Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

She remembered the night she had slept in his room in the dungeon, how he had lain awake all night beside her, staring up into the darkness overhead, the thought of Harry lying between them like a drawn blade in some Arthurian legend. Harry lay between them now. He always would.

He would be a part of Draco for as long as either of them lived, and if one of them died it would be an endless struggle for whoever was left behind not to follow. Love one of them and you loved the other; lose one, and you would lose them both.

She reached out then to touch him, reached across the space between them that was occupied and always would be. He turned towards her at the same moment and put his own arms out and drew her against him, under the covers, and in the darkness they curled together, around each other and around the ghost of what they both loved. Clutching each other like children, they fell asleep there in the dark.

References:

Odio et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.: I love and I hate. You ask me why this is so; I do not know, but I feel it, and it torments me. (Catullus)

"I've always known my father was into some nasty stuff…dragon's blood bars, unicorn smuggling, polyjuice brothels…" Draco said this to Harry in DV9. See? Clue!

"… memorizing the liner notes on old Chöcolate Frög albums": It's something of a fanon convention that there's a bad wizarding band called Chöcolate Frög. I think they're Swedish.

"Didn't they get to number five with I Do Believe We're Naked?": This manages to be both a Red Dwarf *and* a Simpsons reference.

"I think that boat sailed with the…" Frasier.

"'Either the fish goes, or Thursday morning": courtesy of my friend Josh, upon being asked for "a very stupid sentence in French." Yes Credit for the evil little doorkeeper fairy goes to my recent reading material, more specifically Holly Black's Tithe, which posits a lot of quite nasty little fairies indeed, along with some hunky fairy knights. Read it.

Floo Hub: Credit for the idea of Floo Hubs goes to Soz's fantastic fic Russian Roulette. Used with her kind permission.

Thanks to Kissaki, who gave me the title for this chapter a long time ago, and thereby the name of the Midnight Club itself.

"I would be happy enough, living in my home country, if Pelias would give his consent. May the gods see fit to free me from my labors," said Jason. And his voice is at once that of the ever-hypocritical lover trying to soften the cruelty of his desertion, and that of the hero who looks, weary and detached, over the scene where he is obliged to kill, cheat, travel, desert, and, finally, to be killed.

— Roberto Calasso.

"Master," said the house elf-nervously, "there is someone in the library."

Thaddeus Nott folded down the left side of the paper he was reading (The Daily Prophet, business section, Wizarding Market Update: Wands Waver As Broomsticks Soar) and glared at the elf over his spectacles. "Nonsense," he said. "There can't possibly be anyone in the library."

"Yes, sir. Binky is understanding that, sir. Except that, sir…"

"Yes?"

"There is someone in the library, sir."

Nott threw the paper down with a bark of exasperation. "Is it one of the children?"

"No, sir."

"Well, who the bloody hell else can it be? I haven't asked any guests here, Martha's off at the spa in Theamelpos, and the only uninvited person who can get through the wards is the Dark Lord…" He paused, and paled markedly. "It's not the Dark Lord, is it?"

"No, sir, it is not someone Binky is knowing, sir."

"Oh, bloody hell, I'll go see who it is," Nott snapped, propelling himself to his feet. He winced a little — his back hurt these days, more than it once had. Not enough exercise, that was the problem. Too much time spent slaving away in dark little rooms, plotting with Francis and the rest of them. "Get out of my way, you infernal bat-eared moron," he snarled, aiming a solid kick at Binky that sent the little creature sailing across the room into the bookcase.

At least he still had his excellent aim, Nott thought with some satisfaction, setting off down the hall towards the library. In his day, he'd been one of the best Beaters Slytherin had ever seen. Tom Riddle himself had once congratulated him on a game. He'd never forgotten it.

If Malfoy Manor was both the oldest and possibly the grandest wizarding house in England, Notwick Estate was the wickedest. Its dungeons were the darkest, its gardens the most foreboding, and its corridors the most reliably unlit. The children were forever barking their shins on the legs of chairs but Nott refused to invest in more expensive torches or more powerful Illuminating Charms. His grandfather had liked it dark, and so did he.

He navigated the staircase to the third floor largely by memory, one hand guiding him along the rough stone wall. The library door was open slightly when he reached it, and pale light spilled out through the crack, throwing a narrow golden bar along the floor.

He stopped dead in the corridor and frowned. It wasn't that he hadn't believed Binky, but — well, perhaps he hadn't quite believed the daft little creature could possibly be correct. No one could get through the wards surrounding Notwick. No one. This had to be one of his children, playing a prank. He strode to the library door, threw it open -

The angry exclamation died on his lips. He stared around him in bewilderment. The library was full of light, a deep gold color like summer twilight, and like summer twilight it was tinged with a dark red. It poured from the walls, ceiling and windows and suffused the fire in the grate with layers of deeper color, as if thin sheets of hammered gold had been laid over the flames.

And in the center of the room a boy was standing, very still, his arms at his sides. He was wandless, in wizarding robes that hung loosely open to show dark clothes underneath. For a moment, Thaddeus Nott, who was hardly a man given to wild flights of fancy, wondered if he were seeing a ghost made corporeal. Those clothes, that looked as if they had been tailored fifty years ago, that posture, the easy tilt of his head. But this boy's hair was like luminous candlelight and his face was warm and open, and he smiled as Nott hung in the doorway. "Thaddeus," he said. "You aren't glad to see me?"

"H-how did you get into my house? If you've tampered with the wards — "

"Wards cannot keep out the one who made them," said the boy.

"The Dark Lord Voldemort made those wards," barked Nott. "I am under his protection — "

"Voldemort," the boy mused. "I don't think I like that name very much. I suspect Lucius talked me into it. He always had a regrettable tendency towards the baroque."

"I don't understand," muttered Nott, dizzily, but he almost did understand. Even as the possibility loomed before him, monstrous, unbelievable, his mind rejected it. He flung himself forward into the room, and the door banged shut behind him. He could have sworn the boy had gestured at it with his left hand — "Stop that," Nott roared. "You brat — you meddle in what you don't understand. Do you really wish to risk the wrath of the Dark Lord?"

"The Dark Lord whom you betrayed? The Dark Lord whom you renounced and threw to the rabble? You would rather have accepted the bitter charity of your enemies than lay down your life in loyalty — "

"It is not for you to rebuke me!" cried Thaddeus Nott, forgetting for a moment that he was shouting at a child he had never seen before, seeing instead the accusatory face of his master, whom he had sworn to follow and obey, and whom he had betrayed. "It is for my master to do so! And he has forgiven me!"