Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"D a n g e r o u s . S e c r e t s"

B y : T s a v o r i t e

– O b s e s s i o n s , O c c l u m e n c y . A n d . D r e s s e s –

"What are you doing? Dinner just started," Blaise asked and he looked from me to the doors through which Malfoy had just disappeared out of sight. "Jenna..."

I held up my hand as a sign I wasn't going to listen to him and I walked towards the huge doors, following Malfoy.

"Obsession!" I heard Jo yell after me but I ignored her and I walked out of the Great Hall.

I looked around and saw Malfoy disappear into one of the creepy corridors leading towards the dungeons. 'I have to be extremely nuts in my head for following him,' I thought fiercely and I quickened my paces. I walked around the corner and immediately hit something massive. I fell backwards and hit the ground pretty hard, grazing my hands on the rough stone floor.

"Hey! Watch were you're standing!" I shouted, and I looked up to see who it was I had walked into.

Malfoy stared at me with big, empty eyes. He said nothing, he just stared.

"Eh, is everything OK in there?" I tried while pushing myself up from the cold floor. I grabbed the wall to use as some kind of leverage and I got up on my feet again.

His eyes kept focussing on me all the time as he stared at me, without blinking. His facial expression was blank and it had something scary around it. Then, suddenly he frowned and he looked away, still without saying anything.

"Malfoy?"

"Go away," he said all of the sudden, his voice quivering and I took a few steps back.

"No," I said stubbornly. "I'm not leaving until you tell me what is going on!" I demanded and I took a step back into the previous place I had been standing.

He turned around and glared down at me. The anger was now clearly burning in his eyes, he wasn't just annoyed, he was really pissed. I had never seen him this close and I had to swallow at the look in his eyes. I could now see they weren't just grey, they were more like silver with a soft blue gloss. But they were still the same cold eyes, the grey as cold as stones.

But beside his eyes, I could now also clearly see the rest of his face. He looked extremely tired. His skin was paler than ever and he had dark bags under his eyes, probably from lack of sleep. His cheeks looked shrunken which made his cheekbones and chin stand out even more than they normally did. His blond hair was tousled, uncombed and filthy. All in all, not a picture of someone healthy, not at all. I felt a little pity for him, but that disappeared like snowflakes before the sun when he opened his mouth again.

"I said: go away!" he snarled through clenched teeth. His fists started shaking with anger and I saw that he was holding a wrinkled piece of parchment in his right one.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the letter he had received a couple of minutes ago.

"Nothing you need to know, Tate," he growled quickly as he wrinkled the parchment even more.

"Bad news from home then?" I asked but all he did was glare even more, and with his unhealthy, almost deadly look it was quite scary actually.

"Well, sorry for trying to listen and help..." I muttered, his bad mood rubbing off on me and I took a few steps back.

"Yes, well like I told you before: I don't need people to tell me how pitiful I am. Certainly no Mudbloods such as yourself."

I snorted and pretended I hadn't heard his last sentence while I stared at his eyes once more. If he wasn't going to tell me himself, I might as well search for the words myself. I caught a glimpse from a couple of words on the parchment, but then my image transformed and all I saw now was a black dot before my eyes. I heard a soft buzzing in my ears and I gaped at him. He had mastered Occlumency? What was he trying to hide?

He stared at me too and his eyes slowly narrowed into slits. "You tried to read me?"

"Huh? W-what do you mean?" I tried. Play innocent for as long as possible.

He turned around and looked at the other side of the hallway but it was deserted, except for the two of us. He muttered something what looked like 'Snape' and then he stalked away, with quick paces. He walked towards the other end of the hallway I had came from and he quickly disappeared out of sight again.

"That went well," I muttered to myself and I started to trudge back to the Common Room. Dinner must have already finished and I was right. When I stepped through the wall it was just as crowded as it had been before dinner and I sighed loudly. I didn't feel like reliving the previous afternoon and I ran upstairs as fast as I could.

I burst through the door and dived for my bed when I had found my room.

Daphne looked up from her magazine Teen Witch Weekly and Millicent nearly choked on a chocolate when I ran past them.

"Jenna? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Were you there last night Mill?" Daphne asked Millicent, who looked up surprised while she popped another chocolate in her mouth.

"Was I where with what?" This confirmed my theory off Millicent really sleeping through anything. Even through those terrifying screams I had cried out last night.

Daphne shook her head, thoroughly shocked. "I'm a heavy sleeper," Millicent mumbled, trying to make it sound less odd than it was.

I ignored her and made myself comfortable on top of my green blankets. "I want to fall asleep and never wake up..." I mumbled but the words were muffled by the pillow I had talked into.

"You don't mean that," I heard Jo say all of the sudden and I jumped back up.

"What do you mean? You don't know what I'm going trough at the moment!"

Grinning an annoying grin she shook her head while loosening her tie, which she threw on an already with cloths covered chair. "That everybody is looking at you, you're causing that all by yourself, no one says you have to follow Malfoy like you do," she said airy and Daphne chuckled.

"You followed Draco?" she asked, and more giggling followed. This time even Millicent looked up and she even paused from eating the chocolate which was right in front of her nose.

"No, I was just leaving at the same time as him because I – had to go to the loo!" I protested loudly and Jo only smirked more. "And every time I enter the Common Room people will stare at me like I'm a freaking Chimaera or something!"

"Jut be glad you don't have to go through there again tonight," Jo sighed and she threw her robe somewhere in a corner. Next, she dropped herself on the bed and reached for something that looked like her Potions essay. "I can't believe we still have two more weeks before the Holidays are starting!"

Daphne dropped the magazine on her nightstand. The blonde witch on the front page was smiling broadly while she was being hugged by some guy who looked like a Quidditch player from Puddlemere United.

I wished I could be like that, reading magazines, chatting with my friends and the only things I would lay awake from would be boys and homework instead of some maniac Crucio-ing you in your dreams. Talking about homework, wasn't I supposed to be somewhere tonight?

I shot up again quickly, that quick that Millicent choked herself on another chocolate, and I glanced at my alarm clock, which had fallen under my bed at night. "Shit! I need to go to Snape!"

"Snape? What does he want from you now?"

I gave Jo a look and her mouth formed an 'oh'. "Oh, that!" she grinned sheepishly and I pulled my robe from the floor.

"I'll see all of you tonight!" I yelled at them before leaving the room. I had just been there for ten minutes and I left already. I was late for my weekly appointment with Snape and that wasn't good. He doesn't like it if people turn up late, what did I say? He hates it if people don't show up on time and I was now, officially at least five minutes late.

I ran through the Common Room and into the dark corridors. Left, right, down the stairs, another left. I ran as fast as I could and my surroundings were nothing but a grey blur. Eventually I arrived at Snape's office, in the deepest parts of the dungeons.

I straitened my back and tried to calm down my breathing. After that I took a haste step in the direction of the door, which opened before I could even knock on the wood.

"You are late, Miss Tate," a drawling voice said.

I looked up in a curtain of black, greasy hair and I stuttered something. "I had forgotten."

Snape sighed heavily, which was not like his normal behaviour. He usually would have shouted at me and given me a detention for 'not respecting the rules the teachers make'.

"Sit down." And now he was offering me a seat as well? What was with everyone today? First Malfoy and now Snape... Oh no, Malfoy had told Snape everything!

"Professor, before you get started I would like to say that it was all Malfoys fault! He was pestering me and -"

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I can assure you it has got nothing to do with whatever you were about to share with me."

Could the man get even more mysterious? I sat down in the chair when I noticed he wasn't going to speak before I sat down and he took his place behind the desk one again. With a sweep from his wand I assumed the office was now impossible to eavesdrop and I snickered slightly. Snape had gotten way too suspicious, but in with the surroundings of all the Slytherins in this part of the castle, maybe he had all reasons to be so.

"Professor?" Snape had looked off minded and he awoke from his thoughts when I had called him.

"I thought we had agreed to keep a low profile?"

Oh, it was about that. I looked at my feet and mumbled a "Yes".

"So, can you explain why I have already had two students who think you can do extraordinary things, far beyond the knowing of a seventeen year old?"

I swallowed and tried to look at Snape. He was leaning above his desk and his dark eyes stared at my angrily. "I err -"

"Earlier this year a hysterical Pansy Parkinson arrived at my office yelling at me that you had used magic without using a wand and she claimed the Imperius Curse was used against her."

I groaned at the memory of Pansy.

"And I just received a very unusual visit from young Draco Malfoy," Snape continued and I had a feeling I knew what was to come next. "He said you were trying to read him. Is that correct?"

"I – but he keeps things from me and it was the only way for me to find out what he was doing!" I tried but Snape held up his hand, silencing me.

"Malfoy now knows you're a well practiced Legilimens, which is very unusual for a young witch such as yourself." He looked at me with raised eyebrows and I stared back just as angry.

"If he had just told me what was in the letter, it hadn't been necessary!"

Snape shook his head, laughing and he sat back down in his chair. "That's beside the point, it's about you, learning to control yourself. What do you think will happen when students like Malfoy will owl their parents about it? Hopefully you haven't forgotten his father is a Death Eater? Like Nott's father, who you seem to be on a friendly basis with."

I shook my head and kept silent. What was I to say? All Snape had said was true... "Was that everything?" I asked carefully, hoping we would be finished.

"Not quite," Snape sighed and he rubbed his fingers against his temples. "Dumbledore has spent some time figuring out that dream you had last night."

"And?" I asked, not knowing weather or not I would like the answer.

He placed his hands on top of his desk and he gave me an intense look. "Seeing as you have an – unfortunate – bond with the Dark Lord, he is able to enter your mind when you least expect it, like he does to Potter." He looked at me like he wanted me to tell him why I had been distracted.

I thought hard for a while and I just wanted to hit my head against a wall, repeatedly. My birthday! The days after it I hadn't used any form of Occlumency, let alone practice it. I stared at the floor as I felt my cheeks heat up.

"Precisely what I thought," I heard Snape mutter. "I will assume you will try your best again from now on? Otherwise I will be forced to give you your own room, far away from any distractions your so called friends might cause you."

"It won't happen again, Professor," I mumbled. Words knocked out of my mouth because of my own stupidity. I had made him enter my head all by myself.

"Then, I'm finished for the night. Trying Occlumency has no point right now. Your brains are too distracted." He motioned for the door, which opened again and revealed the dark and cold dungeons.

"I only have one question; does this mean that Vol -" Snape looked at me, "- You-Know-Who is looking for a defect in my mental barriers all day long?"

Snape nodded slowly and my eyes became huge. "But don't be afraid, if we continue our lessons next week I will know for sure I can prepare you for most of it."

"Most of it?" I voiced my thoughts and I swallowed hard.

Snape just nodded with an odd grimace on his face. Obviously, there was something else he had to tell me, but I didn't provoke him. I wasn't feeling like getting a detention today, I could hardly forget the first one I got.

"If you want to leave now," Snape asked and I slowly got up. He didn't look at me while I walked out of the office and the door closed close behind me, I had only just stepped outside.

Frightened and really confused I started walking back towards the Common Room. Somewhere along the way I just couldn't help myself from stumbling down and I slid to the floor against he smooth rocks on the wall. I couldn't do this, there was so much I needed to take care of. I had to close my mind and at the same time I had to make sure I wasn't distracted before I went to sleep.

I shook my head and rubbed my index fingers along my temples, trying to ease the headache that was rising. And then there was Malfoy and his mystery. He had broken my Legilimency, which meant he was good at Occlumency, better than me anyway. I just hoped he wouldn't owl his mother about it...

"Jenna! Hey, Jenna!"

I looked up and groaned when I saw Jo running down the corridors to get to me. She slipped in the wet hallway and she slid towards the place were I was leaning against the wall.

"Where were you? I've been looking all over the place for you!"

"I had a lessons with Snape?" I reminded her.

"Yea, but that doesn't normally take this long, right?" she asked and I gave her a confused look.

"What time is it?" I asked, while slowly getting back on my feet. My legs were heavy and stiff, indicating I had been sitting there for a while now.

"It's half nine, come on!" she pulled me through the corridors while I took a swift glance at my wristwatch. She was right, it had just been nine-thirty. Had I sat on the floor that long?

After almost fifteen whole minutes we arrived at the bare wall, giving entrance to our Common Room and Jo pushed me in. I must have gotten lost while walking back too, fifteen minutes? It was much quieter in the room now and I was forcefully pulled up towards our Dorms.

"So, I thought we better start planning for the Christmas Party."

"Christmas Party?" I mumbled confused and Jo grinned.

"With Blaise?"

"Oh, that party." I gave her a sheepishly look. Right, that party, wait! "The Christmas Party!" I exclaimed and I slid down on my bed groaning. Was there any chance I could get out of it without hurting Blaise's feelings? Me stomach dropped slightly as I thought of how happy he had looked when I had said yes.

"You're going to the Christmas Party with Blaise?" Daphne exclaimed and I forced myself to look happy, but I failed miserably. She squealed in delight and ran towards Jo.

"That's what I thought! And you have to be presentable, Jen. I just know there is going to be a dresscode and as representatives of our House you need something which will fit with Blaise perfectly!"

I groaned slightly and Jo nodded a bit too enthusiastic for my liking, just like Daphne.

"And I looked through your clothes and found out that you don't even have a single dress! But you can always borrow one of mine, but we have to make sure we have the right size and -"

I zoned out when Jo and Daphne started rambling about different kinds of colours and I gazed at the ceiling of my four-poster bed with a fearful look. The thing I was least concerned about was the dress. The party would bring a lot of unwanted distraction with it. I had to get out of it somehow.