Кассандра Клэр - Draco Dormiens

Then he slashed it viciously across Draco's palm. Blood spurted out of the cut, drenching the sleeve of Draco's shirt.

"Hey!" said Draco, trying to yank his hand back. "What're you doing?"

But Harry had now turned the knife on himself, and cut his own palm open. He dropped the knife, extended his hand, and seized Draco's bleeding one, pressing the cuts tightly together.

"I'm touched that you want to be blood brothers with me," said Draco, peering down at their bloody, interlocked hands. "But is this really the time?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry, who was grinning like a madman. "Come on, think about it. Malfoy blood. Only someone with Malfoy blood in their veins can open the trap door."

Draco's mouth fell open. Then he leaned forward, and gripped Harry's hand as tightly as he could, so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"What're you doing?" said Harry, laughing.

"What does it look like, Potter? I'm trying to bleed faster."

Harry approached the trap door nervously and put his right hand, still sticky with his own blood and Draco's, on the handle. Nothing happened. There was no screaming and no alarm. Emboldened, Harry yanked the door open and crawled down into the space below.

He wondered how long they had before Lucius and the others came for Draco.

Draco — he was actually thinking of him by his first name now, something he would never have thought was possible. Especially since it made him physically ill every time Hermione said the word Draco. I know you don't like Draco, Harry, but he's changed.

Changed. Maybe he has changed, Harry thought, rounding a cobwebby corner. He had been convinced it was all the Polyjuice spell, but was a spell like that really powerful enough to counteract an entire lifetime devoted entirely to self-interest and compel someone otherwise not heroically inclined to risk his own life for the life of a girl he hardly knew? Harry wasn't sure. What he did know was that, for whatever reason, Draco had saved Hermione from torture and probably death.

That put Harry in debt to Draco. He didn't want to be like Snape, doomed to a lifetime of guilt and resentment; he wasn't going to let Draco Malfoy die while he owed him anything.

He was at the dungeon gate now. He lifted his bloody hand and closed it around the lock, which came away as if it had been made of spaghetti. He dropped it, pushed the gate open and hurried inside.

Sirius and Hermione were sitting together on the stone bench at the cell's far end, Sirius looking…well, extremely serious as he explained something to her, Hermione nodding and still looking ridiculously pretty in Narcissa's satin dress.

She seemed to sense that Harry was there before he even said anything; she leaped to her feet and ran across the cell, thrusting her arm through the bars to catch at his hand.

"Harry…you're okay?"

"Yeah…ow!"

He winced as she squeezed his slashed hand. She saw the blood and gasped: "Did Lucius…?"

"No. It's not all my blood," he said. "Some of it's Draco's."

She turned greenish. "Is he all right…is he hurt?"

"They beat him up, but not too badly. They're saving him for Voldemort," said Harry tensely. He turned to Sirius. "Do you know anything about Imprisonment spells?"

Draco lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He supposed his should be writhing around in panic, but he wasn't. An icy sort of peace had descended on him and he felt almost nothing.

Harry was in the tunnels under the house now. Draco shut his eyes; he could find Harry better in the darkness. It was a little as if there was a cord of invisible light connecting them, with him on one end and Harry on the other — sometimes it tugged at him, demanding his attention; other times, it was very hard to find Harry at the opposite end. Right now it was easy; he could almost see him. Weird visions, he thought. I'm having weird visions. But it kept him from feeling as if he was alone.

Hermione was with Harry now. It hurt to think about her, like the pain of a broken tooth. But she was alive, and that was at least partly because of him. He wasn't sorry he had done what he had done. He had always sat back and watched Harry doing the ridiculous heroic things that he did and wondered not only why he did them, but how. Now he knew. You just did what you had to do: there was only one choice that made sense, one way to go, and you took it. It was enviably simple. He wondered, though, would the choice seem so effortless if he didn't have Harry in his head?

When the door of the fencing room opened, Draco thought for a moment that he was imagining it. He turned his head slowly.

It was his father.

And Lucius wasn't alone. A very tall man in long black hooded robes was with him. He was wearing red gloves and carrying a wand. He walked quickly across the room and over to the cage. "Liberos," he said, and his voice was a horrible, hissing thing.

The bars of the cage vanished and Draco sat up. He suddenly felt naked, unprotected. The tall man came closer to him and peered down into his face.

Then he reached up and drew his hood back.

Draco stifled a yell. A bald, hairless skull the color of blood- yellow, slitted eyes with vertical cat pupils- slits for nostrils-a lipless mouth.

"Lucius," said the horrible voice, which belonged, Draco now knew, to Lord Voldemort. "You have done very well here, very well indeed."

Once he let Hermione and Sirius out of the cell, Sirius made Harry describe the glowing cage in which they were keeping Draco several times before he was satisfied. "I can take the spell off," he said. "But I'll need my wand."

"You can use mine," offered Hermione, but Sirius shook his head.

"This is a very involved Charm," he said. "I need my own wand. I know where it is, I saw Lucius put it in a drawer in his study. Look," he added, "in dog form, I can get up there a lot faster than you can. I think I should go ahead, and you two come behind. I'll take the Imprisonment Charm off, if I can, and meet you in Draco's bedroom."

"What if…" Hermione swallowed hard. "You-know-who's already got him?"

Sirius looked grim. "Then I'll still meet you, and we'll figure out what to do from there," he said. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder and Harry looked up at him for a second. Then he nodded. "Okay."

Sirius let go of Harry, and turned immediately into his canine form, in which he loped out of the dungeon. Harry and Hermione followed more slowly. Harry was very silent and looked very unhappy. He was walking very fast, nearly running.

"Is Draco all right?" Hermione asked timidly. "I mean, you said he wasn't too badly hurt, but he must be really afraid."

"He's not too good. In fact, he asked me to kill him," said Harry, climbing over a pile of broken stone. He turned back to help Hermione over the pile and found that she had stopped climbing and was goggling at him.

"What? What did you say, Harry?"

"I took out my trusty knife and stuck it in his throat. What do you think I said?"

snapped Harry, nettled. "I told him he was mental, I'm not going to kill him."

Hermione started to climb after him without assistance. "Why? Not why wouldn't you kill him, but why, you know, did he ask?"

"If they put the Lacertus curse on him, it'll kill him anyway," said Harry soberly.

"He doesn't want them to do it, he doesn´t want to risk that he might end up murdering people. He said it would just be dying a little earlier than he would anyway."

Hermione stopped stock-still again. Harry began wondering if they were ever going to make any progress. "Harry…." she said.