THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Twenty-Seven: TYCHE

◤ ❝I made sacrifices. You were mine.❞ ― Alastiare Erebus ◢

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:     TYCHE

February 14, 1995

             The word 'fortune' only came in one form to Alastiare Erebus―the physical expense. Wealth could stack upon his namesake like towers of Galleons, but when it came to fortune in matters of luck, he may as well dig himself a hole six feet under. He was not lucky. Merely in the right places at the right times, and more often than not, those places only happened out of coincidence. Some may say he was lucky to have evaded Azkaban like his fellow Death Eaters after the end of the First Wizarding War. He would only say that he was chosen to be the recluse, the shadow behind the Dark Lord doing his bidding without question. He slid through the cracks of incarceration because his of ties to the Ministry of Magic. That was a matter of life's work, not fortune. Not luck.

"HA! Well! If it isn't the traitor in question! Have fun slithering around in the Dark Lord's bed all these years I was locked away, rotting in your prison cell? Forgot my name, I bet too, didn't you, friend? Too busy planning his return?"

Alastiare's eyes darkened, hooded with emotions unlike any he had felt before―happiness, anger, guilt, mistrust, happiness, love, anger, guilt, guilt, guilt. The man in front of him was a shadow of his old self, the former twenty-two year old nothing but a hollowness that just escaped its last carving. His friend. His brother. Sirius Black stared at him, now well into his thirties and a year fresh out of a prison break from Azkaban. The tweak in his eye stung with rage the longer that they stood in front of one another, boarded up in the safe house's walls that Alastiare found him in. Months after the events with him, Lupin, and Pettigrew―a lifetime since he last saw his friend.

"Too busy planning yours," was the only thing he could manage replying, afraid if he spoke too much that his emotions would trample over his words and win the fight.

The falter in Sirius' face was just enough for Alastiare to flinch, knowing what was to come next. "You...you would speak so highly of yourself, wouldn't you, Erebus? You played us! You played ME! Believing you were anything different! What, now that your Dark Lord and Voldy is returning, you want to get in with me so that you can know all of my secrets like last time? Well, I've only got  one―THEY'RE ALL DEAD! And you could have STOPPED IT! Where was your planning when we needed it most, hm, Alastiare? Where was your righteousness THEN?" 

Alastiare's jaw tightened, rising in the one emotion he wished to have suppressed: anger. "You would have my head stuck to the end of your wand, then, wouldn't you? While you muck around with all of the others who stopped believing in you years ago, those who thought you capable of murder―"

"And are you?" Sirius interrupted, coldly, his glare seething deep into the man's skin. "Are you capable of murder, friend? Is that not why you are here, to finish the job so that you can carry on with this lie and say that you aren't what your arm tells? Go boasting like the fucking KING you are, Alastiare! That you have found the wanted murderer of Lily and James Potter! You would have to turn yourself in as well, though, wouldn't you? TRAITOR!"

"Perhaps that is what I am, but not to you, Sirius."

A scoff appeared from the back of Sirius' throat. "All this time, and you still position yourself as this bloody misunderstood person―humor me, Alastiare! How have you betrayed your 'Dark Lord'" his hands raised dramatically at the nickname of the man "more than you have betrayed my trust? Our friendship? Go on, spit out your lies. You were always so talented at telling them, being the Slytherin that you are. I'll bet you had Pettigrew working with you the whole time! Did you proposition him, was it you that turned him on us?"