A knock on the door brought her out of her reverie, and she hopped off the sill, catching a brief glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging next to her bed. Her hair had grown since the winter — she hadn't had it cut at all
— and now hung to her waist, curling red tendrils escaping from unruly plaits. 'Yes?'
'You decent?' A head popped around the door; it was her roommate, Elizabeth. 'Someone's waiting to see you down at the portrait hole.'
'Oh? Who?'
Elizabeth grinned. 'A certain Slytherin,' she said.
'Must you grin like that?' Ginny pulled on a cardigan and buttoned it up.
She'd gained back some of the weight she'd lost over the winter, she was pleased to note, and the cardigan strained a bit across the chest. 'All right, I'm coming.'
The windows of the common room were thrown open, and breezy May air spilled in, carrying with it the smells of new grass, upturned earth, and budding flowers. Neville Longbottom sat ensconced in one of the plush armchairs, engaged in a game of Floating Scrabble with his toad, Trevor the Second.
He waved as Ginny crossed the room and ducked out through the portrait, ignoring the Fat Lady's desultory mutterings about the shortness of her skirt and the tightness of her sweater. 'Oh, hello,' she said, straightening up as the portrait shut behind her with a bang. 'I rather hoped it would be you.'
'Of course you did,' said Blaise. Ginny wondered if the Fat Lady had had a go at her — her pleated skirt was shorter than Snape's temper, and the V of her sweater showed the lace edgings on her bra cups. She'd cut off most of her hair at some point in April, and the soft waves of it cupped her chin and curled at her temples in fiery strands. 'Look, do you want to walk down to the lake with me? I need to talk.'
'Not the lake,' Ginny said quickly.
Blaise raised an eyebrow. 'The rose garden then?'
'No! Not that either.' Seeing Blaise's surprised expression, Ginny cast about for an alternative. 'The Quidditch pitch? I doubt anyone will be there now.'
Blaise shrugged gracefully. 'Wherever you like.'
'I thought you said nobody was likely to be here now,' Draco complained, rolling over in the grass and propping his chin on his hands. He squinted.
'That looks like somebody to me.'
'Ignore them.' Harry, sitting cross-legged in the grass, was doing his best to follow his own advice where Draco was concerned, but it was difficult.
Draco was not someone you could tell to shut up and be quiet because you were trying to think; Draco was someone who felt that his brilliant discourse could only serve to enhance your thinking process, no matter how badly you needed to concentrate on something else. 'And shut up.'
'You know,' Draco said, 'I don't really see why you brought me out here, if all you wanted me to do was sit here and look pretty. Not,' he added, 'that that isn't one of my particular talents, of course.'
'It's not a talent, it's an annoying habit, and I brought you out here for silent moral support. How do you spell everlasting? One word or two?'
'One, and that doesn't sound very promising. Tell me you aren't going to natter on about everlasting love, I couldn't take it.'
Harry threw his quill down. 'It's a wedding. Aren't I supposed to natter on about everlasting love? What do you expect me to talk about in my toast, then?' He squinted. 'Also, isn't that Ginny?'
'What? Why bring her up? She's not in your speech, is she?'
'No,' said Harry, in a tone that indicated he felt Draco was being exceptionally slow today. 'She's over there, by the stands.'
Draco, taking on a hunted look, burrowed deeper into the grass. 'What do you think she's doing here?'
'I expect she came here to kill you,' Harry said, retrieving his quill.
Draco glared at him. 'You have no sympathy, Potter. No compassion.
That's your trouble.'
'You know,' Harry pointed out reasonably, 'if you ever actually told me anything about what's gone on between you and Ginny this past year, maybe I would be sympathetic.'
'As it is, lacking information, you fall back on mockery and slander.'
'Yes,' said Harry. 'That's about the size of it.'
Draco sat up, shaking grass out of his hair, and looked across the pitch at Ginny, a small bright-haired figure in the distance. Harry looked at him sidelong — sometimes, like a photograph in double exposure, he seemed to see another Draco, half-transparent, looking back at him — a Draco whose face had gone to bones and shadow, pale as etiolated lace, with lavender shadows under his eyes. A Draco so thin he looked like a gust of wind would blow him over, who seemed to stay upright only through sheer force of will.
And then he blinked, and like a ghost, that Draco vanished, and he was looking at a slim blond boy whose skin showed the first gold shadings of an early summer tan, whose eyes were clear and gray and unshadowed, who gave off a bright aura of health and strength and vitality that made Harry wonder if there hadn't been something perhaps a little extra in that antidote — something that hadn't just healed Draco but had brought him back stronger than ever?
'I think she's ignoring me,' Draco observed, and bit down thoughtfully on a blade of grass.
'I think she hasn't noticed us at all yet,' said Harry. 'Who's that she's with?'
'Blaise,' said Draco, gloomily.
'Oh, right. I keep forgetting she cut off all her hair. I rather liked it better before,' Harry said, thoughtfully.
'Potter, you're practically a married man, you're not supposed to be noticing random girls' hair.'
Harry rolled his eyes upward. 'Malfoy…'
'I bet they're talking about me,' Draco observed, sounding about as cheerful as a French aristocrat on the way to the guillotine.
'You know, Malfoy,' said Harry, with some asperity, 'not everyone, everywhere, is always talking about you.'
'This is about Draco, isn't it?' Ginny said, turning to Blaise with her arms folded. The wind blowing across the Quidditch pitch was chilly; she hugged her arms around herself and shivered.
'Yes. Well.' Blaise hesitated. 'Oh, all right. It is. How did you know?'
'You had that look on your face,' said Ginny with a grim certainty. 'That only-Draco-Malfoy-could-annoy-me- this-much look.'
'I'll take your word for it.' Nervously, Blaise reached for a strand of hair to twist, didn't find one, seemed to remember she'd cut off her long locks, and dropped her hand. 'All right, here it is. Draco's asked me if I'll go with him to the wedding on Saturday.'
Ginny blinked; the wind suddenly felt very chill. 'I — as his date?'
Blaise paused to think before she replied. 'It wasn't stated explicitly either way,' she said, finally. 'But my guess is that he'd like a companion and there isn't anyone else he wants to ask, so I'll do. We get along still. I'd venture to say we understand one another.'
Ginny shoved her hands into her pockets. 'I suppose it isn't my business either way,' she said. 'I'm going with Seamus, of course.'
'Of course.' Blaise moved past this without addressing it. Nobody ever really did address the issue of her and Seamus, Ginny thought, rather as if they hoped that if they ignored it, it would go away. 'But I didn't want to do anything that might upset you.'
