Dangerous Petals

Two

     No one had ever really cared for Draco Malfoy before. Now his mind was reeling as he sat down at the Slytherin table before the great feast. Well, maybe someone had cared for him a little, once upon a time, but that was over now. He couldn't trust those... people ever again. Maybe it wasn't a wise decision to move out of his house, but what else was there to do? Every day he spent at home his soul was gradually deteriorating. He was afraid that there would soon be nothing left. Maybe he would have to be a death eater, like his father had told him. If he'd stayed, who knew what kind of mad things he'd be doing now.

     But it was over. He wasn't going to talk to his "father", Lucius Malfoy, again. Ever. He didn't need the added stress, and he wanted to keep his soul... intact. Although spending the summer at Vincent Crabbe's was boring, it was better than serving an evil dark lord. Even Crabbe and Goyle didn't know why Draco had moved out. Both their fathers were death eaters as well, and their sons were most likely to follow in their footsteps. Draco couldn't talk to them about anything, just like he could never talk to his father. It was pointless, really.

     Good? Evil? What was the difference? What made one man a death eater, and his son unwilling to be like him? Unwilling to serve the evil? The darkness? Why was he so unlike the rest of his family? They ranted on about the value of pure blood, and he used to buy it all too, but now he wasn't so sure. He realized things, like how most pure-blooded wizards had some evil in them. Most pure bloods were death eaters, or just followers of the dark Lord. Except for the Weasleys. They were somehow pure-blooded and didn't have a speck of evil in them. How did they manage it? What was their secret?

     Draco didn't even need an answer. He knew why. Love. Trust. Family. Being together and being there for each other made them sane. The Malfoy family had never experienced love, or any of those things. They were ice. It was almost embarrassing to think, but he envied the Weasleys. He longed for a family, or for someone at least, to love him. To take care of him and for him to take care of. Someone like...

     "No, not even close," he muttered to himself.

     "Close to what?" Goyle asked like the oaf that he was.

     "Nothing. Just never mind," Draco snapped, covering for himself. Then, he noticed how everyone's gaze turned towards the entrance door, and she walked in. Gabrielle. Her dark hair was glistening in the candlelight, and she had an air of confidence about her. She was beautiful. She sat down at the Gryffindor table all by herself. There didn't really need to be anybody else. She could take up the whole universe with her energy.

     What was he thinking? Draco shook his head, slightly disappointed in himself. Of course it was the veela blood in her. He noticed almost every other male still staring at her, drinking her in. It was a waste of his time. What was going through his mind anyways? There was no way she could ever care for him. He knew her type, she was searching, and there was never a guy who was good enough. She would play him and then drop him.

     This was why he hated getting involved with people. All they would ever do is hurt him. Bring him down. He was better off alone. He knew better than to sink to a girl's level. All they wanted to do was play. He'd learned from his past experiences about relationships. Most girls adored him for some reason, but it bored him really. He'd briefly seen Pansy Parkinson when she'd put a love spell on him, requiring him to go to the hospital wing to remove it, and he'd dated Lavender Brown as well, until the giggles began to really annoy him. No matter what people thought of him, he wasn't that shallow.

     He sighed quietly, tapping his foot on the floor. There was no point in truly caring for anybody when all they would do was hurt him. He was just fine being alone. But as professor McGonagall stood up to begin the first years' sorting, he wasn't worried as his lips curled into a small smile that only his heart understood.

     Everybody always stared at Harry Potter. It was almost a natural law of science. That everyone would stare at the boy who had the scar... the boy who had lived. Harry was getting tired of it. Everyone knew by now what had happened the year before. He had faced Lord Voldemort once again and come out alive where many others much stronger than him had perished. Like his parents, whom he'd never known. The year before he'd been ridiculed for saying that Voldemort was back, he'd been publicly humiliated many times. Had he received any apologies now that Voldemort was back? Not one.

     He heard peoples' audible whispers shooting everywhere. "Did you hear"s and "Well, I was told"s. Rumors. Truths. He was always an interesting discussion topic. Sometimes though, he wished things were different.

     Ron and Hermione, his two best friends, were sitting to his right, and Ginny sat to his left, all deeply involved in the sorting celebration while Harry blocked it out. He looked at Ginny through the corner of his eye, flaming red hair hung in graceful waves around her shoulders, her deep brown eyes sparkling as she was immersed in the sorting. He felt stupid for being so attracted to her, considering she was his best friend's sister. What would Ron think if he knew? Would he kill him? Disown him as a friend?

     Harry almost yelped as his hand accidentally brushed Ginny's thigh. He didn't know if he could live if he never told her how he felt. It was just that... things were hard for him. His world was bleak and he had to admit that he was afraid. Of being alone. Ginny was always there, looking up at him with those soulful brown eyes that made his heart melt. But Ginny had told him the year before that her obsession with him had ended so he really had no chance, But... then again, if she liked him once, she could like him again right? He was hopeless. He had to get his mind off of this, off of everything. Off of Sirius.

     His godfather had been all he'd been thinking about all summer. Every minute, all he thought about was that it was his fault. If he hadn't been around, Sirius wouldn't have gone, and that Bellatrix woman wouldn't have...

     He shook his head, willing those thoughts to go away, to just leave him alone. Nobody could really understand how painful it had been for him when his godfather had been killed. Sirius had always brought Harry hope, and had been the closest thing he had to a father... and now he was gone as well. There was nobody for Harry. And even as he sat in the great hall, surrounded by his peers, Harry Potter felt a little alone, and not for the first time.

     She was lost in the crowd. As the feast began, the students around her bustled about, shouting things to one another, recapping recent quidditch games, reliving a certain event that had happened the year before with a set of twins, and cursing ‘that Umbridge woman'. She hadn't been here in the past year, so she knew nothing of these things. Once again she was left out. But it was okay. She was used to it. People staring at her, but always too afraid to just come and talk to her. She was like a flower, beautiful to look at, but better left alone.

     Sometimes she even preferred being alone, but most of the time she longed for someone to talk to. Maybe even someone to love. She was almost startled as a boy sitting next to her tried to grab her attention.

     "So, you're new here right?" the dark haired boy said, looking a little nervous.

     "Yes," she said quietly, not really wanting to talk to anyone.

     "I'm Seamus Finnigan," he said, holding out his hand. She went to shake it, but she noticed that it was no longer a regular hand. There was no skin, it was only bone and blood, and she gasped in horror as the skin deteriorated all the way around his body, and his throat gurgled fiercely, blood shooting out of his mouth as the body began to convulse. She looked around and noticed every other body in the room shaking ferociously around her, except for a select few, who ate, not seeming to notice anything. Draco Malfoy was among them.

     Why couldn't anyone notice this? She felt like screaming, like throwing up. The bodies finally gave up their fight, falling limply to the floor. She stood up, trying to back away from this gruesome sight as Draco placidly ate his porkchop. He chewed, and chewed, and chewed. And the bodies were dead, the skin was gone. Blood. Sickly smell. Blood. Bones. She noticed some crimson on her hand and then she was covered in it, covered in blood. She let out a loud scream, her voice vibrating through the swelled hallways. She could feel her heart beating in her mind.

     "Stop it!" she screamed, falling to the ground. Chew, chew. Beating, thumping.

     "I can see you Gabrielle." A voice. The voice. Raspy, breathing through the hall like a cold wind.

     "Who are you?" she asked, spinning around. Searching.

     "Show me where it is," the voice said.

     "Where what is?" she screamed.

     "Your fear will get you Gabrielle. It will kill you!" the voice wailed, sending heat and wind and fire through the hall. Gabrielle's tears were stained with blood as she collapsed on the floor, sobbing and the darkness spread throughout her mind.

     "Is she okay?"

     "What happened?"

     "She just kind of, passed out."

     "Do you think she faked it?"

     "Did you hear her scream?"

     "Maybe it's just nightmares."

     Once again Gabrielle heard someone calling her name. But this time the voice was different. It was deep, and masculine. It caressed her closed eyes, it brought her back. She opened her eyes to see those cold blue-gray irises. Draco.

     "She's awake," he said quietly to a matronly woman beside him.

     "Oh good. Gabrielle, I'm Madame Pomfrey, you're in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, are you alright?" she asked. Gabrielle sat up and nodded, shaking her head. It was throbbing.

     "Do you know what happened?" she asked. There were other people in the room. A girl her age with deep ruby locks, a boy with carrot-colored hair, a girl with a frizzy brown bird's nest, and Harry Potter.

     "I fainted?" she asked. Then it all came back to her. The rotting corpses having spasms on the floor. She shuddered, willing the thought to leave her mind.

     "Yes dear, now it looks like you'll be fine. This happens a lot?"

     Gabrielle nodded. She'd been having these fainting spells for years, ever since she was a little girl. Each time she dreamed of horrible, terrible, monstrous things. Things you sometimes couldn't even find in your nightmares. By the time she was three she fully understood death, and had seen more monsters than people ten times her age. Her mother had always thought she was odd when she told her about the ghosts that visited her in her mind. She'd thought it was her imagination. So Gabrielle pretended they didn't come. She ignored them. This had been her first spell in over a year.

     "I just sent professor McGonagall to tell your sister," Madam Pomfrey said, busying herself with tidying up a bed next to her.

     "What? Fleur? But how?" she asked, rubbing her swollen eyes. Her eyes widened a little as she realized that there were actually people in the room with her. People she didn't know. She knew Draco and Harry, but the other three she had no clue. It made her a little self-conscious. Even having people she knew there was making her self-conscious.

     "She didn't tell you? She's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year." Gabrielle gaped in surprise. She knew Fleur was talented in the subject, but teach it?

     "We were in a tight bind for the subject, no one wanted to teach it," Madam Pomfrey explained. Gabrielle nodded and sat back on the bed, trying to not look as gross as she knew she looked. She noticed how dark it was outside as McGonagall and Fleur came running into the room. Fleur was looking beautiful, with her waist-length blonde hair flowing. She noticed only Ron was deeply entranced by her sister.

     "Gabrielle! Are you okay?" she asked, looking worried as she came up next to her.

     "I'm fine," Gabrielle said, brushing her hair behind her ears. Fleur looked worries as she felt her forehead.

     "Now you tell me why you didn't tell me about your job here!" she said, trying to grin mischievously.

     "I wanted it to be a surprise. Dumbledore came to me at the beginning of the summer asking me to take on the job, so here I am!" she said, smiling.

     "Even though this reunion is very touching, if Miss Delacour is no longer ill, I'll have to ask you all to leave," Madam Pomfrey said. McGonagall stepped up.

     "Ginny, Harry, Hermione and Ron are all in your house, so they can show you around, please?" she said, more asking them than telling her. "Draco said he sat with you on the train so we wanted you to wake up to a familiar face."

     "Whatever, you made me come," he said coldly. Gabrielle would've glared at him had she not been so exhausted, but she nodded to the professor and stood up, trying to ignore the spinning feeling in her head. She was still in her robes, and she was sure it was getting late.

     Ginny Weasley still found it a little odd how Gabrielle had just passed out during diner, but she was sure that she was just tired. They all were. As they walked back to Gryffindor tower from the hospital wing, she and Gabrielle introduced themselves, and were soon laughing as if they'd known each other for years. Harry, Ron and Hermione walked a few meters behind them, having their own conversation, probably about Voldemort.

     Ginny found that she and Gabrielle had a lot in common. Mainly they both felt left out a lot. She thought it almost impossible that a girl as beautiful and funny as Gabrielle could ever feel left out, but she realized a lot of girls would probably be jealous.

     As for Ginny, being left out was a given. Her friends consisted of The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, The clever Hermione, and her brother Ron who got to be in all these amazing experiences. Not to mention she was the only girl in her family, and that each of her brothers had achieved something great. Ron was last year's prefect, Fred and George were Hogwarts legends, Percy, though he was a great prat, had been head boy and now worked for the ministry of magic, Charlie worked with dragons, and Bill was a tomb raider.

     Though she'd gotten the role of prefect this year, Ron would still always outshine her because of his adventures. Someday, maybe someday she would get the chance to sparkle. To have people know who she was. She was very glad to find someone who understood how she felt. Gabrielle had been through it. She knew what it was like to be unwanted.

     They reached the portrait of the fat lady and they explained to Gabrielle the process of the passwords and how she should NEVER write them down. Even if Sirius had only been trying to kill Ron's rat which was actually Peter Pettigrew, if anyone else had gotten in it could've meant death.

     "Are you going to be out here all night?" the fat lady asked impatiently.

     "The password is flobberworm," Ginny continued and the painting swung open, revealing the Gryffindor common room.. There was a large fireplace and many burgundy chairs and couches.

     "It's so... homy," Gabrielle said, her blue eyes sparkling.

     "But I'm sure Beauxbatons was much better," Hermione put in, not trying to be rude but annoyed as Ron stared at her. Gabrielle didn't seem to notice her tone, as she flitted through the room and jumped on one of the couches, grinning as she looked out the big balcony window at the twinkling stars.

     "No, Beauxbatons was very...cold. It was beautiful, but I couldn't be comfortable there," she said. She looked almost like a goddess lying on the couch, and Ginny could tell that Ron was having trouble holding himself back from pouncing on her.

     "Well, I think it's time for bed, we all have classes tomorrow and we're going to need our rest," Hermione said, clearly aggravated at Ron's behavior.

     Ginny watched as the three went up to their rooms, and she stayed in the common room. Gabrielle was silent now, staring up at the sky. She had a very faraway look in her eyes as they twinkled with the stars. She was lost in her thoughts, looking almost a little afraid. Ginny thought that maybe she was thinking of her fainting spell. Or maybe it was something else. Something secret that maybe even Gabrielle didn't know.