Optionless with Draco Malfoy

7. Crucio

Juliette

The dreaded day of initiation came. Initiation is what every Death Eater must go through to become one. A skull and snake are inked onto your wrist which stays imprinted there forever... or so they say. For the past few hours, I've never felt so disconnected from everything. Anything that anyone has said to me has gone through one ear and out the other. I feel numb to everything and everyone.

This entire day, I've been hoping to wake up from a nightmare. That way, I could be glad that this isn't reality. 

I sat at the dinner table limply staring straight ahead with thoughts racing through mind. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have had my back since first year. They learnt to accept me, despite the rivalry between our two houses. I proved to myself that Slytherins can be friends with Gryffindors. Now, the cowardice in me, can't break my own family tradition; forcing me to betray my friends. I am a coward. I couldn't help but think that this is the reason as to why I wasn't placed in any other house. 

What am I meant to do? Break apart my family? A few days ago, Draco told me that despite my beliefs and opinions, getting the Dark Mark will help to protect my family. Any of my wrongdoings, my parents suffer, as Lord Voldemort had said.

As I was deep in thought, a rough hand grabbed my shoulder. "Are you alright, Juliette?" I snapped out of my daze. This caught my attention. I never thought I'd live to see the day when Draco Malfoy would call me by my first name, but I decided not to comment on it.

"I-I've been better," I answered in a flat tone. "You?"

"I've been better. Are you-"

My mother, Lorie Trails, entered the room. She approached Malfoy and I with a stern look on her face, yet her eyes seemed soft. "Draco, I've been informed that your initiation will happen first."

He nodded his head in response, and she left the two of us alone. Over the past few days in Malfoy Manor, Malfoy has shown something to me that I never thought I'd see from him: compassion. I couldn't help but wonder why he was being so nice to me. Perhaps out of pity. Maybe it's because with the initiation happening, it's made him just as scared and nervous as me, but him being kind to me, only made me feel more frightened.

I thought about my Gryffindor friends again. Out of the blue, I asked, "Do you think they'll hate me?" 

"What?"

"Do you think they'll hate me? Harry, Ron, and Hermione," I said clearly. Just saying their names created a pit in my stomach. No wonder why I was never in Gryffindor. Malfoy witnessed my friendship with the Gryffindor trio. He hated it and shamed me for it all the time, but I needed to hear an answer from someone else, either then myself. 

"Who cares?" said Malfoy in a more familiar tone. This was the Malfoy that I knew and grew up with. "Saint Potter, always thinking he's the best," he began to huff angrily. "And don't even get me started on Weaselbee. And Granger... the Mudblood thinks she knows everything."

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Half-an-hour passed much too quickly for my liking. My heart has been beating so fast and loud, that I'm sure that anyone within a 5-feet radius can hear it.

I'm not ready for the initiation. This isn't even what I want, but it's been planned for a while now. After all, I am my parents' daughter, and with them being Death Eaters, I'm bound to be one as well. This whole situation was inevitable. 

Draco and I sat in these chairs just outside of the room in which the Dark Lord is inside.

The door was pushed open by my mother, calling Malfoy's name, while motioning for him to come. She wore an expressionless look on her face; neither was she proud of our initiations, nor disappointed. She had to do what had to be done...