Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Draco gave the locked door one last kick and turned around. He bent a wrathful gaze on Harry, who was still sitting on the bed, too bewildered at this sudden turn of events to say anything. "Oh, nicely done, Potter,"

Draco snarled. "Was this your idea?"

Harry scrambled up and off the bed. "What's she done? Locked us in?"

"Level six Forinsecus spell," Draco said with grudging respect. "Take hours to get it off, even for one of us. I haven't got the energy, and you're too incompetent to get a counterspell right. Blast the girl. I don't suppose you've got a crowbar shoved in among your unsavory belongings?"

"No," Harry said. He leaned against one of the bedposts. "Besides, she's got a point. We should talk."

"We have nothing to talk about," Draco said, and stalked across the room to the wardrobe. He threw it open. It appeared to be functioning as a sort of catch-all closet, stuffed with pillows, blankets, Quidditch gear, boxes, and a haphazard array of household items. "I wonder if I could bash the door down with a Quidditch bat?" Draco mused aloud.

"Viktor wouldn't like it if you ruined his bat," Harry said, his mind not really on the problem of the door. Having shouted at Hermione, for which he already was beginning to feel guilty, Harry felt drained and wrung out, in no shape to ponder what exactly it would take to placate Draco's apparently boundless rage. He'd imagined seeing Draco again dozens of times since he'd left Hogwarts but the imaginary circumstances had always been quite different. He'd always been returning home in triumph from a summary defeat of the Dark Lord, and all his friends had come flooding out of the front doors of the school to hug and congratulate him.

Sometimes, in the fantasies, he'd been bandaged up or limping bravely, and everyone had been very concerned. In none of the fantasies had Draco regarded him as if he were a worm and an outcast from polite society.

"Viktor also told you, presumably, not to go out after dark," Draco said.

"Tell me, Potter, were you purposely trying to top your previous thickheaded stunts, or was tonight a coincidence? I can never tell if you're trying to be stupid deliberately or if it just comes naturally."

Harry sighed. "Look, Malfoy, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but will you at least listen?"

"No," Draco said, dragging several boxes out of the wardrobe and upending the contents at his feet. "Hey. Are these Muggle tools?"

"Yes," Harry said. "And what do you mean, no?"

"What do you think I mean?" Draco prodded at the tangled pile of junk at his feet — broomstick seats with the stuffing coming out, scraps of uniform, bits of metal tools, a pestle snapped in half. "Is that a what-d'you callit, one of those things you can take hinges off with?"

"Accio!" Harry said impatiently, snapping his fingers; the screwdriver shot out from the bottom of the pile and flew across the room. It smacked into the palm of his hand and he set it down on the bed next to him. "Yes, it's a screwdriver. I'll give it to you if you talk to me for five minutes."

Draco had straightened up and turned to look at Harry. There was a hard, unpleasant flatness in his gray eyes. When he crossed his arms over his chest his cotton shirt pulled tight across his back, showing the angular thinness of his shoulder blades. He was still too thin — he should be back at school, Harry thought distractedly, with Madam Pomfrey to look after his recovery, not barreling around Europe on no proper sleep, no proper food either…

"I'm not sure I want that Muggle device that badly," Draco said. His voice was deceptively soft, and Harry, attuned as he had become to every tone and shade of Draco's voice, knew that it meant that the other boy was very angry indeed.

"It's far too big to take the hinges off anyway," Harry said. "Look, Draco -

Leaving Hogwarts like that, it was the biggest mistake I'll ever make — "

"Don't sell yourself short, Potter," Draco said. "I'm sure someone with your obvious talent for imbecilic misjudgments will be making even bigger, better mistakes in future."

"I didn't want to leave you," Harry said. "I thought I had to."

At that, something did flicker in the back of Draco's eyes — a sharp, irresolute fierceness, as if Harry's words had surprised him. Harry remembered putting his hands through the bars of that cage back at the Manor, the sharp quiver of surprise that had run through Draco when Harry's knife had cut into his skin. "Is that what you thought," he said.

"Voldemort is my problem," Harry said wearily. "Not yours. You've done enough, suffered — "

"Your problem?"

Draco's voice was blood and honey: metallic and deceptively sweet.

Carefully, he set the box he had been holding down on the nearest wardrobe shelf. He turned and walked over to Harry. Harry, leaning against the bedpost, did not shrink back as Draco came and stood in front of him, but he wanted to; some part of him entirely expected Draco to hit him again as he had done earlier. Draco made no violent move in his direction, however, merely hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and regarded Harry with half-hidden eyes and maliciously set mouth. Harry felt as if the hair were standing up along his arms and the back of his neck, and he couldn't help remembering the alleyway outside the Midnight Club, and being pushed up against that wet wall, the sense of menace he'd felt, the unease. But that was nothing to this, because now it really was Draco looking at him with a flat unforgiving gaze, the finely drawn mouth tight with furious disdain.

"Your problem, Potter?" Draco said again. "Are you entirely sure about that?"

"It's my responsibility," Harry said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.

"Really." Draco raised his hand; Harry tried not to flinch, but Draco only touched his hair with a surprising lightness, pushing it back from his forehead, and grazed his thumb along Harry's scar. "Because of this?"

"Malfoy," Harry said, his voice very quiet, "what happened to your hand?"

Draco dropped his hand as quickly as if Harry's skin had burned him; he rocked back on his feet, his eyes narrowed. "Maybe it is your problem," he said, ignoring Harry's question completely. "After all, what's the Dark Lord to me? Only the man who forced my father to have me as part of some breeding program. Only the man who tortured me with the Cruciatus Curse until I bit through my lip because he was trying to get me to tell him where you were. Only the man who took my parents away from me as surely as he took yours — no need to gape at me, Potter, I know all about what my father gave up in the Dark Lord's service. I never had a father and thanks to him, I never had a mother either, but you're right, of course, the Dark Lord is entirely your concern."

"I didn't know you wanted — revenge," Harry said, his mouth so dry his voice sounded indistinct to his own ears. "You never said — "

"I didn't need to," Draco said. "You wanted it enough for the both of us and I wanted what you wanted. But that was when I thought I would be a part of whatever you accomplished." His slender shoulders lifted in a shrug; Harry was reminded oddly of Fleur and her expressive gestures. "I know better now."

"You are a part of whatever I do," Harry said, almost biting off the words in his urgency. "Didn't you read my letter — "

Draco's hand slammed into the side of the bedpost so hard that Harry almost fell over. "If you ever mention that letter again," he snarled, his voice suddenly raw and uncontrolled, "I will break every bone in your body. Do you understand me?"

Harry was too shocked to say anything. He simply stared, as Draco, looking away from him, seemed to be fighting for control, although over what emotion Harry could barely guess. For the first time Harry was able to imagine the shattering of that perfect restraint, the death of all those careful refinements and that beautifully controlled malice. It was like imagining the death of a person; it terrified him. "All right," he said finally, quietly. "I won't mention it again."