Morose.

The warmth of another mid-summer's day plummeted into the dusky chill of twilight, calling her out into the night air with something similar to a promised secret. The gleaming stars pulled her from her room and onto her balcony, bright beams of the moon pooling at her small, pale feet. The trees of the forest ahead danced their ballet gently, leaves fluttering from their homes to the vacant earth. Satin night gown flowing smoothly out behind her, she leaned gradually over the marble bars, staring down upon a light figure contrasting with the gloomy ground.

"You came!" she exclaimed quietly, smile uncontrollable. The boy below simply rolled his silver eyes, grin present and playing childishly on his pale lips.

"Well? Are you coming down or aren't you?" he called up softly, offering her a true smile that sent her young heart soaring and sent her cheeks into a frenzy of precious pinks.

Turning swiftly, she ran through her cluttered room, tripping loudly over her dollhouse whilst groping for her plush robe and suede ballet flats. Pausing a moment to listen for any movement throughout the house, she sighed in relief, continuing her stride to and out her door. The dark, ancient stairs greeted her with loud creaks and moans of reluctance and disapproval as she raced down them, coming finally to the tall, white door at the front of her house. Grasping the cool, brass knob excitedly, she threw the door nearly off its hinges, now face to face with this simple, yet, to her, extraordinary young boy, both slightly arrogant eyes and ghoulishly white hair illuminated and vibrant in the streams of light radiating from the moon. Without a word, she leaped from her front steps and into the boy's arms, clutching his jacket so tight that he was forced against her petite body.

"You do realize I visit almost every night, don't you?" the boy questioned rhetorically, laughing before wrapping his own arms around her.

"You know I love our meetings more than anything, Draco!" she giggled girlishly, beaming up at Draco with bright, emerald eyes and an endless smile. Draco only shook his head, taking her hand and leading her into the forest.

They had met at the very beginning of summer when her parents stole her from her perfect little world of Little Whinging and into their dangerously social one. As her parents were known thoroughly as the Social Butterflies, many families came in and out of their newest house at all hours. The Malfoy's, mere minutes from her own estate, visited on a brilliant June afternoon, sun blazing in the cheery, sapphire sky.

The family of blondes as a whole did not shock her in the slightest, but the boy, who brought up the rear of the three as they crossed over the threshold, immediately captured her attention, as if he had an intimidating and powerful gravitational pull. The boy, she remembered, looked annoyed, as if someone had just scolded him for failing to share a toy at the playground. His pure white hair was slicked back across his head, showing off the irritated lines of his forehead and his furrowed brows just above shimmering, silver eyes.

"Why don't you go play with Alicis, sweetheart?" her mother practically shooed the boy away, laughing much too loud as Mr. Malfoy told her of a dumb Muggle wandering aimlessly in the streets of London. Alone in the foyer, the two children stared at each other, Alicis with wide, innocent emeralds and the boy with two cold, sharp pieces of glittering steel glaring into her soul.

"Do you want to go out to the garden?" Alicis suggested, letting her hands rest folded behind her back as she grinned with welcome. "There's a big pond filled with colorful fish and-"

"I don't want to be here," the boy interrupted harshly, sighing heavily with a massive eye roll. Alicis' face immediately fell, hands now rested firmly on her hips.

"Well, that's not very nice! Maybe we don't want you here!" Alicis retorted with a sharp nod, genuinely disappointed with the obvious fact that the stunning boy in front of her wasn't nearly as interested in her as she was in him.

"You do, or else you wouldn't have invited me to play," the boy, now smug, removed his jacket and threw it sloppily over the arm of a chair, rolling his cotton sleeves up to his pale elbows.

"Well..." Alicis began, now flustered and flushed from cheek to scalp. "I was trying to be nice because you're a guest... What's your problem, anyhow? You look so angry you could burst," The boy scoffed rudely, rolling his eyes once more.

"I don't see why it would matter to you," he started, glancing around the house with judging eyes. "But, if you must know, I was supposed to be with my friends Crabbe and Goyle today, but I had to come here, instead," he finished with a sneer, picking up a doily from the oak table and dropping it from his disgusted fingertips.

"Well, I'm sorry you're disappointed, but maybe you should try making new friends-"

"You don't mean you, do you?" the boy hissed, looking thoroughly repulsed with the idea. Feeling as though she could cry, Alicis began her stride for the front door, passing the boy with reluctance.

"Wait," Alicis stopped mid-knob turn, glancing around at the arrogant boy through the curtain of curls hanging loosely from her head. "Show me the bloody fish, then," the boy mumbled with yet another eye roll, pushing past Alicis and out into the warm, sticky-sweet air. Partly satisfied, she followed after him quickly, tears receding from her eyes as the brightness returned.

"What's your name?" Alicis asked, bounding behind the boy in bursts of accelerated skips.

"Draco Malfoy," he muttered, glancing at Alicis, look now slightly amused at her excitement.

"That's a funny name!" Alicis giggled, beaming up to Draco as if he had no reason to take it as an insult. On the contrary, Draco gave her a glare.

"And what's yours?"

"Alicis Legend," she announced proudly throughout the pansies and roses as they entered the spacious, green garden, stone pond just ahead.

"And you think my name's funny?" Draco sniggered as Alicis stomped her foot.

"Alicis was my grandmother's name-"

"I can tell it belonged to an old lady!" A genuine laugh escaped from Draco's lips, ringing powerfully though the shrubs and thorns. All Alicis could do was grin, sitting happily on the side of the pond.

"You're kind of a jerk," Alicis exclaimed, giving Draco her brightest smile, "But I like you," Draco let himself slide down between Alicis and a row of sunflowers, watching Alicis stroke the florescent, colorful coy floating carelessly through the crystal clear water.

"And you're a whiny, annoying little girl," Draco grinned as Alicis looked up at him with a searing glare that seemed to burn green with toxic irritation, "But I suppose I like you, too,"

With this, the bond between them became a seal that would not be broken, growing stronger with the secret meetings and owls they were forbidden to send back and fourth.

"Tell me again," Alicis mumbled, searching the canopy of leaves and branches for any sign of life. A sandy colored owl perched lazily on a tall branch examined the two with bright, skeptic eyes.

"It doesn't change from night to night, you know," said Draco softly, one hand gently attached to Alicis' with the other deep in his perfectly pressed pants pocket.

"But I like hearing it... Please, Dray?" Between the nickname and her wide, pleading, puppy-like eyes, Draco decided that it would be useless and, moreover, impossible to resist, and he sighed and cleared his throat.

"My parents don't like you," he began bluntly, shuffling along side Alicis with a soft expression. "They think you could put a hole in my reputation, and they hate how fake your parents are. They don't like that you care for Muggles, and they hate how happy you always are-"

"But not you," Alicis cut in anxiously, gazing up at Draco expectantly. Draco grinned in return, squeezing her hand a bit tighter.

"But not me," he repeated, looking up into a diamond studded sky through a whole in the forest's dark ceiling. "Because I know you, because you were relentless and determined to become my friend. Because you somehow understand what I'm thinking and why I act like I do. Because-"

"Because I've got you, and you got me, and we're the best of friends, right?" Alicis finished for him, cheeks becoming pink from the happiness of the truth behind these words.

"Right, Ali," Draco replied, watching as the sand colored owl followed them with taunting eyes before soaring off and out of the trees. "Because we've got each other, and that's all we need, because we love-"

Before Draco could say his final words, four figures leaped from the underbrush, both a man and a woman grabbing their children tightly by the arms, ripping the bonded boy and girl apart as if breaking the seal from the paper of an important envelope.

"How dare you disobey us?!" yelled Draco's mother, Narcissa, struggling to hold Draco to her.

"He's no good for you, Alicis!" Alicis' own mother, Auswin, bellowed, keeping too strong a grip on Alicis' wrist.

"DRACO!" Alicis screamed, tears running wildly from her now dim eyes, rolling in streams down her cheeks and off her chin onto the soil below.

"Don't worry, Ali!" Draco shouted, a few tears dripping surprisingly off of his panicked face, as well. "We'll see each other again!"

With these last words, the boy and girl who believed they would be with each other in the end were snatched from the forest and were again imprisoned in their prestigious, yet unloving homes, promptly slammed into a chair, and shrieked at.

"This is for your own good," both fathers, Lucious and Andreyous, spoke at the same time, pointing their 18 inch, dragon heartstring wands at their children, murmuring "Obliviate" and sending a shock of nothingness into their minds.

Both boy and girl glance around, memory now oblivious to each other's existence. With broad, satisfied, and slightly sinister grins, their parents send their children back to bed. Climbing dreamily up, stair after stair, they entered their respective rooms, removing their shoes and overcoats, climbing immediately into their beds, one curiously dreaming of two glittering emeralds while the other of shining steel. Bond not yet completely broken, hope not completely lost, we find our two childhood sweethearts in their first year at Hogwarts.