Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"That's ridiculous! My brother would never feel threatened by me!"

"I didn't say he did. I doubt that it was even directed at you, you just happened to look across the pitch at that moment. It was probably directed at Draco or one of our Beaters."

Ginny pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "I'm getting a headache," she moaned.

"Pansy tried fixing the pin after that — she was always having your brother meet up with her and forcing him to help her brew up all sorts of odd concoctions. Our whole room was covered in mugwort and rue and all sorts of nasty things. I've no idea if it helped — it must have, since as far as I know he hasn't Stunned anyone since. But you lot found out the truth about him and Pansy pretty soon after that, so that's all I know. She never talked to him again."

"You mean he never talked to her again," Ginny muttered.

Blaise waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever."

"I thought you were friends with Pansy," Ginny said.

"I am — I mean, I was. Until I found out she was the one who shot Draco with that arrow."

"She what?" Ginny reeled and gripped the table.

"Well, her father ordered her to, and I think Lucius Malfoy was the one who told him to in the first place. Look, I really don't know much about it, and I can't tell you much more. I don't want to get anyone else in trouble besides Pansy."

"Well, if you can't tell me anything why did you even come? Just because Draco asked you to? I thought you didn't care about him."

Blaise's eyes snapped wide open. "Not care about him?" she said. "How dare you? You don't even know him!"

"I know him," Ginny retorted angrily.

"You don't." Blaise's voice was firm. "He's just some blond Harry Potter in your head. Practically a Gryffindor. And maybe he's happy enough playing that part; it isn't like I don't know what he gets out of it. But that's not who he is. He's not some sweet uncomplicated fair-haired hero who's going to carry you off into the sunset. He's flawed and damaged and unfeeling…you Gryffindors, you don't understand capriciousness or complications. Everything's so straightforward for you. You expect simple love from someone who's never even learned to like things properly."

"He's different than he used to be," Ginny began — but Blaise cut her off.

"How can you say he's different when you never knew him before? I knew him. Not the Draco you all know, but the way he was. I remember when Moody turned him into a ferret, and you all thought that was so funny.

He came back to the dungeons covered in bruises — great big bruises the size of tea saucers. One of the bones in his hand was broken. And did you know he used to get so nervous before every game with Gryffindor he'd be sick? Sometimes on and off all day? None of the other teams, just Gryffindor."

"You can't ask me to pity him the way he was," Ginny said. "I can't even pity him now."

"I'd never ask a Gryffindor to pity a Slytherin." Blaise's head went up.

"Never mind. I can see you don't understand. I've told you what I know."

She began to rise to her feet. "It's up to you what you do with it."

"Wait." Ginny got to her feet so quickly she almost knocked over her chair. She moved to block the other from the door, and Blaise stopped and looked at her angrily. "I want you to stay and tell Sirius and Professor Lupin what you just told me."

Blaise looked horrified. "Run to a teacher? I would never — !"

"It's not running," Ginny said hurriedly. "They'll be here any minute anyway. And they're not just teachers — they're Aurors. They'll know what to do. And they're friends of mine."

Blaise's chest was rising and falling swiftly. "I didn't come here to betray all my friends to you — "

"Then why did you come here?" Ginny said softly.

The other girl replied without looking at her. "I don't know."

"Sirius and Lupin will know all sorts of questions to ask you that I couldn't possibly think of," Ginny said. "Especially about Pansy and about whatever it was she was getting Ron to cook up with her, with the mugwort and the rue, and about her dad, and about Draco being poisoned, and if you really want to help him, then you have to stay.

Because I know this is hard for you to do, Blaise, but if you only do it halfway then you might as well not have done it at all."

Blaise's eyes were full of angry tears. She swiped at them hastily with the back of her hand, smearing her eye makeup. It just made her look prettier. "Fine," she said. "I'll stay. But — "

"But what?"

"I need a drink," Blaise said, and sniffled.

Ginny started to laugh. "There's a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey in the cabinet. Will that do?"

Blaise smiled. It was the first time Ginny had ever seen her really smile, and the difference was pronounced. When she really smiled, she had dimples. "That'll do fine."

Not too terribly surprisingly, once they found themselves inside the offices of the Department of Transportation and Floo Travel, Hermione found herself going through the stacks of files alone. Draco's contribution was too sit on the edge of the desk, swing his feet, and clean under his fingernails with a heavyweight silver letter-opener with a handle in the shape of a sea serpent.

"You're no help," Hermione remarked, pushing her hair behind her ears.

The files for even one day's worth of Floo Hub transport were extensive.

Long blue columns of names and destinations showed who had left, while corresponding red columns indicated arrivals. So far she had not recognized any of the names.

Draco's shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. "I feel my purpose here is largely ornamental," he said.

"Only because you're not doing anything. You could at least move the parchments I'm done with."

Draco looked as if he were considering this. "Nah," he said, finally. He hopped down off the desk, and looked consideringly around the room.

Then, with an air of gentle determination, he began to scratch words into the soft wood paneling of the wall with the tip of the letter opener.

"Draco?" Hermione asked. "What are you writing?"

He stepped back so they could both admire his work. It was a limerick.

There was a young wizard from Bournemouth

Who claimed that his wand was enormous

Two naughty young witches

Ripped off his britches

And found -

"Really," Hermione said, exasperated, "what have you got against the Department of Transportation?"

Draco shrugged. "What have I got for them? Besides, they'll enjoy it. A whole new look for their mundane office decor."

Hermione turned back to sorting through the files. She was beginning to despair. There was a stack of parchments as thick as her wrist, and while the lists of names seemed very complete, the times scribbled next to them were in no particular order. "If we don't find anything…" her voice was hesitant, "Do we have a backup plan?"

"I have a backup plan," Draco said. He had moved on to the opposite wall, and was busy carving rude hieroglyphics under the windowsill. "It involves going back to the hotel bar, drinking sixteen Slow Comfortable Skrewts, drunkenly staggering upstairs and collapsing into bed, where I will pen an epic nine-stanza poem entitled 'Man, That's Grapefruit.'"

"You hate poetry," Hermione protested.

"Have you ever had a Slow Comfortable Skrewt?" Draco waved the letter opener expressively. "They're so powerful that two sips will make you hallucinate. Four sips and everyone else in the bar hallucinates right along with you. Eight sips and you wake up a week later in Milton Keynes, naked and tied to a radiator while a bloke named Bradley wearing a pair of your undershorts tells you that two days previously you turned his prized collection of Muggle lawn ornaments into a bowl of suet pudding and if you don't turn them back posthaste, he'll break both your kneecaps with a toffee hammer. Not," Draco added, lowering his long-lashed eyelids demurely, "that this has ever happened to me."