A/N- In case anyone is wondering, when a phrase is surrounded by '-' instead of "-" it means that someone is thinking.

PS. Alex, you rock, I don't know where this story would be without you. What can I say? You got me hooked

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"Kristin, I'm so glad you came!" Hermoine greeted her. She was standing with Ron Weasley outside the Quidditch field where she had told Kristin to meet her.

"Hi, Hermoine. Hi, Ron. Why wouldn't I come?"

"Because I just talked to Harry about what happened at lunch, so we were worried that maybe you thought we were going to harass you."

"You're not?"

"No," Hermoine replied. "Ron and I kept hearing so much about you and thought we should be the first ones to know you but I guess Harry beat us to it."

"Harry talks about me?" Kristin asked hopefully. She was seriously reconsidering her previous decision. No. She couldn't. Harry would just have to accept that. Maybe she should try first.

"Yeah, mostly Harry. But lots from other people, too. No one seem to know anything about you." Ron answered.

"So, what's your story?' Hermoine finished.

"Story?" Kristin smiled. "I don't have a story."

"Well," Ron offered. "Where do you come from?"

"Paris, France," she answered, thinking about how much she hated questions about herself.

"What about your parents? What were they like?"

"I don't know." Ron and Hermoine looked at her puzzledly. "They both died when I was very young. So, I don't know.. Listen. I'm sorry. but. I should get going. I have to have a talk with Professor Snape about that little table incident," Kristin grasped for an excuse to free herself from the interrogation. Ron and Hermoine seemed nice enough but not when they were bugging her about her parents. She hated when people brought up her childhood. It sucked and that was all there was to it.

Kristin spun around to leave but found herself blocked. She turned her gaze upwards into a pair of dazzling green eyes.

"Hi, Harry Potter," she said softly. 'This could get awkward.'

"Kristin," he acknowledged her. "I see you've met Ron and Hermoine."

"Yeah," she replied not back away from him. They were the same distance apart as they were before that first kiss and Kristin could almost feel the pull of her lips to his, but she resisted. No, she wouldn't do that to him- or herself. She excused herself politely with the same reason she gave Ron and Hermoine.

'Ok,' she thought,'so it did get awkward.'

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"Sir," Kristin called, walking into Snape's room. "Professor Snape, are you here?" The room was empty. She took a seat in the chair behind the desk. She did some History of Magic homework. She couldn't blow anything up doing a worksheet. She looked at her Defense against the Dark Arts homework. This was going to come in handy.

"Kristin, she heard softly. Kristin looked up to see who was there.

No one.

"Hello?" she called back.

"Kristin." She looked toward the sound. She noticed a candle on the counter top. "Kristin." The flame on the candle flickered as the voice flickered. Wait! That flame is green!

"Come here, Kristin."

The flame flickered once again.

She walked towards the candle until she met it at the counter. Kristin stared at it intently. She knew that shade of green and started to back up slowly.

All of a sudden the flame erupted. She screamed and fell backwards. Professor Snape rushed it and the flame extinguished except for the small ordinary orange flicker on top of an ordinary candle.

"Kristin, what is going on?" he screamed.

"Sir," she said, sobbing. Her hands and face burned. "I- I- I- "

"Explain later. Let's get down to Madam Pomfrey. Those burns look pretty bad."

He took her by the shoulders. Kristin followed obediently, crying. The tears stung her scorched cheeks. They finally made it to Madam Pomfrey's office.

"Oh! Dear!" she fussed at Kristin's arrival, "Come with me."

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Kristin lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. 'What happened?' she wondered. That green flame. She wouldn't let it get to her. She had to forget it all.

"How are you feeling?" Professor Snape opened the door. "Ms. Pomfrey said that you blacked out once." He sat in the chair next to her bed. "What did you do?"

"I'm not sure," Kristin answered, "the candle. It was so strange. It was kind of hypnotizing. I just heard it calling me."

"What do you mean?"

"The flame. It was calling my name. It told me to come to it. But it wasn't orange, it was green."

"Green?"

"Yes. Green. And it flickered when it talked."

"Kind of sounds like." Snape trailed off.

"Yeah," Kristin answered sensing what he meant. "I know. Are you as afraid as I am?" she whispered. Professor Snape nodded. There was really nothing more he could do but sigh. 'This poor girl,' he thought, 'finally gets somewhere she can call home and he follows her. I wonder if this has happened at the other schools.' He sat for a while before he wished her well. "Poppy says that since they are caused by magic, your burns won't scar. And you should be out of here in a week." He added before he walked out the door. Kristin groaned.

"A week!?!" she sunk down in the bed and rolled her eyes. "I can't be out a week."

"I'll help you with your homework if you want." Professor Snape sighed. "You don't need this. Not now. Now get some rest, alright?" He made it all the way through the door leaving Kristin in her room alone.

'At least I'll have help,' she thought. 'Scars. I wonder what I look like right now anyway. This sucks. A lot. I don't want to be trapped her for a week.'

"Campbell, what did you do now?" Draco walked in uninvited.

"Don't you knock, Draco Malfoy?" She yelled. "How did you get in here. I was told I need rest."

"Madam Pomfrey let me in, so don't lie to me. So what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. Did you just come to antagonize me?"

"Kind of. Wow! You look like crap!" There were no bandages on Kristin's face because they were magic burns and were being treated as such. Bandages did no good on this kind of burn. But it left the red and blistered skin open for all visitors- even unwelcome ones- to see. Kristin would be here until they were gone which meant they were completely healed. Magic burns could be fatal if she were to leave the nurse's room and take care of them herself.

"At least these will go away. You'll always be ugly." Kristin retorted. Sure, she lied, but she thought it was a pretty good comeback anyway. She couldn't use the ugly comments in front of other people because everyone in Hogwarts- even Kristin- knew that Draco was quite attractive whether they liked to admit it. Usually, they didn't like to admit it, especially the girls from Gryffindor.

To her surprise, Draco laughed. Not scornfully, like when he made fun of other people, but like he genuinely thought something was funny.

"That was a pretty good one, Kristin. You know, you're not as bad as I thought you were." He sat down on the side of her bed and smiled at her. "So, really, what happened to you?"

"Long story."

"From what Madam Pomfrey says, you have a long time and I'm not going anywhere." He looked in her eyes. She never truly noticed the warm, light green flecks in his cool silver eyes. They leant a human quality to his inhuman demeanor.

"When I said 'long story', I was referring to how much I don't want to tell you."

"Oh, come on," he lowered his head a little to give her a set of puppy eyes.

"It won't work on me, Draco Malfoy," she said, seriously. This was not a secret that puppy eyes could coax from her. She gave him 'the look' to let him know that she meant business. Draco understood and stopped the charade of innocence. "So, what did you really come down here for?"

"To see what you blew up now," he grinned at her in jest. "No, really. I wanted to know if you were all right. I saw you crying in History of Magic and I wanted to make sure you knew how sorry I was."

"Draco Malfoy? Apologizing? Hmmm. Why should I believe you?" Kristin asked, skeptically. She didn't know Malfoy that well -no one did- but this just wasn't acting like himself. The Draco everyone knew was cruel, conniving, calculating to the end and here he was apologizing? It just didn't seem right.

"Because I mean it." He took her hand in his and gazed into her cloudy hazel eyes. 'What secrets are those clouds covering?' he wondered silently. He found himself wanting to know everything. 'Just because she told me that she didn't give a damn if she was in my seat. You're going soft, Draco.'

"Since when?" she replied coldly. There was a slight pause before she took her hand back swiftly. Maybe she just realized what was happening -or realizing that she wasn't supposed to like it. He hoped dearly for the second one. He truly wanted her to like him. He didn't know why but there was something about this new girl that intrigued him. Maybe it was the air of mystery that she exuded more and more with every word she spoke, every move she made, every breath she took. Maybe it was the energy with which she countered his attacks, defended herself against his malice. It could be the girl that showed someone else to the world -the way he did- to elude the prying tendencies of the Hogwarts residents (students and teachers alike).

"I've meant it since I saw you crying." He told her. 'He seems sincere enough.' Kristin thought. Silver eyes met hers in a gaze she had never shared before- except Harry. She thought back on him. 'Where is he? If Draco found out, why doesn't Harry know that I'm here?' His green eyes entrenched their image in her mind and imagination.

She envisioned him exploring her psyche with those eyes. He would kiss her softly and his hands would trail through her hair down her back and under her shirt, the feeling of his soft hands against her bare skin causing her to tremble slightly. He would lift her shirt over her head, pausing only slightly for one last kiss before removing the clothing completely from her top. The bra clasp would cause him a slight problem that would make them both chuckle softly without removing their lips from each other. She could feel his soft hair in her hands just thinking about it.

"I just couldn't stand to see you cry," Draco continued, tearing into Kristin's fantasies with his low and gentle voice. She couldn't decide which was more tantalizing -the way she felt with Harry or the way Draco was talking to her right now. "You seem so strong and just to know that I broke you was horrifying. Your spirit has an amazing fire to it and it would almost kill me to know that I have extinguished it. So, please, tell me it wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't your fault," she replied, not automatically as Draco had expected but with complete sincerity. "Harry and I are going through a moment."

"What kind of moment?" Draco asked. 'Oh, yeah, Harry.' He thought. 'Why can't Potter stay away from anything?'

"We're not really going out?" she confessed, not sure why she was telling him anything. "I just told you that to shut you up. So when we went to the library, he asked me if we could make it a reality."

"And?"

"And I turned him down."

Draco's heart skipped a beat. Did he just hear her right? She turned him down?

"Why?"

"I have my reasons."

"Oh," he acknowledged quietly. Another question dodged. She was getting pretty good at that. If she was anything like him, it became habit by the time she was old enough to be a first year. But, why? What was she hiding? He knew his past. His secrets. now it was time to find hers.

"So." she started, not quite knowing where to go with the statement, just knowing she had to get off the subject of Harry Potter before she let someone know how she felt and decided to screw everything and go out with him. "How did you find out I was here anyway?"

"Snape," he answered, slightly disappointed that she didn't go on about what was in her head.

"He told me he wouldn't tell anyone."

"Yeah," he agreed, somewhat half-heartedly "but I'm his second favorite student." He smiled at her.

"Second? Your only second best?"

"Yeah. I was first, until." he trailed off.

"Until." she prodded, eagerly.

"Until you showed up?"

"Me?" She was genuinely surprised.

"Yeah, you, don't be so shocked."

"But I've only been here a day."

"I know. but for some odd reason, he likes you."

Kristin stuck her tongue out at him jokingly. Draco made a face back. They laughed and went back to conversation.