Authors
Notes: So far everything has started to turn mellow…. I was thinking of
writing a novella but,.. As it is
now,
I’m might have to have to discontinue this series. I was thinking of writing
some really cool stuff, but it just
didn’t
fit in. Perhaps a second series is in order.
Empty
Was My Soul
by
LuciusMCassius
Yari
Chapter
5
Betrayal
Lucius
stalked around the halls at night. He went even further than usual and
didn’t even bother
to
note the servants who scurried away in fear. He took the liberty to randomly
throw and smash
anything
within his arms reach.
*
Why?! * His mind screamed, * Why? What did I fail at? Aren’t I a
good husband?! * He
picked
up a small statuette and threw it against the wall, pretending it was his
own face.
*
Damn me!!! * He punched the wall with all his might, and screamed in both
rage and pain as
his
flesh impacted with the hard stone. A servant that had been scurrying around
from room to
room
approached him nervously, and looked at his feet sadly as she stooped to
clean the small
trail
he had blazed in the Manor. She nodded respectfully before turning to leave.
He stopped her.
“Get
me something to drink!!” he snarled at her, “And make it hard!!!”
She
paled in apprehension and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her.
Lucius scowled and
stalked
down the lonely hall and up the stairs to the chapel he haunted on a daily
basis. It was
here
that he could tell the world how he felt, pour his deepest emotions into
the air, scream at fate…
He
walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the mantle. To its right
was an organ, the
organ,
his
organ. Music was what relived him of his rage, but he didn’t know if it
would work this
time..
He remembered that his father Cassius Malfoy had come here often and forced
him to play,
and
play, and play. Always he was made to play sad and angry songs while his
father paced, so
he
learned early on how to express such strong emotions through to instrument.
He frowned
miserably.
*
Draco ran to some Mudblood’s house, why? Doesn’t he want to be here…with
me? Narcissa…how…could…you…betray me so…? *
He
snarled at no one. He felt a bitter taste in his mouth as rage bubbled
up again inside him…
Footsteps
suddenly came from the entrance of the chapel; he rounded on the person,
a feral
expression
on his face. It was the Head Maid, Hilda, with a wine bottle in an icebox
and a steel
goblet.
“Master.”
She nodded in the appropriate manner, handing him the goblet, “It’s steel,
so you
wont
be able to smash it as easy, and this is wine, so you’ll fall asleep instead
of going into a
drunken
fury.”
“Thank
you so much, Hilda.” He sneered, snatching the bottle from the icebox.
Anything to keep
from
being sober. His maid raised her eyebrows disapprovingly before turning
and walking away.
No
one wanted to be near the Master for very long when he was in this mood.
She stopped at
the
doorway and said:
“It’s
not all your fault you know, you were raised with no other example of how
to act..”
Then
she left.
He
roared several curses from his vast repertoire and whoever was near quickly
disappeared. He
planted
himself on the organ bench and pulled off the cork to his bottle. He drank
the entire bottle
in
minutes. He didn’t give a damn about alcohol poisoning. He wanted to lose
the pain, and the
memories.
He tipped the bottle from the organ and leaned in on the giant keyboards.
He started to
play,
slowly and aimlessly at first, but gradually he became faster, more furious
and less conscious.
His
fingers seemed to be possessed as he passed in-between consciousness. He
didn’t need music.
He
attacked the keyboard with his own songs, ones he had learned to play through
instinct. It was
an
angry song, fast and sad at the same time. After several minutes he stopped
and leaned over on
the
keyboard, causing it to resonate with one single pitch..
*Narcissa.
* He pondered, * Why do I care about you? Why do I feel this way…even after
all
we’ve
been through? *
He
reached forward and grabbed the wine red sheets over the organ, twisting
his fingers into the fabric.
*I
hate this!! I hate you. I hate myself!!! I just want to die!!! *
And
with that he pulled fiercely at the red sheets, subconsciously knowing
that the heavy, black cross
was
right over him.
It
came crashing down, it’s long spike slicing through his chest, barely missing
his heart, impaling him
and
causing him to fly from his seat at the organ. He screamed, half in disappointment
that the holy item
hadn’t
killed him, half in pain. But he was drunk, poisoned, and he fell into
a blissfully dark sleep. The
last
thing he heard was a voice crying out his name. He mistook it for an angel
telling him he was going
in
the wrong direction; he was supposed to be heading down.
Narcissa
had not bothered to wonder what had happened to Arthur Sinclair after that
morning. She
supposed
he had gone back to his family and friends and overdressed wife gloating
over his newest
triumph,
screwing Lucius Malfoy’s wife. She felt more than used. The man had left
without even saying
goodbye.
She had thought he was kind, she had thought Lucius was kind, too. Was
she just some
pretty
face that came down for polishing once in a while? Did anyone in the entire
god-forsaken earth
love
her?!
She
sniffled and thought of her cold, caustic husband, wondering where he had
run off to while she had
been….busy.
The maids would tell her nothing, and Draco was quite off the deep end
after having his
skull
fractured. She sighed listlessly and tried to turn back to a book on Astronomy.
Lucius was
probably
at the Ministry, working his problems away.
“Milady?”
a voice fro behind called quietly.
She
turned; it was Hilda, the Head Maid. Hilda was a sassy woman in her fifties,
but she was also
the
best maid in the country. She had bee in the Malfoy family since birth;
she had watched Lucius
emerging
from his mother, winced alongside the other maids as the boy had been beaten
by Cassius,
and
observed quietly even now…
Narcissa
considered the woman an equal, seeing as she was quite often treated as
a servant in her own
right.
Lucius saw Hilda as an unpleasant reminder of his father and his past life,
but he didn’t get rid of
her.
He clung to every small reminder of his past, horrible as it was, because
just like Draco doted him,
Lucius
had practically worshiped his father. Narcissa had a feeling that if Lucius
were to come in contact
with
a boggart, it would probably turn into Cassius Malfoy. At least she alone
had not feared the man.
“Milady?”
Hilda repeated.
Narcissa
smiled feebly, “Hello, Hilda, how are you?”
Hilda
didn’t return the gesture.
“Don’t
ask me how I’ve been when your husband’s going into a flying rage, breaking
things and
slapping
around the maids, you hussy!!”
Narcissa
took that like a well-planted blow to the face. Hilda had never been this
rude before. She
blinked
several times. Had Draco’s running away really caused her husband t go
that up the wall?
Or
did he know?! She felt herself starting to break into a cold sweat. Had
he seen Mr. Sinclair leave,
or
did one of the servants tell him? Lucius had always scared her with his
sense of perception.
“I
know what you’re thinking.” Hilda continued, “Does he know? And how?”
Narcissa
swallowed. Hilda, as well as most of the maids, knew about that morning.
“Well,
let me tell you,” Hilda snarled, “The man does know.”
Narcissa
gasped, all her color instantly drained from her face.
“Her
walked in on you two.” Hilda finished.
Narcissa
let out a soft moan and brought her hands to her mouth. So he knew. Was
he going to kill
her?
Or was he going to torture her until the end of their lives? Her mood only
worsened as Hilda
went
on to explain that he had walked in that morning because he had planned
to tell his wife about
their
son’s injuries, and that he had gone off to the chapel to abuse himself
physically and mentally.
The
maid watched silently as Narcissa cried. She shook her head ever so slowly,
pondering the cause
of
the Malfoys’ unhappiness. She had come in contact with 3 generations of
Malfoys, and each one
was
as bad as the rest.
“Was
it worth it?” she whispered ever so softly.
Narcissa
looked up, her eyes red and puffy.
“It-it
wasn’t worth it.” She sniffed through her hands. “He-he didn’t even care
about m-m-me…
I’ve-I’ve
ruined everything.” She bit her lip in effort, trying to keep from wailing.
“It’s
not over yet.” Hilda declared, “If he can forgive you, and you him…”
Narcissa
sniffed again. She was about to reply when the pealing of an organ interrupted
her. She
paled.
Lucius frequently played the organ; when he was furious, or when he was
in pain. He liked
the
surroundings, being in a chapel, and pounding the keys like there was no
tomorrow. It was as
if
he could only express his emotions through the instrument. He was good;
everyone admitted he
could
be a professional if he wanted to, but he was haunted by something; perhaps
a memory that
was
relived every time he played. In any case, his resorting to the instrument
to calm his nerves
usually
meant he had alcohol too. Narcissa began to shake in fear of what the man
had I store
for
her.
Hilda
shook her head and turned to the frightened wife.
“I
gave him some wine, blimey, I can remember when his father had the stuff
and forced the boy
to
play for him on that blasted organ…”
Narcissa
gazed up at Hilda with a pleading written across her face.
“Should
I go to him?” she whispered.
“He
won’t get any less angry. Right now he’s probably too stoned to do anything
to you and still
understand
what you’re saying. Better go to him before he decides it’s all your fault.”
Narcissa
nodded mutely before rising slowly and walking as though she were barefoot
on glass
to
the door. Lucius was going to kill her. She had insulted his pride, his
sense of ethics and morality,
and
worst of all, she had betrayed him for a strange man she didn’t even know.
She began to
see
images of her lifeless corpse being thrown into the deepest dungeon, left
to rot. She did not
know
if Lucius cheated on her; but sometimes he came home smelling different.
Like a woman,
as
if he had been with one for a while, rubbed against them, shared the same
skin with them.
Perhaps
he did, but she had no proof. She crept into the hallway, wincing as Lucius
began to play
an
improvisation. It was incensed with anger and hatred of the third degree;
it caused the windows
to
rattle and the floors to pound.
“Stop
it Lucius…” she cried softly under her breath. Every key that came down
was like a knife
to
her heart. It hurt, and maybe she deserved it, but still…
At
the doorway to the cathedral she halted. Something hard and heavy could
be heard smashing
against
the keyboard of the organ and she heard Lucius scream. The organ continued
playing, as
though
a weight were pressed on its keys. She thought perhaps Lucius was venting
and finishing
a
dramatic piece, but it became very clear that something was wrong. She
covered the distance
between
the chapel and her in seconds.
There
was Lucius, his body coiled over the organ, limp and lifeless. A bottle
of wine lay at his feet,
the
last remnants dripping from its mouth, mixing with the sticky blood running
down the legs of the
instrument.
But what really made her face drain and contort in fear was the cross that
impaled
Lucius
through his chest, with twisted and mangled pieces of metal wrapped around
it. She ran to
her
husband, thinking nothing about the organ’s constant scream, or the over
turned pews. His
eyes
were glazed over, his lips parted, and in his hands he held the red sheets
that were supposed
to
be beneath the black cross. Realization hit her. He had tried to kill himself.
Her husband; the
strong
one, the sturdy one,…the unpredictable one.
“Lucius!”
she moaned softly. She dashed to him and futilely tried to lift him from
the keyboard.
Frantically
she looked around, she couldn’t do magic, she had never been taught how,
she couldn’t
help
him…
“Help!!”
she screamed, trying to attract attention over the organ’s wailing. “Someone
help!!!”
No
one seemed to hear. She pulled at Lucius, harder and harder. As she groaned
in helplessness
a
memory hit her.
A
dressing room:
“Put
this on.”
“Why?”
“It
suits you better than that black dress.”
“Alright…”
Raised
eyebrows.
“You
look beautiful.”
“Did
you peek?”
“Of
course not.”
Soft
screams…
“What’s
that noise?”
“I-I
think it’s my mother…”
In
that very chapel.
“You’re
going to go look at girls aren’t you?”
“You’re
the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met…”
“Mother!!”
Father…look…”
“No!!”
Narcissa snarled. “ I won’t let you leave me Lucius!! I love you! I won’t
let you go!!” She
pulled
as if she were possessed and the cross eased out of him like a knife in
butter. Blood oozed
from
Lucius’ chest and she removed him from the keyboard. At last the organ
stopped crying out.
For
some reason, she no longer felt scared. She was going to save him. Her
Lucius. Even if he didn’t
love
her,…she loved him… She leaned foreword, and placed her palms over his
wounds. Her eyes
closed
and warmth poured from her. If she had been one of the servants running
in, she would have
seen
herself emitting a soft green light, and watched, aghast as Lucius’ bones,
muscle and tissue
mended
into an tender wound, not a life threating one.
Narcissa
felt someone pull her off of him and walk her from the chapel. If she hadn’t
been so
suddenly
tired she would have realized something very important. She had used magic…
This
is the end of Chapter 4!! I’m sorry for taking so long, but I can only
type this during the weekends,
and
then I have parties and school volunteering, blah, blah, blah…
Chapter
5 is going to be one of my favorites!! As a quick taste I’ll tell you some
of the plot. The Dark
Lord
summons Lucius. Since he is unable to attend, Narcissa must go for him…and
is inducted as a
Death
Eater. And Draco gets his first taste of blood…Hehehe.
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