Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Excuse me," came a cold little voice from the doorway, "but who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

Ginny bolted to her feet, hastily concealing the small diary inside the larger book she was holding, and stared. A little boy with a mop of silver-fair hair and an arrogant expression stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Although she knew perfectly well who he was — he was instantly recognizable — it took a moment for her mind accept what she was looking at:

Draco Malfoy, aged twelve.

"I´m bored," Harry said, conversationally.

"Mmm. Yes, I am too, rather. Isn´t it odd how quickly stark terror turns to stark boredom? And hard to say which is preferable."

They sat atop the tower wall, side by side, two pairs of booted feet dangling over the edge. Harry looked sideways at Draco: his breath was puffing out in small white clouds. Lucius had Charmed both their cloaks before locking them out on the tower, and indeed the charms seemed to be protecting Harry from the chill weather — his hands were cold, but his gloves helped that, and the icy air nipped at his ears and cheekbones, but it wasn´t too bad. Draco looked colder than he was, or perhaps it was just that his skin was so fair: his cheeks were scarlet, the lids of his eyes pale blue with cold.

"We could spit down on passersby," Draco suggested. "Although I don´t think there are very many passers-by at the moment."

Harry nodded. "We could make shadow puppets."

"We could use our cloaks to make very small trampolines."

"We could talk about our feelings."

"Thereś a thought." Draco looked intrigued. "Want to tell me whatś really been bothering you for the past couple of weeks?"

Harry thought about this. "No," he said.

"Well, that was a productive discussion," said Draco, with a broad and expansive wave of his arm. "I´m glad we talked. Harry — if I may call you Harry — "

"Well, what else would you call me?" said Harry, miffed at being wound up.

Draco paused mid-snark. "Don´t I usually call you Potter?"

"I guess," Harry said neutrally. "But isn´t that a little weird? I mean, you know, after everything, and…"

Draco blinked. "Isn´t this one of those aspects of our relationship that we don´t address?"

"I didn´t know we had an official policy on that."

"The official policy is that we don´t have a policy." Draco looked upset.

"You´re messing up the vibe, Potter."

Harry subsided with a smirk. "Sorry."

There was a moment of silence. Then Draco reached into the pocket of his robe and extracted a garishly decorated paperback book. Harry immediately recognized it as the novel which accompanied Ginny to breakfast, Quidditch practice, and homework. "Well," said Draco, a bit hesitantly, "I could read out loud."

"Malfoy," said Harry curiously. "Why do you have a copy of Passionate Trousers in your robe pocket?"

Draco cleared his throat. "It was meant to be a Christmas present for Ginny."

"Doesn´t she already have a copy of Passionate Trousers?"

"She probably has the whole set. Itś a trilogy. Passionate Trousers, Trousers Aflame, and Trousers Revisited. I filched this one out of her book bag before we left school."

"You were going to give her back a book you stole from her? What were you going to get me? A shirt I already own?"

Draco made a rude face. "Itś a private joke," he said. "And anyway, I was going to get her copy autographed. The author was meant to be at the reception today, but I guess he — "

"He? You mean — " Harry squinted at the book cover. "Aurora Twilight is a man?"

Draco chuckled. "You don´t know…?"

"Know what?"

The other boy looked hugely amused. "Well, I´m not going to tell you, then."

"Making shadow puppets is starting to look better and better," Harry muttered.

"Quit whinging, Potter." Draco propped the book open on his lap. "Itś a fine evening, and we have mediocre literature to enjoy."

Harry sighed, then settled back against a crenellation as Draco began to read aloud:

Passionate Trousers, Chapter Thirty-Five

The chill air of the dank dungeon clung to Rhiannon's tormented limbs.

Again she feebly struggled against the chains which restrained her manacled ankles. The moist orbs of her amply straining bosom heaved moistly beneath the tattered cloth of her -

"Moistly?" echoed Harry. "Is moistly even a word?"

"Shakespeare coined words all the time," Draco pointed out.

"And you think that the author of Passionate Trousers is on a par with Shakespeare?" Harry inquired.

Draco lowered the book. "Do you want me to keep reading or not?"

"Oh go on then," said Harry, and settled himself back against the stone wall.

A shaft of light pierced the dungeon gloom as the iron door creaked open and the sinister hooded wizard who had taken her prisoner appeared, cackling maniacally.

Who are you?" Rhiannon gasped, thrashing wildly in her chains. "Who are you and what have you done with Tristan?"

"Muhahaha," said the wizard, and threw back the heavy hood which had, until that moment, obscured the features of her captor from Rhiannon's view.

Rhiannon gasped. "Lady Stacia!"

"Indeed, it is I," announced the voluptuous witch. Her dusky bosom heaved above the laces of her red velvet corset, and black jackboots adorned her shapely feminine legs. "Welcome to Castle Plumeria, Rhiannon," she sneered, and cracked the riding whip she held in her bejeweled left hand towards her prisoner, who trembled in terror.

"Undress yourself!" Lady Stacia ordered.

Rhiannon gasped. She was becoming slightly dizzy, probably from all the gasping. "Surely you must be joking…"

"Strip!" Lady Stacia cried, allowing the tip of her riding crop to graze the milky curves of Rhiannon's nearly naked torso. "Or I will do it for you…."

"You know," Draco said conversationally, glancing up at Harry, "this book is a lot better than I remembered."

Harry muttered something inaudible.

"You are not a woman!" Rhiannon cried as Stacia sashayed towards her, intent upon performing myriad unnatural acts upon her body, which Rhiannon would later pretend she had not enjoyed at all. "You must be some kind of demon!" She then proceeded to….

"You not enjoying this at all, are you," Draco said, and closed the book.

"What's eating you, then? Don't tell me you and Weasley never stayed up nights in your lonely tower dormitory, reading Witches Without Britches under the covers with a torch."

"How did you…well, of course we did. It's not that…"

"Then what? What? You have that look, that look you always get when you're not telling me something because you're afraid that if you do tell me, I'll either be angry or tell you you're a git, so instead you just sit there sulking like a pregnant hamster and don't say anything at all."

Harry made a weebling noise.

Draco looked exasperated. "Budge, Harry. Nobody likes a non-budger."

"I'm not worried you'll be angry," Harry said, eyes searching Draco's face -

which was, as usual, expressionless. "I'm more worried you'll be shocked."

"You do something shocking? You? What, did you have a dream where all the house-elves were wearing spandex, and when you woke up you felt strangely…"

"I had sex," Harry said. "Last night."

Passionate Trousers hit the floor of the tower with a bang. Draco looked at him with huge gray eyes of liquid amazement, "You did what?"

Harry repeated his alarming news. There was a long silence. Draco slowly lowered his head and rested his chin on his hand; his eyes were full of curious lights. "You´ve proved me wrong for a change, Potter. I am shocked."

Harry said nothing.

Draco continued to stare. "Are you sure, Potter — are you quite sure it wasn´t a dream? You were awfully drunk last night."