A/N Beta'd by the wonderful StoryWriter831. Everything belongs to JK Rowling.
Chapter edited to include new content July 2018.
...
Despite my fine words about "finding answers" I did not immediately act upon them.
I was too weak physically, too-quickly exhausted mentally. There was a perpetual tremor running through me, like the ongoing vibrations that follow a massive earthquake, which sapped my strength so I could stay awake for only a few hours at a time. I soon developed a habit of dropping to sleep in chairs and nooks, and it wasn't unusual for me to awaken with a warm shawl draped over me.
For the very first time, I was...well, not exactly happy, but not unhappy. The days passed like a placid dream, but for once it was a good dream, one from which I was reluctant to awaken.
Lucius...Lucius had changed, changed beyond doubt. Although he was not manifestly kind, or even really amiable, I felt like he had extended a sheltering wing over me, and I wanted nothing more than to nestle beneath it and forget everything that had gone before.
And as the days began to blur and meld together, my inaction slowly turned into paralysis. Simply, I was afraid to upset this new, oh-so-lovely tranquility. I was careful to speak only of trivial things; I asked Lucius no "accursed, incessant" questions, he volunteered no explanations or answers. As for his strange words out on the terrace, hinting at a forgotten, impossible world...I closed my eyes to them, just as I did the mysteries of the third floor, the moving news-clipping in Lucius's bedroom...and, of course, the beautiful boy...Lucius's son. Sometimes, I would recall the boy's face vividly to mind: handsome with the supple, youthful vitality of first manhood... But as days went by this image became less defined; it blended too much with Lucius's ever-present, sharply-focused features—the supple youthfulness morphing into a harder, more angular masculinity, and the vitality changing in quality to something more intrinsic and powerful—until, eventually, I only saw Lucius.
As for the Woman—I was only too happy to erase her very existence from my mind.
But although I was unshackled from Lucius's former tyranny, I was not liberated from his power. Far from it.
In rescuing me he had secured my trust, and in accepting my obeisance he had won my fealty...but in finally, finally, treating me with respect he had struck on the one thing that alone could derail me from my quest for autonomy and enlightenment. After living so long in affection-starved isolation, I wanted nothing more than to receive his benevolence, as a starved animal might receive the smallest portion of sustenance. Compounding everything was the knowledge that I had—although I knew not how—been instrumental in causing his grievances, his grief.
I was now becoming bound to him by a new set of bonds, glistening chains of my own devising, forged out of gratitude and guilt. His forgiveness fastened the lock.
No, I wasn't free from him...but I no longer wished to be. Now I wanted nothing more than to be safe, and to...belong. My identity, my history, my memory—these things suddenly lost their relevance, they seemed like someone else's lost property. My curiosity, which had got me in so much trouble before, now shrivelled into nothingness: Lucius's secrets were safe from me. ...He cared for me, he was not unkind to me. And, for a while, that was all that mattered.
Sometimes I saw Lucius looking at me with a watchful expression, as if he was waiting for me to...ask something, do something. But I did not. Because now that I finally had his so-hard-earned respect, I was frightened, desperately frightened, of losing it again. I felt that if he were to retract it from me now, I could not bear it.
I'd had quite enough of mystery, confusion, fear and angst—far too much, in fact—and now I relished the novelty of this new kind of blankness, filled with serenity, like a sailor enjoying the respite of a becalmed sea, deliberately ignoring the dangers lurking just beyond a red, unnatural horizon...
But it couldn't last. Deep down, I knew it could not.
...
I spent as many daylight hours as I could out of doors. After months of confinement, the fresh air and light was like a panacea to me, reviving, healing and strengthening.
Lucius would come and go, sometimes appearing as if from nowhere, sometimes emerging through the archway of dark foliage like an otherworldly wraith out of some ancient folklore or fable. Whenever I saw him my heartbeat would quicken and my cheeks flush, though I tried hard enough to appear placid before him.
The weather was changeful, the sunny mornings often turning to showers by afternoon. One day I mentioned to Lucius that I wished I could stay outside, even when it rained. The next time I visited the garden, a beautiful pavilion stood over the terrace, made from a frame of white ornately-wrought iron, and fluttering on three sides with the filmiest of silken materials, which somehow remained dry and warm in even the heaviest downpours and coldest northerlies.
Inside, large, soft cashmere cushions were strewn on deep, plush couches of pale velvet, and all was made to be as comfortable and beautiful as a princess's boudoir.
It was a far cry from the nest I used to make for myself in the library, and I had soon ferried my small hoard of books from their dark nook of 'Profana, Propaganda & Saecularia' to this new abode. Truth to tell, I no longer felt at ease among the towering walls of blank tomes in the library. They reminded me too much of the all the other missing parts of my existence. I abandoned them all.
...
I began to dream again.
I was always naked, running through a fog-wreathed forest, looking for someone...but whenever I came close to finding them I would tumble backwards down into the heart of a dark, stone labyrinth... The end of the dream varied. Sometimes Lucius would appear and carry me to my bed, sometimes to his, but I never remembered what happened after that point. In other scenarios, a ghostly outline in the shape of a fox would guide me through the maze of stone hallways, then up and up a winding staircase and out into a sunny courtyard, only to disappear as soon as the light fell upon its shimmering presence.
But as time went by, my dreams turned more frequently to nightmares.
Instead of help finding me, I was pursued through the labyrinth by a giant black crow with razor-sharp teeth, who cackled fiendishly at me and screamed threats to peck out my eyes and devour my beating heart. Sometimes I would escape her, only to end up in a dead-end, the only exit blocked by the burly form of the truck-driver. No matter how fast I ran, how hard I fought, how loud I screamed, he would catch me, his fingers becoming thorny vines that wrapped about my neck, spread over my body, and finally delved down my throat, choking and tearing my trachea until my wide-stretched lips were slick with blood and gurgling for one final breath...
These terrifying visions became a nightly occurrence, and were so vivid that I would wake in the morning, my nightdress clinging to my body with sweat, muscles twitching, and my sheets tangled around me as if I'd spent hours thrashing violently about.
Then one night I awoke mid-nightmare to find myself, panting and panicked, standing on the cold slabs of a wide, stone stair-case. With sickening horror I realised that I had been walking—or running—in my sleep, and that I was well on my way to the third floor. Heart pounding, I fled back down to my room, and did not dare to shut my eyes for the rest of that night. What the hell were you doing, Alice!? Where were you going? I chided myself, over and over.
I did not tell Lucius about my sleepwalking adventure. I didn't know how he might react to a confession of my near-breach of the forbidden third floor. Despite his recent gentle treatment of me, I had certainly not forgotten his violence to me the last time I had made my way up to the wailing-woman's room. At all costs, I did not want to risk rekindling his anger towards me.
The next evening I dragged one of the heavy dressers across the doorway before I went to bed, not to keep intruders out, but to keep myself in.
It did not work.
A few nights later I awoke suddenly from my usual nightmare, to find myself standing right outside the wailing-woman's room. I was literally reaching out for the handle when I came to consciousness. With a frightened gasp I snatched away my outstretched hand and reeled back from the door.
The eerie percussive noise was echoing all around me, magnified by dark stillness of night-time.
Crt-crt—crt—crt—crt-crt...
So close! I thought wildly as I ran, stumbling back along the dark corridor and downstairs, my heart thudding in dread at what I had been about to do. I couldn't understand how I had escaped through my self-imposed barricade.
On returning to my room, I saw the huge dresser was flipped onto its side, spilling out clothes everywhere, as if having been tossed carelessly aside by a giant's hand. Immediately I thought of The Woman, of her terrifying powers, her murderous malevolence against me. Could she have been here? Was she trying to lead me into some trap? I decided I would, I must tell Lucius...
But this time I forgot to stay awake...and in the morning the dresser had righted itself and the contents of each drawer were neatly folded, as if never touched. When I went down to breakfast the day was so calm, and Lucius so mild-mannered that my night-time terrors seemed ridiculous, infantile, and once again I pushed them aside.
...
Day by day, the girl in the mirror grew more radiant. At times, she even looked beautiful, with her tawny, lucent eyes and delicately flushed complexion. But I no longer thought of her as me. When I looked at her, I only saw Alice.
...Vaguely I recalled my fears, that very first time I'd attempted to run away from Lucius, how I had told myself I needed to find my identity before I stopped caring...Well, that moment was fast approaching. I no longer lay awake at night, running alphabetically through lists of girls' names, trying to hit upon my own one. I didn't mind being Alice, so long as I was his Alice. Lucius's Alice.
Sometimes when I stared at that luminous, enchanted girl in the looking-glass, the chilling, chiming voice of The Woman would echo in my head ...Did you fall in love with him, mud-blood?...I should think it rather strange if you did not...The things we women do for the men we love...We make ourselves their fools and slaves...
Was I his fool? Was I his slave?
Had I...fallen in love?
...
...I was running through a jaggedly-twisting maze of stone corridors. My feet were caked with blood and grime, my knees and palms badly grazed from frequent contact with the rough, uneven flagstones that I raced along, naked and drenched from a relentless, stinging rain pelting down on me from the vaulted ceiling overhead.
Somewhere behind me, a monstrous crow with bat-like wings and malevolent black eyes swooped and glided, gnashing its dagger-like fang and laughing demonically at my pitiful attempts to escape it, mocking me each time I fell or stumbled upon the stone floor.
Momentarily I gained enough speed to lose my persecutor, but before I could make my escape a necklace appeared around my throat, tightening and tugging me backwards, its bird-skull pendant biting so hard against my windpipe that I had to follow its dragging force or be throttled to death...
Desperately I screamed out a name, but the only answer was the terrible whooping of the crow as it came closer and closer...
With a shuddering gasp, I woke up.
Then I was instantly unsure if I really had woken up, for I was surrounded by absolute, utter darkness.
I stood, staring wildly and silently into the black void, immobilised with fear.
Where are you, Alice? Oh god, where the hell are you? And who—who else is with you?
A ghastly thought was overtaking me: that I was back in the stone dungeon with Her, that somehow she had snatched me from my very bed and taken me back to her lair, and I would never again see the light of day...I would never again see Lucius...
My lips shaped into a scream that I didn't dare give voice to, as my fear increased with each interminable second, layer upon layer of it, filling me up until there was no room left in me to breathe, I would surely suffocate with it... But just when I felt I could truly bear it no longer and my heart was simply going to fail in my body, a small light above me flickered to life, then another, then a cluster of them, revealing a spindly, silver chandelier suspended from the ceiling...and in its soft light I saw that I was in a room both familiar and unfamiliar, and that I was alone.
I drew a deep, gasping lungful of air, sinking to my knees with dizzy relief.
I was still in the house—Lucius's house (I almost thought, "my house")—the room was of similar to my own, although its furnishings were quite different. It was a pretty, feminine bed-chamber, elegantly appointed with slender-legged fitments and delicate upholstery. A narrow bed, draped with an embroidered coverlet, stood by the far wall. Next to it was a tall window...and with a start of shock I registered several black iron bars obstructing its pane, between two incongruously wispy curtains.
So this is it, I thought dazedly, this is the wailing woman's room...or her...cell... I slowly stood up and moved shakily over to the window, curling my hand around one of the thick bars. ...But where is she?
As if in answer to my unuttered questions, a voice behind me spoke. "She is gone, Alice. Gone, before you ever came."
Trembling, I turned to the figure darkening the threshold of the doorway. "I don't know how I got in here," I said, my voice still half-choked with subsiding terror. "I didn't mean t-to—I promise—"
"Calm yourself," said Lucius, coming forward into the light. "No-one is going to hurt you. I am not going to hurt you."
He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time in a long while. His expression seemed thoughtful, but there was a rigidity to it, as if he were determined to confront a difficult memory with impassivity. Finally his gaze came back to rest upon me. "So you finally regained your curiosity," he said. "I was beginning to wonder if you had lost it forever."
I couldn't stop shaking, nor drag myself out of that bewildered state of the suddenly-woken dreamer. "It wasn't curiosity," I said through numb lips, "I sleep-walked here."
"Conscious or not, it is the same." He moved towards me slowly, as if he didn't wish to startle or frighten me. "Come, sit down. You are still half-asleep."
Lightly he put his arm around my shoulder and guided me over to a chaise of apple-green silk, upon which I gratefully sank. After looking down at me for some moments, Lucius moved away, returning shortly with a glass of dark liquor in each hand. He extended one to me. "Drink this, my dear. You will feel better."
I took the glass, remembering that very first drink I'd had with him, when I had spilled the Armagnac all down my dress. "Like liquid fire and distilled damnation," I said, repeating the words he had quoted to me on that occasion.
Lucius smiled. "Indeed," he said, taking the seat beside me, and we both raised our glasses to our lips.
I could feel the warmth of his body next to mine. It was impossible not to imagine curling up against him and going to sleep. For a while we sat in silence, and I felt that he was waiting for me to speak first. "I thought...I thought that she—the Woman had come for me," I said at last. "It was...just so dark..."
"I told you I would protect you, Alice," Lucius said. "Even if it is only from your own imagination."
I gestured toward the iron-barred window. "Is that what happened in here?" I asked quietly. "You were protecting someone from themselves?"
His jaw muscles tightened, but when he replied his voice was measured. "No," he said. "I was too late for that."
"You said that she—whoever she is—has gone, before I even came here. But I've heard noises...I've heard her crying, screaming..."
"I do not doubt that you believe so."
His gaze had wandered, and I followed it to a place on the wall oppositely facing the bed, just beside the door. There, half-obscured by shadows, hung a portrait of the beautiful boy I had come to recognise as Lucius's son, but as a young child, perhaps only four or five years old, playing with a toy train-set.
Lucius took my empty glass and placed it next to his on the floor, then he stood up. He turned to offer his hand to me, and together we walked over to the painting. A small, engraved silver plaque was attached to the bottom of the ebony frame. It read, 'Draco, Christmas, 1984'.
"Draco." I whispered the strange name in the hushed stillness of the room. Finally I could put a name to the face of the young man who had appeared in my mind, three times now. The grey-eyed young man who caught me as I fell, who stretched out his hand to mine and called out, "...Hold on to me!..."
Then Lucius made a slight gesture with his hand, and the painting started to move.
The boy was clapping happily as the train travelled along a set of metal tracks, and the wheels made the same distinct, percussive sound that had so frightened me twice before.
Crt-crt—crt-crt—crt-crt...
It was so innocent an activity that I wondered how it had ever sounded eerie to me. Puffs of steam emitted from its engine as it made its way around the winding course. Suddenly the boy covered his ears with his hands, and seconds later the train began to whistle out a shrill, wailing noise, getting higher and louder until the whole painting rattled wildly, causing the nearby door to judder on its hinges. When the wailing died down the boy, laughing with delight, turned the train about and began the process all over again.
I accepted what I saw as a matter of course, the strange impossibility of a moving picture no longer causing me surprise or disbelief. Instead, I was ambushed by an acute emotion which pierced me to the heart, as I watched the little fellow, his babyishly-rounded features alive with a somewhat-wilful glee. Because of me, this lovely child was no longer.
Lucius waved his hand a second time and everything froze once more, so now it seemed simply a charming painting of a boy at play.
"He was such a beautiful child." Lucius's voice was tender and just achingly sad. "So...perfectly beautiful."
At first I could not answer, for tears were streaming down my face. Then, brokenly, I said, "He s-saved me. I don't know how, or from what, b-but I know that he saved my life."
"Yes."
Lucius drew me away from the picture, and then somehow his arms were wrapped about my shoulders, and my wet cheek was pressed to his heart. His touch, his scent, his warmth was so comforting, so calming; I hadn't realised just how much I'd craved his nearness since that miraculous moment in the stone dungeon, when he had enfolded my broken, naked body in his arms and taken me to safety. I could feel my body softening against him, into him, and I wished fervently that he would hold me forever, never let me go...
But when the last of my tears had abated he gently pushed me away from him. "You should return to bed," he said, reaching down to brush back a strand of damp hair which clung to my cheek. His own eyes were dry, but even in the half-light I could see them brimming with pain.
I nodded, hastily wiping my face.
Lucius led me out into the dark hallway, pausing to close the door behind us. Together we descended the stone stairs, Lucius's firm grip steadying my shaky steps. When we reached the open door to my bedroom I turned to him, an unformed sentence stuck in my throat.
He bent over me until his face was very close to mine, and I was suddenly self-conscious of standing so close to him in my insubstantially gauzy night-dress. I felt his fingertips under my chin, tilting it upwards. His eyes were strange, unreadable yet intense, glowing with something that I didn't understand...and for one delirious, unreal moment I thought he was going to kiss my lips...
But then he leaned in to brush his mouth lightly against my forehead. "Goodnight, Alice," he murmured softly.
And he walked away into the shadows.