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Oct. 27, 5:50 pm, Great Hall, sets for RENT

“Alright then, Lavender. Take this bucket and begin tapping out a simple beat after you change into these clothes.” She took the bucket and began a steady beat. “We’re just going to do a one-shot run through tonight so that you can all get into character.”

Harry went over of his own accord and grabbed the guitar and began tuning it, in the set for Mark’s room. And then Ron took the magical camera from Kagumi’s hands (Who was helping hand out props) and walked into the set. They began their lines, with cues from Dumbledore and with a few references to their scripts.

Dean walked over to his post and began singing at the appropriate time. And then everyone took their positions in turn.

Oct. 27, 9:30 pm, Great Hall.

“No, no, NO!” Dumbledore’s voice echoed through the hall. They had just redone the beginning of Kagumi and Harry’s scene for the fifth time. Each time that Kagumi had blown out her candle for the second time, they stopped and restarted. They had finally gotten to the part where she reached into his pocket and most everyone started clapping as she made her exit, until Professor Dumbledore stopped the rehearsal…again.

“You…Ugh, just go on to bed everyone. It’s 9:32…goodnight.”

Shrugging at Harry, Kagumi went into the changing area while everyone packed up.

Harry followed her, but only until her got to where he could hear her clothes dropping. He couldn’t tell her that he thought she was perfectly into character…maybe a little too much. Her hand sliding into his pocket felt like heaven to him and he had to stop himself from groaning during the rehearsal; he could almost swear her fingers had lingered in his back pocket just a second.

On her way out of the Great Hall, around ten minutes later, Kagumi and Jade heard Professor Snape suggesting a potion. Dumbledore’s voice rang through as they passed in front of her, “They’re just too young for these parts. Perhaps you could find something to give them before production that will temporarily allow them to perform their roles better.”

“Perhaps an Aging Potion, sir.”

Oct. 28, 4:26 am, Slytherin Common Room

Malfoy sat, looking numbly through the book stolen from his father’s library. Look at these ingredients. They’re going to be hard to come by: Boomslang Skin, Stinksap, Tentacula extract, and Shiitake caps, just to name a few.

Hmm…Longbottom has a Mimbulus Mimbletonia that I could easily get the Weasel to give me, if I gave him some gold. The only other person who would have the rest would be Snape and Sprout. He shut the dusty tome with a small -thud- and proceeded to exit the common room.

From the shadows, Crabbe nodded to Goyle, and they exited, rather less silently than Draco.

Oct. 28, 4:32 am, Herbology Greenhouse Four

Draco stood at the exit, listening to the Venomous Tentacula exhale oxygen as it slept. He approached it with his wand drawn, ready to stun it if need be. Having gathered the inanimate mushrooms as he walked in, he picked up a pair of gardening shears. He had consulted his book before going into the greenhouse and a small green glow at the end of his wand let him know the edge of the shears he held would be enough to cut a snippet of the plant. He muttered a charm to put the plant into an even deeper slumber and managed to cut off a vine. He put the shears down on a nearby table, and immobilized the tentacle. Slipping it into his bag, he exited the greenhouse, only to be grabbed by his own lackeys.

“What are you doing?!” Malfoy whispered ferociously. Without an answer, Crabbe and Goyle swept him into the castle and down the stairs into the common room once more. They threw him, none too kindly onto a bench before the fire.

Draco swept to his feet in righteous indignation. “What the devil is this all about?”

Crabbe grunted at him and looked at Goyle. “You don’t talk to us anymore. You ignore the Parkinson pug and all you do is stare at those twins. We...demand an answer from you, Draco.”

He looked at them in shock. He had never heard anything truly akin to normal speech issue itself from Goyle’s mouth. His mouth dropped a little as he tried to think of a response. Inside his brain, the part of him that always lied to save face sprang up and said, “I want to get revenge on them. I hate them with a passion and all I want is to pay them back.”

They nodded, seemingly satisfied. Draco got up and went to the dormitory, thinking of a plan to come up with the other ingredients.

Oct. 28, 5:05 am. Gryffindor Common Room

Kagumi sat on a plush couch, having Harry plait her hair with red and gold ribbons while her sister was asleep. When he finished, he put his arms around her in a completely platonic way and stared at the fire with her.

He thought about how lucky he was, to be friends with her, and wondered if a brief attraction felt during a play was enough to risk a friendship over. She leaned her head into him sleepily and he kissed her forehead with tenderness as she fell into sweet dreams.

Picking her up in his arms and laying her on the couch, he conjured a blanket just as Jade came down the stairs.

Oct. 28, 5: 42 am Gryffindor Common Room

Noticing that Harry’s firm chest was no longer against her back, Kagumi was slowly awakened by a gentle kneading pressure on her tummy. “Harry, please move your arm.” The gentle warmth didn’t move and instead a vibration seems to emanate from it. She tried moving and found that she couldn’t. “Harry, move it, I mean it!” With her supposed friend’s arm still there, she was forced to open her eyes to yell at him. But she didn’t find Harry’s arm. Instead, her sister’s pet cat was lying there instead.

Kagumi laughed. “Tigra, what on earth are you doing out here?” She scratched the miniature tigress behind the ears and was rewarded with a lick and a mew for more. “Aww…aren’t you just a cutie? Hey, you want some milk?” Tigra raised her head and her tail began twitching, a sure sign of expectation. Kagumi giggled. “C’mon, you…”

She went upstairs to get dressed and after grabbing her wand and shoes and exited the portrait hole. She told Tigra to stay with her and they made their way down to the kitchens, which she, Harry, and Ron had been to just three days ago. Hermione had refused to come, seeing as something called S.P.E.W. was still in effect.

Upon the painting swinging forward, Kagumi’s favorite elf came running over. “Ms. Falcon!” Dobby squeaked, after giving Tigra a pat. “Hey Dobby,” Kagumi smiled. “Can we have a bit of milk and maybe some biscuits and marmalade?” The House-elves began busying themselves with a kettle and a jug of fresh milk, which Kagumi poured into a deep saucer for the kittenish Tigress. Kagumi sat on the floor and absently stroked Tigra as she purred loudly, nibbling at a huge biscuit covered with Black Currant jam and drinking deeply from cup filled with Green Tea.

She wondered why Harry had gone so fast after her falling asleep. She remembered with a small blush the way he had kissed her forehead as he tucked her in. And earlier, how he’d kissed her neck as he braided her long, sweetly scented hair. She shivered slightly as a heated blush came to her thin cheeks. Dobby stood next to her and she thought about how often he had come to see Harry in secret.

“Hey, Dobby? Do you know where Harry is?”

The elf shook his head so fast that his floppy ears slapped him in the face and his eyes watered from the sting as he said “No, miss. Dobby knows not where Harry Potter is.” Another house-elf came over and bowed deeply, so that her tiny nose scraped painfully against the ground. “Milla knows where Mr. Potter is, Miss.” Kagumi looked up a bit curiously. “Where is he?’

“Harry Potter is playing instruments in the Room of Requirement.” Kagumi forked an eyebrow at this.

Oct. 28, 7:39 am, Entrance Hall

Kagumi was still puzzling over why Harry would be in the Room of Requirement, even after spending several hours watching Tigra and the House-Elves play tag. As she was walking into the Great Hall after putting Tigra back in the dormitory and taking a relaxing bath, she was startled as Pansy Parkinson lept out from behind the huge Oaken doors leading to the Great Hall. She winced as Pansy pulled a wand on her and glared at her.

“You stay away from my Drakey! And I mean it! Or you will regret it, little girl!”

Kagumi automatically threw her hands up in defense, even as students passed around them, staring in fright or laughter. “Look, Parkinson. I don’t want Malfoy. I really don’t. So just don’t start anything. Take him and get out of my life.” Pansy stared, now wondering why he was even pursuing her if she wanted nothing to do with him. Fighting a blush, Pansy stomped off into the Great Hall. Kagumi shook her head and went inside as well.

She looked up as Malfoy walked into the Great Hall. He had several scrapes across his face that looked fresh and a thorn was caught in his normally sleek hair. Not for the first time that morning, her eyebrow forked upwards.

“Hey, Malfoy! Why do you look like you’ve been beat up by a plant?” She retorted. He glanced at her, secrets dancing in his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair, and sure enough there were thorns and brambles from the damnable Tentacula cutting that had apparently woken up this morning. He smirked at her and shrugged his muscular shoulders nonchalantly.

“You’ll just have to find out, I suppose.” He sat down and draped his arm around Pansy Parkinson. Strangely enough, Kagumi felt a twinge of jealousy when she giggled loudly and stared pointedly at Kagumi. She smiled sarcastically at Draco and flipped Pansy “The Finger” as the Owls swooped in with mail.

Nov. 15, 7:46 am, Great Hall

Kagumi looked back and forth between her sister and Harry. Narrowing her eyes, she observed them carefully, noticing each time that he shared a secret look with Jade. This behavior had been going on between them for a while now. She propped her elbow up on the table and rested her face on it. Weary tears threatened, but she held them in check. Three owls dropped letters in front of her, along with a paper and she just ignored them.

Every time that Harry and Jade’s bodies touched, they jumped as if electrocuted. Kagumi began slowly taking out her wand and twirling it between her long thin fingers while the group talked.

“So it’s Saturday,” said Hermione, also noticing the tension between Jade and her best friend. “What’s everyone planning on doing?”

Harry shared yet another of those damnable looks with Jade. “I was, uh…thinking about looking over my lines again, a little later.” Jade blushed. “I was just going to relax and maybe read a little later,” she said simply.

“Hell, I figured I’d go down to Hagrid’s house today,” Ron piped up. That only one who said nothing was Kagumi. Hermione looked at her in concern. “Gumi?” Still, she said nothing. Oh, no…thought Hermione.

Draco noticed the rising tension in the air, even as he held a simpering Pansy and tried staunchly not to vomit. He noticed that Kagumi looked incredibly sad, especially while looking at Potter. Her brow twitched more than once and he felt an aching desire to hold her instead of Pansy. He saw Potter look at Jade, who shook her head. He was guessing that they had either slept together or else had come very close to it, and Harry wasn’t telling the woman who deserved to know more than anyone else.

This made him angry. So angry in fact, that he started to get up. Instead, he thought rationally about it and decided to just ask Crabbe and Goyle to go over there and tell Potter to meet him outside after Breakfast. Goyle went over there and Potter, Jade and Kagumi all looked at him. Harry shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Turning back around, he slipped his arm around Jade’s waist so that no one on Kagumi’s side of the table would notice.

At the Gryffindor table, Kagumi’s eyes began watering again. She had only picked at her breakfast and hadn’t even read her mail or the Daily Prophet that had come for her. As Harry and Jade looked again, Kagumi slammed her fist down on the table, startling them both. She picked up her bag and stuffed her mail into it. “Gumi, what’s wrong?” Jade asked.

“What’s wrong?! You two aren’t fooling anyone. All those ‘secret’ glances, Harry’s arm around you, the coincidental schedules where both of you are away from everyone else at the same times, and then to top it all off you two happen to arrive at the same time…Just stop the charade. If you want her, take her! But Dearest Harry, your eyes seem so glued to hers, so why don’t you let me fix that for you, Love?!” She pulled out her wand and aimed it at them, letting the Conjunctivitis Curse fly at them both. Kagumi then slipped her wand in her bag, yanked the ribbons out of her hair rather painfully and threw them at Harry. After shoving her way out from between Ron and Hermione, she stormed out of the Great Hall without a backwards glance.

Hermione sighed and performed the counter curse on them both. “I knew you guys couldn’t keep it together. Harry, I’m afraid you’ve blown it, mate.” He sighed and nodded, afraid that it might be true.

Draco saw Kagumi fleeing from the Great Hall and rose to his feet. Without thinking, he soared after her, beating Harry out the door. Harry got ahead of him and stopped him. “Let her go.”

Draco sneered in his face. “You think she’ll forgive you for doing something with her sister?” Harry shrugged. “No, but do you think she’ll forgive you for trying to molest her? Looks like we’re both on her bad side; let’s go together.”

Draco looked abashed and then ran again. He saw Kagumi sprinting yards ahead and saw her going to the edge of the lake. Again, Potter outstripped him and ran after her himself, shouting her name.

“Kagumi!!”

Nov. 15, 7:59 am, Lake’s Edge

Kagumi looked down at the ground. A faint blush came to her cheeks and her eyes darted anywhere except for the space where Malfoy was standing. She bit her lip when every one looked expectantly between her and Draco. As the panic began to rise, she did the only thing she could think of.

Malfoy’s heart beat faster as Kagumi struggled not to look at him. He almost sighed aloud when she began biting her lower lip and looking like she was about to flee again. A familiar knot was forming in his midsection; it was the same feeling he got every time he woke from a dream with her in it. His heart lept into his throat and his teeth found his lower lip. A pink tint was rising to her cheeks and her shoulders stiffened as she looked at her sister. “Well, why don’t you go get him?” Malfoy become rigid and was practically bristling with anger as Kagumi turned to sneer at him. “Why the long face, rodent-boy? Getting a bit hopeful, were you?”

Nov. 15, 8:01 am, Lake’s Edge

"You really were getting hopeful, weren't you?"

“No. I wasn’t. I, quite frankly, am surprised that anyone could harbor feelings for you!”

Malfoy spat out the insult between clenched teeth and hated himself for every syllable. Without a backwards glance, he turned around and leaned against the tree, his long green cloak fluttering in the wintry wind.

Gumi sat down on one of the rocks near the edge of the lake. Without looking up at him, she began crying. Only one sob reached his ears, but it was enough. Before he wanted to think about it, he had crossed the ocean of snow between them and had climbed on the rock with her. He could see her shoulders shaking with the wracking, yet silent sobs that poured from her soul as surely as tears poured from her eyes. He bit his lip again and put his hand on her shoulder. The sobs stopped instantaneously.

Kagumi stopped crying from shock. His hand was on her shoulder, even after the spiteful things she had said to him. She looked up with the tears still fresh on his face, and her lips were swollen. Her cheeks were a beautiful rose pink and with her perfect eyebrows drawn together like that, she could have been a goddess. But she wasn’t really a goddess; she was just his weeping angel. Her long hair, still dishelved from where she had painfully ripped the ribbons out, flew round in the wind. As they looked at each other, her lips parted slightly. He leaned forward, just a bit until they were almost touching.

However, inside of the doors to the Entrance Hall, Jade and Harry stood spying. “Did they kiss yet?” Harry asked, his fingers unable to stay still from anticipation. Jade motioned for him to shut up. “Not quite, but almost.”

Kagumi’s tear-softened lips touched Draco’s with small spark of electricity. He didn’t notice, however, because he was too busy sweeping her into his arms and trying to temper his passion. Only a twinge of doubt lingered in her mind and it was this twinge that made her flee from the warm haven of his arms. She flew past her sister and Harry, and flew all the way up to Gryffindor Tower, crying yet again.

Jade looked at Harry. “You saw her go by.”

“I take it that means he kissed her?”

“Yep…that’s right.” Harry began digging in his pockets, muttering obscenities under his breath.

“That’s 15 gold Galleons you owe me,” Jade happily reminded him.

Nov. 15, 8:13 am, Lake’s Edge

Malfoy sat there with a stunned look on his face. She kissed me…She actually kissed me! What does that mean?! He sighed and put his hands to his face, noticing that they still smelled of Moon flower oil, which he knew that she combed through her hair every once and a while. He shivered feverishly, wondering why she had fled from him. The wind whipped his blond hair and cloak around, but he didn’t care. All he could think about was her.

“She’s too young for you…that’s why she ran off,” a familiar voice rang inside his head.
“Shut up!” His own mental voice snapped back.
“Ooh, getting a bit testy, are we?”
“Just shut up!”
“Oh, but why? You seem so intent on wallowing in your own self-loathing that you don’t even remember that you still have the means to fix both of your problems.”
“Oh, yeah…”

Nov. 15, 8:22 am, Slytherin Common Room

Malfoy sat down. He had just been into his dormitory to get all of the ingredients and indeed, the spell book. He began to meditate on what he wanted, and how he was going to achieve it. Then he remembered about the Room that he had caught Potter in when Umbridge was here. That’s it! He thought excitedly. I can easily go in there to brew the potion and prepare myself for the ritual!

He flew out of the Common Room with his bag full of ingredients and the book, a huge smile on his face. Nearing the Room of Requirement, he began his pacing.

Nov. 15, 8:30 am, Room of Requirement

Jade and Harry were kissing again, her school blouse was halfway unbuttoned. They heard the latch click on the magical door and they heard Malfoy curse when he couldn’t get it open. Jade looked at Harry. “Do you have your invisibility cloak in your bag?”

“Always,” he replied with a grin. They threw it on and exited the Room through another door further down the Hall, laughing quietly when they saw Malfoy beating against the apparently blank wall with his fists.

Malfoy sank against the wall he had been beating against and just when he had given up hope, he felt the door appear behind him. He jumped up and whispered a quick thanks to the Four Founders of Hogwarts for creating such a room as this, where he could brew this potion and practice these spells.

Slipping in quietly, he found a cauldron with the proper catalyst in it; along with the other two ingredients he had been missing. He sliced the Boomslang skin and after Immobilizing that horrendous Tentacula cutting, he sliced it as well and threw both into the cauldron. Letting it brew for exactly forty-two minutes, he then threw the other ingredients carefully. He did not want to screw this up, seeing as the potion was a vital part of the ritual.

Nov. 15, 10:46 am, Gryffindor Common Room

Kagumi was still sitting on the couch, staring into the fire. She hadn’t moved since she had gotten up here a couple of hours ago. Hermione and Ron were watching her from the other side of the room, but even the noise of the Common Room and the stares of her friends could move her. She still sat not more than five feet from the fire, watching the dancing flames. Though she was so close to her natural element, not even the playful warmth of the hearth could warm her icy heart.

Though her body was seemingly frozen, her mind was whirling around and around in circles. One thought kept popping up: You’re far too young for him. No matter how natural it felt for her to be in his arms, for their lips to be locked together, she knew that it was doomed to failure. There was no way it would ever work out. Besides, her heart was torn between two guys. She knew that she loved Draco, more than she had ever even known, but at the same time, every time that she acted with Harry, her entire body felt as though it were on fire...She wanted them both and could have neither.

Another lonely tear began a trek down her face and this unnerved Ron more than anything. “It would be better if she just broke down sobbing. At least then we would know what we could do,” he whispered as he laid his head on Hermione’s shoulder. She nodded discreetly, her heart aching for the young girl sitting dangerously close to the fire. Kagumi didn’t even look up when Harry and Jade burst into the room, pink faced and covered with damp snow. Harry started to go over to her, but a slight nod from Ron made him stop and think.