Uninvited

Chapter One: Pretty In White

"Let it slide overhead/When I believe in you my soul can rest/But as love that's really love can never fail/But fail it does/When we shine like the sun/You seem the only one my only friend/You're so pretty in white pretty when you're faithful /So pretty in white pretty when you're faithful/I resigned from myself/Took a break as someone else/It's like we've come undone/But I've only just become inflatable for you..." --Inflatable, by Bush

***

Running. He was running away from them, through a heavily forested area. This was not how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be ambushing them, destroying them, and driving spelled swords into them. But somewhere, something had gone wrong. One of his partners had screwed it up. Again. He was sick of it. If they just listened to him-

"Shit," he muttered, tripping over a fallen body and eating dirt as he landed. "Shit." He crawled for cover behind a tree. "Malfoy, you alright?"

"Yeah Potter, I'm just dandy. Hell, I've been waiting for an ugly git like you to fall on me and completely break my concentration. That's why I'm risking my neck out here."

"Shut up. I don't want to hear it." He risked a looked behind him. "I think we're the only ones left. Well, except for Ron and Herm back there." H pointed forward, where they were hiding under bushes with explosives.

"And some help they are," Harry's counterpart muttered angrily, screwing up his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision. "Right, here's the plan. You start on your way back there and I'll distract them up here. Once you're out of range, blow it up."

"I can't let you do..."

"Shut the fuck up and get on with it. I'm your superior. Now GO," he yelled and stood up, screaming the killing curse as he started running into the enemy's open arms. Harry ran the other way, praying it worked. He reached Hermione and nodded, in signal. Within seconds, the entire area behind him was a raging inferno.

"Damn it, Malfoy."

"End program," Lupin stated as he walked in, waving his hand. "You know Harry, this whole hologram-simulation thing here reminds me of something..."

"Star Trek?"

"Yeah, that's it." He paused, puzzled. "How do you know what Star Trek even is? You know what, nevermind. So how did it go?"

"Well I picked Malfoy, like you told me too, and he got the job done, in a manner of speaking."

"What do you mean?"

"Out of the hundred Aurors, only Hermione, Ron and I survived. Which wouldn't have happened if I had been in charge. But for some reason the program always makes him my superior." Harry sat down. "I'm never going to be ready, you know."

"Maybe not, but maybe no one ever truly is."

***

Ginny sat up slowly, her memory of the previous night coming back in a fog. She had given the pretty girl her bed. Where did she say she was from? Amsterdam, yes. And she's here to visit her uncle Severus Snape. Right. And she's sleeping in my bed. I'm on the floor with a headache all because of Snape's little relative from some weird foreign country where dope is legal. She looked at the other girl's sleeping face. No way is she really related to him. She's too pretty.

"Ginny," Lux said quietly, sitting up, still half asleep. "I stole your bed. I'm terribly sorry. I should probably go and stop bothering you." She stood and Ginny saw she was almost tall enough to hit her head on the low ceiling.

"Where will you go?"

"I'll find my uncle at breakfast."

Walked through a ghost...She said she walked through a ghost. I remember doing that. No wonder she looked so freaked out. "You don't have to go yet, do you?"

"I should. But maybe I'll see you later today." She smiled sweetly. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Your hospitality, your time." Lux stretched her now invisible wings upward as she turned her head to the side. "Good morning." She walked out silently.

Don't go. It's been so long... She stopped there. She didn't want to acknowledge, even if just to herself, that she didn't have any true friends anymore. She had friends, but she couldn't trust them. Draco Malfoy had destroyed them all. They found their only solace in spilling any secrets she had told them.

She stood briskly. She hated being sad. Singing made her feel better. Grabbing her sheets of music, she went off in search of the abandoned classroom she had turned into a music room.

***

Ron didn't seem too worried about Harry. He said it was probably some Auror thing. Harry, the youngest Auror there was. Well, that records will show. Of course, Hermione was afraid that it was an Auror thing, but not training so much as...torturing for information or something. She didn't find it fair that he was forced to put so much time into something he was going to stop doing as soon as he could. He didn't want to be an Auror. He wanted to play Quidditch or something. But she knew Harry hardly ever let himself do things just because he wanted to. Duty came first. Whatever duty that was. He had to go out and save the universe before he could...She didn't want to think about that.

Before sixth year had ended, Harry had told her he loved her and that he wanted her to remember that forever. He didn't let her reply and she hadn't seen him since. She thought he was talking about love in a platonic way, because he was still dating Cho Chang. But now she wasn't so sure. There was a glint in his eyes that she hadn't seen before...Once again, she was thinking things that were better left unthought. She went to Potions.

***

"I don't think Snape's ever been late before, do you?" Dean Thomas asked Hermione, blowing slightly in her ear. Their romance had had a rocky start because she always talked about Harry, but they were on better terms now.

"No." She smiled seductively at him. "You want to take advantage of it?"

"Oi," Ron cried out, "I'm right here, and I'd rather not watch you two have sex in the room where Snape probably gets off with-"

"Ron," Hermione said forcefully, noticing suddenly that all eyes were on them. "You're scaring Neville. And me frankly. Shut up." She couldn't fight down her smile. Every girl there had envy in her eyes as they looked upon her. That was a first.

Draco Malfoy hadn't looked up. He was busy scribbling madly on a piece of parchment, another poem for Ginny. Blaise, his current girlfriend, tried to steal a look.

"No," he shot out, pausing his writing process to look up at her for emphasis. "You can't see it until it's done."

"Oh," she smiled, "Is it for me then?"

"Of course it is," he lied easily. Blaise did look a little like Ginny in some ways. "Who else am I trying to lay?"

"You are so cute," her sarcasm was lost on him through her layers of sweet perfume.

"I know."

Snape did not show up at all that day. The students laid their homework on his desk and left at the time that class was supposed to end.

Snape was too immersed in his conversation with his "niece" to realize he had students to attend to.

"So you're telling me that you are the thing You-Know-Who was working on?"

"Yes. The Lord told you all that I had died in order to keep me completely secret. Only Malfoy knows that I still exist."

"Yes, God's right hand as it were," he said distractedly. Lux was a bit disappointed that he hadn't fallen under the spell of her charms yet, not that she had been trying to make him. But she was getting thirsty...

"So remember, if anybody asks who I am," she changed her voice to an irresistible sound, "Just tell them I'm you're niece."

"Right." He couldn't help noticing at this point her chest. Or her hair. Silvery platinum that shined golden in the firelight. And her eyes...endless pools of sapphire dotted with bits of silver.

They were kissing. Lightly at first but the pressure increased. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her in closer.

***

Waking up beside a sleeping body wasn't new to her, but it surprised her a little every time. She dressed quickly and left without a trace, her thirst quenched.

Snape awoke ill and in a hospital bed, his recent absence entirely explained.

Lux decided to spy on Draco again before "running into" Ginny. She found him writing once more, this time for Blaise. She landed and revealed herself.

"You only want her so bad because you can't actually have her. So all your trouble over her is wasted. You do know that, don't you?" She smiled.

"I thought school wasn't the place for imaginary things. Besides, who asked you?"

"I'm just trying to point out that once you get her, the appeal will be gone."

"Go to hell."

***

The experience with Blaise hadn't been so bad, Draco tried to console himself. She had just tried to do something special and once again, he had screwed it up in his own unique way. So she yelled. So what? She was a little spoiled bitch who yelled. So she threw things at him. So there was a possibility of a concussion due to the flying side table. That only proved Blaise was stronger than she looked.

Draco was walking along the empty halls of school, trying to clear his head. His story for being out so late was at hand. He was heading for in the general direction of the hospital wing. Or so he thought.

"Holy..." a body came tumbling down the stairs, landing on top of him.

"Malfoy?"

"Potter? I didn't know you felt that way about me."

"Wha..." lack of sleep made his reactions slow.

"Get off."

"Oh." He stood as quickly as he could, followed by Draco. "You were made head boy?"

"Hmm?" He looked down at his shirt, realizing he'd forgotten to take the badge off. "Oh. Yes."

"Incredible." He paused to think. "Well, goodbye then."

"Yeah. Alright."

They walked off in different directions, dazed and confused. Harry found his way to the Gryffindor Tower and eventually to Hermione and Ginny's room. He watched Hermione, sleeping soundly, unlike the previous night. He touched her face and smiled. He was deep in thought when she awoke.

"Harry?"

"Yes."

"Harry, what are you...where...oh my." She put her hand to her forehead.

"I have to go now Hermione."

"Why?" She pleaded with her eyes. "Where are you going? Why can't you stay?"

"I just came to see you." He thought a moment. "Where were you last night?"

"I..." She trailed off, remembering that he didn't know she was dating Dean. "You have no right to ask me that Harry."

"I guess I don't. Goodbye Hermione." Leaning down to her, he pulled her into a long, intense kiss before vanishing completely.