Chapter Eight

The next day, Sunday, I slept late. When I did wake up I lay in bed for a few seconds, remembered about Calandra, and burst out laughing. I sat up and was met with a horrible sight. Calandra's scowling face was a mere two inches from mine, and she looked ready to murder me. I screamed, lost my balance, and fell out of bed in my haste to get away.

"Don't do that!" I tried to yell, but it came out more like a squeak.

"You'd better not tell on me" Calandra growled.

"Tell what?" I asked sweetly, and tossed back my hair.

"You know" Calandra said, giving me a meaningful look

"Oh that." I said in an overly loud voice "You mean the fact that you lik-"

"Shut Up!" Calandra yelled in a panicked voice "Shut up shut up shut up!"

I laughed "Calandra, darling, don't you trust me to keep your secret?"

"No, actually, I don't trust you one bit… But if you tell one single soul about this, I will personally see that you are drawn and quartered. I will then send your assorted body parts to the four corners of the world with a note that says Beware ye all who tell on me."

"Where exactly are the four corners of the world, I mean, if my body parts are going to be shipped there… Anyway, I don't think that muggles do that kind of stuff any more. They use this kind of metal wand to kill each other. I think it's called a gun. No, a pun. Or maybe it's a-"

"Okay, okay, I get the point." Calandra said hastily, trying to prevent one of my semi educated muggle lectures "Besides, I've never been that good at muggle studies, you can't expect me to know this kind of stuff"

"All the more reason to learn" I said, rummaging around under my bed for my bag. "what time is it?"

"You know, you're really hard to stay mad at" Calandra said regretfully, ignoring my question

"Aha!" I shouted, and pulled my bag out from under my bed. Finding my book on muggles, I flipped to the index. "Okay, I was right the first time" I said after a minute "It's a gun, a pun is a kind of joke"

"I'm hungry" Said Calandra "I'm ready to go down and have breakf… Hey, what's this?" Calandra bent down and picked up a small glass bottle "Orchid, why do you have a bottle of hairs under your bed?"

"Uh, uh, they're Dylan's. He gave them to me for safe keeping"

"But these hairs are black, Dylan's hair is blond"

"Good point, you know, you could be a detective someday, one of those muggles who figure out stuff, what excellent powers of deduction you have" I grabbed the bottle, stuffed it into my trunk, locked the trunk, and ran downstairs.

I exited the dorm, and started down stairs to the Slytherin Common Room. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I spotted my sister Nuala comforting a girl who I vaguely recognized as Chelsea, who lived in Nuala's dorm, a place of blackness where no one ever returned. Just kidding. I slowed down, sensing some juicy gossip to pass around.

"Hey Nuala! What happened?" I gave a sympathetic look.

"My-my boyfriend" here Chelsea burst into tears. When she'd gotten herself under control she gasped. "My boyfriend, Saul just broke up with me!" A new wave of tears cut off any further conversation with Chelsea.

"You wouldn't know anything about this, would you Win?" Nuala looked accusingly at me. Too late, I realized I was blushing. But really, how would I have known that Saul was going to break up with Chelsea for me!

"Of course not." I muttered and walked on. I was about to walk out of the Common Room when I realized I was still wearing my pajamas. I rushed back up to my dorm, which was now empty.

As I emerged from my dorm wearing a Dark green t-shirt and a pair of velvety black jeans I was struck by a thought, and incredible, brilliant, wonderful thought. I mean, thoughts like this did not come every day, they came, like, once every ten years.

The thought was this: I would get Saul's now ex-girlfriend to tell me all the nasty things about him she knew, then I would black mail Saul with them! This way, I could still be with Dylan and Saul couldn't say a thing about the hairs until it was far too late! Hee hee! I love me.

As I descended the staircase from the girls dormitory for the second time, I heard A loud, obnoxious sounding voice. It was only a few seconds later that I recognized the voice as Saul's. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but decided that if he was looking for me, it was best to stay hidden until I was sure he wouldn't say anything awkward to me. Or Dylan. I scurried back up the stairs (yet again!) and rummaged through my trunk until I found and donned my invisibility cloak. After another few minutes of searching I found the bottle of Thestral hairs and stuffed them in my pocket. By the time I reached the bottom of the staircase I was breathing hard.

I surveyed the room, and then did a double-take. My eyes, wide open with shock, could not believe the spectacle before me. There, with a clipboard and quill, stood Saul. He appeared to be interviewing passerby and asking them whether they'd seen me.

"So," said Saul stroking his chin thoughtfully and leaving huge smudges of black ink all over his face "You're saying you haven't seen Orchid at all today?"

The girl, who looked to be a fourth year, replied "That's what I've told you… TEN TIMES!" the girl rolled her eyes and stormed off.

Saul checked something off on his clipboard and turned to his next victim.

Disgusted I exited the Common Room behind a group of dweeby-looking first years. What was Saul's problem? Why exactly did he have an ex-girlfriend? He'd be lucky to have one friend at all! Let alone a girlfriend.

What I needed to get my mind off Saul was a good long review of all the various I could get killed by turning into an Animagus. Just kidding, but I did need to check on the potion. Yah! I thought I'll go check on the potion and add the hairs!

Once there, I took out the bottle of Thestral hairs and quickly uncorked it, trying not to breathe in the musky, earthly scent of the passageway. Truly disgusting. I emptied the small bottle over the Cauldron. When the hairs reached the potion, they dissolved, and a black, Thestral shaped cloud of mist rose out of the cauldron before condensing, and dropping back into the cauldron in the form of black water. I quickly thumbed through my potions book, and various others, to confirm that what had just happened was a good sign. I checked the potions color, temperature, and various other things, then left. With my invisibility cloak on, for the great hall. BREAKFAST TIME! Finally

Upon my arrival at the entrance hall I was horrified to discover that I had no way of eating breakfast while invisible. Thoroughly pissed, I hurried down to the kitchens. I emerged from the kitchens twenty minutes later with a plate heaped with pancakes, éclairs, and milk. (I'm a recently converted vegetarian, so I avoided the meat with difficulty.) I discovered an unused classroom and settled down to eat.

When I bit into an éclair, I nearly broke my jaw on a Knut embedded in it. Oh great, this must be the house elves rumored 'Sunday surprise.' As I carefully picked through my second éclair, looking for the Knut, My thoughts strayed to Dylan. Nearly breaking my jaw reminded me of him. Let me explain. I had first met Dylan when I was six years old. His parents (being prestigious Malfoys) had been invited over for dinner at my families mansion to discuss "business" (which I later found out, was my arranged marriage to Dylan).

"Win! Be a dear and come down to meet Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, and their son Dylan!"

"NO!" I shouted, having not yet recovered from one of my many tantrums. "I won't come down now!" I heard my mother sigh, and knew I'd be in big trouble once the Malfoys left, but at that moment I couldn't care less.

"Do excuse her, Mrs. Malfoy. She's a little… upset at the moment. She'll be down shortly. Won't you Bloodwin?" my mother shouted up to me threateningly.

"Yes." I muttered "In my own good time." It wasn't until thirty minutes later that I arrived at my 'own good time'. As I descended the vast staircase that led to my room, I thought fleetingly of what a brat Dylan must be, and what a horrid night this was.

Around the same time that Bloodwin Marvala Slytherin arrived at 'her own good time' Dylan Richard Malfoy began to ascend the staircase to her room, unaware both that the room he was trying to get into was Orchids, and that her staircase was enchanted with the same spell that The girls dormitory at Hogwarts was. Being that if a boy tried to get in, the stairs would turn into a slide.

My thoughts were interrupted when the stairs slid into the floor and I started to slide downward at an alarming speed. I had a fleeting image of surprised blue eyes framed by dark blond hair before I crashed headlong into them. I hit his face going about fifteen miles per hour, and heard an audible cracking sound as his jaw broke.

And that was how I met Dylan Richard Malfoy.

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