Hi! Listen, I know it's been a LOOONNNNGGGG time since I've updated but a lot has been going on. I am now in University, I got to school in London crazy right! So I haven't had much time to post and write, I've had this chapter written for quite some time now, I just haven't gotten to posting it yet. It's nothing special, just moving things along, but I hope you enjoy it and I hope you aren't mad that I haven't updated in forever! Updates will continue, but rather slowly... Sorry!

As for those of you following this story and those of you who have favorited this story...thank you so much! I really hope you guys like this chapter and those to come!

Chapter 10

"What are you doing for the holidays?" Blaise didn't even glance at Adira, his tone almost bored as he continued to draw Professor Binns being shoved into a coffin. Adira smirked; Blaise had become more sociable since the beginning of the term. Though he rarely spoke to anyone, keeping his opinions and comments to himself, every now and then he liked to say something sarcastic or snarky just for the hell of it. He knew how much Adira enjoyed it, and despite himself, he liked making her laugh but he would never admit that to any one.

"I dunno yet," Adira paused, wondering if Blaise had only asked out of politeness, or if he genuinely wanted to know. It wasn't until he stopped drawing the horrified expression on Binn's face and looked at her pointedly did she continue. "Clara invited me to stay with her for the holiday, she and her family are going to Monaco, and my mum doesn't really mind what I do, but, I don't know, I haven't decided yet."

"You mean you don't know if you want to spend your entire holiday with Clara whom you just recently started talking to again." His eyes never left his drawing; he had begun scribbling again once she started to elaborate.

Adira sighed, tapping her quill against her parchment, "Exactly."

Sure they were friends again, and yes they talked about trivial things and had always spent holidays together, but things felt different now. Things had changed between them, mostly Adira had changed and a part of her desperately wished to spend her Christmas holiday with Eledie, if the Gryffindor's family would allow it. But she hadn't spoken to Eledie one on one since after the whole Quidditch incident when she spewed out in anger that Fred, George, and Harry were all banned from playing from that toad-faced witch Umbridge. Getting a private word in about anything was difficult during DA meetings since it was spent in practicing and learning new defensive spells, and the last meeting was coming up soon before the holidays and Adira had no clue what her plans were yet.

"Don't stress too much about it," Blaise could sense her anxiety by the way she fidgeted in her seat, staring at her paper blankly, "If I were you, I'd go somewhere exotic and find myself a beautiful companion to spend my holiday with."

Adira scoffed, rolling her eyes, "I'm not a stud like you Blaise. Beside I don't have raging hormones like you."

"No, you just have raging hormones for Malfoy."

Adira's jaw dropped, her shock by his allegation made her silent and Blaise took no time to pounce, "Why don't you just spend the holiday with him, I'm sure the two of you could have lot's of fun." He said, raising his brows in an insinuating manner.

Blaise's smirk of triumph was soon shot down by Adira's quick remark, "Oh no Blaise, if I'm not mistaken, the romance you two have for each other is far more strong than my 'raging hormones'. I think you should ditch the idea of finding an exotic girl to spend the holiday with and just go somewhere with him. Perhaps a tropical island, Merlin knows Draco needs a tan."

It was silent between the two of them, Professor Binn's voice droning on in the background, then, almost as quiet as a mouse stealing crumbs in the dead of night, did Blaise say, "Touché Reed."

Adira was pleasantly surprised to see the Room of Requirements decorated in baubles. She laughed quietly to herself as she stood next to the Weasley twins and Eledie as she realized that each bauble had Harry's face in it. As they all waited for the room to fill up Adira quietly chatted to Eledie about her holiday plans. Eledie was spending it with the Weasley's, since her Aunt and Uncle decided to head to South America to do volunteer work in Ecuador, leaving their niece with their long time acquaintance, Mrs. Weasely.

"You know, Fred and George have written about you to their mum." She was keeping her hands busy, twirling a curl around her finger, not making eye contact with Adira.

Adira was bewildered, her eyes grew wide and her heart leapt for only a moment, "And?"

"And…she really wants to meet you…." Suddenly she rushed her sentence her big green eyes staring at Adira as if she had done something bad, "And don't be mad but I asked if you could come visit during the holiday, just for a day and she said yes and I know your family is pureblood and—"

Adira started to laugh, but cleared her throat as Harry began to speak, gathering everyone's attention. "My mum doesn't care for all that pureblood crap, tell Mrs. Weasely I would love to come for a day." Adira couldn't hide her excitement as she grinned brightly at Eledie, who smiled just as wide as she, and even though they were going over spells they already learned for this DA meeting, her heart was soaring with happiness. This is exactly what she wanted, granted she wanted to spend the entire holiday away from home, but a day at the burrow sounded just as wonderful as a few weeks would have.

After an hour of practicing stunning spells and jinx's, Harry called the meeting at an end.

"You're getting really good," he began, smiling brightly at everyone in the room. "When we get back from the holiday's we can start doing some of the big stuff—maybe even Patronuses."

"Ill owl you over the holiday Adira!" Eledie called out to her. As Adira passed Fred and George out the door, they both ruffled her hair reciting at the same time, "Happy Holiday's little lion."

They had taken to calling her that after she was challenged to go up to Filch and tell him how much she was in love with him after Adira approached them to express her anger that they were kicked off the team. Maybe asking them if there was anything she could do like hex Draco for them wasn't such a good idea. They thought it would be more amusing to test her bravery and make her profess her love for the greasy squib, and ever since then they had called her 'little lion'. They thought she should be a Gryffindor rather than a Slytherin.

But Adira knew that wasn't true. Adira wasn't as brave as they all thought she was. Sure doing silly frivolous things like embarrass herself or pull a prank on someone or give a person a piece of her mind came off as brave to the Weasley twins, but deep down inside she knew the truth, where her bravery should count, it wouldn't.

If Adira were ever given a choice in a life or death situation, like Harry was all the time, she would save herself and avoid getting into that kind of situation without conflict. She would much rather flee than face her serious fears head on and that's why she knew she would never make it as a Gryffindor. She was a Slytherin, and she was proud of her house even if her friends hated everyone who belonged to it. If they wanted to convince themselves that she belonged with the Gryffindor's, then she would let them.

The tired Slytherin made her way quickly to the common room, as quickly and quietly as possible. However what she didn't expect was the 5th year prefect patrolling the hallway she had turned into. She didn't even hear him sneak up behind her, until it was too late.

He grabbed her wrist gently and spun her around; Draco knew it was her from the way she walked and her dark wild hair. Only Adira would walk around school like a true pureblood young woman with her head held high and shoulders back straight and not come off as pompous or snotty. Not to mention she always smelled like spiced vanilla and sweet things baking.

Adira let out a startled gasp before she realized who had caught her. She held a smirk on her face as she slapped his chest for startling her. "Thank you Draco, for the heart attack." She said, stepping back to create some space, Draco was awfully close and Adira's heart was already pounding loudly in her chest, though she hated to admit it, she loved being in close proximity to him. He smelled like clean linen and musky cologne she once smelled in Paris at a fancy perfume store.

Adira frowned, why was he here? And why was she taking notice of the way he smelled or how close they were standing before?

"You're lucky it was me who caught you and not some stupid Hufflepuff on patrol tonight," Draco tucked has hands into his robe pockets, he took note of her tired expression and decided then that he would walk her back to the common room. Ernie Macmillian could handle watching the halls with his partner Hannah Abbot tonight, Draco would much rather sleep than continue his patrol, plus, Pansy was getting on his last nerve. He only just ditched her, and luckily for him ran into Adira as he was doing so. "What are you doing out past curfew?"

Adira bit her lip as they began their descent down to the dungeons; she knew Draco was getting suspicious, especially since she never really let on what she was up to. She gave the same excuse every time, "Library, I was in the library again. You know how much work we have and I just couldn't be bothered to come back down until I got my work done."

Draco frowned, but he didn't press on, last time he tried that it ended very badly; both of them had hot tempers and neither one knew how to back down until they gave up realizing it was stupid to fight when no one would win.

So they silently walked back to the common room, it wasn't until they were safe inside did Draco speak again. "My mother has been spending a lot of time with your mother apparently," he began, noticing the smirk on Adira's face, "Looks like we will be spending the holiday with each other."

If only Blaise was here now, she thought, knowing he would snigger at her and say 'I told you'. She knew their mothers had been talking, Lillian every now and then would write about their shopping trips and how they planned to travel together soon. She should have known that the planned travel meant this holiday break and Draco and his father, Lucius Malfoy were included.

Adira pouted, "Damn, I was hoping I could get away from you this break, looks like my hopes and dreams are crushed."

Draco smirked, leaning against the wall casually, "Please Reed, just admit it already, you know you can't resist me." Or was it the other way around?

Adira sighed dramatically, "Oh no, how ever did you know?" She said playfully, "I can't resist you Draco, I might be even more obsessed with you than Pansy Parkinson!" she placed her hand against her heart, staring up at him with big amber eyes with as much conviction as she could until both of them broke into a smile and began to laugh.

"Yeah right, who am I kidding, no one is more obsessed with you than Pansy. I'm pretty sure if she had the choice, she would kidnap you in the middle of the night and make you marry her."

Draco made face, his nose scrunched up and his lips pursed as he thought about Pansy actually doing what Adira said she would. "Don't say things like that Adira, you never know if she may be lurking around, you wouldn't want to put ideas into her head."

They both walked towards the stairs to their dormitories, "Oh on the contrary Draco, I love seeing you uncomfortable, Pansy over hearing is exactly what I want. Maybe she will grow the balls to actually do something one day."

He groaned in disgust, "Adira, seriously?"

Adira smirked, wrapping her arms around his waist and placing her head against his warm chest. She could hear his heart beating through his rib cage and his chuckle hummed deeply against her ear, "Of course not Draco, even I'm not that cruel."

He placed his chin upon the top of her head, "Good night Adira."

"Good night Draco," she pulled away, "I'll see you in the morning."