Chapter Six

Valentine's Day

February 1996

Draco woke to a ray of sunlight falling across his pillow. His eyes were still closed and the gentle warmth of the beam kissed his eyelids and the bridge of his nose like a doting mother, something he could only imagine. He pushed his silky hair away from his face and inhaled deeply, the crisp scent of fresh bedsheets enveloping him. He felt rested. He had slept long and late and without nightmares, after so many sleepless nights. It seemed as though he had found a tiny oasis of peace in his raging, melancholy mind following his candid exchange with Ginny Weasley, stolen in the quiet sanctuary of the library. Six nights had passed since then and Draco had slept well for most of them, though he had not spoken to Ginny again. In fact, he had not seen her except for flashes of her flaming hair in corridors between classes and turned away from him in the Great Hall at meal times. He assumed that she had worked out, by now, the latter part of his confession. That he had been the one to forge Tom's reply in her diary. Perhaps she had returned to hating him. Draco had no way to know. Only time and patience would tell.

He opened his eyes lazily and stretched out his arms, hypnotised by the dust motes that danced in the strip of white light falling through the high dormitory window. His woven emerald quilt looked ethereal in the hazy glow and the grain of the wooden floorboards was illuminated in a breathtaking pattern, every knot and groove revealed. There was something so beautiful in the stillness of that moment and the promise of the day that Draco wished he could remain in bed forever.

The door to the dormitory swung open dramatically and Blaise's tall dark figure barrelled into the room, the moment shattered.

"Still not up!" Blaise declared and tossed a small white envelope onto Draco's covered figure, before yanking open the curtains so that sunlight flooded the room. "Post," he added.

Draco groaned still half asleep and now half blinded, and groped for the envelope atop his quilt.

"We're leaving in an hour, get a move on if you want to come with us." Blaise said, rummaging in his trunk.

"I'm not coming," Draco replied wearily, sitting up in bed and leaning back against his too-soft pillows. He had told Blaise already. He wouldn't be seen dead in Hogsmeade on Valentine's day, it was too schmaltzy to bear. Dead. The word seemed to linger involuntarily in his mind like a parasite. Dead, like Broderick Bode.

"Oh don't be a bore!" Blaise responded, snapping Draco out of his spiralling thoughts. He straightened up, scarf in hand. "See you at breakfast."

Draco sighed as Blaise slipped out of the dormitory again and looked down at the letter in his grasp. He recognised his mother's handwriting immediately, a sloped and looping script. He swallowed angrily and clenched his hand into a tight fist, crumpling the envelope into a jagged ball without bothering to open it. He didn't want to hear from his parents, or speak to them. It was too painful, knowing what they were, what they'd done. Knowing that their blood ran in his veins.

Half an hour later, Draco wandered sluggishly into the Great Hall, which smelt of fresh pancakes and slightly-burnt toast, wondering how best to fill his weekend so that he might find respite from the exhaustion of his thoughts. Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle looked at him expectantly as he sat down, clearly hoping to rope him into their Hogsmeade trip. Blaise pushed a stack of golden-brown pancakes towards him, the delicious aroma of maple syrup wafting up from the wobbling pile. Freshly sliced strawberries, arranged in the shape of a heart, decorated the top. Draco groaned and prodded the fruit with his fork until it was nothing more than a shapeless mound.

"Blaise says you're staying here then?" Pansy asked, though it sounded more like an accusation than a question.

"Hogsmeade will just be rammed with snivelling couples," Draco replied, his lip curling at the thought. "What's the appeal?" He was barely keeping it together of late. He didn't need to spend his day witnessing mawkish students gushing over one another too. It was enough to turn his stomach.

"Oh, come on," said Blaise. "Maybe you'll meet the witch of your dreams. You could do with cheering up."

Draco's gaze flitted involuntarily to the Gryffindor table. There she was, turned away from him as usual, her long red hair hanging loosely down her back like a river of flames. Dean Thomas was sitting next to her. Why did that irritate him so? Draco grimaced at his pancakes and stuck his fork rudely into them, as though trying to burst a balloon. They were standing up now, together, Dean hovering close enough to smell Ginny's hair and the sweet scent of her freshly-showered skin. His irritation bubbled into something thicker and more potent.

"Fine," Draco announced, giving a bored sigh as if he didn't really care either way. "I'll come."

His eyes followed Ginny until she had disappeared from the hall with Dean in stride. If they were going to Hogsmeade together, at least he might be able to rain on their date.

For the first time in months, Ginny had left her diary in her trunk, sandwiched between her hand-me-down textbooks and a very large sweater. For the first time in months, she felt almost free. When she had finally realised the meaning of Draco's words she had pulled the black quill box from her bag and lifted out the note within, Dear Ginny, Wishing you a Happy Christmas. I really am sorry. D. The handwriting was perfectly spaced, perfectly poised, slanted yet strong. She had sat in her dormitory bed, examining it against Tom's reply, nestled in the pages of her diary. The script was a perfect match. Tom had never replied to her. It had been Draco all along.

Emotions had coursed through her, shifting and changing like a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes. First she had been crestfallen, realising that her attempts to speak to Tom once more had failed completely and utterly. Perhaps she would never hear from him again, his real diary long since destroyed. She would have to live out the rest of her life with no one to pour her secrets into. Then, she had been angry, so angry, with Malfoy for giving her such a bittersweet taste of false hope, only to rip it away from her again. He was nothing but trouble. And yet, finally, she could not forget the softness and sincerity of their exchange in the library, the look of hurt and yearning for comfort in his clear grey eyes. Here was someone who understood her own struggles, someone to share her turmoil with, so that maybe, just maybe, she didn't need Tom afterall. In the days that followed she had stopped checking her diary so obsessively, stopped pouring over books in the library for means to contact him, though he still wandered freely through her dreams. His spell was breaking and Ginny felt as though she could finally take a long, deep breath.

Now, Ginny sat opposite Dean Thomas in The Three Broomsticks inn at a wobbly table that was lacquered with the sticky residue of beer and spirits. The wood had swollen in places from years of spilled drinks and circular stains from pint glasses marked the surface. The pub smelt of hops and honeyed mead and garlands of paper hearts and tiny golden cherubs were strung across the otherwise bare walls and rafters. Madam Rosmerta was bustling to and fro in a very pink and frilly apron, waiting attentively on a whole number of couples, cloistered here and there at her smallest and most intimate tables. Business was always good on Saint Valentine's Day.

Dean was saying something about Quidditch but Ginny was having a hard time following his words. Her gaze flickered from his nose to his mouth to his eyes. His features were handsome yet nondescript. There was nothing that she found striking about them, or which set her on edge in the way that made her breath hitch in her chest. Dean was good and kind, if a little too accommodating for her liking, but Ginny did not want steadfast and constant. It was too unfamiliar and estranged from her own muddled and conflicted energy. She had tried, several times, to break things off with him but it always seemed to end in an argument, unresolved and chaotic, that drew her back in. He's good for me, she told herself, but never He's right for me.

"Another round, m'dears?" Madam Rosmerta appeared at their table, scooping up their empty pint glasses, which chinked together discordantly.

"Sure," said Dean. "Same again, please!"

Ginny nodded wordlessly. Why couldn't she just be happy? Was it because he wasn't Tom? No, she told herself. I don't want Tom. I don't need Tom.

No sooner had their drinks been ordered than Madam Rosmerta had returned, tray in hand, her apron swaying with her generous hips. "Here you are, m'lovelies," she said, setting two overflowing pints of Butterbeer down onto the precarious table and sweeping away again, with a laugh and a wink at one of her older punters.

"Cheers," said Dean with a broad smile, tipping his glass against Ginny's.

"Cheers," she murmured and took a long swig of the sweet, cloudy drink.

As she plumbed her mind for something to talk about, the door to the inn swung open and a group of Slytherins bundled inside, their collars turned up against the cold, stamping their boots off aggressively and scanning the crowded inn for a table. The air seemed to turn colder as if from their presence, or from the icy gust that had followed them inside. Draco Malfoy stood at the back of the group, the tallest and most striking of them. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold and his lips flushed as though they had been walking at pace. As the group looked around, his piercing grey eyes met Ginny's, over Dean's shoulder, and he held her gaze briefly but knowingly. She was completely unable to look away, enraptured by the intensity of him like prey caught in a spider's web. She had hardly seen him since their encounter in the library, always seeming to miss one another in halls and stairwells, yet there was still so much she wanted to say to him. So much unspoken.

"You're dreaming again," Dean said then, with a fond smile that made Ginny feel all the worse for leading him along.

"Sorry," she said quickly, letting her eyes fall to the table, though pulling them away from Malfoy's was not without effort. "My mind just wanders off these days."

"I know," Dean replied, as though all too familiar with Ginny's distracted nature. He learned forward then, placing his hand over hers atop the table, the warmth of his skin, calloused from Quidditch, making hers tingle. Dean gave her a reassuring smile. "There's a lot going on, but whatever's coming, we can face it."

Ginny sighed, at his touch, and his kindness, it was all too generous and more than she deserved. She wanted to slip her hand away yet she was grateful for the brief respite from the loneliness that she still felt within her, devoid of Tom.

She nodded, and was about to thank him, when Dean's pint glass suddenly upended itself from the table, flipping over dramatically in the air and drenching Dean in a foamy spray of sticky sweet Butterbeer.

"What the hell!" Dean yelled out, leaping up from his seat, his sweater and jeans soaked through, wiping dregs from his eyes and cheeks.

Madam Rosmerta was already hurrying over, waving a thick wad of napkins in her hand. "Ooh, one too many, was it?" she said with a wink, ignoring Dean's protests as she patted him down zealously and muttered a quick drying charm to boot.

Dean grimaced, "I stink!"

Ginny, who was also wiping spots of Butterbeer from the arms of her sweater, wanted to reassure him but she could not help noticing the group of Slytherins laughing unpleasantly in the corner near the stairs and eyeing Dean indiscreetly. Ginny watched as Draco slipped his wand back into his robes, Blaise clapping him on his back, and waved over Madam Rosmerta with a wickedly innocent look. Ginny scowled darkly. She should have known that Malfoys never change.

"Let's go somewhere else," she said then, giving Dean a gentle smile and standing up, looking purposefully towards the door and refusing to give the Slytherin's the satisfaction of acknowledgement.

Draco could not deny the juvenile sense of satisfaction that jinxing Dean Thomas' pint had given him, especially as it had meant that the Gryffindor Chaser had stopped holding hands with Ginny. The feeling, however, was all too fleeting and as soon as the pair had left the warm and noisy pub, Draco felt strangely adrift again. Though his sleep had improved, his days were still dredged down by dark and heavy thoughts of his father's involvement in so many terrible things. The gravity of the knowledge that Draco held was almost unbearable and the guilt of keeping his fathers secrets to protect him was perhaps even worse. He wondered how much longer he could keep it all inside, pretending that everything was fine when he felt as though his mind was crumbling into ruin.

"Draco, help me with the drinks," Blaise said, nudging him along the bench that they shared.

Draco stood up automatically, as if on that thing that Muggle's called autopilot, and followed his fellow Slytherin to the bar, which was surrounded by a gaggle of elderly wizards debating the dark genius behind the Azkaban breakout.

"You look terrible," Blaise said quietly, as they waited for the barkeep's attention. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing, I'm fine."

Blaise shot him a dubious look from the corner of his eye, "You're barely eating, we never see you after class, and -" he lowered his voice, as if he didn't want to embarrass Draco, "- I've heard you at night, talking in your sleep."

Draco stiffened. "Saying what?"

"I don't know, it's all mumbles and grunts," Blaise replied, "but you sound stressed."

Draco could not help breathing an inaudible sigh of relief, that he had not revealed anything awful in the throes of his night terrors. "It's just exams," he lied. "Things will get better." How much he wished that were true.

He waved at the small, plump wizard behind the bar then, catching his eye, and nudged Blaise for his order, but Blaise ignored him. "Well, if you need a distraction, everyone knows that Astoria has eyes for you."

Draco shrugged, "I'm not interested," he replied, plainly and definitely.

"Suit yourself," Blaise said, "but you don't have to be interested to just have fun."

Draco pondered this momentarily before the wizard behind the bar appeared in front of them with a nose that was red and bulbous from years of drinking well past closing hours. "Yes, sirs, what'll it be?" he said cheerfully.

"Five fire whiskeys!" Blaise announced confidently, digging into his leather money pouch.

The wizard chuckled and shook his head, "Certainly, when you're seventeen. For now, how about five Butterbeers?"

Blaise shrugged, as though to say to Draco that he'd tried, and promptly handed over a galleon and some sickles for the round. No sooner had they returned to their overcrowded table with a precariously balanced tray of overflowing glasses, than Blaise was elbowing Draco in the ribs.

"Look who's over there," he said, nodding indiscreetly towards the inn's hearth, which glowed softly with a small, crackling fire.

Draco followed his gaze to see a table of fourth year Slytherin girls, heads bent close as though they were in the midst of some very salacious gossiping. Nearest to the stone fireplace sat Astoria Greengrass, her black hair glossy like obsidian and her deep green eyes a perfect match for the Slytherin house colours. She was laughing gracefully at something, her nose wrinkling with delight, her perfectly painted fingernails covering her mouth.

"Go say hi," Blaise persisted, as he passed out pints to their table.

"I told you -"

"Draco." Blaise said firmly, setting his drink down with a thud. "For once in your life, let loose. It'll do you good."

"Hear hear," agreed Pansy, lifting her glass to toast Blaise's words.

Draco, who felt very awkward and disinterested but could not deny his desperate need for distraction, grudgingly rolled his eyes and sidled out of his seat yet again, pint in hand. "Fine, but only to shut you up," he said.

The group of girls fell silent as he approached, each turning to eye him intently.

"Astoria," he said, prompting giggles from three of the girls that Draco found rather immature and wholly unappealing. He was certain that Ginny Weasley would never giggle in such a childish manner.

"Yes?" Astoria asked, looking up at him through her long eyelashes, her voice holding the perfect amount of coyness and modesty, as though she had practised this a hundred times.

"Come and have a drink with me," Draco said. He had meant to ask but it came out more like a command, firm and confident, which only prompted further delighted giggles from the table of girls. What was he doing?

"Okay," Astoria replied, sounding rather self-assured, as if she had expected his invitation all along.

She stood up, glass in hand, the top of her head barely coming to Draco's chin, and looked at him expectantly as if waiting for him to lead the way. Draco, who most definitely did not want to be in eyeline or earshot of her gaggle of friends, headed to the back of the inn. A large window looked out on the neighbouring field, which was almost barren at this time of year bar naked hedgerows and an empty drinking trough. Draco sat down first at a small wooden table beneath the window and Astoria slid into the chair opposite him, her knee almost touching his beneath the table.

She looked at him steadily. "My mother said that you might want to spend some time with me this year," she said, running her fingertip around the rim of her glass. "She's quite fond of your parents, I think."

"Let's not talk about family," Draco murmured. Anything but family. "How was Slovakia?"

"Oh it was beautiful," Astoria fawned. "We went flying in the mountains, the snow was just stunning! And we went to Bratislava for the Christmas markets. The witches are so funny there, they wear the quaintest little costumes with waistcoats and folk robes!" She giggled and looked at Draco expectantly, as though waiting for his reaction, but none came. "Have you been?" Astoria asked, sounding less certain of herself in the face of Draco's silence.

"Slovakia? No. We usually summer in France, we have some relatives there." He felt as though he were talking to a family acquaintance at a stale social gathering. It wasn't Astoria's fault, her tone and etiquette and way of speaking were just too reminiscent of the circles that he'd grown up in, polite and proper and ever so dull.

"Do you speak it?" she asked him then.

"French?"

Astoria nodded, "Mmm."

"Un peu, quelquefois," Draco replied deftly, switching easily into a deep French accent that seemed to please Astoria immensely judging by the flushed spots of colour that appeared in her milky white cheeks.

"What else can you say?" she asked, her voice dropping a little and her body leaning towards his ever so slightly.

"A lot of wicked things," he whispered back, looking her hard in her emerald green eyes.

Astoria swallowed, enraptured, unaware that she had begun twisting her long black hair coyly around her index finger, a silent sign for him to continue. He considered luring her in deeper then, but Draco could not shake the prickling feeling that this was somehow all wrong. It didn't matter how badly he wanted to avoid his thoughts, he wasn't interested in Astoria. He didn't want to be alone with her, her leg searching for his, her eyes waiting for recognition of a moment shared between them and the tantalising prospect of something more.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, frowning severely at his pint as if it had somehow offended him. "I need to go."

"Draco?" Astoria asked uncertainly, reaching out a delicate hand towards him, but Draco was already pulling away, shrinking back from her touch and standing up, the backs of his legs colliding with his chair as he freed himself.

"Here," he mumbled, pulling far too many galleons than was necessary from his pocket and letting them tumble onto the table with a clatter. One rolled along on its edge before falling off the tabletop and skittering across the dusty wooden floor, unlikely to be seen again.

"I've already paid," Astoria protested, looking around embarrassed by the scene that Draco was causing, though all in the pub were too absorbed in their own dates, or drinks, to mind them any attention.

He shrugged, pulling on his thick winter cloak, "Get another on me."

"Draco!" she called after him as he hurried out of the pub, his mind all awhirl again, but he did not look back.

Several hours later Draco was on his broom, soaring through the cold dark sky of the Quidditch pitch, trying to soothe his still racing mind. He had left Hogsmeade after walking out on Astoria and had secluded himself in the dormitory until the Slytherins had returned, each with unanswerable questions about his sudden departure. Astoria, meanwhile, had given him a very icy look when she had passed him in the common room, clearly insulted by his behaviour. Draco wondered how long it would be before his mother wrote a stern and disapproving letter.

Now, the feeling of the cold wind ruffling his hair and roaring in his ears was invigorating, and enough to numb his other senses for a little while at least. Draco sped back and forth, east then west, climbing slowly higher and higher before hurtling down towards the ground in a dizzying array of dives, each more exhilarating than the last. His hands gripped his broom so hard that the joints in his fingers ached and his lean but muscular thighs burnt from the effort of tensing and manoeuvring. By the time that the moon had slid through the sky, so that it sat perfectly between the northern goal posts, Draco was panting hard, gasping down the cold night air, his cheeks stinging from the wind. Finally he descended to the muddy pitch, his robes billowing out behind him as landed and his boots squelching in the wet ground. He hopped off his broom and shook out his sore, stiff hands as it floated obediently beside him.

"You're a jerk, Malfoy!"

Draco spun around, his eyes searching the dark expanse that surrounded him, lit only by the moon and the hazy yellow glow that seeped out of the castle's distant windows. He knew her figure, her petite frame, her quick stride, even in the half gloom.

"Ginny," he said, as though her name might disarm her, slow her in her tracks.

"I saw what you did to Dean!" She was so close to him now that her words seemed to slam into Draco like a battering ram.

"Oh."

Ginny was standing in front of him then, a knitted scarf wound tightly around her slender neck, her hair whipping in the wind. Even in the darkness of night he could see the anger in her eyes, the hardness in the curve of her mouth.

"I should have known. You're just the same. You haven't changed at all!" she said hotly, though her voice was tinged with regret as though she wished it were not true.

Draco grasped for his broom beside him and drew it close, reassured by its weight and presence as though it were a lightning rod grounding him from the storm that was Ginny's temper.

"It was just a bit of fun," he shrugged. He was in no mood for lectures. His head was spinning again, spiralling into despair.

Ginny glared at him. "We're not all here for your amusement! Don't you ever think about anyone except yourself?" she demanded. "Don't you care how you make people feel? You're a prick!"

Draco could feel himself shrinking back at her onslaught, though the weight of the wind behind him seemed to hold him where he was like a buffer at his back.

"You're mad about your diary," he said plainly, seeing past her words to the roots of her anger, as numbness began to creep into his toes and fingers from the cold.

"Yes!" Ginny declared, then, "No. I don't know." Her freckles seemed to dance as her expression cycled from anger to confusion.

"Let's talk?" Draco suggested. He was tired of arguing, he was too drained for the intensity of it. "Somewhere that's not bloody freezing?" He tilted his head towards the changing rooms nestled on the side of the pitch.

Ginny seemed to consider this for a moment before sighing and nodding. Was she tired of all the anger too? He followed her as she strode across the mud and damp grass, trailing her with ease in the darkness like a panther stalking in the night. Ginny hesitated at the doors to the humble structure that was the changing rooms, seemingly built from nothing but weathered wood and sturdy nails though doubtlessly held together for decades by enchantments. She opted for the girls' space, her territory, perhaps hoping to ruffle Draco. He followed her inside like a shadow, the door swinging shut behind them with a thud.

It looked just as it had all those nights ago, when he had taken her diary from her bag and written in it. He wished he could go back and change that now. Ginny practically threw her wand at the lanterns on the wall, flooding the small shack in a soft yellow glow. She sat down wearily on one of the benches, worn smooth from years of use like driftwood abraded by the sea and sun. The air was tinged with the chemical scent of a disinfectant potion and the musky odour of Quidditch kits, though the hooks on the walls hung bare. Draco did not know where to sit. Next to her seemed too intrusive and opposite seemed further than he could bear. He lay his broom across one of the benches and stood, uncertain of himself, though his body was screaming with fatigue.

"It was cruel, Draco," Ginny said then, breaking the thick silence between them. She was staring at the floor, as though lost in her thoughts. He could barely focus on her admonishment, only the chill of pleasure that his name on her lips elicited. So much better than when she called him Malfoy. His father's name.

Draco nodded, his jaw tensing and his chin dipping towards his chest in shame. "I wish I could undo it," he said truthfully. "I didn't think about how it might … hurt you." Was he admitting that he didn't want her to ever feel sorrow or suffering?

Ginny shook her head, strands of her red hair sparkling in the lantern light, and looked up at him with those deep brown eyes. Something warm blossomed in his chest. "I'm glad it wasn't him," she said. "I'm glad it wasn't Tom."

Draco frowned. "I thought -" What had he thought? How could he dare to presume the complexities of whatever was going on in her mind, knowing only too well how muddled and unfathomable the mind could be. "Why did you want to speak to him?" he asked at last.

For a moment, Ginny said nothing, only the sound of the wind outside and the distant creak of the swaying goal posts answered him.

"He understood me," she murmured finally, "He listened, and cared. He was like a part of me." The sorrow and need that flashed in her eyes then was enough to pain Draco. He took a step towards her instinctively, as though to reassure her, their feet almost touching on the dusty floor. Ginny looked up at him from the bench, her shoulders rising and falling with her deep breaths.

"But, you know who he was?" Draco said, more of a statement than a question.

"I know." Ginny's brow furrowed. "But he wasn't like that with me … he was Tom."

Draco could only wonder at how much had passed between them, what they had said and shared, for her to be so entangled in his dark web.

"Do you still … want to talk to him?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes away from hers.

Ginny shrugged. "Sometimes," she whispered, as though terrified to admit it. "But I wish I didn't," she added hastily. "That's why I was glad, once I realised that you'd replied, not him. I was so close to being drawn in again, swept up in him." Her slender hand covered her mouth then, her eyes widening, as though she had said too much. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I just - I can't tell my brothers. They'd never understand."

Draco felt a surge of protectiveness, a desire to ease all of her suffering, though he did not know how, when he couldn't even heal his own pain.

"I understand," he said softly, sitting down beside her without thinking. She was so close that he could see each perfect freckle on her fair skin and feel the warmth of her thigh against his. It was intoxicating. "I know how hard it is, to not know what to do. To feel guilt and shame. To wish you were brave enough to say something but to never be able to say it. To question who you are, what you stand for." The words came out so easily in her presence, like a confession, without fear of judgement or reproach.

Ginny stared at him wordlessly, nodding. "Are you - is there something…" her voice trailed off, as if she didn't want to embarrass him by prying.

Draco wished he could go on. He trusted her. It was visceral and inexplicable. A girl he had spent his years avoiding and deriding, yet he knew that she would not betray him. The things that he wished he could say, however, were not his secrets to share. They were his father's. Arthur Weasley, Azkaban, Broderick. How could he expect her to protect a man that had wronged her so? How could he expect her to hold such darkness within herself, on top of the demons that she was already battling?

"I'm a Malfoy," he said simply at last, cringing at how obvious and ridiculous it sounded. "Sometimes I wish that I wasn't." It was the first time he had ever spoken that thought aloud.

Ginny held his gaze steadily. "I'm sorry that you're struggling," she said gently, with such sincerity that his heart soared.

They sat in silence then, the minutes stretching out, basking in the small moment of quiet comfort that they had found together. Neither could express their gratitude in words.

"So, are you … a thing?" Draco said eventually, staring pointedly at his filthy boots as though he were too embarrassed to look Ginny in the eye.

"A thing?"

"You and Dean. Did I ruin your date?"

"Oh," said Ginny. She shifted beside him, as though he had put her on the spot. This minute movement, her elbow knocking his, sent ripples through his body like an aftershock. "No, I don't know. I suppose he's just a welcome distraction," she confessed.

Draco looked up at her. Did she notice how their legs were pressing more closely together now? Could she feel the warmth of him, the spark of electricity that he felt? Did she sense the way that their breaths seemed to sync up momentarily as though their heartbeats were in perfect unison?

"You can do better," he replied gruffly, trying to look as disinterested as possible but feeling distinctly annoyed.

Ginny's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "Dean is a good person," she said.

And I am not, thought Draco. He was stupid to hope that she could look at him differently. "Well, I'm sorry I jinxed his pint," he said flatly.

The smallest of smiles flashed on Ginny's lips then. "I suppose it was a little bit funny," she admitted, her eyes glinting in the flickering light. Draco smiled wickedly back at her, grateful for the olive branch that she was extending. "What about you?" she went on. "Is there anyone…?"

Yes, thought Draco. You're sitting right here. It was obvious to him now. He wanted her desperately. Not as a confidante but as a companion, something he had never truly had. Yet the thought of a Malfoy and a Weasley seemed like a tragic comedy destined for utter disaster.

"No," he lied. "There's no one."

Ginny said nothing but stood up then, as though aware that Argus Filch and Mrs Norris would be soon patrolling and seeking any excuse to dole out punishments. He missed her closeness instantly. "I'll be here tomorrow," she said, looking back purposefully at Draco over her shoulder. "If you want to talk again."

Draco nodded. "I think I'd like that."

A/N: Thank you sooo much if you've read this far! Your comments and company on this journey mean so much! We're finally getting somewhere with this slow slow burn, but there's still so much torture to come, sorry not sorry ;)