Chapter 17. Needless to say, since the last chapter was no. 16.

I own nothing relating to Harry Potter. Except the trivia game.

"You're the one who's always, choking Trojan.

You're the one who's always, bruised and broken.

Drunk on immorality,

Valium and Cherry wine."

Placebo      "Commercial for Levi"

Daniel could feel his chest constricting as he sobbed beneath her. He was staring resolutely at the ceiling, tears flowing down the sides of his head. Taking one of his hands in hers, she snapped one of his metacarpals. Yelping in pain, he stared at her in shock out of bloodshot eyes.

"Don't" crack "ever" crack "betray" crack "me again." She hissed, crushing the delicate bones in his hand, ignoring his whimpers of pain.

His hand was beginning to swell. Moving her hands up his arm, Daniel disregarded his frantic pleadings and skillfully splintered his radius and ulna in one go. He screamed in pain. Snapping a hand over his mouth, she gave him a silent warning to shut up, and squeezed his fractured wrist. He tried to throw her off, but she remained resolutely on top of him. Placing a hand on his upper arm, she gave him a chance to quieten down, and then flicked his whole broken arm around and a sickening 'pop' resounded around the tiles. Letting him sit up, she watched him nurse his broken and dislocated arm; every racking sob making it hurt more. He looked at her with an expression not much removed from a child whose ice cream has fallen in the dirt, and stood up awkwardly. His injured arm hung heavily from his swollen shoulder, and he made towards the door. As he passed Daniel, he avoided her gaze, and was not entirely surprised when she stopped him. "You're going to the Hospital Wing. And you're going to say you fell down the Dormitory stairs." It was an order. A very direct order. "And if you ever do that to me again, I'll break every single bone in your scheming little body." Considering him for a minute, she slammed a fist into his ribs twice. Choking on the pain, Draco leaned against the door, shining eyes asking for an explanation. "You'd hurt considerably more than your arm if you fell down the stairs." She said simply, and exited the room and went to her dormitory.

Needless to say, Draco avoided her over the next few days. He had gone to the Hospital Wing, recited what Daniel had told him to say, and got the bones mended. He still had bruises though. Pansy nearly had a fit when he told her he'd fallen down the stairs. He glanced nervously at Daniel when he fussed over his arm, and nearly fainted when she smiled sweetly at him, canines flashing.

At breakfast a few days later, Draco watched Hermione run out of the hall, cradling her hands. As his eyes followed her path out of the Hall, they met with Daniel's, and he quickly looked back at his breakfast, which was getting cold.

"Not hungry Draco?" Daniel purred, leaning over the table towards him. He shook his head jerkily. "Well I am." She said slowly, picking a slice of bacon off his plate and eating it. Draco's hands clenched around his knife and fork, before he threw them down and walked quickly out of the hall.

"What's going on?" said a familiar voice, the sound coming from somewhere between her ears.

"He told Lucius about me biting him." She thought, looking up at the Staff table to see the expression on his face. Snape was white.

"And?" he hissed, staring at his plate.

"And I broke his arm." Daniel replied, draining a goblet of pumpkin juice.

"I need to talk to you. Tonight." He thought quietly, while talking animatedly to Mc Gonagall.

"It's a date."

Trudging to his office after a highly enjoyable Care of Magical Creatures lesson, Daniel passed a set of quarrelling suits of armor, and reluctantly knocked on Snape's door. It was opened quickly. Alexander ushered her inside, looking quite peculiar in a set of faded red dungarees. He grinned wickedly at her as she sat down.

"He's really pissed off." He whispered, settling himself as Severus entered the room. Sitting opposite her on a threadbare sofa, he cleared his throat and began.

"You do know you'll be killed." He said sharply, arms crossed over his chest.

"No I won't." she said calmly. "It's happened before Severus, and unless I missed something, I haven't been killed." She replied.

Alexander grinned again.

"Whose side are you on!" shrieked Snape unexpectedly, making Alexander jump slightly. Rolling his eyes, Alexander stood up and plonked himself beside Snape, who looked livid.

"Lucius Malfoy sent me an owl stating clearly that he would make sure you were exterminated." His voice rose slightly. "He has also asked me to ensure that you were removed from the Slytherin dorms. Away from Draco. But, Dumbledore has had talks with him, and he has agreed to let you stay under the condition that you stay away from Draco." He looked as though he was going to shout again, until Alexander lay down on the length of the sofa, his head resting in Severus' lap. Daniel smiled. Alexander always knew how to shut him up. Snape looked quite uncomfortable, and he didn't say anything for a while. "As there are no spare rooms that anything would even dream of sleeping in," (Snape deemed anything that hadn't been drenched in Domestos positively unfit for human habitation) "you will stay here for the time being." He finished awkwardly, gesturing around him. Alexander giggled, and turned his head to look at her.

"You won't sleep much." He laughed loudly, "Because we don't."

The aforementioned arrangements went well for about a day, until the silencing charm malfunctioned and Daniel nearly killed Alexander, thinking that the screams issuing from the sleeping area meant that someone was being brutally tortured. Severus bellowed blue murder at her, while she stumbled around, trying to get out of the room with both hands clamped over her eyes. Howling in disgust when she stood on something rubbery and slimy, she kicked it off her foot and went back to the sofa, trying not to re-envision what she had seen. But it was hard, as she was very curious as to how Alexander trained himself to bend that way.

One Sunday afternoon at the end of May, the Champions were summoned to the Quidditch Pitch. Walking down the stone steps, Daniel was joined by Harry.

"Hello." He said enthusiastically. Strolling down the dark lawn towards the barely visible Quidditch pitch, the warm air gave the night a strange feeling.

"How's Sirius?" she asked, staring at the murky darkness of the Forbidden forest. Harry stumbled.

"What?" he hissed, staring at her in amazement. Smiling shrewdly, she changed quickly into the black Doberman and back again.

"You?" he breathed, he had stopped completely now.

"Yeah." She glanced at the pitch. "We better get going."

"But…"

"I'll talk to you later, Harry. Or ask Sirius. Maybe he'd prefer to tell you."

Jogging the rest of the way, Harry remained thunderstruck through Ludo Bagman telling them about the third task. Smiling faintly at Harry as he walked off with Krum, Daniel returned to Severus' office, where Alexander was eating a Pumpkin Pasty and reading a large gilded book.

"Where's Severus?" she asked, glancing around quickly.

"Off to see Dumbledore. He's worried about something." Alexander answered, looking up briefly from his book. Sitting down beside him, she took the trunk out from under the sofa and removed a bag of blood. Looking at it with a disgusted expression on his face, he coughed loudly so he wouldn't hear her drinking it.

"I'm not making any noise!" she said irritatedly, slurping the rest of it to spite him. Throwing the empty bag into the bin opposite, she summoned a random book from the bookcase and began reading.

"Look at this…" she said softly, picking up the pictures that had fallen out from between the dusty pages. There were about twenty photographs, all taken when Severus was younger. Five of them were taken when he was very young, seven or eight years old. He had short, cropped hair, and was smiling fiendishly at the camera. In one of them, he was sitting on a chintz chair, petting a huge dog that was sitting on the floor beside him. On the back of it, Daniel recognized her own scrawled writing, 'Severus and Leonard'.

"Who's Leonard?" asked Alexander stupidly.

"His dog. Got ran over about a month after that was taken." She answered quietly. She had no idea he still had these.

Picking up another one, a photograph in which Severus (about 16) and Daniel were standing in front of a Christmas tree, Alexander commented on how similar they looked, angular, dark-featured and slightly drunk looking. Turning it over, she had written on the back,

'Apple doesn't fall far from the tree'.

"Look at this one!" Alexander hissed, shoving a dog-eared photograph under her nose. Severus and Alexander were standing chatting amiably, wearing Hogwarts robes, and then they noticed their audience, and grinned, waving madly. Severus stopped smiling for a minute to give Alexander a kiss on the cheek, and Alexander blushed and looked nicely embarrassed.

On the back was Severus' writing, 'Alexander and I after graduation'

Smiling faintly, Alexander took the photograph and looked at it closely, and set it down gently, as if it would break if he did otherwise.

Sorry about being late with this, but I have been quite busy recently. I re-read the OotP, and was so infuriated by Severus being bullied by Sirius I wrote Krieg. Please read. And review. I'd really appreciate it. I would. Really.

Xanadan.