Everyone blinked at her. “Done for now?” Ron echoed, forgetting to be furious.
“With the research part, yes,” said Hermione firmly. “I just need something to Transfigure, like I said last night. Harry?”
Harry shrugged slightly. “You said you didn't need it until this afternoon.”
“Yes,” said Hermione, her voice tense. “And it's three o'clock.”
“Fine,” Harry said shortly. “I'll go get it. Ron, can you come with me?”
”With pleasure,” said Ron, shooting a nasty look at Draco, and getting to his feet. He picked his scarf up off the back of his chair, and stomped after Harry — had Ginny been a less generous sister, she would have said he was flouncing.
Apparently Draco had a similar thought. “Drama queen,” he remarked coolly as the library door shut behind Harry and Ron.
“Don't start,” said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated. She reached out over the table and began shoving parchments and maps into her ever-straining bookbag. “Really, Draco, if you two won't try to get along, can't you just go out in the woods and poke each other with sharp sticks until you figure out who the dominant male is?”
Draco chewed thoughtfully on the end of his quill. “But that would be so much less fun.”
“Fun? This is your idea of fun?” Hermione began winding her hair back into a tight bun, and ruthlessly jammed a hairpin into it to hold it in place. “Why do you have to keep poking at Ron? Be a man. Just ignore him.”
“I don't want to be a man,” Draco said, tilting his head back and lazily slitting his eyes like a cat in the sun. “I want to be a depressed, angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons, so takes it out verbally on other people.”
Hermione sighed. “It's too bad you weren't born a girl,” she said.
“Otherwise all you'd have to worry about is whether you were the prettiest one in school.”
“Hey,” Draco said. “I am the prettiest one in school.”
Hermione flopped back down into the chair next to Draco and disconsolately surveyed the papers that still littered the table. “This is just too stressful,” she said in a weary voice. Ginny resisted the urge to reassure her; she had the feeling that both Draco and Hermione had forgotten that she was there several minutes ago. “I can't do this all by myself, and Harry won't help, and you and Ron keep fighting, and I've been up for three days straight. And my hair is starting to frizz up again, did you know that?”
“Some days it's all I can think about,” said Draco gravely.
“Oh shut up,” said Hermione, but she smiled.
“I'll make you a deal,” Draco said. “I'll go through the rest of the anti-alarm-spell book if you tell me what that business about knocking out Crabbe and Goyle second year was.”
Hermione's smile deepened. “Deal,” she said, sounding relieved.
Ginny cleared her throat loudly and stood up. As she had expected, they looked at her with identical pairs of startled eyes: one pair dark brown, the other silver. “I have to go,” she said.
Hermione's smile vanished. “Ginny —” she said. “Oh, I–I mean, thank you for helping out —”
“No problem,” said Ginny stiffly, picked up her bookbag, and walked out of the library. Only when the door had shut behind her did she allow her shoulders to slump. Was she doomed to be invisible forever? Was it some kind of Weasley Curse? Then again, Bill and Charlie had always been anything but invisible, nor were the twins, or even Percy in his own annoying way. Perhaps it was simply the two youngest Weasleys who were doomed to feel always overlooked.
With a sigh, she set off down the corridor. She clattered down the stairs that led to the second floor, turned several corners, and found herself at what looked like the dead end of a hallway. It wasn't, as Seamus had shown her the week before. If one walked all the way to the end and then turned sharply to the left, a small open stone archway was revealed.
She ducked through it. Beyond it was a small oval room, the walls and floor of which were honey-colored blocks of stone. There was no furniture. The west wall was a leaded glass bay window, fronted by a ledge just wide enough to be a window seat. Curled up on the seat, legs folded under him, head bent over the book in his lap, was Seamus. His hands were pulled inside the sleeves of his dark red pullover, and the cold winter sunlight filtering through the window turned his dark blonde hair to a fringe of golden grass. “Hey, Ginny,” he said, without looking up.
She laughed. “How'd you know it was me?”
“Know your footsteps,” he said. He put the book down and smiled at her.
“Come over here.”
She came and sat down next to him on the ledge, feeling slightly nervous.
In the week since she had kissed Seamus on the Quidditch pitch, he had not tried to kiss her again, or indicated that he was awaiting a repeat performance. Instead he was simply quietly present much of the time, walking with her when they had classes near each other, bringing her hot tea in the common room. She had begun to expect to see him when she came out of class: she wondered how she had never really noticed he was around before. There was something oddly appealing about Seamus, something about his generous nature and uncomplicated smiles. They held hands now when they walked in the hallways. It felt easy, natural.
She tried not to think too much about what she was doing. She didn't want to analyze it.
“Are you going on the Stonehenge visit?” he asked.
“Mmm.” She nodded, playing with the cover of the book he'd been reading, Dream Country. Seamus was obsessed with comic books, both Muggle and normal ones. “Are you?”
”Yeah, I thought I would. I'm not in History of Magic but Binns said it would be fine. There's an exhibit on archaic Quidditch that I've been wanting to see.” Seamus put his hand over her hand where it lay on the book cover, and cleared his throat. “I was wondering…” He looked as nervous as he ever looked, which meant his blue eyes darkened to a slate sort of color and his mouth tightened. “About Christmas holidays. I'm going to be at the
