Chapter 15: Time and Gravity

"Draco. Draco."

He jumped. The Quidditch team was laughing about something around him. At the head of the group, Flint looked annoyed.

"So kind of you to join us," he snapped, as Draco met his eyes.

"Sorry," muttered Draco. Flint waved this away.

"As I was saying," he said pointedly, "I found out who Ravenclaw's playing as Seeker. It's Cho Chang." This elicited a few shouts and wolf whistles from the group; Warrington and Montague clapped hands, and Lucy rolled her eyes and scoffed loudly. Flint shut them all up with a death glare. "That really isn't ideal, as no one's ever seen her play and I've no idea what she's like," he went on.

"Old Cedric Diggory knows what she's like," said Adrian with a nasty sort of grin. The boys guffawed loudly. Draco wished they wouldn't, though he couldn't precisely articulate why.

"Probably because Cedric Diggory doesn't go around talking about her that way," snapped Lucy, glaring venomously at her teammates. This only inspired further uproar.

"Don't blame me," countered Adrian, raising his hands defensively in the air. "All's I'm saying is, Draco, there's no need to be a gentleman on Saturday." Draco frowned.

"I don't see what the one has to do with the other," he said shortly. To his extreme annoyance, Adrian turned to Warrington and Montague and they exchanged a knowing round of laughter.

"You'll understand when you're older, won't you, love?" Draco was seized by the intense urge to smack Adrian across his smug, condescending face.

"I'm just saying Lucy's right," he snapped. "We're talking about Quidditch, and since I don't reckon she'd let any of you lot within ten feet of her, who she goes out with isn't really your concern, is it?" Draco couldn't have said where those words came from. He felt simultaneously hot and cold, and his insides quivered unpleasantly. He concentrated with all his might on keeping his head up and meeting his teammates' eyes despite knowing they could kill him with their bare hands if they wanted to. Even Lucy, the next smallest person in the room, was fully six inches taller than he. Adrian narrowed his eyes unpleasantly, but Montague clapped him on the shoulder, a nasty sort of grin spreading across his face.

"Come now, Adrian," he hissed. "Perhaps she simply isn't his type." He paused to give Draco a wink that made him instantly feel sick. "Always had a queer look about him, hasn't he?" Draco's blood froze. Lucy stepped between them and opened her mouth, looking ready to kill.

"Enough!" screamed Flint at once, eyes blazing in a way that didn't entirely distract from the way his hands shook slightly at his sides. "Everyone out, and if we lose to Ravenclaw on Saturday consider it the last thing you'll do!"

Shrugging, the older boys filed out of the locker room, laughing raucously again before they'd fully cleared the door. Flint stormed out not long after them, leaving a peculiar ringing silence behind him. Wordlessly, Draco and Lucy locked the ball crate away in the Captain's office and stowed their brooms.

"Sorry about them," said Lucy, almost conversationally, as they made their way up the lawn toward the castle. Draco would've died before he explained to Lucy that he couldn't stop Montague's words ringing over and over through his head, and the more he heard them the less air seemed to fit inside his lungs. Instead, he shrugged slightly.

"I mean, I'm sorry," he said quietly. Lucy laughed humorlessly.

"I've been the only girl on the team since I was your age," she told him. "That was nothing." She paused. "No one's ever taken my side before, though," she added. She sounded amused, but this was a companionable amusement, worlds away from the boys' nasty, condescending laughter.

"You were right," said Draco simply. "They…" he trailed off.

"They're right foul gits, you can say it." She paused. "It was cool of you." She sounded inexplicably embarrassed. "So, thanks."

They had reached the Entrance Hall, and Draco allowed Lucy to disappear down the staircase that led to the dungeons. The moment she was gone, he beelined into the Great Hall, scanning the Gryffindor table as he went. Ginny was sitting not far from the door, talking to a second-year boy he vaguely recognized but couldn't place.

"I've got to talk to you," he said quickly, the moment he reached her. She looked up, startled.

"Er-I-now?"

"Yes, now. C'mon." Ginny frowned slightly, but evidently something about his expression either intrigued or frightened her, for she turned to the boy with a sigh.

"Sorry, Colin. I'll see you in the common room in a bit, yeah?" He nodded, unconcerned, and Draco seized her by the elbow and dragged her from the Hall. Not having any earthly idea where else to go, he led her back out into the grounds. Ordinarily he might have taken her to the Quidditch pitch...well, if he was on the Quidditch pitch, he'd never get the words out. Instead, he led her toward the lake. There was a large rock jutting out over the water, and once they'd climbed up and walked out to its furthest extent, he turned to face her. He opened his mouth to speak, but her eyes burned him like acid and he turned at once toward the water.

"I've got to tell you something," he said quietly. Ginny snorted.

"No, really? I thought you'd dragged me out here just to enjoy the scenery." Her voice cut straight to his nerves, and he gritted his teeth.

"Shut up, all right?" he snapped. Realizing how sharply he'd spoken, he swallowed and took a deep breath. "Sorry," he said, more softly. "I just...I really need...don't make any more jokes, all right?" Ginny looked alarmed.

"Draco, my god, what's wrong?" He took a moment to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

"I kissed Hermione." It took everything in him to speak above a whisper. "I know you already know that, but-well, not just on Halloween, is what I mean." He paused, willing his heartbeat to slow down, or at least remove itself from his throat. Ginny looked thoroughly lost, but withheld comment. "I…I really like her." He didn't think the words existed to explain how much. "And I know your brother hates me and she'd never hear the end of it if anyone ever saw her with me, and...well, honestly that may be for the best, because…" He felt as if his throat was closing. "Ginny, d'you remember-well, of course you remember, but when we…" He couldn't say it. He had to say it. This was impossible. "The last time we played Quidditch?" he finished, scarcely above a whisper. Ginny's eyes doubled in size, and she bit her lip and frowned slightly.

"But...not the bit where we were actually playing?" she said carefully. He nodded. Understanding dawned in her eyes, but she waited for him to speak.

"I wanted that," he whispered. "Want it. I can't get it out of my head." He swallowed the lump in his throat with difficulty. "Something's wrong with me, Ginny, I-all I've wanted is for Hermione to feel the same way about me, and now she does, and I-" he couldn't breathe. After a moment, Ginny gently touched his shoulder.

"Say it," she said softly. It wasn't a challenge or a command. He turned sharply to face her, but had to avert his eyes almost at once.

"I did."

"No, I mean…" Ginny paused. "Say it properly. I think you'll feel better." He felt slightly dizzy now, and he shut his eyes against the unpleasant swirling of the lake in front of him.

"I...want to kiss boys." If he imagined someone else was speaking, it wasn't so bad. His heartbeat slowed and breath returned to his body slowly. "I like them. The same way...that I like girls." Ginny nodded as if he'd just shown her a vaguely fascinating trick he'd learned in class.

"Do you? Feel better?" He sort of did, for a moment.

"What do I...I mean, I've got to tell...And what if she…" Why, exactly, couldn't he seem to finish a sentence? Ginny had superhuman nerves, he decided. He was driving himself mad.

"Why?" she asked, after a moment. He frowned.

"Why what?"

"Why do you have to tell Hermione?" She couldn't possibly be asking such an idiotic question.

"Well, because-" he broke off, discovering, to his extreme annoyance, that he couldn't seem to answer it. "I just do."

"I don't think you do," said Ginny slowly. She bit her lip and frowned slightly in thought. "I mean, she likes you…And you like her. You wouldn't refuse to go out with her just because maybe, sometime down the line, you might like another girl, would you?"

"I don't think I'll ever like another girl half as much," he blurted, without thinking. Ginny made a face.

"And I'm going to be sick if you start talking like that," she retorted. Draco laughed.

"Sorry." Ginny seemed to consider for a moment.

"I don't want to sound rude," she said slowly, "but I don't think this is quite as big of a deal as you're making it out to be." She winced, then shook her head. "What I mean is, it's not a bad thing. And I do think you should tell her eventually, but not because it's something you owe her or anything like that. You should want to tell her, and ideally you should make half an ounce of sense while you're at it." Draco studied Ginny's face for a moment. How the hell, he wondered for the eight hundredth time, had she turned out like this when every one of her brothers was an insufferable idiot?

"You're probably right," he said quietly, turning to look at the mountains beyond the lake. Ginny was quiet for a bit.

"Am I the only one you've told?" she asked, and he could tell from her voice that she was grinning. His face grew hot.

"What if you are? It's not that big of a deal, does that sound familiar?" Ginny giggled.

"You like me," she teased, and he rolled his eyes.

"Not quite as much at the moment as I did before this conversation," he retorted. She laughed, then grew more serious.

"Draco?"

"What?"

"It's really not. A bad thing, I mean." His older teammates' taunts flitted unbidden across his mind.

"Some people might beg to differ with you on that," he said flatly. She shrugged.

"Well, they're wrong." She said it so simply, so casually, that he almost believed her. "I didn't mean to tease you," she added, with a self-conscious sort of half smile. "It's cool you told me. Thanks." He hadn't the foggiest idea how to respond to this.

"Let's go back inside," said Ginny, after a few moments. "It's getting dark and I need to find Neville before dinner's over." Draco frowned.

"Why?" She rolled her eyes and gave an extremely put-upon sigh.

"Because Sir Cadogan changes the password to Gryffindor Tower every day before nine o'clock, and Neville's the only one who thought to write them down," she said grimly. "Everyone's got to see Neville before they can get into the common room at night." Draco laughed. From what Hermione said, this Sir Cadogan seemed like a proper nightmare.

"Well, I'd hate to be responsible for you freezing to death tonight because you couldn't get in to bed," he said lightly. "Your brothers would kill me." Ginny nodded.

"They'd never find your body," she said seriously.

"New Gryffindors would wonder why there's the ghost of a Slytherin boy haunting their common room."

"Would you really come back as a ghost?" Ginny asked, frowning slightly. Draco paused. Sometimes he felt like he was a ghost-aware of the world around him, but profoundly dissociated from it, grasping desperately for real feeling and coming up with nothing more than that old familiar raw, empty ache. He shuddered. Perhaps that didn't belong in this particular conversation.

"Probably not," he said instead. "Being a ghost doesn't seem very nice to me."

"Yeah," said Ginny thoughtfully. "Me neither."

Evidently the Slytherin team feared Flint would make good on his threat, for they massacred Ravenclaw that Saturday in the quickest match Draco had played in his life. Their victory against Gryffindor last term had given them a narrow lead for the Cup, and this placed them far and away ahead of the other teams. Gryffindor had made a robust recovery from their initial loss, slaughtering Hufflepuff and beating Ravenclaw by a narrow but respectable margin. This, according to Flint, was unfavorable news, as Gryffindor's team was their fiercest competition. Draco, who fervently wished Flint would refrain from discussing the Gryffindor team-or its Captain-in his presence ever again, half-listened as he lectured them on the necessity of beating Hufflepuff by a large margin the following week.

The moment Flint released them, he shot back up the grounds, keen to avoid the rush to the castle. The common room was empty aside from a group of fifth-year girls who scarcely looked up from their large piles of notes as he passed. He slipped into the dormitory and turned to throw himself down on his bed, noticing far too late that Olive was yet again lounging on his pillow. He caught himself on the bedpost, heart pounding, slightly dizzy as though he'd fallen from a great height.

"What's with you?" he said crossly, picking her up and depositing her on Blaise's bed before collapsing onto his own. He closed his eyes for a moment, but soon the deeply unpleasant feeling of being watched prickled so strongly at the back of his mind that he opened his eyes, and nearly screamed. Olive was standing over him, nose inches from his, green eyes boring holes into his own. He glared at her as he fought to calm his heartbeat.

"Right, that's it," he snapped, and this time, he carried her to Theo's bed before returning to his. He'd scarcely lain down again, however, when she leapt lightly up beside him. They stared at one another for a moment and then, very slowly, she raised a paw and smacked him square across the nose. He stared, utterly taken aback. Nothing in his life thus far had given him any inkling what he was supposed to do when a cat smacked him.

"Come on, then," he muttered after a moment, turning onto his side and lightly patting the blanket beside him. She curled up at once, and to his surprise, her warmth and the softness of her fur made him feel profoundly comforted. He gave her head a few absentminded strokes, and an involuntary smile came to his face as she purred and pressed her head into his palm.

"I suppose you're really just a cat?" he said wryly. She meowed. He turned, sighing slightly, to look up at the ceiling. It hadn't been his first concern, that day in the library, but he hadn't forgotten he'd overheard Potter planning to sneak into Hogsmeade. If he'd found a way to leave the castle undetected and avoid passing the dementors at the gates, Draco had to know what it was. There was another trip to Hogsmeade the following morning, which meant he'd have what might be his last opportunity for the foreseeable future to see how Potter was sneaking out. It had occurred to him a few times over the past week to simply ask, but this was a laughable idea. No, he'd need to follow him. He wasn't particularly worried about this-no one had seen through his Disillusionment Charm in years-but it did mean he'd need to keep his friends at bay. Pansy and Daphne had talked of almost nothing but the upcoming Hogsmeade visit all week, and though Draco had wracked his brains until they were numb, he still couldn't think of a single excuse they'd accept for his remaining behind. He'd even considered putting himself in the path of a Bludger at the Quidditch match, but ultimately decided a week in the hospital wing wasn't worth it. Besides, he did need to go into Hogsmeade. He was desperately impatient to speak to Sirius about the rat.

Though, at the moment, he couldn't seem to remember why. He felt inexplicably and incomprehensibly tired, exhausted beyond his wildest imagination. A vaguely unpleasant hollow sensation filled his insides and great black splotches flitted in and out of his field of vision, partially obscuring the ceiling above him; it took him nearly a full minute to realize it was because his eyes were closing. Why, though? He'd slept, hadn't he? The game hadn't been remotely taxing, and things had been going far better for him now than they had last term. So why did his body seem to be filled with wet cement, and where was this horrible empty ache coming from? Why, suddenly, did opening his eyes properly or lifting so much as a finger seem an insurmountable task?

"What's wrong with me, Olive?" he whispered. She blinked, and he slipped, without fully realizing it, into blank unconsciousness.

At first, he wasn't sure what had woken him. He felt intensely confused, and...cold. That was it. Someone had snatched Olive away from him.

"Are you ill?" Blaise's voice. Something lightly struck the side of his face.

"Blaise, don't hit him," came a girl's impatient voice. Daphne.

"Give me back the cat," he muttered, forcing his eyes open as far as they would go. Blaise and Daphne sat casually on either side of his bed. Pansy lounged against Blaise's bedpost. He heard Theo's laugh, but couldn't see him.

"The cat needs her breakfast, mate." Theo appeared next to Pansy. Draco frowned.

"What d'you-" the realization smacked him in the face, and he groaned. "It's not...morning?" Blaise shrugged and nodded.

"'Fraid so."

"Why didn't you wake me?" he demanded, sitting up so sharply that Daphne jumped.

"We tried," Pansy told him. "You weren't so keen on it." He sighed and collapsed back onto his pillows. It couldn't be morning, he hadn't planned, and unless his friends left at once he'd have wasted his precious opportunity to see Potter's mysterious passageway into Hogsmeade. Panic began to flood through him, and it was all he could to do remain still.

"So are you? Ill?" Blaise repeated. "Because if you're not feeling well, we're leaving without you."

"Christ, Blaise," snapped Pansy.

"What?" demanded Blaise, suddenly indignant. "That's what we agreed, isn't it?"

"Yes, but you don't need to be..." Daphne broke off and gestured vaguely at the air around them. Draco, however, suppressed a sigh of relief. Far from offending him, Blaise had just solved his problem for him.

"It's okay," he muttered. "Go without me, I don't mind."

The moment they were gone, he dressed as quickly as he could, then shot out through the common room, ignoring the vaguely alarmed looks his haste elicited from the group of first-years basking in the good armchairs by the fire. He'd scarcely set foot in the Entrance Hall when two familiar faces careened out of the Great Hall, clearly in high spirits. Unable to believe his luck, Draco shrank back into the shadows and cast his Disillusionment Charm.

"Bye!" called Potter, waving in a slightly exaggerated sort of way. "See you when you get back!" Weasley grinned, winked smarmily, and strutted out of the castle. Potter turned and began to climb the stairs. Draco followed, keeping around fifteen paces between them and scarcely daring to breathe. Potter hurried up to the third floor, toward a statue of a hunchbacked, one-eyed witch Draco had seen before but never given any thought. He cast a quick glance about him, pulled out his wand, and tapped it against the statue.

"Dissendium!" he hissed, and the witch's hunch slid out of sight, revealing a sizable passageway. Draco grinned, but Potter had no sooner turned toward the entrance than Neville Longbottom appeared, as if out of nowhere.

"Hiya, Harry!" he said enthusiastically. "Want a game of Exploding Snap?" Potter's look of ill-disguised consternation was so viscerally familiar to Draco that he had to stuff his finger into his mouth to stifle a laugh. He didn't stay to watch what he was sure would be a train wreck of a conversation; having got what he needed, he was free to use the more conventional route into the village.

Hermione had tortured herself all week, but ultimately she couldn't bring herself to speak to Professor McGonagall about Harry sneaking into Hogsmeade. She knew they'd never speak to her again if she blocked Harry from getting to the village, and, as stoutly as she disagreed with their priorities, she could sort of understand. It was difficult already for Harry, she knew, being perpetually singled out from his classmates. Staying behind from Hogsmeade because a famous killer was supposed to be hunting him was hardly what she'd consider a fun way to spend his third year at Hogwarts. At least, that's the reason she gave herself. A much more vindictive voice, quiet but increasingly present with each passing day, whispered that they were likely to be caught anyway without her to point out obvious mistakes and remind them to cover their tracks.

Hermione herself wasn't going into Hogsmeade today. There wasn't time. These days, there was scarcely time for anything at all. She tried studying with Draco, which worked well to a point, but then he'd want to kiss her...and oh, hell, didn't she want to kiss him just as badly? He was beautiful to look at, he was wonderful company, but he was very, very distracting. And Hermione could ill afford to be distracted. She was falling behind.

It would've killed her to admit it aloud, but it was true. She turned the hours back so often in a day that time ceased to exist in any meaningful increments; instead, it took physical form around her, becoming a dark and eternally oppressive force which sought to crush her until she begged for mercy, and keep crushing until she turned to dust. Perhaps she'd rather be dust. Dust didn't have this Transfiguration essay to finish, or that wretched star chart that Professor Trelawney was likely to predict meant terrible misfortune would follow her for the rest of her days. Dust didn't have to weather Ron's withering looks across the common room all evening, or Harry's stony refusal to look at her in lessons. It didn't have to avoid Ginny's wide, concerned eyes as it reassured her that it was, in fact, quite all right and she should stop worrying herself about it.

She wasn't, though. The trouble was, if she stopped long enough to think about it, she'd break into pieces and she wasn't entirely confident she could put herself back together again.

And so she concentrated on her Transfiguration essay. And, after that, she'd concentrate on her Charms essay. After that, she'd finish her Muggle Studies homework and her star chart, and then it would be dark and she'd have to pull out her hourglass and turn it until it wasn't dark any longer. When Professor McGonagall had given her the time-turner, it had filled her with a delicious sense of omnipotence and awe at its beauty. Now, it felt like a shackle she'd have given anything to take off. And yet...it was a shackle she'd given herself. It was well within her power to take it off, but she couldn't. If she did, then that would mean…

She concentrated on her Transfiguration essay. Time marched by so quickly and mercifully that she felt dizzy as morning slipped into afternoon. By the time the sun grew low in the sky, her vision had begun to blur and it took her a moment to recognize Ron as he flew into the common room, panting, face slick with sweat and eyes bulging out of his head in a dead panic.

"You've got to help me," he gasped. "Something terrible's happened, Hermione. I can't find Harry anywhere."