First Year

"Strange, my dear, very strange..."

"Another Weasley, I see...but a difficult one. Much like your older brother Percival, but ever more so - difficult."

The murmurs grow.

The small girl sits at the head of the room, fingers clutching the edges of her chair. Waiting.

"Innocent, yet as ambitious as they come...Intelligent, of course, but there have been others with your potential...”

"You want power, do you not, Miss Weasley?"

At eleven, she does not yet grasp what power is.

She sees bewilderment in her brothers' countenances, the growing doubt. She wishes suddenly, violently, that the Hat would simply decide - she does not know what the Hat is talking about, she does not want to guess at the implications; her eleven-year-old mind lacks a sufficiency of clarity to begin or want to comprehend.

"But you have such a peculiar weakness, my dear...well, we know what they will do about that, since it has always been their failing...I'll say, Miss Ginevra Weasley, that you should go to SLYTHERIN!"

A beat.

Vaguely, her ears register weak applause, eloquent in its shock.

"Miss Weasley." She hears a voice, and some distant part of her mind recognizes it as McGonagall’s.

Dumbly, numbly, she looks up. It is as if a vision of the professor’s face is swimming in front of her.

SLYTHERIN.

But you have such a peculiar weakness.

You want power; do you not, Miss Weasley?

"Join your table, please, Miss Weasley." There is a tremor in McGonagall’s voice, and an unmistakable mixture of shock and disappointment and pity in her eyes.

"Your table, Miss Weasley."

She feels herself sliding off the chair, still staring blindly at McGonagall.

"To the right, Miss Weasley."

A hundred pairs of eyes follow her as she stumbles towards the table.

A sneer greets her; white-blonde hair framing a sharp, malevolently elfin face. Malfoy, she dimly recognizes.

We know what they will do about that, since it has always been their failing...

"I see we've waited long enough for a Weasley with some substance."

~

It is cold and empty in her dormitory.

“Harper, Nicholas!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

“Vaisey, Brone!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

"White, Seldon!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Wyck-Devereaux, Lane!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"York, Byrne-Declan!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

The rest of the Slytherins in her year are boys.

She thinks of the sneering words of her Head of House, Professor Snape, "I am here for you to speak to, Miss Weasley, despite what you may have heard."

"There is quite a small number of you this year; I am quite sure there is enough of me to go around.”

Each word had been empathic. Her skin crawls.

We know what they will do about that, since it has always been their failing...

Ginny’s vision is saturated by the dark green and silver of her surroundings: the silk sheets, gilded furniture, velvet-lined walls...

Why, Ginevra, surely you wouldn't be disappointed if you were placed in Slytherin?

She had replied no, her script large and round and childish.

I will be Sorted into Gryffindor, she had elaborated. My entire family's been in Gryffindor, Tom, for hundreds of years - it would be unthinkable to be in Slytherin. Especially from what Ron and Fred and George say -

And Harry Potter is in Gryffindor.

She closes her eyes and feels the tears burning against her lids.

"Weasley. Ginevra Molly Weasley. Rather a plain and unimaginative name, don’t you think?"

The sibilant voice comes from behind her, from the bed. Ginny's eyes fly open, chasing away the tears, and she spins around to find Malfoy lounging on the dark green of her bed, watching her with the sort of expression that she imagines he directs at Harry.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, voice sharp.

Malfoy smiles; it is a wide, feline smile which does not reach his silver eyes.

"Welcoming you, of course, sweet Ginevra."

"How do you - "

"I have my ways." The smile is gone now; an expression, hard and setting his smooth youthfulness into something else altogether, replaces it. He starts again, abruptly, "There is something wrong with you, isn't there, Ginevra." The smile returns. "There has to be something wrong with you. There has to be. A girl from a family of blood-traitors never should get Sorted into Slytherin." He pauses, eyes intent on hers, lips collapsing and curving into a smirk. "There is something wrong with you," he repeats, "And I will find out what it is that is wrong with you, Ginevra."

Ginny stands frozen, as she watches the boy, not much taller than her, not much older than her, rise up and walk towards her.

"There is something wrong with you, and I will know what it is soon enough." He is directly in front of her now, and the silver eyes hold some kind of excited, menacing glee in them. Then the lids shutter as he blinks, and he turns away, stepping back.

“I'll be watching you, Ginevra Weasley."

He is nothing; he is only a twelve-year-old boy, a brat, and a Death-Eater's son. A coward.

But she does not move.

She watches, speechless, as he saunters out of her dormitory. He holds his head in an impossibly arrogant manner and his blond hair is almost as white as his skin, the dim lights bleeding into his pallor.

And then the door closes, and finally the tears fall.

"There is something wrong with you."

~

She watches the way he and the black-haired second year boy reach for each other's ties with long fingers, tapered and white-tipped. Each boy expertly wind the green and silver material around the slim neck of the other's; in identical, crisp actions, both finish the knots, fastening and adjusting the other's, their arms interlinked.

"Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini," a boy's voice provides, abruptly. Ginny turns around quickly, only to face Lane Wyck-Devereaux, her fellow Slytherin first-year, at the threshold of the stairwell that leads to the Slytherin Common Room. It is still early; other than Ginny, Wyck-Devereaux and the two boys below, there is no one. Wyck-Devereaux is the same height as Ginny, and his sharp pale violet eyes are striking, as is his light gold hair, which reminds Ginny of angel's dust. In the next moment she blushes, embarrassed by the childishness of her thoughts. She draws herself taller.

"Lane Wyck-Devereaux." The boy extends a hand, tapered and long and perfect like Malfoy and Zabini's. Ginny is only too aware of the slight throb of jealousy, as she sees how her small fingers are far from as delicate as his. His touch is cold, and dry. Somehow she knows that he isn't any eleven-year-old, eleven-year-olds do not have such hands; they have hands which are just a bit too dirty, and sweaty, and young. But she remembers Malfoy from the night before, and remembers how twelve-year-olds do not speak the way he had spoken. "You are Ginevra Weasley, I presume."

His accent is clipped, but there is a lilting tone behind it that makes his diction sound almost musical. She nods, feeling somewhat afraid to speak.

"The others in our year are still in bed. Would you by any chance be on your way to the Hall, Ginevra?"

"Um, yes, I would. And - and you can call me Ginny. That's what my family and friends call me, anyway." Then she stops, uncertain; perhaps the boy does not want to make friends, perhaps this is all for politeness' sake.

A light smile graces the boy's face. In the pale fire from the Common Room he looks oddly beautiful, and with his formal manner Ginny cannot help thinking that he is much older than her. "And you can call me Lane, Ginny. Have you gotten your things ready? I hear our schedules will be given to us immediately afterward."

"Uh, yeah, my things are in my satchel. I'm - I’m carrying some of my books; my satchel's not nearly big enough."

The smile grows wider; Lane really is beautiful, she thinks, feeling immensely inadequate. "Would you like some help with them, Ginny?"

"No, it's alright, really," she quickly replies, blushing, flustered. Lane continues smiling, and, swinging his slim leather book bag he motions for her to walk with him. Gratefully, Ginny falls into step next to him.

But as they pass Malfoy and Zabini, Ginny sees out of the corner of her eye the sudden feral sneer on Malfoy's face as he watches her. The pale of his skin and the abnormality of his silver eyes seem all the more apparent. Then, in a beat, the sneer diminishes, and his expression almost mirrors Zabini's detached one from next to him.

I’ll be watching you, Ginevra Weasley.

~

She no longer remembers the specific days and weeks that pass after that first night and morning. She can only remember snatches of feelings, ghosts of younger selves.

She remembers her fear of Malfoy - a prickling, undeniable fear. She remembers the disapproval she was inflicted with both from within and without of Slytherin House for being the wrongly-Sorted Weasley. She remembers the distant sense that it was the beginning of a kind of divorce from her family: she remembers times when she looked to Ron or the twins or Percy and felt as if they could not see her at all, or would not. They treated her, when she came to them, like a delicate object, caring about any form of maltreatment they thought she suffered to extravagance, asking too many questions, looking at her with eyes that were too concerned.

She remembers Lane’s company; Lane was beautiful, although he never spoke much, and Ginny, even then, had an acute weakness for beautiful things. She remembers that she liked to think that he enjoyed her company equally, when he leant against her shoulder during yet another of Marcus Flint’s tirades during dinner, or when he whispered, something improbably clever for an eleven-year-old, into her ear during classes.

She remembers Tom.

She wants to believe even now, on most days, that she had not known what he was; when she is more honest she cannot say that she had never suspected. Nevertheless she remembers loving him; even now she looks at herself, naked, in the mirror, utterly aware that this is the body that Tom had looked upon, even if it has changed with the passing of time.

Once you come to the point of knowing and understanding there is no going back to the point where you were too young and too ignorant.

~

Every night he comes, and promises her the same thing.

"I will find out what it is that is wrong with you, Ginevra."

Sometimes he appears in an all-black ensemble very much like what he had worn from the first time she remembers seeing him, in Flourish & Blotts.

Sometimes he appears in his Quidditch robes, in its resplendent green and silver, as October comes. Somehow he looks more human in his Quidditch uniform: less poised, less immaculate, and quite ironically, more grounded. Even Ginny can see the light circles around his silver eyes on these days, and sometimes she can even think him beautiful, in a somewhat harsh, incomplete way - perhaps because of this small evidence of weakness, of imperfection.

She knows, of course, of the rivalry between him and Harry, and who usually has the upper hand. Despite her emotional attachment to the Boy Who Lived and the natural blood alliance with her own family and Gryffindor, her being in Slytherin and being allowed to be friends with hardly anyone else but Lane and Tom affords her to wonder why Malfoy is jealous of Harry. In terms of intellect he is by far superior (Ginny has seen some of his graded parchments in the Common Room); from her deductions, Harry often has to depend on Hermione for help in assignments, along with Ron. In terms of wealth, although she remembers Ron telling her family that Harry "has loads of money - his parents left him a ton in Gringotts, I reckon", she is certain Malfoy has a good deal more. Even in terms of physical attributes Malfoy can easily sway the vote in contrast to Harry - when not smirking or sneering in his feral manner, his defined features are more becoming than Harry's best feature - his large brilliant green eyes - can ever hope to be.

But all these observations should also make her understand why Malfoy is jealous of Harry, says Tom’s elegant script. After all, Malfoy has all these advantages, but Harry has always been better known, more kindly looked upon. Ginny finds that this makes sense; she only needs to look at recent events in Hogwarts to come to the same conclusion. Even with the talk of Harry being the Heir of Slytherin going about, students still look to him, confident that, far from being the Heir of Slytherin, Harry is to be their saviour from the recent spree of Petrifications. That he speaks Parseltongue is just an added advantage - after all, hold your enemies closer, or "zhi ji zhi bi, bai zhan bu dai, as Sunzi's Art of War says". She hears this from a pretty Chinese Ravenclaw, Cho Chang, as she and Lane pass the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team who are on their way to Quidditch practice one day. Later Lane translates what Cho had said: know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never lose any battle you wage.

That night, Tom writes that he is impressed by Lane’s fluency in Mandarin, and knowledge of the Art of War.

Malfoy had been a suitable candidate for the esteemed role of playing the Heir of Slytherin in Hogwarts' little drama, but he had been forgotten, no thanks to Harry's rather accidental display of his being a Parselmouth.

Whatever Harry does which wins himself attention will likely always irk Malfoy, because Harry always does whatever he does accidentally, concludes Tom. When he defeated You-Know-Who, he had done so accidentally. When he was discovered to be a natural at Quidditch, he had been doing so accidentally. When he showed the world his gift of being a Parselmouth, he had also done so accidentally. Malfoy, having been groomed into what he is all his life, who likely plans everything he does, cannot in the same token comprehend how Harry can possibly be famous and everything he wants to be, in many ways, accidentally.

And so Malfoy has taken up Quidditch, in the one thing that he can still try to, very publicly, best Harry.

Ginny has seen both fly, in her strolls by the Quidditch Pitch to the Lake with Lane, or sometimes by herself, with Tom in her hand, in her mind. Again she sees, and records for Tom, the stark difference between the two.

Harry is pure instinct in the air. Ginny thinks that he revels in flying, as he pushes to higher altitudes, his scarlet and gold robes spreading in the wind beneath him. Not caring, not holding back. He seems completely unaware, and unafraid, of consequences.

Malfoy is controlled talent, adulterated and tempered with, taught and corrected and enhanced and implemented. He captures Ginny’s attention as well, only that, watching him, she always inexplicably finds herself holding her breath. When she reflects upon it as she records her days for Tom, she realizes that it is almost stifling to watch him.

But somehow, in their flying styles, as Ginny writes to Tom, it is as if she can see the both of them more clearly, and with Malfoy she feels something terribly close to pity.

And so, slowly, the fear of his visits seem to slowly ebb away, and Ginny falls into the pattern of seeing him every other night, taking his words almost as if they are her mother's goodnights. And then she falls asleep, with Tom's lulling voice in her ears.

Quidditch season begins.

She begins to see the worry in Malfoy's face, his pallor increasing each time he sees Harry. She notices the way he grips the handle of his broom, the way he eats less, the way he talks less. The way he sometimes lapses into unprecedented moments of silence in her own dorm, just as he has delivered his usual threat of finding out what is wrong with her. The way he somehow looks more like a boy, less like the son of a Death Eater, less like the Death Eater Ginny believes and tells Tom he will surely become.

When the day itself arrives for the first match of Gryffindor versus Slytherin, she sees the way he shakily ties Zabini's green and silver tie, and looks as if Zabini is hanging him as he returns the favour.

He loses the first game.

Ginny suspects that no one else notices his facial expression just as Harry catches the Snitch. She sees the blind rage at Harry, the world, the Snitch, but most of all, the rage at himself. She sees the resigned sagging of his shoulders, admitting to the inevitability of it all.

And so, in all the frenzy of the aftermath of the game, as he returns limping slightly from the infirmary, she waits up in the Common Room for him.

"Malfoy."

He looks up, and Ginny is almost afraid of the bare emptiness, the aftermath of his rage, which has clearly followed. But in the next moment the old arrogance seems to find some semblance of its position in his countenance, even though Ginny can see the obvious effort behind such.

"What? Ready to gloat, Ginevra Weasley?"

"My House team lost, Malfoy; I can't see why I would gloat about that,” she answers steadily.

Malfoy’s face responds with an unreadable expression, but it is only for an instant. He retorts, quickly, "I'm not one for pity, Ginevra. Save it for your darling Saint Potter, would you; after all, he is seriously injured, the poor, miserable Boy Who Lived."

She does not say anything. Instead she walks up to him, and, in a gesture even she cannot explain later and does not admit to Tom, she hugs him.

She registers the shock in his muscles, tensing immediately. But she then also feels the gratitude in their relaxation, just a quick second before he pushes her away.

"I don't need your pity, you filthy blood-traitor."

He stalks away, but Ginny realizes in the next moment that the fact is that, for the first time since her first night in Hogwarts, he has not ended his speech with an "I will find out what it is that is wrong with you, Ginevra."

Later, she walks back to her dorm to sleep. Her sleep is a deep, black sleep with vague dreams which are there but yet beyond the grasp of her waking consciousness, and the next morning it spreads like wildfire that Colin Creevey of Gryffindor has been Petrified.

She begins to doubt, to suspect, when on her hands and her shoddy robes she sees the flecked traces of blood. Frightened, she suddenly remembers a line in a Muggle play that Bill had once convinced the family into going to, at the nearest Muggle town - "Out, damned spot." Then she had laughed at Lady Macbeth's words, but now - she refuses to think, refuses to believe. As far as her family line has been in existence, they have always been Gryffindors.

And then a little voice reminds her, maliciously, that her family line has existed for a good few centuries and that a good few centuries is a long time, and who knows whose blood has come into the mix, and, anyway, she is in Slytherin.

And then there are the gaps of time of which she has no memory of.

"Ginny, it's almost time for dinner. Where have you been?" Lane will ask. She retreats, starting to become afraid. Finally Lane resorts to just staring at her, observing her, and all the more she begins to distance herself from him, even placing herself with Byrne-Declan York, Seldon White, Nicholas Harper and Brone Vaisey instead, trying to purge herself of the fear and a terrible, specific feeling of unease with the company of people she does not care for.

Even Malfoy scares her again, for she begins to fully believe his words, that there truly is something deeply wrong with her.

She slowly realizes that the Petrifications come after each of these gaps; the Petrifications come after each of these gaps after each time she speaks to dear, sweet Tom, her constant companion, her confidant, her guiding light.

She turns on him then, and tries to get rid of him. She cannot afford to keep him, she is afraid, she has to be the turncoat, if Tom has turned on her and used her first, she has to lose him, she cannot afford to lose so much, she cannot comprehend what Tom wants, she cannot overcome what she begins to realize, in a deep, blind horror, is his twisting, manipulative power.

And then one day she wakes from a gap in Malfoy's arms, along an empty corridor and facing a wall, tear streaks down her face.

"Quiet, Ginny, quiet." It is a vehement whisper, so vastly different from Malfoy's usual sneering voice.

She is frozen for a moment, then she turns tail, disentangling herself from Malfoy, from his strange softness, running.

Later she finds Tom's diary, her diary, in the inner pocket of her robes. She must have tried to retrieve it back from Harry, and in his anger he must have overpowered her again.

Tom. It is all Tom's doing. It is Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom. All Tom.

That night, another gap consumes her.

She pitches forward, and then all was black.

"There is no need to struggle, sweet Ginevra, gullible little Ginny. I have already won, just let me come out, let me, let me, let me..."

When she awakes, this time, it is in Tom's Chamber of Secrets, and Tom, his beautiful face hovering over hers, smiles. Black hair curling softly, framing his face, dark blue eyes wide and youthful, he smiles, and her heart turns to water.

"Sweet Ginevra. Looking for a constant? 'There is something wrong with you, Ginevra.' He would have been your only constant, the silly boy, wouldn't he have been, Ginevra?"

And then Tom breathes, a soft, triumphant breath, and struggling she falls again.

The next time she awakes is to Harry, who swiftly destroys Tom.

Sweet Ginevra.

Later, when she has been tucked into bed in the infirmary, she hears her father's explosive rant concerning Lucius Malfoy's involvement in the entire affair, and her heart freezes with the thought of how Draco Malfoy must have known all along.

But unknown to the others, Draco Malfoy turns up, somehow, at her bedside. No one else other than her parents, not even Lane, has been allowed to see her. She imagines that he is paler than ever before. Suddenly she wonders, beyond her fear of him, how he had come to be holding her that night, along the corridor. He ought to have been in the Slytherin Common Room, with Blaise Zabini and Lane and Marcus Flint and all the other Slytherins.

"Don't come near me." She hears her own voice, and is shocked by how weak and hoarse it is. The older boy does not seem to have noticed, however, and does not heed her words: instead he walks closer to her bed, settling himself on a visitor's chair. Speechless with fear, she watches him, unable to say anything more.

"I didn't know." They both know what he means. She stares him.

"Why have you come?"

"I will find out what it is that is wrong with you, Ginevra,” he replies, mechanically.

Somehow the words make her see. Somehow they make her believe his innocence - if his ignorance can be considered such.

And when he leaves, the same way he must have somehow managed to come, she somehow feels comforted.

A day later, when she emerges from the infirmary, Lane embraces her, not saying anything. It is enough.

Second Year

"And this is our daughter, Alexandra Grant. Unfortunately I believe she only answers to Alex."

She is a long-legged, tanned girl, tall for her eleven years, quite unlike her mother; grinning down at Ginny, she says, "Welcome to Egypt, Ginevra. Though you wouldn't mind me calling you Gin, would you?"

Ginny likes her immediately: she is a younger, female version of her brothers, only without the bias of Hogwarts education and Gryffindor dogma.

Alex takes her everywhere she feels is "awesome" in Egypt - she uses that word a lot, very much like Ron using "bloody", or Malfoy using "Pureblood" and "Mudblood" and "Father says" – and for the first time since the start of the summery holidays, Ginny starts to forget.

Sweet Ginevra.

And then the nightmares begin.

She screams, writhing, calling out for her mother, her father, Ron, Charlie, Percy, the twins, Bill, Harry, Lane, Alex – even, she suspects, Malfoy. Her screams wake the entire house, in the musky night air so typical of Egypt; when they come, she sobs painfully, burning with embarrassment and also with fear, as her mother holds her tightly, whispering urgently to her, letting her sip hot chocolate. Her father and her brothers watch, earnest and concerned. Ron even once offers to spend the night with her, and stay up at that, to ensure that nothing "strange, you know, like spirits or something" comes up to her to prey on her restful sleep. He is hushed immediately.

It is almost worse than having had Tom in her mind constantly, because now she dreads and waits, and the dreading and waiting hangs like a loose noose around her neck. In the scratches her fingers make, up the insides of her palms, she never dares to speak openly of her fear that Tom will pierce through dreamtime into reality.

But Alex starts talking about it.

“What makes you afraid of him?" she asks, in her direct manner. "Well, yes, Daddy did tell me that he is the memory of You-Know-Who, but come on, that old ghoul's long gone; there's nothing to be afraid of, really. All you need to do is remember that he can't do anything to you. I mean, he doesn't even have a body, Gin..."

But he can. He can do a good many things to her. He has, and he will do so again.

Sweet Ginevra, I have already won.

Let me out, would you? That's a pet.

She sees his short, sleek black hair, curling slightly into the nape of his neck, over his forehead, the deep, mirrored lapis lazuli eyes, his pale skin, so typical of a Slytherin, translucent and giving hint to thin snaking veins. The sharp neat cut of his Hogwarts uniform is identical to Lane's, or to Malfoy's, or to Seldon's and Byrne-Declan's and Brone's and Nicholas’. The fabric of his tie is identical to her own. She remembers Malfoy and Zabini's daily ritual, and knows that Tom must have once tied the long snake-like material the same way they did for each other, snug and fitting around his neck.

Alex cannot understand. Ginny wishes her parents had not said anything to anyone else; she wishes that she did not see the pity in Mr. and Mrs. Grant's eyes. She now understands what Malfoy had meant, that night after the first Quidditch match.

Alex will go back to her own life, the life of a happy-go-lucky daughter of a British diplomat in Egypt. She will go back to it, and make friends, and be happy all the time, because she allows herself that. She cannot see anything else but that.

Ginny wishes fervently that she had never seen anything else but what had always been expected she would. She wishes that she had not been Sorted into Slytherin. She wishes she had not ever seen Tom's diary.

But then she catches herself, remembering Lane, and sometimes remembering Malfoy, after that first Quidditch match, and the time he had held her before the Chamber of Secrets, perhaps trying to save her, although he couldn't possibly have fathomed what he had been trying to save her from. When he had visited her after the Chamber of Secrets, in the infirmary. She remembers every other night that he had visited her in her dorm.

~
 
Dear Ginny,

I would like to invite you to our chateau in Nice, France, on the 25th of August, to celebrate my birthday. It will be a small tea party; you shouldn't need worry about attire. You can also assure your parents that transport to and fro will be provided for you, and you can always choose to stay with us until the start of term. Should you be able to grace us with your presence, please do inform me as soon as possible. Thank you.

Your friend,
Lane

In the end she chooses to stay at the Wyck-Devereauxs'; each night, she wakes up and thrashes and screams and cries, and Lane is there to hold her immediately, because now Lane sleeps with her, in his room, on his bed. He does not say anything; words are exhausted and terrorized and mutilated enough with Tom. She has nothing more to say after her nightmares. Lane somehow sees that; he is solid and effectual in his physical comfort, his slender arms around her small frame.

It is enough.

Ginny is glad that she had come; she is glad that Lane had heard her, on the first night, and had been there for her.

Lane's parents are not there to say anything - they had left the night of his tea party, citing business that required attending to in the East. But she had appreciated them, for the brief spell that she had met them - her father had said that they were respectable people, and that their three sons (Lane, and Lane's older brothers Vivienne and Paris; Vivienne of whom is an apprentice to the Potions Master at Beauxbatons, whilst Paris is a junior Auror in the British Ministry of Magic) are brought up well; they must have known of her connection to Tom, because she could sense it, and yet from their expressions – there had been something akin to Lane's: there had been no pity, and yet there had been a kind of understanding. Ginny thinks that they must be sensitive people, who know that talking is not always the best option, and that expressions of sympathy can cut worse than not.

On her second day at his chateau, Lane presents her with a brand-new broom, the Nimbus 2001, the same broom that Draco Malfoy uses. He says that it is a belated birthday present. She does not know what to say.
"Because I like you,” Lane states, simply, smilingly, when Ginny protests that it is too expensive for her to accept – why would he give something so expensive to her? Ginny relents at this, and forgets, at this moment, that Tom had a smile just as beautiful as Lane’s.

On a leisurely walk along the Cannes shoreline, among Muggles, she asks him why he had talked to her in the first place, that first morning in Hogwarts.

"You looked just as lost as I felt,” he replies. But she suspects his answer is just to please her with its whimsicality; she can see the amused shutter of his pale violet eyes behind the heavy gold-dusted lashes.
Years later, she will realize that Lane had simply been curious of her, very much in the way Malfoy had been - because of the incongruence of her situation and her heritage. Years later, she will see how Lane needed her friendship to one day protect his family in a larger scheme of things, which neither of them had a true idea about.

In the years that follow she can never see that as exploitation on his part: she recognizes that she has exploited him emotionally at least in equal measure. But that is how they are: they are Slytherins, even if she had not realized it then.

~

The week passes too quickly, and the school term rushes at them, along with the new Quidditch season.
 
Ginny begins to notice a pattern in the frequency of Malfoy's visits to her dorm (to deliver the same diatribe as the year before, no less) since the start of the new term - he comes later than expected on Quidditch practice days, even when Ginny knows the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team has retired, noisily and muddily, to their dormitories. And even then he will be in his Quidditch uniform, sometimes soaking from the wet weather, the rain weighing down and darkening the heavy, expensive fabric, making him look, Ginny thinks rather ridiculously, like a saint, with his pallor and pale blond hair, who has fallen down and been splashed in a particularly large puddle.

She begins to wonder where he goes to, between the time of his visits and Quidditch practice.
Ginny is attuned to Malfoy's thought process when it comes to Quidditch; it is rather accurate to say she is attuned to Malfoy's thought process whenever it comes to things which will put him up against Harry Potter, which includes virtually anything tangible under the Hogwarts roof. And she begins to suspect that he is clocking extra training in order to gain the upper hand. And so, one night, with her black handled Nimbus 2001 in hand, she sneaks out of Hogwarts castle and onto the Quidditch pitch, hoping to catch him.
 
The year before she had admired his ability, if not his excess of control. But she had been mistaken – that was his flying in the presence of others, thus the unrelenting control. Perhaps this is the first time she is really seeing him, she thinks. Years later, she will dismiss this; the first time she had seen him was in Flourish and Blotts. Malfoy is really always the same.

There is something fierce about the way he handles his broom, how he dives, and plummets, and turns and twists. For the first time, she can believe that he actually belongs in this sky, and is not a magically aided foreign body trying to wrongly invade its sanctity, its overwhelming expense.

If he would just fly like that, she thinks, in front of everyone else, he would always beat Harry.

In the years that she has had the time to think about it clearly, if it were not really the first time that she had truly seen Malfoy, it was the first time she had ever really realized the complication that was Malfoy. He is an incongruous combination of spoon-fed viciousness and cultivated control, against a backdrop of ferocious instinct and reflex. It is all these which culminates in his insecurity, his bitterness when it comes to Harry, who seems so simple in structure compared to himself.

In the years to come, she wonders how he had not broken under all these sooner rather than later. Malfoy had been rather an unusual Slytherin, too.

But now, watching him, she keeps quiet, the smooth handle of her broom cold in her hand, not wanting to disturb him.

After that, every time Malfoy has Quidditch practice, she makes sure to sneak out after the other team members have entered the Common Room, and be at the Quidditch pitch to watch him, and then sneak in, reluctantly, moments before he stops flying to come to visit her.

But on one such night, he surprises her with his words.

"Enjoy spying on me, Ginevra?" he asks, instead of going through his usual ritual.

The shock on her face must be all too apparent, for he smirks, and says, "I do know, you know. I've always put a surveillance spell on the area before I start. Why do you think no one else has found out before you, Ginevra?"

Then, sneering again, he leans closer towards her face, saying, "You were never a very bright one, Ginevra."

And then he strides out.

But Ginny realises, after her shock has left her, that he had not mentioned not wanting her to watch him.
And so, after the next Quidditch practice, she is there, again with her broom, in the air, where he is already waiting for her.

Not acknowledging her, he flies off, turning his back on her. Not having expected anything else, she flies after him wordlessly, at first struggling to keep pace with his speed and his reckless, smooth flying, but soon adjusting better.

Finally, close to the time he normally stops flying, he turns in midair to say to her, "I see you aren't so bad yourself, Ginevra."

She grins at this, and if she were not imagining things, the corners of his lips quirk upwards as well. In the moonlight, his pallor looks all the more unearthly.

That night, she does not have any nightmares. For the first time since Egypt, Tom does not whisper malicious things into her ear as soon as sleep claims her. Since returning to Hogwarts, she has tried not to trouble Lane by asking for his company at night; she does not want unnecessary rumours to start. Lane had raised an eyebrow when she had rebuffed his suggestion that he should sleep with her, but has since not said anything on the matter. She knows that Lane would not; Lane would wait until she asks for him again. And so she has had to stifle her cries each night, stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to prevent herself from screaming.

But that night, as soon as her head touches the pillow, she falls into a deep, black, dreamless sleep.

~
 
When Ron tells her about the Hippogriff incident, Ginny confronts Malfoy.

She still does not address him by his first name. She is not ready for that, even though they meet every alternate night now, at the Quidditch pitch, even on nights when Malfoy has no official Quidditch practice.
She finds him in the hospital wing, alone, for once, without Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson. Zabini never seems to be around him besides in the early morning, for the brief instance of tying his tie. She wonders at their relationship.

"Is it true what Ron tells me, about Buckbeak?" she asks.

"Without the expletives, perhaps." He replies readily, almost lazily.

"Why? Hagrid could be in serious trouble because of what you’ve said."

He looks directly at her. "Don't try to understand what you don’t comprehend, Ginevra. I would have thought that your first year would have taught you that. Clearly you are rather too dense."

In a swift motion, she slaps him across the face.

"You really are a prat, aren't you, Malfoy?" her hand smarts, but her words are forceful.

"And you really are an idiot, aren't you, Ginevra?" he returns, mockingly, angrily, and the side of his face is red and pink from her slap.

If it were a year ago, she would have been horrified at her slapping of a boy, much less a boy who is her senior. A year ago, she would have been fully furious with a person who, on the face of things, is actively trying to create trouble for others. But up until a year ago she was not supposed to be who she is today.
 
"I really dislike you." She does not know where that comes from, and immediately blushes at the childishness of such a reaction.

Malfoy, however, does not smirk nor sneer. Instead he turns his face away from her, closing his eyes deliberately, until she finally leaves.

Their meetings at the Quidditch pitch inevitably come to an end. Eventually, she realizes that Malfoy is not only missing his visits to her dorm in a show of being erratic; rather, he is not coming back to speak to her again. Slowly but surely, she sees less and less of him.

The nightmares start again.

~

It is just before Slytherin's match against Ravenclaw when she next speaks to him. It is Slytherin's first match, after the fiasco that had been the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match.

Ginny had seen Harry, on his bed, a few metres away from behind the Infirmary door; she had watched the way his face had fallen with the news of the destruction of his beloved Nimbus. It will take some reconstruction before the light goes back into his green eyes again.

The room had still felt cold with the lingering aftertaste of the Dementors' intrusion.

She brushes her sentiments aside as she looks for Draco Malfoy.

"Malfoy," She can hear the breathlessness in her voice. He is the last to depart from the Slytherin Quidditch locker room; ahead of him are the large figures of the rest of the Slytherin team, loud and rowdy. Waiting for her at the opposite end of the corridor is Lane; his eyes closed, he leans against the wall. Malfoy, in front of her, stops, turning around to face her. He looks paler than usual; his grey eyes are metallic as if with anticipation, and he is gripping his broom tightly, the long fingers press painfully against the black handled wood.

"What do you want, Weasley?" His question comes out in an insolent drawl. She hesitates at this. She does not know why, but somehow it shocks and hurts her that he calls her by her last name; she has become accustomed to his calling her Ginevra.

She has also become accustomed to his visiting her in her dorm, accustomed to flying with him. She has simply become accustomed to him.

"You'll - you'll win this time." She flushes at her stammering, and drops his gaze.

Draco Malfoy does not say anything for a moment, and when she looks up again his face is a blank. Then, in a flat voice, "Of course we'll beat them. They're Ravenclaw."

"Cho Chang - you just have to - "

"Are you worried about me, Ginevra?" If she were not flushing at the relief of hearing her name on his lips again, so casually and so fluently spoken, she would have caught the sneer in his voice.

"I wouldn't want - "

"Wouldn't want what, Ginevra?"

"I want to see you fly again – Draco,” she manages, softly.

They know what she means; they also know how long it has taken for her to call him by his first name.

This time he does not say anything. Giving her a slight nod, he turns on his heel, and strides down the corridor in the direction his teammates had made off to.

They win the match. Draco is marvelous - Ginny thinks, that were it Harry he played against, he would have beaten him as well.

That same night, Draco comes to her dorm, his Quidditch clothes still damp and clinging from the fog, and without saying anything, he bends down towards her, and, very gently, he kisses her on her forehead. His eyes are closed, and even when he leans back from the kiss, they are heavy-lidded. He does not say a word and turns away abruptly, leaving the room. Ginny does not say anything, either.

They both know that it is enough.

His lips were soft and dry, tender.

The nightmares disappear again, for that night.

~

"What do you suppose happened?" Ginny recognizes the voice as being Seldon White's.

"Why are we sleeping here, of all places?" comes Pansy Parkinson's high-pitched voice.

The Great Hall is a flurry of activity; everyone is on his or her purple sleeping bags, chattering loudly, asking questions.

Ginny asks Lane, "What do you think happened?" Lane is next to her, settling himself into a sleeping bag.
Lane gives her a half-smile. "Nothing we wouldn't hear of in time to come - in its various forms. I suspect it has something to do with Sirius Black." His casual tone causes Ginny to look at him suspiciously.

"You don't think - "

Lane shakes his head. "I don't know anything - of certainty, that is."

"Do you think they'll cancel classes tomorrow?" comes Draco's voice, in the lazy drawl that Ginny knows her brother and Harry abhor. Speaking of whom - she spies the Gryffindor trio of Ron, Harry and Hermione together in a far corner.

When she turns back Lane is still looking at her. "Any dreams lately, Ginny?"

"No," she replied, resolutely - it is the truth, after all.

Lane smiles again, a fuller smile this time. "I see Draco Malfoy does a better job than I can at comforting you, then."

Ginny must appear inordinately surprised, because Lane laughs out loud at her expression.

"How did - why -" splutters Ginny.

"I have my ways," replies Lane, laughingly, and, in the first gesture of playfulness Ginny has ever seen from him, he tweaks her nose, in turn triggering a push in his stomach on Ginny's part.

A few metres away, Draco Malfoy watches them, expression inscrutable.

~

As Ginny Weasley sleeps, Lane Wyck-Devereaux watches over her.

"Malfoy. The prefects will be coming around soon,” he greets the older boy, who he knows has come over from behind him, without turning around.

"What game are you playing at, Wyck-Devereaux?" Malfoy’s voice is grating.

"You think that I am playing a game, Malfoy?" Lane questions back, voice still calm. He keeps an eye on the advancing figure of a prefect: it is a Slytherin prefect, and they can carry on with their conversation. "Such a game could come in the cost of lives, you know," he adds, pleasantly.

"Good that you know," hisses Malfoy, before turning, making sure to reach his sleeping bag before the overzealous Percy Weasley comes sweeping down on him.

Ginny Weasley continues sleeping, unaware, as Lane Wyck-Devereaux closes his eyes in turn, a protective arm over her body.

~

"Morning, Blaise." The tall, black-haired boy turns slightly, in greeting to the speaker, from the green-touched flame of the Slytherin Common Room's fireplace. At the other end of the room, Ginevra Weasley greets Lane Wyck-Devereaux; as always, they are the only ones as early as Blaise and Draco.

The grey eyes of the smaller boy standing before him are shaded. Blaise takes it as his cue to make a quiet observation, as each boy's hands reach out to slip around the sliding texture of the undone ties around the other's neck.

"There's something bothering you. It has since last week, after the night we spent in the Great Hall."

Draco's eyes do not leave Blaise's tie. "You know about what’s being planned."

Blaise's eyes never leave Draco’s tie, either. Voice level, he says, "From the scanty details you have provided, I can hardly say that I know anything."

He watches as Draco's expression flickers slightly; he is annoyed. "I don't know what Wyck-Devereaux is playing at. Father says our side needs Ginevra; Wyck-Devereaux's pulling everything apart."

He can feel Draco's long fingers smoothing the edges of the tie around his neck. Mildly, he replies, "I repeat my previous sentiments, Draco. Besides, you cannot possibly expect my cousin to work for your cause...the only thing our families will concern ourselves in are things which could affect our standard of living."

He feels Draco's hands jerk at the knot, in a gesture that is rougher than usual. Blaise Zabini watches the other boy's face carefully as he finishes adjusting his tie. He lowers his voice yet further as Ginevra Weasley and Lane Wyck-Devereaux pass them on their way out of the Slytherin dorms.

"You show too much, Draco. It will be dangerous for you."

~

"What happened?" Ginny asks, as a furious Draco Malfoy strides into the Common Room with Crabbe and Goyle behind him, all three of them drenched in what looked suspiciously like mud.

"Ask your brother the weasel," he retorts, seething, "or better yet, ask lovely Saint Potter."

"That's a very civilized way to talk," replied Ginny flatly. "What exactly happened this time, or did you trip over Harry's leg on your way to Hogsmeade?"

He immediately glares daggers at her. Then, almost just as quickly, the look slides of his face, and resignedly, he answers, "Potter has a Invisibility Cloak, hasn't he?"

Ginny has guessed that it hasn’t only been Harry's merits as a talented wizard that have gotten him out of his many scrapes, but she has never actually guessed that he has an Invisibility Cloak.

"I didn't know that," she replies, truthfully. "What's it got to do with anything, anyway? Or did Harry come up from behind you and splash you in Hogsmeade? But isn't he not allowed to go there?"

"Which would be why he was going around Hogsmeade in an Invisibility Cloak, Ginevra. If your analytical skills were any more incisive, you might cut yourself," snaps Draco in return. He slumps against a green armchair, facing the fire; Crabbe and Goyle are dismissed with a casual wave of his hand. The mud drips off the tips of his silver-blond hair, looking very much like melted chocolate, from where Ginny is, in the middle of the Common Room across from him.

She must have been staring a little too long at him, because he suddenly asks, "Like what you see, Ginevra?"

Something suspiciously like a smirk graces his lips.

She answers steadily, "Uncomfortable with me looking, Draco?"

He smiles in reply, and it seems almost sincere.

Then abruptly, he asks, "Why do you like Potter, Ginevra?"

She gave him a sidelong glance. "What kind of question is that?"

"A fair inquiry."

"I think it’s unfair."

"I am just doing a survey," replies Draco in mock-innocence, "of public opinion regarding the famous Boy-Who-Lived."

"He saved me last year. What am I supposed to say?"

An uncomfortable silence follows after Ginny's retort.

"Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, / A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him." Ginny looks straight at him at this, only to see that he wears a bitter expression on his face.

At her expression, his lips quickly quirk into a sneer, "Shakespeare, Ginevra. From Cesario's courting of Olivia, Act One Scene Five of Twelfth Night."

"I don't love him." Her answer comes out almost petulantly.

Another gap of silence, as Ginny glares at Draco in her embarrassment, and Draco studies her under half-lidded eyes.

The mud continues to drip down his collar.

"Good,” he replies finally, but he pushes himself off the armchair, turning towards his dorm as soon as he lets the word escape off the tip of his tongue. Ginny knows that he concedes her nothing.

~

The two boys lean over Blaise Zabini’s favourite non-magical chess set; he sits next to them, watching the game. They are at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, waiting for dinner. Ginevra Weasley is about a dozen seats away from them; at her side is Lane Wyck-Devereaux, and they seem to be discussing homework with Seldon White and Byrne-Declan York.

Blaise is an avid chess player; the two boys playing now – second-year Brone Vaisey, and seventh-year Terence Higgs – are competent enough, and their game has been interesting to watch.

But Blaise’s dark blue eyes glide, as he lifts up a goblet of water to his lips, to Ron Weasley and his best friends, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, at the head of the Gryffindor table.

He hears that Ron Weasley had, in their first year, beaten McGonagall herself at chess.

Although he has never had to chance to play against Ron Weasley, he has seen him play – his movements are almost instinctive, always quick. Blaise thinks that Ron Weasley does not appear to be calculative, but there has to be some kind of strategy that he has for each game – even if it were simply fool’s strategy.

‘How exactly do you want me to involve myself in this, Blaise?’ murmurs Brone from beside him, not lifting his gaze from the board.

‘What do you know about Ron Weasley?’ asks Blaise in reply.

‘Hotheaded, rather oblivious, not very much academically inclined, very much not a risk-taker. Can be cocky, and presumptuous,’ lists Brone. He picks up a piece and moves it across the board.

Blaise bites back a smile, ‘Anything else?’

‘Foolishly loyal,’ continues Brone, ‘Besides his rather ill-advised friendship with Potter, he has unfortunate taste in Quidditch teams.’

‘How do you know about that?’ questions Blaise.

‘The Chudley Cannons always lose,’ replies Brone, studying Terence’s move, ‘And he’s the only one to act like he’s actually still surprised about it.’

‘Do you think you can gain his trust?’ asks Blaise, smiling slightly and cutting to the chase.

Brone does not seem surprised at this, although he does finally turn to face him. Then he sighs, ‘I suppose you want to exploit my family’s sporting heritage for this, don’t you?’

Blaise’s smile widens. ‘Well, if it’s any comfort, Charlie Weasley’s supposed to have been an excellent Seeker, the twins are terribly enthusiastic Beaters and Ginny Weasley seems to be able to keep up with Draco well enough. Ron Weasley can’t be too painful to deal with.’

‘Charlie Weasley had only ever won the Quidditch cup once against my brother, there is no art in being an enthusiastic Beater, only bloody-mindedness, and Draco Malfoy is a desperately average Quidditch player, besides the fact that he is playing out of position,’ replies Brone methodically. He has turned back to the board before him. ‘Terence should never have given up his spot as Seeker for him – he completely lacks an ability to concentrate.’ At this, he casts a brief, disapproving look at the older boy opposite him.

Terence’s eyes remain on the board, but he remarks, ‘Malfoy’s father had procured me an agreement to play with the Falmouth Falcons as Seeker as soon as I graduate in exchange for my giving up my place for Malfoy; I think it is an entirely fair trade.’

‘You could be playing for a superior team,’ retorts Brone, as he makes his next move.

‘Not while your brother is already Seeker of the Montrose Magpies,’ returns Terence, unperturbed.

Brone mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘mercenary’.

‘Slytherin,’ corrects Terence blithely.

Blaise has watched this exchange with amusement; finally he interrupts, ‘So do you think you can do it?’

‘Are you sure that it is worth the trouble?’ asks Brone.

‘Well, we need some security. My cousin Lane isolates Ginny Weasley from us unnecessarily. And, as you said – Ron Weasley is not unpredictable, once his loyalty is secured…’

‘The Malfoys should stop antagonizing the Weasleys, then,’ remarks Brone sardonically.

‘I think the blood feud between the two families is rather historically too prominent for that to stop entirely,’ Blaise counters levelly.

‘Lucius Malfoy did not need to do what he did to Ginny Weasley,’ Brone continues.

‘It was rather a calculated risk,’ Blaise allows, ‘He could hardly have acted against direct orders. In any case, Ginny Weasley believes that Draco had nothing to do with it, at least.’

Brone does not answer for a moment, before nodding slowly. ‘Fine – I’ll do it. We’re not the only ones working on this, of course…’

Blaise gives him a bemused look. ‘You don’t actually think they would leave such matters entirely in the hands of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, do you?’ he asks, raising an eyebrow.

A muscle in Brone’s jaw twitches. ‘They had better not. We’re not Gryffindors.’

Turning back to game, he shifts a piece and takes away another of Terence’s.

‘Checkmate,’ Brone announces, and Blaise smiles.

~