Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

It missed, he thought. It missed me — and then he heard a bellow of anguish so loud it split his ears. He jerked upright, and saw Harry standing over him, his sword upraised and covered in blood, and behind him the manticore, rearing and spitting in agony, thrashing its tail, which was now jetting blood like a fountain. Harry had sliced it in half on its downward stroke, and the thump that Draco had heard had been the sound of the severed scorpion-tail landing next to him. It lay on the stone floor in a widening pool of viscous red and black liquids, curling and uncurling a little, spasmodically, about a foot long and as thick around as his arm.

Rolling over, he seized the tail, dropping his sword as he did so, wincing at the slimy touch on his hand, careful not to grasp it near its poisonous barbed end. He sprang to his feet, vaguely aware that he was drenched in manticore blood, vaguely aware of Harry, holding his sword and looking as tiny in front of the rearing monster as a piece of debris in the face of an oncoming wave, shouting something at him, vaguely aware of the manticoreś furious yells as he darted towards it — it lunged, snapping at him and he saw its double row of razor-sharp teeth — he drew his arm back and as hard as he could threw the barbed stinger into the monsterś gaping open mouth.

Reflexively, its teeth snapped down, its throat working to swallow-

then it froze in place, choking and gurgling, lashing its head furiously from side to side as if it could rid itself of its own poison.

Its knees began to buckle, and it screamed. Not like an animal might scream, but a human scream of pain and agony. The monsterś screams knifed into Dracoś ears, sending him staggering back, stumbling, and he felt Harry catch him hard around the arm, steadying him. Harry let go almost immediately, and the two boys stood and stared as the manticore gave another, final howl and crashed to the ground like a tree falling, its tail still jetting blood, rolling onto its back, head lolling, limbs rigid as broomsticks.

"Is it dead?" Harry hissed, his voice hard.

"Not yet," said Draco, and almost as if it had heard him, its huge dinner-plate eyes snapped wide open and staring. And it spoke.

"You," it snarled, and its voice was like gravel running over sandpaper. Its gaze was fixed on Draco, who almost involuntarily took a step forward. The manticoreś scarlet-black eyes followed his movement, glittering. "You," it said again. "I am dying, and so I know you." The beastś eyes rolled, the whites showing briefly. It seemed to be struggling to move. "Master," it growled. "Why do you slay me? It was you who made me what I am."

Draco stared, feeling his heart beating in slow, uneven thumps as the adrenaline slowly drained out of his veins, leaving him dizzy and sick. "No," he said, his voice harsh. "Not me."

"I know you," said the manticore again, and then a great spasm wracked its body; its eyes shut, and it died.

After the howls and the screaming and the deafening sounds of the fight, the silence that descended on the room once the manticore was dead was profound. Draco turned slowly, and looked at Harry.

And got something of a shock. Harry was drenched in blood — a little of his own, probably, but mostly the monsterś. His shirt was soaked scarlet, his hands covered in blood, his hair plastered to his head and scarlet rivulets running down his face and neck. Without looking at Draco, he said, flatly, "Give me your cloak."

Numbly, Draco took it off and handed it to him. Harry plucked off his glasses, used the edge of the cloak to clean the blood off them, and then handed the cloak back to Draco, sliding his glasses back onto his nose. Through the newly cleaned lenses, he regarded the dead monster with narrowed eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was cold. "I guess we won."

"Itś dead, if thatś what you mean." Draco glanced down at himself. He was splattered with blood as well, but not nearly as drenched as Harry. He looked up and found the other boy staring at him, his face streaked with blood, eyes burning with an unnerving green fire.

"It said something to you," said Harry, gesturing at the manticore.

"What did it say?"

Draco blinked in surprise. "You mean you didn´t understand it?"

Harry shook his head, narrowing his eyes. "No. No, I didn´t."

It just asked me why I —

"Stay out of my head," Harry snapped, backing away as if distance could snap the connection between them. "We´re not okay. Did anything give you the idea that we were okay?"

"You saved my life," said Draco, too wrung out to dissemble or pretend.

"I would have done that for anyone," said Harry flatly.

There was a short, unpleasant silence. Then Draco began, "But I — "

"Shut up, Malfoy," interrupted Harry with such savagery that Draco did, in fact, shut up. "I think you should just-" and then his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open and Draco turned around to see what he was looking at, and got such a shock that he felt as if his stomach had caved in.

Fleur was standing only a few feet from them, a look of curious interest on her face. She was flanked by six tall hooded gray-clad men who could only be guards, their faced half-hidden by the hoods of their robes. And beside her stood Salazar Slytherin. He had one hand on her shoulder, and he was smiling.

Behind them, the door had reappeared in the wall.

Draco froze, then went for his sword, but it was too late. "Ligatus," said Slytherin swiftly, raising his hand, and Draco suddenly found his arms snapped behind his back, his wrists bound tightly together with what felt like metal bands. He turned his head and saw the same had happened to Harry; his wrists were bound tightly behind him, and from the blue-white gleam at his back, Draco suspected the cuffs were made of adamantine.

Having bound them, Slytherin appeared to briefly lose interest in the boys. He walked over to the dead body of the manticore and knelt down, seeming to study it, his eyes dark and unreadable.

Finally he raised his head, and looked at Harry and Draco. "You killed it," he said. "Did you not?"

Neither of them replied.

"Have you no answer for me?" the Snake Lord demanded.

"Oh, I´ve got an answer for you all right," said Draco, "only you can´t see it, because my hands are tied behind my back."

Then Harry spoke. His voice was flat with hatred. "Yes, we killed your monster," he said. "We killed it, and it died horribly, and we are not sorry."

"As well you should not be," said Slytherin, standing up, a smile beginning on his face. "I brought you here to kill it. Thank you both, very much."

"I can´t believe you tried to use it without me."

"Ginny…"

"You should have known it wouldn´t work. How thick are you?"

"Very thick," said Ron fervently. He was sitting on the end of Ginnyś bed, Hermione beside him, both of them looking abashed and sincere. "Very, very thick. Especially Hermione."

Hermione hit him on the shoulder. "I am not thick."

"Ow," said Ron.

Ginny sat up and grinned. She hadn´t been all that surprised when Ron and Hermione had come into her room and woken her up, nor had she been all that surprised when they´d told her what they had tried to do. And she had been particularly unsurprised that it hadn´t worked. The Turner was hers, after all, she´d known that the moment she touched it. She held out her hand for it now, and Hermione placed the tiny sparkling hourglass in her palm. The light struck a sharp gold spark off the Turner that lanced into her eyes.

She shut them quickly, but not before the dark red afterimages had begun to form a picture against the back of her eyelids — she saw a huge field when men and beasts strove together, and smoke rising above it, and -

She opened her eyes with a start, feeling that she was beginning to understand exactly why Hermione thought her own dreams were so important. The man in the dream she had had earlier had looked so much like Harry, even down to the untidy hair so black that it seemed like it should leave marks, like paint or soot, on his face where it brushed his skin. But he hadn´t been Harry…he had been someone very different. She had felt about him the way she felt about her own brothers, her flesh and blood. And she had called him Godric.