Twenty-Eight


Draco's POV


His breathing was heavy as the chaos settled down. He should have appearated, however, he could not help himself, all of Harry Potter's friends would be showing up soon, from the oh so very secret Order of the Phoenix. Just one shot, one good practice kill shot-

A crack sounded far away from him; immediately the Aurors and Order members ran to the spot, three more cracks echoed through the night and he could not place where they were coming from.

CRACK.

He was back at Lena's Manor.

Everyone was laughing at the joy the celebrating had brought them. He heard his father discussing with Goyle something about the looks on their faces. Lena was the only one not smirking. Her glaring was surprisingly cute, he decided. The two stood away from the crowd as everyone else filed inside to the awaiting feast.

She turned briskly and tried to rush away from him. He grabbed her arm.

The evening had quieted down, now that everyone was making their way into the house.

"Let go of me, Draco," she spat.

Why is she so angry? What the fuck is wrong with girls?

"No." He couldn't help but smirk. He loved to be in this position of power over her. She was so defiant, so fiery, yet so puny and weak. Her eyes flared up in anger as he refused.

She tried to get away but he was so much physically stronger than her, he barely even tried and she jerked at her arm repeatedly with all of her strength before giving up. He grabbed the other one and locked them against the side of her house.

"Don't make me say it again, Draco," she whispered threateningly.

Bringing his lips to her ears, he said in the softest, most threatening whisper, "I can't wait until you're all mine." He kissed her neck softly.

"Ugh!" Lena shouted with disgust and he released her. She left him outside alone. He looked up at the starry sky in thought.

Why doesn't she want me as badly as I want her?


Lena looked stunning and Draco did his best to keep his eyes off of her as she gracefully glided down the stairs like some kind of Princess. She wore an elegant white and gold ball gown, and she was surely the star of the gala, the rest of the party guests looked at her in awe, the women with jealously at her youth and beauty. Her light blonde hair was curled and toppled into a bun at the back of her head, and her green eyes were smoldering under the bright crystal chandelier.

Parkinson neared him, he felt her moving through the crowd to get to him. He had been ignoring her, but she couldn't take the hint. Seconds later, she was next to him.

Lena reached the bottom of the stairs with one more step and turned her direction away from Draco as she saw Pansy. She instead went to a family he had never met before, with some prat from Durmstrung eyeballing Lena next to his parents.

Draco clenched his fists in fury, but Pansy touched his shoulder. He shrugged away from her hand and turned to bite her out.

"Would you like to dance?"

She looks pathetic, he had to admit. She was wearing a boring green dress which clung tightly to her imperfect body. He smirked at the thought and gave the girl a pity dance as he took her outstretched hand.

He turned to Lena's direction to make sure she hadn't seen him. She was talking to the boy from Durmstrang alone now. Draco was smarter than to think it was just friendly conversation. He turned back to Pansy, whose eyes were gleaming with pure joy as she looked at him.

She brought a hand to him face and pushed the blonde strands out of his eyes. He flinched at her gentle touch. "Pansy, I -"

"I love you too!" she shouted too loudly, having the nerve to try and kiss him passionately in front of all those people. He couldn't help but notice her quick glance behind him as he tore away from Pansy.

Lena. He knew without looking.

He stood in shock, trying to pull Pansy's prying grip off of him, but he felt so weak and defeated as he turned and saw Lena's jealous rage fuming from her eyes as she stood calmly and dangerously still, her arms crossing each other and entwining below her breasts.

Pansy still held his hand from the dance, and he tried to pull away.

"Budge off, Pansy," he muttered at her. She didn't let him go.

"Draco, please..." she said back in her snide voice. It was hideously deep.

"Don't you get it, Pansy? I don't want this between us. Ever."

He wished he had said it louder, but it wouldn't have mattered, because Lena and Durmstrang boy had disappeared. Draco ripped his arm from Pansy, who was trying to comfort him in his rage. She backed off in fear as he glared at her.

He wished that he could hit her for what she was doing to his life. Sure, they had snogged, and had sex, but it was just sex. Lena would make love to him.

He hurried off to find Lena, leaving Pansy still and abandoned in the middle of the ballroom. He was sure some kind boy would ask her to dance though, she wasn't bad-looking. He would stand her pity for the night, not Draco. There were probably a hundred people here tonight.

He immediately went through the dining area and out the back door, seeing the gigantic span of lakeside and a white gazebo towards the water. Two shadowy figures giggled and laughed, echoing off the trees and sounding through the night. He began to storm towards them, getting closer and closer, seeing the clothes flying off of their bodies as he laid her down on the bench and began to take her.

Draco wanted to scream with rage, he ran faster towards them, more pissed off than he had ever been in his life.

"Get the hell off of her, you filth!" He shouted as he neared, and the two figures scrambled for their clothes breathlessly. As he approached, he stopped still.

"What the 'ell is your problem, mate?" Some guy yelled. He looked immediately to the woman.

Who had brown hair.

He stopped dead still and made a quick U-turn heading quickly back to the manor, without looking back to the shocked faces, praying with all his might that he was masked by the silhouette of the lights streaming down from the house; Draco quickly drew his hood over his head. He entered and continued to look for Lena. He knew that she would not dare take the boy to her room. But where would they go?

His cheeks still burned red from embarrassment, hoping that the two from outside hadn't recognized him.

Draco had searched the merely half of the first floor before giving up. The manor was far too big to be completely searched. It had four stories.

"Ahhh!" Draco exclaimed to himself in frustration as he looked into another empty closet staring back at him. He slammed the door shut.

"Draco, baby, what's wrong?"

He knew it was Pansy before he spun around to look her in the face.

"Don't call me that. I'm not your baby. You're ugly, Pansy, inside and out. Not only will I never want to be with you in a relationship, any chance of friendship that we could have had, you just made disappear. Maybe at the beginning of it all, I might of liked you, but the truth now is that I was using you, and you're old news." His voice was stone cold.

He didn't expect for her to slap his across the face.

Hard.

Draco moved his hand up to his cheek in shock.

What the fuck is wrong with GIRLS?

She didn't begin to bawl until she turned around and ran out of the room.

Shrugging, Draco immediately congratulated himself on the success with such little consequence, and went the dining room, where everyone was sitting around the table except for a few slackers like himself. Pansy's seat was empty.

Thank God it's assigned seating, he told himself, relieved.

Lena was in the seat on his right, and his father in the seat on his left. He casually slid into his chair.

The Dark Lord stood and raised his glass. Silence erupted among the chaos.

"Certainly, a celebration to be remembered."

Everyone drank, and the feast appeared in front of them.

Draco watched as Lena grabbed an unhealthy amount of food for her skinny frame. He'd have to teach her to be more polite about it later.

"I'm glad it's the holidays," he said simply to her, trying to make conversation.

She didn't answer; she didn't even turn her head in recognition.

"Don't piss me off, Lena," he whispered at her, so that nobody could hear above the chatter.

"Draco, stop. Please? I'm glad it's the holidays too."

"Well, why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you, Draco, stop treating me like I'm your girlfriend. I'm not!" She said that too loudly with the quiet dinner conversations occuring. The entire section of the table quieted to look at a frustrated Lena. Draco felt her embarrassment, wishing that he could take it for her, but he couldn't think of any way that would be possible.

Lena fidgeted with her ear for a second, clearly extremely angry with herself.

Lena excused herself before dessert, musing that she felt dreadfully sick.

"Do you think it was the food? I swear if those house elves-" Her mother began saying as Lena interrupted.

"No. Absolutely not."

Lena rushed out of the room before another word could be spoken on the matter.


Lena's POV


Days were flying by. She had gone shopping with a few people and Draco in Berlin, showing them around her home city.

However, before she knew it, she was awaking with a horrible hangover on the thirty-first of December. Lena's back went rigid in her bed as she realized this, before she had even opened her eyes.

She drank an entire glass of water and took several potions to help her hangover. She heard Draco exiting his room through the walls.

She glanced at her watch.

2:08

Holy shit, I slept in!

Lena jumped out of bed, assuming that Draco had done the same thing, and threw her robes. She whisked her cloak around her and fastened the gold "Y" at her neck. She heard a knock at her door. She cooed the person in.

"Rosalena?" her mother whispered, figuring that the girl would still be sleeping.

"Lena." She corrected. It had been so long since someone had said her first name. Her mother and father even rarely used it. She doubted that many people even knew her real name, except for maybe Draco, who had been hexed the several times he had tried to tease her with it in the past.

"Lena," her mother agreed and continued, "Your second task is tonight. I cannot stress the importance that you don't lose your head."

Lose my head? "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Visual impressions are often misinterpreted." Her mother was intensely serious.

Lena nodded in understanding and her mother looked as though an anvil had been lifted from her shoulders. She leaned forward and kissed Lena on the forehead. "I know you will make the right decision. I love you."

"Love you too," Lena replied gracelessly back. Her mother and father rarely had expressed their love throughout her childhood. She could probably count the times that they'd said I love you on her fingers and toes.

Her mother left the room, leaving Lena once again in the dawning silence. Lena realized that her mother and father already knew what her task was. Some kids might think less of their parents for it, if they were to hide something that could help you, in order for you to succeed on your own. Lena was used to it. She had been looking out for herself for a long time. A voice in her head told her that if she did fail, her parents wouldn't cry at her funeral when the Dark Lord killed her. They would know that she deserved it, and that she had failed at what she had to do. And they would be so disappointed that their image would be ruined at having such a failure for a daughter. All of it felt so true, it pained her heart.

Lena pushed all of the terrible thoughts from her head.

She glanced in the mirror and magically did her makeup and hair, looking absolutely perfect before she exited the room, heading straight to the kitchen for some bread to settle her stomach.

"Mistress Lena, somethings to eats?"

It was that dreaded little thing, Wynnie.

"Bread," she snapped. It appeared two seconds later. Lena wanted to joke with it about how long it had taken, however, changed her mind immediately when she knew the elf would take her the wrong way, the frightened way.

As it should.

Taking small bites, Lena went to find where all the social interaction was going on. She wanted to talk to the Durmstrang boy again.

She found him in a side hall, with the rest of the people staying at her house.

"Lena, you're awake," Draco sneered, but Lena pushed past him with a smirk, heading to the other boy, with dark hair. Nikolai, he had told her through his thick accent the night before. He smiled widely as she approached. She caught Draco's envy from the corner of her eye, and for some reason felt pleased with herself. Ridiculously happy.

"Lena," he greeted her, nodding and kissing her hand.

"Nikolai," she smiled warmly, "did you sleep well?"

"Not as well as you," he joked.

Lena laughed, but felt herself blushing.

"It's cute," he paused, "when you do that, I mean."

Lena's blush only deepened a few shades.

She felt a familiar hand at the small of her back. "How rude of you, Lena, you must introduce me to your new friend here."

"Draco," she hissed through clenched teeth. She regained her normal, soft voice. "This is Nikolai. Nikolai, this is Draco, you know, the one that caused that obnoxious scene last night in the ballroom."

They shook hands and she could tell that Draco was squishing the boy's hand, and both of their hands began to turn dark pink and white from the pressure of the fight over who was stronger.

She couldn't tell who won, but they released the grip. Draco held a menacing glare in his eyes, not taking his eyes from the boy.

The awkwardness disappeared as they took their assigned seating at the table, where dinner was being served. She knew that it was being served late because of her. Normally it was served at two o'clock sharp.

The group at the table was slightly smaller than last night, and a middle piece of the table had been removed and hidden, so that there were no empty seats.


Lena tried to enjoy the day, but her mind was stressed and completely occupied with preparing herself for the task that night, that she found herself lying in her room on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She tossed a small super ball up and down, trying to get as close to the ceiling as she could without actually hitting it.

"Visual impressions are often misinterpreted." Her mother's voice rang clearly through her head. She knew that she could not solve the riddle of her task with that mere clue; she would have to actually see what the task was for herself. Would that be too late? she wondered to herself.

Nobody disturbed her, she watched the sunset through her open window, and as the night fell to the darkness, she finally moved from her indent on the bed.

She exited the room and went to the front door. Nobody was waiting for her, and the house was completely silent. Everyone had already gone.

Lena exhaled deeply, walking outside of the hexes, charms and wards that guarded her house. Drawing her hood up over her head, she appearated into a forest in a rural part of Germany. Nobody lived around for at least fifty miles in every direction, which was why the Dark Lord had proclaimed that this was the best spot, so well hidden.

She looked past the fire that was in the middle of the cloaked Death Eaters. Two dark figures stood out of place, with black bags over their heads. She immediately assumed that her task was to kill both of them without wincing.

Easy.

She suddenly realized that this did not match up with what her mother had said. Lena headed toward the robbed figures curiously. The Dark Lord approached to his place in front of them.

Lena glanced around, and saw Nikolai smirking at her from beneath his hood.

Do all guys do that?

She ignored her own question, and listened to the Dark Lord, who opened his mouth to speak.

"The choices a Death Eater must make are crucial, and must be done without a thought." Everyone in the circle was nodding and agreeing. The two figures stood still, and did not speak. "Instinct almost matters more here than intelligence. Choose."

He ripped the two bags off of the heads.

Her mind was racing, she was thinking faster than she ever had in her life, but there was no thoughts, just images, faces.

Draco...

Or Blaise.

Lena stood in dumbfounded shock for only a second after seeing them, and giving him a glance of pity-