HPSlashFics - 4 The Girl In The Cage

Harry and Hermione were already standing outside the infirmary when Ginny arrived there. She had had to wait for many agonizing minutes inside the Great Hall, until, in the chaos, she could slip away undetected. Instead of trying to head outside, she made a beeline for the hospital wing, Ron in reluctant tow behind her. No matter what shape Draco was in, they would have to bring him there eventually. Even if he was - well, but that didn't bear thinking about.

The infirmary door was shut fast, and outside in the hallway stood Harry, with Hermione beside him. They were deep in intent conversation. It wasn't until Ginny got close to them that she realized that the dark splotches on Harry's clothes were not melted snow, but blood. Quite a lot of blood.

"What's going on?" Ron asked, looking from one white face to another. "Is Malfoy all right?"

"They're not telling us a bloody thing," Harry said, and -- in what Ginny couldn't help but think of as a classic example of pointless teenage-boy aggression - he kicked the wall, and then sat down on the floor, pulling his knees up and resting his head on his arms. He didn't look as if he wanted anyone to go near him and Ginny would actually have been afraid to do so. Instead, she looked at Hermione. "Did you get to see him?" she asked quietly. "How bad do you think it is?"

Hermione shook her head. "Very bad," she said. Her voice was pitched low, as if she didn't want Harry to overhear her. She put her hand on Ginny's elbow and steered her towards Ron. "We saw him," she said, still in the same quiet voice. Ginny could hear the strain underlying her words. "He was lying in the snow and there was blood all around him. A lot of blood. I think it was coming from his shoulder - his shirt was torn there, and that seemed to be where most of the blood was. Harry went to try to stop the bleeding and..." Hermione bit her lip. "Then Lupin and Charlie and the rest of the teachers came, and they pulled Harry back. We couldn't see what was going on. Harry was fighting to get away but Lupin grabbed him and held onto him--Lupin's very strong. And Charlie picked Draco up and put him on the stretcher, and Madam Pomfrey took him through an opening into the castle, and everyone followed her. We followed too, but they shut us out at the door. They said that we would just be in the way."

Ron reached out and touched her shoulder gently. "What are they doing in there?"

Ron looked as if he were going to say something else, but paused as the infirmary door opened and Charlie stepped out, closing the door behind himself. He looked weary. The front of his shirt and his sleeves were soaked in blood where he must have carried Draco. His robe was off. He looked at the three of them standing clustered together, and then down at Harry on the floor, and said:

"Draco's going to be all right."

Ginny exhaled, feeling as if she were letting out a breath she had been holding for hours. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. He'll be fine. He lost a lot of blood; I know it looked nasty, but that was all it was. The wound was in his shoulder, so nothing vital was damaged."

Charlie shook his head. "No, not yet. He's out cold anyway. He nearly froze to death, along with the blood loss. It looks as if he may have been out there for several hours." He tried to smile at them; it turned into a yawn. "Sorry. Look, you all should head off to class. There's nothing you can do here right now."

"Just one thing," said a soft voice. Ginny turned. It was Harry. He had gotten to his feet without any of them noticing, and stood there quietly. His eyes were dark in the torchlight. "What happened to him, exactly?"

Harry's jaw set. "Then what are you not telling us? Was it a magical attack? A spell? Some kind of ... creature?"

"Charlie," Harry snapped right back. "I want to know who or what was responsible for this, and I want to know now."

"What's going on here?" It was Professor Lupin, who had opened the infirmary door behind Charlie. He looked from Charlie's exasperated face to Harry's pale, set one. "Did you tell them Draco's fine?"

"No," said Charlie irritably. "I felt like keeping it to myself so I could make it a really big surprise."

Lupin shut the door behind him and turned to face Harry. "So what's the problem?"

"I want to know what happened, Harry said. "I want to know who's responsible for .. for this," and he made a sweeping gesture towards the infirmary door. "I'm family. I have a right to know."

Harry glanced at Hermione. She was looking at him with large, worried eyes. Beside her, Ron looked taken aback at the force of Harry's anger. "Harry," Hermione said gently. "We'll go to class and come back after - maybe then they'll know a bit more."

"No," said Lupin. "When we know anything, we'll find you, Harry. Hanging about in the corridor here won't do any good. Go to class, there's no need to come back."

Ron reached for Harry's arm, but Harry shook him off. He was staring at Lupin. "You're keeping something from me," he said intently. "All of you are - and what's the difference? Whatever it is, I'll be the one who has to deal with it in the end, all alone. I always am."

"We're not keeping anything from you," Lupin said sharply. "You know what we know." Harry started to speak, but Lupin cut him off. "Draco is going to be fine, but he's still very weak. And in pain. And we need to be taking care of him, but instead you are wasting our time out here. Think about it."

Hermione took hold of Harry's arm. "We're going," she said, and gestured with her chin for Ron and Ginny to follow. Harry went with Hermione unwillingly, looking back over his shoulder at Lupin and Charlie until they turned the corner of the hallway and were once again all four alone, at which point Hermione turned to Harry, her hand still on his arm. "There's no need to talk to Charlie like that -" she began.

Harry jerked his arm away from Hermione as soon as they had stopped walking, and glared at her. "And you don't need to lead me around as if I'm some sort of mentally deficient child," he snapped.

Hermione dropped her hand, looking fed up. "Then quit acting like one," she snapped right back.

Harry looked grimly satisfied, as if his goal of provoking a response out of Hermione had now been reached. "I will if you quit acting like a bossy know-it-all," he replied.

She looked shocked, then put her hands on her hips. "Harry Potter," she said in a voice that seethed with rage, "you self-centered, inconsiderate, obstinate -"

Ginny felt a hand land on her shoulder. It was Ron. "We'll just be going now," he said, very loudly, although neither of his two friends turned to look at him. "We have to...there's thing that...we have to do... very soon. Like, now."

"Right," Ginny agreed weakly. "That thing we have to do," and she fled after Ron. Not, however, before she caught another glimpse of Harry and Hermione glaring fiercely at each other. Harry's hands were balled into fists in his pockets, and Hermione was pale and tight-lipped. She was glad not to have to stay to watch this fight; while Ron and Hermione often bickered and sniped in a wearying manner, Harry and Hermione fought extremely rarely - but when they did, it was with the force of several exploding volcanoes.

She caught up to her brother as they turned the next corner and emerged into the corridor that led to her History of Magic class. Ron was shaking his head. "Unbelievable," he said.

Ron gave a short laugh. "Those two," he said. "And their relationship. Otherwise known as the Circus of Pain."

"Lately being around them is like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. The only bright side is that it feels good when you stop."

Ginny gave her brother a very hard look. He seemed distracted, and his color was high, as if he were annoyed. "Well, maybe you should get a girlfriend yourself before you go making pronouncements," she said severely.

Ron paused, and looked at her as if in surprise. Then he laughed awkwardly. "No. Of course not."

Ron opened his mouth to reply, then shut it with a snap. He was looking off past her shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze and saw that someone was standing in the hall just ahead of them, near the doorway to History of Magic. It was a moment before she realized that it was Seamus. He must have been waiting out in front of Professor Binns' classroom - waiting for her.

Seamus nodded, but when he spoke again it was to Ginny. "Please," he said. "Can I talk to you for a second?" He looked from her to Ron. "Alone," he added.

Ron shrugged. "Go ahead. I have to get to Potions anyway," and he took off down the hall. With his long-legged stride he was soon out of view, and Ginny turned reluctantly back towards Seamus.

He was leaning back against the wall now, looking at her steadily. His blue eyes were almost indigo in the low light. He said, "It's about Malfoy."

Hermione heard her own voice rising as if it had left her control. "Harry Potter," she said in a voice that seethed with rage, "you self-centered, inconsiderate, obstinate, selfish - troll!"

"No," she snapped, anger making her irrational. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware that Ron and Ginny had departed, and was glad. Now she could get as angry as she wanted to. "Not nearly."

Harry looked at her without moving. His green eyes had gone nearly black, but otherwise his face was expressionless. "Fine," he said. "Owl me when you do finish this pointless diatribe, then." And he turned around, and walked away.

Before she even realized what she was doing, Hermione had fumbled her wand out of her sleeve. "Petrificus partialitus!" she cried, and Harry froze where he was, about three feet away from her, his feet seemingly nailed to the stone floor.

Hermione shoved her wand back into her sleeve and regarded him grimly. "I'm immature? That's amusing, coming from you."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "Enlighten me, then." His tone was heavy with sarcasm.

Hermione pointed her finger at him and spoke in a voice that trembled with tension. "I may not know what's bothering you," she said. "But I know that something is. And whatever it is, it's poisoning you from the inside out. You're turning into someone I don't know, Harry. Maybe even into someone I don't like."

She raised her eyes to his face as she spoke, and was startled. He looked stricken. She had not expected that. She stood for a moment, taken aback. She had never really realized how important her good opinion was to Harry, how much his self-image was shaped by what he saw reflected in her eyes. He ducked his head immediately, his jaw set, hiding the hurt in his eyes - but she had seen it. When she spoke again, it was with less rancor. "I've always admired you, Harry. As much as I love you, I admire you, too. Not just because you're brave, but because you're kind, and because you hold yourself to such a high standard. Higher than anyone else would ever think of holding you to. And you've never had any self-pity, even when you were entitled to it. So when I see you using who you are to try make someone else feel guilty, or even worse, sorry for you, like you just did with Lupin -- that's not you, Harry. That's not who you are."

Harry did not move. He was looking down at the floor, his shoulders tense. The anger that Hermione had felt was dissipating fast. Exasperated as she was, it went against every fiber of everything she had been for the past six years to hurt Harry deliberately. She had spent far too much time putting herself between him and any harm to do that. She began to reach for her wand to De-Hex him, but before she could, he said, "I shouldn't have said that to Lupin. But you don't understand."

Harry closed his eyes. "I've always known that one day Voldemort would strike at those closest to me. I've always tried to prepare myself. But you have to make a choice, if you're me. Either you choose never to love anyone and close yourself off to that particular threat...or you swear to protect the people that you do love, no matter what happens. I chose the second option...mostly because of you." He opened his eyes and looked at her again, his gaze green and steady. "You gave me a choice, to love you or lose you...and I couldn't stand to lose you."

"I think I do," said Harry slowly. His hands were knotted together, as if he were nervous. She wanted to go to him, but held herself back. This was the most he'd said to her, the most open he had been, in months. "Maybe I blame you for teaching me how to be vulnerable. You did, you know. Years ago. There's all sorts of ways Voldemort could get at me, besides you...Ron. Sirius. Draco. But if it hadn't been for you..."

"What makes you think what happened to Draco has anything to do with you in the first place?"

"I absolutely guarantee you that there are people out there who want to kill Draco for reasons that have nothing to do with you," said Hermione in a heartfelt tone. "Trust me."

"Self-centered, aren't you?" Hermione asked gently. "Not everything is about you, Harry."

Harry didn't smile. He was gazing down. "Look," he said, and held out his right arm, the sleeve pulled up. "Look at all that blood. It's on my hands, that blood."

Hermione looked more closely at Harry's arm, then wrinkled her nose. "That's not blood," she said, with authority. "That's pumpkin juice."

"It is not, it's blood."

"That is pumpkin juice. From where I threw it at you this morning. Honestly, Harry. It's orange."

Hermione grabbed Harry's hand, lifted it up to inspect the stain, and then to his apparent immense surprise, stuck out her tongue and gingerly licked the skin. "Pumpkin juice," she said.

"Kind of makes all that whining about blood on your hands seem a little affected, doesn't it?"

"Mmm,'" said Harry. He was looking thoughtful. "You know, come to think of it, I think you spilled some pumpkin juice here as well," he added, and pointed at his neck.

"Really?" Hermione smiled. "Well, in that case," and she stepped closer to him, and put her lips against his neck, and very gently kissed him there. He tasted of soap and salt. "Definitely pumpkin juice," she said.

"And here," he said, and indicated his face. She touched her mouth to his cheek - the skin there was as soft as it had been the first time she had kissed him, when he had been fourteen. "And here," he said, and touched his lips, and she stood on tiptoe and put her arms around him and kissed his mouth.

He folded his arms around her and held her tightly while they kissed, so tightly she could barely breathe, his hands knotted into fists against her back. "Oh, Harry," she said, when they had broken apart. "I'm so sorry about everything."

"Don't," he said, and leaned back a little so that he could look at her. "Don't apologize, you haven't done anything you'd need to apologize for."

Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were on hers, full of concern, but more than that they were animated and alive and he was present. Present as he had not been in a long while. He was really there. Lately touching him had been like touching a hollow shell, something reflexively animate but certainly not familiar, but now she was holding her Harry again, feeling just as he always had, solid and limber and a little gawky. He was cold, his cloak still wet with melted snow, his skin chill against hers, but he was hers, her Harry, whom she adored.

He let her go. She kept hold of his wrist as she stepped back. She could feel the blood pounding in it under the skin. She smiled up at him, and he smiled back. "We should go to class," she said, her voice very soft.

"Well, I would," he replied patiently, "but someone's stuck my feet to the floor."

"Oh!" Hermione felt herself flush. "Oh - oh - I forgot. Oh, dear," but he was laughing, and as she took her wand and removed the hex on him, she found that she was laughing too.

They went a little ways down the hall, Seamus walking in front of her. Ginny looked fixedly at the back of his head, feeling unaccountably guilty. And for what? She thought. I haven't done anything! By the time Seamus slowed down and turned to face her, she was beginning to feel rebellious.

"I wanted to talk to you about Malfoy," he said, brushing his thick wheat-colored hair out of his eyes with his left hand. She had never previously noticed that Seamus was left-handed. Then again, there were a lot of things about Seamus she had never previously noticed.

"What about Malfoy?" Ginny asked, her voice flat and uninviting.

Seamus smiled at her, but his eyes were serious. "I wasn't going to say anything, mainly because Malfoy pretty much threatened to rip my liver out, but he doesn't seem to be in any kind of liver-ripping shape right now, so..."

"There's nothing between us," Ginny said. This was somewhat true. One-sided feelings didn't count as "between".

That was a trickier question. Ginny decided to dodge it by being flippant. "Why? Suddenly decided you fancy him yourself?"

Seamus raised an eyebrow. "I don't think Malfoy likes me that way, or at least if he does he's playing it very close to the chest."

Ginny giggled despite herself. "Sorry. I was just winding you up. It's only that, well, you don't know him, Seamus."

"I do actually," Seamus said. "We used to play together on opposite Junior Quidditch teams back in prep school. He was a little cheat, one of those kids that will do anything to win. Whatever it took. Every time he was Beater, someone wound up with a bloody nose or a cracked elbow."

"Look, I know his mum is marrying Sirius, and so maybe Harry feels like they have to get along now, but I'm telling you - he isn't trustworthy and he isn't nice. He's one of those people who will smile and stab you in the back. Ginny..."

He reached for her hand then, but she took a step back. "I still don't understand why you're telling me this. Did Draco... did Malfoy tell you there was something going on with us?"

"No! No. Look, Seamus..." Ginny knotted her hands together. "If you think I'm not being fair to you...I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have agreed to go to the Yule Ball with you."

Seamus looked at her for a moment in surprise and then smiled. His eyes were not precisely blue: they had a green cast, like blue water in a green glass. "Relax," he said. "All I did was ask you to the Yule Ball; we're not getting married. I'm not angry with you. I just wanted to..."

Seamus shrugged. "All right, maybe a little bit. Draco Malfoy is not a nice person. He was a pretty revolting kid and I haven't seen any evidence that he's changed."

"Different than he used to be? That's faint praise. Look..." he added quickly, seeing perhaps some resistance in her expression. "It's all right. I just want to take you to the Yule Ball. I don't need to hear any more about you and Malfoy, if there ever was a you and Malfoy."

"Well, there certainly isn't now," said Ginny firmly.

"Good," said Seamus, and slung his rucksack over his shoulder. "I'm off to History of Magic - you want to walk with me?"

"Sure."

He reached to take her hand as they walked down the corridor, and this time she let him.

"I'm sure." Lupin tried to make his voice as soothing as possible - Sirius was looking extremely anxious. Lupin was sure that some of the heat radiating out from the fire through which he they were conversing was Sirius' anxiety, and not the flames. "He's already fine. Perfectly fine. Just worn out and his shoulder has to heal."

"And you're sure we shouldn't come to school?" There were dark lines of strain around Sirius' eyes. He looked tired, and uncomfortable - he was wearing Muggle clothes, at least from the shoulders up (which was all that was visible in the office fireplace): a white shirt and an unknotted dark tie. Lupin had asked him what he'd been doing but had been brushed off with the response, "Auror business. Dull stuff."

"I'm sure, Sirius. There's no need. Draco is fine and if you come here, it'll just panic him and all his friends, make them think something serious is going on -"

"Right, I know. But so could we, dozens of times. How many times did you land in the hospital wing?"

"Because we were being stupid. If it was Harry - but Draco, he doesn't do reckless things. He's too careful for that. Whatever happened, he wasn't expecting it."

Lupin sighed, and leaned back against the legs of the chair he'd pulled up to the fireplace. "It was a puncture wound, a regular puncture wound - possibly a knife wound, or an arrow. Whatever it was had been pulled out. There are plenty of spells that could accomplish that effect. It could have been a duel gone wrong...or even a spell Draco was trying to cast himself could have backfired. We just don't know."

"No. It's no consolation." Sirius raked a hand through his black hair -no gray yet, although Lupin had a feeling that if Harry and Draco kept up their near-brushes with death, that would change. "You're sure we shouldn't come?"

Sirius' eyes darkened. "Not very well. She's lying down - she had to take half a philter of Tranquility Solution."

Lupin sighed. "I'm sorry. It'd be harder for her, wouldn't it? I mean, you must remember that time you dueled with Snape?"

"Madam Pomfrey put it back on," Sirius pointed out cheerfully. "James was always a better second than you. He never got in the way." His eyebrows knitted. "Which makes me think...maybe you should ask Snape if it looks like some kind of Hex wound?"

"No." Lupin shook his head. "Harry seems to be taking care of that angle for him."

Instead of smiling, Sirius' mouth tightened. "Harry. Is he not taking all this well?"

Lupin shook his head. "No. He threw a tantrum. Accused me of hiding things from him, not telling him what was happening - basically, of lying."

"No," said Sirius ruefully. "I tried to have a talk with him the other day, because I was worried. He seems so thin and pale these days. I thought...maybe problems with Hermione? Maybe he was anxious about the wedding, thought I wouldn't be around as much for him afterward? But he just shut me out. Accused me of being a liar as well, by the way."

"Sirius...has something happened to him lately to damage his trust? Because that's how it seems to me. As if he wants to trust, is afraid to, and is resentful as a result. On top of that, he seems to be feeling -" and Lupin was about to add "abandoned", when there was a knock at his office door.

He got to his feet and went to open it, keeping his body between himself and the fireplace, blocking Sirius from whoever might be at the door. To his surprise, it was Harry.

Lupin looked at the boy on the threshold. Sirius had been right. Harry did look thinner, and paler, and more tired than he had before. The shadows under his eyes seemed bruised. It was odd, but as Harry grew older, and especially when he seemed tired or troubled, his resemblance to his father faded slowly and in his face Lupin could once again see Lily. She also had not been beautiful in a conventional sense of the term, but there had been a bravery and grace to her spirit that made her always worth looking at. Harry had that as well, along with the emerald-green eyes that had once prompted a particularly nasty Daily Prophet reporter to remark that "those eyes, hidden behind the famous old-fashioned spectacles, are the one beauty of an otherwise unremarkable face."

"You should know I'm not alone," Lupin replied, but Harry had already looked past him and seen Sirius in the fireplace. His hands tightened at his sides, but he evinced no other expression of nervousness.

Sirius nodded. "Fine, Harry." His eyes went to Lupin. "Could you give us a moment?"

Without even thinking about it, Lupin nodded and went out of the room, closing the door after him. Only then did he realize that he had just shut himself out of his office while shutting a student in. This was not generally considered good practice. Still, Sirius was there to keep an eye on Harry.

He leaned back against the wall and sighed. The look on Sirius' face when Harry had appeared at the door...Lupin had recognized that potent cocktail of hope, love, pride, concern and fear. Certainly it was the way his own father had looked at him when the letter of acceptance had come from Hogwarts. He remembered hearing his parents' voices through the bedroom wall that night...He can't go, he's so small for his age, and what will the other students do, how will they treat him? What if he gets hurt or hurts somebody else? But how can we keep him back - can't he have a normal life?

If there was one thing Lupin had learned since then it was that there was no such thing as a normal life, not for some people. Not for himself. And not for Harry. He had been branded by the bite of a wolf; Harry was branded by something much graver and much darker. It showed itself now in his eyes and the knowledge in them, as much as in the scar on his forehead.

The office door opened, and Harry looked around it. "Come back in, Professor," he said. He wasn't smiling exactly, but he seemed relieved, as if a burden on him had been lightened. Lupin presumed that he and Sirius must have made up their fight. "Sorry I kicked you out of your office."

Lupin followed Harry back into the office and bid goodbye to Sirius, who was also looking a deal more cheerful. "Right then, Sirius...owl me tomorrow."

Lupin, despite himself, was surprised. Usually when Harry wound up in his or any other teacher's office, it had little to do with homework and more to do with life-threatening emergencies. "What about it, Harry?"

"Well, I know we were supposed to have chosen at least our first assignment today.."

"Obviously, I understand if you and Draco need some time to get that to me. A week's extension would --"

"No, that's just it, we chose already." Harry took out a parchment and handed it to Lupin, who received it with surprise. "We want to do the Research project on Dark locations. We'd like to go to Shepton Mallet."

Lupin looked at Harry with some bemusement. Harry returned his gaze, his green eyes very clear behind his glasses. Again, Lupin was reminded of Lily. Lily when she was hiding something, or up to mischief. Perhaps he was being overly suspicious, however. Surely Harry and Draco wouldn't be likely to be up to anything given the condition Draco was in. "All right, then, Harry."

"I just wanted to let you know so you could get started getting a Portkey for us," Harry said, with boyish sincerity. "I know they take a while to make."

"All right." Lupin looked at Harry, bemused. What was going on with the boy? Unfortunately, nothing he could put his finger on exactly. "I'll get it ready for you, Harry. In the meantime, while Draco's in the infirmary, I suggest you tell him not to worry about schoolwork. He needs to rest."

Harry nodded. "Sure. I'll tell him we can work on it just before Christmas, if you can have the Portkey ready by then. We'd work on it during the break, but you know, no magic during the holidays, and the wedding..."

Harry looked briefly surprised, then shrugged. "I haven't thought about it, really. I've been so busy with classes and getting ready for NEWTS and...I haven't bought anything for Sirius and Narcissa yet."

"Well, the shops in Hogsmeade should be staying open tomorrow night, shouldn't they?"

"Oh! Right." Harry nodded. "Sure. I'll get something then." He looked down at the gold pocket watch that glimmered on his wrist. As always, when Lupin saw that watch, his throat tightened. Standing there in the dim half-light, with his dark untidy head bent over the familiar watch, Harry could have been James. James, too, had fidgeted with his hands when he was nervous. James, too, had been proud of the watch he'd been given by the girl he loved. James had looked forward to their first Pub Crawl... "I've got to go, Professor," Harry said. "I've got class."

"Sure." Lupin flicked his wand towards the door, and it swung open. Harry went out, and paused for a moment on the threshold.

"I didn't want you to think I was angry with you. I was sharp with you earlier today, and I'm sorry. You were concerned about your friend and it does you credit. You've always been just like your father that way."

"It's just the truth." Lupin shrugged. "I've been thinking about your father lately. Wishing he could be at the wedding."

"It's all right," Harry said. "You'll be there with me." He shifted his rucksack higher on his shoulder and backed away from the door. "Thanks for letting me use your office to talk to Sirius, Professor."

Lupin nodded. His throat was still tight and he did not want to speak. He watched as Harry walked away, turned the corner, and was gone. Then he went back into his office and shut the door and sat down at his desk, looking into the fire. For the first time in a long time, he felt suddenly old.

Draco woke to a splintering pain in his head and the feeling that someone was sitting on his chest. He dragged his heavy eyelids up, and saw a stone-arched ceiling above him, white rising sheets on either side of his bed. The infirmary.

He sat up slowly, and looked down at himself. Someone had dressed him in blue and white pinstripe pajamas, and there were blankets heaped on his bed. Huh. He wondered how he'd gotten here. He wondered who had brought him here, and who had dressed him. Obviously not somebody who understood that Malfoys did not wear flannel.

He closed his eyes, and cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered. He recalled Rhysenn screaming, himself pushing her away, the world turning upside down, silver inverting into black...

What had happened? What had injured him? He unbuttoned his pajama top and shrugged it off, but his shoulder was tightly bandaged and offered no evidence. It was still slightly sore, and he winced when he touched the bandages, even lightly. Slowly, he leaned back against the pillows, his mind lost in recollection. He remembered a strange sound, and the sharp pain in his shoulder. A sound like...a bow and arrow? But who would go around shooting students with a bow and arrow? And why, when an Unforgivable Curse was so much quicker? He knew why his father used a bow and arrow: for the sport of it. But the memory made him shiver.

He covered his face with his hands, and rested there for a moment in the quiet darkness. His mind swam with questions, not the least of which was how long he had been out cold in the infirmary. Who had discovered him, and what had become of Rhysenn? He let his hands drop, and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts range outward, slowly, trying something he had done before only rarely -- searching the castle with his mind, seeking another and a familiar presence, one bound to him even in sleep by an unbreakable cord of telepathy and magic.

He found him, like a pinpoint of light in the darkness. Harry. He could not, of course, ever tell what Harry was thinking precisely, but the shape of his thoughts was as familiar as the shape of his face. Harry, he whispered into the darkness. Harry, are you awake?

There was a moment of startled silence, and then Harry replied. I am. Are you all right? Where are you? Infirmary still?

There was no response. Harry was probably distracted. Draco busied himself with shrugging his pajama top back on and buttoning it up, which hurt rather more than he would have liked it to. He could not still a small, cold fear...he remembered stories Lucius had told him of magical poisons...but no, he would surely be dead already if he had been poisoned.

There was a faint rattle, and the curtain around his bed was pulled back. He sat up straight as Harry appeared, the Invisibility Cloak falling at his feet as he stepped forward. He had obviously dressed quickly: his green sweater was on inside-out and his hair was even more of a disaster than usual. "Malfoy..." Harry said, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "You look really pale."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Thank you for that bulletin from the Department of the Obvious, Potter. Massive blood loss does often result in pallor, you know. Now are you going to sit down, or are you just going to stand there and goggle at me like a landed trout?"

Harry flung himself into the chair next to the bed, still staring at Draco. "But you're okay? You're really...okay?"

Draco tried to push the thought of deadly poisons out of his mind. "I'm all right...did you think I wouldn't be?"

Harry drew out the chain that hung around his throat, and looked down at it. In the half-light, the gold Epicyclical Charm glimmered dully. "I knew you weren't dead already," he said quietly. "But I didn't know you wouldn't die." He let the chain drop back into his shirt. "Draco, what happened? What were you doing wandering around in the snow at 6 am anyway?"

Draco noted the use of his given name and was, despite himself, pleased. "I'll tell you in a second. Reach onto that nightstand and get my clothes, will you?"

"Because I want something that's in the pocket, Potter. Actually I just want the shirt...thanks," he said, and caught the shirt that Harry tossed to him, which had been neatly folded. Draco unfolded it, and blinked. It was ruined, unsurprisingly, the right shoulder a stiffened mass of blood and torn fabric. The shirt had been slit down the front as well, where they must have cut it off his body.

"Yep," said Draco, still staring down at the shirt. "It was really expensive, too. Donna Charon autumn collection..."

"I went outside to meet someone," Draco said slowly. "And I wasn't outside in the snow...I was up on a tower."

"The Astronomy Tower?" Harry looked interested now. "You told me people only ever go up there to have sex." His eyes widened. "Were you having sex?"

"I have a bedroom, Potter. Why would I go up onto the Astronomy Tower to have sex?"

"The black-haired girl who came down the stairs with Charlie at your birthday party."

"So you were having sex!" Harry glanced at Draco's ruined shirt. "She must be fairly wild."

"Potter, if you do not shut up about sex, I will twist your head off and use it as a Quaffle."

"Okay, okay." Harry subsided, his eyes shining with silent mirth. Draco was fairly sure that Harry had been being purposely obnoxious this whole time. "So tell me what you were doing."

Draco sighed, and explained - about Rhysenn, about the letters from his father, the maps that led to secret meeting places, the cryptic messages, and finally, the attack on them both. "I've no idea who she really is," he finished. "Or what she wants, or whether the person who shot at us was trying to kill me or to kill her. And I don't know how I wound up at the foot of the tower, either. I must have fallen. I'm just surprised the fall didn't kill me."

Draco looked at his hands. "Dumbledore made me swear not to tell you. I'm .. sorry. I wanted to." He held himself very still. Harry was a barely visible shadow beyond the fringe of silvery light that was his own falling hair. "Who else could I tell besides you?"

"I swore I wouldn't." Draco paused. "It's not as if there aren't things you haven't been telling me."

Draco heard Harry sigh. "That's true." He hesitated. "But you're telling me now? You're breaking your promise?"

"I could have died," Draco said. "And if I did die, you would deserve to know why and how."

Harry hesitated, and then his face relaxed into a smile. "Thanks," he said, and Draco felt gratified despite himself. It was the annoying thing about Harry - he had that quality given to only a very few, that made even his smallest gesture seem weighted with significance. Whatever it was, it was what made him a natural leader -- it was what made people want to protect him, that made them line up to stand between him and whatever encroaching darkness he must one day defeat. But then, that was the nature of being a hero.

"The letters Rhysenn brings? Not much useful. Here, this last one's in the pocket of my shirt - that's why I wanted it." Draco pulled the parchment, remarkably unharmed, out of the shirt pocket where he had tucked it, and unrolled it. "Draco," he read out. "Lo these many years we have waited, you and I, for your true birthday to dawn. Remember this: some must be sacrificed that others might be saved. True obedience requires no illusions. Soon you will know everything." Draco shrugged. "That's it."

Harry sat for a moment, gnawing his lower lip. Then he held his hand out. "Let me see the letter."

"Right, because bad guys love to leave clues lying around. It's really a desperate cry for help."

Draco handed the letter over with a shrug. "If you insist on playing Junior Auror, I guess I can't stop you."

Harry ignored him. "This letter was written in Green Viridian Ink," he said, his voice intent. "Only bona fide Ministry officials can use it, you know."

"No, actually, I made that up. Here, take your stupid letter." Harry tossed the letter back, looking disgusted. "Who says 'Lo', anyway?"

"Who says 'bona fide'?" Harry was prevented from answering this when the letter in Draco's hand caught fire. Draco dropped it with an oath, and it turned to ash before it hit the stone infirmary floor. "They always do that," Draco said sulkily, putting his burned thumb in his mouth. "I guess so I can't keep them as evidence."

"Well," said Harry, as if it were obvious, "Ask Hermione. If she doesn't know, she could find out for you."

"Hermione isn't anyone else," Harry pointed out. "She's...Hermione. You can tell her anything."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, then shut it with a snap. "That's different."

Draco yawned hugely. He was growing more and more tired. "Someone's always trying to kill you, Potter. You wouldn't be you if they weren't. And in point of fact, who knows if someone was trying to kill me or if they were going for Rhysenn and missed?"

Harry was silent for a moment. His right hand was playing with the loop of his belt - actually, with the odd-looking scarlet bangle that he never seemed to go without. "I don't think you should trust her," he said finally.

"Well, if you ask Lupin to give you a Portkey that'll take you to Doon's Hill, won't he guess why you're going there? I'm surprised he put it on the homework, actually."

"Right. That's why I'm going to tell him that we want to go to Shepton Mallet instead."

"Come on, Malfoy. Cunning plans, remember? The big thing is to get off school grounds, considering that we can't Apparate or fly away and don't exactly have time to walk."

"Leave that to me." Harry smiled, then bit his lip. "But you're sure...you still want to go?"

"Want to might be a little strong. I'm still willing. I'll be fine in a day or two, I'm pretty sure."

"No, it's fine." Draco leaned back against the pillows and shut his eyes. "You do realize," he said sleepily, "that this means...we're going to have to do...an entire report on Shepton Mallet...for no damn good reason at all." He yawned a final time. "Thanks to you," he added.

He was dreaming again. He was in the tower room once more, and his father was there, as was the Dark Lord. He stood at a different angle now, and could see out the tall and narrow windows. They showed an unfamiliar landscape: a ridged valley dropping away into wooded trees. The night sky was high and black, the stars grinning down like naked daggers. On the wall by the windows hung the mirror he had seen in his previous dream. This time the surface was blank.

Lucius and the Dark Lord were talking together by the door, although he could not hear what they said. Ghostlike, he drifted towards them as they passed from the tower room into another room. This was a stone chamber whose walls were hung with gold and silver tapestries. It was a vast enclosure, the walls soaring up to a roof lost beyond the hectic flames of the torches that burned there. The floor was inlaid with gold, stuck here and there with somber glowing gems. It was as gaudy a room as Draco had ever seen, made gaudier still by its central decoration - a huge and circular golden cage, the kind that might have held a lion or a tiger. Instead it held a woman. A slender, tall woman clad only in her own long black hair, which swirled around her like smoke, hiding her body. It was not until she raised her face that he knew her.

"My Lord," she said, as the Dark Lord and Lucius approached her. "Why do you summon me back?'

Lucius stepped aside, and the Dark Lord alone faced the girl inside the imprisoning bars. "Because I have bound you, and I can," he replied. "Do you know yourself bound?"

Her eyes flashed. "Of the flesh which contains me, master you may be. But of what I am, master you assuredly are not."

"Words," he said. "You must obey me. Or I will torture the cage of blood and skin and bone that, until death, you must now inhabit, and I shall not let you free. Do you want that?"

"Where is the Heir of Slytherin, and why have you left him?" the Dark Lord demanded.

"He is with Harry Potter," she said. "You know I cannot come near him when he is with the Potter boy. Nor can I enter the castle."

The girl looked down. "We were interrupted. He could give me no answer. I will go again, not this night but the next, and retrieve the answer from him."

"Interrupted? Interrupted how?" This time it was Lucius speaking, turning from his perusal of the window to look at last towards the girl in the cage.

"Someone attempted to attack us," said Rhysenn. "Two arrows were shot at us, from the darkness. Your son was struck in the shoulder, but he lives. I saw to that."

Voldemort smiled his scarlet smile. "An unlikely angel of mercy," he said. "Were you touched by his plight?"

"Mercy," said Rhysenn, with a catlike gleam in her eye, "has nothing to do with it. I safeguarded what was valuable to you. Nothing more."

"How admirable," Voldemort said. "You are indeed a model example of perfect dispassion. Although it seems to me that you can still feel amusement."

"I have never claimed to be without feeling," the Dark Lord said. "It is only the gentler emotions that I despise."

"I love power," he replied. "As the musician loves his violin, I love it. To draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies. That is happiness."

The girl in the cage raised her face suddenly, as if she had scented something on the wind. "The sun is rising, my Lord," she announced. "Let me go. You know I hate the day."

"I will," said the girl, and vanished, and as she disappeared, a beam of sunlight shot through the window, piercing the darkness of the room with a shaft of gold - lighting the face of the Dark Lord, and of Lucius who stood not far from him - it was Lucius who turned then, and looked across the room. It seemed to Draco that his father was looking directly at him. Lucius smiled, and spoke.

Draco's eyelids flew open, his heart pounding. For a moment the darkness of the tower swam in front of his open eyes, and he struggled to sit up, dizziness clutching at him like drowning hands.

It was morning, and the infirmary was full of light. It took a moment for him to realize who had spoken, and that he was not dreaming. It was Charlie Weasley, standing at the foot of his bed. His hands were on his hips and he looked bemused. Draco suspected he had come directly from feeding his baby dragon, since his face and dark blue work robes were dusted with soot.

Draco sat up gingerly against the piled pillows, and found he could move without much pain. There was a dull ache in his shoulder, but nothing else. "Well," he said reasonably, "where else would I be?"

"Not you," said Charlie, and poked at something with his foot. Draco got up on his knees and peered over the edge of his bed. Harry was there, lying curled on the floor, asleep on his folded Invisibility Cloak. His cheek was pillowed on his hand.

"He said to leave him alone," Draco translated. "He's having a dream about Professor Sinistra."

"I am not," protested Harry, sitting up. His hair stood out wildly, as if he had been electrocuted, and his face was lined with creases where it had pressed against the folded cloak material. "Malfoy, you sodding liar."

"Got you up," pointed out Draco, unfazed. "Now get out of here, before Dumbledore gets here and you get in trouble - or not," he added hastily, as the curtain was drawn back and Professor Dumbledore entered, followed by Madam Pomfrey and Draco's head of House, Professor Snape. Draco sat back on his heels, and rubbed his shoulder ruefully. "I just want everyone to remember," he remarked, "that I've lost a great deal of blood. I might be delirious."

"It's all right, Draco," said Dumbledore, his eyes kindly and serious as they rested first on Draco, then on Harry. "While we might frown upon students breaking into locked infirmaries in the middle of the night, the urge to be with one's friends in times of trouble is both admirable and understandable. Neither you nor Harry will have points taken from your Houses. Now do get up, Harry. Just looking at you is making my bones ache."

Harry got up hastily, and rubbed at his eyes in an effort to appear more awake. "Thanks, Professor."

Dumbledore waved a hand, and four high-backed chairs appeared around the bed. Dumbledore sat down, and Madam Pomfrey, Snape, and Charlie followed suit. Harry sat down on the foot of the bed, covering a yawn; to Draco's surprise, nobody moved to stop him.

"Before you tell us what you know, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore began, "why don't we tell you what we know? Now. We were first alerted to your plight when a Hufflepuff first-year student came racing into the Great Hall yesterday morning, announcing that she had found Draco Malfoy lying in a snowbank, quite dead. As you can imagine, this caused something of a stir."

"Perhaps the mourning was not quite so extreme," said Dumbledore, "although there was much concern at the Slytherin table, and several Gryffindors made remarkable scenes." At this, Harry became very interested in a bootlace. "As you can imagine, much haste was made to reach you. You were, as reported, lying in a snowbank, inert and drenched in blood. It is very surprising, in fact, that the blood loss did not kill you. Coupled with that, it is even more surprising that the cold did not finish you off. You were nearly frozen when the Hufflepuff girl found you while she was on her way down to the greenhouse. She pressed herself against your body, before she ran for help."

"She pressed herself against you to warm you up, Draco," Charlie put in. "She had Muggle first-aid training. Fortunately for you."

"We brought you back here, where it was discovered that the source of your injury was a puncture in your right shoulder. The injury was deemed non-magical in nature, and both your hypothermia and blood loss were quickly treated. You may thank Professor Snape for providing us with a potion that is usually used to treat vampire attacks, which restored to you the blood you had lost..."

"Vampire attacks?" Draco echoed, thinking of Rhysenn again, her white skin and red lips. She had said she wasn't a vampire, but...

"You were not bitten by a vampire, Draco," said Madam Pomfrey. "You had no bite marks on you. But we would love to know how you did come to be injured. Do you know who attacked you?"

There was a long silence. Draco looked over at Harry, who was looking pale and serious. He did, however, look better than he had. His eyes no longer swam in blue hollows.

"I was outside," Draco said slowly. "I was heading down to the Quidditch pitch to, uh, meet someone -"

Draco floundered, then found his footing. "...Work on our homework for our DaDA project and..."

"Too crowded with people snogging," said Draco firmly. "Terrible working conditions."

"And I was practicing a bit of magic on my own," Draco said, warming to the theme. "To, uh, get ready for our project and.."

"And he threw a curse that rebounded and hit him in the arm," said Harry with relish.

Draco gritted his teeth. "I threw a curse that rebounded and hit me in the arm," he muttered.

"Magid spells," said Snape darkly. "Both out of bed sneaking around after dark. Using curses. Filch would string you up in the dungeons by your thumbs for this."

"May I remind you," said Draco, "that detention is a time-honored form of punishment."

"And detention you shall have," said Dumbledore. "Both of you, commencing when you return from Christmas holidays. As well as twenty points from each of your houses. I will consider the damage done to you physically, Draco, and you mentally, Harry, by the results of this escapade to be the rest of your punishment."

Both boys looked at the ground. Draco was the first to speak. "Headmaster..." he began slowly. "Won't the...what will the other students....won't they wonder about..."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled briefly. "I trust you two to fabricate a story they'll believe," he said. "I have the utmost faith in you both."

"Thanks, Professor," Draco said, not exactly sure what he was thanking him for, but feeling grateful nonetheless. For the vote of confidence, perhaps. "And...we're sorry."

Both Snape and Charlie looked to Dumbledore, who shrugged, and rose creakily to his feet. "Very well," he said. "I would like to see you in my office later, Mr. Malfoy, when you are fully recovered." He looked at Harry, and then back at Draco. "Alone," he clarified.

Snape and Charlie had risen to their feet as well, and Charlie looked expectantly at Harry, who glanced over at Dumbledore. "I'd like to stay," he said. "If that's all right."

When Ginny left Herbology in the afternoon, she found Ron and Hermione standing on the snowy path that led up from the greenhouse to school, waiting for her. They were deep in conversation, Ron's dark red head bent over Hermione's brown one, and she had to clear her throat loudly to get their attention. They spun around, looking surprised.

"Hey, Ginny," said Hermione. There was color in her cheeks and she clutched a white piece of parchment in a red-mittened fist. "I'm skipping lunch and going to see Draco in the hospital wing - I thought you might want to come along."

"He's awake," said Hermione. "And Harry's with him." She waved her parchment. "He owled down and said we should come."

"Spent the night on the floor," said Hermione, sounding amused. "You know how he gets when he's worried. Remember when that Bludger broke Ron's arm last year and Harry camped out in the infirmary and brought him all his homework?"

"True," said Ron. He held out a hand to help Hermione up the iced-over steps, and she took it. "But I don't think he spent the night on the floor, ever."

"Well, Draco's a bit different," said Ginny, and was about to add that Draco was different because it seemed like someone had actually tried to kill him, as opposed to his having had an accident, but Ron interrupted.

"Yeah, because if Harry didn't stay with him constantly, you know, Malfoy might stop breathing."

"Ron, don't even say that," Hermione admonished him gently. "Harry's just being a friend - he'd do it for you." Reaching the top of the stairs, she let go of Ron's hand. "In fact, we should all go visit him. You, too, Ron."

"Nooo," Ron moaned, looking mutinous. "Can't I just clean out the prefects' bathroom instead? Something fun?"

Hermione smiled sunnily. "Let's go! Come on," and she pushed open the castle doors, gesturing for the other two to follow her. "You too, Ginny."

"If I have to go, you have to go too," Ron said, and grabbed her wrist. She followed him, her heart pounding with nervous anticipation. Her great happiness that Draco was all right was tempered with nervousness about seeing him. Especially now that she was almost sure that he was the one who had kissed her while she was sleeping. Unless, of course, it had been Snape. But that was so very...yuck.

Madam Pomfrey let them all into the infirmary with only a perfunctory eye roll. The infirmary was warm and full of light. At the far end of the huge room, Ginny could see a small still figure lying on a bed against the wall - Malcolm Baddock, she assumed. Ginny looked quickly away, and fixed her eyes on the white-curtained bed up ahead. The curtains hung from the ceiling without visible means of suspension, and were half-transparent. She could see shadows behind them: someone sitting upright in a bed, someone in a chair beside it. She recognized the outline of Harry's messy hair, and smiled. As they drew nearer, she began to hear Harry's voice, and then Draco's in response. "The Wronski Feint is not a better move than the Luhzkin Parallel Slide! What drugs are you on, Potter?"

Hermione paused at the foot of the bed, and pulled the curtain back. "You're talking Quidditch?" she said, sounding amused. "I can't believe you two are actually talking Quidditch."

Ginny and Ron joined her at the foot of the bed in time to see Harry look up surprised, and laugh. "Where did you all spring from?"

Ginny looked at him in surprise as he got to his feet. He looked bright-eyed and awake, almost - lively. It was as if something had shocked him out of his self-imposed exile from the rest of the world. He hugged Hermione hard, and let her go reluctantly. "I don't suppose you brought anything to eat..."

Hermione laughed and handed him something wrapped in a napkin. "Raided the kitchens," she said, and then turned to Draco, who was sitting propped up in bed, his back against a stack of pillows that looked as if they had been pilfered from other, empty beds. Ginny said a little inward prayer of relief. He looked almost normal, perhaps a little tired, but his face was flushed with a healthy color and his bandaged shoulder looked whole. He was wearing blue-and-white striped standard-issue infirmary pajamas that made him look six years younger. "You're all right?" Hermione asked him, her voice suddenly gentle. "I would have brought you something too, but I didn't know..."

"It's all right." Draco's voice was strong. Normal. It was hard to believe that he had been so very near death not long ago. She banished the thought of blood-stained snow. "I'm not hungry." His eyes went to Ron and Ginny. "Hello, Weasley." He paused. "Ginny."

Hermione sat down on the foot of the bed. "Did they tell you when you would be out?"

Draco shrugged. "I wasn't going to go anyway," he said. "Weasley here has me hanging about pestering the sixth-years, don't you?"

Ron, who was still looking as if he wished he were elsewhere, now looked uncomfortable. "Well, you volunteered," he said.

"Oh, but that won't take all night!" said Hermione, looking anxious. "Will it? You should still go, Draco - you only get one Pub Crawl." She twisted herself around and looked at Ron. "He doesn't have to stay at school all night, does he?"

Draco shrugged, looking piteous. "I'll see how I feel. I mean, I did agree to do it...although perhaps if I'm feeling very weak and ill it might not be the best thing for -"

"Malfoy," said Ron, sounding exasperated. "If you're well enough to be let out, you're well enough to sit in the Great Hall and watch the door!"

Draco looked even more piteous. Ginny wanted to hug him, but restrained the impulse. "But I don't want to," he said.

Ron smiled at him brightly. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?'"

"No," said Draco. "I've heard the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then throw it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you originally asked for.'"

Harry started to laugh, and Ron glared at him. Before he could say anything, however, the curtain was drawn aside, and Madam Pomfrey peered in, her expression amused. "There's someone here to see you, Draco," she said.

It was Blaise. Ginny instinctively drew back as Draco's girlfriend stalked into the room, her green eyes blazing and her fiery hair tumbling around her shoulders. Hermione leaped up from where she had been sitting on the bed and backed away as Blaise advanced on Draco, who looked alarmed. "Blaise...?" he began.

"Darling!" Blaise launched herself onto the bed and threw her arms around Draco, embracing him fiercely. Draco yelled in pain. Harry leaped up to get out of the way of the windmilling limbs, and went to stand near Hermione, looking amused. "I came as soon as I possibly could! I was absolutely frightened to death!"

Draco patted her back awkwardly. "There, there," he said, or at least that was what Ginny thought he had said - his voice was muffled against Blaise. "I'm fine. No harm done."

"No harm done? You could have been killed. Were you dueling?" Blaise pulled back. "And if you were, why didn't you pick me as your second? You know perfectly well I'm better at Slashing Hexes and Transfixion Torments than anyone else in school!"

Blaise twisted around in the circle of Draco's arms, and looked at him. Then she smiled, a kittenish, amused smile, her eyes sliding down to Ron's Head Boy badge. "I'm sorry, Ron," she said. "I didn't notice you standing there." Her eyes slid to Harry, and then to Hermione, and darkened. She didn't look at Ginny at all. "What is this, a Gryffindor invasion? Come to see if you could finish him off?"

"That's right," said Harry, with heavy sarcasm. "We thought if we showed up here in a big group, we could kill him under cover of broad daylight and nobody would notice."

"Sounds like a typical Gryffindor plan," sniffed Blaise. "What are you all doing here, anyway?"

"Official business -" Ron began, but was cut off by an enormous clang, as if someone had dropped a pile of dishes. Ginny jumped, and leaned around one of the sheets that blocked off the bed. Madam Pomfrey was standing a little ways away, filling Charm packets at the small dispensary on the wall. She had turned around, as well, and was staring towards the far bed where Malcolm Baddock had been lying inert - only he was no longer inert. He was moving, apparently struggling to sit up. On the floor beside his bed lay a shattered glass of water, knocked off the bedside table. With an exclamation of "Good Heavens!" Madam Pomfrey turned and rushed across the room.

Ginny drew her head back inside and turned around. The others were looking at her curiously. "Malcolm Baddock - he's awake," she announced.

Draco tapped Blaise gently on the shoulder. "Go see if he's all right, will you?"

Blaise didn't need to be told twice. With a distracted glance at Draco, she slid off the bed, got to her feet, and raced out of the small enclosure, brushing by Ron as she went. Ginny did a double take as her gaze fell on her brother -- Ron had gone terribly white, and had grabbed hold of a chair back to steady himself as if he were afraid he might fall over. "Ron!" she said, shocked. "Are you okay?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," said Ron, and there was no humor in it and no teasing. Draco looked surprised.

Ginny looked at her brother, worried. "Can I get you some water?" she asked, and he nodded. She Summoned an empty glass and went to fill it at the infirmary's small sink. The sink, against the wall, was near Malcolm's bed. Malcolm was sitting up, quite pale and very surprised-looking, with Blaise and Madam Pomfrey hovering solicitously over him. "What happened to me?" he was asking. "How did I get here?"

"We don't know what happened to you, Malcolm," Madam Pomfrey was saying. She was in the midst of Summoning packets of Charm transfusions from the cupboards across the room; the flew around her head like a small swarm of birds. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I...I was on my way to the prefects' bathroom, and I remembered I'd left my History of Magic parchments in the meeting room, and so I stopped there, and when I opened the door, I..." Malcolm paused and frowned, a line of concentration denting his forehead. "I..."

"You what?" Blaise demanded, and was rewarded with a sharp look from Madam Pomfrey.

"I don't remember," Malcolm announced despairingly. "I don't remember anything after that..." He looked entreatingly at Madam Pomfrey. "How long have I been here? Have I missed the Yule Ball? And the rematch we had with Gryffindor? Tell me they didn't win, the smug bastards..."

Ginny retrieved her water and returned to the others at a swift pace. When she drew the curtain back, she saw that Harry and Hermione were fussing over Ron, who appeared to be trying to shoo them away. Draco was sitting quietly in his bed, folding the parchment Ron had given him into a rude but amusing shape. "It's true, Malcolm did wake up," she said, handing the glass of water to her brother, who was now very green. "Someone must have put a temporary stasis spell on him or something."

"Well, who?" asked Draco, looking interested - Malcolm was, after all, one of his own Chasers. "Does he know?"

Ron drained the glass she had handed him, and set it down on the nightstand. "That's too bad," he said. Some of the color was starting to come back into his face - the water must have helped. "Nothing at all?"

"That's what he said," Ginny replied, setting herself down at the foot of the bed. "I wonder what did happen to him?"

Hermione was shaking her head. "Things have been very odd lately. I'm glad Christmas is coming and we can all go back to the Manor."

"Right," said Ron, "because nothing weird ever happens there."

Draco made a face at him, but Ron took no notice. He was looking at Harry. "we're meant to have practice now," he said. "Do you want me to take over Captaining?"

Harry looked as if he were going to say something, but Draco looked at him, and he shut his mouth. Ginny was quite sure that they were talking, in that way that they sometimes did, so that no one else could overhear. Talking mind - to -mind - she wondered what that was like, if it was frightening and invasive or comfortable and normal-seeming. It didn't seem to bother either Draco or Harry either, who turned to Ron and nodded. "All right. You ready, Ginny?"

"Sure." She threw a last glance at Draco, but he was looking down at his hands. "I -"

"Darling!" It was Blaise, again, tossing the curtains aside. "Malcolm's all right - isn't it wonderful? Of course he has no idea what happened to him, which is too frightful, but Madam Pomfrey says he'll likely get his memory back over time. In the meantime, she says he can't play in the rematch on Saturday...and what are you all still doing here?" She glared at the Gryffindors. "Somewhere, I'm sure a little tiny kitty cat is stuck up a tree. Why don't you go rescue it? Take all the time you like."

"Blaise, sweetheart," put in Draco, his tone amused, and Ginny silently bit back a gagging noise - Draco calling someone sweetheart? Hermione looked similarly appalled. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Could you go ask Mark Nott if he'd mind suiting up and playing with us on Saturday? He's a fair flyer and we could really use him. I'd do it myself, but..." Draco made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the infirmary.

"Of course I can," she said, leaned forward, and kissed him. "I'll go right now," and she bounced up to her feet, shooting a death glare at the Gryffindors. "Honestly," she said loudly. "I understand you have to check on Draco for his mum, Harry, but did you need to bring your bodyguards?"

Harry looked deadpan. "I couldn't help it," he said, glancing from Hermione, to Ginny, to Ron. "They're just so cute, bless their little cotton socks."

"Run along now, Blaise," said Ron. "Or would you like me to take points from Slytherin?"

The Slytherin girl's eyes narrowed. "You think that Head Boy badge makes you important, don't you, Ron," Blaise said, in a purring sort of voice, reached out, and stroked her finger gently over the silver front of his badge. Ron, looking like a rabbit trapped in headlights, didn't move. "Isn't that ... sweet."

She dropped her hand, smiled, and flounced away, her heels clicking on the stone floor. The infirmary door slammed behind her.

"See you later, Malfoy," said Harry with finality, waved at Draco, and took hold of Ron's arm. "We're off to practice."

"And I'm off to class," said Hermione, reaching to pick up her rucksack from the side of the bed.

"Actually," Draco said quickly, "could you stay for a second? There's something I wanted to ask you."

"Oh," said Hermione, and straightened up. "I..." She glanced towards Harry, who nodded emphatically. "Sure," she said, and sat down in the chair by the bed. "What did you want to ask me?"

Ginny pricked up her ears, trying to hear Draco's answer, but Ron and Harry had already started walking away, and she had no choice but to follow them. Glancing back, all she could see of Hermione and Draco was their shadows, thrown into sharp relief against the white curtains.

"Right," Draco said without preamble, as soon as Harry and the others were out of earshot. "Now that they've all gone, why don't you tell me what the hell is up with Weasley?"

Draco's lips curled into a disbelieving smile. "You can't honestly say you didn't notice something odd about his behavior just now?"

Hermione shook her head. She tried to think. She'd been worried about Draco, and concentrating on him, also on Harry, since she'd been worried about him as well - he tended to get lightheaded when he skipped meals. Ron...? "No," she said. "But I'm sure you'll tell me."

"Tell you what? That your redheaded sidekick is acting bizarrely? And you missed it? I suppose you've been having so much fun playing the exciting "What On Earth Is Up With Harry' game that you've missed the even more exciting sequel, 'Bugger It, Something's Up With Ron As Well!'"

Draco looked smugly unconcerned. "I wouldn't know. That's your job, isn't it? He's your friend."

"It isn't my fault if you choose to be all buddy-buddy with an overgrown gingery lummox who'd lose a battle of wits with a stuffed guana."

"You think I won't smack you just because you're in hospital, don't you?" Hermione demanded calmly. "Think again."

She was gratified to see that Draco scooted back several inches. "I've no idea what bee Weasley has in his bonnet," Draco said. "But I do know something's bothering him. None too surprising he wouldn't tell you, I suppose."

Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. "Has he ever told you he resented Harry for being famous and getting all the attention?"

"Has he ever told you that he resented you for having broken up with him, and then gone right over to Harry?"

Draco sat forward with such suddenness that she felt the bed bounce. "No way. No way did Weasley break up with you."

"Yes, he did," said Hermione, casting her mind back to that night the winter of fifth year, Ron standing in front of the Gryffindor common room fireplace. The shadows turning his red hair black. I don't think we should do this any more, he had said. I think it was a mistake. I thought we felt one way about each other, but I was wrong.

"What did you do?" Draco asked. He looked bewildered, and his fair hair was standing up around his head in licks like little silver flames. He looked about ten.

"I cried," said Hermione. "I thought we were supposed to be together. Everybody did. Even Harry, I thought. It just seemed like we fit as a couple. I would be with Ron, and Harry would be with Ginny, and we'd all get married and have Christmas together every year."

"Well, yes, and the big problem there was that Harry didn't love Ginny, and I didn't really love Ron - and I guess he didn't love me either. We were just trying to fit into these molds that people had made for us with their expectations. So I cried when Ron broke up with me - but I was relieved, in a way. I was always terrified that our dating would ruin our friendship somehow, and then when it was over, and it wasn't ruined, I felt like a huge weight was off me. We tried it, and it didn't work, and now there would be no more pressure. Although Mrs. Weasley wasn't any too happy with me that year. I don't think she believed Ron that he had broken up with me."

"You worried that dating Ron would ruin your friendship?" Draco asked, looking curious. Hermione looked at him sideways - he was a very unlikely Agony Aunt, and he had never seemed remotely interested in her past history with Ron before. But he seemed sincere enough. "Didn't you worry that with Harry?"

"No." She felt herself blush. "But I guess that's what being desperately in love will do to you." In the back of her mind, she was seeing that day in front of the Mirror again, Harry standing there soaking wet and saying all those unbelievable things to her - and she'd barely believed them, even when he'd kissed her and she'd tasted the rain on his mouth - that night, alone in bed, she'd cried again, piercingly and terribly and as if she'd never stop. The pain of loving Harry as she did had always been something sublimated and ignored, and to have that love suddenly returned was like having a knife pulled out of her flesh. And she had wept with the shock of the loss of it. Her pain had become a part of her, and she wondered how she would be herself without it.

And there were other reasons she had for crying, deeper reasons she herself did not quite understand.

"If only you'd figured out that business about being in love with Harry a bit earlier," Draco said, his voice betraying no emotion. "Would have saved you a lot of trouble with Ron."

"I don't think of it as trouble," Hermione said. "It was something I had to do. But of course I wish we'd figured it out earlier."

Draco shook his head. "Hard to imagine two people could be any blinder," he said. "Would have thought that little exercise in futility would have taught you something, but apparently not."

"Just that sometimes I can't tell if you're both honestly stupid, or you just don't see things you don't want to see."

"This from the guy who's got his own love life all sorted," Hermione snapped. "Do you think Blaise notices that you look sick every time she touches you?"

"Right," he said. His cheeks were flushed with annoyance, his gray eyes burning. "Especially if you're watching."

"I am not -" Hermione began, and checked herself as Madam Pomfrey stuck her head around the side of one of the hanging sheets, and glared.

"Do not excite the patient," she said severely, and walked away sniffing.

Draco flashed her a vexed look. "I said," he said through his teeth, "that this was not what I wanted you to stay and talk to me about."

"I didn't bring it up. And I'm not sure I even want to hear what your problem is any more!" she snapped, and started to stand up.

"Wait," he said, and caught at her arm. The fire had gone out of his eyes; now he looked startled, as if he realized he'd said more than he wanted to. "Harry said I ought to ask you to help," he said quickly. "He was right. I should have asked before. I wouldn't ask now if it wasn't important."

Now she was slightly alarmed. She sat back down, and Draco let go of her arm. "What is it? Is it something about Harry?"

"Not this time, no. About me." Draco had found a stray thread on the cuff of his pajama sleeve, and was worrying it. She knew he hated asking for help, loathed it more than Harry did. "I've been - having dreams."

"No." She almost overbalanced and fell into him, but steadied herself on a pillow. "Not - the kind you used to have?"

"No." His eyes didn't leave his shirt cuff. "Not about any kind of past life, not that kind of thing. This is in real-time - these are events that are actually happening while I'm seeing them. I'm sure of that now." He looked up. "It's like I've opened a window onto a place I've never been, but it's a real place, Hermione."

She shivered when he said her name. There was an intensity in his voice she had not heard in a long time. "Do you recognize the place?"

He shook his head. "No, but I could describe it to you in detail. It's a dark magic place, I know that. Maybe we could find some reference to it in the Le Grand Grimoire or the Lexicon of Unpleasant Locations. Or -"

Hermione smiled at him. "I know the Restricted Section as well as you do, Draco," she said. "Well, perhaps not quite as well. But well enough. If you give me a good enough description of what you saw, we can go from there. Also," and she began to tick off items on her fingers, noting out of the corner of her eye that he was watching her with an amused expression, "I want to know if you just fall asleep and find yourself in this place or do you have to will your mind there, and if there are people in your dreams, can they see you or not - I want to know if you're dream-walking or having real visions."

"I'll get some," said Hermione, and stood up. His eyes followed her as she went to push the sheet aside.

"There's one more thing," he said. "Don't let me forget to tell you - there's a girl."

Hermione paused, her hand on the bedpost. "A girl?" she asked neutrally. "Who is she?"

The failing light silvered Draco's eyes as he looked down at the bedclothes. "That's what I want you to find out," he said. "Her name is Rhysenn. Rhysenn Malfoy, but I don't think she's actually human at all..."

"Who is lying, Charles?" Dumbledore glanced up from his position behind his desk at the young man in front of him. His eyes, behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, were not twinkling at all, but somber and thoughtful.

"Draco," said Charlie. He got up from where he had been sitting across from Dumbledore, feeling unaccountably restless, and crossed to the north wall, where there was a window that looked out over the grounds. Well, sometimes there was a window. Dumbledore's office tended, like the moving stairways, to change from day to day. "That was no duel gone wrong that got him that injury," he said, resting a hand on the windowpane. Outside, the sky was heavy and leaden, the pearly gray of a winter seascape. He could clearly see the Quidditch pitch from here, the hoops reaching into the sky like bare, stripped tree branches. There were a collection of small figures gathered down by the pitch entrance, although they were too far away for him to make them out clearly.

"Of course he is," said Dumbledore, his eyes shadowed as he glanced up at Charlie.

"This is what I wanted to ask you, Charles - you were the first teacher to arrive at Draco's side, weren't you?"

"Mm." Charlie nodded, recollecting. "I was just thinking that, Professor. It looked to me, from the impressions in the snow, as if he hadn't walked to where he was. There were only two set of footprints: Harry's, and that Hufflepuff girl's. He must have fallen from somewhere, not walked there."

"Yes. I believe he did. Here, take these," said the Headmaster, and held out to Charlie a battered-looking pair of Omnioculars that had obviously seen much use. His desk was in fact covered with an assortment of useful magical objects - a silver Put-Outer, a Macroscope, and what was clearly a prototype of the next generation Dream Integrator sitting perilously close to an open jar of honey.

Charlie took the Omnioculars and focused them on the view outside the window, sweeping his gaze up from the spot where he had found Draco that morning.

"You say that as if the term had meaning for most of the students here. Harry and Draco especially."

"Why, indeed?" Dumbledore shrugged. "Now, if it had been the Astronomy Tower, I might venture an educated guess."

Charlie stifled a snort. It was nice, he supposed, to know that some things hadn't changed since his own school days, including the popularity of the Astronomy Tower for purposes unrelated to Astronomy. "I'll go up the North Tower and look around, shall I, Professor?"

"In the meantime..." Charlie swung the Omnioculars down so that he was looking at the crowd standing on the Quidditch pitch. Two bright red heads leaped out at him immediately: Ron and Ginny. Seamus Finnegan and Elizabeth Thomas were there too, as were the Creevey brothers. The Gryffindor team must be having its practice. The players were all looking towards the farther end of the pitch, where Harry was standing. He seemed to be pointing from the hoops and back: illustrating some point of game mechanics. Everyone seemed to be paying attention except Ron, who was amusing himself by tying Ginny's long braids together in a knot. "What shall we do about Draco? Should we look into protective charms, or send him home, or -"

Charlie lowered the Omnioculars in surprise. "Nothing? Isn't that a bit dangerous?"

"I cannot help but feel," said Dumbledore slowly, "that any and all efforts made to protect either Draco or Harry in this instance -beyond how they are already protected, by being here at Hogwarts - will in the end, be both gratuitous and counterproductive. Neither boy willingly takes to being protected. You saw how Harry reacted to the suggestion that you were trying to protect him from knowledge he might not like, even though, in that case, you were not. Should we try to constrain them, they will rebel against the constraints, and we may lose them entirely."

Charlie was silent a moment. Then he raised the Omnioculars to his eyes and glanced out the window again, in time to see Harry take off on his broomstick, and soar up into the air above the heads of his teammates. Charlie wasn't sure if Harry was illustrating another point of game strategy, or if he'd simply decided he couldn't bear to be on the ground any more. Charlie always loved watching Harry fly, because Harry reminded him of himself at that age - the same overwhelming joy in flight, the same bearing that said that in leaving the ground, he had left his cares and troubles behind. He flew like an arrow, straight and true and unswerving, his black hair whipping across his face. He would never be as handsome as Draco was, but when he flew, he was beautiful.

"But if they were to ask us for help, we should help them?" Charlie said, still trying to make sense of what Dumbledore had just said. He understood it... but in some ways, did not want to. "I mean

"Of course. If Draco were to ask me for Protective charms, I would give them to him."

"Of course not," Dumbledore said. "Think of the first eleven years of his life. He grew up knowing that were he to cry out in a nightmare, no one would come to comfort him. That if he were in pain, he could expect no aid or sympathy. That if he were lost, no one would trouble to find him. That if he died, he would not be mourned. Such an upbringing hardly breeds a child who readily seeks assistance in times of trouble."

It was two days before they let Draco out of the infirmary, and even then Madam Pomfrey stood and wrung her hands as he walked out, looking as if she were quite sure that he would be returned later in several pieces.

She also asked him if he wanted anyone to escort him back to his room, but he told her he preferred to go alone. As he walked through the hallways on his way back to the Slytherin dungeons, he noted that the new Yule Ball decorations had gone up that day, and realized with a faint pang that of course the Pub Crawl was that night. And of course, he could not go to it.

He had been somewhat concerned that the Slytherins would be cool to him on his return, but they had not been. Rumors based on the story he had told Blaise in confidence (which meant of course that the whole school now knew it) said that Draco had been injured as a result of preparing for a duel with Harry, and that Harry had fled the Great Hall out of guilty familial concern and fear of Narcissa. Variations on the rumor were flying thick and fast, and while Draco resented the implication that he couldn't cast a curse properly without it rebounding and nearly taking his arm off, it was worth it for a modicum of peace of mind.

That night before the Pub Crawl, Draco stood alone in his room, regarding himself thoughtfully in the mirror over his dresser. It showed him his own reflection, bare from the waist up. He was pale (unsurprising, as it was winter) and against his shoulder the scar where the arrow had gone in was healed, and looked like a small silvery star against the skin. For someone so young, it occurred to him, he had certainly done a great deal of damage to the unmarked flesh he had been born with. There was a white line under his right eye where Harry had accidentally cut him with the jagged fragments of an inkbottle. There was also the silver lightning scar on the palm of his hand, and if he leaned close to the mirror he could see the thin white line on his bottom lip where he had bitten through the skin when the Dark Lord had tortured him. He liked his scars. They were like the faint tracery of a map that marked the greatest events of his life. He was of course especially attached to the scar on his hand, the only one he had acquired voluntarily.

He reached for his clothes and dressed slowly, even though it was cold in the dungeon. He might be spending the evening alone, but that was no reason not to look as good as possible. He chose black trousers, cut from expensive and heavy material, and a dark green sweater. His dress robes were black, shot through with a fine weave of silver and edged with a pattern of constellations picked out in splinters of glass. The heavy silver clasp at the throat that held on his cloak was also carved in the shape of a constellation: Draco, the dragon. As he closed the clasp, his shoulder ached with a brief and fiery twinge.

When he left his room, the corridors were already full of people - girls rushing to and from the bathrooms with their hair half-done, boys in fancy dress robes giving themselves a last glance before the mirrors. Draco edged past them and out into the common room, where a huge fire was burning in the grate. Standing by the fire was Malcolm Baddock, in navy blue dress robes over a dark suit, and beside him was Blaise. She stood perfectly positioned so that the firelight made her long hair glow, turning it to fiery tinsel, and the faint outline of her body showed through her pale gray dress robes. She smiled when she saw him. "Draco," she said, and held out her hand.

He went towards her. Some part of him was glad that she wasn't angry, although how could she have been - everyone knew that Dumbledore had forbidden him to leave the grounds before Christmas, and she could hardly expect him to disobey that edict. So he'd never even had to tell her that he'd already agreed not to go to the Pub Crawl, which was a nice freebie (if one could consider the consequences of nearly bleeding to death a freebie.) He hated fighting with Blaise, probably because she had a slicingly perceptive wit when she put her mind to it, and often told him things about himself he would have preferred not to hear. "Look at you," she said. "You're gorgeous."

"So are you," he said, which was the flat-out truth. Blaise looked stunning as always, from her tight-fitting coppery satin robes to her six-inch spiked Mundungus Blahniks. Her hair was up, knotted low on the nape of her neck and strung with sparkling charmed lights. He kissed her cheek and she accepted the kiss graciously. Malcolm looked on, smiling with narrow eyes that matched his blue-black robes. Before he could greet Draco, they were joined by Tess Hammond, looking like a brick wall in scarlet robes, and Pansy Parkinson, in her ordinary dress robes, a woolly winter hat, and jeans.

"I'm not going at all," said Pansy coolly. "I'm staying back and handing out leaftlets. I agreed to."

"I can't imagine why," said Blaise, arching her nose into the air, and taking Draco's arm. "How utterly boring." And she flounced towards the dungeon exit, everyone else in tow. Draco let his mind go blank as Blaise steered him upstairs and down the hallways that led to the Great Hall. "I don't know what is going on with Pansy," Blaise was saying in his ear as they entered the vestibule before the great, flung-open castle doors. "She always takes hours to get ready, has enough cosmetics to stock one of her father's silly shops - you should see all her lotions and potions - and then she shows up looking like something the cat sicked up on the rug. I ask you."

"Fascinating," said Draco with great insincerity, but fortunately Blaise fell silent as they paused to look around at the decorations. Hogwarts had outdone itself this time. Huge sparkling icicles floated in the air, wrapped around with ropes of silvery tinsel. The four huge Christmas trees at each corner of the room were strung with brilliant, flower-shaped glowing lights and brightly wrapped sweets. The heavy end tables that normally decorated the room had been transmogrified into friendly-looking reindeer, although unfortunately they were still no more intelligent than end tables, and kept bashing into the walls. Draco let go of Blaise's hand and jumped to the side as one narrowly missed him with its antlers.

Blaise sniffed. "Those silly things should not be allowed," she opined, and glared at the offending creature. "Go away!" she commanded, and, with a scuttle of hooves, it fled. Draco grinned. Everyone was afraid of Blaise, even furniture.

Blaise returned his smile with a satisfied look, which modified into a concerned pout. "You will be all right, won't you darling?" she asked. "I'd stay here with you, but..."

"No, you shouldn't miss your Pub Crawl," Draco assured her firmly. "Have a good time." He looked over at Malcolm Baddock, who was standing with Tess (Pansy having vanished, presumably to distribute leaflets), looking haughtily around the room. "Take care of her, Malcolm," he said, and kissed Blaise's silky, jasmine-scented cheek lightly. He walked her to the door, and watched her being led down the steps by Malcolm and Tess with mixed feelings of regret and relief. He probably could have talked Blaise into spending the evening with him in the dungeons, doing what she called "things I can't tell my father about because he thinks I'm a good girl", which was usually good for killing bothersome thoughts that might otherwise plague him - but he really hadn't wanted to. It required too much dissembling energy, and he was exhausted.

He heard Harry's voice in his head, clear and strong, and knew he must be nearby. He turned slowly and scanned the room. He saw Ron first, because he was so tall - his bright red head was always visible above a crowd. He was in the middle of a knot of Gryffindors who were laughing and talking together. Now that the Weasleys had a bit more money, Ron was always impeccably turned out - Draco surmised that the years of frayed and outworn clothes had hung very heavy on Ron when he was younger. He wore sharply cut dark blue dress robes over a charcoal-colored suit, and his Head Boy badge gleamed on his chest. He was talking to a morose-looking Neville Longbottom, sad-faced in orange dress robes. Next to him was Harry, with his back to Draco, holding Hermione by the hand.

I'm just fine, Potter. You?

Fine. Harry turned around, and Hermione turned around with him. You look pretty sharp for someone who isn't going to the Pub Crawl, Harry remarked, and smiled.

You don't look horrible yourself, Draco replied. This was true. Harry had the sort of off-center looks that could veer from boyishly unremarkable to arresting and striking. Right now he looked striking. His cloak was black, lined with dark blue, over a lighter blue shirt and black trousers, and he had managed, somehow, to temporarily tame his hair. How'd you pull that off?

Bit of help from Hermione, said Harry, and Draco saw him (probably unconsciously) tighten his grip on Hermione's hand. She looked up at Harry and smiled, and Draco looked away quickly, but the image stayed in his head. He couldn't see the dress she wore, she was wrapped tightly in a soft white cloak, but he saw the way her dark brown hair fell sleekly past her shoulders, fastened with pins in the shape of white flowers, and remembered the first time he'd seen her dressed up like that, when she'd been fourteen and so had he. He'd never thought of her as a girl before that, much less a pretty girl, much less a beautiful one. Malfoy... you going to be all right?

I wish people would quit asking me that, Draco snapped, with more force than he'd intended. It's just a bleeding Pub Crawl, Potter, not the Quidditch World Cup.

Harry raised both eyebrows (Draco had always felt superior that while he could raise only one, Harry couldn't) and seemed about to respond, but then the Gryffindor crowd seemed to reach a joint decision and began surging towards the stairs in a flurry of boys in dark cloaks and girls in candy-colored dress robes. Hermione stood out among them in her white cloak, like a pale flower in a bed of bright roses. She cast him a brief, searching glance as they went by, and smiled. He did not smile back. Leaning against the jamb of the huge doors, Draco watched them all spill down the stairs in twos and threes, shouting and laughing, Harry, Ron and Hermione in the rear, standing close together as they always did. At the bottom step, however, they paused, and Harry and Ron turned towards Hermione, who was gesturing urgently. Draco saw Harry nod, and then Hermione kissed his cheek, turned, and ran back up the stairs, her white hood falling back and her dark hair caught by the wind. Her cloak blew back and he saw that the dress under it, like the cloak itself, was all white. For a moment he stood and just aesthetically appreciated the picture she made: all dark hair and pale skin against the greater paleness of the dress and cloak, as if she had wrapped her dark brunette beauty in a shroud of snow. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes very bright. It was a moment before he realized that she was running to him - he stiffened in surprise when she reached the top of the stairs and caught at his hands. He felt the soft wool of her gloves warm against his skin. "Please come along to Hogsmeade," she said. "We want you with us. Harry said you can have his cloak if you want it, so nobody will know." She paused. "It's our first Christmas together... do come."

Draco looked down at their interwoven hands. Hers were gloved in white wool, his in black, and wound with his their twined fingers resemble the keys of a piano. He looked up and past her, down the steps of the castle, where Harry and Ron were waiting. Harry was looking up at them, the wind blowing his black hair across his eyes. Behind him, Ron was an inky shadow against the white snow, even his fiery hair darkened by the night. He was looking off towards Hogsmeade.

She looked at him, her dark eyes troubled. In her ears glittered the tiny starlike diamond earrings Harry had given her for her birthday in September. "Are you sure? The cloak is at the foot of Harry's bed, and the password is..."

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," Draco said, and let her hands go. She backed away from him with a half-regretful smile, and the turned and walked down the stairs towards Harry. He caught her hand in his, waved a farewell to Draco, and then the three of them were gone, under the bright moonlight, disappearing into the burnished lane between the trees.

"Well, I got them to sing," said Harry, looking down at the clamoring set of green-stemmed wineglasses that sat on the table in Kelley and Ping's House of Enchanted Curiosities. "Now how do I get them to shut up?"

Hermione giggled at his bemused expression. "Oh, they sing 'Greensleeves'," she exclaimed, coming to stand beside him. "Harry, that's a lovely present for Narcissa and Sirius."

"Bit seasonal, isn't it?" Harry asked, putting an arm around her. She felt warm and contented - the shop smelled of cinnamon and apples, and outside the window she could see the fairytale town that was Hogsmeade, every shop window glowing with gold and silver tapers. Students in bright cloaks and dresses roamed up and down the icy streets, ducking into and out of warmly lit shops and taverns. She was with Harry, and Ron was over by the next table, close enough to touch, examining an enchanted mirror which he was considering getting for Ginny's birthday in early February. Everything was perfect - well, nearly everything.

"Greensleeves isn't a Christmas song," Hermione said cheerfully. "It's a love song."

"Just when I was starting to like it," said Harry, with a slight tone of protest.

"Yes, do," said Ron, looking up and grinning, "I'm sick of shopping - I want to get over to the Winery and see what Fred and George have cooked up."

Harry's eyes lit up. "Oh, right - so do I." He looked thoughtfully at the glasses, and shrugged. "It'll get them - it's just too bad they don't play 'I May Be A Tiny Chimney Sweep...'"

Having arranged for the glasses to be owled over to the Manor at the appropriate time, the trio headed for Fred and George's. The twins had really outdone themselves with their decorations for the factory. Illusion spells has transformed the huge main room into a jungle landscape, complete with jobberknolls, a fwooper, a jungle gnome and swinging jarveys. There were fountains of wine, lakes of chocolate, and dangling green vines that, on closer, inspection, turned out to be green-apple licorice. The leaves of the trees were spearmint leaves (and if, nibbled on, would turn the unwary muncher into a cricket for five minutes. The room was full of annoyed chirping.) Silver platters covered with sweets floated by at intervals - Hermione passed up a Snogberry Cordial on the theory that it was probably better to save the snogging for the end of the evening. Terry Boot and Padma Patil were taking turns bungee-jumping into a Bottomless Pit which had been rented for the occasion. Ron wanted to try it out, but Harry shook his head. "Falling into a Bottomless Pit once is good enough for me," he avowed.

The main attraction of the evening, to everyone's surprise, turned out to be Oliver Wood, on holiday leave from his starring position as Keeper for Puddlemere United. Oliver was one of the most celebrated young Quidditch players in the country, which didn't surprise anyone who had ever seen him play. It wasn't so much that he was talented - which he was - but that he was grimly determined, and always had been.

Ron whistled at the sight of the huge crowd of giggling girls and starstruck boys gathered around Oliver, who was seated with Fred and George on a chair inside a floating pavilion draped with fiery curtains. Jana and Angelina were both there as well, and to say that they seemed entirely unaffected by Oliver's presence would have been an exaggeration. Both were blushing and smiling. George and Fred, who was eating an enormous color-changing lollipop, seemed bemused.

"Who would have thought Oliver would turn into such girl catnip?" said Ron, grinning as he picked a cup of hot buttered chocolate off a floating silver tray. "Fred and George used to say the only girl who would ever have a chance with him would be one with really skinny legs and big ears - that way she could convince him that she was the Quidditch World Cup."

Harry cast a sideways glance at Hermione. "Are you going to leave me for Oliver Wood, then?"

"No," said Hermione, "but I might leave you for that table of chocolate over there." She arched up on her tiptoes and stared at the groaning tables of food and candy that stretched along the walls. There were white-chocolate snowballs, Snogberry Cordials, icicles spun out of clear sugar, and powdered-sugar Penguin Peppermints. Her stomach growled slightly. "You ought to go say hello to Oliver, Harry - he was always so fond of you."

Hermione snorted. "He'll talk to you," she said firmly, and gave him a light push. "Go on, then."

Harry went, and Hermione headed over to the table to nab the last Never-Melting Ice Pop off a gold plate before Lavender Brown (who had already eaten three) could snag it. Ron, following her, made do with a sugared sardine. Hermione looked at him and wrinkled her nose. "How can you eat those things?"

"You never ate that blood lollipop I dared you to in third year," she pointed out smugly.

"I licked it though." Ron shuddered. "I'm pretty sure that's what evil tastes like."

"No," put in Lavender, who had evidently been listening. "Harry wouldn't like that, would he?"

"Lavender!" said Hermione, but Lavender had already sidled away with an evil grin. Hermione sighed and looked at Ron. "I don't think she's ever forgiven you for that Uranus comment," she said.

But Ron was looking past her, towards the pavilion floating on its lake of peppermint syrup. "Harry seems different," he said. "Better."

Hermione turned and looked where he was looking, and saw Oliver Wood standing up to give Harry a comradely hug. She noted with a pang that Harry was now taller than Oliver. "He is a bit better these days," she said. "I just hope it lasts."

"Well, I said a little, but I really don't think it was me. I think it had something to do with Draco nearly getting himself killed. I think Harry's been trying and trying to focus on other things besides what's been bothering him, and that gave him something to focus on. You know how he is. He likes to have something to do, to feel like he's being effective. Otherwise..."

"Right."

"Well, it's great that he's freaked back in. I just hope it stays that way."

"I am," said Ron slowly, and she could tell that he was measuring his speech carefully, "but considering that he's spent six months refusing to tell me what's wrong, and stonewalling me when I ask him, color me pessimistic when I hear the problem's cured itself. He might be shoving it down for now, but it'll just come back later, whatever it is."

Hermione bit her lip and looked back at the pavilion. Harry had already left it, and was moving back towards them through the crowd. She had no trouble picking out his dark hair and blue-lined cloak even in the tight-packed throng. But then she had always been sure that she and Harry would be able to find each other in any crowd, that even at a costume ball they would know each other instantly, by touch or sound or instinct. She turned back towards Ron.

Sympathy flashed in his blue eyes. "I know," he said. "But you can't let that get in the way of your life, Hermione. Harry wouldn't want that."

Wouldn't he? she thought, as Harry came to stand beside her, and clasped her hand with his. Wouldn't he, though?

Draco stood at the castle's front door and watched the seventh-years leaving, until the grounds were empty and he could once again hear the wind. Then he turned, and went back inside. There was a certain lonely gloom to the entrance hall once all the students were gone, despite the festive decorations. The only person there was Pansy Parkinson, clutching a large red-ribboned green gift box. She glared when she saw Draco, and disappeared down the stairs that led to the Slytherin dungeon, her booted feet crunching on the discarded bits of tinsel and confetti that littered the floor.

Draco looked after her, shrugged, and headed towards the double doors in the far wall. They swung open to let him through, and he walked into the Great Hall at last.

The Yule Ball started before the Pub Crawl did, so it looked to Draco as if the meal had already been eaten, and the dancing had begun. Each year the decorations were much like the year before: glowing lights, glittering taper candles, rows of pear trees in whose branches chirping partridges fluttered their pale wings. Brightly wrapped crackers floated about six feet off the ground (Weasley would have banged his head into one, Draco thought) and every once in a while there was a muffled, fiery explosion when a student picked one out of the air and pulled it apart, filling the air with flower petals, tiny sweets, or a shower of toys.

Draco glanced over at the dance floor, looking, somewhat against his will, for flame-red hair. - and there was Charlie, dancing with Professor Sinistra, who had a very predatory look on her face. Lupin was over by the High Table, making what looked like uncomfortable conversation with Snape. Dumbledore was deep in conversation with Madam Pomfrey. Draco's gaze flicked over the crowd, mostly composed of younger students he didn't recognize, and then the dancers parted like water and there they were.

He saw Ginny first. Her green satin dress made her look like a slender flower stem, crowned with petals of fiery hair. Her slim shoulders were bared above the dress, her skin very white, dappled with gold where the candlelight touched it. Seamus, blond and handsome in dark blue robes, had her by the hands and was drawing her towards the dance floor; Ginny was laughing and shaking her head. She looked happy: uncomplicatedly so. It made him sad in a way he had not expected.

The two of them began to dance. Draco recalled dancing with Ginny. She danced the way she looked with her bright hair floating around her: like fire, bright and darting. He saw Seamus stumble, following her. He was briefly and ungenerously amused. Not that he was surprised that Seamus could not keep pace with her. It would be hard to keep pace with fire. She spun away from Seamus again, and this time he didn't even try to follow her; instead, laughing, he pulled her back towards him, and put his arms around her. His hands met at the small of her back, where her dress dipped into a V, his fingers white against the green satin. Ginny moved uncomplainingly into the circle of his embrace, sliding her hands up to lock around his neck.

Draco turned away. He felt voyeuristic, watching, and desperately out of place. Silently, he turned away from the dancing throng and headed back to the entryway. He recalled Hermione catching at his hands with her own, and entreating him to come along to Hogsmeade. He didn't want to do that either, though. It was not enjoyable being with Hermione, Ron and Harry all together. They created a locked circle that no outsider could penetrate. Nor did he even want to try. He pushed the double doors open and went through them, unaware that Ginny had turned within the circle of Seamus' arms to watch him go.

He went down the front stairs of the castle and headed east, towards the rose garden. It was empty and lovely under the stars, the ground dusted with a light sugar coating of snow. He made his way down the narrow path between two bushes strung with colored lights. It was early yet, and no amorous couples had yet taken up residence in the rose bushes. In fact, he was alone. Alone in a garden scented heavily with roses and woodsmoke, under a sky dusted with glassy shards of stars. And he felt...lonely. This was not usual for him. He had grown up from a self-contained child into a self-contained young man. Other people had always seemed not quite real, puppets being moved across a darkened stage. It had never really occurred to him until this year that he might need anybody else, or want to. That there were other people in the world as real and alive as himself still struck him sometimes as something shocking. Even stranger was that he now suspected they might be more real and alive than he was. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, they seemed to radiate a bright-shared spirit that he was no part of and that he did not truly understand.

He saw Ginny again against the backs of his eyelids, dancing across the ballroom floor with Seamus. She had seemed so happy. He had never made her happy like that. Perhaps, after all, he had done the right thing. It wasn't until his shoe struck against something hard that he realized that in his distracted state, he had wandered off the path and into the ornamental rock garden. He turned to go back to the path, but it was no longer deserted. There was someone there. A bare-shouldered someone in shimmering green satin, her face framed in a cascade of fiery hair. Someone who was watching him as intently as, earlier, he had watched her.

It was past midnight, and The Three Broomsticks was full of laughter and shouting. Hermione, pleasantly tired and very warm, sat at one of the long tables before the fire, her gloves off, a warm pint of butterbeer in her cupped hands. Parvati Patil and her sister Padma were sitting across the table; Lavender had long since disappeared to snog with Mark Nott, her attractive blond Slytherin date.

With a yawn, Hermione glanced over at the far side of the room, where Harry was standing beside Ron. They were laughing at Neville, who, with Justin and Dean, was playing a game of Blindfold Spark, and had just walked into a wall. She saw Harry put his hand out and turn Neville around so that he was facing the proper way, and smiled to herself. Neville went on his way, and Ron leaned back to laugh with Justin and Dean. Harry stood where he was, looking thoughtful. She noted the way the room seemed to rearrange itself around Harry so that he was its focal point. But maybe that was just because he was her focal point.

It was a moment before she realized that someone else, someone who had come to stand next to her, was looking at him as well.

It was Blaise Zabini. She had a little smile on her lovely face, and her green eyes - not bright green like Harry's, but a dark, foresty green - were shaded by her thick lashes. She was nibbling very thoughtfully on a Maraschino Cherry Bomb, eating the red candied coating off the exploding center. "You know," she said in a conspiratorial tone, "I have to compliment you on the way you've cleaned Harry up. I used to think he was terribly funny-looking, but you've really improved him."

"Thank you," said Hermione tightly. "Thank you, Blaise, for that veiled insult."

"Oh, no offense meant," said Blaise sweetly. "He's just gorgeous now. I could eat him up with a spoon," and she bit another piece off her candy, and smiled.

"If you're going to leer at my boyfriend, do it elsewhere," said Hermione coldly.

"Oh, I didn't think you'd mind," Blaise replied airily. "After all, I've seen you looking at mine," and then she was gone, sashaying into the crowd as if she owned it. Hermione looked after her with loathing, and a small cold feeling in her heart. She turned back to Parvati, who had both eyebrows raised.

"Well, Harry and Ron certainly seem to," said Parvati, her voice laden with irony.

"What...?" Hermione turned, and saw, with a start, that Blaise was now standing next to Ron and Harry. She was tossing her bright hair back and laughing and both Ron and Harry were staring at her, with identical astonished expressions. "What is she saying to them?" Hermione exclaimed, rising half out of her seat.

Parvati sniffed. "I wouldn't know. I don't speak 'silly bint.'" She paused. "Well, would you look at that!"

Hermione, standing up, saw Blaise do something that looked very much like putting her hand on Harry's shoulder and moving in a bit closer and ... she was over at Harry's side within several seconds, placing herself between Blaise and both boys. Harry blinked at her, looking surprised. "Hermione! Decided you want to play Blindfold Spark?"

"No," said Hermione, ignoring Blaise, who was looking at her with amusement. "I want to go for a walk."

"No. Not by myself." Hermione took his hand. "With you." She looked at Ron, who was glancing between her and Blaise with a curious expression. "You can hold the fort down without him for a minute?"

Ron returned her look with a very peculiar expression indeed. "Sure, if it's important."

"It's important," said Hermione, and yanked Harry after her with such suddenness that his glass flew out of his hand; she saw Ron catch it in midair out of the corner of her eye. She was vaguely aware of Blaise calling after them, something about the boys outside throwing snowballs at unwary snogging couples, but Hermione paid no attention. She pushed the front door of the Three Broomsticks open, pulled Harry after her, and didn't stop until she was at the foot of the stairs.

"Okay," said Harry, once she had paused. She turned to look at him; he seemed bemused. "That was a credible imitation of a bat out of hell. What's wrong?"

Hermione looked at him, realizing she was out of breath. The cold wind was already striking color into his cheeks, and in the dim light coming from the Three Broomsticks, his eyes were very green. "I just... wanted to be alone with you," she said lamely.

She opened her mouth to respond, then paused as a group of giggling Ravenclaw girls pushed past them and began mounting the stairs. With a sigh, Hermione looked up and down the street for somewhere they could go. The year before she and Ron had always gone around to the alley behind the Three Broomsticks to talk and be alone... she glanced to the left and saw that the small iron gate that barred the way was still there. She gestured for Harry to follow her and led him quickly towards the alley entrance. She opened the gate with a quick Alohomora, and then she and Harry were through the gate and he was closing it behind them. It was a narrow, dead-end alley, lit only by the lights coming from the windows of the Three Broomsticks. The cobblestones underfoot were slick with a sheen of ice and there were empty butterbeer and Dragon's Blood vodka boxes stacked haphazardly against the walls.

Harry looked around, confused - at the bare stonewalls, the shadowy darkness, the narrow strip of starry sky overhead. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked, and turned to look at her. The wind blew his black hair across his face and in the sharp-edged moonlight, she could see herself reflected in his eyes.

For a moment, she stood there, unsure. She had only wanted to get out of that room, to be alone with Harry. But now they were outside, in the bitter cold air, the sky above full of stars and wind and she had nothing she could say to him. And the night was lovely. Everything seemed powdered with diamonds, even the narrow dirty alleyway and the empty boxes stacked against the wall. The starlight tipped Harry's hair with silver, glazed his bare skin with platinum where the collar of his shirt fell away from his throat and starred each pitch-black eyelash with jewelry light. Her body trembled when she looked at him, as if it knew things she didn't know.

He had been looking down at her, half-inquiring, half-amused, and then whatever he saw in her eyes drove the amusement from his expression. He caught his breath, and she saw the pulse at the base of his throat begin to pound, his blood stirring as hers did.

"Hermione..." he began, and despite all her misgivings she pulled him close, hard against her, and kissed him.

Draco looked at her without surprise, as if he had expected to see her there. "Hello, Ginny," he said. "Sneaking off to Hogsmeade, are you? I'm afraid I'll have to report you."

She smiled. She couldn't help it. He was beautiful in the starlight, even more so than usual. His silver hair and eyes reflected the pale light like mirrors, and the shadows described the fine bones of his face. Seamus was handsome, but... realizing she shouldn't be thinking of Seamus, she thrust the cup she was holding in her hand towards Draco awkwardly. "I brought you some hot tea," she said. "I thought you might be cold out here."

Coming closer, Draco took the cup from her politely. "Thank you," he said. "Nice of you to think of me, especially when you're busy with your date and all."

"Or were you bored?" His light eyes raked her face with amusement. "Dancing with Captain Cardboard not all it's cracked up to be?"

"I've let it go. It's gone. Look, if you're happy I'm happy for you. We can... double date." Draco looked at his cup of hot tea, and then drained it in one gulp, as if he were hoping there might be alcohol in it. (There wasn't.) He crumpled the empty cup and tossed it towards a rosebush. It landed among the brambles, and a small flower fairy climbed out along a branch, looked disapprovingly at Draco, and vanished with the cup in hand.

"Now that I've got Seamus, we can be friends again without Blaise minding," she added, brushing a stray curl of hair behind her ear. She was aware that she was provoking him, but for some reason she didn't feel she could stop. "Isn't that wonderful?"

"I wouldn't bet money on it," said Draco, made a face, and sat down on the nearest stone bench, leaning on his hands. He stretched out his long legs in front of him, and looked moodily down at the tips of his boots, which gleamed, black and polished, in the moonlight. "I think half the reason she goes out with me is her parents. They're a piece of work." He sighed. "I'd rather not talk about Blaise, actually."

Draco shrugged. "Not so much. I really just wanted to be alone." He checked himself at her expression. "It's all right - I was getting a bit lonely. Sit down."

Ginny bit her lip. She knew she should go back inside - she had told Seamus she was going upstairs to get another cloak, as she was cold, and she wasn't sure how long that excuse would hold her. "All right," she said. "Just for a minute," and she sat down, as far away from him as she could, which on the tiny bench wasn't very far at all. "I'm glad you're better," she added, conversationally. She saw him begin to smile, and added quickly, "Harry was really worried, and he's been so down lately..."

"I suppose... well, you could see into his head if you really wanted to, couldn't you? You tell me."

Draco shrugged. "I respect his privacy." He tilted his head up to look at the sky, his eyes thoughtful. His silver hair streamed starlight. "Or maybe I just don't want to know what he's thinking."

"Of course I do. But you can't always control what you think. What you dream about, what you want. If you could, there would be no need for such a thing as self-restraint."

Ginny shivered, and Draco moved closer to her, as if on instinct. She wondered if he realized how close they were sitting. "Harry has plenty of self-restraint," she said, in a voice that sounded thready to her own ears.

"Of course he does! Think of the things he's done. What kind of self-control it must have taken to bring Cedric's body back to school - when he knew what he was facing - and when he was in the Chamber of Secrets, with me-"

"Right," Draco interrupted, a bit irritably. "Thank you, I can do without a rendition of Harry's Potter's Greatest Hits."

Ginny glared at him.

"I'm not minimizing anything he's done," said Draco, his voice slightly distant. "There isn't anyone braver, or more determined - in a reckless sort of Gryffindor way. But that doesn't necessarily translate to the kind of self-control I'm talking about. He doesn't hide what he feels. He never has been able to. You wouldn't know - you've never tried to manipulate that easy emotional access. I have. I've spent years trying to hurt him. Let me tell you, with Harry you always know when you've scored a hit and really injured him. His whole face breaks apart. Everything about him crumples up like he's been kicked everywhere at once. It's -"

"No, I'm not still in love with Harry," she said, answering the unasked question. "And I'm not sure I ever really was - but I used to spend a lot of time watching him. I know exactly what you mean."

Draco kicked at a piece of gravel with the toe of his boot. "Maybe you do," he said. "Anyway, that's what I meant. Harry can't hide things like that. He's as transparent as glass. Come on, when did you figure out he was in love with Hermione?"

Ginny felt herself flush. "My fourth year," she said quietly. "Maybe my fifth - I wasn't here that year, but I saw them all over Christmas at the Burrow. I remember Hermione was teaching Harry how to put together a wizarding Christmas tree, and I saw him watching her while she was spinning a web of lights over the branches. I saw the expression on his face and I just - knew." Her throat closed up with the remembered pain of it. Not just her pain - she had also felt for her brother. Later they had talked about it, and he had said he had always known, but she often wondered if that was true. He had shocked her with how well he had taken it, when it happened. Maybe a little too well. "What about - what about you?"

"Oh, last year," said Draco, with an offhanded shrug. "It would have been earlier, but I was a bit blindsided by that whole her-dating-Weasley thing - oh, sorry. Your brother." He grinned, a white flash in the darkness. "Harry was looking at her in Potions class when he thought she wouldn't notice. Staring at her as if she was water in the desert. So obvious, really. I recall catching the look and thinking, "Aha. He's besotted with her and he's too stupid to know it. Wonder how I can use that?"

"What?"

"You heard me. You were going to use the fact that Harry loved Hermione against him. And then..." Her voice trailed off before she wandered into the dangerous territory they had agreed not to discuss. "What an awful thing to do that would have been."

"I agree," said Draco, his voice clear and hard as glass. "And there's something else bothersome about it."

"Of using her to break him. Come on, Ginny. Everyone has one weakness. He's protected elsewhere. Not where she's concerned."

"I think I'm talking too much," Draco replied, and sat up straight. "Never mind."

"You're underestimating Harry," Ginny said. "He'd never let harm come to anyone he cared about. If that's a weakness, then he has a dozen. My brother. Sirius. Hagrid. You." She reached out, and put her hand on his shoulder. The soft silvery-fair hair that fell past his ears just brushed the tops of her knuckles. "He isn't protected where you're concerned, either."

"Oh, no," said Draco in a remote sort of voice, "I think he'd sacrifice me along with all the rest."

Draco looked at her. His eyes were clear and silver, untouched by any shade of blue or green or gray. "Harry doesn't need one single one of us an eighth as much as we all need him," Draco said. "It's what he is as much as who he is. He's the hero, we're his companions. We're satellites. We revolve around what he does."

"He's in love with her," said Draco. "And more than that. You know he was almost sorted into Slytherin, don't you? That, and other things - he always feels like he's a fraud somehow. It's in the back of his mind, every day. It's why he wants to win, prove himself, all the time, why he never backs down, why he always has to be not just good enough but damn near perfect. He's afraid of what he might be capable of if he didn't hold himself back. But Hermione - he told me once that she sees him not as he is, but as he wishes he was. That she sees a better world than we live in, a better Harry than the Harry that really exists. I think he sees her as the custodian of his better self. She protects him not just from the world but from himself - am I making any sense?"

"But that's a double-edged sword," said Draco, his eyes on her face now, finding her own eyes, their gazes locking. "Because the more he feels that perhaps he isn't the person she thinks he is, and the more afraid he is that he can never be that person, the more afraid he is that one day she'll realize what he really is, and leave him. And take with her not just herself, which would nearly kill him, but her vision of that better Harry that he has always wanted to be. And that's something that might do what even Voldemort couldn't."

"Destroy him." He reached out and touched the curl of hair that had been falling in front of her eyes, tucking it back behind her ear in an absentminded manner. "He thinks he has to be perfect, and that if he isn't perfect he's nothing. He doesn't understand that we all have to fight our worse impulses to be what we want, that we have to give things up, that we disappoint the people we love, that as much as you love someone sometimes it just isn't going to happen and you have to understand that you aren't nothing without them, and -"

For a moment, Draco was very still, looking at her. The feel of his glance on her face was like a caress, if not a gentle one. Then his eyes went flat, as if shutters had been dropped down over them, and he sat back and away from her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've been rambling. I think it was the blood loss. Or something."

"No," she said, and reached for his hand, then thought better of it and let her own hand fall to her lap. "You weren't rambling - you were making sense and I'm glad, because I've been so worried about Hermione and Harry and -"

"You shouldn't worry," Draco replied, still distantly. "It's your Yule Ball night. You should enjoy it."

She wanted to tell him that she had been enjoying it, that these few moments with him out in the rose-scented, bitter cold night were the best moments she had had in months; that she loved the way he talked to her, as nobody else did, as if there was no question that she could be too fragile to handle the truth; the way he spoke his mind to her and didn't cajole or flatter or patronize. He never had, even when he was being nasty. "Do you want me to go back?" she asked.

"No, but you should," he said, without glancing away. "Go back and be beautiful for Seamus. It's wasted on me."

She hesitated, looking at him. The moment seemed poised on a crystalline point, sharp and diamond-like. "You think I'm beautiful?" she asked.

He looked down at his hands, and then back up at her. When he spoke, it was in a toneless voice, made all the more sincere somehow by its lack of affect. "You are so beautiful it is hard to look at you for very long," he said.

There was a long silence. The moment stretched out between them, sharp and tense and elongated. He was looking at her, and in his eyes she could see the reflected moonlight, and she remembered the drowning pleasure of his mouth over hers, so she did something she had never done before, and kissed him.

He was sitting and not standing; they were at almost the same height. She did not have to stretch upward to kiss him. She had only to lean forward to cover his mouth with hers. She had never initiated a kiss. Others had always kissed her first. She could not believe she was doing this, and yet she was. The proof was there: his mouth against her own, tense and ungiving at first, then softening as he leaned into the kiss, reaching forward to pull her towards him. His arms went around her and pressed her tightly against him, so tightly that the clasp of his cloak dug sharply and almost painfully into the base of her throat. She could feel his hands on the velvet of her dress, sliding up to touch her bare skin. His fingers burned, ten slender wands of fire, and she felt her blood singing in her veins.

And then it was over. As quickly as he had drawn her towards him, he pulled back. His hands were on her shoulders now, pushing her away as adamantly as a moment before, he had pulled her towards him. "No," he said, his voice a little ragged, and then more firmly, "No."

He let go of her. She sat where she was, certain that she was scarlet with humiliation. It was a moment before she realized that the burning behind her eyes was tears. When she spoke, her voice shook. "Damn it, Draco," she whispered. "What are you playing at?"

He raised his face. The dark moonlight silvered the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones. "You asked me," he said. "I said you were beautiful - that's all."

"Then why?" The words seemed torn out of her throat. "If you like me, if you think I'm beautiful, then why?"

He knew what she meant, of course. He looked away. "Harry likes you. He probably thinks you're beautiful, too. Why not ask him that?"

"Because it's not like that with us; he's in love with someone else," she said, and then stopped herself. "And - and you are too, aren't you?"

He didn't say anything. He was looking down at his hands with a fierce desperate intensity. He seemed to be holding himself back, as tightly as if he were trying to prevent himself from hitting her.

"Or not her - oh, of course not her," Ginny whispered. She felt as if she were being cut apart inside. "You -"

"I don't want to talk about this," he said. His voice cut with an edge like diamond. His eyes were unreadable again. He had wanted her. She knew he had wanted her; she was not stupid, or blind. But he had pushed her away, and was doing so still. "There is no point."

Ginny stared at him. For some reason, she was hearing Hermione's voice in her head. It had been months ago when she had told Hermione that she was beginning to have feelings for Draco. And she had complained that Draco would not tell her that he returned those feelings. What had Hermione said? "It means he likes you enough not to want you to have unrealistic expectations of him. You have to understand - he won't lie. Not about how he feels. He's always painfully honest."

Finally, Ginny understood exactly why Hermione had characterized that honesty as painful. She thought she had felt all the pain she could feel where Draco was concerned. But apparently not. "No point - there's every point," she said, her voice very quiet.

"No," he said, firmly. "There isn't." He looked away, out over the rose garden, drenched in moonlight as bright as unicorn blood. "If we keep on like this, you'll start to hate me."

"Oh, yes you could," he said, and his voice held a weary knowledge. "And you would. Because you're like me. You could never be happy with second-best, or half of what you want. And you would fight it, and so would I, but we'd just end up fighting each other. When you're like us, you don't just give up when it goes wrong. We would tear each other apart until one of us couldn't take it. We couldn't just ... forget."

There was a long silence. Ginny was concentrating so much of her energy on not crying, that it took her several moments before she could speak. Finally, she said, "You're wrong."

He looked at her. He had withstood everything else she had thrown at him, but it seemed even Draco had a breaking point. His eyes gleamed for a moment with their old provocative malice.

She had nothing to say to that. She turned and walked away, conscious to the moment she reached the castle doors of his eyes on her back.

Hermione did not know how long they had been standing there. They were still kissing, if it could even be called that; she felt more as if they were trying to bridge the gap that had sprung up between them over the past weeks and months, and fuse themselves into one person.

Harry had frozen the moment she had kissed him, and she had been for a second afraid that he would push her away - but then his hands had gone to her waist, and he had lifted her up - she had been dimly aware of him kicking the empty butterbeer cartons out of the way, and then she was pressed up against the wall of the Three Broomsticks, the stones digging into her back, and he was kissing her as if both their lives depended on it. His sudden explosive passionate reaction had first stunned her, and then galvanized her own response; she felt great shocks, as if of cold or heat, tearing through her nerves, burning away rational thought. They had had kisses before, sweet and gentle kisses, passionate kisses as well, but never anything quite like this - there was something messy and unguarded about the desperation of the way Harry clutched at her, his hands tight around her arms (the next day she wound find five bruises on the circumference of each arm, like an unfolded flower, where his fingers had been), as if he never expected to see her or touch her again.

She felt as if she were falling and there was no end to her descent. She remembered the first time she had ever kissed him and it had been like a strange miracle, all that known familiar country she had seen so often now being learned by touch: the feel of his mouth, the slight roughness of his skin, the taste of him. But it had been nothing like this, with this desperation: this clash of teeth and tongues and kisses like bites, her frantic snatching at the clasp that held his cloak together, hers falling as well, Harry kicking both garments aside and pressing her up against the wall with the force of his body, his hands busy elsewhere. Her own hands were on the hem of his sweater, tugging it up over his head, and it came off with his glasses and she dropped it on top of an empty carton. He had only a thin cotton shirt on underneath --Harry was very strong for someone with such a lean frame, and as he moved to hold her more tightly she could feel the muscles in his back move under her hands. He was shaking, his hands trembling where they touched her face, her throat, cupped her breasts through the material of her dress. "Are you cold?" she whispered against his mouth, "Are you all right?" but he didn't answer her. "Harry," she whispered again, and this time he covered her mouth with his again, silencing her. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to worry - and then a sudden lancing cold struck her skin, and she opened her eyes in surprise. Somehow Harry had managed to get the front of her bodice undone, and it was open to the waist, the frigid air breaking against her bare skin like dashes of cold champagne. "Harry," she said, more urgently, a sudden nervousness gripping her as he slid his hands under the material of her dress. The dizzying feeling of falling was leaving her, the alley and its environs coming back into focus - the lighted windows, the gate to the north, the open street beyond. "Harry, we should stop -- someone might come, and see us -"

"So what?" His mouth was against her throat, and then moving down, and she shuddered with the pleasure of it, and also with tension - she felt on the edge of panic, and wasn't sure why... why would she be afraid of Harry?

"So, this is private, that's what. Harry!" He was pushing her dress down off her shoulders. She realized that in a moment she would be just about naked. While she admired his skill in getting her laced-up bodice undone so quickly - it had taken her nearly an hour to get it on properly and he had dispatched with the whole thing in under a minute - she was more conscious of the growing fear that someone would come along - Ron, probably - and see them. "Harry," she whispered. "Not now."

He appeared not to hear her. "I've missed you," he whispered back. "I've missed you so much," and she felt herself tense as he captured her mouth with his again. His hands were on her skirt, gathering the material with his fingers, sliding the dress up over her thighs. The chill air struck the bare skin of her ankles, then her calves, and now she was shaking with more than just the cold. He was touching her in ways he never had before, and suddenly a strange sense of wrongness shot through her veins, frightening in its intensity. Kissing Harry, touching him, had always been like coming home to a familiar and beloved place; now she felt suddenly as if she had opened the door to her own house and found it inhabited by strangers. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she put her hands flat against his shoulders and pushed him away, hard.

Harry looked shocked. He stared at her for a moment, the dizziness fading out of his eyes. She was reminded of the way he was just after winning a Quidditch match - it took him a moment to come back down to earth, even after he had landed. She supposed, in a way, he had just been flying - only she had not, this time, been flying with him. "Hermione," he said. "What's wrong?"

He didn't know? He really didn't know? She realized she couldn't tell him. Instead, she said the first reasonable-sounding thing that came into her head. "Missed me?" she whispered. "How could you have missed me - I've been right here with you all this time."

"You've been here." Harry reached for his sweater, took it, and pulled it back on over his head. She wondered if it was busying his hands so he wouldn't have to look at her. His cheeks were scarlet and, she suspected, not just with cold. "I haven't."

"And now you are?" she replied. She had crossed her arms over her chest, covering herself, but she was still cold. "Or are you just drunk?"

Harry bent down and picked up her white cloak, which had fallen on top of his black one. He held it out to her, and she took it, wrapping it around her shoulders. "Maybe I'm a little drunk," he said, very quietly. "But it's not as if I wanted... wanted to be with you because I'm drunk. I always love you. It's just, usually - lately, anyway - I can't say it."

She shook her head. Her hands, lacing up the bodice on her dress, were shaking. "Why can't you say it?" she asked. "Have you changed your mind? Do you feel differently now? Are you... ashamed of me?"

"Ashamed of you?" He laughed; it was a painful sound. "Me, ashamed of you. That's funny. Sort of." He bent down again and retrieved his glasses, which were streaked with snow. He began to clean them on the hem of his shirt. He looked different without them. Older. It emphasized how his face had thinned, becoming more handsome, less soft and childlike. Harder. "Why would you even say that?"

"You don't kiss me or touch me in public, but back here in this alley, you're all over me. What does that say, Harry? I always said I wanted to wait, so it would be really special when we finally were together, but I get the feeling you'd be perfectly happy to just get drunk and do it against a wall."

"Hey!" said Harry sharply, and slid his glasses back on. "You brought me here. And then you kissed me, and what am I supposed to think? You're my girlfriend! Of course I want to--you know. And - and I'm all right now."

He had gone slightly scarlet. Hermione was briefly amused. She had a feeling the Dursleys had probably been very peculiar where it came to sex education. "Yes, but that doesn't mean that..." She broke off. She knew what she wanted to say, could hear the words in her head. You're all right now, because you've been drinking. And you're all right when you're flying. And if we had sex, you'd probably be all right for that too, because it would be just another drug to kill the pain of whatever's bothering you. But I don't want any part of that. Because it wouldn't last. And then I would have given you everything, and it still wouldn't have been enough.

"Well, what did you want to come back here for, then?" Harry demanded, looking honestly confused.

Hermione covered her face with her hands, embarrassed. "Well, you were flirting with Blaise, and I..."

"With her? She's a Slytherin! And she's Draco's girlfriend, and anyway, she despises me."

"She does not, she said you were gorgeous and she could eat you up with a spoon and...why did I tell you that? It was yucky the first time I heard it."

Hermione sighed. "Harry, you idiot -- half the girls in this school are in love with you."

"I think you lost the other half to Draco. But hey, they're mostly Slytherins anyway." She shook her head. "I can't believe you never noticed, but then, that's just typical. You don't know how cute you are and that is the cutest thing about you. Girls adore that - and now I think I've said too much."

"Well, Ron possibly not, but Draco? I hate to break it to you, but Draco knows exactly how cute he is."

But Harry was already stepping back, brushing snow off the shoulder of his cloak. "Someone threw a snowball at me -Ron!" he yelled, and burst out laughing. Hermione followed his gaze and saw Ron standing at the alleyway entrance, holding his hands up as if to say, "Who, me?" But he was grinning. Behind Ron she could see other dark shapes, hurtling to and fro: the seventh-year boys Blaise had been talking about, who were throwing snowballs at snogging couples.

"I didn't have a choice!" Ron yelled back. "Neville and Dean would have done it if I hadn't!"

But Harry was shaking his head. "You...are...going...to...die," he shouted, and then raced towards Ron, who bolted away, laughing. Hermione stared after them for a moment, thinking, What are they, twelve? She walked towards the alley entrance slowly, arriving at the main road just in time to see Harry jump on Ron, knock him over, and begin stuffing snow into his shirt. Ron yelled, and began scrabbling in the snow with his fingers in an attempt to make another snowball. Looking at them, she suddenly saw another image superimposed over this one: she saw the two of them rolling over and over in the snow with her when they were all fourteen and it hadn't mattered that she was a girl, she had still been fair game to have her shirt pockets stuffed with ice, and she missed that suddenly - suddenly and piercingly. They had been so happy together, the three of them, a perfect unit. Stealthily, she bent down and gathered up a handful of loose snow, which burned her hand with its coldness. She crept up behind Harry, who seemed gleefully intent on shoving snow into Ron's ears, and very carefully dumped the lot of it down the back of his shirt.

The yell that greeted this sally was instantaneous and very gratifyingly loud. Harry fell sideways into the snow, yowling, while Ron, sitting up with his red hair full of snow, was speechless with laughter.

"Don't be a sore loser, Harry Potter," she replied, scooped up a handful of snow, and hurled it at him. Harry reached out and grabbed for her leg, and she slipped and fell sideways onto Ron, who commenced stuffing snow into the bodice of her dress with an apparent total disregard for niceties. Hermione shrieked and wriggled away, grabbing for Harry with icy fingers. Shouting with laughter, they all three rolled to the bottom of the hill, tangled together, finally fetching up against a large boulder. Hermione sat up first, spitting snow out of her mouth and holding her chest, which was beginning to hurt from laughing. Her dress was soaking wet and her hair hung in wet, ratty tendrils all around her face, but she didn't care. She watched as Harry and Ron sat up as well, both as thickly covered with snow as if they had been rolled in icing sugar. "Well," said Harry, taking off his glasses, which were almost unrecognizable, and squinting at them. "That was -"

He was cut off as Hermione leaped forward and threw her arms around them both, hugging them tightly. Both Ron and Harry seemed astonished at this sudden display of affection; Ron patted her gently on the back. Finally she pulled back and looked at them - covered in snow, both soaking, their fancy dress clothes drenched in water and sticking to their skin. They could almost have been the two boys who had collapsed on the floor of a wet bathroom after saving her from that troll so many years ago.

"I just want you to know," she said suddenly, surprising herself, "that I love you - I love you both, no matter what ever happens to us, ever."

Ron looked at Hermione, and then at Harry, obviously very embarrassed indeed. "Been at the gin again, has she?" he demanded.

Hermione held out her hands. "Oh come on," she said, and without being told what to do, each of them took one of her hands - Ron the left, and Harry the right. "We'll always be together," she said, her voice firm. "Won't we - won't we?"

Harry and Ron looked more embarrassed than ever. "Well, not always," said Ron. "I think I'm going to need a hot bath when I get back to the castle, and I plan to do that on my own, thank you."

"Oh shut up, you two," Hermione interjected despairingly. "Look - just promise me we'll always be friends, won't you? Because it's Christmas, and because if you don't, I will personally tell Myrtle that you both love her, and she'll never leave you alone again. Okay?"

She looked at Ron; they both did, and it seemed to her that he looked oddly moved, as if somehow her pronouncement had made him sad. "I promise," he said. "We'll always be friends."

"Resistance is useless," purred the voluptuously evil Lady Stacia, her vast bosom rising and falling above the material of her leather corset like a temperamental soufflé. "You are mine now, Tristan. Forget Rhiannon. I, and I alone, can take you to the snowy peaks of ecstasy."

Tristan set his jaw. He would have folded his manly arms as well, but he couldn't because Lady Stacia had tied him to a pole. "Rhiannon is my one true love, and I shall never forget her. Never!"

Lady Stacia shrugged, and from her thigh-high leather boot drew a long phoenix feather, with which she commenced tickling the helpless Tristan all over his bare chest. Tristan began to suspect that she would not rest until she partook of his manly charms. Well, perhaps Rhiannon wouldn't mind if it was just this once, would she? Anyway, she had been carried off by pirates. Who knew when he would see her again?

Ginny dropped Passionate Trousers into her lap and stared disconsolately at the cover. It was blank at the moment - the illustrated versions of Rhiannon and Tristan had vanished, presumably in order to have some privacy. Well, Ginny thought darkly, at least someone was having fun tonight. And of course Tristan in the story was deserting Rhiannon for the umpteenth time - because, she reasoned, kicking the book off the bed, men were worthless.

Or not. She felt a pang, remembering - she had come running into the Great Hall after leaving Draco, all her nerves on fire and her skin tingling, and she had seen Seamus, standing and talking very pleasantly with Charlie over by the wall, and she had felt her stomach drop out. Seamus was so sweet, and so well-meaning, and what was she doing but treating him absolutely dreadfully? He had looked up and smiled at her then, and it had taken every bit of her willpower not to simply run out of the room. Instead she had gone up to him and begged off the rest of the evening, claiming a sick headache. He had walked her to Gryffindor Tower, unfailingly kind as always, and the last she had seen of him had been his tow-blond hair disappearing into darkness as she mounted the steps to her empty dormitory room.

She sighed, and lay back down on the bed, burying her face in her arms. She felt dreadfully guilty about Seamus, deprived of his Pub Crawl, and could not shake the feeling that she had been messing about behind his back. Of course, she had not meant to kiss Draco –

She rolled over then, and stared up at the ceiling. Who was she kidding. As if she'd gone outside for any other reason. She had looked up while she was dancing with Seamus and seen Draco standing by the Great Hall doors, watching her. From that distance she could not see the expression on his face, only his silver hair and pale skin printed against the darkness behind him. But she could see the angle of his shoulders, the way he stood, and knew he was watching her, and saw him walk away. And there was no power on earth at that point that could have prevented her from going after him.

Hence, she thought, the guilt, and the pounding headache. She sat up, wondering if she should go for a Pain-Relieving Charm, when she realized that the pounding sound she was hearing was not, in fact, the pain in her own head. It was someone banging on the dormitory door.

She stood up slowly, wrapping her arms around herself - she was wearing her jeans and a maroon sweater than had once belonged to Ron; the sleeves were so long that they entirely engulfed her hands. With a sigh, she went across the room and opened the door, wondering if it was Elizabeth or Ashley, too tired to remember how to work the doorknob.

But it was Seamus. He had changed out of his fancy dress clothes, and was in jeans and a dark yellow sweater with a black stripe across the front. His feet were bare, and his hair was a mess, and he looked as if he'd just spent at least twenty minutes screwing himself up to do something unpleasant. "Hey," he said, his eyes searching the room behind her to see if there was anyone else there. Satisfied that the room was empty, he turned his gaze back to Ginny. "I was hoping I could talk to you."

Ginny sagged against the doorframe. "Oh, Seamus. Whatever it is, don't say it. I can't cope. Not right now."

"I know. And I'm sorry. I ruined your Yule Ball, and you could have gone to the Pub Crawl, and I feel awful. I hate myself. I am so, so sorry."

Seamus looked exasperated. "That is not what I meant,' he said. "I meant you... you letting yourself be miserable. I don't care about the Yule Ball or the Pub Crawl or any of it! But I care about you, Ginny."

"I do," he said quickly. "I have for a long time. When you came back this year, after you'd been away, it was like... you were a whole new person and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed you before. You're beautiful, you're clever, you're a fantastic Quidditch player, you're funny, your friends obviously adore you..."

She shook her head. "Don't... don't be all sweet and nice. I don't deserve it." She leaned against the doorjamb, feeling hopeless. "I can't do this. It would be a mistake, and -- and I can't do this again."

Ginny laughed despite herself. "No, I mean... look, Seamus, I like you, I really do, and you're charming and sweet, but I've discovered that it's a really, really bad idea to go against my instincts. The last time I did that - well, it didn't work out so well for me."

Seamus nodded. He had put his hands in his pockets. "I just saw your brother come back from the Pub Crawl with Harry and Hermione," he said. "They didn't even look surprised to see me sitting by myself in the common room. It made me wonder what they know that I don't know. Ginny..." he paused. "What exactly did Malfoy do to you? I won't say anything - or judge you - I just want to understand."

Ginny hesitated, looking at him. He had a kind, honest face, made more boyish by the smattering of freckles across his nose. He looked steadfast and loyal and stalwart and all those things she associated with her brothers, with all the men in her life really - except for one. She couldn't imagine upending all the trial and darkness and misery of the last six months, the confusion and the pain and the victory and the disappointment, on top of Seamus, and having him be able to even begin to understand.

But maybe she was selling him short. Maybe he could take it. If nothing else, he really seemed to want to understand. Maybe he could.

She stepped back, away from the door, and motioned for Seamus to come in. He looked at her in surprise, wise-eyed and hesitating. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

He had been waiting so long there in their meeting place that he was about to give up when she finally appeared.

She looked pale and tired, and her robes were in disarray. "Ron," she said, and he saw she had his folded parchment in her hand. "I got your message." She made no attempt to come across the room towards him, only leaned back against the closed door. "What did you want to see me about? You know this isn't a good time."

He looked at her with slight incredulity. "It's been days," he said. "I can't go that long -"

"Well, you have to," she replied abruptly. "There are more important things in life than sex, Ron."

"That is not why I wanted to see you!" He was gripping the table with his hands so hard that they hurt. "I missed you."

She flushed beneath her pallor. "You saw me today. And yesterday. And the day before. And -"

"But not like this," he said. "Not like this," and he walked across the room and took her by the arms, and kissed her. Or tried to. She turned her face away from his, and would not look at him. "Why?" he said. "Why are you doing this?"

He shook his head. A strange ache had begun in a place below his ribs. It was hard to breathe. "I won't let you shut me out - I'll tell everyone -"

She jerked in his arms as if he had dug a knife into her skin. "No! No, you promised!"

She laughed; it was a brittle sound. "I lie to everyone else. Why not you, too?"

"When will you be ready?" He searched her face with his eyes. As always, in the faint and colored light of the meeting room, she looked spectral, her features dimmed to ghostliness. He could almost believe she was not quite real, a figment conjured up by his own importunate yearnings.

"New Year's," she said suddenly, surprising him. But then, she always surprised him. He recollected how astonished he had been the day she first summoned him to this place. He had thought it was a joke. "New Year's Day, Ron, if that's what you want."

"It's what I want," he said, and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, very lightly. She had let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, her hair covering her face. He remembered that she had been the one to kiss him, first, hooking her arm around his neck and drawing him down to her and he had let her, out of astonishment as much as anything else. Now she seemed shy, her hands knotted into fists against his chest. "Put your hair back," he would say to her sometimes, when they lay together on the ground. "I can't see your face."

"Go away, Potter," said Draco. "I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. I don't need this right now. It's four a.m."

Harry, who had been hopping up and down excitedly in the hallway, stopped and looked vexed. "Come on, Malfoy! Didn't you hear what I said?"

"I heard you," said Draco, leaning against the doorjamb and regarding Harry in a pained manner. Usually he was happy to see Harry, but at the moment he mostly wanted to be alone. His head had been pounding ever since he had come back inside from the rose garden. He kept seeing Ginny's face printed against the backs of his eyelids: the incredulous look in her eyes shattering into anger, and hatred. She hated him. Right, he told himself, and that was what you were after. So congratulations. "I heard you," he said again, pitching his voice low - it was late, but there were still students making their way up and down the corridors, returning from the Pub Crawl. Although Harry had come down to the dungeons in the Invisibility Cloak, he had taken it off as soon as Draco had opened the bedroom door. Had taken it off, and held out his hand to Draco. A hand clutching a silvery-gray box which contained a Portkey. "You stole the Portkey from Lupin's office. Nice work and all that, but, you know, he was going to give it to us next week anyway. Bit like breaking into Gringott's and emptying out your own bank vault, in my opinion."

"But I want to go now," said Harry, his voice fired with a passion that he usually only displayed when playing Quidditch. His eyes were bright with anticipatory excitement. "We can use this Portkey and have it back in Lupin's office by tomorrow morning. No one need ever know."

"They're asleep. I left Hermione off at her room, and that was ages ago. If we get back by 9 o'clock tomorrow, nobody will ever notice we've gone. That gives us four hours. Plenty of time."

Harry looked taken aback. "I do, of course I do," he said. "But this is important." He paused, and darted his eyes sideways. "Hold that thought," he added quickly. "Someone's coming."

"What? Oh -bugger this," said Draco, reached out, grabbed Harry by the front of the shirt, and hauled him inside. He pushed the door shut after him, and leaned against it, his eyes on Harry. He had rarely seen Harry like this; every line of his frame seemed to almost vibrate with suppressed excitement. "I don't know, Potter," he said. "Stealing, sneaking around - isn't this my area?"

Harry laughed. "Right," he said. "Sometimes I forget you haven't known me that long."

"You know what I mean, Malfoy." Harry paused, his eyes raking Draco's clothes - he had not yet changed out of his fancy dress. "You can't wear that. We're going to have to take Muggle transport. Put on some jeans or something."

Draco looked at Harry irritably. He hadn't noticed what Harry was wearing before, but now he did: his Quidditch cords, a heavy dark wool sweater and a black jacket, and lace-up boots. He did indeed look dressed for reconnaissance. Draco found it inexplicably annoying. "I'll wear whatever I bloody well please, Potter. If I choose to wear a fruit-covered hat, I don't see where it's your business."

Harry looked at him hard. "Tell me I've gone mad," he said, "But I'm sensing that you're sort of ambivalent about all this."

Draco sighed. "Lately I've been having this dream," he said. "Where you come to my room and tell me that you just killed someone, and you need me to help you hide the body. So I do it. But I wake up very annoyed."

"My point is not just that you keep asking me to do things without explaining exactly why I have to do them, but that the last time I took a risk and broke the rules, someone tried to kill me."

"That's great, because I'd hate for my little untimely horrible death concern to be ambiguous."

"That's touching," said Draco, "in a dumb, blustery, overconfident Gryffindor sort of way."

Harry blew out an aggravated breath, which made the fringe of hair falling over his eyes fly up. "Malfoy..."

"All right," said Draco. "I'll go, and I'll even shut up about it, too. On one condition."

"Tomorrow, when we get back, you tell Hermione exactly where we went. I won't tell lies to her, not even on your behalf."

Harry's head went up quickly, his eyes searching Draco's face. For someone who so often these days looked distracted or distant, Harry's eyes could cut like knives when he wanted them to. Draco fought not to look away, and didn't. "Fine," Harry said quietly, after a short silence. "I'll tell her tomorrow."

"Okay." Draco went over to his wardrobe, and selected a long charcoal-colored overcoat of silk-lined dragonsuede. He threw it on over his clothes and turned back to Harry, who was watching him with barely controlled impatience. "Ready," he said.

Harry held out his left hand, the box containing the Portkey in it. It shone bright silver in the dim light that came through the window, and Harry's eyes shone, as if they had been minted out of some glowing green alloy. His mouth was hard and set with determination and for the first time in a long while, Draco recollected why the thought of Harry Potter had once made him afraid.

He went towards Harry, and stood beside him. "Hold on to me," Harry said, and Draco took hold of the sleeve of Harry's jacket, and held fast. He saw Harry tip the Portkey from the box into his open right hand, and then the familiar whipping tug took him, hurling him forward into gray oblivion, Harry at his side.

Chapter 5

Yet, love and hate me too, So, these extremes shall neither office do; Love me, that I may die the gentler way; Hate me, because thy love is too great for me.John Donne ****

Yet, love and hate me too,
So, these extremes shall neither office do;
Love me, that I may die the gentler way;
Hate me, because thy love is too great for me.
John Donne

****