WILD & WICKED / © yllwjckts
007 ⸻ Slayer of Kings

It goes, all my troubles on a burning pile
All lit up and I start to smile
If I catch fire then I change my aim
Throw my troubles at the pearly gates

- "Burning Pile", Mother Mother

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

trigger warning for blood and vomiting, a bit gross if you ask me

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

September 4th, 1977 ✦ The Forbidden Forest

"I'm an awful person."

It was not a question that Lux groaned as she slammed her head on the tree she was rested against, but a statement. She repeated the same movement as before, desperate for anything to calm the senses in her that had been racing within her brain over and over until they were barely coherent.

Fulk and her had finished finding their needed meals, and were now sitting in what had been a comfortable silence, until something had prompted Lux to break it.

Fulk gave her a curious look, a large shadow cast upon his pale face through the dark forest. "What makes you say that?"

"What wouldn't make me say that?" She retorted, staring up at the tree canopy above them. " You're more than aware of what I did in the Coven. Who I was. Who I am."

"It's been twenty one years since you've earned your freedom from that wretched place, and I've never once heard you complain to this depth about your past actions. Why bring it up now?"

She lifted her shoulders. "The people we're around, they reminded me of it. Reminded me it's not normal to have ripped out people's throats and feasted on their blood while they slowly died."

"You were brainwashed. It wasn't all on you."

"What if I wasn't, though?" She turned her head to look at him, meet his icy eyes and watch as his brows lifted.

"What do you mean?"

For a long moment, she was silent, thinking her words over. "What if I knew it was bad, and did it anyways?"

"Did you?"

"I don't know," she admitted with the release of a breath. "It's all a blur. A three hundred year long blur. Sometimes I can remember bits and pieces of my thoughts, how I felt during it all, but most of the time, all I can recall is what happened. Never anything else about it, the feelings behind my actions, the logic. How can I know if I was brainwashed, when I don't recall my feelings on the matter?"

Fulk thought for a moment. "It's your brain, helping you escape the trauma of it. Protecting you, keeping you safe, in the only way it can. We may be vampires, Lux, but sometimes, we are so very human."

Her jaw shifted.

"I've scolded you for caring enough times that I will not do so again. If you wish to care, you will, whether or not my words are spoken or not."

"I don't-" she began, but he held out a hand, cutting her off.

"Don't lie to me."

She exhaled a long, shaky breath. "I don't know why I care."

"It's your humanity," Fulk explained with a shrug. "It clings to you still. It doesn't want to let go. Maybe it had, for a while. But the moment Elias entered your life, it returned to you. The moment you fell in love with a human man, your humanity returned, and I doubt it will be easy to shake the second time around. Nor do I particularly want it to."

The mention of Elias had her throat bobbing, but somehow, even more emotion was elicited from her from his final sentence. "You don't?"

"It's a comfort, knowing you're kind, and thus not plotting to kill me. Even if it is a weakness, it benefits me."

She shifted in her position, defensiveness building in her despite the masked compliment. "You have it too, then."

His eyebrows cocked upwards. "Oh?"

"You could've let me die, that day. Better yet, grabbed me and turned me in to the Coven. You would've been rewarded handsomely, and I couldn't have fought back. Instead, you made an enemy of Adelais and her group of vampires by taking me in, when I provide nothing of value in exchange. If that's not humanity, I don't know what is."

It was his turn to be silent.

"Maybe," he eventually admitted, eyes fixed on her own as he spoke, not looking away for so much as a moment. "Or maybe I was lonely, and you were there. The slayer of kings would make the finest of company, don't you agree?"

Ignoring the jolt in her chest, the sharp pain that seized her when he spoke the first words, she instead focused her attention on the later part of his sentence. "Slayer of kings?"

"Do you find the name unsuited for you?"

"I've never been called such a thing."

"I heard rumors from Dumbledore, during the meetings we have. That's your name amongst creatures of the night - vampires, some werewolf packs, all the likes. Lux Erzsebet, the slayer of kings, the bringer of justice. The end of Philip's reign."

"Twenty one years, I've had all these badass nicknames and never knew," Lux sighed with regret.

Fulk let out a gentle scoff. "I suspect there are many things about your reputation that we are unaware of."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

September 5th, 1977 ✦ Hogwarts

Lux wore her newfound nickname on her sleeve like a badge of honor, finding pride in her actions for the first time in twenty years. Before it had been nothing but a fact within her mind, if not a shield to remind herself of her strength, but suddenly, she realized how much the action had truly weighed on the world.

Within the community of those considered both above and beneath humans, everyone had known of Philip. Of his reign, his terror, his cruelty. He himself was not a brutal man, but his lips would part and the commands that came from him could rip the world at its seams if he so desired. The power he held over the minds and hearts of those he considered lesser had been akin to the royals, if not more. Royals still had checks and balances now, things like Parliament and the Magna Carta that they were forced to follow. Philip had no such obligations.

It was selfish, that Lux only turned her claws onto him when he'd done her harm personally, and she was aware of that fact more now than ever. But selfish or not, she'd done the world a favor, and part of her wished to flaunt it, if not to remind people that just like Philip, they stood no chance against her.

Even if she wasn't sure it was true. It would dissuade any attacks, from Remus or Snape or Mulciber, the last of which she was on her way to meet in Slughorn's office. She would not be afraid, she told herself as she held her chin high. She was not afraid of Remus, or Snape, or Mulciber, and whatever it was about the three of them that made her nerves stand on edge.

"Miss Erzsebet," Slughorn greeted with a cheerful wave as she entered the classroom. Mulciber was already there, seated atop one of the tables with the most vicious scowls she had seen in a long, long time etched onto his lips. "Welcome. Please, take a seat."

She did as he requested, stomach lurching as she took her seat on Mulciber's left.

You are not afraid, she told herself firmly. You are the slayer of kings, you brought down Philip, you are not afraid of school children and the pathetic tricks they have up their sleeves.

Mulciber's gaze slid over to hers, pure, unrelenting hatred written into his eyes.

She shifted her attention back to Slughorn.

"You'll be writing lines today," he began, nudging towards the blackboard, where the quote I will not engage in fights was plastered in a neat, cursive handwriting. "As I have yet to get many orders for potions from Madam Pomfrey. Though I will warn you, if you display that kind of behavior in my classroom again, you may be forced to brew the most tedious of potions. Bruise cream is especially hard on the wrists for stirring."

"I'm terrified. Shaking in my boots, really," Mulciber antagonized, tone thick with amusement that Slughorn either did not pick up on or ignored.

"I have a faculty meeting, but I trust you two not to get into any more funny business." Slughorn's eyes flickered between the pair, Lux, who was begrudgingly nodding in agreement, and Mulciber, who was rolling his eyes. "I'll be back in two hours, and I expect at least a hundred lines from each of you."

When Slughorn stalked out of the door, Lux went to grab her quill and began vigorously scribbling down the words required.

I will not engage in fights.

It had been so long since she'd engaged with the act of writing. In fact, before Hogwarts began, she couldn't recall the last time she'd brought quill to parchment and properly written something down.

I will not engage in fights.

Philip had kept a diary. He had over a hundred of them, spanning from his first ever years as a vampire, all the way up to the day of his death. He'd write in it just before bed, as the sun crept up from the horizon. She never deigned look inside it. Now, part of her wished she had, curious what his inner thoughts had been. Had he ever acknowledged what he'd done to Lux, to Elias, within those coarse pages, or were they an afterthought to him?

I will not engage in fights.

Her writing grew more intense, the sound of scratching atop parchment echoing through the room as she wrote that blasted line over and over, until smoke was practically stemming from where the tip of her quill dug into the paper.

No, she realized with wide eyes, smoke was quite literally emitting from her parchment.

"What the fuck?!" She screamed, the frantic movement of pushing herself away from the source of the smoke causing her to fall off of her stool and land on the stone ground with a massive thud. The back of her head smacked against the floor, sending pain radiating down her spine as she groaned, struggling for a brief moment to hold onto her consciousness.

As soon as the spots in her vision faded, Lux rose onto her feet, eyes narrowing in on Mulciber, who twirled his wand in his hand and his quill with the other, hunched over on his own essay as he pretended not to have witnessed what had just unfolded.

"Why did you do that?" She demanded, the heaviness in her chest receding when she watched the smoke dissolve as swiftly as it had been formed, leaving the parchment singed but otherwise intact

Rubbing the back of her now aching head, she waited for Mulciber to give any indication that he had heard her, and when he didn't, she wasted no time with her retaliation. Reaching over, she yanked his parchment out from underneath his quill, scrunching it up in her hand.

"What was that for?" He gaped, whipping around to look at her.

"You set my fucking parchment on fire!"

"Did I?" He cocked an eyebrow. "I don't recall ever doing such a thing. You might be going mad."

"Stop lying, you fucking arsehole!"

He blurted a laugh, finding deep amusement in her lack of control, the leash she kept snared around her neck snapping. "Stop swearing, or you'll wind yourself in even more detentions. Vulgar language is not tolerated by Professor Slughorn, as you already know."

Lux took a deep breath in attempt to pull back the reins on her aggression, but all that echoed in her mind was images of that fire, the smoke that had clogged her lungs and the flames that had crept over her skin until she couldn't bare it, until she was screaming for it to stop-

The room was spinning. Lux's hand slammed atop the table as she steadied herself.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of fire, Erzsebet," he laughed once more, tilting his head to the side as she recoiled. "Do you want to know a secret about fire?" He paused, as if genuinely waiting for her to answer. When she didn't, he continued in a whisper, "It only hurts if you let it."

His hand was reaching towards his wand, but it was too late - her fist had collided with his jaw, sending him slipping off of his own stool, collapsing into the floor in a pathetic heap as he yelped from the contact.

Mulciber had possessed the forethought to shield his head before he could injure it in the way Lux had with her own, his hands wrapping around his skull as he collided with the ground. But he was on his feet quicker than she expected, and she'd only just had time to grab her own wand, mind searching for any defensive spells she could recall. Despite the humiliation that it would've resulted in, part of her was burning with regret that she hadn't been placed in a lower year, where more basic magic was taught.

"Incendio!"

She jumped out of the way just in time, the spell making contact with the stone floor beneath where her feet had just been, singeing the tiles black.

Her lips parted as she fumbled out a pathetic, half baked "stupify", watching with dread as he waved his wand and blocked the spell with ease.

His head cocked to the side. "Is that all you've got? Not so scary now, are you, Little Lux?"

"Don't call me that," she practically growled, her heart seizing.

"Why not? You're a little thing. Tall, sure, for a girl, but awful small in the grand scheme of things."

I'm the slayer of kings, she wanted to shout. I have lived ten more lives than you, and I will live a thousand more.

But at the threat of fire, her tongue was frozen solid.

Another spell was shot her way, one she dodged, and retaliated not with her own magic, but by dropping her wand, grabbing a stool off the ground, and chucking it across the room at him with all the vampire strength she had buried within her.

The moment it slammed into the area in between Mulciber's stomach and thighs, the door swung open, and Lux's stomach fell to the floor.

"Potter!" Mulciber moaned loudly, falling to his knees as the stool crashed onto the ground in front of him.

James Potter, who was holding a book with one hand and had his other atop the doorknob, nearly fell over himself at the sight before him. Through his silver glasses, his wide brown eyes flickered back and forth between Lux and Mulciber, eyebrows lifted so high she worried they may fall off of his forehead entirely.

"I take it Slughorn is elsewhere," James began, words slow as his hand slowly slipped off the doorknob he clung to. He looked as though he was about to back out of the room entirely and leave them to continue their brawl, but the moment his eyes settled on Lux, he stopped his tracks. "Shit, Lux, are you alright?"

She nodded, but stopped when the movement begun to make her nauseous.

Mulciber was still moaning from where he was on the ground, hands cupping his balls. Even through her distorted vision, aching head and burning anger, Lux was able to wonder if she'd somehow broken them. Could they break? She sure hoped so.

James was stepping towards her now, and the motion was enough to send her stomach heaving, and the contents of her dinner sprawling across the floor.

"Shit!" James yelped, jumping backwards as she emptied her stomach. But when she'd finished, trembling hand moving to wipe her mouth off, did horror settle within her gut, just as James let out a high pitched scream.

"Is that blood?" He gasped, eyes flickering back and forth between Lux and the pool on the floor. "You just...oh Merlin, you just threw up blood! Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, I'm going to be sick...Lux, we've got to get you to the Hospital Wing."

"I'm fine," she insisted a little too quickly, rubbing the back of her head, avoiding looking at the blood now on the floor. Of course, James had no way of knowing its actual origin. No, the poor boy was likely under the impression that she was suffering from severe internal bleeding. "I've just hit my head, I'll be fine."

"You hit your head and you're throwing up blood?" James gaped. "Shit! Your brain is probably bleeding or something!"

Throughout their conversation, Mulciber made a poor attempt to rise onto his feet, only to fall right back to his knees, groaning in pain as he did. "You'll...you'll pay for this, Erzsebet!" He sputtered out through his cries of pain, hands still clutching his genitals as though his life depended on it.

Lux hadn't the energy to argue with James; her head hurt far too much to resist much more, so she allowed him to step around the puddle she'd created and grab onto her arm. Walking towards the door, Lux paused for a moment to pick up her wand off of the ground and tucked it into her pocket as James talked to her through frantic sentences. It seemed as though he was the one who needed reassuring, between his trembling hands and wide eyes, but he was giving it to her through shaky breaths.

"C'mon. We'll get there soon, no need to worry. I can carry you if you want. Do you need me to carry you? I've never carried a woman before, but you can't be any heavier than Sirius is. But if I carry you, it might shake your brain, which is already bleeding. I don't want you to fall though. Can you walk? Are you okay to walk?"

"I'm fine."

"Brilliant," he flashed her a wobbly grin, his grip on her arm tightening as though still worried she may tumble right over, despite her saying otherwise. "Say, you're friends with Lily, yeah?"

"Suppose so," she grimaced at the mention of Lily, whom she was still struggling at avoiding. Even though her conversation with Fulk had been helpful in other ways, she struggled to accept that he could be right about pushing the redhead girl away.

"Suppose so?" James frowned. "What's that mean?"

"It means I've known her for a little over a week. I'd hardly call us close." She bit down on her lip, the pain distracting her from the ache in her head. "Why?"

"It's good to keep people with head injuries talking, I think," he explained with the wave of his free hand. "My mum told me as much when I joined the Quidditch team."

"Right." She clicked her tongue. "And your first topic of conversation was my friendship with Lily Evans?"

"She's always on the old noodle," he admitted with a casual, if not confident shrug, not at all embarrassed. "What was going on with you and Mulciber, anyways?"

"He set my parchment on fire, so I punched him in the face. It escalated from there."

"I'd be careful, getting on his wrong side," James grimaced, even if his eyes were alight. "But that's pretty badass of you, I must admit. He's a raging lunatic, though. Be careful."

Maybe it was the head injury, or maybe it was due to the lack of sleep from the previous nights, but Lux's lips were loose as she continued to speak, "I don't care. I'll beat him, if I fought him."

"Really? Because it looked like he was about to kick your arse." When she bared her teeth in a scowl, he followed up with a quick, "No offense, of course."

"I could beat him, if it wasn't magic," she admitted despite knowing the doors her words would open, questions she couldn't answer.

James's lips parted, but before he could question what on earth she was on about, they had reached the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey was in view the moment they stepped through the open door, treating a younger boy whose face had somehow turned a shade of bright yellow. He was groaning in a similar manner to how Mulciber had been, when Pomfrey abandoned the bed and whipped around to look at the pair.

"Mr. Potter, again?"

"I'm not injured this time, swear it!" He held his free hand in the air in mock surrender. "My friend hit her head."

"Hit her head?" Pomfrey frowned, walking over to Lux and grabbing onto her arm, helping her over to a bed. "When did this happen? How bad is it? On a one to ten scale, how bad is the pain, Miss...?"

"Erzsebet," James answered for her.

Pomfrey gave him a look.

"The pain is fine," she insisted, even as she rubbed the back of her head still. "I don't need to be here."

"She was throwing up blood!" James insisted with a high pitched cry, clearly traumatized by the memory.

Pomfrey's eyes grew wide with horror as Lux sat down on the bed she'd brought her to. "You were vomiting blood?"

"Er..." Lux began, unsure what to say. She couldn't exactly deny it when James had been a witness, after all.

"I'm going to run some diagnostic spells," the healer began, whipping her wand out and casting an array of spells across Lux's body, beginning at her head and trailing down to her lower abdomen.

"Mr. Potter," she pivoted her head to James, who was watching with an anxious smile, like an attempt to encourage Lux while fighting his own inner battle at the same time. "If you could wait outside, I'd much appreciate it. I need to speak with Miss Erzsebet alone."

He gave her a brisk nod. "Yes, Madam Pomfrey."

When he was out of earshot, Pomfrey waved her wand again, and frowning when an orange line appeared in the air nearby. "Everything seems to be in shape, besides a concussion. When was the last time you had your menstrual cycle?"

"My..." she blinked, thoughts suddenly stagnant. When she finally comprehended what it was Madam Pomfrey was asking, her face went red. She hadn't so much as thought about the concept of having a period in decades - it was perhaps one of the best aspects of her lack of humanity, that she did not get that blasted thing every month. "Oh. I...er..."

"Never mind," she waved a dismissive hand. "I doubt it has anything to do with the issues at hand. Mr. Potter said you were throwing up blood, but my magic can't seem to detect any internal bleeding."

"He may have been exaggerating," Lux attempted to reason.

"Even so," Pomfrey tutted, tucking her wand back into the pocket of her apron. "We should keep you here overnight, for observation. And stay out of classes tomorrow, just in case. You need rest for a concussion anyways, and monitoring in case something is worse than it seems. What happened, anyways?"

"I fell off of a stool," she admitted with an embarrassed flush of her cheeks. "It was not a big deal, really. Potter is exaggerating."

"He does do that, doesn't he?" Pomfrey let out a laugh. "Once he brought in his friend Pettigrew, thinking he was having a bleed in his brain. Turns out, it was a nosebleed." She reached over and patted Lux on the head, soft enough as to not provoke her injury. "He's a good kid. Cares for the people in his life an awful lot. You'd do well to have him in your life. It isn't everyone he deigns to grace with his friendship."

Lux gulped. "He isn't my friend."

I don't deserve him as my friend.

"Don't be silly," Pomfrey scolded, before thrusting a vial into her hand. "Drink this, it's for the pain. And get some sleep."

Despite her urge to protest, her head pounded with pain and her body ached with the need for rest, so Lux begrudgingly obliged. She pulled the cork off of the vial, tossing it to the side as she began to down the potion in one gulp.

But the moment the liquid entered her parted lips, her mouth was on fire with a burning sensation so intense, she spat the potion out as quick as she'd thrown up that blood.

"Fuck!" She cried out, not caring one bit as Madam Pomfrey whipped around, wide eyed and prepared to scold her. Lux was already on her feet, hacking up the potion in a desperate attempt to expel it from her throat. Some of it had seemingly slipped through, dripping down her esophagus and into her stomach, sending a searing pain shooting through her entire stomach.

Lord, she would've preferred those fucking period cramps to whatever this was, she decided as she struggled not to hunch over, hands now clenching her gut. What was that?

She thought long and hard, but the pain made it all but impossible to focus.

All she knew for sure was that whatever Pomfrey had given her could've been lethal.

She began to stumble towards the exit.

"Miss Erzsebet!" Pomfrey called after her, but she was too slow. Lux, while still hunched over, managed to make a half decent sprint towards the door, opening and then and slamming it behind her, the actions revealing a very confused James. His brow was furrowed together, dark skin gone an ashy shade as he examined her.

"Everything alright?" He frowned through his glasses, eyes examining her.

She shoved past him, the fast motion causing her vision to spin.

"Lux, where are you going?" He demanded, rushing after her. "What's wrong?"

"She let me go," she lied through her grit teeth. "I need to see Fulk."

"You mean your father?"

Lux nodded, wincing at the motion.

"Right," James exhaled a breath, reaching over and grabbing onto her arm. He seemed surprised when she let him, eyes widening ever so slightly. She hadn't the strength to pull herself out of his grasp, only just managing to keep herself atop her two feet. "I'll bring you to his classroom, then. C'mon."

Every inch of her felt like fire as they made their way through the halls. Pure, utter fire, that she was well aware had nothing to do with the apparent concussion she'd suffered. But the fire that had burned her once before, the fire that had clung to her nerves and reached her bones had provided an adrenaline rush, while this did nothing of the sorts. In fact, it was a struggle to keep her eyes open as she nearly drifted out of consciousness, her body about as pliable as a rag doll.

It felt like forever before they were on the third floor of Hogwarts, and stumbling inside Fulk's office. He was seated atop his desk, blue eyes scanning over some essays, and they widened when met with the scene before him.

"What's happened?" He demanded as he rose onto his feet. The moment James released his grip on her, she went tumbling to the ground, only just saved from hitting the floor by the quick wave of Fulk's wand. Now she was somewhat suspended just above the ground, not going any higher, but no longer falling either.

"I'm not sure," James began, scratching the back of his neck. "She was sick, so I brought her to the Hospital Wing. She'd hit her head in detention and was puking blood. Pomfrey told me to leave them alone so I did, but then Lux just walked out, and I think she's worse now."

Fulk reached down, yanking the now barely conscious Lux back onto her feet. When she nearly fell right back over, he moved so her weight was pressed against him, hoisting her upwards. "Mr. Potter, if you would please leave us-"

"Again?" He interjected Fulk's request with a sigh, but when the vampire gave him a smoldering look, he agreed with a rapid nod. "Right, right, yeah, take care of her. Can I visit tomorrow?"

"Just go," Fulk snapped, the bite in his tone rough enough to get James fleeing the room, the door shutting behind him. When his footsteps could be heard echoing down the halls, Fulk set Lux down onto a chair, watching as she rubbed her head with her palm in an attempt to keep herself awake.

"What happened?" He demanded once again.

"Got a potion from Pomfrey for my head," she murmured, words slurred together. "Burned."

"Shit," he exhaled. "I bet it had allicin in it."

Even in her jumbled state, she perked up ever so slightly at this, muscles tightening with anxiety. "Allicin? As in..."

"The key component in garlic. Small doses of it are often used in potions for head pain. You'll be fine," he assured her, and her shoulders slumped again with relief, anxiety melting off of her. "If the dose was high enough to kill you, you'd be dead already. You just need to sleep it off. It's a sedative to us, as you know. It shouldn't be in your system for too long once you get some rest."

"Can I stay here?" She murmured, motioning haphazardly to the uncomfortable wooden chair she was currently seated on.

His lips curved upwards as he rolled his eyes. "Would you not prefer a bed? I can give you my own. It's much more comfortable than the one at the cabin, I must say."

"Chair's nice enough." She shook her head, then without prompting, added, "I threw one at Mulciber in detention today. Hit him in the balls."

Fulk barked a laugh, and she grinned to herself. Even in her half asleep state, his amusement had her heart soaring. "Then what?"

"Then I threw up blood and James Potter brought me to the Hospital Wing because he thought I was having internal bleeding, where I got unintentionally poisoned by the nurse."

Fulk laughed once more, and she felt her cheeks go red.

"Awful pathetic, I know. So much for the slayer of kings," she scoffed under her breath, more to herself than to him.

He clicked his tongue, watching as she slowly drifted off to sleep before him. Only when her eyes were closed and her breathing was heavy did she faintly hear him say, "We can't be killers every day. Sometimes, we need to simply be."