Malfoy’s words echoed in Ginny’s head all during the final match, no matter how hard she tried to block them out. And she didn’t want to remember thing said. She wanted to feel nothing at all but hatred when she thought of him. Because undoubtedly he was getting worse. She knew that he was behind the breakup of the DA meetings. Well, perhaps not precisely behind it—Umbridge had been that—but Ginny certainly knew that Malfoy was the one who’d tipped off that hideous toad of a woman several weeks before, and had also been the one who’d caught Harry that night. Yet she remembered and remembered those steady, oddly sober last words of his. That’s why you’re not ready for the match, Weasley. That’s why you’re not ready for the match. That’s why you’re not—
“Stop it,” she actually mumbled to herself more than once.
Time seemed compressed, and so did space. There was only a blur of differently colored sections waving from the stands; the figures of the other players moving above and below and around her in streaks of red and gold or yellow and blue; the nervous presence of her brother she always sensed somewhere behind her, hovering at the goalposts, and the one thought in her mind. That Snitch, that stupid Snitch. I’m not going to let anyone or anything distract me from it. Nothing’s going to upset me, or make me angry. I’m just going to focus on finding that Snitch. She even managed to drown out Lee Jordan’s voice, which seemed to be sounding increasingly agitated.
“And Davies takes the Quaffle immediately, Ravenclaw Captain Davies with the Quaffle, he dodges Johnson, he dodges Bell, he dodges Spinnet as well… He’s going straight for goal! He’s going to shoot—and—and—“ Lee swore very loudly. “And he’s scored.”
Ginny kept circling the pitch in slow, looping movements, doing her best to block out Cho Chang, who was trailing her, looking for the elusive flash of gold. More than once she heard a vast groan of disappointment from the Gryffindor section of the stands, interspersed with a chorus of jeering that she supposed must have come from the Slytherins. Without turning around, she knew that Ron had let in another goal. She did her best to ignore it all. When there was an extended tussle at the Ravenclaw end that involved Katie getting knocked off her broom to be narrowly rescued by Angelina, Ginny swooped over to Ron, hovering in front of the centre goal post.
“You’ve simply got to keep your temper better, Ron,” she said.
“I don’t need advice from you,” he replied, running a hand through his hair so that every strand stood on end, as if he’d stuck his finger into one of the electric wall sockets Arthur Weasley was forever experimenting with in the garage at home.
“That’s the only reason you’re letting those goals in,” Ginny persisted. “You get nervous and flustered and then-“
“D’you think I don’t know that? I’m about one second from throwing up all over the goalposts,” Ron said tersely. “I am using all my energy to not spew, and if I have to waste any of it talking to you—“
Ginny gave up. Well, she thought glumly, I tried.
She had no trouble keeping her own temper, at least; she felt as cool and collected on this warm spring day as if she were encased in a block of ice. Everything seemed very far away and remote—the colorful figures in the stadium far below, the blurred forms of her teammates, the spacious sky she kept scanning for the Snitch. Several times she thought she saw it, and once went into a precipitous dive she pulled out of just in time to avoid smashing into the ground. Cho Chang was tracking her, but her movements were oddly sluggish. When they flew more closely together, Ginny saw that the other girl looked tired and dispirited, her normally glossy black hair lank and dull, her dark eyes veiled. Cho wasn’t flying at all well. She gave Ginny’s temper nothing to feed on, but Ginny rather thought that all her anger at the Ravenclaw girl had long burnt itself out, anyway. Strange, how much I used to hate her once… now, I feel rather sorry for her, I think.
It was shaping up to be a goalkeeper’s game. Some of them turned out like that; the Snitch simply never showed itself long enough to be caught, and whatever the Seekers did ended up being almost unimportant. None of the Ravenclaws even bothered to try to foul Ginny, and her team was likewise ignoring Cho. They had more than enough to keep them busy.
Davies had obviously figured out what sort of game they were playing, and during a time-out he held a hasty, whispered conference with his team. After that, they zoomed back to the pitch and pursued the new strategy. Ginny kept seeing its results out of the corner of her eye as she wove in and out, and she groaned inwardly.
Katie, who was usually the strong linchpin of the Chasers, seemed to still be weak from her earlier accident. She was barely hanging onto her broom, her face pale and sweaty. The Ravenclaw Chasers outmaneuvered her with ease, and Angelina and Alicia couldn’t keep up.
“And it’s Brooks with the Quaffle,” Lee said in a monotone. “Passing it to Bradley… who passes it back to Brooks… passes it on to Chambers… come on, Bell! Buck up a bit! And Chambers shoots—and he scores. And if the Gryffindor Beater’s really in a coma, someone ought to take him to the hospital wing. Wake up, Sloper!”
Jack hadn’t actually hit anyone on his own team in the mouth with his bat yet this game, Ginny thought, but other than that, he hadn’t improved. Andrew wasn’t much better. Again and again, Ravenclaw scored, taking advantage of the unravelling Gryffindor team. But the central weak spot was Ron, and Ginny knew it. During a brief break in play, Angelina beckoned Ginny over to her.
“We’re dying out here and it’s your brother’s fault,” she said without preamble.
Ginny nodded. There hardly seemed any point in trying to deny it.
“Ron’s so much better than this—you know what I’m talking about; we’ve both seen him pull off some amazing saves in practice. He can do it, I know he can.”
“Ye-e-es,” Ginny admitted, “but it’s a question of drawing it out of him. I’ve seen him like this before—he’s gotten down so far that he can’t easily dig his way out again.”
There’s got to be something we can do,” hissed Angelina.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! You’re his sister! Isn’t there some secret motivational Weasley thing handed down from generation to generation?”
“Well, Dad has this pair of hand-knitted socks--
Angelina actually drew back her lips from her teeth. “Think of it. Do it. Succeed at it. That’s an order.” There was no more time to talk; Jack had swung his bat in Jeffery Brooks’ direction with such wild and inaccurate abandon that it actually had hit Andrew this time.
“The last time a personal foul was committed on a member of one’s own team at Hogwarts before this season,” Lee said tiredly, “the Norman Invasion was yet to come. Good show, Sloper; you’ve now made history twice.”
Lee Jordan was getting sarcastic, Ginny realized. Definitely not a good sign. When Angelina banked her broom sharply and whirled round to glare at Jack, Chambers tried to score on Gryffindor again. But this time, nobody was looking at Ron; the rest of the Ravenclaw team was too busy snickering at what Lee had said. And Ron reached up almost effortlessly to block the Quaffle.
The stink of defeat was still palpable in the air, but now there seemed a thread of hope as well... maybe… Ginny glanced over at the goalposts and saw her brother hovering between the second and third hoops, his face set rigidly, his hands gripping his broomstick, his mouth working. Attention had now focussed back on him as the Ravenclaw team swiftly reorganized, and Ron let another goal in. Oh God. A confused murmur of jeers and groans and spiteful cheers filled the stadium, along with a faint, disorganized thread of song from the Slytherin section.
Weasley cannot save a thing,
He cannot block a single ring…
But she couldn’t afford to worry about how her brother felt right now, or to get indignant on his behalf. They were so far behind. The balance had now tipped just enough so that if Ravenclaw scored one more goal, even if she did see the Snitch now, and caught it, Gryffindor would still lose. She pulled her broom up to a near-standstill, trying to think. Amazing how well one’s mind worked when it wasn’t clouded by rage. It was simply a huge puzzle, all of it—her team members, and the Ravenclaw players, and her own brother only the pieces. How to fit them together, that was the question. What was it that had caused Ron to calm down, to remember how well he really was capable of playing? A moment’s distraction. But how to create another one? And then, as she was looking up into the sky, thinking, she saw it.
A flash of gold, glinting near the third goalpost.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion then. Cho hadn’t seen the Snitch. She was still staring at the far end of the pitch. But any second she surely would, and then it might be all over… and Brooks and Bradley were both zooming towards Ron with a Quaffle speeding between them, the ball headed towards the right goalpost, each boy grinning maliciously at Ron. Andrew was screeching something as Jack hit a Bludger at him. Ginny spurred her broom into a dive between her two teammates and reached for the Snitch. But not too fast, I can’t grab it quite yet, not until-- The Bludger was coming at her and coming at her and then it hit her full in the stomach and the world went dim against the awful pain; a thousand startled faces in the stadium turned up to stare at her.
“And Ginny Weasley takes a Bludger to the stomach!” said Lee in a horrified voice. “Oh, this doesn’t look good—and Bradley shoots—“
She barely heard his voice; she was using all her dwindling energy to focus on her brother, and on the Quaffle that sped towards the goal hoop, feinted towards the right, then slammed to the left. Bradley whipped his head round to stare at her, his concentration broken for just a moment. He’d already released the ball; it was too late to change anything about that. But the Ravenclaw Chasers weren’t focusing all their attention on Ron anymore. In fact, even if just for a second or two, nobody was. Let it be enough, thought Ginny. Please, please let it be enough.
And it was. Ron gathered himself up, swung round his broom in a perfect barrel roll, and caught the Quaffle in his right hand, hanging upside-down. At the same instant, Ginny felt her own fingers close around the tiny, fluttering Snitch.
Everything was a blur, after that. The stadium exploded in cheering and Lee was yelling something but she barely heard any of it; the world was going dark and she was clinging to her broom, sliding further and further down, about to fall…
…and then strong arms caught her and she smelled the familiar cinnamon-apple scent of her brother, and somehow they had gotten to the ground and he was carrying her; no, someone else was carrying both of them, they were in the middle of a jostling, screaming, wildly cheering crowd.
“Ginny, Ginny, are you all right?” Ron was shouting. But then a mass of Gryffindors was lifting him and he was being carried high on a sea of shoulders; they surged past the others, yelling happily.
“Here, take her to the hospital wing, she needs to go—“ That was Angelina, Ginny thought. She felt Jack’s clumsy hands on her and winced.
“Don’t grab her around the middle, you idiot!” snapped Katie, who still looked pale. “Here, Ginny—can you stand?”
Ginny blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said. “Just—let me catch my breath a bit, okay?”
“You sure?” Katie asked anxiously. “That was a pretty hard hit you took.”
“Really, I’m fine. Give me a minute, that’s all.” Ginny leaned against the wall. Somehow she had ended up on the lower edge of the stadium, the part that backed up against the fields on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The joyful throng was surging past her, carrying Ron high and singing.
Weasley can save anything,
He never leaves a single ring,
That’s why Gryffindors all sing:
Weasley is our King…
Katie seemed about to say something more, but she was swept up in a fresh wave of first-years and disappeared. The voices grew louder and louder until Ginny clamped her hands over her ears and sank against the wall. Another wave of dizziness overcame her, and when she looked up again, everyone was gone. In their excitement over Ron, the Gryffindors had left the other Weasley behind.
The spring air suddenly felt cold. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.
Ginny crept behind a little overhang where she could see but not be seen, and sat down on the smoothed dirt path. A few Hufflepuff fourth-year girls passed her, giggling about her brother; a couple of Ravenclaw boys plodded past, snarling something at each other. Almost nobody except the players used this particular exit, which went past the broom shed. Then she sensed rather than saw someone standing over her, a large body blocking the sun, shifting uncomfortably. She thought of a boy who wasn’t really very tall, who had the lithe, taut, deceptively slight build of a Seeker, who moved like a dancer. And she knew without even glancing up that whoever had come to her, it wasn’t the person she’d feared, or hoped, to see. She raised her head and looked warily at Vincent Crabbe. God, but he gets taller every single year. Although he’s stopped growing from side to side at least. I wonder where he finds a school uniform big enough? Maybe it has to be custom-made. Maybe—
He cleared his throat. “You all right, Weasley?” he asked.
She gaped at him. Of all the possible sentiments she had expected him to express, concern for her welfare had not been high on the list.
He shuffled his feet. “You t-t-took that Bludger pretty hard.”
“I’m all right,” Ginny managed to say.
“Where’s your t-t-team?”
“They, um, left.” She fought down a ridiculous urge to cry. He extended a ham-like hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. He helped her to her feet. She swayed so badly that without his help, she knew she would have fallen. Maybe I really should go to the hospital wing. But the thought was dreary beyond belief, and she felt much better after standing up.
“Just wondered,” he said awkwardly. “Well-“ He shrugged, stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled down the path. Ginny let him get ahead of her and then started walking very slowly, her mind whirling. She had a mad impulse to call Crabbe back and start asking questions. And the very first—in fact, the only one that mattered—would be, Did someone send you to me? And did he order you to find out if I was all right? Was he watching the game, and did he clench his teeth to keep from crying out when I fell? You were sitting next to him, so you must know—did he want to go to me? Did he hold himself back, and did his face show whatever emotion he might have felt? Or does he ever feel anything at all? But that was more than one question. And, knowing that question leads on to question, and that nothing good could come from any of them, Ginny lagged behind Crabbe. She waited until long after his lumbering form had disappeared down a curve in the path, and then, moving very slowly, she made her way to the Gryffindor dormitory.
As she passed under one of the big willow trees that lined the path, thinking about what had happened, Hermione stepped into her path, her face furrowed with concern.
“Ginny! I just heard that you’d been left behind, and I came back to find you; are you all right? I’ll take you to the hospital wing if you like—“
Ginny shook her head. “I’m perfectly fine. I just need to get back to my room so I can lie down and rest a bit.”
Hermione took Ginny’s arm and began guiding her back towards the castle, making little tsk-tsk sounds with her tongue. “That’s what comes of putting so much emphasis on a stupid game. I heard all about what happened. It’s horribly dangerous really. Think of all the injuries Harry’s had-“
“Heard? What do you mean, heard? You were there; didn’t you see it?”
“Well, in point of fact we didn’t.”
“We?”
“Harry and I were—ah—somewhere else.”
“What do you mean? Where’s Harry?”
“Back in the Gryffindor boys’s dormitory. He’s awfully tired and he’s asleep. Anyway, whatever made you get between Jack and Andrew like that?”
“Well, I thought—“
“Oh, don’t tell me, I already know! You wanted to create a distraction so that Ron could block Bradley’s goal. Or are you going to tell me that you can see a Snitch four hundred metres away, but you can’t see a Bludger coming at you?”
Ginny squirmed uncomfortably under her friend’s all-too-shrewd gaze.
“Honestly,” Hermione continued. “Sometimes I think the main requirement to play Quidditch must be a complete lack of common sense. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I just saw something—well, rather odd, and I was hoping you could explain what it meant.”
“Oh?” Ginny did her best to sound unconcerned, aware that she was failing miserably.
“Yes. You see--” Hermione broke off, glancing down the path towards some third-year Hufflepuffs coming towards them. “Later,” she said in an undertone.
The common room was loud and bright and made Ginny’s head ache. She gritted her teeth at the sound of all the laughing and screeching, and allowed Hermione to propel her along the wall that led to the girls’ dormitory.
“Ginny!” yelped Jack, looking up from the sofa where he was part of a large group clustered around Ron.
“We were so worried about you—“ began Katie, bustling up to her.
“Not now,” said Hermione in her bossiest voice, pulling Ginny along.
“Are you all right, though?” asked Angelina, at Katie’s side.
“She’s fine,” answered Hermione. “She just needs to rest.”
Ginny saw her brother’s head snap up when he caught sight of her, and he exclaimed, “There you are! Come on, come and sit by me—“ He started to get up and move towards her, but it was rather a difficult task with every member of Gryffindor House gathered at his feet, and Hermione waved a dismissive hand at him.
“You can see her tomorrow, Ron! Let me get her up to bed.”
Nothing had ever sounded so good to Ginny. A vision of her own bed loomed up before her, dear and infinitely desirable. She would snuggle into the fluffy coverlet and sink her head into a feather pillow and draw the gold and maroon curtains around her to shut out the world. It would be soft, warm, and oh so private, especially since every other Gryffindor was toasting Ron with pumpkin juice and singing Weasley Is Our King over and over again.
Hermione helped Ginny to remove her Quidditch uniform and put on a loose, comfortable t-shirt; all her muscles felt horribly stiff and sore suddenly, and she could hardly move. Then Ginny let herself be tucked into bed and lay back with a long sigh. Now, of course, Hermione would go. But she didn’t. The bed creaked from her weight from she sat down. Ginny cracked one eyelid to glare at her.
“I’m dreadfully sorry I can’t leave you alone just yet,” Hermione said firmly. “But I’ve got to know something first. Whatever were you doing talking to Vincent Crabbe?”
“I didn’t exactly have any choice,” Ginny mumbled. “He came up to me, you know.”
”What did he say? Did he insult you, or threaten you, or anything like that?”
“No, not at all. He asked if I was all right, and he helped me up. He asked me where my team went, as well—something I rather wondered about myself.” Ginny couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice at the last part of the sentence.
Hermione sighed. “I know. They didn’t mean anything by it, and I honestly don’t think they meant to leave you behind like that. But, well, it sounds like all anybody really noticed was that spectacular save Ron made. I don’t think anyone realized what you were trying to do, but I figured it out without even seeing it.”
“I don’t understand; where were—“
“You’re the real reason that game was won, you know,” Hermione said hurriedly.
Ginny gritted her teeth and decided to drop the subject for now. “But it meant so much to Ron,” she said. “He’s struggled all season, you know that, and Quidditch is so much more important to him than it is to me in the first place.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Hermione got a rather faraway look in her eyes for a moment. “I just worry about him sometimes—there’s something so fragile about Ron, I’ve often thought, and I wonder where that weakness might lead him—I hope nothing ever-- “ She shook herself. “The point is, I thought that maybe Malfoy had sent that gorilla, Crabbe, to threaten you or something, since he wouldn’t dare to try it himself. But you say he didn’t?”
“No,” replied Ginny. “And who’s to say Malfoy sent him anyway?”
Hermione laughed. “Do you honestly think Crabbe and Goyle ever do anything on their own? Including going to the boys’ lav?”
Ginny shrugged in a noncommittal way. That was a hard argument to dismiss. She tried to think of something else to say. “You know,” she began weakly, “maybe Malfoy isn’t really as bad as all of you seem to think.”
Hermione raised her eyebrows until they almost hit her hairline. Ginny was suddenly afraid she’d made an irrevocable mistake. “I mean,” she hastened to add, “I know he’s done some awful things this term, but I don’t see how we can say any of them are evil. There’s a big difference between being evil and acting like a spoiled brat.”
Hermione rested her chin in her hands and seemed to be considering the question seriously. “It is true that when he taunted Harry and Fred and George that time on the Quidditch pitch last winter, they didn’t have to respond the way they did. I wasn’t going to say it to Harry, of course, but he didn’t need to start punching Malfoy in the stomach over a few stupid childish insults. Harry should’ve known better, should’ve realized that Umbridge was just aching for an excuse to do what she did afterwards. Then, well, I doubt the DA would’ve been broken up if it wasn’t for Malfoy, but when you get right down to it he was just trying to get in good with Umbridge because that’s what she wanted. That’s a bit different from being an evil Death Eater, but—“ She looked at Ginny. “That’s exactly what his father is, after all. You know that.”
Ginny cleared her throat. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that his son will go the same way.”
“The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, unto the tenth generation,” murmured Hermione.
“What?”
“Nothing. I used to go to Sunday School before I ever got my Hogwarts letter, did you know? No? Well, it’s not important.” Hermione sighed and leaned back against the headboard of Ginny’s bed. “It’s strange, though.”
“What’s strange?” Ginny closed her eyes. Exhaustion had suddenly fallen on her like a weight. She really hoped that Hermione was almost done finding out whatever it was she had wanted to learn.
“Sometimes Harry talks about Malfoy the same way, these days. Oh, he still hates him, nothing’s changed about that. But I almost think Harry thinks he’s outgrown him, or that compared to everything else he faces, Malfoy is pretty insignificant.”
“Maybe that’s true,” said Ginny.
“Maybe.” Hermione shifted on the bed. “But I don’t really think so.”
“So what do you think?” Ginny decided that it would be better to find out and get it over with, and then maybe, maybe, Hermione would go away and let her sleep as she so desperately wanted to do.
“I think that in the past, Malfoy probably really was nothing more than a snarky brat. But now—“ Hermione shivered, even though the room was toasty warm. “Strange things are starting to happen, Ginny. Things are changing. And they’re going to change even more. It’s as if a darkness is rising, and something evil is coming this way, getting ready to claim its own. Do you honestly think Malfoy would fight that?”
Ginny did not answer.
Hermione rose from the bed. “Well, I didn’t mean to talk about all of this now. You really should get some sleep, Ginny.”
But after the other girl left, Ginny did not sleep for a long time.
Ron avoided her for the next several days. At last, when she was sitting by the lake and throwing scraps of bread to the giant squid, she heard his familiar footsteps, and the deep, slow intake and exhale of breath that was so uniquely his. He sounded exactly the same way he had after the time she’d caught him using her favorite doll as a Quaffle when she was eight years old and he was nine. It had taken him weeks to apologize.
“Can I sit next to you?” he mumbled.
“It’s a free country,” said Ginny.
He settled on the ground next to her, fingering the stitching on his bookbag as if it were the most interesting piece of embroidery he had ever seen.
“They told me you got hit by a Bludger, but that you wouldn’t go to the hospital wing,” he said.
“What do you mean, they told you? You were there, weren’t you? Only I wondered for the first nine-tenths of the match,” Ginny said, with a sarcasm she could not seem to keep out of her voice.
“Actually I sort of wasn’t,” he said quietly. “It was like—like all I saw was my own embarrassment. That doesn’t even make sense, does it? I mean, embarrassment’s a feeling isn’t it? It’s not as if you can really see it. But I think I did. And then, when Bradley and Chambers tried to score, and I could concentrate, just for a moment, the Quaffle was all I saw. They told me later what you did. I really didn’t see it at all.”
“Oh.” Ginny wasn’t at all sure how to respond to that.
“But I see it now,” Ron persisted. He had been staring out over the placid surface of the lake, and he turned to face her. His eyes were tense and afraid. “You won that game, Ginny. I didn’t. It took me days to realize it. Can’t believe how much time I spent bragging to everyone before I did. I think I talked Harry and Hermione’s ears off about it. But you—you were the one they should have carried on their shoulders, not me.”
Ginny sighed. This was a side of Ron that she knew he never showed to anyone else. With all the other students, he would continue to boast and brag; only to her would he reveal this vulnerable inner self. It made her oddly sad. “You did well, Ron. Don’t denigrate that. And it just didn’t matter as much to me.”
“But-“ He closed his eyes for a moment. “We left you there, and you were injured and alone—anything could have happened.”
Without needing to be told, Ginny knew that Hermione hadn’t revealed what she’d seen to Ron. Her brother didn’t know that Vincent Crabbe had so mysteriously spoken to her, and he mustn’t know, either. She would have to keep it from him, even as the other girl had done. “But I’m all right now,” she whispered. She laid her head on her brother’s shoulder, and felt the warm wind play with her hair. Ron didn’t speak for a long time.
“Remember when that bully pushed you off the merry-go-round at the playground, when you were five?” he said. “And you cried, and cried, and tried to hit me. Your face was covered with dirt, I remember, and you’d knocked a tooth out…”
“It was already loose,” said Ginny. Ron ignored her.
“And I understood, Ginny. I understood why. It was because I hadn’t protected you. I was your big brother, and I was supposed to, and I hadn’t. You wouldn’t let me touch you or take you home, and it was like you’d ripped a hole in my chest. I started to cry, too.”
“And then you just flew at that bully,” Ginny remembered. “I’d forgotten about that. I think he broke one of your arms, didn’t he?”
Ron nodded. “Mum fixed it. Fixed your face, as well. But I never forgot, Ginny, that all you kept saying, over and over again, was, ‘Why’d you let him hurt me, Ron? You weren’t supposed to let anybody hurt me.’ You sounded so bewildered, so lost. I’ve always remembered it.”
Once again, Ginny was unsure of how to respond. She settled for smoothing her brother’s hair down where the wind was whirling it into crimson cowlicks, and he closed his eyes and leaned against her. Both of them were silent for a long time.
“I’ve always tried to protect you, Ginny,” he finally murmured. “Always. And I always will.”
History of Magic went on as usual.
The class was perhaps three percent awake, although Colin Creevey’s snoring grew louder with each passing moment and continued to bring the average down. The late afternoon sun was glinting through an open window in streaks of peach and gold, and a subtly scented breeze brought in spring flowers. Ginny played with a strand of her hair, turning it this way and that so that the sun’s rays set it afire. Professor Binns was droning on and on, as he would probably continue to do through flood, fire, and rains of frogs. The monotonous sound would have been enough to send anyone to sleep all by itself. Even if the subject matter had been interesting, which, Ginny decided, it definitely was not. She might have fallen asleep herself—she hadn’t been sleeping particularly well lately—but something about the warm June air was keeping her awake, and oddly alert. Nothing to concentrate on but Binns’ voice, though, and it was so like a droning gadfly.
“In the case of worldwide megalithic developments,” the professor was saying in a grey voice that, as always, sounded as if it had been unearthed from a tomb, “one must consider their common threads. Far flung as it may seem to run a comparative analysis of Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Gaza, Anghkor Wat and Anghkor Thom, and the Mammoth cave system of Kentucky and Tennessee, such comparisons can profitably be made.”
The Pyramids of Gaza… Ginny’s attention was caught for a moment. She remembered the time her family had visited Egypt, the summer before her second year at Hogwarts. She’d been so ill almost the entire time, getting dragged out only for the family pictures. The mediwizards there had said that she was unusually sensitive to the lines of force running between Khufre and the Sphinx. Professor Binns started droning about new geological theories related to water-weathering, however, and her attention began to wander again. She looked out the window at the Quidditch pitch, which she could just glimpse from here. Maybe she’d take a broom out after dinner and fly a little. During these June days, the sunlight lingered for a long time, and nobody was ever there now that the season was over. She might be alone. Or she might see-
"--Draco,” said the dull, dusty voice. Professor Binns looked up, and his insubstantial eyebrows raised slightly at the crashing noise Ginny had made. “Miss, er, Weasmont? Is there a problem?”
“Dropped a quill, Professor,” Ginny gasped.
“Hum.” The ghost cleared his throat, or at least made a gesture that amounted to the same thing, and then continued. “As I was saying, the ancient Cambodian megalithic cities of Anghkor Wat and Anghkor Thom are built in such a way as to mimic the constellation Draco. But the truly interesting thing from a scholar’s point of view is that all megaliths appear to have been built in the same manner, even those located across the earth from Cambodia. Most commonly, they mirror the star systems of Leo and Draco. Although many Muggles are aware of the fact that the heelstone at Stonehenge is aligned with the sun at both its winter and summer solstices, only wizards know that those two constellations are also of great significance to this megalithic site in Wiltshire. But the truly curious point is that of timing. However, I’m afraid that we will need to skip over this aspect, and move on to—“
“Please, sir,” Ginny interrupted.
“Yes?” Professor Binns looked utterly befuddled, as if he had just now realized that there were actually several dozen students sitting in front of him and one of them had dared to speak.
“I’d like to hear about the—uh- timing you mentioned. What is it that’s timed? Why is it important? It’d be interesting to know.”
“Interesting.” The ghost teacher repeated the unfamiliar word. “Very well. I suppose a few minutes might be spared. Five thousand years ago, the brightest star in the Draco constellation occupied the same position in the sky that Stella Polaris—the so-called North Star—does today. In precisely four and a half years, at the winter equinox, such will again be the case. Caput Draconis will point to magnetic north. This most likely has no meaning for either magical folk or Muggles, but there are a number of strange legends regarding an unimaginable concentration of power that might—with the proper ritual, and in the proper megalithic location—be released at that moment.” Professor Binns rustled the papers at his desk. “Now I believe we’ve wasted enough words on myth today; it is past time to return to the world of unassailable fact. We have covered goblin rebellions in England, France, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Greece, Lichtenstein, Siberia, Vatican City, and Monaco, but many gaps remain in our understanding—dear, dear, I’d hoped to be further along by this point in the year. Open your books to page two thousand, three hundred and fifty-five as we begin to examine the history of goblins in Outer Mongolia. In the year 567 A.D, the hobgoblin Attaturk Og entered trade negotiations with—“
Ginny walked out of class slowly, her mind whirling, chasing down dozens of separate scraps of information that seemed to be blowing away from her in a high wind. Draco. She should have known that he’d been named after the constellation; from Sirius to Andromeda to Regulus, the Black family loved those names. But what could it possibly mean that all these megalithic sites of great power were patterned after that same constellation? Or that the opposing group of stars that also formed their structure was Leo, the lion of Gryffindor? And there was something else, too, some other, more specific connection between the Malfoys and everything she had just heard. Something she could almost think of, almost remember, and something that she was sure she knew. But cudgel her brain as she might, it would not come to her.
Ginny didn’t realize that her steps were leading towards the Quidditch pitch until she looked up and saw the broom shed to one side of the path. Ron had specifically said that he wanted her back for dinner, as she’d been missing too many meals. Well, if he didn’t like it, he could lump it. She desperately needed the freedom of flying for a bit. Ginny picked out an old Shooting Star and kicked it into the air. The sun sunk low in the blue, blue sky, and she swooped and dove with abandon.
She had just finished weaving in and out of the goalposts when she saw him. Without the faintest sense of surprise, she pulled her broom up close to his. They looked at each other without speaking for several long moments.
Draco Malfoy had his back to the sun, and the orange light touched his silvery hair with gold. His face was cast into shadow. Not that Ginny fooled herself into believing that she could have figured out whatever he was thinking anyway.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Flying,” he answered. He moved his broom aside a little, and light spilled onto his face. Ginny caught her breath. He looked desperately weary. There was purple shadows under his eyes, and his cheekbones were more prominent than before, as if he’d lost weight in the last weeks. But his expression was as closed as ever. She knew she’d get nothing more out of him.
He threw something up in the air, something golden with whirring silver wings. “Want to play?”
“That’s a Snitch, isn’t it?” Ginny asked.
“Ah, ten points to Weasley. Good thing, too. You’ll need the head start.” His smile mocked her, as it always had. “A little pick-up game. If you’ve got the guts.”
An unwilling smile touched her own lips. “You’re on.”
Malfoy was a better Seeker than anyone she’d ever seen, except maybe Harry. And he wasn’t playing to his full capacity, or the game would have been over in about fifteen seconds. Ginny figured both of these points out rather quickly. She raced after the Snitch, feinted and blocked, went into sudden dives and leveled out, and did every acrobatic trick she had ever learned or practiced. He shadowed her every move with almost insulting ease, that half-smile always on his lips. He always held back at the last second, when he could have so easily caught the golden ball they were both pursuing.
“It’s more sporting that way,” he explained idly, during a brief break.
Ginny was trying to catch her breath. “That’s what I think too,” she gasped as sweetly as she could. “Considering that I’m still going to beat you.”
“Now, now, Weasley,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “We’re talking about what’s going to happen in this universe, not an alternate one… several million light years away… where the earth is ruled by mentally deficient amoebas…and your family actually has money and class…”
She grabbed at the Snitch too soon and her hands closed on air; she went into a barrel roll around her broom and barely caught herself.
“Temper, temper,” he chided, and zoomed towards the elusive flash of gold.
They played until the last lights faded from the sky. As soon as Ginny began to grow dizzy and tired, and to think longingly of the standing rib roast and mashed potatoes that she had missed at the Gryffindor table that night, Malfoy ended it. She had been sailing towards one of the goalposts, sure she saw the Snitch about to go through the left hoop. Her hands had been extended and she’d been crouching on the end of her broom; she almost had it… almost… Until, with apparent ease, Malfoy came out of nowhere and made a three-sixty turn around her, laughing, hovering upside down at her eye level. Except that his face hadn’t been the part of him that was right in front of her nose. And his school robes were hanging down, and his light summer trousers were very tight and tailored in back. While she was blinking at this unexpectedly interesting part of his anatomy, his hand flashed out and grabbed something that had been buzzing above her head. He turned back around so that he was right-side up to show her the Snitch fluttering in his left hand.
“Not very observant today, are we?” Malfoy said.
“You—ooh!”
“Or did you have something more interesting to look at?” His smile—and yes, for once, it was a smile, not a smirk—became positively devilish. Then he threw the Snitch up in the air in a lightning-quick motion and caught it again. And Ginny’s breath caught in her throat, because the last rays of the setting sun were directly behind him and he was all gold, a laughing golden boy hovering before her on a summer’s night when the air was warm and scented with flowers and anything, absolutely anything, might happen. His face came closer. His lips opened.
“Race you to the broom shed,” Malfoy said.
“Oooh!” Ginny clenched her hands into fists and spurred her broom.
She actually did win that race. She wasn’t at all sure how that had happened, but perhaps her temper lent her pokey broom wings. Ginny was restacking her Shooting Star at the back of the shed when the door opened again, then creaked closed. Footsteps came towards her in the darkness.
“I won, you know,” she said, her voice sounding very loud in the shed. There was nobody in it except for them, of course.
“I know you did,” said Malfoy. It was almost completely dark, only a faint shaft of light coming in under the closed door, and his disembodied voice made her jump. “Do you want your prize?”
“Light a light, Malfoy,” said Ginny, wishing that her voice didn’t tremble so.
“Of course, if you like. Lumos.” His wand flared, illuminating the shed with a soft glow. “Now, do you want your prize?” He advanced towards her.
Ginny forced herself to stand her ground. “What is it?” she asked in a voice that wavered only a little.
Malfoy pulled an apple from a pocket of his robes. “Sorry this isn’t a three-course meal. But it’ll have to do.”
“Oh.” Ginny stepped forward and took it from his hand. “Thanks,” she added awkwardly. She sat down on a bench and bit deeply into the apple’s rosy-red side. The sweet tangy juice gushed out over her lips. It was delicious.
He sat next to her and began eating as well. His apple was golden and smelled more tart, a little more astringent. His sharp white teeth tore into it, biting away large chunks. Ginny wished she could stop looking at Malfoy’s mouth, especially when he glanced up and caught her at it.
“Want a bite?”
“Oh, no—no, that’s all right, mine was fine.”
“This one was bigger than yours. I suppose as the winner you should have gotten it, really.”
“I already know how selfish you are, Malfoy,” Ginny said tartly.
One corner of his mouth went up. “Sure you don’t want a bit more?”
Actually, she did, and her mouth watered. He edged the apple closer to her face. She could see the indentations left by his teeth in its ivory-white flesh. The sweet lemony smell came closer and closer. “Maybe just one bite…” she said slowly. He pushed it into her mouth and she bit, her tongue running over the place where his mouth had marked it.
“One more…” Ginny wasn’t even sure if he, or she, had said those words. She bit again.
Then again. Then she found that she was licking at his fingers. She had bitten through the apple core. She tried to jerk back. The wand flickered low and went almost dark. Somehow Malfoy’s hand had gotten around her waist and was pulling her even closer to him. His mouth smelled like the apple, tart and sweet all at once, and it was coming so close to hers that she could hear each of his breaths. She knew that she should back away, but she did not. Her eyes went wide, and she looked at him almost pleadingly. Then they closed. There was only smell and touch left to her out of all the sensations, and the warmth of his lips coming closer and closer and closer.
Then the door banged open, and they jumped apart. Ginny looked up.
Pansy Parkinson stood in the doorway of the broom shed.
Ginny never knew how she got back to her dormitory. Nor did she ever remember what Parkinson said, or what Malfoy did. She only knew that somehow she was lying in her bed and staring up at the ceiling, her mind utterly blank. Except for one thought. Don’t let Ron find out. Don’t let Ron find out. Oh, dear Merlin, don’t let Ron ever, ever find out.
She slept long and dreamlessly that night, and when she awoke, the entire incident had already taken on a dreamlike quality. As the next days passed and Malfoy’s cold grey eyes glanced over her in the halls as if she were a piece of furniture, it began to seem like a thing that had never happened. And she was sure that she would never speak to him again, nor he to her.
Ginny was glad that Ron and Harry and Hermione were completely obsessed with the coming O.W.L’s, or at least one of them would have noticed that something was wrong with her. She slept little and ate less; her robes hung loose on her body, and she asked Madam Pomfrey for a sleeping draught after a week of tossing and turning in bed at night. But she only woke up groggy and grumpy after taking it, and she poured the rest of it down the sink. She’d get through. It was only a question of forgetting, now. It wasn’t as if anything more was ever going to happen between her and Draco Malfoy, after all.
Much later, Ginny could only be grateful that she had not known what lay ahead.
“Stop it,” she actually mumbled to herself more than once.
Time seemed compressed, and so did space. There was only a blur of differently colored sections waving from the stands; the figures of the other players moving above and below and around her in streaks of red and gold or yellow and blue; the nervous presence of her brother she always sensed somewhere behind her, hovering at the goalposts, and the one thought in her mind. That Snitch, that stupid Snitch. I’m not going to let anyone or anything distract me from it. Nothing’s going to upset me, or make me angry. I’m just going to focus on finding that Snitch. She even managed to drown out Lee Jordan’s voice, which seemed to be sounding increasingly agitated.
“And Davies takes the Quaffle immediately, Ravenclaw Captain Davies with the Quaffle, he dodges Johnson, he dodges Bell, he dodges Spinnet as well… He’s going straight for goal! He’s going to shoot—and—and—“ Lee swore very loudly. “And he’s scored.”
Ginny kept circling the pitch in slow, looping movements, doing her best to block out Cho Chang, who was trailing her, looking for the elusive flash of gold. More than once she heard a vast groan of disappointment from the Gryffindor section of the stands, interspersed with a chorus of jeering that she supposed must have come from the Slytherins. Without turning around, she knew that Ron had let in another goal. She did her best to ignore it all. When there was an extended tussle at the Ravenclaw end that involved Katie getting knocked off her broom to be narrowly rescued by Angelina, Ginny swooped over to Ron, hovering in front of the centre goal post.
“You’ve simply got to keep your temper better, Ron,” she said.
“I don’t need advice from you,” he replied, running a hand through his hair so that every strand stood on end, as if he’d stuck his finger into one of the electric wall sockets Arthur Weasley was forever experimenting with in the garage at home.
“That’s the only reason you’re letting those goals in,” Ginny persisted. “You get nervous and flustered and then-“
“D’you think I don’t know that? I’m about one second from throwing up all over the goalposts,” Ron said tersely. “I am using all my energy to not spew, and if I have to waste any of it talking to you—“
Ginny gave up. Well, she thought glumly, I tried.
She had no trouble keeping her own temper, at least; she felt as cool and collected on this warm spring day as if she were encased in a block of ice. Everything seemed very far away and remote—the colorful figures in the stadium far below, the blurred forms of her teammates, the spacious sky she kept scanning for the Snitch. Several times she thought she saw it, and once went into a precipitous dive she pulled out of just in time to avoid smashing into the ground. Cho Chang was tracking her, but her movements were oddly sluggish. When they flew more closely together, Ginny saw that the other girl looked tired and dispirited, her normally glossy black hair lank and dull, her dark eyes veiled. Cho wasn’t flying at all well. She gave Ginny’s temper nothing to feed on, but Ginny rather thought that all her anger at the Ravenclaw girl had long burnt itself out, anyway. Strange, how much I used to hate her once… now, I feel rather sorry for her, I think.
It was shaping up to be a goalkeeper’s game. Some of them turned out like that; the Snitch simply never showed itself long enough to be caught, and whatever the Seekers did ended up being almost unimportant. None of the Ravenclaws even bothered to try to foul Ginny, and her team was likewise ignoring Cho. They had more than enough to keep them busy.
Davies had obviously figured out what sort of game they were playing, and during a time-out he held a hasty, whispered conference with his team. After that, they zoomed back to the pitch and pursued the new strategy. Ginny kept seeing its results out of the corner of her eye as she wove in and out, and she groaned inwardly.
Katie, who was usually the strong linchpin of the Chasers, seemed to still be weak from her earlier accident. She was barely hanging onto her broom, her face pale and sweaty. The Ravenclaw Chasers outmaneuvered her with ease, and Angelina and Alicia couldn’t keep up.
“And it’s Brooks with the Quaffle,” Lee said in a monotone. “Passing it to Bradley… who passes it back to Brooks… passes it on to Chambers… come on, Bell! Buck up a bit! And Chambers shoots—and he scores. And if the Gryffindor Beater’s really in a coma, someone ought to take him to the hospital wing. Wake up, Sloper!”
Jack hadn’t actually hit anyone on his own team in the mouth with his bat yet this game, Ginny thought, but other than that, he hadn’t improved. Andrew wasn’t much better. Again and again, Ravenclaw scored, taking advantage of the unravelling Gryffindor team. But the central weak spot was Ron, and Ginny knew it. During a brief break in play, Angelina beckoned Ginny over to her.
“We’re dying out here and it’s your brother’s fault,” she said without preamble.
Ginny nodded. There hardly seemed any point in trying to deny it.
“Ron’s so much better than this—you know what I’m talking about; we’ve both seen him pull off some amazing saves in practice. He can do it, I know he can.”
“Ye-e-es,” Ginny admitted, “but it’s a question of drawing it out of him. I’ve seen him like this before—he’s gotten down so far that he can’t easily dig his way out again.”
There’s got to be something we can do,” hissed Angelina.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! You’re his sister! Isn’t there some secret motivational Weasley thing handed down from generation to generation?”
“Well, Dad has this pair of hand-knitted socks--
Angelina actually drew back her lips from her teeth. “Think of it. Do it. Succeed at it. That’s an order.” There was no more time to talk; Jack had swung his bat in Jeffery Brooks’ direction with such wild and inaccurate abandon that it actually had hit Andrew this time.
“The last time a personal foul was committed on a member of one’s own team at Hogwarts before this season,” Lee said tiredly, “the Norman Invasion was yet to come. Good show, Sloper; you’ve now made history twice.”
Lee Jordan was getting sarcastic, Ginny realized. Definitely not a good sign. When Angelina banked her broom sharply and whirled round to glare at Jack, Chambers tried to score on Gryffindor again. But this time, nobody was looking at Ron; the rest of the Ravenclaw team was too busy snickering at what Lee had said. And Ron reached up almost effortlessly to block the Quaffle.
The stink of defeat was still palpable in the air, but now there seemed a thread of hope as well... maybe… Ginny glanced over at the goalposts and saw her brother hovering between the second and third hoops, his face set rigidly, his hands gripping his broomstick, his mouth working. Attention had now focussed back on him as the Ravenclaw team swiftly reorganized, and Ron let another goal in. Oh God. A confused murmur of jeers and groans and spiteful cheers filled the stadium, along with a faint, disorganized thread of song from the Slytherin section.
Weasley cannot save a thing,
He cannot block a single ring…
But she couldn’t afford to worry about how her brother felt right now, or to get indignant on his behalf. They were so far behind. The balance had now tipped just enough so that if Ravenclaw scored one more goal, even if she did see the Snitch now, and caught it, Gryffindor would still lose. She pulled her broom up to a near-standstill, trying to think. Amazing how well one’s mind worked when it wasn’t clouded by rage. It was simply a huge puzzle, all of it—her team members, and the Ravenclaw players, and her own brother only the pieces. How to fit them together, that was the question. What was it that had caused Ron to calm down, to remember how well he really was capable of playing? A moment’s distraction. But how to create another one? And then, as she was looking up into the sky, thinking, she saw it.
A flash of gold, glinting near the third goalpost.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion then. Cho hadn’t seen the Snitch. She was still staring at the far end of the pitch. But any second she surely would, and then it might be all over… and Brooks and Bradley were both zooming towards Ron with a Quaffle speeding between them, the ball headed towards the right goalpost, each boy grinning maliciously at Ron. Andrew was screeching something as Jack hit a Bludger at him. Ginny spurred her broom into a dive between her two teammates and reached for the Snitch. But not too fast, I can’t grab it quite yet, not until-- The Bludger was coming at her and coming at her and then it hit her full in the stomach and the world went dim against the awful pain; a thousand startled faces in the stadium turned up to stare at her.
“And Ginny Weasley takes a Bludger to the stomach!” said Lee in a horrified voice. “Oh, this doesn’t look good—and Bradley shoots—“
She barely heard his voice; she was using all her dwindling energy to focus on her brother, and on the Quaffle that sped towards the goal hoop, feinted towards the right, then slammed to the left. Bradley whipped his head round to stare at her, his concentration broken for just a moment. He’d already released the ball; it was too late to change anything about that. But the Ravenclaw Chasers weren’t focusing all their attention on Ron anymore. In fact, even if just for a second or two, nobody was. Let it be enough, thought Ginny. Please, please let it be enough.
And it was. Ron gathered himself up, swung round his broom in a perfect barrel roll, and caught the Quaffle in his right hand, hanging upside-down. At the same instant, Ginny felt her own fingers close around the tiny, fluttering Snitch.
Everything was a blur, after that. The stadium exploded in cheering and Lee was yelling something but she barely heard any of it; the world was going dark and she was clinging to her broom, sliding further and further down, about to fall…
…and then strong arms caught her and she smelled the familiar cinnamon-apple scent of her brother, and somehow they had gotten to the ground and he was carrying her; no, someone else was carrying both of them, they were in the middle of a jostling, screaming, wildly cheering crowd.
“Ginny, Ginny, are you all right?” Ron was shouting. But then a mass of Gryffindors was lifting him and he was being carried high on a sea of shoulders; they surged past the others, yelling happily.
“Here, take her to the hospital wing, she needs to go—“ That was Angelina, Ginny thought. She felt Jack’s clumsy hands on her and winced.
“Don’t grab her around the middle, you idiot!” snapped Katie, who still looked pale. “Here, Ginny—can you stand?”
Ginny blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said. “Just—let me catch my breath a bit, okay?”
“You sure?” Katie asked anxiously. “That was a pretty hard hit you took.”
“Really, I’m fine. Give me a minute, that’s all.” Ginny leaned against the wall. Somehow she had ended up on the lower edge of the stadium, the part that backed up against the fields on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The joyful throng was surging past her, carrying Ron high and singing.
Weasley can save anything,
He never leaves a single ring,
That’s why Gryffindors all sing:
Weasley is our King…
Katie seemed about to say something more, but she was swept up in a fresh wave of first-years and disappeared. The voices grew louder and louder until Ginny clamped her hands over her ears and sank against the wall. Another wave of dizziness overcame her, and when she looked up again, everyone was gone. In their excitement over Ron, the Gryffindors had left the other Weasley behind.
The spring air suddenly felt cold. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.
Ginny crept behind a little overhang where she could see but not be seen, and sat down on the smoothed dirt path. A few Hufflepuff fourth-year girls passed her, giggling about her brother; a couple of Ravenclaw boys plodded past, snarling something at each other. Almost nobody except the players used this particular exit, which went past the broom shed. Then she sensed rather than saw someone standing over her, a large body blocking the sun, shifting uncomfortably. She thought of a boy who wasn’t really very tall, who had the lithe, taut, deceptively slight build of a Seeker, who moved like a dancer. And she knew without even glancing up that whoever had come to her, it wasn’t the person she’d feared, or hoped, to see. She raised her head and looked warily at Vincent Crabbe. God, but he gets taller every single year. Although he’s stopped growing from side to side at least. I wonder where he finds a school uniform big enough? Maybe it has to be custom-made. Maybe—
He cleared his throat. “You all right, Weasley?” he asked.
She gaped at him. Of all the possible sentiments she had expected him to express, concern for her welfare had not been high on the list.
He shuffled his feet. “You t-t-took that Bludger pretty hard.”
“I’m all right,” Ginny managed to say.
“Where’s your t-t-team?”
“They, um, left.” She fought down a ridiculous urge to cry. He extended a ham-like hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. He helped her to her feet. She swayed so badly that without his help, she knew she would have fallen. Maybe I really should go to the hospital wing. But the thought was dreary beyond belief, and she felt much better after standing up.
“Just wondered,” he said awkwardly. “Well-“ He shrugged, stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled down the path. Ginny let him get ahead of her and then started walking very slowly, her mind whirling. She had a mad impulse to call Crabbe back and start asking questions. And the very first—in fact, the only one that mattered—would be, Did someone send you to me? And did he order you to find out if I was all right? Was he watching the game, and did he clench his teeth to keep from crying out when I fell? You were sitting next to him, so you must know—did he want to go to me? Did he hold himself back, and did his face show whatever emotion he might have felt? Or does he ever feel anything at all? But that was more than one question. And, knowing that question leads on to question, and that nothing good could come from any of them, Ginny lagged behind Crabbe. She waited until long after his lumbering form had disappeared down a curve in the path, and then, moving very slowly, she made her way to the Gryffindor dormitory.
As she passed under one of the big willow trees that lined the path, thinking about what had happened, Hermione stepped into her path, her face furrowed with concern.
“Ginny! I just heard that you’d been left behind, and I came back to find you; are you all right? I’ll take you to the hospital wing if you like—“
Ginny shook her head. “I’m perfectly fine. I just need to get back to my room so I can lie down and rest a bit.”
Hermione took Ginny’s arm and began guiding her back towards the castle, making little tsk-tsk sounds with her tongue. “That’s what comes of putting so much emphasis on a stupid game. I heard all about what happened. It’s horribly dangerous really. Think of all the injuries Harry’s had-“
“Heard? What do you mean, heard? You were there; didn’t you see it?”
“Well, in point of fact we didn’t.”
“We?”
“Harry and I were—ah—somewhere else.”
“What do you mean? Where’s Harry?”
“Back in the Gryffindor boys’s dormitory. He’s awfully tired and he’s asleep. Anyway, whatever made you get between Jack and Andrew like that?”
“Well, I thought—“
“Oh, don’t tell me, I already know! You wanted to create a distraction so that Ron could block Bradley’s goal. Or are you going to tell me that you can see a Snitch four hundred metres away, but you can’t see a Bludger coming at you?”
Ginny squirmed uncomfortably under her friend’s all-too-shrewd gaze.
“Honestly,” Hermione continued. “Sometimes I think the main requirement to play Quidditch must be a complete lack of common sense. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I just saw something—well, rather odd, and I was hoping you could explain what it meant.”
“Oh?” Ginny did her best to sound unconcerned, aware that she was failing miserably.
“Yes. You see--” Hermione broke off, glancing down the path towards some third-year Hufflepuffs coming towards them. “Later,” she said in an undertone.
The common room was loud and bright and made Ginny’s head ache. She gritted her teeth at the sound of all the laughing and screeching, and allowed Hermione to propel her along the wall that led to the girls’ dormitory.
“Ginny!” yelped Jack, looking up from the sofa where he was part of a large group clustered around Ron.
“We were so worried about you—“ began Katie, bustling up to her.
“Not now,” said Hermione in her bossiest voice, pulling Ginny along.
“Are you all right, though?” asked Angelina, at Katie’s side.
“She’s fine,” answered Hermione. “She just needs to rest.”
Ginny saw her brother’s head snap up when he caught sight of her, and he exclaimed, “There you are! Come on, come and sit by me—“ He started to get up and move towards her, but it was rather a difficult task with every member of Gryffindor House gathered at his feet, and Hermione waved a dismissive hand at him.
“You can see her tomorrow, Ron! Let me get her up to bed.”
Nothing had ever sounded so good to Ginny. A vision of her own bed loomed up before her, dear and infinitely desirable. She would snuggle into the fluffy coverlet and sink her head into a feather pillow and draw the gold and maroon curtains around her to shut out the world. It would be soft, warm, and oh so private, especially since every other Gryffindor was toasting Ron with pumpkin juice and singing Weasley Is Our King over and over again.
Hermione helped Ginny to remove her Quidditch uniform and put on a loose, comfortable t-shirt; all her muscles felt horribly stiff and sore suddenly, and she could hardly move. Then Ginny let herself be tucked into bed and lay back with a long sigh. Now, of course, Hermione would go. But she didn’t. The bed creaked from her weight from she sat down. Ginny cracked one eyelid to glare at her.
“I’m dreadfully sorry I can’t leave you alone just yet,” Hermione said firmly. “But I’ve got to know something first. Whatever were you doing talking to Vincent Crabbe?”
“I didn’t exactly have any choice,” Ginny mumbled. “He came up to me, you know.”
”What did he say? Did he insult you, or threaten you, or anything like that?”
“No, not at all. He asked if I was all right, and he helped me up. He asked me where my team went, as well—something I rather wondered about myself.” Ginny couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice at the last part of the sentence.
Hermione sighed. “I know. They didn’t mean anything by it, and I honestly don’t think they meant to leave you behind like that. But, well, it sounds like all anybody really noticed was that spectacular save Ron made. I don’t think anyone realized what you were trying to do, but I figured it out without even seeing it.”
“I don’t understand; where were—“
“You’re the real reason that game was won, you know,” Hermione said hurriedly.
Ginny gritted her teeth and decided to drop the subject for now. “But it meant so much to Ron,” she said. “He’s struggled all season, you know that, and Quidditch is so much more important to him than it is to me in the first place.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Hermione got a rather faraway look in her eyes for a moment. “I just worry about him sometimes—there’s something so fragile about Ron, I’ve often thought, and I wonder where that weakness might lead him—I hope nothing ever-- “ She shook herself. “The point is, I thought that maybe Malfoy had sent that gorilla, Crabbe, to threaten you or something, since he wouldn’t dare to try it himself. But you say he didn’t?”
“No,” replied Ginny. “And who’s to say Malfoy sent him anyway?”
Hermione laughed. “Do you honestly think Crabbe and Goyle ever do anything on their own? Including going to the boys’ lav?”
Ginny shrugged in a noncommittal way. That was a hard argument to dismiss. She tried to think of something else to say. “You know,” she began weakly, “maybe Malfoy isn’t really as bad as all of you seem to think.”
Hermione raised her eyebrows until they almost hit her hairline. Ginny was suddenly afraid she’d made an irrevocable mistake. “I mean,” she hastened to add, “I know he’s done some awful things this term, but I don’t see how we can say any of them are evil. There’s a big difference between being evil and acting like a spoiled brat.”
Hermione rested her chin in her hands and seemed to be considering the question seriously. “It is true that when he taunted Harry and Fred and George that time on the Quidditch pitch last winter, they didn’t have to respond the way they did. I wasn’t going to say it to Harry, of course, but he didn’t need to start punching Malfoy in the stomach over a few stupid childish insults. Harry should’ve known better, should’ve realized that Umbridge was just aching for an excuse to do what she did afterwards. Then, well, I doubt the DA would’ve been broken up if it wasn’t for Malfoy, but when you get right down to it he was just trying to get in good with Umbridge because that’s what she wanted. That’s a bit different from being an evil Death Eater, but—“ She looked at Ginny. “That’s exactly what his father is, after all. You know that.”
Ginny cleared her throat. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that his son will go the same way.”
“The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, unto the tenth generation,” murmured Hermione.
“What?”
“Nothing. I used to go to Sunday School before I ever got my Hogwarts letter, did you know? No? Well, it’s not important.” Hermione sighed and leaned back against the headboard of Ginny’s bed. “It’s strange, though.”
“What’s strange?” Ginny closed her eyes. Exhaustion had suddenly fallen on her like a weight. She really hoped that Hermione was almost done finding out whatever it was she had wanted to learn.
“Sometimes Harry talks about Malfoy the same way, these days. Oh, he still hates him, nothing’s changed about that. But I almost think Harry thinks he’s outgrown him, or that compared to everything else he faces, Malfoy is pretty insignificant.”
“Maybe that’s true,” said Ginny.
“Maybe.” Hermione shifted on the bed. “But I don’t really think so.”
“So what do you think?” Ginny decided that it would be better to find out and get it over with, and then maybe, maybe, Hermione would go away and let her sleep as she so desperately wanted to do.
“I think that in the past, Malfoy probably really was nothing more than a snarky brat. But now—“ Hermione shivered, even though the room was toasty warm. “Strange things are starting to happen, Ginny. Things are changing. And they’re going to change even more. It’s as if a darkness is rising, and something evil is coming this way, getting ready to claim its own. Do you honestly think Malfoy would fight that?”
Ginny did not answer.
Hermione rose from the bed. “Well, I didn’t mean to talk about all of this now. You really should get some sleep, Ginny.”
But after the other girl left, Ginny did not sleep for a long time.
Ron avoided her for the next several days. At last, when she was sitting by the lake and throwing scraps of bread to the giant squid, she heard his familiar footsteps, and the deep, slow intake and exhale of breath that was so uniquely his. He sounded exactly the same way he had after the time she’d caught him using her favorite doll as a Quaffle when she was eight years old and he was nine. It had taken him weeks to apologize.
“Can I sit next to you?” he mumbled.
“It’s a free country,” said Ginny.
He settled on the ground next to her, fingering the stitching on his bookbag as if it were the most interesting piece of embroidery he had ever seen.
“They told me you got hit by a Bludger, but that you wouldn’t go to the hospital wing,” he said.
“What do you mean, they told you? You were there, weren’t you? Only I wondered for the first nine-tenths of the match,” Ginny said, with a sarcasm she could not seem to keep out of her voice.
“Actually I sort of wasn’t,” he said quietly. “It was like—like all I saw was my own embarrassment. That doesn’t even make sense, does it? I mean, embarrassment’s a feeling isn’t it? It’s not as if you can really see it. But I think I did. And then, when Bradley and Chambers tried to score, and I could concentrate, just for a moment, the Quaffle was all I saw. They told me later what you did. I really didn’t see it at all.”
“Oh.” Ginny wasn’t at all sure how to respond to that.
“But I see it now,” Ron persisted. He had been staring out over the placid surface of the lake, and he turned to face her. His eyes were tense and afraid. “You won that game, Ginny. I didn’t. It took me days to realize it. Can’t believe how much time I spent bragging to everyone before I did. I think I talked Harry and Hermione’s ears off about it. But you—you were the one they should have carried on their shoulders, not me.”
Ginny sighed. This was a side of Ron that she knew he never showed to anyone else. With all the other students, he would continue to boast and brag; only to her would he reveal this vulnerable inner self. It made her oddly sad. “You did well, Ron. Don’t denigrate that. And it just didn’t matter as much to me.”
“But-“ He closed his eyes for a moment. “We left you there, and you were injured and alone—anything could have happened.”
Without needing to be told, Ginny knew that Hermione hadn’t revealed what she’d seen to Ron. Her brother didn’t know that Vincent Crabbe had so mysteriously spoken to her, and he mustn’t know, either. She would have to keep it from him, even as the other girl had done. “But I’m all right now,” she whispered. She laid her head on her brother’s shoulder, and felt the warm wind play with her hair. Ron didn’t speak for a long time.
“Remember when that bully pushed you off the merry-go-round at the playground, when you were five?” he said. “And you cried, and cried, and tried to hit me. Your face was covered with dirt, I remember, and you’d knocked a tooth out…”
“It was already loose,” said Ginny. Ron ignored her.
“And I understood, Ginny. I understood why. It was because I hadn’t protected you. I was your big brother, and I was supposed to, and I hadn’t. You wouldn’t let me touch you or take you home, and it was like you’d ripped a hole in my chest. I started to cry, too.”
“And then you just flew at that bully,” Ginny remembered. “I’d forgotten about that. I think he broke one of your arms, didn’t he?”
Ron nodded. “Mum fixed it. Fixed your face, as well. But I never forgot, Ginny, that all you kept saying, over and over again, was, ‘Why’d you let him hurt me, Ron? You weren’t supposed to let anybody hurt me.’ You sounded so bewildered, so lost. I’ve always remembered it.”
Once again, Ginny was unsure of how to respond. She settled for smoothing her brother’s hair down where the wind was whirling it into crimson cowlicks, and he closed his eyes and leaned against her. Both of them were silent for a long time.
“I’ve always tried to protect you, Ginny,” he finally murmured. “Always. And I always will.”
History of Magic went on as usual.
The class was perhaps three percent awake, although Colin Creevey’s snoring grew louder with each passing moment and continued to bring the average down. The late afternoon sun was glinting through an open window in streaks of peach and gold, and a subtly scented breeze brought in spring flowers. Ginny played with a strand of her hair, turning it this way and that so that the sun’s rays set it afire. Professor Binns was droning on and on, as he would probably continue to do through flood, fire, and rains of frogs. The monotonous sound would have been enough to send anyone to sleep all by itself. Even if the subject matter had been interesting, which, Ginny decided, it definitely was not. She might have fallen asleep herself—she hadn’t been sleeping particularly well lately—but something about the warm June air was keeping her awake, and oddly alert. Nothing to concentrate on but Binns’ voice, though, and it was so like a droning gadfly.
“In the case of worldwide megalithic developments,” the professor was saying in a grey voice that, as always, sounded as if it had been unearthed from a tomb, “one must consider their common threads. Far flung as it may seem to run a comparative analysis of Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Gaza, Anghkor Wat and Anghkor Thom, and the Mammoth cave system of Kentucky and Tennessee, such comparisons can profitably be made.”
The Pyramids of Gaza… Ginny’s attention was caught for a moment. She remembered the time her family had visited Egypt, the summer before her second year at Hogwarts. She’d been so ill almost the entire time, getting dragged out only for the family pictures. The mediwizards there had said that she was unusually sensitive to the lines of force running between Khufre and the Sphinx. Professor Binns started droning about new geological theories related to water-weathering, however, and her attention began to wander again. She looked out the window at the Quidditch pitch, which she could just glimpse from here. Maybe she’d take a broom out after dinner and fly a little. During these June days, the sunlight lingered for a long time, and nobody was ever there now that the season was over. She might be alone. Or she might see-
"--Draco,” said the dull, dusty voice. Professor Binns looked up, and his insubstantial eyebrows raised slightly at the crashing noise Ginny had made. “Miss, er, Weasmont? Is there a problem?”
“Dropped a quill, Professor,” Ginny gasped.
“Hum.” The ghost cleared his throat, or at least made a gesture that amounted to the same thing, and then continued. “As I was saying, the ancient Cambodian megalithic cities of Anghkor Wat and Anghkor Thom are built in such a way as to mimic the constellation Draco. But the truly interesting thing from a scholar’s point of view is that all megaliths appear to have been built in the same manner, even those located across the earth from Cambodia. Most commonly, they mirror the star systems of Leo and Draco. Although many Muggles are aware of the fact that the heelstone at Stonehenge is aligned with the sun at both its winter and summer solstices, only wizards know that those two constellations are also of great significance to this megalithic site in Wiltshire. But the truly curious point is that of timing. However, I’m afraid that we will need to skip over this aspect, and move on to—“
“Please, sir,” Ginny interrupted.
“Yes?” Professor Binns looked utterly befuddled, as if he had just now realized that there were actually several dozen students sitting in front of him and one of them had dared to speak.
“I’d like to hear about the—uh- timing you mentioned. What is it that’s timed? Why is it important? It’d be interesting to know.”
“Interesting.” The ghost teacher repeated the unfamiliar word. “Very well. I suppose a few minutes might be spared. Five thousand years ago, the brightest star in the Draco constellation occupied the same position in the sky that Stella Polaris—the so-called North Star—does today. In precisely four and a half years, at the winter equinox, such will again be the case. Caput Draconis will point to magnetic north. This most likely has no meaning for either magical folk or Muggles, but there are a number of strange legends regarding an unimaginable concentration of power that might—with the proper ritual, and in the proper megalithic location—be released at that moment.” Professor Binns rustled the papers at his desk. “Now I believe we’ve wasted enough words on myth today; it is past time to return to the world of unassailable fact. We have covered goblin rebellions in England, France, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Greece, Lichtenstein, Siberia, Vatican City, and Monaco, but many gaps remain in our understanding—dear, dear, I’d hoped to be further along by this point in the year. Open your books to page two thousand, three hundred and fifty-five as we begin to examine the history of goblins in Outer Mongolia. In the year 567 A.D, the hobgoblin Attaturk Og entered trade negotiations with—“
Ginny walked out of class slowly, her mind whirling, chasing down dozens of separate scraps of information that seemed to be blowing away from her in a high wind. Draco. She should have known that he’d been named after the constellation; from Sirius to Andromeda to Regulus, the Black family loved those names. But what could it possibly mean that all these megalithic sites of great power were patterned after that same constellation? Or that the opposing group of stars that also formed their structure was Leo, the lion of Gryffindor? And there was something else, too, some other, more specific connection between the Malfoys and everything she had just heard. Something she could almost think of, almost remember, and something that she was sure she knew. But cudgel her brain as she might, it would not come to her.
Ginny didn’t realize that her steps were leading towards the Quidditch pitch until she looked up and saw the broom shed to one side of the path. Ron had specifically said that he wanted her back for dinner, as she’d been missing too many meals. Well, if he didn’t like it, he could lump it. She desperately needed the freedom of flying for a bit. Ginny picked out an old Shooting Star and kicked it into the air. The sun sunk low in the blue, blue sky, and she swooped and dove with abandon.
She had just finished weaving in and out of the goalposts when she saw him. Without the faintest sense of surprise, she pulled her broom up close to his. They looked at each other without speaking for several long moments.
Draco Malfoy had his back to the sun, and the orange light touched his silvery hair with gold. His face was cast into shadow. Not that Ginny fooled herself into believing that she could have figured out whatever he was thinking anyway.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Flying,” he answered. He moved his broom aside a little, and light spilled onto his face. Ginny caught her breath. He looked desperately weary. There was purple shadows under his eyes, and his cheekbones were more prominent than before, as if he’d lost weight in the last weeks. But his expression was as closed as ever. She knew she’d get nothing more out of him.
He threw something up in the air, something golden with whirring silver wings. “Want to play?”
“That’s a Snitch, isn’t it?” Ginny asked.
“Ah, ten points to Weasley. Good thing, too. You’ll need the head start.” His smile mocked her, as it always had. “A little pick-up game. If you’ve got the guts.”
An unwilling smile touched her own lips. “You’re on.”
Malfoy was a better Seeker than anyone she’d ever seen, except maybe Harry. And he wasn’t playing to his full capacity, or the game would have been over in about fifteen seconds. Ginny figured both of these points out rather quickly. She raced after the Snitch, feinted and blocked, went into sudden dives and leveled out, and did every acrobatic trick she had ever learned or practiced. He shadowed her every move with almost insulting ease, that half-smile always on his lips. He always held back at the last second, when he could have so easily caught the golden ball they were both pursuing.
“It’s more sporting that way,” he explained idly, during a brief break.
Ginny was trying to catch her breath. “That’s what I think too,” she gasped as sweetly as she could. “Considering that I’m still going to beat you.”
“Now, now, Weasley,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “We’re talking about what’s going to happen in this universe, not an alternate one… several million light years away… where the earth is ruled by mentally deficient amoebas…and your family actually has money and class…”
She grabbed at the Snitch too soon and her hands closed on air; she went into a barrel roll around her broom and barely caught herself.
“Temper, temper,” he chided, and zoomed towards the elusive flash of gold.
They played until the last lights faded from the sky. As soon as Ginny began to grow dizzy and tired, and to think longingly of the standing rib roast and mashed potatoes that she had missed at the Gryffindor table that night, Malfoy ended it. She had been sailing towards one of the goalposts, sure she saw the Snitch about to go through the left hoop. Her hands had been extended and she’d been crouching on the end of her broom; she almost had it… almost… Until, with apparent ease, Malfoy came out of nowhere and made a three-sixty turn around her, laughing, hovering upside down at her eye level. Except that his face hadn’t been the part of him that was right in front of her nose. And his school robes were hanging down, and his light summer trousers were very tight and tailored in back. While she was blinking at this unexpectedly interesting part of his anatomy, his hand flashed out and grabbed something that had been buzzing above her head. He turned back around so that he was right-side up to show her the Snitch fluttering in his left hand.
“Not very observant today, are we?” Malfoy said.
“You—ooh!”
“Or did you have something more interesting to look at?” His smile—and yes, for once, it was a smile, not a smirk—became positively devilish. Then he threw the Snitch up in the air in a lightning-quick motion and caught it again. And Ginny’s breath caught in her throat, because the last rays of the setting sun were directly behind him and he was all gold, a laughing golden boy hovering before her on a summer’s night when the air was warm and scented with flowers and anything, absolutely anything, might happen. His face came closer. His lips opened.
“Race you to the broom shed,” Malfoy said.
“Oooh!” Ginny clenched her hands into fists and spurred her broom.
She actually did win that race. She wasn’t at all sure how that had happened, but perhaps her temper lent her pokey broom wings. Ginny was restacking her Shooting Star at the back of the shed when the door opened again, then creaked closed. Footsteps came towards her in the darkness.
“I won, you know,” she said, her voice sounding very loud in the shed. There was nobody in it except for them, of course.
“I know you did,” said Malfoy. It was almost completely dark, only a faint shaft of light coming in under the closed door, and his disembodied voice made her jump. “Do you want your prize?”
“Light a light, Malfoy,” said Ginny, wishing that her voice didn’t tremble so.
“Of course, if you like. Lumos.” His wand flared, illuminating the shed with a soft glow. “Now, do you want your prize?” He advanced towards her.
Ginny forced herself to stand her ground. “What is it?” she asked in a voice that wavered only a little.
Malfoy pulled an apple from a pocket of his robes. “Sorry this isn’t a three-course meal. But it’ll have to do.”
“Oh.” Ginny stepped forward and took it from his hand. “Thanks,” she added awkwardly. She sat down on a bench and bit deeply into the apple’s rosy-red side. The sweet tangy juice gushed out over her lips. It was delicious.
He sat next to her and began eating as well. His apple was golden and smelled more tart, a little more astringent. His sharp white teeth tore into it, biting away large chunks. Ginny wished she could stop looking at Malfoy’s mouth, especially when he glanced up and caught her at it.
“Want a bite?”
“Oh, no—no, that’s all right, mine was fine.”
“This one was bigger than yours. I suppose as the winner you should have gotten it, really.”
“I already know how selfish you are, Malfoy,” Ginny said tartly.
One corner of his mouth went up. “Sure you don’t want a bit more?”
Actually, she did, and her mouth watered. He edged the apple closer to her face. She could see the indentations left by his teeth in its ivory-white flesh. The sweet lemony smell came closer and closer. “Maybe just one bite…” she said slowly. He pushed it into her mouth and she bit, her tongue running over the place where his mouth had marked it.
“One more…” Ginny wasn’t even sure if he, or she, had said those words. She bit again.
Then again. Then she found that she was licking at his fingers. She had bitten through the apple core. She tried to jerk back. The wand flickered low and went almost dark. Somehow Malfoy’s hand had gotten around her waist and was pulling her even closer to him. His mouth smelled like the apple, tart and sweet all at once, and it was coming so close to hers that she could hear each of his breaths. She knew that she should back away, but she did not. Her eyes went wide, and she looked at him almost pleadingly. Then they closed. There was only smell and touch left to her out of all the sensations, and the warmth of his lips coming closer and closer and closer.
Then the door banged open, and they jumped apart. Ginny looked up.
Pansy Parkinson stood in the doorway of the broom shed.
Ginny never knew how she got back to her dormitory. Nor did she ever remember what Parkinson said, or what Malfoy did. She only knew that somehow she was lying in her bed and staring up at the ceiling, her mind utterly blank. Except for one thought. Don’t let Ron find out. Don’t let Ron find out. Oh, dear Merlin, don’t let Ron ever, ever find out.
She slept long and dreamlessly that night, and when she awoke, the entire incident had already taken on a dreamlike quality. As the next days passed and Malfoy’s cold grey eyes glanced over her in the halls as if she were a piece of furniture, it began to seem like a thing that had never happened. And she was sure that she would never speak to him again, nor he to her.
Ginny was glad that Ron and Harry and Hermione were completely obsessed with the coming O.W.L’s, or at least one of them would have noticed that something was wrong with her. She slept little and ate less; her robes hung loose on her body, and she asked Madam Pomfrey for a sleeping draught after a week of tossing and turning in bed at night. But she only woke up groggy and grumpy after taking it, and she poured the rest of it down the sink. She’d get through. It was only a question of forgetting, now. It wasn’t as if anything more was ever going to happen between her and Draco Malfoy, after all.
Much later, Ginny could only be grateful that she had not known what lay ahead.
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