Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

He heard Sirius clear his throat, shut the box, and lay it down at their feet. Lupin glanced around — there was another stack of letters, which, judging from the fact that most of them were decorated with little sparkling hearts and shooting stars and seemed to be from people named Ashley, Carole and Amy, were doubtless from Siriusóld girlfriends, and which Sirius hastily pushed aside. There was a stack of old Quidditch cards, including a Ludo Bagman who grinned and winked cheerily, and an Ivan Wronski which doubtless would be worth a sizeable amount of Galleons these days. Sirius set these aside. Lastly, there was a stack of wizard photographs held together with a ribbon that Sirius slid into a pocket. Finally, he sat back on his heels, dusting off his hands, and shook his head.

"Not what you wanted?" asked Lupin, raising his eyebrows.

"No," said Sirius slowly, "no, there was this box, James was telling me about. I could have sworn…." He suddenly hopped to his feet, snapping his fingers. "Of course," he exclaimed. "Itś buried under the roots. Stand back a second, Moony."

With misgivings, Lupin did so.

Sirius retrieved his wand from a pocket. "Accio shovel!" he intoned.

Lupinś eyes popped open. "A shovel? From where, Sirius?"

"Whereverś nearest," deadpanned Sirius. "Oh, and duck," and Lupin ducked as a good-sized shovel whistled over his head and landed in Sirius´ grasp. Lupin crossed his arms and watched in mingled exasperation and amusement as Sirius rolled up the sleeves of his robes and attacked the base of the tree with the shovel. He didn´t even want to think about what the good citizens of Godricś Hollow might think about a flying shovel winging overhead.

Since Sirius´ manner discouraged assistance, Lupin sat down on a tree stump and watched as his friend hacked at the very hard ground with the edge of the shovel. Eventually Sirius stripped off his wizarding robes and threw them on the ground, and then his sweater followed. Lupin considered offering a hand, but then thought better of it. Instead, he took a bar of Scrum! Chocolate out of his pocket and began to nibble on it in a resigned fashion. They were obviously going to be there a good long time.

Draco lowered his hand slowly and turned to look at Slytherin.

The Snake Lord stood in the doorway, and Draco could tell by the dark red border of blood at the bottom of his robes that he had not yet changed his clothes. His eyes were alight, feverish, and two spots of color burned high on his cheeks. He looked neither very alive nor any longer did he look dead, but somehow in between, reflexively animate.

Draco heard Fleur get to her feet beside him. The heavy sweet scent that clung about her hair and clothes seemed stronger, maybe from proximity to the fire. It made him a little dizzy.

"Master," said Fleur, and inclined her head.

Draco didn´t move. Slytherin took a few more steps forward, until he stood in the center of the room. "Boy," he said to Draco. "You won´t greet me?"

"I won´t call you Master," said Draco evenly.

Slytherin seemed unruffled. "I would not expect you to."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Soon enough," said Slytherin, "you will call me Father."

"Yeah, you know that word doesn´t really have very good associations for me. Maybe I could call you something else?

Like…Nigel? Something friendly."

Slytherin smiled. "After this evening, you may feel differently. Do you know what I have planned?"

"I was hoping for a night at the opera, dinner, maybe some flowers, then we take a walk under the stars…you make a move, I tell you I'm not that kind of guy…"

"I do not understand your sense of humor," said Slytherin.

"I had a feeling you were going to say that." Draco fought an insane urge to snicker. "I´ve got an idea. We could get sushi and not pay."

Beside Draco, Fleur gave a frightened little squeak.

Slytherin smiled again. It was the same mirthless smile with no humor in it, a sort of reflexive muscle spasm rather than any expression of actual pleasure. "Come with me," he demanded, "both of you," and he walked out of the room.

Fleur dashed after him.

Draco followed more slowly.

They went through a series of narrow hallways and eventually emerged into a much larger room, almost circular in shape, the walls cut from the same rough stone as the rest of the castle. The room was nearly empty save for a large circle chalked into the stone floor, and a set of intricately designed tall screens against the far wall. They looked to be carved out of dragonbone, for they were whiter than ivory, and the intricate designs which adorned them were set with chips of jade, silver and malachite. They were beautiful, and Draco immediately wondered what they were hiding.

This made him glance sideways at Fleur. She was pale and looked as if she might faint.

Slytherin walked forward into the center of the room, until he stood in the very center of the chalked circle. Then he held out his left hand to Draco.

"Come here," he said.

Very reluctantly, Draco followed him. He felt a shudder rip through him as he crossed the chalk line to stand in the circle with Salazar Slytherin. The air inside the circle seemed a good ten degrees colder than the air in the rest of the room. Draco found himself shivering, the chill seeming to come from somewhere deep inside.

"Now," said the Snake Lord. "Would you prefer to suffer standing up, or kneeling down?"

Draco blinked, not wanting to believe that he had heard correctly.

"Suffer?"

"Itś your choice. I believe in nothing if not free will," said Slytherin, his voice dry and cool as snakeskin. His hand suddenly whipped out with the speed of a striking cobra, and seized the front of Dracoś robes. "Do you think I trust you?" he demanded, pushing his face close to Dracoś, black eyes staring into silver. "Your little charade earlier today notwithstanding, you have done nothing but fight me since the day I rose. Do not think I don´t know you. I have taken your measure, seen your dreams, I know what you are capable of, and incapable of. Why do you think I let you go the first time we met? You were too strong then, you would have fought me too hard.

Now you are weaker. The sword has drained you of your magic as surely as your battle with the manticore drained you of strength and that wound in your side drained you of blood. If I choose to make the charade truth now, you cannot stop me."

Dracoś voice scraped his throat. "What makes you think it was a charade?"

Slytherin released his grip on Dracoś robes. "What makes you think it matters?" he said, almost gently, and placed his hands on either side of Dracoś face. Barbs ran through Dracoś nerves where the cold fingers touched him, tracing the line of his cheekbones just under his eyes. "In your own way," said the Snake Lord, "you´re rather innocent."

"Oh, no." Dracoś voice was hard. "Thatś one thing I´m not."

"Really?" Slytherin dropped his hands from Dracoś face. "What have you done? What has been done to you?"

"Everything."

Slytherin shook his head. "No. Not everything." He held out a hand.

"Now give me your hand. Your left hand."

Numbly, Draco gave it to him. He felt as if he had left his body and was floating somewhere overhead, looking down at the circle and the two people standing in it.

"I´ll ask you again," said the Snake Lord. "Would you prefer to suffer standing, or kneeling?"

There was a silence. Finally, Draco said, "Standing."

"I thought you would say that," said Slytherin, and turned Dracoś hand palm-up, pushing his sleeve up to his elbow as he did so, exposing the unmarked skin of his forearm, traced with tiny blue veins.

"Potestatem patris nostrae in tenebris invoco," hissed Slytherin, sounding almost like Harry speaking Parseltongue, and suddenly the chalk circle flared into flames, a ring of fire burning around them.