The door to Draco's bedroom slammed open early in the following morning causing us both to panic and back up against the headboard with the sheets up high. I was in one of his expensive long sleeved shirts and he was completely shirtless. Narcissa walked in rapidly and her acuminous eyes shot to us with immediate judgment. "I thought I would find you in my son's quarters," she brusquely pointed out, dipping her eyes at me like lasers as though I was some kind of prostitute for being there. Up until that point, neither of his hostile parents had bothered to check if we were sleeping together and I shrunk against him, fearing the worst of punishments.
Draco stiffened, looking between me and his mother, defensively, "It's no shock to you exactly why we are getting married; you should probably accustom yourself to us sharing a room. What could possibly warrant this terrorist attack?" He ran a hand through his messy hair in aggravation.
Narcissa clasped her hands the way she always did when she was about to be stern. She walked to the edge of the bed with narrowed eyes and her chin held high, "I am here to collect Madeleine for what I have already explained is a dress fitting this morning. And what, pray tell, is this odd item around your neck?" Her fingers flew out rapidly to lift the glowing rock up with curiosity.
Draco looked up at his mother with low eyebrows and a deep scowl. She turned the rock over and her diamond eyes brightened much the way his did in it's ambiance, "How precious. A Moonstone, if my magical geography serves me correct. Worn for millennia by the Veela, isn't that right Madeleine?"
I swallowed nervously, wondering if she was taking note of it's darkening color absorbing his Death Eater energies. "Congratulations, you passed the class," he remarked rudely and pulled the chain to retract the stone into his hand protectively.
Her eyes flared dangerously at me for a split second before she backed away towards the door, "I'll be just outside Madeleine. Do not make me wait long."
When the door shut I flew out of the bed and threw his shirt off, then ran in my underwear to my bag. "You should make her wait - this is unbelievably insulting," Draco drawled from where he had lied back down with his hands on his face. I ignored him in my panic, and ripped on a black dress I knew she would appreciate. I brushed my hair out painfully quickly, then ran and brushed my teeth. I kissed him before I was out the door, wildly shrugging on my lavender coat.
She looked down at the color with repugnance, but I didn't exactly own a black coat at that point to please her with. She had drifted a few meters down the hallway, and she shocked me by floating towards me like a ghost and clamping her hand down on my forearm. She disapparated me without any warning and I stumbled against the dirty bricks of a back alley in Diagon.
"Come, Madeleine," she curtly instructed and I tried to stick close to her autocratic form in the insanely creepy corridor. Filthy people were scavenging around on the ground and leaning against the dark store fronts threateningly. One man in particular had large, rat like teeth and kept sniffing at the side of his clenched fist. I had the distinct sense that people had lost their lives in that alleyway, but Narcissa didn't seemed fazed at all. She gracefully wove her way around any suspicious characters with a derisive jeer that could turn water to ice.
She stopped at a more kempt storefront with huge glowing lanterns all within the window panes so that one could not see further past. I pushed my nose against the glass to peer inside with no luck. The store front read Madame Laguzzini in silver lettering. Narcissa stepped back out of the door and tugged me away from the glass with an aghast expression at my silly behavior.
Inside it was musty but generally clean. The lanterns were absolutely everywhere, all hung from the ceilings and walls at differing heights as though electricity were a still distant forethought. It was a massive bonfire waiting to erupt. The walls were all mirrors tilted at slight angles and bundles of dark, extravagant and highly valuable clothing were distributed around the room for sale. Due to the volume of illegal materials I quickly realized why it was located so deep into the forgotten bowls of Diagon.
Narcissa brought me to the desk at the farthest corner where a woman with hundreds of light purple dreads was commanding several magical sewing operations at once on various items. She had beautiful dark skin and rich amber eyes, and her nails were lethally pointed into several inch long claws. She was using them to slice fabric and float it around the room.
Narcissa greeted the very tall and mesmerizing woman with a brief, rare smile, " Laguzzini, my old friend. I have brought my son's fiancée, as discussed." She waved her hand in my direction elegantly and the intimidating woman smiled as her eyes bored holes straight through me. She leaned across the counter disturbingly slowly.
Her voice was deep and lush as she spoke, "My child, you are a little cloud clinging low to this earth. Look at the innocence pouring from you. You crave to fly freely, don't you?" It was sufficed to say, cryptic.
"I don' quite know what you mean," I replied sheepishly.
She nodded her head slowly with a wealthy laugh, "You will shortly. And on that topic, follow me." She smacked down the dragonshide that had been in her talons. A herd of severed hands came out of nowhere like meaty spiders and gathered it away, as though such mobile, detached limbs being sentient was perfectly average. I flinched away from the counter in terror.
She brought us deeper into the shop behind several hanging sheets of fabrics. In the back there was hung on a dress-form post the most magnificently black dress I had ever seen. My eyes widened in shock at how brilliant yet unexpected it was; I was never known to wear black gowns. It was the exact opposite of something I would have pictured for my wedding. I circled it in awe, careful not to trip on the long train. I was sure I'd seen it before somehow, something felt oddly familiar about the design.
It was a pouffy ball gown with black sparkles below the waist. Long tight sleeves would come down to my wrists, and the tight bust was made of snaking thorns that would die off around my neck.
"It's perfect," Narcissa smiled wickedly, interrupting my train of thought. "Madeleine, let's get you in it. We can have it form fitted today and brought back." She dropped a huge magenta sack - of what I could only imagine being gold - into Madame Laguzzini's hand.
I nervously undressed in front of the two despotic women knowing I had no choice in the matter of what I would wear. When I was in the dress Madame Laguzzini began shifting around me robotically as if on a circular track. She adjusted the sizes with her wand to be painfully tight everywhere, as though I needed to accentuate how thin my waist was anymore than it already was naturally. When she was done I felt like a woman in the Tudor period who was going to faint from the lack of oxygen.
"Voila!" She pronounced and stepped back. My eyes scanned downwards in curiosity, taking small breaths as I adjusted to the new range of motion being permitted by my diaphragm.
Narcissa waved her gloved hand, "Nothing short of excellence. What do you think Madeleine?"
I glanced cautiously up into the mirror before me. My golden eyes appeared huge and scared, and the girl before me was unfamiliar. I looked like a demonic, gorgeous princess. It was arguably one of the most incredible, save most foreign, styles of dresses I'd ever worn. I stepped off of the podium and ran my fingers over the glass with my mouth open. I would marry Draco in this dress; probably a dress he would love. I smiled faintly, and on that thought found space in my heart to accept his family's generosity and gothic style.
The mirror suddenly cracked violently where my finger had been touching it, splitting from the center in a jagged formation diagonally to the top right and bottom left corners. I jumped back in a loud shriek. Blood began pricking at the tip under my nail. I watched as a thick drop fell to the floor in a slow motion event and splattered just shy of the hem of the dress. A skull shape formed staring back at me, with a small, coiled river of blood running from the jaws.
The mirror let slip a few extra nasty, high pitched slices, drawing threateningly in on itself as if to implode. I stumbled back and Narcissa caught me in her arms with an insincere, coercive coo that only provided a shiver of fear down my spine, "Oh dear, these old mirrors are so temperamental." She cast a healing spell and my finger stopped bleeding. "Well, I think Madame, we will be leaving now. Once Madeleine is changed and the dress is packed."
I was still staring at the blood splat in dread as it slowly blurred together into a congealed blob of nothingness. Madame Laguzzini's eyes darted from the sight of impact to my face with a tell-tale, sickening grin. "I will prepare the dress for the sweet little girl. I think she will grow into it just fine." She held my gaze firmly as I fought to breath erratically in the archaic corset.
Back at the Manor Narcissa abandoned me within a heart beat and headed up the stairs with the dress box, and I paced around in the damp lobby thinking of what had occurred. The dress design and the blood shaped like a skull both had haunted me since leaving. I knew in the back of my mind that these were terrible signs that my nightmares about the wedding and future beyond might possibly come true, even if just partially or inexactly.
I decided I would go outside for a walk to process further in the chilly winter air. I had not made it halfway down the stone front porch when a thunderous crack exploded before me at the midpoint of the gravel pathway. I blinked in disbelief. A Death Eater had just landed there with a glinting, slate grey mask.
Another shocking blast and another, Death Eaters were swarming the pathway in their masks. The fourth that arrived had long platinum hair past his shoulders and wore a regal grey suit under his robes. Lucius Malfoy, presumably. They were, for whatever reason, having a meeting in front of the house and I had walked right into it in a lavender pea coat like a child at the adult table.
The sound of guttural, low pitched screaming bellowed in the sky above and I looked up as a massive skull formed in the blackening clouds above. I clamped my hand over my mouth and tried to back up into the foyer, but my body was rigid with paralyzation.
Another Death Eater landed just two feet shy of my boots and his hand shot backwards towards me protectively. I coughed on horribly toxic black fumes that were radiating from his apparition, and my mood suddenly slipped dangerously low into despair. "Leave, right now Madeleine," he demanded in an insidious tone, only turning his face slightly as he spoke and I recognized it as Draco from his bright blond hair.
I finally plucked up the nerves to fumble without grace backwards towards the doorway. My hand had just reached the handle when it opened, and the wretched woman from the woods surrounding Hogwarts appeared. Her face twisted in mock delight when she saw me trembling there, as if she hadn't already planned to trap me out on the porch. She must've apparated straight into the lobby to snag me in her trap.
"Whoops! Trying to run and hide little mousey?" She trilled in her signature, deranged melody with eyes wide as the moon. She guided me to a straight spine by a knife under my chin, "Ah, ah, slowly now. Wouldn't want to cut that pretty face so close to your wedding." She belted out a horrible wail of a laugh and her disgusting spit sprayed towards my face.
She spun me around and marched me past Draco who took one brave step to stop it but faltered, and I felt tears running out of the corners of my eyes as all of the masks honed in on my face. Her rancid breath was hot on my golden locks as she pushed me towards a man that had appeared in a gale of razor-sharp smoke. His physical reassembly from the apparition simulated grains of sand slowly formulating the very fabric of his being, as though through some form of travel that required departiculation.
His eyes were red as embers, glowing in his face where white skin stretched unnaturally tight over it. The horrific smile across his expression was far too deep, as though someone had tried to cut his skull in two with an axe that only made it halfway through. The inhuman blades of his teeth shone as he laughed at Bellatrix' presentation of my cowering form before him and I knew, without a doubt, that it was Voldemort. I'd seen him before in my nightmares.
Bellatrix ripped my long hair to the side and I cried out at the pain. "Greet the dark lord with respect! He is your master, you disgusting little rat!" She tossed me to the ground and I shook as I slowly brought my watering eyes up to his towering form. His bare toes were on the excruciating, snowy gravel before me, hardly covered by his long black robes. The unnaturally wide and sadistic grin that was evaluating me caused my vision to wane with the threat of fainting. I dug my fingers painfully into the gravel to prevent myself from falling over under the hateful glare of his red eyes.
"Lucius, please introduce me to your latest family member who brazenly just attempted to escape my visitation," he smoothly requested in a voice that meandered nauseatingly. It was evident as I shook below him in the snow that he intended to inflict suffering of some kind in response.
Lucius stepped forward and waved his gloved hand before his face to remove his mask, and I saw that his eyes were red and he was atypically gaunt. "My lord, the girl is but merely a means for bloodline security. She has never been determined as wise or effective in any other regard. She must have misunderstood your arrival." His blue eyes landed on me as though I were some mentally handicapped wart growing off of the side of their family.
The dark lord bent his back nearly in half to sniff at my hair. I could feel the hot breath from his nostrils which were only slits on his face. He took dramatic inhales, then stood laughing veraciously at his followers, "An invalid, you say?" One of his blackened, hooked fingers shot forward mercilessly and sliced my cheek harshly. I fell back on my hands from the brunt of it and watched as his long grey tongue emerged from the sharp teeth, licking clean my blood from his nail. Lucius grimaced at the disgusting act. "Issss that your final answer, Lucius?" he mocked in a slithery tone.
Lucius gaped awkwardly. His voice came out high pitched and pleading, "My lord, the girl has hardly been present in my vicinity."
The dark lord's neck cracked loudly - like a snapping branch - as he turned swiftly to look at Draco at an angle that would have otherwise rendered anyone else dead or at least quadriplegic. "Dracooo, would you agree with your father that your partner is a futile being?"
I looked back to Draco, choking on tears. He was simply standing there frozen behind the mask. Slowly he moved his hand up and brushed it away, and I could see his eyes burning with tears he was hardly containing. "She is more than capable, my lord," he answered thinly, his lips clearly struggled to separate for the words.
Voldemort turned back to me, moving in a way that mimicked a raptor in the dinosaur era that had just trapped its next victim. "I do hope you intend to extend invitations to your...splendid wedding," he breathed. He was speaking to Draco, but his beady eyes were locked on mine predatorily, analyzing me for dissection. I couldn't help but wonder what information he could have gathered from digesting my blood.
"Of course, my lord," I heard Draco say regretfully.
Bellatrix dug her hands into my hair and forced me to my feet with the blade once again at my neck. Some of the Death Eaters laughed ruthlessly at my agonized screams. She whispered in my ear, "Now, run along, little Veela, before I decide to gut you for fun." I took off past Draco at the entrance who hardly flinched with my passing, then up the stairs to his room to shove myself under his covers.