Regarding the Phantom
Chapter One - Erik

By: TheGoddessofDeath

Waring: If you have not read my other phic, Our Lullaby, READ NO FURTHER until you read that first. You will have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about in this phic unless you read that first. Thank you.

A/N: All right, it's finally here! Whew, this was a doozie to write. So, I hope this does not disappoint. This fanfiction will be multichapter, and will be Victor's POV the entire time. It will reflect on each character he had a relation with, and Raoul, of course, even though he never had a relationship with him, will be included. The main purpose of this phic is to show you what happened after Our Lullaby, though it does delve to during Our Lullaby and even during POTO itself. So, I hope you all enjoy this first installment and more is to come.

Mismatched eyes watched my muscles tense and relax as I looked at the ebony notes on the parchment. I just did not get it. I never did. Music was out of my region, and Dad saw it. He was no fool. Since I was three, he had forced music upon me. My mother was the prima donna of the French Opera Company, and he was the infamous "Phantom" who had lived below the surface of the Opera Populaire for years. I never really quite understood why.

My name is Victor de Chagny, and my father was, in fact, the Phantom of the Opera.

My father was not a difficult man to understand, despite what everyone thought. He was a huge enigma, I will give him that, but I saw in him what no other could: a loving soul. Mother saw it too and I guess that is why they fell in love. I never really came to conceive the love story of my father and my mother. My brother and sister knew about it, but I never did. Big surprise there. You see, my "brother" and "sister" are really my half-siblings. And my father, well, he is not my real father. My biological father was killed before I ever really knew him, but that is for a later time.

From what I know, my father, Erik, his upbringing was brutal. His mother did not love him nor want him. He was born a bastard child, and worst of all, the right side of his face was beastly deformed. Not even his mother could take the sight of him, and she sold him to a traveling circus for some petty amount of money. Dad refused to tell me the description of what happened to him while in the circus, just that he had a burlap sack with holes cut for him to see out of placed over his head that was only taken off after multiple slashes from a whip so he could be shown to whomever would pay. He said he endured this for years, until Madame Giry found him when she was about sixteen. He had just strangled his master to death, and she hid him under the Opera Populaire from the cruel glares of the world.

From then on he became the shadow on the wall, the occupant of Box Five, and the fear of all the ballet dancers, chorus members and opera patrons. He grew up creeping along cobblestone catacombs and doing the only thing he knew how to do: create things. He took a great interest in the opera and started to compose himself. He composed sonatas and duets, but he never was bold enough to try and write an entire opera. His muse was lacking. He had no characters, no melodies, no idea.

At least until he met my mother.

Dad never went into his and my mother's relationship in great detail. He told me he found her sobbing over her father in the Populaire's chapel, asking the deceased man to send her the "angel of music" and to please save her from an increasing loneliness she felt. Dad had come to my mother's call. My mother, being seven, believed Erik was really an angel of music, even though she could not see him, just hear his voice.

The two seemed to have a help-gain relationship without even knowing. My mother found in Erik a friend when she did not have any, a guide, a guardian, a teacher. Dad however found his muse. The little girl with the slight twinkle in her eye became the centerpiece for his first opera, in which he entitled Don Juan Triumphant. Dad started to mold my mother and Amnita, the main character in his opera, to wear the same dress.

They had lessons until my mother was sixteen. He claimed there was little left to teach her and that she would become the star of the Opera company. She did, of course. This was when a posing threat showed up. My biological father, Raoul de Chagny, appeared in her dressing room the evening of her debut. Raoul and my mother had been childhood friends, and had been naturally happy to see each other. Dad told me he seethed behind my mother's mirror, from which he taught her.

After Raoul left, Dad locked my mother in her room and revealed himself to her. He led her down to his labyrinth and taught her how to listen to the music of the night. That was his big thing. The music of the night. I tried many times to listen for the music of the night. I never heard it. He told me my mother was enchanted with him, since she kept looking at him in such awe. The only thought I could derive from my mother finding Dad enchanting was that she was amazed by him, and just in shock to finally see her angel before her.

After that night, things went downhill. Carlotta, which I never met while she was alive, kept competing and pushing my mother aside for the title of prima donna. This infuriated Dad, who took care of Carlotta for a while, making a fool out of her in front of everyone and reminding everyone he still ruled over the Opera Populaire. That was the night my mother chose Raoul to keep her safe and to protect her from the now feared Phantom. Dad described the two singing their hearts to each other and sharing loving caresses as "tearing his heart from his chest".

Dad found a newfound hatred rising from the pit of his stomach. He wanted to kill Raoul, but he would have to wait. For three months, he disappeared. He did not come to my mother, to the managers of the Opera Populaire, not even to Madame Giry. He stayed those three months locked away in his labyrinth completing Don Juan Triumphant. He was so determined to win my mother over that he ate once every three days and slept for a few hours, if that, every four days while completing his opera. He told me he would go into a living coma of a sort. Food, water and sleep were nothing to him. He could live without them. My mother, however, he could not.

After those three months at the New Year's gala, he made his grand re-entrance. He made sure everyone knew he was still keeping his eyes on them, and he threw the score for Don Juan Triumphant at the managers' feet. He beckoned to my mother and tore her engagement ring Raoul had given her from her neck and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

The day, my father says, the day he will always remember is the day he had to let my mother go. The company was putting on Don Juan Triumphant and he had snuck onstage as Don Juan to seduce my mother. He thought he was in the clear, until my mother decided to tear his mask off. His deformed face was shown to the audience and he ran off, my mother in tow. Dad presented my mother with the ring he had taken from her only months before, and asked her to be his wife. She declined. Raoul appeared to save her, and Dad was all set to kill him. Mother pleaded with him not to, but he ignored it. He asked her to make a choice: stay with him and Raoul would live, or leave him and Raoul would die. Dad said the anger was slowly consuming him, and he was becoming blinded by the rage. The next thing he knew, my mother had approached him and kissed him. He told me this was an unspoken promise between them that they would meet again and that she would always love him, but he could not offer her an appropriate life. And when she gave him the ring back, Dad told me that they were trying so desperately to say goodbye. And that is just what happened. She left with Raoul, never to return.

For six months, my father spent his time in seclusion. Christine was gone, what else did he have to live for? Yet he could not forget the kiss, and the look in her eyes. There was still a chance for them, and he needed to find her. One summer night, he finally got the courage to go look for her. He found her in Norway, living with Raoul, her now husband and very pregnant with me. He somehow persuaded my mother to return to Paris with him. Something about Raoul shooting my mother, which I highly doubt. Mother says it's true, but the scar in her shoulder is almost non-existent. Dad told me he then knew the importance of the phrase "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours for eternity."

I was born a few months later. Dad said we spent the most time together while I grew into a toddler. He told me I was deaf my first year of life and that he was the one who coaxed me back to hearing. I still have a box I kept for my children of toys my father made out of wood and books he wrote with simple words and pictures.

Soon enough, I could walk and talk, and was getting into everything. Dad said he had to keep me from knocking over his stuff because I loved the tablecloths. We spent all day together before going to see my mother perform in the evening. Raoul supposedly came back multiple times to get me and my mother back from Dad, and finally, Dad killed him.

After that difficult time, Dad said that he found out Mother was pregnant again, but this time with his child. He said he had never been happier. Five months later, Romeo and Juliet were in the world. This was when I had to start competing for my parents' attention. When they were born, they went to the doctor's for a long time to be taken care of. I remember Dad was a wreck. I was the only one who would comfort him while Mother took them into town. He was afraid they would die, and I did everything I knew how to cheer him up and get his attention. But he was too busy packing for the move out from underneath the opera house.

We moved not long after that, and Christmas came and went. We spent the entire day with the twins, and I slept through most of it. Winter continued with Dad teaching me tons of new words and with the absence of my mother becoming more noticeable. She was always out, but Dad and I were content to spend time together. The twins were home soon enough, and life continued as normal as it could. Mother was now home a lot more. Now I really had to compete for attention, especially from my father.

Not long after that, Dad and Mother got married. It was not anything grand, just my siblings, me, and Aunt Meg there to witness the union. It was in our backyard under the old oak tree. I can remember bits and pieces of it, but most of the ceremony I was busy studying my new brother and sister who lay on a blanket in the grass.

As I grew older, Dad began to act weird around me. I ignored it for a while, and he tried to teach me how to read music. I could not grasp it, as I have said before. I used to hear late night conversations between Dad and Mother about me. They kept saying they needed to tell me the truth. I did not know what the "truth" was. I would soon find out.

Dad said Ayesha, his cat, was very attached to me when I was young. She passed away when I was reaching puberty. He told me Ayesha was the only one in the world who loved him for who he was until he met my mother. He really loved her, and it pained him to say goodbye to her when she died. It was a very sad day for all of us. We buried her in the backyard under the tree, where Dad carved her name in the tree. We never had another pet after that.

When I turned sixteen, Mother took me to Perros and told me about my "real" father, Raoul, and that I was to become Vicomte of France when I reached eighteen. I then realized I must look a lot like him, and that Dad hated him a lot to have killed him. That was why Dad had been acting weird around me. I did not talk to him for a few weeks. There was no way I could face the man I thought was my father. It was lies. After a while, though, he showed me that even though we were not related of blood, we still were family, and I knew him as my father ever since.

The day I told Dad I was to marry my childhood friend, Sondra, he told me everything he knew about keeping the marriage successful. After the wedding, he presented me with a piece entitled "Lullaby". I still have it to this day, kept amongst other things of my father's.

I moved to Norway with my new wife to live in the old de Chagny estate Raoul had built for my mother and himself when they married over two decades ago. The servants had closed it up years ago, but Dad came and helped us get it back into shape along with everyone else in the family. We invited the old servants to come back for double the pay, and they did so gladly.

Everytime we visited my parents, Dad would have some new piece of music he had written. He said ever since the twins and I moved out of the house to do our own things, the house had been quiet, so he had begun to compose again. He had stopped wearing his mask all together, his red skin dying down into a normal color. He did not look as bad as he did before, but I would love him nonetheless, as would Mother and the twins.

Sondra and I made a special trip down to Paris one afternoon to visit with my parents. We told them of our good fortune: Sondra was pregnant with our first child. Mother was estatic, and Dad almost fainted. He was very sensitive about those things. We stayed with my parents for a few months before heading back to Norway. Dad and I spent a lot of time going through my old baby things, and he would tell me a unique story behind almost every one of them.

When little Edward was born, we went back to visit my parents. Dad's health had been faltering a bit, but Mother told us it was nothing to worry about, and that she would send for us if anything life threatening happened to him. Dad's eyes lit up when he held Edward in his arms. He told me it was like holding me in his arms again, and he said he still remembered that day with such vibrance. Edward cried the entire time while in Dad's arms, but Dad just smiled and held the baby close.

The letter came early one winter morning from my brother. The scratch he called handwriting sprawled on for half a page, telling us to come quickly. Dad was on his last legs. Sondra, who was pregnant with our second child, bundled Edward up and we headed to Paris right away. When we arrived, Mother looked so tired. She directed us to Dad's bedside. Juliet was already there, and when she saw me, she smiled to me. Romeo was standing at the window, staring out of it silently with his one good eye. I gave Edward to my mother to distract her. I looked to my brother, back turned to all of us. I was going to approach him, but he needed to be alone. I sat with Sondra next to Dad's bedside. Mother had already left the room with Edward. It was almost too much to bear for her.

Juliet was stroking Dad's hand. He was asleep at the moment, but the definite signs of illness were on his face. He was almost as pale as the mask he used to wear and his breathing was labored. Our visit was spent in complete silence, heads hung in silent prayers.

One night a few weeks later I heard sobbing from Dad's room and I rose quietly, as to not disturb Sondra. Romeo had heard it too and joined me in the hallway. When we reached the room, we saw our mother draped across Dad's form. She looked up to us when we entered the room and said softly, "He's gone."

The next morning was a time of grief. Juliet and my mother cried on each other's shoulders. Romeo turned his head toward the window again, back once again turned. I just looked down at Dad, so lifeless, no smile upon his face. I expected him to wake up and tell us of some idea he had for a song in his dreams. He was never going to wake up. He was never going to write another note again.

Dad was put to rest beside Ayesha under the tree in your backyard two weeks later. We did not put him in a graveyard, since we knew he would not like to rest with people who might have loathed him during his lifetime. We hired people to dig the appropriate gravesite and he was put into a coffin, along with the score for Don Juan Triumphant and a picture of our family. Mother decided to keep his wedding ring on his finger, and we all said our final goodbyes.

The man who was the Phantom of the Opera was misunderstood and scared thousands of people. He was just like everyone else, trying to make his mark on the world, love his wife, and raise his children. As I write this, I look out the window into the night sky and try to hear the music of the night once more.

I still cannot hear it.

END CHAPTER ONE.