Draco was walking down the hall to the bathroom. After he got over the shock of almost feeling really bad for a mud-blood, he began thinking somewhat highly of himself once more. No longer did he have to worry about being punished.
Suddenly someone pushed him. "What in blazes is this all about?" he cried out, turning to his attacker. It was Potter and Weasley.
"Do you know where Amy is?" asked Ron angrily.
"No, and why should I care?" replied Malfoy.
"She's in the Hospital Wing!" cried Harry.
"No kidding, I gave her the potion, which gave her a beard, so she is there to get it taken off without having to shave, what's the big deal," said Malfoy, bored.
"No, Malfoy, it isn't just that," Ron corrected. "She had an allergic reaction to the Hair Growth Potion."
"She's got a fever and is delusional," added Harry.
"What?" Malfoy asked unbelievingly.
"You heard right," glared Harry.
Malfoy looked from one to the other, each with a piercing glare. "I… I don't know what to say…" he mumbled.
"Don't say anything, Malfoy. It isn't like you even care," Ron hissed. The two walked away.
Malfoy stood there, cold and slightly ashamed. He really hadn't wanted her to get sick. All he wanted was to keep his reputation intact. He looked at his watch. Roaming hours would be over soon and he would have to get back to the Slytherin Wing. But maybe, that is if Potter and his friends weren't there the entire day, maybe he could…
What was he thinking? He was feeling almost warm and fuzzy all over. ICK. Before he could feel anything again, he raced back to his portrait hole and to his dorm. It pained him to think he had even almost thought of ap… apolo… apologize… apologizing!
He sat down on his bed. Maybe he just needed to rest. Looking in the mirror he did seem a bit frazzled. Already, Crabbe and Goyle were snoring loudly in their beds. Malfoy nodded to himself, slipping into his covers. All he needed was a good night's rest.
***
By the next morning, Malfoy was feeling in tiptop shape. All he really needed was to calm down and sleep. That was a relief, because the last thing he needed was to feel sorry for anybody.
He left his dorm and headed to the common room. Surprisingly, no one was there. The room was deathly silent. Well, after all, it was a Saturday. Maybe all the others were just having fun elsewhere. But still, this silence was frightening, and just a bit ominous.
In search of anybody, Draco left the Slytherin wing. He stepped outside of the portrait hole to find that even the halls were empty. Not even the ghosts were slipping through the walls as they normally did. What in blazes was going on?
Malfoy began searching the school for any sign of life. All the classrooms were empty, not one teacher was sitting at his or her desk grading papers. Had he missed some big announcement, like a celebration of some sort? Maybe that was it, just a simple gathering in the Great Hall. He decided to go there to see if that was it.
He entered the Great Hall, hoping to find his answer. The hall was filled with students, but there was a tomblike silence. Although the doors creaked when he entered, no one looked his way. Some sat still as stone, not like they had been frozen, but as though they did it out of respect. Others had a looks of morose. Then there were a select few with tears dripping silently down their faces. Out of these few, Draco noticed that there was Harry and Hermione. Ron only had a look of pure graveness, for he never was one to show much emotion.
Harry walked slowly to the front of the Great Hall where the teacher's table lay. However, today another object lay before it, something oblong, almost like a coffin, but not quite. It was then that Draco noticed black drapes hung around the room. The last time this had happened was in his fourth year when Cedric Diggory had passed away.
Harry knelt down and embraced what was in the oblong box. He then stood up and turned to Malfoy. "You chose never to care. You let your heart of stone take over," he said in a monotonous tone.
Hermione kept her icy stare forward. "Caring kept you from doing worse, but hate lead you to carelessness," she added in another dull tone.
"You hide behind your composure, but it brings you nothing," said Ron.
Harry looked straight at Malfoy. Although he said nothing, the frightened boy walked to the front of the Great Hall. The other thousands of pairs of eyes did not watch, but only kept their gaze forward as he walked to the oblong box. Harry stepped aside as Malfoy peered into the box.
Malfoy jumped back and gasped. Lying in the box was the cold, dead figure of Amethyst. "What the hell happened?" he demanded. No one answered; they only gazed on. "It was just a practical joke," he explained, stepping back. "How was I supposed to know she was allergic?"
"Your bitterness can only hurt and destroy," said a familiar voice from behind him.
Malfoy spun around to find a pale version of Amethyst standing before him. "What do you want from me?" he demanded.
"Why, Malfoy?" asked Amethyst. "Why do you insist on hurting those that you admire?" She held up one of her pale hands to point around the entire room.
Malfoy began looking around the room. Where Harry once stood was a half rotten figure. Suddenly Malfoy realized it was Harry! Draco looked around more to see a knife sticking through Hermione's heart, Ron covered in blood, Dumbledore set aflame, and much more.
Suddenly everyone finally looked at him and began chanting, "Why?" In low, monotonous voices they all chanted, "Why, why, why?"
Draco grabbed his head, trying to escape those frighteningly in sync voices that repeated the same question over and over again. The room spun around him as more students were transformed into half-dead people.
***
"I DON'T KNOW!" Malfoy cried out, springing into an erect sitting position in bed. He panted, looking around. He was back in his dormitory. The sun was beginning to rise outside the window. Goyle and Crabbe were still snoring in their beds, somehow able to block out Malfoy's odd outburst.
"It was just a dream…" Malfoy muttered to himself, wiping the sweat from his face. It had been quite a realistic dream as well, however. He could still see Amethyst laying in the coffin and… Amethyst! Could she really die from the potion? Malfoy quickly changed and ran out the door.
"Mr. Malfoy?" asked Madam Pomfrey, slightly confused. "What are doing here, and at this time in the morning?"
"I came to see Amethyst," he answered, slightly panting. He had run straight from his common room to the Hospital Wing. "How is she?"
"Sleeping," the nurse answered, then added skeptically, "Like you should be."
Draco sighed with relief and muttered under his breath, "Good, she isn't dead."
However, Madam Pomfrey still heard him. "Dead? Mr. Malfoy, people don't die from Hair Growth Potions, nor do they normally die from allergies."
"I had this…" he tried to explain, but changed his mind. "Never mind… can I just see her?"
"I repeat: she is sleeping. However, you may come back later when she is awake," Madam Pomfrey suggested.
"I don't want to risk running into…" Draco began, but saw the confused look the school nurse gave him and once again changed his answer. "Never mind." He left the Hospital Wing. Even with the information given, he was not comforted. What if he had killed her with something as simple as a Hair Growth Potion?
Then he realized something. In his dream Amethyst had called him Malfoy. He snorted. Even his own subconscious did not respect him, not even in a dream. No, it was not a dream; it was a full-blown nightmare. And maybe… maybe it spoke the truth…
Draco came back later that day. Luckily, Potter and his friends were nowhere in sight when he made his way to the Hospital wing. Hopefully they were not with Amethyst right at this very moment.
"Is she awake now?" Malfoy asked Madam Pomfrey.
"Yes, you may go see her now," the nurse answered.
Malfoy almost walked away, but paused and added, "And is anyone already with her?"
"No," Madam Pomfrey added, partially understandingly. "You just missed Mr. Potter, he left with his friends maybe five minutes ago."
Malfoy nodded and made his way to Amethyst's bed. Her head was turned, staring out the window. He slightly gasped. She was frighteningly pale, almost as pale as she had been in his dream. Then he gathered all his courage and walked toward her. As he sat down he held out something, a single white rose.
Without turning or even flickering an eye in his direction she asked, "Come to poison me some more?"
Malfoy was slightly stung by the question. "No," he answered simply. He still held out the rose for her, but she did not take it, nor did she even turn her head to look directly at it. He looked at her. The entire beard had fallen off. In fact, it was not until now that he had really taken the time to appreciate how delicate her features were. Go figure.
He looked down at the floor. "Amethyst… I'm sorry," he began to apologize. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Amy quickly a slender finger up to his mouth. Malfoy was slightly frightened by the sudden and powerful gaze she cast upon him.
"Malfoy, just stop," she interrupted. "I think I know what you would say," she began, lowering her hand from his lips.
His heartbeat slightly quickened as he felt her smooth skin slid down his lower lip. When he could breath correctly again he asked, "And what do you think I would say?"
"The first thing that you could tell me," she replied, and then added, "Whether it be truth or lie." She looked into his eyes, which were slightly downcast. "But if you tell me either, you want to know what?" At this, his eyes slightly turned up to look straight back at her. With the pleading look on his face, she couldn't believe she didn't hold back from saying this. "I don't want to hear it."
Draco sat back in his seat, casting his gaze downward again. He nodded once and then stood up to leave. The rose was still clutched in his hand. Without hesitation, he placed it on the bedside table, and then took his leave. Before he left, he threw a final glance over his shoulder. Amethyst had returned to looking out the window. He turned around and left. Had he looked just five more seconds, he would have spotted a tear slide down her pale face.
***
All into October, the two didn't exchange a single word to each other. However, it didn't mean that they didn't think about each other. Surprisingly, Draco ended up thinking about Amethyst more than he meant to. For one thing, that dream still kept haunting him when he was awake and partially when he slept. For another thing, he couldn't get over how he felt when she had touched his lips. Inhibitions were the only thing keeping him from… not that it mattered, for these emotions would soon pass.
Amy could only guess what Malfoy was going to say to her in the Hospital Wing. She could only think that maybe he was going to tell her that he felt something. Maybe she felt it, too. However, it was totally evident that her brother would one day find Malfoy in a dark alley and strangle him, or the other way around.
"Amy… Amy!" Harry hissed at Amy during Potions one day. "Take some caterpillar before Snape kills you!"
Amy quickly took a handful of the dried ingredient before passing it down the row. The professor eyed her oddly, getting another weird look on his face like he ate a lemon too fast. He had been doing that recently, ever since she came back from the Hospital Wing.
"Ugh," muttered Ron. "I remember the last time we had to work with these things. It was our third year and Malfoy was pretending that his arm was too dead to move."
"I was ready to give him a good case of summer teeth," mumbled Harry, just as angrily as Ron.
"Summer teeth?" repeated Hermione.
"Yeah, some are here, some are there," explained Harry, strangling the caterpillar as though he thought it were Malfoy.
Amy gulped slightly. Maybe this was a worse idea than she previously thought. Her eyes flickered to the opposite side of the room. Malfoy sat there, doing his experiment, and laughing with friends. Maybe he had forgotten everything by now. She turned back to her own friends and decided to try and forget, too.
"Hermione, your parents are dentists. You never heard them use that term before?" she laughed, turning her attention back to reality.
Malfoy kept flashing glances to the other side of the room. It looked like she forgot everything that happened. He figured she would, after all she obviously showed no interest in what he was going to say to her.
What he really wanted to know, though, was what did she do with that rose? He wondered if maybe she had discarded it. If she had, maybe that would have been the better scenario for him. There was still the threat that his father could find out all about this. But still… it might have been sort of nice if she had kept it…
"Draco, what you did was absolutely ingenious!" chortled Millicent, snapping the blond haired boy out of his trance.
"Yeah, boss, it was more maniacal than normal!" added Crabbe.
Draco gave them both weird stares until he understood what they were talking about, Amethyst's beard.
"Did you know that she had an allergic reaction to it?" asked Goyle.
"I bet you did! That's what made it even better!" laughed Pansy Parkinson. "Even Professor Snape died laughing from that prank!"
"Since when does Professor Snape laugh?" asked Blaise Zabini.
"Apparently since Malfoy pulled that slick one," smiled Crabbe, patting Draco on the back.
Draco painfully forced out a fake smile. He was a hero to all the Slytherins, and then hated by just about everyone else (more so than usual). He disgusted even the students in the other houses. How could this scenario have gotten any worse for him?
"What do you mean I can't go to Hogsmeade?" Draco cried, outraged.
"You are banned from the Halloween trip to Hogsmeade for using the Hair Growth Potion on Miss Labadie," explained Professor Snape after class. "It seems that you were a bit too careless."
"It was a simple Hair Growth Potion! How was I supposed to know she had a devastating allergic reaction to it?" Malfoy gritted his teeth.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy, but I can't do anything about it. Headmaster Dumbledore has his mind made up about," replied Professor Snape. "So remember, next week on Halloween, you are not permitted to go to Hogsmeade." He turned to write the homework on the blackboard.
Draco walked away, smacking his forehead. "Unbelievable…" he muttered. "I make one mistake and I'm reprimanded for life."
"Oh, and Mr. Malfoy," Snape quickly added without turning from the board. "I suggest next time you please listen more carefully when I mention to the class that a potion should not be mixed with pollen."
***
"What do you mean you can't go to Hogsmeade?" Harry asked Amy, outraged.
"I never received a permission slip to go into the village," Amy explained simply.
"You should just ask McGonagall if you can go," suggested Ron. "After all, it isn't like there are anymore crazed maniacs loose from Azkaban hanging around." He nudged Harry slyly, who gave him an appreciative smirk.
"Really, Amy, you should just ask," agreed Hermione. "Ron's right, there's nothing to fear of running into at Hogsmeade."
"Well, except for that kidnapper, possibly," reminded Amy. "Who isn't exactly a crazed maniac from Azkaban," she added, giving the two boys a questioning stare.
"Um…" they muttered.
"Something else my brother forgot to tell me?" Amy asked Hermione, keeping her eyes on the boys, waiting for an answer.
"Third year run-in," Hermione informed.
"Oh," Amy said simply. "Well, thank you, Hermione. Now if you excuse me, I need to have a nice chat with Professor McGonagall." She began walking away towards the teacher's office.
"Some twin brother," Hermione muttered.
"Professor McGonagall?" Amy called into the empty room. The teacher was at her desk, grading essays. "Professor, I wanted to ask"-
"The answer is no," the teacher answered curtly, not taking her eyes off of the papers.
"Professor, you didn't even hear my question," Amy argued.
Professor McGonagall put down the quill and parchment in her hands and took her glasses off. "Miss Labadie, I don't need to hear your question to know what it is. You would like to know if you might attend the trip to Hogsmeade, yes?" Amy nodded. "Well, then my answer is, no, you may not."
"Why not?" Amy asked, hoping she had not gone too far.
"Because your parents expressly forbade it," Professor McGonagall answered.
Amy felt confused. "My parents never even received a permission slip, why would they"-
McGonagall interrupted. "No, not your adoptive parents. Your parents," she informed. She pointed to a chair. "Amethyst, sit down," she said with a more gentle tone. "After you and your brother were born, your parents decided that when you came to Hogwarts that you would not be allowed to go into Hogsmeade. For one, it had little to no protection from evil, for another, this lead to the fear that You-Know-Who would attack you in the village. Of course, at the time they did not realize that you were their child, but if they had, they would have kept their word true."
"But that doesn't make sense," Amy refuted. "Harry still can go into Hogsmeade."
"Harry has permission from a living guardian, and I can do nothing about that," replied Professor McGonagall. "Good day, Miss Labadie."
Amy walked from the room, now very confused. Would the Durselys really have given permission for Harry to go to Hogsmeade? Even if they had, would the school have really accepted that? In the common room, they waited for her.
"What did she say?" Ron asked.
"No," Amy answered. "Harry, who gave you permission to go to Hogsmeade?"
Harry answered, "My godfath"- suddenly he realized that he had totally forgotten to tell Amy all about Sirius Black.
"A godfather? Well, that explains why you can go and I can't!" Amy exclaimed. She explained to them what Professor McGonagall had told her. "So who is your godfather?" she asked.
"Sirius Black," Harry muttered.
"Sirius Black?" repeated Amy. "So this is the crazed maniac from Azkaban you were talking about? Well, Harry, why don't you tell me about this one?" she suggested, folding her arms.
Harry began to tell his third year. He told her all about how at first he hated Sirius for supposedly killing his parents, and then suddenly finding out that he was his godfather, and then finally learning the truth. All the while, he tried to avoid looking at Amethyst. It was a bit like looking into a mirror that made him look angry. "I'm sorry," he apologized, but even to himself he sounded lame. "But he does know about you, at least I think he does. I sent him an owl over summer."
"Well, it's good to know that," Amy replied, partly sarcastic.
"You're a lot less scared that your godfather is a wanted man," said Ron.
"Because a forensics scientist in America study the case, finding Black innocent, but the Ministry of Magic in London refused to accept the data, and still does," Amy answered.
"Who?" Hermione inquired.
"My dad," she replied coolly. She began to walk to her dorm.
"Amy, I'm sorry you can't go to Hogsmeade," Harry apologized again.
"It's ok," she said, still walking forward. "I can always just borrow the invisibility cloak," she reminded. Suddenly, at the top of the staircase she turned around and looked straight at Harry. "Or is that only yours, too?"
***
"Maybe she's just a bit high strung about not being able to go to Hogsmeade," suggested Ron a few days later at breakfast. "After all, you can't be expected to share your entire life with her," he added, having had to be given hand-me downs for most of his life.
"Ron, Harry and Amy are twins. Amy should be told at least the most dangerous and important parts of Harry's life," argued Hermione. "Although, this must be very tough for you, Harry. I suppose you couldn't have gotten it all out to her at once."
Harry shook his head. "No, Hermione, you're right. Amy has the right to know. In her letters to me, she was descriptive about the high points in her life. I suppose she felt she needed to stack up to me."
"Well, you are… well… famous," Ron reminded.
"I mean, what if I HAD died when fighting Voldemort? Being twins, she probably would have been in terrible pain for no reason whatsoever," Harry thought. He stood up and walked to where his sister sat.
Recently, after their fight, Amy somewhat avoided being with Harry and started to get closer with her other fellow Gryffindors, especially Seamus, Neville, Patil, and Lavender. Right now she was busy talking to Seamus.
"Excuse me," Harry interrupted. "Amethyst, can I talk to you outside?" Amy nodded and got up to leave with Harry.
Outside the Great Hall, Harry was about to speak when Amethyst spat out, "Did Hermione and Ron only talk to me because I'm your sister? Did they feel they needed to be my friend because I'm your sister?"
Harry was now furious. He slapped her across the face. "That was absolutely unnecessary," he bellowed. "Look, I'm sorry that I haven't been totally frank with you, but right now, I'm still getting over the fact that my twin sister is still alive! Hell, I'm still getting over the fact that I HAVE a twin sister. The Dursleys mentioned only once in my entire life that my parents had had a stillbirth, and all they said was, 'Good thing the other one died.' And yes, at first Ron and Hermione were talking to you because they wanted you to feel welcome, but after that they genuinely liked you," Harry informed angrily.
"Hermione is astonished that you two nearly have the same intellect and need for knowledge," he told her, his voice becoming a bit gentler. "And Ron… he… sort of thinks that you are hot."
"He what?" Amy asked unbelievingly.
"He was impressed the first day he met you and you made Malfoy leave without raising so much as an eye. After that he just really began to like you," Harry smiled.
"So why hasn't he said anything? He hardly even seems mildly interested," said Amy.
"Well, he said that if he began to like you it would feel weird because he would feel like he had a crush on me. Plus I told him that I would break his jaw if he made a wrong move on you," Harry informed.
"Which came first?" Amy asked.
"I told him I would break his jaw if he made a wrong move on you," Harry grinned slyly. Amy snorted.
Suddenly, she threw her arms around him and began crying. "Harry, I just want to know more about you, my brother, my twin, THE famous Harry Potter! When I was eleven and had just come back home for the year, I passed out on the kitchen floor and my mother sighed and said, "Oh dear, what is Harry doing now?" Do you know when that was? The exact same time you battled Voldemort for the first time!"
Harry grabbed her tightly. "I know, I'm sorry. I never meant to cause you pain. Really, I want to know more about you, too."
Amy released and stepped back. "Well, we have twenty minutes before class starts. Let's just start over."
"Alright," Harry agreed. He put out a hand. "Hi, I'm Harry Potter. I'm your twin brother."
Hermione looked down at Ron, who looked back up at her. They slipped back around the wall. "You think that they made up?" she asked.
"Yup, I think so."
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