Кассандра Клэр: Draco Sinister

Especially if they are related to me, in fact."

She smiled coolly, and reached for his hand. A moment later, he felt something cold, hard and round pressed into his palm. She closed his fingers around it; he knew without looking that it was the signet ring. "Your father," she said, "wanted you to have that."

"What is this?" He was astonished at the coldness in his own tone.

"What are you playing at, Rhysenn?"

"I can´t tell you," she said. "I must give you the written message.

Those were my instructions."

"Instructions from who?"

In answer, she only smiled, and tugged at his closed fist. He let her lead him into the shadow of a curtained alcove. She pushed him into it and then followed, dragging the curtain shut behind them. In the shadowy half-light, she smirked up at him, let go of his hands, and reached down to start unlacing the front of her tight, poppy-embroidered bodice.

Draco took an involuntary step back, although he didn´t take his eyes off her. (He was, after all, seventeen.) "What are you doing?"

She smiled again and tossed her hair so that it ran down her back like a river of black ink. She inhaled, which, given the state of her clothes, was impressive. "Giving you room," she said. "The message.

Come and find it."

And he did.

Anyone passing by the alcove, curtained off though it was, would have heard the sound of a slight scuffle, much giggling and a somewhat out-of-breath-sounding Draco saying, "Wouldn´t it have been easier on you just to jump out of the birthday cake stark naked, if this was what you were after?"

"So naff," replied Rhysenn, amused. "I like to do things my way.

Anyway, don´t look at me. I´m just the delivery service."

Dracoś voice was razor-wire sharp. "Something gives me the feeling you don´t work for The Ministryś Official Owl Post Service. Or is this something only the premium customers get?" He drew in his breath then. "Ah," he said a bit weakly. "Never mind."

A few moments later, the tapestry was drawn aside, and a pleased-looking Rhysenn Malfoy exited the alcove, followed by a very flushed and disarrayed Draco, who was clutching a roll of parchment in his left hand. With a wink and a pout, she vanished into the crowd. Draco stared after her for a moment, then turned and walked quickly towards the wide marble staircase at the far end of the hall. He took the stairs two at a time, strode down the long second-floor hallway to the library, and bolted himself inside.

A fire was burning in the grate, sparkling bright blue and purple in honor of the party. There was no other light in the room except the cold moonlight that came through the high arched windows, throwing milky patches against the floor. The cherrywood desk that had been his father's, piled high now with giftwrapped presents for Harry, loomed ghostlike in the corner. With a slight shiver of unpleasant premonition, Draco crossed the room to the fireplace, unrolled the parchment he was holding, and began to read. It was a letter, and it was addressed to him.

Draco, That was a very amusing show you put on last night, ranting and raving at my gravesite. (At this, the paper shook violently in Dracoś hands.) Most of what you said was ridiculous adolescent posturing, but I would agree with you on one point — I am not God, nor have I ever pretended to be. And unlike God, I have no plans to give over my only son to the rabble — the Potters and the Blacks and the Weasleys and the rest of the trash of this world. You belong to me, Draco, you always have, and to that dark power under whose auspices we both are bound. You know of whom I speak. He sends his thanks to you for ridding the world of the only wizard who could have stood against him and his rise. I myself confess I had my doubts that you were capable, but his faith in you never faltered.

Whatever powers he gifted you with in your childhood when he passed on his Heir of Slytherin status to you, they are beyond anything even I might have imagined. You rebellious nature troubles me, but he assures me that can be curbed given the right… incentives. In any case, for the first time, you have made me proud of you. I enclose our family signet ring as a token that I consider you at last a real Malfoy; wear it, and wait for word from me. I shall come to you on your true birthday. Expect me. Know that I am watching you. And that I am, as always, Your father, Lucius Nero Malfoy

As soon as his eyes has scanned his father's sprawling signature, the paper burst into ashes in Draco's shaking hands, sifting away through his fingers, leaving behind only what he had been clutching in his fist — the signet ring, which caught the light of the fire and glimmered in the darkness like a live black coal.

My father, he thought. My father… is alive.

Harry stood in the shadows beside a tapestry and looked down at his wrist. He had extricated himself from Cho, only to be swept up by Lavender and then Parvati. He was glad to see them all, but generally felt secure when dancing only with Hermione, who knew what a dreadful dancer he was and did not mind. There was also something else troubling him — the band Charlie had given him, which rested awkwardly around his wrist. He noticed that as he danced, moving between the close-packed dancers on the floor, the band would change temperature, becoming blazingly hot one moment, scaldingly cold the next. He looked down at his wrist, chafed red and raw now, and wondered what the hell it meant.

"That is an expensive-looking piece of jewelry," said a soft voice in Harry's ear.

He turned to see the girl who had come down the stairs with Charlie earlier standing at his shoulder, smiling at him. He had not heard her approach. Up close, she was clearly a Malfoy, with the long upswept bones of cheek and chin and jaw, and steady gray eyes.

Those eyes were fixed firmly on the band around his wrist.

"Some thief will have your hand," she said, "to get that from you."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. Something about her set his teeth on edge. She was not natural. "I don´t see where itś any of your business."

"I suppose you don't mind," she smiled. "You wear it on your left wrist. Should you lose that, you still have your right hand to do your magic with. And to catch the Snitch with, of course."

"I don´t recall," Harry said coolly, "asking you for any advice."

"It's not jewelry, you know," she said, and smiled. "It's not a bracelet. It's a runic band. But perhaps you would be better off to treat it like jewelry and to let a thief steal it."

Harry felt a prickle of cold run along his spine, and shook his head to clear it. "What makes you say that?"

"I can read runic lettering," she said, looking down at the band.

Harry followed her gaze to it, seeing again the marks along the band that had looked like scratches to him. "Can you?"

Harry shook his head slowly. A cold feeling of mistrust was spreading up his spine, spearing the base of his skull. "No. But my girlfriend can."

"Can she?" The girl put a long cool hand against his cheek and turned his face toward her. There was no desire in her touch, no lust; rather Harry felt as if with her gaze she was somehow turning him inside out, examining the contents of his brain. "Then she can tell you that that rune augurs betrayal," she said. "Those who you think you can trust, you cannot trust. Those to whom you will go to seek advice will offer you false counsel. Your enemies will find you out, and your friends will arrive too late to give you aid."

"Is that your prediction?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice light, although his heart was pounding.

"Itś a certainty," said the girl, her long eyes unreadable.

"And is there anything I can do to avoid this outcome?"

"Probably not." She pointed a long finger at the band around his wrist. "But if I were you, I would thread that like an extra buckle on my belt, not wear it so obviously on my wrist, inviting trouble. If you are determined to keep it, that is."