Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

For he might ha' been a tiny chimney sweep

With a tiny grimy face

But he carried a broom that made all the girls weep, So they let him up, up, up the fireplace!

"I've grown old," sighed the sweep, "and my wits have got loose, I can scarce tell me da from me poor younger brother.

But at least for the wife I've got one great excuse, For at my age, I can't tell one bed from another!"

"For I may be a tiny chimney sweep

With a tiny grimy face

But I'm carrying a broom that makes strong girls weep, Won't you let me up, up, up your fireplace?"

'Twas a tragical day, when our sweep passed away

(He fell down a chimney and busted his head)

And the ladies of our town all wept with dismay

Until walking to the coffin, a young urchin said:

"Since I was a lad, this man trained me to sweep A good man, a kind man, as you'll all agree

But I'm telling you now, my dear friends, please don't weep, For his trade will be continued, girls-he left his broom to me!"

"For I may be a tiny chimney sweep

With a tiny grimy face

But I'm carrying a broom that makes strong girls weep, Won't you let me up, up, up your fireplace?"

So raise up your glasses, yes, raise high your drinks, I'll buy you a round and we'll drink it down deep

Let's have us a toast 'fore we catch forty winks, May we all be as lucky as our little chimney sweep!

When Snape was finished singing, he bowed coldly and departed the stage. Sirius watched him go, his mouth hanging open.

“When you said he wanted to bury the hatchet,” he said finally, “I didn’t realize you meant in my eardrums.”

“I didn’t think he was all that bad,” said Harry.

Sirius was still shaking his head. “I… I just never…”

Lupin chortled into his beer. “Now you have.”

It always amazed Harry that even in summer, the rooms in Malfoy Manor were chilly to the point of arctic. He'd curled himself up under the heavy duvet in his bedroom (the original duvet had been black, patterned with silver snakes, but he'd kept having nightmares that the snakes had come to life and were slithering on him. Eventually Hermione had given him a spare duvet of hers. It was yellow and sprigged with blue flowers. Harry supposed that in the end, he just wasn't a snaky kind of bloke) when there was a series of sharp knocks on the door. Swearing, Harry slid out of bed.

His swearing increased in volume as his bare feet hit the cold stone floor.

Half-hopping and swearing as he went, he made his way across the enormous room and threw open the door. Whoever was on the other side, he determined, would get a piece of his mind.

It was Draco, wearing a pair of black jeans and black pullover, looking a bit like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible, if Tom Cruise had had white-blond hair and a surprised look on his face. "Potter," Draco said, “was that you swearing a blue streak just now? Where'd you learn that language? I didn't even know you could do that with a pair of —"

"It's two in the morning, Malfoy," Harry interrupted, "what the hell do you want?"

"— although the six feet of surgical tubing was a nice touch, I thought. I must be rubbing off on you." He peered past Harry into the bedroom and shuddered. "Or not. Where'd you find that duvet? Hell's interior decorating supply shop?"

"Hermione," said Harry, shortly. "Speaking of which, if you came by here to whinge about our love lives some more, I am tired of talking about girls. It never gets me anywhere and afterward I just feel sorry for myself."

"Perhaps I should try to be more supportive," Draco ruminated.

"Considering that the last time we talked, you told me I was a whinging, pie-faced newt, and that girls don't like complainers—"

"Well, they don't."

"If you're such an expert, why's your love life such a complete balls-up then?" Harry asked, reasonably enough.

Draco ignored this. "Look, are you ready to go, or not?"

Harry banged his head gently against the doorframe. "No. I am not going anywhere with you, Malfoy. Tomorrow's the wedding and I need my sleep.

I've got toasts to give, receiving lines to stand in, embarrassing formalwear to struggle into—"

Despite his best intentions, within ten minutes Harry found himself, dressed and with his glasses firmly planted on his nose, standing in the corridor with Draco — who, Harry now saw, had brought both their broomsticks and propped them against the wall. Draco was also fidgeting, which was generally a sign that he had something personal to say and didn't want to say it. Harry squinted at him with dawning suspicion. "So," he said. "What's all this about, anyway?"

"It's —"

"And don't say your love life, or I'll kill you with a rock."

"— not my love life, you squinty-eyed pillock. It's my Epicyclical Charms."

This was so unexpected that Harry rocked back on his heels. "What?"

Draco pulled down the neck of his sweater just far enough so that Harry could see a double row of gold chains glinting against the light skin.

"These. It's a bloody nuisance, carrying them around like this, never being able to take them off—"

"I could carry one," Harry offered quietly.

“No,” Draco said, without anger or indecision. “That’s not what I want.”

"Then—" Harry felt an absurd stab of something like jealousy, and fought it down. "You want to take it to someone else? You want me to come with you?"

"I want you to come with me," Draco said. He took one of the brooms and held it out to Harry.

"You can't give it to just anyone," Harry said, taking the broom. "It's got to be someone you really trust."

"I know," Draco said. He had picked up his own broom and was heading for the window at the end of the hall. It was open, curtains blowing gently in the soft spring air. He leaned out.

Harry leaned out next to him. "Someone who—"

"Loves me?" Draco looked at Harry with sideways amusement. "Don't be such a girl, Potter. Come on. I'll race you." He slid with agility onto the window ledge, broom in hand, poised for flight.

Annoyed, Harry crawled onto the ledge beside him. "I could race you if —

"

"Race me? A splendid idea."

"— I knew where we were going. Who are we taking these Charms to?"

Draco's look was secretive, amusement glinting under his fair lashes.

"Someone I trust — endlessly," he said, and dropped from the windowsill, tumbling into the night air on his broomstick with the reckless speed of an angel eager to begin the long fall from heaven.

Following Draco on his broomstick through the tangled woods around Malfoy Manor would have been impossible for a flyer less brilliant than Harry, and was difficult even for him. Draco knew the woods intimately, knew every tree and branch, and he whipped between them like a flickering spark of silver in the dark.

Harry knew his friend wasn’t trying to lose him among the jagged branches, it was just that Draco loved to fly, he always had, and now that he was well enough again to fly as he wanted to, he was determined to do it with style. He spun upside-down several times on his broom as they shot out of the forest and onto the barren tract of land that bordered it to the east. To the west, the Manor glittered, bound with lights like a fairytale castle. To the east, a great blackness spread like a stain across the bare ground. It was only when Draco angled his broom down, and Harry followed, that Harry realized that the darkness was the Bottomless Pit.

“Malfoy —” Harry cried in alarm, seizing his friend’s arm and forcing it back down to his side. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Draco’s eyes were slitted against the wind and Harry couldn’t tell his mood at all: happiness, exultation, despair, resignation, boredom? He could have reached to touch Draco’s mind, but it seemed, in the face of their meeting with Dumbledore in two days, like more of a painful reminder than either of them needed. “I’m tossing my Charms into the Bottomless Pit.”