Altered for the Altar

The sound of rain pattering against the roof woke me the next morning, causing me to stir underneath the sheets of the bed and slowly crack my eyes open enough to shoot a quick glance around the room. It was cloaked in a grey kind of light and my vision was so blurry from sleep that it was impossible to make out anything clearly. I yawned widely and rolled over onto my back, running my hands over my face.

The few hours of rest I’d managed to get last night were clearly not enough, as my entire body still felt exhausted, and the idea of going back to sleep seemed very appealing. Anyways, I doubted that I was going to see any of the Malfoy’s soon and I could find nothing else to keep my mind off my current situation. I rolled onto my left side and drew the comforter up under my chin, slowly letting my eyes to drift closed.

Yesterday had been a day that had seemed to sap every bit of my strength, though I did hardly anything to constitute my extreme lack of energy. After the little Leal creature had brought me up to my room, he’d quickly scampered down a hallway and out of sight, leaving me alone in the strange chambers. I’d quickly surveyed the large space, but couldn’t manage anything other than that. My bags had been left unpacked, all except for the one that I thought held my pajamas, and I didn’t touch anything in the room besides the bed when I crawled on top of it to try to sleep.

Sleep, however, didn’t come and so I laid awake, starring up at the ceiling while thoughts of everything ran through my mind. Draco, his parents, an unimaginable wedding, the faceless people he and I were expected to murder, the life that I’d left behind to come here, and a multitude of other things were the reason for my staying up so late. I couldn’t seem to get any of them to stop, my attempt at trying to think of something else only leading to another horrible subject.

I couldn’t remember falling asleep, only waking up this morning, and I’d hoped it’d all been a horrible nightmare. But my quick look over of the room in which I’d slept was proof enough that this was, indeed, my reality.

I drew in a deep breath through my nose as I tried to reposition myself in the bed, silently cursing myself for allowing all those thoughts to emerge in my head again. Though exhaustion still was running rampant through my entire body, sleep was no longer as favorable as before and so I forced my heavy eyes open. If I was to try to go back to sleep, last night would only be repeated and I would do anything to prevent something like that from happening again.

As I shoved myself up to a sitting position, a few knocks sounded at the door and I muttered a quick ‘come in’ before propping myself up on some of the pillows that shared the bed with me. The door slowly creaked opened and I smiled a little when a cart appeared before Leal. His big eyes seemed to glow in the dim darkness of the room, but he only allowed me to see them once before he snapped them back down to the cart.

The smell of assorted breakfast foods caused my mouth to water and my stomach to give a few rumbles, to which I embarrassedly clasped my hands over it. I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning, so to say that I was hungry was a slight understatement.

Leal went about lighting a few candles in the room as I rose to go to the little table that sat in a corner of my room. After there was a substantial amount of the greyness gone, he then walked back over to the cart and pulled a tea cup from the crowded thing. I smiled as he sat it down in front of me, catching his thoroughly confused look before he scampered back over for a teapot and a folded piece of something. He sat the teapot in the middle of the table and shakily held out his hand, which held a piece of paper. When I grabbed the opposite end from his fingers, he quickly let go and hurried back over to get something else.

Sighing a little, I sat back in the chair and unfolded the silver-tinted sheet of decorative paper, my eyes quickly scanning the black cursive words. There was no warm greeting, just a few words that appeared to be hastily scribbled in order to inform me that I needed to dress and meet Draco outside my room in half an hour. Frowning a little, I sat the note aside and reached for the teapot. Whatever it was that he and I were to do today obviously wasn’t going to be to enjoyable. Frowning, I took a sip of the steaming liquid now in the teacup and starred out at the slightly visible garden through the window I sat in front of.

I questioned the reason behind his request as Leal continued to place an array of breakfast foods on the table, not reaching for anything as my brain began buzzing with the several possibilities. He could want to begin the hunt for those people whom we were expected to murder, or maybe he wanted to talk more about how we were needed in this whole thing. Either way, I decided as I took a few more sips, it was going to be a very long day.

By the time I’d finished speculating, Leal had placed everything on the table and was now slowly pushing the cart out into the hallway. He was watching me over his shoulder as he went, but jumped a little when I returned his stare and hurriedly disappeared through the doorway. He closed my door without reappearing and I turned back towards the large breakfast in front of me.

I ate quickly, as I knew my getting ready was going to take a little while. I needed to shower and my clothes were in five or six separate bags, along with everything else that I was going to need to properly ready myself for a day full of unknown activities.

By the time I’d finished, my stomach had stopped the horrible rumbling and the feeling of sleepiness was slowly creeping back over me. With a, now, full stomach, it was going to be harder to work through my exhaustion.

Before I went in search of a bathroom, I began hunting through my bags for a suitable outfit, a small bag that I knew to be full of makeup, and other things to be used on my hair. I laid the clothes I’d decided would be suitable on my unmade bed and gathered all the other things while heading to one of the four doors that nearly completely made up a wall of my room. The first two had only led to a walk-in closet, but the third led to a medium sized bathroom and I slipped in. I didn’t take too long to look over how it had been decorated, just merely went about adjusting the water to my desired temperature for a shower and stripping off my pajamas.

I washed thoroughly, especially when it came to my hair, and when I was pulling the door of the shower open, I frantically hurried to dry off. I spent too long in the steam and was now going to have to hastily finish up my routine in order to meet Draco on time. Obviously I knew he wouldn’t favor waiting outside in the hall for an extra five or ten minutes and I didn’t want to give him any other reason, besides our present circumstances, to dislike me.

I dried my hair quickly, applied some product to get my waves to appear neater, and then applied a bit of makeup. Leaving the bathroom a mess, I ran back in to my room with only a towel around my body and quickly dressed. I grabbed a few pieces of jewelry out of one of the bags I’d opened in search of clothes and slipped on a pair of shoes before deciding that I was ready.

Just as I was reaching for the handle of the door, a few knocks sounded from the other side. I let out a deep breath, my hands beginning to feel a bit clammy as I placed one on the handle, and opened the door. Draco raised his head up when he came into view and allowed his eyes to sweep over me for a few short seconds before they rose back up to my face. My heart thudded faster in my chest as his grey eyes stared for a moment and I quickly clasped my hands around each other in front of me while diverting my gaze down to the floor.

“Are you ready,” he quietly questioned.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Alright, well-I expect you’ll be wondering what it is I wanted.”

I looked up when he said this and nodded a few times. His face wasn’t contorted in the same expression that I’d been accustomed to seeing on him; he still appeared sad, but he wasn’t exactly frowning and his eyebrows weren’t downcast anymore.

“We’re going to Diagon Alley.”

“Where,” I confusedly questioned.

He chuckled a little and stepped back before motioning for me to go ahead of him. After I stepped out into the hallway, I heard as he closed my bedroom door, something I’d completely forgotten to do, and as his shoes hit against the floor while he quickly caught up with me.

“It’s a local wizard village full of shops,” he started again. “People need to finally see you and I thought I could show you around a bit, help you with figuring out how things work over here.”

“Oh,” I surprisingly muttered. “Yes, uhm, that sounds fine. Thank you.”

“No one can know that you and I are… that we don’t particularly favor each other, so we’re going to have to put on a good show,” he quietly said.

I nodded, not at all surprised that this was something he’d be informing me of on our first visit out together. Of course I knew this to be something necessary in order to keep the entire thing from falling apart, but I found that it was going to be one of the hardest things that we were going to have to do. Trying to pretend like you’re in love when you really disfavor each other on principle wasn’t exactly ideal and I wondered just how well I’d be able to play the part once we got out with the others of his world.

My hands tightened around each other as my nerves seemed to accelerate, mixing with the great pressure that I now felt. My father’s words echoed through my mind as we began descending a flight of marble stairs and I only could hope that my acting skills weren’t as bad as my parent’s thought.

He paused just before we got to the front door, causing me to as well, and then extended his arm out. My thoughts of my parents and messing up everything were halted and I looked up at him, confused as to what he was doing.

“We’re going to Apparate there,” he answered my unasked question.

When I continued to just stare at him, he cracked a smile, something I didn’t think he’d ever do in front of me.

“Just take my hand.”

I did as he said and unwillingly let out a quick, surprised scream as I felt myself being pulled through what felt like a thin, black tunnel. We spun through the tunnel quickly and I tightened my hold around his hand for fear that if I let go I might get lost in whatever we were traveling through. It didn’t last long, maybe a couple of seconds, but it was long enough that when we appeared in some empty party of a town, I staggered away from him and nearly fell over. Catching myself on a nearby wall, I leaned against it and tried to slow down my breathing while, also, preventing the vomit I felt rising in the base of my throat from coming up.

“Just take a few long, deep breathes and it’ll be over soon,” came his voice.

I sucked in a few breaths as he instructed and straightened up a bit as I felt my heart slow some, though I still felt a little shaky and like I was going to chuck up everything I’d had for breakfast. When I glanced over at him, he was watching me and smiled a little.

“I should’ve prepared you; I’m sorry.”

I managed a weak smile and took another minute or two to make sure that I wasn’t going to take one step and fall over because I was still so wobbly. When I did push away from the wall, he joined me at my side and we began the walk down the alleyway we’d appeared in. It was deserted, completely empty of anyone, and I figured he’d decided that coming here first was best; whether because of my obvious reaction to Apperating or so no one would see us not acting like the couple they thought us to be, I didn’t know.

He paused just as we were going to swing around a corner to join the thin crowd walking down the street and I caught the quick look he sent over at me as he extended his hand. I starred at it, feeling as the feeling that I was going to vomit increased, but eventually wrapped mine around it.

We didn’t look at each other as we walked onto the cobblestone pathway of the village and I would’ve preferred a little more space to be between us, but our conjoined hands allowed very little. His side would brush mine or completely press against me as we walked with the few others who were here today, and every time I felt even more uncomfortable than before.

Deciding that focusing on something else would help, I glanced over to my right to gaze at the shop windows as we passed by them and began marveling at the slightly odd things they had displayed. Owls were perched outside of one in their cages, starring at people as they passed by, sleeping with their heads hidden underneath one of their wings, or boringly starring at another of its kind. A few children were marveling at them, much as I was, but they’d stay for only a second and then they’d disappear inside the shop with their parents.

“It’s a shop where you can get a pet for Hogwarts.”

I glanced over to Draco when his voice sounded and felt as my forehead wrinkled when my eyebrows downcast in confusion. Hogwarts?

He chuckled and said, “It’s the school we all have to attend.”

I nodded, relieved that something here worked the same as my world.

“Would you like to go in?”

I gave a small smile and nodded. He tightened his hold around my hand and began cutting a path through the few people that were barely filling up the village. Just as we were about to go through the open door, someone carrying a rather large cage emerged from the dimly lit shop and obviously was not aware that we were trying to enter. In order to make sure that we weren’t plowed into by the person, Draco hurriedly pulled us against the racks that the owl’s cages were hanging on and pressed his body against mine as the person squeezed through the doorway with the cage.

When I glanced up at him, he wasn’t looking at me, but at the person that was, now, trying to turn around with the cage. Even more uncomfortable and awkward than before, I tried to move a little to the right, where the nearly bare street lay, and my movement seemed to draw his attention back to me. He quickly stepped away, now that the person was a safe distance from us with the cage, and released my hand before beginning to head over towards whoever was the result of us being so close together.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going,” he angrily questioned. “Hey-you with the cage!”

The person dropped the cage, placing it gently down on the ground, and revealed the face of a boy with dark skin. He had black hair that had been cut short and chocolate colored eyes that were framed with a pair of dark eyebrows, which were downcast in angry look. However, as he starred a Draco for a little longer, he smiled widely and let out a loud laugh.

“Draco!”

When Draco reached the boy, they shook hands and I thought I vaguely heard the name ‘Blaise’ leave Draco’s mouth as they greeted each other.

It was a little while before the boy’s eyes flew past Draco and landed on me, his smile seeming to increase as his eyes hungrily looked me over. He mumbled a quick something to Draco and then frowned before Draco turned to walk back over to me. The boy, though looking a little less eager, followed after him.

“Blaise, this is Elizabeth, my fiancée.”