'Muggles. Mudbloods. Those who resist. Only they will die.'
'Everyone will resist. Its not like it was in the old days. Nobody in the wizarding world expects to be ruled. Not anymore.'
'If everyone resists, everyone dies.'
'Why don?t you just kill me?' Draco demanded, raising his chin.
'What do you need me for that you have to keep me alive when you know — '
'That you aren?t to be trusted? You cannot fight me. It would be impossible.'
'What do you need me for?'
'The Prophecy states that I shall rise to power with my descendant at my side, and that together we will bring destruction and chaos to the wizarding world. Now, prophecies are not immutable. I know that. But when I built the line that resulted in your birth, mixing my blood with the blood of creatures I fabricated out of elements of dark magic, I created something unique. I had always intended this moment. When I have opened the Orb, when the bargain is fulfilled, then I will make you my Source. And when that happens, I will command such powers, I will do such things, that I will be the terror of the earth.'
Slytherins eyes were glowing with a weird black light. Draco almost couldn?t bear to look at him. 'Aren?t you afraid?' Draco asked, his voice unsteady.
'Afraid of what?'
'I don?t know.' Draco looked down at his shoes. 'Retribution.'
'No.' Slytherin said. 'I am afraid of nothing.'
'No one is afraid of nothing. There must be something…' Draco said, not impressed, but horrified. To lack fear in such a degree seemed to him an entirely inhuman quality, like lacking a capacity for wonderment or surprise.
'No. Fear is born from caring. I care for nothing.'
'Have you never loved anything?'
'No. I have never loved anything. Even Rowena was only a part of myself.' He turned his eyes on Draco. They shone in the darkness like a cats. 'Love is a sickness. Cure yourself, or I will cure you.'
Draco looked down at the floor, a finger of cold sliding up his spine.
Love is a sickness. He had thought that himself, lying awake at night in the Slytherin dungeon those last weeks of school, staring up at the ceiling, feeling as if a heavy weight were pressing against his chest. Wondering if it was possible to feel so terrible and continue living. Guilty that thoughts of losing Hermione actually crowded out the thoughts of his father behind bars, which was what he should have been thinking about, but couldn?t. Knowing that he was being stupid, childish, that people loved in their lives over and over, their hearts broken and reformed, yet afraid anyway that he would be the exception, that he, of all people, might have finally encountered something he could not buy or ignore or ridicule away, that something had actually happened to him from which he would never recover. And they had not gone away, those feelings. That he knew now that part of this had to do with Slytherins rising, that some of the emotions that surged and broke inside him had their birth in a bloody thousand-year-old history, almost didn?t matter.
Reality came to him with a jolt, and he started, alarmed that Slytherin had said anything that struck a chord in him. He swallowed hard, and glanced up. And saw that the door to the room was open, and a servant was standing there, speaking with Slytherin.
Apparently he had been there for a few moments at least, for they appeared to be in the middle of a discourse.
'— finished testing the blood you gave us, Master,' the creature was saying. 'It is clean of charms and spells, although our results are not without interest. Would you like to come and see?'
Slytherin nodded. 'Yes, I would.' He turned to Draco. 'Wait here for me.'
Once Slytherin was gone, Draco was able to relax very slightly. He began to examine the shelves of books, arranged in no particular order, most of which seemed to deal with the Dark Arts. Slytherin had copies of Epicyclical Elaborations of Sorcery, The Necronomicon, How to Raise Demons and the Dead, and something called The Handbook for Evil Overlords, which didn?t look as if it had been read much. At random, Draco picked up a book entitled The Dragon Glass, which fell open to an illustration of red dragons in flight. He had just begun to skim it when the door behind him opened with a soft click, and someone poked their head into the room.
He turned and blinked. There was a woman standing in the doorway; one he recognized from his tour of the armies the previous day. Long, dark hair and an impressive figure, and the telltale upswept black eyes of a banshee. 'Raven,' he said slowly, plucking her name from some recess of memory. 'What is it?'
She straightened up, and walked into the room, trailed by a tall man in a black travelling cloak, who Draco recognized instantly and with an enormous, boiling shock, as Sirius.
He barely heard Raven speaking, saying that two of the Called had arrived that morning, one of whom, a werewolf, had been sorted in with the other lycanthropes, but that this one was a vampire and that consequently there was no place for him. 'We just don?t have any other vampires,' she sighed, looking exasperated.
'Alphabetically, I could put him with the veelas, but I don?t think thats such a good idea, do you?'
Draco tried to find his voice, which had temporarily deserted him.
He was staring at Sirius, who he could tell was as shocked as he was, although he was doing an excellent job of hiding it. All those years of Auror training, no doubt. 'Leave him here with me,' he said finally, his voice coming out slightly shrill.
Raven blinked. 'Beg pardon?'
'I said leave him here. I want to ask him something.'
'But, Master — '
'I said leave him!'
She jumped in surprise, then nodded, and left, quietly shutting the door behind her. Heart pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs, Draco turned to face Sirius.
