Maybe if I just lay here, I'll sleep and never wake up. Just let me sleep. "Roxie!" Hermione's voice brought Roxie out of her thoughts. "How long have you been up here?"

Leave me alone. "Since before dinner I guess."

"Oh no. This looks bad. Very bad." Hermione started walking back and forth across the room. "No one's going to believe that you were up here the whole time."

Roxie's curiosity trumped her sadness for the moment. "What looks bad?"

Hermione stopped pacing. "Don't you know?"
"Know what?"

"I…I don't know how to tell you this, but…" Hermione trailed off and looked as if she would rather not finish what she had started.

"Tell me!"

"Well Mal…your boyfriend…he's…he's…he's dead!" Hermione was breathless.

"He's…what?"

Hermione must have taken Roxie's shocked expression for a look of sadness because she rushed over and hugged Roxie. "I'm so sorry."

"What happened?"

"Well no one had seen him since last night, but no one was worried. They thought he was off with you somewhere."

"Doing what exactly?!?"

Hermione chose to ignore this question and speeded up instead. "But then Harry said he saw you in the library." Bet he didn't fill you in on the details of that little encounter though. "Pansy overheard him telling Ron and I over dinner, so she went to go look for him. She went up to his room and found him. Dead on the floor. Everyone thinks it was the Avada Kedavra curse that killed him." Got what he deserved. No, no one deserves that. "I'm really sorry." She repeated.

"But why is that bad?" Hermione gasped. "I mean it's bad that he's dead, but when you walked in you were babbling about something looking bad."

"Well…everyone is going to think you killed him."

"What?!?!" Roxie stood up.

"Please just let me explain. Everyone thought you killed Neville, and then before that rumor had died down Malfoy dies. You weren't at dinner, so you don't have an alibi and it was no secret that you two were having problems."

"Hermione…" Why not tell her. It's all over now. "There's something that I need to tell you. But I think Ron and Harry need to hear it too." Hermione opened her mouth to speak. "Just go get them and meet me in the common room, please." It was a true testament of their friendship that Hermione didn't question Roxie any further. She stood up and exited the room. Roxie shook her shoulders, psyching herself up, then she too walked across the room to the door. Her hand was on the doorknob when she stopped. Will they believe me? But I have to try. She pulled on the doorknob, but the door didn't budge. It was locked. I didn't even know you could lock these doors. Her hand fell from the doorknob as she winced in pain. She clutched her forearm. "Not now!" she said pleadingly. But the pain did not cease, instead it burned worse. She let go of her arm and yanked on the door again, but it didn't move. Air rushed around her, she clutched the door in an attempt to remain in the room, but it was in vain because a moment later she fell onto the ground at the feet of Voldemort.

"Roxie, so nice of you to join us." His voice was falsely sweet. "Why did you not come immediately when I called for you?"

"I didn't know that you wanted me." Roxie bowed and avoided eye contact as she tried to clear her mind.

"Liar! Do not sit there and tell me that you did not feel the pain! But I'm not here to lecture you, no I'm here to share a story with you. It starts when one of my Death Eaters hands his son over to me. I believe the son's name was Draco. The boy agreed to become a Death Eater too, so I sent him back to Hogwarts. I grew bored of sitting here, doing nothing. There were too many Ministry officials looking for me, so I couldn't go outside very often. I sent my Death Eaters to kill the people who needed to be killed. But that wasn't much fun, those people deserved to die. So I called on young Draco and I sent him to kill the youngest Longbottom and he did it, gladly. Finally I was entertained, with his stories of how the whole school believed that it was you who killed the boy. Then yesterday as Draco was reporting to me, I broke into his memories. I saw you and he together, dating. I asked him why he had not shared this fact with me. He did not have a sufficient answer, so I sent him back to Hogwarts with Wormtail here. I assume you know the rest."

"Why did you kill him just because we were dating?" Roxie was confused.

"Well you seemed to be straying from me. Murdering someone you cared about seemed to work before so I decided to try it again."

"Well I'm sorry to tell you, but I didn't care about him. We were only dating because he threatened to tell everyone that I was a Death Eater if I didn't!"

"Oh, I guess I should have dug a little deeper for the whole story before killing him shouldn't I? No matter, the world is better off without him anyway. I remind you once more though, no one leaves Lord Voldemort and lives to tell about it. That's all you may go." Roxie tried to yell at him, but before she had opened her mouth, she was back in her room. For a moment, she just sat on the floor, thinking, then she remembered what she had been doing before she was pulled away. She jumped the stairs two at a time, but stopped near the bottom.

"Where is she? If she wanted you to get us so bad then why isn't she here?" Ron sounded angry.

"She probably just wanted to be alone Hermione and that was the only way that she could get you to leave her alone. I don't even know why I came." Harry tried to reason.

"Yeah," Ron agreed.

"Well, Ron, you're here because you love me and Harry's here because he still loves Roxie whether he wants to or not." Harry made a noise of indignation. Roxie chose that moment to make her entrance. She stepped into the room and, without a word, sat down on the couch.

"Please sit," she said to the group. Hermione positioned herself in an armchair.

"No I'd rather stand," Harry said.

"Yeah it makes it quicker to leave," Ron agreed. The common room was filling up, but everyone gave them a wide berth. Hermione's right, they do think that I killed Malfoy.

"Look I just wanted to explain something. Why I broke up with you," she gave Harry a sympathetic look which he chose to ignore. "and why I then went out with Malfoy."

"Oh you didn't call him Drakey Poo?" Ron spat.

"No I didn't, but if you would let me…"

"No! I know what this is. You and Malfoy had a fight and you killed him, just like you killed Neville and now you're without a boyfriend, so you want Harry back! But one little argument and he's dead just like the others!" Ron seemed to be the angriest with the situation.

"That's not it at all. Just let me expl…"

"No we all know that you're just going to make excuses and then…"

"Give it a rest Ron." This time it was Harry who spoke. "I want to hear what she has to say, but if you don't please feel free to leave." Ron looked as if he might do just that, but then stopped and moved, sulkily, to stand behind the armchair where Hermione sat.

"Thank you. Ok well Hermione was right, Malfoy did like me, he even asked me out once while I was with Harry, but I rejected him so he had to resort to other means to get me to go out with him." This might be harder than I thought. Can I really just tell them, just like that? "Malfoy…threatened me." There, it's the truth just not the whole truth. Hermione gasped.

"He did what?" Harry asked. He seemed to think that he had heard wrong.

"He threatened me. He said he'd do things to me if I didn't go out with him. So I had to break up with you and go out with him."

"Had to?" Ron didn't seem willing to let it go.

"Why didn't you go to a teacher or Dumbledore?" Hermione inquired.

"Because, unlike what you think teachers can't solve everything. And besides, I was afraid the teachers wouldn't believe me. It would be my word against his. Who do you think they would believe? A boy who never does anyone any harm, or at least not in front of the teachers, or a girl who they believe just killed someone."

"You could have at least tried!" Ron shouted.

"But I didn't. And for that…" Roxie now turned to Harry who just stared at her. "I am truly sorry."

"Maybe sorry doesn't…"

"Come on Ron. Let's leave them alone." Hermione rose from her chair and pulled a struggling Ron after her, to the other side of the room. Harry silently moved over and sat on the couch beside Roxie. The two of them just sat there for awhile, not saying anything.

Then Harry spoke quietly. "So you didn't want to break up with me?" Roxie shook her head. "But you had to?" Roxie nodded. She seemed to have lost her voice. "And you don't…didn't have any feelings whatsoever for Malfoy?" Once again Roxie's head moved up and down. "Well…so do you think that we can just forget all that happened to us and just start over?"

"I would love to. Hi, I'm Roxie." She stuck out her hand. Harry smiled.

"Well let's not go that far back."

"How far back did you have in mind?"

"When we started to do this." Harry leaned in and kissed her. His kiss had a warmth in it that Malfoy's had never had. There was a feeling behind the kiss. It was with love and not lust. God I missed this. She wrapped her arms around his neck and one of his hands rested in the small of her back. They sat there, totally engrossed with each other until they were interrupted by someone who wasn't even there. Roxie pulled away and grabbed her arm.

"Ow!"

"What is it?" Harry looked concerned.

"Nothing just…growing pains I guess." Roxie made up a lame excuse.

"In your arm. I don't think so. Maybe we should have Madam Pomfrey look at it."

"No. It's fine, but thanks for caring. But I just remembered, I have to take a shower." Roxie searched for an escape clause. I need to get out of here before He pulls me away again.

"A shower?" Roxie stood up.

"Yeah, I was helping Professor Sprout earlier and I was working with chemicals. She told me to wash them off my skin as soon as possible, but I forgot to, so I need to go do that right now. I'll be quick I promise. Just be here when I get back please." She angled his face to hers and then kissed him hard on the lips before running up the stairs to her dorm.