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Draco sat at his desk, quill in hand, shaking badly as he thought of the exact wording he wanted to use in the letter.

Father,
Please inform your employer that there has been no new transfers of that age into Slytherin. I shall be on the lookout for students in other years that fit the description.
DM.

It was short and to the point. He couldn’t be accused of lying when the letter was only two sentences long. Swallowing nervously, he attached the letter to Landok and petted him gently.

“Take this to my father, will you?”

Landok hooted and nipped at Draco’s fingers before stretching out his wings and flying out of the castle into the mid-afternoon sky. He closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself and stood up, willing his shaking to cease. He grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around his shoulders, moving out of the dormitories and up towards the Great Hall. He gave Buffy a significant look but didn’t say anything to her. She nodded almost imperceptibly and breathed out a sigh of relief.

Harry, Ron and Hermione hadn’t really understood Buffy’s vague explanation of what had been happening earlier. They seemed to accept the story of Draco dragging her away for a rematch as well as the portion about Professor Giles walking in during the middle of it. What they didn’t understand was why Buffy had agreed to another rematch when they’d been caught during their last fight. She shrugged it off and said she never backed down from a challenge.

Draco didn’t receive a reply from his father, and he could only hope that no news was good news. He kept an eye out for any messages that came for Crabbe or Goyle, seeing as both of their fathers were Death-Eaters as well. Nothing came, and that began to worry Draco more than he would have liked.

School continued as usual, Draco continued insulting Harry, Ron and Hermione, though whenever he said anything to Buffy, it was usually accompanied by a wink and a grin.

Buffy and Draco met in the library several more times, either by accident or on purpose, the two of them sitting down and studying together, sometimes talking seriously with one another and other times just teasing and bantering. Their friendship became more solid, and even though they publicly looked like enemies, Buffy knew that somehow she was closer to Draco than she was to Ron, and she considered Ron to be one of her best friends. Draco had somehow worked his way into her heart, and the two of them had become the best of friends.

The day before Christmas heralded the second Hogsmeade visit, and all the students were only too happy to be let out of the castle.

Ron and Hermione had taken off, leaving Buffy and Harry alone. The young couple who had been dating for the last four or so months were eager to get their two best friends together, but so far, nothing had happened between the blonde girl and the black-haired boy.

“They’re really not very subtle, are they?” Buffy asked. Both she and Harry knew exactly why Ron and Hermione had taken off. Of course, there were other reasons for it as well. Hermione and Ron enjoyed taking any spare moments they could to enjoy themselves in the form of kissing as often as humanly possible.

“Hermione’s definitely losing her touch,” Harry commented.

Buffy grinned and shook her head. “That depends who you ask. Ron might not agree.”

Harry blushed a little and took a sip of his Butterbeer, glancing around the wizarding pub, The Three Broomsticks as he did.

“Are they going home for Christmas?” Buffy asked, seeing Harry’s sudden discomfort and trying to ease him of it.

“Nah, they’re both staying here. Ron does it just to keep me company, even though he says he just doesn’t want to hang around Percy,” Harry explained. “And I think Hermione just wants to spend Christmas with Ron.”

“What about the twins? Are they going home?”

“I think they want to stay here as well. Mainly because no one’s here, so they can set up all kinds of practical jokes before everyone gets back. I don’t know why they don’t go home. I’d kill to live with them.”

“Is Dumbledore letting you stay at their place over summer?” Buffy asked.

“Not all summer, but I think maybe for the last few weeks,” Harry replied, feeling disappointed. He wished that he would be allowed to visit the Burrow more often, but he knew that it meant a lot of work for Dumbledore and the Ministers of Magic to allow him to stay there. Powerful wards had to be put up around the building, and it took skilled Aurors to be able to do that.

“Are you gonna hafta go back to the Dursleys?”

“Unfortunately,” Harry replied. “They’ve been getting better about it recently. I think they’re getting a little intimidated by me. I mean, even though we’re not meant to do magic outside of school, I seem to keep managing to do it.”

Buffy grinned, having heard his tale of his Aunt Marge as well as the incident with Dobby the house-elf. Buffy couldn’t help but think that trouble found Harry as easily as it usually found her.

They stayed within Hogsmeade, wandering around the town until only moments before they had to be back at the castle. Most people, including Ron and Hermione, had already headed back, and there was only a handful of people left in the now quiet town. It looked as though Buffy and Harry were about the only students left.

“We should probably get going,” Buffy said.

Harry nodded and adjusted his cape around him. Buffy had forgone the Gryffindor cape in favour of her leather coat. She grinned at Harry and pointed to his cloak.

“You’re really attached to that thing, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it looks cool.”

Buffy grinned and nodded and the two of them made their way out of Honeydukes, the sweets store, when a multitude of screams and terrified shouts filled the streets.

A cold wind blew through the town, and even though the sun was still out, the whole area seemed to be darkened by something. A large shadowing figure stood proudly in the middle of the town, black cloaks covering the figure from head to toe. Its face could not be seen, but Harry had seen this person too many times in his nightmares to not know who it was.

He reached for his wand, swallowing nervously and saw Buffy do the same. The figure stepped towards the two of them and stopped, both Buffy and Harry staring up at the intimidating presence of what they both knew to be Lord Voldemort.

Voldemort reached inside his robes and pulled out his own wand, one that very much resembled the one that Buffy was holding in her somehow steady hand. Suddenly, the hand that held the wand stopped and Voldemort was looking directly at Buffy.

It was in that second that Buffy knew she’d been found. In a panic, she grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him away, breaking into a run that rivalled an Olympic athlete. They ran blindly, following the multitudes of other screaming people that were retreating from the sheer terror of the Dark Lord.

Without knowing it, they took a wrong turn and found themselves very much cornered. Voldemort loomed in front of them, his wand raised.

“Any suggestions?” Harry whispered.

Buffy swallowed nervously, their hands still tightly clasped together.

“Only one,” she replied, not really knowing what she was about to do, but desperately praying that it would work.

“And what would that be?”

“Close your eyes.”

Harry looked at her incredulously, but saw that Buffy had already done as she had ordered him to do. With a leap of faith, he did as asked, praying that Buffy’s plan wasn’t about to get them both killed. When he heard Buffy break into laughter, he opened his eyes.

His eyes went wide and he very nearly fainted. They were in the Gryffindor Common Room.

They had disapparated! Harry knew, though not from actually reading it of course, that Hogwarts: A History, expressly said that apparating and disapparating on Hogwarts grounds was impossible. Hermione had reminded he and Ron of it nearly a hundred times in the last four and a half years, and Harry knew that Hermione was very certain of that fact.

Harry went through the stages of denial, disbelief and then sheer and utter happiness that they had somehow made it out of there alive. He turned to Buffy, a grin spreading over his face.

“We’re alive!” he cried out. He stopped and then swept Buffy into a crushing hug, spinning them around the empty Common Room. “I can’t believe it. We’re alive!”

Before Buffy had a chance to realise what was about to happen, Harry had put her back on her feet and had ducked his head down, his lips meeting hers softly. Buffy gasped in surprise but didn’t pull back.

That was how Ron and Hermione found their two friends nearly five minutes later, lip-locked and tightly in each others embrace. They exchanged glances and grinned, walking back out the way they had come, glad that they’re two friends had finally figured it out.

Christmas Day was a noisy affair, students running up and down the corridors, exchanging gifts and signing Christmas Carols at the tops of their lungs. Buffy and Harry had reluctantly gone to bed and had agreed that they wouldn’t discuss what had happened the night before until after the Yule Ball when things had calmed down a little. They would go to Dumbledore first thing and just hope that the Headmaster didn’t kill them for keeping it secret for two days.

After a gift exchange and a feast in the Great Hall, the students excitedly began preparing for the Yule Ball. It struck Harry that he had never officially asked Buffy to go with him, it had only just been assumed. He pulled her away from the feast before she could begin getting ready for the dance.

“Would you go to the Ball with me?” he asked, a shy smile on his face.

She looked at him incredulously, not quite sure why he was actually asking.

“I thought I was going with you,” she replied.

He grinned and leant in close to her, enjoying the scent and feel of her against him. “I never asked. Not officially. Will you go with me?”

Buffy smiled and nodded, giving him a gentle kiss. “I’d love to.”

Harry grinned and pulled back. “Well, I’d better leave you to it. Can’t have you looking sloppy.”

She hit him hard across the stomach, Harry getting slightly winded from the force of it. She just grinned impishly at him and walked up to the dormitories to get herself ready.

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