The Good Son
Chapter Eighteen
Beauty and the Beast
Cassiopeia had lived in the Manor her entire life and it had never been as silent as it was today; perhaps she was just imagining the unnatural stillness, the tense quiet that enveloped the property. It wasn't as if she knew what was actually happening in the Manor as she had been here since before the dawn, kneeling amidst Narcissa's roses. Even their sweet scent seemed tinted with sorrow.
They say Narcissa Malfoy had grown these gardens in her grief for the husband she had lost . . . perhaps it would be fitting that her granddaughter waters the roses with her tears.
Cass couldn't even breathe without feeling numb to the world. It was so absurd, she had never even known her son and yet she loved him so completely, so truly. How could she hurt so badly because of someone she had never known?
Because she had carried him for near nine months, she had felt him kick and shift and swim within her womb. She hurt because she had been his mother. She stared listlessly at the white roses, so pure and innocent to the world.
She should lay them on his grave.
"I brought you lunch," came a soft voice from behind her. Cass barely acknowledged Rose's presence, let alone the plate of sandwiches her sister was holding. She didn't want to eat, everything she did turned to ash in her mouth, the same way her happiness had turned to dust. Rose sighed and sat beside her sister, wrapping an arm around her as she broke into a fresh wave of sobs. Tears ran down her face, dripping onto her blouse and all Cass could think about was how soon would it be before her tears ran out.
"Did it get better Rose," she asked hoarsely, her throat raw from crying for so very long. Rose knew what she meant in an instant, she too had lost a child – even if the circumstances weren't the same. Honestly Rose had been more pained that she could never have children in the future than she had been to lose the foetus. She attributed it to still being seventeen and not ready for children but Cassiopeia had been, she had fallen in love with Leo from the day she had found out she was pregnant.
"No," admitted Rose quietly, "It gets easier with time but it never goes away. You'll learn to move past it but the pain will always be there. Cass sighed shakily, her tears finally seeming to ebb.
"You need to go to Albus," said Rose quietly when Cass seemed to have calmed down completely.
"I have no idea what to say to him Rose," she said, her eyes red and bloodshot, "I have no idea how to apologise for killing our son."
"Don't you ever say that," snapped Rose, her face softening as the younger girl flinched, "It is not your fault and it is not his fault. If you two start blaming yourselves or each other it will tear you both apart."
"And if that's what you're thinking then the chances are he's thinking the exact same thing. He's the only one who feels the same things you are feeling now. Cass you need each other now more than ever."
Cassiopeia sighed again, her tone tired and drawn but she stood nonetheless and in a crack of apparition she was gone, using the connection that existed between their marks to go to his side.
(*)(*)(*)
Hermione closed her eyes to blink away her tears as she came up to stand behind her husband, who had held himself in stony silence since the funeral. She placed a hand on his shoulder, flinching when he roughly shook it off and growled angrily at her.
"Draco," she said his name like a prayer, hoping she would get through his emotional shields, the walls he seemed to have erected around himself since the attack.
"What," he snapped at her in a biting tone, "Let me be, woman!" His cheeks and chin were covered in thick stubble, he hadn't been shaving. There was a lilt of alcohol permeating the air, seeming to float from his clothing.
"Draco please," she wrapped her arms around him from behind, holding on tightly as he tried to pry her off, "Talk to me."
"What do you want me to say Hermione?" he yelled, "Do you want me to admit that I killed my grandchild?" There was silence; Hermione recoiled as his words sank in, his voice heavy with self-loathing. For his part, Draco had a haunted look in his eyes; he seemed to have aged twenty years in a single week.
Yes he had cast the shield charm, causing the curse to ricochet and strike his daughter. But it had been Harry who cast the curse.
"Why would you even think that?" she asked, even though she had blamed herself as well. Harry had come for her and the boys had raised their wands rather than surrender her to the Loyalists. If she had just gone with them then maybe Leo would still be alive in his mother's womb. If she hadn't insisted they go to Diagon Alley that day to do their last minute baby shopping then they wouldn't have been attacked at all.
But she had never thought that Draco blamed himself too.
But it wasn't either of their faults. It was the fault of the madman who had once been their saviour.
(*)(*)(*)
Hugo paced his study, clenching his fists as he cursed the day Rita Skeeter had ever been born. That miserable journalist had recently written a scathing article about the authorisation of the use of the unforgivable curses against the Loyalists. The public outcry had been massive, even though the Boy-Who-Lived was now one of the most hated men in Britain; many felt that he should merely be taken to Azkaban, after all how could they kill a man who had saved them from Voldemort.
When would they realise that Voldemort had been dead for over twenty years and in that time Harry had caused more pain than he had ever healed? Obviously they never would, it had however helped their case once word of Leo's fate had been spread – it had previously been kept under wraps by only those who needed to know – the public had once again changed their mind.
They were like sheep, mused Hugo, fickle and senseless.
Then again, there was nothing like the death of an innocent child that could give the people a symbol behind which they could rally. Harry's name was now worth less than dragonshit, most of the Loyalists were either dead or being thrown into the Black Cells beside Ron but what was eating at Hugo's mind was that Harry was still out there.
And Hugo knew now that no life debt would keep him away, he had somehow survived attacking the Malfoy family – Hugo assumed that Harry was using the old trick of using magic to keep his heart beating – he knew that the only way that this would end was in blood.
And Hugo was tired of seeing his siblings lose their children because of that man. Like as not; Rose, Scorpius and now Cassiopeia had all lost their children in some way or another thanks to Harry or Ron. There was also a burning need in his soul to throw Harry into Azkaban where he could do no harm, or better yet kill him and be done with it. This was based on the fear that when the time came for him and Francesca to have children he too would lose his firstborn.
He refused to let that happen.
He would not give Harry the joy of a clean death. He wanted the man to have to suffer and the only way to make sure would be the Black Cells of Azkaban; Ron Weasley had only been there for a week and already the prison guards had informed him that he was half-insane, spending his days lost in the torment of his worst memories.
If Hugo recalled correctly, the man often spent his days pleading for forgiveness to his late brother Fred Weasley and his niece Molly; what a shame.
Because Ron Weasley did not deserve forgiveness and Hugo would make sure that he was not granted mercy.
(*)(*)(*)
His trainers thudded rhythmically against the forest floor, sweat beading on his brow, his muscles screaming for rest as he ran, ploughing on through this deserted wilderness he had, in his need to escape, apparated to.
He didn't know how long he had been running, how long he had been pushing himself to breaking point, all he knew was that he couldn't stop. If he did, the physical exertion would cease and then he would feel the pain all over again. The pain of losing Leo.
The sun was setting, twilight tinting the sky in rosy hues of lavender and gold. Odd that, when he had first taken of the sky had been the same colour, flavoured with the dawn. The low howl of an animal, maybe a dog, maybe a wolf, low and mournful filled the air. His heart beat painfully fast, not so from the running, but from the straining darkness within. The darkness which fought against the psychic walls first put in place by Hermione and Draco, his uncontrollable emotions of grief and anger and hate welling within him and lending the Darkness power. The sane part of his mind fought against it, knowing from Bella's warning that should he succumb he would not be able to control himself. But the rest of him screamed to let the darkness out, to let it take control and avenge his suffering, to revenge itself against Harry and the Order.
He tensed, needing a release. Then he slammed his fist against the rough hewn bark of the tall oak beside his path, fuelling his physical strength with his magic and a trace of darkness, drawing on the vestiges that had so far escaped the bonds entrapping the entirety of his shadows. The wards were stretched taut; he was consciously pulling on them now, attempting to draw on his dark energy to fuel his power.
The bark splintered, a large chunk of the tree smashed to smithereens by the force of his blow, he didn't even feel the pain in his scraped knuckles, the rawness as he struck the tree again and again till his hands were bloody and the tree lay in ruins. Turning, his emerald eyes beginning to darken with black magic, he launched himself onto another, tearing down branches and pummelling the trunk.
A stag bounded away in fear, startled and afraid by the noise. Albus' eyes widened in a sick glee as he saw the animal and sprinted towards it, grabbing it by its antlers and pulling. In a gout of blood and brain fluid, he tore them from the creature, causing it to slump dead to the ground. His eyes jet black, the whites no longer visible, he clawed at the carcass, shredding the flesh with his bare hands.
He had become the darkness within, though the wards still held waveringly strong, he was the beast, mindless and feral and he destroyed all around him.
Life, he sensed it and turned to face it, his eyes gleaming hungrily, his lips twisted into a bloody sneer. She was standing there, sleek platinum hair falling to her back, shrouded by a silky black veil – the one she had been wearing since the funeral – her eyes shining wetly, wide orbs of mercurial silver. Something told him she was not to be harmed; the darkness overruled that small flicker of consciousness as he tore forward, his torn and bloodied clothing whipping around him like the ragged edges of his soul.
"Albus," she said it softly, her voice stating that she was not afraid of him, she should be. She should be very afraid. He was the beast and she was prey. But her voice sounded a chord in him, and suddenly, instantly, he felt her music reverberate through him, forcing the darkness back to the very bottom of his heart. It lay there trembling, desperate to be free once more but her presence kept it down.
She was after all, his humanity.
Cassiopeia.
He dropped to his knees before her, staring at her through eyes of emerald, filled with horror and anguish, not caring to look upon his own mangled hands.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, a broken boy upon the forest floor, the forest that for an acre around them was now a barren wasteland. The moon shone tenderly over the two of them, lighting her hair and making her seem a goddess amongst mortals.
"Please Albus," she said, her voice thick with emotion as she knelt beside him and took him in her arms, he wrapped his own around her, not caring that the fabric of her clothing was pure torture against the shredded skin on his hands, "I can't lose you too Al."
"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry," he cried softly into her ears, and she was crying things too, whispering things he didn't hear because he was too lost in his own exodus.
He saw his blood staining her shirt and hair, blurred beneath his tears. He felt the wetness on his cheek and shoulder that proved how tangible her anguish was, that there was another who shared his pain and that he was not alone.
They stayed like that the rest of the night, holding onto each other in the midst of the desecration.
Grieving for their child.
(*)(*)(*)
A/N: Thoughts?
This story is wrapping up for a close soon dear readers, but I would like to announce that there will be a sequel (actually book 2 of a planned 4 part series set in this AU) titled "Call Me Home." It's the story that I'm sure you've been waiting for – The Scorpius/Lily story of The Good Son Series.
Please note that each book will not be a stand-alone but rather they will carry on the story line, which will only really end at the end of Book 4 (which I only have the skeleton draft of done so far).
This is the biggest project in terms of writing that I have ever undertaken and I hope I keep counting on you my dear readers for support.