'Well, look.' She moved her finger across the page, acutely aware of his eyes following it. 'That's Rhiannon, the girl in the white dress. She's the heroine. She'll go through some hard times, but basically, she'll win out in the end with her one true love by her side. And that guy, the one in the breeches, that's Tristan. He's brave and dashing and he only wants to be with Rhiannon, but sinister forces keep them apart. Not forever, of course.
The girl in the tight red leather corset, that's Lady Stacia. She's evil and rather slutty, and she'll definitely die in the end, but not till she's shagged half the male characters first. And the man in the black cloak, that's the Dark Wizard Morgan, he's evil too.'
'And who's the prat in the dress?' Draco inquired.
'That's not a dress, they're robes of state. And that's Geoffrey Montague, he's a childhood friend of Rhiannon's and very dependable. It's touch and go there. If Tristan dies, she'll probably wind up with him, but she'll always really be thinking of Tristan. If Tristan lives — ' Ginny broke off.
Draco's shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. 'What is so funny?'
Draco made a sweeping gesture with his hand. 'Let me tell you what really happens,' he said. 'Given the available information and these fabulous illustrations, I predict that Montague there will finally come out of the closet and run off with the Dark Wizard Morgan, who wasn't really all that evil, just lonely. They move to the country, buy a tower with a view, and spend the next sixty years renovating it and purchasing antiques.
Rhiannon opens a convent school for young witches and installs Lady Stacia as the headmistress, where she amuses herself by trying to get the dress code changed to include leather corsets and spanking the girls when they get out of line.'
Ginny glared at him. 'What about Tristan?'
'Oh, him. he's far too vain to be a decent love interest for anyone. Look at his boots. It takes hours to polish boots like that. No, Tristan is better off alone.'
'Tristan,' said Ginny firmly, 'wants to be with the one he loves.'
Draco grinned at her. 'Well, for that all he really needs is a pile of naughty magazines and a door that locks.'
'Aaargh!' screamed Ginny, and threw the book at him. 'You make it all sound so dirty!'
'Thank you,' he said. 'I make what sound dirty?'
'You know.' She felt suddenly embarrassed. 'Love.'
Draco tilted his head back and looked consideringly up at the sky. 'Well, it is dirty,' he said. 'It's not some holy, exalted thing, you know. It's about appetite and wanting and need and all those other things that make people do ugly things to each other. There's no betrayal without love, no loss without it, no jealousy. Half the ugliness in this world comes from it.
It cuts and burns and makes wounds that don't ever heal. Give me hatred any day. Now there's an emotion I can get behind. You always know where you stand with it.'
'That isn't true. Love makes people unselfish — '
'Like your brother?' His voice was soft. 'Like your brother was unselfish?'
'That wasn't about love — ' Ginny was furious. How dare he bring up Ron.
'Oh, it was,' Draco said. 'I saw his face when he looked at her. He was in love with her, whatever you might think.'
'Well, at least he was sincere about it,' Ginny snapped. She knew she sounded spiteful. 'He didn't pretend he didn't care.'
That made Draco sit up. He opened his eyes and splashed his cold gray ice-water gaze over her. 'Oh, and I do?' He shrugged. 'Maybe you're right.
Maybe I don't really care about anybody. Or maybe it just looks that way to your idealistic eyes, did you think about that?'
'I'm not idealistic. Just because I think it's ridiculous of you to pretend you don't care about anyone when you obviously do, doesn't make me idealistic. People can't live without someone to care about.'
'No, people can't live without food, water, shelter, and in my case, 3000-thread count cotton percale sheets. Other people are a luxury and not a necessity.'
'Then why are you taking such care of Harry?'
'That's different.'
'How is it different?'
Something indefinable moved behind his gray eyes. 'It just is.'
Ginny felt suddenly very weary. There seemed no point in having this conversation. It was impossible to win an argument with Draco, especially an argument like this one. She had no idea why she kept bothering; it would be equally productive to try to tunnel her way into the Chamber of Secrets using a spoon. 'I'm going back to the castle,' she said, and stood up abruptly, shielding her eyes with one hand — she didn't want him to see how close she was to crying. She held out her hand. 'Could I have my book back, please?'
She heard a rustle of crackling snow, and then he was getting to his feet.
'Are you all right? You're not crying, are you?'
'No — something in my eye,' she lied.
'Oh. Come here, then.' With brisk professionalism, he took her wrist and drew her towards him, his other hand under her chin. He tilted up her chin, and his eyes searched hers for a moment. 'Stay still,' he said.
She held his gaze without blinking. She hadn't stood this close to him since the night of the Yule Ball. (Later she realized this was not strictly true — she had been this close when he had kissed her in the museum, but that had been such an obvious attempt to annoy Seamus, that she barely considered it a real kiss.) In fact, she had just about never been this close to him in daylight. She wanted to not stare, but she couldn't help it — some part of her mind seemed determined to print this moment on her memory, as if somehow she felt as if she might never see him again. She tried to concentrate on the things that were wrong with his face, the imperfections — the scar under his eye where Harry's ink-bottle had cut him, the fact that his eyes were slightly different shapes, that one side of his mouth was higher than the other, which accounted for the fact that he smirked so well, even the fact that his hair wanted cutting and was falling in his eyes. No, he wasn't perfect-looking when you took it all apart, Seamus was just as handsome — more if you liked them less delicate-looking. It didn't matter, of course. Seamus couldn't send reverberations shuddering up her arms just by touching her wrists.
His eyes grazed her face like a touch. He spoke slowly. 'I don't see anything,' he said.
It took a moment for her even to realize what he was talking about. When she recollected herself, she firmly detached her wrist from his grasp and stepped away, barely noting his surprised look.
'I know,' she said. 'I know you don't.'
The next day was the last day of term. Ginny rode from Hogsmeade back to King's Cross station in a train compartment with Dean, Seamus and Charlie. She could tell that Seamus was eager to talk to her alone but that the presence of Dean embarrassed him and the presence of her tall, muscular brother terrified him.
At one point she saw Harry and Draco pass by through the compartment window, but was not particularly surprised that they didn't come in -
Harry would hardly want to be around Charlie, and Draco's loathing for Seamus was unabated. She waved at the two of them once they had disembarked onto Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. Harry waved back; Draco turned to see what he was looking at, and then they were blocked from her sight by Sirius and Narcissa.
Ginny turned away to see her own family coming towards her from the other end of the platform — her mother and father, the twins, Percy, (Bill, she knew, was still in Egypt) — but Ron was not with them. She felt a pang but supposed she could hardly blame him for not coming.
'Ginny…' said a voice in her ear. She turned and saw without surprise that it was Seamus. He had his hands in his pockets, and a black watch cap pulled down over his light hair. She realized she hadn't properly looked at him in days — he looked tired and downcast, but managed to smile at her. 'I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.'
'Oh, Merry Christmas,' she replied awkwardly, but before she could say anything else they were engulfed in a sudden tide of Weasleys. Mrs.
Weasley descended on Ginny and hugged and kissed her; Mr. Weasley clapped Charlie on the back, Percy made officious welcoming noises, and Fred set off a miniature Filibuster Firework that played 'Jingle Bells' at
