Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Blaise, for a moment, sounded bitter. "How would you know? He loves you."

"I´m sure he…"

"Loves me too?" Blaise scoffed. "No. He was just using me. To draw attention away from the people he really does care about. I know that because…because he told me, when he came and asked me to pose as his girlfriend in the first place."

"To pose as his girlfriend?"

"I suppose he was always honest," Blaise said. "He told me that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, that he wouldn´t tell me why, that it had to do with people he wanted to protect, and that it might be dangerous, and did I understand that."

"And did you," Hermione asked, "understand that?"

"A little. Maybe. He offered me money…" Blaise took in Hermioneś horrified stare, and her lips twisted. "I know what you´re thinking. That I sold myself for pocket change to buy dresses with. I didn´t. My father…he lost all our money. Invested it badly, gambled it away on bad firecrab futures, I don´t really know. You don´t know what itś like, though. My parents, they don´t know how to live without money. They´ve always had it. They couldn´t adjust. It was horrible. Then Draco came. He knew, of course. Everyone in my parents´ little circle knew. My mother and Narcissa were best friends once. He came and he offered me enough money…he has so much, he would hardly even notice what he gave us, he said…and I just had to be his girlfriend. Just for a year."

Hermione was speechless. She had no idea what to think. She wasn´t sure who she was more disgusted with: Blaise, for accepting such an offer, or Draco, for offering in the first place. Of course, neither of them would probably ever even understand what was so horribly wrong with this arrangement. However much Draco had changed, he would never be anything but a Slytherin at heart.

Blaise continued to speak, as if she had quite forgotten that Hermione was there. "He did what he said he would. He gave us money, and he opened accounts for me in Hogsmeade so that I could buy whatever I wanted -

dresses, shoes. And I suppose I pretended that we really were dating. All the girls in my House always loved him, a little… and it was pleasant, being envied. And I thought maybe he did care for me, and he´d constructed this elaborate ruse so he could have me — he could have had me anyway, but I never told him that. Then, after a while, I began to see it wasn´t me he was in love with…" Her voice flattened. "I suppose you know the rest."

"I don´t know what to say," Hermione replied honestly. "Or to think. I won´t say it doesn´t sound like something Draco would do. It does." If he thought he was protecting one of us…yes, he´d do something like that.

"He can be really…sort of singleminded, I guess, would be the nice way to say it."

"You don´t have to bother looking for nice ways to say it." Blaise shrugged lightly. "I know what he is."

"Why me?" Hermione asked. "Why come to me with this?"

"Because you love him more than you don´t like me," Blaise said evenly.

"I see the way you are together — your little group, and him. Heś never said anything to me, but I always noticed."

"If you noticed," Hermione said, "then you love him as well."

"A little, maybe." Blaiseś face had shut like a fan; her eyes were remote.

"Maybe we all do, to some degree or other. Heś always been able to make people love him when he tried or needed to. In his life, I think thereś only ever been one person who didn´t love him enough."

And Hermione felt a strange little shock inside her — she understood what Blaise meant, and above that, she agreed with her. In that moment, she made the unconscious decision to trust the Slytherin girl. The words tumbled out of her unanticipated:

"All right then," she said. "All right. I believe you."

Blaise exhaled a breath of relief. "Good." Then she did something peculiar: she raised her hands, and unpinned the glittering barrettes that held her hair back. It swung forward in a heavy tumble of dark red-gold, the color of dragon scales. She looked at the barrettes in her hand for a moment -

there were three of them, a matched set of slender green wands. She held them out to Hermione, who stared. "Give these to Draco when you see him," she instructed.

Hermione balked. "No offense, but I doubt they´d suit him."

"He doesn´t have to wear them in his hair," Blaise said, as if this were obvious. "He can pin them on his cloak, or turn them into buttons. I don´t care. I just want him to wear them."

And I want him to dress up in tight trousers and a football jersey that says SCORING OPPORTUNITY across the front in big red letters, but we don´t always get what we want, do we? Hermione nearly replied, but stopped herself. If there was one thing she had noticed about Blaise, it was that she had remarkably little sense of humor. That alone would have prevented Draco from ever having any real feelings for her, Hermione thought with some satisfaction — then squashed the thought and the satisfaction as well.

"All right," she said, with great misgiving, taking the barrettes from Blaise.

"I´ll give them to him — but itś up to him if he wants to wear them."

"I wish I had more, but these are all I´ve got. They´re not easy to come by, you know…Pansy told me she had to make her own. I´m sure she took care of Weasley as well, so you don´t have to worry about him."

"Uh-huh," Hermione said, wondering if Blaise was, perhaps, a little off her head. She looked down at the barrettes, but there seemed nothing terribly special about them — they were not jeweled after all, up close, but made of some shimmering hard green material, somewhat like titanium.

"Don´t let him give them all to Potter, either," Blaise added, as an afterthought.

"If his desire to see Harry in hair barrettes becomes uncontrollable, I´ll be sure to step in," Hermione replied dryly. She narrowed her eyes at Blaise.

"If these turn out to be something dangerous, or some kind of tracking spell…"

"They´re not," Blaise snapped, exasperated. "Look, when you can, just get both of them to a safe place, all right? Not here. The whole Ministry will be looking for them…" Her voice trailed off at the look on Hermioneś face. "What?"

"What makes you think I´ll even see them again to get them to a safe place?" Hermione said in a small voice, hating herself for being vulnerable in front of Blaise, but too unhappy to stop it.

Blaise looked at her, surprise making her face transparent, and for a moment Hermione thought she could look through the other girlś shut expression to the real Blaise underneath — and in that moment, she did believe that Blaise loved Draco. It might have been a love made up in equal parts of childhood attachment, singed pride, and clannish loyalty, but it was still love of a sort. "They´ll come back to you,"

Blaise said. "They always do."

"Oh." For a moment, Hermione could think of nothing to say. She cleared her throat. "And Ron — you said Pansy´d given him something already, so when he gets back here, do I have to get him to a safe place too?"

The transparency vanished from Blaiseś expression; now she looked merely surprised. "You think Weasleyś coming back here?" she demanded. "You mean you don´t — " She broke off and spun around, green eyes widening. "What was that noise?"

Hermione leaped to her feet. "The kitchen door — "

Blaise went white. "Oh, no." There was a world of dread in those two words. She began to fumble in her pockets.

"Oh, for goodness sake. It could be Ron, or Ginny or even Bill — "

"Think what you want. I´m leaving," Blaise said, and drew a small silver Portkey box out of her robes.

"But what about your broom? Itś downstairs-"

"Owl it to me," Blaise replied, snapping the box open. With a toss of her red head, she vanished into thin air.