Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Yoo-hoo," said a voice at his left.

Seamus jumped and stared.

Just to the left of the door was a small portrait of a young witch in pale green robes. She wore a mop of fair hair and a mischevous expression.

"You know, there's nobody in there," she said, jerking her chin towards the door. "Although it's lovely to hear that you're not angry. Is there anyone in particular that you're not angry at, or are you just making the point that you're a generally mild-mannered sort of fellow?"

Seamus ignored this. "Have you seen Ginny Weasley? Red-headed girl, sixth year?"

"I know who she is." The portrait girl's smile widened. "Out of curiosity, are you Draco Malfoy?"

"Thankfully, I am not," replied Seamus sharply. "Why? Has he been coming around here?"

"Alas, no," she sighed, casting her eyes upward. "I just hear a lot about him. That's all the sixth year girls talk about. I thought you might be him -

— you know, fair-haired, good-looking, all that. But if you're not, it can't be helped."

"So I've been told," said Seamus.

"You don't know where he might be, do you?"

Seamus counted silently to ten. It was not sufficient. "Probably wanking off to photos of himself in the third floor bathroom," he said tightly.

"Oooh, really! Thanks!" The girl in the portrait beamed, and vanished, racing out of the frame.

Seamus rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He was even more glad he was leaving. The urge to throw the portrait on the ground and step on it had been nearly overwhelming. This was unusual for Seamus, who had never had much of a temper. He wanted to leave now, more than ever.

But he still wanted to say goodbye to Ginny before he did.

With some hesitation, he reached into his pocket and drew out a small glittering object. It was a tiny gold arrow on the end of a chain. The other half of the Tracking Charm on Ginny's bracelet. He had meant to give it to her before leaving, and explain to her what it was. He supposed he owed her that.

Briefly, he heard Draco's voice in his head. So maybe you might want to tell me why you put a Tracking Charm on that bracelet you gave her?

He stood still for a moment, staring at the arrow in his palm. Surely it wouldn't hurt to use it, just this one last time. After all, she couldn't be very far away. She'd never know.

He raised his hand, the arrow dangling from the chain between his fingers. "Point me," he said, and the arrow began to spin.

Instinctively, Harry grabbed for his Invisibility Cloak, hurling it around his shoulders as the door closed behind Dumbledore and Snape. He scrambled to duck behind the nearby chair and knelt there, breathless, as footsteps approached Draco's bed.

Had it simply been Dumbledore, Harry would not have felt the need to hide himself. But he didn't think he could stand talking to Snape again just now. He didn't think he could stand to have Snape even look at him.

He was afraid he'd be sick again, or worse.

He remained utterly motionless as Dumbledore came to stand at the foot of the bed, looking somberly down at Draco. After a moment, Snape joined him. There was a strangely unreadable look on his narrow, angular face.

"Did you want to wake him, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, drawing his eyebrows together thoughtfully. All the twinkle had gone from the pale blue eyes behind the familiar spectacles; Dumbledore looked weary, tired and old.

"I had hoped he might perhaps not yet have taken the Somnolus potion I gave him," Snape said. "But then again, if I were him, I would have taken it myself."

"It might perhaps," Dumbledore said, "be worth waking him, to tell him of your success."

The words went through Harry like a blazing arrow. All his muscles tensed and he thought instantly and with a dazed sort of shock of his own frantic whispering in the dark:

Let Snape find the antidote, and I'll never ask for anything else.

Snape said nothing for a moment. He took a step towards the bed, and then leaned forward. The furling edge of his dark cloak almost brushed against Harry's arm as he bent over Draco and, to Harry's immense surprise, briefly and lightly touched the sleeping boy's hair with the tips of his Potions-scarred fingers. It was the first and only gentle thing Harry had ever seen him do.

"I think," said Snape, and straightened up, "that I would prefer not to wake him, regardless. I suspect, in any event, that the sleeping potion will have made him too groggy to properly comprehend the news."

"Then we should go and tell the others," Dumbledore said. "His friends.

They should know you have had this breakthrough with the antidote, Severus. Hermione, and of course, Harry as well, especially Harry…I am sure they have been terrified that he might die at any moment. It would only be a kindness to do what we can to relieve their fears."

Antidote. Breakthrough. Draco's not going to die.

Crouched behind the chair, Harry dug his fingernails tightly into the palms of his hands. For some reason, he recollected the moment four years ago when he had heard McGonagall say that Ginny Weasley had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and at his side, Ron had collapsed silently, sliding wordless to the floor. He felt like doing that himself now, although in relief rather than in horror. His heart beat a hard tattoo against the inside of his ribcage. Antidote, it said with every beat. The antidote.

The corner of Snape's lip twitched. "Lucius will be most displeased," he said.

"Yes," said Dumbledore dryly. "I received another letter from him this morning, in fact. I used it to prop up a wobbly corner of my desk." He reached out then, and lightly clasped Snape's shoulder. "Thank you, Severus," he said. "For what you've done, in such a short space of time and having so little material to work with. No one else could have done even this much…"

A spasm of something passed across Snape's face, and perhaps if Harry had paused to wonder what it meant a great deal of pain and grief could have been avoided. But he didn't. He was already struggling to his feet, trying to balance the desperate need for silence against the sudden almost-hysteria that seemed to be gripping his chest in a vise. Drawing his cloak even tighter about himself, he crept around the bed and past Dumbledore and Snape. He managed to make it out the open door and into the corridor before he began to run.

"Did you hear something, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore glanced up at Snape, who had half-turned to look towards the infirmary door. The room was quite still, save for the drift of the loose bed curtains and the lengthening shadows along the floor. "No," he said.

"I did not. Severus…"

Snape turned back towards the bed and looked again at Draco. "Yes?"

Dumbledore followed the Potions professor's gaze and looked at the boy on the bed. Though he was deeply asleep, his sprawled posture made him look as if he had been flung there from a great height. The hands clasped around the pillow made him seem younger than he was, and the moonlight coming through the window threw spidery silver lines along his bare thin wrists. They made Dumbledore think of the veins running so closely below the skin there, freighted with their weight of lethal toxins. "I recollect your policy of shared guilt, Severus," Dumbledore said without taking his eyes from the dying boy on the bed. "But none of this is your fault."

"We are none of us blameless," Snape said, automatically.

Dumbledore sighed. "When will the antidote be ready?"

"I would prefer that you not call it that," Snape said, raising his eyes to look at Dumbledore.

"Severus — it is an antidote. Even if it is not the antidote you were looking for. It buys us time, and that in itself is an immeasurable help."