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ANGELCAKE	By : tatyanahill Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female Views: 1613 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Angelcake is a derivative based on some of the characters of Harry Potter. I do not make any money from writing it, or the rest of the series it belongs to. I do not own Harry Potter, or any characters from the HP series.

Chapter List
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THE THERAPIST
The man with the white-blond hair sat in an armchair in the study. His elbow rested on the arm of the chair and his head was propped up at the temple and jaw, between thumb and forefinger. He had a surly expression on his face and sat quietly staring at the painting above the mantlepiece of the adjacent wall. He had a glass of nettle wine in his other hand, which rested casually on the other arm of the chair. Barely moving the rest of his body, he took a measured sip from his glass.
   Sitting on the other side of the desk, opposite the blond man was a therapist. He was a very tall, broadly built man, with a husky voice and spoke with an American accent:
   “We agreed you wouldn’t drink during our sessions Mr Malfoy.”
   Hardly changing position, or even looking over to acknowledge the therapist, ‘Mr Malfoy’ outstretched his arm with the glass, placing it on a small side table close to his chair. He momentarily glared out of the far corners of his eyes at the therapist, before returning his gaze to the painting.
   “So we were talking about this ‘duality thing’ – well actually more than a duality. There’s ‘Lucius Malfoy,’ (‘Mr Malfoy’). And actually it’s ‘Hyperion’. Am I right?” the therapist said and looked down at his paperwork.
   “Oh yeah, jeez – Hyperion Lucius Hector Orion Malfoy (Houses of Isholmborg and Malfoy). Sheesh, that’s a mouthful!” the therapist snorted. “And then you have ‘Lord Malfoy’ AND THEN there’s even this guy ‘Lucian Isholmborg,’ the character you’ve gotta be for us. What are we non-magic people called again: ‘Muddles’? Lucius-Hyperion –‘Lucian’, tell me, what do you think about having to take on all these roles, how does it make you feel?”
   On hearing the therapist address him by his given name, Lucius sedately looked over to him; he didn’t say anything, but fixed his eyes on him disdainfully.
   “So that bothers you when I call you by your name, does it? Why do you think that is? D’you think ya would have been bothered before you lost command of it all? You know, before you disgraced yourself and your family and everyone found out you were a flaming drug addict. Does it feel like the name –whichever society you’re in– means a lot more now?... Or maybe you really ARE an egomaniacal racist, and you think I don’t have the right to use your name, because I’m not on the same level as you, no matter how low you’ve sunk?”
{Silence.}

   “Tell me, how do you feel now that they’ve taken away your right to be called “Lord”? Do you think the title shaped you more when you had it, or now that you’ve fucked everything up and lost it?”
{Silence.}
   “I feel you man. (I mean… if it bothers you.) There’s no shame in that... Ya know it’s all well and good to say that stuff doesn’t matter and the path to inner peace and enlightenment is out there floating around the universe ‘yada yada’, but I’d fuckin’ HATE to have been one of these ‘super--’ what are you guys called--?” He looked through his paperwork which contained many brightly coloured page marker tabs and handwritten notes scribbled throughout the pages. “Ohh yeah: ‘Superial’. I mean sure, it’s all bullshit in the grand scheme of things (don’t get me wrong, cuz it totally is) but – dude. I’m not even gonna try to hoodwink you man, that shit is rough! If I was used to being called ‘Your Lordship’ my whole life and had people bowing at my feet and everything,” he produced a wide, goofy grin, winking and nodding to himself, as though he very much liked the idea of having the honour, “and then they started calling me just plain old ‘Tony’… I mean they might as well be saying: ‘Hey you! Dumbass over there!’ Uggh! Now that would piss me off. I have a wife and kids whose respect I need to keep up with. A guy has his pride. I guess it’s the same with a Wizard. Am I wrong?”
{Silence.}
   The therapist was referring to the fact that Lucius was a Superial. A tiny, elite order of the Magical world who were high Pure-bloods: members of the Magical population whose bloodline was free from the taint of Muggle ancestry (or relatively free, since no one –not even the Sugarhills, who boasted the purest bloodline in the world– were 100% free of Muggle blood). Superials were distinctive in that they could trace their family lineage back some five thousand years, or more, to a handful of the original Magical beings known as the First Ones. They were typically very wealthy, some being phenomenally wealthy and it was these rare few who controlled more or less EVERYTHING that went on in the world: Magical and Muggle. Along with a few other impossibly steep requisites, it was a necessary ingredient in holding the privileged title of “Lord” or “Dame” in their society, but the title could be taken away, as it recently had been with Lucius.
   The therapist scanned through the page he was on and squinted looking concerned.
   “And your descendants lose the right to the honorific title. So your son looses the right to it? Is that right? Dude! Uggh, man! That SSSUCKS.” he said shaking his head. “Your kid must be PISSED.”
{Silence.}
   “Look on the bright side. It IS really all bullshit in the end. You could even consider this all as a gift. From what you’ve been through, you would have had to have grown as a person and become a lot stronger now than you’ve ever been, or else you wouldn’t still be here. Some people in your position never get that chance (and then they end up at yoga retreats, on wacky water fasts and hot sauce enemas after the breakdown – but that’s another story)... So, DO you think what you’re called, actually defines the man you are now? It’s a small world you operate in. I can only imagine the pressure. You think ‘THEY’ define you? I mean you still have everything that you started with.” Staring down at some figures his assistant had outlined and clipped in the spiral notebook he had just located, the therapist looked comically goggle-eyed and exclaimed: “Which, from what I am told, is a fucking SHIT LOAD… FUCK! And I thought I was loaded. CHRIST that’s humbling.” He gave a cheeky grin to Lucius who hadn’t bothered to notice. “No one can decide for you who you are Mr Malfoy, but you... What’s in a name ‘Lucius’?”
   Lucius closed his eyes for a couple of seconds detachedly and repositioned his elbow and head in his hand to resume staring at the painting above the mantle in better comfort. The session carried on awkwardly in a similar fashion for nearly an hour, with the therapist making little headway in any of the areas of his client’s life that he approached.
   This was Lucius’s second session with the present therapist. In all, it was his ninth therapist in seven months. He was forced to see one (specifically a non-magical one) every week “until further notice” under the terms of his Faith Agreement, which effectively kept him out of prison until his final trial (as long as he followed the rules). The main problem of course, was he wouldn’t cooperate in these seemingly beneficial matters.
   He had been through every noted Muggle psychologist and life coach to the rich and famous that would agree to see him (as well as a couple not-so-noted ones). They all quickly became tired of Lucius’s non-communicative “rude”, “hostile”, “arrogant” manner and soon quit – which suited Lucius just fine. Some even wrote quite horrible assessments in their reports, describing him in deeply unfavourable terms such as: “pathologically egocentric” and “narcissistic”… and even “that horrible, horrible man”.
   The present therapist (a famous Muggle performance coach and motivational speaker known for his unorthodox approach and amazing breakthroughs) was touched by Lucius’s case. Beyond being amazed by the new supernatural world of Magic he had become privy to, he had read a transcript of the entire trial and studied all that was available about the Wizard’s life from the time that he was a child and was moved by Lucius’s unusual predicament. He was most especially moved that the Wizard’s wife had been murdered in front of him at the start of the his first trial, not two years previous – the Wizard himself only escaping death by a bizarre miracle of fate. That he agreed to travel all the way to France every week on an already dizzying schedule, to see a client who was then totally unreceptive, was a testament to the therapist’s dedication to helping others (or at least how deeply intriguing he found the task). As his own success had already won him enough wealth and celebrity clients, he clearly did not need to take such a case to prove his worth.
   The reports from the previous therapists had not been completely unfounded. Lucius had greatly offended the egos of most of them during their short-lived relationships (the shortest lasting 22 minutes). Being at the tops of their fields, none of the others were willing to put up with the prima donna client, for the incentive of extra pay, or even the tantalizing prospect of gaining prestige as the primary Muggle therapist to the Wizarding world. The larger truth was –whether any of them was willing to admit it– Lucius had scared the daylights out of all of them... It started out as an unintentional accident: he had been annoyed with a lumpy chair during his first ever session and without thinking (simply because he hadn’t wanted to get up) summoned a chair from across the room using Magic. Because he had been particularly aggravated at the time, the chair hurled itself into the air and came flying toward them at speed, before coming to a precision stop overhead, at which point Lucius calmly got up, made the other chair disappear and ushered the floating one gingerly into place with a subtle gesture from his index finger. As he was not even supposed to be able to perform Magic without a wand and was also wearing an anti-Magic choker around his neck at the time, that supposedly rendered him Magically impotent, this understandably terrified the therapist present, who had seen little actual Magic and was already worried about Lucius’s previous reputation as a Death Eater and supposed Muggle torturer.
   Once he realised how frightened Muggles were of such ordinary things, Lucius relished slamming windows, lighting instant roaring fires and ‘harmlessly’ hurling all sorts of objects across the room during sessions, to terrifying effect. The Ministry of Magic who governed magical citizens in Great Britain and Ireland, eventually came up with an anti-magic choker strong enough to contain Lucius’s Magic, which he now wore. The setting on the present choker was unfortunately so high, Lucius could not only not perform basic magic, he had trouble with ordinary, everyday thinking; moreover, the headaches were dreadful.
   Although it was not apparent, Lucius was actually giving the present therapist a relatively easy time. He preferred that he didn’t have the title “Psychologist” next to his name. The profession was generally viewed with contempt in the Wizarding world. No self-respecting Wizard, especially a Wizard in Lucius’s position (or at least the position he had been in most of his life, before so many of his rights were taken from him) would ever agree to see one; it was tantamount to announcing one was weak and wandless. This was perilous for a Wizard who had many powerful enemies – both in business and in his personal life. The problem was augmented by the fact that Lucius also did not formally possess a wand. It had been taken away at the very beginning when the charges were made against him. Although he could perform excellent unwanded and non-verbal magic, not having a wand made him appear less dangerous and therefore more attractive to attack. His vulnerability was compounded by the fact that (regardless of whether people continued to fear him because he was Singularis, or not) he actually couldn’t perform a single spark with the new choker on – not even in an emergency life or death situation.
   Times were turbulent. As well as his wife, three other Witches and Wizards, who had been lower, mid-ranking officials in the same organization as he and his wife, had been murdered on the street before their trials. It was thought they were planning to make plea bargains with the Ministry. No one could be sure whether the murders were vendettas from right-wing members within the organization who knew the truth about their real standings, revenge killings from the resistance movement, or even opportunistic acts by those who wanted them dead for personal (possibly financial) reasons and used the post war atmosphere as a smokescreen, to their advantage.
   Even though he held this new therapist in less suspicion than most of the other “brain gougers” he had previously seen, Lucius had no intention of speaking to him. Especially since he was on the subject of Narcissa his late wife. He knew what he was doing; he was trying to get him to talk about repressed anger he had built up toward her and her family for getting him deeper into and keeping him in the Death Eaters. The anger he had toward her for hardly ever showing him any tenderness in over 20 years of faithful marriage. And then to talk about the guilt he had for having this suppressed discontentment and hatred, when –on paper– she had been a wonderful and perfectly faultless wife, life partner and mother in every respect… But, no matter what the big American with the big smile and the husky voice said, he could not get through.
   Big mouth had another thing coming if he expected him to buckle first.
   “Ya know – I’ve read the transcripts and I know your history. I’m not falling for it. I’m not falling for this Death Eater crap. I’ve seen the way your staff look at you with concern, with respect, with love. You may get a person to fear you, but you can’t scare them into loving you.” He was smiling knowingly and brightly at Lucius: “You may have pissed the rest off, or probably scared the fuck out of them—I heard you levitated Phil McGraw,” he said grinning broadly, looking impressed more than anything. The image lingering in his mind, caused him to let out a robust chortle that came out partly through his nose. “But you’re not scaring me. Although I know you could (make fire kindling out of me) I don’t think you would. I know there’s someone in there who’s decent and kind and who wants to be (needs to be) loved,” he pointed at him knowingly. “And I know he’s in pain. I hate seeing you in pain like this Lord Malfoy and I want to help you, but I’m going to need your cooperation,” he said, seeming rather a lot more serious than he had so far.
   Anyone else would have been touched by the therapist’s sentiments. Especially considering that the famous life coach had juggled his fiercely heavy schedule just to help him. Lucius, who was still outraged by various impertinent questions, didn’t care if the Muggle thought he could help him, or ‘thought’ he ‘knew him’. He didn’t. It hadn’t crossed his mind that the brain gouger had travelled half way across the world just to see him for an hour and a half (and it wouldn’t have bothered him if it had) and he didn’t care if he had a remarkable record of helping people turn their lives around.
   He hadn’t asked for any help. The big Muggle was forced upon him and he WAS getting paid after-all. (He was probably spending a good part of his exorbitant fee on dental bleaching and artificial sunlight exposure. Typical American fame seeker type.) And anyway what did he know about HIS life? How could a he possibly know anything like the pain he was in? He was a Muggle. He would go back to his safe, simple, airy life, when he left with a hundred thousand pounds extra in his vaults for a little nonsensical chatter... And he wished he would stop pretending to care about him; he didn’t even know him! And wasn’t he supposed to hate him for being an evil, ghastly Death Eater? The others clearly did… Poxy brain gouger! He wasn’t that much of a Naught, that he didn’t know the cost of sugar; it really annoyed him on principle that he had to pay such a criminal sum, just to have a stranger aggravate him and watch him stare at the mantle every week… but he had made senseless mistakes. He had been less than a Wizard (a coward) when he should have been better and now he was paying for it – this was the least of it really. In any event, he had no intention of speaking about his personal matters to a bloody stranger – ever! His life was none of this overgrown, toothy Muggle’s business.
   Undeterred and still smiling, the therapist tried a new approach:
   “Let me ask you: When was the last time your wife sucked you off? Or, what is it you guys call it? Umm – ‘playing the flute’?” he chuckled merrily. “When was the last time she played the flute for you… you know, before she was murdered?”
   Lucius very slowly looked over to him, with a stony murderous expression.
   “She looks like a gagger. I mean she doesn’t look like she was the most tender of women does she?” He held up a professional looking magical photo of a very slender, immaculately dressed woman and looked at it disapprovingly: Part of her hair was white-blonde like Lucius’s, but she also had a thick, contrasting patch of black hair on the top. Like any magical photo, or painting, it was enchanted, so that the woman moved around on the flat piece of paper, as if it were a video. The woman in the photograph pretended not to hear any of the unpleasant things the therapist had said. Instead, she looked away, smoothing a perfect, two-toned curl that had fallen too far out of place for her liking. Looking very superior, she sat down gracefully on the regal, gilded couch behind her that was cushioned and upholstered with satiny, jade coloured jacquard fabric and started to remove the narrow black gloves she wore. All the while, she looked like she found everything very tedious and held her head angled upward, with her eyelids slightly lowered. It seemed like she was looking down on both men. She shot Lucius a perturbed look and he looked away.
   The therapist wanted to add that he thought she looked like a slightly more attractive relative of the cartoon character Cruella de Vil (which she in fact did) but thought that would be too unkind and counterproductive (not that Lucius knew who Cruella de Vil was). So he simply said: “Now that I have your attention…”
   Lucius returned his attention to the painting over the mantle.
   “I’m not really trying to be an irreverent prick. What I’m really trying to get at, is this built up resentment toward your wife – toward yourself for surviving when she died, for making a lot of stupid mistakes… It’s OK to resent her Lucius. If you want a chance at happiness, you have to make the decision today to stop beating yourself up for being less than the superhero everybody expected you to be. Or maybe less than the one you expected yourself to be? It’s OK to forgive yourself. Until you do--”
   At that moment, the clock on mantle struck one; in a fairly quiet voice and still staring at the painting, Lucius spoke: “Ethelred.”
   As the clock struck two, an elegant looking man opened the door at once and queried smoothly: “My Lord?”
   The clock struck three; with a look of rancour, Lucius made a very slight momentary gesture in the therapist’s direction with his eyes. Ethelred vanished –it seemed into thin air– leaving the door ajar.
   The clock struck four.
   As it struck five, Ethelred reappeared in the doorway (again seemingly out of thin air). This time he held the therapist’s coat and umbrella.
   The clock struck six. Lucius picked up his glass and smoothly lifted it to his lips. “Bloody cretin,” he hissed and took a sip.
   Rather than be offended by the behaviour, the therapist seemed to be amused. He rose, thinking for a moment, then nodded to himself agreeably and held his hand out, which Lucius pretended not to notice. Still smiling broadly, he smirked, shrugged and left with Ethelred who was still waiting… As soon as the men were gone, a female voice with a light, polished Caribbean accent, that seemed to come from nowhere said: “Lucius, my Dear-Darling, try not to get yourself so upset. These Muggles are here to try and help you. The gentleman came all the way from America.”
   “DID – YOU – HEEEAR – WHAT – HE – ASKED – ME?!… AND WITH YOU IN THE ROOM?!!” Lucius bellowed. “As if I’d be willing to discuss something like that with him… even if you were not here! Bloody goff!! Is it not enough she’s dead?! And this ‘man’ is supposed to be famous?!” he hissed. He rearranged himself in his seat grumbling on between sips of wine: “Bloody impudence! No wonder they--”
   As the therapist walked with Ethelred down the long, dimly lit hallway toward the foyer, he said in a cheerful tone: “I think we’re making progress… Maybe I should start using ‘Lord Malfoy’ all the time though? D’ya think?”
   With it not apparent if he heard and neither smiling, nor frowning, the Doorkeeper simply stopped and bowed his head very slightly. They had reached the door. Ethelred opened it by aiming a simple, graceful, flick of his hand in its direction, to reveal the waiting car outside. Looking disconcerted for the first time, the therapist stepped outside smiling vaguely: “Well, see you – next week… My assistant will e-mail an invoi--”
   Ethelred who may or may not have known what a Muggle e-mail was, bowed ever so slightly and the door shut exactly at the moment the man had finished his word: “--ce”
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ANGELCAKE