Chapter 6 ~:~ Experiments and Strange Familiarities
A~N: I think this time I will leave the long thank-you-for-reviewing list for the end-note. I have a really good idea for this chapter and want to get it down before my brain goes dead on me, so hear it out, okay?
Oh, by the way, the song lyrics from this chapter are from I'd Rather Be In Love With You by Michelle Branch. I think they fit really well with the plot. So, um, er... everything here, except, in some aspects, the storyline, and the setting, belongs to J.K. Rowling, that all-revered goddess. *bows very low* And also, about the way this chapter is set up- alternating between the big paragraph breaks means that you're basically alternating between points of view. Like, if Hermione is called Granger and Draco is called Draco, then that's Malfoy's point of view, which will tend to be less flowery (like, instead of pale, burnished brown, he calls her eyes gold-ish.). But if Hermione is called Hermione and Draco is called Malfoy, then that's Hermione's POV. Got it? Okay, let's go on!
The last, golden-red rays of sunset were reflected in the otherwise dark surface of the pool. Hermione remembered an old word for water - mere - and was reminded of mirrors and their water-like tendencies. Her own reflection gazed balefully up at her from the darkness, the pale, burnished brown of the eyes boring into her; the girl on the other side half-smiled, wryly, and then in a final shiver of the soft waves was gone, swallowed into the inky blackness.
Hermione turned away and stood, wrapping her thin robes about her as if to ward against the oncoming night. The garden seemed to have fallen into shadow, the foreign flowers and ivies adorning the trellis blackened; its stone walls guarded her against sound from elsewhere in the labyrinth of hedges and barriers that sprawled over the grounds beyond the mansion. She felt unusually alone. He'll be here soon, and then you can get this over with, she assured herself, considering casting a warmth charm. Hermione remembered, though, Professor McGonagall's warning:
"I would be cautious as to the spells you cast while in the vicinity of your area. Take into consideration the enchantment about the location; would it be wise to, say, use a water charm while poking about old, fragile ashes?"
Hermione felt some of the warmth return to her bones, anyway, at the thought of the Professor and Hogwarts. It made this all seem surreal, almost false.
Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, was sitting in his room with both legs draped over the arm of a chair, laughing and enjoying the company of his fellow Slytherin fifth-years. Almost all of them(including Pansy, damn it, he thought as he cringed at the sound of her horsey laugh) had congregated there, bringing several bottles of Ogden's and even some butterbeer he suspected had been stolen from the Three Broomsticks when Madame Rosmerta's back was turned.
As he sat there and Pansy goggled at him in what she must have thought was a coquettish manner, Draco's thoughts turned to his agenda for the next couple of days. He knew many of his friends were planning on not doing the project, as most of them had been paired with people from other houses. However, his good grades were the only thing keeping him at Hogwarts right now; Draco knew that, should his progress reports begin to show decline, his father would transfer him to Durmstrang without hesitation. And there were more things than torturing Gryffindors (he had to admit it was enjoyable) that he was attached to at the school.
Through some strange twist of fate that Draco didn't want to inspect more closely, thoughts of attachment led to thoughts of Granger. Thinking of the fact that she was living only five or six meters away from him was cruelly arousing, and Draco attempted to turn his mind to another topic. But then he remembered where she was- probably in the garden, waiting anxiously for him.
He laughed. Let her wait; it wasn't as though she had anything better to do with her time. Draco had never gotten the impression that the Mudblood was particularly popular, not even among her own housemates. Of course she had friends, but that wasn't nearly the same as being loved and liked by many people- like Cho Chang, or those Indian twins (their names were Peashoot and Padding, or something like that). Hell, she probably had worked on deciphering the enchantment all day, but Draco doubted she'd come up with as much information as he had. If you knew the right spells to use, or where to look, it was amazing the sort of results you could get...
It was around ten 'o clock when Draco finally sauntered leisurely into the garden, the moon lighting up his silver-gold hair like a beacon. Hermione had finally decided to cast a warmth charm, against the Professor's advice; the chill wind was blowing strongly now, and she noted with annoyance that he was wearing an outer-cloak over his robes.
"Late, aren't you?" she asked nonchalantly, indicating the position of the white-silver orb high in the night sky. "Busy eating Parkinson's face?"
Draco almost shuddered; the thought of kissing Pansy was excruciatingly revulsive. But if Granger liked living in her own little fantasy world where everyone was in love with everyone else, he wouldn't stand in her way. "What do you think?" he sneered, leaning against the wall. "And you? Been feeling pathetically sorry for yourself and making Weasel and Potter listen to your whining, eh?" He snickered softly and watched as she scowled at him.
"No. I've been working on the project like you were supposed to be doing, instead of enjoying the company of your repulsive.. ugh... friends. You think I can't hear from down here? This garden is below our rooms for a reason, ferret-face."
Malfoy snorted. "It's not as if I haven't done research, too, Mudblood. Just because I know when to quit studying and have fun doesn't mean I'm a stupid prat." He sat down on the rimming-wall of the pool and gazed up at her insolently. "Are you ready to start now?"
Hermione sighed through her nose and gritted her teeth before she sat down a good half-meter away from Malfoy, dropping her bookbag on the ground and then removing a bright silver quill from it. She'd gotten it at Flourish and Blotts the summer before school started; it was a less elaborative version of Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes one, and it was designed to take comprehensive notes on lectures or conversations.
"Apparently, someone was murdered here in the late 16th century," Malfoy began, not looking at Hermione but into the pool. "In this garden. Who it was isn't really clear, but we do know that a Hogwarts student- Alexandria de Lunariam- died here in 1599. Four hundred years ago." He cleared his throat. "I haven't talked to Dumbledore about it, but I've heard about the death-" he stiffened visibly. "-around home, and apparently this de Lunariam girl was a muggle-born. They were rich Muggles, but still Muggles all the same."
Hermione inhaled shakily, her voice quiet when she finally spoke. "Do you know who killed her?"
"No. She had a knife-wound, and she was found drowned in the pool." His voice was strangely cold and clipped.
Hermione turned away from him in silent thought, then snapped back around, sounding accusatory. "You know more about this than you're telling me, Malfoy. I need to know everything- can't you see this is getting dangerous? What if the enchantment had something to do with Alexandria's death? We could get hurt-"
Malfoy turned around to face her, and his eyes were burning with a cold, shadowy grey fire she had never seen before. "That's the point, Granger. You could get hurt. Don't you see that it's already happening?"
Hermione knitted her brow in confusion. "What? I-"
Malfoy's hands found his way to her shoulders, and he shook her violently, making her head fall limpidly back and forth, the mass of chestnut hair sprawling messily across it. His eyes, formerly lit with chill intention, now took on an almost desperate glint. "It's the enchantment, all right? It's the damned enchantment. It killed that girl, and it'll kill you too."
"What are you talking about?" Hermione's own brown eyes were wide with a mixture of fright and disbelief. "You know what the enchantment is?"
Malfoy suddenly looked as though he'd said too much and was wary of the consequences. "No," he answered more quietly, standing and going over to one of the trees, from which hung several garlands of a fragrant, soft-petaled white flower. "I don't. I don't think anyone does, actually, not even the inn-mistress here; whatever it is, it's powerful. Proabably dark magic, too- nothing else could play havoc with people's lives this way-" He seemed to be talking to himself now, running over facts in his mind. Then he turned back to her. "You have to understand, Granger- it's not just about that girl. I think the enchantment is some sort of revenge mark- you're smart, you know about repeat-scenario spells. Time loops, that sort of thing, where history gets repeated."
Granger's face had gone pale, and Draco could see its rather ethereal whiteness even in the darkness. "You mean- you mean this girl's death is going to happen again? To... to me?" The Mudblood looked as though she was going to be sick. "Not neccessarily," Draco answered vaguely. "That's true only if Alexandria de Lunariam's is the death that the enchantment refers to, and only if it is dark magic- nothing else can kill- and only if it is a repeat-scenario spell. Very shaky evidence is all we've got... but that's still the most likely hypothesis."
Granger stood up and walked toward him, her palms against her back. "How do you know all this? There wasn't anything except-" She seemed to think better of sharing this, and went on. "-well, there wasn't anything in the library. Where could you possibly get all this information?"
"I have my ways," he answered back in the same vague voice. "Plus, all I had to do was go through the Prophet archives in the catalog room- didn't look there, did you? - back to 1599. It was huge: a fifteen-year-old Hogwarts student, for Merlin's sake, a Gryffindor, murdered in cold blood in an isolated hotel in Ireland!" He repeated the last synopsis in a disgusted tone. "Really, there wasn't much they could tell. Of course, no one thought it was one of her fellow students who had accompanied her on the trip, but the Ministry interviewed them as a precaution; the only other people there were the current Headmistress, Professor Featherstone, and her trusted Deputy Headmaster, Professor Clearian- both worthy teachers and close friends of the Minister, since the inn-mistress, Lady Roestallion, was at her dead cousin's funeral in Wales." By this time he had resumed looking at the stars instead of at Granger, who was rubbing her forehead as though she were scolding herself for not ravaging the library, looking for archaic Prophet issues. Meanwhile, the Quick-Notes-Quill was filling scroll after scroll of bulleted paper, remarking on the entire conversation.
"Were there any pictures of Alexandria in the paper?" Hermione asked after awhile.
Malfoy reached inside the front of his robes and withdrew a large clipping from the Prophet. "It's a reprint of a portrait," he explained when Hermione realized it wasn't a photo. "I know that," she answered, snatching it away from him.
Alexandria was petite, with raven-colored curls that spilled down her back haphazardly, held only by a crooked gold circlet that looked to have been placed about her temples at the last minute. Her eyes were, strangely, a sort of brown-gold color that contrasted with her dark hair, shining brightly against the pale, sallow color of her face. She was wearing a deep, wine-colored gown, laced with gold at the waist and flowing in a smooth line past the bottom of the picture. It wasn't moving; Hermione guessed that it was a Muggle portrait from the Renaissance, which would explain why Alexandria wasn't wearing robes. "She was pretty," Hermione remarked shortly as she handed the clipping back to Malfoy, who shook his head. "I guess you don't see the resemblance, then."
"What resemblance?" asked Hermione as she turned her back to him and began to pack her quill and notes back into her bag.
"Between you and the girl," he replied, making Hermione stop short.
Granger slowly turned around to face him, a wary look in her eyes, which she closed. "I'm sorry, I think I've just hallucinated. Did you say I looked like- like her?" She waved a hand at the clipping, which had floated to the ground. Alexandria's eyes stared hauntingly up at Draco, shining in a way chillingly similar to Granger's. Suddenly he was standing over her, and to look him in the eyes she had to tilt her head back. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, before brushing past her, his silk-lined cloak gracefully skimming her skin as it floated after him.
"I suppose that's a yes," Hermione said to the quiet garden.
Okay, okay, okay, so there wasn't a lot of heart-racing action in this chapter. Sorry. I had to put the actual clues to the mystery in somewhere between all the angst and romance, but I promise there's lots of passionate.. er... stuff coming up. Telling you what it is would be spoiling the whole point of a mystery, now, wouldn't it? ;D
Thanks (so much!) to:
Draco's Queen (well, thank you very much!), Lisa (oh, *tear* I've always wanted to be called an awesome writer! Thank you!), Constellation (*grin* I've always loved descriptions... they're so fun to write!), Epequa (So do I, and I'm honored!), Rachel Hunt *my favorite reviewer!* (Well, er, yeah.. because I don't wake up till, like, noon, that's usually what happens to me...the librarian is actually how I thought Morgan le Fay would look; I'm not sure why I put her in there, but I thought it would be a cool change of pace to not have the librarian be old and doddery for once...ooh, yeah, I thought so too about the book-title thing. I hate having to copy stuff out of textbooks...yes, well, erm... I'm... sorry? Well, the chapter's here now, and I guess that's what counts...), Nuada (thanks! I always read my chapters over and think, "If I were reading this story, would I want to murder the writer with something cruel and painful?" [since I am unusually self-critical, the answer is usually yes.]), Alice Incarnate (that means a lot to me!), Fire Goddess (actually, you did! Under Leiloha... the first chapter, I think I actually thanked you... yes, I love the Britney Spears thing! Actually, my aunt, who was like sixteen when this happened, had my uncle- her brother, who was like eighteen- and a bunch of his friends over and they were watching MTV. Anyways, the Britney Spears video where she has her shirt in a knot came on, and the guys started drooling all over the TV... er... anyways...), Delphi (ok!), RowenaR (you got it!), VenusSaturnalia (thanks so much! And yes, I am going to continue it, because I LOVE this story! It's really fun to write.), Chrissy (I think I mentioned that that was a different day. It'll all come out in this chapter, I promise.), Ruby Moon (Um, I think I will... here I go...), Black Mage Zelda (er... okay... *backs away slowly*), and Rosandra May (your wish is my command!). I love you ALL! Keep reviewing, please!
I sort of had to type to defrost my fingers, which is why this chapter is so long... you see, it snowed all day (it started at 9:30 AM, and now, at 10:00 PM, it's still going strong) here in Georgia, and I sort of threw too many snowballs... ahem...
Now I must retire into a dreams-of-Draco-filled sleep, and I wish you all the same! Happy New Year!
~icestar~
A~N: I think this time I will leave the long thank-you-for-reviewing list for the end-note. I have a really good idea for this chapter and want to get it down before my brain goes dead on me, so hear it out, okay?
Oh, by the way, the song lyrics from this chapter are from I'd Rather Be In Love With You by Michelle Branch. I think they fit really well with the plot. So, um, er... everything here, except, in some aspects, the storyline, and the setting, belongs to J.K. Rowling, that all-revered goddess. *bows very low* And also, about the way this chapter is set up- alternating between the big paragraph breaks means that you're basically alternating between points of view. Like, if Hermione is called Granger and Draco is called Draco, then that's Malfoy's point of view, which will tend to be less flowery (like, instead of pale, burnished brown, he calls her eyes gold-ish.). But if Hermione is called Hermione and Draco is called Malfoy, then that's Hermione's POV. Got it? Okay, let's go on!
The last, golden-red rays of sunset were reflected in the otherwise dark surface of the pool. Hermione remembered an old word for water - mere - and was reminded of mirrors and their water-like tendencies. Her own reflection gazed balefully up at her from the darkness, the pale, burnished brown of the eyes boring into her; the girl on the other side half-smiled, wryly, and then in a final shiver of the soft waves was gone, swallowed into the inky blackness.
Hermione turned away and stood, wrapping her thin robes about her as if to ward against the oncoming night. The garden seemed to have fallen into shadow, the foreign flowers and ivies adorning the trellis blackened; its stone walls guarded her against sound from elsewhere in the labyrinth of hedges and barriers that sprawled over the grounds beyond the mansion. She felt unusually alone. He'll be here soon, and then you can get this over with, she assured herself, considering casting a warmth charm. Hermione remembered, though, Professor McGonagall's warning:
"I would be cautious as to the spells you cast while in the vicinity of your area. Take into consideration the enchantment about the location; would it be wise to, say, use a water charm while poking about old, fragile ashes?"
Hermione felt some of the warmth return to her bones, anyway, at the thought of the Professor and Hogwarts. It made this all seem surreal, almost false.
Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, was sitting in his room with both legs draped over the arm of a chair, laughing and enjoying the company of his fellow Slytherin fifth-years. Almost all of them(including Pansy, damn it, he thought as he cringed at the sound of her horsey laugh) had congregated there, bringing several bottles of Ogden's and even some butterbeer he suspected had been stolen from the Three Broomsticks when Madame Rosmerta's back was turned.
As he sat there and Pansy goggled at him in what she must have thought was a coquettish manner, Draco's thoughts turned to his agenda for the next couple of days. He knew many of his friends were planning on not doing the project, as most of them had been paired with people from other houses. However, his good grades were the only thing keeping him at Hogwarts right now; Draco knew that, should his progress reports begin to show decline, his father would transfer him to Durmstrang without hesitation. And there were more things than torturing Gryffindors (he had to admit it was enjoyable) that he was attached to at the school.
Through some strange twist of fate that Draco didn't want to inspect more closely, thoughts of attachment led to thoughts of Granger. Thinking of the fact that she was living only five or six meters away from him was cruelly arousing, and Draco attempted to turn his mind to another topic. But then he remembered where she was- probably in the garden, waiting anxiously for him.
He laughed. Let her wait; it wasn't as though she had anything better to do with her time. Draco had never gotten the impression that the Mudblood was particularly popular, not even among her own housemates. Of course she had friends, but that wasn't nearly the same as being loved and liked by many people- like Cho Chang, or those Indian twins (their names were Peashoot and Padding, or something like that). Hell, she probably had worked on deciphering the enchantment all day, but Draco doubted she'd come up with as much information as he had. If you knew the right spells to use, or where to look, it was amazing the sort of results you could get...
It was around ten 'o clock when Draco finally sauntered leisurely into the garden, the moon lighting up his silver-gold hair like a beacon. Hermione had finally decided to cast a warmth charm, against the Professor's advice; the chill wind was blowing strongly now, and she noted with annoyance that he was wearing an outer-cloak over his robes.
"Late, aren't you?" she asked nonchalantly, indicating the position of the white-silver orb high in the night sky. "Busy eating Parkinson's face?"
Draco almost shuddered; the thought of kissing Pansy was excruciatingly revulsive. But if Granger liked living in her own little fantasy world where everyone was in love with everyone else, he wouldn't stand in her way. "What do you think?" he sneered, leaning against the wall. "And you? Been feeling pathetically sorry for yourself and making Weasel and Potter listen to your whining, eh?" He snickered softly and watched as she scowled at him.
"No. I've been working on the project like you were supposed to be doing, instead of enjoying the company of your repulsive.. ugh... friends. You think I can't hear from down here? This garden is below our rooms for a reason, ferret-face."
Malfoy snorted. "It's not as if I haven't done research, too, Mudblood. Just because I know when to quit studying and have fun doesn't mean I'm a stupid prat." He sat down on the rimming-wall of the pool and gazed up at her insolently. "Are you ready to start now?"
Hermione sighed through her nose and gritted her teeth before she sat down a good half-meter away from Malfoy, dropping her bookbag on the ground and then removing a bright silver quill from it. She'd gotten it at Flourish and Blotts the summer before school started; it was a less elaborative version of Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes one, and it was designed to take comprehensive notes on lectures or conversations.
"Apparently, someone was murdered here in the late 16th century," Malfoy began, not looking at Hermione but into the pool. "In this garden. Who it was isn't really clear, but we do know that a Hogwarts student- Alexandria de Lunariam- died here in 1599. Four hundred years ago." He cleared his throat. "I haven't talked to Dumbledore about it, but I've heard about the death-" he stiffened visibly. "-around home, and apparently this de Lunariam girl was a muggle-born. They were rich Muggles, but still Muggles all the same."
Hermione inhaled shakily, her voice quiet when she finally spoke. "Do you know who killed her?"
"No. She had a knife-wound, and she was found drowned in the pool." His voice was strangely cold and clipped.
Hermione turned away from him in silent thought, then snapped back around, sounding accusatory. "You know more about this than you're telling me, Malfoy. I need to know everything- can't you see this is getting dangerous? What if the enchantment had something to do with Alexandria's death? We could get hurt-"
Malfoy turned around to face her, and his eyes were burning with a cold, shadowy grey fire she had never seen before. "That's the point, Granger. You could get hurt. Don't you see that it's already happening?"
Hermione knitted her brow in confusion. "What? I-"
Malfoy's hands found his way to her shoulders, and he shook her violently, making her head fall limpidly back and forth, the mass of chestnut hair sprawling messily across it. His eyes, formerly lit with chill intention, now took on an almost desperate glint. "It's the enchantment, all right? It's the damned enchantment. It killed that girl, and it'll kill you too."
"What are you talking about?" Hermione's own brown eyes were wide with a mixture of fright and disbelief. "You know what the enchantment is?"
Malfoy suddenly looked as though he'd said too much and was wary of the consequences. "No," he answered more quietly, standing and going over to one of the trees, from which hung several garlands of a fragrant, soft-petaled white flower. "I don't. I don't think anyone does, actually, not even the inn-mistress here; whatever it is, it's powerful. Proabably dark magic, too- nothing else could play havoc with people's lives this way-" He seemed to be talking to himself now, running over facts in his mind. Then he turned back to her. "You have to understand, Granger- it's not just about that girl. I think the enchantment is some sort of revenge mark- you're smart, you know about repeat-scenario spells. Time loops, that sort of thing, where history gets repeated."
Granger's face had gone pale, and Draco could see its rather ethereal whiteness even in the darkness. "You mean- you mean this girl's death is going to happen again? To... to me?" The Mudblood looked as though she was going to be sick. "Not neccessarily," Draco answered vaguely. "That's true only if Alexandria de Lunariam's is the death that the enchantment refers to, and only if it is dark magic- nothing else can kill- and only if it is a repeat-scenario spell. Very shaky evidence is all we've got... but that's still the most likely hypothesis."
Granger stood up and walked toward him, her palms against her back. "How do you know all this? There wasn't anything except-" She seemed to think better of sharing this, and went on. "-well, there wasn't anything in the library. Where could you possibly get all this information?"
"I have my ways," he answered back in the same vague voice. "Plus, all I had to do was go through the Prophet archives in the catalog room- didn't look there, did you? - back to 1599. It was huge: a fifteen-year-old Hogwarts student, for Merlin's sake, a Gryffindor, murdered in cold blood in an isolated hotel in Ireland!" He repeated the last synopsis in a disgusted tone. "Really, there wasn't much they could tell. Of course, no one thought it was one of her fellow students who had accompanied her on the trip, but the Ministry interviewed them as a precaution; the only other people there were the current Headmistress, Professor Featherstone, and her trusted Deputy Headmaster, Professor Clearian- both worthy teachers and close friends of the Minister, since the inn-mistress, Lady Roestallion, was at her dead cousin's funeral in Wales." By this time he had resumed looking at the stars instead of at Granger, who was rubbing her forehead as though she were scolding herself for not ravaging the library, looking for archaic Prophet issues. Meanwhile, the Quick-Notes-Quill was filling scroll after scroll of bulleted paper, remarking on the entire conversation.
"Were there any pictures of Alexandria in the paper?" Hermione asked after awhile.
Malfoy reached inside the front of his robes and withdrew a large clipping from the Prophet. "It's a reprint of a portrait," he explained when Hermione realized it wasn't a photo. "I know that," she answered, snatching it away from him.
Alexandria was petite, with raven-colored curls that spilled down her back haphazardly, held only by a crooked gold circlet that looked to have been placed about her temples at the last minute. Her eyes were, strangely, a sort of brown-gold color that contrasted with her dark hair, shining brightly against the pale, sallow color of her face. She was wearing a deep, wine-colored gown, laced with gold at the waist and flowing in a smooth line past the bottom of the picture. It wasn't moving; Hermione guessed that it was a Muggle portrait from the Renaissance, which would explain why Alexandria wasn't wearing robes. "She was pretty," Hermione remarked shortly as she handed the clipping back to Malfoy, who shook his head. "I guess you don't see the resemblance, then."
"What resemblance?" asked Hermione as she turned her back to him and began to pack her quill and notes back into her bag.
"Between you and the girl," he replied, making Hermione stop short.
Granger slowly turned around to face him, a wary look in her eyes, which she closed. "I'm sorry, I think I've just hallucinated. Did you say I looked like- like her?" She waved a hand at the clipping, which had floated to the ground. Alexandria's eyes stared hauntingly up at Draco, shining in a way chillingly similar to Granger's. Suddenly he was standing over her, and to look him in the eyes she had to tilt her head back. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, before brushing past her, his silk-lined cloak gracefully skimming her skin as it floated after him.
"I suppose that's a yes," Hermione said to the quiet garden.
Okay, okay, okay, so there wasn't a lot of heart-racing action in this chapter. Sorry. I had to put the actual clues to the mystery in somewhere between all the angst and romance, but I promise there's lots of passionate.. er... stuff coming up. Telling you what it is would be spoiling the whole point of a mystery, now, wouldn't it? ;D
Thanks (so much!) to:
Draco's Queen (well, thank you very much!), Lisa (oh, *tear* I've always wanted to be called an awesome writer! Thank you!), Constellation (*grin* I've always loved descriptions... they're so fun to write!), Epequa (So do I, and I'm honored!), Rachel Hunt *my favorite reviewer!* (Well, er, yeah.. because I don't wake up till, like, noon, that's usually what happens to me...the librarian is actually how I thought Morgan le Fay would look; I'm not sure why I put her in there, but I thought it would be a cool change of pace to not have the librarian be old and doddery for once...ooh, yeah, I thought so too about the book-title thing. I hate having to copy stuff out of textbooks...yes, well, erm... I'm... sorry? Well, the chapter's here now, and I guess that's what counts...), Nuada (thanks! I always read my chapters over and think, "If I were reading this story, would I want to murder the writer with something cruel and painful?" [since I am unusually self-critical, the answer is usually yes.]), Alice Incarnate (that means a lot to me!), Fire Goddess (actually, you did! Under Leiloha... the first chapter, I think I actually thanked you... yes, I love the Britney Spears thing! Actually, my aunt, who was like sixteen when this happened, had my uncle- her brother, who was like eighteen- and a bunch of his friends over and they were watching MTV. Anyways, the Britney Spears video where she has her shirt in a knot came on, and the guys started drooling all over the TV... er... anyways...), Delphi (ok!), RowenaR (you got it!), VenusSaturnalia (thanks so much! And yes, I am going to continue it, because I LOVE this story! It's really fun to write.), Chrissy (I think I mentioned that that was a different day. It'll all come out in this chapter, I promise.), Ruby Moon (Um, I think I will... here I go...), Black Mage Zelda (er... okay... *backs away slowly*), and Rosandra May (your wish is my command!). I love you ALL! Keep reviewing, please!
I sort of had to type to defrost my fingers, which is why this chapter is so long... you see, it snowed all day (it started at 9:30 AM, and now, at 10:00 PM, it's still going strong) here in Georgia, and I sort of threw too many snowballs... ahem...
Now I must retire into a dreams-of-Draco-filled sleep, and I wish you all the same! Happy New Year!
~icestar~