Hanged

Harry's headache never went away, neither did the guilt, nor did the noose he felt was hanging from his neck, dragging him down was slowly, inexorably tightening, squeezing the life from him.

Or was it a pair of slender fingered hands curled about his neck, leaching the life from him with their firm, demanding grip?

Harry knew that wasn't right, because it wasn't Draco's hands that haunted him, not even his voice, that last echoing command binding him to silence, but it was his eyes, those grey, stormy eyes as dead and cold as they'd been at the beginning of the year. Every nearly caught glance of those eyes made him feel dizzy, like his air supply had been quickly and efficiently siphoned off in one deadly tug by that dreadful noose. Harry didn't want to know what would happen if he were to meet Draco's eyes now, especially because there was a dangerous stirring in that cauldron in his chest beneath the breathlessness.

But he was saved from whatever the cauldron had cooked up for him as it fermented in suppressed feelings because Draco wouldn't look at him, his gaze slipping effortlessly by as if Harry was just the phantom of a mistake.

And that hurt quite a bit.

Harry found it hard to look at Draco, wounds both emotional and physical still fresh after a day, though that day had been unbearably long and difficult to get through without doing something, something that was likely hurting someone or himself.

If there was anyone Harry wanted to hurt, it was not the pale boy who so easily crushed him with the denial of a passing glance, but the Slytherin that Draco had deemed suddenly worthy of his stares.

Theodore Nott had a permanent look of sulk about him, although that eternal sullenness seemed to lighten to smugness under Draco surreptitious stares. One eye always covered by his dark brown hair that curled down his neck, while the other gazed despondently forward or darted shiftily to where Draco sat with Parkinson and Zabini.

In short, he was very much a brooding, scheming Slytherin. Admittedly, the only evil that was essential to a proper snake's reputation Harry had heard of was an incident in fifth year with an illegal potion trade, which wasn't much at all considering the first year Hufflepuff that had been caught doing the same. But Harry didn't like him. He didn't like how easily he dismissed Draco, didn't like the scowl on Draco's face when this happened.

He was scowling just then, brows furrowed and lips down-turned, the lines between his platinum eye brows visible from even across the Great Hall, making Harry pause in the act of buttering his toast as he found himself count each little wrinkle, each and every worry…

"…yeah, mate?"

Harry tore his gaze away guiltily and smiled sheepishly at Ron, who only frowned and Harry knew each little concern that lined his freckled face; Hermione's manic research keeping her up into the wee hours of the night, his own falling marks because of Hermione's refusal to let him copy her homework, Ginny's wanderings into 'the wrong lot', and Harry's own troubles.

"Alright, Harry?" he asked softly, eyes flickering to Hermione, who was thoroughly engrossed in a book, her breakfast worryingly untouched.

"Yeah, just…you know," Harry sighed.

And Ron did know, not much, but even he had an inkling as to what may have transpired between him and Draco the night Harry hadn't returned to the dorms. Ron, being Ron, had been embarrassed as hell when Harry he found Harry sprawled across his bed still clothed, obviously having slunk in not too long ago with what was unmistakably a love bite bright and bruised on his neck. He stuttered and turned eight different shades of red before catching sight of Harry's face, wan, stony and trying not to crumple and cry.

Than all awkwardness melted as he became the best friend Harry knew and loved, concerned, but not as prying and motherly as Hermione, he was that ear Harry could complain to without fear of lectures, the solid wall he could lean on until he composed himself.

"Alright, Harry?" was what he'd asked then after a few minutes of listening to Seamus' sleep mumblings and Neville's snores, they were the first to awake, and Harry felt as if he hadn't slept at all.

Harry didn't answer, couldn't find an answer other than a flat, no.

Seamus said something about Christmas pudding in his sleep and Harry rolled onto his back, heavy and weighted, the curse slithering beneath his skin, waiting for him to try to go against orders, tell Ron of the horror he'd witnessed that night.

"Was it Malfoy then?" Ron looked hesitant to ask this, but Harry felt a surge of gratitude when Ron smiled weakly. Hard as it was, near bloody impossible really, Ron was attempting to accept Harry's questionable taste in men, not to mention the fact that he had a taste in men.

"Yeah, it was,"

Seamus growled quietly about tiny umbrellas.

"Had a row?"

Harry loved how understanding Ron sounded and simply sighed, exhausted.

"Yeah,"

One hell of an earth-shattering row indeed.

Harry still hadn't slept well since then, the never ending search for grey jolting him awake when he found himself at a dead end or consumed by green light. Hermione had naturally noticed his fatigue, mothering glares sent his way every time his eyelids felt particularly heavy in class, but she never stopped to ask why, or tell him why, or spout her theories and concerns and hold some sort of intervention. This baffled Harry, and Ron who was being very polite to her for the moment, but Harry had a suspicion that something was going on, at least with the way that there was a tangible icy silence between Hermione and Ginny, the latter hadn't dared to do more than stare at him.

Harry was glad for this, but he almost wanted to talk to Ginny, if just to ask what she knew about what Draco was doing in the Room of Requirement. How did she even know? Could it have something to do with Death Eater business? Did she know Draco was a Death Eater?

No, she couldn't. Ginny would have gone straight to Dumbledore. She gained nothing from keeping a Slytherin's secret.

It was only Harry that was keeping a Slytherin's secret heavy in his chest, all tied up and knotted away with the curse's hold. He didn't gain anything from it but the peace of mind that Draco wasn't going to have his soul sucked away.

Yet.

He wanted to talk to Hermione too, see how far they were from ridding him of the curse, listen to some of her words of wisdom like he had when he'd slapped Draco, or perhaps just ask her if Azkaban had visiting hours.

He didn't want to imagine Draco, emaciated and hollow, huddled in the corner of a rough stone cell, nothing more than skin and bones and haunted grey eyes that stared at Harry without recognition or with a deep rancor as he tried to coax him up, hand offered through iron bars, but he did. Just as he'd envisioned Draco cloaked in Death Eater robes, the hood hiding his white-blonde hair, and the mask shielding is face as he said the incantation that would end Harry's life.

Harry really hated his imagination, but growing up with nothing more than spiders and blank walls to stare at, it flourished and twisted.

"Hermione, I think you should eat something or you'll run out of steam before lunch." Ron said tentatively and Harry perked up to watch as she slowly sat her book down, looking hesitant but resigned.

"I suppose you're right, Ron." She conceded simply and stirred her cereal glumly.

Ron smiled before turning to Harry and frowning.

"You too Harry, tuck in or you'll die before Snape can kill you in Potions this afternoon."

Harry managed a snort of a laugh before doing as he was told and biting into his toast, exchanging a long look with Hermione that made Harry feel like one of her books.

"Ginny, you haven't even touched your eggs, now come on, eat."

Hermione's gaze snapped away and looked sharply across the table at Ginny, who sat next to Ron and huffed at him.

"Don't act like Mum, Ron, it's annoying."

"What's annoying is how everyone's decided to stop eating! It's ridiculous!" he exclaimed, giving the lot of them an exasperated look that made them bite into their food more enthusiastically.

Ron heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, watching his admonished friends eat their breakfast with their distracted, dark stares.

"It's bloody confusing too, it is." He mumbled.

~o0o~

Draco really hated Nott, but that was a good thing because it gave that fire again, a small, fickly guttering flame, but it was more than that sorrowful, soggy coldness, like a rainy winter's day with harsh winds that sounded like Harry's disgust that presided in his mind.

Nott was just keeping the anger alive with the game of Let's Lord over Desperate Draco he was playing, all smirks and smugness and I-know-something-you-want-to-know-and-you'll-have-to-beg-for-me-to-tell-you.

Draco wondered how Harry could have ever put up with him because Draco liked to play the same game.

But he had, hadn't he? That had been a shock from the start of this nonsense and still was, although things seemed to be returning to the normality of the time before the curse and his daring bursts of reckless flirtation.

Draco thought he would have liked the normal, he'd often longed in those dull hours of the reign of Hermione Granger and her crack-pot theories. He found he wasn't so surprised that he didn't like the life he had before that time, aimless hours of gossip and more of worrying. And instead he missed when he could lounge in silence with Harry, listening without any real interest to Granger's mutterings. It was all comfort, the stuffy, embracing air of the library, the heat of Potter's stare and the lullaby of Granger's droning.

All that had soothed him into a dream, a dream where it could stay like that forever, where he could snog Harry Potter and forget that he was a Death Eater.

He'd finally been awakened from all that, and just in time according to Severus.

Draco had no idea as to why he should be wary of the Weasleys, although in all sense he should after everything he'd done. But the Weasel was glaring at him no more or less than usual and the Weaslette…well; there may be something there, something dangerous in her sharp, guarded stares.

Of course, like a great many of people she had good reason to glare at him, her more than anyone else. He'd hexed her boyfriend and stolen the boy she really wanted to hang off of, leaving her with Second-Best Goldstein. He'd also made Harry call her a slut, but she didn't know that.

Did she?

He wondered, mostly when his mind drifted off in the library, what would happen if someone were to find out about the hold he had on Harry. It could be something of a joke to those who hadn't any idea who Draco really was, what was lurking in the drawing room of his house. Rival turned slave. Hilarious, Draco would agree.

What wasn't so hilarious is what the thing that lurked in his drawing room might think. Draco shuddered violently, he could never find out. Draco knew very well what the Dark Lord would do to he and Potter and his imagination too easily supplied him gory, lucid images of just what unspeakable things they were.

Maybe the Weaslette did know about the curse, but at least she didn't know about that.

Only Harry and Severus truly knew.

Maybe Granger had told her about the curse for whatever reason; secrets were evidently a taboo amongst Gryffindors, after all. They were exchanging odd looks that the oblivious Weasley and the boy who he refused to look at may not notice, but Draco did.

Draco noticed a lot of things, how Harry slumped and stared and shuffled and worried on his bottom lip constantly, and Draco could only watch, anticipating when Harry decided to stop silencing himself with that awful habit and face him, face someone.

Draco was waiting for that, in reality he knew he was the one who had to face Harry, loathe as he was to admit, the Gryffindor was clever enough to find some loophole in the curse and slip through it, causing quite a bit of trouble in his usual brash and righteous way. Then there'd be a tedious amount of Memory Charms required to fix the mess Harry made and a stern conversation with Severus that Draco did not want to have. Severus was disappointed with him enough as it was; he didn't need to know that Draco had broken the first rule of a spy.

Trust no one.

Even their poster boy couldn't be trusted with the secret workings of the cause he fought for, truly he more than anyone else.

He chuckled darkly to himself, but it was quickly choked away as Nott passed by, smirking all over the half of his face that wasn't curtained in dark brown hair. Maybe it wasn't Harry he had to face just yet, but he did have to face Nott.

It wasn't simply about the Firewhisky, though Draco conceded he was getting a little desperate and frankly obsessive about the very idea of losing himself in the burn, just for a while. It was worrying, a worry he acknowledged on Blaise and Pansy's inquiring looks as he sauntered away from them during their free period, following the retreating figure of Nott's slouch as he descended into the dungeons.

"I was wondering when you'd come to grant me…a moment of your time." Nott announced to the empty common room as Draco slipped in behind him, he could see a sort of victory etched in Nott's arrogantly casual steps as he threw himself into a high backed chair, depositing his booted feet on the table.

There was a gleam, sinister and hungry, in the eye that watched Draco as he carefully took the seat before him. This was what else it was about. It was about the fact that Nott knew something.

What Draco knew about Nott, aside from his disgusting lust for the Dark Mark (and Terry Boot) was that he avoided trouble. He hadn't broken a rule since getting a few measly detentions for that potion trade, he always sneered quietly and kept his barbs to a harmless minimum, and he turned his homework in on time and got along reasonably well with his housemates and even those in Ravenclaw.

He wasn't one to sneak down to the kitchens to nick a good bottle of Firewhisky or two.

"You've my full attention then," Draco drawled, his face perfectly composed into boredom as if Nott had been the one to stalk him to the common room, "Just what do you want with this moment of my time?"

Nott's smirk faltered, he very obviously enjoyed having Draco under his power, and didn't enjoy it so much if he wasn't going to squirm and act like a Ravenclaw deprived of their precious knowledge.

"I only want to have a little chat with you, Draco," he said, "Let's just sit and drink and reminisce, shall we?"

Draco's eyes narrowed as Nott flicked his wand and a familiar, battered case came winging down from the dorms, but kept his face impassive as Nott gave another swish and poured them each a tumbler full of Firewhisky.

"Interesting," Draco murmured, making sure to not sound interested in the slightest, "Firewhisky? Really I imagined you to have milder tastes."

Nott looked positively evil as he smiled into his glass, "We all have our weaknesses, don't we?"

Draco glared and drowned a growl in a gulp of the amber liquid. He nearly winced as it burned its way down his throat, but started to feel pleasantly warmed as he gave another tentative sip in the silence that spanned between them, gazes locked and masks firmly donned.

"This is a curious brew," Draco said at last, "Old, a century at least. Where ever did you procure such a rarity?"

"A friend found it for me. There are a lot of secrets rumored to be about Hogwarts." Nott was smiling like a shark again, but Draco didn't reply, the gears in his head whirring, trying to work past the sludge of alcohol on his brain. Rumored…a friend…secrets…

Something felt familiar about all of this, like a niggling guilt at the back of his mind, that knowledge that he wasn't doing what he was supposed to, he was neglecting his duty…

Duty to mend the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Lost Things, the place where that snuffling house elf had found the Firewhisky that Nott now had, the age old Ogden's she referred to as 'rumored'.

Nott knew what he was doing, or rather neglecting to do, in the Room of Lost Things.

The heat of the Firewhisky went cold as a shiver ran down his spine and his stomach dropped, making him feel nauseas, but he knocked back another gulp of Firewhisky, trying to kindle that fire again, trying not to think that Nott may know that Draco was a traitor, what he may do with that information.

What 'glory' he might gain from handing in the junior spy to his Dark Lord and earning his very own Dark Mark for the trouble.

Draco was given a moment to collect himself when the distraction of Terry Boot came fluttering into the common room, whining to Nott about something that Draco couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears before a pouty scowl was turned his way.

"So you're an arse and a drunk?" Boot snorted, "It should figure, you're a bit of a nutter these days, aren't you Draco? Cursing people for no reason,"

Draco snorted now; he had good reason to hex a lot of people, that damned Goldstein on the top of his list of people that deserved to be cursed.

"Sod off, Boot no one wants you here," he growled tiredly.

"Theo does, doesn't he?" he purred, turning to run a hand across Nott's chest, but froze under Nott's firm glower, silently agreeing with Draco.

"Anyway, all have you know that you should watch out for Anthony, Draco, if it weren't for Ginny warning him not to ambush you, then you'd be jinxed into next week,"

Draco sniggered mirthlessly at this while Boot strode away and out of the Slytherin common room with one last pouty look tossed over his shoulder. Goldstein couldn't aim a proper curse to save his life, let alone exact revenge on Draco. When he flicked himself another tumbler full of Firewhisky, he discovered that Nott wasn't scowling as he thought he would have been, angry and chagrined that his flouncy, poncy boyfriend had interrupted his moment of triumph, giving Draco long enough to recover.

Nott looked rather like Fenrir Greyback now, a predatory smile curling the corners of his mouth up and flashing his teeth and Draco could almost smell the stench of stale sweat, blood and god knows what else that followed the werewolf around in a rank cloud.

"Anthony and Ginny make a good pair," he remarked slowly, leaning forward in his seat, as if to pounce, and Draco felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as if he was trapped in a room with that horrible animal.

"She's a clinging, whiny bitch, but I suppose your own boyfriend is just the same." Draco countered, but Nott didn't stop smiling, nor did he stop leaning toward Draco, almost bent double in his seat, a mad light to his eye.

"And what of you Draco?" he whispered, "Rumors says that you've found your own bloke to cling to. How is the fantastic Harry Potter then?"

Draco drank deep from his tumbler, held with a shaking hand that he hoped Nott wouldn't notice, knowing he would. He hated Nott so much at that moment, he hated the fantastic Harry Potter for a fleeting second too, but mostly he marveled at what a wonderful Death Eater Nott would be. He was perfect; manipulative and cold hearted, like Draco thought he himself had been.

Draco hated it.

The smoky haze of the Firewhisky was curling in his chest and fire licking at his throat, charring every frigid, biting barb before it reached his mouth so Draco sat in fuming silence, thoughts of the fantastic Harry Potter invading his mind and smoldering there.

Nott looked as though he was enjoying himself.

"Rumors say that you two are rather quiet about it, sneaking about," Nott smirked, "Properly Slytherin, but surely you didn't think that no one would notice."

"I expect only the obsessive vultures like yourself that envy and watch my every step would notice," Draco said hotly, "Its unbecoming, you know, charming fake Dark Marks on your arm and whispering Unforgivables, playing dress up as if you're your daddy."

"What's unbecoming Draco," Nott's voice was trembling dangerously, that creepy smile only widening and curling, "is a blood traitor."

The traitorous blood in Draco's veins went cold at that and he suddenly felt very weak, and he fumbled for another drink of liquid courage, because he needed it desperately to face the realization that he was going to die. Die a disappointment in his father's eyes, die a disgusting traitor in Harry's, die as that evening's entertainment at the feet of the Dark Lord all while they laughed and Nott grinned—

No, he had to stay calm; he had to think clearly, even through the terror. Nott barely had any evidence that he was a traitor, a Vanishing Cabinet that no one really knew how to fix and a few rumors that he and Potter were locking themselves away in broom cupboards were nothing, nothing real; just suspicions, rumors.

He wasn't going to die, not yet anyway.

"If you so want to serve the Dark Lord than I'd expect you to stay out of the way of his plans," he said evenly, glaring daggers into that one, narrowed eye, "Only he and I are supposed to know what's going on in that Room, Nott and I'm sure you wouldn't want to displease him."

Nott seemed to consider this, the smile fading, but a shadow of it twitched at his lips as he said, "Of course I don't Draco, I mean to be of all service possible to him and I think giving the Dark Lord something that you've hoarded away as your own should be a great service to him indeed."

"And what's that?"

"Why, Harry Potter naturally."

Draco felt fire rise on his tongue, and he wished he could incinerate Nott with a few choice words, but he couldn't, they meant nothing without the proper kindling. Draco had nothing but a corner to be backed into, maybe a curse or two to cast but nothing more than that, certainly not anything that could take that victoriously sinister smile off his face. Nott had a far superior weapon in knowledge than any amount of witty jibes or well-placed hexes.

So Draco poured himself another tumbler of the age old Ogden's and drank, diving headfirst into that fiery river that burned away the chill, left Nott and his threats to watch and smirk, and Draco couldn't do anything about it.

Worries with their frigid, spine-creeping terror kept trying to worm their way into his mind, but each time he banished them with another gulp, until there was only the greatest fear, the greatest trouble that weighted his mind, the most outlandish, most brilliant fantasy to ever flit its way through his mind and brand itself there.

Harry.

~o0o~

Harry tried to keep himself from getting all glazy-eyed and distant like Ron kept mumbling about. Ron was worried and so was Harry, his troubled thoughts incessantly drifting to Draco whenever he got all glazy-eyed and distant.

Harry felt as sick as ever, his thoughts mixing with a dizzying combination of disgust for Death Eaters and the longing for the youngest one. He still couldn't believe he still was mooning over Draco Malfoy the Death Eater, the Death Eater.

That was the part he couldn't believe more than anything else.

Oh, Harry had stated the obvious in saying that no one would be surprised in finding that the daddy-worshipping Draco had tattooed himself with the same title as his father; this should be apparent to anyone. Anyone who hadn't seen his eyes unguarded, hadn't compared their slate grey shade to that of a December sky, hadn't imagined themselves snuggled in his pale arms and never had heard his fear in the tremble of his smooth, drawling voice.

Harry had experience all those things and they had blinded him, setting him up for a long, hard fall as he fell arse over kettle for Draco Malfoy.

At that moment though, he was anything but oblivious to the presence that shadowed him, an irritated little burn of a stare on his back, a scrutinizing glower he knew all too well.

He paused in his stride and listened as the steps scrambled to come to a halt, and he sighed. He had thought that he might've had a moment alone to as he walked to his next class without Ron and Hermione's pitying gazes, opting to take a passage less traveled, but he'd underestimated Ginny apparently.

"What do you want, Ginny?" he asked raggedly.

"Harry," she said gently, "Where are you going?"

Harry turned around to stare at her, blink at the way she was speaking to him as if he was stupid, or worse, fragile. He hated it that she undoubtedly thought that he was broken now, by Draco, that he couldn't go on a day without him.

He was fractured, maybe, just a dull ache where the knife wedged itself between his shoulder blades and the bubbling cauldron of things he didn't want to look into in his chest, but he wasn't broken.

Just very hurt and quite sick.

"I'm off to Potions," he replied just as slowly, "Shouldn't you be in class?"

Harry was even more confused at the relief that spread across her face as she dashed up to him and assured him, "Flitwick won't miss me."

"Where did you think I was going, Ginny?"

"You don't usually go this way."

"You don't usually follow me around the castle."

She frowned, "I wanted to make sure you got to class and didn't skive off."

"Aren't you skiving off Charms right now?" he snorted, "What are you really doing Ginny?"

"You haven't been to the Room of Requirement yet, have you?" her eyes narrowed and she gave the curve in the corridor a suspicious look.

"What, Ginny?" he huffed, exasperated by her damnable mystery and unhelpful worry.

"Just be sure you do before you go sneaking off to the dungeons, Harry."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know the castle as well as Fred and George and so do I," she explained calmly to Harry's glare, "And you and I both know that just around that corner is the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms."

Harry gaped at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before he processed what she was saying.

"You think—" he spluttered in outrage, "You think I was going there to—to see him."

She gave a grave nod and he had the strongest urge to march into the Slytherin commons just to spite her.

"I'm just worried about you, Harry," she said earnestly, tentatively reaching out a hand that he flinched back from, breathing sharply through his nose as he tried not to say something she'd make him later regret.

"Don't." he growled, "Just don't."

"How can't I?" she snapped, "Malfoy is awful and he's got this—this thing with you."

Harry was about to retort something about the thing Ginny was trying to force upon him when he was bowled backward, a scent all too familiar assaulting his senses and making him freeze, doing nothing to stop the equally familiar pale fists clutching at his robes.

Why did Draco always smell like mint? It overcame whatever cologne he might've been wearing and hazed Harry's thoughts with a pleasant miasma. There was something else hinting through the scent today however, sharp and rather smoky. Firewhisky.

Draco was plastered, he had to be. His stance was swaying even as he gripped onto Harry, his eyes unfocused and misty, staring at him with a drunken intensity that made Harry shiver, his slightly open mouth and pressing presence spurring ideas, memories and an onslaught of rushing blood.

And he stayed frozen, knocked senseless by the body he'd been longing for suddenly so close, as if to make up for lost time, even as Draco leaned in near enough for their lips to nearly brush, right in front of Ginny, and spoke in a crooned hiss.

"Harry," he began, and Harry wanted to surge forward and capture those Firewhisky-laced lips, both to shut him up and because he wanted to, needed to.

And because he was still calling him 'Harry' for whatever unfathomable, wonderful, will-shattering reason.

Harry's will was indeed nearly well and truly shattered just to hear his name, his given name, clumsily rolled off that smooth tongue.

Right in front of Ginny.

Harry knew he should probably be concerned with the words she was yelling in shrill tones, but they never quite made it past the fog of that mint, the encompassing enchantment of those eyes, and then there were the words, slurred and muddled, but far, far more important than anything Ginny could ever shriek.

"Harry my house elf," Draco breathed, a small flash of a smile gracing his face, "Harry you're my house elf and you take care of me good, don't you?"

The curse begged for an answer, his ever-present headache screeching like an ill-tuned violin, but his master rambled on.

"Take care of me well," he corrected with a firm look and hiccup, "I was almost talking like you, 'cause you're the elf, not me."

From the corner of Harry's eye, he could see that Ginny had drawn her wand and was glowering at them threateningly, and he knew it was a matter of minutes before Draco—or he—was cursed with something nasty and likely irreversible, given the look on her face.

"Ma—Draco," he said softly, and then that hazed stare cleared slightly, and all the faint bemusement was gone and replaced with something urgent and uncomfortably watery.

"Harry, Nott is bad," he babbled, breath quickening, "Him and his Firewhisky and Boot. He nicked my Firewhisky, Harry. That elf—"

They both swore as Ginny's wand gave off a bright, angry spark and a loud pop.

"Harry, you can't." she growled, "Don't let him steal you away again."

"I'm not stealing him!" Draco bellowed, frustrated and drawling and drunk all at once as he swung around to face Ginny, "He will, you stupid bint!"

Ginny raised her wand with a jinx that Harry knew was probably illegal and scarring and aimed directly at a pissed, out of his head Draco Malfoy, his Master and the boy he needed to protect more than anyone else.

It was these facts that summoned up the force that knocked Ginny backward, skidding down the hall with a cry.

For a few heart stopping moments in which both Harry and Draco stood with bated breath and incredulous eyes, Ginny didn't move, didn't budge and once again Harry wondered how far Draco Malfoy and the curse would make him go. As far as to murder his best friend's little sister?

But she rose, all fire and fury, and Harry was spared of trying to answer such a terrible question, but there was no mercy when it came to the rage of Ginny Weasley.

"Harry, you—" her voice was an icy façade of calm worthy to that of Draco's, "I understand now."

Harry hoped that she understood that he didn't want her 'worrying' about him, but naturally, he wasn't that lucky.

She stood, her wand aloft, but she didn't appear to be planning on hexing Draco just yet.

"Ginny," he said, "Could you—maybe leave? For a moment?"

"No, Harry" she regarded him coolly.

"C'mon, Gin, it's not like—"

But what he'd been denying ("It's not as if we're going to throw ourselves at each other…") happened as he discovered himself with another armful of Draco, whose mood had shifted once more, unfortunately to that of the anger Ginny was carefully bottling up.

"Harry," he hissed, "Don't you dare. Don't you dare, ever."

"What? Dare to what?"

But there was a twist, a tie in the curse and a drop in his stomach as if recalling a snatch of a long forgotten song, the words muddled but notes high and clear. It was a memory, maybe, or an order.

One he'd have to obey.

A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review!