[Note: This is a revised and generally cleaned-up version of the original fic. My apologies for the complete lack of new material, but there were a few inconsistencies in the fic I felt needed to be addressed.]
+Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus+
(Vergil)
CHAPTER THREE
'Hello, Draco.'
Those were the first words revealed by Severus' special Decoding Decoction. Draco was torn between amazement at Severus' apparent precognition and appreciation that his old friend had not revealed his secret code to anyone else. At the same time, he had the sense of a terrible, resigned sort of waiting, as if the words themselves were aware, trapped in their awkward, disordered form until he happened along to rearrange them properly, as if they had hoped against hope he would come.
'I have buried these several books at various places in Hogsmeade, places that have, for various reasons, been important to my life at Hogwarts, and I am sure you know why. This page you are reading now is, in effect, my last will and testament, if you will, and it is the final thing I have left on record concerning my role in the cause of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
'By now, I expect that one side will have won - there was, I believe, very little time left before the end of things. At any rate, there are no great strategic secrets contained herein, for those I have decided to take to my grave, whenever I may go to it. Therefore, the value of these books is questionable at best, and rests solely with my reader to determine. As it is you, Draco, and you have decided for whatever reason to decode my books, I cherish the hope - and let it not be ill-founded, as hope usually is - that you will learn from what is written here.
'I expect that I am dead at this point; these words were written the night before I was to leave for Cornwall on a mission for Dumbledore, and they were committed to the earth that very morning, as I for a long time had expected to be. Do not, Draco, wonder after my soul or worry that my fate was unjust: whatever end I have come to, I assure you that I have earned it.'
Draco blinked back threatening tears and set the codex down on his desk. /Severus, believe me, you didn't earn it/ he addressed the dead man. He remembered, with some guilt now, Severus' refusal to join Draco with the Death Eaters again after he'd very nearly commanded the man to do so. "I think not," had been Severus' answer just before Draco left to join his father. "I had my fill of power in the first rising, Draco, and I believe I've lost my taste for what Voldemort passes off as power."
"Oh, really?" Draco had asked. "And what's that, exactly?"
Severus tapped his long, pale fingers together and, when he looked at Draco, the expression in his dark eyes was vaguely sorrowful. "It's the power that attracts the weak and small-minded," he said, not even smiling at Draco's mute outrage. "Do you think that the kind of power skulkers like Peter Pettigrew have is the kind of power you would want, or even deserve? No, I think not."
"Pettigrew will get what's coming to him in the end," Draco had replied. "The Dark Lord sees what a useless, cowardly thing he is - won't take a mission if it hasn't a chance at succeeding. He'll reward the cunning - he'll reward *me*, I'm sure of it."
"Illusions," Snape had said, waving a hand to dispel Draco's words into the ether. "There's nothing behind them except broken promises, *boy.*"
And wasn't *that* the truth! Severus had paid dearly for refusing to re-join Voldemort, and he had paid even more when the Dark Lord discovered that Severus had betrayed him many years ago and turned spy for Albus Dumbledore. Draco had tried his best to mitigate Severus' initial punishment in some way, pleading long acquaintance, but Voldemort had been in an unusually short temper that day, and so it was that Draco was allowed to watch his long-time friend spend what seemed like hours under Cruciatus.
Not, of course, that it had changed anything back then; slowly, over many late nights, he had managed to convince himself that Severus had asked for it, turning on his lord and master like that - turning on *him*, Draco, just when he had needed Severus the most. /Necessity... it's how you live with yourself./
It changed things now, of course. In his more reflective moments, Draco had concluded that life as a 'man of leisure' (euphemism his) had given him the opportunity to examine his actions in minute, excruciating detail. And he could say absolutely that Severus had not deserved the fate he had gotten. He wondered what Ron and the other Gryffindors, or anyone else Severus had persecuted at school, thought of him dying. Had they been relieved? Sad? /They damn well have better been bawling their eyes out,/ Draco vowed privately.
A soft brush of air against the back of Draco's neck startled him out of his thoughts. He slammed the book closed and whirled around.
"Bloody hell!" he shouted, standing up so fast his chair fell over, masking his fright behind indignation (not that it was difficult.) "Do I get no privacy?"
Harry Potter shrugged. "You're the one who left his window open."
"Only because it smells like something died in here five years ago and got left," Draco said tightly. He glowered at Harry, who seemed unaffected. /When did they start *doing* this? Not rising to the bait?/ It had been one of the few joyful constants in his Hogwarts career, next to Quidditch (which he had enjoyed for its own sake to begin with, although having the chance to harass Harry was an added bonus): being able to say something, just the right thing, a word precisely placed to have either Potty or the Weasel springing at him in rage. And really, what got better than that, watching two people writhe with fury while under his control?
That pleasure had vanished, though, and Draco's complaint felt hollow in his own ears.
"I told you that we needed to talk, and the last time we 'talked,' you ended up avoiding the subject" Harry said carefully, eyeing Draco as if he were about to explode. For a moment, Draco thought he was, but with a mighty effort, he controlled himself and stepped aside, gesturing for Harry to sit down in his newly vacated desk chair. Harry didn't even try to conceal his gratitude as he limped over to it and sank into it deep, comforting embrace. "Thank you," he murmured.
"Don't mention it." Draco pulled another chair over and sat down. /Might as well do the thing properly./
"How are the diaries coming?" Harry asked, turning a bit to run a finger over the leather cover of the codex.
"Fine."
"Anything interesting?"
/Oh, shit./ Draco found himself oddly torn between two conflicting sensations: to tell Harry what Severus had said - at least, some of it, anyway - or tell him to bugger off and mind his own damn business. But the bespectacled green eyes were guileless and clear, and most importantly, undemanding, so he said, "It's mostly personal stuff. I think Hermione was right - it's a record of the war, mostly. There are a few other things." /Please, please let him be satisfied with that./
"I'm glad," Harry said, smiling slightly. Draco felt a rush of something very like pleasure at seeing that smile, and at realizing he had been able to inspire it. /Maybe there's something to this 'nice' business after all/. Harry was still looking at him, though. "You'll have to give a report to Ron and the rest of the Aurors, I imagine, if there's anything in there that could, y'know, possibly clear your name."
The thought of handing the diary over to the Ministry - Ron didn't sound so bad, Draco decided in a fit of charity, but the Ministry of Magic... Draco's stomach clenched at the thought of turning over Severus' most private confessions to a bunch of bloodthirsty, vampiric bureaucrats. Keeping his expression as neutral as he possibly could, Draco said, "I hardly think they're going to take the word of a former Death Eater, if there is anything in there that would get me off the hook in the first place... and Harry, I did do most of those things they accused me of."
Unexpectedly, Harry straightened up and glanced at the door. "I don't think..." he began, but trailed off as he pulled his wand out of his robes, followed by a tiny, mirrored device about the size of a Golden Snitch. Draco eyed the contraption curiously and Harry smiled, a smile with a refreshing touch of guilt to it. "It's a Silencer," he explained, setting the device on the floor between them and tapping it once with his wand, presumably to activate it. "The Aurors have the room warded against spells, but I think this baby'll work okay - they shouldn't be able to hear us. I sort of, um, took it off Ron's hands, if you get my drift."
"How can we tell if it works or not?" Draco asked peevishly. "They'll be out there with their ears against the keyhole waiting for me to finish confessing."
Harry's answer was a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.
For the first time in quite a long time, Draco felt faint. /This is what it feels like to have a heart attack,/ he thought dully, incapable of doing anything more than slump helplessly in his seat and wait for the Aurors to come in and finish him off. It therefore took him about two minutes to realize that he wasn't dead, or being packed off to Azkaban, and that Harry was still sitting in front of him, no longer screaming, but wearing an expression that said he was fighting a smile.
"Do not," Draco managed to say ominously, as soon as he'd gotten his breath back, "ever *fucking* do that again, Potter."
"*I* thought it was fun," Harry said, trying and failing to banish the smile from his lips. "And, as you can see, we're completely sealed off... and Draco, I give you my word that whatever we say here, I won't repeat it. Ever."
Being the annoying, uptight Gryffindor he was, Harry would keep to that promise, Draco knew. If this had been Blaise Zambini or Pansy Parkinson, he wouldn't have spilled his guts if he'd been offered all the money in the world. If it had been Crabbe or Goyle... well, he might have told. There would always be the off chance they'd forget it after ten seconds.
"Look," Draco said, stalling for a bit of time while he organized his thoughts, "I can *tell* you - whether or not you'll be able to understand what I'm saying is another matter."
"Try me," Harry said with deceptive lightness.
So stalling was not going to work. Draco took a deep breath, forced himself to keep looking at Harry while he screwed up his courage -- /First time you've *ever* had to talk yourself out of being a whiny little pussy,/ he told himself sarcastically. Finally, he managed to say, "I didn't kill you because I couldn't bring myself to do it, okay?"
"I *know* that," Harry said impatiently. "What I've been wondering these past few years is how you couldn't bring yourself to kill me when you really didn't have a problem killing a bunch of other people."
"I'm not a nice person, Potter." Draco glared at Harry, who glared back. "I'm not going to say that I had a change of heart and decided to go all noble and help out the other side, like Severus did, because I didn't. If you want to hear a nice little redemption story, you've got another bloody thought coming."
Nothing in Harry's face told Draco anything of use - whether Harry was upset that he had escaped the clutches of reform, whether he was hearing a confirmation of what he already knew, whether he was thinking about Quidditch or how breakfast was entirely too rich... nothing. He could have been thinking anything for all the expression on his face. It irritated Draco to no end that Harry wasn't responding to him - he hadn't spared the man's life to have him turn into a bloody stone wall. He had saved him in a moment of absolute, temporary insanity, insanity because it was insane to hope that they would leave that stone corridor and find each other alive and unchanged in some imagined future, he unrepentant and obnoxious and conniving, Harry fiery and obnoxious and fighting-mad whenever they met. *That* had been insanity back then, because hope was really nothing more than a temporary, acute insanity, as far as Draco was concerned.
He wanted very much to tell Harry that. The hope part, the insanity part anyway, not the "I couldn't live without your goddamned annoying presence" part. He proceeded to do so, in a spill of words that rapidly veered out of control.
"'My goddamned annoying presence?'" Harry echoed.
So he *did* say that after all - he had become gradually more incoherent, rambling on about hope and insanity and acuteness and all of that, so the last part must have just latched itself onto the rest and slipped out of his mouth. Goddammit.
"Yes," Draco said, his voice bordering on shrill. "Your goddamned annoying presence. That's exactly what I said." /You're going to dig your own grave and bloody well lie in it, Malfoy./ "Do you need it spelled out for you?"
"I think I've got it perfectly," Harry said quietly. He was still composed, but there was a wild, reaching expression in his eyes, as if he were trying to peer inside Draco's skull and make sense for himself of the tangle of gray matter hiding in there. "I had wondered..." He paused. "I mean, we drove each other crazy...."
"Drive," Draco interrupted. "You're still annoying as you ever were, Potter."
Harry smiled a bit, accepting the correction. "That..." He paused and the green eyes skittered away to lock in a dusty, forgotten corner. "I mean, that is... Why? I was - am, I mean - annoying. We couldn't stand each other. Why would you want that? No one in their right mind would want what we had."
/You're talking like we had something, Potter./ Aloud, Draco said: "Do you honestly think I can explain it? I can't even explain it to myself. And while we're on the subject of unexplainable things, why the hell did you pull strings at the Ministry to get me off?"
"Because you saved my life," Harry said immediately, staring at him with some surprise, as if he were genuinely shocked that Draco had asked the question, or that he hadn't figured it out for himself. "You spared my life when you had every reason to kill me, Draco... I owed you."
"And you felt you were soothing your conscience by getting me out of Fudge's clutches?"
"You *were* going to Azkaban," Harry answered, defensiveness creeping into his tone. "The court had already decided - you and a whole bunch of other Death Eaters were guilty, no matter if Merlin himself showed up and said that you were innocent. And once you were there, they probably would have seen to it that a Dementor would get to you sooner or later - and *I* know that, were I given the choice between exile and spending the rest of my short life in a cell, I'd take exile, thanks."
"That's because you're lucky enough to be on the winning side," Draco growled. He tried not to stand up and pace, although he desperately wanted to work off some of his agitation. It was difficult to keep still and not fidget. "There's not much difference between living by yourself in a huge, empty house that used to be full of your family - used to be full because they *died*, because other people killed them - and being in a cell having all the happiness sucked out of you. I think I, at least, am in the position to be able to say that."
Harry drew in a sharp breath, presumably, Draco thought, to lecture him on how *everyone* lost in the war, and where did Draco get off crying about *his* parents dying when people were dying left and right? What he said, though, was, "You're right. I'm sorry."
It threw Draco off his course, which had already been firmly set to a good, stress-relieving tirade, and now he found himself floundering in the wake of Harry's unexpected concession. He struggled to work past the moment, considered and rejected saying everything from "You're not really sorry, you smug, sadistic bastard" to "Thank you so much for understanding," and opted for staring silently.
At least that seemed to affect Harry, who shifted a bit under Draco's scrutiny. His unease brought back pleasant memories of their sparring matches at school, and the way Harry would never really bother hiding his fury whenever Draco said something to get under his skin - no matter how cold he kept his voice, anger always smoldered in those spectacular green eyes and colored his words. It was, Draco thought, the best form of stimulation outside of recreational sex - getting under Harry's skin had become a close analogue for getting in Harry's pants. As Harry worked himself up into anger, Draco would feel his blood heating up, his pulse would come faster, his entire body would tingle pleasantly in anticipation; by seventh year, their encounters had the quality of a choreographed dance - a dance that had become more dangerous to be sure, with tension in the air and war on the horizon, but it was still a dance Draco had particularly enjoyed.
When that Moment came around, that second when he could have killed Harry Potter, it had hit him: what would he do without that in his life? Habit. The one thing a person should always be able to come back to is the person they either love or honestly can't stand, and sometimes the loved one and the unable-to-be-stood one are, in fact, one and the same.
"I shouldn't have come," Harry muttered. "This was a bad idea."
"You're right on both counts," Draco agreed. "I shouldn't have come, either - should have told Weasley to screw himself like I planned to do. But, unfortunately, things *do* get boring in Cumbria, and I decided against my better judgment to come anyway. As it seems you have done."
Harry nodded and smiled a bit. He stood - or rather tried to; there was a terrible popping and twisting sound and a cry of pain stifled behind bitten lips as he fell back into his seat. Draco was on his feet in a flash, bending over Harry as Harry clutched desperately at his thigh, breathing curses between his teeth. "Oh, fuck," he hissed. "Oh, fuck not again..."
"What is it?" Even in the desperation of the moment - /Please don't let him die,/ his mind begged irrationally - Draco hoped Harry wouldn't notice the anxious spike in his voice. "Can I do anything?"
"No." Wincing, Harry shook his head. "I mean, yes... Get - get the Aurors in here. I need... there's a Muscle Unlocking incantation I can do, but the room is warded and I need... *they* need to take the wards down."
"They'll kill me if they find you in here."
"Please, Draco." The green eyes were filled with pain and pleading, so far gone from the typical flashy defiance. "I'll explain anything, but please... pleas - Oh, GOD." He doubled over and a sob hitched out of his chest. Draco stood frozen for a moment more before another weak "Please, Draco" drifted up to him, and that was enough to send him bolting for the door and asking the Auror outside, in the calmest possible voice he could manage, if she could possibly come in and help Harry Potter, who seemed to be dying.
The Auror, the brown-haired witch who'd stalked alongside him upon his arrival at Hogsmeade, brushed impatiently past him. Her eyes widened at seeing Harry Potter in a place he manifestly was *not* supposed to be, but she didn't offer any comment, or curse Draco on a matter of principle. Instead, she pulled out her wand, muttered an incomprehensible spate of incantation, then knelt down next to Harry and whispered something to him. He responded to whatever-it-was with a tight nod, which seemed to sadden her and steel her at the same time, and she placed one hand on his leg - a gesture that oddly infuriated Draco - and gently touched the back of that hand with her wand. Another incantation, a glow of negative light, and a harrowing cry wrenched from Harry's mouth, and it was done.
Harry was sweaty, shaking, and very, very pale, and his scar stood out lividly against the pallor of his forehead. Still, he managed a grateful smile for Draco and for the Auror, "Thanks, Lavender - I think I'll be good for a bit."
"You're welcome." The Auror - wait. Lavender? It sounded dreadfully familiar to Draco, conjuring up images of obnoxious cooing over bunny rabbits in third year and swooning over the 'fine-ass hunk of wizard meat' that had become Justin Finch-Fletchley by seventh. "Let us know if you have any more problems, Harry... But for now, how about we get out of here? Madam Pomfrey will be wanting a look at you."
She might as well have just said, "We should leave before the Slytherin and ex-Death Eater gets it into his head to murder you in cold blood" for all her subtlety, but then, Lavender Brown had been a Gryffindor, and therefore traditionally bad at the practice. Her reputation for being the champion gossip-monger at school had not helped in the slightest.
"I have to talk to Draco for a moment," Harry said, politely shrugging off the solicitous hand Lavender had on his shoulder. "I'll be along. Don't worry about it."
Lavender frowned. "Seeing as you're technically *not* supposed to be here - and seeing as you've stolen Ron's Sound Suppressor - I think I'll stand here until you're done." There was an edge in her voice that said there would be absolutely no argument, although Harry bristled before backing down and made her stand outside the field generated by the Sound Suppressor. She gave in with a heavy sigh and a dangerous glare at Draco, who watched the byplay silently.
"Have you found anything?" Harry inclined his head, indicating Severus' journal, which had been lying forgotten on Draco's desk.
"Nothing that's any of your business," Draco answered. He saw Harry recoil at his frosty tone and made himself apologize. "I'm sorry..." /There. That wasn't so difficult was it?/ "No, there's nothing in there about the war, or at least anything that you would consider important... And nothing that would acquit me of what I did, because Severus knew as well as I did that I was guilty of everything Fudge wanted to charge me with." He wondered if Lavender could read lips, and hoped fervently that she couldn't. "You didn't invite some kind of reformed demon back, Harry."
"I think I did," Harry said, the expression on his face intense. "I don't think the old Draco Malfoy would have come here if Ron had asked him to - or if anyone had asked, because he wouldn't have cared."
"What do you know, Potter?" Draco demanded.
"I - "
"You know absolutely bloody nothing about me, Potter."
/You don't know about how my mother died because of you, Potter, and I don't know why I don't torture you by telling you that. I know that would tear you up, hearing that another person died because *you* lived. You don't know that there are times when I think that my mother for your life was a fair trade - and those are the times I think I'll have to hump anything that moves, the times just before I wonder what the *hell* is wrong with me for placing your life above my own mother's. The times I think 'Draco, you sick fuck...'/
"But I know you're here." Harry turned and limped away, his face devoid of pain but his eyes brimming with it. "And thanks for coming... I'll talk to you later."
He and Lavender left, though not before Lavender collected the Sound Suppressor and favored Draco with a filthy look. Draco shut the door behind them and leaned back, feeling the heavy bolts shooting into place through the tough oaken hide of it. A sigh shook loose from his chest and he stared hopelessly at the journal on his desk. /Severus, when did things start going wrong?/
* * *
Meals had, fortunately, been going a bit more smoothly, although Draco suspected it was because he was getting better at ignoring the unabashed gawking of the students (even the Slytherins were terribly obvious about it) and he had raised avoiding Harry to an art form. He sat comfortably ensconced between Flitwick and Ron, who usually ignored him in favor of talking with someone else, and Flitwick had learned to keep silent - the Charms professor's voice would become squeaky to the point of incomprehensibility when he tried to make conversation with Draco, so he had given up.
It gave Draco time to mechanically shove food in his face and think about Severus' diaries. It had been a week since he had begun to read them, and there was still nothing of any possible legal use - not, as he had told Harry, that he had been expecting or hoping for any great revelation. Severus' diary would hardly be good character testimony anyway; his old teacher's writing was painfully confidential, dredging up incidents that Draco thought should have been best left forgotten.
'I'm sure you remember sabotaging Harry Potter's Quidditch game in your third year, and how poorly that turned out,' Severus had written, in such a cavalier tone that it grated against Draco more uncomfortably than Severus' more famous shouting fits. 'Likewise, I'm sure you remember the discussion we had afterwards - no matter how cunning you are, something can always go wrong, and therefore, you should always take precautions in the form of a backup plan - or, even better, dispense with idiotic machinations altogether unless you can be certain of success. Or else know that you will be able to transfer blame or culpability to others.
'You think yourself cunning, boy; at the time I am writing this, I hope you have come to know the true meaning of the word. Crouch was undone by a moment of incaution and Pettigrew was unmasked by chance - do you see? Responsibility and fate sent both these men to their deaths, or in the case of Pettigrew, destroyed any chance he might have had for a quiet life undetected as the Weasleys' pet. If you want to live - if you are, indeed, alive and reading my words - you will learn something known as *discretion.*'
There had been more in that vein, and Draco flushed thinking about it. He *did* have discretion, goddammit. Venomously, he glared over in Harry's direction, watching as Harry talked about something with McGonagall. The man had the absolute nerve to look as if nothing had been torturing him in the week since they had last spoken, as if he wasn't wondering why Draco was refusing to give him straight answers or what was in those diaries he had unearthed, as if he wasn't aware that all Draco wanted to do was grab him and either pummel him for his pestilential interrogations or kiss him because... well, Draco didn't exactly know why, but he *really* needed to Kiss Harry Potter. But he was damned if Potter was going to know about it.
/I have discretion in fucking *spades*/ he told himself.
"No matter how hard you stare at him, his head isn't going to explode," Ron said very quietly in Draco's ear.
Uncomfortably aware that he had definitely been indiscreet, Draco turned to scowl at Ron, who beamed back innocently. "You have lettuce on your tooth," Draco said irritably, "and quit leering at me."
"Only if you quit leering at Harry," Ron said, picking at his incisor. He frowned a bit as he examined his index fingernail for a trace of offending lettuce. "Honestly, it's been a week - I figured you would have done something by now."
"Done something?" Draco lowered his voice. He wished that Ron would have the grace to pull out that little Sound Suppressor gadget or his. "What on earth do you mean?" Even as he asked the question, Draco had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what Ron meant.
Ron gave him a faintly reproving look, as if he were disappointed with Draco's slowness. "I can't bloody well stuff him down your pants, Draco," he said, "and even if I could, I wouldn't."
"Is this something you've been cooking up between the two of you?" Draco stabbed at an offending baby red potato on his plate, but succeeded only in sending the potato flying onto the floor and bouncing down the steps. "For being a sworn enemy and all, Potter was happy to see me - and you've been decent yourself. What do you want?"
Surprisingly, Ron sighed. "Are you hungry?"
"No."
"Then let's get out of here." He unfolded his long body from its awkward contortion in his chair and stood, brushing off his robes. Without a backward glance, Ron strode out of the Great Hall and, as Ron was technically his bodyguard (Draco preferred to think of it as 'escort'), Draco had little choice but to follow him, dropping his napkin in his haste but not missing the curious upward glance Harry directed at them. Once they were safely in the abandoned corridors and Draco had a long, uncomfortable minute to stew in his own juices, Ron began to speak.
"How are the journals coming?"
What? "Fine," Draco said automatically. Weasley and Potter seemed to have taken a mutual delight in keeping him off-balance. "There's still quite a bit more to go, and I'm running out of Decoding Decoction, so I'll need some more before I'm to finish. I can have the thing summarized in another two weeks or so." Fourteen more days... surely that was enough of a window to see Harry and mentally flog himself a couple more times.
"Good." Ron glanced at him, hazel eyes unreadable. "I wanted to say that you're... That is, when you decide to leave, you're welcome to take them with you."
"Huh?" Draco almost tripped over his own feet in surprise. "Take them with me? Why? Don't you need to confiscate it for some mysterious Auror ritual thing? I would have thought the Ministry would be howling to get its hands on this."
"It is," Ron assured him, smiling a bit, "or rather, it was. I've taken the liberty of, well - and don't let this get out - falsifying reports." His expression darkened a bit. "The truth is, I've gotten a bit sick of dealing with Fudge's paranoia; ever since he got proved so spectacularly wrong about Voldemort coming back, he's been worse than Crouch apparently was: anyone and anything having to do with Voldemort, even if it was someone who mentioned his toenail clippings or something, would get hauled in for interrogation. From what you've shown me, Severus' private thoughts don't need to get dragged out again. I told Fudge as much, and that we should let a war hero's memory rest in peace. The books will be returned to whatever family he has - which, as there's no Snape family we can find, is you, I guess."
Draco ground to a halt. Ron, not anticipating the sudden pause, kept walking a few more steps before he paused and turned. A fury, inexplicable and stronger than anything Draco had ever known, consumed him, burning away preoccupation and discretion and bringing words, hot and passionate, to his lips.
"What in the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded. "Why are you doing this? You hate me! We've always hated each other, and now you're fucking falling all over yourselves to give me stuff, to make me feel better, to think that I'm some kind of... of reformed criminal!" The words were much the same as he'd spoken to Harry, but he didn't care. "What would ever fucking make you think that, Weasley? WHAT?"
Ron stared at him silently, apparently unmoved. Draco wound down and watched as Ron nodded and stared at the floor, thinking, and he watched as Ron said, "Harry told me what happened that night you could have killed him," he said, "and I found out through a few contacts what had happened to you because of it - your torture under Cruciatus and... and your mother. I've met some terrible, evil people - friends of yours - during the war, and none of them would have done what you did. None of them had a scrap of humanity left in them by the time they were pulled in by the Ministry...
"When Harry told me that you were going to be put on trial and how he wanted me to help get you excused from it, I thought he was insane, but then he said you'd spared him - you'd *spared his life*, and he couldn't send you to death like... like everyone else we'd help put away in Azkaban." Ron paused and went on in a somewhat more strained voice, saying, "You can't... I don't know if you know what it's like to send people you used to go to school with to their deaths. I mean, I *hated* Blaise Zambini's guts in school, but watching him get his sentence read in the courtroom was *brutal*, even though it's almost certain he did all of what we charged him with. A bunch of people I had to testify against were in classes with me!"
"So what does that say about *me*?" Draco demanded. "So you've got a conscience. Good for you."
"You could have killed Harry, and you didn't," Ron said. "You can give whatever reason you'd like for doing it, but the fact remains that you saved his life."
/Damn... Weasley *has* gotten smarter./
Ron smirked in such a way as to leave no doubt that he knew what Draco was thinking. "I think there's something underneath your whiny, obnoxious hide, Draco," he said, obviously relishing what Draco knew was an enraged scowl on his face. "It's there - you *are* human. I know it, Harry knows it. Past that, I can't say." He glanced down the hallway, where a din arose that signaled the end of supper. "You might want to get back to your quarters before you get run over. Potions test tomorrow and the sixth-year Hufflepuffs are a bit nervous."
Sure enough, a herd of Hufflepuffs broke off from the main body and stampeded in their direction. Ron ducked down a side hallway and vanished, leaving Draco to walk as swiftly as he could toward the turnoff to the faculty quarters. The Hufflepuffs galloped past him on their way to the library, thankfully not even glancing in his direction. Heaving a sigh of relief, Draco wandered down the corridor, not even acknowledging Lavender when she materialized right next to him. Ignored and apparently grateful for it, she accompanied him the rest of the way back to his quarters and saw him safely inside.
The open window had been closed in his absence, but fortunately, not locked. Despite a twinge of misgiving and a little voice that told him to lock the damn thing, Draco opened the window a little bit, stood for a moment with his hand resting indecisively on the sash. /Should I keep it open or keep it closed... should I stay or should I go.../
He kept it open and wandered over to flop down on his bed and stare at the canopied hangings above him. The fine brocade was done in elaborate whirls and interconnected knots so intricate Draco couldn't follow a strand through its various twisting and turnings. Everything blurred after a few minutes and then dimmed. Distantly, Draco thought to turn on a light and get some more reading done - /Should really get reading the rest of Severus' journals/ filtered through him from the haze surrounding his brain - but even as he thought it, he fell asleep.
+Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus+
(Vergil)
CHAPTER THREE
'Hello, Draco.'
Those were the first words revealed by Severus' special Decoding Decoction. Draco was torn between amazement at Severus' apparent precognition and appreciation that his old friend had not revealed his secret code to anyone else. At the same time, he had the sense of a terrible, resigned sort of waiting, as if the words themselves were aware, trapped in their awkward, disordered form until he happened along to rearrange them properly, as if they had hoped against hope he would come.
'I have buried these several books at various places in Hogsmeade, places that have, for various reasons, been important to my life at Hogwarts, and I am sure you know why. This page you are reading now is, in effect, my last will and testament, if you will, and it is the final thing I have left on record concerning my role in the cause of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
'By now, I expect that one side will have won - there was, I believe, very little time left before the end of things. At any rate, there are no great strategic secrets contained herein, for those I have decided to take to my grave, whenever I may go to it. Therefore, the value of these books is questionable at best, and rests solely with my reader to determine. As it is you, Draco, and you have decided for whatever reason to decode my books, I cherish the hope - and let it not be ill-founded, as hope usually is - that you will learn from what is written here.
'I expect that I am dead at this point; these words were written the night before I was to leave for Cornwall on a mission for Dumbledore, and they were committed to the earth that very morning, as I for a long time had expected to be. Do not, Draco, wonder after my soul or worry that my fate was unjust: whatever end I have come to, I assure you that I have earned it.'
Draco blinked back threatening tears and set the codex down on his desk. /Severus, believe me, you didn't earn it/ he addressed the dead man. He remembered, with some guilt now, Severus' refusal to join Draco with the Death Eaters again after he'd very nearly commanded the man to do so. "I think not," had been Severus' answer just before Draco left to join his father. "I had my fill of power in the first rising, Draco, and I believe I've lost my taste for what Voldemort passes off as power."
"Oh, really?" Draco had asked. "And what's that, exactly?"
Severus tapped his long, pale fingers together and, when he looked at Draco, the expression in his dark eyes was vaguely sorrowful. "It's the power that attracts the weak and small-minded," he said, not even smiling at Draco's mute outrage. "Do you think that the kind of power skulkers like Peter Pettigrew have is the kind of power you would want, or even deserve? No, I think not."
"Pettigrew will get what's coming to him in the end," Draco had replied. "The Dark Lord sees what a useless, cowardly thing he is - won't take a mission if it hasn't a chance at succeeding. He'll reward the cunning - he'll reward *me*, I'm sure of it."
"Illusions," Snape had said, waving a hand to dispel Draco's words into the ether. "There's nothing behind them except broken promises, *boy.*"
And wasn't *that* the truth! Severus had paid dearly for refusing to re-join Voldemort, and he had paid even more when the Dark Lord discovered that Severus had betrayed him many years ago and turned spy for Albus Dumbledore. Draco had tried his best to mitigate Severus' initial punishment in some way, pleading long acquaintance, but Voldemort had been in an unusually short temper that day, and so it was that Draco was allowed to watch his long-time friend spend what seemed like hours under Cruciatus.
Not, of course, that it had changed anything back then; slowly, over many late nights, he had managed to convince himself that Severus had asked for it, turning on his lord and master like that - turning on *him*, Draco, just when he had needed Severus the most. /Necessity... it's how you live with yourself./
It changed things now, of course. In his more reflective moments, Draco had concluded that life as a 'man of leisure' (euphemism his) had given him the opportunity to examine his actions in minute, excruciating detail. And he could say absolutely that Severus had not deserved the fate he had gotten. He wondered what Ron and the other Gryffindors, or anyone else Severus had persecuted at school, thought of him dying. Had they been relieved? Sad? /They damn well have better been bawling their eyes out,/ Draco vowed privately.
A soft brush of air against the back of Draco's neck startled him out of his thoughts. He slammed the book closed and whirled around.
"Bloody hell!" he shouted, standing up so fast his chair fell over, masking his fright behind indignation (not that it was difficult.) "Do I get no privacy?"
Harry Potter shrugged. "You're the one who left his window open."
"Only because it smells like something died in here five years ago and got left," Draco said tightly. He glowered at Harry, who seemed unaffected. /When did they start *doing* this? Not rising to the bait?/ It had been one of the few joyful constants in his Hogwarts career, next to Quidditch (which he had enjoyed for its own sake to begin with, although having the chance to harass Harry was an added bonus): being able to say something, just the right thing, a word precisely placed to have either Potty or the Weasel springing at him in rage. And really, what got better than that, watching two people writhe with fury while under his control?
That pleasure had vanished, though, and Draco's complaint felt hollow in his own ears.
"I told you that we needed to talk, and the last time we 'talked,' you ended up avoiding the subject" Harry said carefully, eyeing Draco as if he were about to explode. For a moment, Draco thought he was, but with a mighty effort, he controlled himself and stepped aside, gesturing for Harry to sit down in his newly vacated desk chair. Harry didn't even try to conceal his gratitude as he limped over to it and sank into it deep, comforting embrace. "Thank you," he murmured.
"Don't mention it." Draco pulled another chair over and sat down. /Might as well do the thing properly./
"How are the diaries coming?" Harry asked, turning a bit to run a finger over the leather cover of the codex.
"Fine."
"Anything interesting?"
/Oh, shit./ Draco found himself oddly torn between two conflicting sensations: to tell Harry what Severus had said - at least, some of it, anyway - or tell him to bugger off and mind his own damn business. But the bespectacled green eyes were guileless and clear, and most importantly, undemanding, so he said, "It's mostly personal stuff. I think Hermione was right - it's a record of the war, mostly. There are a few other things." /Please, please let him be satisfied with that./
"I'm glad," Harry said, smiling slightly. Draco felt a rush of something very like pleasure at seeing that smile, and at realizing he had been able to inspire it. /Maybe there's something to this 'nice' business after all/. Harry was still looking at him, though. "You'll have to give a report to Ron and the rest of the Aurors, I imagine, if there's anything in there that could, y'know, possibly clear your name."
The thought of handing the diary over to the Ministry - Ron didn't sound so bad, Draco decided in a fit of charity, but the Ministry of Magic... Draco's stomach clenched at the thought of turning over Severus' most private confessions to a bunch of bloodthirsty, vampiric bureaucrats. Keeping his expression as neutral as he possibly could, Draco said, "I hardly think they're going to take the word of a former Death Eater, if there is anything in there that would get me off the hook in the first place... and Harry, I did do most of those things they accused me of."
Unexpectedly, Harry straightened up and glanced at the door. "I don't think..." he began, but trailed off as he pulled his wand out of his robes, followed by a tiny, mirrored device about the size of a Golden Snitch. Draco eyed the contraption curiously and Harry smiled, a smile with a refreshing touch of guilt to it. "It's a Silencer," he explained, setting the device on the floor between them and tapping it once with his wand, presumably to activate it. "The Aurors have the room warded against spells, but I think this baby'll work okay - they shouldn't be able to hear us. I sort of, um, took it off Ron's hands, if you get my drift."
"How can we tell if it works or not?" Draco asked peevishly. "They'll be out there with their ears against the keyhole waiting for me to finish confessing."
Harry's answer was a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.
For the first time in quite a long time, Draco felt faint. /This is what it feels like to have a heart attack,/ he thought dully, incapable of doing anything more than slump helplessly in his seat and wait for the Aurors to come in and finish him off. It therefore took him about two minutes to realize that he wasn't dead, or being packed off to Azkaban, and that Harry was still sitting in front of him, no longer screaming, but wearing an expression that said he was fighting a smile.
"Do not," Draco managed to say ominously, as soon as he'd gotten his breath back, "ever *fucking* do that again, Potter."
"*I* thought it was fun," Harry said, trying and failing to banish the smile from his lips. "And, as you can see, we're completely sealed off... and Draco, I give you my word that whatever we say here, I won't repeat it. Ever."
Being the annoying, uptight Gryffindor he was, Harry would keep to that promise, Draco knew. If this had been Blaise Zambini or Pansy Parkinson, he wouldn't have spilled his guts if he'd been offered all the money in the world. If it had been Crabbe or Goyle... well, he might have told. There would always be the off chance they'd forget it after ten seconds.
"Look," Draco said, stalling for a bit of time while he organized his thoughts, "I can *tell* you - whether or not you'll be able to understand what I'm saying is another matter."
"Try me," Harry said with deceptive lightness.
So stalling was not going to work. Draco took a deep breath, forced himself to keep looking at Harry while he screwed up his courage -- /First time you've *ever* had to talk yourself out of being a whiny little pussy,/ he told himself sarcastically. Finally, he managed to say, "I didn't kill you because I couldn't bring myself to do it, okay?"
"I *know* that," Harry said impatiently. "What I've been wondering these past few years is how you couldn't bring yourself to kill me when you really didn't have a problem killing a bunch of other people."
"I'm not a nice person, Potter." Draco glared at Harry, who glared back. "I'm not going to say that I had a change of heart and decided to go all noble and help out the other side, like Severus did, because I didn't. If you want to hear a nice little redemption story, you've got another bloody thought coming."
Nothing in Harry's face told Draco anything of use - whether Harry was upset that he had escaped the clutches of reform, whether he was hearing a confirmation of what he already knew, whether he was thinking about Quidditch or how breakfast was entirely too rich... nothing. He could have been thinking anything for all the expression on his face. It irritated Draco to no end that Harry wasn't responding to him - he hadn't spared the man's life to have him turn into a bloody stone wall. He had saved him in a moment of absolute, temporary insanity, insanity because it was insane to hope that they would leave that stone corridor and find each other alive and unchanged in some imagined future, he unrepentant and obnoxious and conniving, Harry fiery and obnoxious and fighting-mad whenever they met. *That* had been insanity back then, because hope was really nothing more than a temporary, acute insanity, as far as Draco was concerned.
He wanted very much to tell Harry that. The hope part, the insanity part anyway, not the "I couldn't live without your goddamned annoying presence" part. He proceeded to do so, in a spill of words that rapidly veered out of control.
"'My goddamned annoying presence?'" Harry echoed.
So he *did* say that after all - he had become gradually more incoherent, rambling on about hope and insanity and acuteness and all of that, so the last part must have just latched itself onto the rest and slipped out of his mouth. Goddammit.
"Yes," Draco said, his voice bordering on shrill. "Your goddamned annoying presence. That's exactly what I said." /You're going to dig your own grave and bloody well lie in it, Malfoy./ "Do you need it spelled out for you?"
"I think I've got it perfectly," Harry said quietly. He was still composed, but there was a wild, reaching expression in his eyes, as if he were trying to peer inside Draco's skull and make sense for himself of the tangle of gray matter hiding in there. "I had wondered..." He paused. "I mean, we drove each other crazy...."
"Drive," Draco interrupted. "You're still annoying as you ever were, Potter."
Harry smiled a bit, accepting the correction. "That..." He paused and the green eyes skittered away to lock in a dusty, forgotten corner. "I mean, that is... Why? I was - am, I mean - annoying. We couldn't stand each other. Why would you want that? No one in their right mind would want what we had."
/You're talking like we had something, Potter./ Aloud, Draco said: "Do you honestly think I can explain it? I can't even explain it to myself. And while we're on the subject of unexplainable things, why the hell did you pull strings at the Ministry to get me off?"
"Because you saved my life," Harry said immediately, staring at him with some surprise, as if he were genuinely shocked that Draco had asked the question, or that he hadn't figured it out for himself. "You spared my life when you had every reason to kill me, Draco... I owed you."
"And you felt you were soothing your conscience by getting me out of Fudge's clutches?"
"You *were* going to Azkaban," Harry answered, defensiveness creeping into his tone. "The court had already decided - you and a whole bunch of other Death Eaters were guilty, no matter if Merlin himself showed up and said that you were innocent. And once you were there, they probably would have seen to it that a Dementor would get to you sooner or later - and *I* know that, were I given the choice between exile and spending the rest of my short life in a cell, I'd take exile, thanks."
"That's because you're lucky enough to be on the winning side," Draco growled. He tried not to stand up and pace, although he desperately wanted to work off some of his agitation. It was difficult to keep still and not fidget. "There's not much difference between living by yourself in a huge, empty house that used to be full of your family - used to be full because they *died*, because other people killed them - and being in a cell having all the happiness sucked out of you. I think I, at least, am in the position to be able to say that."
Harry drew in a sharp breath, presumably, Draco thought, to lecture him on how *everyone* lost in the war, and where did Draco get off crying about *his* parents dying when people were dying left and right? What he said, though, was, "You're right. I'm sorry."
It threw Draco off his course, which had already been firmly set to a good, stress-relieving tirade, and now he found himself floundering in the wake of Harry's unexpected concession. He struggled to work past the moment, considered and rejected saying everything from "You're not really sorry, you smug, sadistic bastard" to "Thank you so much for understanding," and opted for staring silently.
At least that seemed to affect Harry, who shifted a bit under Draco's scrutiny. His unease brought back pleasant memories of their sparring matches at school, and the way Harry would never really bother hiding his fury whenever Draco said something to get under his skin - no matter how cold he kept his voice, anger always smoldered in those spectacular green eyes and colored his words. It was, Draco thought, the best form of stimulation outside of recreational sex - getting under Harry's skin had become a close analogue for getting in Harry's pants. As Harry worked himself up into anger, Draco would feel his blood heating up, his pulse would come faster, his entire body would tingle pleasantly in anticipation; by seventh year, their encounters had the quality of a choreographed dance - a dance that had become more dangerous to be sure, with tension in the air and war on the horizon, but it was still a dance Draco had particularly enjoyed.
When that Moment came around, that second when he could have killed Harry Potter, it had hit him: what would he do without that in his life? Habit. The one thing a person should always be able to come back to is the person they either love or honestly can't stand, and sometimes the loved one and the unable-to-be-stood one are, in fact, one and the same.
"I shouldn't have come," Harry muttered. "This was a bad idea."
"You're right on both counts," Draco agreed. "I shouldn't have come, either - should have told Weasley to screw himself like I planned to do. But, unfortunately, things *do* get boring in Cumbria, and I decided against my better judgment to come anyway. As it seems you have done."
Harry nodded and smiled a bit. He stood - or rather tried to; there was a terrible popping and twisting sound and a cry of pain stifled behind bitten lips as he fell back into his seat. Draco was on his feet in a flash, bending over Harry as Harry clutched desperately at his thigh, breathing curses between his teeth. "Oh, fuck," he hissed. "Oh, fuck not again..."
"What is it?" Even in the desperation of the moment - /Please don't let him die,/ his mind begged irrationally - Draco hoped Harry wouldn't notice the anxious spike in his voice. "Can I do anything?"
"No." Wincing, Harry shook his head. "I mean, yes... Get - get the Aurors in here. I need... there's a Muscle Unlocking incantation I can do, but the room is warded and I need... *they* need to take the wards down."
"They'll kill me if they find you in here."
"Please, Draco." The green eyes were filled with pain and pleading, so far gone from the typical flashy defiance. "I'll explain anything, but please... pleas - Oh, GOD." He doubled over and a sob hitched out of his chest. Draco stood frozen for a moment more before another weak "Please, Draco" drifted up to him, and that was enough to send him bolting for the door and asking the Auror outside, in the calmest possible voice he could manage, if she could possibly come in and help Harry Potter, who seemed to be dying.
The Auror, the brown-haired witch who'd stalked alongside him upon his arrival at Hogsmeade, brushed impatiently past him. Her eyes widened at seeing Harry Potter in a place he manifestly was *not* supposed to be, but she didn't offer any comment, or curse Draco on a matter of principle. Instead, she pulled out her wand, muttered an incomprehensible spate of incantation, then knelt down next to Harry and whispered something to him. He responded to whatever-it-was with a tight nod, which seemed to sadden her and steel her at the same time, and she placed one hand on his leg - a gesture that oddly infuriated Draco - and gently touched the back of that hand with her wand. Another incantation, a glow of negative light, and a harrowing cry wrenched from Harry's mouth, and it was done.
Harry was sweaty, shaking, and very, very pale, and his scar stood out lividly against the pallor of his forehead. Still, he managed a grateful smile for Draco and for the Auror, "Thanks, Lavender - I think I'll be good for a bit."
"You're welcome." The Auror - wait. Lavender? It sounded dreadfully familiar to Draco, conjuring up images of obnoxious cooing over bunny rabbits in third year and swooning over the 'fine-ass hunk of wizard meat' that had become Justin Finch-Fletchley by seventh. "Let us know if you have any more problems, Harry... But for now, how about we get out of here? Madam Pomfrey will be wanting a look at you."
She might as well have just said, "We should leave before the Slytherin and ex-Death Eater gets it into his head to murder you in cold blood" for all her subtlety, but then, Lavender Brown had been a Gryffindor, and therefore traditionally bad at the practice. Her reputation for being the champion gossip-monger at school had not helped in the slightest.
"I have to talk to Draco for a moment," Harry said, politely shrugging off the solicitous hand Lavender had on his shoulder. "I'll be along. Don't worry about it."
Lavender frowned. "Seeing as you're technically *not* supposed to be here - and seeing as you've stolen Ron's Sound Suppressor - I think I'll stand here until you're done." There was an edge in her voice that said there would be absolutely no argument, although Harry bristled before backing down and made her stand outside the field generated by the Sound Suppressor. She gave in with a heavy sigh and a dangerous glare at Draco, who watched the byplay silently.
"Have you found anything?" Harry inclined his head, indicating Severus' journal, which had been lying forgotten on Draco's desk.
"Nothing that's any of your business," Draco answered. He saw Harry recoil at his frosty tone and made himself apologize. "I'm sorry..." /There. That wasn't so difficult was it?/ "No, there's nothing in there about the war, or at least anything that you would consider important... And nothing that would acquit me of what I did, because Severus knew as well as I did that I was guilty of everything Fudge wanted to charge me with." He wondered if Lavender could read lips, and hoped fervently that she couldn't. "You didn't invite some kind of reformed demon back, Harry."
"I think I did," Harry said, the expression on his face intense. "I don't think the old Draco Malfoy would have come here if Ron had asked him to - or if anyone had asked, because he wouldn't have cared."
"What do you know, Potter?" Draco demanded.
"I - "
"You know absolutely bloody nothing about me, Potter."
/You don't know about how my mother died because of you, Potter, and I don't know why I don't torture you by telling you that. I know that would tear you up, hearing that another person died because *you* lived. You don't know that there are times when I think that my mother for your life was a fair trade - and those are the times I think I'll have to hump anything that moves, the times just before I wonder what the *hell* is wrong with me for placing your life above my own mother's. The times I think 'Draco, you sick fuck...'/
"But I know you're here." Harry turned and limped away, his face devoid of pain but his eyes brimming with it. "And thanks for coming... I'll talk to you later."
He and Lavender left, though not before Lavender collected the Sound Suppressor and favored Draco with a filthy look. Draco shut the door behind them and leaned back, feeling the heavy bolts shooting into place through the tough oaken hide of it. A sigh shook loose from his chest and he stared hopelessly at the journal on his desk. /Severus, when did things start going wrong?/
* * *
Meals had, fortunately, been going a bit more smoothly, although Draco suspected it was because he was getting better at ignoring the unabashed gawking of the students (even the Slytherins were terribly obvious about it) and he had raised avoiding Harry to an art form. He sat comfortably ensconced between Flitwick and Ron, who usually ignored him in favor of talking with someone else, and Flitwick had learned to keep silent - the Charms professor's voice would become squeaky to the point of incomprehensibility when he tried to make conversation with Draco, so he had given up.
It gave Draco time to mechanically shove food in his face and think about Severus' diaries. It had been a week since he had begun to read them, and there was still nothing of any possible legal use - not, as he had told Harry, that he had been expecting or hoping for any great revelation. Severus' diary would hardly be good character testimony anyway; his old teacher's writing was painfully confidential, dredging up incidents that Draco thought should have been best left forgotten.
'I'm sure you remember sabotaging Harry Potter's Quidditch game in your third year, and how poorly that turned out,' Severus had written, in such a cavalier tone that it grated against Draco more uncomfortably than Severus' more famous shouting fits. 'Likewise, I'm sure you remember the discussion we had afterwards - no matter how cunning you are, something can always go wrong, and therefore, you should always take precautions in the form of a backup plan - or, even better, dispense with idiotic machinations altogether unless you can be certain of success. Or else know that you will be able to transfer blame or culpability to others.
'You think yourself cunning, boy; at the time I am writing this, I hope you have come to know the true meaning of the word. Crouch was undone by a moment of incaution and Pettigrew was unmasked by chance - do you see? Responsibility and fate sent both these men to their deaths, or in the case of Pettigrew, destroyed any chance he might have had for a quiet life undetected as the Weasleys' pet. If you want to live - if you are, indeed, alive and reading my words - you will learn something known as *discretion.*'
There had been more in that vein, and Draco flushed thinking about it. He *did* have discretion, goddammit. Venomously, he glared over in Harry's direction, watching as Harry talked about something with McGonagall. The man had the absolute nerve to look as if nothing had been torturing him in the week since they had last spoken, as if he wasn't wondering why Draco was refusing to give him straight answers or what was in those diaries he had unearthed, as if he wasn't aware that all Draco wanted to do was grab him and either pummel him for his pestilential interrogations or kiss him because... well, Draco didn't exactly know why, but he *really* needed to Kiss Harry Potter. But he was damned if Potter was going to know about it.
/I have discretion in fucking *spades*/ he told himself.
"No matter how hard you stare at him, his head isn't going to explode," Ron said very quietly in Draco's ear.
Uncomfortably aware that he had definitely been indiscreet, Draco turned to scowl at Ron, who beamed back innocently. "You have lettuce on your tooth," Draco said irritably, "and quit leering at me."
"Only if you quit leering at Harry," Ron said, picking at his incisor. He frowned a bit as he examined his index fingernail for a trace of offending lettuce. "Honestly, it's been a week - I figured you would have done something by now."
"Done something?" Draco lowered his voice. He wished that Ron would have the grace to pull out that little Sound Suppressor gadget or his. "What on earth do you mean?" Even as he asked the question, Draco had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what Ron meant.
Ron gave him a faintly reproving look, as if he were disappointed with Draco's slowness. "I can't bloody well stuff him down your pants, Draco," he said, "and even if I could, I wouldn't."
"Is this something you've been cooking up between the two of you?" Draco stabbed at an offending baby red potato on his plate, but succeeded only in sending the potato flying onto the floor and bouncing down the steps. "For being a sworn enemy and all, Potter was happy to see me - and you've been decent yourself. What do you want?"
Surprisingly, Ron sighed. "Are you hungry?"
"No."
"Then let's get out of here." He unfolded his long body from its awkward contortion in his chair and stood, brushing off his robes. Without a backward glance, Ron strode out of the Great Hall and, as Ron was technically his bodyguard (Draco preferred to think of it as 'escort'), Draco had little choice but to follow him, dropping his napkin in his haste but not missing the curious upward glance Harry directed at them. Once they were safely in the abandoned corridors and Draco had a long, uncomfortable minute to stew in his own juices, Ron began to speak.
"How are the journals coming?"
What? "Fine," Draco said automatically. Weasley and Potter seemed to have taken a mutual delight in keeping him off-balance. "There's still quite a bit more to go, and I'm running out of Decoding Decoction, so I'll need some more before I'm to finish. I can have the thing summarized in another two weeks or so." Fourteen more days... surely that was enough of a window to see Harry and mentally flog himself a couple more times.
"Good." Ron glanced at him, hazel eyes unreadable. "I wanted to say that you're... That is, when you decide to leave, you're welcome to take them with you."
"Huh?" Draco almost tripped over his own feet in surprise. "Take them with me? Why? Don't you need to confiscate it for some mysterious Auror ritual thing? I would have thought the Ministry would be howling to get its hands on this."
"It is," Ron assured him, smiling a bit, "or rather, it was. I've taken the liberty of, well - and don't let this get out - falsifying reports." His expression darkened a bit. "The truth is, I've gotten a bit sick of dealing with Fudge's paranoia; ever since he got proved so spectacularly wrong about Voldemort coming back, he's been worse than Crouch apparently was: anyone and anything having to do with Voldemort, even if it was someone who mentioned his toenail clippings or something, would get hauled in for interrogation. From what you've shown me, Severus' private thoughts don't need to get dragged out again. I told Fudge as much, and that we should let a war hero's memory rest in peace. The books will be returned to whatever family he has - which, as there's no Snape family we can find, is you, I guess."
Draco ground to a halt. Ron, not anticipating the sudden pause, kept walking a few more steps before he paused and turned. A fury, inexplicable and stronger than anything Draco had ever known, consumed him, burning away preoccupation and discretion and bringing words, hot and passionate, to his lips.
"What in the hell is the matter with you?" he demanded. "Why are you doing this? You hate me! We've always hated each other, and now you're fucking falling all over yourselves to give me stuff, to make me feel better, to think that I'm some kind of... of reformed criminal!" The words were much the same as he'd spoken to Harry, but he didn't care. "What would ever fucking make you think that, Weasley? WHAT?"
Ron stared at him silently, apparently unmoved. Draco wound down and watched as Ron nodded and stared at the floor, thinking, and he watched as Ron said, "Harry told me what happened that night you could have killed him," he said, "and I found out through a few contacts what had happened to you because of it - your torture under Cruciatus and... and your mother. I've met some terrible, evil people - friends of yours - during the war, and none of them would have done what you did. None of them had a scrap of humanity left in them by the time they were pulled in by the Ministry...
"When Harry told me that you were going to be put on trial and how he wanted me to help get you excused from it, I thought he was insane, but then he said you'd spared him - you'd *spared his life*, and he couldn't send you to death like... like everyone else we'd help put away in Azkaban." Ron paused and went on in a somewhat more strained voice, saying, "You can't... I don't know if you know what it's like to send people you used to go to school with to their deaths. I mean, I *hated* Blaise Zambini's guts in school, but watching him get his sentence read in the courtroom was *brutal*, even though it's almost certain he did all of what we charged him with. A bunch of people I had to testify against were in classes with me!"
"So what does that say about *me*?" Draco demanded. "So you've got a conscience. Good for you."
"You could have killed Harry, and you didn't," Ron said. "You can give whatever reason you'd like for doing it, but the fact remains that you saved his life."
/Damn... Weasley *has* gotten smarter./
Ron smirked in such a way as to leave no doubt that he knew what Draco was thinking. "I think there's something underneath your whiny, obnoxious hide, Draco," he said, obviously relishing what Draco knew was an enraged scowl on his face. "It's there - you *are* human. I know it, Harry knows it. Past that, I can't say." He glanced down the hallway, where a din arose that signaled the end of supper. "You might want to get back to your quarters before you get run over. Potions test tomorrow and the sixth-year Hufflepuffs are a bit nervous."
Sure enough, a herd of Hufflepuffs broke off from the main body and stampeded in their direction. Ron ducked down a side hallway and vanished, leaving Draco to walk as swiftly as he could toward the turnoff to the faculty quarters. The Hufflepuffs galloped past him on their way to the library, thankfully not even glancing in his direction. Heaving a sigh of relief, Draco wandered down the corridor, not even acknowledging Lavender when she materialized right next to him. Ignored and apparently grateful for it, she accompanied him the rest of the way back to his quarters and saw him safely inside.
The open window had been closed in his absence, but fortunately, not locked. Despite a twinge of misgiving and a little voice that told him to lock the damn thing, Draco opened the window a little bit, stood for a moment with his hand resting indecisively on the sash. /Should I keep it open or keep it closed... should I stay or should I go.../
He kept it open and wandered over to flop down on his bed and stare at the canopied hangings above him. The fine brocade was done in elaborate whirls and interconnected knots so intricate Draco couldn't follow a strand through its various twisting and turnings. Everything blurred after a few minutes and then dimmed. Distantly, Draco thought to turn on a light and get some more reading done - /Should really get reading the rest of Severus' journals/ filtered through him from the haze surrounding his brain - but even as he thought it, he fell asleep.