I got a bit creeped out while writing this chapter, but I creep easily. There's an element that I would definitely define as non-con, but it doesn't, and will not, go beyond kissing. There's also a bit of swearing in this chapter, but it doesn't go above and beyond, and I feel that it's justified by the character's emotional state. Also, the poem was not meant to have giant spaces between each line, but there's little I can do to oppose this site's automatic formatting. Since I've had the spare time to write recently, this chapter is a bit longer than usual; I hope you like it.

Fjeijei reached the Transfiguration classroom and fell into Hermione's seat just in time.

"Hey Mione," Ron greeted her as she sat beside him, "Do you remember what we're supposed to be doing today?"

She wondered whether he had called her Mione because Raevynne had made him think it was a good idea, or because he thought it would be easier than fighting about it. Would he call her Mione just because he didn't want to fight? No, he was too stubborn, but perhaps, if Harry or someone else had told him to just go along with it. How much of a fuss had she made this morning? She'd been so frustrated. People were supposed to do what she wanted, they were supposed to think of her the way she wanted them to. She had to find that ring. If Raevynne wasn't working her influence, or if she got distracted, or tired, or just couldn't put forth as much as they'd need–

"Hey, are you okay?" Harry asked from Ron's other side.

"What?" she snapped, then calmed herself, "What? Yeah, I'm okay."

"Really? Because Ron asked you a question, and you just sat there staring at him."

"It was kind of scary," Ron added.

"It was a dumb question."

"She's got you there," Harry laughed.

Good, if they weren't going to object to unwarranted cattiness, then Raevynne was probably doing her work.

All conversation was halted by the arrival of McGonagall, who was followed by three floating cages containing a bunch of furry little animals.

"Today you will be asked to remove a transfiguration," she said as she strode to the front of the classroom.

"These hares," the cages landed gently in front of her desk, "have been transfigured from common muggle brooms. I expect that by the end of class today, they will be brooms once again. You will be working alone. Miss Patil, mister Thomas, if you would be kind enough to distribute the hares? Thank you. Those who recall last week's lesson will find this a simple matter of putting theory into practice. In this instance, reversing the transfiguration is a matter of..."

Fjeijei stopped listening as Dean Thomas dropped a hare in front of her.

The creature was fine until she reached out toward it.

As she closed her hands around it, the hare appeared to be trying to curl in on itself, emitting a low growl.

Then, as she brought it closer to her body, it started to squirm and kick.

"What are you doing to that animal?" McGonagall demanded when the hare's shriek interrupted her lecture, "Miss Granger, if you–"

Fjeijei remembered, far too late, that in this place transfigurations were done a certain way, and that that way required wands.

She looked down at the broom in her hands. It was perfectly ordinary.

"Wow," Harry whispered, rubbing his docile hare between the ears.

"I... I didn't know that... rabbits could scream," Ron's voice shook as he put his own wand down, his hare only slightly longer than it had been before he'd started.

"I guess it didn't want to be turned back," Fjeijei ran her fingers over the broom's bristles, "and it wasn't a rabbit; it was a hare."

McGonagall rushed to their desks, "Miss Granger, that was not– You di– Tha–" She looked as though she were having some sort of internal fit, "I am amazed," her face softened slightly, and her eyes took on a barely perceptible glaze "That was an astounding display of focused wandless magic. Most witches and wizards my age wouldn't have been able to accomplish that! I am very impressed miss Granger, fifty points to Gryffindor."

"Go to–" McGonagall started moving back to the front of the classroom, "You may want to tell the Headmaster about what you can do. I think he'd be very interested," her hands gripped the edges of her desk, "he may even want you to work more with the Ord–" she squinted at the classroom full of students paying rapt attention to her, then gave her head a little shake, "You're dismissed, all of you! You've progressed very well, we'll continue this next class."

"That was wicked!" Ron cheered as they filed out of the classroom, his previous distress wiped from his mind, "You have to teach me and Harry how to do that! Right mate?"

"Yeah, you've got to. It'd be... really helpful."

"It'd be dead useful."

"When did you learn to do that?"

"Oh," Fjeijei blushed, "you know. I just read about it in some books. I've been practicing, trying to do what they said. I didn't mean to show everyone what I'd learned like that though," she heaved a dramatic sigh, "Everyone's going to think I'm a show-off now."

Instead of saying, "Well, you do sometimes come off that way, yeah" or "So showing off wasn't your intention?" or even, "Don't worry, that wasn't much worse than some of the other things you've done," Harry said, "No-one's going to think you were showing off. Everyone already knows you don't need to," and, whether he actually knew it or not, he was completely correct.

---xx0oo0lOvOl0oo0xx---

Raevynne had meant to get to class. She was a very dependable person really, once you got to know her. It was just that she was also a rebel, and sometimes those two qualities came into conflict.

The thing was that Herbology was outside, in a bright, hot greenhouse that was filled with dirt and other icky things.

In contrast Hogwarts castle was, well, cool, in every sense of the word.

So, on her way to Herbology, she'd gotten turned around, and found herself not only inside the castle, but standing in an empty corridor in front of the most majestic window she could have imagined. There was even a spot at the bottom of the window where she could, if she wanted, sit and strike a dramatic pose looking out over the grounds.

Raevynne was not one to waste opportunity.

She sat, and gazed forlornly out at a world filled with people too happy to ever comprehend her.

She sat, and she hoped someone would come by soon, because it could get pretty boring having a bottomless pit for a soul if no-one else knew of your suffering.

---xx0oo0lOvOl0oo0xx---

Draco Malfoy had not been having a good day.

He was sleep-deprived, for absolutely no reason other than his inability to actually sleep through the night, rather than staring at his bed-hangings wishing for a sleeping potion that no one would give him because, "ooh, you'll get addicted again," as though he had actually been addicted before and not just wanted to get some sleep before important tests, and games, and days that important things could happen on, which could be any day because you never really knew, did you?

Of course, the moment he'd managed to get anything resembling a minute of sleep he'd been woken by his roommates, who had then threatened to eat his breakfast if he didn't get down to the great hall in time, which was an action far beyond their station and should have resulted in them being horribly cursed, but they were gone by the time he'd worked out exactly what was happening, which only took so long because he was even more exhausted upon waking than he had been when trying to fall asleep.

To add to his wretchedness, the house elves had decided to show just how incompetent they were, and he'd been left with only one clean outfit. He'd had no choice but to wear the robes that he'd spilt pumpkin juice on the first night back, and they were, despite what everyone else said, stained. He could sense it.

When he'd gotten down to breakfast, it had been over, and the Great Hall was clear. He'd checked the time, and started to rush to class. The moving staircases however, were having none of this. They'd waited until he was halfway up, then moved to connect to entirely different floors as though their sole purpose was making sure that he'd have no chance of getting to class on time. He'd decided that with the day he was having it would probably be worse to get to class late than to miss it entirely. Undoubtedly, if he missed a class it would be the most important one of the year, but that was going to be too bad. He could get the notes off Pansy.

Draco contemplated the miserable wreck that his life had become as he turned the corner to an empty corridor.

When he saw a girl with a Gryffindor scarf sitting in front of a window, he thought his day was looking up. It was never bullying if you did it to Gryffindors; it was just putting them in their place.

He pulled out his wand. One little curse from behind, then run. Nothing too bad, maybe give her feelers, or horns, or turn her purple.

He crept forward. Who was that anyway? She looked younger than him, but not familiar. Maybe if he could see her face...

Draco moved closer. There was something about her; he had seen her before. Or maybe he hadn't. There weren't any Gryffindors wi–

Draco tripped over his own robes.

"Oh fu–" his curse was cut off when his face hit the floor.

"Why?" he whispered, rolling over, "Why me? Why always me?"

"Someone's probably got it out for you. You're probably a mere plaything of the gods."

Draco rolled further to see the girl at the window staring straight at him. From the front it was obvious, she was the littlest Weasley.

"Probably," he conceded, in a moment of weakness that was likely brought on by head-trauma. He lifted his hand to his hairline. At least he couldn't feel any blood.

He tried to stand. The world was barely spinning at all. He was fine.

"My soul is a black pit of despair," the girl said candidly.

"Okay," said Draco slowly, "I can see how that would be a problem sometimes."

"You're very pale. Sit with me."

Despite everything he held dear, Draco Malfoy found himself moving to sit beside the youngest Weasley.

The floor in front of the window was cold. Draco knew it should have felt uncomfortable, but he couldn't bring himself to object.

"Sometimes," he said, staring meaningfully into the distance, "my soul gets pretty dark too." This seemed to activate his inner monologue, which could only ask the question: What did I just say?

"D– do you like poetry?" the girl beside him asked, blushing.

"I love poetry." No! the voice inside him screamed, Never admit to liking poetry, especially to one of them. Oh god, what have I done. She'll tell everyone and I'll never live it down. Oh god why? Why did I say that?

"Do you want to hear some of mine? I'm writing an epic about how suffering has consumed my soul, tarnishing and shredding it into nothing but an ebony void. It's going to be amazing; Milton would read it and weep. I can't show it to you yet though, it's not done. Listen to this though, I wrote this poem just after I realised that I hated everyone, ever."

"Why? Why do you pretend to care?

With your painted nails and your styled hair

I know your type

I've heard the hype

You're a damn prep!

With your preppy shoes and your preppy shirt

I want to show you preppy hurt!

I hate you and your conformist ways

You only care about what the TV says

You prep, I want to slap you in the face

But you'd probably sue me with a legal case

I hate you so much, I hate everyone so much

I just want to destroy the world

Like with a bomb

But with more aplomb

Then everyone would be dead

And I would be alone

And maybe finally happy, because I hate you all

The End."

"That was," What the hell is a TV? Or a prep? Is she even listening to herself? What happened to the rhyming scheme? What an angry, angry girl, "wow. Nothing's ever affected me like that before. You've really," horrified me; got no talent; made me reconsider my position on poetry, "touched my heart." What?

"Do you want to hear more?"

No, never again, "Of course," Oh god what's happening to me?

"This is about my life, and how it's a hollow sham. I wrote it after I realised that I had been so emotionally broken that I was completely unlovable and would never find love."

As the girl's words filled his head, Draco found himself nodding in agreement to every line. It was terrible. He'd thought it couldn't get worse than the first poem, but his life had continued to be full of surprises. What was really perplexing was the way he kept complimenting her poetry, rather than insulting her and trying to push her through the window for the good of the magical race.

"The End," her voice rang out.

He looked at her, with tears in his eyes, "Beautiful."

She blushed. A scarlet swath on ivory skin a second voice inside him said. The thought that the second voice was not his bothered him for only a moment, before something pushed the thought from his mind.

"It's nothing. I just write these little things, trying to find someone, anyone who'll understand them."

"You," he reached a hand up to push an ebony strand of hair behind her ear, "are beautiful."

Her blush deepened, and his own inner voice supplied that it was hilarious. She looked like a tomato.

"You want to be a poet, don't you? Professionally published I mean. I could help you with that. My father, he has a lot of influence, everywhere really, he's very important. Anyway, he could speak to someone, maybe get you a deal. Put your work in an anthology. Would you like that?"

Why would I ever do that? His inner voice asked, I don't hate the general public enough to inflict that on them.

The second voice joined in to rebuke him, Her poetry is astounding. It reaches depths you never knew she, or you, had. You love it, and you love her.

Her eyes widened and she leaned even closer to him, "Really? You could do that? Oh Draco, thank you. Thank you so much."

She wrapped her arms around him and brought her head to rest on his shoulder, "Is there anything you want? Do you have any dreams?"

"Yes," he chuckled, "I've always wanted to," make my family proud; surpass my peers; get what I want. His inner voice was getting weaker.

He chuckled again, blushing slightly, "To tell the truth, I've always wanted to bartend."

She didn't laugh; she didn't stiffen and pull away. She understands you so well the other voice told him. It was not opposed.

"My dream is to bartend, in the dark."

Ginny smiled against his shoulder. "Oh darling, why not. Let's open a pub, a dark pub. No, a Goth club. You can serve drinks and I'll read poetry to the customers. It'll be just you and me against the world. It'll be perfect.

Draco Malfoy held Ginny Weasley in his arms. They were perfect together, the holes in their souls fit up and matched like the most wonderful puzzle.

"Yes," he said, "let's."

And, when they kissed, if some small, small remnant of something inside him screamed, then it was too softly to be heard.