Author's Note: Someone has VERY kindly brought it to my attention that I made a mistake when I was trying to fix the formatting on chapter 36. Instead I managed to replace chapter 1 with chapter 36. *am SO embarassed* By way of apology for this, and because it drives me crazy when people update their stories without actually adding a new chapter, I have decided to upload the next chapter of the story now. I hope you like it. (I think you will.) And I hope you will forgive me for my error.
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chapter 37: ACCELERATION - opening our eyes
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Draco walked into the room behind Snape's offices and stopped when he saw that Weasley was already in there, sitting on the couch. He looked up at Draco and for a moment the two boys just stared at each other, Draco with spitefully narrowed eyes and thin pressed lips, Ron with a look of distant wariness. Finally, Draco sighed and strode over to the couch. He just wanted to get this over with so he could spend the rest of the hour pretending Weasley didn't exist. He was feeling cold, in control, and he wanted to stay that way.
Ron said nothing as he offered Draco his arm. Draco said nothing as he took it, but paused before biting into the soft flesh. The first drop of blood on his tongue was so sweet he felt himself relax, just a tiny bit. No matter what else happened, that first taste always felt good. He held it on his tongue a moment, savoring it, before letting the red heat slide down his throat and sucking more blood into his mouth. If only things could stay as simple as this. As this place, red and dark, where his anger could be swallowed up for a time and his mind set to drift without worries. It was only a few seconds, but a few seconds was enough to allow him some measure of rest.
Then his anger came back to him, and his surroundings, and Draco made to pull away. Bad enough that he had to depend on doing this every single bloody day for the rest of his life. Worse still that he could let it make him forget. He was stopped, however, from releasing Ron's arm, by a firm pressure on the back of his neck. Draco's eyes snapped open blazing, and skittered upward and to the side to look at Ron, but the Weasley's eyes were closed, his face expressionless, and he made no other acknowledgement of the situation than the hand firmly gripping the back of Draco's neck. Before Draco had a chance to struggle against this imprisonment, he felt something, just a tiny tickle in the depths of his subconscious, and feeling it he was pulled back, slipping down into himself, and into the sensation.
At first it was like treading water, or just drifting. It was so still, and everything seemed warm and formless as it moved sluggishly through his mind. Then he felt it again, welling up beneath him, or inside of him, yet not of his self. Just a slow ache at first, and he couldn't name it, but it built stronger until then he knew what it was: Apology. Hesitant and insistent it skirted around the edges of his mind like a lost puppy hoping to find acceptance. He recoiled from it at first, something so foreign as knowing another's feelings, it felt like someone invading his mind, crawling under his skin. Then Draco became aware of a whispering, of a sound that wasn't a sound tapping in the background at the back of his mind. Draco concentrated on it, dropping deeper and deeper into himself so that the reality of sitting on the couch in Snape's offices barely registered. What he heard was almost like words, but not really. If he concentrated very hard he could put a meaning to it: imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry...forgivemeforgiveme... For a moment Draco was too surprised to do anything but let the words wash over him. Then:
Why should I forgive you?
Draco didn't speak these words, but still they boomed so loudly across his mind that he realized just how faint those other whisperings were. He felt the ripples of his question spreading out across this hidden bridge, reflecting back to him so that in the stillness he could hear their echo: whywhywhywhywhy... For several moments nothing else moved and Draco became aware of his own breath moving steadily. In. Out.
Then something shifted and the echoes of his question were scattered as something else flowed into his mind across that invisible connection, riding towards him on the heart-beats of another. If Draco could have heard nothing else but the words of the reply it would have been: 'They had to know.' As it was, however, more than merely words slid themselves into his mind. There was also sensation, and an understanding deeper than anything he had ever known outside of his own head, like the parting of some unknown barrier. Images flickered across his brain telling of friendship and secrets, of trust and doubt. And so he knew.
But knowing isn't always forgiving, and he couldn't let it go that easily. So he concentrated, and sent his own thoughts outward, thoughts of darkness and hunger, of fear and longing for release. He brought forth the terrible demons that twisted in his mind and remembered what it was to feel anger, and hate, and comfort snatched away.
I trusted you.
The response that he got was almost immediate, and so strong he thought he would drown in it.
I will always protect you.
It felt like sunlight slicing into his soul, illuminating all of the shadows and leaving him half-blind with its brilliance. It felt like strong hands lifting him, pulling him onward. It felt like doubt swept away, and Draco began to tremble. An observer watching in the room would have seen his hands tighten around Ron's arm, clinging like one lost and newly found. There was nothing in him that could deny the truth of what he felt. There was such certainty in Ron's presence, such strength. He was like an anchor.
The anger that had filled Draco drained out of him in that moment. He was left floating in an endless calm, drifting on a sea so deep and still it took his breath away and he knew that everything was right. He began to understand what it was to have faith.
Then some darker tide surged across the ocean of his mind. Images began to flicker past his closed eyes mixed with emotion so tangled and confused that it took him several moments before he realized what he was seeing, what Ron was feeling. Love, fear, sadness, patience, pride, all these things were bound in Ron as he showed Draco images from what he came to understand was a dream, was a vision from out of the past. In his bones Draco knew the truth of what he saw, but still his soul cried out to let it not be so as he watched with Ron as the dark hunger took his father, as the young boy, so like Ron, was torn, and bloodied, and eventually slain.
Unnoticed, tears ran parallel tracks down Draco's face as he witnessed the brutal murder of an innocent, and they were as much from fear as they were from sorrow or a sense of injustice. The monster in this picture was all too real, all too close to home. For all that Lucius was Draco's father, so too did he suffer under the same hunger, the same all consuming rage, and what was to say that it wouldn't claim him as well? What was there to keep the beast inside of him chained?
I will always protect you.
The past seemed to speak through Ron, and Draco tried to hide from the sound of it. Why should such as he warrant protection? What measure of his sins would pay for it?
I am not worth it. There is no hope...
Hope is not for you to decide. Know that I will protect you and let it be enough.
Acceptance. This is what he felt radiating outward from Ron. Like a balm it flowed into him, smoothed his jagged edges. And then Draco felt tired. So tired. Like he had run a hundred leagues from monsters that were always mere inches from his heels, and he simply couldn't run any farther. He needed to face them, face himself.
But how can you resign yourself to a life chained to this? How can you accept this as who you are?
The emotion that would have previously filled these questions was gone, and now Draco asked merely with a weary, almost distant curiosity.
What I am doesn't matter anymore. What I am...
Ron began to tremble. The peace that had settled over Draco shattered and a new darkness began to creep in. Something was wrong. Something was not right. Where before Ron had projected a feeling of rock solid calm, now Draco felt tremors of fear passing through him, waves of horror. How could he deal with this when he wasn't even sure of the cause?
You can tell me.
He didn't know where the words came from. They were so much more practical than anything he would normally think of. None-the-less, he packed them with as much assurance and trust as he could muster. Whatever was going on, now was not the time to skirt around the issue. He'd been doing far too much of that in the past month, he realized, and it was time to set that childishness aside.
I don't want....to remember
The fear Draco was feeling from Ron had almost reached the level of panic now and Draco found himself shaking with the effort to keep his own emotions under control.
You need to remember. Please. For me.
At this Draco felt something in Ron give way. Suddenly he felt a torrent of imagery, sensation, memory pouring into his mind. He struggled to make sense of it, but it was all coming so fast he despaired of catching hold of anything more than fragments. Then, all at once, everything seemed to go still, and before he knew what was happening, like looking into the waters of a pensieve, Draco found himself hurtled completely into a memory not his own.
At first he was simply confused. Where ever he was, it was dark. He seemed to be walking down a corridor somewhere. Someone else was walking ahead of him. There was an erratic flickering of torchlight coming from sconces along the wall, but he couldn't quite see through the shifting shadows who it was. Something about the situation conveyed to him a vague feeling of being trapped.
Then he opened a door, and he and the other figure walked into a dusty room. As she walked through the doorway, her profile was momentarily perfectly outlined and in that moment Draco realized who she was, Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister. It took him a few moments to process all of the implications of what this might mean, and by the time his attention was brought back to the situation she was handing him a knife and he was taking it. The events that followed were stranger and more gruesome than he could ever have imagined, and he did his best not to dwell on them once each had passed.
When the vision finally ended Draco found that he was still floating in that strange place in his mind that shared a link with Ron's. Now, however, he was infinitely more frightened than he had ever been before, and just as confused as to what they should do now. Fortunately, Ron's fear seemed to have died down to manageble levels and he now projected a feeling that might have been characterized as merely very tense. Still, Draco didn't know what to say. What do you say to someone who's sister has forced them into performing strange rites of dark magic, that include carving arcane symbols into said sister's flesh, and was currently up to Merlin knew what else? If they were lucky, perhaps she was simply possessed of some dark spirit and they would be able to exorcise it. Draco wasn't sure what to do if that wasn't the case. Something in the back of his mind suggested that they should go to Dumbledore, but he avoided that thought. In his mind Dumbledore was, and always would be, an interfering old coot.
I don't think she's possessed.
We should still eliminate that possibility before we do anything else. She was possessed once before wasn't she? In our second year?
Somehow this conversation seemed to have started itself in the middle but they both seemed to know well enough what they were talking about. At the last Draco felt a dark emotion flicker through Ron. It was apparently repressed, however, for he answered candidly enough.
Yes, the diary your father gave her, the trapped ghost of Tom Riddle, a younger Voldemort.
The statement was not accusatory, it merely stated the facts, nor did it linger on the name of Voldemort. He had been killed early at the beginning of last summer. He was no longer a threat.
What did she act like then, do you remember?
Not really. It was years ago, and I was worrying about other things.
Well, we should still look into possession. I think there are some fairly straight forward ways to check on it if we just go look them up. Besides, that looked like pretty old magic she was working, and not a little complicated. It would be hard to believe she was working it all by herself with no guidance from someone, or some thing, else.
By now the fear of both boys had subsided to the point of being mere background noise and they were able to discuss what they would do fairly rationally. That they would do something was never even questioned, nor was the fact that a Malfoy and a Weasley were apparently willingly cooperating ever considered. It simply wasn't important enough to warrant attention.
You're probably right. I just feel...
What was that?
Draco interrupted Ron as he thought he heard something from "outside." He had been concentrating so completely on this communication with Ron that he had completely forgotten about the physical reality of where they were and what they were doing. Draco remembered dimly that he still had his mouth fastened to Ron's arm and that he'd probably been sitting in a very cramped position the entire time.
Wait.
There was a pause as Ron seemed to pull back from where ever it was they were. Then:
It's Snape.
This was accompanied by an image of a tall man in black robes scowling down at him.
I see.
That was all Draco thought before pulling himself out of that deep place in his mind and back into physical reality. He opened his eyes. He was facing the back of the couch but still he straightened, disengaging his mouth from Ron's arm, and letting go his death grip on Ron's wrist. "What can we do for you, Professor?"
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To say that Professor Snape was entirely prepared for the sight that greeted him when he walked through the door would have been a misrepresentation. He did feel, however, that he managed to school his features into a perfectly blank mask fairly quickly. Severus Snape was not a man to let surprise get the better of him.
The two boys were sitting in what appeared to be a rather uncomfortable position. Ronald Weasely was sitting facing forward on the couch, but his arm was bent at an akward angle where Draco Malfoy held it and he had sort of twisted sideways to place his other hand, rather firmly from the looks of it, on the back of Malfoy's neck. Draco himself sat backwards on the couch, hunched over and cross-legged. Ron's eyes were closed, but Snape couldn't be sure about Draco's. Neither boy moved. They might as well have been statues.
Quiet as statues or not, however, Snape still wanted them out of his offices. He had been working hard and had only realized that their hour was fifteen minutes overdue to be ended when he had looked away from stirring a potion to remove boils. Stepping near the couch, he cleared his throat loudly to make his presence known. Instead of the instant reaction that he had expected, the response was rather sluggish and consisted only of a fluttering of the young Weasley's eyes before they slowly opened. Ron stared up at him mutely for several moments and Snape was beginning to feel rather uncharacteristically at a loss of what to say. Then Malfoy moved, releasing Ron's arm and straightening slowly from his hunched over position.
"What can we do for you, Professor?"
The break in the silence was somehow so startling that Snape had to catch himself from jumping. The mood in the room was rather eerie, if an ex-deatheater such as Snape was allowed to say so. Still, he put on his coldest manner and answered quickly enough.
"I simply came to inform you that your hour here is past up, and that you two shall certainly be late for your next classes."
"Is that all, Professor?" Malfoy continued to address him facing the other way and Snape was beginning to think that a deduction of a few house points might be in order.
"That is not all, Mr. Malfoy. What, may I ask, were you two doing? Making sure Mr. Weasley's arm would get infected? This would hardly serve either of you." Snape's voice was cold as the grave, but the Weasley's blank stare seemed, to him, to be particularly defiant, so he narrowed his eyes at him for additional effect.
"We were merely thinking, Sir. Remembering, you might say." This time Draco turned around on the couch and stared up at Snape as well. Were those tear-stains Snape saw on his face? No, surely not. His face, like Ron's, was curiously blank, but Severus could still see traces of the Malfoy hauteur lurking around the edges of his expression. Snape curled his lip at it. Draco never had learned to respect his betters.
"Well, whatever it was, you'd best be on your way now. I shan't be giving you notes for your teachers. I'm not responsible for keeping time for you two." Snape turned as if to go but then turned back when he remembered a threat he had made the day before. Malfoy and Weasley were already rising from the couch and picking up their belongings. "Mr. Weasley," Snape snapped, liking the cold knife sound of his voice, "Come here. Show me your neck." Ron obeyed, though warily, tipping his head to one side and baring his neck to Snape's critical eye. "You've followed my instructions I see. Good. Don't neglect them."
With that, Snape turned and strode from the room. Whatever the two boys had been up to when he walked in still nagged at his attention, though, for some time afterward. That, and the peculiar intensity in Weasley's eyes. It reminded him of something, something from long ago. No matter. He would do his best to forget.
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chapter 37: ACCELERATION - opening our eyes
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Draco walked into the room behind Snape's offices and stopped when he saw that Weasley was already in there, sitting on the couch. He looked up at Draco and for a moment the two boys just stared at each other, Draco with spitefully narrowed eyes and thin pressed lips, Ron with a look of distant wariness. Finally, Draco sighed and strode over to the couch. He just wanted to get this over with so he could spend the rest of the hour pretending Weasley didn't exist. He was feeling cold, in control, and he wanted to stay that way.
Ron said nothing as he offered Draco his arm. Draco said nothing as he took it, but paused before biting into the soft flesh. The first drop of blood on his tongue was so sweet he felt himself relax, just a tiny bit. No matter what else happened, that first taste always felt good. He held it on his tongue a moment, savoring it, before letting the red heat slide down his throat and sucking more blood into his mouth. If only things could stay as simple as this. As this place, red and dark, where his anger could be swallowed up for a time and his mind set to drift without worries. It was only a few seconds, but a few seconds was enough to allow him some measure of rest.
Then his anger came back to him, and his surroundings, and Draco made to pull away. Bad enough that he had to depend on doing this every single bloody day for the rest of his life. Worse still that he could let it make him forget. He was stopped, however, from releasing Ron's arm, by a firm pressure on the back of his neck. Draco's eyes snapped open blazing, and skittered upward and to the side to look at Ron, but the Weasley's eyes were closed, his face expressionless, and he made no other acknowledgement of the situation than the hand firmly gripping the back of Draco's neck. Before Draco had a chance to struggle against this imprisonment, he felt something, just a tiny tickle in the depths of his subconscious, and feeling it he was pulled back, slipping down into himself, and into the sensation.
At first it was like treading water, or just drifting. It was so still, and everything seemed warm and formless as it moved sluggishly through his mind. Then he felt it again, welling up beneath him, or inside of him, yet not of his self. Just a slow ache at first, and he couldn't name it, but it built stronger until then he knew what it was: Apology. Hesitant and insistent it skirted around the edges of his mind like a lost puppy hoping to find acceptance. He recoiled from it at first, something so foreign as knowing another's feelings, it felt like someone invading his mind, crawling under his skin. Then Draco became aware of a whispering, of a sound that wasn't a sound tapping in the background at the back of his mind. Draco concentrated on it, dropping deeper and deeper into himself so that the reality of sitting on the couch in Snape's offices barely registered. What he heard was almost like words, but not really. If he concentrated very hard he could put a meaning to it: imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry...forgivemeforgiveme... For a moment Draco was too surprised to do anything but let the words wash over him. Then:
Why should I forgive you?
Draco didn't speak these words, but still they boomed so loudly across his mind that he realized just how faint those other whisperings were. He felt the ripples of his question spreading out across this hidden bridge, reflecting back to him so that in the stillness he could hear their echo: whywhywhywhywhy... For several moments nothing else moved and Draco became aware of his own breath moving steadily. In. Out.
Then something shifted and the echoes of his question were scattered as something else flowed into his mind across that invisible connection, riding towards him on the heart-beats of another. If Draco could have heard nothing else but the words of the reply it would have been: 'They had to know.' As it was, however, more than merely words slid themselves into his mind. There was also sensation, and an understanding deeper than anything he had ever known outside of his own head, like the parting of some unknown barrier. Images flickered across his brain telling of friendship and secrets, of trust and doubt. And so he knew.
But knowing isn't always forgiving, and he couldn't let it go that easily. So he concentrated, and sent his own thoughts outward, thoughts of darkness and hunger, of fear and longing for release. He brought forth the terrible demons that twisted in his mind and remembered what it was to feel anger, and hate, and comfort snatched away.
I trusted you.
The response that he got was almost immediate, and so strong he thought he would drown in it.
I will always protect you.
It felt like sunlight slicing into his soul, illuminating all of the shadows and leaving him half-blind with its brilliance. It felt like strong hands lifting him, pulling him onward. It felt like doubt swept away, and Draco began to tremble. An observer watching in the room would have seen his hands tighten around Ron's arm, clinging like one lost and newly found. There was nothing in him that could deny the truth of what he felt. There was such certainty in Ron's presence, such strength. He was like an anchor.
The anger that had filled Draco drained out of him in that moment. He was left floating in an endless calm, drifting on a sea so deep and still it took his breath away and he knew that everything was right. He began to understand what it was to have faith.
Then some darker tide surged across the ocean of his mind. Images began to flicker past his closed eyes mixed with emotion so tangled and confused that it took him several moments before he realized what he was seeing, what Ron was feeling. Love, fear, sadness, patience, pride, all these things were bound in Ron as he showed Draco images from what he came to understand was a dream, was a vision from out of the past. In his bones Draco knew the truth of what he saw, but still his soul cried out to let it not be so as he watched with Ron as the dark hunger took his father, as the young boy, so like Ron, was torn, and bloodied, and eventually slain.
Unnoticed, tears ran parallel tracks down Draco's face as he witnessed the brutal murder of an innocent, and they were as much from fear as they were from sorrow or a sense of injustice. The monster in this picture was all too real, all too close to home. For all that Lucius was Draco's father, so too did he suffer under the same hunger, the same all consuming rage, and what was to say that it wouldn't claim him as well? What was there to keep the beast inside of him chained?
I will always protect you.
The past seemed to speak through Ron, and Draco tried to hide from the sound of it. Why should such as he warrant protection? What measure of his sins would pay for it?
I am not worth it. There is no hope...
Hope is not for you to decide. Know that I will protect you and let it be enough.
Acceptance. This is what he felt radiating outward from Ron. Like a balm it flowed into him, smoothed his jagged edges. And then Draco felt tired. So tired. Like he had run a hundred leagues from monsters that were always mere inches from his heels, and he simply couldn't run any farther. He needed to face them, face himself.
But how can you resign yourself to a life chained to this? How can you accept this as who you are?
The emotion that would have previously filled these questions was gone, and now Draco asked merely with a weary, almost distant curiosity.
What I am doesn't matter anymore. What I am...
Ron began to tremble. The peace that had settled over Draco shattered and a new darkness began to creep in. Something was wrong. Something was not right. Where before Ron had projected a feeling of rock solid calm, now Draco felt tremors of fear passing through him, waves of horror. How could he deal with this when he wasn't even sure of the cause?
You can tell me.
He didn't know where the words came from. They were so much more practical than anything he would normally think of. None-the-less, he packed them with as much assurance and trust as he could muster. Whatever was going on, now was not the time to skirt around the issue. He'd been doing far too much of that in the past month, he realized, and it was time to set that childishness aside.
I don't want....to remember
The fear Draco was feeling from Ron had almost reached the level of panic now and Draco found himself shaking with the effort to keep his own emotions under control.
You need to remember. Please. For me.
At this Draco felt something in Ron give way. Suddenly he felt a torrent of imagery, sensation, memory pouring into his mind. He struggled to make sense of it, but it was all coming so fast he despaired of catching hold of anything more than fragments. Then, all at once, everything seemed to go still, and before he knew what was happening, like looking into the waters of a pensieve, Draco found himself hurtled completely into a memory not his own.
At first he was simply confused. Where ever he was, it was dark. He seemed to be walking down a corridor somewhere. Someone else was walking ahead of him. There was an erratic flickering of torchlight coming from sconces along the wall, but he couldn't quite see through the shifting shadows who it was. Something about the situation conveyed to him a vague feeling of being trapped.
Then he opened a door, and he and the other figure walked into a dusty room. As she walked through the doorway, her profile was momentarily perfectly outlined and in that moment Draco realized who she was, Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister. It took him a few moments to process all of the implications of what this might mean, and by the time his attention was brought back to the situation she was handing him a knife and he was taking it. The events that followed were stranger and more gruesome than he could ever have imagined, and he did his best not to dwell on them once each had passed.
When the vision finally ended Draco found that he was still floating in that strange place in his mind that shared a link with Ron's. Now, however, he was infinitely more frightened than he had ever been before, and just as confused as to what they should do now. Fortunately, Ron's fear seemed to have died down to manageble levels and he now projected a feeling that might have been characterized as merely very tense. Still, Draco didn't know what to say. What do you say to someone who's sister has forced them into performing strange rites of dark magic, that include carving arcane symbols into said sister's flesh, and was currently up to Merlin knew what else? If they were lucky, perhaps she was simply possessed of some dark spirit and they would be able to exorcise it. Draco wasn't sure what to do if that wasn't the case. Something in the back of his mind suggested that they should go to Dumbledore, but he avoided that thought. In his mind Dumbledore was, and always would be, an interfering old coot.
I don't think she's possessed.
We should still eliminate that possibility before we do anything else. She was possessed once before wasn't she? In our second year?
Somehow this conversation seemed to have started itself in the middle but they both seemed to know well enough what they were talking about. At the last Draco felt a dark emotion flicker through Ron. It was apparently repressed, however, for he answered candidly enough.
Yes, the diary your father gave her, the trapped ghost of Tom Riddle, a younger Voldemort.
The statement was not accusatory, it merely stated the facts, nor did it linger on the name of Voldemort. He had been killed early at the beginning of last summer. He was no longer a threat.
What did she act like then, do you remember?
Not really. It was years ago, and I was worrying about other things.
Well, we should still look into possession. I think there are some fairly straight forward ways to check on it if we just go look them up. Besides, that looked like pretty old magic she was working, and not a little complicated. It would be hard to believe she was working it all by herself with no guidance from someone, or some thing, else.
By now the fear of both boys had subsided to the point of being mere background noise and they were able to discuss what they would do fairly rationally. That they would do something was never even questioned, nor was the fact that a Malfoy and a Weasley were apparently willingly cooperating ever considered. It simply wasn't important enough to warrant attention.
You're probably right. I just feel...
What was that?
Draco interrupted Ron as he thought he heard something from "outside." He had been concentrating so completely on this communication with Ron that he had completely forgotten about the physical reality of where they were and what they were doing. Draco remembered dimly that he still had his mouth fastened to Ron's arm and that he'd probably been sitting in a very cramped position the entire time.
Wait.
There was a pause as Ron seemed to pull back from where ever it was they were. Then:
It's Snape.
This was accompanied by an image of a tall man in black robes scowling down at him.
I see.
That was all Draco thought before pulling himself out of that deep place in his mind and back into physical reality. He opened his eyes. He was facing the back of the couch but still he straightened, disengaging his mouth from Ron's arm, and letting go his death grip on Ron's wrist. "What can we do for you, Professor?"
.
.
To say that Professor Snape was entirely prepared for the sight that greeted him when he walked through the door would have been a misrepresentation. He did feel, however, that he managed to school his features into a perfectly blank mask fairly quickly. Severus Snape was not a man to let surprise get the better of him.
The two boys were sitting in what appeared to be a rather uncomfortable position. Ronald Weasely was sitting facing forward on the couch, but his arm was bent at an akward angle where Draco Malfoy held it and he had sort of twisted sideways to place his other hand, rather firmly from the looks of it, on the back of Malfoy's neck. Draco himself sat backwards on the couch, hunched over and cross-legged. Ron's eyes were closed, but Snape couldn't be sure about Draco's. Neither boy moved. They might as well have been statues.
Quiet as statues or not, however, Snape still wanted them out of his offices. He had been working hard and had only realized that their hour was fifteen minutes overdue to be ended when he had looked away from stirring a potion to remove boils. Stepping near the couch, he cleared his throat loudly to make his presence known. Instead of the instant reaction that he had expected, the response was rather sluggish and consisted only of a fluttering of the young Weasley's eyes before they slowly opened. Ron stared up at him mutely for several moments and Snape was beginning to feel rather uncharacteristically at a loss of what to say. Then Malfoy moved, releasing Ron's arm and straightening slowly from his hunched over position.
"What can we do for you, Professor?"
The break in the silence was somehow so startling that Snape had to catch himself from jumping. The mood in the room was rather eerie, if an ex-deatheater such as Snape was allowed to say so. Still, he put on his coldest manner and answered quickly enough.
"I simply came to inform you that your hour here is past up, and that you two shall certainly be late for your next classes."
"Is that all, Professor?" Malfoy continued to address him facing the other way and Snape was beginning to think that a deduction of a few house points might be in order.
"That is not all, Mr. Malfoy. What, may I ask, were you two doing? Making sure Mr. Weasley's arm would get infected? This would hardly serve either of you." Snape's voice was cold as the grave, but the Weasley's blank stare seemed, to him, to be particularly defiant, so he narrowed his eyes at him for additional effect.
"We were merely thinking, Sir. Remembering, you might say." This time Draco turned around on the couch and stared up at Snape as well. Were those tear-stains Snape saw on his face? No, surely not. His face, like Ron's, was curiously blank, but Severus could still see traces of the Malfoy hauteur lurking around the edges of his expression. Snape curled his lip at it. Draco never had learned to respect his betters.
"Well, whatever it was, you'd best be on your way now. I shan't be giving you notes for your teachers. I'm not responsible for keeping time for you two." Snape turned as if to go but then turned back when he remembered a threat he had made the day before. Malfoy and Weasley were already rising from the couch and picking up their belongings. "Mr. Weasley," Snape snapped, liking the cold knife sound of his voice, "Come here. Show me your neck." Ron obeyed, though warily, tipping his head to one side and baring his neck to Snape's critical eye. "You've followed my instructions I see. Good. Don't neglect them."
With that, Snape turned and strode from the room. Whatever the two boys had been up to when he walked in still nagged at his attention, though, for some time afterward. That, and the peculiar intensity in Weasley's eyes. It reminded him of something, something from long ago. No matter. He would do his best to forget.
