Title: February

Author: Sonya

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.

Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.

Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be revealed later. ;)

Summary: The end of the night.

Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" and "Half-Blood Prince" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgment. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?

And February was so long that it lasted into March
Found us walking a path alone together
You stopped and pointed and you said, "That's a crocus,"
And I said, "What's a crocus?" And you said, "It's a flower."
I tried to remember, but I said, "What's a flower?"
You said, "I still love you."

- Dar Williams, 'February'

Draco was so tired it hurt. There was a fine trembling to his entire body, his muscles aching, and a feeling in his skull that was not quite pain, but was still distinctly unpleasant.

Dizzy and too heavy and about to implode, like my head's in a vise, and it'd ease up a bit if I just closed my eyes . . just for a second . . just a –

He blinked rapidly, squeezing his eyes shut until stars blossomed behind his eyelids and his stomach lurched. Chill, damp air, heavy with some unknown mineral smell, was sucked determinedly in through flared nostrils.

Wake the fuck up.

So tired, so bloody fucking tired I'd kill for some sleep, just five minutes, just –

- just wake the fuck up, just stop thinking about sleep, can't sleep now, can't sleep here.

Ginny sat cross-legged on the smooth limestone a few paces in front of him, nearly lost in the enormous, ugly gray sweater that Gregory Goyle had apparently not thought he'd need over the winter holidays, and had left at school. No one had come for Goyle's things yet.

I wonder if he's dead.

I wonder if we're all going to be dead, soon, everything's going to hell and nothing makes sense and I am so fucking tired – so bloody fucking tired I could just lay down and die –

- not here, can't sleep here, can't let your fucking guard down here, it's crawling with magic, too much magic in one place, worse than the stairs to the dungeon back home, things happen in places like this if they're not kept in check – can't give a place this much will and then just let it go – things just -

- things unravel and twist and fade and grow wills of their own – if they don't fade, they get all – all fucked in the head and of course Weasel doesn't know that, doesn't even speak Old English, fucking pathetic excuse for a fucking pureblood joke of a family and this place is fucking watching me.

Can't go to sleep here. Can't let your guard down here. Can't – fuck, shouldn't have her here, like this, all vulnerable and weird and quiet and almost fucking killed herself – she almost just – just wasn't, and fuck it, don't think about it, it didn't happen that way.

Didn't happen. She's right there.

Too fucking quiet. Too fucking quiet and shouldn't be here and this place is crawling all over me and –

- so tired. So tired.

A few feet in front of Ginny lay the remains of the basilisk, gargantuan as a dinosaur, bigger than some dragons he'd seen. She'd said she wanted to show him something, and he wasn't sure if she'd meant the Chamber, or the way it responded to her – things like this shouldn't be let sit, shouldn't be let go or they change – they turn – or the enormous dead basilisk. She'd said nothing of substance since they left the Slytherin dorm, just pulled him silently along. He'd balked at the entrance to the tunnel, at the way its hissing brass denizens had flicked their tongues at him, testing and wary.

She'd just looked at him, blankly, as if she didn't care, couldn't be surprised or disappointed anymore.

He was exhausted enough to be vaguely impressed at the basilisk, without feeling the need to rationalize his admiration away. Potter killed that thing, with a fucking sword. When he was twelve.

And if he hadn't, then Weasel-girl would be dead. Would have been dead all this time and never kicked you and laughed and told you not to go home – don't go home, just don't go home –

- there is no fucking home, there's no place – no place that makes any sense anymore and fuck it all, I do not want to be impressed with Potter and I do not want to owe him anything, and that's a fucked-up way to think of it anyway, don't owe him, he didn't save her for my sake and she's not mine, not a thing, don't own her, don't -

- this place is staring at the back of my head.

Ginny had been just sitting there, staring into the basilisk's missing eyes, for what felt like hours. He had no real sense of how much time had actually passed.

"I don't think he planned that," she said suddenly, and Draco jumped, startled. "Not for it to be so . . so big, anyway. The first thing you see."

"What?" he asked, shuffling a little closer, arms folded defensively across his chest. He was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature, and everything to do with his body being close to the point of shutting down. So tired . .

"Himself," Ginny explained, nodding at the enormous face of Salazar Slytherin with his open-gaping mouth and his wildly flowing hair. "This place, it was supposed to be for her. But he never carved her. Just him, and the snakes."

"Maybe he got saner half-way through," Draco suggested, shrugging. "Maybe he got over it, gave it up."

"No," she said, with absolute certainty. "He didn't. He never got over her."

"Okay," Draco agreed, for lack of anything else to say.

"It's where he lived while he built the place," Ginny suggested, tilting her head to the side, as if pondering. Or listening. "Up there. Inside his head."

>Living inside your own head. Literally. That's just –

- fuck I'm tired.

"I think he thought he failed," Ginny concluded. "He couldn't figure out how . . how to bring her back. I think that's why he left."

"Makes sense," Draco allowed. Nothing makes sense.

"It doesn't," she argued, frowning. "Because there's something here. You feel that, don't you? There's . . it's not just a room."

"It's wild magic," Draco explained, squinting and trying to squeeze the increasingly insistent blur from his vision, trying not to sound too impatient. Don't want to snap at her, upset her, can't upset her can't hurt her just . . just so tired and her family is fucking pathetic and she should already know this shit, why didn't anybody ever teach her this shit, teach her not to go getting herself fucking possessed and –

- and fuck it, not her fault, Father's fault and don't you fucking start blaming her because that's just, just like him, to think she got what she deserved or what her family deserved and it would have served the fucking pathetic lot of them right if she did die for all the attention they pay her and –

- and none of that matters one fucking bit, just fucking explain and don't think, just shut up and don't think.

She blinked blankly up at him, uncomprehending.

"You know what wild magic is?" he prompted.

"It's -" she frowned. "You said what I did in the Charms classroom, that was wild magic."

"Well – yeah," he conceded. "But this is – well – it's a different sort of wild magic."

She blinked, and watched him, unimpressed.

"It's like -" he fumbled for an analogy, thoughts fuzzy and slow. " – like if you leave a piece of fruit somewhere and forget about it, and it molds. It . . grows shit," he finished, shrugging. Note to self – scrap any future plans for a career in teaching magical theory. That was the most pathetic explanation I've ever heard. Of anything. Ever. "Magic sorta does that too. Only it's like -" like I'm so tired I can't fucking think.

"It doesn't mean anything," Ginny pronounced, and Draco tensed. Don't start on that again, just don't, not again – "Wild magic," she elaborated, though if she'd seen his panic in his face, she gave no indication. "That doesn't mean anything. It means 'I don't know why this happens'."

"No, it's -" he tried to argue, stopped, and couldn't think of a single valid point of contention. You know what it fucking means if you hear people say it all the time and you grow up with this shit and you're a pureblood, Weasel, you should have grown up with this and you should have a bloody clue and you don't and –

- and I bet Granger would. Granger who's a Mudblood, I bet she knows all about it. Could recite five different theories on it and probably has one of her own besides.

Don't know why in the hell I thought that.

Purebloods and Mudbloods and . . and fuck it all I'm just tired.

"- it's just a thing that's – fuck, I don't know," he finished lamely, scowling down at the floor. "But it doesn't mean anything that this place feels like it's staring at you, it doesn't mean he actually did it. It's just the magic. Give something a purpose and leave it alone a while, and – you just shouldn't do that, shouldn't leave things like this to their own devices. They – go strange."

"It's alive," Ginny said, hushed.

"It's not," Draco insisted, feeling a bit like banging his head on a wall. Except for these walls might hit back. "It just – thinks it is."

"Thinks," Ginny echoed, tonelessly. "If it thinks -" She paused, and turned back to the basilisk, reaching one pale hand out towards it. The sleeve of Goyle's sweater fell down past her knuckles, so only her fingertips were exposed. She stopped just short of touching, fingers hovering over desiccated scales – for which Draco was profoundly grateful, given how the idea of her touching that thing had made his stomach begin a hasty climb up towards the roof of his mouth.

" – if it thinks, then it's alive," she said, letting her hand fall away. "Or . . or something that's as good as. It's just as good as." Her voice tapered off into a whisper. "It's just as real."

She went silent, and there was no sound in the Chamber but for the steady dripping of a stalactite somewhere back towards the tunnel. Draco's pulse clamored angrily in his ears, sickeningly loud, demanding rest.

"I've thought of something I want," Ginny announced, turning back to him, and her face was suddenly not blank. He couldn't have named what he saw there, but it was something fierce. "I want there to be just one of me. I want to be the one of me that's real."

Hermione bit her lip, re-read the spell from Viktor's last letter one more time – they'd devised a code before he left, because if he wrote Dark spells outright and she got caught with them, she'd likely be expelled – and pointed her wand at the apple perched on her desk. It sat on a stack of books with a towel draped over them, to catch any spilled apple bits and juices.

Her wand-hand wavered.

It's just an apple.

The spell needs intent, just like any other spell, you can't keep thinking 'it's just an apple' or there's no point to practicing at all.

Crabbe. Vincent Crabbe, sitting there at breakfast eating sausage and eggs like there's nothing wrong in the world –

The rush of rage that ran up her spine was so sharp it turned her wavering into shaking, and she dropped her wand.

"Damn it!" she exclaimed, and her voice was loud and sudden enough in the quiet of her room to make her jump, which only made her more annoyed with herself. With sharp determined movements, she grabbed her wand back up again, pointed it, turned her wrist in a precise, perfect upward swing, opened her mouth to speak. Just don't think of anything, just do it!

There was a knock on her door.

Hermione swallowed a yelp and stuck her wand into her pocket, grabbing for the towel and throwing it towards the laundry hamper. That looks odd, can't have that there for anyone to see, can't leave anything looking strange or making anyone suspicious and oh Merlin I could get myself expelled doing this –

She upset the stack of books, and the apple rolled in a wobbling line across the floor, under the bed.

"Hermione?" called a voice from beyond the door, and it was only Ron. She hesitated a moment – even Ron and Harry didn't know, but it was just a messy pile of books, wasn't it? She left the books where they lay, and answered the door.

"What's wrong?" she asked, because it was too early for anyone to be awake for good reasons. He was either dressed already, or still dressed from the day before. But so am I. And that's not obvious, is it – you're worried about a stack of books and a towel where it shouldn't be, but it's five in the morning and you're in yesterday's clothes.

"Can I come in?" Ron asked, a little nervously, glancing behind him into the dark of the empty prefects' lounge. "Katie's still pissed that George clipped her with that Bludger last practice, she'd give me detention for being out of bed."

"Of course," Hermione answered, stepping out of her door and feeling more than a little confused; Ron slouched across the room and ended up leaning on a bedpost, digging the toe of his shoe into her carpet.

"D'you wanna go down to breakfast?" he asked.

"It's not even six in the morning," Hermione pointed out, bewildered. "Breakfast won't even be set out yet."

He shrugged.

"Did something happen?" she asked carefully. "Is Harry -"

"Harry's in the library," Ron interrupted. "Snuck out with his dad's old cloak. He lives there more than you do lately, reading everything he can find on the Dark Arts." Her stomach gave an uneasy twitch.

I'm not doing anything wrong. Defending yourself isn't wrong.

But what if you're hoping for the opportunity?

"Oh," Hermione responded, trying to sound normal and feeling a little disturbed at how well she succeeded. "I hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, me either," Ron said, and sighed. "I mean, I noticed, I just didn't pay it much attention 'cause it's Harry, y'know? It can't hurt for him to know that stuff, can it? He'll probably need it."

She didn't have anything to say to that.

"I think he's taking it a little overboard, though," Ron went on. "I guess he must be sleeping sometime but I haven't seen it." He scrubbed at his eyes, looking like he needed a bit more sleep than he'd gotten too. "I just wasn't paying much attention."

"I haven't either," Hermione admitted, sitting down on the carpet across from him. "We should talk to him, I suppose." But what will we say? Ron's right. He'll probably need to know everything he can.

But he needs to sleep, too, and – wouldn't I have noticed if he weren't sleeping? Wouldn't I have seen if something was really wrong?

There's something really wrong with Ginny. The thought fluttered unexpectedly into her mind, and her eyes flickered guilty up to Ron's face and then away again. He hasn't noticed. I'm not sure anyone else has.

And I haven't done anything about it, said anything about it, because if she wanted me to she'd have asked, wouldn't she? We're friends, and she'd tell me if it was something I could help, and she seems okay – really I think she's okay –

- and I can't think about that, about anyone else not being okay, it's hard enough to just keep going – to remember to brush my teeth in the morning and forgot my Charms homework twice last week and it's so hard, it's so bloody hard and it just drags on forever -

- it's going to be like this forever. They're never coming back. It's never going to be okay, no matter how many curses I learn, or Harry, or anyone, it can never be -

- stop it, just stop it, don't think that way, just – just think about now and staying alive and Harry. We were talking about Harry. Ron was watching her.

"What?" she asked. I missed something. I just missed something again, and I can't keep doing that!

"I said, I was thinking we'd go drag him down to breakfast," Ron repeated. "Are you sleeping enough?"

"I'm f –" she began.

"Don't say you're fine, you're not bloody fine," Ron cut her off, sounding very tired himself. "Nothing's bloody fine."

There was nothing to say to that, either. You should say something comforting – ask if he's okay, how he's dealing –

- though what does he have to deal with? His parents are alive, aren't they? And he's a pureblood after all, no one's going to be attacking and raping him, are they, and he's got his girlfriend right here and he remembers his homework as much as he ever did, and if he didn't it's not like he ever cared that much, and I don't know what he's so upset about.

And oh God, I didn't just think that. I didn't. It's Ron.

"I broke up with Blaise," he announced suddenly, casually, as if he were observing that it might snow later in the day.

"Oh, why?" Hermione blurted out, though when she thought about it, she remembered seeing less and less of them together in the last few weeks. I just didn't pay it much attention. Like everything else. I can't keep on like this –

"Her idea, I guess," Ron said, shrugging, ducking his head and scrubbing at his eyes self-consciously. "Dunno. I mean, I guess we're still friends or something, I suppose."

"Oh, Ron, I'm so sorry," Hermione said, wanting to reach out and hug him, but he was all hunched down into his clothes and not looking like he wanted to be touched. If Viktor –

- but he wouldn't, that won't happen, we're fine -

- but I've got nothing to say when I write to him, nothing that happens day to day matters and I can't just keep writing about what's happening in the papers and being so angry and sooner or later, sooner or later he's got to get bored of that, of me being such a mess and -

- and I couldn't handle it if he did, I just couldn't survive it.

"It's alright, it's just –" Ron stopped, gave the barest of shrugs, and ducked his head further. "It wasn't like you and Viktor," he said, and Hermione remembered, suddenly, that he could be uncannily perceptive sometimes. Why does remembering that feel like . . like meeting again after years?

Like we've all been away. In our own little worlds.

"Was a stupid idea in the first place," Ron insisted. "Me and her. It's not like we had anything really in common, and she's in Slytherin, and –" he cut himself off again. "And sometimes I really bloody hate this place. I never thought I'd say that."

"Dobby would get us breakfast even if it wasn't ready for everyone else," Hermione said. It had nothing to do with what he'd been saying, but it was all she could think of. Just keep going. It's like the moving staircases . . just keep walking and don't look down.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Yeah, that's a thought. We could just hit the kitchens." She hadn't really meant that, and wanted to say that they shouldn't trouble the rest of the house elves, but she bit her tongue. "So we'll go collect Harry, then?"

"Just let me throw on some shoes," Hermione answered.

"Real. Right," Draco repeated back wearily. "Weasel, you are real, and there is just one of you, you're just -" He stopped, and gestured wordlessly in clear frustration at her, the Chamber, the basilisk, everything.

"But there's another one of me," Ginny explained. "Out there."

"There's another one of -" he paused nervously. "Tom?" He squinted, blinked, and gave his head an irate shake. His hair fell into his eyes and he shoved it back angrily, gaze never leaving her face, tense and wary. He's afraid of me. Afraid for me. Two halves of me and . . and two halves make a whole and am I?

It's just me. Just one of me and I don't –

"I don't know," Ginny answered, frowning. I'm not afraid. It feels like I could never be afraid again. "I don't think it matters what you call me." She paused, considering, frown deepening. Feels like looking down a long dark tunnel and there's something shining at the bottom, deep waters somewhere down there and something's reflecting, and I can almost see it, almost, but it's far away and cold and I don't think that just thinking is supposed to be like that.

Ought to know what I think, what I feel . . ought to know who's talking in my head but it's just –

- it's just me. It was only ever just me.

But which me was it?

I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters anymore at all. There's no one else here now, and whoever's left, it doesn't feel like . . like . .

. . like anyone went away or died or disappeared. I'm still Ginny. I'm still Tom. It's just names, just words, just what you call a thing and it doesn't matter because I'm not a thing . . I'm still here. I survived.

I'm still here. Just me. Not Lord Voldemort. It was all dark and cold and wrong, so wrong, wrong about everything and so many awful things, I did and thought and was so many terrible things, so many terrible things that should be left in the dark and frozen and . . .

. . and I'm still here.

Not Voldemort. That's who I am. I'm not Voldemort.

"Weasel -" Draco began carefully.

"I like that," she interrupted him, surprised at the sensation. Like. I . . like. Warm and good and belonging.

"What?" he asked, confused and blinking, and she noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and drooping, surrounded by dark circles. He's tired. Of course he's tired, didn't sleep at all.

I want him to sleep. I want him to sleep and be warm and rested and safe and . . and all good things.

My mother used to tuck me in bed and pull the covers up to my ears and I could hear Fred and George through the walls at night, sneaking out of bed and finding trouble to get into, and the ghoul, and Ron talking in his sleep upstairs and Errol coming in through the kitchen window and knocking things over and . . home. I had a home. I felt safe.

It's still there, isn't it? I could . . I could go there. And maybe they wouldn't hate me.

Maybe they wouldn't hate me because he doesn't, calls me Weasel like he's trying to be mean and teasing but he's not, and it's just . . it's just me. It's really just me, all of me.

"I like that you call me Weasel," she explained. "Just you call me that."

"Oh," he responded, and sounded no less confused. "I could call you whatever you want, Ginny or Tom or -"

"You should sleep. You're tired," she cut him off.

"You've gotten less sleep than me," he pointed out. She considered that. He's right. I haven't slept in . . days, I think.

I should be tired. Am I tired? I don't think that matters too much.

"There's a bed up there," she offered, nodding past the basilisk, to Salazar's shocked-looking face. When she looked back at Draco he seemed to have paled, the dark rings around his eyes standing out starkly.

"Up in - there?" he asked, incredulously.

"It's safe," Ginny said, shrugging. "I've been up there – it's a little musty, but it's safe."

"Weasel, this whole place isn't safe," Draco retorted.

"I suppose – I suppose I'm not very good at judging things like that," Ginny conceded. But if it thinks, then it's as good as alive, it's real, it's someone, and it hasn't hurt me. I've hurt it. Used it. She glanced quickly to the basilisk and then back to Draco's face. Used it and broke it. "But I really think it's okay." He didn't look convinced. "Besides, I don't think you could climb back up until after you've slept a bit, no matter how much you want to."

She could see in his face that he hadn't thought of that. He opened his mouth as if to argue but broke into a wide yawn instead, after which he looked sullen and scared.

"It won't hurt you," Ginny insisted. I could be wrong, I've been so wrong about so much, about everything, just everything.

But it's mine. I don't think I was wrong about that. This place, it's . . it's mine somehow.

And it won't hurt you because I won't let it.

Willow woke from a disjointed dream in which she'd been back in the old Sunnydale High, only it had been converted to an aquarium in her absence, and was full of dark water. Then the walls – turned to glass, also while she wasn't looking – had come loose of their frames, and some of them cracked, and all the various aquatic creatures had been poured in together. The denizens of the new Sunnydale aquarium seemed to be mostly sharks, dolphins, and corpses, and they were eating each other.

The dream was, at least, strange enough that she felt no disorientation as consciousness returned; she just suddenly knew it was a dream. Better than the kind that could be real, where you don't know quite for sure if you're waking up or if you're dying. A shark about the size of a twelve-year-old child, with long brown hair and human arms, clung to her ankle and gnawed - but that was okay, because it wasn't real.

She squinted and blinked up into absolute darkness, disconcertingly like being under water. Her head throbbed, the pain crashing into her all at once, so that she whimpered.

That's what you get for falling asleep crying. Someone was moving around the room, apparently unencumbered by the dark, making soft rustling-cloth sounds. Severus.

What time is it?

"Are you awake?" he asked, in an even, quiet tone, unlikely to rouse her if she'd just been talking in her sleep. Somewhere under the pain and nausea and the vague remembrance that something really bad had happened the night before, she felt warmed.

"Unfortunately," she muttered, and fumbled her way to sitting. Why does being in the dark make you lose your coordination? That doesn't make any sense, your sense of balance comes from your inner ear and the inside of your ear can't tell if it's dark, in fact it's gotta always be dark inside your ears, and God, my head hurts.

"Drink this," Severus said, and pressed a small vial of something into her right hand. She lifted the thing towards her mouth, realized her hand was shaking, and cupped it between two hands to steady it. When it got to her lips, she tasted cork.

There was an exasperated sigh somewhere to her right, and then other hands on hers, taking the bottle away.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "My brain isn't really working yet." He didn't respond, but the bottle was pressed back into her still uplifted and waiting palms. This time her lips contacted cool glass, and then a bitter liquid that tasted vaguely of anise. She drank it down, and it burned faintly, like liquor.

"That wasn't alcoholic, was it?" she asked, when she was finished. Though she couldn't see his expression in the dark, she could imagine it, and said, "What?" at his lack of reply.

"It would serve you right if it was poison," he said, scornfully, though still in that hushed tone. "It didn't occur to you to question what you were being handed before drinking?"

"I knew it was you," she grumbled. The pain in her head was fading, though as the pain ebbed away, a heaviness seemed to grow. "Thanks. What time is it?"

"Early," he said, and she felt him leaning towards her, the bed shifting beneath his weight, and then the brush of lips against hers. He was gone again before she could kiss him back. "Go back to sleep."

"I really should -" she began, but then couldn't remember what she really should, and was somehow lying down again.

"In the morning," Severus suggested, and his voice sounded farther off.

"Isn't it morning?" Willow murmured, and she thought he answered, but his words were just comforting noise, and she was drifting into dreamless darkness.

Draco stopped dead just inside the door to the room in Salazar Slytherin's head, staring, dumbstruck.

Ginny glanced back at him, frowning faintly, then followed his line of sight over to the bookshelves.

"I haven't touched them," she said. "I hadn't – I hadn't really even thought about them. I just saw the diary and . . " She let it train off.

"Weasel, this is -" Draco found himself at a loss for words. I am too fucking tired for this, this night needs to just fucking stop. "These – they're – do you know what my -" my father. He stopped again, swallowed hard. That is never going to happen. I will burn the place to fucking ground before I let that happen. " – what some people would pay for these? I'm not even talking galleons, Weasel, you could buy yourself a small empire with those books."

Father would kill for these.

But that's not saying much, is it, that he'd kill for a thing. He'd kill for nothing, for entertainment, it's what they did after dinner parties.

"But not keep it very long," Weasel mused quietly, reaching out and catching a bit of cobweb on one fingertip, pulling it away from a thick, crumbling tome. She glanced sideways at him, and it was a shrewd and calculating look. "That's the point, isn't it? So much knowledge has been lost. So much power." She turned back to the books. "I'm afraid they'll crumble if I touch them."

"We'll need to renew the preserving charms," Draco suggested, edging closer to her and to the shelves, feeling a queasy excitement stirring in his gut. This is more important than anything my father's ever done, more fucking power than he's ever been near in his life, this is – this is something to make everything else insignificant.

And that's just how he'd think. Power and control and it's not, it's not more important than her, not worth all the pain and death and freezing and she wanted to die, and it's not worth that, not worth what she's had to go through to find it, don't you fucking dare start thinking like that –

- but isn't it? What's in those books – don't even know what's in those books, what if there's cures for diseases or . . or I can't think of what else, I'm so fucking exhausted and I need to sleep, I need to sleep for the next ten years, but it could be good things, things to . to fix things, to make everything not so bloody fucked up, wouldn't that be worth anything -

- and isn't that just what she said, she or he or who-fucking-ever, up on the roof, that she thought she could make it all better but she was wrong, and she wanted to die.

But so much power -

I won't be my father, I just fucking will not. I will not.

I guess we'll see, won't we? I guess we'll just bloody well see how . . how it all turns out, how it fucking ends and bloody hell I want this night to end.

"Could you do that?" Ginny asked, tilting her head. "You're very sure? They're so fragile, all about to go to dust -"

"No, I'm not fucking sure," Draco snapped.

She didn't react to the bite in his words, just watched him dispassionately, as if his temper and his badly jarred nerves were just vaguely interesting. For some reason it made him more ashamed than if she'd flinched. Not her fucking fault, and she tried to kill herself just hours ago, and you are an ass. "Sorry," he mumbled. "It's just -"

Words again fled before the heavy buzzing pressure in his skull. His eyes flickered sideways to the bed, and he thought in a disconnected sort of way that it was a very good measure of how tired he was that, looking at a thousand-year-old pillow that still bore the imprint of Salazar Slytherin's head, all that really concerned him was whether the dust might make him sneeze and thus keep him awake.

"I don't want to give them to anyone else," Ginny said, in a low, conspiratorial tone. "Maybe it'd better if they went to a museum or something where they'd be locked away and studied, but -"

"But all that power," Draco finished for her. "All that knowledge and all that power and it's yours."

"I don't trust myself," she whispered. "But I trust anybody else less. I can't just let them go, they're – they're mine. This place is still mine. And I think -" She stopped.

"What?" he pressed, very close to being too tired to care.

"If I think that, then . . then I think that he must, too," Ginny said.

TBC . .