The Missing Link

CHAPTER TWO

Harry lay awake in his bed and watched through a gap in the brocade curtains as the sun slowly began its climb through the sky. As far as he could tell without looking at his watch, it wasn't much past five in the morning, but he knew he wouldn't get any more sleep.

There were a couple of niggling worries which were bothering Harry. Well, he corrected himself, there was one gigantic, obvious, sumo wrestler type of a worry, but aside from the whole saving-the-world thing, two other issues stood out.

One of these was Ginny. Funny, he thought, how a single word could encompass all the maelstrom of emotions that it unleashed inside him. He wasn't sure when she'd become this important to him. It wasn't one of those always-there-but-never-spoken things; it had been long and gradual, so gradual that he couldn't even begin to fathom how she had switched from being the funny little girl with too much hair and no voice to a girl who made his breath catch when she smiled - and even when she didn't.

But then there was Ron. Harry glanced over at the bed next to him, where his best friend slumbered on in oblivion, and scowled. Something told Harry that Ron would not be impressed if he asked Ginny to the Ball. In fact, apoplectic rage probably didn't even cover it. For someone with six siblings, Ron did the spoilt only child act very well. He really didn't like to share what he considered to be his first, and Ginny definitely qualified under that category. However, Harry was not prepared to give up on Ginny and take some other random girl (it didn't matter who; no-one else compared) to the Ball just because of Ron. Which probably meant there were going to be some interesting times ahead.

Aside from all the issues of asking Ginny out though, there was the act itself. He wasn't sure he could ever pluck up the courage to do it. Of course he knew, like the rest of school and probably the rest of the wizarding world by now, that Ginny had had a crush on him for quite some time, but he had always viewed it in an abstract way, as though it wasn't really the two of them but a completely different couple. And anyway, what was it Hermione had said only a few months ago....that Ginny had "given up" on him a long time ago.

Which of course she would, Harry chastised himself. Why should she wait around for five years while his lumbering Neanderthal brain finally cottoned in to the fact that she was perfect?

He swore out loud, and then started a little as Ron emitted a loud snore and turned on his side. Harry sighed, and scrambled out of his twisted bed clothes. He was going to regret it later on today but right now, he didn't want to stay in bed another second. With the vague idea of jogging down to the Quidditch pitch to blow away the anxieties in an early morning flight he pulled on his robes and headed down to the common room.

*

Ginny was awake too, and had been for a long time. She had dressed herself and slipped downstairs to the common room before the sun had even risen and was now curled up on a window seat, partially concealed by the curtains, watching the mist melt away from the grounds, thinking.

The last few weeks or so had been confusing to say the least, full of incomprehensible lessons and surprising invitations. Of course she had known that physically she had changed over the last couple of months, but she still wasn't prepared for the amount of attention she was now receiving. Several of the boys in her own year asked her to go with them, as did a couple of the Gryffindors in the year above, and a few others looked like they would if they thought they had a shot, such as Neville Longbottom, who flushed purple every time he saw her and dropped everything he was holding.

Ginny turned them all down. The other Fifth Year Gryffindor girls clearly thought she was mad, and Sally actually got on her knees and begged when Seamus Finnigan asked her.

"But he's so cute!" she pleaded, "and Irish! Cute and Irish - what more could you want?"

Ginny grinned at the memory of Sally prostrated at her feet, but the smile quickly faded. Ever since she was a little girl, reading the stories her father bought her about princesses and knights, she had had an image in her head of how her first ball should be (technically she hadn't been invited to the Yule Ball, Neville had, so she didn't think that counted). She could see herself, in gorgeous deep purple robes, dancing with a tall, lean, capable boy, her skirts twirling around them as they waltzed. She couldn't see her partner's face, and even his hair colour was indistinct, but she had an instinctive feeling that he was not Seamus Finnigan, or any of the other boys who had asked her so far. In her first year she had liked to daydream that it was Tom, free from the diary, smiling down at her and holding her close in his arms, but Harry had forced out that particular piece of the mental propaganda at which Tom was so skilled. So Ginny had reverted to type, and spent the next few years whiling away the lonely hours imagining what Harry would be like to dance with. She dreamed that he would lead; a natural dancer, sure and steady, and very attentive... Ginny snorted as she remembered the Yule Ball; once again, Harry had destroyed her ideal. But who else could it be? Ginny was drawing a blank.

And as time went on, and all the other girls in her dormitory paired off, she began to get a little nervous. She already knew from harsh experience that what happened in her head was not necessarily going to happen in reality. What if she had missed her opportunity and now wouldn't be able to go to the Ball at all? She sighed heavily, and then started as a voice asked, "Ginny?"

She sighed again, but silently. It was Harry. The last thing she felt in the mood for now was a stilted, non-conversation with the Boy-Who-Lived, especially looking as she did, which she knew was something equivalent to the proverbial death warmed up. Slowly, she drew back the curtain that was hiding her, and peered round it.

Harry frowned at her.

"What are you doing behind there?" he asked.

Ginny shrugged, stifling a yawn. "Nothing really. Couldn't sleep."

"Join the club." He smiled tiredly, then shifted from one foot to the other, a little nervously, as if making up his mind to do something. "Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you. Do you mind if I join you a minute?"

In answer, Ginny swung her legs sideways off the window seat to give Harry room to sit down, though he paused before doing so, and then looked so ill at ease that Ginny asked, with a worried frown, "What is it? What's happened?"

Harry smiled tremulously. "Nothing, nothing. It's just..." His voice trailed off and he turned away from her to look out of the window. "God, this is never going to be easy, is it?"

Ginny stared. Suddenly, she had a feeling that she knew exactly where this was going, and she wasn't really sure how she felt about it. If it had been a year ago she would have been over the moon, but now, well, to be brutally honest it kind of disappointed her that Harry was as susceptible as any other boy to what seemed to her a very slight change in her appearance.

Harry swallowed. He couldn't believe how nervous he was. This was Ginny, for goodness' sake! He'd known her for years - why did his mouth go so dry and his stomach feel like it had just collapsed in on itself because of Ginny? He stared out over the grounds, the lake gleaming in the early morning sunshine and thought reflectively, I'm going to be sick.

The silence was stretching out between them, awkward and ungainly. Harry sighed inwardly, clutching at the chaff that was all he had left of his courage, and laughed at himself. I can face down Voldemort and a crowd of Death Eaters, but try to ask a girl to a ball and I fall to pieces! Hardly a classic Achilles' Heel but there you go. He mentally shook his head to clear it. Right, this is stupid. Just do it!

"Gin, do you want to go to the Ball with me?" Inside the sleeves of his Quidditch jersey, his fingers tied themselves in knots

Ginny smiled a small smile, and looked a little wistful, but Harry was too wound up to take proper notice and the next minute it had been replaced by a real grin and a faint flush on her cheeks as she replied, "Yes, Harry. I'd love to."

Harry grinned stupidly back at her, the weight that had settled in his chest gone so fast he felt as though he was flying weightlessly already. Realising he was staring at her, he blushed and looked away quickly, running his fingers randomly through his hair. Remembering the reason he had originally come down the stairs, he cleared his throat and asked, "Do you want to come down to the Quidditch pitch with me? Early morning one-on-one?"

"Sure," she smiled back, jumping off the seat, "I'll just go and get changed."

After she'd gone, Harry leaned back against the casement, grinning inanely again, now that there was no-one there to see. The good feeling vanished however, when his eyes alighted on the boys' staircase, and he remembered another red-head who was still asleep upstairs.

Ron, he thought. Shit.

*

Draco had always had trouble sleeping. Yes, he had his own room, luxurious almost, but crucially, not quite to the point of vulgarity. Even so, if insomnia struck, velvet wall hangings and crisp linen sheets really didn't help much. At such times he'd much rather trade them for a decent Sleeping Draught, but of course, like all useful things, Malfoys didn't take Sleeping Draughts. According to his father, only the weak-minded required help to do something as basic as fall asleep. It was very easy to hear the sneer in his voice when he had said that.

So, Draco often didn't get to sleep until some ridiculous time shortly after dawn, and as a result usually woke late. And on this particular morning, as he climbed the stairs out of the dungeons into the Entrance Hall, yawning ungraciously, he saw Potter and Ginny walking in from the grounds, together.

Quickly, he ducked back inside the archway, and watched them as they crossed the Hall and headed off up the stairs which presumably led to the Gryffindor common room. They were both carrying their brooms and wearing Quidditch robes, their faces rosy from the exercise and the early morning chill. Harry said something to Ginny, gesturing towards the brooms and she threw back her head and laughed out loud. Draco had never seen anyone laugh like that before, a child's gurgle, completely unstudied and unconscious of how she might appear to others. It was captivating....

Draco scowled, and kicked the wall hard, frowning even more as his toes were crushed against the unyielding stone. Limping through to the Slytherin table, he slouched into his seat and picked over the remainders of breakfast.

"Draco, darling, don't be silly! I saved you your favourite, look!"

Draco swore under his breath. Pansy, playing 1950s housewife again. He had been getting a good taste, over the last few weeks, of what exactly life would be like with Pansy. Answer: insupportable. The babbling and nonsensical letters had continued to stream through his bedroom window, only now they had reached previously unheard of heights of pointlessness since she also seemed to be permanently attached to his elbow. She had even flirted outrageously with the portrait of a sixteenth-century Malfoy which guarded his bedroom door, so that he would let her in and out without the password. Now, when he darted into his room to pick up a forgotten textbook or grab a handful of extra quills, he was always either being bombarded by a rain of candy hearts, or nearly drowning in a sea of crimson rose petals. She had even, most memorably, charmed the dragon on his schoolbag so that it chanted, at the most inopportune moments, "Draco and Pansy forever," in a breathless voice.

Yes, he definitely blamed Pansy for this silly infatuation with Ginny Weasley. It wasn't even an infatuation; it was simply that, compared to Pansy, even that girl in Ravenclaw with the off-centre nose was starting to look appealing! And Ginny was the complete opposite of Pansy. Fairly tall, slender, with no make-up and a total unconsciousness of her appeal, she contrasted sharply with the short, curvy, heavily made-up and posing Pansy Parkinson.

Of course, that didn't entirely explain why he watched her. Suddenly Ginny Weasley was everywhere...even if he had to walk ten minutes out of his way and climb entirely the wrong staircase just to make sure he saw her. But wherever she was, Potter wasn't far behind.

Potter! Draco's mind spat out the name like poison. He knew, like the rest of the conscious human race, that Ginny had had an almighty crush on Potter for years. Who could forget that tragic Valentine's Day rhyme? She had changed so much since then, but from what he had seen this morning, in some ways she was entirely the same.

His eyes narrowed as he pushed away Pansy's carefully prepared plate of food and poured himself some black coffee, watching her over the rim of his mug as she entered the room, freshly washed and in clean robes with Harry by her side.

Doesn't she realise she's nothing to him? he wondered. Potter's an old fashioned hero, convinced of his own superiority and the necessity of working alone. And probably with one of those big compensatory swords strapped on his back for good measure, he added vindictively.

He scowled viciously across the Great Hall, until one of the Weasley twins happened to glance up and intercept his gaze. Draco quickly looked away, then dropped his coffee cup onto the table and stalked out of the room, ignoring Pansy's attempts to call him back.

*

George turned to his twin and said in an undertone, "He was at it again."

It was a mark of their closeness that Fred needed no other clarification. He swivelled around in his seat just in time to spot the edge of Draco's robe as he whipped around the doorjamb.

"Damn him," Fred replied in a furious whisper, "what's he up to?"

George shrugged. "You think we should tell her?" It wasn't really a question, because he already knew the answer, and when Harry got up and left the table a moment later, the pair took their cue.

*

Natalie MacDonald turned to her friend and arched an elegant eyebrow. Ginny blushed.

"Alright, alright," she sighed, "You were right."

Nat whooped before she remembered where she was, with the help of a well-placed kick from Ginny.

"Ow! I was right - I must get some gloating time! Oh," she added, "do you want some more good news, or is your heart bursting with joy as it is?"

"Shut up," replied Ginny, smiling, "what is it now?"

"Oh, nothing," said Natalie, airily, "only there was a declaration from Dumbledore up in the common room this morning saying that he'd cancelled all afternoon lessons on Halloween, which means-"

"No Potions!" they cried in synchrony, stopping abruptly when they were interrupted by a voice above their heads.

"Oh, 'tis a happy, happy day!" exclaimed Fred as he and George elbowed their way into seats on either side of their sister.

She waved goodbye to Nat as she left the table then frowned at each of them in turn. "What are you two up to?"

"Nothing, nothing," replied George. "Can't a brother sit next to his little sister without any accusation?"

Ginny shrugged and carried on eating her cereal.

"So," said Fred conversationally after he and George had helped themselves to eggs and bacon, "you're going to the Ball with Harry tonight?"

Ginny rolled her eyes; here it comes. "How did you know that?"

George rolled his eyes back at her. "Natalie all but screeched it about five minutes ago - it didn't take MI6 level subterfuge, you know Gin!"

"On which note," added Fred, in a lower tone, "I wouldn't get too Smug Married just yet. We still haven't heard from Ronniekins-"

Ginny drew herself up. "As if I care whether Ron thinks someone is alright for me to go out with or not!"

But Fred cut across her. "Yes, yes, women's rights, independence, rah, rah, rah. But step down from your soapbox a minute 'cos actually, the real reason we wanted to talk to you was that someone is following you around school - did you know?"

Ginny was taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. "I've been feeling as though I'm being watched but I thought it was just me being paranoid. Who is it?"

Fred and George exchanged dark looks before George replied, "Malfoy."

"Malfoy?" Ginny spluttered. "What on earth is he doing following me?"

Again, dark looks. "We don't know, but just watch out, ok? Knowing Malfoy, it isn't going to be because he wants to give you a surprise birthday party or something."

Ginny half-frowned, half-smiled. "Yeah, alright, but don't tell Ron and Harry.

You know what they'll get like, all protective and knight-in-shining-armour."

"As if you'd mind," scoffed Fred, throwing a hand theatrically against his forehead and leaning against his twin, proclaiming, "Oh Harry, my hero! Kiss me!"

*

Two hours later the hero in question was heading back up to the common room. Upon leaving the Great Hall, he had walked round and round the lake, thinking. Sooner or later, he knew, he was going to have to tell the others about the prophesy. He didn't want to think about it, but he had no choice. He knew that a good part of his obsessive nervousness about asking Ginny to the ball had been to do with displacing his anxiety about the prophesy. Killed or killer, before the end...

He had no idea how to broach a subject like that. How did you possibly begin it? Hey guys, guess what? The impossibility of the task ahead, and the fact that telling his friends would destroy the last threads of childhood and innocence they had left had held him back, and were still working against him. As long as he didn't admit it to the others, in some way, he didn't need to admit to it himself.

By the time he had made it to the portrait hole, he wanted nothing more than to curl up under his quilt cover and refuse to emerge until it was all over. He could hardly fight to the death with Voldemort from within a counterpane. Harry was aware he wasn't really thinking sensibly. He also knew he had other issues to take care of before he could retreat to his eiderdown hide-away.

"Phoenix-" began Harry, but then the Fat Lady swung open ferociously and Hermione appeared, looking highly aggravated.

"Hey, Hermione, where's R-" Harry's voice tailed off as he noticed her irate expression. "Alright," he said resignedly, "what happened?"

"Ron," Hermione spat, "is never going to ask me to a ball, ever! I don't know why I even bothered waiting this long for him to wake up. He is totally impossible and I don't give a- a- a rat's arse anymore. If he asks you, tell him I'm going to the ball with Terry Boot, who asked me last week!"

Oh dear, thought Harry tiredly, as he made his way over to their favourite seats by the fire and saw Ron glowering into the fire. This is not going to go well.

Double shit.

Ron was opening his mouth to speak, but Harry cut across him quickly. Ron was very like his mother in some respects - you had to head him off before he got into the flow.

"Ron, I want to talk to you about Ginny."

Ron frowned, concerned. "What about Ginny? What's happened?"

"Nothing's wrong," Harry hurried to reassure him. "Only, well, I was wondering..." Ron's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "whether it'd be okay if I, er, asked her to the ball?"

Harry's voice trailed off into silence. When he risked a look at his friend's face, he saw with dismay that it had soured.

"What, my parents and brothers aren't good enough for you?" asked Ron in a deceptively quiet voice. "You want my little sister too?"

"Ron, what are you talking about?" asked Harry confused. "I just want to go to the ball with Ginny, that's all!"

"That's all? That's all?" thundered Ron, taking Harry by surprise, "That isn't bloody all and you know it! You've taken all the others and now you want her too! Well, you can't have her!

"What the hell are you talking about, taken all the others?" demanded Harry, bewildered; this was really not looking good. "What, you've been hiding a whole crowd of sisters I've mysteriously done away with?"

"No, not sisters," spat Ron, bitterly, "Brothers. My brothers. And my mum and dad too. They all like you better than me - don't bother trying to deny it! You're the brother they always wanted, the son they never had - DON'T TRY AND DENY IT!" he yelled, as Harry tried to interject. "I've heard them all say it countless times! And I didn't mind, really I didn't, but this - Ginny? That's taking things too far don't you think, Harry? Ginny's all I have left; I'd be alone without her."

Harry's short-fuse temper, dulled by the grief of the summer, now sparked again.

"Alone? Oh, you're alone? Yes, of course, you've only got five brothers and a sister, and both your parents, and your godparents-"Harry forced that last word out of his mouth; he'd avoided saying it ever since the Department of Mysteries. "Oh, yes, I understand how your heart must be bleeding! How could I ever be so selfish as to want something for myself, when you know so clearly what it's like to be lonely! I mean really, Ron, if you're so isolated, why are you still ignoring Hermione, who might as well just throw herself at your feet for all the good it's-"

"YOU LEAVE HER OUT OF THIS!" screamed Ron, his face maroon with anger. "Or do you want her too? Wouldn't surprise me! You seem to want everything else that's mine - take her if you want her, go on. You'll get her in the end anyway; you always do get what you want. Ginny from me; Cho from Cedric-"

Harry's wand was suddenly pointing straight at Ron's throat and his voice was icily calm. Ron had a disturbing image of Harry in two years' time; a very terrifying force to be reckoned with.

"Say that again, would you?"

Ron raised his hands in a placatory manner. "Look, Harry, I'm sorry. That was out of order and I didn't-"

Harry interrupted him. "I think you'd better go. I don't trust myself, and at the moment, I don't see how I'll ever trust you again."

Ron was deathly pale. "Harry, I-I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking-"

"The problem is, Ron," said Harry, his voice still eerily calm, "that it has just been made painfully obvious that I never know what you are thinking." His shoulders sagged noticeably, and deep creases formed in his forehead and around his eyes. He was back to being a boy again, tired and solitary, and Ron felt a strong twinge of guilt mixed with an echo of his former anger. Even this argument had reverted to being All About Harry.

"Just go, Ron, please."

And he went, leaving Harry to rush upstairs to the dormitory, fling himself onto his bed, and cry as if his only wish was to drown himself in his tears.

*

Ginny woke up suddenly, a feeling of keen disappointment hovering in her chest. Disappointed about what? she asked herself. It seemed to bear no relation to her dream, or to herself at that moment, but when she got out of bed and padded over to the mirror, she could see the resentful lines of that mysterious emotion still etched into her face. She shook her head, trying to clear it. There was something familiar about this disappointment, almost as though it was a resonance of a previous existence ....

Ginny frowned, and turning quickly from the glass, shrugged her arms into her dressing-gown and headed downstairs. She didn't know where she was going, she just had to get away from the dormitory; somehow, she thought she would feel better almost anywhere else.

Her bare feet padding on the stone floors of the corridors made no noise, and her navy-blue dressing-gown blended into the inky darkness so that she almost walked into Draco before he knew she was there.

"Weasley," he hissed, "what the hell are you doing down here? Do you know what time it is?"

For a moment he thought she was in some kind of trance, but then she looked up at him and her eyes were perfectly lucid.

"No," she said. "What time is it?"

Draco's expression softened almost imperceptibly. She looked strangely adorable in the pass-me-down boys' nightclothes which drowned her slender frame, with her hair artlessly tousled, and her feet bare on the hard tile...

"Why on earth haven't you got any shoes on?" he asked roughly, dragging her into an empty classroom and onto a rug in front of an empty grate. "You must be freezing!"

Ginny looked down at her feet with a strange expression; they looked blue in the moonlight. "Yes, I am."

"Then why on earth didn't you put any shoes on?" he repeated. "And what do you think you're doing, wondering round after hours?"

Ginny blinked and suddenly seemed to realise where she was. "It's after hours for you too, you know? Even prefects have a curfew, Malfoy!"

Draco shrugged, then pulled a couple of chairs out from beneath a neighbouring desk and sat down, pushing the other over to Ginny.

"Couldn't sleep," he replied. "I generally can't, so I took to wandering round the castle instead. Better than lying in bed listening to Crabbe and Goyle snoring. Never seen you about before though. Your boyfriend, now he's a regular night owl-" Please contradict me, please contradict me, please contradict me, he thought desperately.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Ginny said viciously, then she blanched. "That is...I mean...."

Draco mentally thumped the air with his fist. "You mean," he continued smoothly, "that even though you're seen everywhere together, that you're now going to the ball together, that he drools all over himself whenever he sees you," (Join the club, Draco thought dryly), "you're 'just good friends.' Oh, yeah, perfectly platonic relationship."

Ginny had flushed beet-red. "Like that's any of your business, Malfoy!" She spat the name out, and internally, Draco flinched. "Anyway," she continued, "how do you know I'm going to the ball with Harry?"

The teasing inflection in her voice made Draco doubt the normally reliable gossip sources of the school, and hope for one all-too-swift moment that Potter had lost out after all.

Draco shrugged. "Come on, Ginny. This is Hogwarts. You can't keep a secret for longer than five seconds from the gossip grapevine!"

"Which includes your wonderful girlfriend!" Ginny shot back. "I guess Harry and I will see the two of you there!"

The ridiculous idea that Harry hadn't won the girl disappeared, leaving behind untouched only the cold, metal hatred of Potter himself.

"I suggest, Weasley," said Draco, his voice hard as steel, "that you run along back to your dormitory before I give you detention."

A new voice sounded from the doorway behind them. "You can't give detentions out, Malfoy - you're a prefect, not God!"

"Good God," said Draco, rising and yawning, "Granger's out and about too? What is tonight - the Gryffindor Teddy-bears' Picnic?"

Hermione's smile was thin-lipped and brief. "Good night, Malfoy."

After he had gone, Hermione turned to Ginny, and asked, astonishment plain on her face, "What on earth are you doing out of bed at this time of night, in an empty classroom, with him?"

"Enjoying a little late night verbal swordplay?" tried Ginny. She sighed at the unamused look on the other girl's face. "Oh, it wasn't like some sordid late night tryst, Hermione. I...erm....wasn't feeling very well, and I ran into Malfoy while I was a-wandering. No harm done - except I have blocks of ice for feet. Can I borrow your socks?"

Hermione exhaled heavily, then kicked off her slippers and threw her socks over to Ginny. "Why didn't you put your slippers on again, Ginny?" she asked, tiredly.

Ginny shrugged, suddenly feeling tired herself. "Oh, I don't know," she replied, "I wasn't really thinking what I was doing - I just had to get out of that dormitory!"

Hermione looked over at her shrewdly. "This whole thing wouldn't have anything to do with Harry, would it? I mean, of course I know he's going to the Ball with you, and I also know you don't exactly seem happy about it."

Ginny started, and tried in vain to cover it. She'd thought she'd been hiding her uncertainty so well, and she wanted to talk about it, but the problem with Hermione was that she was in some ways as remote to Ginny as Harry was, and so she was hard to confide in. Better in the long run, Ginny decided, to just head her off!

"It's just a silly thing, really," she said, before divulging to Hermione her Ball-fantasy, complete with purple robes, and now silver jewellery, for special effect. When she finished, Hermione looked a little confused, but her long association with boys meant that she felt she was out-of-touch with the way girls thought. Perhaps to Ginny this all made sense, instead of seeming like a jumble sale in the mind of a Brothers Grimm fanatic.

She herded Ginny off to bed, and once they had gone, Draco stepped out from behind the suit of armour which had been concealing him as he listened to their conversation.

Purple robes, eh?

*

The next day Ginny was very tired. She virtually sleep-walked to her lessons, and sleep-sat while she was there, chin resting on one hand, eyes blissfully out of focus. In the evening, while the other Gryffindor Fifth Year girls excitedly tried on their dress robes, Ginny lay flat out on her bed, one arm flung across her eyes.

Natalie was surreptitiously watching her. Ginny had been very subdued all day, more so even than usual, and Nat knew there was something more behind this than simply the lack of sleep she was touting to anyone else who asked. In fact, if someone was to ask her to put money on it, Nat was willing to bet that it had a least a little bit of a link to Harry Potter.

Having her eyes covered suited Ginny for two purposes. One, it shut out the light that was hurting her aching, sleep-deprived eyes; two, it meant she could avoid looking at the other girls in their gorgeous robes, when she only had an old set of her mother's to wear, which, while they were dyed a not totally horrible dusky pink, nevertheless clashed horribly with her hair, and did not fit her at all. She was going to look just as stupid as Ron; in fact, stupider, because he now had a new set of robes courtesy of Fred and George, and had personally set alight to the Rotten Lace Monstrosities.

It was because her eyes were concealed that the other girls had to tell her when the owl came through the open window and settled on the foot of her bed. Surprised, she reached out and detached the parcel tied to the owl's leg. It felt squishy and was surprisingly light for its size.

"I wonder why it wasn't delivered at dinner," said one of the other girls, while Ginny said, confusedly,

"I wasn't expecting any post."

Sally, on tenterhooks, cried out, "Open it, will you, Gin, and put us out of our misery! That was a school owl, unless I'm much mistaken..."

At this, all of the girls left off their toilettes for a chorus of whoops and cheers. Ginny, flustered, tore at the brown paper covering and then gasped, choking back tears. The girls flocked round her, peering over shoulders at the parcel.

Only a tiny segment of deep purple cloth was visible, and only Nat knew what that meant. Wonderingly, Ginny shook out the silken robes and, nestled within them, was a glittering choker and earrings. These were a surprise even to Nat, and the others ooh-ed and aah-ed, but Ginny only smiled even wider; the jewellery was exactly as she had described it to Hermione only the night before.

Sally reached out a reverent hand to stroke the rich material. "Now I forgive you for turning down Seamus," she said, "I only wish I'd done the same thing myself."

Ginny giggled and Nat gave her a shove. "As if Harry was ever interested in anyone except our Gin," she scoffed and Sally shrugged disconsolately, a smile half-pulling at her lips.

"Put them on, Ginny; put them on," cried several voices all at once, and soon Ginny stood in front of the floor-length mirror, drinking in the looks of envy from the girls arrayed behind her. She had never had anyone be jealous of anything she owned before, and it was exhilarating. Examining her reflection critically, though, she could see why.

The robes were the perfect shade of amethyst silk, and crystals of the semi-precious stone had been interwoven into the fabric, and they glittered when the light struck them. They seemed to have been made for her, but Ginny had heard of exclusive tailors in London charming their robes to fit perfectly whoever wore them and guessed that this was where they had been made. She dreaded to think how much they had cost; more than her entire wardrobe she was sure.

She gulped, chewing her bottom lip, then turned her back to this enchanting image of her ideal self. "I can't accept them," she said simply.

The girls all stared in shock, and then Sally cried out, "The hell you can't! Look at them Ginny, they were made for you. And Harry's getting the pleasure of your company for an entire night - he should at least pay well for it!"

They all fell about laughing at this announcement, but Ginny was soon grave.

"That's just it," she said, feeling the onset of a furious blush and trying to fight it back down again, "My mum always said I should never accept gifts from men because-"

Sally nodded. "Because you don't know what they want in return. Yeah, yeah, my mum too, but seriously, Ginny, do you expect Harry Potter to send you gorgeous dress robes just so he can use them as a bribe?"

Ginny shrugged. "Of course not, it's just...." She stroked a finger down the fabric again, then exhaled and added, "Fine, I'll wear them."

Hurrahs echoed round the chamber as the other Fifth Year girls converged on Ginny and, careless of creases or crumples, hugged her for all they were worth.

*

In other parts of the castle, the boys too were trying on their robes. The Ball was fast approaching, and it was one of very few events when you could be seen wearing something other than the uniform; everyone wanted to look their best.

Harry straightened his green robes and attempted to smooth his hair down over his scar. As his fingers brushed it, a twinge that was a mere echo of the pain that had woken him in the night caused his forehead to crease momentarily. He didn't understand it. It wasn't equivalent to the anguish of having Voldemort nearby, or thinking about hurting Harry. It had felt almost like a memory of that...

He shook his head and turned back to the mirror. He should probably expect twinges like these, now that Voldemort was back properly and ready to begin assaulting the wizarding world once more.

He attacked his hair again with a comb, but it sprang up as soon as he stopped pressing it down. Admitting defeat, he regarded himself solemnly for a minute, then struck a casual pose and said, "Hi," to his reflection.

In a Gryffindor girls' dormitory, Ginny smoothed her hair back off her face, and whispered, "Hi," at the mirror, before blushing inexplicably and looking down at her feet.

And in his private room, Draco stood in front of his ornate, gilded looking-glass, and whispered, "I knew you'd look beautiful in them, because you always look beautiful anyway." Then his gaze turned into a grimace as he shrugged his arms quickly out of his robes and flung them onto a chair in a corner of the room.

Simpering, he thought viciously, I was simpering! Over a Weasley! This damn ball can't come soon enough...