Hurrying off to Divination made me feel that unwelcome twinging of an outsider again. I was trailing in Draco's shadow – he looked something of a defeated superhero, his outer-coat-robe billowing behind him romantically as he strode powerfully off the corridors, head bent downwards in meditation. There were all those students, fresh out of some collegiate utopia, chattering and carrying books with feather quills tucked behind their ears. And I was out of sync, out of step.

Suddenly Draco turned. I think all this wheeling around was so dramatic owing to the billowing clothing all these people wore, but it was extremely confusing at that point when I was so unaccustomed to the wizarding robes. He looked as though he just discovered something extremely important.

"Yes…?" I prompted at his chiseled, man-of-action expression. He pointed at me, made to say something, and then thought otherwise. Instead, he reached out and led me into a courtyard. At this point, the second bell was echoing through the open stone pathways that surrounded us, so there were no students remaining. In fact, the whole square garden area was deserted, and Draco sat me down on a bench.

"As much as I enjoy having you drag me places and poof me places and divine me places, I really think we have reached the point in our relationship where you start explaining these things to me beforehand."

I couldn't keep that biting sarcasm out of my voice, but my semi-angry words fell on his back as he paced in front of me. I sat down on the stone bench he had led me to. Suddenly, he was kneeling so that he was directly in my eye line.

"You…" he began slowly. "You had never seen magic before and when you finally saw it, your first thought was about a bunnyrabbit?"

I considered this for a moment.

"Huh."

"Huh?" he repeated, sounding extremely frustrated. "There's no denial, no refusal to believe."

"Eh."

"Eh?"

"I dunno."

He was staring at me, staring at me intensely. I would have spent all day staring into those silvery eyes, but:

"Aren't we late for class?" I asked tentatively.

"Professor Trelawney's an utter idiot," he dismissed me easily.

"That's nice."

"You're avoiding my question."

"Why does it matter?" I knew why it mattered. I just wanted to know why it mattered to him.

"You just don't make any sense." That intrigue again, that interest in me as a case study, as a specimen, as a lab experiment, not as a girl sitting there desperately trying to make her profile feminine in a pair of really uncomfortable pumps.

I drew a breath to avoid again, to make up some stupid reason, but there was a serious quality in his expression that I hadn't seen. Maybe I wasn't just an experiment.

"I guess it's easy," I began, speaking slowly, my thoughts falling into place with my words, "to accept the existence of… something more… because maybe that's what we all want."

"We all want magic." He repeated dumbly, staring at the grass as though he were Whitman.

"Not exactly," I allowed, walking around the courtyard, trying to be interesting, introspective, and extremely seductive at the same time. "We just… want to believe that great things can happen."

He was staring at me, still kneeling, so that his eyes fell naturally about the flouncing line of my skirt, tracing my hips.

"I get that," he replied, seriousness gone, traded for flirtation. He stood up and strode over. I smiled nervously. I didn't want this, now that he was coming towards me, now that I had lured him over. It was too strange, too fast, too –

"But you're a Muggle," his serious voice intoned, eye brows contracting in a scowl again. I was having trouble keeping up with his mood swings, until I realized I must be like that too – all my flirting, then my arms crossing subconsciously, my lack of clothing and little comments and then my clinging to Harry as though he were some hero in a teen book series. Draco was looking at me, seeking approbation.

"Apparently." I thought for a second. "Is that a problem?"

"What makes you think that it would be?" he asked, too quickly. That interest again, in my intuitive leaps. Validating my guess yet again.

"You keep harking on that Muddleness."

"Muggle," he corrected.

"Whatever. So it made me think that it might be a problem, consistent with your interest."

"Yes, it's a problem."

I could tell he wasn't going to elaborate.

"Divination?" I offered, holding out my arm like a noble lady. He sneered at it, attractive derision, and hooked elbows with me instead.

By the time we reached the top of the tower, I hated Dumbledore. He knew where I was going – why did he have to give me high-heels? Draco seemed half-amused and half-frustrated by my snail pace, and stopped several times to glare at me with that insanely, terrifyingly-attractive expression that snuck onto his face more and more often. When we reached the top of the tower, I realized that there wasn't anything there. The stairs just ended.

"Ladies first," Draco murmured evilly, pulling open and trapdoor and unrolling a ladder.

"You're kidding me," I sighed. He smiled and shook his head. "Really?" I asked.

"Really," he replied.

"But don't you guys like have magic and everything?" I asked, clinging to the first rungs of the ladder.

"Yeah, so?" He was standing directly beneath me as I struggled. And I was wearing a skirt.

"Hold this ladder, will you?" I whined, fighting to remain upright. He chuckled and moved to brace me with scary strength.

"What were you saying?"

"All this just doesn't seem necessary," I huffed. "Why not just poof yourself places? Or why even take classes? Why not just magically learn everything? Like download the information?"

I had reached the top of the ladder and we slowly pulling myself upward. I wasn't sure if Draco had an answer, but as I was slithering across the floor in a desperate attempt to not fall back down the ladder, I realized that I was in the middle of a silent classroom, and every student had swiveled in his chair to stare at me.

I hastily crawled and lurched forward so that I was standing up. A lady that looked like she had ended up at a dog groomer's instead of a hair salon was staring at me out of the thickest glasses I had ever seen. Why glasses? I wondered to myself. Hadn't wizards invented lasik yet? But I kept silent – all those eyes on me. I tugged at my skirt so that it covered as much of my legs as possible.

"Hi," I muttered. "Sorry to interrupt…"

"It is just as I foresaw, my dear," came the somewhat-warbly voice of the Poodle-Haired Lady.

"You see the future?" I asked. I heard Draco snort behind me – apparently in the time it took me to humiliate myself in front of the entire class, he had competently scaled the tower ladder.

"I have the inner eye," Poodle Lady intoned dramatically. "I can see your future, my dear… you… you have lost something!" She sounded excited by her declaration, as though she made it up on the spot and liked the way it sounded.

I nodded. Compared to all the crazy people here who believed they were witches or wizards and even including me, the girl who couldn't remember where her pajama bottoms went, this lady was off-the-charts insane. I was sort of proud of her, for being so crazy – but mostly I just felt bad for her.

"Would you like to learn how to see into the future?" she asked in a stage whisper, spreading her arms out uncertainly.

"She's a Muggle," Draco retorted as though that ended the conversation decisively, guiding me over to a little tea-table. There was a piece of incense on it, and I noticed other tables had the same – in front of the Poodle Lady there was a lit piece, trailing smoke.

I pulled out a little stool and carefully sat down, making sure to remain as modest as possible as all eyes were trained on me.

"Ah!" I heard a little whisper exclaim. Poodle Lady had snuck up behind me, and had placed a shaky hand on my shoulder, gripping it firmly. "Even Muggles can sometimes possess The Sight."

Apparently I had to say something to this – her bizarrely-magnified eyes were fixed on me with somewhat pathetic hope.

"That's cool," I offered unenthusiastically. Draco smothered another chuckle.

The Poodle Lady touched a stick she drew out of no where and touched it to the incense; it began twirling a little stream of smoke upwards.

"Just – tell me what you see," she said excitedly. I glanced at Draco in confusion, but he was shaking his head in a little see, she's crazy way. So I turned back to the smoke.

"I see…"

To be honest, I saw a line of smoke. Was this the sort of thing where you had to unfocus your eyes? I tried that, but it only gave me a headache. Then I tried really focusing my eyes. This only showed the entire class watching me intensely. Apparently I had to make something up. I watched the smoke curl.

"I see… a rope," I said, trying to take on that dreamy tone that Miss Cleo uses.

"Good, good," the Poodle Lady muttered, gripping my shoulder tighter.

"And… a flower."

"What flower?" asked the lady. Was she kidding? I was staring at incense. I put a finger to my temple and rubbed it, the way those fraud psychics do when they get a vision.

"I… can't tell," I finished lamely, losing that dreamy tone in my impatience. The Poodle Lady released my shoulder, finally.

"Broaden your mind," she whispered conspiratorially, then turned to the class and began muttering about incense and how to light it.

"A flower?" mocked Draco.

I sneered at him.

"What do you see?" I retorted, embarrassed. He stared at the smoke for a long time. He lifted a hand and ran it through the stream several times, and I watched in surprise as it resolved itself into a small spherical shape, that spun several times.

"Is that a skull?" I asked, horrified. At the word "skull" the Poodle Lady whirled excitedly. Draco ran his hands through the smoke hurriedly and muttered something about there not being a skull. But I knew what I saw – a skull, with something coming out of its mouth and twisting its way around the air. But maybe it was just all the fumes making me see things.

When the class was over, the I-told-you-so girl approached us.

"We're taking her to lunch," she told Draco matter-of-factly. He had been resting his head on his hands, and was startled by her bossy tone. He seemed too distracted by something else to argue much.

"C'mon," the girl ordered me. I stood slowly, glancing at Draco for his input, but he nodded slightly and resumed his brooding. Apparently something was bothering him, or maybe I was over-analyzing it and all the smoke was just giving him a headache.

I followed the girl ungracefully down the rope ladder, flanked by both Ron and Harry.

"I'm Hermione," she said, striding off purposefully down the stairs.

"I'm Vera," I replied.

"I know," Hermione said stiffly. "And I know we didn't get off to the best start, but Dumbledore thinks it's important that you get to know your options."

"Options?" I repeated.

Hermione looked at me, a measuring glance. She opened her mouth, but then reconsidered. It was clear that answering my question wasn't something she was willing to do quite yet.

"Can you slow down," I heard Ron behind me whine. So she was upset – this girl-on-a-mission walking wasn't normal for her.

"No," barked Hermione.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry. He was the sensitive one, apparently.

"I hate the way Malfoy's just… trying to assert his ownership over her."

And I hated the way she was talking about me like I wasn't there.

"Who says it isn't mutual?" I asked, bristling.

Hermione wheeled on me, stopping right in front of me. I almost ran into her, but stopped short, my toes pinched in the high-heels.

"You don't understand the variables," she informed me harshly. "And you don't understand the magic involved."

"But you don't either," whined Ron. "If so can we please just go to lunch?"

"Aren't we?" I asked, turning to him.

"No, we're going to the library," Hermione retorted angrily.

"Why?" Ron moaned.

"We need to figure out what Malfoy did to her!" Hermione replied.

"Who says he did anything?" I interjected.

Hermione blinked slowly, looking down as though gathering her thoughts.

"Don't you think it's a bit weird," she asked me, "that you already feel so possessive about him? That you're willing to let him make up your mind about us, about anything, that you trust him so completely?"

It was now my turn to be unable to meet her eyes; I glanced at the walls and hugged myself, feeling cold and exposed in the ghost-clothes I was wearing. A nervous, panicky energy was building up inside of me, pure electricity that made me want to pull off those heels and run down the corridor away from it all. To burn off that feeling, I began tapping my toe, fluffing my hair, little movements to give outlet to my sudden fear.

"We can help you," Hermione promised firmly, and I realized that she was being sincere.

"It's your choice," Harry offered kindly.

"Why would she choose Malfoy?" interrupted Ron, making a little disgusted face as though Malfoy was some sort of slug.

"Ron," muttered Hermione angrily.

I was still tapping my toe, staring at the stone wall.

"We'll be in the library when you're ready," Hermione offered, and she turned to go. The boys followed.

I watched them for a minute, and then I felt my legs begin to pace after them without my brain consciously making the decision. In some sick way, it just felt right to trust them.