Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

It may be necessary to create an ancillary Ministry, and a secondary Council, recognized by the foreign Ministries — "

"That hasn´t been done for hundreds of years," Sirius protested in an awed tone.

"Your grasp of history is as always, astounding. I recognize that this is an extreme procedure but these are extreme times. You are to be in charge of assembling our allies. Work quickly. We have very little time."

Barely had Snape finished speaking when the scarlet cloud disappeared, leaving Lupin feeling oddly exposed. He looked around, expecting that everyone would be staring at them, but nobody was.

"The cloud is invisible to all except those inside it," Snape said, seeing his confused expression. "Handy, isn´t it? An invention of my own."

"Yes." Lupin was sincerely impressed. "Very nice."

"I call it the Cloud of Silence Potion," Snape added, warming to his topic.

"I would have called it Bernard," said Sirius. "But thatś just me."

"You think you´re very funny, don´t you, Black," the Potions Master snapped.

"I am, as always, a slave to majority opinion," Sirius replied.

"I must get back to the school." Snape had apparently decided that ignoring Sirius was the best approach. "Dumbledore will owl you both later." He began to walk away, but paused after only a few steps, and turned. "Have you any message for him?" he asked, slightly reluctantly.

Sirius paused for a moment. Lupin knew that his dislike of Snape was battling it out with his desire for help from the man he admired most in the world. Finally, he said, "Tell him that his Head Girl is safely with us, in case he was worried. Ask him, if he hears anything from Lucius about our boys…anything at all…to please tell me immediately. Even," he added, more quietly, "even if it isn´t good news."

Snape looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded briskly, and walked off.

Sirius took a deep breath. "I need some air, Moony," he said, and his voice was suddenly tight. Without a momentś hesitation Lupin took his friend by the arm and steered him past a knot of wizards and witches, almost knocking over the teenage girl and her parents in his haste to get out the double doors.

Once outside, Lupin released Sirius, who leaned heavily against one of the impressive marble pillars adorning the front of the Ministry façade. He looked down, his hands balled into fists at his sides. There were scars along his knuckles: scars he had gotten in Azkaban, Lupin knew, for they had not been there before. He had never asked Sirius how he had acquired them. Aside from the scars, he had neat, careful, artistic hands, the nails freshly manicured for the wedding that had never taken place.

"I´m so worried, Moony," Sirius said, looking away from Lupin, towards the empty Ministry gardens, their bare grounds covered with a light powdering of snow. "I´m so worried about both of them I can hardly breathe. The last thing I did was yell at them…"

"They´re fine." Lupin pushed his own worry down and spoke convincingly. "Look at your Vivicus charm."

Sirius glanced down at the silver band around his wrist. The red stone in it pulsed brightly as long as Harry was healthy and well. It was bright now. "I know," he said. "If it wasn´t for that, I´d have gone mad ages ago.

I know Harryś all right, and if heś all right then Draco is too. Lucius would have to walk over Harryś dead body if he wanted to hurt Draco. I know that. I know it, but I don´t feel it."

"You´d feel it if there was something wrong," Lupin assured him. He took a step forward and put his hand on his friendś shoulder; it was tense as an iron bar. "Breathe, Sirius. You´ll feel better once we´re doing something."

Sirius nodded, and put his hand up to cover Lupinś with his own. For a moment they stood there motionless; Sirius looking at his feet, Lupin looking out over the grounds. He´d spent his childhood comforting Sirius like this: Sirius, who had never had anyone else. James was too happy a person to really understand unhappiness in others, and Peter was not the consoling type. When Snape and his Slytherin cronies had dusted one of Lupinś sandwiches with silver powder at supper, and Lupin had spent all night throwing up messes of silver and blood in the infirmary, Sirius had been the one who cried, and Lupin had consoled him then, as well. He remembered how startled and impressed he´d been by this odd prickly boy who always hurt more for other people than he did for himself.

His was startled out of his reverie by the sound of footsteps on snow: he turned and glanced behind him. The red-headed girl was following her parents down the steps towards a waiting carriage, and had glanced back over her shoulder to look at him. He recognized her then, belatedly; he had not had her in a class since she was thirteen, but he had seen her often enough among the Slytherin students: Blaise Zabini, Dracoś girlfriend.

It had begun to snow, lightly, like flour sifting from the sky. Draco, standing alone on the tower, spread his arms wide and leaned his head back and let the flakes fall into his open eyes and mouth. The moonlight stung his eyes like concentrated white fire: it held him where he stood as surely as a silver spike driven down through his body and into the stones at his feet.

It is no easy thing to be seventeen years old and dying: to be so young and to be in love and to be told that abruptly, all this will be ending.

Draco had never been a particularly spiritual person: he had always been too attached to the material plane and what it could give him. If he could not touch a thing, it did not exist; if he could not see it, it did not matter.

But then there was Harry, who believed in what could not be seen: in people who were better than they seemed to be, in the invisible world of good and evil and hope and redemption.

All your life, you lived in a windowless room. And now you can look up and see the stars. So Dumbledore had said to him, months ago, and Draco heard it again in his head as he looked up at the black winter sky fretted with icy fires. It was the sort of night that might have made him believe in angels; it was the sort of night that might have made him think that he could be one, himself.

Something was scratched into the mantel above the fireplace in Luciusśtudy; Harry squinted, but could not read the words.

It was warm in the room, despite the fact that the fire had died down in the grate. It was also very silent; the Death Eaters had led Harry into the room and departed noiselessly as cats. Harry wondered absently if they wore roller skates under their robes or if Voldemort had simply trained them rigorously to glide instead of walking. They moved like Dementors, which was probably on purpose.

Harry moved away from the fire. He would have appreciated the warmth under other circumstances, but it felt wrong, somehow, when there was no fire up on the tower. He felt Dracoś cold down in his own bones, and shivered.

Are you all right? he asked, sending out a tendril of thought.

The reply came immediately. Dracoś inner voice sounded light, unconcerned, and quite flat. He might have been commenting on the weather at a garden party: I´m fine. Is my father there yet?

No, Harry said. I´m alone in the study. What should I do?

You could steal stuff, Draco suggested. Thereś some valuable antiques in there. Check out the grandfather clock.

Harry hesitated a moment before replying. I have a feeling your dad would notice if I tried to walk out of here with a grandfather clock shoved down my trousers.

Dracoś mental laughter sounded like the faint rustle of leaves. Harry was amazed he could laugh at all. Thatś a such a setup for so many jokes at your expense, I don´t even know which one to pick.