Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"You're kidding."

"He actually sounded pretty good. He hit the high notes and everything."

Harry frowned. "That's not really what I had in mind."

"I'm not sure I can do better."

"Make something up," Harry suggested.

Draco looked at him darkly.

"Oh, right. You don't lie. Have you always been like that or is this part of the whole New and Improved Draco Malfoy thing?"

Draco yawned and reached out for an extra pillow. "Don't worry, Potter," he said, putting it behind his head. "I may not lie, but I'm still a big fan of all the other sins: wrath, sex, loud music….you can handle the lying from here on out."

"Why do you get all the fun sins?"

"Because I'm a fun kind of guy?"

"If you think-"

Harry broke off at a knock on the door, tilted his head to the side, and smiled. "Hermione," he announced. "Must be her turn to watch you."

Draco looked at him curiously. "How do you know it's her?"

Harry shrugged slightly.

"You know her knock?"

Harry's ears turned pink, and he glared at Draco defiantly. "Don't tell me you don't."

Before Draco could respond, the door opened and Hermione came in. She looked at Harry, and then over at him, and smiled hesitantly.

"So you're awake. How do you feel?"

Draco smiled angelically. "I feel fine."

She looks really cute, he thought blandly at Harry. And that skirt.

Very short. I can't believe you let her dress like that.

Harry made a choking sort of noise. Hermione looked at him in surprise. "Harry, what?"

Harry made a gesture of dismissal. "Nothing. Inhaled some dust."

Take that back, Malfoy.

Hermione was still smiling at Draco. "When did you wake up?"

"Oh, just a few minutes ago," he said, with an exaggerated yawn.

Look how she's smiling at me. She really does fancy me. Oh, not with that sort of deathless-love thing that you guys have got going, but with that sort of raw animal attraction. Look, she's undressing me with her eyes.

She is not undressing you with her eyes.

Hermione was concerned. "Harry, are you all right? You look like you've got a headache."

Draco looked mildly curious. Been using the old headache excuse again lately?

Harry made another choking noise. Shut up, Malfoy. Or there will be an accident.

What kind of accident?

The kind where I accidentally eviscerate you with a carrot peeler.

"Ahem," put in Hermione, sounding impatient. "Why are you two just sitting there staring at each other? Have I interrupted something?"

"What?" Harry turned around, and blinked at her. "Oh. No.

Everything's fine."

Behind him, Draco made a snorting noise. Buzz off, Potter, and leave us alone for a bit, will you?

No way.

Draco's response had a whiney tone. But you promised…

Harry wheeled on him, then paused and looked up guiltily at Hermione, who was staring at both of them with a vexed expression.

"Have you quite finished being antisocial and weird?" she said in a clipped tone. "Because Ron was saying he needed to talk to you, Harry."

Harry stood up reluctantly, crossed the room, paused by Hermione, then, with no warning, seized her and kissed her. Not just a casual kiss either, this was the sort of kiss that could have melted solid steel. When he released her, Hermione staggered back against the wall and looked at him with wide eyes. "Harry?"

He returned her look innocently. "Yes?"

Hermione took his arm and drew him towards her, speaking softly into his ear. "You don't, um, have a problem with me talking to Draco alone, do you?"

Harry cut his eyes towards Draco, who had picked up the glass of water from the bedside table and was examining it with a show of great interest. "Oh," said Harry. "No. That's fine. You two have a nice…talk."

Hermione kissed Harry on the cheek. "I love you."

He kissed her back, in his distracted state missing her cheek and landing a kiss on her nose. "And I love you. See you later," he added, turning and waving at Draco. Touch her once, Malfoy, and they'll be picking little pieces of Malfoy out of the carpet for years.

"Later, Potter." Draco returned the wave. And if you can't find us when you come back, we'll be locked in the bathroom, playing bad schoolgirl and naughty headmaster.

Harry poked his head around the door as it closed behind him.

Remind me why we saved your life again?

Because you're the good guys.

We'll see about that.

Whoever called it 'memory lane' was a cretin, Sirius thought, looking around him. Lane conjured up the image of a pretty country road lined with flowers, blue sky, birds chirping. Maybe that was what it was like if you were lucky. As far as he was concerned, however, memory was a black road lined with cruel thorns, paved with jagged rocks, bordered with the gravestones of his friends.

Sirius turned around slowly. It was cold in Gringott's vault #711 and his exhaled breath came out in a cloud of frost. It had been years since he'd been down here; usually his withdrawals and deposits were handled by owl post, and there was no need for a personal visit. And no wish on his part to see the detritus of his former life.

There in one corner was his motorcycle, gleaming and perfect thanks to anti-rust charms. There were the chests that held his old clothes, his schoolbooks, albums of photos, his Auror's Certificate.

There was plenty of gold, the penalty money the Ministry had been forced to pay him when the original ruling that had sent him to Azkaban had been overturned. One thousand Galleons for each year he had spent in prison. It was quite a lot of money. Sirius had touched very little of it.

He walked over to a corner of the vault and knelt down among the various books and papers. It took him a few moments of shuffling through them to find what he was looking for.

A book. Very fat, bound in leather, a silver-stamped spine.

Dialectical Interpretations of the Art and Science of Arithmancy, by K. Fraser.

Sirius closed his eyes, and heard James' voice, sharp and amused, telling him that it was the most boring-sounding title he could think up.

He opened his eyes, sighed, and pressed down hard with his thumb on the F in 'Fraser.'

— pop-

The book's cover ratcheted back, exposing a hollowed-out space inside. It had once been the hiding place for the Marauder's Map, before its confiscation. Now, it held something else.

Sirius' eyes widened. "James," he whispered, his breath escaping from his mouth in little white puffs. "What on earth d'you expect him to do with this?"

The moment Harry left, shutting the door behind him, an awkward silence descended on Draco and Hermione. Hermione looked at the floor. Draco looked out the window.

Finally, Draco sighed. "Hello," he said.

Hermione cleared her throat. "And hello to you too," she replied, and hesitated.

He half-sat up in the bed, the covers falling away from him, and even though he was wearing ridiculous too-big pajamas, and even though his hair was standing up every which way like a platinum version of Harry's (unbidden, Hermione experienced a sudden vision of Harry with his hair bleached blond, and nearly screamed), there was still an odd sort of dignity about him. "You can come near me, you know," he said. "I drowned, it's not contagious."

She tried to smile at him. "I didn't know if you would want me to," she said, and walked over to sit down in the chair recently vacated by Harry.

Draco shook his head. "I'm not angry with you, if that's what you mean."

"I thought you might be," she began, and hesitated. Almost unconsciously, she reached up and touched the silver Lycanthe which she had strung on a chain around her neck; somehow she had found that doing this gave her strength. "Because I was utterly awful to you and I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say except that it wasn't really me. I never would have treated you like that if I'd been in my right mind. I never would have asked you to lie."