It was the morning of October the fifteenth and it was late on Saturday morning.

"KIM, WAKE UP, OR I'LL HAVE LUNA SET A CRUMPLE-HORNED SNORKACK ON YOU!" Lauren yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Ahhhhh!" Kim screamed, jumping out of bed and clutching her pillow for dear life. Her heart was beating as fast as the time she'd been hit with the Cruciatus Curse by Evan Rosier, before Voldemort had turned and used the same curse on him for using it on her. "What time is it?"

"It's an hour before your date," Ginny replied. "You might want to get ready."

"Yikes!" Kim squealed and grabbed her brush from her nightstand and began brushing her hair quickly.

Ginny smiled and shoved a piece of toast into her mouth for her. She choked.

"Fanks," she said with the toast in her mouth.

0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0

The hour went by quickly and Kim soon found herself walking towards the gates near the edge of the grounds. Terry was waiting for her there.

"Hello," he said with a smile.

A few Ravenclaw boys walked by and said hello to Terry, but didn't stop to say anything else. Kim watched Ginny, Anna, and Lauren walk off the grounds together. After them, Harry, Hermione, and Ron walked off in their own little trio. Behind them, Colin and Dennis Creevy exited. A few Slytherins went by before she spotted James, Michael, and Orlando entering Hogsmeade as well. James was looking at Terry with a very angry expression and Orlando and Michael were talking in heated conversation about something or another.

"Hi," she replied brightly. "Why was James Livingston looking at you that way?"

Terry cleared his throat, "We, er, had a row yesterday. Come on, let's go."

"Ooh, about what?" she asked eagerly.

Terry made an indistinct noise in his throat and walked out of the gates with her, not saying anything more.

"So – er – where do you want to go?" he asked.

"Anywhere is fine," she replied, "I've never been to Hogsmeade before."

They spent the day wandering around the village with each other as Terry showed her around the place. They stopped at the Three Broomsticks for a Butterbeer and watched a third year boy try to bribe the bartender to let him buy a firewhiskey, but to no avail. When they'd finished their drinks, he showed her the Shrieking Shack.

"It's supposed to be the most severely haunted building in all of Great Britain," he said, looking up warily at the ramshackle house.

"Cool," Kim whispered under her breath as she heard footsteps approaching. Whirling around, she saw James, Orlando and Michael coming up the stairs.

Kim said hello to them in a cheerful voice, which they returned before James rounded on Terry.

"Trying to spite me, are you?" he spat angrily.

"I TOLD you," Terry replied exasperatedly, "it wasn't me!"

"Sure," James agreed in a very sarcastic way.

"What?" Kim wondered, puzzled.

"Your boyfriend put frog spawn in my bed!" James yelled delusionally.

"No, I didn't!" Terry replied, growing red in the face.

"He can't have," Kim murmured under his breath.

"Why not? There are ways for Ravenclaws to get into the Gryffindor Common Room," Michael replied, glancing at Orlando, who grinned, waiting to hear her logic.

"Ways? Oh, never mind, but he can't've done it, because it was me who put the frog spawn there," she replied with a smile that didn't quite suit the situation.

A silence met this statement and was broken by Orlando, "Blimey! How is it that girls can get into our Dorm, when we can't get into theirs?"

"Excuse me?  Who was trying to break into our Dormitory?"

James and Michael immediately pointed to Orlando, who looked like a mouse in a cage with a cat.

"Well, you see..." Orlando began, but broke off.

"There's no reason for it… it doesn't matter," Kim interrupted, "as long as you didn't see anything important."  She had been thinking about the talks with Draco about the Death Eaters.

Orlando seemed to be thinking about something else.

"No, no, of course not," he replied, and looked pleadingly at his friends to leave.  They did.  But not before James shot another still-spiteful glare at Terry.

"Sorry about the frog spawn in the bed thing," Kim said timidly as they walked back around Hogsmeade.

"No, it's fine," he replied hastily.  "So, er, where do you want to go now?"

"I don't know.  Do you want to go back to the castle?"

"If you want to."

"It doesn't really matter to me," she answered indifferently.  "Hogsmeade is very interesting and I enjoy your company, but I've got a huge essay for Snape on the Draught of Peace due tomorrow that I haven't started…"

"Let's go back up," he agreed.  "I've got one for Binns that's supposed to be 13 inches…"

"Okay."

Kim was secretly hoping to get Draco to send something to her father.  She had also been hoping on informing Draco that Potter owned an Invisibility Cloak.  She had found out when she heard Ginny's brother, Ron, talking to Hermione about it.

Terry was staring at her in a curious way that Kim had never seen before.  His eyes were filled with some strange emotion that she could not recognize.  She tried to look away when the emotion got too much for her to handle, but found that she could not.  She didn't know what was happening.  She couldn't move.  She couldn't blink... and suddenly she could barely breathe.

The kiss started out as on brush on the lips, but it soon turned into something out of her control.  It made her head spin with several strange emotions.

When it was broken, Terry was looking at her with an intense emotion brewing in his eyes.  A silence was present for a moment, where Kim held her breath, as though afraid that if she decided to breathe, the world would shatter.

She finally managed to break her gaze away from his eyes, turned a lovely shade of crimson, and pretended that her feet were suddenly very interesting.

They walked toward the castle in silence.  What just happened? Did we just kiss? was running through her mind.  She glanced at Terry who was still staring avidly at her.

They had reached the castle doors.  "I really like you, Kim."  She swung around to look him in the eye.  "Even if you don't, I do."  He seemed to be under the impression that she was angry with him.

She couldn't think of what to say.  This boy barely knew anything about her!  And here he was telling her that he liked her, possibly loved her?

"But how can you like me," she said in a small voice, "if you barely know me?"

"I don't know.  I've just got a feeling."  He smiled at her in such a way that she could do nothing but smile back.  "Happy Birthday," he said, pulling a small package from his pocket and disappeared behind the corner before she could say anything to him.

She watched his retreat and looked at the package in her hands.  He was a fool… he was a fool if he thought he loved her when he knew nothing about her.  She threw the present away without opening it and said the password to enter the Portrait Hole.

She went up to her Dorm and threw things around the room for a half-an-hour before screaming into her pillow for another fifteen minutes.  Then she cleaned up after herself and went down into the Common Room to read a book.

0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0

Come dinnertime, she sat with Natalie, who was avidly reading a book and not saying much as she rapidly turned page after page.  This did not bother Kim: she was staring into space, her fork poised halfway to her mouth.

Terry had upset her: would she never find someone who understood her?  It was not that she minded him liking her… she was ready to simply ignore him for the rest of the year and possibly beyond.

People started to file out of the Great Hall.  Kim looked at her unfinished dinner and decided she wasn't hungry, anyway.  She pushed her plate away and followed a group of Gryffindor seventh years to the Common Room.  There, she decided to go to her Dormitory and sleep.  She got to the stairs and was going to climb them when a very odd sight met her eyes.

The stairs were no longer stairs, but instead was like a giant slide.  She then saw three large shapes sliding down the slide-like thing.

"That was great!  Let's do it again!" James exclaimed, landing with a thump at the bottom.  Orlando and Michael followed him.

"Um, can you wait until I get up the stairs?" Kim requested as the stairs re-formed itself.

Michael looked up at her and politely got to his feet and got out of the way.  But James and Orlando were both grinning mischievously.

"Why?  It's more fun to slide down than it is to walk up," James protested.

"You don't want anymore frog spawn in your beds, do you?" she asked, crossing her arms angrily.

Orlando seemed to ponder the thought of frog spawn in-between his sheets and got up as well.  James got up, but didn't move out of her way.

"Do you really think that's why I was giving your precious boyfriend a hard time?" he demanded spitefully.

"I suppose."

"Well it isn't," he retorted.

"Well what are you giving him a difficult time for, then?" she asked, wishing he would get out of her way.

He snorted and moved next to Orlando and Michael.  She looked at him for a moment before walking regally up the stairs, ignoring him.

"I don't think she likes you, James," Orlando remarked from the bottom of the stairs.  Kim slammed the door loudly.

0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0

Throughout breakfast the next day, Kim got into a conversation about Quidditch with Harry.  He seemed reluctant to talk to her at first, but finally decided it was better than trying to talk to Hermione, whose face was in a book.

"I want to try out for the team this year," she said.

"Well I'm the Captain this year," he replied, finally getting into the conversation.  "It's just me and Ron on the team.  Our two Beaters from last year resigned and our three Chasers have graduated."

"Yeah, Ginny told me - she said she's going to try out for a Chaser position," she replied, totally forgetting her mission to help in the destruction of this boy.  He was so easy to talk to.  "I think I'd like to be a Beater, but I'm not sure if I'd be any good."

"You'd do fine, probably."

"Yeah, but I've never played Quidditch before.  I've only just gotten a hand-me-down broomstick and learned to fly it," she replied.  "I'll be the worst one trying out!"

"But if you're a pureblood, why didn't you ride broomsticks when you were younger?"

"My Dad is afraid of them or something," she replied, rolling her eyes.  "He said that he's only been on one in his life and fell off… which is typical.  My Dad is really nervous and kind of a klutz," she said with a laugh.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  He's the most nervous person I know."

"Why is that?"

"Well I expect it's because-" she had to stop and remind herself that she mustn't reveal anything, "I... actually... I've got no clue."

"I never knew my Dad... my Mum either.  I suppose I knew them when I was really little, but I can't remember anything except blurs," Harry replied resentfully.

For the second time in her life, Kim felt a surge of anger directed toward Voldemort.  The first had been when she was seven years old and involved her mother… because her mother hadn't really died in childbirth…

"My Mum was killed by him, too," she replied in a sullen voice.

"Your Mum was killed by Voldemort?" Harry asked.  He seemed surprised.

"Yeah.  I was seven when he killed her.  He left me there with her body and my Dad wasn't in my life at that point," she said bitterly.

"I'm sorry."  He truly seemed like he meant it.

"Likewise.  How do you manage to live with Muggles?"

"How do you know about that?" he asked suspiciously.

"My Dad told me about it."

"They're terrible."

"My heart bleeds for you," she replied.  Why was she suddenly feeling pity for this boy?  She was very confused.  "Well, I'm stuffed.  I'll go back to the Common Room.  It was nice talking to you."

"I'll see you at Try-outs," he called after her.

She hadn't gone even ten paces when Draco grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the Hall, dispite her numerous attempts to make him let go of her.

He dragged her out of the Hall and past a few Ravenclaw boys including Terry, who was watching Kim being taken somewhere against her will.  He looked at her as though questioning whether she wanted him to intervene.  She stopped struggling and pretended she hadn't seen him.

Draco stopped in a deserted corridor and looked around before going into an empty classroom.

"What was so important that you had to DRAG me out of the Great Hall without giving me a slight-"

"You're coming to my house this Christmas Break," he intervened.

"Careful, Potter might be under his Invisibility Cloak," she replied sarcastically.

"Invisibility Cloak?" he repeated, alarmed.  Grabbing an odd stick off a nearby desk, he began hitting the air with it.

"Oh, come off it!  I was just talking to him in the-"

"Ouch!" an intoxicated-sounding voice exclaimed after Draco had hit something invisible with the stick.

"Aha!" he cried and ripped off an Invisibility Cloak making a student become visible once again.

It was the boy Kim had seen trying to order firewhiskey in the Three Broomsticks.  He looked as though he couldn't quite see straight and smelled strongly of alcohol.

He hiccuped and held out the one of his hands for Kim to shake, as the other was clasped tightly around the neck of a bottle containing a strange alcoholic beverage that was smoking.  "Hi, I'm Randy Fletcher!  But my uncle calls me Brandy.  Brandy Randy at your service!"  He hiccuped again and seized Kim's hand and shook it violently.

"What are you doing here, Randy?" Kim asked.

"Drinking firewhiskey!" he roared, swinging the bottle.  "I couldn't get it off of that lady in Hogsmeade, so I got some off the Black Market from this Gryffindor bloke!"

"Gryffindor-?"

"Name's Orlando!  I'm sure he'd love to give you some if you asked!" he said, then slumped to the floor and began snoring loudly, the bottle falling from his hands and spilling all over the floor.

"Orlando!" Kim cried.  "Orlando Gardner?"

Draco stared at her oddly, "This Orlando guy... are you… connected?"

"What?" Kim cried, her eyes popping.  "Never in my life!  He's a half-blood!"

"Oh," he said in disgust.  "Damned half-bloods.  I think it'd be something the Weasleys would do... marry some Muggles… it's disgusting."

Kim was not laughing at this.  Ginny hadn't been anything but nice to her.  Ron was a little suspicious, but she found that he was almost as nice as Ginny was.  What was so wrong with the Weasleys?  Kim couldn't understand any more… she began to grind her teeth as Draco laughed.  She suddenly felt ashamed at herself for making a snide remark about Orlando's heritage.  No, she was definitely not laughing.

"Why am I going to your house?" she inquired, when he finally shut-up.  Brandy Randy was still snoring.

"Oh, right," he replied, getting back to business.  "The Dark Lord is christening me a Death Eater and he wants to give you a test before you're accepted as one."

A Death Eater?  Her?  Oh, what an honor!  It's what she had been waiting her entire life for...

"All right!  Finally!  Yes, I'll definitely come to your house, then!"

"Good.  We're planning an attack on the Weasleys' house," he laughed harshly, "I've already asked permission to kill Potter's faithful side-kick…"

...Or was it?