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CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Doubts of Draco Malfoy

"All right." Pansy glanced at the gold watch on her wrist. "Ten minutes since I ate the second mint… it takes a bit of time for the Hiding sweets to completely wear off, so I'm not even sure if the rest of the Weasleys could see me yet, at least not properly. A few more minutes, I would say."

"They seem to be interesting little items," said Draco. "But how effectively will they work if you can't be sure when you'll be fully visible again?"

"Oh, George is still working out a few bugs. He's at the end of this batch with only a couple left, and he's going to try some tweaks on the next run of the mints. There are only a few left." She rummaged in the pocket of her skirt. "Here, why don't you take these? You can never tell when they might come in useful."

"If Ginny and I need to run for our lives from crazed Weasleys, you mean?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"It can't hurt to have the option," said Pansy.

Draco took the small, wrapped candies. A thought struck him. "If you're not sure the spell has worn off yet, then why can I see and hear you?"

"It seems to depend on if the people involved are close," said Pansy. "That might mean a family relationship, romance, or love, or simply deep friendship."

"You have always been my friend, Pansy," Draco said quietly.

She laughed. "Now who's getting soppy? A Malfoy actually admitting to a feeling, fancy that!"

"Don't let it get around," said Draco, already half regretting his words.

"You need to do the same thing for Ginny," said Pansy. "Admit to your feelings for her, I mean."

"How do you know I haven't already?" he asked guardedly.

"Because I know you," said Pansy. "But you do need to."

"That's enough, Pans," said Draco, wishing desperately to change the subject. He walked back towards Ginny, seeing how George's eyes lit up when he saw Pansy again, as if some other half of himself had returned. Did Ginny look the same when she saw him? He wasn't quite sure. Perhaps she wasn't ready to show what she felt, either.

"So have you worked it all out?" George asked Draco.

"Two Slytherins? Are you joking?" Pansy giggled. "We came up with all sorts of evil plans.

"Just how evil were they?" Ginny asked Draco.

"Not at all, really," he replied. "I believe that my days of plotting and scheming are done."

"You'll never make me believe that."

"Well, when it comes to sheer evil, anyway, I think they are."

She smiled, and her face warmed to him. It was one of the expressions he loved to see most on Ginny's face, gentle and unguarded, and he suddenly wished that they were alone. However, they were not, as he was all too aware. He turned back to the other two.

"I'm afraid the sinister plans consist of Ginny and I moving towards the dining room first, because at least I'm a known quantity. Then you—" he indicated George. "Can introduce Pansy to your mother. It might be better if we don't create the impression that I'm with her. Evil Slytherins working together, and all that."

George nodded. "It's workable. Let me think about it a bit. Say, let's get you out of that, Pans." He began to help Pansy remove her coat.

"Are you sure I should take this off in the first place?" she sighed. "Maybe we'd better be ready to make a quick getaway."

"None of that," George said firmly. "Mum is going to have to accept the fact that you're here for Yule dinner as my girlfriend, and so will everyone else, and that's the end of it." He hung the coat on a hook.

Draco thought that Ginny looked far from sure about the success of her brother's project, but she said nothing. But something else sent a pang through his chest too. Ginny hadn't spoken up when her brother said that the family must accept Pansy as his chosen partner. She hadn't echoed his words, hadn't said that she felt the same way about Draco himself, that she would not tolerate the situation if they didn't accept him. Did she assume that he already understood this? Or had she failed to say these things because she had no plans to place Draco above her family's comfort? What would she really do if the Weasleys finally did reject him and weren't willing to allow him to sit at the table for Yule dinner? Dear gods, but this is the last thing I need to be thinking about right now!

"I gave Draco the last two mints," said Pansy, breaking into his thoughts, "but maybe I ought to take them back."

George shook his head. "Oh no, you won't. But I think I ought to give a couple of them to Ginny as well." He handed his sister two wrapped mints, and she pocketed them, looking uneasy.

"So what exactly will we do?" Ginny asked George.

"You and Draco will start going down the hall first, and stop when you get to that landing," he answered, "and hopefully, the dining room won't split in half." He frowned. "That's what happened at Lughnasa dinner in August, you know."

"I wasn't here for that," said Ginny.

"Yes, I know." He gave his sister a sly smile. "I know where you actually were, and who you were with, or at least now I can guess. Anyway, I was stranded on one side with Fred and Charlie, and Mum and Dad and Ron were on the other. The room seemed to be trying to make up its mind if it was going to change into something else or not, but the real problem was that we kept hearing these strange roars. I still don't know if they were real. Mum and Dad think not. But if they were, well, they were moving towards that side. If the roars had been on ours, and if a dragon actually had shown up, then Charlie could have calmed him in seconds. He was up in Svarlbard, though. Still there, actually, and he said that he wasn't sure he could get back in time for the dinner tonight." He squeezed Pansy's hand. "I really want you to meet him, Pans. Perhaps he'll get here early."

"Dragon?" asked Draco, hoping that his voice didn't tremble.

George shrugged. "Hard to say. We've heard the roars twice now, or at least that's what they seem to be. It's rather odd, because we never see the dragon, but the problem is that we can't be sure it'll never appear. To tell you the truth, I've tried to convince Mum that we shouldn't use the dining room at all, but… trying to convince a Weasley of anything they don't want to hear is a lost cause from the outset."

"Oh, I know what you mean, trust me," said Ginny.

Feeling a bit sullen, Draco wondered exactly what she meant by *that*

"The two halves of the room reunited in about twenty minutes," George went on. "So it all came right in the end, and it hasn't happened since. But if that dragon ever actually did show up…" He glanced at Draco. "Are you any good at calming down dragons?

Draco shook his head. "I can assure you, it doesn't go with the name. You don't want to know about the dragon taming incident on my ninth birthday."

"I suppose that would have been a bit too much to ask." George glanced down the hall. Draco followed his gaze and saw that the door from the kitchen was opening.

George pulled Pansy back under the stairwell, where the two of them would be hidden in shadow. "Go out to meet her, Gin," he whispered to his sister. "See if you can get Mum in a really good mood."

"That'll take a genuine Yuletide miracle," sighed Ginny, "But I'll try."

Molly Weasley stepped out into the hall holding a glass of eggnog, a rigid smile on her face. Ginny tugged at Draco's hand, and the pair began to walk forward in order to meet her on the landing that led to the dining room on the other side. At the same moment, Draco heard steps clattering down the stairs to the front hall and then moving towards the landing.

Molly stared at Ron and Cho coming towards them, hand in hand, and her smile became more fixed than ever.

"Why, what a surprise to see Cho Chang here," she said in a brittle voice.

A muscle in Ron's jaw jumped against his skin. "Yes. This is Cho, my girlfriend. And Mum, you've known about this for at least a week. Don't you think it's time to stop pretending that you had no idea?"

Molly surveyed Cho for a moment. "How very nice to see you, dear," she finally said.

"Uh, I'm very glad to be here, Mrs. Weasley," said Cho. "You have such a lovely home."

"Thank you, dear. Perhaps you can have a nice tour of the house after dinner."

"I'd love it."

Draco surveyed Molly Weasley as the meaningless social chatter went on, trying to gauge her real response. Everything about that moment was bright and artificial, and he didn't believe for a moment that she was genuinely happy to see Cho Chang in her house. But Ginny's mother had clearly decided to accept her as Ron's partner, which gave Draco a bit of hope. *Perhaps she really will do the same thing for me, and for Pansy. If we can manage common courtesy for a few hours, that will be a beginning. But a beginning to what?*

Draco realized that he was thinking as if this would be only the first of many visits to Ginny's childhood home. In all honesty—and he had always been honest with himself, however much he might fail in the quality towards others—he was not sure how he felt about that idea. Was he ready to brave such animosity on a regular basis? Or was he prepared to insist that Ginny's entire family treat him with more than the barest possible veneer of manners? Neither option seemed particularly appealing. *Perhaps I really would be better off fighting that dragon, if it exists at all…*

He glanced surreptitiously around the room as Molly, Cho, and Ron continued to talk. All of the portraits had changed back to Harry, he saw. It was not the most pleasant sight, in his opinion. Although he doubted it would have bothered him much if only Ginny would say something. She held his hand in hers, but she remained silent.

TBC…

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