I grew up in a world of perfection. Don't look at anyone unless they're old blood. Don't laugh if you mean it. Don't fall in love. But I seemed to break all of the rules once Lucius asked me to dance. Once he kissed me, there was no turning back. Blacks were once rich and of high social status. Black was once a name to be proud of. But Andromeda, Sirius, and Regulus had shamed us. Our fathers and their fathers before them had drained our money away.

So even if the Malfoys were nouveau riche, they were still better than us. They could only go up, whereas our name was a mere mask to hide behind as we fell from grace. We were all just pretending. Only Bellatrix-- my beautiful, mad sister-- believed. She believed it so much it consumed her like a flame; while her eyes glowed with the passion of it, her soul turned to ashes. I couldn't save her. I didn't even want to anymore.

"Fool," Bellatrix murmured in my ear on my wedding day. "You really do love him, don't you? You're such a fool."

"Hark who's talking," I whispered as I walked down the aisle, my eyes on Lucius standing there, so pale and beautiful. My savior from the Blacks and their bad blood.

She laughed softly. "I don't love Rodolphus."

"I never said you did." I spared her one last glance, seeing her flush with a mixture of anger and shame, before I left her behind. I left them all behind. The Malfoys' mask was at least new and beautiful. I could wear it without so much shame.

I will not say we believed. Belief had nothing to do with it. It was pure fear. All our lives, we were told to be perfect, to hold our heads high. We alone were pure. But I wondered whenever Lucius touched me how pure our blood could be when there was innocent blood on our hands. Perhaps our blood was so old it was rotten. It made us so afraid of people pulling off that mask to discover the corpse beneath. There was no beauty about any of us. Only the mask of blind hatred and cold indifference. I loved Lucius because he could almost make me believe we were what we pretended to be.

But almost is not good enough. I learned that when I saw the doubt flicker in my sixteen year old son's eyes. There were too many promises and not enough rewards. How much were we supposed to sacrifice before we could live freely? How long until we were pure again?

Our oaths of allegiance tasted like poison on my tongue and my mind swam with new, wild ideas when I looked at my son. "Go Draco," I told him as the final battle drew near. "Go where your mind takes you, not your orders." I tore his Death Eater mask off, revealing his beautiful face, and pushed him towards the door. "And don't ever turn back. There's nothing in the past worth dying for."