CHAPTER SIX
Alana met Draco in the entrance hall before breakfast the next morning. Hand-in-hand, they entered the Great Hall together, and he towed Alana towards Ginny, Kari, and Neville sitting across from them. Ginny glanced up once and then glared down into her oatmeal.
"I'm not speaking to you," she grumbled.
Draco stopped, frowned, bit back an inquiry after the cereal's crimes, and instead said, "That's fine." He sat down beside her. Alana hesitated and remained standing. Neville looked away.
"Go away," Ginny growled.
"I'm sorry. Was that directed towards me? Because I thought—"
"Draco Malfoy, I swear—"
"Don't talk to me," he said lightly, reaching for a basket of rolls. He offered one to Alana, but she shook her head, so he returned it to the table. "If you don't want to."
Ginny turned her face away from him, anger pulling her mouth into a deep frown and radiating from her eyes.
"If you're not speaking to me," Draco continued, "you won't argue with me."
"Draco—" Alana muttered, her hand fisting on his sleeve. He didn't shake her off, but he did continue to address Ginny.
"What you did last night was stupid. Stupid because you didn't think it through, because you didn't know what you'd do if you succeeded, because you didn't even know that you would accomplish anything if you succeeded—"
"Harry'd have the sword."
"And it'd make a brilliant wall decoration as I had to tell the Dark Lord last night."
Ginny tensed, and Neville bit his lip.
"You-Know-Who was here?" Kari whispered, her eyes wide with fear. They traveled from Draco to Alana, who now fell into the empty seat beside Draco and buried her face in her hands.
Draco continued, "We don't know that Harry's any more use for it than that."
"Dumbledore wanted him to have it."
"And we don't know why. Harry said he didn't know why."
"And could have been lying," Ginny grumbled.
"Maybe, but at any rate, did you think about any of the consequences of this, Gin?"
"Don't call me that!"
"You're getting off lightly. What would your mum and dad do if you'd been sent to Azkaban? What if the punishment had been worse than that?"
"They wouldn't— He wouldn't— We're just kids," Neville managed to say, "and—"
"And you're seventeen, Neville. You especially should be careful if you think that's the only reason he wouldn't imprison you—or kill you. And you tried to steal from the headmaster's office a highly valuable object that apparently the Dark Lord himself is very interested in."
"Because it'll help defeat him," Ginny said, turning around to face Draco finally, her face lit with triumph. "I told you. This proves—"
"Nothing," Draco argued. "Not really."
"How can you say—"
"We don't know why he's interested. He seemed almost more interested in how the sword was involved with you." Draco caught her eyes as they opened wider and betrayed the merest flicker of fear. "What diary is—"
Anger immediately erased fear. Her hair seemed to catch fire in an instant. "You—you—"
Alana moaned, "Draco. Why?"
Draco had rarely seen Ginny so apoplectic. His eyes widened, and he leaned away from her so that the sparks of her hair, her eyes would not land upon him.
"You don't mention that. Ever! If you do I—"
"Ginny, if it's important maybe you had better—"
"Not tell you, you treacherous, slimy—"
"Ginny!" Alana cried.
"I didn't want any of you in trouble," Draco snapped. "Do you think I did? But what could I say? Snape was right. You were out of line."
"You were out of line, Draco Malfoy! You should have stood up for us—defended us—or…. You told my family that you'd—"
"Really!" Professor McGonagall descended on them, her eyes as lit with anger as Ginny's, though her gray, tightly regulated hair did not enhance the effect. "You know I don't want to, but if you two are going to keep this up, I'm going to have to forbid you, Mr. Malfoy, from sitting with my students, and you, Miss Weasley—"
"Did you hear what he did, Professor?" Ginny demanded.
McGonagall pursed her lips. "I heard what you did. What you both did," she added, turning to include Neville, who ducked his head. "And I happen to agree with Mr. Malfoy, Ginny."
"What?"
"I understand that you want to help, I do, but this isn't the way to—"
"You don't think I can do anything! You think I'm just a little girl. You're as bad as my mother!" Ginny leapt from the bench and stormed out of the Great Hall, watched by them all.
McGonagall frowned more deeply. "Being compared to Molly Weasley is really little insult, I suppose." She looked at Draco once more. "Mr. Malfoy—"
"I'm sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to yell. She's just being so stupid, and I—"
"That may be, but—" She sighed, and she laid her fore- and middle fingers to her temple and shut her eyes. "I've had to deal with a number of Weasleys in my time as professor and as Head of Gryffindor, Mr. Malfoy." Through her square spectacles, her eyes burned with certainty. "Let her alone. You can't fight her. You certainly can't fight her in common areas."
"But I can't just— She has to understand— If she tries anything like that again— I promised her parents, her brothers, and… and I have to get her to forgive me; I—" I'm under the Dark Lord's orders. But he definitely did not want to admit that—to any of them and especially not at the Gryffindor table.
"Mr. Longbottom," McGonagall said.
Draco looked up again.
"Perhaps you could— I trust that you understand that what you did was foolish and—"
"It might have been foolish, but it was right."
McGonagall frowned.
"It was wrong," Draco muttered, not looking at Neville, crossing his arms over his chest, and only half hoping that Neville had not heard him.
McGonagall sighed. "Mr. Longbottom, I will not argue morals with you now. I am, however, supposed to tell you and Miss Weasley to meet with Miss Lovegood in the entrance hall tomorrow night at eight. Hagrid will be there."
"Punishment stands, then?" Neville asked, crossing his arms too.
"There's nothing I can do, Neville. Tell Ginny if you see her first." She turned and strode away, back up to her seat at the High Table.
"You don't blame me too, do you?" Draco snapped at Neville. He half wanted an excuse to yell at him too. His anger with Ginny still burned in his blood, and McGonagall had just forbidden it its proper outlet.
Neville looked at him. He looked at him for a long while till Draco began to feel uncomfortable beneath his stare. He never thought Neville Longbottom would be able to make him uncomfortable. The Neville Longbottom of their first year, the Neville Longbottom before the Dark Lord's return certainly couldn't have. But then, Draco had been different then too.
"No," Neville said at last. "You did what you thought was right. We did what we thought was right. I'm sorry that we don't agree." Neville stood and pushed away his plate. He looked at Alana then at Kari. "Make sure Ginny's all right, won't you? She's more likely to listen to you," he said, looking directly at Kari, who nodded. "I'll tell her about the detentions at lunch myself," he promised.
Draco frowned as Neville walked away.
They finished breakfast in near silence, which allowed Draco plenty of time to digest what McGonagall had said.
Draco caught Alana once they were out in the entrance hall and told Kari to go on ahead. Staring at them each with a frown, searching them, Kari seemed to satisfy herself on some point, nodded, and ascended the stairs.
As soon as Kari turned, Alana demanded, "Draco, what—"
"I'm going to listen to McGonagall. I'm going to keep away for now. I won't go to lunch. I'll go down to the kitchens to see Dobby. But Alana, can you talk to her? To Ginny? Will you try and talk some sense into her?"
"Draco," Alana dropped her eyes to their entwined hands, "I don't know if she'll listen to me."
"Try. She's more likely to listen to you than me."
Alana hesitated. "I'll… I'll see if I can broach it. By dinner. But Draco, I don't want to force it if it doesn't come up. I think McGonagall might be right. We'll just incense her if we try to force her into anything she doesn't like. Ginny's always been like that. She does what she wants."
"So we're supposed to let her rage and do nothing?"
"No… maybe not…. That doesn't sound, well," she met his gaze, "right either. Oh Draco, I don't know. Things have always just happened when we've fought. She always comes around in the end. Maybe… maybe Hagrid'll talk to them tomorrow." She bit her lip. "You think they'll be all right? Really?"
"I really do. Do you think she'll forgive me?"
Alana squeezed his hands and offered him a small smile. "She won't be cross forever, Draco. Sooner or later, she'll need you."
"Later with my luck. But then if she doesn't quit this, she'll be dragged in front of the Dark Lord soon, and I'll have to try and talk him out of executing her."
"Oh Draco! Don't joke! Not about that."
Draco looked at her sadly, unwilling to admit that he hadn't been joking. She seemed to understand. Her head dropped to his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her, hers came around him, and he kissed the top of her head.
xxx
Draco, true to his word, bypassed the open doors of the Great Hall and instead passed through a small door and into the basement of the castle when Ancient Runes let out. He walked the warm, torchlit hallways, passed large still life oil paintings. It would have been a quiet passage except for the Hufflepuffs dodging him as they passed in the other direction, talking to one another, laughing, whispering when they saw him. Even after all this time, he was still the object of rumor. He thought back to Neville's initial reaction to his appointment to Head Boy and supposed he oughtn't to be surprised if others had come to the same conclusion. He was again considered the Dark Lord's golden boy.
He sighed and reached up to halfheartedly tickle the pear. Its giggle seemed to be directed at him as it transformed. Dejected, he yanked the pear doorknob open onto the tempting aromas of the Hogwarts house-elves' cooking.
The house-elves bobbed bows and curtseys at him as he passed them, looking for a splash of color among them.
One elf came up to him, crowding near his legs. "Sir?"
"It's all right," Draco said, glancing down at the elf. "I'm just looking for Dobby. No," he said when the elf curtsied and opened her mouth to speak again, "he'll help me. It's all right. Just get back to—"
"Sir," the house-elf said again, her voice trembling, "Dobby—Dobby is gone, sir."
"Gone?" Draco stared at the elf. Then he relaxed. "Oh. He's up in the Come-and-Go Room. Thanks. I'll just—"
The elf grabbed Draco's jumper to stop him as he turned to leave the kitchens. She was actually trembling herself as she shook her head. "Not to the Come-and-Go Room, sir. Dobby is gone. He is serving a new master, sir."
"What?"
"He is gone. He is left Hogwarts."
"Left?"
"Yes, sir. Tizzy is sorry, sir."
Draco repeated, "Left…. Where? Where is he?"
"He is serving Master Dumbledore, sir."
"Master— Don't— That isn't funny," Draco growled. But he had never known a house-elf—not even Dobby—to pull pranks. Still, Tizzy had to be wrong. "Dumbledore's—"
Tizzy shook her head. "Master Dumbledore at the Hog's Head, sir. In Hogsmeade."
"Who— How is he—"
"This—this Master Dumbledore is—is Master Dumbledore's brother, sir."
Draco felt as if he'd been hit in the chest by a frying pan. He stared over the house-elves' heads, past Tizzy. Dobby was gone. He was with Dumbledore's brother. Dumbledore had a brother. At the Hog's Head, a disreputable tavern that almost everyone but the lowest, poorest scum avoided. And Dobby hadn't said goodbye.
"Sir, Tizzy is sorry, sir."
Hogsmeade visits were cancelled, part of the stricter policing of the students. There would be no visiting Dobby. Draco waved a vague hand, warding off Tizzy's apology or the buzzing in mind that he suspected was a symptom of his surprise and the hurt that he felt at Dobby's unexpected absence, the leadenness that was settling into his stomach. "Did he leave any way for me to—" Draco shook his head. The stone. He had a way to contact Dobby. If he really needed him. But what if he wanted to just talk to the elf? What if he just wanted a friend?
"Sir?"
"Where's Winky?" Draco asked of Tizzy instead.
Tizzy frowned and pointed to the fireplace in the back of the kitchen, where Winky was seated on her stool, staring into the flames.
"How is she?"
Tizzy frowned. "Tizzy doesn't really talk to her, sir." Tizzy made to walk away.
"Tizzy!"
The elf turned.
"Did Dobby say why? Why he left, that is?"
Tizzy frowned. "Dobby says he isn't able to work for our new master. Dobby is a bad elf," Tizzy added dutifully, but fear still shone in the elf's eyes.
"Who is your master? Snape?"
"Yes, sir. Master Snape."
Draco nodded. It was better that the house-elves served Snape than the Dark Lord. "Thank you, Tizzy," he said earnestly. "Tizzy, can you get me something to eat? Something light? Just a little of whatever is being sent up?"
Tizzy nodded, and Draco continued on to the back of the kitchens to comfort Winky. If Dobby wasn't here to do it, he supposed he should, but unable to comfort himself, still stunned by Dobby's departure, stung that he hadn't waited to tell Draco, to say goodbye, he soon gave up. He could do nothing for Winky. Not now. She was drunk and probably couldn't make sense of Draco's halfhearted platitudes anyway. He stayed just long enough to finish the plate that Tizzy had brought him.
He ascended the stairs.
There was still time before class, and the Great Hall was still full. Alana would be in there. But so would Ginny. And he needed not to upset Ginny further. He needed Alana to get through to her. He decided that he didn't dare go in there just to find Alana.
He checked his watch again and sighed before taking the dark corridor off the entrance hall. He would be early for History of Magic, but he'd be late if he tried to go anywhere else.
Halfway down the corridor he took a deep breath and paused. The centaur had been evicted, and the door was surely locked, but no one had apparently bothered to dismantle the spellwork that transformed the indoor classroom into a forest glade. Draco had never taken Divination, never exchanged words with the centaur professor that had been hired his fifth year to co-teach it, but he had heard rumors of the classroom that Dumbledore had manufactured for him. Even through the locked door, the earthen, loamy scent of fresh water and forest shade filled the corridor. Draco supposed that in the absence of anyone trodding upon it, the forest flora in the classroom had grown even more wild.
He had time.
He pulled out his wand and checked again that the corridor was empty apart from himself.
He was almost surprised when a simple "Alohomora" charm worked to disengage the lock.
He eased open the door and stepped inside.
The classroom was lit with dappled sunlight. The illusion was great. Draco knew that there must be walls—just as he knew that there must be a ceiling—but they were lost behind a picket of thick boles that seemed to march on endlessly, their branches tangling impenetrably. The ceiling was blue sky; that seemed less of a feat; the Great Hall was similarly enchanted. A creek chatted somewhere nearby in chorus with an unseen trio of birds that probably were not actually in the trees' branches. Or perhaps they were. Maybe the habitat here had managed to sustain them.
There were no chairs or desks in here, but there was a circle of more natural seating, sun-warmed stones and tree stumps and logs worn to smoothness, that seemed to grow as organically from the moss as a fairy ring of mushrooms.
It would have been a difficult place to take notes but an excellent place to learn.
If Draco could be sure that it was in the part of the forest on which Dumbledore had based this facsimile—if indeed such a place existed—that Ginny and the others would spend the night, he would breathe more easily.
With the rule in place now at Hogwarts that forbade the students from leaving the building for anything but to attend class, this place felt like a stolen pleasure.
It was quiet here. It was unlikely anyone else would think to come in. The moss was softer than even any carpet that he had yet found in the castle.
Forbidden from visiting the lakeside beech beneath which they sometimes sat on lazier days in better weather, Draco thought that he should bring Alana here. She would enjoy the dappled light. He could conjure a breeze to make the leaves whisper and dance for her.
Then he considered other secret meetings that could be held in the disused classroom. Was this room secreted enough to protect them from the Carrows if here they met to discuss tactics to keep the students safe and resist the encroaching Dark? It likely wasn't. But perhaps it could be made so. He would have to think.
xxx
"I'm sorry," Alana said to him at dinner. She had tried to broach the subject of the sword with Ginny, she said, as they walked between classes, but she had been met sharply; Ginny had accused her of working for Draco. Because Draco had tried to dissuade her from going after the sword, Ginny had avoided Alana. Now Ginny was becoming frankly waspish, Alana told him quietly, and Alana suspected that she ought to avoid her too until her anger cooled.
"It was a long shot," Draco allowed. "You tried."
The two of them sat at one end of the long Gryffindor House table. Ginny was lost with Neville and Kari too somewhere amidst the other Gryffindors.
"There's still Hagrid," Alana reminded. "Maybe he'll say something to her."
"Yeah." Hagrid would have ample opportunity; Ginny wouldn't leave his side in the forest even if she was incensed with him. But Draco suspected that Hagrid—careless, reckless Hagrid, who had once hatched a dragon in his wooden cottage—might side with Ginny on this matter. He didn't say so to Alana.
He looked down the table. Had he done the right thing suggesting that Ginny, Neville, and Luna be sent into the Forest? Yes, they had to see sense, but would they be all right—really? And how soon after the detention would Ginny's anger at the injustice of it fade? It had to fade. Already McGonagall's advice to keep his distance chafed against his own sense of urgency.
"How's Dobby?" Alana asked him.
The question left Draco speechless, fumbling. Draco stumbled through an explanation. "Gone," he said. "Left Hogwarts. He's working in Hogsmeade."
Alana frowned. She twined her fingers with his. "I'm sorry," she said again.
Draco nodded, words fetching up against a lump that was forming in his throat. He squeezed her hand instead, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Silly," Draco managed to mutter.
"No," Alana assured him. "I'm glad he's safe. Or safer. I'm glad he doesn't have to weather this with us. But especially when you expected him to be here…. You're allowed to hurt. I think he'd be touched that you miss him. And proud."
Draco managed a weak, dismissive laugh. "If he were here, he'd see I've been forced back into service. He'd be heartbroken."
"He'd see you're still trying to resist where you can."
Draco looked up. "That reminds me. I think I found something. Something I want to show you when we can next find a free hour to relax."
xxx
The next day came and was nearly gone, and neither Draco nor Alana had been able to breach the subject with Ginny. After a second attempt, Ginny, having shouted at Alana in the middle of the hallway, was avoiding her as forcefully as she was avoiding Draco. The two of them sat again alone at the end of the Gryffindor table. Alana had found a copy of the Prophet from the morning and was pouring through stories of more bad news—Muggle-borns carted to Azkaban to await trial or stripped of their wands, families, and Gringotts accounts; a short blurb on the death of the German wandmaker Gregorovitch ("I met him once," Alana said, "at Mr. Ollivander's. A strange man, and I'm not sure if Mr. Ollivander really liked him as much as he pretended to. He wouldn't let him into the back of the store. He took us all to the Cauldron for lunch instead."); disappearances; and new laws effected by the Ministry. Draco suspected that she was using the paper as an excuse not to have to meet her Housemates' stares, among whom news of her fight with Ginny seemed to have spread, which fuelled and honed, among Gryffindor at least, the rumors now circulating about what crime Ginny, Neville, and Luna had committed to have earned the first detention of the year. The outlandish theories ranged from having toilet papered Snape's bedroom to having tried to assassinate him with hatchets; that Ginny and Alana's fight had mentioned a sword was doing nothing to dampen the spirits of supporters of this conjecture. Draco hoped that the headmaster would put a solid stop to all talk of hatchets before the Carrows got ideas.
He left the paper to her, left her to the paper, and tried to shield Alana himself from some of the murmurs and glances. He waited to talk to her till the table began to clear. She still had a mass of nearly untouched mash on her plate and a frown on her face.
"Alana," Draco said, "can I follow you up to Gryffindor tonight?"
Alana looked at him over the newspaper. "I don't see why not."
"I want to be there when Ginny gets back," he explained. "I'll just feel better if I—if I see for myself that she comes back."
Alana put down the paper and laid a hand on his arm. "You would make a good brother—even if she won't admit it now. Yes," she agreed. "Come to the Tower and wait for her."
Draco remained and convinced Alana to remain with him long after they had cleared their plates. Draco was watching the High Table. He was watching Hagrid at the far end. The half-giant was scowling and prodding at his steak with more vehemence than was necessary or even advisable for a man of his size. Luckily the gold plates did not shatter and a simple spell would mend the dents he put into the dish.
Hagrid did not now seem like a man it would be advisable to approach for a favor, but Draco couldn't quite convince himself that he could ignore the niggling guilt that told him he had to talk to Hagrid.
When the giant made to stand, Draco did too, grabbing Alana's hand, and she grabbed her bag quickly.
"What's the rush?"
"Hagrid," Draco said simply as he passed through the doors of the Great Hall.
He turned to wait.
"What're you going to do?"
"Just talk to him."
Hagrid came shuffling through the doors then, hunched into his moleskin coat, his brows lowered.
"Hagrid," Draco called.
The half-giant turned on him, and like alcohol thrown into flames his eyes flashed with bright fury. "What d'you want, Malfoy?"
"Hagrid." Draco looked up into the half-giant's bearded face, far above Draco's head. "Take care of them."
"What?" Hagrid growled.
"Ginny. And Neville and Luna. Take care of them tonight. For me."
"I'll do it for them, Malfoy. Don't have ter be fer you."
"I know. I know you'll do it for them, but just… just make sure they come back all right, all right? And don't— Remember, the trouble they're in, won't you? I don't like to think about them in that forest, but I'd rather have them with you than with the Carrows. I don't think they'll understand that, but—"
"Yer ramblin', Malfoy."
"I'm sorry," Draco said quickly. "Hagrid—"
"I'll look after them," the half-giant promised.
It had to be enough for Draco. He nodded, and Hagrid strode past them to the front doors.
xxx
Ginny and Neville left the Tower, carrying their cloaks, at seven forty-five that night. Neville glanced at Draco as he sat with Alana, ensconced on a shadowy couch, but Ginny stared determinedly ahead.
"They'll be all right," Alana promised again, but her expression bespoke worry as she watched them descend the steps towards the portrait hole.
Draco returned to the Charms textbook that he was reading. Hagrid had promised. He'd keep them safe—Draco hoped.
xxx
The common room slowly emptied around them, and the fire died down. Alana left him briefly and returned with a blanket, which she spread over their legs. She looked at Draco from the other end of the couch, half of her face lost in darkness and the other half just barely picked out by the orange glow of the embers.
"I'm going to get some sleep," she said pointedly. "You should too."
"Yeah. All right," Draco agreed, pulling the blanket up to cover more of his chest.
Alana rolled onto her side and laid her head on the throw pillow. Her legs brushed against his, even in his jeans, sending a spike of fire racing through Draco's body so that he shivered. But Draco tried to ignore it. Tonight, here was no time or place for that.
"Alana?"
"Sleep, Draco," she said without opening her eyes.
"But—"
"Just try." She opened her eyes. They glinted in the firelight. "We'll see her," she said seriously. "Even if we sleep through her coming into the Tower, she'll come down for breakfast."
"Will she? Will she not just sleep through it?"
"I won't make you leave the Tower till you've seen her. How's that for a promise?"
Draco nodded. "All right, but I hope we'll see her when she comes in."
xxx
Draco woke up to gray, predawn light and the loud trilling of birds that nested on the rafters and gargoyles and swooped now through the morning. Alana was still asleep at the other end of the couch. The common room was empty around them. Had Ginny and Neville already come in or were they still out on the grounds with Hagrid? Surely the night had passed, and they'd be allowed now to leave the forest.
Draco slipped from beneath the blanket, checking anxiously that Alana didn't wake, arranging the blanket quickly so that her socked feet remained covered.
He walked over to the window and looked out. The windows of the Gryffindor common room looked east over the forest towards Hagrid's hut and the Whomping Willow. No smoke rose from Hagrid's chimney so they were probably still out—or Hagrid had collapsed into bed too tired to have lit the fire or have wanted tea. But surely they wouldn't have stayed up all night?
His own foray into the forest with Hagrid, Neville, Harry, and Hermione had been cut short, interrupted by the appearance of that horrid thing that had knelt beside the dead unicorn and drunk—
No. That thing was gone. They wouldn't have met it.
Draco turned away from the grim sight of the forest, its floor dark even as a few rays of sunlight stained the horizon with an orange fireglow.
He and Neville and Hermione and Harry had that night come back to the castle, slept in their own beds.
In the morning light, the idea of sending Neville and Ginny and Luna back there seemed stupid. What would spending a night in the forest teach them? Why had Draco ever suggested it? But what else could he have suggested that would be horrific enough for Snape to accept and still keep Ginny safe, keep her from being hurt?
He needed her safe. He needed her to understand.
The hinges of the Fat Lady's portrait squeaked when she swung open. Draco stiffened. He watched the entrance until first Ginny and then Neville shambled into the common room, heads down, dragging.
"Ginny," he breathed. "Neville."
Her head shot up at the sound of her name in his voice.
She managed a weak glare but said nothing as she turned away and shuffled a bit more quickly to the stairs to the girls' dorms.
It was up to Neville to ask, "What are you doing here?"
"I—I had to make sure you were all right," Draco admitted.
"Well," Neville said, "we are."
"Yeah," Draco sighed. "Yeah."
"I'm going to bed," Neville said. He looked Draco over. "Maybe you should too. In a bed."
Draco grimaced. "I'll say goodbye to Alana and go. I just—I just had to be here—when you got back."
Neville nodded and left him too, disappearing up the stairs to the boys' dormitories.
Draco sighed and went back to Alana, kneeling beside her. He brushed a wisp of her hair from her cheek to wake her up.
"I'm going downstairs," he said when she opened her eyes.
"Ginny and Neville are back? They're okay?"
Draco nodded.
Alana reached out for his hand. "Give her time," she beseeched one more time.
Draco just didn't know how much time was left to them all.
xxx
The dorm room was dark and quiet apart from the low burning fire and Goyle's grunting snores when Draco returned.
He eased open the door and tiptoed across the room. It was Saturday. He could claim to need a lie-in. His snitches wouldn't be able to tell him to get out of bed if there was nowhere he needed to be.
He was halfway across the room when one of the bedside lamps—no, a wand blazed bright, and he fell back a step, blinking in the sudden flare. He blinked until he could see Blaise Zabini sitting up in the bed. "Blaise, it's only past dawn; turn that off."
Blaise did lower the wand, the lighted tip masked by the rumpled duvet. "What are you doing getting back at this hour? Where've you been?"
"Where do you think?" Draco challenged.
"With Alana," Blaise guessed.
Alana and Blaise and Draco, they'd all been friends. Or Draco had thought that they were all friends. Until he had heard the news from Harry, until he realized how poorly, how jilted Blaise had felt. Draco had never had the chance to apologize. What Blaise had done had been wholly unwarranted, far outstripped any wrongdoing that Draco had committed, but—
Draco looked back at the other sleeping Slytherins.
Now, here wasn't the time, the place for an apology.
"I was with Alana," Draco agreed instead. "Are you going to turn me in?"
Blaise watched him. Draco wondered if he might—he actually might.
"He knows about her," Blaise said.
Draco frowned. He bit back an acrid retort. He wondered if it had been Blaise who had told the Dark Lord about her. Draco had tried so hard to keep her away from him, though he thought he had already failed her too. Maybe he himself was to blame if the Dark Lord knew about Alana.
Blaise continued, "He hasn't told us to stop it."
"So I'm all right?"
Blaise nodded.
"Good," Draco said. "Then," he started forward again, "I'm going to get some sleep."
Blaise watched him the last few feet to his bed, watched as Draco closed the curtain behind himself. Then he put out his wand.
xxx
He missed breakfast. He heard the others in the dorm room wake, saw through the gap in the curtain the fire flare to mimic the later hour. He stayed in the bed. He heard them leave. He heard them come back.
"Should we wake him?" Nott asked.
"Leave him," Blaise insisted.
And they did.
Draco wondered if he might spend the whole day in bed and not have to talk to any of them anymore than he had that very early morning.
But his stomach wouldn't allow it as the noon hour drew nearer, and he did eventually have to part the curtains and open his trunk, grumble a response ("Shove off") when Nott gibed him about his lie-in, and change clothes; he had never bothered to change into pajamas.
At lunch, Alana reported that Ginny had been asleep or feigning sleep when she had last seen her, and Neville too was absent.
Draco let his eyes wander along the benches of the Ravenclaw table.
Luna was there, adding heaping spoons of sugar to her pumpkin juice. Already he had broken ranks, broken the taboo and sat with the Gryffindors for most meals. Perhaps just this once, he could find himself at the Ravenclaw table. He scuffed his foot against the stone floor.
Coming to a decision, he grabbed Alana's hand. "Come with me," he said, and he pulled her to stand with him, to walk along the aisle until they were opposite Luna. He sat quickly, glad it was a Saturday and that he had not donned any of the silver and green garb of his House, hoping he would blend in among the Ravenclaws from a distance, though some sat too near, of course, and looked at him askance or shook their heads as Alana, looking back once at the Gryffindor table, sat too beside him.
Luna herself took a long drink of her sweetened brew, set down the goblet, and looked at them both, her gaze unnervingly steady and even in light of what he had put her through.
"Luna," Draco said, "how are you?"
"Fine, thanks."
"I'm sorry," Draco said. "For— That I had to send you—"
Luna blinked.
Draco shook his head. "Were you all all right in the forest? I mean, nothing happened, nothing attacked you or—"
"You're having a difficult time finishing sentences," Luna observed.
Draco looked away and muttered, "Maybe I'm nervous."
"Why would you be nervous?" Luna asked.
"Well, because—" He looked back at her and confessed, "You've every right to hate me. Right now Ginny and Neville do, and you and I hardly know one another, so—"
"I don't hate you."
Surprised, Draco reminded her, "But I suggested your detention."
"You did," Luna agreed.
"And you're not cross?"
"At you?"
"Yes."
"No."
"Why not?" Draco demanded.
"Do you want me to be?" Luna asked him.
"No."
"Then—" Luna shrugged. She sighed. "Being cross is tiring."
"I suppose," Draco allowed, still skeptical.
"I don't find it helpful," Luna continued.
Draco argued, "But you can't just turn off your feelings."
"Can't I?"
"Can you?"
Luna shrugged again. "Besides you didn't seem like you wanted to suggest a detention for us."
"I didn't."
"Until you were arguing with Ginny and telling her that you had to do it."
"You heard that?"
"Everyone heard that," Alana reminded Draco, gently smiling. "It almost got you in trouble with McGonagall."
"She—Ginny—you," Draco added, turning to include Luna, "had to know that you can't—you can't go stealing from Snape—especially something like that."
"We might have been able to steal it if he hadn't caught us."
"But you were caught. You were bound to be caught."
"We couldn't know that until we tried."
"It wasn't worth the chance. The consequences were too great—could have been too great. The punishment could have been too steep."
"We were all right in the forest."
Draco grumbled, "You were fortunate."
"Fortunate you sent us to the forest with Hagrid," Luna suggested.
Draco complained, "The punishment might have been worse."
"But you found us."
"I was trying to stop you. I didn't think you could have actually gotten inside the headmaster's office."
"But we did. All we needed was a password. And it was easy enough to hide out of sight and wait for someone to say it aloud."
"How did you— Where did you hide?"
"Out of sight. Professor Carrow wasn't expecting anyone to be listening."
"Which one?"
"The brother."
Of course it would be Amycus Carrow who had slipped. "So you were all right in the forest?" Draco repeated.
"We were. It was dark. But few things in the forest like a fire, and those that do, most of those would rather ignore us. Hagrid said we might meet some of the centaurs. But we didn't. Apparently they don't want humans in the forest anymore. But they left us alone last night if they saw us. I don't think that they did. We didn't go far along the path."
"So it was all all right, then?"
"We talked. We slept a little. Fang was with us."
"Hagrid's dog?" Draco wasn't sure that he had ever learned the boarhound's name.
"I like dogs," Luna said. "It was nice to be in the forest, actually. I like the trees. There aren't many trees where I live, but they feel nice. They feel green. Do you know what I mean?"
"Maybe," Draco said slowly. There weren't many trees on the manor house's grounds either, but a forest began at the border, and Prentice Greengrass used to take him inside the forest for lessons. He had liked the forest with Prentice too. He had liked the feeling of being hidden. He had liked the dappled shade and the sound of the wind in the needles and leaves; that forest had been mostly evergreen. There had been something more vivacious to the forest than the manicured grass of the lawn even though the color had been more saturated in the lawn.
But Luna had gotten him off-topic.
"I'm glad you're all right. I'm glad you didn't meet anything frightening."
"Me too," Alana said.
"I am too I suppose," Luna agreed.
"Thank you for talking to me, Luna," Draco said. "Thank you for not being cross."
"You're welcome," Luna said, "but it isn't for you. I am glad to talk with my friends."
"Are we friends?"
"Are we not?" Luna asked.
Draco smiled. "We are if you want to be. Be careful," Draco warned, standing up again, pulling Alana up too.
"You too," Luna said. She took another long drink of her sweetened pumpkin juice.
Alana hooked her arms around one of Draco's as they crossed back towards their original seats at the Gryffindor table. "I'm glad the two of you are friends too," she said.
"And I'm glad that Luna can tell me that Ginny's all right, that their night wasn't so terrible, even if Ginny won't talk to me. It'll help me leave Ginny alone until she's ready."