Over the next couple of weeks, Maya's relationship with Draco did not exactly improve. In fact, she hardly saw him at all. Sometimes he just disappeared for hours on end, during which he was not at the library or in his room. One comforting thought was that he was not secretly meeting up with Pansy (which had inadvertently become a real, unpleasant possibility in Maya's mind), because during those moments that Draco was missing again Maya often saw Pansy gossiping with the other sixth year Slytherin girls in the common room, in-between shooting dirty looks at Maya of course.

When she did see him, during breakfast and classes, he was rather distant and very unwilling to answer any questions. Whenever Maya boldly tried to push the subject, he became irritable quickly. "I'm working on my mission, the rest is none of your business!" Draco snapped at her during Potions one day.

Potions used to be Maya's favourite class, but lately it had easily become her least favourite of the four. Not like Maya actually spent a lot of time in classes these days now that she only studied four subjects, as she had already found out this year was mostly going to be about diligent self-study in the 'free' periods, but Potions had become really quite annoying with Professor Slughorn's constant raving about Harry's 'insane talent' for the subject. Maya had always been miles ahead of her cousin in Potions, and apart from becoming thoroughly annoyed about the praise Harry received each lesson it also made her wonder why he was suddenly so competent at it. Maya liked it much better when he was shunned last year. This year, however, things were looking much better for Harry with the Chosen One title that had been bestowed on him and with people gaping and gawping at him more than ever.

Maya had begun to really resent Professor Slughorn too. He constantly invited Harry and Blaise Zabini to parties, but since those were only for members of the so-called 'Slug Club' Maya could never go. This continual rejection was painful to her, because she always wanted to be in high positions but never could. Not only would being a member of the Slug Club improve her status, but from what Maya had gathered from Blaise the parties were also occasionally attended by well-known members of the wizarding world. Maya would just love to establish contacts with important people, since that would be extremely beneficial to her career.

Much more fun was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Snape constantly criticised Harry for his difficulties with non-verbal spells (which were now also expected in Charms and Transfiguration), and to Maya that was a very welcome contrast to the Potions lessons. Maya had always excelled in Defence Against the Dark Arts and she could confidently state that she was the best of the year in that subject. The reason she excelled at non-verbal spells was the fact that she had always been very good at focusing on what was important and giving it her full attention while disregarding anything resembling useless distractions. People like Harry and Pansy on the other hand were much more emotional and therefore had a very hard time with the non-verbal spells. It really was something to cherish.

Then Charms, Transfiguration and Maya's Prefect duties also really added to the enormous workload. Charms was not particularly more difficult to Maya than in previous years, but the sheer difficulty of N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration had come as a very unpleasant surprise. Maybe Maya had become a little complacent after successfully becoming an Animagus, but in reality that had required a different, much more practical application. Now she found herself racking her brains over very complicated and dry Transfiguration theory. Studying in her own room was not too bad, though, for Hogwarts had changed.

Overall, the castle still remained a safe environment and students had mostly been shielded from the increasingly violent events unfolding in the general wizarding population. However, attacks increased. They were regularly and faithfully reported by the Daily Prophet, and every time the post owls arrived in the Great Hall students were very eager to receive their letters, every single one of them desperate for news from home. Despite all the security measures, a definite sense of fear and insecurity had seeped into the castle, creating concerns about safety, even to the extent that some parents had decided to remove their children from school. It had come to Maya's attention that the Patil twins' parents wanted them to go home as well and she inadvertently considered herself lucky that her mother did not have the faintest idea of what was going on in the wizarding world. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

Adding to all this turmoil was the fact that Dumbledore, a symbol of strength, authority, protection and stability to students and staff alike, was often gone now. Maya sensed that his increasingly frequent and unexplained absences were severely contributing to everyone's stress and concerns, as well as fostering rumours regarding Voldemort and his Death Eaters. The only thing the Ministry of Magic had 'accomplished' thus far was arresting Stan Shunpike, the Knight Bus conductor, on suspicion of Death Eater activity. Maya realised they desperately wanted to make it look as though they were actually doing something, but to her this silly act merely symbolised that they were currently in over their heads.

There was a Hogsmeade trip halfway through October, the first trip of the term. Maya was quite surprised that those trips were still happening in these troubled times, but she was happy for it. Getting out of the castle grounds for a few hours was a good opportunity for her to try and improve things with Draco. A slightly different perspective from the mundane school life if you will.

"What do you mean you got detention?" Maya asked Draco the day before the trip. She had spotted him in a corner of the Slytherin common room by himself, looking rather forlorn.

"What do you think it means? I can't go to Hogsmeade because I didn't hand in my Transfiguration homework," Draco said irritably.

"Why didn't you hand in your homework?" Maya asked.

"Because I have more important things to do, didn't you get that by now? I thought you were smart!" Draco sneered.

"And I thought you were my friend!" Maya snapped back, "good luck with your important mission."

She had already begun to walk away when Draco hurried after her. "Maya, wait! I am your friend, okay? I'm just feeling stressed right now. The mission's not going that well and they've searched my house two times now, it was even in the paper. Not like they found anything, obviously, but still. We'll go to Hogsmeade together next time, I promise," he said quickly.

"All right," Maya said softly. She would love to ask for details about the mission, but he had told her off a few times already and so she decided against it.

Maya contemplated going to Hogsmeade by herself, but that was a bit awkward and when she saw the queue of students at the oak front doors that morning she just did not bother. Filch was triple-checking everyone with his infamous Secrecy Sensor and the long line of people barely moved. The students were not exactly thrilled about the whole procedure, and their mood did not improve when Peeves appeared and promptly started to throw bits of chalk at their heads.

She still wanted to get out of the castle for a bit though and so after lunch she collected her owl Aurelia for a long walk through the hopefully deserted grounds. The weather was not particularly pleasant and Maya wrapped her Slytherin scarf tightly around her neck. The bitter, biting wind was rather rough on her face, though. Aurelia, on the other hand, did not seem bothered. She was fluttering around happily, catching the small rocks and twigs that Maya controlled with her wand.

"Get this one!" Maya yelled, giving her wand a significant sweep. The twig she was pointing at shot up high into the air and Aurelia soared towards it, but as the twig began to fall, another owl suddenly swooped down from one of the Forbidden Forest's many trees. It was a large brown owl that easily beat Aurelia to the punch and a second later it had the twig firmly clutched in its beak. Aurelia seemed rather affronted indeed and immediately began chirping indignantly, looking at Maya for confirmation. The Slytherin just shrugged. "Too weak, too slow. You snooze, you lose. Life lessons, kid."

The brown owl, however, seemed more affected by Aurelia's reaction. It slowly approached her and seemed to offer her the twig, but Aurelia wanted nothing of it and the twig merely hit the wet grass with a soft thud. Then, much to Maya's surprise, the owl began circling around Aurelia while screeching softly. Maya did not know the first thing about owl language, but to her this seemed like a gesture of friendship if not more and sure enough this time it was Aurelia that made a move with soft twittering noises. A few moments later, the two owls were flying around together and seemed to have all but forgotten about Maya. "All right, you kids have fun!" she called, before making her solitary way back to the castle.

The news that spread all over the school the next day was as weird as it was terrifying. Gryffindor's Katie Bell had been cursed just outside the school on her way back from Hogsmeade and from what Maya managed to piece together from all the slightly varying stories was that Katie had touched a necklace infused with a deadly curse. Theories on how she was still alive, on whether she had been the intended target, on where the necklace had come from and on how the necklace could potentially have made its way into Hogwarts were all running wild within the castle. Even Draco seemed very interested in the story; that same night, Maya spotted him in his -by now- familiar corner in the Slytherin common room. He was talking to Vincent and Gregory in frantic whispers, constantly glancing around. Maya slowly walked towards the three of them.

"Just stand guard while I work. Nobody will know you're the girls. That's kind of exactly the whole point," Draco murmured, but he stopped speaking immediately upon catching sight of Maya.

"So they are allowed to help you now? Come on, let me help too. You can tell me the whole plan, it's okay if it's complicated, I'm a very good listener you know," Maya said determinedly, spotting a window of opportunity now that Draco was apparently recruiting Vincent and Gregory.

"Then why didn't you hear me all those times I said you couldn't help?" Draco hissed, glaring at her. Vincent and Gregory just looked stupidly at him, then at Maya and then back at him.

"Because I'm persistent."

"And you're not my mum, Maya."

"No, but I am your friend, as you said yourself. So why don't you trust me? I know it's about that, because my magical abilities are light years ahead of Vincent and Gregory's," Maya said. "No offence!" she added quickly, looking at the duo. They merely shrugged their bulky shoulders.

Draco sighed in annoyance. "I'm protecting you, and that's all I'm going to say about it."

Maya was not going to give up that easily. "Then why do you let Vincent and Gregory help you?"

"Because their position is different."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Get off my back, Maya. When I need you I'll let you know, okay? Now I need to discuss some things with these two," Draco said sharply.

"Fine," Maya said, but by the time she had made it to her room she did inadvertently feel rejected; emotions were not always rational. Was Draco's mission really that secret if he was recruiting Vincent and Gregory? Or was the mission perhaps going badly?

And then it hit her. From the very beginning of term, Draco had been trying to accomplish something, but that was going badly, which is why he was always in such a foul mood. Therefore he had decided to plant the necklace, but that witless course of action failed as well, because it was Katie Bell that got hit. Now he was getting desperate and sought Vincent and Gregory's help as he would work on a new plan, or perhaps give his old plan another go. It made perfect sense to Maya now. She really wished she knew exactly what he was up to, but she would just have to be there for him when the time came. And she was certain it would, because if it really had been him, his attack had not exactly been slick...