Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Ron had been ecstatic. Hermione, although she tried to hide it, had also been pleased. And Harry had barely noticed that anything was happening at all.

Harry. Hermioneś heart turned over, and she against raised her eyes to the dark tree line in the distance, searching for a familiar dark head and scarlet cloak…

Ginny saw them first. "Look," she said, and rose to her feet, her gold cloak swirling around her. Hermione squinted where Ginny was looking, but her eyesight wasn´t as sharp as the other girlś: she saw only a vague dark approaching shape. Ginny sniffed. "They´re back…might have known who he´d go running to." She turned. "I´m going back inside."

Hermione caught at her hand. "No. Wait."

Ginny waited, reluctantly. The dark approaching shape resolved itself into a clearer figure. Hermione could now see that it was Draco, bareheaded, his silvery hair bright against the dark horizon. But he was not alone; he was carrying Harry, whose scarlet cloak stood out against the snow like a splash of blood.

Hermione was down the stairs in seconds. In the icy silence of the night the sound of her feet crushing the iced-over snow was like the sound of breaking glass. She reached Dracoś side and almost barreled into him in her haste to get near Harry, "What happened? Is he all right?"

"Heś fine." Dracoś eyes were shadowed, his lids touched with silver in the moonlight. "He just drank too much, thatś all."

"Oh." Hermione let her hands drop to her sides. She couldn´t look at Harryś sleeping face, he looked so vulnerable and so childlike in the icy light. She looked up at Draco instead. "So he passed out?"

"Well, he woke up briefly, but he called me Professor, and then he demanded to be taken to Buckingham Palace because he was late for high tea with the Queen. When I didn't let him run for the train he became abusive, so I knocked him out and here we are."

Hermione shook her head. "With friends like you, who needs severe head injuries? I cannot believe you let him drink that much."

Draco looked at her with big eyes.

She sighed. "On the other hand, you did carry him all the way here."

Draco shrugged. "I couldn´t leave him on the floor of the.. ah… Three Broomsticks. I did a Legerus spell to make him lighter."

"Did you now?" It was Ginny, who had come to stand behind Hermione.

She pointed her wand at the unconscious Harry. "Finite incantatem," she said.

There was a brief flash of light, and Draco stumbled forward and nearly lost his balance as his burden assumed its normal weight. Hermione reached forward and caught at Harry, and together with Draco she helped lower him to the snow-covered ground, where he made a faint sleepy noise, rolled over, and put his head on his arms.

Draco straightened up and looked at Ginny. His light eyes were flashing with rage. "That was stupid, Weasley," he said. "I might have dropped him."

"Like you care," said Ginny, tossing her thick red curls. "You could have done a Mobilicorpus spell on him and gotten him here. You didn´t need to carry him. You were just showing off to impress Hermione."

Hermione stiffened in surprise. What had gotten into Ginny? She looked at Draco, almost afraid what she might see. His eyes were narrowed as he looked at Ginny, his mouth a thin hard line. "What a rich and inventive fantasy life you lead, Weasley," he said coldly. "I can only assume that itś because your ordinary life is so colorless and boring."

"At least I have a life," snapped Ginny.

"Right and it consists of waiting around outside school at two in the morning for other peopleś boyfriends to show up, because you haven´t got your own."

"You don´t have to prove how hateful you are," Ginny said icily. "I already know it." And she turned on her heel and walked back up the stairs, yanking the heavy front doors open with venomous force before disappearing inside.

Hermione turned and looked at Draco. The angry look had disappeared from his face, and there was an odd light in his eyes. Without looking at her, he said, "If you start asking me what happened between me and Ginny and telling me what a great couple we were, I will bury you up to your ears in snow."

"Can I ask you how you can possibly stand dating Blaise Zabini instead?"

"Have I ever answered you when you asked me that?"

"No, but I thought tonight might be different."

"It might, in fact, be the night your boyfriend freezes to death, unless you get him inside." Draco looked pointedly down at Harry, who was still lying on the ground the with head pillowed on his arm. Hermione doubted he was in any danger of freezing, since he was lying on his cloak, which she had charmed with a Warming Spell back in October.

"He looks so cute," she said.

"Debatable," said Draco, and stepped back. "But heś all yours now. Have a good night, and don´t let him throw up on you."

"Aren´t you going to help me get him inside?" she asked.

"No," said Draco. "Get Weasley to help you." She knew he meant Ron; even when he called Ginny "Weasley" there was a notable difference in tone when he was referring to her than when he was referring to her brother.

"I don´t know where he is," she wailed.

"I´m sure you can find him," said Draco, and walked past her, taking the stairs up to the front door two at a time, the moonlight flashing off the silver embroidery on his cloak. She wondered if he were going after Ginny. Ginny hadn´t looked like she wanted to be gone after. Still, with those two, you never knew.

Ginny was halfway up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower when she heard his voice behind her. "Weasley. Wait."

Despite herself, she turned around. Draco stood at the foot of the stairs, wrapped in his black cloak. The snow in his hair had melted and made little rivulets down the sides of his face, running into his collar. Behind him, through the window, she could see the night sky printed with a thousand silver stars the color of his eyes.

She said, "What do you want?"

"I think it would be best if you didn´t mention tonight to anyone," he said. "At least in regards to Harry."

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "I already promised along with everyone else that I wouldn´t mention that you two were friends."

"I know," Draco said. The unspoken comment hung between them: But that was before. "I meant about his drinking too much. The teachers won´t like it and it could affect whether they let him play. Heś had trouble already with his marks this year. You know that."

"Do you care about anyone besides Harry?" She heard the ice in her own voice, and was surprised. Where did I learn to talk like that? The answer was immediate: From him, of course. "And Hermione, I suppose. But then, we agreed not to talk about that."

"I´m not asking you to promise anything for me," Draco said. "But Harry is your friend as well."

Ginny felt the muscles in her shoulders and back tighten. "You don´t keep your promises," she said in a low voice. "Why should I?"

"I never promised you anything," said Draco. His voice was calm. He pushed his hair back from his forehead and the torchlight caught on the seal ring he wore, and glittered.

"You implied that — "

"You chose to read an implication into my behavior," said Draco. His eyes were narrowed slits of silver light. "Thatś not my fault."

Ginny felt a painful band of cold tighten around her heart. She knew this was not true. Draco had not pretended his feelings for her. But they had already had this conversation, and it was no use trying to get him to say anything different or new. But when she thought back to Harryś birthday party, Dracoś hand on her hand as they descended the stairs, and his eyes when he looked at her, and all the letters she had written him over the summer, rage boiled up in her, so violent and so tragic that it was almost pain.