Once again thank you so much for the support! Thanks to vampire-angel1996, emo-ranch, ninjaa michaela x, for reviewing! And thanks to those who added this to their favorites/alerts! Means a lot to me!
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear, I do not own the Harry Potter franchise...The genius goes to Ms. Rowling. I however own Angeline Jensen.
It was mid-October when the first trip to Hogmeade came along. Angeline thought they should have canceled the entire trip considering that Filch was triple-checking everyone with his Secrecy Sensor. She thought it was an idiotic thing to do...Did it matter if they were smuggling Dark objects out of the school?
Patiently she waited for him to finish searching her with the stupid sensor. Once he was done Angeline began her walk to Hogsmeade, which turned out less than enjoyable. It was frighteningly cold and the wind hit the exposed parts of her face and made it feel numb. For a moment she debated heading back to the school, but decided against it.
Up ahead of her was Crabbe and Goyle without Draco. She hadn't actually talked to Draco since that day in Potions about a month ago. Instead she left him alone as he left her alone only speaking when asking to pass ingredients in Potions. In that time though she saw a change in Draco. A few times she saw him sneak out of the common room with Crabbe and Goyle and returned almost right before classes. Causing him to have unattractive dark rings under his eyes. What did hit matter to her though?
Still it made her curious as she sat in the Three Broomsticks, sipping from her bottle of butterbeer (though she would would have preferred firewhiskey). Sighing she placed her bottle back on the table and watched her surroundings. What Draco Malfoy did and didn't do wasn't her concern. But why did it bother her so much?
"Jensen," Angeline looked up and into the pug face of Pansy Parkinson and behind her Millicent Bulstrode. "Tell me where Draco is." Pansy ordered. Angeline raised an eyebrow, what did she look like? Draco's keeper? Angeline hadn't seen him since breakfast and assumed he was in Hogsmeade like the rest of them.
"What's wrong, Parkinson? He finally given you the slip?" Angeline asked instead. "Afraid he'd fine someone a lot prettier than you...which isn't hard considering you look like a troll." Angeline smirked at Pansy's reddening face.
"You're just jealous!" Pansy screamed at her. Angeline only smiled more as people started to stare in their direction. "What are you smiling at? You know it's true! You've been trying to take, Draco away from me since the train ride. You want him!" Angeline scoffed.
"People aren't objects, Pansy." she said. "I don't want, Draco, you annoying dog. And I definitely don't want to take him away from you...because quite frankly you don't have him now do you?"
Pansy pulled out her wand. Angeline's hand twitched to the wand in her own pocket. "How dare you try and embarrass me?" Angeline shrugged as more people stared.
"Oh you didn't need me for that," Angeline said still smiling. "Take a look around." Pansy did and if possible her face reddened even more. She let out a frustrated growl as she stowed away her wand.
"Stay away from, Draco," Pansy snapped turning on her heel. "Come on, Millicent!" she barked heading to the door. Angeline watched them leave thinking that one day she'll end up attacking Parkinson. Let's see her point her wand at her again, Angeline may retaliate.
Angeline's attention went to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they entered the Three Broomsticks. It was very evident that Harry had been upset about something, but Angeline didn't find it of any interest to pay any attention to their conversation. Mainly because she wasn't in hearing distance.
After finishing the last of her butterbeer Angeline gathered her things and left the pub, Katie Bell and her friend Leanne only a moment behind her. Angeline felt as though this trip to Hogsmeade was a downer, nothing exciting had happened.
Behind her she could hear Katie and Leanne arguing over something but she was too cold to really care about what they were arguing about. Besides it wasn't any of her business.
Angeline froze in mid-step as she heard a terrible scream behind her. She whipped around to see Katie suspended six feet off the ground screaming in terrible anguish. Katie continued to scream and Leanne screamed too and seized Katie's ankles, trying to tug her back to the ground. Angeline rushed back to them just as Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed forward. Katie fell on top of them; Harry and Ron managed to catch her but she was writhing so much they could hardly hold her. Instead they lowered her to the ground where she thrashed and screamed, apparently unable to recognize any of them.
"Stay there!" Harry shouted at them all. "I'm going for help!" Angeline watched him sprint in the direction of the school. At the moment she dropped to the slushy ground next to Katie placing Katie's head on her lap to try to keep Katie from hitting her head on possible rocks beneath the slush.
"It's going to be okay," Angeline said as Katie continued to whither and scream in pain.
Ron, Hermione, and Leanne tried their best to get the girl to quiet down. Angeline looked around and sighed in relief when she saw Harry and Hagrid running toward them.
"Get back!" shouted Hagrid. "Lemme see her!" as gently she could Angeline laid Katie's head back on the ground and backed away from the girl.
"Something's happened to her!" sobbed Leanne. "I don't know what —"
Hagrid stared at Katie for a second, then without a word, bent down, scooped her into his arms, and ran off toward the castle. Within seconds, Katie's piercing screams had died away and the only sound was the roar of the wind.
Angeline stood there shaken, as Hermione hurried over to Katie's friend to put an arm around her.
"It's Leanne, isn't it?"
Leanne nodded.
"Did it just happen all of a sudden, or—?"
"It was when that package tore," sobbed Leanne, pointing at the now sodden brown-paper package on the ground, which had split open to reveal a greenish glitter. Ron bent down, his hand outstretched, but Harry seized his arm and pulled him back.
"Don't touch it!" Harry said crouching down next to the package.
Angeline walked closer to look at the package as well. An ornate opal necklace was visible, poking out of the paper.
"I've seen that before," said Harry, staring at the thing. "It was on displayed in Borgin and Burkes ages ago. The label said it was cursed. Katie must have touched it." He looked up at Leanne, who had started to shake uncontrollably. "How did Katie get hold of this?"
"Well, that's why we were arguing. She came back from the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks holding it, said it was a surprise for somebody at Hogwarts and she had to deliver it. She looked all funny when she said it....Oh no, oh no, I bet she'd been Imperiused and I didn't realize!"
Leanne shook with renewed sobs. Hermione patted her shoulder gently.
"She didn't say who'd given it to her, Leanne?"
"No...she wouldn't tell me...and I said she was being stupid and not to take it up to the school, but she just wouldn't listen and...and then I tried to grab it from her...and— and —"
Leanne let out a wail of despair and Angeline felt bad for the girl...her friend could die...
"We'd better get up to school," said Hermione, her arm still around Leanne. "We'll be able to find out how she is. Come on...."
Angeline watched Harry hesitate for a moment, then pull off his scarf and carefully covered the necklace in it and picked it up.
"We'll need to show this to Madam Pomfrey," he said. He and Ron began to follow after Hermione and Leanne when Ron stopped muttered something to Harry before he turned around to look at Angeline as she just stood there still shaken. Harry stopped too and looked back at her as well.
"They'll want to talk to you too...So are you coming or what?" Ron asked her not very kind, Angeline noted. Angeline blinked a few times before walking toward the two Gryffindors. It was obvious to her that he was reluctant to call to her. After all she was was just a lonely snake in a pack of lions.
The three of them continued to follow Hermione and Leanne up the road, in mostly silence. It wasn't until they had reached the school grounds when one of them spoke.
"Malfoy knows about this necklace. It was in a case at Borgin and Burkes four years ago, I saw him having a good look at it while I was hiding from him and his dad. This is what he was buying that day when we followed him! He remembered it and he went back for it!"
Angeline shot Harry a look, he spoke as though she wasn't even there, as though she wasn't a member of Malfoy's house.
"That's absurd, Potter," Angeline snapped at him. "Anyone could have bought that necklace!" she said. "Besides what are you doing following, Malfoy?" Harry stared at her for a moment before looking at Ron, who looked just as shocked.
"I — I dunno, Harry, she has a point," said Ron hesitantly and a little annoyed that he was agree with a Slytherin. "Loads of people go to Borgin and Burkes...and didn't that girl say Katie got it in the girls' bathroom?"
"She said she came back from the bathroom with it, she didn't necessarily get it in the bathroom itself—"
"McGonagall!" said Ron warningly.
The three of them looked up at Professor McGonagall hurrying down the stone steps through swirling sleet to meet them.
"Hagrid says you five saw what happened to Katie Bell— upstairs to my office at one, please! What's that your holding, Potter?" Angeline wanted to correct her, she had only saw Katie Bell screaming in the air...
"It's the thing she touched," said Harry.
"Good lord," said Professor McGonagall, looking alarmed as she took the necklace from Harry. "No, no, Filch, they're with me!" she added hastily, as Filch came shuffling eagerly across the entrance hall holding his Secrecy Sensor aloft. "Take this necklace to Professor Snape at once, but be sure not to touch it, keep it wrapped in that scarf!"
Along with the others Angeline followed Professor McGonagall upstairs and into her office, it wasn't like Angeline had, had much of a choice in the matter, she was dragged into something just because she tried to help...she didn't actually see what happen only that Katie screamed and was suspended in the air. She was of no use to them...not that they would accept that answer.
Upon entering the room, they were reunited with Hermione and Leanne who was still sobbing.
"Well?" she said sharply. "What happened?"
Haltingly, and with many pauses while she attempted to control her crying, Leanne told Professor McGonagall what had happened. When she got to the part about the argument, Leanne was so overcome, there was no getting another word out of her.
"All right," said Professor McGonagall, not unkindly, "go up to the hospital wing, please, Leanne, and get Madam Pomfrey to give you something for shock."
When she had left the room, Professor McGonagall turned back to the remaining four. Angeline was hoping she'd be dismissed as well, she was really useless in this.
"What happened when Katie touched the necklace?" Angeline gave an audible sigh, in attempt say she didn't know what happened and could she be excuse. But unfortunately things didn't go the way she wanted them to.
"She rose up in the air," said Harry, before anyone else could speak, "and then began to scream, and collapsed. Professor, can I see Professor Dumbledore, please?"
"The headmaster is away until Monday, Potter," said Professor McGonagall, looking surprised.
"Away?" Harry repeated angrily.
"Yes, Potter, away!" said Professor McGonagall tartly. "But anything you have to say about this horrible business can be said to me, I'm sure!"
Angeline found herself hoping he didn't say that absurd idea of his. It was ridiculous, Draco may be an annoying git a times and a bully, but to give someone a cursed necklace was just...It was stupid!
"I think Draco Malfoy gave Katie that necklace, Professor."
On one side of him, Ron rubbed his nose in apparent embarrassment; on the other, Hermione shuffled her feet as though quite keen to put a bit of distance between herself and Harry. Angeline who stood on Ron's other side turned and glared at him.
"There you go again, Potter!" she said. "What's wrong with you? You can't just go around saying things like that! I don't care who you are!"
"Miss Jensen, please," McGonagall said. Angeline turned back around and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "That is a very serious accusation, Potter," she said after another moment had passed. "Do you have any proof?"
"No," said Harry, "but..." and he told her about following Malfoy to Borgin and Burkes and the conversation they had overheard between him and Mr. Borgin. It was official in Angeline's eyes, Harry Potter was mental...Yes, she was all keen on him fighting You-Know-Who, but The-Boy-Who-Lived was mental...then again, you had to be to go up against the darkest wizard of their time.
When he had finished speaking, Professor McGonagall looked slightly confused.
"Completely mental..." Angeline said a little louder than intended.
"Miss Jensen," Professor McGonagall said warningly before looking at Harry again. "Malfoy took something to Borgin and Burkes for repair?"
"No, Professor, he just wanted Borgin to tell him how to mend something, he didn't have it with him. But that's not the point, the thing is that he bought something at the same time, and I think it was that necklace—"
"You saw Malfoy leaving the shop with a similar package?"
"No, Professor, he told Borgin to keep it in the shop for him—"
"But Harry," Hermione interrupted, "Borgin asked him if he wanted to take it with him, and Malfoy said no—"
"Because he didn't want to touch it, obviously!" said Harry angrily.
"Oh God," Angeline muttered in disbelief. He should just leave well enough alone.
"What he actually said was, 'How would I look carrying that down the street?'" said Hermione.
"Well, he would look a bit of a prat carrying a necklace," interjected Ron. Angeline rolled her eyes...and here she thought things couldn't get any more ridiculous...At the very moment she'd believe anything, Granger said. She was right about everything else.
"Oh, Ron," said Hermione despairingly, "it would be all wrapped up, so he wouldn't have to touch it, and quite easy to hide inside a cloak, so nobody would see it! I think whatever he reserved at Borgin and Burkes was noisy or bulky, something he knew would draw attention to him if he carried it down the street— and in any case," she pressed on loudly, before Harry could interrupt, "I asked Borgin about the necklace, don't you remember? When I went in to try and find out what Malfoy had asked him to keep, I say it there. And Borgin just told me the price, he didn't say it was already sold or anything—"
"May I leave, Professor?" Angeline said trying to get out of this room before she did something to Potter...he wasn't winning this silly argument. Unfortunately she went unheard.
"Well, you were being really obvious, he realized what you were up to within about five seconds, of course he wasn't going to tell you— anyway, Malfoy could've sent off for it since—"
"That's enough!" said Professor McGonagall, as Hermione opened her mouth to retort, looking furious. "Potter, I appreciate you telling me this, but we cannot point the finger of blame at Mr. Malfoy purely because he visited the shop where this necklace might have been purchased. The same is probably true of hundreds of people—"
"—that's what I said—" muttered Ron.
"—and in any case, we have put stringent security measures in place this year. I do not believe that necklace can possible have entered this school without our knowledge—"
"But—"
"—and what is more," said Professor McGonagall, with an air of awful finality, "Mr. Malfoy was not in Hogsmeade today."
Angeline couldn't stop herself from smirking as Harry gaped at McGonagall. Sure she assumed, Draco was in Hogmeade, but now she felt better about defending him earlier.
"How do you know, Professor?" Angeline rolled her eyes, he just won't stop will he...
"Because he was doing detention with me. He has now failed to complete his Tranfiguration homework twice in a row. So, thank you for telling me your suspicions, Potter," she said as she marched past them, "but I need to go up to the hospital wing now to check on Katie Bell. Good day to you all."
She held open her office door. They had no choice but to file past her without another word. Not that Angeline minded, she didn't understand why she wasn't dismissed to begin with.
She moved her way around the three Gryffindors before Hermione called out to her.
"Um, Angeline?" Angeline turned to look at the girl with a raised eyebrow. "You won't tell will you?"
"Tell what? How you three stalked, Malfoy?" Hermione reddened slightly. Angeline just shrugged her shoulders. "Word of advice, you shouldn't talk so much if you're afraid people may...spread the word." she told them before turning on her heel and walking away from them.
By the time night came around, the story of what had happened to Katie Bell had gotten around to person to person. Of course the story was different depending who was telling it. Angeline highly doubted that anyone other than those there knew what the true story was.
It was extremely late when Angeline sat in the Slytherin common room. No one else was awake so she found it relatively peaceful if not haunting. It made her wonder if other common rooms had that feeling to them at night.
Angeline laid across the dark green leather sofa while she stared into the fire, lost in her own thoughts. She thought about her parents, and how much she hated them. She thought about why she was placed into Slytherin. She thought about Potter and how he was so certain that Draco had given Katie that necklace. She thought about Katie and how much pain she had been in. She even thought about Draco and how there was something off about him.
She jumped when she heard the entrance to the common room open. Sneaking into the common room was Draco along with Crabbe and Goyle...though those two idiots looked a little dumber than usual.
Draco froze when he noticed her sitting in front of the fire.
"What are you doing up?" He asked as he motioned for Crabbe and Goyle to head to the bedrooms.
"Should be asking you the same thing," Angeline said once the two buffoons were gone. "Had a bit of trouble sleeping is all." She answered as he walked toward the sofa she was sitting on. Feeling kind she pulled her legs up to her chest, hugging them.
Draco sat down and began to stare into the fire like she had been doing moments before he entered. Angeline rested her head on her knees as she studied his stressed face.
"What have you been up to?" She asked casually.
"I don't think that's any of your business," Draco said meeting her gaze.
"True," she said, "Katie Bell was cursed today," Angeline said trying to change the subject.
"So, I've heard," he said looking back at the fire.
"No shocker there, nothing around here stays quiet for long. It was really frightening though...never seen anything like it." Draco's head snapped in her direction.
"You were there?" he asked.
"Yeah, I was...I had been up ahead of them when I heard her scream...It was horrifying." Draco only looked away again. "Potter, claims you gave Bell the necklace," Draco tensed when she said this, but he refused to look at her.
"And what gave him that idea?" Angeline shrugged. She wasn't going to tell him they followed him to Borgin and Burkes, she had some respect for the Gryffindors...just some.
"Who knows, you two are what? Sworn enemies...but personally, I think he's mental..." she said. "I mean it's completely absurd, you may be a prick, but you're not evil...At least I don't think you are." Angeline felt as though she had said to much, because he looked at her again.
"And what makes you think I'm not?" he asked.
"Malfoy, do you think you're evil?" she inquired.
"I don't know what I think anymore," Draco said. It was Angeline's turn to look away from him.
"You are what you want others to believe you are, but I'm sure you'll figure it out sooner or later..." Angeline said after a few moments had passed. She stood from the couch and stretched with a small yawn. "Well, I'm off to bed....I suggest you do the same, you seem really stressed, a little sleep may help your troubles." she said heading toward the dorms.
"I highly doubt that," Draco mumbled.
"What was that?" Angeline asked turning back around.
"Nothing," he answered. Angeline nodded more to herself than at him as she turned again, but she stopped once again and faced the back of his head.
"Um, Malfoy..." Draco turned around on the sofa to look at her. "I have to say; it was interesting talking to you..." she paused, "Good night, Draco." Finally satisfied she turned around and disappeared down the dark corridors filled with dorms.
Draco slowly turned back around to face the fire. He wasn't sure how long he sat there staring at it, he had far too much on his mind. He didn't understand why he actually talked with Angeline nor did he understand why she actually found their conversation interesting it wasn't like he gave her reason to find him as such. He didn't understand why he found her interesting either. He definitely didn't understand how he was going to pull off what he had to do...everything was starting to seem useless.
Running a hand through his hair, Draco stood up from the couch. Bringing out his wand he doused the fire and slowly trekked his way to his dorm...hoping to get the sleep he knew he wasn't going to get.
Well, that's that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
I'm curious what you guys think. =) So leave a review!
Oh and one more thing...do you want this story to be a Draco/OC romance? Because even though I planned for a friendship fic...I feel like it's not going to go that way. Hm, let me know!
Mischief Managed,
TwilightRaver