Disclaimer: characters and HP world belong to JKR and various publishers

Note: This FF was originally NOT written by me, but by a friend of mine, who doesn't have an account here. I just translated it as well as I could. So all the praise go to Numair, and all the faults are mine, understood?^^

Have fun reading!

EDIT: I found some mistakes looking through this translation so I edited those reloaded the first chapter. Have fun reading with less mistakes now.^^

Chapter 1:

What a wonderful day.

What a wonderful party.

Of course she was happy.

Of course she was thankful.

Phrases winding out of her, as fake as the bright smile she was presented the people around. You had to be happy on your own engagement party. You had to have fun. And of course you always were more than content with the man you were supposed to marry, as he was a good match. Actually the best match possible.

And a small, indescribable tiny part of her really wished, she could see it this way. That she could walk through the rows with an earnest smile, telling everyone how much she was looking forward to be Mrs Rudolphus Lestrange.

But the sad truth was that there was nothing she'd liked to do less in these past few hours. Even the existence as a houseelf seemed more promising than to take this surname, to spent the rest of her life with him, sleeping and waking next to him every night.

It was disgusting to even think about this. He was disgusting and everything he said or did made her want to puke, but every time she was about to say something about how she really felt, she was stopped by her own voice of reason.

Her mother was so happy, she couldn't bring herself to brake her heart - again. At least one of her daughters had to behave like the name Black demanded. Andromeda had already rebelled against the family, Sirius had… Her fingers drummed a irregular pattern on the table. Not this name. Not today. The whole evening she had managed not to think about him at all and now in the tiny stolen moments of silence, his name was at once present again. As if some dark winded part of her mind had just waited for this one weak second , to grab her and get her back in place with this thought as a constant companion. Well, it had worked and on the outside her nervousness showed with her gnawing on the nail of her right thumb.

He wasn't here – of course he wasn't here – but still she saw his face so clearly that she knew exactly how he would look if he had been invited. She could hear how he was making fun of everyone around, of their dresses, the things they did and said, and mainly about her. About her, as she was sitting here, in the robe that had especially been made for today, the snobbish ring on her finger that showed the world, she now officially was the property of someone else. And at once the metal on her left hand grew much too tight, there was too little air and too many people in the room.

Leaving seemed like a flight and if she was honest to herself, it was nothing else. She couldn't do it anymore. This sentence was something, she had never thought to have in her vocabulary, as unknown as 'Why are you all so evil concerning muggles, they are half as bad…' and absolutely mortifying to acknowledge. It lay bitterly on her tongue without the chance of gulping it down even though the cool breeze of the night eased everything at least a little bit.

She took a deep breath, and another step to the outside, letting the doors fall shut behind her with a small sound. Just a few moments, a little bit of time, she wanted to steal now, a little bit more than they had given her, before the whole fuss started again. An almost inhuman balancing act between the mighty wish to walk away just a few more steps, finally just starting to run and never come back and the yoke of her duty, which was weighting down on her shoulders heavily.

But it seemed not even here on the outside, they'd give her a rest. Somewhere in the darkness beyond, somebody was standing, their face turned downwards and with the little light she wasn't able to identify the features, but in reality she wasn't really interested in them anyway. He – or she – was a bother, here and now. Rage boiled inside her, pointless maybe, uncalled-for, but had she ever been able to stop those feelings? No. She was a Black and though she was allowed to be angered. And with this knowledge added to the rage and the wish to send this person to hell, she gathered the hem of her robes and approached them to send them back inside with all the friendliness Blacks ever showed – none.

At least that was the plan until he rose his head. With the smile on the lips that had been images of her overwrought brain just minutes before. With the hands deep in the pockets of some trousers that without a doubt were bought in some muggle store, just like the rest of the clothes he was wearing. "Hello my dearest cousin!...Is it so unbearable that even you go outside or is mother just of the opinion it would be 'chique' to party outside? Well then, I guess, I should just give you my congrats and best wishes and then get away as soon and as far as I can get again. Or do you've got any other suggestions?"