Linuxia

Sixteen years later, Linuxia wondered as she was scrubbing the Ballroom floor. What had brought her here? Had she been a difficult baby? A trial to her parents? Colicky? She missed Dobby, who had raised her, taken care of her, done the chores she couldn’t possibly have finished. Now Kili was here, a born and bred servant, mindless save for his orders. She hissed as the lye in the water made her cuts burn. Her hands would never fulfill all the promise of grace they held. Cut and misused . . . they still refused to become gnarled. She had delicate hands, an artist’s hands. “Luna.” Young Master’s name for her. She rose and curtsied.
“Young Master?” Silver eyes bored into the top of her head.
“Come with me.” A bored voice, a cold current.
“Sir, your father orders the floor be spotless, and-” She tried to protest, but . . .
“It is. About three times over. Come with me.” An order was an order. She followed reluctantly, placing her bucket in a cupboard on the way out.

She was led past the many staircases she knew every inch of, past the mahogany and ironwood paneling she’d had to polish so many times, past the platinum and gold trimmed mirrors she’d cleaned, just that morning. She was led to a part of the manor she was never allowed in: the North wing. These were Young Master’s apartments. Julee, another house-elf of the about seventy at Malfoy Manor, took care of Young Master’s every whim. Except this one. What did Young Master need that Linuxia had to attend to it? And why hadn’t he asked his Gentleman’s Gentleman, Harldey, to do it? Or Young Master might have asked Seneca, his body servant. Linuxia opened her mouth to ask, but she remembered Master’s stern warnings. Don’t speak until spoken to. EVER. Young Master stopped at a door and opened it. “In.” He commanded.
“Young Master, I’m not even supposed to be in this part of the Manor . . . your father said-”
“IN!” Out of a fear she detested, she obeyed.

“Your beautiful, you know that?” He asked, shutting the door. There was a series of dry clicks as the door’s ing ing charms went up. Young Master adored his privacy.
“No, Young Master.”
“How?”
“I clean, the mirrors, Young-”
“Sir, if you MUST use a title.”
“Yes, Sir. I clean the mirrors, Sir. Not use ther myr my own purposes.”
“You may use mine. Look at yourself.”
“Yes, Sir.” Linuxia walked over to the ornately carved, wood trimmed, full-length, mirror. She saw eyes black as midnight, glittering with something she could not name, staring back at her. The face the eyes were in was structured finely, like a princess’ in a storybook. Alabaster skin, flawless, was smudged with ash and grime. Her hair, she knew, was pitch-black, but she was surprised to find it shimmered like a raven’s wing. She looked further down to find, under tattered robes, she was shapely, giving a pleasing air of womanliness to a rather childish innocence in her posture.

There was soon silver-platinum hair mixed with hers, pale hands wound themselves around her waisYou You see? You are beautiful. Just a little dirty.”
“Sir, I must protest . . . your father would kill me if he found me like this . . .”
“What he doesn’t know . . .” Those clever, seashell-pink lips nibbled her ear before continuing, “ . . . .won’t hurt us.”
“Won’t hurt you, Sir. The walls have eyes and ears in this place, and Julee will have my head.” “Not if I tell her to keep silence or I’ll free her.”
“I wish, sir, you would free m-” She was cut off by the same sinful lips pressing onto hers. It was out of shock that she let him get this far, and it was out of further shock that she leaned into his ministrations.

Later that evening, she scrubbed unusually well for a daily bath. She felt dirty, misused, depressed. The slap on her face stung less than the damage done to both her body and mind. As the water, again combined with lye, stung and smarted, she shivered. She remembered how Young Master had forced her onto the floor, tearing her already badly worn robes to shreds.

“Come on. . .” Young Master had panted, fighting her down, “You didn’t fight me re.”re.”
“Let me go! Let me be!” She protested.
“You’re just a servant, here to do what I please! Now, follow orders and lie STILL!” He slammed her shoulders and back into the floor, causing her head to snap back, and a horrible pain to lance through her neck. She didn’t cry. She’d never learned how.
“STOP IT!” She screamed as he ripped her robesn, an, and tore off her underclothes. “HEL-” He clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Shut up, whore.” He entered her roughly, bringing blood and tears.

She’d wailed, helpless as he took her maidenhead, roughly, no time wasted on romance or seduction. Her hands were held at the wrist above her head, her legs splayed by both one of Young Master’s hands and his hips slamming into hers, each stroke pain, each stroke power. Power for the Master, Pain for the servant. Her in her bath that night, she felt broken, torn, cursing the beauty that had brought her such pain.

Kili hadn’t questioned her at all, but had drawn the same bath as always. Sitting in the kitchen, she wondered . . . would it be so hard? To break one of the mirrors and end it? She wanted to break every mirror in the household now, end the misery of seeing the glitter she’d so loved gone from her eyes, as she watched it fade in the looking glass of Young Master.