The first few days passed in an unorganised whirlwind for Drusilla, who more often than not had her timetable somewhat messed up and had to rely on Hermione to get her to the day's classes. And if it was not bad enough that Hermione had this uncanny tendency to launch into a long and utterly boring lecture on how important it was to have a semblance of order in one's life, she had to put up with her talks about Ron. Well, the Ron part wasn't so bad, come to think about it. But it always seemed like Drusilla needed a reason to accept Ron as Herm's new boyfriend or something.

Annoying, really. But sweet in a way. She did not know Hermione cared so much for him. It had seemed as if, during the times they'd been together and the things that they'd been through, they had reached a new level in their relationship that not only seemed to bind them physically together--out of the gutter, brain!--but spiritually as well.

It was really sweet to see Ron's or Hermione's eyes light up visibly when the other was near, the way they feigned bickering--or really quarrelled--as an excuse to find somewhere to make up in. It was so sweet the way he would drag Harry--most likely, since he was always with him--to wait outside their classes and walk Hermione to the next destination, under the excuse that he had something to ask her. It was sweet that he remembered her birthday and sent her little gifts that Hermione would proudly put on her dresser back at home. Sometimes, it was so sweet that it was sickening.

She was jealous, she realized. Jealous of the warmth and the unconditional care that they showed for each other, jealous of the simple, knowing warmth shared exclusively between the two of them that seemed to have closed itself to her, as if taunting her that she would never in her wildest dreams ever experience something like that. You are not good enough. Drusilla had forced herself not to think about this for so long now, and here it was biting at her, gnawing at her heart.

She'd never really changed, not really. All she had done was run away from the problems, assume a new face and a new life. That was all she did. All I could do.

Samuel Fontaine and the Lady Morwen--her father and mother--had affected her so much more than that. It all ran deeper, right down to the crevices in her soul, where their blackness was etched there and simply refused to leave. She had raged silently on countless sleepless nights, cursed that she was their flesh and blood. Spawn of their rotten flesh and black blood. She hated that she had been forced to see the suffering inflicted by the Death Eaters onto Muggles and the wizards who dared to go against them.

You have a new life now, something told her. Move on.

Move on...

"Move it, vermin." Came an all-too-familiar snarl. Someone--a very familiar someone--brushed past her rudely, and from the flash of slicked-back white blonde hair, Drusilla knew who it was.

Malfoy. She scowled, her eyes darkening. Half the reason she was scowling was because of the strange flutter in her stomach when her mind spoke his name, and the other half was because he had obviously moved on to his next insult for the two of them. He barely looked at her, as he and his two other bonehead cronies, Crabbe and Goyle swaggered down the corridor as if they owned it.

"Just what I needed," Hermione said darkly, staring after them. "A new nickname and an up-close and personal moment with Ferret Boy."

Oh, you don't know up-close and personal, Drusilla thought before she could stop herself. The unwelcome imagery of his lips roughly pressing on hers was annoying, much less to say that a tell-tale flush was beginning to spread on her cheeks. Well, at least he served to take her mind away from her maudlin thoughts. It was strange to see that he was back to his old, arrogant, and irritating self again, strutting the halls and picking on students who were not from Slytherin.

Her, in particular.

He did not seem to have remembered the kiss that other night, and even if he did, she reckoned that he was doing a very good job of concealing it. Maybe he woke up and realized that it was a mistake, but it still did not explain away the flicker of feeling she had seen when the barriers within his cold gray eyes fell for just a moment, and allowed her to see into him. Well, a little deeper, anyway.

Why am I even thinking about him? Strange how all her thoughts seemed to revolve around him these days. Especially when they would lock gazes with each other in the Great Hall. His eyes would wander over to her table--for some reason or another--and she would notice. And that would begin their competition, to see who would look away first.

To her disgust, she was always the one who pulled away first. His eyes then had held an uncharacteristic intensity that made it difficult for her to look into them for too long. Then, satisfied that he won the contest, his face would curl up in a familiar sneer. A cute sneer that looked so good on him... she could always feel the heat, the unspoken...passion between them, and from the faint look in his eyes, she knew he felt it too. It had never died away, liked she had so desperately hoped, but merely reduced to flickering embers that raged to flame again when they were stoked. Namely, the staring competition.

Oh God. He was ignoring her when anyone else was around as usual and here she was lusting over him like a hormonally-charged maniac. She was impressed with his ability to hold it in, and decided that she would do the same. He was a bloody Malfoy, for Heaven's sake!

"You're spacing out again." Hermione accused, peering at her. "What's wrong, Dru?"

She was about to reply when a searing pain shot through her head like a bullet, red-hot in its intensity and fury. She cried out and her hands flew to her head, her quills, parchments, and books scattered on the floor with a loud noise. It was sharp and direct, and something slammed into her mind, seething and searching.

It was an eye.

A gigantic eye wreathed in infernal flame, large and all-seeing. It seemed to mark itself into her and draw out her breath, leaving her without oxygen. It raised sharp daggers and stabbed them into her mind, causing her to scream in pain even as her mind writhed in pure agony.

The Eye was furious, and it directed its wrath onto her.

Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazgthrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.. it promised, dredging itself even harder, forcing her to listen. And she realized she understood the tongue.

The Black Tongue.

This was Sauron.

Unable to take the pain anymore, her world faded to a peaceful, painless nothingness.

***

"Drusilla!" Hermione desperately tried to shake the other girl awake, her mind racing with fear and worry. Drusilla had passed out after squirming and screaming. She had seemed to be in pain; Hermione could see it through the contortions of her face, and the intensity which she grabbed her head. Someone, or something--she realized with a cold chill--was doing some sort of curse on her. It was the only thing she could think of.

The visions, her mind whispered, and she frowned. It could not possibly be the visions, could it? This was too...intense, to painful, and as far as she knew, visions weren't supposed to be like that.

And that worried her even more.

Hermione knelt down beside her and put a shaking hand to her throat, feeling for a pulse. Thank goodness she was still alive. She shook Drusilla again, this time a little more gently. "Drusilla, wake up!"

She was about to look for help when someone pushed past her roughly. "Make way, Mudblood." Came the harsh voice.

It was Malfoy, and Hermione stared at him in shock as he leaned over and picked her up as if she was the lightest thing in the world. He glared at her, his scowl firmly in place, his silver eyes bleak and cold as usual. Yet, there was a strange tinge to it, something she couldn't place... "Well? Are you going to stand there and stare?"

Why is Malfoy helping her? She wondered, but then shook herself. This was not the time. She got to her feet and was about to demand an answer to her unspoken question when he spun on his heel and swept away, with the other girl firmly in his arms. She forced herself not to think about how she hung in his arms as if she was dead.

This was getting stranger and stranger.

***

The first thing Drusilla felt upon awakening was pain.

Lots of pain.

"Urgh..." she croaked, her throat dry and chapped, and the throbbing at the back of her head refused to go away. It clamped to the back of her head like a baby alien, and it hurt to even think. As her eyes focused, she saw Hermione, Harry, and Ron at her bedside, all looking really worried.

"How do you feel?" Harry was the first one to ask as Hermione handed her a glass of orange liquid.

He helped prop the fluffy and downy pillows so that she could sit up more comfortably. She almost threw up when her head was raised, but pushed down the feeling of dizziness. She took the glass gratefully and drank down the contents, which was surprisingly sweet and refreshing, and felt so much better. The pain receded a little, at least. "Yes." she said slowly

"What happened?" Hermione questioned, taking back the glass once it was drained and filling another glass, this time with plain water, for her on standby in case she needed it.

"I had a vision." she said slowly, not looking at them. "A really strong one. And I think it saw me too. It was so...so angry." she shuddered at the memory of it, but quickly mastered herself, although she couldn't quite conceal the shaking of her hands. "It was so painful, like needles stabbing into your brain."

"What did you see, Dru?" Hermione leaned forward, the revelation that she indeed had had a vision was scaring her a little. Did all visions come this painful?

"An Eye. I saw a giant Eye with flames around it." Come to think of it, the Eye did not look remotely human, and that was what scared her. It reminded her of a giant, malevolent cat's eye.

"What do you suppose it means?" Ron was clueless, glad that it was not spiders this time. He'd had had enough of spiders to last him several lifetimes, thank you very much.

"I don't know." she mumbled. It would not do to tell them about what she knew.

Harry saw through her immediately, and his eyes darkened. "Tell us, Dru. We're your friends, we won't run away." I won't run away, he added silently, watching her pale face slowly regain some of its colour as she looked up at him with those enchanting blue eyes that only she could possess. It spoke volumes to him now, and he caught his breath.

"You all know my mother was not from here." she said in a voice so soft that they strained it hear. It was clear that this was taking alot out of her, and for once, uncertainty at how they would take this glimmered in her eyes. She had consciously tried not to remind them how different she was, but now, it was all coming out. Like dust swept under the carpet, it all was coming back to her. "She's from a place called Middle-Earth. Another dimension, if you will. And in that world, there was a Dark Lord."

"Like Voldemort." Harry realized, knowing what it was going to lead to. It seemed like no matter which dimension it was, which world it was, there was bound to be an evil being within.

She glanced up at him, then turned away again, this time choosing to stare out of the windows where sunlight was still streaming in. "My mother said that Sauron once had this ring, thousands and thousands of years ago. He used it to control the free peoples of Middle-Earth. In it was poured his malice, his evil, and his will to dominate." she rubbed her arms and paled a little at the memory. "In short, there was a huge war, an alliance of some kind between the race of Men and Elves to stop him from taking over the lands and filling it with his terrors. Sauron was killed and his ring taken from him. But of course, the guy wasn't really dead, because his essence was still within the ring, called the One Ring. And of course, there were some who were in an alliance with Sauron, who wanted him restored to power." she paused for a long moment. "My mother was one of them."

"I thought your kind of Elves were supposed to be kind and nature-loving and everything." Ron frowned, looking confused. Drusilla had not spoken much about her mother, and he was under the impression that she was--at the very least--not as evil as her father. It did not occur to him that she was one of the evil ones.

'My mother was different." she clenched and unclenched her fists, valiantly trying not to look them in the eye. What would they think of her now? Would they run away? Would they stare at her in the same accusing manner as they stared at Death Eaters? "She was Sauron's daughter."

This time, the silence was a long one.

"Tha-that makes you his granddaughter?" Ron squeaked, his eyes wide.

Drusilla smiled bitterly. That was nothing to be proud of. "It's a curse." she said softly.

Harry was the first to get his bearings. "Well." he cleared his throat. "That makes your mother thousands of years old."

"We are immortal." she reminded him delicately, not wanting to think about the day when her friends would grow old and die while she looked as young as ever. It was a horrible fate to be able to live forever.

"I know." There was something unreadable in his eyes, and he looked straight at her.

She did not break the gaze. "I guess you've all got a reason to hate me now." she said miserably. "I'm not as good as you think I am."

"Your heritage is black," Harry reminded her. "Not you. You got sorted into Gryffindor, and that's something." He paused. "What about your vision?"

"It's called the Eye of Sauron," she told them, remembering how her mother had told her stories. Her mother had always told her the stories of her home in the dying candlelight, where the shadows seemed to be waiting to snatch at them, to claim them as one of their own. "When he...perished. All that was left of him was an Eye. The One Ring must've been found." Then she remembered something. "And remember the vision I had when we were back at Hermione's place? I believe those were the Nazgul."

"Nazgul?"

She sighed. "They were once men. Kings who desired power above all things. Sauron lied to them, and turned them into the things that they were, the Black Riders. They were bound to search for the Ring." She hoped she was right.

"It sounds strange," Ron said, frowning. "Why would you suddenly get these visions?"

"I don't know." she put a hand to her forehead. "I really have no idea. Maybe it's because I'm from Middle-Earth. Maybe the visions are just reminding me that I'm from that place."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Harry said, trying to be comforting. "I mean, what can you do?"

I can go back, she thought silently, the thought of the place where she belonged being in danger was tugging at her heart. It seemed to be beckoning to her somehow, and she was confused. Harry was right. Even if she could go, what could she do? She wasn't a good witch, not by far, considering she was as bad as Longbottom and was hard-pressed, sometimes, as to why Harry and the others decided to take her in as their good friend. So what exactly, was she able to do there?

Nothing. Then she frowned, remembering something she had forgotten to ask. "Who brought me here?"

The three of them hesitated for a moment, as if unsure if they could tell her.

"Um. It was Malfoy." Hermione replied, her face unreadable.

"What?!" The glass stopped halfway to her lips, and she stared at them, shocked. Him, of all people?

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "He's an odd git, that one. Wonder how he heard you all the way down the corridor."

"Must've been lurking somewhere in the back," Ron spat. "He's always up to no good."

"Strange, though." Hermione said thoughtfully, looking at Drusilla. "He seemed pretty worried about you when you passed out." She skipped out the part where he called her a Mudblood, knowing that Ron would threaten to throttle him again. "Hah. That was so strange, seeing Malfoy having different expressions instead of disdainful and sneering."

Breaking the almost knowing gaze, Drusilla hurriedly drank down the contents, not wanting them to see her with a red face. "I-I'm sure it's nothing. I mean, he was pretty close by at that time, and I was screaming like no tomorrow." she hesitated, trying to curb the warm flow of feelings through her body. "It was pretty decent of him, though."

"Decent and Malfoy do not belong in the same novel." Ron snapped. "I bet he's just looking for suitable blackmail material. I mean, how bad can your luck get?"

Drusilla supposed she couldn't blame him for belittling Malfoy like that, since Malfoy had tormented and mocked all of them on a regular basis. But still, there was a strange little prod at the back of her mind that tried to propel her to defend him. The visions are getting to me, she thought soberly. Now I'm losing my mind more than ever. Defend Malfoy?

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey announced at the other end of the hospital wing, her features settling into a righteous frown and hands firmly planted on her hips. "Time's up! Don't disturb the patient, and please next time limit yourself to two people only!"

"Get some rest," Ron told her.

"I'll bring your homework for you," Hermione, being a chronic workaholic, promised.

"We'll come to see you soon, Drusilla." Harry promised her with a small smile and a gentle squeeze on her hand before he followed Hermione and Ron out. "Bye."

"Bye." She called after them, feeling a slight ache of emptiness at their departure. It was when they were around her that she felt truly...in the world, she supposed. They made her feel less alone.

"Now, now, Miss Fontaine," Madam Pomfrey said, bustling around her and forcing her to lie down. "You've had had a difficult day today, and you should get more rest!" She placed an uneven slab of chocolate on the table next to her. "Eat this later," she instructed. "And sleep now!"

Great, Drusilla grimaced as she sank down into the soft bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Madam Pomfrey thinks I've lost my mind.

***

It was already dark, and lights-out was long over. Now, the hallways were eerily silent and devoid of any human being. Well, maybe except Filch, that is. But Draco had already checked that Filch would not be patrolling this wing of the school until an hour or so later.

As silently as he could, he slipped out of the dungeons and made his way to the hospital wing, marvelling at himself for doing so. Draco Malfoy had never visited anyone in the hospital room at all, not even Crabbe and Goyle had that honor while they were injured, and this was new to him.

New and unnerving.

But he had to see Drusilla. He had to see her, to see that she was all right, for sleep to be able to come easily to him. From the fiasco this morning, deep down, he was right glad that he had been there when she passed out. He didn't even bother with Mudblood Granger when he rushed her into the Hospital wing. And then and there, Mudblood, Potty, and the Weasel could not get rid of him fast enough, and so, to his pride, he slung a few well-placed--and totally unruffled--insults and left, giving them the impression that he was all too happy to do so, though deep inside, he was worried for her, and never wanted to leave, for fear that something might happen to her again. And this time, he would not be there.

Hah. If any of the feelings that he'd been having for House-Elf Fontaine were to get out, he would never live this down. Draco broke hearts as easily as changing his clothes, and what would they say if they saw him sneaking down to see the one girl the Slytherins hated more than Potter himself? His reputation would go down the drain in a flash, and the barrier he had erected between himself and the others would be broken. Everyone would know that he was not as tough as he made himself--forced himself to be.

But Drusilla was different, more different than what he'd made her out to be. She was a turncoat, a snivelling traitor--everyone was under the impression that she spurned Slytherin of her own accord to join Gryffindor--the house of senselessly brave idiots who could do no wrong--made more unforgivable when her father and her ancestors in general were from Slytherin. It didn't make sense, once you thought about it, but it was the way it was.

Drusilla, though almost being a Squib, was not a coward, he quickly found out. She had dark blood in her, but she was human. She had a soul.

She had a heart.

The girls who threw themselves at him were simpering morons who seemed to think that he liked them frail and helpless and non-opinionated. Well, he had, at first, but they had gotten boring so quickly. He could insult them and they wouldn't know what he meant. And that was only from the other Houses. The Slytherin women were worse. Pansy in particular, would throw herself at him begging to get laid at every waking minute of the day. The worst thing was that she did not seem to get a clue that he did not want to do her--most of the time anyway, but damn, she had a fine body--and already he was sick of all the females in Hogwarts. They were all so...predictable. And needless to say, they fell for him because of his image, the Ice Prince of Slytherin, the bloody bastard who bedded girls and tossed them away like tissue, the bad boy of Hogwarts, and the list went on and on. It was all so hopelessly mundane and shallow.

The girl Drusilla, however, was a different matter entirely. It always seemed like she was able to see right through him, to know who he was inside. It was unsettling, but that knowledge drew him to her like a moth to the flame. Of course, there was always a chance that he would get burnt in the process. To his disgust, he still could not get the kiss out of his mind. He had kissed many girls before, but this one seemed particularly stuck in his head. Probably because of her angry response that soon melted into a confession of hidden lust and understanding--for the both of them--and till now, whenever he saw her in the halls or during lessons, he would have an overwhelming urge to just get her alone,shove her into an empty classroom and do things with her that more often than not made him take a long, icy shower afterward.

Most unpleasant, really.

Turning a corner, he stepped into the Hospital Wing. It was deathly quiet--Madam Pomfrey had already gone to bed--save for a soft, barely noticeable breathing sound. His heart skipping a beat--again--at her nearness, he stepped quietly over to where she lay fast asleep.

She even looks beautiful when she's asleep, he mused, standing at her bedside and simply staring down at her, allowing himself a moment of fascination. No one was here anyway.

Her eyelashes were long and curled, casting delicate shadows on her irisdescent cheeks. Her face seemed to almost glow in the dark with an ethereal quality, and Draco wondered if the Elf that mothered her was beautiful as well. Her hair was splayed on the pillow, allowing him a glimpse of her pointed ears, something that reminded him that she was not human. Her breathing was exceptionally quiet, and if not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, he would almost think that she was dead. Her cheeks were tinged with a faint pink, and her mouth was slightly curled in an innocent smile.

He wondered what she was dreaming of.

Unable to help himself, Draco reached out and tentatively brushed his hand across her cheek. They were unnaturally soft, like warm silk that sent tingles down his spine. He was going to regret doing this later, he knew it. The Malfoy pride never died, and here he was, lusting over this-this person. It was as if he was falling in love with her.

Falling in love? His mind chaffed mockingly. How stupid can you get?

His heart whispered. Yes.

Unfortunately, Draco was never one who listened to his heart.

***

AN: To Shadow, Thanks for the lovely review! It really encouraged me to keep going!