“You used to say all you had to do was give yourself a stupid pen name like Rosamunde Moonlight and churn out some mindless pap and all the witches would go mad for it because after all, you’re a man and you know what women want.”
“I did NOT say that.”
“You did actually. Ah, sweet confidence of youth.”
“Optimism, I would say. I suppose I actually thought by this time of life I would know what women wanted.” Lupin propped an elbow on his knee and rested his chin thoughtfully on his hand. “Even the writing part turned out harder than I thought. It seems even mindless drivel requires some work.”
“Oh, it’s not all drivel, Moony. I found some parts of it surprisingly good — the part where Tristan thinks he’s going to die so he declares his undying love to whatserface, that was quite moving, I thought.”
“Yes,” said Remus drily, “I’m sure the love of Tristan and whatserface is one for the history books.”
“Anyway,” said Sirius, with a grin, “I thought it was quite well done.”
“It’ll buy me a little cottage, any road,” said Remus, “somewhere nice and quiet. I don’t need much — a teapot, a place for my books, and a good quantity of dog biscuits for when you come visiting.”
“And a desk to write at.”
Remus was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully down at his hands, scarred by so many transformations. “I had thought I might write a real book,” he said. “A story about four friends and how differently their lives turned out than they thought they would when they were children.”
“A real book,” echoed Sirius, and then, “Don’t you think it’ll hurt, writing about all that? Aren’t you afraid you’ll remember it all?”
“I am much less afraid to remember,” said Remus, very quietly, “than I am to forget.”
Ginny opened her eyes slowly and blinked up at the ceiling in confusion, for a moment forgetting entirely where she was. She could have sworn that the ceiling of the guest room had a pattern of fleur-de-lis on it, where this ceiling seemed to be embossed with a design of curling snakes…
Memory hit her with a jolt, and she sat bolt upright. She was in Draco Malfoy’s bedroom, and that was his ceiling. It wasn’t the first time she’d looked at it, either. She put her hand over her mouth and glanced down; Draco was sleeping peacefully in the bed beside her, sheets tangled around his waist. The moonlight outlined him in patterns of shadow and frost, silvering the already-bright hair and etching the lines of muscle along his back. For a moment, she sat quietly, enjoying the view. Then she slipped out of the bed and went to retrieve her gown and wand. She dressed quietly, so as not to wake Draco, and wound her hair into a neat, if unglamorous, bun at the back of her neck. Her butterfly clips were gone — probably under Draco’s bed or lost in the sheets, but looking for them would only wake him up, and besides, it wasn’t as if she planned to see anyone. Or be seen.
She made her way down the steps barefoot, pausing only to retrieve something from her bedroom. It took her several tries but she eventually found the door that led to the rose garden outside.
The air was perfect: cool without being cold, and scented like roses and lavender. Since Christmas she had hated roses, the color and smell of them, but now she found it no longer bothered her. Some of the white petals from the previous day’s ceremony still ghosted by on the wind, tickling her cheeks and catching in her hair.
She made her way down one of the paved paths until she stood a distance from the castle. Then she drew out the flask of love potion Hermione had given her and looked at it meditatively for a moment. She pulled the stopper free. The smell that rose from the flask was like the smell of rotted flowers, the corruption of something transient and sweet. She ran her finger slowly around the flask — it was slightly warm from the liquid inside it, and from being held in her hand — and then, with a set face, she upended it, spilling the love potion onto the leaves and flowers of a nearby rose bush. The liquid ran down the bush in threads of silver and sank into the earth.
“What are you doing?” said a masculine voice, just behind her.
Ginny whirled in surprise, half-expecting it to be Draco — perhaps she’d woken him after all — but the eyes that looked back at her were blue, not gray, and the hair was gold and not silver. He was dressed in jeans and a light sweater, and the freckles on his face were visible even in the dark.
“Seamus?” she whispered. She could feel the hand that held the flask trembling. “What — I mean, I thought you had gone.”
“I told you I was going to come back.”
His voice was even, almost toneless. She felt her hand tighten on the flask — it was solid silver, very heavy, a formidable weapon — before she caught herself. This is Seamus, not Tom. Seamus would never hurt you.
“I didn’t know you meant you’d come back in the middle of the night and skulk around the Manor grounds,” she said.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I came by broomstick, actually. I was about to knock on the door when I saw you sneaking down the path into the garden. I couldn’t help wondering what you were up to.”
Ginny glanced down at the flask, and then back up at Seamus. “Watering the rose bushes?” she ventured.
“Watering them with love potion,” said Seamus. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
She gaped at him. “How —“
“Hermione told me about your plan.”
I knew she was lying. Silently, Ginny called Hermione any number of profane names. Out loud, she said, “Is that why you left?”
“Not precisely. That was part of it, I suppose,” he said, reflectively. “I can’t say I was pleased that you felt you needed to drug yourself to care about me.”
“Seamus,” she said, wretchedly. “I do care about you. I honestly do. That’s why I wanted to — you know — use the love potion. Just to give myself a little push.”
