Beth Castrone went flying around a corner, her long brown hair whipping passing students by in the face. With her deep brown eyes, tanned skin and 5 foot 5 hourglass figure she was always a breathtaking site, her friends told her she was exotic looking, which she supposed was a good thing. She was in her 7th year and was currently extremely late to a Defence Against The Dark Arts class. She whipped around another corner and burst into her classroom, panting heavily and still looking beautiful in a ruffled, messy way.

"Sorry" she panted to Professor Snape and she sat down quickly, but not quickly enough for he soon took 10 points from Gryffindor and gave her a detention that night for her lateness. "Jerk" she muttered as she plonked down next to Lavender Brown. Her friend rolled her eyes to show her agreement.

******

Beth knocked on the dungeon door quietly, hoping Snape was asleep or dead. However she soon heard his slimy voice telling her to enter. She soon stopped dead in her tracks though as she noticed Draco Malfoy in the dungeon with Snape.

"You will be re-labelling ingredients today" he told them with a sneer in her direction before sweeping to the door. "You can leave once you have labelled every bottle in here".

Beth looked at the manky ingredients and groaned softly, there was row upon row of shelves and she'd have to shower several times and use her expensive Chanel body lotion to get the smell of the ingredients out of her skin.

She turned to regard Malfoy warily. She had no great vendetta against the boy, he was incredibly hot, but she had seen him in action against many of her fellow Gryffindors, and she considered herself lucky that she hadn't yet been a target.

"So what did you do to end up in here?" she asked him, attempting to make polite conversation with the boy she would be spending the next few hours with.

"Hexed Weasley" he said, without looking at her.

Beth said nothing, choosing to look at the floor in discomfort. She wasn't aware of him watching her, and when she started to move, so did he. They completed their detention in silence.

Malfoy finished re-labelling the ingredients slightly before Beth, but he soon realised that he had in fact put her name down instead of the materials on several of the labels. He hurried to redeem this, while still maintaining his cool indifference so as not to attract her attention.

"Well I'm done" she announced moments later.

"Yeah me too" he drawled.

Beth had to admit, he was sexy.

Beth was constantly in detentions because she was always so late to classes in the mornings (she liked to sleep in), and Malfoy was constantly in detentions because of his temper and the amount of times he hexed one of the trio.

Over time, the two 7th years became friends, not great friends, more like acquaintances, but they only ever talked in detention, and neither told anyone else that they conversed with each other.

At first they only made small talk, but this eventually progressed to more personal things like how old they were for their first kiss. Beth, twelve. Draco, surprisingly, thirteen.

Beth wasn't a solitary girl, she had plenty of friends, but every now and then she would escape and sit by the black lake, thinking about her life and puzzling over her petty problems. She didn't know that Malfoy had found out about her weekly escapes, and he didn't want her to know, he just simply watched her from the trees, never approaching her, not even when he once saw tears streaming silently down her cheeks and he longed to comfort her, he was scared of how she would receive him; he had never been rejected before.

That night Beth had strange flashes instead of a dream.

Indescribable pain rippled through her body again and again, then she felt her body aching all over, but she could see nothing but dark. Suddenly she felt relief as strong arms picked her up, cradling her to their warm, soft body as they whispered reassuring words to her.

She woke the next morning with her bed sheets tangled around her ankles, yet she was not scared by the dream, only puzzled.

The first trip to Hogsmead was that weekend, and as usual Beth went with Lavender. The two girls went dress shopping for the Halloween ball and Beth had just decided on a black dress with a white corsage and black stilettos.

She walked back into the changing room when someone grabbed her from behind, covering her mouth. Before she could react, she felt herself being apparated away. She fell hard on a stone floor in a dim dungeon that she didn't recognize, but she recognized the figure looming over her.

"Flint" she gasped at the ex-student, trying to back away.

"You just get more beautiful by the day don't you?" he leered at her. "You and I are going to have some fun" he snickered, looking her up and down in her new dress.

"Oh no we're not" Beth stated bravely as his words sunk in. She aimed a kick between his legs and as he doubled over, she scrambled to her feet. Attempting to outrun the former quidditch player in her stilettos. But there was no-where to run...She stopped short at a wall, forced to turn back and face him.

"Malfoy never let me anywhere near you, he was constantly watching you to make sure I stayed away" he spat.

"You're lying! Why would he do something like that? I'm a GRYFFINDOR!"

"The boys in love with you or something. Well, lover boy isn't going to save you now!"

She tried to run past him, pushing him away from her with all her strength, but he only grabbed her and threw her back onto the floor in front of him.

"Metacorpus" he pointed his wand at the ceiling. She saw chains coming through down to her. She screamed and rolled over away from them.

"Crucio!" her back arched and her arms scratched at the floor for something to hold onto as she screamed.

She felt the chains yank her wrists above her head, pulling her upwards until she was balancing on her tip-toes.

"You're gonna pay for that kick" Flint snarled at her, breathing heavily inches away from her face.

He pointed his wand at her again and pain lanced through her body, making her scream in agony. Eyes screwed shut, she barely managed to balance. Flint continued to torture her for what felt like hours. Suddenly the pain stopped and shouting began. She was left tottering on her toes, her limbs trembling from shock and fatigue. She ached all over and each time she tried to lower her feet and ease the pressure in them, the restraints around her wrists would dig in painfully.

"Avarda-"

"Expell-"

"Cruc-"

"STUPIFY!"

She was on the verge of collapse when she felt strong arms around her body, lifting her up, the restraints disappearing and her arms falling heavily to her side.

The arms cradled her against a muscled chest, and she heard someone murmur softly "I've got you".

She moaned in response.

"Shhhhh, I've got you, you're safe now" Draco murmured in her ear, he then kissed the top of her head and as she fell unconscious he carried her out of the dungeon and back to Hogwarts.