The Mark of a Death Eater : Sequel

Chapter Fourteen

The house was like a funeral home.

I'd never been to a funeral besides Albus Dumbledore's but over the past few days I'd seen enough corpses to know the silent reverence with which one stares at the dead.

Everyone spoke in hushed tones and wore black. Smiles died on people's lips as they remembered things they didn't want to.

Me? I was one with the mourners. The first weeks of August rolled by. I was surprised, one day, to see the date on the top of a copy of The Daily Prophet. August 25.

It had been over a month since Zayn's death but it might as well have been a year. I was tortured every night by screams. I tried so hard not to think about him, but everything reminded me of him, even simple things that I wouldn't have given a second thought to usually. Sometimes, I'd lapse into a state of numbness, not caring about anything else. In some ways, it was worse than the pain because of the guilt. I cried myself to sleep sometimes. I'd let loose on the post of my bed, punching so hard that my knuckles turned blue and I couldn't flex my fingers. After that, I punched the sandbag in the shed until my knuckles were scraped and burned when I put ice on them. Sometimes I screamed, right at the end of the garden where no one could hear.

I kept the necklace on though. It was one of the biggest reminders of Zayn, but if I took it off, the absence of it felt foreign on my neck and only brought him to mind more.

Once, Caspar and I had a call late in the night. A little girl had made the mistake of saying Voldemort's name. Everyone knew the name was jinxed, but this was just a little girl. Watching her parents faces as we broke through their door hurt me like a knife. I'd never heard such screams. When the mother leapt in front of her daughter to shield her... It took every ounce of willpower I had to stand there, knowing how evil I was. Knowing what a coward I was.

Caspar used the crutiatus curse on the father to find out what they knew. Who said the name? Are you part of the order? Where can we find Undesirable #1? The little girl watched her parents scream and looked ever so small. She was the poster girl for innocence. Little blonde curls held back with ribbons and an actual dress, for gods sake. I held her down while Caspar tortured her parents and came home feeling dead inside.

Home. This wasn't home. Hogwarts was my home. Zayn's house was my home. My house was home. Any place with the ones I cared about was a home. I supposed now that meant there was no such a place.

'What would Zayn think of me?' I'd ask myself sometimes. What would Daphne, or Rigel? I was constantly torn between wanting to be brave and good to their legacy, and knowing that they were long gone anyway, so it didn't matter.

My thoughts were slowly killing me.

I ran lightly down the carpeted staircase on a quiet morning. It wasn't much of a surprise to find, this morning, that the black pants that once hugged my hips had to stay up with a belt. Daphne might have found losing weight appealing, but I could barely throw a punch with all the weight I had behind it. I needed breakfast.

The large dining room was occupied by a large blonde death eater who's name I'd forgotten and Rudolphus Lestrange. I walked quickly away from both of them, taking two apples as I left.

"Hey Emma," a voice leered behind me. "Heard the news?"
I curled my lip at Rudolphus and turned around.
"Does it involve your untimely death, Lestrange? Because there's a story I could really get into."
He snorted. "You wish." He shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and slid a copy of The Daily Prophet towards me with his left hand. The newspaper skidded along the table and I caught it before it fell over the edge.

The date in the corner told me that it was the 28th of August.
I skimmed over the front page and sucked in a breath.
"Severus Snape is headmaster then?"

Rudolphus chuckled. "All your friends are leaving you little girl."
"I don't have any friends," I murmured, reading the page.
"Coulda fooled me," he said, eating another spoonful. He took his time swallowing.
"Your boyfriend's going back too."
"He isn't my boyfriend."
Rudolphus raised an eyebrow. "That so? I'm sure he'd be interested to know that."

I frowned down at the picture of Severus Snape shutting his door. Did everyone here think Draco was my boyfriend? Did he think so? I hadn't led him on but I hadn't refused him. He never even brought it up. We were just friends, weren't we? Was Rudolphus just trying to rile me up? Thinking of Draco made me ache, because I did care about him. But thinking of him in that way, in the perspective of a relationship, made me confused. When I pictured hugging him, Zayn stood in the background, sad and disappointed. Zayn and I were never involved romantically though. Lots of people thought that we were but we weren't. There was a time when I might have wondered if I saw him that way, and there might have been a time when he had a crush on me, but that's all it was. I loved him more than anyone else in this world...

A loud bout of laughter made me look up quickly. Rudolphus was finished with his cereal and leaned back in his chair, guffawing and pointing at me.
"What?" I snapped.
He shook his head. When he finally calmed down enough to speak he said, "you should see your face."
I resisted the urge to grab a teaspoon and check.
"You were so lost in your girly little thoughts."

I snarled at him and that set him off again.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my apples and the Prophet, walking away from the table.

"You're gonna be lonely without Severus," he said.
I stopped and turned around. "What?" I asked. "Why is that?"
"He's the only friend you've got here. The only one who sticks up for you, apart from the Malfoy's and you know that won't last. You came here months ago but you haven't made progress when it comes to allies. You need allies here, girl."
I swallowed hard. "And I suppose your wife would like to be my acquaintance?"
He snorted. "She hates you."
"Not as much as I hate her," I said.
He shrugged. "You'll be sorry once they leave," he continued. "I almost pity you."
And then, probably because no one in the manor was allowed to be decent to me for a minute, he said, "with your Osman friend killed off because of you, you're really all alone ain't you?"

No one mentions Zayn.

With an accuracy that any chaser would be proud of, I torpedoed the apple at him. He let out a shriek of pain as it hit his eye. The turned on my heels and ran out of the room as he screamed obscenities at me.