Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Am I correct?"

Mr Blackthorpe looked astonished. "Did you pry it off the chain?

Whatever for, if I may ask?"

"I did not pry it off the chain," Draco snarled. "It was used by someone else, to escape this place."

Mr. Blackthorpe looked as if he might faint. "The murderer?"

For a moment, the look of rage in Draco's eyes faded. "Yes," he said, after a brief hestitation that was enough to tell Hermione that the person who had used this Portkey to escape was Harry. "I need to follow him, immediately. Get me another Portkey."

There was a short silence. Mr Blackthorpe cleared his throat. "There is no other Portkey," he said.

"Excuse me, what?" Tense with disbelief, Draco stared at him. "What did you say?"

"There is only the one Portkey. It was never considered wise to have more than the one — and it was sealed to the chain with Level Five binding charms — "

"Which proved so effective." Draco's voice dripped acid. "Where did this Portkey go?"

"To the Central London Floo Hub." Blackthorpe cleared his throat again.

"Over three hundred fireplaces there, serving the whole Floo Network -

he's probably long gone already. Mister Malfoy, if I might say — I'm sure your father wouldn't want you chasing after dangerous miscreants as it is.

The murderer has killed once already — "

"I don't care about my father!" Draco shouted. Hermione, properly alarmed now, began rising from her seat. Draco would never normally talk about his father this way in public. And he was beginning to frighten her. Iron control was so much a part of his affect, so much a part of everything he was, that to see cracks in it was like doubting the security of Hogwarts. Or so she would have thought. "I want another Portkey! You must have an emergency backup Portkey — you must be hiding it around here somewhere — "

"I assure you, Mister Malfoy," Blackthorpe said, "that I am not."

Hermione believed him. No one would lie to Draco in the state he was in.

Draco, however, seemed unconvinced. He threw the padlock, hard, against the far wall. It fell to the sideboard, knocking over a decanter with the satisfying sound of smashed glass.

"I want another Portkey," he snarled. "Or some Floo Powder. I want out of here, you understand me? I want to get to the Central Floo Hub and I want to get there now. The only question is whether I'm going to have to crawl there over a land bridge built out of your dead and eviscerated bodies."

He threw a sharp glance sideways at Hermione, as if remembering for the first time that she was there. Color was beginning to come back into his livid face — too much color. He was flushed as if with a fever, his eyes wildly bright. "Get behind me, Hermione," he said.

Mr Blackthorpe made a sound of protest. "I thought you said her name was — "

"Shut up!" Draco yelled. "I asked you, are you going to help me or not?"

Mr Blackthorpe spread his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness. "Mister Malfoy," he said. "There is nothing I can do for you in this case. Nothing at all."

Draco's only response to that was to grin, suddenly and terrifyingly.

Hermione knew that grin. She had only just time to scramble behind him when the mahogany desk and everything on it exploded in a shower of splinters and glass.

Harry hit the ground hard, as if he'd been dropped from a great height.

He rolled, gasping, and sprawled flat on his back for a moment, dazed.

Then he scrambled to his knees and cast about him, half-hoping -

But the room he had been in, with its smashed door and flat-paneled walls and Draco, too, that room was gone. He was kneeling on a damp and cold stone floor, inside what looked like a small entryway. Empty black archways led off in several directions. There was very little light. Harry could hear voices in the distance. The room smelled of chimney smoke.

He knelt where he was for a moment, his heart pounding. He opened his hand abruptly and the Portkey rolled out of it. It hit the stone floor with a dull clink. It's not fair, Harry thought bitterly, It's not fair.

He got to his feet. A wave of dizziness flooded over him and he put out his hand to brace himself against the wall. He could still see Draco in his head, white-faced, looking sick with horror and loathing. Without thinking about it, Harry suddenly hauled off and kicked the dropped Portkey viciously hard. It flew across the room and hit the far wall with a metallic clink. This relieved Harry's feelings only marginally.

He bit down on his lip. Don't think about it. Don't torture yourself over what you can't alter. It's done.

Someone jostled his shoulder then and a voice swore at him in a language he couldn't quite comprehend. Harry pressed himself back against the wall as a group of men poured through the room, laughing and talking to each other. They were dressed in identical dark robes, each robe striped around the cuffs with red and orange. Something like a memory tugged at the back of Harry's mind, but he was too ill now with fever and misery to concentrate. It was all he could do to slip in at the back of the line of strangers and follow them through the archway.

He trailed after them down a short corridor which emptied out into a truly enormous room which was packed with wizards. The group Harry had come in with scattered around him as he stood and stared.

He seemed to be at the bottom of what looked like an enormous chimney, going up and up and up until the roof vanished into the distance above him. The air was thick and hazy with smoke and smelled of ash and cinders and damp, cold brick. All along the walls above him were dark holes — fireplaces, Harry realized. Walkways bracketed the fireplaces.

Harry could see people walking along them, ducking into the fireplaces, and vanishing in bursts of green and orange light.

I'm in a Floo Hub, he realized, with a sense of mixed wonder. He had heard of Floo Hubs, although he'd never been in one before. Hundreds of fireplaces, each connected to the Floo networks of different countries. You could get almost anywhere in the world from a Floo Hub. If escape was what he wanted, he could not have come to a better place. And yet…

He glanced around. Most of the wizards here on the ground floor seemed to be clustered around a desk at the far side of the room. Harry was fairly sure that this was where you purchased your Floo Powder and passes. His sense of misgiving returned. As far as he knew, you had to present your wizarding certificates in order to be allowed to Floo out of the country.

Somewhere in his bag was his school certificate, but he hardly wanted to present that. As soon as they saw his name, they'd be all over him.

Harry sighed. His back and neck were aching, his bones hurt from exhaustion and illness, and it was nearly impossible to get his thoughts under control. He wondered dully how much Hermione hated him now.

He was glad she hadn't been with Draco. He couldn't have stood it if they'd both looked at him like that. It was bad enough that Draco was furious with him. Although certainly he'd forgive him, eventually, wouldn't he? He'd have to. Harry could reason with him, tell him, explain.

Sit him down and think at him until he had to admit that Harry wasn't lying. An ill-advised confidence surged over Harry suddenly. Of course Draco would relent, because he had to. He couldn't just give up on their friendship, he couldn't walk away from it; what bound them together was much more than both of them. Nor could Harry imagine living the rest of his life without Draco in it. Therefore Draco would have to forgive him.

This seemed to Harry, in his fevered state, to be the most sensible logic he had ever encountered. He smiled, and began to reach into his pocket for his book bag. He had just raised his hand when the world suddenly and terrifyingly seemed to burst apart around him.