Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Harry looked puzzled for a moment, then sheepish. "I guess it is kind of late," he said, looking down at his bare feet, which were coated in hallway dust. "I talked to Sirius last night, and I had an idea…"

Draco began to realize there was more here than met the eye. He dragged a chair over to the bed, turned it around backwards, and sat down, resting his arms on the back. "You talked to Sirius? Did you ask about your parents?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. He told me they're buried at a place called Doon's Hill. Ring any bells?"

Draco shook his head. "No, not really."

Harry reached into the breast pocket of his pajamas and drew out a folded parchment. Draco recognized it as their homework assignment.

Opening it with a flourish, Harry read out, "Pick one specific site from this list: the Forbidden Forest, Ravyn Cael, Knockturn Alley, Doon's Hill, Chipping Sodbury, Shepton Mallet.' You see?"

Draco glanced down and then back up. Harry was looking at him expectantly, his green eyes sharp and intent, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Draco felt a faint foreboding stir within him. Whatever all this meant to Harry, it was not just something significant but something significant that he was expecting Draco to pick up on immediately. Draco was very tempted to say something snide, but the thought that this was the most animated, interested and alive he had seen Harry look in more than a month stayed his tongue. "All right," he said cautiously. "So it's on our homework…"

"I want to go," said Harry. "We can get permission to be Portkeyed to Doon's Hill if we pick that project for the class, and when we're there we can go to the cemetery."

"Um," said Draco. "Wouldn't Sirius take you?"

"I don't want to go with Sirius, I want to go with you."

Draco felt his eyebrows fly up. "Why?"

"Because…" Harry flung his hands in the air. "For one thing, Sirius has the wedding and then the honeymoon so if he took me he couldn't take me for months. He said not till after I graduate, and I want to go as soon as possible. Anyway, he'd spend the whole time watching me to see if I start freaking out and I don't need that…why are you looking at me like that?"

"Why do I have the feeling there's something you aren't telling me?"

Harry sighed. "Probably because there's something I'm not telling you."

"What?"

"I can't tell you," Harry said firmly. "You have to trust me."

There was a short silence. Harry sat where he was, looking down at his hands. His dark hair spilled down, hiding his features. His shoulders were set, angular under the thin cotton of his pajama top. When he raised his face, his eyes were dark, unreadably green. Draco remembered the boy who had thrust a hand through the bars of the prison that contained him, and had mixed their blood together, changing them both irrevocably in the process. He had never known anyone else like Harry; he never would.

"All right." Draco shrugged. "I trust you."

Harry exhaled his held breath. "Okay, then." He got to his feet, shoving the parchment back into his pocket. "Sorry I woke you up."

"It's fine. Sleep is overrated." Draco got to his feet, and stood there awkwardly for a second. He wondered if this was what Harry and Ron were like when those two were alone. He doubted it. He had some vague mental image of them sitting around, discussing Quidditch and girls and hitting each other on the back in a matey fashion. He and Harry never discussed Quidditch and girls, unless they had been drinking abusively.

Mostly their conversations revolved around fencing and imminent, life-threatening danger. Draco hesitated a moment, wondering if he should ask Harry something more casually friendly, like what he planned to do after the N.E.W.T.'s, or what he was going to get Sirius and Narcissa as a wedding present, or…

"You all right, Malfoy? Your eyes are crossing." Harry was at the door now, his head tilted to the side as he looked back at Draco in concern. "Falling asleep on your feet?"

"Something like that." Draco bent down, picked up Harry's cloak and held it out to him, a silvery unfolded tangle. "Don't forget your cloak," he said.

"People see you sneaking out of my bedroom at 2am, they might get the wrong idea."

"Thanks," said Harry, and took the cloak.

"On the other hand, it could only enhance my reputation as a major stud," added Draco cheerfully.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"That was my sarcastic voice," said Draco.

"It sounds a lot like your regular voice," said Harry dryly.

"Yeah. I've been told that."

"See you in class tomorrow," said Harry, turning to go. He paused then, and bent down to pick up something from the ground. When he straightened up, Draco saw that he had a rolled parchment in his hand, stamped with a familiar silver seal. "Looks like someone left a note shoved under your door, Malfoy."

"Right. Thanks." Draco took the note. "Bye, now," he added firmly, and shut the door on Harry, who was still looking at him curiously.

He glanced down at the note in his hand, unrolled it reluctantly, and saw that it was as he had expected, a map. In Rhysenn's familiar flowing writing the words meet me here appeared towards the top, after a complicated series of illustrated pathways showing the route he was meant to take outside the castle.

He let his shoulders sag, a rare feeling of total exhaustion and dejection nearly overcoming him. It just never ended — it never, never ended. How many secrets could one person keep and not go completely mad? And now he had another one to keep: Harry's secret about his parents. On the other hand, it did mean that Harry trusted him, trusted him in a way he didn't trust anyone else. He remembered the demons who had told him that for every profit in one thing, there must be an equal payment.

Perhaps it then followed that for every payment, there must be compensation. If there was one thing the past eight months had brought him other than pain and confusion, it was friends. He had never had friends before, not friends like Harry and Hermione, Ginny and Sirius.

That was worth a lot — it was worth everything.

Straightening his shoulders, he went to get his clothes.

She lay beside him in the pools of scarlet and gold flung onto the floor by the high stained-glass windows. They lay face-to-face, on their sides, his right hand trailing slowly down her cheek to her pajama top, tracing the line of pearl buttons there before beginning to undo them one by one.

"Ron," she said softly.

He raised his eyes to hers; even in the darkness, they were very blue.

"Yes?"

"Do you think about me when we're not… in here?"

He was halfway through the row of buttons. "I think about you all the time."

She sighed. "You pretend so well."

He was done with the buttons; his hands slid over her bare skin, gentle and careful — she remembered how clumsy he had been, the first time, but that was all different now. "So do you," he said, and leaned to kiss her. His lips brushed hers, gently, then slid to the corners of her mouth, her throat, her cheek. She let her head fall back, and then the door of the room opened and she heard someone gasp out loud in surprise.

She sprang away from Ron, her hands flying up to cover herself. Malcolm Baddock, the Slytherin Chaser, stood in the doorway, one hand on the latch, the other dangling at his side, gazing at them in utter and total astonished surprise.

Reaching to tug the open top of her pajamas shut, she tried to hide herself behind Ron, who at least was wearing his boxers, but it was no use -

Malcolm had seen them both clearly. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring in shock, mouth open, his dark eyes almost impossibly wide. There was a long silence, and then he said, with astonished but profound admiration: "Damn, Weasley. When you go for it, you really go for it."