Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Well, well," he said, and his voice was a softly accented hiss. "If it isn't the famous Harry Potter himself. This is a surprise."

Sitting on the bed after Draco had banged his way out of the bedroom, Hermione realized that she was desperate for a change of clothes. Fleur had promised to make sure that the hotel sent their bags on from Diagon Alley to Viktor's apartment, but in the interim period, she couldn't help feeling miserable and dirty: there was ash caked on her shirt where Fleur had pulled her through the fire, and thanks to Viktor and Draco she smelled like cigarette smoke. With a sigh, she unbuttoned her blouse, shrugged out of it, and traded it for Harry's old Puddlemere United t-shirt. She had fond memories of this particular shirt, which Ron had given to Harry when they were all fifteen. It was a sort of pale brown color with black lettering and didn't suit Harry at all, but Harry had never minded and had worn it until the cotton was as supple and thin as tissue paper.

Hermione rubbed her cheek against the sleeve. It was soft and smelled like Harry.

Who, theoretically, she would be seeing again any minute. She stopped and glanced at herself in the mirror by the door before she went out into the hallway, checking to see if she looked terrible. Her hair, of course, was escaping from its braids already; she tugged it free and ran a hand through the tangles before giving up and going to look for Draco.

She walked down the hallway calling his name. The flat looked just like the sort of flat she would have expected Viktor to own. Neat, European, decorated in primary colors. Draco wasn't in the kitchen or the study either, but when she walked into the living room he was there, sitting on the wide sill of the bay window. He had his knees drawn up and looked as if he were chewing thoughtfully on the sleeve of his shirt. He had taken off his oversized jumper and flung it over the back of a chair.

"Didn't you hear me calling you?" she said.

"It's dark," he said, as if he hadn't heard her.

"And Harry isn't back," she said. "I know." She went over to the window and sat down opposite him. "Is that what you're fretting over?"

"Not exactly." He stopped gnawing on his sleeve and looked at her over his arm. His blond hair fell forward into his eyes; he looked very young.

"Is there any acceptable response to 'I love you' besides 'I love you, too'?"

"'I know' is generally frowned on," Hermione said. "Although it's an improvement on 'Oh, no, not you too' and "well, that makes one of us.'"

"You're laughing at me," he said, and looked at her with a half-smile that belied a certain level seriousness under his words.

"Well, why are you asking?"

"Research purposes."

"Oh, all right," she said. "Seriously? It depends how it's meant. Is the person saying they love you as a brother or a son or a friend or a lover or a family member or what? Harry always used to write 'I love you' in his letters to me when we were just friends. Of course," she added, "I used to try to read into it, but I don't think he meant anything romantic by it actually."

"Have you ever asked him if he did?"

"No." She looked at Draco curiously. "What's this about, anyway?"

He tugged moodily on a bootlace. "Nothing."

"Liar," Hermione said. She reached out and took his hand; he let her turn it over, and she stroked her index finger across the ragged double cross-shaped scar that disfigured the palm. He shivered. "I'm sorry about what I said to you in your father's office," she said. "That was pointless, and mean."

"You shouldn't apologize for saying things that are true," he said.

"I wish you wouldn't let it make you bitter."

"You're not bitter," he said. "He left you, too, and you're not bitter. How do you manage that? Is it some Gryffindor thing I'll never understand? I thought maybe," and he looked back down at his shoes, "maybe you didn't care about him anymore."

"I do care," she said.

"But what if he isn't worth it?"

She sighed. When she leaned back against the window, the glass was cold against her skin. "He is worth it. But even if he wasn't, that wouldn't mean I was wrong or foolish to love him, or that my loving him had been a mistake. We don't love people because they deserve it. In the end what's important is what that love says about you, that you're capable of loving someone like that — most people aren't capable of a tenth of that kind of real love, a hundredth of it. Most people would be terrified of it, if they could even imagine it. But you aren't — you weren't. You broke that bottle of antidote without thinking about it — "

"Not entirely," said Draco, "without thinking about it."

She looked at him, leaning there against the dark window glass, looking like a fair-haired angel except for that diabolical mouth. "You have always compared yourself to him," she said quietly. "When you hated him, and then when you didn't. And I thought you might try to be like him, but instead you just tried to be what you thought he wanted you to be. But that's not right, Draco. You don't learn who you are by being what you think someone else wants. You need to figure out what you want."

He didn't reply; he had gone rigid all over, staring out the window.

"Harry," he said, and bolted to his feet. He spun around, looked at her -

"Stay here," he snapped, and flung himself out of the room so quickly she had no chance to do anything more than stare after him in bewildered astonishment.

"You're a vampire," Harry said. He recognized that this was information the stranger doubtless already possessed, but it seemed worth noting. He had never seen an actual vampire before, only the photographs Lupin had showed them in DaDA class. The man's ice-white skin and blue-hollowed eyes and overlarge canines looked exactly like an illustration from Harry's Understanding the Undead textbook.

"Yes," said the vampire. "I am. And you are Harry Potter."

There seemed no point denying it. "So this is why Viktor told me not to go out after dark," Harry muttered to himself. Part of him felt obscurely irritated that Viktor had not been a little more clear about the local dangers, and part of him wondered if Hermione would be jealous when he told her he'd seen an actual vampire, and part of him, the part that was The Boy Who Lived — whether he liked it or not — was reaching under his cloak for the hilt of his Gryffindor sword. Was calculating the distance to the front door of Viktor's building. Was checking how many exits there were from this small street, what obstacles there were to flight that might also be helpful for leverage in a fight. "Was there something you wanted?"

he demanded, his fingers closing tight over the sword hilt. "Or do you just like to know who you're eating?"

The vampire cocked his head to the side. "You are rather small," he said.

"Smaller than I thought you would be. And I have no plans to drink your blood, unless, of course, you force my hand. I rather hope you do. As powerful as you are, and the great Harry Potter, your blood would be…something very special."

Harry shrugged his shoulder; his cloak fell back, exposing his arm, his bare hand gripping the sword hilt. "Come near me and I'll put this through your heart," he said.

The vampire smiled and the razored teeth gleamed in the lamplight. "You should know that the Dark Lord sent us," he said, and took a step forward.

The other vampires followed. Their faces were hidden beneath their hoods, but Harry caught the flash of fangs as they smiled and began to move towards him.

Harry grabbed for his sword and drew it fast; metal skidded on metal with a seething hiss and the runic band brushed his arm and burned. It was as cold as ice. Harry held the sword up and looked steadily at the vampires over the blade. "I said not to come near me," he said.