White Bird on a Silver Thread

Chapter One: Wheels within Wheels

What have you learned in these long months past?

You have looked on death since I saw you last

- Anonymous

"Well, my pet, tomorrow I leave for school."

The lark made a sad, crooning sound, as though it understood.

"And you . . . well, you, I guess, will fly south for the winter."

The little bird gave a little hop in the grass, nodding gravely.

Don't be ridiculous, thought Draco to himself. Birds don't nod!

"But you'll come back, won't you?" He turned away, his gaze sweeping the wide expanse of Hedge land that he stood on. He had been happy this summer, far happier than he had ever been before. His footsteps were slow, meandering, light - hardly bending the blades of grass underfoot. The lark hopped after him, dipping its head every now and then to peck at the earth.

The sun was high in the sky. All this summer, he had lived with sun, waking with it, playing in it, working in it. He smelled of sunlight. It seared his back and his shoulders and his arms, penetrating his very being, so that he felt an empathy for the climbing roses that grew so thick and so wild around the stately old villa.

"I wonder how she will act," mused Draco whimsically, throwing himself down on the soft grass under a willow by the clear waters of the pond. The little songbird hopped onto his shoulder, its claws digging into his shoulders. Draco winced but didn't mind.

"Probably," he said wryly, "she'll be reserved and restrained and polite, and I will give the world to have a chance to cuff her."

He turned his head a little, so that he could look into the clear eyes of the bird on his shoulder. Its lucent blue gaze held his.

You're a fool, Draco Malfoy, the bird said, its wind pure mind-voice clear in his head. Draco's heart started to beat very fast. But you knew that already, didn't you?

****************

Twilight had descended on the Burrow, and the air was thick with loud, merry laughter. The five flying figures on broomsticks were blackly defined against the darkening late summer sky. The stars had not yet come out, but a thin new moon was rising in the dusky west.

"Yes! Very good," said Harry Potter, as his best friend's little sister, dressed carelessly in old robes with her unruly hair tossed into a rather unbecoming ponytail, finally accomplished a new Quidditch move he had been trying to teach her. Ginny, who volunteered all summer at a wizard orphanage, had only come home the day before, and Harry wanted to teach her the moves that he had developed over the past month.

Ginny laughed triumphantly. She was not a particularly pretty girl, but you would have noticed her smile.

"Finally!" Harry exclaimed happily to Ron Weasley. He mopped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "You and Ginny have both gotten the new moves down pat. Great job!"

"This year may be your best team yet," said Fred, serious for once. "I mean it. You only need another good Chaser. Pity George and I can't play anymore."

"You've got your joke shop. Don't complain," said Ron.

"Yes, thanks to their joke shop," said Ginny with an affectionate look at her twin brothers, "we actually have new broomsticks." She patted her shiny new Firebolt 3000, and tried to imagine perfecting Harry's move with the Weasleys' old Cleansweeps. She had a vague mental image of herself falling in an ungainly heap to the ground.

"And new robes," said George.

"And new books," said Fred.

"And new toilet seats - "

"George," moaned Ginny, with an agonized glance at Harry, who was choking convulsively on laughter.

"So you'd better be grateful," finished Fred.

"We are grateful," said Ginny.

"And you've got to thank Harry, too," said George magnanimously. "If it weren't for the money he won at the Tri - "

Fred pushed him off his broomstick. "Eh?" spluttered George from the ground. Fred knelt down beside him and poked him hard. "Don't mention the Tournament in front of Harry," he hissed. "You should know it upsets him."

"Oh," said George, rubbing his bruised bones. "Right."

But the mood of the evening was lost. Harry became so dull and pokey that finally Ginny's nerves could take it no more. With a false show of brightness, she said, "It's starting to get kind of dark. Let's go inside and get cleaned up."

Her brothers nodded. "Yeah, I'm exhausted," said Harry. He smiled, trying to be as pleasant as possible even though his spirits had sunk to below zero. They all dismounted, hung their broomsticks in the garage, and went inside.

Hermione Granger was sitting at the kitchen table. She was bent over a thick stack of parchment, pulling distractedly at a curl of hair at her neck. Ron and Harry stopped to greet her.

"Hullo, Hermione," said Harry, as Ginny, George, and Fred made their way up the stairs.

"I can't believe it," she wailed in a harried tone, not looking up. "I've lost the last page of my dragon venom essay."

Ron and Harry exchanged nervous glances. "Er, dragon venom essay?" asked Harry. OH MY GOD, he was thinking privately. I forgot all about the bloody essay. All other depressing thoughts fled in the face of this calamity.

"Yes, essay. You know, the one Snape gave us at the end of last year? Thirty pages?" She eyed the two boys suspiciously through narrowed eyes. As they shifted guiltily from foot to foot, she said accusingly, "You didn't do it, did you?"

Another exchange of glances. "How could you?" she asked. "It's worth twenty percent of our grades, Snape said so. And we're going back to school tomorrow!"

"We, uh, forgot about it," said Ron in a small voice, backing away. "We'll do it tonight, ok?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "It took me three weeks of research," she said piously. "Are you sure you can do it?"

"We'll manage somehow," said Harry piteously. Thirty pages? It might as well be thirty thousand. How could any human write thirty pages on dragon venom?

"Uh, Hermione? Did you write thirty pages? 'Cause that looks closer to fifty to me," said Ron, very quietly.

"I wrote sixty-six," said Hermione loftily. Harry choked. "May we - uh - Hermione - "

"If you are asking me," said Hermione, loftier still, "whether you can have the last thirty pages of my essay, you may not. I will, however, be happy to share a few books with you."

"Please, Hermione," begged Harry.

"No," she answered, very firmly.

"Fine," said Ron sulkily. "Come on, Harry, let's go get changed."

Harry shot one last hopeful glance at Hermione . . . but alas, no luck.

"I'll bring the books up to your room, Ron," Hermione said comfortingly.

"Thanks," said Harry gloomily.

*************

Only female dragons are venomous. The poison is secreted within their mouths. The Ministry banned dragon venom in the fifteenth century, but before the early 1400s the poison was commonly used to torture people. The effects of the venom on humans are slow but distinct. The nerves of the victim slowly die, until he is unable to move entirely. The brain is the last to be infected. The whole process takes approximately fifteen years. Within the first five years, there is loss of the use of the legs, and within the next five, all four limbs are paralyzed. The only cure to dragon venom is the milk from the same dragon.

Harry yawned and massaged his sore right hand. It was four in the morning, and he and Ron had both written twenty-nine pages. True, they had written in very large, space-consuming hand-writing, but oh well. Thirty pages is thirty pages, right?

Hermione had lent them five enormous volumes on the subject, and Harry supposed they should be grateful, but all five books were very dry and boring. They even made such fascinating and interesting things as dragons seem as dull as cobwebs.

Harry subtly increased the size of his letters. Ron's writing had already been approximately an inch in height, so he simply started double-spacing. It was four-thirty when Harry finally threw down his quill. He only had one word on the thirtieth page, but it couldn't be helped.

"Done," he said triumphantly.

Ron didn't respond. He had already fallen asleep.

***************

The Hogwarts Express pulled out of King's Cross Station with a particularly loud whistle, just as it began to drizzle lightly. The crisp, gray, chilly day was a sharp contrast from the sunshine and warmth of the summer months before. Harry, Hermione, and Ron settled themselves into an empty compartment. Harry's eyes had purple smudges under them, and Ron yawned every five minutes, but they bore up heroically until the train started moving. Then they each stretched themselves out on several seats, and began snoring. Hermione smiled. Harry and Ron usually didn't snore, but they must have been pretty tired. She wondered how late they had stayed up the night before. "Schlafë," she whispered, bending over each of them in turn and tapping them lightly with her wand. It was a Germanic spell to make them sleep deeply and dreamlessly; she had learned it in their fifth year to ease Harry's troubled repose. He had been having nightmares about the Triwizard Tournament, and had asked her to find something to help him.

Hermione gently smoothed Harry's hair and removed his glasses, setting them aside. Hermione smiled tenderly at the sight of him. He seemed very young and innocent and defenseless, like a child. She turned to Ron on the other side of the compartment. He was smiling in his sleep, as Harry never did. Ron, who had always been so loyal and steadfast and dependable. The bars of the train window cast the shadow of a clearly defined cross on the wall above his head. In long years afterwards Hermione was to remember that and wonder if it were an omen of a certain crossed marked grave on that lonely mountain. But today it was nothing but a shadow.

With a last glance at the two slumbering boys, she slipped out of the compartment, and closed the door behind her. She put up a "Do Not Disturb" sign with a flick of her wand, and locked the door behind her with a special anti-Alohomora charm for good measure. She would not have her boys disturbed.

***************

Hermione went to search for Ginny. Ginny was the only girl she could tolerate to have around; Ginny didn't giggle or gossip or talk endlessly about boys. She was amusing without being vulgar, laughing without being giggly, high-spirited without being superficial, and restrained and subtle without being mincing. But before she found the younger girl, she ran headlong into Draco Malfoy in an empty compartment. She smiled nervously and faltered, "Hey."

"Hey yourself," said the blond boy, smiling back. He was reclining gracefully on a seat, perfectly at ease. He looked exactly as she remembered, lithe and tall and handsome. But the faint line of cruelty around the mouth of the Draco Malfoy Hermione had once known was gone now, and his face seemed somehow less pointy and murine. His pale eyes, though as keen as ever, were darker and a little sad, but his smile was still the infamous smirk of old, though lacking, perhaps, the malice. He now exuded an air of vitality and wholesomeness, and he also seemed healthier and broader somehow - not that he had become fat, but as though he had grown stronger.

"Scotland suited you," said Hermione, relaxing a little. "You look pretty good."

"Thanks. You look great yourself."

"Oh. Thanks."

There was an awkward pause - at least, to Hermione it seemed awkward. But Draco didn't look uncomfortable in the least. At last, he said, "Thanks for writing me all summer."

"Oh. You're welcome. I enjoyed it. Did - " She broke off as loud, unrestrained, musical female laughter drifted into the compartment.

"Blaise," said Draco, sounding faintly annoyed.

"She's your girlfriend, isn't she?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Unfortunately, yes. But God, she makes so much noise. You always hear her before you see her." Hermione had a sudden mental vision of a laughing hyena. "You'd better go, Hermione. She'll hex you if she finds you here."

"Why can't I be here?" asked Hermione, bristling.

"Because," said Draco patiently, though his tone held the slightest hint of the old bite, "she is my girlfriend, and will not appreciate the fact that I am alone in a compartment with you. And, darlin', you do remember you're a Gryffindor? Slytherins do not talk to Gryffindors. It is unnatural."

"Oh. Right." Hermione felt sheepish, but refused to look it. She lifted her chin. "Well - then - see you around."

"Yeah. Run, I hear her coming."

Hermione dashed out not a moment too soon. As soon as the door closed behind her, the one on the opposite side flung open and Blaise Zabini swooped into the room, filling it with her loud voice and louder laugh. She was wearing robes the color of her emerald-bright eyes, and her long, silky warm gold hair was caught up in a smooth knot at the nape of her neck. Only a very beautiful woman should wear her hair like that, Hermione had once thought. There is a veneer, a coating on such a girl, covering the spirit until it is impossible to imagine her existing in the same world as other people. Surely she never grew inch by painful inch, striving, wondering, seeking, but was created whole in some cosmic beauty salon. Sorrow and fatigue is as alien to her as unpolished fingernails.

Blaise, laughing, flung herself into Draco's arms. "Hello, Draco love," she said, kissing him on both cheeks.

"Hi, Blaise," said Draco resignedly.

"Had a good summer? I did. We went to the beach every day. France was great. The weather was so gorgeous, and I got five new bikinis. Why didn't you owl me? I wanted to, but I didn't have time. We went shopping everyday, and had so much fun! I wish you could be there, but of course, I realize that your father had just died." To Blaise, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for anyone's feelings, were things unknown. "I hope you weren't too miserable, I wish I could have gone to see you, but I was too busy, you know. How was Scotland? I went there once, and I thought it was very horrible. It was so cold and ugly, but then again, I went in the winter. You know, during fourth year. Remember? I was going to go with you to the Yule Ball, but my father wanted me to go to Scotland to visit Grandmother Zabini. So Pansy got to go with you. You would have had so much more fun if I had gone with you. I'm sure you felt terrible, but it couldn't be helped. You are looking wonderful, darling." She climbed onto his lap and threw one arm around his neck. Draco bore it heroically and dully wished a Dementor would pay him a visit in the very near future. "Oh, I missed you so much!" She kissed him again. "You're awfully quiet, Draco," she said, with an air of concern.

Well, thought Draco, it was rather hard to get a word in otherwise. Aloud, he said, "I'm a little tired."

"Oh, you poor dear." Blaise planted another kiss square on his forehead. "Would you like to get some sleep? If you would, I can get someone to bring you a few pillows and blankets, and we find you a sleeping compartment, I'm sure they have one somewhere. You can - "

"Blaise," interrupted Draco, rather desperately, knowing she was about to go on another chattering marathon. "It's all right. Thank you for your concern. I'll just rest a little, if you don't mind?"

"Oh. Sure. Pansy's waiting for me anyway. I'll come back later." She brushed a last kiss across his lips.

"Thanks, Blaise." Draco kept his eyes closed until he heard the compartment door close again.

**************

Afternoon. Ginny Weasley was sitting listlessly by a train window, an unread book in her lap. Harry and Ron had just waken from their nap, and Hermione had gone off with them. They had invited her to join them, but Ginny didn't want to. She hated intruding on their friendship; she always sensed that awkward strain in the air when she was around. She knew they all loved her, but she simply wasn't one of them. It hurt, of course, but she understood.

Ginny was, as usual, alone. The very reasons that made Hermione enjoy her company repelled others. Gossip made her head ache, and though she had the rare gift of being capable of entering into any conversation without awkwardness, she seldom chose to use it. She got along all right with boys: Colin, Dennis, Dean, Seamus, and the rest just about worshiped the ground she walked on; she twisted them around her little finger as easily as she would a skein of silk. But she would not be bothered with the girls. The Hufflepuff girls were too fond of cosmetics, the Patil sisters and their friends spent their days giggling about who fancied who, and Lavender Brown would insist on flirting with every creature of the male species that came in sight. It was positively disgusting. Ginny refused to stoop to the petty practices of so many of the Hogwarts girls - the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor. She held herself aloof. She was first and foremost a student, and cared little for social doings, though she had outgrown all her old awkwardness and shyness.

This polished, impersonal aspect of Ginny Weasley masked the laughing, spirited, impetuous face she showed to those close to her heart. Passing acquaintances admired her intellect, respected her poise, appreciated her cool charm . . . but that was all. Ginny did not quarrel with anyone. She helped all the girls with their homework when they asked her, and she was probably the only girl in the school that could keep a secret. But she was also the girl that had gone into the Chamber of Secrets. They did not know that she herself had opened the Chamber, but the fact that she had been brought into it was quite enough.

So Ginny was very lonely, though she did not mind it much: had not even minded it at eleven. But the sense of cleavage deepened as she grew older, instead of disappearing. Sometimes Ginny felt wistfully that it would be nice to have a real friend, the way Ron and Harry and Hermione were friends. But she could not find that friend in Hogwarts. And being of a nature that could not compromise with second best when first best was denied, Ginny made no lesser friendships.

Ginny sighed. It had finally began to rain and thunder in earnest. All morning it had just . . . misted. She was glad, in a way; it matched her own turbulent mood. The train swayed a little on its track. Ginny took a perverse pleasure in the gray, savage tempest. Under all her snowy reserve and feigned coldness, she was as wayward and willful as April in her fierce and tender heart; she loved the sea for its storms and gathered her roses where she could.

Restless, she stood and began to pace the length of the compartment. A group of giggling girls, including Lavender Brown and the Patil sisters, were huddled in a tight circle on the opposite of the carriage. Ginny caught the words "so handsome," "like a dream," and "I wish he were my boyfriend."

They sound like Mum's hens when they all start chattering at once, thought Ginny unkindly. Disgusted, she flounced into the neighboring compartment, which was thankfully, blessedly empty.

************

When Draco heard the compartment door open, he chanced a look from around the thick velvet hangings, behind which he was hiding. Please, please, he prayed to whatever gods there were, don't let it be Blaise.

It wasn't. He caught a glimpse of bright red Weasley hair and a swirl of pale lavender robes.

The Weasley girl.

She did not see him (well, he was hiding), and let out a long sigh of relief. She looked out the window for a moment toward the soggy landscape before beginning to pace the compartment listlessly, her footsteps in time with the pitter-patter of the rain that was now pouring in torrents. The wind howled, banging on the windows.

Suddenly, the train lurched dangerously, and she was thrown across the carriage. She landed, of course, right on him, elbowing him in the stomach. He yelped and fought free of the curtains, just as the train lurched in the other direction, and they both went sailing that way. He went banging into the windows, which fortunately did not break, and she hit his chest.

"Ow," he said, rubbing the spot where her forehead had come into contact with his ribs.

He expected her to start screaming at him, but she didn't. He expected her to look embarrassed, but she didn't. He expected her to glare at him, her eyes full of hatred, but she didn't.

Instead, she looked straight at him, and her eyes slid over him as though he didn't exist. Her eyes were quite blank as she gazed through him.

I'm invisible, he thought, amazed. She hates me so much that I am no longer an object worthy of hate, and she just sees right through me, because I don't exist at all for her. He wanted to say something snide, but he had a nasty feeling that she would disregard him entirely.

Ginny, standing as still and poised as a statue, was in turn wishing she could go into a rage, but struggled instead to hold onto her temper. She tallied up all the humiliating moments of her life. This certainly topped the list. But there was really no one to blame for it, and the rational part of her mind cautioned her to remain cool, and not fly into a fit of temper. Perhaps Ginny's greatest virtue - as well as greatest fault - was her sense of justice. It's so much easier to be accusatory, or in other cases, too generous, but Ginny had seen too much to not be just. She knew it was not Malfoy's fault that she had landed practically on top of him, and she would not accuse him of it, as much as she hated him. This kind of deliberation was actually quite foreign to her impulsive nature, but Ginny had suffered too much for her own impetuosity to not know the consequences of rash judgement.

Hanging on to the last vestiges of self-control, she set her mouth into a thin, unattractive line and with one fluid movement, turned on her heel and in a whirl of lavender robes swept out of the compartment.

*************

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the rest of the Gryffindors were seated at the table with the red and gold tablecloths on the far side of the Great Hall. The Sorting of the new first years had already finished, and the feast had just begun, and everyone was chattering excitedly about the tall, slender, unfamiliar young woman sitting at the teachers' table.

"Professor Ashley," they had heard Dumbledore call her: the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. With her ivory coloring, dark masses of hair and gray blue eyes she was very, very beautiful.

Suddenly Lavender Brown gave a squeal. "Look," she whispered, pointing in the direction of the entrance hall. Everyone turned and stared as Professor McGonagall led a girl with curly brown hair to the Gryffindor table. The girl smiled - neither nervously nor smugly, but with a charming friendliness. Ron's mouth dropped open. She was very pretty.

"Gryffindors!" announced the professor briskly. "Please welcome your new Housemate, Guenevere Milbank."

"Jennie will do," interrupted the girl.

"Jennie Milbank," corrected Professor McGonagall. "She has just come to Britain from . . . Madeira, is it?"

"Malta," said Jennie patiently. Her eyes were big and gray and very merry. She winked at Ron.

"Yes. She has just come from Malta. She will be starting as a sixth year."

Everyone smiled and waved. Jennie grinned and nodded and took her seat at the end of the long bench by Seamus Finnegan, who was sitting next to Harry. Ginny Weasley sat opposite them.

"Hey," said Jennie pleasantly.

"Hey yourself," answered Ginny, smiling detachedly and helping herself to a fruit tart. "I'm Ginny Weasley."

"Are you by any chance Arthur Weasley's daughter?"

Ginny eyed her warily, her fork poised midair. "The same."

Jennie's smile became positively radiant. "Dad's always talking about your father! He says he's such a wonderful man, always so enthusiastic and friendly."

Ginny felt herself begin to thaw. "Does he? Who's your father?"

"Theodore Milbank. He's a merchant, you know, so he deals a lot with the Ministry in both England and Malta."

"I've heard that Malta's beautiful."

"It is," said Jennie. She filled her plate with lobster. "Lots of sailing. Great beaches."

Ginny looked wistful. "No beaches here. How come you speak such great English?"

"English is one of the official languages of Malta. Dad did so much trade with Valleta - that's the capital - so he just sort of left me there after Mum died. This past summer he suddenly realized that I was already sixteen and should be going to school." Her voice had a faint bitterness to it. "Hogwarts is his alma mater so he arranged with Dumbledore to have me transfer in. Before, I had a tutor in Malta."

"Oh." Ginny chewed thoughtfully for a minute before asking, "Do you fly?"

Jennie brightened visibly. "Sure. Mercedes Trevison - she flew for the Florence Falcons ten years ago, you know - lived next door to us. She taught me to fly when I was five."

"Oh, good," said Ginny excitedly, putting her fork down. "We need another Chaser on the Gryffindor team."

"Really? When are try-outs?" asked Jennie eagerly.

"Next week. Oooooh, we have to tell Harry - he's the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, you know. He plays Seeker. Seamus - he's the guy sitting next to you - and Dean Thomas, that tall guy over there - are Beaters. Ron, that redhead, he's my brother, and Colin Creevey, the kid next sitting next to Harry, are the other Chasers."

"Who's Keeper?" asked Jennie curiously.

"I am," said Ginny.

"I'm sure you're great."

"Thanks. I can't wait to see you fly." The two girls grinned at each other.

The had been eating in companionable silence for some time when Jennie suddenly asked, "Er - Ginny? Who's that ghost over there?"

"Nearly Headless Nick," answered Ginny, laughing.

"Right," said Jennie dubiously. She raised her head, and met the gray eyes of a pale-haired boy from all the way across the hall. She smiled in a friendly fashion, and his eyes widened with shock.

**************

Draco could not believe it. He had lifted his head, and his eyes had met the eyes of the new girl at the Gryffindor table, and he had seen her clearly for the first time. And yet, it was not her he was seeing, but the watercolor of the lady on the white bird that now hung in his dorm room. He would not mistake that face anywhere.

She was nothing like the lady, and yet she was the lady. The new girl's eyes were pale gray, not black, and her hair was brown and curly, falling just past her shoulders, while the lady's was long and Indian straight and pale. But there was something, something quite independent of coloring or feature, something about her smile, and her face, and the fluid lines of her figure that reminded him powerfully of that painting he had found in his grandmother's library.

Very cautiously, he reached out to her with his mind. Images formed, like pictures dancing on a mirror. These kinds of images had come to him since he was a very little child but they still unsettled him somewhat, though he had learned to control them in the past few years.

An island in a blue, sun-warmed sea. A rich, lilting soprano voice drifting through a big, lonely marble house with white pillars. A beautiful woman teaching a small girl to fly. Boats sailing into dock, seagulls screaming, long hours spent reading novels on an open terrace.

Her childhood, he thought, probing deeper, until what he saw was no longer her own memories, but someone else's.

A white bird soaring in a diamond-studded velvet night sky. A baby left on an orphanage doorstep. A single moon-pale jewel on a silver necklace dropping from a mother's hand like a star. A weeping girl, whose pale hair hid her face, kneeling at the feet of a witch-woman with the stature and beauty of a goddess. A woman that was serpent from the waist down. A forbidding mountain against a stormy black sky. A young man with gray eyes Draco recognized with shock as his own grandfather.

And a tall, imposing gray mansion shrouded in mist.

Malfoy Manor.

***************

By the end of the first week of the term, Ginny felt as though she had known Guenevere Milbank her whole life. Jennie was very pretty and very clever; she had enormous curls of silky brown hair and big, friendly gray eyes in a flower-like face. Jennie's father, being a merchant, was very rich, and apparently gave his daughter her own way in everything. This might have spoiled some girls but Jennie was too clever to be easily spoiled.

The two girls liked the same things and talked of the same things. They both understood the stories the wind told. They both found something wonderfully intriguing about a new book. They both found exhilaration in flying. They both liked the little fir woods that ran venturesomely down to the shore, and the dancing lake ripples like songs. And they made every day a merry adventure for themselves.

It was wonderful to be alive. Ginny's starved heart had found a companion at last.

Ginny, who had her own room, invited the other girl to share it with her ("it's big enough for seven people, anyhow," she said, when Jennie protested.) They did their homework together, and when try-outs for the position of Gryffindor Chaser came around, Ginny was the one cheering loudest for Jennie.

Harry was very impressed with her flying.

"Well, after all, Mercedes Trevison taught her," said Ginny loftily, nearly bursting with absurd pride. The afternoon sun gleamed on her hair like burnished gold. She had become unusually saucy and pretty and spirited in the week since Jennie's advent, and she had started to laugh more. Ron stared at Jennie, who was sprawled on the grass at their feet. She was dressed in a sailor's outfit, with a jaunty little hat perched on her curls, and she looked like a boy - a boy with the face of the Fra Angelica.

"Really?" asked Ron, round-eyed. He had fallen for Jennie Milbank on the first day of school with a crash that could be heard for miles. "What's she like? I've heard she's brilliant."

"Oh, she is," said Jennie pleasantly. She propped her chin up on her hands, leaning on her elbows.

Harry smiled at her as he plopped down beside her. "A worthy pupil," he said lightly. "You got the position."

Ginny couldn't resist a whoop, and Harry laughed.

****************

September passed, and melted slowly into October. The days slipped by like beads on a string. The Quidditch season came, and along with it, the rain, as though the weather was determined to make them as miserable as possible. The workload from the teachers grew heavier as well, in conjunction with the vindictive elements. Nowadays, thirty pages was getting off easy. The weeks passed without any special events, and soon, the students of Hogwarts had settled into a comfortable routine.

****************

"Blast and double blast!" cried Ginny angrily as rivulets of ink ran down her neck, staining her robes. She rubbed her forehead where the Head Boy pin had struck her and glared at the silver-haired boy sprawled down on the ground before. Try as she might, she could not remain composed, and she flew into a passion of wrath. "You bastard! Can't you watch where you're going?"

He was every bit as enraged as she was. "You have just ruined my favorite shirt!" said Draco Malfoy tightly, in capitals. "I cannot believe what a clumsy idiot you are."

He managed to look perfectly posed even lying amid the ink, books, ink, loose paper, and ink that adorned the empty hallway. If Ginny had actually amputated his legs and left him lying stark naked in the middle of the Sahara desert he couldn't have been more worked up about it. He called her all the lurid names he could lay his tongue to - and Draco Malfoy's vocabulary of abuse was particularly rich.

After he had finally exhausted his entire repertoire of profanity, he added as an afterthought, "And I am now late for Transfiguration."

Ginny counted to ten and took a deep breath. She figured having such a high blood pressure would be unhealthy.

"I'm sure," said Ginny curtly, "that you have a dozen shirts like the one you're wearing."

"But this was my favorite."

Ginny flicked her wand and instantly her things gathered themselves up and arranged themselves in her book bag. Then she tapped her throat and robes and the ink vanished. Draco glared up at her through narrowed eyes. Eyeing him coldly, she knelt back down and rapped his chest with her wand, albeit a little harder than necessary.

"Wox Clœnsian," she said, and in an instant his beloved silk shirt was as clean as ever. He blinked before looking back up at her.

"I really would advise you to gather up your things, Malfoy, before - "

The sticky, creaky, dreaded voice interrupted her. "Before I catch you here, perhaps?"

Ginny took a deep breath, composed herself, and turned to face Filch. "Why, Mr. Filch, how nice to see you," she said, her smile so sweet it made her sick.

He gave her a brief nod. Ginny was a clever girl, and knew that politeness always disarmed whereas fear or defiance merely provoked.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" he asked in a deceptively pleasant voice, turning instead to Draco, who was lounging lazily on the ground, as though he were lying on a velvet couch instead of cold, hard stone.

Ginny's mind worked quickly. A Malfoy in a Weasley's debt, she thought, taking a perverse pleasure in the idea.

"Oh, it wasn't Malfoy's fault," said Ginny, batting her eyes. She looked beseechingly at the foul-tempered old man. Ginny was past mistress in the art of persuading. "I turned the corner too quickly, and ran into him. You really mustn't blame him. We'll clean up this mess right away" - she was kneeling on the ground, stuffing Malfoy's books into his bag - "and hie ourselves straightway to class, won't we, Malfoy?"

Draco rose to his feet and inclined his head slightly. He had a sinuous grace, like running water. Filch glared at them suspiciously, but Ginny's smile was so charming that he relented for the first time in Hogwarts annals. After all, few people could resist Ginny's smile. "Very well, Miss Weasley, this once, but don't let me catch you doing it again."

"Oh, you won't. Thank you, Mr. Filch. Have a good day." She grabbed Draco's sleeve, and dragged him down the hall. After they had turned the corner she let go of him and turned to go to the dungeons. She had to employ all her charm if she was to escape Snape's wrath, and her mind was focused solely on avoiding detention.

"Weasley."

Ginny stopped but didn't turn. "Don't thank me," she snapped, her back to him.

"I wasn't going to. You don't deserve it, it was your fault anyway. But - thanks."

She turned slowly, like a model on a runway showing off to an audience, and gazed at him intently out of those brown eyes that seemed to focus so much more clearly and see so much more than other people did. Then she nodded. "You'd better hurry. McGonagall is going to kill you."

"That's what you want, isn't it?"

She tilted her head to one side. "No. I'd rather you were tortured slowly." Whether her amused smile served to emphasize or belie her words he couldn't tell. "Good luck."

Then she spun on her heel and hurried to Potions.

****************

"Miss Weasley!" Snape's voice rang across the dungeons, and the sixth year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws looked up from their cauldrons.

Ginny stood motionless in the doorway. She could practically feel the sympathy being slathered on her by her classmates. Though she was not the social queen, the Ravenclaws just had to rally with the Gryffindors against Snape. Jennie, watching her friend with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety, thought that Cleopatra must have stood like that when faced with her conquerors.

"Professor Snape," said Ginny, in an insolent drawl. She had never been afraid of him and she certainly wasn't afraid of him now.

One would have to be made of stone to not melt instantly at her smile. Snape, however, was not human.

"You're late."

"So the clock informs me," answered Ginny. Her voice was soothing and cool and utterly disarming. Snape hardly blinked.

"A week's detention at the North Tower, starting tonight. Eleven o' clock. Now sit down!" he barked

"Yes, sir," she said, her lips curling in contempt. Her smile did not falter, but it turned dangerous, and her insides grew still and cold. How she hated him, with his greasy hair and hooked nose and crooked yellow teeth! He had probably never brushed his teeth since last year. One might forgive him if he were handsome. But he was remarkably ugly. It was indecent to be so ugly.

She swept toward her seat like Mary advancing to the scaffold, and Jennie knew that Ginny had the whole class on her side. The clever, manipulative little cat, she thought amusedly, as Ginny sat down beside her in a whirl of lavender robes.

Jennie was bursting to know what had happened, and Ginny murmured the whole story into her ear while they concocted an antidote for hemlock.

"Why did you help him? You ought to have left him in Filch's clutches."

"No. Now he owes me, and can you imagine how it must infuriate him to be in a Weasley's debt - "

"You'll blow me up, you oaf!" interrupted Jennie as Ginny poured a lavish amount of powdered beetles into their cauldron, causing the liquid to turn green and bubble violently. Ginny waved her arm carelessly. "Oh, it won't hurt it," she said.

"Let me do it, it's not as though we don't all know that you're horrible at Potions." Jennie bit her lip and poked at their cauldron with her wand until the contents turned purple again. The heavy white jewel on her necklace swung forward as she bent.

"There!" she said. "What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, Malfoy."

"Not exactly the most fascinating topic of conversation, but it makes me pleased to think that he's in my debt now."

"You look like an extremely contented cat when you smile like that."

"Do I?" Ginny tilted her head to one side as she gazed at her friend with mock solemnity. "You look rather vulpine yourself."

The two girls laughed too loudly, earning a threatening glare from Snape. Hiding their mirth, they bent over their cauldron again.

**************

The path that wound about the lake was lonely and tortuous and beautiful. Between the ruts the grasses grew long and thickly; sometimes, the fir boughs met overhead; again, the trees broke away to reveal glimpses of the clear lake water. It was here, where they had ran into each other that velvety night two months before, that Hermione and Draco met every evening after dinner.

"You are Head Boy. You should have set a better example," Hermione was saying, severely, but her voice shook suspiciously. "I can't believe you got detention."

Draco shrugged. It was twilight; in the dim half-light his eyes were dark and shadowy, but his lips were curved in an unwilling smile. "I guess you just can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ears," he said, amusedly.

She smiled up at him. Her dark hair was swept up in the back, knotted atop her head by some invisible means of support, interwoven with tiny, white, sweet-smelling flowers. Something Draco couldn't quite identify hit him hard right in the solar-plexus, but for the life of him, he couldn't say what it was - other than powerful. And all he could do was smile back at her and hope he didn't look as goofy as he felt.

"Well, I wouldn't say that," she mused, her eyes alight with mirth. "I don't think you'd want to be a silk purse."

"Why would I want to? I mean, what's so great about being a silk purse? Quite apart from the fact that you can always be on a pretty girl's shoulder . . . But they're small and flimsy and insubstantial - there's nothing to them. And they have strings attached."

Hermione laughed at that. She stopped walking and turned towards him, tapping his nose lightly with her fingers. "And you, I'm sure, would never go for having strings attached."

"No," he agreed. "I wouldn't."

***************

In the Gryffindor common room, Harry was reading a book, or pretending to, when the portrait hole opened and Hermione half fell into the room. Picking herself up, she gave Crookshanks an absent pat and flopped down onto the sofa next to Harry. She had just returned from her walk, having left Draco musing pensively by the lake. Seeing Harry's book, she arched her eyebrow amusedly.

"Good book, Harry?"

"Riveting," he answered without looking up.

She watched him for another minute. Then - "Harry?"

"Mmmmm?"

"Your book's upside down."

"Oh, is it?" He turned it around as though it didn't matter very much and went right on reading. After another minute, he threw it across the room. Unfortunately, it landed in the fireplace.

He said a word that Hermione prudently didn't hear.

"Accio," he said, pointing his wand at the flaming book. After dousing it with water from his wand, he stuck it on the table next to the sofa and then leaned back into the cushions, sighing.

"Bad day?" asked Hermione sympathetically.

"Yes - no - it's not that," said Harry tiredly, leaning his head on his hands.

"Want to tell me about it?" she probed gently.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Hermione, did I ever tell you about that dream I had the summer before fourth year?"

Hermione nodded her head. "Your scar hurt, and Sirius flew back north because of it."

"Yeah. Well - I've - I've been having dreams again," he said abruptly, and he stood and began to pace. "And I wake up, and my scar's hurting."

Hermione drew in her breath sharply, but didn't interrupt.

"These dreams . . . they're always about Voldemort - and - and Wormtail. They're plotting something. But I can't remember what they're talking about."

Hermione folded her hands in her lap and regarded him with an ache in her heart. It had been three years ago that Cedric Diggory had died and Voldemort had risen again, and Harry had changed since then. Not outwardly, but Hermione had sensed the new steadiness and graveness beneath his old laughing manner and boyish smile. He was given to long periods of idleness, sitting in the window seat, with his eyes staring into space. Hermione knew the burden he carried - the vengeance for the past and what he had lost and the hope of a better future: both rested on his shoulders.

And she couldn't help but think that it was unfair; he did not want to be a hero, but heroism was thrust upon him. But she admired him for the graceful way he accepted this role; she respected his kindness, his generosity of spirit and the courage it took for him to look danger in the eye and stare it down, his sense of honor, fair play, duty. Duty especially was strong in him, even in this world where everyone was clamoring that the word was outmoded and that the thing to do was to do what you wanted when you wanted and let everything else go hang.

But she couldn't help raging at the fate that had denied him everything he deserved. Her heart grieved for the boy that might have been, while the man that was stood quietly before her and accepted the responsibility of the world without question, because it was the path his destiny had set before him.

He should be worrying about history exams and Quidditch, she thought fiercely, and not about the evil that is destroying our world. Why - oh why did everything go so terribly wrong?

***************

In a corner of the library, Neville Longbottom was crying on Ginny's shoulder. She was patting his dark head with a vaguely frightened look on her face.

"I'm sorry. I've mussed up your robes," said Neville, lifting his head. Ginny shook her head and smiled gently.

"I knew you wouldn't laugh at me," said Neville, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"I would never laugh at you," said Ginny, her eyes wide with surprise. "Why should I?"

"They're always laughing at me. I know I'm stupid, and ridiculous, and - "

"Oh, Neville, don't say that," said Ginny, in horror. "You're terribly hurt - and it never amuses me to see anybody hurt."

"She was the closest thing to a mother I had. Gran did her duty - but Aunt Tavy loved me," he whispered. "Why did she have to die?"

"We don't know these things," said Ginny fiercely, her heart in her throat. She had never felt less like laughing. How could she have laughed at all during these past few months? Ginny felt a wave of self-loathing and guilt for being happy these weeks when the very air was blackening with death.

How many people were dying at that very moment because of Voldemort? How many hearts would break? How many new orphans would there be? Oh, God, thought Ginny, feeling sick, how could I have laughed today? How could I even have smiled?

At their feet was a thick roll of parchment, with black, curling letters on them proclaiming the death of Miss Octavia Longbottom, Junior Auror, in combat with Death Eaters at Mount Iveshem, a Phoenix Fortress in Normandy. Neville had received tidings of his aunt's death just after dinner, and the news had torn him apart.

"Hush now, dear," said Ginny, guiding him gently out of the library. She led him up the seven flights of stairs to the Gryffindor common room and into the seventh year boys' dorm. Fortunately, the only people in the room were Harry and Hermione, and neither of them had seen either Neville or her, so preoccupied they were in their own world. After making him climb into bed, she bent over him and tapped him lightly with her wand. He fell asleep instantly, and she drew the curtains of his bed before slipping out of the room.

She walked down to the lakeshore. Her mind was blessedly numb. The cold air stung her cheeks, and she welcomed it. Her coat and unbound hair blew wildly about her, and she took a fierce pleasure in the way the wind lashed at her. She wanted to walk - and walk - and walk.

Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to cry. She tilted her head back so that they would not slide down her cheeks. She was so tired, so helpless, so dazed, so - so angry. Oh yes, she was angry. What right had Voldemort to come and -

Ginny let out an exclamation of pain as someone stepped on her toes.

"Watch where you're going, Weasel!" snapped a clear, cultured voice. Draco Malfoy's voice.

Ginny gave a cry of irritation. "You! Haven't I seen enough of you today? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"I've always known," said Ginny through gritted teeth, "that you were short on social graces. But I had no idea that you were such a Neanderthal."

"Well, now that you're enlightened, would you mind getting out of my way?"

Ginny was so angry she could spit nails. Oh, how she longed to slap that arrogant smirk from his face! Would it do any good to box his ears? Ginny had almost succumbed to temptation when sanity stepped in.

Threading her fingers tightly together to keep them from wrapping themselves around Draco Malfoy's neck and throttling the life out of him, she flounced away, and headed back toward the castle.

Her fit of temper had left her by the time she returned to Gryffindor Tower, leaving her drained and empty.

It's all wrong, she thought wearily, curled up in a shadowy corner of the common room. We're young and we should be laughing all the time, laughing and happy and safe. When did the world go so terribly awry? Why did that stupid, evil, empty-hearted Voldemort have to come and destroy all wonderful and beautiful things?

She thought of the letters that came each day, proclaiming death, and how the students all feared receiving owls, not knowing what news they might bring with them. No family had remained untouched, not even her own. Her mother's twin sister. Bill's wife Maddie. Her father's best friend. She thought of her mother's eyes, and all the shadows in them. She thought of her little niece, Emily, who had lost her mother before she reached her first birthday. She thought of Bill, drinking like a fish every night until he passed out.

It had been in her fourth year that this evil had descended upon them like a storm cloud. That was the year that Hermione had nearly been killed helping Harry and Ron solve a series of dazzling intrigues. That was the year the deaths had begun.

Why did that - that great, fiendish, imbecilic devil have to fill their lives with despair and sadness and fear and hopelessness? Ginny wanted to scream with rage, scream with the rage of all she had lost and all she still stood to lose.

Her eyes swept across the common room until she spotted her brother. He was draped over the side of Jennie's chair, listening intently to whatever she was saying. In another corner of the room, Hermione was sitting quietly on a sofa while Harry paced the floor in front of her, talking in a low, intense tone. Ginny smiled a little wistfully as she took in the sight of him, hair sticking in different directions, glasses sliding off the bridge of his nose.

There had been a time when Ginny had been in love with Harry. Calf love and hero worship, she thought. She had outgrown it the way she outgrew her dolls and her childhood toys. She still loved him, the way she loved Bill and Charlie and Ron, but she was not in love with him.

The only happiness is in loving and being love, someone had written once. Ginny thought of the orphanage that she practically spent her vacations in, playing with the children there who had lost their parents to Voldemort. Teaching them, scolding them, loving them, but never enough, never enough to take the place of what they had lost. She thought of her father, working for thirty years from one week's end to the other in order to feed their family. She thought of her mother, thirty years at her father's side. She thought of Bill, grieving, and Charlie, always sending his paychecks home. She thought of the twins, establishing that joke shop in Diagon Alley and propelling the family to financial freedom. She thought of Harry, of Ron, of Jennie, of Hermione, and of Neville.

Snape, she thought with a sudden flash of pity, is pathetic. No one to love. No one who loves him. Doomed to walk through his life alone. She almost forgave him for the detention.

The detention! Ginny leapt up and glanced at the clock. She had exactly three minutes to get to the North Tower.

"I've got to go, Jennie! Good night, you guys!" she called out before grabbing her scarlet cloak and throwing it over her cream-colored robes. She fell out of the portrait hole, upsetting the Fat Lady, and hastened down the hall, her hair tumbled wildly over her shoulders.

She had a severe cramp by the time she reached the North Tower, panting heavily. It was actually not all that far from the Gryffindor common room, but she had chosen to avoid Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She despised her own weakness, but she couldn't help the uncontrollable shudders of fear that went through her every time she passed by it. She leaned against the wall, catching her breath, before she threw open the door.

At first she thought she would be serving her detention alone, because the firelight revealed only shadows. Then something moved in the corner and Ginny jumped with fright, letting out a small half scream.

"Jumpy, aren't we?" drawled a familiar voice.

It was, of course, Draco Malfoy.

************

Back in the Gryffindor common room, the clock struck twelve. Harry was nodding off when Hermione poked him on the back with her quill.

"Mmmmmm . . . huh?" he murmured, trying unsuccessfully to open his eyes.

"Harry?" she asked.

"Mmmm."

"Go to bed."

"Mmm."

"Ron," she wailed, "He's not getting up."

"Argh." Ron put two large hands on his friend's shoulders and shook him until his glasses came askew.

Harry woke with a start, making all sorts of interesting noises. "Aaaooooeee. Unh. Mugh."

"No, Harry, you are not a monkey, and it is not seemly to imitate one," said Hermione gently.

"I'm not imitating a monkey," muttered Harry thickly, stumbling to his feet and dragging himself up the stairs to the seventh year boy's dorm. He collapsed on his canopied bed, too tired to even bother to get under the covers.

It was an old dream. The room he stood in was large and well furnished, with bright friezes on the wall and rich carpets underfoot. There were lavish couches of embroidered cloth and tall candles in holders studded with gems. But it was not the splendid trappings of the room that caught Harry's eye, but the small, fat man sitting at the low marble table. He wore gray, nondescript robes, as though to avoid drawing attention to himself. Fingers of flesh and fingers of silver tapped the brightly colored marble table. He was apparently waiting for someone.

And then the great oaken door swung opened, and Harry did not need to look to see who it was.

"All is prepared?" asked the cold, pitiless, familiar voice.

"Y-y-ye-ss, Master," stammered Wormtail, trembling visibly.

Voldemort smiled. His eyes gleamed red in the dimness of the room. The flickering candlelight threw strange, frightening shadows on his cruel, ghastly face.

"Very good. I trust the armies are ready?"

"Ye-yes, Master" - in terrified tones.

Voldemort nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then once épé Muleac is found, we can begin."

"Y-yes, M-master."

"Really, Wormtail, are you incapable of saying anything else? Your stupidity tires me."

"I - I - "

"Find épé Muleac," said Voldemort, cutting him short coldly. "Unless it can be found, Lady Gwendolyn might yet ruin my plans. And see to it that Mount Aesculapius is crushed soon - very soon. We should not like the Sisterhood to rise up against us, should we?"

"N-no, Master."

"Very good. Tell me, Wormtail" - his voice was as smooth as silk - "how shall you go about finding the épé Muleac?"

Wormtail trembled.

"Speak, you fool!"

"I d-don't - kn-know, Master."

"Imbecile! Since Lady Gwendolyn forged it, search for it near Mount Aesculapius! But do not alarm Echidne. We cannot afford it if she discovers our plans too soon."

"Y-yes, M-m-master."

"Leave me, then."

Wormtail prostrated himself at his master's feet before scurrying out of the room. It was remarkable how rat-like he was, even in his human form.

Harry woke with a start, panting, cold sweat running down his face and neck. His scar felt like it was on fire, and the rest of him didn't feel much better. In the beds beside him, Seamus, Dean, and Neville were snoring placidly.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, he rolled off the bed, cringing when it creaked. He was still wearing his smelly robes from the day before, and perspiring hadn't improved it very much. He poked around in the darkness until he found his slippers and his glasses, and then tiptoed silently out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind him he practically fled down the stairs, across the common room, and up another flight of stairs to the Head Girl's room.

Pounding urgently on the door, he whispered, "Hermione! Hermione, it's me, Harry."

He heard rapid footsteps from within, and the door swung open. Hermione, her hair tousled and her feet bare, blinked the sleep from her eyes.

"Harry?"

"Yeah. The dream, Hermione. I had it again. But I remember something this time."

"What is it?" Hermione's eyes gleamed in the darkness with excitement and anticipation.

"They spoke of something called épé Muleac."

**************

One gray October afternoon a week later, Jennie was sitting on her bed, the curtains drawn so she wouldn't be disturbed. She had a large photo album in front of her - pictures of the busy docks and old temples, imposing architecture and exotic flowers of Malta. She missed Valleta; she missed yachting and she missed the sea and the yearlong warm weather and even the murderous Sirocco winds. As her mother was dead, she had grown up there with an English nanny - a witch, of course. Always a clever and pretty child, she had finally returned to her native land at sixteen. She and Ginny got along very well, of course - both top students, good fliers, and Gryffindors. But Britain was so cold and so forbidding; she hated the prim landscape, longing for the fragrance of a jasmine or even one palm tree. There was apparently only oak and fir trees in the British Isles - at least, it seemed that way. The first few months, before school had started and before she had met Ginny, she had been so lonely and frightened by this strange new land. Her father was never home, her tutor and nanny had remained in Malta, and the girl had no one to talk to but the servants. Sometimes she thought she would go mad, and with nothing else to do, she dreamed of her unknown mother.

There was a great deal Jennie didn't know about the mother whose life she had cost. Theodore Milbank was always too busy to talk to her, and neither her tutor nor her nanny had known Guenevere Winters. All Jennie had was a small portrait that now hung over her bed and her mother's necklace.

Her mother had been very beautiful, with pale gray eyes and pale hair. She had a sweet, sad little face and a tender smile. Jennie's brown hair was her father's, of course, but she supposed she looked very much like this unknown woman.

The necklace was silver, with a single moon-pale gem dangling on it. On the clasp the name Guenevere had been etched in delicate, flowing script. Her father had once told her that her mother had been an orphan, and that she had been found as an infant wearing this necklace. That was all that Jennie knew of the woman whose name she bore.

"Jennie? Jennie?" Ginny's voice came floating into their room. Jennie stuck her head out of the curtains.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"It's two o' clock." When Jennie continued looking blank, she added, "Quidditch match with Slytherin, remember?"

"Oh. Right." Jennie sighed and climbed off the bed. "Let's go."

"It's going to be cold," said Ginny, looking doubtfully at her friend's thin frock.

Argh, thought Jennie resentfully as she went to get her cloak. Stupid British weather.

****************

The two girls hurried into the locker room. They were evidently very, very late. Harry had given the usual pep talk already, and glared at them as they walked in looking entirely unabashed. They hurriedly changed into their scarlet robes and grabbed their broomsticks.

"Let's go," said Harry shortly, as soon as they were ready. He was extremely nervous; he felt like he had eaten rocks for breakfast and his heart thumped like drums beating to a war march. Harry was always nervous before a match, because he was very good at imagining horrible things. But the minute the game started he was all right.

It was perfect weather for Quidditch - a crisp, clean, cool day, with clouds overhead that didn't look particularly threatening. The team walked slowly onto the field to a great deal of mad cheering and screaming. Most of the students were wearing Gryffindor scarlet in some form. Behind the Slytherin goal post was a mass of green.

"The Gryffindors!" shouted Justin Finch-Fletchly, who was the commentator. "Harry Potter, Colin Creevey, Seamus Finnegan, Jennie Milbank, Dean Thomas, Ginny Weasley, and Ron Weasley."

The Gryffindor supporters screamed.

From the opposite end of the field the Slytherin team sauntered forward. They can't even walk like normal people, thought Ginny crossly. Justin was saying, "And the Slytherin team. Draco Malfoy, Millicent Bulstrode, Vyson Grené-Vispara, Morag MacDougal, Christina Montague, Charlotte Penhallow, and Blaise Zabini. "

There were cheers from the Slytherin crowd.

"Captains, shake hands," said Madam Hooch.

Harry, looking unhappy, and Malfoy, looking impassive, took each other's hand very gingerly and then released it as quickly as possible.

"Mount your brooms . . . on the whistle . . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."

Fourteen figures shot into the air. Harry felt his nerves leave him at the exhilaration of flying. Ginny took her place by the goal post, as Seamus and Dean went after the Bludgers and the three Chasers made spectacular dives for the Quaffle.

"Gryffindor in possession, Colin Creevey with Quaffle, heading toward Slytherin goal posts - no - Quaffle intercepted by Chaser Christina Montague of Slytherin - she ducks a Bludger, swerves around Finnegan - heading for the goal posts aaaannnd - SHE MISSES! Superb save by Keeper Ginny Weasley, Gryffindor in possession, and it's Chaser Jennie Milbank with the Quaffle, Milbank dodges a speeding Bludger, clear field ahead - go on, Jen - Keeper Vyson Grené-Vispara dives - and misses - and SHE SCORES! TEN ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!

The sea of scarlet below went wild. Jennie did a sort of flip in midair to express her feelings. The Slytherins booed.

"And it's Slytherin in possession again, Chaser Blaise Zabini with the Quaffle - Ron Weasley along side her - excellent Bludger hit by Finnegan - Weasley in possession, flying toward the Slytherin goal posts, ducks a Bludger, Grené-Vispara lunges - misses - AND HE SCORES!"

Harry circled the field, looking for the Snitch. Once he thought he saw a flash of gold, but it was only the glint of some girl's jewelry. He was heading toward the Gryffindor goal post when the crowd screamed suddenly, pointing, and Harry jerked his broom around to see what had happened. He turned just in time to see a Bludger bouncing off Ginny's stomach. She was gasping for air, and Madam Hooch was shrieking in rage, when Millicent Bulstrode hit another Bludger at her from above. It hit her in the back of her head, and obviously very dizzy, she rolled over and fell off her broomstick. The Gryffindor team froze for one minute in the air, and then, horrified, shot off in her direction.

Amidst the daze of pain, Ginny clung fiercely to one thought - she must break her fall. She made a mad grab at the goal post - and miraculously, her fingers closed around it. The ache in her skull was blinding, and when she had grabbed the post her body had swung against it, and that hurt too. But she clung to it until she felt the world going black.

But the brief minute she had hung to the post was enough for Draco. He pulled out his wand and bellowed, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Stupid Gryffindors, he thought contemptuously, as Ginny's limp body floated in the air. They had to go shooting toward her on their broomsticks. What good would that do?

He began to lower her slowly to the ground. The crowd held its breath. But when she was still perhaps fifteen feet from the ground, something jerked his broomstick and Ginny immediately fell to the ground.

Draco spun around. It was Blaise Zabini, looking like a pagan goddess, with her beautiful green eyes gleaming like jewels and her glinting golden hair drifting around her face.

"What was that about?"

"Whatever are you talking about, Draco?" she purred silkily, a dangerous gleam in her wide, lovely eyes. Then she pointed her broomstick down and zipped toward the ground. Draco stared after her a moment, and because there was nothing left to do, followed.

****************

Jennie hurried to Ginny's side. Falling fifteen feet was certainly preferable to falling one hundred, but one never knew. Ginny was face down in the grass, and Jennie tumbled her over. Ginny moaned, but didn't open her eyes. Ron, nearly frantic, threw himself at his sister and asked anxiously, "Ginny? Ginny?"

"Leave her alone, Ron. You'll rattle her bones if you keep on shaking her like that," said Jennie.

"Is she hurt?" demanded Seamus, while Harry patted Ron's arm.

"I think she's fine, just a little bruised," announced Jennie, who was skilled in Medimagic and had been checking Ginny with her wand. "No broken bones."

Madam Pomfrey, looking worried, hurried to them with a stretcher floating beside her. She waved everyone aside and magicked Ginny onto the stretcher. The rest of the Gryffindor team followed her to the hospital ward. Harry glanced toward the stands one last time before he joined the others, and found the person he was looking for.

Hermione, wearing all white under her scarlet cloak with a single red rose pinned to her shoulder, pushing her way through the crowd towards them.

*****************

Ron sat alone by his sister's bedside, watching her still form. Madam Pomfrey had said that she would be fine, she just needed a few hours of rest, and then she could go back to the Gryffindor tower. But he couldn't help but remember the sickening terror that had settled itself like a rock at the pit of his stomach when he had seen her knocked off her broomstick. He had frozen, dropping the Quaffle in his horror, and started after her like a fool. Only Malfoy - Malfoy, who hated everyone with red hair and whose name was Weasley - had had the presence of mind to use magic to save her: simple, first year magic. And Ron realized with self-loathing that while he had used that exact same spell to save Hermione from a troll, he could not remember it in time to save Ginny. He felt a helpless rage consuming him as he thought of all those times his sister - his only sister - had needed him, and he had not been there. Always too busy running off having adventures with his two best friends to remember her. They had been the best of friends as children - always the two left behind when the others packed up and went off to Hogwarts. Their mother had laughed, saying they were inseparable, and they had been, all the way until he, too, had gone, and Ginny had been left behind, alone. And he never even realized it - not until today, when he had thought she was going to die. And Malfoy, Malfoy of all people, had saved her.

He thought of the Chamber of Secrets. Then it had been Harry, but Ron did not mind Harry saving her - after all, he was just like another brother. And after all, that was Harry's job, saving people from big bad evil things. But today it had been Malfoy, and Ron despised himself for letting that happen. All my life, he thought, feeling nauseous. I've spent all my life in others' shadows: Bill, Charlie, Percy, and Fred and George. Later I was just Harry Potter's sidekick. Will I never stand alone?

A new realization dawned slowly on him. Ginny never criticized him. Never found fault with him. Never compared him to others. To her, he was always just Ron, and he felt somewhere deep inside of his heart, that no matter what he did, she would always love him unconditionally, in a way he knew no one else ever would.

Ginny stirred a little, and Ron bent down to kiss her cheek. You've always put me first, Ginny, and I guess it's time I start putting you first too. I will. I promise you that.

************

Since Ginny had only been knocked out, and was merely a little bruised and battered, Madam Pomfrey let her out after a few hours of rest and a quick check-up.

"You are one lucky girl," said Madam Pomfrey, as Ginny prepared to leave the hospital ward. "If Draco Malfoy hadn't caught you - "

"Excuse me?" asked Ginny, startled.

"Didn't you know, child? When you fell off the broom, Malfoy kept his wits about him and levitated you quite nicely."

"That was nice of him," said Ginny quickly, her mind racing already. She gave Madam Pomfrey a grateful smile. Impulsively she threw her arms around the older woman's neck, saying swiftly, "Thank you."

Madam Pomfrey, looking startled but quite pleased, patted her back. "You're quite welcome, dear. Hurry along now. I'm sure your friends are waiting for you."

Nodding, Ginny left the ward. She was almost at the portrait of the Fat Lady when she felt a tugging in her mind, and turned instead to the North Tower.

****************

"You came back."

Ginny leaned against the closed door.

"You knew I would."

Draco Malfoy looked up, then, but Ginny would not meet his eyes.

"Detention ended yesterday. So why are you here?" he asked her. He was ready to mock her; an evasion or a stammered reply would be a triumph for him. She tilted her head to one side and steeled herself to gaiety.

"For the sake of your bright eyes, Draco Malfoy."

He laughed at that, and returned to doing his homework, which was what he had been doing when she had first entered the room. She stood watching him for a while, thinking of the week that had just passed. The first and second night of their detention they had spoken about four words to each other, and "Good night" was not among those words. They ran more along the lines of "Damn you" and "You bastard." But by the third night the silence had stretched to a thin tautness, and Ginny's nerves couldn't endure it anymore. So she had asked him questions, tentatively at first, and later a more freely when she saw that he responded - in complete sentences, no less. Ginny had been rather afraid he would only answer with curt monosyllables.

They had talked of many things, some earnest, some jesting, but all impersonal, because though she found a strange, inexplicable solace in his company, Ginny could not trust him. He was Lucius Malfoy's son, and she had never forgotten what Lucius had done to her. But last night, walking back to the Gryffindor common room from the North Tower for the last time, she realized very suddenly that she would miss the late-night conversations they had had.

Ginny traced Draco Malfoy's clean-cut profile with her eyes, and then turned slowly toward the window, and knelt down by it, enjoying the feel of the cool, abrasive stone against her cheek. Most of her did not want to be here - the clannish, Gryffindor part that despised him for what he was and what he stood for. But some other, contrary part of her mind enjoyed being there - and that made her restless and peevish and disgusted with herself.

She wanted something to hurt her. She didn't close the shutters, wanting the wind to freeze her. She had not felt like this in a long time - not since Jennie had come, and the world had become brighter, if not happier. She had not felt so confused, and so out of control since her first year. And it was all because this stupid albino git had crashed headlong into her in the hallways, addling her brains in an effective way that even falling off her broomstick hadn't done.

She tried to not think about her first year. She always thought of it as little as possible. That was easy to do when she was around Jennie, because Jennie, of course, knew nothing about the events of that year. But sometimes, sometimes she lost control of her thoughts, and they wandered away from her to that old nightmare, and she felt an iron fist squeezing her heart and fingers clawing at the insides of her throat until she wanted to scream with the pain and the guilt. That year had changed her more than her parents knew or could have wanted. Outwardly she had remained the same, but the depths had been stirred, and entirely against her honest, open, trusting Weasley nature, she had acquired a cool mask of control that hid her emotions from all but those she loved.

At eleven, it is a given that children make mistakes. They can flunk a few tests, and crack their heads open, and blow up their cauldrons, and no one would think much of it. But of course, she, Virginia Weasley, had to befriend the greatest Dark Lord of the century and nearly kill off a number of students as well as herself. Not exactly your average number of mistakes.

It had frightened her, shaking the very core of her being until sometimes, even five years later, she would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and sobbing. For this reason she had been given her own room. Jennie alone shared it with her, because Jennie was never impatient or upset about being waken from her sleep, and nor did she ask questions. When Ginny had her nightmares, Jennie would simply hug and hold her until she quieted, then sit by her bed talking to her until the sun came up and chased away the shadows. Jennie was like that. She lighted lanterns where it was dark.

But though Jennie was patient and loving, though she could comfort Ginny and soothe her, she could not cure the sickness of her soul, or alleviate the pain of her fears. Those fears haunted her constantly, dictating her every action, every thought. She never fully trusted a stranger again.

Ginny was not cynical. A warm and loving family isn't exactly the breeding ground for cynicism. She was still the laughing, soft-hearted girl she had always been, but she was much more reserved, restrained, aloof in the presence of strangers and passing acquaintances. Something very sweet had vanished from her face and a little shadow had come into her bright eyes that no amount of time had succeeded in blocking out. She had learned to smile like a queen, with her lips, not her eyes, and she was given in to falling into idle revelries with her hands clasped over her knees and her eyes fixed unseeingly on space. She would go on long, solitary walks, coming back to the Gryffindor common room drooping and pale.

Then Jennie had come, and Ron had secretly breathed a sigh of relief, because he really had been quite worried about his sister. He heard her laughing again one day, and though there was something lost in her laughter, she had gained something too. The shadow never left her eyes, but her smile grew truer, she lost her listlessness, and she began to joke again.

It was when there was no one nearby that she cried, softly and secretly, the tears tasting bitter as they fell upon her hands.

No one outside her immediate family knew what she had done in that nightmarish first year, but the whole school knew she had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets, and rescued by Harry.

Ginny did not quite understand the rules of a Wizard's Debt, but she knew she owed one to Harry. She also knew that she did not mind. She did not love him, but she trusted Harry with her life. It was this new Wizard's Debt that she didn't knew what to make of.

She turned her head slightly so that she could see Draco Malfoy out of the corner of her eyes. She wanted to thank him for what he had done; she wanted to ask him why he had done it, and why he was here. And what hold he held over her so that with the slightest flick of his mind he could bring her here too.

"You are wondering why I decided to save your life instead of letting you break your neck."

"It seems a pretty reasonable thing to wonder about," said Ginny defensively. "Especially since, as I recollect it, we hate each other."

"Well, I did owe you one for getting me out of that mess with Filch."

"How magnanimous of you to remember. I recall you telling me that it was my fault. And you ended up in detention anyway."

"McGonagall was in a foul mood. And we were late even before we crashed into each other."

"You're in a pretty good state of mind, Malfoy. Would I get away with suggesting that maybe you crashed into me, and not we crashed into each other?"

"Don't push your luck."

Ginny caught his gaze and held it. It was a game she liked to play - see how long she could look someone in the eye until he grew uncomfortable. Colin had lasted ten seconds. Terry Boot had stood for four minutes. But with Malfoy she had a horrible feeling she would be looking at him all night and maybe all of the next day too.

"You know, Malfoy? You've grown up," said Ginny, sounding amazed.

"Guys tend to grow a few inches once they hit fifteen."

"I don't mean that. You aren't so childish, or petty, or as bigoted as you used to be. And it looks like you've actually developed a sense of humor. How did you manage that with Crabbe and Goyle hanging around you all the way until end of last year? They wouldn't know how to laugh unless you taught them how."

"Vicious, aren't you?"

Ginny actually blushed. "I'm sorry," she said hastily.

"Don't be. You were only being truthful."

Ginny's eyes widened with shock. "I used to think you were evil scum, but now . . . now I guess you were only being immature."

"And what makes you think I'm not evil anymore?" His voice was soft, like silk brushing against silk.

"You were willing to save a girl you hated - a girl who stood for everything you hated - from death, or maybe worse."

"Worse? You think there is something worse than death?"

"Paralysis would be one."

"At last you'd be alive."

"Yes. Technically you'd be alive. But how different is it from death?"

"Don't be stupid. If you're dead, you're dead. If you're paralyzed, at least you are alive. You ever heard of being alive? You know, as in breathing - "

"Oh, put a sock in it, Malfoy," said Ginny tiredly. "I don't want to hear your rubbish."

"Then leave."

"You're not letting me." The minute Ginny spoke the words she wondered whatever had prompted her to speak them. And then she realized - it was the truth. She could not leave, because he was not letting her. He looked startled for a split second, then his features smoothed over again. If Ginny had blinked, she would have missed it.

"Is that better?" he asked, in an oddly gentle tone, and Ginny suddenly realized that something very like a collar had been lifted from her mind. She blinked, and then her eyes widened as she realized the implication of what had just happened.

She had heard of mind control before, of course. Very powerful Dark Magic, similar to the Imperious curse, but much more subtle. Furious, she sprang to her feet, and cried out, "What did you just do, you bastard? What - "

"Shut up, Weasley," said Draco, very calmly. He didn't know too much about what had just happened, either, but he wasn't about to let on about that. "It wasn't Dark Magic, as you can tell very plainly, since the alarms aren't going off."

Ginny took a deep breath. She had known in her heart that it wasn't Dark Magic. Whatever it was, it did not cause that great sweep of silver coldness to wash over her. But she panicked so easily.

"And don't talk to me about being evil, either," he continued, slowly and deliberately. "After all, it was you that had nearly killed a bunch of Mudbloods and muggle-lovers in your first year."

Ginny gazed at him without blinking. The girl she had once been would have stood up then and left, pronouncing him unsuited for her company. But that was before her world had shattered around her and left her nothing but ashes. That was before Voldemort had come back and Cedric Diggory had been killed. That girl was the one who cooked happily in the kitchen with her mother, waiting patiently for her father and brothers to come home. That girl was the one who laughed with Bill and rode on Charlie's shoulders and pulled pranks on Percy with the twins and played with Ron. That girl was not the Ginny Weasley that sat in front of Draco Malfoy and understood his use of the word mudblood. This Ginny was the one that saw death and destruction and loss. This Ginny was the one that wore a mask of indifference over a bleeding heart, the Ginny on whose shoulder Neville Longbottom had cried. She was the girl that had come out of the Chamber of Secrets - a completely different girl than the one that went in.

"You're right," said Ginny, with a painful shrug. She felt something bitter and acid rising in her throat, and swallowed hard against it. "I was stupid and I shouldn't have trusted that damned diary that your father put in my book. But it was my fault. I know it was. But what I don't understand is how you would care."

"I don't," said Draco, and his eyes were empty. "I have gone out of the business of caring. Don't expect caring from me."

Ginny sat on the ledge of the window. If she weren't careful, she would fall out backwards and drop ten stories before splattering in a messy pile on the ground, and Malfoy's earlier rescuing would have been in vain. Ginny found herself not caring particularly. Perhaps she would create a pretty mural on the ground?

"You aren't as horrible as you think you are," she said.

"You think you understand me?" he asked, his voice cool and cultured as always.

She laughed painfully. "How can I?" she answered, and the emotions that colored her usually snowy voice were bitterness and self-mockery. "How can I, when I hardly understand myself?"

He continued emotionlessly. "People have been trying to figure me out since I first came here. All of them are convinced that I'm not all that I appear to be. They seemed to believe that my abusive father misguided me. They never considered that maybe I'm not that deep, and that I act exactly like I want to. This has nothing to do with my father."

"Doesn't it?" asked Ginny, more to herself than to him.

"Nothing. My father loved me. He did bad things, but he loved me. He wasn't a very good father, and he was rarely around, but he loved me in his own way. That was all that I needed."

Ginny gazed intently at him. He was telling the truth, she thought. Lucius Malfoy had loved his son.

He was silent, looking at her. She smiled faintly. At last, she slipped off the window ledge and walked swiftly to the door. Her hand resting on the knob, she whispered "Good night" before she fled back to the Gryffindor common room, strangely close to tears.

Things to ponder: what's up with Draco's mind? What's Jennie's connection to the painting, and what is the épé Muleac? (a dumb name, but oh well.) Oh, and the Very Boring Paragraph on dragon venom is quite important later on (not the fact that they forgot to do it, just the info in the essay).

Next Chapter: A prefect's meeting and ice skating. More clandestine North Tower meetings.

Author's Note to My Faithful Readers: When I first began this story some time ago, it was purely adventure and action and mystery. The human element, namely Draco's transformation from someone cruel and evil to someone merely indifferent, or maybe even compassionate, became clearer while I was studying a book on psychology. The question posed was this: what can make someone terribly spoiled by money and doting parents wake up and see his own iniquities? People are the simplest and most complex of creatures, a thing of paradoxes - kind and cruel, cold and passionate, weak and strong, brave and cowardly. I believe that all people possess both sides of this puzzle, but their upbringing dictates what they show to the world. What better example of this paradox than Draco Malfoy? There is one line in the books that prove he has a sense of honor: when Harry insults his mother, he defends her. Draco, so secure in his father's love, his family wealth, and the path set at his feet, is arrogant to the point of vulgarity, and too spoiled to be kind. But what if everything he knows is taken away from him? With his father dead, his fortune lost, his family home burned to the ground, and what had once seemed so assured now uncertain (namely, Voldemort's hand in Lucius Malfoy's murder), he is nothing but a lost, frightened boy. And it's interesting to see how this sudden awakening comes into play.

To my kind reviewers: Ok, first I'm gonna rant about how my stupid v key never works: I have to hit it twenty times! ::rants and hits v key twenty times::

I am now calm, and shall thank the kind reviewers:

Lavinia - thanks for your compliments. It made my day. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me that you liked my writing.

QuidditchChick01 - I love you! ::laughs:: However, I think I failed miserably in certain places, because I guess there's a misunderstanding: Hermione didn't kiss Draco. I was referring to Narcissa, his mother, who 'kissed him with cold lips.' ::bops self on head for not being lucid:: And sorry for killing Lucius. His death is what sets off this whole chain reaction in which Draco wakes up from what I call his Dream. Because that's what his whole life had been, a dream based on his wealth, his position, and his father's love (which I strongly believe in, why else would he have such a huge ego in the book? If Lucius didn't love him, he'd have no confidence at all) And if Draco is out of character, that's because his father has just died. Very big event, you see. This is my first time writing a fanfic, and characterization is so hard, because it's not your character, and you have to make sure it fits with the original book. Anyhow, I appreciate your comments and compliments!

Aweasley - Thanks for your compliments! I'm afraid I'm not a painter. I have no artistic talents to speak of. Anyhow, people are telling me that Draco is out of character. Dude, I am too dense to put him in character. ::slinks into library and does more research on characterization and psychology:: Oh well. I tried my best, really! I felt that Draco needed to do something over the summer. I mean, he can't just ride horses and stare at paintings all day, can he? ::feels silly:: My friends tell me that I'm too scientific when it comes to characters in novels: I just have to analyze it psychologically. One time, I spent a whole week wailing about how a famous novel was horrible because the main character didn't act the way someone with his upbringing would. ::looks sheepish::