The Mark of a Death Eater : Sequel

Chapter Thirteen

"This is Arianne's house. She lives here with her father."

Caspar, the white-haired murderer was watching me, waiting for a better reaction.
"What the hell did you do to her?" I cried.

He didn't answer. In a swift motion, I strode across the room and slapped him across his face. The sound echoed in the empty house. Caspar instinctively held his hand up to his cheek. He lowered it slowly, and turned to me, his eyes full of hatred. My nails had left thin red trails along his left cheek.

"You. Homicidal. Sociopath." I aimed the words like knives at him. "Do you know what you are?" I took a step forward, so close our faces we were almost touching. "A dog." I spat. "A small, useless, helpless lapdog who depends on his masters protection and bites whichever hand his master tells him to!"

Caspar moved blindingly fast. A sharp crack resounded through my head. He'd pushed me so hard, I'd hit my head on the wall behind me. Tears sprang into my eyes at the pain and I gasped. One of his arms was against my throat, cutting off my oxygen. The other gripped my arm, probably cutting off my circulation. I gasped for air, my fingernails scrabbling at the back of his hand helplessly, my wand on the floor.

"You bitch," he hissed. "If you ever say something like that again, I will kill you. I don't care what he says." He was lifting my feet off the floor and I was starting to black out.

Suddenly, he let me go. I fell with my full weight against Arianne's desk, the sharp edge digging painfully into my back. Caspar stood in the middle of the room, not meeting my eyes and breathing heavily. My hands went to my neck as I struggled to breathe again.

"Coward," I whispered roughly.

He turned to me, angry. "What?"
"Coward," I said, as loud as I could. "That's what you are. You killed them." I blinked tears out of my eyes. "You killed Arianne like you killed Zayn. You're a murderer."

Caspar raised his wand, pointing it at my chest. Let him do his best. I was done.
"You take away all the good things in the world," I cried. "All the light and hope. You destroy everything that's good." I took a scorching breath. "No one could ever love you."

He growled, his wand shooting purple sparks. I thought he was going to attack me again. Instead, he pulled his hand away heavily, as if it took physical effort and strode out of the door, his heavy boots banging on the floor as he left.

I sat up, coughing and retching, and tried not to cry. My throat hurt, it felt like something was lodged there. I realized he'd torn a hole in my cloak. Funny how much that would have pissed off Old-Emma. It didn't do anything to me.

I heard a door bang downstairs and I winced. For all my talk, without a wand and words, I was as helpless as a baby. I struggled to get up from the floor, and leaned on the desk as I looked into the mirror on Arianne's wall. Red stripes marked where Caspar's hands had wrapped around my throat. The fire opal on the hollow of my throat burned as bright as always, oblivious to its surroundings. Tears welled in my eyes and I choked on my sobs. I hated him so much. I hated myself so much.

I took a few minutes upstairs. I washed my face in Arianne's gold and blue bathroom, then sat on the edge of her bed and steadied my heartbeat. I dug through her draws for a scarf and wrapped it around my neck. I pulled my hood over it and fastened the tie over the scarf. If she was here she wouldn't mind, and if she was dead then it didn't matter.

I heard the telltale crack of someone apparating and guessed that Caspar left the house.

I was leaving the room when I remembered the pictures on the wall. The drawings, on closer examination had a small signature in the corner. A curvy ZA, a very loopy Y and an N. Zayn's signature. The curve of his lines and the strokes of his brush were as familiar to me as my own face. After a reminiscent minute, I pulled a sheet down from the pins that held it up and folded it, tucking it into my pocket.

I walked out into the hallway, touching each portrait of Arianne and her father, loneliness heavy in my chest. Caspar was long gone. I had half a mind to leave myself, just run and not go back, but I knew it was useless. Where would I go? Where would I stay? Narcissa would be worried. Of course, I didn't care what she thought, yet...

Sighing deeply, I pulled my cloak tighter around me and willed myself back to Malfoy Manor.

Crack. I apparated into Narcissa's garden and stumbled into a bed of little white flowers. The petals were shaped like stars.

'Daphne would know the name of these.'

The thought came to me so suddenly; I gasped, as if Caspar was strangling me again. It felt like a hole ripping though my sternum. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to close the hole that all the people I betrayed had left behind. Daphne, Zayn, Rigel, my parents, Arianne, her father, Astoria, the Osman's, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter... The boy who wouldn't live much longer.

I sucked in huge gulps of air, trying to breathe again. I shivered despite the warm night.

Don't think of them don't think of Zayn or Daphne or Rigel or Arianne or mum or your old friends or those enemies who weren't really your enemies all along.

Breathe.

It took a while for me to get my bearings - I was at the end of the garden. It wouldn't take long to walk up to the house, if I could get the courage to.

The thought of Caspar sitting inside, replaying the tale of what happened today for the Carrows, Avery and god knows who else, resolved me. Straightening up, I unwrapped the scarf from my neck. Let him see that I wasn't afraid of his ugly red fingermarks. He might as well have marked me with the blood on his hands.

I left the scarf in the garden and walked up to the house, pausing for only a second to look behind me.

The soft blue scarf against the tiny white flowers.

If I closed my eyes, I could see Daphne and Arrianne, sitting in the garden and smiling. Arrianne leaning over a book, her long hair brushing over her knees, a small smile playing on the corner of her lips - as if she was too shy to laugh. And Daphne, her head back, blue eyes shining, flowers braided into her hair and laughter bubbling inside her.

Then I blinked, and it was Arrianne, her mouth open in horror, eyes showing revulsion and blood spreading over her pale blue shirt. Daphne, mascara running down her cheeks from tears she shed as she screamed at my betrayal.

I covered my eyes and ran blindly to the house.