0-0 holy crap I haven't been here in a while! I'm sorry for the. . oh . .YEAR LONG break, but high school is really hard. Also, my computer died. I'm working on my mom's mac. . darn you, bill gates! Two of my best stories were deleted because of the stupid rules on this site. . but oh well. I tried to email them about it, but they wouldn't respond. now my new goal is to finish the story before the new book comes out. I'll try to do a chapter about every other day or so, depending on how long it takes me to figure out what I want to do. Well anyway, enough of my rambling! Lets get this story on the road!

The Princess of Darkness Chapter 10: High Noon

The sunlight streamed into the Slytherin girls dorm. Birds chirped happily outside and flurries of last night's snowstorm were floating down like fairies gracing the world with their presence. The room was warmed by a cozy fire and sounds of the students playing outside drifted up to the window.

Faye damned it all to hell.

She sat in bed with a hangover the size of Malfoy's ego. She entertained herself with the thought of a sudden rain of fire making everyone shut up and let her sleep. She slowly got up after looking at the time on the clock.

"Crap. I overslept." she moaned.

Without thinking, Faye slowly touched her lips and remembered last night.

She smiled.

The cold wind nipped at Draco's face as he walked around outside. He was now officially bored of making Crabbe and Goyle through snowballs at unsuspecting first years. That is, until he was randomly pelted with one.

He looked around wildly to see that an enchanted goat made of snow was disco dancing to old school Celtic rap. His first thought was 'That stupid snow goat'. His second thought was 'What the crap?'. His third thought was 'Faye's outside now, isn't she?'

Sure enough, Faye could be seen sticking her head in a mound of snow. "Excuse me for interrupting your fun, but what ARE you doing?" A face appeared out of the small hill of cold, crystalized water molecules.

"I'm finding a natural cure for a hangover. I asked Professor Asshole for a potion, but he told me that this was all my fault and this would serve as a good punishment. I asked the house elves for ice, but they looked at me like I was crazy and then politely told me that said Professor Asshole directly instructed them to not listen to a word that I said because I was a rabid drunk who would stone them to death with the blocks of ice. So basically, I'm screwed."

Draco laughed nervously. Professor Snape had given him a potion after Draco told him that Faye forced him to get drunk by using the mysterious charm around his neck.

"Thompson!" shouted a loud and very familiar voice across the school grounds. At the time, Faye didn't care about the familiarity of it; it was loud, therefore its owner was going to die.

"Oh, so if it isn't the goody-two-shoes gang and their newly initiated member. How was your victory party? . . .Oh wait, you didn't have one." Draco taunted.

"Shut up Malfoy! You cheated, and we know it!" yelled a female voice which was also very familiar to Faye. She sat up out of the snow and saw the blurry figures of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Bunifa staring down at her.

"Can you prove it? There's nothing in the book about that spell." Draco said smugly.

"That's cuz I helped create it, you son of a bitch!" Bunifa replied vehemently.

"So what are you going to do about it? Headache me to death?" said Faye. The four Gryffindors glared at her silently. "Or perhaps you're here to duel? Is that it, Harry?" She shifted her glance to him. "You're going to fight your enemy while they're weakened? How shrewd! That's VERY Gryffindor of you. Maybe the rumors are true; maybe you WERE destined to be in Slytherin after all!" Her eyes taunted them to make a move. She wasn't stupid though; if worst came to worst, she was ready to pull out the wand hidden in her cloak.

Harry held Ron back from pouncing on her right then. "So Malfoy, is this your new strategy?" Harry said cooly. Draco glared at him. "Faye must be your new bodyguard. Or maybe she's something more? Are you hiding behind your new girlfriend, Malfoy?"

Hermione jumped in. "Well, I guess since he can't hide in his father's shadow anymore, she'll have to do," she smirked. They had him now. Draco would have to back off now that they hit his soft spot.

And hit it they did. Draco looked madder than ever. He looked like a wild animal trapped between four hunters and preparing a desperate attack. Faye noticed this, and was tempted to stop it, but what fun would that be?

He was about to reach for his wand when the strangest thing happened. The end of Hermione's robes caught on fire! He looked around, but Faye didn't have her wand out and looked equally surprised. Hermione was looked very startled, but she stomped them out against the snow.

Draco and Faye didn't have much time to think though. Bunifa had already drawn her wand. "Stupefy!" she shouted.

Faye jumped in front of the spell. "Protego!" Bunifa's spell bounced back at her and she nimbly jumped away. Harry and Ron already had their wands out, but Hermione was trying to stop them. Faye herd two cries of "Expelliarmus". She grabbed Draco by the collar and pulled him out of the way.

"Pario Vallum!" she cried. A wall of snow appeared in front of them, blocking their attacks.

"Now your hiding behind WALLS, Faye? You're more cowardly than I remember!" Bunifa taunted.

"Rictosempra!" shouted Draco. The beam knocked the breath out of Bunifa and caused her to collide into Harry and Ron. The duo hid behind their snow fortress. Faye looked expectantly at Draco.

"Ready?" She whispered. Draco nodded. "Okay, on the count of three. One. . "

Harry got up slowly.

"Two"

He helped Ron and Bunifa to their feet. They prepared a counterattack.

"Three! Capricio!" Faye shouted. Suddenly, a flock of sparrows dressed like World War Two bombers carrying a bowl of Rice-a-Roni and reciting Hamlet dive bombed all four Gryffindors.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted. All four wands flew out of their hands. Faye was just about to cast another spell when she heard a high pitched female voice call from near the castle.

"Caecus Fulgeo!" cried the voice. Faye stumbled backwards. She couldn't see! Everything was so bright. . .

When Faye woke up, she was in the Defense Against the Dark Arts office. The windows were draped with expensive looking violet satin embroidered with precious stones in abstract shapes. The shelves were full of books, but they were all about seemingly random topics, as if they were placed there to make the room look more studious than it really was. The office was very clean; nothing was out of place. She was sitting in a blue velvet chair that was surprisingly comfortable. The desk was as neat and organized as the rest of the room. There were pictures of various people on the table and some carefully crafted glass figurines of unicorns and fairies. Behind the desk was an ornate tapestry of a family crest. Overall, it looked like an office from a noble's castle.

But what surprised Faye the most was the woman sitting in the chair behind the desk. A pair of sparkling sapphire eyes stared at her with an interested look. Her curly black hair was swept out of her heavily make- upped face with a jeweled headband. Fancy robes draped her delicate figure and complemented the numerous baroque jewels that she wore.

"My, my. Look who's up! I'm not at all surprised to see you here, Faye," she said with a smile.

"Niniane," Faye growled.

"I think that it would be in your best interest to drop that tone. I am now your teacher, after all. We wouldn't want you to get into anymore trouble, would we?"

"Whatever. What do you want, anyway?"

Niniane sat lazily in her chair. "Just your side of the story, hun. Is that too much to ask?"

Each person gave their testimony, even though Ron kept on making comments about how they couldn't trust Malfoy. When everyone was done, Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were invited into the office to discuss a possible methods of punishment. Faye could hear the four Griffindors talking from the other side of the classroom.

"Why is Professor Niniane taking care of this? Isn't Dumbledore supposed to take care of serious offenses like dueling on school grounds?" Ron questioned.

"I think it's to avoid any contact with Dumbledore. Either she doesn't want to bother him or. . . she knows that he might try to. . . take it easy on us. . ." Hermione was almost hysterical. Faye had heard her constantly say that it wasn't their fault and that she made many attempts to stop the fighting. Faye kept a smile to herself. She was occupying herself by lobbing balls of paper into the trash can and levitating them back out. Draco was reading one of her books. Harry was deep in thought and Ron was trying to cheer up Hermione by asking her questions. The only thing it did was make her more agitated.

After a while, Professor Niniane called them into her office.

"We've decided that suspension would be useless since it's so close to the end of the year. Instead, you will all serve detention with your respective House teachers and we will subtract fifty points per participant. That makes minus one hundred for Slytherin, and minus one fifty for Griffindor. Hermione is excluded from detention because of her attempt to stop the fight. However, you should have known to go to a teacher immediately instead of trying to stop them yourself, Hermione." Niniane announced.

The other two Professors glared at each-other and at their students. Faye could see that Draco wasn't too perplexed about the punishment. After all, Gryffindor was now even farther behind Slytherin.

Draco and Faye didn't have much of a detention since they were both Slytherins. They just had to organize some files, and they could use magic.

"So, Faye," Draco said after filing instructions for making a Polyjuice potion, "That was a pretty fun duel, huh? I mean, they were no match for us of course, stupid Griffindors."

"Mmmhmm" replied Faye. She messed up alphabetizing a few papers and she was trying to fix it.

"So anyway, um, my father managed to get out of Azkaban and we're holding a Christmas party on the twenty-first. I was wondering if. . ."

Faye looked at him coyly. "Are you. . . asking me out, Draco?" she asked.

Draco blushed slightly and the file he was levitating quivered in the air. "It's not like that! I thought that I might just repay you for holding them off for me by letting you come, thats all."

Faye rose an eyebrow questioningly. "Fine. I'll go. It's such a great honor to be asked to such an event by someone as prominent and powerful as YOU, Malfoy." she said sarcastically.

Draco blushed even more. "Just shut up and come."

Faye laughed. "Okay."

Well, there you have it! I'll start working on another chapter tomorrow. In the meantime, tell me what you think! What do YOU think will happen at the party? Well, lets just say it really gets the plot going!

'till next time!

dark phoenix