Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Do we?" Ginny said tiredly. "I've never looked up dates before. I've always just…felt it." She put her hand to the tiny gold hourglass at her throat, feeling the power that pulsed through it. "Can I go now?"

Blaise pushed the book away. The torches along the library wall were dimmed, the shadows gathered thickly among the stacks of books.

"However much time you spend in the past," she said, "it doesn't matter, right? You could spend a lifetime there and come right back to this exact moment."

"I could," Ginny admitted, "but every moment we lose now, in present time, is lost forever. And it's this time that matters-to Draco, I mean."

"I know what you mean." Blaise stood up. Her eyes were very green; she was beautiful in the way that Ginny associated with Draco: that special beauty that was a kind of armor against the world. Nothing could pierce it or extinguish it, but it held its possessor remote from the world. Ginny had always envied that detachment. She had never been able to protect herself like that.

"Ginny," Blaise said, "how can you be sure?"

Ginny blinked. "So sure of what?"

"That if you do this, if you save him, he'll love you."

Ginny stood. The Time-Turner beat in her hand like a heart. "That's not why I'm doing this," she said.

Blaise said something else, but it was lost in Ginny's memory of other words, words she had been trying to forget-if you are to do this, you must understand, you have one chance and one alone-to travel such vast distances through time requires a great expenditure of energy, and should you make more than one trip, I cannot speak to your safety, or your survival-and she turned the Time-Turner over, hastily, as the world and all its words rushed away like a tide going out.

Draco's hand was icy. Harry let his own rest beside it, his fingers looking oddly brown and healthy next to Draco's pallid ones. He knew he ought to touch his hand to Draco's, but the idea filled him with revulsion. It would be like touching a doll or a wax mannequin, not a person at all.

His hands tightened on the bedsheet, the heavy material crumpling under his fingers. Narcissa had brought Draco's own 600-thread-count percale sheets from the Mansion and they felt slippery. He closed his eyes, his thoughts thick and confused, as if he were fumbling his way through fog.

Malfoy?

No answer, only an echoing blankness, as if he had shouted down into an empty cavern. He tried again, and the echo was painfully sharp; he put his hands up to cover his eyes and felt Hermione tentatively touch his shoulder. He had heard despair in her voice and knew, with a pang, how she felt: how she simultaneously envied him his gift, this chance, and dreaded it.

He let his mind relax, let himself remember what it was like to talk to Draco without speaking: like walking into a crowded room full of strangers and seeing, at last, a familiar face. He reached now for that familiarity, sensing that he had been searching too far away, that what he was looking for was as close as his own thoughts and his own mind.

The weight of Hermione's hand on his arm slipped away, the seat of the chair, the chill of the air inching under the window, all vanished. He was in a place like the garden maze of the Triwizard Tournament, but the narrow, confining walls seemed to be a hard, dark, shiny stuff, and he could see lights flickering inside them. He heard a laugh and turned, half-running, to follow the sound: the path curved up and up, and now under his hastening feet were polished stone stairs. Dark wood paneling rose on either side of him, lit at intervals by glass lamps blown in the shapes of poisonous flowers: lilies, belladonna, nightshade, poppies, sweet pea, foxglove.

He recognized them and knew where he was before he reached the top and saw the familiar hallway stretching before him, gleaming with the labor of a dozen house-elves. There were the torches in their serpent-shaped brackets. He knew he wasn't here, not really, that this was a dream he had wandered into, and not even his own dream, but someone else's.

That Draco, dying, would dream of home was perhaps not surprising: certainly the place felt familiar to Harry, as recognizable as a memory. He knew the place and knew that it was waiting, as Draco was waiting, for him.

He stood before the library door. He could not remember if this was where the door had always been, but it didn't matter: he pushed it open and stepped inside. There was a fire burning in the grate, sending great, heatless licks of golden flame hurtling up the chimney. The thick velvet curtains were roped back from the high stained-glass windows bordered in gold and blue and green. The big mahogany desk had been pushed back against one wall and Draco was sitting cross-legged on top of it, a pile of books at his elbow and another book open on his lap. He looked up when Harry came in and smiled the smile of someone who has entered a crowded room full of strangers and at last sees a familiar face.

"Potter, you've made it!" he said, sounding pleased. "And about time, too-in a few more hours I think I'd have had to leave without you."

The first journey backward was cold. Ginny felt a moment of icy grayness and saw jagged, far-off lightning, as if she were passing through a storm cloud. Her stomach wrenched painfully. Then the clouds were gone and she was standing exactly where she had stood before, only Blaise was gone.

She turned around slowly. The library was the same shape, still, as it had been, but there were no stacks of books. There were long, rough wood tables, stacked with illuminated manuscripts, parchment and quills. There was a longer piece of parchment on which someone had been scrawling what looked like rough sketches. Thick tallow candles burned in silver holders on the walls and in a larger candelabra on the table. The room smelled of tallow, smoke and damp ink.

She approached the table slowly and examined the sketches. She recognized the outline of Hogwarts, though it looked slightly different than she remembered, as if it were missing a wing- she leaned closer, taking hold of the page-The door of the library burst open. It was Ben, just as she'd seen him the last time she'd journeyed into the past, though he wasn't shirtless this time. He was wearing a long night robe, and his black hair was wildly tangled, his dark eyes brilliant. He looked at her and gave a little whoop of surprise, the lit wand in his right hand dipping as he lowered it.

"Ginny?"

"Oh-yes, it's me," she said, feeling awkward. "Sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?"

"I was sleeping," he said, with a shrug.

"How'd you know I was here, anyway?"

He pointed towards the desk. "You touched my private papers. They're warded."

"Oh," she said. There was a short silence, then she smiled at him. "Well, it's a good thing, anyway, because I was looking for you. Gareth, too, actually."

"Gareth?" Ben perched himself on the edge of the desk. "I'm sure he'll be along. He takes longer to wake up than I do."

Ginny leaned against one of the long tables. "When are you, Benjamin?"

"Fine, thanks." He paused and blinked at her. "Did you say when am I? I'm in my own time, Ginny, surely you must have set your Time-Turner to a year?"

"I did," she mused, "but…I mean, you know me, so clearly we've already met and you've probably already been to the future and brought your army there and- what happened to them, anyway?"

He waved a hand. "All in good time. Why are you here now?"

She squinted at him. "Have you already come forward in time to my house to see me? About five days after the new year, in 1996?"

He looked startled. "No. Why would I do that?"

"No reason."

"It sounds like a bit of a lark, going forward again," he said, raking a hand through the unruly hair so like Harry's. Then he smiled. "I hear Gareth."