Poison Ivy | T. Riddle ✔

[54] No Choice

It was way past curfew and no student was out in the vast school corridors, even the prefects had completed their rounds and retreated to their dormitories. Not a soul was out of the common rooms except for one. 

The tall dark silhouette of Lucius Malfoy wandered the empty corridors, walking swiftly yet his boots glided over the floor without making any sound. The prefect badge on his robes gleamed in the dim light that shone down on him from the torch brackets lit up in the corridors. His platinum blonde hair could be recognized from a mile away but there was no one to see him passing through the empty halls.

Very cautiously, he slipped out of the castle through a hidden exit that his house members used rarely and only for that one reason which had got him out of the castle at such a late hour as well. 

A meeting was going to be held deep in the Forbidden Forest. And it was not just a meeting of students, instead it was a meeting of the youngest recruited Death Eaters, presided by none other than Bellatrix Black.

Soon after graduating from Hogwarts, Bellatrix had joined the Death Eaters. She and her betrothed, Rudolphus Lestrange, had quickly gained a high rank among Voldemort's trusted followers. The two were then tasked to recruit students from Hogwarts, mostly Slytherins as Bella had a rather huge influence over them.

The meeting in the forest was to welcome the newest Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy. But while Bellatrix had joined Lord Voldemort out of her own will, the same could not be said for Lucius.

He had had no choice but to join the cult due to the deal that resided between his father and Tom Riddle. And though Abraxas had never wanted his son to be bound with the same chains that he had been entrapped in, it was either that or death for the whole family.

That was the sole reason Lucius was standing among the group of Death Eaters, the Dark Mark engraved on his lower left arm. His steel blue eyes swept over each face in disdain, pausing until he met Bella's dark irises.

She was no longer the charming Bellatrix Black he had known back in her school days. Instead, a crazed glint raged in her dark eyes, her stunning features set in a haughty yet menacing glare. She used Unforgivable curses with ease and it seemed as if pain gave her satisfaction for she inflicted it upon others without even a second thought.

"Lucius, my dear cousin, have you forgotten the time? You were supposed to be here earlier," her voice scorned him yet he ignored the sting in her words.

"My apologies, Bella. I hadn't meant to keep you all waiting for long," his tone was slightly strained but cordial nevertheless.

"Now that everyone is here," she resumed clasping her hands together in delight, "let us begin. The Dark Lord has so many new tasks for all of you. And if you excel in the tasks he assigns to you, you shall be rewarded. Highly."

Utter silence gripped the clearing in which they had set up an enchanted camp that could not be seen by anyone other than the Death Eaters. The only sound piercing the silence was Bellatrix's shrill voice but even that did not leave the camp due to the protective enchantments secured around it.

"Or for some of you, the reward will be your life," she sneered and her remark was pointed directly at Lucius. No wonder she knew about the deal made between Abraxas Malfoy and Lord Voldemort, she had the strange ability of knowing a lot of things that she shouldn't.

He looked back at her with a resolute defiance in his eyes, refusing to give her the pleasure of being able to degrade him. He knew that if he allowed Bellatrix to walk over him just because she was superior in the eyes of the Dark Lord, then she would keep using his submissiveness to her advantage.