Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

Draco had been kissed before, but not like this; he had kissed her before, but not like this. Before, her feelings had never matched his, it had always been him kissing her. Even during their last kiss, under the tree by the lake at school, he had sensed her reluctance, her desire to return to the castle and to Harry. But now, her emotion matched his, all his desire, hope, ardor and confusion mirrored in her own; it was her arm that hooked around his neck, drawing him down to kiss her, her bare feet that locked themselves around the backs of his knees. She slid her hands inside his shirt and he felt her small, cold, delicate fingers against his skin. His heart was trying to bang its way out of his ribcage and he couldn't get enough air, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was her, her whispers against his mouth, his hands tangled in her hair; she was saying his name over and over, a feverish and desperate whisper and she wanted him, and more than that. She loved him. He could feel it in the way she had looked at him, and even more in the shuddering tension of her grip on his arms. She loved him.

And then a sharp, unwelcome voice in the back of his mind spoke.

You shouldn't be doing this. It's not right.

Draco was outraged. Not right?

You should stop.

I'm not going to stop. It's a miracle, that's what this is, one chance in a thousand, and you want me to just give it up?

The small, cold voice in his head sounded smug now. It's what Harry would do.

I'm not Harry! I don't want to be Harry!

For a moment, the cold voice was silenced, and he tightened his arms around Hermione. He kissed her mouth, kissed her eyes, kissed her throat and the fluttering pulse there. He could actually hear her heart beating, he had never really been close enough to her before to hear it like that. Had never been close enough to anyone to hear it like that.

The voice spoke again, and now it was very, very cold. When they take the spell off her, she'll hate you for this. She'll hate you forever.

He froze. Hermione looked up at him, brushing hair out of her dazed eyes. "Draco, is everything all right?"

"No," he said, and rolled off her, landing on his back in the grass.

"We can't be doing this."

He heard her sharp intake of breath. "What? Why?"

"You know why," he said, staring fixedly up at the sky. He had a feeling that if he turned at looked at her, even once, his conviction would dissolve like so much smoke. "It's not real," he said leadenly.

"This isn't you."

She reached out. He felt her cool hand against his face. "I love you," she said.

He closed his eyes. "No," he said. "No, you don't."

"It hurts," she whispered.

"I know," he said, with a spark of anger, "You think I don't know?

The difference between what you feel and what I feel-"

"Is what?"

"Is that you can tell yourself that what you're feeling isn't real, and you can get rid of it with a spell. And I can't. Now get out of here, Hermione. I mean it. Get the hell out of here."

He heard her sharp intake of breath, heard her getting to her feet.

"You're right," she said, in a muffled voice. "I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize," he said. "Just leave."

She didn't say anything at all after that. He turned over and buried his face in his arms, listening through the ground to the echo of her footfalls as she walked away, growing fainter and fainter and finally fading altogether into silence.

Lupin took his glasses off and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. He felt half-blind with exhaustion, but at the same time utterly unable to sleep. Brilliant moonlight poured in through the windows, tinted pale green and pale blue by the stained glass, throwing moving blocks of color over his hands as he turned the pages of book after book.

He was sitting behind the desk in what had once been Lucius Malfoy's library, engaged in what seemed more and more like a fruitless search for some way of translating the centaur's book.

Guides to dead languages lay strewn across the desk and floor, but not one of them had yielded up any kind of Rosetta Stone that might allow him to make sense of the meaningless squiggles.

It was a cramp in his shoulder than finally prompted him to move.

He stood up, stretching his arms out, and as he did, he knocked the centaur's book to the floor. Sighing, he reached down to pick it up.

As he lifted it, it fell open to the last page of text. Only it wasn't just text. There was an illustration there as well.

Lupin sat down rather suddenly, staring at the open book in utter disbelief.

He had no idea how long he might have sat there, staring. His spellbound astonishment was finally interrupted by the sound of the library door swinging open.

It was Sirius, in black silk pajamas, blinking sleepily. "Moony, what the hell are you doing up?" he said, without preamble. "It's the middle of the night."

Lupin didn't reply. He was still staring, astonished, down at the book in front of him.

"I know you're a night creature," added Sirius, with a tired grin. "But you should really get some sleep."

Lupin cleared his throat, trying to force his voice to function.

"You're awake," he pointed out.

"Because I got an owl," said Sirius. "Landed on my head. Woke me up."

"From Harry?"

"No. Hermione Granger," said Sirius. "It's quite a letter." He held it up for Lupin to see. "Five sheets of parchment."

"What did she have to say?" asked Lupin, who had an odd sort of feeling that he already knew.

"What didn't she have to say?" said Sirius. "She wanted to tell me what happened. She says that she was kidnapped by a wizard claiming to be Salazar Slytherin. Wormtail was working for him. He dragged her off to some ruin in the forest and Harry and Draco found her there."

"A wizard claiming to be Slytherin?" echoed Lupin, eyebrows raised.

"Well, anyone can go around claiming to be Slytherin," said Sirius defensively. "You'd be surprised. I can't tell you, back when I was an Auror, how many puny-looking vampires I dispatched who went around calling themselves Dracula and Lestat."

"More to the point," said Lupin, "What did this wizard want with Hermione?"

"That's where it gets interesting," said Sirius. "Apparently he elaborated on this very baroque mythology, involving Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor, several demons-"

"She's telling the truth, Sirius," said Lupin, shortly.

"Well, of course she is. Hermione wouldn't lie. I'm just saying that grown men who kidnap teenage girls and drag them off to forest hideaways usually have one thing on their minds. Maybe he thought telling her that he was Salazar Slytherin would impress her."

"And maybe he really was Salazar Slytherin," said Lupin. "The prophecy said he would come back. The centaurs say he's back. One by one, the creatures he brought into existence — the dementors, the veelas, the vampires — are vanishing. And we know that Peter — that Wormtail always flees to the shadow of the most powerful wizard.

And what other wizard could be more powerful than Voldemort?"

Sirius looked dubious.

"Why on earth is she telling you all this, Sirius?" Lupin added.

Sirius looked more dubious. "I'm not exactly sure," he said. "She seems to be convinced that Slytherin has some kind of connection to

— "

"To Draco?" said Lupin.

"Yes," said Sirius. "She's convinced he's in some kind of danger, but she doesn't want me to tell him that she thinks so. She says that when they confronted Slytherin, Draco greeted him like..like he knew who he was."

"Maybe he did know," said Lupin. "He is a descendent of Slytherin, isn't he? And I told you about that prophecy, that Slytherin will rise and with the help of his descendent, will wreak havoc and terror on the wizarding world?"