Altered for the Altar

When we arrive back at Malfoy Manor, we are greeted with the sound of voices speaking hurriedly. I immediately recognize one as my father and the other as Mr. Malfoy, and notice that they both sound too frantic for things to be as calm as Draco’s father had tried to cast them as being when he visited us last night.

I swallow down the bile pushing up my throat and with shaky legs, slowly begin to tread behind Draco towards the dining room in which our fathers could be heard harshly whispering to each other.

“This wasn’t the plan, Lucius!” hisses my father.

“Things may have gotten a little… messy, but everything is still in order! It will go according to plan, Baylor. Trust me,” replies Mr. Malfoy.

Draco and I have halted in the doorway of the dining room and are watching the two men as they hiss and spit back at one another.

My father’s expression gives away the turmoil I can tell he feels at having gained news of the events that happened in the manor days ago. I can see that he is displeased and wonder if he will call all of tis off now. I try to remember all the business talk I’d overheard when I’d was younger, attempting to riddle out if something as serious as murder was something that my father felt could jeopardize this business transaction. It certainly put things on an uneven balance, that I knew.

With someone as unpredictable as Voldermort being on the other side, one that would owe us a great deal in the end, I could plainly see how that would make someone on the receiving end of the bounty nervous. People who appear careless and as if things such as this (business deals and the like) didn’t matter to them in the grand scheme of things were people that my father had no room for in his empire. He was a business man founded on the idea that a firm handshake and your word was just as good as a signature on a dotted line. I know he won’t take this diversion from the plan lightly.

“Trust you? You want me to trust you, Lucius? After what happened here?” my father asks.

“I understand that it was—“

“No! We had a deal, a way that things were going to work, and someone on your end strayed from it. How can I be sure that I’ll even get my money’s worth now, hm? How do I know that this Voldermort of yours won’t say to hell with my payment and tell me to blow off?”

“I told you that you’d get our support if you lend us yours, and I meant it! What happened a few nights ago has nothing to do with you. It was—“

“It was crazy, that’s what it was, and I don’t feel like my investment in this is very safe anymore. I’m taking her home immediately.”

At hearing that, my eyebrows furrow and I stare at my father blankly. He’d never been too caring, even when I was younger, and it comes as a great shock to me to know that he was worried for me. I remember how frantic I’d been at not knowing if he or my mother were safe that night, and now wonder if he felt the same way. Though I highly doubt it, my curiosity to know how my father really feels about me is heightened.

“You can’t! We still have a deal!” cries Mr. Malfoy.

“Her mother is worried, as you can imagine. A few days back home won’t hurt our arrangement,” explains my father. Then he glances over to where Draco and I have been standing, his gaze flying straight to me. “Go pack a bag, Elizabeth. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

“You can’t—“

But I don’t hear anymore. I turn instantly at my father’s word, forgetting Draco and everything that had happened to me in the past few weeks, and begin to stumble up the stairs. Tears have started to collect in my eyes as I think of my home and the idea that I’m going to be back there soon. I missed everything about the place, a feeling bubbling in the pit of my stomach, one warm and happy and so light. I never thought one could feel that way about their home, but I do now. I crave it more than anything.

When I reach my room, I shed my backpack and begin fumbling around for a suitcase. I’m midway into flinging some dresses into it when a figure appears in the doorway. It’s Draco I find when I turn, and he looks sad.

“You’re going,” he mumbles, voice thick.

And it’s then that I realize what I’m leaving as I depart from this place. A friend, maybe even a lover, and I don’t know how I feel about that now. Any emotion I should probably be feeling is masked over by the euphoria that’s causing me to nearly float.

“Yes,” I murmur, going back to folding my clothes.

He walks into the room and takes a seat next to where I’ve started to form a pile of my things. I avoid his gaze as I continue to lay articles of clothing into a suitcase I’d managed to find.

“Will you come back?”

This causes my eyes to seek his and I stare at them, wishing for the answer that I knew he wanted to hear leave my lips. But I can’t lie to him; that would be too cruel.

I whisper, “I don’t know.”

A heartbroken look washes over his pale face, but then he instantly is covering the expression up with furrowed brows and a puckered frown. He stares back down at my clothes and begins to finger a bit of lace from one of my dresses.

I want to ask him what he’s thinking, if he’s angry at me, but can’t form the words and so start back on packing once more. We remain that way until a little figure dressed in a dirty pillowcase scuttles into the room.

At the sight of Leal, I nearly start to cry. He was alive. That is all I can think about as I watch him reach for things in my closet. The little creature comes to stand on the other side of the bed and hunches down a little as he starts to help me get things in order to leave, but every once in a while he’ll allow his big eyes to quickly peer up at me. One time I manage to catch his gaze and smile with watering eyes over at him. His skin turns a little red before he snaps his orbs back down to the cardigan he’d had in his bony hands.

By the time my father is shouting for me from the first floor of the manor, Leal and I are finishing stuffing things into my case.

“Is Mistress Elizabeth going to come back for the rest of her things?” asks Leal.

I glance over my shoulder at the little creature, noticing how he twists and twists his hands, as if he’s nervous for my answer. I wonder if he’s felt this building friendship for me as well all this time.

But instead of answering his question, I divert around it because I have no real response for it. I don’t know if I’m coming back. Right now I don’t know anything other than I’ll be able to sleep in my bed for the first time in weeks tonight.

“Will you watch over all of it for me, please, Lea?” I sweetly ask him.

The house elf nods. “Yes, Mistress Elizabeth. Leal would be glad too.”

I smile at him, sweeping my gaze over his tiny form while I reach for my suitcase. When I turn, Draco is still sitting on the bed. I have to swallow hard or I’ll start to cry.

“I know I have no right to ask anything of you. You’re not mine, not really, and I know that, but… But I want you to come back. Not because I want a wife or because I want your fathers’ army, but because I know we could be something someday. I can feel it.”

His speech startles me a little, but for once in my life I am not stunned into silence by this man. The words that left his lips seemed to have wrapped around my heart and were attempting to squeeze more feelings into it. I didn’t need them to, though. I could feel what this separation would do to me later on, even if some of it was being suspended by the idea of me finally returning home.

I take a few steps, till I’m directly in front of Draco, and then lean in. I rest my forehead against his and slip a hand slowly up his chest. My eyes flicker up to find his and I only manage to peer into them for a second or two before our lips are meeting in a kiss that has more passion laced in it than any we’ve ever shared before. It makes me want to slam the door closed, drop my suitcase, and wrap us up in the duvets on my bed before letting him strip me of my clothes.

His tongue slips across my bottom lip teasingly and I drop my suitcase in favor of wrapping my arms around his neck. It draws us closer and the way his arms encircle my waist only aids in our proximity. Our mouths are moving with a fervor that they’ve never had before and my skin feels as if it’s on fire, the flames immune to anything other than Draco’s touch.

By the time we're parting, I’ve undone a few of the buttons of the shirt he’s wearing and rubbed up against him so much that I can feel the growing arousal in his pants. But I’m not frightened. Maybe it was the impending separation, the not knowing if I’d come back or if when I did, it would be too late for him and I; whatever was flaming this fire that had consumed us both in this moment was so potent that I felt like I was drunk.

“Elizabeth, we’re leaving! Come along now!”

My father’s voice vibrates through my room again and momentarily pulls me away from Draco. But when I look back at him, he still looks as lust crazed as seconds before.

“I have to go,” I murmur, beginning to detach myself from him.

“I know,” he whispers back.

And with one last fiery kiss, I sweep up my suitcase and bustle out of my bedroom door, not looking back because now the tears have started.