Frances Tacet was never one to want people to notice her when she walked in a room. As a muggleborn in Slytherin, she had an issue with achieving that. It's not that all Slytherin's were particularly concerned with blood status, it was just that the mean ones were.

The night the Sorting Hat had shouted out her house in front of a crowded hall, she found herself in the dimly lit, plushly furnished common room, wandering around. She had been looking through a few books that were laying around the room, gazing up time to time at the lake creatures floating by the windows, when she heard an obnoxiously loud voice ring out from the fireside.

"I can't believe that Potter would choose to hang out with that Weasley rat, I mean he's as good as a mudblood really," he paused, thinking, "Do you think he knows who my family is? I mean if he's been with bloody muggles all this time, maybe he doesn't really know the importance of good breeding."

Frances turned around casually, pretending to leaf through the book in her hand. The boy, who seemed unnaturally blond to Frances, continued, "Then again, any reasonable wizard should know the hallmarks of good blood." He adjusted the lapel on his robes and asked, "Wouldn't you say so, Crabbe?"

Crabbe nodded dumbly, as if he was a sentence behind what his friend was going on about.

She snapped the book shut, immediately regretting the volume of her action, as the three boys turned to see where the noise was coming from. She suddenly realized that with no one else in the common room, it seemed very much like she had been eavesdropping on the trio.

"How long have you been here?" the blond boy demanded to her. He leaned back haughtily in his chair as Frances approached the pair of couches in front of the fire.

"A while," she answered in a low voice.

He raised his eyebrow, "Well you're quiet, aren't you?"

"Usually."

"So, I suppose you agree with us."

Suddenly Frances felt very exposed, standing in front of the three of them, certainly waiting to be judged. She suppressed her voice from shaking, "Agree with you about what?"

Goyle snorted, "I think she's dim, Draco. Do you agree that any respectable wizard can recognize someone from a good family?"

"I don't really know, I'm a muggleborn so I'd expect not."

"A mudblood? How'd you get in here then, I thought the door didn't let your kind in." Draco and his friends chuckled meanly and looked to her to see what she would do next. Frances got the feeling they half expected her to cry or yell, but some part of her brain had shut down. Although she knew that mudblood was a slur of the highest caliber to them, as the word racketed around her brain it struck no nerves. Instead her mouth spoke independently of her mind, asking, "Are there not people like me in this house?"

"I'd say it's pretty rare, the Sorting Hat rarely makes mistakes so disastrous. Don't worry though, I'm sure if you ask Dumbledore nicely he'll let you join another house. He has a soft spot for filth." Again, Draco laughed.

Frances wished she knew a spell for invisibility or one to wind back time. She wished that she hadn't entered into a world that seemed so opposed to her. She figured that they wouldn't teach magic like that for a few years yet, so she settled for quietly exiting the room to the snickers of the boys.

She found classes the next day to be a delight. Although transfiguration was demanding and impossible for her, she couldn't help but admiring the stern but instructive Professor McGonagall. She failed to produce a rat out of a goblet, but when McGonagall came around to look at what everyone had done, she'd said to Frances, "Don't worry, dear. You'll have more chances at it."

Frances appreciated the affirmation, but she was sure it came as a result of the near constant tormenting she received from Draco as she attempted to make any change to her goblet. Much to her dismay, she'd come in late and found the only open seat to be next to the blond bastard. The only good thing was that the Potter and Weasley characters that Draco had been complaining about the previous night were in the class as well, and they were much more the object of Draco's ire than her.

Frances had resolved after her first interaction with Draco, that she was going to remain polite and unaffected by him as long as she could manage it. With any luck, he'd just forget about her.

Unfortunately for Frances, she came to realize that nothing she did would help her fade from the sight of Draco, whose family and history she learned about from the overheard conversations of her fellow first years.

In her few interactions with Harry Potter and his friends, she understood that the hatred they received from Draco was unearned. She also found that the girl, Hermione, with big teeth and frizzy hair, was also a muggleborn. Frances had again been sitting in the common room, reading over her charms notes, when Draco and his cronies had come in complaining about the "beaverish mudblood who couldn't keep her mouth shut."

Frances thought she was safe in the darkest corner of the common room, she had said darkened her wand the moment she heard Draco's characteristically loud voice from the hallway of the dungeon. Unfortunately, she was always noticed by Draco.

"What do you think of her, Frances?" He nearly shouted to her.

"I don't really know her," replied she.

He nodded approvingly, "Well that's just as well. The best thing I can say about you, Frances, is that you're not half so annoying as her."

Frances returned her gaze to her work, relighting her wand. "High praise, Malfoy. It means so much." Her voice, dripping with sarcasm, caused Draco to snort.

"Getting funny, are we?"

"I've been having a laugh for a while now, glad you've caught on."

He didn't say anything to her after this, but she knew that she'd won a glimmer of respect from that interaction.

She'd come to realize that her decision to be unfazed was the best route to his tolerance. After several potions classes with him, Frances knew that being invisible to him was not an option. She quickly proved to be the best in her class, outperforming even Draco, who also seemed to have a natural aptitude for the art.

The first month she had been partnered with Parvarti Patil, a Gryffindor, who was thrilled to do very little each time they were tasked with brewing a potion. Professor Snape would walk around, delightfully sparing them from the insults he lobbed at every other group. Over the month of September, Frances became good acquaintances with Parvarti as they watched Draco become steadily angered by Crabbe's complete ineptitude at Potions.

One night Frances sat in the common room late at night, warming herself by the fire when Draco came bounding down from the dormitories. He immediately identified her, and took a seat in the dark green velvet couch across from her, smiling at her charmingly.

"You know I've always liked you, Frances," he said with a smile.

She returned a smile, ready to play whatever game he had decided upon. "And you've always been my favorite snob, Draco." Either he was determined not to be knocked off course by her jabs, or he rather liked being called a snob, because he gave no indication that she had said anything rude to him.

"Well, as your favorite, I'm wondering if you'd like to be potions partners with me."

"What, and leave poor Pavarti to the wolves? Or, to be more specific, Crabbe? The girl hasn't learn to brew a single potion so far, I can't imagine that she'd do too well with him."

"Crabbe's easy to boss around, as soon as she figures that out she'll do fine. Besides, imagine how well we'd do together. We're the two best students in the class, and I'm reasonably sure Snape doesn't have it out for either of us."

"Pavarti will be enraged, and I'm not sure anything will be in it for me."

"How about some money?"

"The conversion rate from pounds to galleons is great, so no thank you. Other offers?"

Draco searched his mind for something, but aside from money, he had no other motivators.

"How about this, you can't call me a mudblood anymore. Nor can you belittle me in front of your friends. Or anyone for that matter!"

He seemed upset with this offer, "Well that seems a touch unfair, who else will I have to call a mudblood?"

"I'm sure you can find plenty, friend. But this is my offer."

He mulled it over for a second, before he reached forward to offer his hand in agreement. It was ice cold as Frances shook it.

She had made the right choice, agreeing to be Draco's partner, although Parvarti was as peeved as expected. But without the option of making fun of her, Draco seemed less like he considered her a mudblood, and more like he considered her a Slytherin.

The rest of her first year passed much more pleasantly than the first half had. Somehow she found herself spending a truly disappointing amount of time with him. They often studied together during the day, and found themselves sitting near each other in the common room at night. She even talked quite a bit to Crabbe and Goyle, although she preferred the former to the latter. Goyle cared far to much about blood status to really see Frances as his equal, although he never called her a mudblood, since Draco would've punished him for such a breach. Crabbe was pretty dim, but after helping him with his work, he was very nice to her. It seemed that he had become friends with Draco by accident of fate, not by aligning of beliefs, and she was pretty sure he was a half-blood too.

She was often present for Draco's rants about Harry Potter, and though she never spoke out to defend him, she maintained a private belief that some of this hatred came from jealousy. Frances just listened though, and Draco kept talking. Sometimes, when Crabbe and Goyle had gone to bed, he asked about her family. He seemed bemused by muggles, if not slightly repulsed.

When Frances had gone home for the summer, she sometimes received owls from him, mostly unpacking the events with Potter and Voldemort at the end of the year, sometimes about what Draco had been doing that summer, and occasionally about what Frances was doing.

It pained her to admit it, but she was always excited to receive his correspondence by his enormous, black owl. She was even more embarrassed by the fact that he was almost certainly her closest friend at the school.

She received mail from Crabbe infrequently, riddled with spelling errors, but generally nice. He was very curious as to what muggleborns entertained themselves with during the summer. Frances told him about her family's holiday to the Canary Islands during early July, and he responded that there was actually a thriving wizard colony on one of the islands and even gave her good instructions on how to get there.

The only other correspondence Frances had received that summer was from Neville Longbottom, whom she'd met in Herbology class. His writing was pleasant and congenial, always making sure to ask for updates on what she was doing during the summer. He told her all the ways his grandmum was irking him, but he always reminded Frances after his rants how much he loved the old woman for putting up with him.

On the first day of class that year he'd come up to her and stood near her nervously. For a moment Frances had thought the boy hadn't noticed her, but to her surprise, he turned to her and smiled, big buck teeth catching the light.

"I'm Neville, uh, Longbottom," he said, sticking out his hand. She shook it, surprised that he had seen her.

"Frances Tacet, nice to meet you," she replied, quietly hoping that no one else could hear her. It was the day after she'd met Draco, and she had no wish to get his attention again. When Professor Sprout announced that their places around the giant greenhouse table would be theirs for the rest of the year, Frances was relieved. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were nearly at the other end of the greenhouse.

"I don't reckon you know anything about Herbology?" Frances asked Neville.

He nodded, smiling, "I do actually! I help my grandmum in our garden a lot. She likes to grow a lot of magical plants."

"Well I'm happy to hear it, because I have no clue what to expect."

They passed every day of that year companionably. Neville was a nervous boy, but an ultimately good-hearted one. One afternoon in the library around Christmas time, he confessed to her that his grandmother had long thought he was a squib, and had wept with joy when his letter came.

The only conflict that had happened between Frances and Draco past October, was because of Neville, or rather Draco picking on Neville. They were sitting on the lawn by the lake, watching as the squid breached and warmed its red body in the weak Scottish sun, which had only started to feel warm again in May.

Neville was worrying himself over his Transfiguration final. "I swear, I'll never make it past first year. I've hardly transfigured even one thing! Do you think McGonagall will feel bad for me enough to pass me?"

Frances leaned back on the red and yellow plaid blanket that he had brought from the Gryffindor common room. "I don't know, Neville. I think I'm just as scared as you, I've done nearly as terrible. We can at least take comfort in the fact that where we've failed to do anything in her classes, Seamus has blown up nearly everything she's set down in front of him."

Neville chuckled and Frances knew that it had made him feel at least a little better. "Maybe I should ask for help from Herm-"

"Ah, well if it isn't the least magical student in this entire school! Are you preparing to be sent home to your weeping grandmum? I expect studying won't be of any use to you."

Draco and his cronies chuckled as they walked down the lawn towards the pair, coming to stand between the lake and them. Crabbe looked apologetically at her.

"Piss off, Malfoy," Frances said. One look at Neville's face told her he wasn't going to retaliate.

Draco laughed even louder, but this laugh was cold and empty. "Don't tell me what to do, mudblood."

Neville cringed next to her, even though the words weren't directed at him. This time that Draco called her this, her nerves were not numbed. Instead they were lava-hot with rage. How dare he break his promise, how dare he be so cruel to her friend, who had never been cruel to anyone. It hurt even more since she didn't know what had happened to inspire him to be so cruel to her. Frances stood, hardly intimidating in her pleated skirt and jumper, but she raised her wand anyway. Her holly wand, 14 inches long with a dragon heartstring core. A wand that Ollivander had assured would be incredibly powerful when called upon. She wished she knew better hexes, but instead she could only think of the one used by a Weasley twin on a particularly belligerent Slytherin in their year.

"Melofors!" she shouted, an orange jet of twisting light emerging from the tip of her wand. Crabbe and Goyle dove out of the way, as Draco's head turned into a great pumpkin. He immediately fell over, drawn down by the weight of his head. Neville let out a big guffaw of laughter. "You two should get him to the infirmary," Frances advised, sitting back down on the blanket with Neville before Draco was dragged up the hill unceremoniously .

"That was amazing, Frances. But I feel bad, you're going to have to see him in your common room after this, not exactly a pleasant studying environment."

"No fun for him, I'm going to tear him a new one for acting like that to you."

Neville leaned back on his arms, staring at the squid again, who still bathed like nothing had just gone down on the banks. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I'd reckon you just transfigured something for the first time."

Frances snapped her head towards him and grew a big, open mouthed smile, "Neville, sometimes I really think you're a genius."

And he was, because in the common room early the next morning, Draco had stumbled across the threshold in the way that only someone whose head had been a pumpkin until several minutes ago could've.

He sat down on the couch opposite her, clearly angry. He was quiet for some time, until finally he began, "I can't believe you'd make a fool out of me like that. You're lucky I'm not going to write to my father about it. He'd have you expelled in a heartbeat if I weren't so kind."

When Frances answered, she spoke low and grave, "You're not kind, Draco. Kind people don't walk up to people minding their own business and say what you said today. Kind people don't break promises like you did."

"I would be careful if I were you, Frances. Or next year will be very hard for you."

"Oh, Draco. I need you to understand something," she leaned forward on the couch, looking deep into his petulant eyes, "I don't care if you call me a mudblood next year, or try to make my life a living hell. I don't care if your father tries to get me expelled, I don't care if he succeeds. If I am lost to this world forever, but I leave knowing that I stuck up for people like Neville, for myself, then I leave happily." In all of this, her voice barely exceeded a whisper in volume.

The expression in his eyes softened. "I don't want you to be expelled." Frances leaned back in the couch, drawing her legs in. Draco continued, "Crabbe and Goyle are all right, but they're not much for conversation, and Pansy just agrees to everything I say, which gets old. But I don't want my head turned into a pumpkin in front of them. I just want to be friends like we were earlier this year."

"I want to be friends like that again, too. But you can't be so unkind to Neville, or to me when I tell you you're being a prat." He nodded in agreement, although a little like he doubted his own ability to do so. Frances continued, "I need you to do something else, I need you to apologize for calling me a mudblood." Draco began to speak, but she cut him off, "You don't need to do it now, you don't even need to do it in person. But when you mean it, because I know you will, I want you to tell me."

He nodded soberly, and she got up and walked towards her dormitory without another word.

The week before she was supposed to go back for her second year, she received post carried by Draco's stately owl. It said

I'm sorry for calling you a mudblood, and I'm sorry for insulting Neville, he didn't deserve it either. I hope you will forgive me, but I understand a few smacks on the head are probably in order. I'm excited to see you at school!

Draco

P.S Do you want any old Slytherin jumpers and scarves? My mum

is trying to get me to take them all and I'm sure I can't wear

all of them in one year.

Frances caught herself rereading the letter several times in the next week, even in her parent's car to King's Cross. She had written back immediately about wanting the clothing, she had very little in Slytherin colors. Crabbe and Draco had to listen to her begging before Quidditch matches all year for a green scarf or hat. Her parents once again pushed her through the brick wall and onto Platform 9¾, marvelling at the small piece of magic they could experience.

"Crazy! Just bloody unbelievable," her dad remarked, saying almost the same thing he had a year ago. Frances wasn't really listening though, she instead shot a long glance down the platform, hoping to see someone she recognized. Of course the Weasley family was easily identifiable, the mother squeezing the cheeks of her daughter affectionately and pulling her into a deep hug, all the while telling off the twins.

Frances was so absorbed looking at the Weasleys she didn't even notice Neville waving at her. "Um, Frances, I think someone's trying to get your attention," her mom said, nodding her head towards him.