(no subject)
Well, greenie_breizh is gone back home. I'll be joining her there on Tuesday, and I have approximately a ton of things to do in the meanwhile. Watch some DVDs, for starters, including O Brother (still haven't seen it!) and Jurassic Park (am finally going to see it in English! Hopefully Ian Malcolm will be just as enjoyable.). I have some Farscape to watch in English too, while I'm at it, among which the cartoon episode. I'm in for a laugh.
And if I find myself a couple free hours, there'll be a second viewing of Mononoke Hime. Bought myself the soundtrack yesterday, been listening to it non stop. It's sparking muses, too.
Oh, and houses7177 really liked Harshness, cold and deceit, the birthday fic I wrote for her. That made my day yesterday, though I haven't had time to respond to her reply. I was just ecstatic. I'd been so anxious about it, since what she writes is so very good... Not to mention that my AB books are very much not at home and that I was quite worried that I might be twisting Edward to my wishes/needs. Apparently not. Yay! I'm actually really grateful for this whole birthday fic cgwriting started, because I don't think I would have ever written this particular fic if it hadn't been for it. houses had a list of characters she liked, and Narcissa and Edward basically jumped out at me while I was looking it over. Or, more characteristically, Narcissa raised an eyebrow at me and Edward made a very discreet hand motion, face betraying nothing. I think they work wonderfully together.
Besides, it got me to write about all the Malfoys, and that's always something I love. (The only actor who has signed up for OotP, according to imdb, is Jason. There'll be at least that reason to go see the movie. His Lucius is absolutely magnificent, and rather scary too, in a sends-shivers-down-your-spine way. In a very human way, really. All hail to Jason.) I even threw some Zabini in there - couldn't help myself, and it did work with the story, it wasn't just a pointless cameo. Those Slytherins are so very fascinating to write.
Anyway. I've also been thinking about the way I write, which I think has really evolved these past few months. In a very good way. I've completely gone past the stage of "let's get so and so together" - not that I don't write those fics anymore, just that when I do, which is no longer a requisite, it's not just about that. I feel quite good about some of my recent productions, and those I feel most good about, surprisingly, don't really pair up anybody: A Flight of Fancy, Thou Liv'st forever, and now Harshness, cold and deceit.
I'll need to use those few days on my own to really plan what I'm going to write next. I do need to go over and rewrite most of Out of Memory and Time, which I will post on the wadingpool to make it as good as possible as I go. I also have to work on the next episode of Gaia (http://cometogaia.free.fr/), focusing on Steve - title unknown as of now, probably something music-related. There's another original project of mine that needs working on, untitled as well for the moment, about yet again homosexuality and the way to fit in the world. For those of you who know of my obsession for the then unknown hotness that belonged to one of Buffy's former boyfriends, the kid's name is Fab. *wicked smirk*
Those are the most "urgent," I suppose. I have been attacked by several plot bunnies lately, but I'm doing a good job filing them away for later use, so far. Let's just hope they'll keep being that easy to deflect for a while.
Anyway, here's Harshness, cold and deceit. For you BR-people who haven't read AB, just in case you wanna give it a try, let me just explain very quickly what you need to know: the Anitaverse happens nowadays, only the supernatural is part of everyday life. The US is the first country to grant vampires civil rights, and weres of all sorts (there aren't just wolves, but also leopards, lions, swans, etc - and one of my favourites, rats) are being discriminated against. Edward is a bounty hunter, he likes to take out the "monsters" (weres and vamps, really). He's a cold-blooded killer with quite a personality disorder. He can slip as effortlessly into his Death persona (total absence of emotion) as into his Ted persona (Ted Forrester, one of his identities, lives in New Mexico, has a very Southern accent, wears a cowboy hat, can be quite charming and is actually engaged to a New Age woman called Donna, who has two kids - it even seems as if Ted loves her and her kids). Edward's a bit of an enigma, since very little is known about his past, and he's very hard to figure out. There, I think you're good now.
(Oh, and twixou, to shamelessly pique your interest: personally, I have this fantasy of mine where Edward is just Sark in a few years' time. I'm sure an older David would be perfect for the role, but even as far as characterisation is concerned, Sark could have become Edward in the right circumstances.)
Harshness, cold and deceit
for houses
He was never out of his league.
There were, of course, times when he could not be as comfortable as he wished, usually times when he was in the company of, or when his business was however remotely connected to, one small necromancer who would hate to hear him call her small, and who led a life almost as interesting as his own.
But he was never out of his league.
Even now, with his back pressed to the wall behind which he had taken cover to reload his Beretta, there was no telltale trickle of sweat down his spine, no increase in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, no anxious knot in his lungs, no hesitation in his precise gestures, no flicker in his dead eyes.
He pushed himself off the wall and fired into the open space left by the door as he ran to the other side of the frame. Two more men down. Six to go. He let the bullets fly by, counting to nine before stepping into the open space to open fire. When he retreated to the cover of the wall an instant later, he knew he only had two men left to shoot. His contact was going to learn what it meant to give Ned Woods incomplete information. Or rather, his contact's acquaintances, since there was very little learning you could do once permanently dead. He reloaded.
Again, he called forth the mental image of the room's disposition, of the two remaining men's location, and stepped into the open. He immediately noted that the superimposition of his mental tracing on reality was not perfect. His bullets caught the two men between the eyes, but there was unplanned movement on his left. He spun in time to lodge a third bullet in the heart of the man who had until then escaped his notice, but not before he himself was hit.
He did not feel the wound at first; in fact, it took him an instant to realise that the gunshot he heard likely meant, given the man was a professional, that he must have been hit. He looked down and there it was, right under his ribs, the entry point.
His contact might have time to learn not to give him incomplete information after all. His death would be slow and painful.
When the first hints of pain reached his brain, Edward locked them away to focus on the present. There were probably more men on their way to block the exit and he had little ammo left; his only option was to take another way out. He broke into a run, ignoring the signals of pain his brain was continually receiving from his stomach, senses alert on his surroundings. He balled the cloth of his black cotton top over the wound with his free hand to prevent the dripping blood from leaving an obvious trail. He strongly disliked being the prey instead of the hunter.
According to the plans of the house he had earlier studied, there should be a staircase to his right; he ran up the stairs, knowing they were less likely to look for him on the second floor. Who in their right mind would go up when chased? But there stood a tall oak in the backyard; he would climb onto it through a window, and from there down to the ground.
The first door he tried was locked and he moved on to the next one. It opened onto a child's room. At least some of the information his contact had given him was correct; Remulus, the owner of the house, was away on vacation with his family. The room was empty and perfectly tidy, much more orderly than a child's room should be. He closed the door shut without a sound and blocked it with a chair.
He barely noticed the drawings that had been taped on the window panes, suddenly aware of a regular burst of heat pulsing from the object in his pocket. He did not do robberies, that was what he should have answered, as had been his first instinct. He was a bounty hunter, not a thief. But the money had been good, and the idea of stealing from Balthazar Remulus much too enticing. He might not get to kill anything too challenging, but the job in itself was a bigger challenge than he had found those past few months. He had taken the job, and there he was. Trying to open the window with one hand, he fished in his pocket for the artefact. He had been told it was neutralised. The things that he had been misinformed about were starting to grow alarmingly in number. This simply did not happen to him.
The object was nothing more than a small wooden cube with a symbol on each face - or that was what it had been when he had disabled the alarms and taken it out of its vault. The window gave way at last right as he was staring at the artefact that kept changing shape on his palm, at an increasing rate. The pace of the heat burst grew accordingly, and with each throb the heat seemed to spread more into Edward. There was blood on it, he suddenly noticed, his blood that had run down his stomach to seep through his pants pocket. He was distantly aware of the sounds of men's voices in the hallway outside, but his body was taken in by the expanding warmth and soon enough even his brain was unable to function beyond registering sensations.
He thought he heard the door slam open right as the heat reached an unbearable level, seeming to settle down on his stomach wound. His vision grew red and he blindly reached for purchase with his free hand, which slid down the window pane, tearing down one of the childish drawings on its way.
Edward lost consciousness as he hit the floor.
Under the confused eyes of the guard that had burst into the bedroom, he swiftly proceeded to disappear from this plane.
***
Narcissa Malfoy was going over the menu her house elves had planned for the next dinner party. It had been long since Lucius had last pretended to care about, or at least notice the efforts she put in preserving their family image, but more than ever she put great thought into it. Now that the Dark Lord was back, putting up as respectable a front as possible was of dire importance. The hint of a frown graced her smooth brow when she noticed the shrimp that had been planned. It was a well-known fact that that detestable little man Fudge disliked shrimp. And, detestable though he might be, Cornelius Fudge happened to be the best kind of Minister of Magic they could have hoped for: blind and power-hungry.
Narcissa suppressed a sigh as she sharply underlined the shrimp. The elves would have to be punished, of course, what a tedious chore. She might just ask Draco to do it; her devious boy did seem to enjoy it immensely. She hoped he would soon grow out of that phase; Morgan knew that Lucius never had. Inflicting pain ought to be nothing more than a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
The rest of the menu seemed satisfactory, if lacking in originality. Narcissa drew herself up from the armchair she had been settled in and gasped in shock as a man's form began to appear in the middle of her living room, lying on his stomach, head turned away from her. The mansion was of course protected against unwanted Apparitions, but this was obviously not one. A red haze tasting strongly of a magic foreign to her suffused him as he gradually took form, then slowly receded.
Wand in hand, Narcissa cautiously and steadily approached the black-clad body, pursing her lips in disgust when she realised that blood was seeping into the carpet. She walked around the still body to get a look at his face. He did not look like much, she noted with dismay. Ordinary features, rather boyish maybe, under short fair hair. She could not guess at his age more precisely than to say, in his early thirties perhaps?
He had a piece of paper clutched in his hand and she crouched down, taking care that her robes did not reach the blood. Could this dying man be a message for Lucius, from a Deatheater or the Dark Lord himself? She remembered the odd sensation she had got from the magic that had him appear and admonished herself for this irrational assumption. She would have recognised their dark magic from a mile off. This had been different.
She tugged the paper out the man's clutching fingers and frowned as she unwrinkled it. It seemed to be a child's drawing, that of a big house with three badly drawn inhabitants, all blond, a man, a woman and a significantly shorter boy. Above the roof were clumsily written the two words "Malfoy Mansion" in capital letters.
After a second's shock, Narcissa's lips set into a disdainful line. Draco was not this short.
She rose, looking down at the bleeding body at her feet. What to do? The sensible thing would be to Apparate him somewhere else, in some deserted land far from here, or if she were feeling generous near a Muggle hospital. As if that were a blessing, a Muggle hospital. She could well imagine the lack of hygiene of a place overrun with them, bleeding, sick and exhausted.
She looked back down at the drawing in her hand. The child had signed, Helena, in the bottom right corner. Narcissa could not recall any of their acquaintance's children going by the name of Helena. The enigma piqued her curiosity, coupled with the strange taste of the magic that had brought the man here. Should she let him die, she would never have her answer. Should Lucius hear of his presence, the result would be the same. Her husband was increasingly short of temper these days and he would not tolerate this man's presence in his home.
She would need to act quickly. She folded the drawing neatly and thrust it in one of her pockets, then crouched again and rolled the body over. She rid the man of his top, hardly noticing his well-toned chest to focus on the bleeding wound. She had been told more than once, back in her Hogwarts days, that she would have made quite a Healer. When looking at the life she led, she found it rather ironic that she had such a facility at easing pain and curing people. Oh, she was not a Deatheater herself, she did not bear his Mark, but she helped the Dark Lord along in her own way. She was, in every possible manner, Lucius' wife.
She had once had the occasion to put her healing skills to good use, shortly after the Dark Lord's demise, when Lucius had come back from a Deatheater raid with a stomach wound not unlike the one this stranger sported. Well, quite unlike really, she amended when it came upon her that the man's wound might be Muggle-caused. Hopefully he was not a Muggle himself.
As she cast a first spell to stabilise the man's state and slow the bleeding, she recalled Lucius' face on that day. It was the day when he had admitted that the tide had turned. He had hung up his Deatheater mask and Narcissa had only approved. What good would it have done, to sacrifice themselves to a dead master that could no longer either hurt them, or offer them anything? Lucius was still so young then, every bit the man she had been glad to be promised to. There had been a passion in him that he had still not forsaken, but in those days the fire in his cold eyes would occasionally burn for her. As soon as he had been well enough, they had made fierce, passionate love, which had threatened to put all of her efforts to naught due to the severity of his not quite healed wound.
After that, the cold had seeped into him more and more every day.
She cast a second spell that ought to have the man's damaged vessels, muscles and flesh knit back together. It would be a long, tedious process, and rather painful for him, but she might brew him a painkiller if he cooperated. She then summoned a stretcher under him and again wrinkled her nose at the state of the carpet. She sent a summoning spell to Blinky, a house elf she could be sure of, and patiently waited for it to arrive. She glanced at the man's frowning, sweaty face and brushed a few damp strands of hair off his forehead. He was burning up. She cast a cooling charm and his features grew less tense in a matter of seconds.
"What is it you want Blinky do, mistress?"
"Tend to the carpet, then prepare the guest room. Not a word of it, or of this man, to anyone."
"Yes, mistress."
Narcissa looked at the small creature wrapped in an old rag for a second, then headed for the door, stretcher following behind her. She Accio'ed the Invisibility Cloak she kept in a wooden chest in the attic and waited patiently for it to get there. She then covered the man with it and headed for the guest room. She did not meet any elf, but then they had learned to make themselves discreet whenever one of their masters walked by. They were well-trained.
Blinky was only just finishing dressing the bed when Narcissa walked in. The elf drooped its large-eared head down in a small bow and Narcissa dismissed it with a look. She wrinkled her nose at what she was forced to do and took the man's shoes off. She transferred him to the bed after throwing back the covers and noticed while doing so that his other hand held yet something else. It was no small task to pry his fingers open, but she finally got her hands on a small cube of reddish wood with some symbols carved on each face. She examined it for a moment, aware that it retained a faint aftertaste of the foreign magic, then slipped it into her pocket and straightened.
She spent a few more seconds studying the man's ordinary features, then turned on her heels and walked out of the room after setting up a few warding spells.
***
Silverware clicked against the china plates, the only occasional sounds to break the silence that had settled over the table for dinner.
"Zabini and I are meeting up with Warrington and Montague tomorrow."
Narcissa smiled absent-mindedly at her son. "Practice?"
"What else?"
The answer got her attention. It was uttered without so much as a hint of contempt, no underlying haughtiness, only such nonchalance as would always set off alarm signals in her mind. She arched an elegant eyebrow at her son. "Indeed, I wonder."
She glanced at Lucius, who was paying them absolutely no heed as he looked over some letter he had just received. She had trouble recalling the last time he had talked to Draco of his own volition for something other than a blame or a sneer.
Narcissa looked back at her son, who was doing his best at looking inconspicuous; she hoped he would soon learn to better hide his true feelings and thoughts. "You are spending a lot of time with the Zabini boy."
Draco shrugged, as if on the defensive. "He's good on a broom."
"I don't disapprove. In fact, I think he is a good deal worthier of being your friend than either Vincent or Gregory."
"The Crabbes and the Goyles are much better families than the Zabinis," Lucius cut in imperiously, rolling the parchment he had been reading and returning his attention to his plate.
Narcissa cut a small piece of venison and put it in her mouth, meeting her husband's cold grey eyes without a hint of a challenge in hers. Unlike her son, she had long since mastered the art of not showing her thoughts. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle might have Deatheaters for fathers, contrarily to Blaise Zabini, but she had been quite appalled by Draco's choice of schoolmates. She could understand what he saw in them; they probably never questioned him, since they lacked the wits for it, and their muscles could certainly come in handy. She was simply glad that he would take up the company of someone who had more of a brain than the two thugs, if only for Quidditch-related purposes.
Which brought her back to the fact that she was quite certain Quidditch would not be on the agenda the next day. Her devious boy was so transparent to her. But she would need to probe him later, when Lucius was not there.
The meal was quickly over. Lucius retired to his study and Draco to his chambers. Narcissa made for the guest room. She knew she was living dangerously, and if ever Lucius learnt of the man's presence... She fingered the wooden cube she had taken from him and that now resided in the pockets of her well-cut robes. If this were an object of some foreign power, as she suspected, she could not let this opportunity pass them by. Narcissa Malfoy was very dedicated to her family.
She walked into the guest room and closed the door behind herself. There was a moan of pain and she walked to the bedside to find the man thrashing about, covered in sweat. The cooling charm she had earlier cast should not have worn off so rapidly. She sat by his side and was about to cast another one when his eyes shot open and his hand came to grab her wrist.
The eyes - blue, like her own - were burning with pain. His face was contorted in a mask of agony. His grip was like steel. Then the eyes seemed to focus on her and, slowly, everything was wiped from them. Every feeling leaked out into nothingness, and not a hint of pain was left in either the eyes or the features. Narcissa was so stunned by the transformation that she sat there, staring. She did not even acknowledge dropping her wand when he twisted her wrist just so.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice raw with disuse and tone peculiar in its evenness.
The question brought her back to her senses. She reached for her wand with her free hand, but before she could get it she found herself lying on her back on the bed, the bare-chested stranger on top of her, their faces inches away. He had pinned her hands on each side of her head and she was powerless to buck him off. He was stronger than he looked and she respected the fact that he could function through the pain he was bound to be in. Nothing in his face but the coat of sweat would have hinted at his condition. She found that her breath had caught in her throat as tingles travelled down her spine.
"Who are you?" he repeated, and she noticed he had an American accent.
How distasteful. An American.
She arched an arrogant eyebrow at him, not attempting to suppress the wry quirk of her lips. "Given you would not be alive if it weren't for me, I would expect some other form of gratitude."
He stared at her with those empty eyes of his for a second in silence, then tightened his hold on her wrists. "Who are you, and where am I?"
"I do not give my name to strangers who are threatening me," she replied icily, drawing up all the haughtiness she was capable of despite her precarious position. "In fact, I begin to suspect I truly should have let you bleed to death. Kindly let go of me. You are, whether you will it or not, at my mercy. Your wound needs tending to."
After a few more moments during which Narcissa wondered whether the man would not simply kill her - she knew from that emptiness in his eyes that he could be none but a killer - he relented and let go of her wrists. He got off her and slumped in the bed with his back to the wall, watching her every move tensely. His lips formed a thin line, the only sign to betray his pain.
Narcissa made a show of rubbing her sore wrists as she straightened up.
"Who are you?" he repeated yet again.
"I truly feel as if I should be asking that question," she answered as she got her wand back. "Lie down."
She had a look at his wound after he cautiously complied. The scar was quite apparent, but nothing quicker could have been expected. She could not see why he would still be burning up. She put a hand on his sweaty forehead and allowed herself the smallest of frowns. All the while his eyes were heavy on her, though she would not pay them any mind.
"Where are my weapons?" he asked at last, changing questions.
"You did not arrive with any," she answered absent-mindedly, still puzzling over his high temperature. "And even if you had, do you really think I would give them over? Especially after the treatment you have just given me."
She prodded at the wound to check on the scarred tissue, making him suck his stomach in with pain. No sound escaped him. Until a tense, "Are you a nurse then?"
Again, she mustered up all of her haughtiness to be reflected in the look she cast him. "I do not need to work for a living. But I have been tending to you, if such was your question." And again, a slight frown as her gaze travelled back down his chest to the wound. "You seem to be reacting well to the charm, I cannot see why your body temperature is still so high."
A small pause, and then, "The charm?" The voice was even, any emotion obliterated from it, but the question still stood. Brilliant. He would be a Muggle. At least he knew of magic, she presumed, given his manner of entrance. Narcissa suspected he would not be worth the trouble she was going through. "Where are we?"
"In a guest room at the very same house you suddenly appeared in," she answered, "and I would very much like to know how you did that."
The gaze turned speculative for an instant. "So would I." He looked at her wand. "What's that for?"
"To do magic, of course."
One of his lips' corners raised into an amused smirk. "A magic wand?" Amusement seeped through his voice only slightly. The smirk went as rapidly as it had appeared and the voice was as cold as ever: "What next, broomsticks?"
"I would have thought you knew of the wizarding world, given your manner of entry into my living room."
Another pause. "The wizarding world." The cold eyes swept over the room. "Where am I?"
"This is Malfoy Manor. You're in Devon."
"And there's a wizarding world in England."
"All over the world, really," she answered tiredly. "But England is the only bearable place to live in."
A wild light had come on at the back of his dead eyes. He propped himself up on his elbows. "Tell me, have vampires been granted civil rights in the United States?"
She frowned her nose in disgust. "Morgan, I hope not. Surely even the American Secretary of Magic would not be such a fool."
He brought a hand to his injured side with a small wince, letting his head fall back down on the pillow. For the first time since he had seen her, his eyes were shut tight in pain, and she irritatingly found herself missing the weight of his gaze on her. When he passed out some half a minute later, Narcissa realised they still had not introduced themselves.
***
When Edward next reached consciousness, he was glad to find that he was alone in the room. Alone and in the dark, though not dark enough for him not to quickly get accustomed to it. After a brief argument with himself, he decided to hell with eventual surveillance and allowed himself to grimace at the pain that was smarting his side. He had a fever, and from what the woman had said she could not guess at its cause. He felt the wound tentatively, surprised again that it would already be scarring.
But then, this was alternative medicine if anything was.
He was as far from home as he could get - whatever home was. He had been shot. He had been set up, too, he had no doubt about that. Things would not have gotten so far out of control if he had not been set up. He had been shot, set up, magically taken to another world altogether - unless this place and the blond woman were just feverish hallucinations - not to mention to England, and robbed of what he had himself stolen.
Maybe, just maybe, he ought to admit that - no. The fever was giving him delirium. This was well within his league. The blond woman had been a surprise with her cool haughtiness, but surely she would not be hard to play. Good ol' Ted might not be the best one for that, though. Maybe - just maybe - she could actually be one for Death himself. Pain had not prevented Edward from noticing her quick intake of breath when he had rolled her under him, nor that quick look in her eyes she had immediately covered up.
She was a lonely, haughty, proud, beautiful woman. Married, too. She was well within his league.
Edward pushed the pain to the back of his mind and forced himself to function past the weakness of his body. He sat up slowly. He was left without any of his most beloved weapons, only the garrotte that was hidden along his leather belt. He almost smiled when he noticed a glass of water on the bedside table. Of course, it could well be mixed with a poison or a truth serum, but he did not see why the woman would simply not have injected either one to him while he was out. The risks were minimal and he did need it. He willed his hand to stop trembling as he brought the glass to his lips, sniffed it suspiciously, then took a tentative sip.
It tasted like water, which did not mean anything.
He drank it carefully so as not to spill a drop, which his parched throat would not have allowed. He did not feel any stronger, but he forced himself to stand and, leaning on the bedside table, reached for the window. With difficulty, he pulled the curtains open. Starlight flooded him. The window, however, was stuck closed. He would not have had the strength to go anywhere, in any case. The landscape in front of him was what he expected from the gardens of an English - manor, had she said? Malfoy Manor. The name rang vaguely familiar, but he could not pinpoint it.
When he felt his legs would no longer support him, he headed back to bed. He would rather have searched through the room, but his condition would not allow it. He was feeling hotter and hotter by the second. His legs gave under him right as he reached the bed and he only just managed to fall onto it. He lay on his back and breathed deep, regular breaths, hating to lose control of his body.
She had said it, he was at her mercy. Good thing he would be able to play that to his advantage.
Soon enough, a fevered sleep had claimed him yet again.
When he next woke up, it was to feel a wet cloth wiped on his forehead. It was now day. Her big blue eyes came into focus, shining with discontent.
"My cooling charms have but little effect on you now. I hope you appreciate the lengths to which I am going, using this Muggle method to try and bring you some measure of relief."
"Muggle?" he managed, then licked his lips to wet them.
She brought a glass to his lips, supporting his head with her other hand to allow him to drink. "Non-wizarding folk." She laid his head back down on the pillow, her gentle gestures contrasting with the disgust painted across her aristocratic features. Disgust was replaced by mild irritation as she took up the wet cloth. "I cannot see what to do to bring the fever down, and am still powerless in finding its cause. I would be rather annoyed if you were to die now that I have made so much effort to keep you alive, Muggle."
The emptiness came within him; he welcomed it as he would an old lover. "Edward."
A raised eyebrow, apparently a trademark of hers. "Narcissa."
"Narcissa," he repeated evenly, maybe stressing the s's a little, watching her closely.
A flicker of something in her eyes, too brief for him to identify.
"Well. Any thought on how to improve your condition?"
He thought for a moment. The fever was so high it might have been hard to think clearly, if he had not been himself. The emptiness was a useful refuge where such things could not touch him, but more than useful it had become pleasant over the years. An old friend, an old lover. The emptiness would never fail him, and Death always came victorious. The emptiness held the madness at bay, too, all the more so when he had to deal with such concepts as being in another dimension. Anita would probably be jealous if she ever heard of that story, which she of course never would.
"Might be due to an infection." In another state of mind, he might have wished he did not have to ask this question. "Did you take out the bullet?"
The shadow of a frown came to disturb her harmonious, smooth features. "The bullet?"
"Let me guess, you wizard types don't have guns. Muggle weapons. The bullet is their projectile, a small leaden ball. I've got one inside of me right now."
She looked truly, profoundly shocked. "How primitive."
"Only when you're on the receiving end. I tend to avoid that." She raised an eyebrow as if to question that statement, and he did not take her up on it given his current condition. "You'll have to open me up and take it out."
He expected her to show some reluctance but found none in her levelled gaze. "Very well." There was maybe only a challenge in her blue eyes as her fingers curled around her wand, and somewhere in the far recesses of his mind he felt anticipation that he could take her up. "You might want a painkiller first."
"I'd rather keep my wits about."
She raised questioning eyebrows, but did not comment. She muttered something under her breath, wand pointed at his wound, and felt her put the wet cloth in his hands. Immediately he brought it to his mouth and bit on it, hard, to keep from screaming with pain. A couple of muttered words later and he saw the bullet float up, covered with his blood. He grabbed it in his free hand and met her gaze, biting harder than ever into the cloth. Another incantation and pain was searing his side again. He waited until he grew accustomed to it, until it could no longer reach him all through the emptiness, then gradually released his hold on the cloth.
Her tone held some hint of respect. "I have rarely seen such withholding of pain."
Yes, Narcissa could take Death. Narcissa would fall for Death, if Edward had his will. She might wear a wedding ring, but so far nothing she had said or done had identified her as wife to anybody. She was his for the taking.
He propped himself up on an elbow, eyes empty and tone even. "Some Muggles aren't as bad as others."
He opened his hand and looked at the bullet, then wiped it clean with the cloth. Somebody would pay for this. As soon as he got back home, he would make this his own crusade, starting with his contact Barry. If Barry proved more resilient to torture than planned - unlikely - or died before giving him sufficient information, Edward would go to the one that had offered the job, although he was probably not involved; a "probably" was not good enough in his line of work. He would go all the way to Remulus himself if it was needed. Heads would roll.
He heard Narcissa whisper another word and the pain he held at bay vaguely relented. He looked back at her and inclined his head ever so slightly forward in a gesture of thanks. One of the corners of her lips lifted in the hint of a satisfied smile.
"Now that you feel better, if you would care to tell me how you came to be here..."
He weighed his options, reminded once again that she had been right in asserting that he was at her mercy. However... "Does your husband know I'm here?"
She glanced down at her wedding ring before meeting Edward's gaze dead on. "No. He would most likely kill you before we could learn anything concerning this." And at this she held up between two fingers the artefact he had been sent to steal. "I found it in your hand when you appeared. In your other hand was this drawing."
She let him have the drawing, keeping the cube out of reach. He looked at it curiously. A child's drawing of Malfoy Manor, or so it said. Helena - the name of one of Balthazar's kids. The faint memory of drawings taped to a window; that of grabbing desperately for purchase. The pulse of the artefact as it spun and morphed. Now he remembered where he knew the name from.
"Who drew this?"
He looked up at her. Again, weighed his options. "As you might have guessed, I'm not from around here. This was drawn by a child in my world."
"And this?"
He looked at the cube, then back at her wide eyes. "I don't know."
An expectant pause. He knew everything would be played in the next few minutes.
She raised an eyebrow again as she slipped the cube back in her pocket. "In that case, give me one reason why I should not just dispose of your body."
He let a small measure of amusement penetrate his eyes. Double up or nothing. "What makes you think you could do it?"
Most people would have answered by listing the things they had going in their favour, starting with their wand, the fact that he was wounded, that he did not know anything about this world and that he was at their place, in enemy territory as it were. Narcissa Malfoy, however, opened her mouth to answer, then took a good look at his eyes and seemed to think better of it.
Instead, she asked, "Do I have any other option?"
The game was far from being won yet. "Help me get back home."
"Why would I do that?"
"Saves you the trouble of having to explain me to your husband."
"Again, disposing of you would achieve the same result."
"Given you manage it, and discreetly at that."
"Given I manage it."
Edward let his cold gaze sweep over her body, taking note of the unmistakable signs of attraction she was showing. Cold though she might like to pretend she was, her emotions were just as easy to read as anybody else's, simply on a different level. To Edward, she was no different than a hundred other wanna-be cold persons he had interacted with. Ruthless, callous, pitiless they might be, but none could reach the true state of absence of feeling he knew so intimately. They were all, ultimately, driven by their emotions, and as such were easy to manipulate.
He steadily looked away at the window, leaving her to collect herself and wonder whether she had dreamt his look.
"What precautions have you taken against your husband finding out about me?"
She looked up from her hands to his face, meeting his gaze without any show of feeling. "I cast a few discreet warding spells. This is not for you to worry about." She paused, evidently on the verge of saying something. Edward simply waited. "I will not help you go home. You, however, will help me find out everything about the cube."
Edward let the shadow of a smile play on his lips, barely existing enough for her to maybe guess at it and wonder, again, whether she was imagining things.
Then he nodded.
She raised an eyebrow, nodded back, drew herself up. "I have a dinner to attend to. I will be back with you later this night. I suggest you think back on everything you know about the artefact."
"Narcissa," he called her back as she neared the door. She paused, then turned around to face him. Her look was almost fearful, as fearful as she would let herself go. "I will need to eat."
"Yes," she acknowledged with a cold smile. "You will."
She walked out.
***
Narcissa tried her best to rationalise keeping Edward alive. She truly did. She could only spare a few hours a day for him, adding fleeting visits when she had the opportunity. For once, she resented her own thoroughness when after only thirty minutes, she had already asked him all the relevant questions. She then told herself she kept him because he was quite obviously withholding information - which he was. She would not risk helping herself to some of Lucius' stack of Veritaserum, which he kept under very good lock, and finding out what Edward was hiding became her priority. Fortunately, when that argument threatened to crumble under the weight of her inability to get anything out of him that he did not wish to share, she discovered that he was quite learned, for a Muggle. His mastery of several languages and his sharp analytic mind made him apt to help her research the Malfoy library for any reference to the artefact in question.
Narcissa was not the most influential Deatheater's wife merely due to either one of her last names, Black or Malfoy. She was the most influential Deatheater's wife because she was no fool. In fact, she was much more down to earth than most wizards she knew, including her husband and the Dark Lord. They had ideals. They had a vision. She had nothing but her determination to serve her family's best interests.
However, she had to acknowledge that keeping Edward did nothing for her family. If anything, it endangered it. Narcissa was not one to take risks. Keeping this Muggle under Lucius' nose was a great risk. After a few days, she recognised that, while the artefact did matter and she deemed Edward helpful, it was not the reason she kept him. This was only an additional benefit.
She kept him because he was colder than anyone she had ever met, a coldness that was not so much the contrary of heat as the absence of it. He scared her. He scared her to the depths of her being in a way no one ever had, and she cherished the adrenaline rush and the imperceptible shivers he triggered in her. Paradoxically, Edward's coldness had her admit to herself how much she missed the heat that Lucius no longer showed her.
Lucius underestimated her, too, which Edward never did. (She was perfectly aware that she had moved on to comparing the two men, albeit on a peculiar scale - Edward was a Muggle and had no hope of rivalling Lucius after all.) In fact, interacting with Edward was like one big game, the rules of which they were both constantly reinventing. It was entertaining to hold a conversation with one who both had a sharp wit and did not think her part of the wallpaper.
On the previous day, she had watched him with amusement when he had asked her to give him a book that was on the desk across the room from the bed, as if he were too weak to get it himself. He had never stood in her presence, but she knew all the same that he could walk perfectly well. He had searched the whole room a few times already at night.
She consequently watched him with a sardonically raised eyebrow. "Am I supposed to believe you could not get it yourself?"
That humourless smirk of his, and then he repeated, "Would you Accio the Chronicles of Celdar for me?"
She did so while holding his gaze steadily, then handed the book to him without a twitch to her lips. Inside, laughter was bubbling up. Yes, Edward provided her with entertainment, a thing that her life had come to greatly lack.
As far as the research was concerned, they had not uncovered much. They had been unable to find anything resembling the symbols on the cube. As far as they had been able to conjecture, the artefact had been activated by Edward's blood, but neither of them was willing to test that theory until they learned more about the cube. Narcissa had been shocked to learn that their world was a children's story in his own, and disappointed that he knew not what was supposedly to become of them. Of course, she could not be sure he was telling the truth, but his answers pointed to how unfamiliar he was with the books, beyond their mere premise. What little she could guess of him did not hint at the contrary; she could hardly picture him reading those books, should it be for himself or to, Morgan forbid, a child.
She was, however, rather puzzled as to how a story featuring the Dark Lord could be intended for children.
The drawing of Malfoy Manor seemed to have given a destination to the artefact, an apparent gateway between dimensions. Narcissa carefully avoided thinking about exactly what it meant that she was nothing but a character in the world he came from; the implications were too dizzying and she enjoyed the concept of free will. Edward, in any case, was not troubled by it one way or another; he had pointed out that for all they knew, his world might be a work of fiction in yet another dimension, or in the Muggle world of this very dimension for that matter. His sense of self was too strong to let the idea affect him.
But those were only assumptions on which they were working, and they had no solid facts about the wooden cube that had brought him here. Narcissa's head spun with the possibilities it created for one who could master it. She had forgotten herself and gone on a tirade about it; Edward had watched her coolly, untouched by her excitation. His imperturbable look had brought her down immediately.
It was now a week since Edward had appeared in her living room. Blinky was a Black house elf and completely loyal to Narcissa; it had not mentioned anything pertaining to Edward to anyone. The latter had proved quite Muggle indeed, and unable to work past the lock she had put on the door. There was no reason either Lucius or Draco should enter the guest room. So far, her secret was safe. But for how much longer?
Beyond this, Narcissa had no doubt at all that she would reveal Edward's existence, or rather terminate it herself, as soon as she knew all she wanted about the artefact. He provided her with entertainment, yes, but entertainment was highly overrated. She was only indulging herself temporarily. In fact, she was resolved to end this within the next few days. One week, already, had been too long.
She had felt his gaze on her for a few minutes when he finally spoke, in that even tone that betrayed absolutely nothing, and which made one feel it was not because he was a master at dissimulation, but because there was nothing to betray. "What's his name?"
She looked up at him calmly. His back was propped up against a pillow, a discarded book open in his lap. "His?"
"Your husband's."
A tendril of irritation closed in on her. "Lucius."
Edward tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, watching her with empty, dead eyes. She forced herself to hold his gaze, hard as it was not to glance away. "Does he make you stay here?"
"Nobody makes me do anything," she replied haughtily.
The shadow of a smile, or just an illusion maybe. "Do you love him?"
She paused, licked her suddenly dry lips, ignored the loud thump of her heart. Edward was watching her steadily, blue eyes reflecting absolutely nothing. Then, at last, the admission, a whisper and yet a shout. "Yes..."
And still, no emotion. "Does he love you?"
Her chest felt as if it would burst from too much pressure. Her heart would implode, her ribcage cave in, her lungs collapse and shrivel. The horrifying vision of herself lasted but a second, more than enough to jolt her profoundly. There was a tightness in her throat and she clamped her hands on the book she held. She could only focus on Edward's eyes as the question rocked back and forth within her, bumping into her inner walls painfully. She pressed her lips tightly together, willing herself to control the pain. She closed her eyes, and when she next opened them Edward was kneeling on the ground in front of her, his hands to each side of her on the wide armchair.
His eyes had come alive.
He moved slowly, as one touched by a Tardus Curse. She could have told him to stop at any moment, which was the most agonising of it all, because she did not. He paused, his breath blowing gently on her lips. She looked at him steadily, at the eyes that held such warmth and desire, then closed her own and pressed her lips on his. The kiss started gently, soon growing in heat. Lips parted and tongues plunged in. His hands settled on her waist, gripping the material of her robes, as hers brought him closer to her by the nape and the shoulder. She felt that she needed to drink him in and hold him there forever, driven by an urge that was not hers to command.
His teeth scraped on her bottom lip the way Lucius used to favour and she melted against him.
The next moment, she had drawn herself up. Despite her sudden gesture, he was still kneeling at her feet, not unbalanced in the slightest. He was looking up at her, eyes empty all anew. His lips were swollen just as she imagined hers were. The ragged breaths she was hearing were hers, she realised with horror. She thinned her lips to a line. Such emptiness reflected in those eyes.
The slap rang loudly in the small room.
She walked out with as much hauteur as being a Black and a Malfoy had taught her.
***
Edward let his head turn with the slap, not feeling the sting any. He whipped his head back to catch sight of her regal exit from the room. Such pride. He had not been sure how exactly she would react, only that he would get his way in either case. What had happened was, by far, the most sensible and least troublesome option.
He looked down at the wooden cube he had artfully picked from her pocket, then stood up. Reality was such that he had to take this chance, unless he wanted to take a bigger risk by remaining at Narcissa's mercy.
He picked up a bit of parchment and a quill, drawing a simplified house to figure his hideout in New Mexico, some hundred miles from Ted's place. He scrambled the place's name next to it. Conjectures were all he had to go on with, something which he never let happen. Things such as this whole adventure never happened to him; they happened to people like Anita who had potential, but not yet mastery. He had achieved mastery. He was supposed to be beyond this stage. And this was the reason why, quite logically, anyone who was even remotely involved in this matter would pay the price. Death would make sure of that.
He slid his shoes back on, tied the laces, took his garrotte from his belt and sliced his palm open by applying enough pressure with the thin wire. All the while, emptiness and single-minded determination filled him. His aim was cold and unfeeling; he would go home and deal out punishment, but not because of a vain, passionate desire for revenge. He would deal out punishment because such things never happened to him.
He watched the blood rising to the surface along the thin cut, put the garrotte back in place after wiping it on the sheets, then purposefully widened the cut so as to heighten the blood flow. When he felt there was enough, he clutched the hasty drawing in his intact hand and closed the other one around the wooden cube.
The beat started out slowly, heat already seeping through him with each pulse. The process was much slower than he remembered it, probably due to the difference in the blood flow, but the no-longer-cube did pick up in rhythm. He felt no fear, no apprehension, as the red haze gradually suffused him.
***
Narcissa stopped a few steps from his door. She was not by any means tempted to walk back in. He was a filthy Muggle, no matter how smart, cold or attractive. But beyond this, the true reason was that she loved Lucius with every piece of her ice queen's heart. She loved him and she loved their son, her Draco, the fruit of their joining. She loved them more than she could say, a feeling possibly only heightened by the knowledge that she could bear no more children after her devious little dragon. It seemed right, in some way, that perfection should be reached at their first try; why should she mourn the loss of what could only have been pale imitations? Their family was perfect.
She composed herself hastily and headed for her room. There, she would let herself reflect to some length on what had just happened. But not in the hallways, not where she might run into her precious Draco.
She heard them around the corner, far before they or she reached it.
"It was a decent snog," Draco admitted rather offhandedly. "I've had better."
Whoever was with him - Narcissa wagered it was the Zabini boy - chuckled incredulously. Engrossed with the matter of the artefact, she had quite forgotten to pursue the issue of what her son was truly up to during those holidays, if not Quidditch. It seemed as if he were only exploring some of the more pleasurable aspects of life. Pushing her feelings deeper within herself, Narcissa rounded the corner.
It was the Zabini boy indeed, lips parted as he cut himself short before replying to Draco. Blaise was not simply smarter, but also much more pleasant to look at than either Vincent or Gregory were. Narcissa was indeed worried that he might be prettier than her boy, with those green eyes and the wavy brown hair that fell just short of his eyes. His face was that of a choir boy, only she had seen it twisted in the most devious mask. A true Slytherin.
"Blaise, I did not know you were visiting Draco today," she greeted him with a short-lived dry smile.
"Mother." Draco was quite unable to hide his dismay. "I - er -"
Blaise smiled at her, the angelic smile that suited his features so well. He smoothed the lie in effortlessly, much better at it than his friend. "Mrs Malfoy, it's a pleasure to see you again. Draco and I were practicing Quidditch and he suggested we come here for refreshments."
"Of course." She raised an eyebrow at her son. "I do hope you are familiar enough with flying safely, or should we have a talk on the matter?"
Draco's cheeks were tinged pink. Her son was blushing. How unbecoming. "No, thank you, mother."
She simply watched him for a second. "On your way then."
Draco stalked away stiffly, obviously ill-at-ease at being thus found out by his mother, but Blaise strode naturally, almost leisurely, endeavouring to engage Draco in an easy conversation. Yes, her Draco could much profit from this association. She smoothed down her robes mechanically and frowned when she came upon the noticeable absence of the artefact that had so filled her thoughts the last week. Heart thudding loud again, she headed back for the guest room, just short of running.
She opened the door and halted at the sight. Edward looked up at her from the middle of the red mist, face deprived of any sign of surprise but eyes maybe not so empty as usual. They seemed to speak of paths not taken and lives not lived, of regrets that would not be had and remorse that did not so much as exist. They spoke of so much more and of nothing at all at the same time. The very nothingness that had so troubled her claimed them at last.
She rushed forward, the wave of foreign magic washing over her as soon as she crossed the wards she had put on the room.
He was gone. He had gone.
And with him, the artefact.
***
Narcissa knocked on Draco's door an hour after dinner, once all traces of Edward's existence had been wiped from the manor, including the childish drawing. She had to wait a few seconds before he grumbled his assent for her to walk in. He was standing on the other side of the room, his whole attitude speaking of defiance. His arms were crossed over his chest and his features were schooled into the Malfoy look of arrogance. Something had greatly distressed him, and as ever with him it was obvious.
She allowed herself to frown as she closed the door behind her. "What is it now, Draco?"
By the time she turned back to him, his look was slightly mollified. He glanced away, annoyed rather than infuriated. "Nothing."
"You should learn to be a better actor if you want to deserve the name you bear," she reproached him sharply, walking up to him. She surveyed the room, glad to find everything in its place, then looked back at him. "I asked you a question. What is the matter?"
"Nothing," he repeated, setting his jaw.
She raised an eyebrow. "Indeed, stubbornness is another one of our traits."
"Look, if you're here for the safety talk, don't bother," he snapped viciously, this short of snarling. "I won't be needing it anymore. Father says I should spend my time with Crabbe and Goyle. They're hardly a girl magnet."
Narcissa's surprise did not show. She took the news in placidly, biting back what she had planned to say about the Zabini boy. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him to sod off."
For the second time that day, Narcissa found herself slapping someone. However, this time the slap, and not what had triggered it, hurt.
"He is your father, and you will show him proper respect."
Draco's eyes were disbelieving as he turned back to her, cheek flushing red where she had hit him. "I thought you liked Blaise!"
She hoped to mirror Edward's coldness. "Your father knows what is best for you, Draco, and I mean for you to follow his wishes." She lowered her voice a notch. "What you, or I, think is irrelevant. You shall make him proud. Do you understand me?"
Draco looked as if he would protest, then composed himself, and nodded. "Yes."
Narcissa studied him closely. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, mother."
She brushed his hair out of his face, overwhelmed by a sudden softness. Her fingers lingered on his smooth cheek. "Do not get caught in love's nets too early, Draco," she whispered, then kissed his forehead. She turned and walked out, thankful that he had not drawn away from such an uncharacteristic display of affection.
A surge of emotions was swirling in her bosom. She felt as if she could do anything. She walked into Lucius' study without knocking, found him bent over his desk studying some parchment.
"What do you want?" he asked impatiently without even looking up.
Seeing him quelled everything in her. Where there had been tumult was suddenly silence, an eerie silence that shook her more than a thousand endless screams. He was her everything, the why and the how of her existence ever since she had laid eyes on him some thirty years ago, knowing that they were promised. A Malfoy and a Black, a powerful alliance; but more than that, it had been him and her, Lucius and Narcissa, and he had been just as beautiful as he was now.
Wordlessly she walked around the desk to him. There were no words for what she felt. Still he had not looked up from the parchment when she slid her hands around his waist, dropping her head to rest it between his shoulder blades. She breathed in the scent of him, let him turn around in her embrace.
"Narcissa?" he asked in a raw whisper.
She did not want to open her eyes. She feared that she had imagined the edge in his voice, the emotion; she feared that she would have to meet cold grey eyes and an impatient look. She let his voice exert its magnetic enthralment on her.
"Lucius," she answered in a whisper of her own, tightening her hold on him as she raised her head to nuzzle his neck. It was an almost animal gesture, but she did not linger on the thought as she let her tongue dart out and lick at his skin, opening all of her senses to him. He still tasted of dark magic, so dark, so pure, she wanted to bathe in his taste. She had cleansed herself after being exposed to the foreign magic, but she was not yet truly cleansed, not in the way that mattered. "Tell me again..."
Fingers came to her chin, tilted her face towards his. She opened her eyes and wanted to crawl into him and stay curled there forever at the sight of his beauty. His grey eyes were clouded over, troubled as they used to be; there was such deep, raw emotion in his look, distress at her sight as she felt at his. "You are the moon to my nights, Narcissa."
She let him kiss her and in that kiss she found herself again. Lucius put out the fire while she drew the curtains open, heartbeat slow and regular in the quiet before the storm. They made love on the rug, the room bathed in nothing but moonlight. Each touch, bite, nuzzle, kiss, stroke, lick, rub marked some fated reunion of two souls that had lost each other.
That night, she found herself again.
***
Ted Forrester smiled at Becca, his fiancée's daughter. "You sure you don't mind?"
"Sure. They're not really good anyway."
He smiled and tousled the kid's hair gently, then walked off towards Donna's bedroom. He settled under the sheet, not bothering to check that his weapons were accessible since he knew they were. Donna looked at him with a smile as she noticed the books.
"What are you reading those for? Becca says they suck. Horrible clichés abound. I'm surprised the were associations didn't get them banned for discrimination." She ran an absent-minded hand up his arm. "I didn't figure you for the children's stories type, anyway."
Ted smiled his good-natured smile at her, thinking to himself that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, all softness, warmth and openness. "I have a hankering for them. Go figure."
"Go figure," she agreed, then pecked him on the lips. "Good read, then." She shook her head, smiling. "Will you ever stop surprising me?"
"I hope not."
She kept smiling, so beautiful, then rolled away and reached out to turn her bedside lamp off. Ted watched her back for a few seconds, revelling in the feeling of how lucky he was to have her. He dropped a kiss on one of her shoulder blades, running fingers down her arm, then turned back to the first book of the series.
Edward turned to the first page, thinking that he would wait for the morning to initiate the taking-out of everyone involved in this wooden cube business. The Cube of Drezkan, he had managed to learn from Barry, and it had only been too easy with that name to learn how to destroy it. Barry was still alive, knocked out and locked away in one of Edward's hideouts; on the next day, they would get started on drawing out the list of people Death would have to deal with. Before that, Edward had one thing to do.
Edward wanted to learn all J.K. Rowling could tell him about the most beautiful woman he had ever known, all harshness, cold and deceit, with a vibrant undercurrent of passion. A woman he had not been able to win over, a woman he would have thought less of if he had. A woman whose love seemed indomitable and whose loyalties ran deeper than he could reach.
A woman Death might have loved. Harshness, cold and deceit. Passion.
~~ FIN ~~
And if I find myself a couple free hours, there'll be a second viewing of Mononoke Hime. Bought myself the soundtrack yesterday, been listening to it non stop. It's sparking muses, too.
Oh, and houses7177 really liked Harshness, cold and deceit, the birthday fic I wrote for her. That made my day yesterday, though I haven't had time to respond to her reply. I was just ecstatic. I'd been so anxious about it, since what she writes is so very good... Not to mention that my AB books are very much not at home and that I was quite worried that I might be twisting Edward to my wishes/needs. Apparently not. Yay! I'm actually really grateful for this whole birthday fic cgwriting started, because I don't think I would have ever written this particular fic if it hadn't been for it. houses had a list of characters she liked, and Narcissa and Edward basically jumped out at me while I was looking it over. Or, more characteristically, Narcissa raised an eyebrow at me and Edward made a very discreet hand motion, face betraying nothing. I think they work wonderfully together.
Besides, it got me to write about all the Malfoys, and that's always something I love. (The only actor who has signed up for OotP, according to imdb, is Jason. There'll be at least that reason to go see the movie. His Lucius is absolutely magnificent, and rather scary too, in a sends-shivers-down-your-spine way. In a very human way, really. All hail to Jason.) I even threw some Zabini in there - couldn't help myself, and it did work with the story, it wasn't just a pointless cameo. Those Slytherins are so very fascinating to write.
Anyway. I've also been thinking about the way I write, which I think has really evolved these past few months. In a very good way. I've completely gone past the stage of "let's get so and so together" - not that I don't write those fics anymore, just that when I do, which is no longer a requisite, it's not just about that. I feel quite good about some of my recent productions, and those I feel most good about, surprisingly, don't really pair up anybody: A Flight of Fancy, Thou Liv'st forever, and now Harshness, cold and deceit.
I'll need to use those few days on my own to really plan what I'm going to write next. I do need to go over and rewrite most of Out of Memory and Time, which I will post on the wadingpool to make it as good as possible as I go. I also have to work on the next episode of Gaia (http://cometogaia.free.fr/), focusing on Steve - title unknown as of now, probably something music-related. There's another original project of mine that needs working on, untitled as well for the moment, about yet again homosexuality and the way to fit in the world. For those of you who know of my obsession for the then unknown hotness that belonged to one of Buffy's former boyfriends, the kid's name is Fab. *wicked smirk*
Those are the most "urgent," I suppose. I have been attacked by several plot bunnies lately, but I'm doing a good job filing them away for later use, so far. Let's just hope they'll keep being that easy to deflect for a while.
Anyway, here's Harshness, cold and deceit. For you BR-people who haven't read AB, just in case you wanna give it a try, let me just explain very quickly what you need to know: the Anitaverse happens nowadays, only the supernatural is part of everyday life. The US is the first country to grant vampires civil rights, and weres of all sorts (there aren't just wolves, but also leopards, lions, swans, etc - and one of my favourites, rats) are being discriminated against. Edward is a bounty hunter, he likes to take out the "monsters" (weres and vamps, really). He's a cold-blooded killer with quite a personality disorder. He can slip as effortlessly into his Death persona (total absence of emotion) as into his Ted persona (Ted Forrester, one of his identities, lives in New Mexico, has a very Southern accent, wears a cowboy hat, can be quite charming and is actually engaged to a New Age woman called Donna, who has two kids - it even seems as if Ted loves her and her kids). Edward's a bit of an enigma, since very little is known about his past, and he's very hard to figure out. There, I think you're good now.
(Oh, and twixou, to shamelessly pique your interest: personally, I have this fantasy of mine where Edward is just Sark in a few years' time. I'm sure an older David would be perfect for the role, but even as far as characterisation is concerned, Sark could have become Edward in the right circumstances.)
Harshness, cold and deceit
for houses
He was never out of his league.
There were, of course, times when he could not be as comfortable as he wished, usually times when he was in the company of, or when his business was however remotely connected to, one small necromancer who would hate to hear him call her small, and who led a life almost as interesting as his own.
But he was never out of his league.
Even now, with his back pressed to the wall behind which he had taken cover to reload his Beretta, there was no telltale trickle of sweat down his spine, no increase in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, no anxious knot in his lungs, no hesitation in his precise gestures, no flicker in his dead eyes.
He pushed himself off the wall and fired into the open space left by the door as he ran to the other side of the frame. Two more men down. Six to go. He let the bullets fly by, counting to nine before stepping into the open space to open fire. When he retreated to the cover of the wall an instant later, he knew he only had two men left to shoot. His contact was going to learn what it meant to give Ned Woods incomplete information. Or rather, his contact's acquaintances, since there was very little learning you could do once permanently dead. He reloaded.
Again, he called forth the mental image of the room's disposition, of the two remaining men's location, and stepped into the open. He immediately noted that the superimposition of his mental tracing on reality was not perfect. His bullets caught the two men between the eyes, but there was unplanned movement on his left. He spun in time to lodge a third bullet in the heart of the man who had until then escaped his notice, but not before he himself was hit.
He did not feel the wound at first; in fact, it took him an instant to realise that the gunshot he heard likely meant, given the man was a professional, that he must have been hit. He looked down and there it was, right under his ribs, the entry point.
His contact might have time to learn not to give him incomplete information after all. His death would be slow and painful.
When the first hints of pain reached his brain, Edward locked them away to focus on the present. There were probably more men on their way to block the exit and he had little ammo left; his only option was to take another way out. He broke into a run, ignoring the signals of pain his brain was continually receiving from his stomach, senses alert on his surroundings. He balled the cloth of his black cotton top over the wound with his free hand to prevent the dripping blood from leaving an obvious trail. He strongly disliked being the prey instead of the hunter.
According to the plans of the house he had earlier studied, there should be a staircase to his right; he ran up the stairs, knowing they were less likely to look for him on the second floor. Who in their right mind would go up when chased? But there stood a tall oak in the backyard; he would climb onto it through a window, and from there down to the ground.
The first door he tried was locked and he moved on to the next one. It opened onto a child's room. At least some of the information his contact had given him was correct; Remulus, the owner of the house, was away on vacation with his family. The room was empty and perfectly tidy, much more orderly than a child's room should be. He closed the door shut without a sound and blocked it with a chair.
He barely noticed the drawings that had been taped on the window panes, suddenly aware of a regular burst of heat pulsing from the object in his pocket. He did not do robberies, that was what he should have answered, as had been his first instinct. He was a bounty hunter, not a thief. But the money had been good, and the idea of stealing from Balthazar Remulus much too enticing. He might not get to kill anything too challenging, but the job in itself was a bigger challenge than he had found those past few months. He had taken the job, and there he was. Trying to open the window with one hand, he fished in his pocket for the artefact. He had been told it was neutralised. The things that he had been misinformed about were starting to grow alarmingly in number. This simply did not happen to him.
The object was nothing more than a small wooden cube with a symbol on each face - or that was what it had been when he had disabled the alarms and taken it out of its vault. The window gave way at last right as he was staring at the artefact that kept changing shape on his palm, at an increasing rate. The pace of the heat burst grew accordingly, and with each throb the heat seemed to spread more into Edward. There was blood on it, he suddenly noticed, his blood that had run down his stomach to seep through his pants pocket. He was distantly aware of the sounds of men's voices in the hallway outside, but his body was taken in by the expanding warmth and soon enough even his brain was unable to function beyond registering sensations.
He thought he heard the door slam open right as the heat reached an unbearable level, seeming to settle down on his stomach wound. His vision grew red and he blindly reached for purchase with his free hand, which slid down the window pane, tearing down one of the childish drawings on its way.
Edward lost consciousness as he hit the floor.
Under the confused eyes of the guard that had burst into the bedroom, he swiftly proceeded to disappear from this plane.
***
Narcissa Malfoy was going over the menu her house elves had planned for the next dinner party. It had been long since Lucius had last pretended to care about, or at least notice the efforts she put in preserving their family image, but more than ever she put great thought into it. Now that the Dark Lord was back, putting up as respectable a front as possible was of dire importance. The hint of a frown graced her smooth brow when she noticed the shrimp that had been planned. It was a well-known fact that that detestable little man Fudge disliked shrimp. And, detestable though he might be, Cornelius Fudge happened to be the best kind of Minister of Magic they could have hoped for: blind and power-hungry.
Narcissa suppressed a sigh as she sharply underlined the shrimp. The elves would have to be punished, of course, what a tedious chore. She might just ask Draco to do it; her devious boy did seem to enjoy it immensely. She hoped he would soon grow out of that phase; Morgan knew that Lucius never had. Inflicting pain ought to be nothing more than a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
The rest of the menu seemed satisfactory, if lacking in originality. Narcissa drew herself up from the armchair she had been settled in and gasped in shock as a man's form began to appear in the middle of her living room, lying on his stomach, head turned away from her. The mansion was of course protected against unwanted Apparitions, but this was obviously not one. A red haze tasting strongly of a magic foreign to her suffused him as he gradually took form, then slowly receded.
Wand in hand, Narcissa cautiously and steadily approached the black-clad body, pursing her lips in disgust when she realised that blood was seeping into the carpet. She walked around the still body to get a look at his face. He did not look like much, she noted with dismay. Ordinary features, rather boyish maybe, under short fair hair. She could not guess at his age more precisely than to say, in his early thirties perhaps?
He had a piece of paper clutched in his hand and she crouched down, taking care that her robes did not reach the blood. Could this dying man be a message for Lucius, from a Deatheater or the Dark Lord himself? She remembered the odd sensation she had got from the magic that had him appear and admonished herself for this irrational assumption. She would have recognised their dark magic from a mile off. This had been different.
She tugged the paper out the man's clutching fingers and frowned as she unwrinkled it. It seemed to be a child's drawing, that of a big house with three badly drawn inhabitants, all blond, a man, a woman and a significantly shorter boy. Above the roof were clumsily written the two words "Malfoy Mansion" in capital letters.
After a second's shock, Narcissa's lips set into a disdainful line. Draco was not this short.
She rose, looking down at the bleeding body at her feet. What to do? The sensible thing would be to Apparate him somewhere else, in some deserted land far from here, or if she were feeling generous near a Muggle hospital. As if that were a blessing, a Muggle hospital. She could well imagine the lack of hygiene of a place overrun with them, bleeding, sick and exhausted.
She looked back down at the drawing in her hand. The child had signed, Helena, in the bottom right corner. Narcissa could not recall any of their acquaintance's children going by the name of Helena. The enigma piqued her curiosity, coupled with the strange taste of the magic that had brought the man here. Should she let him die, she would never have her answer. Should Lucius hear of his presence, the result would be the same. Her husband was increasingly short of temper these days and he would not tolerate this man's presence in his home.
She would need to act quickly. She folded the drawing neatly and thrust it in one of her pockets, then crouched again and rolled the body over. She rid the man of his top, hardly noticing his well-toned chest to focus on the bleeding wound. She had been told more than once, back in her Hogwarts days, that she would have made quite a Healer. When looking at the life she led, she found it rather ironic that she had such a facility at easing pain and curing people. Oh, she was not a Deatheater herself, she did not bear his Mark, but she helped the Dark Lord along in her own way. She was, in every possible manner, Lucius' wife.
She had once had the occasion to put her healing skills to good use, shortly after the Dark Lord's demise, when Lucius had come back from a Deatheater raid with a stomach wound not unlike the one this stranger sported. Well, quite unlike really, she amended when it came upon her that the man's wound might be Muggle-caused. Hopefully he was not a Muggle himself.
As she cast a first spell to stabilise the man's state and slow the bleeding, she recalled Lucius' face on that day. It was the day when he had admitted that the tide had turned. He had hung up his Deatheater mask and Narcissa had only approved. What good would it have done, to sacrifice themselves to a dead master that could no longer either hurt them, or offer them anything? Lucius was still so young then, every bit the man she had been glad to be promised to. There had been a passion in him that he had still not forsaken, but in those days the fire in his cold eyes would occasionally burn for her. As soon as he had been well enough, they had made fierce, passionate love, which had threatened to put all of her efforts to naught due to the severity of his not quite healed wound.
After that, the cold had seeped into him more and more every day.
She cast a second spell that ought to have the man's damaged vessels, muscles and flesh knit back together. It would be a long, tedious process, and rather painful for him, but she might brew him a painkiller if he cooperated. She then summoned a stretcher under him and again wrinkled her nose at the state of the carpet. She sent a summoning spell to Blinky, a house elf she could be sure of, and patiently waited for it to arrive. She glanced at the man's frowning, sweaty face and brushed a few damp strands of hair off his forehead. He was burning up. She cast a cooling charm and his features grew less tense in a matter of seconds.
"What is it you want Blinky do, mistress?"
"Tend to the carpet, then prepare the guest room. Not a word of it, or of this man, to anyone."
"Yes, mistress."
Narcissa looked at the small creature wrapped in an old rag for a second, then headed for the door, stretcher following behind her. She Accio'ed the Invisibility Cloak she kept in a wooden chest in the attic and waited patiently for it to get there. She then covered the man with it and headed for the guest room. She did not meet any elf, but then they had learned to make themselves discreet whenever one of their masters walked by. They were well-trained.
Blinky was only just finishing dressing the bed when Narcissa walked in. The elf drooped its large-eared head down in a small bow and Narcissa dismissed it with a look. She wrinkled her nose at what she was forced to do and took the man's shoes off. She transferred him to the bed after throwing back the covers and noticed while doing so that his other hand held yet something else. It was no small task to pry his fingers open, but she finally got her hands on a small cube of reddish wood with some symbols carved on each face. She examined it for a moment, aware that it retained a faint aftertaste of the foreign magic, then slipped it into her pocket and straightened.
She spent a few more seconds studying the man's ordinary features, then turned on her heels and walked out of the room after setting up a few warding spells.
***
Silverware clicked against the china plates, the only occasional sounds to break the silence that had settled over the table for dinner.
"Zabini and I are meeting up with Warrington and Montague tomorrow."
Narcissa smiled absent-mindedly at her son. "Practice?"
"What else?"
The answer got her attention. It was uttered without so much as a hint of contempt, no underlying haughtiness, only such nonchalance as would always set off alarm signals in her mind. She arched an elegant eyebrow at her son. "Indeed, I wonder."
She glanced at Lucius, who was paying them absolutely no heed as he looked over some letter he had just received. She had trouble recalling the last time he had talked to Draco of his own volition for something other than a blame or a sneer.
Narcissa looked back at her son, who was doing his best at looking inconspicuous; she hoped he would soon learn to better hide his true feelings and thoughts. "You are spending a lot of time with the Zabini boy."
Draco shrugged, as if on the defensive. "He's good on a broom."
"I don't disapprove. In fact, I think he is a good deal worthier of being your friend than either Vincent or Gregory."
"The Crabbes and the Goyles are much better families than the Zabinis," Lucius cut in imperiously, rolling the parchment he had been reading and returning his attention to his plate.
Narcissa cut a small piece of venison and put it in her mouth, meeting her husband's cold grey eyes without a hint of a challenge in hers. Unlike her son, she had long since mastered the art of not showing her thoughts. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle might have Deatheaters for fathers, contrarily to Blaise Zabini, but she had been quite appalled by Draco's choice of schoolmates. She could understand what he saw in them; they probably never questioned him, since they lacked the wits for it, and their muscles could certainly come in handy. She was simply glad that he would take up the company of someone who had more of a brain than the two thugs, if only for Quidditch-related purposes.
Which brought her back to the fact that she was quite certain Quidditch would not be on the agenda the next day. Her devious boy was so transparent to her. But she would need to probe him later, when Lucius was not there.
The meal was quickly over. Lucius retired to his study and Draco to his chambers. Narcissa made for the guest room. She knew she was living dangerously, and if ever Lucius learnt of the man's presence... She fingered the wooden cube she had taken from him and that now resided in the pockets of her well-cut robes. If this were an object of some foreign power, as she suspected, she could not let this opportunity pass them by. Narcissa Malfoy was very dedicated to her family.
She walked into the guest room and closed the door behind herself. There was a moan of pain and she walked to the bedside to find the man thrashing about, covered in sweat. The cooling charm she had earlier cast should not have worn off so rapidly. She sat by his side and was about to cast another one when his eyes shot open and his hand came to grab her wrist.
The eyes - blue, like her own - were burning with pain. His face was contorted in a mask of agony. His grip was like steel. Then the eyes seemed to focus on her and, slowly, everything was wiped from them. Every feeling leaked out into nothingness, and not a hint of pain was left in either the eyes or the features. Narcissa was so stunned by the transformation that she sat there, staring. She did not even acknowledge dropping her wand when he twisted her wrist just so.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice raw with disuse and tone peculiar in its evenness.
The question brought her back to her senses. She reached for her wand with her free hand, but before she could get it she found herself lying on her back on the bed, the bare-chested stranger on top of her, their faces inches away. He had pinned her hands on each side of her head and she was powerless to buck him off. He was stronger than he looked and she respected the fact that he could function through the pain he was bound to be in. Nothing in his face but the coat of sweat would have hinted at his condition. She found that her breath had caught in her throat as tingles travelled down her spine.
"Who are you?" he repeated, and she noticed he had an American accent.
How distasteful. An American.
She arched an arrogant eyebrow at him, not attempting to suppress the wry quirk of her lips. "Given you would not be alive if it weren't for me, I would expect some other form of gratitude."
He stared at her with those empty eyes of his for a second in silence, then tightened his hold on her wrists. "Who are you, and where am I?"
"I do not give my name to strangers who are threatening me," she replied icily, drawing up all the haughtiness she was capable of despite her precarious position. "In fact, I begin to suspect I truly should have let you bleed to death. Kindly let go of me. You are, whether you will it or not, at my mercy. Your wound needs tending to."
After a few more moments during which Narcissa wondered whether the man would not simply kill her - she knew from that emptiness in his eyes that he could be none but a killer - he relented and let go of her wrists. He got off her and slumped in the bed with his back to the wall, watching her every move tensely. His lips formed a thin line, the only sign to betray his pain.
Narcissa made a show of rubbing her sore wrists as she straightened up.
"Who are you?" he repeated yet again.
"I truly feel as if I should be asking that question," she answered as she got her wand back. "Lie down."
She had a look at his wound after he cautiously complied. The scar was quite apparent, but nothing quicker could have been expected. She could not see why he would still be burning up. She put a hand on his sweaty forehead and allowed herself the smallest of frowns. All the while his eyes were heavy on her, though she would not pay them any mind.
"Where are my weapons?" he asked at last, changing questions.
"You did not arrive with any," she answered absent-mindedly, still puzzling over his high temperature. "And even if you had, do you really think I would give them over? Especially after the treatment you have just given me."
She prodded at the wound to check on the scarred tissue, making him suck his stomach in with pain. No sound escaped him. Until a tense, "Are you a nurse then?"
Again, she mustered up all of her haughtiness to be reflected in the look she cast him. "I do not need to work for a living. But I have been tending to you, if such was your question." And again, a slight frown as her gaze travelled back down his chest to the wound. "You seem to be reacting well to the charm, I cannot see why your body temperature is still so high."
A small pause, and then, "The charm?" The voice was even, any emotion obliterated from it, but the question still stood. Brilliant. He would be a Muggle. At least he knew of magic, she presumed, given his manner of entrance. Narcissa suspected he would not be worth the trouble she was going through. "Where are we?"
"In a guest room at the very same house you suddenly appeared in," she answered, "and I would very much like to know how you did that."
The gaze turned speculative for an instant. "So would I." He looked at her wand. "What's that for?"
"To do magic, of course."
One of his lips' corners raised into an amused smirk. "A magic wand?" Amusement seeped through his voice only slightly. The smirk went as rapidly as it had appeared and the voice was as cold as ever: "What next, broomsticks?"
"I would have thought you knew of the wizarding world, given your manner of entry into my living room."
Another pause. "The wizarding world." The cold eyes swept over the room. "Where am I?"
"This is Malfoy Manor. You're in Devon."
"And there's a wizarding world in England."
"All over the world, really," she answered tiredly. "But England is the only bearable place to live in."
A wild light had come on at the back of his dead eyes. He propped himself up on his elbows. "Tell me, have vampires been granted civil rights in the United States?"
She frowned her nose in disgust. "Morgan, I hope not. Surely even the American Secretary of Magic would not be such a fool."
He brought a hand to his injured side with a small wince, letting his head fall back down on the pillow. For the first time since he had seen her, his eyes were shut tight in pain, and she irritatingly found herself missing the weight of his gaze on her. When he passed out some half a minute later, Narcissa realised they still had not introduced themselves.
***
When Edward next reached consciousness, he was glad to find that he was alone in the room. Alone and in the dark, though not dark enough for him not to quickly get accustomed to it. After a brief argument with himself, he decided to hell with eventual surveillance and allowed himself to grimace at the pain that was smarting his side. He had a fever, and from what the woman had said she could not guess at its cause. He felt the wound tentatively, surprised again that it would already be scarring.
But then, this was alternative medicine if anything was.
He was as far from home as he could get - whatever home was. He had been shot. He had been set up, too, he had no doubt about that. Things would not have gotten so far out of control if he had not been set up. He had been shot, set up, magically taken to another world altogether - unless this place and the blond woman were just feverish hallucinations - not to mention to England, and robbed of what he had himself stolen.
Maybe, just maybe, he ought to admit that - no. The fever was giving him delirium. This was well within his league. The blond woman had been a surprise with her cool haughtiness, but surely she would not be hard to play. Good ol' Ted might not be the best one for that, though. Maybe - just maybe - she could actually be one for Death himself. Pain had not prevented Edward from noticing her quick intake of breath when he had rolled her under him, nor that quick look in her eyes she had immediately covered up.
She was a lonely, haughty, proud, beautiful woman. Married, too. She was well within his league.
Edward pushed the pain to the back of his mind and forced himself to function past the weakness of his body. He sat up slowly. He was left without any of his most beloved weapons, only the garrotte that was hidden along his leather belt. He almost smiled when he noticed a glass of water on the bedside table. Of course, it could well be mixed with a poison or a truth serum, but he did not see why the woman would simply not have injected either one to him while he was out. The risks were minimal and he did need it. He willed his hand to stop trembling as he brought the glass to his lips, sniffed it suspiciously, then took a tentative sip.
It tasted like water, which did not mean anything.
He drank it carefully so as not to spill a drop, which his parched throat would not have allowed. He did not feel any stronger, but he forced himself to stand and, leaning on the bedside table, reached for the window. With difficulty, he pulled the curtains open. Starlight flooded him. The window, however, was stuck closed. He would not have had the strength to go anywhere, in any case. The landscape in front of him was what he expected from the gardens of an English - manor, had she said? Malfoy Manor. The name rang vaguely familiar, but he could not pinpoint it.
When he felt his legs would no longer support him, he headed back to bed. He would rather have searched through the room, but his condition would not allow it. He was feeling hotter and hotter by the second. His legs gave under him right as he reached the bed and he only just managed to fall onto it. He lay on his back and breathed deep, regular breaths, hating to lose control of his body.
She had said it, he was at her mercy. Good thing he would be able to play that to his advantage.
Soon enough, a fevered sleep had claimed him yet again.
When he next woke up, it was to feel a wet cloth wiped on his forehead. It was now day. Her big blue eyes came into focus, shining with discontent.
"My cooling charms have but little effect on you now. I hope you appreciate the lengths to which I am going, using this Muggle method to try and bring you some measure of relief."
"Muggle?" he managed, then licked his lips to wet them.
She brought a glass to his lips, supporting his head with her other hand to allow him to drink. "Non-wizarding folk." She laid his head back down on the pillow, her gentle gestures contrasting with the disgust painted across her aristocratic features. Disgust was replaced by mild irritation as she took up the wet cloth. "I cannot see what to do to bring the fever down, and am still powerless in finding its cause. I would be rather annoyed if you were to die now that I have made so much effort to keep you alive, Muggle."
The emptiness came within him; he welcomed it as he would an old lover. "Edward."
A raised eyebrow, apparently a trademark of hers. "Narcissa."
"Narcissa," he repeated evenly, maybe stressing the s's a little, watching her closely.
A flicker of something in her eyes, too brief for him to identify.
"Well. Any thought on how to improve your condition?"
He thought for a moment. The fever was so high it might have been hard to think clearly, if he had not been himself. The emptiness was a useful refuge where such things could not touch him, but more than useful it had become pleasant over the years. An old friend, an old lover. The emptiness would never fail him, and Death always came victorious. The emptiness held the madness at bay, too, all the more so when he had to deal with such concepts as being in another dimension. Anita would probably be jealous if she ever heard of that story, which she of course never would.
"Might be due to an infection." In another state of mind, he might have wished he did not have to ask this question. "Did you take out the bullet?"
The shadow of a frown came to disturb her harmonious, smooth features. "The bullet?"
"Let me guess, you wizard types don't have guns. Muggle weapons. The bullet is their projectile, a small leaden ball. I've got one inside of me right now."
She looked truly, profoundly shocked. "How primitive."
"Only when you're on the receiving end. I tend to avoid that." She raised an eyebrow as if to question that statement, and he did not take her up on it given his current condition. "You'll have to open me up and take it out."
He expected her to show some reluctance but found none in her levelled gaze. "Very well." There was maybe only a challenge in her blue eyes as her fingers curled around her wand, and somewhere in the far recesses of his mind he felt anticipation that he could take her up. "You might want a painkiller first."
"I'd rather keep my wits about."
She raised questioning eyebrows, but did not comment. She muttered something under her breath, wand pointed at his wound, and felt her put the wet cloth in his hands. Immediately he brought it to his mouth and bit on it, hard, to keep from screaming with pain. A couple of muttered words later and he saw the bullet float up, covered with his blood. He grabbed it in his free hand and met her gaze, biting harder than ever into the cloth. Another incantation and pain was searing his side again. He waited until he grew accustomed to it, until it could no longer reach him all through the emptiness, then gradually released his hold on the cloth.
Her tone held some hint of respect. "I have rarely seen such withholding of pain."
Yes, Narcissa could take Death. Narcissa would fall for Death, if Edward had his will. She might wear a wedding ring, but so far nothing she had said or done had identified her as wife to anybody. She was his for the taking.
He propped himself up on an elbow, eyes empty and tone even. "Some Muggles aren't as bad as others."
He opened his hand and looked at the bullet, then wiped it clean with the cloth. Somebody would pay for this. As soon as he got back home, he would make this his own crusade, starting with his contact Barry. If Barry proved more resilient to torture than planned - unlikely - or died before giving him sufficient information, Edward would go to the one that had offered the job, although he was probably not involved; a "probably" was not good enough in his line of work. He would go all the way to Remulus himself if it was needed. Heads would roll.
He heard Narcissa whisper another word and the pain he held at bay vaguely relented. He looked back at her and inclined his head ever so slightly forward in a gesture of thanks. One of the corners of her lips lifted in the hint of a satisfied smile.
"Now that you feel better, if you would care to tell me how you came to be here..."
He weighed his options, reminded once again that she had been right in asserting that he was at her mercy. However... "Does your husband know I'm here?"
She glanced down at her wedding ring before meeting Edward's gaze dead on. "No. He would most likely kill you before we could learn anything concerning this." And at this she held up between two fingers the artefact he had been sent to steal. "I found it in your hand when you appeared. In your other hand was this drawing."
She let him have the drawing, keeping the cube out of reach. He looked at it curiously. A child's drawing of Malfoy Manor, or so it said. Helena - the name of one of Balthazar's kids. The faint memory of drawings taped to a window; that of grabbing desperately for purchase. The pulse of the artefact as it spun and morphed. Now he remembered where he knew the name from.
"Who drew this?"
He looked up at her. Again, weighed his options. "As you might have guessed, I'm not from around here. This was drawn by a child in my world."
"And this?"
He looked at the cube, then back at her wide eyes. "I don't know."
An expectant pause. He knew everything would be played in the next few minutes.
She raised an eyebrow again as she slipped the cube back in her pocket. "In that case, give me one reason why I should not just dispose of your body."
He let a small measure of amusement penetrate his eyes. Double up or nothing. "What makes you think you could do it?"
Most people would have answered by listing the things they had going in their favour, starting with their wand, the fact that he was wounded, that he did not know anything about this world and that he was at their place, in enemy territory as it were. Narcissa Malfoy, however, opened her mouth to answer, then took a good look at his eyes and seemed to think better of it.
Instead, she asked, "Do I have any other option?"
The game was far from being won yet. "Help me get back home."
"Why would I do that?"
"Saves you the trouble of having to explain me to your husband."
"Again, disposing of you would achieve the same result."
"Given you manage it, and discreetly at that."
"Given I manage it."
Edward let his cold gaze sweep over her body, taking note of the unmistakable signs of attraction she was showing. Cold though she might like to pretend she was, her emotions were just as easy to read as anybody else's, simply on a different level. To Edward, she was no different than a hundred other wanna-be cold persons he had interacted with. Ruthless, callous, pitiless they might be, but none could reach the true state of absence of feeling he knew so intimately. They were all, ultimately, driven by their emotions, and as such were easy to manipulate.
He steadily looked away at the window, leaving her to collect herself and wonder whether she had dreamt his look.
"What precautions have you taken against your husband finding out about me?"
She looked up from her hands to his face, meeting his gaze without any show of feeling. "I cast a few discreet warding spells. This is not for you to worry about." She paused, evidently on the verge of saying something. Edward simply waited. "I will not help you go home. You, however, will help me find out everything about the cube."
Edward let the shadow of a smile play on his lips, barely existing enough for her to maybe guess at it and wonder, again, whether she was imagining things.
Then he nodded.
She raised an eyebrow, nodded back, drew herself up. "I have a dinner to attend to. I will be back with you later this night. I suggest you think back on everything you know about the artefact."
"Narcissa," he called her back as she neared the door. She paused, then turned around to face him. Her look was almost fearful, as fearful as she would let herself go. "I will need to eat."
"Yes," she acknowledged with a cold smile. "You will."
She walked out.
***
Narcissa tried her best to rationalise keeping Edward alive. She truly did. She could only spare a few hours a day for him, adding fleeting visits when she had the opportunity. For once, she resented her own thoroughness when after only thirty minutes, she had already asked him all the relevant questions. She then told herself she kept him because he was quite obviously withholding information - which he was. She would not risk helping herself to some of Lucius' stack of Veritaserum, which he kept under very good lock, and finding out what Edward was hiding became her priority. Fortunately, when that argument threatened to crumble under the weight of her inability to get anything out of him that he did not wish to share, she discovered that he was quite learned, for a Muggle. His mastery of several languages and his sharp analytic mind made him apt to help her research the Malfoy library for any reference to the artefact in question.
Narcissa was not the most influential Deatheater's wife merely due to either one of her last names, Black or Malfoy. She was the most influential Deatheater's wife because she was no fool. In fact, she was much more down to earth than most wizards she knew, including her husband and the Dark Lord. They had ideals. They had a vision. She had nothing but her determination to serve her family's best interests.
However, she had to acknowledge that keeping Edward did nothing for her family. If anything, it endangered it. Narcissa was not one to take risks. Keeping this Muggle under Lucius' nose was a great risk. After a few days, she recognised that, while the artefact did matter and she deemed Edward helpful, it was not the reason she kept him. This was only an additional benefit.
She kept him because he was colder than anyone she had ever met, a coldness that was not so much the contrary of heat as the absence of it. He scared her. He scared her to the depths of her being in a way no one ever had, and she cherished the adrenaline rush and the imperceptible shivers he triggered in her. Paradoxically, Edward's coldness had her admit to herself how much she missed the heat that Lucius no longer showed her.
Lucius underestimated her, too, which Edward never did. (She was perfectly aware that she had moved on to comparing the two men, albeit on a peculiar scale - Edward was a Muggle and had no hope of rivalling Lucius after all.) In fact, interacting with Edward was like one big game, the rules of which they were both constantly reinventing. It was entertaining to hold a conversation with one who both had a sharp wit and did not think her part of the wallpaper.
On the previous day, she had watched him with amusement when he had asked her to give him a book that was on the desk across the room from the bed, as if he were too weak to get it himself. He had never stood in her presence, but she knew all the same that he could walk perfectly well. He had searched the whole room a few times already at night.
She consequently watched him with a sardonically raised eyebrow. "Am I supposed to believe you could not get it yourself?"
That humourless smirk of his, and then he repeated, "Would you Accio the Chronicles of Celdar for me?"
She did so while holding his gaze steadily, then handed the book to him without a twitch to her lips. Inside, laughter was bubbling up. Yes, Edward provided her with entertainment, a thing that her life had come to greatly lack.
As far as the research was concerned, they had not uncovered much. They had been unable to find anything resembling the symbols on the cube. As far as they had been able to conjecture, the artefact had been activated by Edward's blood, but neither of them was willing to test that theory until they learned more about the cube. Narcissa had been shocked to learn that their world was a children's story in his own, and disappointed that he knew not what was supposedly to become of them. Of course, she could not be sure he was telling the truth, but his answers pointed to how unfamiliar he was with the books, beyond their mere premise. What little she could guess of him did not hint at the contrary; she could hardly picture him reading those books, should it be for himself or to, Morgan forbid, a child.
She was, however, rather puzzled as to how a story featuring the Dark Lord could be intended for children.
The drawing of Malfoy Manor seemed to have given a destination to the artefact, an apparent gateway between dimensions. Narcissa carefully avoided thinking about exactly what it meant that she was nothing but a character in the world he came from; the implications were too dizzying and she enjoyed the concept of free will. Edward, in any case, was not troubled by it one way or another; he had pointed out that for all they knew, his world might be a work of fiction in yet another dimension, or in the Muggle world of this very dimension for that matter. His sense of self was too strong to let the idea affect him.
But those were only assumptions on which they were working, and they had no solid facts about the wooden cube that had brought him here. Narcissa's head spun with the possibilities it created for one who could master it. She had forgotten herself and gone on a tirade about it; Edward had watched her coolly, untouched by her excitation. His imperturbable look had brought her down immediately.
It was now a week since Edward had appeared in her living room. Blinky was a Black house elf and completely loyal to Narcissa; it had not mentioned anything pertaining to Edward to anyone. The latter had proved quite Muggle indeed, and unable to work past the lock she had put on the door. There was no reason either Lucius or Draco should enter the guest room. So far, her secret was safe. But for how much longer?
Beyond this, Narcissa had no doubt at all that she would reveal Edward's existence, or rather terminate it herself, as soon as she knew all she wanted about the artefact. He provided her with entertainment, yes, but entertainment was highly overrated. She was only indulging herself temporarily. In fact, she was resolved to end this within the next few days. One week, already, had been too long.
She had felt his gaze on her for a few minutes when he finally spoke, in that even tone that betrayed absolutely nothing, and which made one feel it was not because he was a master at dissimulation, but because there was nothing to betray. "What's his name?"
She looked up at him calmly. His back was propped up against a pillow, a discarded book open in his lap. "His?"
"Your husband's."
A tendril of irritation closed in on her. "Lucius."
Edward tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, watching her with empty, dead eyes. She forced herself to hold his gaze, hard as it was not to glance away. "Does he make you stay here?"
"Nobody makes me do anything," she replied haughtily.
The shadow of a smile, or just an illusion maybe. "Do you love him?"
She paused, licked her suddenly dry lips, ignored the loud thump of her heart. Edward was watching her steadily, blue eyes reflecting absolutely nothing. Then, at last, the admission, a whisper and yet a shout. "Yes..."
And still, no emotion. "Does he love you?"
Her chest felt as if it would burst from too much pressure. Her heart would implode, her ribcage cave in, her lungs collapse and shrivel. The horrifying vision of herself lasted but a second, more than enough to jolt her profoundly. There was a tightness in her throat and she clamped her hands on the book she held. She could only focus on Edward's eyes as the question rocked back and forth within her, bumping into her inner walls painfully. She pressed her lips tightly together, willing herself to control the pain. She closed her eyes, and when she next opened them Edward was kneeling on the ground in front of her, his hands to each side of her on the wide armchair.
His eyes had come alive.
He moved slowly, as one touched by a Tardus Curse. She could have told him to stop at any moment, which was the most agonising of it all, because she did not. He paused, his breath blowing gently on her lips. She looked at him steadily, at the eyes that held such warmth and desire, then closed her own and pressed her lips on his. The kiss started gently, soon growing in heat. Lips parted and tongues plunged in. His hands settled on her waist, gripping the material of her robes, as hers brought him closer to her by the nape and the shoulder. She felt that she needed to drink him in and hold him there forever, driven by an urge that was not hers to command.
His teeth scraped on her bottom lip the way Lucius used to favour and she melted against him.
The next moment, she had drawn herself up. Despite her sudden gesture, he was still kneeling at her feet, not unbalanced in the slightest. He was looking up at her, eyes empty all anew. His lips were swollen just as she imagined hers were. The ragged breaths she was hearing were hers, she realised with horror. She thinned her lips to a line. Such emptiness reflected in those eyes.
The slap rang loudly in the small room.
She walked out with as much hauteur as being a Black and a Malfoy had taught her.
***
Edward let his head turn with the slap, not feeling the sting any. He whipped his head back to catch sight of her regal exit from the room. Such pride. He had not been sure how exactly she would react, only that he would get his way in either case. What had happened was, by far, the most sensible and least troublesome option.
He looked down at the wooden cube he had artfully picked from her pocket, then stood up. Reality was such that he had to take this chance, unless he wanted to take a bigger risk by remaining at Narcissa's mercy.
He picked up a bit of parchment and a quill, drawing a simplified house to figure his hideout in New Mexico, some hundred miles from Ted's place. He scrambled the place's name next to it. Conjectures were all he had to go on with, something which he never let happen. Things such as this whole adventure never happened to him; they happened to people like Anita who had potential, but not yet mastery. He had achieved mastery. He was supposed to be beyond this stage. And this was the reason why, quite logically, anyone who was even remotely involved in this matter would pay the price. Death would make sure of that.
He slid his shoes back on, tied the laces, took his garrotte from his belt and sliced his palm open by applying enough pressure with the thin wire. All the while, emptiness and single-minded determination filled him. His aim was cold and unfeeling; he would go home and deal out punishment, but not because of a vain, passionate desire for revenge. He would deal out punishment because such things never happened to him.
He watched the blood rising to the surface along the thin cut, put the garrotte back in place after wiping it on the sheets, then purposefully widened the cut so as to heighten the blood flow. When he felt there was enough, he clutched the hasty drawing in his intact hand and closed the other one around the wooden cube.
The beat started out slowly, heat already seeping through him with each pulse. The process was much slower than he remembered it, probably due to the difference in the blood flow, but the no-longer-cube did pick up in rhythm. He felt no fear, no apprehension, as the red haze gradually suffused him.
***
Narcissa stopped a few steps from his door. She was not by any means tempted to walk back in. He was a filthy Muggle, no matter how smart, cold or attractive. But beyond this, the true reason was that she loved Lucius with every piece of her ice queen's heart. She loved him and she loved their son, her Draco, the fruit of their joining. She loved them more than she could say, a feeling possibly only heightened by the knowledge that she could bear no more children after her devious little dragon. It seemed right, in some way, that perfection should be reached at their first try; why should she mourn the loss of what could only have been pale imitations? Their family was perfect.
She composed herself hastily and headed for her room. There, she would let herself reflect to some length on what had just happened. But not in the hallways, not where she might run into her precious Draco.
She heard them around the corner, far before they or she reached it.
"It was a decent snog," Draco admitted rather offhandedly. "I've had better."
Whoever was with him - Narcissa wagered it was the Zabini boy - chuckled incredulously. Engrossed with the matter of the artefact, she had quite forgotten to pursue the issue of what her son was truly up to during those holidays, if not Quidditch. It seemed as if he were only exploring some of the more pleasurable aspects of life. Pushing her feelings deeper within herself, Narcissa rounded the corner.
It was the Zabini boy indeed, lips parted as he cut himself short before replying to Draco. Blaise was not simply smarter, but also much more pleasant to look at than either Vincent or Gregory were. Narcissa was indeed worried that he might be prettier than her boy, with those green eyes and the wavy brown hair that fell just short of his eyes. His face was that of a choir boy, only she had seen it twisted in the most devious mask. A true Slytherin.
"Blaise, I did not know you were visiting Draco today," she greeted him with a short-lived dry smile.
"Mother." Draco was quite unable to hide his dismay. "I - er -"
Blaise smiled at her, the angelic smile that suited his features so well. He smoothed the lie in effortlessly, much better at it than his friend. "Mrs Malfoy, it's a pleasure to see you again. Draco and I were practicing Quidditch and he suggested we come here for refreshments."
"Of course." She raised an eyebrow at her son. "I do hope you are familiar enough with flying safely, or should we have a talk on the matter?"
Draco's cheeks were tinged pink. Her son was blushing. How unbecoming. "No, thank you, mother."
She simply watched him for a second. "On your way then."
Draco stalked away stiffly, obviously ill-at-ease at being thus found out by his mother, but Blaise strode naturally, almost leisurely, endeavouring to engage Draco in an easy conversation. Yes, her Draco could much profit from this association. She smoothed down her robes mechanically and frowned when she came upon the noticeable absence of the artefact that had so filled her thoughts the last week. Heart thudding loud again, she headed back for the guest room, just short of running.
She opened the door and halted at the sight. Edward looked up at her from the middle of the red mist, face deprived of any sign of surprise but eyes maybe not so empty as usual. They seemed to speak of paths not taken and lives not lived, of regrets that would not be had and remorse that did not so much as exist. They spoke of so much more and of nothing at all at the same time. The very nothingness that had so troubled her claimed them at last.
She rushed forward, the wave of foreign magic washing over her as soon as she crossed the wards she had put on the room.
He was gone. He had gone.
And with him, the artefact.
***
Narcissa knocked on Draco's door an hour after dinner, once all traces of Edward's existence had been wiped from the manor, including the childish drawing. She had to wait a few seconds before he grumbled his assent for her to walk in. He was standing on the other side of the room, his whole attitude speaking of defiance. His arms were crossed over his chest and his features were schooled into the Malfoy look of arrogance. Something had greatly distressed him, and as ever with him it was obvious.
She allowed herself to frown as she closed the door behind her. "What is it now, Draco?"
By the time she turned back to him, his look was slightly mollified. He glanced away, annoyed rather than infuriated. "Nothing."
"You should learn to be a better actor if you want to deserve the name you bear," she reproached him sharply, walking up to him. She surveyed the room, glad to find everything in its place, then looked back at him. "I asked you a question. What is the matter?"
"Nothing," he repeated, setting his jaw.
She raised an eyebrow. "Indeed, stubbornness is another one of our traits."
"Look, if you're here for the safety talk, don't bother," he snapped viciously, this short of snarling. "I won't be needing it anymore. Father says I should spend my time with Crabbe and Goyle. They're hardly a girl magnet."
Narcissa's surprise did not show. She took the news in placidly, biting back what she had planned to say about the Zabini boy. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him to sod off."
For the second time that day, Narcissa found herself slapping someone. However, this time the slap, and not what had triggered it, hurt.
"He is your father, and you will show him proper respect."
Draco's eyes were disbelieving as he turned back to her, cheek flushing red where she had hit him. "I thought you liked Blaise!"
She hoped to mirror Edward's coldness. "Your father knows what is best for you, Draco, and I mean for you to follow his wishes." She lowered her voice a notch. "What you, or I, think is irrelevant. You shall make him proud. Do you understand me?"
Draco looked as if he would protest, then composed himself, and nodded. "Yes."
Narcissa studied him closely. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, mother."
She brushed his hair out of his face, overwhelmed by a sudden softness. Her fingers lingered on his smooth cheek. "Do not get caught in love's nets too early, Draco," she whispered, then kissed his forehead. She turned and walked out, thankful that he had not drawn away from such an uncharacteristic display of affection.
A surge of emotions was swirling in her bosom. She felt as if she could do anything. She walked into Lucius' study without knocking, found him bent over his desk studying some parchment.
"What do you want?" he asked impatiently without even looking up.
Seeing him quelled everything in her. Where there had been tumult was suddenly silence, an eerie silence that shook her more than a thousand endless screams. He was her everything, the why and the how of her existence ever since she had laid eyes on him some thirty years ago, knowing that they were promised. A Malfoy and a Black, a powerful alliance; but more than that, it had been him and her, Lucius and Narcissa, and he had been just as beautiful as he was now.
Wordlessly she walked around the desk to him. There were no words for what she felt. Still he had not looked up from the parchment when she slid her hands around his waist, dropping her head to rest it between his shoulder blades. She breathed in the scent of him, let him turn around in her embrace.
"Narcissa?" he asked in a raw whisper.
She did not want to open her eyes. She feared that she had imagined the edge in his voice, the emotion; she feared that she would have to meet cold grey eyes and an impatient look. She let his voice exert its magnetic enthralment on her.
"Lucius," she answered in a whisper of her own, tightening her hold on him as she raised her head to nuzzle his neck. It was an almost animal gesture, but she did not linger on the thought as she let her tongue dart out and lick at his skin, opening all of her senses to him. He still tasted of dark magic, so dark, so pure, she wanted to bathe in his taste. She had cleansed herself after being exposed to the foreign magic, but she was not yet truly cleansed, not in the way that mattered. "Tell me again..."
Fingers came to her chin, tilted her face towards his. She opened her eyes and wanted to crawl into him and stay curled there forever at the sight of his beauty. His grey eyes were clouded over, troubled as they used to be; there was such deep, raw emotion in his look, distress at her sight as she felt at his. "You are the moon to my nights, Narcissa."
She let him kiss her and in that kiss she found herself again. Lucius put out the fire while she drew the curtains open, heartbeat slow and regular in the quiet before the storm. They made love on the rug, the room bathed in nothing but moonlight. Each touch, bite, nuzzle, kiss, stroke, lick, rub marked some fated reunion of two souls that had lost each other.
That night, she found herself again.
***
Ted Forrester smiled at Becca, his fiancée's daughter. "You sure you don't mind?"
"Sure. They're not really good anyway."
He smiled and tousled the kid's hair gently, then walked off towards Donna's bedroom. He settled under the sheet, not bothering to check that his weapons were accessible since he knew they were. Donna looked at him with a smile as she noticed the books.
"What are you reading those for? Becca says they suck. Horrible clichés abound. I'm surprised the were associations didn't get them banned for discrimination." She ran an absent-minded hand up his arm. "I didn't figure you for the children's stories type, anyway."
Ted smiled his good-natured smile at her, thinking to himself that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, all softness, warmth and openness. "I have a hankering for them. Go figure."
"Go figure," she agreed, then pecked him on the lips. "Good read, then." She shook her head, smiling. "Will you ever stop surprising me?"
"I hope not."
She kept smiling, so beautiful, then rolled away and reached out to turn her bedside lamp off. Ted watched her back for a few seconds, revelling in the feeling of how lucky he was to have her. He dropped a kiss on one of her shoulder blades, running fingers down her arm, then turned back to the first book of the series.
Edward turned to the first page, thinking that he would wait for the morning to initiate the taking-out of everyone involved in this wooden cube business. The Cube of Drezkan, he had managed to learn from Barry, and it had only been too easy with that name to learn how to destroy it. Barry was still alive, knocked out and locked away in one of Edward's hideouts; on the next day, they would get started on drawing out the list of people Death would have to deal with. Before that, Edward had one thing to do.
Edward wanted to learn all J.K. Rowling could tell him about the most beautiful woman he had ever known, all harshness, cold and deceit, with a vibrant undercurrent of passion. A woman he had not been able to win over, a woman he would have thought less of if he had. A woman whose love seemed indomitable and whose loyalties ran deeper than he could reach.
A woman Death might have loved. Harshness, cold and deceit. Passion.
~~ FIN ~~