Sarah bid her friends goodbye and made her way from the common room of the dormitory to the school library two floors up. This was no ordinary boarding school, however, it was a school for those gifted and talented in the area of witchcraft and wizardry: Hogwarts. Sarah, along with her three best friends, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, were two weeks into their fifth year at Hogwarts. Hermione and Sarah were two of the few muggle-borns, those not born of wizarding descent, who were accepted into Hogwarts in their year. Ron, as pure a wizard as they come, was one of the four redheaded Weasleys there, along with his older twin brothers, Fred and George, and his younger sister, Ginny. And then there was Harry. Harry Potter was the infamous Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One. Fifteen years ago, as just an infant, he survived You-Know-Who's killing curse after the dark wizard killed his parents, weakening the wizard and driving him into hiding, up until the previous year, at least. Harry was the only person who ever survived You-Know-Who's attack, putting a huge target on his own forehead.

The four met on the Hogwarts Express their first year and became friends instantly. Sarah had struggled down the train aisle, holding onto her skittish kitten, feeling as terrified as the feline in her arms, in a train full of strangers. She came upon a half-filled compartment, containing two of her future best friends, Harry and Ron, and slid into the compartment to join the pair. She and Harry listened avidly to Ron explaining different aspects of the wizarding world, since both had been raised in muggle homes, and traded him their muggle stories. They didn't meet Hermione until later, when they were all awaiting their turn with the sorting hat with wide-eyed anticipation. All four had been sorted into Gryffindor House, and found themselves inseparable after just the first feast.

Another one of Sarah's best friends was Draco Malfoy. They remained best friends although he was in the Slytherin house, Gryffindor's rival house. Not only were the two houses rivals, but it Draco and Harry became rivals from their first encounter, much to Sarah's dismay. Her friendship with Draco was something none of her other friends could understand, and sometimes accept, but there was a side of Draco she knew that they didn't. He knew things about her that her other friends didn't, and he had been there for her through some hard times. Sarah and Draco had known each other since they were young children, since before she was invited to Hogwarts or even knew the wizarding world was more than just a fairy tale.

An eight-year-old Sarah was sitting on the carousel, her feet planted firmly on the ground, but rocking it side to side. She was looking down at her lap, turning a small toy camera over and over in her hands, and listening to the girls in the sandbox giggling. She forced herself not to look up at the girls who had only moments ago made fun of her and wouldn't let her play with them. She didn't have the latest doll and she wasn't wearing a frilly dress like the rest of them, and that made her unpopular. She wasn't your ordinary girl, she grew up in a family of artists, and mainly boys, so she would choose paint-splattered jeans and a camera over a pink dress and a doll every time.

"What's that you have there?" A small voice asked. She looked up to see a small yellow-haired boy dressed in all black, staring at her quizzically.

"A camera?" She asked, equally as quizzically as he did.

"Oh, right, I just haven't seen one that looks like that," He said coolly, realizing he'd sounded stupid. Who'd never seen a camera, after all? "You're new around here, aren't you?"

"Yes, we moved here two weeks ago," She sighed. She missed her friends back home. "I'm Sarah."

"That's a funny name," He responded. She narrowed her eyes but didn't say anything. "I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy," he said proudly. Sarah smiled, his name was much stranger than hers, but she was making a new friend and she wasn't going to be rude. "I live in the gray house over there," He pointed vaguely.

"That's not a house, it's a castle!" She responded when she realized which house he was referring to. He smiled proudly again.

"My father's a very important person," He said, arrogantly. She laughed, under the impression he was kidding, but stopped when he didn't join in. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the group of girls pointing at her and whispering behind their hands, and she quickly looked back down at the camera in her hands.

"You may not want to talk to me, apparently I'm the weird girl," She said quietly. Draco looked from the group of girls in the sandbox, who quieted at his glance, and back to Sarah with a dull expression.

"According to those gits?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. She giggled and shrugged. "So can I have a go on the carousel or are you going to mope on it all afternoon?" Sarah threw her head back and laughed as he ran around with the carousel, spinning faster and faster.

Draco had been the only friend she made in the neighborhood. Apparently, they were mutually destructive to each other's social status with the other kids in the park. The weird girl and the rude boy. No one wanted to be their friends, but they didn't care, they didn't like those other kids either. They met up at the park everyday, and on rainy days, he would go to her house to play. It was almost two years later when Sarah first found out about magic.

A ten-year-old Sarah was sitting on a swing at the park, rocking back and forth slowly, idly spinning the bracelet around her wrist. She stared straight ahead, her face blank, even when she felt someone sit in the swing next to hers. It felt like hours had passed before she said anything. "My mum died," She said blandly, matter-of-factly, without tearing her gaze away from dot in the distance she was staring at blankly. "Car accident, drunk driver, they say," She added.

"I know," Draco's voice said quietly from next to her. There were another few moments of silence before she spoke again.

"You're not going to tell me you're sorry for my loss and that it'll be okay, are you?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

"I don't. I had to get out of there for a minute. Everyone looks so sad. And that's all they all say to me, and that my mum was a great lady. I know she was." She told him, still gazing straight ahead. "But it doesn't help," She whispered, "It just makes me sadder. I don't want to be sad anymore, even just for a minute."

"I know," Draco responded.

She heard him moving around her but didn't shift her gaze until he was standing right in front of her, hand outstretched with a small white flower in his palm. She looked at him questioningly, but he just gave a small nod, reassuring her to just wait, and he stared at the flower. His face was so full of concentration, she tilted her head in confusion. Her eyes widened and she gasped as the small flower turned from white to pink. She let out another small gasp as it turned from pink to yellow. She started giggling as it went from yellow to purple, and Draco looked up at her smiling. She smiled back, her face full of awe, for the first time in days.

"How did you do that?" She exclaimed. She let out a squeal as it turned from purple to blue.

"Magic," He murmured.

"C'mon, really!" She whispered, watching it turn back to pink. She took it out of his hand and examined it.

"Really," He responded anxiously as she turned the flower over in her hands. "I'm a wizard. Well, I'm going to be after I go to school. Both my parents are wizards too, there's a whole lot of us that can do magic."

"You're lying," She accused. "There's no such thing as magic!"

"I'm not!" He said defensively. He stared back at the flower and, suddenly, it was floating in front of her face, a foot above the hand that was holding it half a second earlier. It did somersaults in the air in front of her and she gasped again.

"Magic?" She whispered. She reached out for the flower and looked back at Draco.

"Can you keep a secret?" He asked. She nodded avidly, and for the next hour, she was transported away from her mother's funeral to magic, dragons, wizards and witches, and flying on broomsticks, as Draco told her all about his secret world.

Sarah was good for her word of keeping his secret, but it didn't stop her from begging him to do tricks whenever there was no one around. It was the only thing that made her not feel so empty inside, especially for those few months after her mother's death. Nearly the only thing that could make her smile was Draco changing the colors of flowers, or shrinking her toys, or making sticks hover in mid-air. That is, it was the only thing until she got a weird letter from an owl that perched in her living room window.

"Look!" She said, running to where Draco was in the park, waving a piece of paper. "Hogwarts! That's where you're going, right? I got a letter!"

"What?" He asked, disbelievingly. He took the paper from her hands and read the invitation from the headmaster, Dumbledore, for Sarah to attend his magical school. "But-But—you're a muggle," He said, his eyes narrowed, "You don't belong there, you're not magical." She snatched the letter back, her turn to look disbelievingly.

"I thought you'd be happy we'd be going to the same school, but if I'm not good enough, then fine," She snapped. She stormed off, back to her house where she had a father and brother that were beyond excited for her.

Sarah didn't see Draco again that summer, until Diagon Alley, the street of wizarding shops. She was there with her father, both wide-eyed and amazed at all they saw as they shopped for her robes and books for school. She and her father were on their way into Ollivander's, the wand shop, when Draco and his father were walking out. Her father had tried speaking to Mr. Malfoy, excited and interested to see a familiar face, but he looked down his nose at her father and walked off with a sneer, with Draco in tow.

"What do you want?" Sarah snapped. It was later that night and Draco was standing outside her bedroom window.

"Just to apologize," He started before Sarah drew her curtains to shut him out. She stepped back and he climbed through her window, like the many times he had before when they'd stay up late at night whispering and laughing quietly. "Listen, I'm sorry for saying you don't belong at Hogwarts, and for the way my father acted this morning."

"It was very rude," She responded smugly.

"There are things you don't understand about the wizarding world. Things you will once you've been around it for a while," He said, slowly. "Some wizards have different beliefs than others, some you may not like," He added.

"Do you not want to be my friend anymore?" She said quietly.

"What? No!" He exclaimed in a hushed, voice. "You'll always be my best friend, no matter what happens."

He was right on that point. It wasn't easy, but they had maintained their friendship through their first four years at Hogwarts, and now starting their fifth. Their friendship had waxed and waned, hanging barely by a thread in some points, especially when Harry and Draco's rivalry raged, but Sarah always remembered the little yellow-haired boy in her bedroom telling her she would always be his best friend and didn't give up on them. Their summer holidays would reinforce their friendship, as they only had each other since their school friends were from all over. They would sneak off to their spot in the park, or he would climb in through her window, so they could whisper for hours on end.