'Delighted to see you too,' he replied. 'Nice pajamas.'
She glanced down at her kitten-printed flannel pajamas, and pulled her robe closed around her. 'Where's Harry?' she said.
'Not the faintest idea,' said Draco. 'Don't care either.'
'What are you doing here, then?'
'Came to see Hermione,' Draco said, rather shortly. 'Unless you have a problem with that.'
Ginny gave him an extremely superior look, as if he were a troublesome toddler. 'I don't,' she said. 'But Hermione might.'
Draco looked at her narrowly. 'Meaning…?'
'Meaning Harry went to talk to her about a half hour ago, and she slammed the door in his face,' Ginny said. 'Then he took his cloak and left, and I haven't seen him since.'
'Good for her,' said Draco shortly. 'Best thing for him.'
Ginny looked very taken aback. 'What on earth do you mean?'
Draco frowned at her and stalked over to the fireplace. There was a poker lying beside the grate; he bent and picked it up, and prodded moodily at the glowing coals with the pointed end. 'Harry needs to grow up,' he said.
'He's acted like a complete arse, and he might as well know it. The only thing that might do him the blindest bit of good at this point would be if she kicked him down the front staircase and he bounced down every single step.'
'That sounds possibly fatal,' said Ginny.
'Ah, well,' said Draco, and prodded savagely at a coal. 'You win some, you lose some.'
There was a short silence. Draco raised his eyes to Ginny, expecting her to look angry, or appalled, or disgusted with him. Instead she looked merely sad. 'I take it he got angry at you,' she said.
'You could say that,' Draco said, hearing the acid in his own voice. 'He accused me of lying to him, and despising his best friend, and basically causing all this, which I apparently did by being a selfish, overbearing, snobbish and despicable bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I asked him if there was anything I could do to help, and he indicated that he might perhaps feel a bit better if I were to swallow six pounds of lead and throw myself into the lake. So I left.'
'Ah,' said Ginny thoughtfully. 'The lake's frozen over, you know.'
'Thank you, I can always trust you to cut to the heart of the matter.'
Ginny pushed a lock of red hair back from her eyes, and sighed. 'I thought you couldn't lie to him,' she said. 'Not…mentally.'
'Yeah, well,' said Draco, in a flat voice, 'He blocked me. I couldn't reach him at all.'
'Nobody could have,' she said gently, and put a hand on his shoulder.
The contact was strangely comforting, perhaps because he was so cold and her hand was warm. 'You have to go find him.'
'I don't have to do anything,' Draco said. 'Except, possibly, go back to my room, get unbelievably pissed on Archenland wine, and sleep until the middle of next week. Maybe when I wake up, the Boy Who Lived will have sorted out his hellishly complex love life without my assistance.'
'Without your assistance,' Ginny said in a quiet voice, 'he'd be dead.'
Something half-remembered from a dream chimed inside Draco's head, and he laughed, not happily. 'He won't die of this. It's just a broken heart.'
'I don't mean this. I mean all the other times you saved his life.'
'Well, I'm glad you remember them,' said Draco, and his voice was colder than the ice forming on the windowpanes. 'Because I don't think he does.'
'Don't be ridiculous.'
'What would you know about it?' Draco said, and instantly regretted having said it. She looked startled, then hurt, and then annoyed. He didn't blame her.
'So what are you going to do, then?' she demanded sharply. 'Go back to bed and see if you can sleep? I'm betting you can't. Not knowing that he's somewhere, needing you, and you didn't go and help him.'
'He doesn't need me,' Draco said. 'I think he made that pretty clear.'
Ginny sniffed. 'You're scared,' she said in a superior tone.
'What do you mean, scared?'
'As in 'frightened.''
'Thank you. That clears it up nicely. Frightened of what?'
'Of feeling anything,' she snapped back. 'Caring about people makes you vulnerable, and you hate that. You need Harry, and whatever you might think, he needs you. And he's all alone right now, and he's more miserable than he's ever been in his whole life, and so what if he yelled at you? So damn what? Like he hasn't forgiven you for worse. When you were injured, when that arrow hit you, I've never seen anyone as upset as he was. And then he slept on the floor of the infirmary all night, remember? Or don't you? So whatever this massive poncy diva sulk of yours was inspired by, let it go. It doesn't matter. Spank your inner child, stiff upper lip, shut your eyes and think about your country — I don't care what you have to do. Just do it, and go out there, and find Harry, because I'm worried sick about him and you should be too.'
Draco looked at her narrowly. She was slightly out of breath now, and flushed, her cheeks bright pink. 'You done?' he asked.
She set her chin. 'Don't I seem done?'
'Hard to tell with you. Sometimes you get a second wind.'
'Not this time,' she said severely. 'So are you going to go?'
Draco leaned the poker against the mantel, and paused for a moment.
'Let me ask you something.'
'What?'
'Why don't you go, if you're so worried about him being alone?'
Ginny sighed. 'Because I have to stay here,' she said. 'I actually just came down here to get my book, and then I was going to go back and sit with Ron. I have to take care of my brother,' she added, looking down at the book in her hands, and then back up at him. 'And you should go take care of yours.'
Draco looked at her — she was still pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, and in her kitten-print pajamas looked like a little girl, although she most manifestly wasn't. 'I don't even know where to look,' he said in a low voice. 'I can't….find him.'
Ginny shook her head, without looking at him — she seemed to be glancing around the room to see if she had forgotten anything. 'Of course you can find him,' she said. 'Not everyone has telepathy to rely on, you know.
Sometimes all you have is how well you know the other person, and you know him better than anyone. Where would he go?'
He felt something loosen in his chest at her words — she was right. As a matter of fact, he had a fairly good idea exactly where Harry would have gone. 'I wouldn't know what to say to him.'
'You'll think of something,' Ginny said, extinguishing the last lit candle with a pinch of her fingers. Now there was only the fire for illumination. It turned the edges of her hair to candleflame. 'I have faith in you.'
He almost laughed. 'Well, that sets you apart from the masses, doesn't it,' he said.
'Maybe,' she said. 'Don't tell anyone.'
'Any other dark secrets I should know about?'
She looked thoughtful. 'Well, I can eat an entire ice cream sundae without using my hands.'
'Really?' Draco asked.
The side of her mouth curled up. 'Really. Now, go on — I have to get back upstairs.'
He nodded. 'Okay. And… thanks.'
'What are friends for,' she said lightly.
