Persuasive

fifty-three

---

Three days following to getting the dark marks.

"It burns Avy." Draco trembled as he gripped onto his arm where the Dark Mark was placed. Draco and I were in our bathroom, sitting on the floor as he tried rubbing the mark off.

"Stop Draco, you're only hurting yourself more." I trembled as I grabbed his hand and squeezed it in mine. I carefully studied his arm, where there were burn marks and scratches covering the Dark Mark. Draco has been trying to get rid of it for a few days now, doing anything he could. Scratching, peeling, spells. But nothing seemed to work.

"Come here." I mumbled as I pulled him up from the floor and brung him over to the bathtub. I turned on the faucet and let the cold water run down on his arm, reducing his pain and making him ease up a bit.

It's been three days since we've signed ourselves to Tom Riddle, three days of agony and suffering. I wanted to ask Lucius where Tom was, but he refuses to speak with me after our whole incident.
I wanted to see Tom's reaction to my Dark Mark. His reaction of finding out that I now work for him. Fucking Bastard.

I shut the faucet off and dried up his arm with a towel carefully, trying to comfort him the best I could.

"What about you? Are you okay, does it hurt?" Draco questioned in a disheartened tone of voice.

"I'm fine." I smiled as I gave him a warm hug. "Don't worry about me."

"I don't want this Avy." he trembled as he gripped onto the sink counter and looked down, his breathing heavy. "I don't want to be a Death Eater, I don't want to be like father-"

"You're nothing like Lucius." I assured him as I inched closer to him. "Look at me."

He fixed his posture and straightened his back, releasing his grip from the counter. His head slowly turned to me as his icy eyes met mine.

"You're NOTHING like Lucius. And we will get through this. We always do." I half smiled to him and his eyes were covered with a glassy layer of tears.

"I'm not so sure this time." he mumbled as he pressed his lips together.

I hated seeing my brother in pain, in torment. It's not like him to show himself hurt and mournful. He's always annoying, snobby, cheerful, but he never lets anyone show his unhappy side. It seemed like he doesn't care anymore, about how people view him. Like he's given up in happiness.
So have I.

I remember this one time, where Draco and I were in first year. We came back home after our first year of being at Hogwarts and we really wanted to make our own butterbeer.

"Do we even have all the ingredients?" I asked him as we skipped over to the kitchen, making sure nobody was around. We weren't allowed in the kitchen yet.

"I don't know!" Draco chuckled as he opened up the fridge and got out some heavy whipping cream. "All I know is that we have to add this."

"Do you even know how to make butterbeer?" I rolled my eyes as I yanked the heavy cream out of his hands.

"You act like you do, know it all." Draco mumbled as he grabbed some butter from the fridge.

"How about we just ask father to make some for us?"

"You know father would never approve of us drinking butterbeer. Besides, when has he ever spent time with us?" Draco grunted as he got the rest of the ingredients out.

Suddenly, we heard loud footsteps grow over our talking, and we froze in terror to see Lucius standing there with furious eyes.

"What are you two doing? Get out of my kitchen! And you two call yourselves Malfoys, you're an utter disappoint to our family. Out!" Lucius roared as he glared into our souls. I grabbed Draco's hand and we hurried out the kitchen and towards the door. We started running as fast as we could, until we reached our backyard.