"It's still my choice."

"Quit pouting, Sev."

Severus blew strands of black hair from his eyes as he dusted off his black robes. "I am not pouting."

The banter stopped with a knock at the door. Desi walked over and wrenched the door open, only to face Minerva McGonagall, who looked, of all things, slightly embarrassed to be standing there. "Desdemona, I'm looking for Severus. There's a situation in his House that needs his..." Her eyes widened for a moment when seeing him step around the door to face her, only to be replaced by a guilty shift in expression. "Well, yes, Severus, as I was saying, there's a situation in Slytherin House. Evidently, some of your students have been spending their afternoon bullying some of the younger students, and..."

Snape's face resumed its normal everyday expression of loathing and irritation. "I assume they've waiting for me?"

McGonagall nodded. "They're in your office."

He looked to Desi, his black eyes showing clearly the displeasure his students were about to face. As he looked her over, some of the ire melted into concern. She looked worn out, and she hadn't been her normal self since the briefing. "Are you...?"

Desi waved him off. "I'm fine. Really, Sev. Go. I need a nap anyway. Thank the founders he didn't make me the head of any of the houses. I doubt I'd be as popular as I am." At his hesitant look back over his shoulder at the woman in the doorway, Desi pushed him in the direction on the hallway. "Go take care of your students. I'll be fine."

She stood in the doorway, watching Severus storm down the hallway with McGonagall, until they'd rounded the corner. Only then did she sigh, allowing herself to sag against the doorframe for a minute until she finally got up enough energy to close the door and stumble to her bedroom. Yanking off her robes and kicking her feet out of her boots, she let herself fall into the sheets, clutching a pillow to her and closing her eyes.

Damn that man.

"Why such sudden concern about the Dark Mark?" The silken voice drawled from where he sat in sodden robes, as if he'd suddenly gained some upper hand in their discussion. "After almost thirty years, suddenly the granddaughter of the Headmaster of Hogwarts wants me to tell her everything there is to know about the Mark and the curse that goes with it. I have to wonder why."

"Call it academic curiosity, Malfoy." Her voice dropped low and cold. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."

"You have no idea what kind of person you're trying to save, Desdemona." The comment stopped her mid-step. "He's not the schoolboy you so foolishly followed around like a puppy all those years ago. You weren't beside him like I was. You didn't see the thrill in his eyes when we were out doing our master's bidding. You didn't see the joy on his face when causing pain to someone else. You have no idea, do you, about what kind of man he became."

The thought sent shivers down her spine. White-hot anger poured through her as she whipped around past Moody and grabbed Malfoy's robe fronts, yanking him close enough for her to stare into his deep grey eyes. "I know what kind of man he is today. I know what he did then. And I know it pales in comparison with the things you did. How many victims, Lucius? How many families did you help destroy? You dare to try to tell me what kind of man he was then? I know. I know all too well. I've seen the memories that haunt him at night. What about you? Does the memory of screaming people and flashes of light keep you awake at all hours? Or is it only the knowledge that your precious lord and master will punish you for letting a weak little woman like me take you prisoner?" She shoved Malfoy away from her as she felt Moody take her shoulder to pull her away.

As she went to leave again, she spun around one more time. "He isn't the only one of the two of us to do evil, Lucius. Maybe you've forgotten that. And I didn't need a mark on my arm or someone to answer to in order to do it."

The bastard. Why did he have to remind her about what she'd done?

Footsteps brought her back from her moment of self-hatred, and she turned her head to stare into blue eyes as familiar as her own. Her grandfather stood in her bedroom, dusting his robes off before settling himself on the bed next to her.

"As I was leaving, Alastor suggested you may need someone to talk to. Evidently, Mr. Malfoy reminded you of something that seemed to upset you. He had a strong suspicion what that was about. So, of course, I chose to take a little detour to my office. Nothing is so important, Desdemona, that I can't come to comfort my granddaughter."

The kind words, the look of empathic understanding, the invitation to unload her emotional load tore through her. The wave of guilt she was reliving spilled from her, and she began to weep.

Her grandfather's response was to draw her in closely. How he'd longed for years to simply hold his little one like this, to comfort her, to draw the pain from her. Yet another lifelong regret.

"Desdemona, it wasn't your fault."

The lie hit her like cold water, and she jerked her out of her grandfather's arms like a shot. "What? Not my fault? You were there, Papa! I stood in a pile of rubble ten feet around, laughing at his dead body!" She began to storm around her room, arms flying wildly for emphasis. "I lost control of my temper, and instead of simply walking away or handling the situation maturely, I killed a man!"

"Desdemona, you were all of eighteen..."

"And already a murderer!"

"...he was a follower of Voldemort!"

"And that gave me license to do what I did?"

"He threatened your life."

"That excuses what I did?"

"No one blamed you, Desi."

"Oh, thanks Papa. That gives me real comfort. It makes me feel infinitely better to know that the Ministry and the Order and all those witnesses don't blame me for taking a life. Well, I blame me, Papa! Some nights I can't sleep because all I hear is my voice, cackling insanely in the night! I remember the anger and the rage and the burning in my blood and a crack of light and an explosion, and I have to live the rest of my life knowing that I did that! I killed a man, in cold blood, and no amount of you risking your reputation that night to make it sound like self-defense or justifiable actions will ever change that!"

Dumbledore rose. At her calm moments, Desdemona reminded him so much of Tobias it made his heart wrench. His only son. His only child. He'd been so proud of Tobias his whole life.

He'd been all he had left of Aurora.

When she was calm, when she had a smile on her lips and a laugh in her throat, she was her father's child without question. The features may have been softer and more feminine, but she was so like Tobias it took his breath away.

Except when she was angry. When she was enraged, emotional, screaming and writhing, she completely took her mother's personality to a whole new level. Cassandra Drecorum brought back to life in a small, auburn-haired whirlwind of vocality and action. Tobias had been enraptured by his wife's passion. He would have loved Desdemona in moments like this. It was this balance of emotion, this calm rationality and fire-breathing zeal that the Sorting Hat warned him of. She was so equally her parents it was uncanny.

Silently, he sent a word of love to their souls before returning to comfort their only child.

"Desdemona, listen to me. You didn't do anything that anyone, except yourself, blames you for. Maximilian Rowe may not have deserved to die the way he did, but you did not kill an innocent man. The blood on his hands far outweighed any wrongdoing you committed. Yes, you committed a terrible act, but you did it out of justice and good. Why do you refuse to see this?"

She snorted. "Out of justice and good? Papa, I killed him because he bragged about killing my parents! I didn't have revenge or justice or morality on my mind when I killed him. I had anger and hate and rage - oh the rage I felt when he stared at me, telling me how he killed them, how he tortured them on orders from his master, how I looked so like them and how he was pleased to bring this full-circle. You don't get it, Papa. I ENJOYED killing that man! I loved it! It made me feel so alive and so in control. That's the part of me I can't forgive, Papa! That's the kind of person – of thing – inside me that wants out, wants control of me. It doesn't matter that he provoked me, it doesn't matter that the Ministry considered this an act of self-defense. I thrilled, I basked in the knowledge that I killed him so completely that it left the remains of a small house in its wake! It was that – that creature that I almost let loose the night I tried to kill Lucius. It's that creature that every day I fight to keep in control, Papa. You can't tell me I'm a good person when I'm capable of things like...that."

Growing tired of being kept like a prisoner in the headquarters. Not understanding why Papa kept her under such restrictive surveillance. The house was so closed, so contained.

Finally sneaking out just to take a simple walk.

Leaving her bodyguard behind.

The voice she recognized in the shadows. "Well, well, well. Desdemona Dumbledore. Where's your powerful grandfather, little Desi? Why isn't he protecting you?"

Fear mingling with the hatred she felt for the man in front of her. "I hope I'm there when the Dementors give you the kiss you so righteously deserve, Malfoy."

The other figure stepping from the dark. "I highly doubt you'll see that day, Miss Dumbledore. However, I think we can arrange for you to see your long-lost family." The figure coming closer and closer, words continuing to fall from his lips; details of her parents' deaths making her stomach churn and her mind spin.

Malfoy's laugh. "It's too bad that old flame of yours isn't in London tonight. What happened to cause you two to split, Desdemona? Did the two of you disagree over something?" His roar of laughter, white-blonde hair swaying with the force of it.

Rage filling her. One thought racing through her head.

That man killed my parents... That man killed my parents... That man killed my parents...

Something inside her snapping, like a harp string. Fire burning her heart. Her voice screaming out in the night.

A flash of green light. A body flying through the air.

More rage pouring through her. The sound of rock collapsing around her.

Laughter, deep and loud. Laughter coming from her own throat. Looking at a man preparing to run for his life. "What you have helped to take from me, so shall I help to take from you."

Her arm extending toward him, wand pointed out.

The white light surrounding her, causing her to fall into unknown arms.

Peace...

Dumbledore stared at the woman before him who had grown strangely quiet, a far-off fog in her eyes. "Desdemona, it happened. No matter what, it will be a part of you. But it does not have to consume you. Look at the good you've done in your life since then. Doesn't that outweigh this one instance? Haven't you told Harry that intentions outweigh action? You tell your students not to measure a person by one act, one mistake alone, so why do you refuse to follow your own council?"

Desi had no answer.

"Does he know?" The question slipped from his lips in a whisper.

Desi sank down onto the floor, her voice breaking. "How am I supposed to tell him, Papa? 'Oh please don't be mad at me, but I've been a bloody hypocrite all these years, Sev, because I committed murder same as you but I still held you accountable while I ran from it?' That'll go over real well. Papa, I turned my back on him for deciding to join the Death Eaters. I left him behind. I begged you to re-sort me so I would never do something like that. And damn if I didn't follow that very path four years later. How do I even begin to tell him?"

Tears fell unnoticed.

"So, you plan to continue the charade, and let him think you left for America because of him? Even when I made it clear weeks ago that the charades were over?" He gave his granddaughter a reproachful look over his spectacles. "Doesn't he deserve the truth? Doesn't he need to know?"

"He knows there was more to my leaving than that. He just doesn't know the whole thing. And he doesn't need to know. He doesn't need that on his conscience." Stubbornness settled into the words.

Dumbledore sighed. "Desdemona, I can't tell you what you should and shouldn't do. It's not my place. As much as I still see the little girl who came to me with all of her heartaches and fears, you're a grown woman, and I must accept that fact, and give you the space to make your own choices. But against all of my expectations, Severus Snape has managed to confront his past and atone for it accordingly. If the two of you intend for your pasts to be firmly behind you, you will have to do the same. Any less is an insult to the efforts that have already been made. Any less, and your heart will forever be troubled. Any less, and somehow, Voldemort will use that as a wedge to pry you from your safe existence into one of turmoil and grief. I've seen him destroy people with fewer skeletons in their closets, little one. I'd hate to see him destroy you."

Dumbledore left his granddaughter sitting on the floor in the middle of her bedroom in his wake, the weight of decades of guilt and remorse keeping her from regaining her footing.

As he walked through his school's hallways, Dumbledore's thoughts were on that night as well. Discovering she'd left the house...hearing the explosion...the green flash of light...fearing the worst...hearing her laugh...stopping her before she killed Lucius Malfoy. The cover-up, the trip to America. All because of what he knew after that night.

Voldemort was after Desdemona in order to weaken him, and the Ministry would send her to Azkaban in a heartbeat if they knew the truth.

She was right; he had to admit that to himself. What she had done that night was wrong. It wasn't just, it wasn't fair, and it wasn't good. What he had done to protect her wasn't right either. But Dumbledore hated having to admit that. It would mean he'd have to admit that she was more her mother's daughter than he'd ever wanted to before. It meant the Sorting Hat had been right; that Desi would eventually lose control and composure and do something destructive and immoral. It didn't matter to him; he understood what Desi must have been feeling at that moment, and although it wasn't perfect, it wasn't something he could ever condemn her for.

It was his fault she had ever been placed in that position in the first place.

The one thing on his mind that night had been the thought that he wasn't letting his only grandchild fall into the hands of the very Dark wizard he'd vowed to fight.

The one thing on his mind tonight was saving his only grandchild from herself.

"Professor Snape." A voice caught Severus as he was finally leaving his office. Crabbe and Goyle had decided to leave their usually-fearless leader behind and terrorize some of the third-years by pretending to haunt the Shrieking Shack. Irritated beyond belief by having to be called down for something so immature, he'd given the pair a week of detention each and a round twenty points from their house. The paperwork finally complete and the detentions set, he felt he could escape.

He was wrong.

"Mr. Malfoy. What can I do for you?" The usually-fearless leader in question stood in the doorway, his eyes piercing the professor. He'd been avoiding Draco Malfoy ever since that night. He simply had no idea of what to say to the young man. While he was relieved to know that someone he'd expected to get the Dark Mark at his first chance had changed his mind, he felt awkward around him. Not to mention he'd never been good with kids anyway.

Draco looked around the office and up and down the corridor before entering the cluttered room. It had taken him several days to bring himself to approach Snape; he wasn't the same person he thought he knew anymore, and the changes in him threw Draco off completely. The sharp, secluded man had been replaced almost overnight by someone with intention and insight. It wasn't any detail in particular; he was still cold and distant, but there seemed to be more purpose to him. It confused Draco, as well as gave him even more to think about.

As if he needed any more food for thought.

"Professor, I wanted to know if you could tell me what's going on with my father. It's been weeks since the Order took him. My mother's not gotten an answer from the Ministry. Is he in Azkaban? Is he somewhere else? What will happen to him?"

Snape glared at his seemingly-favorite student. How he'd hated currying favor with Lucius Malfoy through his son, just to keep pretenses. The younger Malfoy had been a surprisingly good student, to be sure, but his cockiness and arrogance reminded Snape of his father. However, the benefits of playing up an appreciation of Draco had included keeping Lucius, and any other remaining Death Eaters, in the dark about his real intentions. It had served its purpose.

At the same time, condemning the son for the father's sins wasn't right.

He'd finally learned that lesson once this year.

"I'm surprised you're not asking Professor Drecorum, considering she was the one you were going to for advice all term." A definite chill laced the words that hung in the air. Unspoken behind those words were his real thoughts: he held Draco partially responsible for Desi's mental explosion that night. If he had come to him instead, she wouldn't have gotten involved. Of course, they might not have caught Malfoy, so maybe he shouldn't be so harsh on the boy.

Draco coughed, as if choking on the words in his throat. Memories of the petite professor pummeling his father without magical assistance still rang in his mind. He hadn't been so scared since that filthy hippogriff attacked him four years ago. "Well, sir, after seeing her let loose on my father that night, I'm a little hesitant to bother her. And you are my head of house. And you were there that night..."

Snape silenced him with a look. "I'm not at liberty to tell you where your father is, Mr. Malfoy, even if I knew. But I can tell you that when I last saw him, he was very much alive. Which, I'm sure you've guessed, was very recently. However, your father is scheduled to be tried for his crimes, again, in which case he will be joining the prisoners of Azkaban again very soon. Is there anything else?"

Draco wrung his hands. These questions about his father weren't the reason he was there in the first place. Summoning courage, he choked out the question he really wanted to ask. "Sir, my mother...she doesn't know that I...no one knows...they all think...what do I do now? School's over soon. I can't go home; they all expect me to have joined his side by now. I'm not some do-gooding little person, I'm not joining your precious Order. But I have no idea what to do. I thought since..."

Snape rolled his eyes. The sight of a Malfoy stuttering incoherently was a novelty, for sure. It was also damned annoying. "You thought that since I'd been faced with a similar decision years ago, I'd have advice for you. I don't, Mr. Malfoy. I saw firsthand what the Dark Arts does to a person. You begin to sell over yourself, you begin to become less of who you are and more of what someone else wants you to be. You saw what it did to your father; how it turned him into someone's servant instead of the self-serving individual you grew up with. You don't want that life; fine. It's a wiser decision than I made at your age."

The truth of that statement was more than he wanted to reveal, and he ran a hand over his face for a moment in order to regain composure. Having a heart-to-heart with the son of someone who wanted him dead hadn't been on his agenda for the evening. "But as for what to do now, I have no idea what to tell you. I will tell you this: you have a choice to either sever ties with the Malfoy family, or to put on a face of support and belonging to those in your clan who still support you-know-who. I don't know what to tell you. Frankly, I'm not qualified to give you this advice."

Draco nodded, the weight of the words settling on his shoulders. "That's about what I expected, Sir."

Snape rose, hands on the desk top, leaning over to look Malfoy in the eye purposefully. "You have some decisions to make, Mr. Malfoy. I'd suggest you go to think on them. You may want to speak to Professor Drecorum; she's well-versed in hideaways in America, if that's the route you choose. However, I would recommend having a chat with Professor Dumbledore about your future. You made an important choice that night, Mr. Malfoy, but you opened a closet full of subsequent decisions. Decisions you need to make. Now, is there anything else?"

The young man swallowed hard. "Sir, if you go to see my father again, will you tell him my mother sends her love?"

The professor nodded.

With nothing else to say for the moment, Draco Malfoy left the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, his conscience overloaded. Which, for him, wasn't a normal feeling since, until this school year, he could honestly say he'd never suffered from such a problem.