𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#16 The Will to Help

108 days before

And so it happened. I became one of them. The only thing I needed to avoid happened. The only thing my friends, my family and I went through the whole trouble of the last months, if not years, happened.

The Dark Lord greeted me with open arms in his rows, plastered the mark in excruciating pain on my left underarm, right over the worded scars already being there. But I wasn't capable of doing anything instead of staring down a hole in the wall opposite me, not listening to anything he said. Not feeling anything, not even flinching as he set his wand at my bare arm. The dark skull grinned through the silk of my sweater, the snake almost reaching my wrist. Just it's tongue peeked out, whispering all the things I didn't want to hear.

My mother's tears ran dry around the time the sun rose and painted the walls in soft grey light through the big windows. She was just like me. Quiet, empty. Maybe fading to nothing, while she watched her whole family fading to nothing too. But I kept my eyes on her the whole time we sat at the table in the dinner area of the Manor, after I lifted them from the wall. I needed to focus on her, on my only family left, to not fade too. She was my priority, because I couldn't loose her. And the boy, of course, who sat right next to me with his hand painfully intertwined with mine the whole time. Clenching on my fingers until his knuckles turned white with the anxiety we both shared.

Because Voldemort got what he wanted. I sat at his right side an arm length away, his right hand as he might say.

I didn't know how long we sat there, how long my father was laying where the Dark Lord left him until he ordered Nargini in for dinner. How long I tried to not move a single muscle and squint over to the snake eating what's left of him. And every time I tried to, I felt the tight grip of Draco's hand tightening even more. Probably protecting me from the view and from the picture which would never leave my mind.

Now that I was a part of them, I was able to walk around the Manor and wasn't captured into my room anymore. I was allowed to stray through the gardens, to walk past the corridors.

It took me a few tries until I found the dungeons. Malfoy Manor was like a maze in it's own and I couldn't wrap my head around, if it was already like that when I visited it in older times, or if I was so lost inside of me, that I got lost easily in general. I looked over my shoulder a few times to see if someone was following me, because I couldn't risk to act suspicious.

It was a small, dark and narrow corridor, only illuminated by a few torches as I climbed down the stairs. My footsteps echoed around the walls, my breath fastened as I reached a big metal chain door. I quickly drew my wand after I took another look into the shadows, before I opened the chains and stepped into the dungeon. Draco told me that this was the place they brought the captured and beneficial. The Malfoy's cellars were magic proved, so that no one could charm himself out of there. Another reason why I needed to be as undetected as I could, no magic would help me if they caught me down by the prisoners.

The blonde boy assured me, that he would excuse myself at the table and tell them I would lay down, because I wasn't feeling well, while all I wanted was to see if my best friend was alright. Since the Dark Lord mentioned her name, I hoped for the right moment to look after her.

"El? You're here?", I hissed into the darkness. There was a single torch in its bracket, not nearly enough to let the whole length of the cellar be lightened. There was just a small window on the right of the entrance. A small slit which granted the room a bit of weak sunlight shining through the grey blanket of clouds, which didn't seem to go away since Voldemort made this house the center of the storm.