Chapter 7:

 A few days had passed since Pansy's party and Leah sat on a couch, huddled up next to the fire with Krysta lying on the rug near her. It had become her favorite spot to spend her spare times in. Most of the time, Leah would think about things or write letters to her family and Chris, although his letters have steadily become fewer and later in reply. Tonight though, Leah sat in her favorite chair reminiscing about what happened the other night. Some of what happened was a blur to Leah but most of it was clearly etched in her mind.

She could remember how she promised to Pansy that she would do the dare by the end of tomorrow. And how Pansy's eyes glimmered dangerously and Leah's stomach dropped. But the game went on, and Leah was now to choose a victim.

She could clearly see what she had seen as she looked around the circle. Her eyes momentarily stopped as she came to see Malfoy. He stared back at her, daring for her to challenge him. She could feel a sort of sinister grin form on her lips and Malfoy paled. She continued around the circle until she came upon Pucey, the Slytherin Quidditch Captain. He was looking down at his shoes and picking mud off the sole. That's the one, Leah thought, but she continued around the circle as to not give away her choice. Once she had gotten to Elise who was sitting next to her, she cleared her throat and said in a clear voice, "Pucey, Choose – Truth or Dare?"

He jumped when he heard his name but determined to be a man, he regained his confidence and said, "Truth."

Tut tut, thought Leah. "Not much of a darer, are you Pucey," she said determined.

Pucey paled and sat silent for a moment. Finally he said grumbling, "Fine, dare me."

Show time, thought Leah as she gave him an evil smile. "I dare you to go spend five full minutes in the broom cupboard with Pansy. You know what you have to do."

Pansy was shocked and it took some time before she could get on her feet. She shot an extremely dirty look at Leah and trailed after Pucey who was heading towards the other side of the room, near the boys' dormitory. The last of them that Leah saw was Pansy's hand pulling the door shut.

Five minutes passed and Leah walked over to the door and knocked, "Five minutes is up." She heard some muffled sounds inside and a grunt that sounded like "Damn."

When they finally came out, both of them looked extremely flustered, red in the face, unevenly clothed and hair messy. Everybody laughed when they came out, some giggled and some snickered. Pucey kept his gaze down to the floor but Pansy shot Leah with her most evilest glare she could manage.

When everybody had sat down again Pucey, like the others, looked around the circle for possible victims. Once Pucey had come to Leah, his gaze was very quick and Leah was sure that it wouldn't be her. His choice of course, was Montague.

Leah sat back in her favorite couch looking into the fire. She wasn't sure what else happened during the game. Though, she could remember snippets of it – Montague confessing his love to Blaise, although Blaise didn't take this as an offence and spent the whole night sitting together and holding hands. A boy by the name of Theodore Nott coming back after his dare looking extremely scared after encounting a night-time stroll in the Forbidden Forrest. And last and most vivid of her memories was the truth question asked to Malfoy.

It was Warrington's turn to Truth or Dare someone, and not surprisingly, chose probably the last person sitting in the circle – Malfoy. By that time, Malfoy had turned very pale, paler than his already pale complexion.

Everybody obviously being scared of Malfoy and his death threats didn't persuade him to be more daring with his choice when he chose truth. Warrington thought carefully, as not to choose a question that would earn him a death threat. He finally said, his eyes lighting up, "What's some thing that you parents have never caught you doing?"

Leah lips curled and thought to herself, how clever. It was somehow naughty in that obviously it was something that you'd want to hide from them but it could have been as simple as sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar.

Malfoy gave a little smile of amusement but then sank into thought. Everyone's attention was on him and he looked as though thoroughly enjoying it, and started to exaggerate in his 'thinking'. Leah's eyes rolled involuntarily but soon caught Pansy's eyes, which were evilly looking at hers.

After sometime, people were starting to loose interest in Malfoy's exaggerated acts and Malfoy too, was seeing that he wasn't getting much attention anymore. He cleared his throat and said, "Many things."

Everybody groaned.

"C'mon, tell us more!"

"Yeah, tell us!"

"Just say it!"

"Alright, alright! I'll tell you." He paused and grinned a sinister grin, "stealing cookies from the cookie jar."

Everyone looked disappointed and some tried persuading him to say more. Better safe than sorry, thought Leah and she left the common room and into her dorm.

Leah sat back into the couch and tried to remember further into what had happened, without succeeding. She went on to play the memory of the next day; one that was definitely strong in her mind.

That morning, the Slytherins had double potions with Gryffindor and Leah sat next to Elise in the dark and dank dungeon far below the castle. Snape had once again started his class by picking on Harry and then drawling on about today's potion. He then pointed to the black board which magically appeared with the complicated method of potion making, today, a very strong Imperative Potion, one you can control whoever took 3 drops of it.

Annie had caught Leah's eyes several times during the lesson and waved from behind her cauldron. Leah tried returning the wave, but Elise trod on her toe; a motion to stop associating with what she called "the wrong sort". Leah could see Pansy eyeing her suspiciously.

Leah felt a guilty pang every time she saw Callisto. Imagine what she would think if she knew that I was going to kiss her boyfriend, Leah thought and her stomach sunk an inch lower.

Elise and Leah managed to get the potion up to scratch, though the liquid was a bit too thick than what it was meant to be. But this was enough to stop Snape breathing down their necks and he moved onto the next group.

Malfoy, on the other hand, was praised highly by Snape even though his potion had a pinkish tinge to it, when it was meant to be purely transparent.

Harry wasn't as lucky. He was given a very low mark when his potion was only slightly gluggy – a better potion than of Leah and Elise. Harry looked very disgruntled, despite the fact that this had happened repeatedly for the last six years. To top things off, Malfoy went past Harry's cauldron to hand in a sample of his potion, knocked the cauldron off its stand and spilt the whole lot on to the cold dungeon floor. This brought Harry's mark down to zero and in the end, Harry had to also stay behind to mop up the spilt potion.

Leah took this opportunity to make a mess to slow down the process of packing up and was left behind with Harry for a few minutes. As Leah shoved the last bit of parchment into her bag, she checked to see that Harry was still working hard in cleaning the mess. She hoisted the bag onto one shoulder and walked towards Harry, "Did you want some help with that?"

"No, I'm fine thanks. I've finished now anyway," he said throwing a potion drenched rag into a sink near by.

Leah gulped hard and fought the butterflies in her stomach. She said quickly before acting upon it, "I'm so sorry I have to do this. It was Pansy's dare."

"W-?" but he was cut short by Leah lips hastily meeting his. To Leah's surprise, she became fixated in kissing him. But nothing would have prepared her for what came next; he was kissing her back. As soon as Leah realized this, she backed away quickly. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.

"No – never mind."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anybody about this," she said, feeling the knot in her stomach tighten. "Especially Callisto, I don't want to break her heart. It was only a dare anyway – it didn't mean a thing…"

"Um, yeah. But -" But he was cut short again as Leah sprinted out of the dungeon.

Leah sighed as the knot tightened once again in her stomach. That knot had been there for two days now, and she couldn't dare look at Callisto in the eye. One thing she was sure was that Callisto would never find out about what had happened between her and Harry.

Though she had told Pansy that she had accomplished the task, it was only to Elise that she had confided what had really happened.

That night, Leah reopened her box of letters and read and reread through each letter. Her stomach curled as she read the last letter from Chris. Oh god, she thought, what would happen if he knew? But she thanked her lucky stars that these things would stay buried for a long time…

The next day went to breakfast as usual and arrived in time to see the owls swooping in through the high window. She searched through the crowd of flapping wings but failed to find a familiar owl – not that she was expecting any letters.

She went back to finishing her piece of toast as Pansy neared where she sat and sat down opposite with a sneer smeared across her face that gave Leah a gut feeling that something wasn't right. She greeted her politely and stuffed the last piece of the toast in her mouth and got up to leave.

"I wouldn't be going so soon, if I were you," Pansy said.

Leah turned and asked pointedly, "What do you mean by that?"

Pansy gave her a small smile and got up to walk towards the Gryffindor table. As she glided past Leah, she quietly said in her ear, "Just watch this."

Leah tried leaving, but her feet were glued to the floor and she had no choice but to stand there and watch her.

As Pansy neared the Gryffindor table, she called out to Callisto who twisted from her bowl of porridge and looked at her with nothing less than disgust. "What are you doing here?" she pointed out.

Pansy ignored her question and asked, "Have you met our new comer, Leah Harrison?"

"Of course I have," Callisto said.

"Well it looks like your… friend's gotten cozy with your celebrity boyfriend."

Callisto's face fell and a bit of porridge splotched in the bowl from the suspended spoon as Callisto gaped at Leah. Leah couldn't do much except look helplessly at the dumbstruck Callisto and the sneering Pansy. It finally came to a point where Leah couldn't stand it anymore and wheeled around and ran out of the Hall.

She finally stopped pelting when she reached her bed and she slumped on it and buried her face in to the bed spread. Krysta, who awoke from the sudden intrusion, slid to where Leah lay and coiled herself neatly on her back. Leah felt the weight start warming her back and she gave a sigh, picked Krysta up from her back and came to sit up. She started talking to her, "God, Krysta, why did I come here in the first place? I mean, why did I even decide to be part of Pansy's stupid group of friends, anyway? Why didn't I see the warning signs before I got into all this?" Leah doubted that Krysta knew what she was talking about, but she certainly looked at her as if she understood her completely.

A/N: R&R please!