Of Binding Spells and Chartreuse

The sound of water dripping woke Ginny very slowly. She lay with her eyes closed, not wanting to open them to the outside world just yet. She distinctly remembered telling Madam Pomfrey that she'd had sex with Draco Malfoy, and she wasn't sure she wanted to face a reality that included that fact just yet. A cool, wet washcloth stroked her forehead, followed by cool hands. Without seeing a face or hearing a voice, Ginny knew who they belonged to. She sighed inwardly. Anger was stabbing through her, and the resentment she had been feeling for years by now. But there was also a strange, despondent, inexplicable sense of loss. She opened her eyes to see her mother's face, bending over her.

Ginny expected to hear a flood of recriminations. But Molly Weasley didn't speak. She ran the washcloth over Ginny's skin, moving down to her neck.

"What time is it, Mum?" Ginny finally asked. The silence was making her a bit nervous.

"Almost noon of Boxing Day." She dipped the washcloth back in the water. "Sit up, Ginny, so that I can reach the back of your ears."

Ginny obeyed, and even that slight movement made her realize just how weak she still really was. From all the shock, I suppose. Just the shock of everything that happened... No wonder; her entire life seemed to have changed in the past two days. Her mother still wasn't talking, which couldn't have been further from the way she normally handled any disagreement. Ginny let her mind run over recent events. She had given up Harry and let go of her dreams of him entirely, at last, although she suspected that she would never really be free of him. He had entwined his fate with hers, and she now saw that completely, as she had not done before. But that very fact meant that he could never be to her what she had once so wanted him to be. She had chosen her first lover, and he had not been Harry. Instead, she had taken his worst enemy to her bed, the boy whose entire family had always had blood enmity with hers. Draco Malfoy. The fact seemed impossible to believe or to absorb. She gave a deep sigh.

"Now the back of your neck," said her mother.

Ginny sat up a bit further and winced. The movement made her feel the soreness between her legs as she had not felt it before. She remembered the long, slow, hot bath at the Leaky Cauldron, when Draco had washed away the blood on her thighs with a soft cloth and a gentle touch. His hands had been careful and almost reverent as he soothed her where he had hurt her. And where he made me feel pleasure I never even imagined... A wave of warm weakness went all through her, and she struggled furiously not to blush. She cleared her throat.

"Mum," she said. "When does Dumbledore want to see me?"

"Tomorrow," said her mother in the same toneless voice. "They're still questioning--other people. And you need the extra rest." Her lips tightened. It was the first characteristic gesture that Ginny had seen her mother make.

"Oh," Ginny said uncertainly. "I suppose I do, but what about--"

"Ginny." Her mother's voice was oddly heavy and sad, as if she knew what her daughter planned to ask next, and had cut her off because she could not bear to hear it. "How are you feeling now? Are you all right?" she finally added.

"Yes, Mum. I'm tired, that's all. Worn out. It's no more than that."

Molly Weasley bent her head so that the light on the bedside table struck it at a different angle than it had done before. Ginny saw the strands of grey around her mother's ears, and the fine lines around her brown eyes. Why, she's old, she thought. Or at least, not young. Funny that I never thought of her before as either old or young. She was just Mum...

"So you're all right?"

"You already asked me that, Mum."

"Yes. Yes, I did. And you answered me, didn't you?" Molly Weasley's voice had begun to take on a tone that Ginny remembered all too well.

"Have you talked to Madam Pomfrey, Mum?" Ginny asked, trying hard to keep her voice from snapping.

"Of course I have."

"Well, what did she say? She examined me, after all."

Molly made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Er... that you were... that you'd been..."

"Raped? Is that what she thinks? It is, isn't it?"

Her mother's silence was answer enough.

"Listen to me, Mum," Ginny said, her voice steady. "Please. Please, for once, just listen to me! That's not what happened at all. I wasn't hurt. I wasn't--forced--" The blush rose in her cheeks now. Ginny could feel its stinging heat. I wish I was a million leagues away. I wish I didn't have to say these things, not to my mother. But I do.

"Fred and George never should have allowed you to stay out of their sight," her mother said, as if she hadn't heard what Ginny had said. The familiar bossy tone was beginning to return to her voice. "If you'd only been safe in their flat every night, this never would have--"

"We would just have found some other place, Draco and I," Ginny continued doggedly, looking into her lap.

"But, surely--"

"What happened to me, Mum, in my rooms at the Leaky Cauldron--it happened because I wanted it." Ginny looked up. "I asked Draco to do what he did. And I knew what I was doing when I chose to do it."

Molly gave a gasp, very small but perfectly audible in the silent and almost empty hospital wing. Too late, Ginny realized that perhaps she had said the worst thing of all to her mother, without meaning to.

"But--Harry--" Molly said piteously.

"I didn't want Harry," Ginny said. "I didn't want anything about your plans for me, Mum. You and Dumbledore shouldn't have made them."

They were both silent for a long time. Molly continued to stroke Ginny's hair, her hand running over and over the gleaming strands. From the angle where she sat, Ginny could see it in the bedside mirror. Mum's hands always looked so young. But there are the beginnings of age spots on them now, Ginny thought, her mind detached, almost clinical. And the fingers are growing thinner. They almost look a bit twisted. If she were a Muggle, I suppose she would already have... what do they call it, arthritis... Then she remembered Molly Weasley brushing her hair when she was a tiny child, and how she had loved to sit on her parents' bed while her mother did it. She had looked so young and pretty then. But it really wasn't all that long ago. What happened between then and now? What burdens have you carried, Mum?

When her mother spoke again, her voice was somehow different--a bit cooler, perhaps, a little stronger and more detached.

"You are very young, my daughter," she said. "And the young can be so cruel."

"Don't you think I was too young to be forced into marriage with Harry, then?" Ginny asked quietly.

"I only wanted the best for you," said her mother. "That's all I've ever wanted, Ginevra."

Oh-oh. That's not a good sign at all, thought Ginny. Well, in for a knut, in for a galleon, I suppose...

"You wanted what you thought was best for the wizarding world, Mother," she said. "That, I can believe. But, best for me? No. It wouldn't have been best for me. And anyway it can't happen now."

"No, it can't. You've seen to that," said Molly.

"Yes, I have." Ginny sat up perfectly straight and looked into her mother's eyes defiantly. Molly returned the gaze, but her eyes were inscrutable, like blank brown buttons. A shiver went through Ginny. For a panicked moment, she wanted to break down and cry. I didn't mean to do anything wrong. Don't look at me that way, like I was a stranger, almost an enemy! I'm sorry, Mum! Sorry, sorry, sosorrysorrysorry... But then her mother looked away, and the tense moment was broken.

"Well. No use crying over spilt potions, is there?" said Molly, giving her daughter's hair a final deft pat. "You have a visitor, you know."

She didn't even offer to help me get up, Ginny realized after her mother had gone. She could cry now. But she no longer wanted to. She slowly rose to her feet. A gulf had opened between her mother and herself, one that had grown so gradually that she could no longer say how or when it had begun. And now it's led to this...

Ginny felt a bit dizzy and sick still, but she didn't particularly want to have to talk to anybody whilst lying flat on her back in pyjamas. She pulled on her dressing gown slowly, remembering the grey hairs she had seen on her mother's head. The brown spots on her hands. The sagging skin around her chin and cheeks. These signs of age were not inevitable in witches and wizards, who could delay even age itself. But Molly Weasley had not chosen to delay them.

Ginny stopped for a moment as she was tying the gown around her waist, and reached up. She massaged the skin above her heart, feeling the shape of her ribs under her fingers. A slow, brooding sensation seemed to be gathering there. But I couldn't choose other than what I have done, Mother. I couldn't choose what would please you, what you had so proudly planned for me. Or is that true? Maybe it isn't. All right, then. I chose what I chose. And that's all.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the bedside mirror, and pinched her cheeks to get some colour into them. I don't look very pretty. What if it's Draco? Oh, it couldn't be, or Mum wouldn't have sounded so calm. I'm sure she doesn't want me to see him. I wonder if they're still questioning him. I wonder how he is, if he's all right. His father's dead! I forgot about that. None of the rest of us really care, I suppose, but Lucius Malfoy was his father whatever they thought of each other by the end... I wonder what he thinks, how he feels, how he's holding up... Oh, Draco... A pang of actual pain tugged at her chest, as if someone had pulled on the other end of a silver cord connecting the two of them. He had made her so wholly his that she no longer felt she belonged entirely to herself. They were apart now, but her heart did not understand how this could be.

She heard footsteps approaching the bed. But they were too light, and she knew before she looked up that they couldn't be Draco's.

"Hello, Ginny," said Luna, as calmly as if she visited her haggard-eyed friend in the hospital wing of Hogwarts every day.

Ginny dropped back to sit on the bed. "Hello, Luna," she sighed.

"You don't sound very happy to see me," Luna observed, taking a seat in the chair by the bed. "That's how everyone always used to sound whenever I showed up at the Saturday night Herbology study group in the Ravenclaw common room this autumn."

"I'm sorry," said Ginny, because Luna's mouth was drooping at the corners a little. "I didn't mean it that way. Why on earth didn't they want you in the study group, anyway? You're good at Herbology, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes," said Luna. "But it was an all-girls' group. By about ten o'clock, they'd always start talking about boys they'd snogged. Then I'd tell them what the boys really said about them behind their backs. That didn't make me very popular."

Against her will, Ginny smiled. "There's such a thing as being too truthful, you know."

"That's what I finally figured out," Luna said sadly. "But it was too late. It was too bad, too, because I would have showed them the Crumple-Horned Snorckack horns I brought back from Norway. They're loads of fun. I can give you one, if you--"

"Not right now," said Ginny hurriedly. "It's good to see you, Luna. Nobody else has visited me yet, except for Mum."

"I know they haven't." Luna folded her legs under her in the large chair and settled herself comfortably.

"How'd you find that out?"

"We've been sneaking about the castle and listening at doors," yelled a loud, cheerful voice from the other side of the room.

Ginny froze. "Is that--"

Millicent Bulstrode popped out from behind a curtained bed and waved. "What on earth are you doing with her?" Ginny asked Luna.

"Oh, we're quite good friends now," Luna said calmly. "Would you like some cold pumpkin juice?"

"Yes, but-- how on earth did that start?" asked Ginny, feeling how dry her throat was for the first time.

"I don't have any. A few months ago, when I saw her spying on Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy in Diagon Alley, and she asked me if I was going to stare at her all day. And I said yes, I just might, because she was so pretty."

"Wait, wait." Ginny's head was beginning to spin. "You thought Millicent Bulstrode was pretty--and you told her so? And you don't have any pumpkin juice?"

"Nope, but Milla does. Hey! Milla! Bring the pitcher over here when you've done," yelled Luna across the room. "Unless you think Pansy will want all of it."

Ginny sank her head in hands. "Pansy Parkinson's here?" she mumbled.

"Oh, yes. Across the room. She's resting a bit. She spent hours talking to Dumbledore, and Milla says she's just exhausted. I hope there's enough pumpkin juice. And I do think Milla's pretty. She's got such nice hazel eyes, and the way she crinkles up her nose when she--"

Two minutes of talking to Luna was enough to exhaust most people, Ginny decided. She flopped back down on her bed with a sigh.

"Rise and shine!" said a loud, happy voice. Ginny cracked one eye open to see Millicent Bulstrode holding out a big glass of pumpkin juice, an enormous smile on her face.

Ginny looked up at Millicent, and then back down at the glass of juice. "Um... I'm not thirsty, Bulstrode."

"Hel-lo!" Millicent went through the exaggerated motions of cleaning out her ears. "I heard everything you said, you know. You sounded like you were practically dying of thirst."

Ginny tried to swallow, but the sides of her throat felt too dry to even come together. She's right. But I should hope I'm not thick enough to take anything from--

"It's that Slytherin thing, isn't it?" Millicent asked sadly. "You think I'm sneaky and untrustworthy."

"Well--" croaked Ginny. The beads of moisture on the side of the glass glistened enticingly.

"Actually, I am," the other girl continued. "But only in a good cause. That's why I'm here at all."

"And because of Pansy, and the pumpkin juice," said Luna. "You do have a way with pumpkin juice, Milla. Frosty, delicious, ice-cold--"

That's it. I can't take it anymore. And if it's poisoned... well, I am in the infirmary already, after all. Ginny snatched up the glass and drained it dry, giving a long sigh of relief.

"She's decided to trust you," Luna said happily.

"I don't trust her as far as I could throw her!" Ginny glared at the Slytherin girl, thinking as she did that that would be a bit further than it had once been, actually. Millicent's stay at Dr. Butlin's Magical Reducing Camp had certainly been a productive one.

"We'll have to tell her the whole story," said Millicent. "Or she'll never believe me, or you."

"Ginny would believe me. She doesn't think the same way about me as almost everyone else here does," said Luna.

"Of course I'd believe you," said Ginny, thinking guiltily of all the times she had ever made snide comments about Luna's sanity.

"Yes, but I want you to believe her, too. She knows parts of the story I don't know." Luna turned to Millicent. "I already told Ginny about Diagon Alley. But maybe it started on the Quidditch pitch, really, after Blaise Zabini caught you with the entire Hufflepuff team in January, and I happened to be there. I was looking for five-leafed clovers at the time, I think."

"That's right," agreed Millicent. "That was the first time I ever noticed Luna, you know. When Blaise called me a slut, and she slapped him."

"Of course, you didn't properly appreciate my sticking up for you at the time," Luna pointed out.

"True," said Millicent to Ginny. "I called her a dingbat. But later on, when you were the one who saw that Pansy didn't like kissing Draco anymore--"

Ginny moaned quietly and put her head in her hands. "This isn't making any sense at all."

"All right, all right." Millicent held up a hand, as if directing broom traffic. "Let me tell the story."

"That's probably for the best," agreed Luna. "I'm not good at telling stories all the way through so that they make lots of sense. You can believe everything she says, Ginny."

"Hmmph." Ginny subsided back onto the bed. But in truth, she was curious to hear what Millicent Bulstrode had to say. As dippy as Luna could be, she had a very strong streak of common sense. And if she thought that the Slytherin girl was trustworthy, then she probably was. Ginny had never really disliked and distrusted Millicent the way she did everyone else from that house anyway; she'd always felt that the other girl was only obeying orders from stronger personalities. And it doesn't seem like she's spent much time with other Slytherins in quite a while now... well, except for the boys. In broom closets and Rooms of Requirement, mostly.

"Luna's my cousin, you know," said Millicent.

"All the pureblood families are cousins, if it comes to that," said Ginny.

"Well, that's true. But then all the Slytherin girls started turning against me last year. You know. After I came back from reducing camp. All I wanted was to have a bit of fun with the boys. But that's how the nickname got started," Millicent said. "'School Broom Bulstrode,' you know. Well, Luna started sticking up for me. I didn't understand it at first. I didn't know what a good person she really was." Millicent blushed slightly. "And then she saw me spying on Draco and Pansy in Hogsmeade that one time, like I said. About six months ago, I think it was."

"Why were you spying on them?" Ginny asked suspiciously.

Millicent gave her a long, level look from her hazel eyes. "This plan of the Malfoys has been in the works for a long time," she said quietly. "They didn't tell anybody at Hogwarts very much. The less we know, the less we can give away, right? Draco was the only one at school who really knew much of anything. But I knew what I was told, and I was ordered to follow Draco and Pansy and see if they were really having all the problems everybody said they were having. They had to bond, you see."

"Draco told me that," Ginny said guardedly. "He told me... well, quite a lot."

"I'm sure he did," said Millicent, clearly suppressing a grin. "Anyway, my parents were losing interest in the entire thing. They'd never been considered important enough to get much real information or be trusted with the kind of plots the Malfoys and the Zabinis were always hatching, and they didn't want me caught up in it for no real rewards. So when Dumbledore called me into his office and asked me to find out everything he could for his side, I was more than happy to do it. I was never a very good Slytherin anyway. The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Hufflepuff, you know."

"So that's really what happened?" asked Ginny.

"Of course it's really what happened," said Luna, with a notable lack of her usual dreaminess. "I say it is as well, and you believe me, at least, don't you, Ginny?"

"Yes," said Ginny, knowing that she had doubted Luna, feeling a bit ashamed of herself.

"And if I really was a junior Death Eater," Millicent said cheerfully, "they'd hardly have allowed me in the infirmary, now would they?"

"I suppose not," said Ginny.

"So now that we know we're all on the same side," continued Millicent, "you can quit glaring at me like that, and we'll all be happy and play nice."

"But what about--" Ginny jerked her head towards the curtained bed on the other side of the room. "You know. Pansy Parkinson?"

"Pansy was a bit more difficult," sighed Millicent. "But the thing is, she got to the point where she really couldn't stand Draco anymore."

"She thought she'd go mad if she had to marry him," added Luna. "That was the final straw."

"And that's what she would have had to do, of course," said Millicent. "So I talked her round a bit--"

"You sat on her until she'd listen to you," pointed out Luna.

"Yes, well, it's hard to break old habits. But she hit it off with Luna really well, and I think that made all the difference."

"Pansy's pretty too," Luna said contentedly, her blue eyes misty.

Ginny decided that it was better not to ask. "But how'd you get her to come here and tell Dumbledore everything she knew?" she said instead.

"That was tricky," said Millicent. "Honestly, I thought she'd bolt right up to the very last minute. But then came that night when Draco wouldn't have sex with her--" She stopped when she saw Ginny's tightened lips. "Well, he wouldn't," she continued. "It's the truth. And she realized that there was nothing left for her to do. She'd get into loads of trouble if she had to go back to Lucius Malfoy and tell him the big plan hadn't worked out. So she came with us back to Hogwarts, and you know the rest."

"But I don't!" exclaimed Ginny. "That's just the trouble; nobody's told me almost anything. Where's Draco?"

The other two girls exchanged glances. "He's still with Dumbledore," said Millicent.

Ginny struggled to a sitting position. "Listen to me, both of you. Please. I can't tell Dumbledore or anyone in the Order about this until Madam Pomfrey lets me out of here, but I know what they think he did to me, and it's not true. Tell them that it's not true!" She looked fearfully from Millicent to Luna. "You will, won't you?"

"If you say it's not true," said Luna, "then it's not. So of course I will." She glanced up at a sound from the other side of the room. "Pansy wants something," she said.

"You go over," said Millicent. Luna seemed to understand, and nodded, scurrying off towards the other bed.

"I already told them that Draco didn't rape you," Millicent said quietly.

"You did?" Ginny was startled. "I mean--thank you, I suppose, but how did you know?"

"Because I know him," said Millicent. "I know what he's capable of, and what he isn't, even at his worst. And I know how the past year's almost destroyed him. He was torn in so many ways by everything his father wanted him to do."

"And now his--" Ginny swallowed. "Now Lucius Malfoy's dead."

Millicent only nodded. Ginny picked at the edge of the coverlet, lost in her own thoughts. She wondered suddenly if Draco could ever feel the same way about her after what had happened in her rooms at the Leaky Cauldron. Did he blame her for his father's death, perhaps? If the Aurors hadn't come to rescue her, Lucius Malfoy wouldn't have been killed. But then, she herself would have been taken to Malfoy Manor, for the ritual. She shivered at the thought.

"Are you cold?" asked Millicent.

"No..."

"Tired, then? I should leave you alone, I suppose--"

"No--wait--" Ginny caught at Millicent's sleeve. "You know Draco pretty well, don't you?"

Millicent's nose crinkled up. "Oh, for simply ages. One of the first things I remember in my entire life is him knocking me off my toy broom when we were both about four years old."

"Do you--" Ginny hesitated. "Do you think he's all right?"

Millicent nodded. "I'm sure he is. If I know Draco--and I do--he'll find a way to land on his feet."

Ginny squirmed a little. "How well do you know Draco?"

The other girl shrugged. "Very well. And not at all. I dunno; I don't think anyone's ever really known him."

"Oh." Ginny looked down at her linked hands. "So you know him very well."

"Yes, I do."

"This included the time when everybody was saying all those things about you, didn't it?"

"Ginny," Millicent said in her brusque, not unkindly way. "If you want to know if we ever shagged, well, we did. Just once, though." She stopped at the stricken look on Ginny's face. "I've gone too far, haven't I?" she said ruefully. "I always seem to do that."

"You were his girlfriend?" Ginny asked in a rather small voice. "I thought Pansy was."

Millicent made an impatient movement with her hand. "I was never Draco Malfoy's girlfriend. Neither was Pansy, if it comes to that. We were friends, Ginny, like I told you. I can call you Ginny, can't I?"

"Er--I suppose. But really, Millicent, I don't shag my friends," said Ginny.

"Well, I generally do. And that's all it was. Draco was angry at Pansy one afternoon last summer when I was visiting the manor, and he found me out in the stables, and there was a big pile of hay with blankets all over it, and I was more than happy to let him pull me down onto it, and gosh, he is good, isn't he? Oops. There I go again," sighed Millicent. "But can I tell you something, Ginny? Good," the other girl plowed on when Ginny didn't respond. "Because I'm going to anyway. What we did, Draco and I--it was just a bit of fun, and it never happened again. But whatever happened between the two of you--and you don't need to tell me all the details unless you're just dying to tell someone..." Millicent trailed off, a hopeful look on her face.

"I'm not," Ginny said firmly.

"No, I suppose not. And anyway you've only trusted me for ten minutes now. What I was going to say was, Draco's got to have feelings for you he never had for me, or Pansy, or anybody else. He did something for you that I never would have ever believed he'd do for anyone. The way he felt about his father--" Millicent stopped abruptly. "It isn't my place to say."

"You've said enough for one day, I think," said Ginny dryly.

"I do like to talk," Millicent admitted. "And really, you shouldn't pay attention to half of what I say."

"What about the other half, though?"

"I'm pretty trustworthy," Millicent said. "And I really do care about Luna, you know?"

"You mean you-- and she-- but what about Pansy? No!" Ginny held up a hand. "I don't want to know. I really don't, Millicent."

Millicent grinned. "Then I won't tell you. You're not mad at me about Draco, are you?"

Ginny thought it over. "No," she finally said, remembering all the time she'd spent with Harry long after she'd known that they were wrong for each other. If things had been just a bit different, she might even have slept with him, liking but not loving him, sharing her body out of friendship or obligation or Merlin only knew what. So I can't judge Draco. Or Millicent, I suppose. Maybe not even Pansy Parkinson.

"I'll let you sleep some more now. When you wake up, I'm sure they'll want you to see Dumbledore," said Millicent. "He's not in his office; did you know that? He's moved to that clock tower at the edge of the Forbidden Forest for some weird reason. That's where Draco is too, you know.

"But--"

"Shhh. Nighty-night, now."

Ginny began to protest; there was so much more she wanted to know, needed to ask, but she felt her eyes drooping already. "Oh, all right," she yawned. "And Millicent--when all this is over, you know, I wouldn't mind seeing you again. If you keep hanging around with Luna, I mean."

"Oh, I think you will," said Millicent, her voice amused. "You can't get rid of me that easily!"

The last thing Ginny heard was the sound of retreating footsteps. She fell asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

************************************************************************

She heard the sound of softly murmuring voices long before she was really awake. For a long time, they seemed only part of a dream. Her eyes slowly opened and she saw that the curtains around the bed on the other side of the room were no longer closed. The shadowy figure of Pansy Parkinson was sitting up in bed and talking to someone that she couldn't quite see, because the other person was on the far side of the bedside table.

"Oh, I can forgive you anything, I suppose, as long as I don't have to sleep with you anymore," Pansy said in a clear voice. It was the first coherent thing Ginny had really heard.

The other person mumbled something in reply.

"As if! I should think you'd had enough girls to stroke that ego of yours."

A soft laugh, then more words that Ginny couldn't begin to catch.

"She is?"

A murmur of something that seemed to be assent.

"Really?" said Pansy. Her voice was softer now. "Well. Who would've thought?"

More mumbling.

"I know that's what you came here for. Millicent might be as thick as she looks, but I'm not. You'll get in loads of trouble in anybody finds out, you know. Is it really worth--"

A rather hurt-sounding mumble that turned up at its end. .

"No," said Pansy. "I won't tell anyone." She reached up and pulled the curtains closed again.

Ginny shut her eyes hurriedly at the sound of footsteps. They came closer and closer, finally stopping at the side of her bed. Then, silence.

It was Draco. She knew it by the sound of his breathing, or the restless way he kept shifting from foot to foot, or maybe by the disturbance of the air around her bed, as if a fresh keen wind had blown in--oh, what does it matter how I know? I know. She opened one eye just the tiniest bit, and quickly shut it again. The brief glimpse of Draco was imprinted so strongly on her mind that she knew nothing could ever remove it again. He looked desperately tired, almost ill, and she wondered if he'd been able to sleep.

He continued to stare down at her. Ginny wasn't entirely sure, herself, why she didn't say anything to him. Her whole body yearned towards him so desperately that the sensation was almost literally painful, but she pretended to be asleep, taking care to keep her breathing light and even. The silence stretched on and on. She wondered briefly if she was awake, even now, or if her vision of Draco was only a dream.

Then she heard a soft rustling, and felt the warmth of his face only inches from hers. Why don't I say something? she wondered. But I can't. Not until--until he says something to me.

Draco said nothing. But he pressed a light kiss to her forehead, and the warmth of his lips rushed all through her. "You can't hear me, can you?" he whispered, his voice no louder than a sigh. "I suppose they gave you a sleeping potion. I don't want to wake you, if you can sleep...I only want to tell you..."

Wild horses couldn't have dragged a word out of Ginny after that. She struggled to keep her breathing even, so that he wouldn't suspect he was wrong.

She heard the bed creak just the slightest bit as Draco slipped next to her. Then she felt the feverish warmth of his arms around her, and his chest pressing against her back through the cotton nightgown.

"I shouldn't be here," he murmured. "Pansy's right about that." He pushed his head forward until it almost rested on her shoulder, but not quite.

"But I can't sleep without you," Draco continued in a low whisper. "That's what I wanted to tell you. I want to sleep. Just for a few hours. Nothing more. Then I'll leave. You would let me, wouldn't you, Ginny, if you could hear me?"

She didn't nod, and she didn't answer him in words. But she answered with her body, because she couldn't help doing that. He gave a soft sigh when she relaxed against him and her muscles grew pliant and welcoming against his. His arm went around her shoulder, and she felt her skin tingle even from this simple contact. He turned her so that they lay face to face.

"I knew you would..." Draco said. Before he had quite finished the sentence, he was asleep. Ginny opened her eyes and looked at him once she was sure of it, because she couldn't help doing that, either. There was a faint smile on his sleeping face. It was the last thing she saw before sleep claimed her as well.