Draco stands in the door of the kitchen and watches Severus prepare the tea.
"You have could have told me," he says quietly.
Severus does not look up. "I could have. And if I had, what would you have done?"
"Killed him." The answer is immediate.
"And that is why I did not tell you."
A moment of silence. Severus finishes with the tea and then seats himself at the worn oak table, long fingers cradling the delicate porcelain.
"He deserved - deserves - to die."
Severus looks on the man standing in the doorway. He notices that, as always, his dress is immaculate, his hair perfect. There is elegance about his person, despite the topic of their conversation, ease in the way he stands against the doorway.
He wonders at it even as he answers his Godson. "He did, perhaps, but he was instrumental in the defeat of Voldemort. His idea, Draco, is the one that allowed Mr. Potter to defeat the Dark Lord."
Draco does not move from the doorway, leaning against it, the feel of the rough wood under his shoulder. The cold of the winter is at his back, the heat of the kitchen on the front.
"That one act is enough to excuse all of what he did before it? As you said, Severus, my father first and foremost was out to save his skin. How is that honourable? How does that excuse him from the deaths of so many?"
Severus sighs suddenly, placing the cup on the table and then bringing his hand up to his nose, rubbing slightly there. A tired man with too many years shrouding his shoulders, too many things he has done, seen.
Draco sees it and though he was angry at his Godfather, horribly angry, to not be told about his father, to have something of such significance hidden away from him, in the face of the man himself, head bowed, dark hair falling around his face, the anger fades.
Replaced by his own kind of tiredness. A weight. Down low, heavy, weighing himself down.
Draco moves from the doorway and with a silent step crosses the room, sitting gracefully in the chair opposite the older man.
"It was Dumbledore." Draco says. A question more than a statement.
Severus looks up sharply.
Draco continues. "A second chance of sorts. That is why you did not kill my father, why you did not allow me the knowledge, because something in the end made you believe he was truly sorry for what he had done in his life."
Severus' black eyes are intent on the man across from him, meeting the steel grey and holding them.
"Perceptive." Severus finally says.
Draco inclines his head just slightly. "Perhaps. But I have to wonder what it was that made you believe he was sorry for the life he led, for his killing." Draco pauses, feeling the familiar lump rising, hardening in his throat, even after so many years, remembering the look on his mother's face as he killed her with his father's wand.
A memory.
Haunting him still.
Severus looks back down at his tea. "I am not entirely sure he was sorry Draco. Not entirely. He came to me a month before the final battle, two days before I presented the book to you and Miss Granger. It was the night that we attacked King's Cross Station, if you remember it."
Pauses.
Draco remembers with clarity. The night, the desperate struggle to get all Muggles out of the Station, away from the chaos that was about to happen, clearing them out before the Death Eaters could arrive. Pleading with people who didn't understand, who just didn't understand because they did not realize the true nature of the threat.
Many had died that night.
Most of the Muggles.
And the memory still leaves a taste in his mouth of bitter failure.
Another memory.
Haunting.
Severus breaks into his thoughts. "Your father came to me afterwards, when I was preparing to leave the Station to go back to my residence at the time. He had been injured, quite severely actually, by Lupin I believe and his cloak had been heavy with his own blood. He asked me if I was working with the Order and if I was would I take him into their custody."
Draco felt the surprise creep over his features. "He asked you to take him, that night?"
Severus nods. "Yes. However, I did not trust him, for obvious reasons. He gave me the book several days later. All he told me was that I would find the information within the pages helpful in my cause. He added that if I was not working for the Order and if I was still true to Voldemort that the next time I would see him would be dead at the Dark Lord's feet. Such words said very flippantly. I took the book, preparing an excuse for Voldemort in case it was trick."
Draco thinks about what Severus says, rolling about his mind. "You still did not trust him?"
Severus shakes his head. "Of course not. I will never trust Lucius Malfoy. Initially I did not trust what was in the book, though I went over everything within it; besides the obvious, there was nothing that was malevolent."
Draco's control is precise, but the memory of a certain witch, the smell of her still within his mind, too new, and he can't help the flicker of anger that crosses his features.
Severus catches it.
"Yes. Besides the obvious, which did include the death of Miss Granger."
Draco nods once. Because he did understand at the time, though the knowledge had torn at him even then. But he had understood the greater picture.
Always the greater picture.
He too had been part of that greater picture. A pawn.
The greater picture.
Always.
It was something he and Hermione both had understood and when they had completed the binding, when they had sat in front of the fire, a promise made between them, unspoken, a knowledge, that if one died, so would the other.
An understanding but without knowledge.
A feeling. More than anything else.
Draco now wonders how accurate that feeling actually was.
But Severus is speaking again.
"He came to me one final time," he says. "You and Miss Granger had already started to work out the spell, and indeed it appeared as if it was the only way Mr. Potter would be successful in his endeavour; not only to destroy the horcrux of his scar, but also to remain composed, real enough to complete his task. I did not tell this to Lucius, but he knew some of it already, it was after all, the reason he gave me the book in the first place. He broke down that night, Draco. I have never seen your father break down, even in Azkaban, even when faced with Dementors, I have never seen your father break. But he did that night. And though I did not trust him, though I did not pardon him on that night, after it was done and the smoke had cleared, I thought it only fair, if for nothing else but to repay a gift given to me so many years before."
A pause.
"As you so accurately stated earlier," Severus finishes.
Severus waits, watching Draco process the information, the expressionless face distant and he wonders, not for the first time, at the control Draco has learned, wonders at it and fears for him because of it. The ex-professor understands, perhaps better than anyone else, the loneliness that comes with such control, with such constraints put on the very person.
A lonely life indeed.
And he understands it. Understands it intimately.
The control of one who knows too much, whose very person is subject to darkness. Who feels it as an ever-tantalizing presence of power.
Control.
Draco finally refocuses on the older man. His eyes are a hard steel grey though his face is without tension and he leans back in his chair, slouching, as if without a care.
"I will still kill him if I meet him again."
The words. Cold. Precise.
Severus knows the younger man is not lying.
Draco continues. "However, I need information, information I believe he has."
This is not what Severus expected and he leans slightly back in his own chair. Hand curling around the teacup once more. "Indeed. And what would that be?"
"Information regarding the original form of the spell Hermione and I cast."
Draco sees the slow smile, slight, ever so slight, around the other man's stern features.
"I see."
Draco feels a rush of irritation but quickly represses it. "I believe my father, if he does not have a book on the original spell, knows information regarding it."
Severus leans forward. "Actually, he does not."
One eyebrow on aristocratic features rises slightly. "No?"
"Your father knows very little of the original spell. In fact, when I told him about the…side effect, if you will, of the spell between you and Miss Granger he was very much intrigued."
A storm cloud, over what were once blank features. A tightening of a fist.
"What did he say?" The four words chilling in their stillness.
Severus finds the reaction very interesting if not incredibly amusing and he wonders if the boy even realizes his reaction.
"He says the spell was a creation to bind Muggle-born to the more powerful pure-blood, and that through the spell the magic of the Muggle-born is eventually stripped away, transferring it to the pure-blood."
Draco knows all of this already and he resists the urge to make a gesture with his hand, keeping it steady and still in his lap.
"The compulsion, he figured, was a side effect of it."
Draco nods. "I've always thought as much."
"However, that does not explain the presence of the blood stone."
"Blood magic, a binding spell." Draco answers and it is Severus that is taken back this time.
Draco continues. "The original spell was a binding spell, some kind of blood magic that bound, to protect, as far as I can find."
Severus brings a finger up to his lips and taps them absently. "Very interesting. Where did you find that information?"
"The Malfoy Library. An obscure text, leading me to the old house of our ancestors on the North Shore."
Severus nods. "Where you found my wards."
"And my father's."
Silence between them.
Then Severus stands. "You did not find anything else?" He asks, even as he clears the tea things in front of him with a twitch of his wrist.
Draco shakes his head. "I am hoping you will be able to help."
Severus stills, a tall figure, drinking in the light of the kitchen lamps, darkness swirling about his person.
A terrifying figure, even in the time of peace.
Though Draco, so long used to his Godfather, does not notice.
"I will. There are references at that place, several, though I have not looked upon them and I must wonder if my dear friend, your father, has held something back."
Severus looks down at the still seated Draco. "Do you and Miss Granger still plan on recreating the spell?"
The question startles Draco, slightly, though he controls the reaction.
"I am not entirely sure. We have not been able to speak over the implications since I have discovered the information."
Severus nods, a distant look on his face as he stares at the night moon shining outside the kitchen windows. "This complicates things."
Draco agrees. Though the words have a different connotation to him.
Memories. Rising up.
A stirring in his trousers.
That he decidedly ignores.
Severus looks again down at Draco. "I will see what I can find. However, I suggest you and Miss Granger continue on your course of study."
Draco smirks slightly at the older man's words, precedent of words spoken to him before, many years before, in a classroom, as a young child, before he knew what he knows now.
So long ago.
Severus does not wait for a reply, swirling away in an image of darkness and soon the kitchen is silent, Draco alone at the table.
Staring at the wooden table top.
Thinking. But for a moment.
Decisions tinged with the inevitable.
He does not stay there long, rising and leaving the kitchen, letting himself out to the alley behind the house and, without closing his eyes, Disapparates to Hogwarts.
It's been two days.
He stands in front of the gates of his old school and looks at the dark shadowed structure rising massively in the sky.
He has avoided her. That honest part of him knows it even as the other part of him, the Slytherin, does not want to.
How to understand what happened two nights prior?
Lost.
And the knowledge of such a simple thing terrifies him as very little else has in a very long time.
Because he had not meant for the dinner to lead to that, not, at least, on a conscious level, though he can't help but wonder at the subconscious level.
An action that he took. On his own. In control, even if he had not realized it.
So many times in his life, so very many times, he's been completely out of control of his life, out of control of the decisions, the actions, out of control of everything.
A puppet, complete with puppet strings and a puppeteer.
After the war though, after walking away from her on that cloudy cold day, he'd promised himself never to play the puppet, never to have his life out of his control ever again.
Now.
Now.
Slipping. He can feel it, slowly, as if silk between his fingers, catching at the roughness of the tips, yes, slowing the descent, yes, but still slipping downward.
Because of a witch.
Because of a compulsion that flares in his chest even as he walks on Hogwarts property. The knowledge that she is here, that she is close, dark and shadowed about his spine, curling upwards from the crunch of gravel under his feet.
A knowledge.
Ever so insistent since two days ago when he'd left her in his house along the Northern Sea.
The smell, the taste, the feel of her, echoing behind his control, echoing, and slowly, slowly, shredding the control away.
He has not seen her because on same base level he understands that what control he has will disappear with the whisper of her voice.
As if smoke.
And nothing more.
So he avoided her because in the end the memory of her coming to him after the funeral, big brown eyes looking as if the world was lost, and the feeling he had at that point, the overwhelming desire to wrap his arms around her, to cradle her, protect her from the world, had split and been beaten to near death by her words.
Dismissing.
And he will not have her dismiss him again.
The knowledge he had gained when he had entered her mind. The knowledge of her fear of him, of what she feels for him, for the guilt underlying, the panic, and the desire, yes that too, but always, always, the image of a red-headed boy with freckles, brilliant in his good nature.
Bloody good nature. So very different then him. So incredibly different.
Dismissing him. She had once.
So he had left.
Even as the desire to stay had almost overwhelmed him.
Coming to the stairs leading up to the entrance Draco pauses for a moment, looking upwards at the moon overhead. Cold, the same as the one overhead in Muggle London, but different as well. More distant.
Colder.
Air shivering about him even as he pulls his cloak around his form.
He continues up the stairs, slipping inside and moving in the direction of his rooms, turning down a partially lit hallway and knowing, instantly, instantly, that she is there, the form of her, slight in her own black cloak, walking towards him.
He stops.
Watching.
Waiting.
One step. Then another. Looking up.
Eyes meeting in the shadows, expressions lost in the dim light.
A flare of pain in his chest, a pressure at his spine.
Losing control.
Slowly.
Even as he walks towards her. Even as she stands still looking at him. Even as he stops in front of her, looking down on her.
Staring at her face, memorizing her face, the lines, the details, the upturned nose, the smattering of freckles, the slightly pouted lower lip, the brilliant eyes looking up at him in fear, in desire, heat, something else, underlying something else.
"You left." She speaks before he can. Two words, echoing in the hallway.
Two words.
He answers.
"I did."
One word.
"Why?"
And he catches his breath when she tilts her head, just slightly, just ever so slightly, catches and holds his breath because everything is there, staring at him.
And before he can answer, a hand, a small delicate hand with fingers like frozen ice, places itself against his lips and the burning in his chest flares into an inferno at her touch, such a simple touch.
Burning.
Swirling about him.
Her words.
"No. I don't want to know."
Spoken quietly.
So quietly.
Dousing the flames.
And in their place coldness.
Dismissal.
The word wrapping around and around in his brain.
She takes her hand away from his lips.
Steps back.
One step.
Another.
And then turns. Disappearing in the shadows.
Dismissal.
Ringing about his brain.
Control. Reasserting itself.
And he turns. A rustle of cloak.
Leaves.
Away from her and the word sighing within his mind.