Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"I´m not usually wrong about people," he said. "I was wrong about you. I won´t forgive you for that."

"I told you. This is not my fault."

He gave a short bark of laughter. "Not your fault? Okay, one of us has been drinking and I´m sad to say it isn´t me."

She reached out again, caught at his sleeve. "Let me explain, let me tell you why — my sister-"

He cast her hand away from him so violently that it smacked against the edge of the table, sending a shooting pain up her arm. "Don´t touch me."

"I know you feel lied to — "

"Yes, well, that would be because you lied to me. Funny how these things work."

A sudden white blaze of anger lit inside her, and she could feel her breath coming short. Of course, that was happening often, these days. "You are a fine one to talk about lies," she snarled. "After I have just seen you turn your back on the only person in your life who was ever a friend to you."

Draco went white. She saw his hand go back and wondered for a moment if he was going to hit her, and resolved that if he did, she would hit him back. And then a voice cut through the buzzing of anger and exhaustion in her head, a voice that pinned them both in place, immobile as butterflies caught under glass.

"Children," said Salazar Slytherin from the doorway. "When you are done…fighting with each other, I require your attention."

"Waiting for us?" Hermione echoed faintly, still staring.

The boy who looked like Harry nodded. "Thereś not much time.

You´d better come with me right away."

"Not so fast," said Ron, trying to push Ginny and Hermione behind him. This was unsuccessful, since both of them resisted his efforts to be protective with indignant muttering noises. "Who are you? Why should we go anywhere with you?"

"Ron," interrupted Ginny, pushing at his arm. "Can´t you see he looks just like Harry?"

"And that automatically makes him trustworthy? If he was a dead ringer for Professor Vector would you be following him home?"

The boy was looking at them as if they were mad. "Who do I look like?"

"A friend of ours," said Hermione, giving Ronś hand a warning rap with her knuckles. "Did you say you´ve been waiting here for us?

How do you know who we are, and how did you know we would be here? And are you…you must be a Gryffindor. Aren´t you?"

The boyś face tightened. "Godric Gryffindor was my father." He looked at the girls, and swept them a little bow. "My name is Benjamin."

Ginny looked impressed. "He bowed," she said, poking Hermione.

"Guys never do that any more."

"I was raised to be polite to women," said Benjamin, glancing at them dubiously. "Even if they are dressed like Muggle men."

Ron was still looking at him suspiciously. "How do we know you are who you say you are?"

The boy sighed, and reached over his shoulder. He drew forth something that glimmered in the sharp sunlight — it was a long-bladed sword in a scabbard of marred, dark silver, engraved all over with brilliant designs of flowers and animals and leaves that flowed together intricately to form the word Gryffindor. The hilt of the sword was set with scarlet stones which formed the shape of a lion.

Ginny sucked in her breath, looking at the hilt. "Harry had that sword with him in the Chamber of Secrets. Thatś the sword of Gryffindor."

"Yes, it is," said Benjamin, and looked hard at her. "You´re Helgaś heir. You look like she must have when she was younger."

She nodded. "I´m Ginny."

"And you are the Heir of Ravenclaw," he went on, looking at Hermione. "Sheś been waiting for you." His gaze slid to Ron. "Are you…the Heir of Gryffindor? I didn´t think you would be so…"

"Red-headed?" put in Ginny with a mischievous smile.

"I´m nobodyś Heir," said Ron, looking long-suffering. "Just some git along for the ride, apparently."

Benjamin looked doubtful. Hermione put in quickly, "Did you mean it when you said we didn´t have much time?´

"We don´t." Benjaminś voice was short. "Rowena.." His voice trailed off. "You´ll see when we get to her."

His voice was tight with unhappiness. He swept his red cloak around himself and set off without looking back. Pausing only to glance and shrug at the others, Hermione followed him, Ginny and Ron behind her.

Benjamin wended his way through the rubble as if it were a familiar landscape. Hermione scrambled to catch up and walk beside him.

She was bursting with curiosity. "What happened here?"

He looked at her incredulously. Hermione couldn´t repress a little shiver. It was bizarre to see such black eyes looking out of Harryś face. "The war," he said.

"Between who?" Hermione was fairly sure she knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

Skidding down a slope of tumbled rock and broken bits of stone, Benjamin shook his head. "The Snake Lord raised an army," he said.

"He marched against the House of Wizards and against those who were once his friends…don´t you know all this? Isn´t it like a history lesson for you?"

"Humor me," said Hermione.

The boy shrugged. "All right. The Snake Lord created an army of goblins, shapeshifters, and hybrid half-man creatures. The whole wizarding world was drawn into the battle. On our side, we had the giants, unicorns and the dwarves — "

"What about the dragons?" demanded Ginny, catching up to them.

Benjamin snorted. "Dragons don´t choose sides usually. They watch.

They have funny senses of humor, dragons. But Slytherin had some kind of control over them." He paused and glanced around him at the wreckage. "This was Hufflepuff Castle," he said. "What wasn´t burned to the ground by dragonfire was destroyed in the aftermath of the curse."

"What curse?" Hermione demanded. She couldn´t help thinking of the curse that Sirius had been accused of performing, that had had smashed apart a street and killed twelve Muggles. How much stronger this curse must have been.

"Rowena will explain that to you," said Benjamin as they came around a corner of broken wall and out into the sunlight and open spaces.

Hermione gasped. The landscape was barely recognizable as that which surrounded the Burrow and Ottery St. Catchpole. Open field stretched before them, as far as the eye could see, the blue sky arcing overhead. Dotting the field, in clusters and lines, were hundreds, possibly thousands of wizarding tents, both large and small, and all the colors of the rainbow. It was like the scene at the Quidditch World Cup, only a hundred times more so. Magical pennants snapped overhead in the brisk winter wind: she saw the scarlet of Gryffindor, the blue of Ravenclaw, the gold of Hufflepuff.

The firefly spark of campfires glowed in between the tents, and she could see dozens of figures hurrying about, some clearly human, some clearly not.

"Blimey," exclaimed Ron from behind her, sounding impressed.

"I´ve seen pictures of camps like these in textbooks, from the goblin rebellions. I never thought I´d see one in real life."

On the way to the camp, they passed over the remains of what had been a moat and would one day be the Weasleys´ quarry. Stone steps led down into it, and a thin layer of dirty water covered the bottom. Hermione couldn´t help staring as they crossed over it on a thin plank of wood. Somewhere down there lay incalculable treasure, not to mention the Time-Turner that would one day be Ginnyś.

Close up, the camp made for an even more bizarre sight. Hermione, Ron and Ginny stuck close behind Benjamin as he wended his way through the tents, trying to ignore the odd looks they were getting.

Hermione supposed they did look bizarre — she wished she had worn something other than jeans and a jumper, but then she didn´t have any thousand-year-old wizarding robes lying around. Anyway, the denizens of the camp were none too ordinary-looking themselves.