Chapter 44: Holidays

Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing them from J.K.Rowling.So sue me :P

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A/N: I don't even have enough apologies for the lateness, or enough space to list all the reasons which contributed. One of the main two reasons was the internet crashing for a week, meaning I couldn't get on to discuss things with my plot betae (and since the holidays are beginning, I really needed to. The fic is divided, in my mind, into five subsections, and this is the beginning of the third. They aren't all the same length though; so don't take that as a prediction on the remaining fic!) The other was some personal issues which, quite ironically, are reflected in the upcoming story. Which, as you may imagine, led to a good bit of block about it.

Thanks to all of you for being supportive and patient while Fallen's been on its hiatus. Your reviews have kept me smiling and cheerful when things went bad and the writing got hard. I couldn't ask for a better group of readers!

As an apology – remember those two ficlets I wrote for the fandom aid project to help victims of the tsunami? Now the project's officially over, both ficlets are going up on my profile, so after this chapter you have two other fics to read! Amazingly enough, neither of them is DHr. I'm also going to shift the wing-touching scene forward a few chapters. You deserve it.

Also thanks to everyone who helped me pick what tense to use for my next story. I did go for past, my overwhelming majority vote. Never let it be said I don't listen to the people! It does fit the style of the story better, because I can give it an extra psychological twist with it being told after the events have happened. The only problem is that it's going to be hard not to give away the ending! It's going to be my next project after Macbeth.

Forum is still underway, it's been on pause while I tried to catch up with updating.

"If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come."

William Shakespeare, King Henry IV

Ginny came to a neat landing, a few feet away from where Harry was helping wrestle the second Bludger back into its box. The last Quidditch practice of the term was over – save for whatever Harry had left to say to the team, of course, but Harry never let his post-match talks get too long. Especially not in this weather.

She found herself almost regretting being a Chaser, instead of Seeker as she had been briefly when Harry had been banned from playing last year. Not because she preferred playing Seeker, which she'd found rather boring at times, despite the possible glory. Swooping round for hours and watching for a gold glimmer did get monotonous, especially compared to the fast paced role of a Chaser. But it had meant that she could spend a few minutes sitting high above the practice games, watching for the Snitch and warming her hands up. Chasers got no such luxury.

She rubbed her hands together, watching Harry buckle the Bludgers into their cases and reflecting that her own fingers would be far too stiff to do so. The rest of the team gathered round as the Quaffle and Snitch were packed away and the case sealed, waiting impatiently for Harry to make his final speech and dismiss them to the warmth of the changing rooms.

At last, he straightened up and addressed the team. He looked tired from the flying, but then they all did, and his cheeks were flushed from the excitement and the icy, whipping winds. He always looked happier when he'd been flying, Ginny noticed, his eyes wider than usual and somehow greener. Though that might be from contrast with the Gryffindor scarf he was wearing, tucked tightly round his neck.

'I won't keep you long,' he assured them with his usual smile. 'You all did brilliantly, and if you fly like that in our matches we'll win the Cup by miles. The only problem, as you all know, is that the next match isn't very long after we come back.'

There were collective groans. Madam Hooch had reshuffled the timetables slightly, to the dismay of many, but she'd taken on some part-time work as a Quidditch coach for one of the smaller professional teams and couldn't be there to supervise at the usual times. Their first match was barely a week after they returned to school.

'So I need all of you to keep practicing over the Christmas holidays. I know that's probably going to be hard, especially those of us who are going home and live in Muggle areas, but if you can get to somewhere you can fly safely, even once, then get out there and practice for as long as you can. Understood?'

There were general nods and a couple of murmured agreements. 'Great. Let's get back inside, it's freezing out here.' That suggestion was greeted far more enthusiastically by the rest of the team, and people started to head for the changing rooms, chatting and laughing together.

Harry fell in beside Ginny and Ron, as he usually did. 'It's going to be odd not having to arrange Quidditch practices these next few weeks,' he said, sounding almost wistful. 'And having the match so soon after we get back…'

'We'll do fine,' Ginny assured him 'If we do as well as we did today, like you said, we'll beat them hands down.'

'Yeah, but we'll be out of practice,' Harry said. 'I mean, the other side will be too, but it's still worrying.'

Ginny rubbed her hands together, wondering if in this case the phrase 'feel like ice' could actually be literally applied. 'Ah well,' Ron said, giving a cheerful grin, 'at least the three of us can practice.'

'A Seeker, a Keeper and a Chaser, Ginny remarked, breathing on her hands to warm them. 'Some great games we'll be able to have.'

'Well, we can swap positions,' Ron pointed out. 'And maybe get some of the younger Gryffindors who are staying to play, too, it couldn't hurt. But not any of the other houses, they'll steal our strategies.'

Ginny was about to say, 'Oh, honestly,' but Harry spoke first. 'Sounds like a good idea,' he said, nodding to Ron. 'Though there aren't that many people staying this year.'

'There aren't?' Ron asked. 'I haven't been paying attention, really.'

'There's a few in third year, one or two in fourth…' Ginny said, considering as she flexed her fingers. 'Why is the weather so cold?'

'Your hands have gone all red,' Ron remarked.

'Very perceptive of you to notice,' Ginny replied. 'Chasers don't get the benefit of being able to pause for a few moments to warm their hands up.'

'Here,' Harry said, reaching up to tug the scarf he was wearing loose. 'You can borrow this to wrap your hands in, if you like.'

She accepted it with a smile, noting that the crimson and gold wool was still warm from nestling round his neck. 'Thanks,' she said.

'I wish I was going home,' Ellen remarked as she knelt on the wide windowsill. The golden sun of an early winter afternoon lit up the tower; far below, in the courtyard, laughing students were saying goodbyes to the few who were staying behind for the holidays, their conversations and cries drifting up to the window, muffled by distance but still audible, thanks to the fact that the tower window had no glass in it. 'It'd be nice just to get away from here from a bit. You know?'

She turned round to glance at Draco, who was sitting on a bench reading through a chapter in a fat Potions textbook that would be incredibly useful for his homework. 'Hmm?' he asked, glancing upwards. 'I guess it would be.'

He hadn't really thought about it, truthfully. Mainly because he couldn't go home even if he'd wanted to, not now he'd changed. His father would never let him go, not unless he changed back again, and Draco imagined his father would be able to think up all kinds of bizarre and potentially unpleasant methods to try and allow Draco's half-Fallen side to regain control.

Ellen twisted on the windowsill, sitting with her feet dangling a few inches above the floor, and considered Draco. Her head was tilted on one side, and her hair had been messed up by the wind; it left her looking almost amusingly like a scruffy, child-size scarecrow. She rubbed the back of her head with one hand, frowning slightly. 'Are you looking forward to the holidays?' she asked. 'I suppose it'll be nice for you not to have to baby-sit me any more.'

He looked up at that, smiling for no discernable reason. 'You aren't that bad,' he replied. 'Considering that otherwise I'd be doing much the same things, just on my own.'

'And without me to annoy you, or drag you up towers to watch people leave,' Ellen nodded, pulling an apple out of her pocket and examining it. 'I know I'm an annoyance, really.'

'You aren't that bad,' Draco repeated, frowning slightly as he tried to word out if that was true or not. He certainly didn't feel anything bad when baby-sitting Ellen, as she put it, and he disliked it when she got hurt. And she made him laugh sometimes, too, which as a good thing. He quite liked to laugh.

She shrugged, as if it didn't matter either way, and closed her eyes for a brief second before speaking. 'Thanks for coming up here, anyway. I wanted to watch people leave. Do you think it'll be safe for me to go out alone yet?' she asked. Draco shook his head.

'Not for a while, some people are always late to leave. And some get picked up by their parents, so not all of them will be going down to the train,' he explained, turning over a page in his textbook and glancing through the next few paragraphs. 'Wait a few hours.'

'I will,' Ellen promised, starting to twist the stem of her apple off. 'It'll be nice not having to worry about people trying to attack me. I'm quite looking forward to it. And I think over the holidays I should try and learn more defensive things, so you don't have to spend so much time guarding me, I don't like being a burden.'

'You aren't,' he assured her once again, then realised his tone lacked conviction. Which was due more to the face that he'd been caught by an interesting point in his textbook than because of a lie. He looked up from the book, remembering from his Fallen days how to work the right expressions. 'Really, you aren't,' he added, quite pleased with the touch of warmth in his voice, a pleasant feeling settling in his stomach. Ellen smiled, which only added to the glow.

'Thanks, I guess,' she said, then her smile deepened slightly and she reached round to rub at the back of her head once again. 'But I know you really want to spend more time with Hermione.'

Draco blinked a little at this, because he hadn't really considered this. He knew he did like spending time with Hermione, he knew he enjoyed it. More time? He supposed so; there was precious little else, after all, he had to do around Hogwarts. Homework and classes, yes, and Prefect duties occasionally, but if he wanted to spend time with people it was either Ellen or Hermione. And Hermione was nice. Not that Ellen wasn't nice, of course, but Hermione was… Well, she could help him with emotions, for a start. And he was getting better, so much better.

'I suppose,' he said eventually. Ellen's only response was to raise an eyebrow, the stalk of the apple finally coming away in her hand. She turned back to looking out of the window and dropped the stalk out, watching it fall, before turning her attention back to the crowd and leaning drowsily against the side of the window. Draco resumed reading his book, and was quite absorbed in the Potions theory for about five minutes before Ellen spoke.

'I think I can see Hermione from up here.'

'Really? Draco asked, glancing up. 'Probably saying goodbye to the rest of the Gryffindors.'

'Probably. I don't recognise most of them – well, apart from Harry Potter-'

'Everyone recognises Potter,' Draco remarked, putting his book aside and crossing over to look out of the window. Ellen shuffled up to make room for him on the sill, and he sat beside her, frowning at the coldness of the wintry air. It wouldn't be pleasant flying in this, once winter really arrived. 'Where?' he asked.

Ellen pointed to a group of people quite close to the castle gate; Draco immediately spotted Hermione, laughing a farewell to someone he thought might be Neville Longbottom, of all people. He knew that Potter and both Weasleys were staying as well as Hermione; and he could make them out too, saying goodbye to the rest of the Gryffindors. Truth be told, he was looking forward to the holidays and spending more time with Hermione, without the pressures of classes and homework.

'Looks like them,' he agreed, leaning back against the windowframe. Ellen bit into her apple, nodding, and turned her attention back to the world outside. They fell into quite a companionable silence; Draco took the opportunity to watch people leave. Hermione finished saying goodbye to the Gryffindors quite soon – Lavender and Parvati gave her short hugs before stepping up into their carriage – and she headed back inside with Ron and Potter. No one really wanted to be outside in this cold weather, after all; winter was making its approach well and truly known. Perhaps…

He wasn't paying attention to Ellen; he wasn't even concentrating on the courtyard far below him. But from the corner of his eye he saw the movement; saw Ellen slipping sideways and out of the window.

He reacted before he could even think, reaching out to catch her; the feeling was sudden and white and sharp and unpleasant; then he caught her firmly, Ellen gasped a little in shock, and between herself and Draco managed to sit upright.

'Thanks,' she said, a little shakily, eyes straying sideways to the nasty drop. 'I, er, thanks.'

''What happened?' Draco asked, brushing her thanks away as irrelevant. 'Why did you fall? Did someone curse you?'

Ellen shook herself, folding her hands in her lap. 'No, no one cursed me. I just went a bit… dizzy, that's all, and it started going kind of black…' She made a gesture with her hand, as if to describe the darkness that way. 'My head has been hurting a bit,' she admitted.

'Where it hit the mirror?' Draco asked, frowning, and Ellen nodded. 'Why didn't you tell me sooner? We'd better go see Madam Pomfrey. Now.'

'I didn't want to make a fuss,' Ellen explained, sighing and slipping off the windowsill. 'You can probably leave me there, I bet she'll want to keep me for observation-' Ellen made a face '-or to fill me full of that horrible medicine.'

'Alright,' Draco replied. 'Don't leave for at least another hour, though, if she does let you go. Promise?'

'I promise,' Ellen replied, and headed for the door, walking quite steadily. Though, Draco mused, with a Slytherin that should never be taken at face value. He headed after her, making sure to have one eye on the girl at all times.

Dear Mother, Draco wrote, and paused, twisting the end of his quill in his fingers and frowning as he tried to decide what to write.

It was odd. Some days he felt like writing pages and pages of parchment to his mother, going over every detail of his life and every odd feeling he'd noted and setting it all down in neat paragraphs, trapping it in words to be examined. That tended to clarify some things and make others more confusing. And even where it made things more confused, Draco knew his mother would come up with some useful advice, or a practical suggestion, or even just a reassurance that things would be alright.

Other days, though – and today seemed to be one of them- he had to search for anything to say. He didn't know what the difference between the two types of day were; he assumed it was something to do with emotions.

Well, while he was thinking of that, it would make a good thing to say. He dipped his quill in the inkpot and started writing.

Sometimes I want to write so much in these letters that I have to limit myself to only the most relevant things, because otherwise I'll spend all evening describing and discussing the tiniest of details. Other times, like today, I find it hard to think of things to say. I wondered if it was connected to mood and what I was feeling at the time, but it doesn't appear to be, and I can't see anything obvious that affects it.

Knowing emotions, there isn't anything obvious, and it's probably futile to try and find some kind of logic to it.

The odd thing is that I'm not automatically looking for logic and sense in feelings anymore. I always knew they were nonsensical, of course, but I never really understood it before I became human. I used to be… I would say 'contemptuous' or 'scornful', but they need emotions. You know what I mean; you've lived with Father and me. Contemptuous of humans who did such stupid things for no logical reason that I could see except this madness called emotion.

But I think I'm getting used to being mad, really. I can sit and talk to Hermione and utterly forget that these feelings I have aren't rational, for the most part. The most irrational one is helping that Muggleborn first year, Ellen, because it does me absolutely no good and it ruins my reputation with my house even further, possibly even puts me in danger. I suppose it does do me some good – it stopped me feeling horrible when I saw her attacked, the first time. But then it makes me afraid, and all these other feelings too, little nauseous ones that really are unpleasant.

Another thing: there are far too many feelings. When I was Fallen, I learnt how to mimic and recognise what I thought were all of them – fear, hatred, anger, affection, so forth – and then I thought there a lot. But then there are emotions which don't have proper names, or emotions which are all called by one word but have so many different variations. Like anger; I felt anger when some girls were attacking Ellen last night, but it was a completely different kind of anger to the kind I felt… it was a little after I changed, and I was angry because it had happened to me. And they're both anger but they feel very different.

And then, of course, you never have just one emotion on its own. They mix together so much, and it makes it even harder to tell what I'm feeling. I always…

'Draco? Draco Malfoy?'

The voice cut him off from his writing, and he looked up in annoyance; he'd just been getting into his stride. He hadn't recognised the speaker from the voice; it had been female and sounded worried.

'Yes? Who's there?' he asked, when a glance around the room showed that there was no one else near him. He frowned briefly at the thought that it might be a prank. 'Show yourself.'

'I'm here,' the voice came again. 'The picture.'

A picture? The portraits at Hogwarts didn't usually talk to the students; he frowned as he scanned the room. Ah, there; in a watercolour landscape that was usually empty of anything more interesting than trees and hills; an elegant brunette lady in fashionable Victorian dress was standing, watching him. Draco opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted, but she interrupted.

'You're… friends of a sort with that Mudblood girl, Ellen, aren't you?' she asked. 'I don't know why I'm telling you this, but…' The woman drew a deep breath 'She's being attacked.'

'What?' Draco asked, automatically getting to his feet. 'But… damn, I told her not to leave Madam Pomfrey!' The thought crossed his mind that it might be a trick, but he ignored it; he couldn't afford to wait. If Ellen was in danger and he wasted time asking for proof… 'Where?'

'Third floor, near the Charms classroom,' the portrait said. Nodding and muttering a thanks, he snatched up his wand and ran, thinking – somewhere at the back of his mind which wasn't occupied with Ellen and the impending danger – that these were exactly the kinds of conflicting, muddled feelings he'd been on the point of complaining about.

A/N: And you'll have to wait to find out what happens. Sorry. Very sorry. But you have the two other fics to look at! Euthanasia and Sunlight are uploaded now on my profile. If you liked Cursed, these are very much by that same muse. Enjoy.

For this chapter's question, let's go with a hard but very useful one. What is love?