At midnight the dance was formally expected to begin. It was 11:40pm, and Draco excused us from the morbid Malfoy-Greengrass circle. The display had been meant to embarrass Astoria and her family and it was just further evidence of how inconsiderate the Malfoy's were. Draco had not shown any emotion; it was hard to tell whether or not he'd gained any pleasure from the confrontation.
He pulled me out of the ballroom and down a first floor hallway, nodding to guests that acknowledged him. We reached a small office of sorts and he clicked the door shut, leaning against the door with his head up and eyes closed. His sharp jaw jutted out. The music of the piano decreased substantially.
I floated around the room ignoring him in his apparent need for personal space, not feeling unnerved about being led away to a private place. The room was silent and eerie, so I plucked at objects like fancy quills and reading glasses. It was almost pitch black save for the moon streaming in through the window, making us both look like forgotten Victorian ghosts haunting the manor. I sat at the desk in the stiff leather chair and kicked off my heels, waiting, flipping a white quill between my fingers.
"Why are we 'ere Draco?" I reminded him of our surroundings. The sound of someone tripping against the wall in the hallway brought him back.
He was breathing slow, heavy breaths, running his hands through his hair, and started pacing around in front of the desk. He shot me several bizarre glances and kept shaking his head. The scene was making me feel queasy, "Draco. We are expected back in twenty minute." I waved my hands apart to physically manifest what?
"Okay. Okay... Madeleine, this isn't what you think," he said in a rickety voice with his hands on his hips, facing me with his head down. I felt an overwhelming feeling of dread seeping over me. Up until that moment the ball had not been too insufferable, but vaguely I recalled a moment at Hogwarts while holding the invitation where it had given off a heavy, dreadful energy. Just like the mood in the office then.
I sat forward, my heart starting to beat painfully with fearful anticipation. He was refusing to look at me, his straight blond locks fell now messy over his face. It was a sign of vulnerability. Pretty severe vulnerability if I could gauge it correctly.
I stood up and started walking slowly. He stepped towards the desk and gripped the edge, nearly stumbling. He looked like he was going to hurl, "Everything is going to change. Much sooner than I thought."
"You are scaring me," I whispered, "What es going to change?"
"Good," he choked on the word, "You should be scared."
The silence weighed down onto us like we had sunk to the bottom of a ship. Perhaps Titanic, I thought sarcastically.
I sat precariously on the desk edge by his bent figure and painstakingly used three fingers to bring his chin up to meet my eyes, "Talk to me. Be brave. Why should I be scared?"
His lip trembled as we met eyes and I felt my heart drop. His eyes were watery, "I wasn't informed of what they were planning... tonight... not until now. Today, when I came to get you..." He winced and pulled out of my fingers and I heard him gasping, his shoulders shaking.
"Are we getting married tonight?" I ventured, sounding more accepting of it than I had intended to.
"No, nothing so innocent as that." He turned to me, placing his hand on my knee and pulling my waist forward with the other one. I watched as two tears fell down his left cheek, the guilt on his face torturous. He stood between my legs now, grabbing my knees tightly, his face hung close to mine.
"What could possibly be worse dan dat!" I frowned deeply. I felt his tears hitting my arms in my lap. My heart was racing like a bolt of lighting.
"Madeleine, my parents are Death Eaters." He spat it out.
I inhaled loudly. My parents had told me about the war in Britain years ago and the wicked followers to the dark lord, who all had vanished almost as quickly as the dark lords demise. Harry Potter had been walking about school for eight years claiming Voldemort was returning and frequently disappearing on "long trips" he attributed to fighting him. But then, things seemed to have calmed down, and the conversation was almost forgotten.
Until that night. I fought to find my voice, "How...how long? Why?" It came out as a squeak. I felt tears coming down my face then too, unsure of how to respond. My cage had just upgraded to a cell in Azkaban, with some of the most evil wizards on the earth. My family reputation stained.
He rubbed his hands on my thighs, clutching at me as though I would suddenly vanish from what else he had to say. He pushed his forehead against mine, and both our panicked breathing mingled violently, "I don't know, always..." He was still gasping with closed eyes, and I knew there was even more. My face was twisted together, wishing he wouldn't say anything else but he continued in a weak voice, "Me, me too."
I sobbed loudly and pushed him off of me, reaching into my dress for my wand so I could disapparate and never look back. His hand shot forward and pinned my wrist against the table, "Don't even try it, they'll trace the magic and have your head for it," he said weakly, wiping tears from his face with his other hand, "I've already done so much to protect you. Don't waste your life."
"You 'ave done everyting to not protect me!" I cried loudly, my wand clattered to the ground and I blinked through blurry eyes to see where it had gone in the darkness, "You brought me 'ere!"
He tried reaching towards me again and I slapped his hand away with another angry sob, looking into his eyes so he could see the betrayal there. "Madeleine, I tried to forget about you, but...I just... you kept... please." He was stumbling on the sentence - obviously panicking now, his eyebrows knit together and his expression filled with pain. His eyes traced my mouth and throat, too cowardly to look anywhere else. I stared at him, blinking only to let the build up of tears release. I was trembling with anger and hurt, unsure of how to relieve it.
"'ave you killed someone?" my anguished voice caused him to wince.
"Not yet," he breathed.
"So you plan to?" I yelled erratically, ripping him back towards me by his collar at breakneck speed.
"No! What?" he was breathing so hard I thought he might faint, hands gripping the table on either side of my body.
"What es happening tonight, den?" I demanded, my throat sore from fighting how tight it had become.
For several seconds his breathing was ragged against my mouth. My eyes were open, drilling into his shut eyelids, "It's the beginning of the end. Everyone who came here, came to acknowledge...the return of the dark lord and the Death Eaters." We stayed in that position for minutes while I digested the reality. He eventually found the courage to reach up a trembling hand and put it on mine, which was ripping his shirt towards me forcibly. He pulled gently, begging me to release it, "They will make me wear a mask tonight. I wanted you to have forewarning. I don't expect you to ever forgive me."
"Excellent, because you can bet dat I wont!" I fumed at him. He paled.
Just then a loud crack shot through the room as the door opened, Lucius' voice floating melodically through the air to the two men he had been walking with. Draco caught them in earshot before me and his lips pressed into mine, his hands dragging behind my back and pulling me into him to make it look like we'd escaped to snog on the desk. I was halfway on my back with him pressing onto me in a highly suggestive position.
"Tsk Tsk," the menacing cluck of Lucius' tongue drew Draco's head from my face, and he took the opportunity to back up several feet, smoothing out his hair.
Two men I didn't recognize stood behind Lucius, grinning from the apparent transgression, "Looks like you'll have an heir from these two before you know it, Malfoy," one of them snarled with a hideous expression.
"Yes..." Lucius' face was pinned to Draco's in the darkness with a far away look, like he suspected that more had been going on. He must've noticed the tears in both of eyes, "I suppose, we will. Draco, leave us."
We exited the office without being asked twice, Draco only pausing to bend and grab my wand, as the door shut hard behind us. He stood next to me, breathing hard, studying my expression with a pleading look. His fingers twisted at his side.
"I hate you," I whispered, grabbing my wand and wiping at my eyes now that we were out in the public realm. I had to clean up my face and pretend everything was fine until the night was over and I was safe back at Hogwarts. Where I planned naturally to expose the entire gathering to someone fit for the information, like McGonagall. I had to also find Hilda and make sure she was alright and aware of the coming nightmare.
"I know," he let his heartbroken eyes wander down my neck, wiping the rest of the wetness from his face with his sleeve, "But you must pretend. For both of our sakes."
"Oh? Okay, like dis?" I pounced, wrapped my arms around his neck and pushed him into the wall, kissing him hard, angrily. His hands pushed me away by my waist in shock.
"Definitely not like that! Just... try to stay calm. We can talk later in our room. It's almost over," he urged me, pausing to send an awkward, forced smile to someone passing by rather slowly.
My mouth dropped wide, "Our room? What is dat supposed to mean?"
Draco sighed, rolling his eyes, "Can you please be more quiet? You didn't seriously expect to leave the Manor tonight, did you?" he looked genuinely shocked, "Our family is hosting a fucking ball."
"Don't expect us to both sleep in de bed den!" I hoarsely whispered.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he shot back, and I sensed his mask of confidence rebuilding by the minute.
The door to Lucius' study opened wide again with no warning. We had only made it a few meters down the stone clad hallway, standing there with red hands, my arms wrapped around his neck, his hands on my waist.
The man who had laughed before lost his control at the sight, "My god, can't go a couple of feet without getting tangled up. You've got a serious situation on your hands Malfoy."
Lucius' face was ice cold, like someone had just carved his body out of stone. His eye twitched slightly as he studied Draco's face, and I struggled wondering if it was meant to be a threat to control the public displays of affection, or if he was suspicious about something else.
Finally his mouth jerked into a slight smile, "Indeed Yaxley, luckily I was born with the common gift of eye sight." He was burning a hole in Draco's face now, the silent conversation that only the two of them could hear was becoming deafening.
"Draco, please escort Madeleine to the ballroom. You will be dancing in mere minutes. Do not forget your place." He dryly uttered the last sentence with emphasis, each word crystal clear.
I dropped my arms, feeling a deep chill sliding down my back, pausing on each vertebrae. Draco's face was now serious and I noted that he had retreated far behind his eyes, somewhere buried in the abyss of his soul.
We walked speechlessly back to the ballroom, only the sounds of our loud dress shoes echoing off of the stones. When the large, silver doors where back in front of us - now closed, I suddenly felt dizzy. I tried to calm my breathing while staring down at my golden heels. The ability to waltz was now a foggy concept. The ability to even enjoy waltzing after what I had just found out didn't even exist.
Draco's hand appeared at my side, and I took it. Right before the doors swung open I turned to him, feeling my heart freeze into a block of ice. His beautiful face had been replaced with a slate gray mask, randomized metal ornamentation breaking away in grids or swirls was the only definition of facial features. His eyes still shone through however, the brightest blue I had ever seen, and the platinum blond hair was still a dead give away. Black and green smoke swirled off of the mask, whispering away to dissipate in the air around his shoulders.
I wanted to collapse on the spot and scream in terror. The last bit of Felix Felicis in my veins drew my feet forward when I felt his hand tug me. There was a line of people on either side of the doors leading into the central circle, more than half of them covered in death eater masks. I knew my face was probably distraught scanning from one side to the other, and I fought to break away from his hand and run for the door.
We reached the middle and he pulled me towards him, placing his hand on the small of back gently. It was silent for a mortifyingly long moment, and I knew my rib cage was jutting back and forth fiercely with my short, terrified gasps as I stared up at the murderous mask floating in front of me. Until the piano started playing and he was spinning me, the ridiculous white wedding dress unraveled out in a huge radius around us, glittering gold twinkling under the poor lighting. I could feel my hair swirling out from my head in a similar fashion. I was grateful for the years of dance instructions that I'd had as a younger girl, resulting in the movements endlessly engrained in my muscle memory. My surface consciousness blacked out and I became just a dancer, just a body. Nothing more.