Author's Note: Another chapter with Snape and Draco. Enjoy.

Summary:

Three months have passed since that fateful night when Dumbledore was killed and Harry vowed to kill his murderer, and it's been a year since Harry found out Severus Snape was his father, but this time it is not the worries of making a relationship work that cloud Harry's mind but how he will deal with the war that has now become all too clear, how he will find the Horcruxes in solitude, and how to distract himself enough to not think about his father. But how can he accomplish all of this when he's worried sick about his best friend and he has no idea where to begin searching for the pieces of Voldemort's soul.

Disclaimer:

I don't own anything but maybe the plot, Faye, Imogen, Echo, Artemis, and I almost forgot him...Sawyer.

Chapter Twelve

Draco's Gift

August 16, 1998

It had been an hour in his estimation since Snape began to examine each and every chest without touching them. It seemed that Snape had decided this was the way to go about figuring out which one he needed to open. Draco, leaning against the wall, thought that the chest sitting across from him was the one. There was something about the way it sat there, screaming that it was better than this room – better than the other chests. Draco knew magic. He had been around it since before he had been born, and that chest, it sung to him. Dark magic, Draco thought, but strong magic nevertheless.

The other chests had a different kind of magic on them. It wasn't as dark but this was dangerous dark magic, the kind that was ready to hurt even the person that had placed that magic within without a care. It was wild and cruel. It was the kind of magic that the souls thrived upon and the kind of magic that disgusted Draco, now that he could feel it near him, but it was also wonderful and not all dark magic had to be this evil – some kinds of it were beautiful.

"It's that one," Draco said, pointing at the chest across from him.

Snape stopped examining the chest nearest to Draco and looked up at him with an eyebrow raised in question.

"The magic around it is darker than in any of the others but it isn't as destructive or dangerous," Draco explained.

Snape frowned in thought. He had spent the most time looking over that one, and Draco knew he had not entirely ruled out the possibilities of it being one, like he had with two others, leaving that one, and the one closest to Draco to chose from.

"And you can tell, just from looking at it?"

"The magic sings to me," Draco said. "Most purebloods can sense magic like this – I think that ability was amplified with me. From an early age I was taught to recognize magic, dark and light alike."

"Does it feel like a soul?" Snape asked suddenly, straightening up from the other box.

Draco closed his eyes, concentrating hard on what he was doing. He found that it did feel slightly like a soul. Like a broken soul – a dark broken soul, screaming to be let out to rejoin its other broken parts. This was unnatural and Draco felt himself shudder – it was the work of Voldemort.

"Yes," Draco whispered.

It was clear that Snape did not know what to expect once he opened the chest. Even if it did contain what he was looking for, they weren't fully sure that something else wouldn't be inside, waiting to attack them – another precaution of Voldemort's to stop them from finding this object Snape wanted to get.

"Magic is still not to be your first reaction," Snape told Draco, his eyes locking on him. "Witches and wizards depend on their magic far too much."

Draco gave a sharp nod.

Snape crouched in front of it and opened the chest slowly. Draco watched it with trepidation. Snape stepped back as soon as the lid was against the wall and the contents of the chest were ready to be taken out.

Inside the chest was a cup. An ordinary goblet like cup that had absolutely nothing special about it, but from the way that Snape was looking at it, it was quite obvious that the cup was rather important and exactly what he had been looking for. There didn't seem to be any sort of traps set up around it, but Draco thought that there had to be something – it couldn't be that simple. Snape seemed to be thinking the same thing for he did not reach for it.

"Can you feel anything around it?" Snape asked.

He couldn't. Draco shook his head. "There still might be something." Draco was positive there had to be something more on it – this was Voldemort they were talking about. He couldn't have been that confident that no one would get this far to getting the cup.

"Can we use magic now?" Draco thought that with a few well placed spells, he would be able to find any protection that had been put on the cup.

Snape shook his head. "That might set it off," Snape said. "Unless…"

"What?" Draco asked.

"Magic doesn't exactly register in a place when it is wandless," Snape said.

"But the ministry of magic and under age magic," Draco began.

"That's different," Snape said, thoughtfully.

Draco watched him. It took Snape a few minutes of thinking to finally make up his mind, and then he waved his hand over the cup. Draco watched in fascination as it was surrounded by blue light. It shimmered for a moment, and then it was back to normal a moment later.

"I think," Snape said, "it doesn't matter what magical means we use to determine what will come if we remove the cup, nothing will give us an answer except to use that incumbent Gryffindor foolishness we so despise."

Draco could have laughed, had this not been such a very serious moment. He followed Snape's hand with his eyes as he reached for the cup and waited for something terrible to happen, but nothing did. Snape stood up the cup in his hands and still nothing happened.

Snape began to laugh. It was strange to hear such a sound coming out of the stringent Potions Master, but something had to have amused him greatly if he was laughing.

"We have forgotten, Draco, that the Dark Lord thinks very highly of himself and would never have expected anyone but himself to chose the right chest, much less find their way into this chamber of his. I think, perhaps, he will always underestimate his opponent – or at least, he did once."

Draco didn't find this as amusing as something to laugh about, but he nodded, thinking that he wanted to leave as quickly as possible. He expressed this sentiment to Snape who nodded and set about making a copy of the cup and leaving it within the chest, and then they turned and went back down to the cave with the stalagmites and stalactites and the narrow passage, and the darkness lit only by the bright branch that Snape still had in his hand, though Draco had no idea where he had stashed it while they were in the chamber.

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August 20, 1998

The spare piece of parchment was devoid of any written message – it was mocking him. He had looked at it at least once a day since she had given it to him and back then it had been full of her thoughts – now, there was nothing.

"Draco!"

Draco groaned. He folded his parchment and slipped it into his robes' pocket, just as his mother entered his room without bothering to even knock.

"What is it, Mother?" Draco asked, not bothering to even look at her as he made sure that his parchment was hidden from her.

"Professor Snape is here, Draco, he seems to need your assistance with something."

Draco stood up from his bed and walked out of his room. He heard his mother coming behind him and begin to prattle on about some sort of nonsense that Draco wanted nothing to do with.

Snape was waving away a house elf, when Draco entered the drawing room a few minutes later. He seemed to have not made himself at home whatsoever, and looked quite odd standing in the middle of the rather clean and pristine room. Behind him, Draco heard his mother going on about Hogwarts, of all things, and Draco remembered faintly that he would not be returning to Hogwarts this year as much as his mother wanted him to.

"Hello, Professor," Draco said.

Snape nodded at him in greeting, without a word, and then after a minute or so of an awkward silence, Snape addressed his mother. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Malfoy, I must steal your son for the remainder of the day."

"Quite alright," Narcissa Malfoy said, despite the fact that she was frowning and this seemed to not be alright at all in her opinion.

A few minutes later, found him and Snape walking out of Malfor Manor, after Snape had promised that he would not be taking Draco out into the middle of some forest that would not do at all for his complexion. Draco mused that maybe he had complained maybe a tad too much in front of his mother for her to be so worried about whatever excursion Snape had planned for them on this day.

"Where are we going today? Not another cave, I hope."

"No. Not a cave. Perhaps a swamp," Snape said.

"Very funny," Draco said. "What did you do with the cup, anyway?"

"I would tell you if you didn't pester me so," Snape said without once looking at Draco, but towards the gates to the Manor.

It wasn't that hot today, not like it had been four days ago, when he had last seen Snape, but Draco hoped that whatever Snape wanted with him did not involve another search for some lost artifact. Beyond knowing it was somehow important to Voldemort and Snape both, Draco had no idea what the cup was for.

"Apparate to my home," Snape instructed, once they had walked past the gates.

Draco nodded, closed his eyes, and did as he was told.

About five minutes later, Draco was seated across from Snape in Snape's office. The cup, a relic of Helga Hufflepuff, Draco realized now, sat between them on the desk. It was obvious to Draco that this was not the reason they were there and that Snape had probably not meant to leave the cup out like that for Draco to see. He kept it there, however.

"What is it?" Draco asked, regardless. He was a curious creature as he knew most humans had to be. "There's doubtlessly something more to it than just the fact that it once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff."

"I don't think," said Snape after a moment's pause, in which he took the cup gently into his hands and stared at it, "it would be prudent for me to share this information when it is the most important piece of intelligence the Order has."

Draco opened his mouth to protest that he should be allowed to know something about the object Snape had made him help acquire, but one look at Snape and he knew that it would be of no use to nuisance Snape with this when Snape had more things to worry about.

"What am I doing here, then?" Draco asked instead.

"From what I saw four days ago, your affinity for magic has grown enormously – a great help to our cause and this task in particular. I wish to know just how much this ability of yours can do – how much it will be able to help us in this war."

Draco frowned. That was what this was about. "It's no great ability," he told Snape. "All purebloods can –"

"You told me it was amplified," Snape said. "There is a potion –"

Draco cut him off. "What about this potion? Haven't I had enough potions?"

"Not nearly enough," Snape said.

It took Draco a moment to realize that Snape was saying that in jest.

"Will this one also taste awful and knock me out for three days?"

Snape gave him an annoyed glance. "It will take just a few minutes – at the most ten."

"Exactly how does it work, then?"

"You will take the potion, and through the use of a spell it will give me a reading on a scale for the potency of your ability," Snape said. "It is generally used by the ministry to measure the magical power of Azkaban prisoners but it was first developed to place students into classes at Beauxbatons – they were classed by how great their magical power was back then as this made it easier for them to be taught. I made a few changes to it for the purpose of determining the strength of the wandless magic of an Order member during the first war."

Draco sighed. "I guess…"

"It tastes like peppermint," Snape said.

"I don't like peppermint," Draco mumbled. "Is it ready?" He asked louder, for Snape to hear.

"It will be in—" Snape waved his hand casually in front of him. Three numbers, two separated by a colon appeared in front of him "—half an hour."

Draco nodded. They fell into a small silence, broken only by the creaking of the floorboards that marked the house they were currently as very old and not so well taken cared of. Draco had for a long time suspected this wasn't Snape's real residence, but he hadn't mentioned it. Snape had brought him here for a reason and Draco had decided – even before taking the potion to help him with occlumency – that Snape always had a reason for what he did and he needed to go along with it before he caused the murder of another Hogwarts's headmaster or headmistress.

"What about my ability is so important?" Draco asked, suddenly. To him it was perfectly ordinary. He had grown around people that could do this without thinking much of it. "My father," he continued, "never thought it was important whatsoever."

Snape frowned, and for a moment, Draco thought that he looked as if he wanted to say something – tell him something he didn't know about his father perhaps – but then having thought better of it, Snape said nothing.

"I've been meaning to bring up my father," Draco said, looking intently at Snape as if looking for some sign on Snape's face that would gave whatever he had wanted to say a moment before, away. Snape, as Draco had expected, did not allow his expression to change.

"What about your father?" Snape asked instead.

"Well, he's in Azkaban, isn't he," Draco said, still watching Snape. "He's also loyal to the Order – or am I not right about this?"

Snape nodded slowly.

"What I want to know," Draco said after a pause, "is why he's been still in Azkaban."

Snape looked as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He composed himself quickly, and took a moment before he answered. "Lucius Malfoy," he said when he finally spoke, "is not well respected within the Order. Few know of his true colors, and even they doubt him – you know the things your father has done in the name of Voldemort."

Draco nodded, although this didn't quite answer his question. "But he's still been put in there by him –" he began.

"Lucius will not be accepted by the Order, much less than I or you would if we entered their headquarters at this moment. There is something to be said about their loyalty to their family and friends. Lucius destroyed many lives during the first war and it will not be easy for them to allow him within their little group without Dumbledore to help it along."

Draco frowned. He had forgotten the prejudice against the Malfoy name. He and his father were still Death Eaters, and Snape no longer held a role in the Order's business. As much as he may want to have his father out of Azkaban, it wasn't going to happen – not when Voldemort had put him there and the Order wouldn't be happy to have him now meddle in their affairs. It was also not at all fair of him to ask for the release of his father when his father was guilty for a number of crimes that he should have been put in prison for.

Draco broke out of his thoughts when he heard Snape's chair slide back on the floor. Snape stood up, gave the cup a glance, as if thinking about taking it with him or not.

"I'll get the potion," he said to Draco.

Nodding, Draco watched him go. It was unfair for both of them, Draco realized; Snape estranged from his son, and he with a father in Azkaban. Draco found himself wondering, not for the first time, exactly how Harry Potter had come to be Severus Snape's son. He had asked him the night they fled from Hogwarts and had received a disgruntled answer of, "mind your own business". Draco hadn't brought it up since then, but it had been obvious to him at times that Snape suffered with his son angry at him over Dumbledore's death.

Potter hadn't seen, Draco had decided then, the pain that Snape had been in when he had done it. Potter hadn't noticed how Snape had let him punish him because he had thought he deserved it.

Draco didn't hear Snape enter the room again and nearly jumped out of his chair when Snape nudged his arm with an aluminum shot glass. He took it, after a moment's hesitation.

"Offering me alcohol now," Draco said, motioning to the shot glass.

Snape rolled his eyes at him.

The potion looked like water but for the hint of mint that Draco could smell when he brought the glass to his nose.

"Well, drink it," Snape said. He had gone around his desk and once more settled into his chair. "I promise it does not contain any form of poison – alcoholic or otherwise."

Draco gave it a dubious glance, and then tipped his head back and turned the glass upside down into his mouth. It did indeed taste like peppermint. It took less than a second for it take affect on him.

Suddenly, he could feel all the magic around him. It was crowding him, pulling him from all sides, wanting his attention – seeking for him to give it approval. There was magic all over the room, glowing and glinting with luminescent light floating about it. Draco wondered if magic always looked this appealing. He had never seen it so raw and ready to be taken from the air for use. Even Snape had a magical aura. His magic screamed of strength and until this moment, Draco had not realized just how strong Snape was magically.

Draco's gaze lingered on the cup, once he spotter on the desk. It was a bright shinning beacon of darkness. Spells surrounded it, and he could see them now, but these didn't call to him or allow him to determine what they were.

It was an exhilarating moment, with all the magic rushing around him, and all the random objects around the room singing their magic to him. And then everything began to shine less and the magic began to disappear, although Draco could feel it there and he felt now that if he wished it enough, what he had seen would come back. Everything settled back down and Draco shook himself. Magic still throbbed around him as he closed his eyes and it began to dull somewhat.

"Well," Snape said. His voice was far off, but Draco could still hear it. "I'm surprised."

Draco blinked a couple of times, willing the magic to be quiet in his ears and to stop trying to pull him towards it. After a few more tries – with the use of a small amount of legillimency, he managed it.

"Surprised?" he asked, then.

"You're much stronger than I realized," Snape said. "You ability is quite repressed, from what I saw. It hasn't come to be of much use in your daily life and so it's been deep within you. You can use it, of course, but not the stronger aspects of it. I assume with time and practice this will come to be very useful for the war effort."

Draco nodded. "How can I practice this, though?"

"I don't know," Snape said, and then added, "I think there might be something in the school library on this, however."

"It's not like we're ever going to go back there, now, is it?" Draco said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Somehow, we'll find a way to make this ability of yours help us in the war, even as little developed as it is. I noticed you looking at the cup. Did you see something on it?"

"A number of spells," Draco said. "I couldn't tell what. They were all dark, though. You'll have to go easy with that one."

"Yes, I know," Snape said.

"What exactly are you supposed to do with it?"

Snape shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that; just the fact that you know about it is risky enough."

Draco nodded with a frown. He would eventually find out why the cup was so important.

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September 5, 1998

Draco didn't think it would make much of a difference if he cut the roots into what couldn't be considered to be the exact same size pieces. Everything was going into the potion anyway – what difference did it make if he cut everything up without a care to how even it all was. Snape wasn't paying attention, anyway, Draco noticed. He had become completely submerged in his own potion to care about what Draco was doing in the table next to his. Draco had already tested it out by pretending to add a rather volatile ingredient that would have destroyed his potion – Snape had said nothing.

Snape was working on the Wolfsbane Potion and Draco assumed that it was one of those potions that needed every bit of attention put to it. Snape had been brewing it for past three days and it seemed that he needed just a few more steps before he was done for the day, but for the moment he could do nothing but work on it, with complete concentration that Draco knew he should have associated with the potions master.

Draco watched him from the corner of his eyes. He moved about his table with fluidity. It was a dance – he added an ingredient here, cut something up with quick movements of his hands with his knife and then stirred counterclockwise four times followed by seven clockwise stirs. Draco turned back to his own potion and began to cut up the roots. He looked up when he heard the clink of something falling to the ground and a gasp.

"Wha—" Draco began, but it was then that Draco felt, coming to his arm a few second late – the burning of Voldemort's call.