Sea of Bitterness

It was a quiet afternoon, and Molly Fitzgerald was glad it had stopped raining. This was not to say that she didn't like the rain of course, she just couldn't concentrate as well and besides, it made her blasted hair frizzy. Hair was such a bother and she didn't understand why people were born with it in the first place. Oh fabulous, now you have completely lost your train of thought Molly Fitzgerald." She continued scolding herself as she started up the dirt road.

She had walked for quite a while before she began to relax. Oh how wrong she had been about a "quiet" vacation with her family being peaceful. She wished endlessly for something that would give her an excuse to return to Hogwarts early from Christmas break. She loved her situation as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and had been lucky. She was the first in a long time to hold this position for more than a year. Besides, the potions professor, Snape was damn sexy, though she did have the feeling that he hated her with a fiery passion. Unfortunately, this was even more of a turn on.

Molly was so lost in her daydreams about Snape in leather pants that she didn't notice the body collapsed on one side of the road until she had nearly tripped over it. She wiped drool from her lips. It was a young girl, probably about fifteen or so. She was pale, and her ebony hair curled around her pale face. She was beautiful even as pained and starved as she was. Her clothing was a mass of bloody tatters and her bare feet were swollen and the ivory skin that was exposed was covered in deep cuts and painful-looking bruises.

Well, this was interesting. Nothing like this had ever happened before. She stooped over the body and felt for a pulse. Yes, the girl was alive, but barely. Molly slipped her arms under the girl's limp body and lifted her easily from the ground. As she did so, the girl's wind-torn jacket flapped open to reveal the thin piece of wood so speculated about before. For the first time she smelled the acrid scent surrounding the girl, and mingling with the smell of the sea. That was weird, they were miles and miles from the ocean, and the salt encrusted on the on the girls eyelashes and hair made did not assist in uncovering this enigma.

Molly hadn't brought her wand with her and so had to walk the long way back to the cottage with the girl in her arms. When she arrived, her mother and father were fixing supper and her squib brother was on the couch reading a golf magazine.

"I have to go to Hogwarts immediately. She needs to be properly cared for," she murmured nodding her head to the figure in her arms. "I need to speak to Dumbledore." Her mother and father nodded sadly.

"You could probably use the Weasleys's car," her mother said with concern, speaking of old family friends of theirs. "I'll go get the floo powder."

Her brother had not moved from his place on the couch as any business anything to do with magic did not concern him. Her mother returned with a small suitcase in one hand, and the other clasped around something, which she threw into the fire. She then handed the bag to her daughter, kissed her cheek softly and walked back to the kitchen. Molly stepped into the fire, with the girl in her arms and the bag swinging from one elbow. Within seconds, she had disappeared from sight leaving the short word she had whispered still hanging on the air.

~

He was on a quiet island. A warm comforting breeze rustled through the tops of palms and stirred the sand at his feet. He was wearing swim trunks and had been wearing them for a while obviously as his skin was a tan caramel color. The woman he was walking toward turned, saw that he was coming and smile. She was radiant, clad in a string bikini, which to say in the least she was busting out of. But Draco didn't complain. Her hair was whipping around her face. When he reached her, he took her hand and kissed it, brushing his lips against the smooth back of her hand. She then put took his shoulders squarely in her hands. Draco braced himself be snogged alive, and maybe even more, but she just stood there for a moment and then began shaking him firmly, very firmly....

He woke up. Goyle was standing over him. "It's time for dinner, and that thing you did, kissing my hand, that was a little weird."

"Come off it. Let's just say I was having a very nice dream."

"Good..., the girl's didn't like us," Crabbe said, gingerly touching his crimson cheek.

"Oh, come on, you didn't think they would just fall into your arms did you."

"Well yeah actually, that's what they do to you"

"They don't want you to know they fancy you. Give them time, just give them time. That's the thing about women, they..." and the three boys disappeared off to supper in the Great Hall.

~

"I think she might have come from some small wizarding academy, and rumor has it that somewhere near the coast an academy was attacked by deatheaters. I think we should take her in. You know, allow her to finish her training here after she is healed of course."

"I would tend to agree," Dumbledore spoke directly to Molly even though the were others in the room, "but I don't see how we can clothe her and buy her the supplies she needs. I am assuming that her parents are probably no longer alive. The clothes she was wearing came from a muggle orphanage."

"We could use the money we were planning on using for the next Hogsmeade trip. I think the outside influence is bad for the students anyways." Put in McGonagall sharply.

"And we could use old school books that were left behind last year," Molly added hopefully.

"Very well, when she is healed, we will sort her privately." The headmaster sighed.

~

There was a suspicious air in the Great Hall. Something had happened. The students had been bid to remain very quiet when passing the hospital wing. In addition, it had been boarded up and a temporary clinic had been set up in one of the dungeons for any students who needed help with minor ailments. And lastly, there was a strange rumor formulating around the rumor in hushed whispers that Professor Fitzgerald had returned early from her Holiday in Ireland in the Weasley's new car, with someone.

Dumbledore stood up. "There will be a new student joining the 6th years after Christmas break," and that was all, no explanation, nothing. Draco felt a pain sear through his mind. Not his pain, physically, but more excruciating than anything he had experienced in his life. It was far away, yet so near by. In his mind. He stopped himself from screaming out loud, but instead got up hurriedly from his seat and raced out of the room. People noticed, but not really.

No one would have noticed. He took no interest in the lives of others. He had no friends (Crabbe and Goyle could not have been considered friend as together they had the intelligence of a very dim scone). Why should they make an effort to except him, if he would not do the same for them? It was sad, but somehow it made sense. They all could have liked him if he had tried harder, and some of them did like him despite this fault, but never for long. He did of course have admirers, but that was attributed to his spectacular hair, his beautiful eyes, and his sleek muscular body, more than it was to his character. Some said this was because he was conceited, some thought he was mean, but no one ever considered that maybe he was just like the rest of them, only a bit more hurt and lost. A bit more kicked around. No one ever thought that Draco Malfoy was pained but this was because over the years, he had become very good at hiding it.