Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine.
AN: No authors notes to make this time, unusually. So . . . if you have questions, review and ask them.
Twelve - Nightfall.
Draco had never seen Riddle, not even in a picture, and the mental image he had had of a dark-haired boy forcing a sobbing Ginny to break her own wrist was enough to make him do his damnedest to avoid looking at Potter. He was afraid that if he did, he would lose it entirely.
"Has he come back for you?"
"No." she was almost smiling, if it was too stupid to contemplate. She moved away from Draco, looking out of the window. "But he's come back, and he's coming for me, if that's what you mean."
"Ginny." It was Potter, interrupting them, and Draco thought this must have been how he looked when he was off on his hero kick in second year, down there under the school. Like this, pale and determined and ready to save the day again. Ready to ask the question Draco wouldn't have dared.
"What was the second thing he said to you?"
He asked it. Draco would kill him if it made her cry again.
"The second thing," she said.
"You said he only spoke to you twice after you threw the diary away. What was the second thing he said?"
Ginny looked down into the grounds. He knew that she wasn't going to tell them. "Doesn't matter. I might have dreamed it, anyway."
"What happens now?" Draco asked, and didn't miss the slight softening of her tension. Hating himself for doing it, for deflecting a question that might have helped them, but he had to. Hated that, too.
"I don't think he'll come again until nightfall," she said. "He might have been here last night, but I doubt it."
"Alright." Potter was nodding, letting it go for now. "That gives us maybe nine or ten hours. What do we do?"
She shrugged helplessly. "We go about our business normally, I suppose. Keep up the pretence. What else is there to do?"
"We could do something, surely. Find out how he came back . . . find out how the hell he got into the school, for a start. Anything."
"And then what, Potter?" Draco interrupted sarcastically. "Track him to his underground lair and challenge him to a duel? For God's sake."
And in a way it was almost comforting to see Potter blaze back at him, just like it was an ordinary fight.
"What will you do then, you filthy fucking Slytherin? Stand there while he kills her?"
"I hate you. I fucking hate you, Potter."
Ginny sighed, pulling her long hair back into a rough ponytail. "Do we go to Dumbledore?" she asked, ignoring the knives the others were glaring at each other.
"I've been to Dumbledore," Potter muttered, backing down as if he was afraid Ginny would break under the extra strain. She was more businesslike than that though, nodding as if it didn't really surprise her at all.
"Fine. Did he say anything useful?"
"Let me guess. He said Oh dear, You-Know-Who's evil ghost twin came into my school in the night and raped Miss Weasley. Time for some magic sparklies and a bit of crap advice that doesn't make any sense until after someone's died." Draco said harshly, sick of everyone tiptoeing around. "Whoop-dee-fuck. Hooray for Dumbledore's spooky wisdom."
Potter bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed. Ginny smiled, and when he said 'whoop-dee-fuck' Draco was almost certain that she was almost laughing.
"He didn't rape me, Malfoy," she said, rummaging in her bag. She was almost smiling again, using a practised motion as she ignited the tip of her wand and drew hard on what Draco could now see was a cigarette. "Rape is for shamblers like Crabbe and Goyle," she said, flicking some imaginary ash, presumably so she wouldn't have to look either of them in the eye. "Lord Voldemort is much more subtle than that."
"I didn't know you smoked." Potter said, apparently more for something to say than anything else.
She shrugged. The nicotine seemed to be calming her. "It's not my addiction. A little of my soul in him, a little of his soul in me . . . " she took another drag, holding the smoke in her lungs for a long moment, then releasing it to spiral bluely in the air. "You got Parseltongue, I got the echo of a pack a day habit."
"What do you mean, 'more subtle'?" Draco asked.
Shrugged again. Flicked real ash this time. "He's got Cruciatus for pain. What he really likes is corruption . . . you know, like a schoolgirl sleeping with the person who wants to kill her whole family. Stuff like that."
They were all quiet for a moment. Ginny smoked furiously, holding the smoke in so long that Draco thought she was trying to sear her insides.
The bell rang.
Potter started up, grabbing at the cloak and holding something out to Ginny.
"I almost forgot . . . it's a map, it shows the whole castle and all the secret passages, and who's where, so you won't get caught. There's a staircase behind the Anne Boleyn portrait on the third floor that leads right up here." She took it, and for a moment all he did was look at her. "God, I'm so sorry."
She hugged him suddenly, both looking as surprised as the other. "I'm sorry too."
It wasn't even noon yet but it felt as if the sun had gone down.
