Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Ginny gave a little excited hop as they entered the changing room. She grabbed for her wrist guards and began buckling them on. Ron and the others had already filed out onto the pitch, it seemed, since the room was empty. "God, do you think it was someone really dreadful and now he's embarrassed?" she said, fascinated. "Maybe it was Milicent Bulstrode or something!"

Harry made a dreadful face. "She'd have taken a much bigger bite out of his neck, I'd wager."

"Tess Hammond? Pansy Parkinson?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Not even if he'd drunk sixty butterbeers."

"Someone with a boyfriend, then? Maybe he's afraid he'd get in trouble."

Harry cocked an eyebrow. "That could be. I'm afraid I feel unprepared to even venture a guess. I'll ask Hermione after the game. She's spent more time with him than I have lately."

Ginny chuckled softly. "Ron's got a mystery girl!" she said cheerfully. "I love it."

Harry grinned at her. "Maybe Seamus is right and it's a mystery boy," he said. "Ever think of that?"

"Well, I don't see why he'd bother hiding it," said Ginny, tucking her broomstick under her arm and heading with Harry towards the doorway that led to the pitch. "I mean, Mum and Dad thought Percy was gay for ages, and they were fine with it. Kept blanketing him with leaflets and trying to get him to open up about his feelings."

Harry laughed. "Percy? Really?"

"Cor, yes. They were quite disappointed when Penelope showed up," she added, and ducked under the ropes that cordoned off the pitch. The rest of the team was there, waiting, including Ron, who had pulled the collar of his sweater up as high as it would go and now resembled a turtle of some sort. She chanced a wink at him and he colored.

"Your parents really are amazing," said Harry, and Ginny turned to add a smiling affirmative, but was arrested by the look on Harry's face. Always, before every game, he scanned the stands for Hermione, and she could tell by his expression that he had just found her. She followed his gaze and saw Hermione sitting between Jana and George, a pile of books in her lap, looking down at the pitch and waving. As Ginny watched, Hermione made a sign at Harry with her hand — it wasn't anything Ginny recognized, but it was obviously some sort of signal between them, because Harry smiled, a brilliant smile like breaking sunrise.

A creeping sadness invaded Ginny's bones. Secret signals, shared jokes. It always seemed that she was on the outside — on the outside of the tightly knit group of Harry, Hermione and Ron; outside Draco's relationship with Harry and Hermione as well, on the outside as the only girl in a family of boys. She turned away from Harry and caught Seamus' eye, and he smiled at her, the sweetest smile. She smiled back, and moved to stand next to him as the team mounted their broomsticks. Harry stepped past her then, heading towards the pitch to shake hands with Draco, who had already walked out there. Perhaps, she thought, not looking towards the pitch but instead at Seamus, perhaps things were finally changing for her after all.

The match was starting quite late; the rumor was that one of the Slytherin players was running behind schedule. Hermione, sandwiched between George and Jana in the stands, Fred sitting behind them (Angelina had not come, opting instead to take Oliver Wood on a walking tour of the factory. On this topic, Fred had no comment) was quite sure that Draco's meeting with Dumbledore had run overtime, and found herself wondering what exactly they were talking about. She would have given a great deal to be a fly on the wall in the Headmaster's chambers, or even a beetle Animagus like Rita Skeeter.

Vaguely, she was aware of Jana saying soothing things to George, who was growing more and more impatient as time ticked by. Hermione herself was not bored; she had brought an absolutely massive book on L'Histoire des Quatres Objects de Pouvoir with her, and was busily reading the relevant chapter, her Translator Quill held at the ready for any words she did not understand. A tight knot of foreboding was growing in her stomach as she read on about les quatres — the Mirror, the Dagger, the Cup and the Scabbard, otherwise known as the Four Worthy Objects. She had heard of them before; in fact, they had been on the homework assignment Lupin had given them. Even before that she had known that they existed in myth, but had never known why they were Worthy or what use they were meant to be put to. The more she read, the less she liked what she was reading. She ached to race off and find Harry and tell him what she had so far discovered, but of course she couldn't -

"And about time!" muttered George, as the changing room door opened and the teams spilled out onto the field, the Gryffindor team rushing and the Slytherin team, although they were the late ones, sauntering insolently. The teams paused as Harry and Draco walked towards each other and shook hands, holding the grip, it seemed, only as long as necessary. Hermione, who knew better, saw through her Omnioculars how they leaned instinctively towards each other, and saw the wry smile Harry offered Draco as their hands met. A shaft of light broke through the clouds then, and she took the Omnioculars away from her eyes, blinded; when she looked again, they were walking away from each other, back towards their respective teams.

Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and the teams launched themselves into the sky. George and Fred both yelled, and Jana, looking bored, went for her knitting — she was in the process of making a rather hideous orange muffler which Hermione secretly suspected was a Christmas present for Ron, who would look wretched in such a color. Hiding a smile, Hermione put her Omnioculars down and divided her attention between reading her book and watching the game as it unfolded in the sky above.

She had once detested Gryffindor-Slytherin matches, but now she liked them, although she wouldn't have admitted it. Quidditch bored her and always had, but she liked watching her boys fly — Harry with his arrowlike grace, Ron with his straightforward determination, and Draco's showy stylization that masked a real skill. She watched them crisscross each other in the sky, and cheered when Gryffindor scored a goal, mostly because everyone else around her was cheering. But she enjoyed the sheer beauty of flight, something no Muggle sport really offered. Watching Draco and Harry speed away from and towards each other was like watching two streaks of green and red light.

The others weren't bad either, of course. She'd been surprised by how well Ginny played when she'd first joined the team this year. She was fast and her aim was excellent. Hermione watched now as Ginny shot past Malcolm Baddock to capture the Quaffle, performed a hairpin turn, and raced towards the Slytherin goal. The Slytherin Beaters wheeled to follow her, but before they could, Blaise Zabini shot between them like an arrow, seized Tess Hammond's bat out of her hand, and whacked the nearest Bludger as hard as she could towards Ginny. It slammed into Ginny's shoulder and her broom spun in a circle, as the crowd below yelped and George broke into a stream of colorful profanity. Ginny righted her broom, but dropped the Quaffle, which Blaise dived for and captured; the Slytherin girl spun to hurl herself back towards the Gryffindor goal but Seamus Finnigan was blocking her, looking incensed. As her broom's path crossed his, Seamus reached out, grasped hold of the trailing end of Blaise's sleeve, and shook her, hard. With an infuriated screech, Blaise swung around, her free hand clawing at his face, and as Seamus ducked out of her grasp she dropped the Quaffle -

Madam Hooch's whistle blew furiously. "Gryffindor fouls! Quaffle goes to Slytherin!" she called firmly.

There was a faint groan from the Gryffindor stands. "What the devil was Seamus thinking?" Fred demanded, craning his Omnioculars upward.