A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers!

The best he can do. Ginny appraised Draco from across the little table. There wasn't much room for him to hide anything from her, and she was reasonably sure that he couldn't manage to do it nearly as well as once had. But what's the best a Malfoy can do, anyway? Well, she was about to find out.

"You can start out by telling me the truth when I ask you to," she said. "Even without in vino veritas. It's the least you can do, Malfoy."

He nodded. "That's fair enough."

Ginny tapped the portfolio with one fingernail, realizing that she'd been chewing on most of her other ones until they'd been pretty much reduced to the state of raggedy stumps. Oh, if I could just get a manicure. And a pedicure. And a… I don't know… everything-else-cure, probably. I'm not ready to go to the local fish and chips shop, never mind a ball. And I haven't shaved my legs in- "What about the sketches?" she asked abruptly. "When are we going to show them to everyone? Or is it just to Gaylord Humperdinck, I guess?"

"I think the most likely time for the presentation will be after dancing and dinner. Such as it is." Draco grimaced. "The committee feels the need to stick to the same sort of authentic early nineteenth-century refreshments served at the original Almack's, so the entire dining experience is pretty dreadful."

"I don't care how awful dinner is, Malfoy!" An awful thought struck Ginny. "I really don't remember those dances. I wasn't kidding about that. Blaise won't have the chance to teach me any of them, will he?"

"Er—no. You'll have a few minutes to yourselves here and there, which is quite long enough." Draco's face darkened slightly.

"Well, what am I going to do about that part of it?"

"Can we leave it until a bit later, after we've gone over a few of the other trillion vitally important points?" asked Draco. "I honestly don't know how Humperdinck expects the sketches to be presented. Wouldn't you be the resident expert on that, Weasley?"

"Yes, I've got some ideas, but—" She hesitated. "Do you really think he even expected us to have these done at all?"

"I don't know," said Draco. "If you really want a spot of honesty, Weasley, I've been thinking about that one myself over the past few days. Did he know about Potter's interception of his letter to me, or not? I do wonder about that, sometimes. Just how deep this entire thing really goes…"

Ginny shivered.

"But we're not about to let a little thing like that stop us, are we?" asked Draco.

"No, or I would've already given up, Malfoy." She steeled herself. "Will Harry be there?"

Draco's jaw tightened. "If any of our traditions still mean anything at all, then no," he said. "He's no pureblood."

"Oh," said Ginny. "Who would've thought I'd ever actually be glad about your stupid prejudices?" She tried to smile. But she couldn't, and she saw that the grim expression on his face did not change. She sighed. There was no point in even trying to fool herself.

"But he can find out everything he wants to know, can't he," she said flatly.

"Well, he won't be able to use any sort of magic," said Draco. "No spells; no Extendable Ears or anything of that sort. The rules haven't changed that much."

"But he can use spies. Malfoy, come on. Just tell me the truth."

Draco looked at her gravely. "I don't really need to tell you anything along those lines, do I?"

"No," said Ginny, suddenly feeling very tired. "I already know."

He nodded. "I doubt that Potter will even bother with spies. I imagine that he'll simply set Ministry observers to watch our every move."

"Everything will be out in the open. Harry's always liked doing things that way," said Ginny. She looked down at the table, remembering the Harry she had known, and the things he had liked. "We've got to do this just right, don't we, Malfoy?" she asked.

"Yes," said Draco. Every trace of levity was gone from his voice, she thought.

"Is it impossible?" she asked, trying to sound as if it were no more than a simple question. "I mean, really? Is it?"

"Of course not," he said, avoiding her eyes.

"You're not looking at me. Malfoy, you can't fool me anymore with that kind of thing. When you don't look at me, it means you're lying."

One corner of his mouth turned up. "You know me a bit too well, Weasley," he said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yes." He looked at her steadily. "Yes, you do. Well—it doesn't really matter if it's impossible or not, does it? Because we've got to do it."

"That's the spirit, Malfoy." She closed her eyes, rubbing her face. "You know, I don't generally say this, but I need a drink."

"Neither do I, Weasley, but so do I. Hmm. I don't generally express myself in such a horribly incoherent way either, but I'm sure you know what I mean."

"Don't I just, though." Ginny opened her eyes wearily. Draco was taking a bottle of wine and two glasses out of the satchel.

"What is this?" she asked.

"How on earth should I know? You're the one who summoned it." He deftly uncorked the bottle and sniffed the cork. "Mm. Veuve Clicquot 1998. I applaud your taste, Weasley."

She stared at the glass he poured for her, feeling her mouth water. It looked all right…

"What's in this? In vino veritas, I suppose?" she asked.

Draco took a long sip. "No. Only wine, I think. Of course, you're the one who conjured it up, so I can't be completely sure. But I don't really see what the point of that spell might be, Weasley. I've already promised to tell you the truth. Unless you don't trust me?"

That was the problem, she thought. I do. Much more than I should. She sipped at the wine in her glass. "It's really good."

"Very, very good." He drank, keeping his eyes on hers over the glass. "I must say, it would be dead useful if you could manage this trick all the time."

"Why do you think I'm able to do it now?"

"I'm not quite sure. Perhaps because we're in a soft space."

"Why would that make any sense at all?"

"I see your point." He hesitated. "Do you know, Weasley, I'm starting to wonder if we've really been in some part of the Crystal Palace all along."

There was something about that idea which bothered her, although she didn't know why. "Well, of course I don't know, Malfoy, if you haven't told me. What makes you think that anyway?"

"Because I've got no doubts at all that we'll be taken to the Ball at the right time. I'm not much for soppy mystical Trelawny-type feelings, as I'm sure you know—"

"Yes, I know." Ginny rolled her eyes.

"But if it weren't the case, I do think I'd feel it, and I don't."

Ginny sighed. "Is there a point to this? Such as—oh, I don't know- what would it have to do with my being able to summon things, Malfoy?"

"Because as a Malfoy, I ought to have that ability here. Not you."

She didn't even try to hide her smile of triumph. "Sorry about that one. Maybe it recognizes true quality."

He smiled as well, and it was one of those smiles that reached all the way up to his eyes, she thought, rather than playing tightly about his mouth. "Yes," he said. "Perhaps it does."

She savored another mouthful, slowly. "Are you sure it's not magic?"

He shrugged. "We've almost reached the Pureblood Ball, Weasley. That's a time when powerful magic can be made. So who's to say? Maybe you've done witchcraft without even realizing it."

Ginny looked down at the portfolio, tracing the elegant leather. Then she felt Draco's hand move over hers, and together, they opened it. She looked down at the sketches they had done the night before. His head was bent next to hers, and his wide eyes looked strangely vulnerable, she thought.

This is all that stands between him and Azkaban. She found that she couldn't get the thought out of her head, once it had entered it. Telling herself that it couldn't possibly be true didn't seem to be doing much good.

"I don't know how this would work, Weasley," he said. "You've got to show me."

So she did. She spread the sketches out on the table, trying them in this combination and that, shaping all the possible presentations she could think of. Draco nodded, asking a few quiet questions but mostly listening, watching, his hands shadowing hers as they moved the art they had created as if playing a piece of music.

"Do you see?" she finally asked him.

"I think… perhaps. Or at least, I'm confident that you see." He smiled, and she wondered if it might be the sweetest smile she had seen on his face yet.

Ginny sat back with a sigh, closing the portfolio. "Malfoy, I'm actually starting to think we might actually be able to pull this thing off."

"I must say, I feel at least a bit of hope myself." Draco pushed away his empty glass and looked at her with serious eyes. "But there's something that you need to know, Weasley, and it's got to be said now."

"What?" Oh, I don't like the sound of that…

"We'll make the presentation jointly, of course. But before that, you'll sit with Blaise; I'll be with Astoria. We'll come together only afterwards."

"Of course," said Ginny stiffly.

He drummed his fingers on the table. "I'll need to keep up appearances during the evening as much as I possibly can."

By doing what, exactly? Ginny clamped her mouth tightly shut.

"So…" Draco swallowed visibly. Ginny could see it. "Directly after this, we've got to separate. We won't see each other again until the Ball. You'll find appropriate clothing in one of the bathrooms, and so will I. You'll dress, and when you move out into the corridor, you'll clearly see a sort of barrier. Step into it and move past it. Once at the Ball, we've got to remain apart until the moment when we present the sketches together. Then, after that…"

"We can't speak to each other," said Ginny. "We can't even look at each other. That's it, isn't it?"

Draco didn't answer. He didn't need to, she thought. "Oh, Malfoy—" she began.

He stepped closer to her and laid a finger on her lips. "Shh, Weasley."

Was this what it had felt like whenever she had done the same thing to him, she wondered? She could feel the faint roughness of his finger rasping the exquisitely sensitive skin of her lips. She wanted to open her mouth for him. She wanted to take him inside, to feel that knobbly long finger slide past her lips, to find out how much of it she could take into herself. She wanted to—

"Shh," he said again. "We're going to get through this, you know."

"You were always rubbish at Divination, Malfoy," she whispered. Gods, but his finger was still on her lips! She could feel it moving as she spoke.

"Yes," he agreed. "But so were you, Weasley."

The urge to reach out and capture his finger was almost unbearable. She could do it; she knew she could. If they stayed as they were even a few more moments, she knew that she wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, and it would be so easy. All she'd have to do would be to close her lips around the tip suddenly, and she could suck him in. Or she could part her mouth and lick his finger, base to tip. Or—

She heard Draco's sudden intake of breath. The finger moved away.

"We'll come through," Draco said unevenly. "I—Weasley, I know that we will."

Ginny couldn't answer. She kept her eyes on him, knowing that her pupils were large and dark, and that her mouth was still slightly parted.

"It's going to be all right." He leaned back, just slightly. "We've got the sketches ready to go, and Blaise will take care of you tonight; he'll keep you safe, regardless of my uncharitable thoughts about him earlier."

"Safe from who?" asked Ginny.

"From Potter," said Draco. "You know that."

Yes, she did know that. Ginny turned her head away in what she knew very well would be a ridiculously futile effort to hide tears, if she really was thick enough to cry, she thought miserably. She never seemed to be able to stop crying for what she couldn't have. Well, no point in staying here a minute longer. She began to turn away. Then she felt a hand on her arm.

"Listen to me," said Draco. "You've got to put on a performance tonight, Weasley. I don't know if your acting skills were ever any sort of improvement over your Divination abilities or not. But in any case, it's got to be one of the best bits of playacting in your life."

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?"

His lips tightened. Again, he did not answer her.

The seconds ticked by, and if she kept her mouth shut, some unbearable thing would happen. She was sure of it. "Malfoy. What are we going to do if Humperdinck sees that you-"

Draco held up a hand, swiftly. The look on his face made the words fade on her lips, and she didn't really know what she would have said, anyway.

More seconds ticked by. Ginny was quite sure that her face looked as if it had been dipped in a bucket of red paint by the end of them.

"Humperdinck won't see anything," Draco finally said. "Not tonight. He's reporting to Potter."

"I know," said Ginny. "I understand." Her voice sounded rough and high and faraway to her own ears. She wished desperately that she hadn't said anything at all.

He put his fingers over her lips one last time. "Shh," he said again. "I'm a Malfoy, remember? And we all know how to hide the truth. That's the first lesson a Malfoy learns. Don't fret, Weasley."

His fingers lingered on her mouth like the ghost of a kiss, and then they were gone. Ginny stood very still."

"I swore to protect you," Draco said again. "And I will."

"I will too, Malfoy," said Ginny. "I won't do anything that would make Harry suspicious if- when- the news gets passed along. I won't give him any excuse."

"Well, if worst comes to the very worst, Weasley," Draco said lightly, "we already know that we've done more than enough to qualify you for a visit to the poor lonely prisoner in Azkaban."

Or at least his voice should have been light. It could be, Ginny realized, if she chose to take it that way. She realized quite suddenly that she really didn't want to. That's dreadfully dangerous, she thought. Danger seemed very far away, in that moment.

"You'll never end up there, Malfoy," she said, feeling very much as if she were beginning to inch over a precipice. "But I would come to you if you did."

"Really?" murmured Draco.

"Really."

Silence stretched between them, soft, weighty silence.

"I wonder what time it is," said Ginny.

"There are no clocks here," said Draco. "They wouldn't run if there were. But I think that it's getting very late. We'd better get ready."

"You're right," said Ginny. "I'll see you soon, though? At the Ball?"

"Yes. But you've got to understand something, Weasley. When I do see you, I can't so much as acknowledge you," said Draco flatly. "You'll see me with Astoria. I'll see you with Blaise. We'll present the sketches together. Other than that, we can't say a single word to one another. You've got to behave as if the past two and a half weeks have been a sort of distasteful duty, and as if you've been a bit frightened of me all along. You'll be an object of pity, and you've got to play along."

Ginny nodded. "I've got to act as if I'd be happy if I never saw you again. Not as if I positively hate you, though. I think that would be a bit much. Just as if I'm so glad to have got through being stuck in the same room with you that now I'm in ecstasy to be out of it."

"That's exactly right," said Draco.

"But it's not—" Ginny began.

"Shh," said Draco. "Weasley, you've got to put on the best act of your life tonight. So whatever it was that you were about to say… my advice is to refrain from saying it."

"But it's still true."

Draco reached across the tiny table and wiped a single tear from under her left eye. "Truth has many faces," he said softly. "But you're not very good at wearing a false face, are you?"

Ginny shook her head.

He smiled crookedly. "I'm good enough for both of us, Weasley."

But will that be enough? she wondered. I wish… Even to herself, she could not finish the thought.

"What?" asked Draco.

Is he reading my mind? No. She realized that she'd spoken aloud. "I wish I really remembered the dances."

"Oh, I can see it all now. You're going to trip over your own feet and knock Humperdinck unconscious, and all of my careful planning will come to naught."

"I have learned them, Malfoy. I did go to dancing school."

He raised one eyebrow. "When on earth did this unlikely event take place?"

"The summer right before first year." Ginny shuddered at the memory. "Mum thought I was turning into too much of a tomboy, what with sneaking Fred and George's brooms out of the shed all the time. You just don't want to know. But it's been forever, and I think I've blocked out almost everything, anyway.."

"Time for a primer, then," he whispered, and then he had swept her up.

"I can't—"

"You can. Come on, Weasley; you can't tell me that you don't remember the waltz. Just imagine the music."

Draco swept her up in his arms, suddenly and breathlessly and shockingly, and Ginny found that she did remember it, and that she could imagine it. This is happening, she thought fiercely and unbelievingly as the dance went on and on, really, really happening. She struggled to seize and fix each impossible moment in her memory. She was really feeling Draco's big hands curved around hers; she really felt the sleek graceful movement of his body pressing her back in the movement of the dance; she really had to swallow down her heart leaping into her throat when it thumped briefly right against his, pressed tightly to his chest. And the graceful lilting music went on, and on, and on.

She wasn't even sure when the dance ended. They were both sitting down, and she didn't really know when they had stopped, but they were resting after what seemed like a very long time. Draco intertwined his hand with hers. It felt warm and strong. Ginny felt herself jump a bit, involuntarily. But she didn't pull away. After a few moments, she moved her fingers to curve more surely into his. Neither of them looked at one another; they both stared straight ahead, at the opposite wall. But their hands nestled into one another like two birds that had flown to rest at last.

"We can't do this when we're at the ball," Ginny finally blurted. "We can't touch each other at all. We can't even stand too close to each other, or Harry will see. He'll know. Even if he's not in the same room or the same building or the same bloody century, even if he didn't have one spy there, he'd know, somehow. He always knows." Too late, she despised herself for ruining it all by saying a single word.

"I know we can't," said Draco. "Shh." His fingers stroked her palm, gently.

She hadn't ruined anything, Ginny realized. She let her head fall against his shoulder. Maybe that was too much, she thought with a twinge of fear. Now that it was done, she couldn't believe she'd dared to do it. Although she hadn't dared; she hadn't screwed her courage up to the act; she'd simply done it.

She felt his fingers tugging at her hair as he sifted it through his left hand. The strands of her hair were brushing his wrist, she realized. They were touching his twisted, ugly Dark Mark.

"Does that hurt you?" she blurted, without thinking.

"What?" He sounded confused, she thought. Oh, I shouldn't have said anything.

"When anything touches your… your Mark. I was only wondering if it hurt."

He was silent for a moment. "Usually, yes. But not now. Not your hair."

Silently, Ginny tipped her head to one side so that a long cascade of curls fell over his arm. He drew in his breath and then held his hand up to her. She saw the red-gold of her hair spilling over the blackened scar like blood, as if his wound were new-made, and she was the one who had opened it again.

"A kiss for luck, Weasley?"

"Yes," she whispered.

She felt his lips on her forehead, featherlight. Then the warmth was replaced by the colder air of the room. Draco was gone.