Every single time I walked into that damn room of requirements to practice, I thought of him and that kiss. Draco Malfoy wasn't meant to be mine. I hated him. And the more he screwed with my mind, the more I hated him. Months had passed, but my lips still tingled when he walked by. I was worried about it, but I also had bigger things on my mind.

There was Harry's odd preoccupation with The Half Blood Prince's potions book. It was really worrying me. The Prince was, of course, talented at potions, and helping Harry out a lot, but he had one sick sense of humor, and I was sure that the Death Eaters using his precious Levicorpus spell wasn't a coincidence. I was just as sure that the rest of the spells in that book weren't nearly so friendly.

Then, there was Katie Bell getting cursed. Harry, of course, thought it was Draco. I wanted to defend him, but I didn't know why. Then, I'd get mad at myself for wanting to defend Malfoy and I'd take it out on whoever was around. Hermione appreciated it, she thought I was trying to be logical. The truth was, I didn't want it to be Draco. I wanted to give him a chance.

Last, there was Ron being poisoned. I figured the poison had been meant for Dumbledore. Nobody else had come to any sort of definite decision, but I couldn't see who at the school anybody else would want dead, other than Harry. There was a very grim possibility that the poison had been intended for him, but the chances of Harry drinking it were so very slim I didn't know who would make that gamble.

I was also dimly concerned about school. I was taking N.E.W.T. level Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Arithmacy, Astronomy, and Ancient Runes, as well as playing seeker on the Ravenclaw quidditch team and taking my usual extra classes with Flitwick and Snape. From first year, Flitwick been so impressed with my ability to cast flawless charms that he'd wanted me to take an additional course with him in which he would teach me very advanced magic. Snape had been likewise impressed with my instinctive talent at potion making. I'd already figured out a lot of the tips scrawled in the Prince's book before Harry had found it. Even though Snape didn't teach potions anymore, he simply refused to give me to Slughorn for these extra lessons. There were two other students who joined me in Potions, Malfoy and Terry. We all consistently produced perfect potions. I was the only one who would take shortcuts and defer from the directions on nearly every step. Malfoy would see about half the shortcuts I would, and Terry wouldn't see any, but his potions would still be completely flawless. With Flitwick, I was joined only by Ginny Weasley. Hermione was bitter that I took these extra lessons, but, to be fair, she took extra lessons in Arithmacy. I never told her, but I'd been offered a chance at those extra lessons. I'd rejected because I wanted her to have something over me. In addition to all of this, I had prefect duties. I was slowly going insane from lack of sleep.

Plus, I was going through a lot. My parents hadn't written me once all year. Ginny didn't have time for me because she was spending so much time with Dean. Ron and Hermione weren't speaking. Harry didn't have time for me, because he was spending so much of his time trying to smooth them over. My quidditch performance was suffering, and my team was suffering in response. And, to top it all off, Terry had recently declared his undying love for me. Again. And I'd rejected him. Again. So now he wasn't speaking to me. Again.

I'd begun randomly bursting into tears while doing homework or playing quidditch, or hanging out, even walking to class. That's how I ended up in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom that day. I'd burst into tears in the hallway and quickly ducked in there so that nobody would see me crying. That's when I realized that there was somebody in there crying already. I moved to duck out, but I then realized it was a boy. Not just any boy, Draco Malfoy.

"M-Malfoy?" I stuttered. He turned swiftly.

"Damnit, Trife, you scared the shit out of me," the Slytherin wiped his gray eyes quickly, but his shoulders were still shaking with the effort of his tears. I'd stopped crying.

"What wrong?" I asked cautiously.

"Nothing. Leave me alone."

"Liar. No." He let out one lonely sob and I ran at him and embraced him. He held me limply and cried.

"It's… I'm supposed to kill someone, River. And if I fail, then the Dark Lord is going to destroy my family and me. And I'm turning out just like my fucking father."

"No, you're not," He looked at me angrily and pulled up the sleeve of his robes.

"I am, look! Look at me! I'm marked. I took the fucking dark mark like the childish idiot I am. I wanted it! I wanted the power! I'm just like my father."

"You're nothing like your father,"

"How could you possibly know that? You don't know me."

"Because, Draco, the very reason you're going to kill this person is because of the one thing that sets you apart from your father, and Voldemort." He pulled away from me.

"Explain. Please." He demanded.

"Love. You're going to do it to save your family because you love them."

"Love! Dumbledore's favorite ace in the whole! Fucking love! I don't know what that is! Love for me is a quick blowjob in the dorm room! It's my parents hiring a maid so that they don't have to take care of me!"

"Nobody's ever shown you love. But you still feel it. You love your parents. You have an immense power to love. You know how I know that?"

"How?" The Slytherin prince raised his bloodshot silver eyes.

"The prophecy."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the dark prince," the idea had just occurred to me. "Aren't you? I mean, they call you that, the Death Eaters?"

"Yes. I'm the Harry Potter of the dark side."

"And I'm the well hidden muggle born princess."

"Yes,"

"Somehow, you and I are going to fall in love, Draco. I would have thought it completely impossible any year but this year. We're going to fall so deeply in love that neither of us will be able to live without the other. Do you know what that is?"

"No."

"Elemental magic. What the muggles call "soul mates." That's why every time I pass you, my lips tingle from that kiss. That's why, from the first time I saw you, I felt some sort of magnetic pull towards you. My mind hates you. My body hates you. My heart hates you. My soul needs you. And it's the same for you. Don't lie to me."

"It is. I couldn't lie to you,"

"Only one in a million people finds their true soul mate. It's only the people with the greatest power to love, and the greatest wealth of magic. It's a rare combination."

"Why is this so easy to believe? It's so far-fetched."

"Because it's true, perhaps the truest thing I've ever known."

"This is ridiculous, Trife. We can't be together. You're a mudblood and I'm a Malfoy. You're a Ravenclaw and I'm a Slytherin, you're friends with Harry Potter and I'm a Death Eater,"

"You think I want to think about you all the time, you cocky, son of a bitch, pureblood? I hate you. I really do. You're stuck up and you're rude to me and you're going to kill someone. We're not for each other. We just aren't. And it's not going to be easy. We're going to drive each other insane. But it's going to work out, no matter what. It'll have to.

"Damnit, you fucking insufferable, know it all mudblood! How can you say this so matter of factly? Don't you understand what a risk this puts me in with the Dark Lord? Don't you realize?"

"Yes. Yes I do. But it's not my fault. It never was. It never will be. In fact, if you'd never kissed me, it might have never happened. You don't get to blame it on me."

"And you don't get to blame it on me."

"Fair."

And he was looking at me like he hated me. And I was hurting and burning with shame and anger. And then he was kissing me like I'd never been kissed before. Like he needed to kiss me. Not just anybody, me. Like he needed to touch me. Like he needed me. But more than that, like he wanted me. And I'm not talking like he wanted to screw me, or like he wanted a blowjob or something. But like he wanted me to be right there. And I was kissing him back, and I was hoping that my kiss was telling him all the same things his kiss was telling me. And we were both bare and vulnerable. And we were both crying. And then the sound of the door knob turning broke us apart. He quickly shoved me into a stall and turned around to face the sink. He wiped the tears from his eyes, but his shoulders continued to shake. The door opened and somebody entered. I recognized the footsteps. There weren't an awful lot of people I knew that well. But he was one of them. The last person Draco Malfoy would want to see him crying. The last person I would want to see me kissing Draco Malfoy.

Harry Potter.

And Draco was vulnerable. And he didn't know it was Harry yet. And I wanted to warn him. Draco, not Harry. I wanted to protect Draco. I'd long since known that Harry could take care of himself. But Draco? I wasn't so sure he could. He wasn't strong like Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione. He wasn't strong like I was. He was weak because he'd been manipulated his whole life. He was weak because he'd never been allowed to make his own decisions. He was weak because his morals were not his own. He was weak. And Harry was strong. And I was scared. But I couldn't say a word. No doubt Draco thought that the person was someone he could scare into not telling, but it was Harry. A Gryffindor through and through. He was brave like no other. And Draco was a coward. He was a coward because his father had scared him his whole life.

And then Moaning Myrtle was talking to Draco, and Draco was responding and he still didn't know it was Harry. And Draco looked up, and he saw Harry. And he shot off a hex. Then they were fighting. And Draco was blocking Harry's curses, and Harry was blocking Draco's.

Then, Draco's face screwed up and he spoke

"Cruc-" No, not Cruciatus, not on Harry.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Harry yelled. And I knew it was a prince curse, and I knew that the wild waving of Harry's wand wasn't right. And suddenly, my Latin background kicked in and I knew what the curse would do before it happened. And I wanted to yell out as Draco's face and chest began to bleed, but I couldn't. I was too horrified. And I was scared for Draco, and angry at Harry, but I also knew that Harry would never have shot of that curse if he had known what it would do to Draco. Because I knew Harry, and he was such a good guy.

Then Snape was there, Snape, who I hated, Snape, who was a death eater, Snape, who was a traitor, Snape, who was healing Draco, that blessed, blessed man. And Snape was saying something about the hospital wing and scarring. I knew that even with scarring, Draco would be the most beautiful man in the world to me. And, suddenly, Snape was taking Draco away and I wanted to call out to him to leave Draco near me, I wanted to tell him that I would make him better, that I was enough. That even if I hated Draco, his soul needed me. That even if his body needed Madame Pomfrey's immediate care, his soul needed my immediate care. But I couldn't say that.

And I was silently charming Harry so that he wouldn't be able to see or hear, and I was running out of the bathroom just as Snape was walking in. I released the charms I'd put on Harry, and I looked into Snape's face.

"I trust that you had no involvement in this incident, Miss Trife, please, go visit Draco in the hospital wing, he was practically begging for your presence the whole way up. Not to worry, no one else will hear of it from me." and he strode into the bathroom, and I knew that Harry was in for a world of hurt, but I didn't care. I didn't care. I wanted Draco. I wanted to see him. I wanted to know he was okay. No, I needed Draco; I needed to see him; I needed to know he was okay.