44 | ﴾ Brought To Die ﴿

                                    

                                          
After Bellatrix branded my arm and proceeded to terrify me with a large list of my new duties as a Death Eater, the crew of three vanished into the night as soon as they had arrived with a warped cacophony of disturbing laughter. She had made sure to scold me not to miss the crucial Death Eater gathering at Hogwarts at midnight, bluntly making it obvious that Draco would be devastated to see me show up. 
                          
I was left weeping, and I collapsed to the floor as my body writhed uncontrollably. My spine arched unnaturally as though possessed by an alien infection. I laid on the floor of the House of Black with no choice but to let the toxic dark magic engulf me fully like a flesh eating disease, crying out in the darkness alone. I tried to focus on counting how many steps there were in the seemingly endless stairs above. I thought of my parents, somewhere in France, enjoying wine and good food, unaware that I was transforming into a demon.
                          
Finally, after it had finalized invading my being, the dark mark soothed to a dull roar. It still burned horribly, but had lessened enough that I could stand up. I instantly knew something was different. I felt callous and aloof, as though nothing could harm me emotionally.
                          
I stood, straightened my dress, and chose several points along a grid to disapparate towards the check point in Denmark just beyond the base on Hesselø, where the prisoner camp laid filled with Order members. 
                          
When I finally arrived after carefully jumping several times they were all clustered at a fire beside their make shift tents and completely bewildered by my timing. It had only been just over two hours since we'd all departed. I walked up to Ron with a blank, directorial expression that I would never have shown him prior, "We should go now."
                          
He looked at me with eyes wide as saucers, scanning my face in disbelief, "Yeah, okay."
                          
They marched with me through the dense, low foliage and all the while I fought against a dreadful desire to hate everything and everyone. Black smoke kept swirling off of my shoulders as I walked and I could do nothing to stop it. I was being consumed by feelings that I couldn't describe, only getting worse by the minute. I walked quickly, hoping to hold the darkness back for as long as possible. Order members kept a weary distance from me like I was a wild cheetah that hadn't yet noticed them on the open plains.
                          
When we reached the military base I took out my wand and diagnosed the ward. The dull lighting from within the windows shown across low shrubbery surrounding the timeworn facades of the brick development. The crowd around me breathed shallowly and quietly with anticipation in the bushes. They had waited years to make such a break through.
                          
The ward was extremely basic, however they had been right; only someone with the mark could have possibly taken it down. I cast a disintegration spell and the shimmering before us vanished. I stayed put as Order members moved by me like assassins up to the building, then I shut my eyes and began my jumps back to England, not bothering to stick around for their invasion. 
                          
There was an overpowering, venomous, hatred boiling in my veins as I reappeared at the farm. I choked helplessly, unaccustomed to the noxious fog that now would follow me on every disapparition. The tulip stems in at least a thirty meter radius began to wilt and wither into dust from the Death Eater smoke that whirled around my approaching figure, mimicking a miniature black tornado. I was immediately struggling to control the awful emotions that accompanied the Death Eater mark, now scalding my arm in a similar fashion as the bequeathment mark.
                          
I nearly fell to my knees as images of Draco bloomed in my vision. I couldn't hold it off any longer...My sensitivity began to vanish like smoke. Him locking me in the dungeons, a strong hand slapping my face harshly, his rejection and abandonment after he'd misread Harry and I's affections in the forest... A cruel snarl on his pointy features. The dark mark was burrowing into my heart, doing everything it could to poison any love that lived there. It was as though I could only recall the negative memories, and not only that they were being highlighted and shoved to the forefront of my thoughts.