CHAPTER 10-AMORTENTIA

Winter woke up to the shaking of her bed like someone was jumping on it, she groaned and rolled over to see a pumpkin bouncing up and down at the end of her bed. When it saw she was awake it bounced over to her and began to sing.

"I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my monster from his slab began to arise and suddenly to my surprise," The pumpkin's lid popped off and four tiny pumpkins jumped out and sang. "They did the mash!"

Winter covered her head with a pillow and the pumpkin's singing was muffled; she felt another pillow get thrown at her and uncovered her head.

"Would you shut that pumpkin up," Haley moaned,.Winter crawled out of bed and the pumpkins all followed her continuing to sing the Monster Mash. She got ready in another room, one that was empty, and once the song had finished the smaller pumpkins went inside the big pumpkin and then it was no longer animated. Winter opened the lid and pulled the paper out of the inside, it read:

Winter,

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I know you'll love this pumpkin, it sings your favorite Halloween song. Even if it does wake you up too early.

Love, Blaise

Winter smiled and tucked the letter into her pocket and brought the pumpkin into her room and set it on her nightstand. The other girls had woken up and were busy getting ready, Winter passed them and Rayanne scrunched up her nose as Winter passed. Ever since Blaise and Rayanne had started dating Rayanne had been nothing but rude to Winter. Which was absurd as Winter had always been kind to Rayanne and she'd only began to be rude after beginning to date Blaise. Winter thought maybe Rayanne was jealous of her relationship with Blaise, they were close and Winter knew Rayanne was nowhere close to knowing Blaise like her. She didn't even spare a passing glance at Rayanne as she walked down the steps and saw Blaise talking to Draco on the couch. Winter walked over to them and fell into Blaise's lap and out of instinct he caught her.

"A singing pumpkin?" Winter asked. "At 5:30 in the morning."

"I set it to the wrong time zone," said Blaise.

"Sure you did, I did like the effects though, and the four small pumpkins were adorable. Once I'd actually woken up from my vegetative sleep state."

"Mum suggested those."

Winter spotted Rayanne coming down the stairs and sighed before removing herself from Blaise and sitting down next to Draco. He smiled at her, a genuine smile, and Winter smiled back. Her and Draco hadn't talked much since Blaise and her had become friends again but there had definitely been a lot of looking going on. She supposed when a guy kisses your neck you tend to be a little closer to him than before. Rayanne fell next to Blaise and began to hang all over him and Winter couldn't take watching that, she stood up and left the common room. She was surprised to see Draco stand up as well and joined her in the hallway.

"Are you following me?" Winter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's hard to get you alone," said Draco, and Winter turned to look at him.

"And why would you want to get me alone?"

Draco reached forward and pulled Winter to him wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. Winter looked up into his eyes but kept her arms hanging by her sides.

"I wanted a continuation of what we started a few months ago," Draco said, pressing his cheek against hers.

"If I remember right, you started and stopped that all on your own," said Winter, trying to keep her voice even.

"You didn't complain."

"I also remember our previous talk about you taking advantage of me."

Draco smirked and leaned forward to kiss her but she turned her face and all he got was her cheek.

"I'm not an object," Winter said, prying his hands from around her waist. "If you want me, really want me, Malfoy, you're going to have to prove I'm more than a checkmark on the Slytherin manifest."

Winter turned and walked away, she had an instant thought that Mrs. Revenfall would actually be proud of her today. Though the woman had marked down her grade when she heard about Blaise but was kind enough to ask Winter for the real story which Winter had to tell her, it was hard to lie to that woman. Now she was looking forward to Mrs. Revenfall's class and to tell her about the progress she was making. After the last time Draco had kissed her, it was like walking out into the North Pole from a well furnaced room, to leave him this time. Winter had no clue when she had become attracted to Draco, not that long ago the thought of him merely touching her had made her disgusted.

Even though she had always found him to be one of the best looking guys in Slytherin, alongside Blaise of course. Once she had entered the Great Hall she saw the place was decorated from left to right for Halloween. Orange and yellow streamers covered the ceiling and fake bats flew back and forth through the rooms. The breakfast foods had been dyed different colors and pretty much everyone was wearing something to represent the holiday, Winter felt underdressed. She sat down next to Haley when she spotted her at the Slytherin table.

"Hi, Hales," Winter said, and Haley looked up and smiled at her.

"Hey, you," said Haley. "How are things going with Rayanne?"

"Worst than before, she almost seems threatened by me, which is ridiculous."

Haley kept her smile and nodded in understanding but Winter knew her and Mary-Kate knew something she didn't and they weren't about to tell her.

"Have you found yourself a man yet?" Winter asked.

"A few actually," Haley answered mischievously.

"A few? All at once?"

"Being with one guy gets old quickly, so I juggle as many as I can handle."

"I should start calling you Ilaria."

"You can start calling me that when I marry men for their money then divorce them, which I don't plan to do. I want to have fun and getting attached to only one guy won't help."

"You're bad."

"What about you, do you have a man?"

"I have someone in my sights but I'm still waiting to see if he shares my interest."

Haley raised an eyebrow and Winter gave a small smile, she wasn't ready to tell about Draco just yet. She ate her breakfast and got up to go to her first class, which was Potions with Gryffindor. Professor Slughorn was definitely one of her favorite teachers and he much favored her, due to her status. She sat down at one of the desks and put her chin in her hands, a moment later Blaise sat down next to her.

"Where's your worst half?" Winter asked, she'd taken to calling Rayanne that in place of 'better' half.

"I got away from her, I wanted to spend some time with you," Blaise said, taking Winter's hand and kissing the top.

"How sweet, you're always welcomed to share my time."

Winter wrapped an arm around Blaise and laid her head on his shoulder, to her surprise he kissed her forehead. She didn't know what to do so she remained where she was and pretended it hadn't affected her.

"Class, I have a real treat for you today," professor Slughorn began, he approached the front of the classroom and turned to face the students. "Who here can tell me what Amortentia is?"

As everyone expected Hermione Granger's hand went into the air, almost before Slughorn had asked the question.

"Ms. Granger."

"Amortentia is considered the world's most dangerous potion because it has the power of obsessive love," Granger answered.

"Correct, five points to Gryffindor," Slughorn said happily. "Now, I need you all to line up next to this cauldron and smell the potion. Remember the smell as it may be very vital in your future."

Winter stood up and followed behind Blaise and they waited in line to smell the potion. The Gryffindors seemed to have lined up first and the Slytherins had to wait until that house had finished. Then it was Blaise's turn, he bent down and sniffed at the potion. He turned around looked at Winter then smelt the potion again, then once more before leaving to his seat. Winter furrowed her eyebrows at his odd behavior but approached the cauldron and bent down and smelt the potion herself.

The different aromas she smelt didn't seem to really add up to her at all. It was the smell of brand new wizard money, a willow tree, and a detergent she couldn't quite put her finger on. Whoever this obsessive love was she obviously never paid attention to how he smelt. She fell down next to Blaise and turned to him.

"So, what did you smell?" Winter asked, he turned to her and shrugged.

"I couldn't figure out what it was," he answered.

"Well I got new money, willow, and a type of detergent."

"You weren't much more successful than me then."

Winter nodded but couldn't get the smells out of her nose, she wanted to know who the person was but she really didn't feel like going around and sniffing everyone till she did.