A Warm Heart Turned Cold

In her training she was brainwashed to be a Slytherin. She was a witness to the performing of the Unforgivable Curses, even Avada Kedavra. Lucius Malfoy did not perform any of the curses on her but he did project images of her friends and used the curses on them to make her unaware of others' pain. She was forced to sleep surrounded by human bones (which Lucius had purchased at Borgin & Burkes). Densaugeo was the nicest of the spells she was forced to use upon people. She actually got a kick out of seeing people with huge teeth, which made Mr. Malfoy very proud.

"Very nice. You are a quick learner, much better than my son," he cringed when mentioning his son, "Draco. He will never be as good as I am, but what can you expect, I am the best after all."

"Yes, you are sir." She had learned quickly that praising Lucius made her

training easier.

Apart from watching people in pain she was witness to interrogations and slowly but surely she lost all notion of other's pain, at least for people apart from Slytherin's or Death Eaters.

Her dream was to grow up and be a Death Eater, her favorite spell was Locomotor Mortis, much like Draco's although they had never met. She loathed muggles (even though her best friends and old family were muggles). She was everything Mr. Malfoy and her father, Severus wanted her to be. Her once warm and loving heart was finally cold as ice. At least that is what she showed to her father and the rest of his friends. In the inside, she still loved to talk to people and she was dieing to go to Hogwarts and be put into the Slytherin House!

Then she met Draco Malfoy. He too was training to be a Death Eater, they shared the liking for the same spells, and they both hated muggles. He was already in the seventh and last year of Slytherin though. He told her about her father favoring the Slytherin students and all the great stuff he has done for them in the past, but somehow she sensed that he was hiding something.

"So, do you like being in Slytherin and following in your father's footsteps?"

"To be quite honest, even though I love Slytherin, I do not want to work in the Ministry of Magic, I'd rather work in Hogwarts as the DADA teacher." Talking about Hogwarts seemed to bring a light into his eyes. She had never been to Hogwarts before; she was still trying to catch up so she could join in the sixth year. "Of course, the whole Death Eater life style is a given, I was made for that path of life."

She sighed as she was expecting that answer but she quickly changed the subject. "So, what is Hogwarts like? What are the people like?" He told her about all the classes, about all the teachers, and about how he hated Head Master Dumbledore (probably because of his father's brainwashing lessons).

Then he got onto the subject of Harry Potter. He told her about how he hated him and how he hated his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermoine Granger (the filthy mudblood). Her face was a bit red when he talked about Harry Potter, but she hoped he thought it was just because of his famous standing in the wizarding world and nothing else. Even though she found it easy to lie about her mother and brother to others, she could not lie to Draco; her heart would not let her.

*********

She went home after talking to Draco all day in Diagon Alley. Her parcels were heavy on her shoulders and she could not wait to sit down in a comfortable chair in her room at her and her father's house. The house was dreary on the outside; the plants were all dead and even the garden gnomes were long gone. The inside was still dreary but it was comfortable none the least for it was home. She opened the creaky door and carried all her things to her room.

Her room was very different from the rest of the house. It was clean for one thing but she opened the shades to let the sun shine in. The colors were not all dark, but rather more earthy. Her bookshelf was lined with books, all magical of course. Her bed was neatly made and it already had the Slytherin emblem in the corner. She put her new books on the end table by the bed and took her nine inch, willow, swishy, veela hair wand out of her robe and set it on its holder hanging on the wall. Her new collapsible cauldron was put in her trunk that she had started to pack already, even though The Hogwarts Express didn't leave for another few weeks. She had bought a broomstick (a Firebolt) with the high hope of becoming a beater for the house quidditch team. She had been studying up on the sport and it seemed like the best spot for her. The broomstick was carefully leaned up against the bookshelf.

She then took a seat in her chair by the window and opened one of the books she had bought, Predicting the Unpredictable: Insulate Yourself Against Shocks. She had first read about Divination two weeks ago and it struck her as interesting so she figured she'd read all about it, even if she was not required to yet. When she was still in the muggle world she thought she always had an odd timing of doing things, as if she knew they were going to happen before they did. Maybe that is why she is so drawn to this subject.

In the middle of the eighth chapter (which was about reading complex signs in the water) her father knocked on her door. She set the book down and let him in.

"I just got off the phone with Tom. You do know who he is Siaka, right?" She shook her head hoping it was not another of his 'teachers'. "He is the owner of the Leaky Cauldron; you will start working for him tomorrow morning. I may have money from working as the Potions Teacher, but it is not nearly enough for all the spending you are doing on these ridiculous books!" He picked up her Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and Their Solutions book and threw it on the bed. He then walked out of her room with a swish of his hair and she closed the door quietly behind him.

So she was going to work at the Leaky Cauldron. Not only would she be able to work on her skill that she was sure she possessed but she would be able to meet and talk to people that have actually been to Hogwarts! She was happy for the first time in, well since she could remember. She put the book her father had thrown on her bed back in its spot on the bookshelf and went back to reading Predicting the Unpredictable: Insulate Yourself Against Shocks, but something was different...she was smiling.