Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

Eyes widening, Charlie took the paper. "Thanks, Mum."

Mrs. Weasley smiled and left. Charlie began unfolding the paper.

Ron craned his neck over to see get a better view. "What's it say?"

"Nose out, Ron," said Charlie, not unkindly, and started scanning the letter. As he read it, his face set into a strange expression.

"Come on," wheedled Ron. "What's Snape say? Is he dead? What?"

Ginny snorted. "Yes, Ron, because if Snape died, he'd be sure to write to Draco and tell him all about it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Charlie said, and grinned. "He'd be way too busy with the funeral to write."

"Charlie," groaned Ron, but Charlie, ignoring him, got to his feet, went over to the fireplace, and knelt down by the flames.

"Auditori Malfoy Mansion," he said, and after a few moments, Narcissa's head and shoulders appeared among the low flames.

"Yes?" she said. She looked exhausted, her eyes ringed by black shadows. When she recognized Charlie, her dark eyes widened. "Is there any-"

"News? No," said Charlie, gently but firmly. "I'm sorry."

She bit her lip. "Is everything all right, then?"

"As well as can be expected. I've got something here I thought might be of interest to you and Sirius. Is he around?"

"He came home, but he went straight to the dungeons. I think he's checking on — well, the situation."

"Ah," said Charlie diplomatically, and held out the folded white square of paper. Narcissa reached a pale slender hand out of the fire and took it from him. "It's addressed to Draco," said Charlie. "From Snape."

Narcissa's eyes flicked up to Charlie, then back down to the letter.

"Apparently Snape brewed up some kind of Willpower potion for Draco," said Charlie. "To help him resist the pull of Slytherin. I thought Sirius might be interested-"

But Narcissa, clutching the parchment, had already vanished.

She dreamed she stood in a clearing at the heart of a forest, and in the center of the clearing was a tree. It was the greatest tree she could ever have imagined, and more than that. The giant roots rose above her head like the rafters of a monstrous hall. Beyond the she could see the huge twisted trunk of the tree going up and up and up, and far beyond that, so high that drifting clouds and distance made it hard to see, she could just make out the great dark shadowy spread of leaves and branches. A tiny black speck floated among them. As it drew closer she saw that it was a glittering flying thing -

not a bird, but a small winged serpent with jeweled scales.

It landed on the earth a few feet from her, twisted, rippled, and became a man, standing. She felt no surprise; she had already known it would be him. He was pale, very pale, and he wore dark green robes. Something was bound around his waist — a sword, she saw. He looked both contained and terribly tense, the skin of his face tight against the bones, his eyes, once silver, black now, fixed on hers.

"You called me here," he said, and his voice was unyielding. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to give you this," she said and held out in her hand something that glittered like a sparkling stone.

He made no move to take it. "So it is final, then?"

She nodded. "It's final. I will be your Source no longer."

"This is because of Godric," he said furiously.

"Godric has nothing to do with it."

"I could force you," he said ruminatively. "There are ways."

"An unwilling Source is useless," she said. "You know that."

"And it doesn't matter to you that I love you?"

She raised her chin. Glared at him. "You don't love me."

He crossed the clearing, seized her by the wrists, stared down at her.

She looked at him, at his face, so changed now. She had thought he was gentle once, a feeling person, sensitive even. And there was sensitivity in his eyes, but only of the most narrow kind — sensitivity that felt only its own pain, comprehended only its own needs, suffered only when its desires were thwarted. "How can you say that to me?" he hissed.

"Because it's true. You don't love me. You simply want me like you want more power, more knowledge, more monstrous creatures to do your bidding. And that I love Godric, that only makes you want me more. That's not love, only avarice-"

He caught her by the hair and pulled her sharply against him. She tried to pull away, pushing at his hands as he grinned at her. "Fight me, why don't you," he hissed down at her. "Bite me, claw at me. But no, you can't bring yourself to hurt me. Not even in this."

"I can hurt you," she hissed back. "I will."

This had been the wrong this to say. His eyes narrowed. "Yes, you are planning something, aren't you? You and the others. Godric, and Helga. I know it. I hear things."

"We're just protecting ourselves."

"Then why are you making Keys for a weapon?"

Her heart seemed to freeze inside her chest. She stared at him, her blood pounding out words: How does he know? How does he know?

His smile widened. "I have informants," he said. "Don't think you can do anything without my knowing about it. And don't think that just because I've lost you as my Source, I am weak." He grinned like a skull. "I have another Source of power now."

"Salazar, what-"

Her words were cut short as his mouth came down on hers. At first she grit her teeth to keep him out, but he had also cut off her breath, and eventually her lips parted to gain air. He tasted like cold metal. Horror assailed her, but even as it did her blood pounded hard in her ears and she wondered despairingly how the one person you loved best in the world could somehow become the person you most hated.

She turned her face away. "Let me go-"

But he had already pulled away from her, releasing her, laughing as she turned to run, and his laughter was the last thing she heard as she —

The dream shifted.

She was sitting in a room she recognized: the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

Facing her across the table was a man she had never seen in dreams before, but knew immediately: dark hair, tall, dark eyebrows knitted together in a scowl. An honest, worried face. Dark green eyes. A number of items lay scattered across the table — books, parchment, quills, a mortal and pestle, the scabbard of a sword, the Lycanthe, an object that looked like an hourglass or an infinity sign.

"We're going to have to kill him, you realize," he said.

She shook her head vehemently. "No. I don't want to do that."

"There's no other way, Rowena."

"There is another way. Helga and I have been working on additions to the curse. Even should he be able to wake from it, to shake off the spell, he will not be able to leave the area we have bound him in. We will turn his own monsters against him and make them his guardians-"

"All this," said Godric. "All this just to keep him alive?"

"I can't kill him, Godric. I can't. There's still some good in him, something that can be redeemed, and while he is held I will discover how that can be accomplished-"

"So much effort expended to preserve a life that is worth so little," said Godric in a bitter tone. "The Dormiens Curse will not hold him.

It binds the soul of a man. And I am not sure that he has much soul left for us to bind."

"There is one more thing," she heard her own voice say, haltingly.

Godric looked up. "What?"

She met his gaze squarely. "Have you ever heard of an Epicyclical Charm?"

Hermione felt her own sleeping body jump in shock, and if as a result of that shock Godric's face wavered and vanished. She tried to clutch at the shreds of the dream, but heard only voices echoing in her head, clear if muffled, like voices heard in another room; Helga's, her own: "We will have to prepare faster, that's all. The Lycanthe is ready, the Turner, now we just need Godric's Key." The voices rose to a jumbled scream. "What Source is he using, if not me? Where would he find another Magid willing to be his Source?"