Like Poison

The reason why the story is picked up from this precise point, started with this exact entry, is because this is when their strings of fate became entangled with no hope of ever returning to how they once were. The events that follow, in this order, are a catalyst to a great change.

Fibre makes thread that makes cloth that makes sheets who drape windows and beds.

_______________________________________________________________________

12^th of April, 1997.

Humans are beings who are generally vulnerable to a brand of stupidity that is exclusively theirs. They do stupid things, think stupid things and validate it all with even sillier justifications that make no sense whatsoever once reviewed with a clear eye. Take, for example, the belief that if one loved another so much then one indirectly takes an obligation upon oneself to either protect one's love entirely or else die!

I, a completely rational human being born outside the sphere of normalcy that renders man completely lost when it comes to salvation, disbelief in the belief of dying for one's true love. For one, it is an utter waste.

I recently finished reading a summarised version of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' and my first thought after doing so was: Jesus Christ, what the bloody hell is wrong with all of humanity?

To die for one's true love is a contradiction to the point of being 'together forever'. When one dies, one does so alone. So, where is the togetherness? When one dies, one will be judged on one's own actions ( if we were to imply that there is a fairness after death and no one will be blamed for another's actions no matter how much one held the other in high esteem) and as it is that one is human, then one is constantly at fault and in sin which makes one, really, one big sinner - what I'm trying to get at is that why should one die for another and be brought to one's own judgment earlier when one cannot fully guarantee that one and one's lover will be together even after death?

Why would one do that? What is wrong with one?

It is then with great pains, knowing what I have come to know in my seventeen years of life, that I pledge in this leather bound diary,, if one day I were to be put in a position where I had to choose death for either my lover or I - keeping in mind that I love my lover so very much - I would choose my death over his. Not because I wish to save my lover because of a great and blind degree of loyalty but simply because, I do not wish to be left behind. I do not want to be the one who suffers grief because it is an inconvenience.

After reaching this conclusion, I also admit, that I, Ginevra Weasley am very much in love with a man. I did not choose to be and I cannot honestly pinpoint the reason for or the time of this great calamity. All that I can truly tell a judge under oath is that, I... don't really... mind being in love, per se. Love is not the greatest discomfort that I have ever felt in my life, and if I actually had the energy to do so at this late hour, I would list other things that cause a greater discomfort than love.

However, my greatest shortcoming (as I see this to be my shortcoming) is that, he, the man whom I love so entirely, does not, in fact, love me back or even slightly care for my well being. Simply because, the love of my life, is the biggest friggin' arsehole that the earth has ever had the displeasure of living with. It has come to my understanding that if I were to have this man, I would have to not only battle - with a great and mighty sword, might I add - everyone, including my family and... well everyone... but him too.

Even though I have tasted the pleasure from the lips of many men, I still leech off my love for this man - the ecstasy of wanting another person - because I love my love for him and I love the pain that it puts me through. It was like the great awakening for me. I am now, fully aware of all my senses and I don't think that at any other time in my life will I ever be this much glad of a discomfort caused to me.

Now that I am comfortably aware of my own feelings and am not lying to myself like some great infidel I feel the great imperative need to state a few facts to myself so as not to have this whole thing get out of hand. Pay attention Ginny; do not be silly in your attempts at a fairy tale.

I once read that love is a fleeting emotion. There is no such thing; love is not the blood that runs through your veins, love is not the air that you breathe; love is not the sense that keeps you sane and love is not the hope that keeps you alive. I read that love is nothing but a disease that only has two antidotes - death and time. Either way is too painful and defeats the purpose of eternal bliss.

Love is a weakness, and cannot be trusted. Love is more self-deception than any other emotion; it's not real. Humans need to believe that they have love in order to believe that their lives have a purpose, and that they are not merely shallow creatures who roam the earth and destroy everything in malice.

Love is just an excuse for fornication. Love is just an excuse for repopulation. Love is just an excuse to live and die.

That is what I read. Is it true though? To what extent can that be trusted? To what extent can it be applied to my particular misfortune? Oh, well, it can't really. It's another of man's stupidities. Love is the all grand. And it is the great over comer of things, the great doer, the great reason... the great- well, I think I've made my bloody point, now, haven't I?

She set down her quill on the desk. Leaning back in her chair, she ran her hand through her hair and groaned. Her back was aching, she felt like being bashed with a shovel. Perhaps that will feel better than sitting on a wooden chair for a number of unaccountable hours finishing an essay for both Advanced Potions and Advanced Herbology. She admired the even and seemingly comfortable floor for its straightness. She thought about joining the floor on it, to stretch out her back but then changed her mind, considering how much energy it would take.

Not for the first time did she rethink the wisdom in her choice for agreeing to take all her sixth year subjects as advanced. At the end of fifth year, by nomination from some teachers, she'd been advised to take on advanced classes. These classes had been seventh year work veiled by the title of 'Advanced Sixth year'. She had many a time cursed the moment when at the end of fifth year, she had met with Professor McGonagall and decided upon the subjects that she would opt for her N.E.W.Ts. Advanced, advanced, advanced... kill me now...

Taking advanced subjects meant that she needed to do twice as much work as a normal sixth year, because she had to get through the curriculum of the sixth and the seventh years in half the time. And then what was she supposed to do, spend all of seventh year revising for her N.E.W.Ts? If only things were not complicated.

In addition, being a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team was very demanding. Harry, who had been given the title of team captain along with his returned title of Seeker, in Ginny's opinion, was taking his role too seriously. She knew it was essential for the team all the waking up early and late hours of training, but it was bloody tiring, that's what it was. She held her opinion in check knowing that it was necessary to beat Slytherin in the next match.

"Gin..." She felt a soft touch on her right shoulder. She turned in her seat to face the owner of the hand that had broken her train of thought.

"Oracle." Ginny looked into the blue eyes and quickly shut the black hardcover of her diary. "What's the time?"

"It is..." Oracle looked at her watch, "eleven o'clock." Oracle headed over to her bed and yawned loudly as she tucked under the covers.

She was a blond-haired girl out of an Elizabethan painting. Very beautiful, she caught every boy's attention. She and Ginny had been very good friends for the last two years. The summer after her fourth year, Ginny had spent two weeks at Oracle's place and then again, in the summer of her fifth year, she'd spent a month of her holidays there. However, both had been for entirely different reasons.

Ginny and Oracle caught much attention for their figures, earning themselves wolf-whistles and lascivious comments. Their coquettishness didn't do anything to discourage that sort of behaviour from the opposite sex. For this, Ginny had been greatly apprehended last summer. An ugly time, that had been.

With the cycles of the moon changed Ginny's boyfriends and for Oracle, it was twice times that. Although, the difference was, that Ginny never went past snogging while Oracle always went past snogging. The blond was basically Draco Malfoy in female. She met, she bedded, she dumped and she moved on. No emotional attachments, no name exchanges, no talk, just play. It was rumoured that Oracle, a ludicrously rich pure blood witch, had permanently bought a room down at the inn in Hogsmeade. Though, it was just a rumour.

Ginny snogged and dumped, though she never had an appetite to go further than that. She dated Ravenclaws, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and even Slytherins, not bothering to keep her attachments secret. Not that anybody actually waited long enough to find out; she wasn't the only girl who played boyfriend exchange. The amount of boys that she hadn't dated could probably be counted on all her fingers and toes, she laughed. Draco Malfoy taking two toes on her left foot, she thought. To him, she made herself candy behind a glass window in a shop decorated with temptation and traps. No, no, you can't, no, it's too dangerous, no, no, bad, naughty boy.

She was fully aware how much he wanted her, just because he couldn't have her ...or so, she guessed. Looking at her the way he did, making those comments that he made, asking Oracle about Ginny the times that he did. He was a mystery of a man, and she had to admit to herself, an alluring mystery he was.

She wanted him maybe as much as he wanted her. It wasn't a recent revelation, with Ginny being attracted to several other men. Oracle had told her how much Draco wanted Ginny. But for him, it was near an obsession, or so Oracle had said.

Oracle and Draco belonged to the circle of the old families. The rich ones that held the enormous New Year and summer balls, the ones that had business with each other and were so interconnected that they were all cousins at one point or another. Last summer, during the month spent at Oracle's place, Ginny had experienced the full extent of their connections. She'd seen everybody there, from both sides of the war. She learned that the old families put their differences aside for their image. In Oracle's enormous parlour, standing by her and her parents, she'd seen off the Malfoys, Parkinsons, Crabbes, Browns...

"Think about me in my underwear later, darling, go to sleep now," Oracle mumbled from her pillow. Packing her stuff and smiling, Ginny thought about Draco again. He was handsome, he wanted her, he was rich... But then she also thought of the trouble it would cause if she made company with him. Another boy had already caused a lot of trouble for her last summer when her parents had found out that he belonged to the 'other side'.

She hadn't spoken to her mother since that summer, what did it matter? What did she have to lose if she gave Malfoy a shot?

Reaching into the top dresser drawer, Ginny slipped on one of Oracle's short, silk nightgowns, doing it mechanically as she walked to her bed. She felt tired, more tried, she suspected, than necessary. Her very bones were aching; they always ached now, especially her joints. Maybe it was Quidditch, maybe it was just exhaustion. She exhaled loudly as she snuggled into her sheets.

It was the beginning of the Easter holidays and they had the whole dormitory to themselves. They shared the rest of the tower with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a second year staying at Hogwarts over the holidays.

As the students in Gryffindor tower slept that night, they all dreamt of pleasant things, but Ginny, in her physical and mental fatigue, walked into one nightmare and fell out of another.

* * *
Her eyes ached, even before she opened them. Her lids burned when she finally saw the top of the canopy bed. They felt dry and heavy.

A light vibration of the mattress and she propped herself up on the pillows. Her head spun and she shut her lids for a moment, bracing herself. She was used to this now, the fierce headaches, the aches in her bones, and even the way she ate and ate and never felt full. And never put on a kilo, instead, losing weight.

"He was telling me that he thought you've been looking really droopy lately-" Oracle pulled on a transparent stocking "-and I said I thought so-" she dropped her second stockinged leg and jumped off the end of Ginny's bed.

"Who said this?" Ginny asked but not with the same vigour as Oracle. She pushed the sheets back and slowly stood up, massaging her skull and cracking her neck.

"Stop that!" the other girl shivered as she walked over to the mirror. "I hate that bloody sound."

"Sorry, Oracle."

"My, aren't we a bitch this morning. Anyway - you were getting dressed?" Oracle cocked her head and went to stand behind Ginny in the bathroom. "I really meant it when I said you looked terrible," she held Ginny's shoulders and pressed them, "you're looking sicker and sicker each day, that's what he said to me. And I think so too. Maybe you should see the nurse... all that weight too..."

"It's probably a phase I'm going through..." Ginny touched her face and traced the darkness under her eyes, thinking of the migraines that always caught her off guard. The nurse would say the same thing, get some rest, you do too much. As for those energising potions. I refuse to give you anymore, you're starting to develop a dangerous addiction to them.

"This is no phase, darling..." Oracle leaned in and whispered in Ginny's ear, "I think you have worms."

"Ora!" Ginny snapped teasingly and then narrowed her eyes at herself in the mirror. "They wouldn't dare..."

"Oh, I think they would, they're feisty little ones. Why, I remember when I had worms once, terrible, lost a lot of weight and when I went to the loo, I'd look-"

"Stop!" Ginny laughed and turned away from the mirror. "I don't want to know." There was a long pause as Oracle stood in the doorway of the bathroom and watched as Ginny removed her clothes, getting into the shower.

"I'll lay out some clothes for you..."

"Make it something comfortable, I'm tired," Ginny said over the sound of the water, as she filled her mouth with it and pushed her hair off her forehead.

"You're always tired, Gin."

"Why you so dressed up anyway?" the red head pushed aside the shower curtain and cocked her head out. Another long pause. "Oh, yes, Harry is going to be there," she went back to showering. "I've told you before, the kind of treatment that man needs-"

"I've been ignoring him, Ginny, has it been working?" Oracle said a little dejectedly.

"Try a little longer!"

"I've been trying a little longer for a year,"

She brought her head out again, "no you haven't, you liar-"

"At least I am trying." Oracle turned and walked back into the room, flicking her hair in that my-pride-has-been-wounded way. Ginny smiled to herself.

"Come back, honey, I didn't mean to hurt your feeling," she called coaxingly as she shampooed her hair.

And the girl was back, apparently mollified. "Draco asked me about you yesterday night. He's relentless."

"Was it when he came, oh, please tell me it was, it would be ever so flattering-"

"We weren't fucking," she said flatly.

"Oh, you were talking, were you? Like two honest people wanting a good shoulder to cry on, were you?"

"Honest? Who's ever honest anymore?" Oracle looked down and contemplated the customary Hogwarts white tiles.

"Nobody is honest. They all lie and cheat and-"

"I think Draco is honest."

She turned off the water and stepped out. "Where's my towel?"

"Take that one there."

"It's wet!" she exclaimed with slight indignation.

"No, it's not, you spoilt child. It's just damp."

"If you weren't a spoilt child, you'd stop using my towel to dry your hair and use the one that you've already wet," Ginny huffed and walked out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around her torso. "I swear you're-"

"I want to have breakfast this century. Stop talking and start dressing."

"Change the subject so quickly, it's not you who's going to freeze-"

"As I recall..." Oracle leaned on the dresser, her hands supporting her on the edge. "You were the one who changed the subject..." She lifted a cynical eyebrow and smirked.

Ginny shifted her eyes to Oracle and then back to the mirror.

"You were saying?"

"Draco likes you... a lot."

"No, he doesn't. He just wants to get laid. A lot." She wore her underwear and slipped her legs into the grey, baggy hipster pants that Oracle had laid out for her. That's what it was; he didn't even know her to like her. They'd hardly ever spoken about anything of value, she thought, what does he like? My hair?

"Draco Malfoy, my dear, gets laid all the time. He doesn't need you to get laid, girls throw themselves at him. He has a waiting list that he can't even keep track of-"

"And how many children that can't he keep track of?" Metaphorically speaking.

The otherwise delicately elegant girl snorted. "Don't act like you're the one with ethics, Ginny. He fucks and gets fucked. You fuck-"

"Corrections, I don't fuck."

"Oh, you make love do you?" Oracle asked in a tone of mock surprise before walking to the door of the dormitory where she watched Ginny drying her hair with her wand. "Nobody makes love anymore. Gin, I don't know what you're waiting for but it's not worth it. Have your fun while you can, we're at war; nobody has time to make love. If you die, you'll die just like the next person, there will be no difference between you-"

"So I should offer myself to everything that walks, should I, because I might die a virgin, eh? Who's the one with no ethics, Ora, really?" she stood in front of her friend, eye to eye.

They stared at each other for a long time. "What are you saying, Ginny?"

A long pause later. "I'm not going down to his or your level."

Oracle smiled cunningly, "we're all going to hell. We'll burn together just the same for all our sins."

"One thing is different from another," Ginny said and headed towards the staircase.

"We're all in this together, you know." Ginny looked back, Oracle stood in the doorway, her shape silhouetted against the light from the large windows.

"We don't have to be."

"What do you mean?"

"It means I'm getting out, Ora. You could come with me or you could stay, but I'm going to save myself. I'm not fighting someone else's war, I'm not dying for something I don't believe in. I'm not doing it because my parents tell me to or because my brothers think I should. I'm not living for the moment because tomorrow I might not be here. I will be here and I'm not going to do anything that I'll regret, because I'll have the rest of my life to live with it. And it's going to be a long life."

"You think you're so high and mighty, don't you?" there was bitterness in her voice and Ginny knew Oracle didn't mean to hurt her feelings. Oracle suffered even more than Ginny did; she suffered on the inside for all the mistakes she had done. She lived every day in self-loathing, Ginny knew because Oracle had once told her in those exact words. What Ginny figured that everything was rebellion to Oracle; every breath she took was rebellion against something or other. She was a troubled woman who hurt everyone because she was angry.

"No, Ora, but I'm not stupid. I'm not dying for a stupid reason."

They stood for a long time, Ginny on the second top step of the winding staircase and Oracle in the doorway of the Sixth Year girls' dormitory.

"What does this have to do with Draco?" Ginny finally asked as Oracle left her tower and descended the stairs with Ginny.

"If you let him, you know Draco will be a reason to die for. And you don't want to die for anyone. You're selfish."

***

Draco woke up at dawn on that hot Saturday morning. He was alone in the Slytherin lair, and glad as he stretched, brushing his teeth.

As he dressed, he thought about Oracle and what they had spoken about yesterday. She'd been coming back from Hogsmeade, from the room he knew she owned there, looking tired....

"Draco," she'd passed him, holding her stilettos in her left hand.

"Oracle. Escaping a band of Death Eaters?"

"What?" she'd turned around in irritation. He knew her; he'd known her since they were little, not personally, but just casually. Anyway, he knew her enough to know that she had just come back from a bad date.

"I'm just commenting on the fact that you're barefoot and that the zipper of your dress is half down," he replied dryly before giving her the once over with bored grey eyes.

"Fuck you."

"Oh... not again." And she'd thrown her heels, hardly missing him.

"You wish I'd sleep with you again, you stupid faggot!"

"Faggot, really?"

"Oh! What do you want, Draco?!" she'd screeched with her sapphire eyes burning in frustration.

"Calm down, Ora. What's wrong with you?"

Oracle had fallen on a step and held her face in her hands; he'd seen her like this enough times to know she wouldn't cry in front of him. She was much too proud for that. A few moments later she looked up and it was like she hadn't gotten that thing in her eye at all. "Bad night, that's all."

He sat down next to her and looked up at the dark sky.

"What have you been up to?"

"Same thing as you."

"No," she laughed bitterly, "not the same thing as me."

"The same concept I meant, of course not the bloody same thing as you."

"Why? Because you only come on their faces?"

He'd turned and stared at her sharply then. So much for being a bloody Seer, supposedly wise and experienced. But then, maybe even the best ones that held themselves together were being run down by the war and constant death announcements in the paper.

"How's Ginny?" he asked steadily, knowing that he should change the subject for her sake.

"The same,"

"I'd say worse." He leaned forward. "She looks even worse than she did yesterday. Dark under her eyes, yellow, run down-"

"Virgin like?" she interjected, looking torn between a laugh and a devilish grin.

He'd looked at her and smirked slowly. "I wouldn't have known."

She laughed brightly and put a hand on his shoulder. "You know now." And then she'd continued laughing at some inner joke.

"So..."

"I don't know! I don't! She's sick and it's not just the school work, Quidditch and the..." war, he knew she'd wanted to say. But you didn't speak of it, and that was it. It was there and happening but you never said so, you always kept it a secret, pretending like if you said hush and gave each other looks, it would pass you by or cease to exist.

"It's almost like something unnatural, you know?" she'd said and looked at him as if he knew. "Because she eats a lot, she just eats and eats, she eats twice as much as I do but she's losing weight-"

"Maybe she has worms?"

"Oh, disgusting, Draco! She doesn't have worms!"

"Can you really be sure?"

She laughed, she needed to, he'd thought. "It has to be more than that, it's like it's something on the inside is breaking down. It's like..."

"Grief?"

She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. "What grief?" Everybody else's grief, he'd wanted to say.

"I don't know..."

"Maybe it's magical, you know, that's what I'm thinking..." She stood up to retrieve the pairs of scattered sandals. She leaned down and he'd gotten a good flash of her nonexistent panties.

"Forgot your knickers too?"

She sprung up and felt herself then swore and turned utterly in a rage. He lifted his eyebrows at her and she clenched her jaw hard, hurling a shoe into the darkness. She wouldn't miss it, he'd known, she probably had another hundred to replace it. When she turned around, he'd held up a hand, "I saw nothing."

In a moment her rage was gone. "Nothing new to you, I'm sure." And the same bitter tiredness had returned to her features. She sat back next to him, this time resting straight out on the steps, her arms supporting her head.

He looked at and admired her truly womanly form. A few moments and he put his hand on her crotch, clenching it through the white, flowery material of her dress. There was a certain chemistry between them, he knew, but he had his eyes set on Ginny and screwing her best friend probably wouldn't be the right way to a good start.

Oracle had opened her eyes and looked at him, holding his hand firmly between her thighs and then releasing it.

"I'm sick," she whined. He removed his hand and nodded.

"So am I." And she'd laughed....

Walking out of the bathroom, he started putting on his shirt and pants.

Draco hadn't gone home for the holidays because he didn't wish to go home to an empty Manor. Lucius had escaped Azkaban as everybody knew he would. The Ministry hadn't come looking for him perhaps that had been predicted as well. They had wanted him to escape and they had probably helped him out.

He'd come home after his escape, the most obvious place to look for him, but yet, no one had come. His father had not even expected them to come. Corruption was grand, wasn't it? Money was grand.

Currently, his father was in Russia, where no one, even if they had wanted to, would think to look for him. Lucius wasn't stupid; he wouldn't take advantage of freedom even if the Minister himself had guaranteed his safety. However, freedom hadn't been given to Lucius officially, he hadn't been welcomed back into polite society. Not yet, but he would be very soon. It was only a matter of waiting for it.

Lucius was attending a wedding of a third cousin once removed on the Malfoy side. He'd sent a letter to Draco and informed him, even though he sent letters to Draco at least once in a fortnight, which were completely ignored.

Draco left his room and went out of the dungeons, heading for the Great Hall to have breakfast. He glanced at his watch and realised that it was too early for breakfast, so he went out and sat on the castle steps, watching the morning come alive as he drift in his thoughts. .

Almost a week before the start of the school year, his parents had invited to the Manor, a few of the 'friends'. The Dark Lord, the Lestranges, Crabbe and Goyle senior, Avery, Antonin Dolohov, Nott and Peter Pettigrew had all come for dinner. What an innocent occasion.

Lucius had been murmuring with the Dark Lord, Avery, Rodolphus and Dolohov while Draco's mother had had a lively conversation with the Lestranges. Draco had sat quietly eating his own food in total monotony.

He hated these meetings. Each time they would be held at a different house of one of the top Death Eaters. The meetings always revolved around the same thing: everybody declaring their hatred for Dumbledore and the stupid Boy-Who-Lived, who simply refused to die. Then the first fifteen minutes would be spent on topics such as 'ten steps to killing your most hated enemy' and 'how to kill your most hated enemy', and of course never forget how to kill you most hated enemy and live to brag about it'. In Draco's mind, the topics ranged from 'how to plan to kill your most enemy but fail' and 'failing to kill your most hated enemy: the consequences on pot plants and flowery cushions'.

The party would then be taken to the dining room where exotic and rare foods would be served by house elves and again the conversation would revolve around the same topics. After the food, there was wine, fruit, French deserts and pointless talk. The night usually ended with the expected pledges to the Dark Lord.

The thing that bothered Draco most about all these gathering, was not their tedious predictability, but that he was expected to carry out such a stereotype of a life at the end of his seventh year. He knew that after the end of school he was to receive the Dark Mark and then be chained to a life where he is to do the Dark Lord's bidding, and kiss his robes now and again. That was it. There was nothing more for him than that. The only thing that had been stopping his father from presenting Draco to the Dark Lord was that he thought it unwise to send his son off to school with the Dark Mark blazing on his arm for the all to see. Knowing that his son never passed up an opportunity under the covers with any female who presented herself, it was plainly foolish to give him the Dark Mark for these girls to see and talk about.

During the dinner held about a week before his return to school, the conversation had been steered to the topic of Draco. Voldemort had twisted round and asked Draco what he wished to do after leaving Hogwarts. Before he could answer, Lucius had said that Draco wished to receive that Dark Mark and as such be forever Volemort's faithful servant.

Draco had been so angered by his father's answer - was this all he can amount to? Was it some bittersweet thing that Draco was to fall in love with? In time, was he to have a child and inturn give him to The Service, to spend his life kissing the robes of a thing, with his mouth shut and his ears perked up for orders? To follow in his father's footsteps?

"Thank you, father, I believe I'm capable of using my own mouth." And then he'd paused for a long time. What did he think he was doing? No thanks mate, your kiss-arse cult is just not my cuppa tea, you have fun though!

"Then, Draco, how would you word your answer?" his father had asked most pleasantly, although Draco knew that he was in danger. And again, he'd watched the people around the table for a long time, his eyes coming to rest on his mother. She'd held his eyes for a few long moments and then started tracing the rim of her wine glass.

"A simple 'no' would have to do." He stood up, bowed slightly to the Dark Lord and Lucius, and then, with his dignity, had taken himself to his bedroom on the second floor.

Draco had been exceptionally aware of the anger raising in Voldemort's bitter eyes, the way his father's lips twitched and how dangerous it all was. In his anger, however, he couldn't care about consequences. He had been thankful for his anger that had given him the ability to be spontaneous in the face of peril.

After ten minutes of staring out the window at the dark sky dotted with stars, Lucius had entered Draco's room and shut the door behind him.

His father had told him that the Dark Lord was very angered and disgusted at Draco's manners but nevertheless understood that Draco was still a young and foolish boy that would mature with the right discipline. His father had said that it reflected badly on Draco's mother and Lucius himself to have a son that was so ill-mannered as to contradict his father.

Lucius wasn't one for the dramatics when they were not needed. It was shared knowledge between the two men that Draco had been raised in a way where threats were not needed. He said what he had to say, and left, not waiting for answer and probably not expecting one. He merely needed to express his displeasure for Draco to reconsider and go back on his own word. That was the relationship, the current relationship that was on the edge of new waters. It was changing and the new waters were starting to wet Draco's leather boots, filling them up, dampening his socks, moistening the place between his toes.

Draco had not turned around to look until the door had shut behind Lucius. It had been a click in his childhood that always managed to break a dam of pleasure in his chest. When Lucius left, it was always good news. Leaving meant no more danger; no more abuse, no more of Lucius's presence that sucked up all happiness and hope for safety from the room.

Later that night, when he was in bed, on his back, staring at the artistic design of the stone ceiling, his mother had opened the door quietly and padded in.

"Draco..." Thinking he was asleep, she leaned over him and then when he looked right at her, she jumped back and gave a surprised laugh. "Why aren't you asleep?" She sat on the bed and stroked Draco's hair in that maternal way.

"Couldn't," was all he said. He wished now that he'd been better with her, been able to show more emotion. But that wasn't the way he'd been brought up, he couldn't show emotion as much as other people could. If he tried, it always came out fake and forced and he felt extremely foolish afterwards.

"Draco, I want to tell you something. Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

"You're a gifted young man, Draco... I don't want you going to waste. You aren't like you father but..." She stopped and put her hand on his chest. "You aren't really like me either... you're different and I don't want you to change from that. What you did tonight, it took a lot of courage. However, it was dangerous and stupid." She touched his cheek to soften her words. She had always been a gentle mother.

"I don't want any harm to come you. I'm going to get you out. I'll find a way so you don't have to be involved." He'd half sat up but she'd pushed him back down.

"I thought you wanted me to be-"

"You father and I, we are already too deep in to get out and the things I've seen Draco..." She sighed, "I don't want you to see. I want you to live a different life, have other chances, and aims. I want you, one day, to find a suitable woman and to marry her. Have Malfoys of your own and bring them up how you see fit. Don't follow anyone's tracks. Be your own and know that it's right and that you should never change from that."

"Maybe you'll understand when you're older, maybe you won't but... I don't have much time to go Draco-"

"Mother, don't..."

"Just listen. I'd die happy if I knew you got out. I have a few months to live." She'd stopped and looked down at the covers on Draco's chest; traced the golden pattern with her finger and then looked at her only child. "I'll do two things in this time that I have left. I'll find you a safe place to go after Hogwarts, to stay until the war is over - in which you will not, ever, at any cost, get involved - and I'll keep loving your father and making him as happy as I can." He'd pushed her hands aside and sat up.

He held her shoulders, not knowing how to go about it; he just pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, as tight as he could without hurting her fragile, withering frame. He was much bigger than her, and it was easy to hold her the way he'd never had. He remembered being faintly surprised at how easy it was to envelope her and there was fear at how fragile her bones were.

On the last day, Draco had woken up early and entered his parents' bedroom quietly. When he first walked in he quickly noted the presence of two bodies in the middle of the large bed. Upon closer inspection he found that his father had his arm drooped over his mother's stomach possessively, holding her closely to his chest and his mother sleeping soundly, her hair spilled out on the pillow. Draco had stood silently in the bedroom, watching his parents.

Scenarios and memories had run through his head then. He thought of his childhood in which only his mother had been the iridescent source of love. He thought of those times when he often saw his parents embracing or in minor acts of love. He was happy those times because they made his mother happy. He never remembered feeling any particular love towards his father, any binding form of emotion that made him, in these later years, love Lucius the way he loved his mother. His father simply wasn't a man who believed in expressive love towards a male child. Perhaps if Draco had been a girl, it might have been different, but the truth that it might not have been different was what had formed much of Draco.

So Lucius was capable of loving, he was capable of showing emotion. The relationship between his parents confirmed this.

Narcissa wasn't a loud woman, she wasn't vulgar, she was sophisticated and quite. Not out of coyness, but out of self-discipline and the idea that one should only speak when one had words worth hearing. She was firm when need be, she never raised her voice, telling Draco that if one was unsuccessful in conveying his message with a steady, firm tone, then one had failed. She didn't express much affection or emotion in public. In fact, the only times that Draco had seen her expressing anything from her inside, was with Lucius. However, this did make his mother unloving, because she was loving. As a child, she'd held him often, kissed him, played with him, dressed him and loved him beyond measure. And still she did this in later years.

Draco developed a deep love for his mother, entwined with respect and an affection he'd never felt towards anything in his life. When he thought of her in his childhood, he never saw her as a figure, but as a happy moment, a happy pillar, a pleasurable smell. He associated his mother with good things.

Lucius and Draco's relationship was built upon fear and respect for one's elders. As far as that, all stopped. There was no wasted love, no deeper fondness on either side. Lucius was the father and Draco the son and here it ended. But that, however, didn't not stop the expectations put upon Draco as a Malfoy, and a son to Lucius. Love had no hand in the matter, Lucius had once told Draco, it was blood and family ties that did. Don't betray the family. Don't betray Lucius.

He stood, watching a scene of complete serenity. His mother stirred, making a little sound, she turned over to face her husband. She was probably in pain. In his sleep, Lucius had tightened his protective hold around her and pulled her closer towards his chest.

They say, you never know how good something is until it's gone, but how about when you know you're losing the greatest thing in your life? When you watch it wasting away and you can do nothing to stop it, nothing to keep it safe and with you? What do they say to that?

Draco had crept to his mother's side of the bed and kissed her forehead softly. He'd left for Kings Cross station and that had been the end. That was what he had lost, that was what he had been given for his misbehaviour at that dinner. Or maybe it wasn't just the dinner, maybe it was for all the bad things he'd done in his life, all the terrible things that he'd thought, all the people he'd hurt just because he loved hurting people. Never seeing his mother laugh again, never having her there and knowing that this is what the greatest thing was like.

Ever since then, his father had written him a few letters, which Draco had ignored reluctantly, for he knew what Lucius was capable of if properly incensed. When Narcissa had died a few months into the term, his father had sent one of Voldemort's most loyal and legally out of Azkaban followers to fetch Draco.

Lucius said that Narcissa had loved Draco very much and that she had been greatly saddened not to hear from her son for so long. Perhaps Lucius had been lying to guilt Draco and perhaps he had been right.

He had attended his mother's funeral service, which was held on the Malfoy premises. The funeral had been one of the biggest wizarding funerals held in the twentieth century. More than a thousand people had attended. Their own family from all four edges of the globe, friends, and people who wished to make their loyalties known to Voldemort and to the Malfoy family, all stood around the burning body of Narcissa Malfoy.

Before her death, Lucius had consulted the most learned Healers. In his desperation, he'd even conferred with Muggle doctors. None had answers as to why Narcissa was so helplessly ill. The sickness had started as a simple ache in the sides and lower abdomen. Later, it started affecting her bones. Draco would walk into the sun room and see her sitting in a tight ball, shaking with the ache in her bones, refusing to cry out. Potions hadn't helped, Muggle medicine had been useless.

Closer to the time of death, Narcissa would collapse from the pain. Draco had watched in horror once, as his mother struggled to eat her dinner try to ignore the pain. The fork had rattled louder and louder, and when he couldn't ignore it anymore, he'd reached over the table and took it out of her hand, placing it on the lamb. Holding her hand, he endured it as she dug her nails into his palm. Lucius had been all the while watching, and when Narcissa had finally made a little whimper he'd done something Draco had never seen him do before. He'd sprung out of his chair and held her tightly, a few moments and he'd carried her to their bedroom, ordering Draco to owl Severus Snape.

Severus had come and given Narcissa potions and antidotes. Nothing could be done for an inherited illness. It was a common trait in the family to die of the diminishing of the bones. It was a magical malady with many side effects.

Draco, never being the one to express his emotions outwardly never cried, but on the day of her funeral, he had. Standing by, in a cloak to stop the cold, with the hood drawn over his face. He watched the flames licking and consuming his mother's once milky skin. He'd watched it curling and eating away at her hair.

Lucius, Draco knew, perhaps endured the event in greater measures. To love a mother is different than loving a woman. And Lucius had loved Narcissa absolutely. It is possible that the death of the woman that Lucius had always thought would be by him, changed the person that he was. It made him more ruthless, made him careless about things, but care more about his aim in life. Whatever it was. Draco didn't know and hoped never to find out.

When she had died, Draco had gone numb for a few weeks and then he'd drawn into himself. Now, months after her death, he was coming back, but he never wanted to be the person he had been before. He wanted to be someone different, someone who got by easier, and someone who could observe but not be observed.

During the months after the weeks of simply being numb, Draco had figuratively taken to a dark corner. He hardly spoke, doing everything without words. Once, he had wanted to speak, and hadn't been able to. It had become more than a decision of the mind, the silence that he had become had been amplified into a physical state.

Two days after the death of Narcissa, Lucius had approached Draco. He knew that Lucius had not been in his right mind. Nevertheless, one listened and took into heed Lucius' words because Lucius himself, never knew when he wasn't in his right mind. Even for Draco, it was a guess, because Draco didn't know what his father's right mind was, and the person who knew was now gone.

Lucius had announced his decision that Draco needed to find a wife in order to produce an heir, now that all hope of further addition to the Malfoy family was lost. His father had suggested the girls at Hogwarts. He brought up some names, and the one that stood out most was Pansy Parkinson. He said that Pansy's father had donated her to the cause and guaranteed that she was one hundred percent fertile. Draco had gone back to Hogwarts that night and went on ignoring his father's letters.

He hated Pansy; he hated all the Slytherin girls with the exception of Blaise. Pansy especially, was a whore. She slept with everything and anything that stood still long enough to satisfy her. That's not what Draco wanted, he wanted something pure like Ginny Weasley. He was tired of the dirt and darkness that he felt and knew and did. He now wanted light, he wanted a woman that was refreshing. He had always had his eye on Ginny. Not always, since his fifth year and the curse in Dolores' office, he'd started noticing the girl. And when she blossomed and took up company with Oracle, he couldn't stop noticing her until it wasn't that simple anymore. Until he couldn't stop watching her when she was within eyesight. Until he'd fallen in love with her, without ever speaking to her once, or standing close to her or telling her hello.

He asked Oracle about her Knowing Oracle from the group of the old families - they'd known each other from a young age - it was easy to get information about Ginny. He knew Ginny, he felt. He knew her arrogance, he knew that she could be truly hatful, and he knew that her moods were unpredictable. He knew the little things; that she hated roaches and that she wrote in a black, leather bound diary.

Sitting on the castle steps, he laughed to himself, remembering an incident, late at night, after a match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff at the start of the year.

He had been on his way to sneak down to Hogsmeade, to a shop called Fluky Boodles that sold everything from talking teapots to every issue of the Daily Prophet for the last hundred something years. Among those assortments were Muggle cigarettes and Liquor. A junkie's pleasure haven. Holding his last bottle of Jack Daniel's, he had been passing a girl's bathroom when female voices called him back.

"No, no, no! Ginny, don't!"

"What?"

"You add in the rosemary first!"

"It says the frozen Ashwinder eggs."

"Ginny, darling, I think you're looking at the wrong page..." The supposed Ginny laughed.

How many Ginnys are there in the school? How many Ginnys that sounded like that and sneaked around late with Oracles? How many Ginnys that he could recognise by voice?

Draco leaned his back on a marble column near the door of the girl's bathroom, and began consuming the liquor whilst listening to the voices, and trying to catch the thread of the conversation.

"I've picked someone to try it on..." Oracle said, prompting a grunt from Ginny and a faint sizzling sound in the background. "You aren't going to ask who?"

"Surprise me," Ginny replied and a moment later added, "anyway, it wears off in a few hours. It's only temporary.

"Where did you say you got this miracle from?"

"The latest issue of Young Witches: Unleashed. Angelique saw the same potion featured in Young Wizards: Unleashed. Watch what you're drinking." A naughty voice that was, Draco thought pleasantly.

"I wouldn't mind using it on one of those Slytherin seventh year boys...."

Draco, at that moment, had passed out. He was later woken up by a light ruffling of his hair.

"Malfoy, Malfoy ..." said Ginny in a singsong voice. "Wake up Draco!"

He opened his eyes slowly to see a pale face with two bright golden eyes - the face of Ginny Weasley.

"What?" he asked in a slurred manner.

"Nothing much. What you are doing outside a girl's bathroom?" Ginny inquired, raising a suspicious eyebrow and smirking.

She reached out again to flatten his hair, but he held her wrist and she watched him as he thought what to do with it... When he twisted it rather harshly, she didn't seem to mind. "What are you doing here, Weasley?" his eyes narrowed.

"Well, I am a girl. And this is the girl's bathroom. You know, girl in a girl's bathroom... girl... girls' bathroom," replied Ginny slowly, in a tenor that suggested he was mentally impaired, "do you see where I'm heading with this ..."

Ginny pulled her wrist out of his hand and in his drunkenness; he'd flailed at the air, trying to get a hold of it again. He was surprised into stillness when her elusive, warm hand had grabbed his own wrist. Later he figured that it had been quite obvious that he was in the middle of being half drunk and half hung-over. She probably had known and yet, that snake, had yelled into his ear, "can you stand?"

"I bloody well can!"

Looking around, Draco saw Oracle standing with a bundle in her hands and a grin on her face. Oh, the other snake was enjoying this too. Snakes! Treacherous snakes! Russian mail order brides!

Ginny helped him to his feet, and in doing so she had leveraged him up against the wall with her body. He could feel even through his haze that she was supple and warm, which was probably the reason as to why he had held her rear end in both his hands and shoved her crotch against his.

She dug her nails into his wrists and forced him to let go. "What are you doing here? What did you hear? Where you spying on us?" she asked, finger pointing accusingly at his face. He tried to pluck her finger out of the air but it was too difficult.

"Do stop yelling so loudly..."

"Draco, darling!" Oracle had yelled in his ear. "Would you like me to take you to bed?" Then turning to Ginny, "would you like me to scry him? You know, search his mind with my inner-eye..." She giggled, "I probably won't get this chance again, you know. Come on, I really want to," Oracle put her hand on his forehead.

Ginny shoved her hand away. "No Ora, I don't. Who knows what vile and evil things lurk in the darkness of his mind... Let's go."

Five minutes later, Draco had fallen back to the ground in a drunken slumber.

He remembered being woken up by Snape the next morning and being sent off to his dormitory. He had a dream that night, while still lying on the cold stone floor. It had been an erotic dream of Ginny, one of which was similar to many that he'd had of her.

The horizon was fully illuminated and Draco glanced at his wristwatch and found that it was ten to eight. The Great Hall must be laden with breakfast.

* * *

Ginny reached the Great Hall at exactly eight o'clock. She had been trailing after Oracle, jaded in an awful manner, all the way from the portrait hole. She felt incredibly exhausted, and the conversation that she'd had with Oracle earlier was still on her mind.

"We're all going to get plenty of space today," she heard Oracle say to her.

Such was it on the occasion where there were a small number of people staying over a holiday, only two tables sat in the large hall. One of the students and the other for the larger group of teachers. There were two seats for them, and Oracle held Ginny's hand as they walked towards them and the familiar faces.

Ginny glanced over to the teachers' table and caught the eyes of her Potions Master. She lifted a shaped eyebrow and one side of her lips. To this, he remained totally frozen, as if he'd been looking right through her. A truly stoical reaction. Don't smile, don't blink, don't breathe, don't twitch, someone might think you're human. Before sitting down, Ginny gave him a smile. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly in hostility.

Oracle sat down in her chair, naturally next to Draco, and then leaned over to her right side and kissed him on the cheek. Ginny knew Oracle did this especially to make Harry, who was also seated at the table, jealous. She saw how Harry's eyes flickered over Oracle and back to his plate. Anger. Warning, warning, kissing enemy.

"How are you, darling?" Oracle cooed.

"Bene, e tu?" He poked his food like a spoilt child, Ginny thought.

"Wonderful. It's the spirit of the season," Oracle said as she settled down on Draco's left, spreading out the white napkin on her lap. Ginny couldn't help letting out a laugh.

"You do know it's Easter?"

"Yes, and?" she raised an eyebrow, expression icy. Oracle didn't care that it was Easter, she couldn't bring herself to care anything about religion at all. Religion didn't buy her presents nor did it compliment her new pair of boots. All of it was a show for Harry.

"Pass the sausages, please," Hermione said, patiently waiting with a plastered smile. Hermione smiled in that way, trying to change the subject. Whose subject though? Harry and Ron's subject? Ginny saw Harry's cheeks blotched red in anger. Oracle, you devil, she thought.

Passing the plate of food, she gave Hermione a big fake smile. When her relationship got shaky with Ron, it became shaky with Hermione and then Harry.

"What do you intend to do with yourself today, Draco?" Oracle sliced her sausage and placed a piece in her mouth, chewing on it in an even pace. "Very nice weather today." Here's the devil! Where's the devil? There she is!

"Spend the day exploring the grounds perhaps." He knew what she was doing. Oracle had told him about Harry, and unfortunately his efforts to discourage her by pointing out Harry's negatives - of which there were many in his opinion - were useless.

"I thought you would have explored them after nearly seven years," Ginny said in a flat tone, biting into an apple. He looked up and watched her for a long moment and then turned back to Oracle.

"Must you be so dreadful, darling," then turning to Draco, "she really doesn't mean it."

"I was merely pointing out a point which I thought you'd missed. No offence was meant to be meant," Ginny said, with complete insincerity.

"Will you be spending your day in a much more productive way, Ginevra?"

"I'll be picking fleas off of that old mat in the empty room on the fourth floor that no one ever uses."

After a long moment in which Ginny knew he was debating whether to insult her or not, he blinked a few times. "Small minds are amused by small things." And returned to his scrambled eggs.

"One could argue that much more intricate minds learn to appreciate the smaller things," Hermione stated, not looking up from her pudding. When facing an enemy, present a united front, Ginny thought. Even if you aren't really united.

"I was thinking, rich snobs are infuriating and their bitches couldn't be more obvious," Harry spoke to Oracle.

"More like, I think that scar had to have incinerated your brain cells because a dead hippogriff could've come up with something more creative than that," Draco said.

"Or better yet, if you don't shut your rotten mouth, I'm bashing this fork into your skull," Ron held up the weapon, pointing it like a sword in Draco's face over the table.

"And it goes on to be said that this sausage is very well done!" Oracle popped a piece into her mouth and chewed enthusiastically, trying to change the subject.

"Try to touch me, Weasel, and even the unborn children swimming around in your testicles will regret it." Draco cut too hard into his eggs and the fork made a painful screeching sound on his plate.

"Are you going to fondle him to death then?" Oracle asked, looking from Draco to Ron in absolute innocence. Ginny's lips twitched and then, trying to stop, she let out a sound between a chuckle and a snort.

"Now you've got it barking, happy? Now the neighbours will complain."

"Please don't include your imaginary neighbours, friends, or whatever you want to call them in real people conversations. Leave them for the bedroom, thanks." All humour was wiped off Ginny's face, now it's getting personal. Ron stood up, stabbing the table with his fork. His ears were red.

"You wanna not speak to my sister like that?"

"The children! Would somebody please think of the children!" Oracle suddenly burst out.

"And if I do? What will you do?" A long silence and then Draco looked back down at his plate. "Listen to the Seer, the children are in danger."

Oracle nodded, her eyes travelling over Ron's groin area. "They are."

"That's it!" Ron pulled out his wand and a few people stood at the same time. Hermione jumped up and caught Ron's wand arm, Harry held his other side and in the process knocked over a glass into Ginny's lap, Oracle joined the standing, the other three anonymous students hurried from the hall and McGonagall from the teachers' table sprung to her feet. Everybody was standing, save for Draco.

"Mister Weasley! Put that wand away!" She was leaving her seat and coming over.

"Do it," Draco urged.

"I said put that wand away!" The old woman soon got them all to sit down and Ron to put his wand away. "Detention at eight o'clock for you both, Misters Weasley and Malfoy. Can you not have a civilised meal without fighting like children?" She went back to her seat after further warnings.

"See what you've done, you've scared the kiddies away," Ginny said in a regretful manner, reaching across the table to take a slice of sausage from Oracle's plate.

"Are you on our side or theirs, Ginny, that's what I'd like to know? Are you with us or against us?!" Ron hissed at her, avoiding another detention. Ginny chewed on the meat thoughtfully, shifting it from one side of her mouth to the other.

"The truth is-" she swallowed "-I'm not on your side."

"I knew it!" Ron turned to Hermione and then to Harry, "didn't I tell you, I told you didn't I? She's traitor. She's been pretending all along."

"Ron, calm down, I'm sure she has an explanation." Hermione put a hand on Ron's thigh and squeezed. Please, not while I'm eating, Ginny thought.

"Yes, a perfectly logical one." Harry's eyes were frost, drilling a hole into Ginny's forehead.

"I'm getting out."

"What do you mean, how could you get out?" Ron whispered furiously.

"What's there not to understand, Ron, I'm leaving. I'm not staying for the 'official show down'. I'm getting as far away as I can." She picked up a wet lettuce leaf from a bowl and crunched on it. She looked around the table and finally her eyes rested on Draco who was giving her the oddest look she'd ever gotten from him. It was intense and penetrating, as if he was trying to read the information right off her brain.

"Where will you go?"

"Away." She didn't care who was asking. She studied the second piece of lettuce in her hand.

"Why?"

"I don't want to die like a miserable dolt. Seems such a waste to die before I get the chance to do anything..."

"You won't die if you stay," he said in a near whisper. Her head snapped up and their gaze locked. There was a long moment of silence and then Ginny forced herself to shove the vegetable into her mouth.

"Who will shield me from all curse and evil, Draco?"

"If you stay... I might. I'm not saying I will, but I might."

"What?!" Ron yelled, "are you hitting on my sister? How dare you- right in front of me! You dirty son-of-a-" Draco threw a bread roll and it hit Ron squarely on the nose.

"Automatic reaction. Couldn't help it." The fair one shrugged.

"Stop it!" Oracle said and when all were silent, she turned to Ron and used a grave whisper, "Ron... how dare you? How fucking dare you speak about his mother like that. You know she's-"

"Dead? So? Harry's mother is dead, doesn't stop Malfoy from calling her filthy names."

"That's different, Ron." Even Ginny wouldn't have gone there. She couldn't help but put herself in Draco's shoes. Even though she wasn't on speaking terms with her own mother, she wouldn't treat the loss of one so lightly.

"Why, ha, I'd like to know-"

"Ron, it's not the time-" Harry began.

"No, I'd like to know," Ron insisted, shaking Hermione's restraining hand off his shoulder, "why is Harry's both parents being dead - sorry - murdered, any different from his mother dying of an illness? Or is it different because you want to get into Malfoy's pants, Ginny?"

"Shut the bloody fuck up!"

"Why so angry, Gin?"

"Because-" she hit the table with her hand "- when you say that, it's not about him anymore or his mother. You're insulting me now, and you can't just do that because you're hacked off at god knows what!"

"I didn't' think I was insulting, I was pointing out the obvious."

A long silence hung stale around them. "You go too far, you never know when to stop, Ron." She got up to leave.

"You never know when to either." She knew he was referring to last summer when her dating scroll was unrolled in front of the whole family. How dare he? How bloody dare he? She picked up the closest thing and threw it at her brother. The plate of scrambled eggs hit his chest and the contents were scattered everywhere.

Ginny received a detention from McGonagall to join Ron and Draco that night at eight o'clock. With McGonagall remarking that one of them will be serving detention with the Potions Master. The ultimate punishment. Or so she believed, Ginny thought.

Hermione used her wand to clean her boyfriend and the trio were soon gone, Ron still muttering with Hermione and Harry trying to calm him down. Only Oracle, Draco and Ginny remained on the breakfast table. On the second table, only the Potions Master remained drinking what looked like Turkish coffee and reading the Daily Prophet.

"That wasn't very mature of you," Oracle said, pushing her plate away.

"Oh, shut up, Oracle." Ginny dropped her fork in the finished position and took a sip of water. "If you're worried about Harry-"

"I feel so left out of the loop." Draco drank his tea and placed his folded napkin on the empty plate.

"And your feelings are the most important thing here, that's why." Ginny screwed her face up in annoyance, "he has no right to bring it up like that, no right at all!" she practically yelled, earning them a raised eyebrow from the Potions Master. Ginny dropped her voice and leaned in to whisper angrily to Oracle, "it wasn't any of their business from the first place. Imagine me in the audience and one of them on the stand being picked with a flea comb."

"I know but..." Oracle shrugged. She picked a mandarin out of the fruit bowl and began pealing it with her delicate fingers. "Forget about it."

"Well, I've got a detention tonight - during the bloody holidays-"

"So do I, I'm not complaining," Draco said.

"You're a big hero aren't you? Would you like a pat on the back, a lap dance?"

"A back massage will do just fine actually." He tipped his head to the side, in that infuriatingly delicious way that he had, and Ginny groaned.

"You know-" she pointed her finger in his face. "I don't get you. I don't know if you're kidding or being your awful self-" he plucked her finger out of the air.

"You don't need to particularly get me," he said simply, squeezing her finger and then letting it go.

"Just go with the flow. He's an awful bugger either way," Oracle said, pushing her chair back, "that's what I do. Just-" she held her arms out, walking in a pattern of steps as she headed towards the exit, and began to sing "-let me say it, let me say it, let the Orinoco flow. Let me reach, let me beach, on the shores of Tripoli..."

When she left, Ginny and Draco looked at each other. "Don't ask me, I never ask, nobody needs to know," Ginny said in finality and stood up. Draco smiled a little and then stopped.

"Where are you spending your day?"

"Why?

A moment went by. "No reason."

"I told you that mat on the fourth floor needs defleaing," she smirked and then eased into a smile.

"I thought you were joking."

"I was." She walked towards the door and left.

Severus placed his cup on its saucer and stood up, folding the morning's paper and dropping it carelessly on the white clothed table. Draco pushed his chair back and both men stood watching each other. The fair one in a navy shirt and black trousers and the other in dark robes. The new and old. The new age and the traditional.

"She's something..." Severus said.

"She is more than that."

"I see that you see that too clearly."

"And what if I do?"

"Then..." Severus was silent for a long moment, "enjoy the fire and ice that you're getting yourself into."