Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"The guards have reported seeing intruders outside, my Lord," he said.

Voldemort let out a long hissing breath. "Potter?"

"Yes, my Lord. It seems so."

Ron's heart leaped up in his chest and slammed against his ribs.

"My son is not with him, Lord," Lucius added.

Voldemort raised his eyebrows.

"He may have died on the trail up the mountain," Lucius suggested.

"Wormtail!" Voldemort called. "One fewer pair of shackles needed."

Wormtail straightened, his silver hand gleaming. "Well, that's a relief."

Ron didn't know if he meant the shackles or Draco's probable demise.

"Potter," Voldemort breathed. "At last. As soon as he gets here, Lucius, we will begin the ceremony."

The ceremony. Ron knew this would mean his death, and yet his heart was singing. Harry was here; Harry had come for him. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, Ron felt the stirrings of hope.

"Sodding Weasley, indeed," Ginny said, crossly, sitting back on her heels.

"That's very nice, Malfoy. You could at least pretend you're happy to see me."

"I'm not," Draco said, "happy to see you." He closed his eyes for a moment; Ginny saw how blue-black the lids were, and her angry response died on her lips. His eyes flew open, then, alarm lighting the pale irises.

"Harry," he said, and got to his feet. Glass spilled off him as he stood up, a shower of razored confetti. He went to the broken window and leaned out, the set of his shoulders tight with anxiety.

Ginny joined him. "Was Harry with you?"

Draco nodded. "He flew me up here. He thought if one of us could get up to the roof, he could let the other one in…."

"And then what?" Ginny said. "You were planning on taking on all of Voldemort's guards, just the two of you?"

Draco shot her a wry look. "You make it sound like a stupid plan." He leaned further out the window, his tension deepening. There certainly seemed to be no one on the ground below: just bare black rock, unoccupied even by guards. He sighed and shut his eyes.

"Draco, what if — "

"Wait." He held up a hand, rapt in silent concentration. A moment later, his mouth quirked into a near-smile and he opened his eyes. "He's all right," he said. "He had to hide around the side of the castle. I'm meant to let him in if I can." He rubbed the back of his neck with a long- fingered hand. "I don't suppose you know the way to the front door?"

Ginny shook her head. "I don't even know how to get out of this room.

There are no doors, and just the one window. And you smashed it."

Draco nodded wearily. "You might want to Reparo that."

"I haven't got a wand."

Draco reached into his sleeve and drew out his wand. To Ginny's surprise, he handed it to her without hesitation. There was something strangely intimate about holding another witch or wizard's wand in your hand.

Draco's seemed infused with his personality. She wasn't sure how it felt about being held by her, either. If wands could be said to have moods, she would have described his as coolly amused.

Draco smiled faintly at her. "Go on, there's a good girl."

She raised her hand and performed a quick Reparo spell on the window.

As the glass pieces flew back together, forming a seamless square, she chanced a sideways glance at Draco. He was bone-white, his eyes sunk into hollows, his lips a bloodless line. "Draco," she said, lowering the wand.

"Maybe you should sit down."

He nodded, exhaustion so plain in even that small movement that her heart sank. As he walked to the bed, she saw how carefully he moved. His grace had not gone, but it seemed tempered with a hesitancy she had never associated with him. He leaned back against bed cushions patterned with black thorns, and examined his hands. They were laced with tiny cuts, a fretwork of darker lines against the white skin. "You know, I don't remember this room at all," he said. "Perhaps it's meant as a prison. There must be some way out of it, though. Other people can come and go, right?"

"I think so," Ginny said uncertainly. She hadn't seen Tom leave; she'd been hiding her face. It occurred to her that she ought to tell Draco about Tom. Slowly she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at him. His hair against the black bedlinens looked very fair. Black had always been a good backdrop for him; it showed up his icy beauty well. He was still beautiful, even spare and drawn as he was, but with a strange translucency. "I wasn't paying attention when — "

"Shush," Draco said suddenly, and sat up. "I like your hair like that," he said, and lightly touched the ribbon that held it back. He smiled then, the old wry twist of his mouth that always made her pulse jump. "I love and I hope," he said.

Ginny felt the blood leap in her cheeks. "What?"

"Your necklace," Draco said, and his hand dropped from her hair to touch the hollow of her throat. "J'aime et j'espere…I love and I hope. Where did you get that pendant?"

"I don't remember," she lied.

"Ah." Draco dropped his hand. "Curious. My mother used to have one much like it, that my father had given her. Apparently it was a Malfoy heirloom." He smiled faintly. "But love can hope where reason would despair…it's a nice sentiment, isn't it?"

"Not really," said Ginny. "I know how you loathe sentiment."

"I meant sentiment in its more specific sense, dearest," Draco said, with an airy wave of the hand that recalled his old self. "A sentence considered as the expression of a thought; a maxim; a saying; a — "

"Don't," Ginny said. Her tone was so sharp that Draco broke off, blinking.

"So fierce," he said. "I thought you liked it when I was pedantic."

"It's not that," she said, winding the bedclothes tightly in her fist. "It's just I wish you wouldn't call me dearest, not right after you say you aren't happy to see me—“

Draco's eyes had gone a slatey gray. He stood up, his hand gripping the bedpost. "Such a funny little thing you are, Ginny — what would you do if you were trapped in a burning building with no hope of escape? Invite all your friends in to toast marshmallows?"

"Don't make fun of me." Ginny glanced away from him, but too late; a few hot tears splashed down on her bare arm, making her jump. "Ginny," he said. His tone was sharp, almost warning. "Not now."

"What's the difference?" she said drearily. "There's no way out of here anyway. And I promised Hermione that I would stay, she was about to say, but that promise was superseded by the other she had made, not to mention Hermione's presence to anyone.

"Promised what?" Draco said. "And there must be a way out." He walked over to the wall and tapped on it, then moved aside a portrait. There was more blank stone under it. "I deplore your defeatist attitude, Ginny. Stone walls do not a prison make, nor — "

"Stop it!" she said fiercely, standing up. The blue robes spilled sround her, their heavy weight as much a reminder of her situation as chains. "I hate it when you do that — "

"Well, if you hate it," Draco said, "that certainly supersedes our current desperate situation. I wouldn't want you to be upset." His tone was acid.

"I'm not like you," Ginny said. "I can't be a heroine all the time just for it's own sake. I need something to fight for."

Draco turned away from the wall, letting the picture fall back in place.

"And you think I can give you that?" he said, looking, for the first time, almost uncertain.

"I don't know," Ginny said. "Can you?" She took a step towards him. "Just once, I want you to answer me something, and I want you to be serious, and not say anything in Latin, and not quote anything, and not make jokes, and not spout off any poetry. Do you think you can do that?"

Draco shook his head. "Be careful what you ask for," he said, "without my Latin and my poetry and my jokes, you know, I'm just ordinary, Ginny."