DracoVeritas.pdf

Draco Veritas

Part Three of the Draco Trilogy

By Cassandra Claire

Draco Veritas Chapter One: Through Silver and Glass

***

It was December, and it was freezing cold in the Potions dungeon, but

Snape didn´t care. "Can anyone tell me what this is?" he demanded,

holding up a transparent phial of steaming green liquid and surveying the

class critically. "Longbottom?"

Neville, who had been trying in vain to warm his blue-tipped fingers over

his cauldron, looked horrified. "I don´t know, Professor."

"Did you not complete your reading last night, Longbottom? The

assignment was ten pages in the Lieber and Stoller book."

"I know, Professor, but my toad, Trevor, went missing, and I--"

"Ten points from Gryffindor!" barked Snape, who was in fine form. He

didn´t even look cold, Draco mused. Perhaps he´d mixed himself up a

Warming Potion before class.

Snape´s ink-black eyes darted over the students. "Potter?´ he inquired.

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Harry pale and look startled. Next

to him, Hermione went red. Every time she knew an answer and Harry

didn´t, Draco had the feeling that she might actually implode with the

effort of trying to will the knowledge in Harry´s direction.

It´s an Imperceptus Potion, Draco thought lazily at Harry. Makes you

invisible. Harry sat up straight. "An Imperceptus Potion," he said. "It

makes the drinker invisible." Snape looked disappointed. "And the

ingredients?" he snapped. Mugwort, Draco thought. Crushed dragon bone,

powdered asp´s blood, tansy, peppermint... "Mugwort," said Harry.

"Crushed dragon bone, powdered asp´s blood, tansy, peppermint..."

And a pair of my very own boxer shorts, the ones with the little Snitches

on them, Draco added.

"And a pair of..." Harry began, and choked. His face went red and then

white as he succumbed to a prolonged coughing fit. Hermione gazed at

him in alarm. Draco looked innocently at his quill, twirling it in his

fingers.

"Yes, Potter?" Snape´s eyebrows had shot up to his hairline. "A pair of

what?"

Harry was still coughing. "Beetles?" he suggested weakly.

Snape looked annoyed. "No, Potter," he said. "The sixth ingredient is not a

pair of beetles. However," he added, "five out of six is not disgraceful. I

will not take points from Gryffindor." He set the phial down on the desk

in front of him with a slight bang. "Now, does anyone wish to volunteer to

come up here and be made invisible?" he demanded.

Draco looked over at Harry and grinned.

Never, and even Harry´s telepathic voice sounded annoyed, ever, help me

again.

Hey, Gryffindor didn´t lose any points.

No, but I think I lost ten years off my life. Oh, shut up, Malfoy. Go be

invisible or something. Then again, you´d probably drop dead if you had

to spend ten minutes without your own reflection.

Draco shrugged modestly, then realized that Hermione was looking from

him to Harry and back again. She bit her lip irritably and turned back to

her notebook as Ron was called up to the front of the class to be made

invisible. Ron looked suspiciously at the foaming green liquid, and drank

it with the air of someone about to be murdered.

The sound of rustling paper caught Draco´s attention. When he turned

sideways he saw that Hermione was holding up a note, folded so that only

he could read it. I TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK TO HARRY DURING CLASS!

Draco shrugged apologetically, but Hermione continued to glare at him

until Ron distracted the entire class by glowing violently purple for a

moment, and vanishing.

"That´s the best Weasley´s ever looked," said a silky voice at Draco´s

elbow. It was Blaise Zabini, looking at him from beneath her long dark

eyelashes.

"Just what I was going to say," Draco replied quite truthfully.

She laid two fingers on his sleeve and smiled up at him, her beautiful face

lighting up. Her eyes were huge and gray-green. "Aren´t you clever."

Draco smiled at her and sat back in his chair. He was vaguely conscious,

without actually looking at her, that Hermione had shot him a disgusted

look. He was used to this.

Ron had popped back into visibility -- "Worse luck," Draco muttered

towards Blaise, and she and Pansy Parkinson giggled - and was making his

way back to his desk, looking green. Hermione pulled him down into his

seat by the sleeve and patted his shoulder.

"And now we have another potion," said Snape. He indicated a stoppered

vial of red liquid on his desk. "This one is called Soporus, and it does

what....? Yes, Granger?"

Hermione put her hand down. "If you drink it, it makes you remember

your dreams."

Snape did not even bother telling the class that this was correct. "Very

well." He cleared his throat. "Draco Malfoy, come up here."

Draco was surprised. The Potions Master rarely called on him for much of

anything, preferring to torment the Gryffindors and slower Slytherins. He

rose to his feet, however, and made his way up to the front of the room,

where he stood looking inquiringly at Snape.

Snape unstoppered the vial of scarlet liquid and handed it to Draco. It

looked like blood. "This will make me remember my dreams?" Draco

asked, looking at Snape suspiciously.

"Just the most recent ones," Snape said. His expression was quite blank.

"Go on, then."

Draco gave him one last suspicious look, and drank the potion.

For a moment, nothing happened. Draco looked out at the class, who

stared back at him expectantly. Hermione had her head to the side,

looking curious, Ron looked as if he were hoping against hope that Draco

might explode, and Harry had one eyebrow raised. Blaise and Pansy were

staring with parted lips. Neville seemed sunk in gloomy ruminations

about his toad. Draco was about to turn to the Potions Master and

announce that nothing was happening when he noticed that the back wall

of the classroom seemed to be curling in on itself and rushing towards

him like a wave. Blackness hit him, and he fell into it as if he were

drowning.

***

The dream rose like a fever, washed over him, blinding him. It carried

him forward. Stone walls rose up around him and a floor of marble slid

beneath his feet. He was somewhere, and nowhere.

He raised his head and glanced around. It was as if he looked through a

pane of black glass. The world before him seemed smoky, distant, touched

with darkness, as if its light had been smothered under heavy cloth. He

looked around and saw that he was in a cylindrical stone room with

narrow ancient windows, as if he stood at the top of a tower. A long oak-

plank table ran across one wall. It was lined with bottles and silver phials

studded with what looked like costly gems. There were other items

scattered there: a key made of bones, a Hand of Glory, a wicked-looking

dagger. A tapestry covered most of one wall: it depicted a circle,

quartered by a cross, and in each quarter of the cross was a symbol Draco

could not decipher. Underneath ran a motto in Latin that Draco couldn’t

quite decipher, though he thought he recognized the word for “worthy”

or “honored.”

In the center of the room was a square table, carved out of onyx. At each

corner of the table was a golden disk. And next to the table stood two

men.

The one on the right was immediately familiar. Tall and pale-haired, with

narrow cold gray eyes, dressed in viridian robes, his black-gloved hands

clasped across his front. Lucius Malfoy, his father.

The other man was dressed in a black cloak. His hood was up, hiding his

face, although in its depths Draco imagined he could see the flicker of two

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: