Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"Harry?" Hermioneś voice came from a long way away. He went on leaning against the wall, lost in a dark haze of memory, until he felt her small hands at his waist, loosening the scabbard there, and it clattered to the floor with the sword still in it and the mist lifted from his eyes as if a wind had blown it away. He heard himself taking deep, gasping breaths, and raised his eyes.

Hermioneś face swam slowly into focus. She looked very anxious.

"Harry?"

"I´m all right." He pushed himself off the wall, feeling his shirt stuck to his back with sweat and water. "I was just…"

"Itś the Key," said Hermione, the anxiety in her eyes turning into sympathy. "It makes you…remember things." At his anxious look, she hastened to reassure him. "Not all the time. In dreams, and in certain situations."

"What kind of situations?" Harry demanded, although he had a feeling he knew. He looked around the room, then back at Hermione. "I think Godric died in here," he said.

She nodded without speaking, and drew him towards her. She rested her hands lightly on his shoulders, lifting her face to his. "I know," she said. "I felt it. Something awful happened in here; something heartbreaking."

He didn´t say anything. There was a fierce pain inside him, made up of residual nightmare, the aftereffects of so many stresses and torments, the constant fear for his own life and for the life of those that he loved. He looked down at her, half-blindly, and saw her face, very white in the flaring and fading light of the Orb. "Harry," she said. Her eyes searched his. "I love you, you know that," she said quietly. "I always will."

He nodded, the tangled knot of emotions inside his chest tightening almost painfully as he looked at her, her eyes dark and earnest, fringed by lashes beaded with water. He remembered the first time he had ever kissed her, both of them drenched in rain, and a blazing stab of yearning and pain struck at his heart. Unthinking, he bent and kissed her, as he had not been able to for days, even weeks: hard and fiercely, as if hungry for something he had not even quite realized he was starving for.

She responded instantly, her hands locking across his back, lips opening under his. She stood on tiptoe, her back against the pillar, pushing her body against his, her head arched back, whispering into his mouth, repeating his name, Harry, Harry, Harry. Her eyes were closed, and he could see the leaping pulse in her throat, hammering as he touched her, his hands finding his way through the wet folds of her clothes as if he were pushing through damp leaves, peeling them away. He felt her body shake as he touched her and his mouth on hers trembling and he saw another room and another man, with untidy dark hair and dressed in scarlet, and a woman in blue, and the light of tawny candles glowing, and then behind them a door opened, and another man came in, and this one was dressed in black and silver…

Hermione gasped.

Harry spun away from her, his hand going to the scabbard at his waist, his damp fingers slipping over the hilt of his sword. But it was too late. Salazar Slytherin stood there in front of the glowing Orb, and in his left hand he held something silvery-gray and filmy, which Harry recognized with a lurching swell of shock that almost knocked him off his feet.

James Potterś Invisibility Cloak.

* * * * *

The castle was in chaos; Sirius had never seen anything like it. He had insisted that Lupin remove the still extremely weakened Fleur to the relative safety of the werewolves´ den, where she could be protected. Lupin had allowed Sirius to borrow his Paw Paw wood and unicorn tail wand and Sirius was edging cautiously along the walls, map in hand, trying to orient himself in order to get closer to the dots marked Virginia Weasley, Benjamin Gryffindor, and Draco Malfoy.

Thundering down the corridors were creatures of all description, locked in mortal combat with regiments of wizards. A ten-foot swamp troll heaved its axe at a witch dressed in Hufflepuff gold; a beaky veela screeched and launched herself at a heavily armed witch in Gryffindor red, who dispatched her handily with a Combustis spell. A wizard in Ravenclaw blue was being chased round and round the stairwell by Raven, the banshee, who was shrieking and brandishing the Giant pike. Everywhere Oggrings were being dispatched in all their shapes and forms, and unpleasant black flying things glared with horrible fierce eyes, diving and biting at anything that moved. And where was Slytherin? He must be somewhere in the upper tiers of the castle, since he wasn´t showing up on the abbreviated Map. This made Sirius even more nervous -

what was he plotting?

His thoughts were firmly disrupted as he passed a set of double doors; they flew open, and out of them poured twenty or so skeletons dressed in brazen armor and carrying great axes. Skolks.

They rattled and clanked across the floor. Sirius ducked back against the wall, but one of them — the captain, probably, for he had a scarlet plume flying from the top of his brass helmet — turned and glared at Sirius with darkly glowing red eyes. With a hiss, he lunged at Sirius, who whipped out his wand and hurled a quick succession of spells at the creature, all of which bounced off its armor. Sirius had to duck to keep from being struck by a rebounding Impedimenta curse. He heard the whistle of displaced air as the Skolkś axe whipped just above his head; ducked, knowing it was useless, and then -

A hand grabbed the back of his robes and yanked him backwards as a flashing sword came down, leaving a trail of scarlet fire behind it in the air. It struck the skeleton in the shoulder, and the Skolk burst apart into a heap of tumbled bones. Silently, the other skeletons backed away, then turned and fled down the hall. Sirius saw the red stones in the hilt of the sword glitter as it was withdrawn, and thought, with mingled shock and relief, Harry?

He turned around, and saw, staring back at him with an expression of concern, James Potter.

* * * * *

Ginny seized Dracoś arm so tightly that he winced. "Sirius," she said, and pointed.

Draco glanced where she indicated, and saw Sirius, leaning back against a wall further down the corridor, and standing in front of him, Ben. At their feet was a heap of Skolk bones — Draco had just dispatched several of them himself, and Ginny had quite impressively destroyed one by kicking it apart with her foot. Sirius was white as chalk; Draco had never seen him look like that. Surely he couldn´t have been so badly put off by the Skolk; he was an Auror, after all. Then he twigged. Ben. Unprotesting, he let Ginny seize his hand and together they raced down the corridor to Sirius.

Ginny caught at Harryś godfatherś arm. "Sirius," she panted.

"This is Ben — Benjamin Gryffindor. Harryś ancestor."

Ben, having resheathed his sword, had been holding his hand out to Sirius and was looking extremely confused. "Is something wrong?"

The color came slowly back into Sirius´ face. Draco looked at him, and felt a twinge of unhappy empathy. Until now, it hadn´t occurred to him that a twenty-year old man who looked just like a dark-eyed, scarless Harry would be someone who looked just like James had when he had died. And behind the comprehension dawning in Siriuséyes, there was something else. Disappointment.

Wearily, Sirius held his own hand out. "Nothing. I thought you were someone else. I´m Sirius Black."

Another one of the nasty black flying things swooped low overhead.

Draco dispatched it with his sword, splattering green ichor all over Ben, who glared.

"Now we can continue to stand here exchanging pointless pleasantries and get hacked to death in the process, or we can go after the Orb," said Draco. "Thoughts?"

Ginny pointed. "Upstairs," she said shortly, fingering the Turner around her wrist.