Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"That was before I knew he was a smarmy Gryffindor-lover." Malcolm's nostrils flared. "Apparently he's as cowardly as he is arrogant. I'm not surprised he didn't come tonight — he knows he'll be up against the wall with the other traitors soon enough."

"Malcolm, I find your fascist tendencies deeply erotic," said Blaise. "I hope you know that."

Malcolm looked as if he had no idea how to respond to this. "Well, he isn't anything special," he insisted.

"Right," said Blaise.

"I man, just because someone has wavy white-blond hair and sculpted cheekbones this really cute way of sucking on a quill when they're bored, doesn't mean that they're entitled to special treatment," Malcolm sulked.

Blaise raised her right eyebrow a fraction. "You know, this casts your desire to see Draco up against a wall into an entirely new light."

Malcolm sniffled. "Does this mean you aren't going to sleep with me?"

"No. Try Pansy."

"Pansy? She's been passed around by more guys than a Quaffle. Forget it."

"Sexist," snapped Blaise. " If she were a boy you'd just say he was lucky."

"If she was a boy, I would — "

"Don't finish that sentence, Malcolm, you'll regret it. Look- I'm off to find Pansy. Have a nice evening. Oh, and if you're really lonely you can go knock Millicent's coconuts together in the bathroom."

"What…?"

"Have a nice night, Malcolm," said Blaise, and sashayed away.

"We need Harry."

Draco was tight-lipped, leaning back against the corridor wall outside the infirmary from Madam Pomfrey had banished them both. Hermione looked at him wearily. There was blood on his white shirt where Ginny's head had rested against his shoulder.

"What for?" she asked.

Draco looked at her in utter disbelief, as if she'd announced that she couldn't see why everyone was so bothered about Voldemort as he seemed a nice enough fellow to her. "Because of his world-famous recipe for raspberry trifle," he said. "What do you think we need him for? Look, there's obviously something going on here. I don't believe what Ginny said to Pomfrey at all."

Hermione sighed. Once in the infirmary, Ginny had revived enough to tell Madam Pomfrey that she'd dropped her charm bracelet into the fireplace and had burned herself trying to retrieve it. The destruction of the room, she'd claimed, was due to the charms on the bracelet all activating at once. She had not repeated her claims against Seamus, and she had not, thankfully, mentioned Tom.

"I don't believe her, either," she said. "I just don't know what you expect Harry to do about it."

"Maybe he can…I don't know, talk to her. I don't think she'll talk to me, especially not after yesterday."

"You mean after your little display of pointless cruelty in the common room?"

"That's your interpretation," shrugged Draco. "I assure you that I am never pointlessly cruel."

"But you were cruel."

"Not without a reason."

Hermione scoffed. "Honestly, Draco…"

"Are you scoffing at me?" Draco was grinning at her, that crooked, disarming grin that made her forget what it was she had wanted to say.

"I'm impressed. It's hard to work up a good scoff these days."

Hermione felt herself redden, then set her mouth. "Don't change the subject."

Draco raised an eyebrow, splashed his cool ice-water gaze over her, and then shrugged. "This is all very unfair," he remarked. "We hardly need another crisis. I feel that my crisis schedule is already full."

"I'm not sure that Ginny would talk to Harry, anyway," Hermione said.

"Yesterday she called him an oblivious moron pig."

Draco burst out laughing. "Did she? Oh, that's rich. I'm sorry I missed it. I would have liked to have seen his face." He glanced down then at his watch. Hermione tried not to notice that the band was slightly loose around his wrist. "Look, he has to be up by now. Is there some reason you don't want me to go and get him?"

"No. Well. Maybe. I don't know…" Hermione drew upon her mastery of the English language and found herself at a loss for words. There was no way to explain the sourceless foreboding that had gripped her earlier when Snape had been in the infirmary. Not that she felt as if something had happened to Harry — she didn't. It was something else entirely. Something that had to do with Draco. Somehow, she felt that if she let him go away from her now, she would never see him again. Probably it was just panic over his health. Intellectually, she knew that. Not that it helped.

He looked at her, silver eyes lit to a curious opacity. Harry's eyes were always the same color, but Draco's eyes were a changeable gray, like ice and sleet and frost and all cold and mutable things. They could be as bright as the glancing blow of sunlight striking against an icicle, as dark as clouds weighted with snow. Right now they gave away little, but she knew enough to read his posture — it was politely hesitant. He was waiting for her to tell him to go to Harry, but if she did not give the word, he would go anyway.

"Go," she said.

"I'll be right back." He touched her shoulder, lightly, and turned to go.

She watched him walk away. As he receded into the distance, she felt the sudden urge to call after him — that feeling that if she let him go now, she'd never get him back again had returned, stronger than ever.

As it turned out later, the feeling was not entirely unjustified. But Hermione did not know that. She did, however, look away so that she would not see him round the corner at the end of the corridor. When she turned back at last, he was gone.

Ron had slept, on the floor, surrounded by smashed chess pieces, and now it was another day, and the Dark Lord did not want to play chess. He wanted to play with dice. Ron did not want to play dice. It was a stalemate.

"No," said Ron, sitting with his back against the empty fireplace under the carved angels with their hidden eyes. There was a stained glass window above him, and the sunlight came down through it. The red panes of the window bled on him, and the blue panes wept, and the green panes bathed everything in a poisonous light. "No. I won't play."

"Then I will break all your fingers," said Voldemort. "I will flay the skin from your hands and your feet and you will crawl to me on your knees."

"I don't even know how to play dice," pointed out Ron.

"That is irrelevant," said the Dark Lord. He held a pair of amethyst dice in his bone-white hand. The dots upon it were small black rayed suns. "I wish to see what numbers you throw."

"I want to go outside," said Ron. "It's been days, I haven't seen the sun. Let me go out."

Rhysenn, in her gold cage, chuckled and hit the bars with the flat of her hand. She was naked again. Ron tried not to look at her. "The boy wants to go out," she giggled. "He actually wants to go out."

"You do know she's completely off her head," Ron said to Voldemort.

Voldemort, in a thoughtful manner, licked one of the dice with a narrow blackish tongue.

"Of course, look who I'm talking to," Ron observed, to nobody in particular.

The double doors at the end of the room opened. Lucius came in. Ron was not surprised to see him. Whenever anyone came in, it was either Lucius or Wormtail. Lucius was wearing a long dark green travelling cloak fastened with what looked like a long pin made of bone. "Master," he said, and bowed to Voldemort. He turned his pewter gaze on Ron next, and smiled a thin smile. "And you, boy," he said. "How are you finding your accommodations?"

"Despite all the gambling and the widespread nudity," said Ron, "I'm fairly bored. Thanks for asking."

"Lucius," said Voldemort. He had looked up from the dice in his hand.

"What is this I hear you have been doing behind my back?"