Next chapter at 300 comments! Dedicated to pineberrysmoothie

  HER HEART STOPPED. Terror flooded like ice through her veins. The whole world halted, turning on its side to get a better look at the two Sins; ethereal and terrifying beyond belief.

  She thought she could be strong. She thought she could do this. But now... She felt sick; giddy with nervous anticipations. Her palms slicked with sweat, and a hopeless breath caught in her throat. Seven tried to speak, choking on whatever words she tried to grasp, "I can't —,"

  "— Yes, Seven, you can." Draco interrupted, though not at all in his usual condescending manner. The sight of the Sins seemed to have humbled him too.
  The vision of the two elites was enough to humble anyone; Sloth draped in a gown so dark it appeared to be suffocating any light that dared find it, smattered in bloody red lace and a mess of scarlet jewels. And Pride, towering taller than even  Draco and wearing a sleek black suit, a rose almost as pale as his long, white hair pinned to his lapelle.

  "And you will." Draco's hand slid into hers; and Seven pretended not to notice how terribly it trembled. "I can't do this without you."
  His eyes did not leave the two Sins as they circled across the ballroom, shaking countless hands and smiling graciously as they went.
Even with their masks, Seven could recognise these two anywhere — Sloth with her feral mess of black hair and a cackling laugh that carried further than any shout could dare.

Pride's look was unique as his counterpart. With a sharp, angular jaw and hair pale and long, like straight rivers of moonlight flowing down his back.

Something like the faintest echo of a realisation settled within Seven, quiet at first, but the longer she tried to ignore it the more it began to eat away at her. Doubt had always been a horrid, festering thing to her.
She looked up at Draco, to the sharpness of his features and a strand white-blonde hair falling over his forehead.

Her staring caught his attention, his frown deepening, stress lines painting him a most beautiful shade of internal agony. There was no sparkle in his grey eyes anymore, only shadows. "What?"

"Nothing." She said quickly, staring down at the hem of her dress. Whatever she believed, now was not the time for it — not when Draco looked tormented enough as it was. No truth or lie would change what had to be done.
  The Sins must die.

  Pride's was not the only head of milky hair dancing about the crowd tonight, as Seven soon caught sight of Xenophilius Lovegood. His dandy-eyed daughter on his arm, and the two of them twirling across the ballroom in time to the music, albeit a beat or two behind.
 
  Alarm struck her like a bullet, why were they still here?
  They should've been far, far away by now.
  Something was wrong.

Seven made to move towards them, but Draco's grip tightened, forcing out words in a short, sharp breath,
  "— Don't leave me!"

  In that moment he became vulnerable, showing weakness in a way he never had before. His fear was soft, a tender underbelly to the hostility he usually armoured himself with.
There was something more to it though, a hurt, an aching wound formed from years of loss that had just been reopened.
  Pain seeped through every line of his being, strict in the tense set of his shoulders, and unforgivingly mellow in the way his mouth struggled for words to cover his exposed hamartia, as if terrified Seven would use the fatal flaw in his armour to strike him where it hurt.

— Because that's exactly what he would've done if it were her.

But Seven was an different monster than Draco, a monster all the same, but bred into a different lane of immorality. Cruel in a different way, but cruel nonetheless.
  And tonight she was kind, for later there would be more than enough bloodshed to sate them both. She gave his hand a small squeeze. "I won't — but Luna and her dad, they can't be here when it goes down, they don't need to be tangled up in all this."

  Draco froze, instinctively pulling Seven behind him. "I think it's too late for that..."

  Following his eye-line caused her heart to plummet irreparably. Seven sucked in a breath, and held it until her lungs scorched and screamed for mercy. She didn't give it, self-martyring as the two before her.
  Sloth was watching Luna and Xenophilius, her gaze narrowed in predatory verdict; a cat watching mice.

  "— Shit!" Seven began to move towards the father and daughter who were still hopelessly unaware of the imminent danger that they were in. "We have to help them!"

  "Seven — stop." Draco pulled her back, and the more she fought the tighter he held.

  "Let go of me!"

  "There's nothing we can do! If we go over there we put the whole plan at risk!" He said, gripping her shoulders, "— Not to mention ourselves!"

  Seven rounded on him, snarling as she yanked herself free, "So you're just going to leave them there?"

  Draco's face was hellishly cold. No thought of feeling left for the girl he'd appeared almost tender for hours prior, "I'm not risking you to save them."

  The Sin began to glide through the crowd, towards Luna and her father. "And what if it was me?" Seven asked frantically, wide-eyed and pleading, "Would you leave me too?"

  He didn't hesitate, bearing down upon her with a look just as hate-filled as the one she gave, "If you were stupid enough to put yourself in a position like that then yes," He sneered, "I would."

  The piano music faded and soon, a new, more cynical tune began to play. Seven scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief, "You're fucking despicable."

  "Yeah well," His voice was a wave lapping against a midnight shore, dark and quiet and to anyone else; insignificant. "If that's what it takes, then so be it."

At first, she didn't know what he meant, but soon, she'd wish for the sanctity of her ignorance.
  There was no peace in the knowing, only in the forgetting.

  Not knowing what else to do, and fast running out of time, Seven pulled her wand from the hidden boning of her corset and aimed it at one of the numerous wine fountains across the crowd, "Bombarda."

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Draco hissed.
  At once the fountain erupted in a brilliant shower of crimson rain, sending guests fleeing and screaming. Clutching at their wigs and hitching up the hems of their soiled gowns as they struggled to get out from under the fountain's reach — the bloody arc of the spray climbing high enough to scrape the ceilings. Staining the walls, and pooling around the base of the fountain like a murderous puddle.

  Casting a wretched glance her shoulder at him, Seven replied, "What does it look like I'm doing? For someone so narcissistic, you're painfully blind, Draco."

  The distraction worked too, for Sloth stopped, struggling to get out of the jet herself. It was a successful diversion, if only for a few moments, as soon Pride stepped forth, face fixed with a dazzling grin as he pulled out his own wand and fast stopped the spray of wine. He cast a second spell, and instantly the bloody pool began to retract as if the fountain itself was drinking up the spilt wine.

  By the time it was gone, so were Luna and her father. No trace remaining. Seven prayed that meant that they'd made it out safely in the midst of the panic, and that after the ball they would be waiting for her by the maze alongside Seamus and George.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, feeling like the expulsion of a great weight from her chest. With Xenophilius and his daughter safe, that meant that she had one less thing to worry about and the rest of the plan could run smoothly from then on out. All that was left was to keep track of the Sins for just a little while longer, at least until the signal came.

  People began to laugh, cracking jokes and thumping Pride on the back in thanks for his salvation of their finest silks. Seven thought it pathetic, she'd even see. several women fleeing the ballroom entirely, burying their tear-streaked faces in their hands, crying at the wine stains on their gowns — and all the while children starved and bled and died in Sloth for no more reason than the district they were born into.

  Pride laughed back at the quips of the gentry, good-natured and deceptively kind for a man figure-heading a murderous dictatorship. Laughing as if he himself hadn't upheld and entertained the Dark Lord's darkest whims over the years since the war.

  Seven remembered a much darker time, when she'd been huddled in a corner of a street in Sloth alongside several of those others who couldn't afford to eat, let alone somewhere warm to stay.
  They'd been starving, aching, and with knuckles worked bloody to the bone from days of labour that paid barely enough for a couple of loaves of stale bread. From where they'd sat if they strained they could just about make out the large, billboard-style screen plastered across the trade building at the centre of town. Upon it played out innumerable cruelties, day in, day out. An endless reel of the Dark Lord's propaganda, and sometimes, hangings.

  One particular day, Seven recalled watching the grainy live feed playing as hundreds upon hundreds of the citizens of Pride were forced from their burning homes. Pride himself had received intelligence that allegedly some of Echo's rebels had infiltrated the East corner of the district, and so, he had ordered it burned to the ground. Innocent and guilty had died alike that day, and the Sins had cared for neither.

  So now, even despite his facade of laughter and comradely, Seven knew Pride was just as bad as the rest. After all, she'd killed Lust for far less. Unlike the rest of the Sins, Theodore Nott's only crime had been his stupidity.
  He had never been known for the cruelty and mistreatment of his people, only his insatiable appetite for parties, drink and sex. Yet still, he had to die — and so he had, with a dagger buried in his chest and his body at her feet.

  Seven's skin burned, bristling with the itch of unfamiliar eyes. It was small at first, easily forgotten as she scanned the crowd for the culprit, but like any fiery thing, it fast grew. Hotter, brighter. More demanding as she grew more frustrated.

  "Wait." Seven's heart thundered and she span around, searching for the one face she couldn't find. "Where's Sloth?"

  Behind her Draco's body was thick and warm, but tense, like a tightly coiled spring. She found herself pressing into that comforting warmth, albeit out of necessity. They needed to stick together, now more than ever.

  And then, she found her and wished she hadn't. For the Sin was looking straight back at her, head cocked and a teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

***
QOTD- What do you think will happen next? Who do you think Sloth is? What about Pride?