Title: Black and Deep Desires
By: Dr. Kim-chan
Me: (strapped tight inside a straitjacket and securely chained to my chair inside the theater)
Lucius: Dr. Kim-chan would like to apologize (yet again) for having Chapter Forty out late, especially considering that in this installment you find out whether Ron comes home with me or not. But, surprisingly enough, even fanfic authors have their own lives to live. But now she's ready to go and that critical decision will be made—
Me: EQUUS!!!!!
Ron: And don't forget to explain why we have her strapped to a chair.
Lucius: Right. Well, she almost cracked while trying to adjust to college life, and she was just starting to get into a nice, quiet rhythm when she decided to log on to Mugglenet for the first time since she left home. Everyone had known for quite some time that Daniel Radcliffe was going to be the main character in a play called—
Me: EQUUS!!!!!
Lucius: Right…anyway, just recently the website posted pictures from a promotional photoshoot…and…well…
Me: OMG! You HAD to see it, Luci!!! There was beard stubble, and veins in the arms, and beard stubble, and muscles, and a trail of hair leading to unknown regions—you know, which they cut off in the pictures, but…there was beard stubble, and baggy jeans, and a pretty white horse, and beard stubble, and hip bones, and bare chests…oh, and did I mention BEARD STUBBLE?!! Lordy, WHAT is in England's water supply?!?
Lucius: And as if seeing a rapidly developing Daniel Radcliffe wasn't enough, she finally found out the release date of the seventh book—the last Harry Potter book that will ever be published. Ever
(A sudden scared silence falls over the room.)
Harry: No more of me…NO MORE OF ME!! AND JK MIGHT MEAN THAT LITERALLY!! (bursts into tears, as does Ron and Draco. Plushie grabs a wine bottle, drinks it all down, and passes out to cope.)
Me: (stands up, suddenly in an overly patriotic mood) But you know what there WILL be more of? This fic—no, ALL fanfiction! There will be more crazed fanfic authors! There will be more crackpot theories! Even if the books and movies end, their spirit will live on! (A flag drops down and flutters behind me) Now someone put the Silver Remote in my mouth, dammit. (Ron sticks the remote between my teeth) Thank you. EQUUS!!!!—I mean, rolling!
(Begin Chap. 40)
"I don't know how you gained Mr. Weasley's trust, but you haven't yet gained mine."
Lucius mulled over Professor McGonagall's words in silence as the carriage bumped ungracefully towards the castle looming over the horizon. They were both adults, of course, and McGonagall was easily thirty years Lucius's senior, but he would have been ready to fight tooth and nail with her to get Ron if he had to.
"Would have been"…
It hadn't, nor would it ever, cross Lucius's mind to consider bowing down to Dumbledore's will, especially considering the fact that they were potentially going to do him more harm than good. They knew by now that it had been the Malefecium Elixir that caused Potter's delusional fit; Umira had reported to Voldemort that it had been a necessary sacrifice to divulge a bit of information. All hopes of Lucius staying out of Azkaban now rested—quite ironically—in the hands of the Order of the Phoenix.
All that aside, though the faculty of Hogwarts probably didn't know the exact severity of the situation, Lucius knew. The Order knew. Even with restricted communication, it would actually be safer to give Ron to Lucius than keep him here at the school.
But…
Lucius sighed and shifted the weight of his body. Well, that wasn't particularly true either. A fate probably just as terrible awaited him at the Malfoy Manor as well. Voldemort wanted him to prove his worth and throw away what would most likely be his only chance at true happiness. Get killed by your lover or your best friend: which was the lesser of two evils?
And there was yet another point to consider. Ron was rapidly beginning to lose faith in him, and that was the one thing he had never wanted to happen. Seeing his hurt expression in the hospital ward had finally opened Lucius up to some true, basic facts.
Lust, for all its consummation, required hardly any work; maybe a handful of sly tricks, but nothing more. It was a game to be played, sometimes with deadly consequences. However, if one played their cards right, they could easily pass the buck and be left unharmed, left to play another round with another person.
But this was something entirely different. This was love. Love wasn't so much a game as it was a messy enigma, a puzzle with many pieces, a game with so many rules it wasn't even considered fun anymore. But if one played their cards right in this arena, they would be left with happiness. Being left to play another round wasn't a trophy to be won; it was a humiliating loss. Now that he realized that he was in new territory, he would have to change plans. At this point he was unsure of how it would work out, or if he would be left alive, but he was damn sure of one thing.
He wanted Ron, and he wanted Ron unharmed.
So that was to be his decision, then.
Sighing deeply again, he looked out of the small cutout window towards the still waters of the lake. Straight above it, the sun was once again being ousted out of its kingdom by a group of steel-gray clouds, but the air refused to stay still. It wasn't rain that was coming…
It was something worse.
...A couple of hours prior to this, Hermione, like mostly everyone else at Hogwarts, had been sitting in the Great Hall for breakfast. The atmosphere was still a bit tense; the new rumors going around now were as new as yesterday. Lucius and all of the Heads of Houses had been spotted hovering around the hospital ward—where Ron was still being holed up. What was shocking was that Lucius had gone in…alone. But even more shocking than that, nothing seemed to have resulted from it. It had just been for him to see if Ron was all right.
Needless to say, this was not helping Ron's reputation. People were seriously beginning to wonder if Ron had in fact moved to the Dark Lord's side. Hermione claimed it all as rubbish, but even she couldn't smother that seed of doubt taking root deep within her chest.
Suddenly, everyone had been abruptly interrupted from their pondering when the double doors on Gryffindor's side of the hall opened up. The soft buzz of conversation came to a standstill, and Hermione glanced up from her half-filled parchment to see why time had stood still.
The reason: Harry had finally been discharged from St. Mungo's.
After the initial shock, the buzz continued—a little louder, but now with a great amount of unease. Gryffindor just outright refused to speak with him, eyeing him warily as a first-year in Care of Magical Creatures did to the creatures Hagrid brought in to his classes. This may have been, in fact, the right thing to do. Right after he had returned, Harry had been given the strictest orders not to see Ron. His head in a daze over the events, this had confused him enough, but when he had caught wind of the story that Mr. Malfoy had not only come here but was at Ron's bedside, he was enraged. And really, it had been a wonder that he hadn't completely lost it when there was also talk of Mr. Malfoy's plan to bring him back to the Manor. And they dared to call him the potential danger?
And apparently there was only one more trump card Hogwarts had left to pull.
"They're coming today?"
"In the early afternoon, most likely," Hermione answered, twirling her food around with her fork. "And if that's the case, we really have nothing to worry about. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wouldn't let Ron go with Mr. Malfoy in a million years. They may even end up bringing him back home with them."
"Hermione…"
She was startled by the unusually soft tone in his voice and gave him his full attention. His brow was furrowed in deep though, as if he was trying really hard to recover a memory—which, in fact, he was.
"Hermione…what exactly did I do that night? No one's told me anything."
Hermione's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and her head hung down. She hadn't even seen what had happened, but had heard plenty about it. But she couldn't bring herself to say it…
"I'll tell you what happened, Harry," a voice rang out beside them.
Seamus, who had been sitting on Hermione's side, had stood up and walked over to them the minute Harry had asked the question. His lips were pursed and shoved to one side of his face; indeed, he had said "Harry" as if he had just spat out a dirt-flavored Every Flavor Bean.
"That night, it sounded like you'd woken up from a bad dream, 'cause I heard Ron gettin' up and tryin' to calm you down. The next thing I hear, Ron's screamin' and nearly chokin' to death. Me, Dean and Neville wake up, push our bedcurtains aside, and we see you sitting on him, stranglin' him, callin' him a traitor."
Harry's eyes widened, his fear growing by leaps and bounds. He would have protested, but he had no grounds to argue against the boy standing across from him.
"Dean tried to get you away from Ron, but you threw Dean across the room and jumped on him again. That time you grabbed for your wand and tried to—"
Seamus stopped, wondering if he should continue. Harry gave him a look that meant he wanted to know more, even if it was at the expense of his sanity.
"—You tried to cast the Killing Curse."
Whatever conversation that had finally decided to bubble up from the surface at the Gryffindor Table was immediately silenced again. Harry turned to Hermione, his face wrought with shock. Hermione looked up and nodded solemnly.
"I was in the girls' dormitory, but I heard a lot of people yelling all of a sudden…then I heard you as the teachers were trying to drag you to the hospital ward. You were just…you said, 'Get off of me! I have to finish him off! He knows something! He can't be trusted!'."
Harry was literally at a loss for words. His eyes darted between Hermione and Seamus, trying to form a paragraph in his throat, a sentence, a word, a vowel…anything to shake off the uncomfortable silence surrounding him.
"What—?"
"Harry, it wasn't even your fault. Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers are looking into whether it was an attack by Voldemort."
"Don't defend him, Hermione!" Seamus burst out. "We all know Harry's been angry with Ron since the beginning of term! He prob'ly meant what he said that night!"
"Get this straight, Finnegan," Harry hissed, and Seamus knew he should've stopped after that; using one's last name was usually the last string to be broken. "The only reason I was angry with him was because he was being a jerk!"
"He was probably being a jerk because he had just got kidnapped by Malfoy! Nobody still knows what happened in the manor, not even Rita Skeeter."
"That's just my point. It wasn't exactly like he was tortured or starved to death, and he never told us anything, so something must have went on in there. How do you explain the fact Malfoy's mum got killed and Mr. Malfoy put Ron in his will right after he came back to Hogwarts?"
Seamus couldn't find an answer to that, but someone else seriously took offense to that. Looking despondent just a second ago, Hermione shot Harry a dirty look.
"You honestly think Ron's gone to work for You-Know-Who?!" she said in disgust. "I thought you had faith in us, Harry!"
"I have faith in you," Harry reassured her, "and I didn't say Ron was working for the Dark Lord."
"Not directly."
Again, no words. Hermione huffed, stood up, and grabbed Harry by the wrist.
"Ron will probably never forgive me for doing this, but I have to do this. I have to tell you what he told me before you or him completely lose your minds," she muttered under her breath. And with that, she dragged the dark-haired boy out of the Great Hall.
…It wasn't too long after this that Lucius arrived back at the school, retreating yet again to the hospital ward. Approximately two hours later, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley showed up. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Professor Mills met them at the entrance and led them to the same place. With a sort of odd, slow grace, he knocked on the wooden door so lightly you wouldn't have believed the people inside heard it. However, Madam Pomfrey opened the door a crack half a minute later.
"Mr. Malfoy, the Weasleys are—yes," she whispered while looking in the opposite direction, then she switched back to the headmaster. "He'll be out presently."
Usually when people say "presently", they actually mean in a few minutes or so, but no sooner did Madam Pomfrey disappear from the crack in the door than Lucius swung it wide open. A flicker of emotion registered in his eyes. If Harry thought what happened in the Great Hall this morning was tense, he should have been around to feel the air literally crackle between Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley. It was certainly a sight to behold: the parents of the captive meeting, more or less cordially, with their son's tormentor. The reproachful glare Molly was throwing at him from the sidelines wasn't helping either.
"Good afternoon, Arthur," Lucius said curtly, then turned a little to the left and nodded to Mrs. Weasley. "Molly."
"What's this about bringing my son back with you?" Mrs. Weasley demanded, cutting right to the chase.
"The Maleficium Elixir," Umira said, nodding subtly to the two parents. "Potter was the target all along. He attacked Ron last Wednesday. If we hadn't restrained him in time,…well…Potter almost used an Unforgivable Curse on him. The worst one."
Molly's hands flew up to her mouth and made a little choking sound in her throat. Arthur's eyes widened as large as the bathtub drain stoppers he loved to collect.
"I—is Ron all right?! Is Harry—?"
"They're both fine, Arthur," Umira answered. "However, the Healers at St. Mungo's could not find a cure…as you know, for this potion there is none."
"Potter hasn't shown any more symptoms since that night, but we can no longer guarantee Weasley's safety…and no one else's, for that matter," McGonagall intervened.
"Which brings us to Lucius' proposition," Dumbledore continued. "Although you two certainly have a say in the matter, he is within his rights. Since Mr. Malfoy made Ron his heir apparent, in such dire situations as these he may take on the duty of a legal guardian. The Ministry notarized the will two weeks ago."
Arthur raised an eyebrow and stepped forward. Of course he knew about this whole episode with the will that the Daily Prophet had put out for all the wizarding world to see. Though his department was a far cry from the top brass, Arthur still kept his eyes and ears open in the Ministry. Nevertheless, all the meddling in the world, his or the Daily Prophet's, couldn't answer that one essential question…
"I've been meaning to ask you about that, Malfoy; I think we all've been meaning to."
Lucius smirked. "Please, go ahead."
"Why did you put my son into your will?"
As expected, a moment of silence followed, but Lucius actually had a response prepared—even much to his own surprise, since in the letter he admitted that he couldn't even explain his actions to himself.
"I already told you, and I'll swear it again, that your son was never harmed in the time that I kept him. You could go in there and ask him yourself. Over those short two months we've come to respect each other rather well—in fact, he was the best housekeeper I've ever had. We know I already have a natural heir: my son. But in all honesty I don't expect him to leave the Manor, nor do I expect him to maintain it. Now that my wife's passed away, Weasley was the only sensible choice. Consider it a reimbursement for these past circumstances."
The aura of fury then completely dissolved away from Mrs. Weasley, leaving only confusion. But Lucius wasn't done shocking everyone yet.
"It's also come to my attention that none of you trust me, and of course I understand. I don't even believe that what I've just told you is the complete truth."
"Surprising," Mr. Weasley intervened. "You're usually a bit more persuasive."
The blond man's smirk grew wider. "If anyone knows this, it's you, Weasley, and that is that I enjoy winning my arguments—"
Suddenly the smirk faded away, leaving behind two lips sagging with uncertainty and remorse.
"However…it seems that in order to win my argument this time, I will have to lose."
Before Arthur or Molly could ask what that meant, Lucius turned to them and gave a slight nod.
"Arthur, Molly…I'll be leaving your son in your care."
Behind his back, Umira's eyebrows spread apart; she couldn't believe what she just heard. As the Death Eaters' trusted double agent and an expert Seer who almost never missed a thing, she had long since been in the know about the terrible deed Lucius had been entrusted to do. What in the world was he thinking? If he showed up at the Malfoy Manor empty-handed…
So she had been right all along. Fantastic as it sounded, he had really meant what he said.
(End Chap. 40)
Reviewers: (crying and outraged) YOU SUCK!!! (throw garbage into the theater)
Me: (now out of my straitjacket) CUT IT OUT!! You honestly think it's been resolved that quickly? Think about it; when was the last time I've led all of you astray and/or shocked you beyond all reason?
Random Guy: When you said Umira Mills was a double spy?
Random Guy 2: When you had Blaise seduce Ron?
Randon Gal: When Harry attacked Ron in Chapter Thirty-Seven?
Random Gal 2: When this fic reached forty chapters?
Me: The point is, Lucius knows very well what he's doing. The party's only getting started, ladies and gents! Wait until Chapter 41—which I PROMISE won't be two months later. And by the way, Happy Valentine's Day. (audience throws garbage again) Okay, considering this wasn't a happy ending to a chapter, but I'm working on it!!!