Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"And yours isn't…..Oh," said Draco, feeling slightly foolish. "You aren't…what are you? A vampire?"

"Nothing so crude," said Rhysenn, looking superior. "So you can take your hand off your neck. I'm not interested in biting you. Well…not biting you there, anyway."

Draco dropped his hand, with some reluctance. "So you're immortal, or just very long-lived?"

"Living forever is the best revenge," said Rhysenn, examining her long red nails.

"I've been offered eternal life before," Draco said flatly. "I pretty much turned it down."

"Then you are a fool," she said. "As well as stubborn — and arrogant — "

"Anything else?" Draco asked curiously. "Do I also have bad taste in clothes and stupid hair?"

She looked away, her black hair blowing across her face. He wondered again how old she was. "I could show you…" she began slowly, and took a step back, and as she moved away her cloak flew to the side and he saw the carvings etched into the battlements behind her. They were a repeating pattern of symbols. A mirror, a cup, a dagger, a sword. They were familiar, as if he had seen them before. And then he realized that he had. The vision he had had the day before, during the prefects' meeting.

He had seen himself, standing against battlements, and behind him a wall of stone etched with carvings, burned silver by moonlight…

He spun around, the sensation that he was being watched right now, at this very moment, suddenly overpowering. He cast his gaze over the battlements where they stood and then up and beyond and saw something dark and hunched, huddled against the side of the tower that rose above them. The terror he had felt in the vision rose up again, even stronger, and then something bright and silvery flashed out against the darkness of the huddled figure, and Draco turned and shoved Rhysenn, hard, to the side and out of the way.

She shrieked out loud and fell, and then he heard a sharp whistling noise by his ear and knew what it was, a sound familiar to him from hunting although he couldn't imagine what it was doing here, at Hogwarts. It was too late for him to move away; something struck his shoulder once, hard, and then again. A lancing pain like white fire engulfed him; he saw the moon tilt away, the world falling open like an unfurling flower.

Somewhere very far away he could still hear Rhysenn screaming. And then the darkness closed in, and there was no pain at all.

Having not slept well, Ginny was late to breakfast. As a result, she found everyone already in the throes of heated discussion about the fact that the night before, fifth-year Malcolm Baddock had been discovered frozen in a state of magical stasis by none other than Ron himself, on his way to the prefects' bathroom. The rumor was that it had been a prank or a duel gone wrong; the Slytherins looked dour and annoyed, all except Draco, who wasn't at breakfast yet. A few first-years looked nervous, and an even fewer number of students who remembered the basilisk attacks of years ago looked discomforted. "I was in magical stasis," Colin Creevey was announcing cheerfully to anyone who would listen. "It wasn't so bad!"

Neville looked apprehensive. "Do you think it was another basilisk?" he demanded.

"No," said Ron, who was looking drained and irritable. There were shadows under his eyes and the good-humored air that had hung around him lately was gone. "There was no water around him, or anything reflective. If it had been a basilisk he would be dead. Like Moaning Myrtle."

"I'm pretty sure Myrtle spies on me in the bath," said John Walton, a sixth-year prefect.

"Nonsense," said Ron flatly. "Of course she doesn't."

Ginny was glad for the change of subject from basilisks and magical stasis.

Her first year at Hogwarts was not something she liked to dwell on. She tried to focus her attention instead on what Harry and Hermione, sitting across from her, were talking about, but that turned out not to be a such a good idea either.

"Harry," Hermione was saying, her voice low but intent, "I have to talk to you."

"Not right now," said Harry, reaching for the pumpkin juice and pouring some into his glass. "Can we talk later?"

Hermione flushed. "When, then?" she said. "It's important. There's something I need to talk to you about — to tell you."

"Tomorrow," said Harry, filling his glass. He put the jug down with an exasperated thump. "When I don't have a meeting with Snape coming up."

"You always have something — " Hermione began.

"Not now," said Harry with sharp finality. He still wasn't looking at her.

For a moment, Hermione sat very still. Ginny wondered if perhaps she might be going to cry — in her memory, Harry had never spoken to Hermione like that. He had never looked at her like that before, either.

When they had been friends, he had looked at her with fond exasperation; when she became his girlfriend, he had looked at her as if she were a minor but unbelievable miracle. Now, he wouldn't look at her at all.

Hermione slowly raised her head. Even more slowly, she got to her feet, her glass of pumpkin juice in her hand. And then, without the slightest warning, she flung the glass hard at the table. It shattered with a sound like a bomb dropping, spraying pumpkin juice and glass in all directions.

Harry jerked back, stunned, as the whole table fell silent and stared.

"Harry James Potter!" Hermione shouted at the top of her lungs. "You are going to talk to me RIGHT NOW!"

Shocked out of his torpor, Harry stared in astonishment. Beside him, Ron sat stunned, dripping pumpkin juice and wisely remaining silent.

Hermione herself stood where she was, her hands on her hips, her cheeks flushed scarlet and her eyes suspiciously bright.

"Hermione — " Harry turned in his seat, his hand held out to her, his expression surprised and wondering, but without any of the closed-off coldness they had all grown used to. "Hermione, can we just — "

The Great Hall doors banged open.

Everyone turned to look as a student raced into the Hall — a girl, she looked no more than fourteen and wore the banded gold and black scarf of Hufflepuff — or was that Gryffindor red? Her robes were soaking wet now, as was her hair, and she was in tears. A low susurration of curious surprise ran around the room; Ginny whipped around to stare, a sharp feeling of foreboding gripping her stomach, as the girl raced distractedly past the students towards the High Table. Charlie was already on his feet, running down the steps, and as he neared the girl and caught hold of her, steadying her, Ginny saw that the red she had noted on the girl's scarf was blood.

The other teachers were getting to their feet now, and Charlie had hold of the girl's shoulders. She was talking through her tears, gesturing wildly with her hands and pointing. As the whole school fell silent and leaned forward, trying to hear her, the girl's voice rose up sharp and clear, tinged with hysteria."..In the snow," she was gasping, tripping breathlessly over her words. "By the North Tower — there was blood everywhere. I think — maybe he might be dead. You have to come-Madame Pomfrey too-"

Even at this distance, Ginny could see the look of shock on Charlie's face.

When he spoke, his voice was strained.

"You're quite certain it's Draco Malfoy?"

The girl nodded, her expression quite terrified. "Yes," she said. "There was a lot of blood, but — it was him." She burst into a fresh spate of tears. "I've never seen anyone dead before," she wept, but Ginny had stopped hearing her. The world had gone a sickening sort of gray color, and she grabbed for the table to steady herself. She heard a loud slamming sound off to her left and looked up; it was Harry, who had shoved his chair back with such force that it had tipped over and hit the flagstone floor.