I was branded the next day. Mother was distraught. We hadn’t talked much; it was always safer to say nothing, but she knew I didn’t want the Mark, that I was already disillusioned of my father’s rhetoric. She couldn’t understand why I changed my mind. She still doesn’t know why. But Aunt Bella kept her word. No one has ever touched her, even when I was in the dungeons and Lucius was gone. I might not have volunteered to get the Mark, but because of that, I don’t regret it, either."