Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. He's not a house-elf. By the way, he's book series, three movies (soon to be four) and a character, but he isn't a person, and I don't own slaves either

Spoiler Warning - This fic will be relying heavily on all six published Harry Potter books, as well as miscellaneous information taken from J-K Rowling's own website. It is going to thoroughly spoil the book series for you, with a special mention for The Half-Blood Prince ; given this begins mere days after HBP... ;-)

Harry Potter and the Last Scions

Chapter One

Master and Apprentice

It was the dead of night, and chilly mist drifted over a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water, and the only signs of life were two hooded figures who were progressing in silence to the top of the river bank, where a line of old railings separated the river from a narrow, cobbled street. The houses that loomed over the two figures were in a poor state ; built of age-worn bricks, their windows were dull and blind in the darkness.
"What are we doing here, mother ?" the taller of the two figures whispered under his hood. "This place looks filthy and miserable."
"You had better get used to the place" his mother whispered in reply. "If you are going to be with him for some time, you will assuredly be seeing a lot of this place."
"Just because he lives here does not mean we can't move someplace else" the young man made waspishly.

To which the woman chose not to waste her breath answering ; the river bank was steep, and they still had some way to make before they would slip through the railings and enter the small town proper.
Moments later, they reached the only lit house in the cobbled street known as Spinner's End.

"Pitiable" the young man let as his mother knocked on the door. "Not even the Weasleys would want to live in such a hovel, and that's saying something."
The woman shot a warning look at her son from under her hood but did not retort : the door was creaking open, letting out a shaft of trembling firelight. A small, bald man with watery eyes appeared behind the door, looking quite frightened.
The young man sneered.
"On second thought, the place looks perfectly appropriate for the person you wanted me to meet, mother."
"Quiet, Draco !" the woman fired back, suddenly looking scared, before she faced the small man. "Wormtail, is he here ?"
"He asked me to let you in, said he'd be back soon, Mrs Malfoy" Wormtail replied, looking uncomfortable. "Shall I ?" and he stepped aside from the entrance, motioning for the two Malfoys to step inside.

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy removed their hoods as they entered a tiny sitting room, which had all the looks of a dark padded cell. The walls were completely covered in books, most of them bound in old black or brown leather. A threadbare sofa, an old armchair and a rickety table stood grouped together in a pool of dim light cast by a candle-filled lamp hung from the ceiling. There were three glasses and a bottle of elf-wine on the table ; while the Malfoys removed and hung their cloaks, Wormtail took to filling two of the glasses and handed them to Narcissa and her son once they had sat down.
"Make yourselves comfortable, Severus said he'd be here presently" Wormtail made, looking a little scared as he spoke the name.
"Severus ?" made an astonished Draco. "Severus Snape lives here ?"
"Assuredly he does" Narcissa Malfoy replied as Wormtail was disappearing from the sitting room.
"I won't be staying at this place !" the young man said angrily.
"Perhaps you would rather be back at the mansion waiting for the Aurors to come and capture you" his mother shot back, now clearly annoyed. "I know the place looks miserable, but at least you'll be much safer here than you would be anyplace else."
"And what if the Ministry knows Snape lives here ?"
"They do not, or else I would be a fool to stay here, would I not ?" made the quiet voice of a man.
"Severus…" Narcissa Malfoy made, turning in the sofa to look at the man who had just spoken.

Where the two Malfoys sported fair hair and an appearance of nobility, Severus Snape was a hook-nosed man with a sallow face partly covered by two curtains of greasy black hair. Back when Draco Malfoy had been at Hogwarts, he had played the part of the sycophant but now that he saw him again, and discovered the place where the old head of house Slytherin lived, Draco Malfoy had to admit he was a little disgusted by the man.
And the man seemed to be aware of the fact.
"Appearances can be deceptive, Draco" Snape said with a sneer. "Where an impressive-looking person fails, a more ordinary-looking wizard will be doing the real work."

Draco reacted as though he had been slapped in the face. He opened his mouth to retort – but he couldn't, and he felt his face burning with shame as the implications of the sallow-faced man's words sank in. Days before, Draco Malfoy had held Albus Dumbledore at his mercy, with nothing to stop him from killing the Hogwarts headmaster – nothing but himself. Malfoy had been boasting in front of his intended victim about how Severus Snape had played no part in the plan that was to bring Dumbledore's death. But Draco had not been capable of casting the killing curse that would finish off Dumbledore, and it had been Severus Snape himself who had fired the Avada Kedavra Malfoy had not been capable of casting.

There was a moment of awkward silence, during which Snape helped himself to a glass of elf-wine, which he raised to his lips without toasting.
"So" he began when he lowered his glass, a sneer on his face, "So. I think you wanted to ask something of me, mister Malfoy."
"Yes" Draco spat angrily. "I want to live someplace else than here. This is miserable !"
"This is the place the Dark Lord saw fit for you to inhabit" Snape replied, all traces of his sneer gone, his face now showing anger. "If you happen to disagree with his choice, then by all means leave. There is much I have to do this year, and I am already losing enough time with Wormtail without having to bear the burden of yet another sorry excuse for a Death Eater !"
"Don't you dare insulting me so !" Malfoy flared. "Don't even think about comparing me with that cringing bit of filth !"
"Oh." Snape's upper lip was curling. "I am so sorry. I beg your pardon for allowing myself to compare you with Wormtail" and he gave Draco a mocking bow. And he resumed talking, silkily. "I had almost forgotten that he, unlike you, did kill the person he was ordered to."

It was as though Snape had just slapped Draco hard in the face. The pale young man looked as though he would attack his former mentor, until –
"Oh, you do not imagine how much I would like you to", and there was a dangerous glimmer in Snape's eyes.
"Severus !" called Mrs Malfoy's horrified voice.
"Narcissa" came the reply, "your sonfaces no dangerfrom me for so long as he does not try anything stupid. I am not happy with the Dark Lord's decision to place Draco in my care, but I am not foolish enough to disobey him, nor" and his gaze went from one Malfoy to the other, "are you, unless I am terribly mistaken."
Narcissa Malfoy looked as though she wanted to say something in reply, but she bit back her words. Her eyes were shining with barely-held tears.

Draco, however, was not as shaken as she was.
"You know why I am not going to leave this place on my own" he said hotly. "Or why I'm not going to make you pay for what you've said. You know as well as I do that if I did just that, my parents would be as good as dead !"
"That they would be" Snape made in a curt voice. "However you do seem to have love for your parents, which makes me confident you will be following the Dark Lord's orders, and mine."
"Follow your orders ?" The young man was as angry as he had been moments before. "What makes you think I am going to follow your orders ?"
"Because the Dark Lord wishes it to be so." Snape's lip curled once more. "And because I will not be asking from you anything you do not have the courage to do."

This quenched Draco's anger at last. It had been the third time Snape had mentioned the young man's failure at killing Dumbledore, and the repeated references to a still-painful past finally chipped away Malfoy's defences.
"I couldn't bring myself to do it" he said with a heavy voice. "You know I couldn't. I am no killer." He looked at his mother with pleading in his eyes. "You had told me he would do it if I couldn't… And I really couldn't ! I mean, I spent weeks and weeks dwelling on that thought, the thought the Dark Lord wanted me to become a murderer – and the more I thought about it, the more certain I grew I wouldn't be able to kill him."
"Which certainly turned out to be the truth" Snape interjected with undisguised contempt.

But Draco was not adressing him. His full attention was on his mother, and he was crying openly, without shame.
"Believe me. I knew that the Dark Lord had threatened to kill you both if I didn't bring about Dumbledore's death.
"And it's not because I loved the man that I didn't want to kill him !" Draco added, a bit of his anger back in his voice. "But" and he lowered his eyes, "Dumbledore was right about me. I'm not a murderer. I'd do many things for father, I'd do many things for you… But I could not kill. At least, I could not kill one of us…"
Tears were now welling out of Narcissa Malfoy's eyes too.
"Draco…" she whispered. "My son…"

The moment was broken by Snape's cold laugh.
"Ahh… Draco… Not a murderer, not even on the Dark Lord's orders, hmm ?"
"Severus, please" Narcissa pleaded. "No more."
"More you son will hear. Refusing to murder someone when ordered to by the Dark Lord means betrayal" the man said icily. "Even though Draco did find a way around his qualms – me."
Snape shot Draco a disgusted look.
"You went on with your plan anyway, knowing that I would be there to step in where you would fail, did you not ?"
"The Dark Lord would have killed my parents if I hadn't !" the young man shouted.
"He would also have troubled himself with setting your father free had you done all that was expected from you" and it was Snape who was angry this time, as angry as he had been when Harry had called him a coward for fleeing Hogwarts, after he had killed Dumbledore. "But no, you did not, and instead you counted on me to do your dirty work, and did not even pause to think how much it would jeopardize my position. Do you realize that the Dark Lord was more than happy to have a spy within Hogwarts, and would have loved to be still enjoying the services of a reliable agent inside the school, especially now that it has been made vulnerable by Dumbledore's death ?"

Malfoy looked at his former teacher, dumbstruck.
"Well, maybe you are beginning to" Snape made in a bitter voice, "but you certainly did not when it still mattered. You have ruined an important part of my usefulness to the Dark Lord, and I am not about to let you forget it."

This time the moment of silence was not awkward. It was heavy.

"Severus" Mrs Malfoy's broken voice eventually made, "do you think there is still a chance to set Lucius free ?"
To which Snape replied with an unemotional voice :
"That, Narcissa, will depend on how well your son performs the mission I will be training him for."

A/N - This story has been no less than three years in the making, and has considerably changed since I first set out to work on it. Of course, Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince meant considerable changes to my plot (especially the latter... I had not been too bad at guessing what would come to pass in OotP, but have been completely taken by surprise by HBP )
The plot has been entirely laid out, and now I'm writing the story itself ; the key chapters are ready to be posted, but as for the others... '
Also, I hope the English language is not being butchered in this story ; it happens not to be my mother language ;-)