Doxology of Dragons

Doxology of Dragons: The Awoken Chamber

***

If most of Hawk's life was chaos, then the first day of school was pandemonium. Hermione, who had been up for hours getting her books straight, woke Hawk up late.

"Come on Hawk, wake up!" she screamed to the lump of sheets that was Hawk (which had remained black with a silver dragon)

"Uhh. .." the lump on the bed spoke back.

"Hawk! We really have to get going!" Hermione was now shoving Hawk.

"Uhh.. A'ight"

"Hawk!" Hermione shouted almost pushing Hawk off the bed.

"All right! All right! I'm up! I'm up!"

The light hurt Hawk's eyes as she pulled her covers off. She stood up, hair a mess , her black pajamas all scrunched up. She had only one ducky sock on because the other always slipped off when she slept. She could see that the whole dormitory was busy in morning spree. Parvati and Lavender were applying all sorts of stuff to their faces. Angelina was helping Katie look for her lost hairbrush. And Delia (a girl in Gryffindor), in the desperate attempt to get dressed, almost ran over Hermione looking for her other boot.

Hawk, not having bought a school uniform, threw on whatever clean clothes she found in her suitcase and ran a brush quickly through her hair after she stepped out of the shower. Everything would have been fine if she hadn't misplaced her backpack with all her writing and school utensils.

"Calm down," Hermione said with a giggle as Hawk raced from one end of the dormitory to the other while brushing her teeth, "It's all right. You've practically torn your bed apart looking for that thing! Just relax, it'll turn up." She jumped aside as Hawk raced out the door shouting something about plucking the bag apart thread by thread when she found it.

Hermione's laugh carried down the stairs.

When Hawk got to the common room, it seemed that everyone had gone to breakfast already. Hawk was glad for that gave her an advantage.

She went to the closest chair and nearly tore it apart in her rush. Not finding it there, Hawk rushed to the other side of the common room and ran right into someone.

She balanced herself just before she fell and looked up at the person she ran into...

And up.

The boy was a good head and half taller than Hawk, and very skinny with bright red hair, icy blue eyes and freckles across his face.

Unlike Hawk the boy hadn't almost fallen on his face when she hit him. He still seemed not-so-happy with this.

"Oy, watch where you're bloody going!"

"What?" The accent threw Hawk off a bit. "Who-who are you?" She really needed to start learning the names of the people who were in her house.

"I'm Ron, and you almost knocked the hell out of me in your find- and- destroy search."

She nodded and said, "I'm Hawk, and I need help." He nodded also and she continued, "can you help me find my pen?" It was one of the other things she had misplaced that morning.

The boy snorted, "Pen? What the bloody hell is a pen?"

"A pen," Hawk said, raising an eyebrow. "You know, a pen," She repeated the words in case he was slow.

He still looked at her as if she were alien.

"The little cylinder thing you write with," she made her hand so that she was gripping an imaginary pen and writing in the air with it.

"Oh!" the boy said, "You mean a quill!"

Hawk frowned, then saying each word clearly, she said, "No, I-mean-a-pen."

The boy shook his head. "Not a pen," he said, "a quill."

Hawk was getting annoyed. She shook her head, "Pen."

"Quill," the boy said, saying the word as if she were a particularly stupid child he was trying to teach.

"Pen!" she practically yelled.

"Quill!" he yelled back.

"Pen!"

"Quill!!"

"Damnit, pen!!"

"Quill!!"

"IT'S A PEN!!"

***

Hermione, getting her books together, stood still and listened. She could hear people talking in the common room and then shouting. She recognized Ron's voice and shook her head.

"What's going on?" she wondered out loud.

Hermione went down the stairs that led to the common room and, as she turned the corner, saw Hawk and Ron, standing at least 10 feet apart from one another, shouting. Hermione stopped on the bottom step and leaned against the rail.

"So, I see you two have been introduced," Hermione said smiling.

Hawk turned around, her cheeks slightly red. She leaned her head forward a little and put a hand up to the side of her head. Then she tossed her head back and smoothed her hair in place behind her ear with her hand.

"Not formally," she said, her voice hard.

"Aww come on guys it's not even noon yet and you're going to start fighting?" Hermione whined walking down the stairs. "Ron, I want you to meet Hawk Vela, Hawk this is one of my best friends, Ron Weasley."

At that moment Harry who had just finished getting ready came down the stairs and saw what looked like a mad bull fight. Ron and the very pretty American girl with black hair stood about 10 feet apart giving each other death looks. She was wearing something very unusual that Harry had never seen before.

She had on a pair of ripped blue jeans in which you could see black and white socks that might have been stockings underneath. She had big black boots and a belt with spikes around her waist. Her shirt was very tight and sleeveless with a black rose painted on it that shimmered when she walked. A single word was painted on it in gold glittery letters underneath the rose that read 'Ozzy'.

"Whoa did I miss something?" he said as he saw the exchange student shuffling through papers, and Ron looking at the floor as if it were made of gold.

"Oh, hi Harry I want you to meet Hawk, our new friend. Hopefully we can learn a lot from her- Hawk this is my other best friend Harry Potter, Harry this is Hawk." - Hawk suddenly stopped looking at her books and papers.

Oh no-, Harry thought to himself, This is the part where they start looking at me funny and ask if they can see my scar.

"Did you just say Harry Potter? The Harry Potter-?" she looked at the boy standing in front of her. He certainly didn't match the description that her teachers taught Hawk, but Hawk wasn't interested in his scar. She was more interested in his eyes. Her grandmother always said that the window to somebody's soul is the person's eyes. Harry's eyes in particular Hawk couldn't read. They were a combination of frustration, joy, pain, love, aggravation, and happiness. His eyes were as green as a fresh pickled toad, but they missed a virtue that Hawk could not find: peace. He would never experience peace, he would never stop fighting.

Harry noticed that Hawk was not looking at his forehead but in his eyes, she was the first person he had met that looked at his eyes rather than his scar, and it made him very uncomfortable because she looked like if she was reading his thoughts. Harry shifted a little and moved to face Hermione.

"Don't we have class now?"

***

Draco had showered and dressed and was going down to the Great Hall to eat when Crabbe and Goyle shouted from the other side of the dormitory, "Wait for us!"

-Draco scowled but stopped and waited. He wanted, out of mere curiosity, to see the exchange student who had invaded his thoughts since the first night he had dreamed about her. Since that dream, though, there had been others that caught his attention more prominently. She was still in them, but they were so different. But whenever Draco woke up he had no memory of what the dreams were about.

When Crabbe and Goyle had caught up to him, he started walking down the corridor so fast that the both of them had to jog to keep up with him. As they entered the Great Hall the first thing Draco noticed was that Hawk was not there.

"You looking for the American walking disaster-" Goyle said, sarcastically laughing.

"No, but I know for a fact that you were looking over at Millicent Bulstrode," -Draco said, not even bothering to give Goyle the pleasure of a glance.

He swore silently and spent the rest of breakfast in a bad mood. As Draco was walking out of the Great Hall he noticed that there was a lot of commotion at the teachers table. Dumbledore, who was usually in the middle of the grand table, was not present. Professor McGonagall was looking extremely stressed (well, more than usual) Snape was talking to Professor Flitwick using a lot of hand motions. Draco thought that was odd, but said nothing about it as he walked out. Well, he thought, I'm going to have to see her sooner or later.

***

When Hawk and the others walked into the Great Hall for breakfast her eyes immediately went to the Slytherin table. Sitting down, Hawk sighed as she soon found out that the boy wasn't there.

About halfway through the meal, when Harry and Ron began to throw bits of bacon at each other, a girl came up to the table. She had short, very curly reddish-brown hair that she pulled back with two barrettes and was carrying a big package wrapped in paper with balloons and hearts on it. When she got to them she smiled brightly and Hawk noticed that her lips were very shiny and smelled strangely of watermelon. A thin, gold necklace hung at the base of her neck and the word 'Ronald' sparkled in the light. The girl looked at Hawk and said, "Hi. My name is Sally-Anne Perks, welcome to Britain," before turning to Ron.

"Happy anniversary Ronald," she said giving him a big smile and batting her eyes. She stood to one side and slightly behind Ron so that he had to get up to look at her.

Ron sighed, standing up. "Sally-Anne, we broke up two months ago," he said sharply.

"Well that doesn't mean we can't still go out."

"Well it does, actually. That's what breaking up is."

"Well...are you going to go to Hogsmeade this afternoon?" she asked innocently, her eyes big, brushing aside the fact that Ron obviously didn't want her there.

"No!!" Ron said quickly, shouting. He looked around the table at his friends. "No!!" they all shouted together. Sally-Anne looked crestfallen. But she gained her footing again rather quickly.

"Aren't you going to open your present?" she asked slyly.

"If it's a severed head, I'm going to be very upset."

"Open it," Sally-Anne said with a mysterious air.

Ron's shoulders sagged but he moved a little closer and said in a tiny voice, "Okay," and he proceeded to tear the wrapping paper off the gift. When he was done Ron just stood there looking at it. To Hawk it looked like a very elaborate wall decoration or something to hang your car keys from--if you had about ten different cars. And huge keys.

"What the hell is that?" Ron asked very unceremoniously.

"It's a gun rack, silly," Sally-Anne smiled again, her lips sparkling as the light hit about three layers of lip gloss.

"...A gun rack?" Ron looked down at the rack incredulously. Sally-Anne smiled some more and nodded her head, looking excited. Ron still couldn't believe it, "...a gun rack?"

The only sound that could be heard coming from their part of the table was the slurping made by Harry sucking on a straw that was in his cup of pumpkin juice. Everyone ignored it and watched Ron and Sally-Anne without making it too obvious--unlike Harry who was now crunching loudly in some bacon and just staring at them.

"I don't even own a gun let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack." Ron looked at Sally-Anne, his facial feature unchanging, staying neutral even though his voice was tinged with annoyance. "What am I going to do with a gun rack?..."

Sally-Anne looked down at the present and at the people sitting at the table, all of who looked quickly down at their food and covered their eyes with their hands, then back up at Ron.

"You don't like it, fine." The slurping sound from Harry was the only thing that broke the silence. Sally-Anne looked at Ron, her bottom lip trembling slightly. "You know Ronald, if you're not careful you're going to loose me." And she tossed her head, turned around and walked off, taking the gun rack with her. Her curls bounced indignantly and her high heels made a shallow clicking sound when they hit the tile of the Great Hall.

"I lost you two months ago!! Are you mental?! We broke up!" Ron shouted after her, making people stare.

Shaking his head Ron sat back down again.

Hawk giggled, "Who was that?"

Ron cut at his waffles, stabbing them until they were in tiny pieces. "My ex-girlfriend."

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "Well," she said looking after Sally-Anne, "don't you know how to pick 'em?" She smiled as Ron poked at his eggs with his fork.

"She's a Ravenclaw," Hermione informed. Hawk shook her head as if that explained everything.

The rest of the breakfast Hawk and Harry spent making fun of Ron. At 9:00 a.m. Hermione told everyone to start walking to Hagrid's hut where they would have Care of Magical Creatures.

The class wasn't as bad as Hawk had expected, even if the teacher was a little crazy over big animals.

That was the very first assumption Hawk made as the teacher patted the head of a great boar-hound. Hawk had wanted one when she was a child but her father had made it very clear that they couldn't take care of one. So Hawk had grown up thinking that boar-hounds were a hyper pet that you couldn't control and that would try to eat you at night. As she grew up, she decided that the latter was just something her dad made up to make sure that she didn't want one anymore. So instead her dad had bought her a Crup which she lovingly dubbed 'Arnie'.

The class was pretty good, even Hawk had to admit. The teacher, who's name was Hagrid (it took Hawk a couple of times to get it right), taught them about the Diricawl which, Hawk learned, was the Dodo Bird muggles thought to be extinct. Hawk could see why they thought that since Hagrid told them that the Diricawl could vanish in a puff of feathers and reappear elsewhere.

But the class was only half of what caught Hawk's attention. About five minutes into the lesson, Hawk turned and saw the silver-haired boy on the other side of the group that had come together for the class. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but all during the class she tried to catch his attention.

And she almost thought that all her non-noticeable attention-getting gestures were for nothing until the end of the class when the teacher told her and the boy to go put up the two Diricawls that had been their lesson (actually Hagrid told just Hawk but she could barley understand what he was saying so the teacher, exasperated, told the silver-haired boy to help her.).

As they walked together to the cage Hagrid kept the birds in, Hawk tried to make conversation-which wasn't very easy considering that the boy wouldn't even look at her. Hawk noticed earnestly that while he wore the standard school uniform-although different colors-the boy had his tie loosened and the top button of his white shirt was undone. "So, what's your name?" she asked casually, clearing her throat and hoping he would answer. To her surprise, he did.

"Draco," he said very flatly.

"Draco? What kind of a name is Draco?" Hawk asked, barely able to suppress a laugh.

"What kind of name is Hawk?" he retaliated.

Hawk caught herself short of gasping. It wasn't the way he had answered her (she had lived in New York) but the tone of voice in which he had answered her. It was the voice of a cold person. She had used it a few times in her life, as had everyone else, but this boy--or should she say young man?--had seemed to master it, as if he had spent his lifetime answering people like that.

Hawk did some quick thinking and came up with the conclusion that she did not want this person as an enemy.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at your name, its just that it's not everyday you meet someone with a name like Draco," and, as an afterthought, "or Hawk."

It could have been the sound of her voice-she hadn't apologized in a while to anyone and even in the past she was rusty with sorry's-but Draco didn't look like he believed her oh-so-very-sincere apology.

The boy busied himself with the putting-away of the Diricawls.

And the ignoring of Hawk.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione choose then to come over and talk to Hawk. As she saw them, Hawk let out a little sigh of relief. The tension in the air had grown considerably in the last couple of seconds.

"How are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"What?" Hawk asked. It was going to take a while get used to the weird accents.

"How-are-you-doing?" Hermione asked, slowly and more clearly.

Next to her Hawk heard Draco snort. On the end of her chain with him, she turned to Draco and asked, "Something funny?", very innocently.

"No, nothing. Only the fact that you don't understand a word we say," and then he laughed.

"Shove off, Malfoy," Ron said.

Hawk felt a small little warmth inside of her that someone should care about her so soon, especially after that morning, but that small warmth was swallowed by her anger... and irrationality.

"Well if all you boys didn't talk like you were gay I wouldn't be having this problem!!"

"Gay? We do not talk like we're gay," said Ron, appalled.

"Yeah, my mother always told me that our accents were very "refined"," said Draco.

This time it was Hawk who laughed. "'Refined' is just another word for gay. Now, I'm not trying to say anything but...'mummy'? I mean, come on." Even Hermione laughed.

"What, you think we talk gay also?" Harry asked her.

"Well..."

"Hermione!!!" Harry and Ron yelled at once.

"You didn't let me finish!!"

All the time Hawk was laughing.

Harry turned to her and smiled, too.

Then Ron laughed and Hermione finally let it out also. The only one who wasn't laughing was Draco.

"I'm somewhat less amused," he said tonelessly

"Oh, come on! You know you want to laugh!" Hawk said in between giggles.

"No, actually, I don't. What I do want to do is shove my wand up your ass, but since you're a girl, I won't," and he turned around and just walked away.

Hawk, who couldn't believe what she just heard, yelled back "Oh, yeah, well why don't you try it! I could kick your ass three ways from Sunday!!"

But Draco didn't look back. He just kept walking until he meet up with his two friends. Then he turned around, and as he did the sunlight fell full on his hair and it went golden-silver, the kind that is just too beautiful a color and too bright to look at for too long. Even though the sun was in his face he didn't squint so he could see better, his eyes were open and Hawk could see the sun reflected in them so that it turned them gold instead of gray. He gave them all one last look, but then his gaze fell on Hawk alone and he smiled...and Hawk's knees went weak.

***

" We still have about 15 minuets" - said Ron looking at his watch.

"Yes, but we should be early so we can get a table at the front!" -said Hermione rambling about how Seamus Finnigan always managed to get her favorite table.

"So what do you do in Herbology?" -Hawk asked. In New York she didn't get to take Herbology. Froglet only gave classes on Botany, which was almost the same except slightly different in the fact that botany focused on the anatomy of plants, and Herbology was the study of herbs and how to use them to your advantage.

"Well there's a lot of giant plants who... well, let's just say they have the most peculiar aspects- said Harry who enjoyed taunting Hawk as much as Ron.

"Yeah, like the mandrakes that if you hear their scream you'll die,"- remarked Ron who caught on quickly.

"What?-Ahhh!!!" -but at that Hawk's foot slipped into a hole in the grass. "Chinjado, hijo de tu madre pinche poso estupido sacate resbaloso!-"

Hawk was clutching at her foot and cursing in another language under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Did you just speak Spanish?"- asked Hermione in awe.

"Yeah that was cool!" - said Ron who was obviously impressed with Hawk's misuse of proper language.

"Owww!!!"

"-Wow where'd you learn that-

"Owwwww!!!"-

"Do they teach it at Froglet?"

"Ow ow ow ow!!"-

"You guys stop that. She's obviously in pain.-" Harry quickly came over and helped her up.

"So do they ?-"

"Okay besides the lack of sympathy, ow. .ow..ow, no they don't teach it at Froglet I'm Latin on my father's side so I know a lot of Spanish."

"That was so cool,"- was most of the conversation as the two boys walked away to go 'reserve' Hermione's favorite table.

"Hey, Hermione, wait." Hawk got up and limped over to Hermione. "That boy who was there last period, who was he?"

"Oh. Um...that was Draco Malfoy." Hermione avoided Hawk's eyes and kept her voice neutral.

Hawk hung her head and looked at the floor, obviously in a bad mood. Hermione felt kind of sorry for her-she looked so sad and confused.

"He's a real butt, isn't he? But it's okay, I mean, he wouldn't be Malfoy if he didn't go and spoil the fun in your life. That's the way he is. Everybody knows him by the way he acts: 'Have you seen that boy who walks around making fun of everyone and leaving them feeling all yucky' 'Oh you mean Draco Malfoy?' But nobody actually asks for him, they try to avoid it, in fact. Especially anybody from the Gryffindor House. Its just the way things are around here." Hermione shrugged.

"But, I mean, don't the girls from all the Houses go crazy over him." Hawk asked shyly, not trying to sound as if she cared.

"Oh, sure. He's all Lavender and Parvati can talk about most of the time, and they practically drool all over him as he walks by." Hermione snorted on disgust. "Pathetic," she mumbled.

"But, what about...you," Hawk asked cautiously. She didn't want to offend one of her only friend in a thousand miles.

Hermione looked at her in disbelief at first and then she lowered her voice even more, which was considerably low seeing as they were already whispering, and looked Hawk straight in her eyes.

"Honestly, I think that he is a horribly, slimy, evil git that I would rather spit on than go out with..." she said with complete confidence in what she was saying.

"But...?" Hawk prompted her. Hermione had very effectively avoided answering her question, but she wasn't going to fool Hawk.

"But to be perfectly honest, again, I think that he is very...handsome," Hermione said keeping her voice very neutral.

Hawk smiled, "So do I."

"Just don't tell Harry or Ron, they would kill me if they found out," Hermione said her face pale with the thought of what they would say.

"If they found out that you were a girl because you liked a boy?" Hawk asked, confused that Harry or Ron could be so mean.

"No, that I think Draco is cute. Draco has been really... mean ever since the first year, especially to Harry and Ron and me, so they would be really mad if they found out," Hermione explained.

"Oh," Hawk said.

"I think you're going to be in luck, though," Hermione said, still keeping her voice neutral and acting as if she didn't care. "They changed our schedules a little and now we have Care of Magical Creatures, Potions and Herbology with the Slytherins. If you want to try your luck with English men I don't suggest you start with Malfoy, but it's up to you."

Hawk tried to hide her grin.

"Okay so what do we do now?" Hawk asked as the walked into the greenhouse. The Herbology greenhouse was pretty normal-well, if you didn't mind the giant killer plants that were behind the tables.

"Professor Sprout should be here in any second-" at that moment Seamus Finnigan bumped accidentally into Hermione and spilled a flask of water all over a giant plant that was displayed on the table beside Hawk. Professor Sprout came walking in very quickly to the front of the class and put on her dragon hide gloves.

"Okay class, quicken time and put on your safety items so we can start class. Face the classroom to the right were the Magical macrocytosis is"

Everybody turned except Hawk who was already in a position where she did not have to move.

"The Magical Mycrocysts is a marine plant that grabs and strangles anything that is within 5 feet. Mycrocysts strangle it's prey until it can no longer breathe and then sucks it dry until the animal contains no vital organs."

At this the Slytherins sneered at the mention of "sucks vital organs". Lavender and Parvati made a very long "illlllll" sound.

"Although the Mycrocyst is very deadly it contains a very strong extract inside it's giant leaves that help people with a memory problems"

"Neville, should I get some right now or would you rather wait until midnight so that you can smuggle it out of the greenhouse? Oh no wait--you'd forget" Draco Malfoy laughed with the rest of the Slytherins who pointed and mocked Neville.

"Mr. Malfoy that's quite enough, 3 points from Slytherin" Professor Sprout straightened her hat and continued on with the lesson while the Slytherins threw dirty looks at her behind your back.

"Today we will be handling the Mycrocyst to extract the solution from it's leaf." At this Professor Sprout picked up her wand and said Wingardium leviosa pointing at the Mycrocysts that were on the back tables and set one in front of each student.

"Grab your Mycrocyst leaf and cut it between the lower valve on the bottom of the leaf-"

The displayed Mycrocyst that was behind Hawk began to shrivel and move very slowly, it's left tentacle began to wriggle and move, it started to reach out towards Hawk-

Harry who had noticed this screamed out, "Hawk, move! It's coming towards you!!!!!!"

Hawk who had no idea of what was happening and only saw the tentacle coming right at her screamed 'AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!' She ran towards the door of the greenhouse but only managed to knock over the diatoms that were on the table--a seventh year's experiment was an overgrown Venus Fly trap that could talk. Hawk was having a hard time screaming and running across the room while the Venus fly trap pointed with it's leafs and giggled 'woke a Mycrocysts what a stupid thing to do, you dull, dull girl' in a sing-song voice.

"Mobiolarius Para!!!!!" screamed Sprout and the Mycrocyst froze on the spot.

Hawk was too scarred to even move. She had a knee suspended in mid air and her arm was covering her face. The Slytherins could not help but laugh at what was happening.

"Miss Vela it's okay to move now; now what were you doing that made the Mycrocysts move? I strictly told you how dangerous the Mycrocysts could be! Look at the greenhouse Miss Vela, look at this disaster! Why I never-"

"Uhh, Professor Sprout, I believe it was my fault why the Mycrocyst moved. .. . I accidentally spilled a flask of water on the Mycrocyst and I think it reacted to it," said Seamus whose face was bright red.

"You think! Mr. Finnigan! You think!? Next time Mr. Finnigan watch what you're doing!" screamed Sprout.

Hermione had never seen Sprout so angry before. Well, not since the time Fred and George let loose her Beabon, which is a giant cactus-looking plant that was chasing Hagrid's hound, Fang, all around Hogwarts' grounds.

Class ended and Hermione, Ron and Harry couldn't stop talking about what had happened in Herbology. Hawk felt awful. It took a lot to embarrass her but Herbology had done a very effective job.

Hawk snapped out of it, What? Why the hell should I feel bad, it wasn't my fault! And too bad if I was afraid of a giant killer plant, it only seems natural, right?

"Okay what do we have next, bring it on, I can handle it!" she said trying to shake the thoughts away from her head.

"After lunch you guys have Divination II. I have to go to Ancient Greek wizards and Philosophers from the Meson period," said Hermione with an enthusiastic pace.

"Oh great, Divination is going to be a 'fun spot' for Hawk. There's all sorts of glass and fire and weird things floating in mid air," said Ron who could not stop picking on Hawk.

"Shut up Ron."

***

Lunch was a big deal for Hawk, seeing as she had never really eaten English food before (Last night didn't really count, seeing as someone in the kitchens had been nice enough to give Hawk a taste of home on her first day here and breakfast is pretty much the same everywhere.) The whole meal was so new to her that she didn't know what was food and what was just a decoration on the plate. Hermione had to stop her from eating something that looked like lettuce but was really a kind of decorative plant. And to wash it all down, Harry gave her a very fancy-looking cup of some orangy, funny-smelling drink.

"Am I supposed to drink this or just let it sit there and look pretty?" Hawk asked, not wanting to look the fool for about the billionth time that day. She still couldn't get over the incident this morning in Herbology class.

Hermione giggled, "That you are supposed to drink, its pumpkin juice."

Hawk gagged and pushed the goblet away from her. "You guys drink pumpkins! I don't even like pumpkin pie, and you people want me to drink pumpkin juice!"

Hermione smiled that all knowing smile Hawk already associated Hermione with and told her calmly, "You don't have to drink it if you don't want to. I'm sure that they could serve you something that you are used to. Just out of curiosity, what are you used to eating? Is it something like what we eat? Does everybody over in America eat it? Do you always eat it?"

"Yes and where did it originate? Did your great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents eat it? And what the bloody hell is it?!" Ron yelled. He looked like someone who was sick and tired of the repeating of an old habit by an old friend.

Hermione looked across the table at him and rolled her eyes, then smiled mischievously, "Now Ron, how is she supposed to know if her great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents ate it?" she asked innocently and laughed when Ron looked at her like she was crazy.

Just then, another girl with hair as red as Ron's came over and sat down beside them. She looked dead on her feet and didn't even bother saying 'hi', so Hawk took it that they were all very good friends with her.

"Hey, Gin, what's wrong?" Ron asked, and by the concern on his face Hawk's next conclusion was that "Gin" and Ron were related (by the look of it they seemed to be brother and sister) .

"I've been in the library almost all day trying to get some homework done. I never knew how tough the 5th year could be. I'm starving, is there anything else left to eat? Who's pumpkin juice is that? Can I have some? Thanks," and she drained half the goblet in one drink. "Well, better get back to the library, still got lots more to do," and the girl got up.

"Ginny, you're going to kill yourself if you keep going like this everyday," Harry said, his eyebrows knitted in a sign of concern.

"Yeah, and we'll have another Hermione on our hands, and I think that will kill us!" Ron said.

Both Hermione and Ginny gave Ron disapproving looks that were filled with old patience for this kind of taunting.

"I think I'll go with you, Ginny," Hermione said, not taking her eyes off of Ron and getting up. "Coming, Hawk?" she asked.

"Nah, I thought that I might take a look around the castle before the classes start again, Froglet was a lot different than this," Hawk said, looking around the Great Hall.

Hermione nodded and walked away with the girl and after a while Hawk got up, too.

"Do you want us to go with you?" Harry asked. "It can be a pretty confusing school with a lot of history, but, I suppose if you want the history behind Hogwarts, you'd want to wait until Hermione can give you the grand tour."

Hawk shook her head, "No, that's okay, I need to get away from people for a while and think," she said with a sad smile.

Harry turned to Ron for a split second and Hawk swore she could see the unasked question clearly in his eyes before he turned back to Hawk and said, "Okay, but if you get lost, don't say we didn't warn you. And I'll let you know right now that if Hermione finds out you were late to your next class, there will be hell to pay," and seeing the smile on Hawk's face he added, "seriously," and Ron shook his head in agreement.

Hawk frowned but said she understood and said her good-bye's to the rest of the people at the table, then turned around and walked away from it.

As she walked farther and farther away from the table, her stomach knotted in excitement. She felt as if she were going out into the world after spending a life-time locked up indoors. She felt free. And she felt proud that she could write to her father and tell him just how wonderful things were going for her here. She had friends, she was doing good in most of her classes (so far) and she was actually having a good time in Britain. Life was definitely going her way right now.

As she passed the Slytherin table she subconsciously looked down it to see if the silver-haired boy was there. He wasn't, but as she glanced at the people sitting around the table, she saw almost all of the kids sitting there turn and watch her as she walked, their glances burning holes in her back as she passed them and walked out the door.

Not even bothering to guess where she was going, Hawk turned a corner and started walking down a hallway.

No, not hallway. A corridor. Remember. Your not in America anymore. There were so many new things to remember, and it seemed that Hawk would never learn them all. She couldn't even get something to eat without wondering what it was or why it smelled so funny. Now there was one thing that wasn't going her way. Luckily it was only the one.

Hawk stopped walking and looked around. She hadn't been concentrating on where she was going and now it seemed she was lost.

Hawk sighed. Great, just great. She turned around and noticed she was standing in a corridor with many doors.

She started walking down the corridor and turned the corner. Then down the next hallway and the next corner until she had no idea where she was anymore. Hawk was beginning to get visions of herself walking down the same corridors years from now, her hair gray and her skin wrinkled and still not knowing where she was.

It's okay, just breath. You're not lost...Why didn't you let Harry and Ron come along, idiot. She was running down a corridor now, and, maybe if she hadn't been blind (or deaf) with worry she would have heard the sound of feet walking down the corridor that was around the corner.

As Hawk was about to go around another bend in the long maze of corridors, she got a surprise as another somebody ran right into her. They both fell to the ground and as Hawk fell she hit her head on the floor.

Hawk stayed on the floor for what seemed like an eternity, seeing stars fly around her head as she lay on the stone.

Cursing brought her back to reality.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here. Dammit all to hell. Why don't you watch where you're going, prick..."

Hawk shook her head and sat up. On the floor next to her was the silver-haired boy, rubbing his head and still cursing her and it seemed everyone else to a not-so-happy-place, where people did not-such-good-things.

"What the hell are you doing? You should watch where you're going. I could sue your ass from here to China and back, sleaze-bag," Hawk practically yelled. It seemed the best thing to do, seeing as it seemed that he had practically given her a concussion.

Draco looked up at Hawk with a pair of gray eyes that seemed to drill a hole through Hawk's very soul. Then they seemed to focus a little better and Draco pointed at her.

"I know you," he said, still a little dazed.

Hawk frowned and nodded slowly, "Really? Sometimes I know me, too," she said, not looking away from his eyes.

He raised an eyebrow. "You're a mouthy little git, aren't you?" he asked, his eyes giving off gray fire.

"Okay maybe if I knew what a 'git' was then I'd be offend," answered Hawk who was done with apologizing and was getting on the tip of her nerves.

"I do not have the time to argue with you right now, so I suggest you move!" Draco had just had a very bad experience in the Slytherin common room and was /not/ in the mood to be provoked--not even by a woman.

"Being a bit pushy, now are you?" Hawk was at the point where she didn't know if he was mad because of her or something else but she felt very confused, and all the while she kept on asking herself what the hell is a git?

With that Draco stood up and stormed off without a single look back.

Think I scared him? I swear sometimes that boy can make me go crazy or make me furious, but either way he makes a great impression that isn't always virtuous.

"Now where the hell do I go?"

Great great great great! He was my only ticket out of here now what do I do?... The best thing to do I guess is to go down the way he went out from but that won't lead me to any three-headed dog...will it? Three headed dogs. .honestly Hawk!

As Hawk walked into the right corridor in which 'Draco' had walked out from Hawk noticed a light, it was coming from a dimly lit chamber that held a single torch in the entrance; and had apparently nothing in it.

Why don't these people ever use rooms with correct lighting? Or better yet if you're trying to hide something for God sake's don't leave the damn door open "but then again people like me wouldn't end up in dimly lit rooms like this one!"

Hawk picked up the torch at the entrance and decided at last that it was their own fault to leave this "chamber" open all by itself. As Hawk stepped into the room the smell of wet moss surrounded her and the feeling that she was not alone lingered in the room.

Great so there is or was definitely something evil in the room.

As a child Hawk was taught by her grandmother how to detect the abnormal, it was something that Hawk quite enjoyed, but her father had greatly disapproved of this for he did not think it was quite safe to have a 5-year old sense presence's in a room. Hawk decided to use some of the tips her grandmother had taught her and find out if there was anything "unusual" about the room.

"Look around the room is it clean or tidy? Has it been through a recent cleaning or is it dirty and old? The floors do they have anything on them such as dirt or hay?

"The walls, what are they made of? Are they moist or crumbling down for the lack of maintenance? Are the walls black or show any sign that there might have been a fire there?

"Is there anything in the room? Remember Hawk things are not only hidden in the center of a room but also in plights. Center your concentration on the search for erudition let any energy that you may get from a site enter but never stay to long. Never."

Hawk began to go over some details of the room. It's walls were cold and soggy and Hawk believed that it might have been a place to hold water or something moist. The floor was covered with a sort of dirt but Hawk did not recognize such a "dirt" if it really was that. It seems that nobody had been in there for the longest time, there had been nobody that had come to recently clean it, but there had been a torch burning at the entrance. Hawk had a feeling that something was in the room but it was not a person or anything sinister at that, it was a good feeling, for Hawk did not feel scared.

There was nothing in the room. It was barren. But her grandmother had taught her that even if things look empty they may not be. Hawk walked around the room to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

The corners had nothing , except that dirt. There was no piece of evidence that made anything 'unusual'. As she walked Hawk kicked at some of the dirt at the ground and when the dirt went up a little she discovered that this room wasn't so barren after all.

There was a square built into the floor and in the middle of it was a perforation of some kind. In that hole there was a symbol. A sort of creature, a griffin maybe? Hawk couldn't tell but whatever it was it had a snake wrapped around it's body and that was never good.

The perforation seemed to be a sort of key. "There's something that fits into there that will open the floor up." Hawk said to herself.

Just as Hawk was about to look at the creature that was carved in the stone, she heard somebody call her name.

She quickly left the room. For some reason, Hawk didn't want to be caught there.

***

Harry and Ron walked down the third floor corridor, past many doors and around many bends.

"I remember when this floor was off limits," Ron said, a dreamy look on his face. "That was an exciting year," he added with a nod of his head.

"If you call almost dying about 50 times exciting, then yeah, it was an exciting year. I, on the other hand, who didn't really like the thought that I might die at any time, didn't really like it that much." Harry said, turning to Ron and giving him a look of sympathy mixed with exasperation. Ron didn't see the look, though. He kept his head forward but Harry, who saw him smile, shook his head and groaned.

After about 10 more bends and 40 more doors Harry began to feel a little discouraged about ever finding Hawk.

"We should have never let her go off by herself. Hermione is going to kill us. What were we thinking letting her go wandering around by herself. She barely even knows what country she is in and we let her go walking around Hogwarts alone! We'll never find her, and especially not in the next..." Harry looked at his watch (which he had just bought in Diagon Alley a year ago in place of his old one which had broken in his fourth year.) "10 minutes," he finished. "We are really going to be late for Divination."

"Like we're going to miss anything important. Just another round of 'How Harry is Going to Die'. She's messed up, that Trelawney. I don't understand how she managed to avoid being put in the nut house all these years."

"Well," said Harry, "she can tell the future. I wouldn't be surprised if she used her 'special powers' to keep from getting into trouble and things like that."

Ron laughed and shook his head in agreement.

"In school she probably used them to cheat - wait a minute! I finally figured out why Lavender and Parvati like her so much! How could we have missed it -"

Ron's revelation was cut short by a loud, covered clump, like someone closing a heavy wooden door.

"Did you hear that?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. I think it came from the next corridor," Ron answered back, whispering and going slightly white. Harry guessed that he wasn't quite over their first year, either.

The two boys slowly crept up to the edge of the corridor and looked at each other and nodded. Then they both stepped out from behind the wall together and -

"AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

Someone hit them head on and screamed as she fell to the ground. She obviously hadn't been expecting someone to be turning the corner she was about to go through.

"WHOA!"

"WHO IS THAT?!"

"FREAKS!!!"

"I'M SO SORRY!!"

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHO IS THAT!!"

A girl was sitting on the ground, her hair, when she had fallen, had gone wild and had been tossed over her head so that Harry and Ron couldn't see her face.

Harry got up and held out is hand to help the girl up. "I really am sorry, we didn't think that anyone was there, or at least that close, right Ron?"

"I just want to bloody know who that is," Ron said in an all-too-calm voice.

The girl put her hand to what would have been her face and parted her hair.

"Oh! Its you!" Harry said with a look of astonishment on his face.

"Well who were you expecting? The Tooth Fairy?!" Hawk yelled as Harry and Ron turned slightly red.

She sighed in exasperation as Harry and Ron just looked at each other with raised eyebrows and took hold of Harry's hand to hoist herself up.

"That was a rhetorical question, don't even bother trying to answer that. I hope your happy. I have a bruise on my ass the size of Nebraska." *Thanx Giselle : p *

"Sorry, we didn't know. What are you doing over here anyway, I mean, isn't this kinda far off to be considering you left the lunch table no more than half an hour ago?" Harry said to Hawk.

"And have either of you 'considered' the fact that we are already 5 minutes late for Divination and it takes exactly 6.23 minutes to get to the north tower from here? And that is if we run," Ron broke into the conversation.

Hawk's eyes got huge and she paled slightly. "You're late? Ha, you're late!...Wait a minute, you're late. That means I'm late, too!!"

Hawk took off running down the corridor. When she got to the end of the corridor, she took only a split second to decide if she was going to go left or right and then she turned left and was gone around the bend. No more than a second later Harry and Ron heard her running back along the corridor she had turned in and then she could be seen skidding down the junction in the front of their vision.

She was muttering, "Wrong way, wrong way, wrong way," and trying to get her footing back.

Ron laughed and took off after her, running to catch up.

Harry stood there and let the different pictures of the Hawk he had seen today run through his mind before bolting after Ron, who was ahead, making fun of the way Hawk ran in her boots.

***

When they got to the north tower, it seemed everyone except Harry was out of breath.

"You guys need to exercise more, you know that?"

"Shut - it - Harry...We - don't - need - to - hear - it -from - you..." Ron could barely get the words out and they still needed to climb the ladder that led to Professor Trewlany's classroom.

As they opened the door a billow of smoke hit them and they all gagged and coughed. The classroom was dark and stuffy. Hawk noticed that there was only one fireplace and a window. The room was covered with comfortable looking chairs and beanbags. The tables were round and covered with a white linen cloth. Which made them look like the very cute coffee tables standing outside of London's cafes.

As, one by one, climbed through the door, they heard the noise in the room quiet.

All three of them stood there, looking around at the people who were looking at them. They couldn't find the teacher, but didn't know if that was a pro or a con.

Suddenly a voice came out of a dark corner that made Hawk jump.

"Well, well, my dears, it seems to me that you are late. I, of course, knew this would happen and so that is why I am not going to send you to the headmaster. I consulted the tea leaves before class started and I know why you are late. It is very nice of you, Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter, to help our new student in her time of need." The voice that spoke was low and mysterious, and slightly husky with old age, but Hawk could still tell that it was a woman who spoke.

"Today class, we will be studying the art of stone reading," Hawk heard the teacher say from across the dark room.

Harry, Hawk and Ron found an empty table and sat down.

"To demonstrate to you how it is done, I will telepathically choose a volunteer to read."

"Oh, great," said Harry to no one in particular while Ron sniggered.

"What's great?" Hawk asked.

"Just wait," Harry said, holding a hand up to Hawk.

"I do not know who it will be," the teacher said, closing her eyes and putting a hand up to her forehead. "I will consult my inner eye and go where it leads me around the class room."

"This ought to be good," Harry mumbled.

"What ought to be good?" Hawk asked Harry curiously while Ron hugged his stomach in silent laughter.

"Its coming in 5..." whispered Harry.

Professor Trelawney started making a sound deep in her throat, as if she were meditating.

"4..."

She stretched out her arm and started walking around the room with her eyes closed.

"3..."

"I feel some very strange and very strong vibrations from this part of the room..." And Professor Trelawney started walking towards their table.

"2..."

"The vibrations are so strong! I cannot pull away!!"

"1..."

The meditating noise got louder and suddenly Professor Trelawney was standing at their table in between Harry and Hawk.

It seemed to Hawk that Professor Trelawney was a very "unique" teacher indeed. She placed her hands on top of Hawk's head (to Harry and Ron's [and I think everybody's] great surprise).

"Ahh my dear, I feel a very strange presence in you.... yes, yes you are one of many worries. .. ."

Lady, the only worries I have right now are you scaring the SHIT out of me! Hawk thought to herself.

"Well my dear I see that you were born on the 13th and a most ominous month"

What October is ominous?

"You have many men after you.."

I wish.

"And you care deeply on you appearance"

Oh yeah. Deeply.

"Wait, wait. . . I see something. . . I see the hawk. . . it flies over you with great haste. . . something has happened and the hawk is trying to deliver you a message," Professor Trelawney quickly took her hands off of Hawk's head, as if she herself was surprised at what she had done. She walked quickly to the front of the class and began with her lesson on stone reading.

Ron who was next to Hawk leaned in and whispered "Don't worry Hawk, she does this every year. I'm surprised that this year her target wasn't Harry. He seems to be her favorite sport."

"Yeah, this year she used a hawk, two years ago it was a grim. That thing had me going mad for months!" Harry whispered next to her.

"Yeah, and guess who had to be woken up at 12 o'clock midnight to tell him that each shadow wasn't a Grim," uttered Ron.

"Shut up! I was right wasn't I?"

"Well after two or three nights that I went out without sleep!"

Hawk couldn't help but laugh. It was true Professor Trelawney didn't seem to be all there to Hawk but she had mentioned something about a hawk. And hawk's are symbols of life. Why would a hawk be urging to deliver me a message?

"Is something funny back there?" Professor Trelawney said.

"Nothing professor" said Ron in his oh-so-innocent voice.

"I see then, could any of you tell me what the stones would say of someone who is born in the month of June?- I think not because YOU WERE NOT PAYING ATTENTION"

Harry, Ron and Hawk kept quiet.

Professor Trelawney smoothed her hair and tunic and continued on with the lesson as Parvati and Lavender shot disapproving looks.

"What?" said Hawk to Parvati, making her quickly turn away. I thought so.

"Now class I will pass a set of 7 stones to each table and each of you will take turns seeing each others past." Professor Trelawney announced to the class as she stopped by every table and put a bag of stones on each.

"I think that we should start with you Harry because you seem to be so good at this" said Hawk in a taunting voice.

Ron opened the Divination book and read out loud.

"Place the three stones on each hand of the person that you are prophesying to. The seventh stone place it in your RIGHT hand. Make the person hold the stones thinking about a memory that they held precious in their past. After 30 seconds collect the six stones along with the 7th in your hand and concentrate hard on the feel of the stones. This will show you images of that persons past." Ron finished closing the book and looking both at Harry and Hawk.

"Well alrighty then" said Hawk in a Jim Carey imitation. "Here Harry take the rocks," said Hawk. "God why is it so hot here?" she asked, adjusting her hair and putting it to the side so that you could see it in full length displayed on her shoulder.

Harry closed his eyes and held the stones and then gave them to Hawk who had the 7th in her right hand.

"Ooh Harry I see many things in you past. ." uttered Hawk in a Trelawney impression. "Oh my God! Harry did you have a stripper in the dormitory while everybody was out?! Oh and I ALSO see that you enjoyed it very much! When was this? Was this on your 15th birthday!? You dirty whore!"

By this time Ron was grabbing his stomach and banging with his fist the table. His whole face had gone red and he couldn't stop laughing.

Harry who couldn't help it either, laughed too.

"Damn Harry I never knew you were so corky!" said Hawk.

***

The three of them walked out of Divination leaving a very angry Professor Trelawney because Hawk had accidentally broken one of her favorite pink tea cups.

"I told you that Hawk would break something in Trelawney's room"

"Room? More like attic."

"Hey guys!" Hermione waved ahead of them.

"Oh hey," said Harry.

"How was Divination Hawk?"

"Um, good I guess."

" 'Good' as in she's out of control or 'good' as in she's crazy but I can handle her."

" 'Good' as in she's a wacko but I want to learn Divination so I can cheat on tests," Hawk said with a smile.

" I told you they use those powers to cheat!" said Ron grinning from ear to ear.

" I had to get out of that class; Divination was a whole bunch of gobble de gook."

"Yeah, you should have seen when she left, it was great! And it also means one less class with Hermione," said Ron grinning again.

"Gee that's very sweet," replied Hermione. "Now hurry up we have to go to History."

"Oh, yeah, my favorite class," said Harry in a very sarcastic tone.

Just then Sally-Anne popped up out of nowhere beside Ron and wrapped her arms around his.

"Aaaggghhhh! Sally-Anne, don't do that!" Ron screamed, pulling his arm out of her grasp.

Sally-Anne's eyes got huge and she batted them at Ron. "Ronald, sweetie, I was just coming to give you this batch of cookies I just made for you and to see why you weren't there to walk me to class."

"Maybe because you're a sadistic psycho bitch and I don't want to be around you lest you kill me and lay eggs in my brain?" Ron implied helpfully. Sally-Anne looked from Ron to Harry to Hermione and finally to Hawk before she looked back to Ron. She didn't say anything for a long time. Finally Ron grabbed the tin can that she was holding which obviously had the cookies in it turning to Sally-Anne.

"Thanks for the cookies and everything Sal, really, they mean a bundle to me but shouldn't you be going to wrestle a troll or something?" Ron pushed Sally-Anne forward-and away from him-by the small of her back.

Sally-Anne turned back to look at Ron one last time before she would walk away.

"I just have one question for you Ronald: Is there somebody else?" Hawk had to hold in a laugh at how dramatically Sally-Anne broaded over Ron. She also vaguely noticed that Sally-Anne never called Ron 'Ron'. She always used the name 'Ronald'.

Ron rolled his eyes. "No, Sally-Anne, there never was, never is and never will be anyone else. I think it's safe to say that you have quiet effectively ruined dating for me."

Despite the fact that Ron had said that to hurt Sally-Anne, she smiled. Turning down the hall Hawk could almost see the joy in the way her curls bounced. Hawk also noticed that on the back of her robes where big white letters that spelled out 'I Will Be A Weasley'.

"Why do you blow her off? She obviously likes you and I thought that you wanted an admirer," Hermione said, giving Ron a hard look.

"I do, I do. Just not a 'follower' admirer."

Hawk laughed. " 'Oh, Ronald, I seem to have concocted a love potion wrong and now I cannot get you out of my head!' " Hawk mocked Sally-Anne's voice going up to Harry and pretending to have a faint spell.

" 'Sally-Anne, I seem to have lost my teddy bear? Will you sleep with me?' " Harry puffed up his chest and stood on the tips of his toes in a rather crude imitation of Ron.

" 'Gladly, Ronald!' " Hawk put a hand to her forehead and looked as if she might faint.

"Haahaa guys, very funny. Can we just get to class, now?" Ron asked, a pleading look in his eyes. Hermione laughed as Hawk and Harry kept up the charade.

" 'I seem to be late to class, my barnacle, I might as well not go and we can spend the period in each other's loving arms,' " Harry said dramatically, still taller than he should be.

"Oh Ronald, you have the best ideas! No wonder you are the smartest person in the whole school!' "

Hawk and Harry looked at each other for a minute before Hawk said, in a voice that sounded as if she were under a spell, " 'Dance with me, Ronald,' " and Harry took her arms and they tackily danced down the corridor.

Hermione ran to catch up with them, laughing hysterically.

"Schmucks," Ron said under his breath and shook his head, running to catch up with the others.

***

History, Hawk soon found out, was incredibly boring. Professor Binns was so boring that he seemed to have died, and didn't notice so he kept on teaching. Hawk was surprised that a ghost was teaching the class but at the same time it was pretty cool.

Now this is the period I will spend sleeping, thought Hawk as she doodled on her paper, or as Ron called it 'parchment'. There was one of these classes for Hawk in every school she had ever been to--two in Froglet. Just then Harry passed her a note under his book and she took it. It read:

Do you want to come with us tonight after dinner?

Where? And that depends are you going to murder me? A sign of how bored she was.

Maybe. No I' m kidding. We won't kill you...yet. We have this place behind the north tower were the three of us go to relax.

Do you guys smoke pot back there? She wrote back wondering briefly if English people even smoked 'pot' or if they were too polite to do such a 'dastardly thing' as her grandmother used to say about smoking anything that did not come with a prescription.

Only on Wednesdays. NO! Of course not! He wrote laughing under his breath.

Yeah, sure. I'll go, Hawk wrote with a written shrug.

***

The dungeons were cold, even during the summer. Hawk shivered and shrank into her 'trench coat' more. She sat at a table with Hermione. The table had a cutting board on it and a cauldron next to it. There were lots of weird looking vials on the table, too. They were nothing new to Hawk, and neither was the room, since she used to have potions at Froglet, as well.

Hawk had just finished hearing horror stories about the teacher from Harry, Hermione and Ron, but as long as Hawk didn't mess up too bad, she thought she might be okay. Or maybe not. They told her that Snape really liked to pick on the Gryffindors and since Hawk was so clumsy, they thought that it would make her a better target. Hawk hoped that the teacher would be too pre-occupied to even notice her.

He wasn't.

Professor Snape walked in and went up to his desk. He looked at the roll of students in his class and a new name caught his eye. Ah, yes, the new student from America. He smiled. Well, lets see what we can do...

Snape turned towards the class and searched the room for his new torture victim. Sure, he liked to abuse Neville and the other Gryffindors, but they were getting slightly boring after 6 years.

He saw her sitting at a table with the-know-it-all. His smile grew wider.

Across the dungeons, Hawk felt Snape's eyes on her and she looked up. The only thought that came to her mind was that Harry and them had been right; he was butt-ugly.

"Well, well. It seems we have a new edition to our class. Miss Vela, from America. Tell me, is it true that Froglet is one of the most unrecognized wizarding schools in the world?"

The Slytherins laughed at the fact that Hawk would come from such an unaccredited school. She looked at Snape, "No. In fact Froglet ranked in the top 10 schools in the world and was first in America." She heard all the Gryfindors stifle laughter and Snape's face turned slightly red.

"Well then maybe you can enlighten us with your first-rate Froglet knowledge, Miss Vela: What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hawk was not caught off guard whatsoever, "Asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is called the Draught of Living Death."

After Hawk spoke, no one in the class even dared to breath. Snape stood there looking stunned. Hermione, so softly Hawk had to wonder if she imagined it, whispered, "Good job".

Snape spoke again so suddenly that it made Hawk jump, but that was the only sign she gave of fear towards him. "Vela, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar-"

Hawk barley let him finish. "In the stomach of a goat."

"What is the difference between mankswood and wolfbane?"

"Nothing. They are the same plant that also goes by the name of aconite. Come on, Professor. Those are first-year questions."

"Indeed," was all that Snape said. The rest of the class period they spent taking notes, like every first day of potions, and Snape never even said a word to the Gryffindors the rest of the period.

At the end of the class, Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest of the Gryffindors congratulated Hawk on a job well done, and she couldn't help but smile a little. It was practically the only class that Hawk hadn't crapped-up in and she was also very pleased by the fact that 'Malfoy' had been there and she had made up for the little 'incident' in Herbology today.

***

"I'm starving! Must have FOOD!" It seemed to Hawk that she hadn't eaten in four months although it was little more than 4 hours.

"Yeah me too," said Hermione who had also worked up quite an appetite.

The four of them walked into the great hall with glassy eyes. Dinner was spectacular. There was roast chicken with mashed potatoes and weird buns shaped into brooms, hats, cauldrons and such. Even Hawk ate everything on her plate and was going for her second helping of bread when her eyes caught that all too familiar flash of silver. She turned and saw that it was Draco in the Slytherin table being very much 'entertained' by a girl with long straight brown hair. She had her arms coiled around his neck and was laughing 'Oh Draco you're soooo funny'.

Hawk took a big gulp of her pumpkin juice and almost spit it all out when the unfamiliar taste landed on her throat.

When everybody was done Harry stood up, Hermione followed and Ron told Hawk to come up with them.

Hermione who had been noticing Hawk's pale face asked if something was wrong.

"No, nothing" answered Hawk.

They walked through doors and turns and behind many portraits. There were so many, Hawk lost track and decided to just follow Harry. Finally they reached a portrait that unlocked a room with a very shabby looking door.

"Here we are, care to do the honors Hawk?" Harry asked her with a smile.

"Uh, sure..."

Hawk moved casually towards the door and opened it slowly. The door uncovered a beautiful little garden that was cornered by the walls of the north tower so that it was enclosed and the roof were the stars and the sky. The only light was the moon.

"Wow, this is beautiful."

"Yeah, Harry and Hermione found it one night while they were out doing something that I don't know about," said Ron giving quizzical looks to his friends.

"We weren't doing anything," said Harry quickly.

"Yeah what makes you think that?" said Hermione as she walked promptly through the door. "We believe that this garden was built around the 70's by a witch and a wizard in love who used this as their hideout"

"Why do you believe that?" asked Hawk

"Oh well because it's carved on the fountain" said Hermione with a smile.

"For we are lovers of two worlds

that come together to make this rose.

In here behind the north

we make our apiary

for there is nothing more that we love

then to be in each others company,

oh true, oh blue, oh love

this is for us."

"Unfortunately for them we use it as an excuse to come up with the next plan on how to destroy things." said Harry.

"No. . ." said Hermione giving Harry a disapproving look. "I use it as a relaxing place to do homework," said Hermione as usual.

"I think that this is where Fred and George came to test all their fireworks because there's a whole bunch of acid marks on the floor," said Ron.

"How do you do homework with no light?" asked Hawk because the light from the moon wasn't exactly 'correct lighting' for Snape's 20 scroll-homework.

"Simple" said Hermione.

Ron, Harry and her picked up their wands and said "Lumos". They placed them on torch holders that were located on the walls. The tiny garden was illuminated immediately by green, red and blue light, giving the garden a sense of a 'liaison' atmosphere.

"Wow, now that is cool."

***

It was getting late so the four of them made it back to the common room, said their good-bye's and went to their separate dormitories.

Hawk was exhausted and quickly fell on her bed after she had bid Hermione 'goodnight'. It was great knowing that she had friends that would not try to stab her in the back, while she slept (which may not be that great of a problem seeing that Hawk always carried a blade in her boot and put it on top of her drawer when she slept.) It's great that I finally found some friends that really make me feel comfortable. Especially really cute ones like Harry, Hawk thought with a smile as she fell asleep.

What Hawk thought would be a very peaceful sleep to an altogether good day was nothing short of horrendous. Once her eyes were closed and she was just leaning into the loving embrace of the hands of slumber, the blackness of her sleepy mind was clouded with red and a vision came into her mind.

She was in a small, quaint little village with people all around her. Everything seemed normal until something big cast a shadow above the tiny village. Looking up, Hawk saw an enormous dragon in the sky. The villagers didn't seem phased by this at all. They just went about their business.

Hawk looked down from the sky and as she did, her gaze fell on the only other person looking up, too. His silver hair stood out against all the blandness of the ordinary villagers around her and they stared at each other briefly.

At that moment, as if it were timed precisely, the sky began to rain fire. The villagers began to scream and as Hawk looked around, she saw the fire hit houses and people, killing almost instantly.

The dragon flew by overhead again, this time with someone on its back. The villagers screamed this time and died right before Hawks very eyes.

Hawk quickly turned to Draco for some reason. Maybe she thought that he would help her or maybe she just needed to see his reaction to this monstrosity of death and fire all around them.

Draco just stood there, not moving, not showing any kind of emotion. People ran by him screaming, children ran past him crying, and all he ever did was look at Hawk.

Hawk saw his eyes clearly. They seemed to be asking her to do something, but she could not figure out what. Something hurt inside of her. It ached and she could not make it stop. The pain seemed to be what someone gets when they know they have to do something, they just don't know what--and it eats them up inside.

Then, from behind Draco, a beautiful woman in long red robes appeared. She walked past Draco--but not as if he weren't there. She seemed to acknowledge his existence internally and it made Hawk feel uneasy, as if there was something going on that she did not know about.

The woman walked up to Hawk and touched her face. A sudden wind came out of nowhere and blew Hawks hair around her body. Hawk opened her mouth to say something, but the woman beat her to it.

Quietly, so quietly that it seemed she didn't want anyone to hear, even Hawk, the woman leaned forward and whispered, "Regis Filiae de Draco ille." She let her hand stroke Hawk's cheek before turning around.

As Hawk watched the woman go, Hawk noticed that she was carrying a scepter of some sort. From the distance Hawk could not clearly make it out but could see a crystal ball in the middle of it.

Hawk turned back to Draco, just in time for another wild pain to slam into her stomach.

The pain awoke Hawk and she sat up in bed. She was sweating and her covers were tangled around her legs. The pain was still there, so intense that Hawk could not move. But at the same time she seemed restless. This was about the tenth time Hawk had woken up like this, with the same dream playing over in her mind. There was another, which truly terrified Hawk, but luckily she had not had that one in a while. They had come the night Hawk had found out that her grandmother had died. She had never seen Draco in them, though, or the woman. It was usually just the villagers and herself.

The pain inside her stomach was telling her that she needed to do something, to save the people in her dream, but Hawk's mind was telling her that it wasn't real.

She went over it in her mind. The cute little village, the dragon that no one seemed to notice at first. Draco Malfoy standing on the cobblestone street of the village seemingly expressionless as the people around him burned to death. The woman. And the words she said. Words that rang in Hawk's heart and seemed to give her comfort for some strange reason. Foreign words that were on the tip of Hawk's mind, half translated. But it was all too much for Hawk and she got up despite the pain, her mind echoing the words of the woman, her brain trying to comprehend the meaning of 'Regis Filiae de Draco ille'.