Salazar's Angel

VIII

Dahlia follows Draco for quite some time, weaving throughout the dark dungeons. Finally he bangs through a closed door and stops. Dahlia follows him, and he shuts the door behind her.

"Bring me here to kill me?" Dahlia asks, crossing her arms and surveying the room. It appears to be some type of study room, with a wall of book shelves and several seating options. 

"Lumos," Draco whispered, and then the only source of light in the room appeared from the tip of his wand which was pointed in an area suspiciously close to Dahlia's throat. "If I wanted to kill you I would have done it by now."

"Lovely. You really are a treat. What do you want?" Dahlia rolls her eyes and perches cautiously against the back of a chair.

Suddenly Draco is standing much closer to her, and his wand is once again jabbing into her wind pipe. "Cut the crap. I talked to my father. I know who you are."

"If you don't back up, I will hex you again," Dahlia threatened, narrowing her eyes.

He pressed his wand a little harder into her throat, light still glowing from the end of it enough to illuminate his face mere inches from hers. "Oh please. You didn't even grab your wand before you left the dormitory."

Dahlia swallowed, realizing he was right. She was wandless, not that the stupid stick did her much good on a consistent basis anyways. "What do you want Draco? Everyone here knows who I am, Dumbledore introduced me."

He shakes his head slowly. "No, Dahlia, I know who you are. I know everything. Voldemort sends his best, by the way."

Before thinking, Dahlia slaps Draco's wand away from her throat and halfway across the room where it lies and continues to throw light their way. "You told him where I was?!" Dahlia shoves Draco's shoulders back hard.

"Of course not. But knowing that you don't want him to know...well, that's interesting." Draco crosses his arms over his chest. "I figured you would be in a hurry for him to find you and come to fetch you. Spending practically every day for an entire year with someone tends to form a connection..."

Dahlia shoves her sleeve up and pushes her arm at Draco's face. "Don't you think this is enough of a connection?" The black mark is tinged with red around the edges, and burns like fire...even more so the closer her proximity to Draco grows.

"That mark on your arm tells me nothing. What are you doing here Dahlia?" Draco asks.

"You said you talked to your father. If that's true, he would have told you everything anyway." Dahlia arches her eyebrows.

Draco practically growls. "I want your side of it. Tell me where your allegiance lies."

Dahlia can't help it, she works her hands up into her hair and walks away from Draco, starting to pace. He doesn't let her get more than a few steps in before he snatches her wrist and snaps her back to him, cornering her between himself and the wall.

"I said tell me where you-" Draco begins, but is cut off.

"HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY EXPECT ME TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION?" Dahlia roars, right into Draco's face that is pressed so closely to hers. "HOW? I know that you are the infamous Draco Malfoy, a loyal and well respected Death Eater who is as close to perfect as one can get in his eyes but we all can't be as perfect as you! I don't know the answer to your question Malfoy, I don't know the answers to most questions these days."

Draco stays silent, arms crossed, standing a slightly more reasonable distance from her. Observing.

Dahlia continues on, "I found out about all of this only a year ago. I wasn't born into it...I was...I was THROWN into it, PITCHED into it face first. I didn't get a choice about where my allegiance lied then, and as it looks to me, I don't have much of one now, now do I?"

Dahlia glances up at Malfoy, to see him still standing there silently. So she continues on, "Do you think this is what I wanted? Any of it? I have FRIENDS and A FAMILY that I can't speak to anymore for fear of them being MURDERED. I was going to go to college...I WAS GOING TO BE A FUCKING LAWYER! Instead, I got PLUCKED from my life and trained to be a fucking WEAPON in this stupid war! All on the ridiculous fucking notion that I have some sort of what? Untapped potential, that noseless, bald fuck called it? And you have the NERVE to ask me where my allegiance lies? As if I give a single flying FUCK about my allegiance at this point? I want my life back!"

He continues to stare at her, as her chest heaves from lack of breath. "SAY SOMETHING DAMNIT!" She spits out, bending over at the waist to catch her breath. 

"You stupid, stupid girl. Don't you realize you don't have a choice? You practically are the war at this point!" Draco finally speaks, still glaring at her with poison in his icy grey eyes.

Dahlia takes a deep breath in. "What you don't seem to be grasping through that thick helmet of blond hair is that therein lies the issue. I didn't get a choice. And I don't have one now. Because if I live here, he will snatch me right back up."

"So you don't want to go back to him?" Draco asks.

"NO! I want no part of any of this. At this point I don't particularly care which side I end up on." Dahlia shrugs. If she's going to be miserable does it really matter whether she is under Voldemort's or Dumbledore's thumb?

"You would do well to keep that bit of information to yourself," Draco says.

Dahlia gestures to her top. "Malfoy...I am HOT all the time. This mark feels like it is burning my skin off. Yet you haven't managed to catch me in a short sleeve shirt yet, now have you? I don't plan to go around bragging about being a death eater."

Draco scoffs. "Ha! You, a death eater? Just because you took the mark doesn't mean that you could have ever made it as a death eater. From what I know you sat up in Voldemort's strong hold and had 18 years worth of wizarding knowledge force fed to you...and you still can't even use a wand properly!"

"Why would I even want a wand when choking you out with my bare hands would be that much more satisfying?" Dahlia took a step towards him and narrowed her eyes.

She watched the cords in his neck work. "You don't scare me Dahlia Slytherin." He held her gaze. They were back to standing close enough together that she could once again feel the cold radiating from him.

"And you don't scare me either, Malfoy." And she guarantees this is the first time anyone has ever said those words to him, and meant them.