2.

First Year Blues

and

Lost In the Dark

Years before Grace could make it to Hogwarts, she lived off the stories that her brothers would tell her. Every story told filled her with excitement and wonder. And Grace wasn't one to feel those things. She begged George to tell her stories over and over again so she could just imagine what it would be like to actually be a student at the school.

And at that moment, everything was better than she could have ever imagined.

Jack-O-Lanterns with a plethora of facial expressions hung as if suspended by invisible strings. The ceiling was as dark as the night sky with the full moon twinkling brighter than any star. And the food. Now, Grace wasn't much of an eater. But seeing the food in front of her, made her want to try everything at least once.

And her twin seemed to feel the same way.

Grace could swear that her brother was a bottomless pit. Handful after handful, he shoved food down his throat while his sister stared on at him with disgust on her face. Food dripped from her brother's chin as he talked.

"I admire you, Gracelynn," A voice said from next to her.

At the sudden mention of her name, Grace turned to look at the person next to her.

Lavender Brown was politely nibbling on a roll of bread, Parvati Patil sitting next to her and both of them were leaning forward to catch every word Grace said.

Grace didn't really care to know either of them. But considering the fact that Hermione was nowhere to be found, Grace figured she would have to sit through this.

Grace finished swallowing her pumpkin pasty before she spoke. "Please, call me Grace."

"Alright, Grace. I admire how you have the ability to put up with that," Lavender paused for a moment, searching hard for the proper word choice, "neanderthal."

"My brother is not a neanderthal." Grace said rather harshly to the girl, "I will admit, however, that his manners are lacking. That being said, Ronald is my best friend. Tied only with-"

Grace stopped suddenly. Looking across the room through the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, she noticed a pointed face looking at her with a shadow of a smile.

A small smile crept to her own lips. A strange thing had happened after that first Quidditch match. After they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways, an unspoken agreement drew them back together during the next match. And then the next. And the next one after that. And before the two of them knew it, they had become almost friends.

But nobody could know.

For obvious reasons, their friendship would be very frowned upon. Sure, they were both from pureblood families. But for ages the Malfoy family tormented Grace's father for his strange love of muggles. From birth practically, Grace was taught to never interact with the Malfoy boy. And Draco had even said that his own father said the same thing about her own family.

"Tied only with who? Who could be almost closer to you than your own twin?" Parvati said, rudely interrupting Grace's thoughts.

How long was she supposed to deal with them?

She elected to humor them all while steering away from her answer.

Should Grace lie to them?

Never. She vowed that she would never lie for any reason. And she was not about to break that vow now.

"I was just going to say that George was my best friend tied only with Ron," Grace said, not technically lying. She did have a close relationship with George. Anybody could see that.

Unfortunately for her, the former actually heard her admit it.

"Oh ickle Graciekins tells her ickle friends that I'm her best friend!" George gushes loudly, making sure that the declaration was heard across the entire great hall. Without any sort of warning, George had grabbed her head and pulled it to his chest, crushing her in a tight hug.

Grace clawed at his arm, "C-can't… breathe!"

"AW I CAN'T BREATHE WHEN YOU'RE GONE EITHER GRACIE!"

With a last laugh, he let Grace go and continued his conversation with Lee Jordan and Fred.

Grace rubbed her neck with a sneer on her face. As much as she loved her brother, sometimes she did not love his crushing hugs.

"Well, you being best friends with George is definitely plausible," Lavender said, after a few moments of silence.

Grace gave her a hard look, "Of course it's plausible. We're siblings. Bloody hell, Lavender, you really are quite-"

The doors to the Great Hall opened with a bang.

"TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" Professor Quirrell screamed, holding onto his turban with one hand and flailing the other arm as he looked behind him to see if the troll had followed him.

He ran at full speed to the front of the Great Hall, screaming the whole way. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!"

When he finally made it to teacher's table, he stopped and stared straight at Dumbledore.

"Just thought you ought to know."
The professor fell to the floor and the room around Grace erupted into screams. Grace knew she ought to be screaming with the rest of the students. But she just couldn't conjure one up. All she could think to do was look across the room for her friend. Students running back and forth with panicked expressions blocked her view. Grace was starting to panic just then.

"SILENCE!"

Dumbledore's loud yet calm voice rang out through the Great Hall, stopping all the panic in its tracks.

Hundreds of terrified faces, including Grace's, turned to where the headmaster stood with his hands in the air and a serene look on his face. His blue eyes twinkled behind his moon-shaped spectacles as he faced the students.

"Prefects, take the younger members of your houses back to the dorms."
And with that, all eight of the Prefects spoke loudly to get the students' attention.

"Alright, first-years keep behind me. Don't fall behind," Her elder brother, Percy spoke with his held high.

Grace heard the words that he had spoke. She wanted to follow his instructions, as he was her elder, but she could not. Worry for her almost friend racked her brain. She was not much of a worrier so she did everything in her power to silence her mind.

Everything will be alright. Malfoy is returning down to his dorms in the dungeons.

Professor Quirrell said the troll was in the dungeon, A little voice in her head said.

Grace's eyes widened.

Before she could do anything, however, the silly girls she was talking to earlier began screaming again and pushed Grace out of the way.

And Grace, being the complete opposite of graceful, fell flat on the floor. Right on her face for that matter. The pain didn't stop there however. Nobody seemed willing to help her up, or move around her. To save the gruesome details, Grace discovered just how heavy some her classmates' shoes were.

"Bloody hell, Weasley," A voice rang from above her.

Removing her aching hands from her head, she turned ever so slightly to see who it was. Thankfully for her, she didn't have to travel down to the dungeons anymore.

"M-Malfoy? I-I thought you w-were-?" Grace started but her sentence was interrupted by a pale hand grabbing her arm.

Malfoy, using all the strength he could muster, attempted to help her off the ground. "Damn Weasley, what did you eat at the feast? Rocks?"

With a lot of effort put forth by both parties, they finally managed to get the sore Weasley off the ground and brushing the leftover food off of her robes.

As she brushed the food from off her, she turned to look at her kind-of friend, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Malfoy said, folding his arms over his chest.

The silence that fell between the two gave Grace the opportunity to look around her. The Great Hall emptied out quite quickly. She never thought that the whole school could have cleared out that fast.

"Anyway, Weasley, what were you doing on the floor?" Malfoy asked, taking half a step closer to her.

Grace looked at the boy across from her and furrowed her eyebrows. He looked disheveled. And that was not normal for him. His usually sleek and perfect hair was pointing everywhere. Grace had to resist the urge to flatten his hair down herself. Instead of helping him in that aspect, she answered his question. "I fell. Obviously. You're hair is atrocious, Malfoy. What are you still doing here? I thought you would've been the first to leave in order to fix it."

His pale eyes rolled in a perfect circle, "Ha-ha. You're hilarious. I didn't see your big head leave so I stayed behind to look for you."

A warm feeling swept through her chest.

He was just as worried as I was.

"We didn't even check to see if students remained in the hall," The quiet voice of Professor Flitwick sounded from the hall.

Panic stomped on Grace's temporary feelings of joy. Or whatever that feeling was. Nevertheless, panic crushed some feeling.

Quiet footsteps accompanied by loud footsteps made their way closer to the Great Hall. With each step, the blood rushed from both of the faces of the children.

"Well," The hard voice of Professor Sprout started, "during a situation like this one, you would assume no student would be stupid enough to remain behind!"

"Weasley," Malfoy whispered her name, panic dripping off the one word, "what do we-"

Hurriedly, Grace covered Malfoy's mouth with her hand so she could think.

"Shut up for a second."

With the new silence in the room and the approaching footsteps, Grace's mind moved at an extra fast pace while trying to figure out what to do next.

The tables had all disappeared during the children's panic so they had nothing to hide under. The room itself was generally bare. Void of curtains. Void of things to hide under. All that was left were some large, ugly goblin statues. Grace didn't even know there were statues like that in the room.

Her eyes widened.

Statues.

The footsteps approached at a more rapid place. Without another thought, Grace removed her hand from his mouth. Before he could fill the silence with words, she grabbed his hand and dragged him to the statue in the corner.

"Wai-"

"Shut up!"
The kids ran as fast as they could to make it to the statue before the large doors could open. Luckily for them, just as the large door opened they made it to the statue and hid behind it just as the teachers walked in. Unfortunately, there was barely any room for the two of them and they were standing chest to chest.

"I told Minerva there wasn't anyone in here!" Flitwick squeaked, stomping one of his small feet on the ground in frustration.

Grace could feel the other Professor getting irritated with the small man. The thought almost made her laugh but she figured laughing at the moment would not be an intelligent idea.

"I'm giving Minerva the benefit of the doubt. She is looking for four of her own students."

Four?

"Four?" Flitwick asked the question that Grace had been wanting to ask.

"Potter, Granger, and the younger Weasley twins."

"Miss Granger and Miss Weasley are not in their common rooms? That's a very big deal. However," His footsteps began to creep towards the spot where the two kids were hiding. Grace felt her shaking hiding partner intake a deep breath. Before she could stop herself, Grace grabbed one of his shaking hands and gave it a squeeze.

"I don't believe anyone is in here!" Flitwick shouted from the other side of the statue.

A loud sigh came from the other Professor, "I believe you are right. We should search elsewhere."

And with that, and a few more footsteps, the Professors left.

Letting go of the boy's hand, Grace timidly looked around the statue. The Great Hall was completely empty once again, filled only with the statue and the children.

"Okay, we're clear now," Grace said back to the boy, stepping into the empty Great Hall.

Malfoy stepped out from behind the statue, both of his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Ya'know, all of this is kind of your fault isn't it?"

Whipping her head around to look at her companion, Grace folded her arms. "How is it my fault?"

"If you would've gone back with the rest of your house I wouldn't have had to stay behind," Malfoy said, stepping more into the artificial starlight from the ceiling.

"Nobody said you had to stay behind. I would've been fine." A lie.

Grace would not have been fine. She would have been worrying continuously had Malfoy not shown up when he did.

"Whatever," He said coolly, trying to keep his face as blank of emotion as possible, "You better get back to your dorm before you get in trouble."

Tilting her head, Grace looked at the boy, "Same to you."

Although Malfoy tried to give off the impression of being calm and collected, his eyes told a completely different story. With worry filled eyes, the Slytherin left the Gryffindor alone.

An: aaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd here is chapter 2! I really hope you guys liked it! I decided that I am going to try to have a new chapter every week. Usually on Sunday so be on the lookout! Anyway, thanks for reading this and please review and whatnot.

XOXO,

Kennakitty