Becoming, part 3
As Draco entered Snape's rooms he tried to keep his mind blank, although Snape would know he was struggling not to think about something.
"Sit down," Snape said abruptly. As Draco complied, Snape moved to his favourite chair, upholstered in a deep red cloth embroidered with similar coloured silks in a design of phoenixes in flight, as Draco had determined at the first opportunity. You couldn't tell from where he sat now, though, you had to. . .
"Stop that," Snape said. When Draco looked at him, he added sharply, "Tell me."
"The last person I imitated using Polyjuice was Voldemort." Draco couldn't help the scene flashing through his mind as he said it, and he held himself tensely, perhaps primed for flight, although at this point who knew where he could run to. Even if his father didn't know about the spell, and the silence from Malfoy Manor suggested he didn't, it still wasn't a safe place for him now.
"I presume you're not stupid enough to embrace that fantasy yourself, so what idiot wanted to play your father in such a scene? Zabini's tastes don't run that way, I'm sure."
Draco actually took a moment to get Snape's meaning, and as he felt only numb that was probably all that entered his mind. "You mean you think I let someone take my father's form and. . . No, Professor Snape, I really don't think so."
"Then. . ." Draco was fairly sure his thoughts didn't give it away - he was very good at not thinking about it - but Snape clearly reached a conclusion himself. If someone who looked like Lucius had been fucking Draco-as- Voldemort, and if it was highly unlikely Draco would allow someone to do that there was really only one possibility.
Draco waited for the question, his fingernails biting into the flesh of his palms, until Snape got up and left the room.
* * *
Snape was always on time, so Draco immediately began pondering possible crises when the door didn't open at the appropriate moment. They hadn't spoken in more than a day. That wasn't a long time, of course, if you ignored the fact that Snape could hear his every thought. Draco felt strangely like he'd been talking to himself.
Perhaps he should knock? He'd never had to knock before, even when Snape hadn't been able to hear him in the corridor thinking 'come on you stubborn confusing prying insensitive unhelpful git open the bloody door'. Nothing.
"Come in," Snape said distinctly, the moment he knocked.
He was in the usual place, behind his desk, with the usual ledger open in front of him and a primed quill in hand.
"Sit," Snape said, and then he seemed to hesitate, which put Draco rather on edge. "The spell was a necessity, but at present I am confident you have no intention to entrap us."
Draco ventured part of a smile.
"Therefore, as far as possible I will ignore your thoughts. We will carry on as if. . ."
The words disappeared. Although he knew years of practice meant his face did not respond, Draco couldn't help the internal shudder at Snape's obvious disgust. The hurt floated through his mind like a red wavering haze.
He opened his eyes to a red sky, the thick covering of bristling grass pressed the chain links into his skin, a movement of air sped across his skin in time with the sweeping clouds, and the mark on his arm burned. There was a soft sound and a soft scent and a voice in his ear.
"Draco?"
Draco opened his eyes and Snape was looking at him with concern.
"What happened just then?"
Draco just shook his head.
"Your thoughts just disappeared."
Red sky and red clouds, Draco thought, and Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps you should tell me about the red sky."
* * *
"I don't remember."
Snape glared at the page in front of him, quill still poised.
"You know I'm not lying."
"I only know what you do remember, not what you might."
Well, if I was going to repress things, Draco thought, I could choose a few more interesting pieces of information than whether Roland and Evers arrived at a meeting together or merely at the same time.
Snape put down the quill. "Why do we spy, Draco?"
Draco sighed - "To know what Voldemort is planning, what the Death Eaters are doing."
"That's what we achieve through effective spying - I asked why?"
"I've told you that," Draco said.
"Tell me now."
"I want to help you" - Draco remembered Severus Snape on the second landing of the Manor's stairs in a pool of dawn light, dropping his hood and running long pale hands through his hair in exhaustion, and Draco wanted to help. He remembered his father pacing the west wall of the library, dragging tangles from his long fair hair with white fingers, and cursing the stupid misdirection of this war before noticing Draco behind the high- backed reading chair and sending him to bed, or at least away. "I want to help my father."
"He won't thank you for it. And neither will I."
"I'm sure you have a point with this, Professor," Draco said, not bothering to filter the bitterness in his voice.
"While you do this for other people, it will never be as crucial as if you did it for yourself." Snape closed the ledger. "Not because you are a Slytherin, Draco, but because you are human - we can strive for others, but we are passionate for ourselves."
He couldn't remember. Evers struggled to get the hood just right as they walked in. Crabbe gave him that askance superior look and nodded a greeting to Roland, who waited for Evers and nodded. . . "Separately, not together," Draco said.
Snape made his note in a satisfied way.
"Doing it because of you and Lucius is still self-centred," Draco said. Snape indicated his interest by not cutting him off. "I want both of you to be safe for purely selfish reasons."
"But if you had to give your life to stop Voldemort, and there was nothing for you to gain from Lucius or I? Can it be enough about you that it's more important than your own survival?"
After a breath Draco said, "No."
"Then it won't be enough," Snape said, getting to his feet and moving over to make tea, as he always did when the questioning was over.
Draco slammed his eyes together and did not think - would not think. It made no difference what he did or why, it was never enough, never good enough for more than a moment or an afternoon. There was a rising red rush behind his eyes and this time he wanted to be there.
* * *
The warm wind wrapped around his skin, and Draco opened his eyes to the red sky. He rippled his hand through the hissing grass as he swept his arm in an arc embracing the wind and the sky and the earth against his pale skin like, there, the white mark, a snake in a rose if you knew what to look for. Almost invisible, it pulsed in time with his blood.
What was that rhyme about red sky and shepherds; was there rain here; did the days pass? He shifted to see the horizon, and the grass and the chain links dragged roughly against his skin. Not painful, or not in a bad way. Like the trail of his father's fingernails, like the echo of Snape's whipped commands. The mark throbbed hard, then, and began to burn as theirs must when the Dark Lord summoned them. He raised his arm as if this shadowless land could offer better light.
He watched, fascinated, as the faintest shadow of red began to form in the petals of the rose. A thought whispered to him that their mark was black, scorched channels in the flesh. He tried to shake the thought off, but the colour was fading again, and the clouds were rushing faster in a black wind. He strained to see where the rose became a snake and the snake became a rose but the light was fading, and someone put a hand to his wrist in the sunset like spilled blood, whispering to him, "Draco come back."
"I will," he promised to the grass and the warm air, before the painful rush of blue light around him forced his eyes open.
Snape was holding a glass to his mouth, and he drank the syrupy liquid, which numbed his lips.
* * *
"We need to isolate the triggers which send you into the trance state," Snape was saying, pacing carefully around his stacks of papers and books and delicate instruments that Draco had never seen him touch. "It might also be useful to isolate the symbolic traditions associated with the rose and snake icon as that also seems to be a constant - I'll check with Dumbledore about the safe chamber, and tomorrow instead of training you will search the library catalogues."
"I don't mind," Draco said. "It doesn't feel dangerous."
"Well you should," Snape snapped, "and in fact I insist that you do. You are utterly helpless in that condition."
"I. . . all right," Draco said, although he couldn't help wondering what was meant to happen there, with the mark and the wind, why it seemed so important that the rose become red.
"This is serious, Draco," Snape was saying, crouched closely by his chair. "There's no reason the spell should have produced this reaction and every time you take longer to pull yourself free."
"I'm always here," Draco said softly, reaching out to touch Severus's hair, ghosting his fingers along his jaw. "Unless I'm there," he added, furrowing his brow in slight confusion.
Snape didn't move away from his hand, but rather watched Draco's expression intently.
I love you, Draco thought. He watched Snape blink as his lips pressed together in concern. The look of disgust was probably more flattering than pity, he thought.
"No," Snape said softly, moving away. "Not disgust, or pity. Sorrow, perhaps."
Draco couldn't help but hate that, consciously summoning the pride and pleasure he felt in his father's arms, from his father's unspoken desire. "Don't feel sorry for me. I don't."
Snape silently closed the books and returned them to the shelf. With his back turned to Draco he said, "Then perhaps I do pity you after all."
* * *
TBC
As Draco entered Snape's rooms he tried to keep his mind blank, although Snape would know he was struggling not to think about something.
"Sit down," Snape said abruptly. As Draco complied, Snape moved to his favourite chair, upholstered in a deep red cloth embroidered with similar coloured silks in a design of phoenixes in flight, as Draco had determined at the first opportunity. You couldn't tell from where he sat now, though, you had to. . .
"Stop that," Snape said. When Draco looked at him, he added sharply, "Tell me."
"The last person I imitated using Polyjuice was Voldemort." Draco couldn't help the scene flashing through his mind as he said it, and he held himself tensely, perhaps primed for flight, although at this point who knew where he could run to. Even if his father didn't know about the spell, and the silence from Malfoy Manor suggested he didn't, it still wasn't a safe place for him now.
"I presume you're not stupid enough to embrace that fantasy yourself, so what idiot wanted to play your father in such a scene? Zabini's tastes don't run that way, I'm sure."
Draco actually took a moment to get Snape's meaning, and as he felt only numb that was probably all that entered his mind. "You mean you think I let someone take my father's form and. . . No, Professor Snape, I really don't think so."
"Then. . ." Draco was fairly sure his thoughts didn't give it away - he was very good at not thinking about it - but Snape clearly reached a conclusion himself. If someone who looked like Lucius had been fucking Draco-as- Voldemort, and if it was highly unlikely Draco would allow someone to do that there was really only one possibility.
Draco waited for the question, his fingernails biting into the flesh of his palms, until Snape got up and left the room.
* * *
Snape was always on time, so Draco immediately began pondering possible crises when the door didn't open at the appropriate moment. They hadn't spoken in more than a day. That wasn't a long time, of course, if you ignored the fact that Snape could hear his every thought. Draco felt strangely like he'd been talking to himself.
Perhaps he should knock? He'd never had to knock before, even when Snape hadn't been able to hear him in the corridor thinking 'come on you stubborn confusing prying insensitive unhelpful git open the bloody door'. Nothing.
"Come in," Snape said distinctly, the moment he knocked.
He was in the usual place, behind his desk, with the usual ledger open in front of him and a primed quill in hand.
"Sit," Snape said, and then he seemed to hesitate, which put Draco rather on edge. "The spell was a necessity, but at present I am confident you have no intention to entrap us."
Draco ventured part of a smile.
"Therefore, as far as possible I will ignore your thoughts. We will carry on as if. . ."
The words disappeared. Although he knew years of practice meant his face did not respond, Draco couldn't help the internal shudder at Snape's obvious disgust. The hurt floated through his mind like a red wavering haze.
He opened his eyes to a red sky, the thick covering of bristling grass pressed the chain links into his skin, a movement of air sped across his skin in time with the sweeping clouds, and the mark on his arm burned. There was a soft sound and a soft scent and a voice in his ear.
"Draco?"
Draco opened his eyes and Snape was looking at him with concern.
"What happened just then?"
Draco just shook his head.
"Your thoughts just disappeared."
Red sky and red clouds, Draco thought, and Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps you should tell me about the red sky."
* * *
"I don't remember."
Snape glared at the page in front of him, quill still poised.
"You know I'm not lying."
"I only know what you do remember, not what you might."
Well, if I was going to repress things, Draco thought, I could choose a few more interesting pieces of information than whether Roland and Evers arrived at a meeting together or merely at the same time.
Snape put down the quill. "Why do we spy, Draco?"
Draco sighed - "To know what Voldemort is planning, what the Death Eaters are doing."
"That's what we achieve through effective spying - I asked why?"
"I've told you that," Draco said.
"Tell me now."
"I want to help you" - Draco remembered Severus Snape on the second landing of the Manor's stairs in a pool of dawn light, dropping his hood and running long pale hands through his hair in exhaustion, and Draco wanted to help. He remembered his father pacing the west wall of the library, dragging tangles from his long fair hair with white fingers, and cursing the stupid misdirection of this war before noticing Draco behind the high- backed reading chair and sending him to bed, or at least away. "I want to help my father."
"He won't thank you for it. And neither will I."
"I'm sure you have a point with this, Professor," Draco said, not bothering to filter the bitterness in his voice.
"While you do this for other people, it will never be as crucial as if you did it for yourself." Snape closed the ledger. "Not because you are a Slytherin, Draco, but because you are human - we can strive for others, but we are passionate for ourselves."
He couldn't remember. Evers struggled to get the hood just right as they walked in. Crabbe gave him that askance superior look and nodded a greeting to Roland, who waited for Evers and nodded. . . "Separately, not together," Draco said.
Snape made his note in a satisfied way.
"Doing it because of you and Lucius is still self-centred," Draco said. Snape indicated his interest by not cutting him off. "I want both of you to be safe for purely selfish reasons."
"But if you had to give your life to stop Voldemort, and there was nothing for you to gain from Lucius or I? Can it be enough about you that it's more important than your own survival?"
After a breath Draco said, "No."
"Then it won't be enough," Snape said, getting to his feet and moving over to make tea, as he always did when the questioning was over.
Draco slammed his eyes together and did not think - would not think. It made no difference what he did or why, it was never enough, never good enough for more than a moment or an afternoon. There was a rising red rush behind his eyes and this time he wanted to be there.
* * *
The warm wind wrapped around his skin, and Draco opened his eyes to the red sky. He rippled his hand through the hissing grass as he swept his arm in an arc embracing the wind and the sky and the earth against his pale skin like, there, the white mark, a snake in a rose if you knew what to look for. Almost invisible, it pulsed in time with his blood.
What was that rhyme about red sky and shepherds; was there rain here; did the days pass? He shifted to see the horizon, and the grass and the chain links dragged roughly against his skin. Not painful, or not in a bad way. Like the trail of his father's fingernails, like the echo of Snape's whipped commands. The mark throbbed hard, then, and began to burn as theirs must when the Dark Lord summoned them. He raised his arm as if this shadowless land could offer better light.
He watched, fascinated, as the faintest shadow of red began to form in the petals of the rose. A thought whispered to him that their mark was black, scorched channels in the flesh. He tried to shake the thought off, but the colour was fading again, and the clouds were rushing faster in a black wind. He strained to see where the rose became a snake and the snake became a rose but the light was fading, and someone put a hand to his wrist in the sunset like spilled blood, whispering to him, "Draco come back."
"I will," he promised to the grass and the warm air, before the painful rush of blue light around him forced his eyes open.
Snape was holding a glass to his mouth, and he drank the syrupy liquid, which numbed his lips.
* * *
"We need to isolate the triggers which send you into the trance state," Snape was saying, pacing carefully around his stacks of papers and books and delicate instruments that Draco had never seen him touch. "It might also be useful to isolate the symbolic traditions associated with the rose and snake icon as that also seems to be a constant - I'll check with Dumbledore about the safe chamber, and tomorrow instead of training you will search the library catalogues."
"I don't mind," Draco said. "It doesn't feel dangerous."
"Well you should," Snape snapped, "and in fact I insist that you do. You are utterly helpless in that condition."
"I. . . all right," Draco said, although he couldn't help wondering what was meant to happen there, with the mark and the wind, why it seemed so important that the rose become red.
"This is serious, Draco," Snape was saying, crouched closely by his chair. "There's no reason the spell should have produced this reaction and every time you take longer to pull yourself free."
"I'm always here," Draco said softly, reaching out to touch Severus's hair, ghosting his fingers along his jaw. "Unless I'm there," he added, furrowing his brow in slight confusion.
Snape didn't move away from his hand, but rather watched Draco's expression intently.
I love you, Draco thought. He watched Snape blink as his lips pressed together in concern. The look of disgust was probably more flattering than pity, he thought.
"No," Snape said softly, moving away. "Not disgust, or pity. Sorrow, perhaps."
Draco couldn't help but hate that, consciously summoning the pride and pleasure he felt in his father's arms, from his father's unspoken desire. "Don't feel sorry for me. I don't."
Snape silently closed the books and returned them to the shelf. With his back turned to Draco he said, "Then perhaps I do pity you after all."
* * *
TBC
