I took extra care in getting ready the evening of the Christmas party. Maybe it was to calm my nerves, to try and prove I was trying to be a good Mrs Malfoy, or because I knew this would be the last thing Abraxas thought of me for a while.
Abraxas didn't love me. I knew that. No harm no foul. I wasn't hurting him. We are friends, so I'm doing him a favour by doing this.
I groomed myself meticulously, setting my hair glossy, loose curls and donning an appropriately festive gown of a deep red.
Abraxas came to meet me in the tower, I left the common room with Lizzie and Ignatius who were attending together, Casper had already gone to meet with Charis at her common room.
"You are flawless, dear," Abraxas said, holding me at arm's length and regarding me with a critical eye. "Just perfect, as always."
I smiled at his complement and took his arm gracefully.
We strolled down to the dungeons and I took deep breaths to calm me on the walk down. I couldn't lose my rag before Abraxas had even done anything.
I made eye contact with Elena as we entered, she gave me a small smile. She looked like a goddess, as usual, her golden hair shimmering under the candlelight. The drinks were flowing more readily, despite the early hour. It seems Tom was more lenient about drinking in front of the younger years than Cassie was, though he never allowed them even a sip.
When the time came, he stood, not saying a word. The music immediately stopped.
"Bed time," was all he needed to say, and the youngsters scuttled to the dormitories.
I danced with Abraxas, until custom dictated I must dance with someone else.
It wasn't until I was in Tom's arms, under his questioning gaze that Elena and Abraxas came together on the floor.
"You're all dressed up tonight," Tom commented, careful not to compliment me.
"I wasn't looking my best when this engagement started, I might as well bow out beautifully," I murmured. "I'm hardly being fucking graceful," I added petulantly.
Tom said nothing, but continued to survey me darkly. I averted my gaze to Elena, she caught my eye and nodded.
I took a deep breath and angled my hand towards Abraxas.
"Imperio," I murmured, eyes intent on him.
I watched as Abraxas' eyes visibly glazed over, and his head bent to Elena's. I averted my gaze, breaking the spell, though I noticed that Abraxas did not stop kissing Elena for quite a few seconds after I had released my hold on him.
Immediately it had the desired effect. Those dancing next to them stopped, even the music petered out. The silence was deafening, Tom's arms dropped from me.
Finally they broke apart, immediately Abraxas' eyes filled with horror and he searched for me within the crowd.
I took a deep breath and smiled uncomfortably under the gaze of everyone in the room.
I put on my most flawless smile- one that was obviously pained.
"If you will excuse me," I declared softly to the audience, eyes starting to shine with unshed tears.
They hung onto my every word.
"I am suddenly feeling very tired. I am going to bed."
"Poppy," Abraxas tried to say, but immediately Lizzie was at my elbow, her brow furrowed with concern. She shot a dark look at Abraxas, but I pulled her on, shaking my head minutely, as if begging them not to make a further scene.
I swept from the room, head held high and back straight, holding together the pieces of my shattered dignity.
As soon as the portrait hole closed behind me, Lizzie's arm was around my shoulder.
"Sweetie," she breathed, cradling me in her arms. "I'm sorry." I nodded, not letting my fake tears fall.
"Can we please just leave," I begged her, she clutched my hand and nodded. The portrait hole swung open behind us. Cedrella looked stricken.
Immediately her arms were around me too.
We made it back to the Ravenclaw dormitory, Hazel was just going to bed when we arrived back. She pulled on her dressing gown and joined the three of us on Lizzie's bed to discuss the evening.
Hours later, we were still up talking. Cedrella had run down to the kitchens, and I had lent her a nightgown to spend the night in Ravenclaw tower.
There was a timid knock at the door.
Elena poked her head around the door nervously.
"Poppy can I talk to you?" she said softly, her own eyes shining. I nodded, but did not move. She approached the bed, wringing her manicured hands together.
"I'm so sorry Poppy," she murmured, eyes on the floor. "I can't imagine how you must be feeling… but you have to believe me, I didn't… I didn't start it or anything. I promise."
I regarded her for a moment, my face impassive.
"I know you wouldn't do that," I replied eventually, opening my arms to her. She smiled and sank into my embrace.
In the end we all slept in the dormitory, as we finally extinguished the lights, I caught Elena's eye, and the corners of her lips quirked for just a moment. I winked.
The girls did not leave my side the next morning, when Abraxas approached him they told him with polite words but acidic tongues that he could have nothing to say to me.
But I lifted a hand to stop them.
"If my fiancé requests a private talk I cannot deny him," I said, my voice oddly hollow. Dutifully I followed him from the hall, noting the whispers of conversation, and resisting the urge to smirk at the unrest I caused.
We stepped out into a deserted corridor off the entrance hall.
"Poppy, I'm so sorry," he said, voice almost grovelling. "I don't know what came over me."
"I understand Abraxas," I said, my voice cool.
"I have disrespected you," he said, jaw set. "I have owled my father, I will terminate our engagement on your word. I know I have stripped you of your dignity. It would not be right to make you marry me now, after I have dishonoured you in such a way."
"I think that would be best, Abraxas," I replied, not meeting his eyes. He nodded, averting
I nodded stiffly. his gaze.
"Of course," he murmured. "Of course. Just know I am very sorry, and I… I… I cannot make it up to you. But-" For a moment my almost non-existent conscience got the better of me. Abraxas had always meant well, none of this was his fault, and I could not stand to see one who was always so well presented, squirming so. I laid a soft hand on his.
"We can still be friends Brax," I said. "I know you did not mean to, you were drunk and Elena is… well she is hardly human is she." I flashed a wry smile. "But you understand how our engagement is tainted now. It is not respectable."
He nodded.
Tom caught me as I made to join my family in the carriages on the way home for Christmas.
"Is it done?" he murmured. I nodded.
"How?" he said, locking eyes with me, so there could be no confusion at what he was meaning. Still I feigned ignorance.
"What do you mean?" I asked in a whisper. He leaned in so his lips brushed across the sensitive skin of my ear, sending shivers down my spine.
"Wandless magic," he breathed. "And a spell like that, no less."
Shit, he saw.
"Practice," I replied. Over his shoulder I could see we had an audience, I nodded discreetly in that direction.
"I will see you in the new term, Lady Poppy," he said loudly, bowing low over my hand, placing his cool lips to it.
"Mr Riddle," I replied, giving him a shallow curtsey. I turned to leave, but as I did, he leaned forwards.
"Do you remember what I said about destiny, Poppy?" he murmured, his voice low.
"How could I forget," I whispered, my dark eyes trained on his. I bumped our jaws together softly in a faux kiss, so passers-by might be more inclined to believe we were exchanging an informal adieu rather than scheming.
He smiled, as if we had a secret, which I suppose we did. Despite myself I grinned too, and I hadn't quite managed to wipe it off my face, as I turned to my family.
"I know you are upset, Poppy," Dorea said; her words obviously carefully measured. I joined her and Cedrella and she caught my arm and rested it in the crook of her elbow to guide me down to the door. "I would tread carefully." Her eyes did not leave Tom.
I did not reply, nor offer any indication I had even heard her warning.
The old ministry was now practically the palace it claimed to be, and all the family had congregated there for Christmas. Thankfully people were giving me space to grieve my ended engagement- well everyone but Cassie who seemed to think it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Sirius was trying to marry her off too, but she had somehow persuaded Arcturus and Pollux to back her up, that she was far too busy with work to worry about getting married at the moment.
I spent the week leading to Christmas mostly in my room. I hated it, I wanted to be back at the manor. This place was cold and unfamiliar. It was definitely not where I had envisaged to be spending Christmas, but Arcturus had insisted at the last moment that he could not leave the palace for Yule.
We the premier family in the nation, the blood of the high warlock, but it was insufficient for Arcturus.
First were the robes. Two dozen of the most formal attire were sent up to my room within minutes of my arrival. The same had happened to each of my cousins.
The next morning, I was awoken by an elf in a bowtie and porkpie hat with a pot of tea and a schedule written in deep purple in ink on embossed parchment.
9 o'clock Breakfast in the dining hall.
10 o'clock A tour along the Thames on horseback
1 o'clock Luncheon with French dignitaries, including the French minister of magic
4 o'clock High tea in Mayfair with the Ladies Cedrella and Walburga of House Black, and the Lady Callidora of House Longbottom
7 o'clock Dinner in the dining hall
I knew as soon as I saw that schedule on the first day that Arcturus was not content with being the high warlock, and us his aristocratic family.
He wanted us to be royalty, and was styling himself as a king.
My eyes were trained on Orion constantly, did Arcturus fancy him a prince?
Christmas eve and everyone was gathered around a delicious dinner, my grandfather had brought in the elves from home.
Afterwards everyone had taken to the red wine. Orion and I were arguing about international Quidditch, when suddenly he turned on me.
"I would have had a chance with Elena," he spat, wine splashing from his goblet and onto his shirt. "If only you could keep your fucking fiancé." My mouth dropped opened at this sudden malicious accusation.
"Pardon?" I asked, dumbfounded. The table had gone quiet around us.
"I said," he declared, raising his voice. "If you had been better able to fucking satisfy your fucking fiancée, oh, or was it that you were whoring around and he couldn't take-" he was cut off from his sentence.
My hand lashed out, but it was less of a ladylike slap. More of the most forceful punch I had ever landed, right in the eye. He grunted in pain and clutched his face.
"How dare you," Arcturus declared from the head of the table, standing in his chair. "How dare you strike my son?"
"How dare your son speak to my daughter in such a manner," Lycoris demanded, also rising from his chair. "Was it you who raised him to speak with such a foul mouth to ladies?" he questioned.
"Was it you who taught your daughter to be such a violent little-"
"Enough!" My grandfather declared, banging his goblet on the table with force at the foot of the table. Arcturus made to speak.
"I might not be ruler of this country," he interrupted. "But I am Lord of this House, and this is a family matter. You will hold your tongue." He turned to me and Orion.
"Orion, you will apologize to your cousin this instant for such foul language and slander over her character," he ordered. Orion smirked into his cup and shook his head defiantly.
Lord Sirius looked like a volcano about to erupt.
"My lord, with your permission I will be excused," I said, sliding my chair back from the table. He took a look at the tears in my eyes and nodded, with a long suffering sigh.
Without a look at anyone I swept from the dining chamber.
As I climbed the stairs two at a time I couldn't believe Orion would say something like that, however intoxicated. I opened the door to my chambers with a little too much force, pulling my wand from my sleeve.
In moments all my belongings were soaring back into my trunk. I pulled out a thick, dark cloak and pulled it over my dinner gown.
I added a feather-weight charm to my trunk and piled the owl's cage and cat box on top.
Without hesitating I pulled it behind me, awkwardly negotiating it down the stairs.
Suddenly it lifted slightly from the floor.
"All worked up are we?" came a question. "It is unlike you to struggle without magic." I shot a dark look at my father.
"Where exactly is it you are going?" he questioned, his voice smooth and conversational.
"Home," I replied.
"I'm not too sure where you're referring to darling," he replied, his ice blue gaze regarding me critically. "My house, your grandfather's, Hogwarts perhaps?"
"Third time lucky," I replied, pulling out my wand and levitating the trunk myself as we walked down the stairs together. "I can't stay here. I refuse."
"Poppy," he said with a sigh. "I know what it is like to be the white sheep of the Black family." I did not smile at his pun. "It is Christmas day tomorrow, you will not make any friends by walking out now."
"I don't want friends, especially not from people who make such a family as that," I defended. "I'm going, tell Grandpa I'm sorry, but I refuse to have my dignity called into question by the likes of Orion at this difficult time for me."
"Are you going to apparate?" he asked in a whisper, focussing his gaze on my jewellery pointedly, and I knew he was resigned, but also did not want me getting mugged. I nodded.
"I shall tell him now," he replied, before leaning forward and resting one heavily ringed hand on my hair. "Be safe darling," he told me, before placing a kiss on the top of my head.
I nodded.
"Yes father."
The Hogwarts kitchens were warm and bustling on the night before Christmas.
"What are you doing here?"
I looked up from mug of hot chocolate I was staring into.
Tom.
I shrugged, giving him a small, wry smile.
"What can I say, I just missed your smiling face," I replied sarcastically. But he knew something was wrong, he strode over to me, elves dodging his wake. He lifted my chin, to meet his eyes with two long fingers.
"What's the matter," he asked, though it was more of an instruction, I knew he wasn't going to allow me to shrug off the question.
"Orion called me a whore at supper this evening," I replied bitterly. "Said that I should have kept Brax interested. I punched him." Tom raised his eyebrows. "In the eye."
A smirk spread across his face.
"So I had to leave, I couldn't stay in that god forsaken place. Just because they have renamed it the palace doesn't make it any less of a bureaucrat's rat hole. It made feel ill just being there. So I'm here for Christmas I guess."
"How did you get here?" he asked.
"Knight Bus," I replied casually.
"Come on," he said, taking my hand in his. I nodded and let him lead me to the dungeons.
He had a better room this year, it could have been Cassie's. But Slytherin was such a rabbit warren I couldn't be sure.
Tom took my cloak and hung it on the door for me, and poured a glass of wine.
"I never told you," he said sometime later. "How impressed I was." I raised my eyebrows. "How you dealt with Abraxas," he confirmed. "I didn't think you'd come up with something so cunning."
"Cunning," I repeated derisively, taking a deep swig of wine. "And that is why there is infighting in the Black family."
"Their opinions are insignificant," he said, tone blasé.
"In case you hadn't notice Tom, the Black family rule the country."
The look in Tom's eyes told me he wasn't a hundred per cent happy with that.
He now knew that any mistreatment of anyone with the surname Black could land him Azkaban.
If only Arcturus had taken over years ago, that would have saved Cedrella her torment.
Before, the Black family influence lay only within high society. People with something to lose.
Tom didn't have anything the Black family could strip him of, not money, nor power.
"I was lying to make you feel better," he stated. A smile crept onto my face.
"Well thank you," I replied, looking up at him through my eye lashes.
"Pleasure," he said over the brim of his glass.
Our gazes locked.
"Tom, what do you want from me?" I asked. He frowned in incomprehension.
"In what manner are you meaning?" he asked.
I watched him for a moment.
"It doesn't matter," I said eventually, shaking my head slightly and lifting my glass. "I must have had too much."