Foreign Bodies

Second Year

"And this is our daughter, Joaquim Grant."

She was a long-legged, tanned girl, tall for her eleven years, quite unlike her mother; grinning down at Ginny, she said, "Welcome to Egypt, Virginia. Though you wouldn't mind me calling you Gin, would you?"

It was almost like meeting a younger, female version of her brothers, only without the bias of Hogwarts education and Gryffindor dogma.

Joaquim had taken her everywhere she knew and she felt was "awesome" in Egypt - she used that word a lot, it was very much like Ron using "bloody", or Malfoy using "Pureblood" and "Mudblood" and "Father says" - and for once, just once since summer begun, Ginny started to forget.

Sweet Virginia.

And then the nightmares began.

She would scream, writhing, calling out for Molly, Arthur, Ron, Charlie, Percy, the twins, Bill, Harry, Lane - even, she suspected, Malfoy. And then she would wake the entire house, in the musky night air so typical of Egypt; sobbing painfully, burning with embarrassment and also with fear, as her mother held her tightly, whispering urgently to her, letting her sip hot chocolate. Her father and her brothers watching, earnest and concerned. Ron even once offered to spend the night with her, and stay up at that, to ensure that nothing "strange, you know, like spirits or something" came up to her to prey on her restful sleep. He had been hushed immediately, no thanks to his usual lack of tack.

It was almost worse than having had him in her mind constantly, because now she would be dreading and waiting, and the dreading and waiting hung like a loose noose around her neck. In the scratches her fingers made, up the insides of her palms, she never dared to speak openly of her fear that Tom would pierce through the threshold of dreamtime into reality.

And then Joaquim had started talking about it.

"What makes you afraid of him?" she asked, in her direct manner. "Well, yes, Daddy did tell me that he is the memory of You-Know-Who, but come on, that old ghoul's long gone; there's nothing to be afraid of, really. All you need to do is remember that he can't do anything to you. I mean, he doesn't even have a body, Gin..."

But he could. He could. He could do a good many things to her. He had, and he would do so again.

Sweet Virginia, I have already won.

Let me out, would you? That's a pet.

She would see his short, sleek black hair, curling slightly inwards towards the nape of his neck, over his forehead, like an angel's in the Muggle postcards of Michelangelo's paintings that Charlie had once sent her when he had first went overseas for training; she would look into the deep lapis lazuli eyes, their strange, surrealistic crystalline quality haunting her. The pale skin, so typical of a Slytherin, translucent and giving hint to the thin snaking veins. The sharp neat cut of his Hogwarts uniform, identical to Lane's, or to Malfoy's, or to Seldon's and Byrne-Declan's and Zabini's. The fabric of his tie, identical to her own. She would remember Malfoy and Zabini's daily ritual, and know how Tom himself must have once tied the long snake-like material the same way they did for each other, snug and fitting around his neck.

Joaquim could not understand. Ginny wished her parents had not said anything to anyone else; wished she did not see the pity in Mr and Mrs Grant's eyes. She understood now, what Malfoy had meant, that night after the first Quidditch match.

Joaquim would go back into her own life, the life of a happy-go-lucky daughter of a British diplomat in Egypt. She would go back into it, and make friends, and be happy all the time, because she allowed herself that. She could not see anything else but that, not like Ginny, because she had never seen anything else but what had always been assumed that she did.

Ginny wished fervently that she had never seen anything else but what had always been expected she would. She wished that she was not in Slytherin. She wished she had not ever seen Tom's diary.

But then she would catch herself, remembering Lane, and sometimes remembering Malfoy, after that first Quidditch match, and the time he had held her before the Chamber of Secrets, perhaps trying to save her, although he couldn't possibly have fathomed what he had been trying to save her from. The time after the Chamber of Secrets, in the infirmary; remembering every other night that he visited her in her dorm.

During their stay in Egypt Ron would always also talk of Harry and Hermione. Admittedly, Ginny was more concerned about Harry than Hermione; she hardly knew the other girl, although she had always struck her as altogether nice enough, a bit of a female, brown-haired Percy, but without the pompousness. Harry she hardly knew either, but at the same time she would always feel as if she had known him all her life. But then again it could be due to the fact that she had followed any news of him as long as she could read, and had memorised every detail that Ron had offered, in his offhand manner, so entirely boyish that she sometimes, whilst thinking of Lane as she looked at Ron, would be tempted to think that Lane was rather too old to be a boy.

When she was not with Joaquim and not being afraid she would think of Lane, or Harry. Lane because of obvious reasons; he was her friend, after all, it was not surprising that she would think of him, wondering why he wrote so seldom and in between, worrying that he had lost interest in her, worrying that he wasn't alright. Harry because, well - she wasn't sure what she felt for him. Something that was rather like admiration: in her first year, before he had saved her, she rather thought it was love, a little girl's idea of a knight in shining armour, and her being his lady at a tower, awaiting him in her sweet sorrow. Even now she couldn't shake off the tendrils of that mistake, and still she would blush at his mention, and still sometimes she would wish his brilliant green eyes would someday perceive her in a different light.

They say that when you give love you can never take it back; as long as you have loved, the emotion might change, morph, distort, but in the end it would always be there.

But she was sure, now, that she couldn't possibly have that depth of feeling.

~

The chessboard was a family heirloom - instead of white pieces, there were silver; the black pieces were made of onyx.

Zabini colours, black and silver. It was, also, rather ironically, unenchanted.

The two players, a boy and a girl, stared broodingly over the pieces. It was the girl's turn to move.

"So it is Virginia Weasley. I would admit, I should have seen that coming..." murmured the girl, as she lay a finger on a silver pawn, moving it forwards. Her dark brown hair was tied neatly, away from her face; the silver of her pieces glinted and reflected her pale ivory skin, and her Oriental features.

"You suspected before?" Blaise Zabini moved a knight, eyes not looking up to the girl before him.

"But Wyck-Devereaux and Malfoy had already laid claim on her - even if for different reasons that mine would have been..." They both knew the answer to his question, it had been almost rhetoric, a waste of time for him to have asked and even more so should she have answered; in turn, she had carried along the conversation in her mercurial fashion, having known him long enough to know that he would catch up. "And I would never touch someone else's plaything. It would be most distasteful."

Though we would never hesitate to manipulate it into our hands...thought Blaise, knowing well that she would have already formulated a plan.

She moved another piece. He saw through the bluff almost immediately, and then tensed, believing it to be a trap -

"We'll have to wait all this out, should Draco's words be true."

Almost flippantly, she replied, "He trusts you. He will tell you the truth - but the Dark Lord, I suspect, would surely not have told Lucius everything, and Lucius would never tell Draco everything."

A pause. He deliberated whether to make the move, deliberated whether to believe that she was truly distracted - but knew that, should he wait too long, she would be the wiser.

She was still speaking. "But - I have to say, the Weasleys are too valuable to concede to the Wyck-Devereauxs and Lucius and Draco Malfoy. Or more to the Wyck-Devereauxs; the gulf between the Malfoys and the Weasleys is a bit too wide..."

She must have noticed his almost imperceptible jerk of surprise at that. A smile was playing on her lips, now. Distractedly, he remembered that he had yet to make his move. Making a decision, he picked a piece, and placed it in the heart of her pieces's labyrinth.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley. He beat McGonagall herself in chess - in his first year. If he had been in Slytherin, he could easily become a formidable ally...or a dangerous foe..."

Blaise could not help the automatic rising of his eyebrows at that point.

The girl smiled fully, this time. "I said he would have, if only he had been Sorted into Slytherin and were not so utterly devoted to Potter."

Her eyes met his; her fingers reached forward and moved her chess piece, catching it in his trap.

"The Weasleys are a very close family..." her voice was almost contemplative.

Blaise studied her face for a moment, and, his eyes not leaving hers, made the last move.

"Checkmate," he murmured, and the girl lowered her head slightly in concession to his victory.

"But we can still have him, can't we?"

The girl across him met his gaze again, and he would not have missed the amused glint in her brown eyes. She leant back, fingers crossing and forming a triangle.

"Of course we can. We will."

~

Dear Ginny,

I would like to invite you to our chateau in Nice, France, on the 25^th of August, to celebrate my birthday. It will be a small tea party; you shouldn't need worry about attire. You can also assure your parents that transport to and fro will be provided for you, and you can always choose to stay with us until the start of term. Should you be able to grace us with your presence, please do inform me as soon as possible. Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Lane

In the end she had chosen to stay at the Wyck-Devereauxs'; each night, she would wake up and thrash and scream and cry, and Lane would be there to hold her immediately, because now Lane slept with her, in his room, on his bed. He would not say anything; words were exhausted and terrorized and mutilated enough with Tom; she had nothing more to say after her nightmares. The words were ripped out of her. Lane somehow could see that; he was solid and effectual in his physical comfort, his slender arms around her small frame.

It was enough.

Ginny was glad that she had come; was glad that Lane had heard her, on the first night, and had been there.

Lane's parents were not there to say anything - they had left the night of his tea party, citing businesses that required attending to in the East. But she had appreciated them, for the brief spell that she had met them - her father had said that they were respectable people, and that they had trained their three sons (Lane, and Lane's older brothers Vivienne and Paris; Vivienne of whom was an apprentice to the Potions Master at Beauxbatons, whilst Paris was a junior Auror in the British Ministry of Magic) well; they must have known of her connection to Tom, because she could sense it, and yet from their expressions - it was something akin to Lane's: there was no pity, and yet there was a kind of understanding. They were people who were sensitive, and knew when there were times when talking was not always the best option, but rather the worst alternative, and that expressions of sympathy could cut worse than not.

On the 30^th, when Lane had presented her with a brand-new broom, the Nimbus 2001, the very broom that Draco Malfoy used, she had not known what to say.

"Because I like you." Lane had stated, simply, smiling his angel's smile, and Ginny forgot that Tom had a smile just as beautiful as his.

She asked him why he had ever talked to her in the first place.

"You looked just as lost as I felt." He had replied. But she knew his answer was just to please her with its whimsicality; she could see the amused shutter of his pale violet eyes behind the heavy gold-dusted lashes.

Years later, she would realize that Lane had, curiously, been intrigued by her, very much in the way Malfoy had been - because of the incongruency of her situation and her heritage. Years later, she would realize that Lane enjoyed seeing her smile, seeing her act the way she did, because she reminded him just how fallible he himself could be. Years later, she would realize that Lane took her as some kind of redemption and release. Years later, she would see how Lane would need her to fulfil his own part in a larger prophecy, which neither of them had a true idea about.

She could never see that as exploitation on his part: to be fair she had exploited him emotionally just as much as he had her. But that was how they were: they were Slytherins, even if she had not realized it then.

~

"Is it wise, could it possibly be wise to have allowed her to the Wyck-Devereauxs, Albus?"

"Minerva." Albus Dumbledore looked up at his Deputy Headmistress, and gazed sternly in her direction. "We will not frighten Molly and Arthur."

"Have - have we chosen wrongly in allowing Ginny to have stayed the rest of the holidays with Wyck-Devereaux's son? We could Owl her, make her come back, couldn't we, if what Minerva has mentioned could be true?" Molly Weasley sat across from Dumbledore with her husband, and her voice grew steadily frantic.

Dumbledore understood. It was, after all, her only daughter's safety in question.

"Molly, I can assure you that Lane Wyck-Devereaux will ensure that Ginny comes to no harm," he said mildly, "it is not to his own or his family's best interest that she should suffer any ill. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"But why should Ginny be subjected to so superficial a friendship?" asked Arthur Weasley, almost quietly.

"I would doubt it superficial, Arthur. Lane was already Ginny's friend, as I understand from Severus, even before the Riddle incident. In fact, I would presume that the Wyck-Devereauxs, particularly Lane himself, would have been quite dismayed by Ginny's involvement in that incident."

Dismayed, Dumbledore thought, because the entire thrill has gone out of the chase. But he continued to gaze calmly at Arthur and Molly Weasley before him, knowing that he could not possibly admit his own suspicions, and his own fears.

Severus had already told him of Yong Shu Han Dracognius-Normandy's interest in the affair; Yong Xia, her father, had been to see him. Blaise Zabini had a stake in it, too, then, should young Shu Han have acknowledged this. Both went hand-in-hand; each matched the other in talent, academics, and, Dumbledore suspected, expertise in subterfuge. He would not expect any less from either. Dermot Leighswift, crippled by his family's lack of power and riches, and only fourteen in the coming term, waiting in the wings for thirteen-year-old Shu Han's instructions.

The young Wyck-Devereauxs: Paris, now twenty-four; Vivienne, nineteen; and Lane. And bitter, resentful and undeniably brilliant Julian Stillingfleet Ravenscroft, age fifteen, cooped up in the Wizarding Conservatorium, under Paris's own tutelage.

Wyck-Devereaux and Dracognius-Normandy. Zabini, Malfoy, Ravenscroft, Leighswift...

Oigthierna. The House of Slytherin.

The Riddle affair, which Dumbledore could only reflect upon now, was entirely too well known by the Seven Houses.

He could not help but sigh.

My dear Arthur and Molly, you cannot fathom what you daughter has fallen into...

~

It was not long before the school term had rushed towards her, along with the new Quidditch season.

Ginny had begun to notice a pattern in the frequency of Malfoy's visits to her dorm (to deliver the same diatribe as the year before, no less) since the start of the new term - he came later than expected on Quidditch practice days, even when Ginny knew the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team had retired, noisily and muddily, to their dormitories. And even then he would be in his Quidditch uniform, sometimes soaking from the wet weather, the rain weighing down and darkening the heavy, expensive fabric, making him look like a saint, with his pallor and pale silver hair, who had fallen down and been splashed in a particularly large puddle.

She began to wonder where he was, between the time of his visits and Quidditch practice.

Ginny, for all her naïveté at that age, was acute to Malfoy's thought process when it came to Quidditch; it was rather accurate to say she was acute to Malfoy's thought process whenever it came to things which would put him up against Harry Potter, which included virtually anything tangible under the Hogwarts roof. And she began to suspect that he was clocking extra training in order to gain the upper hand. And so, one night, with her black handled Nimbus 2001 in hand, she sneaked out of Hogwarts castle and into the Quidditch pitch, hoping to catch him.

The year before she had admired his ability, if not his control. But she had mistaken that - that was his flying in the presence of others, and thus the façade of control. Perhaps this was to be the first time she really saw him, she had thought then, but then, years later, she would dismiss this, knowing that the first time she saw him was in Flourish and Blotts; Malfoy was really always the same, only that he would express his true character in varying degrees at different times - his carefully constructed façade was so much ingrained in himself it had become part of him.

There was something fierce about the way he handled his broom, how he dived, and plummeted, and turned and twisted. Ginny could see at once how he loved the swift speed, the recklessness of it all; it was evident in the wind which seemed even to celebrate in him. For the first time since she first saw him fly, she could believe that he actually belonged there, and was not a magically aided foreign body trying to wrongly invade the sanctity of the sky, in its overwhelming expense.

If he would just fly like that, she thought, in front of everyone else, he would always beat Harry.

If it were not really the first time that she had truly seen Malfoy, it was the first time she had ever really realized the complication that was him. He was an incongruous combination of spoon-fed viciousness and cultivated control, against a backdrop of ferocious instinct and reflex. It was all these which would culminate into his insecurity, his bitterness when it came to Harry, who seemed so simple in structure compared to himself.

One day, she would realise that it was all these that would eventually break him.

But then she could not yet foresee that implication.

One day, she would realise that if she indeed were perceptive, she would have realized from that time that Malfoy was just as unusual a Slytherin as she was, even if in different aspects.

But then, watching him, she kept quiet, the smooth handle of her broom cold in her hand, not wanting to disturb him, not wanting to endanger the freedom that he performed.

After that, every time Malfoy had Quidditch practice, she would make sure to sneak out after the other team members had entered the Common Room, and be at the Quidditch pitch to watch him, and then sneak in, reluctantly, moments before he would stop flying, and come to visit her.

But on one such night, he surprised her with his words.

"Enjoy spying on me, Virginia?" he asked, instead of going through his usual ritual of sneeringly spoken words.

The shock on her face must have been all too apparent, for he smirked, and said, "I do know, you know. I've always put a surveillance spell on the area before I started. Why do you think no one else has found out before you, Virginia?"

Then, sneering again, he leant closer towards her face, saying, "You were never a very bright one, Virginia."

And then he strode out.

But Ginny was very well aware, after her shock had left her, that he had not mentioned not wanting her to watch him.

And so, the next night Quidditch practice came around, she was there, again with her broom, in the air, where he was waiting for her already.

Not acknowledging her, he flew off, turning his back towards her. Not having expected anything otherwise, she flew after him wordlessly, at first struggling to keep pace with his speed and his reckless, smooth flying, but soon adjusting better.

Finally, close to the time he normally stopped flying, he turned in midair to say to her, "I see you aren't so bad yourself, Virginia."

She distinctly remembered grinning at that point, and if she were not imagining things, the corners of his lips had quirked upwards as well. In the moonlight, his pallor looked all the more unearthly.

That night, she didn't have any nightmares. For the first time since Egypt, Tom did not lie in wait for sleep to claim her before he whispered maliciously into her ear. Before that, she had tried not to trouble Lane by asking for his company at night, as she did not want unnecessary rumours from flying about, should anyone find out; Lane had raised an eyebrow, but had not said anything. She knew that Lane would not, knew that Lane would always wait till she asked for him again. And so she had had to stifle her cries each night, stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to prevent herself from screaming.

But that night, as soon as her head touched the pillow, she fell into a deep, black, dreamless sleep, with Malfoy's words, instead, caressing her.

~

When Ron let out the Hippogriff incident to her, Ginny confronted Malfoy with it.

She still didn't address him by his first name. She had not yet been ready for it, even though they met every alternate night now, at the Quidditch Pitch, even on nights when Malfoy had no official Quidditch practice.

She found him in the hospital wing, alone, for once, without the extra baggage of Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson. Zabini never seemed to be seen around him besides in the early morning, for the brief instance of tying his tie. She wondered at their relationship.

"Is it true what Ron tells me, about Buckbeak?" she asked.

"Without the expletives, perhaps." He had replied readily, almost lazily.

"Why? Hagrid would be in serious trouble, you know, because of your allegations."

He looked directly at her.

"Don't try to understand what you never would comprehend, Virginia. I would have thought that your first year would have taught you that. Obviously you are rather too dense to realize that."

In a swift motion, she had slapped in across the face.

"You really are a prat, aren't you, Malfoy?" her hand smarted, but her words were forceful.

"And you really are an idiot, aren't you, Virginia?" he returned, mockingly, angrily, and the side of his face was red and pink from her slap.

If it had been a year ago, even, she would have been horrified by her slapping of a boy, much less a boy who was her senior. A year ago, she would have been rather puzzled by the speech pattern between the both of them. A year ago, she would have been fully furious with a person who very outwardly was trying to create trouble for others. But up until a year ago she had always been thought to act like a Gryffindor.

Now she was different.

"I really dislike you." She did not know where that came from, and immediately blushed at the childishness it seemed to represent.

Malfoy, however, did not smirk nor sneer. Instead he turned his face away from her, closing his eyes deliberately, until she finally left.

Their meetings at the Quidditch pitch inevitably came to an end. Eventually, she realized that Malfoy was not only missing his visits to her dorm in a show of being erratic; rather, he was not coming back to speak to her again. Slowly but surely, she saw less and less of him.

The nightmares started again.

~

It would be Slytherin's match against Ravenclaw when she would speak to him again. It was to be Slytherin's first match, after the spectacular fiasco that had been the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match.

Ginny had watched Harry, on his bed, a few metres away from behind the infirmary door, the way his face had fallen with the news of the destruction of his beloved Nimbus. It would take some reconstruction before the light went back into his green eyes again.

It had still felt cold; the lingering aftertaste of the Dementors' intrusion.

She brushed her sentiments aside as she looked up for Draco Malfoy.

"Malfoy." She could hear the breathlessness in her voice. He was the last to depart from the Quidditch locker rooms; ahead of him were the large figures of the rest of the Slytherin Team, loud and rowdy. Waiting for her at the opposite end of the corridor was Lane; he leaned with his eyes closed against the wall. Malfoy, in front of her, had stopped, turning around to face her. He was paler than she had seen him; his silver eyes were metallic as if with anticipation, and she could tell even from where she stood, ten metres away from him, that he was holding on to his broom tightly, the long pianist's fingers pressed painfully against the black handled wood.

"What do you want, Weasley?" An insolent drawl. At that she hesitated. She did not know why, but somehow it both shocked and hurt her that he would call her that; she had been accustomed to his calling her Virginia.

She had also been accustomed to his visiting, accustomed to flying with him. Accustomed to him, in actual fact.

"You'll - you'll win this time." She flushed at her stammering.

Draco Malfoy did not say anything for a moment, and when she looked up his face was a blank. Then, in a flat voice, "Of course we'll beat them. They're Ravenclaw."

"Cho Chang - you just have to - "

"Are you worried about me, Virginia?" If she had not flushed at the relief of hearing her name on his lips again, so casually and so fluently spoken, she would have caught the sneer in his voice.

"I wouldn't want - "

"Wouldn't want what, Virginia?" Still the same flat tone.

"I want to see you fly again - Draco." Softly.

They both knew what she meant. Fly, the way he would fly when he was with her.

It was two months ago.

They both knew how long it had also taken for her to call him by his first name.

This time he did not say anything. With an almost imperceptible nod, he turned on his heel, and strode down the corridor towards the direction his teammates had made off to.

They won that match. Draco was marvellous - Ginny knew, if it had been Harry he had been playing against, he would have beat him as well. It was the leaky defence, if anything, which would have almost failed him. 230 to 110 was respectable enough a score.

That same night, Draco came to her dorm, his Quidditch clothes still damp and clinging from the fog, and without saying anything, he had bent down towards her, and, very gently, he had kissed her on her forehead. His eyes had been closed, and even when he had leant back from the kiss, they were heavy-lidded, the darkened silver beneath appearing all the more ethereal. He had not said a word as he turned on his heel abruptly, walking out of the room. Ginny did not say anything, either.

They both knew that it was enough.

His lips had been soft and dry. Tender.

Almost like a Muggle switch, the kind that her father was always obsessed with, the nightmares automatically switched themselves off, for that night.

~

"What do you suppose happened?" Seldon White's voice.

"Why are we sleeping here, of all places?!" Pansy Parkinson's, whiny and irritating, as always.

The Great Hall was a flurry of activity; everyone was on his or her purple sleeping bags, chattering loudly, asking questions.

"What do you think happened?" Ginny whispered to Lane, who was beside her, settling himself into a sleeping bag.

Lane gave her a half-smile. "Nothing we wouldn't hear of in time to come - in its various forms. I suspect it has something to do with Sirius Black." His casual tone caused Ginny to look at him suspiciously.

"You don't think - "

Lane shook his head. "I don't know anything - of certainty, that is."

"Do you think they'll cancel classes tomorrow?" came Draco's voice, in the lazy drawl that Ginny knew her brother and Harry abhorred. Speaking of whom - she spied the Gryffindor trio (Ron, Harry and Hermione) together, settling themselves in a far corner.

When she turned back Lane was still looking at her. "Any dreams lately, Ginny?" his voice was soft.

"No," she replied, resolutely - it was the truth, after all.

Lane smiled again, a fuller smile this time. "I see Draco Malfoy is of better comfort than I am, then."

Ginny must have appeared shocked, because Lane laughed out loud at her expression.

"How did - why -" spluttered Ginny.

"I have my ways," replied Lane, laughingly, and, in the first gesture of playfulness Ginny had ever seen from him, he tweaked her nose, in turn triggering a push in the stomach on Ginny's part.

A few metres away, Draco Malfoy watched them, expression inscrutable.

~

As Ginny Weasley slept, Lane Wyck-Devereaux watched over her, thinking rapidly.

He had to play his cards right - but it wasn't the time yet. He would know; his parents would know. And Paris and Vivienne would come. So would Julian Stillingfleet.

Julian hated when they called him a Ravenscroft.

His father had told him about Sirius Black. He would come in later.

Warm breath over his shoulder. He already knew who it was. The person in question had begun to spend more and more time with Ginny again - he had been watching, as the two went out, almost every night now, on their twin Nimbus brooms.

"Malfoy. The prefects will be coming around soon."

"What game are you playing at, Wyck-Devereaux?" the older boy's voice was grating.

"You think that I am playing a game, Malfoy?" Lane questioned back, voice calm. He kept an eye towards the advancing figure of a prefect: it was a Slytherin; they could carry on with their conversation. "Such a game could come in the cost of lives, you know," he added, pleasantly.

"Good that you know that," hissed Malfoy in return, before turning, making sure to reach his sleeping bag before the overzealous Percy Weasley came sweeping down on him.

Ginny Weasley continued sleeping, unaware, as Lane Wyck-Devereaux closed his eyes in turn, a protective arm over her body.

~

"Morning, Blaise." The tall black-haired boy turned slightly, in greeting to the speaker, from the green-touched flame of the Slytherin Common Room's fireplace; there were no windows here to look out of. Others would have felt it claustrophobic. The boy appreciated the privacy, or at least the façade of it.

Nothing was ever truly private.

The smaller boy's silver eyes were shaded. The black-haired boy took it as an indication to state an observation, as each boy's hands reached out to slip around the sliding texture of the undone ties around the other's neck.

"There's something bothering you. It has since last week, after the night we spent in the Great Hall."

Draco's eyes never left Blaise's tie. "You know about the prophecy."

Blaise's metallic grey eyes never left his tie, either. Voice level, he said, "From the scanty details you have provided, I can hardly qualify that."

He watched as Draco's features flickered slightly; he was annoyed. "I don't know what Wyck-Devereaux is playing at. Father says our side needs Virginia; Wyck-Devereaux's pulling everything apart."

He could feel Draco's long fingers smoothing the edges of the tie around his neck. Mildly, he replied, "I repeat my previous sentiments, Draco. Besides, you cannot possibly expect my cousin to work for your cause...the only thing our families will concern ourselves in are things which could affect our standard of living."

He felt Draco's hands jerk at the knot, in a gesture that was rougher than usual. Blaise Zabini watched the other boy's face carefully as he finished adjusting his tie.

"You show too much, Draco. It will be dangerous for you."

~

"What happened?" Ginny asked, as a furious-looking Draco Malfoy strode into the Common Room with Crabbe and Goyle behind him, all three of them drenched in what looked suspiciously like mud.

"Ask your brother the weasel," he retorted, seething, "or better yet, ask lovely Saint Potter."

"That's a very civilized way to talk," replied Ginny flatly. "What exactly happened this time, or did you trip over Harry's leg on your way to Hogsmeade?"

A warning glare from Draco. Then, almost resignedly, he answered, "Potter has a Invisibility Cloak, hasn't he?"

Ginny had guessed that it wasn't entirely based on Harry's merits as a talented wizard that had managed to get him through his many scrapes, but she had never really actually guessed that he had an Invisibility Cloak.

"I didn't know that," she replied, truthfully. "What's it got to do with anything, anyway? Or did Harry come up from behind you and splashed you in Hogsmeade? But isn't he not allowed to go there?"

"Which would be why he was going around Hogsmeade in an Invisibility Cloak, Virginia. Really incisive analytical skills there," drawled Draco in return. He had slumped against a green armchair, facing the fire; Crabbe and Goyle were dismissed with a casual wave of his hand. The mud was still dripping off the tips of his silver-blond hair, looking very much like melted chocolate, from where Ginny was, in the middle of the Common Room across from him.

She must have been staring too long at him, because he suddenly asked, "Like what you see, Virginia?"

Something that looked suspiciously like a smirk graced his lips.

She answered steadily, "Uncomfortable with me looking, Draco?"

He smiled, and it almost seemed sincere this time.

It didn't seem like a conversation a normal twelve-year-old schoolgirl would conduct with a normal thirteen-year-old schoolboy. If they had been older -

She would have seen the implications, and laughed at it.

Abruptly, though, he asked, "Why do you like Potter, Virginia?"

She gave him a sidelong glance. "What kind of question is that?"

"A fair enquiry."

"I would think it unfair."

"I am just doing a survey," replied Draco in mock-innocence, "of public opinion regarding the famous Boy-Who-Lived."

"He saved me last year. What am I supposed to say?"

There followed after Ginny's retort an uncomfortable silence.

"Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, / A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him." Ginny turned around to face him squarely at that, only to see that he wore a bitter smirk.

At her expression, the smirk broke, and he said, in a sneer, "Shakespeare, Virginia. From Cesario's courting of Olivia, Act One Scene Five of Twelfth Night."

"I don't love him." The answer was almost petulant, and most definitely childish.

Another gap of silence, as Ginny glared at Draco in her embarrassment, and Draco studied her under half-lidded eyes.

The mud continued to drip down his collar.

"Good." Finally a reply, but it was almost imperceptible; Draco strode away quickly as soon as he let the word escape off the tip of his tongue, Ginny knew that he had conceded her nothing.

She wondered at what it could mean.

~

Yong Shu Han Dracognius-Normandy was not a simple girl.

She lifted a goblet of water to her lips, as she watched Ronald Weasley with his best friends, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, from across the Great Hall.

She was an avid chess-player - Blaise, she thought, almost fondly, was a formidable adversary, and there were two or three older Slytherins and Ravenclaws who were talented as well, but she had never played against Ron Weasley.

She had seen him play, though. His movements were almost instinctual, quick. Never pausing for too long.

He wasn't openly calculative, but nevertheless she could not deny he had some kind of strategy for each game - even if it were simply fool's strategy.

But who are we to judge, whether one is a fool or no?

Ron Weasley, she suspected, was no fool.

He was hotheaded, yes. Oblivious. Not very much academically inclined, and even less very much of a risk-taker. And sometimes even rather cocky, and presumptuous.

Comparing him to the boys that she knew -

Blaise, detached, aloof, calm, mild, altogether neutral on the outside, as his family would decree him so. A mess, an emotional wasteland inside, no thanks to Xander. At times incisive, derisive, and always intelligent. His strange concern for Draco Malfoy would always confuse her: it was incongruous to his attitude towards others, but she could vaguely draw parallels between his and Draco's relationship, with Weasley's devotion to Potter. Only that, of course, Blaise was never so demonstrative.

Lane Wyck-Devereaux, whom she would never like, more because of their families' mutual long-standing dislike for each other. She was self-aware. She knew that both families only hated each other because they were too much alike. Both protective, and power-hungry. Both outwardly neutral, holding up respectable fronts to the rest of the wizarding world. Wyck-Devereaux was manipulative, unscrupulous, for all his angelic appearance and sublime model student behaviour. Very much like herself, she would think wryly - they both knew how to attain power through the rigid school hierarchy. Wyck-Devereaux would never tell lies, but he would also never tell the truth.

Draco Malfoy, who was controlled to the point where the balance between control and his natural self had spilled into each other. He could not control himself - but paradoxically, he was always controlled. He showed too much, carried his heart on his sleeve. In a House where ambition was necessary but hidden, he had showed too much of ambition, had been too desperate. It would be dangerous for him. He wasn't ruthless enough.

Julian Stillingfleet Ravenscroft, whom she knew only through her father's sporadic mentions of him, and snatches of information she had managed to garner herself, forever bitter for his father's abandonment so many years ago. He was wilder than Draco Malfoy himself - even the Wyck-Devereauxs, Shu Han would think in amusement, would find it difficult to control him. He was a wild card - handpicked by the most brilliant and most reclusive of Europe's academia to study in the Wizarding Conservatorium of Europe after spending most of his life in the wizarding private schools of Shantung and Harbin (as a loner, even then), Shu Han knew that even Paris Wyck-Devereaux, not unintelligent himself and who was thought to be closest to him, would never be sure of his character, much less the direction he - and ultimately, of course, the House of Ravenscroft -- would choose to take once he came of age in three years' time. He would never truly belong to any side besides his own. He was not the puppet vessel House the Wyck-Devereauxs had thought he would be - he was not his father.

And finally Dermot Leighswift, her family's own vessel House. The House of Leighswift was broken beyond repair - they had lost everything in succession: their land, their wealth, and ultimately, their reputation. Looked down upon by the other Pureblood families, which were in turn of lesser blood then them, and of shorter heritage, because of their dealings with the Dark Elves, and the Shadow World. Niflheim. Almost all of them had been executed following Voldemort's defeat: let the Dark fall with the Dark, they had said.

The Leighswifts, they forgot, were still one of the Seven. And the Elves always remembered, for all their capriciousness, for all their petty evil. And the creatures of Niflheim lay in wait, restlessly dormant, waiting to be called back to Midgard, the human world, under the patronage of those who had aided them before.

Dermot Leighswift was a powerful ally to have, despite his lacking in fortune and influence. And the Leighswifts, like their supernatural allies, had long memories. Dermot, typically handsome with his blonde hair and light blue eyes, together with his smooth, oily cunning and charm, was perhaps considered the most superficial and mercenary of all of the Houses' heirs. But he was still useful, nevertheless.

Shu Han's thoughts returned to Ron Weasley.

His sister Virginia was more careful, more calculative. She was not unintelligent - her academic achievements were hardly awe-inspiring, but they were most certainly respectable. She had a marred sort of innocence; Shu Han had noticed how her forays with Draco Malfoy would always lead to long periods of thoughtfulness. She was not one to forget, and she learnt quickly, and responded as much. That Shu Han had also noticed in Ron Weasley's many rather public chess games (no thanks to his rather loud voice, especially during Christmas) the latter trait: he was not one to attack, more to learn and adapt, to respond.

Ron Weasley's response to Harry Potter's extension of friendship had been unwavering devotion.

Shu Han returned the goblet to its position on the table.

His defences would be too much work to infiltrate. He was a Weasley, a truly Gryffindoric one at that: she was a Dracognius-Normandy, and a Slytherin.

She was already planning an attack. And, of course, a bluff in the form of herself and Blaise.

~