Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"All right, assuming we can get outside," Harry asked, "what then? If we walk to Malfoy Park, where can we go from there? Keeping in mind that itś night, itś freezing, and only Ginny can do any magic."

Draco shook his head. "We can´t go anywhere from there," he said.

"We´re in the middle of nowhere, and the Park isn´t safe. The Bailiff and the Mayor are in charge there, and they´re both washouts as far as we´re concerned. They´re in my fatherś pocket. Everyone in town is."

"Where are your broomsticks?" Ginny asked, slightly sulkily.

"At school," Harry said, pushing his tangled dark hair out of his eyes. "But there must be plenty of broomsticks here at the Manor…"

Draco shook his head. "Not my fatherś broomsticks," he said. "It wouldn´t be a good idea to take them. The valuable artifacts here tend to be charmed. Trust me on that."

Harry bit his lip. "Can we take one of the carriages, then?"

Draco shook his head. "No, they´re equally my fatherś property and…"

His head snapped up, his gray eyes lighting. "I´ve got it."

Harry looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"Am I the only one that remembers that there are two perfectly good broomsticks stuck up a tree outside the Cold Christmas Inn?"

This piece of information seemed to catch Harry so off guard that it startled a smile out of him. "Bloody hell," he said. "Good thinking."

Draco smiled back modestly. "I´m a genius, basically," he admitted.

Harryś cheerful expression wavered into a frown. "But they´re uncalibrated," he pointed out.

This did not faze Draco. "As to that," he said, and drew something out of his pocket. He waved it triumphantly in front of Ginny and Harry.

"Finally, a piece of good luck," he crowed.

Ginny looked at Harry. "Are you seeing what I´m seeing?" she asked.

"You mean a paper aeroplane?" he replied.

"Yes," she said.

He nodded.

"There is no need to talk about me as if I´m not here," Draco said, sounding injured.

"Yes there is, if you´re planning on us all boarding that paper aeroplane and flying it back to Hogwarts, thereś a great deal of reason to talk about you as if you weren´t here," Harry said.

Draco threw the paper aeroplane at him. It hit Harry on the forehead.

"They´re the calibration instructions, pillock," Draco said. "Sirius gave them to me this morning."

Harry caught the aeroplane and tucked it into his robe pocket. "Well, now you tell me," he said, and actually smiled at Draco — it was almost a real smile, and Ginnyś heart lifted just a little.

"Besides I know perfectly well that you can´t fly an aeroplane without whatchamacallit," Draco said. "Batteries."

"Thatś right, I forgot," Harry said. "You´re a genius, basically."

Draco made a face. "Well, at least I´m not a — "

"AHEM," Ginny interrupted. "Aren´t we supposed to be in some kind of hurry here?"

Both boys assumed identical guilty expressions. "Right," Harry said.

"Draco — you lead again."

Draco nodded. Ginny hung back a little as they began to descend the stairs once more, watching the two of them walk ahead of her. In the dullness of the faint phosphorescent light they were only shadows, neither dark nor fair: it was next to impossible to tell which was which.

"Sirius, if you don´t eat something, I´m going to empty the remainder of the spaghetti in this pot onto your head."

Sirius looked up and gave Lupin a faint smile. "Sorry. Mind wandering again." He shrugged at the concerned look on his friendś face. They were facing each other across the rough plank table in Lupinś kitchen: this small house was the one he repaired to when not teaching at Hogwarts. It was, like Lupin himself, simple, plain, elegant, and slightly gray around the edges. It needed a new coat of paint. One might have said the same about Lupin, as well.

They´d Apparated back to the house after their sojourn at the Ministry in order to pick up some wolfsbane potion for Lupin (the moon would be full in five short days) and to retrieve some of his other possessions: old books and papers from their more active days as spies. Lupin seemed to have sensed without needing to be told that Sirius did not want to go back to the Burrow and face the anxiety of the Weasleys, so, recollecting aloud the old wives´ tale about Apparating on an empty stomach, he had pushed Sirius down into a kitchen chair and proceeded to concoct a surprisingly satisfying supper of spaghetti and black coffee for both of them. The coffee was bitter and strong and the spaghetti tasted of tarragon: Sirius felt very guilty about not being able to ingest much of either.

"Still thinking about what you were thinking about before?" Lupin asked, tearing a piece of bread off the loaf on the table.

Sirius, who had made multiple bread pills out of his half of the loaf, nodded. "Afraid so. I keep seeing Dracoś face when I was shouting at them both outside the Inn. Harry was too drunk to be upset, I guess, but God knows how he felt the next day. And who was I kidding? Like I´ve never stolen a broomstick in my life."

Lupin chortled. "That may be true, but that won´t affect how you feel when you see them in danger, or what you think is danger. You´re their father… after all."

"I wonder if I am," Sirius said reflectively. "Sometimes I feel like I´m more a friend to both of them than a father. A friend that cares a great deal for them, but still a friend. I´m terrified of somehow seeming to try to take James´ place with Harry, and as for Draco, he hates his father so much…"

"Hates him?" Lupin shook his head. "He doesn´t hate him."

Sirius looked at his friend in surprise. "Of course he does."

"No." The candlelight turned Lupinś eyes to low-burning lampshine gold; wolf eyes. "You don´t see it."

"See what?"

Lupin sighed. "You didn´t have parents, Sirius, not really. Not that you grew up with. And you didn´t know Draco when he was younger. My father says this…my father does that. Every other word out of his mouth was about Lucius. Heś defined himself by his father. Lucius used to be what he wanted to be; now heś what Draco is afraid he already is. But that doesn´t mean he isn´t still his father."

"Heś grateful to Lucius, you mean? Because without him he wouldn´t exist?"

"No. Thatś not it." Lupinś voice was emphatic. "I remember when we covered the section in Advanced DADA on vampires. How they sire other vampires, how they pass along their traits, how they form into tight-knit clans. I talked about that vampire clan I routed out of those old mines in Romania and how the head vampire ran at me in the sunlight — sacrificed himself so the nestlings could get away. Everyone else was riveted by the story, but when I looked at Draco….I could see what he was thinking. Even demons love their children. How can my father hate me so much?"

Sirius looked fixedly at his plate. He had never, to his recollection, seen the faces of his own parents. But he remembered — he remembered James´ parents, who told him he was wonderful and brilliant and talented and loved, and so he had been. And Peterś parents, who had told him he was a coward, and so he had been. And Lupinś parents, who had told him he was a monster whose sole responsibility in life was to make sure he never infected others with his own monstrosity, and the years and years of work it had taken to convince Remus, even in the smallest way, that this was untrue.

"All parents have a hold over their children," Lupin said quietly. "And in the end, all children believe they are what their parents tell them they are."

Sirius glanced up at his friend. "I spent all those years in Azkaban for murder, but I´ve never killed anyone. But if I get my hands on Lucius Malfoy, I will kill him. If I have to go back to Azkaban, I´ll kill him."