The Missing Link

CHAPTER THREE

It was dark, but not a blank, unyielding dark. There was a tumultuousness behind the blackness which scared Ginny and she didn't understand it. Odd sparks momentarily shone in the gloom, like flickering light-bulbs, illuminating strange tableaux that she did not recognise.

A young woman, very young, lay weeping on a bed. Her face was frighteningly blank of features, a play-dough ball waiting to be moulded. Her hair was an indistinguishable shade, moving from brown to black to blonde to grey seamlessly. Her grief, though, was an awe-inspiring, gut-wrenching emotion. Ginny could almost taste it on the air, bittersweet like green apples; could feel it running through her fingers like the threads of snagged silk.

Next a young boy, better defined. Black-haired, he was facing away from her, staring fixedly at a point on the wall five metres away, as though if he could just pinpoint it exactly in his mind, the rest of the world would fall away and be forgotten. Harry, Ginny breathed, wishing she could reach out and smooth his hair, iron out the creases she knew would be aging his brow too soon. Life was never easy for you, was it?

Now an older boy still, not Harry this time, although in some ways remarkably like him, from the determined set of his mouth to his world-weary expression. Shocking, that an eleven-year-old should look so sick of it all, should already want out. He was holding a book, idly turning the pages to and fro, not reading a word...

Then there was blackness again, that swirling, nauseating dark that made her feel as though she was falling and falling into an endless abyss, tossing and turning, floundering for an escape, any escape, clutching at straws, at anything, at everything, at the very fabric of the air, at the fabric of time, clawing and screaming and-

"GINNY! For God's sake, WAKE UP!"

Ginny started, suddenly sitting bolt upright. Nat fell backwards into a heap on the floor with a girlish shriek. She sat up again, holding her hand over her heart.

"You frightened me to death, Gin! What on earth were you dreaming about?"

Ginny frowned, searching her memory, grasping at the tendrils of the nightmare. "There was a woman, crying...she had no face. And a boy who was... so sad. Oh, and Harry was there too, only very young and then there was just....darkness." She shuddered. "How long was I asleep?"

Natalie glanced at her watch. "About an hour I think. I did come up to see if you were feeling any better but..." She trailed off delicately and added instead, "Perhaps after you've had a bath you'll be more like yourself."

When Ginny took a look at herself in the mirror a few minutes later, after Natalie had headed downstairs again, she could see what Nat had meant. Her face had a sheen of cold sweat, and her forehead was once again creased with an unfamiliar emotion. She searched her mind, trying out different descriptions until she settled on depressed and....resigned.

Resigned to what? she asked herself, as she grabbed her towel and headed for the bathroom. To having six completely infuriating brothers? To going to the ball with Harry - no, wait, that hit a little close to home, didn't it?

Scolding herself quietly, she shut the door a little too hard behind her.

*

Ron hurled a stone into the lake, then stooped to pick up another one. He'd never felt worse in his whole, entire life. It had been a week since he had had that argument with Harry, and they still weren't talking.

He didn't know how he could ever have said those things to Harry, who was his best friend - almost his brother. Especially when he knew how much Harry was already suffering. Harry's guilt over Sirius' death was still an almost-visible weight around his neck, dragging him earthward; how could Ron even have thought about adding to it?

And why had Harry asking Ginny to the Ball seemed so bad all of a sudden? Ron had had it at the back of his mind for years; a means of keeping his beloved younger sister away from Undesirables and of integrating Harry properly into the Weasley family at the same time. However, once that magical image was within reaching distance, instead of clapping Harry on the back, and dancing the dance of joy when he left the room, Ron had had what appeared to have been an embolism, or possibly a full-frontal lobotomy, whatever they were, and gone into meltdown. It couldn't have been, it hadn't been him, not really...and yet...

That was the worst part of it; that Ron knew that he had meant every word he had said. It had been as though an alternative Hyde-Ron had sprung up from the darkest recesses and shadows of Ron's mind and regurgitated, with terrifying accuracy, all of the most terrible thoughts that had ever occurred to him. It hadn't been entirely Hyde-Ron's fault though; there was a part of Jekyll-Ron which had also relished watching Harry squirm, had enjoyed the feeling of power, the knowledge that he could find the chinks in Harry's formidable armour and do what even Voldemort could not. He could break the Boy Who Lived.

Ron swore, and flung another pebble out into the water, as if by that gesture he could also fling that offending part of his character away. He hated both of those alternative Rons; they weren't him, not really! He loathed himself for what he had said, and for being made up of those tiny pieces which didn't really loathe him at all.

He stayed by the lake until dark. He wasn't going to the Ball so there was no need for him to go in any earlier. Everyone would say he was sulking; that he was sitting upstairs bewailing the fact that Harry was with Ginny, but Ron knew why he was avoiding his two best friends, and why he had yet to apologise.

He couldn't bear to look into their faces and see reproach in Hermione's eyes, and a hideous, eternal grief in Harry's, and know that he had put them there.

*

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table, pulling a bread roll apart piece by piece, but not eating. Every so often his hand drifted up to his scar, and his forehead was scored by lines of concentration. He had circles around his eyes, and looked ill; Ginny guessed he wasn't sleeping any better than she was.

"Are him and Ron still not talking?" Nat whispered, gesturing at Harry.

Ginny shook her head. "No. It's been a week. I've never seen the two of them look this miserable."

"Have you tried to talk to either of them about it?" Nat asked.

"God, no!" Ginny replied viciously. "It's the Trio! Compared to them, Gringotts has got "Please, come in, and help yourselves" carved above the front door!"

Natalie half-smiled, then continued, "I don't know. At the moment, it doesn't look like there's much of a Trio left...but don't tell the first years I said that - they'd go into mass mourning!"

Her friend laughed aloud at that, adding, "They're the Trio, Nat. They've been through worse than this, trust me! They'll be fine.... Or they'd better be! God help me if word gets round that I split up the Trio."

*

Harry looked up at the hysterical laughter from down the table and smiled faintly. At least she was happy...

He had woken up this morning from a long night's rest, feeling as though he had barely slept at all. His head was pounding, and his scar aching, with flashes of pain that made his eyes water. One was so strong he thought he was going to faint. Before he knew what he was doing he had reached out blindly across the divide to Ron's bed....

But there was to be no help from that quarter. After the pain had subsided, Harry had realised that Ron had already dressed and left - that, or he hadn't slept in the tower at all last night. There was no confiding in Hermione either. She had made it perfectly clear, even before Ron or himself had had the chance to tell her the full story, that she didn't want to be stuck in the middle of another of their "silly arguments," and until they were talking to each other again, neither of them should bother trying to speak to her. Probably she hadn't meant that rule to apply in cases of impending doom, but Harry wasn't going to force her to listen to him. Ron had just looked daggers at him, and flounced off in the opposite direction, and Harry was left at a bit of a loose end.

True, he had asked Ginny to the Ball, and so he should be able to talk to her about things that were bothering him, but... well... it was Ginny. She had never been a part of the Trio's day-to-day lives; she had no knowledge of the fact that he was often plagued by strange pain and suffered from nightmares which had a worrying tendency of becoming reality. Possibly she had a vague idea of some kind of link between Harry and Voldemort after the Department of Mysteries fiasco -Harry winced mentally and pushed that away- but she only definitely knew of the one dream in which her father had been injured. Harry didn't want to burden her with the rest. Truth be told, he actually quite liked her not knowing. It made her a sort of refuge from all the other madnesses which made up his life in general. Harry was beginning to realise more and more that perhaps one of the reasons he focussed his attentions on Ginny as much as he did was because she was one of the very few people who saw him as just Harry, not as The Boy Who Lived, or a ticking time-bomb, about to detonate. That was not something he wanted to give up, or watch change before his very eyes any time soon.

*

Ginny sat on her bed, stroking the soft silken material of her new robes and looking thoughtful. It was the night of the Ball, in fact, she should be meeting Harry in the common room in the next ten minutes, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to get ready. All of the other girls, except Nat, had gone downstairs and were no doubt already in the Great Hall, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the decorations and awkwardly accepting compliments from their dates.

Natalie, however, was attempting to twist her heavy, dark-brown hair up into an elaborate hairstyle without magic, while unfortunately for her, both it and gravity had other ideas. After the coiffure fell apart in a cascade of curls for the umpteenth time, she gave a sigh of frustration, scattering hair-grips over the floor as she cried, "Sod it! I give up! Right, I'm ready; Ginny, are you com-"

She stopped abruptly as she took in Ginny's dishevelled appearance.

"Ginny, why aren't you ready? Are you not coming?"

Ginny started out of her thoughts, and then said, "No, I'm coming. It's just...."

"Just what? It's late, Harry'll be waiting, and if you don't hurry up, we'll miss all the Looks of Death the little kiddies'll give you as they head up to bed!"

Ginny smiled, and shook her head slightly. Pulling her hair out of its ponytail, she combed her fingers through it half-heartedly and said, "Ugh. I'm a mess, Nat. Look at my hair."

"Never mind that, I have a cunning plan. Just get your robes on."

As Ginny stood in front of the mirror smoothing down the material, Natalie reappeared behind her, and waved something silver in front of her face.

"Kneel down, Gin," she commanded. "You're too tall, I can't see what I'm doing."

Ginny knelt, casting a half-worried glance over her shoulder. "What are you going to do to me?" She knew Nat's penchant for slightly over-the-top hairstyles.

"Nothing too outrageous, don't you worry," Nat replied, her speech slurred by the pins in her mouth. "Wouldn't suit your style anyway. You need something elegant. Classic. Now face forwards, or it'll turn out lopsided!"

Ginny watched in the mirror as Nat brushed her hair off her face and twisted it carefully up, using the comb to anchor the soft mass firmly.

"It was my great-grandmother's," Nat explained as she pulled a couple of stray pieces of hair down to frame Ginny's face, and curled them around her wand. "Lose it, and we are both dead."

A few moments and a touch of eye make-up later, Nat surveyed her handiwork in the mirror.

"God, I wish I had your hair," she sighed, scrunching her own up a little, "You can do anything with it. Mine just....sits there."

Ginny tutted at her. "Thanks for the compliment, but your hair is gorgeous, as well you know, and I would happily swap it with you any day of the week. Come on, we're late."

"I guess I'll have to get practising those Switching Spells then," said Nat, laughing, as Ginny grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. "God, I hate it when teachers are right."

*

Harry was sitting in his favourite chair in front of the fire, jiggling his foot up and down violently as a vent for his impatience. Getting ready in the dormitory with Ron's bed curtains shut tight against the world had been awkward to say the least, and he was acutely aware of his best friend's empty seat facing him on the other side of the hearth. He needed his friends now, as the common room emptied of its assembled couples, and the other Gryffindor boys sent looks of concern his way as they left through the portrait hole with their dates. He needed Hermione's explanation of why in the world Ginny was this late, and he needed Ron to throw a few well-aimed wisecracks his way to lighten his mood.

Pity Ron's aim is so good with other stuff as well as jokes, thought Harry darkly, staring into the flames. He couldn't shake the feeling that Ginny's accepting him as her date had all been an elaborate hoax, and that any minute now, the Fat Lady would swing open once more to admit a crowd of laughing students, prominent among whom would be Ginny, on the arm of someone really foul, like Malfoy.

This picture was so vivid that Harry half-turned in his seat, expecting it to come true in a hideous fashion at any moment. This is the problem, he thought suddenly. This is why life at Hogwarts hurts so much more than life at the Dursleys', even if I was miserable there. Let people get close to you, and you give them the ability to hurt you. Ron did it, Ginny's doing it, Sirius- Quickly, he cut off that last thought. It was a rule he'd set in order to prevent himself being overwhelmed in the tsunami that name unleashed. Sirius was dead, and Harry dying from the inside out wasn't going to bring him back. Control, level-headedness: that was the name of the game.

He was so taken up in his thoughts that even a discreet cough from Nat failed to attract his attention, so she buffeted him around the head playfully, and pointed back to the girls' staircase as she left the common room to find her date.

Rubbing the back of his head ruefully as he turned round (like her hair, Nat also liked her jewellery big), he gaped when he saw Ginny standing at the foot of the stairs, half-smiling and looking nervous.

*

Draco carefully combed his hair into place, then stepped back to survey himself in the mirror, and scowled. He hated these robes. The Old Parish Vicar set were preferable to them, and he had thought it was impossible to detest an inanimate object more than he had detested them. Why his father wouldn't allow him to pick out his own clothes was beyond him. Lucius said that it was because his taste lacked refinement, and the touch of exaggerated luxury which was the Malfoy trademark. Draco thought that if his father's taste was supposed to be the way forward, he'd rather follow Weasley as a fashion icon. Draco had an idea that even Lockhart would probably draw the line at encrusting his wand with gemstones.

As soon as they entered the shop, Draco knew he was fighting a losing battle. He worked hard to keep his lip from curling as he took in the gilt decoration, the simpering Grecian statues and the sales assistants too eager to please. There had been very little to Draco's taste there, though one set of robes in deep grey silk shot with black caught his eye. Understated yet obviously of the highest quality, that was his style.

Not - unfortunately for him - his father's though, and it was with a resounding aura of disbelief that a short time later he found himself being fitted for a set made of crushed black velvet with silver trimmings. As well as objecting to the general ostentation of the outfit, velvet had always made Draco's flesh creep, and the contrast between the dark material and his own white colouring made him look like an anaemic Little Lord Fauntleroy. This resemblance hadn't faded in the few months since his father had purchased the dress robes. All I need is the lace ruff and golden ringlets, he thought sourly, as he turned disgustedly from the glass. Either that, or a scythe and I could be Death Warmed Up. Although that might be appropriate...

Draco was utterly appalled with himself for sending Ginny the secret dress robes. He could only assume that she had somehow cast an enchantment over him that made him take on all the character of a limp cabbage for a few hours (possibly she had switched his own personality with Longbottom's, who had appeared surprisingly empowered for a short time last week), during which time acting like a complete berk had seemed a good idea. Sending robes! Pansy's damned love letters seemed quite original and risqué in comparison. However, he had thought of a way of using this supreme embarrassment to gain his own end. As his father was so fond of saying, Malfoys only ever give in order to receive.

Draco chuckled dryly. He was going to exorcise whatever demon was currently taking up valuable real estate in his head on her orders, and rid himself of this ridiculous infatuation with Ginny Weasley once and for all.

"Yoo hoo! Draco, darling, are you ready? We'll be late."

Draco shuddered. A whole evening of Pansy! Bring on midnight.

*

Harry stared at Ginny for about half a minute before she began to look distinctly uncomfortable, and he suddenly realised how stupid he must seem. As he moved forward to greet her, he marvelled at the calming effect she had on him. He had only to see her, and all of his other worries, and indeed the rest of the world, fell away and ceased to exist.

"Ginny," he said, as he drew closer, "you look...amazing."

She coloured prettily. "Thanks. You look nice too," she replied. Then, twirling her skirts, she added, "You like?"

Harry stepped back a little to take in their full effect, and Ginny turned a mock-pirouette, so that the slivers of amethyst shimmered and danced like so many miniature prima ballerinas. Losing her balance a little as she spun around on the narrow step, she pitched forward a little and would have fallen if Harry had not caught her. He smiled up at her as he released her. "Careful! Yes, they're very pretty. Where did you get them?"

Ginny giggled. As if you don't know, she thought. Though if you want to play this game...

"Early birthday present?" she replied, grinning, slightly mischievously.

Harry was a little mystified by her questioning tone but then, The twins, he thought. Of course. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. They could hardly buy Ron a set and not get Ginny some too. I just hope they didn't tell her where the money originally came from. I don't want any of the Weasley family feeling obligated to me...but especially her.

He was surprised at how much easier this was than his disastrous date with Cho Chang. Yes, she was wearing posh robes and her hair was twisted up, but she was still just Ginny. If he did sometimes feel like he'd misplaced his internal organs when he was around her that was just part of her charm. With every passing second, he felt his earlier nervous nausea drift further and further away. Ginny knew who he was, so she could have no impossibly high expectations about the Boy Who Lived. She knew he was an appalling dancer, that he wasn't the world's greatest conversationalist, and that he had an awful temper sometimes. She had played a significant part in some of his adventures, and she knew how bad it could get. Yet she was still here, going to the Ball with him, in preference to any of the other boys who had asked her. That thought filled Harry with a new-found confidence, and turning to her, he grinned, gave a mock bow and offered her his arm, saying, "Shall we?"

She giggled again, he laughed out-loud for the first time in a week, and together they headed downstairs.

*

The teachers had decided to take a departure from the usual Halloween decorations this year, and the students who were already in the Great Hall gaped instead at the strings of crystals draped over the walls, which refracted rainbows of light from the stars above onto the upturned faces below.

Most of the people were enchanted, and chatted excitedly to their neighbours as their hair glowed pink, lilac, blue and green. A couple sat apart, however, who did not.

Cho had only noticed the crystalline lighting effect to complain to Marietta that it was spoiling the effect of her dress robes. Frankly, Marietta thought Cho's dress robes needed all the help they could get. Presumably, she had thought they would look exotic and cutting edge; in fact, they looked like someone had just taught the designer how to tie-dye, and he had been much too excited by the idea. Spindly spiders' webs of yellow cut swathes across the violet fabric, and when the green light hit Cho's face, it looked from a distance like she had vomited down herself. Watching other students' reactions to her friend's attire was doing much to save Marietta's evening.

Unsurprisingly, she did not have a date - the damned DA had seen to that. More shockingly, Cho did not have a partner either. In her eagerness to capture Harry once more, she had turned down a dozen other boys, and was now, in her own words, "suffering the injustice" of a girl two years her junior taking her place at Potter's side. As Marietta listened to Cho's whispered rant on the subject of the Weasleys, she wondered half-heartedly why Cho had never gone out with Malfoy. Then they could have lambasted the Weasleys together and saved her the utter boredom of being compelled to think of replies to Cho's nonsensical soliloquy.

She was about to nod once more and utter soothing nonentities of words when she realised Cho had stopped talking. Quickly looking up, she followed the other girl's line of vision to the doorway, where a couple was just appearing. Even from this distance, Marietta could see the wide smiles on both their faces, and then Ginny gestured wildly, illustrating a joke, and Harry threw back his head and laughed aloud. It struck Marietta that it had been quite a while since she had seen Harry laugh like that, with all his defences down, utterly uncaring of who was watching him and what they were thinking. Uh-oh, she thought, stomach sinking, this does not bode well for my sanity. As she turned to her friend and saw a slightly maniacal gleam in her eye, she instinctively felt it wouldn't be a good time to test Cho's either.

*

Hermione too, was not giving either the decorations or her date her full attention. Terry Boot was very nice, to be sure, but he was also fairly quiet and of a bookish disposition. A week ago, Hermione had thought it would be a welcome change from the harum-scarum attitude to life frequently exhibited by Ron and Harry, but now she was finding it a bit boring, which surprised her. In fact, she was thinking about her Friends-in-Disgrace altogether too much, but there wasn't much else to do really except marvel at the lighting arrangements once again, or wonder just how many billywigs Cho's tailor had consumed before fashioning those truly hideous robes, and how much the Seventh Year had been brainwashed into paying for them. So, she actually welcomed the arrival of Lavender and Parvati with a wide smile as they approached the table, having deposited their partners at the edge of a growing group of Gryffindor boys discussing Quidditch in loud voices. As they sat down, Terry spotted some Ravenclaws in the distance, and abruptly hurried off. Too much oestrogen, thought Hermione sarcastically, and felt ashamed of the relief she felt over his going.

Parvati sighed theatrically and prostrated herself across the table. "I'm starving! If I have to wait another minute for food I'm going to eat the flowers!"

Lavender laughed and, digging a mint out of her bag, handed it over.

"Oo-er," Parvati said as she unwrapped it. "Breath mints no less! What's on Lavender's mind, I wonder?"

Lavender blushed while Hermione arched an eyebrow in her direction. "Oh, it's a mint, for God's sake! Like I'm really interested in anyone other than...you know who."

As one the three girls turned to look in the direction of the Fifth Years' table, where Sally and Seamus sat in earnest conversation. Parvati patted Lavender's arm sympathetically, and Lavender sent her a weak smile before brusquely returning to business and saying, "Anyway, we've done enough talking about me over the last few weeks. What I really want to know is...why on earth Hermione has come to the Ball with such a complete bore!"

Parvati gaped at her best friend for a moment before they both dissolved into a fit of the giggles. Hermione couldn't decide whether to be affronted or join in. The laughing was very infectious, and she couldn't help wondering whether Lavender had picked up something of a telepathic vibe out of the 'energies' of The Smog Room, as she had unaffectionately termed Trelawney's attic classroom - she had herself been wondering the same thing about her choice of partner not five minutes before. In the end she opted for a silent smile and a wistful little sigh, which brought the tittering pair very effectively out of their hysterical convulsions. Hermione could only admire their ability to pick up on even the slightest signal that some juicy gossip might be about to be unleashed.

Moving round to either side of her so that they were both within easy hand-patting or shoulder-hugging distance, Parvati asked, "So...why?"

Hermione chewed half-heartedly at the side of her finger. "Because...he asked me."

The other two exchanged a glance over Hermione's bent head, before Lavender said, haltingly, "But what about...erm...Ron?"

Hermione's head snapped up. "What makes you think I'd want to come with Ron?" she demanded viciously.

"Well," replied Parvati, briskly, "apart from the fact that you bite anybody's head off who dares to suggest the idea, absolutely nothing at all." Taking in Hermione's downcast expression, she added, more softly, "What's going on with you two anyway?"

Hermione sighed. "God knows! Go stick your head around his bed curtains and ask him yourself. I'm sick of the whole damn thing! Oh God. Terry's decided to be brave. "

The other girls, wincing in sympathy, decided they would much rather not be there for his arrival, and departed with encouraging smiles, Parvati taking "a rose for the road" which earned her a hair-line fracture of a grin in the alabaster whiteness of Hermione's face.

Once they were a safe whispering distance from the table, Lavender turned to her friend and said, "I don't understand why Hermione doesn't just throw herself at his feet. It's more likely she'll fail Transfiguration than it is that Ron'll get round to asking her out sometime between now and her sixtieth birthday."

Parvati tried to look sage and wise, but it's hard when you're chewing a mouthful of petals at the same time. "She's too proud," she said knowingly, "You know Hermione. Everything's always on her terms."

Lavender nodded gloomily, then took a detour around a dozen tables to avoid one at which a sandy-haired Sixth Year was chatting animatedly and intimately with a pretty blonde Fifth Year. "I guess we aren't really the ones to be dolling out advice on love lives, are we?" she asked.

Parvati, who was surreptitiously keeping an eye on Dean from across the Hall, nodded in agreement and they headed over to greet Hannah Abbott and some other Hufflepuffs who had just walked in.

*

Harry and Ginny had both been unsure as to what they would find to talk about. Their shared summers at the Burrow were now taboo, thanks to the Ron-Harry rift, and Quidditch discussions had a certain mate-like quality which Harry for one wished to avoid. He had an intuitive feeling that it would be hard to strike the right "first date" note while debating the league possibilities of Chudley versus those of Portree, or the Harriers.

He soon found, however, that unlike his date with Cho, he didn't need to fix on a particular topic of conversation. Their light-hearted joking continued during their walk down to the Great Hall, and Harry felt as though he hadn't laughed this much in years. The worrying and agonising pain of the morning seemed aeons ago, and in another life. All that mattered at the moment was that Ginny was with him, giggling at his jokes, and smiling into his face when he glanced at her, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed. She had been looking pale in the last few days, he realised, but not tonight. Tonight she seemed to shimmer and glow with excitement and happiness.

As they walked into the Great Hall, she gasped at the decorations. The multi-hued light caused her robes to glitter into a rainbow of colour. Ginny spun the skirts of her robes slowly in her hands and watched as shafts of violet and yellow light rioted around her. He was just thinking that she looked like a Muggle's idealised version of a fairy, when she met his gaze, arched a sardonic eyebrow, and said, "I'm a human disco ball."

Harry threw back his head and burst out laughing, glad for one night to forget all his worries about the future, and enjoy the moment. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had simply lived for now - he wasn't sure he ever had. At Privet Drive, life was lived for the escape which might come tomorrow; at Hogwarts, there had always been the concern for what tomorrow might bring. If he had dared to tempt fate by looking so far into the future, and ignoring the vast dangers that lay between him and it, he might have thought, This is how my life will be, when the war is over.

As it was, he sighed a little internally, then summoned up some deep well of courage, shut his eyes and grasped blindly for Ginny's hand. He found it, her fingers squeezed his reassuringly, and blushing ever so slightly, Harry began to lead her gingerly through the crowd towards a distant empty table, which was no easy task.

It seemed as though every chattering student was present for the express reason of waving hello to one of them, or prodding Ginny on the arm to ask her where she had got her exquisite robes (a point on which, Harry noted, neither he nor Ginny seemed to be very clear; her half-concealed pointed glances in his direction, and girls' murmured awwws left him a little bemused).

It was only after Harry had carefully guided Ginny into her seat, as he knew a gentleman should, and sat down on his own chair, that he heard an Irish brogue from over his left shoulder, and realised their proximity to the slighted Seamus, and Sally, his second choice. Any chance of an evening alone successfully made a bid for freedom through a nearby window, as Harry's fellow Gryffindor Sixth Year spotted his friend and hastened over to take the spare seats at their table, with Sally following.

"Evening, Harry. Evening, Ginny," said Seamus jovially, eager to show there were no hard feelings on his side as he guided Sally into her seat next to her friend and sat down himself. Seeing Sally had already engaged Ginny in earnest conversation, Seamus turned to Harry and asked, "So, what do you make of Chudley's chances this season then?"

Harry felt like weeping.

*

Ron had walked quickly past the wide-open doors to the Great Hall, a thin, tall, dark silhouette contrasting sharply with the bubbly brightness of the room within. He climbed the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the common room he strode straight through, looking neither right nor left, not wanting to see the looks of pity mingled with irritation leaving their marks on the puppy-fat of the younger students' faces. Once he had shut the dormitory door behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief, then flung himself backwards onto his bed.

He had been there for half an hour now, silently watching the figures in the photograph pinned to his bedside table. It had been taken one summer at the Burrow; possibly third year, Ron wasn't really sure. They had been on a picnic, and Ron lounged half-asleep across a checked blanket, shading his eyes with his arm and snoring softly. Hermione was sat next to him, her eyes shifting from him, to Harry, then back again, every once in a while smiling a little shyly at the camera. She hated having her picture taken. Harry was stood, remonstrating with Fred, who was taking the picture. Ron thought he could remember a lot of laughter that afternoon, but it was hard to see. Harry's face was half in shadow, and his outline shaded Hermione's eyes, and Ron's own mouth. Ginny was sitting away to the left, back to a tree, knees drawn up under her chin. She was wearing sunglasses and was peering over at the group on the grass, but she stayed where she was. Ron didn't remember seeing much of her. They'd gone swimming afterwards, diving into the lake from rocky outposts, or jumping from a rope swing, reckless and breathless and elated. When they'd got back to the food, ants had carried much of it away; and Ginny was still sitting there, watching.

Ron let his eyes slide away from the picture to the bed behind it. The curtains were drawn; only Harry always kept his curtains drawn. As though he needed to know he had a private space somewhere; something no-one else could touch. Only, someone could...

He had been wakened that morning by a loaded silence that could only mean one thing; Harry, in trouble. He hardly ever made a sound, barely even a whimper for the pain which made his scar stand out livid on his forehead, as beads of sweat stood out there too. Ron had been living too long with him not to be able to interpret every little non-existent sound though; every rustle of sheets which meant a renewed onslaught. So he had known that morning, and he had seen the stiff curtains move against the draft, then fall away. He knew that Harry had cried out for him, and he had done nothing.

He had put it out of his head all day, the sickness in his stomach which told him he had let down his best friend, but it would not go away. The half a foot gap between the two mattresses was still the same distance; the argument wasn't enough to drive them completely apart...was it?

In his heart Ron knew it wasn't. They were best mates, they'd been through worse than this, and they always stuck together. Harry would doubt it though, perhaps. He'd had too few things go his way in his life to confidently expect everything to be alright in the end. For a half a second, Ron wished he could cling to his pride, refuse to make the first move, and have Harry apologise to him instead. Then the Voice of Reason, which had an annoying habit of sounding just like Hermione at her most preachy, told him that it had all been his own stupid fault anyway, so why didn't he just go and grovel and get it all over with, so they could all be friends again?

Ron sighed and rolled off the bed onto the floor with a thump. Why does she always have to be right?

*

Ginny caught Harry's eye over the table, and sent a lop-sided grin his way. The evening clearly wasn't going the way he had planned it, and truth-be-told, it wasn't exactly shaping up to be the night she had imagined either. While Sally whispered earnestly into her ear about how upset Lavender had looked, and how awful she felt for being here with Seamus, when it was obvious they just wanted to be together, he and Harry had been joined by Dean and Neville and such a loud Quidditch discussion was emerging that Quidditch HQ, which they had passed on the way in, looked like migrating over to their side of the hall too.

It had continued this way all through the feast, and Ginny began to despair of their ever being alone again for the rest of the night, when the lights dimmed and the music began to play. Seizing her opportunity, she patted Sally's hand one more time, whispering back, "I'm going to go and talk to Harry for a bit? Will you be alright?" Sally smiled. "Of course I'll be fine! Go get him, tiger."

Harry felt like sliding under the table and never emerging when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a soft voice in his ear said, "If you're planning on doing a runner by sliding under the table, you'll regret it tomorrow." The dimness was doing wonders for Ginny's confidence.

Harry smiled up at her, and the other boys gave each other sly glances and melted away. "I take it you've got a better escape plan?"

Ginny shrugged. "Well, I know you hate dancing but the music's alright, and there's no spotlight on you tonight so..."

He grinned. It was true he had hated dancing, but then he'd never danced with Ginny. Somehow everything seemed different with her, as though he was experiencing the world for the first time all over again, by her side. He stood up, and proffered his arm to take her, in the old-fashioned way they had been acting all evening, onto the dance floor. She slipped her arm through his, and soon they were among the swaying couples in front of the stage.

Ginny sighed a little in contentment. Yes, it had been a little awkward at first, with Harry not too sure where to put his hands until she had guided one to her hip and held the other firmly in her own, and he really wasn't an excellent waltzer, but she'd known that anyway. It didn't preclude it being fun, and compared to Neville who, with the best will in the world, had ruined her shoes and made her lame for three days, dancing with Harry was a dream...or close to it.

In her more emotional moments, Ginny might briefly have thought that Harry, as he spun her steadily around the dance floor, back straight and feet more-or-less in time, was the boy in her dream. Lucidly, she recognised he wasn't. He watched his feet too much, his hands shook slightly and were a bit clammy, and his rigid four-step precluded giving themselves up completely to the beat and rhythm of the music.

It didn't matter though. Ginny knew the dangers of imagination and half-real boys with charm, grace and devilish good looks on their side. Devilish being the important word!

Glancing up to the High Table, Ginny saw Dumbledore and McGonagall nodding approvingly in their general direction, and felt angry with herself. If you spent years wanting this yourself, she berated herself, and everybody else wants it so much, why can't you be a little more enthusiastic yourself?

She was more than a tad confused. She and Harry were clearly having a great time, there was laughter and jokes and friendly banter, and occasionally, that old accustomed fluttery feeling in her stomach when she caught him looking at her in a particular way. She tried to grasp it and keep it there, to be as excited by the prospect of herself and Harry as everyone else seemed to be. But it was elusive, as all the best butterflies are, and she could only assume that if she let it become accustomed to her, she could catch it off-guard and then everything would make sense again.

The music slowed, and Ginny moved closer to Harry as he put both hands unsteadily round her waist. She leant against his shoulder and was just beginning to feel the first tingles of the mysterious butterflies return, when Harry muttered,

"It's too crowded. Do you want to go for a walk?"

Ginny blushed a little. Everyone knew what couples went outside for, away from the prying eyes of the teachers. They retrieved their cloaks and were heading towards the doors, Ginny positioning her hand just close enough so that Harry wouldn't have to work up his nerve too much to make a grab for it, when a boy appeared in front of them.

"Harry, Dumbledore'd like a word with you," said Colin Creevey, breathlessly.

Harry frowned. "Great timing as usual," he muttered to Ginny. "I'd best go see what he wants. I'll only be a minute. Where will you be?"

"Oh, I'll head outside anyway. You're right, it's too hot in here. On one of the benches around the corner?"

Harry grinned. "See you in ten minutes."

*

If Ron had been nervous before leaving the dormitory, it was nothing to how he felt as he entered the Great Hall. He felt hideously underdressed, and wished he'd thought to put on his new dress robes, of which he was very proud, before coming down. That would've looked like he was staying though, and he wasn't. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it.

Then he looked up and saw Harry looking at him from the High Table. He didn't look much like Harry. His face was a carefully prepared mask; a portcullis that had taken years of construction had slammed down hard over his emotions. His eyes were hard, but slid away from Ron's when he tried to engage them, like slivers of glass on a silken sheet. So he just stood there, feeling stupid, as Harry turned and continued his conversation with Dumbledore.

He had half a mind to turn right round and go back upstairs when he felt a soft tap on his arm and turned to see Hermione smiling up at him.

"You came to apologise?"

Ron sighed. "Why is it always me who has to grovel?"

Hermione laughed. "Because, social high-flyer that you are, it's always you who starts these things off!"

Ron ran a hand distractedly through his hair. "I don't even know why I did with this one. It was like someone else was controlling my speech, you know?" He took in Hermione's dress robes, and coughed, a trifle flustered. "You look...nice."

She coloured prettily. "Thanks. I would say you do too, but...you just got out of bed, didn't you?"

Ron blushed. "So, how's the date with Terry going then?"

Hermione cocked her head on one side and looked at him questioningly. "You know, sometimes I just don't understand you, Ron- Oh, Harry's coming over. Be very crawly!"

"Oi, don't leave me! Hermione!" But she had moved back into the crowd, and was now looking on with all the appearance of disinterest. Ron pulled a face at her and turned back to his other friend.

"Alright, Harry?" said Ron, falsetto-cheeriness grating on the ears.

Harry shrugged, and grimaced a little, which could have indicated any of an infinite list of feelings.

God. He's not going to make this easy for me, is he?

"Look, I wanted to talk to you about Ginny-"

"And I've already told you," cut in Harry, savagely, "that it's really none of your business. Anyway, it's a bit late to be voicing objections now - we're already here!"

"Yes, I know that," said Ron. "Where is she, by the way?"

Harry gestured towards the door. "Outside."

A reasonable audience had gathered by this point, a large portion of it Slytherins wanting to see the Gryffindor Golden Trio finally fall into pieces. Up until now they had been a little disappointed with the turn of events, but it was soon to change.

"Outside? My sister? Alone? While you're in here happy as Larry with Cho and the rest of your-"

With Harry looking like he was approaching melting point again, and Ron losing control, Hermione judged it the perfect time to move in, take control and remind the other two why they were friends with her even if she could be annoying. Striding forwards, she grabbed Ron's shirt and pulled him backwards, simultaneously moving him out of Harry's reach, and stopping him from talking.

"Right," she said, and without even realising it, the two boys exchanged looks; Hermione was in Schoolmarm mode, "this has gone far enough. Ron, Harry, you're both going on and on about who cares most about Ginny but what are you both doing in here, when she's sitting out there on her own?"

"That's what I was trying to say," spoke out Ron, indignantly.

Hermione looked indulgently at him. "No, Ron, you were babbling again."

While he was absorbed in looking enraged and affronted, Hermione continued, "You came down here for the express purpose of doing some very cathartic grovelling so I suggest you do so."

"Harry," said Ron, looking over at his friend serious-faced, "I am so sorry. I don't know what possessed me to say those things to you and-"

Suddenly Harry didn't want to hear it. He had thought he was so hurt by it all, and he had been upset, but not as much as living without Ron had made him. For one horrible week, he'd felt almost completely alone.

"It's fine, Ron, really. It's all in the past."

"No, mate, really, I can't apologise enough-"

Harry laughed. "Ron, you just did apologise enough! Give over, will you?"

Ron stopped, blushing. "Thanks, Harry."

He held out his hand, and Harry shook it in a very masculine way, before Hermione cried out, "Boys!" and, throwing an arm around the two boys' necks, drew them into a Trio hug.

Pansy was stood towards the back of the on-looking group of Slytherins, and her expression soured as the separate ones became Three once more.

"Well, if that little display of Gryffindor sickly-sweetness hasn't put a damper on my evening, I don't know what will. Draco, darling, could you get me some more pumpkin juice? ... Draco?"

She turned to Crabbe and Goyle, who, as usual, were standing guard close by. "Where did Draco go off to?"

Crabbe pointed at the door. "He went out. Said we weren't to let anyone disturb him."

Pansy pulled her face into an expression of disgusted disbelief -not easy without much practice in front of shiny surfaces - and set off to find Blaise Zabini. The poor boy had been pestering her all night for a dance, and Draco deserved punishment.

And he purports to be so well-bred, she thought indignantly. Money certainly doesn't buy you manners.

*

Ginny stood and looked out over the lake where the twinned moons moved, slowly and by degrees, further and further away from each other; one arching upwards into the velvet sky, the other sinking into an unfathomed darkness peopled by creatures and beings unknown.

The lake appeared flat on the surface, but the sway of the reeds around the edge betrayed underwater currents, eddies swirling in mysterious patterns that she could make no sense of. The night was absolutely silent, and Ginny drank in the peace after the raucous noise inside.

So taken up was she in the moonscape before her, she didn't hear a side-door to the castle open behind her, and the person passing through was careful to push it to without making a sound. The first Ginny knew that someone had joined her was the crunch of a footstep on the gravel and then, before she could turn round, a pair of hands hovering hesitatingly around her waist.

She smiled to herself, and thought how sweet he was to be so nervous. Truth be told, a short while ago she had been feeling anxious herself but now she was a little out of herself and not scared at all. A small part of herself was astonished at her brazenness as she reached for Harry's hands and pulled them snugly around her waist, and he leant in and kissed her, softly, just where her throat curved into her shoulder. She sighed happily as she watched a band of cloud sneak over both moons in synchrony, and cloak them in a secretive darkness.

This is just the night for secret trysts, Ginny thought as the gloaming became midnight. This is a night for highwaymen, and pirates and goblin markets...and first kisses.

Loosening her hold on Harry's hands, she pivoted in his arms until she was facing him and slowly moved her own arms up and around his neck, pulling him down to her at the same time as his hands tightened on her hips, guiding his lips to hers.

He was wearing aftershave, something Ginny had never known him do before, and she smiled slightly against his mouth as she thought about the lengths he had gone to try and impress her, as if he really needed to try to impress anyone. It was tangy and refreshing, like a splash of icy cold water, or a blast of sea air, and she inhaled it deeply as Harry's hands moved up from her waist to her hair, pulling out the silver comb and threading his fingers through her russet-gold curls. It seemed as though her senses were heightened; she thought she could hear Fang howl from Hagrid's hut, and then an answering call from the chicken roosts, as a cockerel crowed once... twice... three times.

A castle door slammed suddenly, sounding surprisingly close in the darkness, and Ginny jumped a little and pulled slightly away, as the moon, and its reflection, emerged from the shadows which had hidden them. She watched, aghast, as the silvery-white light gleamed onto a silvery-blonde head, not tinted by the moon's rays but merely lightened to whiteness. She continued to gape as Draco Malfoy let his hands fall away from her and smirked.

Draco maintained his indifferent mask while underneath he was a terrifying tempest of emotion. If only she would blaze at him, smack him, or look remotely ugly, perhaps he could shake off this ridiculous infatuation with her and once again view her as the youngest, and most depressed looking, of the Weasley herd; a stolid piece of poverty-stricken mediocrity and destined never to leave that behind.

Instead, she merely stared at him, mouth open, cheeks flushed, lips a deep burgundy-red from the pressure of his own pushing against them. Her hair was positively wild and spilt over her shoulders in reckless abandon of its owner's safety; she looked to be drowning in it, and her breath was still a little ragged from their tryst. As he watched her, a blush began at the base of her throat, from exactly the spot where he had first kissed her, and spread with surprising rapidity to her hairline.

"Malfoy??" she said finally, clearly astonished. "Oh my God...I mean, I didn't...well, that is I did, but ...why?"

Draco shrugged languidly. "You practically threw yourself at me, what was I supposed to do?"

Ginny's mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, and then her flushed cheeks turned an even darker red, her eyes sparkled dangerously and she looked him squarely in the eye for the first time since jumping out of his arms. Draco began to think that taunting her may not have been so good an idea.

"Excuse me?" said Ginny, her voice now icy-cold. "Threw myself at you? I'm sorry, I mean, really, how silly of me to think that the boy who comes and puts his arms round me on a moonlit night must be my boyfr..err, that is, my date. Really I should have checked first - clearly it was just stupid not to expect it to be one of the people I HATE MOST in all the world!"

Draco flinched at the unexpected high volume finish. He hated raised voices; it was so uncouth, and so...alarming. He had noted Ginny's little Freudian slip with a barely perceptible frown. You had to know what to look for to see it. A slight dip in the right eyebrow; a drawing of the bottom lip ever so slightly over the lower teeth, a little flaring of the nostrils. Ginny had seen it, but thought it was an expression of distaste. Her estimations of Draco sank even lower.

He was grateful for her anger though. It was fletching arrow after arrow of flighted insults, straight, true and unstoppable. Every time one left her mouth, Draco felt a small, silver bullet of anger settle in the pit of his stomach.

What right had she, a filthy Muggle-lover, a straggly gosling draped in the peacock's finery of his own providing, to stand there and abuse him? If it had not been for his charity, she would've been wearing her moth-eaten mother's robes, no doubt, and remained the wallflower she had always been, before he came along.

Draco could feel the mercurial ire dissipating from the nugget sunk in his belly, flooding his veins, cloaking his other emotions. Alright Weasley, you're doing great. Home stretch!

He yawned lazily, and stretched his hands above his head, cat-like. "The way I see it, it's the Malfoy way: Make love and be merry, for tomorrow you may catch a disgusting skin disease."

"I've got my fingers crossed," Ginny spat back, moving further away from him and tucking her hair roughly into the neck of her gown to stop it blowing across her face. "Seriously, Malfoy, what the hell were you doing? You know I'm here with Harry, and you know I hate your guts!"

Two strikes in as many seconds; the Weaslette knew her stuff. Before he could react to them, or take account of the other nuggets of metallic coldness settling snugly near his navel, she looked at him shrewdly and added, "Has this got anything to do with why you've been stalking me all year?"

Draco nearly choked, then sneered and said, "Don't flatter yourself, Weasley. Why would I follow you?"

"You tell me, 'cos it's either you or your identical twin brother who's been trailing me round school since day one. Why?"

Draco just looked at her, and said, "Well, did you ever consider the idea that someone wants you to think that I'm following you? I mean, anyone could be Polyjuicing into me for an hour a day to trail after the cheap and tacky perfume of what can only be a Weasley."

The next moment, Ginny's wand was pointing at his throat; her hand was not shaking even slightly.

"Oh please, how bloody stupid do you think I am? Someone is going through your dirty linen to find...hair, or scales or, ugh, whatever, just to Polyjuice into you for one hour to try and freak me out? Well, all it's done is Piss. Me. Off." She broke off to grin lopsidedly as she saw Draco gulp, "Admit it, you have been following me, and tonight you have assaulted me, and you know, to me that only suggests one thing...."

Draco motioned for her to lower her wand. He was so annoyed with himself for gulping he could have cheerfully cursed himself into oblivion, but truth be told, as soon as she had stood before him, eyes blazing, wand outstretched, all those bullets of metal sunk into his gut seemed to be attempting to be regurgitated as little pink, Pansy-esque love hearts. He pulled himself together internally, and contorted his face into a look of disgust.

"If you are suggesting," he scoffed, grazing her figure with his eyes, his lip curling, "that I in any way find you attractive, you need even more mental help than I gave you credit for. If you, me, and this rock," he nudged a stone on the ground with the toe of his boot, "were the only things left on this planet, and it was our sacred duty to go forth and multiply, I would be attempting the biologically impossible with an inanimate piece of carbon.

"You're nothing to me; you're empty space dressed in borrowed finery-"

Ginny lifted her chin, defiantly. "They aren't borrowed. Harry got them for me."

She was interrupted by a snort of laughter. "Potter? You think Potter bought them? Oh yes, I can just see Mr. Rag Bag knowing just which colour and cut to buy you, and getting them delivered over-night by my owl."

Ginny had returned to a carpet expression of mingled disbelief, embarrassment and wariness. It had never really made sense before anyway, had it? The little hints that Harry didn't understand; a secret gift of clothing, a subject on which he knew almost nothing; Malfoy always ten footsteps behind her...

"Why?" she asked, uncertainty causing her to hug herself around her middle. Draco leant in close to her, his breath stroking her jaw-line as he whispered, "That's the real reason for all this. After all, Malfoys never give but to receive."

He pressed a cold, hard, sharp kiss onto her unfeeling cheek, then strode away.

If Ginny had been paying attention, she might have noticed Draco's shoulders slump slightly, and his footsteps falter as he moved further from her, but her eyes were swimming with tears and her vision blurred as she turned quickly and looked back out over the water, the moons only smudges of white on a black canvas.

She felt dirty; used. She wanted nothing more than to rip off those sparkling silken robes whose dancing, glitter slivers of ballerinas seemed to mock her as they pivoted and twirled. She felt as though the flecks of lights against her skin were marking her as his, and she wasn't. She refused to be. She would never be some man's possession. Not again.

It was there that Harry found her ten minutes later, but with sickly pale skin and dark smudges under her eyes, which Harry as a fashion unconscious, did not realise was mascara. She pleaded a headache and he escorted her back up to the dormitories, earning them a few wolf-whistles on the way, which Ginny was too tired and disheartened to take offence to.

At the foot of the girls' stairs, where they had stood only a few hours before, Ginny again paused two steps up and looked down at him. He looped his arms loosely round her waist and said, "Are you going to be OK, Gin? Shall I get Nat or-"

She smiled down at him, tiredly and, was that a tinge of sadness in the depths of her eyes. It was fleeting, but it brought a worried frown to his forehead. She mock-frowned back at him, and answered, "I'll be fine, Harry. I just need to lie down for a bit and I'll be alright. I'll see you tomorrow."

It was a statement, not a question, and not vague. Harry's heart leapt a little in his chest, so that he somehow summoned the nerve to dart forward and plant a quick kiss in the corner of her mouth before turning and heading towards the boys' dormitories, smiling back over his shoulder at her.

Harry slept peacefully that night, the dreamless sleep of a person whose worries are buried too deep beneath a burning happiness to disturb their slumber. Ginny, meanwhile, pulled the curtains shut around her bed and lay staring, unseeingly, at the underside of the canopy, listening to the other girls as they tip-toed in and settled into bed much later, then counting their snores until the early hours of the morning when she finally drifted off into uneasy sleep, trying to avoid thinking about Draco Malfoy, and that other boy whose memory he had evoked from so long ago.

Draco himself undressed hurriedly in his bedchamber, hurling his dress robes as far as possible away from him into the darkest corner of the room and sliding between the cold sheets scowling. Tossing and turning in the semi-darkness as the moon peeped slyly in through a gap in the green velvet curtains, he didn't drift off for hours because the feel of a warm body in his arms and the pressure of a certain pair of lips against his own kept floating into his mind and flattening his anger.

That didn't go according to plan at all, did it?