Black Sheep

Harry's eyes flickered open and he stretched his back lazily. His muscles twinged slightly, with the pleasant dull ache of well-earned soreness. He rolled onto his side and came face to face with the source of that soreness; Malfoy was so close that even a myopic fool like Harry didn't need his glasses. Draco was still asleep and lying on his side, turned towards Harry. A lock of his white blond hair had fallen over his face, half-hiding the heavy lids of his closed eyes. Harry reached out a careful hand and softly pushed that hair off the familiar face, looking at it for what seemed like the first time in ages.

He'd known Malfoy's face so well that he hadn't really looked at it since the man had suddenly reappeared in his life. Of course he saw the man's face - as much as every hour of every day, recently - but he hadn't looked at his face, not like a stranger might. Not like someone seeing it for the first time. Ever since he had come face to face with Malfoy in the small doctor's surgery in Godric's Hollow, when he looked at the blond, he had still automatically seen the pale, excited and nervous boy who had first spoken to him in Madame Malkin's robe shop and who had held his hand out to Harry only to be rebuffed in front of their whole class in first year. He remembered how that confident little face had slackened with bewildered shock and then quickly twisted into resentment.

Now he studied the man's face in front of him and realised that there was little left of that boy. The frail, pointed chin had grown into an adult's sharp jaw, still verging on delicate but decidedly stubborn and often clenched tensely, Harry had come to notice, with some silent emotion. The smooth, fresh skin of boyhood was long gone and although Draco was still remarkably fair, there were often bags under his eyes and, as now, an almost invisible stubble along his cheeks, only noticeable when the blond hairs caught the light. And Harry had seen him after nights of hard drinking, when his skin looked dry and old, and his grey irises would look almost blue against his bloodshot eyes.

Harry drew a soft finger down the line of Draco's nose, which he now saw must have been broken at least once. There was a small but unmistakable crook in it that Harry knew had not been there when they had been children. When had it happened? And why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't he noticed that this man was an entirely different person than the seventeen-year-old he'd left behind with Voldemort, in a small bare room in an orphanage somewhere in London? Draco shifted in his sleep and Harry's gaze was drawn down to the bare body that he knew from very recent experience was not a boy's body.

It may have been the infatuation and lust speaking, but Harry suddenly realised that the man in front of him was achingly perfect. The lines of his face, the symmetry of his cheekbones, the narrow track of his nose, even the way that his eyelashes lay gently on his skin in sleep... everything about him made Harry think of a painting, one of those paintings by the Masters that looked more life-like than even life but somehow unreal because nothing in reality was quite so perfect.

Harry lifted his hand and fingered the pale blond hair that hadn't changed over the years. Without moving, Draco spoke up in a calm voice and asked, "What are you doing, Potter?" Harry started violently.

"How long have you been awake?" he asked unsteadily, snatching his hand back self-consciously.

"I asked my question first." Draco opened his grey eyes and looked straight into Harry's face, barely a foot away. His lips curled into sly smile.

Harry answered without thinking. "I was just thinking about your hair."

Draco's smile spread into an amused grin and he propped his head up on one hand, saying, "Well, I can certainly understand why. But I think you should be more concerned with the state of your own hair." There was practically a twinkle in his grey eyes as he glanced up at Harry's mop of pitch black hair, even more mussed than usual after just waking up. It utterly defied gravity in places and stuck straight up and at all sorts of angles.

Unable to resist the futile attempt to flatten his rat's nest into something resembling human hair, Harry spoke next with one hand pressing his hair furiously down. "No, I mean - I was just thinking about how you used to wear it all slicked back and awful when we were young. I was trying to remember just when you stopped doing that."

Draco pulled a face. "In third year."

Harry reached out bravely to run his fingers through that fine hair again and was rewarded with the sight of Draco letting his eyes fall shut with the tiniest little happy sound. "Why did you change then?" he asked, letting his eyes roam over that relaxed face and watching it contract in slight sign of disquiet. Something had disturbed Malfoy. "Did you finally realise that it made you look like a drowned rat?" he chided, in a gently teasing tone.

Draco's lips twitched in appreciation. "No, but thank you for that," he said wryly, opening his eyes to give Harry a tolerating look. "Besides, I still looked like a rat, just not a drowned one. I was such a pointy young thing, wasn't I?" He favoured Harry with a nostalgic smirk. "Pansy used to say that if I didn't cut myself on my own sharp wit, I was like to do it with my own pointed chin." His whole face crinkled up in mirth this time, as he laughed. "She really was a bit of a bitch, wasn't she?"

Harry certainly wasn't going to argue with that and he nodded, saying, "That she was." But he didn't elaborate - though he could have; oh, could he ever have - and he waited to see if Draco would explain himself.

Under Harry's curious eye, Draco flopped onto his back. He stared up at the stone ceiling above them and suggested, "I guess I just felt it was time for a change?" He glanced at Harry, then his face lit up and he said, "No, I've thought of a better answer. 'I'd just got my subscription to Warlocks Who Rock?'"

"Malfoy," Harry said seriously, "you do not, nor did you ever, 'rock.'" Draco looked ready to protest, and probably bring up the previous evening as evidence on his behalf, but Harry continued before he could. "Rocking other things doesn't count. Now, you may be charming, seductive, and irresistible," Draco looked pleased, "but you are definitely not a rocker. You play the piano, you great girl's blouse."

Draco's expression clearly said that he had weighed what he possessed against what he lacked and - as usual - decided that he was still clearly on the winning side. He looked quite pleased with himself, and it was in that mood that he reminded Harry, "You know, I don't have to tell you a thing. You don't even have any questions left, after all."

Bemused, Harry asked semi-seriously, "Do we still need them?"

In return, he got an incredulous scoffing from Draco, who told him in no uncertain terms, "Of course we still need them! What's a relationship if not a constant battle of leverage? What holds two people together if not the never-ending cut-throat fight to control one another?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Really hot sex?"

"You," Draco said, his grin almost splitting his face, "you may just be on to something, Potter. I can hardly believe the words are coming out of my mouth," he continued, as he rolled over, holding himself up over Harry by mere inches, "but you may just be a genius." He let himself fall down into Harry's kiss, revelling once again in the physical joy of this peculiar man. Harry, for his part, immediately wrapped his arms around Draco in return, arching up against him eagerly. For two people that had practically been untouched for years, this contact was like the proverbial spot of light after they had walked so long through a featureless black tunnel - neither had yet considered the possibility that the light was an oncoming train.

About an hour later, Harry had finally forced himself out of bed and into the shower. He had promised Hermione that he would meet with her that morning, after all. As much as he wanted to stay in bed, whiling the morning away, he would have to do it alone, because Draco at least was determined to get some quality time in at the library on his free Saturday. Classes were cutting far into the time they dedicated to research, despite Draco's revolutionary 'no homework, no essays' policy (otherwise known as Draco's revolutionary 'no need to waste time with marking' policy).

Freshly showered and hair still dripping, Harry headed out of the empty rooms wearing yet another set of Draco's clothes; this time it was a pair of grey trousers, a white collared shirt, and a dark green jumper just a shade deeper his eyes. Draco had left the clothes out for him before he had gone to the library, while Harry had still been in the shower. Harry made a mental note to tease him for being such a stereotypical great pouf next time he saw him, though even he had to admit that the clothes looked good.

Pouf, he thought distractedly, as he tucked his wand into his back pocket and headed across the hall to Hermione's set of rooms. I'm a pouf. I'm a pouf, pouf, pouf. It didn't feel strange or surprising to think it. That's not to say that it felt fitting, like it was something he had long suspected. But yet it wasn't quite strange. Harry shrugged and knocked on Hermione's door. He'd never been great at deep and meaningful self-examination.

Hermione opened the door and for the first time in the week that they'd been reunited, Harry was a bit surprised to see her wearing Muggle clothes instead of robes. She had her hair caught up in a messy knot, and was wearing a worn pair of jeans and an old jumper that Harry recognised as one of Mrs Weasley's creations. He wondered for a moment if it had been on purpose. But Hermione spoke first, a hint of a smirk in her voice. "One night and he's turned you into a Slytherin, has he?"

Harry blinked in surprise and looked down at himself, realising for the first time that his outfit looked rather a bit like the Slytherin uniform. He wondered if that had been on purpose. He pulled off the jumper within the moment, causing his hair to stand on end yet again and causing Hermione to make a little disapproving sound. He crumpled the jumper up and threw it on her couch, before throwing himself down in the armchair, looking up at her expectantly with his white shirt rumpled and riding up on his narrow torso.

Hermione disappeared into the next room, calling behind her, "I didn't mean for you to take it off." She came back in from what was apparently some sort of kitchen carrying a tea pot and two mismatched cups on a small tray. "You looked quite fetching in it." She pulled off the tea cosy gingerly.

Still eyeing the jumper, Harry pointed out resentfully, "You made us go down to the kitchens last night to get tea."

Hermione rolled her eyes and said in an isn't-this-obvious sort of tone, "Of course I did. I had to have an excuse to leave and get you, didn't I? What, should I have just brought out my own tea and then said, 'Oh, bugger me, need to pop out because I've run out of demerera sugar? Excuse me while I run out and borrow some off the fellows down the hall and, incidentally, bring them back to interrogate you.'" She smiled at him as poured him a cup of tea. "You are just so thick sometimes, Harry."

Cheeks burning despite his fervent wishing that they wouldn't, Harry took the offered tea and blew on it to avoid making any sort of response. Hermione picked up the jumper from beside her and folded it neatly, smoothing it in her lap. "I've been down to see Ginny this morning," she said quietly. Her anger towards the witch seemed to have faded again, as quickly as it had flared up the night before. "She's still trying to talk her way out of things. I told her that her parents would be here today." She picked up her tea cup, leaving the jumper in her lap, and took a sip before continuing. "I got an immediate reply from the Weasleys last night, of course. It was all I could do to deter them from setting out in the middle of the night. They agreed to come today."

She looked at Harry with a strange expression. It wasn't pitying like the night before, but it wasn't blaming him either. The impression that Harry got from that look was that she didn't want the responsibility for whatever was to happen to him next. It left him feeling a bit cold; Hermione had stood behind him every time he'd really needed her when they'd been teenagers. Now it seemed she was going to stand aside. "What are you going to do, Harry?"

He looked away from her open stare, looking down at the jumper that lay in her lap, the jumper that Draco had chosen for him. He hadn't given another thought to the situation with Ginny. He'd had more than enough to distract him the previous night, even if he had wanted to think about it, which he hadn't. "I'm still not sure," he waffled, trying to buy time, "don't you think we ought to talk with the Weasleys first? See what they think is best?"

Hermione was not fooled by his transparent attempts at avoidance. "And what are you going to tell them?" she asked mercilessly.

"That - that..." Harry was at a loss. How was he going to tell Arthur and Molly Weasley that their precious only daughter was more than a bit unstable and had magically entrapped him for years? Even as he thought it, he felt embarrassed by the ridiculousness of the claim. She hadn't put him under the Imperius curse, or impaired him in any way. He could have walked out that door at any moment and sought out the world without any interference at all from her. What exactly was he accusing her of?

Then he could imagine Malfoy's voice in his head, telling him, "What exactly? I'll tell you what: being a certifiable bitch! The wench lied to your pathetic friends and purposefully subverted them from finding you, intentionally leaving you in your pathetic little puddle of depression. And she practically stalked you, letting herself in and out of your house as she pleased! Doesn't that seem a bit off?" He almost smiled.

Straightening up a bit, Harry shrugged and said, "I'll tell them what I know of it. That she admitted to having cast some sort of charm on me, without me knowing. That she's been coming round for years, never telling me that you or anyone else was looking for me. And that her behaviour seems..." He seemed to run out of steam a bit and finished by saying awkwardly, "Abnormal."

Hermione resisted the urge to mockingly applaud. Finally, he had managed to speak up for himself - now if only he could do it again when faced with the couple who had been like parents to him during his time at Hogwarts. She had seen him struggling and had almost despaired for a moment; she truly did not want to be the one to deliver this blow to the Weasleys. She could bear it if she had to, of course. But she had an instinctive feeling that it was more important that Harry be the one to speak up for himself.

"I think," she said in a more gentle tone of voice, "that's a very good start, Harry."

Harry stepped off of the final, rough stone stair and into the vault under the library. As he'd expected to, he spied Draco sitting at one of the tables, books open all around him. Hurrying across the large, echoing space, Harry came up behind the blond man and, hesitating for only the briefest unsure moment, he put his mouth to Draco's delicate white ear and whispered, "We're all alone in a room where no one else can possibly interrupt us."

Draco's lips quirked into a small smile, but he said, "Except for Madam Pince or your friend Hermione. I can hardly imagine better woodkill." He continued to look at the open books in front of him, as Harry took the next seat. He asked absently, "What happened with your mate, then? Did she warn you against the dangers of buggery and Slytherins?"

Harry shifted self-consciously in his green jumper and remembered again his brief conversation with Hermione. She hadn't said anything much directly against Malfoy, surprisingly. Although she'd always been the most level-headed of the Gryffindors, she'd hated Malfoy at least as much as any of them, if not more. But she had simply warned him to be careful, reminding him that whether this was just some experiment or dalliance or something more, if the press were to get hold of it, he'd never get another day's peace.

He had thought about that the whole way down to the library, as he'd impatiently jogged through the halls. He certainly didn't want it to get out to anyone else - but even for the short period of time that he'd been with Hermione, running through the back of his mind was the desire to see Malfoy, to be near him, touching him, listening to his voice and watching the way he talked, talking to him and having him listen in that faintly amused manner he always had. And now here he was and Draco was nodding along absently, as he stared unseeing at the books in front of him.

"What is it?" Harry asked, more curious than bothered.

Draco's eyebrows rose sceptically as he continued looking at the books and he told Harry in an odd tone of voice, "I think I may have found something." He glanced at Harry for the first time and corrected himself, "No, I think I may have found it. The solution. The cure. The bloody holy grail."

Harry was surprised because the first thing that he felt was a stab of almost paralysing dread. He had the sudden irrational thought that getting his powers back would result in Draco leaving him. His heart raced. He felt as if this, whatever this was, would only continue in this strange interlude while they were locked away at Hogwarts. As soon as they left Hogwarts for the real world, it would be go back to the way it was: Draco rattling around his mausoleum of a mansion, or worse, re-entering the magical world as the dark prince bastard he once was. And Harry would try to fill his days, alone, with his shoe-box of a life in Somerset. It would be like living in a dark cave, after being shown the wonder of the stars.

Somewhere in the last month, he had apparently convinced himself that what he saw as the "new Draco" (and, subsequently, how he explained his lack of hatred for him) was the result of whatever transformative process the Dark wizard had gone through as a result of losing his power. If he got it back now, who would he become then? He would leave Hogwarts. Their reason for being here, the reason for Harry to be staying and working with him, would be gone.

Several moments had passed and Draco had gone back to staring at the books in front of him. Harry opened his mouth and closed it again, still trying to figure out what to say. Congratulations would generally be in order, but Harry felt like he would choke on the words. The sound of running steps interrupted their silence and Harry turned, feeling a cold, tingling relief wash over him. It was Hermione who came clattering down the last steps and into the room, announcing breathlessly, "The Weasleys have arrived, Harry. I think we should go."

Harry said in a dazed voice, completely malapropos of her message, "Malfoy thinks he may have found an answer."

"Oh!" Hermione gave a little surprised gasp, then as she thought about what it meant, her face grew more grave. "Oh." She caught sight of Harry's shell-shocked expression and said softly under her breath, "Oh."

She backed up a step and said, "I can go on ahead alone, if you'd like. Er, tell them that you're engaged at the moment...?"

"No, no," Harry shook himself. "I can go." He turned to Draco and asked distractedly, "Do you want to come ?"

Draco just stared back at him, faintly incredulous. Whether it was because of the preposterousness of the idea that he would leave this critical research or that he would leave it to be surrounded by Weasleys, Harry was still too dazed to wonder. He followed Hermione mutely back up the stairs and away from Draco.

They arrived at the great front doors of Hogwarts, where they found the Weasleys waiting for them. Harry wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, especially since most of his ideas and expectations seemed to have been flipped on their heads at least once or twice in the last twenty-four hours. He hadn't expected, though, for Molly Weasley to immediately bustle over to him and pull him into her warm, slightly potion-scented embrace. He was half a head taller than her, but she dragged him down, nearly wailing, "Oh, Harry, dear. We'd wondered so long..."

He could see Arthur Weasley over her shoulder, giving him a wobbly little smile. They both looked much older and more worn than he had remembered. The famous Weasley ginger hair was going decidedly grey on both of them, and Mrs Weasley in particular seemed much smaller and less powerful than she'd been when he was younger. She finally released him enough to step back and take in all of him, looking grown and healthy and well-dressed. Quite different from the scrawny, underfed eleven year old who had first asked her for directions to Platform 9¾, wearing baggy old rags and looking wide-eyed at everything from behind a pair of ridiculous round glasses. "Oh, you..." She chided him gently, reaching up to smooth his hair. "You gave us such a fright, disappearing like that."

Harry was speechless, staring down at her in complete amazement. Words started to spill out of him that he hadn't planned at all, and his eyes shot between Arthur and Molly Weasley as he confessed, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry - about Ron, I should have been there, or I shouldn't have let him come. I should have come to you in person, I should have been around to help..."

Mrs Weasley shushed him like a child, her eyes glistening. "Ron made his own choice, Harry," she said gently. "He wanted to help you, to save us all, and we have never once blamed you for what happened, dear. It was a war." Her smile trembled, but didn't break, and she whispered in a thick voice, "He was a hero."

Harry nodded, biting the inside of his lip. Molly Weasley shook herself in a manner reminiscent of a bird resettling her feathers and said in a more regular, brisk tone of voice, "Now, Hermione wrote and told us that Ginny was unwell and stayed here at Hogwarts last night."

Swallowing hard, Harry nodded. Now that the Weasleys had offered him their kindness and forgiveness, he was to tell them that their youngest daughter had been nearly as damaged by him as their youngest son. "That's right," he croaked, his voice as reluctant as the rest of him. "Ginny did stay here last night, in the Hospital Wing."

"The Hospital Wing?" Mrs Weasley repeated, in a slightly higher tone. "Dear me, was it that serious?"

Harry refused to look to Hermione for help and he soldiered on. "I think that she is physically fine, Mrs Weasley. The fact of it is... well, the fact of it is that she grew a bit hysterical and tried to curse Draco Malfoy with a very dodgy curse."

"The Head Splitting curse," Hermione finally interjected, only to be met with gasps by Ginny's parents.

Molly Weasley looked up at her husband, sharing an upset look. They both remembered the recent newspaper articles, claiming that Harry Potter had shown up at Hogwarts with Draco Malfoy. Ginny had reacted oddly to the papers; not happy or excited as they might have expected, she had gone pale and refused to say anything about the stories. And now she had turned up at Hogwarts trying to curse the young Malfoy? She'd always had a temper - they of course knew their daughter that much - but what had lead her to use a legally questionable curse on someone she barely knew?

"I think," Arthur Weasley said calmly, "that we should hear the whole story."

"Er," Harry hesitated, wondering just how whole of a story he should give them. "Right." He glanced about for a moment and suggested, "Do you want to go somewhere? Only talking about this in the main hall is a bit..." He wouldn't want any more rumours to get out, especially about him and Draco, especially when they might be true.

Hermione stepped in and she led them all to the small antechamber just before the Hospital Wing. The Weasleys had a seat on the cushioned benches. Harry stood in front of them nervously, aware of Hermione slightly behind him and off to the side. "So," he started slowly, "you've probably read how Malfoy and I came to arrive at Hogwarts."

Mrs Weasley made a nonplussed expression and replied, "Well, we've certainly seen the stories. And although the quality of the Prophet has greatly improved since the war, we still don't believe everything we read there." She looked at him appraisingly. "Is it true then? That you and the Malfoy boy have been co-conspirators this whole time? That the two of you worked together during the war?"

Harry realised that the Prophet had grown even more speculative since their first exclusive report on his reappearance. Co-conspirators? Honestly.

"I had heard rumours, of course," Arthur contributed. "Back at the Ministry, when the war crime trials were being carried out, there were quite a number of whispers going around about the young Malfoy. That he was to be let go, that he had offered his interrogators some sort of information or something..." He looked at Harry curiously.

It was Harry's turn to look a bit nonplussed. "Ah, yes, well. It is true that he helped me find the last Horcrux." He saw their blank looks and remembered belatedly that almost no one in the Wizarding world knew what a Horcrux was. Perhaps the only ones who still did were him, Hermione, Ginny and Draco. And Slughorn, if the fat old bastard was still alive. But it was better that no one knew, so he explained quickly, "Er, they were just sort of power-holds of Voldemort's. Hermione and Ron helped me find all the others but there was one left and Malfoy led me to it." Harry's voice grew heavier as he thought of all that had happened after that. "And he took the brunt of Voldemort's wrath, while I escaped."

There were several moments of silence. Finally Mrs Weasley asked, "And how did Ginny get involved in all of this?"

"You see," Harry started and looked away, examining the ceiling with some interest. He dragged his eyes back to Mrs Weasley in front of him. "You see, Ginny's been coming to see me, these past several years."

"The past..." Mrs Weasley repeated disbelievingly. "Years? Did you say years?"

"So you didn't know, then."

Mrs Weasley was staring at him, incredulous. "Know what?"

Harry chewed on his lip nervously. "She said that you knew. She would bring things, from you and from the twins. Or at least she said that they were from you..."

Molly went white. She remembered a number of times when her daughter had told her that she was going to meet a friend, smiling sweetly and taking pies and things from the pantry. She normally popped out to meet these 'friends' of hers a couple of times a month, disappearing for hours at a time. Molly had never questioned that it wasn't just Hermione or one of her school mates. Could it really have been that she was going to see Harry?

"When I first came to Hogwarts, I was surprised to find that Hermione had been looking for me," Harry continued. "I didn't know anyone was looking for me. Ginny never said anything like that." Growing increasingly uncomfortable, Harry stated frankly, "It seems that Ginny was the only one who knew where I was. And it seems... that she had been hiding it from everyone else."

Putting a hand over her mouth, Mrs Weasley looked off to the side, towards the doors to the Hospital Wing. She wanted to believe that there was some sort of mistake, but she trusted that Harry had been an honest boy and had grown into an equally honest man. And Hermione - who Mrs Weasley was sometimes inclined to trust even more than her own trouble-making brood - wasn't denying any of it either.

"I think we should speak with Ginny and see what she has to say about all of this," Mr Weasley suggested, putting a reassuring hand on his wife's back.

Harry took a deep breath. "There's a bit more that you should know, before you do that." He swallowed hard, his throat having gone dry. "Last night, Ginny came to Hogwarts to talk with Hermione. Hermione went to get me - and Malfoy - because we..." He searched for words and settled on saying, "We had a concern. You see, Hermione had been to my house in Wiltshire, and she'd seen for herself what Malfoy had first suspected - that there was some sort of, of charm or spell on the house, which prevented anyone from finding it. Something like the Fidelius charm - only it couldn't have been, because I never knew about it." He looked at the greying couple in front of him reluctantly and repeated the damning facts that Draco had first stated above the bar in Hogsmeade a week ago. "Someone put a spell on my house that prevented anyone from finding it, magically or otherwise. But somehow Ginny was able to find to it, and she visited me - and she never told anyone else."

He could see that they were connecting the dots in their minds, realisation dawning horribly on their faces. "We suspected," he told them honestly, "that Ginny may have been the one to cast the spell on me and when we confronted her about it last night, she became sort of, er, hysterical."

Mrs Weasley had gone a horrid blotchy colour, torn between anger, shame, and pity. She drew herself up to her full height, which was not much more than five feet, and said distinctly, "I think it's time that we spoke with Ginevra."

Harry winced. He still remembered that any time Molly Weasley used her children's full names was a time you did not want to be around to witness. Hermione slipped into the Hospital Wing to summon Madam Pomfrey and they came back out in only a few moments.

Madam Pomfrey held up a cautioning hand and explained to the Weasleys, "I have given Miss Weasley a calming potion - just a mild one. Please try not to excite her overly." She gave Hermione a knowing look. "I'll be waiting just outside, in case she grows agitated."

Then she showed them through the Hospital Wing to the small room where Ginny was waiting. She was sitting atop a neatly made bed, leaning against the headboard with her long legs stretched out limply in front of her. She had been staring out the window, but turned when they entered the room. She paled even more than usual when she saw her parents behind Hermione and Harry. "M-Mum..."

"Don't you 'mum' me, Ginevra Anne Weasley," her mother told her in a clipped tone. "Is this true? Did you know where Harry was all of these years? Did you really put some sort of spell on him without him knowing?"

Ginny cowered back against the headboard. Her lips trembled as she said fervently, "I was just helping him. Why doesn't anyone see that? I was doing what was best for him!"

Her father stepped closer to the bed and asked in an pacifying tone, "How were you helping him, Ginny? Can you explain it to us?"

Looking at him gratefully, Ginny leaped at the chance. "Like I told Hermione last night," she said, with an uncharitable look at the friend who had petrified her, "I found Harry several years ago, after he moved to Godric's Hollow. I knew that was where he would go. When we were at school, he'd told me that he and his parents had lived there when he'd been a baby. He'd said we should go there together."

She looked at Harry meaningfully and he barely repressed the urge to grimace. He remembered the conversation, though it seemed like a different lifetime now: he and Ginny enjoying sunny afternoons down by the lake, sharing the shy secrets and promises of young love. It all seemed ridiculous to him now, but apparently not to her.

"I kept going there, expecting he would turn up sooner or later. And I prepared. As soon as I learned he'd bought a house there, I put a charm on it, so that no one would be able to find it through magic ways or Muggle." She looked up at her father, who was still returning her look seriously. "It was just months after he'd defeated Voldemort. I don't know where he was those months, but it was obvious that he needed time alone, away from the press and the Ministry and everyone else who would pester him.

"But Harry would never think to do something like that for himself." She turned to him again, speaking of him in that familiar way that he'd come to hate. "He's just so sweetly clueless. He never seemed to realise that anyone who knew anything would come looking for him in Godric's Hollow and the reporters would be camping out in his front garden before long."

Beneath his revulsion, Harry knew that she was right about that, at least. He'd never worried about people finding him in the famous village where his parents had perished and Voldemort had disappeared. And he'd never wondered why no reporters had ever come to get the greatest exclusive ever: the story of just how he'd defeated Voldemort the second time.

Mrs Weasley seemed ready to launch back into the conversation, but her husband held up a pacifying hand and continued to direct his questions at Ginny. "And you started to visit him then?"

"That's right." She looked down at her lap and then hazarded a tender look up in Harry's direction, her voice fading almost to a whisper. "He was so lost then. The first time I came to his front door, he seemed half mad. I knew he wasn't ready to come back to everyone. He needed time to heal. He needed me to help him heal."

"I see. Then why didn't you tell us or Hermione that you knew where he was? You knew she was looking for him. In fact, you were helping with the search."

Although his soothing tone hadn't changed, Ginny looked wounded. "I thought you understood - he wasn't ready for that. And if I told any of you, you would have apparated over there in a moment. You know you would have!"

Arthur looked as his wife, knowing that she certainly would have. "All right," he said mildly, "but do you understand now that hiding this fact from everyone else hurt them?"

Ginny's lips trembled for a moment, but then she pressed them together and said stubbornly, "It was best for Harry. If they loved Harry as much as I do, they would understand." She smiled, looking a little bit mad. "But I know that none of you love him as much as I do. That's all right; you couldn't. He and I are meant to be together, after all."

Harry was watching Mr Weasley with a sort of new-found respect. He'd always respected the man, of course, but he'd never known just how skilled he was at handling people. It explained how he had survived at the Ministry so long, even during the dark years when the Death Eaters had practically taken it over. But even he couldn't respond to this last wild claim, so he returned to his earlier line of questioning. "And how did Harry feel about all of this, do you think? Wouldn't he have wanted to know that people cared about him and wanted to see him?"

Her face crumpling into a sort of bewildered betrayal, she told him, "Why don't you understand? I keep telling you! He was too hurt, too damaged." She glared at the Harry standing before her now, looking none too hurt nor damaged. "He wasn't like this. This is just Malfoy's doing. He's the one who - he's the one - he ruined everything!"

Tears had begun to leak down her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them away. "He took Harry out of his home, where I'd kept him safe. He took him away from me. But Harry isn't allowed to be with anyone other than me! He owes me that! He said that we should be together! He said - he said..."

She was nearly yelling as she went on hysterically. "We are meant to be together! That's why all of this happened! Why Tom Riddle possessed me, why Ron got Kissed! It was all because of Harry! It was all his fault! And that's why he has to-"

The door opened and Madam Pomfrey came bustling in, carrying a tall glass of a deep purple potion. She stepped past Mr and Mrs Weasley and held out the potion to Ginny expectantly. "Now, now, Miss Weasley. Let's have a nice big swig of this potion and all calm down a bit."

Ginny had hesitated momentarily in her rant, but it only took her a moment to regain her momentum. "I will not," she spat hatefully. "Don't you dare talk to me like a child! I did what none of you could have! I was the only one who could find him, I'm the only who can-"

Her words were silenced again, but this time with a wave of Madam Pomfrey's wand, which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Ginny blinked sluggishly and looked up at Pomfrey in bewilderment. The mediwitch said gently, "Now, that's a good girl. Drink up your potion."

Everyone was astonished when Ginny reached out for the potion willingly and took an eager sip of it. "What is that?" Hermione asked in a shocked tone. She'd never seen that level of control outside of the Imperius curse.

"It's a spell known only to medical practitioners," she replied sharply, giving Hermione a quelling look. "It is exclusively used for getting difficult patients to take their medicine, and that is all."

After Ginny had gulped down half the glass, Madam Pomfrey waved her wand again, releasing the spell. By now, the potion had begun to course through Ginny and her hands, still holding the glass, fell limply to her lap. Madam Pomfrey plucked the glass up and turned back to the others. "I think," she said in a voice that brooked little question, "that Miss Weasley has had enough excitement for now."

Mr Weasley was watching his daughter with sad, serious eyes. Mrs Weasley simply looked horrified and heart-broken. She turned to the old mediwitch with a voice no stronger than a whisper. "What do you think we should do, Madam Pomfrey? What - what sort of care options are there?"

The three of them began to talk in hushed tones of how they might help Ginny and Hermione took the opportunity to glance at Harry. She asked quietly, "So, Malfoy may have found his answer?"

It took Harry a moment to respond. He'd become so caught up in the spectacle of Ginny that Malfoy had been temporarily pushed out of his mind. Now all the feelings that had swamped him in the vault below the library lapped at him again, rising like a tide. "Yeah," he said in hoarse voice, "that's what he seemed to think."

"And yet," she continued, watching him carefully, "this isn't good news? I thought this was what you wanted? Isn't this why you came along to Hogwarts with him, why you left your private life behind? All because you felt you had to help him regain his magic?"

Harry remembered the excuses and they felt like lies now. Even then he'd been somehow attracted to Malfoy. He hadn't seen it for what it was, he'd only known that he wanted to be around the blond man for even just a moment longer, no matter where it took him. "I had thought so. That's what I had told myself. But now..." Harry screwed up his face, embarrassed and pained. "It sounds stupid, I know. But I feel like bad things will happen if we go down that path."

Hermione couldn't meet his eyes, because she felt the same way, but for different reasons; she just didn't trust Malfoy. Her eyes fell on Ginny again and she started slightly. The witch was watching them closely, her lips pressed together whitely and her eyes narrow with hatred and knowledge. And Hermione looked away.