AN: Please see previous notes about how I'm borrowing Delancey654's paternity potion from "The Ginger Malfoy" for this story.

Early Autumn 1979

Severus Snape was not quite twenty years old, alone, at war, and tense. For the moment, he was also too exhausted for vigilance, slumped in a chair in the parlor of his ratty house on Spinner's End, his wand still in the slack grip of his right hand, the neck of a liquor bottle in his left.

At the sound of knocking at his front door, he jolted awake, already snarling. There had been Ministry raids and arrests all week. The Dark Lord's powers were still strong, advancing, but bloody Dolohov had gone too far with the execution of the Prewett brothers, and the Ministry was finally forced to act. Word was that Aurors had taken Lucius Malfoy for questioning two days earlier, and he hadn't been seen since.

A knock at this early hour, in this dirty, remote place, could mean one of two things: either the Aurors had come for him, or else she had.

Snape shuffled to the hall. With a flick of his wand the door became transparent from his side, revealing her standing in the grey dawn light. He straightened his posture, smoothed his hair, and opened the door as little possible before pulling Narcissa Black Malfoy inside by her wrist. The move was perfectly calibrated, dramatic but precise enough to miss closing the swirling skirts of her robes in the door.

She pressed herself against the wall of the narrow vestibule, catching her breath as he let go of her. Narcissa was Snape's former classmate, housemate, a married woman now, but only nineteen years old herself, mired deep in the war thanks to her husband, six years older.

Severus leaned in close, looming over her as he asked in a low, calm voice, "Is there word of him?"

Without speaking, she shook her head. She couldn't seem to resolve her breathlessness, as if she wasn't merely tired, but terrified. And then finally, "No. Not a word from Lucius since they took him. It's awful, unbearable. So I've come to ask what you know."

"Nothing." He stood back, pausing to give her a chance to plead with him to tell her what they should do next. When she didn't ask, he nodded anyway. "Come through. I'll bring you some tea."

She waited for him in the room where he'd been sleeping. Every painting generations of his father's family had hung in this room had been pulled down and replaced with books Snape had already read, and shelves awaiting books he would read someday. It was nothing so dazzling as the collection in the manor - especially after Narcissa's dowry of books from the Black family library had been added - but it was far more than a promising start for a young potioneer who hadn't inherited a single book. It said something of the disordered state she was in when Narcissa hardly noticed.

Her teacup rattled on its saucer as she took it from him and brought it to her knee.

"Nerves, Cissa?" he taunted almost jovially. "Whatever it is, you needn't be nervous. Ask your favour. That is why you've come here, of course. That is always why."

Her eyes had been focused on the teacup, but now she looked hard at Snape's face. "And do you despise me for it? Are you disappointed that since my father died there have only been two men in this world I could trust? One who has betrayed me anyway, and the other who is you."

He let a silence frame his reply, not returning her look, taking a moment to fold his hands on the back of the chair as he stood behind it. Yes, he was moved by her attachment to him, by the ardor with which she spoke to him of trust. Yet, he was unable to keep from sheltering himself from it. "What betrayal?" was all he said in reply.

"Promise to help and I'll confide in you."

"Cissa," he said. Shortened, her name was little more than a breath. "Of course I will help. If I can."

She set her tea untasted on the table in front of herself. She squared her shoulders, cleared her throat, and said, "Sleep with me. Now."

Snape spun in a circle where he stood, his lip curled into a sneer. "What madness?"

Narcissa could not stay seated. She was on her feet, pacing alongside the cold hearth. "Lucius's arrest is not the only tragic news I've had this week," she began. "I have also learned that Molly Weasley is pregnant."

Snape scoffed. "That is hardly news. The woman is pregnant more often than she is not. Five children in six years. I hardly see how - "

"The child's father may be Lucius," she blurted. She had never said it aloud. The sensation was somehow as satisfying as it was devastating. While the wound was open, she explained the rest - about Lucius's well-meant visit to pay his respects at the Prewett cemetery, and its unfortunate timing with the Milletus bloom.

Snape watched silently as Narcissa ranted and paced, keeping her tears away with her anger. "The unfairness of it, Severus. One cursed encounter with Molly Weasley and Lucius may have a viable heir. Two years of marriage to me and all Lucius has are two lost pregnancies. Nothing more."

"Cissa, that is not - "

She wouldn't let him interrupt. "And now, if the Ministry can prove he had any involvement with the Prewett brothers, they'll have to make a public show of punishing him. And I will have lost my chance to be mother to a Malfoy heir."

Snape was not one to be touched by traditional family ideals like passing on property and names, and avoiding dying alone. "For your wayward husband, you have my shock and my sympathy," he said, taking his seat with a flip of his robes. "With or without exposure to a love potion pollen, if I recall, the Weasley woman and Lucius shared a mutual admiration in school. Something about watching the stars. So the child shouldn't be damaged by the Milletus effect."

Narcissa was snarling now. "Yes, it seems everyone knew about their history of astronomy tutoring except for me. Even Arthur Weasley."

"But," Snape went on, one finger raised to slow the rush of her fury and frustration, "as much as I care for you, Cissa, and as profoundly as you have been wronged, my sympathy is not enough to move me to hazard tossing myself into this infernal mix. Your sisters live and while they do, you need not be without family, if that is what you want."

Narcissa stopped pacing, her delicate mouth curving into a sneer of its own. "Is that all, Severus? I believed you more clever than this." She approached his chair, her eyes and mouth set dark and determined. Her look sparked in his abdomen, and he wondered for a moment at his refusal of her.

"Think of it, Severus," she said, stepping closer. "Without my own child to make a claim, the Malfoy estate will pass to Molly Weasley's child. And as it does, it will pass out of our influence to that of the Order of the Phoenix. They would then have control of both Hogwarts and the manor, two of the most ancient and enchanted edifices in Britain. It would be a tremendous boon to them, a perceptible shift in power."

Snape frowned. She was right. The Order was currently starved for resources, its members scattered and hiding. A tangled web of Fidelius charms was the only thing preserving them, and even that was beginning to fray. The Dark Lord was powerful. Malfoy Manor was a vital seat of that power, and it must remain ever his.

"It is not impossible," Narcissa went on, "that Molly Prewett's child is indeed her husband's, a Weasley with no claim to inherit from Lucius. And it is also not impossible that I am carrying my own legitimate Malfoy heir at this moment. The timing of my cycle is irregular. While it's still too soon to detect a pregnancy, it may be true. As we speak, I cannot be sure of any of these things. And in the event that Molly's child is an heir while I have none - well, I need another chance. Any child born to me during my marriage to Lucius will suffice. Even if such a child can't control the manor, at least the house will not fall into other hands. I need this child, whether they're born of Lucius Malfoy's own blood or - " She paused, extending two slender, white fingers to tip Snape's chin, to bring his line of sight level with hers. "Or yours," she finished.

She dropped her fingers, watching as Snape clenched his jaw. He squeezed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose, and rose to stand in front of her. He spoke with a clipped decisiveness he did not feel. "You are not merely looking to serve our Lord. You are looking for revenge, for comfort - "

She leaned toward him, hissing up into his face. "Why shouldn't I have all of that?"

He moved his feet, meaning to step away but coming closer instead. Young and scared, hurt and so eerily lovely - Narcissa - another flower-named witch he didn't dare touch. "Not me. Find a good man to do it," he said.

She was on tiptoe, whispering to him. "A good man would not do it."

His voice dropped as well. "Find a better man, at least. It shouldn't be difficult. Not when you're - so very - "

While he'd been watching her face, he hadn't seen her hands rising. He jumped, a ragged breath rushing out of him at the touch of her fingers fiddling with the row of black buttons curving over his chest.

"You haven't been listening," she said. "I trust only you. I want this only from you. Severus, please. Don't make me - "

Her words became a gasp as he gathered her up, her knees in the crook of his arm. Her arms were around his neck, her forehead pressed to the lump in his throat, his closed mouth smoothing the fine hair at the crown of her head as he carried Madam Malfoy upstairs.

Much Later

Draco was the son of Lucius Malfoy. Anyone could tell at a glance. His mother knew it. All of his professors knew it.

When Narcissa Malfoy visited Spinner's End, just days after Ann Granger gave birth to a daughter, months into Molly Weasley's pregnancy, and shortly before Lily Potter would fall pregnant with her son, she and Lucius had already conceived Draco. Lucius was released from Auror custody late the same day Narcissa returned from Spinner's End. He found her in bed, where she'd drifted off to sleep after a long bath. For the first time in months, he felt forgiven, and understood it was best not to ask why.

All of it meant that conjuring quicksilver in Draco's portion of a paternity potion had been a demonstration, a formality, not a moment of truth. No one had been thinking of him when Ronald dropped a strand of ginger hair into the potion and watched the liquid turn silver.

At the sight of the transformation, Pansy's breath hitched. Hermione's hands covered her mouth.

Maybe it was in disbelief that Ronald swirled the glass in the opposite direction, slowly and then quickly. Still the silver colour, the Malfoy family colour, gleamed through the glass. He didn't speak a word, didn't look up from the flask, from the purple web shot through the liquid silver - not Prewett and Weasley, Prewett and Malfoy. All this time, he had been a literal Malfoy.

Draco was first to move. From the tabletop, he lifted his own glass, came to Ronald and raised his silver solution, holding both flasks side by side.

At the clinking of the glass, Ronald looked up from the silver potion to the glittering grey of Draco's eyes. They stood motionless as if seeing one another clearly for the first time. Ronald's lip quavered. "You're my brother."

Draco's face broke into a smile. "From the very beginning."

There was a thud and rustling of robes as the boys hurled themselves into an embrace. They stood together, faces buried in each other's shoulders, not speaking but laughing quietly, striking each other on the back.

There was much that would be difficult, unpleasant about the revelation of Ronald's true paternity. But for the moment, they held each other in what was best about it, their brotherhood. Ever since they'd met as toddlers, neither of them had held back any closeness or affection, even when they believed they weren't related by blood. It hadn't mattered. But this new knowledge, though it changed nothing between them, it did mean something - something good.

They stood back, Ronald's eyes rimmed red. He looked to the girls, standing by holding each other by the sleeve. His expression, already wide-open and full of feeling, softened even further as he looked at Pansy.

Hermione was packing the potion away, corking the glasses and bottle. She took Draco's hand and led him out of the vanished room, leaving Ronald and Pansy alone.

In the corridor outside, Draco slumped against the wall. Hermione stood in front of him, keeping his hand in hers, still not accustomed to holding it. They were in a quiet, empty section of the castle, so she leaned into his chest, their joined hands folded on the front of his robes where she could look at them, watching herself touching him. She had missed him terribly since his mother sent him back to school. But she wouldn't mention it now.

His face drooped over her head, his breath in her hair. "Ronald is my blood," he said. "But my father cheated on my mother."

"I'm so sorry," she said, dropping kisses between his knuckles. "Ronald reckons it was a love potion accident. That makes it far more excusable than a true affair, doesn't it?"

Draco clamped his free hand around her shoulders, and held her more tightly against himself. "Yes, but even if he's right about love potions - you saw Ronald in there. He's not suffering from ante-natal love potion damage. He is capable of love. All kinds of love - for our mother, me, for those twins, you and Potter, for our slut father - "

Hermione shushed him, letting go of his hand to hold his face between her palms. "You love your father too," she said.

He sighed, bowing to rest his forehead on hers. "I do. But Ronald's perfectly good heart means that even if it was an accident there was something - there. Something between Dad and Mrs. Weasley." Draco shuddered around her.

She traced his jaw with her fingertip. He leaned toward her touch, sighing, his voice soft and still slightly pained.

"You know your parents," she said. "And I know the Weasleys. Whatever happened, all those couples stayed married. More than that, they stayed in love, in spite of everything. That must make sense, we just don't know how."

"I need to speak to them," Draco said. "My parents - I wish that, just for a night, I could go home. It's been so long. And now it's too dangerous."

In the dark corridor, she blinked her brown eyes at him. There was nothing else she could do or say, so she told him again. "I'm sorry, Malfoy."

He smirked. "You're the last person with anything to be sorry for. You can't take me home, but at least you brought me to your home when I had nowhere to go."

She scoffed. "You make it sound like I did something unselfish. And like it wasn't actually rough living for you, staying in a non-magical house with non-magical people."

"It was an education," he said. "And worth it."

She grinned. "Would you come back? Back to do our washing up, and the laundry, sleeping in our guest room?"

"Guest room, or in some zippered bag on the floor of the front room, or best of all, in your bedroom between those sheets with the little purple rabbits on them, everything smelling like your shampoo." He had bent low enough to be speaking against her neck, the movement of his mouth sending her shivering, clinging to him as she tipped off balance. His voice rumbled, low and hot. "Only let's leave Ronald out of it next time around. Just you and me snuggled in the rabbit sheets."

She veered away to keep from squealing. "Draco Malfoy, you would take advantage of my parents' trust and hospitality to snog me in my childhood bed?"

"For starters," he breathed, pulling back to see her look of wide-eyed affection and a little lingering disbelief. "Now can we please get back to where we were before Ronald last came in? You'll recall we were about to pass some time like a proper, secret couple."

"Wait," she said into his mouth right before it would have connected with her. His lips hadn't touched hers since they were in London, and she knew that once they did, her capacity to have a serious conversation with him would be temporarily suspended. "Malfoy, if you can say we're a proper, secret couple, then I suppose I must be your - well, I guess you'd have to call me - I mean, it wouldn't be wrong to say - "

"Girlfriend, Granger," Draco said. "Yes, you are my best and only girl."

One of her sweet little sounds escaped her as he said it. It bubbled over into a giggle that made her scorn herself. "Listen to me. I sound ridiculously silly," she said.

"Silly?" he said, ducking to get her to look at him in spite of her embarrassment. "Come on, Granger. Accept that you're my girlfriend, whether we can tell anyone else or not. I've lost count of how many kisses it's been, but whatever it is, say it's enough. Say yes and then let me kiss you as if you belong to me, not like you're something I'm stealing."

Hermione was recovering herself, no longer giggling, her hands on either side of his head, slowing him down as he moved toward her again. "And what about you?" she said. "I suppose you have to belong to me now."

"Oh, I am yours," he said, their lips in contact, slowly, gently brushing against each other. "I am nothing if not yours."

She tugged his upper lip between hers, felt the full, warm bow of it along the wet inner edge of her own. He followed with the rest of his mouth, enfolding and embracing hers. She was greedy and wanted to hear him tell her one more time that she was his girl. But whenever she began to back away, he chased after her, not telling her she was his, but making her more and more his.

They kissed as if Ronald and Pansy would never come through the door and back into the corridor, as if no one would ever find them, like no one could ever intrude. Was this what all the other couples felt like - the ones they interrupted kissing as they patrolled the quiet places of the castle? It had to be. It couldn't be.

They had slouched down the wall and were now sitting on the floor, Draco cross-legged as Hermione sat across his thighs, as if side-saddle, her torso twisted slightly to bring her face to his. He was slowly learning the shape of her, his hands dragging over the curve of her spine, the hollow of her waist, the rise of her shoulders. Her robe bunched and buckled beneath his palms but he didn't dare slip his hands inside it. There would be time for that later, and with her sitting so close, he had to be careful. He wanted to be careful, because he wanted this so very much.

Sitting together in the dark corridor, everything was small enough, close enough that it felt perfect. It wasn't. Everything was complicated, political, dangerous, but for the moment they were safe here, together.

A grey corpse-like hand slid along the length of the lintel over the entrance to Malfoy Manor. "Ah, this house," a voice hissed. "I have such great appreciation for it. Each time I return, I expect it to greet me like an old friend. And each time, it shuts itself to me, like this." The hand rakes long fingernails across the doors' wooden face, marring and marking it.

"Inexcusable, Master. Inexcusable. Shall I knock?"

"Yes, Wormtail. Knock."

Peter Pettigrew clanged the massive silver knocker against the door. From behind the scarred wood, a shriek sounded. It might have been in fear, it might have been in delight. Pettigrew drew his wand, making as if to mount a defense against whatever was coming, all the while scanning over his shoulders for an escape route.

The door was flung open by Bellatrix Lestrange. She did not flinch as an enormous viper slithered over her feet and into the house. Instead, she closed her eyes, swaying as if being lovingly caressed.

"My Lord," she said, "at last, you have arrived."

Lucius and Narcissa appeared over her shoulder, bowing as they received their guest.

Voldemort shouldered past Bellatrix without a word. "Lucius," he called, his voice echoing up and down the grand staircase in the entrance hall. "Lovely as always, the Malfoys, the manor. But where is the rest of the family? Where," he said, his mouth all but watering, "are our boys?"

While Hermione Granger and her newly declared boyfriend snogged in the corridor outside, Ronald Malfoy stood in the vanished room, his eyes fixed on Pansy Parkinson's Mary-Jane shoes. They were shiny black, adorable, and stepping toward him.

"You don't have to," he said, stumbling slightly backward. "I mean it, Pansy. This whole prenatal potion damage issue is my problem. If you want, I'll sort it out with Molly herself. You don't owe me anything."

She huffed. "You'll waltz into the Weasleys' place, have a cup of tea, and with poor old Arthur sitting there, ask them if Molly was at all in love with Lucius Malfoy when he got her pregnant? Is that what you'll do, Ronald?"

He sighed and pulled at his own hair.

Pansy stomped to the table and slammed her hand on its top. "Come over here and sit down, like you know you're supposed to when you're alone in this room with me."

"I won't force you to - "

"Ronald, sit down."

He scuffed his way across the room and sat on the table, his head hanging miserably between his shoulders.

"You know what comes next. We'll start at the beginning. Look at me, from a distance," Pansy said.

He raised his head, found her face across the metre between them, offered her a wan smile.

"That's it. Look," she began, stepping into the empty space. "The very fact that you are concerned about taking advantage of me, after all you've been through tonight, all you're still worrying about, proves that you are indeed connected to me, through feelings beyond physical ones."

He shrugged a weak laugh, but kept looking at her, as they had practiced, and perhaps a little less sadly than a moment before. He said, "It's as simple as that is it?"

"Maybe," she said, coming to a stop, standing between his knees.

Her face was close to his. He could smell his own scent on her from when he'd been nuzzling her neck outside. As he recognized it, his heart thudded and his cheeks flushed pink.

She saw it and smiled. "Clearly, you are not incapable of compassion for me, Ronald. You want my happiness even if it means sacrificing a little bit of your own."

"But that's just being decent. I'm like that with all my friends," he said.

She found his hands, her fingers gliding between his, thousands of nerve endings sparking and vibrating between them. This was not an act of friendship. Her eyelids drifted downwards as his skin touched hers. She did nothing to hide her reaction, letting him watch.

While she was speechless, he spoke, his voice finding the seductive quality it usually had when they were close like this. "Alright, maybe not all my friends," he said. "Well, if that's it, if you're sure, then maybe we can go on our way without - "

"No," Pansy said, rolling her lips inwards and then out, wet and deeply pink. "Don't you dare go without."

Ronald descended on her, his mouth open enough to catch hers, fitting into her with the practiced prowess so many girls at school already knew, but with an emotional intensity rooted not in a desire to please himself but in a desire for her, for everything she wanted.

With their fingers still laced together, he pressed their hands into the small of her back, pulling her against him. For a moment, she stayed that way, savouring the return of his strength and confidence. She stood as close to him as he could get her from where he sat, her hands behind her back, her chest pressed against his. This magnetic intensity was what drew her to him in the first place, but it wasn't what kept her here now. That was his tenderness. She tugged on her hands and he released her, her fingers now free to hold his face, and work it against hers.

The kiss deepened, Ronald's hands moving up her back to the nape of Pansy's neck, beneath the edge of her silky bob. The tapered base of her head fit into the V between his thumb and forefinger. How could something as simple as an angle of hers clicking perfectly into his hand feel so intimate, so perfectly connected?

Light seemed to rush through Ronald Malfoy. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it coursing from his heart into the rest of him. He was not damaged. He was whole and well and every bit as mad for the girl in his arms as he ought to have been.

"Ronald, I'm sorry - "

He broke away from Pansy, growling, "What is it, Hermione?"

"Sorry," she said again, blushing. Draco had been wise to wait outside. "You might not have noticed, but the galleons are burning. It's Harry, I'm afraid. He says it's urgent."

Ronald swore. "Oh he does, does he?"

Pansy had tucked her face into the front of his robes, snickering against his chest. "It's alright," she said. "You must be satisfied - "

"I am not - "

Hermione coughed. "I'll be outside."

As she left, Ronald groaned and took Pansy's face in both his hands. He kissed her firmly on the mouth. "Sorry they're like this. If you're going to be staying around, it's probably best you get used to it, honestly."

She brushed his hair from his forehead. "I am staying around," she said. "But don't leave until you tell me if you - found what you were looking for."

He grinned at her, coming nose-to-nose again. "Yes, Pansy love," he said. "Everything I was looking for is here."