Heavenly Creatures

July 30, 1995.

A large barn owl taps at Ginny's window late in the morning. She opens the sash and lets it in, wondering who it might belong to. She knows that she's certainly never seen it before. It flies around the room, hooting dazedly, blinking at the grey cloudy light of another overcast day. Most wizards don't use barn owls, since they hate being outdoors during the daytime, and are likely to snap at both the senders and recipients of their letters. This one has a parchment neatly scrolled to its leg, but it refuses to land on Ginny's wrist, alighting on a chair instead and peering at her in a confused way. When Ginny approaches, it allows her to partially unroll the letter it carries.

Dear Hermione,

It's the same thing, I'm afraid. Mum is going in for some testing today but I already know what the answer is. They didn't get it all--and now it's come back. Please help me, Hermione. Please, just meet me, talk to me. God knows I don't like to lay this burden on you; it's heavy enough for me to carry, but if you could only--

Ginny draws back as if the parchment had scorched her hand. She does not permit herself to read any further, not even to find out who had written this strange, pleading letter to Hermione, or why. She honestly hadn't meant to read more than the first few words, just enough to find out if the letter was for her, but she hadn't been able to stop. All I've been doing this summer is snooping and nosing around. I never thought I was that sort of person--but what am I supposed to do, when nobody will tell me anything? Oh, I shouldn't have read that letter... Well, the awful curiousity about the rest of its contents will be punishment enough for what she's done.

She knows what had happened, now. The dark magic surrounding Twelve Grimmauld Place has decayed, and they are all trying to lessen it even further--sometimes, Ginny thinks, with very little success. But the overall level of magic in the house has to be kept much, much lower than it normally would be in any location where wizards lived. That fact often confuses owls when they try to deliver letters, particularly when they haven't been to the house before. And this barn owl seems to be confused enough in the first place.

"I'm not Hermione," Ginny says softly. "But I'll take you to her. Come on." She holds out her wrist, and this time the owl hops onto it as if it understands perfectly. Noiselessly, she tiptoes down the hall and knocks on Hermione's door.

The other girl opens it a crack and peers out. Her hair is a mess, and there are dark circles under her eyes. Ginny heard her arguing with Ron late into the night, punctuated by a lot of sneezing and sniffling. Ron has picked up a Muggle cold during all the trips into London, and Kingsley Shacklebolt sternly warns against using the Healing charm that would instantly banish it. "That'll stir up every bit of dark magic in the house," he says flatly. So Ron is currently stuck in bed and surrounded by boxes of Kleenex, an odd Muggle invention that Arthur Weasley bought in London and brought home for the sufferer. Molly Weasley originally tried to pack the tissues around him like hot bricks, and then the twins enchanted them to fly about the room like demented miniature ghost owls. Eventually, Ginny thought of asking Hermione, who demonstrated the proper use of Kleenexes with only a slight twitch to her lips.

Ron's suffering seems rather out of proportion to the disease, since Ginny has been given to understand that Muggles manage to struggle through it rather frequently. But then, like all of the Weasleys--or perhaps, Ginny thinks, all of the Weasleys except her-- Ron has been in near-uninterrupted rude good health since the day he was born, and illness of any kind makes him uneasy. He is an absolutely dreadful patient, peevish, irritable, and snappish. But Ginny is still not at all sure why he was arguing with Hermione the night before.

"Owl for you," whispers Ginny. "Came to my room by mistake."

Hermione sees the barn owl, and gives a little start. "Oh! I know what this is. Thanks, Ginny." She opens the door just enough to admit the owl, and at a gesture from her, it flies into her room. "And--er- don't wake up Ron just yet, all right?" she asks. The request is almost casual. "The best thing for a Muggle cold is sleep. I should know; I had loads of them before I came to Hogwarts."

"Of course I'm not going to wake him up," says Ginny. "That's why we're all tiptoeing around and whispering! But who-"

The door closes. Later, Ron and Hermione have a long, whispered conference in his room. Ginny pretends that she is taking a nap. She steals down to the basement kitchen and hides in the pantry, keeping the door open a crack. Just as she is beginning to feel foolish, she hears Ron and Hermione's voices.

"You have to get it today. Tomorrow will be too late."

"Well, let's go then."

There is a pause, and then a loud, snuffling, honking noise. "You know I can't, Hermione. I can't move. I need to go back to bed. I think I'm going to die."

Hermione sighs. "It's only a cold, Ron."

"I reckon Muggles must be tougher than I thought," says Ron glumly, wiping back and forth at his bright red nose.

"Well, then, I'll go alone." Once again, Hermione's voice is almost, but not quite, casual. Ron does not seem to notice.

"Suppose you'll have to," says Ron.

"Wait. Let me try the door first."

Ginny rises noiselessly to her feet and peers out of the crack in the door. Hermione pulls her wand out of her sleeve, covering it carefully so that only a hint of its rosy glow peeps out through the fabric. She waves it over the keyhole of the small back door and lets out a sigh of relief. "I was sure your mother would have Keyed it to me by now, so I couldn't get out."

"But it's Keyed to Ginny still, right?" asks Ron in a muffled undertone.

Hermione nods. "All the doors are. I made sure of that. She can't possibly leave."

"Good," he says. "Good. Are you sure you'll be all right going alone?"

"Honestly, Ron," says Hermione, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

Ginny holds her breath as her brother trudges back up the stairs to his room, a little trail of tissues behind him. She had meant to go back up to her room, but she finds herself kicking and pulling at the weather-beaten little door without any clear idea of how she even found herself near it. She finally slides down to the floor, crying, and does not raise her head when she hears the footsteps coming towards her. Sirius pauses, then drops down to kneel beside her, sitting back on his heels and lifting his hand.

"Shh, Ginny," he says as he strokes her hair.

"They've left without me again," she sobs. "Or Hermione has, anyway. Ron would, if he could."

"It's all right," he says, sounding far from convinced. Ginny feels the touch of his big hand on her chin, lifting her tear-stained face to his.

"You tried to get out, and you couldn't," he says. It is a statement, not a question. She nods.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. Not that she is at all sure what she is sorry for--her weakness, perhaps, or the silly childish sight of her fourteen-year-old self curled up on the floor, crying.

Sirius sits on the floor next to her, first placing his silver cup carefully on the table. She smells the sharp scent of firewhisky and water, mixed with some indefinable herbal tang. "When I first came here," he says quietly, "I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to leave. When I first found out, I was in despair. Once, in the early days, I did exactly what you were just doing. Remus found me crying by the door. There wasn't anybody else in the house, then... thank all the gods."

Ginny looks up, startled. "You? But you're..." She doesn't know how to finish the sentence. Brave. Strong. Fearless. Adult. So unlike me.

"Makes it harder, doesn't it," he says thoughtfully, "to have got out for one day. To have felt the wind, and the sunshine. You know what you've been missing, now."

She leans her head against his arm, resting her weight on his sinewy shoulders. He is thinner than he looks, lithe and strong and wiry, and his warmth is comforting to her. "Yes," she says. "But it's not only that."

He sighs. "Ginny, I know it's hard to believe now. But you will get out of this. Maybe Harry can come to stay soon, and the Aurors will come back--it'll be easier then. And in September, you'll return to Hogwarts. It'll be all right."

"But it won't!" she says desperately. "It's more than just me feeling trapped, Sirius!" She is usually a bit too in awe of him to call him by his first name to his face, but it spills out now without her thinking about it. "I don't think Ron and Hermione have been going to the British Museum at all. Or the Victoria and Albert Museum, or the Museum of Natural History, or St. James's Park, or any of the places they said they were going! I think they've been doing--something else."

He sits very still. Something comes into his face that frightens her a little. "What makes you think that, Ginny?"

She tells him everything then, all her vague suspicions, every scrap of conversation she has overheard, every meaningful look and wordless exchange between her brother and Hermione. "And Ron said that Hermione had to get it today," she finishes. "Whatever it is. He said that tomorrow would be too late."

"Oh, dear Merlin," Sirius groans. "Sometimes I wish Hermione Granger were a fool!"

"But what does it mean? What does--"

He turns to her, clasping her hands in his. Her chest gives a leap. He does not even seem to realise he has done it, but only looks at her, his dark eyes troubled and very serious. "Ginny," he says, "we've got to stop Hermione. She might be about to--well, never mind what she might be about to do. But she could get herself into trouble she might never get out of again."

"Stop her?" she echoes.

"We need to find her first."

"You mean--you mean we'd go out?" she asks. But he is already throwing a few things into a leather bag and heading upstairs.

"Yes," he says. "We'll follow her."

"Wait--wait--" Ginny scrambles after him. Her heart seems to be simultaneously rising and sinking, and a bubble of nervous fear swells in her chest. "Is it safe?"

"We don't have any choice," he says over his shoulder. Sirius is opening the door to Buckbeak's room, striding in, and she can hardly keep up with him.

Ginny glances around the room; his mother's old room, she knows. She has never been in here before, and the décor frankly startles her. It is echoingly empty, with no rugs on the clean wood floor or paintings on the dingy green walls, only a couple of straight-backed chairs and one small cot in a corner with a blanket folded over it. She doesn't have long to look around, though, as Sirius leads her to a small white door at the far end of the bedroom. It leads to a large, empty wardrobe, and at the very back of it is a smaller door with a golden knob. It opens into a narrow, dark, winding staircase with weathered stone steps. Witchlights thrust into sockets in the stone walls light their long climb. Ginny blinks at the sunlight streaming in through high windows in a surprisingly large circular room at the very top. The neighborhood is laid out below them, and she realizes that they must be in the cupola of the old house, a sort of tower room.

"Wait just a moment, Ginny," says Sirius, and he disappears behind another door to one side of the room.

It is very quiet up here. If Ginny strains her ears, she can hear a faint mumbling coming from behind the door. Two voices, she is almost sure of it. Could this be where Remus ended up? She creeps to the little door as noiselessly as she can and wonders if she should try pressing her ear against the keyhole. It might be dangerous. If Sirius comes out suddenly, there will be no way to hide what she is trying to do. Irresolutely, she looks around the bare wooden floor.

At first glance, the room is entirely empty. But when her gaze travels back, something has snapped into place, shimmering like a mirage in the desert. In the very centre of the room, a sort of platform has appeared, and her eyes are drawn to it, irresistibly. As she stares, a network of interconnected red lines springs to life in the air above it, a web of glowing strands woven over and under and between each other like an intricately embroidered magic carpet. An image of a twelve-sided geometric figure shimmers at its centre like a giant red gem. For a fleeting instant, she catches a glimpse of a figure within it, a tiny homunculus of a man. She gasps. He turns towards her, beating miniature fists against his prison. She cannot see anything else of him clearly; on later reflection, she isn't sure if this is because he is so little and insubstantial, or for some other reason. One thing she does see easily is that the little fingers on his white hands are all of equal length, and that there are ribbons of some shining, flickering substance that surround him. Fire. The little man looks as if he is falling endlessly through fire. His tiny mouth opens and closes. He is saying something; she's sure of it, but she isn't quite close enough to tell what the words are. Ginny starts towards the centre of the room, hands outstretched, and she jumps when the door behind her slams abruptly.

"What is it?" Sirius asks, striding towards her. Ginny stops, looking stupidly down at her hands, then up again. The platform, the ruby gem, the network of shimmering lines, and the pleading little man have all disappeared without a trace.

"Er--nothing." Ginny wonders if she has seen something she wasn't meant to see. But perhaps it wasn't even real, only some sort of leftover dark magic that is actually only illusion. In this house, it's impossible to tell. She decides that it would be better to change the subject. "Where's Buckbeak?" There is no sign that the hippogriff has ever been in this tower room, or in the bedroom downstairs, either.

"He isn't here," says Sirius. "He's stayed in the old stables past the back garden since we both arrived; he's much more comfortable there." His voice quiets to a near-whisper as he speaks.

"But--if he's never been here, then why have you been coming up here all the time?" Ginny asks carefully.

"I've been caring for Remus. He's sleeping in that back alcove." Sirius jerks a thumb behind him, at the small, closed door.

"Is he all right?"

"Yes, yes, he's--he will be all right."

"Oh, can I see him?" exclaims Ginny, forgetting to keep her voice down. "Please, please let me just see him, it's been weeks, I've been so worried, we all have--"

"Shh. You'll wake him, Ginny. Rest is what he needs most."

"But--" Ginny pauses as a thought strikes her. "Sirius, if you've been coming up here to see Remus since he arrived, then why were you doing it before he got here?"

"Never mind, it doesn't matter at the moment." He seems restless, all his movements jerky and rapid, and his eyes are glittering like jewels in his excitement. "Come here, Ginny. We need to form the connection if this is going to work."

"We need to--what?" Ginny asks weakly. "I thought we'd take Muggle transportation, or something."

"We can't; there's no time for that." Sirius slows down for a moment, taking one of her hands and stroking it gently. "I'm sorry to drag you into this, Ginny," he says. "But I believe that you can handle it. And we really don't have any choice. We can't even leave through any of the doors of the house; neither one of us can."

"But if we can't get out, what'll we do?"

"Oh, there's a way to get out, and it should take us right to wherever Hermione is. But I can't go by myself; I can only go with you. It's through a bonded portkey," he says. Ginny glances down and sees that they are standing over a curiously keyhole-shaped engraving on the wooden floor, a little to the left of where the platform had been. Memory stirs in her mind, dimly.

"I've heard of these. They're very rare, and only exist tied to certain ancient houses, I think... why is there one here?"

"It was a way to get out of the house quickly if it was surrounded, and if the Blacks couldn't get to their wands. Because my family's never trusted anyone. Not even each other. If one Black escaped during one of the witch hunts of the Burning Times, the rest could all follow him. Usually hexed him to a pulp once they found him, too."

"But these are generally bonded through blood, or at least that's what we learned. How am I going to find Hermione, if she doesn't have Ron with her?"

"It may not be easy. But you have bonded with her in some way, haven't you?"

Ginny hesitates. "Yes." She remembers all her hopes for this summer, and how cold and distant Hermione has been. Yet they are bonded still through friendship, and she suspects more and more that the other girl is becoming bonded to Ron, although her brother does not yet know it.

"And you think that wherever she's going, both she and Ron have already been."

"I think so."

Sirius held out a hand to her. "This should work, then. Come here. Hurry."

"But--" She remains where she is. He is standing still now, but he seems almost about to jump out of his skin without actually moving, and the agitated not-quite-motion frightens her.

"Come on, Ginny," he repeats. "Do you trust me?"

Her eyes close, and a long, shuddering sigh ripples over her. "Yes. I do." Ginny lets Sirius enclose her hand in his large, warm one, and she follows his lead into the centre of the keyhole. A painless shock sizzles all through her veins, and an invisible hook grabs her just below the navel and pulls. She feels Sirius go with her.

Ginny stumbles, sways against something, puts a hand to her head and shakes it, struggles to regain her balance. She is standing in a large foyer with marble floors. A subdued chatter fills the air, and she glances behind her to see a gaggle of schoolchildren streaming in through several sets of glass doors. The confused voices and echoing footsteps cross and recross in her mind, and she feels as if she will fall at any second. Something warm and solid nudges her leg. She looks down to see Sirius in his dog form; somewhere on the journey he has transformed. Of course--it makes sense. She struggles to put her thoughts in order. It wouldn't have been safe for him to go out in his human form. But surely that means that it can't really be safe now, either. If anything happens to him I'll never forgive myself--I was the one who wanted to come here, wherever we are--A fresh wave of dizziness sweeps through her, and she leans against a flat glass panel at her side. A blast of dischordant orchestral music makes her jump back, and a three-dimensional holographic figure springs to life in front of her. He is a dapper little man about twelve inches high, dressed in an old-fashioned frock coat, a gold watch in his pocket leading to a chain in his waistcoat.

"Welcome to the British Museum's Wizarding Annex. Please choose from the following five options," he says in a high, tinny voice. "Number One. Compass Collections Database. Number Two. Education Department. Number Three. Virtual Maps and Hours of Operation. Number Four. Jemima Puddleduck's Tea Room. Number Five. Current Featured Exhibit. This presentation is brought to you by S.L.A.C., the Simstim Librarian Assistant Consortium." As the little man speaks, five gold coins shimmer in the air around his head, each turning and winking at Ginny.

Sirius has moved to her other side, trapping Ginny between himself and the panel. "Do you want me to stay here? To use this thing?" she whispers. The furry head nods. "But why? What do you want me to see? If only you could talk..." Ginny thinks for a moment, then runs her fingers slowly over the five glowing medallions in the air. When she reaches the fifth, she feels a cold nose against her knee. She presses the coin. There is a minute click and whirr from within the glass panel, and then the little man begins to speak again.

"May Twenty-Fifth to August Nineteenth. Magical Jewellry, a Journey from Merlin's Jewel to Melkor's Ring. The first major national exhibition of wizarding archaeology in over 20 years, the Magical Jewellry exhibit will show how much recent archaeological discoveries have revolutionised the understanding of our wizarding past. We also celebrate the role of the general wizarding public in discovering treasures over the centuries, as well as goblin and Gringotts' treasure-hunters' contributions. Major treasures on display include the Bracelet of the Ambitious Baronet, the Rubies of Roscone, and the Magical Amulets of the Kelsey Museum. Unfortunately, the Locket of Rhiannon is no longer available for display--"

Ginny hears no more. Sirius has started bounding off towards the broad flights of steps leading up to the exhibits, and she runs after him. "Wait! Wait!" she whispers. "I don't think dogs are supposed to come in here! I'm almost sure I've heard Dad say--" Every child in the large group milling around the entrance has turned to stare. Inwardly, Ginny groans. She tries to grab hold of Sirius's fur and catches hold of one of his ears. He nips her. She stares at the droplets of blood welling up on her hand.

He slinks three paces behind her to the drinking fountain, where she dips a handkerchief in cold water and dabs it against her skin. "Stop making that whining noise," she says in an undertone. "Don't you think we've attracted enough attention already?" He presses his nose against her thigh, looking up at her with dark liquid eyes, and puts one paw over his face. "I know you didn't mean to," she sighs. "I didn't mean to grab your ear, either. I was just so afraid someone would notice you, and remember--it isn't as if we were around loads of clueless Muggles just now."

No-one, she decides, can look so abjectly apologetic as a dog. But she knows that he isn't really a dog, only a man wearing a canine form. The idea gives her a strange feeling inside. She bends down and strokes his head, feeling his solid warmth as he leans against her.

"They're not here, anyway," Ginny says. "But I think--I think they have been." She feels the trace of her brother, faint yet clear. And it seems quite recent, although not, she is strangely sure, from today.

As sedately as possible, they head for the door. The moment they are outside on the grassy lawn surrounding the vast museum, Ginny increases her pace, and so does the black dog trotting at her side. Soon, they begin to run.

Ginny has rarely been to London, and never by herself. She has been taken to Diagon Alley every autumn by her mother since she started school, for her books and robes, cauldrons and dragon-hide gloves. But they were hurried, rather frantic trips, and she has never really seen Muggle London before. She would have become hopelessly lost in very short order if not for the thing that seemed to be pulling her, like a tug just below her heart. Ginny feels the presence she is trying to find as surely as a dog picks out one particular person's scent in a city of millions. Except that in this case, she is leading the dog.

They turn down one block after another. Great Russell Street. Bloomsbury Street. Bedford Square. She stops to catch her breath for a moment as the dog by her side snuffles at the grass. The elegant Georgian brick houses surrounding the square on all four sides loom above her like mirages. The heat is dreadful, and she longs desperately for a glass of water; the dog's tongue is hanging out, and she can only imagine how miserable Sirius must be under that black fur coat. But they need to keep going. She can feel something else now, a faint trace of Hermione, like a whiff of perfume with her brother's scent under it.

They dart down Bailey Street, then step out onto busy Tottenham Court Road. Lost in the sensation of following, Ginny nearly walks into traffic. A warning nudge from Sirius's nose pulls her back. She gulps and runs a hand across her sweaty forehead, glancing from side to side. The street is lined with shops. She walks slowly to stand in front of one of them, and as she stares at it, a sign shimmers over its side entrance.

The Confetti Flagship Store:

First Choice of the Discriminating Witch and Wizard since 564 C.E.

Ritual Invitations

Engraved Stationery

Wedding Planners

We Cover All Your Holiday Needs--Imbeholc, Mabon, Beltane, Lughnasa, Samhain, and Yule

Ask About Our Deathday Party Specials!

"Stay here," whispers Ginny to Sirius. She pushes open the glass-fronted door, and steps into a small, dark, cool foyer. A figure is coming towards her. Her eyes are still adjusting to the interior light, and she cannot quite see the person clearly. But she recognizes Hermione's bushy hair. Ginny's heart pounds so loudly in her chest that she is sure the other girl can hear the sound.

Hermione pulls up short when she sees Ginny standing in the foyer, breathing heavily, her hair straggling around her white and sweaty face.

"Oh dear," says Hermione. She moves forward, awkwardly, to put a hand on Ginny's shoulder. Ginny shakes it off, violently.

"You lied to me," she hisses. "You didn't go to the British Museum!" But even as she says the words, she knows that is not quite the truth. Both her brother and her friend were there at some point; she'd felt the traces of Ron's presence, and the less distinct ones of Hermione. She is not even sure, herself, what she is accusing the other girl of. "You never tell me the truth," she says, spitting out the words as if they are too hot for her mouth to hold. "Everyone just lies to me... lies and lies and lies..."

"Ginny, you look dreadful. And you're getting upset," says Hermione, her voice clearly struggling to remain as even and calm as usual. "How long have you been running around outside? It's too hot for that sort of thing today. Let's go someplace and sit down. I'll get you something cold to drink. I know just the-"

"Don't talk to me like that," says Ginny through clenched teeth. "Don't patronize me, don't--"

"But you really will faint if you don't sit down." Hermione juggles a small rectangular package, glancing around as if half expecting Ron to appear and take it from her, and then tries to put a soothing hand on Ginny's arm. Ginny glares at her with such venom that Hermione shrinks back. But only briefly.

"Ginny, I promise that we'll explain everything, Ron and I," she says. "Soon. "

But Ginny stands her ground, determined not to let the clarity of the situation slip away from her. Hermione has lied to her. She wasn't even sure yet how, but they have both lied; not only today, but every day since they had all arrived.

. "We will, Ginny," Hermione says. "I swear. Just--please, give me a chance." Her hazel eyes are very weary, as they only become when she is reaching the end of her strength, and running on the last of her reserves. Ginny feels her anger draining away like sugar through a sieve, and even as she tries to clutch onto it, she allows herself to be led outside. The heat and bright sunlight hit her like a blow. For once, it is not an overcast day. Hermione begins to steer her down the sidewalk, past more shops, and she remembers Sirius.

"Wait, wait," Ginny says, starting back, scanning the pavement for the large black dog.

"What on earth-" Hermione starts to say.

Something flashes in the sun, brighter than a silver Knut, imprinting itself on her retinas and leaving a blurry afterimage. She feels the other girl stop in her tracks and stiffen beside her.

"Oh God," says Hermione, under her breath. She grabs at Ginny's arm to pull her back into the shade of a tree. But it is too late for her to reach the younger girl.

Draco Malfoy is squatting beside Sirius, his bright head bent down towards the dog. His long, elegant fingers scratch behind the floppy ears. He wears Muggle clothing, Ginny notes almost detachedly; leather loafers, crisp blue jeans, a polo shirt with a little horse over the breast pocket, like the ones Arthur Weasley collected the year before. Perhaps because Malfoy is dressed in the very last sort of attire in which she had ever expected to see him, the entire scene does not seem quite real. Ginny's reactions are delayed, and she does not move back quickly enough. She hasn't made a sound; she is quite sure of that, but Malfoy's head jerks up as though she has.

Ginny's blood is pounding, pounding, pounding in her ears. Hermione is behind her, she knows, but she does not turn to look. She walks forward.

"Snuffles," she whispers.

The dog does not move. Malfoy has stopped scratching behind the black ears, but his hand is still entangled in glossy dark fur. The sun is directly behind them, and as Ginny walks further forward, squinting against the dazzling rays, the two figures seem to meld into one. A boy and his dog, Ginny thinks crazily. They've connected. Merlin knows how, or why, but they have. But surely Malfoy can't know--

He closes his eyes briefly, opens them, and looks at her too long. Much too long. The sounds of the busy road sizzle down to an eerie silence, the street and cars and shops blur into a vague smear, and there is only Draco Malfoy left in all the world. His pale narrow face, his shining hair, his enormous grey eyes, looking and looking at her.

She claps her hands together smartly. "Snuffles!" Her voice is sharp.

Malfoy blinks and shakes his head slightly, as if waking from a long sleep. The customary coldness settles over his face like familiar frost. "Weasley," he says, with the same drawling sneer she has heard many, many times before. "The rest of the rabble are about somewhere, I suppose?"

She swallows, looking down at the ground, not daring to say a single word. It will be better if Malfoy believes her brothers are nearby; he's a dreadful coward, or at least that is what everybody says. Maybe he'll leave now if he thinks Ron will show up and start pounding him into the pavement any minute. Sirius trots to stand next to her, quietly.

"You seriously mean to tell me that's your dog?" Malfoy asks incredulously.

Ginny nods, eyes firmly fixed on her left shoe.

He snickers softly. "I should have thought a purebred Labrador was considerably beyond your family's means. I suppose you use him to hunt rats back at your poverty-stricken family home, in order to supplement the meagre Weasley table."

A tremendous lump rises in her throat. She will not answer him. She will not look at him. She will not raise her head until Malfoy goes away.

An eternity seems to pass, although she realizes later that it was likely less than a minute. His eyes are on her, studying her, and although his gaze is like red ants crawling over her skin, she knows that as long as he is concentrating on her, he will fail to notice Hermione. But how long can a stare last? Fear traces a sticky line of sweat down her back. Her heart almost jumps out of her chest at the feel of a hand on her arm.

"Come on, Ginny," says Hermione. She has moved up to stand beside Ginny, and one hand rests on the belt holster of her wand.

Malfoy's eyes harden further until they are like grey chips of granite. "Might've known I'd see you here. What are you doing, Granger--taking Weasley on a Muggle tour of London?" He steps forward.

Hermione's face is utterly expressionless. "Come on," she repeats, pulling at Ginny's arm.

"We weren't through talking yet, Weasley and I," sneers Malfoy. "And it was shaping up to be a very... edifying conversation."

"We'll be late getting back if we don't leave now," says Hermione through gritted teeth, exactly as if she has not heard him.

Malfoy moves closer still to Ginny, until she can smell the sharp light lemon scent coming off him--is it from his hair, she wonders crazily, or his pale skin, or perhaps a Freshening charm cast on his clothing by the house-elves who launder on the Malfoy estate?

"You do like to touch the Weasleys, don't you, Granger?" he says softly. "Only you should keep your hands off, see? Mustn't have a Mudblood touching pureblooded witches and wizards--even the traitorous ones."

Hermione flushes red at last. "You're absolutely foul, Malfoy," she says evenly. "You always were. But you're worse now than you ever were before. And I'm sure you're going to be worse still, in the days to come. Don't think I don't know it."

"Is that so," says Draco. He still has not moved away, and Ginny realises for the first time that although he has been talking to Hermione, he has been looking at her. He catches her eyes on him, and for the first time, directly addresses her.

"Well, little Ginny Weasley," he says, "do you want to continue it... away from prying eyes?"

"Wh--what?" she stammers, mesmerized by his unblinking stare.

"Our conversation, of course."

Ginny squeezes her eyes shut. She cannot look at him and make any sort of coherent response. "Get away," she says tightly.

He shrugs. "As you wish." But Malfoy is still standing very, very close to her, almost but not quite touching her hand. The heat of his body seems to press outwards against her, adding to the suffocating heat of the day. Ginny wonders if she is about to faint.

"Draco," says a soft, fluid voice.

Narcissa Malfoy is standing a few metres down the pavement, shopping bags on her arm. Her raised hand is long and slender, beckoning to her son, the fingernails buffed to perfect shell-like ovals. She wears Muggle clothing as well, a silk pantsuit in an elegant, understated beige, and beautiful leather low-heeled shoes. Malfoy hesitates for another instant and then turns to go with his mother.

Ginny lets out all her breath in a long, unconscious sigh. She wonders how long she had been holding it. The world returns in a great rush.

She stares resolutely at the ground as the two girls continue to walk down the street, and she does not say a word. Hermione, however, more than takes up the slack in conversation.

"What were you thinking?" she demands. "Ginny, are you mad? Do you realise how much trouble you could have caused?" Ginny fixes her stare more firmly on the pavement. "No! You don't!" Hermione continues. "You didn't bother to think of the consequences, I'm sure."

The black dog whines low in his throat, and presses against Ginny's leg in the way she is rapidly becoming familiar with. She already knows that he is trying to comfort her, or stick up for her; as well as he can without speech, anyway. Hermione wheels on him.

"And you!" She shakes her finger down towards the dog. "What you did is far worse. At least Ginny's barely fourteen years old and that's some excuse; I did foolish things at that age as well."

Ginny wonders if now would be a good time to remind Hermione that she is less than five months older. Probably not.

"But you," continues Hermione. "Well, I don't think I can properly use the English language to describe the unspeakable risk you ran. And you ought to know better! Well, I hope you're happy now, Sirius. Draco Malfoy's seen you. What if he has a little chat with his father when he returns to the family manor? Oh, I can hear it all now. 'What did you do today in London, son?' 'Well, first Mum and I tortured random Muggles. Then we did a bit of shopping. Then I saw a dog--Father, why can't I have a dog?' 'Draco, you know perfectly well that the hell-beast in the dungeons ate the last three dogs we bought for you. Transfigure another house-elf. Merlin knows they're no loss.' 'But, Father, it was a lovely dog. A black Labrador. If I had a dog like that, I'm sure I could teach it to kill unwanted visitors on command. The strangest thing of all, though, is that the youngest Weasley showed up, the girl. And it came when she called it.' 'Really.' And then Lucius Malfoy's evil mind whirrs for a bit, and he puts the entire thing together, and figures out that it's you, Sirius. Because he must already know that your Animagus form is a dog; Peter Pettigrew must have told him. Not that he shares that information with his son, of course. But Draco Malfoy's far from stupid, more's the pity, so now he'll be wondering about it as well!"

Ginny looks sidelong at Hermione. The other girl's voice has risen to a quavery high pitch, and her hands are trembling in a barely contained state of agitation. This isn't like Hermione. No. Not even at a time like this... something else is wrong, something I don't understand, something beyond even what I did... "I really think you're being a bit hard on Sirius," Ginny says, tentatively.

"Yes, yes, I know," says Hermione. "He's been shut up in that awful house day after day with only that mad house-elf for company most of the time. But it's still a question of basic--"

"I'm there," Ginny says, stung.

"Oh. Well, yes. But I mean--you know--the sort of company that he can really--"

"Who was that owl from?" Ginny interrupts.

Hermione stares at her. "What?"

"That owl," Ginny repeats. "The one that came to my window by mistake this morning, and that I sent to you."

"Oh! It's not important."

"Isn't it. Well, then, why didn't you want Ron to know? Because you didn't, I could tell."

Hermione stops on the sidewalk, so abruptly that Ginny almost runs into her. She sighs deeply. "We're here, Ginny. Come on. Let's get a coffee. You look about done up."

She pushes open the glass door of a shop down the street from the Confetti Flagship Store. A green and white emblem of a woman with long hair cascading over her shoulders is painted on the glass front, a mysterious smile on her stylized face, her hands pointing to a crown on her head. A tremendous blast of cold air hits Ginny the moment they walk in, and she wonders if it is a Cooling charm, or air conditioning. She can't tell at first if this is a tea room for Muggles or wizards, as everybody seated at the little round tables is wearing Muggle clothing. But then, in the middle of London, they would be. "Where are we?" she whispers to Hermione.

"Starbucks," says Hermione. They reach the head of the line. "Double half-caf skim frappucino mocha latte," she tells the girl behind the counter, briskly.

"Uh--same here," says Ginny. They sit at a small round table, and she stirs the tall milky cup, trying to think of what to say, of how best to learn the truth. Would it be better to confront Hermione directly, or to lead into her questions more subtly? And how could she, or should she, use the matter of the owl?

"That painting on the front door looked awfully familiar," she finally says. "I really think I've seen it somewhere before... in History of Magic class, I'm sure it was."

"I imagine you did," replies Hermione.

"So this is a sort of wizarding tea room?"

"Well, this one is. But not all of them are. Starbucks was originally started by an American Squib, you see," says Hermione. "From Washington State, I think. That's really a portrait of Gyhldeptis, the Tlingit goddess of the forest. But she's the same one we would know as Rhiannon. Our forest goddess, you know, the one whose male aspect is Lemankynn."

Ginny's brow furrowed. "I never heard anything about her. Ron would've told me, he's been in the forest more times than I can count."

"Yes. Well, the things Ronald Weasley hasn't seen could fill a--"

"You said you were going to explain everything," says Ginny abruptly. "Start talking."

A dreadful, frozen silence falls over the table, during which Hermione cannot look at her. "I do want to," she finally says. "I do, and I've always said so- but it's not that simple, Ginny, really it isn't." Her voice is almost pleading.

Someone stumbles past their table, knocking into a chair. Hermione's half-finished coffee tips, wobbles, and spills, half onto the floor, half into her lap. She gasps.

"Oooh! Sorry!" says a horrified voice. "Napkins! Where are the napkins? Here, let me--it's all over you--I didn't mean to--" Colin Creevey bends down and starts dabbing frantically at Hermione's shorts with great handfuls of paper napkins, which stick to the fabric in little shreds.

"Colin, it's all right," says Hermione hurriedly. "You're only making it--" She stops herself, clearly before the fatal word 'worse' leaves her lips. Ginny has never known Colin very well, but it isn't hard to see that he is walking on the precipice of some choking emotion, and the slightest agitation might send him over the edge.

"Right, right." He makes a final, futile dab with a napkin.

"Colin," says Hermione in a surprisingly gentle voice. She puts a hand on the smaller boy's arm. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course. Oh dear... what happened to my coffee..." Colin swivels his head round and round, peering owlishly. Ginny picks up the paper bag labelled Extra Dark Kenyan Roast sitting on the table directly under his flailing hands and gives it to him. For the first time, he seems to notice that she is there.

"Why is Ginny Weasley here? Did--did you tell her?" he mumbles.

"No, Colin, no," says Hermione.

He pushes his glasses up with one hand and grabs his bag of coffee beans with the other, seeming more disturbed than ever. Hermione stands up. "Come here, Colin," she says in a voice that is gentle, yet firm, and the two of them go off into a corner together for several minutes. Ginny slurps loudly at the last drops of frappucino in her plastic cup, trying not to hear their agitated whispers. If Ron were here, she knows, he would tell her to stop it. He has always hated it when she does that. She slurps louder, twists the straw up into a knot, and begins chewing on it. Across the room, a line of house-elves wait patiently in front of a miniature replica of the glass doors outside, complete with the painting of the green and white queen, and Ginny watches them for awhile.

Hermione returns to the table, looking exhausted. Ginny glances around for Colin, but he is already gone.

Sirius has been waiting by the front door, and looks as if he hasn't moved a muscle since they went in. He trots after them a little awkwardly. When they pass a narrow alley, Hermione looks surreptitiously from side to side. She pulls Sirius in after her. Ginny sees the faint glow of a wand from the other girl's pocket, and the dog vanishes.

"Invisibility spell," Hermione whispers out of the corner of her mouth.

Luckily, none of the public transport they take on the return trip is very crowded. Ginny allows Hermione to pull her on and off a confusing array of buses, and no Muggles raise a hue and cry after bumping into an invisible dog. Sirius transforms back into his human self as soon as they reach the house, and goes upstairs to his mother's room without another word.

"Going to see Buckbeak, I suppose," says Hermione.

Ginny has not asked any of the questions she wanted to ask. She realises that now. Somehow, the advantage has slipped away from her, and she does not know how to get it back. Hermione is wrong about why Sirius is going where he goes, and Ginny knows it now. Could that knowledge work to her advantage? Or would it be better to keep quiet about it?

He's going up there to see Remus, she thinks. Well, if Hermione hasn't figured that one out--and that certainly means that Ron hasn't, either-- I'd best not tell either of them, I suppose. But why don't we ever see Remus? I doubt he's been downstairs even once since he got back... back from wherever he was, wherever all the Aurors are. Somewhere in Wiltshire... She realises suddenly that Hermione is talking to her.

"I wish you hadn't done that," the other girl says. "It really wasn't safe."

Ginny shrugs.

"Did you figure out how to get out of the house... or did Sirius? Did he take you out, Ginny?"

"I'll answer your questions," interrupts Ginny, "when you answer mine. To start with, what did Colin Creevey say to you?"

Hermione bites her lip. "It isn't my secret to tell," she says.

"That's who that owl was from, wasn't it?" Ginny asks. "Colin sent it. He set up the meeting today."

Hermione's silence is answer enough. They have reached the top of the stairs, and are almost to the door of Ron's room. Hermione turns and faces Ginny. "I don't have any right to ask you this, I suppose," she says. "But please-- please don't tell Ron. He doesn't like Colin very much as it is. He won't like what I'm doing."

"But what--"

"I know what I'm doing," says Hermione rather mechanically. "I have a plan, and I can make it work, I know I can. Only please--please don't ask me any more questions! I'll tell you everything if you only give me a bit of time!" There is a ragged edge to her voice.

Ginny nods. Much later, she will wonder if it would have made any difference if she had insisted that Ron be told, or if she herself had told her brother that Hermione had met with Colin that day. Four or five years later, in the deepest part of the nights, Ginny will stare up at the cracked rafters of an abandoned shed on the property of a secret sympathizer with the Resistance, or at the echoing rock ceiling of one of the caves in the network around Hogwarts, or at the stars in the open sky. Ron will sleep next to her, his breathing ragged and uneven, one arm over her, one hand always on the hilt of his knife. They will have both lost their wands long ago, by then. His face will be tense, his lips moving as if in spells to protect his one remaining sibling against the dangers that surround them. Ginny will keep watch, as one of them must always do. And she will go over and over and over each thread of the past, trying to pull every clue together into a coherent tapestry. She will always feel that if only she could, perhaps in the warp and woof she'd read foreknowledge of the catastrophe that had destroyed their world. But each attempt always leads into the abyss, the one concerning Hermione and Colin no less than the rest. All Ginny can ever really be sure of is that Hermione seemed so positive at the time, in that summer of 1995, that it was better to keep the matter a secret. So they did.

But now, on this hot July afternoon, none of them knows anything of what is to come.

Hermione taps on the door of Ron's room. "C'mon in," says a glum, surly voice. He is propped up in bed, completely surrounded by crumpled tissues, and wearing his oldest pair of bright orange pyjamas. The colour contrast of cloth, mussed red hair, and tomato-like nose threatens to make Ginny queasy. His face lights up when he sees them, although his voice is truculent and hoarse.

"About time you--" Ron stops himself. "Uh, came up to see me, the both of you," he finishes lamely. He glances at Ginny. "I called for you all afternoon! Fred and George were gone, and I wouldn't have trusted them anyway, and nobody came to bring me cold pumpkin juice or more Kleenex or anything, and Kreacher kept slinking past the door muttering under his breath and smirking that horrible smirk of his, and--"

"I was, um, down in the kitchen with Sirius," mumbles Ginny. "Must not've heard you."

Ron scowls. "I don't like you spending so much time with Sirius Black."

Ginny grits her teeth. Not you, too! "He's lonely being stuck here all the time," she says pointedly. "And so am I. We get along very well, Sirius and I. It's not as if there's anything wrong with that."

"I wouldn't be so sure," says Ron.

"Ron, how can you say such a thing?" demands Ginny. "Hasn't he proved himself enough by now? He's in the Order, he's letting us use his family's house, Dumbledore and Remus and our parents trust him-"

Ron toys moodily with a used Kleenex, shredding it between his fingers. "I'm not saying that we can't trust him, or anything like that. I don't know what I'm saying. Only I suppose I can never really forget that there were about two hours in third year when I hated him more than I'd ever hated anybody in my entire life. When I thought he'd lured you and Harry into the Shrieking Shack to kill you both, you know? And there's something in his eyes now, when he looks at me. Perhaps you don't see it when he looks at you, Ginny. You met him for the first time about a month ago, after all. But it's something deep down--as if he'd gone so far into darkness once that he could never quite come back, and he remembers how much I hated him once, as well--or maybe it's the darkness that remembers."

There is an awkward silence in the room. Ginny wishes that her brother had not chosen now to have one of his moments of perception.

"So, I was in that Starbucks today," says Hermione hurriedly, "the one off the Tottenham Court Road, and I noticed for the first time that they have a special house-elf service. I suppose it's only open on certain days. There were loads of house-elves there enjoying a bit of leisure time. Interesting, don't you think?"

"I've seen it before. They only come to pick up coffee beans by the pound for their masters, Hermione," says Ron.

"Some of them drink coffee on their own!" says Hermione in an injured way.

"If there are leftover dregs that've been sitting around for a week. And anyway that was only Dobby."

"But it's a beginning, Ron, that's the point, and when the rest of the elves see--"

Ron snorts. "Right, Hermione. I can just see Kreacher sitting about in Starbucks with a caramel latte, reading The New York Time-Turner-"

"It's The New York Times, Ron, how often do I have to tell you? Oh, never mind," sighs Hermione. But Ginny can tell that the other girl is not displeased. The conversation has turned away from Sirius and herself, and Ginny understands in a flash that Hermione has orchestrated that diversion deliberately. "Anyway, here's what I found," she continues, picking up the rectangular package she had originally been carrying out of the Confetti Flagship Store. "It's perfect, I think."

"Is that the thing you had to find today, and tomorrow would be too late to get it?" asks Ginny.

"Yeah," Ron says, awkwardly. "So you, uh, you-- overheard us talking about it, then?"

Ginny does not know whether to pretend that she has heard much more than she actually has done, since such a strategy might only backfire. And Hermione certainly does not shoot her a meaningful glance, or nudge her leg where Ron cannot see. She is too subtle for that. But she did keep my secret about leaving today with Sirius... in exchange for my keeping hers about her meeting with Colin. And she did say she'd tell me everything if I gave her a bit of time... "What is it?" Ginny finally settles for asking.

Hermione peels off a corner of the wrapping and slides out a box. She lifts the lid and takes out a large double-fold card. It falls open on its own in the middle of the bed.

Two tiny Quidditch teams fly over and around the paper coffee cups on tiny broomsticks. One set of players wears uniforms of green and silver; one wears maroon and gold. One little Seeker has dark hair, and Ginny thinks she catches a flash of emerald green eyes. He grabs the infinitesimal golden Snitch. The opposing Seeker falls off his broom to the table, throws a miniature fit, and leads his team in stomping off towards Ron's pile of used Kleenexes to sulk. The remaining team swoops and soars, arranging themselves in tight formation to spell out the letters:

Happy Birthday Harry.

"Oh," says Ginny softly.

"So, what shall we write on it?" asks Hermione. The tiny Quidditch team flies back into the card, and she picks up an eagle quill, looking at Ginny expectantly.

Tomorrow is Harry's birthday, Ginny realises. She had actually forgotten about it. A rush of guilt goes all through her. She clears her throat. "Tell him--tell him that we hope it's a very happy one."

"With the Dursleys?" snorts Ron. "As if."

"Well, that's the sort of thing one says on a birthday card, Ron," explains Hermione with exaggerated patience. "Surely you can't think I haven't thought of that very point!" Dear Harry, We all hope you'll have a lovely fifteenth birthday, she writes inside the card. "Hmm." She taps the pen against her chin. "Now what?"

"What did you write in the other letters?" asks Ginny.

"We couldn't really say much," says Ron darkly.

"I just wrote about how we couldn't tell him anything, mostly," agrees Hermione. "The letters might go astray, you see."

"Or Harry might do something mad after being locked away without any news for weeks on--"

"I should know, Ron; I was the one who actually brought up that point in the first--"

"I think I get the picture," says Ginny, fighting the impulse to clamp her hands over her ears.

"Why don't I write something about how much we all miss him?" asks Hermione. "And how much we hope we'll see him soon?"

Ron gnaws on a thumbnail. "But we don't know that we will. Seems cruel to raise his hopes like that, when for all we know he's going to be stuck with his rotten Muggle relatives until the first of September."

Hermione's brows knit together. "I'm writing it anyway," she announces. I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon. "Do you want to add anything?" she asks Ginny, pointedly ignoring Ron. "Only I do think this card will mean a lot to him..."

A sudden image of Harry rushes into Ginny's mind. He sits in a chair by the window of the dreary little bedroom on Privet Drive that she has never seen, staring blankly out at the empty sky with his great green eyes, waiting for Hedwig, his lifeline to the wizarding world. Perhaps sometimes he wonders if he has only imagined the past four years, if Hogwarts and magic and even Lord Voldemort were all part of a curious fever dream, if he will wake in the cramped cupboard under the stairs. She sees him as he was, growing up in that house, a too-scrawny child with untidy hair and torn clothes. There were always bruises on his body that he tried to hide, and a gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach that he learned to ignore, but as time went by he grew to almost welcome physical pains. They proved he was alive.

Often during those years he felt not quite real, an inconsequential collection of rag and bone and hank of hair, a transparent child, haunting that house of misery more surely than any ghost could ever have done. During the long nights when he was locked away in the tiny dark cupboard, his tears welled up as if from an unstoppable spring. Harry would glance in a mirror sometimes the next day, touching his face, wondering that furrows had not been carved in it. At first he had cried from hunger, or pain, but gradually the state of tears became his dwelling place, and he no longer knew how to live anywhere else. Harry's fat, annoying cousin Dudley surprised him at it once, gleefully bellowed that he was a crybaby, and earned him more beatings. The wellspring of tears went underground, and, dammed up, became a dark river. The broken child Harry once was is within him still, crouching behind the man he is becoming, biding its time.

She has the strangest feeling that what she sees is no figment of her imagination, but a vision of truth; that she has somehow, if only for a moment, stepped into the mind of Harry Potter. And she longs to hold him, to comfort him, to rock his dark head in her arms and say, Shh, shh, it'll all, all be all right. There is something motherly in her affection, and something sisterly, something soft and childlike and giving. She does not realize until much, much later that no desire plays no part in the emotion, except for the desire to ease pain.

I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon.

"Tell him--" Ginny waits until her voice steadies. "Tell him that we love him, all of us."

Hermione raises her eyebrows. Ron looks intently at his sister, and then he smiles, a little crookedly. "So it's like that then, is it?" he asks softly.

"Nothing's like anything," said Ginny. "Just write it, Hermione."

Much love always, from Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. The card goes round the bed, and they all sign their names. Hermione seals it with a swipe of her tongue, and Pigwidgeon gamely submits to the large parchment being tied to his minute leg. The owl flies out the window with a pronounced list to one side. Ginny yawns. It is scarcely past four o'clock, but exhaustion is beginning to overwhelm her. Ron looks at her narrowly.

"Thought you had a nap earlier," he says.

She avoids his eyes. "Couldn't get to sleep," she says shortly. In her own little room, she collapses on the bed, but despite the sudden tiredness she finds her eyes snapping open every time she closes them. So she stares at the cracked plaster ceiling, and thinks for a very long time.

In the morning, Ginny comes down to breakfast very late. "You ought to have been up long ago; the day's half gone," her old alarm clock at the Burrow would always snappishly inform her when she got up at this hour at home. Everyone else has already eaten and left. Normally, both Ron and Hermione are long gone by now, and Ginny does not expect that today will be any different. But the other girl is standing at the stove and cutting squares of butter into a pan, her long brown hair drawn carelessly back into a messy ponytail. She turns, and Ginny sees that there are dark circles under her eyes.

"Scrambled eggs?" Hermione asks her.

"Oh! You don't have to--but I mean, if you're making some for yourself anyway--" Ginny drops down into a chair.

"I want to." Hermione turns away and beats the eggs in a bowl with a large whisk. She is a very good cook, when she takes the time to do it properly.

"Where's Ron?" asks Ginny.

"Upstairs. He's better today, though."

The two girls treat each other with the elaborate over-politeness they might adopt if they had gone through a horrible argument the night before. She catches Ginny's sharp eyes on her in the middle of a yawn.

"Sorry," Hermione says in a very subdued voice. "I haven't been sleeping well lately." She rubs a hand over her face. Ginny looks down. She had rehearsed all the angry questions she would ask Hermione, but they all die on her lips, somehow, this morning. She remembers how Hermione looked at the end of third year, beaten, deflated, exhausted, as if she had been running along the edge of a cliff and had finally fallen off a precipice. The older girl looks almost the same way now. Ginny feels a slow frightening wave of something like pity in the centre of her chest.

Ron comes downstairs in his old pyjamas, clutching a handful of tissues, as the two girls finish eating. They all play cosy games of Exploding Snap and chess for the entire afternoon. Hermione takes Ginny upstairs after lunch to show her a book about magical jewels bought at the British Museum. When Arthur and Molly Weasley return in the evening with Elphias Doge and shut the door to hold a whispered discussion, the three teenagers crouch together on the floor of the landing upstairs in a mutual attempt to hear what is being said. Afterwards, they all sit on Ron's bed and discuss every mystery swirling round them at the moment. Hermione pulls out a quill and parchment.

"What we need to do," she says thoughtfully, "is to make a list of all the things that we don't know."

"Do we have enough parchment?" asks Ginny, struggling to keep her voice as neutral as possible.

"I doubt it," says Hermione dryly. "But let's try." She chews on the end of the quill.

"I hate it when you do that," says Ron. "It's so irritating."

"Do you have any useful contributions to make, Ron?" Hermione asks snappishly.

"Of course I do! Hard to know where to start, that's all." Ron taps his fingers on the Kleenex box. ""Where did all the Aurors go? That's a good beginning."

"And why haven't they returned yet?" asked Ginny. "They were supposed to be back by now, I'm sure of it."

"Yet Lupin's the only one who is," says Hermione thoughtfully. "And why haven't any of us seen him? I doubt he's been downstairs even once."

"Has there been a full moon yet?" asks Ron.

Ginny shakes her head. "No, the last one was... let's see... just a few days before he returned. So the next one's nearly two weeks away."

"But he's in Sirius's mother's old bedroom, isn't he?" Hermione looks at Ginny shrewdly. "And Sirius goes up to see him. Doesn't he?"

"Y--yes." Ginny decides that this point is safe enough to admit. She nearly opens her mouth to tell her brother and her friend about her strange vision of the shimmering platform and the twelve-sided ruby gem, and the little man imprisoned within it--the one who had seemed to be asking for something. But on reflection, she shuts it again. If she tells this story, she will have to explain where she was, and what she was doing there in the first place.

"I wish I could get to the library," sighs Hermione. "I have an idea of what might be wrong with Lupin, but-"

"Are you planning to share it with the rest of us?" interrupts Ron.

"It's too vague to even make any sense at this point," says Hermione, rather stiffly. "I'd need to do more research first."

"Fine, then. You know, what I wonder," says Ron, "is what Sirius is doing."

"What do you mean?" Ginny asks carefully.

"Well, haven't you ever overheard Mum say that he's doing important work for the Order?" At a nod from her, he continues. "But what is it? He doesn't leave the house."

"Good point, Ron," Hermione admits. "I wish we could find out; it might be important--" Suddenly, she jerks a head to one side, raising a finger to her lips.

"What is it?" asks Ron.

"Shh," she hisses. In the silence, they all hear the voices drifting up from downstairs.

The three glance at each other. As one, they rise silently to their feet and steal out onto the landing. The door to the basement kitchen has been flung open, and Molly Weasley and Sirius are apparently in the middle of a furious argument.

"We'd need Aurors to escort him here safely," Ginny hears her mother snap, her waspish voice carrying clearly to the first floor landing. "And need I remind you that we don't have any to spare at the moment?"

"Surely Shacklebolt and Elphias Doge would be enough," Sirius says irritably. "Come on, Molly! Tomorrow's his fifteenth birthday, and he's stuck with those dreadful Muggles--"

"That's not the real reason why Harry can't come here, and you know it perfectly well!" Molly says in a shrill voice. "It's not safe--not wise--not--" Her voice breaks then, and Hermione, leaning over the balustrade of the first-floor landing, makes a small, involuntary sound in her throat. There is a moment of silence. Then Molly Weasley tromps up the narrow flight of stairs from the kitchen to the front hall and slams the door. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her cheeks pale.

"Back to Ron's room," whispers Hermione. "Hurry."

"Wish Harry was here," says Ron gloomily, after the three of them have hashed out every possible interpretation of what they had heard. "He has a way of finding these things out, doesn't he?"

Hermione's brows are knitted into the frown that means she is thinking deeply. "Maybe that's why they don't want him here," she says quietly. "Because they don't, you know. I don't think it's only your mum. Maybe Sirius will manage to talk the rest of the adults into it eventually, but none of them really wants Harry here. I wonder why?"

"Oh, I'm sure you're wrong," says Ron. "Wish I could get him a really good present, though." He kicks at the leg of the bed.

Through all the friendliness and camaraderie and long, whispered conversation, however, Ginny notices that both Ron and Hermione are deftly avoiding the subject of what they have really been doing since they all arrived at Twelve Grimmauld Place. Indeed, they are willing to talk about anything and everything but that. She wonders if she should push the issue. No. Hermione doesn't take well to that sort of thing. Yet a restless, impish desire has risen within her. She gives into the impulse in a different sort of way. "There's always the traditional wizarding fifteenth birthday present," Ginny says.

A smirk tugs up the corners of Hermione's lips. "Sirius might want to give it to him, at that. But I doubt your mum would go for it, Ginny."

"What?" asks Ron, looking from one girl's face to the other.

"Don't you know?" Hermione asks innocently.

"I don't know what you're on about. What is it?"

"That's obviously what comes of not spending enough time in the library," says Ginny, in tones of mock sadness.

"What do you mean? You'd better tell me!" exclaims Ron.

Hermione rises. "I think we'd better leave him alone, don't you?" She smiles beatifically at Ron. "You can look it up in September."

Ginny and Hermione narrowly duck a barrage of pillows flung their way as they hurry out the door.

"It was a bit mean not to tell him," says Ginny, trying to stifle a giggle.

Hermione shrugs. "Honestly, can you think of any other way to get your brother in the library?"

"Probably not," Ginny admits. After all, this isn't a topic that is likely to ever be covered in a Hogwarts class, nor assigned as homework.

"But how'd you find out?" asks Hermione.

"Do you remember that book you sneaked out of the Restricted Section last year? The one you thought you hid so cleverly under your bed?"

Hermione blushes scarlet. "You read that? Oh Ginny, you really shouldn't have done."

Ginny blushes a bit, as well. "Well, I have--ways of finding out things," she says quietly. "But it's because nobody ever tells me anything. And they don't, Hermione, you know they don't."

"Yes," says Hermione, just as quietly. "I know." They have reached the door to Ginny's room. Hermione puts a hand on her arm before she turns the knob. "I'll tell you everything soon," she says. "Please believe me--I do mean it. I'm trying to figure out a way to talk Ron round to it. He only wants to protect you; that's why he never wanted you told."

Ginny pulls her arm out of the other girl's grasp. "Hiding things from me isn't protecting me."

Hermione sighs. "I know it."

Staring up at the wooden paneling of her tester bed that night, Ginny smiles, remembering what she read in Hermione's forbidden book. There is a brothel in Hogsmeade that has existed since before King Arthur's time, and has never missed a day of business, through Roman, Saxon, and Norman invasions, numerous battles, the Black Death, and a direct bomb hit in World War Two. The Crystal Palace is its name, and among its specialties--which are many--is the subtle, discreet introduction of young wizard boys to manhood on their fifteenth birthdays. The Weasleys, of course, consider it an unspeakably decadent tradition, which is why Ron does not even know about it. But many of the darker pureblooded families have undoubtedly taken their sons for initiation in this way. The Zabinis, Ginny decides; they're exactly the sort who would, and the Flints, and the Goyles. And, of course, the Malfoys. She has no doubt at all that Draco Malfoy was brought up to the infamous third floor of the Crystal Palace six months earlier and offered his pick of girls. Ginny's grin fades. She does not want to remember that she once heard his birthday is two days after Christmas, and she does not know why her mind stubbornly insists on retaining this bit of information. She does not want anything about Draco Malfoy to take up residence in her head. She shifts restlessly, and forces her mind to another topic. Hermione's words to her, an hour ago. I'll tell you everything soon.

But when is soon? Ginny wonders.

She thinks of Hermione's weary eyes. Colin Creevey's pinched, grey face, haunted by some mysterious sorrow. And then of Harry, whose fifteenth birthday must have been grim and lonely and unhappy. She feels guilty. Petty. Selfish. So I'm not getting to know everything I'd like to know. So Ron and Hermione are leaving me out of things. Well, the world's not being run to my specifications, now is it? I've got enough to eat, nobody's using me as a punching bag, and I didn't have to spend my entire childhood locked in a cupboard under the stairs. Grow up, Ginny, grow up. The bracing self-talk does not satisfy her. But she knows that she cannot press her brother and her friend for answers anymore. She will either receive them, or she will not.

The next three days pass in a holding pattern, a sort of stasis. A fragile unspoken truce exists between the three teenagers, and Ginny vows that she will not be the one to break it. Ron and Hermione do not even try to leave the house, and if they whisper together late at night, after Ginny has gone to bed, she makes a point of holding a pillow over her ears until she falls asleep so that she doesn't have to hear any of it. Fred and George are gone nearly all the time now. Ginny almost never sees Sirius. A couple of times, he sits in his customary place near the end of the long table at meals, looking haggard and exhausted; more often, her mother brings him soup and sandwiches on a tray. Remus never comes downstairs at all, and Ginny is afraid to ask about him. Surely I would have heard if anything was really wrong, she thinks, and tries to make herself believe it. Once or twice, late at night, she begins to sneak up to the third-floor room with the little door to the turret at the back of the wardrobe. But Kreacher always seems to be prowling the corridor, mumbling something inaudible to himself, his wizened face twisted into a scowl, or perhaps a hideous grin, and she tiptoes back to her bedroom. Still, it is the calmest and happiest time she has ever spent at Twelve Grimmauld Place.

And then, without warning, it all unravels, like a full-blown flower gone to sudden seed. Ginny can see the shriveled petals of roses falling past her inner eye, and the shredded yellow spikes of dandelions. They take on form and weight and substance as they fly towards her face. She feels the prickly edges of the stems tickling her skin, like the tiny fingers of a miniscule hand, like the hands of the little man entrapped in the twelve-sided gem in the tower room at Twelve Grimmauld Place, clawing and clutching at the shimmering ruby mist that imprisons him. She hears his pleading voice, as she actually did the second time she saw him, on the stormy night that ended with Sirius Black in her narrow bed. Wait...wait, this is no dream, this is really happening--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

July 1997.

"Ginny. Ginny!" Something light and scratchy was hitting her nose, her forehead, her neck; her hands flew up and fumbled at her face. She blinked at the torn yellow flowers in her hands.

"Wh--what?" Ginny mumbled. Blearily, she glanced from side to side. The sun had not yet set, but its gold rays were beginning to lengthen. Millicent Bulstrode plopped down on the ground in front of her.

"You talk in your sleep, you know," she said chattily, crossing her legs comfortably and twirling a mangled dandelion between her fingers.

Ginny rubbed her head. Shreds of the dream still clung to her, even as she brushed the bits of the narrow petals off her white blouse, leaving golden smears. It had been a long time since any of her dreams had been so coherent, so real. "You were--throwing dandelions at me?"

Millicent looked a little abashed. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. So often these things do. Maybe I'm too impulsive to be in Slytherin, d'you think? But I'm not sure where else I would go. I'm too dumb for Ravenclaw and too disloyal for Hufflepuff-- according to Granger, anyway, as she was charming enough to say the other day-- and I hear that Gryffindors can't sneak boys into the girls' dormitories--"

"Was anyone else here?" Ginny interrupted.

"No. Luna's on her way, though. Said she had to go back to get something."

"Well, thanks, Milla." Ginny gave the blouse up as a lost cause and pulled her light summer robe back around her. "Just the way I wanted to be woken up. Drowned in dandelions."

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Never you mind." That last happy summer, the summer of 1995--strange, that I should have been. Even stranger that nobody realised it was happy at the time. Only when I knew it was the last chance to change things, did I think that it was happy. And what happened with Sirius--although that wasn't what anybody could call happy, either. But she hadn't dreamed about that part of it, not yet. Like an unread chapter in a book, what had passed between her and Sirius Black seemed to still lie ahead, even though the event was two years gone.

"What did I say?" Ginny asked guardedly instead of answering the Slytherin girl's question, sliding down the stone bench to the ground.

"It was awful," replied Millicent with relish. "Shocking. If everyone knew what I heard ... "

Ginny felt herself go cold and stiff, despite the heat of late afternoon.

"I mean, the way you were begging and pleading--"

"Milla, I really don't think--"

"'Oh, Dean!'" said Millicent in a breathy voice, pressing her palms together. "'Please, please, not the handcuffs!'"

"Oh." Ginny let out all her breath in a rush. "I didn't say any such thing, I'm sure. We broke up ages ago, you know that. Not that there was much of anything to break up anyway. And there certainly weren't ever any handcuffs."

"I know. Too bad, though." Millicent propped her head on her hands. "I was only teasing. Actually I couldn't tell what you said; it was just a lot of mumbling."

"It isn't nice to tease people about their dreams," said Luna reprovingly, sitting beside Millicent and carefully placing a large, flat wicker basket on the ground. "Dreams are very important, you know. I've kept a dream diary for years."

Millicent waved a dismissive hand. "I tried doing that once, but it was so stupid. Anyway I've always dreamed the same thing since I was about thirteen. It would be different if people dreamed something useful, like the location of buried treasure."

"What do you dream?" asked Ginny, relieved that the conversation seemed to be moving off her.

The Slytherin girl's wide mouth curved into a smirk. "Nothing suitable for virgin ears, believe me. Are there any about?"

Luna gave an unexpectedly loud shriek of laughter, and Ginny giggled. The sounds were oddly loud in the clear evening air, and the memorial stones seemed to ring them back into the girls' ears. As one, they sobered slightly.

"Virgin ears," Luna said thoughtfully, as if examining the curious concept before deciding whether to accept or reject it.

Millicent raised her eyebrows. "Well, yours are, cousin, aren't they?"

"Oh yes," Luna said calmly. "Although a few branches of our family have always provided bed-elves as a sixteenth birthday present," she explained to Ginny, in an aside. "My father thought it was all a bit creepy."

"Surely nobody actually does that anymore," said Ginny.

Millicent's smirk widened. "That's what you think. After great-aunt Melliflua died and my parents got a bit of money... well, first it was Dr. Butlin's Reducing Camp for me, and then--"

"There are things in this world that I just don't need to know," said Ginny hurriedly.

"So what about your ears then, Ginny?"

"Shouldn't we be getting back to the castle?" Ginny tried to rise from the ground.

"Nope." Millicent pulled her back down with careless ease, reminding Ginny strongly of the time when she was the Slytherins' strong-arm. "We want to hear."

"It would be very edifying," said Luna dreamily, pulling just as strongly on the other side. Ginny gave a sigh and flopped down, knowing when she was defeated.

"I don't know about my ears, not with six brothers in the house, but the rest of me's as untouched as you please. There. Happy now?"

"You never slept with Corner?" Millicent asked incredulously. "But you two dated for ages!"

"I was only fourteen! And anyway, would you sleep with Michael Corner?"

"It's a bit late to ask that question," answered Millicent, her smirk high, wide, and handsome.

"That's another thing I just didn't need to know," said Ginny.

"Well, what about Dean?"

"I already told you. We hardly dated for any length of time at all, and nothing ever happened."

"Nothing?" Millicent cocked her head to one side, as if considering this novel idea. "No shagging?"

"No."

"No slap and tickle?"

"No."

"No dangling the bait for the fisherman in the little boat?"

Ginny had no idea what that last question meant, but decided that the better part of valor was still to answer, quite firmly, "No."

Luna giggled again as she picked dandelions. She had an extremely shrieky laugh. Ginny wondered if she had brought the basket in order to collect the yellow weeds, but the Ravenclaw girl merely began weaving them through her long, glossy, pale hair. The sight reminded Ginny of something, and she could almost put her finger on what it was.

"Did Dean ever draw you?" Luna asked, pulling the green stems together behind her ears.

A lump rose to Ginny's throat, suddenly and swiftly, as she remembered the boy who drew a portrait of her on a long scroll of parchment, and pressed it into her hand at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in King's Cross. "I'm sure he would have done, if we'd been together for any length of time at all. But no."

Luna played with the yellow spikes of the dandelions. "I think I would have liked that," she said.

"How about posing for a nude drawing?" snickered Millicent.

"Oh yes, that especially," replied Luna serenely.

"If it was for Dean Thomas, I'm sure I would've too."

"No, not because it was him in particular," Luna explained. "The nude is the pinnacle of Western art, you know. But now that you mention it, Milla..." She looked thoughtful. "I suppose an artist could seduce me rather easily, if I was already lying about nude in a bed. I mean, the hardest part of the work would be already done, wouldn't it? And Dean's a very good artist."

"You oughtn't to be allowed out alone," said Millicent with affection, patting Luna's arm. "Yes, he's good. Not the best at Hogwarts, though..." She allowed her words to trail off, staring into the distance, beyond both Ginny and Luna.

Ginny knew who Millicent meant, knew without being told, as surely as she knew her own face in a mirror. She felt a strange slow mixture of excitement and edgy fear rise in her chest. "Who?" she asked, knowing she should not.

"Somebody I shouldn't talk about," said Millicent, closing her mouth with a snap.

"You can tell us," said Ginny coaxingly, feeling very much as if she was struggling to open a door that ought forever to be kept shut.

Millicent shredded a dandelion to bits between her strong fingers. "Malfoy," she said quietly. "Draco Malfoy. He was the best artist I ever knew."

Ginny took a deep breath. "Did he... show you his art?" she asked.

"Well, if he hadn't, I'd hardly know if it was any good, now would I?" Millicent snapped.

"There's no need to be rude," said Luna.

"I suppose there isn't." Millicent flopped down onto the ground and stretched out full length. "It's just that I--I can never talk about him again, you know?" she rhetorically asked a patch of dandelions. "There are so many things I can never talk about again. From before. It's as if I was born fresh six months ago. But it's truer of Malfoy than of anything else."

"I wonder why." It was all Ginny could think of to say.

Millicent sat bolt upright and looked at her openmouthed. "Why? How can you ask why?"

"Sorry," mumbled Ginny.

"S'allright." Millicent glanced down at her interlaced hands. "It's just--strange," she said quietly. "We were best friends once, I think. You could never really be sure, with him. He kept everything inside, under a perfect surface nothing could touch, you know? But he was the only person who treated me exactly the same before I went to Dr. Butlin's Holiday Reducing Camp, and after. To everyone else, I was just this sort of lumpish object before I lost all that weight, something to use when they needed and ignore when they didn't. And then after I looked so different, all the boys suddenly wanted me for something else entirely. I think the attention went a bit to my head. Do you think? Was it really a good idea to shag everyone on the Slytherin Quidditch team?" Millicent asked appealingly.

"Everyone?" Ginny managed to get out. "Malfoy too?"

"Oh!" Millicent gave a little laugh. "Yes. Just once. But like you already said, there are things that you don't really need to--"

"Was he a good shag?" asked Luna brightly. "Or hadn't you slept with enough boys by then to tell?"

"Er--" said Millicent. "Yes, and definitely yes. Since you ask."

"So-- how did it happen, exactly?" asked Ginny. "And when?" She was edging out further and further along a precipice of words, and it caused a curiously elated feeling. At last, at long, long last, someone was talking about Draco Malfoy, and no matter what the final consequences might be, she could not stop listening now.

A thoughtful look came into Millicent's eyes. "I slept with a lot of boys that spring, as you might've heard. Too many altogether, I'm sure. A lot of it wasn't very good. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, you know. But then, last summer, my family was visiting the Malfoys for a week. I was walking through the stables one afternoon... and I came across Draco."

"And...?" prompted Ginny.

"Well, he asked me what I was doing, and I said I was going for a walk in order to avoid Pansy Parkinson. He laughed, and said he was doing the same thing. Then he asked me something strange, something that's always stuck in my mind." Millicent's deep blue eyes took on a faraway look. "He asked me if I wanted to forget. I didn't know what he was on about, but I said, 'Forget what?' 'Everything,' Draco said then, and he laughed. 'You're my friend, aren't you?' 'Yes," I said, because I didn't know what else to say, and the look in his eyes was frightening me a bit. 'Then help me forget, Milla,' he said, and he pushed me back onto a pile of hay, and I knew, then, what he meant. So I helped him... and he helped me. But the odd thing is that his eyes were tight shut the entire time, and he didn't seem quite all there. I've often wondered if he was pretending I was someone else."

"Pansy?" asked Ginny.

Millicent snorted. "Not bloody likely. Even though I knew what sort of things they had been getting up to by then. He never really even liked her, but she had some sort of hold over him--I didn't quite understand it. No, Draco was thinking of someone else entirely, if he was. But it was very good, still. He was gentle, and so careful that I wondered at first if he thought I was still a virgin. Of course, I realised later that he couldn't have done, as any village idiot would have picked up on the gossip going round Hogwarts about me. 'School Broom Bulstrode,' you know? But he was tender with me still, and he cared about my pleasure as much as his own." She spoke wonderingly, as if no-one before or since had done as much for her. And perhaps, Ginny thought, no-one had.

The wind blew through the tops of the trees at the edge of the forest with a sound that was somewhere between a rush and a sigh. Silence fell.

"I was dreaming about what happened in the summer of 1995, two years ago," said Ginny, as if there had been no interruption between Millicent's earlier questions and this moment.

Luna looked as serene as always, which was to be expected. But Ginny noticed that Millicent, too, nodded without the faintest hint of surprise. "You were at Twelve Grimmauld Place, weren't you? With the Order, and with--" She inclined her head in the direction of the marble marker a few feet away from them.

"How'd you know?" asked Ginny, surprised.

Millicent shrugged. "Your brother told me."

Apparently, Ron's dislike of Slytherins really did have its limits. "Did he tell you about Sirius Black?"

"A bit. I know Ron didn't like him much. If somebody'd once broken my leg and dragged me through the Whomping Willow, I'm sure I wouldn't either. But he keeps his mouth shut about it." Millicent shivered. "Seems like Potter never did get over that, did he? What happened to his godfather, I mean."

"He told you that?" Ginny asked dubiously.

"Of course not! Harry Potter avoids me like the plague, and if it wasn't for Ron sticking up for me all the time, Merlin knows what he'd do. No, it's just that--well, I'm not terribly clever, I know I'm not. But I do pick up on things."

"I told Harry once that I'd see my mum again, one day, because she'd gone through the veil as well," Luna said sadly. "But I don't think he quite understood what I meant. He's asked me if you could draw people back through it, or perhaps if you could speak to them beyond it. Or go through yourself, and then bring them back... It's quite sad really." She turned her misty, protuberant eyes on Ginny. "So what did you dream about, from that summer?"

"Sirius Black," said Ginny. It was the least she could explain, but also the most.

Luna nodded. "Your brother said that he spent the entire summer lurking about in a sinister way, although Ron did feel sorry for him. And he said you were stuck with him in the house all the time; I think Ron felt rather guilty over that."

"My brother doesn't know what it was really like at all," Ginny said shortly.

Millicent looked up. Her eyes had begun to sparkle. "So what was it really like?" she asked. Ginny did not answer.

There was a long, long silence then, broken only by the continued soft sound of the wind in the trees that lay behind them. The wind whistled through the top of the clock tower, and the clockworks whirred, the great bell slowly striking six-thirty in ponderous tones. Each toll seemed to hang in the hot thick air of the early summer evening much longer than it should have done. Luna kept weaving dandelions into her hair. When she began to sing, her reedy, thin voice sounded like a part of the wind at first, or a lingering overtone of the bell. Millicent was silent, and Ginny stared past Sirius Black's memorial marker, listening as if in a dream, only realizing after some time that the song had words.

"O all you ladies young and gay,
Who are so sweet and fair,
Do not go into Chaster's wood,
For Tom Lin will be there."

Tom Lin. I've heard this ballad before, it's an old old one...didn't have a happy ending, if I remember correctly... I wonder if he was anything like Tom Riddle, thought Ginny. A strange restlessness was beginning to consume her, an anxious, fidgety feeling. The song was only making it worse. Yet she could not stop listening.

"Fair Gwen sat in her bonny bower,
Sewing her silken seam,
And wished to be in Chaster's wood,
Among the leaves so green.

She let her seam fall to her foot,
The needle to her toe,
And she has gone to Chaster's wood,
As fast as she could go."

I wonder if Chaster's wood, whatever that was, was anything like the Forbidden Forest. Funny. In all the versions of this song I ever heard, Gwen seems drawn there, as if she has no choice but to go. Luna doesn't really have a good voice, but it sort of grows on you... it's like listening to the wind in the trees... Ginny shifted nervously.

"When she began to pull the flowers,
She pulled both red and green;
Then Tom did come, and Tom did go,
Said, Fair maid, let aleene."

Flowers. I wonder what sort they were, the ones that Gwen pulled. Roses, I always think, when I hear this song... Sirius's marker looks so bare, so stark. It hasn't had time to weather. I wonder that Harry can bear to come here as often as he does. Just looking at it for half an hour makes me feel sort of sick inside... Ginny was no longer quite sure if she was listening to Luna's voice, or to something entirely different. The words of the song snaked themselves into her mind like slithering needles.

"O why pluck you the flowers, lady,
Or why climb you the tree ?
Or why come ye to Chaster's wood
'Without the leave of me ? '

O I will pull the flowers,' she said,
Or I will break the tree,
For Chaster's wood it is my own,
I'll no ask leave at thee--"

"Flowers!" Ginny said suddenly, as if there had not been a gap of at least ten minutes since anyone had spoken a word. "That's what I wanted to do before I went back, I wanted to pick some wild roses. There's that big patch of them right inside the forest. Luna, let me borrow your basket."

The Ravenclaw girl looked at Ginny with great, lamplike eyes. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Of course I am! I only just remembered, that's all. I wanted to be sure to get some roses for--for Sirius Black's memorial. I can't believe I almost forgot. I'd better go now, right away."

"I wonder if that's wise," Luna said thoughtfully. "Oh, I brought the basket because I thought you might need it even though I wasn't at all sure why, but then I often do things that aren't really good ideas, when all's said and done. Sometimes I think better of it before it's too late, and sometimes--"

"Sweet Merlin, don't tell me you're getting as dotty as Aunt Sybil," said Millicent impatiently. "Shut it, Luna. We're supposed to be back by seven, Ginny. That's why we were sent to get you, you know. Everyone's supposed to be back in the castle by then."

Ginny leaped to her feet. "It'll only take a few minutes," she called back as she headed for the path that skirted the forest and then led inside. Moving helped to still the awful restlessness a little.

"Wait. Wait! I can't believe that I'm the voice of reason here," sighed Millicent, beckoning Ginny back from the edge of the outer perimeter of trees.

"I have to go," said Ginny, closing her hands around the uneven wicker of the basket so tightly that the ends of the woven rattan pricked her fingers painfully. "I- I have to go."

"You oughtn't to go in alone, at least. I'll go with you, and Luna will stay here so she can explain where we've gone if we're eaten by rabid Puffskeins and we never come out again."

Ginny paused for only an instant. "Well, hurry," she called back over one shoulder, disappearing into the woods.

"Gryffindors," Millicent sighed, following Ginny. "They're all mad."

The massive boughs of the great trees closed around the two girls with astonishing speed. The path grew dim before them, although the sun had not yet gone down--it couldn't have done, thought Ginny. It had only begun to set when they went into the woods, and surely that was only a few minutes before. Yet the very air was growing colder and tinged with the blue of dusk.

"We're not supposed to go in here at all, you know," said Millicent.

"I didn't think Slytherins followed rules," Ginny nearly snapped, keeping her voice even with some effort.

"Oh, we do if it's easier than disobeying them, and if it'll get us what we want," Millicent said cheerfully. "We're all dreadfully lazy, you know. The path of least resistance, and all that."

"Hmmph."

The trees had closed in completely around them now, and the masses of their green foliage were like dark greenish hair, moving leaf by leaf in the wind. Only the narrow, bare path winding between them glowed white in the gathering dusk. How can it possibly be growing dark so fast? Ginny thought nervously.

"Are we there yet?" asked Millicent.

"No."

"How much further is it?"

"Not far."

Millicent peered into the dark and silent forest looming ahead of them. "Are you sure you really need--"

Ginny raised a hand, cutting her off. "I do. And if you want to go back, you can."

"Luna would kill me," Millicent said gloomily. "We've gone an awfully long way into the forest. The funny thing is that I'm not even sure how long we've been gone. Couldn't be more than ten minutes...don't you think? Yet it seems longer...We really ought to go back."

"We would have heard the tower clock strike the hour, if it was that late. And we're almost there," said Ginny. An odd chill swept over her at those words, but the sensation was not unpleasant. No, not really. "Almost there," she repeated.

"It's that important to you, then?" Millicent asked quietly. "To put roses on his--well, I suppose it's not a grave, exactly, but you know what I mean--"

"Yes."

They walked further. It was so dim now that Ginny could not see the other girl's face quite clearly.

"So, er, you were at that house all summer long, two years ago? The one where the Order's headquarters were, at Twelve Grimmauld Place? And Sirius was there?" Millicent asked.

Ginny nodded, her eyes fixed on the path ahead. It nearly seemed to glow in the fast-falling darkness.

"How old were you, then?"

"Fourteen."

"And he, was, uh--"

"I don't know exactly. Thirty-five or so, I suppose."

"I see," said Millicent. "But wasn't it ever, um... frightening, that summer?"

"What on earth do you mean?" Ginny set a faster pace on the path.

"Well, I can just imagine. All alone in a creepy house with a big, bad, scary murderer..."

"He wasn't a murderer, Milla. That was the whole point."

"That's right," giggled Millicent. "I forgot."

"You'd forget your own head if it wasn't tied on." Ginny wasn't sure she had ever said anything quite so mean to someone she had actually grown to like very much, but she didn't know how much longer she could bear to hear the chatty sound of Millicent's voice. It had suddenly become the most irritating noise in the world.

"But he went to Azkaban anyway, didn't he? Twelve years there, Ron said," Millicent continued. "You know, I always heard that in America, they allow conjugal visits in the wizarding prisons. If you were married before you went in, for example, or maybe if you only had a girlfriend, although I'm not quite sure about that, they have these little caravan homes that the two of you get to visit for one night of passion a month. Maybe it's every three months? Well, anyway, I know they don't have anything like that here. Imagine how desperate Sirius Black must've been, once he got out--"

"That's enough, Milla--" began Ginny.

"Ready to leap on anybody in a mad excess of passion, I expect. And there the two of you were, all alone, day after day in the steamy heat of--"

"I really don't think I need to hear any--"

"Of course, the first time or two might be a bit quick in such a situation, but--"

Ginny stopped dead in the centre of the path. "What the hell are you implying went on that summer?"

"Come now, Ginny. You don't have to put on that virginal act with me."

"What do you mean, an act? I already told you that I never--"

"Oh, I know you haven't slept with any of the boys at Hogwarts; believe me, I would have heard them bragging about it if you had. But a man, like Sirius Black... now that's a different matter altogether. And the two of you were alone in the house all that time; do you really expect me to believe that he didn't take you into a spare bedroom one day and bang the hell out of--"

"That's it!" exploded Ginny. She whirled on Millicent, her fists clenched. "You stupid tart," she said with deliberate cruelty, "You'll spread your legs for anyone, and you assume we're all as whorish as you are. You can't even conceive of a pure friendship. Hermione's entirely right about you. I don't want you around when I'm picking roses to remember Sirius Black by. You couldn't begin to understand what there was between us, that summer, or what sort of man he really was--it isn't in you to understand. Now fuck off, I'm sick of the sight of you!" The words poured out of Ginny's mouth, biting and virulent and hurtful. She did not quite understand where they had come from.

Millicent stared at her without moving. Ginny reached out and gave her a violent push. The other girl staggered backwards slightly but did not step aside.

"Out of my way," snarled Ginny. There was nothing so important as continuing down the path towards the field of roses that lay just ahead; nothing at all. Roses for Sirius, that was all that mattered, and this idiot slut of a girl was blocking her path.

Millicent surged forward suddenly, a fierce look in her eyes, and Ginny struggled and went down on the path under her. Ginny rolled over and began pummeling Millicent; she vaguely felt that the other girl had hold of her hair and had begun pulling; they were punching each other, kicking, slapping, and then suddenly Ginny reached up and raked her blunt nails down Millicent's face. She heard a faint cry of alarm and pain, but she paid it no heed.

"Ginny..." whispered Millicent. "Wait. Wait, something's wrong. What's happening to us? Why are we--"

But Ginny leapt to her feet and fled down the path without a backwards glance, and Millicent stood motionless, like a statue left to mark a crossroads.

Ginny realized very quickly that she had left the path. She was not quite sure how this had happened. Yet the thin white thread of sandy dirt had undoubtedly disappeared. She was moving through low underbrush, skirting trees, rounding bushes, stepping further and further into the heart of the forest. All of the students had been warned over and over again not to go into the Forbidden Forest, and if by some mischance they did, to never, never wander off the path. And now she had. I wonder why I'm not afraid... Because she wasn't, not in the least. Nor did she feel lost. It was as if some inner compass knew where she was going, and led her there without a single misstep. Ginny heard the low rich sound of singing as she walked. It took her some time to realize that it was her own voice, continuing the Ballad of Tom Lin where Luna had left off.

"He took her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass green sleeve,
And laid her low down on the flowers,
At her he asked no leave."

This was the verse that Mum never wanted me to sing. I didn't know why until I was thirteen years old, though, and understood what they had done, Tom Lin and Gwen... when he laid her down upon the flowers, and she received him... I wonder why I was so angry with Millicent? She was more right than she knew, after all. It was only luck that saved me that stormy summer night two years ago from giving to Sirius Black what Gwen gave to Tom Lin. But was I saved, and was it luck? Sometimes, I still wonder. Sirius might have claimed me, but he did not. So someone else laid that claim. Draco Malfoy entangled me with himself so tightly that I can never be free again, I think. But he did not take what he claimed, and I--I believe I can never offer that gift to any other man. Sometimes, I think I hate him for that as much as for any other reason.

A wall suddenly appeared before her, a tremendous thicket of intertwined rose bushes. Ginny stopped and stared at them. They were larger and taller than any she had ever seen, stretching far above her head, a slaughterous mass of red on wildly tangled dark green leaves and branches and stems.

"How do I get in?" she whispered.

There was, of course, no answer.

Slowly, she walked around and around the maze. For it was a maze, although she could not possibly have said how she knew, since there seemed to be no entrances and no exits. So, how to enter? As she paced, and thought, and night fell much faster than it should have done, Ginny began once more to sing.

"The lady blushed, and sourly frowned,
And she did think great shame--"

As one, every rose turned its violently red head towards her.

Ginny stopped dead in her tracks. Something icy made its way up the very centre of her spine. She was a witch; she had studied all the magical arts for nearly six years; she had seen spells and charms and potions, dragons, talking portraits, moving suits of armor; but this... this was something entirely new. Whatever magic lay behind this field of roses, it was something outside of her realm of experience, and she didn't have the faintest idea how to deal with it. No, that's not quite true. I was singing the Ballad of Tom Lin when the roses turned to me. So now... to finish the verse.

"Says, ' If you are a gentleman,
You will tell me your name.'"

She stopped. But the song did not.

"'First they did call me Jack,' he said,
' And then they called me John,
But since I lived in the fairy court
Tom Lin has always been my name."

It was a male voice. There was no doubt about that. And it came from the very centre of the rose maze. Tentatively, Ginny stepped forward. The tune was taken up by a sweet breathy piping, and the melody led her through the walls of red and green. The roses parted like a red sea and snapped to re-form around her. They formed one central circle now, and she was within it. She stepped across the neat patch of green grass to the man who had sung the last verse of Tom Lin. He held a pan flute in one hand, and as she approached him the eerie sound of its piping died away. He lowered the flute from his lips. His hands were long and narrow and very white. There was something strange about them, Ginny realized. All the fingers were of equal length. She raised her eyes to his face.

The longer she stared at him, the less sure she was of the man's appearance. She was never sure how long she spent looking at him, but she still could not have described him later in any reasonable way, nor did she try. Ginny already knew that she would not be likely to tell anyone who, or what, she had seen in the Forbidden Forest--and indeed, it was many years before she did. He was tall, and his hair was long and wavy, and invisible flames curled around his preternaturally beautiful face, as if he fell eternally through fire. She was never sure about anything else. She certainly didn't know who he was. But Ginny had been trained to magic, and she knew his nature in a way that non-magical folk could not have known. And she knew that she had seen him before. It was as if the years between that day and this telescoped themselves together, and became as a single moment. She took one step forward, and then another, and then she fell to her knees before him, although she hadn't planned to do so. As a mortal facing immortality, she could do nothing else.

The turf felt very cold and damp on her knees. Strange, she thought, that she should be so aware of that particular detail. Then she felt his hand on her chin. It was colder than ice, yet it burnt like fire. "Worship is always flattering, of course," he said, in a voice that was low and rich, "but you don't have to kneel to me, Gwenhyfar. No, not you, of all mortals." She straightened up, slowly. Her legs felt as if they had turned to trembling jelly. She had to lick her lips several times before she could get words through them.

"You know who I am," she whispered. "You know my real name--the one almost nobody knows. But who are you?"

"Don't you know?" His eyes glittered sardonically.

"No."

"Yet we have met before." His eyes held hers as easily as a snake might hold the gaze of a rabbit. "Do you remember me?"

"That was you," croaked Ginny. "You were the little man in the tower room at Twelve Grimmauld Place, two years ago. I knew that I'd see you again, someday. Somehow, I always knew. But I never knew who you were; who are you?"

The man shrugged evasively. "I am not to be named. I have many names. Like a bad Sickle, I do have a way of turning up. Or should I say that once I have laid my hand on mortal man--or mortal woman--there is no escaping me? That's a more poetic way of putting it, anyway."

Ginny sank her head into her hands and moaned quietly. On the third request, she had learned in History of Magic class, all preternatural creatures must give their right names. So she asked the question one more time. "Who are you?"

"Apparently we're going to take the long way round. You're a stubborn mortal, aren't you? So let's at least be more a bit more comfortable during all the palaver to come. Do sit down." The man sat cross-legged on the turf, patting a space beside him. A silver tray materialized out of thin air, complete with a large white china teapot and a plate of shortbread. "Tea?" he asked politely, pouring the steaming liquid into cups.

If you stray into the land of faerie, you must not eat of their food, nor drink of any drink they offer you. Or they will ensorcell you in their snares that no mortal can escape... Although she was terribly thirsty, Ginny shook her head.

"You're thinking of that stupid thing about not eating elf food, aren't you?" He shook his head sadly. "Pity. That sort of thing is so unnecessary, but then the fairies always were a bunch of drama queens. But, as you wish." The--man? Obviously, he couldn't really be a man, but Ginny didn't know what else to call him--sipped at his tea with evident enjoyment. "So you want to know who I am, do you? It all depends on who you ask, and how you ask them. I've been called Satan, Ashtoreh, Lucifer, Baal, Ahura Mazda, Pan, the Green Man, the Devil, the Horned One... the list goes on and on. My name is a story that mortals have been adding to for so long that the telling of it would take longer than the span of your remaining life. So let's cut to the chase. My favorite name has always been Loki. You can call me that, if you like. It's as accurate as any other."

"Loki," said Ginny slowly, trying to think. "The Norse god of tricksters, liars, and thieves. Thor and All-Father Wotan bound you to the rock of torture for killing Baldur with a sprig of mistletoe, and sentenced you to remain there until Ragnarok, the fall of gods and men. Your only times of freedom come during the high pagan holiday of Yule. So what are you doing off the rock? It's the end of July."

"Time off for good behavior?" Loki offered.

Ginny shook her head decisively, never taking her eyes off him.

"Very well. What you see is illusion," he said with a careless wave of his hand. "I have taken on human form for you, but I am not human. I am speaking human speech to you, but I cannot speak as humans do. A few roses, a little Earl Grey, your favorite shortbread...I do wish you'd try some, I went to a lot of trouble to get the flavour just right..."

Ginny glanced around at the towering walls of roses. Not real. None of this is real. I will count the beats of my heart, measure each breath I take, somehow hold to reality in spite of all this illusion... "So where are we?" she asked.

"I could not come to you," Loki said softly. "So I drew you to me. You are no longer within mortal lands, Gwenhyfar. You have entered the Dreamtime, the land of the gods."

It made perfect sense, Ginny thought dreamily. Every moment of her mortal life had led to this one, and in retrospect, nothing else had ever held true importance. Yes, perfect sense... wait, wait, no it doesn't! This is completely insane. Why would an Immortal draw me into the Dreamtime? There's got to be a reason. It can't only be because I thought I saw him imprisoned at Twelve Grimmauld Place two years ago! Ginny dug her fingernails deeply into her palms. The pain brought her to herself a little.

"What do you want from me?" she asked abruptly.

"Tsk, tsk," said Loki. "There's so little trust in this world anymore, that's the problem."

"Why else would you bring me here?"

Loki tapped a finger against his cheek. "The pleasure of your company?" he offered.

Ginny shook her head. "Even at Hogwarts, I've never heard of anything like this happening to anyone else before. There's got to be a good reason. And the last time I saw you--if it was you--you asked me for something. But I didn't know what."

"You didn't stick around long enough to find out what I asked you."

"Well, I'm here now. And Millicent and Luna are going to be looking for me. Everybody's probably frantic by this point. So what do you want?"

Loki laid down his tea cup. He looked at her directly, with his unfathomable eyes. And as he did so, the air between him and her seemed to shimmer, as if one layer of illusion, at least, was being peeled away. Ginny now saw what she had not seen before. His arms were wreathed with dark, encrusted chains, weighing down his pale flesh, digging into his slender wrists, twining around his waist and knees and ankles. They trailed to the ground and snaked across the circle of grass into the roses... no, the chains were the roses, each petal a link, how had she not seen it before? Unimaginably old and dark and heavy they lay upon Loki, enslaving him to earth with the weight of years and centuries and millennia uncountable. He looked steadily out at her from the midst of his eternal imprisonment.

"Set me free, Gwenhyfar," he said. "Set me free."

She swallowed, and swallowed. The sides of her throat would not come together. Crazily, she wished she could drink one of the cups of steaming tea. That might help. "I don't understand any of this," she croaked.

"I wish I could simply explain it to you, believe me," sighed Loki. "Good Lord, but those chains are unattractive." With a wave of his hand, the illusion of roses returned. "Let's just say that you are one of the four mortals who could free me from my imprisonment, and I can't ask the others. One is in the land of my cousin, the Lady Death, and two have pledged themselves to a spirit of great evil. They are forbidden to me--all except you. So I'll make a bargain with you, in return. A deal. I'll give you what you want most."

"How--how do you know what I want most?" Ginny whispered. "You can't. You can't." Even I don't know that, she almost added. Perhaps she most wanted for the world to be as it had once been, when they all were safe, and the things she feared most were awful scores on her O.W.L.'s, or her brothers keeping secrets from her, or Harry never noticing her. Perhaps she wanted to bring back a world that she now knew was gone forever, although nobody had yet admitted that fact as they all walked hollow-eyed through the measured days before disaster fell, knowing that they had never appreciated the golden time. Or perhaps...

"Don't you know what you most desire?" asked Loki. His words fell into her mind like stones. She knew. She knew all too well. An agonizing pain seized her heart, as if someone had seized it and twisted it dry.

She wanted to bring back only one day, one hour, one long long moment at the end of June when she had lain in the luggage rack of the Hogwarts Express with Draco Malfoy and the sun had spilled its gold over them both, and he had kissed her, and she had kissed him. She longed for it with a fierceness that racked her entire body, painfully, painfully. If she could only get that last chance back, she now knew that she would never have left him. When he had tried to push her from him as the train stopped at Kings' Cross, she would have refused to leave, would have remained in his arms, would have intertwined her body with his as surely as he had captured her mind, and would have freed him no more than the memory of him had ever permitted her an instant's freedom again, from that day to this. No matter what the consequences, they could surely have been no worse than what followed.

"Ah," said Loki, very quietly. "So you do know?"

But she didn't. Swiftly on the heels of her traitorous thoughts, that realization came. That golden afternoon with Draco Malfoy a year before did not exist on its own. It had been only the last unfolding of a path set in stone at some indeterminate date, much earlier. When had the turning point been, Ginny wondered in despair. The day he'd trapped them in Umbridge's office, and she'd fought her way out with a Bat-Bogey hex? That evening on the Quidditch pitch, two months earlier? The first time he'd approached her during flying practice after Christmas? Or had everything between them been set in stone from the moment they had met or even the moment they were born what they were, Malfoy and Weasley?

"No," she finally said. "Really, I don't. And I can't have it, anyway. There are some things nobody can give. Not even you."

One corner of the Immortal's mouth quirked upward. "You're very wise, Gwenhyfar. For a mortal." He moved behind her so swiftly that she was not sure how he had gotten there at all, but he was undoubtedly whispering in her ear and she couldn't see him, his hot breath tickling her sensitive flesh. "Then I won't give you what you most want. I'll give you what you most need."

"And--and what is that?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice even.

"Knowledge," Loki said.

He had taken her hand and was stroking her fingers gently, Ginny realized. She snatched it back. For the touch of the Immortals brings a curse, each after its own fashion... She'd heard that somewhere, she knew she had. But she felt all right. And anyway, it was already too late. Loki had touched her already, when he raised her where she'd knelt before him. "Why would I believe anything you say?" she asked, hearing that her voice was edged with near-hysteria. "Aren't you supposed to be a liar, and the Father of Lies?"

"That tiresome old chestnut again," Loki sighed. He sat back on his heels, looking at her. "I can't lie, Gwenhyfar. None of the Immortals can. We can only tell truth. But we don't always know how truth looks to a mortal, and often we cannot tell all we know. Didn't I send you a vision of truth already? Didn't you remember what truly happened two years ago at Twelve Grimmauld Place, the summer when you were alone with Sirius Black?"

"The dream..." whispered Ginny. "I knew there was something strange about it. It wasn't a dream at all, was it? You sent it! But why?"

Loki did not answer her directly. "I can give you knowledge, Gwenhyfar. Knowledge, and understanding... of what is, what was, and what is yet to be. What is it that you most wish to know?"

He smiled, seeing the answer to his question in her eyes. "You'd like to know when the last chance was to change things, would you? The last opportunity to avoid what bears down upon you now, and upon your world. Well, that is a question I can answer, if you return to your own past, Gwenhyfar... and your own memories. Do you want to remember more of that summer, two years gone? For that is where the answer lies."

The very air seemed to hold itself in suspended stillness, waiting for her reply. And perhaps, she thought, it actually did. After all, the natural world around her was no more than an illusion now. "Yes," she said. "Yes. I do."

"Bend down your head to me," said Loki. She turned to him, lowering her eyes. Several moments passed. Ginny peeked up just enough to see that he had plucked something from thin air, large and round and red and green. She felt its weight upon her brow as he settled it on her hair. She chanced a more direct glance upwards, and it tilted. She reached up to steady it and pricked her finger on a thorn in the wreath of roses. Silently, Loki took her finger between his slender hands and brought it to his mouth, kissing away the blood from her skin. His lips were warm and soft. "Now sleep, Ginny," he said, passing a hand over her face. "Sleep, and remember."