Draco was stunned. He could not believe his father would kill himself. 'To save them, not like him at all,' Draco thought to himself. He looked at his mother.
Narcissa was standing still, showing almost no reaction, except for a sad expression reflecting in her eyes. She turned to Snape questioningly, and he nodded a very small nod. Narcissa then turned to Nott.
"Go to the ministry, take his body with you. Give a full report. Now leave me here to grieve, alone with friends and family." Nott nodded, and conjured a stretcher from his wand, lifting Lucius Malfoy onto it.
"Yes, well, goodbye Narcissa, Severus, Draco, I will, er, report everything." Nott hastily walked out the door.
"Katonah," Narcissa said to another servant of the family, this one a banshee. "Make sure Nott gets out of the house. Make sure he does not linger." Katonah nodded and glided out. Snape came over and stood next to Narcissa.
"Mum, what did father mean when he said 'Tell him everything?' " Draco asked his mother when she finally looked at him.
"Well, this might come as a bit of a shock, and well, you see, if you do the math, from when your father and I got married, about 17 years and two months ago, and... Er... from the time you were conceived, you would notice how I was seven months pregnant when we got married, and..."
"Mum, if this secret is the fact that you slept with him before you got married, well then that's no big deal..." he stopped talking when he saw the look on his mothers face.
"Well, Draco, that isn't exactly it. You were 'conceived' before your father and I were married, but, well, Lucius Malfoy is NOT your father." Draco stared at her, trying to find out if she was joking. She wasn't, and Draco could tell.
"Well mum, if Lucius wasn't my father, then who is?" Draco looked over his mother's shoulder. Snape looked very uncomfortable. The realization hit him like a bucket of ice water. "Prof...Professor Snape is my father?!?" Narcissa nodded. "But that cannot be possible! I look exactly like Lucius did!"
Narcissa looked as though she expected this. "Yes, I know, your father knew about this, and he went to Voldemort. He decided he could not let the magical world think that his 'son' was fathered by another. He exchanged something; I never knew what, in exchange for you to be born looking like him. Well, Voldemort preformed some very complicated dark magic, and, well, you look like him."
Draco thought to himself for a moment. "Yes, but mum, how could I be able to turn on all the secret lamps, in the dungeons, and work all the magical objects, the ones that only operate with Malfoy blood, if I wasn't a Malfoy?"
Narcissa looked upset. "Well that is the other part of all this I must tell you, Lucius was my cousin."
Draco gasped. "You have got to be kidding!" he said, more to say something, than mean anything. He knew his mother wouldn't lie about something like this. But Snape, his father? It just did not seem... normal. It isn't like he had loved his father or anything, but he had always been... father.
Snape spoke up. "Draco, uh... well, I am sure this came as a shock. For that matter, it came as a shock to me as well, because your father had put a spell on me, so I would forget, but I was always attached to you, for some reason I could never understand, though now I understand. And, I just wanted you to know, I will act as your father, hopefully better than Lucius did, and you can always talk to me, you know, and well, I do not expect you to...love me... or anything." Snape looked very uncomfortable at showing such great display of emotion. Narcissa smiled a small smile. Draco was still shocked.
"Well, mum, uh, Professor Snape, I mean father, or, whatever," Draco stammered, "I am going to go to my room, I need to send an owl to someone from school." Draco started to walk away, but he stopped. Then he smiled. "Mum, are you going to marry Professor Snape?" Narcissa and Snape both looked shocked. They had not expected that at all. He grinned, and sauntered out of the room.
His grin left his face when he saw someone familiar standing outside of the room. It was someone he had seen many times, and never expected to see at his home. But he did not look the same. Because this person's flaming red hair, and freckled face were misty and see-through. He was also floating two feet off the ground.
He was a ghost. And to be a ghost, he had to be...
**********************************************************************************************************************8
"Weasly, you're dead?" Malfoy said, shocked.
"No you idiot, I am alive and kicking." Ron frowned at him. "Of course I am dead. Though why I am here, I do not know."
"What, I thought only unhappy people could become ghosts though, like Moaning Myrtle...." Draco spluttered.
"Yes, well I thought so too." Ron said dryly.