
"We have company." Lucifer hissed. "Come here, boy."
Draco slipped into the potions classroom after being caught listening in.
"Draco, what are you doing here!?" Severus demanded.
Ignoring everyone else in the room, Draco stood in front of Carina. He tilted his head and looked at her face. She let out a small gasp as he reached for the material covering her eyes. Severus and Pansy stood, ready to stop him. Lucifer held up a hand and watched with curiosity. Draco pulled the material away. Everyone expected him to be afraid, or freaked, but he simply looked. He held her hand and pushed the cloth into it.
"Always go for survival." He whispered. "Your innocence in this world is no longer a concern you can afford to cling to. I can help you. We can all help you. You have to walk in a dark world now. But you don't have to walk it alone." He kissed the back of her hand. "Survive."
Draco bowed his head to Severus, Pansy, and the glowing stranger. He was smart enough not to ask questions. As he left, Lucifer followed after him in a cloud of smoke.
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"Do you know who I am, boy?"
"It isn't my business." Draco answered as he walked the dungeon halls.
"And yet you were listening outside the door."
Draco stopped. "I'm not stupid, Lucifer. I know enough about muggle religion, and I know enough about genetics."
"Well, I should hope you aren't stupid, that might reflect poorly on me."
Draco smirked. "I think my dad did enough of that. I don't intend to add to your shame. So which are you, then? Not my father, obviously, and not my grandfather."
"Your grandfather's father." Draco nodded.
"When did you realize?" Lucifer asked.
"Don't you know?"
"I'm not my father, Draco, I don't know everything."
"When I found a family portrait. It was obviously a Malfoy, but... did you know that even your portrait glows like you do?"
"I have a portrait?"
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"Come on, Carina you won't hurt me, we're evenly matched!" Draco shouted in the middle of the woods.
Pansy snorted. "She's gonna tear you a new one." She laughed.
"Not if she doesn't get over her fear of hurting someone." He fussed.
"I can't do this!" They heard in the distance.
"Fine. Be useless then!" He shouted back.
A ball of fire flew past him. "I am NOT useless!"
"Do this or I will not help you study. I will not read to you ever again!"
"You bastard!" Carina shouted as she ran at him, dodging trees and and roots and low branches.
Draco laughed as he dodged her. "You'll have to do much better than that, little girl!" He shouted.
"Fine!"
After testing his theory about Carina no longer needing a wand, it was discovered that Carina could indeed perform any and all forms of fire and earth magic, as well as dark magic. The elements would bend to her will, which both amused and terrified her. She stood directly in front of Draco and pulled her hair into a high pony tail and stripped off her school robes to reveal a tank top and shorts.
She took the blindfold off and straightened her spine. "Come at me."
Before Draco could even lift his wand Carina had him half pulled into the ground, tangled in a thick web of roots.
"You see?" She swiveled around to look at her sister. "There's no point to this. I think it's quite obvious that I can handle myself!" She looked back to Draco but in his place was a half crazed snarling man dressed in rags and stinking of death. It didn't take but a second look to recognize this man as one who was supposed to be in Azkaban.
"Perhaps." Came the velvet voice of Satan. "But would you? I must be certain that you are willing to put yourself above all else. I must be certain that you will do what is necessary."
"You... you can't possible want me to.." Carina turned to her left where Draco was standing. "Do you care about me, Carina? About your sister and father?"
"Don't be stupid, of course I do."
Draco nodded and raised his wand. With a wave of magic, the prisoner was released from the roots and bewildered, he turned his cold eyes on Draco. Draco tossed his wand at the madman's feet.
"Draco what in Merlin's name is wrong with you!" Carina shouted.
The prisoner scrambled for the wand and back from the group slowly, pointing Draco's wand this way and that.
"What ever happens is on you now, Carina." He whispered. Draco charged the man and just as he raised the wand over his head, time stood still. Waves of pulsing heat flowed from Carina's body as the fire spirit was allowed to take her. Before she was fully aware of herself, she was in between the man and Draco. Two thing's happened very quickly. Her skin fell away to reveal the smooth hard black stone of her true form, and there was a gaping hole in the prisoner's chest. Time resumed and Draco's wide eyes turned to Carina as the prisoner's heart fell away to ash in her hands. With lightning speed, she wrenched the man's head and spine from his body, which fell with a sickening thud to the ground.
"Very good, my dear." Lucifer glowed with pride as he surveyed her work. "Thank you, Draco. You've made me proud." Draco gave a slight nod.
"Warrior." Severus appeared at his master's side in a cloud of smoke. "Plant this in the garden." Lucifer took the head and spine from Carina and handed it to her father.
As he went off to the pits of hell, all eyes turned to Carina. Her body began to shudder as the fire spirit left her and the wolf broke it's way out of her stone shell.
"What the...?!" Draco jumped back as the coppery wolf whined and laid by Pansy's side.
"Oh...yeah.. by the way.." Pansy started.
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