Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

Flip. She felt her heart turn over in her chest, and mentally frowned at herself. It was just Draco — there was no point getting all worked up just because he touched her arm — well, all right, everyone got all worked up over Draco, which was even more reason that she shouldn´t. It wasn´t fair that he looked as good as he did, either, as if the clothes he wore had been made expressly for him. Oh, all right, they probably had been made expressly for him. Wasn´t that what having a lot of money was all about? Of course no amount of money could buy hair like that, or eyes that color, or cheekbones you could cut paper with….that was just luck, or genetics, or some terribly unfair combination of the two…

Draco was waving something in front of her eyes. With a certain amount of difficulty, she focused on it. It was a small, red-bound book. In fact, it was the book she had given him the week before, for his birthday. A Genealogy and History of the Hogwarts Founders, by Fabianna Patters-Brown.

"Interesting gift," Draco said. "I wasn´t sure why you gave it to me until I got to the bits about Benjamin Gryffindor — really a crashing bore, he was — and I kept coming across mentions of a certain mysterious red-headed girl who kept appearing and disappearing in his camp. That wouldn´t have been you, by any chance, on one of your oh-so-secret time travel missions? Back in time to find the perfect boyfriend?"

Ginny snorted inelegantly. "Ben? The perfect boyfriend?"

"Why not? Tall, dark, handsome, dead for a thousand years so he won´t cramp your style, and just like all the rest of you Gryffindor types he walks around like heś got a ten-foot Giant pike stuck right up his — "

"Draco, this is pointless."

"I disagree. Itś entirely pointy."

"Why?"

"Well," said Draco, sitting down on the edge of his bed, "itś occurred to me that thereś a bit of a mystery about this Ben Gryffindor chap. Heś got an Heir, right, but no wife, and no…attachments reported. No girls in his life really at all, just hangs about with his cousin Gareth — nice-sounding fellow he was, too.

But then thereś this red-headed vixen who keeps popping in and out of young Benjaminś tent like she lives there…and how long were you there really?"

"Wait a minute. Are you asking me if I´m Harryś great-great-great grandmother?" Ginny demanded, too stunned to sputter.

"Well, if you put it like that…" Draco had the grace to look slightly abashed.

"How do you know," Ginny demanded, "that I´m not your great-great grandmother? Gareth was awfully cute, too."

Draco looked astonished. Ginny took a few seconds to savor the moment. It was not often that she was able to render Draco speechless. Finally, she laughed. "All right, fine," she admitted. "As much fun as this has been…I´m not your great-grandmother. Or Harryś. I never met Benś son, or whatever woman was his sonś mother, and as a matter of fact…" at which point she leaned in quite close and whispered something very softly into Dracoś right ear, something that made his eyebrows fly up like wings and his mouth quirk into a sly grin.

"You´re kidding," he said.

She shook her head. "I´m not."

"Well, well." He bounced up to his feet, the grin never leaving his lips. "The things you don´t learn in Professor Binnsćlass." His eyebrows drew together. "And for that matter, there's something else I was wondering."

"What?"

"Well, I thought you got your bright idea about going back into the past because of the Gryffindor army that disappeared. But when Ben went back home, he took his army with him. Where did they all go?"

Ginny shook he head. "Oh, Draco…That's a long story, and I have to run…at this rate I´ll be half-dressed when the party starts."

Draco leaned back on his elbows. " I really see no problem with that."

Ginny cut her eyes sideways at him, and turned to go, but he held her back.

"Shall I walk you down the stairs?" he asked.

"What?"

"Itś tradition," he said. "Guests enter the ballroom in pairs and are announced at the foot of the stairs. Itś always been done that way.

Harry will go down with Hermione, Sirius with my mother, Bill with Fleur, and so on."

She just looked at him steadily, long past the point where any ordinary teenage boy would have started shifting from foot to foot.

Draco just looked back at her, impassive, a small smile teasing the corner of his mouth, the long blue-gray eyes unreadable as always.

It was odd, she thought, that he reminded her not so much of Gareth but of Ben, somehow — they had the same inner stillness, the same flickering expressions that came and went and left no mark behind, like wind across water.

"Itś tradition," Draco said again.

"You said that already."

"Well, the essence of tradition is repetition."

"All right."

"What?"

"All right. I´ll meet you at the top of the stairs in — "

"Fifteen minutes."

"I can´t get beautiful in fifteen minutes!"

"You´re already beautiful," he said calmly, leaning back against the headboard of his bed and flipping open the book. She looked at him quickly, hard, too see if he was lying — but of course, Draco didn´t lie. What were the other things he´d said he didn´t do? I don´t lie…or faint…and I don´t dance.

"I´ll be there in fifteen minutes," she said. "If you promise to dance."

Draco looked up. "With you, or just in general?"

"It would look a bit funny if you just danced with me."

"All right," said Draco offhandedly, returning his attention to the book. "I promise. I´ll dance."

Surely it had been more than fifteen minutes, Ginny fretted, flitting about her room in a state of great agitation. She was, in general, ready — she had remembered a charm that smoothed her unruly locks into a velvety river of flame-colored silk, and had fastened it with clips in the shape of tiny multicolored butterflies. Her dress was perfect — blood-colored satin, with rows of black bows down the front and straps that crossed in back, showing her slim, freckled shoulders to great advantage. The problem? Her shoes. Search as she might, all over her borrowed bedroom, she could not find the ones that had come with her dress — she must have left them in the library, along with her wand. The only other option was a pair of worn trainers — not really an option at all. She had no idea where she was supposed to get another pair of shoes at the eleventh hour like this. She wished, fervently, that she had the Time-Turner back again so that she could give herself an extra two hours to get ready -

then smiled ruefully as she realized that that was exactly why Dumbledore had taken their Keys away in the first place. One was not supposed to use exceptionally old, exceptionally powerful magical tools for the express purpose of perfecting oneś outfit.

Ginny swore, and kicked at a bedpost with her bare foot.

"Not very ladylike," said a voice at the door.

It was Draco, of course. He had thrown an elegantly cut caramel-colored suede jacket on over his sweater, and looked, if possible, even more put-together than before. He was leaning against the doorframe, radiating ironic detachment and aloof confidence. Ginny looked at him with great dislike.

"Polite people knock," she said coldly.

"I'll keep that in mind in case I ever meet any." He held out a hand to her. "Aren't you ready? You look ready."

Ginny ignored his proffered hand, and pointed a bare toe at him accusingly. "You made me rush," she said irritably. "I forgot my shoes, and now I can't find them."

Draco grinned. It lit up his face.

"Itś not funny," she snapped.

"On the contrary. But I won't debate the point. Accio!" he murmured under his breath, reaching out his left hand as he did so. A moment later, he caught something out of the air, and tossed it to her.