I'm not even going to BEGIN to apology for the massive delay. I only hope that my dedicated readers have not abandoned me.

Arra awoke from the strangest dream the next morning. In the dream, she had left Harry, the boy of her dreams, standing in the Great Hall alone as she went off to kiss Draco Malfoy.

Slowly, she sat up in bed and rubbed her tired eyes before taking in her surroundings.

"Oh shit," She breathed. Arra was still in her emerald green ball gown, her hand immediately went to her neck…where the necklace from Draco still hung. The events from the past night came flooding back to her and she began to panic a bit. Wildly, she tore open the curtains, and discovered that everyone in the Dormitory had already gone down to breakfast.

Quickly, she got up out of bed, smoothing her dress as she sat down in front of the mirror and took in her appearance. It was deplorable. The curls in her hair had mostly fallen out, and were strewn about her head wildly. The fancy clips and pins were nowhere near their original places and she was positive she had lost at least a few in last night's events. Aside from her hair being a complete mess, she looked fairly decent-except for her face. Her eyes were puffy and red, from crying no doubt. Makeup smeared all down her cheeks, stained with tears. After coming back to the dormitory, she remembered that she lay down in bed and the tears began to flow from her eyes. She cried silently though, so silently in fact, she almost forgot it happened altogether. But after seeing her face again, she remembered. Vividly remembered. And once again, she began to feel the familiar sting behind her eyes that were a forewarning for the tears.

She let out the first sob and let the guilt finally crush down on her. She had done the one thing she had been afraid of, fell for the bad guy. She had the most wonderful boy at her will last night, everyone happy with the relationship and approving of it, and she went and screwed it all up.

What in Merlin's name was she going to do? How was she going to tell everyone? How would they react? And who should she choose?

On one hand, there was Harry Potter. The boy who lived. The chosen one. The boy that girls would kill to be able to tell their parents they went to the dance with the kid who defeated the Dark Lord. He was her best friend, and he knew her like nobody else did. And she loved him. She wasn't in love with him, but she did love him, and she knew that one day she possibly could be in love with him. And he had feelings for her as well…Or so she thought. He did ask Cho to the dance before her, did he not? Thus the basis of their whole argument last night.

And on the other hand, there was Draco Malfoy. The mysterious, dangerous, sexy Slytherin who had been her friend long before Harry was ever in the picture. And as well as Harry knew Arra, Draco knew the sides of her that even she didn't want to know. Her dark sides. The sides that made her a Slytherin at first. But he accepted her for them, in fact, sometimes he even supported it, which scared Arra a bit. But the fact that he fought for her against Harry and every other guy out there outshined the bad things about him. When Harry would break her heart, Draco was there to put it back together. It sometimes seemed like they belonged together. But then again, Draco was a Slytherin, he might not be too fond of the idea of openly dating a Gryffindor. Arra knew his family wouldn't approve.

And so here sat Arra, wiping her eyes with a tissue, her crying over for now, with a very difficult choice to make.

Arra skipped breakfast that day, and rather took a walk down to the lake. Eventually, she came across the tree where her and Harry sat last night. Scowling at it, she stared at it with her arms crossed. "Nature sucks." She said to the tree, as if last night was it's fault.

The tree continued to stand there, being all beautiful and majestic. It made Arra sick. She ran forward and kicked it, "OUCH!" She grabbed her foot as pain shot through her toes up her leg. Jumping up and down, she eventually fell down on her bum and, in frustration, just lay down in the snow and sighed.

"There you are, Arra!" A voice shouted at her a few minutes later and her head shot up, eyes wide. Hermione was walking towards her, books in hand. She plopped down in the snow next to her and immediately started chatting away, "Did you have breakfast yet?" She asked as she held out and apple.

Arra sat up and shook her head, taking the apple and biting in to it, "You didn't go down to the Great Hall?" She said, her mouth full of fruit.

"No, I spent all morning in the library."

Arra scrunched up her nose, "Why?"

Hermione flipped through pages of her book a bit more violently than necessary, "I didn't want to run in to anyone that I don't want to see at this point in time."

Arra crunched into her apple again, "You mean the ginger kid."

Hermione flashed her eyes, "Yes. Ronald was a bit of a pain last night."

"Why, what happened?"

Now it was Hermione's turn to look confused, "You don't know?"

Arra shook her head, "If you remember, I was a bit preoccupied last night."

Hermione pursed her lips, "Oh, yes. How could I forget. But anyways, I was having a right good time with Viktor until Ron started acting like a complete arse about it! 'Fraternizing with the enemy!' He's so childish! It was completely ridiculous and unnecessary!"

Arra smirked, "Oh, yes, because it is sooo unlike Ron to be childish and unnecessary!" She said with a sarcastic tone.

Hermione scowled, "You," she pointed at her with her quill, "have NO room to talk, Miss I-can-kiss-whoever-I-want-with-no-consequences!"

Arra gave a half smile, "That seems a bit long, may we decide on something shorter?"

Hermione put down the quill, "Arra, this is serious. What are you going to do?"

"First, I'm going to finish this apple," she swallowed down the last bite, "And then…I haven't planned that far in the future."

"So are you and Malfoy er…together now? Like, are you two a thing?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

"Are you and Harry still a thing then?"

"I don't know."

"Are you going to tell Harry about last night?"

"I don't know."

"Gosh, Arra, what do you know?"

"The ABC's backwards." She said seriously as Hermione stared at her incredulously. "No, for real, I really do know that."

Hermione was not amused, "This is important. I don't think you realize that."

Arra shook her head, "Hermione, I realize that it's important. I honestly just don't know what to do about it. I mean, when things get serious, usually I just ignore it until it goes away…but that doesn't really seem like a likely solution at this point."

Hermione furiously continued scribbling on her paper and sighed. "Arra, you are ridiculous."

Arra looked down in to her lap, "Sorry…" She looked at Hermione with a small smile, waiting for her best friend to look back at her.

Hermione peeked out of the corner of her eye, saw Arra, and scowled even more. In response, Arra scooted closer to her, all the while staring at her with that signature smile. Without looking up, Hermione said, "Stop looking at me."

"I'm not looking at you," Arra said, keeping her eyes on Hermione, "I'm looking at the button on your shirt. It's mesmerizing…"

Hermione huffed and finally stared back at Arra, a furious look in here eyes, only to see Arra holding back laughter. "How are you laughing at a time like this?"

For the first time in the conversation, Arra looked serious, "Hermione, I've had way to much bad stuff happen in my short life to not appreciate the small things that make me smile. I have to laugh at things, for fear of being stuck with a frown for the rest of my life. And for me, that means going back to the 'Old Arra'."

Both girls knew that "Old Arra" meant Slytherin Arra. Mean, angry, muggle-hating Arra. Hermione's face softened, "We both know that you'll never be like that again."

Arra stared out at the lake with a sad face and sighed, "I don't know."

After her talk with Hermione, Arra headed up to her dormitory and plopped down in her desk chair. She snatched a piece of parchment and a quill and began to write:

Dear Dad,

FOREWARNING: The contents of this letter are confidential! I send you these thoughts only because I consider you to be a cool dad, and not uptight and parental!

So, the ball really wasn't as fun as I hoped it would be. But I did really enjoy the dress, I definitely looked much hotter than all the other girls. But I'm probably sure that's not what you want to hear from your daughter. Although, your parenting skills aren't quite up to standard, so you might be extremely proud that your daughter put all those other uglies to shame! Ugh, I'm sorry, that was kinda mean to say. But I don't care, I'm having a bad day! I won't go in to details, but let's just say I did something I didn't mean to do. Don't worry, you're not going to be a grandfather or anything, so don't get your wand in a knot! I just don't think that things between me and Harry are going to work out. He just doesn't seem to want this as bad as I do. Although, I did kiss another boy so that may be part of it…but it's mostly scar-face's fault!

This letter is really strange…But I'm in a strange mood lately. Anyways, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and that Kreacher made you a good dinner, because we both know you can't cook worth a damn.

Write back soon, hopefully with advice,

Arra

Arra read over the letter and frowned, her father was going to think she was crazy. She shrugged and sealed the letter. Pulling on her boots, she made her way to the Owlery to borrow one of the school's owls. She stared at the ground the whole way, lost in her thoughts, until she bumped into a figure.

"Oops, sorry! Wasn't looking where I was going-" She stopped abruptly when she saw who it was she had hit. "Bloody hell, what are you doing here?"

"I'm allowed to go wherever I want in the castle, thank you very much." Draco Malfoy smirked down at her.

Arra pushed past him and continued up the stairs to the Owlery, "Stupid boys," She muttered.

Draco spun around in surprise and continued after here, "Whoa, what's wrong?"

Arra shook her head and kept walking, "So many things…"

"Like what? Nothing was wrong last night!"

Arra turned on her heel so she was staring right into Malfoy's face, "I messed up last night. So forget about it."

"How am I just supposed to forget about that? You kissed me and admitted that you felt something for me!"

Arra opened her mouth to respond but just ended up frowning, "Well, I didn't mean to!"

Malfoy scowled, "Is this because of Potter?"

"Partly…but it's also because being together wouldn't be good for either of us! I'm in Gryffindor, you're in Slytherin!"

"Oh, come on! It's like that whole "forbidden love" thing!" Draco provided, like a little kid.

Arra put her finger up, right in his face, "One! This," she gestured to them, "is not love. Two! This is also not a good idea." She whirled around to walk around.

But not before Malfoy shot his arm out, caught her, and spun her around to place his lips on hers. Sparks started to fly in Arra's head and her skin got hot, even though it was below freezing outside. Their mouths moved in unison, as if they were made for each other. Slowly, their kissing became more tender before Draco finally pulled away and put his forehead against hers, "How can you say that is not good?" He whispered.

Arra let out a shaky breath, "You have got to stop doing that!"

Draco smirked and looked into her dark eyes, "No."