Rematch

Harry stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom at number four Privet drive, and finished buttoning the top few buttons of his shirt, his tie hanging around his neck.

It was September the first, the first day of his Seventh year at Hogwarts, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

"Harry!" Petunia called. "Are you nearly ready?"

"Almost," Harry replied, wrapping his tie around itself twice, then up through the gap and down again, pulling it tightly. Once this was done he stared at himself in the mirror.

Raven black hair fell on either side of his eyes, still - for the most part - in the shape Draco had cut it, though it was a good inch or two longer. He seemed a shade paler, his eyes duller, his face thinner, in turn making its features more prominent. He sighed.

'I look like shit,' he thought to himself, turning the light off as he left the bathroom.

"We've got your trunk and your ... broom into the car," Petunia told him, looking up at him from the bottom of the stairs. "Vernon doesn't want to come, so it's just you and me. Is there anything else you need to bring?" she asked.

"Hedwig," Harry stated. Over the past few days and weeks he had stopped saying full sentences altogether, instead replying with one-word answers; something that greatly annoyed Vernon Dursley.

"Do you want me to pop up and get her?" Petunia asked. "You can wait in the car."

Petunia's attitude had also greatly changed, partly out of guilt, and partly out of genuine realisation that Harry was not well, and needed her help. She was actually being nice to him, helping him out and not complaining over his one-word replies. Still, Harry felt she would be very glad to see the back of him.

She trotted upstairs and returned presently with Hedwig in her cage, putting her safely into the boot of the car before sitting in the driver's seat.

"Let's go," she said, and smiled.

Harry nodded wordlessly, climbing into the back of the car and staring out of the window.

King's Cross was packed with Hogwarts students as they wheeled Harry's trolley towards the barrier. Some Harry recognised; some he didn't, but they all recognised him. Muttering and pointing followed him as he walked, people asking each other what had happened to him, why he had gone into St. Mungo's. The real reason had never got out, despite the Daily Prophet's best efforts.

"Have a good term, Harry," Petunia said, hugging him briefly. "I won't come any further. Will you be alright from here?" She tried valiantly to ignore the whispers.

"I suppose," Harry shrugged. He allowed her to hug him then turned, pushing his trolley through the barrier without a backwards glance.

Here, there were more people muttering, more people watching him but right now, he didn't much care, his thoughts were beginning to drift back to when Draco had come to Privet Drive.

Harry still wasn't sure whether it had been a dream, but there was no way of knowing. He bowed his head, pushing his trolley away from the wall and in a random direction.

"Harry!" Hermione cried, spotting him. She ran over and caught his arm. "Harry, where are you going?"

Harry turned his head to see Hermione, and a strained smile forced its way onto his face. "'Mione," he greeted.

She embraced him tightly. "We've missed you so much. Come on, Ron's on the platform." She slipped her arm through his, effectively leading him back to the barrier.

Harry stared at the ground as they walked, feeling alienated from one of his best friends. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to say what was on the tip of his tongue. When they arrived, Harry noticed the flash of silver on Ron's chest with a small flit of jealousy.

"Hey Harry," Ron said stiffly. He looked at Harry only briefly, and then looked over to where the train puffed steam over the crowded platform.

Hermione noticed that Harry had already seen Ron's head boy badge, and chose not to mention it. She simply held onto Harry's arm.

"Should we get your things loaded up?" she asked him, struggling not to sound too patronising. It was hard. Talking to Harry now felt like talking to a child of two or three.

Harry shrugged, looking at Ron sternly. Finally, stepping around his trolley and toward Ron he smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," Ron said, smiling briefly. "Want help with that?" he asked, pointing to Harry's trunk.

"Thanks," Harry replied, stepping over to the trunk and lifting it with Ron. After this was done, Hermione and Harry climbed into a compartment while Ron went off to talk to the new First Years.

"How are you?" Hermione asked Harry gently, uncertain whether the question would be taken well or not.

"He's alive," Harry said simply, resting his elbow on the window ledge and his chin on his hand.

"Really?" Hermione exclaimed, surprised. She knew who Harry meant, of course. "How do you know?"

"He came to Privet Drive," Harry replied, fighting to keep his voice level.

"So you've spoken to him? How is he?" Hermione asked, taking Harry's hand.

Harry tensed. "I told him to go away, 'Mione," he said quietly, looking at her out of crushed green eyes. It was obvious that he had been fighting with himself for a long time, and actually saying this was hurting him.

Hermione looked shocked. "Why?" she breathed.

"It was too much. Do you know what I went through? I spent six months in a coma where I was led around by a mini-Draco who was showing me his life. THEN I spent two months in St Mungo's having it drilled into my head that he was gone." Harry's eyes closed, then reopened as he looked out of the window. "I couldn't handle it. I still can't."

He held his hands out, they were both shaking.

Hermione squeezed his hands. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I don't understand any of this... Would it be better if you just talked to him?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't," he said quietly.

There was a sudden commotion outside and he turned to look out of the window where a group of people were gathered. They weren't students, too tall and without any trunks. It hit Harry almost immediately. "Reporters," he breathed. Then, the person in the middle of the group broke away from them, walking steadily forward and not paying the slightest attention to them. "Draco."

Draco could feel people tugging on his robes, hear the questions they were shouting, feel their papers hitting his face as they waved them before him, but he just kept going doggedly, ignoring them. Now everyone on the train was gathering at the windows, faces pressed against the glass to see Draco Malfoy, back from the dead.

Flicking his hair out of his eyes, Draco pushed his trunk off the trolley and into the storage area under the train. He leaned back, thrusting his trolley towards the rabble of reporters with a foot, swinging himself up onto the train.

He straightened his tie as he walked along, eyes perfectly focused straight ahead, so that he would not see Harry unless he met him face on. Though he had decided many, many times what he would say or do when he saw Harry, still his mind repeated the question - what will I do? What will I do? What will I do? What will I do?

Draco continued his inexorable journey until he reached the prefect's carriage, where he slammed the door firmly behind him and sat down on the side of the train that faced the rails, where the reporters could not see him. He sighed and tipped his head back, closing his eyes.

Strangely, there was no one else in the carriage save for Ginny Weasley, who Draco had almost sat on had she not moved at the last second. "Are you OK?" she asked finally.

Draco sniffed the air, nostrils flared. "I smell a weasel," he announced. He opened his eyes. "I'm passable."

"Something happened didn't it," Ginny asked, staring at him curiously. A book was open in her lap, small black writing telling of tales that had not happened. She closed the book with a snap, resting her pale hands on its cover.

"Apart from me dying? Nothing much," Draco said, rolling his head to one side to look at her. His bangs fell across his face as his eyes scanned Ginny, expression passive. "Je suis mort, mais je ne suis pas. Je suis assez bien." He rolled his head back to look up at the ceiling again. "I talk in French when I don't know what to say," he murmured, by way of explanation.

Ginny smirked. "I didn't know you spoke French." She dropped her book into her bag and crossed her legs, craning her neck back to stare at the ceiling. "Well, now that you've disturbed my privacy, how's the undead life working for you?"

"Not too well, people seem randomly willing to jump on me, or in the case of some, run away from me, scream at me and tell me to, quote, get out of their fucking heads, unquote." Draco sighed. "Oui, je parle Francais, toujours. Trop souvent. Parlo Italiano, anche. Hablo español, Ich spreche Deutsch, Jeg taler Norsk." He shrugged. "Some better than others."

"Was bedeutet das auf Englisch?" Ginny asked suspiciously, she had a feeling he was saying he could speak a lot of languages, but you never knew.

"It was Harry wasn't it?" she asked, quieter. "Who told you to go away."

"It was, 'I speak French all the time. Too often,' then I speak Italian, Spanish, German and Norwegian in their respective languages. And yes it was. He seemed very angry, somehow. He was the first one to tell me I was dead." Draco held his hand up over his face to examine his fingernails.

"I figured he would be," Ginny murmured, taking her hair out of her bobble then doing it up again.

"Yeah, so I'm doing the mature thing and ignoring him completely," Draco smiled, linking his fingers behind his head. "I am seventeen, after all."

Ginny grinned. "You'll work it out, though it won't be when he comes to you," she said, tilting her head to the side.

"Want to play Exploding Snap?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "In truth, not particularly, but I will if you want to." He sat up, flexing his fingers. "What do you mean, it won't be when he comes to me?"

Ginny shrugged, bending over to root through her bag for the packet of cards. "I'm just saying that it takes two to tango."

"I suppose," Draco conceded thoughtfully. "You know, it's strange, considering the circumstances, but when you think about it, this is just a simple teenage problem, which will be enlargened by the teenage mentality and blown all out of proportion before we sort it out in a very teenage way."

Ginny paused for a second to take this in, then giggled. "But you're not ordinary teenagers," she said thoughtfully. "You're special. You fight dark magic." She paused. "OK, that sounded corny didn't it?"

"It did," Draco agreed solemnly. "But that's precisely what I mean. One of us, essentially, lied to the other, and that person is now pissed off. The one who lied is too proud to say sorry again, and the one who is pissed off is also too proud. Eventually, one of us will punch the other and then we'll kiss and make up," Draco predicted.

Ginny grinned, dealing the cards expertly. "Do you play poker?" she asked curiously.

"Yes," Draco replied. "Harry doesn't. That annoyed me a lot, I recall."

"Why didn't you teach him?" Ginny asked. "It's not that hard of a concept. I've been playing my brothers since I was eight."

"I think Harry has a complete lack of ability when it comes to cards," Draco said thoughtfully, picking up his little pile of Snap cards. "He just doesn't care."

"Is that you speaking about your feelings, or about the idea of card games?" Ginny asked, picking up her cards and starting the game.

Draco frowned. "Cards. You asked me about cards so I answered about cards. I'm a simple sort of man. Snap," he said half-heartedly, laying down a card.

Ginny scooted backwards as Draco got a face full of soot from the cards and froze with one hand hovering over the cards. She started to giggle, before laughing outright as he sat there, covered in soot and seemingly quite stunned

Draco spat, wiping his face on his sleeve. "Why didn't you tell me they do that?" he demanded, running his hands through his hair.

Ginny continued to laugh, her ponytail bouncing as she did so. "I thought you'd know," she giggled.

"I don't play Exploding Snap," Draco said heavily, as though it was obvious. "Your turn, Weasel."

Ginny scooted back over, placing another card down and looking up at Draco. "Your eyebrow's on fire," she pointed out calmly.

Draco slammed his hand over it, yelping as his palm was scorched. He took his wand from his pocket, muttering an obscure spell. All the soot vanished from his face, hair and sleeves, and his eyebrow became perfect and normal again.

"I don't like this game," he decided, sliding back in his chair and throwing the card at the pile from a safe distance.

Ginny grinned, flicking a card over with her thumb and getting up off the floor as they exploded. "It's only fun for a few seconds when someone hasn't played it before." She sat down next to Draco and kicked her legs out.

"Who's Head Girl?" she asked, more to end the silence than to actually find out.

"Padma Patil," Draco answered after a moment, putting his cards back beside the pile. "And Weasel Senior's Head Boy. Who'd have thought it?"

"Do you think it was a pity vote?" Ginny asked, tilting her head to the side again and blinking innocently.

"Might have been," Draco shrugged. "I know it wasn't me because I'm dead."

"Were dead," Ginny corrected him. "Now undead."

"I'm still dead to Harry," Draco said, almost unthinkingly.

Ginny bit her lip and lay on her back on the chair, resting her head in Draco's lap. "He was the only one who never gave up hope on you," she said quietly. "For months people said you were dead but he wouldn't believe it, that's why he was in St Mungo's."

"Really?" Draco said, raising his eyebrows. He absently laid his arm in his lap and stroked Ginny's flame-coloured hair. "They bang people up for that these days?"

"Ron said he was hysterical," Ginny replied, closing her eyes. "He even tried to curse Dumbledore for saying you were dead."

"That would have been funny to watch," Draco said tonelessly, noncommittally.

"He didn't give up hope for so long people began to think he was really mad," Ginny added, moving her head slightly. "But he didn't seem to care. It was like he knew."

"He shouldn't have known, because I didn't tell him," Draco said, plaiting a strip of Ginny's hair absently.

"Mmm."

"You're not interested, are you?" Draco surmised, smiling. He returned to stroking her hair. "There was a curse that Harry invoked, stupidly. Something with a rose. It bound us, so that unless we link together..." He grinned as he remembered exactly how the curse had changed forms. "...We'd be bound until one of us killed the other. As it is, we did link." He grinned again. "But that means that if one of us dies, the other will. We're both safe, really, because Harry can only be killed by the Dark Lord, which means that if I die, I'll be brought back somehow, by default, and he can't die so I won't die by the curse either. He'd know if I'd died, though, because I'd take half of his life force to come back." Draco sighed, trying to remember what it had been like before everything had started to go wrong. "Fuck Blaise," he muttered to himself, then sat brooding, gazing out of the window as rain began to clatter on the glass.

There was silence for a long time before Draco looked up sharply.

"What if the Dark Lord kills Harry?" he asked loudly, hand gripping Ginny's hair, which he had been stroking all along, accidentally.

Ginny whimpered in her sleep, her calm face changing into that of a confused one.

"Sorry," he said to Ginny, glancing down. He did a double take. "Hey," he said, tapping her on the forehead. "Hey, wake up."

Ginny frowned, batting away his hand with hers. "Sleep," she said drowsily.

"You're not meant to be sleeping!" Draco said, something close to panic gripping him as he realised that she had been laying there sleeping and he hadn't even noticed, let alone minded. Harry was the only person who could sleep near him, Harry. Draco almost wanted to recoil from her, though he knew it was irrational. He was blurred with thoughts of panic at Ginny sleeping and abject terror that he didn't even mind that much. He didn't like Ginny, surely?

Ginny blinked a few times as she realised something was wrong. She sat up suddenly, looking at him with a confused expression. He looked close to panicking. "Draco?" she asked tentatively.

"You were sleeping?" he demanded in a near whisper, as though the words were burning his lips.

"Yes," Ginny replied slowly.

"Bloody hell," Draco said, tipping his head back and dropping his hands into his lap. "Bloody hell."

Ginny stood up and grabbed her bag. "I should go... find my friends." She backed out of the carriage quickly, wondering just what was so wrong with sleeping.

"Ginny!" Draco snapped, holding his hand out.

But she was gone. He kicked his bag angrily, folding his arms across his chest.

***

Draco walked up the steps to the castle, alone despite all the people jostling around him. It was dark, and wind whipped around, carrying the scent of fresh-fallen rain. There was a vague smell of bonfires, crisp golden leaves, the usual lovely smells of autumn, but Draco barely noticed. He was thinking mainly of how he was usually with Blaise as he walked up here, but despite Draco's miraculous return from the dead just to come back to school, Blaise would likely not be returning.

Draco understood very little. He had, Blaise had told him, gone hysterical when Voldemort killed Lucius. Draco lost his memories in a blur of blood, darkness and tears from there until seeing Harry, apparently dead, against a wall. He had gone to him and taken his father's amulet, and sworn that he would not leave. Draco had then been taken captive by the Deatheaters, and when they left, he and Blaise had been taken with them.

Draco walked through the doors of the Great Hall, glancing up briefly at the bright candles. His last year, and so far, it was looking to be the worst. He sat down at a table, tipped his chair back and rested his feet on the trestle-table's crossbar. His eyes grew distant again and his mind muffled the loud chatter as he slipped back into his memories.

Draco had awoken much later, locked in a tower in some place he could not put his finger on. At first, no one came to him, but he often heard voices carrying up from what was apparently a courtyard far below his window. They mentioned Salazar Slytherin many times, and the 'Releasing'. Draco knew, somehow, that this simple word had a capital letter, though why, he could not fathom.

After a week of solitude, where Draco simply stared at his feet, thoughts of his father and of Harry shooting through his mind like small, poisoned darts, Blaise came to visit him. Vaguely, behind that inescapable pain and firm, if reluctant, belief that Harry was dead along with Lucius, Draco noted that Blaise walked among the Deatheaters as one of them, even a superior. The reason for this was another thing that had escaped Draco.

This train of thought had led to him realising that many things seemed to escape him. Lucius, Harry, Blaise, safety, security, love. He sighed. And now Harry refused to believe that he was alive, and how could he prove it to him? Briefly, and far from seriously, Draco considered throwing himself from the astronomy tower. If he could die, surely Harry would see that he was alive, though admittedly that would defeat the purpose of it.

Draco sighed and looked up to see if anyone was saying anything important. Dumbledore had risen to his feet, and the room fell silent. Draco dropped his eyes, having no desire to listen to the rules. What did it matter anyway? He tuned out until he heard his own name.

"And I'm sure it has not escaped the notice of those of you who have seen him that Draco Malfoy, despite being reportedly dead, is back among us. The truth is, that the body was an illusion. Some of the Aurors knew this, but we were not allowed to release the information." His eyes flickered to Harry. Draco glanced over also, but returned his gaze without really addressing what he saw. "I would ask that you do not plague Mr. Malfoy with questions regarding his 'death', because it is fairly simple. He was not dead."

Dumbledore using the term 'Mr. Malfoy', though he used it all the time, brought it sharply home to Draco that he was now the head of the family. He had a responsibility. The rules of the Malfoy code applied firmly to him. No dallying with Gryffindors. He physically felt the last remnants of his heart fall and smash as he swore to himself that he would forget about Harry. If the boy wanted him, he could come and beg.

But it didn't look like it was going to work like that.

Over at the Gryffindor Table, things were slightly more subdued than they usually were, with Harry Potter, the Gryffindor golden boy, back from St Mungo's.

There was only one person, Harry reflected, that did not coil away from him in the Gryffindor House thus far. Neville Longbottom. Harry was relieved that someone else had seen what they did in St Mungo's and the affect it had on people, though he would not voice this aloud. No, for there was another, more painful barrier which was stopping him from doing anything like his old self.

It was, of course, the fact that Draco Malfoy was back. Harry had talked with Hermione, but he still could not come to grips with the fact that the whole reason he was in St Mungo's was back, walking, alive, healthy. He couldn't understand; it didn't work. Something didn't add up.

Dumbledore began to speak, and Harry lifted his eyes to the man, paying attention for the first time that day to something someone was saying. It wasn't long before the words he was saying settled in, and he exploded. 'He knew? He fucking knew and he didn't tell me?!' However mad his inner thoughts were, Harry's outside appearance only changed slightly, his features becoming darker. 'He fucking knew.'

He stared at the table, trying to burn several holes into it. Anything to get his anger out. Anything. Dumbledore had known Draco was alive, and had left him in St Mungo's, going mad slowly, because no one believed him that Draco was alive. And then Draco had turned up. Harry blamed his reaction on Dumbledore, however unorthodox it seemed. He pinned all blame on him for his not talking to Draco in the bedroom of number four Privet Drive.

"And all I have left to say is 'Enjoy your meals!'" Dumbledore said, though it lacked his usual enthusiasm. He sat down and everyone began to discuss Draco's reappearance.

Draco himself was totally unaware of this. He was occupying himself with trying not to try to see Harry. This failed. He had a clear view of him between two girls. He wanted to vault over the table and run to Harry, tell him what happened, tell him that he had kept dreaming of Harry watching him at many important times in his life. Tell him he loved him.

Draco tried to rip his eyes away, but it was too late. Harry's head turned and their eyes locked.

Harry's heart jumped, reminding him for the first time in a long while that he actually had one. He found himself unable to look away, he wanted to do something, to smile, to get up and walk over Draco, not caring whether anyone looked, he was struck with the realisation that he wanted Draco, and only him.

He closed his eyes, turning his head slightly to the side before opening them again so he wouldn't be pinned down under that intense grey stare.

Harry had hurt Draco, he realised that now. It didn't matter how much Harry himself had been hurt anymore, only that they didn't keep going on like this. He took a shaky breath, and closed his eyes again. He wanted - needed - to apologise. But he didn't know if he could do it.

A sneer curled Draco's lip, despite the lurch of longing in his chest. He had already set himself to hate Harry, to lead him around by the nose, and it was too late. A tiny part of him looked on in despair as the rest decided that Harry was already showing weakness by looking down. 'Want to be my bitch, do you Potter?' that nasty side of him snapped. Draco hated himself for it, but the strength he had invented for himself reflected that bitterness out, just as it had done since he was eleven until relatively recently, onto Potter.

"Harry?" Dean asked, tapping him on the shoulder. They were all trying to be careful around him, no one wanting to disturb him. No matter how silly it seemed, it was almost instinctive.

"Yes?" Harry asked distractedly, turning his head to Dean.

"You just looked sort of..." He struggled for a phrase that didn't imply insanity. "Are you alright?"

"No," Harry replied simply. "I'm sick of people staring at me. First all people saw was the scar, but now all people see is the St Mungo's patient."

He turned from Dean to stare in another direction, though it wasn't at anyone. "I want things to be normal."

Dean sighed, shaking his head. "Nothing's going to be normal, Harry. Nothing's ever going to be normal again."

"I know." After this, Harry fell quiet again and slipped back into his thoughts. He wondered what Draco would do if he cornered him and apologised. With them both being back at Hogwarts, in their respective houses, things were going to be hard. He couldn't talk to Draco unless they were in his room, and they wouldn't be in his room unless they had made up, and they wouldn't make up unless they got to talk, which could only be achieved in his room. He resisted the urge to bang his head off the table.

'I hate Gryffindor Pride.'

Draco, though the meal was clearly not yet over, rose to his feet. A part of him that had been almost inactive in a while had decided that he was bored. It was true, he supposed, but still, he usually sat things out. But the head of the Malfoy family had no reason to sit things out. Harry Potter's deceased ex had no reason to guide first years to their common rooms. Fuck being a prefect. Draco would now settle for being an arsehole instead.

He walked unabashedly to the door, not looking back and ignoring the fact that people fell silent to watch him leave. He slammed the door as best he could, considering its size, and made his way towards the dungeons.

But he stopped. Why go to the dungeons? The common room? There was no one there to talk to, and it would just remind him of Blaise's fairly unexplained absence. He turned in mid-stride and made his way up the stairs, thoughts of his destination very vague. His feet followed the familiar path until he found himself standing outside Harry's room.

A brief bubble of weakness tightened his throat. Fingers shaking, he found a pencil in one pocket and a calling card from some girl in another. He wrote on it, then slipped it under the door.

He had left it unsigned, and deliberately written in block capitals. Harry would know it was from him, but no one else would. Draco set a course to the library, having an aching void within that seemed to need solitude and a good thick book.

As Harry stepped through the door into his room a good half hour later, he noticed the card straight away and bent down to pick it up. He read slowly, his green eyes showing nothing as they darted across the words, taking them all in until finally, he had understood and read it all.

He stepped further into his room, slammed the door behind him and threw the card into a bin.

***

Motes of dust sparkled and turned lazily in the blocky shafts of early morning sunlight slanting through the library, traveling unhurriedly over piles of books, scrolls, deserted homework, stamps, quills, inkpots, desks covered in little notes and bags. It shone from the leather of the armchairs, gilded covers, glass inkwells and silver blond hair, spread across the two-hundred-and-fifty-first page of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The shadows over Draco's face shortened until the light shone full on him and he blinked, lifting his head from his book and looking around him.

Realising he was still in the library, Draco rubbed his face with his hands. He yawned and shook his hair into place, picking up the book and stretching, catlike, before walking out silently.

He laid the book down, still open on page two hundred and fifty one, on his bed, before going to shower. It was only about six forty-five in the morning, and he was the only one awake. Draco dressed in his uniform, leaning back against the mantelpiece to knot his green and silver tie. Still, no one had stirred. He pulled his black jersey on, then put his arms into the sleeves of his robes, not bothering to buckle them up. He straightened his prefect badge and picked up his book, casting one last glance over the room before leaving.

Mind distant, he settled on the front lawn with his back against a tree, reading to himself. He was reading The Tempest. Draco liked The Tempest, but he often wished he could be shipwrecked and just left there. Why would one want anyone coming to one's island? One could fuck that rather mischievous spirit and be happy, right? Draco tipped his head back, looking out across the lake.

"Maybe it doesn't work like that," he said aloud to himself, sighing.

Ginny strode down the lawn quietly, her bookbag swinging at her side, occasionally banging into her leg. She had initially been going down to the Great Hall for breakfast before anyone else showed up, but instead had been sent off course by the image of Draco Malfoy sat by himself, with a book, under a tree on the lawn.

Not sure why it seemed so important she talked to him, Ginny finally arrived at the tree and sat cross-legged in front of Draco, who seemed too preoccupied in his thoughts to talk to her. For a few seconds, she marveled how much different he was to Harry, without being different at all.

"Draco?" she asked timidly, not wanting to jar him from his thoughts, but not wanting to avoid talking to him either.

"Eh?" Draco said, raising an eyebrow as he turned his head to look at her. "You're up early," he noted, smiling to her.

Ginny shrugged. "I don't like eating when everyone else is around. It's so much easier when you're by yourself."

She brushed some hair from her eyes, careful not to smudge her eyeliner. "Why are you out here?"

"Reading," Draco said, raising his book. "I don't mind eating when other people are around, but I suppose that makes sense."

Ginny blinked. "Probably, but it's too early for my brain to be working."

"That's alright," Draco said, grinning darkly. "You're a girl, no one expects you to think."

"I guess it's better than thinking with your dick," Ginny said thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure my dick would be good for thinking," Draco said, after considering it. "I think with dicks, they have a sort of Crabbe and Goyle principal. The more substantial, the less good they are for thinking." He grinned at her through his bangs. "They don't think, they just act."

Ginny giggled. "Touché."

"You can if you want," Draco said, stretching, his grinning growing wider.

Ginny stopped giggling to stick her tongue out at Draco. "Several people would kill me. And Ron would kill you."

"He'd have to catch me first, and I notice that you don't present any personal objections." He laughed, running his fingers through his hair and linking them behind his head, leaning back against the tree trunk again.

Ginny shrugged. "I don't think anyone personally would reject an offer like that off you."

"Really?" Draco sounded slightly surprised. "That's quite a flattering thing to hear." He smiled a little smugly, settling himself against the trunk. "That's made my day, already. I doubt I'll hear anything better all day."

He looked at Ginny appraisingly. "Do you have any classes worth going to today?"

"I have Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, a double of Flying, and History of Magic with the Ravenclaws," she said, her voice changed slightly at the end.

"That sounds like an incredibly crap day to me, except for flying." He frowned. "But I'm not that bad. Want to bunk History of Magic?"

Ginny shook her head. "No," she said, unable to meet his eyes. "I need to go to that..."

"Alright, herbology?" Draco asked, not paying attention. "I have two hours of arithmancy, followed by two hours of history of magic, then an hour of ancient runes. I'm bunking the whole day, but if you want to join me at any stage, you'd be welcome to."

Ginny nodded distractedly. "Mhmm." It was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'll not intrude on your privacy any further," he said, picking up his book and continuing to read.

It took Ginny a full five minutes to notice that Draco had started reading. "Hey!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Stop ignoring me!"

"You were lost in your thoughts," Draco said, looking at her through lidded eyes. "I take it there's someone?" he smiled, leaning forward for the gossip.

Ginny scowled, flicking her head back. "No."

"Okay," Draco said, going back to his book.

There was a pause. "I thought I told you to stop ignoring me."

"Well, if you're not answering me, then what can I do?" Draco asked, grinning slightly. His hair fell across his face as he slipped a marker between the pages of his book. Ginny was one of the few people he knew who actually ordered him about. He was quite enjoying it.

"I am answering," Ginny protested. "Just, not very well."

"Pathetically, if I'm honest," Draco told her. "So why are you talking to me? I thought you hated me."

"My brother hates you," Ginny corrected. "I figure, if Harry can get along with someone then so can I."

"Harry can't get along with me," Draco said, voice deep. "He wants to think that I'm dead."

"No," Ginny replied, shaking her head. "Harry wants to think that you're not dead, he just can't. I don't know, understand it?"

"Does it look like I do?" Draco asked in a low voice. He shook his head. "I don't know what's happened, but it seems like this is a concentrated effort to destroy Harry, and knowing his luck, that might be what it is." He snarled, wrapping his arms around himself. "I'm so fucking lonely."

Ginny paused for a second, before leaning forward and hugging Draco, resting her chin on his shoulder. "You'll make up, you have to."

Draco wrapped his arms around her slim back. "I don't have to do anything," he said, a little petulantly. "I'm sure you know my father's dead. You probably had a massive party. I'm the head of the Malfoy family." He held Ginny close to him, resting his cheek against her hair almost instinctively. "I make the rules, but I only have to follow our own. One of those is that a Malfoy must never have relations with a Gryffindor. It didn't matter when I was just the heir, but now I'm the head of the family, I'm meant to adhere to the rules, even the stupid ones like 'Don't date Gryffindors.'"

"Then overrule it," Ginny replied with a smirk, pulling back out of Draco's arms. "You're Draco Malfoy, you don't exactly play by the rules."

"This is not a game," Draco said, but then when he thought about it, it probably was. "Are you going to skip class or not? Five... four... three..."

"Yeah, why not?"

"I'll make sure you're back for history of magic," Draco said, looking a little doubtful. "Let's go get breakfast in Hogsmeade. I don't want to see Potter."

"Harry," Ginny corrected, pushing herself to her feet.

"Whatever," Draco said, rising also. He put his book into his schoolbag and brushed his robes with his hands. "Madame Puddifoot doesn't usually mind me going in there when I should be in lessons. I'll pay."