If anyone is still looking for this, I love you.

Chapter 6

"She was right, of course." Draco's voice rasped from the strain of talking for what seemed like hours, "Confronting her that day was social suicide. At least in Pansy's eyes, anyway,…"

Gallows cleared his throat. "I don't mean to be so rude, my boy, but the morning is rather late and you haven't had much breakfast. Would you care for some tea?"

Draco jumped; Gallows surmised he had forgotten there was anything of anyone real around him. "Why, yes, thank you."

A wave of the wand, and a fully laden tea tray appeared between the two. Gallows poured for them both. "Milk?"

"Certainly not." Draco looked aghast. "Filthy stuff, and quite unhealthy in the morning, I might add."

"I see. Sugar?"

"Six, if you please."

Gallows simply couldn't stifle a laugh that ricocheted off the walls of the broken room. Draco looked insulted, but soon realized the absurdity of his own words and laughed right along. Gallows took this, and the tea, as a very good sign.

The young man drained his teacup in a single gulp, refilled it, and suddenly got up and stood by the window. He stared out at the glorious summer's day going on in the rest of England and sighed. "You know, I believe I owe you an apology."

Gallows calmly sipped his tea. "My dear boy, for what?"

"For getting off track as much as I have, for dragging out old memories that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story I'm trying to tell you. I only meant to tell you how I met River, nothing more. Everything else is just wasting my life and your time. I'm sure you have other patients to see today, a life to go on living outside of this…" he surveyed the room's wreckage with disgust "place. So, please forgive my babbling. I'll stay on track now, I assure you."

"No, no, there's no need to apologize." Gallows got up to stand by his charge. "I've actually quite enjoyed these stories. They've shown me a lot." He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "She sounds wonderful."

Draco just stared out the window. "She was…the light of my life." Suddenly, his face contorted. "Oh, what am I doing? None of this story telling is going to help anything go back to the way it was. It's over now; she's gone. Me telling you this now isn't going to change that; it's not going to help anyone."

"My dear boy," Gallows put his hand on Draco's shoulder. "It's helping you. You said it yourself; you've keep this friendship of your to yourself for years, and it's time for that burden to be lifted. Take my advice as a professional: if you don't let go of it, it will only get worse, and like others I've seen, end up destroying all your chances at future happiness. If it's as you say, and she really is gone, then I don't think she would have wanted you to wallow in self pity for the rest of your life, would she?"

He lowered his head. "I guess you're right. I even know just what she'd say: "I'm *dead*, you unfathomable little boy; get over it and start again."

"Yes, and about that." Gallows turned his head inquisitively to the side. "With the war and all, you can't have had much contact with her. How do you know for certain she's dead?"

He took a deep breath to calm himself. "I'm leading up to that. Trust me; it will make sense soon enough. Now, as we've both said, it's late. I'll just finish my thought and leave it there. The next time you come," here his eyes glinted like stars on a midnight sky, "I'll tell you how I know. You see, River had a secret of her own, and it was the biggest one of all."

…

"It's over, you disgusting troll!" Pansy screamed, hurling a nearby heirloom silver water pitcher at Draco's head. He threw himself to the floor, but it still managed to clip him on the top of his head. His hand immediately went to the spot, but no blood; he'd only have to deal with a tender, and slightly embarrassing, lump.

He had run to the Slytherin common room after Granger had behaved so violently at the stone circle, where Crabbe, Goyle, and himself had planned to watch the execution of the hippogriff that attacked him. He had hoped for a little piece of mind while he tried not to think about all the things he had done to the Trio and how they might avenge themselves. Instead, he found an infuriated group of girls, his girlfriend Pansy at the head of them. Well, considering the things coming out of her razor-like mouth, his ex-girlfriend.

"What…Pansy, what's going on?" he rubbed his head.

"As if you didn't know! It's been all over the school for weeks, you and that…that freak! I don't come with you on one Hogsmeade visit, and you go and flirt with some Gryffindor?! I am your girlfriend, you blond twig; am I not good enough for you? You have no idea what I've been going through, do you? All the stares in the hallway, jokes in the common room; I can't even go to the loo without facing it. So, like I said, it's over. And what's more, I'm letting your parents know about this. Their little pureblood socializing with a Muggle-born…" she put on a fake concerned smile, "disgraceful. What *will* they think of you, you two-timer!"

It was all too much. Draco felt like his world was falling down around his ears. First Granger punches him in front of the closest (public) thing he has to friends, now his girlfriend is out to ruin his life. He instinctively turned and fled back out the common room door, with the pounding of the mob's feet close behind.

Left, right, dodge a curse, right, up the stairs, incoming fruit! and he finally made it to the atrium. Having the luck he did, it was only natural for him to trip on his laces and fall on his nose in suitable dramatic fashion. This left free rein to Pansy and her girlfriends to surround him, bombarding him with stinging jinxes, pears, and shouts of, "No one hurts Pansy and gets away with it, you toad!"

"Pansy…please!" he called from the bottom of the heap. "Let me explain!" But even as he said it, a thought struck him, so mind-boggling he almost didn't dare think it: there was nothing to explain.

He suddenly felt so weak, numb, and had decided to just ride out the abuse like he had so often before when a voice rose over the blasts and shouts of the mob.

"Excuse me, ladies, but what exactly are you doing to that poor boy?"

Pansy whirled around in a fury; Draco couldn't see beyond her from the floor, but he'd recognize River's voice anywhere. Pansy's friends turned too, pointing their wands at his invisible ally. "Ah, so the little fox comes to save her chew toy." Pansy said smugly. "What, no backup? You don't have a stitch of muscle, do you? Merlin's beard, he's certainly not after you because you're well built. Why, I bet I could bend you over one knee and snap you in half!" Her friends roared and jeered.

River did have a sense of self-respect and a good head on her shoulders , but she didn't seem to interact with people much, even with the Meet. For all he knew, she had never been insulted in her life. He knew he should get up and help her, heck, he wanted to, but moving hurt too much. He would just have to trust the thing that had gotten the two of them into this mess months ago: her sharp tongue.

"Well, freak?" Pansy scowled and crossed her arms. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

A small intake of breath, and Draco swore the air in the room thickened. "Of course I'm going to say something. I was just waiting for you to finish your half of this battle. Tell me, my dear, are you quite done?"

Pansy looked stunned. "You dare…"

"Yes, I *dare* to speak to you, because you quite frankly are just as common as I am. And you can stop blubbering, dear, I've already heard the "pureblood superiority" lines far too much." Her eyes bored into the group of girls like tiny lasers, and the dragon smile reappeared. "By the powers, you all think you're better than him, don't you? You think you're in the right here, that he wronged you, and you're avenging it. Well, here is a bit of a news flash to your weak little minds: you are *wrong!* I've seen him in Meet, and talked to him plenty of other times. I've seen he's a good boy, and I think someday he might even be a good man . But somewhere along the way, the world decided he wasn't good enough. So I'll tell you something, Miss. Parkinson, Draco Malfoy would never hurt another being in the manner that you have just done, so I say he has far more honor than you will ever have. Even with his prejudice and expectations, he has far more goodness than you."

As River stopped to draw breath, the memory of her voice rang against the ceiling like thunder. Pansy opened her mouth, but was cut off as River started again, barely giving time for her words to sink in.

"Furthermore, I suspect you've made your fair share of mistakes in your life; how would you like them to be dragged out into the open and flogged before all of your peers in such an undisciplined manner? Because believe me, I would be first in line with the rotten apples. So, why don't you stop and act civilized for a moment, you…you weasel in a dress!"

Pansy's face switched from shock to anger so fast Draco swore he could feel a breeze. "Weasel, am I?" She pulled her wand from her sleeve. "I'll show *you* who the weasel is!" She leveled her wand at River's face and started to mouth a transfiguration spell.

River didn't even look worried; she pointed her wand at Pansy and the others and furrowed her eyebrow. There was a bright flash, and all the girls were suddenly suspended in the air by their left ankles. Some of them fainted, Pansy included; others started to scream.

"Quickly, idiot!" River slipped her wand into the waistband of her robe and held out a hand to help him up. "Before someone comes!"

By the time Filch appeared, the two were already around the bend of the marble staircase, Draco half-running and half-limping along in River's arms.

…

"Bruises everywhere, two black eyes, and a concussion." River stood with her back to him, scraping chunks off of something with a pocketknife while a clean handkerchief levitated itself out of a pan of boiling water on the fire. "At this point, I can't tell whether you're just accident prone or you want to get pummeled."

Draco leaned back against the table, rubbing his head. "I think I'm just lucky that way."

River smiled and threw the handkerchief, now full of strips of something squishy, into his lap. "Put that on your eyes. It's raw steak, should bring down the bruising. If it doesn't, I know two naughty boys who can get me some decent bruise remover."

"It wouldn't happen to be the Weasleys, would it?"

She struck a dramatic pose. "Why, what do you take me for? Of course it's them. You don't be bruise eraser off someone you don't know! Hello!"

"Stop…stop it! It hurts to laugh!"

River put another log on the fire and headed for the door. "You're lucky it's Saturday; we might be able to get you looking like your old self before the whole school has to see you."

"Yes, thank Merlin for small kindnesses. Incidentally, where did you learn that spell you used on the girls? I've never seen it before."

She smiled wickedly. "I...borrowed an Advanced potions book from a cupboard in the potions room for Meet. Someone wrote it in the margins. I could never have made up something that despicable myself. And the funniest part is, I have no idea how to get them down!"

Before Draco could so much as chuckle, a wolf howled loudly somewhere outside. He leapt from his seat with steak juice dripping down his eyes, his heart pounding. "Sorry." He whispered. "Bad experience in the Forbidden Forrest in…River, are you okay?"

She had somehow made it up the wall and was hanging upside down from one of the beams with her eyes shut tight. Worried, Draco pulled his sore body up the wall (one of many thing River had taught him) and sat next to her. "You weren't near the wall." He said calmly.

"I jumped."

"Why?"

In one fluid motion, River sat up on the thick wood and rapped her arms around her knees. Draco was surprised to see tears in her eyes. "You probably think that because I'm a Gryffindor, that means nothing scares me. You'd be wrong. We're just better at doing what needs to be done, not matter how scared we are."

Draco tried to make light of it. "Come on, werewolves scare everyone. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Not werewolves. Wolves." She sighed. "Our family lives out in what is essentially the middle of nowhere, near the Scotland border. We're right up near a pack boundary. Every night when I was in bed I would hear them howling, and imagine they were restless spirits come to take away bad little girls. Especially when they were fighting…"

As if she had called the sound from her memories, the sounds of snarling canines rose from the woods. River shrieked and nearly fell from her perch, but Draco instinctively grabbed her waist and pulled her back. He braced himself for the slap of the century, but it never came. She just huddled up next to him and shuddered like a frightened puppy. He wondered for a moment if he should move, but instead held her tighter, trying to keep the sounds at bay.

After a while, they simply died away to howling. Draco swallowed and tried to let go, but River clung to him like spider webs. He contented himself for a moment with watching the fire below and imagining the look on Pansy's face if she could see them now. When all the sounds stopped (rather abruptly, in his opinion), River dug her nails out of his shirt and looked at him with confusion.

"Weren't you scared?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. A bit."

"You didn't shake or anything."

"I guess its better when you're with someone."

They stared at the fire, afraid to look each other in the face.

"River?"

"Hm"

"Did you really mean what you said about me to Pansy and the others? About my honor?"

She looked at him with laughing eyes. "Of course I did. One of the many things you've taught me, Draco Malfoy, is not to judge out…others for their outward appearance alone. You need to be able to see the light inside them. Or the darkness, whichever it may be. And yours is defiantly light."

She stared down into the fire, the orange glow catching every shadow and making her glow. "You have a good soul, Draco, and don't you dare let anyone tell you otherwise. We are all made beautiful, but our vanity and greed, and that of others, tend to hold us back. Someday, my friend, you will be given the chance to change the way you are seen, to show the world what you are really made of, and I just hope I can be there to see you glow."

They sat silent, watching the fire die. Draco slipped his soft hand into River's work-callused one, and smiled. "You'll be there, because you're the one who's making it happen."

In consideration for how long this story is going to be, I have decided to post all three parts separately. Be on the lookout for the second part, which I hope to have for you before Valentine's Day. And I can almost promise you that it gets more interesting from here. Please, tell me what you think!

P.S: Did you get who (or what) was doing the howling?