A\N Thank you guys soooo much, I never thought I would get 56 reviews on the whole story, let alone the first four chapters! Thanks so much if you've stuck with me this far! You guys are amazing! Keep reading and reviewing!

Cassia

Chapter 5- Love is Unpredictable, unstoppable, and undeniable

"Why'd you think that portrait was Greyback?" Draco called after me. It was hours after the meeting with Dumbledore and he hadn't forgotten yet.

I was walking down to the Quidditch pitch, after the meeting with Dumbledore and after getting my broom, by myself to practice a bit before the first game. It was right after I had finished my early dinner, about 5:00. I was glad it was Friday, no more homework and no detention until next week.

"Go away," I replied, turning to glare at him.

"When have you ever even seen Fenrir anyway?" he asked me urgently.

"I thought I told you to leave, and I've only seen him on 'Have You Seen This Wizard' posters anyway," I lied, waving my hand dismally.

"And when did you start talking to me again?" I added rudely, remembering that I was still mad at him.

"Astoria..." he pleaded.

"No, Draco," I sped up, trying to leave him behind me.

I didn't get far.

Draco grabbed my arms and pushed me up against the wall, putting his hands on either side of my head.

"What are you doing?" I hissed. He looked intently into my eyes.

"You need to tell me the truth, Astoria: no matter what I've said or done in the past I care about your safety and this jeopardizes your safety; and, so help me Astoria tell me."

I looked at him in shock, his intense light blue eyes boring into mine.

"I don't need your protection!" I finally managed to get out.

"What did he do to make you think that you needed to protect yourself?"

I ducked under his arms and raced down the hall to the doors.

"At least let me practice with you!" called Draco, jogging to catch up. I sighed impatiently.

"You don't have your broom with you." I pointed out.

"I left it down at the pitch. Let's go," Draco stated. "Also, how do you know you're seeker for sure?" he added.

"Never hurts to practice," I responded calmly. As we stepped outside a beautiful orange and pink sunset peeked through the cracks of the growing rainclouds at us.

"Astoria, one more question about Greyback-"

"No!" I cried, clamping my hands over my ears. "Let's just play, alright?" I pleaded.

"Fine," Draco said, but worry was still pressing down on his brow.

"So why'd you suddenly start being nice to me?" I asked bluntly. He looked at me, surprised.

"That was straightforward," he drawled.

"That's me," I responded, waiting for his answer. I looked sideways up at him, wind whipping my ponytail into my face as the large towers of the Quidditch pitch loomed up above us.

"Accio broom," he said, and his Nimbus 2001 raced toward him. H caught it and mounted, as I did my own broom, and we raced off into the pitch. I knew he was avoiding my question but something told me not to press it. I looked up at the grey clouds as Draco grabbed the practice snitch from the green and white checked Slytherin tower.

"Give it a 10-second head start before we go," Draco called up to me, robes billowing around his body, the black making his white hair look even more pronounced.

"We're not supposed to be out here, you know," I called as he ticked the seconds off on his fingers.

He looked at me and laughed.

"This was your idea, Greengrass!" he said.

"You're on, Malfoy!" I called back over the wind. He got to "0" on his fingers and we shot in opposite directions. I scoured every inch of the air looking for the tiny golden ball, and didn't loose concentration until Draco rocketed right past me, inches away. I pulled down and did a loop back up as I saw something glimmering faintly against the dull backdrop of the grey clouds that were quickly eating up the sunset. I did a double take-it was the snitch!

I leaned over my broom and bulleted up above Draco who was searching in wain closer to the ground. I shot after the rapidly fluttering snitch- by now Draco had realized I was on it's tail and was zooming behind me, slowly gaining. I lay down flatter on my broom and zoomed forward. Me eye was on the snitch several feet away, and I inched forward against the roaring wind- it was so strong that my eyes began to water ferociously, so my vision was blurred as I saw Malfoy's arm reach up to the side of mine- but it was too late- I felt the cool metal sphere settle into my hand, the paper thin wings fluttering and going still.

We descended to the ground, the wind's roar dulled now that we weren't flying headfirst into it.

"I think I felt a raindrop," Draco announced, feeling his wrist for moisture as the sky gave a low rumble. I looked up to see the rapidly darkening clouds, and looked back at Draco, who was watching me.

"We should head in, it'll be freezing to play in the rain and it's not good for the brooms to get wet," Draco said. We flew to the changing rooms of our different towers, and depositing our brooms, headed back to the looming Hogwarts castle. It was starting to sprinkle now, fat raindrops splatting against our skin.

"Astoria?" Draco asked as we walked close to the edge of the Great Lake underneath us, about 10 feet below. I saw ripples pierce the smooth black surface below the edge we were standing on as the rain fell faster.

"Yeah?" I asked, suddenly realizing my hair had come out of it's ponytail and was laying over my shoulders and down my back, starting to lay flat due to rain. At least it wasn't humid, which would have had the opposite of the flattening effect on my hair.

Lightning pierced the sky, illuminating everything around us.

"You...you know what you asked me earlier?" he said. "You asked why I just started being nice to you this year. And I just wanted to-"

"Ah!" his speech was pierced by my shriek as I lost my footing on the mud, plummeting backwards toward the icy water.

The only thing I registered before I broke the chilled surface was that I didn't have my wand with me-I had left it at the castle.

Only Draco could get me out of here.

Would he?

I plunged into the frigid water, bubbles tracing from my mouth in a silent scream as everything became incredibly silent underwater.

I was freezing- a numb feeling was spreading through every bone in my body- my head broke the surface, and I felt something brush my leg. Gasping and spluttering I kicked out, screaming as loud as I could with my teeth chattering so violently. After I had kicked I realized that Draco was here, and a wave crashing over my head left me coming up, spluttering. Draco popped up beside me, grabbing me into his arms. I couldn't speak, my teeth were chattering, and my body was shaking violently in Draco's vice like grip- he was shaking also.

He shouted something inaudible, and suddenly we were flying.

Was I dead?

No, I could still feel Draco's arms around me, but barely. I gasped and stumbled as my legs hit the ground, not able to support me. All I could think was how violently cold I was.

Suddenly I became a lot warmer as Draco turned me around and pulled me into him, and I buried my head in his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, and muttered my name-

"Astoria..."

"Wh-wh-wh..." my teeth were still chattering violently. He preformed a spell, making me incredibly warm. We were still soaking wet, and me caked with mud from the waist down, and the rain was still coming in sheets. Draco didn't have a charm to stop that.

"There's too much rain, I can't stop it. But at least you're warm-and Astoria-" he pulled me even tighter to him at this-"are you alright? We shouldn't have been walking so close to the bank, it was completely my fault-"

"Draco!" I cried, interrupting his rant, taking a deep, shuddering breath. I pulled back just enough to look up at his face, but not too much for him to take his arms back. I wanted him to keep holding me-he did.

His eyes held an intensity that I'd never seen anyone have before-much less Draco Malfoy.

"You-saved-my-life."

Than he kissed me lightly, just a brush against the lips really but it sent bolts of electricity arcing through my body.

Than he rested his forehead on mine, and reached for my hands.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, his eyes filled with horror, He pulled away, stepping backwards. I stood speechless-I was physically incapable of moving or speaking.

"What have I done?" he gasped in horror. He kicked furiously at the ground, yelling, than spinning and running toward the castle.

A bolt of lightning broke me out of my shock-I suddenly felt very cold again. I gasped, my breath shuddering. I yelled the worst swear word that came to my mind and stomped to the castle. I was sure that tears were joining the raindrops in my eyes, but it was too difficult to tell. My hair was still completely matted to my head and my robes plastered to my body.

I closed the doors to the castle, the noise echoing down the empty hallway. I walked numbly through the torch-lit corridors until I finally reached the Ravenclaw common room. I barked the answer to the knocker that had taken pity on me and had given me an extremely obvious riddle.

The few people sitting there looked at me peculiarly.

I tromped up to my room, not meeting the eyes of any of my roommates.

"Bloody-"

"Not now," I croaked, peeling off my robes and slipping into my fuzzy bathrobe, not even bothering to pull on nightclothes. I quickly pulled my hair into a messy braid with shaking fingers. I was extremely grateful to my friends that had (thank Merlin) not pressed me any farther.

I dragged myself into bed, pain building up in my eyes from holding back barely restrained tears.

I pulled the curtains around me, retrieving my wand from under my pillow. I put a silencing charm around my covered bed-I couldn't even tell if the lights were on or not I had the bed curtains closed so tightly.

My bed had never felt so comfortable.

And than the tears I had been holding in spilled over my cheeks continuously, fast and hot. I wrapped the blankets tighter around my shaking body, crying myself to sleep...

A\N And the romance starts! It may be fast paced, but you guys have to understand its been building for YEARS... And thanks again to my AMAZING beta, Silverneko9lives0, for her awesome work. Keep Reading and Reviewing! :D

Also if you haven't checked them out already, there are banners for this story, the links are posted on my profile :) and sorry for the shortness the next will be longer!

Cassia