So... It's only taken me about six months to update this... I am SO SO SORRY. I have had major things going on in the past few months, which have all in turn taken their toll on my writing. Pwease forgive me? O.o

I hope this chapter was worth the wait... Although I have a bad feeling that it really isn't that great...

Disclaimer: I only own Andrea, the rest is Jo Rowling's

"Are you sure you don't mind not telling anyone?" Andrea asked Draco for the fifth time that morning, having spent the last two hours holed up in the Library together.

"I'm sure," he assured her, reaching for her hand. There was a new light in his grey eyes, a spark that only Andrea could ignite. "We all know what would happen."

"I wish we could tell people & it wouldn't be such a scandal," Andrea said, sighing. "Can we tell at least one person?"

"Who would you tell?" Draco asked.

"Seamus," she replied instantly.

"You seem confident about that," he remarked.

"He's my best friend."

"Okay. One person."

"Who will you tell?"

"Probably Blaise."

"Makes sense."

"I think it's time for lunch," Draco said. "Did you say you were meeting Finnigan?"

"Yeah," she said. "I promised him I would after I finished my Ancient Runes homework."

"You didn't get a lot of homework done, did you?" He teased. She giggled and nudged him playfully.

"It's your fault!"

"Is not!" Draco replied, and Andrea pouted.

"It is, you distracted me," she said. Then she stood up and reached for her bag. "I should go." He also stood up.

"So, the Astronomy Tower tonight?" He asked. She nodded and smiled.

"Yeah," she said. "Eleven o'clock."

"Eleven o'clock," Draco repeated. "I'll see you then." Then, lifting a hand to cup her cheek, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. Andrea sighed into the kiss, before reluctantly pulling away.

"See you later, Malfoy," she whispered, teasingly using his last name.

"Can't wait, Martin," he replied, smirking. Then she was walking away from him, disappearing behind the bookshelves that had kept them hidden from other students and Madam Pince for the last two hours.

"Where have you been? I was about to come looking for you," Seamus exclaimed between mouthfuls of his jam sandwich when she finally sat down next to him at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.

"I'll tell you later," she told him in a low voice. He nodded in understanding. "How was the snowball fight?" She asked.

"I won!" He replied, before glancing over at the Hufflepuff table. "Ernie's demanding yet another rematch, but this time he's bringing his friends so I'll need your help."

"Sure," Andrea replied, giggling. "When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, I think. He needs to recover, of course."

"Of course." Andrea laughed. Then, unable to help herself, she glanced over to the Slytherin table where Draco was just settling himself between Crabbe and Goyle. He looked up and caught her eye, a smile flashing across his features. The corners of her mouth curved and she quickly looked down at her plate, hiding the slight blush that was creeping up into her cheeks.

"What was that?" Seamus whispered, his tone suspicious.

"I'll tell you once we're alone," she replied quietly but firmly. Looking up at him, their eyes locked and she knew at once that Seamus had already guessed the basic details of her time spent in the library.

"Come on then, I've got some food in my trunk so we can talk in my dormitory away from ears," he said. She nodded and stood up from the bench, slinging her bag over her shoulder and picking up what was left of her sandwich. As they walked out of the Great Hall, she did not allow herself another look over at the table of green and silver.

"Baubles," Seamus told the Fat Lady as soon as they reached her portrait. She swung open, revealing the portrait hole, and Seamus gestured for Andrea to lead the way.

The common room was empty but neither Andrea nor Seamus wanted to take the risk that somebody would enter whilst they were talking, so they climbed the staircase to the dormitory that Seamus shared with Dean, Harry, Ron and Neville. Once in there, Seamus opened his trunk while Andrea settled herself on his bed, arranging his pillows comfortably. He soon joined her, sitting opposite her at the foot of his bed, levitating several snacks onto the space between them. He closed the four-poster curtains and Andrea flicked her wand, saying, "Silencio."

"So," Seamus began. "I'm going to hazard a guess that you spent the last two hours with a certain dodgy member of Slytherin house."

"You guess right, Mr. Finnigan." Andrea reached for a Chocolate Frog.

"And?"

Andrea launched into a detailed account of what had happened during her time with Draco in the Library, but she skipped over how much of that time they spent kissing. Seamus was her best friend, yes, but he was also male and they were never fond on those kind of details.

"So, you're official now?" He said slowly when she had finished.

"I think so," she replied. "But you can't tell anyone. Not even Dean."

"Why can't I tell Dean?!"

"Because you can't, Seamus. Not this," Andrea pleaded.

"You're still worried about the whole thing with the houses, aren't you?" He asked. He knew her too well.

"Of course I am," she said. "Not to mention the fact that everybody in this house and both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff hate him the most out of everyone in Slytherin."

Seamus said nothing for a while. Finally he said,

"I've overheard Harry, Ron and Hermione talk about the possibility that Malfoy's a Death Eater."

"I know," Andrea said. "Fred and George told me that Harry spoke to Mr. Weasley about it, and Hermione mentioned that Harry suspects him of cursing that necklace that Katie managed to get a hold of."

"Does that bother you?"

"I'd be an idiot if it didn't."

"But you're still going to go ahead with this?"

Then it was Andrea's turn to be silent. In the Library, she had forgotten the suspicions that surrounded Malfoy and everybody else's resentment of him. But now she remembered it all, and unease settled around her heart like electrified barbed wire.

"Oh Seamus," she whispered. "I don't know what to do. What if I trust him and he turns out to be one of them?"

"I can't tell you what to do, Andie," Seamus said softly. "But I remember promising to support you with whatever decision you make about him."

After a long moment, Andrea decided on a plan.

"For starters, I can't deny how I feel any longer and he knows now so there's no avoiding it. I'll go ahead with it but I won't trust him completely until he can prove himself."

"That's the plan then," he said. "And you're on strict orders to tell me absolutely everything."

"Yes, sir," she replied, giggling.

"But there's the possibility that people could find out, though," he reminded her.

"I know," she said, sighing. "I could just say that I'm doing it to get information on the Malfoy family, seeing as they're rumoured to be very 'in' with Voldemort."

Suppressing a wince at the sound of the name, Seamus said, "But what about his father being in Azkaban?"

"Details," Andrea said, waving a hand dismissively. "Just because he's in prison doesn't mean that Draco and his mother have suddenly dropped out of the little gang. I think it's safe to assume that it's not that easy to leave a group like that."

"So do you believe he is a Death Eater?" Seamus ventured.

Thinking very carefully about her response, Andrea slowly said, "I think that, what with Lucius Malfoy being who he is and the fact that almost everyone related to them is seemingly part of it, it's only natural that he be involved somehow. I don't like to think it, but we all know it."

They lapsed into silence, neither of them sure of what to say next. Seamus opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and closed it.

"What?" Andrea asked, knowing he wanted to say something.

"It's just," he stammered. "I saw the way you looked at him earlier. Do you love him?"

The question threw Andrea, who had never thought about her feelings for Draco like that before.

"I... I don't know... I've never... I don't... Oh!" A hand flew to her mouth and her brown eyes widened in shock.

"You do," Seamus said quietly. "You love him. You have for ages and you know it, you just never realised until now."

"How do you know?" She whispered.

"At your house in the summer, when you finally told me what happened," he explained. "Listening to the way you talked about it, about him, I just knew that you were in love with him. You definitely hadn't realised then, though; you were so confused.

"It was a gradual thing, though," he continued. "Deep down, you were already in love with him, but it took time for you to really come to terms with it and therefore the process was slow. Now, you know."

"It makes sense," she admitted, hardly registering the fact that Seamus had spoken rather like a man four times his age with much more experience and who was now marveling at his own wise words. "It all fits now."

"I don't know where all that came from," Seamus said. Andrea looked up, catching sight of the shock on her best friend's face. She burst out laughing, and it wasn't long before Seamus had joined her and the two laughed until their stomachs ached and there were tears in their eyes.

"Where are you going?" Crabbe asked stupidly at 10:45 that evening, watching Draco rise from his seat on the plush leather couch.

"None of your business!" Draco snapped in reply. "Stop asking questions."

Neither Crabbe nor Goyle said anything; they merely exchanged a meek glance and said nothing as Draco left the Slytherin Dungeon. Idiots, he thought.

Making his way to the Astronomy Tower, his stomach churned with both excitement and dread. The excitement was due to the fact that Andrea felt the same way, Andrea was now his girlfriend. But the dread was present because he knew he did not deserve her, not one little bit.

He was on guard as he made his way to the Tower, his footsteps silent and unnoticeable. He could only hope that Filch wouldn't catch him; he wasn't sure about how he would explain why he was in this part of the castle in the middle of the night - this place had nothing to do with his task, not yet.

Rounding a corner with his wand held tightly in his hand, he strained his ears for any sounds. All he could hear was the soft snoring of the portrait inhabitants as he passed them.

After what seemed like an age, he was finally climbing the steps that led to the Astronomy Tower. Andrea wasn't there yet. Draco breathed in the brisk December air as he leant against the railing and closed his eyes. What if she didn't turn up? What if she realised how much of a mistake she could be making by entering a relationship with him, a Malfoy?

"Draco." The whisper startled him and he whirled around, eyes wide. As soon as he saw her, he drew in a breath. In the soft light of the moon, her face was illuminated gently and her brown eyes sparkled. Her hair was wavy and left to fall in waves down her back, and she wore the same clothes as she had been wearing earlier.

"Andrea," he breathed, opening his arms. She walked straight into them, wrapping her arms around his waist tightly. He felt her tense body relax and he himself began to relax. In that one single moment, everything was perfect.

Seamus waited up for Andrea, unable to suppress his discomfort at the knowledge that she was seeing the Slytherin Prince. She'd only been gone for a half hour, but already he was wishing she would come back. He may have promised to respect her decision about Malfoy, but that didn't mean he had to agree with it. Having heard Harry, Ron and Hermione discussing Malfoy recently when they thought nobody was listening, he was even more worried that something wasn't right about the other boy; he didn't necessarily believe it, but Harry's suspicions that Malfoy had something to do with Katie Bell being cursed made him anxious.

What if he was just using Andrea? What if he really was involved in the Dark Arts and Andrea got caught up in it, ending up seriously hurt or even dead? Seamus shuddered at the thought. He rubbed his eyes, which were heavy from a lack of sleep over the past few days. He had been so worried about the whole thing, and was now even more worried after realising how Andrea really felt about Malfoy.

Over the course of the Christmas holidays, Andrea and Draco spent as much time as they could together without arising any suspicion, however she began to worry about the fact that he was becoming paler, with sunken eyes, weight loss and a constant angst in his grey eyes. One afternoon, whilst they were stealing a few moments together in a corner of the Library, she decided to bring it up.

"Draco, you'd tell me if there was something going on, wouldn't you?" He looked up at her quickly, dropping her hand in the process.

"What do you mean?" Clearly there was something going on.

"You look ill, Draco," Andrea replied, concern in her voice. His heart sunk. "What's bothering you?"

Draco had to think fast. Taking her hand in his again, he stroked patterns into the palm with his fingertips. He avoided looking at her in the seconds it took for him to think of something.

"It's just my mother," he replied smoothly. "I'm worried about how she's getting on without my father, what with him being in Azkaban and everything." That was only partly a lie. He really was worried about his parents, but he knew that Narcissa was a strong woman and was therefore coping as well as she could without Lucius. She had her sister Bellatrix, after all.

He finally looked up at Andrea. She was watching him closely, her eyes full of concern, her brows pulled together in a frown. She didn't look entirely convinced, but he prayed that she wouldn't pry any further.

Thankfully, she didn't. Instead, she leaned in to place a lingering kiss on his lips.

"I have to go," she whispered, and he sighed.

"Already?"

"I'm afraid so," she replied sadly. "Seamus is wary of how much time I've been spending with you."

"Are you sure it was safe to tell him?" Draco had always had doubts about Seamus Finnigan.

"He's my best friend, Draco," Andrea said him, sighing as she stood up. "We've been over this."

"I know," he mumbled, pulling her onto his lap. She giggled, half-heartedly resisting him but eventually giving in.

"He's just looking out for me," she continued. "As I would do for him if he suddenly wanted to date Parkinson."

"Point taken."

"Now I really should go," she whispered again. "I said I'd meet him in the common room and we'd hang out before going down to dinner together."

Draco kissed her, savouring the moment before its end. "I'll see you soon."

"Soon," she repeated, smiling.

"Andie!" A voice called to Andrea from across the common room. She looked up from the Transfiguration essay that she and Hermione were working through together. It was Seamus, hurrying into the common room with a slightly panicked expression on his face.

"What is it, Seamus?" She asked, alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"I need a word with you," he said as he reached her. She exchanged a glance with Hermione before standing up.

"Of course," she replied. He gestured to the portrait hole and she followed him out of the common room. They walked quickly through the castle until Seamus found them an empty classroom on the fourth floor.

"Dean just overheard Harry and Ron talking in the changing rooms after Quidditch practice," he explained. Andrea felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She hoped Seamus was not about to say what she thought.

"About what?" She managed.

"You and Malfoy." A choking sound escaped her throat. She had hoped to keep it under wraps for longer than this; the Christmas holidays had ended only a month before.

"What did they say?"

"Dean didn't hear much, just that–"

Seamus didn't get to finish his sentence, because at that moment the door to the classroom opened, making them both jump. They whirled around, wands raised, only to see Harry stood in the doorway.

"Andrea," Harry said. His green eyes were hard. "Can I borrow you, please?"

"What for, Harry?" She asked weakly. "Seamus and I were just in the middle of a discussion."

"It won't take long."

Breathing rapidly, she glanced at Seamus who could do nothing but leave the room, worry etched on his face. As soon as the door of the classroom had shut behind him, Harry flicked his wand and muttered something under his breath. Neither he nor Andrea moved, and it seemed like an eternity before he spoke.

"I'm going to ask you once," he said quietly, adjusting his grip on his wand. "What is going on between you and Malfoy?"

Was it really bad? Yeah? ... Is it too cheeky of me to ask for any reviews...? Yeah? Okay :(

I'll make it up to you all, I swear. I have several one-shots planned, not to mention more installments of Overcoming Differences!

Much love!