Hermione entered the dungeon-like classroom and Sylvie followed suit. She felt that she really had no business there, but that it would be far worse to refuse any of the classes that had been assigned to her. Hermione sat down next to Harry, and Sylvie had no idea where best to seat herself. She glanced over to the left side of the room, searching for Draco, and spotted him. He was leaning over a scroll of parchment, his quill moving steadily from side to side. He obviously didn't know she would be placed in this class, as it was more logical she would be placed in a regular level, otherwise; she knew he would be scanning the room for her as well. Sylvie so desperately wanted to seat herself next to Draco, but knew that by doing so, she would arouse unwanted suspicion in Hermione, so she instead took a seat at a vacant table at the very front of the classroom on the Gryffindor side. She had been seated for only moments, when the sound behind her of the door closing brought her back into reality. She turned her head and took note of how quiet the dungeon had become. The very air around her felt tenser. Proud footsteps proceeded closer to her, and she looked with hidden disgust, at her potions teacher.

"Quiet…" Professor Snape muttered icily. He marched himself to the front of the room and began staring cruelly at them all. Sylvie took note that he, however, did not stare so cruelly at the Slytherins, he merely glanced in their direction. Then his eyes were upon Sylvie. She resisted the urge to swallow a lump of fear which had formed within her throat. "Don't let him see that he gets to you..." the voice inside her head kept saying. When his eyes finally lifted from her, he addressed the class.

"Now, I'm sure that some of you have the deceived belief that this class's difficulty will be anything near that of O.W.L. Potions. Those of you are wrong. I find it needless to say that some of you are not of the material that I require of my advanced students," his eyes laid on something or someone behind Sylvie, "I expect that some of you will find yourselves… out of place," his eyes rested this time upon Sylvie.

With that he turned his back to the class and flicked his wand at the blackboard in front of him. Instantly, a long series of notes appeared upon it. He turned around and said, "Today, we will be attempting a very advanced potion, as this is an advanced class," his eyes rested once again on Sylvie. This time, she sensed that Draco had looked in her direction, and spotted Snape singling her out; yet he did nothing, and she was grateful. She did not want everyone's attention upon her, Snape's was dire enough.

The potion he made them do was very complicated, and Sylvie knew hers didn't turn out anything close to the standard he expected from them. At the end of the class when the bell rang, she packed up her bag in a hurry. She wanted to get out of the class before he could critique her on how poorly she had done. Sylvie finished packing and was in her next class, Care of Magical Creatures, not five minutes later. She had run, and run like she never had before, to insure as much distance as possible between her and Snape.

She heard steps running from behind her and turned around, thinking it was impossible for Hermione to have caught up with her already. As she turned, her heart skipped a beat, literally.

"Why did you…. run… I thought….." Draco gasped between breaths.

"Shh…. don't push yourself to speak when you are this out of breath," she advised him kindly. "Let's not discuss it now; perhaps we can meet after classes?"

"Okay… uh…."

"Do you know of a place we can meet and not get caught…. besides the room last night?" she added with a half-smile.

"Do you see that large tree?" she nodded and noticed he was less out of breath now. "Meet me there at… I dunno, eleven? Do you think you can sneak out that late?" she nodded. "Okay, well I'll talk to you then…" he walked away so they wouldn't get caught conversing together.

Sylvie sat in a deep-red armchair seated near the fireplace in the Gryffindor common-room. She gazed at the clock upon the fire sill frequently, but the minutes nearing eleven wouldn't quicken their pace. She was fantasizing all the possible careers and opportunities her Hogwarts education would establish for her, when the minute-hand arrived at a quarter to eleven.

She quickly gathered and put on her cloak, then strolled out the portrait-hole. Ten minutes later she was waiting in close proximity to the tree Draco had pointed out earlier, yet far enough away to be out of the known-to-be-violent branches' path. Sylvie liked the way the Hogwarts slopes were ever so graceful in transforming from hill to mountain. She enjoyed how everything was more beautiful near the lake and the open velvet skies. Those were skies you could get lost in, gazing at their eternal beauty. She had no idea she was no longer alone until she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her. She turned and looked with joy upon the face she most desperately wanted to see.

"You made it… I was worried you wouldn't be able to sneak out…."

"Worried… about me? You forget that I'm a friend of the streets, I can sneak just about anywhere, just about any time I want… you should be the one being worried about," she teased with a sly grin.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Draco asked; concern forming a line across his brow.

"Why… why would I be "less pondered" if I was placed in Gryffindor? You said yourself that those in Slytherin are safer during these times… and what the hell did you mean by "I need you to ask…" need? What the hell do you mean "need"? What does my House-placement concern you for?" she fired off the questions heatedly.

"You're doing that thing again…"

"What "thing"?"

"That firing off questions without breathing thing," Draco smiled, although she pressed many matters, compulsively asked difficult questions, and expected immediate answers, he couldn't help but like her more for it.

"I'll fire off as many questions as I damn well please!" she said, anger beginning to rise in her voice, "And you'll answer them! So get to it!"

"Wow, you may want to… uh… settle, not that you're in need of settling," he added, seeing her more-irritated expression. "Okay, um… you'd be less pondered because if you were in Slytherin, uh… er… you and er… me would be in the same House, and er… people might… notice certain things and, uh, my father may find out and possibly figure out that it was you who I spent my mysterious summer with, and he may, um, react badly to it. So, in a sense, I was protecting you from me to protect you from my father. I needed you to ask the Sorting Hat to place you in Gryffindor because I didn't want to chance you being in Slytherin, and thus in danger, and… yeah… okay?" he finished lamely.

Sylvie didn't want to believe him, not because she didn't completely trust him, she did. More so because it was in her nature not to trust anyone's word, but that was mostly because of her bad experiences in orphanages as a child.

"I believe you, but I don't think you're saying everything. I think that you are afraid that your father will find out that I was the one you spent your "mysterious" summer with, and that he would react badly to it. But I also think that you're frightened your father will react even more badly because I'm not a pureblood," she explained matter-of-factly.

"Well, that's kind of true, I was worried about that, but I still have no clue what percentage you are anyway… I mean, from what you've said, you don't really know who your parents are, right?" he asked with curiosity.

"I don't recall saying that, and as a matter of fact, I'm sure I did not. I do know who my parents are, and I have shared the information with no one… but I think it's time I shared at least a little; Morgans isn't my father or mother's last name. The story behind it is that the first orphanage I stayed at was the Morgans Orphanage, and the babies without names were named by the orphanage staff. I was named by Michele, a nice, elderly woman from Canada. She named me Sylvie after her grandmother, and Morgans in honor of Mathew Morgans, a close friend of Michele's and the founder of Morgans Orphanage. My birth-mother's name, which I didn't find out until years after Michele named me, is Heather McKenzie. I do in fact know who my father is, but as he does not know I exist, so I wish not to speak of him and risk the chance of him somehow catching wind of it and putting two and two together," she finished with a small smile.

"You mean your dad is alive and you've never searched him down or anything?" Draco just couldn't grasp the concept, although he would rather not know his father, he couldn't picture someone like Sylvie being so distant from someone she has never given a chance to.

"Let's just say my father isn't the best person out there… matter of fact, he's worse than your father."

"And just how would you know that if you've never met him?" Draco inquired anxiously.

"Well, I've heard a few things among the wizarding-people and I didn't like what I heard, now don't be mistaken, my father does not have the largest reputation in the wizarding world, but whatever reputation he has, it isn't the brightest," she explained patiently.

"I still can't say I understand, but I do realize that it's your life, your father, and your decision. Just so you know, I wouldn't listen to my father if he told me not to be with you just because you aren't a pure-blood. Oh, and one question, you say your father has a bit of a reputation in the wizarding world; would I happen to have heard or know of him?"

Sylvie thought, "You might, but you might not, it really depends on where you live and your social status and what-not. So, I can't really say for sure," Sylvie stated.

"Okay, well, is that all you wanted to discuss?" Draco asked. He didn't want their time together to end, but he really didn't want the girls in Sylvie's dormitory to get curious as to why she was out so late.

"Yes, I suppose we should be heading back now…" she glanced at her watch, "being that it is nearly twelve-thirty." They kissed and then began heading towards the castle, dreading each step they took, as it brought them closer to their hesitated separation.

Sylvie returned to the Gryffindor common-room at a quarter-to-one, and she was happy to find that no one was still awake. She dressed into her night-wear and smiled because while this would be the other girls' second night in their beds, this would be her first. She took off her watch and set it on her nightstand, next to her picture of her only friend that hadn't lived in an orphanage, Jane. It was indescribable how much Sylvie missed Jane, but she couldn't just go back and spend more time with her, she had to do what she had set out to do, graduate from Hogwarts. Sylvie slipped under the covers and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit her pillow.

She dreamed mostly of Jane. Of all the things they'd done, all the places they had been, and how Sylvie had practically lived in Jane's house. But, when Sylvie woke the next morning, she didn't remember one bit of the dreams.