Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

He frowned. "Is this one of those word association games? You say

'puppy', I say 'kitten', you say 'girl', I say 'boy', you say 'party', I say, 'let's all get piss-drunk and take our clothes off'?"

Fleur stamped her foot. "Now you are being deliberately stupid," she said.

"Not really, but I'm flattered that you think so."

She pouted. "It is very boring at school without you."

"I'm sure that's true, but — "

"And you owe me a favor," she said.

That checked him. "I what?" Then he remembered. Multicolored butterflies, Fleur hitting him hard on the shoulder and saying, You owe me, Draco Malfoy.

Oh, no.

"How do you think I found you?" she added. "It is old magic. You owe me a favor, it makes a connection between us. I can find you anywhere."

Draco rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "Now really isn't a good time, Fleur. I've had a very, very bad day."

She shook her head. "No, no," she said. "You don't get to choose when you repay favors, Draco. That is not the nature of favors. You gave me your word."

He looked at her sidelong. It was easy to forget that a rather lively intelligence lived behind the wide eyes and decorative pout, but he knew it was true.

"You never would have found that girl of yours if it hadn't been for me," Fleur pointed out.

"She's not my girl," he said, automatically. Then he did a double-take, and stared. "How did you know about that?"

"Remember the veela in the garden at the tower?"

"Yes, vividly."

"Those were my cousins."

"Those veela? They were your cousins? How do you know?"

Fleur shrugged her elegant shoulders. "They told me they met you."

She smiled. "They liked you very much."

"I'm thrilled to hear it. How did they know who I was?"

"I had told them about you, of course!" said Fleur, opening her dark blue eyes very wide. "I had asked my cousin Flora to check into the Malfoy family bloodline. I wanted to make sure you and I were not too…closely related."

"To closely related for what? Marriage?" he said, with sarcasm. Then, seeing her expression, he checked himself. "Marriage? Are you mad?

I'm sixteen!"

"You won't be forever."

"Actually, I probably won't live to see seventeen at this rate, so in a way I will be sixteen forever, but that's rather depressing, so let's move on. You mean those veela let me go because they knew you wanted to marry me?"

"Yes," said Fleur, with exquisite simplicity.

Draco goggled at her. "That's ridiculous!"

"There's nothing ridiculous about marriage," said Fleur, looking severe.

"Do you still want to marry me?"

She shook her head. "As it turns out, we're very distant cousins. So it wouldn't work."

"That is too bad," he said, with immense relief.

"However," she said, stopping dead and turning to put a hand on his shoulder, "we can still have sex. As long as no one knows about it."

He nearly tripped over a tree root. "What?"

"There is the little matter of the favor you owe me."

Draco blinked at her. "You want me to have sex with you? As a favor?"

Fleur smiled at him, shrugged, and nodded. "Yes."

"Are — you sure?" he said, in disbelief. "I mean, you could ask me for anything. Anything. Cash? I've got lots of cash."

In answer, Fleur crossed her arms and looked at him with a wry expression. He wasn't quite sure, but it looked as if she were tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. "I don't want cash," she said. "I want you."

Draco stared at her in utter disbelief. "Right now? Right here?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"Oh." He blinked at her. She was very beautiful in the half-light, and it was rather flattering, and well, he was sixteen years old.

He shrugged. "Yeah, all right, then."

Out of unconsciousness, Harry woke suddenly, with a feeling as if he were being suffocated. He gasped for air, and immediately, there were hands on his shoulders and a female voice was telling him to lie back, and breathe. A cool hand touched his forehead, brushing back his hair. He blinked hard, unable to see without his glasses.

"Hermione?" he said faintly, although he knew immediately it wasn't her, knew the feel of the touch of her hand by heart, this was someone else.

"It's Narcissa," said the voice, gently. "Lie back down."

"No," said Harry, mutinously. He struggled upright and leaned back against the headboard, blinking.

Narcissa watched him with concern. He seemed all right, although very pale. She could feel that she was holding herself back from what she wanted to do, which was to put her arms around this boy -

— who reminded of her son despite the fact that he looked and sounded nothing like him — to put her arms around him and to comfort him and stroke his hair. But to do that would be to make a child out of him, and she could see just by looking at him that he was very nearly no longer that. He would resent it, she was sure. So she held herself back from touching Harry, only reached for his glasses and put them very gently into his hand, and said, "Can you sit up?"

"Yeah," he said, pushing his glasses onto his nose and blinking. "I'm fine." To demonstrate, he sat up, paling only very slightly as he did so. "I feel fine," he said, again. "Where's Hermione?"

"In the library with Ron, researching," she said, matter-of-factly.

"And Sirius and Remus went to lock up that thing that attacked you.

They're putting magical wards on one of the cells right now."

"It's not dead?"

Narcissa shook her head. "Not dead, but unconscious. Sirius is hoping that when Dumbledore gets here, he can help them figure out what it is."

"I can help them figure out what it is," said Harry, making a move to get up. "I've seen one before."

Now Narcissa did touch him — she put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him gently back down on the pillows. "Just rest a minute, Harry. You need to get your strength back. After what you did-"

She broke off as his eyes widened, and she saw him glancing around the room, seeing the incredible wreckage of the room: the crushed wardrobe, the smashed candlesticks and bottles, the burst pillows.

"I-" he began, looking stunned. "I'll pay for all this, I've got money, I can-"

"No, you won't," said Narcissa, firmly. "This your house, Harry. Not that I'm saying that you can go around wrecking all the furniture, and Sirius will probably have you de-gnoming the garden from now until Doomsday, but there will be no paying anyone. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, looking slightly befuddled.

"Anyway," she added, "I think you've punished yourself sufficiently.

You do realize why you fainted, don't you?"

Harry shook his head.

"To do what you did — to expend that much magic in one burst -

well, that energy has to come from somewhere. That's part of what a wand is for; most wizards don't have enough magic in themselves to perform spells without some kind of aid. Wands also help you focus your energy. What you did was just pour magic out of yourself, and without even a wand to channel it, it just flooded out of you -

drained your energy. If you'd gone on, you could have knocked yourself out, or killed yourself. You have to be careful, Harry."

Harry looked down, scuffling his hands together nervously.

"And you have to teach my son to be careful, too," she added, in a slightly less even tone.

Harry glanced up quickly, looking astonished. "Malfoy?" he said, and checked himself. "I mean — he's already very careful. He's one of the most… careful people I've ever met."

"You don't like him," she said.

"Sure I do," said Harry, weakly. "I think he's…"

"A smug git," said Narcissa evenly. "That's all right. Sometimes he is."

She smiled at Harry, who stared at her, openmouthed.