Ok, so having this chapter be just sort of there was really starting to bother me. so i quickly sort of ended it, because i cant upload anything else until i finish this one. and im so tired of ch 11

so yea, this was just sort of a tie-in ch. the only part im truly happy about is the kate part. the rest is sort of crappy, just because im tired of this already. i got other sections i want to move on to.

lots of thank to: andread08, Leanora, SlytherinLover45 (love your name btw lol), Jamie2256, angellyons, xx-Jacob-lover-xx (you're team jacob, like my sis. soory, edward all the way - tho Taylor is really hot xD), nymphoro, Sammiegirl, 123hummingbird123, and Christina

i don't own HP, rowling does. i do own Kate.

Thursday

She quietly placed a hand on the door knob, and pushed the door in, keeping a secure hold on the sheet of parchment that was held in her mouth, pressed between her lips. On it she had scribbled notes all the information she thought might be useful to help him out. Tonight she had finished skimming through the last shelf of books in the Restricted Section. As he had class and she did not, she had convinced him to catch up on sleep, and retire earlier than usual; she would read through the books, jot down anything that seemed as if it would be of use, and then she would place the parchment in his trunk.

She had not been in the dormitory since she had been banished from it Sunday evening. But as she poked her head around, she pushed that from her mind – she did not want to have to think about all that was said that night. Besides, she was just going to drop off the parchment, and leave.

The dormitory was dark; far too dark to be able to make her way around with human eyes guiding her. So she shifted in form. Where a human girl had once stood with big brown eyes and honey-brown hair tied loosely into a pony tail at the nape of her neck, stood a tabby with honey-brown fur and eyes that were lacking the slits and oval shape. A folded sheet of parchment was held firmly in its mouth. She left the door ajar, the black robes she had been wearing lying discarded in its scanned the room, satisfied that she could now see. While her eyes had not taken the shape of a cat's, they had still exchanged the poor vision of a human for the superior night vision of a cat.

There were five four-poster beds creating a semi-circle around the dorm. She briefly surveyed each one from where she sat. Her eyes lingered on the four-poster bed that was just off-centered, rolling over the lump that was a student, hidden from her view by a single white sheet. But she forced her eyes away from that single bed, scanning the last two on her right, checking that no one was awake or absent.

Contented, Kate made her way over to the bed directly on her left. Here, she knew, slept Theodore Nott, a tall boy with dark brown eyes and matching hair. He was a bit weedy, but Kate was confident that he would fill out in a year, when his width finally grew out in proportion to his height. He had the cunning of a serpent and the hard-headedness of a badger.

She padded to his trunk, which was situated at the foot of his bed. In it, she knew, she would find his personal possessions. While she was a bit curious as to what was inside Theo's trunk, her sense to flee the dormitory as quickly as possible was stronger. Kate cast one last glance around her, to double check that all was silent, before shifting into a human again. She did not find it particularly comfortable to be fully naked in the bedroom of five boys, even if they were asleep, and so she quickly opened the trunk, placed the parchment atop of what seemed to be a hard-covered book, and shut it once more with a soft thud. Then she returned to her cat form.

Kate threw one last look behind her shoulder before heading towards the door. The faster she got out of the room, the faster she could sort out all her feelings, and calm the anxiety that had knotted in her chest. She had a notion of why all her emotions were going hay-wired, and she was sure that the notion was on target, but she did not want to touch upon that idea.

She was just to the wooden door when something behind her shifted. She jumped around, ears pricked forward in alarmed attention, eyes wide and searching to catch any breath of movement. The source of the movement sent a jolt to her heart. It was the boy lying asleep on the four-poster that stood not quite in the center of the semi-circle, who had previously been hidden from sight by the white sheet. He was shifting on his bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He uttered a low moan before settling onto his other side. One pale hand slid from beneath the sheets, the fingers draping loosely on the side of the bed. He moved no more then, the only sounds the exhales from his breath.

He laid uncurled now, so that Kate, as a cat, could just glimpse the gleam of his pale blond head. She stood there, frozen with indecision, for a moment or two, while her heart throbbed with yearning and anticipation. She should just leave, her mind argued, just leave without making things so much harder. What she had wanted could not be, for they were not compatible – that much was proven that past Sunday.

She could see the reasoning of her conscience, understood the logic behind turning away now and never laying eyes on him again. Yet she did not move, her eyes glued upon the pale white hand and hair that stood in such contrast to the darkness of the room.

Hesitantly, Kate took a step forward. She was dimly aware of the feel of the cold stone floor against the pads of her paws. Her conscience sizzled angrily, but her heart leaped in excitement. Her emotions collided and swirled into a hurricane within her. To see him, to touch him, to leave before he hurt her again, to leave before she hurt herself, to stop herself from becoming so dependent on something so unstable…

She took another step, then another. With each step, she became more anxious. Her mind hissed all sorts of warnings in disapproval, but she silenced it. Just one look, her heart told it, just to make sure he is okay.

It seemed a year before she reached his bedside. As a cat, she could not see his face, just his pale fingertips poking out from the edge of the bed. Her heart raced with yearning as she stood so close, and the same time so very far.

Within the blink of an eye, she transformed into a white-tailed doe. The elevated stance allowed her to see over the bed and down into his face. She wasn't sure what reaction she was expecting; perhaps she had been preparing for what hit her next. Either way, prepared or not, the flurry of emotions that came to her at full-force, overwhelming her.

As she stared down into his face, her heart soared. Being near him again, smelling his scent, brought a wave of joy she had not felt in a long time. It was the joy of seeing family members and friends after being half way around the world; it was the joy of seeing your room after traveling and being away for several weeks. She stared down at his familiar face, and she was suddenly home.

His pale lashes rested against the very top of his hollow cheeks, lining his eyelids. Behind these eyelids, she knew, were eyes the color of snow-swollen clouds. Eyes that, when upon her, sent tingles all up and down her body (tingles that, she was sure, he was a stranger to). His grey eyes were the window to his true feelings, which were usually hidden so deep that he often fooled himself. Kate's only way of knowing what he meant when he said something was to look in his eyes and read whatever emotions bubbled up in the very depths of them. The last time she had seen those eyes, they were furious and cold; a fury and coldness that was aimed at her. As she remembered how dangerous he had appeared, anger and confusion blended in with the joy. How dare he accuse her of being a whore, of being as worthless, of being a bastard-child! He had accused her falsely and unjustly, with no proof or right to do so! But the main offense came that he had the nerve to even consider that she would have so little pride and strength that she would take his insults lying down.

She was surprised to find herself, therefore, gazing at his lips, with completely different thoughts and emotions coursing through her. They – his lips – were parted slightly, just enough to blow out his breath in an exhale. A shiver of delight rolled through Kate then. What she wouldn't give to touch those lips with her own, to have them caress hers back with want and need…

But before her heart could begin any fantasy, her conscience exploded back into its loud and obnoxious self, radiating anger and irritation through her. What was wrong with her? She was a powerful tigress, not a vulnerable doe. She lived an ambush to her home village, had fought off one of the most powerful wizards who wielded a wand, endured weeks of torture and lived when everyone believed her to be dead. She was living in a world that was determined to destroy any persons who were different then themselves. She was like a mustang – unwanted and fighting to survive. She was surviving, wasn't she? She had not given up yet. Well, she was fighting hard enough then, and would keep on fighting. Was she going to let one teenage boy tame her, master her? He was barely a year older than she was. Was she going to allow this pale boy to do what everyone had failed to do: to catch her, break her, and teach her the strict rules and silent manners that fence a pleasure riding horse?

No; she wouldn't.

Her mind replayed snippets of their last conversation, paired with grossly distorted images of herself appealing to his every whim.

No. She would not allow him to tame her. She would not allow this one small weakness to grow and consume her. She was a fighter, and would follow her own course.

With that straightened out, she glanced back down at the boy with a hard expression on her face. Then she turned back into a human, and walked with her head held high and her back straight, the picture of confidence, out of the Slytherin dormitory, vowing never to let Draco Malfoy be the rider of her Mustang spirit.

*** *** ***

Draco sat in the library, several books on Animagi and Metamorphmagi opened and spread out in front of him. He stared at the text without reading, his head resting on his palm. It was Thursday, which meant he only had three classes. They were, however, the toughest classes in his timetable. He was grateful for his free period, which he was currently in, and in desperate need to finish homework. But after this period, he had Amycus Carrow for Defense Against the Dark Arts, followed by Transfiguration with McGonagall. To top it all off, he ended his day with Amycus Carrow's sister, Alecto, with Muggle Studies.

He blinked several times to focus his eyes and his mind. While he had gotten breakfast this morning, he had not been able to sleep very well. Theodore had returned at just past two in the morning, quite alone. Draco had been unable to fall asleep before then; when he finally did, it was fitfully, as the recurring nightmare was now taking new twists. Last night, it had started off with him wandering through Diagon and Knockturn Alley. He could hear her screaming, could hear her crying out to him, but no matter where he looked or how hard he ran, he could not find her, until finally he took a wrong turn and the brick streets gave out to a raging storm in the middle of the ocean.

The thud of a book crashing onto the floor interrupted him from his thoughts. Craning his head, Draco saw that it was only a sixth-year Ravenclaw in the rows of books before him, who had dropped a massive book on venomous plants. One glance at her face told him that he wasn't the only one getting an inadequate amount of sleep.

Yawning slightly, he rubbed his eyes with the butt of his palms. He guessed that he had about half-an-hour left of the free period. Groaning slightly, Draco forced himself to focus on his essay for Transfiguration. He had to compare and contrast all aspects of Animagi and Metamorphmagi. It was April 27; the exams were only three weeks away, and teachers were loading students up with work on all topics of the particular subject. Everything that had been taught since their first year was now being reviewed and tested. All seventh-years were stressed out, most were falling; few were thriving.

Draco dipped his quill into his ink bottle, scribbling the last twelve inches. He calculated that he would need about eight inches to summarize his essay in a concluding fashion, which meant that he only needed to expand his last paragraph by four inches. He decided to include statistics of the frequency of any witch or wizard you pass on the street being an Animagus or Metamorphmagus. Although the procedure to be an Animagi was extremely difficult and dangerous, Metamorphmagi were a rarity – one had about the same chances of being Metamorphmagus as one did of being albino. However, the ability to change your features was a gene that could be passed down from parent to child; thus, a Metamorphmagus would have a higher chance of producing a Metamorphmagus child. With an Animagus, it did not matter; the difficulty of the potion and spell did not get any easier, no matter how many generations of Animagi one had in the family.

Draco set his quill aside, content with his progress and finished essay. It wasn't happiness, and it did not break his dazed and dismal mood. It was the sense of accomplishing what he did not truly believe he could accomplish; the sense of dim satisfaction and contentment that shined through his gloomy mood just enough to lighten his heart for a moment.

A glance to his left showed that the Ravenclaw girl was scribbling madly on a long sheet of parchment, with an old book opened on her lap. She was immersed in her work, her brow furrowed in worry and concentration. She, too, was scrambling to finish homework. It was impossible to do it all in the evening! He had six classes, and each teacher gave them homework as if they had all the time in the world. There were essays, analyses, diagrams, FRQ's. All the teachers were giving a combination of at least two of these things; tougher teachers, like Professor McGonagall and Amycus Carrow, gave three or four assignments a class.

Draco groaned silently, squeezing his eyes shut. It was so much bloody work, without so much as a "good job" or "well done". No rewards for the never-ending flow of schoolwork. Draco shifted through several books he had picked out, pushing those on the witch hunts of the seventeenth and eighteenth century away. Muggles Studies was at the end of the day, after a study period; he could do the FRQ for Muggle Studies then. He reached for Banned Treasure: Merlin's Library of Hexes, which had a list of old Dark jinxes and hexes that had long been banned from use in the wizarding world. He had about seven more hexes he had to add onto his chart for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and this book had it all. They were horrible spells; it was no wonder they were banned from use in the 1600s. Most of them had no counter-spell or remedy, which doomed to victim to several weeks of unbearable pain before the hex wore off or, in some cases, drove the victim to commit suicide.

Dumbledore, of course, would never have allowed these types of books. Banned Treasure: Merlin's Library of Hexes would never have even made it back onto the back corner of the shelves of the Restricted Section. But of course, having Death Eaters impenetrate the school meant a vastly new regime. Draco had thought he would have liked it. He had complained about how soft and sheltering Dumbledore was. But seeing what horrors the books held, and having been forced to read and study them, he found them repulsive, and had a great desire to store them wherever they had previously been hidden by Dumbledore.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he finished describing the last hex. Draco slammed the book shut, flicking his wand at it to send it zooming back to its proper location on a bookshelf across the room. He gathered his papers, laying them neatly into his bag so that they would not crumble. His eyelids felt heavy, closing of their own accord. But he had to stay awake – the day had barely begun! As he slung his bag over his shoulder and tucked his book sunder his arm, he noticed that the sixth-year Ravenclaw had not moved from where she sat. Her nose was just inches off the paper, and she appeared to be ready to cry. She gave Draco no notice as he walked by her and exited the library, heading to Defense Against the Dark Arts, down in the dungeons.

It wasn't much condolence, but at least he was better off than she was.

*** *** ***

Draco had Transfiguration after lunch. This was where he was now, with half an hour left. He could not wait for it to pass. The day seemed longer than usual; time was passing slower than a mountain troll's brain. He felt stuck, trapped, in his life. What was there to live for? He didn't know. There didn't seem to be a point for his existence. What did it matter, passing the N.E.W.T.'s or memorizing all of this stuff? What was the reason behind it, when it wasn't getting him anywhere in life? With each minute, it became more apparent to Draco that life was a problem without a solution.

Not that he felt like taking his life. Death was not an answer he was searching for, or one he would accept. But he was lacking an answer, a reason, to keep going and living this nightmare. Some people said that life had many answers. But he couldn't figure out a single one. Or maybe he had found the answer, and he had let it slip through his fingers. Maybe he had found the reason, but it had faded away, now lost to him forever.

Draco's eyes glazed over the giant black board in the front of the classroom where a piece of chalk, charmed by McGonagall to take notes on what she was lecturing, was drawing out a chart on basic Transfiguration spells and charms, their results, and counter-spell. He was not, however, truly focusing on McGonagall's review. He had a roll of parchment before him, and his quill was tucked into his hand, but the two had not yet met. With his current train of thought, he was having a hard time motivating himself to jot anything down. After all, what was the point?

Draco rubbed his eyes, and swallowed back his frustration and helplessness. How long could he tolerate this? How long could he keep up not sleeping, not caring? His life seemed so dismal, so bleak, so pointless. He was alive, but completely void of life from within.

There was suddenly lots of bustling in the classroom. Looking around blankly, Draco realized that everyone was packing up; class was dismissed. As this observation finally made registered in his head, he placed two hands on the table to push back his chair. He stopped as Daphne Greengrass placed a hand on his shoulder, alerting him that she was behind him. She didn't glance his way, just made a bee-line for the exit, falling into step with Tracey Davis.

Sighing, Draco rolled up his parchment. His movements were sluggish, slow. He had a study period next, but he really had no desire to go to the Great Hall to accomplish nothing. He tucked his quill into his bag, dimly taking care that he laid it flat against his textbook. As he made his way around the desks, his eyes landed on the huge window. The blue sky was slashed with grey clouds. Soaring away from the castle was a lone swallow. It gave a soft, woeful note before dipping out of sight. Draco left the classroom in a somber mood, matching the sorrowful song of the swallow.

*** *** ***

Draco leaped from the last step to the landing on the seventh floor. The Grand Staircase, infamous for changing right when you needed them, had begun to alternate. It nicked his left heel, and Draco threw a scowl over his shoulder at it.

Stupid stairs, he thought.

It was just about time for dinner. There were no students wandering about now. Peeves the Poltergeist had been lurking about down on the fourth floor, so Draco knew he didn't have to worry about him either.

He walked down the deserted corridor until he reached the huge tapestry of some guy (something the Barmy was his name) teaching trolls to dance a ballet. It was quite an amusing tapestry. But it was not the art that Draco was interested in. Opposite the giant tapestry was a blank stone wall. A small smile crept into Draco's lips. He had not been here since the end of last year. He had thought that it would bring back a series of unwanted memories that he had pushed so down deep within himself that he had forgotten some.

But here he was, standing before the entrance, and instead of feeling on edge, he was comforted. He had lived here all last year, struggling endlessly to mend the Vanishing Cabinet whose sister laid in Burgin & Burkes. He had shed sweat, tears and joy here in this room. It was the only part of Hogwarts that seemed to understand him, that attempted to help him.

Draco paced back and forth confidently across the secret entrance of the Room of Requirement, asking from it to give him a place that he can be alone, where he could just sit all night by himself, without having to worry about anything or anyone else. He wouldn't mind having something else that was broken, either. It helped pass the time, giving effort to an object that was broken.

Draco looked up at the wall, expecting the go in and just hide away for a while. But to his surprise, no door appeared. This confused him; the Room of Requirement had ne4ver failed him before. He knew how to work the Room, he knew how to state things to eliminate loopholes. So why wasn't it working now? He walked down the corridor three more times, forcefully thinking exactly what he wanted, what he needed, what he required. But to his dismay, no entrance appeared.

He checked the tapestry once more. Surely he was in the right place? And he was; this was exactly where the secret door of the Room should be appearing. He attempted twice more to get the Room to work for him, to let him enter, restating his wish in any form he could think of. Yet even after his fifth try, the blank stone wall remained a blank stone wall.

In despair, Draco turned away, feeling rejected. Even Hogwarts had turned its back on him. He was truly alone.

alright, so i told you it was crap compared ot the others. but deal. lol. i would still love reviews and comments tho. maybe one of you has an idea on how to evolve this a bit better (dont change the story line tho). um...oh, we are never going to truly find out in this story, its just going to be one of those mysteries that never got answered, but the Room of Requirement isnt opening because Neville and company is in there. just so you guys are not like o.O

so yea, review, and please note that lots of hw and schoolwork keeps me from being creative.

does anyone know when HP6 movie comes out in dvd in america??? :)