Author's Note: I'm sorry about the short chapters. Plot bunnies keep getting in my soup. I hope you're enjoying the story. To everyone who's reading and reviewing (you know who you are :o) thanks. This is kinda fluffy - expect some H/G and R/Hr lurve in the next chapter as I make you wait to see what happens when Severus goes to see Voldemort. (I'm so evil.) Oh, and Draco will get his own love story...eventually.
"Severus, I've come to...oh. Draco. Hello."
The blonde, lean young man with the angel's face and the devil's disposition chuckled, his eyes strangely empty as he stepped back and swept her a bow. "Mistress Keelyn. Come to see Professor Snape, have you? Is he taking ... private lessons?"
There was a touch of insolence and innuendo in the boy's tone that had Keelyn chuckling and propping a hip against the door. She had already had a long talk with Dumbledore about the young master Malfoy, prompted by her discovery that he had quite a store of Faery ability hidden under his icy disdain. The gruesome murder of his mother by Death Eaters coupled with the subsequent slide into insanity and eventual suicide of his father over the course of the past year had forged a new Draco. While he was still cheerfully cheeky and coldly sarcastic, he had taken a sudden introspective turn that often led him, Dumbledore had informed her with a twinkle in his eye, to the Potion Master's door. Draco was still vain, still much too conscious of class, and could not quite shake his dislike of what he called "The Fetid Foursome", but Dumbledore felt the boy might just make the right decision, when push came to shove. Keelyn was hoping both Severus's influence and, now, perhaps her own, might steer the sneering, insecure, orphaned boy in the right direction. Her own thoughts startled her. What was she, now, everyone's mother?
"Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see if you're still angry with me what your only claim to Faery power lies in an affinity with your namesake." Draco had taken it ass a grave insult that his vast store of power only lay in taming dragons. Either he didn't know or didn't care that no one had been able to tame dragons in centuries; the lack of a dragon tamer with Faery gifts was why the Dragon Reserves existed in the first place.
Draco's finely drawn features pulled into a most uncomplimentary scowl, his pale blonde brows dipping dangerously low over his nearly colorless eyes. "Dragons. What use do I have for such a paltry power? I'm sure Potty, the Weasels and the..."
"Ah-ah, Draco, language." Severus appeared behind Draco, his own amusement hidden behind a bland expression. Keelyn's eyes lifted to his and she saw him physically check himself from reaching out to her. It warmed her heart, already in danger of melting from overload from the day's events.
She had been both shocked and pleased to discover that, among the seventh form Gryffindors, fully eighty-five percent of them had some sort of Faery ability. Neville Longbottom could make things grow by simply being near them, Lavender Brown had a knack for glamour, young master Finnigan could tame any four-legged, non-magical beast with the sound of his voice...and that was only four of the ten of them with power! It boggled the mind that so much power was contained in such a small group of people. And now she was responsible for them.
For his part, Severus had not missed the new warmth lighting her eyes, or the way she carelessly teased the child of a man who had once declared all Faery-kind should be exterminated. He, of course, had heard the excited murmurs about her in the Great Hall at dinner and had expended a lot of effort not to beam with pride. He could see, now, that spark, that excitement, that drive that had drawn him to her so long ago. He sent a quelling glance at Draco, startled as always to find that the boy could look him directly in the eye. When had the little bugger gotten so tall?
"I was going to call her a bookworm," Draco muttered sullenly, stepping back from the door. Keelyn touched his shoulder as she stepped over the threshold, gently squeezing.
"I know for a fact that your power isn't so paltry and is extremely rare, Draco. Use it for good or ill as you wish, but it can certainly be helpful." He narrowed his eyes at her, assessing her sincerity, and then suddenly, totally, relaxed. A little smirk crossed his lips, lending his features a strangely attractive, slightly sinister, cast.
"Not going to lecture me on what's right or wrong, then. No wonder the two of you are so hot for each other: not a scrupulous bone in your bodies."
Severus couldn't help it; he chuckled. Keelyn shot him a dirty look and he shrugged, helplessly, as Draco's smirk grew. "What? Certainly the boy's being a prat but you have to give him credit for doing justice to a bad pun."
Keelyn frowned. Pun? She ran the sentence back over in her mind, and then her face flamed. "Did you just make some sort of crude reference to a sexual organ, Mr. Malfoy?" Her voice was so prim, her blush so hot, that Severus had to reach out and touch her.
Draco watched, half-amused, half-disgusted and quite a bit envious as his stern, autocratic Potions Master brushed his fingertips over the woman's cheek. When she smiled and captured Severus's hand in her own, pressing a kiss to his palm, Draco turned away, pretending to gag. In fact, he was hiding a wistful expression he hadn't been able to quell. Draco was a little gone over Keelyn, though he'd eat flobberworms and kiss Potty before he'd admit it. Sticking his tongue out at himself in the mirror over the fireplace, Draco wandered over and sprawled elegantly into one of the ornately carved antique chairs, giving the couple some privacy. After all, if he couldn't have her, he thought to himself philosophically, wasn't the next best thing for her to be in love with the head of Slytherin House? Potty, the Weasels and the...bookworm would have the vapors.
"Did I come at a bad time? I don't want to interrupt if you're busy." Keelyn had to force the words past her dry throat as Severus drew their hands to his chest, tugging her closer. She saw the intent in his eyes, the way they narrowed and darkened, and knew that if he kissed her, she might well forget that Draco was even in the room. "Severus. Not in front of the boy."
"Oh, don't mind me, Keelyn. I'm used to watching couples snog all over the place."
Caught halfway between a laugh and a groan, Severus rested his forehead against Keelyn's. He knew she hadn't come to be kissed anymore than she'd come to verbally spar with Draco. It was time to finish the conversaton they'd started in the hallway. "Mr. Malfoy, I think we're done for the evening. Why don't you run along and I'll let you know as soon as I arrange that meeting you're so anxious to have with Dumbledore?"
Draco glared, until he caught the surprised, pleased expression on Keelyn's face as she turned to look at him. Puffing out his chest, he sauntered to the door and bowed once more. "At your command, guvna." He slammed the door behind him.
"He's a right cheeky little bastard." There was amusement and exasperation in her tone.
"Yes, and he hasn't quite figured out that heartlessness and cruelty aren't the way of the world." Keelyn looked up at Severus and caught the wistful expression. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders.
"He reminds me of someone I knew, once."
"Mmmm. You've come to have the talk, haven't you?"
"You mean the 'come to Jesus talk', as my grandmother used to say? Yes, I suppose we should have one of those." Severus's eyebrows winged up at the reluctance in her voice, at the way she turned her head away from him and her fingers worried the top clasp of his robe.
"You don't think we should talk about what happened?"
"I don't think there's anything left to say, Severus. You weren't looking to love someone imperfect and I wasn't experienced enough to be honest with you from the beginning. It just wasn't our time."
"And now?"
Keelyn's eyes shot to his face and she knew she had to look completely undone. He couldn't mean...he didn't want...oh my. "N-now?"
He nodded, slowly, his hands sliding up to cup her face, his black eyes serious and intent. "Yes. You helped me save myself a long time ago. And it's certainly true that I know now all that you are. Can you...will you let me love you?"
Her face, that exotic, sweet face, lit up as if from the light of a thousand candles. He would not know, however, what she might have said, for suddenly, the Dark Mark made its presence known.