A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially tryntee13 and amethyst-rose.
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Nobody minds having what is too good for them.
- Jane Austen.
The corridor was almost completely dark, lit by only a few orange witchlights on sconces high on the wall. Ginny thought she felt something fly past her cheek at one point, although she couldn't see what it was. She batted at it and reached the door to the necessary room with a sigh of relief. She'd been half afraid that she'd find wooden privies, a row of iron commodes, or worse, and was relieved to see that the mania for historical accuracy clearly did not extend to the ladies' loo. The room was large, luxurious, and softly lit, with a number of small modern toileting areas, each concealed behind a silk screen.
She washed her hands at the small sink, putting off the moment when she'd have to go back downstairs. Some things were going to change. She wasn't about to allow one more dirty old man to lick his lips over her breasts; she was sure of that. And if Blaise stops being an idiot, they've got to let up. But…
Ginny paused in the middle of smoothing jasmine-scented cream into her skin from a porcelain jar. But will he? Would Blaise disobey whatever orders Draco had really given him? What would happen if he did?
I don't care, she thought grimly. Thaddeus Nott will never live to see his hundred and fifty-first birthday if he says one more word about rum punch and mother's milk to me. That resolution made, at least, Ginny pulled her pelisse up to her neck and prepared to leave.
The sound of rustling stopped her.
It's the same thing I heard a few minutes ago, just before Malfoy started acting like such an arse, she realized, and then, It's the sound of those dresses, the ones with the overgowns, and then, Footsteps. More than one pair.
"Do you think she went in here?" asked a female voice.
A pause "No. I'm sure she didn't." The words were sure, all right, but there was something strange about the answering voice.
Ginny peeked through the crack between two embroidered panels. She saw a blonde woman in a frilly green gown and some sort of hideous pink headdress, her hair straggling down the back despite dozens of jeweled pins stuck in at various angles. She had a strange, vague look on her face as she hesitated just inside the room.
"I'm quite sure Ginny Weasley went somewhere else," she said.
A woman with darker blonde hair was standing across from her, wearing a fussy lace blue dress with a peach pelisse that clashed horribly. Her eyes looked misty and vague, too. "Oh… yes. I see what you mean, Van. I'm sure as well."
They're both under Confundus charms, realized Ginny. Malfoy must have cast them on his way down the stairs. That was quite a risk to take, though. What if somebody else had come by while he was doing it? She also thought she recognized them both. They were two of the women who had been in the small group she'd first seen when Blaise took her into the ballroom, and they had both smiled slyly at her and begun gossiping with their friends. But they looked familiar from somewhere else, too, although she couldn't yet place them. Her Aunt Muriel had once owned a little Pekinese pug, and she'd been in the bad habit of leaving it out in the rain overnight. Ginny thought that both women had a distinct resemblance to the way that pug looked first thing in the morning. But surely that couldn't be it… no, it was something about the smiles…
"Well… never mind," said the blonde who the other woman had called Van. She patted at her hair, and the sly smile began to creep over her face again. "Whatever do you suppose it all meant, Kit?"
Ginny groaned silently. Seeing the smile again had done it. She remembered both of them now; they were Vanessa and Kitty Pucey, Adrian Pucey's younger sisters from Hogwarts. Their grades had always hovered just a few points above failing every class. If there had been a specialization in spreading gossip, however, they would have passed with the highest marks in the school.
Kit shrugged, but Ginny thought that she looked like she had a lot of theories as to the answer to her sister's question, all of which she was bursting to share. "I don't know, but it didn't exactly seem to me that she'd taken off at a run as soon as she saw him to begin with. It seems to me as if they'd been having a conversation for quite some time."
"I heard that she'd been working with him at the Ministry for weeks on end before all of this happened," said Kit. "They were supposedly doing art even then, but…" She allowed the words to trail off.
Oh, no! Ginny cowered back. Of course, she thought, it wasn't as if she'd really been in any doubt about the fact that she and Draco formed the topic of their conversation before that moment.
"And then they were closeted together for at least two weeks, you know," Vanessa leaned closer. "Now really, Kit, what do you suppose went on between them?"
"I don't know," giggled Kitty, "but if I'd been trapped in a room with that delicious Draco Malfoy day and night, all I can say is that I wouldn't exactly have spent my time playing wizarding chess!"
"Of course you wouldn't, Kitty Pucey," said a sharp voice from the doorway, "because playing wizarding chess requires a brain. Especially when Draco Malfoy's your partner. Not that he was ever yours, in anything."
Kitty turned to the door, her eyes narrowing in what Ginny couldn't help thinking was a very unattractive way. "Oh, and I suppose you'd know?"
"Of course I'd know," the voice went on. "We dated for two years, remember? When he wouldn't look twice at either of you, no matter how many times you threw yourselves at him?"
Oh, gods, thought Ginny. I know who that has to be.
"It's true," said a loud voice behind her. "He didn't. They even tried to get Draco into a threesome once in sixth year, but he wasn't interested at all, and they got kind of mad at him, and then he threw them out of the Slytherin dormitory and put a Confundus charm on them so they could never remember the password again, and that really put a damper on their social life that whole year. I know it for a fact. They had all these sex scenes lined up with Marcus Flint, and they didn't get to do any of them—"
"That's enough, Milly," said the first, exasperated voice.
Ginny watched as Pansy Parkinson stepped into the room. She'd known that the voice had to belong to her; that it couldn't be anybody else, but she still couldn't help the feeling of shock. She hadn't seen Pansy since the battle of Hogwarts. She'd had no idea what had happened to her; she'd never imagined that she would actually see her again, but here she stood in a long, elegant red gown with her hair piled high in lacquered curls, her face as pretty and glossy and cynical as Ginny had always remembered it. Behind her, Millicent Bulstrode seemed to be having some trouble keeping her cleavage from popping out. Ginny couldn't help thinking that she didn't seem to be very bothered by the fact, though.
Pansy gave Kitty a world-weary sort of look. "Kit, do try to get a fact or two through that little head of yours. You can't really think that Draco Malfoy, of all people, would waste one more minute of his time than absolutely necessary with trash like Ginny Weasley. I mean, even you can't be that thick. Right?"
Kitty began to bristle. "I don't know who you think you are, Pansy Parkinson, talking to me like that—"
"Oh, I know who I am," said Pansy, idly patting at her curls in the mirror. "Too bad about your family, though. Isn't there a hobbit or two in the mix?"
"You—you—" gasped Kitty. Vanessa grabbed her sister's arm.
"Come on, Kit. There are much more amusing places to be than anywhere near them," she said.
"Don't let the door hit you in the bum on the way out!" called Millicent.
Ginny watched them go. It was beginning to dawn on her now; just how much danger she had really been in, how Draco had seen it, how she had not. But still, she couldn't help thinking… maybe that vague hobbit resemblance really was what she'd been trying to pin down; maybe it covered things even better than the rained-on pug Pekinese thing…
"Come on out, Weasley," said Pansy without turning round from the mirror.
"I don't know how you can always do that, Pans," said Millicent.
"Milly, what have I told you about using your inside voice?" sighed Pansy.
Ginny came out from behind the screen. There really wasn't anything else to do. She put her hands on her hips and glared at Pansy.
"Do you have anything else you'd like to add, Parkinson, or can I go now?" she asked.
"You can do what you like, "said Pansy, "but I have some advice to give, and I think you'd better take it."
"Oh?"
"Maybe you'd better say you're sorry for calling her trash," pointed out Millicent, scratching the calf of her leg with her slipper. "These stockings are really, really itchy. I'm getting sick of this whole outfit, and we've got hours to go. I wonder when I can get out of it? Not until after dinner anyway, I guess… but then I'm going to find who I want, and—"
"Shut it, Milly. Of course, I didn't mean it," said Pansy, turning round to face Ginny for the first time. "You've got to know that."
Her voice wasn't particularly apologetic, thought Ginny. "How nice," she said. "Am I supposed to thank you or something?"
"If you thought it over," said Pansy, "I should think you would. I was trying to put Kitty and Vanessa Pucey off the scent about you and Draco Malfoy. I don't know if I succeeded, but I had to try. If anyone knew for sure that you saw him before he was officially announced with Astoria- You don't understand the etiquette here, Weasley; you can't know what a bloody disaster it would be."
"So you're sticking up for me?" asked Ginny, all her hackles instantly rising.
"It's not because of you, believe me. Helping you isn't my greatest goal in life." said Pansy. "I'm not Daphne Greengrass."
Ginny shut her lips tightly. She would not give Pansy the satisfaction of asking exactly what she meant by that.
"Do you understand how much danger you were in?" asked Pansy.
"I understand everything just fine," said Ginny.
"I don't think you do."
"And I suppose you're about to say you understand everything worth knowing in this world?" Ginny asked acidly.
"I understand enough, and I suppose I'll have to spell it out for you," said Pansy. "Say that you and Draco were together in that little alcove under an Invisibility spell, and that you were both inaudible as well. Fine. But—"
"How did you know where we were, Parkinson?" demanded Ginny.
"I'm trying to tell you that, Weasley. You don't know what these sorts of purebloods are like, do you—the ones who go to the Ball? They've got nothing to do but spy and spread gossip about friends and enemies alike, and everyone certainly knows exactly where that alcove is. It's used for secret—no, not-so-secret—meetings all the time. People are going to put two and two together when you suddenly emerge out of nowhere, and then Draco does the same thing a minute later. That's all that Kitty and Vanessa Pucey did." Pansy gave her a long, shrewd look. "And they're as thick as two Blast-Ended Skrewts, Weasley; you're very clever indeed. You can't tell me that you're not capable of understanding this."
Ginny looked past Pansy's knowing face, her own cheeks flaming. I'm not going to say one single word.
"You're not being very nice, Pans," said Millicent, making an apparently hopeless attempt to stuff her hair under a number of forlorn-looking feathers in her headdress.
"I'm not trying to be nice," said Pansy. "I'm trying to get across just how serious the consequences could have been, and all because of what she did."
Ginny grabbed her tiny reticule, which had been sitting on the large dressing table. "Look, I've about had a bellyful, Parkinson. You don't even know what you're talking about."
"I know exactly what I'm talking about!" retorted Pansy. "I'm trying to warn you, and it doesn't seem to be getting through. I'm not doing it for your sake, you know. If you don't care about yourself, Weasley, do you know how much danger you were putting Draco in by luring him into that alcove—"
"Luring him—ha!" Ginny faced off against the brunette. "I didn't lure Malfoy anywhere, for your information, not that it's any of your business, Parkinson. He's the one who grabbed me and yanked me in there!"
The two girls glared at each other. A large hand clamped down on each of their shoulders and pulled them apart. "Don't make me do what I do to the security trolls," said Millicent. "That would really ruin everybody's hair." She glanced at them both. "Can you shake hands now?"
Pansy pressed her lips together tightly and retreated to the other side of the large mirror.
"Oh, come on," Millicent said coaxingly. She gave Ginny a big grin. "You know, I always kind of liked you, Weasley," she added, as if offering a great treat.
"And that has relevance to this situation because…?" asked Ginny.
"I'm here at the Ball with Pansy," said Millicent. "I'm her partner, I mean. So that means you can trust Pansy, too."
The rumors about Millicent Bulstrode having been dropped on her head as a baby several times and treated hastily with Dr. Butts' Brain Injury Pepper-Upper (Re-Enervates Bruised Neurons in Moments!) really must have been true, Ginny decided. "I didn't know that couples of the same gender were even allowed at the Ball," was all she said.
"Oh, it doesn't mean we're lesbians or anything," said Millicent. "We're just friends. Understand, when I say I worked my way through the Slytherin Quidditch team during sixth year at Hogwarts, I do mean everyone on the team, more or less. But Pansy never played Quidditch, so—"
"Millicent Ulvhild!" said Pansy through clenched teeth. She turned back to Ginny. "There are still quite a few things you don't know, Weasley."
"I don't doubt there are," said Ginny as haughtily as she could. "I'm not the one who thinks I know everything. But the dancing's probably about to start any minute, so if you don't mind—"
"Milly, I'll see you downstairs," said Pansy, still keeping her eyes on Ginny.
"Okay," said Millicent. "I can take a hint. I'm really good at that. I always know when somebody's giving me a hint. I think I'm really, really good at picking up on the subtle hints—oh, okay! I'm going!"
Once Millicent's loud footsteps had retreated down the stairs, Pansy began to speak again, very softly and very fast.
"I'm not telling you this for your sake, Weasley, but for Draco's. If you care about what happens to him at all, you'll listen to me, and if you don't- but you're planning to use the brain you've got in your head- you'll do it anyway. I know where both of you were for the past two and a half weeks. I know the kind of effect those Malfoy rooms have on any girl who's in them."
"How—" exclaimed Ginny.
"Shh! And no, it's not because I've ever been in there, so don't spend the rest of the night working yourself up into some kind of jealous frenzy. I was his girlfriend- or, well, whatever we were—for almost two years, and I learned things. He talks in his sleep, you know. Or do you?" Pansy gave her an odd look.
Ginny felt a dart of fire roar through her. She saw black for an instant. It wasn't jealousy; it couldn't be; it was… there wasn't time to think about whatever it was or wasn't. Pansy kept talking.
"I know that once you've been in the Malfoy rooms, the effect will linger for- well, I don't know how long. A long time, anyway. If you go into the Crystal Palace again, you'll feel it, whether you're in the rooms or not. You won't be able to help it. And it'll be strongest if you're anywhere near Draco." Pansy cut her words off suddenly, picked up her jeweled reticule, and headed for the door. Then she turned back. "And remember, Weasley, I told you for his sake, not yours."
"You've already said that, Parkinson," said Ginny. "I suppose you're jealous, then?"
"Not when it comes to Draco, not anymore," said Pansy. She had a strange smile on her face, Ginny thought. "But he'll always be my friend, and you could hurt him more than you can imagine. He can do the same to you, but I don't care so much about that." Then she was gone.
Ginny sat down in the elegant Georgian chair and looked at herself in the mirror for a long time. Pansy had been right, she thought. She had been unaware of even something as simple, as obvious, as the effects that this place was clearly having on her body and her sensual reactions to Draco. The worst part of all was how stupid she felt for not having thought of it in the first place; it was all so clearly similar to what she'd felt when she was in the Malfoy rooms. Gods, what was she going to do? She stared into her own eyes, watching her dilated pupils. I could hurt him? Oh, he could hurt me so much more... she really can't imagine… and just as she said, she doesn't care, so what does she know about it anyway?
But maybe it was a good thing that she had run into Pansy Parkinson, and that she was still such a bitch. She was a bitch who told the truth, and Ginny thought it was very good that she had been reminded of the truth. The attraction blazing between herself and Draco couldn't be denied. She accepted that now, almost calmly. But he'd given her no promises, made no vows. He would walk into that ballroom with his wife in just a few minutes. Draco and Astoria were tied to each other in ways that she didn't know, bound by the network of laws and customs that were second nature to these upper-crust purebloods, as natural as breathing. She didn't begin to understand them. Pansy had been right about that. She couldn't understand how or why these people knew all the things they knew, the elaborate games that seemed to have so little to do with survival. She herself might as well as have been a Muggle plucked off the street and dropped in their midst, for all that she knew.
Ginny had promised to do everything in her power to keep Draco Malfoy out of Azkaban, and she would keep to that promise. But beyond that, she owed him nothing. He certainly didn't owe her anything at all. If she forgot that, even for an instant, then maybe she'd deserve to be hurt as much as he could hurt her.
The thoughts were terrible and painful, and she forced herself to go over and over them until they became easier and smoother in her mind, like jagged rocks worn smooth by endless tumbling. Except that they never did. They remained as painful as ever. Ginny suspected that they might do if she kept repeating them as long as she lived.
He doesn't owe me anything. Dr—Malfoy doesn't owe me. Anything. He doesn't…
But then, why had he warned her about the danger of leaving the only safe areas of the Crystal Palace that night? If he'd been caught, it would have been embarrassing for her; it might have been fatal for him. Why had he cast Confundus charms over those two women? Why was he trying to protect her? Or was he?
Well, I don't owe him anything, she told herself. Some part of her mind tried to whisper to her about the vows she'd made. But Ginny had a disturbing gift for diverting voices of that sort, and splitting little bits of herself off into pieces that held them apart from the rest. Then she'd forget that she had done so, or that there had ever been anything to remember at all. She was very like Draco in that way.
Ginny kept staring into the mirror as if her own features might hold the answer. They didn't, of course.
Then she raised her chin defiantly and got up. It was time to return.
Blaise was standing behind a potted palm and staring moodily into a glass of champagne when she returned to the ballroom. Ginny plucked one of the crystal flutes off a tray held by a circulating house-elf and drained the fizzy liquid in one gulp. She could feel it going straight to her head.
"You all right, Gin?" asked Blaise.
"Not really, no," said Ginny. "Is Gaylord Humperdinck here yet?" Her eyes scanned the glittering crowd tensely, although she highly doubted it was going to do any good to look for him. She'd never actually met him.
"I'm sure he isn't," said Blaise. He still hadn't glanced up from the champagne, she saw.
"What does he look like?" she asked.
"Haven't the slightest."
"Then how do you know if he's here or not?"
"He'd have been announced," Blaise told his crystal flute. He stared at it as if it had done him a personal injury.
Ginny's eyebrows swooped together into one cinnamon-colored line. "How would you know, Blaise? You've apparently been hiding behind a potted palm for the last twenty minutes!"
"That was unkind."
"It was true. Look, we've got to come out." Ginny grabbed Blaise's arm and attempted to drag him into the open. He immediately got a sulky look on his face and planted his feet more firmly on the floor.
"I'd rather like to stay right here," he said.
"Well, you can't spend the rest of the evening feeling sorry for yourself, Blaise," snapped Ginny. "There's nobody else to help me, so you're going to start behaving yourself, whether you like it or not—"
"Daphne was supposed to be here already. Pity she isn't," mumbled Blaise. "Then maybe I could hand you off to her. Don't know what Draco expects me to do anyway, after all those dire threats in the owl. She said she was working on a plan; she wouldn't say what it was, she was cooking it up with Colin Creevey and she wouldn't say a thing, nobody ever trusts me, I don't know why-"
She really shouldn't let Blaise drink any more champagne, Ginny decided. Humperdinck probably already is here! Swiftly, she came to her final decision.
"You get out from behind this plant right now, Blaise Zabini," she hissed. "The plan's going to change starting this second."
Blaise's eyes widened. He began to back away. Ginny maneuvered quickly behind him so that he was backing in the direction of the open ballroom floor. It was a spot where they could be seen by the entire room, but they would be far enough from other couples that they couldn't be easily heard. Perfect, thought Ginny.
"I don't like the sound of that," he said.
"I don't care what you don't like. You promised to help me, and you're going to do it."
"I didn't know you could be so nasty, Gin. How many other unexpected sides to your character are there?"
"I don't know, and unless you do as I say, I don't think you want to find out!" She advanced on him with fire in her eyes.
His own eyes widened. And so the other penny drops, she thought with some satisfaction. "Ah—Ginny, I was trying to spare your feelings earlier by not telling you exactly what Draco wrote to me in that owl. You don't want to know what he said he'd do to me if… ah…. And I'm really rather cowardly. I think that's why the Hat put me in Slytherin—"
"I don't want to hear about how cowardly you are! You didn't hear what… what happened when I was gone," Ginny said rather lamely. "And there isn't time to explain it now. For the last time, we're changing our plans, and I'm going to hex you right this second if you don't act like the male slut you are, Zabini!"
She saw the reluctance in his eyes for one more second, and then his gaze shifted past her. She wondered what he was seeing. She craned her own head to look. Her perspective skewed wildly as Blaise pushed her up against the wall in full view of the entire ballroom and kissed her passionately.
Ginny felt it all; everything she had so longed to experience with Draco a few minutes before, everything he couldn't do to her and with her, a male mouth ravaging hers, male hands on her body, a hard male torso and hips and legs pressed up against her breasts and stomach and thighs so that she could feel every inch of shifting muscles and straining desire. She responded. She couldn't help it. But even as the hormones coursed through her veins and her hair stood on end and she felt rushes of blood to every sensitive spot on her flesh, she felt the bitter tang of self-disgust in her mouth. She just wanted to push him away.
She didn't, of course. She giggled and carefully disengaged herself from the kiss, running her hand down Blaise's cheek, giving him a fond look. He entwined the fingers of one of his hands with hers, and she let him do it. She heard whispers go round the room in response. Her cheeks were red, and she would have preferred to have kept looking at the floor for the rest of the night, but that was less than an ideal strategy, as she very well knew. She raised her head.
A fresh group of people stood at the top of the stairs. New arrivals, Ginny thought automatically. She looked at the couple in front, and her heart sank.
The amplified voice boomed through the room.
"Mistress Luna Lovegood and Cacique Dean Thomas!"
"I'm so glad we could get in. I was awfully afraid we were too late," said Luna. Her own voice rang as clear and sweet as a bell, and Ginny heard every word. "Only I'd always read that one could gain admission to Almack's anytime before eleven. After that, even the Duke of Wellington was once turned away. Or was it because he wasn't wearing knee breeches? I can't recall."
An elf pulled a small blue book from somewhere in his trousers and busily flipped through it. Must be another protocol-elf, Ginny thought numbly. I'm sure they've got loads. "It was the incident of the knee-breeches," he said a nasal voice. "Just after his victory at Waterloo, as I recall. Most unfortunate in every way, yes yes. But you are most welcome, Mistress Lovegood, Cacique Thomas, most indubitably."
Cacique Thomas? wondered Ginny. She wasn't about to ask. Strange titles did seem to be the least of their worries, at the moment.
"I'm sure we're going to have such fun," said Luna. She looked round the room, smiling radiantly. Ginny didn't want to look in her direction at all, but once Luna's enormous misty blue eyes caught and held hers, it was too late; she couldn't help it.
Ginny wanted to sink through the floor and die of shame. Luna smiled. She gave a minute nod of her head. The curls of her pale hair were woven with strands of blue crystals, and the movement sent them all tumbling and flying, dazzling Ginny's eyes.
What does she mean? Ginny wondered. She gave a deep sigh and leaned against Blaise. Whatever it was, and no matter how terrible she felt, nothing could change her plans. "I'm sorry," she whispered to Blaise, knowing that that feeling could not be allowed to change anything, either.
"Nothing to be sorry about," answered Blaise, pressing her hand. His mouth had spread into a wide, false, sharklike smile. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine," she lied. "I don't think I'm getting quite enough oxygen. That's all. I'm wearing a corset, you know."
"I know," said Blaise. "I know exactly what all the girls tonight are wearing—and not wearing, I might add." He leered at her.
"Your imitation of a male slut doesn't have to be quite that convincing, Zabini."
"Who says it's an imitation? I've spent twenty-two glorious years in a state of male sluthood—I was an early starter, by the way—and I don't see why I should stop now. Anyway, I'm not talking about you. We're only playing the part of a couple in lust, remember? Good change of plans, by the way. I quite agree with it now." He swung her round so that her breasts pressed partly up against his chest.
"But—" Ginny bit her lip. "All right; never mind. Blaise, do you really think Humperdinck isn't here yet?"
"I really think I'd have heard his name being announced, along with his partner's. I wasn't that sunk in self-pity—charming of you to point it out, by the way."
"Who do you think he'd come with?"
"Probably a beard, Gin. Some woman or other. You know how our sort of purebloods are, or at least you ought to have picked it up from spending so much of your time hanging about Draco. It's perfectly all right to be as queer as a two-knut Galleon, so long as you keep it behind closed doors. But in public…" Blaise shrugged. "That's quite another thing."
"Blaise…" Ginny hesitated. "I ran into Pansy Parkinson upstairs."
He raised his eyebrows. "Now there's a name I haven't thought of in an aeon or so. I wonder if she's his official partner."
"I don't think so. She was here with Millicent Bulstrode—as friends, they said."
"Yes, that does happen." Blaise's brow puckered thoughtfully. He ran a hand up Ginny's arm. "We need a bit of cover here; kiss the side of my neck or something; can't you?"
"I, uh…" Ginny squirmed. "Look, I don't feel quite right about what just happened; I mean, I didn't mean for it to be quite so realistic…"
"Put a liplock below my ear while you talk; Gin, people will start to get suspicious," Blaise whispered to her.
Reluctantly, she pressed her lips to his neck.
"Very good," he said. "Let me guess. You've never really had a decent chance to learn that sex can exist independently of love, and frequently does. Right? You don't have to answer, Gin. That blush is more than enough. You do blush easily, don't you? I'm sure Draco never lets you hear the end of that."
"I don't know what you're—"
"Hush. On second thought; don't—it looks as if we're having some sort of pre-shagging moment or other. The point is, I've spent most of my life exploring the distance between sex and love," said Blaise. "They're usually very far apart, you know. I've always been quite happy with that. Until—" His face darkened. "Never mind. Never mind that, Gin. I never should have forgotten what I knew; it's always best that way, you see. The point is, I don't have a problem in the world with you snogging my face off, even if you don't have a shred of feeling for me."
"But I do, Blaise," Ginny said quietly. "You're my friend. That's why I don't want to do it."
He smiled down at her, his slanting bottle-green eyes brilliant. "What a dear girl you are, Ginny. I'm so glad I didn't seduce you when I had the chance. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say."