Aster's POV

First things first, I needed to teach myself how to apparate. If my father wasn't going to let me join him, I had to find my own way into the Death Eater meetings.

The thought terrified me. Becoming a Death Eater. I was completely against their agenda, their livelihood, but, I couldn't let me father do this alone, I couldn't let Draco do this alone. No matter how fucking terrified I was, how dangerous this whole concept even was, I couldn't be ignorant any  longer. Who was I if I just watched it all happen? I was a coward if I did that. My father may have sacrificed himself for me but I didn't ask for that. I didn't ask for him to dive straight into the one thing he had been running from his entire life. The wickedness of the Flint name.

That was why my Uncle wanted to see me. It was all making sense now.

I had been so blind for so long.

I was seventeen, old enough to apparate legally, I just hadn't taken the test yet. I had one lesson at the start of the year which involved disappearing from one section of the hall and appearing in a marked hoop at the other. It was incredibly difficult and I had only managed to do it once. I knew I needed a license but I didn't have time to obtain one.

So here I was, standing on one side of my bedroom, willing my body to disappear and reappear in my bathroom next door.

My body was tense, my fists clenched at my sides, my wand in my pocket.

Fuck, why was this so hard?

It had taken me a while to calm down after the conversation in the kitchen. I hadn't left my room since, and every now and then my brain caught up with my emotions and I felt my body shake and my heart pound.

I need to find out why the Dark Lord wanted my father so badly. This 'theory' of his was making my mind run a million miles per hour. I knew my father was smart, he was renowned for his magical theories and I knew it could be dangerous. One of the first things my father taught me was the first fundamental law of magic.

Tamper with the deepest mysteries - the source of life, the essence of self- only if prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind.

As far as I knew, he didn't study dark magic theories. But over the years, I hadn't been interested in what my father worked on, I had been distracted. I had no idea what he was currently working on. When I was younger, it was mostly theories on protection spells and enchantments - how they worked, their permanency, the layers they needed to be achieved perfectly. I wasn't surprised he had put new protection spells over the house, it wouldn't surprise me if thevery reason I couldn't apparate right now was because of them. But I couldn't see a reason why the Dark Lord needed my father for a protection spell? I'm sure he was well versed in enchantments himself.

I sighed in defeat. It looked like I wasn't going to be able to apparate inside the house. I needed to practice outside.

Getting around my father was easy. He would be too busy inside his study to realise I was out of the house. But my mother was the problem, her incessant need to keep me under house arrest and the fact she was so stressed and upset about what was going on was going to make it hard.

I looked over to my school trunk sitting open wide on my bed. My potions book laid carelessly on top of a pile of clothes.

An idea clicked in my head.

Possibly immoral but I needed to help my father.

I ran to my bathroom, pushing phials and bottles to the side to find the bottle I needed. A sleeping draught. Something I kept for when I couldn't sleep.

Finding the small bottle, I held it up in the light and peered at the dark purple concoction.

Lets just hope my mother doesn't recognize the light taste of lavender when I pour some into her wine tonight.

I shoved the small bottle into my top drawer next to my bed. My next thing to do was to figure out what my father was studying behind those closed doors. Being my father, the room was probably covered in protection enchantments but being his daughter I was quite proficient at shield penetration spells. My strength was charms, my enchantments always seemed to last longer than others in class and I was always the first to master a spell.

I would have to sneak into his study while he was sleeping, the only time he left the locked room.

It would be too suspicious if I slipped my father a sleeping draught as well so I would have to wait him out.

So while I waited, I wrote to Blaise. I needed to let someone know what I was planning in case something went wrong. He was possibly the only one I could trust.

Lets just hope he's not already involved.

Draco's POV

It itched.

It felt like little fire ants were crawling under my skin.

The mark seemed so black and alive, like it was slightly pulsating. I looked at the skull and the thick snake coiling around and out of its mouth. I curled my lip at it in disgust.

"You've made me proud son" my father's voice woke me from my shock.

That word. Proud.

It made me sick just thinking that I made him proud. How could he be proud of this?

I looked over at my mother, her pale eyes wide as she stared down at the new mark on my left forearm. She looked just as bad as I felt.

"Now he knows we're loyal" he states.

I watch as he rises from his seat at the table and walks towards me. The dinning room just moments ago held some of the darkest wizards and witches in my lifetime. The room was already dark and dreary before they came, but as soon as he entered, it seemed like the room filled with a different sort of darkness. Like the room was stolen from any type of light, just the glare cast from the large fireplace on one wall.

I had successfully rid my mind of all thoughts and emotions, making myself blank and calm before the dark Lord entered the Manor. The painful Occlumency lessons from my Aunt has been proven useful.

I looked up at the Dark Lord with nothing in my thoughts. His blood red eyes did nothing as I compartmentalized every thought and emotion that begged to be felt.

Occlumency would have been useful around Aster.

"Now you're mother and I need to go meet with the others to finalise the arrangements for next weeks Yule Ball" he continues, gesturing to my mother to follow him. She tore her eyes off my arm and gave my father a shallow nod.

"Do I have to attend?" I asked unimpressed.

"Of course, the Dark Lord may not be there but there will be people I need you to meet in order for you to be successful in your task"

I gulped, my mouth suddenly dry and coarse.

I didn't want to think about my task.

I had a feeling I was going to be using Occlumency more often than I previously thought.

The plan was to use it around the Dark Lord. The apparent master of Occlumency. Aunt Bellatrix, however had taught me well and was extremely surprised with my natural talent. It was easy to empty your thoughts when the last thing you wanted to do was actually feel and think.

The Malfoy Annual Yule Ball was something that I despised every year.

"Maybe you should ask Miss Parkinson to accompany you again this year?" My mum asked before she followed my father out of the dinning room.

I flinched as I remembered last year.

Pansy clinging to my arm, dressed in a gaudy pink dress. The smell of pungent roses instantly came to me, making my slightly gag.

That night, Pansy begged me to kiss her. We had only just started hooking up, I had kissed her once when we were fifteen, before realising the idea repulsed me. She wasn't bad at kissing, it was just the look she gave me after. Pure idolisation. I hated that.

Our previous hook ups had started just a month before, mostly just sex. I had refused to kiss her the whole time, always working around it by distracting her with my hands instead.

But that night, she was desperate and drunk. Her hands were wandering and she begged me to take her up to my room. The whole notion of her being in my bed made me nauseous. I refused and she had the nerve to go up to my father and tell me I was a poor excuse of a pureblood. A coward.

The only reason I kept hooking up with her was to keep her quiet. It dwindled to the occasional hook up in the new year and then I saw Aster watching me.

It was a lousy day. A dark and dreary Monday in our fifth year. She had never seemed interested in me before, and I knew that because year after year I watched her flirt with others. I knew that look. Her eyes wide and dreamy, her teeth biting softly on her bottom lip.

The fact I had caught her finally looking at me like that made my heart fucking leap. Something I never thought I would feel. I thought I was completely incapable of that feeling.

The next day, I avoided Pansy like the plague. Our hook ups became more sparse, my interactions with her outside of them non-existent.

"No" I simply said to my mother.

She furrowed her eyebrows at me but didn't push, instead she followed my father out of the room and left me alone.

As if sensing my emotions coming flooding back, the dark mark on my forearm pulsed achingly.