~The Scarlet Letter~

Around six in the morning, Alyona awoken in the boy's dorm, still wrapped in Draco's arms. While her heart was begging her to stay a little longer, her brain knew better.

Alyona slipped out of Draco's embrace and quietly stood up from the bed. Once on her feet, she looked around the room at the other occupants to find them fast asleep as well.

Alyona tiptoed out of the room and began to head up to where the steps divided between the boys and girls dormitories.

It was interesting having to walk up a set of stairs rather toward the common room rather than down, due to the girl's dorms being on top of the boy's.

She had almost successfully made it down when she ran into Bradley, who was coming up the stairs at that moment.

Brad had a look on his face as if there was something that smelled terrible under his nose. Alyona just stood there, waiting for him to either say something or move out of her way.

"Where are you coming from? These stairs lead to the boys dorms," Bradley questioned.

"I don't think it concerns you," Alyona sneered back.

"Uh, a girl coming down from the boys dorm is kind of my concern, actually," Bradley pointed out.

Alyona wanted to rattle off with a snarky response, but decided that it was far too early for her to want to start up a conflict.

"Whatever," Alyona said as she continued to walk down the stairs and past Berringer, but not before giving her her blonde locks a toss directly into Bradley's face as she walked by.

After entering her dorm, the Carrow twins had already risen from their slumber to get ready for the day. Their heads turned abruptly as they saw Alyona coming through the entrance.

"Wear were you? You weren't in bed last night," Flora asked.

"Ya, I was. I…just came back from the bathroom," Alyona replied as she strolled over to her bed and plopped down.

"Well, which bathroom? Because we had been in there for at least a half hour and we never saw you come in or leave…," Hestia said.

Alyona couldn't think of a response fast enough. Before she could speak, the twins had already come up with their own idea of where she was.

"You were with Malfoy, weren't you?" Flora gasped with a grin creeping on her face.

"What? No-no, I was in the bathroom this morning, seriously. I even remember hearing you guys when you came in," Alyona stated with an impressive amount of confidence.

"Oh, I think I remember someone else being in there with us. There was one stall that had a flickering lantern above it. That must have been you, right?" Flora asked.

Without thinking too much, Alyona immediately agreed and was so thankful to whoever it was who was actually in that stall.

"Oh right! Yes, that was me."

Flora immediately burst out laughing and said, "There is no flickering lantern in the bathroom, gotcha!"

Alyona blushed in embarrassment as she scrambled to grab the few things she need to tend to her appearance and took off to the bathroom, desperate to escape the hysterical giggles of the Carrow twins.

~ooOOOoo~

During breakfast, As the students ate away at the huge portions of food that appeared on their house tables, Alyona sat with only a goblet of coffee. Her fourth serving, to be exact.

"Alyona, I expect you to actually eat something, and to drink more water. You can't fill up on coffee," Draco expressed worriedly.

The girl looked up from her goblet with sleepy eyes as she did her best to look awake and alert, "I'm fine. I'm really not that hungry, today."

Draco scoffed, "Rubbish, you need to eat."

He snatched her plate and began to pile on generous helpings of food. Scrambled eggs, sausage links, biscuits and more.

"You're tired because you're dehydrated," Malfoy added as he summoned water within one of the empty goblets.

Draco placed the plate and water goblet down in front of the fatigued girl. "There we are, breakfast is served. Now, eat up."

As Alyona attempted to stuff her face with food, the morning post had started to arrive. Owls swarmed the dining hall, dropping letters and packages for their respective students.

One of the owls dropped something down in front of Alyona. She put down her fork and picked up the envelope that was addressed to her.

She noticed that it was slightly heavy for what was presumably just a letter.

Alyona was use to the pink envelopes that her parents would always send, so receiving an an inky black one made her instantly think that it had to be from someone else.

The dark paper casing had her first and last name written in cursive white ink with a green wax seal stamped across the opening fold.

"Who's it from, Darling?" Draco asked out of curiosity.

"I'm not sure, there's no sender's name," She said while lifting the wax seal and carefully removing the letter from within. It was a simple piece of parchment that only showed a total of five words.

Written in a deep reddish-brown color were the words: Two Down, Seven to Go.

Alyona was frozen in the moment. This could really only mean a couple of things, none of which were good.

She then felt the weightiness of the envelope, There was something else inside of it. She flipped it over above the table and gave it a shake.

A loud clanging noise was heard as a silver dagger fell out of the package and onto her breakfast plate, it was coated with what seemed to be fresh blood.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Alyona let out a shrill, high-pitched scream that pierced the air and caused the surrounding students to cover their ears out of pain. A few of the students goblets had cracked from the frequency and decibels that the Blossom girl was letting out.

She knocked her plate onto the floor, shattering the dish and sending the bloody weapon skidding across the floor.

"Who's blood is that!?" Alyona screamed.

Draco instinctively took Alyona into his arms and pulled her towards him. He didn't fully know what was going on. All he knew was that his darling was in distress and that he needed to protect her.

A few teachers rushed over from the faculty table to see what the commotion was all about.

"Miss Blossom? What seems to be the issue!?" Professor McGonogall tried desperately to pry for an answer.

Alyona, with tears forming in her eyes, handed the letter to the Professor and with a shaky hand, pointed to the ground where the bloody knife landed.

All of the nearby students tried to gather around to witness what all of the commotion was about. Alden and Daphne watched from their seats as Professor McGonogall began to escort Alyona away from the scene.

Draco wanted to outright refuse to let go of his beloved, but he knew that the Professor just wanted to help.

"Wait, I'll come too! Please!" Draco begged.

The Professor looked to Alyona for any sign of approval to his request. The Blossom girl offered the slightest nod as she wiped her tears away.

"Very well, mister Malfoy. You may accompany miss Blossom to the headmaster's office," McGonogall said.

The three of them quickly made their way towards the large double doors of the great hall.

Sitting all alone, Bradley looked up from his meal with resentment as he watched them flee the area.

~ooOOOoo~

After their meeting with the headmaster, the two students were scent back to the common room for the remainder of the day. Draco had insisted relentlessly that he stay with Alyona for her comfort, to which Dumbledore graciously agreed.

Draco sat firmly on the couch, holding his girlfriend securely as he scanned the common room for any potential threat.

"Wh..what did the letter mean by two down? Who's bl...blood was that?"

"It's going to be okay, I promise. We'll find out who sent that letter," Draco soothed.

Alyona had finally stopped shaking and gave into the comfort of her boyfriend's arms. She hadn't spoken much since they left Dumbledore's office. The state of shock she was in was too great for her to use her words.

"Water..."

The Malfoy heir's attention snapped back to his beloved. "What was that, Darling?" He delicately asked.

"Water…I need water." Alyona's voice sounded dry and grainy, as if she had caught a cold.

Draco gently placed her down onto the sofa cushion and ran to grab a water goblet from the ebony wood cabinets on the other side of the large common room.

He sped back over to Alyona, sat down beside her, took out his wand and filled the clear goblet to the brim with water.

"Drink, Love," Malfoy coaxed as he helped her.

Almost as soon as those words left Draco's lips, the water had vanished. He looked down at the empty goblet with wide eyes.

"My goodness, you were thirsty," Draco commented.

After filling and re-filling his darling's glass more than twenty times, her thirst seemed to finally be quenched.

"Thank you so much, I really needed that."

She thanked him for his attentiveness.

Draco smiled down at her. "Of course, Alyonka. Is there anything else you'd like?"

"Alyonka?" The girl asked.

Draco smiled sweetly, "Oh, ya. It's a Russian diminutive variant of your name. A nickname of sorts. I thought it was cute."

Alyona leaned forward to kiss her Slytherin boyfriend on the cheek, "It is cute, I like it."

Draco continued to hold his her as he gently stroked her her smooth tresses. He could breath a little easier as he suddenly felt a sense of comfort and control of the situation.

~ooOOOoo~

Later that day, the two Slytherin students were trying to come up with a way to figure out who was behind all of this.

They sat at a desk near the large, tall windows that looked out into the depths of the black lake.

Every now and then a creature would swim by, temporarily catching their attention before getting back to the problem at hand.

"There's far too many people that take issue with me and my family to even begin to narrow it down." Alyona said. She held her head in her hands as she racked her brain for answers.

"Do you feel like the Parkinsons are too obvious of a choice? They're definitely hateful enough to do something like this," Draco asked.

Alyona shook her head at his accusation. "It doesn't seem likely, Pansy and her family are mean, but they read as more petty than truly evil. Besides, they were just mad that they couldn't set their devil spawn up with you. That's hardly grounds for going on a murder spree."

Draco sat on that thought for a moment. "Well, when you're a well adjusted member of society like us, of course murder would seem a bit rash."

The girl giggled at his tasteful insult, "Well, the only other people that showed up to the meeting last year when my secret came out were the Fawley family, and mister Yaxley. Both seemed pretty upset with us.

"That's true, none of them have kids that go to this school either. But, I'd say our best bet is to keep an eye on them," Malfoy suggested.

"How are we to do that? We're not exactly able to just leave the school grounds whenever we please," The Blossom heiress questioned.

Draco sat back and pondered over that question. How would they go about this without leaving the school. Even if they could come and go as they pleased, it was definitely safer to stay on school property than risk going off on some secret mission.

Malfoy then had a brilliant idea. Alyona could tell in his face that he had possibly found their solution to this issue.

"You sure look like you've found the answer. What have you come up with?" She asked

Draco smirked at his own genius, "I know just the person to help us."

"And who would that be?" Alyona inquired.

He leaned forward and looked at her with confident eyes, "My mother."

PLEASE REVIEW :)