Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"You're my ancestor," said Draco. He reached behind him, and drew the sword out of its casing, holding it in front of him. "And I think this is yours."

"It is ours," said Slytherin. "You have my blood in you, boy. And now you have my dreams and my memories. Soon you will become me."

Draco shook his head. "I really don't see that happening," he said, still holding the sword in front of him. Despite her horror, Hermione was impressed. He actually held it like he knew how to use it. Then she recalled the fencing-room at Malfoy Manor. Maybe he did know how to use it.

Slytherin smiled again, even more coldly. "You're a child," he said.

"You cannot recognize the workings of destiny. You think it is chance that brought that sword to you? Or brought you here? Or brought you to her?" he said, glancing at Hermione. "I had thought she would love me. But that she should love you — that is even better. History repeating itself, the way it was meant to be."

"Okay, there's one thing I didn't factor into this," said Draco, staring at Slytherin. "You're a thundering lunatic."

Slytherin continued to smile.

"Hermione doesn't love me," said Draco. "Do you?" he said, swinging around and staring at her.

Hermione didn't say anything.

"Consider it a gift," said Slytherin, looking at Draco. "From me to you. Only one small example of what I can give you."

"Hermione?" said Draco again, looking shocked. He stepped towards her, just as she turned towards him, and the hilt of the sword collided with her arm.

She shrieked and jumped back, holding her wrist, where a red welt was rising.

"Rowena," barked Slytherin, in what almost sounded like alarm, and began to mount the stairs, his agitation evident.

"Get back," hissed Hermione, glaring at him in revulsion. She stepped backward, seizing Draco's sleeve with her unwounded arm, almost pushing him behind her. As if she were trying to put herself between him and Slytherin. "Just get back."

Slytherin paused, looking up at them both out of dark, empty eyes.

Then he reached into his voluminous sleeve, and withdrew an object that glittered darkly in the half-light. He held it tightly for a moment, looking at Draco. Then he said, "Here, boy. Catch." And threw it, hard, directly at Draco's face.

Automatically, Draco raised the hand that wasn't holding the sword, and caught the object out of the air. Then gasped, as he felt a sudden jerk behind his navel; the world suddenly peeled down the center like an orange, and his vision flooded with a blur of color.

Portkey, he thought dizzily. He was aware of Hermione beside him, still clutching at his sleeve, and then the ground struck his feet, and he stumbled onto his knees, only just managing not to impale himself on the blade of the sword as he fell forward.

He glanced around, saw green grass growing up between cracked stone, saw a familiar, tumbledown wall, saw the line of trees that marked the beginning of the forest. And over the wall, he saw the tower from which they had just come. Slytherin had flung them outside the walls.

Hermione stared around, dazed. She could tell that they were now outside the walls of the tower — but why? She looked over at Draco, who had dropped the sword into the grass and was gazing around, looking furious.

"Goddamn it!" he yelled suddenly. "I can't believe I fell for that!

'Here, catch!' That's the oldest trick in the book, right up there with

'Look out behind you!'"

"That thing he threw at you," she said, dazed. "Was that a Portkey?"

"Must have been," he said, staring down at the object that was clutched in his hand. He slowly opened his fingers and stared. It was a weathered piece of silver, in the shape of what looked like a bent, sideways X. A loop at the top showed where a chain could be threaded through it. "Looks like a piece of cheap jewelry."

"I can't believe he just let us go," she said, suddenly.

Draco looked up, and frowned at her. "Hermione, he's madder than

…well, I can't think of anything right now, but he'd madder than some very, very mad thing. He's completely, utterly bonkers.

Probably from having been dead so long."

"He is mad," she said quietly. "But he's quite determined, as well."

Draco got up, brushing grass off his clothes, and reached out a hand to help her up as well. She took it.

It was like an electric shock. She felt a jolt go through her as his hand met hers, felt the potion in her blood respond with a wave of heat and a sudden searing burst of longing.

She got slowly to her feet, staring at him. She could sense his confusion, worry and irritation — in fact, she felt as if every inch of her body was sensitized to what he might be feeling. The shock that had overwhelmed her when she had first seen him was beginning to wear off, to be replaced by a terrible, heavy, aching sort of weight.

And a small, cold voice in the back of her mind was telling her that that weight would be relieved if she just went over to him and -

No.

She yanked her hand away. "Don't touch me."

He looked at her, bewildered and with a rising anger in his eyes.

"What on earth is wrong with you, Hermione?"

"What's wrong with me?" she echoed, with a mirthless sort of laugh.

"I love you, that's what's wrong with me."

Draco stared at her, looking as if he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. "You what?"

"I love you."

He shook his head. "I don't — "

"I'm in love with you," she said.

He went white, startlingly white — he looked more as if she had hit him than told him that she loved him. She felt as guilty as if she had hit him.

"No," he said. "You're in love with Harry."

"That's true," she said, clenching her fingers into fists of anxiety.

"That's true, but — didn't you hear what Slytherin said, back there on the stairs?"

"I thought we'd established that he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic," said Draco. "And frankly, I'm starting to wonder a bit about you."

" Slytherin gave me a love potion," Hermione said, expressionlessly.

"He meant for me to fall in love with him. It makes you fall in love with the first person you see after you drink it. Only the first person I saw," she took a deep breath, "was you."

He stared at her, looking utterly stunned. "A love potion," he repeated uncertainly.

She nodded. "Yes."

"And so now you love me? Because of a potion?"

"Yes," she said, again.

"But you didn't love me before," he said. "You didn't love me…before the potion?"

Hermione shook her head very slowly. "Not like this."

"Oh," he said blankly, and then, "How long is this meant to last for, Hermione?"

"I think," she said, "that it's meant to be permanent."

"Oh," he said again. He still looked stunned.

She reached out uncertainly towards him, and lightly took hold of his arm. The material of his jacket felt as rough as sand beneath her fingertips. She looked up into his face, and her heart turned over. It was as if her longing was so intense that it had a shape and a color of its own. "I'll figure out how to counteract it," she said desperately.

"I know there's a way. But we can't tell Harry- "

Draco looked startled. "Hermione, you have to tell him," he said, and she pulled back.

"What?"

"Are you really expecting him not to notice?" said Draco in a tight, strained voice. "He loves you. He notices everything you do. You think he's not going to notice this?"

"Notice what?" said Hermione stubbornly. "There's nothing to notice. Nothing is going to happen, except that I'm just going to have to suffer this — this horrible mistake — until we get home and I can figure out how to counteract the spell."

"Horrible mistake?" said Draco, with a very faint and unmirthful smile. "Ouch."