whispered.
His voice was muffled. 'For what?'
'Coming back to me,' she said.
Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. He went rigid all over as if his muscles had turned to iron, and pulled back from her.
'Harry. I didn?t mean — '
'You were right.' He got to his feet, keeping his face averted so she could not see his expression. 'We?d better get back to Hogwarts quickly. Its not safe here.'
As she looked up at him in astonishment, he turned around and headed up the unlit stairs towards Charlies room. After a moment, not knowing what else to do, she rose to her feet and followed him up into the darkness.
'You must be cold,' Ginny said nervously. Harry and Hermione had disappeared up the stairs and she was alone with Draco in the living room. She had left for a moment to change out of her soaking wet cloak and dress, and upon returning had discovered him sprawled across the couch as though he belonged there, his head on one of her mothers crocheted white doily pillows. 'Do you want me to make some tea before we go?'
A faint mumble was her only answer. She turned and saw that he was asleep, or seemed to be. His cheek rested on the palm of his hand; the lashes of his shut eyes lay along his cheekbones like a fringe of tasseled black silk. In his face she could see the child he had been, the child who had faced her in the Manor library and told her how poor and repulsive he thought she was. There were hollows in his face now he had not had when he was twelve, of course; he had had a heart-shaped childs face then. Now it was more the shape of an expensive cats: wide across the cheekbones, narrowing out towards the jaw. He turned slightly as she watched him, his exhaled breath stirring his hair. 'Draco,' she said softly.
'Are you asleep?'
He opened his eyes and looked at her through his lashes. 'I was getting there.'
'Oh. Sorry.'
'No, its all right.' He propped himself on his elbow and looked at her. 'I wanted to ask you something anyway.'
'All right. What?'
'Come over here and sit down, will you? You?re making me nervous hovering over there.' She looked at him, surprised, and he smiled. 'And no, that wasn?t what I wanted to ask you.'
'All right,' she said again, and not without misgiving went to sit on the couch. He slid his feet off to make room for her and half-sat up, propping himself against the cushions.
'I wanted to ask you,' he said, 'when you got your Time-Turner back?'
Ginnys heart banged hard against her ribs, and almost without her volition her hand flew up to protectively clutch at the chain around her neck. Dracos eyes widened.
'You really do have it,' he said. 'I was guessing.'
Ginny drew away from him, pressing her back into the couch. 'I will not give it back,' she said fiercely. 'I?m perfectly capable of being responsible with it — '
'I didn?t say you weren?t,' Draco said quietly. He was watching her narrowly, and a hot flush spread over her face as she remembered the book shrieking outside the gates of the Manor: I belong to Malfoy Manor!
She seemed doomed to look like a fool in front of him, she thought with a small corrupting bitterness that made her even more sure that she had made the right decision. She would not tell any of them what she planned until her plan was successful and it was too late for them to try to stop her. Watch them try to tell her then that she was irresponsible, too young, not brave enough, not part of the group.
'Look,' he said, a bit more gently now, 'Whatever you?re thinking, you didn?t do anything to give yourself away. But I know the Manor. I know theres no way whatsoever of resisting that kind of Whirlwind Charm. If you?re in the Manor and you?re trespassing, you?re gone. Unless, of course, you?re in the Manor….but in another time. Time tricks being your specialty.'
'If you know,' she said with a sinking heart, 'then Dumbledore will know, and your mother, too…'
'My mums off somewhere safe, apparently. As for Dumbledore, thats trickier. I?ll have to think up a good lie that he won?t see through.'
Ginnys hand tightened around the hourglass at her throat. 'You?d lie for me about this?'
He sat up straighter and looked at her intently. 'That depends. Does Finnigan know you stole that hourglass?'
'No,' she said, surprised at the question. 'I?d never — I mean, he wouldn?t want to know. Seamus wouldn?t approve of lying and stealing things.
Hes one of the most moral and good people I know.'
'Oh, hes a treasure, all right,' said Draco with heavy irony. 'I?m sure they?d build a monument to his wonderfulness, if they could find a grade of marble boring enough.'
'Hmph,' said Ginny, unable to think of a retort to this.
'So he doesn?t know anything about any of this?'
Ginny shook her head. 'I haven?t told anyone,' she said softly. 'Honestly, Draco…the Time-Turner…I would never do anything dangerous. I was just playing…'
'I know what you were doing.' A faintly superior look stole into his eyes.
'You went back to get that book.'
'The…book?' Ginny nearly fainted with horror. Not the diary, he couldn?t have guessed that, he couldn?t possibly…
'The Liber-Damnatis,' he said.
Ginny was speechless.
'Trust you to nick one of the most valuable books out of my fathers collection,' he said, sounding very amused. 'He complained for years that it was missing, but since the charms never went off, he just assumed the house-elves had misplaced it somewhere. 'Picked it up to use as a weapon? — ' he snorted. 'You?re not a very good liar.'
Thats what you think, Draco Malfoy, Ginny thought grimly. 'I bet you can?t guess why I wanted it,' she said, hoping against hope that he would enlighten her.
He obliged, looking amusingly exasperated. 'Hermione was only going on and on about it being one of the best resources for information about the Four Worthy Objects that ever existed for weeks,' he said. 'She kept complaining that she couldn?t find any existing copies in any libraries anywhere: I told her we?d had one once but it had gone missing when I was twelve and anyway, the Aurors would have confiscated it last summer if it?d turned up. She made me check the manifests…' He made a face at her. 'You must think I don?t pay any attention at all.'
Ginnys mind was whirling. Nothing seemed to quite be making sense: how, out of all the books in the library, had she managed to pick up the one book that Hermione had apparently been wanting — the one book that might tell them about the Worthy Objects? There were coincidences, she thought. And then there were Coincidences. This was obviously one of the latter. 'So thats how you guessed,' she said, only half aware she was speaking out loud. 'The book…'
'Partly.' Dracos voice was unusually gentle, although it might have been exhaustion. 'I think I knew when I saw you in this…' He reached out his left hand, wincing as the bandage rode up on his wrist, and gently touched the edge of her ruined yellow cloak. 'I remembered the girl in the library that day. I mentioned her to my father later and he told me I must have been daydreaming. But I knew even before he told me that that she had been lying about why she was there. He never would have hired a girl like that to be my governess.'
'Oh, I know, you told me,' Ginny said sourly. 'Too many freckles.'
'No,' he said. 'Too pretty.'
His fingertips were still touching her cloak, lightly; she gingerly took hold of his wrist and bent to brush her cheek against the back of his hand.
'I?m so sorry,' she said. 'I?m so sorry you?re ill.'
