A Different Kind of Magic--UNDERGOING EDIT

So a family member has been a real jerk to me today and I am up t-eed off so here is another chapter because I got nothing done on my schoolwork so guess what I will be doing tomorrow. :) Hence this one is in advance of morning so I don't feel guilty for leaving you waiting. I suppose many of you will be seeing 3 chapters at once and thinking "Heck this lady is barmy." Yep, and proud of it. I really hope you guys are enjoying the story. This is another pivotal chapter and there are warnings in here for violence and reference to mutilation but not described in detail. There are some important revelations in here that set the stage for us in the future.




Chapter 63- Nightmare Reality

Rabastan set his teeth on edge, hating each step that brought him closer to Malfoy Manor. At the last minute, Malfoy had sent him a message not to bring Fishwick with him. He felt a bit unnerved about the other man’s dismissal. Perhaps Lucius didn’t trust the man’s inclusion into their dark circle as readily as they had imagined? It was too late for speculation. He could only assume that information would be forthcoming very shortly. He was not surprised when Malfoy disillusioned himself from the shadows of the trees off to the side of the front gates of the Manor.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Very good. Let’s have a stroll, shall we?”

Rabastan inclined his head and fell into step easily beside the other man who was only slightly shorter than he. He knew it bugged Malfoy to no end that he had to look up at Rabastan. It was a smug victory that he clung to when speaking to the pale piece of shit like he was truly a Lord.

“I’ve no doubt you’re wondering why I haven’t invited along our new friend.”

“The thought had crossed my mind, My Lord.”

“There is the little issue of secrecy. Yes, he was bound by the wizarding oath, but there are ways to circumvent that.”

A raise of the eyebrow brought a sneer to Lucius’s porcelain face. “Oh yes. Have no doubt I have much knowledge garnered from the secret keeps of our fallen Dark Master. There are secrets one can only learn from those banned to a hell worse than anyone can imagine.” His face had taken on that faraway look of the damned, conscious thought not residing in the crisp late August weather or with the man next to him.

“My Lord?”

“Ah yes, Rabastan. As I was saying. I would like Colin to pass a little test I have devised.”

“Very good My Lord.”

“Aren’t you curious as to what it is?”

The silence of the big man was all the answer he needed before moving on. “I require him to bring me five Muggles. It does not matter if they are men, women, or children. He will have two weeks to procure them and bring them to me. You are not to assist him. If he fails, you will kill him. Is that quite clear?”

“Yes My Lord.”

“Very good. On to Snape Manor.”

Lucius grabbed on to Rabastan’s arm and Apparated to the location. Malfoy was constantly keeping him off his guard, which is what, he supposed, was the intended effect. Many of his mannerisms were reminiscent of Voldemort. A sort of electric shock went through him when he was touched to Apparate, and Rabastan’s suspicions were somewhat confirmed as to the power of the man he called Lord. An incredible resonance echoed off him when he closed his eyes and concentrated on the energy flowing from him. It was black and virulent, much again, like the Dark Lord’s had been. There was something different about it; something virile and secret like a monster ready to jump out at a child from a dark corner. Anything that made Rabastan shake was sure to be vile in the most horrid way. It repulsed him to think of what twisted, dead thing Lucius had manipulated to be exuding such nauseating wretch from his very soul.

He followed Malfoy to the gates of the Manor. Some very complex wards had been set up, and it took ten minutes for Lucius to take them down. He continued to speak as soon as they were inside the gates and the wards were back up.

“I am very pleased with the way Lady Luck has turned her smile upon us. When I discovered the location of the second part of the Prophecy I considered killing the poor dumb bastard who dared tell me that what I had been looking for was right under my very nose. However, I realized he was right. However useless most squibs are, the old wretch is proving useful, having learned this little tidbit for simply being a good little slave.” He snorted in contempt. “One must not underestimate filth, Rabastan.”

Talk about being caught off guard. This bit of news was imparted to him as if it were in yesterday’s Daily Prophet. Minerva was going to shite a brick.

“Of course not, My Lord.”

Once inside the long-neglected Snape Manor, Lucius immediately brought Rabastan to a hidden stairway behind a torn portrait of some ancestor of Severus’. The family resemblance was remarkable. He wondered what other secrets this place held. It was obviously frequented, but not maintained. Lucius must have made this place into some sort of devious haven.

The décor was atrocious, and very much reeked of Malfoy cast-offs.

Suddenly, Lucius gripped him by the front of his tunic, hostility and unguarded jealousy radiating from him like a tidal wave. “Tell me Rabastan,” he snarled. “Have you taken any whores to your bed lately?”

“Yes My Lord,” he answered calmly, wondering where this was going.

“Show me.”

Lucius slapped the palm of one hand to Rabastan’s forehead and tipped his wand sharply onto his own temple. A surprised Lestrange could only throw up a quick Occlumency and project what he wanted Lucius to see. Dumbledore’s little tricks were good for something after all.

Shoving images into Lucius’ mind, Rabastan was easily able to hide away his tryst with Hermione to a dark corner of his mind and push forward the rough sex with Madam Rosmerta. A very thorough blowjob, whipping and pounding accompanied by his lavish frustration and anger while bruising her was enough to satisfy whatever crazy curiosity Lucius may have had, because Lucius released the big man with a slight shove, allowing the anger to drain a bit while he looked him up and down.

“Hmph,” he sniffed, “it was a pity you had to let her live.”

“A true shame, My Lord, but she is the perfect slut to abuse when I have the need, and she is discreet.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Lucius paused, clenching and unclenching his fists as if undecided about something important. “Rabastan, I trust no man, but you were loyal to the Dark Lord to the very end, and have proven yourself to me many times over. I was concerned you might have been fucking my wife.”

A shocked hiss erupted from Rabastan’s lips before he could stop it. What was he on about? “My Lord, I would never betray you.”

“Yes, I see now that she has not contacted you. I have cause to believe she is whoring herself out to one of my men, but I have no proof. If you can, keep an eye on her for me when you are able, you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.”

“Indeed My Lord, of course I will do as you bid.”

“Good. Is that old bitch McGonagall aware of your position here?”

Rabastan chose his words carefully considering this new and confusing development with Lucius unheard of twisted Legilimency power. It wasn’t quite as strong as when the Dark Lord had broken into his mind but the search for answers was no less thorough. “No My Lord, but she is aware of my increased need to be present within the Ministry and she has suspicions there is someone controlling the Minister from behind the scenes.” He held his breath, ready for another mind invasion at any moment.

Lucius let his lip curl with snobbish derision. “Excellent. I assume Snape has gone crawling back to one of her precious Order members and has pointed the finger at me. There is nothing to be done. Keep your eye on things and do not concern yourself with exception to bringing me Lupin’s boy. There is little they can do to upset my plans. Now then, what I am about to show you is something no man has seen save a select few, and they are dead.”

Rabastan nodded stiffly. He felt as if he were in quicksand with no hope of pulling himself out at this rate.

“I need you to be aware of these facilities as my future plans come to fruition. Come.”

As they stepped through the enchanted portrait, a single dank stairwell plummeted into the darkness below.

“Lumos.”

The stairwell went down a long way and curved sharply to the left, right, and continued straight on. The two men descended the path to the right. After several hundred feet it veered sharply to another split which Lucius had no trouble traversing. The ground evened out and split off into a series of rooms. One at the end of a long hallway was slightly ajar and Lucius led him inside.

Nothing could describe the sight. A deep, cavernous room stood before them. A thick, rocky ledge extended twenty feet into the cavern in all directions around the jagged, round edges that had been hollowed out of the bedrock. A great contraption of rotted wood lay in tatters on the far side of the cavern, looking as if it once had hung from the ceiling judging by the large hooks and chains that still hung prone from their perch. The center of the cavern sported a flat surface jutting from the bowels of the cavern. It couldn’t have been more than twenty square feet wide, but the most impressive aspect of the cavern was the gap between the edges of the cavern and the middle. The expanse of deep, inky black formed a very effective natural barrier, keeping anyone from getting to the center unless they had a means of building a bridge, magic or broom to get across.

Rabastan turned an inquisitive gaze on his Lord.

Smiling grandly, Lucius proclaimed, “This is an Oubliette. It is French for a place of forgetting. I find it very effective to place stubborn imbeciles here who refuse questioning. Such a pity so many of them lose hope and choose to jump.” He tsked his lips in mock mourning and shook his head.

“I have three such places. It may be necessary for you to keep an eye on prisoners of importance should I choose to place them here. It is a most efficient way of keeping them contained. Of course, I do chain the ones I wish to keep from disposing of themselves. I also like to keep other forms of entertainment down here from time to time.”

Lucius closed the door on the room and moved to open one slightly further down the hall. He opened it to display a ragged, beaten Muggle woman on the floor. “Get up you filth!” He kicked her viciously when she didn’t move. “Bah!” he spat. “Fucking useless! The lot of you! Not one of you is good for more than one shag and all the fight is gone. Crucio!”

Rabastan looked on calmly as Lucius tortured the poor woman as she screamed. The sadistic bastard took his rage out on the woman in very disturbed ways, cutting off several limbs and carving out her eyes before forcing his cock into her mouth and finishing while she bled to death. Malfoy was a sick bastard, which was no surprise, but now he was getting a clearer picture of the inner workings of the depraved man’s mind. It was no wonder his wife was probably out screwing around. He couldn’t blame the woman for wanting to get away from the sick shit he was looking upon at the moment.
When Lucius was done, he spat again and fixed his trousers. “Good riddance. Hardly worth the trouble if you ask me. I need to get in touch with Shaw, get a fresh batch down here. They spoil so quickly.”

Speaking as if the human beings in this odd dungeon were rotten eggs to be discarded when they had gone bad was just the tip of the iceberg, Rabastan was sure. Lucius led him to the next cell.

“This is the last one that’s any good. I think the rest have…. lost their minds,” he smiled cruelly, as if to a private
joke. “She is yours. Do with her as you please. We will continue when you are finished, I have a small detail I need to attend to.”

As soon as Lucius had gone, Rabastan looked down into the eyes of a hapless girl of perhaps eighteen or nineteen. She was very pretty under the grime and had the look of having a Muggle handicap. Her facial features weren’t quite right, and an odd bell rang from his Hogwarts days in Muggle Studies on diseases that didn’t affect the wizarding world as often as Muggles, but were still there. It disgusted him that Lucius wanted him to violate a simpleton. She was obviously frightened and probably had no idea of what anyone had even asked of her. Still, he was expected to do something with her and didn’t want Lucius to return and force him to do something while he watched.

Without a word he came behind the girl and put his wand to her throat. “Avada Kedavra,” he whispered, and the girl slumped into his arms. After she was dead, he spread her out on the floor and removed her torn knickers, striking the dead body in several places and breaking a few bones to make it look convincing. Then he pulled out his cock and thought about Hermione while he pumped his seed onto the stomach of the deceased girl, desperately trying to ignore his surroundings.

It was the best he could do under the circumstances. Several minutes later Lucius re-appeared and gave a cursory glance of the room. “Did she meet your expectations, Rabastan?”

“Yes My Lord. Thank you. You are most charitable.”

“Only the best for my loyal pets,” he laughed icily. “Come, let’s be gone from this filth so I can show you what we really came down here for.”

Perhaps ten minutes passed while they went up and down a labyrinth of stairs that ended in another door at the end of a similar dead-end hallway. The bloody place was as bad as Gringott’s!

Upon opening the door a spectacular sight met their eyes. Gold, jewels, books, minutiae, furniture, tapestries, torture devices, and all things imaginable littered the floor of the crude chamber. It was heaped in on itself haphazardly like someone moved in and went into a rage, throwing it everywhere.

“Welcome to the Dark Lord’s treasure!” Lucius proclaimed, using the same annoying sweep of his arm.

“How, My Lord?” came the stunned reply. It just didn’t add up. Everyone had been told that the treasure of the Dark Lord had been re-distributed immediately following the war to various victims of the conflict, dark items destroyed and other items locked away in perpetuity.

A sharp glance from Lucius was all he needed to retract the question. “I am sorry My Lord, I am in awe of your wealth.”

“I can forgive your question; it is natural to wonder what it is all doing here.” Malfoy had that smug look on his face again. “There were more followers of the Dark Lord than you imagined, my friend. What would the world say if they knew the Ministry was always in the hands of the Dark Lord, but that Voldemort himself had staged the great battle to glory that was to be his?”

The shocked look on the normally indomitable Lestrange was priceless to Lucius.

“Oh yes. The fucking Order of the Phoenix, what a joke!” he sneered. ”They actually thought they won the war? The war never ended! It simply changed hands!” He rubbed his hands together with glee.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. If you hadn’t of been stupid and tried to be gallant with that idiot brother of yours, I would have kept you in the inner circle from the start.”

Rabastan kept shaking his head numbly to keep it from buzzing at the words he was hearing. It was almost too much to believe. He had to get a hold of himself before he fell apart. Lucius expected him to be just as ruthless, stoic and calm in the face of adversity and change.

“Is there a problem, Lestrange?” Lucius asked sharply.

Snapping out of it, Rabastan lowered himself to one knee, hoping to distract Lucius from his odd reaction. “No My Lord. I was just a foolish servant of the Dark Lord, and unworthy of the knowledge you have presented to me. Forgive me. I am overwhelmed by your power and majesty.”

Lucius preened under the subservience like one of his prize peacocks on display. “Rise, my Slytherin friend. We have much to discuss.”

Gesturing down the corridor and securing the door behind them, he continued speaking as he led the way to one other part of this hidden lair. “As I was saying, the war never ended. Voldemort had spies within the Ministry in positions of power. Through Imperius curses and those hidden with the Dark Mark, we were able to orchestrate the takeover of the wizarding government quite smoothly after the fall of the Dark Lord. Voldemort sought to do so himself under the guise of the wizarding world’s success and rise to power secretly, much as I have. Pah!” He spat, disgusted with the failure of the supposed greatest wizard since Grindelwold.

“It was a simple matter to “seize” everything from the strongholds we were known to frequent. The Ministry’s left hand didn’t know what its right hand was doing, so to speak. We needed to let a certain amount of the Dark Lord’s followers be thrown into Azkaban.”

“You mean those of us who knew nothing of the plan.”

“Very astute, Rabastan. Yes, but that is not all. Once we had allowed the excitement to die down, minor reparations had to be made to society to keep up appearances. We ensured there was a lot of publicity focused on the reparations, the efforts of the Ministry to rebuild Hogwarts and such and all of the other drivel the common filth of the land expects. Than the rest of us swept in and cut out the heart of the Ministry.”

“Why is Shacklebolt still Minister, My Lord?”

“Fool!” Lucius raged, whipping out his wand and putting it to Rabastan’s heart. “Who do you suggest we put at the head of the Ministry? A Death Eater? No, a puppet government is much more palatable to maintain than sheer force. You disappoint me with your prying, Gryffindor worthy question. Do not do so again.”

“No My Lord,” he replied, eyes downcast.

“Very well.” Stuffing his wand back into sleeve, they turned a corner and came to an odd charm; an opaque shield that blocked the corridor but shimmered softly in the near dark. It pulsated, almost with a life of its own.

Careful to school his expression, Rabastan cast a quick glance at the door and back to Malfoy.

“Here we are. This is the most dangerous part of my subterranean playground. I happened upon it quite by accident, although it has brought me many hours of abject amusement. With the unraveling of the first part of the Blood Prophecy, its existence makes sense at long last. I often wondered if its purpose was to simply house what is held within for no other purpose then having no other place to safely keep the contents until one was ready to utilize it.”

Rabastan’s agitation was growing, the air feeling stifling and thick. A bit of fog had gathered at his feet, and he saw wisps curling off the rocks and around the strange door. A faint melancholy gripped his heart, growing stronger the longer they stayed next to it. He just wished Lucius would get on with it so he could get as far away from the door as possible. It was obviously home to something terrible.

Almost impervious to the feeling of the dungeon from having spent so much time in its vicinity, Lucius took pleasure in the obvious discomfort of Lestrange. “You’ve no doubt assumed I have brought you to this place to search it for the second part of the Prophecy.”

“Yes My Lord.”

“I have already had the rest of the structure searched from top to bottom, both manually and magically. There is nothing hidden here that I am not already aware of.” He paused for full effect, waiting to see if Lestrange would make another comment, but was gifted with silence. Good, he had learned his lesson.

“This chamber is the only one that has not been searched, for good reason. Our mission, together, is to enter this chamber and search it for the second scroll and whatever else it may contain. I will keep the creatures at bay, and you must search as quickly as you can. Mind the bodies.”

“My Lord, are you going to tell me what is in here?”

That maniacal gleam lit Malfoy’s eyes as he touched his wand to the door, flourishing dramatically like a stage performer. “Behold!”

The shield of the door stayed intact, but went from opaque to clear. The chamber beyond seemed large, the dim glow not penetrating more than several meters into its depths. A few dead bodies were visible on the floor just inside the cavern. Rabastan jumped back as three Dementors struck from the shadows and attempted to breach the barrier of the shield. It reacted violently like an inverted Patronus, snapping the foul creatures back into the depths of the room.

As Rabastan took a closer look after recovering from his recoil, he could see dim shapes swirling about the room, circling ceaselessly, making an awful sound that made him want to go mad. Unable to help himself, he cast a doubtful look at Lucius. The man truly was insane. No one in their right mind would go into a small space with that many Dementors and think they would come out alive.

“Do you doubt my power, Rabastan?”

“No My Lord, there are just so many of them!” he remarked incredulously.

“Yes indeed, which is why they will prove most useful when I need them most.”

“How are they contained, My Lord?”

“I am feeling generous, so I will allow this one question.” Lucius pulled Merlin’s ring from his breast on its chain in a moment of sheer impulse and showed it to Rabastan. “This ring is the first object of the Blood Prophecy. The Dark Lord had in his possession a book, older than any I’ve ever seen. It referenced the Prophecy, and I was able to secretly make the connection between the scroll and the ring before Voldemort was killed. He never knew, and I never told anyone.

After the Ministry takeover, a small group of us killed everyone that was privy to the Dark Lord’s plan. We then put new people in place with little brain and less willpower.” He sneered at how easy it had been.

“The fools that brought down the Ministry honestly thought we were going to share in the glory and spoils that are secreted away down here and elsewhere. But I have something they do not, and thus, they became my servants or my sport.”

“The ring.”

“Yes Rabastan. This was the great ring of Merlin the Magician himself. Once upon a time, like a sniveling child’s fairy tale, this ring was worn by the most powerful wizard the world had ever known. He wrote the book of the Prophecy, which was, alas, destroyed along with the Dark Lord. I killed the one responsible for the loss.” The blood coloured the pale face of Malfoy a bright shade of purple at the memory of the vital failure and what it may have cost him in time.

“I was lucky to have read through it once and secured the ring and scroll for myself. I no longer trust halfwits with the scrolls. You will be in charge, along with the useless scum who translated it for me. He will be your contact from now on.”

Rabastan nodded, focusing intently on every word so he could report back to Minerva immediately when this farce was finished.

“This ring has been charged with Dark magic. I have channeled a good number of sacrifices and souls into the piece of power, and it has increased my magic one hundred fold! There is a limit to what I can do. I cannot search the chamber alone and hold off the Dementors myself. You are the one I have entrusted with the search, so now I will be able to at last search this one last bit of the Manor.”

“Why are the Dementors here My Lord?”

That was the wrong thing to say. He had pushed Lucius too far. A solid round of the Cruciatus curse left Rabastan writhing on the floor in agony, his muscles jerking violently under the strain.

“Is your Lord a fool to impart every secret at his command to satisfy your suspiciously nosy curiosity?”

“No My Lord, I forget my place. I merely seek to understand-“

“Crucio!” This time, Lucius did not stop until his target gasped for air, grunts and shrieks forced from the depths of his great chest.

“Your place is to understand this,” he ground out. “You are nothing. If you attempt to stand on equal footing with your Lord, I will crush you under my foot like an insect. You are nothing! Do you hear me? NOTHING!” he finished, roaring like a hundred angry lions out for blood. “I am not a generous master as Voldemort was. I am not a fool. His downfall was a lesson to all who I cross, that I shall not make the same mistakes. There will be no mercy under my rule.”

The energy of the exchange seemed to take the wind out of the blond man’s sails. Letting loose an epithet of curse words, he re-veiled the chamber and addressed Rabastan before leaving. “I will be back in one hour. Use that time to meditate on your position as a servant under the reign of your Lord. You are NOTHING!”

The self-proclaimed Lord ground his feet in the rock and disappeared up the stairs, leaving a barely conscious Rabastan on the floor of the dungeon with the emotion and joy slowly being sucked from his body by the sheer presence of so many Dementors nearby. He tried to grab for his wand but the muscles wouldn’t obey.

He was forced to lie still and conserve his strength, praying he would make it back to Hogwarts to warn the others of the danger. In all of his nightmares and times as a servant of Voldemort, he would never have suspected the truth behind the lies.

He had been a fool and his family and many others had died because of it. Rabastan Lestrange renewed the vows to himself that he would do all in his power to keep the darkness of Malfoy from tainting the future of the civilized world with his evil machinations.

Or he would die trying.