Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

They ran upstairs en masse, crouching low. The battle raged on around them, but something — probably the fact that they were with the Heir of Slytherin — kept most of the worst of it away from them.

They raced quickly around the marble spiral staircase, Draco in the lead, turned several corridors, and found themselves standing before a set of carved malachite doors. The carvings depicted scenes of battle and court life.

Slightly breathless, Draco pointed at the door. "The Orbś in there."

"And so might Slytherin and dozens of minions be," pointed out Ben, fingering the hilt of his sword.

Draco looked at Ben, then at Sirius, and then, with a slight shrug, reached out, took the handle of the door, and pushed it open.

They all peered around the edge of the door. They saw a vast and empty room, in the center of which the jade-colored Orb sat displayed on its serpentine pedestal. There was no sign of any other furnishings, save a series of strange markings on the floor.

"I´ll go in and get it," said Draco, drawing his sword and looking at Sirius. "You lot, stand guard and make sure nobody comes in."

"I´m going with you," said Ginny. She shook her head at Dracoś mutinous expression.

"Maybe we can get it open — I´m Hufflepuff, and you´ve got Slytherin and Gryffindor blood — if it doesn´t work, we´ll just take the Orb instead, but we might as well try. Anyway, itś safer in there than it is out here," and she gave him a little half-grin that was rather cute.

Sirius had his wand out and a determined expression plastered across his face. "You two go — we´ll keep out anything that might come in after you."

Draco nodded at him and at Ben, who was staring off down the darkened corridor, his sword glimmering in the half-light. Then he took Ginnyś hand, and ducked in through the open malachite doors. They stepped into the vast circular chamber, and as they did so, Draco distinctly heard the malachite doors shut and lock behind them with a sharp, audible click.

* * * * *

Hermione knew what the gold pillars were for, now. She stood with her back against one, her wrists and ankles bound tightly to it with slender, steel-strong ropes. Harry, beside her, was likewise bound, only his right hand was also encased in an adamantine cuff which ran through the side of the pillar. Both of them had been too stunned to react when Slytherin had first revealed himself, and had lost precious seconds of time trying to recover from the shock.

Harry had shoved Hermione behind him and as a consequence, she hadn´t even seen Slytherin hit him with a Stunning spell. He had collapsed in front of her, and she had gone for her Lycanthe, but it was already too late — Slytherin had flung an Impedimenta spell at her with bruising force, knocking her to the ground. She had blacked out momentarily, and when she had regained consciousness, no more than seconds later, she had found herself magically bound to a pillar, Harry across from her.

She could just see Harry over Salazar Slytherinś shoulder. He still looked groggy and dazed from the Stunning spell, and there was a spreading bruise on his cheek where the spell had hit him. Her heart ached, looking at him. As if he hadn´t been through enough, as if they both hadn´t been through enough. But why Harry, why always Harry?

Then Slytherin moved in front of her, cutting off her view of him.

"I´m so sorry to have interrupted that tender moment you were having," he said, looking down at her out of his sleepy black lizard eyes. "Would you believe that I once interrupted my Rowena and my miscreant cousin Godric in this very room, in much the same…situation?" He cocked his head, and his eyes raked her face and then her body. She wanted to squirm away, but the ropes held her fast. "I imagine you would believe it, wouldn´t you," he murmured. "A betrayal like that leaves its marks even down through a thousand years. And you appear to have the same rather disgusting proclivities that she did. How unfortunate, a pretty little thing like you. And I was almost planning to let you live, before.

What a disappointment."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away from him. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, so filled with loathing it felt as if she might burst. Her one consolation was that without Ginny and Draco, he couldn´t open the Orb. She hoped they were far, far away.

"What do you see when you shut your eyes?" he whispered, laying cold, long fingers against her cheek. "You remember, don´t you," he said. "How it was, with us. The rooms in this castle, where we were together-"

Hermioneś eyes flew open. "I remember nothing," she spat at him.

"You´re disgusting. Don´t touch me."

"I am disgusting?" he snarled, and his lip curled back over pointed teeth. Her stomach lurched. He stepped back, taking his hand from her face. "You. I thought you were like her. I looked at you through his eyes and I saw he loved you as I had loved her. And so I took you. I would have made you my Source. But years of breeding with Mudbloods and Muggles has corrupted the pure line of her blood.

You are not like my Rowena. You stood next to my Heir on the stairs and I saw how that sword burned your arm, and I realized. You are no Magid. You are nothing. An ordinary girl, Muggle-born, my servants tell me. Not worthy to be a Source of mine. Not worthy to wear her face, not worthy to have her blood run in your veins.

You´re nothing."

Hermione glared at him in furious disgust. "She didn´t love you," she hissed. "I have her memories, and I know. All she ever was to you was something to possess and to control. And she realized that, and she didn´t love you. She loved Godric. All you ever were to her was something evil, something foul — "

He hit her. His ringed fist hammered up into her jaw and her teeth met in her lip in a burst of agony. She gasped and through the haze of pain that darkened her vision, she saw Harry throw himself forward, the ropes that bound him to the pillar dragging themselves out to their fullest extension, but it still wasn´t far enough for him to reach Slytherin.

And Slytherin turned and looked at him. And smiled. As terrible a smile as could be imagined. "Little Heir of Gryffindor," he said. "You look so much like him, but he was never as slight as you, or as breakable. But like you, I think, the most breakable part of Godric was always his heart. You wouldn´t have thought it to look at him, but there it was. Now — watch me," he smiled, and Hermione heard with dread in her heart the torturerś smirk in his tone. It was oddly reminiscent to her of Dracoś voice, as he had sounded years ago when his only goal in life seemed to be to hurt Harry as much and as often as possible. She tensed, feeling instinctively that Slytherin would go for her as the most direct way to hurt Harry. But he didn´t.

He lifted the Invisibility Cloak he had been carrying wrapped around his right fist, and from a pocket of his robes he drew a long, thin-bladed knife. He looked at Harry. And then he plunged the blade of the knife into the Cloak, shredding it. The knife tore through it with the sound of rending cloth that was also a also held a sound like screaming. Hermione gasped, but there was nothing she could do; within seconds the Cloak — that had been James Potterś, that had accompanied Harry, Hermione and Ron on so many adventures, that had saved their lives, that had been the one thing Harry had ever had that had once belonged to his father — was in ribbons around Slytherinś feet.

And Harry didn´t move, or speak. He bowed his head, as if he was unable to look, but she saw his shoulders shake. And it was unbearable, the worst pain in the world, to see Harry suffer and to see him look defeated. She wanted to scream and to howl in rage and despair, and if she could have gotten free of her bonds, she felt sure she would have killed Slytherin with her bare hands. There was no sound in the room, except the sound of Harryś uneven breathing, and her own ragged gasps in her ears, and the sound of the door opening.