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The next two weeks went by without incident. Nothing bad happened, but nothing really good happened either. Christmas was coming up, but for some reason, I wasn't feeling too happy about it this year. For Christmas break, students at Hogwarts were allowed to go home and spend two weeks with their family.

There were lots of reasons why I didn't want to be sent home. First of all, going home meant I couldn't see Lucius at all for those long two weeks. I mean, it wasn't like I could invite my boyfriend to stay at our house over Christmas break. Mother would never allow that. However, I bet if it was Bella who asked if her boyfriend (Tom?) could stay at the house over holidays, she would say yes.

Secondly, being at home for two weeks meant dealing with mom and Bellatrix. My mother's partiality to Bella just really got onto my nerves. Sometimes I felt like I just couldn't stand it anymore! I just wanted to punch something (or someone. Particularly Bella at this current moment). Plus, I was still pissed off at Bella for that night where she and Tom had tortured that poor boy to death. The two of us hadn't spoken since the deed and neither of us had the guts to break the silence.

Thirdly, going home meant Andromeda would be coming with us. Now before you get the wrong idea, it's not that I don't like Andromeda. Of course not! On the other hand, I was rather touched that she had cared so much about me to give me a warning in the hospital wing a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, that warning had not been a good one though. I didn't want to leave Hogwarts and there was just no frigging way I was leaving Lucius. Would Andromeda try to convince mother not to let me to go back to Hogwarts though? Or would she somehow find a way to keep me at home once I was there? My head spun with too many questions.

But anyways, enough about Christmas right now. My brain hurts just from the thoughts of it. Today has been a completely normal day. I had Transfiguration, Divination, and Arithmancy earlier today. Those had all gone pretty well, but you know how hard Professor Cassiopia of Arithmancy is to please. Luckily, Walden had been leaving me alone too. He still continued to stare at me in that creepy way of his, but at least he didn't approach me or make any more threats.

I hadn't seen Lucius all that much over the last few weeks either. He had been super busy with an essay he had to write for Potions and he didn't have much time for chit chatting. The two of us exchanged a few kisses here and there, but I wanted to go farther. Yes, I'm greedy, I know. But ever since our conversation in the hospital wing, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The only bad thing was my health. I felt like shit all the time. I could fake it, but it was hard to conceal and lots of times I ended up snapping at people or doing really random and impulse things. I was attempting to eat one meal a day (because Lucius was still complaining...what a bastard) and that was like hell. I couldn't get food down my throat without it feeling like my throat was being covered in thick honey and was refusing to let me breathe. When it finally reached my stomach, I immediately got bloated and felt sick for the entired rest of the day. That wasn't all though. For some reason, I had been like crazy thirsty lately. I wanted to drink, but I didn't. After all, drinking would just make me gain weight, right? Being thirsty was okay, but gaining weight was not. A lot of the time I felt really screwed up too. I started to obsess more and more over my appearance and walking through the corridors became a way for me to people-watch and compare myself to everyone else.

I had just visited the Great Hall in hopes to find Lucius at the dinner table, but unfortunately, he wasn't there. Frowning, I gazed over the table to see who was there. I saw Avery, Nott, and Walden sitting together and playing some stupid card game. To their right, Tom, Bella, Rodolphus, and Rabastan looked they were in the middle of some deep conversation. I decided I didn't want to know what they were up to. They had better not be planning to kidnap someone else or be planning a murder. If they were, I would...what would I do? Hm, I would worry about that later. There were more important things to think about at the moment.

I decided to escape before Bella or Tom noticed me lingering by the Slytherin table. Luckily, Tom hadn't help another meeting since the torture episode. I was grateful for that, but I was also getting a bad feeling in my gut. After all, if Tom hadn't called a meeting in such a long time, that probably meant he was going to plan another one soon, right?

Banishing that thought from my brain, I stepped out of the corridors and began people-watching on the way to the Slytherin common room. I compared myself to every pretty girl I saw. Everytime, they were always skinner and more beautiful than me. It was a miracle how Lucius could tolerate me when there were all these other gorgeous girls around.

I was half-way up the stairs when I noticed a familiar figured. She had tangled blonde hair that might have been pretty if she put some effort into it. Her skin was a beautiful ivory color, but it didn't look so pretty when stress was written all over her face. And the eyes...the eyes were the worst. They were like two dead, unseeing holes in her skull.

Have you guessed who it is by now? If you haven't, I'll just go ahead and tell you. It was Natasha. Something awful was happening to her. She had changed so much from when I had first met her. She had gone from beautiful, loud, and obnoxious to the living dead. She never spoke or talked to anyone. At least, not that I ever saw anyways.

I couldn't help but kind of stare at her as I walked up on the opposite side of the stairs. After a few moments, Nat lifted her head and looked in my direction. Oh fuck. That's what I get for staring at people. I needed to learn to keep my eyes focused straight ahead of me. Maybe I was getting a little too into this people-watching thing.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected Nat to do, but what she did was the complete opposite of what I thought she would do. My eyes met her two dead-looking ones and we looked gazes for an instant. As we did, Natasha moved her lips upwards ever so slightly. At first, I didn't get what she was doing. However, after a moment of two of thinking, I realized she was smiling at me.

Hoping, I wasn't seeing things, I blinked and took another look at Natasha. However, by this time, she had already run off down the staircase and I was left alone with my own thoughts. I continued onto the Slytherin common room feeling a bit unnerved. It was just so strange about Nat! Something awful had obviously happened to her.

A few moments later, I reached the Slytherin common room. I pushed the door open with my foot and gazed around to see who was inside. Surprisingly enough, nobody was inside except for one figure bending over a large piece of parchment on the couch. My heart flutter as I looked at Lucius and I immediately started over in his direction. Since he hadn't seen me yet, I paused behind the couch, put my hands over his eyes and said, "Guess who?"

Lucius laughed at replied, "I would know you from anywhere, Cissa. Come sit down next to me. You can be my excuse for not finishing up my Potions essay." Laughing, I sat down next to him on the dingy couch. I wondered why Hogwarts couldn't replace the furniture. Everything here was so old and broken down.

Lucius dumped his Potions essay on the floor and kicked it out of our way. He made an expression of disgust at it before turning his full attention to me. When he did, his expression softened and his eyes shone, "So how are you today, Cissa? I haven't seen you all day. I've just been stuck working on this stupid essay."

"My day was okay I guess," I said, flinching as I felt a sharp pain coming from somewhere deep within me. I was starting to think that I was kind of sick, but of course, I wasn't going to admit that to anyone. And especially not Lucius. Who knew what he would say or do? Turning back to him, I said, "That reminds me. Have you seen Natasha lately?"

Rolling his eyes, Lucius replied, "Why do you always ask about Natasha? I don't pay any attention to that girl. I think you should know that by now. But anyways, no, I haven't seen her." I wasn't sure whether or not to believe Lucius about all this. It was kind of hard not to notice Natasha. Her beauty use to make her stand out. Now, it was the haunted look in her eyes that made her stand out. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering what had happened to Nat.

"She looks strange," I told Lucius. Lucius looked at the ground with a bored expression on his face. Something told me that he didn't want to talk about Natasha right now. Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, "What? Does talking about her bother you or something? There isn't something I don't know about, hm?"

"Cissa!" Lucius said my name rather loudly in his irritation. "No, there is nothing you don't know about for god's sake! I just don't see why we should waste our time talking about Natasha when there are other things we could be talking about. And oh, that reminds me. We're kind of facing a complication at the moment."

I bit my lip and frowned. Complications could never be good. I also didn't like the way Lucius had dismissed the subject of Natasha so quickly. Why didn't he want to talk about her so bad? Did the memories of her still haunt him or was there something going on that I was oblivious to? Deciding that it would only irritate him more if I talked about Natasha, I asked Lucius, "Complications?"

Lucius nodded rather gravely, sending blonde strands of hair into his eyes. Unable to resist myself, I leaned forward and tucked them back behind his ear, stroking his cheek with the back of my palm as I did so. Lucius went on to explain the situation for me, "Remember the last meeting with Tom? Remember how he called me to him after the meeting was over?"

I wracked my brains and tried to think of whether or not I remembered that happening. If I thought really hard, I was pretty sure I did remember Tom calling Lucius. I nodded at him and waited for more. Lucius continued, "He asked us if we were dating. I said yes. It's just plain stupid to lie to the Dark Lord. He can always find out if you're lying anyways.

Lucius definitely had a point there. That was the creepy thing about Tom; he always knew what you were thinking and feeling. Lucius went on, "He said he didn't want us in a relationship. He wants our focus to be on him and the task set out for us by Salzar Slytherin. So basically, he's forbidden us to continue dating."

I had hated Tom before. I really did. He was so cruel and uncaring. But now? Now, I loathed him so much that I felt like hurting someone. Panic started to rise in my chest as I gave Lucius an anxious look, "So what are we going to do? You're not really going to ditch me or anything, are you? Please don't...please-"

"Hey, you know I would never leave you," Lucius whispered in my ear in a comforting tone. He slipped an arm around me and pulled me over closer to him on the couch. I leaned up against his arm in relief and took a deep breath. Lucius gave me a look out of the corner of his eyes and said, "There are some things we're going to have to change though. You realize that, right?"

Frowning, I gave just the slightest nod. I guess it should've been obvious to me that some things would have to change. Not sure if I really wanted an answer to my question, I asked, "So what things are we going to have to change? I don't like change. Why can't everything just stay the same? We were so happy and then Tom had to come and make shit for us."

"I know, Cissa, I know," Lucius replied, tightening his arm around my shoudlers. "It will be alright though. Remember that, okay? No matter what happens, it will be alright in the end. I'll make sure of that for you. Don't you trust me?" Did I trust Lucius? Looking up into those gray eyes, I found I did. I trusted him with my life, my soul, and my body. What he said was definitely true.