There was no one in the common room except for Abby, Harry, and Ron. Hermione had gotten annoyed with the three of them talking so loudly that she'd gone to her dormitory to finish her Arithmancy chart.

"Hermione can be normal, you know. Just not on weekdays. Or weekends when she does extra credit..." Ron stated.

"Which is every weekend," Harry added.

Abby chuckled. "She seems busy. But at least she's enjoying it. I think..."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. "She enjoys it," they said in unison.

Abby giggled again. "I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight you guys."

"G'night," Ron said.

Harry just gave a smile as she left. Ron grinned at him in a mischievous manner. He leaned over and rested his arms on his legs.

"Guessing Cho is completely out of the picture," he said with his ginger eyebrows raised.

Harry looked at him disbelievingly. "Cho has been out of the picture for a long time. What's your point?"

"My point, my relationshiply challenged friend, is that you like Abby." Ron looked far too excited about this.

"You're calling me relationshiply challenged? The last girl you kissed was Hermione. It was on the cheek and you told her you had a contageous skin disease that'd make her lips swell up." Harry grinned.

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment. "Hmm. It was really strange when that actually happened. She was in the infirmary for a while, huh?"

Harry nodded and chuckled. "Besides.. the thing with Abby.. I mean there is no thing.. well there is a thing.. just, not with me."

Ron furrowed his brow. "What are you going on about?"

"It's nothing. Nevermind. I'm just going to go to bed." Harry got up off the couch and began walking toward the boys' dormitories.

"Yes, Harry, because I'm really not curious anymore," Ron said from across the room. Harry turned and faced him, letting out a sigh. Ron smiled. "Do you like Abby?"

There was a moment where Harry just thought; staring off into the space between Ron and himself. He thought of how nice he'd been when Abby told him about Malfoy. God, he hated him. Of all people, why did Abby have to fool around with that git? Harry sighed and focused on Ron.

"You know the answer, Ron."

---

Draco was having the strangest of dreams. It was coming in images; each that of the past, only slightly more twisted. His sixth birthday party had been ruined. The clown was far too scary and the cake wasn't chocolate. Then his father slapped his mother across the face. A little girl stole a cookie and chucked it at young Draco's head. Draco stepped on her foot and dug his heel into her toes. She screamed. Suddenly she was an eleven year old Hermione Granger, and telling Draco that she thought he had the potential of a very good student. Draco snorted at her and walked away, then got sorted into Slytherin. Hermione never talked to him the same way again. Then he ran into Snape who was eyeing a female professor with a look of great desire. His eyes got wide and the corridor tilted, as though the earth were moving. His surroundings changed. Draco was in a familiar hallway now, not alike the one he'd seen Snape in. The hasty changing of scenes in his dream were stopping.

Now the torches in the hallway were flickering, and Draco found himself walking forward. There were two doors on either side of him. He took the left one. When he swung the door open his father greeted him with a smirk. Draco didn't remember this as a memory. He looked down at his hands. They were the same hands as the ones that had touched Abby the day before. He looked back up at his father.

"She's here, Draco," Lucius squeaked.

Draco snorted with laughter. "I'm sorry. What was that?"

Lucius cleared his throat and muttered something that sounded like "The Dark Lord has to teach me to fix that..."

Draco blinked and stared at him. "What is it, Father?"

Lucius gave him a cold stare. "She's here, Draco." It came out in his tone this time. Frigid and drawling.

Draco woke up. He blinked in the darkness and rolled his eyes at the snoring coming from Crabbe and Goyle's beds.

Draco got up and walked over to one of the curtained beds. He wrenched open the material.

"What? What? Whossat? Who's there? Mummy?" Trenton said sounding completely lost.

"It's not your 'mummy,' you slag," Draco said hiding a grin.

Trenton squinted. "Why did you wake me up? Having nightmares?"

Draco paused. Well he sort of was. Anything that included a squeaky Lucius and a clown would surely constitute as a nightmare. "No," he said curtly.

"Malfoy, it is too early still. I'm going back to bed." Trenton rolled over and nuzzled his head into his pillow. "Abby.." he whispered into it a few minutes later as he began to drift off into slumber.

Draco's eyes grew wide. "I'm still here, you know. And you need to explain what in bloody hell THAT was before I hex you."

Trenton's eyes opened the second Draco spoke. "..What did I say? You didn't hear.. I mean I.. It was just the beginning of a dream.. I couldn't control it.."

"Mmhmm," Draco said nodding. "And puckering your lips at your pillow."

"Fuck."

"I'd rather you just left the pillow alone," Draco said.

---

Abby tossed and turned in her bed. She couldn't sleep if she was hit over the head with a hammer. Okay.. maybe she'd sleep then. But she'd have a bump on her head the next morning. So that was a no-go.

She rolled out of her bed and got dressed. She just needed to walk around for a little while. She had no idea where, but that wasn't the point. The point was to get air. Fresh air is outside. Therefore that's where she'd go. Rocket science.

The air outside was a chill to the bones, but it was in an odd way, utterly soothing. She played with the silver chain that was around her neck. It hadn't always been there. It had been a present she was given when she was very young. She'd had it lying on her bed table for the longest time. It had 'Abby' engraved in the small charm hanging from it that was in the shape of a very tiny broomstick. A cold breeze swept over her again and she shivered. She heard a footstep behind her and turned around to face the towering trees of the Dark Forest. She gasped, seeing a short stubby man in front of her holding a treelimb. He swung it forward and hit her on the head. Abby's hand that had been holding onto her necklace fell, unclasping it and dropping it to the ground as she became unconscious. The man grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into the forest.

---

"Where's Abby?" Harry asked Hermione and Ginny. Ron grinned, and as a result, got Harry's elbow deep in his stomach.

"She wasn't in my dormitory this morning," Hermione stated.

Ginny's brow was furrowed. "That's strange."

Harry shook his head. "Not really. She might just be at breakfast."

But she wasn't. There was no sign of Abby all day. Harry's stomach knotted up when he'd come to realisation. Abby was with Draco again. To even think about it made him feel sick. Someone caught his eye across the Great Hall. Draco Malfoy was sitting at Slytherin table across from the boy Harry recognised from Quidditch games as Montague. So Abby wasn't with Draco. That's a relief. ..Then where was she?

"Something wrong, Harry?" Ginny asked.

Harry shook his head. Ginny gave a meek smile and went back to eating her pancakes.

"I'm going for a walk. Anyone care to come?" Harry looked around at his friends. They all stared blankly at him. Perhaps it was the shock that he'd asked for company that was so odd. "..Don't jump all at once now."

Ginny snickered. "I'll go along. That is, if you don't mind."

"Why would I mind? I asked, didn't I?"

"Yes, Harry. But I'm used to being shunned." Ginny smiled.

"Come on," Harry said chuckling.

The grounds were dry, with no sign of morning dew at all. It was beginning to get very cold, and judging by the gray sky, it seemed as though it might snow later on. Harry and Ginny walked along the outskirts of the Dark Forest wordlessly for a while, before Ginny broke the silence.

"Is there something wrong? You seem pensive and slightly lovesick."

Harry blinked at her. "How'd you come to that conclusion?"

Ginny grinned. "Well, considering you know all about my crush on you when up until about fourth year, I saw the way you looked at Cho--"

"This isn't about Cho," Harry said interrupting.

"No, I know that. Let me finish, won't you?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Go on," Harry said timidly.

"I saw the way you looked at Cho. Now I see the way you look at Abby. I don't even think you notice it. It's the look you get in those annoying green eyes of yours when you look at them. A look you never got by looking at me.."

"Ginny, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"

But Ginny cut him off. "It doesn't matter. I don't have those feelings anymore. So stop feeling sorry. You can't help how you feel."

Harry sighed. "I like her a lot. But it's not going to happen."

"Oh stop wallowing in self pity and tell her." Ginny smiled.

"No, Gin. It's not because of that." Harry rubbed his forhead. "It's because she likes Malfoy."

"..Have you gone mad?" Ginny put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. She dropped her hand and they faced eachother.

"I know she does, Ginny. The day she was no where around was the day she spent in his dorm room." Harry felt another pang in his stomach.

Ginny blinked. "Oh. Well I guess that explains it." Something sparkled in the grass and caught her eye. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Harry asked, watching Ginny walk past him and pick something up.

"It's a necklace." Ginny examined it. "It's.. Abby's necklace."

Harry walked over and looked at it in Ginny's hands. "I've never seen her wear this. How do you know?"

"Well, I've seen it on her bed table. And look. Her name is engraved in it." Ginny pointed out the small script.

"She's not at Hogwarts." Harry stared into the trees.

"What?" Ginny said looking up at him.

"We need to find Malfoy."

"You're making less and less sense," Ginny said shaking her head. "Unless.. oh."

Harry looked at her. "Come on."