Fic: Fide, sed qui, vide
Written for the_ouroboros challenge.
Title: Fide, sed qui, vide
Author: Cirque Du Sangre
Rating: NC-17 for some graphic violence and sex (maybe closer to an R)
Warnings: character death, violence, angst
Word count: 8,061
Pairings: SS/DM (obviously), SS/LM, SS/HP, DM/LM, other minor pairings implied
For electricandroid
The request: “I’ll take anything. I'm best with darkfic though, it is my passion. I would just ask whoever gets this to have fun writing something that makes them think about Snaco in a new and interesting way. (I sound like such a freak) Anything from G to NC-17.”
The challenge: 50
Supplemental challenges: 19, 40, 47, 60, 68, 72
(Further details at the end of the story to prevent spoilers)
Also: see notes on my interpretation of the Fidelius Charm at the end of the story.
Trust, but take care whom
Prologue
Severus dreamed in green.
It was such a smooth color, a silky color, a spark of mint inside his mouth, burning cold. It was a color that spidered through the creases in his hands and stained the webbing dark and slick. It was a color that prickled his arm hairs in the night when he was trying to sleep. It caught in the back of his throat like a whiff of paragoric, and when he closed his eyes they stung.
It hurt, this color. It was the color of an excruciatingly crafted careless look over a quirking smile- I’m sorry (which he wasn’t) I wish it wasn’t like this (which he did) Maybe we can stay in touch? (Don’t be ridiculous, Snape had wanted to tell him. He didn’t, but the green eyes knew, and he imagined they winked).
**
It was something akin to humiliation that he could taste on the back of his tongue, and it had been a while since he hadn’t tasted it there. It was like his body was following a pre-rehearsed series of steps that his mind hadn’t known about, and now he was going through life in a constant state of surprise and embarrassment. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. Honestly, you’re as surprised as I am. Wait, I what? Why did I do that? Now that he thought of it, actually, it was a pre-rehearsed series of steps-the last time he’d suffered a pain like this, he’d done the exact same thing. It was just that he’d thought he’d grown out of this sort of thing.
**
I don’t think this is the way one usually goes about this, Snape thought aloud to the empty room. He took hold of the granite counter and looked down into the sink, which held unwashed dishes. He hadn’t washed his dishes since that day (you know the one)-he hadn’t washed his hair since that day. That day. His fingers turned white and, startled, he let go. Then, with a loud and thoroughly self-disgusted snort, he headed to the bath.
**
One:
The rain dropped from the sky like falling eggs, and Draco looked something like a drowned kneazle. Water had plastered his white-blond hair to his skull, and raindrops ran in a stream off the tip of his aristocratic nose. Glowering ahead, he ignored Professor McGonagall’s glance as they sidestepped down an alley in London.
“Here,” said McGonagall, holding out a paper to Draco. “Memorize this.”
He accepted it sourly and glanced at the words scrawled on it. Then he dropped the paper.
“No,” he said, taking a step back. “No. Do you know who he is?”
McGonagall looked as if she had expected this. “More than you, Mr. Malfoy. He is a spy. He has been on our side since You-Know-Who’s last appearance.”
“Your side,” Draco said incredulously. “He’s been on our-on the Death Eaters side since-He’s always-”
McGonagall’s delicately raised eyebrow told him she was not convinced. “If you had not been convinced, Mr. Malfoy, he would not have survived.”
“But are you sure?” Draco whispered. McGonagall’s eyes on him turned solemn.
“Albus Dumbledore trusted him,” she said simply. Draco suppressed a snort, but his disdain for the man warred with the knowledge that Dumbledore was not gullible. He picked up the paper.
Severus Snape lives at 1241 Whitster Terrace. He read the words again and a door nudged its way out of the brick wall in front of him.
McGonagall withdrew her wand from her pocket and briskly gave it a flick; a gong sounded somewhere behind the door. Draco swallowed, his mouth far drier than the rest of him, and glanced sideways at his ex-professor. At the very least, she seemed confident that they would not be met with some form of the killing curse. He nervously fingered his wand.
**
Two:
It had gone something like this.
Draco’s seventh year at Hogwarts had coincided with a turning point in the Dark Lord’s dominion. The Death Eaters were assembled, old and new, and the most faithful of His followers had been released from Azkaban and amply rewarded. Azkaban itself had been taken. Support had been found in the dementors, giants, goblins, and much of the pureblood wizard population. The Dark Lord’s rise was no longer a secret, and the wizarding world was shaking in its carpet slippers. The Ministry, after its bungling of the affair, had lost the faith of the people. All of a sudden, the only thing standing in the way of Lord Voldemort’s rise to power was one wizard. And, as luck would have it, Voldemort had a direct connection to His oldest of enemies through the Malfoy family line.
My sweet baby, said Lucius, cradling Draco’s chin in his hands and kissing the top of his head. I want you to listen to me carefully. I want you to murder The Boy Who Lived. I want you to do it with this. He opened his fist against Draco’s skin and Draco felt coldness against his cheek. Lucius rolled the smooth object to the corner of Draco’s lips and slick glass clacked softly against his teeth. Draco sat back and extracted a small, round, faceted green bottle from his mouth. It was stoppered with a cork and dribbled with a thin stream of black wax.
Put it in his drink, said Lucius, and Draco, knowing nothing of a prophecy, said yes.
**
Three:
“What is this all about?” Snape snarled when he finally opened the door. His hair was in dripping, kinky tangles and his dressing gown was paisley. Draco stared.
“You know perfectly well what this is about,” McGonagall announced primly. “You should have received an owl three hours ago.”
Snape blinked over his shoulder into the house, then back at McGonagall. “That’s what that meant?” He gestured at Draco and Draco bristled at having been referred to as “that.”
McGonagall sniffed. “The exact details could hardly have been explained in an owl. Now are you going to let us in or shall we stand here in the rain?”
Perhaps more for his own comfort than for theirs, Snape turned and stalked into the house, leaving the door open and a trail of wet footprints behind him. McGonagall ushered Draco in with a hand on his arm as if to keep him from running, which, upon further reflection, sounded like a good idea.
Snape led them down a narrow hallway into what looked to be a small sitting room, with tall, stiff, uncomfortable looking chairs and a cold fireplace. The heavy curtains were drawn and the room was dark and stuffy.
“You’re a traitor, now, then?” Snape said to Draco with a bit of a sneering smirk.
“Like you,” Draco shot back, and watching an unreadable look pass through Snape’s eyes.
McGonagall cleared her throat. “I would like to perform the charm as quickly as possible.”
They both looked at her and she at them, and then, as one, Draco and Snape said: “What charm?”
McGonagall addressed herself to Snape. “The Fidelius, of course. Draco Malfoy is in grave danger and must be kept hidden, not only from the Death Eaters but from those in our own Order. I expect you, Severus, of all people, to understand this need.”
“I am to be Secret-Keeper?” Snape was gawking at McGonagall with a look akin to horror on his face. At her wordless gaze, he grimaced, and then let out a long sigh.
“I shall need to get dressed,” he announced, and turned on his heel.
“I beg you to be quick,” McGonagall told his narrow back. Snape did not pause as he left the room.
**
Merlin, if he weren’t such a coward he would put serious thought into ending his life. First Potter…
No, don’t think about that.
And now-and now that woman was ordering him around as if she were in charge of the Order, and not giving him much choice in the matter. What if he didn’t want to have to deal with the Malfoy brat? It certainly didn’t help that Draco had Lucius’ face-
Don’t think about that either.
Snape pulled his wand from his pocket and absently muttered a drying charm. His hair languidly started wringing itself out, curling and uncurling into loops and dreads, and water ran down his neck. He closed the door to his bedroom firmly behind himself before shedding his dressing gown, and waited until his hair was dry before pulling on clothes.
**
Four:
It was three days until the Christmas holidays ended, and then Draco was on the train back to Hogwarts with the bottle of poison wrapped in a sock in the bottom of his trunk and burning a hole in the back of his mind. He had gone over the plan in his head over and over again. Potter took all his meals in the Great Hall, and it would probably not be wise to kill half of Gryffindor, so he would need to put it right in Potter’s goblet. There were rumors of how to get into the kitchens where the food was placed before it was sent up to the Great Hall, but as the food was put on the plates only at the beginning and end of year feasts, Potter would probably notice liquid in his goblet, even if he was dumb as a doxy most of the time.
In the end, Draco settled for a feint, fancying himself clever. With a vial of bubotuber pus he’d filched from Potions, he spiked the Hufflepuffs’ pumpkin juice, slipping it into a big pitcher of the orange stuff in the kitchens while the house elves were fetching him a sandwich. Then, when the start of dinner was interrupted with the screams of the first thirsty Hufflepuffs and everyone in the Great Hall was focused on the commotion, he sauntered by the Gryffindor table on his way to his own and poured the entire contents of the poison into Potter’s pumpkin juice with an ease that surprised even him.
And that’s when things went wrong.
**
Ron was unsuccessfully trying to hide his laughter at the plight of the Hufflepuffs. It was a funny sight, really-Ernie Macmillan’s left cheek had swollen to three times its size and his head, too heavy for his neck to support, had tipped into his plate of pasta. Laura Madley’s lower lip was extending down to the table top, giving her a very pronounced pout. Owen Cauldwell was trying to extract his tongue from his mouth with hands the size of rubbish bin lids.
Harry discreetly wiped his tearing eyes and then elbowed Ron sharply in the side when he caught the disapproving look Hermione was giving the two of them. Ron inhaled and then started coughing amid his laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Hermione hissed sharply. “They could be in danger of asphyxiation.”
Ron looked like he was in danger of asphyxiation. Coughing again, he grabbed a glass of pumpkin juice and chugged it. Harry pounded him on the back.
Shooting Harry a grin, Ron gasped out, “Remember when Crabbe’s cauldron exploded…?”
Harry snorted and burst out laughing again, followed by Ron. Hermione’s annoyed looks went unnoticed.
“Why isn’t Dumbledore doing anything?” Hermione said, forgetting Harry and Ron. Harry recovered from his laughter enough to look up at the head table, where Professor Snape was whispering frantically into Dumbledore’s ear.
“Now he is,” Harry pointed out as Dumbledore pushed back his chair and stood. Both he and Snape turned and looked straight at Harry.
“They don’t think you did it, do they?” Hermione asked.
Dumbeldore tapped his throat with his wand, murmured something, and then announced in a deafening boom: “Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, please join me in my office immediately.”
Harry looked over at the Slytherin table, at Malfoy, who had gone a deathly shade of pale.
“I bet he did it,” said Harry, nudging Ron.
Ron fell sideways off the bench.
**
Five:
Snape’s sitting room was somewhat akin to a broom closet in the Malfoy Manor. Not that Draco had really seen much of the insides of the broom closets in Malfoy Manor, except once or twice when he’d irritated his father in ways that could not be blamed on the house elves and he’d thought it wise to keep out of sight. After all, his father hadn’t seen much of the insides of the broom closets either.
The room was suffocatingly small, first of all. Draco doubted that more than eight or nine wizards could fit in it at once. And the furniture was ratty, with patches of velvet rubbed shiny with wear, and doxy holes on the hems of the curtains. McGonagall sat primly on the edge of a couch and folded her hands in her lap.
Draco edged over to the curtains and twitched them aside, peering out into the darkened street. Rain splattered the glass and he fancied he saw dark shapes moving just outside the light of the street lamps. He let the curtains fall shut with a whirring of doxy wings.
“Ah, good.” McGonagall’s voice startled him so much he jumped, and then turned to find Snape in the doorway, hair tangled and somehow already greasy, customary black robes back around his shoulders. Snape didn’t spare Draco a glance.
“How long must he stay here?” Snape asked McGonagall in a low voice. She sent him an arch look and pursed her lips.
“As long as need be, Severus. This won’t be a problem?”
“Of course it will be a problem, Minerva. I spend enough time with adolescent brats in school, I hardly need to put up with them at home as well.” There was barely suppressed rage in his voice.
“I seem to remember you putting up with ‘adolescent brats’ in the past.” McGonagall’s voice was cold with disapproval. Draco looked up with interest and saw something flare behind Snape’s eyes.
Snape didn’t answer, although the look in his eyes was enough to kill a lesser witch. McGonagall met him look for look.
“Then I take it you don’t fear for Draco’s safety?” Snape asked after a long moment, his voice silky smooth and soft.
“Need I?” McGonagall sniffed, unimpressed. “The boy’s of age, for a change.”
Draco, adept in the art of eavesdropping, tried to look uninterested. His efforts were not paid off, however, as Snape abruptly uttered a growled “Fine” and McGonagall turned to Draco.
“This spell requires you to have trust in the Secret-Keeper,” McGonagall informed him. “As that is unlikely to occur, remember this: Albus trusted Severus. So do I. In fact, Severus is trusted by everyone in the Order, everyone Voldemort’s army has fought against. Keep that in mind.”
Draco sneered at her. “I will.”
She leaned towards him. “Remember whose side you claim to be on, Mr. Malfoy. We don’t have to help you. Do you think you’ll fare better without our help?”
Draco blinked at her, then glanced down. “No,” he said sullenly.
“Good. Severus?”
Snape stepped forward, wand drawn, and Draco steeled himself, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Fide,” said Snape, touching the end of his wand to Draco’s forehead. A burning, tickling sensation like a million crawling insects flowed outwards from the tip of the wand. It felt as if they were devouring him, inch by inch, except he felt no pain. When the sensation reached the soles of his feet, he opened his eyes. Both Snape and McGonagall looked pleased.
“That should do it, then. Severus, will I see you in London this weekend?”
“Perhaps.” The pleased look leached out of Snape’s face as he appeared to realize what, exactly, he’d just done.
McGonagall readjusted her overrobes. “Good luck. Severus, Mr. Malfoy.” She nodded to empty air and swept out of the house.
**
Six:
“Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, please join me in my office immediately.”
The words caused Draco to nearly choke on his own pumpkin juice. He looked up at the head table, where Dumbledore was standing and staring down at him. At him. At him? Had he seen? Did he know? Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, he had failed, they were going to kill him-
Something heavy thumped to the floor behind him and he whipped around. Potter was still sitting up, a look of surprise on his face. The body on the floor was red-headed and twitching.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
“Ron?” Potter sounded worried as he stood up. Draco stood up too, looking at Weasley, then at Dumbledore, then at the door, caught halfway between thoughts of flight and the knowledge that he didn’t actually know what Dumbledore wanted to talk to him about.
Weasley’s head slammed onto Draco’s toes as his back arched. Twisted fingers scrabbled at the air. Pink foam was running from the corner of the Weasel’s mouth and his eyes had rolled back in his head.
“Ron!”
Benches were scraping back everywhere as people moved to see what was going on. Draco could do nothing but stare down at the body that was pinning his foot to the floor. Weasley seemed to be looking at him, now, reaching for him, and then he rolled onto his stomach and vomited clotted blood.
“Oh, God, what-”
“Help! Someone-!”
“Get back! Give him room!” Someone shoved Draco out of the way and he stumbled back against the Slytherin table. A professor was leaning over Ron. Dumbledore was striding up to them, robes billowing.
“Malfoy, Potter, to my office. Minerva, alert Poppy.” A flick of his wand and Ron’s body levitated.
Draco glanced over at Potter, who met his gaze. Draco sneered and pointed at Ron’s body as it drifted away, directed by Dumbledore. “Red’s his color, don’t you thi-”
Potter’s body slammed into Draco with such force that the two of them slid across the top of the Slytherin table and off the other end. Potter was punching Draco as hard as he could, his glasses clattering to the floor, screaming “You did it you bastard I hate you I hate you I hate-”
And across the hall, several students screamed as Ron choked and jetted blood.
**
Seven:
It hadn’t been fair, the way he’d left.
It had started as such things usually did-the death of Sirius made Harry bitter and distant, and the only thing that could make any crack in Harry’s walls was someone even more bitter and distant-Snape. Suddenly the two enemies who both dealt with grief in the same way, in a way that no one else understood, found kinship. Harry went to Snape, and Snape accepted him.
The first time they’d made love it had been slow and accidental, and after that it was a careful dance of steps around each other, a testing and touching to make sure that both sides were still in this relationship all the way. And just when Snape was starting to realize that yes, he was in this relationship all the way, irrevocably, irredeemably-Harry gave him that look and said, “Thank you for helping me deal with Sirius’ death, but I don’t-”
Snape had cut him off with a slash of his hand in air. “No. Potter, no.”
What followed were the words that Snape had never thought he’d hear from Harry, Those Words, the “let’s be friends” words and the “keep in touch” words. And Snape had said some words of his own, less conciliatory and in a louder tone of voice, and Harry had stormed out, and then. And then.
And then Snape had spent a wretched three days locked in his house with the blinds drawn, waiting for the Floo to come to life or an owl to arrive or anything, really, and when it hadn’t come, he had sent out an owl of his own, this one addressed to one L. Malfoy. That time, he got a response.
**
Eight:
The quiet shivered with clocks ticking and the distant drum of rain. Snape gave Draco an unreadable look. “Tea?” he said steely, in a voice that told Draco there would be dire consequences if he accepted.
“Ah, no, thank you, sir.” Draco tried not to look away from Snape. He was supposed to trust him, after all. Goddammit.
Snape made a snuffing sound and looked slightly relieved, and then turned abruptly on a heel. Draco realized that Snape had even put on his boots in order to do the Fidelius Charm.
“Breakfast is at six. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for lunch. Don’t bother the house elf.” Snape walked to the doorway leading into the hall.
“Er, sir?”
Snape stopped, hand resting on the door frame.
“Where am I to sleep, sir?”
The sound that Snape made was slightly disgusted. “Follow me,” he muttered, and then started down the hall.
Draco followed, hugging his arms to his chest. The hallway was dark, lit only by the lights in the sitting room and the light spilling through a doorway up ahead.
Snape started up a set of stairs that Draco hadn’t even seen in the dark. Grasping foolishly into the darkness, Draco found the wall and the railing and followed gingerly, testing each step for tricks. Malfoy Manor had a few tricks for the unwary, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Snape’s house did too.
Making it up the stairs without mishap, Draco found Snape standing in front of an open doorway. “There,” he said imperiously, waving a hand. “If you need anything, find it yourself. But stay out of the study. I don’t expect that you’ve got any clothes?”
At Draco’s mute head-shake, Snape sighed. “I shall send Urie out to fetch you some tomorrow. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” Draco looked into the room, which had a four-poster bed, a wardrobe, and little else.
“Good night.” Snape disappeared down the hall.
Easing into the room, Draco shut the door behind himself. His stomach had sunk somewhere into the heel of his shoe. He would be staying here ‘as long as need be.’ From here, that sounded like a very long time.
**
Snape closed the door to his own bedroom with a very soft click and sagged against it with a sigh.
It was just that-the Fates were laughing at him, dammit. Why couldn’t it have been any other of his charges that had done this thing and been sent to wait under his protection? Why did it have to be Lucius’ son? Why did they have to send Draco to him? His mind immediately supplied the reasons, wretched thing that it was. No one but Lucius’ son would have done it. And after what happened, no one in the Order save myself can be trusted to take care of him. Everyone else cared too damn much for that Weasley brat.
So, there it was then. He was Draco’s guardian now, like it or not. And no, he did not like it one bit. It twisted things deep inside of him, things suspiciously like guilt, or perhaps anger.
His life was a string of nothing but betrayal after betrayal, and fool that he was, he let it affect him every time. His father had betrayed him by depriving him of what should have been a happy childhood, and he had turned to a secret study of the Dark Arts to look for revenge. Newly instated Headmaster Dumbledore had betrayed him by not intervening when Potter, Lupin, Pettigrew and Black had bullied him remorselessly, and both the lack of support and the lack of justice led him to be seduced by the Death Eaters, namely Malfoy, six years older with the pretty face and the beguiling voice. His relationship with Lucius had always been passionate and still was-he was passionately in love, or at least lust, for quite a while, and when Lucius inevitably betrayed him, he had fallen irrevocably into a passionate hatred. And he had fallen out of the Death Eaters and back into Dumbledore’s care. Dumbledore, who now pretended to care for him. Dumbledore, who still couldn’t protect him from betrayal. Betrayal from another lover, another person with whom Severus had developed feelings for, and when Potter broke his hea-well, when Potter had betrayed him, Severus had responded in kind. Betrayal.
And now, wasn’t it a funny little thing to be stuck between two Malfoys? On the one side, his former lover and head of the Death Eaters, and with him the means to make Potter hurt as Potter had made Severus hurt. And on the other side, with the same face and the same eyes and the same surname, his new mentee, a traitor like himself, trusting Severus not to betray him. Decisions, decisions.
**
Nine:
Sprout and Snape had torn the fighting boys apart, and Snape had hissed “To the Headmaster’s office, now.” Potter’s anguished eyes turned toward the bloody figure on the floor, and Draco escaped.
He found himself running down the corridors as fast as he could, ignoring the admonishments of the portraits. The Weasley was dead. Draco had never seen actual death before. He couldn’t see the thestrals when Hagrid had shown them to the class in his fifth year. And now someone had died on his shoe. And it hadn’t been what Draco had expected. It was messy, for one. And it left a sick feeling in Draco’s stomach.
He had entered the Slytherin common room and was halfway to the stairs to his dorm, wildly thinking up some plan of escape, when the curse skimmed between his shoulder blades and slammed into his chest. Turn around, whispered a voice in his head, and he did. There, his head and shoulders sticking out of the fireplace, was his Father.
Come to me, whispered the voice, and Draco immediately started walking. Lucius rose from the fireplace and stepped into the room, holding a glass flask in one hand filled with a glutinous green liquid.
Father, Draco wanted to say. Please don’t hurt me. I put it in the right glass, I’m sure I did! I don’t know what happened… But the curse didn’t allow him to speak, and his Father’s face was grim.
When Draco was within reach, Lucius stretched out a hand. Draco nuzzled into the touch, eager for gentle contact. His Father’s hands twined through his hair and then got a good grip. Lucius yanked out a handful of hair. Draco’s eyes watered.
Without a word, Lucius unscrewed the cap on the flask and dropped in a few strands of hair. He downed the liquid in three gulps, and Draco watched as his father shrunk, hair shortening, skin smoothing, to mirror Draco.
Lucius dipped forward and planted a kiss on Draco’s mouth, lips skimming lips. Draco responded but before the kiss could develop, Lucius stepped back with a smirk.
“Go to the Manor.” Lucius brushed past Draco and headed for the door.
**
Ten:
The next few days passed quietly. Draco didn’t see Snape except for at meals, and he couldn’t help but think that Snape was avoiding him. He wasn’t surprised, anyway. He knew that Snape had never liked him. For a while, it had confused him-in classes, Snape treated him cordially even when he lambasted the other students for minor mistakes. Out of class, Snape ignored him, and Draco felt cold glares directed towards him when Snape thought he wasn’t looking. The cordiality Draco could understand-Snape was an underling to Lucius, and reports of Draco’s ill treatment would not go over well with Lucius. It was the hatred that confused him.
Until one day. Draco had been tormenting the house elves again. He had commanded the kitchen elves to kill all the chickens in the henhouse, and then he had told them to lie to his Father about it. The house elves went into a frenzy of self-punishment, for lying to one Master and then, once Lucius had gotten the truth out of them, for disobeying their other Master. It hadn’t taken his Father long to figure out what was wrong, and the rage he had flown into was terrible. Injured elves were unproductive elves. Draco had hidden in the downstairs broom cupboard for three hours.
As he waited, bored and restless, he searched through boxes of discarded treasures. Under a bundle of old letters, he found an old, faded photograph. A much younger version of his father with a mischievous glint in his eyes slowly undressed an even younger version of Professor Snape. The two of them were strangely happy.
After that, he understood the glares that drilled into his back from across the Great Hall.
**
Eleven:
Draco felt the touch of his Father’s lips on his own long after he grabbed Floo powder from the bucket beside the fireplace and stepped into the licking green flames. Usually the Floo network was closed for all but firechats but his Father must have done something. He did, after all, have connections with the Ministry.
“Malfoy Manor,” Draco said, and felt the peculiar sensation of the Malfoy Manor security wards simmer under his skin before letting him through. He stepped out of the fireplace into the echoing gray chamber of the Manor’s entrance hall.
Along with his father’s mouth on his lips, he could feel the press of the Weasley’s head on his shoe. The two sensations were melding-dread on the one hand, because his Father’s kiss on the heels of his own major mistake was not a good sign, and a spinning sickness on the other, because-God, he had died. The blood, and the thrashing, and the smell…
His Father was going to kill him, if the Ministry didn’t get to him first. He had to get away. But where? How? Anywhere he went, the Death Eaters would find him. He could hardly go and beg their forgiveness. The Dark Lord was not the most forgiving of men.
But-and here Draco’s wild thoughts stopped whirling and came together. Dumbledore was a forgiving creature, from the impression he gave. At the very least, he probably wouldn’t torture Draco, and maybe if Draco gave him information about the Death Eaters then they would keep him out of Azkaban.
Draco opened his eyes and looked around. Here he was, in the Manor. And that was all his father had said, right? “Go to the Manor.” He hadn’t said that Draco had to stay there, right? Just go there. And here he was.
Before he could lose his nerve, Draco grabbed another handful of powder and threw it into the fireplace. “Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s office.”
The green fire consumed him.
**
Twelve:
Severus woke before the birds, as usual, and pulled himself out of bed before he could succumb to the warmth of the blankets once again. A headache slipped through the membranes of his brain and pared him down to a throbbing white nerve and he rubbed his eyes, exhausted, but he didn’t go back to bed. He had slept enough, and indulgences such as these were not to be done when there was an intruder in the house.
A cough from the other room echoed his thoughts. Speaking of the devil… Snape rubbed his eyes again and pulled on clothes, sitting down heavily on the side of his bed to lace his boots. There were no more sounds from the other room. The Malfoy brat was probably still asleep.
Merlin, today was Saturday. That meant they would be expecting him at Grimmauld Place. Ye gods, how did he get himself into these things?
He stalked off down the hall to his office. Urie was in the hall. “Breakfast for two again, sir?” the house elf asked, somewhat dubiously.
“Of course,” Severus snapped. The house elf nodded and disappeared. He hadn’t told Urie that Draco was living in the house, and as long as he didn’t say anything, Urie would never figure it out. The house elf would cook for two, clean Draco’s clothes, straighten up Draco’s room and even pass Draco in the hall and yet never know that Draco was there.
The office door let him in, recognizing his presence. He stepped onto a worn wooden floor and closed the door behind him, hearing it lock and allowing himself to relax.
**
Thirteen:
The fire wouldn’t let him through. It was as if the fireplace had shrunk to the size of a shoebox-either his foot or his elbow or his hand would fit in, but not all at once. Draco dropped to his knees and shoved his head in, peering around.
He had never seen Dumbledore’s office before, and it took him a few seconds to find Dumbledore, Potter and himself standing in front of Dumbledore’s desk. Snape was there as well. Snape was sending searching looks in Potter’s direction and Potter was ignoring him. All of them except Lucius-Draco turned to stare as the fire roared to life.
Draco, seeing himself, was startled. Somehow he hadn’t expected that Lucius would be there. On the heels of his surprise, he saw Lucius lift his wand, and he saw his chance. “Headmaster! That’s not me! My Father is trying to kill Potter!”
Snape dove in front of Potter. “Protego!” he shouted at Lucius, at the same time that Lucius said, “Avada Kedavra.” But Lucius wasn’t aiming at Potter.
Dumbledore, his head still turned towards Draco in the fireplace, took a step forward and stumbled. He sank forward, his robes crumpling. Snape whipped around to Lucius-Draco, who winked at him and then backed through the door, out of the office.
**
Fourteen:
Breakfast was on the table, but Snape was nowhere to be seen. Draco stared down at the remains of his own food, then looked around the room. Snape was usually late, but never this late.
He was probably in his office. Draco had passed the closed door for several days now but had never seen the inside of the room, and the curiosity was killing him. He had loved the Potions classroom at Hogwarts-slimy mysteries floating in dusty jars, half-hidden secrets on the shelves. This was the perfect excuse.
Rising from the table, Draco darted up the stairs two at a time, hoping to get there before Snape realized that he was missing breakfast. The door, as usual, was shut. He knocked.
After a long moment, a voice called out, “Enter.”
A lock clicked open. Turning the knob, Draco pushed the door open. He stepped in before Snape could stop him. The wood floor creaked under his feet, stained by countless spills, and shelves rose floor to ceiling on either side of him, filled with jars and boxes. At the end of the narrow room, Snape sat hunched over a lab bench.
“Is there a purpose to this visit, Mr. Malfoy?” Snape asked without raising his head, his voice cool but without the usual bite to it.
“You missed breakfast,” Draco said, and then added, “Sir.”
Snape glanced up, blinking. “So I have.”
Draco peered around the room. On the shelves around him, a row of jars held an array of sea creatures-jellyfish, squid, a floating concoction of fish eggs. One jar, dry, held a handful of skate spines.
Snape set aside his knife and picked up a tray of cut greens. He used a napkin to brush the greens into a bubbling cauldron on a burner at his right. Draco ventured closer to the bench, craning his neck to see if he recognized the potion.
“I’ll be done in a minute, Mister Malfoy. I will join you downstairs.”
Ignoring him, Draco came closer to the bench. Weighing down a sheaf of papers was a small jar full of glittering red insects that seemed to shimmer in and out of existence. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
Snape washed his hands in a sink, sparing a brief glance for the jar. “You should know, Mister Malfoy. They play a key part in keeping you here.”
Draco picked up the jar to study it closer. The insects started moving faster, buzzing ominously. “What do you mean?"
“Colloquially known as ‘love bugs,’ wives used to place a handful under their husband’s pillows to keep them faithful. The bugs wouldn’t really make a man stop looking at other women but would make the other women stop looking at him. Now we use it with the Fidelius Curse…” Snape paused, blinked, and added, “Charm. Fidelius Charm. They consume the subject’s…” -He cast about for the right word- “…public image…so no one besides the caster can see the subject. In essence, it keeps the subject faithful to the caster.”
Draco stared at the jar, his brow furrowed. “How does it keep me faithful? If I went out and told someone where I am, wouldn’t that end the whole thing?”
Snape raised an eyebrow as he dried his hands. “Urie!” he called loudly. After a long moment, the house elf appeared in the doorway.
“You is calling me, sir?” Urie asked timidly, peering around the door jamb as if he had learned his lesson about entering Snape’s office in the past.
Snape sent a calm look at Draco. “Urie,” said Draco. “I’m here, Urie. Look at me.”
“Is Master wanting anything, sir?” Urie said to Snape without even the briefest of glances at Draco.
“Look at me, you stupid house elf!” Draco clapped his hands. “I’m over here! I, Draco Malfoy, am standing right here! I end the Fidelius Charm. Finite Incantatum.”
“Is I to be doing something, Master Snape?” The poor house elf looked thoroughly confused as Snape did nothing but stare at him.
Draco stormed up to Urie and kicked him. The house elf was punted quite nicely across the narrow hallway and slammed into the wall opposite the door, letting out an “Oof!” of surprise. Clutching his stomach, Urie staggered to his feet.
“I is very sorry, Master Snape. I tripped,” he wheezed.
“You are dismissed, Urie,” Snape informed the elf, sounding smug. The house elf nodded and disappeared.
Draco stared at the empty hallway in a growing realization of the boundaries of his situation. He stared down at the jar in his hand, and after a long moment, numbly asked, “How long am I going to stay here?”
The silence was entirely unsettling. Snape held his hand out for the jar and Draco gave it to him. Setting the jar back down on his desk, Snape said, “Far too long for both of us, I suppose.”
**
Fifteen:
If there was one thing Draco’s family had taught him, it was to take advantage of any situation in which he found himself. Before Dumbledore’s body had cooled on the floor, he had sought out Professor McGonagall and made a full confession as to his being an unwilling prisoner of the Death Eaters, under the Imperius Curse for much of his life and for all of his bad actions, until just an hour ago when he had managed to bravely fight off the curse, defy his father and attempt to warn Headmaster Dumbledore of the plot against him. Sadly, he had been too late, but if anyone doubted his sincerity to the cause of the good guys, he did have a long list of Death Eater names that might interest the Ministry. Under Veritaserum, his story changed a bit, but the list of names didn’t, and the Order eventually decided that he deserved some protection in return for his services. By this time, school had ended with the Weasel’s funeral and Draco was released from Ministry custody into the able hands of McGonagall, who was to transport him to a protected place for him to stay for as long as deemed necessary.
**
Sixteen:
Severus waited at the entrance of 12 Grimmauld place, his back to the door, breathing into his hands. The air was still damp from the rain that had been lurking all week, and it gave a definite chill to everything it touched. His hair was frizzing already, and not for the first time, Severus considered shaving the lot of it. At least then he wouldn’t be called the greasy git. No, his mind sourly corrected. You’ll be the shiny, bald one.
The door opened behind him. Molly Weasley stood in the doorway, her face in its now perpetual droop that came from the loss of a child.
“Everyone’s downstairs already,” she whispered, letting him in. He slanted a gaze to the basement door.
“I don’t wish to dine with everyone, so if you could just send Alastor and Minerva up-”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Molly snapped. “I’m not going to help you hide from Harry. And yes, I know,” she added at his startled look. “Please just act like the adult you’re supposed to be and get over it.”
He scowled at her back as she walked down the stairs, but as there was nothing he could do, he followed.
Despite the number of people in the room, there noise level was surprisingly low. Severus’s eyes skimmed the room, skipping right over Harry as if he wasn’t there, which made him feel slightly pleased.
“Oh, Severus, you came,” said Minerva, dabbing her lips with a napkin and pushing back her chair. Alastor, of course, had already seen him. “Shall we converse upstairs?”
Grateful that at least Minerva was tactful with these emotional issues, Severus nodded, knowing that Harry had turned to look at him. The doorbell rang again upstairs.
“It’s Bill,” said Moody, getting out of his chair, his magic eye swiveling upwards.
“We’ll get it, Molly,” said Minerva as Molly started to rise from her chair again. But before she, Severus and Moody could start up the stairs, Bill Weasley came bounding down them.
“Hello,” he greeted the three on the stairs, and then threw his arms around Molly. “Hello, Mum.” He kissed her on the top of the head, then let go of her and headed down the table. “I just heard the news,” he said cheerfully, slinging an arm around the shoulders of Harry and Ginny. “My little sister and brother-in-law-to-be.”
Severus stared at Harry, and this time it was Harry’s turn to avoid his gaze. Minerva grabbed Severus’ arm. “Shall we go upstairs?” she asked with a false bright note in her voice.
“Upstairs,” said Alastor to Severus, who still hadn’t moved. Minerva tugged on his arm.
“I’m coming,” Severus said in a strangled voice. His shock let go of him all at once, and he started up the stairs, shaking off Minerva. When he got to the top of the stairs, he continued right outside, and was gone before Minerva and Alastor reached the front door.
**
Seventeen:
Draco was in the kitchen, stealing food from the pantry right under Urie’s nose in a show of Malfoy opportunism. When the door to the house slammed open with enough force to shake the window panes of the basement kitchen, Draco thought the Death Eaters had finally come.
The only Death Eater that showed up, however, was Snape. He stopped in the doorway and stared at Draco.
“I see you’ve already taken advantage of your invisibility,” Snape said scathingly.
“Sir?” said Urie, pausing in his kneading of bread dough.
“Go alphabetize my shoes, Urie. And when you’re done, sort them chronologically.”
“Yes, sir.” Urie bowed and disappeared in a cloud of flour.
“Do you have a lot of shoes?” Draco asked nervously.
“Surprisingly,” said Snape.
“Er, did the dinner go well?” Snape’s intense gaze was making Draco nervous. He put down a half-eaten apple and edged further around the table, away from Snape.
“As well as I expected,” said Snape coldly.
“Good…” Draco didn’t like the way that Snape was staring at him. Glaring, more like. Had he done something wrong? Were the apples taboo? He gulped and glanced at the apple, and then attempted unobtrusively to nudge a bowl in front of it.
Snape slammed his hands down onto the table and Draco jumped, knocking the bowl over. Snape was still glaring at him but suddenly Draco realized that Snape wasn’t seeing him. “He betrayed me. All the time, he must have been thinking of that harlot.”
“I’m…sorry?” Feeling just like Urie must have, Draco wondered fleetingly if there was another selectively invisible prisoner in the room.
“And I had the stupidity to think he-” Snape picked up a glass and flung it across the room, where it shattered on the edge of the granite sink “-cared for me.”
“Does this have something to do with my father?” Draco asked tentatively.
“Lucius betrayed me first,” Snape said in a cold voice, then amended, “No. My father was the first. Albus was the second. Lucius was the third. And now Potter. And here I am switching back and forth between two madmen because I think it will bring me revenge.” Snape’s voice was full of self-loathing.
Draco couldn’t get past one point. “You slept with Dumbledore?” he gasped.
Snape’s eyes focused on him and he wrinkled his nose. “What? No.”
“Then…”
Snape abruptly stepped around the table, closer to Draco. “Do you think it takes sex to make a betrayal? You know nothing, you stupid little boy.”
“I’m not a little boy,” Draco snapped. “And if I didn’t know about betrayal, I wouldn’t be here.”
The statement made Snape stop. “So we’re both traitors here,” he said musingly, his lips quirking bitterly.
“Better than being betrayed,” said Draco scathingly.
Snape reached out and touched Draco’s cheek, a gesture which caused Draco to freeze. He hadn’t realized how close Snape had gotten. All at once, he was no longer afraid. He reached up and touched Snape’s hand.
“I’d better work quickly, then,” said Snape, and kissed him.
His lips tasted how Draco had always imagined Snape to be in his head-bitter, acidic, and wet. Draco backed into the table and Snape pressed him down against it, flour making his palms gummy. They slithered out of clothes, unhooking buckles and ties, the minimum required to get the job done. A knee sent the bowl spinning off the table, and their combined weight made the table creak. Snape sank into him, flesh against flesh, and Draco arched his back, taking him deep.
“Sir, I is fin-” Urie stopped. “Is sir choking?”
“Go back and do it again, Urie,” gasped Snape. The house elf vanished.
The apple core rolled off the table, and Draco dug his fingers into Snape’s flesh.
“Oh-”
“Yes…”
Bodies spasmed together. “Lucius!”
Snape, gasping and spent, stared at Draco, who stared back.
At the same time. “Did you just-?”
Both flushed and looked away, unnerved. Snape pulled away from Draco, leaving the hot vice of his legs. He fastened his pants.
“What you said before…” Draco whispered, bringing his legs together, still laying flat on his back. “Two madmen. You’re a Death Eater, aren’t you?”
“I’m supposed to kill you,” Snape answered softly, and left the room.
**
Eighteen:
We’re all traitors here, thought Severus, locked in his room and mixing his drink, adding in a bit of flavor from a tiny green skull-shaped bottle. So I’d better get my jab in first. He took his drink to an armchair and sat down.
His father. Dumbledore. Lucius. Harry. Each one like a punch in his gut, and when he thought he was walking away from the threat of betrayal, he was really just walking into the next traitor’s arms. Well damn. If there was one thing Severus was sure about, it was that he was never going to do that again.
He swilled the drink. The first two bastards on his list were dead, and there was little he could do to them anymore. Lucius would sell himself to Muggles to find his own traitorous son, with Voldemort breathing down his neck. Severus smiled to think that Lucius would never find Draco. He tapped the glass against his lower teeth. He liked to think that when Harry heard the news, he wouldn’t be able to look his pretty little fiancée in the eye for a while, and maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep nights.
Maybe he’d love Severus more, when Severus went behind the veil.
And Draco… Draco. Well, Draco was a secret that would go with Severus to the grave. Severus liked to think of that as getting in his betrayal first.
Fin.
Author’s notes:
The challenges, in further detail:
19. Draco discovers that his father and Snape were lovers.
40. Start with Snape/Harry and Lucius/Draco and get to Snape/Draco by the end.
47. Contrary to what everyone thinks, Severus Snape has never liked Draco Malfoy, and Draco knows it.
50. Draco is a spy for Dumbledore and is put under Snape's watchful eye, but Snape is actually still on Voldemort's side.
60. "Lucius!" A slip of tongue during sex.
68. Snape is expected to kill Draco.
72. Draco finds a photo of Snape and his father in Lucius’ study.
The Fidelius Charm
Quoted from the HP Lexicon:
“Used to try to protect Lily and James Potter from Voldemort. ‘An immensely complex spell involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it. As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!’ Unfortunately, Peter Pettigrew was chosen as Secret-Keeper, and he betrayed James and Lily (PA). Dumbledore used the Fidelius Charm to hide Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. He himself is the Secret Keeper for the Order (OP).”
Thus, my interpretation: So far, we’ve only seen it used on places: the Potters’ house and Grimmauld Place. What if you wish to hide a person? In OotP, it’s the headquarters that are hidden and not the members themselves, so the issue doesn’t come up. So far, we have no details on the version used to hide the Potters, except for this: “As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!” If this is true, it implies that he would be able to see the house but not the people themselves. It also implies that only the Secret-Keeper could divulge the secret-the Potters themselves could not. Obviously, in the case of Grimmauld Place, the house was in no rush to divulge its own existence, but comparisons can be made: despite the noises of yelling and banging from the portrait inside, the neighbors didn’t hear a thing. Technically, then, one can assume that any noises made by the one being hidden cannot be heard by anyone who doesn’t know the secret. The hidden one cannot divulge its own secret.
I also assumed that no one other than the Secret-Keeper can end the Fidelius Charm, with is quite likely. Which leads to an interesting idea-if one were to cast Fidelius against the will of the target, would the target effectively turn into a ghost, never again able to communicate with or effect the world around him? And what if the Secret-Keeper is killed? Ah, so many questions, so little time.
Title: Fide, sed qui, vide
Author: Cirque Du Sangre
Rating: NC-17 for some graphic violence and sex (maybe closer to an R)
Warnings: character death, violence, angst
Word count: 8,061
Pairings: SS/DM (obviously), SS/LM, SS/HP, DM/LM, other minor pairings implied
For electricandroid
The request: “I’ll take anything. I'm best with darkfic though, it is my passion. I would just ask whoever gets this to have fun writing something that makes them think about Snaco in a new and interesting way. (I sound like such a freak) Anything from G to NC-17.”
The challenge: 50
Supplemental challenges: 19, 40, 47, 60, 68, 72
(Further details at the end of the story to prevent spoilers)
Also: see notes on my interpretation of the Fidelius Charm at the end of the story.
Trust, but take care whom
Prologue
Severus dreamed in green.
It was such a smooth color, a silky color, a spark of mint inside his mouth, burning cold. It was a color that spidered through the creases in his hands and stained the webbing dark and slick. It was a color that prickled his arm hairs in the night when he was trying to sleep. It caught in the back of his throat like a whiff of paragoric, and when he closed his eyes they stung.
It hurt, this color. It was the color of an excruciatingly crafted careless look over a quirking smile- I’m sorry (which he wasn’t) I wish it wasn’t like this (which he did) Maybe we can stay in touch? (Don’t be ridiculous, Snape had wanted to tell him. He didn’t, but the green eyes knew, and he imagined they winked).
**
It was something akin to humiliation that he could taste on the back of his tongue, and it had been a while since he hadn’t tasted it there. It was like his body was following a pre-rehearsed series of steps that his mind hadn’t known about, and now he was going through life in a constant state of surprise and embarrassment. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. Honestly, you’re as surprised as I am. Wait, I what? Why did I do that? Now that he thought of it, actually, it was a pre-rehearsed series of steps-the last time he’d suffered a pain like this, he’d done the exact same thing. It was just that he’d thought he’d grown out of this sort of thing.
**
I don’t think this is the way one usually goes about this, Snape thought aloud to the empty room. He took hold of the granite counter and looked down into the sink, which held unwashed dishes. He hadn’t washed his dishes since that day (you know the one)-he hadn’t washed his hair since that day. That day. His fingers turned white and, startled, he let go. Then, with a loud and thoroughly self-disgusted snort, he headed to the bath.
**
One:
The rain dropped from the sky like falling eggs, and Draco looked something like a drowned kneazle. Water had plastered his white-blond hair to his skull, and raindrops ran in a stream off the tip of his aristocratic nose. Glowering ahead, he ignored Professor McGonagall’s glance as they sidestepped down an alley in London.
“Here,” said McGonagall, holding out a paper to Draco. “Memorize this.”
He accepted it sourly and glanced at the words scrawled on it. Then he dropped the paper.
“No,” he said, taking a step back. “No. Do you know who he is?”
McGonagall looked as if she had expected this. “More than you, Mr. Malfoy. He is a spy. He has been on our side since You-Know-Who’s last appearance.”
“Your side,” Draco said incredulously. “He’s been on our-on the Death Eaters side since-He’s always-”
McGonagall’s delicately raised eyebrow told him she was not convinced. “If you had not been convinced, Mr. Malfoy, he would not have survived.”
“But are you sure?” Draco whispered. McGonagall’s eyes on him turned solemn.
“Albus Dumbledore trusted him,” she said simply. Draco suppressed a snort, but his disdain for the man warred with the knowledge that Dumbledore was not gullible. He picked up the paper.
Severus Snape lives at 1241 Whitster Terrace. He read the words again and a door nudged its way out of the brick wall in front of him.
McGonagall withdrew her wand from her pocket and briskly gave it a flick; a gong sounded somewhere behind the door. Draco swallowed, his mouth far drier than the rest of him, and glanced sideways at his ex-professor. At the very least, she seemed confident that they would not be met with some form of the killing curse. He nervously fingered his wand.
**
Two:
It had gone something like this.
Draco’s seventh year at Hogwarts had coincided with a turning point in the Dark Lord’s dominion. The Death Eaters were assembled, old and new, and the most faithful of His followers had been released from Azkaban and amply rewarded. Azkaban itself had been taken. Support had been found in the dementors, giants, goblins, and much of the pureblood wizard population. The Dark Lord’s rise was no longer a secret, and the wizarding world was shaking in its carpet slippers. The Ministry, after its bungling of the affair, had lost the faith of the people. All of a sudden, the only thing standing in the way of Lord Voldemort’s rise to power was one wizard. And, as luck would have it, Voldemort had a direct connection to His oldest of enemies through the Malfoy family line.
My sweet baby, said Lucius, cradling Draco’s chin in his hands and kissing the top of his head. I want you to listen to me carefully. I want you to murder The Boy Who Lived. I want you to do it with this. He opened his fist against Draco’s skin and Draco felt coldness against his cheek. Lucius rolled the smooth object to the corner of Draco’s lips and slick glass clacked softly against his teeth. Draco sat back and extracted a small, round, faceted green bottle from his mouth. It was stoppered with a cork and dribbled with a thin stream of black wax.
Put it in his drink, said Lucius, and Draco, knowing nothing of a prophecy, said yes.
**
Three:
“What is this all about?” Snape snarled when he finally opened the door. His hair was in dripping, kinky tangles and his dressing gown was paisley. Draco stared.
“You know perfectly well what this is about,” McGonagall announced primly. “You should have received an owl three hours ago.”
Snape blinked over his shoulder into the house, then back at McGonagall. “That’s what that meant?” He gestured at Draco and Draco bristled at having been referred to as “that.”
McGonagall sniffed. “The exact details could hardly have been explained in an owl. Now are you going to let us in or shall we stand here in the rain?”
Perhaps more for his own comfort than for theirs, Snape turned and stalked into the house, leaving the door open and a trail of wet footprints behind him. McGonagall ushered Draco in with a hand on his arm as if to keep him from running, which, upon further reflection, sounded like a good idea.
Snape led them down a narrow hallway into what looked to be a small sitting room, with tall, stiff, uncomfortable looking chairs and a cold fireplace. The heavy curtains were drawn and the room was dark and stuffy.
“You’re a traitor, now, then?” Snape said to Draco with a bit of a sneering smirk.
“Like you,” Draco shot back, and watching an unreadable look pass through Snape’s eyes.
McGonagall cleared her throat. “I would like to perform the charm as quickly as possible.”
They both looked at her and she at them, and then, as one, Draco and Snape said: “What charm?”
McGonagall addressed herself to Snape. “The Fidelius, of course. Draco Malfoy is in grave danger and must be kept hidden, not only from the Death Eaters but from those in our own Order. I expect you, Severus, of all people, to understand this need.”
“I am to be Secret-Keeper?” Snape was gawking at McGonagall with a look akin to horror on his face. At her wordless gaze, he grimaced, and then let out a long sigh.
“I shall need to get dressed,” he announced, and turned on his heel.
“I beg you to be quick,” McGonagall told his narrow back. Snape did not pause as he left the room.
**
Merlin, if he weren’t such a coward he would put serious thought into ending his life. First Potter…
No, don’t think about that.
And now-and now that woman was ordering him around as if she were in charge of the Order, and not giving him much choice in the matter. What if he didn’t want to have to deal with the Malfoy brat? It certainly didn’t help that Draco had Lucius’ face-
Don’t think about that either.
Snape pulled his wand from his pocket and absently muttered a drying charm. His hair languidly started wringing itself out, curling and uncurling into loops and dreads, and water ran down his neck. He closed the door to his bedroom firmly behind himself before shedding his dressing gown, and waited until his hair was dry before pulling on clothes.
**
Four:
It was three days until the Christmas holidays ended, and then Draco was on the train back to Hogwarts with the bottle of poison wrapped in a sock in the bottom of his trunk and burning a hole in the back of his mind. He had gone over the plan in his head over and over again. Potter took all his meals in the Great Hall, and it would probably not be wise to kill half of Gryffindor, so he would need to put it right in Potter’s goblet. There were rumors of how to get into the kitchens where the food was placed before it was sent up to the Great Hall, but as the food was put on the plates only at the beginning and end of year feasts, Potter would probably notice liquid in his goblet, even if he was dumb as a doxy most of the time.
In the end, Draco settled for a feint, fancying himself clever. With a vial of bubotuber pus he’d filched from Potions, he spiked the Hufflepuffs’ pumpkin juice, slipping it into a big pitcher of the orange stuff in the kitchens while the house elves were fetching him a sandwich. Then, when the start of dinner was interrupted with the screams of the first thirsty Hufflepuffs and everyone in the Great Hall was focused on the commotion, he sauntered by the Gryffindor table on his way to his own and poured the entire contents of the poison into Potter’s pumpkin juice with an ease that surprised even him.
And that’s when things went wrong.
**
Ron was unsuccessfully trying to hide his laughter at the plight of the Hufflepuffs. It was a funny sight, really-Ernie Macmillan’s left cheek had swollen to three times its size and his head, too heavy for his neck to support, had tipped into his plate of pasta. Laura Madley’s lower lip was extending down to the table top, giving her a very pronounced pout. Owen Cauldwell was trying to extract his tongue from his mouth with hands the size of rubbish bin lids.
Harry discreetly wiped his tearing eyes and then elbowed Ron sharply in the side when he caught the disapproving look Hermione was giving the two of them. Ron inhaled and then started coughing amid his laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Hermione hissed sharply. “They could be in danger of asphyxiation.”
Ron looked like he was in danger of asphyxiation. Coughing again, he grabbed a glass of pumpkin juice and chugged it. Harry pounded him on the back.
Shooting Harry a grin, Ron gasped out, “Remember when Crabbe’s cauldron exploded…?”
Harry snorted and burst out laughing again, followed by Ron. Hermione’s annoyed looks went unnoticed.
“Why isn’t Dumbledore doing anything?” Hermione said, forgetting Harry and Ron. Harry recovered from his laughter enough to look up at the head table, where Professor Snape was whispering frantically into Dumbledore’s ear.
“Now he is,” Harry pointed out as Dumbledore pushed back his chair and stood. Both he and Snape turned and looked straight at Harry.
“They don’t think you did it, do they?” Hermione asked.
Dumbeldore tapped his throat with his wand, murmured something, and then announced in a deafening boom: “Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, please join me in my office immediately.”
Harry looked over at the Slytherin table, at Malfoy, who had gone a deathly shade of pale.
“I bet he did it,” said Harry, nudging Ron.
Ron fell sideways off the bench.
**
Five:
Snape’s sitting room was somewhat akin to a broom closet in the Malfoy Manor. Not that Draco had really seen much of the insides of the broom closets in Malfoy Manor, except once or twice when he’d irritated his father in ways that could not be blamed on the house elves and he’d thought it wise to keep out of sight. After all, his father hadn’t seen much of the insides of the broom closets either.
The room was suffocatingly small, first of all. Draco doubted that more than eight or nine wizards could fit in it at once. And the furniture was ratty, with patches of velvet rubbed shiny with wear, and doxy holes on the hems of the curtains. McGonagall sat primly on the edge of a couch and folded her hands in her lap.
Draco edged over to the curtains and twitched them aside, peering out into the darkened street. Rain splattered the glass and he fancied he saw dark shapes moving just outside the light of the street lamps. He let the curtains fall shut with a whirring of doxy wings.
“Ah, good.” McGonagall’s voice startled him so much he jumped, and then turned to find Snape in the doorway, hair tangled and somehow already greasy, customary black robes back around his shoulders. Snape didn’t spare Draco a glance.
“How long must he stay here?” Snape asked McGonagall in a low voice. She sent him an arch look and pursed her lips.
“As long as need be, Severus. This won’t be a problem?”
“Of course it will be a problem, Minerva. I spend enough time with adolescent brats in school, I hardly need to put up with them at home as well.” There was barely suppressed rage in his voice.
“I seem to remember you putting up with ‘adolescent brats’ in the past.” McGonagall’s voice was cold with disapproval. Draco looked up with interest and saw something flare behind Snape’s eyes.
Snape didn’t answer, although the look in his eyes was enough to kill a lesser witch. McGonagall met him look for look.
“Then I take it you don’t fear for Draco’s safety?” Snape asked after a long moment, his voice silky smooth and soft.
“Need I?” McGonagall sniffed, unimpressed. “The boy’s of age, for a change.”
Draco, adept in the art of eavesdropping, tried to look uninterested. His efforts were not paid off, however, as Snape abruptly uttered a growled “Fine” and McGonagall turned to Draco.
“This spell requires you to have trust in the Secret-Keeper,” McGonagall informed him. “As that is unlikely to occur, remember this: Albus trusted Severus. So do I. In fact, Severus is trusted by everyone in the Order, everyone Voldemort’s army has fought against. Keep that in mind.”
Draco sneered at her. “I will.”
She leaned towards him. “Remember whose side you claim to be on, Mr. Malfoy. We don’t have to help you. Do you think you’ll fare better without our help?”
Draco blinked at her, then glanced down. “No,” he said sullenly.
“Good. Severus?”
Snape stepped forward, wand drawn, and Draco steeled himself, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Fide,” said Snape, touching the end of his wand to Draco’s forehead. A burning, tickling sensation like a million crawling insects flowed outwards from the tip of the wand. It felt as if they were devouring him, inch by inch, except he felt no pain. When the sensation reached the soles of his feet, he opened his eyes. Both Snape and McGonagall looked pleased.
“That should do it, then. Severus, will I see you in London this weekend?”
“Perhaps.” The pleased look leached out of Snape’s face as he appeared to realize what, exactly, he’d just done.
McGonagall readjusted her overrobes. “Good luck. Severus, Mr. Malfoy.” She nodded to empty air and swept out of the house.
**
Six:
“Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, please join me in my office immediately.”
The words caused Draco to nearly choke on his own pumpkin juice. He looked up at the head table, where Dumbledore was standing and staring down at him. At him. At him? Had he seen? Did he know? Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, he had failed, they were going to kill him-
Something heavy thumped to the floor behind him and he whipped around. Potter was still sitting up, a look of surprise on his face. The body on the floor was red-headed and twitching.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
“Ron?” Potter sounded worried as he stood up. Draco stood up too, looking at Weasley, then at Dumbledore, then at the door, caught halfway between thoughts of flight and the knowledge that he didn’t actually know what Dumbledore wanted to talk to him about.
Weasley’s head slammed onto Draco’s toes as his back arched. Twisted fingers scrabbled at the air. Pink foam was running from the corner of the Weasel’s mouth and his eyes had rolled back in his head.
“Ron!”
Benches were scraping back everywhere as people moved to see what was going on. Draco could do nothing but stare down at the body that was pinning his foot to the floor. Weasley seemed to be looking at him, now, reaching for him, and then he rolled onto his stomach and vomited clotted blood.
“Oh, God, what-”
“Help! Someone-!”
“Get back! Give him room!” Someone shoved Draco out of the way and he stumbled back against the Slytherin table. A professor was leaning over Ron. Dumbledore was striding up to them, robes billowing.
“Malfoy, Potter, to my office. Minerva, alert Poppy.” A flick of his wand and Ron’s body levitated.
Draco glanced over at Potter, who met his gaze. Draco sneered and pointed at Ron’s body as it drifted away, directed by Dumbledore. “Red’s his color, don’t you thi-”
Potter’s body slammed into Draco with such force that the two of them slid across the top of the Slytherin table and off the other end. Potter was punching Draco as hard as he could, his glasses clattering to the floor, screaming “You did it you bastard I hate you I hate you I hate-”
And across the hall, several students screamed as Ron choked and jetted blood.
**
Seven:
It hadn’t been fair, the way he’d left.
It had started as such things usually did-the death of Sirius made Harry bitter and distant, and the only thing that could make any crack in Harry’s walls was someone even more bitter and distant-Snape. Suddenly the two enemies who both dealt with grief in the same way, in a way that no one else understood, found kinship. Harry went to Snape, and Snape accepted him.
The first time they’d made love it had been slow and accidental, and after that it was a careful dance of steps around each other, a testing and touching to make sure that both sides were still in this relationship all the way. And just when Snape was starting to realize that yes, he was in this relationship all the way, irrevocably, irredeemably-Harry gave him that look and said, “Thank you for helping me deal with Sirius’ death, but I don’t-”
Snape had cut him off with a slash of his hand in air. “No. Potter, no.”
What followed were the words that Snape had never thought he’d hear from Harry, Those Words, the “let’s be friends” words and the “keep in touch” words. And Snape had said some words of his own, less conciliatory and in a louder tone of voice, and Harry had stormed out, and then. And then.
And then Snape had spent a wretched three days locked in his house with the blinds drawn, waiting for the Floo to come to life or an owl to arrive or anything, really, and when it hadn’t come, he had sent out an owl of his own, this one addressed to one L. Malfoy. That time, he got a response.
**
Eight:
The quiet shivered with clocks ticking and the distant drum of rain. Snape gave Draco an unreadable look. “Tea?” he said steely, in a voice that told Draco there would be dire consequences if he accepted.
“Ah, no, thank you, sir.” Draco tried not to look away from Snape. He was supposed to trust him, after all. Goddammit.
Snape made a snuffing sound and looked slightly relieved, and then turned abruptly on a heel. Draco realized that Snape had even put on his boots in order to do the Fidelius Charm.
“Breakfast is at six. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for lunch. Don’t bother the house elf.” Snape walked to the doorway leading into the hall.
“Er, sir?”
Snape stopped, hand resting on the door frame.
“Where am I to sleep, sir?”
The sound that Snape made was slightly disgusted. “Follow me,” he muttered, and then started down the hall.
Draco followed, hugging his arms to his chest. The hallway was dark, lit only by the lights in the sitting room and the light spilling through a doorway up ahead.
Snape started up a set of stairs that Draco hadn’t even seen in the dark. Grasping foolishly into the darkness, Draco found the wall and the railing and followed gingerly, testing each step for tricks. Malfoy Manor had a few tricks for the unwary, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Snape’s house did too.
Making it up the stairs without mishap, Draco found Snape standing in front of an open doorway. “There,” he said imperiously, waving a hand. “If you need anything, find it yourself. But stay out of the study. I don’t expect that you’ve got any clothes?”
At Draco’s mute head-shake, Snape sighed. “I shall send Urie out to fetch you some tomorrow. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” Draco looked into the room, which had a four-poster bed, a wardrobe, and little else.
“Good night.” Snape disappeared down the hall.
Easing into the room, Draco shut the door behind himself. His stomach had sunk somewhere into the heel of his shoe. He would be staying here ‘as long as need be.’ From here, that sounded like a very long time.
**
Snape closed the door to his own bedroom with a very soft click and sagged against it with a sigh.
It was just that-the Fates were laughing at him, dammit. Why couldn’t it have been any other of his charges that had done this thing and been sent to wait under his protection? Why did it have to be Lucius’ son? Why did they have to send Draco to him? His mind immediately supplied the reasons, wretched thing that it was. No one but Lucius’ son would have done it. And after what happened, no one in the Order save myself can be trusted to take care of him. Everyone else cared too damn much for that Weasley brat.
So, there it was then. He was Draco’s guardian now, like it or not. And no, he did not like it one bit. It twisted things deep inside of him, things suspiciously like guilt, or perhaps anger.
His life was a string of nothing but betrayal after betrayal, and fool that he was, he let it affect him every time. His father had betrayed him by depriving him of what should have been a happy childhood, and he had turned to a secret study of the Dark Arts to look for revenge. Newly instated Headmaster Dumbledore had betrayed him by not intervening when Potter, Lupin, Pettigrew and Black had bullied him remorselessly, and both the lack of support and the lack of justice led him to be seduced by the Death Eaters, namely Malfoy, six years older with the pretty face and the beguiling voice. His relationship with Lucius had always been passionate and still was-he was passionately in love, or at least lust, for quite a while, and when Lucius inevitably betrayed him, he had fallen irrevocably into a passionate hatred. And he had fallen out of the Death Eaters and back into Dumbledore’s care. Dumbledore, who now pretended to care for him. Dumbledore, who still couldn’t protect him from betrayal. Betrayal from another lover, another person with whom Severus had developed feelings for, and when Potter broke his hea-well, when Potter had betrayed him, Severus had responded in kind. Betrayal.
And now, wasn’t it a funny little thing to be stuck between two Malfoys? On the one side, his former lover and head of the Death Eaters, and with him the means to make Potter hurt as Potter had made Severus hurt. And on the other side, with the same face and the same eyes and the same surname, his new mentee, a traitor like himself, trusting Severus not to betray him. Decisions, decisions.
**
Nine:
Sprout and Snape had torn the fighting boys apart, and Snape had hissed “To the Headmaster’s office, now.” Potter’s anguished eyes turned toward the bloody figure on the floor, and Draco escaped.
He found himself running down the corridors as fast as he could, ignoring the admonishments of the portraits. The Weasley was dead. Draco had never seen actual death before. He couldn’t see the thestrals when Hagrid had shown them to the class in his fifth year. And now someone had died on his shoe. And it hadn’t been what Draco had expected. It was messy, for one. And it left a sick feeling in Draco’s stomach.
He had entered the Slytherin common room and was halfway to the stairs to his dorm, wildly thinking up some plan of escape, when the curse skimmed between his shoulder blades and slammed into his chest. Turn around, whispered a voice in his head, and he did. There, his head and shoulders sticking out of the fireplace, was his Father.
Come to me, whispered the voice, and Draco immediately started walking. Lucius rose from the fireplace and stepped into the room, holding a glass flask in one hand filled with a glutinous green liquid.
Father, Draco wanted to say. Please don’t hurt me. I put it in the right glass, I’m sure I did! I don’t know what happened… But the curse didn’t allow him to speak, and his Father’s face was grim.
When Draco was within reach, Lucius stretched out a hand. Draco nuzzled into the touch, eager for gentle contact. His Father’s hands twined through his hair and then got a good grip. Lucius yanked out a handful of hair. Draco’s eyes watered.
Without a word, Lucius unscrewed the cap on the flask and dropped in a few strands of hair. He downed the liquid in three gulps, and Draco watched as his father shrunk, hair shortening, skin smoothing, to mirror Draco.
Lucius dipped forward and planted a kiss on Draco’s mouth, lips skimming lips. Draco responded but before the kiss could develop, Lucius stepped back with a smirk.
“Go to the Manor.” Lucius brushed past Draco and headed for the door.
**
Ten:
The next few days passed quietly. Draco didn’t see Snape except for at meals, and he couldn’t help but think that Snape was avoiding him. He wasn’t surprised, anyway. He knew that Snape had never liked him. For a while, it had confused him-in classes, Snape treated him cordially even when he lambasted the other students for minor mistakes. Out of class, Snape ignored him, and Draco felt cold glares directed towards him when Snape thought he wasn’t looking. The cordiality Draco could understand-Snape was an underling to Lucius, and reports of Draco’s ill treatment would not go over well with Lucius. It was the hatred that confused him.
Until one day. Draco had been tormenting the house elves again. He had commanded the kitchen elves to kill all the chickens in the henhouse, and then he had told them to lie to his Father about it. The house elves went into a frenzy of self-punishment, for lying to one Master and then, once Lucius had gotten the truth out of them, for disobeying their other Master. It hadn’t taken his Father long to figure out what was wrong, and the rage he had flown into was terrible. Injured elves were unproductive elves. Draco had hidden in the downstairs broom cupboard for three hours.
As he waited, bored and restless, he searched through boxes of discarded treasures. Under a bundle of old letters, he found an old, faded photograph. A much younger version of his father with a mischievous glint in his eyes slowly undressed an even younger version of Professor Snape. The two of them were strangely happy.
After that, he understood the glares that drilled into his back from across the Great Hall.
**
Eleven:
Draco felt the touch of his Father’s lips on his own long after he grabbed Floo powder from the bucket beside the fireplace and stepped into the licking green flames. Usually the Floo network was closed for all but firechats but his Father must have done something. He did, after all, have connections with the Ministry.
“Malfoy Manor,” Draco said, and felt the peculiar sensation of the Malfoy Manor security wards simmer under his skin before letting him through. He stepped out of the fireplace into the echoing gray chamber of the Manor’s entrance hall.
Along with his father’s mouth on his lips, he could feel the press of the Weasley’s head on his shoe. The two sensations were melding-dread on the one hand, because his Father’s kiss on the heels of his own major mistake was not a good sign, and a spinning sickness on the other, because-God, he had died. The blood, and the thrashing, and the smell…
His Father was going to kill him, if the Ministry didn’t get to him first. He had to get away. But where? How? Anywhere he went, the Death Eaters would find him. He could hardly go and beg their forgiveness. The Dark Lord was not the most forgiving of men.
But-and here Draco’s wild thoughts stopped whirling and came together. Dumbledore was a forgiving creature, from the impression he gave. At the very least, he probably wouldn’t torture Draco, and maybe if Draco gave him information about the Death Eaters then they would keep him out of Azkaban.
Draco opened his eyes and looked around. Here he was, in the Manor. And that was all his father had said, right? “Go to the Manor.” He hadn’t said that Draco had to stay there, right? Just go there. And here he was.
Before he could lose his nerve, Draco grabbed another handful of powder and threw it into the fireplace. “Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s office.”
The green fire consumed him.
**
Twelve:
Severus woke before the birds, as usual, and pulled himself out of bed before he could succumb to the warmth of the blankets once again. A headache slipped through the membranes of his brain and pared him down to a throbbing white nerve and he rubbed his eyes, exhausted, but he didn’t go back to bed. He had slept enough, and indulgences such as these were not to be done when there was an intruder in the house.
A cough from the other room echoed his thoughts. Speaking of the devil… Snape rubbed his eyes again and pulled on clothes, sitting down heavily on the side of his bed to lace his boots. There were no more sounds from the other room. The Malfoy brat was probably still asleep.
Merlin, today was Saturday. That meant they would be expecting him at Grimmauld Place. Ye gods, how did he get himself into these things?
He stalked off down the hall to his office. Urie was in the hall. “Breakfast for two again, sir?” the house elf asked, somewhat dubiously.
“Of course,” Severus snapped. The house elf nodded and disappeared. He hadn’t told Urie that Draco was living in the house, and as long as he didn’t say anything, Urie would never figure it out. The house elf would cook for two, clean Draco’s clothes, straighten up Draco’s room and even pass Draco in the hall and yet never know that Draco was there.
The office door let him in, recognizing his presence. He stepped onto a worn wooden floor and closed the door behind him, hearing it lock and allowing himself to relax.
**
Thirteen:
The fire wouldn’t let him through. It was as if the fireplace had shrunk to the size of a shoebox-either his foot or his elbow or his hand would fit in, but not all at once. Draco dropped to his knees and shoved his head in, peering around.
He had never seen Dumbledore’s office before, and it took him a few seconds to find Dumbledore, Potter and himself standing in front of Dumbledore’s desk. Snape was there as well. Snape was sending searching looks in Potter’s direction and Potter was ignoring him. All of them except Lucius-Draco turned to stare as the fire roared to life.
Draco, seeing himself, was startled. Somehow he hadn’t expected that Lucius would be there. On the heels of his surprise, he saw Lucius lift his wand, and he saw his chance. “Headmaster! That’s not me! My Father is trying to kill Potter!”
Snape dove in front of Potter. “Protego!” he shouted at Lucius, at the same time that Lucius said, “Avada Kedavra.” But Lucius wasn’t aiming at Potter.
Dumbledore, his head still turned towards Draco in the fireplace, took a step forward and stumbled. He sank forward, his robes crumpling. Snape whipped around to Lucius-Draco, who winked at him and then backed through the door, out of the office.
**
Fourteen:
Breakfast was on the table, but Snape was nowhere to be seen. Draco stared down at the remains of his own food, then looked around the room. Snape was usually late, but never this late.
He was probably in his office. Draco had passed the closed door for several days now but had never seen the inside of the room, and the curiosity was killing him. He had loved the Potions classroom at Hogwarts-slimy mysteries floating in dusty jars, half-hidden secrets on the shelves. This was the perfect excuse.
Rising from the table, Draco darted up the stairs two at a time, hoping to get there before Snape realized that he was missing breakfast. The door, as usual, was shut. He knocked.
After a long moment, a voice called out, “Enter.”
A lock clicked open. Turning the knob, Draco pushed the door open. He stepped in before Snape could stop him. The wood floor creaked under his feet, stained by countless spills, and shelves rose floor to ceiling on either side of him, filled with jars and boxes. At the end of the narrow room, Snape sat hunched over a lab bench.
“Is there a purpose to this visit, Mr. Malfoy?” Snape asked without raising his head, his voice cool but without the usual bite to it.
“You missed breakfast,” Draco said, and then added, “Sir.”
Snape glanced up, blinking. “So I have.”
Draco peered around the room. On the shelves around him, a row of jars held an array of sea creatures-jellyfish, squid, a floating concoction of fish eggs. One jar, dry, held a handful of skate spines.
Snape set aside his knife and picked up a tray of cut greens. He used a napkin to brush the greens into a bubbling cauldron on a burner at his right. Draco ventured closer to the bench, craning his neck to see if he recognized the potion.
“I’ll be done in a minute, Mister Malfoy. I will join you downstairs.”
Ignoring him, Draco came closer to the bench. Weighing down a sheaf of papers was a small jar full of glittering red insects that seemed to shimmer in and out of existence. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
Snape washed his hands in a sink, sparing a brief glance for the jar. “You should know, Mister Malfoy. They play a key part in keeping you here.”
Draco picked up the jar to study it closer. The insects started moving faster, buzzing ominously. “What do you mean?"
“Colloquially known as ‘love bugs,’ wives used to place a handful under their husband’s pillows to keep them faithful. The bugs wouldn’t really make a man stop looking at other women but would make the other women stop looking at him. Now we use it with the Fidelius Curse…” Snape paused, blinked, and added, “Charm. Fidelius Charm. They consume the subject’s…” -He cast about for the right word- “…public image…so no one besides the caster can see the subject. In essence, it keeps the subject faithful to the caster.”
Draco stared at the jar, his brow furrowed. “How does it keep me faithful? If I went out and told someone where I am, wouldn’t that end the whole thing?”
Snape raised an eyebrow as he dried his hands. “Urie!” he called loudly. After a long moment, the house elf appeared in the doorway.
“You is calling me, sir?” Urie asked timidly, peering around the door jamb as if he had learned his lesson about entering Snape’s office in the past.
Snape sent a calm look at Draco. “Urie,” said Draco. “I’m here, Urie. Look at me.”
“Is Master wanting anything, sir?” Urie said to Snape without even the briefest of glances at Draco.
“Look at me, you stupid house elf!” Draco clapped his hands. “I’m over here! I, Draco Malfoy, am standing right here! I end the Fidelius Charm. Finite Incantatum.”
“Is I to be doing something, Master Snape?” The poor house elf looked thoroughly confused as Snape did nothing but stare at him.
Draco stormed up to Urie and kicked him. The house elf was punted quite nicely across the narrow hallway and slammed into the wall opposite the door, letting out an “Oof!” of surprise. Clutching his stomach, Urie staggered to his feet.
“I is very sorry, Master Snape. I tripped,” he wheezed.
“You are dismissed, Urie,” Snape informed the elf, sounding smug. The house elf nodded and disappeared.
Draco stared at the empty hallway in a growing realization of the boundaries of his situation. He stared down at the jar in his hand, and after a long moment, numbly asked, “How long am I going to stay here?”
The silence was entirely unsettling. Snape held his hand out for the jar and Draco gave it to him. Setting the jar back down on his desk, Snape said, “Far too long for both of us, I suppose.”
**
Fifteen:
If there was one thing Draco’s family had taught him, it was to take advantage of any situation in which he found himself. Before Dumbledore’s body had cooled on the floor, he had sought out Professor McGonagall and made a full confession as to his being an unwilling prisoner of the Death Eaters, under the Imperius Curse for much of his life and for all of his bad actions, until just an hour ago when he had managed to bravely fight off the curse, defy his father and attempt to warn Headmaster Dumbledore of the plot against him. Sadly, he had been too late, but if anyone doubted his sincerity to the cause of the good guys, he did have a long list of Death Eater names that might interest the Ministry. Under Veritaserum, his story changed a bit, but the list of names didn’t, and the Order eventually decided that he deserved some protection in return for his services. By this time, school had ended with the Weasel’s funeral and Draco was released from Ministry custody into the able hands of McGonagall, who was to transport him to a protected place for him to stay for as long as deemed necessary.
**
Sixteen:
Severus waited at the entrance of 12 Grimmauld place, his back to the door, breathing into his hands. The air was still damp from the rain that had been lurking all week, and it gave a definite chill to everything it touched. His hair was frizzing already, and not for the first time, Severus considered shaving the lot of it. At least then he wouldn’t be called the greasy git. No, his mind sourly corrected. You’ll be the shiny, bald one.
The door opened behind him. Molly Weasley stood in the doorway, her face in its now perpetual droop that came from the loss of a child.
“Everyone’s downstairs already,” she whispered, letting him in. He slanted a gaze to the basement door.
“I don’t wish to dine with everyone, so if you could just send Alastor and Minerva up-”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Molly snapped. “I’m not going to help you hide from Harry. And yes, I know,” she added at his startled look. “Please just act like the adult you’re supposed to be and get over it.”
He scowled at her back as she walked down the stairs, but as there was nothing he could do, he followed.
Despite the number of people in the room, there noise level was surprisingly low. Severus’s eyes skimmed the room, skipping right over Harry as if he wasn’t there, which made him feel slightly pleased.
“Oh, Severus, you came,” said Minerva, dabbing her lips with a napkin and pushing back her chair. Alastor, of course, had already seen him. “Shall we converse upstairs?”
Grateful that at least Minerva was tactful with these emotional issues, Severus nodded, knowing that Harry had turned to look at him. The doorbell rang again upstairs.
“It’s Bill,” said Moody, getting out of his chair, his magic eye swiveling upwards.
“We’ll get it, Molly,” said Minerva as Molly started to rise from her chair again. But before she, Severus and Moody could start up the stairs, Bill Weasley came bounding down them.
“Hello,” he greeted the three on the stairs, and then threw his arms around Molly. “Hello, Mum.” He kissed her on the top of the head, then let go of her and headed down the table. “I just heard the news,” he said cheerfully, slinging an arm around the shoulders of Harry and Ginny. “My little sister and brother-in-law-to-be.”
Severus stared at Harry, and this time it was Harry’s turn to avoid his gaze. Minerva grabbed Severus’ arm. “Shall we go upstairs?” she asked with a false bright note in her voice.
“Upstairs,” said Alastor to Severus, who still hadn’t moved. Minerva tugged on his arm.
“I’m coming,” Severus said in a strangled voice. His shock let go of him all at once, and he started up the stairs, shaking off Minerva. When he got to the top of the stairs, he continued right outside, and was gone before Minerva and Alastor reached the front door.
**
Seventeen:
Draco was in the kitchen, stealing food from the pantry right under Urie’s nose in a show of Malfoy opportunism. When the door to the house slammed open with enough force to shake the window panes of the basement kitchen, Draco thought the Death Eaters had finally come.
The only Death Eater that showed up, however, was Snape. He stopped in the doorway and stared at Draco.
“I see you’ve already taken advantage of your invisibility,” Snape said scathingly.
“Sir?” said Urie, pausing in his kneading of bread dough.
“Go alphabetize my shoes, Urie. And when you’re done, sort them chronologically.”
“Yes, sir.” Urie bowed and disappeared in a cloud of flour.
“Do you have a lot of shoes?” Draco asked nervously.
“Surprisingly,” said Snape.
“Er, did the dinner go well?” Snape’s intense gaze was making Draco nervous. He put down a half-eaten apple and edged further around the table, away from Snape.
“As well as I expected,” said Snape coldly.
“Good…” Draco didn’t like the way that Snape was staring at him. Glaring, more like. Had he done something wrong? Were the apples taboo? He gulped and glanced at the apple, and then attempted unobtrusively to nudge a bowl in front of it.
Snape slammed his hands down onto the table and Draco jumped, knocking the bowl over. Snape was still glaring at him but suddenly Draco realized that Snape wasn’t seeing him. “He betrayed me. All the time, he must have been thinking of that harlot.”
“I’m…sorry?” Feeling just like Urie must have, Draco wondered fleetingly if there was another selectively invisible prisoner in the room.
“And I had the stupidity to think he-” Snape picked up a glass and flung it across the room, where it shattered on the edge of the granite sink “-cared for me.”
“Does this have something to do with my father?” Draco asked tentatively.
“Lucius betrayed me first,” Snape said in a cold voice, then amended, “No. My father was the first. Albus was the second. Lucius was the third. And now Potter. And here I am switching back and forth between two madmen because I think it will bring me revenge.” Snape’s voice was full of self-loathing.
Draco couldn’t get past one point. “You slept with Dumbledore?” he gasped.
Snape’s eyes focused on him and he wrinkled his nose. “What? No.”
“Then…”
Snape abruptly stepped around the table, closer to Draco. “Do you think it takes sex to make a betrayal? You know nothing, you stupid little boy.”
“I’m not a little boy,” Draco snapped. “And if I didn’t know about betrayal, I wouldn’t be here.”
The statement made Snape stop. “So we’re both traitors here,” he said musingly, his lips quirking bitterly.
“Better than being betrayed,” said Draco scathingly.
Snape reached out and touched Draco’s cheek, a gesture which caused Draco to freeze. He hadn’t realized how close Snape had gotten. All at once, he was no longer afraid. He reached up and touched Snape’s hand.
“I’d better work quickly, then,” said Snape, and kissed him.
His lips tasted how Draco had always imagined Snape to be in his head-bitter, acidic, and wet. Draco backed into the table and Snape pressed him down against it, flour making his palms gummy. They slithered out of clothes, unhooking buckles and ties, the minimum required to get the job done. A knee sent the bowl spinning off the table, and their combined weight made the table creak. Snape sank into him, flesh against flesh, and Draco arched his back, taking him deep.
“Sir, I is fin-” Urie stopped. “Is sir choking?”
“Go back and do it again, Urie,” gasped Snape. The house elf vanished.
The apple core rolled off the table, and Draco dug his fingers into Snape’s flesh.
“Oh-”
“Yes…”
Bodies spasmed together. “Lucius!”
Snape, gasping and spent, stared at Draco, who stared back.
At the same time. “Did you just-?”
Both flushed and looked away, unnerved. Snape pulled away from Draco, leaving the hot vice of his legs. He fastened his pants.
“What you said before…” Draco whispered, bringing his legs together, still laying flat on his back. “Two madmen. You’re a Death Eater, aren’t you?”
“I’m supposed to kill you,” Snape answered softly, and left the room.
**
Eighteen:
We’re all traitors here, thought Severus, locked in his room and mixing his drink, adding in a bit of flavor from a tiny green skull-shaped bottle. So I’d better get my jab in first. He took his drink to an armchair and sat down.
His father. Dumbledore. Lucius. Harry. Each one like a punch in his gut, and when he thought he was walking away from the threat of betrayal, he was really just walking into the next traitor’s arms. Well damn. If there was one thing Severus was sure about, it was that he was never going to do that again.
He swilled the drink. The first two bastards on his list were dead, and there was little he could do to them anymore. Lucius would sell himself to Muggles to find his own traitorous son, with Voldemort breathing down his neck. Severus smiled to think that Lucius would never find Draco. He tapped the glass against his lower teeth. He liked to think that when Harry heard the news, he wouldn’t be able to look his pretty little fiancée in the eye for a while, and maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep nights.
Maybe he’d love Severus more, when Severus went behind the veil.
And Draco… Draco. Well, Draco was a secret that would go with Severus to the grave. Severus liked to think of that as getting in his betrayal first.
Fin.
Author’s notes:
The challenges, in further detail:
19. Draco discovers that his father and Snape were lovers.
40. Start with Snape/Harry and Lucius/Draco and get to Snape/Draco by the end.
47. Contrary to what everyone thinks, Severus Snape has never liked Draco Malfoy, and Draco knows it.
50. Draco is a spy for Dumbledore and is put under Snape's watchful eye, but Snape is actually still on Voldemort's side.
60. "Lucius!" A slip of tongue during sex.
68. Snape is expected to kill Draco.
72. Draco finds a photo of Snape and his father in Lucius’ study.
The Fidelius Charm
Quoted from the HP Lexicon:
“Used to try to protect Lily and James Potter from Voldemort. ‘An immensely complex spell involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it. As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!’ Unfortunately, Peter Pettigrew was chosen as Secret-Keeper, and he betrayed James and Lily (PA). Dumbledore used the Fidelius Charm to hide Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. He himself is the Secret Keeper for the Order (OP).”
Thus, my interpretation: So far, we’ve only seen it used on places: the Potters’ house and Grimmauld Place. What if you wish to hide a person? In OotP, it’s the headquarters that are hidden and not the members themselves, so the issue doesn’t come up. So far, we have no details on the version used to hide the Potters, except for this: “As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!” If this is true, it implies that he would be able to see the house but not the people themselves. It also implies that only the Secret-Keeper could divulge the secret-the Potters themselves could not. Obviously, in the case of Grimmauld Place, the house was in no rush to divulge its own existence, but comparisons can be made: despite the noises of yelling and banging from the portrait inside, the neighbors didn’t hear a thing. Technically, then, one can assume that any noises made by the one being hidden cannot be heard by anyone who doesn’t know the secret. The hidden one cannot divulge its own secret.
I also assumed that no one other than the Secret-Keeper can end the Fidelius Charm, with is quite likely. Which leads to an interesting idea-if one were to cast Fidelius against the will of the target, would the target effectively turn into a ghost, never again able to communicate with or effect the world around him? And what if the Secret-Keeper is killed? Ah, so many questions, so little time.