Words

I confess: I love words. I love the way they slide in my mouth and caress my ear. I love the unfolding of knowledge from some books and the journey in others. Most of my friends think I am an academic: a perfect bluestocking, although Ron and Harry wouldn't use or know the term.

No one grasps that the tomes I carry to class and back are my secret delights. They are my glimpse of further lands, my Elysian Fields: there and back again and all between, lying open before me to take and taste, receive or reject. Sometimes when I am alone I read my books aloud, just to feel them melt on my tongue like some rich, rare chocolate, and to hear the way the sounds fall as they go forth into the air around me.

Because I lift so many truths from the page, it seems to me sometimes that when a thought is real, when it is true, then it should be made lasting so that homage can be paid to its truth. Words are engraved on the page from now until long after me, and maybe long after many others, like a headstone stamped impermeably for good or ill.

That's why when I need to understand about truth, I often write: I bind with ink and paper so that nothing can fly away and be lost. My thought can be held, examined, turned, kept or released. The page will hold it captive until I know what is true and what is not. And that's why I'm writing now.

If a book is like a journey, then this is the road I began on in order to arrive at the moonlit lands: I went to the library. How mundane, you say. But don't forget, in the library there are shelf upon shelf of journeys and crossings, passages and promises, lies and truth. So I came to the library and I began to study Arithmancy and Potions, Charms and Astronomy. Just beyond me, a silver head was bowed, as was usual after classes. He looked at me and at my books, and at his, and he snorted as he shook his head and turned back to his studies. We two sat, dark and light, in utter silence, separate, though we were reading the same books, moving through the same worlds, just as we had in all the years before.

It seemed senseless, when together we could make the journey faster, better. No one ever said Draco Malfoy was stupid: to the contrary, I knew he wanted to be the top of our class. He might have been, if I hadn't been at Hogwarts.

I had a path to choose, so I began to weigh certain events in my mind. There was the time, when we were much younger, when I first heard the awful name that wizards give other wizards. That was when I understood we could not be friends. Third year he was hurtful, and I hit him. I wondered why he didn't hit back, or hex, or have his ham-handed friends do his dirty work. It seemed violence was not his style - only ugly words. I hated that. One should wield words as one wields a wand, with grace and magic.

But then there were so many memories of moments like this, in the library, only the two of us here so late. There was a memory of a glance shared in a second-year class when we both badly needed the answer. And one memory of a time when he was hiding, just as I was hiding, and he warned me to stay out of danger. He made his language unforgivably ugly, but what he communicated was clear. There was the memory of a meeting of the prefects in which a truce, of sorts, was reached. It might not be enough.

I chose my path. I rose from my chair.

I slid the book of charms forward until it was under his gaze, pushing his book out of the way at the same time.

"This is ridiculous," I said. "We both want the best scores on our N.E.W.T.s. We'll get further quicker if we study together."

"First of all, I expect to get top scores without anyone's help," Malfoy answered, his voice as cold as the night sky. "Second, I wouldn't study with a Mudblood like you if - what are you doing, Granger?"

"This is where I am," I said, pointing at the text. "And I can use any of these charms easily. I think maybe I can help you. Meanwhile, in transfigurations I can't seem to turn a raven into a writing desk at all. Not even a desk with feathers. If we work together, we have a better chance of getting perfect marks."

"Nobody gets perfect marks on N.E.W.T.s," he scoffed. But the silvery eyes were thoughtful.

"I can," I pronounced flatly. "I think you can, too. Who else is in the library so often?"

He gazed at me for a long time, gave me one short nod, and we pulled the book between us. We stayed in the library until midnight, and by that time I had heard Draco read aloud words on page after page. When he read it was like suddenly seeing the stars on a night when the sky had been hidden by clouds. I understood something about him I never had before, because as he read he stroked each sentence he uttered - carefully caressed it with his tongue before he let it leave him. I was captivated. I had seen him in the library so often that I should have known that he, too, had a love of words - even his taunts should have told me he understood that words had their power, but I hadn't seen. He was completely unaware, as he spoke, that I was watching and listening, not to the words themselves so much as the way he said them.

In Draco I began to read a poem. It was about dark and light, and I didn't know yet how it would end. If some words were like chocolate then this poem was like wine, and would be full of life and flavor running down my throat. I couldn't help myself: I lowered my mouth to the pale curve of his jaw and kissed him, ever so softly. He looked up, startled, and I thought he would use words that were cruel, because he knew the power of words but he really didn't know me. But he was silent, and searching.

"It's your turn to read," he said to me finally, and nudged the book in my direction.

Through the window, the stars shone down on us.