A/N Beta'd by the wonderful StoryWriter831. Everything belongs to JK Rowling.
...
I wound one of the large towels around me and tucked it firmly in place. My body was still shaking, my limbs weak, but a rush of adrenaline was flowing through me, dulling the residual pain and spurring me into action. Under its emboldening influence, I ventured out of my room.
Once in the corridor, I decided to be methodical. Starting on this floor, I would try each door I came to, going left and continuing around.
The first one was locked. I rattled and twisted the handle to no avail. I even tried shoving my shoulder against the wood, as if I had a hope of breaking the hinges with my inadequate frame. But weakness and pain prevented me from keeping that up for very long, and soon I moved on to the next one. There were three more doors on my side of the passage, but all proved impenetrable as the first.
I reached the end of the passage and turned to try the doors along the opposite side. Like the others, the next door I came to was shut, but it wasn't a lock that prevented me from opening it. There was a very strange sensation, a kind of cushion of air which actually stopped my hand from touching the door handle.
What on earth? I wondered. Is this even possible? I tested it again, quickly dashing my hand out, but with the same result. I simply couldn't penetrate the invisible wall.
I stared at it for a while. Maybe it was some kind of high-tech security system using a magnetic-field, or something? Had such a thing actually been invented? And why this door? What was so important about this door that it warranted something other than a simple lock? Could it be...his room?
On impulse I brought up my hands and tried pressing them palm-forward into the cushion of air. "Just open, damn it," I whispered. My hands were tingling strangely, and I could feel the air stirring...indenting...almost bending around my palms...
I leaned in, closing my eyes. My hands were really hot now, burning rather than tingling, and I was certain they were slowly breaching whatever it was that was shielding the door...
Open open open open open open open open, for god's sake, just bloody-well OPEN—
There was a brief whooshing sensation, and I suddenly collided with the oak panelling. Gasping, I quickly went for the handle again. This time my hand closed around it, turned it and the door clicked off its catch. "Yes!" I hissed triumphantly.
Momentarily I stood still, listening for sounds of Lucius returning, but all was perfectly quiet and dark. Believing I had, in all probability, been abandoned for the evening, I slipped in through door and closed it gently behind me.
It was his bedroom. I knew it instinctively and with complete conviction. It smelt like him. That unmistakable, expensive, masculine scent he exuded.
A sumptuous chamber fit for a prince: imposing, grand and uncompromising.
Like him.
The bed was preposterously large. Daunting, even. Like a fort. It was hard to imagine it as a place of repose, let alone one of tender intimacy. I seriously doubted any visitor to those plush sheets would have much say in what went on between them. Despite myself, despite my bitter fury with the man, I felt the colour rise to my cheeks, as certain images arose vividly to mind. I grimaced angrily at myself. This terrifying power he had over me...it had to stop...
"It is stopping," I said aloud. "Right now."
I took a deep breath. Right, I thought. Clothes.
It was hardly surprising that the wardrobes were many and large. Deliberately, I marched over to the nearest one and tugged open the door.
Bingo! It was full of shirts. White, black, silver, green, burgundy. Mostly white though, and no two the same. Some outlandishly frilled, some intricately embroidered, all fashioned from the most luxurious of costly fabrics.
I took out a kind of long tunic and quickly slipped it over my head, afraid my courage would fail me if I hesitated. It came down almost to my knees. I pulled my towel off from underneath it and just revelled in the lavishness, the substantialness of the rich, heavy twill against my bare skin, after so long in flimsy silk.
It smelt subtly of his perfume, but I was not going to let that unsettle me.
I turned to the next wardrobe. This one contained hanger after hanger of neatly pressed black trousers. I selected a pair at random and stepped into them. They were absurdly big, like oversized clown pants. I rolled the cuffs up at the ankles, folded over the waist and then bowed at my reflection in the mirror lining the wardrobe door. It was just so glorious to be wearing actual clothes again.
I felt almost dizzy, knowing how recklessly insubordinate I was being, after his callous treatment of me. Too long I had danced submissively along to his tune, and what had I got? Precisely zilch. Negative zilch, if you counted my steadily eroding confidence and self-esteem, slowly withering away under his continued contempt, insults and threats. Then add to that the humiliation and pain I had endured tonight...I was glad he had left me lying there on the ground, wet through and barely conscious. It was the wake-up call I needed.
With an almost painful clarity I realised that the feelings I had developed for him—that he had forced me to feel, by keeping me in isolation, confusion and fear—were as unsubstantial and demeaning as the silk robes he had me wear. Attractive and sensual, but really only serving to keep me in my place. Helpless. Tame. Which I suppose was what he had intended all along. He had woven me into a web of infatuation, wherein every attempt to struggle only bound me all the tighter. But I wasn't going to entangle myself any more, while he sat back and waited for me to stop moving...
I could tear myself out of such a web. I must tear myself out.
My despairing rage was fast converting into a frenzy of rebellious glee. I wrenched open door after wardrobe door, pulling on garments as I went—socks, cashmere jersey, satin waistcoat, white evening scarf... Coming to the last, tallest wardrobe, my eyes widened at the impressive array of exquisitely tailored robes, capes and cloaks. I freed a heavy velvet cape and wrapped it around me.
It was very thick and warm and suddenly I thought, You could escape in this, Alice. Really escape. You could survive in the snow. You could.
The thought brought me to an immediate standstill. I was panting a little and my expression in the mirror was rather wild. This could be my only opportunity to run...my jailer away, warm clothes at my disposal...
I hurried over to the window and peered out into the darkness. I could see very little: just a dark world of inky shadows edged by slivers of moonlit snow. I could do it. I could run back across the moor to the forest and then follow its edge until I came to a road, or a house, or...
Do it. Just do it. Go on.
My blood seemed to surge through me. Before I knew what I was doing, I was already halfway across the room, headed towards the door through which I had come. But a few feet from the threshold I lurched to a stop.
Wait, wait, wait! I thought. You found clothes, but what about clues? Clues about YOU?
There were several items of furniture I hadn't even looked at yet: the large walnut dressing-table near the bed, the ancient, domed casket in the corner. The tall mahogany bureau next to the window. They all looked likely to contain things other than clothes. More important than clothes.
I couldn't leave yet, not until I had at least attempted an investigation.
Indecision and frenzy melted away, leaving me curiously detached, but equally determined. I took a couple of steadying breaths, then moved back over to the dressing table. With trembling hands, I drew open the drawer directly under the highly-polished top. I gasped. It was absolutely brimming with glittering jewelry.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, remembering the seemingly-endless variety of sparkling cravat-pins, rings, cuff-links, and lapel-jewels I had seen Lucius wear. But I just hadn't been prepared for quite such a horde. It was like a treasure-trove belonging to an extremely fastidious pirate.
I picked up a huge brooch in the shape of a snake's head, fashioned from emeralds and pearls. I had seen Lucius wear it once before and it had suited him, it had looked normal, befitting. Up close, I realised that the massive gems were almost hideously ostentatious. In a kind of awed daze, I pinned the brooch to the neckline of my tunic, trying to imagine the kind of wealth of arrogance and arrogance of wealth that one would have to have, to be able to wear such a thing without compunction, as part of one's everyday attire. That was the kind of man he was.
I slid the drawer closed and drew open the one directly below. This compartment contained three velvet cases. I opened them in order from smallest to biggest. The first, a dark green one, contained a beautiful old-fashioned gold watch, with a winding key and long fob-chain. It's outer casing was engraved with a Latin motto: Sanctimonia Vincet Sempe. Something along the lines of "the pure will always win." I sneered. As if he were so pure-hearted! I snapped the box close and reached for the second case. This one was very long and narrow, but the quilted interior was empty. I wondered what it usually contained. A letter-opener, or slender dagger? I suddenly recalled the slim baton which he had threatened me with, that time he caught me up on the third floor. It looked like it would fit perfectly. I closed it, and my hands hovered over the last box—a square black one—but I hesitated to open it. Unaccountably, I didn't want to touch it. ... It's probably empty anyway, I told myself. I grasped the lid and prised it open.
It was not empty. It was the necklace. My necklace. The one Lucius had ripped off my neck on that first day.
A strange queasiness washed over me as I gazed down at the small bird-skull pendant. I felt as if those empty, black eye-sockets were gazing up at me...watching me.
Shuddering, I quickly shut the lid. As I did, the case moved a fraction, revealing beneath it the corner of a piece of paper.
Carefully, I slid the paper out. It appeared to be a newspaper clipping, folded in half. It was crinkled, as if at some point it had been screwed into a ball, then flattened out again.
I unfolded the paper and was met with a large headline in bold lettering. 'TRAGEDY AT TRAINING COLLEGE'. There was a photo underneath it, showing a group of smiling young men and women in what looked like graduation gowns, and, unless my eyes were deceiving me—and I seriously believed they must be—it was actually moving: the people were silently laughing and chatting with each other. The caption beneath the photo read, "The Auror Cadets Class of 2000, taken moments before tragedy struck."
My eyes were soon drawn to two figures, standing side by side, smiling happily outwards. One was a tall, slender young man, with blond hair gleaming brightly in the sunshine. His features were sharply chiselled, somewhat fox-like, and bore a striking resemblance to someone else I knew. His arm was slung amicably around the shoulders of the young woman standing beside him.
And that young woman was me.
I don't know for how long I stood there, utterly transfixed, gazing at that piece of paper. It might have been minutes, or hours. I might've remained there all night, if a dull thud had not pulled me abruptly out of my stupefied daze. Panic and horror seized me as I identified the sound as the front door.
Had he returned? Had they?
Shaking, fingers fumbling, I folded the paper and hurriedly stowed it beneath the black velvet case.
As I did, there was a loud cracking sound behind me. The drawer slammed on my fingers.
Lucius was all over me.
...
"HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?"
Lucius grabbed my shoulders and thrust me over the dressing-table, shoving my face so hard down onto its surface that my cheekbone made a nasty cracking sound as it collided with the glossy walnut top. It was painful, but nothing to the agony of my fingers crushed in the drawer. I wailed incoherently, unable to think for the pain. The first shattering impact had rendered me winded and nauseous, but now his impellent weight was forcing my own body against the drawer-jamb and I could both feel and hear my bones cracking and splintering—any more pressure and they would surely detach.
My howl rose in decibel and pitch to a piercing scream, but then he wrenched me backwards, releasing me from my snare and sending me sprawling onto the floor some feet away from him.
My fingers throbbed so excruciatingly that I shoved them in my mouth, but Lucius was already striding over to me and I was forced to scrabble away. My be-socked feet kept slipping on the highly polished oak flooring and I only succeeded in propelling myself a couple of feet backwards before he was crouching over me and dragging me up by the front of my—his—clothes. "Tell me how you got in," he snarled, his knuckles pressing bruisingly into my chest where he grasped the bunched material in his fists.
But I couldn't form a reply. The world was on spin-cycle, my fingers were on fire, and my head lolled back like a broken-necked bird's.
I heard him growl with anger; he slapped my face sharply, but not hard, although it hurt my bruised cheekbone. "Answer my question, mud-blood!" he demanded, with a second stinging smack.
"What question?" I mumbled. My fingers, my fingers. The pain was so overwhelming I wasn't quite sure how I was going to deal with it.
"How did you enter this room?"
I frowned blearily, trying to filter his words through the blanketing pain. "Through th-the—the door." My fingers. God help me.
For a moment he looked like he would like to strike me in earnest, but he restrained himself and through clenched teeth he said, "Yes, through the door. Of course, through the door. How did you open the door?"
I tried to remember. It seemed like something I'd done years ago, not within the last hour or so.
But then I forgot to answer the question, because—because—my fingers again. My fingers, my fingers...I brought them up in front of my eyes and cried out with horror, my whole body beginning to quake violently. They didn't look like fingers at all, they looked like squashed caterpillars—purple and black, bloody, mashed, flat, broken. Some nails were missing, several others were split and hanging by threads of skin.
"Help me," I choked out, staring up at Lucius, just trying to somehow reach him through the haze of agony. "The pain. I can't. Please."
His expression was impassive and I thought, he's not going to help you, Alice. He hates you, remember? But then he half-turned away, murmuring something I couldn't hear, then moments later he was pulling me up into the crook of his arm and holding a small vial to my lips. "Drink," he commanded softly.
I would have drunk poison at that point, if I knew it would numb my fingers. Obediently I opened my mouth and let him tip the liquid in. It was very bitter and made my tongue and throat prickle—but then wonderfully, miraculously, the pain slowly began to reverse, to unwind, spinning into itself like a self-consuming vortex, diminishing and subsiding, until it simply disappeared, and I could see, could breathe, could think again.
"Thank you," I whispered, relaxing, almost nestling against him, willing, in my euphoric relief, to dismiss from my mind the fact that he was the cause of my pain in the first place.
I wasn't allowed to get too comfortable though. Lucius stood up quickly, tipping me unceremoniously back on to the floor. "Clearly it's the only way I'm going to get a word of sense out of you," he drawled, moving back to the dressing table.
Oh, that's right, I thought. You're a bastard who doesn't give a shit about me. Thanks for reminding me.
I clambered shakily to my feet and watched as he slid the drawer smoothly back to click into place, blood visibly smeared on its outer veneer. I met his gaze in the reflection of the mirror above it. "You may answer my question now, Alice," he said. "How did you enter this room?"
I couldn't quite make out if he were still angry. His voice was calm, but those eyes...I licked my lips drily. It felt so strange to be at one moment in utter agony, the next to be quite pain-free. That disorienting feeling of stumbling out of a dark room into blazing sunlight. Concentrate, Alice. "Um, I pressed my hands against that...that air-shield," I told him truthfully, for I could see no real reason to lie. "And it just disappeared."
He turned to face me and I noticed that his face was quite pale. "The door?"
"The air. It disappeared and then I opened the door, in the usual way."
He was watching me intently, piercingly, though without his customary sneer. "And why, may I ask, did you—for the second time, and against my explicit warning—decide to breach the conditions of your stay?"
If I needed a reminder that I had much greater cause to be angry with him, than he with me, then that last word did the trick.
"My 'stay'?" The expulsion of that enormous pain had left a great space within me, which was quickly filling up with a deluge of fury. "As in, my enjoyable little adventure here? My pleasant visit amongst kind friends?—Come on, Lucius, let's call a spade a spade. My custody! My imprisonment!"
With his hair drawn back Lucius's features seemed sharper, even more severe than usual. I quailed a little under his icy stare, half expecting him to lash out at me again. But he merely pursed his lips and said, "Call it what you will, it does not change the fact that you deliberately disobeyed me—yet again."
I glanced down at my hands, blissfully numb, but still horribly misshapen and broken. My rage swelled, then solidified.
"Of course I did!" I spat, anger absolutely trumping fear. "You forced me to, didn't you? I've been sitting back all this time like a perfect idiot, just waiting for you to throw me the tiniest scrap of information about who the hell I am, and what the hell I'm doing here—and you've given me nothing. Nothing. The only thing I have from you are these!"—I held up my poor, mangled hands—"AND A ROYAL PAIN IN MY ARSE."
I knew my words would incense him, but I couldn't stop myself; I wished, I needed, to hurl all my frustration, hurt and infuriation at him before my courage failed me, or he put a physical stop to it.
Lucius's eyes narrowed, glittering dangerously. "You risk much speaking that way to me," he said hoarsely.
"Oh, go on, threaten me some more, you bully!" I snarled at him. "What do I have to lose by breaking your stupid rules, Lucius? Nothing. I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I know that you know who I am—there's a picture of me in that drawer you mashed my hands up in!" He was no longer pale, but lividly white. It was a sure sign of violence to follow, but I plunged recklessly on: "But since you're too much of a coward—or maybe just an arsehole—to tell me anything, then obviously I'm going to have to find it out for myself—"
"Be silent!" he hissed warningly.
"I WON'T!" I had finally found my tongue after so long: the floodgates had opened, and nothing was going to stop me now: not the look on his face, not the fact that he was advancing threateningly towards me, or that I was having to dance speedily out of reach. The words tumbled out in an unstoppable torrent: "At the very least you could have the decency to tell me what I did to you that was so terrible that you treat me like THIS!—Yes, and while we're on the subject, you might like to enlighten me as to what it was that evil cow did to me in the dining room this evening—"
"I warn you, mud-blood—"
"Deserved that too, did I? Gosh, I must have done something really awful to you at some point—"
"You will be silent—"
"—to make you want to hurt me that badly, to—to behave so viciously to me, like—like vicious animals—"
"You will not continue—"
"—not to mention whatever you've done to that poor lady you've got locked away upstairs—"
"SILENCE!"
"I suppose one of them must be your wife, though I wouldn't presume to venture which—"
He lunged forward and struck me hard across my face. I staggered back a few steps, slipping and nearly toppling over. Twisting awkwardly, I managed to maintain my balance and I straightened up, cradling my cheek, glaring at my assailant. "Why don't I just stick my hands back in that drawer and you can have another go, you pig?" I said, my voice low and shaking.
"Do not tempt me," Lucius replied testily. He was breathing hard and a strand of his long hair had come loose from its binding.
He took a steadying breath, deliberately composing himself. He tucked the loose strand carefully behind his ear, then adjusted the wrists of his shirt, straightening them beneath the wide cuffs of his black jacquard tailcoat. When he finally looked at me again, he appeared quite calm. "Now..." His voice was smooth and light, as if we had been engaging in no more than a polite chat. "You will take off every single item of clothing belonging to me."
A sudden sickening fear clawed at my heart, but I held his eyes defiantly. "No."
His mouth curved into a thorny smile and I knew he sensed a crack in my courage. "But yes, my dear. Come, Alice. Either you will execute the task yourself, or I will do it for you. And please believe I will not take kindly to being forced to perform such a chore. "
I did believe him. But I sure as hell was not about to back down now. "What's wrong with you?" I spat.
He took a step towards me. "Oh, there's nothing wrong with me, my dear. You may begin with the brooch."
"Why don't you just tell me why you hate me so much?"
Another step and he was close enough to touch me, though he didn't. He leaned in and murmured, "The brooch, Alice."
I held up my ruined, useless hands. "I can't, Lucius. You broke my fingers, remember?" In an elaborately polite voice I continued: "You do remember, don't you? It was about th-three minutes ago, we were standing over by that dresser—"
"Would you like another slap, mud-blood?" Lucius cut in roughly.
"Oh, yes please," I returned sarcastically. "But only if hitting a girl makes you feel all big and powerful."
We stood, eyes interlocked and sparking with reciprocal rage—not touching, and yet somehow clashing, colliding.
A strange look flickered over Lucius's features, similar to his expression after our altercation against my bedroom wall...a kind of abrasive, resentful desire, thoroughly interlaced with abhorrence and loathing.
My breath caught as I sensed a dangerous new dynamic in the air...but then he dropped his gaze, and, stooping over me, he began to unpin the heavy jewel from the neckline of my shirt. He was gentle, unexpectedly so. As he released the catch his fingers brushed my bare skin, it seemed caressingly, sending goosebumps all over my body.
I stood absolutely still, cursing my surging blood, my racing pulse. As usual, his near proximity was playing havoc with my senses, and I could not control my body's almost chemical reaction to his physical presence, to the electrifying charge he radiated...
After his heavy-handed brutality, his suddenly-soft touch had a lulling, almost tranquillising effect.
"Please, Lucius," I whispered, my face mere inches from his. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. "Just tell me my name."