Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Standing by the window, Harry tried to imagine himself ever having a study like this some day, far in the future. He would take up pipe-smoking and collect old Quidditch books and maybe write his memoirs. How I Saved the World, Except Not Really. Although Hermione would have to help him write them, and Draco would make fun of him for smoking a pipe and Ron would borrow his Quidditch books and spill things on them.

Assuming they were all still alive, of course.

"Harry," Viktor said, waving a large, grubby hand in front of Harry's face.

"Are you paying attention?"

"Yes. Er….Romania," Harry said. "It's right there."

He poked the map with his finger, right in the center of Romania.

Immediately Romania expanded to fill the surface of the map, leaping into alarming detail. Mountain ranges, towns, the blue veins of rivers sprang into life. Harry's eyes widened. "Cool," he said.

"Don't Muggle maps do that?" Viktor asked.

Harry shook his head. "No."

"What do you do if you need a more detailed map, then?"

"Oh, Muggles usually carry around a whole bunch of different maps for the same place, all different sizes and levels of detail. My uncle had eight or nine maps just for England."

"How terribly inconvenient," said Fleur, who was leaning back against the windowsill, her eyes on Harry. "Muggles are so stupid."

Harry was gazing, fascinated, at the map. Tiny blocks of text moved across the parchment, telling him: Here are dragons, and Here are vampires, and Here there is dark wizardry. "I need a map like this," he said.

"You can have the map," Viktor said. "And whatever else you need, I will give you. Food, money if you need it, a safe place to stay until — "

'I can't stay here, though," Harry protested. "It isn't safe for you."

'I have a secret flat," Viktor said. "In Prague, in the wizarding city center.

I'll take you there, and — "

'Isn't Aiden staying at the flat now?" Fleur asked, her tone curious.

"Yes, but he will clear out if I ask him. I'll take the Portkey there now and send him off," Viktor said, rolling the map up, "and I shall come back for you, Harry. Take anything you like from the house — books, if you want any of the weapons from the weapons room — "

"Weapons?" Harry said faintly.

"Swords, pikes, hatchets, maces, crossbows, daggers — I collect old Muggle weapons," said Viktor, causing Harry to entertain a sudden mental vision of himself attacking Voldemort with a hatchet. "Take whatever you like."

"I have a sword," Harry said, "already."

"You may need more than that," said Viktor, and snatching up a dark red cloak from a peg by the door, he banged his way out of the study.

"There's blood on the water," said the blond boy, in a meditative tone.

Lucius looked up from his desk. Tom was standing on the ledge of the bay window that looked out over the Ministry gardens and in the distance, the Thames and the dome of St. Paul's. Clouds had begun to gather, and the shadows deepened on the floor of Lucius' office. Against the dark green of the floor-length curtains Tom's slender hands stood out stark and white.

"It's just Muggle cars passing over the bridge," Lucius said. "Come away from the window."

Tom turned his head and looked down. The light had turned to a sallow gray color, and it lent a ghostly cast to his face and hair. He was dressed in clothes that Lucius had given him; clothes that Lucius himself had worn when he was a teenage boy. They were, of course, fifty years out of date, but wizarding styles changed slowly. They lent to Tom a certain oddly formal air, especially the high boots and the elegant jacket lapels under the heavy winter cloak. The clothes had been made for Lucius' icy coloring, and Tom's sunny blond hair and blue anthracite eyes were distracting and even a little odd against all that black. "I like it up here,"

Tom said, "I would prefer not to come down."

"I am sure you wouldn't. But I need to give you something."

"Come here then," Tom said.

Obediently, Lucius rose to his feet and crossed the room to the window.

Tom looked down at him, smiling malevolently. His hair was still very golden, but it had begun to curl around his head the way that Tom's once had, close against his temples and at the nape of his neck. All in all, despite all the differences of coloring and appearance, he was beginning to resemble the Tom he had once been in a way that sent a shiver up Lucius' spine. Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat.

"I can see everything from here," Tom said, putting his hands against the darkening window glass. "I can look down upon the world."

"Just London actually," said Lucius.

"London today. The world tomorrow," said Tom, and laughed, throwing his head back.

"I wish you would be a bit more careful," said Lucius. He had cast a Silencing Charm on the room when they came in, so he knew perfectly well that they could not be overheard, but Tom's presence in his office made him anxious nonetheless.

"What makes you think I'm not careful?"

"Because," Lucius said. "There's blood all over your shirt."

With a scowl, Tom glanced down. It was true. Although his hands were spotless, the cuffs of his white shirt were spotted all over with blood, as though he had been paddling his hands in red ink and some had splashed up. "Careless of me," he said.

"Well," said Lucius. "Murder is a messy business."

Tom leaped down from the sill and landed lightly on his feet. Standing, he was a few inches shorter than Lucius. "All this killing," he said. "Three wizards in three days. It has reminded me how alive I am, Lucius. Do I look alive to you?"

Lucius looked at him, at the feverishly flushed cheeks, the damply curling hair, the hard delicate mouth. "I wanted to give you something," he said.

"Just one thing?" Tom asked, his voice silky.

"I would give you everything," said Lucius, "If I had everything to give.

But I wanted you to have this," he said, and held out his hand. There was a ring in it, the twin of the one he had once given his son: the griffin with its wings outstretched, the Malfoy sigil on its back. "Twist the ring three times around your finger, and it will bring you to my side. If there is ever a time you need me…"

"Thank you, Lucius," said Tom, taking the ring. "Always the knight errant.

Like your son, or so I hear. Or is it that I remember?" His brow furrowed, a crease appearing between his blue eyes, and he slipped the ring on with a frown.

"My son is of no concern," Lucius said. "To either of us."

Still thoughtful, Tom walked past him to the desk, and picked up one of Lucius' paperweights. It was a small glass frog, and it waved its translucent arms and legs as he gripped it. "Yet you seem concerned, Lucius. What is it?"

"Well," said Lucius, "it had occurred to me that if you kill Francis Parkinson, we will be needing a new Minister."

Tom frowned. "Is that a problem?"

"It is inconvenient."

"Vengeance does not wait upon convenience, Lucius." Tom squeezed the paperweight tight in his fist and the frog let out a glassy screech; Tom smiled, like a little boy teasing a kitten. "They are all so afraid of me, Lucius," he murmured, letting his lids droop to veil the fierceness of his gaze, "at the last moment, when they realize who I am. I feel their terror as it passes through them, into me. It feeds me, Lucius. It soothes the ache in my soul…"

Lucius looked up at that. In the time he had known Tom, in all his various stages and permutations, he had never gotten the impression that Tom spent much time thinking about his soul, whether it ached or not. "You are discontented, my Lord?"