In The Library

The Hogwarts Library was cold and dusty, as libraries are wont to be, not many people interested in reading anymore, and especially not during the Christmas Holidays. However, this night it seems perhaps even a little more cold and dusty than that which is generally accepted as fair by the student population at Hogwarts, and the three occupants of the library could feel the conditions very well indeed.

The usually imperturbable Madam Pince was sniffing and sneezing rather indignantly, being dressed in a scarf and several layers of clothing, including two cloaks and three woolen jerkins. There had been no heating in Hogwarts for a week now, and very much to Madam Pince's discomfort and annoyance, the library had been affected most of all. In fact, because Madam Pince did not think that the House Elves belonged in the library, that she could look after it all by herself, thank you very much, several books in the Arithmency section, including I. Liketoad's "Magic By Numbers" and Gilderoy Lockhart's acclaimed "Monstrous Magical Multiplication" were in severe danger of forming icicles.

As Madam Pince sneezed for the tenth time in fifteen minutes, Ginny Weasley sighed and turned the fourteenth page of her Herbology book ("Mechanical Oranges") very loudly. It is not easy reading by candlelight in a freezing cold library with its air thick with dust, and not very pleasant either. She disliked that she had chosen to do her homework first thing these Christmas Holidays, but otherwise she would leave it until the very last minute, make drastic mistakes, and would receive a bad grade from Sprout, whom she disliked immensely. She was sure she had read upon the subject of Mechanical Oranges before, (Perhaps in her Muggle Studies class while studying literature?) but she could not remember, and it was much too cold to think. Ginny looked up for a second to scan the library. It was like the setting for a ghost story; the long, thin curtains rippling and dancing in their translucent dappled grey and brown, all the while letting in the breeze through the old and cracked window, which was whistling fiercely. Every ten minutes or so a book would mumble something to itself, or shiver so hard it would fall from the shelf. Ginny fancied that she could see one remove a handkerchief from its pages and wipe its spine as though it was a nose. Madam Pince sneezed again and Ginny glanced at her. She was perched on her stool like a bird in a cage, and was looking though a box of files and cards, frowning most beautifully. Ginny took her eyes away and glanced down the other way, four or so tables away, where another student, a year above her, was sitting adjacent with his hand masking his features, chin in hand, one elbow on the desk. Ginny was not interested in this student, and so, as Will U. Bemyvalentyne's "Love Spells For The Unlucky" fell to the ground, shivering and sneezing most violently in the Restricted section, she settled down to her Herbology essay.

Draco Malfoy's eyes were on his potions essay, but his mind was somewhere else. It was his seventh year at Hogwarts and, he thought bitterly, the end of what little freedom he had. The Dark Lord had recently taken the most important steps in his ruse to overthrow the wizarding world, and all his planning for the last twenty odd years would come to a head in June of that year. Draco would be initiated into the Death Eaters in a month or so, courtesy, of course, of his imprisoned father Lucius, who, though still incarcerated, had strong links with the Dark Lord. In fact, Draco could almost fancy that the always controlling Lucius had picked the exact spot on his arm where the Dark Mark would soon reside, and done all but mark it with an 'x'.

It wasn't that he disliked the dark arts altogether; it gave a fellow a cornucopia of pride, he supposed, and the incantations and spells would come in handy during life. It was, perhaps, the deadening of the person that scared Draco away from the subject. Once the Dark Mark was emblazoned upon a Death Eater's arm, there was a dependence on the Dark Lord, the Dark Arts that could only be rivaled by what the Muggles call drugs...or perhaps his own particular penchant. Draco rolled up the sleeve of his woolen winter robe and winced. Dusty pink trails, throbbing purple threads and one new startling red path forever tattooed into his weary flesh decorated the alabaster of his skin, courtesy of a razorblade. Once the pain of the wool against his open flesh subsided, Draco rolled up the other sleeve to compare his other arm. His arm awaiting the Dark Mark. Just a month, Draco told himself dully, and the two arms would be marred forever. He turned his cut arm around and inspected the few cigarette burns he had branded into his forearm. He did not like that, and did not intend to do it again. He told himself it was because it wasn't satisfying enough, but he knew that it was because it merged two harming habits together. Draco wasn't ready for that much of commitment. He had been cutting himself now for a month or so, finding that venting his frustration by throwing things at Crabbe's head, kicking Goyle in the shins, or screaming loudly at Pansy just wasn't working. This way...he could control his pain. He was dealing it out. He was in control.

For once.

Draco pulled his sleeves down roughly and quickly, and immediately winced as the coarse wool caught on his skin. Again he raised his sleeve, and saw that the silver button on his winter robe had turned under the cuff, scratched his wrist, and set the freshest wound bleeding again. Tears of frustration formed in his eyes and he slammed his bleeding arm down on the desk in disgust at himself. His candle by which he was writing flickered and extinguished itself. In an effort to keep his tears from falling, Draco did something he forever regretted.

He gave a whimper.

A very quiet, very gentle, almost imperceptible whimper.

But, as I said, the library was deathly quiet.

Ginny heard a crash and a cry. She looked up sharply, but Madam Pince had left her post, presumably to get some tissues or a nose warmer, and no book was twitching on the ground in any of the library aisles. Looking down to where the seventh year was sitting, she saw that his candle had extinguished and that his head was in his hands. Thinking perhaps that the student may have hurt himself, she took her candle and got up from her desk.

Draco could see from between his fingers the amber light of a candle bobbing up and down and could hear the sound of footsteps. Thinking that it was Madam Pince telling him that the library was closed, he swallowed and tried, in vain, to strengthen his voice.

"Alright, alright. I'll get out."

The footsteps stopped and he heard a quiet intake of breath. After thirteen seconds he looked up from his hands.

Ginny Weasley stood there, holding a candle. Her heart shaped face did not look as plain as usual; perhaps it was the candlelight. Her carrot-coloured hair - in the candlelight, at least - seemed to burn with a radiance so bright, so powerful, that it seemed the flame of the candle and her hair were one and the same. Her dusting of brown freckles over her nose seemed to pale as her milk-white skin worked up a furious blush. Her delicate mouth, like two petals falling apart, opened soundlessly. Her posture stiffened, and she looked down at her hands. After a second she looked up again, brown eyes wide and slightly frightened.

"Malfoy?" she asked, her voice, innocent and childlike to him, echoing around the library.

One of the books in the Muggle Studies section leaned off its shelf an inch to watch.

"Malfoy." His voice was dull and rueful.

Ginny's eyes caught on Draco's bleeding arm and she flinched. She had never liked the sight of blood.

"You're bleeding."

Draco gave her a bitter look and pulled his sleeve down again; within five seconds the blood began to seep through the fabric.

"That's an awful cut." Said Ginny, and she sat down across from him, taking the bleeding arm in her hand and raising the bloody sleeve, now a dark shade of purple. As she slowly exposed the scarred and bloody hand, she gave a little gasp. The thick veins of pink and purple and oozing, swelling red, evidence of his pain, evidence of his torture, seemed so horrific in the tawny light that she felt almost repelled. When she looked up, horrified, at Draco's face, it was hidden in his other hand. She felt such sorrow, and such compassion for the wretched Slytherin, she pushed her free hand into the clenched fist of his bloody arm, and interlocked her fingers with his, tightly and securely. He took his face out of his hand and looked at her through freshly swelling tears.

They looked at their arms in a kind of awe, as though there was something magical about the situation. The book on the Muggle Studies' shelf leaned out an inch too much and fell, with a crash, on the floor. Their arms snapped apart, and they looked away.

After a minute or so, Draco glanced down at his arm and laughed through his tears.

"I think you healed it, Red."

Ginny looked at the arm. He was right, she supposed; the bleeding had lessened quite a bit. She then glanced down at her own arm. It was laced with his blood, bright, vivid, scarlet.

"Here - " he offered his clean sleeve. "Wipe it on this."

"No." She said, looking up and smiling. "It's alright."

There was an awkward silence.

"How are your brothers, Red?" He asked, and Ginny looked up, expecting a faked obsequious sneer. "Your mother? Your father?" His eyes were down on his lap; voice, low and miserable. Something in his voice softened her and made her know that she shouldn't be angry.

"They're fine. How are yours?" Ginny made an intentionally innocent answer and watched him carefully as he made his reply.

Draco gave a choked laugh and pulled at a piece of stray wool on his robe.

"My father is rotting in prison, Weasley. My mother isn't even a mother anymore. She swills alcohol day and night. All of our family has disowned us since two years ago. Since your Potter landed my father in Azkaban. I have no family now, Red. You needn't bother with the niceties."

Another silence, not so much awkward as sad. After a minute or so, Ginny spoke.

"I have all holidays to do my Herbology project, Draco." She lingered on his name a little too long and blushed harder. She finished quickly. "If you have the time, I'll listen to you. I'll try to help you."

Draco looked up into her warm chocolate eyes and wanted to cry out with the pain of it all. Before he knew what he was doing, he was telling her everything as she listened with patience and understanding. How he was to be initiated into the Death Eaters, how his father had controlled him for all his life, how his mother was never a mother, how the crushing workload he had to face was piling up in front of him, and how he felt so hollow; like a robot, he said, devoid of everything that makes a person human. When he finished, he had let go of all pretence, let his tears flow like salty rivers down the delta of his face, and the last word of his confession was forced from his lips with a shaking, choking sob.

And all the while, Ginny had sat there, nodding when he drew breath, and pushing him to go on when he stopped. At the end, she knew him for what he was, and she was the only one; he was a butterfly with broken wings, enclosed in an ever-shrinking cocoon. A chick who could not fly, with his nest hurtling toward the ground faster with each second. He was the spider, caught in his own web.

For a moment she surveyed him. His golden hair, given a new luster in the candlelight, was shaken about his pace face. Grey eyes brimming with grey tears, rivers so horribly flowing down his exquisite face...he was beautiful. She knew that now. Inside, and out.

A window unexpectedly gave a piercing shriek, and she sprang to her feet in surprise and fright.

"Thanks for listening, Red." Muttered Draco.

She nodded, and went to take up the candelabrum, but a blast of powerful wind from the library door as Madam Pince entered extinguished its flame and blew it, candle and all, off the table. It landed at Draco's feet.

Ginny kneeled down to pick it up, and at she got to her feet, she felt his hand, his scarred hand, on her wrist. Looking into his face, she saw that his tears had ebbed and there was seriousness in his face that almost equaled urgency.

"I love you, Ginny."

There was such a yearning about this simple, simple sentence...such a longing. As she heard his words, she could almost taste his lips. She loved him, too...oh, how she loved him. She knew what she had to say. He was drawing closer now; her lips were all too dangerously near his...she knew what she had to say.

She knew what she had to say.

"I hate you, Draco."

She tore him from his cocoon. She shredded his nest. She was the web that entangled him.

The library, my friends, was very cold. Sometimes, this coldness can affect people's hearts.