A/N: Apologies for the delay. I must have written like 4 different chapters trying to figure out where to go next… Oy.

Thank you mmjay, Kerttu, Silverhair Theory, uranium, Katsy15, shadow-inu14, gaija, Penguin Steps, Lady Silverhawk, deedee10, Xelena, Shinigami Clara, rachel, OrioonLuckyStar, akuma-river, JayHun, Vampyre Moon, Nataleechan, FluffySmarts, Clad Langouste, louey31, ura-hd, CatWithBall, Shadowed-Seraph, Laughing Cat, spinnerofdark, Lanfear1, kumak, sotty-chan, miadragonlover, lucius sikilmituile, Yukkienoloveless, Enivrement, Goldensong, Purple Raveness, DarkGwen, Ch3rryphr34k, Zelphie, coriander, lovi, SlytherinRomantic, MyFictionalAnnihilation, tessa3, The Dark's Desire, DestinyEntwinements, and xikum.

Whew! Thanks, really, for your continued interest and support and wonderful reviews.

It is late when Harry returns to his rooms at Hogwarts from a desperately needed drinking session with James, who had chuckled his dry, rustling laugh, and given Harry a sympathetic look. Sebastian had cornered them momentarily, but after getting a better look at Harry, he too, shot Harry a sympathetic look and then went to find Shadow.

Harry has company. "Lucius," he says, momentarily surprised.

"I'm not leaving," Lucius says coolly. "Not until you've heard me out. Until now, I've been very considerate and played the game by your rules."

"This isn't a game," Harry protests. Lucius smiles. It's cold and makes Harry shiver despite the fact that he has just walked through fire.

"But you always liked our games and now you're denying me the privilege of play. That's not cricket, Harry."

Harry's breath catches in his throat. He is frozen by a fear he has never known before. It feels like hours before he can speak, hours of Lucius wearing that cold, cold smile.

"What did you call me?" he says at last. The cold smile stays in place.

"I called you by your name, Harry." Harry sits down quickly, or rather his knees give way and he finds a chair before he hits the ground. He takes a deep breath.

"How long have you known?"

"I had hoped. Admittedly, brandy and a strong resemblance fueled most of my hope. The kiss could've been wishful thinking—I could've been connecting the kiss of Jonathan Scryer to that of Harry Potter because I wanted them both and both were determined to elude me. But I knew this afternoon when my request for a copy of my war crimes was filled. Under the new Ministry laws, one can request that sort of information on any known Death Eater. Do you know what I found, Harry?"

"I know what you didn't find," Harry says, cursing himself wholeheartedly.

"Of course you do."

"You didn't find my name in your file." Lucius smiles again. Harry wishes he wouldn't. That smile alone is hell.

"You know, I think you wanted to be caught, Harry. There were so many times that you should've given it away."

"I was rather hoping that you were too grief-stricken to notice."

"I was. I was in a daze for a long time, but there's nothing like the prospect of a good fight to wake me up again."

"You should've been a lawyer," Harry mutters.

"If I had been born a Muggle, perhaps I would've been, but that's neither here nor there and I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about you and me and what lies ahead."

Harry doesn't like Lucius' apparent enthusiasm. It's forced and it doesn't quite fit with his tone of voice. "What do you mean?" Harry asks, half-afraid of the answer.

"Well, this has interesting implications for us. The terms of the agreement were that I had to find you, but you found me first. You came to me willingly."

"I did not," Harry says.

"Ah, but you did. You knew who I was and yet you didn't stay away."

"I—" Harry stops. He had come back to Lucius, after Nicholas funeral. He had kept coming back to Lucius time and time again even though common sense and his inability to keep his lips to himself should've told him to do otherwise.

"You knew who I was the whole damn time. You knew exactly who I was and what I had done and you knew that you were exposing yourself to my mercy, but you willingly came back anyway."

"I was stupid."

"You are many things, but stupid isn't one of them. You don't always think about things consciously, but I've never known you to be without a reason for doing something." Lucius is angry. Harry can feel it. There is something more to it though, something that made his voice a little deeper, his eyes a little more bright. Was that pain?

Harry doesn't know what to say. He knows this is the part where he gives a really good explanation for the inexplicable act of staying close to a man with whom he repeatedly said he didn't want to be involved. This is the part where he says something that would redeem him. He has nothing. For some reason that makes him feel something like despair.

"Why did you do it?" Lucius asks. Asking pains him. He doesn't want to have to ask, but he honestly doesn't know. Harry sighs, wondering how to explain that he hadn't been deliberately toying with Lucius.

"I was confused and you were nice to me. You were charming to Scryer the way you never were to me."

"You say that like you would have trusted charm from me."

"I wouldn't have; you're right. It was nice to see you differently-- to pretend that the past could be forgotten, but it's time to stop pretending."

"So that's it? You spared me Azkaban so that you could torture me with my past at your own convenience? Why is the past so important to you? Why can't you judge me by what I've done since then, for what I've tried to do since the war claimed what I loved the most? There's no such thing as atonement for you. You have no forgiveness. There's no justice here."

"Justice? The finest man I ever knew is dead at the hands of the lunatic you served."

"And did this man spring out of the earth like Adam? He was my son. He had my blood. Who do you think taught him how to be strong? Who do you think taught him that beliefs sometimes require action to defend them? Who do you think taught him that certain people you give of yourself to protect because your own life would be empty without them? And now, having taught him all of that, I'm left here, not with the son I gave my life to Voldemort to protect, but to the one that my son loved enough to die to protect.

"And you think you're better than all of that somehow. You think that because you killed a maniac and then ran away and spent three years denying yourself and what you owe me and what you owed my son—that that somehow puts you in a position above me, occasionally condescending to mete out crumbs of forgiveness."

Harry is breathless. Lucius' words bruise him, and the only way he survives the whole speech is by reminding himself that he has to. He has earned every pain that accompanies Lucius' outburst. He thinks he should be in tears by the end of it, but he just feels deadened somehow.

"What do I owe you?" he asks, his voice slipping back into tonelessness.

"You know what you owe me," Lucius says quietly. He chucks a small black box at Harry, who catches it against his stomach. Gingerly, he opens it. A silver serpent glistens in the firelight.

The firelight cast eerie shadows about the Slytherin common room. Harry supposed that the shadows were the same shadows that had always been there and they only seemed eerie because they alone remained long after its inhabitants had gone—deserted to Voldemort or assimilated into other houses in an effort to unite the four houses.

Except for Draco.

He sat on the same sofa as always, stretched out in the blood-absorbing black pants and collared shirt that he nearly jokingly called his "work clothes." His eyes were closed, but he looked surprisingly cool and unruffled. Trust Draco to make a war look easy. Harry's eyes ran over Draco's body quickly, wondering how many people had been tempted by the sight of Draco splayed out on that sofa, wondering if he himself was tempted or just curious about his partner. If he looked carefully, he could see the signs of war on Draco. The blonde's hair was in need of a trim, his hands were not quite so perfectly manicured and the first few buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned. Others might think they were purposely left undone, but Harry knew that Draco's obsessive nature wouldn't allow it.

Unless the boy was really fucking tired.

"Merlin, Potter. Take a bloody picture. It will last longer," Draco drawled, not opening his eyes.

"Why would I want a picture of your tacky common room, Malfoy? It's devoid not only of taste, but Christmas cheer. Did the house elves skip you over?" Draco smiled a little, his eyes still closed.

"You're beginning to sound like me, Potter. That's unhealthy." Harry supposed it was. "The house elves decided that trying to bring me Christmas cheer would be hazardous to their health." Harry snorted.

"What is it with your family and abusing house elves?" Draco shrugged.

"We need to take out our sexual frustration somehow," he replied. Harry couldn't tell if Draco was serious. Like father, like son. He looked at Draco again, but this time silver greeted green. "No reply?" the blond boy asked, the smile threatening to spread across his face. Harry shrugged.

"I am proud to say that I know nothing about the sexual history of your family," he said.

That was a bit of a lie actually. Harry knew that Draco was a virgin, prescribing to a strange sort of sexuality that Harry could only describe as a destructive form of narcissism, or perhaps just a total lack of interest in others. Draco beckoned with a languid, elegant movement of his hand.

"Come here," he said, his tiredness lowering his voice the slightest bit. Harry wasn't expecting the hitch in his breathing that accompanied Draco's statement. He shook it off with a small nod.

"What? Without dinner first? You're a cheap date, Malfoy," he teased. Draco gave a sigh that Harry had come to interpret as "Who did I kill in a past life to deserve you?" Harry grinned and went to the sofa, plopping down next to Draco. Draco looked at him intently. Harry tried hard not to flush under his gaze. "You look awful," Draco said at last.

"So do you," Harry said, settling back against the sofa, thoughtfully crushing Draco's legs.

"You lie," Draco said, not bothering to move.

"I do," Harry replied. This answer seemed to please Draco.

Narcissism? Some days Harry wondered.

"I have something for you," Draco said, his hand reaching into his pants' pocket. Harry grinned.

"Do you use that pick up line all the time?" He was finding the he enjoyed ribbing Draco about the sex life he knew Draco didn't have. It was the only thing for which the Slytherin boy didn't have an immediate response. Draco deliberately ignored him.

"Here," he said, holding out a black velvet box. Harry opened the box and gasped. "In my family, the heir is always given this brooch. It is a symbol of the wealth and power he will inherit. I've given up my birthright by joining against my father, but this fight—the upcoming victory—is your birthright."

Harry blinks.

It was the most meaningful present he could ever remember receiving. The bejeweled silver serpent inside was exquisite, though Harry knew he'd never wear it. Draco seemed to know his thoughts. "It's not merely decorative. It's charmed. I know that you have a dozen of them, but this brooch has about three dozen more. We have a hard campaign coming up and---"

"I'll wear it," Harry said, sparing Draco, what Harry knew must have been the painful process of admitting that he cared. "With pleasure," he added. Draco looked into the fire. Harry did him the favor of attributing the faint pink across his cheeks to the heat of the flame.

"You owe me a life, Harry," Lucius says while Harry contemplates the serpent.

"I owe you nothing. You're free, aren't you?"

"You know better than that. I'll accept my freedom as the debt you owed me for saving your life and the life of your friends, but Draco's life is another matter."

"Do you think I wanted him to die?" Harry snaps. When Lucius speaks again, his tone is less hard.

"No, but he died for you nonetheless and you and I have nothing—except each other."

"You're crazy," Harry says, slumping back into his chair. Lucius ignores this.

"By giving you this brooch, Draco named you his successor. By accepting this brooch, you agreed to all that entails."

"What is that?"

"It means that you're family. I don't know for sure if Draco intended you to be his brother or if he would have asked for something more intimate like marriage."

"What do you intend?"

Lucius sneers. It's an ugly gesture, but Harry doesn't fault him for it. If he could hide behind a sneer, he would. "Does it matter? You don't want anything to do with me. What you feel for me is purely animalistic and I certainly wouldn't want you to debase yourself by feeling anything more than that." Harry shoots a glare at Lucius, furious at him for taking a cheap shot.

"You said I owed you."

"So you do, but I want a companion, Mr. Potter, not a captive audience."

"What are you going to do now?"

"There's nothing left for me to do, is there? Except to die, of course."

Harry hands Lucius the box. Lucius refuses it with a shake of his head. "Keep it," he says. "You'll need it to prove that you're the intended Malfoy heir."

Harry opens the box and continues to study the serpent long after Lucius leaves him.

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love,

J. Silver