The Dark Mark

AN: In this chapter, I keep some elements of canon and we know a little more about Ebony's past. And one more thing that I want to clear up about the last chapter, I am following the original My Immortal and making Snape a villain. As I have said in the opinion section of my profile, I don't like him.

I woke up early the next morning, despite going to sleep late. I'm awesome that way. Just kidding. I woke up at 6 but couldn't go to sleep. So, I decided to read the book 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen that Willow said that I should read. I picked up the book and started to read.

"Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife..."

I was invested in the book till the others woke up. I couldn't help myself, it was so interesting. I liked the character of Elizabeth Bennet. She was just like I wanted to be. I was just at Chapter 6 when Willow woke up.

"My, my," she said as her drowsy eyes grew clearer and full of mischief upon seeing me reading the book. "Ebony Way is reading. Call the police! It's the end of the world!"

"Put a cork on it, Willow," I grumbled. I can read too, you know.

"Never," declared Willow and leapt off her bed. "Hul-lo, Hogwarts! It's Breaking News! Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is reading!"

"This means war," I said, as I put the book down carefully and got out of the bed. Then, I leapt on Willow, and faster than any human being, began to tickle her. Willow shrieked with laughter and tried to fight back. She grabbed a convenient pillow and swung it at me.

"Oof," I exclaimed as the pillow made impact with my stomach. All the breath in me had been knocked out. I ran towards my bed, grabbed a good, strong pillow and swung it at Willow who raised her pillow to defend against my strike. Our laughter rang out in the dorm which woke Mary up. She woke up to feathers and cotton flying and shrieks of laughter.

"My goodness," she said, her curly hair having more volume than ever before. It was fascinating, how it curled all 'round her head. "What is happening?"

The Great Hall was crowded. The noise was almost unbearable to my sensitive ears. "Can't they keep it down?" I hissed to Willow.

She nodded sympathetically. "I know," she whispered.

I made my way to the Slytherin table and took a seat next to Raven Lovegood, formerly Luna Lovegood. Maybe it is time for some bacon and eggs. But the eggs have salt. Okay, cereal it is.

I poured the cereal(Corn Flakes) and then the milk. I recommend that. It is the best way to determine the amount of how much cereal you want to eat. I had just taken a bite when I was interrupted. I guess it was now a trend.

"Pssst! Ebony!" I turned my deadly(it is deadly, Willow) glare in the direction of the offender and saw an unimpressed Mary standing behind me.

"Mary," I exclaimed and requested her to sit next to me. She accepted and plopped down in the empty seat.

"I'm sorry," she told me. "I should not have ratted you and Draco out."

"It's okay, Mary," I assured her. "But why did you do it?"

Mary sniffed. "I was worried about you two."

"Worried?" I exclaimed. "Why, Mary Smith?"

"The Forbidden Forest's dangerous," said the muggle-born. "You could have been hurt."

I...she...I was speechless. Never did I think that bossy, smart B'loody Mary Smith, formerly Hermione Granger would be so sensitive and emotional. I hugged her tightly, not caring what the rest of the students would think.

Our first class was Charms. Like all Charms classes, it was noisy and you could talk to your next-seat-neighbor and nobody would say a thing. We were practicing protective charms today: Protego,Protego Totalum, Salvia Hexia, the Muggle-Repelling Charm,etc. Flitwick told us that they'll help us out during the war. I don't know about that, but they were hard. Only Mary was able to perform them all, and the rest of us were told to practice them as homework.

The next class was Transfiguration, with McGonagall, head of- you know what? There's no use boring you with the details of all my classes. I'll just skip to the really relevant stuff.

Lunch, as usual, was a noisy affair. Vampire, God bless him, cast a new charm known as the Muffliato charm on the students around us. It muffled their voices and made it a bit quieter. We chatted about anything and everything, from spells to the war to outrageous theories like 'Snape's a vampire'. It was nice, and like I said, it's important to cherish the small things in life.

After lunch however, we had potions, and I was not looking forward to it. So, I halfheartedly got up and started to make my way to the Potions classroom. But, I was interrupted(again) by Draco. God, even looking at him made me feel like I was flying.

"Hi Ebony!" he greeted me.

"Hey!" I said and smiled at him.

He leant closer to me and whispered to me, "Meet me in the Slytherin Common Room."

"What, now?" Did he forget we had potions?

"I have a surprise for you," he said, leaning closer. I blushed and stammered out something like 'We have class' or 'Snape's going to kill us'. But, he was already gone.

I ducked into a hidden corner and sighed. I guess there was nothing else to do.

Draco was the only person in the common room. He was sitting on an armchair by the fire, his legs crossed, arms on the hand-rest. He was staring at the fire. When I neared him, he got up and turned to embrace me.

"So you came," he said.

"Uh-huh," I said, my voice muffled by his chest. We separated. "So, surprise?"

Draco smiled, and took my hand. "It's up in my dorm," he said. "You'll be able to go up there."

"Okay," I said. It probably wasn't the intelligent thing to do, and if Mary saw me, she'd lecture me. Well, she was one to speak, with how many times she went up to the boys' dorm when she was Hermione.

The boy's dorm was much like the girls' dorm in structure, the same four-poster beds for example, but it was more untidy. Dirty clothes, candy wrappers and quidditch magazines were strewn throughout the room. Draco made his way to his bed, after applying locking and silencing charms to the door. He plopped down on it and gestured to me to sit. I sat down next to him.

"Well," I said awkwardly, after what felt a long time. The silence was stifling and I was willing to do anything to break it. "How are you dealing with being a vampire?" I immediately wanted to hit myself. How tactless was I?

The corners of Draco's mouth turned up and I felt relieved. "Good," he said. "Better than I expected it to be."

"Nice to...um...know that," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Why was I so bad at conversation around him?

Draco chuckled and I smiled at the sound of his merry laugh. "You're adorable," he teased, shoving me with his shoulder.

I reddened. I was not adorable. I'm a vampire. I'm supposed to be scary. I told him so. But the ass just chuckled again and gave me a bear-hug. "You're adorable, Eb," he told me as we parted. "You might as well admit it."

The nickname was nice, I guess. Later, when I asked him why he gave me that nickname in particular, he told me that it was because Ebony was too long, and that he needed a special name for me. So, hypothetically, I can call him Dragon?

We sat there for some time. My mind drifted to our Potions class. Snape must be pretty angry.

"Have you ever dated someone before?" Draco asked me, suddenly. I turned to look at him.

"That's an odd question," I said.

"It is," he agreed.

My mind went back to summer days, before things became complicated, time spent in Romania with my then best-friend, Adrian, whom I affectionately called Ian. We liked each other, I guess. "No I didn't," I lied to Draco.

A gurgling stream winding through the wilderness as two four year old kids- a boy and a girl clamber down from rocks. The boy had dark hair and eyes and the girl had black hair tied into two little braids with green ribbons at the end. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement as she followed the boy. The boy jumped off the last rock to the earth and brushed his hands. "Well Tia," he said. "Here we are."

The girl jumped down next to him and rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like it's paradise, Ian," she said.

"That's because it is, dragă mea," he said.

The girl swatted his arm. "I'm not ta dragă," she said in a long-suffering voice.

One could see that this was a regular occurrence between the two. Ian pulled of his shoes and dipped his right foot into the water. "It's cool," he declared and sat down on the bank and dipped his second foot in too. Tia soon joined him.

They sat there for some time. Then, Ian broke the silence by saying, "Tia, we'll be friends forever, right?"

"Till the day we die," swore Tia.

"You're beautiful, like the stars," said an older Ian, probably six years old.

"Thanks prieten," said an older Tia.

"Is it a bad time to say that I hate the stars?" pondered Ian and ran off laughing.

A burning house and a seven years old Ian. He's dressed in pyjamas with a coat on top of it. He's yelling. "Tia!"

People in dark masks and an unkempt man with sharp claws, fur and sharp teeth appeared. "Oh, who's this?" the man growled.

"Who are you?" asked Ian bravely. "And where's Tia?"

"You don't need to worry about it, kid," said one of the men in black masks.

"I do!" exclaimed Ian.

"He's getting in the way, Antonin," complained another man. "Can't we just kill him?"

The first man in the black mask who had spoken glared at the boy. "You can, Thorfin."

A flash of green light and a sound like death on silent wings as a girl screamed.

I sat up on my coffin(I kept the door open because the night was hot), sweat pouring down my body. It was four in the morning and nobody was awake. I hadn't had a dream of that day for years. I made my way to the girls' dorm bathroom, placing my hands on the cool surface of the sink as I stared at the mirror. My hair was tied into a loose French braid. There were bags underneath my bloodshot eyes. All in all, I looked as awful as I felt.

I thought back to the dream, and I wanted to puke. Ian's death was the reason I could see thestrals. I was seven when I lost everything, my family, my best friend, my life and at seventeen, I found everything again. But what was the use? I would outlive them anyways. It is the unfortunate curse of vampires, immortality. While to some it may seem like their wildest dreams come true, I hated it. I hated knowing that I'll see my friends grow old and die while I remained youthful and alive.

Draco was also acting a bit odd. He was hiding something. He now wore full-sleeved clothes even when it was blistering hot. 'I'll ask him about it,' I thought. 'But not now, it's four in the morning and I doubt any sane person is awake right now.'

I returned to the dorm relaxing upon hearing the familiar slow breathing of Willow and Mary. The moon was shining through the open window. I stared out of it and pondered the meaning of life. This might seem all philosophical, but I was bored. B-O-R-E-D, bored. And you're bored when there's nothing to do. I had an hour before anybody in my friend group woke up. The earliest riser was Vampire because he liked to watch the sunrise.

A few minutes passed with me desperately trying to pass the time. Then, I stood up. There was no reason for me to not get dressed and go down to the Common Room. I went back to the bathroom, took a quick shower and dressed in the school uniform, wrangling my hair into a ponytail. I looked at the time. I still had 10 minutes before Vampire woke up.

The Common Room was uncommonly silent. A fire was blazing at the fireplace and the room was warm and cozy. I flopped down on a sofa, stretching luxuriously on it. 5:55. 5 more minutes.

"Hey Ebony!"

I quickly sat up to see Vampire at the foot of the steps dressed in his pyjamas. He was smiling at me. Just like him, kind to everyone until or unless they hurt those he cared about.

"Oh hullo Vampire," I greeted him. He, however was not perturbed by my lackluster greeting.

"So what are you doing up so early?" he asked me, sitting down beside me.

"I woke up and couldn't sleep."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Ye-," I cut myself off. Did I want to talk about it? Yes. But, I'm not sure if I was ready for it. "No," I decided. "No."

Vampire shrugged. "Okay, see you later!" He bounded up the stairs. I marveled his energy at this early in the morning. I got up, feeling a lot cheery. Vampire's optimism was contagious.

Breakfast was boring, but we had first period free, which gave me some time to talk with Draco. Last night had not ended well, and I wanted to apologize for that. We went into an abandoned classroom. "What are you hiding?" I demanded from him as soon as we closed the door.

"What?" spluttered Draco.

"Don't you dare lie!" I exclaimed. "You're hiding something. Didn't you say that couples tell each other everything?"

"Fine!" yelled Draco and pulled up his sleeve to expose his left arm. My breath caught in my throat. "Are you happy now?" On his arm was a tattoo of a skull and a snake. The Dark Mark.

"Since when?" I asked after a little while. I wondered why my voice sounded so broken.

"Last summer."

"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked him. "We could have helped you."

"Because he would have killed my mother!" he lashed out and I saw that he was crying.

"Voldemort," I breathed.

Draco clutched his arm at his name and hissed at me, "Don't say his name. It hurts."

"Alright," I said, calming myself. "Anything else you wanna say?"

Draco rubbed the back of his neck. "Will you be mad if I showed you this. He lifted his shirt, revealing his muscles and also revealing another tattoo. This one was a black heart with an arrow through it. On it in cursive was only one word, Vampire!

Draco upon seeing my expression quickly said, "Wait Ebony, you don't understand!"

But, I was backing out of the room my head spinning with the revelation that Draco had cheated on me, and broke out into a full sprint ignoring Draco's calls and right into the Forbidden Forest.

It's been a long time since this was updated. I had a lot of problem writing this chapter, and it feels a little disjointed and horrible in general. I'm sorry. Feel free to yell at me in the reviews.