"Arik Marie Williams! You get down here this instant!" A voice from downstairs bellowed.

Arik, a slender red-headed girl rolled her eyes and muttered "Yes mother dearest." as she pulled on her clothes. Her mother had been trying to get her downstairs for the last five minutes to discuss 'something rather imprtant' as her mother put it.

Finally ready Arik made her way into the manors dining area where her mother and father were sitting waiting for her. Gulping, she made her way to a seat and looked down at her fingers.

Ariks mother sat with perfect posture and stared at her. "I'm glad to see you decided to join us, your father and I have very important news." She said in a chipper voice that Arik cringed at. "We have had a request for your hand in marriage."

At this Arik sat upright. What were her parents thinking! An arranged marriage to a guy she barely knew. Thoughts raced through her head as seh calmly asked. "A request from whom Mother?"

This time it wasn't her mother who spoke, but her father. "It is from the Nott family darling. I believe you know their son, Theodore?" he asked looking at her.

Arik felt as if her head was about to explode. She had zoned out her parents talking around her and tried to calm her own thoughts.

"What the hell is happening!" One voice screamed at her.

"Well it could be worse..." A second voice tried to reason.

"How the hell could it be worse?" The first shot back.

The second voice paused for a moment. "It could be Malfoy..." it mused.

Just as the first voice was about to reply Arik noticed her parents looking at her awaiting an answer to a question that she hadn't heard

"I'm sorry, what was the question?" She asked.

Her mother tutted at her and her father asked, "He's in your year isn't he?"

"Yes he is, but he's in Slytherin and I'm in Ravenclaw, we don't really speak that much." Arik said.

Arik's mother chuckled slightly, "Well now you'll have pleanty of time to get to know him, won't you?"

Arik blushed, "I suppose I will."

Her father spoke again, "You can start that tomorrow night, we will be having them over for dinner to make the neccasary arrangements." With that he dismissed Arik from the table and went into his study.

If you were to go into Arik's room that night you would have found numerous items smashed and broken on the floor. If you looked on her bed you would have found her slender fram curled into a ball underneath the sheets. And if you had looked closely you would have noticed she was crying. These were not tears of sadness, oh no, these were tears of rage. Arik was unbelievably mad at her parents for arranging this, of course it was a pureblood tradition to marry off your daughters to wealthier pureblood houses, but nevertheless, she was pissed. As soon as she had been dismissed from the table she had marched upstairs to her room and cast a silencing spell on her door and proceeded to throw and hex items untill her anger had run its course. Now here she was on the downside of her anger crying softly to herself. She couldn't believe that she had to do this. Arik just stayed there under her shets until finally exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep sleep.