(Untitled)
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy
Where: Spinner's End
When: Monday night, late (January 28, 2002)
Rating: Going to head for R already
( one good turn deserves another )
Where: Spinner's End
When: Monday night, late (January 28, 2002)
Rating: Going to head for R already
( one good turn deserves another )
This was a common refrain he would tell himself in the sardonic self-mocking recesses of his mind. He always paced a bit on full moon nights. Werewolves were powerfully magical creatures to be sure, but they were still more vulnerable in many ways when in their wolf form.
The disconcerting letter he'd received scarcely two hours before was also weighing heavily on his mind.
So when his wards sent a magic tingle down his spine, alerting him that something human had passed his furthest boundary, he rose from his chair and began his sweep of the house again, peering suspiciously out through the curtained windows.
When he reached the window in the kitchen door, he positively started. There, huddled in the snow like a beaten, stray animal, was none other than Draco Malfoy.
Had it only been yesterday that he believed all ties between them to be forever severed?
He snorted derisively.
Apparently 'forever' meant only until he was of bloody use again.
For a moment, indignant fury tempted him to turn his back on the pathetic sight and go back to his warm fire, his book, and the heavy warm body of his lover in wolf-form, curled over his feet and ankles.
It had been exceedingly comforting after the weekend he'd passed.
But he stared for a while, indecision warring within him. It would serve the selfish little arse right to be left to freeze there in the garden all night! Then again . . . his mind swept over the letter in his pocket. If Lucius was also being threatened, it was possible Draco had been followed here. Ministry regulations didn't allow his home wards to be secure enough for the boy to safely spend the night in the garden!
Wait a minute! Spend the night? Instinctively he looked at the clock on the wall, which was silly because he knew for a fact it was way beyond curfew. He looked more critically at the forlorn figure sitting in the snow . . . and caught the unmistakeable gleam of some sort of metalic band peeking out between the top of Draco's shoe and the bottom of his robes.
In a flurry of activity, his wand was in his hand as he ripped the door open with the other. He kept his wand raised defensively, his eyes darting about the darkened area suspiciously.
"Draco Phineas Malfoy! Get in this house this instant! What the sodding hell have you done?"
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"Didn't come here to bother you," he muttered, standing. "I'll just go..."
He stood rooted to the spot though, staring at some imaginary spot on the ground. He really hadn't meant to disturb the man, or the house in general. Still, he knew that if he upset Severus, Lupin, as wolf, wouldn't be far behind. WHich meant he needed to move.
"I'm sorry...shouldn't...be here."
He hadn't answered the question, yet his feet drew him woodenly towards the house, following the orders with all too much familiarity.
"Just...came to...think...is all." he whispered.
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There was no need to panic anyone over the blasted letter. He couldn't even be certain Lucius had received anything similar. He received hate-mail all the time. Probably just some nutter and nothing to his more immediate concerns.
"Come on, then," he added, irritably to hurry the boy along. Though Spinner's End was not quite as cold as Hogwarts, the weather being slightly milder here, it was still January in England!
Once Draco was inside the house, Severus closed the door and flicked his wand to stoke the fire in the kitchen.
"Tea?" he asked, automatically shifting into the instinctive care-taker role he'd always played whenever Draco needed him. He had told the boy his door would always be open - he just handn't imagined the offer to be taken up scarcely 24 hours later. "Have you eaten?"
And then, because he was in no humour to utterly coddle the boy, he asked, "I presume since you are here well beyond curfew that the adornment at your ankle is not a trinket of undying affection from your most recent conquest?"
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Right, food, drink...yeah, no. His stomach turned.
How had he gotten into this? And still worse, here he was, at Severus' house, the reason his mood had gone from foul to hellish yesterday. The reason he had drunk himself deeper into insanity. The reason he answered an owl with a visit instead of a return owl.
At the question, he snorted. "You could say that. Stupid bint lured me out beyond curfew."
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His brows were contracted sharply.
"All actions have consequences and all actions involve choice. You know that. If I have taught you nothing else, you KNOW that. No one can 'lure' you to do anything if you did not wish to be enticed. It is no one's responsibility but your own to attend to your time constraints and obligations."
He, who had borne every consequence of every action he'd taken - and continued to bear them, the collar at his neck its own reminder of that - would not stand by and watch a young man he'd mentored try to step away from personal responsibility.
Which meant he might bloody well be chasing the boy away again, but there was no help for it.
"You made an error in judgement. It happens. You will survive it. But you will deal more effectively if you acknowledge the error to begin with."
He poured tea and slid the cup toward Draco, sighing in fond exasperation.
"So. Do I know the 'bint' in question? I was not aware you were seeing anyone."
Then again, he hadn't really made any effort to keep up with what was going on in his life.
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Acknowledge the error? Oh, he knew what the error was. Getting involved with Evie, talking to Snape, drinking, checking in on the werewolf clinic, allowing Ginny Weasley to kiss him. He physically shuddered. Exactly how drunk had he been? And why couldn't he simply not remember that part?
Not that the memory was all too clear, just clear enough to know he couldn't pass it off as a nightmare. The worst part was, the girl was a moderate kisser.
NO! His thoughts could not go there.
He looked up when Severus asked her identity. Hell.
"I'm not seeing anyone," he stood up and paced. "I was. She left me. Saw you. Got drunker." He wasn't making proper sentences. He knew that. Knew his lack of decorum was likely making things worse for the other man in the room. He wasn't sure he still cared.
"Responded to an owl I got a month ago, and, she hit on me. Needless to say, with the aftermath, I missed curfew. I fucking missed curfew, and I'm getting belled."
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If Draco had difficulty in accepting personal responsibility, Severus had developed equal if not worse problems in taking on more than what was probably his due.
Guilt and remorse were old friends. What was one more burden?
He leaned back against the cooker, folded his arms over his chest, and listened to the string of incoherencies as he watched the boy pace.
Severus did not miss Draco's slide past the inquiry as to the girl's identity, but clearly it was not information he wished to divulge at the moment. It was hardly Severus' business. He was supposed to be removing himself from the boy's life, not entangling himself further.
It was utterly impossible to follow the half-sentence nonsense as Draco failed to explain the sequence of events. What he gleaned from it was that Draco had been just as upset over their conversation yesterday as he had been, and chose to deal with his distress in alcohol.
"You are still responsible for your own behaviour, Draco. I hardly poured drink down your throat, whatever else you wish to lay at my feet."
He stifled a sigh and shrugged his shoulder.
"Does your father know?"
Because, especially now, Severus was in no humour to discuss the mother.
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He couldn't get angry enough yet to manage proper coherency, and certainly not enough to end his self-pity streak.
Staring into the fire, he shrugged. "Dunno. Haven't seen him or mother. Came here to get away from everyone."
He sighed, "Worst part was, I was working on legal counsel to get off the damned thing. I had dreams, even two months ago, I had dreams. Now I know I might as well just give in to solitude and misery. I'll have it if I leave my parents, and I'll have it if I stay. So why not keep company with money if that's the only difference anymore."
He closed his eyes tightly, leaning his hand against the wall. "Twice I've missed curfew, and both times because I actually opened up to a girl."
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He hadn't realised, saying it himself, how completely pathetic it sounded. Was it more pitiable, he wondered, coming from a forty-two year old man who had no one to blame for his isolation but himself, or from a twenty-one year old man whose whole life was ahead of him and yet already he was giving up on himself, on his future.
What struck him most of all was his own sense of pleasure, in spite of everything, that Draco had come here when he wanted to get away from everyone.
"Draco, that's enough," he said sharply. "Must everything be so dramatic? Do you really believe you are a hair's breadth away from being disowned by either of your parents? You are their only heir, the only one left to carry on the bloodlines of two of the most powerful families our world has ever known.
"Your parents will be angry, yes, and rightfully so - but they are hardly going to disown you for Ministry stupidity."
He scoffed softly in amusement, though whether it was at Draco or himself, he wasn't certain.
"Solitude and misery are not as amusing as one might imagine. Take that from someone who knows. I doubt you're quite ready to be locked away as a hermit just yet.
"Though, if you allow the Ministry to defeat you, I will be severely disappointed. You are a Malfoy with intelligence and cunning in your own right. Why should you stop fighting the appeal? If your solicitor is so poor as to be unable to find grounds to protest your device, you had best sack him straight away and start afresh."
His lips quirked in spite of himself as he added, "If I might offer an opinion, it sounds to me as though you are choosing the wrong sorts of companions. And that you need to get a better watch."
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"No, I don't think they'll disown me. I said I wasn't worthy of it. Clear distinction, though you're right that I'm not really giving up. I just can't believe I was that stupid! And a blood traitor to boot!"
He smirked a little, a strange contortion of his face as amusement and pain mixed in odd company. "Wrong sorts indeed. Malfoy with a blood traitor after curfew. As you can tell, I was obviously not in my right mind. She likely is laughing now, at how she thinks she's one-upped me."
He imagined Ginny having a good laugh, but knew she wouldn't share it with anyone. After all, it had never happened, right? Still, they could have been discussing the clinic itself. Nothing untoward there.
He needed to calm down and think. Somehow, listening to Severus drone on aided him in that, if only in spiteful determination not to end up like the man before him. Martyrdom never sat well on Malfoy shoulders. He shrugged it off and moved to the table again.
He wouldn't admit, just yet, how much help the older man was to him. After all, wasn't he just digging himself deeper into debt with this evening?
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His brow furrowed at the 'blood traitor' comment. It was impossible to completely stifle the sigh it elicited. Would their world always be riddled with prejudice? The last time he'd heard that phrase, Mrs Black's portrait had been screeching it at the Weasley twins.
Suspicion roused in him, but he ignored it. Someone like Draco must know many 'blood traitors'.
"Well. So here we are. It is getting late, and I am still wary of security issues, particularly on full-moon nights."
Which was quite true, though his worry was deeper, today, in light of the strange letter he'd received. Sending Draco home, unattended, after receiving threats which clearly mentioned Lucius seemed the very height of foolishness, speaking of thinking through one's actions.
But he could hardly tell Draco about the letter. He intended to tell no one until he'd had opportunity to investigate the situation.
"It is impossible for me to escort you home, and I would rather you not leave, alone, for your own safety. Theo's old room is empty. You are welcome to stay until morning if you like."
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He tensed as he heard the door, watching Severus' reactions to his own words, and then the noise. He pulled back, beyond the doorway. No one had followed him. Well, he couldn't guarantee that. He could have been followed. There were far too many things that could be happening.
Shit.
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Unless the strange letter-writer was stalking Draco, too?
"Stay here," he ordered, already moving toward the door to the sitting room. "Close the door, at least mostly. Don't allow yourself to be seen until you are certain of the situation."
Tracking device or no, it would not help Draco's reputation to be seen here at the house, and Severus did do his best to try and protect the boy from himself.
Without waiting for Draco's agreement, he swept out of the room, his own wand quick to-hand, ready to do whatever was necessary to protect his family. Which would, it seem, always include Draco, son-of-his-heart, even if Draco did not wish to be included in the sentiment.
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