Chapter 21: First Kiss

The quarrel began, as far as Draconia could afterwards reconstruct it, somewhere between the third and fourth hour of the watch.

It was about a book.

It was possibly about whose turn it was to close the shutter.

It had certainly been about whether a person could say "I'll be a moment" and then be forty minutes.

By midnight it had become something larger, with its own weather.

"You are impossible," said Draconia.

"You said that on Tuesday."

"I meant it on Tuesday," said Draconia. "I mean it with even greater force tonight."

"You've been saying it since the second week."

"Because it is the case!" she said.

Her voice rang off the stone.

The wands were crossed in the cradle, and the light between them was running red-gold and unsteady.

Every few seconds it spat a small spark at the wood.

Harry had his jaw set.

He had both hands on his wand, and the knuckles were pale.

"You came in here at ten and went straight for me," he said. "I hadn't said a word."

"You were thinking something."

"I was thinking about the shutter," said Harry.

"You were thinking it loudly."

"That is not possible," he said.

"It is entirely possible, in you. It's your face."

She heard her own voice climbing, and she did not care.

"You have the most infuriating, honest, readable, quiet face I have ever seen."

"I have been looking at it every night for a year, and I cannot, I cannot..."

She stopped.

She had lost her place.

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