Which may have been why he couldn't stop thinking about her. He didn't think about the way the water had streamed off her as she'd finally crawled shivering out of the pond. That's what he should have been thinking about. That would have been acceptable. She'd had a tiny pair of shorts and a singlet under her robes but they'd clung to her and the light had played off the skin of her arms and legs. Those thoughts would have been perfectly suitable.

Instead he thought about her voice, the way her mouth twisted uncertainly before she pushed her wet hair out of her face. She wasn't wearing make-up but her eyes looked darker and for a moment Draco had thought her mascara had run. "What's the nature of happiness?" she asked as though her entire world centred on finding the answer.

And he hadn't had an answer. She may as well have asked what the nature of a muggle was, what the nature of the stars were. Happiness was as elusive a concept to him as either of those. He had been happy in his life, he was sure of that, but if he were to try and pinpoint an exact moment of it it eluded him.

The question, as simple as it was, gnawed at him. It undid him from the inside out, stripping layer upon layer of him away until he was left feeling raw and hollow.

He thought about her all the time. Even though she'd been the one to ask the question, he thought that she knew the answer. She looked as though she knew what happiness was. Though Draco had noticed that she spent almost every lunch and dinner watching Ernie Macmillan as though she could not bear to look away. Possibly her happiness was not quite as bright as it could have been.

"It's gotten around almost quarter of the school now," Zabini said at dinner one day. He was buttering a roll and Draco turned from studying Bones to frown at him.

"At some point, Zabini," he said. "You are going to have to begin the conversation at the beginning."

Zabini smiled, eyes as hard and watchful as ever. "Susan Bones."

Fixing him with a bored look, Draco asked, "Should I try to guess what you're getting at?"

The left corner of Zabini's mouth lifted. Almost a sneer, but not quite, because Zabini knew that Draco would be insufferable for at least a fortnight if he dared to sneer at him. "She's told people," he said delicately.

Draco wasn't worried. Bones knew better than to tell people she was learning highly questionable curses with the son of a suspected Death Eater in a forest that was off-limits. He would trust her to protect him even if she decided to throw herself to the proverbial wolves. "Do try to reach the point sometime today, Zabini," he said. "Before I finish my dinner would be preferable."

Looking irate finally, Blaise said sharply, "She's told people about you. If you do not take measures the entire school will know within the week."

"Told people…" Draco spluttered. "What..? Told people what?"

Scowling into his soup, Zabini hissed, "What do you think? You were meant to tear her to shreds once you got her to go out with her. You weren't meant to fall for your own lie."

Draco's head shot up and he stared at Zabini in disbelief. He didn't need to gather his thoughts; his voice came out harsh as a winter's frost all on its own. "What has she said? Exactly?"

It was rare for Blaise to be frightened of Draco, but it did happen. This was one of those times. He shuffled into a smaller bundle; less of a target that way. Draco realised that his own hand was on his wand. He closed his fist and placed both empty hands on the table, but did not stop glaring at his friend.

Zabini relaxed marginally anyway. "I don't have an exact quote," he said, voice not as steady as Draco's. He hadn't learnt to master it in the same way. He had more of his casual nonchalance back when he went on. With a flick of his wrist indicating the Hufflepuff table, he said, "All her friends know. You're…uh…dating."

Draco scowled, fists balled so tightly that the blood left them and his nails scoured his palms. "I will destroy her," he said and his voice was perfectly reasonable, as he had intended it to be. Even as he stood, he noticed that Zabini looked unspeakably relieved.

Discretion had never been one of Draco's strong suits, so he stalked across to her table, scowling darkly. "Hufflepuff," he snapped, stopping far enough away from her that no one would think they were too familiar. Every Hufflepuff at the table turned to frown at him. Draco hissed in annoyance but Bones stood up, a frown forming on her face. She looked like a wayward House-elf; hoping for a way out but not really expecting one. Draco was glad that she at least knew he'd be furious about her spreading rumours. "A word?" He didn't let it be a request. It was a command.

Bones' lips parted and her eyes darkened. Without a word, she walked by him, shoulder knocking his as she headed for the Great Hall doors. The impact was enough to half-turn Draco where he stood; and it was enough that Draco could tell that she was angry. He turned his head to watch her walk away; he didn't want her putting him in the position of running after her but under the circumstances his options were limited.

Straightening his spine he took a breath, letting his anger pool in his stomach. When he followed her, he didn't hurry.

She didn't let him catch up to her until she reached the Astronomy Tower.

He walked in to find her on the balcony, her hair flying in the wind and sleet outside. Scowling he pushed his fists into his pockets and hoped that she could feel his glare with her back turned. "Astronomy Tower?" he asked, letting frost and scorn coat his words as they left his mouth. "Presumptuous of you, isn't it? You know why people usually come here I expect."

"Oh, don't," she turned to glare at him. Her nose and ears were red with cold and Draco wondered whether she expected him to take her anger seriously.

"Or what?" he snarled. "You'll start telling my friends that we're together?"

Bones stared at him as though he'd grown another head. "We're not together."

Draco laughed, the sound harsh and even worse when it echoed back through the room. "Believe me, I know that," he bit out. She had to know that he would always be set to choose Parkinson or one of the Greengrasses. She had to know that she didn't come close to competing let alone winning. "If I wanted people to think I was going out with you, I would go out with you. As you are inferior to me in every possible way, please keep your perverted little fantasies to yourself."

Her eyes widened and after a moment she shook her head. "Don't be more paranoid than you can help, Malfoy," she said. "I never gave you the impression that I was available, why would I bother suggesting it to someone else?"

"Stop with the charade," snapped Draco. "You tell me you're not available, you flirt with Macmillan every time I'm anywhere near you. It's not making me jealous because I don't care about you. But stop, because I care about what my friends think and I don't want them thinking that about us."

She laughed, looking stunned. "You think…" Scowling, she shook her head again as though to clear her thoughts. "So," she said, more slowly. "You think that I'm…trying to make you jealous or playing hard to get or something?"

Folding his arms across his chest, he hoped that the look he gave her conveyed in full measure how pitiful her attempts at playing dumb were.

"And you're angry," she went on, voice still slow but now also speculative. "Not because you're jealous, but because you think your friends will notice me fake-flirting with Ernie and will talk about you?"

"They are talking about us," Draco told her with as much emphasis as he could muster.

"No one's talking about us!" Draco was pretty sure she was furious even if she was half-laughing again. "Listen to yourself, Malfoy! Cedric Diggory died less than a year ago, the papers keep saying that Harry's mental and Harry…" Her breath hitched but she went on. "Harry keeps saying that You-Know-Who is still alive. Dumbledore has disappeared and Marietta Edgecombe can't stop crying because she has that horrible word etched across her face. Draco, no one is talking about us."

"Then how is it that Zabini thinks that we're dating?"

Her expression changed; eyes widening in shock right before the blood fled her face. "That's not possible." Her voice was guttural as though her throat had run dry and the words came out torn.

Draco didn't let his glare waver. "I take it you didn't expect me to find out?"

"Find out what?" Her voice rose sharply in thinly-veiled hysteria. "What did Blaise tell you? He can't seriously think that we'd be dating?"

She wasn't blushing, and her eye-contact was hard and steady. Draco wondered whether Zabini had gotten it wrong somehow. "He does think it," he said.

Bones half-spun away, shaking her head as though trying to clear it. "You need to fix this," she snapped finally, spinning back to point at Draco. "He's your friend; you need to make him realise that he's wrong…"

"I have." Draco's voice cut across hers, harsh but flat.

Some of the tension left her and she lowered her arm, nodding distractedly. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "It's just that that's the last thing I'd want anyone to think about me…us."

Unexpectedly, that hurt. Draco bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check and straightened his spine. "I can't see that a rumour like that would hurt your reputation," he said coolly, stressing the 'your' to clarify that the rumour would destroy his.

"Reputations aren't the most important thing in life, Malfoy."

Draco ignored that, dusting the shoulders of his robes off instead and hoping unkindly that it made her think that he felt tainted by her mere presence. "I've taken care of things at my end," he said. "Please do the same at yours."

She stared at him, mouth twisting a little in anxiety. "Draco – Malfoy, I honestly have no idea who I'd even speak to at my side. I haven't…It would just make whoever I spoke to suspect that we were up to something if I tried to convince them that we weren't and they didn't know anything about it to begin with."

He frowned, hooking his left thumb into his robe pocket. "Hufflepuff," he said very distinctly. "Go to all of the other Puffs that you've talked to about me and tell them that it was a massive misunderstanding. You can remember all of the Puffs you told about me, can't you?"

"I haven't told any of them."

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Hufflepuff."

"Not one," said Bones, jaw clenching stubbornly. "Hannah asked why you came to our Common Room and I told her that you wanted to borrow my Transfig notes and that you didn't want to ask while she was around. That is the most that I have said to anyone about you since you saw me after the D.A. raid."

An uneasy feeling began to creep across Draco's skin as she spoke. He was sure that she wasn't lying; had seen her lie too many times to think that she was capable of fooling him with it again.

She must have been considering the same thing as him, because she asked, "Are you sure it's no one on your side, Malfoy?"

Of the two of them Draco had done all of the pursuing. He'd sat with her in Potions, he'd asked Zabini about her multiple times, he'd black-mailed her into going to Hogsmead with him and later shown up at her Common Room door to invite her to swap spells. Her behaviour hadn't changed, so there was nothing for her friends to notice. His behaviour, however…

Draco swore, turning agitatedly to glare towards the door as though somewhere in the castle Zabini would be able to feel it. "I'm going to hex him to within an inch of his life."

Instead of looking frightened when Draco glanced back at her, Bones looked relieved.

Being a Hufflepuff, she'd taken the threat as an idle one, Draco realised. It hadn't been though. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't stop hexing Zabini until Madam Pomfrey's services were required. "You know what this is about?" Bones asked.

Draco looked down his nose at her and gave an infinitesimal shrug to tell her that he knew precisely what it was about. It wasn't exactly a lie; he was pretty sure that Zabini had disliked what he must have seen as a growing closeness between the Hufflepuff and Draco and had taken measures to discover how intimate the relationship had become. Draco was fleetingly glad that he'd been so openly furious at any suggestion that he was affected by Bones. Her name could not be linked to his; how utterly mortifying.

Her brow puckered and she shrugged her shoulders back at Draco, the gesture light and quizzical. "So? What was all of this about then?" She didn't quite sound amused and Draco realised that there was a thin layer of tension in her voice that might have been fear.

That hurt too, and Draco wondered what was wrong with him. Of course she was afraid that someone would link her to him and she would lose all of her wonderful D.A. friends. Hufflepuffs and their herd mentality; there was no reason for that to affect him. He smirked at her. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"That's why I asked," she said, face open and serious. She looked so incredibly vulnerable, as though one well-placed remark would be enough to shatter that delicate trust. Draco knew better now; any scathing comment he'd targeted at her previously had dissolved on contact.

He tried again anyway, because that was who he was. He'd never had a friend or enemy whose weaknesses had not been carefully analysed and stored in his mind. Even his father; even his mother. He let his voice slip into an iciness that few could hope to rival. "Why don't you stop playing with forbidden things and crawl back to the safety of your own House?"

He hadn't expected it to work; but he hadn't expected to feel relief when she merely quirked the corner of her mouth into a smile either. "Why don't you stop trying to change the subject? What just happened here? Who are you going to hex?"

Draco smirked at her again. If he couldn't upset her with insults, he'd settle for using her curiosity against her.

"I'll guess then," she told him, her brow creasing at his evident refusal to answer a simple question.

"Good luck with that." He turned to leave, pacing several steps towards the door before Bones spoke again.

"Are you going?"

Draco didn't break a stride. "Yes, Hufflepuff. We have said all that needs to be said."

"I thought we could go back to the forest," said Bones. "We could duel. You're quite good, aren't you?"

Draco wasn't sure when he'd stopped walking but, by the time she'd finished speaking, he was facing her once more and considering her proposal. "I'm amazing," he said. There wasn't much sport in duelling a near-Squib witch, but Draco already knew he was going to agree. There was no reason for it, no rhyme to it. He couldn't tell himself that he was still looking for her weaknesses. Every time he poked around for hers, she ended up finding his. Tactical retreat was the way to go here. Instead he looked her over, aiming for nonchalance when he said, "Can you duel?"

Her eyes glowed brilliantly as the corners of her mouth flicked up into a grin. "Are you kidding? I've had lessons from the Boy-Who-Lived." Her voice took on a note of self-importance and awe on the last sentence but Draco was rather sure that she was being sarcastic so he allowed her a small, dry smile, leaning back against the door-frame as she sauntered towards him. She was definitely being sarcastic. No one sauntered like that for real.

"You must just be terrifying then," he drawled, tone all heat and boredom.

She smiled again, eyes very much like the killing curse. "Oh, yes," she said. "Fear me."

Her body was in the doorway, angled close but not touching him. Draco was glad. His palms were clammy and his breathing had hitched. If she tried to touch him, he was sure he would react violently. Perhaps he was coming down with something. When he was sure he could trust himself to speak, he took a breath and said, "Shall we?" His voice, he was grateful to note, came out like his own.