HP fic, "A Peace That Was Torn from the Morning," 4/4, NC17
Sometimes I do finish things, you know. This is the end of the road, more or less, and thank you all for following it with me, or following me on it :) Stay tuned for part one of my next project (as yet untitled.)
Summary: Sometimes doing the right thing is as simple as doing the only thing you can do.
This story is AU following the events of HBP, but does incorporate some new canon when possible. It begins shortly after the end of The Winter Prince, which begins about eighteen months after Houses of Stone.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Hungry as an archway/ through which the troops have passed
The plan started to fall apart almost as soon as they arrived at the orphanage the next night. To begin with, it was raining so heavily that visibility was nearly nonexistent. One of them had to stand guard in the front, and one in the back by the entrance. Potter had originally assigned Thomas the front and Draco the back, but changed his mind when they were unable to unlock the door.
Instead he left Ginny in the street and Thomas waiting in the alley while he and Draco tried a dozen different spells on the door. In the end they were forced to break it down, which proved to be easier said than done. It also meant Draco was stuck following Potter into the building, rather than waiting in relative-if damp-safety, outside. They stepped over the shattered door and into the dimly lit place that had been Lord Voldemort's first home.
Draco's experience with Muggle social work was nonexistent, but he thought that the pleasant, airy building more resembled headquarters than the prison he had expected. He and Potter followed the tracking device up twisting staircases and down wide hallways, trying very hard to be stealthy. They were not particularly successful. Draco, at least, imagined Death Eaters in every shadow, and once as they came around a corner he had to bite his tongue to keep himself from squeaking. But it was true that some rats were only that, and not traitors in disguise.
The tracking spell led them to a room occupied by a tiny girl. Draco charmed her into a deeper sleep and joined Potter in trying to pry up the floorboard. If something were going to go wrong-and Draco had no natural gift for prophecy, but he had an uneasy presentiment that something was going to-this would be the time. There were so many holes in the plan, and he was not sure how many of them were the result of the Order's shoddy planning and how many caused by its insistence on confidentiality. How had they known where to find the cup? Why had Voldemort chosen such a ridiculous place to leave it?
The board slid free without a sound. Potter lifted it almost reverently, and laid it carefully aside. In the opening, the cup they had been sent to find lay, still wrapped in ragged fragments of cloth. Neither Draco nor Potter could look away from it, although at first glance there was very little to see. Just a chalice, not too big, made of some base metal, and radiating power. Draco had never wanted to touch anything so badly in his life. That was how he knew there was something wrong with it.
His wand was in his hand, and he had no memory of drawing it. Potter's fingers were inches away from the cup. "Wait," he said desperately. "What if it's trap? It could be a Portkey--."
"It isn't a Portkey, Malfoy," Potter said, "and it isn't a trap. There's something about it, isn't there?" He had drawn his wand, too.
There were words caught in Draco's throat, and for a moment he thought he had spoken them without meaning to, spoken the spell: "Avada Kedavra." He had been meaning to use it on Potter since he'd learned what Potter had done to him. But he had not been the one casting the Killing Curse.
It struck the cup in a flash of green light. At once the sense of power was gone. The cup was only a cup. Outside, in the street, a woman screamed: Ginny. Draco and Potter exchanged a glance of pure horror, and then they were on their feet and running for the door. It was only as they pounded down the first flight of stairs that Draco realized they'd forgotten the cup altogether. He suspected that it no longer mattered.
One wrong turn and thirty seconds later they burst out of the house and into the alley. Potter, slightly in the lead, stumbled hard and went down. When he got up he was covered in blood. That was how they knew Thomas was dead. And then they were in the middle of the battle in the street, and it was too late for Draco to stop and throw up; he had to fight for his life.
At first glance there were dozens of them, all in full regalia. Two of them had Ginny by the arms and were tearing her apart, while the others looked on. It would have been easy to run, and Draco was dismayed to find himself fighting instead. He threw the first hex he could think of, a slicing one better suited to bread, and it hit one of the Death Eaters and raised a spray of blood.
Potter was casting dark and difficult spells without a pause for breath, seemingly even without a wand. It was all Draco could do to keep from stopping where he was to watch. He felt the old mix of awe and envy that had once made him furious whenever Potter's name was mentioned. He was good: of course he was, he was a Malfoy. But he would never be as good as Potter was, and he was not even sure he wanted to be.
The Death Eaters-and now it seemed there were only ten and not three dozen-fell back before Potter's fury. They dropped what remained of Ginny. One of them bolted, and Draco cut him down with a quick Stupefy. Potter cast Cruciatus and the Killing Curse at the others impartially, and with a quickness Draco was not sure even Voldemort could have equaled. There had been ten, nine, six, and then there were three. They seemed to have realized there would be no quarter given. They fought with the ferocity of trapped animals, which still could not equal Potter's ferocity.
They ignored Draco altogether, which was understandable but unwise. He hit one of them from behind with Imperio, the only one of the Unforgivables he'd ever managed, and set the man on his comrades. For one crucial second their focus was lost, and Potter cast a wordless, wandless, possibly unintentional spell that set them all on fire. They began to scream almost immediately. Draco took a step back, and then another. They continued to burn despite the driving rain, and the smell of burning meat was unmistakable.
"Potter," he said, but the other man didn't turn. "Potter, stop it!" Behind him there was a crack as someone Apparated into the street. He turned so fast that he slipped and almost fell, his wand still clenched in his fist. The battle had begun and ended so quickly he'd never drawn his sword. There was a second crack. Potter moved quickly to stand beside him. For a moment they could not see the new arrivals. Draco thought nervously of his conviction that Potter was faster than the Dark Lord, and hoped it would not be tested. He wondered if it was too late to run for it. Potter put out his hand and touched his wrist, and Draco stepped away.
And then the shapes moving toward them resolved into familiar figures: Snape, and behind him Charlie Weasley. Both of them looked rather the worse for wear, but there was an expression on Snape's face that Draco had never seen before. He suspected it might be a grin, or as close as Snape could come to a grin.
Weasley looked tired, and a little stricken; no doubt he was realizing that if his sister wasn't standing she was probably dead. The manner of her death, spectacularly unpleasant as it had been, was unlikely to improve things for him. Draco fought for something to say, and came up empty. Potter, whose job it should have been, seemed dazed, exhausted by the power he'd expended.
"I'm sorry, Weasley," Draco finally managed, and the other man drifted to a halt. "We-she-we were too late to stop them, but it was quick, at least. She was dead before they ever got hold of her." Even to his own ears the words sounded ridiculous. Fortunately, Snape rescued him, cutting him off mid-explanation.
"Are those--?" He looked half intrigued and half sickened. "Are those Death Eaters still alive, Mr. Potter?" Potter turned slowly to look. Draco did not. He did not even want to think about it.
Snape clapped him on the shoulder as he and Weasley went by. Draco put his wand in his pocket and sat down on the curb, there in the rain, in the street. He could not stop himself from shivering, although he no longer felt sick. Someone, either one of the Death Eaters or Weasley or Snape, had done something to keep the Muggles snug and quiet in their unlit houses. Draco wondered what they would think in the morning, when they opened their doors to find their road awash with blood and strewn with body parts. A motor wreck, probably: Muggles were blind when they wanted to be.
Snape seemed to be taking charge; Draco could hear him Petrifying the remaining Death Eaters. He sounded pleased. After a few minutes a team of Aurors Apparated in and began taking the prisoners away. Draco flipped the collar of his cloak up to cover as much of the back of his neck as possible and stayed where he was. The cleanup was unlikely to be pleasant, and anyway he was sure Snape and Weasley had it well in hand.
He had more or less gone to sleep where he was when someone said his name, and he started so hard his chin slipped off his hand. "Time to go," Snape said, and this time he did grin. Draco stared up at him, wondering what had happened. If it had made Snape so happy, could it possibly be a good thing? "Were you planning to sit here all night?" Snape asked him.
Draco shook his head. "Did we win?" he asked, squinting up at Snape through the rain, and the soft glow of the streetlights.
Snape put out his hand. "We did win," he said, and there was, unmistakably, pleasure in his expression, as well as sadness. "Though the cost of it was terrible." Draco took the hand, and let Snape pull him to his feet. "You're not hurt, I take it," Snape continued. "Potter had a cracked rib or two, but you seem more or less unscathed. You'll have to tell me how the pair of you managed it."
"I don't know," Draco told him honestly. Now that he was on his feet he felt both better and worse: he was still cold and wet and miserable, and now sore, too, and he also felt a faint, disbelieving relief. "Did you say we won? Won won?"
"Have I ever been less than precise?" Snape looked entirely serious. "It's over, Draco. Apparate. We can go directly to headquarters." He was gone, that quickly, and Draco followed him, wondering if Snape meant they had won the war. It hardly seemed possible. But he had been told never to Apparate within a six-block radius of Grimmauld Place. If that restriction had been relaxed--.
Despite the lateness of the hour, lights burned in almost every window of the big old house. The black crepe was back on the door, and Draco wondered who else had died. He doubted Snape would count Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley a terrible loss. But although Draco had not been especially fond of either of them, he found that he was sorry that they were dead. He had spent a great deal of time lately sitting on the back steps and smoking with them, on lazy summer afternoons. And it had very nearly been him, and not Ginny, left to guard the street.
Snape was waiting for him in the empty kitchen, the kettle already boiling. Draco dropped his sopping cloak on the floor and shook himself like a dog, and accepted a cup of chocolate as he sat down at the table. "Please," he said, "explain to me exactly what the hell happened tonight. I have never been so confused in my life."
"Fair enough." Snape took a sip of his chocolate and scowled. "It's difficult to know where to begin," he admitted. "Secrecy grows to be a habit. The cup your team destroyed was the last repository for Voldemort's power. We miscalculated, sending you to collect it; it seems that it was a trap. What made you decide to--."
"At the beginning," Draco interrupted him. "For both our sakes."
Snape sighed. "There is no need to be rude about it. We-that is, Albus and I-had known for some time that Voldemort had managed to divide his-essence, for lack of a better word--into seven portions, and store them in a number of objects powerful in their own right. It is what enabled him to survive so long in the first place. For the last three years, Albus and I have focused on retrieving and destroying those reliquaries. You and Potter, in fact, brought us several of them."
"The locket," Draco guessed. "Thomas insisted it had a picture of one of your relations in it."
"Wretched boy. No, she was not one of my relations. She was one of Voldemort's. Tonight we destroyed the final objects: the cup, and Voldemort's mortal body." He shook his head. "It was an amazing piece of magic, of course; I wish I could get hold of the books he read."
Draco thought, privately, that this was going rather too far. It was one thing to desire power, and quite another to drool over one of the Dark Lord's nastier spells. He did not say so. Snape was entitled to his fantasies, even the ones that were likely to gain him a cell in Azkaban. "You should have told me we were supposed to destroy the cup," he said instead. "I very nearly botched the whole thing."
Snape blinked at him. "You were meant to-not to botch it, and not you specifically, but you were meant to all be in that room when one of you touched the cup. It would have brought you to Voldemort's base of operations in time for the skirmish there. It was all in your orders."
"Was it?" Draco tried to remember. "I thought that it just said we were supposed to retrieve the cup. I don't think it said not to post sentries. How did Potter know to destroy the cup?"
For the first time, Snape looked uncomfortable. "He wasn't supposed to destroy it, and I was hoping you could tell us why he did. We had planned for the four of you to arrive outside Riddle House with the cup just before we went in. Albus was going to destroy it, and than Potter was going to kill Voldemort."
"That was your plan?" Draco asked. "Maybe Potter comes by it honestly, then. So what happened when we didn't come?"
"As it happened, that was for the best." Snape's voice was grim. "We were ambushed by Voldemort and two dozen of his best at our gathering place. Things were going rather badly for us when Voldemort suddenly staggered and fell. Albus hit him with the Killing Curse almost completely by accident, and it proved to be fatal-for both of them: Albus's heart gave out."
"I'm sorry," Draco said, although he wasn't. He could manage sorrow for Ginny Weasley, regret for Dean Thomas, even; he felt nothing at all for Dumbledore.
"I don't know why he broke the cup. But it saved us."
"I'm going to bed," Draco told him. The last thing he wanted was to hear Snape canonize Potter. But there was something that, unbelievably, he'd almost forgotten. "Does this mean that--."
"It's over, Draco. Really over. Go to bed."
Draco went. Alone. He had not slept in his own bed for weeks, and now that he was it did not seem nearly as luxurious as he'd expected. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and when he finally did, his dreams were bad enough to wake him: so bad he wished he hadn't.
The sun came up outside his windows, warm and golden, and he got up because it was better than staying where he was.
It was only as he was dressing that he realized he was late not only for breakfast with Potter but also for guard duty, and that his uniform tunic looked slept in despite his best efforts. He wondered what the protocol was, for armies whose war had been won and rapists one no longer had to fuck. He gave it up, flattened his hair down with water, and walked through empty corridors and down endless stairs. He was not sure what the penalty was for being two hours late for a shift, but at least it would not be an interview with Dumbledore. He did not fancy being taken to task like an errant schoolboy.
He had always found the monotony of sentry duty strangely appealing; it required very little of him either intellectually or physically. He had learned to sleep standing up and with his eyes half-open, and wake at the slightest sound. But he had never slept the way Potter was sleeping, on the floor before the doorway with his head bent and his eyes wide, and a trickle of blood dried at the corner of his mouth.
Draco knew what it meant; he was a soldier. He knew what it might mean if he were found so, standing over the body of a man no one would doubt he had reason to kill. What he did not know was what to do. He knelt beside Potter, careful not to touch anything he did not have to, and rolled Potter from his stomach to his side. Potter's eyelashes fluttered and his body convulsed. Startled, Draco leapt back. Potter's arms and legs flopped once, and settled. He blinked normally, and Draco thought he swallowed.
It was only then that Draco realized he might live, and that he dared not be the one who decided otherwise. He shouted for help, and his voice sounded frantic to his own ears, and utterly natural. Why wouldn't he be frantic? Headquarters was deserted in the mornings; there were rarely more than two officers on duty. And this morning, there would be fewer than ever: only the survivors. For a long time no one came.
It surprised Draco a little that when help did come it came in the form of Snape. Snape, black-robed and silent, and quick to ascertain what was wrong. He pushed Draco away without a word, and pressed his fingers to the pulse point at Potter's neck. His lips moved; Draco thought that he was praying, although it seemed unlikely. Potter convulsed again, and this time there was gray foam on his lips, and bright red blood. And then he was dead.
Snape wiped his hands on the edge of Potter's robes and sat back on his heels. "Charlie Weasley is Dumbledore's office. Go and get him, Draco, quickly."
Draco scrambled to his feet. He could not believe it was Potter lying there with blood coming out of his mouth. It seemed too easy, unfairly so. "Close his eyes, at least," he said, and he was aware that Snape would not understand, and also that it was an acknowledgement of sorts.
Weasley came at once, as though he had some understanding already of what had caused Draco's urgency. When he saw Potter's body he seemed neither upset nor relieved. He said to Snape, "It seems to have been our day for making prophecies come true," and then to Draco, "It's okay. We can take it from here. This was not entirely-unexpected-given the amount of magic Potter expended last night. And perhaps this is how he would have wanted it."
"Perhaps," Draco echoed, the word coming out more sarcastic than he'd meant it to. He was tired of being treated like a child. There were no doors available to slam, and he was doing his best to maintain his dignity anyway.
He spent the rest of the day sulking, which meant a number of cigarettes on the shady porch and a concerted attempt at ignoring the funerary arrangements. He did not see Snape again until it was growing dark. "Come upstairs with me," Snape commanded, his hand hard on Draco's arm. It was not quite painful, but Draco knew that it would be if he chose to disobey. He went with Snape willingly, but when Snape closed the door firmly behind them and pushed him down on the bed, his breathing quickened. He was not panicking, but it would not take much.
Snape seemed to realize what was wrong. He let go of Draco immediately and stepped back. "It's alright," he said softly. "I only want to talk to you."
"I know," Draco answered, feeling his heart slow. "I just wasn't expecting it, is all."
"I killed Potter," Snape told him.
"I know," Draco said. "You weren't expecting me to protest, were you?"
Snape laughed. "You're the only one of us left with a conscience. If anyone were going to protest it would be you."
"My only protest is that I wanted to kill him myself," Draco corrected him, and he thought it looked like Snape relaxed a little, finally. That was what Draco wanted, was for Snape to relax. Draco was nervous enough for both of them. "When you kissed me the other night," he said, and watched as Snape came to attention, "I liked it."
Snape crossed the room and stood before him. Draco swallowed hard but kept himself from flinching. But it seemed that Snape only wanted to talk. "Are you sure of what you are asking me? And are you sure that you want it now? The war is over. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"It could have been me that died last night," Draco said, "and I don't want to die afraid of my own shadow. When you kissed me-I wanted you. You can make me like it, can't you, without potions or pills or spells?"
Snape did not quite smirk. "I can make you like it," he agreed. "I can't guarantee you won't regret it in the morning."
It was Draco's turn to smirk. "When has that ever stopped me?"
"Point taken," Snape said. And then his mouth was on Draco's, hard and fierce as Potter's had ever been, but with one small difference: Draco knew that if he asked, if he made any protest at all, Snape would stop. And so he did not need to ask.
He had done this voluntarily before, though not so much of it as he'd led Snape to believe. He knew there could be pleasure in it, but he had never imagined just how pleasant it could be. Whether it was Snape's experience or Legilimency that made him aware of Draco's reactions even before Draco was aware of them, there was none of the fumbling, none of the awkwardness Draco had associated with sex.
He found that he had no trouble gaining-or sustaining--an erection, even as Snape pushed him back onto the bed and ground their hips together. He lost track of the precise sequence of events shortly after, but he knew that somehow Snape got them both undressed and between the sheets. He remembered that somehow Snape ended up beneath him, writhing as Draco bit his shoulder and ran covetous fingers over his cock. He remembered pushing himself down onto Snape, and that it was neither painful nor terrible, and that after a while it was enough to make him come.
It turned out that Draco like sex very much. He even thought that he might like to do it often, and with Snape, but Snape was quick to attempt to disabuse him of that idea. In fact, his choice of conversation afterward left a great deal to be desired. They were lying against Snape's battered pillows, smoking Draco's cigarettes-somehow Snape seemed never to have his own-when he said, "There's something I have to tell you."
Draco knew that whatever was coming was almost certainly unpleasant. "Why?" he asked. "Will it change anything?"
Snape considered this. "It will probably mean that you'll never speak to me again," he admitted.
"But do I really need to know?" Draco was tired of secrets, but not so tired that he wanted to share Snape's simply to keep them from being secret.
Snape pushed himself up on one elbow and stubbed the cigarette out on the floorboard and extinguished the smoke with a spell. "I guess maybe you don't," he admitted, his back still to Draco. "Maybe I thought telling you would make me feel better."
"Then don't," Draco suggested. "I don't want to know anything I don't have to."
"You might have made a spy after all," Snape said, and rolled onto his stomach and went to sleep.
He slept like a man at peace with himself, and maybe he was; Draco lay beside him staring up at the canopy and trying not to hate him for it. He was so tired he ached, and lately when he fell asleep he dreamed of Harry Potter. Better exhaustion than dreaming of Potter dead with bloody vomit on his lips, the green eyes staring, the hands clenched. Better exhaustion than dreaming of Potter kneeling before him, struggling to get him hard. Better anything than dreaming of Potter begging him to give freely what Potter had once taken.
Snape never stirred, not even when Draco stood up and went to the window. Draco knew that if he said Snape's name, touched his shoulder, the older man would wake and would not grudge the sleep lost. Snape was always sympathetic; Draco sometimes thought he was overly so. It had been to Snape's advantage to have Draco a little broken, and they both knew it. They both knew that had it not been for Draco Snape would not have had Potter to fulfill his prophecy.
So it was self-interest as much as kindness that got Snape up in the middle of the night to mix Dreamless Sleep potions or light candles when Draco could not bear the dark. And Draco loved Snape for himself, and because Snape came as close to making him feel safe as anyone had done in a long time. He did not need to know Snape's latest secret to know that something would eventually come between them. But there was a government to be rebuilt, and power for the taking. He could try to ensure that better people took it-better people than Voldemort or Dumbledore, than Snape or his father. And it seemed he could enjoy himself doing it.
Summary: Sometimes doing the right thing is as simple as doing the only thing you can do.
This story is AU following the events of HBP, but does incorporate some new canon when possible. It begins shortly after the end of The Winter Prince, which begins about eighteen months after Houses of Stone.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Hungry as an archway/ through which the troops have passed
The plan started to fall apart almost as soon as they arrived at the orphanage the next night. To begin with, it was raining so heavily that visibility was nearly nonexistent. One of them had to stand guard in the front, and one in the back by the entrance. Potter had originally assigned Thomas the front and Draco the back, but changed his mind when they were unable to unlock the door.
Instead he left Ginny in the street and Thomas waiting in the alley while he and Draco tried a dozen different spells on the door. In the end they were forced to break it down, which proved to be easier said than done. It also meant Draco was stuck following Potter into the building, rather than waiting in relative-if damp-safety, outside. They stepped over the shattered door and into the dimly lit place that had been Lord Voldemort's first home.
Draco's experience with Muggle social work was nonexistent, but he thought that the pleasant, airy building more resembled headquarters than the prison he had expected. He and Potter followed the tracking device up twisting staircases and down wide hallways, trying very hard to be stealthy. They were not particularly successful. Draco, at least, imagined Death Eaters in every shadow, and once as they came around a corner he had to bite his tongue to keep himself from squeaking. But it was true that some rats were only that, and not traitors in disguise.
The tracking spell led them to a room occupied by a tiny girl. Draco charmed her into a deeper sleep and joined Potter in trying to pry up the floorboard. If something were going to go wrong-and Draco had no natural gift for prophecy, but he had an uneasy presentiment that something was going to-this would be the time. There were so many holes in the plan, and he was not sure how many of them were the result of the Order's shoddy planning and how many caused by its insistence on confidentiality. How had they known where to find the cup? Why had Voldemort chosen such a ridiculous place to leave it?
The board slid free without a sound. Potter lifted it almost reverently, and laid it carefully aside. In the opening, the cup they had been sent to find lay, still wrapped in ragged fragments of cloth. Neither Draco nor Potter could look away from it, although at first glance there was very little to see. Just a chalice, not too big, made of some base metal, and radiating power. Draco had never wanted to touch anything so badly in his life. That was how he knew there was something wrong with it.
His wand was in his hand, and he had no memory of drawing it. Potter's fingers were inches away from the cup. "Wait," he said desperately. "What if it's trap? It could be a Portkey--."
"It isn't a Portkey, Malfoy," Potter said, "and it isn't a trap. There's something about it, isn't there?" He had drawn his wand, too.
There were words caught in Draco's throat, and for a moment he thought he had spoken them without meaning to, spoken the spell: "Avada Kedavra." He had been meaning to use it on Potter since he'd learned what Potter had done to him. But he had not been the one casting the Killing Curse.
It struck the cup in a flash of green light. At once the sense of power was gone. The cup was only a cup. Outside, in the street, a woman screamed: Ginny. Draco and Potter exchanged a glance of pure horror, and then they were on their feet and running for the door. It was only as they pounded down the first flight of stairs that Draco realized they'd forgotten the cup altogether. He suspected that it no longer mattered.
One wrong turn and thirty seconds later they burst out of the house and into the alley. Potter, slightly in the lead, stumbled hard and went down. When he got up he was covered in blood. That was how they knew Thomas was dead. And then they were in the middle of the battle in the street, and it was too late for Draco to stop and throw up; he had to fight for his life.
At first glance there were dozens of them, all in full regalia. Two of them had Ginny by the arms and were tearing her apart, while the others looked on. It would have been easy to run, and Draco was dismayed to find himself fighting instead. He threw the first hex he could think of, a slicing one better suited to bread, and it hit one of the Death Eaters and raised a spray of blood.
Potter was casting dark and difficult spells without a pause for breath, seemingly even without a wand. It was all Draco could do to keep from stopping where he was to watch. He felt the old mix of awe and envy that had once made him furious whenever Potter's name was mentioned. He was good: of course he was, he was a Malfoy. But he would never be as good as Potter was, and he was not even sure he wanted to be.
The Death Eaters-and now it seemed there were only ten and not three dozen-fell back before Potter's fury. They dropped what remained of Ginny. One of them bolted, and Draco cut him down with a quick Stupefy. Potter cast Cruciatus and the Killing Curse at the others impartially, and with a quickness Draco was not sure even Voldemort could have equaled. There had been ten, nine, six, and then there were three. They seemed to have realized there would be no quarter given. They fought with the ferocity of trapped animals, which still could not equal Potter's ferocity.
They ignored Draco altogether, which was understandable but unwise. He hit one of them from behind with Imperio, the only one of the Unforgivables he'd ever managed, and set the man on his comrades. For one crucial second their focus was lost, and Potter cast a wordless, wandless, possibly unintentional spell that set them all on fire. They began to scream almost immediately. Draco took a step back, and then another. They continued to burn despite the driving rain, and the smell of burning meat was unmistakable.
"Potter," he said, but the other man didn't turn. "Potter, stop it!" Behind him there was a crack as someone Apparated into the street. He turned so fast that he slipped and almost fell, his wand still clenched in his fist. The battle had begun and ended so quickly he'd never drawn his sword. There was a second crack. Potter moved quickly to stand beside him. For a moment they could not see the new arrivals. Draco thought nervously of his conviction that Potter was faster than the Dark Lord, and hoped it would not be tested. He wondered if it was too late to run for it. Potter put out his hand and touched his wrist, and Draco stepped away.
And then the shapes moving toward them resolved into familiar figures: Snape, and behind him Charlie Weasley. Both of them looked rather the worse for wear, but there was an expression on Snape's face that Draco had never seen before. He suspected it might be a grin, or as close as Snape could come to a grin.
Weasley looked tired, and a little stricken; no doubt he was realizing that if his sister wasn't standing she was probably dead. The manner of her death, spectacularly unpleasant as it had been, was unlikely to improve things for him. Draco fought for something to say, and came up empty. Potter, whose job it should have been, seemed dazed, exhausted by the power he'd expended.
"I'm sorry, Weasley," Draco finally managed, and the other man drifted to a halt. "We-she-we were too late to stop them, but it was quick, at least. She was dead before they ever got hold of her." Even to his own ears the words sounded ridiculous. Fortunately, Snape rescued him, cutting him off mid-explanation.
"Are those--?" He looked half intrigued and half sickened. "Are those Death Eaters still alive, Mr. Potter?" Potter turned slowly to look. Draco did not. He did not even want to think about it.
Snape clapped him on the shoulder as he and Weasley went by. Draco put his wand in his pocket and sat down on the curb, there in the rain, in the street. He could not stop himself from shivering, although he no longer felt sick. Someone, either one of the Death Eaters or Weasley or Snape, had done something to keep the Muggles snug and quiet in their unlit houses. Draco wondered what they would think in the morning, when they opened their doors to find their road awash with blood and strewn with body parts. A motor wreck, probably: Muggles were blind when they wanted to be.
Snape seemed to be taking charge; Draco could hear him Petrifying the remaining Death Eaters. He sounded pleased. After a few minutes a team of Aurors Apparated in and began taking the prisoners away. Draco flipped the collar of his cloak up to cover as much of the back of his neck as possible and stayed where he was. The cleanup was unlikely to be pleasant, and anyway he was sure Snape and Weasley had it well in hand.
He had more or less gone to sleep where he was when someone said his name, and he started so hard his chin slipped off his hand. "Time to go," Snape said, and this time he did grin. Draco stared up at him, wondering what had happened. If it had made Snape so happy, could it possibly be a good thing? "Were you planning to sit here all night?" Snape asked him.
Draco shook his head. "Did we win?" he asked, squinting up at Snape through the rain, and the soft glow of the streetlights.
Snape put out his hand. "We did win," he said, and there was, unmistakably, pleasure in his expression, as well as sadness. "Though the cost of it was terrible." Draco took the hand, and let Snape pull him to his feet. "You're not hurt, I take it," Snape continued. "Potter had a cracked rib or two, but you seem more or less unscathed. You'll have to tell me how the pair of you managed it."
"I don't know," Draco told him honestly. Now that he was on his feet he felt both better and worse: he was still cold and wet and miserable, and now sore, too, and he also felt a faint, disbelieving relief. "Did you say we won? Won won?"
"Have I ever been less than precise?" Snape looked entirely serious. "It's over, Draco. Apparate. We can go directly to headquarters." He was gone, that quickly, and Draco followed him, wondering if Snape meant they had won the war. It hardly seemed possible. But he had been told never to Apparate within a six-block radius of Grimmauld Place. If that restriction had been relaxed--.
Despite the lateness of the hour, lights burned in almost every window of the big old house. The black crepe was back on the door, and Draco wondered who else had died. He doubted Snape would count Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley a terrible loss. But although Draco had not been especially fond of either of them, he found that he was sorry that they were dead. He had spent a great deal of time lately sitting on the back steps and smoking with them, on lazy summer afternoons. And it had very nearly been him, and not Ginny, left to guard the street.
Snape was waiting for him in the empty kitchen, the kettle already boiling. Draco dropped his sopping cloak on the floor and shook himself like a dog, and accepted a cup of chocolate as he sat down at the table. "Please," he said, "explain to me exactly what the hell happened tonight. I have never been so confused in my life."
"Fair enough." Snape took a sip of his chocolate and scowled. "It's difficult to know where to begin," he admitted. "Secrecy grows to be a habit. The cup your team destroyed was the last repository for Voldemort's power. We miscalculated, sending you to collect it; it seems that it was a trap. What made you decide to--."
"At the beginning," Draco interrupted him. "For both our sakes."
Snape sighed. "There is no need to be rude about it. We-that is, Albus and I-had known for some time that Voldemort had managed to divide his-essence, for lack of a better word--into seven portions, and store them in a number of objects powerful in their own right. It is what enabled him to survive so long in the first place. For the last three years, Albus and I have focused on retrieving and destroying those reliquaries. You and Potter, in fact, brought us several of them."
"The locket," Draco guessed. "Thomas insisted it had a picture of one of your relations in it."
"Wretched boy. No, she was not one of my relations. She was one of Voldemort's. Tonight we destroyed the final objects: the cup, and Voldemort's mortal body." He shook his head. "It was an amazing piece of magic, of course; I wish I could get hold of the books he read."
Draco thought, privately, that this was going rather too far. It was one thing to desire power, and quite another to drool over one of the Dark Lord's nastier spells. He did not say so. Snape was entitled to his fantasies, even the ones that were likely to gain him a cell in Azkaban. "You should have told me we were supposed to destroy the cup," he said instead. "I very nearly botched the whole thing."
Snape blinked at him. "You were meant to-not to botch it, and not you specifically, but you were meant to all be in that room when one of you touched the cup. It would have brought you to Voldemort's base of operations in time for the skirmish there. It was all in your orders."
"Was it?" Draco tried to remember. "I thought that it just said we were supposed to retrieve the cup. I don't think it said not to post sentries. How did Potter know to destroy the cup?"
For the first time, Snape looked uncomfortable. "He wasn't supposed to destroy it, and I was hoping you could tell us why he did. We had planned for the four of you to arrive outside Riddle House with the cup just before we went in. Albus was going to destroy it, and than Potter was going to kill Voldemort."
"That was your plan?" Draco asked. "Maybe Potter comes by it honestly, then. So what happened when we didn't come?"
"As it happened, that was for the best." Snape's voice was grim. "We were ambushed by Voldemort and two dozen of his best at our gathering place. Things were going rather badly for us when Voldemort suddenly staggered and fell. Albus hit him with the Killing Curse almost completely by accident, and it proved to be fatal-for both of them: Albus's heart gave out."
"I'm sorry," Draco said, although he wasn't. He could manage sorrow for Ginny Weasley, regret for Dean Thomas, even; he felt nothing at all for Dumbledore.
"I don't know why he broke the cup. But it saved us."
"I'm going to bed," Draco told him. The last thing he wanted was to hear Snape canonize Potter. But there was something that, unbelievably, he'd almost forgotten. "Does this mean that--."
"It's over, Draco. Really over. Go to bed."
Draco went. Alone. He had not slept in his own bed for weeks, and now that he was it did not seem nearly as luxurious as he'd expected. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and when he finally did, his dreams were bad enough to wake him: so bad he wished he hadn't.
The sun came up outside his windows, warm and golden, and he got up because it was better than staying where he was.
It was only as he was dressing that he realized he was late not only for breakfast with Potter but also for guard duty, and that his uniform tunic looked slept in despite his best efforts. He wondered what the protocol was, for armies whose war had been won and rapists one no longer had to fuck. He gave it up, flattened his hair down with water, and walked through empty corridors and down endless stairs. He was not sure what the penalty was for being two hours late for a shift, but at least it would not be an interview with Dumbledore. He did not fancy being taken to task like an errant schoolboy.
He had always found the monotony of sentry duty strangely appealing; it required very little of him either intellectually or physically. He had learned to sleep standing up and with his eyes half-open, and wake at the slightest sound. But he had never slept the way Potter was sleeping, on the floor before the doorway with his head bent and his eyes wide, and a trickle of blood dried at the corner of his mouth.
Draco knew what it meant; he was a soldier. He knew what it might mean if he were found so, standing over the body of a man no one would doubt he had reason to kill. What he did not know was what to do. He knelt beside Potter, careful not to touch anything he did not have to, and rolled Potter from his stomach to his side. Potter's eyelashes fluttered and his body convulsed. Startled, Draco leapt back. Potter's arms and legs flopped once, and settled. He blinked normally, and Draco thought he swallowed.
It was only then that Draco realized he might live, and that he dared not be the one who decided otherwise. He shouted for help, and his voice sounded frantic to his own ears, and utterly natural. Why wouldn't he be frantic? Headquarters was deserted in the mornings; there were rarely more than two officers on duty. And this morning, there would be fewer than ever: only the survivors. For a long time no one came.
It surprised Draco a little that when help did come it came in the form of Snape. Snape, black-robed and silent, and quick to ascertain what was wrong. He pushed Draco away without a word, and pressed his fingers to the pulse point at Potter's neck. His lips moved; Draco thought that he was praying, although it seemed unlikely. Potter convulsed again, and this time there was gray foam on his lips, and bright red blood. And then he was dead.
Snape wiped his hands on the edge of Potter's robes and sat back on his heels. "Charlie Weasley is Dumbledore's office. Go and get him, Draco, quickly."
Draco scrambled to his feet. He could not believe it was Potter lying there with blood coming out of his mouth. It seemed too easy, unfairly so. "Close his eyes, at least," he said, and he was aware that Snape would not understand, and also that it was an acknowledgement of sorts.
Weasley came at once, as though he had some understanding already of what had caused Draco's urgency. When he saw Potter's body he seemed neither upset nor relieved. He said to Snape, "It seems to have been our day for making prophecies come true," and then to Draco, "It's okay. We can take it from here. This was not entirely-unexpected-given the amount of magic Potter expended last night. And perhaps this is how he would have wanted it."
"Perhaps," Draco echoed, the word coming out more sarcastic than he'd meant it to. He was tired of being treated like a child. There were no doors available to slam, and he was doing his best to maintain his dignity anyway.
He spent the rest of the day sulking, which meant a number of cigarettes on the shady porch and a concerted attempt at ignoring the funerary arrangements. He did not see Snape again until it was growing dark. "Come upstairs with me," Snape commanded, his hand hard on Draco's arm. It was not quite painful, but Draco knew that it would be if he chose to disobey. He went with Snape willingly, but when Snape closed the door firmly behind them and pushed him down on the bed, his breathing quickened. He was not panicking, but it would not take much.
Snape seemed to realize what was wrong. He let go of Draco immediately and stepped back. "It's alright," he said softly. "I only want to talk to you."
"I know," Draco answered, feeling his heart slow. "I just wasn't expecting it, is all."
"I killed Potter," Snape told him.
"I know," Draco said. "You weren't expecting me to protest, were you?"
Snape laughed. "You're the only one of us left with a conscience. If anyone were going to protest it would be you."
"My only protest is that I wanted to kill him myself," Draco corrected him, and he thought it looked like Snape relaxed a little, finally. That was what Draco wanted, was for Snape to relax. Draco was nervous enough for both of them. "When you kissed me the other night," he said, and watched as Snape came to attention, "I liked it."
Snape crossed the room and stood before him. Draco swallowed hard but kept himself from flinching. But it seemed that Snape only wanted to talk. "Are you sure of what you are asking me? And are you sure that you want it now? The war is over. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"It could have been me that died last night," Draco said, "and I don't want to die afraid of my own shadow. When you kissed me-I wanted you. You can make me like it, can't you, without potions or pills or spells?"
Snape did not quite smirk. "I can make you like it," he agreed. "I can't guarantee you won't regret it in the morning."
It was Draco's turn to smirk. "When has that ever stopped me?"
"Point taken," Snape said. And then his mouth was on Draco's, hard and fierce as Potter's had ever been, but with one small difference: Draco knew that if he asked, if he made any protest at all, Snape would stop. And so he did not need to ask.
He had done this voluntarily before, though not so much of it as he'd led Snape to believe. He knew there could be pleasure in it, but he had never imagined just how pleasant it could be. Whether it was Snape's experience or Legilimency that made him aware of Draco's reactions even before Draco was aware of them, there was none of the fumbling, none of the awkwardness Draco had associated with sex.
He found that he had no trouble gaining-or sustaining--an erection, even as Snape pushed him back onto the bed and ground their hips together. He lost track of the precise sequence of events shortly after, but he knew that somehow Snape got them both undressed and between the sheets. He remembered that somehow Snape ended up beneath him, writhing as Draco bit his shoulder and ran covetous fingers over his cock. He remembered pushing himself down onto Snape, and that it was neither painful nor terrible, and that after a while it was enough to make him come.
It turned out that Draco like sex very much. He even thought that he might like to do it often, and with Snape, but Snape was quick to attempt to disabuse him of that idea. In fact, his choice of conversation afterward left a great deal to be desired. They were lying against Snape's battered pillows, smoking Draco's cigarettes-somehow Snape seemed never to have his own-when he said, "There's something I have to tell you."
Draco knew that whatever was coming was almost certainly unpleasant. "Why?" he asked. "Will it change anything?"
Snape considered this. "It will probably mean that you'll never speak to me again," he admitted.
"But do I really need to know?" Draco was tired of secrets, but not so tired that he wanted to share Snape's simply to keep them from being secret.
Snape pushed himself up on one elbow and stubbed the cigarette out on the floorboard and extinguished the smoke with a spell. "I guess maybe you don't," he admitted, his back still to Draco. "Maybe I thought telling you would make me feel better."
"Then don't," Draco suggested. "I don't want to know anything I don't have to."
"You might have made a spy after all," Snape said, and rolled onto his stomach and went to sleep.
He slept like a man at peace with himself, and maybe he was; Draco lay beside him staring up at the canopy and trying not to hate him for it. He was so tired he ached, and lately when he fell asleep he dreamed of Harry Potter. Better exhaustion than dreaming of Potter dead with bloody vomit on his lips, the green eyes staring, the hands clenched. Better exhaustion than dreaming of Potter kneeling before him, struggling to get him hard. Better anything than dreaming of Potter begging him to give freely what Potter had once taken.
Snape never stirred, not even when Draco stood up and went to the window. Draco knew that if he said Snape's name, touched his shoulder, the older man would wake and would not grudge the sleep lost. Snape was always sympathetic; Draco sometimes thought he was overly so. It had been to Snape's advantage to have Draco a little broken, and they both knew it. They both knew that had it not been for Draco Snape would not have had Potter to fulfill his prophecy.
So it was self-interest as much as kindness that got Snape up in the middle of the night to mix Dreamless Sleep potions or light candles when Draco could not bear the dark. And Draco loved Snape for himself, and because Snape came as close to making him feel safe as anyone had done in a long time. He did not need to know Snape's latest secret to know that something would eventually come between them. But there was a government to be rebuilt, and power for the taking. He could try to ensure that better people took it-better people than Voldemort or Dumbledore, than Snape or his father. And it seemed he could enjoy himself doing it.