The proprietor of Deadly Doses, a wizard named Socrates Hemlock, admitted to carrying the Liquipurging Elixir, claiming that it was intended to be used as an emetic to induce vomiting in the event of accidental ingestion of poison. The correct dosage – one capsule – was clearly printed on the label, as was a warning that overdoses could be harmful or even fatal. 

Hemlock did, however, deny selling the Elixir to Goyle. 

"No underage wizards permitted in my shop," he was quoted as claiming. "I may live and work in Knockturn Alley, but I obey the law. I wouldn't go selling that kind of stuff to a kid. What do you take me for?"

The incident made the second page of the Daily Prophet, the first page still being taken up with Ministry news. When the investigators turned up several other controlled substances even more dangerous than the Liquipurging Elixir in Deadly Doses, and several other local shops were caught selling dragon eggs, fake Apparition licenses, Forging Quills and other illegal items, it caused a sensational crackdown on all of Knockturn Alley. Nine hags, warlocks, witches and wizards were arrested. Fourteen others were hit with hefty fines and lost their business licenses. 

But in the end, the Ministry officials could only conclude that what happened to Goyle must have been suicide. No one hazarded a guess as to why he would have picked such a grotesque and painful method.

Malfoy's paranoia about some mysterious murderer stalking the relatives of Death Eaters made the rounds. By the end of the week, half the students in Slytherin House were going about in protective clusters, because even the ones who didn't have Death Eaters in their immediate families had them as distant cousins or in-laws or "my uncle's wife's sister's best friend was married to a Death Eater" connections. Most of these links were so tenuous as to be absurd, but there was no telling that to the Slytherins. 

Three grisly deaths and Malfoy's certainty convinced them. They didn't want to believe that Nott, Crabbe and Goyle had been suicides. They'd much rather believe it was murder. 

Harry noticed that the ones Blaise had named – Nigel Nox, Devona Stormdark, and Edmund Hawke – were the most nervous of all. Not counting Draco Malfoy himself, of course. 

It was harder to feel sorry for Malfoy after the way he'd behaved, but Harry still did, at least a little. Now both of his cronies were gone, and even his nominal girlfriend Pansy Parkinson was keeping her distance.
Professor McGonagall, as acting headmistress, did her best to keep the wildest rumors under control. All of the teachers were striving to maintain an air of normality around the school. But it was plain that they were shaken, too. All but Firenze, who viewed three dead students in the first few weeks of term with philosophical detachment. 

"Saturn has been troubled lately," was the most he would say on the subject. 

By the time the weekend rolled around, though, things seemed pretty much back to normal as far as Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were concerned. There was the first Hogsmeade trip to look forward to, and Sunday's Quidditch match, and … 

"After all, they were only Slytherins anyway," Dennis said at dinner on Thursday evening. "So what's to fuss about?"

Hermione was appalled, and she wasn't the only one. Dennis took a severe drubbing for his insensitivity and crassness. To add insult to injury, McGonagall found out about it and took twenty points from Gryffindor for Dennis' remark. 

But Harry had to privately admit that Dennis seemed to have put his finger on it. That was the very attitude most prevalent among the rest of the Houses. Only Slytherins anyway. What's to fuss about?

The enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall was a low and ominous grey at breakfast on the first Saturday in October. Through even the thick stone walls, occasional rumbles of thunder could be heard. The dark clouds and spitting squalls of rain did not dim the spirits of the older students, especially not those of the third-years, who were going to Hogsmeade for the first time. Even some of the Slytherins perked up a bit. 

"Well?" Hermione asked pointedly. 

Ron, scooping scrambled eggs onto his plate, pretended he hadn't heard her. 

Ginny grinned. "Who are you going with, Ron?"

"Huh?"

"To Hogsmeade," Hermione said. "It's today, you know."

"Yeah … so?"

"You've never been a good fibber, Ron," Ginny said. "Your ears always turn pink. You'd better never play poker."

"I don't know what you're talking about." His ears were so pink they almost glowed. 

"The big date," Hermione said, with acid in her tone. 

"Date?"

"Give it up, Ron," advised Seamus. "They're onto you."

"Oh!" Ron widened his eyes in a fake look of dawning comprehension. "That's right, I was going to ask someone to go to Hogsmeade with me! Wow. I totally forgot. Slipped my mind. Totally slipped my mind. Drat. And I was looking forward to it, too. Ah, well, next time. Today I guess I'll just hang around with Harry."

"Hey, leave me out of this," Harry said, holding up his hands. 

"You are the worst liar I've ever heard," Hermione said. 

"Who's lying?" He tried to look innocent and failed badly. 

"Tsk, Ron." Ginny clucked her tongue. "Even Neville's got a date."

Neville, meanwhile, was oblivious to them as he kept making dreamy calf's eyes at Cecily over at the Ravenclaw table. Cecily, for her part, would blush and toy with her long blonde braid, and send little finger-waves his way. The girls seated around her, other Ravenclaw seventh-years including Cho Chang, kept exchanging glances and shaking their heads. 

"I would ask someone," Ron blustered. "Only it's too late now, isn't it? Short notice. Girls hate being asked out at the last minute."

"How in the world would you know?" Hermione sniffed. 

"He waited until the last minute to ask my sister to the Yule Ball," Parvati said. 

"Actually," Lavender corrected cattily, "Ron didn't ask your sister at all. Harry asked you, and Ron was the fine-print package deal poor Padma got roped into."

"Hey!" Ron said. 

By now, it seemed, every girl at the Gryffindor table was enjoying Ron's torment. And most of the boys were just glad it was him instead of any of them. One girl alone was scary enough. When they banded together like this …

"Sorry, mate," Harry said, clapping him on the back. "Sacrifice yourself. Spare the rest of us."

"I don't see you having a date either," Ron said. 

"I didn't shoot off my mouth and say I was going to get one."

"I forgot! Is that a crime?"

Hermione made a show of checking the time. "You've still got half an hour."

"Right, like I could ask someone now!"

"I did," Colin Creevey piped up. "Just ten minutes ago, I asked Philippa Prewett if she wanted to go into Hogsmeade with me, and she said yes."

Ron buried his head in his hands and moaned. 

"Way to go, Colin," Seamus said. "She's that Hufflepuff with the b–" He started to raise his cupped hands to chest height, caught Ginny, Hermione, Lavender and Parvati all glaring daggers at him, and coughed. "With the … um … bbbeautiful eyes?"

"Nice try, Seamus," Lavender said, and threw a piece of toast at him. 

"But you're still going with me, right?" he asked, trying on a winning smile. 

"Unless someone better asks me in the next twenty-eight minutes."

"Oh, yeah?" Ron lifted his head and sat up straighter. 

"Not in your wildest dreams, Ron Weasley!"

"I can't win," Ron muttered to Harry. "Whatever I do, I just can't win."

"Maybe this'll be a lesson to you," Hermione said tartly. 

"Yeah, to never even think about asking girls out again. I'll never have a date, I'll never get married, and I'll grow old and die alone, a weird old man like Uncle Ecktor, talking to the little elves on my wallpaper."

"You're pathetic," she said. 

"So I suppose that means you won't go out with me either," Ron said, and then froze, looking like he could not believe the words had come out of his own mouth. 

"Go out with you?" Hermione shrilled. "Not if my life depended on it!"

Ginny watched this with the avid fascination of someone at a really good Quidditch match. 

"I didn't ask!" Ron shouted back. 

"You certainly did!"

"It wasn't what I meant!"

"Oh? Then what did you mean?"

"I didn't mean anything!"

"So you don't want to go out with me?" Hermione asked dangerously. 

Dean and Seamus both flinched, and even Neville was torn away from his rapt contemplation of the pretty Cecily. 

"Goodbye, Ron," Harry whispered. "Been nice knowing you."

Ron underwent a series of facial tics and contortions. He resembled a man trying to swallow a doorknob. "Um … I …"

"There's no safe answer," Seamus hissed. "Run for it. I'll knock over the coffee pot and buy you a bit of time."

"What's going on?" came a vague, misty voice. Luna Lovegood had drifted over from the Ravenclaw table, wearing a lemon-yellow rain slicker over her robes. It had a long screaming-red belt with a buckle the size of a tea saucer, embossed with the calligraphy-scrolled "Q" logo of The Quibbler. She also had earrings shaped like puffer fish dangling from her earlobes, in honor of the occasion.

"I think Ron's not asking Hermione out," Colin said. "Even though he needs a date for Hogsmeade. I think that's it, but I'm kind of confused."

"Oh," Luna said. "That's all right. I'll go with him."

"What?!" Ron and Hermione cried in unison. 

"I didn't have a date either," Luna said. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Actually, I've never had a date. This will be my first date. How nice!" And she smiled at Ron. "You're very sweet to ask."

"Help me!" Ron mouthed at Harry.

"You're on your own," Harry said, trying not to laugh and mostly succeeding.

Hermione sprang up and threw her napkin into her plate. "I'm going to go get my cloak," she said, and stomped out of the Great Hall. 

Luna, utterly unconcerned, took Hermione's seat and propped her elbows on the table to lean toward Ron. "Where shall we go first?"

Half an hour later, bundled into their cloaks, hoods pulled up against the weather, a long line of figures descended the stone steps out of the castle and headed for Hogsmeade. 

It was a startling day, the first storm of autumn coming after a clear and mellow September. The wind at ground level was moderately breezy, but judging by the way the highest boughs were whipping back and forth, and the way the black clouds skidded in tatters across a backdrop of heavy grey, Harry was glad he wasn't on a broom and hoped that it'd all blow itself out by tomorrow. In the distance, irregular stutter-flashes of lightning were moving steadily closer, accompanied by the rolling drumbeat of thunder.

He was a few paces behind Ron, who was taking extra-long strides as if thinking he could undo his accidental date with Luna simply by walking too fast for her to keep up. But Luna, who was probably used to people doing that even if she never quite understood that she was the reason for their rapid pace, trotted at his side. With his flaming red hair and her fluorescent yellow rain slicker, they were the brightest things in the gloom of the day. 

Off to their left, Neville and Cecily walked very close together under an umbrella that Neville's grandmother must have sent to school with him. It was a dusty purple, with a fringe like an old lampshade and an ornately carved handle shaped like a duck, but Cecily didn't seem to mind at all. 

Lightning arced across the turbulent sky, followed by a blast of thunder so loud that it seemed to shake the earth.

"If this keeps up," Ginny called from where she was walking arm-in-arm with Dean, "will they cancel the game?"

"Not likely," Harry said. "I've had to play in full-on blizzards."

"But have you ever been struck by lightning?"

"Me, personally?"

"Oh, great," she said.

Ahead, the houses and shops of Hogsmeade huddled against the storm. Black wreaths hung on the doors, swags draped the tops of the windows, and black ribbons wrapped some of the lampposts as tokens of mourning for Cornelius Fudge. Out on its lonely windswept hill above the rushing Hogsbrook, the ramshackle Shrieking Shack looked more haunted than ever. 

The rain opened up in earnest just as they reached town, and everyone made a mad dash for the Three Broomsticks. The pub must have been doing a slow day of business, because Madame Rosmerta had been playing solitaire at the bar when they all charged in. 

Harry lost track of his friends in the crush, and finally found himself at the brass rail edging the polished oak bar, elbow to elbow with Jane Kirkallen. Had she done that on purpose? He knew he hadn't. But their earlier discussion came back to him, and he smiled. This might well be the closest they'd ever get to a Hogsmeade date. 

"Butterbeer, please," he told the suddenly-hectic-looking Madame Rosmerta. She filled a steaming mug and placed it in front of him. 

"The same for me," Jane said, reaching into her purse.

"I've got it," Harry said, sliding a pile of silver Sickles across the bar. 

Jane did the eyebrow thing. "Buying a drink for a Slytherin?"

"Nobody'll notice. It's a madhouse in here."

"Cheers, then," she said, and tipped the mug amiably in his direction before sipping at the frothy foam. 

"Cheers." Harry took a hearty swig. The butterbeer was almost too hot to drink. It kindled in his stomach like an ember, sending waves of warmth all through him. 

They only had a moment, before a couple of Hufflepuff boys pushed between them to order their own drinks. He nodded at her and moved on through the crush. 

At a corner table, he saw Ron and Luna. Ron seemed to be attempting to drown himself in butterbeer, and Luna stirred absently at a mug of cocoa topped with a whirled mountain of whipped cream, into which a cherry was slowly sinking. Harry saw Ron's eye fall upon him, Ron's face light up with a sort of frantic desperation, and … though he wasn't proud of it … he turned away as if he hadn't noticed them, before Ron could call him over to join them. 

He found a spot near a table where several people were hotly debating the latest scandal in the Quidditch world – five members of the Manchester Meteors had been cited for using performance-enhancing elixirs – and stood against the wall, drinking butterbeer and listening in. 

A blast of thunder as loud as a cannon shot rattled the Three Broomsticks, making everyone jump. The windows were so rippling with rain that the street beyond was lost in a flowing silvery veil. People coming into the pub were drenched despite the use of various anti-rain spells, and the floor was tracked dark with mud from their feet and the dragging hems of robes. 

Hermione entered, alone, and so wet and bristling with indignation that she looked much like her cat Crookshanks on the occasions when Crookshanks was forced to endure a bath. Harry sidled around behind a blocky Hufflepuff seventh-year Beater, not really wanting to make eye contact with her either. He peeked around the Hufflepuff's arm, though, waiting to see if –

Yes, there it was … Hermione's gaze found Ron and Luna. Harry swore that steam rose from her sodden hair, and sparks leapt from her eyes. 

It was wrong of him to be amused by all of this. He would have been furious to think that Ron and Hermione, for instance, might have secretly chortled over his own ongoing unsuccessful efforts to strike up a relationship with Cho. Of course, they probably had, so he couldn't really feel all too bad about the grin that kept trying to cross his face. 

Harry finished his butterbeer and decided to brave the elements. He thought longingly of the secret passage underneath Honeydukes, which was dark and musty but at least would be a dry way to get home. Without the trusty Marauder's Map, though, he didn't want to risk emerging and finding Filch or Snape standing there. 

The streets of Hogsmeade were a mire of mud, the rain beating down. Harry pulled his hood up and hurried for the minimal shelter offered by a few of the shop roof overhangs. He made a few purchases – never too early to start thinking ahead to Christmas – and ended up in Honeydukes. 

Invisible hands were pulling a fresh batch of pumpkin-flavored taffy in the window, the stretchy orange stuff folding in an intricate pattern. The rich smell of chocolate dominated a host of other pleasing aromas. Because Halloween was closing in, the shelves were full of sugar-crystal skulls, flapping licorice bats, gumdrop spiders, candy corn, and other treats. The new selection of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans was out, too … Muggle Industrials, they were called, and tasted like gasoline, pulp mill, factory floor, automotive exhaust, axle grease, and antifreeze. 

The crowds were thinner by the time he finished making his selections, and he realized that many students had decided to cut their trips short. The storm was intensifying, the rain so hard now that it might have been pouring full-force from some colossal faucet and the sky black as midnight when it wasn't bursting brilliant purple-white with lightning. 

He saw several people holding their robes up over their heads, running up the path toward Hogwarts with no concern for their dignity. Others wondered out loud if they shouldn't send owls up to the school, requesting that the carriages come down and pick them up. 

But even if anyone was heartless enough to send an owl out in such weather, it'd probably be blown clear to Scotland on the wild wind, if it wasn't blown apart into a puff of smoldering feathers by a bolt of lightning. None came and went from the Post Owlery, probably grounded until the storm passed. 

The puddles in the streets had merged into an expanding, lake. Waterfalls cascaded from the eaves. It was already almost evening, almost supper time. They would be late returning to school as it was. 

A wizard in brown woolen robes that had soaked up so much water he was like a human sponge went by as Harry emerged from Honeydukes, shouting over the howling wind that Hogsbrook was already only two inches below the high-water mark of '87. 

Harry thought again of the secret passage, with genuine regret. Filch and Snape had nothing to do with it; he couldn't justify using it himself while his schoolmates suffered. 

About the only person he saw who didn't look unhappy at all was Neville Longbottom, who had taken refuge with Cecily under a large tree. The branches were so thick and tightly woven that there was a patch of almost dry ground beneath, and with the dusty purple umbrella held over them as well, Neville and Cecily looked quite cozy. She was snuggled up to him, too, with his arm around her and her face tipped adoringly toward his. And as Harry watched, they locked lips in a kiss that almost caught fire to the fringes on the edge of the umbrella. 

Not sure whether he was impressed or envious or both, Harry shook his head and trudged on. He had his purchases tucked under his sweater, hood up, and the Impervius Charm on his face and glasses to prevent him being totally blind, but he still couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him. Other robed figures struggled by, splashing through mud, shouting to be heard, hunching their shoulders when lightning ripped the sky overhead. 
Hogsbrook had risen so high and ran with such frothy whitecapped fury that it almost swamped the little wooden bridge arching over its normally placid streambed. 

Above the brook, the Shrieking Shack stood on its hilltop, shutters banging back and forth in the wind. One came loose and flew whickering out of sight. A hot white zigzag touched the iron ball of a lightning rod leaning askew from one of its gables, and the energy sizzled off with a series of pops and snaps. The whole place creaked and swayed side to side. 

Harry leaned into the gale, now having to actually fight his way up the path that curved around the hill. He saw a girl ahead of him slip and fall to her knees, and had already hooked a hand under an elbow and pulled her up before realizing it was Jane. 

Just then, the rain turned to hail. And not tiny stinging pellets … the hailstones were the size of Snitches. They pelted down with ballistic ferocity. Jane and Harry both cried out, but in the din they could barely hear themselves, let alone each other. 

He put his mouth right to her ear. "We've got to get out of this!"

Her head moved in what seemed like a nod, so he assumed she heard, understood, and agreed. 

But the village was far behind them now, and Hogwarts even further ahead, and if they tried to reach either, they'd be stoned to death by the unrelenting battery of ice, Diverting Charm or no Diverting Charm. Harry seized Jane's hand and led her toward the Shrieking Shack. 

She pulled at him, and when he turned his head he saw her shaking hers, lips moving. 

"It's all right!" Harry bellowed. "Come on!"

A hailstone as big as Hagrid's fist plunged between them, a narrow miss that could have caved in their skulls. It hit the path, exploded into sleety shards, left a crater as deep as a cauldron, and Jane quit resisting. 

They went through the rickety fence, which was listing worse than ever now. Harry felt like imps with frozen hammers were swarming all around him, striking at his head, shoulders, arms and back over and over.

The porch of the Shrieking Shack wasn't much cover, the roof being pocked with holes and missing several boards, so Harry drew his wand. "Alohamora," he shouted at the rusty lock. The wind snatched the word away, but it worked, and the door shuddered open. 

Jane hung back again, looking at him like he was mad, but Harry dragged her into the house. Though the noise of the storm was as apocalyptic as ever, the sudden cessation of wind, rain and hail was a physical shock. 

Harry pushed back his hood. It slapped down his back, limp and wet as a drowned fish. His hair was plastered to his forehead, dripping into his eyes. Jane peeled off her hood, too, revealing ashen cheeks and wide, frightened eyes. 

"It's all right," Harry said again, and this time he only had to shout a little to be heard over the wind. 

"But it's the –"

"Shrieking Shack, yeah, I know. Don't worry. It isn't really haunted."

He led her deeper into the house in search of a room that might be less ramshackle than the others. There was another secret passage beneath his feet, but it came up right under the Whomping Willow, and Harry had no desire to tangle with that tree on a day like this. Even if he could get to the knot that stopped its branches moving, it was still a long hike to the safety of the castle. 

"We can wait here until the storm lets up," he said. 

"You're sure it isn't haunted?"

They reached a room that miraculously had shutters and glass still intact, and better yet had a fireplace on one wall. The fireplace was clogged with old ash that had turned to mud from rain leaking down the chimney, but when Harry pointed his wand into the hearth – "Incendio!" – flames immediately blazed high. 

"Long story," Harry said, "but I promise, it isn't haunted. We're fine here."

It occurred to him that in another sort of situation, this might have been one of those times when, to dry off and warm up, he and the pretty girl were required to shed their soaked garments and huddle together in front of the fire. And who knew what that might lead to? 

But instead, Jane used a spell to dry their clothes. He was almost disappointed, then mentally chided himself for being a cad. She took a brush from her purse and undoing her ponytail. Harry used his fingers to comb his hair back out of his eyes. It would end up the same as always, sticking up in the back, falling down in the front, and he didn't much worry about it anymore. 

"Looks like my candy didn't melt," Jane announced after inspecting her parcels. She offered a large bag of sweets to Harry. "I've got mint truffles, Cinnamon Chews, crisped rice white chocolate bark, Orange Creams, and Sparkling Wintermints."

"Thanks," he said, taking a Cinnamon Chew. "I've got Cashew Toffee Crunches, Chocolate Frogs, some marshmallow-walnut fudge, and a box of the Halloween assortment."

She chose a Chocolate Frog. "Ugh, Rasputin. Do you keep the cards?"

"Sure," he said. "Don't you?"

"I used to, my third year," she said. "But the vicar found them in my room and burned the lot. I had a Tituba, too." 

"He burned a Tituba?"

"And a Crowley."

"Ouch," Harry said. 

"After that, I just stopped buying them. I like the frogs, though." She nibbled delicately at a webbed chocolate foot. 

"How do you do it?" Harry asked. "Go back every summer, I mean."

"How do you? It's not like either of us have much choice."

"I never had a choice," he said. "Your mum, though …"

She looked down, and he groaned at having once more put his foot in it. 

"Jane, I –"

"No, you're perfectly right," she said. "Your parents didn't choose to put you in that place. They never would have wanted that, I'm sure. Mine did."

"I'm sorry."

"She hated being a witch. She thought it was evil, that it meant her soul would be damned for sure. That's how she ended up with the vicar. She thought he could save her, maybe even save me, too."

"You don't need to be saved," Harry said. "We're not born evil just because we're born witches and wizards."

"Some people think so."

"Some people believe what's in The Quibbler."

"Your interview was in The Quibbler," she pointed out. 

"Well, all right, that was true," he said. "I meant that stuff about Sirius Black being bass player Stubby Boardman."

"I just wish I'd had a chance to know the rest of my family," Jane said somberly. "On her side, I mean. I guess they were a long line of important pureblood wizards, going way back. My mother was a Derwent. Amaryllis Derwent."

"You mean, Derwent as in Dilys Derwent?" Harry paused in the middle of unwrapping the Cashew Toffee Crunches. "Former Hogwarts headmistress, worked at St. Mungo's, portrait in Dumbledore's office?"

"I've never been to Dumbledore's office, but yes."

"Wow," Harry said.

"My mother was the last of the line. How she could give it all up …"

"Hang on. Doesn't that make you the last of the line?"

Jane looked startled, as if she'd never thought of it that way before. Then her eyes clouded. "But I'm not a Derwent."

"You … um … told me once that your father was a wizard," Harry said, feeling uncomfortable but having to ask. "How come you don't live with his family? Why did your mother marry the vicar instead of him?"

A harsh, terrible laugh burst from Jane. "Marry him? Live with his family?"

"Forget it," he said hastily. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No, it's okay," she said, but her shoulders slumped as if a great weight pressed down on her. "Harry … my father … my real father … was a Death Eater."

"I kind of figured it was something like that," Harry said in a low voice. 

"If you don't want to talk to me anymore –" Jane started picking up Orange Creams and mint truffles. 

He put his hand over hers. "Jane, don't. It doesn't change anything."

"Doesn't it?" She looked up at him, and the pain in her eyes would have knocked him back a step if he'd been standing. "How many times have people told you that you're just like your father?"

"More than I can count," he admitted. "But they say I'm like my mother, too. And what I really am is myself."

"Blood will out," she said. 

"Bollocks!" Harry spat. "That sounds just like something Aunt Marge always says, except she says it about dogs."

"There's never been a Derwent in Slytherin House," Jane said. "I looked it up. The family goes back almost eight hundred years, and every single one of them has been in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Clearly, I'm no Derwent."

"Stop it," Harry said forcefully. "You're no Death Eater, either. I know how you feel about them. You'll never be like that." He reached out on impulse and took her face between his palms. "Never, Jane."

"You can't be sure." 

He could feel her trembling, but wouldn't let her draw away. "You are not like them. Who your father was doesn't matter. It doesn't change who you are."

She turned her head a little, closed her eyes when he still would not let go. A single tear slid from beneath the fringe of dusky lashes and trickled down, warm as it ran along his thumb.

A new and awful thought came to him then – Malfoy's insistence that the deaths of Nott, Crabbe and Goyle were not suicide, not coincidence at all, but a carefully crafted series of murders. Murders targeting the children of Death Eaters. If it was true … it wasn't, it couldn't be, Malfoy was as usual looking for someone else, preferably Harry, to blame … but if somehow it was …

"Does anyone else know?" he asked. 

"No one," Jane whispered. "My mother told me before she died, and I've never said a word to anyone else. Unless Dumbledore knows. The Sorting Hat …"

"Jane, look at me."

Her eyes stayed closed. "Please, Harry."

"Look at me."

She opened her eyes, so dark and brimming with tears. He wanted to kiss her, and what was it with him that any time he got in a position to kiss a girl, said girl was always crying? He shoved that out of his mind. 

"I trust you," he said. 

"You shouldn't."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

"How could I?"

He sensed what she meant and grinned. "What, you think I'm better at defense spells than you are at jinxing?"

Against her will, Jane smiled a bit. "I don't think either of us want to find out the answer to that question."

He curled his right hand so that instead of cupping her face against his palm, the backs of his knuckles brushed gently along the curve of her cheek. Her skin felt like fine satin, and he decided that tears or no tears, damn it, he was going to go ahead and kiss her. 

"So, what's this?" a cool, haughty voice said from behind him. "Plain Jane's not such a cold fishie after all. Who's your boyfriend, Janie?"

**

Continued in Chapter Nineteen -- A Dark and Stormy Night.