Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Draco's expression was almost completely blank. He looked down at his shoulder, where the rip in his shirt was already reddening with blood.

Then he looked back at Harry, and Harry realized with a slight start that he was very pale, and that his white-blond hair, his shirt, his clothes, were drenched in sweat, as if he'd been running a marathon. “I don't know,”

Draco said in an unusually quiet voice. He walked across the room, and laid Terminus Est down on the long wooden table there. Then he put his hands flat on the table, and made a sort of gasping, hitching noise, as if he were having trouble breathing and only leaning on the table was holding him up. “I don't know,” he said again, his voice almost too faint to be audible.

Seriously alarmed now, Harry went over and dropped his own sword on the table. “Draco,” he said, “are you all right?”

Draco didn't say anything. Harry stood where he was, and waited, and finally Draco lifted his head and looked at Harry. His eyes were gray tunnels, going on and on without ending, and Harry could see into and through them — could see Draco's bewilderment and rising panic. And his pain, not emotional pain, but physical pain. As if a light had been switched on he realized what was happening, the knowledge passing from Draco to himself like light passing through a crystal. “You're ill,” Harry said. “Aren't you?”

Draco took another breath. His shaking seemed to have eased a bit.

“There's something wrong with me,” he said. “My reflexes — they're off.

I'm slower than I was. And I've been feeling dizzy a lot.”

“Well, you got shot in the shoulder two weeks ago. You lost a lot of blood.

Could it be — I mean, it would make sense if —”

Draco looked unconvinced. “Maybe,” he said. “I've been waiting for it to get better. But it's been getting worse.”

“For how long?” Harry said. “How long have you been ill?”

Draco shrugged. “Two weeks. Since the accident.”

“Then it must be the injury — they must not have fixed it right — or maybe you were supposed to rest, and you haven't been resting properly —”

Harry realized he was beginning to sound hysterical, and stopped with an effort. “This is why you lost the game Saturday,” he said. “Isn't it?”

Draco nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“You have to go to the infirmary,” said Harry. “Right now.”

Draco shook his head. “No.”

“Then I'll bang you over the head and drag you,” said Harry, in a decided manner. “I wasn't asking you. I was telling you.”

A slight flicker of amusement lit Draco's eyes. “That's touching,” he said.

“But I'm not going. I'm not so slow I can't duck a punch from you, Potter.”

He held up a hand at Harry's furious expression. “Look,” he said. “I already told Hermione and she's looking into it, in case there was some sort of — well, something on the shaft of the arrow that hit me.”

Harry felt as if someone had walked up and kicked him in the back of the knees. “Like poison?”

Draco hesitated for a split second, then shook his head. “That's impossible. I'd be dead already. There's no poison that takes this long to work. It could be a Slowing Potion or an Enervation Spell — annoying, but fixable. And look — we're going home in four days anyway. If it doesn't get better, I can get the best mediwizards in the country to come to the Manor and have a look at me. I'll owl Simon Branford himself if I have to. So don't get your knickers in a twist about it.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Draco looked him up and down, then, rather grudgingly, smiled. “I figured you'd freak out,” he said.

“I'm not freaked out,” said Harry.

“Right,” said Draco. “And I'm the Balinese Goddess of Plenty.”

“I think there was a statue of her in the museum,” said Harry thoughtfully. “Doesn't she have six breasts?”

Draco choked on a noise that was unmistakably a laugh. “Sod off, Potter.”

Harry ducked his head, and when he looked up again, he was relieved to see that Draco looked almost back to normal, no longer pale and strained.

“I'm assuming if there was cause for concern, Hermione would have told me,” he said. “So I am not, actually, going to freak out.” This was something of a lie. “But I am going to expect you to see the mediwizards when we get home.”

He saw Draco blink, and felt the slight jolt of gratified surprise that came from him — it was still more than slightly odd to realize that home was now, for both of them, the same place. “All right,” Draco said, and straightened up. “I said I will. So I will.”

And Harry realized he would have to be satisfied with that.

She was waiting in his room when he got back from the armory. Sitting on the foot of the bed, in an emerald blazer and short black skirt, one long leg crossed carefully over the other. As usual, from the top of her perfectly groomed red-gold head to the tip of her Jimmy Floo stiletto heels, she was perfect.

“Blaise,” Draco said, feeling the exhaustion that had been haunting him seep like a cold pain into his bones. He felt dirty, in need of a shower, and the blood that had dried on his shoulder itched. “Now really isn't the…”

She launched herself off the bed, and stalked towards him, her green eyes blazing. Before he could move or react, her open palm cracked across his face in a stinging slap. “Bastard,” she hissed.

Draco fought not to wince. It had not been a good day so far — punched in the face by Seamus, stabbed in the shoulder by Harry, now smacked across the cheek by Blaise. He wondered what else the gods had stuffed up their sleeves as far as harm to his person was concerned. “Do that again,” he said, “and I'll hit you back.”

She glared at him. “Draco Malfoy,” she snapped. “I will not let you make me look stupid.”

“You look stupid?” he said. “Impossible.”

She gave him a hard look. “Why?” she said. “Why did you do it?”

“Why did I kiss Ginny Weasley? Is that what you mean?”

She nodded tightly. “Have you got…” She looked sick to her stomach.

“Feelings for her?”

Draco considered. “Define 'feelings'.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“No,” he said.

“Then why the —”

“I wanted to hack off Seamus Finnigan,” he said. “It seemed the simplest way.”

“And why would you want to hack off Seamus Finnigan?”

Because he's a smarmy little bastard,” Draco said. “Because he grabbed your broom last Quidditch game, and I —”

She looked disgusted. “You expect me to believe that? Nice try.”

“He annoys me,” Draco said with a shrug. “Make of that what you will.”

Blaise bit her lip. Her internal struggle was visible on her face. She wanted to believe him, and yet her inner cynic would not let her. When she finally spoke, her voice was carefully slow. “You're using me,” she said. “I just don't know what for, or why.”

Draco was jolted. “No—“

She cut him off. “Give me one good reason to stay with you, Draco Malfoy,” she said. “One.”

He glanced down, and was greeted by the sight of her feet in their silver strapped shoes, her toenails painted silver to match. Her toes were curling under, which always happened when she was nervous — everyone, he thought seemed to have one mannerism that always betrayed them –

Hermione's biting her lip, Harry's twisting his hands together. “I'll buy you something pretty,” he said.

She laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. “Like what?”

“Whatever you want.” He looked up from her feet, and saw her staring at him, her cheeks flushed. He took a step forward and put his hands on her waist; when they'd been children, he'd almost been able to span her small waist with his hands. “There was that bracelet you liked in Diagon Alley…”