Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Promise me that they can stay!" Fleur cried. She flexed her right hand, and bright small flames appeared at her fingertips. Of course, Hermione thought, she's a Magid too. "Swear Hermione and Draco can stay or your book is ashes, Viktor!"

Viktor made a guttural sound of protest. "No!"

"Payback's a veela, Krum," Draco observed, and grinned, a little painfully.

Hermione shot a sideways look at him, and realized, with a thumping sense of horror, that he had gone a very odd dirty white color. And he was leaning so hard against the wall -

"Draco," she said, her voice an urgent whisper. "Is that wall all that's holding you up?"

"Be quiet," he hissed back, but it was too late, Fleur and Viktor were staring at them both, arrested mid-argument.

Fleur lowered her hand. "Draco, are you all right?"

"He's not all right," Hermione said, scrabbling at her belt for the antidote flask. "He's very ill — he needs medicine — "

"I do not," Draco said, through his teeth. "I'm fine."

"Prove it," Hermione said. "Move away from the wall, then."

Draco bent his head, his fair hair falling forward, and gave a look from beneath his veiled lids that made her think of sharp silver knives. It was a look meant to cut the skin off her bones with its disdain, and she flinched back a little. "Fine," he said, and took a step forward, and then another, until he stood in the center of the room.

For a moment Hermione thought he had been telling the truth, and he was fine. He stood with his back very straight and looked at her, and then a greenish color flooded up into the pallor of his face and he pitched forward without a sound. Viktor, dashing across the room with a Seeker's speed, was just in time to catch him as he fell.

When Ron walked into the chess room, followed by an uncharacteristically silent Rhysenn, he saw that for the first time since he had come to the castle there were other people there.

Not, he supposed, that they could all precisely be called people. A long table had been set up in the center of the room — it was a deep reddish mahogany, and ranged alongside it were low-backed armchairs chairs upholstered in dark green silk and metallic thread. The table was scattered with empty silver plates, wineglasses half full of red wine, and dishes of expensive-looking candy. Voldemort sat at the head of it, with Wormtail at his left hand. The seat at his right hand was empty — waiting for Lucius, Ron suspected. A number of watchful, wide-eared goblins sat in the high-backed chairs along one side of the table, and at the far end was seated a tall man with very dark hair whose deep-set, glittering black eyes regarded Ron with flat malice as he approached the table.

"Gabriel," said the Dark Lord, inclining his head towards the black-haired man. "This is my Diviner." He swept a hand towards Ron.

The man he'd called Gabriel looked Ron up and down, his gaze considering. "He's taller than I would have thought," he remarked, and smiled.

Ron almost fell over. Gabriel had fangs. Not just sharply pointed canines, but fangs. The slid down over his bottom lip when he smiled, lending him a predatory air. Ron stared in fascination. "You're a vampire," he exclaimed, more astonished than frightened.

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. "I hope that wasn't meant to be an example of your Divinatory powers," he remarked. Now that Ron knew what to look for, he could see the signs of vampirism: the very pale skin, red mouth, and blackly burning eyes. Gabriel's gaze slid past Ron to Rhysenn. "Hello, sweetheart," he said.

"Gabriel," she said, and went across the room and sat on the vampire's knee. He tipped up her chin and kissed her mouth. Ron watched in sickly fascination, wondering if anyone was going to get bitten anytime soon.

"I never get kissed," Wormtail remarked, to no one in particular.

"Silence, Wormtail," said Voldemort coldly. "We are not here to discuss the particulars of your romantic successes, or lack thereof. You claimed earlier that you had news for me?"

"I do," said Peter Pettigrew. He turned to the small creature on his left who, Ron saw now that he was looking more closely, was not actually a goblin, just a very small, very ugly, human man with enormous ears and lamprey-yellow eyes. "You were at the Ministry tonight, Mortenson?"

"I was at my customary place in the Malfoy wing," said Mortenson complacently.

Voldemort raised a pale eyebrow ridge. "A spy in the house of Lucius, Wormtail?"

"'I am not a spy," said the little man, "I merely watch Lucius Malfoy and report on his activities to Mr. Pettigrew."

Voldemort lifted a piece of Turkish delight out of the box at his elbow and ate it thoughtfully. It was the first time Ron had seen him eat anything other than dice. "Clearly not a spy then," he murmured. "Tell me, have you learned anything useful from your observations? Because if you have not," and he bent his gaze on Wormtail, "someone clearly asking for a matched set of prosthetic silver appendages. Only this time, perhaps, Wormtail, you'd like to lose a leg? Or even your head?"

"I can't live without my head," Wormtail whined.

"No system is perfect," said Voldemort.

"I want to know about Lucius," said Rhysenn in a breathy voice. She was leaning back against Gabriel's shoulder. He had one hand in her hair and the other hand held a wineglass full of dark red fluid. Ron doubted that it was merlot.

"Mr. Malfoy did not return to his office today," Mortenson began. "Neither did his companion — "

"The blond young man I was telling you about," Wormtail said eagerly to Voldemort.

"I recollect," said Voldemort. "I believe I told you that if Lucius wants to take up with underage boys that is his lookout."

"It's probably just Draco," Ron said, then clamped his mouth shut. What on earth had possessed him to speak?

"I know what Draco Malfoy looks like," said Mortenson, aggrieved. "I know because he came by the office today."

Voldemort looked almost interested. "Did he?" he asked.

"He did. And- he brought his girlfriend with her."

Rhysenn arched an eyebrow. "He has a girlfriend?"

I can't believe this, Ron thought. I've been kidnapped by the forces of evil, dragged hundreds of miles to a remote mountain fortress, I'm surrounded by demons and vampires, and everyone is still discussing bloody Draco Malfoy's bloody sex life. There is no justice.

"A girl with long brown hair," the little spy clarified. "He called her Hermione."

"She's not Draco's girlfriend," said both Ron and Rhysenn, simultaneously, although where Ron had blurted out the words in fury, Rhysenn sounded merely as if she thought the supposition was very funny. "She's Harry Potter's girlfriend," Rhysenn clarified, with a disdainful little smile in Ron's direction.

"Actually, they broke up," Ron felt compelled to point out.

"Did they?" asked Wormtail, looking curious. "I really thought they were going to get together. All that time I was a rat, I remember thinking…"

"Shut up," Ron said.

"I suppose Potter was womanizing," Gabriel said, his hand still resting firmly on the upper part of Rhysenn's thigh. "Teenage boys, especially when they are famous and can do what they like…"

"Actually, she broke up with him," Rhysenn gossiped merrily. "She felt he wasn't being entirely honest with her about his emotions — "

"SILENCE," Voldemort bellowed. "Have you all gone mad?" His flat eyes were glittering. "Have you forgotten — "

"The Cup, my Lord?" said Mortenson, and there was something eager and ingratiating in his voice that Ron did not like. "The fourth of the Worthy Objects?"

"What," said Voldemort, his voice deadly, "of it?"

"She had it with her," said Mortenson. "It was Transfigured into a flask that she had belted to her waist. But it was the Cup. I recognized it instantly, my Lord."