Disclaimer: Don't own HP. If I did would not be stressing over so much Government homework.

Claimer: Stealing is a naughty thing. I own the Marx family and the pretty awesome promise.

Is it safe to say that we've hurt the same way? If it were up to me I'd leave this place right now.

Socratic

-Kendra-

"Are you daft Draco? You must be bored out of your skull." I stood in the bathroom doorway, staring pitifully at Draco. He hadn't moved since I left him thirty minutes ago. Lying on his stomach, flipping through a Quidditch magazine with a very bored expression glued to his face.

"About time you got out woman. I was just about to come in there and drag you out." He paused before smirking, obviously letting me know he was thinking of him dragging me out of the shower completely naked.

"Yeah, I'm so sure." I rolled my eyes, walking over the bed and lying beside him, my wet hair dripping a little on the glossy pages.

"Too lazy to dry your hair?" Draco asked, looking up from some interview with a famous player to my now dark brown, wet hair. In response I just shrugged, taking in the shirtless player in front of me, trailing a finger down the page.

"Too bad I quit Quidditch, otherwise I could be around these kind of men more." My muttering thoughts made the boy next to me snort.

"You're laying next to one right now." Laughter escaped my throat without even a thought. Usually I was in such better control of my emotions, but around Draco I was more of a free spirit.

"Oh, of course Draco! How could I have forgotten about someone like you?" Giggling as I said my sentence I climbed onto his lower back and start massaging his shoulders. Draco dropped the magazine on the floor and relaxed under my touch.

"I don't really know." Draco said, his voice changing under the pressure of my hands. Sitting here on Draco's back, massaging him was anything but awkward. It was sexual, comforting, normal, loving and expected. There was nothing new about this. During our school year it'd become almost a weekly ritual, especially around testing time. The whole lot of us Slytherins would study in the common room, and when it was time for us to retire I would sneak off to Draco's room, or he'd sneak off to mine and we'd always give each other massages while rambling on about the gits in our classes. Mostly the Golden Trio, but there was that mix of foolish little Hufflepuffs and stuck up Ravenclaws as well.

"Bloody hell Dray, you're really tense." This wasn't a good sign. Draco didn't verbally tell me anything was wrong, but all the muscle in his back spoke for him. He shrugged, rolling his shoulders a little, trying to relax, and spoke.

"It's nothing."

"What a load of dung!" I exclaimed, rolling Draco over onto his back. His gray eyes bore into mine, defiance written all over them. He wasn't go to tell me a thing. "Draco..." I warned, pushing my hands on his chest. Underneath me he struggled, bucking his hips, trying to cause my balance to falter, but I just dug the sides of my knees into his hips.

"Get off." He snarled, using his hands this time to try and push me off of him. With a bit of shock I fell backwards, landing on his legs. A fire burned in Draco's eyes I had only seen when he was talking to someone he loathed.

"Draco, it's me, Kendra." That fire was seeing somebody else, because I knew sure as Harry Potter was The Boy That Lived that he wasn't seeing my face. "Dray, come on." I reached out to grab his hand, but he instantly slapped it away. I decided to move away from him then. Danger was something I faced before because of the type of house I live in, but I wasn't expecting it from someone so close to me. So I backed up and Draco and I stared at each other, not that he even knew where he was or who we has looking at. "Draco." This time my voice was barely a whisper. When he was in pain, I was in pain. We'd shared everything, and our emotions were no different. Suddenly, in his eyes I saw a responding flicker in his eyes. Not saying another word I sat there eagerly hoping my Draco would come back to me, leaving this violent, lost Draco behind.

"Ken..." Draco breathed. Instantly I moved towards him, shuffling across the bed on my knees.

"Draco, I'm here." My voice was still a soft whisper.

"Kendra." Again my name was nothing but a whisper of his breath. "I'm scared." My eyes widened at what Draco just admitted to me. Our eyes met each other and he sighed as he noticed the confusion drowning any other emotion in them. No words fell from Draco's mouth. Instead he pulled up his sleeve to his shirt and revealed something I didn't think to see printed on his skin any time soon.

"Oh Merlin." I gasped, slowly reaching out to trace the mark with my fingers. "Draco...how...when?" My thoughts were all jumbled inside of my head. How could I think straight when I was staring at my best friend, who happened to now be a Death Eater.

"It was on my birthday this June." For a moment Draco stayed quite. It looked like he was debating something inside of his mind.

"Tell me." I automatically knew he was keeping another secret. Hopefully it wasn't as big as the one he'd just revealed.

"He gave me a mission, but I'm not to speak of it." Okay, so it could be worse than hiding the fact he was part of Voldermort's Army for two months before telling me. Vaguely I pondered why he couldn't tell me, but figured it out on my own. He'd be a dead man if he spoke of it. "It's treason." I looked up to see Draco still talking to me. Then I realized I was nodding my head, as if solving a puzzle in my thoughts. Draco must have known I was answering my own questions.

"That's why you're...scared?" I'd never known Draco to be scared of anything in my entire life. He was confident in all his actions, and never faltered when doing something. Being scared would cost him his pride. Not something Draco ever gave up willingly. Slowly he nodded, almost scared of what I was going to say. It was like he expected me to laugh and scoff in his face. Surely he knew better than that. Giants would shrink before that would ever happen. "Draco," I breathed, not knowing what to say to him. I paused for a moment, staring into his face. For the first time in a very long time I saw worry and sickness. This could not end good.

Doing what words could not, I pulled Draco into my arms and we both sat there for a few minutes, taking in each other's strengthening presence.

"What am I going to do Kendra?" More whispered left Draco's lips. I noticed they were chapped and pink as if he'd been chewing on them in ponder and worry. Draco needed my help, maybe not physically, but mentally I could tell he was going down a very shaky path. I pulled away from the embrace, and swept some hair back from his face. He'd been contemplating cutting the hair all year, and finally decided to go through the with the plan. He'd most likely do it tomorrow or later on today.

"Draco, I promise that I will do everything I can to protect you, and to help you do whatever you're doing." My hands gripped Draco's shoulders as I started to make the biggest commitment of my life. "I can tell you aren't going to be able to walk this alone, and you know as well as I do you can trust no one else."

"You promise?" The look on Draco's face was a bit more suspicious now. A bit of the fear had left, and I was glad for that.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." I said with a small smile. When promises meant everything and the matter was important we'd use the stupid little words we used as kids. Somehow they meant a lot more now than they did back then, when a pinky promise meant the world. Draco managed a small smile in return.

"Stick a thousand quills in your eye."

"Then I'll use the Cruccio curse and make you cry." Both of us finished at the same time, locking hands, intertwining our fingers, while stating the last line of our promise. Before we could talk any further than that a soft rapping sounded at my door.

"Come in." I called, letting go of Draco's hand slowly. Jocken walked through the door timidly, looking at the soft carpet below his bare elf feet. "Yes Jocken?"

"Mistress Maria wishes to see Miss Kendra." Before answering the old house elf standing before me I exchanged glances with Draco. What could my mother possibly want with me?

"Tell her I'll be down in a minute...and tell her Draco will be with me." Jocken froze at the door, nervously looking down the hall and back at me.

"Mi-miss Kendra...if you don-don't mind me saying, though I know it's n-not my place. Mistress Maria does not wish young Master Malfoy to be there." As soon as the stuttered sentence left his mouth he bowed his head to the carpet. This gave Draco and I another moment to exchange glances. Why would mother care if Draco was there or not?

"Come on Draco." I finally spoke, getting up and walking out of the door. Draco followed me, with the same poise in his walk. It was all in the illusion of looking graceful, even if you weren't feeling it. By the time both Draco and I were down the stairs Jocken had hastily caught up to us.

"Jocken things this is a very, very bad idea. Jocken will be punished."

"Hush." I said rather sharply, glaring over my shoulder at the house elf. "I'll see to it you will not be punished." Draco scoffed from my side.

"What does it matter if he is punished? He's just stupid ole' house elf." My deadly gaze turned from the elf to my friend.

"That's where you're wrong Draco." Our row came to a halt as we entered the sitting room. Wouldn't want anyone to think Draco and I were on bad terms. Sitting on the couches were Draco's mother and my parents, sipping tea with more grace than all the girls from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic combined. "You wanted to see mother?" I asked, smiling politely.

"Yes, Kendra, dear." She waved her hand at Narcissa, at which she stood.

"Draco, it's time to go." More graceful illusions. Something wrong was happening, but I couldn't seem to figure out what, or which direction it would take me. Obviously Draco thought the same thing, because he looked around at the older wizard and witches with a moody look. With a brief nod towards no one in particular, he followed his mother out. That nod was my cue that'd he show up later.

"Kendra, darling, take a seat." Forgetting that the Malfoys had even been here, I walked over to the love seat across from my parents, crossed one leg over the other and waited for one of them to speak. "Kendra, as you're well aware of, you'll be of age come mid January." I nodded once, racking my brain for possible outcomes of this conversation. "Meaning you will no longer have the Trace on you..." My mother was holding back tears and sobs. I'd never seen her so emotional. Usually if she cried, it was in private. My father patted her back stiffly, and the continued her speech.

"What your mother means to say is, when you come home for the holidays, you'll be joining me as a Death Eater." All sensations in my body seemed to fade to where I couldn't even feel my own body. Everything around me was blocked out. My mind only seemed to focus on the mental image of one thing. The Dark Mark. It was lit up in the bright green color with a black background taking up the rest of my mind's space. More softly than anything else, there was a noise. A very familiar one. Something I'd really only here in this house or out in the garden.

Kendra...come to me.

My eyes snapped opened and I could finally see past the shadows and the Dark Mark. Hissing. The sound was a snake hissing. But when I looked around the sitting room there was no snake. Just my mother and father staring at me. Well, my mum was still drying into her hands, the only words I could understand were "My baby...no...why her?" The rest were just uncontrollable sobs.

So, if the snake weren't in this room where could it possibly be? It couldn't be speaking to me without being at least fifty feet from me. A wave of nausea hit me and I braced my arm on the couch. Though it really wouldn't matter as I left my body and went into a completely different world.

"Kendra." The voice hissed again. I looked around the stark white room I was in. Everything was the color of white. The table, the chairs, the doors even the floor beneath my bare feet. "Come to me Kendra." I whipped my head around, my dirty blond hair covering a bit of my face for a moment, before it settled back into place, falling down my shoulders.

"Hello?" I nervously asked thin air. Honestly, I couldn't find anyone.

"Hello, Kendra." This time I found the source of the voice. On the chair at the head of the table a rather large snake was curled around the chair, with it's head looking directly at me. It's red eyes bore into my green ones.

"Who are you?" I asked, collecting bravery and stepping forward.

"My name is Nagini." That name sounded very familiar. Almost as if I had heard it once before in my childhood.

"How do you know me Nagini?" Hopefully these questions wouldn't prove futile.

"My master has been keeping his eyes on you for a while now Kendra Marx. You are a very powerful witch, which proves to be very helpful to my master." The snake hissed, and it almost looked like it was bobbing it's head proudly.

"Who is your master?" The level of my voice seemed to raise, as if I knew I was in no danger at the moment.

"In due time." The hissing resided and shadows began to eat away at the pure, clean white surfaces. From the ceiling down the wall, until the only white space in the room was where I was standing. With a rather disgusting slurping noise the white disappeared and I fell into the darkness with a crash.

"Kendra!" This time it wasn't hissing. It was rather loud yelling. Groaning followed the yelling voice, which prompted more talking. "She's awake." The same voice informed others. That's when I realized the groaning had come from me.

"Wha-?" I tried speaking. The results weren't too successful the first time around.

"Kendra, how many fingers am I holding up?" I wanted to slap whoever was speaking to me. How was I supposed to know? All I could see was the dark. Did they not realize it was just as pitch black as I had? "Kendra, open your eyes for me." For a moment some part of me said to defy the person talking to me, just because I felt the heated stupidity of not realizing my eyes were shut. "Damnit Kendra." This time the voice wasn't speaking calmly. And it was only then that I realized who that voice belonged to.

"Draco?" I asked wearily, trying to pry my eyes open. The green orbs stuck in my skull were refusing me though, as if they wanted me to drift back into a sleep. "What happened?" My voice cracked from the lack of moisture.

"I don't really know. I came back to your house a couple hours later and your mum said you had passed out after having a vision." Right. I wasn't sleeping. I fell into a vision after my dad had told me come my birthday I was going to be a Death Eater. This reoccurring news managed to break the fighting hold on my eyes, and I instantly saw Draco's pale, pointed face hovering over mine. Tears blurred my visions as the thoughts came rushing back to me. "Kendra!" Draco exclaimed, rather alarmed by my random tears.

"I-I don't-can't...urgh!" I screamed in frustration after I couldn't tell Draco what he had told me a mere hours ago. Instead I took the frustration out on my pillow, but the last and probably my most wanted punch was halted.

"I'm going to let go of your arm if you promise to calm down and start explaining to me what's going on. Promise?" Draco and I locked eyes, and I tried pulling my wrist out of his hand, but his grip remained firm. Glaring I answered him,

"I promise." Instantly he release my arm, and I brought it close to my body, not letting my murderous glare up any. Draco sat on the edge of my bed waiting for me to start my story. Angry tears spilled over the edge of my eyes and I furiously wiped them away. Draco had only seen me cry a couple of times, and I wasn't wanting to make that count any bigger. Eventually I calmed down, using deep breaths and mental reminders that Draco wasn't going to hurt nor run from me. He hadn't so far, so I doubt he would now. Besides, I stuck with him through his breakdown didn't I? "After I turn seventeen in January Voldermort is going to make me a Death Eater." Honestly, it seemed like Draco was expecting something less...severe. Like he couldn't believe I would be in the same predicament he currently found himself in.

"Why you?" At first I was a bit offended. What was wrong with me? I was rather good in the Dark Arts, courtesy of my father's vast library, but more than using magic, I stuck more to physically abusing someone. Especially since I was an underage witch. Draco saw the hellish fire starting to rise in my eyes and he quickly fixed his question. "I mean, I understand me; I'm here to avenge my father's mistake, personally I'm a little proud to be able to do what he hasn't been able to, but you're father hasn't let the Dark Lord down."

"I think it has something to do with my vision." I spoke quietly, more to myself than to him.

"The vision from earlier? The one that made you pass out?" The young Malfoy's words brought shock throughout my brain.

"What did you just say?" Draco seemed just as confused as I did.

"The vision...from earlier today. Your parents said you passed out afterwards." Pushing Draco out of the way I leaped from the bed and ran out of the room to find my parents. This information had to be false! It just had to be! "Kendra!" Draco yelled, chasing after me. Damn Draco and his long legs! Not only that but he disapproved of being lethargic, while I on the other hand wouldn't have life any other way. "Kendra!" Ignoring the call of my name from my best friend's lips, I kept fighting against the arms wrapped around my torso. "KENDRA! Your parents aren't here!" Those words would have been as useful as a Stupefy spell, because instantly I stopped all struggle against Draco.

"Where'd they go?" I asked very calmly.

"I don't know. They just told me to watch after you. Why are you going and searching for them as if there is some big emergency?" Panic suddenly filled my body, causing me to shudder and spin on Draco, taking him by surprise. With that advantage I tore myself from his arms.

"It is an emergency! Don't you see?" All my yelling just left Draco even more confused, but even more pissed off.

"No! I don't bloody see!" His arms were up in the air in frustration, as if he didn't know what to do with me. Honestly, know one knew. I struggled to keep myself from yelling at him this time. It wasn't his fault he didn't understand. He only knew I had visions, not really what had resulted afterwards. Our angers started to fuel each other, as our glares became more vicious. Suddenly my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. As if it were a natural thing, Draco was there beside me. "Kendra..." His tone was a lot more softer than before.

"Draco, I've never passed out after having a vision before. Sure, I might have acted a bit like someone had Confunded me, but never actually blacked out." I looked up at Draco with tears in my eyes. "Something bad is going to happen Draco." Even if I didn't understand my vision fully, I understood that part.