Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"Why do you still hate Draco so much?"

"I don´t — so much — any more," said Ron, a little hesitantly. He had the wary expression of someone about to yank off a bandage and anticipating the pain. "But I guess because — I was jealous."

"Because of Harry?"

Ron nodded.

Hermione leaned forward and took him by the shoulders — or tried to. He was too tall, so she ended up gripping his upper arms. "Ron," she said slowly. "Nobody could ever, ever replace you. Not for me.

Not for Harry. You are the first friend Harry ever had. He wouldn´t even know what it was like to have a friend if it wasn´t for you. He wouldn´t be who he is — I wouldn´t either — without you."

Ron looked down at her. "But you didn´t want me to come with you," he said. "What does that prove?"

"Only that I didn´t want anything to happen to you," she said truthfully, hoping he believed her. "I just feel so helpless," she added, her words coming out in an angry rush. "I´ve got no control over anything — thereś no one to go to, and worst of all I´ve got no idea whatś really going on and I feel like we´re all hurtling towards some sort of horrible disaster without any way of stopping it. I feel like — like a pawn in some huge game I don´t even understand." She raised her head and looked at him, and saw his expression with surprise. "Why are you smiling?"

"I was thinking about chess," said Ron. "Did you know that if the pawn can get all the way across the board, it becomes the most powerful player in the game?"

Hermione sniffled. "You know I´m terrible at chess." She reached out, took his hand. "I was wrong — I do want you to come with me -

not because I feel guilty," she added quickly, seeing his eyes narrow, "but because I could really use your help."

His shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. "All right."

She held out her hand for the Time-Turner, and after a moment, he gave it to her. She looped the chain around her neck, then threw it over his head as well. She was sharply reminded of having done the same thing with Harry three years ago. She looked up at Ron, the chain of the Turner cutting into her neck. "Ready?"

Nervously, he nodded.

Hermione took the Turner between her thumb and forefinger, and turned it over.

Absolutely nothing happened.

The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. He had been so long in darkness and clamorous noise, his extra-sensitive wolf ears picking up every vibration and the endless tinny howling of the Call, that the silence came as a greater shock than an explosion would have been. The last human thing he remembered was having been in the dungeon, in the cell with Sirius, telling him he should get out, get out while there was time…

Lupinś eyes flew open. He was lying on his back on a stone bench, staring up at a dank stone ceiling. The dungeon. Everything hurt, every part of his body, as if he had been pelted with stones. But he was whole. That he knew.

He turned his head to the side, slowly, trying to ignore the pain in his neck.

And saw Sirius. He was sitting on the ground next to the bench, his back against the stone wall, legs outstretched. He looked exhausted, even more than he did the night he´d flown his motorcycle across the Atlantic to get to Kingś Cross by the time the Hogwarts Express left, but his eyes were alight. "Moony?" he said.

Lupin rolled over onto his side, wincing at the pains that drove through his cramped muscles. "Sirius," he tried to say and he heard his own voice come out hoarse and nearly unrecognizable, as if it had been terribly strained. He cleared his throat. That hurt, too, but it didn´t matter. He sat up, and looked down at himself. He was wearing the clothes he had been wearing — yesterday? How long had he been a wolf?

"Sirius," he said again, louder this time. "What happened…?"

But Sirius was on his feet. He held out a hand to Lupin, who took it, and helped him to his feet. Then he embraced him, as he had embraced him that day three years ago in the Shrieking Shack, like a brother, although neither Sirius nor Lupin ever had a brother, or anything like one, outside of each other. Each other, and James.

"You´re all right," said Sirius, pounding his friend on the back.

"You´re all right."

Lupin pulled back, wincing a little. "I am, I´m fine. I hurt all over as if I got steamrollered by a hippogriff, but I´m fine. Sirius, how long was I..?"

"Two days," said Sirius, and his black eyes darkened further.

"Around two days."

"Did I hurt anyone?" Lupin felt his hand tighten hard on the blanket at his side. "Did I do — anything?"

"I brought in a doctor to see you," said Sirius, looking somber. "But you ate him."

Lupin felt his eyes widen, then he laughed, his chest tightening with pain but it was worth it just to laugh. "I suppose thatś a no," he said. "Padfoot — how could you — how did you bring me back?"

Sirius hesitated, then reached beside him and picked up a small clear flask banded with copper. "I didn´t. Snape did. He gave me a Will-Strengthening Potion for you."

Lupin stared. "Really?"

"Uh-huh."

"And what did you have to do for him? Sirius. I´m not kidding. He wouldn´t just have done that for you for no reason."

"Well, I had to agree to run naked through the halls of Hogwarts yelling 'Severus Snape rules!át the top of my lungs."

"Well, itś a tragedy school isn´t in session then, isn´t it? There will be no one to admire your nude form."

"Good point." Sirius grinned at Lupin, his eyes lighting up as they so rarely did, and for so few people. Lupin could remember a time when Sirius had smiled at everybody. But that had been a long time ago. He looked down again at the flask in Sirius´ hands, and blinked

— Sirius was wearing heavy leather gloves that reached halfway up his forearms. They looked like dragonhide. His left sleeve was ripped through, and bloody. I did that, he thought, his heart sinking.

"Padfoot, how did you get me to take the Potion?"

"You were pretty far gone," said Sirius flatly. "It wasn´t that hard.

And I borrowed Narcissaś gardening gloves — " he raised his right hand and grinned — "she usually uses them for trimming the Firetrap plants in the front garden."

"But I didn´t bite you," said Lupin, anxiously. "Did I?"

Sirius shook his head. "No. Which begs an interesting question. If you did, would I be a Weredog?"

Lupin sat down on the bench, more out of exhaustion that anything else, and grinned. "Shut up, Sirius."

Sirius smiled back. Then his smile faded. "I have to ask you…" He cleared his throat. "Do you remember anything?"

Lupin shut his eyes. Lightning danced across his field of vision, and pressed against the backs of his eyes. Black night, silver moonlight, forest paths; a castle rearing up out of the darkness, black against a white sky. A voice at the base of his skull. Come. Here. Now. At night, the battlements were the color of liquid mercury. Guards stood ranged along them in robes of black and silver. He saw a familiar face, turned towards him, pale hair and eyes, sensed betrayal, darkness.

His eyes flew open. "I do remember," he said, raising his eyes to Sirius´. "I remember everything — the Call — everything."

Sirius leaned forward. "I´d better tell you whatś been going on."

The first thing Draco saw on the other side of the doorway was that they were not, in fact, outside. They were in what was probably the most enormous room he had ever seen: bigger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts or the ballroom at Malfoy Manor. The walls were green-veined marble and rose up and up and up — how far underground were they? — terminating in a ceiling so high its detail was lost in darkness, as was the far end of the room. The floor was marble, too, smooth and slippery. The center of the room curved down into a huge circular depression, not deep or large enough to be an amphitheater, although it resembled nothing else. It was empty.