Кассандра Клэр - Draco Dormiens

There was another silence.

"Fine," said Harry at last. "We're even."

Hermione looked from one of them to the other. Harry was still pale and shaking, but Draco looked as calm and collected as though he'd just been through nothing worse than a bad haircut; although his face and clothes were still very bloody.

"Draco," she began, but he didn't even look at her.

"I don't want to hear from you, Granger," he said shortly.

Draco bent down and picked up his wand from the floor where it had fallen. Then he straightened up and jammed it into his pocket — he was still wearing Harry's clothes, frayed robes and all. He didn't look at Hermione as he did all this, didn't see her face wretched with misery. "See you at school, then," he said and walked away.

Hermione seized Harry's arm. "Harry-he can't go-" Harry just looked tired. "Let him go if he wants to, Hermione."

She shook her head violently. "We'll never get off the grounds without him — there are seventeen hexes on the front door alone and only he knows how to take them off-" Harry turned to Sirius. "Get him," he said.

Sirius dropped down into canine form and leaped after Draco. He lunged onto his back and brought him crashing to the floor. Draco rolled over, yelling, and Sirius sat on his chest. Harry got to his feet and, followed by Hermione, approached them slowly.

"Call off your dog, would you, Potter?" said Draco, eyeing Sirius with immense dislike. "I hate dogs."

"You want to be a bit nicer to someone who's just helped save your life," said Harry.

"I thought we were even," replied Draco.

"I didn't mean me," said Harry. "I meant Sirius."

"Oh, shut up, both of you," Hermione interrupted in great agitation. "We need to go. Draco — you have to come with us, we'll never get off the grounds without you."

"And this is my problem because…?"

Draco's drawl was back. The drawl Hermione remembered, that she hated.

Sirius suddenly resumed his human form, stood up, and yanked Draco sharply to his feet. "I'll tell you why it's your problem, my boy," he said, and snapped his fingers. Narrow ropes appeared out of the air as they had for Voldemort earlier and whipped themselves around Draco's left arm, binding it tightly to Sirius' right one. Before Draco could react, Sirius had reached out, plucked his wand out of his robes, and pocketed it. "Because I'm making it your problem."

Draco looked so angry that his eyes were nearly black with fury. Then he grinned at Harry and Hermione. It was a mean, mirthless sort of grin. "If that's the way you want to play it," he said, "Fine."

"Why won´t you just come with us because you want to?" demanded Hermione, her voice cracking. "We haven't done anything but try to help you-" "My father says he isn't my father any more," said Draco. "The Dark Lord wants me dead, and when I get back to school, I'll probably be expelled. If the point of this all was to show me how miserable it is being you, Potter, then it worked."

Harry's eyes flashed with anger. "None of this was about you, Malfoy, in the first place."

Draco looked like he had been hoping Harry would say that. "Of course not," he sneered. "Because everything's about you, isn't it, Potter? None of our lives would have been in danger if it wasn't for you."

"Harry can't help being who he is," said Hermione in a trembling voice.

"Maybe not," said Draco, "But he could help dragging his friends into his messes over and over again. What're you going to do, Potter, when you slip up and one of them dies? It's just a matter of time, the only question is whether it'll be Weasley, or the Dog Man here, or even Granger-" "Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry in a deadly voice.

"I don't think Granger needs a lot of encouragement to die for you, either," Draco went on, eyes glittering, "I heard you down in the tunnels, you two: Say it, Harry, say it-" "Shut up!" screamed Hermione, and Draco laughed.

"He's just trying to make us angry enough so we'll let him go off without us," said Harry in the same deadly voice. "Well, it won't work."

And he walked away. Halfway to the doors, he stopped, bent down, and picked up one of the swords that had fallen out of the smashed display case. He slid it through his belt, and turned and looked at the other three. "We're going," he said.

"Now."

It was going on midnight, and the sky over Malfoy Manor was an inverted black bowl spangled with sequins. The grounds were black and silver and deadly. Of course, if they hadn't had Draco with them, they would have been terminally deadly. Bitter and vindictive he might be, but he was still a Malfoy, and knew how to get around the grounds.

Sirius walked ahead, pushing Draco slightly in front of him. Harry and Hermione followed behind. Harry was quiet with the quiet of exhaustion. They skirted a number of obstacles, including a nest of giant spiders which Draco pointed out and Sirius promptly Stunned with his wand.

Hermione was feeling wretched. It wasn't just that they were on the Malfoy family grounds, which was terrifying, or that Harry was still looking white and ill and she was afraid that the Lacertus charm, even in its altered form, had done him a lasting injury of some sort — it was also that Draco wasn't talking to her.

She had wanted to thank him for having saved her life, but she couldn't, because he wouldn´t talk to her. When she tried to approach him he waved her away. In fact he had only spoken to any of them once, to ask if Narcissa was all right. None of them had the heart to tell him about the Epicyclical Charm, even now, so Sirius hadn´t been able to give him much of an answer besides his word that Narcissa was fine. This, of course, only pissed Draco off further.

Hermione kept sneaking glances at Draco out of the corner of her eye. How could she have been so wrong about anyone? She had been sure, positive, that it wasn't the Polyjuice spell, it couldn´t be the Polyjuice spell…but the way he had looked at her, talked to her, back in the fencing room, it was as if the past week had never happened and he hated her again.

They had come to a low bridge over a narrow stream. Draco stopped dead. Harry, who hadn´t been paying attention, was about to step on the bridge when Draco reached out a hand and caught at his sleeve.

"I wouldn't walk on that if I were you, Potter," he drawled.

Harry stepped back quickly and looked at Draco with suspicion. "Why? What'll happen?"

"Standard procedure," said Draco, "is to leap fifty feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area while screaming at the top of your lungs."

Harry looked at him, and Draco grinned his obnoxious grin again. For a moment, it looked like Harry might haul off and punch him in the eye. Draco kind of hoped he would, but was disappointed.

"Right," said Harry, taking a deep breath. "So itś a bomb, then."

"I wouldn´t know what you´d call it," Draco replied, looking bored. "I don't speak Muggle."

"It's some sort of Explosive Hex, let's just go around it, Harry," said Hermione, looking terribly unhappy.

"No," said Harry, still regarding the bridge thoughtfully. "Give him his wand, Sirius."

Sirius looked doubtful. "Harry-" "Give it to him," said Harry. He turned and looked at Draco. "Take the hex off, Malfoy."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we'll all walk onto it and take our chances," said Harry. "You can go first."

Draco frowned. Sirius took his wand out and pressed it roughly into Dracoś grip, keeping his own hand firmly on his wrist.

Draco pointed his wand at the bridge. "Raptus regaliter," he said.

There was a sharp flash of light. Sirius took the wand back and they walked out onto the bridge, Sirius pushing Draco ahead of him. Nothing happened, so Harry and Hermione followed.

Sirius had said almost nothing to Draco since he had told him that getting off the grounds was now his problem too. Now, however, he turned to him and said, "What did they use on you, boy? Veritaserum?"