===================
Chapter 5
---------
A different view of Chapters 6-8 of Runaway Dragon
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=431805&chapter=6
How long has it been now? Four days?
It's as though he's been here forever. Off swimming with his gang, helping Sarah, and I wonder if he knows how much I owe him for that.
And how much I owe him for Billy.
Better get him a new home quickly, before everyone gets too attached to him, from Munin on up. ( Or down? Who owns who is never clear with ravens.) He can't stay here, he can't live here, he has to get back to his relatives, he has to get back to his own people. Who can look after him, pay for his education, set him up in life.
Focus on that, find them, hand him over. Don't get attached, Severus Snape, don't get attached to this stranger with Draco's name who fits so well into your life.
And Sarah's life. You can't give him to her. He's not yours to give.
So many things you want to give her and can't.
------------
Well, some things are the same I suppose. Confession time in the lab is like confession time in the Serpent's Den: corner them, look at them, wait for the truth to emerge.
And then try and teach them how to deal with the problems, how to see the power structures, how to use them. How to make alliances, not break them.
"Ah Draco, you ought to know this. It's just like Hogwarts really. It's not about not being afraid of Hagrid, it's about pretending not to be afraid of Hagrid."
Funny that there's never been a reason to have this chat with Draco. He was more isolated than I'd realised. With his money and his goons and his influence, he'd never had to learn this stuff the way the others did. I've been failing this boy. He'd have been frighteningly alone without his props, and with no understanding of how to live without them.
But at least he realises the basics.
"What do I do if the Sharks attack the Rakers?" "What would you do if the Gryffindors attacked the Slytherins?" "Fight?" "Fight."
Your house is your family. You protect what's yours. You look after your own, because no one else will. Hogwarts or here, it's all the same.
Monsters everywhere. Fight.
And don't think about what happens when you lose.
--------------
He's hurting. Nightmares, well, I know what those are. Not good. Not good at all.
He's starting to realise how different things are. Oh I remember what it was like, to realise that everything you took for granted was gone. How many homes and Gringott's vaults are in Ministry hands now? Mine and Lucius's, certainly. Legal theft. I might have deserved it, I *did* deserve it, but Draco doesn't.
Things are going to be very different when school starts if we can't find him a rich relative. Too bad he's not a Weasley, you trip over one of them everywhere you go. Malfoys seem to be thin on the ground, although this is the first time that's made me anything but very happy....
To think I was worried he'd get hurt by the local kids. He fits in with a bunch of West Hogsmeade tearaways far better than he did in the Den. He used money and hired muscle there, when he uses his brains and his charm he does a lot better. I wonder if he'll realise that come school time? And will he think about all this when he gets back to Malfoy-land?
If this stranger with Draco's name doesn't revert to type as soon as he gets back amongst his own kind, he'll be an asset to me in the Serpent's Den. If.
----------
Always interesting to see familiar things through other's eyes.
A group of West Hogsmeade kids trying to cope with Hogwarts. Well, I see it every year with the muggleborn first years, but somehow I'd expected these wizardborn to handle it the way all the other wizardborn do. But of course Hogwarts and all it is and has is outside their ken.
Eyes large as dinner plates, and trying hard not to show how overwhelming and disturbing it is for kids from another world.
I've been at this school so long that I don't notice the sheer ostentation of it. Sarah sees it of course, it's high on her list of "Reasons I hate Hogwarts and what it does to Severus". Along with things like "he's trapped there as an indentured servant on low wages with no escape, and a few rare potion ingredients are no substitute for freedom".
Something which I do not feel like discussing with strangers.
---------
More ostentation in the library. I'm so used to having all this, it is hard to remember that it's something half the world will never see.
How many of these books have not been touched in a generation?
It's hardly surprising that the Malfoys aren't listed. Most of the more... difficult oldbloods aren't. You won't find anything under "Snape" for example, not Achilleus, not Maria, and not of course the one who got caught. And you most certainly won't find "Snape, William". Billy isn't the world's best kept secret, but I am not about to announce his existence quite so loudly.
They might not be in the owlbook, but leave it to them to be obvious in other ways. Father always did think the Malfoys a bit Not-Quite. A bit too fond of ostentatious public display. You won't find "History of the Snapes" in any public library, we are as old as the Malfoys, but a lot less loud about it. Especially what's left of us.
I wouldn't say "nothing to be loud about" where Father could hear.
----------
I collect them all easily enough, amazing what you learn teaching. At least finding a few bewildered kids in the library is easier than 70 odd young horrors in Hogsmeade. Intimidating Omnipresent Snape is such a useful man to be then. Luckily Hogwarts without students isn't triggering my school self, I think these youngsters would be shocked if they met the man I usually am here. Even Draco, he's never seen the monster coming for him.
Draco's not happy, I don't need to see him to know that. He'd quiet, his steps uncertain behind me. Loss of family? Scared of a world that might be as strange to him as this great pile is to his friends? The future is always frightening Draco, I just hope you have one.
"You're one of us now", that's Mike. I wonder if anyone has said that in quite that tone of voice to Draco before. I've heard it of course, but it wasn't said like that. Not with that tone of voice, that note of friendship and protection. Funny, Sarah insists on thinking of the Death Eaters as just another gang, a phase I went through like every other kid she knows.
I can't tell if that is utter stupidity or serene wisdom.
Does it matter?
I wish everyone else would believe it was a phase I've grown out of.
If they did, I might believe it too.
---------