Heir Of Gryffindor

Chapter Sixteen

Brian's POV

I kept my head down as I passed by Seamus, Dean, and Neville. The three of them had been crazy since Harley left. They had some weird fear that if anything happened to me Harley would skin them alive. Everyone had just come back from winter holiday and Hogwarts was completely silent. Nothing was the same. No one was happy. It was as if someone brought dementors into the school to suck every ounce of happiness away. The stupid battle that my idiotic father dragged me into was going to ruin life. Everyone knew it was coming soon. There was no doubt that it would happen within the next year. Dumbledore kept to himself a lot and the professors seemed extremely uninterested in teaching. Draco looked like absolute shit. He had dark circles under his eyes and was a lot more pale than usual. He ignored Crabbe and Goyle, but they were too quiet and withdrawn to notice.

I walked into the common room and sighed in relief when I saw no one else was there. Nobody ever wanted to stay around each other much anyway. We were all too glum and depressed. It was like we all lost the most important things in our lives, but the reality of it was we all knew there was a good chance we wouldn't be alive within the next year. Wars, especially a war of this magnitude, would have colossal losses. There was a flash and all of a sudden, the common room was pitch black. Something grabbed me and before I could let out a scream I was in the Malfoy Manor. Alecto and Amycus Carrow each held onto one of my arms. They smirked evilly at me and I gulped down my fear.

They dragged me into the room Voldemort was always in and I gulped as I saw every death eater I knew and every death eater I didn't, all standing around the room. My father was being restrained by Lucius and somebody I didn't know. He didn't make eye contact with me and I felt my shoulders droop.  Draco went to scream out, but a body binding spell kept him put. I let a single tear drop as I stood in front of Voldemort. He grinned at me, if that even described the twisted way his lips turned up, and I knew. I was dying right here, in this moment, but not in the normal way. He was going to take away my freedom, and I'd be dead.

"Bian my dear, you're not afraid." He said it as a statement because he knew I wasn't.

I kept my face completely blank, and stared into his cold red eyes. He got closer to me, and turned my head towards my father. Lucius made him look at me, and my heart broke. He was bleeding, and his face was bruised, but the worst part was he was crying. My father never cried. He kept his emotions hidden because he didn't want to show anyone that he was weak.

"You see dear, I don't like it when someone tells me I shouldn't do something. Your dear old dad here said you shouldn't bear the dark mark, but I think you should. I mean you might not live through the process, but that's not my problem, now is it?"

I shook my head no and felt the Carrows' hands leave my body. Voldemort grabbed a vial of green liquid, and I opened my mouth. No need to stall the inevitable. The minute the liquid hit my mouth, pain seared through every one of my limbs. I dropped to the ground and willed myself not to scream. My back began to contort into awkward positions and I couldn't hold back the screams any longer. My screams echoed throughout the manor, but were muffled by the laughs of the death eaters around me.

Voldemort left the room, while Lucius and the other death eaters forced my father to leave behind him. I couldn't tell if anyone else was in the room. All I could feel was my body twisting and curling. My insides were on fire and it was a pain I had never felt before.  After what seemed like eternity, the pain stopped. I felt hands pick me up and I looked up and managed to slightly smile at my brother.

"Bia I'm so sorry. I screwed up. I could have protected you, and now you're stuck like me."

He was crying and I felt tears cascade down my cheeks too. We apparated to Hogsmeade and Draco held me as we walked through the wardrobe he had fixed. Since he was a prefect, no one seemed to question him walking through the corridors with a crying first year. He brought me to his room and held me as I cried. It was the first time he acted like a brother, but I didn't care. I needed him in this moment. Before I knew it, my eyes drooped, and I fell asleep, curled up next to my big brother.