Sorry for such a long hiatus! But a very special thank you to my Beta, DracoWinchester for agreeing to continue helping me after all this time. As always, I own none of JK Rowling's ideas or work, and please read and review!

"Malfoy!" I yelled, causing several heads to turn in my direction. He hesitated for a moment before continuing to walk away, never turning around. "MALFOY." Now half the corridor was staring at me, but I hardly noticed. Malfoy was still making his way down the hall. "OI, FUCKER."

He stopped this time. And so did everyone around me. It seemed like the corridor was holding a collective breath as he slowly wheeled around to face me. His eyes were the steel gray that I had come to associate with his anger. He walked down the still hallway before coming to stop directly in front of me. He pointed to an empty classroom.

"Go."

I stared him down, flicking my hair off my shoulder. I had come after him, so he wasn't about to boss me around.

Raising my chin, I said "since when do you tell me what to do? I don't think so." I was fully prepared to stand my ground and have our confrontation in front of half the school. He had other ideas, however, and before I could react had swooped down and thrown me over his shoulder, Levitating my fallen books into the classroom ahead of us. I pounded my fists on his lower back as we went inside to the sound of a wolf whistle. Without breaking stride, he lifted his wand over his shoulder and cast a jinx that was met with a yelp of pain.

After dropping me unceremoniously on a desk, he strode back to the doorway. "Anyone thinking it will be a good idea to try to eavesdrop, I can assure you it won't be." He slammed the door and I heard the crowd start moving again, muttering to themselves.

Now in a confined space with him and alone for the first time since his bedroom, I regretted my decision to come after him. I soon remembered his comments to Seamus and I, however, as well as his behavior towards me ever since our fight last June, and I regained the anger I had come after him with. He opened his mouth but I cut him off.

"I need to know what the fuck your problem is. Those comments to Seamus and I were completely uncalled for, especially since you've made it clear for the past several months that you want nothing to do with me."

His eyebrows rose contemptuously. "My problem? I don't have one. I was simply asking a rhetorical question that you happened to take offense to." He was still maintaining that cold mask, and it hurt when I could still remember so clearly what his smile looked like.

My heart panged at the thought of it, and my anger ebbed some. There had to be something wrong for him to be acting like this, and me yelling at him wasn't going to help me figure it out. I decided to try a different approach and hopped off the desk, walking towards him until we were hardly a foot away.

"Let me in. Don't keep pushing me away like you've done since that night."

"No."

I had not been expecting that simple of a response. My insides clenched. "Malfoy, I'm sorry. The things I said that night, I didn't mean them that way. I was upset and not ready to believe that you actually cared about me. Things can be different."

"Things are different. As you said, I cared about you then."

Tears rose to my eyes before I could control my emotions. I wasn't willing to give up. "Stop being this way. I know you still care. Why were you on the way to Gryffindor Tower after the feast? Why are you so hateful to Seamus? Because you care. And I care too."

"You're wrong," he said simply. "I was planning on hexing Potter since he somehow found his way back to the school. I antagonize Finnegan because he's half blood filth and his obsession with you only gives me an easier target. You don't care, you're only playing a game, the same as me. You just aren't willing to admit it."

The tears were falling now and I couldn't stop them. His mask flickered slightly before smoothing back over, and I latched onto his momentary weakness. "You do care. You do, I know it. You were waiting to see me after the feast. You hate Seamus because you think I have feelings for him, but I don't."

Again, at my last words, his face shifted. "You should have feelings for him. He would be good for you," he said, turning away from me suddenly.

"What are you, my mother? What are you on about?"

He strode over to the window and leaned on the sill, looking outside. "You need someone who's good for you," he repeated.

I had stopped crying more out of sheer confusion than anything. I stared at his back for a moment before walking over and yanking on his arm so that he had to look at me. "Why aren't you good for me?"

He ran his hands through his hair, the mask breaking again but this time staying off. "I'm just not, Merlin. You don't want to know, so don't fucking go there."

Countless conversations with Harry about him being a Death Eater flashed through my mind, but I refused to acknowledge them. They weren't true, they couldn't be. I had just admitted to caring about this boy, when I hadn't realized how much until I said it.

Need washed over me, and I closed the distance between us again.

"What if I don't care?"

He looked at me warily, but I pulled him down to my lips before he had a chance to say anything. He reacted almost instinctively, grabbing my waist and melding me to him. My hands ran through his hair, mirroring his earlier movements, and he let out a low moan in response.

This is what I had missed, the way we seemed to communicate better without words. I thought distractedly that this wasn't the healthy way to communicate, but I didn't care. This was different than our first snog. Malfoy was more urgent, our mouths hardly separating long enough for me to breathe. I could feel the outlines of his muscles even through our robes and pressed myself tighter against him in response.

Suddenly, his hands that had been wrapped around my waist pushed me away, hard enough that I stumbled into the desk behind me. I looked at him, wounded, and was concerned by the look on his face. The mask was back on, but his eyes were still wild.

"Fuck, Mousseau, you don't know what you're doing. You have to stay away." He was breathing heavily as walked over to the door, almost jogging, as though he was desperate to put more distance between us. "Go snog Finnegan next time, he's harder pressed to find willing participants than I am."

I stared at the door for minutes after he had left. That was not the way I envisioned that going. I collected my books and started the long walk to Gryffindor Tower, hoping the tears would stop before I reached the common room.

"Ellie!" Seamus had come around the corner and was evidently startled to find me crying. He sprinted down the rest of the hall and grabbed my face in his hands, turning me from side to side as though checking for bruises. "Are you alright? Did that bastard touch you? I knew I shouldn't have let you go after him, I'm sorry."

Hysterical laughter bubbled out of me when he asked if Draco had touched me, but this only made him more concerned.

"Ellie, come on, let's get you back to the dorm, eh?" I only nodded and let him led me back to the Tower.

None of us were in good moods for the rest of the week. Ron was as touchy as the average skrewt, lashing out at everyone. He had reduced Hermione to tears several times, especially since she didn't understand why things between them had changed. Harry was beyond stressed that his first Quidditch match as Captain was just days off. I was of course still thinking about Malfoy, wondering why he was pushing me away.

The morning of the Quidditch match against Slytherin, the school was bursting with energy and excitement. Hermione and I joined Luna in the stands, laughing at her famous lion hat. I was nervous about seeing Malfoy, even from a distance, but I didn't have to be ― as the teams lined up, he was nowhere to be seen. I asked Hermione if she knew what was happening, but she had been preoccupied ever since Harry had apparently put something in Ron's drink at breakfast.

I had filled her in on the events of the other day, and she had simply hugged me. We were in surprisingly similar situations, and it felt nice to have someone that understood. The game ended with Harry grabbing the Snitch from Harper, and the entire audience roared. It was always a good thing when someone beat Slytherin. Hermione and I made our way to the changing rooms to congratulate Harry and Ron, and I could tell she was preparing herself to say something.

Sure enough, she accused Harry of putting Felix Felicis into Ron's drink. This started a huge row between her and Ron, who, once it became clear Harry hadn't, became furious that Hermione had doubted his abilities. He stormed out of the room, leaving Harry and I to try and comfort her. Instead, she stormed out of the room too, but when I tried to go after her, Harry stopped me.

"Just let her go for now, Ellie. We can go up to the party."

I nodded, and we walked arm in arm back up to the castle, entering the common room to find the party in full swing. Seamus extracted me from Harry, pulling me into the middle of the room to dance, and the last time I saw him he was going out the portrait hole after an upset Hermione who had undoubtedly seen Ron and Lavender with their tongues down each other's throat.

I ignored my conscious that said I should go after her too and stayed with Seamus instead. We danced with Dean and Ginny for hours, and the party raged all night. I hadn't had that much fun in months, and it only made me look forward to Slughorn's party more. Seamus was a good friend and great guy, and I kept hearing Malfoy's words about him. I watched him joking with Dean, and couldn't help but grin. He didn't have the smoldering beauty that Malfoy did, but his freckles and sandy hair made him someone I just wanted to hold on to.

Dean and Ginny disappeared somewhere around midnight, and Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Lavender were still wandering the castle. I hoped they wouldn't be caught out after curfew. Seamus and I stayed up until two just talking and laughing, and at some point I fell asleep on him again. We were woken up a bit later by a grinning Harry who had finally returned.

As he and Seamus bid me goodnight and went up to their dorm, he warned me that Hermione was very upset. She was very upset, and she stayed that way for weeks. She wasn't talking to Ron at all, which meant that Harry and I now had to choose sides. By some unspoken agreement, I stayed with Hermione while he went with Ron, and we would switch around every few days. I eventually agreed to help her get back at Ron.

After all, I couldn't judge, as I had started to question whether my own increased involvement with Seamus had anything to do with Malfoy. The day of the party, as we sat down to eat, she began a prearranged conversation with Parvati about her taking Cormac McLaggen to the party. I had convinced her to ask him the night before, and she had done so reluctantly. Now, however, she seemed to have no qualms about it.

She and I said goodbye to the others and went upstairs to get ready. We met Seamus and McLaggen in the common room at eight and walked to the party together. The moment we entered Slughorn's study, Hermione and I gasped. The room was decorated beautifully, looking like the inside of a huge tent. The four of us went off to dance, but McLaggen kept getting far too close to Hermione. Seamus and I had to stifle our laughter at her discomfort.

Eventually they disappeared into the crowd, and Seamus and I mingled with the other party goers.

Dean came running up to us with Ginny in tow. "Oi, you lot up for a party tonight," he asked with a grin. I looked at Ginny questioningly and her eyes shone with mischief. "I reckon I found a seventh year who can get us some firewhiskey. So what do you say, meet in the common room at midnight?"

Seamus looked at me and half shrugged, as though it were up to me. I considered it. It was the last night of term, I could sleep off any hangover on the train home the next day. Besides, it seemed as though I had been looking for an opportunity to forget myself and everything around me, and here one was.

"Hell yeah, we'll be there." Dean gave me a thumbs up as he and Ginny walked off to tell the others.

Seamus and I went to find Harry to tell him, and we had just walked up to the group he was standing in when someone unexpected showed up. Malfoy was being dragged across the room by Filch. My heart constricted, and I barely heard the exchange that followed.

"All right, I wasn't invited! I was trying to gatecrash, happy?"

I snapped back to attention at the sound of his voice. He had drawn himself up to his full height and looked furious. I knew immediately he was lying. He hadn't been trying to come here, I had heard him making fun of the party for weeks now. So what had he been doing?

This was the first time I had seen him up close in over a month, and he looked terribly exhausted. His eyes that were normally so bright had dulled to an ashy gray that worried me. What was wrong with him? Moments later, he and Snape disappeared from the party, and I tried to push him from my mind. I had an afterparty to look forward to.

The next few hours passed in a blur of firewhiskey and laughter. I had never drank this much in my life, and the room was starting to spin. I already felt a bit queasy, so I went to sit down in a far corner of the room and nearly stumbled to the ground. I pressed my palm to my forehead. Merlin, why had I done this?

"First time, eh?" Seamus had come over to join me and seemed hardly affected by the alcohol, although I knew he had drank almost twice as much as I had. I nodded and immediately wished I hadn't as the pounding in my head only got worse.

"Yeah. I just need everything to stop moving though and it'll be okay."

He chuckled and sat down next to me. He was very close, and I could smell firewhiskey on his breath, which only made me feel more nauseous. I tried to scoot away, but he put an arm around me, holding me to his side. I could feel him looking down at me and tried to ignore him. I had a feeling he was going to start talking about his feelings, and I couldn't handle that after as many drinks as I'd had. Instead, he lifted my chin up to him with his other hand.

"Ellie," he breathed, and I tried to twist away.

This was worse than talking about feelings. He leaned down and his lips met mine in a crashing, desperate way. I pushed him back and stood up far too quickly and had to grab the wall for support.

"Seamus, I ―" Before I could get the next words out, he had stood up as well, his body now blocking my view of the rest of the room.

"It's okay, love, I understand." I felt relieved that he knew I only thought of him as a friend. That had become perfectly clear the moment he kissed me. But then he continued, "I understand if this is too public. But it's alright, everyone else is sloshed too."

Without giving me a chance to respond, he pressed himself to me once again. His hand was creeping towards the hem of my dress, pushing it up and running his hand along my thigh. I felt the bile rising in my stomach and twisted my hands in his hair, trying to pull him off. He apparently thought this was a move of passion, however, and reciprocated, his free hand lodging in my curls while his other continued making its way up my leg.

My alcohol muddled brain began panicking, and I did the only thing I could think of ― I bit his lip, hard, hard enough that I could taste his blood. He jumped back and swore, and I took that opportunity to run. I sprinted across the common room, kicking my heels off as I went. People called after me in concern, but I didn't stop. I could hear him running after me, calling my name, and I let out a dry sob. What the hell was happening? My inebriation finally became too much and I tripped, sprawling out on the ground. I felt a pain shoot up my leg and I cried out. Hands pulled me up and my leg collapsed under me, and I still screamed and tried to fight Seamus off.

But it wasn't him.

A drawling voice spoke instead of one with an Irish accent. "Bloody hell, Mousseau, calm down or we'll be caught. Merlin, what happened to you?"

I tried to answer his question but my words came out slurred and weak.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed and flashed. "Are you fucking plastered right now?" I mumbled out an answer and he swore before picking me up off the ground. He held me cradled to his chest and the world continued spinning as he walked with me, carrying me as though I weighed nothing.

"Why is there blood on your face? Where are your shoes?" I ignored both of those questions and tried to ask where he was taking me, but all that came out was a jumbled

"Whur we goin'?"

He just swore again and continued walking. "Somewhere safe."

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