A FINAL CHANCE

By: Shadowedheart89

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, nor do I claim to.

Chapter Six: Old Friends

I stepped out of Snape's room and took a deep breath. This was going to be a long year. Now on top of everything else I have to worry about, I have to add Snape to the list. It's just great.

I started walking down the hall, and I heard a voice call my name. It took me a moment or two to recognize Draco standing in the shadows of a statue. "Is everything alright?" he asked finally emerging so that I could see him fully.

"Everything's fine," I told him linking my arm with his and leading us down the hall.

"So what did Snape want?" he asked trying to sound cordial, but I could hear the hint of anger in his voice.

"He was just warning me," I told him almost absently.

He stopped and turned me so that I was facing him, "Did he threaten you?" he asked, his temper rising.

I sighed, "No Draco, as I said he was warning me. In his own, absurd way he was trying to help me."

He didn't look convinced. "Are you sure he didn't hurt you?"

"Yes, Draco," I told him in a bored voice.

"What about earlier?" he asked.

I groaned. "I was pushing his buttons and he lost control. It was my fault. I knew that he was going to do something like that. He fixed whatever happened and no there's no more pain. It's fine, it's no big deal."

"You shouldn't have been in pain in the first place Marlene," he told me angrily.

"Maybe, but a lot of things that shouldn't happen, happen anyways. What's done is done. Let's just forget about it." He still looked a bit worried so I rolled my eyes at him and told him to stop worrying.

"Marlene, how can I not worry? So many things can go wrong. You have no idea what can happen to you if you get caught," he told me angrily, as if he were talking to a little kid who just didn't understand something.

I knew he was cared about me and that's why he was acting like this so I held my temper and gave him a hug. "Draco, thank you for worrying, but everything will be fine. I'm used to living with the danger. I know how to handle myself."

He put his arms around me, "I hope so."

We stood there for a few minutes in an embrace before we heard some one clearing their throat from behind us. We both let go of each other and turned to see Snape watching us, looking quite disgusted.

"Draco, I was just looking for you. I would like to speak with you about a few things. Please come to my office after dinner," Snape said, holding Draco's piercing stare with his own.

"Yes, sir," Draco replied icily.

Snape raised an eyebrow at the cold tone, but made no comment. He then turned and handed me a piece of parchment. "Here's the information for your detention. Don't be late. Now I believe you two have someplace to be other than this hallway."

"We are on a break right now," I told him.

He glared at me, "Well then I suggest you study someplace. You do have homework, and I expect it to be thorough and well done, especially from you Wizidore. I wish to see if you can hold up to your reputation." Then he turned and returned back to his room.

Draco and I walked down the hall a ways before I asked him, "You don't have a class to get to do you?"

He chuckled a bit. "No, right now we are on break, and then I have a free period."

We compared schedules and realized that they were nearly identical. He just had one more class than me. Upon realizing this, he smirked and said, "This promises to be an interesting year."

"Yes, it does," I said, imagining his reaction when he finds out that Harry and Ron also have the same classes as us.

"So we have quite a while until lunch, what should we do until then?" he asked, with his eyes almost glowing.

I laughed and shrugged. "Why don't you show me around the school some more? I'm sure you have a few secret spots."

He put his arm around my waist and started walking. "If I showed you my secret places, they wouldn't be so secret anymore now would they?" he said leading me up a flight of stairs.

"I can keep a secret," I told him laughing.

We joked and played around, almost like old times when we would use each other to forget the pain of our lives at home. Soon though, I saw a window, and when I looked out I was greeted with a beautiful view of the grounds. In one direction, the lake stretched out with birds flying gracefully across it, sometimes coming so low that they would skim the water. In another direction was the forest, which was lush and green and continued farther than the eye could see. I spotted a small hut sitting by the edge if the forest, quite a ways away across the green, hilly grounds and knew that I would love to meet the person who lived there.

I turned to Draco and gave him my most charming and beautiful smile. "Can we please go outside?" I pleaded, taking his hands in mine.

He rolled his eyes. "I should have known you'd want to go outside. You were always such a nature lover. Come on, let's go."

He led me outside, where we walked around the lake for a little while until we came to a tree with a magnificent view and sat down. I pulled my DADA book from my bag and started reading.

Draco gave me an odd look before asking, "What in the world are you doing?"

I glanced at him for a moment before saying, "Studying. You should too," I told him.

He groaned. "You and the Mudblood should get along great. It's the first day of school, and you're already studying."

"The Mudblood?" I asked angrily. I have always hated when purebloods acted so derogatory towards muggle borns and half bloods. It is something that I find completely idiotic.

He misunderstood my anger for confusion and continued, "Yeah, Granger. She's always studying. She's such a know it all."

"Don't call her a Mudblood," I told him seriously.

"Why not?" he asked, sounding a bit taken back at my tone.

"It's derogatory and disgusting. It makes it sound as if you think you are better than her because you are a pure blood," I told him. He gave me a look as if to say that he was, so I added, "Besides, it sounds like something your father would say."

He growled. "Fine, I won't call her that anymore."

We both fell into a silence I tried to continue reading for a few minutes before I gave up and put down my book and asked, "Draco, what do you want to do after Hogwarts?"

He didn't answer right away, but instead seemed to think about it quite intently. "I'm not sure. Ever since I was little, I was raised to take after my father. I was supposed to take over his positions, become a Death Eater, and help the Dark Lord if he ever returned to power. Now that he's in Azkaban, I can make my own choices, but I'm not really sure what I should do."

"Well if you could do anything, what would it be?" I asked.

He shrugged, then grinned, "I'd be the Minister of Magic. Merlin knows we need a new one."

I laughed, "Yeah that sounds like you. You would have to be less prejudice though. You couldn't just use your power to punish those you don't like."

He drew himself up, making him look rather haughty, "I am not prejudice. I would be fair to everyone."

"Even Harry, Ron, and Hermione?" I asked skeptically.

He slouched down again. "Okay, I get the point. What about you? What do you want to do?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Right now I'm signed up for classes to become an Auror, so maybe I'll just do that until…" I trailed off remembering that my decisions were not always my own.

When I was born, there were several prophecies made about me, two of which I know. One of them prophesized my great power and abilities, saying that I would be an invaluable ally and unstoppable force to which ever side I was on, and the other said that I would be the leader of the wizarding world, either bringing our world into light, or unfathomable darkness. I never told anyone of these prophecies though. The pressure of my knowing these is almost too much, having everyone else know and pressuring me would make things truly unbearable. Telling Draco would have put both of us in great danger. Since he is bound to me by magic, if he were to tell anyone for whatever reason, he would die, and then I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

I was so lost in thought that I forgot that I had been in the middle of a sentence until I felt Draco shaking me gently. "Marlene, are you alright?" he asked, sounding worried.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts before responding, "I'm fine. I was just thinking."

"Okay. So what were you saying? You were thinking about being an Auror until…something."

"Oh, until I found something else to do," I said, which wasn't a complete lie. Leading the wizarding world was something else.

We fell into another comfortable silence for a few minutes before he asked, "So how do you know Snape?"

I groaned, and then laid down, lying my head in his lap. "Dear ole Severus was an old mentor of mine. Usually during the summer he would come to wherever I was staying and teach me all sorts of stuff. Mostly it was Potions and Defense and Dark Arts. We never got a long too well. He was too condescending for my taste, and he thought that I was arrogant and too sheltered from the real world. He might have been right, but I had a bit of an upper hand. So I learned how to push his buttons, and he didn't appreciate it."

"When did he stop mentoring you?" Draco asked, while he ran his fingers through my hair in a soothing repetition.

"It was about a year or two before I met you. He got into trouble, and Uncle Albus asked him to leave, though I doubted that he was too disappointed. It seemed like he didn't want to be there. Uncle Albus probably made him."

"Why'd he get into trouble?"

I laughed. "Well it was mostly my fault. Sometimes I would get him so angry by complaining that he was going so slowly in teaching me and that he probably didn't even really know what he was doing that he would challenge me to a duel. Well grown masters aren't supposed to duel their young pupils. Anyways, one day Uncle Albus walked in and saw us and was furious. He made Severus leave, and I haven't seen him since. Well until today." I realized that I've said that a few times the last few days about people. They were all popping up through the woodwork it seemed.

Draco laughed, "Great going. He's going to make your year horrible."

"I wouldn't expect anything less from dear ole Severus," I told him, adjusting my head so I was in a more comfortable position. "Hopefully he won't take it out on you. I have already noticed that he has a habit of using his students to take out his frustration."

Draco shook his head, "I should be fine. Snape is good friends with my father. He's become some what of a guardian for me. He's helped me a lot when things have gotten tough. As long as I stay on track and obey him, he should leave me alone."

Another comfortable silence fell between us before I asked, "Why do you hate Harry, Ron and Hermione?"

He sighed, "Don't worry about it. And don't try to play peacemaker either. There have been bad feelings between all of us for too many years to just try to put that away and become friends."

I was going to argue with him, but then decided against it. I had all year to see if I could get the four on better terms, so there was no use in pushing it now. "Alright," I told him, and then turned my head so that I could look out over the lake.

"What are you planning?" he asked, sounding very suspicious.

I laughed. "Nothing, I swear. I promise, I'm not going to try to make you talk to anyone you don't want to. It's not any of my business."

He eyed me for a second before saying, "You're up to something. I don't know what it is, but I will find out."

"You really do worry too much," I told him before sitting up a bit so that I could kiss him. After a few seconds I pulled away from him and asked, "So am I really your girlfriend, or were you just saying that to annoy Harry."

He pretended to look me over before responding, "No, you're really my girlfriend. Annoying Potter was just an added bonus."

I laughed and asked, "So no other girls, right?"

A small smile played on his lips as he remembered that it was the same thing I asked him two years ago when we first started going out. "No other girls," he told me softly before pulling me closer to him and kissing me.

It was nice. We sat there for awhile in each others arms kissing, oblivious to everything except for each other. That is until he suddenly pulled away asking what time it was.

When I told him, he almost threw me off of him. "We're gong to be late for class!" he exclaimed sounding genuinely upset.

I couldn't help but to laugh. He tries to act all tough, but here he was getting upset because he thought he was going to be late. "We aren't going to be late," I told him standing up and gathering my things.

"What do you mean? We have five minutes and our class is in the dungeon, all the way on the other side of the school," he told me while standing up and looking like he was starting to panic.

"We'll only need two. Just trust me," I told him, kissing him one last time. "Now hold on tight," I said putting his arms around my waist.

He pulled me firmly against him and smirked. "I'm not quite sure how this is going to get us to class, but I like it."

I rolled my eyes at him and said, "Just close your eyes." He did what he was told, and I dove into his mind to find a mental map of the school. I identified a room near the Potions class that would most likely be empty and concentrated on it. Suddenly everything began to spin, and the ground dropped out from beneath us for a few seconds, before we landed, and hard. If we hadn't been holding onto each other so tightly, we most certainly would have fallen.

"Wow, that was so much more uncomfortable than outside of Hogwarts," I said absently with my head still spinning and wondering how I managed to do that last night without realizing it.

When everything seemed to still, I looked up at Draco. His eyes were wide and he looked shocked. "How did you do that? It's impossible."

I grinned up at him. "Magic," I said playing off of the muggle saying before walking out of the room.

He followed me looking very confused. "I know its magic, but how?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "You are such a Pureblood," I told him entering the potions room.

He looked scandalized, "Of course I am. I'm a Malfoy. What does that have to do with anything?"

I sat down at an empty table, shaking my head, "You are hopeless, Draco."

"I have absolutely no idea what you are spouting on about," he said sitting heavily in the seat beside me.

"Exactly, so just drop it. I'll explain it later. It looks like it will take some time." Besides, several of the other students were looking at us curiously. We were drawing more attention to us than I liked.

"No, explain now," he told me stubbornly.

"Why must you be such a jerk?" I asked exasperated. My little joke, my play on words, was turning out to be something that was overly complicated, and getting out of hand. I just wanted to forget about it.

"Why don't you just tell me what you are talking about?" Draco told me crossing his arms.

I was about to retort but the professor walked into the room and caused me to forget about the bickering with Draco. He was tall, tanned, young, and thin, with shoulder length dark blonde hair and a long scar along the left side of his face that marred his otherwise perfect and very handsome features. There was something incredibly familiar about him, but I thought it was impossible for him to be who I though he was. That is until he looked directly at me and smiled. Then I knew for sure. He was another one of my old mentors, Xavier.

He grinned at me when he saw the dawn of recognition in my eyes and approached me. I stood up and gave him a little bow, like he would always make me do before we would start our lesson. He would tell me that it showed great respect and honored the fact that I acknowledged the fact that he was a master. I personally think he just made me do it to feel more important, but I've always had a great fondness for him, so I followed his rules. He laughed at me and the fact that I remembered his crazy rules. "Marlene, I'm glad that you remembered my rules of respect, but there is no longer any need for such formalities. I think that it will be a bit hard to have the entire class following them. It would get a bit too complicated," he told me.

We looked at each other for a moment before I gave him a hug. "Xavier, why didn't you tell me that you were coming here?" I asked after we let go of each other.

He laughed. "I did! Didn't you get my letter?"

I thought about it for a second, before realizing that I did indeed get a letter from him in the morning, but got so distracted with everything happening throughout the day, that I didn't read it. I felt myself blush, "I got the letter, but I didn't get a chance to read it yet. It's been a crazy day."

He laughed again. "I'll bet, but now the whole purpose of the letter is ruined! And to think I spend a long time trying to figure out how to tell you."

I started to feel really bad, and looked down at the floor. He gently lifted my chin so that I would have to look into his beautiful hazel eyes. "It's alright, I was just messing with you, but we'll have to catch up some other time. Right now I have to start class," he told me grinning happily and taking his place at the front of the class.

He surveyed the class for a few seconds trying to get a feel for everything before starting to speak. "Welcome to N.E.W.T. Potions. I am Professor Jamison. I take it that if you are all in this class that you have done a pretty good job thus far. Well actually, knowing Professor Snape, I would probably be safe in saying that you all do very well in order to pass his class with your sanity still in tact." There were a few snickers around the room. I looked at Draco, and he seemed distant and angry about something, probably my closeness with Xavier.

"Well I think that today we will start off with a relatively simple potion, just so that I can see how you guys do. On the board, I have written the ingredients required, and you can find the instructions on page 87 in your books. You may work with a partner and begin when you are ready."

"So where do we start partner?" I asked, turning to Draco.

He glared at me for a moment before muttering, "I'll go get the ingredients." I watched as he walked away, and it looked as if a dark cloud was hanging over him. The other students instinctively moved out of his path, as if no one dared to get in his way.

While he was getting the ingredients, Harry came up to me. "Hey, how's the first day going?" he asked.

I shrugged. "It's pretty good I guess. Much more surprising than I thought it would be. I wonder if there will be anyone else here that I find that I know."

He laughed. "I was looking for you during lunch, but I didn't see you."

For some reason, I felt a bit uncomfortable and was tempted to lie, but decided against it. I would probably have to lie enough over the year, so I wanted to be a truthful as I could. "Oh, I'm sorry. Draco and I were catching up and kind of lost track of time. We were almost late coming to class."

"It's alright. I was just hoping that you didn't get lost. It'll take awhile to find your way through the school without getting lost too many times."

I laughed. "You don't still get lost do you?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I always seem to find my way out of trouble." He looked towards Draco and seen that he almost had all of his ingredients and would soon be returning. "Well, I better get out of here. I just wanted to make sure that you alright."

"Thanks Harry." I said as he went back to his table to wait for Ron.

Draco returned to the table and dropped the ingredients on the table rather violently. "What did Potter want?" he nearly growled.

"He just wanted to see how my day was going. He thought I might have gotten lost since I wasn't at lunch," I explained, ignoring his temper.

"I wish he would get lost," Draco mumbled.

I rolled my eyes. "Do not start this. He's my friend, Draco. He's just a friend. We are in the same house, we have the same classes. We are going to have to work together. If you don't like him fine, stay away from him. But if I'm around, would you please just act civil towards him?" He pretended to ignore me and started with the potion. "You can't ignore me Draco, we are partners."

He started mixing things together haphazardly and I could tell that if I didn't stop him soon, the whole mixture was going to blow up in our faces, quite literally. "Draco, stop before you get us hurt," I told him, pulling his hands away from the cauldron and ingredients.

He turned to me, and his eyes were like ice. "Let go of me," he said in a cold, dangerous voice.

I let go of him. "You're messing up the potion," I told him simply.

"You do it then," he said harshly before sitting down.

I shrugged, "Alright." I spent the rest of the double potions working mainly by myself. Draco did help once and a while. I guess he felt bad that I was doing all the work. Mostly though, he just kept yelling at me because I wasn't following the directions exactly.

"The potion's going to be ruined and we are going to fail on the first day," he told me angrily.

"Well since you're not helping, why do you care?" I snapped. His attitude was getting on my nerves. He grumbled a bit before turning away. "Just trust me okay? I know what I'm doing."

At the end of class, everyone's results varied. Mine came out nearly perfect. Hermione's and Neville's came out pretty good as well. Harry's and Ron's potion looked a bit sick and as if it were going to blow up at any moment. No one else did much better than them.

As Professor Jamison walked around to see how every one did, he seemed a bit dejected. I could tell he had high hopes for the class, and they fell decidedly below his expectations. When he checked my potion though, he smiled and said, "I'm glad that you've remembered what you've learned. You must have had a good partner as well."

I did nothing to take all the credit, and Draco just scowled. I started cleaning up, and heard him checking on Hermione's potion. "Miss Granger and Mr. Longbottom, that's not bad at all. You both show some real potential." Hermione beamed and Neville looked like he was going to faint.

After a few seconds of my cleaning, and Draco sitting there moodily looking at me, I snapped. "Would you at least help me clean up? Or is that too much to ask of a Malfoy?"

His jaw clenched, and I could tell that I probably had crossed a line, but it got him in motion. Unfortunately, he was so angry that he started breaking things as he "cleaned up," so I still did most of it myself.

As soon as we were released, Draco stormed out of the room. I didn't bother following him because I knew all I would do is make things worse. Several of our classmates looked at me, wondering what happened, but I just ignored them and left the classroom.