Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Oooh," said Blaise, under her breath, "this is going to be the best class ever."

Draco snorted with laughter.

Blaise gave him a sloe-eyed look. "You don't mind if I stare at Charlie, do you darling?"

"Not at all." Draco was nonchalant. "Gawk away."

Blaise's eyes narrowed, but Draco hardly noticed. His glance went to Hermione, who he instinctively knew would understand why he thought this was funny. She looked as if she were trying not to laugh as well, which was a nice change from the rest of the girls who looked as if they were deciding whether or not to rush Charlie in a wedge-like formation.

"This class is really a bit of an accident," Charlie went on cheerfully, pulling on his leather gloves and reaching to undo the big buckles that held the tarp down over the open-top trolley. "I've had custody of a dragon egg this year; it wasn't meant to hatch till the holidays, but these things are notoriously unpredictable. Anyway, it hatched last Tuesday, quite unexpectedly, and the hatchling is only now really ready to face the outside world." The last buckle undone, Charlie drew the tarp away, and the class gasped again. Inside the open-topped trolley was a large steel cage, and inside the cage, curled into a ball and fast asleep, was a baby dragon. It was a dark green color, with deep gold horn nubs protruding from its small head. Charlie looked down at it with an unmistakably fond expression, then back up at the class. "Can anyone tell me what type of dragon this is?"

Hermione's hand went up. "Romanian Longhorn," she said, in her usual clear and certain voice, but Draco could tell — without being able to explain how he could tell — that something was bothering her. She looked very nearly woeful as she let her hand fall back to her side.

"Right," said Charlie. "And what does it eat?"

Hermione's hand went up again, but this time Charlie called on Neville, who ventured a guess that Longhorns ate goats and cattle, and added that its horns were valued as potion ingredients. Charlie awarded five points to Gryffindor, more because he liked Neville than anything else, Draco suspected. Why, Draco didn't know — as far as he was concerned, Neville was completely useless, although the one time he'd shared that thought with Harry, Harry had nearly taken his head off in response.

"Oh, bother," Charlie said, his voice snapping Draco out of his reverie.

Charlie was kneeling down next to the trolley now, in the snow, an annoyed expression on his face. "I've forgotten the dragon food. Can I have two student volunteers to race back to my office and get it? It's in a blue bucket above my desk…right, then. Granger, and…Malfoy."

Draco tensed in surprise — he hadn't even had his hand up. Next to him, Blaise was radiating fury. She was wildly jealous of Hermione and had been ever since last year. Without looking at Blaise, he detached himself from the rest of the Slytherins, sauntered over towards Charlie and accepted a large gold key from him. "Second door down from Snape's, and hurry," Charlie said as Hermione came trailing up, looking very unhappy indeed. Draco felt vaguely insulted — he knew she had to pretend to be displeased at the thought of spending time with him, but she didn't have to look quite that wretched about it. "I'd rather the dragon not wake up hungry — he tends to yell."

Draco nodded at Charlie, tucked the key into his pocket and set off towards the castle. He could sense Hermione beside him, her small, booted feet crunching on the hard-packed snow. No sooner were they out of earshot of the class than she announced, without preamble: "Draco, I want to talk to you about something."

"Great, but I already have a date for the Pub Crawl."

"Ha," said Hermione. "Very funny. Although, not unrelated to what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Which is?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "Ginny's going to the Yule Ball with Seamus," she said.

Draco stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, he was very conscious of the cold air around him, the coldness of the ground seeping through the soles of his shoes, the painfully bright winter sky.

Then, he shrugged. "That's nice for her."

Hermione expelled a breath. "Right. Once more, with less feeling."

"I mean it. It's nice for her." Draco started walking again, and Hermione fell into step with him. They were nearly at the side doors to the castle now. "Ginny and I," he said. "We're not a thing. We never were. I have a girlfriend. And even if I didn't…"

"Even if you didn't?"

"I wouldn't be with Ginny," he said quietly. "For other reasons."

Hermione was silent. Draco knew she was waiting to see if he would elaborate on his reasons; he didn't. They reached the castle doors and went inside, where the warm air felt like a welcoming touch.

As the doors shut behind them Hermione shook her head. "All right, then.

Accept it as fate if you want to."

Draco laughed, without real humor. "My father used to say that fate is what you call it when you don't know the name of the person screwing you over."

"Nobody's screwing you over, Draco, except maybe you."

"How are things with Harry?" he said abruptly.

Hermione colored. He was aware that the abruptness of the question was slightly cruel, but he had no interest in continuing the conversation about Ginny and Seamus. He had shoved it to the back of his mind, to process later. "Not great," she said. "I'm still worried."

Draco suddenly realized he didn't want to be having this conversation either. "Worried?"

Hermione shrugged. They were walking along a long corridor now, passing other students, some of whom gave them curious looks. Hermione pitched her voice low. "He still seems miserable, he barely pays attention to anything anymore, last night he was up late talking to Sirius and he wouldn't tell me what they talked about. And now he's skipping class, which isn't the end of the world, but isn't like him, either." They were at the door to Charlie's office now, and Hermione looked at Draco unhappily as he slid the key into the lock. "You think he seems depressed too, don't you?"

"Well, he has been wearing a lot of black lately." Draco pushed the door open and went in; Hermione followed. "Either it's the whole 'warrior slated for the coming apocalypse' thing — kind of a downer, that — or his eyesight's gotten worse and he's just really worried about matching."

"Don't," said Hermione sharply. "You know I have no sense of humor about Harry. Or apocalypses."

"I think it just goes to show what sort of life we lead that we can even consider using 'apocalypse' in the plural."

Hermione did smile, then. "Life's been bad lately, hasn't it? I'm sorry, Draco. I know it is for you, too."

Draco didn't reply; he was looking around with curiosity. Since Charlie was a junior member of the faculty, his office was small, but it was decorated in such a homey fashion that that didn't matter. Pictures of the Weasley clan, waving and smiling, were stuck to every available space.

The small, battered desks were covered with bolts of colorful Romanian cloth and a beautiful rainbow-hued dragon scale decorated the wall near the door. On the far wall was a wood-framed mirror that Draco recognized

— it had hung in Charlie's tent back at the dragon camp. On the small table by the desk were stacked a number of books with gilt-encrusted spines.

Fantastic Beasts, of course (everyone had that), The Dragon Hunter's Handbook Dragon Tales: A Compendium, a smaller book on how to treat serious burns, and a colorful clothbound novel entitled A Dream of Dragons.

Draco turned around. While he had been scanning the room, Hermione had located the bucket, high on a shelf above Charlie's desk. Draco watched her as she cast about for something to climb up on. "Hermione," he said, his voice thoughtful, "what do you know about onieromantics?"