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Lucius and I stumbled away from each other in shock. The look Tom was giving us was one that I swear could turn water into ice and that chilled me straight to the bone. As Tom stepped away from the doorway of the common room to let Lucius and I enter, I shot Lucius a nervous look out of the corner of my eye. I was wondering if he was as scared as I was.

Lucius, however, refused to meet my eyes. He stared straight ahead of him with a guarded expression on his face. Tom had made him close up again. Shit. Whenever I thought I might actually be making some progress with Lucius, someone would end up interrupting us. Life just wasn't fair. But again...what was fair these days?

I apprehensively edged into the common room and took a nervous glance around. The common room was much more crowded than usual. People were crammed together on the couch, the big chair in front of the fireplace, and around the oak table. I recognized everyone except four people. The four had dark black hair, pale skin, and were obviously Durmstrangs.

Not wanting to be the center of attention, I quickly ducked my head and hurried over to the fireplace, hoping nobody had taken a good look at my face. Lucius went and stood by a Nott and Rabastan. I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. I had obviously wanted Lucius to come stand by me. I still needed his comfort. I didn't want to be here and I felt so tired and weak.

Looking around the room at all of us, Tom smiled a sickly smile and greeted everyone, "Hello fellow Death Eaters. It's good to see how you all responded to my call. You are all very loyal indeed. Tonight, we have some special guests. This is Igor Karkaroff and three of his friends. They are here tonight to be branded with the Dark Mark. I expect you to welcome them to our family."

Family? I almost laughed at the term. We were anything but a family here. All the Death Eaters seemed to be my worst enemies. Tom was just plain cruel and evil, Walden was sadistic, Natasha was insane, and Lucius was just...Lucius. I still had a ways to go before I figured him out. There were still dark secrets that haunted his past.

Glad that nobody was talking to me or noticing me, I kept to myself and looked at my feet while Tom tattooed each one of the Durmstrang students. The tattooing process didn't take too long fortunately. As soon as the new Death Eaters were branded, Tom turned back to us and said, "Alright, there won't be a lesson tonight. Instead, you can all just socialize with each other and make the newcomers feel welcome. But don't worry; we'll have another lesson very soon."

Shit. The last thing I wanted to hear was that we were going to have another lesson soon. What was the lesson going to teach us? Were we going to be expected to kill? Was Tom going to try to make us murderers? I decided I didn't want to know. Glad that tonight's plans were over, I was anxious to head upstairs to the dormitory and the safety of my bed.

Looking up, I was about to start towards the dormitory when I suddenly met a pair of glinting, black eyes. I knew those eyes anywhere; it was Walden. I immediately froze and stumbled backwards. Walden looked at me from across the room with those sparkling, malevolent eyes. I had no idea what he was thinking.

From across the room, I saw two familiar figures huddled together. Only able to move my eyes, I risked a glance over to the two figures to see what they were up to. The people standing there were Tom and Lucius. Tom had his hands on Lucius' shoulders and was whispering urgently in Lucius' ear. From Tom's expression, he was telling Lucius something important.

Halfway through the conversation, Lucius turned his head and looked over at where I stood frozen from sheer terror. Face totally expressionless, Lucius did not acknowledge my gaze and instead turned back to Tom and gave him a curt nod. Tom smiled at Lucius, said another few words, then turned and headed off to talk to Igor.

Lucius picked his way through the crowd and passed in front of me. Wanting his attention, I managed a weak, "Lucius?" For a millisecond, Lucius glanced in my direction. His face was cold as stone and showed nothing as he looked down at me with (was that disdain I saw?) guarded gray eyes. Without giving me a second glance, Lucius turned and stalked off.

Oh god, what had I done now? Why was Lucius always doing this to me? I didn't think I could stand it much longer. Out of the corner, I saw a different pair of eyes gazing at me. Wondering who it was that was looking at me, I turned and met Walden's stare once more. This time, it was just too much for me. My knees buckled, I flopped against the wall, and started to slide to the ground.

Just as I thought I was going to hit the floor, a hand reached out for me and tugged me back to my feet. Grateful and curious to who had saved me, I looked up. The guy holding me was tall and thin with dark black eyes and sallow skin. I knew immediately that he was quite a bit older than me. I had seen this guy in the corridors a few times before but had never talked to him.

Trying to catch my breath and stop my knees from shaking, I turned towards my savior with a smile and murmured a quiet, "Thanks. I guess I've done a bit too much dancing tonight or something." Okay, that was a complete lie. I hadn't done a single dance tonight, but seriously, what else did you expect me to say? I wasn't about to admit that I had almost gotten raped.

Not looking like he bought my story, the guy with the black hair and matching eyes returned my smile and said, "Don't mention it. You're new here, aren't you? I haven't really seen you around before. Mind introducing yourself to me?" I hesitated for just a moment before nodding. Why shouldn't I tell this guy my name? He seemed nice enough.

"I'm Narcissa Black," I explained. "I'm Bellatrix's sister. And who might you be?" The guy's eyes widened when I said Bellatrix's name. I could pretty much read his mind. He was thinking that I was as different from Bellatrix as day was from night. I had heard this many times before. Oh well, it wasn't my fault that I wasn't Bella's clone.

"I'm Severus," the guy introduced himself to me. "Severus Snape. It's good to meet you, Narcissa. If you ever need help or have questions about anything, I'm here for you." Severus offered me another small smile and continued to hold me upright. I decided that I liked Severus. He seemed to genuinely care about me and was friendly enough to offer to help me.

If it had been any other night, I might've stayed and chatted with Severus. At the moment though, I was exhausted, a mess, and felt like I was going to collapse at any moment. I needed to get to my bed as soon as possible. Turning to Severus, I said, "It's really great to meet you. Maybe I'll see you in the Great Hall tomorrow. Right now, I have to get to bed though. It's been a really long day and I'm exhausted. Hope you have a good night!"

Severus let go of my arm slowly as if he was worried I might topple over again. When I managed to remain upright, he said, "Alright. You do look like you've had a long day. I'll definitely look for you tomorrow. Have a good night. And Narcissa? Take care of yourself, alright?" Aw, Severus was a real sweetheart. He seemed to be the first guy here who actually cared about me. I just hoped he wasn't faking this. Walden had faked it and Lucius...I wasn't sure what Lucius felt for me.

Shoving Lucius and Walden out of my brain, I weaved my way through the crowded common room and hurried up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. Luckily, nobody was there yet. Relieved to be away from the crowd and the noise, I raced across the room and threw myself onto my bed. As soon as I was lying on my stomach, the tears started falling faster and faster.

I hadn't realized I had been holding them in this whole time, but now, I couldn't stop them from falling. I cried out a torrential river as I thought about everything that was going wrong. In my head, I relived Walden smacking me and ripping my dress from my body. I smelled his breath thick with alcohol on my neck and I felt his fingernails claw into my shoulder...

Click! From a distance away, I heard the door to the dormitory open. Oh shit, did someone really have to come in right now? I tried to quit my crying, but the tears couldn't be stopped. Hoping whoever had entered the dormitory wouldn't pay any attention to me, I stuffed my face in my pillow in an attempt to muffle the sobs.

"Cissy?" A light hand rested on my shoulder as my sister's familiar voice sounded in my ears. "Are you alright? Wait, nevermind. You're obviously not okay. Sit up and tell me what happened. I'm here for you. It's gonna be okay now." Bella's words were woothing in my ear and somehow or the other, I managed to sit up.

Bella wrapped an arm around my shoulder and hugged me in a sisterly manner. Then, she got a good look at my face and gasped in shock while her eyes widened. Wondering why she was giving me such a strange look, I raised an eyebrow at her and asked almost indignantly, "What? Do I seriously look that horrible?"

"No, it's not that..." Bella stared, staring at my face. "It's just that you have a black eye. Okay, you have a lot of explaining to do. Tell me what happened to you." I did have a lot of explaining to do. I also had a lot of questions to ask. Where to begin? There was so much to say. I guess the best place to start is always at the beginning.

"Walden was drunk tonight," I started out. "He told me to sit at a table and wait for him. He said he had some business to attend to and that he'd be back in a few minutes. So I waited for him. After about a half hour of waiting, I got fed up and was about to go find him when Nott came over and told me that Walden was in the corridor making out with some other girl."

"Oh my god!" Bellatrix exclaimed, looking shocked and disgusted. "Are you serious?" Feeling grave, I nodded and continued my tale, "Yeah, I'm not shitting you. Anyways, being the stupid person I am, I went out to the corridor to find Walden. Sure enough, there he was in the middle of the corridor snogging some pretty Durmstrang girl."

"Aw, Cissy..." Bella started, wrapped her arm even tighter around me. Giving me a sympathetic smile, she said, "I'm so sorry. That bastard didn't deserve you anyways. It's weird though. I thought he really did like you. Maybe he was acting so strange because he was drunk?" A thoughtful look came over Bella's face as she considered this.

I would've liked it if my story ended there, but unfortunately, it did not. I went on and told Bella about the last bit, "As soon as I saw Walden and the girl, I ran back down the corridor. I don't really know where I was going. Anyways, two minutes later, someone caught up to me. It was Walden. And...um...he tried to rape me. When I struggled, he slapped me. That's why I have a black eye."

I didn't give Bella the details of the attempted assault. I didn't want to relive those awful moments anymore. All I wanted to do was forget about them. Bella didn't look like she needed to hear anymore either. Her eyes were huge and she held me tightly as she whispered, "Oh god...I'm so sorry! I...I don't know what else to say. I'm speechless. I want to kill that motherfucker!"

"It's okay, Bella," I lied. It most certainly was not okay. It was anything but okay. But seriously, why should I worry Bella? My sister had enough going on in her life without my additional worries. Her wide eyes and opened mouth told me she was pretty astonished. Her next words were, "How did you get away from him? He didn't actually rape you...right?"

"No, he didn't," I quickly replied. "Lucius rescued me..." My words tumbled out and my lip started trembling again. Tears threatened to overtake me and I tried to fight them back. Surprised at my reaction, Bella asked hastily, "What's wrong with that? Lucius didn't hurt you, did he? If he did, I'll-"

"He didn't hurt me," I cut Bellatrix off sharply. "At least not physically. But emotionally? Emotionally, he could've cut my heart in two. He won't even look at me now, Bella! I don't know why. Did I do something to him? Is he embarrassed because of the way he found me with Walden? I just don't get it..."

Taking a long, deep breath, Bella looked deeply in my eyes and said in a compassionate voice, "Cissy...I don't think you get it. I know you want Lucius. But Cis, get this through your brain; Lucius doesn't want you." Bella didn't mean to be cruel, but her words seemed to make the whole world come crashing down around me. The tears started dripping down my cheeks again and I cried myself to sleep in Bella's arms.