Vita Labyrinthae Similis In Quo Umbrae Vagamus

CHAPTER 13

And I don't want the world to see me

--Goo Goo Dolls—

Morning dawned grey and still. From the windows of her office Nadezhda could see the Weasley twins and some other, less identifiable children, engaged in a thoroughly vicious snowball fight. One of the Gryffindor kids in his Quidditch robes swirled above them, a mote of red and gold in a world of white and grey. She sighed. She herself had never had the skill for Quidditch, despite her almost natal ability to fly; her flying was a personal thing, unadaptable for midair games, and she'd only been able to guest-ref Quidditch once or twice. A good thing she didn't follow the game as passionately as some of her colleagues, she thought, noticing McGonagall arriving on a well-preserved Silver Arrow to have a look. She had never given Quidditch training much thought, after the prospect of Auror training had arrived in her life.

She turned back from the window to the half-finished sixth year Dada test. She was going to test first their abilities to recognize Dark magic as separate from Light, and then their ability to block basic Dark curses, but she knew the test as it was had far too few challenges. Hmm, she thought. Perhaps I should ask them to write me an essay on the immediate differences between Dark and Light magic before I ask them to do any practical spells.

She leaned back and lit a cigarette. I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought. Seems like only yesterday I was holed up in our common room at Durmstrang trying to memorize anything the Dada teacher had referenced during the term, trying not to fail something I was passionate about. I was rather good at it, I fancy.

She wondered how Severus was doing at his own test, and considered that he was probably more preoccupied with the fate of the Malfoy family than with the titration values of monkshood in a solution of henbane. Pity my subject's not quite so concrete.

Disgustedly, she threw down her quill and twitched her cloak closer around her shoulders. I'm going to do something I should have done a long time ago, she thought. The door to her office banged shut behind her, dislodging a small rain of notes pinned there by desperate students in hope of last-minute tutelage.

The hospital wing was silent and full of snow light. She swept into Pomfrey's office, rather glad of the gravitas the teaching robes lent her, and put her hands on the desk. The nurse looked up.

"I've been told Malfoy's recovering," she said, diffidently, as Madame Pomfrey gave her a questioning glance. "May I see him?"

"I don't know," said the nurse, simply. "He and Granger were....studying.....late into the night. I think she's done him a lot of good."

"I don't doubt it," said Nadezhda. "Nevertheless, I want a word with him. Is he awake?"

"He will be once you start talking," said Pomfrey. "Look....Nastasya....I think something's happened to Granger. She's able to perform extremely complex charms without a wand. Moreover, she's able to use things she's never studied, and it seems like all of this has happened since the episode in Snape's dungeon."

"Ah," said Nadezhda. "I see." No use asking how Poppy'd found out that Hermione had been the third participant in the spell, she thought. I probably don't want to know.

The Vita Reflectus charm was classified among other very complicated and draining spells as an Awakener. For mages who had been Sealed, these charms enabled them to perform magic far beyond the confines of the Sealing. For mages who had very little experience in such things, and whose potential was unmeasured, such charms tended to awaken latent powers. "What did she do?"

"Well, she started by casting Alohomora on a lock without the use of a wand. That isn't particularly surprising, in itself, since there was a great deal of urgency in the atmosphere, and the emotional force of the moment could well have boosted her ability by itself. But the use of Expelliarmus and...." Pomfrey looked fixedly at her desk...."Curatio, implies a more important change in the magical fields. I think Granger's been amplified somehow. Or her natural powers have been activated. I can only think that Vita Reflectus you did had an effect on her. An awakening."

"She did Curatio without a wand?" Nadezhda demanded. "I can't even make that one work with a wand. Damn."

"It's not even just that," said Pomfrey. "She told me she'd never studied that charm. Never even known of it before. It just...came...to her."

"Christ." Nadezhda took her hands off the desk and stared at her colleague. "Can I talk to her?"

"If she's awake. She's physically fine; the only reason I'm letting her stay here is that she seems to keep Malfoy grounded in this world, and stable. Otherwise I'd have sent her back to classes some time ago."

"Right."

Nadezhda swirled out of Pomfrey's office and stalked down to the end of the ward, where Hermione lay surrounded by books right by the great grey windows. The girl was barely asleep, clutching an enormous book she recognized with a shock of chagrin as her own set text Uses of Dark Magic in the Common Realm..

"Hermione?" she murmured. Granger shifted slightly in the bed, her hair falling over her eyes, looking very young. "Hermione, wake up."

Hermione's cinnamon eyes opened, widened briefly at the sight of Nadezhda. "Yes, Professor?"

"Don't worry," said Nadezhda as calmly as she could. "I just want to ask you a few questions."

"So do I," said Hermione, sitting up. "What's with my ability to perform magic without a wand?"

Nadezhda sighed, rubbing at her temples. "I don't know yet. It seems as if your participation in the Vita Reflectus awoke certain latent abilities in you." She looked out of the window at the Weasleys' Quidditch practice. "Had you ever been able to do wandless magic before?"

"I don't know. I just always had my wand. But...I've been getting these strange feelings. Like, if I have to do something and I don't know how, the knowledge just drops itself into my brain, like someone's prompting me. And I know what to do, as if I've always known."

"Like with Draco's wrists?"

Hermione stared at her, but dropped her gaze. "Yes. I didn't know Curatio. I've never studied medical spells. But I didn't even think about it; I just did it, wandless, and didn't concern myself with whether it was possible for me to do it or not."

"I see," said Nadezhda. "Hermione...if this gets out, you may be called to the Ministry for testing. You've got all the signs of the young Archmagus. Tell me, is it dreadfully easy for you to perform simple spells?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know....um...try a Levitation Charm on me."

"Are you sure?"

Nadezhda nodded. Hermione gazed at her for a moment, then muttered "Wingardium Leviosa," and Nadezhda found herself floating two inches over the chair she'd been sitting on.

"Wandless," she muttered. Hermione looked embarrassed and muttered the words to end the charm, and she found herself sitting on the chair once more, without even a jolt to indicate the end of the spell. "Remarkable."

Hermione sighed. "I've always been good at that sort of thing. But it's when I don't know the spell, or even if there is a spell for what I want to do, that it comes out."

Nadezhda stared at her. "Like what?"

"Well, like the Curatio Charm. I mean...you must know what happened?"

"I know. Go on."

"Well, I just saw him there, with the blood moving and running and dripping, and I yelled 'Expelliarmus' and the scalpel came flying into my hand. And then he asked me to mend the cuts..." Hermione gulped...."and I just knew what to do. Never even seen the Curatio Charm before. But I used it, and it worked."

Nadezhda smiled, suddenly, unaware that she was going to. "My dear," she said. "You may very well be more important to the cause of Light than even Harry Potter. Look....don't worry about this, all right? Snape and I are going to go testify tomorrow about the deaths of the Malfoys, which I am sure you will understand by now, and Draco will be asked to give evidence when he's better. You, too, may be called up to testify. I'm warning you now so that it won't come as a surprise."

"Not much could surprise me," said Hermione, and her eyes were warm with memory. Nadezhda was aware of it, and stayed companionably quiet. After a long moment, Hermione met her gaze. "You and Professor Snape are..." she trailed off.

"Yes. We are."
"Was it easy? I mean, was it like...um..."
"Was it like those dreadful romance novels?" Nadezhda finished. "Not quite. I ended up screaming at him, and then he screamed at me, and eventually we realized the screaming wasn't actually aimed at either of us. It wasn't very elegant."

Hermione grinned. "I see," she said.

"Did you and Draco....?"
"Yes," said Hermione, eventually, "I suppose we did make a connection." She looked up at Nadezhda with a gaze so full of absolute and intense happiness that Nadezhda caught her breath. "Last night. He.." She paused. "Are you going to tell anyone?"
"Hell no," said Nadezhda, sighing. "I'm not that much older than you lot, you know. I do remember what it was like."

"All right then. He and I had been studying, you know, for the finals. And he was all tired and bitchy and he wanted a cigarette." Hermione looked down at her hands. "You must know how hard it is to refuse him anything."

Nadezhda knew. That astonishing silver-grey gaze was very, very compelling.

"So I said I'd go get them. From his dormitory."

"The Slytherin dorm?"

"Exactly. I...don't know how I knew the password, but it just sort of came to me."

"Like someone whispering it in your ear?" said Nadezhda, remembering all her texts on unSealing and awakening of talents.

"Just like. I found his cigarette case and was about to sneak out again, but as I came back to the common room I saw that there were people there. Slytherins. And Snape."

"What did you do?"
"I don't even know," said Hermione. "I just...muttered something, and made a gesture with my right hand. A counterclockwise circle. And I walked right by Snape and he didn't even see me."

"Shit," muttered Nadezhda. "The Dissimulare charm."

"Yeah, it was something to do with 'occultus' and 'dissimularis,'" said Hermione. "I'd never studied the words or the movements. It just came to me. And when I left the room, it faded just as quickly. I couldn't reproduce the effect now."

"And did you get Malfoy's cigarettes for him?"

"Oh yes," said Hermione carefully. "I got them."

"Good. Listen, I'm going to go and wake him up and demand some answers. When Snape and I return from the Ministry tomorrow, I'll have more information on what will be expected of you. Don't worry," she amended, as Hermione's face fell, "it's nothing bad. You're merely rather extraordinary, that's all."

"Oh, good," said Hermione. "I'd hate to think I was remarkable, or anything."

"Quite. Oh, and by the way, my test's going to be on Dark curses and the interaction between wand and wielder. You needn't worry about the whole different-versions-of-vulgate-Latin thing. We're taking the text out of Dark Arts and their Structural Weaknesses. You've got it right there."

"Holy God," said Hermione," have you ever read all the way through this book?"

"I regret to say I have not," said Nadezhda. "Is it as appalling as it looks?"

"More."

"I'm deeply sorry. Next term will be less painful."

"Good," said Hermione brightly. "Go talk to Draco. I think I've got some ideas about what exactly my new magical abilities can do."

Nadezhda tapped at Draco's door, heard a very familiar voice say curtly "Yes?" and let herself in. He was sitting propped up on pillows and snowed under by notes and lists and books, and didn't look too happy to be interrupted, but as he saw who it was a little smile flickered over his face. "Professor," he said mildly. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"Concern," said Nadezhda. "And a rather belated feeling of responsibility. I take it you're feeling better?"

"Oh, yes," said Draco, "much, only I've got all these horrible tests coming up for some reason and my teachers seem to have set me a great deal more work than is humanly possible. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Not a thing," she smiled. "Listen, Draco, you're aware that Professor Snape and I have to go testify at the Ministry tomorrow, right?"

He nodded. "About my parents."

"Yes. And the council is likely to call you up as well. Dumbledore says they're going to wait until your health is improved a bit."

"That's nice of them," he said dryly. "Didn't want to put me out, or anything."

"Who'd have thought the Ministry would be so tactful?" Nadezhda shifted a pile of Herbology texts and sat down. "Look, are you really all right? Professor Snape and I have been very concerned about you."

He winced. "Yeah, I gathered that. I'm okay, though. I seem to have the stamina of a whelk, and I'm still not able to eat anything worthwhile, and I can't even smoke because my throat's still all messed up, but I'm okay." He looked up at her, and tapped his temple with a forefinger. "In here."

"Good," she said simply. "What's Poppy giving you to eat, then?"

"Gruel. Like I'm a toothless old woman." He made a complicated and eloquently disgusted face. "I demanded real food, and she said I'd be sorry, and she was right, damn it. I can't keep anything down except her horrible chicken soup and her horrible gruel. You've no idea how very, very tedious this has come to be."

"Eurgh," said Nadezhda, elegantly. "I'm so very sorry, Draco. It should improve, though. I mean, you've not been, ah, very interested in much recently, but I think you'll recover quite quickly now."

"What, you mean now that I've got my will to live back?" he said ruefully. She grinned.

"Something like that. And I'm really sorry you can't smoke. That's not fair."

"That's more or less what I said," he sighed. "Say, Professor, there's no hope of you giving me a break on the Dada test owing to my appalling state of health, is there?"

She regarded him for a moment. "Probably not. I shouldn't worry, Draco. You and Granger are the best students in the class, and with you two studying together you shouldn't have any difficulty. As I told Hermione just now, the test's on Dark curses and their interaction with the wand, so don't worry about your Latin declensions too much."

"Aww, but I was always so good at them," he said. "Lucius used to drum them into my head when I was a kid, over and over. Amo, amas, amat. He'd written on about Malfoy family pride and the value of a classical education and how I'd need to know Latin so as to be able to translate all the mottos in the portrait gallery. How many eight-year-olds do you know who've been forced to read and translate bits of Tacitus as a break from their normal German, French and Italian lessons?"

Nadezhda winced. "Erm...well, at least you had the Romance languages, which have a rather nicer structure and all use the same damn alphabet. German's a bit more annoying. I had to learn Russian, Church Slavonic, Georgian, Hebrew, Yiddish and for some reason Norse runes, as well as Latin. Middle French came a bit later." She gave him a little self-deprecating smile. He stared at her.

"Where the....um, where did you go to school?" he demanded.

"I didn't, until I got the Hogwarts letter. Dad taught me."

Draco looked as if a penny had just dropped. "Not...Kallikrates Serensky?"

"Got it in one. Don't look so shocked, Draco," she added.

"Wow," he said. "Kallikrates Serensky. He's in all our books. Most famous and feared Auror in a century. Even Mad-Eye Moody respected Serensky."

"That's because they had an apocalyptic fight one time and nearly ended up killing each other. They became the best of friends after that, though Dad always said Moody's magical eye secretly gave him the willies. Could see through people, he said."

"Wow," said Draco again. "Professor, that's just...cool." She was once again struck by the fact that he was still only sixteen, despite what the past months had put him through, and was still capable of saying things like "cool" about famous Aurors. She grinned.

"Yeah, Dad was pretty interesting," she said, "only he had a thing about perfection. I had to be perfect. I missed out on a lot of the things most kids get to do because I was translating the entire oeuvre of an obscure Latvian warlock into French, or something."

Draco looked somber. "I know. It was like that with the languages, and with fencing, and flying, and especially magical dueling. He made me practice everything, all the time, except when he was off at his meetings or in London with his mates, and even then he set me homework to do while he was gone."

"You didn't get to be a kid either, did you?"

"Not really, no." He sighed. "Oh well. I'll make up for it when I graduate. I'll be completely and utterly undisciplined and not do anything I don't want to."

She grinned. "Glad to hear it. I should let you get back to work."

He looked up as she rose. "Thanks for coming to see me," he said quietly. "It was nice of you."

"Not at all. I haven't come to visit you for too long. About the tests....I'll have a copy of them sent up here for you and one for Hermione. I imagine the other teachers are doing the same. You needn't drag yourself to the classroom."

"Good," he said fervently. She thought she understood a little of that, seeing as how none of his classmates had come to see him, and none of them were likely to understand what had changed in him, and it would all be thoroughly awkward. "Thank you."

"No problem. Take care, Draco."

She closed the door behind her. The familiar rage at Lucius Malfoy throbbed briefly in her skull like a migraine, but she fought it away. That won't help anyone. Certainly won't help Draco. What he needs now is just understanding and support, not people wanting to dig up Lucius and kill him again.

She returned to her office and to the half-created test.

Outside, the Quidditch practice had devolved into a kind of impromptu match with the departure of McGonagall. Fred and George's snowball fight became hopelessly entangled with the game when someone had enchanted two of the snowballs to act like Bludgers. They had to keep re-enchanting them, because whenever anyone hit a snow-Bludger, it disintegrated into a plume of loose snow. Nobody had bothered to set up goalposts, and they didn't feel like moving the game down to the actual pitch, so it was rather difficult to tell when anyone scored. Nobody cared. Harry and Ron, playing Seekers, were hurtling around pelting one another with snowballs to distract the other players, and Ginny was circling the entire game on an ancient Cleansweep Five she'd borrowed off Colin Creevey, yelling encouragement. The rest of the players were a random collection of Gryffindors, with the exception of one or two Ravenclaw girls and a third-year Hufflepuff boy.

"Go, Harry! Destroy him!" Ginny shrieked as Harry bore down on Fred (or perhaps George) who was whizzing around with the Quaffle tucked firmly under his arm. Harry let fly with a well-aimed snowball which hit Fred square on the nose and caused him to drop the Quaffle, but also demanded revenge. Fred grinned widely and jerked his broom back around in a circle to face Harry, and began systematically firing off snowball after snowball at him until he ran out of ammo and had to land and reload.

Eventually everyone got tired, wet and hungry enough to give up the fight and troop back to the broom shed. Harry caught the bewitched snowball that was playing the Snitch and nailed Angelina with it before scurrying off to join Ron, but he didn't scurry quickly enough to evade the snowball she aimed at his back.

"That was brilliant!" Ron grinned. Harry felt an answering grin spread on his own face.

"Yeah, especially the part where you stuffed snow all the way down Lee Jordan's back and then did that 360 to get away from him," he agreed. Ron chortled.

"He's gonna kill me later, but it was worth it. You should've seen yourself just now when Angelina got you, you went all purple."

"You should talk. Your face matches your hair." Harry set his Firebolt with the Gryffindor team brooms in the broomshed's secure trunk, and locked it. "You want to go change, or just head to dinner?"

Ron's stomach, with a well-developed sense of comic timing, growled. "Dinner," said Ron decidedly. "Come on."

They were halfway back to the castle when a scream rent the air, echoing off the old stones and ringing out over the frozen lake. Both Harry and Ron turned to see Ginny, on her borrowed Cleansweep, spiraling up out of control into the grey sky. Ron went white. "Shit! The repulsor field's going!" He turned on his heel and ran back to where Ginny was being flung about the sky by her broom. Harry followed, acutely aware that he didn't have his wand and his broom was locked up in the shed, which had just been closed by George on his way back...

He skidded to a halt by Ron, about a hundred feet below Ginny. "Help!" she was screaming, barely able to hold on to the shaft of the broom as it bucked and jerked. "Help! Somebody help me!"

Harry felt sick. "I've got to get the Firebolt," he shouted to Ron and made for the broomshed, but even before he got halfway, Ginny screamed again in real panic. Harry turned in horror just in time to see her plummet like a stone as the broom's magical field shorted out completely.

Time seemed to slow down. He saw Ginny's pale face, her mouth open in a scream; saw her hair, absurdly bright in the monochrome day, fluttering around her as she fell, saw the dead broom still clutched tightly in her hands. Ron was running toward her, and Harry could distantly hear other people shouting. He was too far away to do anything; his wand was back in his dorm room, as inaccessible as if it'd been on the moon, and his broom was locked in the shed to which he didn't have the keys. All he could do was watch Ginny fall.

And suddenly she wasn't falling any more. Twenty feet from the ground, she suddenly began to float as if an invisible hand had caught her. The broom's gone back on, thought Harry, but knew it wasn't the broom; that still hung limply in her hand. Someone had had the presence of mind to bring their wand out to a snowball fight, and had Levitated her before she'd crashed.

He looked around for the spellcaster, but everyone he saw was watching Ginny float gently to the ground, their faces as shocked and pale as his own. Ginny's feet touched the snow, and then the world came back in a rush, and Ron ran to her and seized her in a frantic hug. "Ginny! Ginny, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, sounding confused and shaken. "Someone must've Levitated me. Harry?"

"No," said Harry quietly, pointing up at the cliff of windows beside them. "Look."

The hospital wing's great windows, about seventy feet above, looked out over the lake. At the end of the row, someone was leaning over the sill, wand in hand, watching intently. Someone with hair barely darker than the snow that surrounded them, and a face as pale as his hair.

Ron went a series of colors ending up with a nasty belligerent brick red. "Malfoy," he said. "He must've screwed with your broom, Ginny."

"No he didn't," said Ginny. "It just stalled. Colin said it did that sometimes. He said I s-s-should be careful..." She sniffled. "I was going too high. It's all my fault." The shock was hitting her now, and tears were brimming in her eyes. Ron hugged her tighter.

"It's not your fault," he began. Colin Creevey appeared, out of breath from running and looking extremely sick. He was already apologizing before he got to them.

"---sorry, so sorry, Ginny, it does that if you go over a hundred feet or so and it doesn't like fast turns...oh my God are you all right, you're not hurt are you, I'm so sorry..."

"It's okay, Colin," said Harry firmly, looking up at Malfoy's window. Had he imagined there was a look of sheer fright and concern on that distant face? "Come on, guys, it's cold and Ginny's had a nasty shock. Let's go in."

"Yes of course," said Colin, who looked as if he could reasonably look forward to execution at the hands of Ginny or her tribe of brothers. "I should have warned you about it, Ginny, you could have been killed, I'm never forgiving myself. It's all my fault..."

"Shut up, Colin," said Ginny, getting a little of her self-possession back as they bundled her across the snow. "You did warn me not to go too high and you said it stalled if you took corners too fast. I forgot. End of story."

"Malfoy," muttered Ron. Harry gave him a concerned look, knowing what he felt about Malfoy. But Ron just looked white and a bit confused.

At dinner, everyone had already heard about the incident, and it had been turned into something a little more adventurous with each new telling. "Did it really drop you over the middle of the lake?" a wide-eyed first year asked. "With the giant squid waiting to eat you?"

"Don't be daft," said another. "It dropped her in the Whomping Willow, right, Ginny? And it was only the quick thinking of some unknown hero that saved her."

"It was Malfoy," snapped Ginny, without thinking. "He happened to be looking out of his window and he saw me fall. If he hadn't Levitated me I'd be dead."

Silence fell at the Gryffindor table. Harry sighed. "Bit of luck he did, then," he said wearily. "All right, shall I say it and get it over with, Ron? 'Malfoy is an evil slimy git who hates everyone who's not in Slytherin and would stop at nothing to see us all dead.' There. That what you were thinking?"

Astonished stares met his gaze. He could tell, however, that most of the starers had been thinking something along those lines, by the amount of people trying to hide a blush. "Well," he continued, more quietly, "Malfoy didn't curse Ginny's broom. You heard what Colin said. And Ginny's right, if Malfoy hadn't Levitated her, she'd probably be dead, or at least really badly hurt."

"But why would Malfoy save her?" demanded Ron. "You know he hates our family."

"I don't know. Look, guys, you remember what Dumbledore said, about how his parents were killed? I don't think it was just a magical accident. I think something really important and really awful happened, and it changed things for everyone. I don't know what's up with Malfoy. I do know he's really sick, and has been for a long time. But he saved Ginny's life just now. And I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt."

More silence. Harry had the idea that some of his listeners agreed, and some of them wanted to ask him pertinent questions about his own House loyalties. "Oh for Merlin's sake just eat," he said crossly. "Worry about Malfoy and politics later. And quit staring at me."

This did the trick. Slowly conversation resumed around the table, and the other tables stopped staring at Gryffindor as if something interesting was going on. Ron, however, was still looking at Harry as if he'd just sworn allegiance to the Dark Lord.

"What?" demanded Harry.

"This is Malfoy you're talking about," said Ron. "I mean, Malfoy. Amazing Bouncing Ferret Malfoy. The one who keeps calling Hermione a mudblood? The one who tried to get Hagrid fired? The one who consistently screwed up our lives for the past five and a half years?"

"I know," said Harry wearily. "Look, Ron....Hermione's in the hospital wing too. You know that. And you know they've talked. She's told me some things about him. He's really suffered, Ron. I mean...near-death stuff."

"Good," said Ron, but he didn't sound as if he was sure about it. "Dammit, Harry, I can't just accept a change like that in someone so consistently unpleasant. It's not that easy."

Yeah. But you didn't see him in utter misery, puking his guts up because someone was killing him with a Dark curse, Harry thought tiredly. Aloud he said, "I know. But Ron....you know as well as I do that I've never liked Malfoy. But I'm willing to allow for changes."

"If he didn't curse the broom," said Ron, trying to make the words make sense in his head, "then he saved Ginny....why? Out of the goodness of his slimy heart?"

"Why not?" said Harry, applying himself to stew. "I don't think Malfoy ever wanted us dead, Ron. Any of us. Didn't like us one little bit and wanted to see us all expelled and our lives ruined, but I don't think he wanted us dead."

"But his father..."

"Was his father. Not him."

"You know, Harry, I'm starting to wonder about you," said Ron. Harry kept his temper by holding on to it with both hands and his teeth.

"Ron..." he said. "Give it a rest, okay? Let's talk about something else."

Ron shrugged. "Pass the pumpkin juice."

Draco regarded the steaming bowl of soup with extreme distaste. He supposed it wasn't bad soup; it was just monotonous soup. After a month of soup, he was getting royally tired of it.

He set aside the tray and stared out of the window. Funny how he hadn't thought at all, not one bit, until after the Weasley girl was safe back on the ground with her git of a brother. There had only been the immediacy of the moment. He had heard her screams, and had tossed aside his Potions text and slid out of bed, swaying a bit, to see what was going on, just in time to see the ancient Cleansweep Five stall out a hundred feet up and begin to fall. He'd reached behind him for the wand that lay on the bedside table, pointed it at the plummeting form of Ginny, and hissed "Wingardium Leviosa" as forcefully as he could. There had been one horrible moment when he had thought the charm had missed, but Ginny's fall had stopped a moment later, and he had been able to float her down to the ground and her waiting friends. His heart had been pounding, he realized after he took the spell off. Blood roared dizzily in his ears. Potter, below, had looked up and seen him, and pointed; the others saw him too. He'd withdrawn from the window, closing it behind him, and collapsed back on his bed, drained.

Only afterwards had he begun to think about what he'd done.

Well, said his mind, you couldn't have just let her fall to her death.

Draco sighed ruefully. I suppose there are worse things than weakness. He picked up his spoon and started to eat, ignoring the ever-so-familiar taste with the ease of long practice. If "weakness" is even the right term for it.

He looked up as someone knocked on his door. Someone psychic, by the looks of things.

"Yeah?"

"It's me." Hermione sounded rather urgent. He reached hastily for his wand, waved it at the door, which unlocked itself. She came in, wearing a dressing gown that actually fit her. It was a Gryffindor dressing gown. Very much a Gryffindor dressing gown, in red brocade embroidered with golden lions. "Jeez, is that all you get for dinner?"

"I'm lucky it's this," said Draco mournfully. "Most times it's gruel."

Hermione made a face, sat down next to him. He poked a lion with his forefinger. "Where did you get this?"
"Good, isn't it? An anonymous admirer. You've got one too." She handed him a package wrapped in plain brown paper. Raising an eyebrow, he took it and peeled off the paper to reveal a dark green dressing gown patterned with Slytherin serpents in silver embroidery. Draco grinned.

"Mine has taste," he said happily, and pulled it on. "There. Now I feel extremely important."

"You look rather like the embodiment of Oscar Wilde's fantasies," said Hermione dryly. "Look, sartorial elegance aside, something weird happened today. I heard someone saying in the hall that you'd saved Ginny Weasley from a giant squid living in the Whomping Willow and a horde of crazed Dementors. What happened?"

He looked at her seriously over the rim of the bowl, set it aside. "It was this afternoon. They were all playing about in the snow on their brooms, outside—" he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the window—"and Ginny was on an old shitty broom that stalled out when she was about level with this floor."

Hermione gasped. "Oh my God."

"Yeah. It was scary. I managed to get my wand in time and Levitate her before she hit the ground, but it was a near thing. Potter saw me at the window and I think the rest of them did too." He sighed.

"The rest of them?"

"Weasel and Colin Creevey at least, and I think possibly the Weasley twins and a few other Gryffindors. He must've seen me if they're saying I saved Ginny." His voice held no triumph. "This isn't going to be easy."

"Ron won't be able to accept you saving his sister without thinking you've got an ulterior motive," said Hermione. "He's like that. Set in his ways."

"Please," said Draco, "I don't really want to hear about the Weasel's opinion of me. I have a fair enough idea already."

"He's not a bad guy," Hermione insisted. "Just...determined."

"Hermione, I don't know why I did it," he said urgently. "I wouldn't have before. You know how weird that is?"

"You saved her because she needed to be saved," said Hermione calmly. "And you did it quickly and well, and without thought to yourself and what good it would do you to have her remaining alive. Draco, if you've got any last lingering doubts about your worthiness to rejoin the human race, get rid of 'em. You just proved your worth."

"But," said Draco helplessly. "But..."

"Shut up," she said, as kindly as she could. "You're not the same person you were before. That's understandable. But the intrinsic you is still there. You're still Draco. You're just a more alive Draco than you've ever been before."

He sighed. "I don't know if anyone else is going to see it that way."

"Some of them won't. But...Draco....I do." She turned to face him. "You'll have to face the world sometime. Not yet. But when you do, I'll be there. If you want me."

He looked at her with eyes that were the light clear grey of cigarette smoke in rain, the colour of steel and of winter, and she thought she had never seen such warmth in her life. "I do want you," he said quietly. "I do."

Golden lions and silver snakes wrapped around each other as Draco sank his hands in her hair and kissed her so hard her head swam.