FORBIDDEN LOVE
AN: um_not much to say right now, good news for you, ey! Lol! I hope you had a lovely time over the Christmas & New Year break!
CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Dark Mark burned fiercely on her arm. "He wants me." The girl muttered, pulling her long sleeves down further. "But I will not go!"
"Huh? What did you say Alex?" Harry asked. It was dinner time but he and Alex didn't feel like going down to the Great Hall, well actually it was Alex who didn't feel like going, so Ron accompanied Hermione to bring up some food for them all.
"Oh nothing." She closed her eyes in pain. It was stinging like hell. It had been like this for sometime now, about a week. Why couldn't she just get rid of it? She wasn't a Death Eater, so why should she have one? She was too young to have the Dark Mark. The Dark Lord always said that you had to be eighteen to have the Mark etched into your skin. And she still had two more solid years before that time came! So why did she have it?
"You seem to be in a lot of pain. Are you ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine." She said trying to sound confident, but the pain was too much, so her voice faltered.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm ok!" she clutched her arm.
"What is it?" Harry pressed on, trying to get a hold of her arm. Alex moved her arm out of her boyfriend's reach. "It's not nothing! You're hiding something from me! What is it!" demanded Harry.
"Its none of your business! It is nothing ok! Its nothing! Nothing that should have to worry yourself so badly!" Alex screamed in anger and frustration. "I'm fine!" She got up so abruptly that Harry, who was leaning over on her to grab her arm, was thrown onto the floor.
"You're my girlfriend! I'm concerned! I should be worried!" Harry shouted just as frustrated. **Why was she being like this?** Harry thought.
The pain on her arm was getting worse. The scar shaped like a skull, burned into her. Making her want to scream and pull her hair out in agony. She would do anything to ease the pain. It wouldn't stop until she was infront of the Dark Lord, but she didn't want to go. She was safe from the Lord's evil power, because she was with all these students and her great grandfather. He could protect her.
Harry was now screaming at her, a couple of students not wanting to go to dinner who were in the common room were watching them in horror. The most famous Harry Potter, arguing with his girlfriend who had powers that exceeded all of theirs. What would the result be, they all wondered. Alex couldn't take it anymore. No-one talks to her like that! She's had enough of it! First from Voldemort, then her sister, now from the one person she cared for most! It was too much. She screamed, and summoned all the energy from the room, sucking power from all the energy sources, and formed a fireball in the palm of her hand is that how it works? Oh well, I'm just trying to make it sound real dramatic. She didn't know who to throw it at, but Harry was the most annoying-est right about now so she would just have to throw it at him.
She raised her hand and was about to throw it, when *~*WHAM!!!*~* Somebody had knocked her down, making the fireball die out as her concentration was faltered. Everything was quiet. It was Hermione who had tackled her. The two girls got up, glaring at each other, dinner all strewn around on the floor. Harry was behind Hermione, with Ron. They were all angry with her.
Hermione was just about to speak when she saw something black on Alex's arm. Noticing this, Alex tugged on her sleeve so that the others couldn't see the Dark Mark. No doubt that Hermione would tell Harry and Ron anyway, so she ran. Alex stormed up the girls' staircase, and slammed her dormitory door shut. Alex sat on her four-poster bed. She had drawn the hangings, she didn't want anyone to see her crying. Her life was so complicated, and she had no- one that understood her. She had had a bad childhood. Being raised since a baby, by a blood-thirsty evil dude. Raised by someone that didn't know a thing about caring for others. Someone so inconsiderate. Someone so cold hearted. Someone who had never been loved before either, so what would he know about taking care of another? Being raised like a dog. Taught a new trick now and then. Taught to obey his every order or be punished, tortured! It was hell. And growing up like that, she didn't know how to love another either. She was powerful, and she could often lose control easily. She couldn't keep control of her temper, how cold Harry love her so much? But then again, they had only been together for just a week or so. Would he still want to be with her anymore? Would he even want to be her friend anymore? Would anyone? Why should they? She was evil. No doubt. She was dangerous. So naive and so vulnerable. She needed to change.
There was a knock on the door. Alex didn't bother peering through the hangings of her four-poster bed, she'd just let who ever was at the door, realise that the door was unlocked by themselves.
Outside, Hermione turned the door knob to see if it was locked, it wasn't. She gave the door a little push and it swung open easily; **Alex hadn't even tried to keep the door shut,** thought Hermione, **she knew someone would come after her, what a stuck-up bitch!** "Alex?" she said gently. She didn't want to be so gentle and kind to this girl anymore, she wanted to become animagi right now and right there. She wanted to become a tiger, so that she could go pounce on the girl that was probably lying curled up in her bed, pitying herself. Hermione felt like tearing Alex apart. Sink her fangs into her. Rip her, hurt her, kill her! Make her suffer for what she was doing and what she was about to do to her best friend. But, the only thing stopping her now was: she wasn't animagi. But still, why should she be gentle with this girl? Alex wasn't gentle with anyone else, especially just back then in the common room! Harry had made Hermione promise to be gentle with his girlfriend. Or could she be his ex- girlfriend now? Was it because Harry didn't want Hermione to get hurt? Or was it possibly be that he still cared about this veela? Anyway, did he like her because he saw something in her? Or just because she was a veela and beautiful? Or maybe Dumbledore told him to! That must be it, because Harry couldn't possibly like her for real! Or could he? Hermione had to admit, although she had Ron, she felt insecure. She was jealous.
"Alex?" Hermione said again. "Alexandria? Alex! Answer me or else – "
"Or else what?!?" barked Alex coldly. That was what the Dark Lord sounded like when he was angry or disappointed.
"Or else I'll - " Hermione hesitated. "I'll tell Harry and Ron you're a death eater!" she finished confidently.
"You wouldn't!" Alex peered around her hangings.
"I would so!"
"What if – "
"If you throw a fireball at me?" Hermione guessed. "Then when the others notice that I've been gone for too long, they'll come looking, and if I'm dead, with you in here, there can only mean one thing." Hermione threatened Alex. But Alex just withdrew into the covers and quilts of her bed.
Silence.
"I don't see why I had to be gentle with you. You shouldn't be treated with care, you should suffer!" Hermione said in a voice that wasn't like her own, she wasn't often this cruel.
"How should you know if I've suffered before? I've been through heaps of things that you've never even known about! I've felt things that are beyond pain and tears! I've – "
"Liar." Accused Hermione quietly.
"What did you call me?" Alex said just as quiet.
"Liar! You're a LIAR!" Alex was about to run up and smash that little skinny bushy haired girl when she had second thoughts: wasn't Alex planning to change her habits and everything? Tears began to flood down her face again. As soon as Hermione saw the tears, she saw pain, misery and suffering. Abuse and innocence? Hermione softened her expression. What had she just done? She took a few steps closer. In an ordinary situation, she would have embraced the crying girl and try to comfort her. But that was when it wasn't her who made them cry, this time she didn't know what to do.
Alex shut her eyes and put her hands over her face. She couldn't see her, but she could somehow feel, sense Hermione getting closer to her, physically, definitely not emotionally though. Hermione was outstretching her hand to reach the crying girl, but Alex wouldn't have it. The person that just said a moment ago, that she needed to suffer for what she had done, was now going to comfort her? No thanks.
So she ran. Hermione, still confused, did nothing to prevent Alex's escape. She just watched with her hands still outstretched.
Alex fled downstairs, past the young first year girls playing hand clapping games; past the older guys playing exploding snap; some various students packing things getting things ready for library studies. And then passing Harry and Ron who were sitting close to the portrait hole. Harry went to stop Alex from escaping, but Ron held him back, whispering "Let her go, she needs her own time."
Alex was grateful for Ron for keeping Harry away. She just needed to be alone. Away from all those who would remind her of that evening.
* * * * *
"Why isn't your sister coming?" demanded a harsh cold voice.
"I don't know Father." Replied a terrified young girl about the age of eighteen.
"Hmm, I'm disappointed, my precious."
"You have no reason not to, Father."
"We'll wait a few more hours, before I increase her pain. Do you, my precious have any objections?"
"No, Father."
Hours past, Voldemort and his Precious remain standing and waiting, quietly. Until Voldemort couldn't stand the silence, besides, his precious was a most talkative girl, she shouldn't be kept in the silence.
"Why do you wear so much ridiculous make-up?" Voldemort said, addressing his Precious' make-up. Dark eye-shadow and mobs of mascara. Deep red lipstick. Back when she attended muggle school (Mr White, her true- father, insisted on it) all the students had called her The Goth Girl.
"You look like a muggle clown."
"Father, my Lord, you dare ridicule me?"
"Yes I do dare, Monika."
"Its called fashion, papa." She replied casually.
"Well then, I must say, you are a couple of decades too far ahead. Or maybe even a few centuries into the future, for I have never seen anyone wear such rubbish. Or so much of it anyway, never in my life." Monika, Voldemort's Precious, was furious. How dare he mock her!
After that conversation all was quiet. Another half hour went by and Voldemort's tolerance was growing thin.
"Go find your dear sister and bring her to me! Now!"
"But that wont be easy, My Lord."
"Are you saying that you won't be able to carry out such a simple task, such as this?"
"No, papa! I am fully capable of doing this."
"Then go fetch her!"
"But, father, she is under the watch of Dumbledore!"
"And you are afraid of him? More afraid of him than you are of me?"
"No, papa! Its just she is under his influence, she won't come willingly!"
"Well then drag her out to me! It's not like you've never done so before!" With that Monika White disapperated from the room without another word, wearing a real dirty and irritated look on her face. Voldemort muttered something darkly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She screamed. It hurt ever more so. Alex cringed at the more intensified pain. Tears of agony and pain exploded in torrents, down her face. But then, suddenly, she could feel no more pain on her arm. Voldemort was up to something, Alex knew it. The pain was gone, but she didn't stop crying. It wasn't from the physical pain she felt before, but of the pain she felt emotionally.
She watched from the Owlery window. It was past midnight, she knew. All the owls were out hunting for the night. Not one single bird in the tower. Alex had been here many times in the Summer break after her Great Grandfather took her in from Monika and Voldemort. She was grateful for that. She was happy to have been away from the tortures of the Dark Lord. But being trapped in the castle with Dumbledore, the house elves and the ghosts got pretty boring after awhile. Alex wiped her tear stained face with the long sleeve of her night gown.
So when she didn't feel like socialising with the ghosts and house elves, she would come up here, with the owls. Alone and able to think things through.
There was a creak from the door. A head poked through. "Alex?" whispered the intruder. "Draco." Replied Alex. She knew that voice and its owner all too well. "Can I come in?" Draco took a step closer. "Why not?" Draco walked away from the door and strode up to the girl standing by the window. Alex turned to face Draco.
"Alex? Are you ok?" he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her blue eyes, holding her at arms length.
"Hermione knows" Alex said simply.
"The mudblood knows what?"
"That I bare the Dark Mark. And don't call her a mudblood."
"Why cant I?" he smirked. "Have you gone soft on the Gryfindors?"
"They are my friends'." She looked away. Draco dropped his hands to his side and looked out the window too.
The Forbidden Forest was quiet, thought Alex. The trees moving gracefully to the soft cool breeze. It was a full moon that night, enlightening the school grounds. The moonlight making the grass look silver instead of green. The Giant Squid lolling around in the Lake. The Lake's water was rippled here and there from the gentle breeze, otherwise calm and undisturbed. The school grounds were so peaceful and calm. So inviting. It was, as if she went down there, all her worries would go away instantly. She wished that she could just jump into the lake and let the water purify and cleanse her of the dirt and pain and suffering and permit her to start life all over again, fresh and able to say that she was innocent. But she would never be considered innocent if she forever wore the Dark Mark on her arm. It was like another piece of dirt and scum. It was horrid. Everyone thought she had beautiful flawless skin, what if they saw this? She was now forced to wear long sleeves forever. It was torture.
She so wished that she could apologise about the incident that occurred just before, a couple of hours ago. She wanted to go wake Harry up right now, and tell him everything. She so wished that she had someone other than her Great Grandfather to confide in, it would be so much better and more comfortable to talk to someone her own age. Someone who had no idea of most things just like her, so they could discover new things together. Draco knew. She could talk with him, like she was now. But he was in Slytherin, that wouldn't work so well. If she only had someone in Gryfindor to confide in, someone to be there at all the time, not just in classes and at meal times. Then maybe, just maybe, that person could make all the others understand her ways. But then all would know that she was with Voldemort, then they wouldn't even want to try understanding her! (AN: Is this making any sense? No? I didn't think so either.)
Alex sighed. Her life was so complicated. Tears began streaming down her cheeks again. Seeing this, Draco wrapped his arms around the girl, hoping to comfort her.
They didn't say anything to each other for a long time. Alex continued to stare at the lake, the Giant Squid had long since returned to its home to rest for the night. Moonbeams reflected on the surface of the calm water. And as if on cue, an owl fluttered onto the window sill of the only window in the owlery tower. It was the silvery-white owl of her sister Monika, Moonbeam.
A piece of parchment was tied Moonbeam's leg. He held it out. Alex hesitated then slowly outstretched her hand to untie the letter. BUT – Draco, who couldn't stand the silence and the pace everything was going, put out his hands quickly and took the letter from the owl. As soon as the owl was deprived of the message from none other than its owner, it took off. Leaving Alex starring after it absent-mindedly, until Draco tapped her on the shoulder and held out the note.
"What in the world does Monika want? She was never the one to keep in touch with me when we are apart" Alex mused aloud. After this thought, Alex began to unfold the parchment. She was just about to read it when, the door swung open abruptly.
It was Filch with Mrs Norris at his feet.
And Hermione.
"Looks like we have two more, students out of bed!" Filch said delightedly.
AN: WOW! That is the longest chapter I've ever written! 2,943 words, not including the title and my author notes! All my chapters usually consist of 'round 1,000 words or so, I think. So that was pretty long for me!
I am so sorry for being extremely late at updating. Its not because I was real lazy, or had things going on, or any of the usual excuses I and many others come up with. Its because my internet connection went down and I had to wait ages before they found out the problem. (My little sisters had fiddled around with all the settings on this computer and so that kinda disoriented some things.) But to make up for it, I had written a couple chapters to be uploaded at the same time so it could keep you all content.
NOW YOU GOTTA REVIEW!!!! Thanx for reading!
AN: um_not much to say right now, good news for you, ey! Lol! I hope you had a lovely time over the Christmas & New Year break!
CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Dark Mark burned fiercely on her arm. "He wants me." The girl muttered, pulling her long sleeves down further. "But I will not go!"
"Huh? What did you say Alex?" Harry asked. It was dinner time but he and Alex didn't feel like going down to the Great Hall, well actually it was Alex who didn't feel like going, so Ron accompanied Hermione to bring up some food for them all.
"Oh nothing." She closed her eyes in pain. It was stinging like hell. It had been like this for sometime now, about a week. Why couldn't she just get rid of it? She wasn't a Death Eater, so why should she have one? She was too young to have the Dark Mark. The Dark Lord always said that you had to be eighteen to have the Mark etched into your skin. And she still had two more solid years before that time came! So why did she have it?
"You seem to be in a lot of pain. Are you ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine." She said trying to sound confident, but the pain was too much, so her voice faltered.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm ok!" she clutched her arm.
"What is it?" Harry pressed on, trying to get a hold of her arm. Alex moved her arm out of her boyfriend's reach. "It's not nothing! You're hiding something from me! What is it!" demanded Harry.
"Its none of your business! It is nothing ok! Its nothing! Nothing that should have to worry yourself so badly!" Alex screamed in anger and frustration. "I'm fine!" She got up so abruptly that Harry, who was leaning over on her to grab her arm, was thrown onto the floor.
"You're my girlfriend! I'm concerned! I should be worried!" Harry shouted just as frustrated. **Why was she being like this?** Harry thought.
The pain on her arm was getting worse. The scar shaped like a skull, burned into her. Making her want to scream and pull her hair out in agony. She would do anything to ease the pain. It wouldn't stop until she was infront of the Dark Lord, but she didn't want to go. She was safe from the Lord's evil power, because she was with all these students and her great grandfather. He could protect her.
Harry was now screaming at her, a couple of students not wanting to go to dinner who were in the common room were watching them in horror. The most famous Harry Potter, arguing with his girlfriend who had powers that exceeded all of theirs. What would the result be, they all wondered. Alex couldn't take it anymore. No-one talks to her like that! She's had enough of it! First from Voldemort, then her sister, now from the one person she cared for most! It was too much. She screamed, and summoned all the energy from the room, sucking power from all the energy sources, and formed a fireball in the palm of her hand is that how it works? Oh well, I'm just trying to make it sound real dramatic. She didn't know who to throw it at, but Harry was the most annoying-est right about now so she would just have to throw it at him.
She raised her hand and was about to throw it, when *~*WHAM!!!*~* Somebody had knocked her down, making the fireball die out as her concentration was faltered. Everything was quiet. It was Hermione who had tackled her. The two girls got up, glaring at each other, dinner all strewn around on the floor. Harry was behind Hermione, with Ron. They were all angry with her.
Hermione was just about to speak when she saw something black on Alex's arm. Noticing this, Alex tugged on her sleeve so that the others couldn't see the Dark Mark. No doubt that Hermione would tell Harry and Ron anyway, so she ran. Alex stormed up the girls' staircase, and slammed her dormitory door shut. Alex sat on her four-poster bed. She had drawn the hangings, she didn't want anyone to see her crying. Her life was so complicated, and she had no- one that understood her. She had had a bad childhood. Being raised since a baby, by a blood-thirsty evil dude. Raised by someone that didn't know a thing about caring for others. Someone so inconsiderate. Someone so cold hearted. Someone who had never been loved before either, so what would he know about taking care of another? Being raised like a dog. Taught a new trick now and then. Taught to obey his every order or be punished, tortured! It was hell. And growing up like that, she didn't know how to love another either. She was powerful, and she could often lose control easily. She couldn't keep control of her temper, how cold Harry love her so much? But then again, they had only been together for just a week or so. Would he still want to be with her anymore? Would he even want to be her friend anymore? Would anyone? Why should they? She was evil. No doubt. She was dangerous. So naive and so vulnerable. She needed to change.
There was a knock on the door. Alex didn't bother peering through the hangings of her four-poster bed, she'd just let who ever was at the door, realise that the door was unlocked by themselves.
Outside, Hermione turned the door knob to see if it was locked, it wasn't. She gave the door a little push and it swung open easily; **Alex hadn't even tried to keep the door shut,** thought Hermione, **she knew someone would come after her, what a stuck-up bitch!** "Alex?" she said gently. She didn't want to be so gentle and kind to this girl anymore, she wanted to become animagi right now and right there. She wanted to become a tiger, so that she could go pounce on the girl that was probably lying curled up in her bed, pitying herself. Hermione felt like tearing Alex apart. Sink her fangs into her. Rip her, hurt her, kill her! Make her suffer for what she was doing and what she was about to do to her best friend. But, the only thing stopping her now was: she wasn't animagi. But still, why should she be gentle with this girl? Alex wasn't gentle with anyone else, especially just back then in the common room! Harry had made Hermione promise to be gentle with his girlfriend. Or could she be his ex- girlfriend now? Was it because Harry didn't want Hermione to get hurt? Or was it possibly be that he still cared about this veela? Anyway, did he like her because he saw something in her? Or just because she was a veela and beautiful? Or maybe Dumbledore told him to! That must be it, because Harry couldn't possibly like her for real! Or could he? Hermione had to admit, although she had Ron, she felt insecure. She was jealous.
"Alex?" Hermione said again. "Alexandria? Alex! Answer me or else – "
"Or else what?!?" barked Alex coldly. That was what the Dark Lord sounded like when he was angry or disappointed.
"Or else I'll - " Hermione hesitated. "I'll tell Harry and Ron you're a death eater!" she finished confidently.
"You wouldn't!" Alex peered around her hangings.
"I would so!"
"What if – "
"If you throw a fireball at me?" Hermione guessed. "Then when the others notice that I've been gone for too long, they'll come looking, and if I'm dead, with you in here, there can only mean one thing." Hermione threatened Alex. But Alex just withdrew into the covers and quilts of her bed.
Silence.
"I don't see why I had to be gentle with you. You shouldn't be treated with care, you should suffer!" Hermione said in a voice that wasn't like her own, she wasn't often this cruel.
"How should you know if I've suffered before? I've been through heaps of things that you've never even known about! I've felt things that are beyond pain and tears! I've – "
"Liar." Accused Hermione quietly.
"What did you call me?" Alex said just as quiet.
"Liar! You're a LIAR!" Alex was about to run up and smash that little skinny bushy haired girl when she had second thoughts: wasn't Alex planning to change her habits and everything? Tears began to flood down her face again. As soon as Hermione saw the tears, she saw pain, misery and suffering. Abuse and innocence? Hermione softened her expression. What had she just done? She took a few steps closer. In an ordinary situation, she would have embraced the crying girl and try to comfort her. But that was when it wasn't her who made them cry, this time she didn't know what to do.
Alex shut her eyes and put her hands over her face. She couldn't see her, but she could somehow feel, sense Hermione getting closer to her, physically, definitely not emotionally though. Hermione was outstretching her hand to reach the crying girl, but Alex wouldn't have it. The person that just said a moment ago, that she needed to suffer for what she had done, was now going to comfort her? No thanks.
So she ran. Hermione, still confused, did nothing to prevent Alex's escape. She just watched with her hands still outstretched.
Alex fled downstairs, past the young first year girls playing hand clapping games; past the older guys playing exploding snap; some various students packing things getting things ready for library studies. And then passing Harry and Ron who were sitting close to the portrait hole. Harry went to stop Alex from escaping, but Ron held him back, whispering "Let her go, she needs her own time."
Alex was grateful for Ron for keeping Harry away. She just needed to be alone. Away from all those who would remind her of that evening.
* * * * *
"Why isn't your sister coming?" demanded a harsh cold voice.
"I don't know Father." Replied a terrified young girl about the age of eighteen.
"Hmm, I'm disappointed, my precious."
"You have no reason not to, Father."
"We'll wait a few more hours, before I increase her pain. Do you, my precious have any objections?"
"No, Father."
Hours past, Voldemort and his Precious remain standing and waiting, quietly. Until Voldemort couldn't stand the silence, besides, his precious was a most talkative girl, she shouldn't be kept in the silence.
"Why do you wear so much ridiculous make-up?" Voldemort said, addressing his Precious' make-up. Dark eye-shadow and mobs of mascara. Deep red lipstick. Back when she attended muggle school (Mr White, her true- father, insisted on it) all the students had called her The Goth Girl.
"You look like a muggle clown."
"Father, my Lord, you dare ridicule me?"
"Yes I do dare, Monika."
"Its called fashion, papa." She replied casually.
"Well then, I must say, you are a couple of decades too far ahead. Or maybe even a few centuries into the future, for I have never seen anyone wear such rubbish. Or so much of it anyway, never in my life." Monika, Voldemort's Precious, was furious. How dare he mock her!
After that conversation all was quiet. Another half hour went by and Voldemort's tolerance was growing thin.
"Go find your dear sister and bring her to me! Now!"
"But that wont be easy, My Lord."
"Are you saying that you won't be able to carry out such a simple task, such as this?"
"No, papa! I am fully capable of doing this."
"Then go fetch her!"
"But, father, she is under the watch of Dumbledore!"
"And you are afraid of him? More afraid of him than you are of me?"
"No, papa! Its just she is under his influence, she won't come willingly!"
"Well then drag her out to me! It's not like you've never done so before!" With that Monika White disapperated from the room without another word, wearing a real dirty and irritated look on her face. Voldemort muttered something darkly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She screamed. It hurt ever more so. Alex cringed at the more intensified pain. Tears of agony and pain exploded in torrents, down her face. But then, suddenly, she could feel no more pain on her arm. Voldemort was up to something, Alex knew it. The pain was gone, but she didn't stop crying. It wasn't from the physical pain she felt before, but of the pain she felt emotionally.
She watched from the Owlery window. It was past midnight, she knew. All the owls were out hunting for the night. Not one single bird in the tower. Alex had been here many times in the Summer break after her Great Grandfather took her in from Monika and Voldemort. She was grateful for that. She was happy to have been away from the tortures of the Dark Lord. But being trapped in the castle with Dumbledore, the house elves and the ghosts got pretty boring after awhile. Alex wiped her tear stained face with the long sleeve of her night gown.
So when she didn't feel like socialising with the ghosts and house elves, she would come up here, with the owls. Alone and able to think things through.
There was a creak from the door. A head poked through. "Alex?" whispered the intruder. "Draco." Replied Alex. She knew that voice and its owner all too well. "Can I come in?" Draco took a step closer. "Why not?" Draco walked away from the door and strode up to the girl standing by the window. Alex turned to face Draco.
"Alex? Are you ok?" he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her blue eyes, holding her at arms length.
"Hermione knows" Alex said simply.
"The mudblood knows what?"
"That I bare the Dark Mark. And don't call her a mudblood."
"Why cant I?" he smirked. "Have you gone soft on the Gryfindors?"
"They are my friends'." She looked away. Draco dropped his hands to his side and looked out the window too.
The Forbidden Forest was quiet, thought Alex. The trees moving gracefully to the soft cool breeze. It was a full moon that night, enlightening the school grounds. The moonlight making the grass look silver instead of green. The Giant Squid lolling around in the Lake. The Lake's water was rippled here and there from the gentle breeze, otherwise calm and undisturbed. The school grounds were so peaceful and calm. So inviting. It was, as if she went down there, all her worries would go away instantly. She wished that she could just jump into the lake and let the water purify and cleanse her of the dirt and pain and suffering and permit her to start life all over again, fresh and able to say that she was innocent. But she would never be considered innocent if she forever wore the Dark Mark on her arm. It was like another piece of dirt and scum. It was horrid. Everyone thought she had beautiful flawless skin, what if they saw this? She was now forced to wear long sleeves forever. It was torture.
She so wished that she could apologise about the incident that occurred just before, a couple of hours ago. She wanted to go wake Harry up right now, and tell him everything. She so wished that she had someone other than her Great Grandfather to confide in, it would be so much better and more comfortable to talk to someone her own age. Someone who had no idea of most things just like her, so they could discover new things together. Draco knew. She could talk with him, like she was now. But he was in Slytherin, that wouldn't work so well. If she only had someone in Gryfindor to confide in, someone to be there at all the time, not just in classes and at meal times. Then maybe, just maybe, that person could make all the others understand her ways. But then all would know that she was with Voldemort, then they wouldn't even want to try understanding her! (AN: Is this making any sense? No? I didn't think so either.)
Alex sighed. Her life was so complicated. Tears began streaming down her cheeks again. Seeing this, Draco wrapped his arms around the girl, hoping to comfort her.
They didn't say anything to each other for a long time. Alex continued to stare at the lake, the Giant Squid had long since returned to its home to rest for the night. Moonbeams reflected on the surface of the calm water. And as if on cue, an owl fluttered onto the window sill of the only window in the owlery tower. It was the silvery-white owl of her sister Monika, Moonbeam.
A piece of parchment was tied Moonbeam's leg. He held it out. Alex hesitated then slowly outstretched her hand to untie the letter. BUT – Draco, who couldn't stand the silence and the pace everything was going, put out his hands quickly and took the letter from the owl. As soon as the owl was deprived of the message from none other than its owner, it took off. Leaving Alex starring after it absent-mindedly, until Draco tapped her on the shoulder and held out the note.
"What in the world does Monika want? She was never the one to keep in touch with me when we are apart" Alex mused aloud. After this thought, Alex began to unfold the parchment. She was just about to read it when, the door swung open abruptly.
It was Filch with Mrs Norris at his feet.
And Hermione.
"Looks like we have two more, students out of bed!" Filch said delightedly.
AN: WOW! That is the longest chapter I've ever written! 2,943 words, not including the title and my author notes! All my chapters usually consist of 'round 1,000 words or so, I think. So that was pretty long for me!
I am so sorry for being extremely late at updating. Its not because I was real lazy, or had things going on, or any of the usual excuses I and many others come up with. Its because my internet connection went down and I had to wait ages before they found out the problem. (My little sisters had fiddled around with all the settings on this computer and so that kinda disoriented some things.) But to make up for it, I had written a couple chapters to be uploaded at the same time so it could keep you all content.
NOW YOU GOTTA REVIEW!!!! Thanx for reading!
