Author: Londra
Title: Requiem
Rating: R
Summary: His relationship with the sun is based on mutual loathing.
Betas: Huge thanks to serenity and melandry
Author's Note: For Jayx.
Disclaimer: Everything you see that clearly isn't mine, is either from JKR or Mozart. Also, in memory of Mozart's 250th birthday:
Requiem
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I
Requiem-Kyrie
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
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Attired in infernal black without the usual hood, twelve people stand with their palms frozen in prayer, eyes mourning and lips lamenting. The wind gnaws at the leaves swiping their feet, and it hustles them into the freshly dug hole of a new eternal home.
His body is draped in a thin layer of soil and leaves saturated with the shades of early November. The trees offer their tribute in a howl of silence. The sunlight's farewell is filtered by the thick layer of autumn fog.
The wind does not mourn.
It will see him again.
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II
Dies Irae
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
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The moon is high again as he soars above the trees. His eyes are heavy from his prolonged slumber. He can sense a gust of wind brushing against his thick coat. He scours the garden, coveting for prey. He has been craving for months and languishing for years.
He shrieks in glee when he distinguishes a figure among the darkness. Her slender neck shoots up but she lowers her eyes again when she identifies nothing out of the ordinary. He discerns a tear glistening under the moonlight on her strangely familiar face. He gravitates towards the little doll, could it be her, but she screams when she sees him.
He presumes he has come far too close, backing away before his feet touch the ground. He is quiet as he approaches, wondering what she is doing in his territory.
They gasp simultaneously and she turns around:
Malfoy? I thought you were -
He seizes her, and they are dust before the dawn.
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III
Tuba Mirum
Mors stupebit et natura
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura.
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She stirs as a faint beam of winter-drenched sunlight slyly creeps up her face, dances about her eyelashes and finally makes its way through her pallid eyelids.
She is wrapped in a filthy rag with bloodstains all over it. She immediately examines her body for scars, will I die, but there are none. She wonders why she is even here, locked in a dungeon several floors beneath the ground, and how, how in the name of Merlin, was he –
The door screeches, announcing the arrival of her predator.
She seriously considers lashing out at him, but finds that she is unable to as there are invisible chains binding her ankles.
With a flick of his wand, he is seated on his throne of rich mahogany and emerald velvet, sneering at her. He hasn't changed at all since she last saw him, not a line in his face, and he's still as damned as he seems.
She yells at him, saying he has drawn her into the middle of his twisted game of revenge and redemption.
He sniggers and tells her not to think of so highly of herself.
This is about neither revenge nor redemption.
This isn't even about her.
This is about him.
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IV
Rex Tremendae
Rex tremendae majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salve me, fons pietatis
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She is trapped in a dungeon with nothing but the sun for company.
The bastard doesn't visit during the day. She will not witness his piercing arrogance or hear his cruel expressions of taunt when the sun is up. She gazes at the ceiling and twists her starved fingers around ragged spider webs.
She wears the winter like a layer of flimsy cashmere over her naked figure. She sings the snow like a symphony of silence, a melody of her agony. He drinks her blood like rich wine, and as twilight fades into shadow, there is no more room for her ridiculous metaphors.
His only words to her are profanities abused and leftover from their juvenile feud. It almost reminds her of their ridiculous Potions classes, mudblood, but she has left that ludicrous enmity behind her. She laughs at his desperate clawing, pathetic attempts to scathe her heart; it is out of his reach.
Pity hangs above her like a valuable stone tied to a string. She's not sure if he knows his childhood enemy, her best friend, has his father locked in a cell and left to decay. She's not sure it even matters to him anymore.
Sometimes she wonders whether this is his sick and morbid scheme for avenging childish rivalries, but the mocking demeanour of his iron eyes suggests otherwise.
The shadows of the iron rails imprison the twilight.
He's a little tardy, but she is certain that he will come back.
He always comes back.
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V
Recordare
Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus.
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She mesmerizes.
Like an illusion of light suddenly born into a coffin sheathed with darkness, she illuminates.
Like the raw scent of the Dark Mark freshly burned into skin, a diadem of glory, exhilarating and empowering, pulsing and thriving, and slowly taking over, she torments.
Like a shadow behind the blinding light of Venus, Mercury in all its starkness, she beckons him from one of the vivid rings of Saturn, and a gleam of light draws him to her from behind the highest glacier at the farthest point of Pluto.
He might have compared her to the sun, but that he hasn't seen in years, and his memories of it might not suffice to describe her.
He thanks every being he yet has faith in for the twist of fate in the shape of a girl whom he had sworn to kill at first sight. The fact that she would have already been dead if he hadn't needed her so badly is carved into his memory.
She lies on his lap, her hair flailing with the wind, her face deprived of its previous fervour, and he savours the taste of the filthy wine which lingers on his lips.
He is dragging her into an abyss, and he doesn't give a damn if it takes her an eternity to fall.
He has time.
He will wait.
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VI
Confutatis
Confutatis maledictis
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.
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The moon shines brightly in a waning crescent and reflects upon her eyes like honey. The taste of her skin is as sweet as her eyes, and the moonlight gazes dreamily as he meticulously discards her clothes.
His lips are savouring her body once again, this could be heaven, and he watches the window as her silhouette rocks back and forth in solitude and her kisses of despair vanish into thin air.
She remarks that he always comes at night, but she responds in the negative when he asks her if she would rather he came during the day. That is a relief, because his relationship with the sun is based on mutual loathing.
He holds her after they are done, and waits until the colour returns to her cheeks. His craving for her will never slake. This time she takes longer than usual, but he won't leave her alone, because he doesn't want her harmed.
It might also be the vespertine beauty of the moonlight in her eyes.
He tells her he loves her before he leaves, but her only reaction is a subtle smirk, his smirk. She tells him he has no soul, does she know, and slowly turns away.
He thinks she suspects.
She finds him amusing.
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VII
Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.
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The dungeon door creaks as it opens, and he encounters the grotesque image of her gaunt body sprawled across the floor. His knees slam against the hard concrete, her curls embroider his fingers, and the moonlight bids her adieu.
Her body is like shards of crystal, smashed into splinters and scattered across the floor. He can see the life draining away from her eyes and he can feel her blood pulsing through her veins, desperately groping for her soul.
He doesn't blame himself for what he has done to her, he had no choice.
The wind laments and the stars mourn, but he insists that he should get a say in this. She is his prey after all, and if he doesn't let her, she cannot go anywhere.
A shadow enraged by his tremendous self-indulgence descends from the midnight sky shrouded by ominous clouds.
The Grim Reaper growls against her skin of ivory.
It gently whispers in his ear saying her time has come and that if he doesn't hand her over, it will take her itself.
He snatches her from underneath its scythe and carries her to his room.
He says otherwise.
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VIII
Domine Jesu
Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,
libera animas omniurn fidelium defunctorum
de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu:
libera eas de ore leonis,
ne absorbeat eas tartarus,
ne cadant in obscurum.
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Her eyelashes flutter like a sparrow captured by an eagle, and her eyes catch a fleeting glimpse of the world of poison in which she has been breathing for the past few days. She looks up to see strands of his blond hair falling onto his cheek, and a trace of blank ennui sheathing his eyes.
The room she is in reeks of the claret she has gotten so used to in the past seven months, he wouldn't dare, but she isn't brave enough to lower her eyes.
She silently wonders where all the courage has gone.
His fingers gently comb her bushy hair, but the expression on his face worries her. His lips are thin and red, as if carrying a premoniton of disaster, but he is silent and she is too weak to ask.
The moon smiles at her again, she recognizes it, but he shields her eyes. Even though she yearns to watch its pretty smile, her eyelids are too much of a burden for her and she involuntarily surrenders to the soft tune of his mawkish lullaby.
He rocks her back and forth and lulls her to sleep.
He will not let her abandon him.
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IX
Hostias
Hostias et preces, tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus:
tu suscipe pro animabus illis,
quarum hodie memoriam facimus:
fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam.
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She is as delicate as the porcelain dolls that once decorated his mother's bedroom.
She is fragile and thus when he holds her in her arms, he needs to be cautious because he doesn't want her to break. If she does, he won't be able to fix her anymore. She has already been broken, once, twice, thrice, and he's not sure she'll be able to recover once again.
He braces her firmly, because he's afraid she will slip and fall. He fears he might not be able to cling to the thin fabric of her robes, and she will flow through his stringy fingers. She will deliquesce before she meets the ground, and he will never be able to reach her again. He wants her alive.
He descends his lips to her neck and a ghost of a smile flits across her face as the warmth of his touch ensnares her body. She has long forgotten what it feels like to be warm, and her body yearns for his touch.
The heat slowly wears off, and she is wrapped in a blanket of ice. She shivers as the rosy colour of her cheeks slowly subdues. The verdure of the velvet curtains softly veils her eyes before the mellow alpenglow subsides behind the bronze mountains.
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X
Lux Aeterna
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.
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The dawn breaks into her eyes, and before her eyelids dissolve into ash, she is provided with the simmering scarlet venom which her veins instantly devour. Lassitude circles her eyes of raw sienna and a soporific zephyr teases her lashes. Her skin of slumber lies underneath her as she rises from her coffin.
The daybreak she evades bathes her curls in sour morello, cloying caramel and bitter chocolate. She ambles along the tenebrous hallways, her footsteps are mute, and her figure casts no shadow. She glides by a vacant mirror, no silhouette, and she is no more than a wisp of smoke by the time she reaches the room where he rests in an evanescent slumber.
The door makes way for the vampire, its new mistress.
The daylight is the only thing she mourns for when she makes love to her man with summer hair and winter eyes.
The wind hums a requiem.
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Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.
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Author's Note: Confused?
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Feedback is love.