Exultet, part 3

Severus opened his eyes to the red sky moving in the warm current of air, and felt relief. So Draco came here when he was distressed, and Severus, linked to his consciousness by the same spell, joined him if he was asleep. Although Draco must be in some kind of trouble, the link was at least still active, and Severus was beginning to understand how it worked.

He turned his head and saw only grass. With an effort he pulled himself up into a crouch, scanning the flat undifferentiated horizon. Mobility was a new development, but surely they would both come to this spot.

"Draco?" he said aloud, and Draco was there, moving quickly towards him with the eyes of a boy and a calm smile, the folds of his silver robe shattering light across the grass from some impossible source.

Draco took his hand and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Are you all right?" he said, the words tracing warmly over Severus's neck. "They took you to the safe room, didn't they?"

Nodding, Severus pushed up Draco's sleeve with one hand to reveal the mark on his arm. The snake writhed amid the pulsing petals with a slippery scratching sound.

"It's us," Draco laughed, moving forward so that the robe across his thighs slipped against Severus, "and you're the rose," he finished with a warm smile that Severus kissed, although he was nothing like a rose.

There was something he needed to ask, Severus knew - he ran fingers over the tiny shining links up to Draco's neck, curling into the loose hair, and into the kiss, licking at his lips, sliding across his mouth, wrapping his arms around him - but it didn't seem to matter.

* * *

Draco lay back on the pool of black silk and watched Severus come to him, cover him with his eyes and his hands and his mouth. Draco writhed in the silk, cushioned all around by thick grass and warmed by the bright air, as between his legs Severus pushed long fingers past the taut muscles of his arse, holding him close and still with the other arm. Severus was in him and around him and his skin was white and smooth and his cock slid hard against Draco's leg as he was opened for it.

The tips and the lengths of Severus's fingers worked him until his entire body was centred on that line between them, the thin membrane of the passage that Severus stroked. "Now," he said, and Severus came to him, covered him, and the sliding pressure as he was entered was a sharp deep cry in the warm air.

* * *

A cold shock at his shoulder and a burning pain in his arm dragged Severus awake to find Sirius Black looming over him.

As Severus opened his eyes Black immediately moved away and Lupin said, apologetically, "We couldn't wake you."

"Slipping as you age, Snape? Although I can't say I remember you ever being particularly alert."

"Shut up, Sirius," Lupin said tiredly. "Dumbledore thought we should bring you."

"Fudge?"

"Is gone, as is Malfoy - with Malfoy, in fact. He's been arrested, pending a trial."

"Draco?" Severus ignored Black's snort of disgust.

"Made a very powerful statement," Lupin said awkwardly, and by Black's assessing glare Severus gathered that Lupin had been present but Black had not.

"Although as he's a trained Slytherin," Black said, "there's always a chance. . ."

"Draco refused to have Sirius present," Lupin said mildly. Severus didn't bother to repress a smirk.

"Snape's only in here," Black said, gesturing bluntly, "because Dumbledore didn't believe the boy either."

"The statement was very closely monitored." Lupin paused and sat down on the couch next to Severus as if it was a natural thing for him to do. "Did you know? About what they did to him?"

Not at all sure if he knew the answer to that, Severus got up and paced. It was impossible to avoid the frieze, and not only because it dominated one end of the room. The scales on the snake seemed to shift slightly.

"No. Not until it was too late, anyway."

"Malfoy is still insisting you interfered with his son, and Fudge wants to pursue it, but I doubt he'll be able to demand your interrogation without any other support."

There was a silence, but Severus wasn't going to answer the questions Lupin didn't ask, or encourage him to ask them.

"Shall we go," Black growled from the door.

"What do you need now?" Severus asked, already heading to the door.

"Even when the questioning was complete," Lupin said from behind him, "Fudge kept pushing Draco for more detailed explanation, for more proof, and. . ."

"He went into some kind of trance," Snape surmised, entering the corridor. Black marched ahead of them as if still escorting a prisoner.

"I rather assumed you would understand when Dumbledore sent us for you. We were afraid to try any harder to bring him back to consciousness."

Severus stopped at the top of the stairs and concentrated. Nothing. From somewhere he pulled the very fuzzy shiny almost completely unreal memory of Draco coming in his arms and around his prick, back arched, neck bared, his own slender prick pulsing hotly in Severus's hand.

He heard the small recognition reverberate gently back through the link, like a kiss.

"He's awake now," Severus said, moving quickly to the stairs and leaving Lupin to look after him with some interest. The door to the safe room swung shut behind them and bled into the stonework of the wall.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy was held in a tall solid building hung about with so much baroque ornamentation it was like a sign saying that strange and unusual things occurred within.

If it was not the freedom he was used to, Draco thought, it certainly managed to maintain the Malfoy style - the rooms were expensive and tasteful but not opulent. Lucius had very particular preferences to which his excesses were directed. Although it was incomprehensible to others, including Severus, Draco actually had enjoyed being one of those preferences.

It wasn't, he thought, as he was led down the hall by a strange little wizard who loped and flustered like a house-elf, that he didn't understand why he should despise his father, and much that he had done. It was just that he didn't. Lucius was his light-filled rooms, quiet evenings, favourite meals, interesting parties, new gloves and old books. He was his happy awareness that being Draco Malfoy was a good thing. And his hands were soft and so very strong.

Aurors stood on either side of the door where the grovelling little wizard indicated his father was staying - until tomorrow, anyway. The left Auror, a very tall red-haired woman, Draco wondered if she was a Weasley of some kind, dipped her head towards him and indicated he could go in.

"We'll be watching," she said, indicated a spinning ball of light suspended high on the opposite wall. "And no magic works in there, in case you were worried. It's a safe room."

How ironic, Draco thought, and from the street outside where he would be impatiently pretending to read the back issue of a Potions journal he'd brought with him, he almost felt Severus's amusement.

"Thank you," Draco replied, not missing the barely contained sneer on the male Auror's face. Funny that he was just as hated in Knockturn Alley as in the Ministry. He and Severus had. . .

As the door swung open he really could feel his father's presence in the room.

He wondered if Severus had insisted on being this close in order to observe the meeting or to offer support - or rather, he wondered how those reasons were combined. But as it was a safe room, the observation part wouldn't be very effective. He waited a full minute on the outside of the door, attracting the concerned and irritated attention of the aurors, to be sure Severus didn't insist that he not go in.

Draco stepped quickly beneath the lintel before the thought of how much he depended on Severus's appeal could properly form. Not that there was really anything he had hidden from him any longer, but his own acknowledgement of that power had always remained indirect. And right at this moment it would sound a bit too obviously like he was replacing Lucius.

"Are you coming in, Draco?" his father's pleasant voice said from the room to the left of the foyer, "or do you need to check in with the new Master first?"

* * *

"I believe I'm going to open another bottle of wine, Draco," Lucius said. "Are you sure you won't have some?"

"I'm sure," he said, watching with increasing discomfort as Lucius tried to summon the next unopened bottle and, when he couldn't find his wand, cursed and went over to get it. Lucius never drank more than two glasses of wine. Lucius never swore, except with a purpose. Lucius' fine white hair was never, as it was now, ruffled, almost untidy. Draco looked away.

"Indeed, my small snake," Lucius said with a bitter pleasure. "And how does it feel to have brought your father so low, brought him to ruin, in the finest classical tradition?"

It would be unseemly to cry, and certainly also an insult to his father's training, but there was a bitter tight lump where Draco' voice should be.

He heard Lucius rather heavily resume his seat. "I don't think they allow wine to the Death Eaters in Azkaban, do you Draco? But perhaps I won't desire it any longer after the Dementor's kiss? I've always thought desire was a property of the soul. Yes, even of those like mine. And you will appreciate that I've never been drunk in my life - I thought it might be a fitting celebration of our last meeting, and your victory."

"I haven't won anything," Draco said, suddenly thinking that wasn't quite true.

"Really? How forthright of you, how. . . Gryffindor," his father purred, and Draco couldn't help the flinch.

"Very well, perhaps I have. Severus."

His father laughed a great open laugh. "Really? Is that the price of my life, our fortune, your mother's comfort and the family name? Fucking Severus Snape?"

Draco looked out the line of bay windows at the tall buildings and the blue sky and knew Severus was there waiting for him.

Without warning his father was beside him, crouched by his chair, one hand pressing his wrist to the curved and polished wooden arm. "And does he tell you he loves you, Draco?"

"I love him."

"How tragic," Lucius said, just as suddenly walking towards the windows. The female Auror appeared in the doorway, wand drawn.

"We don't need any help, Miss Everton," Lucius said dismissively. She looked at Draco. "For Salazar's sake, girl, if I'd wanted to harm him I would have strangled him a minute before you made it here."

She took a step into the room, and Draco got up to meet her. "I'm not quite that helpless," he said, and she gave him a long look before returning to the foyer. Draco could still sense her hovering there.

Lucius put a hand to the diaphanous inner drapes. "You have considered that you have now been entangled in Dumbledore's schemes." Before Draco could reply, Lucius added, "I say this merely for your benefit, Draco, as nothing short of death or Apparition will save me tomorrow."

Draco walked closer to the window.

"You do know he doesn't really want you. I would hate to think my son could be so deluded as to believe that. Everything is about power for Severus, and he has determined Dumbledore can or will give him more than Voldemort. We can understand that, Draco, but you must not allow yourself to believe he sees you as anything other than my son," he put a hand slowly to Draco's hair, "my boy," and ran it down to cup his jaw tightly, "mine."

Draco almost took a step away and then turned into his father's touch. "Goodbye, Lucius," he said, and leant up to kiss his father's jaw, delicately. Lucius let him go.