'No, but I'm very serious about taking this Personality Quiz. This week's topic: 'Are You Too Forward When It Comes To Meeting Boys?''
Ginny grinned. 'So? Are you?'
'Apparently,' said Draco, 'which is rather bewildering, but never let it be said that I do not answer magazine poll questions honestly.'
'Let me see that,' Ginny said, taking the magazine away from him.
She giggled. 'According to the quiz, you should learn to stop fixating on the pretty boys and appreciate the less flashy but potentially more stable blokes all around you. 'Because after all, that nice shy boy who sits behind you in Potions might just be your soulmate.''
'Harry sits behind me in Potions,' said Draco darkly.
'Aw, how cute,' said Ginny. 'You hate him, he hates you, all those years…then, suddenly, love blossoms.'
'Indeed,' said Draco, leaning back on his elbows. 'So, do you think he'd prefer candy or flowers? Or just a nice romantic dinner out?
Although his table manners are atrocious. Have you seen him eat soup?'
Ginny giggled despite herself.
'See,' Draco said. 'I told you if I ever tried to be funny around you, you'd be rolling on the ground laughing.'
'I am not rolling,' said Ginny, trying to compose herself.
'And I'm not really trying,' said Draco, and sat up, stretching his legs out in front of him. He looked over at her, and, even though he didn't change expression, she felt suddenly sober.
'Ron was being a right git before,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'
Draco didn't reply. She looked over at him and saw that he was staring blankly off at the darkening line of trees in the distance.
'What are you thinking?' she asked.
'I was pondering the immortal words of Julius Caesar when he said
'Brutus! You stabbed me in the back, you bastard.''
'I don't think I remember that from my edition of Shakespeare,' said Ginny, stifling a smile.
'I'm paraphrasing.'
'Harry doesn't think you did anything wrong,' said Ginny. 'Don't let Ron talk you into feeling guilty.'
'I don't feel guilty,' said Draco, in a rather muffled voice.
'I have six older brothers,' said Ginny, with asperity. 'I know what boys are like when they're feeling guilty. They crawl away and curl themselves up into miserable little balls and insist they want to be left alone — which is what you're doing.'
'I didn't tell you to leave me alone,' Draco said.
Ginny looked at him sideways. Empirically speaking, he was better-looking than Harry was, she thought, although his face lacked the heartbreaking transparency of Harry's — it was impossible to tell what Draco was thinking, impossible to tell whether he was amused, bored, or hurt. Or maybe it was just that his face was new to her, while she had memorized Harry's. Comparisons are silly, she told herself sternly. Stop that.
'You look tired,' she said.
'Yeah,' he said. 'I am tired.'
'Are you still having nightmares?' she asked, in a small voice.
When he spoke again, it was in a flat tone, and she knew immediately that he was lying. 'Just your run-of- the-mill bad dreams,' he said. 'Academic failure. Falling off my broomstick.
Suddenly realizing I'm wearing tweed out of season.'
Ginny laughed. Draco looked at her sidelong, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. 'You have a nice laugh,' he said. 'Sorry, by the way, to whinge all over you.'
'That's all right,' said Ginny, feeling a sudden fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She smiled at him. 'Don't you have any pithy sayings or useful quotes from your father that would be helpful right now?'
'For some reason, the only one of my father's sayings that seems to be sticking in my head right now is when he told me 'There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, it's usually an oncoming express train.''
'That's not very encouraging,' said Ginny dubiously.
'No,' Draco agreed. 'No, it really isn't.'
Hermione walked into the tent she was to share with Ginny, and looked around wearily. Inside, it was a cozy little room with two small beds, and a desk in one corner with a cracked but clean round mirror hanging over it. Moving slowly, ever bone in her body aching with tiredness, she walked over to the desk and sat down. She could see her reflection in the mirror, although not very well. A long crack down the middle of the mirror split her face into two uneven parts.
That's me, she thought grimly. Split in half.
She pulled out one of the drawers of the desk, and found what she was looking for: a parchment, ink bottle, and quills. She laid them out on the desk and stared at them. Somehow, the sight was comforting; it always helped her to have something concrete to occupy her hands and mind. She picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink bottle and started to write.
She was on her third sheet of parchment when the door of the tent opened and she turned slowly,
