*A/N - Thanks for your review 'pourquiobella'!

Foster Me Out

Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed, looking around the small bare bedroom. She felt numb. The past two days went by in a blur: saying goodbye again to everyone she'd become to know, the seven hour car ride to her new home and her first night with the new family. She knew what to expect, but she didn't know what they expected.

Her new foster 'parents,' Judy and Bill Tibbs, seemed nice enough, quite welcoming but not as warm as Ophelia would have hoped. This family had obviously fostered before. They were very guarded and unreadable. The first thing Judy said to her was, "Well, you're very pretty little girl aren't you?" and smiled at her widely, while patting her head, her face close-up in the girl's own as if to study her. Ophelia observed how aged the older woman's face looked up close.

Ophelia only just managed to return a smile and nervously said "Er… Hello" while hesitantly hold out a hand for Judy and Bill to shake.

Since the initial meeting, Ophelia judged that for the moment it was best to stay quiet. She wasn't a huge conversationalist anyway, and to be honest, she probably did not have anything interesting to say, considering all she had ever known was foster family after foster family. She wasn't exactly worldly, so staying silent was probably the best option to take.

Then there was the Tibbs' son, Darcy, who appeared to be about the same age as her. He just stared at Ophelia, eyes narrowing a little as if to say "not another one." This looked confirmed Ophelia's suspicions that she wasn't their first fostering experience.

She didn't seem too bothered by his unwelcoming glare however. She'd had lived with foster 'siblings' before, and had experienced her fair share of rivalries with them. Besides, she figured that this would be another temporary reassignment by her case-worker. Ophelia seemed to be moved around a lot more than your average foster kid.

Yes admittedly, there had been incidents in the past, odd things, you know, unexplained occurrences. All for which Ophelia was blamed for. It was beyond her understanding though, how she was constantly blamed for things that could not be explained. But, she was a good scapegoat, no one would defend her because she was not one of them – she was different. She had no family and therefore did not belong. Another unwanted of the state.

On the flip-side, it wasn't as though she was a trouble maker either, she never did anything to intentionally hurt another. She kept her head down at school and received high marks in all of her studies. But she was an expert introvert, guess that came with the territory of not actually being wanted and not belonging.

The house that she now lived in, was in a small country town about two and a half hours from any major towns or cities and the high school she would be attending was in another small town about ten minutes' drive from where she lived. Judy, her foster mother was a teacher and librarian at the high school so she would be travelling with her every day to and from school. Ophelia figured that was quite convenient.

She lay back on her bed and gazed at the roof, a million thoughts travelling through the synapses of her mind. She allowed herself to drift off to the only place she felt safe, her subconscious, beckoning her to a temporary sweet solace from her conscious thoughts, she finally relaxed.

However, as soon as her eyelids closed, they literally flung open again.

Ophelia sat up in alarm, her heart racing as though she had just been flung at a hundred kilometres per hour through the air then seemingly just plummeted down, falling and landing onto an incredibly soft cushion, all in mere seconds. She quickly calmed herself down and took in her surroundings.

This wasn't the roof she was just staring at. She frowned, sitting up more, she leaned her back against the bed's headboard. She tried to translate what she was seeing. The room she was in was ginormous. Hold that thought actually. The bed she was in was ginormous, let alone the bedroom! She'd never seen anything so magnificent. The mattress underneath her felt like air and feathers.

Her hand came up to rub sleep out of her eye… Hang on she didn't have sleep in her eye, she'd literally just got to sleep before waking up in a flap. She tried to put her arm down… Her hand then moved to rub her other eye. She tried to put her arm down again. This time her other arm come up and both went up together to stretch, yawningly, her body conceded and lurched forward, throwing the covers off of her lower half. Her legs swung over the side of the bed.

Ophelia yelped. They weren't her legs! In shock, a hand flung to her mouth to muffle the yelp. That was not her voice! And worst of all, she had no control over what she was doing!

'What the hell is going on?' She mentally interrogated. She had to be dreaming, it was the only logical explanation. She could remember falling asleep, so surely she could wake herself up.

She never though pinching herself would be such a challenge. Her body disobeyed her every command, and it was becoming terribly frustrating.

As Ophelia continued to muse to herself about waking up from her 'so-real-it's-awkwardly-awkward' dream, her 'dream body' had managed to make its way to a small room off of the large bedroom. She noticed it was a gorgeous bathroom, adorned with a large white bath in the centre of the room on silver 'claw feet', black tiled floor and forest green with white trim walls leading up to a white with forest green trimmed ceiling. This bathroom was spectacular. In that short moment, she was very envious of her dream state's bathroom.

As she walked further into the room, she walked past a large silver mirror, catching her dream personas reflection. She jolted. The dream persona also jumped. Their heart collectively pounding so hard in their chests, their pulse was audible in both pairs of ears.

Ophelia felt the body she was in, turn and head to the large mirror. She was slowly tuning in to the other's feelings, and they could tell something was amiss.

She stared at the mirror. The reflection was not what she was expecting. Though the same blue-grey eyes peered back at her, the remainder of the face and body shook Ophelia to the core.

There stood a boy, about the same age as her, with her same sliver-blond hair, only much shorter in length, staring intensely back. She could tell from his face that he was just as confused. His hands came up to his face and started to poke and pull at it, frowning as he did so.

They both stared intently for a few more moments before he fully took control again and shook his head. Ophelia just continued to stare. He felt so familiar, and he looked a lot like her, but she'd never honestly seen him before.

Before Ophelia could register what was going on, she felt freezing cold water splash down his face, the cold making her shiver intensely as if the face was her own. The boy was obviously trying to come to his senses using shock tactics.

The sensation took her breath away and was too overwhelming, catching Ophelia by surprise. She could feel a pulling sensation around her body, as though something was dragging her backwards, followed by the sensation of falling. She very much wanted to throw-up then and there. She closed her eyes willing the nauseating experience to pass.

Landing with a soft thud, her eyes fluttered briefly before opening, and she was again staring at the ceiling in the small room at her foster family's home. It was all just a dream. Intensely real, but just a dream.

"Ophelia! Dinner's ready." Called out Bill from the kitchen. "Coming," she called back. Collecting herself, she rose from the bed, and went to the dining room for dinner.

::::::::

His eyes flew open. He was lying on the cold, tiled floor in his bathroom, waiting for his cognitive faculties to return. He groaned and rolled onto his back, looking up he tried to focus on the tall figure kneeling over him, shaking him gently by his shoulders.

"Draco… Draco!" Urged the semi-frantic voice.

The boy instantly recognised the voice as his father's. Moaning, he sat up slowly with the help of older man.

"Draco? Are you okay son?" The concerned man creasing his brow as he helped his son to stand.

"Father… Yes, just had a moment…. Got up too quickly, just a little dizzy is all." Draco replied.

Lucius continued to study his son to make sure nothing was broken. Privately, he was such a worry wart.

"Father, honestly I'm fine." Draco pushed. He did not want his father to stress.

"Well, if you're sure…" Lucius mused.

"Yes, father, I'm fine. Thank you." Draco enforced.

Relaxing slightly, Lucius chuckled a little, "Guppy came up to call you for breakfast when he found you here. You gave your old dad quite a scare. You were out for at least three minutes, and it was the longest bloody three minutes of my life…."

Guppy was one of the Malfoy's houeselves.

Draco smirked, and cut in to console the man. "Sorry father."

After another round of reassurances, Lucius left contented that his son was okay, and headed down to the family dining room.

Draco managed to fleetingly recall the odd experience he had just prior to passing out. And the only word to describe it was 'odd'.

He distinctly recalled moments of where he did not have control over himself, and he could have sworn that he saw another face when he looked in his bathroom mirror. Sure, he saw his own reflection, but he could have sworn he saw another face within his own.

'I must be really going around the bend,' he thought to himself. It was either that, or he had way too much cheer at Christmas time. He figured he must have eaten more lollies in the past few days than Honeydukes could produce in a lifetime. Maybe it was just a declining response to a hyper-sugar experience?

Shrugging his shoulders, he pulled his night-gown on over his pajamas and headed down to breakfast with his parents.

*A/N: Please let me know what you think and critiques are definitely welcome... I do spell and grammar checks on my pieces but even they are not 100% for the fact that I put them up straight after writing them :D