To Serve In Hell

How could he? How dare that little bastard face the Dark Lord and the Imperius Curse and then just walk away?

I'd like to grab his neck and wring the blood out of his damned body with my bare hands! I want to watch him shriek and beg and thrash in agony, suffer worse than he did under Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse. I want the satisfaction of knowing that it is me who is hurting him!

How dare he? How dare he remind me!

I Apparate on the lawns surrounding Malfoy Manor in the pouring rain. Its illuminated windows glitter invitingly, but I cannot face the light, not now. Narcissa, the house-elves... can't see me like this.

I slump against one of the pillars framing the entrance, rain soaking through my robes, plastering my hair against my head. Why does it have to happen all over again, oh why didn't I cut the little son of a Mudblood down two years ago at Hogwarts, and to hell with Dumbledore and the bloody elf? I can practically feel Him digging his nails into my soul again, and the memories rise like dead, pale, drowned corpses washing up from the bottom of a lake. I let out a strangled whimper as their bloated, watery fingers brush over my face and dissolve into chilly raindrops on impact. The best I can do is resist the overwhelming urge to scream to the heavens.

Only when the icy water drenches my legs do I notice that I'm crouching on the marble steps, hands still pressed against the pillar. The rain does its very best to pound me to the ground. If only it could beat down the unbidden memories as easily...

... cowering on a hard stone floor, in just the same position, grabbing for some shreds of rational thought. Throwing my head back in agony as the spell tries to nestle its way down in my mind, sneaking further and further inside my head until I can practically feel it caressing my brain cells. I rip off the sticky strands one after the other, but like tentacles they reform, strengthen, and creep forward again and again. Sooner or later they'll swamp me, swallow me up, and I scream and scream and can't stop screaming no matter how embarrassing, but at least the shrieks drown out the whispers of that... thing in my head. If I exhaust myself I'll break down and pass out before the spell can overwhelm me.

Rape would be easier to deal with than this, anything would! I could handle him invading my body, but the mind is a far more vulnerable and fragile thing. Weird that you only realise how fragile when it's about to be ripped to shreds in front of your eyes...

I throw my head back against the granite wall, and relish the crack on impact and the splitting pain that rushes through my skull. If I repeat it often enough it may banish consciousness. Sometimes he just laughs as he watches me do that, delighted with my struggle to escape, but on a bad day he casts a Petrificus Totalus and I fall back to the ground, unable to move or to scream or create any kind of sensory input to distract my mind. These are the times when I know that madness and death are the best friends and allies there are.

After what feels like hours, a black dot appears below my mind's eye, first the size of a knut, then a galleon, then widening like the jaws of some ancient creature whose bite will finally, ultimately devour me. If there were mercy in monsters, I'd beg and plead with it to chew me up into scraps too small for even the Dark Lord to put back together. But, of course, there isn't. Mercy. In Monsters.

'Malfoys don't serve! '

Another one of those Phyrric victories, probably the last because there's not a shred of energy left in me to try again. Merlin and Mordred help me, don't let him do that to me again! I can throw off Imperius from just about everybody, but he doesn't wield it like an axe, but instead like venom drenched in visions, like the poison in that Muggle play that they drip into a sleeping man's ears, and I can feel it burning hole after hole into my soul, and if the holes converge, there'll be nothing left.

'Malfoys don't serve! '

How could I've been so fucking stupid? Slytherin, idiot, forgot there is no friendship on the dark side, and yet I listened to the Lestranges because they were friends, house-mates, my only friends. How, how could they've done this to me, why, why did I forget?

You wouldn't have fallen for that, Sebastian, I know, you warned me often enough. I have only myself to blame, you say? I was so curious about the famed Voldemort that I overlooked the Dark in Dark Lord, and curiosity offs the kneazle as they say, but I'll be damned if I'll make a kneazle pelt for Voldemort to lay in front of his fireplace.

I'll be damned, yes, how fitting. Damned... damned and damned stupid to boot. If you reach out to touch evil, evil will reach right back and grab you good. Forgot to mention that little sub-clause when you preached me the Malfoy code, right, father? Damn you, too! To hell! Where you are, I bet.

'Malfoys don't serve! '

All the seductive talk about power and mastery of the Dark Arts and revenge against your enemies and satisfaction of desires tempted me into the snake's spider-web until I was stuck in the strands, wriggling to both get away and to get closer. They took me to meet their Master, those brave friends of mine, with all his charisma and power and yes, I was impressed despite the off-putting eyes. How can you not be impressed when you're offered all you could ever dream of on a silver platter? And how could I believe, as a Slytherin, dealing with Slytherins, that there would be no price to pay?

Of course I know when I'm being courted and flattered, it happens wherever I go. In Wizarding Society, at work in the Ministry where those with ambition or empty pockets bow and scrape before me, except for a few - mainly ex-Gryffindors - who enjoy lording it over the Malfoy heir. To them I'd like to be a Death Eater, the death bringer that Voldemort wants me to be. Or, like the rest, he wants my name, to wear as a precious jewel around his neck. And yes, he could raise me to a level of the Dark Arts I could only dream of in long, cold nights filled with cruel visions. Ah, Sebastian, what would you have done if he offered you that? Well, if you weren't in the process of being eaten by the worms of the earth, of course?

'Malfoys don't serve! '

They lured me into the ceremony without mentioning that the high point was to be my own initiation. All I had to do was to perform some rather basic Dark Arts spells on a couple of captured Mudbloods. I don't particularly like using Crucio, though I can cast it well enough. It's a form of overkill. If I want to hurt someone, I'd prefer if they don't overload or go crazy after half an hour. It lacks finesse.

At last they drag in a Muggle boy, about seventeen or eighteen, dark-haired with terrified eyes, and force him on his knees before me. I start to point my wand at him, but they hand me a knife instead. Some in the crowd flinch. Yes, it's an unwizardly way to kill, but then again I've used Avada Kedavra before and killed in wizard duels, and found that when it comes to the matter of dealing out death I'm not fond of the relative impersonality of magic. I cup the boy's cheek soothingly and smile until a glimmer of hope appears on his face, then draw the magical blade across his throat. While I dislike the feeling of blood on my hands or robes - it's sticky and dry flakes turn up days later where you'd never expect them - nothing compares to the feeling of watching a life fade and knowing I extinguished it. A jolt of pure energy sparks in my chest and runs right down my spine into my groin. It's the very essence of pleasure. I smile over the heads of the crowd. Oh yes, I could get used to that sensation. More primal than magic, and far deeper than sex.

Voldemort radiates approval and offers me the Dark Mark. Of course I decline. What did he expect? I'm a Malfoy. I'm willing to do anything - lie, steal, kill, rape, torture - but I won't serve another.

The dark-robed crowd stills abruptly, then erupts in hushed whispers. I never see the Stunning Spell that takes me down.

'Malfoys don't serve! '

Hubris, that's what it was, believing nobody, no matter how notorious, would dare to lift a hand against a Malfoy. But I've learned that the name can be a boomerang, if someone wants you badly enough to force the issue. Of course he could torture me into submission quickly enough, I'm not quite the type to laugh off Cruciatus. But then again it might damage me beyond repair. That, or I'd recover sooner or later and hunt down each and every one of Voldemort's supporters and rip the spines out of their still-breathing bodies to sell for potion ingredients. So it had to be Imperius.

Sure I could throw it off - the first three or four times. I'm certain Voldemort didn't show his real strength at the beginning, to lull me into a false sense of security and crush my hopes afterwards - as I would have done. Seeing him is like looking into a mirror, only a mirror that is a hundred times stronger than yourself and trying to twist your image into something else entirely.

At times I wish I could just give in. Every time I start to crack, my father's ghost appears before my inner eye, chanting the mantra. The family ancestor Mordred waged war against his lord Arthur rather than serve him. Bleeding Nathaniel Malfoy financed the research of Salazar Slytherin. Grandfather Damon offered refuge to Grindelwald. None of them served, ever! Well, thank you father, and fuck you very much! Family pride is great, but you forgot to tell me how to use it to keep the bastard out of my head!

'Malfoys don't serve! '

He slides back into the room again and I shrink back into the wall as far as possible. I can shut out the godawful condescending smile by squeezing my eyes shut, but not the pressure of the spindly-white fingers on my face. Like bones wrapped in snake skin. They feel just as dry and invasive on my skin as his mind does on mine.

"Let's try again," he whispers sadistically, and I yank my head away violently, trying desperately to stop that foul, infernal touch. He just laughs and intensifies the grip. "Imperio!"

'Malfoys don't serve! '

I never knew it was possible to step right into another's mind, but he does, or maybe it's just my brain trying to visually interpret the curse's effects. But I see him, a tall, gaunt figure walking on the waters of a limitless black sea, whose waves lap higher and higher, ready to spill over the small fortress of my soul. I'm standing on the battlements of its highest tower, the only thing that still rises out of the water, filling bags with sand to wall off an ocean. But now there are only a handful of sacks left, the shovel is broken, the sand is running out, and still the water continues to rise. In despair, I lean my forehead against the makeshift barrier and feel the water soak through cloth and sand, heavier and heavier, dislodging the foundations and washing them out into the sea. How, how can I die without drowning? I throw back my head, gazing up into an endless horizon of black clouds, promising only more rain, and scream.

"Sebastian!"

Oh Merlin, father, help me, please, help me, help me, help me!

'Malfoys don't serve! '

I'm still on the ground, every muscle tensed into a full-body cramp, but the face I'm staring into is not his. The hand that touches my lips and comes away covered in blood is not his. I tilt my head back to ask for more of that touch and tears flow from my eyes beyond control because it's not him. His, but not him. Macnair. Father's friend. The Wizard of Axe. I giggle at the thought, but the sound sticks in my throat and comes up again amidst violent coughs. Should have stayed away from the Muggle books, they fuck with my head as much as Voldemort.

He slips an arm around my shoulders to hold me up, shaking his head.

"Lucius, I know how proud you are, but your resistance is starting to anger Him. That'll get you killed." I smile, a grimace that feels deeply unnatural, and his frown proves it's even more distorted than I thought.

"It's not worth it," he hisses, throwing a nervous glance at the door. "It's what your father'd have done, but what good is Malfoy pride when the last Malfoy is gone? Don't waste your potential for something as empty as a name!"

'Malfoys don't serve! '

Fool! The name - that's all there is!

I want to slap him, but he's gone in a blink. Damn! Was that another hallucination? Is I'm-the-fucking-Dark-Lord-bound-to-conquer-the-world-and-you-on-top-of-it still messing with my head? The same old "you could be great in insert-name-here" talk? What d'you think, Sebastian? Is your name worth dying for? I slump back, stirring the thought around in my mind like a halfway-disgusting, halfway-intriguing potion ingredient in a leaky cauldron. Fuck, I'm channelling Severus!

No, you're avoiding the issue, growls the thunder from the clouds and its echo rolls over the water.

'Malfoys don't... '

No. But neither do they die, not voluntarily anyway. That's the frigging, boring Gryffindor death-before-surrender domain. That's bloody easy! What good is 'not to serve' when it means 'not to live'? But is that my thought, or just something the bastard planted in my head? And does it even matter?

This time when he returns I don't flinch or look away. His brows are raised over the red-tinted, greenish snake's eyes. There's the flicker of anger that Macnair - Macnair? - warned me against. He is getting impatient. I raise my chin defiantly, and he grabs it with one hand, nails digging cruelly into my skin, wand tapping against the pressure point at my temple.

'Defy him ', Sebastian yells in my mind, huddling in his robes in the midst of the torrent of rain, ash-coloured hair dripping water into his collar and grey eyes sparking fury. He looks decidedly like a drowned and pissed-off rodent. 'Fight! Show him what it means to be a Malfoy! '

I smile at him, brilliantly from behind the crumbling walls of my fortress, and pull up all the mental wards I can muster, creating the strongest defensive walls I've ever built, holding them up and parading them under the Dark Lord's nose, reveling in my own strength. And then, I let go. If you have to surrender, do it with a bang not with a whimper!

It feels very much like standing naked in the focus of a hundred thousand Muggle floodlights, as if several angry suns have decided to direct their flares at me at a whim. Pleasant, yes, but also blinding and utterly empty. If the warmth wouldn't fill me from all sides, I'd be a black hole.

And at the very, tiny core that the warmth does not reach, there is a void. Something that can never be filled, because it would have to be filled from the inside of the mind that I handed over to Him for the keeping. Oh, of course He handed it back, but not intact. I finally understand the true meaning of selling your soul to the devil, something that goes far deeper than Muggle imaginings of bestowing disgusting forms of affection on unmentionable half-goat body parts. It means that another's will is lodged somewhere at the very core of your being, and that you will never, ever be sure if what you want is what you truly want or what He wants you to want.

But why ramble? It's no longer important. It's over.

Brushing off the thought I fall down to my knees before Him and kiss the hem of His robes, and it is easy! No inner struggle or aversion at all, just the unbearable pain, softened by layer after layer of acceptance, of knowing why.

I exit my prison as the Lord's most favoured new servant, and walk to my Death Eater initiation as if it were my wedding. Over the years that follow my star rises, and I drown my emptiness in the blood and screams of countless Wizards, Mudbloods and Muggles. Their deaths and agonies warm me, as does the pleasure of the Dark Lord's approval. And why shouldn't they pay for having what I cannot? I collect wealth, power, fear and adoration like pearls on a string. I lure my friends into the spider's web and laugh silently as they too trash in vain. I marry the beautiful creature the Dark Lord has deigned to bestow on me. I hold my newborn son with shaking hands and silently promise never to raise him strong enough to die rather than to live. Sebastian's legacy almost killed me. I will not see the same happen to Draco! And every time His eyes fall on me during those dark and glorious years, He smiles because He knows that it is His voice that echoes in the deepest corner of my soul, and how much that torments me.

And then, one dark Halloween night, there is one last scream and then silence. Nothing is left but the faintest, disconnected babbling that I can just... shut out. Then the stories come in, about 'The Boy Who Lived' and His defeat, and for the first time in a decade I am free - to laugh, to cry, to curse, to... live. To think about putting flowers on the graves of Lily and James Potter, not because I would ever do it but because I can think it.

And then, tonight.

Tonight I felt the curse reconstitute itself, its wards falling back into place like iron nails hammering down the lids of a coffin. I felt the Mark burning and the desire to follow, and I Apparated and watched His resurrection. The smile He greeted me with was brilliant and knowing, and it was a far, far more exquisite and insidious revenge than Cruciatus could ever be. The satisfaction of re-attaching the leash to the collar of the stray that had escaped the kennel for a short while, and mistook the fenced-in garden lawn for the open fields.

I watched Him duel Potter, if duel is the right word for the onslaught of mental and physical torture that I witnessed while holding my breath, hoping beyond hope. The boy escaped, clutching the corpse of his fallen comrade, and anger erupted inside me like molten stone from the heart of a volcano. Escape? You weren't supposed to escape, you bloody useless little bastard, you were supposed to...

My nails dig into my palms so hard that I know tomorrow I'll find pieces of shredded skin under them. For a glorious moment, I envision sinking those claws into his flesh, his eyes, his soul, until his agonised shrieks drown out the furious pounding of my heartbeat. Potter! Harry fucking Potter! It all comes back to him! First he didn't manage to finish Him off successfully, then he helped resurrect Him and finally he failed to destroy Him again.

The hatred is burning so strong it forces tears to my eyes, and I'm grateful for the mask I'm hiding behind. Potter is going to pay! No matter how long or how much it will take, I will have my revenge. Maybe I'll hand him over to Draco to play with a while before trying my own hand. I think my son would like that. He hates him almost as much as I do. The abysmal creature hurt me worse than the Dark Lord ever could - Voldemort crushed my mind and my pride, but Harry Potter crushed any shred of hope I ever had. For that, he must suffer worse than anyone I have ever tortured before. For that, he must die.