Title: Felix Culpa
Author: Chackers
Pairings: Currently gen. Future Snape/Draco.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and it's characters.
Author's Note: Do read the foreword before each chapter for pairings and warnings.
-oOo-
Prologue
He first met Draco a month after the war had officially ended, it had already been decided when the dark lord had perished a couple of years before. But it was only then that the remaining fractions of his supporters had been dead or silenced, hence the victory, as pronouced then, went unchallenged and was absolute.
It was not long after he had become a professor at Hogwarts. He had just gotten over the disappointment of being denied the position he was vying for, professor for the Defense Against the Dark Arts and was vaguely bitter that the position went to someone who was hardly as qualified as he is. He had no illusions that he had Dumbledore's complete trust, but faced with undeniable evidence proving otherwise - it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Not that he deserved anything like Dumbledore's trust in the first place, Severus was aware of that fact.
The meeting with Lucius Malfoy, who had sided with the ministry almost immediately after the death of the dark lord, began the part of his life one could call his social life. It had been the first time, after his graduation, that Severus stepped into the world of high Wizarding society he had always looked to with an mixture of disdain and yearning. It was a complex self-contained system of unsaid rules and merciless judgement that he had studied and wished to assert himself in, but had immediately condemned once he realised that him, with his heritage and upbringing, could not have blended in than a crow could have among swans. Lucius, on the other hand, fit into the life like a hand into a glove, Slughorn would have been proud. He was both delighted and apprehensive when he received the invitation to a dinner party at the Malfoy Manor.
Lucius had promised, on the scented, off-white, watermarked parchment the invitation was written on, a "private and intimate reunion among the selected Slytherin alumni". He had arrived in the Malfoy mansion in black robes which he had obviously grown out of, his teacher's pay was hardly enough for luxuries like branded, bespoke dress robes. Lucius had surveyed his sallow ankles with haughty bemusement, and had dismissed his faux pas with a wave of his hand. They gathered in the parlour around the table, there were obvious gaps in the seating arrangement, the missing, the dead and those who went into hiding. The empty chairs were stark and obvious, but no one mentioned the occupants.
They finished the meal of squid ravioli in a lemon grass broth with goat cheese profiteroles and was making polite small talk. As soon as Narcissa exited the room, the atmosphere relaxed but everyone, as usual, was careful not to mention anything relevent to the recently believed to be deceased dark lord. That was all one did these days after the war, indulge in material and physical pleasures to fend off the numbness and the lingering memories of death. No one mentioned that they lost, no one mentions the Ministry of Magic's impending trials on the remaining Deatheaters.
"Heard you became a Hogwarts teacher." Avery said, raising his glass with a hint of mockery in his smile. Severus could hear the incitement in his tone and could not meet his previous friend's cold, hard eyes. Everyone looked at him with guarded and resentful gazes. He knows that deep down, a good portion of the would have given anything to be in his position. To have a solid backing in the inevitable event of the persecution of anyone who was suspected to be on the side of the Deatheaters and the Dark Lord.
"It's just a job, not all of us wish to survive on inheritance, Avery." Avery's hand on the delicate wine glass tightened noticeably, his knuckles white.
The atmosphere grew tenser, Regulus smiled tightly while diverting the conversation away from the contentious topic and into safer territory.
"Never pinned you as the first to get married, Lucius." Regulus commented, sipping the Chardonnay the house-elf had poured with shaky, freshly ironed hands, "You don't seem like the type to just settle with a woman." Severus remembered how Lucius was like, self-absorbed and decadent, the very epitome of a dandy. Lucius had quite the reputation too, that he had frequently indulged in practices not uncommon in public school male dormitories.
"Oh but it just got so tiring after a while," Lucius casually dismissed the trembling elf with a gesture, "but a man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
Everyone chuckled. Antonin, who had been silent throughout, slammed his hands against the delicate antique table.
"I cannot understand how you asinine fools can be so smug and content when our lord is obviously languishing somewhere and in need of our aid -" He exclaimed, as everyone adverted their eyes shiftily.
"Antonin -" Lucius rolled his eyes in exasperation, this was apparently not the first time.
He redirected his fury at Lucius, "everytime I see a mudblood taking away what is rightly ours, I want to tear his limbs apart. All the while I wonder what have you or anyone done to stop this. If he had been here he would have not tolerated it." Severus squirmed in his seat, reminding himself that these were his friends and this was the path he had chosen.
Lucius motioned everyone to quieten down as the muttering rose to a crescendo. Severus could still sense the simmering threat of violence below the civility. He knew that for many present, the war was a pretense for unrepentant acts of cruelty with no consequences, that was all there was to it.
"Antonin, enough. You are ruining everyone's mood with such distateful talk of mudbloods, let us not."
At this moment, the door opened and all Severus could see was a pair of wide grey eyes. The chatter petered out and in stepped young Draco, looking scared and lost in the room full of strangers. He looked so little in over-sized pyjamas covered in embroidered snitches and clutching a stuffed unicorn.
"I - I had a bad dream," he stammered, trying to hide the wavering of his voice and the slight, infantile lisp. Draco looked up to his father beneath lowered eyelids, "mommy's not there."
"Draco, go to Dobby, do not embarass me." Lucius commanded sternly. Draco's eyelashes fluttered and he looked as if he was about to burst into tears.
"I'll walk him to his bedroom, Lucius." He rested a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, and motioned to Draco to follow him like a teacher would. Lucius muttered the directions to Draco's bedroom.
He walked along the corridor and Draco had to run a little to catch up, his stuffed unicorn trailing behind him.
"What's your name then?" Draco asked with his best shot at commanding and arrogant. Severus snorted, he was attempting to emulate his father's speech patterns, although the lisp somewhat ruined the effect.
"Severus, you may call me Professor Snape. I would no doubt be teaching you some day."
"Can I call you Sevvie?" Draco tugged the bottom of his robe.
He gritted his teeth. "No, you may not."
He guided Draco to the bedroom and made sure he laid down on the bed, the child looked tired. He slipped into his sheets and scowled darkly when he felt them against his skin. Draco smoothened out the blanket and Severus noticed the darkened shape of a wet patch on it. The child flushed in embarassment.
"Dobby!" Draco called, a slight tinge of panic in his voice.
"Yes, young master?" the house elf asked with lowered eyes.
"You forgot to change my sheets," Draco wailed, as if his pride had been severely damaged.
"But young master never told Dobby -"
"Change them now! And punish yourself, Dobby. Punish yourself most severely." The boy frowned the way Lucius would.
Dobby gathered up the sheets and grabbed a nearby lamp, proceeding to attempt giving himself a concussion. Draco looked scared and disgraced, "you are never to tell father, do you understand?"
Dobby blubbered a statement of agreement and retreated, knocking himself on the doorframe on the way out.
Draco looked rather upset and glared at Severus, he could not help but feel that he had somehow, unwittingly, participated in the humiliation of the young Malfoy.
"Both Sebastian and I are going to sleep. Leave us."
Severus did not dignify a query on who Sebastian was. It was probably something as inane as an imaginary friend, or something to that effect. He moved in to tuck the young boy in, an act his parents never bothered.
"You are not a mudblood are you?" Draco's wide eyes were suddenly narrowed to a suspicious squint.
"No, Draco." He said cautiously.
"Good, because father says that mudbloods are disgusting and I simply cannot allow one to touch me." His features were suddenly marred by a fierce, intent hatred and Severus felt a cold coil of anger and mixed with sadness in his gut.
"Do you like your father?" Snape recalled the cold dismissal.
"Of course. I want to grow up just like him," he could not miss the plain unadulterated admiration in his voice, "he is a great man. I just wish sometimes he would notice me a little more."
Severus left the bedrooom as Draco's eyes fluttered shut and he drifted off to sleep. The guests were already leaving for their respective homes.
"You should pay a little more attention to your son," Severus murmured in Lucius's ear. He was hardly paying attention.
"Nonsense, Severus, Narcissa and I spoil him too much." He waved goodbye to a rather inembriated Mulciber, who was displaying the darkmark inked on his arm and shouting slogans. "Did you know the other day he asked for a brush for his stuffed unicorn - Sebastian, he calls it - it had to have very stiff bristles. Not to brush him with, but to spank him when he was sulky."
Severus raised his eyebrows and hid a smile.
"I assure you we raise him with strict discipline and educate him with healthy ideas that every pure-blood child should know by heart. I should anticipate him to grow up to be a respectable member of society, I should expect nothing less from a Malfoy." Lucius concluded. There was nothing more Severus could say, and it was less than appropriate to enquire further.
He left the Manor with an odd sense of loss and felt an abstract longing for the life that he could perhaps have, in another time, in another universe. Had Lily not run off in the arms of James Potter and never looked back. Had he never shaken Avery's hand of friendship and gotten, under the encouragement of his friends, the mark on his forearm.
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Author's Note: Yep, this hasn't been betaed. All mistakes are my own and do feel free to point them out. Also, do please review. Thanks!