AUTHOR'S NOTE: So here's another chapter, I don't have much to say except thanks to my one reviewer: Brook-Lucas-Fan-23.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.

Adrienne leaned against the wrought iron fence opposite the scarlet steam engine, crossed her arms across her chest, and sighed. The curtains on the box of the train she and her friends had been on were simultaneously pulled down, startling Adrienne. However, she brushed the thought from her mind, seeing as it was none of her business. The Slytherin sixth year closed her dark brown eyes and exhaled slowly. She allowed her mind to wonder back to the words that Draco had uttered a few moments ago: There's nothing there. For some reason, she was amused by his statement; his need to reassure her. He'd felt the need to apologize to her, that was a Draco Malfoy apology, for something as silly as Pansy flirting with him. Everyone with eyes, excluding Pansy - and if she knew she hid it well, knew that Draco had no interest in her. Yes, they were betrothed, but there were not an item, as the kids called it; they weren't dating, just forced to marry for monetary reasons. He was doing nothing wrong by having Pansy touch his hand. However, she did understand why he felt the need to say that.

"Andy," he called to her using a nickname that only he and her brother under.

The chocolate skinned girl opened her dark eyes and pushed herself off the fence behind her, pulling her satchel higher up on her shoulder. Draco hadn't stopped walking when he got off the train, or when he called out to her, so he was a good distance ahead of her. Adrienne, who usually took small quick steps, had to take larger, longer steps to catch up with him. She was slightly out of breath when she caught up with him, and her satchel seemed to weight a ton. Almost as if he'd read her thoughts, Draco reached over and took her satchel from her shoulder and placed it on his.

"Thank you," said Adrienne, very surprised by his gentlemanly and sweet action.

He said nothing, just continued to walk, a small smirk on his thin lips. She dare not ask what he did on the train, and he wouldn't tell her until he wanted her to know, so the two sixth years walked to the school, seeing as they'd missed the carriages to the school, and wouldn't be caught riding the boats over with the first years. Draco's hands were in his pocket and he walked next to the girl, his grey eyes trained to the brightly lit castle in front of them. He was thinking, she could tell.

"Where have you been?" Professor Snape roared as the two approached the gates. The darkly cloaked Professor stopped inches away from the gate ad tapped the padlock once, and stepped away as the chains snaked back into the lock.

"Taking care of business," Draco said. Adrienne sighed and shrugged her shoulders when Snape turned his eyes to her. She reached out and grabbed Draco's arm and pulled him through the gates roughly.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," Adrienne apologized.

Professor Flitwick stood at the gate with a list, "Names?"

"Zabini, Adrienne and Malfoy, Draco," Adrienne said as she watched the small man check their names off on the list.

"Nice face, Potter," Draco taunted as he stopped walking to look at Harry.

Adrienne rolled her eyes and snorted as she walked away from Draco and towards the castle. Behind her Snape and Draco were glaring at one another, having some sort of silent conversation with their eyes, and Luna Lovegood and the Great Harry Potter were holding a conversation, and she didn't want to take part in any of it. She reached over to pull her satchel back on to her shoulder and realized in surprise that it wasn't there. The dark-skinned girl stated to go through the beginning stages of a panic attack as she looked around trying to find her satchel. Her wand was in that satchel, she was defenseless without her wand. She was just like those muggle girls that get attacked because they can't defend themselves. She was now a damsel in distress.

"Hey," Draco said coolly as he approached the panicking Adrienne. "Having some issues, Zabini?" She turned to glare at him, and found that her brown satchel was on his shoulder. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion and then the light bulb in her head went off. He'd taken it from her when they started walking to the castle. Off impulse, she reached into the bag and pulled out her wand, cradling it in her arms like a baby. "Defiantly, having some issues; would you like you satchel back?" She shook her head and pushed her wand into the bag again and flipped it close.

The two entered the castle and then the Great Hall, where the sorting had just ending and the hat was speaking about being strong in troubled times. Draco took his usual seat next to Crabbe and Goyle and across from her brother and Pansy. Adrienne walked a little further down the table and took a seat next to one of her other, less Draco Malfoy obsessed, dorm mates, Melanie Chase.

"Hey, Mel," Adrienne said as she slipped into the seat and poked her fork into the meatball on her friend's plate.

"Addy," Melanie responded as she hit Adrienne's hand with the flat side of her butter knife. "I got you a plate," she added and pointed with her knife at the filled plate before Adrienne.

"Thanks," the young Zabini said before she stabbed her own meatball and chewed on it.

"So you and Malfoy," Melanie started carefully, her voice just above a whisper.

"Yes," Adrienne replied popping a green grape into her mouth.

"I'm sure Pansy's upset about that."

"You know she is. She really just needs to get over it. How'd you find out?" Adrienne asked, her right eye brown lifted.

"The pure-blood Wizarding world is small, Addy. People talk."

"Of course, they do."

"The very best of evenings to you!" Dumbledore said as he opened his arms to the entire hall.

"Look at his hand," Melanie hissed.

The Headmaster's right arm was blacked, as if it were dead. Whispers moved across the Great Hall, and Dumbledore never missing a beat shook his arm and covered the dead flesh with his sleeve. "Nothing to worry about," he said to the Great Hall, and continued with his welcome speech. However, Adrienne didn't dismiss the dead-looking skin on the old man's arm, and when she glanced down the table, she was sure that Draco hadn't missed it, because his steely grey eyes were looking into her dark brown ones. He looked as if he was about to stand, but the young Zabini mouthed, Later, and he settled back into the seat.

"What later?" Mel asked, wanting to be a part of the group.

"I can't say," Adrienne said, choosing her words carefully. Melanie pouted. "Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle don't know either, so you shouldn't feel left out."

Melanie pouted and sighed. "I never know anything."

Adrienne chose not to have that argument with Melanie again and turned her ears to Dumbledore's voice just as he said, "We are pleased to welcome a new staff member this year, Professor Slughorn" - the fat man from the compartment stood – "as the new Potions master."

Adrienne coughed a little as her Pumpkin juice went down the wrong pipe. "Potions; what about Snape?"

"Professor Snape, meanwhile, will take the place of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor," Dumbledore had to raise his voice to continue over the muttering. More muttering ensued and he knew that speaking at the moment would be pointless. So he gave the student body a moment to voice their surprise.

Adrienne stood and stepped over the bench and pulled her friend with her. The girl walked down to the spot where Goyle and Crabbe were sitting and tapped their shoulders, "Move," she demanded. For a moment they sat looking at her dumbly. "I said, move," she told him again. The two boys then stood and allowed the two girls to take their seats.

"Hello," Melanie said as she took Goyle's seat, seeing as Adrienne had already slipped into the seat by Draco and the two were having a silent conversation. Blaise muttered a simple hello and then Pansy decided to tell Melanie all about her summer break, a subject that Mel had no interest in. Instead of listening, she braided her dark black hair and waited for her voice to stop.

"Looks like Snape finally got his wish," Adrienne said, stopping Pansy's talking and signaling that she and Draco's conversation was over.

"That's a good thing for us, right?" Melanie asked. "We won't have that easy passing grade in Potions anymore, but now it'll be in DADA."

"I suppose so," Blaise answered, eying the fork that Draco was levitating with his wand.

Adrienne took the fork from her brother's plate and held it over the pineapple on his plate, "Can I?" she asked quietly, so quietly that she was sure he was the only one that heard her. He nodded and she lowered the fork into the bright yellow fruit and chewed on it as her brother and Melanie continued to talk.

"Eleven," Draco said suddenly and quietly.

Adrienne nodded as Dumbledore dismissed the hall to their dormitories. In the background, she could hear the clock strike nine o'clock. Adrienne and Melanie rushed out of the hall just as they had every year since first year. Of course, in their first year they didn't know that there was a password, so they were running about the dungeons before Marcus Flint, a family friend, can to bring them to the right place and tell them the password. However, since then she'd always been friends with a perfect and got the password before school.

When the two reached the wall at the end of the corridor, Adrienne stepped forward and said, "Puer," and then stepped back as the wall opened and revealed the common room to them. A low-ceilinged, dungeon-like room with greenish lamps and black leather chairs appeared before them. The room had a green tinge to it, seeing as the dorms and the back part of the common room were under the Black Lake. One wall was dominated by a large black marble fireplace with a large painting of the house founder, Salazar Slytherin - dead center above the fire place, and smaller but still larger pictures of the other heads of the house Professor Snape and Professor Slughorn. Adrienne sighed. This felt like home; more so than her own home did. She'd grown up here; this was her home.

Adrienne and Melanie raced to the black leather sofa towards the back off the common room. This was their favorite spot to sit, because of the window that looked directly into the lake, not over it, but into the lake. There was some sort of charm on the window to keep it from breaking and flooding the Slytherin common room killing them all. If you sat and looked out the window long enough, then you might get lucky and see a merperson swim by or the giant squid. Adrienne and Melanie had yet to spot that latter.

"So what's it like?" Melanie asked as she and Adrienne settled into the leather sofa. The Zabini's eyebrow arched, showing that she didn't understand what she meant. "Being engaged and all," the girl clarified as the common room slowly started to fill.

"Betrothed," Adrienne corrected as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Engaged is by choice, and it's the same. I mean, he doesn't treat me any different. I think Blaise is a little," the dark skinned girl struggled to find a word that suited her brother's emotion about the topic, "angry, for lack of a better word, about it." She looked over her shoulder and smiled. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear," she drawled as Draco and Blaise sat down on the sofa opposite of the girls.

"Taking about me, Andy?" Blaise questioned.

"What did you do with Pansy?" Adrienne asked changing the subject.

"Told her I was tired of her following me around, so she left with that girl, Taylor, or something," Draco said.

"Taylyn," Melanie corrected.

"Poor Taylyn, she doesn't know what she's in for," Adrienne drawled as she looked down at her nails.

"No one knows what they are in for," drawled Draco.

There was a morbid look exchanged between Adrienne and Draco. Both Blaise and Melanie exchanged looks and sighed. They knew that they were out of the loop on this one. Draco and Adrienne shared something that Mel and Blaise, even though he too was a Death Eater, did. The Dark Lord's trust; neither of the other two knew how it felt to have someone so powerful and all-knowing trust you so much. The pressure, although she'd never tell anyone, was keeping her up at night. She'd never admit that she was that weak. There were people that had to kill other wizards, by order of the Dark Lord, and they'd competed their task and go to sleep at night. So how could she ever admit that befriending a Professor in the school was keeping her up at night?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The password for the Common Room, puer is a geomantic figure that means 'the boy' and refers to male energies, primarily aggression and passion, but also war. I though it was fitting. I read that the password changes every two weeks, so when the password changes don't get all freaked out and stuff. Review ladies and gentlemen, it makes me write faster.