when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

Year 6 - 135

A small yellow radio stood atop a desk. Tiny vibrations kept spreading throughout its rather beaten-up looking figure, blasting music to the very limits of its volume. A bottle with some kind of beverage stood beside it. Two ringed hands gripped at the desk and then appeared a girl, her hair snapping around furiously as she sang along the lyrics at the top of her lungs. Her heart pounded along with the loud beat and a headache had begun forming at the back of her head. Yet still, she welcomed it, singing it all away.

Astrid pushed away from the table, her eyes closed as she leaned her head back, spinning slowly in a circle. The tempo picked up with a boom and she opened her eyes prancing to the table she had placed in the middle of the room. On top of it stood a cauldron, all varieties of leftover ingredients crushed or cut laid at the side. Astrid pulled an already open book from the empty shelf of the grand bookshelf behind her and welcomed the sun rays illuminating her face through the window across the table and across from her and the bookshelf. She read the instructions again, careful not to misread and then grabbed a glass stick to stir her potion counterclockwise trice. It bubbled darkly and the strongly red it had been before, slowly turned into a colour resembling more of a faint orange. The girl waited five seconds, stirred it once clockwise and with a light splash, the potion turned transparent.

The chorus of the song came on and Astrid sang along. She moved away from the table and did a small dance of victory, before continuing to bop her head side to side and moved to turn the stove under the cauldron off. Astrid moved the cutting board of leftover masterfully cut-up mushrooms and, after pulling the rubbish bin from under the table with her leg, she threw them all in the bin.

Astrid had never before appreciated having that little shack of the Forbidden Forest as much as she did right then. She had a place to escape to from the eye of everyone else - quite literally, considering the fact the shack was invisible to anyone but her. She had a place where to blast her music without wondering if anyone will come in and ridicule her about it. She had a place to plot murder in. But most importantly, the girl had a supply of an expensive rum she sipped on every now and then, allowing the burning in her neck to distract her from the one in her hand.

In the duration of the week, ever since the first Quidditch trouts, the tattoo on her hand had gotten more painful. Sweating didn't help. She had tried oosing it with spells she had heard Pomfrey or Mills using to ease the pains of injured yet none of it had really helped. There had been many times she had locked herself in the bathroom, scrubbing and rubbing at that hand of hers, running icy water over it to ease the burn. Nothing helped. 

Astrid would've asked Eric if his Mark had burned just the same when he had first gotten it, but of course, that wasn't possible...

Bottle in hand, she tipped her head back and let the liquid run into her mouth and smiled once she placed it back on the table by which she had made the poison. Her mind trailed to the father that apparently wasn't her adopted one and a smile spread across her cheeks. She looked at the bottle and swirled the contest of it around. 

"Perhaps I shall ask Him at a lovely family dinner if he likes rum?" Astrid laughed to herself and took another small sip. Merlin knows, how long the rum had stood in that little shack. Astrid even supposed it might've been His all along - connecting the dots, Astrid had concluded the invisibility of the shack to others must've had something to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. "Oi, father, it's your favourite?" she cackled, music still blasting in the background. "Too bad cause I drunk it all."

Astrid performed a deep bow at an imaginary audience and as she did, her foot misstepped, making her stumble a little bit. The table she had worked by, rattled dangerously once she had gripped onto it to steady herself. Astrid blinked away the momentary dizziness, her eyes staring widely at her cauldron to see if everything was intact and, when she saw it was, the girl allowed a relieffilled sigh.