A/N: sneaks in trying to hide behind the well worn trash can lid waving white flag. I know I know, I am sorry that it has taken sooooooooo long to post! My life has literally been turned upside down! I am part way through moving from where I have always lived to an apartment. And I was in a rollover accident on Monday; luckily I was alone, only the grace of God and many prayers let me walk away with only a couple of small scrapes on my hand. I was on the way to pick up a friend, I am so glad it was before I picked her up. The car is not salvageable and I have to get my things out of it before my dad takes it to the junkyard, but all in all I am ok, a bit stiff but everything is still in working order and nothing was broken on my person, including my glasses. God is awesome in indescribable ways!!!!
So that is why I have not been able to post yet. I have also been doing some major editing and re reading up to this point. I will be reposting all of the chapters for both the stories in this series (The Phoenix, The Raven, and Prince Charming, and Raising Phoenix) over the next few days or so. For those of you who have read them as they were originally posted don't worry the content has not changed. I have only realigned paragraphs, fixed spelling and grammar errors and alike. The story has not changed. So never fear. If you do go back you will not notice more than a handful of word changes, word additions and alike. That is it.
Now that I have written a long and exhaustive authors notes, I will let you get on to this much awaited chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 26
The Devil's Hatchery
The morning of Halloween dawned bright and crisp. The morning frost thawed to dew and then to nothingness by eight in the morning in the sunshine. The large flocks of birds had nearly all left a few weeks prior as the days got shorter, they were smart, they were leaving before the snow fell, following the harvest of berries and seeds for them to eat. The animals that were to stay the winter were stocking up for the snow that would fall in a few weeks' time and the wild creatures were fattening themselves up for the lean time of year.
This was happening everywhere except the land on which the Malfoy house stood. The plants grew well and the berry brambles were heavy with fruit. But no mice were to be found scurrying around the house to steal flour or bread and no birds had touched the plenty outside on the grounds. All of the wildlife was wise enough to stay away from cursed land, none desired to become a prey item to something they could not fight.
It had been five months since Hermione and Hattie had bore their husband's children. Hattie had born Draco a son to be his heir and inheritor, Draco had named him Scoripus Lucius Malfoy. Hattie had been merely happy that Draco had only named the child and then left the rest up to her and the house elves. The only time she had to really deal with Draco was when he felt like relieving his baser needs or the law required that Draco engage her. She had gotten to the point where her body was merely a participant and her brain went and did something else for however long Draco chose for it to last.
Halloween was bright, clear, cool and crisp; everything a good fall day should be like. The house elves that Draco had acquired were preparing a lovely spread of food for the evening meal that Hattie would have to attend and look good for it, even though there was no one going to be coming. Normally Draco would have people over for such a meal and occasion, but this year was different. This year he was waiting for his father to come out of the chrysalis that was in the back corner of his makeshift labs in the basement. He did not want there to be any distractions, or witnesses to what he was trying to do before the plan was completed. There was also the great desire to be the first to talk to his father about the other things that he had been through as a Dementor.
Draco was not exactly pleased with the birth of his first child; it was only a three quarter blood after all. But he could not help naming the boy child after his father in a fashion, using his father's name on his heir apparent. Normally Draco would have thrown a great party for Halloween, and indeed if the child had been a full Pureblood he would have also, but he did not do that this year, not that too many would have come. Many of those who he would have invited were still trying to deal with the fact that they had small children to take care of, many of his old buddies that would be physically capable of attending (being alive and not locked up in Azkaban) had not managed to get themselves an adequate amount of help to put the children down and party for the evening.
Dinner was a subdued affair, as always, the only real noise was that of the cutlery clanking against the dishes. Draco eyed Hattie a bit suspiciously. He had not seen Hattie for more than the meals where he had required her to appear and the times when he felt it necessary to 'engage' his wife. He had also not seen his son more than a handful of times in the last five moths, though he had heard him wailing from somewhere down the hall in his wife's chambers. Not that he was very putout about the situation. He actually thought that this was a rather ideal situation in the long run. He got to slake his baser needs and he had none of the consequences that he would otherwise have to deal with. The only problem was the fact that his children were not of the blood purity that he wanted. His only and very small conciliation was the fact that his children were of the highest blood purity still allowed under the law.
As for the suspicion that Draco held Hattie in, Draco felt it was well founded due to the fact that she lived in the same house. Though if Draco knew what his wife did know he would have been alarmed at the depth of her knowledge of his undertakings. He had been more attentive, he would have been able to observe the devotedness to his wife that the house elves displayed. They seemed attuned to her every need and she would merely have to think it for more than a few moments and whatever she desired, if it was available, would be brought to her. He would have also caught the fact that she would indeed have conversations, real conversations with the house elves where they would exchange information and where she got most of her knowledge of the goings on in the house. But Draco, by virtue of both his upbringing and subsequent temperament, had not bothered to be attentive or caring toward his nonPureblood wife and did not catch the undertones of discontent within his own house.
The house elves, while highly loyal, were very antsy and worried about the horrid festering wound in the basement. Though they did not go down there, did not have to see it to know what it was doing, they could feel its power and were very much afraid. Though, as afraid as the house elves were, they were not going to abandon their posts, and at least one loving, caring and very needy Misteress and child Master. The Master of the house they severed out of obligation and fear once he had begun the Potion in the basement. They were loyal creatures, many times it appeared to be blindly so, but they were not and had their limits to what they would willingly do.
After dinner was finished Draco insisted that they both sit in the parlor, usually used to accommodate guests for a while, in some semblance of a 'family' time. After they had arrived and sat for a few minutes Draco demanded that his son be brought down to him so that he could look at the boy. After a few minutes of looking at the boy, as held by one of the house elves he waved them both away and then turned a rather predatory look on Hattie. She knew that look and did a great mental sigh of resignation. She lay back on the couch as instructed, hiked up her skirts and rode out her duty, as Draco felt the need to relieve himself. Once he had finished Draco pulled out, cleaned himself and put himself back where he belonged. Then without a backward glance he left Hattie to take care of herself, as always. Hattie prayed that she would conceive again soon so that she would not have to deal with the required amount of engagements, and find ways to avoid Draco when he felt it necessary to do whatever he felt. Perhaps after she had given birth to six children she could disappear and not be forced to live with Draco anymore, but that was a long way off and she could only hope at this time.
Draco in the mean time, after deciding that he was entitled some sort of release of the tension he felt when dealing with the fact his father should 'hatch' any day now, had made his way back down to the lab. He felt a bit more at physical ease after his release, though mentally he was still as wound up as ever. He knew that very soon he would find out if he had made even the slightest miscalculation in the Potion. He knew from his notes that the chrysalis that held his father would soon begin to break down, if his father did not break free from the cocoon soon. Then all would be lost. Draco had begun to spend a good portion of every evening in the basement, just sitting and watching the cocoon in the corner, as if he expected something to happen, which in all truthfulness, he did. Finally tonight, the night that the Wizarding world at large was celebrating its 'independence' from the muggle world and it's personal greatness, Draco's waiting and worries were answered.
As Draco sat and peered at the thing in the corner, as if he could have bored holes into it by will power alone, there came a sound in the otherwise deadly silent labs. How to describe such a sound was something beyond Draco, but it was most similar to perhaps a cross between the sound of someone's foot coming out of extremely thick, gooey mud, and the sound of liquid sloshing around in someone's stomach. Whatever the sound, it was clear that it was not something that would have normally occurred down there in the dark silent catacombs of the basement of the Malfoy home. Draco immediately looked around, much like a spooked prey animal looks in all directions before moving. Then once it seems he had managed to narrow down the possibilities for what had made the strange sound he looked intently back at the thing in the corner. Calling up more light from the candles set in the walls he was able to see clearly that the chrysalis in the corner was actually moving. He also noticed that the thing had changed color over the last nine months. At first he had thought that it was just the thing collecting dust, but now with a great amount of light shining on it he saw that it was not so. The chrysalis was originally a light pale white or off white color with tinges of a fleshy color. But now over the months it had begun to turn an ugly, unhealthy looking black color that looked like some sort of moldy rot, but it did not give off any odor, which Draco was glad for.
As Draco drew closer to the chrysalis the noises from within began to get more frequent in occurrence and noises that sounded like scraping could be heard from within. Quite suddenly there was a tearing sound like that of rotten cloth finally giving way, and the whole thing split like some malformed and disfigured flower of disease, spilling it's liquidous and gelatinous substance all over the floor. The wave of goop from the initial tearing and opening soaked Draco from about his mid torso down as he was nearly beside the chrysalis when it broke.
Edging still nearer, and almost captivated by the sight before him Draco looked at where the center of the chrysalis had been as a shape emerged. It was human in shape and moved to prop itself up on what was its arms, head and hair hanging down, covering and hiding the face of the being. Looking closer Draco saw that it was indeed his father. Draco could not speak for the emotions; both happiness and a wave of fear (which if you ask me came WAY too late) managed to clog his throat so that he could not udder a sound. Raising and lifting his head Lucius looked around and through his long blond hair.
"Draco?" He asked, his voice sounding dry and cracked from long nonuse, though it had still not lost any of its demanding and fear inducing qualities from Draco's memory. "Where am I? What happened? Why am I naked?"
A/N: well, that was creepy, scary and did we mention just wrong. Well Lucius is back on the scene. I can assure you that things are going to be getting even more interesting from here on out! For those of you who are still waiting for Draco to get his just desserts, well don't worry, just hang tight. It will be coming up very soon. He will not prevail in the end, of that I can assure you, and Hattie will not have to deal with him for too much longer either.
I cannot guarantee you when I will be posting the next chapter as I am still unsure which part of things I will be posting, or for that matter, writing. I have a general idea of what I want to be writing, I just have to find the time to write it. I will either have extra time to hang out at college and write, or I will have absolutely no time to write and I will dream of writing as I really have been doing for far longer than I would like to admit.
As always I have to give kudos to my wonderful Beta Skydacinghobbit who has helped me muddle through the next bit of the plot that has been a bit sketchy on the details. And she is one of the most awesome of prayer warriors who I know, thanks a lot girl! You may not think so yet, but just you wait, keep it up and you will be the one where things quake when your feet hit the floor. I know you don't believe it, but trust me; I am not the only one who knows that.
On your way out please leave a review, take a gander of the rest of my stories and if you have time go check out my beta's stores as well. I know that you will enjoy them if you check them out! Live, Laugh, Love ~ Dragons Quill
