A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: tryntee13 and amethyst-rose!

The music rose and fell in the lovely, lilting strains of a waltz, and Ginny felt her feet carry her smoothly across the floor in Blaise's arms. Her mind was hunting among possibilities. This was only a couple's dance, which cramped her style considerably. When Blaise swung her round, she saw Luna's glimmering blue eyes, Dean's sulky, miserable face, and Daphne's determinedly blank expression, but she never seemed to come close enough to actually speak to anyone. She looked for the stiff, straight, broad, upright back that she knew she would recognize instantly as Draco's, but she never spotted it. Once, she saw Astoria's hand in Theodore Nott's, their white gloves meeting, their heads pressed together. Her eyes widened.

"Blaise…" She jerked her head towards the couple. "What the hell is that all about?"

"I don't know."

"Where's Malfoy?"

Blaise scowled. "I haven't laid eyes on him since that lovely scene we re-enacted for Humperdinck's benefit."

Ginny studied the strangely matched couple again when Blaise turned her round in the figure of the waltz. "I don't like seeing Astoria with Theodore Nott."

"Yes, I've certainly seen sights that lent my heart a warmer glow," Blaise muttered, his eyes on Luna and Dean.

Ginny pinched him, grimly.

"What did you do that for?" he protested.

"I'm trying to figure out if we need to worry about what I just saw, or not. You're certainly not helping. Blaise, you've just got to stop…" Ginny fumbled for the phrase.

"Mooning after her?" Blaise's mouth compressed into a bitter line. He was still looking at Luna.

"I didn't say that."

"It's all right." He turned his eyes back to Ginny. "I've promised to do whatever I could to help you tonight, Gin. Asta and Theo do make for a rather disturbing couple, but on the other hand, she's got to have someone to partner her if Draco's buggered off to gods-know-where. That's most likely all it is."

"Then where did Malfoy go?" she asked.

"I wish I knew," said Blaise.

Ginny would have liked to ask something more, but Blaise twirled her past a tight group of couples at that very moment. Pansy was dancing with Marcus Flint, she saw. She'd probably tell me the truth about Astoria and Nott, if she knew it, Ginny thought grudgingly. I wish I could talk to her, too. Millicent was tromping across the floor with… oh, dear. Professor Flitwick's grandpa, apparently. The tiny, wrinkled man was pressed so close to his partner that he seemed to be firmly ensconced between her generous breasts, but Millicent didn't look as if she minded a bit. They danced with much more enthusiasm than grace, but Ginny couldn't help thinking that she was glad somebody was enjoying themselves, anyway.

She studied Gaylord Humperdinck cherubic face as they twirled by. He smiled happily and gave her a cheerful wave. She shuddered. He had to be playing some sort of very, very deep game. There was no other explanation. And then…

"Take out your wand and perform a Trip jinx on me," she finally whispered to Blaise. "Right now!"

"Why on earth- oh. Trinus!" whispered Blaise, pointing the tip of his wand at her feet as unobtrusively as possible. Ginny felt herself yanked violently to the floor, stumbling hard against Daphne.

"Oh… I'm so sorry, Mistress Greengrass," she said loudly, brushing off Daphne's gown. "I'm so horribly clumsy. I do apologize."

"Think nothing of it, Mistress Weasley," Daphne said. She was looking at Ginny warily.

"I think one of your rows of lace has come loose. It's all my fault, of course. I know a very good Tailoring spell…" Ginny leaned as close to Daphne as she could. "If it's safe, I want you to meet me upstairs near the balcony after this dance, Daphne. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"I'll try, Ginny," Daphne whispered. Then she leaned back. "That's not necessary at all, but thank you for your trouble," she said in a louder voice. "It's nothing, really."

Ginny looked steadily at Daphne. "I do hope that it's not one of those problems that can't be fixed, Mistress Greengrass."

She was distinctly satisfied when she saw Daphne wince.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Ginny whispered to Blaise as soon as the second dance was over and she judged that she could leave without being missed. She left before she could hear him warning her not to go, as she was sure she would.

Her heart pounded as she climbed the stairs to the balcony. What the hell was going on? What was Daphne doing? How had she managed to get Gaylord Humperdinck to take her to the Pureblood Ball in the first place? What reason could she have for wanting to do it? And then there was the worst question of all, the one that had been simmering at the bottom of Ginny's mind ever since she'd heard what Daphne was up to, the one that had formed into a horrible suspicion. Why, why had the knowledge put that sly, triumphant smile on her sister Astoria's face? What did Astoria know about what her sister had really planned?

Daphne had been her friend, Ginny thought painfully. Probably the only new friend I've made since Hogwarts. I trusted her… I believed I could trust her… I don't want to be wrong again.

A hand shot out and grabbed her. Before she could draw breath to speak a single word, it had spun her round, and she was confronting Draco Malfoy's furious face.

"Just what the fuck did you think you were doing down there, Weasley?" he snarled at her in a whisper.

She had been so sure that she'd see Daphne that for a moment, all she could do was to stare at him open-mouthed.

"Well?"

It was amazing how attractive he managed to remain even when his face was turning a bright, incandescent shade of red, she thought.

"Answer me, Weasley!"

He was clutching onto the wooden balustrade. A bit of it broke off and snapped in his hand, and the tiny sound was very loud in the enclosed space. Something about that seemed to break the spell.

Ginny turned on him, eyes flashing. "Shut up, Malfoy! Don't you remember how dangerous this is? Has it slipped your mind that silencing and invisibility spells don't do any good? That would seem a bit odd considering that you were sneering at me about it, oh, maybe an hour ago!"

Draco ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair, pulling it all on end. "I—you—yeah, well; you're the one putting us in danger, Weasley. We had a flawless plan all worked out; the way you're behaving with Blaise isn't it; you clearly didn't listen to me—"

"I listened just fine, Malfoy," Ginny said coldly. "The plan was rubbish. I already told you that. That's why we changed it."

He gave a humorless laugh. "Yes. Right. You changed it to a fascinating sort of public behavior with which I'm sure Blaise was more than happy to cooperate, given his track record. But it's going to destroy your reputation, Weasley, because you looked like a perfect slag."

"It wasn't that bad, Malfoy!"

"Oh?" Draco leaned forward, towards her, So 'wasn't that bad' is apparently your definition of allowing Blaise Zabini to grope your body in front of a ballroom filled the entire upper ten of the pureblood world whilst you thrust your tongue down his throat and moaned in orgiastic pleasure?"

"That's not what happened!" protested Ginny, although she wondered if that actually wasn't a bad description of what had in truth, happened.

"And we mustn't forget the manner in which you pressed your exposed breasts against his chest at every available opportunity, giggling like a whooping crane all the while," Draco went on, as if he hadn't heard. "That exceptionally low-cut dress certainly facilitates the task, of course."

Ginny groaned. It was always a bad sign when Draco began talking this way. "Malfoy, you're just trying to change the subject. And if you think I'm going to let you get away with that—"

"Oh? Which subject did you have in mind, precisely? The one which involves your particularly charming comment regarding myself? Let's see, what was it… oh, yes? 'I don't ever want to see that vile Draco Malfoy again.' I believe that's a direct quote."

Ginny clenched her hands into fists. I'm going to start breaking off pieces of this balustrade, too! "And what about what you said to Blaise?" she asked in deliberately measured tones. "'I wouldn't touch a filthy little blood traitor like her. I'm quite surprised that you lower yourself to the task.' I think that's a direct quote, too."

Silence. Draco glanced down and away from her. His hair was an appalling mess now, she thought. It'll never look quite right with that cravat again. "I…. that was…" he began.

"You told me to play my part, Malfoy. That's all I was doing," she said. "Nothing more."

"I… "

Something's wrong, thought Ginny suddenly. Something's happened to him. She pushed the thought aside. She had less than no time to think about it now, and that thought was already widening a little weak spot in the very center of her chest. If it got any bigger, she would never be able to leave this spot near the balcony only a few precious inches away from Draco Malfoy. And she knew that she must leave.

"Humperdinck is Harry's spy, no matter how harmless he seems to be," she said. "Do I really have to tell you that, Malfoy? Do I honestly need to spell that out for you? If he sees anything wrong, he'll let Harry know somehow, and a bunch of Aurors will probably show up from the Department of Mysteries and throw your perfect arse into Azkaban before we even get to the quadrille."

"So you're saying that you'd be upset?" asked Draco. His face was in shadow now, and she could tell nothing of what he meant by the question.

"After everything we've gone through to get here, I'm not about to let that shite happen to you, Malfoy," she said.

He stepped forward, towards her. She was suddenly, disturbingly aware of how very tall he was, how lean, how spare, but how muscular too, how much taller and stronger than she. Ginny could forget that fact for very long stretches of time, and then something would happen to make her remember it. Something shocking and irrevocable, sweet and terrible, such as Draco Malfoy coming closer and closer to her now, the warmth of his body nearly touching hers, the scent of spicy cologne and fresh soap and just a trace of sweat rising to her nose.

The light in the balcony was very dim, but she saw his hands reaching out to her. If she stood where she was, he would take her in his arms and hold her to his chest, so tightly that she could barely breathe. She knew it as surely as she had ever known anything.

Ginny had never had any gift for Divination, but she did have flashes of intuition. One of them bloomed in her mind now, like a dark flower sending out a poisonous perfume. Something horrible had happened tonight, and it involved Draco Malfoy. It had shaken him to the core. The open pit of knowledge loomed before Ginny.

Then it closed. She never trusted those moments of intuition very much when they came to her. Ginny shook her head.

"So dangerous," she whispered.

"Yes," said Draco.

Looking into his silvery eyes, she knew what he meant. It was dangerous to him, not to her.

She stepped back from him, just slightly. It was all she could bear to do. They were still unbearably close.

Something made a creaking noise. They both whipped round.

Kingsley Shacklebolt stood on the top stair, his dark, sculpted face impassive. He inclined his head to them. "Mistress Weasley," he said. How pleasant to see you. Will you return downstairs? You have been missed." He did not say a single word to Draco, but his obsidian eyes marked his icy features as if taking his measure in every imaginable way. Draco gave him a very abbreviated bow. Then he pushed past the Minister and hurried down the stairs, not even looking back at Ginny.

"Where the hell were you?" Blaise asked her urgently when she found him again.

"Upstairs," Ginny managed to say. The room seemed to be going round and round in lazy circles, and she was having some trouble breathing. It had taken her a little time to make it down the stairs. This damn corset! I'm changing into sweats and trainers the second this is all over with.

"You look as if you're about to faint any second. Here. Drink this."

She blindly gulped at the glass of champagne he held out to her. She wasn't at all sure if it actually helped, but the lights abruptly became brighter, and the buzz of conversation all round her sharper.

"My dear, I simply don't know what to think," an ancient ruin of a lady with fearfully rouged pink cheeks and bobbing grey curls all sitting suspiciously askew on her head was loudly trumpeting to a small group. "I really don't know if I choose to speak to him or not. It's all just so dreadfully irregular, and I'm not at all sure that his pureblood credentials are truly acceptable—Taino, s'il vous plait! Tiens!

"I do believe you're right, Sophia," said a tall, thin lady at the front of the group in a droning voice. "I do so entirely agree with you." The rest nodded solemnly.

"What's all that about?" asked Ginny, gulping more champagne.

"That's what I wanted to tell you," whispered Blaise. "Kingsley Shacklebolt's shown up."

Ginny tried to suck in air. It felt like she wasn't having any success at all.

"Gin, it's bizarre. That's why it's the current topic of conversation as far as the ear can hear. Ministers of Magic are allowed at the Ball on principle if they're purebloods, I suppose, but they don't actually come here. I've never even heard of it happening before."

"Why not?" Ginny managed to ask.

"Because they're two different worlds," said Blaise. "The Pureblood Ball's been going on since long before the Ministry was a twinkle in anyone's eye. And we already know that Shacklebolt and Potter have had at least a couple of cozy tête-à-têtes, so you understand why I'm more than a bit suspicious of his decision to suddenly decide to pay us a nice, friendly visit at this particular time—"

She clutched onto his arm.

"Excellent idea," said Blaise. "We could use a bit of cover; you never know who's watching." He nibbled at her neck. "I tried to find you, Ginny," he said between bites. "I was dying to tell you that he'd been announced along with his wife, but you were nowhere to be seen."

"Stop it, Blaise," said Ginny, batting him away. He must be part vampire! Well, that had cleared her head, at least. "I was with Malfoy."

Blaise pulled back. "Shacklebolt saw you," he said flatly. "That's what happened. Isn't it?"

"Your grades in Divination must have been better than mine," said Ginny.

"Shite. What were the two of you doing?"

"Nothing, really."

"You're blushing. That's always a dreadfully bad sign. Gin, you've got to tell me the truth."

"All right! We were sort of… standing awfully close to each other," Ginny said lamely.

"And any idiot who saw you would have known," said Blaise.

Ginny didn't protest, or ask him what he meant. There didn't seem to be any point. "It's even worse than that, Blaise," she said. "That wasn't the first time tonight. Kitty and Vanessa Pucey saw us; we were up near the balcony earlier, and—look, never mind the details. Let's just say that they saw us together. Malfoy did a good job of trying to cover it, and Parkinson tried to help too, actually. But they still saw something."

"And knowing the Pucey sisters, that means they've already spread the news to everyone in the early nineteenth century," Blaise said quietly.

"Shacklebolt will have heard about that by now, too," said Ginny, understanding all too well. "Blaise, this is an absolute bloody disaster, isn't it?"

"Well, we really don't know that," he said in a way that was undoubtedly meant to sound bracing, she thought. "We don't even have the slightest idea what Potter really yapped about to him, do we?"

"I've got at least some idea. I wasn't able to tell you this earlier, but just before I was able to get into the rooms with Malfoy almost three weeks ago, I saw Harry in the Department of Mysteries," Ginny said as quietly as she could. "I didn't have a chance to explain any of this and I can't really do it now, but everything was sort of between there and the Crystal Palace, and Harry was trying to drag it back, trying to get through, to get at Malfoy. He never actually succeeded, though."

Blaise whistled. "Did he know that Draco was there? Or you?"

"I honestly don't know," Ginny admitted. "I don't know exactly how much Harry was able to figure out about what was going on, but he had to see something of it. Astoria had a Dark Opening spell over it all—she wanted him to get through, just in time for me to be trapped."

"Such a charming girl," said Blaise. "That might very well be what Potter and Shacklebolt were talking about, don't you think?"

Ginny nodded. "It would make sense."

"The question is whether Potter ever persuaded him to believe any of it or not."

Ginny bit her lip, hard. "If he didn't," she asked, "then why is Shacklebolt even here tonight?"

Blaise winced. "You're not taking a very optimistic attitude, Gin."

"Blaise…" Ginny swallowed. It seemed that the entire ballroom swam before her eyes for the briefest second. My fault, some irrational voice in her head was chanting. All my fault. If I'd only run downstairs the second he started talking to me… if I'd refused to listen… if I hadn't stood so close… "If the worst is happening, I want to know it," she said.

"I suppose there's nowhere to go but up from there," said Blaise. "But, Ginny, listen. Whatever poison Potter tried to pour into the Minister's ear, there's nothing to say that Shacklebolt actually believed any of it. He's very much his own man, and he always has been." He put a finger on Ginny's chin, raising it, meeting her eyes. "Ah…. You're blaming yourself, aren't you?"

She tried to squirm away. There were times when Blaise seemed to see entirely too much.

"You are. I can tell. I don't need to know exactly what happened between you and my old mate to see that." Blaise smiled a little sadly. "It's quite easy to do to oneself, isn't it? But they're about to start the quadrille. It's time to dry your eyes and dance, Ginstress."