Chapter 4

Malfoy Manor the next day

Draco's P.O.V.

Today is the day. I couldn't help playing with my suit's sleeves. I was alone in my grand living room, standing in the middle of it. I kept checking my left arm, knowing this was pointless. Mother said there was no way I'd miss it, the mark would turn jet black and it would burn. Nothing to worry about. But I kept checking it anyways, in case I'd miss the signal. Today the Dark Lord would check up on my task, one that was undoubtedly to make me and mother pay for father's mistake. I did not sleep the last few nights, every time I'd get drowsy, images of dead bodies and tortured ones as well would fill my thoughts. My mother would join me in the kitchen most of these nights, she would reassure me and comfort me. The only two people that made me forget about this whole situation was my mother and Blaise.

If I can just make it to Hogwarts, two more weeks, that's it. I'll be safe and as far as possible from the Dark Lord.

My arm started burning it felt like if it was on fire. I heard a loud crack and looked behind me.

''Don't worry, boy,'' Snape put a hand on my shoulder and we apparated out of my house.

Ellie's P.O.V.

A strip of light protruding the blinds of the single huge window in my room woke me. I got up, lazily walking to the bathroom. After a hot shower and a change of clothes, I went downstairs to eat breakfast with my family. We always ate breakfast on Sunday mornings together. I was just about to walk in the dinning room when I heard my mother say:

''Hydrus, I do not want that fate for my youngest daughter!'' She seemed angry.

''He's changed, you can see it in his eyes, he's worse than ever... I want her to be ready if ever she has the same fate as Lucius' son.'' My father answered calmly. ''That young Malfoy is not ready for what he has planned for him, you can already see the stress taking its toll on Narcissa...''

''Good morning!'' I said loudly before entering the kitchen.

I didn't want to eavesdrop on my parents too long. The house elf had a habit of catching me doing things I shouldn't and reporting them to my father. It only made it twice as hard to sneak out of the house or sneak in fire whiskey. After one last stern look at my father my mother wished me a good morning and we started eating. It wasn't a very chatty morning, after my eggs and toast I got up to head back up in my room. Before I got out of the kitchen my father spoke.

''Ellie, I'm bringing you to training at the ministry today, so be ready around 10.''

''Alright,'' I wanted to ask why but the topic seemed to bother my mother and made me feel rather uncomfortable, I opted not to.

I went upstairs and got ready for training, even though it was only an hour from now. I flipped through the Daily Prophet, there was an article about Puddlemere's win, they even mentioned my name. Nosey people in Britain… I think the Ministry was trying to keep everyone calm, even more after Harry Potter's allegations that The Dark Lord had returned, so they tried to keep the articles light and simple. I started to read an article about an upcoming Quidditch match, the national French team was scheduled to play against the national English team! I was so excited, I just had to get tickets. Of course when I flipped the page the next article was about how the game's tickets were sold out. Just my luck. Ten o'clock came quick enough, I headed downstairs and waited for my father in the living room. He came in, wordlessly, and gave me his arm to apparate. We landed and walked towards the stairs to the lower level. On our way we passed a couple of men who'd say hello to my father, they seemed too busy to acknowledge me.

''So how am I going to train? I thought wizards who haven't graduated couldn't use magic out in the open?'' I asked my father, trying to figure out a way to ask why we're here and not how.

''Ministry charmed this room just this summer, Lucius convinced Fudge to do it. It was made to help students that were struggling with their studies in Hogwarts.'' He explained as I followed him going down the stairs, ''I think Lucius' sudden interest in helping children is just wonderful... Draco has been training since its opened, and trust me, he's not a struggling student.'' I loved how my father could read these people, unlike my mother who would honestly think Lucius wanted to help struggling students.

''Okay... so why am I going?'' We finally reached the basement, my father showed me the girls locker room.

''Wouldn't want Draco to outshine you, now would we?'' He winked, avoiding the question, ''put your things in there, there's multiple doors, pick the one that says spells,'' and he left towards what I'm guessing was the boys locker room.

I got in, and the locker room was deserted. I put my coat in a locker and went to the door that had the word SPELLS written in big golden writing. I found my father there, waiting for me with a man in an all black suit, he looked around his 20s. The gym was huge, with black walls, black floors and a black ceiling.

''Alright, Ellisabeth, this is mister Rukbat, he'll be your trainer.'' I smiled and we shook hands. ''Have fun,''

My dad left and the man started to enumerate the rules: ''no unforgivable curses, no cheating, no...''

The man was short and had rather large shoulders, but other than that, he was very intimidating. His sweatshirt's sleeves were wrapped tightly around his big muscles. His russian accent made me wonder what he was doing in England. His face was perfectly angular, his smile: dazzling.

''and most importantly, no blood should be spilt during duels. This is training, not sudden death. Alright so are you ready to begin?'' He asked, he seemed bored. I guess this isn't his dream job...

''Yup,'' I took my wand out.

After a few tests to see how much I was 'struggling', we discovered how good I was at manipulating the elements. I tried the spell incendio for the first time and almost burned down Rukbat. Even if he pretended he wasn't impressed, I knew he was. I was smiling like a little girl. Rukbat told me to stay where I was. He left through a door he made appear, muttering something about taking advantage of the ministry's money. All of a sudden, the whole gym started to rumble, and in a blink of an eye I found myself standing on a small platform with waves crashing around me. The wind was fierce, I couldn't see the end of this raging ocean.

''Rukbat?!'' I screamed, what was this? Magic? (hah)

''Its alright,'' I heard his voice loud and clear coming from the sky, ''now we're going to practice manipulating water,''

''Oh... okay...'' I wasn't sure I liked this training idea.

''Stay concentrated, water can be tricky, you can use the incendio to make water evaporate but it takes a lot of flames... so your best strategy against water for now is reducing it.'' He said the word 'reducing' very slowly.

A huge wave appeared out of no where, coming right for me. What was Rukbat thinking? I was only 16 years old! I was going to die! I couldn't die, I haven't even seen Oliver shirtless yet!

''Reducio!'' I screamed as loud as I could, the wave became smaller. It only went over the platform a bit, soaking my legs.

''Good job, watch your posture next time, and remember its not how loud you scream the spell, its how well you articulate it. Try and stay in control of your spells,'' He seemed to like criticizing.

I got ready: keeping my back as straight as possible and my wand out.

''Alright, bring on the waves!'' I told Rukbat.

''Alrighty, good job Ellie!'' Rukbat gave me a pat on on the back.

After an hour of waves splashing around me I finally got the hang of manipulating water. I could evenmake a bit of water dance around and make a mini vortex, maybe 1 meter long in diameter. The grumpy Rukbat also warmed up to me, which I consider another accomplishment, since he seemed to dislike me at the beginning of the session.

''Thank you, I'm beat!'' I smiled to him.

''Good that means you learned a lot,'' He laughed a little, ''so your dad said you'd do the 4 week training in 2 weeks, so if you want your weekends free your going to have to do a double training on thursdays,'' He checked on his clipboard.

''I don't mind coming here on the weekends, not a lot to do anyways...'' I added quickly, it would be nice to get out of the house more.

''Really? Well then you can come at 8 am on week days and 10 on Sundays, so that leaves you Saturdays to rest... and practice.'' He smiled and handed me a sheet with the times written down and what we would be doing that day.

''Perfect, thank you Rukbat and I guess I'll be seeing you at 8 tomorrow!'' We awkwardly shook hands and I went over to what seemed to be the girls locker room door.

I pushed open the door and was in the exact same locker room as earlier, but there was a black backpack on a bench. I heard some shuffling in the bathrooms so I figured the backpack belonged to this person. I went over to the showers undressing on my way. Rukbat told me he had only trained a couple of wizards that were actually struggling in the beginning of the summer, but after their 4 weeks they never showed up again. He said there was only one boy who came almost everyday, I figured it was Draco. He said this boy had moved on from the spells room to the counter curses in a matter of days, which was pretty impressive.

I left a trail of my clothes from the locker room to the showers.

There weren't any stalls, just one big shower head in the shape of an O that hung from the ceiling. There were about 10 colorful buttons on the right side wall. As I got closer I could see writing on the buttons, there were different flower names and other weird combinations like chocolate rose. These must be the different kinds of soaps. I picked 'sweet grapefruit' and waited for the water to start pouring down on me.

I had to unwind, the pressure of my task was weighing me down and I couldn't help but feel like I was losing control. He had told me of my task earlier this summer, and as sleep couldn't find me most nights my emotions had started getting the best of me. I felt hopeless and would spend most of my time reading or in my room lying in my bed. Mother found a potion to relieve the body of stress and anxiety, which helped a lot most nights. Ironicly, when I took the potion at night, the nightmares would haunt me on double during the day. So I had to find distractions during the day.

Coming to the gym was one of them, sometimes I'd even let myself forget completely of my faith and put all my focus on my magic. I dropped my bag on one of the benches in the boys locker room, stretching and heading to the bathroom. I heard the door open, light footsteps made their way to what I hoped were the showers, I didn't feel like socialising much. I found it funny that someone would be using the gym, when it opened in the beginning of the summer the Weasleys would use it sometimes but they didn't bother coming more than twice each. Other than that, barely no one would ever come.

I had been crying just before now, I couldn't help it lately. It seemed like if my world was slowly crashing in the deepest of trenches. I splashed my face with cold water and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. After a while, when I judged it was safe to go without anyone seeing me I left the bathroom area and headed straight for the door. I didn't pay much attention at first, but then something bright pink caught my eye. I wasn't sure if this boy was trying a new style, but then when I got a better look I noted that this clothe item could not belong to a boy.

''A bra?'' I whispered to myself.

My head shot up as I sensed someone walk in the room.

''Draco! What are you doing here?!'' stuttered Elisabeth Daragon, wrapped in a towel. One single tiny towel.

I was angry at her for being here, I'm the only one that should be coming to this gym... its technicly mine!

''What am I doing here?!'' I tried to be calm but my voice threatened to crack and show some anger. ''Well I was about to go train but watching you so flustered is better,'' I smiled a smug smile, trying to cover up for my earlier response. I laughed a clear loud laugh and decided it'd be best to leave before I lose my cool, so I left her there. I imagined her red as a tomato and couldn't stop one last good chuckle before I pushed open the door lazily.

I can't believe she was at the training center, I don't think it was her own decision; not one teenager wants to train all summer long. Just like mine, her father was probably behind this. But she wasn't a freshman deatheater nor do I think he would ever...

''Ah, mister Malfoy, squeezing in some practice before lunch?'' Rukbat tore me from my thoughts.

''Yes, I was hoping to work on my dueling skills today,'' He smiled and took a dummie out of a closet. ''You know, I have a very good story for you today, Rukbat. I think you know Elisabeth Daragon, right?...''

As I wrapped my towel around and walked back to the locker room I noticed the owner of the backpack was staring at my trail of clothes. Except that person was...

''Draco! What are you doing here?!'' I couldn't help but stutter, my towel felt so tiny all of a sudden. Probably because he stared me down.

''What am I doing here?!'' He answered me hastily, what a prick, acting like he owns the place. ''Well I was about to go train but watching you so flustered is better,''

I was too agaped to answer. I could feel my face burning as I tried to find a retort quickly, but he just shrugged, turned around and left me standing there open-mouthed. I dressed up quickly trying to figure out what had just hapened. As I went out of the room, I looked back. Boys locker room. I can't believe it. My face started burning up again and I quickly went to my father and mine's meeting place.