Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Ginny glanced over at her brother, who was indeed picking halfheartedly at his cold beans on toast. He also looked tired and slightly woebegone, his eyes darkly shadowed, his mouth downturned. "Pre-game nerves?" she asked curiously; Ron was rarely, if ever, significantly nervous before a game.

"Stomach ache," he said briefly, and looked up. "Where is Harry?"

"He wasn't there this morning," said Seamus helpfully, and immediately all eyes turned to Hermione, who blushed the color of Ron's hair.

"I haven't seen him either," she said quickly, "he must have had an errand to run before breakfast or something."

"Well, if he doesn't show up for the game, I'll skin him alive," said Ron, looking mildly thunderous. "It's not like anyone could be a reserve Seeker…"

"I bet Ginny could do it, she's fast enough," said Seamus equably, "and then we'd just need someone as Chaser — Parvati, didn't you Chase fifth year?"

Parvati looked down the table at Seamus and sniffed. "Jean-Yves would never let me do that now," she said, referring to the son of the French Minister of Magic, whom Parvati had been dating for nearly two years. In September, he had given her a sapphire ring the size of a pigeon egg, sparking much speculation among the Gryffindor girls. "He thinks Quidditch is unfeminine."

"And we think his accent is unbelievably girly, but do we say so?" asked Ron, rolled his eyes, and went back to picking at his bacon. "Honestly, what the hell is up with…"

"Harry!" said Hermione, dropping her fork with a clang. Ginny twisted in around in her seat to see that Harry had indeed arrived, late, at the breakfast table. He flopped down in the seat next to Hermione, who was staring at him in amazement. Ginny found herself staring too: Harry was filthy. His normally jet-black hair was powdered even blacker with soot, and streaks of soot decorated his nose, cheeks, and chin. His clothes were a disaster, and when he reached for the pumpkin juice, Ginny saw that his fingernails were gray with dirt. "Harry," said Hermione in disbelief. "What happened to you?"

Ron's eyebrows had shot up to his forehead. "Let me guess," he said, looking Harry up and down. "You may be a tiny chimney sweep, but you've got an enormous…"

"Appetite," said Harry cheerfully, grabbing for a plate of eggs and shoveling them onto his plate. "I'm starving."

They all stared at him in amazement. It had been months since Harry had done much more than pick at food during mealtimes. "Harry dear," said Hermione, making an evident effort to sound patient, "is there any particular reason why you're so…"

"So what?" Harry asked, glancing up and grinning. His teeth looked very white against all the black dirt smeared across his face.

"Dirty," said Hermione, with finality.

Harry looked at her for a second. Then he leaned across the table and kissed her soundly on the cheek. When he drew back, there was an enormous sooty mark on the side of her face, and her eyes were bright with surprise.

"Hermione," said Harry firmly, "just don't worry about it, okay?" He flopped back down in his seat, and attacked a slice of bread and butter with vigor. Hermione looked at him, shook her head, and hid a smile.

"It's good to see you eating, Harry," said Ginny, eyeing the Boy Who Lived as curiously as everyone else now was, "especially with the game coming up."

"Although I hope you wash up beforehand," said Ron, looking dubiously at Harry's filthy appearance. "The way you look at the moment, the Slytherins will be laughing too hard to play, and we'll forfeit."

"Hmm," said Seamus, leaning over to get at the butter dish, "you mean this soot business isn't meant to be a clever attempt at camouflage, Harry?

I thought maybe it was a new strategy we were working on."

"Ah, you're all so amusing," said Harry, who had moved on to the bacon.

"That famous Gryffindor humor I'm always hearing about…oh, wait, no I'm not."

"Home of the brave, Harry," said Seamus, waving his fork. "Not the witty.

We're just the cannon fodder. 'Slowing down evil by getting in the way.'"

"Now there's a winning attitude," remarked Ron. "Note to self: Do not put Seamus in charge of pre-game pep talk."

Ginny giggled, and Seamus looked over at her and then looked away without smiling, and she felt an unexpected pang. She glanced down sadly at her toast. Seamus…he was so nice and so sweet and she had treated him so horrifically badly. And he didn't even know it, not really.

When she looked up again, she saw to her surprise that Harry had paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, and was looking over at the Slytherin table. Draco was standing there, next to Blaise, and while he was not nearly as dirty as Harry, Ginny could see that his robes, too, were streaked with soot. He was looking over Blaise's head at Harry, very intently, as if he were trying to communicate something — which he probably was.

Harry put his fork down carefully on his plate, and glanced at Hermione, who had propped against the juice jug and was turning the pages between bites of her toast. "Hermione," he said, very softly, "could I talk to you for a minute?"

She didn't glance up. "Yes, of course."

"No, I mean…" His voice dropped even lower. "Alone. Outside?"

Now Hermione did look up, a look of slight surprise in her eyes. "Sure," she said, tucking a dark curl behind her ear, "we could take a walk, I suppose."

Ginny knew what that meant; they would go down to the lake, as they always did. She could not count the amount of times she had looked out a classroom window during her third year, and even her fourth, and seen Harry and Hermione walking together along the narrow path that circumnavigated the lake. They would walk very close together, shoulders not quite touching, in perfect alignment, always in step.

Harry pushed his chair back and stood up. "Let's go."

Hermione, gathering her books into her bag, glanced over at Ron. "We have that meeting today, don't we?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, right after lunch. You plan on attending this time?"

Hermione made a face at him, and reached to take Harry's outstretched hand. Then she paused, shook her head, took her wand out of her pocket, and pointed it at her boyfriend. "Detergere," she said, and the soot vanished from Harry's clothes and hands, leaving just a grimy streak across his left cheekbone. Harry grumbled.

"Honestly," Hermione said, putting her wand away, "you'd think you wanted to be filthy."

"I thought it looked dashing," said Harry, and took her hand. "Come on -

let's go." And as they walked away, Ginny realized that she was staring after them, and returned her eyes hurriedly to her plate — only to realize that everyone else at the table was staring after them as well.

"I think there's something actually going on between Ginny and Seamus,"

Hermione said conversationally, as Harry tugged her along the path.

"Elizabeth said she saw Seamus coming out of Ginny's room at four in the morning. That's good, isn't it? I mean, Seamus is a nice guy, right?"

Harry didn't reply. They were at the perimeter of the lake now, on the narrow path that wound in between the stands of leafless trees. Bare and black, the branches rose into the sky, piled with icing sugar snow.

Hermione wondered briefly where the giant squid went in the winter, when the snow drifts blew across the thick glassy ice and everything seemed so cold and so dead.

"Did you hear me, Harry?"

Harry dropped her hand and turned to face her, standing at the lake's edge. The iced-over water behind him was spangled with glittering snow, the sky very silver. Against it, Harry's black hair, the red in his pale cheeks, the dark burgundy and gold scarf, stood out like splashes of paint on a white canvas. His breath came out in puffs of white frost when he spoke. "Yes, I heard you. And Seamus is a great guy. Spectacular. I'd date him myself. Whatever. Just — there was something I wanted to talk about with you, and it wasn't Ginny or Seamus."