I stepped out of the shower, wrapping my towel around my body, and starting to comb my hair.

When all the tangles were gone, I put down my hairbrush and stayed still, staring at my reflection in the large mirror.

My hair had grown in the past few months, now reaching past my elbow. It was the signature Malfoy hair, white-blond in color and perfectly straight. My skin was pale, my cheekbones sharp and my nose small. My eyes, however, deferred from the Malfoy model. They were big, black and framed by long and thick lashes. It was a weird combination, my light hair and skin and black eyes, but many people had told me it was striking and original in a good type of way.

My gaze slid down my body. It was covered by the towel, but I knew what I would see if it wasn't: round boobs, wide hips, mediumly flat stomach, curves.

And then, visible where the towel ended, my thighs. They were not overly fat, but not near skinny enough. My legs were always pressed against each reminding me that I was not skinny and tall like the other girls. James Potter was right; I was no more than a fat, bitter cow.

I sighed, looking up at my face again, and willing myself to be happy with the girl who looked back. But I couldn't do it.

"Beckah!" I heard Liv call from the dorm. "Are you almost ready?"

"Yeah" I was quick to reply. "Almost done."

I donned my most comfortable clothes—it was a Saturday, after all, and put my hair up in a messy bun as I went back into the dorm and joined Liv in walking down to the Common Room and to the Great Hall.

Liv was biting her lower lip nervously beside me. She hadn't seen Louis since she had told her that she was pregnant. According to her, the conversation had been mostly one-sided, him only listening to her in shock and barely able to say a word.

She had made it clear that she didn't know what she was going to do yet, keep the baby or give it up for adoption; she did know that she didn't want an abortion. She had also told him that he had absolutely no obligation to have any part in the decision if he didn't want to, and could involve himself as much as he liked. I had found her after their talk, confused and every bit as messy as could be expected from someone in her situation. I had told her that she should give Louis some time to process and in the week that had passed since that day, we had been studying like crazy. I had been very insistent on the whole studying-till-our-brains-melt thing, partly to distract Liv, and also because these things called NEWTs that we had all been ignoring throughout the year were getting terrifyingly close.

That Saturday was no exception. We had already planned exactly what we were going to review and had some possible test questions prepared and everything.

But first, breakfast.

The Great Hall was mostly empty. Even though it was already pretty late, at this time of the year people had been staying up later and later to study, and chose to sleep in as much as possible in the weekends. Wise choice, in my opinion, but Liv scoffed as soon as she saw the almost empty tables.

"Lazy arses."

I stayed quiet, thinking that there was really nothing wrong with being a "lazy arse", and busied myself with rummaging in my bag, which was painfully full of books, until I found what I was looking for, Liv's vitamins, and put one pill on her plate.

As soon as Madam O'Mal had given Liv all the pills with vitamins and pregnancy substances, I had taken them from her and stated that I would be her personal nurse. Liv was sure to lose the pills, and being responsible for that minor part of the pregnancy at least made me feel slightly useful.

I munched on my toast while keeping an eye on my best friend. What we now knew to be morning sickness was still present, and I'd have to go with her to the bathroom at the slightest sign of her not feeling well.

Fortunately, Liv didn't have any such issues with her breakfast that morning, and we finished quickly, exiting the Great Hall just as half-awake people were starting to trickle in.

As soon as we got to the library, we made our way to the most secluded table we could find and pulled our books out.

"Okay. So Transfiguration, right? Test me."

"Here we go then. Ready? What wand movement do you have to do for animal to inanimate object transfiguration?"

-o0o-

We spent all morning on Transfiguration and Defense, testing each other and practicing some spells. Because the Defense professor was a twat, and I needed to get an O in me Defense NEWT, I was studying extra hard for it.

"Let's go get some lunch. If I read one more word my head will explode."

Liv giggled as we left the library, and started making herself a sandwich as soon as she sat down in the Slytherin table. I, however, was looking upwards at the sky and out the windows.

"Hey." I mused. "It's so nice out. Maybe we should study outside."

Liv chewed politely before smiling widely. "Yay! And that way the librarian won't yell at us when we transfigure things."

With that established, I started making a sandwich for myself, exhausted from the morning's mental exercise.

Liv took a sip of her pumpkin juice before turning to face me, hunger apparently satisfied. Her hands and some of her face had ink stains, and her wand was holding her hair in an extravagant hairdo. The elegant green of her eyes was questioning.

"Hey. So I've heard a lot of rumors about your fight with James Potter. Had you really been sleeping together?"

"No!" I exclaim, completely outraged. "Of course not!"

"Well that's what people think. There are some fangirls out there who are pretty mad at you. Why don't you tell me the story?"

I took a hesitant bite of my sandwich, before answering. "Well, we sort of became friends for a while, which you already knew, and we learned a lot of stuff about each other. And then that day, I was in a horrible mood and he wanted to know what was going on and we started shouting and insulting each other and it just got really ugly."

"Oh, Beckah! Why didn't you tell me sooner? I could have helped you! But hey, Louis will probably tell him everything soon, if he hasn't told him already, so maybe you two can make up."

"I'm not so sure about that, Liv, but it's okay. I'm fine, and we weren't friends for that long anyway." I repeated what I'd been telling myself every day.

She was wise enough to drop the subject, and when Scorp and Rose sat across from us, she immediately started a conversation with them.

Soon, we'd finished lunch and made our way outside, picking out a more or less secluded space under a large tree, where we could study in peace.

We spent a couple more hours poring over our notes, comparing and correcting them, so completely absorbed by the work that we didn't even notice Louis had been approaching until he was standing right in front of us, clearing his throat nervously.

"Hey." He said when we looked up. And then, while staring at Liv "Can I talk to you?"

She glanced over at me, eyes wide, and I smiled at back reassuringly, urging her to go. She left only the notes of hers I'd been using, and waved goodbye awkwardly, as she left me with my studying.

I have to admit that I didn't make great use of the afternoon, as I was too preoccupied thinking about Liv's and my future.

I had planned to leave the Malfoy Manor as soon as I graduated, and Liv and I had always talked about getting an apartment together, as neither one of us was overflowing with money.

But with Liv's pregnancy, she would have to save all the money she could, and I would of course want to help her, but even if I managed to get into the department of mysteries right away, I wouldn't start making money until at least a year later.

That meant that I would have to get a job, as well as start begging on the streets or something, in order to pay the rent and take care of the baby.

I knew the Weasleys to be quite wealthy, but we still didn't know how much Louis was going to participate in this whole thing, least of all how much his family would help, if at all.

Speaking of parents, Liv still had to write to hers, telling them the big news, and I had to figure out how I was going to manage to pay a visit to my mother's grave.

This was being such a relaxed year, huh?

-o0o-

Eventually, when the sun had started going down, I snapped out of it and decided it was time to stop thinking for a bit. So I picked everything up, muscles sore from having spent all that time in the same position, and decided I should do something halfway sporty.

So, after leaving my bag in the dorm, I put my hair up in a ponytail and ran up the first flight of stairs I saw. I kept running, up and up and up, looking always for the next staircase, until I reached the bottom of the highest tower in the castle. I didn't even pause before running up again, my breathing shallow.

When I finally reached the top, I had to lean against the wall for a few minutes, breathless. Then, I stood still and closed my eyes as I felt the wind and the sky and the earth and the world. I felt euphoric and devastated and alive and empty and powerful and worthless and the world was beautiful, and for at least a second I felt privileged to be a spectator.

Minutes or hours passed, I couldn't tell you how many, but I found myself shivering from cold that I hadn't been able to feel before and, hugging myself tightly, I decided it was time for a little trip to the kitchens before I tried to find Liv.

So I slowly made my way downstairs and dragged myself to the kitchens, as I wondered what time it was. Probably past dinner time, judging by the darkness of the sky.

-o0o-

"What can we do for the Miss?" A crowd of elves asked me as soon as I walked in.

"Tea please. With lots of sugar in it."

I sat down, and soon my tea joined me, as well as Ditz and a few of her friends. We chatted for a while, and when they eventually told me that it was almost midnight, I decided it was time to go.

The elves poured me some more tea for the journey back to the dorm, and I thanked them all profusely before leaving the kitchens.

The halls were dark and eerie and amazingly quiet, and for some reason I felt like I had no right to be disrupting the peace. Which is weird, because normally during my night wonderings I felt like the halls were waiting impatiently for me to discover them.

I decided to take the long way to the dorm, even though I should have been rushing to get to Liv, and I walked in the shadows and tiptoed and felt scared and intimidated, like I used to feel on my first days at Hogwarts.

This weird and sentimental moment of mine was interrupted by the sound of crying, coming from somewhere near. I looked around, and tried to follow the noise, until I eventually saw a girl, who couldn't be older than thirteen, crying in a corner of a small hallway. She was trying to be quiet about it, I could tell, but there are moments when your sadness screams no matter how much you try to contain it.

I stood still for a second, then walked quickly towards her and sat down beside her. The girl raised her eyes to look at me, sad and sad and sad with a pinch of curious about what I was doing there.

"Hey" I said, feeling awkward immediately afterwards. "Want some tea?" I blurted, offering her my mug. I was out of my comfort zone and it was painfully obvious, but she graciously accepted my offering and took a sip.

"I'm Rebeckah." I said, after a while.

"I know who you are." She answered, and her voice sounded broken. "You're a Slytherin and you're a Malfoy and there are a lot of rumors about you but no one actually knows you."

"Okay." I said, for lack of a better way to express my feelings. "I guess that's not untrue. And who are you?"

"I'm um." She hesitated. "I'm Alice, and I'm a second year. Slytherin too."

"Nice to meet you Alice." I tried to smile. "And how come you're here crying, all by your lonesome?"

Her gaze dropped to the ground, and she looked like she was going to start crying again. "You don't have to tell me, of course." I hastily added.

"I um, my friends kind of abandoned me. Well they've been abandoning me a lot lately."

"Well they don't sound very good. Why don't you tell me the story from the beginning?"

And that's how I got Alice to tell me about how the two people who had been her best friends since her start if Hogwarts, Ellie and Claire, (another Slytherin and a Ravenclaw respectively) had been treating her badly over the past few months, saying she was too quiet, ignoring her and generally ditching her to be with older, "cooler" people.

By the time she had finished telling me everything, she was crying again, and I was wondering if I should hug her or not.

I eventually settled with rubbing her back, and apparently it helped some because immediately afterwards she leaned her head against my shoulder.

"Look, Alice. I wish I could tell you something deep and significant that I have learnt during my years at Hogwarts, but there is no poetic way of saying this: people can be shitty. And I don't care if these people have been your friends for years, or if they're your family or your husband. If someone treats you badly, like these two girls are treating you badly, you've got to tell yourself that you don't deserve it, that you're better than this, and you have to get them out of your life, okay? Because you have done nothing wrong, and they're obviously making you suffer."

"I know you love them," I continued "and you're not going to stop loving them for at least a while, but if they're hurting you and treating you badly, you have to find new friends and rub it in their faces. And when they come to you saying sorry, you can't forgive them until they get down on their knees and give you the most heartfelt apology in the history of Hogwarts. Understood?"

She sniffed, and nodded, but then started crying again. "But I don't have any other friends. They were my only friends."

Hmmm. I suddenly had an idea. "Hey, you know Annie, right? The third-grade Slytherin?"

"Yes. Of course. Everyone knows Annie."

"Well she's practically my little sister, and she's pretty great. So I'm going to introduce you to her tomorrow, and you can eat and hang with her and her group. I've met them and they're very nice. Plus, I think there are some second years in her group of friends. Does that sound good to you?"

"Well, yeah. But Annie and her friends are the popular group. What if they don't like me?"

"If they don't like you or if you don't like them, then you'll have to find another group of friends. You can always be with my group of friends, we're pretty cool." I dropped my voice to a whisper. "And we can do your homework for you."

She giggled happily for a moment, and I draped my and over her shoulder. "But you have to promise me that you'll get away from those girls. I can meet you in the common room tomorrow morning, and introduce you to Anna, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Now we should probably go to bed, before we get caught. Come on." I said, getting up and holding out my hand for her. She took it, and once she was on her feet she hugged me tightly.

"Thank you, Rebeckah Malfoy. You're very nice."

"Why thank you, Alice. But hey, you can't tell anyone about this, I have a reputation to maintain."

She giggled again, and after wiping the years from her cheeks, practically dragged me towards the Slytherin Common Room.

And when I looked back at the dark corridor, I could've sworn I saw a figure, hiding in a corner, one who looked a whole lot like James Potter.

AN. hey everyone, so here's chapter 12. Thank you for reading. I'm really sorry about my lack of updating and the extreme poopiness of this chapter, I really am trying but I can't get my thoughts together. Thanks a lot to Fionamoi and Lilac2481, I really appreciated your reviews and they encouraged me to write this chapter so yeah, thanks.

Anyway, hope you like it, and I'd love a review. I'll try to update soon.

Bye, darlings.