Deception

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ x - ꜱʜᴀᴍᴇ & ᴘᴀʏʙᴀᴄᴋ

We walked separately towards the castle but I felt unsteady on my legs. Malfoy was walking somewhere behind me. I was disorientated and my head felt like someone split it open with an axe. I continued to see black spots and I was wavering slightly.

All of a sudden I felt an arm around me, steadying me and probably preventing me from plummeting to the ground, because that's what happened next.

"Avery." I heard a voice and I felt someone shake me. "Avery!"

I opened my eyes and saw Malfoy's face. Apparently I fainted again and this time in his arms. He looked at me with wide eyes, the concern clearly visible in his grey eyes.

"What is going on?" he asked as he scanned my face with his eyes, looking for a sign why I kept falling down like a bag of bricks. He carefully sat me down on a tree trunk that was lying on the side of the road.

"My head hurts." I mumbled grabbing the aforementioned object of agony. "I'll be fine, I need to sit here for a while." I didn't know what was happening to me, but I was sure it had something to do with the news they just bombarded me with. If I could just sit here for a while, I'd be fine.

Malfoy put his hands in his pockets and stared to the left of him for a while before he set his eyes on me. He didn't sit down, he continued to stand in front of me.

"I don't like it either." He said quietly as he stared at me. He wasn't being his arrogant self, he seemed more sincere. "There's nothing we can do."

"Why though." I said as I looked at him, the bright sky behind him hurt my head and I immediately closed my eyes and hung my head between my legs. "You made this happen. This is your fault."

"What do you think will happen, if I say it is a joke? That it's not true?" he asked as I heard the sarcasm return in his voice. I didn't reply, I was well aware what would happen. I didn't think they wouldn't kill him right away, but he would be severely punished. As for me, I didn't think my father would let it slide that easily either. Well and them being Death-Eaters didn't help either, so murder was a possibility.

"This is getting way out of hand." I said as I glared at the ground.

Malfoy sighed and kicked against a pebble on the road.

"All father ever talks about is our pure-blood status, or that I need to get married." He said as I heard the anger in his voice. I slowly looked at him, he was glaring, but he didn't look at me.

"You could've said you're with Pansy. She's a pure-blood and has connections to the ministry." I grumbled as I slowly started to feel a little better.

"Apparently he'd already chosen you." grumbled Malfoy back. "Remember?"

I remembered Lucius telling us that they planned our marriage at our births and it made me feel sick. My own bloody parents agreed to it!

"Apparently our parents made a deal a long time ago," continued Malfoy "and apparently I got so tired of him telling me I needed to court you, that I lied to his face and said I already was."

"Which of course was right up his alley." I said and now he stared at me.

"I only tried to get him off my back." He said as he quickly stared grimly at the ground. "That didn't work out."

I never had a conversation this serious with Malfoy. I was used to screaming at him, teasing him and sometimes even hurting him if it satisfied me. He used to be the same with me, we never talked like this. But we were alone, in the middle of the road on a sunny spring day, and we were engaged.