Disclaimer : The usual.

Author's Note: Hey there everybody, I have been officially living in France for two months now and wow. It's an adventure and a challenge but the best of all experiences. However, I couldn't leave this story unfinished so here I am working on another chapter. It's been a while, so please bear with me. Sorry for any grammatical and/or spelling errors, I am working on a foreign keyboard.

Chapter Four: The Illogic of Balance

"Better," Harry said catching the quaffle, yet again. "Remember, you can't hesitate. Just throw."

"Too many bloody things to think about," I grumbled, spitting out into the air, allowing my saliva to fall meters to the ground. The Slytherins had practice suspended for a week while the whole Pritchard thing. It was good for me because I actually had a chance to learn the ruddy sport. However at the moment I wasn't any more enthusiastic to be playing. "Don't you have your own team to be the captain of?"

"We don't practice today," Harry replied as he got another one of my throws.

I rolled my eyes, "Homework then?"

"Easy class load."

"Shagging someone?"

"Don't have a girlfriend."

"Since when was that a necessary adjective?"

"Now let's work on passing," he spoke quickly through his pending blush. I can get him on the sex jokes. Always.

Who would have though I would be here? I spend hours every day with Harry Potter. Draco Malfoy shuns and degrades me. Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas are the best conversationalists I have. I am Alexandra Marlow CEO of Malfoy Enterprises. Pathetic.

But now that I am used to this sad pathetic existence, it is easier—if that's the word.

"So has Malfoy told you whether or not you on first string yet?"

"No," I snorted just after I chucked the red ball. "Why would he? Wanker."

"Good point."

"So . . . are you dating Ginny Weasley?" I have asked this question in one form or another since last week. This is the most frank I have phrased it because he evades every other style far too easily.

"Why do you ask?"

I paused when I caught the ball. This wasn't right. He was never this smooth. I expected a 'what' or a 'huh' or a blush but not a 'why'. Bollucks and I didn't have an answer on hand.

"Just, uh, wondering." Fuck, I sound like I have a crush on him!

He sighed, as though the subject tired him. "It's complicated."

"My life is bloody complicated—that's no excuse, Potter."

"Just drop it."

I swear we have had this conversation before.

Anyway, so we did some more drills that made me want to die and Harry offered some more quidditch guru advice that made me want to blow chunks. Then, be as it may, guess who arrived on the scene! Draco Malfoy.

"Marlow get down here!" I feel like a dog when he screams like that.

"What?"I called, ever so slowly descending. I was so proud of myself for exercising tolerance of his prick-dom.

"You are going to take Pritchard's position until he can play again."

"Goody," I said, wiggling my fingers at him. I checked my watch. Bloody hell, I have paperwork to do. Because of this ruddy sport I created a pile of work the size of the Great Pyramids. Oh and a meeting this evening. Fabulous just fabulous. You know come to think of it, I was feeling a bit more optimistic about my life before I came back to this fucking school. Want a cigarette. I really really want a cigarette. Oh hell, Malfoy blabbering about something.

"--now, Marlow!"

"What?" I blinked down at him.

"I want laps, Marlow, now!" Draco shouted.

Harry looked at me, as though asking whether or not he could tell the prick to sod off. I didn't have the energy for this. "I have work, Draco," I said as I sailed down to the ground. I picked up my broom and began walking.

"We've been over this Marlow, you don't have any work but this team."

"Sod off, Malfoy!" that was Harry.

"Get in the air, Marlow!"

"You aren't listening, Draco," I said as I continued walking. "I have to work." I slammed the door behind me and flew down the corridor. How lame is that? I have to work. It is not an excuse but an obligation. It is. . . I needa bath anda cigarette. No, make that a pack of cigarettes.

I entered the common room and everyone looked up. I must have had a burning ball of frustration around me. I ran up to my dorm to get out my quidditch clothes and get my work. I had just zipped up my jacket when I heard my name bellowed up the stairs. "Marlow! Marlow, we aren't finished!"

"Sodding hell!" I grabbed my stack of papers and slammed my door. "What do you want?" I shouted. But he wasn't in the corridor. I walked down into the common room and there he was. Arms folded across his chest and a stern expression as though I was a disobedient child.

"Marlow, you are now on first string are you not?" his voice was painfully calm and well-paced.

"I do believe that is what you told me earlier." I am a CEO, two can play at this game.

"Then do enlighten me Marlow as to why you disobey your capitain and refuse to practice?"

"It is quite simple, Draco. I have work."

All at once, in the passing of a second, his calmness melted away into pure fury. "Work? Work!" he smacked my papers and sent them scattered around the common room, a place that was deathly silent. "You aren't a bloody CEO here! Marlow, you're--" he stopped when he saw a particularly fat envelope lying on the ground. One with a return address of Lucius Malfoy. The young Malfoy sneered the meanest sneer I have ever, ever seen. With steps like a giant he stomped towards the fire and hurled the envelope to its fiery demise.

"Rot in hell, Marlow," he snarled. Then he left. The bastard left me standing there in the common room, mouth ajar, wondering what the fuck was going on.

I jerked when someone tapped my hip. Blaise was handing something up to me. A cigarette, oh god he has good timing. I popped it into my lips but it fell right back out into my hand. "What the hell is this, Blaise?" I wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"Let's just say it's a little stronger than what you're used to."

"Ah, the next logical step in your masochism, Blaise; drugs. I suppose I did see it coming."

"Things have changed."

"So I've noticed."

"I'm as fucked up as you like to think I am."

I gave him a sidelong glance. In truth he wasn't a boy with pale skin, sunken cheeks, crusty lips, greasy hair, raggety clothes or trembling fingers that my narrative might imply. He was a tan, smooth skinned, well-groomed young man with a way about him like he was always just about to take a photo.

"But you on the other hand, are."

"Thanks, Blaise," I said sarcastically, shoving the blunt into my pocket, next to my cigarettes. I was on a mission. A mission to kick Draco's arse.

Guess where I found the little prick? The spot by the lake where he had first bloodied Malcolm's nose. Of course, I didn't know this at the time. I have had some time to reprocess all of these events. The bloke was standing and looking out at the lake. Fucking sap.

"Oi, Draco!" I shouted. He turned. "That is your bloody problem?"

"My problem? Hah, that's a laugh, Alexandra," he never uses my proper name. Ever.

"Yes, you're problem!" my voice was rising and rising. "You have treated me like shit since the second I got on that sodding train! We have been mates for ten years, Draco—more than mates! We were together in that hell hole for two weeks and –"

"And you betrayed me!" he screamed. I mean his voice hit a high note. The one boys only get two when they have either been kicked in the balls or reached a peak of honesty. "You're a bloody traitor!"

I got up right close to him, retaining my composure and said, "If I'm a traitor that what does that make you?"

Then he slapped me.

I stumbled all the way back into the nearby tree, holding my cheek which was flaming in my hand. Draco's eyes were wide and his hand was still hanging on the otherside of his body. All I remember hearing was our breathing, each of us mutually shocked at ourselves and one another. Like many times before in my life, time slowed.

But when time slows, it undoubtedly must speed up again. In this instance, I charged and Malfoy and hit him across the nose. It was one of those nice, clean sounds. Blood poured down his robes like a broken levee. He curled over and, as if I hadn't had enough, I shoved him into the lake.

Now, being the queen of good timing, you would think that I would have stormed of, found Harry, finished my work or what have you . . . but I didn't. I stood and watched. When Draco started indeed drowning in the lake (it wasn't exactly warm), I jumped in and helped him out. I to this day do not know where my mind was.

I was soaking wet, freezing, laying on the grass besides a boy even more soaking wet and freezing than I. Draco gasped for air and clawed at the grass. We were really close.

"X-Xandra," he choked out, shivering like a lamb in winter. I turned to him. The slytherin prince put his ice cold hand on mine. He only hand to move mere centimetres. I wondered how long he hand been in that water—my sense of time isn't exactly reliable these days.

"W-what?" Great now I am shivering cold.

"We w-were the sly-ytherin fo-our. You lef-t me," his voice quivered and he dropped his head onto the ground. Cold water can do that to you. I think. Oh bloody hell, I didn't know was going on with him. Something was seriously wrong with our little prince. But I am sure of one thing, and that is that he is bloody heavy when wet.

I tried to work after I passed Draco off to Pansy and I changed clothes. However, I found myself staring at a two letters I had already read. The rest of my work, the pyramids, were ash above the castle right about then.

So what was there to do? Hah, what there always is to do. I lit up the blunt Blaise had given me and started to get ready for my meeting.

Hate, hate my life! It is bloody midnight and I just went through perhaps the worst meeting of my life. It had nothing to do with the material—I could follow along just fine. It had nothing to do with the people—usual suspects. It had to do with me. It is one of those problems you can never put your finger on until an irrelevant time somewhere in the future.

God, I need to get more marijuana. I can completely understand Blaise's perspective. It isn't the high that I crave, that was overrated and frankly at this point uneffective, but it was just the bang that it put on my senses. However, for the sake of quidditch I'll save it for special occasions and stick to cigarettes—something that in that past 24 hours have fallen back into favour.

"Xandra?"

I nearly fell over. "Who's there?"

"It's me, Harry," wonderboy stepped into the light.

"What are you doing creepy around in the bloody shadows?" I snapped.

"I'm a prefect. I have rounds."

"Since when?"

"Since Dean couldn't take my place tonight."

"Right. Well, goodnight." I took about two steps before his voice stopped me.

"I'll walk you," he said. "Hermione is making rounds too. I don't want you getting suspended from the team." He plucked my cigarette from my lips as he said this.

"Whatever you want," I said with a tired shrug. We walked in silence and I could feel the awkward glances he sent me.

"So did it work out alright with Malfoy?"

"He slapped me and I shoved him into a lake." That sounds so much better than the emotion-infused truth.

"What!"

I gave him a superficial smirk.

"Are you okay?"

"Peachy as usual."

He gave me a look of disbelief but that was to be expected. We made the turn that would lead us to the dungeons. "I don't understand what makes that arse tick."

A crash stopped us in our tracks. Harry instantly had is wand at the ready and was surveying the area. The source of the noise was easy to spot. A suit of armour had fallen to the ground. The thing that wasn't so easy to comprehend was the rustling behind the long drape that obviously caused it.

Harry approached the rustling cautiously and used his wand to pull back the drape.

I choked on my saliva at the sight.

Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley were rounding the bases and there was a considerable amount of nudity. Harry was frozen completely frozen. It was I that had to cough to get their attention.

The slytherin prince stopped his activities and the Weasley girl opened her eyes. She looked bloody mortified while Draco on the otherhand looked proud to be our discovery. "Do you mind, Potter?"

"Harry," Weasleyette gasped.

"Move along, Marlow, move along," Draco turned back to his piece of meat like some sort of beast. Weasley just kept staring at us until I dropped the drape for Harry just didn't know what to do with himself.

I still don't know how Draco managed to be who he was or do the many things he did those nights during our school days, especially when one considers the ghosts, teachers and not to mention Filch prowling the halls. But it was that night that stayed up all night with Harry Potter doing nothing in particular. Just being. Just trying to figure out how the universe could ever balance itself out.

Author's Note: Oh wow I wrote this chapter fast! Well, I hope everyone enjoyed it. I want to thank all my darling readers who keep me going on this fic. Hugs and until next time.