Descent

DESCENT

Chapter Four: The End

The underground Bar Zlatka was dimly lit by red candles which stood atop each large black metal table, and phials filled with murky-green liquid made eerie humming sounds that permeated the air weaving a heavy spell of malevolence.

Lucius sat at a dark table in the corner, his head in his hands, the mysterious parchment that had ordered his presence here rolled up in front of him. He was so tired he couldn't think straight. All down the right side of his body ached horribly, where he had been beaten. He thought his hand was probably fractured, his face was bruised, his mind was in pieces, he had failed in his obligations to the Bulgarian Death Eaters, his uncle was trying to rob him of everything that was rightly his and he had spent last weekend languishing in a filthy Bulgarian jail cell...

A glass banged down onto the table in front of him.

'Drink that,' ordered the dark, beautiful woman. 'It might help you get a grip.'

Malfoy looked at her miserably, then eyed the weird-looking potion.

'Well? Are you going to tell me why you've come here or not?' he growled.

Bellatrix Black sat down opposite and appraised him, her head on one side.

'I've been sent to solve all your problems,' she said.

'Ha! Well, you'll be here a bloody long time then, won't you!' Malfoy snatched up the drink and almost choked as he swallowed the fiery spirit in one.

Bellatrix sighed patiently, as though dealing with a petulant child, and waited for him to calm.

'The Dark Lord has become increasingly concerned about your focus, and quite frankly, I'm not surprised, ' she said, after a moment.

'Look, Bellatrix,' spat Malfoy, rising abruptly, rage seething in his eyes, 'I am as competent as any of one of you, and whatever may have happened to me, I have never been anything but loyal!'

'Sit down!' she hissed, slamming her hand down on the table. He obeyed, but glowered at her and folded his arms huffily. 'And you can stop bloody well sulking, Malfoy! There's only a problem here if you make one!'

'Look, I only missed a few-'

'He knows about it all.'

'May I ask how? Oh, let me guess, Karkaroff, that filthy snitching-'

'It doesn't matter! Really, Lucius! What was it you used to say? About doing what Malfoys did? Something about if you fall, you get the hell back up and you knock someone else down? Where's all that now?'

'I really don't think-'

'Shut up! Listen! You're being recalled. You have to go back to the UK immediately.'

'Bellatrix, I would like nothing better, but in case you hadn't noticed, I'm fighting legal proceedings. I'm not giving up half my inheritance for anyone.'

'Well, if you'd listen a minute and stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself! Your little inheritance problem has been dealt with. Look.'

She slid a smallish box over the tabletop towards him, which he eyed suspiciously, but seeing the look on her face, thought he'd better open it. He recoiled as the rotting smell hit him and gaped at what lay bleeding inside.

'Right...' He stared from the box to Bellatrix, a mixture of revulsion and disbelief in his face.

Bellatrix was brimming with pride, her eyes shining with glee.

'Yeah. I told him I'd hack his other hand off as well, if he didn't contact the Ministry immediately and drop the case!'

'Forgive me, Bellatrix, but what if the Ministry think I've done this? I won't need an inheritance if I'm rotting in Azkaban, will I?'

'You underestimate the Dark Lord. And you underestimate me. There's no way Andrei will say anything, not after what Rosier and I did to him. He was grateful to escape with his life and most of his body parts. And as for the Ministry, well, I made sure you were well-seen in attendance at that last little soiree of theirs in Sofiya. You couldn't have been in Varna, torturing your uncle at the same time, could you. Alibi. See?'

Malfoy nodded, slowly.

'Well. What can I say? I owe you my thanks,' he said, feeling somewhat off-guard, 'I can't quite believe this is happening. I can really return home?'

'Yes. There's just one more thing. Call it a 'gesture'. To reinforce the Dark Lord's confidence in you. A task. That 'someone else' that you have to knock down. It's my cousin.'

*

Regulus arrived home carrying a bundle of Narcissa's possessions from her father's manor. He was excited about this evening, when the two of them would leave the country and head for a lighter, warmer, safer place.

Most of the packing had been finished, and the house was empty, but for a medium-sized eagle owl perched on the back of the chair in the study.

Perhaps it was a reply from Sirius. But as he got closer, Regulus saw it was not Sirius's owl, but a more familiar one. He gently unfastened the parchment from the bird's leg and unrolled it. It smelled of honeysuckle and Narcissa.

My dearest Regulus,

Before we leave England for however long it may turn out to be, I thought we could spend our last night the way we spent our first.

Humour me, Regulus. Allow me some sentiment. And I will follow you anywhere.

Come to the gatehouse tower at the bottom of my parent's estate, tonight at eleven. And bring some champagne. I feel cause for celebration.

All my love

Narcissa

Regulus smiled and wandered contentedly towards the cellar, carried by drifting thoughts of the future, of white-blonde caresses and whispered promises.

*

When the clock struck eleven, Regulus stood alone at the foot of the gatehouse tower on the dark edge of the Black estate. He pushed the door open and began to make his ascent, the champagne in one hand, his wand glowing with Lumos in the other. His hair was trimmed immaculately, he was dressed handsomely, in his smartest shirt and tie, and there had been resurrected a flush of life in his cheeks that had been dead for months.

He could smell her perfume as he reached the third floor, and as he poked his head around the door, he caught sight of her, sitting among cushions on the floor behind a single white candle.

She looked up, already smiling. He did not move, so he could capture her in his mind, and whenever he closed his eyes, this is what he wanted to see. She looked changed. Her eyes were dancing with life, her cheeks were flushed pink and she seemed so slightly breathless.

'You look absolutely stunning,' he said, returning her smile.

She stood and walked towards him, beautiful in a simple black dress. She kissed him on the cheek.

'Come to the roof with me,' she said, taking his hand and leading him slowly back to the stairs.

When they reached the top, Narcissa opened the door for him and Regulus walked out into the warm air under a canopy of stars.

There was a single black iron chair in the centre of the rooftop.

'What's that there for?' asked Regulus.

'Sit down,' smouldered Narcissa, moving her hands onto his chest and gently pushing him backwards.

He placed the champagne on the ground then sat obediently, half-smiling when she knelt in front of him, between his knees. She moved her hands slowly over his thighs, and he gave a slight gasp when her hand slid into his pocket, and touched him through the fabric. She smirked, and moved her hand into the other pocket, extracting his wand.

'We won't be needing this,' she said, giving him a little smile.

He reached and took one of her hands, and she moved to kiss him once on the cheek,

'My dearest cousin,' she murmured into his ear, 'I do hope you've enjoyed the last two years...' He kissed her chin in affirmation, as she took his hands around the back of the chair. 'Because you see, Regulus,' she continued, in a matter-of-fact way, 'you won't be getting to touch me...ever...again...'

He heard the metallic click of the handcuffs as they locked behind his back, and glanced startled, into her narrowed eyes, which were now shining with intensity.

She stepped away from him, folding her arms.

'Narcissa?' he attempted, confused at this new power-game she had seemingly devised for him.

She sneered down at him, that steely, bored look firmly back in place.

'I wonder, Regulus. Whether you ever considered the penalty for your multitude of sins.'

'What's going on? What are you doing?' He wrenched at the bindings behind his back.

She smiled.

'Oh, Regulus. Never were the brightest lantern in the street, were you?'

'Get these things off me! Stop messing around, Narcissa, I mean it!' Panic began to rise in Regulus's chest.

'There are not many things worse than weakness,' she said, her glare burning holes in him, 'but treachery is certainly one of them.'

'Treachery? What do you mean?'

A sound from the door to the stairs...

'And I have another surprise for you, too.'

'I think we need to talk about this, Narcissa!'

'Say hello,' she breathed as she gazed into the darkness.

The door swung slowly open. Narcissa grinned. Regulus gaped.

'Good evening,' drawled Lucius Malfoy.

*

'What the fuck are you doing here?!' Regulus felt dizzy, sitting in the middle of his world as it spiralled out of his control.

Malfoy strolled across the rooftop, looking lazily into the night sky.

'Now, really, Regulus. Are you unable to work that one out for yourself?'

'You're supposed to be in Bulgaria! Why are you here?'

A slow malicious grin spread across Malfoy's face as his grey eyes glinted with murderous glee.

'To put things right.'

Regulus's eyes locked with Malfoy's as icy realisation began to spread through him.

'I...don't know what you're talking about....'

'But I know what you're hiding. And so does the Dark Lord.'

Regulus's heart faltered as realisation dissolved quickly into cold terror.

'But, there's no way...he couldn't have found out...how could he know-'

'The Dark Lord always knows, Black,' said Malfoy, with a self-satisfied smirk. 'And you forget that He possesses servants far more loyal than you.'

'What?! Who?! How could-' Regulus stopped, his mind frantic. 'No...' He began to tremble and his skin turned a deathly pale as his gaze settled on Narcissa, who was standing watching, her arms folded, her white-blonde hair catching in the wind. 'He doesn't mean...please God, not you...' Regulus's voice wavered as he pleaded to her, his heart high in his throat.

She stared glassily back at him.

'I will not allow you to shame my family.'

'Y-You went to the Dark Lord? How could you do that!' he stammered.

Malfoy laughed, scathingly.

'How could she not?'

'But she's in love with-I thought she was-with-'

'With you? drawled Malfoy, incredulously, 'dear dear, Regulus. It seems you have become inextricably mired in a terrible delusion.' His expression changed to raw hate in an instant. 'Crucio!'

Regulus screamed as the force of the curse threw him from the chair, and he landed hard,

writhing on the rooftop, the stars in his vision blurred by agony and tears, until it broke off, leaving him gasping for air.

He lay, broken, his body racked by Cruciatus, and he gazed pleadingly across at Lucius and Narcissa.

'You're wrong, Malfoy. You weren't there,' he whispered, with all the strength he could find. 'You'll never know...'

Narcissa pulled out her wand and took a step forward, but Lucius rested a hand on her stomach to stop her. He began walking slowly around where Regulus's tortured body lay, like a predator around the bleeding corpse before devouring.

'Oh, but I'm all too aware of what has passed while I've been away, Regulus. This girl, trying to fill that wrenching emptiness inside her, with alcohol, with hatred, with you. She failed. And I, I suffered alone, lost in the futility of life and dreams, trying to distract myself with meaningless pleasure that only amounted to a more powerful pain. I failed.'

'Malfoy-' croaked Regulus, spitting blood from his mouth, and trying unsuccessfully to rise.

'And so what now? One wonders where we can go from here,' continued Malfoy.

'Malfoy, listen to me-'

'You see, the thing about hitting rock bottom is, you can only go upwards from there. And Narcissa and myself are owed a new beginning.'

'Malfoy, please, just-'

'A beginning which has been so generously granted to us by the Dark Lord himself.'

'Just listen to me, just wait a minute-'

'The air is heavy with sins, Regulus,' drawled Lucius, looking up into the night sky. 'Can you feel it? Narcissa's. Mine. Yours. And someone is going to die for them.'

'Don't be insane! No one has to die! I'll stay! I'll serve with the Death Eaters, I'll do anything you want!'

'Dear, dear. A coward as well as a traitor. Are you so stupid as to believe that the Dark Lord would have any further use for a thing like you? Really, Regulus, you should at least have learnt that by now.'

Regulus gurgled a miserable moan, as blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

'Narcissa,' he whispered.

'You were just a bad habit of mine, Regulus,' she said, giving a small shrug. 'One that needs breaking.'

She turned from him, and uttered one more word.

'Morsmordre!'

Regulus closed his eyes. His mind was pounding with black terror as he saw his life descend down into a gaping abyss. A teardrop fell onto the stone of the rooftop.

He opened his weary eyes, and through the bleary despair, saw Malfoy raise his wand. Regulus turned his head to his cousin for the last time, but it was only the first time he saw her for what she had been all along. Just another beautiful, evil thing.

'I thought I could save you, Narcissa. But you're as lost as Bellatrix,' he whispered, before a green flash seared through the air.

The last thing Regulus Black saw, before Avada ripped the life from his young body and the light faded from his eyes, was the deadly leering evil of the Dark Mark.

*

'Well,' said Lucius, looking down at the bottle, 'I don't suppose there's any point in wasting decent champagne, is there?' He moved close to Narcissa and traced a pale finger slowly down her cheek to her neck, the tiniest half-smile settling on his features.

Narcissa gazed at him, finally finding her future in the way he looked back at her.

'What will we drink to?' she asked, her soft touch lingering on his forearm.

Lucius thought a moment, and looked to the sky before meeting her gaze once again.

'To those of us who were born to walk in dark places.'

He nudged Regulus's body off the side of the tower with his boot, watching it fall and land, staring and broken in the shadows.

And then, with an Apparation noise that left an echo in the air, the two were gone.

The End