Disclaimer: You know the deal, if I had come up with Harry Potter, d'you really think I'd be publishing for free on the Internet? No profit, no presumption to take credit.

Taking her usual place at the Gryffindor table and helping herself to three liberally-syruped pancakes, Ginny glanced down the table. The day had arrived crisp and cold this morning, pewter grey clouds swirling mercilessly across the ceiling of the Great Hall. With its usual swooping roar, the post arrived. A hysterical Pigwigeon tumbled onto the table in front of her, a note in his tiny beak.

Ginny, it read, after she ripped it open,

Tell your brothers later: Narcissa Malfoy is dead. So is Lucius. You all should know; it won't be in the Prophet for days.

Love always,

Mum and Dad.

Ginny frowned, and looked up across the hall towards the Slytherin table, numbness sliding into her stomach. Her eyes sought out Draco Malfoy's haughty eagle owl. It soured complacently around above the table.

Malfoy's parents? Dead? How did it happen? How could it have? They supported You-Know-Who, didn't they? How could they have been killed, with all the protection the Dark Arts afforded? There was only one explanation. He'd killed them. Murdered them.

She spotted the silver blond head of Malfoy, smirking into his cereal, the owl landed unobtrusively onto Draco's shoulder. He ignored it.

Ginny's stomach squirmed. Why wasn't he opening his letter? Malfoy's attention was, evidently, else where, but soon he relented, ripped the message from the owl, throwing him a small handful of cereal. She watched acutely pained for some unknown reason, as she saw the icy exterior of Malfoy's face split, and a frown etch the middle of his forehead. He peered at the envelope.

Ginny watched him, swallowing. Malfoy got to his feet, waving several other rising Slytherin's away, and strode from the hall, breaking open the letter in a shower of angry sparks.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was on her feet and out of the door, sprinting down the stone steps and down over the lawns on Malfoy's heels. She slowed, hovering a short distance away.

Malfoy came to rest against a tree, leaning his back against it. For all his worry, he looked just as he always did, arrogant and pompous, his leg bent back, resting his heel on the trunk. Then, as he scanned the page, shivering in the wind before him, as if a great hand had slammed him into the ground, he crumpled.

Ginny broke into a run.

He sat there, stricken. She could see it in his face, snow white and frozen in horror. His knees had sunk into the muddy ground, his robes streaked with dirt. His hands were shaking, and she could see him furiously blinking back tears, fighting a flood of grief and despair. Boiling over, he leapt to his feet, smacked his fist into the tree trunk and sunk his foot into the bark, hammering on the branches. With a look of such cold, pure hatred and loathing, Malfoy saw her, hovering, meters away. She could see he was furious she had seen his outburst. He stood there, panting and breathing heavily, eyes dry as a bone, anger flaring behind silver irises.

She said nothing as his chest settled, his frown eased, his jaw tightened.

"S'pect you've heard, Weasley?" he spluttered out, spit raining over the already sodden grass. "S'pect you're right happy, aren't you?"

She remained silent, staring at him as he glowered back at her.

"Well? Aren't you?" he yelled. "Aren't you dead pleased? His parents got what was coming to them! They deserved everything they got! Aren't you ecstatic?"

"They might have deserved it, Malfoy," she said, more calmly than she could have ever anticipated, "but you did not deserve this."

He glared quizzically at her, seething. Eventually his jaw slackened, and he sunk to the ground again.

Ginny dropped next to him, not near enough to be within touching distance. Hostile, raging tears streamed from his grey eyes, hitting the ground un-importantly and turning his smooth face blotchy. His sobs became more and more violent, as if tiny bolts of power were jolting him repeatedly, hitting him over and over and over again, draining him. Ginny watched without words as his energy was exhausted, his anger being sucked out of him.

He looked up, not with anger but with anguish. "Why?" he croaked, pleadingly, water soaking his face. Ginny moved within his periphery timidly, until she was opposite him. She bent her head very close to his, and for a second a terrified look of shock lit his features. He thought she was going to kiss him. Did she really appear that heartless? Instead, she opened her arms to him, and let him fall into them, as she had never expected him to.

He cried into her shoulder for going on half the morning. She didn't move, and said little to him. As soon as he released her, having heard the bell signalling the start of second lesson, she stood up, and retreated across the lawn. Half way there, a hand closed on her elbow.

Malfoy glared at her. "Ginny, I..." he swallowed. "Thanks."

Ginny just nodded, and turned back to the castle. The grip on her arm tightened. She looked at him again.

"If you tell anyone--"

"You'll kill me," she supplied. "I know. And you're welcome."

"Draco was beside himself with rage."

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