Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Are you all right?" he heard Harry say.

He opened his eyes. "Yes," he said.

"You look peaky."

Draco tilted his head to the side and looked at Harry. He seemed a bit tired, but overall his strung-up and exhausted look was gone. It had been replaced by an alert and burning energy. His eyes shone, his cheeks were flushed, and his hands danced across his lap with an eager rhythm. The adamantine cuff around his wrist gleamed as his hands moved. Quick, deft hands, they said: Find me a sword to wield, a banner to wave; find me a place to stand and I will defeat whatever evil comes. Follow my lead.

"You´re enjoying this," Draco said. "Aren´t you?"

Harry glanced up in surprise. "Of course not."

Draco looked at Harry harder. Harry blinked his wide eyes, his face expressionless. "You really are enjoying this," Draco repeated. "Damn.

Could you be any weirder?"

Harry looked offended. "I´m enjoying what?"

"This." Draco made a sweeping gesture with his arm that encompassed the tower and the surrounding sky. "You like it when we have some external threat to deal with. Dragons, manticores, various of my insane relatives…"

"I am not enjoying this," Harry replied indignantly. "I´m very upset."

"Oh, yes," Draco said. "You look it. Thrive on disaster, you do. I suppose itś something having to do with being a hero and all that. Few weeks go by, nothing happens, you start wondering, 'Whatś it all about, really? No universes to save or evil to defeat, whatś the point of living any more? If only I had a nice demon horde to cope with, how much happier I´d be.´

Well, you got your wish."

"No!" Harry said, rather too sharply. "I don´t want to deal with a demon horde. I don´t like demons. Anything else would be better. Zombies. At least they look like monsters. Even if they do eat people."

"Actually, they only eat people when instructed to do so by their zombie masters. A lot of people get that wrong."

Harry rolled his eyes.

Draco shrugged defensively. "Zombies are people too," he said.

"Yeah," Harry said flatly. "Dead people."

"You´re awfully picky for a Gryffindor."

"I´m not picky," Harry said. "If I was, I´d hardly hang about with you, would I?"

Draco blinked. "Um," he said. "I know we´re all about the pointed banter, but that was a little too pointy. Whatś eating you, Potter? And don´t say

'zombiesór I´ll push you off the parapet."

"Nothing," Harry said sulkily. "Well, the obvious, in that once again, we´re at the mercy of a deranged maniac with a plan to take over the world, none of our friends can help us…"

"On top of that," Draco said, "I don´t know about you, but that Whirlwind Charm really messed up my hair."

"Fuck you, Malfoy, it isn´t funny." Harry looked away, down at the frozen cathedral of the forest, its masonry of ice white-silver in the twilight. "I was a lot happier with your dad when he was trying to kill me and not adopt me."

"Heś not really trying to adopt you," Draco said. "As if he could. Heś just trying to distract Sirius and the rest from whatever it is heś actually planning to do."

Harryś mouth tightened. "Why does he think that will work?"

Draco shrugged, and the old pain in his shoulder twinged. "Because if thereś one thing my father is good at, itś identifying peopleś weaknesses. There isn´t much that would make Sirius as crazy as the suggestion that he wasn´t your adoptive father any more. Itś all about protecting you, and his debt to your parents, and who he is, really.

You´re what he stayed alive in Azkaban for." Dracoś voice trailed off.

"You know all this, Potter."

"Maybe." Harryś voice was soft. The twilight was beginning to fade now, and the darkness etched his face with shadows. "I just can´t think like that. Like your father does."

"Yes, well, luckily you have me for that."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Luckily, I have you."

The moment Hermione landed her Nimbus 3000 in Malfoy Park, she knew something had gone terribly wrong.

The town was utterly lightless. Every lamp and lantern was unlit, every torch extinguished, all the shop windows were darkened, and the doors were bolted shut. The streets were quite deserted, and a cold wind whistled between empty-looking buildings.

Hermione propped her borrowed broomstick against the wall of the Cold Christmas Inn, and gazed around in perplexity. Could she somehow have gotten the date wrong?

A quick check of the folded note in her pocket assured her that the date wasn´t wrong. There should be carriages here, she thought, gazing around with deepening unease, there should be decorations, servants waiting to give directions, the Cold Christmas Inn should be open and bursting with light…

"Hermione!" An unexpected voice jolted her out of her reverie. "What are you doing here?"

Hermione spun around and stared. Standing on the steps of the Cold Christmas Inn was a familiar figure with a mop of bright hair. "George!"

she exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Have you come from the party?"

"Have I what?" George stared at her. "You mean you don´t know?"

Hermioneś heart skipped a beat. "I don´t know what?"

"Come here — " George caught her by the arm and steered her around to the side of the Inn. He dropped his voice and spoke in a near-whisper:

"You weren´t at the party, were you?"

She shook her head. "No. I´m late. I just arrived — "

George laughed hollowly. "Lucky you."

"George, you´re scaring me. What happened?"

"What happened? Lucius Malfoy happened."

Hermione felt her jaw sag. "But heś…heś dead."

"Yeah," George said briefly. "Looks like he didn´t get that memo."

"Are you sure it was Lucius?"

George looked exasperated. "Maybe not. Maybe it was Dracoś other tall, blond, evil, cackling, Death Eater father."

Hermioneś hand flew to her mouth. "Did he hurt anyone?"

"No," George said slowly. "Not exactly. He put a Whirlwind Charm on the guests….everyone was flung out of the manor, scattered for miles. We´ve just started regrouping."

"And you landed here?"

"No, I landed in the middle of a group of carolers on Hampstead Heath.

Gave them a right scare. Then I Apparated back home, and everyone was there, except Ron and Ginny of course. Poor little sods, can´t Apparate.

It´ll take them forever to get back. Anyway, Dad sent me here to look out for latecomers, warn them off…"

"So everyoneś all right?" she asked. "Harry and Draco, too?"

George reached out a hand to her. "Come on, Hermione…letś head back to the Burrow. Charlieś there, he can explain better than I can."

Hermione remained motionless. "George, just tell me."

"Neither of them are dead." Georgeś voice was flat. "Now just come with me, will you please?"

He held out his hand again, and this time she took it.

"Checkmate," the Dark Lord said.

Ron kept his eyes fixed on the half-empty chess board. The board itself was made of onyx and travertine, the sides ornately carved with scenes of court life and battle. The pieces were hewn out of whole jewels: clear rubies and dark emeralds. The knights had solid gold eyes. The board and its pieces were probably worth half the Burrow. Maybe more than half.

The Dark Lord sat back in his chair. Ron heard the scratching of his nails against the piece he was holding, and shuddered. He had not looked up at his opponent once during the entire game, but the brief flashes he´d caught of the bone-white hands with their long black nails had been more than sufficient to throw him into a panic that felt akin to nausea.

"You let me win," the Dark Lord said.

Ron wouldn´t have thought that the fear could get worse; apparently, he´d been wrong. He´d been gripping the pin that held his cloak together tightly with his right hand; now his hand clenched around it so convulsively that it cut into the soft flesh of his palm.