Kiya Crelzig was lonely. Not only were classes at Hogwarts difficult, but also she had to deal with the fact that she was disguised as a student who had probably been the most foul-mouthed evil jerk in the whole school.

Draco hadn't had many friends, she found out quickly. Just those two lumbering hulks of flesh, Crabbe and Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson, who was now snubbing Kiya.

In order to avoid Crabbe and Goyle, Kiya spent most of her time between classes at the library. That was one place that the two boys were most likely to avoid.

However, it was also the place where Kiya was most likely to run into Hermione Granger. Obviously, Granger suspected something was up, because Kiya kept catching the Gryffindor staring at her over the tops of textbooks. Kiya wasn't sure whether to leave to avoid Hermione, or to stay and avoid the other Slytherins.

***

Hermione stared at Malfoy over the top of her textbook, and was sure for a minute that the Slytherin was staring back. Then, Malfoy hid his face once again behind a huge book, coincidentally the same one that Hermione was pretending to read.

Hermione was absolutely sure that something was wrong with Malfoy. Maybe Malfoy was changing, just a little bit. He hadn't called her "Mudblood" all year, and he had even held open the library door for her once. Maybe, just maybe, Malfoy wasn't as bad as he seemed.

Of course, when she shared these views with Ron, he heartily disagreed.

"Malfoy? Change? Ha!" Ron shook his head. "Malfoy's a Death Eater just like his dad. He'll never change."

But Hermione was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Malfoy HAD changed.

***
It was Potions class, and to say Harry was not looking forward to it would have been a severe understatement, especially with the double curse of having it with the Slytherins.

Snape spent twenty minutes explaining carefully how to make an enlargement potion, then told them he would be splitting them up into pairs.

Harry stepped closer to Ron and hoped that for once Snape would take it easy on him, but Snape just smiled nastily at him, and pulled him over to be with Malfoy.

Harry watched the blond Slytherin, waiting for the usual evil smirk and rude comments that he usually gave to Harry, but Malfoy seemed to be concentrating on the potion instead of on Harry.

The whole class worked in silence for a few minutes, mixing elephant milk, powdered griffin teeth and other ingredients into their cauldrons.

"Would you pass the aconite?" Harry jerked up and stared at Malfoy.

"What?"

"Please pass the aconite," Malfoy repeated, pointing past Harry at the dish of leaves on Harry's side of the table.

Stunned, Harry slid the bowl over.

"Thanks," Malfoy said, grabbing some of the contents of the bowl and dumping them in.

Harry stared wide-eyed at Malfoy, not believing what he was hearing. ~Maybe Hermione was right,~ he thought to himself. ~Maybe he is changing.~

***
It was late at night, Kiya thought. Actually, it was just really, really early in the morning, but Kiya wasn't paying attention to the clock chiming twice. She was concentrating on sneaking out of the Slytherin common room, and up the stairs to the library. The Slytherin dorm was several floors underneath the school, and the library was on the second story, so Kiya had a long way to go.

Once in the library, after having several near-run-in's with Filch, she started to paw through the copies of the Daily Prophet, and other magical periodicals. The library at Hogwarts had the most complete selection of newspapers and magazines of any library in Europe.

She quickly flipped through the Prophets, until she found one with a very interesting headline. "Let's see, four champions of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, with Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory sharing representation of Hogwarts." She flipped forward a few weeks. "Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter share the lead, and are well prepared for the third and final task in two weeks." And then, several months later, "Tri-Wizards tournament ends in terror, champion rumored dead."

Of course, she knew that Cedric Diggory had died. But none of the papers said what exactly had happened that night that the Hogwarts champion had died. Several newspapers, but not the Daily Prophet, seemed to point to suspicious circumstances surrounding the final dash for the prize. But one thing was for sure: Harry Potter alone knew what exactly had happened that night.

Potter had entered the maze with Diggory. The other two champions were found stunned in the maze, of unknown cause. Potter and Diggory had been sighted by a certain sphinx both heading for the Cup. And then, Potter and Diggory had suddenly reappeared at the prize, but one of them was dead.

Kiya's brows knitted as she considered this, staring hard at the papers in front of her. It sounded like, if anything strange had happened, it had happened in that period of time between Potter and Diggory's disappearance and their reappearance. It also sounded like the only way she was going to find out what happened was to ask Harry himself.

Not the easiest thing to accomplish when she was supposed to be his most hated enemy.


Kiya was still a bit sleepy as she walked down the halls to History of Magic, so she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. She stopped to yawn heavily.

Quite suddenly, someone banged into her so hard that her books flew everywhere. She looked up to see a smaller red-head girl walking down the hallway.

"Hey, watch where you're going, creep!" Kiya called out, then sighed as she bent down to pick up her books.

"I don't care how you want to insult me, Draco Malfoy!" The girl turned around. Kiya seemed to remember someone saying that she was Ron's sister.

"I'm not trying to insult-"

"I don't care what you have to say!" Ginny snapped. "I'm sorry I knocked into you, but I'm in a bad mood, and I could care less what you think, so just shut your trap!"

Kiya felt her temper rise. The combination of too little sleep and too much to think about had made her a bit edgy.

***
Ron slammed the door as he stormed through the halls. He and Ginny had just had a very bitter argument over why he wouldn't let her go to Hogsmeade with him and his friends.
Now he was in a bad mood; and to judge by the way Ginny had stormed off, she was in a bad mood too.

Unfortunately, the next hallway he turned into was the same one Ginny had chosen.

Ron raised his eyebrows at the scene in front of him. Ginny was staring at Malfoy, hands on her hips. Somebody's books were strewn about the floor, and Draco was standing up and opening his mouth to say something.

"Look, you jerk, I didn't ask for you to come barreling into me like a rampaging elephant. Maybe next time you'll watch where you're going!"

Ron felt a surge of protectiveness towards his sister. Even if he was mad at her, he wasn't going to stand there and let Malfoy insult her! He stomped forward, and tapped the blond on the shoulder.

Malfoy turned around, and had a split second to look startled before Ron's fist met his face.
POW!

"Ron!" Ginny squealed in astonishment. "I knocked him over, you didn't have to do that!"

Ron stared down in astonishment at Malfoy, who seemed to be unconscious, then back at his little sister. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.'" Ginny said, but she didn't sound really angry.

"I'm sorry, Gin. I just saw him yelling at you, and I felt like-" Ron pounded his fist into his open hand suggestively. "You're my sister, after all. Can't let creeps like Malfoy bug you."

Ginny hugged him, grinning and crying at the same time.

"C'mon, I'll walk you to class," Ron said, patting her on the back.

Ginny pulled away. "Does that mean I can go to Hogsmeade with you and Harry?"

"No!" Ron snapped, feeling very annoyed until he saw that Ginny was giggling. "We better get going, before we're late for class."

They both stepped over Malfoy's prone body, arms around each other's shoulders.

Malfoy opened his eyes, and sat dizzily up. "What the heck just happened?"