Draco Malfoy's Perspective

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Violet walked down the path to Hogsmeade, pausing at the gate where a professor was stationed. "Sorry; no trips to Hogsmeade this year. You know the rules," he said.

"Professor, I think you'll find I'm in rather well with the headmaster. And the Carrows." Violet smiled devilishly. "It would be such a pity for you to lose your mind, don't you agree?"

"See here, young lady, I will not be threatened by a student–"

"Please, Professor." She laughed. "We both know it isn't a threat. It's a fact. A statement, if you will." Her voice was silkily smooth and low in tone; this wasn't meant to seduce him, as such a tone might have been otherwise used, but to intimidate him. Her smile was so snakelike she might have been a viper.

He shivered and let her pass.

As soon as she had crossed out of Hogwarts into Hogsmeade, she Disapparated.

Draco was standing on his front doorstep. "Violet."

"Hello. Where are they?"

Pushing off the wall, he gestured her inside, through to the back, and out the back door. "Down here. Dad's got the key. Thinks he forgets I'm allowed to do magic now; I wasn't when he left."

He opened the door to the cellar. When Violet hesitated, he took her hand. She pulled away. "I'll go down alone. It's the first time I've seen them." She kissed his cheek. "I'll see you in an hour or so."

Taking a breath, she walked down the steps and took her wand out. It was too dark to see anything. "Lumos."

There, in the corner. A woman was on the ground whimpering, and a man was over her, trying to console her. At the sudden light they both looked up, and froze. "Vi?" her dad said. He was the only one besides Draco to call her that.

She walked over and crouched beside her mum. "Ferula." Bandages wrapped around her hand and the stub of a finger that had been cruelly removed with magic. "I don't know what I did to make them do this to you."

"Nothing," her mum said immediately. "You didn't do anything–it's our fault, not yours."

"They sent me your finger, Mum." Violet shook her head. "It was a message; I need to prove my loyalty to them or they'll kill you. I just don't know how I can do that."

They looked terrified. "How did you get involved? Who brought you in?"

"Draco." She smiled. "And I forced my way in, honestly. Don't worry; Vincent's already–"

"Vincent?" her dad said, sounding choked.

"Yes. I've been staying with him."

Her mum said, "What else has changed since two summers ago?"

"Everything." Violet proceeded to tell her parents the condensed version of everything that had happened. They didn't like much, if any, of it. Not Draco, how she got herself into this mess, how she had the promise ring–most of it had to do with Draco, and she started thinking that coming had been a mistake.

"You said you would never be a Death Eater," her mum said with tears in her eyes.

"And I'm not. But I am involved with one. I have to stay with Draco."

"Why?" her dad asked.

"Because I love him."

Tears hit her mum's eyes, and Violet felt her heart drop. They didn't approve of anything she had been doing or of who she was becoming. So leaving them with that, she spun and walked out, throwing the doors closed behind her and redoing the lock so no one could tell she'd been inside.