They were inside Public Owls & Post and an official was studying Anton's passport photograph. It wasn't a recent picture and the official looked suspicious. Anton was used to it.

'It is me. It's an old picture.' he sighed at Thanial. 'Every time - 'is it you? Doesn't look like you.'

Anton signed for his allowance. He had a smart document case with his initials prominently embossed. Thanial watched him sign and collect a large wad of notes that would allow him to collect from the bank.

A clerk pulled forth some white envelopes. 'Letters - Lestrange, and for Botts.'

Thanial collected and studied the mail; he had owled a letter to himself from Charlotte, his pretend fiancée - just to keep up appearances. As they walked outside he held up one letter to Anton.

'Charlotte,' he said with anticipation, 'I miss you, when are you coming home? Stop telling me what a great time you're having, how you love Anton... and Ginny and...' he turned to the other letter, 'And this one, I think, is your dad...'

They had decided to use the pay-day to explore the wizarding-parts of Edinburgh. The Three Boomsticks had just installed a working floo, so they'd chosen to save some time using that. Thanial read the letter from Rabastan Lestrange as they walked down. He frowned and stopped reading.

'What does he say?'

Thanial pocketed the letter. 'He's getting impatient. He wants me to reassure him you'll be home by Thanksgiving.'

'You've got to get a new overcloak. Really. You must be sick of the same clothes. I'm sick of seeing you in them.'

'I can't. I can't keep spending your father's money.'

Anton's lip curled. 'I love how responsible you are. My Dad should make you Chief Accountant or something. Let me buy you a cloak. There's a great place when we get to Burghtrix Terrace, the Animorph.'

Thanial loved the idea and mouthed the word, 'Animorph.'

Anton began chanting. 'Going to Burghtrix. Taking Thanial to Burghtrix!'

Thanial had walked the streets of Diagonally his whole life, he knew them just the same as if they were etched in his head with a sharp knife, scored in deep like some strange work of art. Those were the streets he grew up on and for the most part he had been calm there, at home, on the down low with a steady heartbeat. Not now though. Though Burghtrix Terrace had the same spellbinding air of mystique his heart wanted out of his chest. It wanted to beat free of its cage. It pounded like it was going to crack a rib. His senses were on high alert. Every color was brighter, every noise louder, every stranger a cause to make his heart beat more fiercely still. It had been like that since he had seen some Aurors, marking out their turf like a wolf pack. He hadn't done anything wrong but they meant to dominate everyone regardless. He had felt the same anxiousness for the first few days going to and back from Hogwarts(seeing them patrol the grounds and watch guard); the Aurors just had that effect on him regardless the situation.

Anton and Thanial sat outside at a cafe on the main street. It was a very smart place, very sophisticated, and with a very young crowd. There were already several empty coffee cups and a half-empty bottle of wine on their table.

'So many Aurors these days,' Thanial declared as if hadn't a care either way.

'Yeah.' Anton said leaning back. 'Dumbledore's position carries a lot of power. He and the Chancellor can work miracles together - though, in my opinion, the need for all this Auror-nonsense comes back to their stupid rulings.'

'Yeah?'

Anton grunted. 'Well, for one -' he sat up, 'exiling half of the Death Eaters instead of giving life-sentences didn't do them much good. The blood of those Russian half-bloods is on their hands - being too forgiving during the trails. Just so typical of old Albus and the Chancellor - well all of the Potters actually.'

'What about your uncle and his wife?'

'Rodolphus and Bellatrix? After following the Dark Lord, murdering, torturing... They should have gotten the kiss for what they did. Disgusting!' Anton closed his eyes and leaned back again. 'No, the war in the east is on Dumbledore's hands no matter what the public says. They were too naive, too forgiving.'

'I agree. When you put it like that.' Thanial had been reading a pamphlet and felt incredibly impatient - he wanted to explore the district - Anton, meanwhile, had stretched out for the duration.

Anton had explained that Burghtrix Terrace was about thrice the size of Diagonally; lanes had been put for vehicles which Thanial had thought was very progressive. 'Where do we rent a vechicle for the ruins, or can we hire any of them - ?'

'Relax.'

'It's just there's so much to do in a single day.'

'Relax. The most important question is where to eat. I hope Cedric made a reservation.'

'Cedric?'

'Cedric Diggory. You've met him at school, you know - he's organizing the Championship camp.'

Thanial hated the idea of having that special day invaded and automatically gritted his teeth. Just when he was about to say something, a horn made him look up as Cedric Diggory illegally parked his open-top sports car opposite the cafe. Cedric saw Anton and bustled over.

Thanial found him disgusting to look at, but Anton was delighted. 'Cedric!'

Cedric had an annoying nonchalant flair about him 'Hello handsome!' he said before noticing a beautiful woman walking by. 'Don't you want to fuck every woman you see. Just once.'

Anton and Cedric kissed cheeks, continental-style.

'You've already met,' Anton said, 'This is Thanial Botts. Cedric Diggory.'

Cedric's smile was repugnant. 'Hey, if I'm late, think what her husband's saying!' He snickered and filled Anton's glass with wine, drinking it in one go standing up. 'So let's go. I got us a table inside at the Sweet Oyster.' And Anton was up, leaving Thanial to pick up all the tiny checks to work out the bill and pay it.

Anton chuckled. 'I'll tell you - I am so finished with Hogsmeade.' Cedric and Anton linked arms and crossed the street to Cedric's car.

'I know.' Cedric said, 'I've been there. Aberdeen is the place to be.' He looked back to meet Thanial's eyes - he was still struggling to settle the check. 'Barthanial! It's a two-seater. Standing Room Only. Chop, chop, Barthanial!'

Thanial felt abandoned and angry but walked over nonetheless. There was no room in the car and he had to crouch in the rear.

Cedric breathed. 'You're going to have to sit between us. But don't put your shoes on the seat, know what I mean, put them one on top of the other. Okay?'

The ride to the restaurant was short but uncomfortable, and the dinner would have been delicious if it hadn't been for Cedric's face and conversation only involving the latest in Quidditch. The food was objectively good, but Thanial had subjectively lost his appetite and had only nibbled his garlic-buttered chicken-breast.

Anton and Cedric decided to visit a Quidditch-shop without asking Thanial - Thanial wouldn't like to kill the mood so he tagged along. The store was hidden away down a cobbled alley, and stuffed with the trendiest young wizards, all of whom rifled the brooms under a fog of cigarette smoke. There were two testing booths, one of which had Cedric and Anton crammed into it, trying a firebolt. Thanial stood outside the booth, holding both of their jackets like a manservant, while inside and behind the glass doors they chatted animatedly. Thanial's anger had faded to a sadness of sorts and he looked longingly at the street, where the light was fading. Anton met his eyes, apparently catching his hangdog expression and pushed open the accordion doors.

'Look, Thanial, we've got to go to a club and meet some friends of Cedric's. The best thing is - if you want to be a tourist - go explore and we can meet up at the floo.'

Thanial tried to keep his appearance, but he felt absolutely crestfallen. 'What club?'

'Cedric's arranged it with some of the championship-crowd. Come if you want but I thought you wanted to see the ruins...?'

'I did. And then maybe get the cloak and what have you...'

Cedric got off the firebolt inside the booth. 'Anton - you've got to try this!'

Anton was clearly oblivious to Thanial. 'Listen, just take one of mine when we get back. Don't worry about it. I did the ruins with Ginny and, frankly, once is enough in anyone's life.'

Thanial handed him the coats and turned away.

'See you later,' he heard Anton say, 'Have fun.'

Thanial headed for the door, but then came back and rapped on the booth. Anton pushed it open.

'You said to make sure you didn't miss the floo. It closes at ten.'

Anton nodded and closed the door. Thanial, being the novice flyer, was ignored and he left them.

He could drown in the air, suffocate in the magically charmed humidity that rose above the street. People moved past, trapped in their own heads as he was in his. Children laughed, tantrum, cried or whined. He saw their parents react: placatingly, frustratedly, sometimes warmly. He could be on Mars or else invisible, but he was neither. He was right there, old boots on the old uneven cobblestones. He hiked up a lot of steps. Then he looked down from the plateau at the ruins below. Then he walked by the oversized fragments of a temple. This was the real him, the lover of beauty, inspired by art, by antiquity. He was awed. He was cold. He so much wished he weren't alone.

The sun had soon left the sky. It was past ten and Thanial stood, one foot on the step of the floo, waiting forlornly for Anton, then giving up as he was asked to hurry by an operator. He stepped into the hearth and made his way home.

Ginny wasn't in the house and Thanial felt strange - like he wanted something, yet didn't know what it might be; a yearning for something. He opened Anton's liquor-cabinet and took three bottles from the back - the good, strong stuff. He got upstairs to Anton's room, tried not to think at all, and opened the first bottle. Two months ago he hadn't been a drinker, but now he could take it and he wanted it. He took a big slurp of one bottle whilst he adjusted his hair in the mirror, catching one of Anton's expressions. Every time a thought crossed his mind he drank. He drank. He stared at himself with raised eyebrows. He drank. Continued to stare into the green voids as he moved closer to the mirror. He drank.

'What are you doing?'

Thanial turned, horrified, to see Anton standing in the doorway.

'Oh - just amusing myself. Sorry, Anton.' His head was spinning and he found it hard to utter anything. 'I didn't think you were coming back.'

Anton walked slowly over. 'I wish you'd get out of my room.'

Thanial started to collect the bottles, his fingers clumsy with mortification and shock.

Anton shook his head. 'My whiskey too?'

Thanial felt lame and ashamed. 'I just... Sorry.'

'Put them back, would you?'

'I thought you'd missed the floo.'

'Cedric flew me back in his car.'

Thanial quaked. 'Is Cedric here?'

'He's downstairs.'

Thanial tried to pull off a smile. 'I was just fooling around. Don't say anything. Please?' Anton sat down on the bed and he didn't look amused. 'I'm sorry.'

Anton let him leave. Thanial was feeling dizzy, but he still managed to return the wiskey and get back to his room without running into Cedric. He fell promptly asleep when he got to his bed.

The next morning Thanial came down, apprehensive, to find Ginny and Anton and Cedric having a jolly breakfast in the living-room. Anton looked perfectly happy.

Ginny saw him and smiled. 'Thanial. Come join us.'

Cedric made slow laugh as Thanial sat down at the table. 'I want this job of yours, Barthanial. I was just saying - You live in Scotland, sleep in Anton's house, drink Anton's wine, wear his clothes, and his father picks up the tab.' He chuckled, still with that nonchalant flair. 'If you get bored, let me know, I'll do it!'

Thanial was mortified and frozen in his seat. He put on a face of contentment but felt traumatized. He couldn't believe it had happened, and in front of everybody too. He sat soaking in the cruel laughter, his head beginning to spin. Anton had told Cedric everything - he had betrayed him. They would be reminding him of this at the school for sure. There was nothing for it, I'd have to laugh it off. Earlier in his life, he might have cast off his identity and start off somewhere new, but he was finally on a better track and that would be so unbelievably stupid - the feeling was still as awful though.

He was polite all throughout the breakfast, shrugging of the crude comments Cedric made in a refined manner. When the tall oaf finally left, he found himself in the need for some fresh air, and a drink perhaps. He left Anton to work on a new broom and walked out alone.

Thanial walked briskly across the balcony and into Anton's studio. 'Want to go to Ireland in a coffin?' he asked.

'What?' Anton looked up from his worktable.

'I've been talking to a Scottish in Hog's Head. We'd start out from Edinburgh, ride in coffins in the baggage car escorted by some Irishmen, and we'd get eight galleons apiece. I have the idea it concerns Euphoria Elixirs.'

'Smuggling elixirs in the coffins? Isn't that an old stunt?'

'He talked in Gaelic, so I didn't understand everything, but he said there'd be three coffins, and maybe the third has a real corpse in it and they've put the bottles into the corpse. Anyway, we'd get the trip plus the experience.' He emptied his pockets of the packs of ScruffyCats that he had just bought from a street peddler for Anton. 'What do you say?'

'I think it's a marvelous idea. To Ireland in a coffin!'

There was a funny smile on Anton's face, as if Anton were pulling his leg by pretending to fall in with it, when he hadn't the least intention of falling in with it. 'I'm serious,' Thanial said. 'He really is on the lookout for a couple of willing young men. The coffins are supposed to contain the bodies of Irish casualties from Estonia - from the war. The Irish escort is supposed to be the relative of one of them, or maybe all of them.' It wasn't exactly what the man had said to him, but it was near enough. And eight galleons was, after all, plenty for a spree in Dublin. Anton was still hedging about Ireland.

Anton looked at him sharply, put out the bent wisp of the cigarette he was smoking, and opened one of the packs of Cats. 'Are you sure the guy you were talking to wasn't under the influence of elixirs himself?'

'You're so damned cautious these days!' Thanial said with a laugh. 'Where's your spirit? You look as if you don't even believe me! Come with me and I'll show you the man. He's still down there waiting for me. His name's Benja.'

Anton showed no sign of moving. 'Anybody with an offer like that doesn't explain all the particulars to you. They get a couple of toughs to ride from Edinburgh to Ireland, maybe, but even that doesn't make sense to me.'

'Will you come with me and talk to him? If you don't believe me, at least look at him.'

'Sure.' Anton got up suddenly. 'I might even do it for eight galleons.' Anton closed a book of poetry that had been lying face down on his studio couch before he followed Thanial out of the room. Ginny had a lot of books of poetry. Lately Anton had been borrowing them.

The man was still sitting at the corner table in Hog's Head when they came in. Thanial smiled at him and nodded.

'Hello, Benja,' Thanial said. 'Can we sit?'

'Yes yes,' the man said, gesturing to the chairs at his table.

'This is my friend,' Thanial said carefully so he could understand. 'He wants to know if the work with the railroad journey is correct.' Thanial watched Benja looking Anton over, sizing him up, and it was wonderful to Thanial how the man's dark, tough, callous-looking eyes betrayed nothing but polite interest, how in a split second he seemed to take in and evaluate Anton's faintly smiling but suspicious expression, Anton's tan that could not have been acquired except by months of flying in the sun, his worn, Scottish-made clothes and his pureblooded rings.

A smile spread slowly across the man's pale, flat lips, and he glanced at Thanial.

'So?' Thanial prompted, impatient.

The man lifted his sweet firewhiskey and drank. 'The job is real, but I dinnae think yer mukker is the right man.'

Thanial looked at Anton. Anton was watching the man alertly, with the same neutral smile that suddenly struck Thanial as contemptuous. 'Well, at least it's true, you see!' Thanial said to Anton.

'Mm-m,' Anton said, still gazing at the man as if he were some kind of animal which interested him, and which he could kill if he decided to.

Anton could have talked in accent to the man. Anton didn't say a word. Three weeks ago, Thanial thought, Anton would have taken the man up on his offer. Did he have to sit there looking like a stool pigeon or a ministry detective waiting for reinforcements so he could arrest the man? 'Well,' Thanial said finally, 'you believe me, don't you?'

Anton glanced at him. 'About the job? How do I know?'

Thanial looked at the Scotsman expectantly.

The Scotsman shrugged. 'There is no need to discuss it, is there?' he asked in Gaelic.

'No,' Thanial said. A crazy, directionless fury boiled in his blood and made him tremble. He was furious at Anton. Anton was looking over the man's dirty nails, dirty shirt collar, his ugly dark face that had been recently shaven though not recently washed, so that where the beard had been was much lighter than the skin above and below it. But the Scotsman's dark eyes were cool and amiable, and stronger than Anton's. Thanial felt stifled. He was conscious that he could not express himself so Benja would understand. He wanted to speak both to Anton and to the man.

'Nothing, thanks, Aberforth,' Anton said calmly to the owner who had come over to ask what they wanted. Anton looked at Thanial. 'Ready to go?'

Thanial jumped up so suddenly his straight chair upset behind him. He set it up again, and bowed a good-bye to the Scotsman. He felt he owed the Scotsman an apology, yet he could not open his mouth to say even a conventional good-bye. The man nodded good-bye and smiled. Thanial followed Anton's long white-clad legs out of the bar.

Outside, Thanial said, 'I just wanted you to see that it's true at least. I hope you see.'

'All right, it's true,' Anton said, smiling. 'What's the matter with you?'

'What's the matter with you?' Thanial demanded.

'The man's a crook. Is that what you want me to admit? Okay!'

'Do you have to be so damned superior about it? Did he do anything to you?'

'Am I supposed to get down on my knees to him? I've seen crooks before. This village gets lots of them.' Anton's dark eyebrows frowned. 'What the hell is the matter with you? Do you want to take him up on his crazy proposition? Go ahead!'

'I couldn't now if I wanted to. Not after the way you acted.'

Anton stopped in the road, looking at him. They were arguing so loudly, a few people around them were looking, watching.

'It could have been fun,' Thanial said, 'but not the way you chose to take it, two months ago when we went to Edinburgh, you'd have thought something like this was fun.'

'Oh, no,' Anton said, shaking his head. 'I doubt it.'

The sense of frustration and inarticulateness was agony to Thanial. And the fact that they were being looked at. He forced himself to walk on, in tense little steps at first, until he was sure that Anton was coming with him. The puzzlement, the suspicion, was still in Anton's face, and Thanial knew Anton was puzzled about his reaction. Thanial wanted to explain it, wanted to break through to Anton so he would understand and they would feel the same way. Anton had felt the same way he had two months ago. 'It's the way you acted,' Thanial said. 'You didn't have to act that way. The fellow wasn't doing you any harm.'

'He looked like a dirty crook!' Anton retorted. 'For Merlin's sake, go back if you like him so much. You're under no obligation to do what I do!'

Now Thanial stopped. He had an impulse to go back, not necessarily to go back to the Scotsman, but to leave Anton. Then his tension snapped suddenly. His shoulders relaxed, aching, and his breath began to come fast, through his mouth. He wanted to say at least, 'All right Anton,' to make it up, to make Anton forget it. He felt tongue-tied. He stared at Anton's blue eyes that were still frowning, the Lestrange eyebrows black and the eyes themselves shining and empty, nothing but little pieces of blue jelly with a black dot in them, meaningless, without relation to him. You were supposed to see the soul through the eyes, to see love through the eyes, the one place you could look at another human being and see what really went on inside, and in Anton's eyes Thanial saw nothing more now than he would have seen if he had looked at the hard, bloodless surface of a mirror. Thanial felt a painful wrench in his breast, and he covered his face with his hands. It was as if Anton had been suddenly snatched away from him. They were not friends. They didn't know each other. It struck Thanial like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them, and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, and that he and they were completely in harmony and alike. For an instant the wordless shock of his realisation seemed more than he could bear. He felt in the grip of a fit, as if he would fall to the ground. It was too much: the foreignness around him, the different culture, his failure, and the fact that Anton hated him. He felt surrounded by strangeness, by hostility. He felt Anton yank his hands down from his eyes.

'What's the matter with you?' Anton asked. 'Did that guy give you a shot of something?'

'No.'

'Are you sure? In your drink?'

'No.' The first specs of the evening snow fell on his head. There was a rumble of thunder. Hostility from above, too. 'I want to die,' Thanial said in a small voice.

Anton yanked him by the arm. Thanial tripped over a doorstep. They were in the little bar opposite the post office. Thanial heard Anton ordering a brandy, specifying Scottish brandy because he wasn't good enough for French, Thanial supposed. Thanial drank it off, slightly sweetish, medicinal-tasting, drank three of them, like a magic medicine to bring him back to what his mind knew was usually called reality: the smell of the cirgarette in Anton's hand, the curlycued grain in the wood of the bar under his fingers, the fact that his stomach had a hard pressure in it as if someone were holding a fist against his navel, the vivid anticipation of the long steep walk from here up to the house, the faint ache that would come in his thighs from it.

'I'm okay,' Thanial said in a quiet, deep voice. 'I don't know what was the matter. Must have been the cold that got me for a minute.' He laughed a little. That was reality, laughing it off, making it silly, something that was more important than anything that had happened to him in the eight weeks since he had met Anton, maybe that had ever happened to him.

Anton said nothing, only put the cigarette in his mouth and took a couple of sickles from his black dragonskin wallet and laid them on the bar. Thanial was hurt that he said nothing, hurt like a child who has been sick and probably a nuisance, but who expects at least a friendly word when the sickness is over. But Anton was indifferent. Anton had bought him the brandies as coldly as he might have bought them for a stranger he had encountered who felt ill and had no money. Thanial thought suddenly, Anton doesn't want me to go to the championship. It was not the first time Thanial had thought that. Ginny was going to the championship now. She and Anton had bought a new giant-sized tent to take to the championship the last time they had been in Edinburgh. They hadn't asked him if he had liked the tent, or anything else. They were just quietly and gradually leaving him out of their preparations. Thanial felt that Anton expected him to take off, in fact, just before the championship trip. A couple of weeks ago, Anton had said he would introduce him to some of the aristocratic quidditch-crowd. Anton had met up with some of them at lunch one day at school, but he had not talked to him.

'Ready?' Anton asked.

Thanial followed him out of the bar like a dog.

'If you can get home all right by yourself, I thought I'd run up and fly with Ginny for a while,' Anton said on the road.

'I feel fine,' Thanial said.

'Good.' Then he said over his shoulder as he walked away, 'Want to pick up the mail? I might forget.'

Thanial nodded. He went into the post office. There were two letters, one to him from Anton's father, one to Anton from someone in London whom Thanial didn't know. He stood in the doorway and opened Mr. Lestrange's letter, unfolded the typewritten sheet respectfully. It had the impressive pale green letterhead of Lestrange-Parkinson Broomcraft, Inc., with the snitch's-wings-trademark in the center.

10 Nov. 19

My dear Thanial,

In view of the fact you have been with Anton over two months and that he shows no more sign of coming home than before you went, I can only conclude that you haven't been successful. I realize that with the best of intentions you reported that he is considering returning, but frankly, I don't see it anywhere in his letter of 26 October. As a matter of fact, he seems more determined than ever to stay where he is.

I want you to know that I and my wife appreciate whatever efforts you have made on our behalf, and his. You need no longer consider yourself obligated to me in any way. I trust you have not inconvenienced yourself greatly by your efforts of the past months, and I sincerely hope the transfer to Hogwarts has afforded you some pleasure despite the failure of its main objective.

Both my wife and I send you greetings and our thanks.

Sincerely,

D. R. Lestrange

It was the final blow. With the cool tone-even cooler than his usual businesslike coolness, because this was a dismissal and he had injected a note of courteous thanks in it - Mr. Lestrange had simply cut him off. He had failed. 'I trust you have not inconvenienced yourself greatly...' Wasn't that sarcastic? Mr. Lestrange didn't even say that he would like to see him again when he returned to London.

Thanial walked mechanically up the hill. He imagined Anton on the pitch with Ginny now, narrating to her the story of Benja in the bar, and his peculiar behavior on the road afterward. Thanial knew what Ginny would say: 'Why don't you get rid of him, Anton?' Should he go back and explain to them, he wondered, force them to listen? Thanial turned around, looking at the inscrutable square front of the practice-area up on the hill, at its dark-looking trees. His overcloak was getting wet from the snow. He turned its collar up. Then he walked on quickly up the hill towards Anton's house. At least, he thought proudly, he hadn't tried to wheedle any more money out of Mr. Lestrange, and he might have. He might have, even with Anton's cooperation, if he had ever approached Anton about it when Anton had been in a good mood. Anybody else would have, Thanial thought, anybody, but he hadn't, and that counted for something.

He stood at the corner of the balcony, staring out at the vague uneven line of the horizon and thinking of nothing, feeling nothing except a faint, dreamlike lostness and aloneness. Even Anton and Ginny seemed far away, and what they might be talking about seemed unimportant. He was alone. That was the only important thing. He began to feel a tingling fear at the end of his spine, tingling over his buttocks.

He turned as he heard the gate open. Anton walked up the path, smiling, but it struck Thanial as a forced, polite smile.

'What're you doing standing there in the snow?' Anton asked, ducking into the hall door.

'It's very refreshing,' Thanial said pleasantly. 'Here's a letter for you.' He handed Anton his letter and stuffed the one from Mr. Lestrange into his pocket.

Thanial hung his cloak in the hall closet. When Anton had finished reading his letter - a letter that had made him laugh out loud as he read it - Thanial said, 'Do you think Ginny would like to go up to Ireland with us when we go?'

Anton looked surprised. 'I think she would.'

'Well, ask her,' Thanial said cheerfully.

'I don't know if I should go up to Ireland,' Anton said. 'I wouldn't mind getting away somewhere for a few days, but Ireland -' He lighted a cigarette. 'I'd just as soon go up to Aviemore or even Inverness. That's quite a town.'

'But Ireland - Inverness can't compare with Dublin, can it?'

'No, of course not, but it's a lot closer.'

'But when will we get to Ireland?'

'I don't know. Any old time. Ireland will still be there.'

Thanial listened to the echo of the words in his ears, searching their tone. The day before yesterday, Anton had received a letter from his father. He had read a few sentences aloud and they had laughed about something, but he had not read the whole letter as he had a couple of times before. Thanial had no doubt that Mr. Lestrange had told Anton that he was fed up with Barthanial Botts, and probably that he suspected him of using his money for his own entertainment. A month ago Anton would have laughed at something like that, too, but not now, Thanial thought. 'I just thought while I have a little money left, we ought to make our Ireland trip,' Thanial persisted.

'You go up. I'm not in the mood right now. Got to save my strength for the championship.'

'Well - I suppose we'll make it Inverness then,' Thanial said, trying to sound agreeable, though he could have wept.

'All right.'

Thanial darted from the hall into the kitchen. The huge white form of the refrigerator icebox sprang out of the corner at him. He had wanted a drink, with ice in it. Now he didn't want to touch the muggle device. Ginny had apparently spent a whole day in Devon, looking at refrigerators, inspecting ice trays, counting the number of gadgets. Anton and Ginny talked and praised it with the enthusiasm of newlyweds. Thanial realized suddenly why he hated the refrigerator so much. It meant that Anton was staying put. It finished not only their Irish trip this winter, but it meant Anton probably never would move to Edinburgh or Europe to live, as he and Thanial had talked of doing in Thanial's first weeks here. Not with a refrigerator that had the distinction of being one of only about four in the village, a refrigerator with six ice trays and so many shelves on the door that it looked like a supermarket swinging out at you every time you opened it.

Thanial fixed himself an iceless drink. His hands were shaking. Only yesterday Anton had said, 'Are you going home for Christmas?' very casually in the middle of some conversation, but Anton knew damned well he wasn't going home for Christmas. He didn't have a home, and Anton knew it. He had told Anton all about Aunt Kate in London. It had simply been a big hint, that was all. Ginny was full of plans about Christmas. She had a can of English plum pudding she was saving, and she was going to get a turkey from some vendor - not even considering her family in Devon. Thanial could imagine how she would slop it up with her saccharine sentimentality. A Christmas tree, of course, probably cut from the garden. 'Silent Night.' Eggnog. Gooey presents for Anton. Ginny knitted. She took Anton's socks to darn all the time. And they'd both slightly, politely, leave him out. Every friendly thing they would say to him would be a painful effort. Thanial couldn't bear to imagine it. All right, he'd leave. He would join the Slytherins in the dungeons. He'd do something rather than endure Christmas with them.

Hogwarts had its own Quidditch pitch where Quidditch teams could practice, hold try-outs and play matches against each other. Thanial had been told that each year would see a total of six inter-house matches, where each house would compete for the Quidditch Cup, along with numerous training sessions by each house team. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the pitch so the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. The snowfall blew sideways under the canopy where Thanial sat alone, reading. He flinched from the bench and looked out where he saw Cedric and Anton and Ginny flying. It was after-hours and they had the whole pitch to themselves because of the storm.

Ginny dived back onto the seats, retrieved her wand and used a heating-charm on herself. 'You really should take a spin, it's marvelous.' She took off her goggles.

'I'm fine.'

She approached him, still shivering, and charmed herself dry as they spoke. 'Are you okay?'

'Sure.'

They both watched Anton and Cedric fool around in the air.

'The thing with Anton -', said Ginny, though slightly reluctant in tone, 'it's like the sun shines on you and it's glorious... then he forgets you and it's very very cold.'

Thanial didn't need her sympathy. 'So I'm learning.'

'He's not even aware of it. When you've got his attention you feel like you're the only person in the world. That's why everybody loves him. Other times...'

There was yell from Anton as Cedric wrestled with him in the air. Anton laughed as he was choked from behind. 'He's gonna drop me!'

Ginny sighed. 'It's always the same whenever someone new comes into his life - Cedric, Oliver Wood, Draco Malfoy - he's actually wonderful - you know him right, he want's to be a potionéer? - ... and especially you, of course...' she paused for a time, regarding the boys in the air, 'and that's only the boys.'

Thanial could hear her choke up after saying that. Perhaps she had known about the other girl from Hogsmeade all along?

They watched as Cedric pushed Anton with the backend of his broom.

Ginny grunted before yelling out to them. 'Tell me, why is it when men play they always play at killing each other...!?' She sighed again and looked at Thanial. 'I'm sorry about the championship by the way.'

'What about the championship?'

'Didn't Anton say? - he talked to Cedric... apparently it's not going to work out -' Thanial felt his stomach churn, he couldn't hide the devastation and Ginny noticed before looking away, 'Cedric says there isn't enough room at the camp.'

Thanial didn't say anything after that. The silence on the bench stretched until they the boys also took a break.

Anton was talking with Cedric by the banister. 'Come on, Cedric, do you really have to go back? At least come down with us and stick around for the Festival of the Phoenix.'

'I don't think so. Come back with me to Aberdeen. There's this great new club. Have some drinks, lotta ladies...'

Ginny got up and disappeared into the tower, going down below.

Anton made a face at Cedric. 'Do you think you can pack up our things?'

'Sure.'

Anton went after Ginny. 'Just dispose of the bottles, we don't want Sprout on our asses.'

'What are you doing?'

'Ginny-maintenance,' Anton replied as he went down under.

Cedric chuckled. 'Alright.'

Thanial could hear Anton walking around down under the seats and Cedric began to summon the Quittich gear and empty wine-bottles.

From where Thanial sat he could see the forbidden forest in the distance, but he could also look down under the bench, the jagged planks offering him a restricted view. He looked down and there was a flash of flesh, then nothing. Then as a wind pushed him to the side, he glimpsed Ginny's jacket flung on the floor, and then Ginny's bare foot kicking out rhythmically, the red-painted toes straining. The well-defined back of Anton swayed over her. Faint groans could be heard escaping the cracks, mingling with the wind.

Thanial was completely mesmerized, aroused, and absolutely betrayed. They had sex. Right under him. Anton with Ginny? Sex!

'Barthanial - How's the peeping?' Cedric snickered and Thanial snapped out of it, looking back towards the woods. 'Come on Thanny, you were looking. Thanny Thanny Thanny.'

Shamed, Thanial didn't look back. He stared at the snow, swirling chaotically in the wind before him, its turmoil reflecting his.

Never before had Thanial noticed how time was so much like water; that it can pass slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. His fine watch said it was measured and constant, tick tock, part of an orderly world; the clock lied. The rest of the afternoon passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown one at a time. In that slow time-bubble the laughter was louder, coldness was colder and colors were brighter. All the while his insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to need feeding, nothing to have need of anything at all.

They returned to Hogsmeade that afternoon - just him, Anton and Ginny. Thanial got off the carriage last. He glanced back at the road for no particular reason. A girl was standing in the snowfall; in the orange light of a streetlamp. It was Emma, the girl from the candy shop. She seemed sad, crying Thanial guessed. Anton and Ginny did not notice her.