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Twilight Gardens	By : Persephone Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 2327 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Twilight Gardens
by: Perephone Pureshadow

"There was never any innocence for us, there was never any springtime. There was never any chance, no matter how beautiful the twilight gardens in which we wandered. Our souls were out of tune, our desires crossed and our resentments too common and too well watered for the final flowering."
--Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand

Chilled air circulated throughout the Hogwarts dungeons, making it feel like the stones in the wall inhaled any warmth in the atmosphere and and exhaled only coldness. A newcomer would have noticed it immediately but to Severus it was something to which he had become accustomed, a thing as natural as human respiration. It is a strange quirk of the mind that when something feels natural one frequently forgets historical information of that particular thing. How can you recall the beginning of something when it seems to have no beginning and no end?
For this reason it was a great difficulty for Severus to remember the very moment at which his relationship with Lucius had started. Vaguelly he could recollect their first meeting at age eleven on the Hogwarts Express, yet it seemed in retrospect that the encounter had had little effect on either boy in the long term. Most importantly, Severus recalled how pretty he had found Lucius even at that time. Until then, Severus had thought only girls could have such light blond hair.
The memory made him smile a little bit as as he waited in his office for Lucius. Years ago it would have seemed completely bizarre to Severus to be waiting for Lucius. Lucius had always been with him back then and neither of them would have been able to conceive of their separation.
That had been the moment though. Severus decided that the moment at which his and Lucius' souls were irrevokably bound together occurred in their fourth year at school. The two best friends had been practising Transfiguration late one night in their dorm. There was a detrimental exam on that subject the next day and Severus -- though he was a master of Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts -- had problems with Transfiguration. Concerned about his friend's grades, Lucius had had opted to give Severus some last minute tutoring. After Lucius' hurried but thorough instructions, Severus pointed his wand at his four poster bed, called out the spell, and the bed broke into thousands of pieces.
Stunned, the boys stared at the splintered remains of the bed and the shredded feathers of the matress. Severus was mortified but finally he muttered, "Well, should we go tell someone or something?"
"Not tonight," Lucius shook his head. "We'll get into trouble for being up so late. That will only make things worse."
"Great," Severus sighed. "I'm failing Transfiguration and I'm sleeping on the floor for the next few weeks until the end of the year."
"No, we'll tell Dumbledore tomorrow after dinner. That way, we can pretend that's how we found it and no one will have to worry about having a dentention," explained Lucius. "For tonight, you can sleep with me."
Even as a small child, Severus had aways slept alone, so the idea of spending the night
in Lucius' bed gave him mixed feelings. While he was glad not to have to sleep on the floor, he didn't know if he should feel weird about sleeping with his friend. In the end, his fear of Lucius finding his behaviour odd defeated his initial hesitation.
The room was black but Severus was sure that he and Lucius were laying face-to-face. The bed was as comfortable as his own and it was pleasantly warmer because of the extra body heat. They had each taken one of the two pillows. When piled on top of one another the pillows were a desirable cushioning on which to rest one's tired head. When used individually they felt flat and almost hard, so Lucius and Severus both tucked one of their arms under their respective pillows for better elevation. Silently they laid there, with their eyes open, facing each other without seeing each other. All of Severus' muscles were stiff with nervousness. He tried with all his might to quiet the conspicuously loud thumping from his chest. The harder he tried to to make his heart beat soundlessly the harder it beat against his ribs.
Just when Severus was certain that Lucius would question the the way he was acting, Severus felt on his hand that was protruding from beneath the pillow a smooth, warm thumb tracing a circle along his palm. Perhaps Lucius was making strange movements in his sleep. Severus remained motionless as Lucius' fingers continued to massage his hand. The heat of Lucius' flesh was blessedly soothing to Severus, whose hands were contantly cold. Lucius' fingertips tickled him sweetly from his wrist to his fingernails before tightly yet gently grasping ahold of Severus' hand. He held it until morning.
Dawn arrived punctually as ever and brought with it all the tedious mundanity of a typical day. Severus was surprised at how usual Lucius was that and and the remainder of the school year. More surprising to him was how unchanged th experience had left him personally. Maybe Lucius hadn't realized what he was doing that night. It was a plausible explanation considering Lucius never once mentioned the incident. As for the lack of change in Severus, perhaps he had subconsciously always wanted to be more than friends with Lucius. That was definitely a possibility since he often found himself gazing at Lucius admiringly. Somewhere along the way, his admiration had turned to longing.
That summer, Severus spent an ungodly amount of time contemplating Lucius and what had happened between them. After considering the situation from every perspective of which he could think, Severus concluded that if Lucius had purposely and knowingly reached out for him, it was most likely that he had taken note of Severus' anxieties about exams, destroying the bed, and sleeping with someone for the first time, and was trying to show support for his friend. Doubtless, Severus had misunderstood the gesture. Now that he had mulled over it and deduced what he supposed to be the truth, Severus was more vexed than ever by the undying hope inside his heart that Lucius really was trying to show more than just support to a friend.
At night, when he couldn't sleep Severus thought only of Lucius. So consumed was he that his nocturnal hours were spent entirely on constructing elaborate fantasies starring his lovely Lucius. Sometimes he stayed in bed longer than necessary in the morning so he could lengthen his fantasies and envision Lucius' silvery blue eyes one more time.
No fantasy, no matter how magnificent, can ever compare to living flesh. Such was the case when Severus left his fantasy Lucius at home in his bedroom and boarded the train to Hogwarts at the end of the summer to be reunited with the real Lucius. Seeing Lucius again in person renewed Severus' passion and he could hardly conceal his throbbing desire. During the months they had spent apart, Lucius had grown a little taller and his flaxen hair was somewhat longer. Severus loved the way Lucius' locks danced on the wind as the two stuck their heads out the window of the train. He especially loved the way it looked when it was intertwined with his own ebony tresses.
After the obligatory hyperactivity of the year's first meal in the Great Hall, Lucius and Severus stayed later than most of their fellow Slytherins in the common room. When his friend inquired about how he had spent the summer Severus had to make an effort to repress the heat that swelled in his cheeks at the thought of his activities during the holidays. With a shrug, he said, "Pretty boring, overall. How about you?"
"Not much different, really," Lucius grimaced as he recalled the many dull hours. "The Old Man promised to take me with him on one of his business trips. He said it would be somewhere exciting and exotic and that I would return to Hogwarts with plenty of stories to tell. For a while, I believed him. I spent the first six weeks of the holidays wondering where we'd go -- Egypt, India, Haiti -- but when those six weeks ended, well, I guess I should have expected this all along. It's not like the Old Man has a reputable history of keeping his word."
In the years they had known each other, Severus had become accustomed to Lucius' habit of referring to his father as "the Old Man." It was an honest description. At sixty-seven years of age, Lucius' father was as old as the grandfathers of some of the other fifth-years. It seemed the Old Man had never been one for ingenuous emotion. He had lived for over fifty years as a wealthy, womanizing bachelor until his sense of duty to his family compelled him to marry a girl thirty years his junior. It was the realization that he needed and heir which prompted him to take the prettiest, blondest, amd most obedient bride he could find and soon Lucius was born.
Their friendship had also granted Severus familiarity with the knowledge of how frequently the Old Man neglected his only son. Lucius' embittered recounts of the Old Man's empty promises had become as natural to the back-to-school time as the Sorting Ceremony, as natural to Chriatmas as the gigantic, decorated pine tree. Gradually, Luius had developed an apathy towards the whole thing, yet when he spoke of it there was something hidden behind his icy, indifferent eyes, something which Severus could not define.
Though it pained Severus to see that mysterious mysery concealed by Lucius, these situations always pilfered any eloquent words he may have been able to soothingly bestow. As usual, Severus could merely mumble, "I'm sure he means well."
At such a point in their conversation, Lucius typically would change the subject to a lighter issue. This time, however, Lucius turned away. He sighed sadly, "No, he doesn't."
Severus was shocked. Never had Lucius exhibited so much feeling. Since their first year at school, Lucius had never been anything but aloof. As surprised as he was by Lucius' abrupt change of character, Severus was also unsure as to how he should respond to it. Several times he opened his mouth as though to speak but no sounds emerged.
"You don't understand, do you?" Lucius murmured.
"No, " Severus admitted, feeling somewhat ashamed that he didn't even know what it was he was supposed to understand.
After a pause, Lucius said, "It's all right. I don't much understand it myself. It's just that . . . I have everything. Anything I want I can have. But no matter how much I get, I feel that there is still something I don't have. It's something in particular, some unattainable . . . thing."
Severus blinked in confusion. What had happened to Lucius over the summer? Babbling simply wasn't something to which a Malfoy was given. The unexplainable agony Severus had seen behind Lucius' eyes had seemed like more than a materialistic obsession.
"I don't get it," Severus frowned. "What is it that you want?"
Lucius turned to him with a scowl and stammered, "I -- I don't know. That's the thing. I have everything but it means nothing. There's nothing behind it, nothing to hold it in place. There's -- there's all this . . . stuff floating around me and it's all within my reach but it's rootless and unanchored. The Old Man gives me everything for no reason. He doesn't give me things out of love but out of lack of love. With every gift I receive I feel more hollow."
Hollow. It was the first word of Lucius' speech that had made any sense to Severus. The talk of the meaning behind material sounded alien, especially since it originated from Lucius' rosy lips. Being born into a rather bourgeois family as the youngest of six children, Severus had not been blessed with nearly as much bounty as Lucius. Still, he was sufficiently spoiled in true Slytherin style and throughout his childhood it had never occurred to him that he was deprived of economically. If he was deprived in any way, it was socially. Considerably younger than all of his siblings and cousins, Severus was very often by himself in the family library perusing over and over again his great-grandfather's antique spellbooks, which were packed with moe curses than a regular little wizard would be able to fathom existing.
Quite irregular as he was, Severus could not only fathom the existence of such curses, he could memorize them as well. There were incessant battles amongst his siblings and cousins, battles of which Severus could comprehend little. That ancient library of curses became his sole escape during his pre-Hogwarts years, a sanctuary from the various petty feuds in which he would otherwise have become ensnared. All those years spent in scholarly solitude assusged the ache of the interpersonal isolation he met when he began school. In reality, Lucius was, and always had been, Severus' only real friend.
Their first meeting on the train at the beginning of their first year had been significantly uneventful. Severus was slouched into his seat with his face buried in a thick, musty-smelling book when without warning Lucius had claimed the seat closest to Severus' and struck up a conversation as though he had known Severus his entire life. A little taken aback by this sudden amiable gesture, Severus' onyx eyes broadened at the sight of Lucius Malfoy. Severus really had at first glance mistaken Lucius for a girl and he scanned the room in search of the source of the boyish voice which had addressed him. Of course, he realized his mistake instantly and chose not to inform Lucius of it, thinking that Lucius would feel insulted and rethink his choice of seats.
Flattered by Lucius' attention, Severus was captivated by everything Lucius said to him. Limited as his knowledge of Hogwarts was, Severus was completely rapt as Lucius described the many traditions and rituals of the prestigious institution. Minimal communication with his relatives on the subject of school -- or anything, for that matter -- had rendered the eleven-year-old Severus unbelievably uninformed about the ways of the Wizarding World outside his family's library. Therefore, when Lucius posed to him the question of his House preference Severus became utterly taciturn.
"Well, if you had the choice of where the Sorting Hat would put you, which House would you choose?" Lucius pressed.
In an effort to disguise his ignorance, Severus just shrugged his shoulders and replied coolly, "I dunno. I guess I don't really care."
"Are you serious?" Lucius leaned forward. "How can you not care about the title that is going to be with you for the rest of your life? The Sorting Hat's decision is going to make you who you are in the Wizarding World. It's going to be with you forever and you don't care?"
Severus didn't know what to say. He had been unaware of how important one's House placement was. Desperately, he stared at his hands and mumbled, "Well, it's not that I don't care . . . I just don't know -- "
"You don't know which House you want to join?" Lucius finished Severus' struggling sentence with a nod. "I suppose I can understand. Although, I have no doubt as to where I'm going."
"Where's that?"
"Slytherin House, naturally," replied Lucius. "All the Malfoys have been Slytherins as far back as anyone can remember."
"So that's how it's decided?" asked Severus. "You get whichever House your parents had?"
Lucius smirked slightly, "Not always. I think it depends on other things too. I don't know what but the Hat is never wrong."
"How do you know?" Severus inquired. "You said it was just an enchanted Hat. Spells can go wonky sometimes, so how does anyone know that Hat doesn't screw up sometimes?"
A look of puzzlement passed over Lucius' face for a moment. At last, he answered, "No one has ever been displeased by the House to which they were assigned. That Hat has been Sorting students for centuries and it hasn't made a mistake yet. You have to give the Hat some credibility."
Severus accepted this answer. The more he and Lucius talked, the more a deep desire to be placed in Slytherin consumed Severus' mind. He and Lucius had known each other for only an hour or so, yet he felt he knew Lucius better than anyone in the world. Moreover, Lucius was Severus' first friend he had ever had and the thought of being separated from him gashed Severus' heart like a rusty nail.
So it was that when Severus donned the Sorting Hat there was in his eleven-year-old mind a distinctly Slytherin-worthy combination. The countless curses he had spent his childhood imprinting on his memory coupled with Severus' newfound but irrepressible admiration of Lucius as well as everything Lucius represented -- including the glory of Slytherin House -- had sealed Severus' fate. As with every student to pass through Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat was the first to call out the name that would forever label him.
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Twilight Gardens