Fic: Mind Games (Rating: R)
Title: Mind Games
Pairing: Lucius/Sirius (not physical, but there's a lot of mindfucking going on.)
Summary: Lucius's best weapon against Sirius is Sirius himself.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,570
Warnings: M/M slash, some non-con (in a way), character death. It might count as darkfic. I don't know.
Possible Spoilers: OotP
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of J.K. Rowling - likewise the profits.
Author's Note: Originally posted to i_love_looshie
As Lucius Malfoy could have told the researchers at the Ministry, the Veil did not lead to the world of the dead.
They believed it did, and that was what they had told Dumbledore, who also believed it. But belief, as Lucius knew, was not proof.
The Veil was a Portkey.
The Veil had not been in the Ministry long--only for the past sixteen or seventeen years. It had taken Lucius a great deal of time and even more money to smuggle the Portkey into the Ministry, and an impressive amount of Dark magic to Transfigure the Portkey permanently into its present form: a stone archway covered by a ragged veil.
Then he left it there, and sat back, and watched the fun.
When the researchers found it the next morning, they were puzzled. They tested the composition of the stone and the fabric of the curtain shrouding the archway; they performed thaumic examinations on the portal, and found that it was filled with Dark magic involving death...yet they soon learned that it did not kill those who touched it.
However, the things sent through the Veil--as well as the witches and wizards whom the Ministry found expedient to dispose of--never returned.
The disappearance of all of the test subjects, coupled with the death magic that whispered from each stone in the arch and each stitch in the Veil itself, convinced the researchers--and how Lucius laughed at their calling themselves by such an undeserved name!--that the Veil was the doorway to death, and that it had appeared within the Department of Mysteries simply because some power in the universe wished them to uncover death's mysteries.
And they were right, in a way. But the power's name was Lord Voldemort. His followers appropriated the rare and precious gold of the Department's discoveries, and left the researchers the slag and the dross, and the researchers were none the wiser.
Those who realised the worthlessness of the material tended to meet with…accidents. Not necessarily fatal ones. After all, madness or permanent brain damage did just as well.
As for the Veil, it ended in a well-guarded dungeon in Lucius's Wiltshire mansion.
Few survived long after their arrival, unless they were servants of the Dark Lord who could still be useful to him elsewhere. Those were given false passports and new identities, and enough Polyjuice to get them out of one country and into another.
Sirius Black was an exception.
When he suggested to Bellatrix that she should maneuver her cousin in front of the Veil and then stun him so hard that he would fall backward, Lucius had not intended for Sirius to be any more than bait for the Potter brat, who would surely rush right through the Veil after his dear godfather.
But the boy hadn't done so. Perhaps he had been held back. Lucius didn't know.
Lucius landed in Azkaban as a result of that night's exploit, but only briefly. The warden of the prison was a tragically unappreciated civil servant who only wanted to retire to the country with his wife and raise mangel-wurzels. The Hit Wizards who now guarded the prison in place of the Dementors longed for the simple luxuries of life: good wine, old books, long, sybaritic vacations in faraway locations. The boatman who conveyed the rare visitor to the prison wanted to give his daughter a racing broom for her birthday.
And Lucius, generous soul that he was, was happy to scatter largesse to the masses.
So it was no more than a month before he was home again, awaiting a trial the outcome of which had already been determined.
Narcissa told him, once he arrived home, of Sirius's arrival. And together they swiftly worked out a plan to make proper use of the rebel Black.
It took time, of course. Conditioning always did.
Sirius rebelled at first, screaming for Harry, Remus, Dumbledore, anyone who would get him out of here. Lucius let him scream into the silence for some time. It was the best way of ensuring Sirius's despair.
When it seemed that Sirius might go catatonic from gloom, Lucius placed Sirius under Imperio. Slowly, he eradicated Sirius's memories of Harry, of Azkaban, of Peter's treason. He twisted Sirius's perceptions, so that Sirius saw his prison as a hospital room, Narcissa as Poppy Pomfrey, Lucius as Dumbledore. He erased all knowledge of the present, and took Sirius back to the tense and terrible years of the first war with the Dark Lord, when Sirius had been a young man scarcely out of school.
It did not take long to discover oozing wounds in Sirius's psyche that dated from the first war or earlier: a lust-hunger for James Potter that he could scarcely admit to himself; bitter jealousy toward the Mudblood Evans; anguish over the werewolf's possible treachery; hatred for the unknown spy. And Lucius kept the wounds open and festering, causing Sirius to remember every moment he'd ever spent with another as a fantasy of what he wanted to do with James. When that was set irrevocably in Sirius's mind, Lucius implanted a false memory--that Sirius had raped James in retaliation for James having saved Snape. Lucius watched in amusement as Sirius's mouth closed hungrily on unseen lips, as Sirius struggled to pin a phantom body to his bed, as Sirius thrust into that nonexistent body, alternately crying out in ecstasy and cursing James for making him do this.
And afterwards, guilt and horror. And broken attempts to speak to and to touch the stunned and shell-shocked James…who only existed in Sirius's imagination, after all.
Oh, the misery Sirius bought for himself with that. The nightmares. The agony. Lucius found it delicious.
Lucius played on Sirius's fears, too. The fugitive who had escaped from Azkaban suffered from a host of terrors stemming from that, even if he no longer knew he had been there. The dark, starvation, cold, rattling breath, sucking sounds…Lucius used each as a scalpel to shape Sirius's mind into its desired form.
And through it all, Sirius confided to Dumbledore. He fairly burbled all of the Order's secrets to his supposed leader. Dates, places, names--even names of those whom the Dark Lord had thought to be his trusted followers. Lucius thought it a pity that Sirius could not discover that he had betrayed the Order; he would have given much to see the self-loathing crawling across Sirius's face.
Inch by inch and yard by yard, Lucius constructed a world of false memories. Slowly, Sirius remembered Lupin becoming darker and more deceptive. He remembered James cutting off the friendship in the aftermath of rape and growing more bitter and more hostile each day toward Sirius and Dumbledore--who, Lucius had Sirius recall, "would do anything to cover up a crime by one of his precious Gryffindors."
It took two years to rebuild Sirius's mind. Two years to fill it with terror, paranoia, rage and guilt. But at last, in Harry's seventh year, Sirius was ready. Ready for his final mission from Dumbledore.
It was terribly simple, Lucius-Dumbledore told Sirius, and so very tragic. There was not one traitor, but two: James and Remus. Why Remus had betrayed them, no one knew, but James's treachery was beyond doubt. He had even been marked by the Dark Lord--a jagged black scar on his forehead, as a sign of Dark power.
"He is no longer human," Lucius-Dumbledore murmured in an avuncular manner. "He cannot be slain by the Killing Curse. But there is a way to restore him to mortality, if you are willing. Get his wand from him. Break it. Then cut open his throat with this enchanted dagger"--he handed the silver dagger, a weapon of viperish slenderness, to Sirius--"and that will let the Dark power escape. Then he will be mortal again. James again. Free."
Lucius had expected Sirius's emotions to cloud his judgement. He was not surprised that Sirius's immediate and fervent reply was, "I'd do anything for James. Anything to show him...I'm sorry..."
So it was that Sirius Black stood on the side of Voldemort at the final battle, and never knew it. His brain saw the truth; his mind insisted that he was seeing something completely different. So it was that Sirius, his face alight with the prospect of freeing James from unspeakable evil, ran toward Harry Potter, pulled him into a tight embrace, and cut his throat.
The cut was deep, almost to the bone. The anticoagulation spells on the dagger's edges only made the probable inevitable.
Slowly, Harry Potter toppled to the ground. But in the confusion of battle, no one saw this.
Minutes later, his heart stopped.
Minutes later, so did Voldemort's.
Lucius smiled. He had guessed long ago that for the Dark Lord to die, Harry Potter would have to die as well. The two had been so closely bound as to make it seem inevitable.
He sent a swift Avada Kedavra across the field to Sirius. It was better if his tool did not remain alive to be questioned.
Rapidly he gathered the forces that were loyal to him and not to the late Dark Lord. Not as many as he could have wished...but there would be time to gather more in the future.
The king is dead, he thought, watching his allies scatter and rout the armies of the Light.
Long live the king.
Pairing: Lucius/Sirius (not physical, but there's a lot of mindfucking going on.)
Summary: Lucius's best weapon against Sirius is Sirius himself.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,570
Warnings: M/M slash, some non-con (in a way), character death. It might count as darkfic. I don't know.
Possible Spoilers: OotP
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of J.K. Rowling - likewise the profits.
Author's Note: Originally posted to i_love_looshie
As Lucius Malfoy could have told the researchers at the Ministry, the Veil did not lead to the world of the dead.
They believed it did, and that was what they had told Dumbledore, who also believed it. But belief, as Lucius knew, was not proof.
The Veil was a Portkey.
The Veil had not been in the Ministry long--only for the past sixteen or seventeen years. It had taken Lucius a great deal of time and even more money to smuggle the Portkey into the Ministry, and an impressive amount of Dark magic to Transfigure the Portkey permanently into its present form: a stone archway covered by a ragged veil.
Then he left it there, and sat back, and watched the fun.
When the researchers found it the next morning, they were puzzled. They tested the composition of the stone and the fabric of the curtain shrouding the archway; they performed thaumic examinations on the portal, and found that it was filled with Dark magic involving death...yet they soon learned that it did not kill those who touched it.
However, the things sent through the Veil--as well as the witches and wizards whom the Ministry found expedient to dispose of--never returned.
The disappearance of all of the test subjects, coupled with the death magic that whispered from each stone in the arch and each stitch in the Veil itself, convinced the researchers--and how Lucius laughed at their calling themselves by such an undeserved name!--that the Veil was the doorway to death, and that it had appeared within the Department of Mysteries simply because some power in the universe wished them to uncover death's mysteries.
And they were right, in a way. But the power's name was Lord Voldemort. His followers appropriated the rare and precious gold of the Department's discoveries, and left the researchers the slag and the dross, and the researchers were none the wiser.
Those who realised the worthlessness of the material tended to meet with…accidents. Not necessarily fatal ones. After all, madness or permanent brain damage did just as well.
As for the Veil, it ended in a well-guarded dungeon in Lucius's Wiltshire mansion.
Few survived long after their arrival, unless they were servants of the Dark Lord who could still be useful to him elsewhere. Those were given false passports and new identities, and enough Polyjuice to get them out of one country and into another.
Sirius Black was an exception.
When he suggested to Bellatrix that she should maneuver her cousin in front of the Veil and then stun him so hard that he would fall backward, Lucius had not intended for Sirius to be any more than bait for the Potter brat, who would surely rush right through the Veil after his dear godfather.
But the boy hadn't done so. Perhaps he had been held back. Lucius didn't know.
Lucius landed in Azkaban as a result of that night's exploit, but only briefly. The warden of the prison was a tragically unappreciated civil servant who only wanted to retire to the country with his wife and raise mangel-wurzels. The Hit Wizards who now guarded the prison in place of the Dementors longed for the simple luxuries of life: good wine, old books, long, sybaritic vacations in faraway locations. The boatman who conveyed the rare visitor to the prison wanted to give his daughter a racing broom for her birthday.
And Lucius, generous soul that he was, was happy to scatter largesse to the masses.
So it was no more than a month before he was home again, awaiting a trial the outcome of which had already been determined.
Narcissa told him, once he arrived home, of Sirius's arrival. And together they swiftly worked out a plan to make proper use of the rebel Black.
It took time, of course. Conditioning always did.
Sirius rebelled at first, screaming for Harry, Remus, Dumbledore, anyone who would get him out of here. Lucius let him scream into the silence for some time. It was the best way of ensuring Sirius's despair.
When it seemed that Sirius might go catatonic from gloom, Lucius placed Sirius under Imperio. Slowly, he eradicated Sirius's memories of Harry, of Azkaban, of Peter's treason. He twisted Sirius's perceptions, so that Sirius saw his prison as a hospital room, Narcissa as Poppy Pomfrey, Lucius as Dumbledore. He erased all knowledge of the present, and took Sirius back to the tense and terrible years of the first war with the Dark Lord, when Sirius had been a young man scarcely out of school.
It did not take long to discover oozing wounds in Sirius's psyche that dated from the first war or earlier: a lust-hunger for James Potter that he could scarcely admit to himself; bitter jealousy toward the Mudblood Evans; anguish over the werewolf's possible treachery; hatred for the unknown spy. And Lucius kept the wounds open and festering, causing Sirius to remember every moment he'd ever spent with another as a fantasy of what he wanted to do with James. When that was set irrevocably in Sirius's mind, Lucius implanted a false memory--that Sirius had raped James in retaliation for James having saved Snape. Lucius watched in amusement as Sirius's mouth closed hungrily on unseen lips, as Sirius struggled to pin a phantom body to his bed, as Sirius thrust into that nonexistent body, alternately crying out in ecstasy and cursing James for making him do this.
And afterwards, guilt and horror. And broken attempts to speak to and to touch the stunned and shell-shocked James…who only existed in Sirius's imagination, after all.
Oh, the misery Sirius bought for himself with that. The nightmares. The agony. Lucius found it delicious.
Lucius played on Sirius's fears, too. The fugitive who had escaped from Azkaban suffered from a host of terrors stemming from that, even if he no longer knew he had been there. The dark, starvation, cold, rattling breath, sucking sounds…Lucius used each as a scalpel to shape Sirius's mind into its desired form.
And through it all, Sirius confided to Dumbledore. He fairly burbled all of the Order's secrets to his supposed leader. Dates, places, names--even names of those whom the Dark Lord had thought to be his trusted followers. Lucius thought it a pity that Sirius could not discover that he had betrayed the Order; he would have given much to see the self-loathing crawling across Sirius's face.
Inch by inch and yard by yard, Lucius constructed a world of false memories. Slowly, Sirius remembered Lupin becoming darker and more deceptive. He remembered James cutting off the friendship in the aftermath of rape and growing more bitter and more hostile each day toward Sirius and Dumbledore--who, Lucius had Sirius recall, "would do anything to cover up a crime by one of his precious Gryffindors."
It took two years to rebuild Sirius's mind. Two years to fill it with terror, paranoia, rage and guilt. But at last, in Harry's seventh year, Sirius was ready. Ready for his final mission from Dumbledore.
It was terribly simple, Lucius-Dumbledore told Sirius, and so very tragic. There was not one traitor, but two: James and Remus. Why Remus had betrayed them, no one knew, but James's treachery was beyond doubt. He had even been marked by the Dark Lord--a jagged black scar on his forehead, as a sign of Dark power.
"He is no longer human," Lucius-Dumbledore murmured in an avuncular manner. "He cannot be slain by the Killing Curse. But there is a way to restore him to mortality, if you are willing. Get his wand from him. Break it. Then cut open his throat with this enchanted dagger"--he handed the silver dagger, a weapon of viperish slenderness, to Sirius--"and that will let the Dark power escape. Then he will be mortal again. James again. Free."
Lucius had expected Sirius's emotions to cloud his judgement. He was not surprised that Sirius's immediate and fervent reply was, "I'd do anything for James. Anything to show him...I'm sorry..."
So it was that Sirius Black stood on the side of Voldemort at the final battle, and never knew it. His brain saw the truth; his mind insisted that he was seeing something completely different. So it was that Sirius, his face alight with the prospect of freeing James from unspeakable evil, ran toward Harry Potter, pulled him into a tight embrace, and cut his throat.
The cut was deep, almost to the bone. The anticoagulation spells on the dagger's edges only made the probable inevitable.
Slowly, Harry Potter toppled to the ground. But in the confusion of battle, no one saw this.
Minutes later, his heart stopped.
Minutes later, so did Voldemort's.
Lucius smiled. He had guessed long ago that for the Dark Lord to die, Harry Potter would have to die as well. The two had been so closely bound as to make it seem inevitable.
He sent a swift Avada Kedavra across the field to Sirius. It was better if his tool did not remain alive to be questioned.
Rapidly he gathered the forces that were loyal to him and not to the late Dark Lord. Not as many as he could have wished...but there would be time to gather more in the future.
The king is dead, he thought, watching his allies scatter and rout the armies of the Light.
Long live the king.