pureblood.

f o r t y - f o u r

I follow the staircase which leans me to a darkened room. The sudden flashing of the sky helps me find my way out. Two double doors like the one in my room lead to the room which is the ballroom. I open one of the doors and step into the large room.

I glance into the room and see people staring at the door, waiting to see who is about to walk in. I don't recognise a since face. The first man I notice has a face like a rat, a squished face with a large nose and beady blue eyes. His hair is a strawberry blonde but it's dulled by the dirt he is covered in. He looks as if he had crawled all the way to the Manor.

The next is a much taller muscular man with dark hair and green eyes. He is standing near the rat faced man but he is much taller than him. He stands with his shoulders back and his head held high. His wearing a black suit with a black cloak. He is really intimidating, his stare is filled with violence and rage, as he looks through me like he knows who I am.

The last I see is a woman. A glamorous woman with big black hair and hooded eyes. She stands smiling at me as I walk through the door. Her lips are dark and mysterious and her cheeks are sunken into her face making her cheekbones protrude from her face; an elegant skull. Her dress falls to the ground hiding her legs and feet. The black dress is low cut at the front which shows her boney ribs underneath her ghostly skin. The skirt part of the dress stops and a large piece of lace connects the top and the bottom of the dress, showing her stomach through the web like lace. "Is this her?" She suddenly says as she looks me up and down.

"She's a girl!" The man with the rat like face exclaims as everyone in the room now turns to face me.

I walk in and try and see if Draco is in the room. Looking past the crowd of people I see him at the back of the room with his mother. He doesn't notice me until I start to approach him.

The heels of my shoes click off the wooden floor making my steps echo behind me. As I was people move out of my way, creating a path for me straight to Draco.

He stands with his mother and father at his side. His father has now taken his hair out of the braid and it is now just falling at either side of his face, like curtains in front of a dark window. Lucius' eyes are fixed on me. Judging me. Watching me. His mother however is every different. She gives me a heartfelt smile become walking over to me to give me a hug, as if we had known each other for years.

Draco stands with that cheeky smile beaming at me. He doesn't even look like he has changed his pants, they look exactly the same. But he is no longer wearing a tie, he has undone some of the buttons of his shirt so I can see his chest. Like the night we first met. "Ivy." He says greeting me.

"Draco." I say with a smirk. I can't decide whether I should play hard to get or to behave myself. I think that this might be the wrong time and place to get either of us into trouble.

I want to know what he is thinking at this moment. I don't know whether to be scared or welcomed into this group of older people. Me and Draco are the only two young wizards in the room. Most of the room is filled with scary looking men that are wearing there cloak hoods up to the point where I can only just see there faces.

"So, Ivy. How are the mood swings?" Lucius asks me making me return my gaze back to the Malfoy's.

"I'm trying to control them but they can be challenging at times." My moods have been up in the air ever since the night of detention. I can't remember a day since where I haven't had at least one snap mood change. One second I would be completely normal, happy. And the next I wanted to break something or hurt somebody. The feelings just blur into one big smudge of rage.

Draco probably has the worst mood stings I've ever seen. Today for instance, calling me a bitch and the next he is telling me how beautiful I am. I think he makes mine worse. Sometimes I want to run and never speak to him ever again and sometimes I just want to kiss him. No not kiss him. I want to lose myself in his scent, his madness, his touch.

I snap out of my daydream and return back to the strange conversation. Lucius is rambling on how bad his moods were when he first started to get them. Narcissa looks up at him, admires him. But Draco hasn't taken his eyes off me since I walked through the door.

He walks to my side away from his mother and leans into me. "You look like a dream." He whispers to me making my cheeks blush and my smile take over my lips.

He looked as handsome as he always does in a suit. However, this is different from when we first met. His hair is now slicked back, it's flicked to one side of his face and dry. It looks more white when he doesn't put product in his hair. But the thing that makes me wild is that I can smell myself all over him. My perfume has combined with his, creating a messy but beautiful scent. It's like when you spend too much time at a persons house and you start to smell like them.

"Dinner is served." One of the strange looking elves say walking into the room interrupting Lucius' speech.

Everyone then starts piling into the long room with the large table that reaches each side of the hall. The table isn't set. There's no plates or cutlery on the table. Just a strange looking person sat at the head of the table.

His face is white like a skull. His eyes set deeply into his face. No nose, it's as if it had been pushed into his face leaving only two nostrils to breath from. His mouth is also pushed into his face like a old woman who has taken out her false teeth. But he has teeth, they are sharp and pointy like a shark that stick out when he smiles. He has no hair, all I can see on his head is the blood pulsating through his veins. The blue and purple lines make him look more dead than anyone else in the room.

The Malfoy's sit in the middle of the table. I sit in between Draco and Narcissa. Next to Draco, sits the glamorous woman with big black hair. There is a space left next to the strange man with the flat face. Everyone else falls in line sitting in places like they have been doing this for years.

A loud cackle echos through the room. "She's alive after all." The ugly man says looking straight at me. "The Avery child lives."

Everyone then turns and looks at me. Like I'm a piece of meat that had just been thrown into the lions den. "But she's a girl." One of the hooded man shout at the strange man at the head of the table. "Girls are weak." He shouts.

"How dare you." The glamorous woman shouts back at him standing from the table. She holds out her long bent wand at him, the tip of it glows a vibrant red colour.

"Silence!" He commends the room making the woman sit back down in her chair and the hooded man to look back at me. "She's one of us now. Woman or not, she's one of the strongest among us." He announces to the room. "Come here, my child." He says ushering me to stand by him.

I stand and walk closer to him, with all the eyes in the room following my ever step. The floor boards creak underneath my feet making every step sound like my ranging heart beat. I'm terrified.

"You too, Draco." He says calling Draco to follow me.

We both stand at his side. He rises from his chair and commands, "Your arm, Draco." Draco takes off his blazer and rolls up the black shirt sleeve revealing his left forearm. The next thing I know, the snake faced man is holding his long wand over his arm.

Draco falls to his knees in agony as a black mark starts to appear on his arm. The mark is a black skull with a twisted snake falling out of its mouth. It's like a tattoo but not at the same time. This mark is branded onto his skin like a cut rather than a needle prick. The black lines cut into his skin making it bleed and him look up and the skull man.

"Now, your arm." He commands me. I do as I am told because I fear if I don't I might not survive the night. The pain is excruciating. I feel like my arm is getting cut off from my forearm down. I fall to the ground, like Draco. I feel myself crying because of the violent pain cutting into me. I don't look down at my arm. I feel if I look it will make the pain feel more real. I then feel a hand touching my right hand. It's Draco's hand. He holds onto it so I know that I am not alone. The pain suddenly comes to a holt.

"Severus." The ugly faced man says looking at the door. "You made it."