Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Seamus looked exasperated. "That is not what I meant,' he said. "I meant you…you letting yourself be miserable. I don't care about the Yule Ball or the Pub Crawl or any of it! But I care about you, Ginny."

She looked at him in surprise. "Seamus…"

"I do," he said quickly. "I have for a long time. When you came back this year, after you'd been away, it was like… you were a whole new person and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed you before. You're beautiful, you're clever, you're a fantastic Quidditch player, you're funny, your friends obviously adore you…"

Ginny looked at him with her mouth open. "I'd no idea."

"Well," said Seamus. "Now you do."

She shook her head. "Don't…don't be all sweet and nice. I don't deserve it." She leaned against the doorjamb, feeling hopeless. "I can't do this. It would be a mistake, and — and I can't do this again."

Seamus looked surprised. "Again? You dated me before?"

Ginny laughed despite herself. "No, I mean… look, Seamus, I like you, I really do, and you're charming and sweet, but I've discovered that it's a really, really bad idea to go against my instincts. The last time I did that -

well, it didn't work out so well for me."

Seamus nodded. He had put his hands in his pockets. "I just saw your brother come back from the Pub Crawl with Harry and Hermione," he said. "They didn't even look surprised to see me sitting by myself in the common room. It made me wonder what they know that I don't know.

Ginny…" he paused. "What exactly did Malfoy do to you? I won't say anything — or judge you — I just want to understand."

Ginny bit her lip. "You couldn't possibly…"

"I could if you explain it to me," said Seamus, his voice very firm.

Ginny hesitated, looking at him. He had a kind, honest face, made more boyish by the smattering of freckles across his nose. He looked steadfast and loyal and stalwart and all those things she associated with her brothers, with all the men in her life really — except for one. She couldn't imagine upending all the trial and darkness and misery of the last six months, the confusion and the pain and the victory and the disappointment, on top of Seamus, and having him be able to even begin to understand.

But maybe she was selling him short. Maybe he could take it. If nothing else, he really seemed to want to understand. Maybe he could.

And maybe she just really needed somebody to talk to.

She stepped back, away from the door, and motioned for Seamus to come in. He looked at her in surprise, wise-eyed and hesitating. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

He had been waiting so long there in their meeting place that he was about to give up when she finally appeared.

She looked pale and tired, and her robes were in disarray. "Ron," she said, and he saw she had his folded parchment in her hand. "I got your message." She made no attempt to come across the room towards him, only leaned back against the closed door. "What did you want to see me about? You know this isn't a good time."

He looked at her with slight incredulity. "It's been days," he said. "I can't go that long — "

"Well, you have to," she replied abruptly. "There are more important things in life than sex, Ron."

"That is not why I wanted to see you!" He was gripping the table with his hands so hard that they hurt. "I missed you."

She flushed beneath her pallor. "You saw me today. And yesterday. And the day before. And — "

"But not like this," he said. "Not like this," and he walked across the room and took her by the arms, and kissed her. Or tried to. She turned her face away from his, and would not look at him. "Why?" he said. "Why are you doing this?"

"I'm afraid," she said quietly.

He shook his head. A strange ache had begun in a place below his ribs. It was hard to breathe. "I won't let you shut me out — I'll tell everyone — "

She jerked in his arms as if he had dug a knife into her skin. "No! No, you promised!"

"And you said you loved me! Or were you lying?"

She laughed; it was a brittle sound. "I lie to everyone else. Why not you, too?"

"There's a simple solution to that," he said. "Tell them the truth."

She seemed to droop in his embrace. "I'm not ready yet."

"When will you be ready?" He searched her face with his eyes. As always, in the faint and colored light of the meeting room, she looked spectral, her features dimmed to ghostliness. He could almost believe she was not quite real, a figment conjured up by his own importunate yearnings.

"New Year's," she said suddenly, surprising him. But then, she always surprised him. He recollected how astonished he had been the day she first summoned him to this place. He had thought it was a joke. "New Year's Day, Ron, if that's what you want."

"It's what I want," he said, and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, very lightly. She had let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, her hair covering her face. He remembered that she had been the one to kiss him, first, hooking her arm around his neck and drawing him down to her and he had let her, out of astonishment as much as anything else.

Now she seemed shy, her hands knotted into fists against his chest. "Put your hair back," he would say to her sometimes, when they lay together on the ground. "I can't see your face."

And she would laugh. "I can always see yours. You can't hide."

"Yes," he would say. "I know."

"Go away, Potter," said Draco. "I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. I don't need this right now. It's four a.m."

Harry, who had been hopping up and down excitedly in the hallway, stopped and looked vexed. "Come on, Malfoy! Didn't you hear what I said?"

"I heard you," said Draco, leaning against the door jamb and regarding Harry in a pained manner. Usually he was happy to see Harry, but at the moment he mostly wanted to be alone. His head had been pounding ever since he had come back inside from the rose garden. He kept seeing Ginny's face printed against the backs of his eyelids: the incredulous look in her eyes shattering into anger, and hatred. She hated him. Right, he told himself, and that was what you were after. So congratulations. "I heard you," he said again, pitching his voice low — it was late, but there were still students making their way up and down the corridors, returning from the Pub Crawl. Although Harry had come down to the dungeons in the Invisibility Cloak, he had taken it off as soon as Draco had opened the bedroom door. Had taken it off, and held out his hand to Draco. A hand clutching a silvery-gray box which contained a Portkey. "You stole the Portkey from Lupin's office. Nice work and all that, but, you know, he was going to give it to us next week anyway. Bit like breaking into Gringott's and emptying out your own bank vault, in my opinion."

"But I want to go now," said Harry, his voice fired with a passion that he usually only displayed when playing Quidditch. His eyes were bright with anticipatory excitement. "We can use this Portkey and have it back in Lupin's office by tomorrow morning. No one need ever know."

"What about Hermione and Ron? Won't they notice you've gone?"

"They're asleep. I left Hermione off at her room, and that was ages ago. If we get back by 9 o'clock tomorrow, nobody will ever notice we've gone.

That gives us four hours. Plenty of time."

"I thought you liked Professor Lupin," said Draco.

Harry looked taken aback. "I do, of course I do," he said. "But this is important." He paused, and darted his eyes sideways. "Hold that thought," he added quickly. "Someone's coming."

"What? Oh — bugger this," said Draco, reached out, grabbed Harry by the front of the shirt, and hauled him inside. He pushed the door shut after him, and leaned against it, his eyes on Harry. He had rarely seen Harry like this; every line of his frame seemed to almost vibrate with suppressed excitement. "I don't know, Potter," he said. "Stealing, sneaking around -