Being His Daughter CONTINUED

Breaking Down

   I was numb as I went back up to the castle alongside Junior and Dumbledore. I tried not to think about anything. I didn't want to process what had just happened. If I did, I may scream.

"Well it's a shame you couldn't find him, Professor Moody," Dumbledore said. "We will go up to my office once Sierra is safely back in her common room and come up with some other plan to find him. I'm very curious about what he wanted to tell me."

Just go digging for bones in the forest and you'll find him in no time, I thought.

"We'll find him soon enough, Headmaster," Junior said as we came to the entrance of the dungeons.

"I know the way," I said, not even looking at them as I entered the familiar chilliness. "Thank you."

It was weird how Dumbledore suggested he and "Moody" walk me all the way to my common room. I mean, the last thing I really thought Dumbledore cared about was the safety of his students. He allowed Draco, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and I to go down into the Forbidden Forest for detention when we were eleven, and for Merlin's sake, he let me go with "Moody" to search for a madman in the forest. So it would've been ignorant of me to think he wanted to walk me here to ensure I was 'safe'. So what did he want?

I hadn't done anything suspicious back there, had I? Maybe it was how I behaved when Junior and I came out of the forest. I wasn't exactly sure how I behaved though. I couldn't feel anything. Wasn't thinking of anything either, really.

When I entered the common room, there were only a couple of people scattered around. Draco, Airam, Jalen, Theodore, and Blaise included. I slipped past without them noticing and hurried down to our room. I was buried under my covers the next minute, but I didn't sleep.

______

"What's wrong with you?" Blaise asked.

"What?" I asked, sitting up quickly.

Blaise snorted. "You've been staring at that bloody muffin all morning," he noted, bumping my shoulder.

"I've never seen one like it." I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. I was half rubbing the sleep out of them and half trying to rub out the image of Junior stabbing his fathers body.

"It's just a regular muffin—"

"Shut up!" I snapped.

He flinched and held up his hands as a sign of surrender, turning away from me and muttering to Theodore. I distinctly heard him ask if I was on my period.

No, I thought, I saw someone get murdered last night. What's your excuse? Freakin irritable little—

Draco placed his arm around me. "Are you alright, love?"

"I'm fine," I mumbled, grabbing the muffin that had been sitting on my plate ever since we first got to the Great Hall. I held it up to my lips, but then put it back down. The thought of eating made me want to be sick.

"Are you sure?"

"I said I'm fine," I spat through my teeth.

Draco looked slightly taken aback by my aggressiveness toward him, but after a while of studying me, he grinned cheekily, grabbed the muffin out of my hand, and bit into it, winking at me. I wanted to smile but I didn't.

Junior stabbed his father to death. Merlin.

I shouldn't be acting this way. I was the daughter of Voldemort and I was going to have to witness someone being killed sooner or later... but Crouch was Junior's father. And it was no simple Avada Kedavra, boom, you're dead. No, he stabbed him. The violence made me shudder. I couldn't be weak like this, though. I needed to get used to it. What would father think of me if he knew the way I was acting?