When Ginny heard her roommates stir, she performed her aforementioned charms to conceal her anguish. She quickly showered and dressed; and met Ron, Hermione, and Harry in the Common Room. The roaring fire heightened her weariness despite the energy potion, and the light from the fire and the window cast off her face, giving it a ghoulish appearance from the ragged contrast of blue and orange light. Ron and Harry were involved in a heated discussion, but Hermione perceived for just that moment how weary Ginny was. She greeted Ginny cheerfully, however, and the four made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

While Harry and Ron were again involved in their "discussion", an argument that neither Ginny nor Hermione cared about, the latter decided to see if she hadn't merely seen a trick of the light, or if something was really wrong.

"Ginny, are you doing all right?" Hermione asked. "Ginny… Ginny…OY! GINNY!"

Ginny started and looked at Hermione with frightened eyes, and then shook her head to clear her mind of the hazy yet painfully dazzling swirling auras that threatened to engulf her completely.

"Oh…yeah?"

"Ginny, something's wrong with you. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

Ginny panicked for a moment, wondering how she knew, but then reasoned that it was just a logical guess, like almost everything else that Hermione hypothesized. Of course she would be the first to notice.

Hermione watched Ginny throughout her momentary distress, and then saw her face relax a bit. She knew that her guess was correct, but still wondered why Ginny would try to conceal the fact; it's not like it was a big issue, unless there was something else behind her exhaustion.

Ginny finally replied saying, "Last night I had a lot of studying to do. No big tests or anything, just falling behind in Defense Against the Dark Arts." Better to tell a half-truth than unleashing her demons for Hermione to bear, and she WAS falling behind in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"But Ginny, that's your best subject", Hermione said.

"Yeah, just got a little lazy, that's all"

Hermione still had her doubts, but attributed her reluctance to admit her lack of sleep to an embarrassment to tell her genius friend that she was struggling in school.

Ginny finished the food on her plate quickly, though eating was becoming difficult, and said she had to go study for Defense Against the Dark Arts, a bit relieved that she now had that as a reason to get away.

In the halls, she wandered around with her eyes on the floor, lost in thought until she crashed into someone. Her face buried into a distinguishably male chest, his black robes blinding her. Lost in the dark for what seemed like ages, she felt peace fill her for the first time in five years. Then an arm lifted her up and she heard a familiar voice saying,

"Weasley?"

Her heart sank, though the peace stayed with her for a moment longer.

Draco was tossing sleeplessly in his bed, knowing that he could not rest or the faces of those he'd tortured again and again would float in his sleep. He saw forgiveness in their eyes, knowing that it pained him as it pained them, knowing that he hat to do this to them for fear of his own life. One girl reoccurred in his dreams when he did sleep-A little girl named Rosalina who was about his age, but seemed to be ten for lack of nourishment. After he had satisfied his father's need to see pain on the faces of others and turned to leave, he felt her hand on his. Her fingers stroked his palm, and she uttered a nearly unintelligible, "I'm sorry".

In his dream he heard her whisper, saw her face. He saw his palm with the trails of blood and dirt her fingers had left behind.

Draco got up and walked out of the dorm, out of the common room, into the halls. He wandered until he heard birds, the sound hauntingly beautiful. He wandered until he heard the unruly noise of students walking to the Great Hall for breakfast. He wandered until he ran into someone, and red filled his vision as he and the someone fell to the ground. He saw the red hair floating in front of his eyes and knew that it was the Weasley girl; no other girl in the school had hair that vibrant.

Draco wanted to feel the hate he felt for her brother, for Harry, For Hermione, the hate that he usually felt for her, but he closed his eyes for just a second and felt the sunshine steaming from a window onto his face, felt her hair on his face and her soft, warm body against his, and smelled the sweet scent that lifted from her skin.

Draco shook his head hard to clear the scent from his mind, and to get the Weasley hair off of his face. He forced himself to feel a semblance of the hate he wanted to feel, and lifted her up by the shoulders. The expression on her face was that of someone who had been locked in a dank dungeon for ages, to finally be released into freedom. It was the look on Rosalina's face when she died.

"Weasley?" he whispered, immediately regretting not using her name.