Draco

            When the Dark Lord had finally Disapparated and we were able to leave the dining room, it was getting very difficult for me to keep myself together.

            I had no idea how Eve was managing to make herself look so composed.

            We entered the parlor where Lucius was waiting, both of us looking around as though we were in a daze and had little idea of where we were. Lucius stood from his seat and started over to us, looking at me cautiously as though he could tell I was seconds away from passing out. "Are you alright? Is he gone?"

            "Yeah. He's gone," I said quietly, having to swallow hard to get my voice to work. Eve's hands were wrapped around my upper arm, like she could hold me up off the ground—though if my knees gave out on me, we'd probably both go down.

            "He told you, then?" Lucius asked, ignoring my pale face and sickened expression. "The school year starts in less than three weeks, I'll have to teach you how to—"

            "I need to step outside," I blurted suddenly, the stale air inside the shrinking space of the parlor beginning to suffocate me. I started for the hallway that led to the back door, Eve still holding my arm and automatically following me.

            Lucius must have opened his mouth or moved to follow us, because Eve said over her shoulder quickly, "We'll be right back", though we both knew we wouldn't be.

            Leaving the Manor behind forever was starting to look better and better.

            I hurried down the length of the hallway with Eve just behind me, reaching for the door knob with my vision blackening around the edges. When I threw open the door and burst outside, I sucked in a deep breath of cool air and stumbled away from the house. Eve let go of my arm and stood beside me as I put my hands on my knees and leaned forward, retching slightly and trying not to vomit. I fixed my gaze on the blades of grass at my feet and focused on just taking deep breaths, swallowing hard to keep the bile from rising any further in my throat. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to force the images of Dumbledore from my mind, because the more I thought about it, the more my stomach twisted inside of me.

            I had known the task would be something bad, but never would I have thought the Dark Lord would be telling me to kill someone—let alone Dumbledore.

            After coughing a bit and swallowing hard, I twisted my head to the side to look up at Eve. She was staring at the ground before her feet, her entire face turned pale and her lips impossibly white. I realized she was shaking slightly, a thin coat of sweat shining off her skin.

            I straightened up automatically and reaching for her, asking in a strained voice, "You okay? Do you need to be sick? I can—"

            But Eve shook her head quickly, squaring her jaw and running her tongue over her pale lips. Her eyes started to tear up then, so I gripped her arm tightly to let her know that I was here—even though a lump was forming in my throat and I wanted nothing more than to run away from this.

            "I need to sit down," I said, but mostly just because I could see that Eve was seconds away from pitching forward to the ground. We held each other as we made our way back to the door, sitting down at the bottom of the steps and facing away from the house. I held her hand, neither of us noticing that our palms were sweaty or that our fingers were shaking slightly.

            "How...how could he tell us to do something like that?" Eve asked in a voice barely above a whisper, her eyes clouded over as she stared blankly at the grass. "Why would he even want us to...?"

            I shook my head, my eyes barely focusing on anything as I fought to keep myself together. Reaching to place my spare hand over hers, I breathed quietly, "I don't know. I just...I don't know."

            We sat there on the back steps in silence for a long time, the cool summer breeze blowing gently against us and rustling the leaves above our heads. My head eventually stopped spinning and my vision cleared, finally feeling as though I wasn't about to black out. After what must have been ten full minutes of silence, Eve turned her head slightly and told me softly, "I'm sorry. For making you angry before."

            Blinking, I opened my mouth to confess to her that she'd honestly scared the shit out of me when she'd come downstairs—when I'd realized I couldn't protect her from whatever the Dark Lord wanted. But I remembered how she had held my hand under the table as he told me what the task was, remembered how she had whispered to me when I had been seconds away from losing my composure. I think we both knew that I wouldn't have been able to go through that without her. I sighed quietly, looking down at our hands and saying, "It's okay. I'm not mad. I just—I wanted to keep you out of it, but it wouldn't have worked anyway. It was stupid of me to try."

            "It wasn't stupid," Eve said, "but I'm sorry for not listening to you. I just thought you wouldn't want to be alone."

            The lump in my throat intensified, and I couldn't bring myself to deny it—she was right, even though I would never admit it. Instead, I lifted her hand up with my own and kissed her knuckles without a word. We both knew I wouldn't have been able to do it without her.

            And then silence consumed us both again, because neither of us knew what else to say. All I could think about was what the Dark Lord was asking me to do during the school year: repair the Vanishing Cabinet and kill Albus Dumbledore. But to make matters worse, he was forcing Eve to help me. I glanced over at her then, watching as the breeze played with the wisps of blonde hair that had fallen out of her bun and seeing her glossy eyes that were still holding back tears. I couldn't even bring myself to remember how it was my fault that she was here in the first place.

            As Eve stared at the trees a short distance away, a tear slipped out and started to run down her cheek. She automatically reached to wipe it away quickly, like she didn't want me to see it. But I reached forward and stopped her hand, using my other hand to wipe away the drop from her skin. I bent my head down and kissed her cheek, feeling the coolness of the tear track on my lips as Eve squeezed my hand with her small fingers.

            And then, in that moment, I made a promise to myself; that no matter how much Eve tried to help me with this, no matter how much she tried to make this task less difficult for me, I would be the one to kill Dumbledore. Because even if the mere thought of it was enough to make me dizzy and sick to my stomach, I was going to be the one to do it, not Eve.

            I wasn't going to make her go through that—especially not when this had been my fault from the beginning.

~*~

Eve

            Nearly a week after the Dark Lord explained the task to Draco and I, he called another final meeting with the rest of the Death Eaters before the school year would begin. And this time, he wanted Draco and me to be there as well.

            I stood in front of the guest room mirror, nervously adjusting the collar of my black shirt before the meeting would begin. Draco had had to take me to a clothing store a few days ago when we'd found out we would need to be at the meeting, and when I'd realized I hadn't thought to bring any formal clothes from back home. I'd been extremely nervous when we first found out about it, but Draco had tried to make light of the situation in an attempt to make me feel better—he'd held up a fluffy pink boa while we were in a Muggle clothing store and had told me it would go nicely with my eyes. I may have giggled so uncontrollably that three people looked over at us suspiciously, but it had been the first time I'd laughed in ages.

            No matter how hard I'd been trying to hide it, Draco knew how nervous I was to be going to a meeting with the other Death Eaters. He told me he'd been to at least three in the beginning of the summer, and he tried to say whatever he could to make me less freaked out—but there was nothing he could do. I was now so nervous that my fingers were shaking slightly.

            This would be the first time the rest of the Death Eaters saw me, and maybe that was why I was so nervous. I was worried about what they would think of me, and absolutely terrified that I would let Draco down by doing something stupid. Their opinion shouldn't have mattered to me, but what if they thought I was just some quiet, silly girl who got dragged into this by her boyfriend? I didn't want them to think that, and I especially didn't want anyone to know how terrified I was to be in the same room as the Dark Lord.

            There was a knock at the door that made me jump, as though I was so on edge that every little sound was making me nervous. My voice came out stronger than I'd anticipated as I said cautiously, "Come in."

            Draco stepped into the guest room, dressed in a completely black suit that had been pressed so carefully that there weren't any visible wrinkles. Had this been any other time, I might have teased him for wearing such a formal suit—because he honestly looked uncomfortable. He gave me a tired smile that didn't quite reach his eyes as he crossed the room, looking down at me and saying, "Hey. Doing okay?"

            "Yeah," I told him, even though we both knew it was a lie.

            I was shakily pulling down the hem of my shirt when Draco sighed and pulled my hands away from it, telling me, "You look fine, Eve. No one's going to pay attention to your shirt, alright?"

            "But they will, though," I insisted, glancing briefly over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror and wishing the dark circles under my eyes would simply disappear. "They're all going to be watching me, you know that."

            "Well, who gives a shit what any of them think?" Draco said, one hand on each of my shoulders as he looked down at me. "Please don't worry about it. Listen, I was thinking I could tell—"

            "No," I interrupted quickly, raising my eyebrows up at him.

            "What? You don't even know what I was going to say," Draco said indignantly, rolling his eyes.

            "Yes, I do. You want to tell them that I'm not feeling well so I won't have to go, but it's not happening," I told him, trying not to grin at the look he was giving me. Standing on my tiptoes, I kissed his cheek quickly and lied, "I'm not that nervous anyway."

           Draco decided not to call me out on it, for which I was very grateful. He squeezed my shoulders and told me, "You're gonna be fine, Eve. And if You-Know-Who asks us something during the meeting, let me answer him, okay?"

            I nodded, because I think we both knew that my voice probably wouldn't function in front of all those Death Eaters. Draco bent down and kissed me then, his lips pressing against mine softly. He pulled away just a little and said, "I'll be there the whole time. We'll be alright."

            "Yeah," I breathed, my heart pounding because of the way he was looking at me. "Okay. We should probably go."

            Draco led the way out of the guest room and down the stairs into the parlor, while I tried to get my hands to stop trembling. The nerves were twisting my stomach inside me, and I was suddenly grateful I hadn't been able to eat anything this morning—I'd slipped my toast onto Draco's plate when he hadn't been looking.

            Narcissa was just rounding the corner out of the parlor when we came down the hallway, and Draco had to stop short to avoid bumping into her. "There you are," she sighed, looking up at him with an annoyed expression. "I was just going to get you both. Everyone else is already here, the Dark Lord wishes to begin now—"

            "Alright, alright," Draco interrupted, moving into the parlor with me close behind him. "We're going."

            I kept my head down as I followed Draco and his mother down the hallway to the dining room, the sick feeling returning to my stomach as I remembered the last time we'd seen the Dark Lord. The breath caught in my throat as Narcissa reached for the door handle, but Draco twisted his head to give me one last look. He nodded slowly at me, and I swallowed hard as his mother opened the door and started inside. Keep it together.

            When I entered the dining room behind Draco, every single person's head turned to look.

            My stomach dropped into my shoes as I saw all the faces looking up at me from their place at the grand oak table, and the room suddenly dipped and spun before my eyes. I blinked hard and forced my legs forward, holding my head high and pushing my shoulders back. I didn't make eye contact with anyone as I sat down beside Draco on the left end of the table—the farthest spot possible from the Dark Lord. Managing to keep a cool expression despite the growing nausea, I raised my eyes to see that only a few Death Eaters were still looking me over—I recognized Fenrir Greyback and Yaxley from The Prophet.

            It took me a few seconds to realize the Dark Lord had been speaking—there was a loud pounding in my ears that was making it difficult to hear. I had no idea what he'd been saying, but Draco nodded and said bravely, "Yes."

            What had he asked? I had no idea, but the Dark Lord's gaze at flicked to mine as he waited for me to answer, along with more than half the other Death Eaters. I swallowed hard and said blankly, "Yes."

            My voice came out sounding a hundred times stronger than I felt, and I prayed that they would buy it—because I hadn't any idea what the Dark Lord had asked us. It became easier to breathe once he nodded slowly and the Death Eaters' attention was pulled away from me, the Dark Lord continuing in a cold voice. Underneath the table, Draco's knee brushed mine and I knew I had done okay.

            "Severus...have you any news on the condition of the second Vanishing Cabinet in Knockturn Alley?" the Dark Lord asked thinly, and my eyes widened as I realized Professor Snape was sitting only two seats away from him.

            Snape was a Death Eater?

            "The cabinet has nearly been repaired," Snape answered, his voice cold and deep as he kept his gaze fixed on the Dark Lord. "It should be functioning in two weeks' time, but only once its sister has been restored."

            "Yes, of course," the Dark Lord mused, his eyes traveling over Draco and me. I swallowed hard and looked down at the table, waiting for him to speak to us again—I wasn't sure if my voice would come out as brave as it had the first time. But he didn't call us out again; instead, the Dark Lord turned his head to Greyback. "I've read that the Muggles are calling the collapse of the Millennium Bridge a 'disaster caused by disturbed, unknown individuals'."

            Greyback laughed at this and shook his head, along with a few others. He grinned and said, "Well, they've got that part right, haven't they? Fudge isn't that much of an idiot to believe it; I hear he's considering resigning as Minister of Magic."

            This led to several bouts of laughter and applause, while Draco and I remained completely still. Greyback had collapsed a bridge in London? My mind raced to catch up with what they were saying, but fear was still clouding my thoughts and I was just trying to focus on breathing.

            "He knows I am serious, then," the Dark Lord said over the dying laughter, and my skin crawled as I glanced at him briefly to see that the corners of his mouth were turned up. "I ordered him to resign, but the fool refused...perhaps now he will leave the Ministry, and Scrimgeour will be able to take his place."

            I felt Draco stiffen beside me, and I looked to see the man sitting across from us grinning widely as a few Death Eaters clapped him on the back. The Dark Lord was planning to infiltrate the Ministry?

            "Inform me the moment Fudge resigns," the Dark Lord ordered, and a few men murmured words of agreement. He stood slowly from his place at the head of the table, and it was then that I realized a giant snake was curled by his chair, taking up nearly a whole corner of the dining room with its size. I watched with wide eyes as the Dark Lord reached down to run his fingers across the scales of the snake's head, feeling the breath catch in my throat as the snake blinked and seemed to turn its gaze to me.

            The Dark Lord turned to face us with a cool expression, and suddenly everyone was standing, forcing me to shakily follow suit. His eyes traveled to me, and I fought to control my trembling knees as he said coldly, "Draco and Evelyn...do not disappoint me. Repair the cabinet and kill the headmaster...I will assume you both know what will happen if you fail to do so."

            My blood ran cold as a few Death Eaters snorted quietly, but when I glanced at Draco, I saw that he was staring down at the table and nodding stiffly. Then the Dark Lord was reaching for the snake again and disappearing with a loud crack, black smoke enveloping them both and dissipating to reveal nothing but air. The breath was trapped in my throat as the rest of the Death Eaters broke out into quiet murmuring, stepping away from the table and beginning to exit the dining room.

            Draco took my arm in his and began to lead me away from the chairs, trying to get me out of the room before any of them could try to say anything to us. We were just starting for the door when I heard someone say behind me, "So...you're the Hawkings girl, are you?"

            I closed my eyes briefly before turning slowly to see Yaxley standing behind me, forcing my shoulders back and trying not to feel intimidated by the way he was looking at me. Draco immediately stopped as well and moved to stand beside me, one hand brushing against my arm. I managed to keep my voice steady as I replied evenly, "I am."

            Yaxley looked me over then, and I could practically feel Draco fuming beside me. My heart was pounding almost painfully against the inside of my chest as he mused, "When I heard the Dark Lord made you one of his own, I wasn't quite sure what to think. You're the youngest one we've had...aside from Mr. Malfoy, of course."

            I watched as he smirked over at Draco, and I knew he was grinning down at us as though we were simply children brought here for their own amusement. Knowing Draco was seconds away from snapping at him, I glanced at Yaxley's greying hair and said coolly, "Yes, but clearly age isn't everything."

            There were now only a few Death Eaters left in the room, but Yaxley covered up his surprise well by laughing loudly. "You remind me of your mother, Hawkings. What was her name? Johanna, was it?"

            I stiffened at the mention of my mother, not expecting anyone to remember who my parents were. Yaxley grinned when my cool expression faltered for half a moment, knowing he had struck a nerve. He continued easily, "Yes, that's it. Your father and I were very close, you know—I was at their wedding. Richard always said he never wanted children, but Johanna insisted..."

            "Don't you have somewhere to be, Yaxley?" Draco said in a tight voice, barely concealing his anger. He had shifted beside me, stepping forward slightly as though he wanted nothing more than to put himself between Yaxley and I.

            "Something wrong?" Yaxley smirked, looking Draco over with amusement. He turned his gaze back to me, continuing, "I was surprised to hear that you were still alive. The car wreck was terrible, I heard. Impossible for an infant to survive."

            "I suppose I was lucky," I replied in an even voice, but my hands were starting to shake. I knew he was trying to provoke me, trying to get me to say something that would be reason enough to tell the Dark Lord—but I forced myself to keep a cool expression and my head held high.

            "Yes," Yaxley said, his voice turning quieter as he looked down at me again. I tried to read what he was really thinking, but I found that it was impossible. "Lucky indeed. Enjoy the rest of your day, Hawkings. Mr. Malfoy."

            He nodded at Draco once and turned away with a small smirk, as though he was silently laughing at the both of us. As soon as he headed for the door and left us alone in the dining room, I released the breath I'd been holding and felt my shoulders drop, one hand going up to clutch my forehead as I shakily got myself to breathe again.

            Draco moved quickly, grasping both sides of my face and looking down at me seriously, saying breathlessly, "You're alright, Eve—"

            "Did—did I do okay?" I choked out, grabbing his shoulders to keep my knees from giving out on me.

            "You were great," Draco told me instantly, kissing my cheeks and mumbling against my skin. "You did so good, Eve, you really did—"

            I kissed him back, my entire body trembling as the adrenaline left my body and I finally let the nerves take over. Draco held me up, looking into my eyes worriedly and asking, "Are you okay? I want to kill Yaxley, I can't believe he would—"

            "I'm okay," I interrupted quickly, my heart rate slowly going back down to normal. When Draco continued to look me over as though he thought I was about to pass out, I repeated more quietly, "I'm okay. Really."

            Then Draco pulled me to his chest, holding me tight against him with his hands tangled in my hair. I closed my eyes and managed to keep myself standing, breathing in the smell of Draco's cologne and telling myself that I had made it. The meeting was over, and I had managed not to let Draco down.

            The Dark Lord's last words to us echoed inside my ears, and I felt a pit form in the bottom of my stomach. 'Do not disappoint me...I assume you both know what will happen if you fail to do so.'

            I confessed softly, "I'm scared. To go back to Hogwarts."

            Draco exhaled quietly, and I knew he was just as terrified as I was. But he twisted his head and kissed my cheek again, hard, whispering against my ear, "I know, Eve. I know."

             I felt the Dark Mark itch against the skin of my left forearm then, and I closed my eyes briefly. Even without the task, things at Hogwarts were going to be very different this year...