"Draco," Ginny whispered. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. They sat by themselves at the end of the Slytherin table. "I can't stand it."
"What is it telling you to do now?" Draco asked flatly.
"The same things as always, but it woke up a bit when I saw Harry just now. It wants me to kill him."
"The potion isn't working then?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Maybe we should double it. You took the Calming Draught too, right? If only Snape were still around…"
"I don't know what to do," she said, gritting her teeth. "It's like he's screaming in my ears."
Draco drew his wand and did a complicated wave. Silver sparks shot at her.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I think I should just go to Madam Pomfrey. It's been weeks of this… I think I'm going mad…"
"You'll be expelled if they find out how this happened. You could possibly even go to Azkaban, depending-"
"I don't care at this point," she said, holding her head in her hands.
"Maybe we could just tell Potter? He'd be a bit… safer. And get Granger's nose in some books on this sort of thing. I dare say they'd help you."
"No," Ginny said at once, "No. You can't tell him. He'd be so angry."
"Yes, he would, but I still fail to see why that matters," Draco said, and took a sip of pumpkin juice. "Anyway, you can't go telling Madam Pomfrey because once you're in St. Mungo's they will label you as a dark witch and keep tabs on you. Something similar happened to Bellatrix when she was young and she was never the same after that. That's what my mother told me."
"Oh, bloody hell," she said, laying her head down on the table. Draco raised his eyebrow as he looked over at her.
"Come. Some evening Quidditch practice. Your dramatics has put me off of my food."
She lifted her head. "I'm starting to think you just like to watch me ride a broom."
"It takes your mind off of things, that's all."
They both stood and started toward the doors. "You'd better watch out though, we're playing each other in a couple of weeks. You're going to teach me all your moves."
"No, you don't know half of them," he drawled. But then he half-smiled at her and she smiled back. "I should tell you, I owled my mother yesterday morning."
"What about?"
"I asked her if you could come to visit at Malfoy Manor during Christmas break. She replied enthusiastically yes."
"Really? What did your father say?"
"He does whatever Mother says anymore," Draco said without looking at Ginny. "But in any case, we'll have full run of the library for research. I doubt father would care and Mother certainly wouldn't think we'd be up to anything in there."
"Thank you."
"Well, it's the least I could do."
"No, it's the most you could do." They were out on the grounds now. They both pulled their school robes tighter about themselves and performed warming charms on themselves. It smelled like snow, though it hadn't snowed yet.
"For the sake of honesty," Draco said as they drew nearer to the pitch, "I should tell you, I'm doing this for Potter. I owe him my life."
"I knew that already," Ginny said sadly.
"Of course. Quite obvious."
"Yeah… but Draco, I'm not his property. You can't save me for him somehow. He doesn't own me."
"Right," Draco said, nodding, "but that's not what he thinks."
Ginny grumbled at this. They took their brooms out from a locker that they'd stored them in inside the locker rooms. Then, they walked out onto the pitch, mounted their brooms and kicked off.
"Post touches to warm up then," Ginny called and Draco nodded. Together, they sped off toward the nearest goal post.
Meanwhile, Harry found himself in a greenhouse watching Neville chop Mandrakes. It was oddly disturbing. Neville wore a rubber apron over his clothes and had his sleeves rolled up past his elbows.
"I never realized that's what Professor Sprout did to them," Harry said with a disgusted look on his face.
"You could help me, you know. It'd make it go faster," Neville said.
"Why aren't you using magic?" Harry asked, looking away as Neville chopped the head off of one of the squirming little men.
"Too messy, actually. Their skin repels magic, like a troll or a giant," Neville said, wrestling with the still-moving body.
"Oh, Harry's here," came a misty voice from behind them. Harry turned, though he knew it was Luna without looking. "Hello, Harry!" she said.
"Hi Luna," he answered. "How are you?"
"I'm very well." She came up next to Harry and sat down on the table that Harry was leaning back against. "Ron is getting good at Legilimency. Unfortunately, he saw a memory of Neville and me laying together in the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. It was quite a dirty memory."
"Luna," Neville said, chopping the arm off of the struggling headless Mandrake, "That's private."
"Yes, I agree," Luna said seriously. "I wish Ron hadn't seen that. But then I saw what happened between you and Hermione and him on Halloween. He made me promise not to tell anyone."
"That's private too, Luna," Harry said warningly. "You shouldn't say that either."
"What?" Neville asked, his mouth hanging open.
"Oh, of course," she said, her eyes going even wider than they already naturally were. "But as you already knew it happened, I thought there wouldn't be a problem mentioning it. And, I have to say, I think the three of you together like that is quite sexy, even if Ginny is in love with you."
"Ginny's not in love with me," Harry said, shaking his head. Suddenly, he wished he had volunteered to chop the Mandrake apart. It would have been nice to get some aggression out right about now.
"Isn't she? It seems like she is, even though she's always spending so much time with Draco Malfoy."
"Yeah, what do you reckon, Harry? You think Malfoy is slipping her a love potion?"
"I don't know," Harry said. He walked over to the Mandrakes that Neville had lined up to chop. They were all gagged with rags so they couldn't scream and they were tied down to the table. Picking up one of the spare butcher knives, Harry started hacking at the nearest one. "I suppose… it's possible."
"That's a piss poor way to repay you for saving his life," Neville said, shaking his head. "Dean and Seamus wondered if that might be the case-the love potion. They couldn't figure any other reason she'd choose him over you."
"I don't think Malfoy likes her like that," Luna said, coming closer to the butchery. She picked up one of the wiggling arms and shook hands with it.
"If he doesn't even like her, then what's the point? Just to mess around with Harry's girl?"
"Well is it fair to call her Harry's? They weren't together for very long. I think Ginny would resent you calling her that."
"But it's like, bloke code," Neville explained, "You don't mess around with another man's girl."
"That sounds like you walk around with a bludger in one hand and you feed yourself raw meat with the other," Luna said airly.
To Harry's dismay, he saw Neville wink at Luna.
"Right, that's my cue. I'll be off."
"Oh, Harry, you don't have to leave. Neville can wait. Just this afternoon, he and I-"
"See you, Harry," Neville said, cutting across Luna.
"See you," Harry said.
As he left, Harry tried to magically clean the mud-like blood off of himself, but it wasn't easy. It was very sticky and every time magic hit the stuff, some of the magic bounced off and created more of a mess.
