Chapter Two—The Curious Events

October 29th, 1997.

Two days before Samhain- Continued

Amycus jumped, narrowly missing another row of jars. "Ah! Mr. Malfoy."

Malfoy walked across the room, and Ginny could not help noticing that he moved as gracefully as ever. How does he do it? He seems to glide, like his feet aren't quite touching the floor. Maybe it's some evil Dark Arts thing.

"Yes. What a surprise. I didn't expect to you to turn up!" Amycus yanked his leg from a part of the chair that seemed determined to keep hold of his foot.

The younger man raised an eyebrow. Yes, thought Ginny, it was somehow impossible not to think of him as a man rather than a boy, even though he couldn't have been more then seventeen. He seemed so much more mature; his pale grey eyes were jaded and world-weary, as if he'd already seen all there was to see and was impressed by none of it.

"Really?" he asked. "I 'd have thought you'd be better informed than that, Professor. But perhaps you weren't among those who were told that I'd be returning to Hogwarts at intervals this year."

Amycus flushed. It was not an attractive look, raising uneven red patches on his narrow white cheeks. A strange thought flashed through Ginny's mind. How would Draco Malfoy look if there were ever any color in his face?

"Er, well, maybe we don't need to talk about that right now," said the professor. "Could I, um, help you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"No, I'll do quite well on my own." Malfoy dismissed him with a glance. "So if you'll excuse me, I've got ingredients to collect…?"

"Yes, yes, of course," babbled Amycus. "I'll leave you to it. I've got loads to do… classes to prepare for… students to chastise... It's been lovely to see you. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy!" With one last vicious yank, he careened off a wall and hurried out of the room.

Ginny wondered if she could get away with leaving right behind him. But Malfoy turned towards her then, looking down at her with an unreadable expression on his face, and she knew that any chance of escape was gone. He reached out a hand towards, and she tensed.

"Do you really want to stay sprawled on the floor?" he asked her.

No, she could honestly say that she didn't. She grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull her up. He was surprisingly strong, and the touch of his skin was much warmer than she would have thought. In the freezing classroom, she had to admit that a spot of warmth felt… good. Then she saw that Millicent was staring at them, a goofy grin starting to spread across her face. She scowled and busied herself in brushing off her robes as Draco and Millicent moved to a corner of the room. They spoke in undertones, and Ginny could just catch about half of what they said.

"- can't you be a bit more subtle?" he asked Millicent.

The other girl shrugged. "I don't know how."

"Can't you learn?"

"No."

"Never mind," he sighed. "Go to the common room, Milla; I'll see you a bit later on."

Apparently those two were better friends than Ginny had thought. And considering what she'd heard about Millicent cutting a cheerful swath through the Slytherin seventh-year boys that autumn, she herself could just imagine what their friendship was based on. Not that I care!

Millicent Bulstrode went back into the corridor, and Ginny thought she saw two other people waiting for her a bit further down. She recognized Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson. I never would have bet on those three being best mates, she thought.

The door closed. A beat of time passed, and then another. Ginny realized that Draco didn't seem to be following the Slytherin girl. Then he leaned towards her and said the absolute last thing she'd expected to hear from him.

"Are you all right, Weasley?"

"Fine." She didn't look up, but she could feel those penetrating grey eyes on her.

His voice lowered. "Are you sure?"

She did look up now, but she still could not decipher the expression on his face, and she wasn't sure if there even was any expression at all.

"What does it matter to you?" she snapped.

"The soul of courtesy as always, I see." He leaned back against a table. A torch thrust high into a holder on the wall flickered across his robes. They were the deepest black that Ginny had ever seen, absorbing every bit of light in the room. His pale hands and fair head were the only parts of him she could see, and his face seemed almost to float disembodied above the complete darkness. His narrow face looked tired, she thought, and she instantly was angry at herself for noticing it. What the hell did she care?

"Sorry," she said ungraciously. "Now I've got somewhere I need to be, so if you don't mind…" She began to edge towards the door, basket in hand, half sure that he would stop her. But he only watched her, his arms crossed, no part of him moving except his eyes, his head cocked to one side. She hurried down the corridor, trying to convince herself that the encounter had meant nothing. She was lucky that he and Millicent had appeared just in time to distract Amycus Carrow, that was all. It was nothing more than an accident.

She and Luna made the healing potion for Neville and then helped him to apply it. Because at least an hour needed to pass before the red marks would fade and he would be presentable, the girls went down to lunch without him, deciding that it would be even more noticeable if none of them showed up at the Gryffindor table. They were mostly silent. There didn't seem to be much to say. Ginny chewed on a cold beef and chutney sandwich and sighed. If only I could go to the tower, just for awhile…

"What's wrong?" asked Luna.

"Besides everything, you mean?" Ginny picked at her bowl of raspberries, wishing she had more appetite.

"Well, yes, I can't say that anything seems to be going particularly well just now," said Luna. "But it seems to be something more in your case."

"Nothing, really. I just wish I had time to go that little tower on my own. You know—the one at the edge of the forest."

"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean," said Luna, giving her a long look out of her lamplike pale blue eyes. "I've seen it. But I can't go in it."

She shivered. Somehow, Luna's words seemed to mean more than they said, bothering her in a way she could not define.

That night, staring up at the underside of her canopy bed in the Gryffindor dormitory, Ginny realized two things. One was that as incredible as it seemed, Draco Malfoy really might have told Millicent Bulstrode to watch out for her. Ginny was too honest not to admit to herself that it was at least possible. The other was that when he tilted his head just so, the perfection of his profile took her breath away. But she didn't need to spend one more second thinking about that, she decided, flopping over with a sigh and trying to quell the flutter in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't quite seem to succeed. It's the first thing that's felt real since spring, she thought. This, and that first time I saw Draco Malfoy. As Ginny finally drifted off to sleep, she was almost able to convince herself that the thought hadn't even crossed her mind.

December 18, 1997. Three days before Winter Solstice.

Ginny sat on a bench near Hagrid's hut, staring at the stone circle between her and the castle without really seeing it. She'd wanted to find somewhere deserted to go and sit and think without interruption, she was still not quite sure if she had enough time to go to her special little tower, and this was a good substitute. The problem was that her thoughts still kept going round and round, refusing to settle the current confusion into any sort of shape.

It seemed impossible to put together a clear picture of what was going on at school. The best she could do was to decide that everything was intensifying. The Carrows were getting worse by the day, handing out escalating punishments to students who dared to do anything but enthusiastically agree with their every word. Snape did not exactly encourage them, but he did nothing to stop them, either. In response, Dumbledore's Army was meeting more and more often, and discussing one plan after another without any clear idea of what to do next. The pressure was building up. Something major was going to happen soon, and Ginny increasingly thought that it should take place on their end. Several recent discussions at their meetings were revolving around the idea that they should attempt to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office. But Neville had a way of bringing up disturbing facts, such as the kind of trouble they could all get into if their attempt failed. Ginny shuddered to even think of the possibilities.

She had been over and over it all so many times that her thoughts didn't make sense anymore, and she could not put the disturbing parts together into a whole. Instead, the dark undertow kept pulling at her, whispering that nothing she could ever do was destined to succeed, and she knew she couldn't allow it to bubble up to the surface or she might never find her way out again.

She rubbed her forehead and pulled her cloak more tightly around her body, shivering with the cold. She glanced back at the tiny tower at the very edge of the forbidden forest, wishing she had the time to go there. It was the best place she knew at Hogwarts if she wanted to be alone, and the funny thing was that nobody else ever seemed to use it. She was about ready to go back to Gryffindor tower and sit in front of the fire when she saw a figure at the edge of the stone circle, tall, thin, and dressed all in black, his hair glinting in the winter sunshine. It was, of course, Draco Malfoy.

There was a small grove of trees between him and her, and she didn't think he had seen her yet. This was a golden opportunity to find out more about what he was doing here. Ginny crept up to the edge of one of the larger trees and peered round it. She had a perfect view of the circle, and Draco was crouching on the ground next to one of the lichen-covered stones and digging at something. She couldn't see more than that. But he seemed to be putting something in a large black satchel and then straightening up again, walking round the circle so that he was very close to the small grove. She moved forward further, hoping to see more of exactly what he was doing, then further still, and then she stumbled over a tree root and began to fall forward. Draco looked up, and his eyes lit with recognition. He rushed towards her just as she tried to stumble to her feet and began to tumble onto the ground, and he caught her.

Ginny gasped. It was all so utterly unexpected; the feel of one of his big hands around her waist and one at her shoulder; the brief, shocking warmth of his body pressed against hers, how muscular and sinewy he seemed to be, much more so than she would have guessed from how thin he was. She felt his bones too close to the surface as well; he seemed to be nothing but bone and muscle, and before she could stop herself, she wondered if he was eating properly. Before she could even begin to categorize all the sensations of Draco Malfoy holding her, she was sitting on one of the flat smooth rocks, and he had moved away from her.

"Ah…" She looked at him, sitting on a stone seat just across from her, his nearness disturbing, making it difficult to think straight, to form coherent sentences. "Thanks, Malfoy."

"It's the least I could do. I couldn't very well let you fall, Weasley." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Although you were spying on me, weren't you?"

She flushed. "No! I was just…sitting here, thinking."

To her intense relief, he didn't ask her exactly how sitting had somehow turned into standing tiptoe at the edge of a grove of trees and watching him so intently that she couldn't even keep her balance.

"Anyway, I really do appreciate your help," she said primly. "And for once, you don't need to actually rescue me from someone."

He gave a short laugh. "I have done that rather often in the past few months, haven't I? You seem to have dreadful luck, Weasley. I do hope it's turning around now."

"Not really, when it comes to the Carrows," she admitted.

"But Nott's left you alone?"

"Yes," she said cautiously.

"Good."

They walked in silence for a few more minutes. The Hogwarts tower clock began to toll, deep, long peals striking five. Malfoy stopped at her side, a shadow passing over his face.

"What is it?" asked Ginny.

He shook himself. "Nothing, only that I've got to leave."

She cleared her throat, wondering if she dared ask the next question. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Where are you going, Malfoy? Back home?"

"Yes," he said in a clipped voice. "To Malfoy Manor."

"Do you want to go back?" she blurted before she could stop the words.

He gave a short, sharp laugh. "What I want doesn't matter very much in this situation."

"That's very sad," she said. Ugh, Ginny, stop! She groaned inwardly.

He looked down at her, and some sort of emotion seemed to be struggling to surface on his face. "You think so, Weasley?"

She turned away. "I don't think anything, Malfoy."

"Don't you?"

Ginny did not know how to answer that.

"So I'll say goodbye," he said, after a brief pause.

"Goodbye- until I see you again, Malfoy." Ginny wasn't' at all sure why she had added that.

He gave her an odd half-smile. Not for the first time, she wondered what his face would look like if he smiled all the way. "Until then, Weasley."

As she watched Draco Malfoy's slim, straight back retreat across the field, Ginny realized two things. One was that Draco Malfoy was returning to school just before each major holiday. First Mabon, then Samhain, then the Winter Solstice, and now Imbolc. It was just too much of a coincidence. The other was that he definitely had been picking something from the ground near one of the standing stones, and whatever it was, he had put it in that big satchel he was carrying.

She knelt on the ground where she thought she'd seen him and ran her hand over the frozen tufts of grass. Beneath a light dusting of snow, there didn't seem to be a living plant left. She did know that some roots and seeds had a more concentrated amount of active ingredients in the winter, but the problem was that nothing on the ground seemed to have been disturbed. So what had Malfoy been doing?

She sat on a bench, running her hands absently over one of the stones. The surface was hard, cold, and very smooth. Too smooth, somehow. She looked down at the stone thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes. There was something different about it, not quite the same as the others. The patches of lichen glowed deep yellow and brown in the afternoon sun. But the stone she'd been touching—the one directly next to the space where Draco Malfoy had been kneeling—had no lichen at all. He had clearly scraped it off and taken it with him.

"But why?" she asked aloud, knowing there would be answer. Somehow, she found that she could not dismiss this question either.

January 30, 1998

Two Days Before Imbolc

The fourth time Draco Malfoy saved her, Ginny didn't give a damn whether it had been an accident or not.

She'd been flying on the Quidditch pitch early one Saturday morning, loving the feel of fresh cold wind against her face and the simply joy of flight. The games were becoming more and more tense, whether they were playing Slytherin or not. Nothing about the entire situation at Hogwarts had improved; the Carrows were only getting worse. And the worst part of all was that Luna hadn't come back to school after the winter holidays. Nobody knew why, or where she'd gone. Ginny's owls to her home had all been unanswered.

She had just wanted to separate flying from competition for a couple of hours, to let off a bit of steam, and she had succeeded. When she opened the door to the broom shed and a gust of superheated air puffed out, she stifled a sigh. A new set of heating charms had been added to the shed that winter to keep the cold from affecting the performance of the brooms, and it often malfunctioned. Ginny shrugged off her robes and hung them on a hook on the wall, wiping her sweaty neck with one of the towels. When she replaced the broom, she noticed that her blouse had come half undone. She was just reaching down to the buttons when the door creaked open behind her.

Ginny tried to ignore her suddenly racing pulse. Someone else was coming to get a broom for practice, that was all. When she looked up, she wouldn't see a brilliantly fair head outlined against the doorjamb, a tall, slender figure dark against the rising sun stepping out and revealing itself to be—

"Theo Nott?"

The weedy Slytherin boy smiled and walked into the broom shed. She eyed him warily. If anybody was in deep with the Death Eater crowd, Nott was the one. He'd been giving her a lot of odd, sly looks over the past couple of months, and he'd tried to get her alone more than once. She had absolutely no interest in that scenario coming to pass.

"Well, well," drawled Theo. He sounds like he's doing the worst imitation ever of Draco Malfoy, thought Ginny, stifling a wholly inappropriate giggle. "Little Ginny Weasley, all alone."

So this is how we're going to start. Ginny gritted her teeth. "Actually, Luna Lovegood and Colin Creevey are waiting outside for me," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "So I'm not exactly alone."

Theo flicked his dark eyes from side to side. "Strange that I didn't see them coming in, then. And they don't seem to be here now."

"I'm sure they're very nearby. Now, if you don't mind—" She tried to push past him.

He held out a hand to stop her. "You're not being very friendly, Weasley."

"We're not friends," she snapped.

"But I came to warn you," he said in a silky voice. "I saw Amycus Carrow headed right for the Quidditch pitch, no idea why."

Ginny felt a quiver of alarm for an entirely different reason.

"He's cleared off now, but you never know—he might come back."

"Okay; thanks, Nott," she said ungraciously. "Now if you don't mind—"

He moved closer to her. "I was thinking that we could have a nice… chat."

"We've got nothing to talk about."

"Maybe you're right," said Nott. "Why waste time in talking?"

He locked eyes with her and gave a small, smug smirk. Then, slowly, deliberately, his eyes traveled down to her breasts, their curve clearly visible beneath her half-buttoned blouse His gaze stayed there, locked on her chest, and the smile widened. It was impossible to mistake what he was doing. He was leering at her openly, assessing her attractiveness to him, calculating what he might be able to get out of her and how far he could go. And he didn't seem to care if she knew. No—he wanted her to be aware that he was insulting her, treating her like an object. And he wanted her to know that he was convinced he could get away with it.

"Magnificent tits, Weasley," he said. "I've always thought so." His words were slow and deliberate, as if he wanted nothing more than to be sure that she had not mistaken his meaning.

The air stilled. The birdsong outside the door faded to nothingness. Even the wind buffeting against the small building was silenced. The world shrank to the motionless frosty air, the thump of her own rapid heartbeat, and the cold eyes of Theodore Nott, staring at the swell of her breasts. As she watched him, his tongue snaked out to lick his lips, briefly, unmistakably.

Ginny's mind detached from her emotions. She had already been able to manage that trick in moments of danger, and it meant that she could see the situation clearly, picturing its moving parts.

This was dangerous. Very dangerous. At least the Carrows were teachers; there were rules of the school that still existed and that they were required to follow. As nasty and even terrible as many of their punishments were, there were boundaries they would and could not cross. Lawful punishment was one thing, no matter how wrong the law might be, and they had never been known to go past those limits. But students were under no such restrictions. What Theo Nott had in mind was something else altogether, and something much worse. And while the Carrows would not have perpetrated such a thing themselves, they might well turn a blind eye to a student in their favor who had done it, and a deaf ear to any charges Ginny might make after the fact.

She doubted there was anybody within earshot. The entire pitch was deserted. That was why she had come here so early on a Saturday morning. She was far from any of the other buildings. Nobody would even hear her screams. She was on her own.

So be it. She tensed, scanning Nott for any sign of movement, ready to run, or failing that, to kick and bite and stomp. She would not go down without a fight.

The door burst open so hard that it slammed against the opposite wall and rebounded, hitting Nott on the shoulder. Vincent Crabbe strode into the shed, which suddenly didn't look big enough to hold him. He glowered at the other boy.

Nott picked himself up, returning the glare. "What do you want, Crabbe? Weasley and I are busy."

"Wh—what are you doing with her?"

Nott's smirk widened. "If you don't understand that sort of thing by now, Crabbe, I suggest you ask School Broom Bulstrode for a few tips. Now go away."

Then Crabbe said something so unbelievable that Ginny honestly wondered if she was slipping into delirium.

"Leave h-h-her alone."

It was perhaps the first time Ginny had ever actually heard his voice, and it sounded much softer than she ever would have believed it could.

"Why, do you want a go with the Weasley girl?" Theo asked almost lazily. "I'm not saying I blame you. She has great tits, and a perfect arse, for all that she's a filthy little blood traitor. Just about good enough to amuse her betters, I think. But you'll have to wait your turn until I'm done, I'm afraid—"

Crabbe's fist shot out and hit him on the side of the head. Nott went down without a sound.

Ginny's mouth dropped open. Had Crabbe just helped her? Or—wait—had Nott been right when he'd thought that the other boy wanted the same thing he did? I'll fight Vincent Crabbe too, even if he does pound me into the ground feet first, she thought grimly. But he only smiled at her. It was an unexpectedly sweet smile, transforming his sullen, rather oafish face. Ginny wondered if she had been hit by some odd sort of Disingenuation hex.

The door creaked up for a third time. Ginny looked up. With a total lack of surprise, she saw Draco Malfoy.

"Crabbe," he sighed. "Was it really necessary to knock Theo Nott unconscious?"

Crabbe shrugged.

"I suppose it doesn't matter much. I'll perform a Memory charm and then prop him up against a table or something. Tedious, but—you did take him out before he touched Weasley, right?"

Crabbe nodded.

"Well done." Draco clapped him on the shoulder.

"Th—th—thanks, M-Malfoy," said Crabbe. "See you later."

The door closed, and Ginny was left alone with Draco Malfoy. He walked a couple of steps in her direction, but otherwise made no further move towards her. His face was just as pale against his deep black robes as it had been last time, and his features every bit as unreadable as before. Once again, he let the seconds slip by without saying anything.

Ginny wondered if she should speak first. Several questions were itching on her tongue, and she longed to ask them. He'd clearly ordered Crabbe to protect her, but why? Was it just some sort of whim of his? Was it because… could it possibly be that he wanted the same thing Theo Nott had tried to take from her? Ginny's hand twitched towards her wand at that thought. But she dismissed it as quickly as it had come. No. Malfoy had got her alone several times by now, and if he'd wanted to assault her, he'd had plenty of opportunities. He had never given any indication that he had any interest in her in that way. Did he want something else from her, and if so, what was it? Well, whatever it is, he isn't going to get it, she vowed.

His grey eyes flicked down to her half-open blouse, and for just an instant, Ginny thought that she was wrong, that he did want at least a look at her after all. But then his gaze went back up again, perhaps a bit too swiftly.

"Weasley, I'd button my shirt up, if I were you," he said.

Was there the slightest trace of pink in his cheeks? No. There couldn't be.

"I suppose now you're going to say that Nott trying to attack me was my own fault," she flung at him, doing up the buttons with trembling fingers. She was sure that the blush she'd almost thought she had seen on his pale cheeks was a trick of the light, but she was going red, all right.

"Of course not; don't be ridiculous," he said. "But I do think that you ought to avoid putting yourself on display for anyone like Nott."

"Ooh—" she muttered at the blouse. The buttons seemed to be multiplying as she tried to slip them through their holes. "You think that girls invite their own harassment, don't you? I should've known. You're just that sort."

He shook his head. "I'm not such a fool as all that. But it isn't safe here, at this school, Weasley. Not for you. So you oughtn't to do anything that will draw attention to yourself, or provide someone else with an excuse to do anything to you. And you're more than clever enough to be aware of that."

Yes. She was. She nodded, struggling with the last button. It popped off and bounced off the floor.

Draco leaned towards her, so close that for a second she was sure he was going to grab her after all. But he was only bending down to pick up the button. He handed it to her. She took it between her fingers, acutely aware that her hand was clutching the two halves of her blouse together at the top so that his hand almost, but not quite, brushed her chest.

"Thank you, Malfoy," she said stiffly.

He inclined his head in a graceful gesture and turned to leave through the open door. Ginny watched him until his figure retreated into the distance, wishing that she knew exactly where he was going now. All she could say for sure was that he was headed back to the castle. She was able to follow his bright head of hair, a retreating dot glinting in the sunlight. He reached the grand staircase tower, and she expected him to go past it and disappear behind the middle courtyard. But instead, Malfoy opened a tiny door at the base of the tower and went into it. She narrowed her eyes. It was impossible not to think that this would be a great way to get into the headmaster's tower without being seen.

Not that this was really a surprise, she supposed. She had already known how tight he was with Snape; naturally the two of them would talk whenever Malfoy visited the school. She turned away, sighing, and sat on a bench, staring at the wall for several minutes and realizing two things.

First of all, she finally knew for sure that Draco Malfoy had told at least two of his friends to watch her, to protect her. She hadn't asked him about that and he hadn't admitted it, but she knew. What she didn't know was why.

Second, he seemed to actually care if Theo Nott attacked her in a broom shed. She didn't know why that was the case, either.

And third, sparring with him made her feel gloriously, completely alive.

But there was no point in thinking about any of it, she decided. Really. There wasn't.