Can't Go It Alone

Chapter 5

Cnorth

Disclaimer: All HP characters and places belong to JKR.

Credit: Winthrops Slayer and whitv

A/N: I have sketches of the dorm rooms, common rooms, and Luna and Kevin's suite which I will put a link to as soon as I get near a scanner. It should be sometime next week, so bear with me. I figured they were a little bit hard to picture, so I drew them out.

After the meeting with Professor McGonagall ended, the students filed down the stairs, silent for the most part. At the foot of the stairs, Draco Malfoy caught Hollie by the shoulder, turning her towards him with very little effort.

"What? Can I help you? D'ya have a problem? You've been staring at me the whole damn time!" Hollie snapped, uneasy because of the amount of attention the Slytherin was paying her. After all, Slytherin did have a reputation for turning out many dark wizards, and Malfoy's father was supposedly Voldemort's right hand man.

"Well, if I'm supposed to tutor you, then surely I'm allowed to look at you, and maybe perhaps even….talk to you…that would make sense. Then again, since when do Gryffindors make sense?" he insulted, before smirking and brushing his fine blonde hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, good comeback! 'Since when do Gryffindors make sense?' Whah, whah, whah. That boy's gonna find out soon not to mess with us, 'cause he doesn't know what he's getting himself into. What does he think he's trying to do, scare us or something? What, with that bleach blonde hair, all slicked back like that…and trying to stare me down with those ice blue eyes…how dare he!"she fumed visibly as she stormed off to catch up with Chelli, Whitney and Stacy.

The other three girls had been able to hear this little monologue, and Stacy smirked. "Wow, she noticed his eyes…she really must like him…"

Once they reached their room in Gryffindor tower, they found Hermione staring in awe at the changes they had made to the room. It was a very large room, set up to hold up to 7 girls. Before, the walls had been stone, and all the beds were 4 posters with dark red curtains and bedding. There had been nothing in the middle of the room, and the walls had been bare. Now, however, the room was very warm and friendly. A fireman's pole was in the middle of the room, leading down to the common room as an alternate route to the stairs. In a circle around it, with only a small gap so that you could get to the pole, there was a flat open coal fireplace which kept burning eternally. A few feet away from this on either side were two suede upholstered couches, and behind them were two study tables with upholstered dark red armchairs. To the left of the door was Hermione's side of the octagonal room, then Chelli's side, then Hollie's, then Stacy's, then Whitney's, then two spare beds. Hermione's portion of the room was the same except for the wall, which was now sheetrock painted hunter green. Chelli had kept a lot of the main Gryffindor colors, but not because she was showing house loyalty. She just happened to like red, a lot. Hollie's portion of the room, while beautiful, was far from anything that had been seen in Gryffindor tower. Her bed was dark cherry wood with black lace and dark red velvet curtains, with red satin sheets and a black comforter. Rather than the hardwood floor that Hermione, Chelli, and two of the empty walls had, Hollie had black shag carpet, and her walls were covered in Queen posters and little signs she made from things she drew when she was bored.

Stacy, as opposed to the other two, had a less classic, more eclectic approach. Her portion was a whirling mass of color, down to the tie dye curtains and bamboo bedframe. The most toned down part of her side was the dark blue plush carpeting. As creative as she was, it was no surprise that it had been her idea to charm the ceiling so that it was like the one in the Great Hall.

Whitney, while not taking a traditional approach to the room, was still toned down more than Stacy. Her curtains had light and dark purple stripes with blue polka dots.

"I love it!" Hermione squealed, amazed at how much better the room looked now. She hurried over to her side of the room to make some more changes, and the other four girls plopped down on the new couches, and started talking about the past couple of days.

"This is crazy," Whitney mumbled. "How could it have been almost twenty years and us not know we had even a bit of magic in us, and be so strong that Voldemort would wanna come after us! That's just nuts."

"Well, that's us in a nutshell." Stacy smirked.

"No, this is us in a nutshell. Help, help, I'm in a nutshell!" Hollie smiled, while miming pounding on something above her head.

Chelli rolled her eyes, "Hermione, I'm just gonna go ahead and apologize. Don't worry, I promise no matter what we…uh…do, it shouldn't effect you…too much…I hope. Now, before boredom permanently sets in, let's go do something interesting." Hollie's eyes lit up at the thought.

"As in, getting into trouble, interesting?" she asked, jumping up and down and clapping her hands joyfully. "We can give the Marauder's themselves a run for their money!"

Simultaneously in the Ravenclaw common room, Lori was pacing back and forth. She had always been easily bored, but usually she could at least cook if she had nothing else to do. A half smile formed on her face, and she grabbed her wand, stalking out of the common room and through the halls until she stood in front of the painting of the bowl of fruit. After tickling the pear to gain access, she snuck stealthily in, managing to avoid all the house elves until she found the one she was looking for.

"Dobby?" she confirmed. As he nodded, she smiled. It wouldn't do to scare him, and it certainly wouldn't achieve what she wanted. "Have any of the students ever done any cooking before, or is that not allowed?" His face scrunched up in confusion, as if he wasn't exactly sure what her point was.

"Dobby doesn't know, miss. But house elves can cook you anything you likes, miss. Ravenclaws are so smart, you shouldn't be soiling your hands with things like that, what puts ideas in your head like that, miss?" the tiny creature asked, shaking so much in frustration that it seemed like he was going to fall over.

"It's not a matter of soiling my hands, Dobby. Cooking is an art, one that I think should be taught to the students here. Especially since we're in a war now…cooking is necessary to life, and if you do it right, it can be very relaxing," she replied, an air of tired understanding entering her voice, as if she had explained this a million times before in her life.

His eyes lit up, and he nodded and said, "Dobby understands now, miss. Perhaps Dobby could talk to Mr. Harry Potter sir about this for you? Dobby knows Harry Potter is a great wizard who could help you…"

Lori smiled; this was what she had been hoping for since the beginning. She knew that the Gryffindor Golden Boy was abysmal at potions when he took it with the Slytherins, and she wanted to give him an opportunity to prove himself. She had a plan now, and she would be damned if it wasn't going to work exactly the way she wanted it to.

Then, of course, there was the added bonus that it gave her the opportunity to teach somebody else to cook, something she had never done before but always wanted to do. As she headed out of the kitchen (coincidentally laden down with a basket of food), she smiled softly and hummed to herself as she walked placidly back to the common room.

The next morning, in the 7th year Gryffindor girls dorm, the first noise made was the quiet muttering of Chelli, who often talked in her sleep.

"Slytherins have my cell phone….mph…Hollie, kiss Malfoy and make him give it back…"

Hollie immediately jolted upright, slightly out of breath, in a bit of a panic. "That did NOT just happen…I swear that didn't---WHAT CHELLI? I will do no such thing…" Hollie hollered, having woken up just in time to hear the last part. "No way in hell would I kiss him! I mean, he's…he's…." her mind was supplying things like really hot, yummy, adorable, and half-naked, but finally she found something suitable. "He's a Slytherin and he's a Death Eater's son! Why would I kiss him?" It was around this point that she realized Chelli was asleep, although the rest of the room had been awakened by her loud rant. "Eep…um, ooh, bad dream…what…what happened…hmm, I'm hungry, I think I'll go get food now." she rubbed her eyes and faked a yawn before she slid down the fireman's pole, deciding that after that, perhaps an early breakfast would be a good idea.

When she reached the Great Hall, the ceiling was still dark with the shadows of night, although towards the edge, where the horizon would lie in the sky, there was a tinge of an almost pinkish light. Only one other person sat at the tables, and that was Ashley. She had a plate full of pancakes in front of her, and upon seeing her friend, motioned for her to join her at Hufflepuff table. "It's good, dig in." Hollie looked around for a plate, and not seeing one, turned back to Ashley.

"I would, if I knew where I was digging." Hollie pointed out, and Ashley smirked.

"Just sit down. You'll see."

As Hollie sat, a plate of food appeared in front of her. She smiled, and grabbed the fork and knife to either side of the plate, digging in. Twenty minutes later, she looked up as she heard footsteps coming in her direction. A string of syrup dribbled from her fork to the plate as she watched Malfoy approach, his hair not slicked back this time. Rather than that, it was gelled into a slightly spiky style, which more suited the shape of his face.

Despite the fact that they were sitting at the Hufflepuff table, Malfoy positioned himself on the table bench next to Hollie, biting into a bagel while introducing himself charmingly to Ashley. He then turned back to Hollie, and smiled.

"Up early, are you. I heard you were a late sleeper."

She shot him an 'excuse me, who the hell do you think you are' look, and snapped, "and just who the hell told you that?"

"Uh, uh…No one. It was meant to be a joke. Well, since you're here, perhaps we could get an early start." Hollie looked kind of shocked that Draco Malfoy, the Ice Prince of Slytherin, had just attempted to make a joke, directed at her, a Gryffindor, no less.

"Oh come on, be a regular person and wait till Stacy gets here. It's early, and I'm already awake. Now is NOT a good time to piss me off." By this point, she had stopped eating, her fork in midair as they bantered back and forth.

"Alright. May I, uh, join you for breakfast anyway?" He actually looked a bit shy at this point, and Hollie found a soft spot in her heart for those piercing eyes of his.

"Yeah, by all means. Just as long as you don't watch me while I eat. That freaks me out." This was only partially the truth, seeing as it did more than freak her out…it made her ultra aware of how hot she had found the other blonde, the one in the International Floo station, who looked remarkably similar to Draco.

"Duly noted," he commented, before turning back to his breakfast and, to Hollie's surprise, keeping his eyes to himself throughout the meal.