**Author's Note: All my apologies for the shortness of chapter; I'm working on several things, not to mention working and doing the whole "holiday thing." Bear with me! This is coming to a head, and soon… *gasp* to an end!!!**
His sleep was fitful, as it always was, as it had been for as long as he could remember. His childhood had been nearly nonexistent, stolen by his father's madness, commanded by his mother's weakness, ruled by his own confusion and hate. For nearly twenty years, he had slept poorly, full of nightmares and fears.
His sleep at Hogwarts had always been different, however, marginally more peaceful. Protected. As much as he hated to admit it, it had been a sanctuary for the past six years.
Now, however, the nightmares were back, the restlessness pursuant to his father's death and his aunt's arrival.
When he awoke with a gasp before dawn, cold sweat dripping down the sides of his face, beading on his chest and causing the undershirt he wore to stick to him, he wondered when things would be normal.
Draco wondered if he would even recognize normal when it came to him.
~~~
"I want to talk to her."
He stood in his head of house's office, arms crossed negligently over his chest, eyebrow cocked lazily, even casually, but the statement was one he'd spent all night contemplating.
Draco was sick of everyone else making decisions in his life, and if there was one thing he could enjoy about being recently orphaned, it was a little freedom to make decisions for himself.
Severus looked up from the essay he was currently grading—or, more to the point, slashing red ink all over; those Hufflepuffs were hopeless—and looked at his pupil. "Let us not talk in ambiguities, shall we, Mr. Malfoy?"
"Let us not be obstreperous, shall we, Professor Snape?" Draco retorted calmly. "I wish to speak with Lilith Benedict."
Severus templed his fingers and looked at Draco intently. It was interesting, he thought, that the boy wanted to talk to his aunt at all, when Severus himself barely wanted to speak to her.
She's beautiful, Dea's voice insisted in his head.
It would be nice if he didn't hear Dea's voice even when she wasn't there.
"I'm sure that can be arranged," he said flatly.
"And you're going to be there," Draco said, turning on his heel and beginning to pace the length of the dungeon office. His tone was commanding, his hands clasped behind his back, and the whole thing gave Severus a nasty little jolt.
It seemed Ms. Benedict wasn't the only Lucius look-alike in the Hogwarts vicinity.
And then Draco glanced up and to the side at his mentor, giving a crooked, cocky little smile, and the illusion was broken. "I need a mediator."
"I hardly think I'm the best choice for that, but I'm disinclined to deny you this one thing," Severus said honestly. It had taken less time than he'd expected for Draco's curiosity to kick in. He'd thought for certain the boy's stubbornness would hold out a bit, and was alternately pleased and disappointed that it hadn't.
You can't expect—or want—him to be just like you, Severus reminded himself, and with no small amount of pain, added, He's not your son.
"Thank you," Draco said with genuine gratitude. He'd eat a thousand Blast-Ended Skrewts before he'd admit it, but his stomach was tied in knots.
The great Brat Prince was nervous.
~~~
It irritated her that he was
the only one she really knew in the whole of Hogwarts. It irritated her even more that she'd taken
to looking for him when she made her rounds around the place, saying hi to
those who would speak to her and merely smiling thinly at those who wouldn't.
And Lilith hadn't caught a single glimpse of the Potions master yet today.
"Looking for someone?" The voice, light and pleasant, nearly made Lilith jump three feet off the floor. When the startled blonde turned to see who had spoken, she winced a little.
Those orange robes were positively horrifying, even to a poor young woman who barely owned two sets of clothes.
"Ah… no. I'm just…" Lurking around like a complete lunatic. "Looking around the building." She shrugged in an oddly eloquent gesture. "I could wander this place every day for a year and still find something new." To Lilith's surprise, the streaky-haired American grinned understandingly.
"I know just what you mean," Dea said agreeably. "I just wanted to say hello. It strikes me every woman could use another woman to talk to, no matter what the situation."
Lilith smiled back, shaky but sweet. "That's very kind of you, Miss Middlemarch. I don't know what I'd ever need to talk about—"
Not at all subtly or gently, Dea corralled the taller woman to an open area of the castle where narrow benches lined the halls and nudged her into one. "First of all, it's Dea. Never Amadea—" For only Remus called her that with any sort of consistency—"Never Miss Middlemarch, but Dea." And that grin came again, propping up the scarred eyebrow and bringing dimples to her cheeks. "And I thought you might want to talk about Severus." At the other woman's guilty flush, Dea gave a silent cheer. "He's a hard man to deal with."
"I don't deal with him," Lilith insisted. "I'm an assignment for him, and he's just the middle man for me." But even as the words left her mouth, she felt bad for saying them. It sounded so… harsh.
"Hmmm," Dea said noncommittally. "You've seen my husband, yes? Tall, thin, graying? Gorgeous?" When the modest Malfoy offspring flushed and nodded again, Dea nodded, as well. "I was a bit of an assignment for him, once upon a time."
And as though a switch had been flipped, or a wand flicked, Dea saw the cold angles of class—inherited, whether the woman wanted to admit it or not—carve into Lilith's face as the woman pulled her chin into the air. "Imply whatever you'd like, Miss Middlemarch, but I'm here for one thing and one thing alone."
"Your nephew," Dea said, flapping a hand. Sometimes, really, being nosy was more work than one would expect. "However, the fact remains that if you need an ear to listen…" She trailed off then, offering her own shrug. She stood then, but before walking away, she glanced at the ragged hem of Lilith's dress.
With a flick of her wand, Dea had the hem—and the dress—looking like new again.
She left Lilith gaping at her clothes and wondering just what in Merlin's name she'd gotten herself into.
~~~
"You have my gratitude." Politeness came naturally to Remus most of
the time, but he'd admit to genuinely needing to work at it when it came to
these particular situations.
"Yes, well, you have my potion, Lupin, so I suppose that puts us even," Severus said dryly, the impending appointment with aunt and nephew weighing heavily on his mind. The last thing he needed was Lupin, he who had proven himself the 'better man,' loafing about in his office and breathing his werewolvey breath all over everything.
Damn the man for looking fifty times happier and better than when he'd left months ago with Dea.
Remus felt his jaw clench and his shoulders tense up; he was afraid that reaction was completely unavoidable. Severus Snape had been a combative git from the very beginning. What reason had he to change now?
"I'll just get…" He started to say 'out of your way' and then thought of an American phrase he'd heard Amadea use. "Out of your hair." The very image had him snorting back laughter.
Judging from the black look on Snape's face, he didn't find it amusing.
"No big surprise," Remus muttered. "I'll show myself out." He didn't make it out the door however, for upon opening it, he saw the two of them, so similar, so dissimilar, standing face-to-face, voices silent and eyes wide as they contemplated one another.
Neither Lilith nor Draco moved an inch, and neither seemed to notice Remus watching them, or Severus watching from behind him. They merely watched one another as though waiting for a move, as though memorizing the planes of one another's faces.
"Severus," Remus said carefully, looking over his shoulder at his classmate, "I think you have visitors."