A/N:I've decided to post this little oneshot before I really get cracking with my next big fic...in my last fic, I realised I had missed out a part I had first planned on putting in, so I shall make up for it by posting it as a oneshot. If you're curious about my next fic, I shall tell you now that it is about Erik's stay in Tonkin and his pirate-y encounters there, which Kay left out in her book. I've only seen one other fic here that has the same subject, and I think I'd like to give it a go too. In case you're interested, look out for "Phantom of the Red River" which will be coming soon! :D

Anyway, on with the story...

And hooray! It's my birthday today! I am now a whole year older, though it doesn't feel like it yet...This Saturday I shall be going around driving fast racing vehicles with some friends to celebrate. Whee!

(PotO belongs to groovy Leroux/ALW/Kay, not me)

She watched him at the piano. A true virtuoso, he was - full of grace and musical talent from a very young age. Now, at fourteen, he had already published many of his compositions, one of which he was performing now, before her in the drawing room. The warm, sustained notes were so beautiful to hear, blossoming from under those blithe fingers of his. His father's hands, she thought to herself. Not to mention his father's exceptional talent...

Sitting tranquil on the divan, she observed the gentle, flowing movements of his wrist as he performed a series of arpeggios before slowing into his main tune. Oh, what a sweet sound he made...comforting but strangely melancholy at the same time. She gazed at his face now, his black curls, his long, straight nose, slightly pursed lips, and the gentle crease between his eyebrows as his expression mirrored every potent emotion portrayed in his piece. He felt each and every note of it, she could see it. His eyes reflected his music, the music that was so deeply moving and brilliant. The piano had never made such melodies under her hands...but of course, he had been playing it since he was old enough to climb onto the piano bench unaided. The music he played was always so soft and touching, only slightly dramatic on occasion. He seemed to like the dramatic, but preferred the gentle more. His style, however, reminded her of that of one who was long dead now - the style of one who played with just as much elegance and vigour, but who had rarely been in a state of mind to play anything gentle.

Christine de Chagny was so proud of her son - as proud as any mother could be. But whenever she looked upon the raw, beautiful talent he possessed, she felt such terrible twinges of guilt. They had left it far too late to tell him the truth...she and Raoul had kept the secret to themselves for too long. She knew Raoul would never want to tell Charles - whom he was quite attached to now - that he was not his real father. He was still in pain after that dark time at the Opéra, and even after all these years he mourned the loss of his elder brother, the Comte Philippe. In his heart of hearts Christine knew her husband still resented Erik, still felt bitter about the tortured, insane artistic genius who had taken from him his brother, and had almost taken me, as well. The fact that Erik had been dead for almost fifteen years had not made Raoul forget the horrors of the past one bit. And if Raoul still could not even say Erik's name for fear of stirring the old hatred lodged within him, then how could he ever tell Charles about who his true father was?

Christine watched Charles as he played on, oblivious to all but his music. She knew she would be the one to tell him...he had a right, after all, to know...

Oh, but he looked so content! She looked at him helplessly. He still thought he was a boy just like any other, family-wise...he still thought he had a mother and a father who were both truly his. But she could not bear it...she had to tell him, now! Otherwise she knew she would leave it, then forget, and more years would pass, making the truth even more difficult to tell. And if she died without telling him...oh, she would never rest!

'Charles?'

The lovely piano music stopped. 'Yes, Maman?'

Christine gathered her courage. 'Come here and sit by me for a while, will you?' she requested. 'I have...much to tell you.'

Charles seemed to guess something was afoot, for a serious look took over his features. He obediently came and sat beside his mother. She paused, waiting for the right words to come. Suddenly, Charles couldn't wait any longer.

'It's the cat, isn't it,' he asked in anguish.

Christine looked at him, taken aback. 'What?'

'The cat's been missing for days - you've found him dead, haven't you?' Charles said.

'Oh no, no - this isn't about the cat, I'm sure he'll turn up soon,' Christine reassured him, and he momentarily looked at ease. 'This is about you, Charles. I have decided you are old enough to know what Raoul and I should have told you years ago.'

His features were politely curious, but she could see the wariness and uncertainty in his eyes. Oh, my poor boy, she thought...How would she tell him?

Christine took a deep breath. 'Let me tell you a story first,' she said, reminding herself uncannily of her own poor papa. Telling the past as a story made it so much easier, and seemed to make the truth less harsh, detaching herself from it. 'A long time ago, there was a little girl whose beloved Papa told her the tale of Little Lotte and the Angel of Music, which you know about, too. Then one terrible day, her beloved Papa passed away, but as he died he promised her that he would send down from heaven the real Angel of Music to guide her. The little girl grew up, and after many, many years, she found herself in a majestic Opera house singing as a chorus girl. But her heart had long left her singing, and she was very sad that she could not sing as well any longer. On top of that, the Angel of Music had not appeared once, or spoken in her head at all. She prayed for her father every day, and felt so hopeless and helpless that she often cried in that little chapel. But then one day, when she was least expecting it, she heard the sweetest singing from inside her dressing room...

'At first she thought it came from a different dressing room, so she left her own room and searched the others. They were empty, and the heavenly singing was coming exactly from her room! The girl was perplexed; her room was empty too, and there was nowhere for anyone to hide in it. So she listened to that beautiful, beautiful singing - the singing of a voice more melodic and lovely than any man's could ever be!

'Soon the singing Voice began to speak to her, like a normal person. It told her that it was the Voice of the Angel of Music, whom she had long given up the hope of hearing! Her life became so much happier from that moment, for the Angel of Music began to teach her how to put her heart into her voice again, and soon she began to sing again.

'But then, unexpectedly, the girl met a handsome boy she had known as a child when her dear Papa was still alive. He came to love her dearly, but the Angel of Music was very jealous and told the girl she was not allowed to love anyone on this Earth, as she was to devote herself only to Music!

'Time went on, and then one day the girl discovered that her beloved Angel was not an Angel at all, but a man - a man with a voice so lovely it could melt the heart of a statue. However, this man's voice was not the only thing that made him different from other men: his face was tragically and terribly deformed, and he had all the semblances of a walking corpse. Nobody knew anything about him, for he lived in secret, underground in the deepest cellars of the Opéra. He had made it his home, his kingdom, and guarded it fiercely against intruders, for a lifetime of pain had made him shy away from the rest of humanity. However, he often ventured above ground, and those who glimpsed him invented the tale of the Opera Ghost. Despite his terrifying, macabre appearance, he was an immensely gifted man, who was talented in architecture, art, and, most importantly, music. He was in love with the girl, but she was terribly afraid of him, for his years of degradation and solitude had driven him slightly mad. However, he was careful never to harm her, and soon he won some of her trust.

'But the poor boy, her childhood friend, was also painfully in love with her, and when he learned of the man who lived beneath the Opéra, he began to hate him bitterly. The poor girl was trapped between the two of them, not knowing which her heart truly belonged to. The poor disfigured man was gradually losing his mind, at times scaring her, but at times weeping before her so pitifully that she could not help but feel a terrible amount of sympathy for him. The boy, on the other hand, offerred her protection and wanted her to run away with him. But the man heard of the plan and took the girl away for one last time.

'He was mad with his desperation, with his agony. Terrible things happened when the boy went deep under the ground to rescue her, but in the end the girl was left with no choice but to accept the man's offer of marriage. They were married for a very short while, for once the man had felt the love he had never expected her to have for him, his redemption came to him and he bade her to leave him, to leave him and live a happy life with the rich, handsome young boy who had so much to offer me. She left the poor, tortured man with a heavy heart but found solace with the boy, who then became her husband. Barely a week later, they received news of the man's death; he had died alone and in his home deep under the Opera house. The girl was heartbroken, for she had indeed felt something for him, as well as great pity and sympathy and sorrow.

'But then a lovely, beautiful baby boy came to the girl...a lovely boy with dark hair and already a great aptitude for all things musical. Every day that passed, this creative child would remind her more and more of the genius the world had lost and would never know about. She knew for certain that this child was the only thing that remained of the one who had called himself her Angel of Music. Her dear husband had been infinitely brave and accepted this child as his own, even though he was still haunted by memories of the past...'

Charles was staring straight ahead of himself, looking horror-struck. 'So...' he said quietly, 'Papa is not...my real Papa?'

Christine sighed, and shook her head. 'Your real Papa was a great man, Charles, a great man with talent the world never noticed because of his appearance.'

His hands were shaking. 'Why did you not tell me this before?' he asked.

'Forgive me, Charles,' she said sadly. 'I never had the courage.'

Charles continued to stare into nothingness. Then he quietly asked: 'What...what was the name of my real father?'

'He had no name,' Christine told him. 'He was never given one...or so I assumed. Nobody knew anything about his past. But he told me that he had taken the name "Erik", and by accident.'

'By accident?'

'That is all I know.'

'Erik...' Charles murmured the name of his father, mulling it over, as if trying to see if the name would trigger something in him, bring back memories that were not there. Then he said something surprising: 'I would have liked to meet him.'

'He probably would have scared you, Charles,' Christine replied frankly. 'He looked like a corpse, and he was insane on top of it all.'

'We would have had much to talk about, I think...' Charles murmured, seeming not to hear her. 'I could have learned a lot about music from him.'

'He is dead, Charles,' Christine reminded him sadly and gently, putting an arm around him. 'It is best not to dwell on the past, for it will never change.'

'He died alone, in his house under the Opéra...' Charles said, more to himself than to his mother. Christine watched the dark, unfathomable look in her son's eyes with helplessness. What had she done? He would never be the same again...oh, he had been so much happier not knowing! He was too young to hear such a tragic tale, even if she had carefully avoided telling him of Erik's murders and the torturing of Raoul and the Persian...

But the damage was well and truly done now...

In the deep, damp darkness beneath the Opéra Garnier, upon the cold flagstones that nobody had set foot on for over a decade, there was a small light, tiny and fragile in the great blackness. The light was held by a thin figure, half-lost in the shadow. It was a young boy - a young boy with curly coal-black hair and a determined glint in his eyes. His determination had given him the possibility of descending into the cellars of the Opera house, not caring that he could easily get lost forever in the dark labyrinth of passages. Even though he did not know the exact location of the place he wanted to go, he had heard from his mother that it was across a lake...so, naturally, the next step had been to ask one of the workers at the Opéra Garnier where precisely this lake was. He had used his special tone of voice again - the tone of voice that was so good at getting him what he wanted that it seemed almost hypnotic. He had been given directions, which he had carefully memorised. Now he was almost there, if he remembered correctly -

'Oh...!' sighed Charles, lifting his lantern. The light it shed reflected upon the still waters of a lake so calm it looked as if it was made of black, polished glass. It was truly majestic...but how to cross it? The glow from his lantern presently lit up an ancient, rotting boat with a pair of mould-patched oars in the bottom. Charles frowned at it speculatively. What was a boat doing down here? His heart began to hammer slightly as it came across him that this boat might very well be some solid proof that his father had indeed lived here. After all, who else would want to cross the lake?

Charles touched the wood of the boat, and picked up an oar. The thing was ancient, but still not get rotten through. It had miraculously remained solid, toughened by the years. Charles took a deep breath, then pushed it out onto the water and got in. This was madness...the little vessel would surely sink, or break apart. After all, it was so old and hadn't been used for years...

But the nagging need to reach the end of his expedition spurred him on; he had not gone all this way and made a clever excuse to his parents for nothing! Bravely, Charles grabbed the oars and began to row.

Under the pressure, the wood made worrying groans, and one of the oars was near snapping. Undeterred, Charles made his way slowly and steadily, taking his time to cross the lake so as not to damage his boat further.

He was halfway across the lake when he heard a strange sound - almost like the sound of an electric alarm bell going off somewhere. He hoped there was not an emergency anywhere...he did not wish to be stuck in the middle of this lake, where he was most vulnerable! Charles rowed quicker, and then, to his joy, he reached the opposite bank. The sound of the alarm bell had stopped, thankfully. He got out of the boat, then turned around.

Charles's face fell with dismay. He was faced with a solid, blank wall. Was this a dead end? Had he gone the wrong way?

...or was he looking at a door without knowing it?

He had read about secret doors in books, but he knew this door would be different. A real secret door must be different from secret doors in books, otherwise everybody would know how to work them! However, he had a suspicion that there would be a lever or spring somewhere, hidden away...

Charles began to explore the entire rock face with his hands, pressing down on various likely-looking pieces of stone. Gradually his enthusiasm began to wane and, on his third sweep of the rock wall, he was about to give up when he heard a click and a low grinding sound. Charles spun around and his heart leapt as an opening appeared in the rock. Eagerly he ran to it as it slowly opened. The grinding sound was growing louder and louder, until there was a screech of metal and it stopped. The mechanism, subject to years of damp chill and no maintenance, had seized up, leaving the door only partially open. The gap, however, was just about wide enough for a slender boy like Charles to squeeze through. Silently he slid through the gap and entered -

A house.

Charles stared about himself in sheer wonder. He couldn't believe it. A house - an actual home, with a very ordinary drawing room, under the Opéra Garnier! He never would have dreamed of something like this...

His heart was pounding fit to burst. This was real...he was in his father's home! He was in the home of the man who had plagued his dreams for the past few days, who had made him burn with the need to find out more. As he looked around, he found himself wondering why he had expected a more grandiose drawing room. This room looked just like any other in Paris, except it was abandoned, dark and filled with cobwebs. The odour of damp hung stale in the air, and Charles's wonder-filled eyes came to rest upon baskets and baskets of long-dead flowers that stood on every surface. It was an odd sight indeed...why were all these flowers here? His father had had a few eccentricities...

Charles lifted his lantern high. Now that he had reached his destination, he began to fully realise how alone he was at the moment. He had never properly thought about the fact that he was alone in the dark, underground and far from others...old ghost stories stirred in his head, but he firmly concentrated on something else. He wished to explore the apartment further...

All the rooms were just as dark and dank and cold. Cobwebs tangled in Charles's hair and streamed from his limbs. But this he did not care about; he was too busy feasting his eyes on all of the trinkets standing on tables or in cabinets...all of the possessions of the father he never knew. By and by, his wanderings took him into the last room left unexplored. As soon as he entered the room, his gaze was held by the majesty of a huge pipe organ, that took up an entire wall. He gave a sigh of awe at the sight of the magnificent instrument, looking at the elaborate wood carvings of curling, baroque floral patterns and, rather disconcertingly, grinning death's-heads. Slowly, reverently, he approached it. There was a tingling in his fingers; deep inside he knew this instrument had played music never known before to man, a music that nobody had ever heard, nor would ever hear. He arrived at the keyboards, gently touching the levers and switches on either side of them, which were labelled by intricately decorated enamel plates. Charles looked down at the keys. They had yellowed, and, like everything else in the house, were covered in a thick layer of dust. The tingling in his fingers grew more intense, and, impulsively, he struck a chord. A majestic, thrilling drone came from some of the larger bass pipes. Eagerly, Charles improvised a tocatta in the higher pipes, filled with raw delight at the sounds he was creating. To think his father's hands had rested here, too! Charles looked up, grinning broadly. Great puffs of dust were billowing like smoke from the pipes as the air was forced through them, making the air thicken and the lantern light shimmer. Soon Charles was sneezing and his eyes were watering, so he stopped playing and turned around, wiping his eyes -

He froze.

Right before him, completely unnoticed, there lay a fine, ornate coffin, covered with dust.

Charles's mind was reeling. How had he not seen it! It had been right there, when he had walked into the room! Yet he had simply walked past it, so absorbed by the majestic organ. His pulse was racing now as he looked at the coffin. There is a body inside that, Charles thought. He felt mildly sick, but something drew him closer, and closer yet...

He reached out with a trembling hand, and touched the coffin's lid, leaving a perfect handprint in the dust that had remained undisturbed for more than fourteen years. He began to wipe the dust off, polishing the wood until it gleamed with a dark lustre. He was shaking uncontrollably now, because a truly wicked thought had passed through his mind. He wanted to lift the lid of that coffin...to open that fine wooden casket and see the body of the Angel of Music! Half of him battled with this idea. It was a stupid thing to do, and utterly blasphemous! And, on top of that, he was scared stiff...

But he knew that if he ever wanted to see, it had to be now. He knew very well that he would never return here.

'God forgive me,' Charles whispered breathlessly, fumbling with the gold catches, and lifting the lid -

'Eurgh!' he quickly covered his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his jacket as the stench of rot and putrefaction was released. Shaking uncontrollably, he peered at what lay in the coffin...

All that was left of Erik was a yellow-grey skeleton, still dressed in a fine but now very old and outdated dinner jacket. The skeleton was laid out full length upon the deep-burgundy padding, and it was very long indeed. He must have been a very tall man...and alarmingly thin, too, judging by the way the clothes seemed to still fit the skeleton even after all the flesh had rotted away. The skull was covered by a pale, chipped mask, which he had at first mistook for a real, frowning face. There was only bone behind that now, he told himself. Curiosity made him itch again, and he was taken by the desire to find out what really was behind that mask. Would everything still be as bad as his mother had said? Slowly, he took hold of the mask and gently pulled it from the skull. His fingers accidently brushed bare bone that felt like hard wood in texture and nothing more. Now the mask was off, Charles looked at the exposed skull in horrified fascination. Yes, it was a little bit of an odd shape...slightly on the narrow side, and with stress and mild fracture marks that were haunting evidence of a violent past. Charles stared into Erik's empty eye sockets, and then looked at the exposed teeth. The jaw was slightly open, looking as if he had died screaming. Charles shook the superstitious speculation from his head immediately. No, of course Erik had not died screaming; he had heard somewhere that the jaws of skeletons sometimes opened when the muscle that held them closed had rotted away...

I wonder how he died, thought Charles. Did he stagger painfully across this room, crawl into this very coffin and simply close the lid over himself, still alive? Or did somebody place him here? He had neglected to ask his mother.

The rather unusually long bones of Erik's hands were crossed over his chest. And, on one finger, there shone something golden. Charles leant forwards, peering at it, getting closer to the skeleton than he would have wanted.

It was a golden ring; a golden wedding ring, still on his finger. Just visible inside the gold band, were the initials C.D.

"C.D?" Who was "C.D?" Suddenly Charles realised: Christine Daaé!

...his mother's name. So it was all true...all of it was true.

For no less than two hours Charles stood by the open coffin, simply thinking and watching the silent, empty skeleton that lay within. How awful it must have been, to die unnoticed and unloved deep under the ground...to die already buried...

It was getting late when Charles finally left the house by the lake. He would be missed, and it would not pay for his parents to find out where he had been.

As Charles de Chagny left the cold, empty rooms that held the now-closed coffin, a gust of air gently blew across the keys of the organ that stood beside the encased, re-masked skeleton. Dust danced, and for just a split seconds, there was a glimmer of bright gold in the darkness of the skull's empty eye-sockets...