CHAPTER FOUR
Weasley was true to her word, even if that word had been rather lukewarm. I’ll do what I can. Draco knew some of the Slytherins didn’t think it was enough. Some of them had looked frustrated at her pronouncement; others merely shook their heads, as though they hadn’t expected anything better.
Draco, on the other hand, was pleased they’d gotten that much from her. And over the next few weeks, it proved useful. He heard from other Slytherins that Ginny had taken to stepping in when they were being bullied or provoked, when she saw it happening in the corridors and on the grounds. He’d also seen her hanging out with Daphne and her crowd a few times, in the library and outside during free times.
She might have only said she would do what she could, but it seemed to be working. At least a little. In the meantime, Draco had begun to turn his focus elsewhere.
He was beginning to have definite suspicions about Blaise Zabini. He understood why Goyle had come back to school this year—honestly, even if last year had been perfectly normal, Goyle probably could have used a repeat year to get any N.E.W.T.s. Daphne, he understood, had come back because of her sister, and Bulstrode did whatever Daphne did. Davis had missed out last year entirely because she was Muggleborn. And of course, Draco knew why he himself had returned.
That left only Blaise. Who, for all his bluster, probably did not need a job. More importantly, Draco had begun to realize he didn’t even need classes. Not to achieve his N.E.W.T.s. Because Blaise was a bloody genius.
Draco was not sure why he had never realized it before, given that they had shared so many classes for seven years. Maybe it was just that Draco had not ever paid Blaise much attention, concerning himself with only Crabbe and Goyle and, well, frankly, with himself. Or maybe it was because there were so fewer of them this year. But as the weeks slid by, getting closer to the Christmas holidays, Draco began to keep an eye on Blaise. And he had begun to realize that Blaise did not need his classes. His potions were perfect, even when he seemed to pay no attention to Slughorn, and he aced everything in Ancient Runes, even though Draco had never seen him crack open a book on the subject. In fact, Draco never saw him studying at all. He was always chatting with girls in the common room or lounging outside when the weather was not too cold or reading books in the dormitory—not school books, but books for pleasure.
There were a few times, Draco noted, when Blaise disappeared completely. When Draco could not find him in the common room, or in the library or the Great Hall, and it was always in the evening, when it was dark out, so he wouldn’t have been outside on the grounds. Draco watched him at it enough to identify exactly when it was he was disappearing—every Tuesday night and Friday night. One night, he even came back to the dormitory quite late, after everyone else was asleep—everyone except Draco, who was only feigning sleep.
It was definitely dodgy, and it had Draco worried. Someone, after all, had helped outsiders get into the common room. Most people just assumed some poor Slytherin had been threatened or bewitched into giving out the password, which was likely. And Draco could not really think why Blaise should have wanted the common room messed up, but then, he also hadn’t seemed very surprised when it happened. And of all the Slytherins, he was one of the few who didn’t really have any tale to tell about being targeted or bullied. And Draco was beginning to think there was a reason why.
Of course, when he explained all this to Ginny Weasley, a week before Christmas holidays, she thought he was mad. “You’re saying he wanted someone to muck up your common room? But why? It’s his common room too.”
“Well, I don’t know, Weasley.” Draco was a bit peeved that she didn’t find his suspicions believable. “Maybe he didn’t want it to happen, but just made a deal with someone. You know, no one messes with him, and in exchange he gave them the password.”
Weasley still looked unconvinced. “That seems a little far-fetched, Malfoy. Whoever did it probably just intimidated some first year into giving up the password.”
Draco suppressed an aggravated sigh. “Yes, that’s the popular theory. But I think Zabini is up to something. I don’t know, maybe it has nothing to do with the common room, but don’t you think we should find out what he’s doing?”
“We? We?”
“Well, why I do you think I’m telling you all this? We’re not exactly pals, are we?”
They were not, though an outside spectator might have thought they were, given they were sitting together in the library. Draco had interrupted Weasley in the middle of her Muggle Studies essay, apparently, which maybe explained her irritation with him now.
Ginny sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, just because I agreed to start sticking up for you lot—”
“And you’ve done a bang-up job too, Weasley,” Draco said, striving for a pleasant tone. Perhaps some easy flattery would win her over.
Judging by the look she gave him, perhaps not. “I can’t help but feel that this is you acting out of boredom, Malfoy. I mean, I suppose this is what you Slytherins get up to in your free time? Spying on each other, plotting against one another?”
Draco opened his mouth to remind her not to be so prejudiced, but then paused, thinking it over. The fact was, she was sort of right. Well, not about his being bored, but about what Slytherins liked to get up to in their free time. “Look, just come with me on Friday night. He’s been sneaking out of the common room and coming back very late, and I want to know where he’s going.”
“Why not just do it yourself? Why do I have to come?”
“Going by myself, that’s not very prudent,” Draco scoffed. “What if something happened to me?”
“So I’m your protection, is that it?”
“There is a bonus in it for you, you know.”
“Which is what? Spending time with your illustrious self?”
Draco struggled not to respond with a jibe of his own. “No. You’ll get to see the Slytherin common room. The actual Slytherin common room.”
Her eyebrow hitched at that. “What? Why?”
“Because,” Draco said, a little resigned—the Slytherin common room was sacred, after all, but then, Weasley had already seen it when it was defaced, “I’m fairly certain Blaise has been sneaking out using the secret passage that leads out from inside it.”
*****
On Friday night, at eleven o’clock, Draco slipped quietly out of his dormitory, ignoring Harper’s stare. Goyle and Vaisey were both asleep, but Cole was awake reading. Still, it was not so suspicious, Draco leaving the dormitory, though he supposed Cole might be wondering why Draco was fully dressed in trousers and a button-down.
Thankfully, there was no one left down in the common room; some might still be awake, like Harper, but up in their dormitories by now. Draco slid open the entrance to the common room and poked his head outside. “Weasley?”
The wall across from him seemed to…ripple…and then, there was Weasley, the Disillusionment Charm she’d cast on herself fading off. “About time, Malfoy,” she groused.
“Just get in here.”
She did so, and Draco closed the entrance behind her. He still felt vaguely like a traitor, and was a little annoyed when all Weasley did was cast a barely interested glance around the room and said, “So? Where is this secret passage?”
Draco threw her a disgruntled look. “This way.”
As he led her towards the back of the room, Ginny said, “Explain something to me, Malfoy.”
“What?”
“Well, if there is a secret passageway leading out from your common room, don’t you think whoever mucked it up might’ve gotten in through it?”
“Even if they did, they still needed the password.” Draco stopped by a large bookcase backed into an alcove, catercorner to the corridor that led to the dormitories. “You can’t get back through without it. Anyhow, hardly anyone knows about this passage, not even most of the Slytherins.” He frowned as he pulled out a series of seemingly random books on the shelf. “I certainly didn’t think Zabini knew about it.”
He pulled out the last book and the bookcase moved, slowly shuddering inward—and revealing the long, dark passageway behind it, leading out of the castle.
Ginny peered into the darkness. “Where does it go? Not out the castle, surely. You could’ve used it to get the Death Eaters in.”
Draco swallowed at her casual mention of what he’d done sixth year, trying not to let any discomfort show on his face. “It only goes to the boathouse. It’s not far, come on.”
They both took out their wands and lit them, then ventured into the darkness. The passageway was stone all the way around, carefully built and not just carved out of the earth. It was also cold; sturdy though the walls seemed to be, they obviously had not been built to protect against the outside air, which was positively frigid. Draco kept his free hand stuffed in his pocket, wishing he’d brought gloves and a coat, or at least a jumper, like Weasley had.
“So,” Draco said, after a few minutes’ silence, “why did you and Potter break up?”
Even in the dim light of his wand, Draco noticed the way Weasley stiffened. The look she shot him over her shoulder was scathing. “What do you care?”
Draco shrugged. “It’s something to talk about.” Maybe it was just that he still loathed Potter, just a bit, and wanted to gloat. Silently, of course.
“Why do we have to talk at all?”
“Well, it is very dark and gloomy down here, Weasley, and the silence only makes it more so.”
Weasley’s voice turned scornful. “Scared of the dark, Malfoy?”
“No.”
Silence fell again. Then, to Draco’s surprise, Ginny said in a curt tone, “We argued. I said some things I shouldn’t have, he said some things he shouldn’t have. That was before term started. We haven’t spoken since.”
She did not say, Draco noted, what they’d argued about. “So that’s it? You’re done, just like that?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just doesn’t sound very final, is all. You don’t think you’ll patch things up?”
“I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you,” Weasley grumbled. Possibly not for his ears, but he heard all the same. “You sound like Greengrass.”
“Astoria?”
“Daphne. She practically asked for my permission to ask Harry out herself.”
That should’ve surprised Draco, maybe, but then, Daphne was like a female Blaise. Pansy had once called Blaise “hard to please,” but he wasn’t at all. (Draco was pretty sure Pansy had only said that because Blaise had spurned her, at some point.) “What did you tell her?” Draco asked, referring to Daphne.
“I told her he seems rather too busy for dating while he’s training to work with the Aurors, but that if she really was interested, she might catch him in Hogsmeade next term.” She sounded wholly unruffled, as though she really didn’t care if Daphne asked Potter out. “Him and Ron will probably come to visit Hermione, if they can get away.”
Draco mulled this over. “Hmm.”
Weasley’s shoulders tensed in the light of his wand. “What?”
“It just doesn’t sound like you’re very invested in mending things with him, is all.”
“Well, maybe I’m not, Malfoy! And what business is it of yours, anyway?” Before he could make a response, she changed tack. “Why did you come back to Hogwarts, and in the middle of term, no less?”
“What?” Draco was not prepared for such a question. “What does that matter?”
“It’s something to talk about,” she said snidely.
“Oh, well played, Weasley,” Draco muttered.
“Well, you said Blaise didn’t have a real reason to come back, but what about you? You surely could’ve managed your N.E.W.T.s already, Hermione said you’ve always been one of the top students in your year.”
Draco felt as though he’d been smacked around the head. “She said what?” It was true, of course, but he never would have imagined Granger might pay him a compliment.
“And it’s not like you’re going to do anything with your N.E.W.T.s,” she went on. “So? Why come back, then?” She said this flippantly, as though it were nothing to her, but Draco thought he detected an edge to her voice.
He considered telling her it was none of her business, just as she had done. But then, she had let on a little bit about Potter, so, he thought grudgingly, perhaps he’d do the same. He was trying to demonstrate that he wasn’t a totally awful human being, after all. “I came back because I had to get away from my parents,” he said. “For a short while, at least.” That was only part of the truth, but he wasn’t going to share everything with her. She hadn’t, after all.
“Why?”
Draco twisted his mouth. He really did not want to think about this, let alone talk about it, so he said it very fast. “Because they won’t shut up acting like it’s such a tragedy, that the Dark—that Voldemort was defeated, and I couldn’t stand listening to them anymore.”
A stunned silence followed this proclamation. Then Weasley said—quite softly— “And you….don’t agree with them.”
Draco gazed at the back of her head, and wondered what he would have to do to ever be good enough in her eyes. “Not anymore.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Do you really think your precious Potter would’ve spoken for me if I did?”
Ginny did not answer that. Draco, for some reason, couldn’t stand her silence.
“I grew up believing all that,” he admitted. “And when my father was sent to Azkaban, I was—I was angry. Enough to take the Dark Mark. But once I actually saw what it all meant…” His voice turned hoarse. “I didn’t want any part of it.” Can’t you believe that? he wanted to add.
That was why he’d asked her to come with him, he realized. That was why he’d spoken to her that day in the entrance hall and asked her to come get her scarf with him, that was why he’d brought her to meet with the Slytherins. Because at some point, Ginny Weasley had become the goal. The line by which he judged himself. If he could just prove to her, make her see that he was not all bad, and that he could come back from everything he’d done…then maybe it was possible. It was a challenge, of sorts, but it was something Draco desperately needed.
Maybe it was because of the way she’d looked at him, that day she’d bumped into him, his first week back. She’d condemned him with that look. And ever since then, he just wanted to prove to her that she was wrong. Because he needed her to be wrong.
He didn’t know how he could go on living if she wasn’t.
“So you came back,” Ginny said, bringing him out of this thoughts. “And yet, you don’t seem to have any friends left here.”
“It’s still better than the alternative.” That was sort of sad to admit, but it was true.
“Although,” Weasley said, her voice echoing off the stone walls and floating back to Draco, “it’s odd. They didn’t seem happy about it, but when we met with your House in the Room of Requirement, they all looked to you. They listened to you. Why is that?”
“Force of habit,” Draco said gloomily. He didn’t delude himself into thinking they actually respected him.
“I’m serious, Malfoy.”
“So am I. They were scared and they wanted someone to do something about it, and I was the only one offering any real suggestions. It doesn’t mean they like me any better.” Draco squinted ahead. “Do you see the end up there? I think we must be near the boathouse.”
Weasley raised her wand a little higher. “I think it’s just ahead. Where does it come out to, exactly?”
“There’s some stairs at the end of the tunnel here, comes out to a trapdoor in the boathouse supply closet.”
They reached the stairs at the end of the tunnel in less than a minute. The stairs were stone too, but narrow and built into the sloping wall, more like ladder rungs than stairs. So Weasley tucked her wand away as she climbed up, while Draco held his wand up high to light her way. At the top of the steps, she reached up with one hand and pushed open the trapdoor. Once she’d vanished through it, Draco climbed up behind her. Weasley didn’t bother to light his way, so he spent the first few steps stumbling and cursing on the stairs. Then—just below the top—a light flickered on above him. Weasley must have lit a lantern or something in the closet.
As he emerged above the trapdoor, into the closet, he saw that there was a lantern lit, sitting on the floor beside him. By its light, he watched as Weasley fumbled with the closet’s doorknob. “It’s locked,” she muttered, and pointed her wand at it. “Alohomora.”
The latch clicked open. Weasley twisted the knob and stepped out into the boathouse.
Then there was a loud snap, and Weasley vanished with a sharp cry.
“Weasley? Weasley! Shit.” Yanking out his wand, Draco scrambled out through the trapdoor, kicking it shut behind him. His stomach tight with dread, he took a step forward, wand raised, into the doorway. “Weasley?”
She hadn’t actually vanished into thin air. This was some relief, but it was a short-lived spark, because instead, she was hanging from the boathouse ceiling, wrapped in a tight web of netting. And also, she was flipping out.
“Get it off me, get me down!” she cried, her voice high and thin with panic. “Help me, Malfoy!”
“Well, hold still.” Draco raised his wand, but she was wriggling so much that he couldn’t aim properly. The netting was thin, and it would be easy to hit her instead of it with his Severing Charm.
“Get me down, get it off, get me down now!” Weasley sounded not at all like herself, on the verge of tears. Tears of pure, undiluted fear.
“I’m trying, stop moving,” Draco growled, squinting. It didn’t help that there was very little light to see by, just the lantern on the floor behind him and another dimly glowing lantern on the far side of the boathouse. He moved forward and around, coming almost beneath her to see better. “Merlin, Weasley, calm down.”
“Malfoy, please,” she begged, her voice cracking.
“Piss it,” Draco muttered. She didn’t sound like she cared if he accidentally hurt her. Taking the best aim he could, he said, “Diffindo.”
A great rent in the netting opened up and Weasley fell, tumbling through the hole—and crashing into him. Draco’s knees went out from under him and he sprawled flat onto his back. He fell so hard that all the breath whooshed out of him, and for a few seconds, he lay on the boathouse floor, struggling for air, black spots dotting his vision.
“Get if off me, get it off, off—”
“Merlin—” Malfoy gasped, as his vision cleared. Weasley had fallen on top of him with one of her knees pinning him down and digging into his middle. Some of the netting had come with her when she fell—just a scrap—overlaying her arm and shoulder, but she was still in such a panic to get it off that she couldn’t seem to manage it.
“Get it off—” she moaned again, a note of hysteria in her voice.
“Weasley, stop, stop.” Malfoy sat up as far as he could to tear the scrap of netting off her and fling it away. Then, because she was still hyperventilating, he grabbed her by the arms and said, “Ginny. Stop.”
Ginny sucked in a huge breath and slumped forward, all the fight gone out of her. She placed a hand on his chest to anchor herself, and her fingers trembled against him. “Malfoy—”
“Merlin, calm down, Weasley.” He tried to inject some irritation into these words, but he couldn’t. Seeing her so shaken, so unlike herself, had shaken him, and he didn’t know what to do or say. “What is wrong with you?”
“I—nothing.” Her fingers dug into his chest, but Draco thought she was just trying to steady herself, not hurt him. He watched as she gulped a deep breath, this one longer and slower. Her long hair was mussed from her tussle with the netting, falling down over her face like a curtain, and in the dim light of the lanterns, it was the color of burnished copper. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she repeated, as though trying to convince herself. “Why are you staring at me?”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “You’re sitting on top of me. Bit hard to look anywhere else.”
“Oh.” Draco felt her move, but all she did was shift her weight, her left leg slipping off him. Now she was straddling him, albeit lopsidedly. “Right.”
She didn’t move, didn’t try to stand. Maybe she couldn’t. Draco could still feel her shaking, and her face was pasty white. For several long seconds, she just stared at him, and he at her. Her fingers were entrenched in the folds of his shirt, kneading his chest, and Draco suddenly realized he was still holding her arms, and how close she was…
It swept over him then, unexpected but vehement. The desire to kiss her.
As though reading his mind, Ginny jerked away from him, sitting up straight and wrenching out of his grip. Draco felt absurd; had he actually just thought he wanted to kiss her? It was only because she was on top of him, he told himself, and what else was he supposed to think, with her face inches away from his…
“Who left that here?” Ginny asked as she slowly, arduously, climbed off him. Draco winced, his back aching and his head pounding from where it had smacked into the floor. “That net—”
“Seemed like a modified Binding Spell,” Draco said, as he pushed himself onto his elbows. “Left behind as a trap by…” A trap. Shit. “Blaise.” Draco clambered to his feet, ignoring the little aches and pains that followed. “Come on, we have to hurry. It might have been a warning for him, he might’ve just been here—”
Without waiting to see if Weasley followed, he darted out of the boathouse.
The night outside was black and beastly cold. Draco wished more than ever that he’d thought to bring a coat, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. He turned left and right, eyes scanning the grounds, the Quidditch pitch in the distance, Hagrid’s cabin across the way, and—
There. On the winding path up to the castle, Draco saw them—two figures, one tall and the other smaller, both fleeing into the darkness. If it weren’t for the torches lit along the path, he probably couldn’t have seen them at all, not in this dark. “Hey!” he shouted. “Stop there!” He tore off after them, pulling his wand from his pocket.
“Malfoy, wait—” he heard Weasley gasp, but he didn’t stop as he sprinted up the path. The taller of the two figures ahead was a good thirty meters away, but the other, smaller figure was lagging behind.
Taking careful aim with his wand, he shouted, “Petrificus Totalus!”
There was a short shriek, abruptly cut off as the person he hit stiffened like a board and toppled over. Up ahead, the taller figure looked back and stuttered to a halt.
“Damn it, Draco!” the figure yelled. It was Blaise. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Draco didn’t answer—he was too busy trying to catch his breath as he ran towards the person he’d cursed. Whoever it was, Blaise reached them first, stumbling back down the path. With a flick of his wand, he removed Draco’s Body-Bind, and the smaller figure—a girl, Draco realized—sat up slowly.
“Are you all right?” Blaise demanded, his voice unusually anxious. Blaise was never anxious. He was always cool, composed.
“I think so.” The girl stood, gingerly touching the side of her face. Then she turned to Draco. “What the hell, Malfoy!”
A few meters short of them, Draco finally stopped, inhaling deeply. He stared at the girl, recognizing her. “What…the hell…is right.”
A flurry of pounding footsteps and heavy breathing alerted him to Weasley’s arrival. “What…” Her hair was wilder than ever, and her face was still a little white, but her focus was entirely on the two people before them. “Parvati?”
The girl—Parvati Patil, of all people—shook her head. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing out here, Ginny? And with him?” She flung an arm towards Draco.
Ginny gawked at Parvati. “I could ask you the same question!” She gestured feebly towards Blaise. “And at this time of night—”
Draco leaned over and heaved in a huge breath, filling his lungs with air. Then he straightened and began to laugh.
Weasley whirled on him, annoyance imprinted on her face. “What is so funny, you prat!”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Draco nodded between Blaise and Patil, the former who looked chagrined and the latter who was turning red. “They snuck out here to meet each other. Unless—hang on…” Draco looked at Blaise. “You didn’t actually bring her through the common room, did you? Through the secret passage? What the hell, you wanker, are we just letting anyone into the common room now?”
Blaise said icily, “You obviously did the same thing, Draco.”
“Yes, so we could figure out what you were up to, not so I could snog her!”
Only then did Weasley catch on. Her jaw dropped. “Wait—you don’t mean—” She looked between Blaise and Patil.
“You and him? Oh my god, Parvati!”
Draco would have laughed at how scandalized she sounded if he didn’t feel a bit scandalized himself. “She’s a Gryffindor.”
“Excuse me? Hark who’s talking!” Blaise shot back, looking at Ginny.
“I told you, we were following you, you git!” Draco snapped. “I thought you were up to something, you’ve been acting so dodgy, and I couldn’t figure out why you were back at school when you obviously didn’t need…hang on.” Draco frowned. “You didn’t—don’t tell me she’s the reason you came back this year? You came back for a girl?”
Zabini scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked away, but Patil didn’t share his embarrassment. She stepped forward, coming face to face with Draco. “Yes, he did.” She raised her chin at him. “Because I asked him to. And he doesn’t care that I’m a Gryffindor and I don’t care that he’s a Slytherin! Isn’t that all a little juvenile?”
“Yeah,” said Blaise, recovering himself a bit. “Anyway, she is a pureblood, and not the biggest blood traitor around, like Weasley over there.”
Predictably, both Weasley and Patil looked outraged by this. Ginny settled for glaring at Blaise, but Patil whirled on him. “What the hell does that matter? If she’s a blood traitor and I’m a pureblood?”
“It doesn’t.” Blaise took a step back, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. “Doesn’t matter at all. I don’t care. I was just…saying. Because, you know, Malfoy cares.”
Draco rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Don’t presume to know what I do and don’t care about, Blaise. I certainly don’t care who you date—”
“Didn’t sound like it before,” Blaise cut in.
“—and I certainly don’t care what Weasley is since, as I said, we aren’t dating.”
“Oh, really?” Blaise’s dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. He turned to look at Ginny. “So you’re out here with him…why? Because he thought I was up to something? Why did that require your presence?”
“Well—because—” Ginny scowled. “Because it’s the middle of the night, and it didn’t seem like a good idea for him to go by himself! Anyway, if you were up to something, I wanted to know too—”
“Of course you did,” Zabini sneered. “Look, just admit it, Draco. You’ve always thought Weasley was attractive—”
“What?” Draco spluttered. To his horror, he felt his cheeks grow warm. “No, I haven’t!”
“Please.” Blaise rolled his eyes. “Half the school has fancied her since our fifth year, and you’re no exception—”
“Well, neither are you!” Draco retorted, and then froze. Had he just admitted he fancied Weasley? Did he fancy Weasley? She was attractive, sure, that much was obvious, but he didn’t like her…
Patil was eyeing Blaise with suspicion. “Is that true? You think Ginny is attractive?”
Blaise coughed. “Well—”
“Okay,” Ginny said loudly. Draco shot her a sidelong glance and saw that she had recovered some of the color in her cheeks, though perhaps she was simply blushing. “If we’re done talking about who does and doesn’t think I’m attractive—and if that’s all we’re going to talk about, which seems likely, since apparently all we’ve done is interrupt your snog session—then I am going to go. Back. To the school.” And without a glance at Draco, she turned and headed towards the boathouse.
Draco hurried after her. “Weasley, wait—”
She spun around and pinned him with a glare. “Leave me alone, Malfoy. I think you’ve wasted enough of my time tonight.”
“I know, but—”
“We are not friends. You know that, don’t you?” She marched towards him. “We are not anything.” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “In fact, I loathe you.”
Draco’s felt as though something had clamped around his heart. “I’m aware.”
“Good. So just—leave me alone.” Then she turned her back on him and continued down the path, stomping all the way.
Draco stared after her. After a few seconds, Blaise came into his line of sight, with Patil at his side.
“She’s going to need the password,” Draco said. His voice was hoarse in the cold air. “To get back in.”
“We’ll see to it.” Blaise looked at him, his face a picture of puzzled amusement. “You’d best hang back for a bit. Doesn’t seem like she wants to see you, Draco.”
He and Parvati started down the path after Weasley. Draco’s gaze shifted from them to her, but she was little more than a speck of flaming red hair in the distance, nearly at the lake’s edge. He watched her until she disappeared into the boathouse, Blaise’s last words echoing in his head. Doesn’t seem like she wants to see you, Draco.
Why did that bother him so much?
Weasley was true to her word, even if that word had been rather lukewarm. I’ll do what I can. Draco knew some of the Slytherins didn’t think it was enough. Some of them had looked frustrated at her pronouncement; others merely shook their heads, as though they hadn’t expected anything better.
Draco, on the other hand, was pleased they’d gotten that much from her. And over the next few weeks, it proved useful. He heard from other Slytherins that Ginny had taken to stepping in when they were being bullied or provoked, when she saw it happening in the corridors and on the grounds. He’d also seen her hanging out with Daphne and her crowd a few times, in the library and outside during free times.
She might have only said she would do what she could, but it seemed to be working. At least a little. In the meantime, Draco had begun to turn his focus elsewhere.
He was beginning to have definite suspicions about Blaise Zabini. He understood why Goyle had come back to school this year—honestly, even if last year had been perfectly normal, Goyle probably could have used a repeat year to get any N.E.W.T.s. Daphne, he understood, had come back because of her sister, and Bulstrode did whatever Daphne did. Davis had missed out last year entirely because she was Muggleborn. And of course, Draco knew why he himself had returned.
That left only Blaise. Who, for all his bluster, probably did not need a job. More importantly, Draco had begun to realize he didn’t even need classes. Not to achieve his N.E.W.T.s. Because Blaise was a bloody genius.
Draco was not sure why he had never realized it before, given that they had shared so many classes for seven years. Maybe it was just that Draco had not ever paid Blaise much attention, concerning himself with only Crabbe and Goyle and, well, frankly, with himself. Or maybe it was because there were so fewer of them this year. But as the weeks slid by, getting closer to the Christmas holidays, Draco began to keep an eye on Blaise. And he had begun to realize that Blaise did not need his classes. His potions were perfect, even when he seemed to pay no attention to Slughorn, and he aced everything in Ancient Runes, even though Draco had never seen him crack open a book on the subject. In fact, Draco never saw him studying at all. He was always chatting with girls in the common room or lounging outside when the weather was not too cold or reading books in the dormitory—not school books, but books for pleasure.
There were a few times, Draco noted, when Blaise disappeared completely. When Draco could not find him in the common room, or in the library or the Great Hall, and it was always in the evening, when it was dark out, so he wouldn’t have been outside on the grounds. Draco watched him at it enough to identify exactly when it was he was disappearing—every Tuesday night and Friday night. One night, he even came back to the dormitory quite late, after everyone else was asleep—everyone except Draco, who was only feigning sleep.
It was definitely dodgy, and it had Draco worried. Someone, after all, had helped outsiders get into the common room. Most people just assumed some poor Slytherin had been threatened or bewitched into giving out the password, which was likely. And Draco could not really think why Blaise should have wanted the common room messed up, but then, he also hadn’t seemed very surprised when it happened. And of all the Slytherins, he was one of the few who didn’t really have any tale to tell about being targeted or bullied. And Draco was beginning to think there was a reason why.
Of course, when he explained all this to Ginny Weasley, a week before Christmas holidays, she thought he was mad. “You’re saying he wanted someone to muck up your common room? But why? It’s his common room too.”
“Well, I don’t know, Weasley.” Draco was a bit peeved that she didn’t find his suspicions believable. “Maybe he didn’t want it to happen, but just made a deal with someone. You know, no one messes with him, and in exchange he gave them the password.”
Weasley still looked unconvinced. “That seems a little far-fetched, Malfoy. Whoever did it probably just intimidated some first year into giving up the password.”
Draco suppressed an aggravated sigh. “Yes, that’s the popular theory. But I think Zabini is up to something. I don’t know, maybe it has nothing to do with the common room, but don’t you think we should find out what he’s doing?”
“We? We?”
“Well, why I do you think I’m telling you all this? We’re not exactly pals, are we?”
They were not, though an outside spectator might have thought they were, given they were sitting together in the library. Draco had interrupted Weasley in the middle of her Muggle Studies essay, apparently, which maybe explained her irritation with him now.
Ginny sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, just because I agreed to start sticking up for you lot—”
“And you’ve done a bang-up job too, Weasley,” Draco said, striving for a pleasant tone. Perhaps some easy flattery would win her over.
Judging by the look she gave him, perhaps not. “I can’t help but feel that this is you acting out of boredom, Malfoy. I mean, I suppose this is what you Slytherins get up to in your free time? Spying on each other, plotting against one another?”
Draco opened his mouth to remind her not to be so prejudiced, but then paused, thinking it over. The fact was, she was sort of right. Well, not about his being bored, but about what Slytherins liked to get up to in their free time. “Look, just come with me on Friday night. He’s been sneaking out of the common room and coming back very late, and I want to know where he’s going.”
“Why not just do it yourself? Why do I have to come?”
“Going by myself, that’s not very prudent,” Draco scoffed. “What if something happened to me?”
“So I’m your protection, is that it?”
“There is a bonus in it for you, you know.”
“Which is what? Spending time with your illustrious self?”
Draco struggled not to respond with a jibe of his own. “No. You’ll get to see the Slytherin common room. The actual Slytherin common room.”
Her eyebrow hitched at that. “What? Why?”
“Because,” Draco said, a little resigned—the Slytherin common room was sacred, after all, but then, Weasley had already seen it when it was defaced, “I’m fairly certain Blaise has been sneaking out using the secret passage that leads out from inside it.”
On Friday night, at eleven o’clock, Draco slipped quietly out of his dormitory, ignoring Harper’s stare. Goyle and Vaisey were both asleep, but Cole was awake reading. Still, it was not so suspicious, Draco leaving the dormitory, though he supposed Cole might be wondering why Draco was fully dressed in trousers and a button-down.
Thankfully, there was no one left down in the common room; some might still be awake, like Harper, but up in their dormitories by now. Draco slid open the entrance to the common room and poked his head outside. “Weasley?”
The wall across from him seemed to…ripple…and then, there was Weasley, the Disillusionment Charm she’d cast on herself fading off. “About time, Malfoy,” she groused.
“Just get in here.”
She did so, and Draco closed the entrance behind her. He still felt vaguely like a traitor, and was a little annoyed when all Weasley did was cast a barely interested glance around the room and said, “So? Where is this secret passage?”
Draco threw her a disgruntled look. “This way.”
As he led her towards the back of the room, Ginny said, “Explain something to me, Malfoy.”
“What?”
“Well, if there is a secret passageway leading out from your common room, don’t you think whoever mucked it up might’ve gotten in through it?”
“Even if they did, they still needed the password.” Draco stopped by a large bookcase backed into an alcove, catercorner to the corridor that led to the dormitories. “You can’t get back through without it. Anyhow, hardly anyone knows about this passage, not even most of the Slytherins.” He frowned as he pulled out a series of seemingly random books on the shelf. “I certainly didn’t think Zabini knew about it.”
He pulled out the last book and the bookcase moved, slowly shuddering inward—and revealing the long, dark passageway behind it, leading out of the castle.
Ginny peered into the darkness. “Where does it go? Not out the castle, surely. You could’ve used it to get the Death Eaters in.”
Draco swallowed at her casual mention of what he’d done sixth year, trying not to let any discomfort show on his face. “It only goes to the boathouse. It’s not far, come on.”
They both took out their wands and lit them, then ventured into the darkness. The passageway was stone all the way around, carefully built and not just carved out of the earth. It was also cold; sturdy though the walls seemed to be, they obviously had not been built to protect against the outside air, which was positively frigid. Draco kept his free hand stuffed in his pocket, wishing he’d brought gloves and a coat, or at least a jumper, like Weasley had.
“So,” Draco said, after a few minutes’ silence, “why did you and Potter break up?”
Even in the dim light of his wand, Draco noticed the way Weasley stiffened. The look she shot him over her shoulder was scathing. “What do you care?”
Draco shrugged. “It’s something to talk about.” Maybe it was just that he still loathed Potter, just a bit, and wanted to gloat. Silently, of course.
“Why do we have to talk at all?”
“Well, it is very dark and gloomy down here, Weasley, and the silence only makes it more so.”
Weasley’s voice turned scornful. “Scared of the dark, Malfoy?”
“No.”
Silence fell again. Then, to Draco’s surprise, Ginny said in a curt tone, “We argued. I said some things I shouldn’t have, he said some things he shouldn’t have. That was before term started. We haven’t spoken since.”
She did not say, Draco noted, what they’d argued about. “So that’s it? You’re done, just like that?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just doesn’t sound very final, is all. You don’t think you’ll patch things up?”
“I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you,” Weasley grumbled. Possibly not for his ears, but he heard all the same. “You sound like Greengrass.”
“Astoria?”
“Daphne. She practically asked for my permission to ask Harry out herself.”
That should’ve surprised Draco, maybe, but then, Daphne was like a female Blaise. Pansy had once called Blaise “hard to please,” but he wasn’t at all. (Draco was pretty sure Pansy had only said that because Blaise had spurned her, at some point.) “What did you tell her?” Draco asked, referring to Daphne.
“I told her he seems rather too busy for dating while he’s training to work with the Aurors, but that if she really was interested, she might catch him in Hogsmeade next term.” She sounded wholly unruffled, as though she really didn’t care if Daphne asked Potter out. “Him and Ron will probably come to visit Hermione, if they can get away.”
Draco mulled this over. “Hmm.”
Weasley’s shoulders tensed in the light of his wand. “What?”
“It just doesn’t sound like you’re very invested in mending things with him, is all.”
“Well, maybe I’m not, Malfoy! And what business is it of yours, anyway?” Before he could make a response, she changed tack. “Why did you come back to Hogwarts, and in the middle of term, no less?”
“What?” Draco was not prepared for such a question. “What does that matter?”
“It’s something to talk about,” she said snidely.
“Oh, well played, Weasley,” Draco muttered.
“Well, you said Blaise didn’t have a real reason to come back, but what about you? You surely could’ve managed your N.E.W.T.s already, Hermione said you’ve always been one of the top students in your year.”
Draco felt as though he’d been smacked around the head. “She said what?” It was true, of course, but he never would have imagined Granger might pay him a compliment.
“And it’s not like you’re going to do anything with your N.E.W.T.s,” she went on. “So? Why come back, then?” She said this flippantly, as though it were nothing to her, but Draco thought he detected an edge to her voice.
He considered telling her it was none of her business, just as she had done. But then, she had let on a little bit about Potter, so, he thought grudgingly, perhaps he’d do the same. He was trying to demonstrate that he wasn’t a totally awful human being, after all. “I came back because I had to get away from my parents,” he said. “For a short while, at least.” That was only part of the truth, but he wasn’t going to share everything with her. She hadn’t, after all.
“Why?”
Draco twisted his mouth. He really did not want to think about this, let alone talk about it, so he said it very fast. “Because they won’t shut up acting like it’s such a tragedy, that the Dark—that Voldemort was defeated, and I couldn’t stand listening to them anymore.”
A stunned silence followed this proclamation. Then Weasley said—quite softly— “And you….don’t agree with them.”
Draco gazed at the back of her head, and wondered what he would have to do to ever be good enough in her eyes. “Not anymore.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Do you really think your precious Potter would’ve spoken for me if I did?”
Ginny did not answer that. Draco, for some reason, couldn’t stand her silence.
“I grew up believing all that,” he admitted. “And when my father was sent to Azkaban, I was—I was angry. Enough to take the Dark Mark. But once I actually saw what it all meant…” His voice turned hoarse. “I didn’t want any part of it.” Can’t you believe that? he wanted to add.
That was why he’d asked her to come with him, he realized. That was why he’d spoken to her that day in the entrance hall and asked her to come get her scarf with him, that was why he’d brought her to meet with the Slytherins. Because at some point, Ginny Weasley had become the goal. The line by which he judged himself. If he could just prove to her, make her see that he was not all bad, and that he could come back from everything he’d done…then maybe it was possible. It was a challenge, of sorts, but it was something Draco desperately needed.
Maybe it was because of the way she’d looked at him, that day she’d bumped into him, his first week back. She’d condemned him with that look. And ever since then, he just wanted to prove to her that she was wrong. Because he needed her to be wrong.
He didn’t know how he could go on living if she wasn’t.
“So you came back,” Ginny said, bringing him out of this thoughts. “And yet, you don’t seem to have any friends left here.”
“It’s still better than the alternative.” That was sort of sad to admit, but it was true.
“Although,” Weasley said, her voice echoing off the stone walls and floating back to Draco, “it’s odd. They didn’t seem happy about it, but when we met with your House in the Room of Requirement, they all looked to you. They listened to you. Why is that?”
“Force of habit,” Draco said gloomily. He didn’t delude himself into thinking they actually respected him.
“I’m serious, Malfoy.”
“So am I. They were scared and they wanted someone to do something about it, and I was the only one offering any real suggestions. It doesn’t mean they like me any better.” Draco squinted ahead. “Do you see the end up there? I think we must be near the boathouse.”
Weasley raised her wand a little higher. “I think it’s just ahead. Where does it come out to, exactly?”
“There’s some stairs at the end of the tunnel here, comes out to a trapdoor in the boathouse supply closet.”
They reached the stairs at the end of the tunnel in less than a minute. The stairs were stone too, but narrow and built into the sloping wall, more like ladder rungs than stairs. So Weasley tucked her wand away as she climbed up, while Draco held his wand up high to light her way. At the top of the steps, she reached up with one hand and pushed open the trapdoor. Once she’d vanished through it, Draco climbed up behind her. Weasley didn’t bother to light his way, so he spent the first few steps stumbling and cursing on the stairs. Then—just below the top—a light flickered on above him. Weasley must have lit a lantern or something in the closet.
As he emerged above the trapdoor, into the closet, he saw that there was a lantern lit, sitting on the floor beside him. By its light, he watched as Weasley fumbled with the closet’s doorknob. “It’s locked,” she muttered, and pointed her wand at it. “Alohomora.”
The latch clicked open. Weasley twisted the knob and stepped out into the boathouse.
Then there was a loud snap, and Weasley vanished with a sharp cry.
“Weasley? Weasley! Shit.” Yanking out his wand, Draco scrambled out through the trapdoor, kicking it shut behind him. His stomach tight with dread, he took a step forward, wand raised, into the doorway. “Weasley?”
She hadn’t actually vanished into thin air. This was some relief, but it was a short-lived spark, because instead, she was hanging from the boathouse ceiling, wrapped in a tight web of netting. And also, she was flipping out.
“Get it off me, get me down!” she cried, her voice high and thin with panic. “Help me, Malfoy!”
“Well, hold still.” Draco raised his wand, but she was wriggling so much that he couldn’t aim properly. The netting was thin, and it would be easy to hit her instead of it with his Severing Charm.
“Get me down, get it off, get me down now!” Weasley sounded not at all like herself, on the verge of tears. Tears of pure, undiluted fear.
“I’m trying, stop moving,” Draco growled, squinting. It didn’t help that there was very little light to see by, just the lantern on the floor behind him and another dimly glowing lantern on the far side of the boathouse. He moved forward and around, coming almost beneath her to see better. “Merlin, Weasley, calm down.”
“Malfoy, please,” she begged, her voice cracking.
“Piss it,” Draco muttered. She didn’t sound like she cared if he accidentally hurt her. Taking the best aim he could, he said, “Diffindo.”
A great rent in the netting opened up and Weasley fell, tumbling through the hole—and crashing into him. Draco’s knees went out from under him and he sprawled flat onto his back. He fell so hard that all the breath whooshed out of him, and for a few seconds, he lay on the boathouse floor, struggling for air, black spots dotting his vision.
“Get if off me, get it off, off—”
“Merlin—” Malfoy gasped, as his vision cleared. Weasley had fallen on top of him with one of her knees pinning him down and digging into his middle. Some of the netting had come with her when she fell—just a scrap—overlaying her arm and shoulder, but she was still in such a panic to get it off that she couldn’t seem to manage it.
“Get it off—” she moaned again, a note of hysteria in her voice.
“Weasley, stop, stop.” Malfoy sat up as far as he could to tear the scrap of netting off her and fling it away. Then, because she was still hyperventilating, he grabbed her by the arms and said, “Ginny. Stop.”
Ginny sucked in a huge breath and slumped forward, all the fight gone out of her. She placed a hand on his chest to anchor herself, and her fingers trembled against him. “Malfoy—”
“Merlin, calm down, Weasley.” He tried to inject some irritation into these words, but he couldn’t. Seeing her so shaken, so unlike herself, had shaken him, and he didn’t know what to do or say. “What is wrong with you?”
“I—nothing.” Her fingers dug into his chest, but Draco thought she was just trying to steady herself, not hurt him. He watched as she gulped a deep breath, this one longer and slower. Her long hair was mussed from her tussle with the netting, falling down over her face like a curtain, and in the dim light of the lanterns, it was the color of burnished copper. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she repeated, as though trying to convince herself. “Why are you staring at me?”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “You’re sitting on top of me. Bit hard to look anywhere else.”
“Oh.” Draco felt her move, but all she did was shift her weight, her left leg slipping off him. Now she was straddling him, albeit lopsidedly. “Right.”
She didn’t move, didn’t try to stand. Maybe she couldn’t. Draco could still feel her shaking, and her face was pasty white. For several long seconds, she just stared at him, and he at her. Her fingers were entrenched in the folds of his shirt, kneading his chest, and Draco suddenly realized he was still holding her arms, and how close she was…
It swept over him then, unexpected but vehement. The desire to kiss her.
As though reading his mind, Ginny jerked away from him, sitting up straight and wrenching out of his grip. Draco felt absurd; had he actually just thought he wanted to kiss her? It was only because she was on top of him, he told himself, and what else was he supposed to think, with her face inches away from his…
“Who left that here?” Ginny asked as she slowly, arduously, climbed off him. Draco winced, his back aching and his head pounding from where it had smacked into the floor. “That net—”
“Seemed like a modified Binding Spell,” Draco said, as he pushed himself onto his elbows. “Left behind as a trap by…” A trap. Shit. “Blaise.” Draco clambered to his feet, ignoring the little aches and pains that followed. “Come on, we have to hurry. It might have been a warning for him, he might’ve just been here—”
Without waiting to see if Weasley followed, he darted out of the boathouse.
The night outside was black and beastly cold. Draco wished more than ever that he’d thought to bring a coat, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. He turned left and right, eyes scanning the grounds, the Quidditch pitch in the distance, Hagrid’s cabin across the way, and—
There. On the winding path up to the castle, Draco saw them—two figures, one tall and the other smaller, both fleeing into the darkness. If it weren’t for the torches lit along the path, he probably couldn’t have seen them at all, not in this dark. “Hey!” he shouted. “Stop there!” He tore off after them, pulling his wand from his pocket.
“Malfoy, wait—” he heard Weasley gasp, but he didn’t stop as he sprinted up the path. The taller of the two figures ahead was a good thirty meters away, but the other, smaller figure was lagging behind.
Taking careful aim with his wand, he shouted, “Petrificus Totalus!”
There was a short shriek, abruptly cut off as the person he hit stiffened like a board and toppled over. Up ahead, the taller figure looked back and stuttered to a halt.
“Damn it, Draco!” the figure yelled. It was Blaise. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Draco didn’t answer—he was too busy trying to catch his breath as he ran towards the person he’d cursed. Whoever it was, Blaise reached them first, stumbling back down the path. With a flick of his wand, he removed Draco’s Body-Bind, and the smaller figure—a girl, Draco realized—sat up slowly.
“Are you all right?” Blaise demanded, his voice unusually anxious. Blaise was never anxious. He was always cool, composed.
“I think so.” The girl stood, gingerly touching the side of her face. Then she turned to Draco. “What the hell, Malfoy!”
A few meters short of them, Draco finally stopped, inhaling deeply. He stared at the girl, recognizing her. “What…the hell…is right.”
A flurry of pounding footsteps and heavy breathing alerted him to Weasley’s arrival. “What…” Her hair was wilder than ever, and her face was still a little white, but her focus was entirely on the two people before them. “Parvati?”
The girl—Parvati Patil, of all people—shook her head. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing out here, Ginny? And with him?” She flung an arm towards Draco.
Ginny gawked at Parvati. “I could ask you the same question!” She gestured feebly towards Blaise. “And at this time of night—”
Draco leaned over and heaved in a huge breath, filling his lungs with air. Then he straightened and began to laugh.
Weasley whirled on him, annoyance imprinted on her face. “What is so funny, you prat!”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Draco nodded between Blaise and Patil, the former who looked chagrined and the latter who was turning red. “They snuck out here to meet each other. Unless—hang on…” Draco looked at Blaise. “You didn’t actually bring her through the common room, did you? Through the secret passage? What the hell, you wanker, are we just letting anyone into the common room now?”
Blaise said icily, “You obviously did the same thing, Draco.”
“Yes, so we could figure out what you were up to, not so I could snog her!”
Only then did Weasley catch on. Her jaw dropped. “Wait—you don’t mean—” She looked between Blaise and Patil.
“You and him? Oh my god, Parvati!”
Draco would have laughed at how scandalized she sounded if he didn’t feel a bit scandalized himself. “She’s a Gryffindor.”
“Excuse me? Hark who’s talking!” Blaise shot back, looking at Ginny.
“I told you, we were following you, you git!” Draco snapped. “I thought you were up to something, you’ve been acting so dodgy, and I couldn’t figure out why you were back at school when you obviously didn’t need…hang on.” Draco frowned. “You didn’t—don’t tell me she’s the reason you came back this year? You came back for a girl?”
Zabini scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked away, but Patil didn’t share his embarrassment. She stepped forward, coming face to face with Draco. “Yes, he did.” She raised her chin at him. “Because I asked him to. And he doesn’t care that I’m a Gryffindor and I don’t care that he’s a Slytherin! Isn’t that all a little juvenile?”
“Yeah,” said Blaise, recovering himself a bit. “Anyway, she is a pureblood, and not the biggest blood traitor around, like Weasley over there.”
Predictably, both Weasley and Patil looked outraged by this. Ginny settled for glaring at Blaise, but Patil whirled on him. “What the hell does that matter? If she’s a blood traitor and I’m a pureblood?”
“It doesn’t.” Blaise took a step back, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. “Doesn’t matter at all. I don’t care. I was just…saying. Because, you know, Malfoy cares.”
Draco rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Don’t presume to know what I do and don’t care about, Blaise. I certainly don’t care who you date—”
“Didn’t sound like it before,” Blaise cut in.
“—and I certainly don’t care what Weasley is since, as I said, we aren’t dating.”
“Oh, really?” Blaise’s dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. He turned to look at Ginny. “So you’re out here with him…why? Because he thought I was up to something? Why did that require your presence?”
“Well—because—” Ginny scowled. “Because it’s the middle of the night, and it didn’t seem like a good idea for him to go by himself! Anyway, if you were up to something, I wanted to know too—”
“Of course you did,” Zabini sneered. “Look, just admit it, Draco. You’ve always thought Weasley was attractive—”
“What?” Draco spluttered. To his horror, he felt his cheeks grow warm. “No, I haven’t!”
“Please.” Blaise rolled his eyes. “Half the school has fancied her since our fifth year, and you’re no exception—”
“Well, neither are you!” Draco retorted, and then froze. Had he just admitted he fancied Weasley? Did he fancy Weasley? She was attractive, sure, that much was obvious, but he didn’t like her…
Patil was eyeing Blaise with suspicion. “Is that true? You think Ginny is attractive?”
Blaise coughed. “Well—”
“Okay,” Ginny said loudly. Draco shot her a sidelong glance and saw that she had recovered some of the color in her cheeks, though perhaps she was simply blushing. “If we’re done talking about who does and doesn’t think I’m attractive—and if that’s all we’re going to talk about, which seems likely, since apparently all we’ve done is interrupt your snog session—then I am going to go. Back. To the school.” And without a glance at Draco, she turned and headed towards the boathouse.
Draco hurried after her. “Weasley, wait—”
She spun around and pinned him with a glare. “Leave me alone, Malfoy. I think you’ve wasted enough of my time tonight.”
“I know, but—”
“We are not friends. You know that, don’t you?” She marched towards him. “We are not anything.” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “In fact, I loathe you.”
Draco’s felt as though something had clamped around his heart. “I’m aware.”
“Good. So just—leave me alone.” Then she turned her back on him and continued down the path, stomping all the way.
Draco stared after her. After a few seconds, Blaise came into his line of sight, with Patil at his side.
“She’s going to need the password,” Draco said. His voice was hoarse in the cold air. “To get back in.”
“We’ll see to it.” Blaise looked at him, his face a picture of puzzled amusement. “You’d best hang back for a bit. Doesn’t seem like she wants to see you, Draco.”
He and Parvati started down the path after Weasley. Draco’s gaze shifted from them to her, but she was little more than a speck of flaming red hair in the distance, nearly at the lake’s edge. He watched her until she disappeared into the boathouse, Blaise’s last words echoing in his head. Doesn’t seem like she wants to see you, Draco.
Why did that bother him so much?
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