On chairs brought down from the classroom above they ate dinner, delicious
as usual, with wine, which was not. Apparently many magical items had to be
unpacked by hand, and that, for some reason, was what Draco had been
helping with.
"The house elves can't do that?" Harry asked, slightly incredulous.
"Well the elves are more than willing but, sometimes, they are a little more enthusiastic than cautious, particularly with magical items."
Harry had never heard that before, but Remus and Draco both seemed perfectly satisfied that it was true, or at least satisfied to pretend they did.
Draco was indecently polite to Remus, in Harry's opinion, considering he'd always hated him and not only, as far as Harry was concerned, contributed to his being sacked once, but helped ensure he didn't get the Defence Against the Dark Arts position when it regularly came up after.
When Remus went to find the images of Paris he'd been talking about, Harry whispered, "What do you think you're doing Malfoy?"
"What am I doing?"
"You. . ." Harry whispered fiercely, "You're pretending to be friendly to him."
Draco looked surprised. "I am being friendly to him."
"You hate him."
"What? I hardly think anything about him at all."
"You said he dressed like a house elf; and now you're acting all 'oh Paris, don't you just love. . .' - like you're friends."
Draco sat back and his face radiated disdain. "It's called being polite, Potter. I don't know about you, but Malfoys are taught to be polite."
"We're not guests, Malfoy; we're hiding you, or something."
Draco stood up angrily.
"And, I don't know what kind of polite this is," Harry said, placing the silver ball on the table, "but it rudely interrupted my meal this morning."
"Ah, here they are," Remus said from the other side of the door. "Although perhaps I don't have the ones of Versailles at all," he added, coming in.
Harry and Draco stood either side of the table, not growling at one another.
"And this is it," Remus said, looking down at the silver sphere.
He gently turned it from side to side. "It's a very complex spell, Draco. A lot of trouble to go to." He glanced at Harry. "Do remember to tell your father I was impressed when you write to him."
Draco settled for "Of course, Professor," and, after a pause, "Thank you."
As they sat, Remus kept one hand on the ball, moving it around slowly. Harry felt strangely uncomfortable with him reading what was written there, but not as uncomfortable as Draco suddenly seemed.
"You know," Remus said, "this is actually very like. . ." he looked up at Draco.
"Praetermittere," the boy replied softly.
"Is it?" Lupin asked with some excitement.
Draco took out his wand, but as Remus didn't react Harry just watched Draco touch it to the seal and whisper, "Accio."
There was a shimmer and then an image appeared across its surface - like a wizarding photograph but from all sides. A much younger Draco flourished a wand, mouthing a command they couldn't hear. Some kind of dark bird appeared before him and, in a flurry of feathers, flew upwards and out of sight. Image-Draco watched it go and then turned, as if to those watching him, and gave a full, brilliant smile.
Draco quickly touched his wand to the seal again and the ball reverted back to its metallic sheen with rolling cursive script. "a union of wizarding powers" caught Harry's eye and he looked away, to Remus, then, along the line of the werewolf's sight, to Draco, who looked. . . wounded.
Harry didn't know what to do with young Draco's dazzling smile or this Draco's visible pain, so he looked at the table and only heard the other boy get up and leave the room.
"What is it, Remus?"
Remus was looking out after Draco Malfoy.
"You could call it a memory frame - it's a little like a penseive except you use it to give memories to someone else. Very difficult to make."
"Malfoy gave me a memory of Draco?" Remus didn't reply. "Why would he do that?"
"I expect the point was to be giving them away, and for Draco to know that he had."
"Do you mean. . ."
Remus kept an eye on the door. "So he can say he doesn't have, doesn't want, that memory any more."
"But, why that one?"
Remus shrugged, "There may be more. . ."
Harry grabbed the thing and threw it against the far wall, where it hit with a sharp thwack and fell to the ground, rolling towards the hearth. Harry drew his wand, and Remus stopped him. "Whatever Lucius' motives, I don't know if those are memories that should be destroyed."
When Draco returned, the ball was on Lupin's mantle. Without looking at it, Draco quickly said, "I wanted to say thank you for dinner," there was a slight nod, "Goodnight"
"Draco, if you don't mind, there is something else I wanted to discuss with you."
And Harry said "Actually, I have to be somewhere," he looked around as if for a clock, "soon, or even now".
Draco gave them a tense, disbelieving look, but he didn't protest or leave.
Harry tried to find something to say that Draco wouldn't sneer at or. . . grey eyes met green eyes. They were both trapped in this - me and Draco, Draco and I - unless they could do something about it now.
"Your father's unbelievably cruel." It wasn't subtle, but. . .
"Malfoys exceed in everything." Draco replied with, of all things, a smile.
"Right."
"I'll be fine, Harry."
He laughed, shocked. "Harry? With witnesses," he looked towards Lupin.
"I'm considering some strategic realignment."
"Is this like castling? Ron's tried to teach me, but I've never got castling."
"Something like that," Draco replied. "Style, effort, and at least three moves ahead. My father is also a very good teacher. In his own way."
* * *
Harry walked quickly up to Snape's door and knocked, firmly, pulling off his cloak as he did and nervously eyeing the corridor.
The door swung open. "Mr Potter."
Snape was at his desk, there was a fire - it probably was cooler down here - a lounge and an armchair nearby, a green leather let-me-intimidate-you chair near the desk and, it looked like, tea things on a side table.
"Yes, Mr Potter, I drink tea. I also eat; perhaps you haven't been paying attention all these years when we dine in the same hall. Now," Snape put down the quill, "if you've finished gawking. . ." Harry lay the cloak over a chair and nervously wiped his hands. "I presume you've come to tell me what presumably life-threatening emergency kept you away from my class this morning."
Harry took a breath, and Snape gave him a long look then gestured for him to take the armchair. Green leather and almost black wood, Harry thought. How Slytherin.
"Mr Potter? Any time now."
"No." Harry said, in a voice quieter than he wanted.
"I beg your pardon?"
That seemed faintly amusing to Harry, but hopefully it wasn't obvious - not a child anymore, repeat, not a child. . . "I'm sure you know why I wasn't in class."
"Brooding and whining over the indignity of a proposal from the Malfoys."
"Apart from the indignity bit - more like stomach-churning terror."
"You will make up the class - Ms Granger no doubt will lend you voluminous notes and you will give me an essay on the topic of both hours in relation to one another by Friday, in lieu of today's missed classes." They both knew that was a lot more lenient than he expected. "If that is all. . ?"
"No."
"Potter, do get to the point then."
"You asked me, more or less, to keep an eye on Draco?"
"I doubt that's the point," Snape replied.
Harry pitched his voice as firmly as possible. "This will go a lot easier if you could give up the evil pose for the duration of the conversation."
Snape gave him Sardonic Smile #3, the now-you-have-five-minutes-to-avoid- detention-for-life special. They'd catalogued them once - #3 had been Harry's contribution.
"Draco's under something like house arrest in the dormitory. Dumbledore seems to have asked Remus Lupin to take care of him. He's there now. His father sent me one, or maybe more, happy, I think, memories of Draco." He looked at Snape. "Along with the declaration to me, he's clearly trying to humiliate him."
Snape stood up and poured himself tea. "And you are telling me this because. . ?"
"You asked me to - more or less."
"I've never known you," he said, putting down the pot steadily, "to be so compliant."
Harry suspected Snape was good enough at all this - lies, secrets and silence - to know that this was the moment. "I said you would owe me."
Snape handed Harry the cup of tea and sat down again, not behind the desk, but near the fire, on the dark lounge - black or dark red or green, it was kind of dim over there. "And what is it you think I owe you."
"We have three hours left, maybe a little more," Snape clearly shifted, but Harry couldn't see his expression, "and you need to send a declaration to me."
There was no hesitation. "Do tell me why."
Snape lent on the arm of the lounge. The sight of Professor Snape apparently relaxing like that, hardly lounging but definitely un-stiffened, was beyond weird. Harry got up and moved to the armchair facing the lounge. There was a lot of space between them, but it still seemed close and too informal. He tried looking at the fire.
"Ron and Hermione - you would have noticed."
"They were hardly subtle."
"So. Your declaration to Hermione is no use to you now."
"I am fairly confident I have more to offer than Ronald Weasley."
"Except that's not how it works, is it." Harry folded both legs under him and gave Snape a glance. "I'm really happy for them, but it's so easy too - just say you want each other and everyone is thrilled and excited."
If Snape knew what he meant he didn't give a clue. "There is more at stake that Mr Weasley's love life."
Not watching Snape didn't particularly seem to help Harry's concentration, because his voice was, in fact, more than a bit attractive, and he kept hearing Oliver Wood in his head saying Snape really was rather - rather what, he really should have heard that out. Having Snape say "love life," even in that snide tone. . .
"You have to participate. . ."
"So this is some Gryffindor insanity, is it? Rescue the poor Professor from Slytherin plots to entangle him."
"Maybe it's a Slytherin insanity to rescue myself from Death Eater plots."
Snape seemed to hesitate. "Did the Headmaster suggest this?"
Harry felt that was a minor victory for some reason. "You don't need anything as publicly complicated as competing with Ron Weasley for Hermione's contract, and I need. . ." Out of the corner of an eye caught Snape's movement, and faltered. "Malfoy obviously has plans I need to avoid, and you would be a distraction. . ." Snape snorted. "I mean, he'd likely think he was getting what he wanted from both of us."
He heard Snape move and watched him unfold, smoothly, and walk to the fireplace, whispering something that pushed the fire down to flickering embers. "And you're suggesting, are you, that my competing with Draco Malfoy for Harry Potter's contract would be less publicly complicated."
"It makes more sense," Harry replied quickly.
"You're hardly apprentice material." Not scorn, just a statement of fact.
"You're gay, and. . . I'm gay." He just couldn't help adding, "I mean, it seems. And, well, they think I'm enough of a fool, and you're enough of a bastard. . ."
This time there was scorn. "And you think I'm a likely partner for that experiment?"
Harry looked away, at the lounge where the Professor had, ah, lounged - no, at the floor. Do it. "They just have to believe it, I mean, it doesn't have to mean. . ."
Suddenly Snape was leaning right over him, touching distance, then brush of his robe distance, then body heat on his hands and breath on his face and very dark eyes very close and that voice saying, "But that's what you want, isn't it?"
"The house elves can't do that?" Harry asked, slightly incredulous.
"Well the elves are more than willing but, sometimes, they are a little more enthusiastic than cautious, particularly with magical items."
Harry had never heard that before, but Remus and Draco both seemed perfectly satisfied that it was true, or at least satisfied to pretend they did.
Draco was indecently polite to Remus, in Harry's opinion, considering he'd always hated him and not only, as far as Harry was concerned, contributed to his being sacked once, but helped ensure he didn't get the Defence Against the Dark Arts position when it regularly came up after.
When Remus went to find the images of Paris he'd been talking about, Harry whispered, "What do you think you're doing Malfoy?"
"What am I doing?"
"You. . ." Harry whispered fiercely, "You're pretending to be friendly to him."
Draco looked surprised. "I am being friendly to him."
"You hate him."
"What? I hardly think anything about him at all."
"You said he dressed like a house elf; and now you're acting all 'oh Paris, don't you just love. . .' - like you're friends."
Draco sat back and his face radiated disdain. "It's called being polite, Potter. I don't know about you, but Malfoys are taught to be polite."
"We're not guests, Malfoy; we're hiding you, or something."
Draco stood up angrily.
"And, I don't know what kind of polite this is," Harry said, placing the silver ball on the table, "but it rudely interrupted my meal this morning."
"Ah, here they are," Remus said from the other side of the door. "Although perhaps I don't have the ones of Versailles at all," he added, coming in.
Harry and Draco stood either side of the table, not growling at one another.
"And this is it," Remus said, looking down at the silver sphere.
He gently turned it from side to side. "It's a very complex spell, Draco. A lot of trouble to go to." He glanced at Harry. "Do remember to tell your father I was impressed when you write to him."
Draco settled for "Of course, Professor," and, after a pause, "Thank you."
As they sat, Remus kept one hand on the ball, moving it around slowly. Harry felt strangely uncomfortable with him reading what was written there, but not as uncomfortable as Draco suddenly seemed.
"You know," Remus said, "this is actually very like. . ." he looked up at Draco.
"Praetermittere," the boy replied softly.
"Is it?" Lupin asked with some excitement.
Draco took out his wand, but as Remus didn't react Harry just watched Draco touch it to the seal and whisper, "Accio."
There was a shimmer and then an image appeared across its surface - like a wizarding photograph but from all sides. A much younger Draco flourished a wand, mouthing a command they couldn't hear. Some kind of dark bird appeared before him and, in a flurry of feathers, flew upwards and out of sight. Image-Draco watched it go and then turned, as if to those watching him, and gave a full, brilliant smile.
Draco quickly touched his wand to the seal again and the ball reverted back to its metallic sheen with rolling cursive script. "a union of wizarding powers" caught Harry's eye and he looked away, to Remus, then, along the line of the werewolf's sight, to Draco, who looked. . . wounded.
Harry didn't know what to do with young Draco's dazzling smile or this Draco's visible pain, so he looked at the table and only heard the other boy get up and leave the room.
"What is it, Remus?"
Remus was looking out after Draco Malfoy.
"You could call it a memory frame - it's a little like a penseive except you use it to give memories to someone else. Very difficult to make."
"Malfoy gave me a memory of Draco?" Remus didn't reply. "Why would he do that?"
"I expect the point was to be giving them away, and for Draco to know that he had."
"Do you mean. . ."
Remus kept an eye on the door. "So he can say he doesn't have, doesn't want, that memory any more."
"But, why that one?"
Remus shrugged, "There may be more. . ."
Harry grabbed the thing and threw it against the far wall, where it hit with a sharp thwack and fell to the ground, rolling towards the hearth. Harry drew his wand, and Remus stopped him. "Whatever Lucius' motives, I don't know if those are memories that should be destroyed."
When Draco returned, the ball was on Lupin's mantle. Without looking at it, Draco quickly said, "I wanted to say thank you for dinner," there was a slight nod, "Goodnight"
"Draco, if you don't mind, there is something else I wanted to discuss with you."
And Harry said "Actually, I have to be somewhere," he looked around as if for a clock, "soon, or even now".
Draco gave them a tense, disbelieving look, but he didn't protest or leave.
Harry tried to find something to say that Draco wouldn't sneer at or. . . grey eyes met green eyes. They were both trapped in this - me and Draco, Draco and I - unless they could do something about it now.
"Your father's unbelievably cruel." It wasn't subtle, but. . .
"Malfoys exceed in everything." Draco replied with, of all things, a smile.
"Right."
"I'll be fine, Harry."
He laughed, shocked. "Harry? With witnesses," he looked towards Lupin.
"I'm considering some strategic realignment."
"Is this like castling? Ron's tried to teach me, but I've never got castling."
"Something like that," Draco replied. "Style, effort, and at least three moves ahead. My father is also a very good teacher. In his own way."
* * *
Harry walked quickly up to Snape's door and knocked, firmly, pulling off his cloak as he did and nervously eyeing the corridor.
The door swung open. "Mr Potter."
Snape was at his desk, there was a fire - it probably was cooler down here - a lounge and an armchair nearby, a green leather let-me-intimidate-you chair near the desk and, it looked like, tea things on a side table.
"Yes, Mr Potter, I drink tea. I also eat; perhaps you haven't been paying attention all these years when we dine in the same hall. Now," Snape put down the quill, "if you've finished gawking. . ." Harry lay the cloak over a chair and nervously wiped his hands. "I presume you've come to tell me what presumably life-threatening emergency kept you away from my class this morning."
Harry took a breath, and Snape gave him a long look then gestured for him to take the armchair. Green leather and almost black wood, Harry thought. How Slytherin.
"Mr Potter? Any time now."
"No." Harry said, in a voice quieter than he wanted.
"I beg your pardon?"
That seemed faintly amusing to Harry, but hopefully it wasn't obvious - not a child anymore, repeat, not a child. . . "I'm sure you know why I wasn't in class."
"Brooding and whining over the indignity of a proposal from the Malfoys."
"Apart from the indignity bit - more like stomach-churning terror."
"You will make up the class - Ms Granger no doubt will lend you voluminous notes and you will give me an essay on the topic of both hours in relation to one another by Friday, in lieu of today's missed classes." They both knew that was a lot more lenient than he expected. "If that is all. . ?"
"No."
"Potter, do get to the point then."
"You asked me, more or less, to keep an eye on Draco?"
"I doubt that's the point," Snape replied.
Harry pitched his voice as firmly as possible. "This will go a lot easier if you could give up the evil pose for the duration of the conversation."
Snape gave him Sardonic Smile #3, the now-you-have-five-minutes-to-avoid- detention-for-life special. They'd catalogued them once - #3 had been Harry's contribution.
"Draco's under something like house arrest in the dormitory. Dumbledore seems to have asked Remus Lupin to take care of him. He's there now. His father sent me one, or maybe more, happy, I think, memories of Draco." He looked at Snape. "Along with the declaration to me, he's clearly trying to humiliate him."
Snape stood up and poured himself tea. "And you are telling me this because. . ?"
"You asked me to - more or less."
"I've never known you," he said, putting down the pot steadily, "to be so compliant."
Harry suspected Snape was good enough at all this - lies, secrets and silence - to know that this was the moment. "I said you would owe me."
Snape handed Harry the cup of tea and sat down again, not behind the desk, but near the fire, on the dark lounge - black or dark red or green, it was kind of dim over there. "And what is it you think I owe you."
"We have three hours left, maybe a little more," Snape clearly shifted, but Harry couldn't see his expression, "and you need to send a declaration to me."
There was no hesitation. "Do tell me why."
Snape lent on the arm of the lounge. The sight of Professor Snape apparently relaxing like that, hardly lounging but definitely un-stiffened, was beyond weird. Harry got up and moved to the armchair facing the lounge. There was a lot of space between them, but it still seemed close and too informal. He tried looking at the fire.
"Ron and Hermione - you would have noticed."
"They were hardly subtle."
"So. Your declaration to Hermione is no use to you now."
"I am fairly confident I have more to offer than Ronald Weasley."
"Except that's not how it works, is it." Harry folded both legs under him and gave Snape a glance. "I'm really happy for them, but it's so easy too - just say you want each other and everyone is thrilled and excited."
If Snape knew what he meant he didn't give a clue. "There is more at stake that Mr Weasley's love life."
Not watching Snape didn't particularly seem to help Harry's concentration, because his voice was, in fact, more than a bit attractive, and he kept hearing Oliver Wood in his head saying Snape really was rather - rather what, he really should have heard that out. Having Snape say "love life," even in that snide tone. . .
"You have to participate. . ."
"So this is some Gryffindor insanity, is it? Rescue the poor Professor from Slytherin plots to entangle him."
"Maybe it's a Slytherin insanity to rescue myself from Death Eater plots."
Snape seemed to hesitate. "Did the Headmaster suggest this?"
Harry felt that was a minor victory for some reason. "You don't need anything as publicly complicated as competing with Ron Weasley for Hermione's contract, and I need. . ." Out of the corner of an eye caught Snape's movement, and faltered. "Malfoy obviously has plans I need to avoid, and you would be a distraction. . ." Snape snorted. "I mean, he'd likely think he was getting what he wanted from both of us."
He heard Snape move and watched him unfold, smoothly, and walk to the fireplace, whispering something that pushed the fire down to flickering embers. "And you're suggesting, are you, that my competing with Draco Malfoy for Harry Potter's contract would be less publicly complicated."
"It makes more sense," Harry replied quickly.
"You're hardly apprentice material." Not scorn, just a statement of fact.
"You're gay, and. . . I'm gay." He just couldn't help adding, "I mean, it seems. And, well, they think I'm enough of a fool, and you're enough of a bastard. . ."
This time there was scorn. "And you think I'm a likely partner for that experiment?"
Harry looked away, at the lounge where the Professor had, ah, lounged - no, at the floor. Do it. "They just have to believe it, I mean, it doesn't have to mean. . ."
Suddenly Snape was leaning right over him, touching distance, then brush of his robe distance, then body heat on his hands and breath on his face and very dark eyes very close and that voice saying, "But that's what you want, isn't it?"
