AN: Don't own, don't own, don't own, though I rather enjoy making these characters do whatever I want. (evil grin) Hope you're enjoying, even though nobody else is reviewing L Thanks again to Staci for reading this when no one else is.

The days had grown cooler as September faded into October, trees shuddering off burgundy and gold leaves like a second skin. Hermione closed her eyes for a moment and lifted her head, enjoying the caress of the wind on her face and listening to it whisper sweet secrets in her ears. Then she opened her eyes, and looking down at the tiny rosebud in her hand, she sighed.

Madame Sprout was usually in charge of caring for all the plants and flowers around the school grounds, keeping the flowers blooming year-round with perennial spells. However, her energy was needed at the moment for the growing of the Mandrakes for her class of second years. Since Hermione had enjoyed Herbology so much, the professor had entrusted the rosebushes to her care. But these buds were stubborn; they refused to bloom despite all the care, magical or material, that she had given them.

"Come on, little bud," she whispered to it gently, as if coaxing it into opening, "you can do it."

But the tiny pink bud wouldn't listen, as reluctant as a newborn leaving the warm comfort of the womb. She leaned over and stared ponderingly at it for several seconds, as though if she stared long enough, it would open on its own. She groaned in bafflement and frustration, feeling as if she had failed Professor Sprout somehow.

Then she heard the soft fall of footsteps on the grass behind her. She looked over her shoulder to find Morgan coming toward her.

"You look like you could use some help," Morgan offered.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. Morgan's tone friendly enough, but Hermione couldn't help being suspicious after walking in on her strange conversation with Harry that night, the details of which Harry had kept hidden from her when she asked about it the next morning.

Morgan must have noticed her antagonistic expression, for she took a step back. "If you're busy, I understand…"

Hermione's eyes immediately softened. Damn. She hadn't meant to run her off. "It's allright," she said quickly. Turning her attention back to the rosebush, she said apologetically, "I didn't mean to be such a bitch. It's just that these stupid roses refuse to bloom, no matter what I do."

She felt dark, soft hair brush against her cheek as Morgan peered over her shoulder. A shiver played its way up her spine like creeping fingers, not from uneasiness, though from what emotion she couldn't identify. She leaned back to give Morgan a better view, or maybe to escape the sensation of Morgan being that close to her.

Morgan pulled out her wand and gestured toward the rose. "May I?" she asked.

Hermione had no idea what she was going to do, but she shrugged acquiescently. "Go ahead, if you think you can. I've tried everything else."

Holding the base of the bud with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, Morgan pointed at the pink bundle of petals with her wand in the other hand. "Rosa blomeum," she murmured, and Hermione felt a rush of energy pouring from Morgan into the fragile flower. A golden, glowing light surrounded it, and, to Hermione's astonishment, the petals began to open one by one, blooming out over Morgan's palm, sparkles of magic dancing out over the petals. Morgan lowered her wand and beamed satisfactorily.

"How did you do that?" Hermione demanded, though a note of awe was woven into her voice.

Morgan just smiled again at her, a teasing, inscrutable shine in her eyes. "You're not the only one with a trick up her sleeve," she said simply, mysteriously.

Despite herself, Hermione found that she was smiling, also. "For all my magical knowledge, I still haven't learned anything like that. Now I feel kind of inferior."

Alarm in her eyes, Morgan put her hand on Hermione's shoulder and squeezed lightly. "Don't be," she said comfortingly. "I envy your ability as a witch. This is something I learned from my grandfather, and he was very powerful in the area of High Earth magic. It took me months to learn to do this."

"You learned magic from your grandfather?" Hermione asked incredulously. "Before you went to school?"

"Before and during the summers when I visited the reservation from my magic school in Massachusetts," Morgan replied. "They don't have the same regulations of underage magic in America, especially for those on the reservation, under the guide of a Shaman."

Fingering the newly bloomed velvet petals, she astonished Hermione again by touching her wand to them and changing their pink color to red, crimson blossoming across the petals like blood from a chest wound. "Blood red roses are so striking, aren't they?" she mused more to herself than to Hermione. "The spell's really quite easy once you know it; you just have to learn to connect with the bud, coax it out of hiding, learn its secrets."

Something in that sentence made Hermione think of Harry's strange expression in the common room, and whatever secret or revelation he had shared with Morgan. "You mean like you did with Harry?" she said before she could hinder herself with discretion.

Morgan looked up at her from the transformed rose, and Hermione felt a rush of shame, sending a blush as pink as the roses to her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she quickly apologized. "I don't know why I said that."

But Morgan just smiled graciously. "You are very protective of Harry, aren't you? And of Ron, for that matter."

Hermione nodded sheepishly. "I guess I'm not used to trusting other girls. I love those boys. We've been through so much together since we were eleven. I've never really bonded with a girl."

Morgan bobbed her head understandingly. "Well, it's not too late. Maybe today's the day to start." She clasped Hermione's hand reassuringly, the warm touch of her fingers spreading up through Hermione's arm. Harry was right; she did have this inexplicable effect on those around her.

Suddenly, something very strange happened. The scarlet rose, standing out among the pinks like a gold Galleon among tarnished Sickles, began to wither rapidly, its delicate petals crisping and turning a sickly wheat-yellow color as it died before their very eyes. Hermione gave a horrified cry as both girls watched, helpless, as the others began to wilt, too, until half the buds on the bush were dying.

They heard a scornful laugh behind them and whirled around to find Draco Malfoy standing with his wand pointed at the rosebush, that hateful snicker pouring from his mouth like bitter drops of acid rain.

Recovering from her initial shock, Morgan felt a fire of rage swell up in her like liquid magma rising to the surface. She snatched her wand from her pocket and stomped over to him, jabbing her wand in his Adam's apple. "I'll have your head for that, boy!" she raged, with every intention of following her word.

Hermione came up behind her, holding up her wand toward him as well, other fist clenched as if poised to punch. Tears of anger welled up and stung her eyes, but she blinked them back.

Noticing Hermione's unspent tears, which she was trying hard to hide, he smirked in a way that made Morgan want to smack it right off his pretty face. "What, you lesbos can't take a joke? It was just a few stupid flowers."

Hermione gave a furious, bear-like growl, but Morgan, now beyond anger, was merely astounded at this blonde-haired boy's blatant disregard and irreverence for life. She had never before witnessed this kind of flagrant enjoyment in destruction. She knew his wealthy father was a suspected Dark Wizard from reputation. The boy had obviously been raised to be the same, the way that people, especially other Death Eaters, expected him to be.

Suddenly, she felt a smooth hand on her shoulder, then another on her wrist, gently forcing her wand down and away from Malfoy. She turned her head to see Ron standing next to her. "Come on, Morgan," he murmured next to her ear. "Trust me, he's not worth getting in trouble over." Motioning for Hermione to put her wand down, too, he added, a little louder, "He'll get enough detention from Sprout for destruction of school property."

Malfoy's eyes narrowed; he knew what Ron was saying was true. But not one to admit defeat, he taunted Morgan as Ron started to lead her away, "Yeah, good thing the Weasel was here to stop you, eh, new girl? Too bad your totem pole-worshipping mother isn't here to teach you to behave properly."

In response, Morgan turned around and spat at Malfoy's feet. "If you're so desperate for attention, Malfoy, why don't you go suck up to your rich daddy? Since you're obviously so desperate for his approval."

To her sick satisfaction, she detected a brief, almost-invisible flicker in his eyes, before the façade of smugness replaced it once again. She had hurt him, and she knew it. Ron and Hermione knew it too, for they were silent, watching. She pressed on, unable to stop herself.

"Oh, did I hit a soft spot?" she said in a melodious, mocking tone. "Did your daddy ignore you as a child? Did he beat you when you were nice to Muggles? Or is being an arrogant whelp in the genes?"

Malfoy scowled hideously and swelled with anger. "You'll pay for that, filthy Redskin," he said menacingly.

Morgan grinned a humorless, taunting grin. "I look forward to seeing you try, paleface," she shot back, ridiculing his use of the archaic, derogatory name he'd called her.

Ron grasped her arm more firmly and led her away as Malfoy signaled to his posse and they strutted off in a huff. "I told you it wasn't worth it," he hissed at her. "He's just trying to provoke you into throwing the first punch…or the first curse, for that matter."

"And doing a pathetic job of it," she snapped, twisting her arm out of Ron's grip. "I wouldn't waste the energy for a curse on him."

Ron smirked. "Good. Glad to know you can keep your cool."

She opened her mouth for an angry retort, but when she realized he was teasing her, her tart reply melted into a laugh. "I guess I should thank you for stopping me. I can really lose it sometimes."

"Me, too. My temper's about as fiery as my hair," he joked. His tone turned serious, however, when he added, "But with Malfoy, I've had to learn to control it."

With sadness, Morgan pointed out the wilted roses to Ron. "But look at what he did, Ron. Hermione worked so hard to make them grow, and he just…killed them. Just like that."

With her attention turned back to the dead flowers, Hermione made a whimper of distress and seized the stem of the once-red rose as if she could bring it back to life with just a touch. "Ow!" she exclaimed as a hidden thorn tore through the sensitive skin of her thumb. Ron rushed over to her, and upon seeing the tiny prick, held the wounded hand in his and rubbed her back affectionately with the other.

"I'm sorry about the flowers, Hermione," he said, tenderly wiping away her tears of pain and disappointment. "You can grow more of them."

Morgan's watchful eyes lingered on them with interest for a moment. She knew Ron was Hermione's best friend, but as she saw him brush away her tears with his thumb and put his free arm around her, she wondered if there wasn't something more, if there hadn't been for a long time. Harry cared about Hermione very deeply, no doubt, but he didn't look at her the way Ron was looking at her now, like her pain belonged to him as well as he smoothed back her hair from her face.

After a moment longer, she walked over to them, and held out her hand. "Let me see your thumb," she instructed.

Looking at her questioningly, Hermione held out her own hand for Morgan to take and Morgan examined her thumb closely. The puncture was small but deep; she had pierced herself badly. A single, beady drop of blood welled up from the wound, deep red as the beautiful rose, so lovingly created, that Malfoy had so thoughtlessly destroyed. But no matter. It would be easy to heal.

Morgan held Hermione's thumb between her own thumb and forefinger like she did with the rosebud and held her other hand over it, murmuring some words in a language neither Ron nor Hermione understood. Then she brought Hermione's thumb to her lips and proceeded to suck on the blood, applying pressure to make more blood rush out. Hermione felt herself growing lightheaded, as if she were giving a pint at a Muggle blood drive. Ron just watched, eyes wide; Morgan's action, whatever it was she was trying to do, was almost… sensual. Erotic. He didn't know what to make of it.

Morgan lifted her head and repeated the incantation she had said before, the taste of Hermione's blood thick and copperish in her mouth. Before their eyes, the puncture wound shrunk until it became nothingness, leaving her skin as whole as it was before.

Hermione and Ron stared at her hand, then looked up at Morgan in amazement. "What…the bloody hell…was that?" Ron enunciated.

"It's a basic Shaman healing spell," Morgan explained. "The thorns have poison in them. It's just a visualization of sucking the hurt and poison out."

"Just how many things do you know that we don't?" Ron asked good-naturedly.

"It helps having a medicine man for a grandfather. I sort of inherited his talent for healing."

Still fingering her healed thumb as if she expected the wound to reappear, Hermione pointed out, "I better go tell Professor Sprout so she can come fix this. I hope Malfoy gets detention for a month."

"Bastard," Morgan muttered.

"Bastard," Ron agreed. With that they headed for the greenhouse, leaving the last trailing rays of sunshine and the cool October wind whispering after them.