I'm in the library when I see Draco. It's been a few weeks since school started, and we haven't been able to spend any time together. This is the first time I've caught his eye. Not in the Great Hall, nor the boathouse, nor any of the classes we share. He walks up to my table and throws a book down in front of me. My entire body jolts. I look up at him, at his scowling face looking down at me.

Hermione sits across from me. Her eyes drift from me to Draco, "hello, Malfoy."

"I know you're so eager for attention, what with your little boyfriend's new interest, but lay off," he snaps.

Hermione's face beats red, "excuse-"

"Here's your book, Turner," Malfoy speaks so harshly he nearly froths at the mouth. "Next time I want something, don't make me take it. I'm afraid you won't like it."

He storms off from the table, nearly sprinting out of the library.

Hermione looks at me, and I shake my head, "alchemy."

It's the only class which Draco and I share that she isn't in. I barely scrapped my teeth into the potions class, but I decided not to take it. If I've learned anything from Defense Against the Dark Arts, I should stick to what I'm good at doing. I know my place. Hermione does too. It's above mine, I suppose, but not by much. She doesn't seem to realize it.

No one does. Professor Dumbledore said a war is coming but no one acts like it. Hermione sulks about, pretending Ron's new girlfriend isn't pissing her off all the time. People still care about Quidditch and the house cup. For all her smarts, Hermione doesn't know when to stop. I suppose people like her don't need to end it. Maybe she is so daft, so Gryffindor, that she thinks she alone could end the war.

I know I can't. I still haven't told Professor Dumbledore yes. While I don't think he's wrong about me, I know enough about muggle wars. Not one person wins them. A side may win, but the costs are so great. Already, I feel carved away.

"You shouldn't let him talk to you like that," Hermione glances over me.

"All he wants is a fight," I roll my eyes, mostly because Draco isn't talking to me like that. Malfoy is. His line, his family.

Hermione shrugs, "then fight him. You're clever enough to beat him."

I pull up the book to hide my smile. She's right. I did win, in a way. He conquered me too. There is something spectacular in the way we both lay claim to each other.

Within the book, there is a note, written by Draco. You'd mistake it for a bookmark, a note for the book.

Alchemically, water offers the best results for transformation in the middle of the night.

It's incorrect. Hermione wouldn't know, I doubt, if she glanced it. No one would catch it. Water is most potent in front of a full moon, as large as can be. In the day when it isn't visible, especially when there are storm clouds, water alchemically changes easily.

"You have no problem telling Nott off," Hermione points out.

I snap the book shut, "Malfoy just wants a fight. Nott wants to sexually violate me in front of all his friends. Bit of a difference."

She was there. I remember it. She said nothing too. Ron did and she pulled him away.

"Theodore Nott has a big mouth and not much else," Hermione retorts, and I'm not sure if she's talking about his dick or his aptitude for fighting. "Harry seems to think Malfoy is genuinely dangerous."

"Right, Harry Potter," I don't know that I've spoken more than three words to the guy. "Does Harry also know that Nott also joked about having Anthony, Terry and Michael take turns with Ginny in the Ravenclaw dorms. How'd he put it... domesticate her? Like her Mum?"

Hermione's face scrunches and she turns to the door like she expects Nott to be the one who left, and not Malfoy.

"Ginny would've told me."

"I'm not taking the piss," I roll my eyes.

Hermione's eyes lock onto mine, scanning my face. This, perhaps, is the most personal conversation we've ever had. I suppose we are strangers, just as I thought. Maybe some part of me thought Hermione would be a reprieve from the Ravenclaw girls in my dorm. She's not like them. She's not oblivious to muggle-born issues, but she's arrogant in her own right. I can see that just by the way she talks back. At least I have the decency to play along with Theo's stupid comments. I don't explode. I'm always cool. Hermione is anything but; she thinks she has a chance against any of them.

"I'm not trying to start a fight," Hermione says. "I was offering to help you out. I was... well I remember what happened to you in Hogsmeade."

I shove all my things into my book bag. Throwing it over my shoulder, I storm out of the room, without a word. Sure, she remembers. She saw me there. Never said a word. Ron Weasley, not known for being particularly astute, has talked to me about it. I sometimes catch his eye and he nods at me. Ginny was always so kind to me too, spending time with Luna and I in the DA. Not for a single second do I think Hermione is interested in helping me. She's just trying to prove a point. She is surely the worst kind of Gryffindor.

I'm smart enough not to prove some points. I'm smart enough to know when to give up.

There is an hour until quiet hours, but I remember Draco's request. I go into the dorm and get ready for bed, and I'm tucked in when the others arrive. I pull the curtains shut after they see me. I wait and wait and wait. Hours pass by me, slipping away. Once I'm sure everyone is asleep, I open the curtains and count the clock on the wall. Only after two in the morning, before the witching hour, do I get out of bed. I cast a silencing spell on my shoes as I creep around the room dressing. I cast a charm on me to camouflage me into the walls on the off chance any rogue portraits are awake.

Soon enough I'm heading to the boathouse. It's dark from the outside, and I have a cloak on. The grass is wet, and soon so are my stockings as the water seeps into them. I slip into the boathouse.

Draco is there. A few candles illuminate the room, and so he's clear. Curled in a ball on the floor, a cloak covering him tightly, and a bottle of firewhiskey in his hands.

I rush over, helping him up, glancing around the room in case we've been caught and he's been brought here as a joke. There is no Nott here. Hermione might not be afraid of him, but she doesn't know about what he did in fourth year, I don't think. I cradle Draco in my lap. He grabs on to me, and the first sound out of him is a sob. He clings onto me, pulling me closer and closer.

It is early on Sunday morning now and the witching hour is approaching.

"Draco," I manage, pulling his face toward me. He clings so tight to my cloak it is difficult to grab him. "Look at me, Draco. Look at me!"

I shout the words and he turns to face me, still blubbering. His hands release from my cloak and wrap around my neck.

He sent me a letter every week and only now are we speaking. The first three weeks of the month and no words between us. Something has changed. It's so thick. It feels like I'm clawing through the air. There is some filter in my mouth, somehow not letting the oxygen in and only all the gunk in the air. My heart is racing. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

"What's..." I swallow. "Draco what's wrong. Tell me what's wrong!"

He can't stop crying. Once before I've seen him kick a boat, but I don't know what could upset him like this. He's a Malfoy; he's supposed to have everything right and easy. My stomach flips. I don't understand.

My body is boiling. I feel my hands go numb. He's pulling me in so tight that I'm losing feeling in my extremities. My fingertips, my feet, my arms, my neck. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. There are hands, dragging me into water. That's what breathing is. I'm not only getting in gunk in the air. It's water. I'm drowning in it.

I think I'm going to die.

As if I'm puppeted by someone else, I feel myself shove him off me. My arms dangle while the marionette strings force my legs outside. The air is cold and it fills my lungs, and I sprint forward, only stopping once my feet sink into the very edge of the Great Lake, the most shallow part. Part of me comes back and I yelp, scampering away. The dew on the grass seeps through the cloak and my arms freeze too.

It feels like enough. I breathe in and out, turning my head to glance back at the boathouse. There Draco stands, leaning against the doorway. His shoulders are heaving, but he's not crying. Even in the low lighting I can see the streaks left from his sobs, wet lines of salt and sadness dragging down to his chin. He stares at me.

"You're here," he notices.

I'm not sure if he's referring to when I entered the boathouse or when I stepped out of the lake, "I'm always here. Everywhere."

"Everything," he agrees.

I stand up. My feet are soaking, but the coldness has cooled me. I straighten myself and head back into the boathouse with him.

~~~~~

What info do you think Draco is dropping next chapter? Wrong answers only (but some actually predictions might be fun too).