Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Voldemort lifted the mirror higher. "He is handsome, your son."

Lucius looked uneasy. "You asked for him to be made that way, Master."

"Yes. People of great beauty and charisma make excellent leaders. People wish to follow them. I was handsome myself, once."

Lucius looked even more uneasy. "Yes, of course."

"And Lucifer himself was God's most beautiful angel."

Lucius was silent. Wormtail seemed pale and distracted. His gaze was on the floor.

Very slowly, Voldemort lowered the mirror. "Have you read the Bible, Lucius?"

Lucius unclasped his hands, which had been resting against his black robes. "Master, I would — "

"Perhaps you haven't. It was a staple in the Muggle orphanage in which I was raised." The Dark Lord put his hand against the mirror in which Draco's face was clearly reflected, his outspread fingers touching the boy's face. "And God so hated his only son," he said softly, "that he gave him to the world, that the world might have him."

"Loved," said Wormtail, breaking the silence unexpectedly.

"What's that?"

"The quotation," said Wormtail. His voice was nervous and uneven. "And God so loved the world — "

"Do you presume to correct me, Wormtail?"

"N-no. No, my lord."

"I didn't think so."

"Malfoy! Hey! Malfoy!"

At the sound of his own name, consciousness came back to Draco like a dash of cold water in the face. With a start, he focused his eyes, seeing the room reel around him before it settled into stillness. The first thing that came into focus was Ron's face: vexed and irritable, his blue eyes sparking like gas flames turned low. "Malfoy, are you not listening?"

"You told me if I said anything it would be twenty points from Slytherin," said Draco meekly.

"Yes, well, obviously not when I'm addressing you directly!" Ron looked ready to lunge across the table and shake Draco senseless. "So are you willing to, or not?"

"Of course I am," said Draco, without the slightest idea what he had just agreed to do. The room was still spinning slightly and his head was full of echoing voices. There was a sharp pain behind his eyes.

Ron looked surprised. "That's settled, then." He put down the parchments he had been holding, and grinned. "All right, well, we look well on our way to having the best Seventh Year Pub Crawl ever. And if the new chaperon system works, we may be well on our way to being the first class ever to achieve immortality through not having to cope with a bunch of drunken fifth-years getting us all in trouble." Ron grinned. "Even Malfoy can't argue with that."

"Well, it does interfere with my plan to achieve immortality through not actually dying," said Draco, and then, at Ron's expression, added hastily, "But… I can rethink that."

"Anything else?" Ron asked. When everyone was silent, he waved his wand again and murmured, "Orbus deceleratus," and the whirling silver circle returned to its place in the center of the table, and was still. "Meeting adjourned," announced Ron, and set down his wand.

As the prefects filed out the doors, Draco felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Pansy Parkinson, her pug nose wiggling with curiosity. "I can't believed you agreed to stay back from the pub crawl and make sure no low-formers try to sneak along to Hogsmeade," she said, shaking her head.

"Whatever possessed you, Draco?"

Draco stopped in his tracks. "I did what — I mean, I'm not exactly sure."

"Blaise thought you were going to go with her — she'll be furious!" Pansy walked off, shaking her head, the bright pink ribbons in her hair trembling. Draco looked after her thoughtfully.

"Furious, eh?" he said to himself. "Ah, well. Always a silver lining, I suppose."

"Hey, Weasley! Wait up."

Ron turned at the sound of the familiar voice, a dull sense of foreboding settling over him. Draco was walking towards him along the corridor, having ditched the other prefects some ways back. Ron stood where he was, eyebrows raised, as the Slytherin boy approached him. Whatever Draco wanted, he was sure it wasn't going to be anything good. Even short conversations with Draco were usually sarcasm rallies. No matter what their shared history, Ron just couldn't seem to muster up the warmth towards Malfoy that Harry could, not even a shadow of the easy camaraderie those two shared when they weren't in public.

Ron cocked his head, trying to define what it was about Malfoy that so annoyed him, even now — perhaps it was the way he wore his school robes, as if they weren't ordinary black school robes but something much finer.

As usual, and against regulations, the buckles on his robes were undone, showing the expensive clothes underneath — a dark gray sweater today, and black trousers, and the ubiquitous green-and-silver tie. Draco was shorter than Ron, but his slenderness and something about his bearing made him seem taller than he was.

"You're not wearing your prefect badge," said Ron wearily. "Technically, I could take points from Slytherin."

"Technically, I am wearing my badge. Just not where you can see it."

Draco smiled his most charming smile, and Ron resisted the urge to kick him. "What do you want, Malfoy? I haven't got all day."

"I want to know where Hermione is," said Draco with admirable directness.

"I don't know," said Ron tightly. "Why don't you ask Harry? Or don't you know where he is either?"

Draco's eyes went unfocused for a moment. "He's in the north fifth floor stairwell, going upstairs."

Ron shook his head. "Don't do that, it's creepy." He stared as the other boy's eyes came back into focus and Draco looked at him inquiringly.

"Right, I forgot. You don't need to find Harry to talk to him, so why don't you just ask him…"

"Because he doesn't know either," said Draco. "These days he doesn't know where he is most of the time. Anyway, he doesn't need the extra worry."

"Whereas I do?"

"You can handle it," said Draco, once again demonstrating his spectacular ability to make a compliment sound like an insult.

Ron sighed. "I do not know where Hermione is," he said, enunciating clearly. "She didn't tell me she wasn't coming to the meeting, she just didn't show up, and when and if you find her, you can tell her for me that I don't appreciate her sticking me with you lot on my own. Got that?"

"I shall make some very strongly worded statements on your behalf,"

Draco promised solemnly.

Ron stared at him. "Do you ever say anything that isn't sarcastic?"

"No," said Draco cheerfully. "Not really."

"Why do you want to know where Hermione is, anyway?"

"I'm worried about her." Draco's voice was uninflected, giving away nothing. "I wanted to talk to her."

"She'll be at the match this afternoon, she goes to all Harry's matches, you know that."

"I won't have a chance to talk to her then, I'll be too busy winning the game."

"Fat chance, Malfoy," said Ron, with some satisfaction. "You can't win against us. Harry's developed some new strategies that will knock you off your Firebolt."

"Really?" Draco looked politely interested. "Well, then you'll get to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation again, and we know how much you like that."

"Shhhh!" Ron hissed frantically, whipping around to see if anyone had overheard. "Okay, now, in what universe is that 'never talking about it again ever'?"

"Oh yeah," said Draco, with great unconcern. "Oops."

Ron threw his hands up into the air. "Oh, go away, Malfoy. And if you want to find Hermione so badly, look where we always bloody look. She's probably in the library."

The library was nearly deserted: of the few students who sat studying at the long tables, Ginny recognized only Slytherin Chaser Malcolm Baddock, Hannah Abbott, engrossed in a tome entitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, and Parvati Patil, sound asleep in a corner. Even the vulture-like Madam Pince was nowhere to be seen.