Jinx let her head fall back against Draco's chest as he continued to hold her tightly against his body. He peered down into her eyes and smiled for a moment. Then, he craned his neck around and planted a short, sweet kiss on her lips.

Jinx smiled as he pulled away and twisted around in his arms to face him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his lips back down onto her own, a new passion alight in her chest. Both of their hearts pounded together, one strong steady beat. Draco parted his lips slightly and deepened the kiss just enough to melt Jinx in his arm. She felt him smile against her mouth.

Finally, the two pulled away. Piece by piece, the world put itself back together around them and they remembered where they were. Draco leaned his forehead against Jinx's, a nervous look in his eyes. "Can you promise me that you'll always stay with me?" He questioned. His usually confident voice sounded frail and timid, one could even say desperate.

The odd question reminded Jinx of who she was. Could she honesty promise that? Without knowing for sure if he was her one and only? But how could she say no? "I can promise...that I will treat you in a way no one ever has, or will," Jinx responded carefully, "and if I ever do leave...it won't be because I want to."

A flash of pain flickered in Draco's eyes for a single moment, but Jinx still saw it and couldn't help feeling guilty. "Well, I guess the future is meant to stay secret," Draco said with a grin.

Jinx returned a smile and let her fingers trace his cheeks and jaw bone. "I may not be able to tell the future," she began, pausing to plant a graceful kiss on Draco's icy lips, "but I promise that right now, I love you more than you can imagine."

And in that moment, nothing other than their love seemed to exist. 

• • •

Harry knew that sleep would not find him easily this night.

"Could I see that?" Ron asked, nodding his head toward the diary. Harry handed it over. "How did Hagrid get his hands on this old thing?" He questioned in confusion. Ron flipped further through the pages to almost the end. "Blimey," he gasped, "this Scamander guy wrote a whole book on fantastic beasts."

"I suppose we'll all check the library tomorrow then?" Harry asked as he slipped under his covers.

"Yeah," Ron replied absently as he, too got under his blankets. He sat the diary aside on his nightstand and fell into a deep sleep.

• November 26, 1995 •

Normally, there was no magic training in the Room of Requirements on the weekend. But today, Harry asked that Hermione, Ron, and Jinx would accompany him to the room for extra practice.

However, once the four were together, magic was the last thing on their minds. Everyone wanted to know what was in Newt's Diary.

"Did you three end up reading the diary?" Jinx asked as an awkward icebreaker.

"Not yet," Hermione replied. However, when she saw Harry and Ron exchanged a guilty look, she sighed, "oh come on, you couldn't just wait one day?"

Ron shrugged in response, hiding his face in embarrassment as he mumbled, "I was curious."

Hermione rolled her eyes and held her hand out for the book. Harry placed it carefully in her palm and watched her open to the first page. "'I've never kept a diary before, but I figured today may be a good day to start. There's a new girl here, a fifth year student like me, though she must've transferred from another school. She's an odd case, I'd say; she hasn't said a word since arriving. Strangely enough, she's in all of my classes'." Hermione read the first paragraph and looked up.

Jinx wore a nostalgic smile, "I remember that day. He tried so hard to befriend me, and for months I rejected him." A lighthearted laugh escaped her lips. "It was when I realized he'd never give up," she continued with a more serious expression, "that I finally let him in."

Harry couldn't hold back his question as it slipped right out of his mouth, "how come you were so shy back then?"

"I knew that I was different," Jinx continued with a frown, "...my mother was killed by her own brother when he found out that she was a Creature...I was terrified of sharing her fate."

"I'm sorry to hear that.." Harry sympathized as he lowered his gaze to the floor.

"After meeting him, did you start to trust more people?" Ron asked curiously.

Jinx almost laughed at the question, "not in the slightest." When she regained herself, she continued, "I continued to fear the people until I did something more terrifying than what was done to my mother."

The three Gryffindors stared at Jinx with wide, attentive eyes. Harry felt his head spin; what, exactly, had she done? Surely she wasn't a bad person, so what could she possibly mean?

Before Harry could speak, Hermione seemed to read his mind, "what did you do?"

Jinx felt her heartbeat accelerate rapidly. She wanted to tell them; she needed to. But how? "Remember how I told you that Phantoms are infertile to any other than their sole mate?" All three nodded. With a shivery sigh, Jinx continued, "well I thought I'd met mine, in 1907..because I'd had a child."

"You what?" Ron almost shouted in surprise. 

Jinx ignored this and carried on, "but, after years more, I realized that I did not age a bit. I knew something was wrong. I went to Dumbledore about it, and he suggested I enroll my son in Hogwarts as soon as possible. I removed myself from his memory and became his professor, as Dumbledore had suggested."

Jinx paused to let the information sink into her friends' heads. Ron was beyond confused. Hermione was trying her hardest to make sense of the story. But Harry already knew. He knew the boy in Jinx's story. He could feel a burning in his core, and in his skull. The look in Jinx's eyes told him everything he needed to know. He'd known this boy she spoke of for his entire life. A curse of a child, an Antichrist of witches and wizards.

"...He should never have been born," Jinx choked as the terror in her eyes began to drip with salty tears.

"Who was your son?" Harry demanded in a desperate tone, a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

Jinx let her eyes meet his, and it was all over. He knew. The ache in his scar told him enough. "I-it should've been impossible-" she almost whispered, "I brought this curse into the world..I brought him into the world."