Disclaimer: Not mine, nope.
A/N: So, somebody said that I'm updating a little bit too often. You are really never happy, are you? Just joking, anyway, I hope that you are enjoying all these updates. Oh, some of you also noticed that this story is turning a bit dark, it's true. But don't worry, as always I'm planning a happy ending. Enjoy this chapter.
To Halo of Darkness: Thanks so much for all your help with those chapters.
Slughorn's Party
"I don't want to come," protested Rachel, crossing her arms on her chest. "I'm not in the right mood."
"You said that you couldn't wait to go just half an hour ago," pointed out Allyson, rolling her eyes.
"I've changed my mind," snapped Rachel.
"Well, Slughorn is waiting for us. We said that we would go and Emeric will be there as well. So just get ready and come downstairs," said Allyson.
"No!" cried Rachel.
"Oh, stop being stupid, we have a party to attend," retorted Allyson.
Rachel's eyes filled with tears.
"What? What did I do now?" she asked impatiently.
"You said that I'm stupid," said Rachel, crying.
"You aren't stupid, you are just – well – you're silly – sometimes," she added hastily.
Rachel sniffed. "It's not like silly is much better than stupid."
"Okay, listen, I know that we have to be careful with you because of your situation, but I swear that if you don't get ready in less than ten minutes and don't come downstairs, I'll tell everybody that you have gained eleven pounds in two months," she almost screamed.
Rachel looked at her with her eyes wide open. "I'm coming," she muttered, standing up from her bed and opening the closet.
Allyson grinned, pleased with herself, and walked down the stairs of the Gryffindor tower to the common room. Rachel came down less than ten minutes later. She was wearing a long blue dress, quite loose around her waist so as to hide her stomach pretty well. Her hair was combed in a nice plait that fell on her back.
"So? Was it so difficult?" Allyson asked Rachel, grinning.
Rachel muttered something that sounded like 'spoon and nose' and walked towards the portrait hole. Allyson caught up right outside of the common room. "Are you going to meet up with – oh! Looks like you are going to meet up with him," said Allyson as soon as she spotted Emeric standing right next to Rachel. He was wearing a black dress robe, exactly the kind of thing that you expected to find on a Malfoy.
"Are you able to form a sentence in English?" snapped Rachel.
"Oh, a little bit nervous, are we this evening?" asked Emeric, smiling.
"No, I'm not, and don't team up with my cousin," retorted Rachel.
"I'm not teaming up with your cousin," he said defensibly.
Rachel glared at both him and Allyson. "Let's go, I don't want to be late and then have Slughorn mad at me because of you," she muttered, walking past them and into the dungeon's direction.
Emeric and Allyson exchanged a perplexed look.
"Aren't you coming?" asked Rachel impatiently from the stairs.
They reached her and Emeric took her hand in his. Allyson pretended to be sick.
"So, have you asked for the roast beef?" asked Emeric casually.
"No, I forgot," said Rachel, patting her cousin's forehead. "But you should have reminded me."
"Well, never mind," he said reassuringly.
When they reached the door of Slughorn's office, Allyson entered first and scanned the room in a silent search for Oliver Wood.
"Ah! Miss Weasley, Mr. Malfoy," Slughorn addressed them as they entered. "There are quite a lot of people to whom I want to introduce you."
Rachel and Emeric nodded as Slughorn guided them near Oliver Wood. "Oliver, my dear," he said, dragging him away from a crowd of giggling girls. "I wanted to introduce you to Miss Weasley and Mr. Malfoy."
Oliver looked at Rachel with interest. "Weasley, eh? Let me guess – daughter of George Weasley!"
Rachel shook her head. "No, I'm-"
Slughorn hushed her gently. "Come on, my dear, let him guess."
Rachel arched her eyebrows.
"Daughter of Percy Weasley?"
"No," answered Rachel impatiently.
Oliver scratched his forehead. "Fred Weasley?" he asked.
"No!" snapped Rachel, a little bit more rudely than she intended.
"Charlie Weasley?"
"Nope. Can I give you a hint? It starts with 'R'."
Oliver seemed to think hard about all the Weasley siblings. "Oh, yeah, there was one whose name started with an 'R'. Which one was that?"
Rachel faked a cough that sounded oddly like 'Ron'.
"Oh, of course! Ron Weasley! How can I have forgotten about him?" exclaimed Oliver. "Maybe it's because he didn't play Quidditch on the team when I was at Hogwarts. Actually, has he ever played Quidditch?"
Rachel smiled evilly. "Well, he has. But he was terrible," she said, shaking her head in a very theatrical way. "My Uncle Harry had wanted to send him off the team a couple of times," she said, smirking.
"Oh, well, that's a pity because almost all the Weasleys played Quidditch wonderfully," said Oliver, accepting a glass of firewhisky from a house-elf.
Rachel shrugged.
"And you are a Malfoy?" asked Oliver, looking at Emeric without hiding his hostility.
"I am," he said, looking at Oliver without smiling. "Son of Draco Malfoy."
Oliver darkened. "Draco Malfoy? He bought himself onto the Slytherin Quidditch team in his second year, did you know that?"
Emeric rolled his eyes. "No, I didn't. But actually, I don't really care either."
Oliver raised his eyebrows. "I thought that the Malfoys had more pride."
"I'm not even sure that I'm a Malfoy anymore," muttered Emeric.
"What?" asked Oliver distractedly.
"Oh, but you don't know the happy news yet, Oliver," said Slughorn in a cheerful tone of voice. "The Malfoy family and the Weasleys will soon melt into one big happy family."
Oliver almost choked on the firewhisky. "What?" he asked, coughing.
"This girl," Slughorn turned to place an hand on Rachel's shoulder, but she wasn't near him anymore. He shrugged and turned, continuing to tell the story of Rachel and Emeric to Oliver.
"I know that it was a bad idea to come here," said Rachel, shoving a canapé into her mouth.
"Yeah, well, this afternoon you were so excited to come here," Emeric pointed out.
"And by this evening I had already changed my mind," she snapped.
"Yeah, but we know that you change your mind a little bit too frequently lately, don't you?"
Rachel opened her mouth to answer, but she was cut off when she heard a snigger at her back.
"Why, Emeric. Are you teasing our little mummy?" asked Sybella, sneering.
Emeric and Rachel shot her a nasty look. "What do you want, Sybella?" asked Emeric rudely.
"You are not very nice, are you?" she shot back teasingly.
"I'm nice with who's nice, and I'm nasty with who's nasty," answered Emeric matter-of-factly.
"Oh, Weasley!" exclaimed Sybella. "Let me have a better look of you," she said, stepping towards Rachel and seizing her chin into her hand. "You have gained weight, haven't you?"
Rachel slapped her hand away. "Mind your own business."
"I am," she said, stepping back.
Rachel and Emeric looked at her darkly. "What do you mean?" asked Emeric.
Sybella shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing," she answered vaguely.
"Why should Rachel be some of your business?" he insisted.
"This filthy little daughter of a Mudblood is everybody's business now that she is pregnant with your child, isn't she?" asked Sybella, lowering her voice.
Emeric's eyes flashed dangerously as he took a step towards her. But, luckily, Rachel seized his arm and restrained him from any inconsiderate acts against the Slytherin girl.
Sybella stepped back and smirked. "Come on, punch me! I'll be happy to tell everybody that you are a violent git. They'll take you away from that girl and from your baby before you'll have the time to say 'it wasn't me'," she said. "And that will save me lots of work," she added under her breath.
"What?" asked Emeric, getting closer to her.
Sybella grimaced and walked away, disappearing between the crowd of people in the room.
"Did you hear what she said?" Emeric asked Rachel, concerned.
"That you are a violent git," sighed Rachel. "But don't worry. I know that it's not true."
Emeric waved a hand in front of her impatiently. "Not that," he said hastily. "I meant her last sentence."
"No, it was a bare whisper, how could have I heard it?" asked Rachel, not concerned at all.
"It didn't sound like anything good."
"Oh, please, you aren't starting again with this story, are you?"
"Which story?" asked him, feeling his anger rising.
"The fact that Sybella has something against us and will harm the baby in some way," she answered, rolling her eyes.
"Oh my--what's wrong with you?" he asked her rudely. "Why is so hard for you to believe that she's up to something definitely not good?"
"Because she is just a fifteen-year-old girl. What would she be able to do to us?" asked Rachel, sighing.
"She is a very sneaky Slytherin. Shouldn't that be enough to fear her?"
"Nope," she said, smiling. "Because you are a very sneaky Slytherin as well and I don't fear you in any way," she added, standing on her tiptoes and kissing him. He tried to resist her, but after a couple of soft kisses, he smiled and started to kiss her back.
"Rachel! Malfoy! Control yourself!" snapped Leonard Weasley, passing by.
Rachel and Emeric let go of each other and burst into laughter. "What about getting out of here?" asked Emeric, attracting her attention back on him.
"What will I tell Allyson?" she asked, looking at all the people. "I told her that we would come back to Gryffindor tower together."
"Tell her that you didn't feel well," he proposed, placing his arm around her waist.
"And should I lie to her?" she asked jokingly.
"I'm sure that you can lie pretty well if you want to," he said, starting to place soft kisses on her forehead and on her cheeks.
"And what does that mean?" she asked, pushing him back.
He looked at her with his eyes half-closed. "Nothing, Rachel. Just get out of here, I want to find an empty classroom and snog you."
Rachel pretended to be indignant. "Lower your voice," she said. "I don't want everybody to think that we are a couple of students with just one thing on their mind."
"No, you are right," he said, starting to kiss her again. "Now, can we go?"
Rachel smiled while he kissed her nose softly. "Okay," she said weakly after a while. "Let's go out of here."
Emeric smiled, evidently satisfied with himself, and dragged her out of Slughorn's office. They walked through the hallway quickly and climbed up the stairs, laughing and stopping every ten seconds to kiss.
"The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom," muttered Emeric between kisses, opening a door and pushing Rachel inside gently.
Rachel sat on one of the desks and wrapped her arms around Emeric's neck while he moved his hands around on her back from her waist to her shoulders. They kissed for a while, then Emeric started to play with the edge of her dress on her neckline. He moved it away gently and started to place some little kisses on her neck cavity. His hands started to grab at her chest softly, but as soon as he touched her breast, he felt her hand pushing him away.
"What?" he asked, looking into her eyes.
"No," she murmured. "Just snogging."
Emeric raised his eyebrows. "It's not as if we have never done this before," he snapped.
"I know," she answered sharply.
"And?"
"Not now," she answered simply.
"Why?"
"Because it's different now."
"What's different?" he asked annoyed.
She placed a hand on her stomach. "The baby."
"Nothing will happen to the baby," he said hastily. "I'll be utterly careful," he added, bending down and kissing her again.
"No," she snapped, pushing him away more rudely. "Can't you wait for just seven months?"
He looked at her like she was going insane, but he just nodded his head. "I guess so, if you really don't want to," he sighed.
"Thank you," Rachel said, jumping down from the desk and walking towards him. "But you can keep on kissing me. I was enjoying that." She smirked.
He smiled back mischievously and took her in his arms again. "Good, because I was enjoying that as well," he muttered with his lips on hers.
It was ten past midnight when Emeric accompanied Rachel to the Fat Lady. He kissed her several more times before she said goodnight to him and entered the common room.
"Where have you been?" asked Allyson, arm crossed on her chest and a frown on her face.
Rachel smiled sheepishly. "I didn't feel well. I needed to walk around a bit outside of that crowded room."
"You could have told me," Allyson snapped. "I was worrying about you."
"Were you? Really? That's so nice," said Rachel, smiling.
Allyson rolled her eyes and couldn't help smiling too. "You have been with Emeric, haven't you?"
Rachel nodded. "Yeah, we were talking," she said vaguely.
"Oh, yes, of course. I'm sure that you used your tongue a lot," said Allyson teasingly.
"Allyson!" she shrieked jokingly.
Allyson burst into laughter and ran up the stairs that led to the fifth year girls dorm. Rachel looked at her with a smile and walked up to her dorm as well, falling asleep almost immediately with a hand on her belly and a smile on her face.
