Author's Note: I own nothing! Warning, Alex uses a lot of language in this chapter so ye be warned.

Chapter 18 Physical and Emotional Injuries

Alex didn't come back for some time. She had to use her invisibility necklace so as not to get caught after curfew. Her friends were waiting up for her with curious expressions on their faces. Alex, however, didn't want to talk about anything that happened in the Potion's room.

"Harry," she said as she entered, "Have you figured out the clue yet?"

"No," said Harry embarrassedly, "Not yet, but I will."

Alex nodded and went straight to bed, not wanting to give her friends a chance to ask questions.

The next day was spent in the library working on homework. Eventually they managed to get it done, thanks to Alex and Hermione's help. Alex suggested they go for a walk around the snowy grounds.

They had arrived in the common room to get their warm clothes and Alex saw Maggie sniggering as she read a copy of the Daily Prophet. The girl looked up as they entered and sneered.

"Hey Ratty!" Maggie shouted. It seemed she finally came up with a nickname for her, "Have you read this morning's Prophet? Your large friend is in it!"

Alex ripped the paper out of Maggie's hands and scanned the page, Maggie watching her with an evilly gleeful expression. Rita Skeeter had written an article about Hagrid being half-giant! What was worse, Mr. Malfoy had given a blurb about when Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak had, "almost ripped my poor son's arm off". There was also a statement from, big surprise, Maggie saying, "I guess I know why it was so hard to understand him, he was trying to talk to us in his native language by grunting and pointing at things." The article concluded saying that Dumbledore was mad to give someone so reckless and dangerous teaching students.

"Well?" said Maggie, "I guess you didn't know your buddy was so vicious, huh?"

"Can it already!" shouted Alex and tried to launch herself on her enemy but a struggling Harry and Ron managed to hold her back. As Maggie ran off laughing Alex shouted, "Troll's point and grunt at things you moron! If you can't even tell the difference then just shut your ungodly, lopsided mouth!"

It took Alex ten minutes to calm down enough for her to be released. She kept threatening to track Maggie down and jinx her into oblivion. When the boys finally released her, Alex was determined more than ever to go and see Hagrid. Quickly they bundled up and went out. They reached Hagrid's door and Ron knocked…no answer. Harry knocked with Ron…still nothing. Finally Alex moved up and began banging on the door, the boys stepping aside so as not to get in her way.

"Hagrid! It's Alex, Harry, Ron, and Hermione…Open up! Please Hagrid, we want to see you! We don't care if you're full, part, or not even close to being a giant! Come on Hagrid…If you don't open this door I swear I'll break it down! You know the full extent of my temper and you really don't wanna mess with me now!"

She was just about to bang on the door again when it opened. It was Professor Dumbledore who was standing there smiling, not Hagrid. Alex felt her face grow hot as she backed away, lowering her fist that was raised to bang the door.

"Professor, I didn't know you were in there. We just-"

"I heard you well enough, Miss Ratcliff," said Dumbledore with a laugh, "In fact, I think half the castle heard you. Come in."

The four of them entered and saw Hagrid sitting at his kitchen table with a tablecloth-sized handkerchief in his hands. Alex went over to him and gave him a hug.

"Hagrid," she whispered, "No one cares about what's in your blood. Look at all the Muggle-borns and half-bloods and pure-bloods that are here and live together semi-peacefully."

"I've already gott'n a letter from the Malfoy's sayin' they would pull out their son if Dumbledore didn't sack me," said Hagrid sorrowfully, "An' I'm sure there are others thinkin' just like tha'."

"Let me rephrase what I just said," said Alex with a touch of winter in her voice, "All the people who matter don't care. There were bound to be people who would say stuff like that."

"See Hagrid," said Dumbledore, "Just like I told you, your friends will treat you as they normally would. Isn't that all that matters? Now, I expect you to be teaching on Monday, and if not I will have to, as they say, "sack you". Good day, everyone!"

Dumbledore winked at them all and left. Hagrid took a gigantic, shaky sigh and seemed to cheer up a little. They ate lunch with him until Alex said she had to go back to the castle and finish adding the ingredients to the potion. They said their good-byes and headed down to the dungeons, her friends wanting to see what exactly she did down there.

"It's nothing special really," she told them as she began putting the dried up leaves into the mixture, "It's just like class only more-"

The door opened and Draco came in with Pansy hanging on his arm. Alex stared at the two of them, extremely confused.

"What are you doing here?" Pansy said as she was asking the same question.

"I'm adding the ingredients," said Alex coldly, "Just like the git asked me to so he could spend time with you, his girlfriend."

"We were walking by and I decided to see if you had done it yet," said Draco in an annoyingly superior voice that had always never failed to make Alex's blood boil, "After all, it's past twenty-four hours. The potion may be ruined because of you."

Alex was furious now. Everyone could see it in her eyes. Everything that had happened before, and now this? No one, no one ever told Alex that she was the reason for ruining a potion, especially when they knew how much effort she put into her work. However, she calmly stood up and turned to her friends, saying, "Could you excuse us for a minute?"

Ron, Hermione, and Harry didn't need telling twice; they knew when Alex was this angry to stay well away from the line of fire. They quickly departed and Alex turned her fiery eyes on Pansy, who got the message and left without a word. Once the door was shut, Alex kept her calm demeanor, though just barely.

"Sit," she said and he did, "All right, no one's here so tell me…what the bloody hell is your freakin' issue?"

"What do you mean?" Draco asked with a cocky smile that made Alex all the angrier.

"I mean that!" she cried, pointing at his smile, "You've gone back to being a jerk, a stupid jerk who thinks that just because his dad is so high and mighty that he can walk all over everyone around him! I thought you changed, I gave you another fucking chance for Merlin's sake, even after Hermione told me not to. But did I listen to her? No, because I really thought you were different than every other Slytherin I've met. I guess I was wrong, and you know what? I've never been so sorry to be wrong before in my life." She waited for him to say something, to deny he was being a jerk, to defend himself. She wouldn't have minded if he even tried to speak. He just sat there with his arms folded looking…bored!

"You know what? To hell this!" she snapped and took the potion and dumped in into the sink, "I am not going to sit around and let you act like you own me! The way you treated me yesterday and today is not the Draco Malfoy I know. And if this is how you're going to be from now on, I want nothing to do with you. You could rot in hell and I wouldn't give a damn!"

She stormed to the door and paused, feeling all the hurt burning inside her. Not trusting herself to look at him, she said, "Snape talked to me too, you know. He said that we should end this great friendship we had just because of what our families think. I didn't even give it a second thought because…I really enjoyed the time we spent hanging out. You weren't such a pain in the ass like you usually are."

She finally looked at him and saw a change in his demeanor. He was looking at her so sorrowfully that she faltered a little.

"L-Look, if you didn't want to be friends you should have said something in the beginning. I would have preferred you being honest with me than this. Good-bye Draco."

She reached for the door handle but he was out of his chair and holding her other hand.

"You want me to be honest? Well, here it goes," he said in a rush, as though she would listen if he said it quickly, "Snape told my dad everything and my dad told me that if I didn't stop this all, he'd…he'd make sure your uncle never worked again, at the Ministry or anywhere else. He also said that he would personally make sure that your life outside of Hogwarts was anything but easy."

"But why?" she asked, "We're not hurting anyone!"

"We're hurting my father's reputation," said Malfoy with a slight edge to his tone, "Remember I told you my father doesn't want me to attract unwanted attention on him? The son of the most powerful pure-blood associating with a Gryffindor who's practically considered a Muggle in Slytherin eyes? That screams unwanted attention.

"But Alex, believe me, I like being friends with you," he said, seeming to become more desperate to make her understand with each word, "Merlin, you're the only person in this school I think who keeps me from going insane! All my life, I've lived in this little safety bubble, never knowing what's happening to people different from me. Since we've been friends, I know how Muggle-borns are treated, how horrible some Slytherins are to others. I…I don't want to go back to being ignorant of all that."

"Then don't," said Alex, a mischievous smile spreading across her face, "No one has to know we've made up, that we're back to normal. The entire dungeon probably heard me yelling at you just a few minutes ago, who's to tell them that we forgave and forgot? I'll pretend I'm refusing to have lessons with you, you just complain to Snape about how arrogant and selfish I am and he'll "force" me to come back. This way, we'll still have the lessons and no one has to know we're still friends."

"Then you forgive me," Draco asked hopefully, "For everything I said and did?"

"Yes, I do. And I'm sorry I verbally assaulted you. You know how nasty my temper can be," she said and they both smiled, "But I have to know, is that really the watch Pansy gave you?"

"No actually," said Draco, looking at the watch, "But she did give me one exactly like this one so she thinks I'm wearing hers. I don't think we need to say anything."

"That would just break her microscopic heart," said Alex sarcastically, "Let's just add the finishing touches to our plan." She waited a few seconds and finally shouted, "Listen Malfoy! Don't even try to apologize, I guess Hermione was right, you'll never stop being a slimy Slytherin who's been raised like a prince! I thought you changed, that you were different!"

"Nice," he whispered before shouting back, "Are you just going to walk out of here? I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be the courageous ones? I guess I was wrong about you too."

"At least my house isn't a breeding ground for dark wizards!" Alex shouted, trying not to laugh, "I'm leaving before your dark magic rubs off on me! Good-bye Malfoy and good riddance!"

"See you later then?" Draco asked, chuckling quietly behind a hand.

"Yeah, Snape should be forcing me back in a few days."

She looked down and realized her hand was still in his. Chuckling, Alex let go and set her face in an angry expression before storming out of the room and slamming the door behind her. She ran out of the dungeon and up to the Entrance Hall, where she stopped and saw her friends waiting anxiously.

"What happened in there?" Hermione asked nervously as Alex walked over to them, still pretending to be in a fury.

"I'm not setting foot down in that dungeon with him ever again!" snapped Alex as they went to the common room, "He really thinks he's all that and a bag of Bertie Botts beans!"

They were walking down a corridor when Cedric Diggory appeared. He walked up to Harry and asked to have a word with him. His friends watched as Harry was led away from them. When Harry came back, he seemed annoyed by something but didn't say a word until they reached the common room.

"He told me to use the Prefect's bathroom," said Harry, "Said to take the egg with me and "mull it over in the hot water", like I'm supposed to know what to do!"

"Well, it can't hurt to try," said Alex, "I mean, what do you have to lose?"

That night, Harry used the Invisibility Cloak to go to the Prefect's bathroom. Hermione, Ron, and Alex waited up for him while they did their homework. Alex was reading over Ron's final essay when Harry came back, looking wet and triumphant.

"I got it!" he said excitedly, "It needed to be underwater for us to hear anything but screeches. The clue was, "Come see us where are voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground. An hour long you have to look, to recover what we took." There's merpeople in the lake that are going to take something and I need to get it back in an hour's time."

"That's great and all," said Ron, "But I don't think you can just take a deep breath and go down there for an hour."

"We'll think about that tomorrow," said Hermione, "Right now, let's go to bed. School starts up again tomorrow, remember?"

"No, but thanks for the reminder, Hermione," said Harry dryly.

…...

With school back in session, thoughts of the vacation slowly were replaced with spells and ingredients. Alex was held back after her first Potion's lesson so Snape could tell her that he expected her to return to the lessons that Friday. He insinuated there would be trouble if she ignored him. During her Arithmancy class, Alex completely ignored Nick while Draco and Hermione made sure he never had a chance to talk to her. It felt as though she had her own personal body guards and was grateful to her two friends for that. She didn't want to have to deal with Nick anymore but didn't know how to handle the situation without putting herself at risk.

Anytime not spent working on schoolwork, the four Gryffindors were trying to figure out the hardest question of all: How do you breathe underwater for an hour without drowning? They spent hours on end searching the shelves for anything that might be of any use. As the day of the second task drew nearer and nearer, Harry was beginning to get nervous.

The day before the task was a Thursday and Alex planned to skip her lesson with Snape to help Harry scourer the library for the millionth time. The last class of the day was Defense Against the Dark Arts. As the bell rang, Moody told Alex to stay back.

"Go on to the library," Alex whispered to her friends, not knowing if Harry was allowed to have them help, "I'll meet you there."

They nodded and ran off, leaving Alex alone with Professor Moody. It was some time before he spoke.

"Still no luck with the second task, eh?"

Alex froze. She was pretty sure she wasn't allowed to help Harry with anything having to do with the tasks.

"Relax," Moody said, waving his arm, "I won't rat you out, but I will say this. You're a pretty good potions brewer, am I right?"

"I like to think so, sir," said Alex.

"There's an ingredient that would be useful," said Moody, "In fact, I happen to have a book about it right here."

He handed her a book and Alex flipped to the first page. It talked about gillyweed, a type of weed found in the depths of freshwater lakes. Its main purpose was to allow humans to breath underwater for approximately one hour. Alex looked up at Professor Moody happily. This was it, a way for Harry to breathe underwater and not drown!

"Thank you, sir," said Alex joyfully and was turning to leave when he called out to her.

"The potion's storeroom is a great place," he said, "Full of ingredients that could be helpful."

He winked and Alex ran out of the classroom. She first went to drop off her bag in the dormitory and sped to the library. She was just about to enter when a cold voice stopped her.

"And where are you going, Miss Ratcliff?"

Snape was striding toward her. Alex looked through the window and saw her friends reading tons of books, books they didn't even need because she knew the answer.

"I just need to look something up for Care of Magical Creatures," she said.

"No, I think you were trying to skip our lesson," he said, his lip curling, "Come along now, we have a lot of work to do."

Casting a look back to the library, Alex was forced to follow Snape into the dungeons. This time, they practiced dueling. Alex felt she was getting better, but as she did so, Snape worked her more ragged. He sent a spell that broke Alex's Shield Charm and Alex stumbled into a shelf full of empty vials. As Alex struggled to her feet, one of the glass pieces cut into her arm. She gasped in pain as blood flowed freely from the deep wound. At first, Snape didn't stop dueling, saying it was just a scratch. Finally, however, when he saw the amount of blood dripping onto his floor, he lowered his wand to the floor and the mess vanished. He then handed her a rag that Alex wound tightly around her arm.

"Your lesson is finished for tonight," said Snape, as though nothing was wrong and his students just started spontaneously bleeding all the time, "And if I ever catch you trying to miss a lesson, well…I wouldn't suggest doing it again."

Alex left quickly and headed to the Hospital Wing, seeing as Snape wasn't going to do anything about her arm. She was walking down a corridor when she heard a voice call to her.

"Ratcliff!" she turned and saw Professor Moody limping toward her, "What are you doing here? What happened to your arm?"

"I was with Snape having extra lessons," Alex explained as she tried to keep the rag from dripping onto the flagstone floor, "And I cut myself on some glass."

"Hurry along then," said Moody, "I'll make sure you get there in one piece. I was supposed to take you to see Professor Dumbledore, but I think that will have to wait."

They reached the Hospital Wing and Madame Pomfrey took care of Alex's arm, taking the now soaked rag and putting it in a metal pan. It was a very deep cut and Alex needed to take a few potions to make sure she wouldn't get an infection.

"Even empty potions vials have some rather nasty stuff in them," said Madame Pomfrey, "You should spend the night for observation, just in case there was something left over from the last time those vials were used."

Alex nodded without complaint. She felt extremely drained and had a feeling one of the potions she took was a sleeping draught.

"Just as long as I can go to the second task," said Alex as her eyes struggled to remain open.

"Of course," the matron said and turned to Professor Moody, "Thank you for bringing her here, I can't believe Professor Snape didn't make sure she got here all right. She could have fainted from the blood loss, this wasn't just a scratch!"

"You're welcome. I should go talk to the Headmaster. They'll need to find another person for Potter now, I'm sure that Weasley boy will do just fine."

The rest of the conversation was lost as Alex's anvil-weighted eyes won and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Author's Note: Please review and then continue to the next chapter!