Becoming, part 2
Draco made his way to the designated room exactly on time. He knew where he was right up to the final door, at the end of an upper corridor he knew he hadn't seen before. Only last year he'd had Astronomy in the room at the end of the last hall.
Draco ran a finger along the dark red grain of the timber - it flowed there and swirled here. On the other side, everything would be different. They couldn't risk his father knowing about the spell, so it would be done in here, under some sort of protection guarded by Dumbledore himself. In effect, after this, he was someone who had left his parents' house. On the childhood side of the door, tracing the elaborate metalwork of a heavy latch, he extended all the moments in which someone could drag him back to his father's side: a Death Eater could hex him from that doorway; a disloyal Slytherin could bind him; or one of Lucius's flunkies could be sent.
Would he go willingly?
Draco smoothed his hand against the cool wood, searching for a dramatic gesture to mark the gap between this side and that side. He thought of his father's cool sharp eyes on him as he sent his Dark Arts tutor sprawling across the floor at the end of year Exhibition last Spring. Lucius never needed such unsubtle gestures as a smile of approval - Draco had felt his father's acceptance, known that his father would say his name today with the most delicately inflected endorsement.
"Love you, Lucius," he breathed into the wood as he lifted the latch. At least he'd said it once.
Severus watched him enter the room from the edge of the stairwell.
* * *
Dumbledore finally placed his wand upon the table. "The space is ready."
He seemed to shrink and even fade into the background. McGonagall was beside him, supporting Dumbledore physically now as she had in the working of the spell.
Snape took Draco's left hand and raised his wand. Without fanfare he said, "Alio clarescet."
Snape's voice rolled over him, all fantasies and nightmares. Draco closed his eyes and listened to his blood roar in response, and then it was suddenly swept away under a wash of silence.
For a moment Draco felt he was in a large open space, and the light through his eyelids seemed shifting and muted, but when he looked there was only dark torchlight in a cold tiled chamber. A rose and a snake entwined in the fresco on the wall writhed a little as his eyes passed over them.
"If that is all, Headmaster?" Snape's voice came.
"Really, Severus, see to the boy," McGonagall said.
"He's not a boy any longer, Minerva."
"He will be sixteen no matter what you do to him, Severus."
"Now Minerva," Dumbledore said tiredly, "we know the boy freely chose."
"Only Severus would choose such an archaic. . ."
Draco tried to follow the conversation, tried to move with Snape as he turned away from the others, tried to remind himself what it meant that he was now following Snape, and that Snape would call him Draco, no longer Malfoy, the house he had left. His feet were planted firmly on the tiles, wound into and rooted amongst the tiles, which moved like the snake and the rose, shifting in a tide of silence.
"Draco," Snape's voice running over his skin. "Can you walk?"
"Do you even know what you've done?" - that's McGonagall.
"He will recover soon enough."
It will be soon enough, Draco thought; the snake looked up at him with rose red eyes.
"Keep that look for your rash Gryffindors, Minerva. I did not want this, I do not want it now. I do it for all our sakes."
For the sake of us all, Draco remembered, as the rose pulsed outwards, swallowing the snake and the room in a red flare.
"Watch out, catch him!"
* * *
There was a field of dark green grass, Draco knew, under a red sky folded over with shifting dark clouds. He opened his eyes. He was alone. The clouds rushed westward chased by a black wind, but there were always more to follow.
Draco lifted his hand to see the weight of the ring. His hand was pale and bright, almost opalescent. The thought drifted through his head. His robe of silver mesh slid down his arm, exposing his silver-white wrist and his smooth inner arm. No mark, he thought, just as the ridges of the mark emerged, rising out of his skin, silver ridges mapping the rose and the snake, throbbing as the voice said, "Draco?"
* * *
He was on a dark bed, there was candlelight some distance away, past the half-closed curtains.
"You're awake," he heard Snape say.
His eyes travelled over the dark quilt, the white sheets. He pulled himself upright and immediately pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to look at his arm.
His robe was gone, he realised. Which meant, probably Snape had undressed him - or, at least, removed his robe and shoes. Snape took off my shoes, Draco thought in a slightly dazed way, and I slept through it.
"It wasn't particularly exciting, I guarantee," Snape said as he moved into the gap between the curtains, pushing the curtains on one side back to the wall and placing a candle under a thick glass cover on the table beside the bed.
Snape's dark hair fell over his pale candlelit face, and Draco realised they were alone in his bed. Dark eyes turned in his direction.
"Let me make something clear, Mr Malfoy. . ."
"I'm not." Snape looked down at him; Draco looked away. "Malfoy. I'm not any more. So don't call me that."
"History has a way of sticking to you. . . Draco."
Suddenly sleepy again, Draco dropped back to the bed, his head pillowed on one arm still looking up at the man looking down at him. The eyes, the mouth, the hands, he'd watched so many times. So much closer to him now, above him as he lay sprawled in Snape's bed.
* * *
When Draco awoke everything was exactly the same. He rolled in the sheets looking for light; he was alone again.
Snape lived in the dungeons, of course, where there was no dawn, and his internal clock must be consistent and overbearing, like the rest of him really.
"As you're awake now," Snape's voice came from somewhere outside the curtains, "you should come and eat."
Draco slid out of bed in his shirt, and the world grew very dizzy - no red sky or grass this time, but grey and not at all pleasant.
Snape's hand was under his arm, leading him back to the bed. "Red sky, Draco?"
"You saw that?" Draco suddenly imagined Snape, lying with him in the grass sliding the silver mesh along his arms. Snape moved away and stood above him, looking down with some concern. He moved away and then returned with a glass.
"Drink this." Draco did, without comment or question and Snape sat beside him, apparently rather more concerned. "Do you remember why we did this, Draco?"
Some of the lightness was passing away and a headache seemed to be overtaking him. "For your protection, so you know what I'm doing." The realisation set in heavily, "so you know what I'm thinking."
He turned his head away and Snape watched him for a moment. "It also resembles a complementarity spell in several respects - I will likely develop a little more of your physical health and you will perhaps find you can cast spells or recall potions you did not know; we will need to test out the limits and possibilities."
Guess there'll be no more having sex with Blaise wearing your appearance then, Draco thought. Snape flinched beside him and got up to move away.
"Yes I heard that and I am less than amused that you think me so gullible."
Draco tried to send him the most explicit picture possible of Draco on his hands and knees, one fist dragging on his prick as Snape thrust into him from behind, smooth hands grasping Draco's hips to better fuck him at that pace.
"When you've controlled yourself, there's breakfast," Snape's voice said from a distance.
Draco smiled to himself. This might be fun, which was the last thing he'd expected.
* * *
The morning was filled with slight embarrassments and abortive attempts to not think things that of course he'd already thought so that he could attempt not to think them, but once he was out of the dungeons, Draco found Snape's awareness of his thoughts rather fascinating again. He tried to make a mental map of the range of the spell - certainly it encompassed the entire castle itself. Draco smiled into his Charms text. It might be one- sided, material testimony that the object of his intense attraction didn't trust him at all, but it was genuinely intimate and if it was strange and rather frightening, it was also in some ways what he'd wished for when he made this decision. He wondered what Snape thought of that thought.
Potions was definitely the most promising, because he could watch Snape's responses. He started with how much he hated Potter, skirting well enough over the parts of that which were jealousy or rejection, he thought, and how he despised the fawning adulation of morons like Weasley and sycophants like Granger. He recalled a few choice moments of disconcerting and humiliating Potter and then, when the slight shift in Snape's shoulders seemed to signal him particularly amused, he moved on to Zabini's skills in bed. Snape shot him a glare, and although he more or less knew he'd pay for it later, there was absolutely nothing Snape could do about it right now.
A smile curved across the Potion Master's face and the entire room drew in an anxious breath.
"It occurs to me that Aelwuth's Healing is perhaps rather too much a repetition of last week's assignment. Instead, we will revise Polyjuice."
A number of raised eyebrows were exchanged - they'd done this recently, and it was unlike Snape to make anything easy, but even Hermione wasn't about to question his lesson plan. Only Draco really hesitated as they removed last term's notebooks.
"You'll prepare the formula as usual, and we'll test its quality with a secondary potion which has the interesting effect of revealing previous uses of Polyjuice - those of you considering Auror training will be required to make this on your entrance exam."
It was also unlike Snape to give them anything interesting, and for different reasons, or at least with different attitudes to it, everyone was now sure Snape wanted to catch some misuse of Polyjuice. Hermione looked anxiously at Ron and Harry, who were silently asking each other the same questions. No, they didn't think it was them - how long ago would the potion be able to test anyway?
Half the Slytherins were looking at Potter as well, with much more satisfaction, but Blaise tried desperately to catch Draco's eye. The blond boy's hand hovered over the open book, but instead of looking at Blaise he looked up to meet Snape's eyes.
Don't make me do this, Draco thought urgently - you really don't want them to know.
TBC
Draco made his way to the designated room exactly on time. He knew where he was right up to the final door, at the end of an upper corridor he knew he hadn't seen before. Only last year he'd had Astronomy in the room at the end of the last hall.
Draco ran a finger along the dark red grain of the timber - it flowed there and swirled here. On the other side, everything would be different. They couldn't risk his father knowing about the spell, so it would be done in here, under some sort of protection guarded by Dumbledore himself. In effect, after this, he was someone who had left his parents' house. On the childhood side of the door, tracing the elaborate metalwork of a heavy latch, he extended all the moments in which someone could drag him back to his father's side: a Death Eater could hex him from that doorway; a disloyal Slytherin could bind him; or one of Lucius's flunkies could be sent.
Would he go willingly?
Draco smoothed his hand against the cool wood, searching for a dramatic gesture to mark the gap between this side and that side. He thought of his father's cool sharp eyes on him as he sent his Dark Arts tutor sprawling across the floor at the end of year Exhibition last Spring. Lucius never needed such unsubtle gestures as a smile of approval - Draco had felt his father's acceptance, known that his father would say his name today with the most delicately inflected endorsement.
"Love you, Lucius," he breathed into the wood as he lifted the latch. At least he'd said it once.
Severus watched him enter the room from the edge of the stairwell.
* * *
Dumbledore finally placed his wand upon the table. "The space is ready."
He seemed to shrink and even fade into the background. McGonagall was beside him, supporting Dumbledore physically now as she had in the working of the spell.
Snape took Draco's left hand and raised his wand. Without fanfare he said, "Alio clarescet."
Snape's voice rolled over him, all fantasies and nightmares. Draco closed his eyes and listened to his blood roar in response, and then it was suddenly swept away under a wash of silence.
For a moment Draco felt he was in a large open space, and the light through his eyelids seemed shifting and muted, but when he looked there was only dark torchlight in a cold tiled chamber. A rose and a snake entwined in the fresco on the wall writhed a little as his eyes passed over them.
"If that is all, Headmaster?" Snape's voice came.
"Really, Severus, see to the boy," McGonagall said.
"He's not a boy any longer, Minerva."
"He will be sixteen no matter what you do to him, Severus."
"Now Minerva," Dumbledore said tiredly, "we know the boy freely chose."
"Only Severus would choose such an archaic. . ."
Draco tried to follow the conversation, tried to move with Snape as he turned away from the others, tried to remind himself what it meant that he was now following Snape, and that Snape would call him Draco, no longer Malfoy, the house he had left. His feet were planted firmly on the tiles, wound into and rooted amongst the tiles, which moved like the snake and the rose, shifting in a tide of silence.
"Draco," Snape's voice running over his skin. "Can you walk?"
"Do you even know what you've done?" - that's McGonagall.
"He will recover soon enough."
It will be soon enough, Draco thought; the snake looked up at him with rose red eyes.
"Keep that look for your rash Gryffindors, Minerva. I did not want this, I do not want it now. I do it for all our sakes."
For the sake of us all, Draco remembered, as the rose pulsed outwards, swallowing the snake and the room in a red flare.
"Watch out, catch him!"
* * *
There was a field of dark green grass, Draco knew, under a red sky folded over with shifting dark clouds. He opened his eyes. He was alone. The clouds rushed westward chased by a black wind, but there were always more to follow.
Draco lifted his hand to see the weight of the ring. His hand was pale and bright, almost opalescent. The thought drifted through his head. His robe of silver mesh slid down his arm, exposing his silver-white wrist and his smooth inner arm. No mark, he thought, just as the ridges of the mark emerged, rising out of his skin, silver ridges mapping the rose and the snake, throbbing as the voice said, "Draco?"
* * *
He was on a dark bed, there was candlelight some distance away, past the half-closed curtains.
"You're awake," he heard Snape say.
His eyes travelled over the dark quilt, the white sheets. He pulled himself upright and immediately pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to look at his arm.
His robe was gone, he realised. Which meant, probably Snape had undressed him - or, at least, removed his robe and shoes. Snape took off my shoes, Draco thought in a slightly dazed way, and I slept through it.
"It wasn't particularly exciting, I guarantee," Snape said as he moved into the gap between the curtains, pushing the curtains on one side back to the wall and placing a candle under a thick glass cover on the table beside the bed.
Snape's dark hair fell over his pale candlelit face, and Draco realised they were alone in his bed. Dark eyes turned in his direction.
"Let me make something clear, Mr Malfoy. . ."
"I'm not." Snape looked down at him; Draco looked away. "Malfoy. I'm not any more. So don't call me that."
"History has a way of sticking to you. . . Draco."
Suddenly sleepy again, Draco dropped back to the bed, his head pillowed on one arm still looking up at the man looking down at him. The eyes, the mouth, the hands, he'd watched so many times. So much closer to him now, above him as he lay sprawled in Snape's bed.
* * *
When Draco awoke everything was exactly the same. He rolled in the sheets looking for light; he was alone again.
Snape lived in the dungeons, of course, where there was no dawn, and his internal clock must be consistent and overbearing, like the rest of him really.
"As you're awake now," Snape's voice came from somewhere outside the curtains, "you should come and eat."
Draco slid out of bed in his shirt, and the world grew very dizzy - no red sky or grass this time, but grey and not at all pleasant.
Snape's hand was under his arm, leading him back to the bed. "Red sky, Draco?"
"You saw that?" Draco suddenly imagined Snape, lying with him in the grass sliding the silver mesh along his arms. Snape moved away and stood above him, looking down with some concern. He moved away and then returned with a glass.
"Drink this." Draco did, without comment or question and Snape sat beside him, apparently rather more concerned. "Do you remember why we did this, Draco?"
Some of the lightness was passing away and a headache seemed to be overtaking him. "For your protection, so you know what I'm doing." The realisation set in heavily, "so you know what I'm thinking."
He turned his head away and Snape watched him for a moment. "It also resembles a complementarity spell in several respects - I will likely develop a little more of your physical health and you will perhaps find you can cast spells or recall potions you did not know; we will need to test out the limits and possibilities."
Guess there'll be no more having sex with Blaise wearing your appearance then, Draco thought. Snape flinched beside him and got up to move away.
"Yes I heard that and I am less than amused that you think me so gullible."
Draco tried to send him the most explicit picture possible of Draco on his hands and knees, one fist dragging on his prick as Snape thrust into him from behind, smooth hands grasping Draco's hips to better fuck him at that pace.
"When you've controlled yourself, there's breakfast," Snape's voice said from a distance.
Draco smiled to himself. This might be fun, which was the last thing he'd expected.
* * *
The morning was filled with slight embarrassments and abortive attempts to not think things that of course he'd already thought so that he could attempt not to think them, but once he was out of the dungeons, Draco found Snape's awareness of his thoughts rather fascinating again. He tried to make a mental map of the range of the spell - certainly it encompassed the entire castle itself. Draco smiled into his Charms text. It might be one- sided, material testimony that the object of his intense attraction didn't trust him at all, but it was genuinely intimate and if it was strange and rather frightening, it was also in some ways what he'd wished for when he made this decision. He wondered what Snape thought of that thought.
Potions was definitely the most promising, because he could watch Snape's responses. He started with how much he hated Potter, skirting well enough over the parts of that which were jealousy or rejection, he thought, and how he despised the fawning adulation of morons like Weasley and sycophants like Granger. He recalled a few choice moments of disconcerting and humiliating Potter and then, when the slight shift in Snape's shoulders seemed to signal him particularly amused, he moved on to Zabini's skills in bed. Snape shot him a glare, and although he more or less knew he'd pay for it later, there was absolutely nothing Snape could do about it right now.
A smile curved across the Potion Master's face and the entire room drew in an anxious breath.
"It occurs to me that Aelwuth's Healing is perhaps rather too much a repetition of last week's assignment. Instead, we will revise Polyjuice."
A number of raised eyebrows were exchanged - they'd done this recently, and it was unlike Snape to make anything easy, but even Hermione wasn't about to question his lesson plan. Only Draco really hesitated as they removed last term's notebooks.
"You'll prepare the formula as usual, and we'll test its quality with a secondary potion which has the interesting effect of revealing previous uses of Polyjuice - those of you considering Auror training will be required to make this on your entrance exam."
It was also unlike Snape to give them anything interesting, and for different reasons, or at least with different attitudes to it, everyone was now sure Snape wanted to catch some misuse of Polyjuice. Hermione looked anxiously at Ron and Harry, who were silently asking each other the same questions. No, they didn't think it was them - how long ago would the potion be able to test anyway?
Half the Slytherins were looking at Potter as well, with much more satisfaction, but Blaise tried desperately to catch Draco's eye. The blond boy's hand hovered over the open book, but instead of looking at Blaise he looked up to meet Snape's eyes.
Don't make me do this, Draco thought urgently - you really don't want them to know.
TBC
