Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Ginny thought of Draco playing Quidditch. She had certainly played opposite him for enough years to have observed him fairly closely. Where Harry was grace in flight, Draco was controlled stillness exploding into perfectly disciplined action. "Oh," she said, a little weakly, "I see what you mean."

"All that passion and control," Blaise said, showing her small white teeth in a curled smile. "He's always so precise and so careful. I used to wonder what it would take to make him lose that control…"

Ginny licked her dry lips. "What do you think it would take?"

"Love," Blaise said. "Odd, isn't it. He's a cynic, not a romantic. But there you go. I think he'd have to be in love. If he even could be." She looked up at Ginny. "Did he ever tell you he loved you?"

Ginny shook her head, but before she could say anything there was a knock on her door. Blaise drew her wand and Banished the wine bottle to the rubbish bin, then sat up, smoothing her hair, while Ginny went to the door.

It was Professor Lupin, looking very tired. "Charlie said you'd wanted to talk to me," he said. "Is it important, or can it wait?"

He sounded brusque, Ginny thought, but in a way she appreciated it; neither Lupin nor Sirius ever talked down to her, as if they thought she was a little girl. "I'm afraid not," Ginny said. "It's not me that needs to talk to you. It's Blaise."

She stood back from the door so that Lupin could see into the room.

Blaise, sitting on the bed with her legs over the side, met his gaze with a cold look. Ginny thought for a moment that Blaise was going to snap and back out of their arrangement, so she stood up quickly and laid her hand on the other girl's shoulder.

"It's about Draco," she said.

Blaise gave her a wry look. Ginny ignored it.

"All right," Lupin said, looking surprised, "If you want to talk to us, Sirius and I will be downstairs in the living room, going through some paperwork."

"We'll be right down," Blaise said smoothly, cutting off Ginny, who had been about to say that they would come downstairs with him.

As soon as the door shut behind Lupin, Ginny rounded on Blaise. "You're not thinking of backing out, are you?"

Blaise looked amused. "What would you do if I was? Duel me?"

"Certainly not, Draco would be far too pleased if he ever found out. I don't want to fight with you, Blaise, it's just — why did you send Professor Lupin away?"

"So we could do Sobrietus charms, silly," said Blaise, drawing her wand.

"You really aren't very devious, are you?"

"Well, I am a Gryffindor."

"And so we have nothing in common," Blaise twirled the wand gently.

"Other than the red hair, of course."

"And that neither of us has ever gotten lucky with Draco Malfoy," Ginny added.

Blaise burst out laughing. "Well, we have that in common with the rest of the world," she said.

Ginny's eyes flew open. "We do?"

Blaise was still laughing. "Yes," she giggled, "didn't you know?" and this time, when Ginny started laughing too, Blaise reached out a hand to help steady her on her feet, and Ginny let her.

They climbed the back stairs to a wing of the Ministry Hermione had never seen before. She was accustomed to the slightly used look of the Ministry's lower floors, but here, where Draco had taken her, everything was polished mahogany and heavy velvet curtains and massive marble vases spilling unwatered, undying flowers. Draco looked at home here.

She had no idea if he actually knew where he was going, or if it was merely that the sight of expensive things relaxed him.

At the end of the corridor were a set of polished ebony doors bearing a silver nameplate. Lucius Malfoy, Chairman in perpetuity. Draco set his hand to the latch.

"Ahem." A sharp little voice interrupted them. "Did Lucius give you permission to come to his office when he was not here?"

Both Draco and Hermione whirled around, surprised. Standing in an alcove to the left of the door, in front of a diminutive desk, was a small man, as bent as a goblin, with large bat-like ears. He wore the yellow-banded robes of a Ministry official.

Draco tossed his hair back out of his eyes and frowned. "I'm going into my father's office," he said. "And who's asking?"

"Your father — ?" The small man blinked and stared. "It's you? I–I thought

— Lucius didn't say anything to me about a visit from you, Master Malfoy," he stammered.

"How upsetting for you," Draco said. His voice was cold but polite.

"However, my father is not generally very free with personal matters when it comes to total strangers."

"I'm Archibald Mortenson," said the small man, tightly. Mister Malfoy's secretary."

"And I'm his only son," said Draco, "can't you tell?" He leaned back against the door, relaxed and arrogant. "Look at me," he said. "And look at this," and he raised his hand with the Malfoy seal ring on it. "Do you really think I'm not who I say I am?"

"I know who you are," said Mortenson, showing yellowing teeth in a smile.

"Nevertheless, I am in your father's complete confidence. He treats me as if I were a member of his family.."

"As, so he alternates ignoring you with occasional bouts of verbal abuse?

Sounds like a hostile working environment to me. I'd ask for a raise."

"I had heard," said the secretary, "that you and your father were estranged."

"We made up," said Draco. "If you don't believe me…" he trailed off, his voice gone very languid, calmly thoughtful. "You could owl my father.

Only it's quite late and he's doubtless asleep. If you wake him, I can't answer for his temper." He smiled, pleasantly.

Mortenson looked at the floor, and then at Draco, hard. It was obvious that he did not find Draco at all charming, and there was something about his expression that Hermione did not particularly like. "Do you know when your father was last here?" he asked Draco. "Since you two are so close now."

Most people, Hermione thought, would not have noticed the slight tightening in Draco's shoulders, his infinitesimal hesitation before answering. "Four nights ago," he said. "He would have asked you to pull all the files on the Midnight Club."

Something flickered in the small man's yellow eyes. "Very well, Master Malfoy," he said. "If you need anything to assist you in your business, I will be here at my desk."

He retreated back into the shadows of the alcove. Draco's shoulders relaxed, and he flipped the latch on the door and pushed it open.

Hermione followed him inside and shut the door hard behind her, aware of the secretary's lamprey-like gaze on them both.

Lucius Malfoy's office was the size of a professional Quidditch pitch. From the vast windows, hung with green brocade curtains, she could see across the river to the dome of St Paul's. The Ministry itself cast a ghost reflection into the Thames, its spires and turrets rippling on the water.

Muggles, Hermione knew, would see only a formless shadow. "Draco," she said, turning away from the window, "was that absolutely necessary?"

Draco was standing by the desk, which was a mahogany affair roughly the size of a Hogwarts dinner table. A number of expensive toys littered the polished surface: a clear glass globe in which a tiny, perfect miniature of Malfoy Manor hung suspended, a strangely misshapen paperweight in the shape of a frog, and a heavy silver box sitting atop a stack of folded parchments. "He keeps the Summoning powder in here," Draco said, picking the box up and fiddling with the lid, without looking at her. "Was what necessary?"

"That business with your father's secretary. I mean, we could have gone back to the hotel. I'm sure they have international Floo portals — "

"Which we wouldn't be able to use until morning," Draco said. He had gotten the box open. He turned it on its side and tipped a handful of sparkling powder into his open palm. Crossing the room to the fireplace, he tossed the powder into the empty grate. There was a sound like a soft implosion, and fire leaped up in the grate, illuminating the room, turning the edges of his hair to unlikely gold. "I'd no desire to wait, had you?"