frowning.
'Are you lost?' he asked.
She let the gold chain drop. 'No. I was just — I was — '
'Are you looking for Draco? Because I don't know where he is.'
Ginny almost smiled. 'That's very helpful, Harry. But no, I wasn't looking for Draco. I was just — going to fix my hair. The wind ruined it.'
Harry blinked. 'It looks fine to me. You look pretty.'
'Thanks.' Ginny looked at him, oddly touched. He looked somehow distracted and a little lost, as he had looked lost seven years ago standing on the platform at King's Cross Station, and that lostness seemed to cling to him even now and forever would. Women would always fall all over Harry, Ginny thought, he was somehow vulnerable without ever being weak, attractive without seeming to know it. One never asked oneself if he was handsome because his face was so familiar and so arresting in its detail: the smoky-hollowed green eyes, the jet blades of lashes, the sharp fine bones. Even now, when he looked so unhappy, his melancholy seemed to suit him. 'Are you all right, Harry?'
'Oh. Yes.' He shook himself a little, like a dog shaking off water. 'Just tired. I had a late night.'
'I know, Sirius told us.'
'Us?'
'Yes,' Ginny said slowly. 'We're all here. And Harry — Ron's here as well.'
Harry's expression didn't change; only the shadows under his eyes darkened. 'I had rather thought he wouldn't come.'
'Well, he did. It's for the best, Harry, really — '
'Hell,' Harry said flatly. He took his hands and shoved them in his pockets. 'Now I really wish I could find Draco.'
'Can't you…' She tapped the side of her head. 'You know. Find him?'
Harry shook his head. 'He seems to be blocked at the moment. Busy probably.' He shrugged, and tried to smile; it wasn't very successful. 'I guess I'd better head in there and face the music.'
'It'll be fine. Really.'
He squared his shoulders. 'I hope so.'
She watched him as he went past her and through the door, closing it quietly behind him. Her heart went out to him. It went out to her brother as well, and to Hermione. And then there was Draco. It wasn't sympathy she felt for him, exactly. It was fear. She was afraid for him. She had been for a while now.
Her hand went back to the chain at her throat. She gripped it once, tightly. Then she began to climb the stairs.
****
Draco was lurking.
He'd never thought of himself as much of a lurker — he liked the spotlight too much — but there was no other word for it; he was lurking. In a disused hallway, no less, lit only by a single torch. He was waiting for Pansy Parkinson.
He was tired. His head hurt. He'd slept poorly the night before, and he suspected his hair looked bad. But time, tide and revenge waited for no man, and he'd stood on an upper balcony until he'd seen Pansy in her green dress walk up the Manor stairs with her parents. Then he'd headed back inside.
He needed, he'd realized immediately, to detach her from her parents. So he'd sent a house-elf along with a message for Pansy that an urgent note was waiting for her in the Green Room. The house-elf had instructions to lead her to this hallway, and then leave her there. Draco wasn't fond of house-elves — they made him nervous — but sometimes their unquestioning obedience had its advantages.
It seemed like an hour, although was probably more like half of one, before he heard the sound of someone walking towards him along the corridor. The someone was walking fast, and was obviously wearing high heels. Draco smiled to himself. It was time. He waited until she was almost upon him, then stepped out of the shadows and swung around to face her.
It was as rewarding as he could have hoped; she shrieked, and almost staggered backward.
'Hello, Pansy darling,' he said. 'Nice to see you here.'
'Draco!' Pansy gasped, her hand ostentatiously over her heart. 'Scaring me like that! I mean, really.' She lowered her hand, glaring. 'Now, If you couldn't tell, I was on my way somewhere — '
'To get an urgent message. I know.' The urge to twirl his moustache was almost overwhelming; luckily, Draco didn't have a moustache. 'Only the message doesn't exist. I made it up. I wanted to get you alone so I could talk to you.'
'You what?' Pansy was the picture of outraged respectability. 'Do you mind? I was busy at the party and I should get back.'
'You didn't look all that busy to me,' Draco interrupted. He spoke softly, but there was a menace in his tone that made Pansy look up sharply. He began to circle slowly around her and could feel her resisting the urge to turn around and look at him. 'Although I've heard you've been very busy lately.'
Pansy's irritable expression wavered. 'What do you mean by that?'
'I think you know.' Draco was looming over her now. Her curls trembled just above the round collar of her ill-fitting green dress. 'You know, Pansy, the point of social climbing is to make your way up the social ladder. Not slither down it. Although I've heard you're talented in that area, too.'
'In what area?'
He leaned close, so that his whisper stirred her hair. 'Going down,' he said.
It took Pansy a moment to react to Draco's appalling remark. Then she jerked, and whirled around. 'That's disgusting. You're disgusting. I don't know why you'd say a thing like that, but — '
'Don't you?' His voice was suddenly sharp, and she winced as if he had quite literally cut at her. He could see the fear in her dark eyes. 'Well, maybe I can jolt your memory with a little recitation session. You don't mind if I read out loud, do you?' He cleared his throat ostentatiously, and drew a folded parchment from his pocket. 'This is a little something I like to call 'Sonnets from the Tragically Deluded.' I think you'll like it.' He snapped the parchment open with a flick of the wrist and read out loud: Hermione -
I'm writing this in Potions class. I'm sitting here looking at you from across the room, but you can't see me. You're looking straight ahead. I can see your hand moving over your parchment as you take notes. Maybe you're writing to me, as I'm writing to you.
I'm not good at this. This letter writing business. Harry would be better.
Hell, Malfoy would be better at it. But I'm writing you because I have to.
Because it hurts to be this far away from you, especially after — '
'Stop it,' Pansy whispered. 'Stop.'
'But why? It's catchy. You can dance to it.' Draco smiled at her. She didn't seem to notice. ''Don't worry,' he continued, reading from the letter's end, ''I will leave this for you in our usual hiding place. I'm sorry about what I said last night — about us coming clean and telling everyone. You were right. And even if you weren't, it doesn't matter. We're so beyond all the arguing we used to do — when I see the way you look at me, I feel — ''
'Stop it!' Pansy shrieked. 'Stop it, stop it, stop it!' And Draco knew he had hit pay dirt. Her voice was raw and uncontrolled, her eyes rounded into grotesquely huge ovals. 'Give me that — give it to me — '
She wrenched the note out of his grasp and tore it into shreds, which she scattered over the floor with a triumphant air.
Draco laughed. 'There's thirty more where that came from. Weasley seems to have been an astonishingly dedicated correspondent.'
'How — ' She was staring at him. 'How did you — my trunk — it's impossible -
'
'Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones.'
'Does he know? Does Potter know?'
Draco raised an eyebrow. 'Are you more afraid of him than you are of me?' he inquired sweetly. 'You
