Author's Note:
This used to be three short chapters but I turned it into one long one because individually they felt as though something was lacking. Thank you to those of you who have expressed interest in reading more of this story. If even one person would like to read on, I will write on. I have a lot of this story written already so I can update pretty regularly, plus I am on summer holiday so I have a good amount of time to sit and write. Enjoy and please leave any thoughts you have!

Chapter 3

"You look awful." Albus informed me the next morning at breakfast.

"Thanks, Al. You really know how to charm a girl." I said sarcastically.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger." Al replied, holding his hands of defensively. I rolled my eyes at him before piling my plate with food.

I passed all four of my classes in a state of advanced nervousness at the prospect of having to spend another evening in the company of James Potter. It probably would have continued had I not received a pleasant surprise after leaving Herbology.

"Hey." Said Donovan. He was leaning casually against the wall of the greenhouses, somehow managing to look attractive even in the shapeless Hogwarts uniform.

"Hey." I replied, showing off my skill for creating small talk. "What's up?"

"Nothing much. I was just wondering if you wanted to eat dinner with me."

"Yeah sure."

He beamed and turned toward the castle, then rammed instantly into someone standing behind him.

"Oh blimey, James. I'm sorry."

"It's alright mate." Said a thoroughly unruffled James Potter. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to let you know that practice is gonna be tomorrow at six." He said all this to Don, determinedly not looking at me.

"Sounds good. I'll be there."

James nodded once at him. His eyes flickered briefly to my face and then away just as quickly.

"Don't be late." He said, seemingly more for my benefit than Donovan's.

"We won't be." Don said, injecting a note of forcefulness into his tone as he read James' obvious hostility toward me.

James nodded again and then walked off into the gathering darkness toward Hagrid's cabin.

"You know," Donovan said once James was out of earshot. "I don't much fancy the way he treats you."

"Neither do I. But don't worry, I'm pretty much used to it by now."

"You shouldn't have to be though."

I shrugged, and gave him the same answer I'd given Al, "I shouldn't, but I am."

His brow furrowed as we walked back up to the castle, and I did my best to distract him. "So did you catch the Egypt versus Ireland game last night?"

He smiled hugely at me and began to relay to me a blow-by-blow monologue of his interpretation of the game.

We ate dinner in the kitchens with a house-elf named Nellie, (incidentally the only house-elf I'd ever met with an interest in wizarding games) who also described in detail her opinion of the match between Egypt and Ireland. We walked down to the lake after that. Donovan conjured a blanket from his wand and we laid on it, looking up at the stars. He and I talked about Quidditch, school, and ourselves as we lay there. Soon we grew silent, but it was a comfortable silence. After a while, Don turned on his side to face me, and I looked over into his large blue eyes, the vivid color of the sky on a cloudless summer day.

"I'm really glad you agreed to go out with me." He said after a moment.

"I'm really glad you asked me." I replied. He smiled his brilliant smile.

"You know, I really like you…" He was leaning toward me, closing his eyes. His lips touched mine, and my eyes sank shut also. He kissed me gently for a moment and then pulled away. I stared into his eyes for several moments longer before sighing and saying,

"I better get back to the castle. I have prefect duty in ten minutes."

"Of course. Let's go." We stood and he waved his wand. The blanket he had conjured shot back into the tip of his wand.

We walked back up to the castle hand in hand. It was ten o' five by the time we crawled through the portrait hole. James was waiting just inside, tapping his foot impatiently.

"You're late." He informed me irritably.

"I know." I told him. I turned back to Don who was staring at James with narrowed eyes. "See you later then?" I asked.

"Of course." Don said. Then, after shooting another angry look at James, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. This kiss was not sweet and gentle as it had been on the grounds. It was rather angry and more than a bit showy. I looked back at a disgusted James after Don had released me. I was generally not a fan of public displays of affection, but anything that made James Potter look that uncomfortable was all right with me.

Without another word, James turned and clambered out of the portrait hole.

"See ya." Don said, kissing my cheek. He had returned to his gentlemanly ways. I nodded and followed James out of the portrait hole. He was already half way down the corridor by the time I reached him. We walked in silence for a good half-hour; a tense and angry silence. By eleven thirty, I was positive he was going to continue glaring at the ground forever. That was until he burst out,

"You Malfoys!"

Having registered what he had said, I clenched my teeth, waiting for the attack. "What about us Malfoys?"

"You all just…all my life, ever since before I started at Hogwarts your arse of a brother has been pushing me around. Suddenly I start pushing back and I'm the bad guy?"

"What in the world are you talking about?" I asked.

"I got an earful from Rose this morning about you and Scorpius."

You probably deserved it, I thought. But out loud I said nothing.

"And last Monday with Albus too," He continued heatedly, "Why can't either of them understand that Scorpius is…"

"That Scorpius is what?" I demanded. I was not usually one to defend my brother, in fact I fervently agreed that he was an arsehole, but James had provoked me.

"That he isn't…good." James' face had suddenly dropped from seething rage to sorrow so deep that even I felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"By that you mean…" I asked curiously.

"He's just…if Rose or Albus had seen what I've seen…they'd want no more to do with you Malfoys than I do." He strode ahead of me before I could say anything, though admittedly I had nothing to say.

The night continued without any more outbursts from James, and we parted company in silence at midnight.

By the time the first Hogsmeade trip of the year rolled around, I was quite ready to get out of the castle and have some fun. I was frankly fed up with the overwhelming mountains of homework, the boring and occasionally tense and uncomfortable prefect duties, the three-hour Quidditch practices every Tuesday and Thursday, and the relentless stream of insults and crude asides that James Potter never seemed tired of sending my way. When I had expressed this to Donovan, he had consoled me and promised me a day filled with fun during our Hogsmeade trip together. I dressed carefully the morning of the trip, making sure to apply my make-up and style my hair in the most attractive way possible. The girls in my dorm were what I considered to be much too excited about my date, and assisted in the beautification process.

In the common room, I found Albus, who was sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire scribbling on a piece of parchment. I looked over his shoulder and read,

Dear Mum and Dad,

The first month here at Hogwarts has been pretty good, all things considered. I'm enjoying myself a lot. Quidditch practice has started. Oh and guess what! Vera made the team. She's playing chaser. She out-flew James at practice on Thursday and he was right miffed about it.

Speaking of James, he is being a daft prick as usual. He keeps implying Vera is a death eater, but the Malfoy's haven't even been mentioned in the same sentence as dark arts for years now, have they? I keep telling him to get over it but he is set in his ways. I find it annoying.

School is good. I got an "E" on that Charms essay I was working on over the summer. Admittedly Rose helped me a little…Alright she helped me a lot. But I'm taking the "E"! She seems to be doing well. Top of the class as usual. She gets along with Scorpius pretty well, and she loves Vera. They seem to be the best of mates.

Lily is doing fine, although she is annoying as ever. James and I have been on boy watch, but she seems to take care of herself just fine. She hexed some Slytherin bloke the other day when he was trying to chat her up. You should have seen him! I think Lily might rival your skill at the bat bogey hex some day, mum.

Prefect duty has been horrid. I'm up half the night busting first years for strolling around after curfew. I never thought I'd feel bad for Filch…actually no, I still don't.

Anyway, give my love to Aunt Hermione and tell Uncle Ron he still owes me five galleons from that last Qudditch match.

Love,

Albus

He finished writing as I watched. He rolled up the parchment then looked back at me, apparently just realising I was there.

"Oh hey Vera. I was just writing to mum and dad. I'm heading to the owlery right now."

"That's actually a good idea. Any chance you could wait while I write a letter and we can go up together?"

"Sure." Said Albus, reclaiming his recently abandoned seat.

I borrowed a piece of parchment and a quill from him and wrote,

Dear Mother and Father,

I have been keeping up my grades like you requested. I received an "O" on my Charms essay, and am working hard on homework so as to have good marks. Scorpius seems to be doing well also. He has been keeping up the Inquisitorial Squad just as you asked, Father.

Mother, thank you for the lovely necklace you sent me. It looked foreign. Are you and father abroad?

My prefect duties have been going well. Professor McGonagall says I may even be Head Girl material. I hope I will be. It would be nice to see the Malfoy name on a "Head" plaque again. I saw grandfather's plaque in the trophy room while I was patrolling the other day. It was lovely.

Hoping you are well,

Vera

"You forgot to mention you made the Quidditch team." Albus said, having read the letter over my shoulder.

"Oh, they don't want to hear about that." I muttered, rolling my letter into a tight scroll and tapping it with my wand to seal it.

"Why wouldn't they? It's something to be proud of." Albus said as we climbed through the portrait hole.

"Not in my house. My parents don't really fancy the idea of me being in Gryffindor if you remember."

We walked for several minutes, Albus with his brow furrowed.

"You know…"

"Drop it Albus." I said quickly. "My parents have been set in their ways for years. It's a little too late to change their minds. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Remember?"

"I suppose. I still think the way you talk to your parents is weird."

"To each his own." I replied, recalling the casual manner in which he had written to his parents. "I think the way you talk to your parents is more weird."

He shrugged and we walked in silence for several more minutes. Upon reaching the owlery, I searched around for my cream-colored barn owl, Ella, while Al tied his letter to the leg of his auburn screech owl, Ares. As we were leaving, Al perked up suddenly,

"Guess what!"

"What?"

"I asked Delilah to Hogsmeade last night."

"What?" I repeated. This time my tone was excited. "I can't believe you kept that quiet! How'd you do it?"

"Uh, well I went to the library yesterday and she was studying in there so I went over and asked her out. It was sort of on a whim really."

"And?" I inquired.

"And what?"

"Details!" I demanded. I wouldn't have had to say this to a girl.

"Er, right." With several promptings from me, he gave me a full account of every detail of what he had said and what she had said, and a thorough explanation of all of her facial expressions. Albus seemed confused by my close speculation of the event, but responded enthusiastically nonetheless. We were at the common room by the time I was done questioning him. Donovan was waiting for me by the portrait of the Fat Lady, speaking to her politely. He was dressed casually in faded jeans and an old Holy-Head Harpies t-shirt.

"Hey." I said, approaching him.

He turned to me and took me in. "Hello. You look lovely."

A blush crept into my cheeks as Albus rolled his eyes and climbed into the common room.

"Ready to go?" I asked, ignoring him.

"Of course." He took my hand and we strolled down to the entrance hall, commenting on the cool weather and the coming Quidditch match against Slytherin. When we had at last exited through the front doors he said,

"So what were you talking to Albus about?" I could tell he had been itching to ask this.

"Oh he asked Delilah Wood out and I was trying to have girl talk with him. The attempt was unsuccessful as you can probably imagine."

He chuckled, "For Albus' sake I hope so. So he and Delilah, huh? Blimey, the Potter men fancy their red-heads don't they?"

"I suppose so." I replied. He was not the only one to notice the Potter pattern it seemed. I had often teased Albus about it, as he had seemed to nurse a soft spot almost all of the redheads in the school, except for the ones to whom he was related, of course. "Too bad it's a recessive gene, eh?"

He laughed again. "Too bad indeed. You know, my dad once dated Albus' mum."

It was my turn to laugh. "Do I? The Potter kids love telling that story. If I didn't know better I'd think they were proud their father managed to steal Mrs. Potter from your dad. I suppose I'd be too. The Thomases are a good-looking bunch."

He smiled down at me. "We do what we can. I just hope I don't lose you to a Potter."

"Fat chance." I scoffed. "Albus is my best friend, James loathes me, and Lily's not quite my type if you can imagine."

He chuckled and we passed the rest of the trip into Hogsmeade mocking our dads and some of their old school friends. When we arrived at the gate, he stopped, looking suddenly uncomfortable,

"So…I asked Albus where a good place to take you would be. He told me Madam Puddifoots…" He ran a hand through his curly brown hair. I laughed loudly. "What?"

"Albus lied. I'm not that kind of girl at all. I hate pink, honestly."

He breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank Merlin. I hate that place too. But I wonder why he'd tell me that. Trying to humiliate me?"

"More like trying to humiliate me. He'd probably get a good laugh out of the look on my face if we went in there."

He shook his head, smiling. "Excellent. Then I propose we go to Honeydukes, Zonko's then the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer."

"Agreed." We strode off into the village. Zonko's had recently started stocking products from its competitor, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, which Don and I dove into with gusto. We were laden down with several shopping bags by the time we reached the Three Broomsticks. There, we laughed and chugged butterbeer until my fingers and toes tingled slightly. James and Viola Toledo sat in one of the corner booths, wrapped so closely around each other that I was convinced someone had cast a permanent sticking charm on their lips. I felt a twinge of what I assumed was irritation at James' very presence, but banished the feeling instantly as Don returned with another flagon of butterbeer.

Albus and Delilah arrived an hour or so later, and joined us. Delilah looked extremely pleased, and only looked away from Albus when Don or I were speaking to her. I smiled inwardly, happy that someone seemed to adore my best friend as much as I did. Lily showed up with some of her friends not long after, followed by Rose and (not as much to my surprise as I might have hoped) Scorpius. The two of them separated at the door as though they were complete strangers, and Scorpius headed off to a table of Slytherins a little ways away. I supposed it still wasn't acceptable in the Weasley family to date a pureblood.

It was almost dinner by the time Donovan, Albus, Delilah, and I headed up to the castle. Upon entering the Great Hall, Delilah departed for the Ravenclaw table, and Don pecked me on the lips before going to sit with James, Fred Weasley Jr., and some other seventh years. Albus and I walked further along the table toward Janie, Alex, and a sour-faced Mark. Alex generally sat at the Gryffindor table with us, returning only the Hufflepuff table on special occasions like the sorting. James shot me a filthy look as I took a seat next to Janie. I'd had such a good day that I didn't feel the slightest bit of hurt as I returned the look. I felt that if things kept going the way today had gone, I could handle whatever nastiness James Potter threw at me.

I turned out to be horribly wrong as we moved into October. Quidditch practice had increased in frequency, going from every Tuesday and Thursday to include every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in response to the upcoming game against Slytherin. Because of this and my regular prefect duties on Wednesdays, I found that I was spending several hours every day in close proximity to James Potter. I could feel my hatred toward him growing with every moment I spent in his presence. In fact, every time I saw him lately my heart would begin to race and a nervous excitement would grip me that was so powerful that I couldn't possibly banish it.

"Happy Birthday! Seventeen now, aye?" Albus exclaimed, plunking down on the couch next to me on the morning of October 12th. Lily sat down beside him and beamed at me brightly. I stared up at the two of them groggily. I had been up half the night working on a Potions essay, and hadn't remembered my birthday until a much-too-excited Janie had jumped on my bed at 7:30am and shoved a present in my face. I'd pretty much had my fill of birthdays by the time the girls in my dorm had finished singing 'Happy Birthday' in a fashion so out of tune that it was almost in tune. Albus disregarded my bad mood and handed me a messily wrapped present. I peeled off the paper to find a fresh set of leather chaser's gloves.

"Excellent! I needed a new pair. These will come in handy during the match next week." I said, trying on the leather gloves and finding that they fit like – well a glove.

"My thinking exactly."

"Me next!" Lily said, handing me a much neater package. I unwrapped it and stared down open-mouthed at the beautiful necklace that was revealed. Hanging on the end of the gold chain was a tiny golden lion with a small ruby set in its chest.

"Lily! This is beautiful! How did you afford this?"

"Mum and dad chipped in a bit. Okay well a lot. Al and I saw it in Diagon Alley this summer and we both thought of you."

I stared at the two of them, unexpected tears filling my eyes at their thoughtfulness.

"It was originally my idea." Albus interjected after seeing my positive reaction to the gift, "But I thought I'd look a bit of prat giving you a necklace."

"Yeah, you would've." I agreed. "Thank you so much, both of you." I reached over and hugged the two of them tightly. "Now help me put it on."

I held up my hair as Lily hooked the gold chain around my neck.

"It really is lovely. So are the gloves. Thank you guys."

The two of them beamed at me, and a sudden warmth spread through me as I was filled an emotion I'd rarely felt before. It was the feeling of being part of a family, something that I had never really experienced in the cold halls of Malfoy Manor.

Donovan, Alex, Rose, and Mark met Albus, Lily, and me in the great hall and handed me their respective presents. Don gave me a small golden bracelet with my engraved into it, and Alex an enormous book entitled, The Great Defenders: An Anthology of Great Wizards and How They Fought the Dark Arts. As I flipped through, I found a rather large section on Albus' dad and his aunt and uncle, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Rose remarked on my Gryffindor lion necklace and gave me a signed Holy-Head Harpies t-shirt, which she had acquired through the connections of her aunt, Ginny Potter. Mark gave me a load of Honeydukes sweets that we all enjoyed over a lengthy breakfast.

My friends insisted on spending the day giving me a memorable birthday, despite the fact that classes had of course not stopped on my behalf. Rose had taken it upon herself to charm every suit of armor in the castle to sing 'Happy Birthday' when I passed. Albus and Lily had enlisted the help of Peeves the poltergeist to disrupt lunch in the Great Hall by throwing mounds of cake at every one in the vicinity. Donovan and Alex had conspired to set off a series of fireworks from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes in the courtyard after lessons. There were cheers, laughs, and detentions all around that day. The celebrations were wrapped up with dinner and a lion-shaped cake prepared by Nellie the house elf in Hagrid's cabin.

Not even a brutal Friday night Quidditch practice or the heavy rain could dampen my spirits later that night. Afterward, I changed slowly back into my school robes with an enormous smile on my face, while my disgruntled teammates murmured and cast James dark looks. He had insisted on continuing practice despite the vicious thunderstorm brewing outside.

When I had finally pulled my head through my shirt and ran my fingers through my damp, muddy blonde hair, I looked around for Al, only to find he had already left the changing rooms. In fact, I was entirely alone with one exception. My heart accelerated so quickly I was fairly sure it would give out as I looked at James Potter, who stared back at me with his round, amber eyes. After an intense staring match that seemed to last ten years but probably only lasted five seconds, James shook himself and said,

"Work on tightening up your sloth-grip roll for the match tomorrow, Malfoy."

I nodded, unsurprised by his abruptness. He was at the door of the changing rooms when he turned and said,

"Oh and…Happy birthday." He said it so quietly that I was almost certain I had imagined it. Before I could fully comprehend what he had said, he took off into the rainy night.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday? I turned the words over and over in my head as I lay in bed that night. I was trying to dissect every detail of his words, as though trying to find some cryptic meaning within them. Happy birthday. I recalled his face. He had looked uncomfortable, even bashful when he had uttered the simple phrase, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find any evidence of mocking or sarcasm in my mental image of his face. Perhaps he really meant it? The idea seemed impossible. I hadn't previously thought that James Potter was capable of showing me anything more than contempt. Yet his voice and face had seemed so sincere when he had wished me a happy birthday that I was almost certain it had been genuine. Could it be? Was it possible that James Potter didn't loath every inch of my being? Perhaps it was. Perhaps he didn't think me evil. Perhaps he even liked me. With this ridiculous but strangely thrilling thought, I drifted off to sleep.