Disclaimer: Nope. I just wrote this story. All places, characters and spells belong to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of Ravenclaw-student Helena Stradford.

Author´s Note: I admit, I´m to lazy to come with something of my own, so it´s the basic Headboy/Headgirl plot, but (hopefully) this will not be like other fics.

Author´s Note 2: Since this is my first HP story, most of the characters will probably go out of character as the story develops. Also, if you don´t like fics where the author has changed some parts in the past, I suggest you go find another fic right away.

~*~

A Raven´s Touch

The last two weeks had been a living hell. Every time she met Malfoy in the hall or in the common room he´d put on a smirk, just to make her remember what happened on the train. And along with her Head Girl duties, she had to do her homework and try to come up with good Quidditch practise times. And because it was the year when they were going to take their NEWTS, she put up even more work on her homework than before, even though she used to get over 100% on all her homework. She had wanted to ask Malfoy how he could deal with it, knowing he was the Captain of the Slytherin team, but knew she´d probably just get smirk and an answer that didn´t have anything to do with what she was asking. She sighed. She had just finished her Transfiguration essay and she still had to do homework for Potions, Charms, Arithmancy and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Thank God it was Saturday tomorrow! She would be able to do everything she hadn´t had time to do and not having to see Malfoy for a whole day. Oh well, it was getting late and she needed to be able to concentrate tomorrow. She yawned and went to bed...

"Miss Stradford, I don´t know how to tell you this, but your parents....they´re....they are dead." Di-did he said they were...dead? No, they couldn´t be, she had gotten a letter from her mother just the other day, surely she would tell her if they were ill. She looked into the Headmaster´s eyes. They were dead serious.

"B-but how?" She stuttered, trying to hold back the tears starting to emerge from her eyes.

"They were killed. By Voldemort." She started shaking at the mention of the name. Why had they been killed? The Stradford´s wasn´t the type Vold- He Who Must Not Be Named went after. They weren´t muggles or muggle-born witches and wizards. In fact, they were one of the oldest wizard-family´s, with a story as old as the Malfoy´s. She couldn´t fight the tears anylonger, as she, still shaking, asked Dumbledore a question she didn´t want to ask, but knew she had to.

"Ho-How did they d-die?"

The Headmaster looked into Helena´s eyes. He didn´t want to tell her, but somewhere he understood that she had to know the truth. "They were first tortured by the Cruciatus curse, and then...they were killed by Avada Kedavra..." She couldn´t take it anymore, she fell down on her knees and just cried. It seemed to go on forever, the tears would never stop. And when the tears were gone, she did nothing but shaking. Nothing in the world could describe the pain she was feeling; it was as if she was torn apart. When finally, she had stopped shaking, she lifted her head, waiting to see Dumbledore still looking at her with concern in his eyes, but she wasn´t at Hogwarts anymore, she was in a place she had never seen before, yet it felt strangely familiar. She came to her feet and looked around. Everything around her was trashed, and it was dark and cold. Why did it look familiar? She had never set a foot in this...place before, and she had no idea of how she got there. "Helena" She looked around her, not being able to decide where the voice came from. It sounded like her father, but he was dead, Dumbledore had told her so. He couldn´t possibly have any reasons to lie to her, could he? "Helena..." It was the second time she heard the voice calling her name now, but it frightened her more than the first. Looking around her, not seeing anyone, she said "Wh-who is it?"

"It´s me Helena." She looked around. No one was there, but still she felt like someone was watching her.

"Who are you? Wh-what do you want?" She was beginning to feel frightened now, and she had a shiver down her spine. Suddenly she thought she saw a character coming out of the darkness. Yes, it was someone, but she couldn´t see who it was because of the dim light. But for some reason, the person looked strangely familiar, as she had seen him, or her, many times before. She repeated again, now with a noticeable tone of fear in her voice "What do you want from me?". The person laughed, a cold horrible laugh. Somehow the laugh sounded familiar too, though she had never heard it before.

"What I want? You´re responsible for my death Helena. As well as your mother´s."

Her lip started to tremble as she finally realised who it was. "Daddy?"

"Well who did you think it was?" This voice didn´t belong to her father. She spun around, and there, just a few feet from her, stood her mother. "I never thought you´d let us down like that. It´s all your fault!"

"I don´t understand, wha-....what´s my fault?"

"Our deaths!", her parents both screamed in unison. "You could´ve prevented it! You are responsible for us being killed!" Her parents continued yelling at her, as they came closer and closer...

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Helena almost jumped out of bed. Everything had seemed so real; even some of her real memories were in that dream. She took deep breaths as she looked around the room to convince herself it had just been a dream. She calmed down a bit, nothing seemed different or strange. She decided to try to go back to sleep, but after not managing to keep her mind off the nightmare, she put on her clothes and walked down to get something to read. The Head´s common room was really breath taking, and she hadn´t really taken any notice of it after that first day, but as she sat down in the couch she noticed what a sight it was. She had decided to read the first book she saw on the table in front of her, since it always was covered in her or Malfoy´s books because of all the homework or schedules they got, and if she happened to pick a boring book from the History of Magic class, she might just fall asleep from reading it, and that would be good too. "Hogwarts: A History"? Oh well, it´s not that bad... She picked it up and started reading, but she didn´t get far until she saw a shadow over the pages she read. "Can´t sleep Malfoy?", she said with sarcasm, without looking up.

"I don´t know about you, but I find it rather hard to sleep when someone screams in the middle of the night."

It hit her just where he wanted. She immediately blushed and told herself not to look at Malfoy, she didn´t want him to win. But her embarrassment soon turned to anger and confusion, as he started to massage her shoulders.

"Malfoy, listen now and listen carefully, ´cause I won´t say it again. Get your hands off me!"

"Oh, but I think you want my hands on you."

She spun around and stood up. "Bastard!"

"Oh, so I was right then?" He had another one of those infamous smirks of his on his face. God, how much she wanted to remove it.

"Well of course you were right.", she replied with sarcasm, "Maybe in your dreams." she added, now with her usual tone. She was about to go up to her room, but Malfoy cut her off. "Do you have a problem with me going up to my bedroom? If not, I suggest you get out of my way." However he didn´t move, he just watched her, obviously in amusement. Several minutes went past, or, so it felt, none of them spoke, none of them moved. Helena was determined not to walk around him, and Malfoy was determined to not move out of her way. "You did hear what I said, right?" She asked, raising an eyebrow as she spoke. Still, he didn´t say anything, just nodded, still with an expression of amusement on his face. She decided to change tactics, and leaned to the wall as she tried her best to have a boring tone as she spoke. "Ok fine, you´re not going to move, I´m not going to move, so why don´t we just stand here all day? I mean, it´s in the middle of the night on a Saturday and we don´t have any subjects today or tomorrow, so we might just stand here all weekend staring at eachother." For a few seconds, it looked like it actually had worked, Malfoy looked down at his nails instead of looking at her, and it looked like he was about to move, until he opened his mouth.

"You know, you´re tries in getting me out of your way were rather good, but not as good as they´d have to be." She glared at him, gave a sigh and closed her eyes, waiting for him to give up.

"You´re smiling Stradford." She opened her eyes at this remark.

"So?"

"Didn´t know I was the one you saw every time you closed your eyes."

"Like I´d be smiling when thinking of you. Oh wait....I do smile when thinking of you! But when I think of you, you´re either under a hex, tortured or dead." Now it was her time to celebrate a victory. Malfoy´s smirk died away, and he had nothing to say back. "What. Cat caught your tongue?" She loved this moment. Her smirking at a mute Malfoy, oh she wanted the moment to last forever. "Soooo....are you going to move?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"You don´t humiliate a Malfoy." It wasn´t until now she noticed the glare he fixed on her. Those icy grey eyes staring at her. She resisted the urge to shudder, and just stared back, meeting his eyes.

"So you´re just going to stand there to pay back?" She said it in her usual tone, with a hint to confusion. Still, he did not answer her, just stared at her. She knew she wouldn´t get him out of her way, especially not now, so she started to walk past him, but Malfoy gripped her wrist.

"I would sleep with one eye open if I were you." He let go of her hand, and she continued walking up. Yeah, like I´d be able to sleep anyway... she thought, throwing her onto her bed, trying to forget the dream...

~*~

"Hey, you ok?"

"Wh-what? Yes, I´m fine. Didn´t get much sleep last night though.", she replied, trying to convince Terry with a smile. Helena and Terry had always been good friends, even after they broke up in 6th grade. Though both probably knew that it wouldn´t last when they came together in the end of 5th year, they tried to work it out but it hadn´t been enough. Still, when he was concerned about her, it was like they still were together.

"Something troubling you?"

"No Terry, I just couldn´t sleep." She saw that he still wouldn´t believe her, so she quickly continued talking with Padma about the homework they had gotten from Professor Tarrae.

"And I don´t know how to be able to finish this paper, I mean she must be completely out of her mind..." Helena´s concentration was failing and she turned away from Padma to yawn, when she caught the eyes of Malfoy from the Slytherin table. She immediately started to smirk at him, making him remember that she had put him down, thinking he´d look angry or have an expression of pure hatred, but his face was blank, no emotions whatsoever. She found this strange, considering that he practically told her he´d put her under a curse, and still, he just sat there, watching her. "Helena, are you listening to me?"

"What? Oh yes, you were talking about some homework."

"I was talking about tha-" Padma broke mid-sentence. An owl came flying with what seemed a small box. Strange, there has never come any mail on Saturday´s before, at least not anything bigger than a newspaper. And to Helena´s big surprise, the owl dropped the package in front of her. She opened to box, to find something wrapped in paper, and a letter.

Dear Miss Stradford,

We are sad to inform you that this is all we could find which belonged to your parents.

We searched the house several times without any luck.

Yet again, we feel deep compassion for you.

Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic

Helena felt her eyes well up with tears as she unfolded the small package of paper. It revealed two rings, her father and mother´s wedding rings. "Sorry I have to go." she whispered and ran out of The Great Hall.

~*~

She sat on the stairs going up to her room and cried. It was a miracle that she had been able to get up to her common room, speak the password between the sobs and manage to get as far as the stairs. She held the letter in one hand and the rings in the other. She had read the lines over and over again. "We are sad to inform you that this is all we found....." she dropped the letter and the rings and just sat there, shaking. It´s my fault....it´s all my fault.

She didn´t know for how long she had been sitting there; a minute, an hour. It didn´t matter, nothing mattered anymore. Why continue living when all she cared about was gone? Where was the meaning in all of this? She hid her face in her hands as a new flood of tears followed eachother down her cheeks. From far away she thought she heard something open, like a door or something, but she could only be imagining, it was just something she thought she heard. Though she did react when she thought she heard someone pick up something from the floor. She looked up and saw Malfoy holding her letter and her parent´s wedding rings.

"That letter is private."

"I didn´t read it."

"Oh sure."

He sat down beside her. "I don´t read personal letters, unless they belong to Saint Potter." Helena gave a small laugh, but tears still escaped from her eyes. "Sooo....may I read it or will you tell me what it says?" he asked. Helena frowned at him and started to get up, but then he continued "Even if you don´t want to tell me, I will find out sooner or later. My father has contacts you know." She sat down again, knowing he was right. His father had just been in Azkaban for a month, since there were no real evidence against him, and after that he had gotten even more power in the ministry of magic. "Just go on and read it then."

He read it, and just sat there saying nothing for a long while. Then he opened his mouth. "So, your parents are dead?"

She just nodded to response.

"When did it happen?"

She was silent for a while, not knowing if she wanted to tell Malfoy. "In exactly a month, it will be one year ago." She buried her face in her hands again, not caring whether her enemy would see her crying. Then she felt something warm embrace her, and she didn´t have a clue of what it could be.

He had put his arm around her, dragging her close to him. But she didn´t try to push him away this time, she let him hold her. They sat there for a long time, until the last tear was shed. She got away from him, gave him a faint smile and began to walk up the stairs to her room. He stood up and started to walk in direction of his stairs, when she turned around. "Thank you."

He himself turned around, an eyebrow raised. "Anytime." he replied...