"Welcome again to yet another year at Hogwarts. As this will be your home for at least this year, I hope you enjoy it. Now this old man will stop yabbering so that you can all enjoy your much-earned feast."
No longer hungry, Harry was going to go over and talk to her. But before he could move, she had stood up hurriedly and practically bolted out of the Hall, earning her yet more stares.
"Look, the atmosphere just got less vile in here." Hermione spat nastily.
Harry was shocked. "What are you talking about!" He could scarcely believe just how quickly his friends had passed their judgment.
"Come on man," Ron said, helping himself to a bun. "She's a Malfoy, so she must be evil." The expression on his face seemed to imply that this was a blindingly obvious fact.
"What about Sirius? His whole family were creeps, but he wasn't!" Harry replied heatedly. Hermione was shocked. This was the first time she had heard him so much as mention Sirius' since the Department of Mysteries. He seemed to notice this himself, as he swiftly went quiet.
Ron however, appeared not to notice, as he asked; "Why are you defending her anyway? You don't even know her."
Harry broke his sudden silence to say, "I do though. I met her the night before I came to the Burrow. Dudley and his cronies were chasing her."
As usual, Ron was puzzled. "Chasing her? Why?"
Harry shrugged. "Dunno. Never asked her. It didn't really come up. I didn't talk to her for long, only a couple of minutes. Then she took off saying her mum worries or something."
"Why didn't you tell us about this before Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Didn't think it was important." He said with another shrug. "Anyway, when I talked to her she didn't seem nasty, a little weird, but not nasty."
Hermione was still doubtful. "I still don't think she can be trusted, no matter how she seemed. It's not like that's hard to fake. Besides, I don't think I could even try to be friendly to any Malfoy."
"Me either. One Malfoy is too much for me anyway." Ron agreed as he piled yet another helping onto his plate.
"I can't believe the way the two of you are acting!" Harry snapped. He retreated back into silence once again, and didn't speak to either of his friends all through dinner. He decided to talk to Morgan at breakfast tomorrow and straighten things out.
Unfortunately for him, when Harry arrived a breakfast, even though he was quite early, Morgan was nowhere to be seen. When he questioned those around him, Colin said that he'd seen her leaving the Hall when he was going in, and that was pretty early.
Still determined, he thought to speak to her during potions, their first class. But still, no luck. She entered at the last moment, and sat at the front, working with her head down the whole time. When Harry tried to catch her attention, he ruined his potion, causing Snape to smile in that special way that he smiled only when something went wrong for Harry. And when the bell went, she was out the door, too fast for anyone to even call out to her.
That happened in every single class that day. She had made herself completely unreachable. Even at dinner, when she hurried in, grabbed an armful of food, then hurried out again. And in the evening, she was absent, not coming in until extremely late, then not speaking to anyone and going straight up to her dorm.
Much to Harry's frustration, this continued right through the week. He had all but given up completely on trying to talk to her; she obviously wanted to be left alone. But for what reason?
