Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"This isn't Hell, Father," he said. "When you get to Hell, I think you'll find there will be a lot more of 'our kind of people' there."

The door opened, and Draco went through it.

If Ron had been worrying about finding Harry, his worries were quickly dissipated as soon as he left the library. It turned out to be a simple matter of following the sounds of breakage and explosions.

Ron paced nervously down the winding corridors, stopped in front of a large metal-bound oak door, through which he could now hear what sounded like glass shattering, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

A bizarre sight met his eyes. For one bewildered moment, he thought that it was somehow, impossibly, snowing in the room. The air was full of drifting white shapes; he could see Harry standing in the center of the room, a slender dark shadow in the middle of a feathery-white tornado. And feathery was right, he realized, stepping further into the room, they were feathers — feathers from at least a dozen pillows, which Harry had somehow managed to shred into pieces. Remnants of pillow casing lay around the room and many tiny white feathers were caught in Harry's black hair.

"Harry," said Ron, caught between sympathy and amazement.

"What've you done?"

"What does it look like?" said Harry, crossing his arms over his chest like a mutinous five-year-old.

Ron looked around with slowly dawning suspicion. They were obviously in a bedroom — there was a black four-poster bed and a huge wardrobe shoved against a far wall. "What room are we in?" he asked.

"Malfoy's bedroom," announced Harry, with grim satisfaction.

"I thought as much," said Ron.

"I'm redecorating," announced Harry, and Ron watched in amazement as a pair of glass candlesticks sailed across the room and smashed merrily into a far wall.

"Sirius is going to kill you," he said, awed.

"Good," said Harry. "A quick, painless death sounds like just what the doctor ordered right about now."

"Harry," said Ron, taking advantage of the momentary break in the storm to sidle a little closer to Harry, just in case he needed to tackle him. Although that option was looking extremely unappealing, due in no large part to the enormous amount of broken glass on the floor. "It's just a spell! She doesn't have any actual feelings for Malfoy!"

Harry just looked at him.

"Okay," said Ron grudgingly. "Maybe she has some, very slight, in fact extremely teensy, kind of feelings for him. But nothing significant."

"You saw Lupin's face," said Harry, brushing feathers out of his hair.

"He doesn't think there's any counterspell. I could tell."

Ron was shocked. "Of course there's a counterspell."

"No, there isn't," said Harry, sounding resigned. "She's going to spend the rest of her life in love with Malfoy…and I can either try to keep her with me and watch her wish she was with him, or just let her go off with him and they'll get married and have curly-haired blond children and I'll be "Uncle Harry" and maybe they'll even name one of their horrible offspring after me and — "

"HARRY!" Ron interrupted desperately. "You're wittering."

Bang! One of the fluffy pillows on the bed shot up into the air and exploded, showering everything with feathers.

"It's just a spell," said Ron, again, sadly brushing feathers off his shoulder. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Then why didn't she tell me?" said Harry, glaring at Ron, at the feathers, and at everything else in the room. "She could have just told me but she chose not to. Either she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to know so she could enjoy the whole being in love with Malfoy experience, or she doesn't trust me enough to think that I could handle it, which is ridiculous."

"Right," said Ron, unable to help himself, "because you're handling it SO WELL right now."

Harry's eyes narrowed.

At that moment, the door swung open.

It was Ginny. She was looking irritable, and her eyes lit immediately on Ron, and she frowned. "I am not useless-" she began.

"Ginny!" interrupted Ron, in horror. "I'm a little busy right now!"

"But-" Ginny looked from Ron, to Harry, to the multitude of drifting feathers and her eyes widened in shock. "I thought — " she began, uncertainly.

"Ginny, get out of here," added Ron, nervously.

But Harry was now looking at her with narrow eyes. "No," he said.

"Stay, why don't you. You like me, don't you, Ginny?"

"Um," said Ginny, looking alarmed. "Sure I like you, Harry…"

"Do you want to go out with me?"

Ginny's mouth formed a small "O" of surprise. "What?"

"Do you want to go out with me?" yelled Harry, who was now so covered in feathers that it looked as if he'd been attacked by molting pigeons.

"All right, that's enough of that," announced Ron and, in a classic move used by older brothers throughout history, stepped forward and firmly closed the bedroom door in his sister's face. Then he turned on Harry, and looked at him sternly.

"You're drunk," he said.

Harry glared at him. "I am not drunk."

"Yes, you are," said Ron somberly. "Drunk on power." He pointed at the bed. "Sit down, Harry."

Rather to Ron's amazement, Harry sat. "That wasn't very nice of me, was it," he said, glumly, staring at the floor.

"No," Ron agreed, walked over to the bed, and sat down next to Harry. "You owe Ginny an apology. But that's for later. Right now, I think you'd feel better if you didn't think about Malfoy-"

"I'm not all that angry with Malfoy," said Harry.

Ron, realizing his mouth was open, shut it hastily. "Well, if you're not angry at Malfoy, who are you so pissed off at?"

"Hermione," said Harry, through his teeth.

Ron ducked as a glass pitcher with a handle carved in the shape of a snake whipped past his head and shattered against the far wall.

"Bloody hell, Harry," he said, with reluctant admiration. "That was cool!"

"Yeah, if only I could do this sort of stuff when I wasn't totally hacked off!" yelled Harry, as the wardrobe door burst open and the clothes inside it exploded outward like a burst of fireworks.

They whipped through the air like manic birds and Ron looked down as something struck him on the shoulder. It was a pile of Draco's socks and underwear. "Well," he said. "I guess this answers the eternal 'boxers or briefs?' question, doesn't it?" He grinned at Harry. "Lavender and Parvati will be so pleased to know that Malfoy wears-" he peered at the label on the band — "Calvin Klein Wizardwear boxer shorts. Who knew?"

He glanced over at Harry, who looked both angry and as if he were trying not to laugh. "Come on, Harry, crack a smile; it won't kill you." He tossed the boxer shorts aside, and glanced at his friend. "I know you said you aren't pissed off at Malfoy, but you did choose his bedroom to have your tantrum in, didn't you?"

Now Harry did smile — a bit reluctantly, as if it hurt. "Yeah, well, I didn't say I exactly had fluffy bunny feelings for the guy, did I?"

Ron didn't reply.

Harry glanced over at him quizzically, and started. Ron was staring, with a look of fixed alarm, at a vague point across the room.

"What..?" Harry started to say, but Ron, with surprisingly fast reflexes, clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shh," he whispered, unnecessarily. "Look at the wardrobe."

Harry looked. And started. The wardrobe, a large and heavy piece of furniture the size of three Hagrids, was rocking back and forth on its four carved feet. Harry glanced over quickly at Ron.

"There's something in there," Ron muttered.

Harry nodded. "Or someone," he tried to say, around Ron's fingers.

Ron took his hand off Harry's mouth. "What do you think…?"

The wardrobe gave a another, stronger wobble, almost as if it might tip over.