Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Draco raised an eyebrow. The wind off the lake blew a veil of silver across his eyes. "What did you say?"

Hermione stood up, brushing leaves and damp petals from her skirt. "Oh," she said. "It was nothing."

Ginny's stomach growled. She had gone back to lying in bed with the hangings drawn, though, she thought, if she'd had some foresight she would have brought a tin of biscuits or at least some crisps to gnaw on, since she had no intention of going down to supper. The last night before the end of the year in the Great Hall always had a festive atmosphere, and she wanted no part of it. Nor, tonight, did she care who won the Quidditch Cup or had the most house points.

She pressed her hands against her stomach and sighed. She always forgot to eat when she was unhappy, and if she wasn't careful she'd go back down to skin and bones the way she had been in January. Not that she wanted to be enormous, but she always looked better with a bit of a chest and all her ribs not sticking out like a xylophone.

Her mind wandered to the dress folded on top of the belongings in her trunk, waiting to be worn at the wedding. Blaise had helped her pick it out

— yard on yard of scarlet satin, glowing like the hot tip of a poker. Ginny had said that she'd always thought redheads weren't supposed to wear red themselves, and Blaise had told her not to believe everything you read in Teen Witch Weekly.

Blaise had meant to make her laugh, but Teen Witch Weekly just reminded her of Draco, of sitting on that rock with him near Charlie's dragon camp, Draco telling her about his dreams, but so wryly that she'd thought he was joking. She wondered if that was when it had happened, when thinking of him had become like a fire that burned away other thoughts. And she wondered why it had taken her so long to get tired of it, of being a question without an answer, a single, sounding note without a reply.

The hangings around her bed rustled. She sat up quickly, seizing one of her pillows and holding it across herself. "Who is it? Elizabeth?"

"No." A hand came through the hangings, yanked them apart. It was Hermione. There were leaves in her hair. She looked flushed. "It's me."

"Oh." Ginny hugged the pillow. "Come to lecture me a bit more about my terrible judgment and bad ideas?"

"No." Hermione thrust her other hand through the hangings; there was a stoppered silver flask in it, with a design of snakes around the top. "I came to give you this."

Ginny actually felt her eyes pop wide. "What is that?"

Hermione frowned. "There's only a sip in there, but that's all you need.

Just remember, the effect lasts for half an hour and applies to the first person you see, so be damn sure it's Seamus. Only death can reverse the effects, and I seriously don't want to go through that again." She thrust the flask forward. "Take it."

Ginny didn't need to be told twice. She snatched it out of Hermione's hand. "This is really love potion?"

"It's really love potion," said Hermione.

"You made it so fast…"

Hermione's eyes sparked briefly. "I know where to get it. And I borrowed the flask, kind of without telling someone, so keep it hidden."

"I didn't think you were going to…"

"Yes, well, neither did I," Hermione said shortly. "Don't make me sorry I did."

She yanked the hangings closed, leaving Ginny sitting speechless and alone, in the dark.

Which was how Ginny came to be sitting on the plushly upholstered seat of a Malfoy carriage pulled up in front of the school, across from Seamus, with the silver flask of love potion held carefully on her lap. If she looked out the window, she could see the crowd of students spilling down the steps and across the lawn, Dumbledore and McGonagall and the other professors standing framed in the great doorway, waving and smiling.

Harry and Hermione and Ron and even Draco were in among the thick of the students, exchanging good-byes, and Ginny supposed she could have joined them, but she didn't feel much like it. After all, she was coming back next year. She didn't have to bid farewell the way they did.

Hermione and Ron and Harry had spent the morning ranging over the castle, saying good-bye to the places they'd known and loved, or in some cases, such as the Potions dungeon, known and hated. Ginny supposed she could understand how they must feel, but mostly she felt a dull impatience with the whole business. She felt that it was worse to come back to school with all your important friends gone than not to be able to come back at all, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to convince them of that. They were deep in the grip of the sort of nostalgia only felt by people who hadn't actually started missing a place yet. If they sold Hogwarts souvenir tea-towels, Ginny suspected, they'd all be waving them like flags.

Seamus didn't seem to share their feelings. He was slouched against the bench seat opposite her, his face in shadow, his eyes half-closed as if he were exhausted. He looked up, as if feeling her gaze on him, and opened his eyes. In the darkness, they were a very dark blue, nearly violet.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked.

She'd nearly forgotten that the night before she'd sent him an owl saying she was too ill to come to supper. "Oh. Yes, much better today."

He smiled. When he smiled, he looked like himself again. He leaned forward a little. "Are you looking forward to the wedding?"

"Yes," Ginny said, almost surprised that this was true. "I think it'll be fun."

"And afterwards…"

"We're going to your parents' house in Ireland. I know." She tried not to sound impatient.

"I haven't seen them since — since everything that happened." He took a deep breath. "I need you there."

"I'll be there," she said.

"Unless…" He reached out a hand, took her fingers and squeezed them.

"Unless it'll make you unhappy. All I want is for you to be happy," he added. "That's all I ever wanted."

Ginny let her fingers lie in his, and with her free hand squeezed the neck of the silver flask tightly. "Don't worry," she said. "I will be."

“So,” Draco said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “we have a three-hour ride’s worth of time to kill and really thick curtains on the windows. What do you say we —“

Blaise, who had been peering past one of the thick curtains at carriage beside them, which was carrying Harry, Hermione and Ron, dropped the curtain back in place and looked at him severely. “I am not going to get off with you, Draco. Oh, and I don’t care how pissed I get at the party, I’m not going to get off with you then, either. We’re going as friends.”

Draco smiled at her, a slight upward curving of his lips. “I don’t suppose I could play the ‘I nearly died’ card?”

“Only if I can play the ‘I don’t want to get nearly pregnant’ card.”

He leaned back, stretching his long legs out so that his feet rested on the seat beside her. “You weren’t always so prudish,” he lamented.

“Remember that time in the Quidditch shed after we beat Hufflepuff?”

“Which time after we beat Hufflepuff?” she muttered.

“All three, as I recall,” said Draco. “And do you remember —“

Blaise threw a hand up. “That’s enough! Really, Draco, if I’d known you were going to act like this, I wouldn’t have agreed to go to the wedding with you at all.”

“Yes, you would,” said Draco. “The only thing you like better than expensive parties is attending them with the best-looking guy in the room.

I can provide you with both. And how’s the dress?”

She smiled as if she couldn’t help it. “Beautiful. I’ve never seen a red like that.” She peered at him more closely through the dimness in the carriage. If it hadn’t been for the length of her hair, in the shadow light, she could almost have been Ginny. He wondered if that was why she had cut it. “I can’t help wondering…”