Shortest A/N ever: Thank you for reviewing xXMizz Alec VolturiXx and Irelandlover!

Chapter 38

I've buried it at the bottom of my trunk where I keep all things that shouldn't see the light of day, like the textbook on the Fhoyle Curse. Not that I believe the package belongs in the same category as that particular dark magic item but I don't want either in my line of vision. If I leave it right there, I'll forget about it and I'll never have to see what was in it.

I haven't opened it yet. Nearly 24 hours have passed and it has remained sealed the entire time. Not because I can't open it. I'm sure that I could. There's no magical trace on the package so I know it's not some kind of thing that will explode in my face once I try to open it. I checked. It won't burn my hands or curse me or peel the skin off my fingers but I'm still too fucking chicken to open it anyway. Because I've come to the conclusion that there's only one possibility on what's in there.

It must be everything he owns that reminds him of his past relationship to a very aggressive and frustrating girl who broke his heart two days before Christmas and a letter in which he says how much he hates her. That's what people do to get over someone. They get rid of every tie to this person they don't ever want to see again. I've put my own share of such stuff and everything he ever gave me on the bottom of aforementioned trunk, buried beneath the Fhoyle book and now the package that contains the same. Except for Frye. He needs oxygen. I'm also convinced my own owl would kill me if I accidentally suffocated her little best friend.

"Danny?"

I take a break from glaring at my trunk, angry at it for containing something that makes me feel so frazzled.

"Yeah?" I frown at Fay standing in the doorway of our dorm.

"I asked if you're coming down for breakfast with us?"

"Oh, yeah. Okay."

I get up from my bed and follow her out of the dorm, only to realise in the common room that when she said 'us', she meant her and Kellah. Well, it's not like I can avoid a girl I spend a dorm with anyway.

We walk to the Great Hall in silence. Actually, me and Kellah do it in silence. Fay barely notices the tense atmosphere as she rambles on about some fifth year who looks way older and hotter than you'd suspect. I don't bother trying to remember his name. I'm sure next week, Fay will be obsessed with some other poor guy. At least Kellah has been consistent in her affections for Stebbins, I'll give her that.

"There he is." Fay beams when we're in the Great Hall. "I have to go tell him how great I thought he was yesterday at the Ravenclaw practice. Oh, hey, Darren!"

As the bubbly brunette makes her way over to the Ravenclaw Beater, she bumps into her best friend's boyfriend and either she's really inconsiderate or has no idea something happened between Kellah and Stebbins. Because something clearly did. As he turns towards Fay, he locks eyes with Kellah and instead of smiling and greeting her like I think a proper boyfriend should, he looks very uncomfortable and displeased to see her. He barely looks at her before looking away. By not looking at Kellah, he's forced to look at me and he doesn't seem to be exactly pleased to see me either. He huffs and turns away. Fay just continues to skip in the direction of her new victim.

That was very awkward. I just don't see why I had to experience it that way as well.

"I told him," Kellah softly says to me when she sees me glaring at Stebbins' retreating form. Hey, if he can look at me with such discontent written on his face, the very least I get to do is glare holes through his back.

"How much of it?" I turn to look at the sulking girl standing next to me.

"All of it," She sighs. "He's pretty mad and won't talk to me. Since I told him the whole truth, including where I got that picture from, he's pretty mad at you too."

I just shrug. I don't really care that this guy isn't happy with me at the moment. I don't care about Darren Stebbins so I certainly don't care about his cold shoulder either. But judging by the distraught expression on Kellah's face, I'd say she does. A lot.

Whatever, not my problem.

Kellah goes to sit with Lavender and Parvati now that her best friend has abandoned her to get her flirt on and I go sit with Harry, Granger and Weasley, who are all surprisingly considerate enough to not bring up the package that was delivered yesterday and left me staring into space with a horrified expression on my face for at least twelve minutes. It's not as though I would or could tell them what Cedric had to say, I just don't know myself.

Later, as I make my way from the dorm to the Library and I'm trying very hard not to think on the fact that I shouldn't be thinking about that dreadful package I hope would just go up in smoke, I find myself running into my number one distraction.

"Potter."

I look up to see that the person in front of me is none other than, who else could it be but him, Blaise Zabini. I don't greet him back. Instead I'm just left staring at him. It's Zabini, the guy with hands who can make me turn off my thoughts and worries and anxieties. I definitely need some of that right now.

"What's with the look?"

"I was just thinking," I smirk. "That I would like to visit the seventh floor."

A.k.a. the Room of Requirement. I'm sure he's catching my drift.

"That's pretty far away," He grins back at me. "I know somewhere better."

He nods his head towards the end of the hallway and beckons me to follow him. I do, but I hope we're not going where I think we are.

"Not another broom cupboard, right?" I sigh.

It might have been exciting to do it in such a small space, pushed closely together between the brooms and buckets but in general I do prefer some moving space. I don't see what's wrong with the Room of Requirement, it's not as though it's at the end of the world. For Merlin's sake, we're already on the fifth floor!

"It's not that," He turns to the left. "I've figured out the perfect place for us to get dirty."

He is smiling to himself about some joke only he can understand. I throw him a weirded out look but he doesn't see that as we pass the statue of Boris the Bewildered. I think I might know where we're going.

"Rose Pedals."

As expected, the door right behind the statue opens as soon as Zabini speaks the password. I follow him through the passageway that opens up into the massive space that is the Prefect Bathroom.

I've been to this room two times before, despite me not being a Prefect, Head Girl or Quidditch Captain. It looks exactly as enormous and bright as it was last time I was here. In the middle of the room, sunken into the floor, is the big bath tub with more tabs than there are toilet stalls along the left wall. Zabini closes the door behind me and starts opening up some of the tabs to draw a bath.

"The Prefect Bathroom?" I raise an eyebrow at me.

"Yeah, in case you hadn't noticed yet, we're entitled to be here," He points towards the Prefect badge on the robes he's taking off.

Zabini is a Prefect? How have I not noticed this before? I've taken his clothes off more than enough times though granted, my mind was certainly elsewhere during those encounters.

"What are we doing here?" I scowl at him as he's taking off his shoes now as well.

I thought we were going to have sex. Nothing was said of bathing. Or is this Zabini's elegant way of telling me to put some effort in my hygiene? If so, I will drown him in that bath.

"I thought that was obvious," He rolls his eyes at me before unbuttoning his shirt.

I thought it was too but since I have no idea what we're doing here, clearly we're not exactly on the same page.

When I don't answer him, and he just keeps on undressing, he heaves a sigh and looks at me in exasperation.

"We're taking a bath."

I got that part. Why else would he have opened up the tabs to fill the swimming pool-sized bath with water and bubbles and whatever that purple thing is that's pouring out of the right tab. What I don't get is why. Taking a bath together isn't a typical hook-up. In fact, it seems far too intimate for what me and Zabini are.

"Together?" I frown.

I don't really like an audience when I'm in the shower or taking a bath.

"Yeah." He's completely naked now and I have never been any less in the mood. "Now are you going to take your clothes off as well or do you want me to do it for you?"

I don't like it. I don't like it all and I don't understand exactly why that is until he says those words. I freeze up even more, not at all susceptible to Zabini touching me, when I am abruptly remembered of the first time I was in the Prefect's Bathroom.

Well? Are you coming or do you need some help undressing?

It was right here, that sudden shift in our relationship, where we went from unable-to-label acquaintances to tentative friends though that was probably the biggest deception I ever spun for myself. Where I had been perfectly comfortable in keeping my safe distance, it was sitting side by side in this giant tub that I allowed myself to admit that there's was something even better about getting out of that comfort zone for him.

Right there, where Zabini sits now scowling at me, sat Cedric one year and a half ago, pretending as though there were more interesting things in the room than the half-naked girl in front of him.

"Do you accept my apology?"

He had asked that after he finally convinced me to crawl into the tub with him.

"We needed to get in the bath tub, in our underwear, just so you could ask me if I've forgiven you?"

I had sounded so absolutely outraged, turning my mortification into anger because even if I was still so very deep in denial I didn't even know what the hell this guy was to me, I still wasn't blind. Even back then, I knew how mighty attractive he was.

"No, we got into the bath tub because there's something I need to show you."

"Is it your body?"

I asked, pretending to fear the answer even though I had been checking him out. Just a little.

He only laughed and there's something about that goofy, happy expression on his face that could even draw a smile upon my own face in that moment.

"No, though you are free to look."

He grinned and I blushed and I threatened to walk away but that was a pretty good day. It seems like so long ago now. Has it really only been 1,5 years?

Completely lost in my own musings and my inner trip down memory lane, I don't notice Zabini left the warmth of the bath tub and stands naked in front of me once more, until he starts tugging at my tie and shirt.

"What are you doing?" I take a step back, away from his greedy hands.

"Clearly, you can't recall how to undress so I am forced to do it for you," He snarls. There's definitely nothing sexy about that expression on his face.

"No," I whisper as his hands return to the buttons of my shirt.

I don't want to. My desire to feel Zabini's body against my own melted away like snow as soon as we set foot in this bathroom. Because this place has meant something to me in the past and to make a new, distinctly less significant memory here with Zabini would be like spitting on the precious one.

He doesn't seem to hear me as he pushes his hands underneath my shirt once he has unbuttoned enough of it to latch his mouth onto the curve of my breasts. That usually turns me on, right? But in this moment, it disgust me and I push him away with such force that he nearly tumbles back in the bath tub.

"What the hell?!"

"I said no."

And I was dead serious about it. I cannot, for the life of me, bring myself to touch him in the way I always have. And I definitely don't want Zabini to touch me.

"Seriously?" He sneers? "Since when are you such a prude? You couldn't wait to get me naked a few minutes ago."

The mood has changed drastically since then.

"I said no," I repeat, as strongly as I can when I also feel on the verge of crying tears of frustration.

Zabini still looks like he has plenty of things to say to my refusal but I'm too tired to give him a chance to. Without even bothering to button up my shirt, I turn around and storm out of the Prefect Bathroom.

Being with the Slytherin had been a form of escape, an outlet for my frustration, sexual and otherwise. I've always liked the way it made me feel. Sexy, attractive, desirable and in control. But today is the first time it has made me feel dirty.

It is the first time that being with Zabini, being with anyone really, feels like a betrayal to everything that Cedric was… everything that Cedric still is to me.

The first thing I do when I return to my dorm, after quickly buttoning my shirt behind an armour, is take a very thorough shower. One where I scrub my skin raw until I can finally delude myself into thinking I've managed to erase all of Zabini's touches, today's and all the ones that came before.

I get dressed – definitely not wearing the shirt Zabini unbuttoned 30 minutes ago – before sitting on my bed and staring some more at my closed trunk.

A part of me wants to tear open the package and see what's inside of it. But a bigger part can't take proof of Cedric hating me after just realising I can't ever set foot in the Prefect Bathroom anymore. While we're on that subject, I might as well add Quidditch Pitch, Library and that broom cupboard on the seventh floor to that list as well. Because those are the places where I finally admitted my attraction to Cedric out loud, where I told him I could forgive him anything but adultery and where I told him I loved him for the first time. Crap, why hadn't I realised before that everything in Hogwarts is related to him? I can't go into the Great Hall now with this state of mind because I can pinpoint exactly where he used to sit at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, it was in the hallway in front of the Great Hall where we had our first kiss. Can't set foot in the kitchens anymore either. That's where he told me he couldn't give up on winning my affections just yet. I went to visit him that one time in the Hospital Wing so injuries are out of the question from now on. Damn it, we used to make out in my favourite abandoned potion classroom! I might as well confine myself to my dorm now. Oh, wait, this is where I read and re-read all the letters he send me at the beginning of this year.

"Fuck," I whine to myself.

I don't get too much time to feel bad for myself because all of a sudden, the dorm door bursts open and there stands Granger. Composed, perfect Granger who looks anything but in control right now. I'd blame it on that explosive hair but there's something in that frayed expression on her red face that gives me the idea that there's something going on that I should get worried about as well. Especially when she lays eyes on me and squeaks out my name. What is going on?

"Yeah?" I jump up from my bed, ready to tackle whatever hurdle she's about to reveal to me.

"Have you seen Harry?" She asks me, a bit out of breath from all the worrying she did while coming up the stairs I assume.

"Not since a couple of hours." I've been kind of otherwise occupied. "Why?"

"Ron ran into him about an hour ago, he says. He was soaking wet, and…"

"And what?" I urge her to talk faster, inform me faster.

"There was blood on him."

"B-blood?"

Like bloody-nose kind of blood, as in the beginning of the year. Or as so-many-injuries-I-can't-even-tell-which-ones-are-fatal kind of blood, like at the end of last year, or in my nightmares? Is this a nightmare?

"Ron says he looked okay, but…"

But how okay can he really be when he was covered in blood? She doesn't need to say it. I'm thinking the exact same thing.

"Where is he?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that."

I can! Because Harry handed back the Map to me this morning after leaving the common room in a hurry.

I waste no time in rushing to my trunk, pulling out the Marauder's Map that will tell me where to find my brother and I can judge with my own two eyes if he's really okay.

"I heard," Granger comes to stand next to me while I frantically look for the dot that says 'Harry James Potter'. "It's been going around the castle that Harry and Malfoy duelled in the toilets. According to Parkinson, Malfoy is basically dying in the Hospital Wing."

Well, if Malfoy's dying, then at least Harry isn't. If that's the truth of course. Pansy Parkinson has never really been a reliable source. The only mouth I will believe anything coming from is Harry's. Who is currently in-

"The common room?" I frown at the Map.

I find it a most unlikely place for him to be, whether he's bleeding out or guilty of murder but I'm not going to waste any time wondering why he would be in the common room when I can just run down the stairs and see for myself if the Map is correct.

Which it is. As I rush downstairs, taking nearly three steps at a time, I find myself standing in the common room, face to face with Harry. Who isn't wet, or covered in blood, of seems to have any kind of injuries. Granger didn't make that up, did she?

I'm positive she didn't because the forlorn expression on his face where he sits opposite Weasley and Ginny makes it clear that something is definitely going on.

"Are you okay?" I race to his side to check him over but indeed, just as it appeared on first sight, he doesn't seem to have been physically harmed.

"I'm fine," He says but his attempt at pushing my concerned hands prodding him away is too feeble to convince me of that.

"Weasley said you were covered in blood," I turn around to glare at the idiot who clearly made me freak out when Harry is fine.

"He was," Weasley insists.

"It wasn't mine," He mutters.

"Malfoy's?" Granger guesses when she too takes a seat.

"What happened?" I sigh, anxious to hear the whole story now that I know Harry is relatively alright.

"I saw his name on the map, together with Moaning Myrtle's."

Now, that's the oddest combination ever. Judging by the expression on my brother's face, that was his thought exactly.

"So you went to check it out?" I assume.

"When I got to the bathroom, Malfoy was… crying, I think. And confiding in her, at least that's what it looked like. He caught me and pulled out his wand."

"That's when you duelled?"

"He started the incantation of the Cruciatus Curse and-"

"What?!" I yell.

Malfoy tried to do what?!

"That's not even the worst part," Harry frowns at me, like it's not that big a deal that Malfoy tried to torture him with an Unforgivable.

It is a big deal! This is major! If Malfoy wasn't already dying in the Hospital Wing, I would be going to give him a taste of his own medicine. No one, absolutely no one, fires an Unforgivable at my brother and gets away with it. I'll make sure of that.

"What's the worst part?" Weasley reluctantly asks the question, like he doesn't really want to know what could be worse than an Unforgivable. I'm not so sure I want to know either.

"I used Sectumsempra."

"I don't know that spell," Granger admits after a couple of minutes of silence. Good, because I was starting to think that I should know the spell when clearly I don't. It wouldn't be that weird for Harry to know more advanced magic than me. But so advanced, Granger hasn't even heard of it, that's weird.

"It was written in a foot note in the book of the Half-Blood Prince. I didn't know what it did. It only said 'for enemies'."

"So you used it on Malfoy. What did it do?" I ask.

"He got all these slashes across his body, like he had been cut with a sword. He was bleeding out. If Snape hadn't healed him…"

We all know what would have happened if Snape hadn't healed Malfoy. He'd be dead and my brother would have been a murderer. All the efforts I make to take the heavy burdens off his shoulder would have been for nothing. I can't erase murder. Even if it were Malfoy, he's still a human being.

"Snape got him to the Hospital Wing and then used Legilimency on me to find out where I had learned the spell. He ordered me to get my school books. That's why I asked to borrow your Potions' textbook, Ron. I hid mine in the Room of Requirement before going back to Snape. He gave me detention on every Saturday for the rest of the year. McGonagall agreed, despite the match against Ravenclaw this Saturday."

"I won't say 'I told you so'."

I turn to Granger to glare at her. Seriously? Can't she tell it was an accident and he's already beating himself up for it as well? Not to mention the verbal whip-lashing he must have received from Snape and the other professors. Is this really the time to rub it in his face that she was right?

Fortunately, it's Weasley who snaps at her to leave it alone. Saves me the energy of having to do it myself. My chosen language would have been a bit more colourful of course.

"I told you there was something wrong with that Prince person," She says, seemingly not getting that this is the worst time ever for a lecture. "And I was right, wasn't I?"

"No, I don't think you were," Harry says stubbornly.

Euhm… I'd be the first to jump on an opportunity to tell Granger she's wrong about something but that's really not this one. How can Harry still believe there's nothing shady about this Prince guy when he wrote down such a dark spell? Because I need only listen at the description of the effect to know that Sectumsempra is very dark magic indeed.

"Harry, how can you still stick up for that book when that spell-"

"Will you stop harping on about the book!" Harry snaps. "The Prince only copied it out! It's not like he was advising anyone to use it! For all we know, he was making a note of something that had been used against him!"

"I don't believe this. You're actually defending-"

"I'm not defending what I did," He's quick to say. "I wish I hadn't done it, and not just because I've got about a dozen detentions. You know I wouldn't have used a spell like that, not even on Malfoy, but you can't blame the Prince, he hadn't written 'try this out, it's really good' – he was just making notes for himself, wasn't he, not for anyone else."

"Are you telling me," Granger says. "that you're going to go back-?"

"And get the book? Yeah, I am," Harry doesn't want to listen to any of her objections. "Listen, without the Prince I'd never have won the Felix Felicis, I'd never have known how to save Ron from poisoning, I'd never have-"

"- got a reputation for Potion brilliance you don't deserve," Granger speaks so venomously, I had no idea she was capable of it. Clearly I wasn't the only one bitter about that.

"Give it a rest, Hermione!" Surprisingly it is Ginny who's going in against Granger now. "By the sound of if it Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse, you should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve!"

"Well, of course I'm glad Harry wasn't cursed!" She sounds angry, as though she was just accused of secretly wishing Malfoy had succeeded. "But you can't call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny, look where it's landed him! And I'd have thought, seeing what this has done to your chances in the match-"

"Oh, don't start acting as though you understand Quidditch," Ginny snaps at what I always thought was her friend. "you'll only embarrass yourself."

Harry and Weasley are staring at the two of them with the same dumb-smacked expression as I am. What I am is surprised and conflicted. Granger and Ginny have always gotten along well and seen eye to eye on most things other than Quidditch, even long before me and Ginny became friends. But right now they're staring each other down, clearly both on opposite sides of this argument and it leaves me conflicted on what my stance is supposed to be.

On the one hand, I can clearly see where Ginny's coming from. She's sticking up for Harry, even against someone who she values and thinks highly of. I'm all for siding with my brother, I've never done anything other than that. Except, of course, when he's sabotaging himself and I have to make him see sense. So... go, Ginny! I guess.

But at the same time, Granger is right. I hate admitting that but she definitely is. Perhaps the Half-Blood Prince isn't really evil and he was just making notes for himself. I'm sure Granger would be quick to judge my darker notes to self as well. But whoever this Prince is, knows dark magic and I'm sure Sectumsempra isn't even the worst of it. The only one who knows dark magic and is allowed anywhere near Harry, is me. No one else. I have to get rid of the Prince's influence on my brother. Not because of my own jealousy of Granger's over his sudden competence at Potions but because this Prince is dangerous. Perhaps it's even stupid that it has taken this for me to see it.

"Maybe we should all go and cool off for a while," I suggest when the tension is rising so much it's suffocating me. "Want to go for a walk, Granger?"

"What?" She frowns at me. "Now?"

"Yes, leave Harry to discuss Quidditch strategy with Weasley and Ginny."

Even though I'd love to be involved in that as well, there are more urgent matters to be dealt with than the newly arisen issues for Saturday's game. Like getting rid of the Prince.

Granger doesn't seem to want to go on a stroll but she definitely doesn't want to stay here to bicker with Harry and apparently now Ginny as well. She reluctantly gets up and leaves the common room with me. Harry's fine so I have no issue leaving him alone in the tower. Besides, he's not really alone. I'm sure Weasley and his new protector Ginny will make sure he stays fine until I return.

"Why do you want to go on a walk anyway?" She asks me, not realising there was something of a hidden agenda involved.

"We're not going on a walk," I admit. "We're going to the Room of Requirement and getting that book back."

"What?" She frowns. "You want to give him that book back? How is it that none of you can see-"

"We're not returning the book to Harry. We're making sure he can't go back for it. I heard you in the common room. Loud and clear."

"But you didn't agree with me."

"Granger," I sigh. "I'm on Harry side, always and forever. But sometimes Harry doesn't understand what's good for him, like he doesn't with this book. So in order to keep him safe, from his own stupidity as well, sometimes we need to go behind his back about things. I don't want him anywhere near a book that was written by someone who'd want to use something as vile as Sectumsempra. So let's get that book and get rid of it."

Granger stares at me disbelievingly before nodding and following me to the seventh floor.

"Never thought you and I would ever agree on anything," She admits out loud.

"On the contrary, there's one thing I know I never have to fight you on, despite our differences in approach."

Granger cares about Harry. Her approach of keeping him out of harms' way is more of a know-it-all, mother-hen approach but it serves the same purpose as my own clear-mind, dirty-hands tactic. I might not like her, and I might feel threatened by her presence from time to time but at least this is one person whose intentions I never have to worry about regarding Harry. I wish I could say the same about everyone else.