At lunch time, Melanie heads towards her group of friends in the Great Hall, Harry isn't there yet, and apparently he wasn't coming. Hermione and Ron explained to Melanie that Harry had lashed out on them in the Common Room when they asked him about his scarred hand from Umbridge's physically tortures detention.

Upon hearing this, Melanie was outraged, both from Umbridge and her general existence, and more from Harry's far-gone attitude.

At least she could solve one of those problems. Melanie tells her friends she would leave to talk some sense into Harry and she does just that.

Storming into the Common Room, Melanie knocks on the door to the boys' bedroom, maintaining her politeness. Neville opens up. "Oh, hello, Melanie. What can I do for you?" He asks pleasantly. Melanie smiles sweetly at him.
"Hello, Neville. Is Harry in there?" She asks. No one else seemed to be in the room. Neville looks to the side and hesitates.
"Um…" He starts, seeming confused, then he turns back to her. "No. No he is not." He told with a suspicious grin. Melanie arched a doubtful eyebrow at him. She pushed open the door and ducked under Neville's arm.

Standing up straight, she glares at her brunet friend, seated on his bed with a book in hand. She then turns to Neville, who is scratching the back of his neck nervously. "Neville, could you give us a minute?" She asked softly. He nods quickly.
"Yeah, of course. Sorry, Melanie." He apologizes for lying.
"It's alright, Neville. Wasn't your fault." She tells, glaring back at Harry, who looks red with embarrassment.

Neville leaves the tense room, closing the door behind him. Melanie observes Harry. He was seated at the edge of his bed now, silent, unsure what to do. It was clear her friend was hurting, confused, battling several emotions at once, but that didn't excuse his attitude. Melanie sighed tiredly. She thought by giving him space, things would get better, but they only got worse.

She walked to sit by the edge of the bed next to him. He's fiddling with his fingers nervously. She sees he is tense and decides to take a calm approach, like she usually did. "Harry, this has to stop." She tells calmly. He stays quiet, unable to look her in the eye. He knows she's right, but he doesn't know how to make it stop. He doesn't know what in the name of sanity was happening to him. "Harry, look at me." She requests. Her point would not be taken seriously without eye-contact.

He turns to her reluctantly, with teary eyes. He was furious, with himself, with the world, with everything. Melanie eyes him sympathetically. "Please talk to me." She whispers kindly. He is hesitant, afraid of breaking down, but he just couldn't hold it in, he did need someone to talk to.
"I can't"- He starts, then looks away again, rethinking his decision, but it was too late to go back. Looking down at his hands, he speaks with so much anger and pain. "I can't sleep at night, Melanie." That one sentence broke her heart. "I…I keep having these nightmares. About the goblet, Cedric, and…him." A single tear slides down his cheek. The things he saw in life and sleep. It was too much to bear. "I'm just"- He clenches his jaw shut in an attempt to shun his tears. "I'm so angry." He whispers in despair, then turns to her with eyes of a sad puppy. "What's wrong with me?" Melanie's eyes glister with her own tears.

She pulls herself together and puts her hands on his shoulders firmly. "Nothing, Harry. Absolutely nothing, you hear me?" He shakes his head in inconvenience, looking away again, unable to hold his tears for much longer. "Harry, listen to me." She tells, attempting to regain his undivided attention. "You've been through so much. You've experienced things no one your age ever should, and I won't have you blaming yourself for the way you react, understand?" He stays silent, she hasn't broken through his mind just yet. "Do you remember the year we thought Sirius was trying to kill you? Do remember how you thought it was impossible to stop, how you thought there was no hope? Then I told you we'd get through it together, and we did." It seemed to be working. "No matter what this is, no matter what will happen, we can get through it together, and I mean that literally, Harry. You have to stop shutting us out." She tells. He thinks deeply. "Promise me." She pushes. He sees her expectant eyes and nods slowly, but she could tell he finally meant it. She was right after all, and he'd be stupid to ignore it.

Melanie pulls him into a tight hug and he hugs her back with equal force. Never had he been more grateful in his life for having someone like Melanie around.

….

The next morning, the friends are at breakfast, Harry had slept in, waking up twenty minutes after them. In the Great Hall, he approaches the three nervously. He still hadn't apologized to Hermione and Ron for lashing out on them. Melanie smiled at him encouragingly. He asks if he could sit with them and they of course, relieved and somewhat shocked at the sudden change, welcome him with open arms.

The events that occurred afterwards are far from normal. Attracted by the sound of professor McGonagall and Umbridge arguing about the DADA teacher's detention methods just outside the Great Hall, the students swarm out to witness the unfolding event.

To sum it up, Umbridge had managed to twist McGonagall's words against her, accusing her of questioning the minister and his methods too. Things got out of hand quickly afterwards. Umbridge became post of Hogwarts, with the power to change almost everything. And she did.

In a manner of days, she'd managed to put up nearly thirty new rules, most of which were annoyingly unnecessary, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Umbridge went as far as firing professor Trelawney, attempting to entirely kick the homeless woman out of the castle. If Trelawney was to leave this cruelly, Melanie would have lost it, but, thankfully, Dumbledore decided to intervene, reminding Umbridge that she wasn't fully in charge, which she retorted with a 'yet' that had everyone on edge, especially Harry, which was making it ten times harder for Melanie to keep his newly found temper under control.

….

With not much to do and her friends busy, Melanie made her way to the Blake Lake, where she liked to rest and clear her head. She would have taken her sketch with her, but she was too stressed to draw anything.

It was not unusual for Melanie to, ironically, solve her own problems by herself. Even though she would always tell Harry to share his with his friends, she'd never done so herself. One would consider her a hypocrite, but the truth was that she thought her troubles weren't worth speaking out loud, compared to Harry's and others', so she goes to places like the library, the Blake Lake, and even the abandoned classrooms on the forbidden floor in the middle of the night, but she wouldn't dare tell that to anyone, not even Hermione. The risks Melanie was willing to take to find privacy in such a public and social school had an out-of-reach limit.

She'd been lying down on the grass, eyes closed, for nearly thirty minutes, then she was rudely interrupted, by non-other than her favorite Malfoy. "What on earth are you doing?" He asked curiously, looking down at her.

She peeled her eyes open, sighed, and sat up on her elbows. His presence didn't bother her as much as she thought it would. After all, she did come here to be alone, and wouldn't have accepted the interruption of anyone else, so why was he the exception? Simply put, when with him, he always managed to surprise her, in one way or another, making her feel things she wouldn't normally feel, and she loved it.

"Relaxing, obviously." She replied, pushing herself to place her back on the log behind.
"On the floor?" He asked in disgust. She chuckled at his expression.
"It's just grass, Draco." He shook his head at her with a smirk, then turned to sit beside her.

Things between them had been slow. They weren't able to talk often thanks to Umbridge's new, cursed rules. But when they did speak, it was like the whole world had disappeared and it was just the two of them.

He'd come out to the forest intentionally, after spotting Hermione and Ron together in the library without Melanie, he knew there was only one other place she'd be. "So, what were you thinking of? Just before I got here?" He peered with interest.
"Who's to say I was thinking of anything in particular?" She arched an eyebrow challengingly. He scoffed.
"Really, Redwing?" He questioned sarcastically, hinting he was well-aware and wasn't going to fall for it. She smiled brightly, liking the fact that he knew and was so sure, as if he knew her so well, and he practically did, it has been five years.

Melanie then looked away and sighed. She wasn't used to sharing her problems with anyone, but a part of her told her he would listen. "I was um…I was thinking of Umbridge and everything she's done, everything she'll do." He sighed too.
"Yeah, who isn't?"
"Yeah." She agreed, but he could tell, from the deeply concerned look on her turned away face, that there was something else, something more serious.
"But that's not all you were thinking of, was it?" He implied. She turned to him, half shocked half impressed, but then realized that maybe talking about Harry wasn't such a good idea.

But then there was a part of her that wanted to see how he would react this time. "No. It's…Harry." She half-whispered. As expected, he scoffed. He wasn't jealous per se. In the year before, when Melanie stated once and for all that there was nothing and there never will be anything between her and the annoying Potter, and he took her word for it.
"What? Is he seeing You-know-who in the bathtub now?" He mocked, even though he knew, full and well, that he was back.

Melanie eyed him suspiciously. At the end of the fourth year, when Harry had recovered from the final trial, he'd informed his friends: Ron, Hermione and Melanie, of what he'd seen at the maze when he and Cedric used the Portkey. What caught Melanie's attention most was the supposed presence of non-other than Draco's own father, a Death Eater.

Melanie was disappointed, but wasn't surprised. Her friends immediately attempted to warn Melanie to stay away from Draco for good, but she couldn't, for the life of her, be able to do something like that, and she had no intention of trying.

His father may have been a Death Eater, but that didn't make him one, and she made sure her friends knew that too, several times at that, making them eventually stop trying.

Of course, Melanie knew that Draco might be considering to become a Death Eater in the near future, thanks to his parents' bad influence, and she hoped she could, on a long time's term, be able to convince him of otherwise, but in order to do that, she had to show him that she knew the truth.

"Draco, I know." She stated cautiously. His heart beat rose at that. What exactly did she know?
"Know what?" He questioned worriedly. She couldn't possibly.

As much as there was a part of him that did truly consider becoming a Death Eater, just like his beloved father, he feared Melanie looking down at him, because, like it or not, aside from his parents, she was the only person he truly cared what she thought of him, and he didn't think she'd appreciate his intentions.

Melanie thought carefully of her next words. This was a step she had to cross, and she was more than worried about how he would react to it. Losing him was the last thing Melanie needed.

"Harry told us what he saw, Draco. The night You-know-who came back. I know what your father is, and I know you know the truth." She told as placidly as possible so as not to push.

Draco felt his heart sink, his mind in conflict. Did that mean she hated him now? It didn't seem like it? But he wasn't sure. Curse Potter!

"It's alright." She assured, which did little to reassure him. "I don't judge him, or you. Your father made his choice, and…I know that, one day, you might be faced with that same decision and, Draco, I want you to think long and hard when that day comes." She stressed and he was listening intently, suddenly doubting the decision indeed. She was annoyingly effective.

Draco thought deeply about what to say to that. There was one thing he was certain of, one thing his parents always assured him of. The Dark Lord would take over very soon. It was happening already, and becoming a Death Eater might be the only way anyone would survive it, though his parents didn't make it seem so bad.

He wasn't supposed to talk about this outside his group of friends and household, the only other people that knew as much as he did, but this was Melanie, the one exception. "When he takes over, Redwing, it won't be a choice." He said, confirming Harry's entire story of that night. She shook her head softly.
"There's always a choice, Draco." She assured. He scoffed again. There was too much contradicting that statement. For one, his parents and 'friends', for two, Voldemort himself. It didn't seem like he had a choice, not that he thought it was a bad one.
"It's not that simple." He told. Her heart sank at that, her mind wondering to the future, where Draco would truly choose becoming a Death Eater, and she panicked internally, vowing to do everything in her power to try and stop that. She couldn't lose him, she just couldn't. She didn't even know why she was freaking out so much.

"Besides." He started. "It's not that bad." She'd had it at that, still freaking out.
"Not that bad?!" She exclaimed, shocking him by her sudden outburst. "The things I've heard about the Dark Ages. People dying, the world so…black."- He cut her off.
"They're just rumors, Redwing." He said, seeing as that's not what his parents would say. In their opinion, it was a time of glory, and therefore, it had become his opinion as well.
"You don't know that." She whispered and he could see the true fear in her eyes. He hated it.

He leaned in closer. "And neither do you." She didn't listen.
"He killed Cedric, Draco. For no reason at all." She told, and at that, she had a point. Draco knew that Dark Lord was extreme, but not if you didn't get in his way, and Cedric was in the way of Harry Potter, the one thing Voldemort wanted. He also knew that that wasn't what Melanie needed to hear, so he stayed silent.

Melanie took a deep, calming breath. "I understand it will take time for the two of us to come into agreement on this. I just…be careful, Draco. Please." She called and in that very moment, he didn't think he'd ever felt happier, to know just how much she truly cared about him.

….