Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"You are," said the Dark Lord, "doing very well."

Ron glanced up. "I need some water," he said, and went back to playing. A few moments later he found a glass of water at his right hand. He drank it and set the glass down and moved a piece and lost the game.

"Again," the Dark Lord said, and the eighth game began. Ron's hand was aching again as he slid his last piece forward and then the board exploded into a thousand colors like a kaleidoscope blown apart and he caught at the back of his chair but he fell anyway.

The visions came more vividly now, less like dreams. He saw again the Ministry on fire, flames that bloomed like orange flowers from the shattered windows. He saw Hermione on her knees in some unfamiliar place; she clutched a silver flask to her chest as if it were something precious. For a brief moment, he saw Draco, standing in what looked like an alleyway, splashed with blood and dirt. His expression was one of utmost rage. And then he saw Lucius Malfoy with his face in his hands as if he were weeping — but surely he couldn't be — and barely had he digested the strangeness of this when it dissolved away and he saw instead a girl lying on a bed of torn clothes and tangled hair. And he knew, as immediately as he had ever known anything, that although he could not see her face, only the bright hair that shawled down over her, that it was Ginny and that she was dead.

He flung himself upward out of the vision with a hoarse cry and found himself back on the cold stone floor of the Dark Lord's castle. He started to get to his knees. Something knocked him back down. There were hands holding his arms. He tried to pull free but the grip was too strong. "Let me go," he shouted, hardly aware of what he was saying, "Let me go, I have to get to my sister, my sister — "

A hand clapped down over his mouth, cutting off his breath. He bit at it savagely and heard a yelp. He tasted satisfaction, and blood, before something hard came down sharply against the back of his head and all the lights went out.

She was cold. Dumbledore's beautiful office was warm: a fire burned in the grate behind the Headmaster's claw-footed desk. On his golden perch behind the door, Fawkes sang softly. The room smelled of treacle and Christmas.

But Ginny was cold. She'd been cold since she'd arrived back in the present, dumped unceremoniously on the floor of what was now a disused classroom. Dumbledore had been there, waiting for her. Expecting her. His blue eyes cool and stern. His beard white, as she had remembered it. He had turned silently and she had followed him, her heart heavy with dread.

Ginny shivered now, and wrapped her arms around herself. Her hand ached dully; Dumbledore had healed it with a touch, but it still felt sore.

The Time-Turner around her throat was cold. She could feel the icy line of the chain cutting into the back of her neck.

Dumbledore looked at her over his spectacles. He seemed remote to her, very far away. "Well, Ginny," he said. "Is there something else you'd like to tell me?"

Ginny unwrapped her arms from around her chest and gripped the sides of her chair. "I explained everything," she said dully. "Anyway, you already knew. You knew where I'd be tonight. You knew when I'd come back."

"True." Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and looked at her, his fingers templed under his chin. "After all, how could I not know? It was fifty years ago that I found Tom Riddle chasing a red-haired girl I had been warned to look out for out of an empty library. Of course now I know that it was hardly empty; he had it well-warded. Tom was always clever with wards."

"I tried to tell you," Ginny said, her voice listless. "You didn't want to listen…"

"No." Dumbledore's voice was cold. "I did not. You had caused enough damage to the fragile fabric of events as it was. All I could do was try to forget what you had told me. I could not of course ever entirely erase my suspicions of Tom Riddle. He managed to surprise me in the end, anyway.

He surprised us all."

"You told me," Ginny said, shivering uncontrollably now, "that time would put me beyond Tom…"

"That," said Dumbledore, "was before Tom put himself beyond time." He paused and looked at her consideringly. There was no gentleness in his expression. "He remembered and hated you for years," he said. "How long he must have waited for you, the Weasley daughter. And then, just as you were born, Harry destroyed him. A bitter disappointment for the talented Master Riddle. Still, he had Lucius Malfoy to carry out his revenge for him.

Ever the loyal servant, our Lucius. Of course, Harry thwarted that, too.

And now we come full circle to the cause of it all." Dumbledore held out his hand. "Give me the Time-Turner, Ginny."

Sick with misery, Ginny reached up and unclasped the chain. It slid into her hand like water, and she closed her hand around the cool hourglass.

Her Time-Turner. The only thing that had ever made her special or powerful. "You knew," she whispered, feeling the cold glass against her fingers. "You knew I stole it…you've known all this time."

"Surely you realized we allowed you to steal it," Dumbledore said calmly.

"You cannot imagine theft from the Stonehenge Museum would be so easily overlooked. When the alarm was set off…we knew. We let you take the Time-Turner. After all, I knew you would need to use it to make the journey you made today. Now, however, I would like it back. If you please…" And he held out his hand.

Weighted with despair, Ginny handed the Time-Turner over to him. He sat back, still holding it, the gold just visible through his fingers.

"You have not," he said, "yet told me why you felt today's journey was necessary. My assumption would be that you planned to do some harm to young Tom Riddle and thus prevent him from ever becoming Voldemort.

Am I correct?"

Ginny shook her head. "I'm not that stupid," she said. Her voice sounded flat to her own ears. "I know you can't change the past like that." She turned her face and looked at the window that gave out onto the Quidditch pitch. Outside the sun was beginning to set, turning the pitch and the sky behind it the green-gold of tarnished copper. "I went back to when he made the diary he used on me because I knew he'd need to use a piece of himself to make it. Blood…a bit of his hair…whatever it was, I thought I could get it and make an Epicyclical Charm out of it. Like the one Harry has, that's got a chip from Draco's baby tooth in it. I've made one before. I could do it again. You can find someone with their Charm.

We could have used it to find Voldemort with. Or if we destroyed it — he might even die…"

Ginny let her voice trail off, and sat in silence, not looking at Dumbledore.

Having said the plan aloud for the first time, she realized how utterly ridiculous it sounded and could barely stand to listen to her own voice.

When Dumbledore spoke, his voice was dry. "An interesting plan, lacking in exactly one particular. Do you know what that particular is?"

Mutely, not looking at him, Ginny shook her head.

"You cannot make an Epicyclical Charm for the Dark Lord." Dumbledore's voice was terrible in its truthfulness. "Because the Epicyclical Charm holds a piece of the soul of its object. What Harry wears around his neck is a bit of young Master Malfoy's soul; the spiritual energy that makes Draco who he is. But the Dark Lord has no soul. He bartered it away years ago for power. Should you attempt to make an Epicyclical Charm for him, it would melt and slip through your fingers like water."

Ginny raised her head. She looked at Dumbledore. She was sure her stricken realization must be written all across her face. But he did not look as if he pitied her. His face was full of the most terrible severity.