Author's Note: You know the drill, read and tell me what you think. Thanks!

Opens at her house, over summer break. She tries, yet again, to get her parents' attention.

"Dad, would you just listen to me?!" Alex said as she speedily followed her father through their huge house. He ignored her as usual, regarding nothing but th efiles infront of him, and the hallway through which they were walking.

"Alexis, listen to me, I'm incredibly busy, can't you just ask your mother?" he said, never slowing down or turning to look at her. Alex groaned loudly in her growing frustration. "Because," she said in another groan,"Mom wont listen!"

"And I dont blame her," he said under his breath. "Urgh, why wont you even listen to what I've got to say?! For all you know I could be trying to tell you that someone is trapped in our well!" At that, her father stopped and slowly turned around to look at her. A smug smirk was on his face, and a small chuckle was just barely detectable.

After a brief glance at her he continued down the long, wide hallway. "What?! I could be! How would you know?!" He chuckled again.

"Because, if it were something important, you wouldn't have walked slowly up to me trying to butter me up, you would've come running into the house like a lunatic shouting that somebody was in our well."

Alex stopped and let her father get a few paces ahead before starting after him again. "Pleeease, just listen?!"

"If I do will you leave me alone?"

"Yes!"

"Alright, fine, what do you want?" he said, entering his study. With an inward sigh of relief, she entered after him. "Well," she began gingerly. "I'll be in my fifth year at school come September." Her dad issued a small "Mhm," and she continued.

"Well, I wanted to know if..... um..... I could get a new broom." At those last words, his head shot up, and then back down to his files. "We just got you a new broom last year. That, Firebolt."

"I know, but there's a new model out. The Lightening Bolt. And it's not as though we can't afford it." She finished, waving her arms up, as if putting their enormous estate on display.

"I think it's time you stopeed waisting my and your mother's hard earned money, and started buying things from your own damn wallet," never lifting his eyes from his mountain of files.

"How am i suppose to do that, you two wont let me get a job over the holidays, and i can't exactly work while I'm at school-"

"Get a job in Hogsmead. I'm sure one of the professors will escourt you to the edge of the grounds."

"But dad-"

"No. That's that. Either get a job in Hogsmead once the term's started, or deal with being broke. Maybe then you'll learn some responsibility."

She scoffed, turned on her heal, and stomped off, muttering quietly, "Sometimes, I you'd ignor me all the time instead of just when you're yelling at me."

Still extremely irritated, she decided to take a long, aimless walk around her manor.

'It's not my fault.' she thought, recalling her parents reactions after the 1st term of her 1st year at Hogwarts. She'd been home for the Christmas holidays, and was "welcomed" by her parents screaming at her at the top of their lungs (generally, they only acknowledged her was when they were screaming at her)

Flashback...

"Slytherin?! You got placed in Slytherin?!" she remembered her mother shouting at her. "How dare you! Having a father that was in Gryffindor, and me having been in Ravenclaw, how could you have been puut into Slytherin?"

"After all we've done fopr you-"

"Done for me?! Are you fucking serious?! You've never done shit for me!"

And she stormed out.

...A smile curled onto her face as she remembered what she'd done next...

She'd gone up to her room, grabbed her medium sized travel bag and stormed out onto their large estate. She'd been walking at an extremely fast pace, and wasn't exactly paying attention to where she was going, and had accidently ventured onto their neighbors property line. A boy in her year and house at school with her happened to live there.

Though, being a very pissed off 11 year old, she didn't bother stopping and continued to walk toward the open land infront of her.

When she'd reached an old pile of rocks remaining from an ancient rune, she plopped down on it, and, burring her face in her knees (which she'd brought up to her chest), began crying uncontrollably.

She'd jumped when, after a few moments of sobbing, the boy from school jumped out from behind one of the rocks. Once the boy's laughter died down, he leaned his back against a rock, crossing hisa arms across his chest and said, "Just what do you think you're doing," a hint of amusment shining through his otherwise venomous words.

She retired her previous possition and was now sitting Indian-style on the rock, arms crossed other her stomach. "Just been to see my parents. They started screaming at me." Her head hanging.

"Yeah, i thought i heard something."

Her head snapped up to meet his silver eyes. "You could hear that?"

"No," another smile taking over his face. "I'm just kidding."

"I wish you wouldn't," she said, tearing her eyes away from his, and adverting them back to the ground.

Sighing in frustration, he pushed himself off the rock and went over to sit next her, taking a layed back status on the rock by leaning back on his forearms. She spun around to face him, still sitting with hr legs folded.

"Alright, out with it. Why were they yelling at you. Had to be a good reason."

"Not really. They don't even take notice that I'm there unless they feel like yelling at me."

He sighed yet again and said, "Well, why were they yelling at you this time then," annoyance begining to show in show in his tone and face.

Eager not to have him yell at her too, she said, "Because I was put into Slytherin. My father was in Gryffindor, and my mother was in Ravenclaw. They think I'm a disgrace."

After what could have only been a split second, he spoke with harshness, "What do they think they're on about? Slytherin, a disgrace?" And then he did something completely out of character. He sat up and placed his hands on her shoulders, pulling her face close to his.

"Let me tell you what I think of you. You're brilliant. You've racked up more points for Slytherin than half the other students combined. And you'e helped how many people with their work, even though you're only a first year? Plus, you fit in great. Sure, you're smart, but you're not overly brainy, like Granger they both cringe"

He then got up and began pacing around infront of her.

"I mean come on, you're probably 10 times the person your parents are. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw? No wonder they're clueless about you. Oh, no offence," he added, looking appologetic.

"It's nothing, and you're right, they don't have a clue about me," she finished, standing up as well. "Screw them, I don't need them," and she swung her bag defiantly over her shoulder. Looking amazed again, he said, "And where are you off to?"

Looking quite sure if herself, she said, "Back to your place, there's no way I'm going back to my parents," and she stalked off toward his house.

He followed hopelessly behind her. "Yep, you're a Slytherin." ....

End flashback...

...As the memory faded and Alex slowly came back to reality, it took a moment before she realized that she had a very stupid-happy grin on her face.

She was on the north end of her manor, coincidently, the same side that her Slytherin buddy lived on.

As she tried to shake the silly thoughts from her head, he just happened to be on a little walk as well.

"What do you think you're doing out here, Alex?" he said in his usual menacing tone, though she knew it was just his way of being friendly, and through his attempts to hide it, he appeared to be in very high spirits.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Draco?"

He drew nearer, and she walked toward him to meet half way. They met at her whine house, which she leaned against for some relief from the warm sun.

Though it was rather chily already, being northern England, Alex loved being cold, and was wearing a loose T-shirt and blue jeans cut off at the knees.

"So," he said, once he'd reached her, "what were they on about this time?"

She grinned softly, he could read he like a book. And after being best friends since they started school, it didn't surprised her.

"I wanted a new broom and, they said no."

His face reflected the usual bitterness it held when she talked about her parents and said, "They wouldn't get you a new broom? All of your other brooms are total rubbish."

"Don't rub it in. But listen, my father said I have to get a job in Hogsmead. Can you believe that?! And I have to start the begining of the term and work all year! Just so I can 'learn resposibility'."

Draco pushed himself off of the wall of the building and looked both outraged and disgusted.

"Work?! In Hogsmead?! Are they mad?! What model do you want, the Lightening Bolt?" Not waiting for her to respond, he continued, his silver eyes flashing, "It's only 15 gallions! Hell, I'll buy it for you, and by me, I do mean my father.

"Would he do that? For me?"

"Father always did say you had your attitude in the right tuning. He also said that if your, well, I wont tell exactly what he said, anyway, he said that if your parents ever gave you a hard time for no reason, you could come and stay with us."

After about 12 considering it, she turned and walked away toward her house.

"Come on, I need you to back up my story."

"Uh, sure. So, does this mean you're coming to stay with us?"

"If I can get away from my parents, I'm getting out of there as soon as possible. So yes."

And he followed her up the vast lawns to her house.

Author's note: Well? What did you think? Just to let all who want to know, I'm coming out with a HP slash, it's just a matter of me getting around to typing it uo on here. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this, and the next chapie is coming up soon!!

Shasanixie: Hey girl! I want to thank you sooo much for helping me out, since we both know that my dads computer is stupid for not having Microsoft Word on it. Anyway, see ya around chica!