Don't Be So Hard on Yourself

When it was time for the Dark Lord to see if I was fit to be a Death Eater most of the other Death Eaters were told to leave. The only people still in Malfoy Manor were the Malfoy’s, Bellatrix, my families, the Dark Lord and I. The Dark Lord told me to follow him into a closed study with my parents. I watched the Dark Lord move with grace and his wand pointing to my parents. He looked to me instead of my parents and he made an amused face.

“Acey, will you join me by my side?” I nodded taking timid steps to the Dark Lord. I faced my parents and I watched tears fall from my mother’s face and my father kept his chin up and eyes staring past the Dark Lord and me. I felt nerves start to wrack my body. “I need to test your strength, Acey, not your physical strength but your mental and emotional strength. I’m tired of losing valuable Death Eaters to emotions and it is tiresome.” He paused to motion my mother forward with his wand.

I watched my mother mouth three little words to me. I love you I stood there motionless as the Dark Lord whispered one word I was taught is Unforgivable. “Crucio!” His voice was high and cold as I watched my mother collapse to the ground and in between fits she screamed. I watched her scream. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I just watched as the person I was going to be forced to call my Lord torture my mother.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell the Dark Lord to stop. I just watched him use the torture curse on my mother until he lifted her into the air. A lone tear fell from her left eye as she stared at me with her head tilted back. I felt sick to my stomach. The Dark Lord let go of my mother and I watched her drop to the floor with a dull thud. She writhed in pain even though the Dark Lord hadn’t used another curse on her.

“This will happen to everyone you claim to love, Acey, they will be put through pain and death if you continue to lose yourself to emotions. I can sense high things about you, you have powers you have yet to discover. If you could allow yourself to harness those, under my teachings of course, you will be just as powerful as I am.” I nodded timidly and the Dark Lord just smirked. He pointed his wand to my mother, still on the floor, tears pouring out of her eyes. “Avada Kedavra.” Two words. That’s all it took. Two words to make a jet of green light explode from the end of his wand and my mother was dead. I gasped from shock but I didn’t move.

I had to stay strong. My hand went straight to the black stone on my chest and an electric shock filled me. I felt better. I felt like I could get through the death of my mother because I could feel him with me. I could feel Draco with me.

“Your mother was a horrible asset to me.” The Dark Lord spat with anger filling his voice. “She threatened to get Dumbledore to save you. Too late now.” He turned to my father and my father just stayed in his catatonic state. “I’m going to spare your father until you are seventeen. Then you will deal with him.” Then the Dark Lord grabbed my left wrist and held it underside up in a tight grip. Muttering a simple word and pressing his wand against my pale skin, I felt like my whole arm was on fire. I watched the skull and the snake start to form and my skin itched and burned. I felt like falling to my knees. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I kept my cool, I stood straight and I looked to my father as the Dark Mark branded my body.

I watched a lone tear leave my father’s eye and travel down his cheek. The lone drop fell on his robes and my jaw dropped for a fraction of a second.

“My task for you, Acey Blake, is to be Snape’s ears for Draco. I know that Draco isn’t letting Snape in and I would love to know how Draco is going with his task. Severus trusts you, Acey; you must not let him or me down.” With a sadistic bow, the Dark Lord Disapparated out of the room and I crumpled to the floor.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I looked at my mother lying dead on the floor, her eyes not seeing and dried tear stains on her cheeks. My father fell down next to my mother and sobbed. Loud, gut-wrenching screams of despair left his lips and I felt chills run through me. I got up after a few minutes of sitting there, unable to do anything or even think, I walked out of the study and ran to Draco’s room.

Instantly he came to my side at his doorframe and embraced me in a tight hug. “I felt it.” He muttered in my hair and I cried. “I felt your pain and your confusion. You touched the necklace, didn’t you?” I nodded and he kissed my head.

“I felt you and I felt like I was going to get through this. But I can’t do this without you, Draco, no matter how hard I have to try to not love, I can’t not love you Draco.” I sputtered through my little spiel in incoherent sentences. Draco shushed me and rubbed my back soothingly. We stood there, in his room, for a few moments as I tried to gather myself. He gave me a quick kiss on my lips before telling me I need to sleep. I was barely able to walk back to my room and once I hit my bed, I started crying again and my pillow was my only comfort.

The rest of the holidays were nothing close to eventful. Draco and I weren’t really allowed to be alone together and my father had left for yet another mission. I feared for him but I tried so hard to be collected around Bellatrix, Narcissa and Lucius. I couldn’t fathom the fact that the Dark Lord tortured and killed my mother in front of me. But I could sense why Narcissa seemed so fearful with Draco around the Dark Lord. I gathered that if Draco would fail, the Dark Lord will surely kill him. I vowed to myself I will be Snape’s ears so Snape will protect Draco.

I don’t know what’s going to come but I was sure as anything which side I was truly on now. And it wasn’t the side where the mark on my arm came from. I was just a girl who made a wrong choice and just a girl whose parents made the wrong choice. I couldn’t control it.

I just hoped the side that I made myself be a part of would be glad to accept me.