The truth, Hermione had urged. She knows you're a wizard already, so there's no more reason not to tell her the truth about what that's meant, for you in particular.
Draco drew in a deep breath, his hands clenching inside his pockets. "It's hard to know where to start. The bell, I suppose. Until it rang like that, I thought you were a witch--"
"Yes, I did manage to figure that much out!" interrupted Rhiannon in a voice so scathingly hot that Draco felt burned just listening.
"You don't know why I thought that, though," said Draco quietly. "Rhiannon . . . you're the first girl I have ever known who wasn't a witch."
Her jaw dropped, just a little. "You're joking."
"No, it's true." Draco lifted his shoulders. "I go to a school where magic is taught. All the students are magical. And before I started there, and every summer since, until this year, that is, I lived on my family estate in Wiltshire--"
Shite. Why had he mentioned Wiltshire? For once, though, the reference to money didn't seem to set her off.
"--where I would rarely see anyone except my family and the close circle of friends they frequent. And . . . this is a bit harder to explain, but wizards are sort of . . . divided, into different groups. I come from the one known as 'pureblood,' which means that everybody I descend from, as far back as can be determined, has been magical. No M- . . . er, no non-magical people."
Rhiannon didn't have much reaction to all that; it looked like she was merely listening. But at least she was doing that much.
"Anyway, my parents would only allow me to associate with other purebloods, so I never even had any friends who weren't that, too." He gave her a rueful smile. "When was I going to meet a girl who wasn't a witch?"
She sat back a little more, the fabric across her breasts stretching a little. Draco was trying not to stare, but he was starting to wonder what was holding her dress up. It wasn't as though she could have applied a sticking charm . . .
"But you're out and about in the normal world this summer."
Draco tried not to wince at the world normal. All this was very abnormal for him, but he didn't think it would help his cause to put things quite that way. "Yes, but that's a lot to do with Severus," he explained. "I told you my own parents disowned me. He took me in, Harry too, and decided that we needed to be able to get around in the . . . er, normal world."
Best not to mention the reason for that, Draco decided. He wouldn't want to frighten her with talk of the war, or have to start explaining about the Dark Lord and choosing sides and switching to Harry's, and how Severus decided his sons should be able to hide in the Muggle world, if it came to that . . .
"I still don't see why you'd assume I was a witch, though."
Draco clenched his hands so hard that he felt the tip of a fingernail break off. "It was because of your voice, at first. I've been to operas, lots of them. It was the one non-magical entertainment allowed, in my family. And I have never, ever heard anything remotely so beautiful as your singing. I thought you had to be using magic to produce a sound like that." Draco did his best to shrug. "My whole life I've been more or less taught to look for a magical explanation to anything wondrous."
Rhiannon's lips curled upward, slightly. "You thought my singing was that good?"
"Yes." Draco relaxed a little. "I thought that maybe you were a witch and didn't want to tell anybody about it, since you were obviously trying to fit into the . . . the normal world. And then I started to wonder if you even realised you were a witch. I didn't have any way of knowing that there were girls as beautiful and perfect as you who weren't, you see."
Her gaze narrowed. "Why wouldn't there be?"
The truly hard part, now. "There are, obviously," said Draco, forcing himself not to restrict the admission just to her. "But the way I was raised . . . er, my family liked to look down on Muggles, and--"
"Don't call me that."
Fine. Draco wouldn't. He'd been trying hard to avoid the word, in fact, knowing it could only set him back with her. "All right."
"So, growing up, you thought people like me were, what? Beneath your notice?"
Draco winced. "Something like that."
"I ought to show you the door, this instant." Her tone softened right after she said that, though. "But I don't suppose you'd be here explaining if you still agreed with that point of view. You said it came from your family? This is the family who disowned you?"
"Yes, and maybe I should mention the reason for that, now. I sided with Harry and Severus against them, basically. Over . . . a lot of things, really. But most of them are tied into the idea that purebloods are making a mistake, thinking that way."
That appeared to startle her. "Your father and brother aren't purebloods, too?"
"Severus is, by the way we reckon things, but he says that there's really no such thing, that all wizards have non-magical ancestry. Oh, and Harry's a half-blood. Only his father was born into a magical family. His mother didn't know she was a witch until she was eleven. Which is quite usual for witches and wizards born to . . . born outside our world."
"Eleven . . . oh, I understand, now. You thought I was a late bloomer?"
"Something like that," said Draco again. "But the main thing is that it was never my intention to insult or belittle you, Rhiannon. I'd never want to hurt you, and I am most sincerely sorry that I did. I don't think you're beneath me. In fact, I can't believe I ever could have thought something like that about a person like you. But I didn't know there were people like you. I couldn't know."
She looked at him through her lashes. "I . . . I should probably apologise, too."
Draco gave a dry laugh. "For?"
"Not letting you explain. I just . . ." Rhiannon leaned forward, her slender fingers stroking her hair back over her shoulders. "It's been a confusing week. Finding out you were a wizard, that magic is actually real . . . I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't believe it. I tell myself all those things you did were just clever tricks, though I know they weren't. And then . . . I just couldn't handle anything else."
Draco thought he knew what she meant. He'd had a confusing week, too. Finding out he loved a Muggle . . . and then accepting everything that came along with that. But he'd never thought about what things must be like for her. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Do?"
"To help you believe it's real? To help it seem . . . less strange?"
"No, that's just something I'll have to get used to in my own time."
Well, that certainly sounded promising, and that was before Rhiannon started laughing, the noise very soft.
"What?"
"Oh . . . when Uncle Stanley figured out we'd rowed, he had a bit of a fit. Told me I ought to do what I could to get you back . . ." She cleared her throat. "He thinks you're a very good catch."
"Because of my money." Well, that explained the man's apparent helpfulness the day before.
"Yes." Rhiannon fixed her gaze on him. "I wouldn't have mentioned it, but I think you know I don't share his views."
Draco gave her a mock frown. "I'm not a good 'catch?'"
"Not because of your money, at any rate." Rhiannon sighed. "He's always going on about how I'll never be able to support myself by singing. And for some reason, I don't think he's very impressed by me at the pool, either. Says if I don't improve my 'work ethic' I'll never be able to make any kind of living."
She wouldn't ever need to work; Draco would see to that. Probably not the right time to mention it, though. "He's wrong about your singing. You're going to take the opera world by storm."
She looked a bit doubtful, but nodded. "And what about you? Have you decided on a career?"