Кассандра Клэр: Draco Dormiens

Whoever brings me the dead body of the boy Harry Potter will be honored above all other Death Eaters.

Ronś voice broke in on his thoughts. "This Muggle warfare stuff is really interesting," he said. "Wonder if thereś any chance of getting the government to drop a what-d´you-call-it, nuclear bomb, on Malfoy Manor?"

Draco stood. "I have to go upstairs," he said, and fled, heading for the stairs to the boys´ dormitory. He heard running feet behind him and turned to see Hermione, her eyes filled with alarm.

"Harry," she said, "Harry, please wait."

Draco paused and let Hermione catch up to him.

"Harry," she said tentatively, "you seem so upset, whatś bothering you? It can´t be Malfoy."

Draco just looked at her. All his emotions seemed to knotted up inside his stomach: the stress of playing Harry Potter for two straight days, rage, shock, pain and now terror, the terror of what horrible thing might be happening to Harry any moment, this moment, which would surely and completely be Dracoś fault when it did. He wasn´t sure if he wanted to yell at Hermione or kiss her again.

Both options had their appeal.

"I´m really tired, Hermione," he said. "I just want to go to bed."

"Is it what happened earlier today?" she asked. "After — after the Bludger? Because I didn´t mean to be angry with you for kissing me, Harry, in fact-" She took a step closer to Draco, her eyes full of affection.

Draco exploded. "Not everything is about you, Granger!" he yelled at the top of his voice. "Not bloody everything is about you!"

And he darted back down the stairs, knocking her aside, and dashed out the portrait hole.

At the mention of Siriusńame, Harry felt his knees go weak. Show nothing, he told himself. Show nothing.

"We´ve long known he is the boyś godfather," said McNair. "The trouble has been finding him. We´ve tracked him down, actually Wormtail tracked him down, and it was most ingenious of him. He remembered a cave he had gone to with Sirius as a child, when he visited the Blacks. He returned to the site and put a Binding Curse on Black — " "Get to the point, McNair," said Lucius. "Where do I come into this?"

McNair looked disappointed. "Well," he said haltingly, "itś simple, really.

Wormtail is bringing Black up from Cornwall tomorrow, and we need a place to keep him, just for a night or two, while we wait for the boy to come. We can´t leave the Binding Curse on him or he´ll die, and you have the best dungeons of anyone — " "Oh, thanks," said Lucius, with heavy sarcasm. "Well, itś a stupid plan and an obvious one, but still miles better than any of your other schemes. I´ll keep Black here. I´ve haven´t seen him," he smiled coldly, "since we were at school together.

It´ll be like a reunion."

He and McNair laughed. Harry didn´t. He felt as if he were going to be sick.

The door opened and a tall, slim blonde woman came in. She was wearing not robes, but a long, black dress with a slit up the side. Harry recognized her immediately: she was Dracoś mother.

"Narcissa," said Lucius Malfoy. "Is anything wrong?"

The woman smiled. She was very beautiful when she smiled. Harry recalled having seen her at the Quidditch World Cup and thinking that that must be where Draco got his pale, refined good looks. "I wanted to borrow Draco," she said calmly. "I haven´t even seen him since you brought him home, Lucius."

Lucius Malfoy waved a hand. "Certainly, take him," he said.

Harry looked at Dracoś father. He was desperate to stay and hear more about Sirius. "But, I-" "Draco." Lucius Malfoyś voice was like ice. "Go with your mother."

Reluctantly, Harry followed Narcissa Malfoy out of the room, where he rather expected that she would try to hug him or kiss him or greet him in some way. But she didn´t. She merely turned and began walking down the corridor. Harry trotted after her, keeping his eyes open. He rather thought it would be a good idea to learn as much about the layout of Malfoy Manor as possible.

Narcissa did pause in a corridor full of portraits of what at first looked like a number of dolls in differently colored outfits. With a start, Harry realized that these were pictures of Draco as a baby and as a little boy. He stopped, grinning.

"Oh," said Narcissa smiling, "Your baby pictures. They are adorable, aren´t they?"

Harry looked from one portrait in which Draco, aged about three, was wearing a pair of pink shorts and a bonnet, to another, in which he was about five and had been dressed in full Malfoy regalia, including a black cloak and long blond curls that looked extremely girly. The Draco in the picture had a mutinous expression and kept tugging at the collar of his ruffled robes.

"Yeah," said Harry, "they´re adorable all right."

Narcissa then led the way down a number of twisting corridors into a huge dining room, where she gestured at Harry to sit down while she went to get him some food.

Harry seated himself at the enormous dining room table, feeling very small. The table seemed to stretch on for miles, bare except for a huge silver candelabra holding seven green candles carved in the shape of lizards. More ugly Malfoy family portraits hung on the wall. One featured a grim-looking wizard in a ruff who glared at Harry, then drew a menacing finger across his throat. On the wall hung an enormous silk tapestry bearing the Malfoy family crest, which showed a huge green snake twisting itself into the letter M, while in the foreground the figure of a hooded man snuck up behind another man and stabbed him in the back. The Latin phrase DE GUSTIBUS NON DISPUTANDEM wound around the feet of the attacking man. Harry had no idea what that meant. Hermione would know, but thinking about Hermione was way too painful.

Narcissa came back into the room, bearing a silver tray on which rested a teapot and cup, a jug of milk, and a plate of biscuits. "Here you go," she said, setting them down on the table. She then seated herself opposite Harry and watched him as he ate. "Madam Pomfrey says you´re to eat lightly for the next day or so," she said, watching him stuff biscuits into his mouth.

"So, Mum," said Harry, wanting to fill the awkward silence, "what´ve you been up to?"

"I´ve been embroidering a blanket for you to take to school," she said eagerly, "itś got the family creed on it in gold, you´re father suggested it. He thought it was time you learned it by heart. Would you like to see it?"

Harry did not want to see it at all. "Sure," he said.

She rushed out of the room and almost immediately rushed right back in again, bearing what looked like a length of green velvet. She handed it to him, and he saw that there were words picked out across the front in gold lettering: PUNISHMENT LEADS TO FEAR. FEAR LEADS TO OBEDIENCE. OBEDIENCE LEADS TO FREEDOM. THEREFORE PUNISHMENT IS FREEDOM.

"Wow," said Harry in a lifeless voice. "Itś lovely, Mum. I bet all the other kids will wish they had a blanket with a really horrible motto on it just like this one."

For a moment, Harry thought he might have gone too far; but Narcissa just smiled blankly, and Harry turned his gaze away. It was a pity he did, for it he had looked at Dracoś motherś face, he would have seen her eyes were full of tears.

The double doors at the end of the hall banged open and Lucius Malfoy and McNair strode in. "Narcissa," snapped Lucius, "get McNair here a cup of tea, would you?"

Narcissa hurried to do her husbandś bidding, while McNair sat down opposite Harry and grinned at him. "So, Draco," he said in a fatherly tone. "I remember when I was a Slytherin at Hogwarts, we did have some fun. I bet you´re always stirring up trouble, aren´t you?"

"Well," said Harry, "you know, we´re kept pretty busy having Young Death Eater meetings, and then we spend a lot of time making loads of other students feel bad about their lack of money and social standing. Sometimes we stay up all night and try to raise demons to do our loathsome bidding, but most evenings we just order pizza and pull the wings off a few flies."