Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"Oh, Lord, not this again. You have to stop this, all of it, these horrible experiments with the Dark Arts. You can't call up the powers of Hell and expect no repercussions. Be sensible."

"If you just came here to lecture me, you might as well leave."

"Fine," said Rowena, gathering her cloak up about her, but he suddenly whipped his hand forward and seized onto her wrist, making her wince. "It's not fair," he said. "Since we were children, who did we ever trust besides each other?"

"But I don't trust you any more," she said tearfully, and he loosened his grip on her wrist, sliding his hand down, interlocking her fingers with his. His skin was burning hot with fever. "What do you want from me, Salazar?"

"I'm dying," he said. "But if you want me to live I will. Poison, disease, the wound of any battle — nothing will be able to hurt me.

I'll make myself immortal for you."

She looked away, blinking hard. "People are not meant to live forever. Why don't you try doing something good with all your power, your knowledge? You could be a healer like Helga, you could put people back together instead of taking them apart and doing experiments on the pieces…"

He sat up then, staring at her, his gray eyes lit with a fever so intense they looked almost blue. "I could," he said. "I could, if you would help me. Stay with me, Rowena, and I swear, I promise, I'll abandon the Dark Arts, I'll burn my books, destroy my experiments

— " he broke off, drawing her towards him by their interlocked hands.

She let herself be pulled down on the bed beside him and leaned into him, her face against the hollow of his shoulder. Through the link that bound them she could feel that the weight of her against his skin was causing him excruciating pain. She also knew he did not want her to move away. The poison in him was black and burning.

She found that she was afraid for him and so, for the moment, no longer afraid of him. "I'll tell you something," he said. "I let that snake bite me."

"Salazar, why?"

"I thought if I was dying you might come to see me. Don't laugh — I was right. Here you are."

"I wasn't going to laugh."

"And I'm not going to die. Not now that you're here. Don't leave me," he said, and she could feel his rapid heartbeat through the bedclothes. He reached his right hand up, touched her face, ran his thumb along her cheekbone, down to her mouth. "You're the only thing that matters to me, the only thing I could never give up."

"Yes, you would," she said. "You would give me up me along with all the rest."

"Not you. Never."

"We'll see."

"Sirius!" shouted Harry. "Sirius, where are you?"

There was no answer, but at that moment, he became aware of the sound of running feet behind him, and turned to see Ron — still in his paisley pajamas, barefoot, but running as fast as his long legs could carry him. He was holding his wand.

He threw himself down next to Harry at the edge of the quarry.

"What's going on?" he demanded, breathless.

"Malfoy fell in," said Harry tersely. "I can't do anything — Hermione sent me here as an Apparation. Ron, can you-"

But Ron was already kneeling upright, pointing his wand down into the quarry. "Accio!" he said firmly, and the water seemed to break open and turn itself inside out. Harry saw the water flash black and then silver, and then Draco's body flew up out of it, rose into the air, and landed between them on the grass, crumpled in on itself like an abandoned toy.

Ron looked at Harry. His face was very white in the moonlight, each freckle standing out like a separate ink dot. "Check his pulse."

"I can't. I can't touch anything."

Ron swore, and reached out to turn Draco over. Harry's heart sank.

Draco's skin was blueish-white, not an encouraging color, and the lids of his shut eyes were purple. Against his livid skin, the scar on his left hand stood out, black as if it had been inked there. Malfoy, Harry thought experimentally, but he could not cast the thought outward; it echoed in emptiness, as if he had thrown a ball and found that there was no one there to catch it.

Ron pressed his fingers to Draco's throat, looked up and shook his head. "No pulse."

"No pulse?" Harry echoed in disbelief. "But he can't have been down there that long-"

"No pulse, that's what I said." To Harry's surprise, Ron then lifted his wand and placed the tip of it against Draco's chest. "Suspiro," he snapped.

Draco's chest jerked, and subsided.

Ron looked worried. "Suspiro!" he said again, jamming the tip of the wand harder into Draco's ribcage. This time Draco's body didn't move at all. He continued to lie there, his hair streaming blood and water, his chest unmoving. Harry suddenly recalled the first dead body he could remember seeing — Cedric's. Remembered looking at Cedric, and being sure he was dead, not knowing how he knew, but knowing. And it was the same thing now.

Insubstantial though he was, he felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. Felt a weird, panicky sort of feeling he had never felt before. No

— he had felt it before, when, tied to the grave of Voldemort's dead father, he had seen Wormtail come at him with his knife, and Harry had felt a moment of primal panic, positive that he was about to lose a part of himself — an arm, a hand — that could never be replaced, that a wound was about to be inflicted on him from which he would never recover.

"Ron," he said, "do something-"

Looking desperate, Ron tried again. "Suspiro vivicus," he said, with emphasis. "Suspiro vivicus totalus!"

Nothing continued to happen. Draco lay there, looking cold and vulnerable and very, very dead.

Ron looked up at Harry, and Harry saw the shock in his blue eyes.

"Harry…" Ron said unevenly, shivering in the cold night air. "He's dead."

Harry shook his head. "Try again."

"There's no point. He's dead. If he wasn't, he'd respond to the spell.

His heart's not beating — "

"Drop your wand, Ron."

"What?"

"Put it down."

Ron did.

" Now, do exactly what I tell you." Ron was looking at Harry as if he were insane, and Harry was none too sure that he wasn't. He felt as if he were gripping very tightly onto something very slippery. Felt, in fact, as if he might lapse into hysterics at any moment, but knew he couldn't afford to. "All right," he said, enunciating each word with perfect precision. "Open his mouth."

Ron did it, looking doubtfully sideways at Harry as he did so. "Yikes.

He's freezing cold."

"Tilt his head back. Right. Like that. Now put your mouth on his and breath into his lungs-"

Ron jerked back. "What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

"Okay, okay."

"There must be something I can do."

"You can get out of the cell, Sirius," said Lupin, who was lying on his back with his hands covering his face. Every once in a while he would groan and curl in on himself, his arms wrapped around his midsection. Sirius couldn't tell exactly where the pain originated -

everywhere, he had a feeling.

"Look, Moony, I'll just transform if I have to."

"I'm not sure that'll help. Damn," added Lupin softly, flinching as he took his hands away from his face and glared at his fingertips, from which razor-sharp nails had sprouted. "What's going on?"

"Does it feel like the Change?" Sirius asked.

Lupin shook his head. "As if someone took the Change and stretched it out…and out…and out. It never takes this long, you know that — " he broke off on a wince, looked up at Sirius. "Sirius…what if I get stuck this way? In between?"

"That's all right," said Sirius, patting him a bit awkwardly on the shoulder. "I hear teeth and fingernails are being worn long this season."