The cuffs fell from Dracos wrists to the marble floor with a clatter, and vanished. Slowly, Draco brought his arms forward, and began rubbing the feeling back into his wrists. He looked at Slytherin.
'Thank you,' he said.
Harry felt a very odd, very cold feeling begin to spread through his stomach.
'You are my descendant,' said the Snake Lord. 'You should not be bound.'
'Oh, I very much agree with that,' said Draco, and he grinned, not at anyone in particular. He seemed different than he had a short while ago, his posture tense and coiled, eyes alight with angry energy. He looked like a thoroughbred animal gone feral, an animal you wouldn?t want to approach, for fear of being bitten. 'So I have a question,' he added, rocking back on his heels. 'You?ve untied me. What do you plan to do with Harry?'
Once again, Slytherin looked over at Harry. His eyes were full of cold fire and hatred. Fleur did not look over, she appeared to be industriously studying the ground. 'The Gryffindor heir has served his purpose,' said the Snake Lord. 'You could not have defeated the Manticore without him. But now that is done, now my full power can be returned; now, he will serve me better dead than alive. Guards,' and Slytherins mouth quirked into a vicious sort of smile as he glanced up, 'Bring the boy here.'
Two guards detached themselves from the group, strode over to Harry, and seized him. He struggled, his feet sliding in manticore blood, but it was no use — they were stronger than he was and without his hands, he was helpless. They dragged him forward until he stood less than a foot from Slytherin, almost face to face with Draco.
'So,' said Slytherin, looking from Draco to Harry and back again.
'The Heir of Gryffindor — what shall I do with him?'
Harry saw Fleur jerk her head up and stare in disbelief; Draco however, didn?t move at all. He stood with his chin raised, his gray eyes unwavering, and he had never looked more than he did that moment like Lucius Malfoys son. Even splashed with blood, clothes torn and filthy, he had the same defiant tilt to his chin, the same pride and coldness; he looked as much like his father as Harry had been told that he himself looked like James. Dracos ice-water gaze slid over Slytherin, over the guard that surrounded the Snake Lord, over Fleur, and then over to Harry himself. Their eyes met for a split second — there was nothing in Dracos eyes, no expression- no fear or fury, hatred or despair, passion or compassion. Nothing. He looked at Harry, and then he looked back at Slytherin.
'Do what you like with him,' he said. 'It doesn?t matter to me.'
Slytherins eyes opened wide with surprise; for a moment, he almost looked human. Then he turned to the guards. 'Take the Gryffindor boy back to the adamantine cell,' he said, and he looked briefly over at Harry, his black eyes considering. 'Chain him up,' he added, and the guards moved forward and, surrounding Harry, began to drag him away. He struggled to look back, not knowing why he wanted to, only that he did, and saw Draco and Slytherin standing together by the body of the dead manticore, Fleur a little ways away. From a distance, it was hard to tell which of the two men was Draco, and before Harry could discern the difference, the guards had dragged him through the door and shut it firmly behind them.
1) 'When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things- from-the-other-fellow's-point-of-view is seldom necessary.' Terry Pratchett, 'Small Gods.'
2) Nightmare Grass comes from The Secret Country by Pamela Dean.
So does the idea of shapechangers who you have to kill in every shape they can transform into.
3) 'My hovercraft is full of eels.' Monty Python.
4) ' Sirius brandished the book in the air. 'Demons, Demons, Demons — what a title.' 'Its a book about demons. What would you call it?' — Angel.
5) 'This seems to be developing into a distinctly boring situation.' —
Blackadder.
6) Nightmare Grass is from Pamela Dean's book: The Hidden Land, available from Firebird books. Used with permission.
Charlie was never actually sure exactly what it was that suddenly woke him up in the middle of that night. Later, he would think it was a vague feeling of uneasiness, the sense that all was not right with the world. More likely, it was a sudden craving for chocolate biscuits.
He got up and pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and headed downstairs to the kitchen, padding quietly on bare feet. He went through the living room into the kitchen, and lit the fire under the teapot on the stove with a flick of his wand and a muttered 'incendius.' Lazily, he Summoned a pack of biscuits from the cupboard and began eating them methodically, glancing absently at the clock on the wall as he did so. That it was late, or early depending on how one looked at it, he could tell from the lightening gray sky outside the window. It also looked like it was about to rain.
The kettle had begun to boil. He reached out and plucked it off the stove — then paused, and looked at the clock on the wall again.
Bang! The kettle hit the ground as Charlies suddenly nerveless fingers released their grasp on the handle, and boiling water splashed his feet, but he barely noticed. He was already moving quickly across the room towards the wall where the gold-framed clock hung, leaning his head back, and staring at it with an incomprehension that bordered on shock.
There was each gold hand with the name of a Weasley child or parent etched on it — Percys said 'work,' Bills 'home' and Fred and George seemed to be 'at a wild party. Don?t wait up!' And there was his own hand, set firmly on 'visiting family.'
And then there were the hands that said Ron and Ginny. Neither of the hands was on 'home', or 'travelling,' or even 'mortal peril.'
Instead, they were doing something Charlie had never seen before -
spinning in wild circular sweeps around the face of the clock, over and over, directionless and unceasing, as if wherever his little brother and sister had gone, it was somewhere so far that even the magic of the clock couldn?t find them….
When Ginny turned the Time-Turner over, the world vanished from under Hermiones feet. It was like using the Time-Turner McGonagall had given her, and yet not like it, as if that feeling had been amplified a hundred
