Blaise returned Ron's confused look. "After I explained to him why she hadn't gone home he immediately informed her that he had the power to bury her in red tape."

Ron stood up again. "No, that wasn't threat. He simply changed the topic and was misunderstood." He had no doubt about that. Why would Harry threaten her?

Draco huffed and stood up straight from where he had been watching. "I cannot remember a time when she misunderstood someone's words or misread their eyes as they spoke. She is the one who claimed it was a threat and she is the one who is convinced it means you believe she owes the first apology. We are merely taking her word for it." His voice was easy but his eyes were frozen, much like had been for his entire youth.

Ron sighed. Making his way around his desk he led the others to the Minister's office. Once inside, a similar crowd gathered, but he shut the door behind them. "Harry, did you or did you not threaten my sister?" He sounded tired and his voice had a pleading note buried beneath it.

It was Blaise's turn to lean up against the back wall. Draco stood at the height of his imposing figure, watching the man before him darkly.

Harry looked at Ron in disbelief. "Did they tell you I did?" he asked, indicating the former Slytherin behind the auror.

"They tell me she believes you did," was Ron's serious and pressing response.

"Damn it, Ron! If that is how she took it I cannot be blamed. I changed the subject when I couldn't take anymore. Everyone in your family is so bloody stubborn." Harry moved around his desk so that they all stood equal and met the eyes of his friend of twenty-four years squarely.

Ron clenched his jaw. "You knew how she would take it. You knew how it would make her feel and yet you did it anyway. That makes it a threat, Harry, whether it was sincere or not. If you intentionally pursued actions that would be perceived in a specific manner without attempting to correct that perception you are guilty of what you stand accused." There was anger in the auror's eyes.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Harry bit out. "I can't get close to her, rebuild anything with her, until she's been reunited with you and everyone else, and if I waited for you to do something about it it might be another seventeen years before I got to hold a decent conversation with her."

"Why," Draco demanded coldly. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice and it was hard to believe he had just spoken to look at him.

Harry met his cold gaze and answered him like he was speaking to an idiot. "Because he is my best friend. Because as long as they are not speaking to be close to both would be awkward with both. Both would know that I spend time with the other, that I know how the other is doing, what the other is doing, how the other feels. It would create an ever present tension that I simply cannot deal with."

Every line on Draco's face hardened, every muscle tightened, and he looked as though he had been force fed the exceptionally bitter. "Than you obviously don't care that much about being close to her." His words were so sharp they would have physically stung lesser men.

Harry took a step forward and met ice with pure fire. "Don't you dare presume to know what she means to me!" he responded in a deadly whisper.

Draco matched his step forward. "And what is that, Minister?" he said the title like it was an insult, "a trophy you haven't won?"

The tension was building in the room and Blaise was waiting for it to break. Ron just stood there, transfixed.

"It isn't like you would understand," Harry answered with chilled condescension. "People like you never can understand love."

He had crossed a boundary from which there was no going back. Completely forgetting that he was supposed to be a dignified businessman, completely ignoring the fact that he was facing the Minister of Magic, completely forgetting that the head auror was present, Draco took Harry by the throat and slammed him up against the wall.

In clipped, strained words, he barely managed to speak through his anger. "People like me often know more about love than people like you can comprehend. You don't love her. If you loved her you would sacrifice anything to be with her. You would endure any pain to remain by her side. You would sooner loose your life-long best friend than let her walk out of your life."

His face was so close to Harry's that it strained Harry's eyes to focus on him. "If you loved her, you would know her. Rather than accusing her of locking you out you would find a way in. You would know that it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, who you live with or spend the rest of your time with. To her all that matters is your integrity, your character. If she can respect that, if she can trust that, she will accept you for you. Any tension there may have been between you would have been your own creation."

Draco pressed in even harder, putting more pressure on the Minister in every way except the hand at his throat. If he couldn't breathe he couldn't hear. "She and I haven't been in the same room without yelling at each other but a handful of times since we met. Everyone who knew us knew we fought worse than you and I, yet Blaise knows her better than anyone, Blaise, my best friend since birth. There was no tension between them because he heard both sides vent at the end of the day. There was no tension between them because he knew how our fights made me feel even though he never discussed it with her. There was tension between him and me over it, but not between them. If you loved her, you would understand that and suffer through whatever it did to you and your auror friend here."

He couldn't help it, he tightened his grip on Harry's throat for just a second and watched him wince horribly before loosening it back to merely a threatening pressure. "You aren't in love with Ginevra. You are in love with an ideal you built up years ago based on tales you heard about your mother. You constructed the picture of a perfect woman, something no one could ever live up to. You are simply fixated on her because she comes closer than anyone else ever has. You don't know her and never will as long you keep trying to force her into a damn box no one belongs in. If you loved her, you would accept her for who she is, you would love her for who she is."

Draco shoved off of Harry as though finally realizing how close to a piece of scum he really was. Without waiting for any kind of response from anyone, he turned and left the office.

Harry rubbed his throat tentatively and looked at Ron. "Are you going to let him get away with that?" he asked in disbelief.

Ron met his gaze and answered without hesitation. "I can forgive him the assault in light of what he said. It is something you needed to hear and I doubt you would have listened in any other position." With that, he too turned and left. Blaise went to catch up with his friend after lifting an imaginary hat to the Minister.

Neither Draco nor Blaise said anything about what had happened and simply left the building in silence. Once outside, Draco turned to Blaise and said lightly. "You know, we can apparate directly into the school, right?"

Blaise looked a bit sheepish. In his anger he had subconsciously acted in consideration of wards long removed. "Yeah."