Vaguely, Ginny heard Hermione say defensively, "Well, so, maybe heś hiding how unhappy he is."

Ron ignored her, and gently tugged at Ginnyś sleeve. "Don´t look over there," he said. "It´ll just upset you."

"I´m not upset." She dragged her eyes away from Draco and grabbed up her fork. "I´m fine." She jabbed the fork blindly at the plate in front of her, hardly able to see anything.

"Maybe thatś why he got like that in Potions class," Hermione added.

"No." Harry put his fork down. "I don´t think that was it."

At the mention of Potions, Ginny glanced instinctively over at the staff table, but Snape was not there. Neither was Dumbledore. Her eyes fell instead on her brother Charlie, who was engaged in a lively conversation with Professor Lupin, using his fork to punctuate his remarks. The sight of Charlie made her smile. She had been thrilled that he had accepted the job as Care of Magical Creatures professor. As if he sensed her eyes on him, he looked up and waved.

"Are you eating off my plate, Ginny?" said a voice on her left. It was Neville. Ginny looked down and realized that she had, in fact, been jabbing her fork into Neville´ roast turkey, and not her own.

"Oh dear — I´m so sorry — " she spluttered.

"If you wanted some, you could have just asked," said Neville, looking aggrieved.

"Not upset, eh?" said Ron into her ear.

Ginny let her fork fall. "Don´t we have practice now?" she said hopefully, in Harryś direction, too embarrassed to look at Neville, and suspecting, irrationally, that somehow Draco was watching her from across the room.

Harry looked over at her and smiled. "Yeah, we do," he said, and Ginny got to her feet, grabbing up her broom, thankful for any excuse to get away. "I´ll see you all down there," she said, and fled.

Harry, Ron and Hermione trooped down to where the rest of the team waited at the entrance to the Quidditch pitch.