Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

I would never forgive, Draco thought. If I were him — never.

Hermione expelled a long breath, and then she had dropped her books on the floor and had run at Harry, flinging her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He caught her as if this were the most natural thing in the world, and stroked her hair.

Draco began to feel that perhaps he ought to go somewhere.

"I think I'm going to go somewhere," he said, backing towards the door slightly. Harry and Hermione broke apart and turned to look at him. Their hands were interlaced.

"Where?" said Harry.

"Somewhere that's…else?" Draco hazarded.

Harry's eyes widened. "Like where? Do you want me to walk you back to the infirmary?"

"No." Draco tried to think of a place no one would be able to accompany him. "I'm going to take a bath," he said with all the dignity he could muster.

"You just washed your hair," Harry pointed out. "How many baths do you need?"

"Well," said Draco, lamely. "You know."

Hermione looked confused.

Draco thought irritably at Harry, Look, I'm trying to leave you alone together. Why must you be so difficult all the time?

Leave us alone? But why?

Don't be dense.

"That's right," said Hermione aloud, "just telepathize away. Don't mind me, standing here watching you two make faces at each other.

HONESTLY."

Draco ignored this. This is about you and Ron and Hermione, not about me. I think you two need to talk and you don't need me around making it awkward.

But I do need you, Harry said, looking confused.

You need something, Potter, Draco thought, and turned away to the portrait door. But don't ask me to tell you what it is.

Ginny had made her calculations carefully: it would take Tom at least ten minutes to get down to the Slytherin dungeons, and ten minutes to get back. Add another five minutes at least to talk to Professor Coulter (who she knew from her parents had been the Head of the Slytherin House before Snape) and she had at least twenty-five minutes. Which was fine, as she doubted she'd need more than five.

Still, it seemed to take an age for her to walk across the library and arrive at the table strewn with Tom's things. Well, perhaps strewn wasn't the word. They were carefully arranged, the blank little diary next to the vial (it had ink in it, she could see that now), the stained blade beside the bowl of blood.

She stood for a moment frozen, her hand extended over the table towards the silver bowl. This was what she had come for, of course. Tom's blood.

But then again — Tom's blood. Her heart beat a rhythmic tattoo of inquiry against her ribcage. What do you think you're doing, Virginia Weasley?

This is so far beyond you. This is huge. This is Tom Riddle we're talking about here. Do you really think this is a good idea?

She pushed the voices down and reached for the bowl. Then she blinked.

Okay, I can't go flinging myself through time with a bowl full of blood. I need some kind of…container. Where the hell is that vial I packed? Think, Ginny. Think.

Half swearing under her breath, she reached into her pocket and began emptying it onto the table. Both the books she carried everywhere were in there — she set the Liber-Damnatis on the table, and put the diary on top of it. She had brought a vial, she knew she had — she dug down deeper into her pocket — and the library door slammed open. Heart splintering in terror, Ginny threw out a hand to keep herself from falling. Her right elbow jogged hard against hit the table, which shuddered; the bowl overturned itself, drenching the books she had set down next to it with blood.

Oh, no. No, no no. How could he possibly have gotten back so quickly? It's barely been a minute — She raised her eyes. He was a shadow in the doorway, backlit by the torchlight from the corridor outside. She could see only the outline of him: cloak and hair and angled shoulders. There was a slighter shadow next to him. "Priscilla," he was saying, "if you ever send me on a wild goose chase like that again, I shall be very displeased with you — "

Ginny fumbled the tattered diary off the table with numb fingers — and stared. The blood that had splashed on it had vanished the way that ink had once vanished into its pages. It was spotless. Her astonishment loosened her grip, and she dropped the diary at her feet.

Oh, no.

She went to her knees, scrabbling at the little black book, jamming it into her pocket. She could hear the girl's voice growing closer. "Tom, I'm so sorry, he said he'd be right there — Tom, what is it? What's wrong? You look so strange — "

Ginny jerked her head up. And bile rose into the back of her throat. Tom Riddle was standing less than three feet away from her, a look of utter, blank astonishment on his face. He froze where he was, and stared at her.

And Ginny stared back, rigid, unable to move. She had only to reach for the Time-Turner around her neck, she knew. It promised certain and immediate escape. And yet she couldn't move.

"Tom…?" said Priscilla, uncertainly. Several steps behind Tom, it was apparent that she could not see Ginny.

He did not turn around. "Stay outside the wards, Priscilla. Don't come forward. Good. Now turn around and get out of here, if you know what's good for you."

Apparently Priscilla did know what was good for her — she gave a startled squeak, but obeyed him. Tom did not look away from Ginny, not even when the library door opened, and then closed behind the departing Ravenclaw girl. Nor did Ginny move. She stayed where she was, on her knees, as he took another step forward. The faint candlelight picked out the angles and shadows of his face, the round youthful chin, the long mouth and longer eyes. She had seen him before, of course, but never up close like this, never alive like this. Never with a pulse that beat at the base of his throat, lips that twitched nervously, spots of burning color on his cheekbones. Never real.

"You're a ghost," Tom said, speaking less to her than to himself. "You must be."

Oh God, does he know me? Ginny thought, her heart almost crystallizing inside her chest — but no, in his eyes there was no recognition at all. Eyes so blue they were nearly black: eyes the color of the flames that might dance along the edge of a live coal. How could she have forgotten the color of his eyes?

"How else could you get past the wards?" he said, and now there was the beginning of an edge to his voice. A clear, fine edge, the edge of a glass knife. "The spells on them are perfect. I invented them myself." His eyes narrowed. "Oh, but you're no ghost after all," he murmured, eyes dropping to her throat. "You're breathing." He paused, eyes narrowing.

"For the moment."

That unlocked Ginny's frozen limbs. Her hand flew up of its own accord, scrabbling for the Time-Turner around her throat.

Tom was too quick for her. His white hand flashed out, and she felt the chain jerked from her neck, lifted over her head. The Time-Turner sailed through the air and he caught it as handily as Harry might catch the Snitch. Helpless now, she stared up at him as he opened his hand and gazed at the small gold hourglass lying on his palm.

"What magic is this?" he demanded. His voice was a low hiss. "Is this how you got past the wards? You're no student here. I've not seen you before, and I never forget a face. And you went for this the moment you saw me.

But it's not a Portkey…so what is it?"

She was silent.

His mouth curved into a smile, curling up at the corners like burning paper. "Then I suppose I'll just have to experiment with it a bit myself," he said. "See what it does, this little talisman."

"No — oh no." Her protest burst out of her. She could not prevent it. "Tom

— "

"I don't recall saying you could call me that." His arrogant boy's voice cut across hers, silencing her. In that moment he had something of Draco about him — something to the tilt of his chin, the angle of his smiling-yet-not-smiling mouth was like Draco's. The shape of their eyes, too…but then, in other respects, he was just like Harry. If Draco and Harry could have been somehow combined, all their worst qualities married together into one person, perhaps the end result would have looked a bit like Tom Riddle. "So you know me," he said. "You know my name. Who are you?