Draco stayed at Theo as long as he dared, but eventually he had to return home. He Apparated just outside the land covered by the Anti Appirition Jinx, and walked the rest of the way. As he neared the room, he wanted to run away. He really didn't need to have this conversation with Severus ( Read more... )

Antonin had never been good at waiting. Patient people often got killed. Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew that he would have to wait this time. If he worked too quickly, if he didn't let enough time pass before removing the bodies from the huge vat of sludge he'd made, they wouldn't be completely invulnerable, or they would be ( Read more... )

Draco had absented himself from Snape's rooms, and after their discussion of the night before, Snape didn't need Legilimency to know that Draco intended to decoy his mother out of the house, and out of the (perhaps more-than-metaphorical) line of fire between Snape and Lucius ( Read more... )

After leaving Theo's house, Draco apparated straight to Voldemort's. He couldn't imagine going anywhere else. He loved his parents, but he doubted he could put on the happy face for them. Severus wouldn't care about his mood. In fact if he were lucky, Severus might be busy with a potion or two, and they wouldn't even have to speak ( Read more... )

Theodore had given in to impulse and gone home after meeting Weasley Female by the lake. He’d taken the safety off the dueling dummy and had subsequently spent several hours in simulated combat. When he emerged from the dungeon, bruised and slightly bloody, he had felt infinitely better ( Read more... )

After leaving the cellars for the relative safety of his own thoroughly warded suite, Snape reviewed his security measures again, before allowing his awareness of the outside world to fall away. He focused his magical energies inward, to the diamond-hard resolve at the core of his being, his absolute determination to see Voldemort gone from the ( Read more... )

In the labyrinth of cellars and dungeons beneath the Dark Lord's lair, Snape and Draco were busy, gathering a delicate species of fungus that grew best in subterranean places where old blood had been spilled. The two were crouched in an empty torture chamber, scraping away at the stone beneath rusted manacles, when the echoing acoustics brought ( Read more... )

Snape knew that a spy's life (like a soldier's), usually involved long stretches of boredom; broken by intervals of terror which were rare and (perhaps terminally) brief ( Read more... )

Snape prowled around his rooms. Maddening. Absolutely bloody maddening. Draco had wheedled his way into occupying part of Snape's suite the night before last; the most insane letter had arrived from him in the wee small hours of last night, and ever since then, the brat had been nowhere near the rooms he'd been so damn determined to occupy such a ( Read more... )

After the disastrophic dinner, Draco didn't have to think where to go. There was truly only one place he could go. He ended up, sitting in front of Severus, while eating food that came no where close to the delicious meals his mother prepared (or the elves for her), and ranting about the entire night. In details. And repeatedly ( Read more... )