Something in the Punch

Something in the Punch

The Great Hall was decorated with every type of decoration Harry had ever seen in his entire life. The ceiling glittered with twinkling stars and the moon shone brightly in a far corner. There were hearts everywhere: after all, it was the Valentine's Day dance.

Ron and Hermione were standing right with him, also marveling at the excessive amounts of heart-shaped confetti. Hermione gave Harry and Ron a suspicious look as Fred and George Weasley casually strolled away from the punch bowl, basically with "I'm Guilty of Whatever You Think" written across their foreheads in red paint.

"I wonder what they've done this time," she whispered.

"They're not always up to something," Ron said. "Sometimes they just look like it."
"When do your brothers not look like they've done something wrong?" Hermione whispered angrily. "Look at them! They've most definitely done something this time Ronald!"

Harry laughed inwardly. He and Hermione had only been a couple for a few weeks, and already he was seeing the benefits of this relationship. He got free homework help and a kiss daily. Ron hadn't been around the common room much lately, since he had been elected Head Boy. Harry sometimes wondered where he went, or where he was spending so much time. Hermione often said that his job demanded a lot of his free time, and that she was surprised that she wasn't feeling the same sort of stress all the time.

"Because you've been acting like Head Girl since you were in the womb," Ron had said. "It's not any change for you."

Hermione was now looking, wide-eyed as the stone cupid statue began to spout chocolate, and play a beautiful harp song. Harry slipped his arm around her waist, and Ron looked around the Great Hall anxiously, as if waiting for someone.

"Ron, who are you looking for?" Harry asked.

"No one," Ron said quickly, "I'm just, uh, looking around."

Hermione rolled her eyes, and settled her head on Harry's shoulder. This dance had been going on for about three hours, and everyone was taking a break from dancing, and was either eating, drinking, or talking. Or, in the case of Draco Malfoy and his girlfriend, Sasha Borgen, who Harry only recognized from Potions and Care of Magical Creatures, making out at their table. Hermione scoffed, looking scandalized at the Slytherin couple-of-the-week.

"Can't they find a room?" she asked. Harry looked at her and smiled. It wasn't as gross as he would have expected from the couple. If it was possible, the two made it even seem cute, in an odd, twisted sort of way. The particular shades of blonde in their hair blended with one another; the streaks of platinum in Sasha's golden hair mixed with Draco's hair, and the darker strands of his hair mixed into Sasha's.

Sasha slowly pulled away from Draco, who, when he looked across the room and spotted the offended-looking Hermione, the smiling Harry, and aloof-looking Ron, sneered. Hermione made an aggravated noise, and threw her arms up in the air, saying something about 'disgusting Slytherin cows...' which was quite unlike her indeed.

"Hermione, wait," Harry said, and she stopped, twisting her torso to look back at him.

"What?" Hermione snapped, "I'm going to bed. I can't stand this party if I can't even talk to you people without snatching you from your fantasies about Sasha Borgen. I'll have you know that absolutely everyone in her immediate family that's older than her is a registered Death Eater. I wouldn't be surprised if she's branded already. It's like Draco to pick a dangerous girl like that."

"You can't be saying you care?" Ron said, popping in. "It's like you're afraid for him or something. Who cares? If we're lucky, she'll do him in."

"Uggh!" Hermione wailed, again, throwing her hands in the air. She stormed from the Great Hall, and Harry watched her leave.

"Should I follow her?" Harry said, turning to Ron.

"Hell no," Ron said, taking a bite of the éclair on his plate. "She'll only bite your head right off your shoulders."

"True," Harry said. "But will she be angry I didn't?"

"What's the worst that could happen?" Ron asked.

"She'd hate me forever," Harry said.

"Like she'll stop being angry to think about you," Ron said. "She's too busy being absorbed in whatever the hell it is that she's suddenly angry about."

Harry turned the thought over for a minute, but quickly decided to stay with Ron. "I'm getting punch," he mumbled, and strode bravely past Draco and Sasha to the punch bowl.

He took the crystalline ladle, and filled a glass for himself, and brought it back to the table. Harry took a seat, and threw the whole thing back in one gulp. His head suddenly felt extremely light, and his vision got blurry, even through his glasses. The entire room tipped to one side, then the other, but nobody reacted.

But, as fast as the sensation had come, it was suddenly gone. He just felt giddy now, and tapped his wand on the glass, which magically refilled itself. Again, he threw back the entire thing, tapped the glass, and repeated this pattern through eight more glasses before he lost count. Or at least, he lost the ability to do so.

Draco walked by him as he was downing his seemingly millionth glass of punch. Ron was staring at Harry oddly, like he was scared of him. Draco left the Hall, but Sasha remained at the table, also guzzling punch like it was as vital and necessary as air.

"Harry, you might want to make that one your last," Ron said, patting Harry on the shoulder. "You're getting wicked drunk, mate."

"Whatever you say, Rufus, whatever you say," Harry slurred. "I'm making the most of tonight, no matter what you try to tell me."

"My name's Ron, Harry, Ron," Ron said.

"Alright, Harry," Harry replied. "But I'm still going to have a good time if it kills me." Ron raised his eye brows at Harry, who rose from his seat and stumbled over to Sasha Borgen, and whispered something in her ear. Instead of slapping him, or hitting him with a Sobertus charm, she giggled and followed him out of the Hall, her hand in his.

"Damn him," Ron said harshly. "He's going to be in hot water if he does anything stupid."

***

Harry and Sasha ran up three flights of stairs until they found the particular wall where the Room of Requirement would appear. Sasha whispered to the wall, giggling in a drunken humor, and the wall opened to reveal a barely-lit room, with a full-sized bed and a bottle of vodka in a container full of ice. There were no windows, but a roaring fireplace bathed the room in an orange-red glow. It was quite romantic, and to Harry's inoperative, drunk brain, he thought this was quite convenient: he thought he was in the Room of Requirement with Hermione, and they weren't in the middle of a fight.

~

On the other hand, Sasha knew she was in the Room of Requirement, but her own drunken eyes and brain saw her beloved boyfriend, Draco Malfoy, gripping her hand tightly, and so she kissed him full on the lips.

~

Harry was suddenly hit full in the lips with a tight kiss, which he recognized instantly as not-Hermione. However, he brushed this off, because he knew that it was her standing with him in the Room of Requirement, and suddenly he knew, body and mind, apparently, that this was the night his entire life had been leading up to, and the certain night that many boys his age had already experienced about four times. He was about to have sex with his girlfriend.

~

Sasha was not a virgin in any sense of the word. Though, with Draco, she was put, once again, in particular-boyfriend virginity. But now, her mind was racing, her adrenaline was rushing, her heart beating faster and faster: the common signs that she was turned on, and not just the type you can get from looking at someone. And she was happy. She was about to have sex with her boyfriend.

***

Ron was rushing around the Great Hall, desperately looking for the twins. He spotted them, sitting and laughing at a table with Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell.

"Fred, George, I need to talk to you right now," Ron gushed.

"What about, Ron?" George asked.

"What the hell did you put in that punch?" Ron said, a vein in his neck bulging as the volume of his voice rose.

"Just a little...sweetener," Fred said mysteriously.

"Sweetener?" Ron basically screamed "You say 'Sweetener'? What the hell SWEETENER makes Harry run GIGGLING FROM THE HALL with DRACO MALFOY'S GIRLFRIEND? HARRY IS AWOL IN THE CASTLE WITH SASHA BORGEN! AND YOU CALL IT SWEETENER?"

Fred and George's jaws dropped, and their eyes grew to roughly the size of softballs.

"Sasha Borgen?" they stammered in unison. Angelina and Katie were staring at Ron, awe-struck that he could yell like that.

"Wait, you mean Harry's running around with Sasha, S-A-S-H-A, Borgen?" Angelina said. She looked disgusted, baffled and panicked all at the same time.

"He is gone, and he left with Sasha Borgen," Ron sighed, looking like he was trying to explain to inept toddlers which farm animal said moo. "And I'm trying to figure out what compelled him to do such a thing."

"Hormones," Fred said, "unless, of course, Harry's waiting for the opportune moment to tell us a frightening, yet incredibly juicy secret..."

"Fred, please, try to be serious," Angelina said. "It makes sense. She's pretty."

"Pretty, if you consider the people that Draco Malfoy chooses for girlfriends as 'pretty'. If this turns out the way I'm hoping it won't, Harry will end up being 'pretty' dead," Ron said.

"How would Draco handle a situation like this," George said with a mock-thoughtful expression.

"Probably sic his father on someone. Maybe Lucius's velvet ribbon would attack Harry and strangle him to death..." Fred said excitedly.

"And then Narcissa would come and brainwash everyone to become middle-aged sluts..." George continued.

"And finally, 'ickle Dracy-wakey-poo would get his precious girlfriend back, just in time to dish out a handy Killing Curse," Fred finished. He saw the looks Ron, Angelina and Katie were giving him. "What, it would make sense?"

"Fred, George, we need to figure this out," Ron said frantically.

"Just take it easy," George said, "Harry's not your responsibility."

"But if he gets killed, to Hermione, he was," Ron claimed.

"He's a big boy, Ronald, he'll take care of himself," Fred said, in the tone of voice a mother would use when talking to an extremely young child.

"I just hope you're right," Ron said.

***

The night passed by extremely fast, and Harry noticed that around one in the morning he was beginning to get tired.

"Love," he said to 'Hermione', "I'm tired."

"Me too," the girl answered, and Harry, looking at her closely for the first time since he had begun to sober up about an hour ago, noticed something very strange. He didn't see a distinct shape that he recognized as Hermione. Her hair was lighter, her voice was smoother, sultrier. She was more slender, and her hair was about nine times sleeker. But he quickly dismissed these observations, deciding that his tired mind was playing tricks on him.

Harry rolled over, and fell asleep within an instant.

~*~

When Harry finally woke up, he didn't bother to put his glasses on. He just looked around, and instantly panicked. He wasn't in the dormitory. He wasn't even in Gryffindor Tower. Fact of the matter was, he had no idea where he was, how long he'd been there, or why he was even there in the first place.

He threw the velvet comforter and silk sheets off, and looked at himself. As far as he could tell without glasses, he was naked. He grabbed his glasses off the small table to his left, and put them on. Confirming his fear: he was indeed naked. But he still didn't really know where he was. He looked to the left of the bed he was laying on, and saw a pair of hunter green, silk boxers laying on the floor, and snatched them quickly, slipping them on.

Instantly, memories came flooding back to him. He had gotten drunk at the Valentine's dance, shortly after Hermione had gotten angry with him and stormed off. After that, all he remembered was coming up here to the Room of Requirement with someone, someone he wanted to think was Hermione, and he distinctly remembered having sex.

Harry sat up on his elbows, and looked around the room. There was an arm chair pulled up in front of the fire, and he could just make out the shape of a girl sitting in it, reading a book. He relaxed: the person's hair was slightly wavy and was twisted at the back of her head, with a quill stuck through it to keep it in place, something he only knew Hermione to do.

She closed the book quietly, and peeked around the chair. Harry couldn't make out the details of her face, and got a little more nervous, thinking that this person, from what he could see, didn't look quite like Hermione.

She rose from the chair, and he could only see her from the back. She was wearing what appeared to be boxer shorts, and her uniform white button-up, collared blouse. Harry, once again, looked at himself, and found that he was wearing his tie, which was the only other thing, besides the silk boxers, on his body.

"Hermione?" Harry asked as the girl shifted the coals in the fireplace.

"Who?" the girl asked in a completely different voice than he was expecting. In fact, the one voice he was dreading more than any. She came forward into the light, and Harry's stomach seemed to leap into his throat.

He screamed bloody murder, which made her scream twice as loudly. They stood there, staring at each other and screaming for about a minute and a half.

"WHO ARE YOU?" they both screamed in unison.

"Sasha Borgen," the girl answered. "Why aren't you my boyfriend?"

"Am I supposed to be?" Harry asked, looking at himself once again. His hands were his, his stomach was his, and everything he could see was his. "Why aren't you my girlfriend?"

"When was I ever?" Sasha asked in disbelief. "You were Draco six hours ago."

"You were Hermione six hours ago," Harry said coolly. "Looks like you've gotten yourself into a fine mess here, Sasha."

"Me? I'm not in any type of mess. That Granger girl will be so terribly disappointed with you, Potter. She expects better of you than to be hanging around the likes of me," Sasha said bitterly.

"Draco won't be very pleased with you," Harry said. "He might even..." he paused for drama, "Dump you."

"He wouldn't," Sasha snarled. "He's lucky to have gotten me in the first place."

"Confident, are we? Well, what are you going to do then? He'll never trust you again, Borgen. Your reputation's ruined. For all we know, you're ruined. People might even make badges that flash Sasha's a Whore when they press them. It's not as much fun as it sounds, dear, not as much fun at all," Harry said icily.

"No one would dare to ruin me, Potter. I, unlike you, am rich. I, unlike you, have extremely powerful parents. And I, unlike you, am popular and gorgeous. People wouldn't ruin me."

"What have they got to lose? Your parents, if they would dare do anything because some kid flashed a badge at you, could get arrested, and thrown into Azkaban, sweet, because they're not nice people. I know about your family, Borgen. And I would bet you a whole lot of money that there are plenty of Gryffindors who are either daring or smart enough to not care what your mummy and daddy would do if they found out," Harry said.

"You really think so? You think that your house could brave my family? They could deal with the family pride? They could take on generations of Death Eaters? Generations of powerful witches and wizards just to get me?"
Harry stifled a laugh. "Generations? What're you going to do? Sic your grandmother on me?"

"How do you know that my grandfather isn't the most powerful Dark Wizard alongside Voldemort, Potter?" Sasha spat, throwing the same disgusted vigor into his last name as her boyfriend was world-renowned for.

"I feel so much better than you right now," Harry said happily.

"You'll never be better than me," Sasha growled.

"I am, right now. I'm not the one who'll get in loads of trouble with her mean old daddy because she slept with a Gryffindor. I'm so superior to you right now, Sasha Borgen. To begin, I, unlike you, was not stupid enough to admit that her entire family consisted of loyal Death Eaters. I, unlike you, am not bluffing just to get someone else scared of my grandfather. All things considered, I'm a whole hell of a lot better than you," Harry explained.

"Whatever, Gryffindor. There are more important things to think about than you anyway," Sasha said, pacing the floor. "What the hell am I going to tell Draco?" Sasha began to wring her hands.

"Sa.." Harry began, but quickly cut himself off. She was beginning to rant.

"What's Daddy going to say when he finds out? What's my sister going to say? What's Pansy going to think? Oh God, I'm going to be shunned from society!" Sasha wailed. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she smiled coolly. "No I won't. I won't be shunned, because nobody's going to find out. I'm not going to tell anyone. It's as simple as that."

"Are you saying we lie?" Harry asked.

"No, you dip, I'm saying we just...avoid the truth. You know, for the safety of both you and me," Sasha replied.

"Are you trying to protect me?" Harry asked, disbelieving.

"No, I'm trying to protect me," Sasha corrected, "and that involves your cooperation, because you need to keep your Honest-Asshole mouth shut."

"So basically, if the topic comes up, we lie?"

"Why would the topic come up?" Sasha said, regarding him with disgust. "Do boys in Gryffindor go around asking who's slept with me lately. Because I can assure you, nobody in Slytherin even goes near the topic of sleeping with you. Except maybe a few first and second years. We're still working on them."
Harry frowned. "What do you think we talk about, the dragon's we've slain, and the damsels in distress who we've rescued from their dismal fates? Sex is our big thing right now, Sasha. We're boys. Sixteen-year-old, normal boys."

"Well, nobody ever said that you ever have to mention my name. Just, leave me out."

"What if we're playing truth or dare with the Veritaserum we've stolen from Snape in the past few years?" Harry teased. "There's no avoiding it if that ever happens."

"And that happens so often," Sasha said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Besides, you're Gryffindors. You don't have it in you to steal from Snape anyway."

"Au contraire, Sasha, me and my friends stole the full ingredient list for a Polyjuice Potion from him in second year. And he still doesn't know who did it. And I think Seamus Finnegan actually has a pretty hefty stock of Vertiaserum in his truck up in the dormitory," Harry said darkly. "Besides, we've played Veritas Truth or Dare plenty of times."

"Ridiculous," Sasha muttered. "I won't tell if you don't tell."

"I'm not planning on telling anyone," Harry replied.

"Pinky swear?" Sasha pleaded. She held out her right pinky. Harry wrapped his left one around it.

"I swear."

"Good," Sasha said, untangling their fingers. "Now, to get us both out of here without being seen." She thought for a moment, while fiddling with a silver string she'd pulled off the mantelpiece. She wrapped it around her wrist, looking worried, but it buzzed for a second and then fell off, and her entire body seemed to relax.

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"Nothing," Sasha said quickly.

"Was it something girly?" Harry teased.

"Yes," Sasha said. "And also extremely important."

"Alright," Harry said. "Back to what you were saying."

"To get out," Sasha continued. "We need to leave separately. People will think something's up if we come from the same place at the same time."

"If there's no one out there, it won't matter," Harry said. "Just sneak out."

Sasha looked down her long, straight nose at Harry. "Just sneak out?" she repeated incredulously. "Who are you trying to kid? There's always someone in this hallway, you dipshit."

"Well I'm sorry that my non-Slytherin plans don't appease you," Harry snapped.

"Well, I'm sorry that they suck so badly," Sasha spat back. "We'll head separate ways. Or something like that. Do you have anything that would help us out?"

"Invisibility cloak," Harry breathed, and pulled out his wand. "Accio Invisibility Cloak!"

Absolutely nothing happened. Sasha smiled wickedly, looking down her nose at him.

"It's funny to see you try to do things you're obviously not smart enough to accomplish," she said. "It makes me feel that much better knowing I can do it."

"Fine, you try it, but it won't come for you either," Harry growled.

"Accio Invisibility cloak," Sasha called. Through the wall came a silvery-blue piece of fabric, that, to Harry's dismay, he recognized as his Invisibility cloak. Sasha smiled a superior smile, and threw it to him.

"Thanks," he mumbled. He put it next to him on the bed, and looked around him. He could now appreciate the beauty of the Room of Requirement at this particular moment. It was dimly lit, and looked vaguely like the Gryffindor common room, if it were furnished like a bedroom.

Sasha walked towards him, and sat on the foot of the bed. She fingered the sheets gently. He realized that she was wearing a uniform button-down shirt, and a Slytherin tie. She was also wearing black boxer shorts with little golden snitches zooming all over them.

"Why are you wearing my underwear?" Harry asked.

"How the hell should I know?" Sasha replied, this time in a voice he would say was most like Ron's.

"I don't know, you're wearing them, not me," Harry replied.

"That doesn't mean I remember how they got there," Sasha said. "Where'd you get Draco's underwear?"

"These are his?" Harry asked, looking at the hunter green silk boxers. "That's a little...um...gross."

"Just a little," Sasha said. "What do you suppose was in that punch?"

"I don't know," Harry answered. "Maybe just alcohol. A lot of alcohol."

Sasha looked unsure, and then walked over to the bookcase near the fireplace. She pulled out a book, and flipped through the pages.

"Illusionary Potion," she said moments later. "It was a blend that made people believe that the first person of the opposite sex that they saw was their significant other. Oh joy."
"Oh joy what?" Harry asked.

"Just...joy. I had to end up with you. I could've been with someone so much cooler. Why couldn't I have seen someone cool first? Even slightly better, like....Fred Weasley?"

Harry was dumbstruck, and didn't speak. He just stared at Sasha, vaguely frightened. This could possibly mean that she had a crush on Fred Weasley, in which case, Ron was sure to be short one brother if Draco found out.

"Do you...um...like Fred Weasley?"

"He's cooler than you, if I had to choose any Gryffindor to have woken up with."
"Whatever," Harry said, and got up and walked around the room. He found his T-shirt and pants sitting near a wall a good twenty feet away from the bed. He put them on, and found his socks over near the fireplace. Harry picked them up and put them on his feet, finding them to be pleasantly warm. Sasha's ridiculously short denim mini skirt was sitting over in the corner of the room, laying on top of a small table. He found her hot pink v-neck sweater under the chair she had been sitting on when he first woke up. and he supposed she'd been wearing the white uniform shirt underneath that. Harry continued walking around the room, and found both a thong and hot pink bra in a corner, which he guessed was Sasha's, but couldn't be entirely sure.

"Hey, Sasha?" he called to her. She was reclined on the bed, reading a book. She looked over it, and for a moment, she looked a little like Hermione, except with straight, blonde hair.

"Yeah?" she replied.

"I think I found your underwear," Harry said. Sasha snapped the book shut and rushed over to him.

"What the fu--?" Sasha began, but didn't finish her last word. She hunched her shoulders together and looked down her shirt. "Shit."

She gathered up the under garments and hurried over to her other clothes, gathering them too. Then, Sasha scurried over to the changing screen set up in a corner of the room, and walked behind it. Harry saw his boxers come flying over the top, followed by the white shirt. It took Sasha a few minutes before she came out from behind the screen, wearing the deep v-neck sweater without the white shirt under it. She was wearing the incredibly short, though inevitably expensive, denim mini, and now wore white sneakers with 3 pale pink stripes on each side. She had fixed her hair into a loose bun, and looked exactly as she had last night, before Harry had gotten drunk and thought she was Hermione.

Sasha looked at him for a moment, and then pulled the elastic out of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. Harry hadn't had much time to really realize how pretty she was, partially because she was Draco's girlfriend, and also because she belonged to a loyal family of Death Eaters.

"Harry," she said. She put the book on the table beside her and patted the space on the bed next to her, like she was calling a dog. "Come here."

Harry walked over to her, and sat down beside her. She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers. He expected to see blue or green, or brown, but what he saw was the most beautiful color he'd ever seen. Her eyes were a beautiful, rich purple.

"The two of you aren't so different, you know," Sasha said to him. He still couldn't take his eyes off hers.

"Who?" he asked stupidly.

"You and Draco," she supplied. "You're both kind of dorky, you have this false security about yourselves, and you're both spitting images of your fathers."
"Where have you seen my father?" Harry asked her.

"There're a few pictures of him in the Quidditch trophy room."

"Oh," Harry said. "I think I've seen your parents before."

"You probably have," Sasha said. "They seem to be everywhere."

"In the papers," Harry continued. "Robert and Isabella?"
"No," Sasha said, smiling, "that's my brother and sister you've seen."

"But it said that Isabella was thirty-seven, and Robert was thirty-nine," Harry said. "And you're only sixteen, you're old enough to be their daughter."

"I know," Sasha said. "My parents are only eighteen years older than Bobby."

"Then who are your parents?"

"I'm sure you've heard of them," Sasha said. "They've been in the papers too many times to count."
"What are their names?" Harry pressed.

"Sven and Ophelia Borgen," Sasha whispered. "I have my mother's eyes. I'd never pass as another person."

"What do you mean, you'd never pass as another person?" Harry asked.
"My parents want me to become a Death Eater," Sasha said quietly. "And I don't want to. They're going to turn me over to the Dark Lord after I finish school. I thought for a long time I could fake my own death and use a Polyjuice potion to become someone else, and I've tried it. My parents found out what I was planning to do, and punished me. You have to understand; I'm the only person in my family with purple eyes, I'm the only person in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Australia with purple eyes. As far as Muggle and Magical governments know, I am the only person on Earth with purple eyes. And if I ever again try to disguise myself in anyway, change my looks, my eyes will not change. They'll always be purple, and nothing I do can change that. Another portion of the punishment was that everything I owned could not leave a place where my parents could easily find me. I can't leave Hogwarts, unless it's to go to Hogsmeade, I can't leave home, without my father changing the charms to simply track me, I cannot go anywhere without them knowing."
"Isn't that just showing that they care?" Harry asked, not quite sure why this was considered a punishment.

"My clothes scream if I go somewhere without my parents' permission," Sasha said darkly. "I think that's a little bit obsessive, don't you?"

"Well, it just means that they want you in a safe place at all times," Harry reasoned.

"That's not all," Sasha cut in. "If I try to run away, to escape from my future with the Dark Lord, it's terrible. I tried to run away this summer. Do you want to know what happened to me?"

Harry nodded. Sasha licked her finger and violently rubbed at her neck, revealing gruesome red scars and horrible bruising around her throat.

"And that's not even the worst ones," Sasha said, and pulled her sweater up to reveal her stomach. There were ugly lines across her otherwise beautiful skin, that looked as if a vicious animal had clawed at her flesh. There were three of them, all painful looking. Sasha then revealed her wrists and ankles, which had weird purple bruise-ish scars encircling them.

"What did this to you?" Harry asked.

"Charms, curses, things like that," Sasha replied. "It's from chains, the ones on my wrists and ankles, and part of the ones on my neck. That's the punishment for trying to get away. I get chained to the floor in the dungeons. The rest of it on my neck is what happens if I try to run. Something invisible, like a guardian, holds my neck, claws at it, and won't let go until I faint. And the ones on my stomach? Well, there's one for every non-Death Eater son that touches me on purpose."

"I did that to you?" Harry said, pointing at one of the scars on her stomach.

"Not you, per se, but by touching me, something else did."

"So Draco can't hurt you?" Harry asked.

"No, he can't, and wouldn't if he could. He loves me, and I love him back," Sasha replied.

"Just curious...how could anyone honestly love him?" Harry asked, not meaning to sound rude.

"He's not actually like that; mean and awful, I mean, to people. It's all put on, like a 'don't mess with me' kind of thing. He's just a dorky kid, he's nothing to be scared of. On the inside, he's just like you."

"So you're trying to tell me that there is an entire side of Draco Malfoy that only you can see?"

"No, the other Slytherins see it, some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, even," Sasha said. "It's Gryffindors he really can't stand."

"So I've seen," Harry replied grimly. "But why us? I mean, what have we ever done to him? We're the pure of heart, the courageous! Shouldn't he be admiring us?"

"We're the ambitious and crafty. To us, there's nothing appealing about being courageous or pure of heart, or, for that matter, intelligent or loyal. It's kind of an instinct of being a Slytherin, our personalities just don't click with yours."

"So far, we've been getting along fine," Harry contradicted.

"Well, you can't change the persona just because I feel like being contrary," Sasha said. "I mean, right now, it's been really hard for me to adjust to you. My ambitious, sarcastic nature was really getting in the way. But just to prove that I was adaptable and superior, I've decided to be agreeable."

"You sound like you should be in Ravenclaw when you talk like that," Harry said.

"I know," Sasha said. "It makes Draco laugh, and, since you guys are so similar to me, I thought it would make you laugh too."

"Sorry, I guess I just don't know you well enough to see anything different."

"People tend to just see the outer shell," Sasha said. "Nothing on the inside, people are so short-sighted."

"Well, it's kind of hard to see the inside of someone, you know? I mean, unless they had x-ray vision, and I'm sure that that wouldn't really please anyone..." Harry said.

Sasha laughed. "You knew what I meant."

"I've never really tried to not see how people really are. It's more that people don't let it show," Harry said. "Like Mal...Draco, I suppose."

"Draco's like that sometimes, to you, I guess. I mean, I can see right through him. He's like an open book. But I guess all you see is all he's ever shown you, which is, amazingly, his bad side."

"It's hard to believe there's a different side."

"I know, but it's there, believe me," Sasha said. "Now, back to getting out of here unnoticed."

"Right, that's when you called me a dipshit," Harry replied. "Why don't I leave, then you leave a few minutes later?"

"That's such a Gryffindor plan. It's lame," Sasha spat.

"Well I'm sorry," Harry shot back, then laughed at himself.

"What is so funny, Mr. Lame-plan?" Sasha said irritably.

"We're fighting over a stupid way to get out," Harry said, catching his breath.

"How about this one, Sir Naught-for-brains? How about you leave under the invisibility cloak, and I'll go at the same time. There. It's simpler, it's Slytherin-er, and it's perfect."

"Wouldn't being more Slytherin be like, you kill me and leave me to rot in here so you can get out and not get in trouble with your family and or boyfriend?"

"We're teenagers, Meathead, not murderers," Sasha replied darkly.

"Alright, it's a plan," Harry said, picking up the cloak.

He draped it over his shoulders, but before covering his head, he turned to Sasha, who was opening the door back out into the corridor.

"It's been nice meeting you," she said, looking briefly back to him.

"Why do you think that is?" he asked, honestly curious.

"I don't know," Sasha said, a thoughtful expression on her face. "It must've been something in the punch."