Five. Hermione

I hated last thing on a Thursday; we had double potions. I left my arithmacy class and threw my bag over my shoulder as I slumped down the dark dungeon corridors. As I turned a corner with my eyes focused on the floor I bumped into something, or rather someone.

"Hermione?" Squeaked an all familiar voice. It was Ron; for some reason every time I saw him lately his voice became unusually high and he also seemed to take every opportunity to talk to me, about anything. For instance, not so long before I was having a conversation with Dean Thomas about the arithmacy lesson we'd had that day, and he came over and started gambling on like he was an expert on the matter and had learned it for years. When in fact, he hated the subject and had always told me I was giving him brain cramps if I spoke about it. Ginny told me that she noticed he only did it when I was speaking with a boy, but I hadn't really paid attention. I tried not to think about it too much because I was really upset when my feelings weren't returned last year. But I supposed if he did like me nothing could happen; he and Harry had been searching high and low for the horcrux and there was no way that I was getting in the way by making him have all these mushy gushy feelings.

"Urm…Ron," I said confused. "Where are you going? Potions is the other way."

"Yes…uhh…I know…I was just…well. I was worried about you because your not there yet."

"Ron, the lesson hasn't even begun yet. It's not like im late." I said questionably.

He blushed slightly and fumbled around with a folded piece of paper in his hands. Eyes on the floor.

"What's wrong?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. His head shot up to look at me and a pale green tinged his features. This was followed by a couple of minutes in which he opened and shut his mouth, obviously lost for words.

I allowed him to look like a fish for a while (because I found it amusing) before I said, "Right…Well Ron, im going to go to potions." No response. "You remember right? The lesson we are now ten minutes late for." Still absolutely no recognition that I was even stood there. "Ok, you..urmm…you just stay here if you want, ill just urr…yes." I finished and edged my way around him. He stood there, staring at the spot where I was as I ran down the corridor towards my lesson.

I slipped through the door of my potions lesson unseen by professor Luton, the replacement for Snape, and took a seat next to Dean Thomas. I quickly scribbled down the notes on the board and started pulling all the things out that I would need to make the potion; bottled embarrassment.

A few minutes later Ron appeared in the doorway and made a failed attempt to slip in unnoticed.

"Mr Weasley," said the professor. "Nice to see you've decided to come to my lesson. We are making bottled embarrassment and I believe you would make a perfect test subject."

Ron just sneered at him and walked through the gap in the desks. As he reached the table where I was sat, again his eyes widened. I smiled at him and motioned to the seat next to me; he ignored this gesture and proceeded to take a seat next to Neville. Angry with him for completely ignoring me I threw the fish eye into my cauldron which spewed its ingredients everywhere.

"Miss Granger!" Yelled Luton. "Please, take care with your heavy hands. Clearly you are not very happy with Mr Weasley so you can settle your differences in detention if you both carry on the way you're going." With this he stormed out of the classroom leaving the whole class in bewilderment as to where he could have gone.

Just at the right time Harry came whistling into the classroom unaware of everyone staring at him. He was covered in dust and in an extremely happy mood. He took a seat between Dean and myself and said, "Aright Mione, Ron?"

His happy state seemed to have fogged his brain as Ron and Dean looked nothing alike.

"Harry, are you alright?" I asked

"Perky" He answered in a scarily happy voice.

"But you're covered in dust." This seemed to pull him out of his trance as he looked himself up and down and started laughing.

"And so I am." He answered blushing slightly. It suddenly dawned on me where he must have been.

"Where have you been Harry?" I asked, a smile forming on my face.

"Nowhere." He answered rather too quickly.

"So you haven't found a new broom cupboard for you and gin…"

"Hermione," he whispered. "Shh, you know what he's like."

"What who's like?" I asked smirking, knowing he was going to feel like a fool pretty soon.

"Ro…" He cut himself off as he looked at Ron, or rather who he thought was Ron. "Dean, what have you done with Ron?" The whole class, who had been interestingly listening, burst out laughing. Along with Harry who went red and occupied himself in his work. The only person who did not laugh was Ron, who was looking nervously at the note in his hand.

The Professor walked into the classroom in the middle of all the laughing and began issuing out detentions and taking away points from everyone he could point at. Although he was better than Snape, he often liked to go on power trips. He seemed to thrive on the fact that he was in charge and any unbalance of his lesson resulted in many detentions and a massive decrease in the points of Slytherin and Gryffindor.

"Miss Granger," he said, strutting over to me. He held his hand out which had in it a glass vile. "Will you kindly fill this with some of your potion and then hand it to Mr Weasley to test." It wasn't a question.

I looked at Ron with an I'm sorry face as I handed it over to him. I knew I had done it perfectly, not to sound big headed, but I found it rather easy.

Ron slowly walked to the front of the class and poured the substance into his mouth, cringing from the after taste. The Professor began to explain how it works:

"It takes about 10 minutes to kick in and lasts around an hour. So we'll have just enough time to see it in action. Nothing may happen; he may find nothing to be embarrassed about. No one knows what's going on in his head but I'll warn you Mr Weasley," he said smiling evilly. "If you have any embarrassing secrets about yourself and a certain some one in here, you'll have no choice but to reveal that you are embarrassed around them."

Ron turned white, then yellow, then green. Obviously there was some one he was embarrassed to be around and I had a fine idea of who it might be. The class erupted with laughter at the look on his face and a Slytherin pointed out, "Ooo, he's embarrassed to be around some one look at the colour on his face, he's dreading it. Bet you wish you weren't late now don't you Weaselby?"

The remark was so Malfoy-ish I could have sworn it was him. The Slytherin, whose name I don't know, neither do I care, smirked at Harry and me. Behind me Harry made a certain hand gesture to him which wiped the smile off his face.

Slowly red embraced Ron's neck and crept to his face, stuttered words emerged from his mouth.

"I…I…I love you but…but…and…and…" Everyone looked around for the person he was looking at. "I…I…don't care because…b-because…You love me too." He smiled knowingly at me. Until something dawned on him. "You told me you do…you did…last year. I'm not lying. Why are you all laughing at me; I'm not. You…You don't love me do you…it was all a joke…Oh God what have I done?" With this he ran frantically from the room muttering something about it being the most embarrassing moment of his life. The bell rang for the end of the lesson but everyone stayed sat in their seats, staring at…me?

Harry put a hand under my arm to bring me up from my seat. I was so embarrassed. As I walked out the door the prick from Slytherin shouted "Weasel and mudblood sitting in a tree…I can't wait to see that red headed prat…" He was cut off as Neville lunged forward and knocked him off his seat.

"You get him!" Harry shouting in to the class room as we left for the corridor. Giggling to himself he turned to me, "I guess you know now."

"Harry, I knew ages ago. I suppose I just didn't want to admit it, I didn't want things to be messed up. I'm assuming he told you what happened last year." He nodded uncomfortably, "I was hurt Harry." I said, staring at my feet. "I knew he liked me but I didn't know it was love."

"Well this is perfect," Harry said excitedly. "Now you can get together, and it'll keep him off mine and Ginny's case. He has no love life so is jealous of everyone else's. You should see the looks he gives people when he sees them holding hands or kissing. It's sad."

I stood there thinking for a minute. "No Harry, I don't think we can be together," I said sadly. "He hurt me to much and I don't want to get in the way of your search, you know how he gets. My feelings are disappearing Harry. Yes it's taking time, but eventually they will be gone. I've never experienced proper love, and clearly I'm not ready."

My eyes filled up with this and I turned my face so Harry couldn't see. He put his arm around my shoulder to comfort me. "It's ok," he said as I sobbed into his robes. "Look you don't want to be stood in these corridors around all these people; let's go in here." He gestured to an empty classroom.

Then something I will forever regret happened. It was an accident and neither of us meant for it to happen, we're just good friends and he was comforting me at a bad time. It just happened in the moment and it meant nothing. He leant around me to open the door, his face extremely close to mine, he looked into my eyes and I could see the sadness he felt for me, and it just happened. We kissed.

Five. Draco

I'm a wolf, I'm a wolf…I am a wolf…

I stuck my hands out in front of me. Damn! Still human. I tried again, concentrating hard on what I wanted to achieve. Still no success. It had taken me only two years to become an animagus but I still struggled. This showed one of my many weaknesses, I wanted to perfect things so quickly until it was too late to go back over it. Lately I'd been thinking a lot about my weaknesses, I used to not think I had any. Let me rephrase that, I would never admit I had any. Being on your own makes you think about this.

I shook my head of my thoughts, this needed my undivided attention. Most deatheaters became animagus, no, most death eaters tried to be an animagus. Many did not have the skill, I smirked to myself. I knew I could do it. I laughed at how self obsessed I was; another thing I realised about myself. Well I proved myself wrong, in a way. Yes I had perfected the technique of turning into an animal at will but I still struggled to do it. Wanting to leave anything to do with Voldermort behind me, I decided to disown the fact that I was an animagus until, I realised it could come in handy.

I shut my eyes and pictured a wolf clearly in my head. The first time I had changed I was shocked to see what I had become. Some people try and say that they chose to be what they are but it's impossible, the animal you turn into reflects on the person that you are. To be truthful I had expected to become a snake or something like that. I had no idea how a wolf reflected on the type of person I am. Needless to say I was happy with my form and it was with this thought that I realised a slight itch behind my ear. Bringing my "arm" up to scratch it I realised it satisfied me more than usual. My head tilted to the side and my tongue flopped out of my mouth when suddenly I saw that my leg had lifted up to scratch at the itch. "Yes" I said, although it came out as more of a bark than the actual word. I'd done it, I was rusty at first but id accomplished what I wanted.

I looked around to admire my animal form. My fur was bright white, shiny and smooth and as I looked into the broken mirror icy blue eyes stared back at me. As I turned away from the mirror I saw a flicker of something disappear behind me, I was overcome by the erg to chase it. Round and round I went for a few minutes until my head was spinning and I realised I was going around in circles. Falling to the floor, tired, I laughed to myself. I thought it was dogs that chased their tails; I could have at least been an intelligent animal.

I soon found out wolves were very intelligent animals and I scolded myself for thinking otherwise. I found that my animal instincts were impeccable and made hunting easy. I could tell danger from miles off, such as approaching people or other possible threats. The one thing I did hate was the morning after taste of goat or deer.

It was becoming dark outside but I could tell it was only early. It was that time of year when the days become very dark, very early. I didn't mind though, I preferred the dark. This thought depressed me. I still doubted whether I had made the right choice. Everything about me suggested that I was meant to be evil and do bad. From the things I liked, such as the dark to the amount of power I now had. My strength had grown immensely to be truthful. I'd been told since such a young age that I would be powerful; I think Voldermort had something big planned for me, and I wasn't sure what. But he knew something about me which I never. I often used to joke around with Crabbe and Goyle saying maybe I was to become the new Dark Lord. The thought sent shivers down my spine. I hated to think about that; I knew if it were true there would be no getting away from it.

I sat in my usual slumped position against the damp shed wall. I'd been staying in the same place for 3 months and there was still no sign of death eaters. I needed to move fast but I couldn't chance not finding another place near Hogwarts. I needed to be able to meet Hermione and there was no way that I could apperate; they'd be on my trail.

It had been 3 weeks since Hermione had mentioned meeting up but we hadn't been able to set up a suitable date. I'd already told her I was staying in a run down shed but the reason being, I'd been kicked out of my home. I had more sympathy that way. Id begun to become frustrated and anxious, I couldn't wait to have a civilised conversation with an actual person. I was actually looking forward to seeing her, which I found odd.

I still did not have a clue how the meeting was going to happen. I couldn't just turn up, as myself. She was a powerful witch and there was no way that I was going to surprise her, I'd be immobilised and up in front of the order, if I was lucky. If not I'd be dead, after what I did to Dumbledore. I stole some books from the library; that was fun. Obviously I couldn't just walk in; I was one of the most sort after wizards around. So I transformed and snuck in. All was going well until a little girl walked around the corner, she ran off screaming and the next thing I knew I was being chased out with a broom by the dumpy librarian.

Luckily I'd got three books which had actually come in handy. In one of them I found a spell that could change my identity, it made sense because it would have been kind of hard for me to get potion ingredients. I'd tried it once; you have to clearly picture an identity in your head (kind of like when you transform into your animagus form) and say characteristis. Sadly it went kind of wrong, I couldn't help but imagine stupid things, I had a very funny sense of humour (I was off again). I imagined I had huge feet and a Snape like nose. It wasn't funny, I hadn't intended on changing. I was too worried about trying it after.

I stood up with full intentions of getting the spell right and taking deep breaths I filled my head with the image I wanted. And without saying it out loud (I could now do non-verbal spells) I thought the word characteristis. Slowly I turned to the cracked mirror leaning against the wall and…Wow.