Smile and nod, I reminded myself, smile and nod. He was on one of his "I am evil, fear me" sprees again.
"People," He stated, "used to fear my very name." He said dramatically. Mentally my eyes were rolling.
"I'm sure they did., Tommy-kins." he rounded on me, and inwardly I flinched.
"I told you not to call me that! Prepare for pain! Cru-"
"Now, now, what did I tell you about those unforgivable? Naught Naughty." I cut him, off then flounced out of the room. My smile (the special one I save just for him) switched off. This ever-cheerful thing was tiring, and he might decide that he didn't need me that bad, then he'd send one of his death eaters after me. I probably wasn't even worth the energy of doing it himself. I heard nearing footsteps, put my smile back on and started skipping towards them.
Ah, Luscious. Ok, so his name is actually Lucius, but that's just no fun, now is it? He looked very worried about something, the look intensifying as I neared.
"Hello!" I chirped. He looked at me like I had fallen on something not only smelly, but large and gooey. "Is there something on my face?" I asked innocently.
"No, you insolent child. What are you doing?" I was now rocking on my heels in front of him, humming to myself. He made to push me out of the way, but I jumped in front of him. His eyes narrowed, and he made to shove me out of the way.
"Ah ah ah, you might hurt me, then I'd have to report you to Tom. And we wouldn't want that, now would we?" My smile grew larger, and his eyes grew smaller.
"No, that would be a pity." He managed to spit out through his gritted teeth.
"Where are you going? I'm bored."
"if you must know, there is a meeting being held in a few short minutes, and if you don't move, I will be late, and we wouldn't want that, would we?" He smirked. Oh. He thought he was clever, did he?
"Well, I could walk with you there, and explain why you were late, and we will all be happy." If he had anything to say to that, I didn't give him anytime to say it. Grabbing his arm, I skipped off, dragging a very angry Luscious after me.
~*~
The meeting proved to be very boring, and I only started listening when I heard my name.
"We'll have to use Smith soon." Smith, encase you missed it, is me. Amanda Smith, I know, my parents weren't that original.
"Ah, but is she ready, does she know what to do?" One of them asked, Nott, I think. Ok, this wasn't half as interesting as I'd hoped it'd be. I started singing under my breath. Of course I knew what to do! How hard can it be? Go in, get sorted into Gryffindor, seduce Harry Potter, lead him to Voldemort, and then my part in this is done. My parents are fine, I'm fine.
"How many times must we go over this? We must wait until term starts, and then…what is that infernal noise!?"
"Jeremiah was a bullfr-" I stopped, looking up innocently at them all. I shrunk slightly in my chair at all the cold eyes trained on me.
"Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we will wait until the term starts, they will meet at school. Are we clear?" Nods and little sounds of understating. Everyone got up and left, everyone but me and the Dark Lord himself.
"You do understand what you must do, don't you?" He enquired. In response I simply rolled my eyes and left the room.
~*~
I had heard that Diagon Alley was huge, but I had no idea it was this huge. It was like a like a little town in the middle of a city. I was humming again, which is something I found I did quite often now. I was supposed to be buying school supplies, but since it wasn't my money, and my chaperone was off looking for me (I had ditched him first chance I got, he should have learned by now that I will not do something just because you give me a stern look), I had already bought to much stuff to hold. I managed to magic them to float a few feet behind me.
Well, I thought to myself as I passed a colourful store, that could be fun. I walked in picking random things off shelves and placing them on others, not really paying attention to where I was going until I ran into something. A very tall, red-headed something. I sympathized, my hair used to be a very bright red but had calmed to a more viewable strawberry blonde colour. I blushed, muttering an apology under my breath.
"What's this?" I looked around, Luscious was standing at the end of the aisle, "The great Smith actually apologizing for her actions? I believe hell must have just froze over."
"You'd know." The red-head said non to quietly.
"Excuse me Weasley?" Luscious spat out. Speech impediment.
"You know what Luscious, I think it's time we furthered our discussion on the sacrifice of Draco towards the greater good, come buy me an ice cream, no, a sundae-with chocolate-and we can talk." I grabbed his arm, mouthed "thank you" to Weasley, then skipped out of the shop, making a beeline for the ice cream parlour.
"Who was that?" I asked between mouth of my triple mocha and chocolate sundae topped with peanut butter swirl and extra whipped cream.
"Weasley, their second youngest. Best friends with Potter." he said pointedly.
"Oh." I said quietly, putting my spoon down, suddenly no longer hungry. It seemed a little more clear to me what I had to do. They weren't just names and pictures, they were real people. They had families and friends. I was deceiving them for someone else's sick twisted plot. "Let's find Draco and get the rest of my stuff."