Part 2 Faces of iron ~ Boxes of Blue
Lucius Malfoy smiled at the sound of chaos and screams. Flames rose into the frosty, black sky, and smoke filled the air in dark, dizzy strands.
Lucius Loved it. Energy filled him, coursing through his veins like lightening. The sound of stumbling feet alerted him, and he spun, wand outstretched. The pale faced young lady never had a chance. With a sharp 'Stupefy!', the woman rolled over unconscious. He raised his wand to continue, but Bellatrix voice carried across the flame covered streets.
"Lucius!!" Her eyes were nearly as wide as her maniacal grin. "Muggles!"
Her hand pointed away from the town and towards the frost covered fields. Not too far from the port-key by which they had entered the fields, lay a small farmhouse, old and forgotten.
Between the Death Eaters and the farm house, the tall frost-bitten stalks of grain moved, disturbed by some unseen prey.
Bellatrix' high pitched laugh was nigh on unbearable, but Lucius laughed with her.
He adjusted the cold, metal mask across his face, his eyes sparkling dangerously.
The night seemed suddenly deeper, darker, the fire ravenous, and angry. The Hunt was on.
********
Elizabeth McAdams heard the cries before she saw the lights. Ugly, orange fire light, mixed with flashes of green. Green like she recalled it from the day she saw it hovering above her house, ten months ago. The color of the dead.
She stared out the window, wide eyed, as flames leapt around the town nearby, and green and white and red flashes silhouetted the world between the town and the farmhouse. Colors danced around the houses, to the sound of far off screaming, like fireworks at some kind of sick carnival.
Ellie left the window with tears streaming down her face, and huddled, shaking, in the dark, musty corner.
Lights flashed, dimly through the window, illuminating the cold, dusty room. Ellie's pale, warm breaths puffed into the air, swirling in white ribbons through the dark in front of her.
'God, please don't let them find aunt Kelly. Help her to get out of the town, and not be dead. Please don't let her get burned up, or killed or hurt. Take care of her if i die.'
it occurred to her, that she might never find out if her prayers were answered or not.
'i want Momma. i want Momma. I'm seven years old, and I'm gonna die.'
She was scared, but not surprised. From the day her parents died, Elizabeth had assumed that she would die the same way. The Bad Man ruined everything he touched. He wouldn't stop till he'd touched everything.
Her head snapped up. She could hear the cries getting closer. He was coming. He was going to burn down the farm house.
Ellie didn't want to be scared, but she was. She was trembling all over, and she was cold - deathly cold...
But she had known it was coming. She would meet the Bad Man. She would see if he would recognize love, after all. She had known for a long time now.
But she was not going to burn to death in the farm house.
The little girl rose, and felt her way down the stairs in the dim, flickering glow coming from the windows. There were howls and cries coming from not too far away, and getting steadily closer. Trembling she clung to the banisters - eye level on the seven year old - and crept quietly to the ground.
Once downstairs, she ran to her aunt's room, and stood on tip-toe to reach the jewelry box she found there. Though the box belonged to her aunt, it held only things belonging Elizabeth or her mother. Aunt Kelly rarely even looked in it, so she had not yet found the note that her niece had tucked carefully beneath her blue, birthday locket.
Taking down the box, she checked to make sure her note was safe, and tucking the small, blue box under one arm, she strode to the bed.
Dropping to her knees, she carefully slid the box under aunt Kelly's bed, and dusted her hands off on her white nightgown, before rising and leaving the room.
'God, please take care of my jewelry box. Take care of it til aunt Kelly can find it, and don't let it get burned down.'
She stepped out into the cold, dark room beyond, and rubbed her bare arms. She wished she had remembered to get her pink, Sunday-best jumper, but there probably wasn't time now.
She stepped quietly, bare-foot out into the night, carefully closing the door behind her.
She hadn't left soon enough. She turned to find herself staring at a cluster of tall, menacing figures - One of them didn't even look remotely human. All were tall. All were clothed in dark robes. All of them stared down at her from cold, metal, faces.
Faces of iron or steel, but not flesh.... they couldn't be human... they couldn't have faces of steel unless their own faces had been cut off somehow...
Ellie gasped, and fell back against the door. She looked from one iron face, to the other. Then her brow furrowed. Those weren't their faces. They were just masks - toys, nothing more. So where was He?
Where was the Bad Man?
*******
Lucius stared at the little girl before him. She could hardly be more than six, and well over three feet tall. Her large eyes, wide with shock, were blue, and her waist-length hair was light - strawberry-blonde, perhaps? - though hard to discern in this light.
She wore nothing but a white nightgown, with what appeared to be tiny blue or lavender rose buds all over it. Her bare, pink arms were covered in goosebumps, her feet were bare, and slightly blue, and she looked very cold.
However all else aside, what caught his attention when he glanced back up, was her face.
She was giving Lucius a look of severe scrutiny, and her small, round arms were crossed over her chest. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, and she had tugged her mouth into a little frown.
Lucius waved away his mask with one flick of his wand, and smirked down at the child.
"Good afternoon." His voice sounded cold, even to him, and he saw the goosebumps raise higher on her arms. Her face did not flicker.
"Are you the Bad Man?" The child tilted her head to one side.
The corners of Lucius mouth twisted into an amused smirk. "i am a very bad man." He smiled, darkly.
She did not look away. Lucius was beginning to feel strangely uncomfortable.
"No. You're just not a nice man, and you're kind of a mean man, and A bad man, but your not the Bad Man. The one who killed everyone, who no one talks about."
Lucius felt his ego deflate, slightly, and tried to rally his mental stamina. "What a.. charming.... little witch. Tell me, what is your name?"
"Elizabeth."
"No," snarled Lucius, softly, the amusement wearing thin, "your last name, the one that is written in your blood." His cold clipped tones had given way to an icy drawl, and his eyes bored into her.
Ellie shook her head, mutely.
"Oh, dear, dear, are you shy?" He cocked his head to one side, extending his wand, and smiling slightly. "you," he shook his head slightly, momentarily at a loss for words, "didn't seem the type."
"Do let me," whispered Bellatrix' dark voice, behind him. "i haven't gotten to take care of a sweet, sweet little girl in soo loong...." Her voice took on a slightly sing-song, maternal quality.
Elizabeth didn't flinch, or look childish, and she certainly didn't smile. Elizabeth meant business.
"i need to meet the Bad Man, please."
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One wonderful person has commented, and for that i am very grateful. Thank you for your patience as i figure out how to post multiple chapters.... -_-'