Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything and everybody in this fic except for our OCs. We're not making any money from this either.

A/N: Was the last chapter a bit of an anti-climax? Actually, it wasn't meant to be a climax at all. Just so you know. BTW, we only discover the tons of mistakes we've made right after we've already posted the chapters. It's so annoying...


FFF

10 – Bright Eyes

Kya and Draco Malfoy were watching the stars. The sky was clear, unlike the ceiling inside. They were sitting next to each other by the lake, where the moon was reflected in the water. The trees moved in the light wind.

Even in the dark, Malfoy could see the deep purple of Kya's eyes. Noticing that he was watching her instead of the sky, she turned her head and caught his gaze with her own. She smiled.

"It's a nice evening," she said.

"Yes," he said, "yes, it's lovely."

He couldn't seem to look away from those eyes.

They were both silent, deep in thought. Kya broke the stillness after a while.

"Draco," she said, her eyes never leaving his.

Malfoy jerked. He was not used to people calling him by his first name after such a short acquaintance.

"I have been thinking a bit," said Kya. "About why you act like you do."

"Oh?" said Malfoy, and then he shuddered. He had tried to sound sardonic, but it had come out in a hopeful tone of voice. It was almost as if she knew what went on in his head. Had he been baring his soul to her without realizing it? Since when did he have a soul anyway?

"I've been worried about you," she continued, concern evident in every line of her face. "I've heard so many horrible things about your father, and read so many…"

"Hang on," Malfoy cut in. "What have you read? What are they writing in the papers?"

Malfoy couldn't be bothered with reading the Prophet. It was all a load of rubbish anyway. The nerve of them, to insult the Malfoy name! But somehow he was still concerned with the public opinion.

"Oh, but I was just thinking," Kya pressed on, "your life must have been pretty tough."

"Don't be stupid. There's nothing wrong with my dad," said Malfoy, evasively.

"I didn't say your dad. I meant your life. It must be hard, having all those Death Eaters around, and with all those expectations. I can sort of relate to that…"

"What do you mean, relate to? Relate to what? My life is great!"

Why was he turning so defensive? His life was great, wasn't it?

She held his steely grey gaze with her own violently violet one. As they looked into each other's eyes, Draco felt something break inside. The walls he'd built up around his heart seemed to be crumbling.

"You can talk to me," she whispered. "I understand."

"How? How can you understand what it's like?"

"What what's like? Talk to me," Kya said patiently.

"This! Everything! My father expects me to become a Death Eater, even when he himself got put in Azkaban. It's like I don't have control over my own future. I don't know what I want to do. I know my mother's drinking; she hides it, but I can tell she is, and the house elves won't do what they're told, everything's a mess…"

She put her hand on his shoulder.

Now that he'd started talking, it was as if a dam had burst inside him and the words came out like a stream. He had no power over it.

"They've always given me stuff, and I've always thought it was okay, because all parents do that sort of thing, and because they love me. But we never talked to each other. They hired a platoon of servants to take care of me, and read me bedtime stories, and I never saw them at home. No Christmas dinners with the family or anything. All I knew was that my father expected me to become a Death Eater, and that he would buy me anything as long as I pretended I wanted to. But I don't want to! I want to be free from all that. I want to…"

She looked at him intently with her big, amethyst eyes.

"What do you want, Draco?" she asked him.

"I don't know," said Draco. "I just want to have time to figure it out on my own, you know?"

"I know," said Kya. "I know all too well what you mean."


Ron wandered aimlessly through the corridors. He couldn't stand being in the company of friends who to him seemed to have transformed completely overnight. Ginny in her apathy, Harry in his apathy and chronic confusion, Hermione in what could only be described as her obliviousness… and Malfoy.

This bothered Ron immensely. Three weeks ago everyone had known Malfoy was an evil bastard, but today – today Hermione had sprinted off to talk to Kya and him, as if he had never called her a Mudblood, and she had never had cause to punch him in the face. And it was all revolving around Kya.

As soon as she entered the room, things changed. Hermione became an airhead, Ginny lost her spirit and Harry seemed to lose his mind entirely. Malfoy turned into a star struck romantic.

Ron himself was the only one who seemed to remain unaffected by her hypnotic charm. Perhaps it was because he had never been particularly impressed by that charm to begin with. To him she seemed condescending, full of self-importance, and always ready to show off her special talents, even while smiling in that shy, modestly honey soaked fashion which made him want to retch. It was tonight that his eyes had finally opened. She was clearly out to get them.

The first thing he had noticed was what she had dressed up as. A bloody Spiderwoman. He hadn't realized that that was what she had designed her costume to look like, in the room of requirement. He hadn't really been paying attention to her then, but tonight the effect she had had on his friends and enemy had been all too obvious. The effect she had had on the room at large had been astonishing. Everyone had paused in their dance routines, people had dropped their forks, one boy had dropped the glass he'd been holding and even the music had seemed to slow down. Ron probably wouldn't have been immune to it either, if it hadn't been for that spider costume…

His friends hadn't recovered after that. Harry had got that dazed, slightly worried frown permanently fixed on his face. Ginny, who had previously been so radiant as to be practically glowing, had snuffed out like a candle under an open faucet. Afterwards she had sat down at the table and poured herself drink after drink, making Ron wonder what would happen if she found out about Dean Thomas's purloined bottles of Firewhiskey. Malfoy hadn't said a spiteful word to them all evening.

Finally, it was Hermione who troubled him the most. She had morphed from the intelligent young woman he adored into a giggling, prepubescent girl, in front of his very eyes. She had started to behave like her own worst nightmare. Her voice had turned bright and bubbly. Her hair had shone in the light of the floating chandeliers, although she was supposed to be dressed as a common Scottish mermaid. He could swear he had seen blondish highlights. She had repeatedly asked him if her makeup looked okay, and her hair, from the back... She had never used to wear so much makeup before. She was turning into a combination of Kya and Lavender Brown.

Ron wasn't going to stand for it any longer. He was going to take action. He had to find someone who had also noticed what was going on. There had to be someone. If there wasn't, then that would mean he was going crazy, and that was no good...

Right on cue, he bumped into Snape.