The Perseus Complex

The Perseus Complex

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Prologue

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Draco Malfoy sat down on the stairs and muttered to himself as he pulled off his shoes. Only two weeks home from school and he was already forced to skulk about the house- his house. He could see Potter having to do this sort of thing. Poor Potter, abused by muggles in the tragic household of his upbringing. Much as he despised Potter he almost felt sorry for him, stuck in that muggle house. Almost.

He picked up a shoe in each hand and crept quietly down a long corridor, the icy chill of the stone slipping between the threads in his socks. He paused at a closed door. His father, or what remained of him, had locked himself in there nearly a week ago and hadn't come out since. Mother never even checked on him anymore. She had always thought he was an idiot anyway. "It's all in good fun until someone gets thrown to the dementors," had always been a favorite aphorism around her. "Never send a Crabbe to be a lookout," was another. And though Draco had never been able to learn of the original incident that spurred it, he lived by it all the same.

Draco held his breath and peered into the keyhole. It was pointless really. The tiny glimpse of the mahogany desk was clouded almost entirely by the unfocused silver rim. He looked anyway, trying to tilt his head for a better perspective. The way he was nearly crawling up the wall with his arms braced around the door frame to get a better look might have been terribly funny to a passing house elf if it hadn't been for the large and quite heavy china teapot she was carrying. But what was even more comical was the way he flew backwards onto the floor when a rustling of papers combined with a yelp of pain that was most certainly not a house elf startled him out of his mind.

He recovered rapidly with as much dignity as could be expected when one has just back flipped onto one's face; but before he could leave quietly and quickly, so as to save his own skin, a slight twitch deep within him made him stay. His hand reached for the doorknob and turned. It wasn't locked at all.

Whether it was some tiny inkling of love for his father or just simple curiosity that made him turn the handle was of no consequence now. The door was wide open and he stared blankly as his father rolled up his shirtsleeve and looked anxiously at the black mark burning on his forearm. His pale hand reached up and pulled at his hair as though he might, by some miracle, find what he was looking for on their roots.

Lucius Malfoy opened a wardrobe near the desk and pulled out a set of dark robes that he hurriedly pulled on over his shirt and trousers. He grabbed a handful of the papers on the desk. His eyes glanced over the top page and his face paled further.

"Not nearly enough," he trailed off as he shoved the papers clumsily into a pocket on the robes.

Draco squirmed inside. He knew he shouldn't be seeing this, mostly because he didn't want to. He could creep away now and no one would be the wiser. His father hadn't even noticed him. But still-

"Father?" The elder Malfoy looked finally to the door and gave his son a wan smile before disappearing with a small pop that was magnified by the silence.

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"Tut-tut," sneered a cold voice as Lucius Malfoy reappeared in a fairly small room with a fire lit in the grate. It came from an armchair with a high back so that all he could see of the speaker was the claw-like hand gripping the chair. He moved quickly around to the front of the chair.

"Late again, Malfoy."

"Yes, my lord," muttered Malfoy. He stared down at the floor and tried to focus on the pattern on the carpet instead of the pain that would soon be making every inch of his flesh scream in pain. His mind strayed back to his years at Hogwarts when he had never understood why the Cruciatus curse was unforgivable. There were plenty of pain-inducing charms that were only treated as misdemeanors by the ministry. He hadn't understood why this one was any different. That is, he hadn't understood until-

"Crucio!" shrieked the creature in the chair. Lucius' thoughts were caught short as the breath was knocked out of him. He reeled to the floor, his skull colliding with the floor. The first time it had been worse- the first time he had vomited; the first time his eyes had burned with hot tears.

The thing -for it was not remotely human- in the chair cut off the curse with a laugh and stood above Lucius. He knew that it was all for effect. Voldemort treated each meeting like a theatrical performance with him as the evil and all mighty monarch and the deatheaters as his minions. They would have all thought it extremely childish if it weren't so dangerous to think such things. If he simply carried out the meetings by saying things like "You do this" and "You do that" and "You over there, get moving or I'll curse your feet off" it would all be so much more efficient. But then, the drama, the wholly dark and twisted nature of it all was what had first intrigued him as a snotty Slytherin fifth year with a fondness for tripping, or rather paying others to trip first years.

"I won't do it again, my lord," said Lucius as he crept to his feet.

"He said that the last time," squeaked a timid voice from the corner. Lucius cursed the sniveling bastard that was Wormtail in his mind.

"But, my lord," cut in Lucius, trying to keep the malice in his voice at a minimum, "I was merely late because I was trying to collect my calculations for your newest project."

"Ah, yes," said Voldemort as a smile crept onto his face. "The new one."

"Yes, my lord. The preliminary tests have shown questionable results. We haven't tried it yet on an actual human-"

"Why not?" asked Voldemort, his voice raising. Lucius braced himself for the curse, but it didn't come.

"The results could be devastating. It could simply corrupt the nervous system and cause a break down. It might simply ruin any hope for recruitment.

"I'm sure," began Voldemort as though the solution were incredibly obvious, "that you could find a suitable test subject."

"But-"

"I wouldn't think you would make things so difficult Lucius. I believe you have a son."

"Draco? But I couldn't." He really couldn't. Even if his own affections for the boy wavered at times, he was sure Narcissa's wouldn't, and her wrath was just about up to par with that of Voldemort.

"Than I suggest you find someone else rather quickly-" The hunched man in the corner took a step forward.

"My lord, may I suggest a suitable person?" he asked timidly. Lucius rolled his eyes, but Voldemort turned to him.

"Yes?"

"Percy Weasley, sir. He works in the ministry, so if the experiment is successful, he could be invaluable. His family is very involved with the workings of Dumbledore."

"And if not," continued Lucius with a grin, "then I'm sure that Arthur Weasley wouldn't mind one less brat to look after." He thought, for the briefest of moments, that perhaps Wormtail was not as worthless as originally supposed.

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