The Sunrise of My Heart

Potions class was very empty. Draco, Harry, Ernie MacMillan, and I were the only ones in it because everyone else was down taking their Apparition tests.
"All too young to Apparate just yet?" Slughorn asked when he saw us. "Not turned seventeen yet?"
We all shook our heads. I had a feeling this was going to be an easy class, which made me happy. Slughorn wasn't one for hard work when there were so few of us.
"Ah well," he was saying in a cheerful voice, "as we're so few, we'll do something fun! I want you all to brew me up something amusing!"
"That sounds good, sir," Ernie said, rubbing his hands together.
"What do you mean, 'something fun'?"Draco asked, looking annoyed.
"Oh, surprise me," Slughorn answered airily.
"Oh, come on," I said to Draco. "You do have a sense of humor. Use it for once."
He opened his Potions book with a sour look on his face. Clearly, an amusing potion was something he found to be ridiculous. I rolled my eyes gently and opened my book as well, perusing through the different potions. I almost considered making a dangerous one, just for the ironic flare it would have added to the instructions, but decided against it.
By the time class was over, Harry had Slughorn drooling over him as usual because he'd made An Elixir to Induce Euphoria. Ernie had tried to make his own potion, but had failed misreably, and Draco had made a passable Hiccuping Solution. I had gone with a Babbling Beverage, which Slughorn had enjoyed.
I walked with Harry to the Gryffindor common room, keeping him company until Ron and Hermione returned. I knew he was glum because he needed to get a memory from Slughorn adn was having no luck, so I distracted him by talking about our plans for the summer holidays. Finally, Hermione walked through the portrait hole.
"Harry, Riley, I passed!" she said excitedly.
"Well done!" Harry said. "And Ron?"
"He--he just failed," she whispered, as a very morose Ron entered the common room. "It was really unlucky, a tiny little thing, the examiner just spotted that he'd left half an eyebrow behind..." We all gave Ron sympathetic looks before Hermione spoke again. "How did it go with Slughorn?" she asked.
"No joy," Harry answered. "Bad luck, mate, but you'll pass next time," he said when Ronc ame over so sit beside us. "We can take it together."
"Yeah, I s'pose," Ron answered. "But half an eyebrow! Like that matters!"
I know," Hermione said soothingly, "it does seem really unfair."
We all went to dinner, where I separated from them to sit with the Slytherins. From my vantage point, though, I was pretty sure they were all badmouthing the Apparition examiner, which seemed to improve Ron's mood.
"So, Draco, you look sick," I said to him when he sat down beside me.
"How kind of you," he answered sarcastically.
"I'm just saying, whatever secret you're rightfully keeping from me seems to be really wearing you down. Maybe you should just give up on whatever it is you sneak off to do."
"I'm rightfully keeping a secret from you?" he asked in mild surprise.
"Uh, yeah. Whatever it is that you feel like you can't tell me must be something that I would wholeheartedly disagree with. Which means if you told me, I would dedicate every ounce of my being to keeping you far away form this secret. And it wouldn't by weighing in you so much if it wasn't somehow important to you, which means my keeping you from it would essentially be bad for you on some level, even if it was good for you on a different one."
"I'm not entirely certain that what you just said made complete sense, and yet I understood it," he said to me.
"That's what happens when you spend enough time with me," I answered. "Anyways, back to my original point. How about, instead of sneaking off to do super secret Sytherin stuff, you and I go for a swim in the Black Lake."
"Riley, it's only April. The lake must still be freezing."
"So?" I asked.
He sighed softly and closed his eyes in resignation. "All right, we can go for a late night swim."
To be completely honest, I was making him be with me tonight because I knew Harry was planning on taking some Felix Felicis to get that memory from Slughorn, and I didn't want him to somehow uncover Draco's secret. Whatever he was hiding, I knew it had to remain hidden. It was important and serious, or else it wouldn't be bothering him so much.
So, later that night, he and I snuck out of the castle and to the lake. Considering all of the added security, this was alarmingly easy. "Okay, strip, ferret boy," I said, pointing at Draco.
He raised his eyebrows at me but complied, removing his clothes until he was just in his boxers. I followed suit, stripping down to my bra and panties. Thankfully, it had been a very warm day, and the night air felt good. I could only imagine how cold the lake was going to be, though. With a deep breath, I dove right in.
"Oh, my God!" I gasped, coming up for air. "It's bloody fucking cold!"
"And you expect me to get in there?" Draco asked with an incredulous look at me.
"Don't be a pansy," I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me before diving into the water, coming up right next to me. "I hate you," he said, his eyes wide from the shock of the freezing temperatures. Warm weather or not, it would take much longer for the lake itself to warm up enough to be considered swimming material. As it was, the lake was just barely warm enough to handle without turning blue.
"You're so dramatic," I said, splashing him in the face before ducking under the water and swimming away from him.
"You are dead," he answered, coming after me.
He was a fast swimmer, which meant he caught up to me in no time and wrapped his arms around my waist.Keeping a firm grip on me, he kicked us backwards until he was standing again, the water up to our chests. Then, he lifted me and shoved me away from him, causing me to go splashing into the water.
While I was under, the giant squid lazily ran a tentacle along my legs, giving just the gentlest tug backwards. I guessed it wanted to play, but was too tired to put much effort into it. I gave the tentacle a fond pat before surfacing for air.
"That was mean," I said to Draco.
He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm mean."
"Yes, and you're also going to pay," I answered, lunging at him and pulling him under with me. While we were submerged in the water, he leaned forward and kissed me, only pulling away when we both had to lift our heads out of the water and breathe again.
We stayed in the lake until our lips were blue and our teeth were chattering. Then, we climbed out and used a drying spell on ourselves before getting dressed again and sneaking back into the castle. With a smile and one final kiss, we both went to bed. As I feel asleep, my mind filled with thoughts about what Harry had discovered tonight.
The next morning, I found out. I was sitting in Charms class with him, Ron, and Hermione, and he was relaying to us the vents of the the previous night. Through the memory, Harry learned that Tom Riddle had planned on making six Horcruxes so that he could have seven parts to his soul. Two had been destroyed, and Dumbledore didn't know for sure what the other four were, but he had good guesses. Voldemort's snake Nagini, for one, along with Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup. And perhaps something from either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. What was more, Dumbledore was going to let Harry come with him on his next trip to try and find a Horcrux.
"Wow," Ron said once Harry was done talking. He was vaguely waving his wand around, not paying attention to what he was doing with it. "Wow. You're actually going to go with Dumbledore...and try and destroy...wow."
"Ron, you're making it snow," Hermione said, grabbing his wrist and pointing his wand away from the ceiling.
Lavender was glaring at Hermione, her eyes very red. When Ron brushed some of the snow from Hermione's hair, Lavender promptly burst into tears.
"We split up," Ron told us quietly.
"Ah," Harry said. "Well, you don't mind it's over, do you?"
"No," Ron said. "It was pretty bad while she was yelling, but at least I didn't have to finish it."
"Coward," Hermione and I said at the same time, both of us looking amused.
"Well, it was a bad night for romance all around," Hermione continued. "Ginny and Dean split up too, Harry."
She and I exchanged covert smirks before looking at him.
"How come?" he asked, his face completely neutral. Which I was pretty sure was total bullshit.
"Oh, something really silly... She said he was always trying to help her through the potrait hole, like she couldn't climb in herself...but they've been a bit rocky for ages."
We were soon silenced by Flitwick coming over and asking us to attempt the lesson. Hermione had already done it, and I could easily do it, but Harry and Ron had a little trouble. Their vinegar refused to become wine. Ron's flask even exploded, causing me to flinch back and cover my face with my arms. Flitwick made them practice for homework.
After class ended, we all had a free period, so we walked back to the Gryffindor common room together. Slytherins were foul-tempered, so there was no way I'd be spending the period with them. We were sitting around, cheerfully chatting, when I suddenly realized who one of the other people in the room was: Katie Bell, back from St Mungo's.