Disclaimer: The characters in this story (except Julius) and the universe in which they exist are the sole property of JK Rowling. I am just doing this for fun.

Chapter 17 -- The Dawning of Realisation

Julius lay quietly in his bed, his arms folded across his chest in a fuming temper. The other four beds in the dorm room were filled with his housemates, snoring obliviously (and quite loudly) in their sleep, but sleep was not coming easy for Julius, his mind too excited and irritated to settle down. He had reached his room mere moments ago, sore that Malfoy had gotten the upper hand, and that his professor had interfered once more.

He tossed and turned for what must have been hours, internally scolding himself in the silent dead of night, replaying the horrible event over and over in his mind. What could I have done differently? I can't let this be the end of the fight. I will never live it down if I do.

Pushing himself up from the bed, he padded his way down the stairs into the common room. The large room was empty this time of night, very dark and eerily quiet. He plopped himself down into one of the oversized armchairs near the fireplace, drawing his book bag close to the side. Pulling out the potions book that Hermione had given him for Christmas, he set it on his lap, and absently thumbed through the pages, glancing at each in turn.

Most of the potions were of the common sort they had learned from first-year on: cleaning potions and the like. But as he browsed the book, one title popped out, and he sat up a bit straighter, reading through the contents and process. Slowly, a smile crept along his lips and his eyes brightened. There were other ways of getting his revenge upon the slippery Slytherin, ways that did not require a wand.

Book-marking the page, he slipped the tome back into his bag and slipped upstairs, ready at last to have a wonderful night's sleep.

Severus Snape shoved Malfoy into his office, sending the boy reeling, nearly stumbling over the chair near the desk. The potions professor walked around to the other side with an unnaturally calm stride, his jaw set determinedly, his lightless eyes smouldering as intensely as his temper.

"Sit," Snape ordered, the curt tone of his voice speaking volumes on the state of his emotions, his nebulous eyes aflame.

Draco sat, weak-kneed, in the chair opposite his Head of House, and just stared at the man before him, his grey eyes wide and anxious. He felt faint, nearly quivering in his seat, his eyes following Snape's movements with extreme care, watching for some sign of what was in store.

Professor Snape brushed his hands and arms over the desk to clear it, swiping the various stacks of papers harshly from its surface, sending them flying haphazardly to the floor, his deep eyes never leaving the boy before him. His scowl was truly ugly, a nightmarish expression of the hostility that was trapped within, just under the surface of his skin.

"Profess--"

"Silence!" Snape exclaimed furiously, glaring hard at Lucius's son, grasping the edges of his desk.

He strode to a cabinet behind the desk and opened one of the wooden doors, revealing a storehouse of various bottles and containers, his long fingers extracting a particularly small bottle of clear liquid and an eyedropper. With an ominous clink, he set them down upon the desk and made his way around the massive piece of furniture to Malfoy's side, spinning the boy's chair around to face him in the process.

"What curse were you about to utter against another student before I stopped you, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape glowered, leaning over the Slytherin boy, his hands resting upon the arms of Draco's chair. His knuckles were white as if he subconsciously wished to strangle anything that was held within them.

Malfoy stuttered, shrinking into the back of the chair, his grey eyes darting about the room, looking for some escape though knowing there was none. "I… I don't know, s…sir."

"Surely, even you, Mr. Malfoy have a better memory than that," Snape rasped, his fingers clenching even tighter to the arms of the chair. "You seemed supremely confident in your actions only minutes ago."

"The… Cruciatus Curse… sir," Draco whispered faintly, sweat forming upon his fair brow.

"Ah yes, the Cruciatus Curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses, if I am not mistaken," Snape replied icily, as he straightened and began to leisurely pace back and forth before Malfoy. On the third pass, the potions master slowly withdrew his wand from the folds of his robes and stopped to gaze meaningfully at the blond Slytherin in front of him "Have you ever felt the results of the Cruciatus Curse, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco was barely breathing, his eyes firmly locked on the position of Snape's wand. The look upon his face told the tall dark-haired man everything that he needed to know.

"No?" the potion's master asked silkily, the depths of his eyes glinting with malice. "Care to recount for me once more the events of the night that Mr. DeVere's wand was forced from his hand and found upon the dungeon floor?"

Malfoy sat there quietly, his palms sweating, and he spread out his fingers upon his thighs in hopes of cooling them off. Would Snape really use that curse upon him? Grey eyes searched the black void of his professor's steady gaze, but he said nothing.

Snape's mouth set into a frown of annoyance, and he swept by the boy, sending the darkness of night undulating about him, to grasp the vial and dropper from the desk. "Do you know what this is, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked, holding the vial out for Draco to see.

"Veritaserum, sir," Draco murmured quietly.

"Very good, Mr. Malfoy," Snape replied, his voice like velvet, leaning in close to the boy once more. "And do you know why I have this out… right… now?"

Draco Malfoy blanched, shrinking even further (if it is possible) into his chair.

"Because, Mr. Malfoy," Snape went on, his head lowering towards Draco's receding form, his voice rising in a great crescendo, "whether we do this the easy way, through Veritaserum, the Cruciatus Curse, or a combination of all three, I AM going to learn the truth tonight!"

"Now which is it going to be..."

The next night, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were to be found on their knees, scrubbing the dungeon boy's bathrooms with tiny, crude scrub-brushes that Muggles used to clean their teeth (Well, at least Crabbe and Goyle were. Malfoy was smart enough to allow the other two to do his work as well, and he spent most of his time telling the others about the spots they missed.). It was disgusting, crawling around the tile floors like some lowly house-elf, the potions master having confiscated their wands so that no magic could be utilized to aid them. They were to clean one bathroom per night until all of the boy's rooms were done in the entire castle.

They had also been suspended from the Slytherin Quidditch team for a month, which shocked their whole house as the professor was well known to prefer his team to be on the winning side. To suspend the team seeker and both beaters was going to hurt them dearly in the upcoming games.

"I think old Snape is finally losing it," Goyle remarked as he scrubbed around the base of a toilet. "Since when do any of us get detention?"

"Yeah," Crabbe replied, running his brush over the back of a sink. "We're not supposed to be treated like this."

"Its that Ravenclaw, DeVere," Malfoy muttered, leaning against the bathroom wall, his arms folded before him as he stared at nothing in particular. "Snape's been acting all weird ever since he showed up at the school. Father thought that he was losing it too."

"But why DeVere?" Goyle inquired, taking a break for a moment to stretch his back which had begun to ache.

"How should I know," Malfoy shrugged irritably, extending his hand out before him to check his fingernails for signs of dirt. "But Snape gives him the royal treatment, teaching him special potions and always taking his side in everything." he muttered, forcefully pushing open one of the cubicle doors, causing it to hit the side wall with a loud bang.

"What is it about DeVere," he whispered moodily. "What is it about Julius DeVe--."

Draco's eyes opened wide as his breath caught in his lungs. Julius.

…even after fifteen years, he still mourns his wife and son, Julius. I want to know if you see anything suspicious, if he starts acting strange…

His father's words came flooding back into his mind as Draco finally put two and two together. Julius was Snape's son. He hadn't been killed… and Snape knew.

How could he have been so stupid. The boy had black hair, just like his; he was tall, just like Professor Snape; he was good at potions… So many similarities, and the thought had never crossed his mind.

"What is it, Draco?" Goyle asked, watching Malfoy's face change from one of anger to one of pure delight.

"Nothing," Malfoy responded, keeping this information to himself for now. This was the way to get rid of DeVere forever…

"Hurry up you two," the blond boy snapped at his toadies. "I need to get to the owlry."

A/N: Here it comes....

Enjoy!!