Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"We could do that," Draco agreed. He had picked up the letter again and was holding it up to the light. "Or we could just go to the address printed on the parchment."

"The what?" Hermione snatched the letter out of his hand. "What address?"

"It's a watermark. Hold the paper up to the light."

Hermione did as instructed. Her brow furrowed. "I just see three letters.

TMC."

"Yeah," Draco said. "It's a place." He hesitated. "Not a very nice place."

Hermione lowered the letter. "What do you mean? Is it a dangerous place?"

"It's near Knockturn Alley," said Draco, a bit diffident now. He wasn't exactly sure how Hermione was going to react to the news that Harry seemed to have found his way to an infamous den of wizarding vice. He wasn't sure how he felt about it himself. Knowing Harry, he'd wandered in there thinking it was a flower shop. But then Draco wasn't sure exactly how well he actually did know Harry after all. "It's a club of sorts. A… gentleman's club."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "A strip club?"

"It's not a strip club," said Draco, with perfect truth.

"Then what is it?"

"It's a brothel," Draco said, and cringed.

Hermione went a greenish sort of color. "A brothel?"

"A Polyjuice brothel," said Draco. "Very illegal. People go there to…"

"I know what people go there to do!" Hermione said furiously. "I've read about places like that." Belying her officious tone, her cheeks were scarlet.

"And how do you know all about this one, Draco Malfoy?"

"Because," he said. "My father owns it."

Hermione shook her head. "I suppose that shouldn't surprise me." She sagged back against the counter, biting her lip. "Now what? We can't exactly turn up at a polyjuice brothel and demand to search the place.

Those places are horribly illegal and I doubt they like attention. They'd toss us right out on the street, or worse."

Draco looked at the letter again. The writing was hurried, urgent, the letters sprawling across the page, but still unmistakably Harry's, those looping a's and curving s's. He wondered if anyone could imitate Harry's handwriting well enough to fool him. He doubted it. The tone of this letter, like the other he had received yesterday, was Harry's; he heard Harry's voice speaking to him in his head when he read it. And Harry's terrible handwriting would be hard to imitate. His own would be much easier: it was careful, elegant, standardized handwriting, just as his father had taught him.

He looked down at his right hand. Pale and slender, the index finger heavily laden down by the weight of his family signet ring. He flexed his fingers and lowered his hand thoughtfully.

"Draco?" Hermione said, in a worried tone. "Are you…?"

"I need parchment," he said. "And a quill. And some wax — sealing wax.

And we need to hurry — I'd imagine we don't have very much time."

She drank the Polyjuice Potion before she put on the costume they had given her to wear. She couldn't have fit into it otherwise. The clothes were very small, made to be worn by a young girl, one no older than sixteen or seventeen, and a small girl at that.

She had worn her share of schoolgirl clothes before. It was amazing how many wizards had that fetish. The only other costumes more common in the brothel were Quidditch players' outfits. People went mad for those, and the brothel made them with "special adjustments" — tight trousers, high leather boots, heavy-buckled wristguards and formfitting summer tops. She had a feeling this schoolgirl outfit had been adjusted as well.

Also, unusually, it was branded with the badge of a House — the infinitesimal black skirt was buttoned with small gold lion's head buttons, and the badge of Gryffindor adorned the tight white shirt. She rolled the thigh-high stockings up and twisted her long red hair into plaits and was done. No makeup, she'd been told, no cosmetic charms of any kind.

Barefoot, she went down the long hallway to the door of Room Twenty-Eight. She tapped her charmed cube against the door and it melted away just long enough for her to step through it.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the room.

Her customer sat on the edge of the bed, haloed by the pinkish light coming from the rose lamp behind him. He raised his head as she came in.

"Hello," she said, and paused there in the doorway.

He stood up. She was taken aback. He was young — very young — and surprisingly good-looking. Dark blond hair, eyes a clear and definite blue.

A narrow, firmly set mouth and a lithe, muscular body. His clothes were dark, nondescript. There seemed no cunning in his face, but his eyes were old, belying his age.

She wondered what he wanted. Without a cue from him she did not know if he would prefer her to pretend to be naïve and terrified or precocious and daring. She lifted her hand and slowly pulled one of her plaits forward so that it fell down against her breast. Then she looked at him, coyly, through her hair.

"Come here," he said, and held out a hand.

Barefoot as he had requested, she went across the room to him. She took his hand and he drew her up against him. His hands slid down her body to her waist and held her there, lightly but firmly. "You will call me by my name," he said. "I am Tom. Say it."

"Tom," she said.

A faint little shudder ran through him. The air in the room seemed to her to be thickening somehow although she assumed it was merely the light in the lamp dimming. His hands ran restlessly up her body. He tilted her head back, touching her face with his fingers as if he were creating the shape of it himself out of the textures of the night and the air between them.

She held still as he touched her. She was used to peculiar reactions from customers. Given the business she was in, she supposed it could only be expected. People did not come to the Midnight Club for sex alone — what the brothel really dealt in was dreams and fantasies, the dark materials of the human soul. Lust brought people there, but so did love, and so did grief. She was used to being wept on, clasped, worshipped and adored, hated and despised. It was all in a day's work.

"Ginny," said Tom now, his thumbs under her chin, tilting her head up.

"Look at me."

She looked up at him. The room was definitely darker now. She could see only the outline of his features, the shadows cast by his lashes, the blue eyes.

"Are you afraid of me?" he said.

She took a guess at what he wanted her to say. "Yes."

Another shudder went through him and his arms tightened around her.

He bent and pressed his lips against her cheek. They were cold and she shivered unaccountably. "Love," she heard him whisper, and she didn't think he was talking to her. "Such a selfish emotion. It makes the body a slave, and shackles the will to its narrow desires — and yet it is thought ennobling, why is that?"

She did not know what he meant but his tone made her nervous. Her relief at seeing him was rapidly beginning to drain away. This boy was beautiful, but he also seemed to be more than a little unhinged. "Your hands," she said. "So cold — "

"Be quiet." He shook her once, hard, by the shoulders, and she quieted instantly, startled into silence. Almost immediately the anger went out of his eyes and they went soft again, dreamy, unfocused. "Tell me you love me," he said.

This was more familiar ground. "I love you, Tom," she said.

"And you belong to me."

"I belong to you, Tom," she said, because he seemed to like the sound of his own name.

"And you'd die for me," he said.

"And I'd die for you, Tom."