WILD & WICKED / © yllwjckts
071 ⸻ The Ghost of You

Arsonist burning down the world to feel it's heat
The arsonist doesn't feel the embers on his feet
And arsonist, your humans starter kit came incomplete
My apologies, arsonist, you loved me

I'm going to a building that's on fire
Handcuffed to a narcissistic liar
Empty space and leather jeans
Eyes are blazed with apathy
Fool me twice, the shame is on me
Am I a victim in your game?
Am I a subtle antique placed?
Will you pass me through your bloodline with your ornamental age?
Can I take the blame for everything you hate?
The punishment and crime are not the same

Arsonist burning down the world to feel it's heat
The arsonist doesn't feel the embers on his feet
And arsonist, your humans starter kit came incomplete
My apologies, arsonist, you loved me

You built a small container to keep on me confined
I am water, I am shapeless, I am fluid, I'm divine
Somebody will love me for the way that I'm designed
Devastation, creation, intertwined
You don't love the flames, you just want them for yourself
And douse my head in kerosene, horizon into hell
You smothered out the glow I grew for you, but it was mine too

Arsonist burning down the world to feel it's heat
The arsonist doesn't feel the embers on his feet
And arsonist, your humans starter kit came incomplete
My apologies, arsonist, you loved me

Alchemy's not love, it's playing God and there's repentance paid for
Entering the temple like a fog in your charade
You leave me sleeping in the dark so you can hide away your blade
Then lock the door and trap me right here in the blaze

Arsonist burning down the world to feel it's heat
The arsonist doesn't feel the embers on his feet
And arsonist, your humans starter kit came incomplete
My apologies, arsonist, you loved me

Have you ever broken and thrown down?
Have you ever worried that you'd be burned off in a sack?
Have you ever given the world to somebody as a gift and have it returned?
Did you know the father's DNA stays inside the mother for seven years?
Have you ever waited seven years?
Have you ever woken from a dream just to realize that you were still asleep?
Do you ever wish you were still asleep?
Do you ever wish you wouldn't wake up?

— "Arsonist", Halsey

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

this is a rough chapter. proceed with caution.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

The bedroom was just as she remembered it.

Blood still stained the bed she and Philip had shared, as if the Coven had been too lazy, or perhaps too busy, to bother with cleaning it off. The blinds were drawn as always, which she swiftly undid, pulling them open and pushing the glass pane of the window so fresh air was able to enter. The rug draped where she walked was the same, though coated in a layer of dust, the design something Persian and beautiful and stolen from Merlin knew where.

Lux wouldn't look at the bed for long. Refused to allow herself to, fighting the urge to cry every time her eyes flickered towards it.

An hour went by in which Lux paged through the contents of one of Philip's many journals, before her stomach had lurched in a telltale way. She stumbled towards the window, stuck her head out of the curtains, and threw up across the lawn, watching the blood she'd consumed spray onto the grass twenty or so feet below her.

Crimson splattered on the green hues, it looked like the scene of a murder. Lux supposed, in a way, the Coven manor had housed such crimes. Titus had died there. She'd essentially been killed as well, the loss her old self, one who liked to sew and dance and listen to music. She'd been replaced with someone miserable, someone prone to self destruction, someone forced to read through the thoughts of her own rapist.

It was easier than she'd thought it would be, though maybe it was because she'd not gotten to the parts of his writing in which she was referenced. There were a few of the dozens of journals she didn't even understand, the oldest having been written in a language she did not recognize.

Pushing herself away from the window and back towards the fireplace in which his journals lined the mantle of, Lux refused to look around the room more than needed. At the bed, the floor, the wardrobe, all in various ways home to her abuse.

She'd kept the door open. Propped it with a book, ensuring it would not close unless she allowed it to. Reminded herself, even, as her stomach churned again, that she could leave.

She wasn't stuck. No one had a hold on her. She could walk out any time she liked, and neither Philip or the sun would be able to stop this.

Wiping her mouth with the side of her hand, she found herself not returning to the journals, but into the small, extended bag she had tied to her belt loop.

She wanted Snuffles. It was childish, maybe, aching for a stuffed animal in the way she did, finding a way to soothe herself by means of a silly toy meant for kids. But it was the only form of comfort she could think of in a room full of memories she could not run from.

Her hand didn't graze the fur first, but rather a cold, sharp object.

The stone Fulk had given her, she realized as she retracted her hand, fist closed around it.

His voice came back to her, the words he'd spoken as he folded the rock into her grasp, staring at her with those deep blue eyes, like he worried it may be the last time he would ever see her. "When the time comes, take this out. Twirl it three times."

Lux supposed if there was a time to come for this mystery object and what it did, that time would be now. Would be in this house, in these walls, with more questions than answers and the journals not providing anything of substance outside of nauseous waves.

Once, twice, three times, she moved the rock about in her hand, staring off into the window as she did, into the grass and the trees and the path to freedom she'd once embarked on.

Nothing. Not so much as a gust of wind.

She wondered if it was due to the house, the magic that didn't work within it. Twirled it again, just once this time, before she hard a rustling noise echo from behind where she stood.

Lux turned around, and nearly fell over.

She clung to the stone as hard as she could, until the rock was forming deep imprints into her palms, enough so that she thought it may draw blood. She hoped it did, wanted to feel that pain as she felt her breathing grow heavy, mind spin.

In front of her was Philip, alive and well as could be, looking passively confused as he placed a hand against the edge of the bedframe, eyes not looking at her, but his own blood spread across the blanket.

Her stomach lurched. She swallowed down the vomit rising in her throat, the tears beading in her eyes as she blinked over and over.

It was a hallucination, she told herself as her heart rate began to soar, beating so intensely in her chest she worried she may collapse.

He didn't vanish, even when she pinched herself. Instead, his eyes flickered towards her, followed by the upward curve of his lips.

"So we meet again."

It took everything in Lux not to step backwards as Philip strode across the room, until he was merely a foot away from her. It wasn't that cool, almost humorous look on his expression, nor the blood stained shirt that caught her attention first as he closed the space between them. No, she'd forgotten how short he was, in the twenty one years since she'd drove that stake into his heart. Lux barely had to look up to meet his eye.

"You look different," he went on.

"How are you here?" She choked.

He nudged towards the hand clutching the stone. "I see you found it. I couldn't expect otherwise, could I? You always wanted more, no matter how much I gave you."

"The stone..." She looked down, keeping her gaze fixed on her hand even as she spoke to him. "Are you alive, now?"

"Silly girl. You don't know what it is you have, do you?"

She was silent. Even as a phantom, he knew just how to humiliate her.

Lifting her chin, she looked up at him again even as she felt her body begin to tremble. He was, in atmosphere, just as she remembered. Just as all consuming. Just as frightening.

"You just felt like robbing Titus's grave for fun, then?" His eyes flickered towards the journals, where they lay slightly askew. "Or you went through my private thoughts."

It took a moment for her to understand he wanted an answer, head gone fuzzy. "My friend gave me it. Did it...it brought you back?"

"Until you seek to banish me away again." He turned away from her, striding back towards the bed, scanning the blood. As he observed the spot his death had been met in, Lux too found herself retreating into her mind.

Good God, what had she done?

She burst back out within moments, an understanding hitting her so intensely she nearly toppled to the ground from the weight of it.

For once, she held the power.

He turned around again, walking back towards her. "I suppose you missed me."

She didn't yell. She didn't cry. She gave no reaction at all, except for the slight tilting of her head to level herself with him, forcing herself to look into his gaze. "Did you miss me?"

"How could I not?" He drew a hand to place against her cheek. Lux may have recoiled, almost did, though was able to hold back when his touch went straight through her.

It didn't phase him, withdrawing his hand back to his side and continuing on, "It's been too long. I suppose you've come crawling back to me, seeing you've made a mistake. You were always too ambitious for your own good, Sweetling."

She'd never thought of herself as ambitious. There were things she wanted, yes, freedom, safety, love, power. She wanted to be an Auror, she wanted to fall in love and be loved in return, she wanted to grow. But those had never seemed to her like ambitions. More like dreams, too far out of her reach to do anything but gaze up at the sky of and imagine.

He couldn't hurt her, so she could say what she wanted. It was like she had a drop of Veritaserum on her tongue, letting the truth spill just as it had with Remus and Sirius. Though this time, it was her choice. "I don't want you back. Killing you is the one thing in my life I'm certain I would never undo, if given the chance."

He didn't seem surprised by this, though she could tell her answer didn't please him. "Grown claws, have you?"

"Always had them, actually. You were just too stuck up your own arse to see them."

His head tilted back, a loud laugh radiating through him. This time, Lux did flinch.

"Why are you afraid, sweetling?" He taunted, lips still curved up. "I can't do anything to hurt you."

"You can't," she agreed, swallowing. "I have the power, now. How does that feel, Philip?"

Something about using his name felt like he were for the first time, akin to an equal. She'd rarely ever addressed him by such in the Coven, brought him down to the same level as herself.

Names, she realized, had power. To lift one up, bring one down. Make one feel special and twist someone into their bidding.

She thought of Fulk, in spite of everything, and the name he'd given her years ago. She thought of the four Marauders and their stupid nicknames for each other. She thought of Elias, and how he'd dubbed her the very thing she'd never been able to coexist with.

She thought of Philip. Of course she did. Sweetling, he'd called her. Using her own name to him was acknowledging her as a human, as worthy of respect. He'd called her as much because it made his conscious feel more clean.

"Why am I here, then?" Philip demanded, a new sharpness to his tone. Lux tightened her grip on the stone. "Have you simply summoned me to feel powerful for the first time in your pathetic life? To get a glimpse of what I had before you stripped it away?"

She felt her chin wobble, the sound of his voice bouncing off the walls enough to make her want to send him away. She could, she reminded herself, holding down tight on the rock.

But not yet. Not when she needed answers. Not when this may be her only chance to protect herself. If she needed to strip herself bare, rid herself of her pride one final time for a lifetime more of protection, she would do as much.

It was nothing she'd not done before, self degradation for survival.

"I know what you could do."

He lifted a brow. "Pray tell."

"You could mind control." This time, Lux was the one to close the gap between them, forcing herself to stride towards the man who had created her.

His lips curled. "I inherited it from my creator, yes. There was so much I could not do...it is a blessing I had that much."

Lux frowned. "Since when do you admit to weaknesses?"

"Since I have no purpose in exuding power. Unless you know of magic to completely bring me from the grave you sent me to."

"You wish."

He grinned, eyes flickering back towards her hand. Towards the stone.

Suddenly, her skin felt contaminated, like his mere gaze had infected it, though the thought didn't last for long when he asked, "Do you have the others, then?"

"The others?"

"The wand. The cloak." He waved a hand. "The other Hallows."

"I don't know what those are."

He scoffed, shaking his head and taking a step back. "Dumb child. Playing with power she doesn't understand. You've not changed a bit, Sweetling."

"My name is Lux."

"Look in that journal." He nudged his chin towards the one at the very edge of the mantel, an aged, leather bound collection of papers with a thick string holding it together.

Lux obeyed, grabbing hold of it and flipping it open. "Keep going," he told her as she tore though the pages, until he instructed her to stop.

Her blind obedience never truly faded, it seemed. Just manifested in different ways.

"Read," he told her. "Out loud. I'd like to hear it."

She swallowed the urge to resist him, scanning over the page. "Power is a fickle thing. There are three items in which I need to become Master of Death, to gain the power I know I am deserving of. The Resurrection Stone resides with me already, taken from the hands of someone who should not have meddled with it. Someone who did not understand what they had. The Elder Wand and the Cloak of Invisibility, I am unsure the whereabouts of, but I am faithful I will find. The wand, the most powerful instrument in the world, and the cloak, to conceal myself from any enemies who may find their ways towards me."

Lux looked up. Met those eyes, felt like shrinking beneath them as he looked straight back at her.

She straightened her flannel, suddenly aware of the cleavage that showed.

"No need to arrange yourself into something presentable, Sweetling. It's nothing I haven't seen before," Philip reminded her, noticing her less than inconspicuous ways of concealing herself.

She nearly snapped. Held it in with a shuddering breath as redness crept across her cheeks, and a tightening seemed to clasp around her heart, like a hand holding down until the pain was impossible to ignore.

Then, she reached into her bag, pulling out Dumbledore's wand. "Is this the Elder Wand?"

Philip lunged for it. Lux stumbled back just as his hand went straight through the wood, in a way that had a brief look of vulnerability flashing across his always controlled face.

It was gone in a moment, a smug smirk on his lips. As if he'd not faltered at all.

"I have the cloak," she told him, his silence goading her into further speech. Perhaps the first time it had done as much. She reached into the bag, pulling it out for good measure, draping the shimmering fabric over the edge of the bed.

She was careful not to look at the mattress for too long. Even so, her legs felt weak as she turned back to Philip, who was looking at her with a pleasant sort of shock, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Magic doesn't work in the manor," she commented, tucking the wand back into the bag. "Is there a reason for that, outside of the obvious?"

"The obvious?"

"You didn't want anyone to be more powerful than you."

He hummed in absentminded agreement. "Clever girl. That's all there is to it. The house was charmed by a witch, to ensure no one could overpower me. No wands work within these walls."

"You had mind control. What did it matter if magic could occur?"

Something in his face twitched. The shift of his jaw, and movement of the skin beneath his eye. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, does it?"

"What?"

"Power. Lies." He scoffed, though Lux knew the ticking time bomb he'd become. His anger was something she'd known how to dampen, but with no further need to, she watched, allowing him to explode. "I'm dead because of you. Because of a spoiled child too in over her own head, all the work I've done — thousands of years of work is destroyed!"

"What work?" It was her turn to scoff, words slipping out before she could decide if she wanted the answer. "What have you ever done for anyone, Philip?"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Why would I?" Lux felt her throat closing up, a pain radiating through as she held back another flow of tears. Showing a brave face was never easy, but she also wasn't sure she'd ever felt so desperate to cry, to release emotions while unsafe to do so.

Not since she'd last been in the Coven.

"Why would I understand a single thing you've done? Look at what you did to me!"

This seemed to confuse him, an odd sort of smile eclipsing his anger. "You have no idea, do you?"

"Idea about what?"

"Where do you think my power came from?" He stepped towards her. "Do you think it came in a vacuum? No, I worked hard for it! I earned all of it!"

"How?"

"I was turned by the first ever vampire. Arsinoe. It wasn't enough. Being her apprentice wasn't enough, not when I deserved more. She's dormant now, drained of blood and asleep in a coffin."

She'd heard of this vampire in passing, references from Fulk. Never her name. Never her origin.

Yet another woman, bested by the hands of a man too greedy to accept what it was he had. "You killed her?"

Philip killed his master. She'd killed hers. Did the cycle ever end?

Would someone turn in the stake onto her? Was she the master of someone without realization? Would she become one, the abused turning into an abuser?

"She's not dead," he corrected with a sharp exhale, something that had a weight she'd not noticed in her chest lifting. "She'll wake the moment someone feeds her blood." He folded his arms over his chest. "When she does, the world will be in peril. She doesn't think of humans as worthy to live at all. She thinks of other vampires as slaves, and she has the power to do with the world as she wished." Retracting a hand, he moved as if going to touch her, stopping himself before he could. Likely remembering he couldn't do anything, couldn't feel her.

"And you're any better?" She shot back. "The Coven, under your orders, your Persuasion, killed thousands of muggles."

"I saw them for their use. We're above them, that doesn't mean massacring them. We needed them. That's all there is to it. Whereas Arsinoe, buried in that tomb, locked away for good, she'd have slaughtered and enslaved the entire human race with what she was capable of. What I was capable of, but was merciful with." His head tilted to the side. "Don't you see, Sweetling? I saved you."

"You're a rapist," Lux shot back. "I was enslaved by you. You're no better than what you denounce."

She'd never thought she'd have a chance to confront him. To look him in the eye, make him look at her in return, and lay out what he'd done to her.

What would she get out of it, she asked herself as she watched his eye twitch, the only hint of a reaction he would show. It wouldn't fix anything, even if he did admit it. Even if he did apologize, which she knew not to expect.

"Rape? Is that what you call what we had?"

His words hit her like a palm to the cheek.

"You had just as much pleasure from our days together as I did. Don't lie to us both to make yourself feel like you have a clean slate."

For a moment, Lux believed him. She always did, always took him at his word, his worth of her becoming her self value.

Had she been lying, to herself and to everyone around her? Made it up in her head in some way? Had it not been as bad as she recalled? He was right — she'd finished every time in that bed, but wasn't that a natural reaction? She couldn't control her body, could she?

Her silence ripped a chuckle from him. "You see now, don't you? You brought it all upon yourself. Whatever state of misery you live in now, it's of your own creation."

She couldn't do this, she understood with the lurch of her stomach. She couldn't do this, she couldn't be in the same room as him, she couldn't listen to her hundreds of years of abuse be discredited.

Just as she was about to twist the stone in her hand and send him away just as he'd come, he was speaking again.

"You're the master of death right now, Sweetling," he went on, voice smooth. Calculating. He knew what she was about to do, desperate to stop her. "If you deem what we did together as rape, that's within your right, given I'm only here to serve you at this moment."

"Tell me about your Persuasion," she demanded, voice trembling. "How do I use it?"

"Use it?"

"You took Arsinoe's magic, her powers by bleeding her dry, didn't you?"

His lips curled, a satisfied smile occurring at the memory. "You know how magic is transferred, then? Yes, I did. I sucked her of her blood and locked her away, with her power now mine."

Lux held on hard to the Resurrection Stone, reminding herself it was there. A gust of wind blew through the open window, sending her blonde curls rushing about as she met his eyes again. "It's not the only way, to obtain magic. I killed you. I hated you so much when I did, that I absorbed your powers. I absorbed your Persuasion, and I've not got a clue how to use it."

He seemed shocked by this, those eyes of his widening ever so slightly from where he hovered above her. Then, he began to laugh, angry amusement bellowing off the walls, sending goosebumps up Lux's arms. "Of course you did. Of course my powers, my hard work, my sacrifice is now yours! A fucking child!"

She winced, taking a step back.

She was in control, she reminded herself as she inhaled a shuddering breath. It was her he had to listen to now, not the other way around. "Lower your voice around me, Philip, before I decide to send you back to the hell you're burning in."

He was quiet.

Something surged in her. Pride, she thought. Something like pride, something like power.

"Everything you've ever worked for is mine now. I earned as much, after all you did to me."

"I made you who you are," he hissed, spit flying from his lips, vanishing before it could splatter onto her face. "All of who you are, all of your so-called power, you owe to me."

"Exactly," she agreed, holding his gaze. "I'm the shape you made me. You should've been more careful, Philip."

His jaw shifted, her words another stake straight to his heart. "It's a difficult art to master, Persuasion. When I took hold of it from Arsinoe, it took me decades, if not a century, to learn to unlock."

"I don't have that kind of time."

A brow lifted.

"You don't know, do you?" Lux supposed he had no way to. How would a dead man know of the woes of the living? Why would he care? "There's a war. A man wants to rid the world of muggles and muggleborns. People I love."

He looked at her in mild disbelief, as if the word love had some sort of trigger attached to it. Yet, it went unaddressed as he instead pressed, "And you intend to fight in this so called war? You? Someone who'd never stick out her neck for anyone. Someone who bled the very muggles you profess your care for out?"

"I do," she said. "And if I mean to fight, I need to control."

"No." He shook his head, another laugh slipping from him. "This has nothing to do with the war. This has everything to do with power, and your desperate, pathetic attempts to grab at it. You're a child, Lux."

"I was old enough for you to rape."

Amusement washed over him, though his laughter was contained to a mild chortle, as she felt the fleeting bits of power wane away into nothing. "Again with that word."

"Fuck you."

"You've got some fire to you now. Where'd that come from?"

"Tell me how to use the Persuasion, how to unlock it in me, or I'm sending you away!" She felt herself growing into hysteria, a few stray tears running down her burning red cheeks, that she hastily wiped away.

It was too late, of course. He'd seen them. Laughed again. "You're the master of death, Sweetling. What more power could you possibly need?"

"Says you!"

"I didn't use a quarter of the power I had!"

"You raped me!" Lux was crying now, unsure why she was saying this to him. It didn't matter if he took what she said to heart or not, she knew that. It didn't matter if he denied it, if he apologized, if he embraced what he'd done or if he knew it was wrong.

It wouldn't undo it. It wouldn't change who he was.

It wouldn't fix what had been done to her, erase the way she'd become.

(Lux wasn't sure she wanted it to. Sometimes, her misery was the only way she could find comfort. She wasn't quite sure she knew who she was without it. It was as Philip had said, he'd created her. She was who he'd crafted her into.)

Her desperation was clawing at her throat, ripping its way out of her. "Tell me how to use it or I'm sending you away!"

A pause passed by, while he considered this. Debating if he wanted to tell her, if he wanted to be of use for the last few moments she'd ever allow him to walk upon the same planet as her, or if the best revenge would be to allow her to fail.

He shook his head, releasing a sigh as he came to his conclusion. "It's no different than any other magic, Sweetling. You just have to mean it."

You just have to mean it.

"You drained Arisone of her powers," Lux repeated. "You left her for dead. In her wake, you took everything she had."

Philip nodded, slowly, methodically. Watching her as she approached what he knew she shouldn't, what two people opposite in every way could agree on. Lux had no business meddling in what her fingers were just coming to graze, thoughts concluding upon.

"When I killed you, I took what you had too. I took what she had. The oldest vampire." She shook through a deep breath. "I'm not just the Master of Death. I'm more than that."

"No," Philip agreed. "As of right now, you're the most powerful creature on the planet."

That was it. That was all she needed.

She began to spin the stone again, looking into his eye as she did, watching desperation fill him for the first time.

Such a foreign look.

"Lux, wait! You have no idea the level of power you have!"

Once.

"You're the Master of Death! Your power is bordering on infinite! I could teach you. Let me stay and I'll help you with it all!"

Twice.

"You need me!"

Three times.

He was gone.

Lux fell to the floor.

The stone tumbled from her grasp, rolling across the floor and ducking beneath the bed just as she collapsed into a fit of sobs.

It was as though the twenty one years she'd had of slow, gradual healing had been for nothing, a wound that had begun to scab over being ripped open again and revealed to the elements.

She'd gotten so far, and she'd not understood that until the moment she was forced to go in reverse, retracing the steps backwards, only stopping when she was at the very place she'd begun in.

It wasn't enough. Crying wasn't enough.

She began to scream, gasp for air she could not find. Her nails dug into her flesh, clawing at her arms as though Philip were leeched onto her, something she needed to rip off of her. It was too much, all too much, her emotional agony gone to a level it needed to be matched with physical.

She scratched and clawed at herself until her arms were a mess, more blood than skin left over her flesh. Red begun to drip out of the lines she'd drawn from herself, little droplets landing on the wooden floor beneath her.

It wasn't enough. Not even that was enough. She wanted to rip herself open from her stomach, let her organs rush out of her body. She wanted to drive a knife into her heart and twist the blade. She wanted to be staked just as she'd done to Philip, she wanted to go up in smoke again and remain dead.

Her sobs only dimmed when she heard it.

Something downstairs. Footsteps — enough of them to have her silencing herself even as her tears still flowed down her cheeks and panic still clung at her insides.

Lux grabbed the cloak, wrapped it around her body. Just as she reached beneath the bed, grabbed hold of the Resurrection Stone and tucked it beneath the fabric, did a figure emerge in the bedroom.

She looked up, still on the ground, entire body concealed by the cloak.

A gasp nearly left her.

While she'd never met the man in front of her, she'd seen his picture in the Daily Prophet enough to know exactly who he was. The enigma who referred to himself as Lord Voldemort stood in the doorframe, eying the room before him with a peculiar look of interest on his expression. Lips pressed together, brows angled downwards, he took in the environment, a hint of a smile twitching when his eyes settled on the blood staining the bedroom.

He was handsome, though she'd never admit it to anyone but her own inner conscious. Dark hair, blood red eyes, and thick lips, even at the fifty years of age he was pushing, he could've been someone she took a fancy to at some point in life.

"She may be in here," Voldemort called with the turn of his head towards the hallway — he wasn't alone.

The sound of four footsteps rushed from various points of the house, stopping as they approached him.

Lux's stomach plummeted at the sight of Thomas Mulciber, emerging in from behind the madman.

She'd not seen the man since the day he'd been expelled, all the way back in September. He was nearly identical to his brother, the very boy she'd stuck down, sucked the blood out of, and framed on the other boy at Thomas's right.

Regulus Black.

He'd lost even more weight since she'd last seen him, gone to nothing but a frail set of skin and bones, with wide grey eyes that he attempted to mask with interest, though she could see straight through him by now.

He was afraid.

He should've been.

Not of Voldemort, but of her.

You're the most powerful creature on the planet.

"Check everywhere," Voldemort ordered.

Neither man wasted any time, rushing into the room. Regulus came within an inch of stepping on the concealed Lux when he ducked to check beneath the bed, sighing when all he found was pairs of Philip's shoes he kept beneath the mattress.

Mulciber was looking in the wardrobe, throwing the clothes out haphazardly as if she may be lurking beneath one of the dresses she'd used to wear.

Her stomach churned at the sight of them. In spite of the situation she'd found herself in, those dresses were what had fresh tears burning in her eyes, which she hastily wiped away, followed by placing a hand to her mouth to muffle her own pathetic whimpers.

"She's not in here," Regulus eventually settled on, turning back to look at his master. "My Lord, we've scaled the entire house. If she was here, she must have already left."

"You heard what Antonin said," Voldemort went on, irritation thick in his tone. "Lux Erzsebet is in town as of last night." He turned back to Mulciber, whose posture straightened the moment those red eyes were on him. "You said she cannot apparate."

He nodded. "She's never taken lessons. Those are for sixth years, and she came to Hogwarts as a seventh. So unless she'd somehow learned elsewhere..."

"Then she can't have gone far," Voldemort settled on when the boy trailed off.

Bells began to ring in Lux's mind, going over the words they'd just spoken. The names. Antonin, the man at the graveyard. The man she'd almost attempted to seduce, only just grabbing hold of her own dignity at the last second.

He had been a Death Eater?

Her stomach lurched.

She looked at the leader, his red eyes and firm jawline. She could take him down then and there, if she knew how. Surely a man such as himself was no match for the blood of two ancient vampires that now lived inside of her.

But she didn't.

In spite of it all, she was still too afraid to act.

"We'll search the village again. Question anyone who seems odd. Again, she cannot be far," Voldemort went on, turning around without another word, scaling out of the room.

"Think he'll mind if I stay behind for a few minutes?" Thomas asked Regulus, who frowned.

Lux wondered what the story had been told, for the two to be in the same room without killing each other. If Voldemort and Thomas knew the truth, that Regulus had been framed, or if Thomas truly believed Regulus was at fault for the murder of his brother.

Either way, neither one of them moved to attack the other, though the stiffness in the room was thick enough Lux thought she could slice through it with a knife.

She bit down on her lip, bracing herself for a blow out that never came.

"Why would you want to do that?" His eyes flickered towards the bed, and the blood coating it. "This place is...unnerving."

"Says you." Thomas jibed, though his words came out in a harsh tone. "I'm staying behind. Searching for anything of value. Tell the Dark Lord I'll be right behind you two. And be careful, I don't think you're meant to be seen in public right now."

Lux thought the warning came off backhanded, almost laughing at it in spite of everything. It felt nice, the twinge of humor.

"Your funeral," Regulus shrugged, before rushing to follow the same way in which Voldemort had gone down.

Lux pushed herself onto shaky feet when the sound of the door to the manor could be heard shutting, and Mulciber went back to digging through the wardrobe.

She was acting on impulse. On behavior she knew she ought not to, on what she'd regret. He'd hurt Mary, he'd hurt her.

He didn't deserve to live.

She had her magic back, her power, and if Voldemort and Regulus knew he'd lost his life within the home, they'd come back with a full fledge of Death Eaters prepared to take her down.

That was the only thing to stop her as she felt her teeth sharpening into fangs, the thought of blood sending her stomach into swirls of hunger.

Not the knowledge that killing was wrong. In fact, she wanted to kill, just as much as she had wanted to rip out the throat of his younger brother.

She took a deep breath, sure to keep it quiet as she observed Thomas Mulciber. Withholding herself, keeping herself back even with a prickling desire eating away at her.

She'd never felt the need to kill before. Wasn't sure where it had come from, but didn't have the emotional energy to banish it away.

With swift hands, he gathered up jewels he found around the room in a way Lux knew would give Philip and Adelais both heart attacks, tucking them into his pockets until they were bulging at the seams.

She let him go, even as her blood burned in her veins and her gut panged from a newfound hunger she'd not felt before.

The sound of the door shutting, echoed minutes later as he exited the house. Only then did Lux allow herself a moment to breathe fully, slumping down, shoulders curving and sweat dripping from her hair.

She took the cloak off, set it to the side again.

She thought about leaving the house. She had what she needed, in a way, and the way to contact Philip again with any more questions she'd have come up. Even if it destroyed her in the process, she knew exactly what to do, how to find power when she felt so very lacking of it.

She didn't want to leave Hollyvale, she understood as she thought on this more. The walls were evil, the walls were witness to horrors she could not begin to describe, but they were familiar walls. They'd held her well.

Not when the Death Eaters were looking for her, anyways. Not when they'd torture her, kill her at first sight, and she'd not had enough power to take them down. Not without knowing exactly how to use her Persuasion.

Hollyvale was the one place they presumed she was not located in. It was safe, for the first time since she'd entered the place she was expected to call home, three hundred and some years ago.

No, she would not run. Not this time.

Instead, she crept over to the very bed she'd slaughtered Philip on. The bed he'd stolen her innocence on a hundred thousand times over, curling up with her knees tucked to her chest atop the blood his body had ejected at his death.

It felt natural, almost, sinking into the mattress, going back to a time in which pain had been the only constant, but a constant all the same. Something she'd gotten used to, known how to manage.

This was too new. Too raw.

Maybe it would've been easier, had she not killed Philip. Had she never met Elias, Fulk, Remus, Sirius, Lily, Snape.

It would be easier to be the Lux of old, someone who knew better than to let emotions win. It would be easier to regress.

She reached down, grabbing hold of the blankets that lay at the edge of the bed, drawing them over her body. This time, she didn't reach into her bag for Snuffles. Solitude was something she desired more so than anything, not the comfort of the boys she'd loved.

The boys who'd hurt her.

Boys who'd never have been able to had she kept her guard up. Philip was right, in a way that had her gut clenching with pain. She hadn't a clue what she was doing.

At least she had what she needed. Part of an answer to the powers she desired to wield. Even if she still felt powerless, she had that.

Taking deep breaths to dim the tremors currently devouring her body, she closed her eyes, shifting about against the pillow and allowing herself to drift off to sleep.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

a rough chapter lol. not much to say regarding it. i've been quite nervous about this one, it was quite difficult to write and i'm not sure i pulled it off but oh well! lux is really spiraling and it's only going to get worse in the war chapters, and it breaks my heart to write. we only have a few chapters left of act 2 before the war act begins, and i'm excited to see your reactions to the rest of them!

the next chapter will be posted on tuesday (8/26) rather than the typical wednesday update since i'm traveling on the 27th! thanks so much again for reading <3 love you all!

also, idk if i've ever mentioned here specifically, but i have an instagram for writing (@.yllwjckts), if you want, go give me a follow over there! i post a lot of the artwork i commission, graphics and covers, edits i make/you guys make me, songs i feel suit the story, etc! and the occasional w&w spoiler lol. it's just a fun place to chat too! thanks again for reading!!!!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───