an action which caused his satin breeches to tighten across his narrow hips and flat, muscular abdomen.
'I'd enjoy it, too. I am evil after all, and take great pleasure in acts of dastardly, if pointless, sadism.'
Rhiannon averted her eyes. 'What is it you want from me, Morgan?'
'That should be obvious,' he purred. 'You, my sweet.' He began to move towards her, his lean graceful form like a panther's. Rhiannon trembled -
truly he was Evil, but since the moment she met him he had stirred her passions as no other man had, before or since -
'Goodness, this book is trash,' Blaise said, tossing Trousers Ablaze onto the nightstand and settling back against the pillows heaped against Ginny's headboard. 'Did Draco really give it to you?'
'Mm. For Christmas,' Ginny said, leaning her head back against the wall.
Her head was spinning rather — she'd never gotten drunk for absolutely no reason before, but it felt good. They drunk the remains of bottle of Firewhiskey and half a bottle of spiced Mermish wine, and Ginny felt pleasantly lightheaded.
'More wine?' asked Blaise, holding the bottle in one hand and a slim-stemmed glass, very delicately, in the other. Her long hair had come out of its velvet ribbon and it slipped in thick heavy locks over her shoulders.
'Just give me the bottle,' Ginny said, and Blaise handed it to her with a chuckling laugh.
'The whole bottle?' she said. 'You Gryffindors never do anything halfway.'
Ginny made a face. 'You sound just like Draco, the way you say 'You Gryffindors',' she said. 'Like you were saying, 'You sacks of Bubotuber pus.''
Blaise flopped back among the cushions — well, flop wasn't really the word, like Draco, she was far too graceful to flop. She leaned, and bent a discerning gaze on Ginny. 'So that book was pretty racy,' Blaise observed.
'I'm surprised Draco would give a girl a book like that — how far did you get with him, anyway?'
Ginny choked on her wine. 'How far did I what with who?'
Blaise frowned. 'Must I spell it out?'
'Yes,' Ginny said, ungraciously.
Blaise spelled it out. Ginny felt herself blush. 'Oh,' she said, weakly. 'No, we never, I mean, I never — '
'With Draco or with anyone?'
'With anyone,' Ginny said.
Blaise smiled. Her green eyes sparkled. 'Innocent,' she said. 'Aren't you?'
Ginny blinked. Innocence conjured up in her mind images of ribbons and sunny days and hide-and-seek and Seamus smiling down at her with steady blue eyes. She remembered Tom kissing her with her own blood on his mouth and looked away from Blaise.
'I suppose I am,' she said. 'And what about you, have you — ?'
Blaise shrugged. 'Yes, but never with Draco,' she said. 'Although not for a lack of trying.'
'Er,' said Ginny, tactfully.
'I always wondered how he'd be,' Blaise said thoughtfully. She looked up at Ginny, and grinned. 'Haven't you?'
'Oh, he strikes me as the sort of boy who sends candy and flowers afterwards to show his appreciation. Only he sends them to himself.'
Blaise laughed. 'If it went really well, he'd probably buy himself diamond earrings.'
'Then he'd get his feelings hurt because his ears aren't actually pierced.'
'And he'd break up with himself.'
Ginny was giggling so hard she choked on the wine. 'Of course then there's always make-up sex with himself.'
Blaise smirked, running a delicately manicured finger along the rim of her glass. 'Of course, that doesn't change the fact that he would probably be a lot of fun,' she said. 'You can tell a great deal about the way a boy will be in bed from the way he plays Quidditch, you know.'
Ginny thought of Draco playing Quidditch. She had certainly played opposite him for enough years to have observed him fairly closely. Where Harry was grace in flight, Draco was controlled stillness exploding into perfectly disciplined action. 'Oh,' she said, a little weakly, 'I see what you mean.'
'All that passion and control,' Blaise said, showing her small white teeth in a curled smile. 'He's always so precise and so careful. I used to wonder what it would take to make him lose that control…'
Ginny licked her dry lips. 'What do you think it would take?'
'Love,' Blaise said. 'Odd, isn't it. He's a cynic, not a romantic. But there you go. I think he'd have to be in love. If he even could be.' She looked up at Ginny. 'Did he ever tell you he loved you?'
Ginny shook her head, but before she could say anything there was a knock on her door. Blaise drew her wand and Banished the wine bottle to the rubbish bin, then sat up, smoothing her hair, while Ginny went to the door.
It was Professor Lupin, looking very tired. 'Charlie said you'd wanted to talk to me,' he said. 'Is it important, or can it wait?'
He sounded brusque, Ginny thought, but in a way she appreciated it; neither Lupin nor Sirius ever talked down to her, as if they thought she was a little girl. 'I'm afraid not,' Ginny said. 'It's not me that needs to talk to you. It's Blaise.'
She stood back from the door so that Lupin could see into the room.
Blaise, sitting on the bed with her legs over the side, met his gaze with a cold look. Ginny thought for a moment that Blaise was going to snap and back out of their arrangement, so she stood up quickly and laid her hand on the other girl's shoulder.
'It's about Draco,' she said.
Blaise gave her a wry look. Ginny ignored it.
'All right,' Lupin said, looking surprised, 'If you want to talk to us, Sirius and I will be downstairs in the living room, going through some paperwork.'
'We'll be right down,' Blaise said smoothly, cutting off Ginny, who had been about to say that they would come downstairs with him.
As soon as the door shut behind Lupin, Ginny rounded on Blaise. 'You're not thinking of backing out, are you?'
Blaise looked amused. 'What would you do if I was? Duel me?'
'Certainly not, Draco would be far too pleased if he ever found out. I don't want to fight with you, Blaise, it's just — why did you send Professor Lupin away?'
'So we could do Sobrietus charms, silly,' said Blaise, drawing her wand.
'You really aren't very devious, are you?'
'Well, I am a Gryffindor.'
'And so we have nothing in common,' Blaise twirled the wand gently.
'Other than the red hair, of course.'
'And that neither of us has ever gotten lucky with Draco Malfoy,' Ginny added.
Blaise burst out laughing. 'Well, we have that in common with the rest of the world,' she said.
Ginny's eyes flew open. 'We do?'
Blaise was still laughing. 'Yes,' she giggled, 'didn't you know?' and this time, when Ginny started laughing too, Blaise reached out a hand to help steady her on her feet, and Ginny let her.
They climbed the back stairs to a wing of the Ministry Hermione had never seen before. She was accustomed to the slightly used look of the Ministry's lower floors, but here, where Draco had taken her,
