Author's Note: Thank you all for your lovely reviews. This chapter is a bit more intense, I don't know if I've overdone it, or if it's disappointing to those who wanted something more humorous. I hope you like it though. I didn't want Draco to be … frilly or recycled, but I'm afraid he comes off that way. The poem at the end which Draco quotes is by Yehuda Amichai. Thank you.

There are two rather large problems I've found about staying at school for the Christmas holidays. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I am completely and utterly alone. This is not particularly unusual for me. I got off to a bit of a bad start in my first year when it came to the whole making friends thing. Normally I would hang out with Colin, or Neville, or Harry and Ron and such. I always was friendly with Michael's friends when we were dating, but that ended long ago. So it's not as if I can't handle a little bit of solitude. But there's this silence that haunts the castle. It's awkward and uncomfortable like walking in wet jeans, or the quiet that slips in between casual conversation where you just can't seem to make eye contact with anyone. Or maybe it's a smell that sticks with you: a constant reminder of home or a perfume you've worn for what feels like a lifetime. There's a certain ache within me that I can not differentiate between a dull pain and a stabbing one, it is faded, but it is consistent. It's not the people that I miss so much as the background, the noise, the color, the blurring faces that make you feel a part of something even when you're simply watching. The first night I curled up in the common room in front of the fire alone was fine. I got to prance around in my underwear, sing loudly, which I normally reserve for the shower, and stuff my face full of sweets. The second night I read a bit and went to sleep early. The third night the silence struck.

The second problem is the quality of people remaining at the castle. There are a few Hufflepuffs, which is surprising to me, but they're always so skittish and flock in groups together. Of course there's one or two Ravenclaws that have locked themselves away to study relentlessly, which is about as sickening as trying to cram as many chocolate frogs as humanly possible into your mouth. (Ron's an idiot.) And this brings us to the Slytherins, normally I wouldn't even bother to mention them, but I suppose I should be fair. There's only one Slytherin remaining at Hogwarts for Christmas this year: Draco Malfoy.

Here is what I know about Draco Malfoy:

1. His hair is extremely platinum. This is not normal.

2. He quite easily gets the best of Ron, a talent I could use.

3. He mocked my love poem to Harry which emotionally scarred me. I've never written proper poetry since.

4. He is extremely rich and extremely good looking, which is only fitting because the two tend to go hand in hand. I am neither of these which brings us to number five…

5. He hates anyone who is not rich, extremely good looking, and highly pureblood. (The Weasley Clan does not count as purebloods which he constantly reminds Ron of.)

That's about it. I mean I know he plays Quidditch, and I've heard Ron's stories about him, but personally our encounters have been very limited.

I am perhaps not the most rational person. I don't really think things over. I had to learn the hard way not to mix pink with red hair, never to eat what Fred and George give you, don't spit into the wind. I suppose that's what I was doing when I started stalking Malfoy: spitting into the wind, towards Malfoy, and having him laugh as it hit me in the face. But, like every cruel injustice in my life, it was not my fault. I was desperate for human contact. I was sitting, having lunch, not feeling particularly hungry when he snapped closed a particularly large book, grabbed the rest of what may or may have not been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and walked … strutted, out of the Great Hall. I felt compelled to follow him. I read this article in Teen Witch once that if you want to have a really sexy walk that makes you look tall and confident you have to lead your entire body with your belly button. You should feel as if a string has hooked you there and is gently pulling you forward. At the same time you're supposed to put your shoulders back and elongate your neck, it's all very complicated. But that's how I felt, as if someone was pulling me forth right from the center of my existence, and I had to know, I had to follow him.

He went to the library. I never considered Draco Malfoy to be a nerd, but there he was, reading up a storm. I didn't want him to notice me so I watched him from behind a row of books. Sometimes I think he would feel me staring at him. I really do have issues with obsessing over boys. The whole Harry thing is going to take me a lifetime and a half to live down.

Draco is not classically beautiful. He is individually beautiful. I must call him beautiful, I am compelled to call him beautiful, because any other word would not give him justice, it would make him overly masculine, or boyish, or a cliché, and it would trivialize the very things that make him so magnetic. I should have stopped myself. When everything is finished you always thing backwards, rewind bits and pieces so you can find a moment in which you're able to place blame on someone, or something, or as a last resort, yourself. This is what started everything. After about an hour my leg fell asleep and I accidentally knocked over some books on the lower self. All of a sudden it was as if his eyes zoomed in on mine. There is no other way to describe it. I thought he was going to attack me, or at least have a very intense staring contest with me. I let out a very high pitched girly squeak, very similar to the Harry-butter-incident-of-SHAME. I fumbled with a book opening it up to a random page, and then BAM he was right behind me.

"Puss filled boils?" I jumped about a mile in the air and whirled around. That's exactly what he said to me too, talk about random.

"Excuse me?"

"You're reading about puss filled boils? That's really, really, disgusting Weasley." I completely agree, it's really, really disgusting. I simply didn't realize that I had grabbed 101 Worst Rashes and Skin Problems.

"Err, yes. It is really, really, disgusting. But fascinating…I mean look here, 'Puss filled boils are common in many teenaged witches that have had encounters with a rare strand of Pixies. When the boils are first acquired similar to jelly fish stings the pain may be alleviated if urinated upon.' I mean talk about recreational reading. Who needs romance books?" I was painfully red, like a puss filled boil I'm sure.

"I sincerely hope you're not asking me to urinate on you." Now that was just ridiculous. I backhanded him on his upper arm, "Of course not! That's a horrible thing to say. I think I'm going to be ill."

"You're going to be ill? What about me? You're the one with puss filled boils. What was I supposed to think?" He drew his words out as if he wanted you to be sure you understood his condescending tone.

"That I was reading about it for fun?"

"No one, not even a Ravenclaw, would read about 101 utterly nauseating, stomach-turning, rashes for fun. They only do it if they have them."

"I bet Hermione has read it."

"Well, I'm sure Granger has one. She has my sympathies."

"She probably does." This, in hindsight, was not a particularly nice or smart thing to say. Which I feel really badly about because I told Colin that I was going to try to be nicer to people … in general, he's going to gloat for days if he finds out he was right. Such little faith.

"What?"

"I simply meant that it was possible that she could have some sort of rash or something…" Pathetic.

"Do you know this for certain?"

"Well, no."

"Ugh, that's useless then. You're an idiot you know. You shouldn't say things like that about your friends. People will spread it around and it'll come back to them. Words are boomerangs you know." Words are boomerangs? Are you kidding me?

"We're going through a rough patch. Things pop out."

"Mmm, well I hope you all work that out in group therapy together." I really don't think he meant this because he was scowling and rolling his eyes, "Lovely chat, good luck with the boils."

I may have over reacted to his last comment a bit because I ended up screaming after him, "I DO NOT HAVE BOILS!" I was then hushed by Madame Prince, who I believe should stick her head down a hole and die. I really don't have puss filled boils. That's a horrible thing to say about someone.

This was my first library encounter with Draco Malfoy. It did not go as planned. Not that I had planned it because that would be fraternizing with the enemy and I could be stoned to death for less. It was, however, not the first encounter that cemented my interest in Draco, nor was the second in which we merely traded customary insults and he easily took the upper hand (he has more practice), it was the third that stuck with me like when you eat cake too fast and a piece gets lodged in your throat so you can feel it still resting there and you get the hiccups and they just won't go away.

I always hear people speculate over what makes Draco so good looking. You would think it'd be ruined because of his personality, but it's not. It's enhanced. Because there is this incredible anger and hatred that you can taste in the air around him, but there's also a dull pain he harbors. The kind you can never find the proper words to describe as you rest your head upon their chest trying to match your breathing to be in perfect time and lift it up from them, take it into you so they feel less of it and so you understand it, him, the ambiguity of everything, of the sweat on his forehead, and the way he kisses your hair, as you crack your fingers against him, the peace of the moment when you stare from distant rooms through rows of windows that lead you to him, and he looks like a photograph that was blurry but you're certain you're both smiling. I was not by any means in love with Draco Malfoy, nor do I by any means love him, but I wanted to touch him, because like anything beautiful you know it can not last.

It was snowing out, a light flurry, barely visible, but tangible. I climbed to the top of the Astronomy Tower, to feel a little bit sorry for myself, but mostly to see Hogwarts covered in untainted snow. Christmas was fast approaching and I was unprepared. Draco sat there, huddled in his cloak, little blue fires surrounding him in glass jars which he had brought to keep himself warm. I had no idea how long he'd been sitting there.

"Have you come to make fun of me?"

"No, I didn't even know you were here."

"Poor Draco Malfoy, alone on the Christmas Holidays, smoking some muggle invention, slumming, destroying my good name." I hadn't even noticed he'd been smoking, but he had.

"No." It was very sad, how he was no longer so sharp and you wanted him to be, because if Draco Malfoy wasn't being a giant asshole, Death Eater, bigot, who were you?

He stared at me with such fury and such loathing that I can only imagine it was a reflection of how he saw himself, "Do you know why I fucking hate you?" I shook my head. "No really, I mean do you know why I hate you? Because you're so quick to draw your stupid lines in the sand and force everyone to pick a side. I don't know you. I know you're a Weasley. I know you're a girl, a sixth year. And I know that for some selfish reason you decided to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays, but I don't know you. Well, 'God has pity on kindergarten children. He has less pity on school children. And on grownups he has no pity at all, he leaves them alone, and sometimes they must crawl on all fours….' Please leave. I don't really want to look at you." So I left, because if you were me what else would there be to do?