II. THIS IS WINTER

Classes began the next day, a cold raining Wednesday. Durmstrang had been attacked a few weeks before the Christmas holidays, right at the start of winter. Many of the Durmstrang students were walking around in the 'comfortably cool' air without even their robes on, just the uniform. It was making Harry feel cold.

Sasha was one of the cold resistant students.

"Aren't you cold?" Harry asked for the fiftieth time that day. "Its like minus 1000 degrees!"

"I am not cold," Sasha said, "I'm used to much colder winter. Durmstrang is in arctic circle, on island hidden from muggles near Russia."

"So, you're still human, you can still get cold!"

"In winter temperature usually -40 degrees Celsius."

Harry just shivered at the thought.

"Have you thought about lessons on Dark Arts any more, Harry?" Sasha asked.

"Yeah, I want to, but if the press found out I'd be labelled as the next Dark Lord and shunned," Harry sighed, "Again, so sorry Sasha, but no." Sasha looked disappointed but didn't push.

They were heading to breakfast, and as Harry went into the hall she looked for Ron and Hermione, feeling a little guilty that she had ignored them the past few days.

"Hey guys," Harry said, sliding into the spot across from Ron and Hermione, Sasha sitting next to him.

"Privet!" Echo yelled when she entered the Entrance Hall, Sasha turned and waved to her.

"Hello," Sasha said back, "What do you have now?"

"Potions," Echo smiled at him, his shoulders slumped. Harry looked away awkwardly while they spoke.

"Me too."

"Sasha doesn't like potions," Echo told Harry, "even after meeting dad."

"Her dad likes Potions too much," Sasha said to Harry seriously. "We may need intervention." Harry laughed at that.

"I guessed; I never understood where all the dirty cauldrons came from for my detentions, I figured he brewed them for fun."

Echo sat with Sasha for breakfast, they happily talked about each common room and dormitory, Many of the Gryffindors feeling quite cheated when learning the Slytherins had no more than two to a room.

After they had finished eating they walked to class and were sitting down as the bell went; Snape was already out the front, closely inspecting the students.

He spun on his heel and tapped the board, instructions wrote themselves up and he went over and unlocked the store cupboard.

"You have the whole lesson to finish this potion, if it's not finished, you get a zero," He sat down and began marking papers.

Snape was silent for the first part of the lesson, but the second part had him walking around and peering into each person's cauldron.

Harry was very worried when he began assessing their work.

Snape was getting closer and closer to Harry's table.

Her potion was goopy and bubbling, it was supposed to be smooth and still. It was the right colour at least. At the same stage, Sasha's potion was a violent green in colour, emitting thick highly pungent purple gas and was sloshing about, his facial expressions were making her giggle.

Snape swooped down upon them and made a very disgruntled sound. Echo appeared at his shoulder, took a quick look at Sasha's potion and started giggling. Sasha muttered something under his breath.

"Get back to your seat," Snape snapped at Echo, it didn't seem to phase her, she just returned to her seat, still giggling.

"I should just vanish it, shouldn't I?" Sasha asked and Harry witnessed a very disturbing thing.

Conflicted Snape...

Snape sternly glared down at the Gryffindor, Sasha didn't look frightened at all, and it was obvious Snape was at a total loss of what to do.

His sneer came back full force and Sasha actually did look frightened.

"Stupid boy," Snape said, promptly vanishing the contents of the cauldron, "ten points from Gryffindor, and your final grade is zero."

Snape turned on his heel and batted away.

"Tat was odd," Sasha said quietly to Harry, "He usually isn't so..."

"Snarky?" Ron put in, Sasha nodded.

"No that's pretty much how he usually is," Ron said, "to Gryffindors at least. Snarky old dungeon bat."

"He is very different when teaching me in holidays," Sasha said, "He would never punish for incorrect potion, just help to fix it."

"Definitely not Snape," Harry said, "He just like torturing us poor lowly Gryffindors."

"I think he has image to keep up, he's not a bad man." Sasha piled his ingredients into his cauldron and shrunk the lot. Echo came over.

"I'll have a word to him, Sasha, sorry," She glanced back at Snape.

"Harriet," Echo said, as if she just remembered something.

"Yes?" Harry looked at her, a little wary.

"Draco wants to talk to you."

"Why?" Harry asked, her eyebrows rocketing to the moon, but Echo had already swooped away.

Draco Malfoy didn't approach her all day, or the day after that, or the day after that, until, finally, Harry lost it and went Draco-Hunting.

She found Malfoy in the library, doing a potions assignment that Harry forgot she had.

"Malfoy?" Harry slid into the seat across from the blonde boy, who glared at her.

"What do you want Potter?" Malfoy snapped, "It's late and I would like to have this finished before the weekend."

"Echo said you wanted to talk to me?" Harry asked him.

"No," Malfoy said, "I didn't."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Why would she tell me you did?" Harry asked him.

"Leave me alone, Potter."

Harry stood, knocking over his inkwell and left. She was two corridors away from the library when Malfoy knocked her over.

"Malfoy!" Harry grunted, pulling her wand out.

"Sorry, I did want to talk to you," Malfoy said, "Um," he paused.

"If you're asking me out, Malfoy, my answer is no."

"Don't be stupid Potter, as pretty as you are I have much higher standards." Malfoy flicked his hair back and continued, "Um, so Sasha,-"

"I don't think he would date you either, honestly," Harry said, cracking a smile.

Malfoy actually laughed too. "No, he's asked you about learning Dark arts, hasn't he?"

"Yes," Harry said, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I asked Echo to teach me, and Sasha wants you to learn." Malfoy looked at the ceiling from his place still on the floor.

"Will you have Dark Arts lessons with me?"

"No," Harry said after a slight hesitation.

"Please?" Malfoy just bout leapt at her, "please, please, pleeeeeeeease?"

Harry leaned away from the insane Slytherin

"It's the only way Echo will teach me!" He grabbed the front of her robes.

Then the couple froze as a sinister meow broke their bubble of floor conversation.

"Shit its after curfew!" Draco hissed looking fixedly at the cat.

"Here," Harry helped Malfoy up and the both took off down the corridor as fast as they could.

"There's no where to hide down here!" Draco whispered in a panic.

Harry pulled the silvery cloak from her pocket and wrapped them both in it.

"What are you five? I think he'll notice a cloak with a student shaped lump under-"

Harry clapped her hand over Draco's mouth and they watched Filch hobble around the corner.

Malfoy froze, his hand over Harry's which was over his slightly parted lips both their hearts pounding cuddled under a cloak, and now Harriet remembered that Malfoy had called her pretty.

She leaned over his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "You think I'm pretty?"

Malfoy looked shocked, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh" he replied, eyes still fixed on Filch, who was following his cat around the end corner of the corridor.

"How did he not see us?" Malfoy whispered.

"Invisibility cloak, It was my dads's," Harry whispered back.

Malfoy gave a low whistle. "Not bad," He ran the silky material through his long slender fingers. "So Dark Arts with me, Potter?"

Harry groaned. "I want to, but I have a reputation to desperately cling on to, besides I know someone has a nasty habit of going to Rita Skeeter," Harry glared at Malfoy.

"You can trust me, Potter, besides that was two years ago." Malfoy had a predatory gleam in his eyes, "And, I want to learn more than I want to make the public hate you... again."

"Prat," Harry sighed, she really wanted to learn, if just for better enabling her to defend the whole bloody world against them. "Fine, I'll do it." She said, finally. "I can't believe I've agreed to this."

"Fabulous," Malfoy said. Then, quite unexpextedly, he leaned down and breathed in her ear, "And yes, I think you're very pretty."

Draco then ducked out of the cloak and walked toward his common room with an over-confident strut. Harriet couldn't move for another minute.

Back in the dorms, Hermione scolded her for being late.

"What's wrong? You didn't get caught did you?" Hermione studied her face for a while. Parvati cut in,

"I would be upset if you had lectured me like that too Hermione."

"I… Malfoy was just acting weird," Harry said, the other girls came and sat on her bed.

"What happened?" Lavender asked.

Harry told them what happened under the invisibility cloak, editing all the talk of Dark Arts out of the conversation by replacing it with potions.

"That sounds really fishy Harry, are you sure he actually wants to help you?"

"Who cares Hermione," Parvati said, "Malfoy is so, so handsome."

Harry blushed. "I'm going to sleep, get off my bed." Harry squirmed under the covers as the other girls went back to their own beds.

Despite saying she would sleep, sleep didn't come easy, she couldn't decide if she was anxious or excited about her new lessons. There was the whole side of the Dark Arts being not only looked down upon by everyone she knew but also being highly illegal, then the thought of spending that much time with Draco Malfoy pompous little ferret he was, and the fact that Malfoy thought she was pretty, and the scariest part being she liked the fact he though that she was pretty. Harry didn't get to sleep until the wee hours, as it were, and even then, her dreams were unsettling.

Sunday was spent doing homework for Harry, she was forced into the library by Hermione and not allowed to leave until it was all up to date, she had an essay for every subject but DADA because Dumbledore was teaching that for now and assured them their new teacher would give them plenty of homework.

Sasha wasn't impressed by their DADA classes, they weren't learning to fight at all, they weren't learning to recognize spells or fight them, and he was astounded the only shield the class knew of was 'Portego'. He spent the whole lesson telling Harry about all the better things he knew because of Dark Arts. They had lunch in the Hall around one with the majority of Hogwarts, (all weekend food was served in the hall) and Sasha had an owl give him a letter. He ripped the paper open and pulled the parchment out. Grinning like an overexcited maniac the more he read.

"Good news, then?" Harry asked him, he nodded and gave Harry the letter to read.

It was in Russian.

"Uh, translation?" Harry asked, "I can't speak Russian."

"Oh sorry, its from my sister, Anastasia, she is better nov and is going to teach at Hogvarts!"

"Wow, really? How old is she?" Harry asked, still looking at the Russian letter, it looked so cool.

"17, but she was top of class and learning to be professor this year, your school couldn't find another." Sasha looked over his shoulder.

"When's she coming?" Harry asked following Sasha's eyes to the Slytherin table.

"Next week, I'm going to tell Echo, bye Harry," Sasha was nearly skipping across the great hall. Harry watched him speaking to Echo, she wasn't jealous, at all, they had already expressed how not-dating their relationship was, she was a little jealous of how close they were, especially when she could catch snippets of their conversation in Russian.

She completely forgot about the two when Draco Malfoy caught her eye and smirked, she glared back, not because it was a malicious smirk but because it was an incredibly sexy smirk. She hoped Malfoy hadn't seen her blush.

The rest of the day passed by uneventfully, and on Monday, in their DADA lesson they all met Anastasia Markovic for the first time (except the Durmstrang students).

I think it was because she was so young that everyone continued to talk when she came in the room, but when she cast a silencing spell on them all they didn't have a choice but to listen.

"I'm Professor Markovic," She said, her accent wasn't nearly as prononuced as her younger brother's and she was a good deal less broad but just as tall, her hair was long and the same light golden blonde shade as Sasha's, her eyes a slightly darker shade of blue. "and firstly I need to know what you know about fighting, about the Dark Arts, and about dark creatures, so, pop quiz!"

The whole class groaned and Hermione went into a slight panic.

Harry was bashing her head on the desk by the time the period finished. The 'quiz' was more of a 'test' and it went for the whole period; it had three sections, one on recognizing spells, one on defence methods and one on Dark Arts.

Harry was very certain she failed miserably. Sasha was, of course grinning like a psycho after their test, claiming to have aced it, the brief conversation he had with Echo and the Durmstrang-Ravenclaw in their year sounded like they had aced it too.

That week was a quiet affair, until Friday night, when Echo again requested his presence – with Sasha outside the Gryffindor common room.

Malfoy was there, of course, smirking as usual, Echo looked fairly neutral, Harry then noticed her resemblance to Snape, her hair was insanely long and dead straight down to her waist, black and oily, her face was sunken her skin pale her eyes dark and her nose hooked. All in all, she wasn't bad, but she wasn't a beautiful girl.

"Did you want to organise a time for the lessons?" Echo said, quietly but so they could all hear.

"Er…" Harry paused, thinking, she was named quiddich captain this year and hadn't scheduled a time for practices, or tryouts.

"Well Malfoy do you know when your teams' practices are?"

"Not yet," Malfoy said, "They're usually Tuesday and Thursday."

"Ours are normally Wednesday, Friday and Saturday morning when there's no game." Harry said, "what about Sunday afternoon?"

"I sometimes have something to do Sunday," Echo said, "Monday night?"

"Monday is fine," Malfoy said, Harry nodded, Sasha was barely paying attention.

"Anastasia said she'll help too, and supervise, and we can use her room." Echo then left, not even waiting for Malfoy.

"Potter, I know you're a prat, and a bighead, and an arrogant little bitch, but…"

"You are too," Harry said deadpan.

"Exactly."

Harry nearly fainted.

"Remember when we were in first year? And I asked you to be my girlfriend?" Harry watched the blush creep up Malfoy's cheeks, his eyes roaming around the hallway, "I was serious that day, I know I was a … jerk. But I wanted to be your boyfriend." He said, Harry smirked right back at him, Malfoy had approached her on the train with his cronies in tow and insulted Ron and his family then asked Harriet to be his girlfriend, it would have been cute, if he wasn't suck a prick.

Harry stayed silent.

"Could you give me a second chance? But just as friends, I mean." Malfoy suddenly said, making eye contact, his cheeks as red as the Weasley's hair.

"No, you're a prat, and your father has tried to kill me, twice!" Harry said, shocked.

"But I haven't tried to kill you!" Malfoy grabbed her arm when she went to turn around.

"NO!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're not sorry!" Harry screamed at him and left.

"Bugger. I didn't want to have to apologise." Draco said to Sasha.

"She will be your friend, if you be nice to her, she is good person," Sasha looked quizzically at Draco. "Why the change of heart?"

Draco looked around nervously. "Echo told me too," His blush deepened, "And I kind of like her."

Sasha frowned at the blonde boy. "Since first year?" Draco nodded. "So just apologise, be friends, Harriet will give you another chance."

"Its not that simple," Draco said. Sasha clapped him on the shoulder in sympathy.

It was the Christmas holidays before anyone knew it, Ron, Harry and Sasha were staying along with two second year Gryffindors. Harry knew Echo and Malfoy were staying because they had scheduled some extra Dark Arts lessons during the Holidays.

The lessons were interesting, but scared Harry a little, She recognised a lot of the curses from battle, particularly the one in the department of mysteries. Combined with their regular DADA lessons, which wholly encompassed defensive magic rather than just jinxes and hexes, Harry was beginning to feel less helpless in this war.

Professor Markovic, while young, could hold the classes attention, not just because of her 'bubble of charisma' as Sasha called it, but because she would hex students when they didn't pay attention, usually nothing too sinister, but sinister enough that they would need immediate attention.

Echo's lessons were completely different. She was a terrible teacher, much like Snape, she wouldn't bother unless she thought you were doing your very best. Sasha told him that both her and Snape were Savants in a way, while each could function as a person socially, Echo never made a mistake with Dark Magic and Snape never made a mistake in Potions, it was difficult for them to comprehend others stupidity.

Regardless of spending insane amounts of time with the two Slytherins, Harry still knew very little of Draco Malfoy and Echo Snape. She only knew what Sasha had told her.

On the subject of Sasha, Harry didn't know how to approach the subject of having a non-platonic relationship with him, she was trying to flirt, and drop hints, she really was but he was as thick as Ron.

Draco was very nervous. His father's owl had brought him a message at midnight, and his father was in Azkaban, his mother had her own owl, which could only mean one thing.

He nervously opened the letter, dreading what he would read.

Draco Dearest,

Your father's friend is visiting the family, he was most disappointed when you weren't home during the summer, He's interested in offering you a job he thought you would like.

You are to meet with Professor Snape to come home next Thursday, he will still be visiting.

Your father would be proud that you can establish a career so early, and while I don't want you to grow up, I think its for the best.

Don't tell your friends, I've arranged it with the teachers as home visits are not customary during the holidays.

Narcissa Malfoy.

It wasn't his mother's handwriting.

"Draco?" Draco looked up to see Echo standing in the door. "There's something wrong." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and while Draco found Echo to be very like her father, she seemed to have a lot more compassion. "Would you like to talk about something?"

"I can't," Draco said, discreetly casting a drying charm on his eyes. Now he couldn't burst into tears even if he wanted to.

"Its about the Dark Lord?" Echo asked, Draco looked at her surprised, she shrugged

"I need to go with you on Thursday," Echo looked emotionless, as always.

"Oh," Draco was at a loss for words, he just stared blankly at the wall.