The Dark Mark (The Girl Who Lived part II)

A Series Of Unfortunate Events: The Slave Series

"How long?" I rolled my eyes. I may as well have struck a deal with the devil. "A month". He answered. "A day". I countered. On my days at Spinner's end when I bought food from the market and when the twins dished all the blackmail on Ron, I learned thing or two about bartering. As a customer, you want to drive the price down as low as the vendor was willing to let it go. But you have to know when the seller isn't going to budge anymore in price or else they'll call off the deal. "Two months". "Two days". "Three months". "Wait, that's not how you barter. You're supposed to go down until we finally agree on an amount". "Until Christmas". "Fine, a week. That's my final offer". "A week it is". He stuck out his hand as if that were some sort of contract. To seal the deal. That when our hands shook, the invisible contract would be signed, ensuring that both of us would keep up our ends of the deal. 

 I went to sleep with an open mind. 'How hard can this be?' I had thought. But like all things, the answer was simply, "very hard". I woke in the morning, prepared myself for a days worth of classes and enduring Draco's bound to be ridiculous demands, and made my way to the Great Hall. The table was much quieter now that the twins were gone. It was nice for a while, but I missed them. I sat in between Harry and Neville. Hermoine opposite of Harry, and Ron opposite of me, and Ginny across from Neville. "Looks like someone's got a little crush on Ron". I subtly pointed to Lavender Brown who would stare for the largest amounts of time at Ron when she thought no one was looking. Everyone looked in her direction. When she glanced back at Ron and found all of us looking back at her, she appeared as though she were a deer in headlights. Her face went pale at first and then turned into a frighteningly hue of pink.

"Why would she be looking at Ron?" Was Ginny's nonchalant response. "Why wouldn't she?" Ron said, clearly offended.  He fixed his horrid posture which he always had whenever he ate. He'd be bent over his plate of food like a dog would to its food bowl. "I'm pretty attractive". Food fell from his mouth as he said this. "A real eye catcher. I bet Lavender was staring at Harry". Ginny continued to offend Ron. "Why Harry and not me?" Ron asked nobody in particular. This could easily be considered a rhetorical question, but Ron seemed as though he were desperate for an answer. No one wanted to answer it though. Because no matter what reason they had, Ron would be offended in some manner. "Scarlet?" He looked at me. His blue eyes, big and sad. "Oh no, you're not looping me into this. There are several questions that I've learned not to answer. "How old do I look?", "How do I look?" and more specifically, "Do I look fat?"". 

Hermoine's eyes narrowed. There was something behind me. Everyone on my side of the table seemed to notice the suddenly tense atmosphere and turned in the opposite direction. "What do you want, Malfoy?" Said Harry. He didn't need to say that Draco wasn't welcome. It wasn't necessary. It was heavily implied by the narrowed eyes, tense atmosphere, and distrust filled gazes from everyone at the Gryffindoor table but me and Neville. "It surprisingly involves you, Potter. Don't even think about wasting my precious time. I want to............ I'm....." I looked up at him, with a look that said, "if you don't apologize and follow through with what you said you would, then it's no deal". Drac began again with just as much difficulty as he had the first time he tried. "I wanted to-" Draco choked on the words. He was the same to the words "I'm sorry" and "apologize" much like I was with the word, "dad". It was obvious that he'd never bothered to say these words before.

Because in his mind, he was always right. There was no need for apologies. I elbowed him hard in his ribcage. "I'm sorry, Potter". He said the three words together as I jabbed him  so fast that his words sounded as if they were slurred together. Everyone's mouths in the vicinity dropped. That not only included Ron, Hermoine, Harry, Ginny, and Neville, but all the others around us who had been eavesdropping. "Sorry for what?" Harry finally responded when his mind had overcome the shock. "I'm sorry that you lack the knowledge of common sense". Draco said. I stared daggers at him. "I want to apologize for breaking your nose, even though you did deserve it". Draco muttered the last bits of his sentence. Only I was able to hear this rude little comment of his. "Come along, Scarlet. I've kept up my end of the deal. You keep up yours". He clapped his hads and exited the Great Hall. "What was that?" Harry questioned Draco's motive. "Bloody 'ell. The world must be ending". Ron said. "The world isn't ending. I just made a deal with him". I said. 

"Scarlet, I told you that I don't want you involved-" Harry began his speech on why I shouldn't have had done what I did. "Don't you agree with me, Neville?" Harry turned to Neville for his opinion. "Draco Malfoy isn't the most trustworthy person". Neville said this, but he meant something else. He didn't like Draco Malfoy. It didn't quite branch as far as hate from what I knew. "Even Neville agrees with me. So-" Harry continued his speech, although I had stopped listening when he began lecturing me. It was nice of him to worry about me the way he did, but it became a little much sometimes. Like I didn't have any breathing room. But of course I knew that if I told him this, he'd be extremely hurt by this. It was better to just sit through the lecture that would span from possibly ten minutes to the rest of lunch. Draco stuck his head back into the Great Hall. Evidently, he expected me to be following right behind him, and had just noticed I was not. 

Draco motioned for me to follow him. "Looks like I've got to go. The royal pain is calling. I'll see you guys later". I cut Harry off mid-sentence. I met Draco who stood in the hallway. "Come on, Scarlet". I followed him down the hall. I felt much like Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, or one of the other members of his little "crew". "Where are your goons?" I asked him. The last time I had seen them was yesterday when Draco laid on a fancily made up bed in the hospital wing as Crabbe and Goyle fanned him with oversized leaves and Pansy peeled him grapes in which she then fed him. "I told them I already had someone to fill their positions". "What about Pansy? You know that she wouldn't stay back even if there was a forty foot brick wall surrounding her, separating you two". "Nothing in the world could stop Parkinson. I told Crabbe and Goyle to keep her away from me. When I toid her that she wasn't necessary, she got her feelings hurt and began throwing a fit. Women. You can't live with them".

We entered the classroom where the Defence Against the Dark Arts would be held. We were among one of the first ones to arrive. "Greetings Mr....... Malfoy". Snape seemed surprised to find that I was with Draco instead Harry. But that surprise didn't last for very long. Draco stood next to a chair and gestured to it. "What?" I wasn't too sure what he had wanted me to do. "Wipe off the seat for me. It's filthy". I rolled my eyes. I knew that his demands would be this tedious. I wiped off the seemingly fine chair in which Draco would soon sit in. "Satisfied?" I asked him. "Quite". Harry entered the classroom. I moved towards him, to only have my arm be held back. "Slaves need to stay close. I order you to sit here". Draco motioned for me to take the seat next to him. Only did he release my hand when I admitted defeat and settled down in the seat next to him.

Harry, who witnessed this scene from across the room, pulled up a chair and sat beside me. The table was only designed to fit two. Three was a bit squished. Everyone had settled down in their seats, and class was about to begin. Snape stood at the front of the classroom and tapped his wand on the podium. This simple movement seemed to catch everyone's attention. "You all know who I am so there's no use for those useless introductions. If you shall fall behind and I do mean you, Mr. Longbottom, it's your own fault. Now, today we will learn...." Snape droned on about nonverball spells. Just like the entire class (Hermoine excluded), the three of us especially weren't engaged in the learning. Snape's monotone voice and blank expressions made learning drag on. 

"Can't you see that there's no room for you, Potter". We couldn't speak loudly because Snape's ears were sharp. "If you have such an issue with it, then why don't you move?" They spoke with such an intensity in their voices. Their hatred for each other was blatantly obvious. "Wherever I go, Scarlet goes. She's going to be my slave for a week. Jealous, Potter?" Draco smirked. He thought he had the upper hand. Harry wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer to him so that he and I practically shared a seat. "Wherever Scarlet goes, I go". He responded. This was certainly going to be a long week.