"Will you shush! No one's supposed to know!" Severus fretted.
"How can this be? How can a teacher here be a Squib? Oh, wait a minute, of course. This is Dumbledore we're talking about; he's always giving the dregs of the earth jobs at Hogwart's... Damn it. He'll never get rid of Carlton," Draco groused.
"Who the hell cares about that bastard? This book has formulas for everything!" Severus grinned.
"That bastard tried to kill me!" Draco snapped. "And I want to know why!"
Severus gave Draco a patient look. It was like a young mirror image of Professor Snape staring back at him. "You're obviously not going to get your answers by asking him. It's going to take detective work to figure this one out."
"Let me see that book." Severus reluctantly handed Draco the book. "I don't see any potions for reversal of forgetfulness potions...Wait a minute!" Draco's gray eyes lit up. Then, in a hushed voice, he told Severus, "This book has the formula for Veritaserum in it!"
"Draco!" Severus gasped. "Veritaserum is very dangerous; you need to be supervised by the Ministry of Magic to use that!"
"Not if I use it on myself!" Draco declared.
"Now why the hell would you want to do that?" Severus asked disdainfully.
"It will help me remember the information that's in my mind but locked away!" Draco answered.
"Huh? Draco Malfoy, once you take a Forgetfulness Potion, the information that you have forgotten is lost permemantly, unlike a Memory Charm, which can be broken or reversed if absolutely necessary," Severus instructed him. "Just what kind of idiot did you have for a Potions professor, anyway?" Draco had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep quiet. "Just what is so damned funny?" Severus demanded. "Was it something I said?" Draco continued to try and contain his mirth. "Do I know the person who taught you Potions? It wasn't Lupin, was it?"
"Lupin? What made you think that?" Draco laughed. "He's just as bad at Potions as Neville Longbottom!"
"Neville Longbottom? I remember Frank Longbottom, when he went to school here. He'll have a son? Is that it?" Severus asked with interest.
"Okay, that's it! No more flashes of the future! I'm keeping my mouth shut! Now, let me see this ingredient list... Dangerous as this potion is, it's not all that difficult to brew. But I'll have to get some things from the Potions storage room..."
"Colton will never allow us in there," Severus warned.
"Just leave that to me. And what's this us all of a sudden? I thought you were worried that the Ministry of Magic would catch you," Draco sneered.
"What? Pass up my golden chance to force-feed Colton Veritaserum? After that, who cares if I get tossed into Azkaban?" Severus declared.
"Now what makes you think I'm going to force-feed Colton anything? He won't say anything except that he's a Squib who's trying to kill me, which I already know. Besides a nice sized dose of a laxative concoction, he's not getting a damned thing out of me. No," Draco smiled evilly. "The one getting force-fed Veritaserum is the one responsible for having my memory destroyed in the first place..."
"You mean Foxworth? But..." Severus protested.
"But nothing, Sev! He's the one who has something even bigger to hide than Colton the Squib. And I have a plan to get it out of him. That business with that werewolf leads to something vital. I must have seen something, and he wanted to cover it up. I'm determined to get to the bottom of it," Draco said.
"Fine, so you solve the mystery, and then what?" Severus asked. "You leave?"
Draco took a deep breath. He'd gotten so involved in what was going on in these times that he was starting to forget that he had another life 20 years in the future. He decided not to think about that; it was making his head spin. It was spinning so much that he thought he saw his Aunt Andi out of the corner of his eye. It made him take another look, and he gasped "Aunt Andi?"
Severus looked at the tall, willowy young woman walking from the Hufflepuff table to the Ravenclaw table. She had long blonde hair tied back in one thick braid. She was quite beautiful, but very cool looking. "By the Goddess, it is her!" Draco gasped again as he got up to catch up to her. "Aunt Andi?" he said when he got to her side.
At first, Andi smiled brightly at Draco, but then, it faded. "Aunt?" she asked him in puzzlement.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I suppose I'd better introduce myself. I'm Draco Malfoy, Narcissa's son," he told her.
"You're Narcie's son? Oh, my! What do you mean, Malfoy? You can't mean that my sister will actually go ahead and marry Lucius Malfoy, do you?" Andi sighed as she sat at the Ravenclaw table. Draco sat down next to her. Severus seemed to be rocking back and forth on his feet nervously. A few of the Ravenclaws at the table gave Draco a pointed look. He looked back at them with wide gray eyes, taking in each of their Ravenclaw colored ties and patches on their robes. But one of them didn't have Ravenclaw colors, she had Hufflepuff colors. He saw her cinnamon eyes, and his throat caught.
"Er, Drucilla, right?" he grinned. She smiled back. Gods, she was beautiful, Draco thought as his mind wandered about a million miles away.
"Yes," she answered. "Drucilla Webster." Her own matching cinnamon hair was braided the exact same way Andi's was. "I think Andromeda asked you something," she smirked.
"Uh, oh, yeah. My dad. Yeah, he's Lucius Malfoy..." Draco trailed off as another person, a Gryffindor girl, sat down next to Drucilla. This was the same girl who was in the Hufflepuff stands with Drucilla yesterday, with the red hair and green eyes. And that braid!
"Lily! Guess what? Draco Malfoy here is Andromeda's nephew!" Drucilla declared. Draco noted an unmistakable note of satisfaction in her voice. Of course, he realized as he saw Lily's face turn sympathetic to Aunt Andi. Because of her relationship to him, that meant that Andi was no longer competition for Drucilla. Ew, his aunt had been interested in him, Draco thought. Of course, how could she have known that he was her nephew, but still...
He blinked, and looked up. Severus was still standing there nervously. "Say, Sev, why don't you have a seat?" Dru smirked slightly, Lily looked aghast, and even Severus grimaced nervously. He looked to Andi again, who suddenly appeared to be absolutely furious.
"Oh, yes, Sev, why don't you have a seat next to me?" seethed Andi, "so I can ask you why you didn't tell me he was my nephew!"
"How was I supposed to know he was your sister's son?" Severus protested. Drucilla's eyes sparkled with amusement, while Lily's had become two hard emeralds of hate. Draco considered laughing, until he realized that Aunt Andi must have been one of the ones that Severus had "test ridden" on Draco's behalf last week. At first, he was seething as much as Aunt Andi and Lily were. And then, he recalled that Drucilla had been another girl that Severus had last week. So, he put a firm hold on his anger, and made a promise to himself that he was going to carve Severus Snape into tiny little pieces once they got back to Slytherin House.
Fortunately, the bell rang. Everyone rose from their seats in a hurry. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, Drucilla," Draco told her.
"I'll be at the Gryffindor table tomorrow morning, if you want to talk..." Dru informed him, and then left, hurrying to catch up to Lily. Why did she have to make things so difficult for him? First she sat at Ravenclaw's table, and he got the dirty looks, and now he was going to have to leap head first into the Lion's Den for breakfast! Well, he thought as he watched her backside moving in a most appealing manner, he'd be up for the challenge. But first, he had to deal with Severus, who was being harrassed by Aunt Andi.
"Let's get out of here!" Severus puffed as he managed to escape the last of Aunt Andi's wrath.
"I agree." And with that, Draco and Severus were silent until Draco decided to make a detour into the boy's bathroom on the first floor. Severus followed him in.
"Look I know you're mad at me. I'm not an idiot. I'm sure you're pissed about Andromeda. I can't believe she's your aunt! Oh, well," Severus dithered.
Draco turned on him. "My aunt? I can't believe you screwed my aunt!" he railed.
"Well, maybe you see her as Auntie Andi, but I don't," Severus replied smugly. This just got Draco even more angry, but Severus continued, "My reputation spreads, and so do their legs! What do you want from me?"
A few seconds passed, and Draco's seething became more of a simmer. Severus frowned. "Well, why aren't you kicking my balls or something? I can tell you're mad. Just get it over with."
"What? And deprive all the girls of such a good time?" Draco spat.
"You know, I don't understand you. You act like you've never played this game at all...Oh, I get it," Severus suddenly smiled. "You have never actually...done it before, have you?" Draco's face began turning bright red as Severus tried very hard not to laugh.
"What?" Draco asked, shaking with fury.
Severus' face took on that all-knowing look that had much more merit when he was older than he was at that moment. "And I know why that is, too. It's because you think too much Malfoy. If you would just stop thinking and start fucking, you'd be a lot better off..."
Draco gaped. He had not felt so humiliated since...since he'd been changed into a ferret and bounced around in front of the entire school. Furiously, Draco pushed the prospect that he might have changed himself into a ferret down in his mind. This was no time for thinking about that! And then, it came to him. The perfect counter attack. "Hey Severus! Remember you asked me who the idiot was that used to teach me potions? Well, the idiot was you, Professor Snape!" he declared.
"That's bullshit!" Severus sputtered. "I'd never become a teacher! Why would I ever do such a ridiculous thing? Why would I subject myself to being the target of hundreds of students' wrath?"
"How should I know, Professor Snape?" Draco asked innocently.
"Don't call me that," Severus snarled.
"All I know is that you were my Potions professor." Draco sailed out of the boy's bathroom. Severus was hot on his heels. So were a couple of third-years, the same ones that were chasing Draco around yesterday afternoon. He gave them a pointedly nasty look, and they naturally didn't get the message; they giggled with delight that he would look in their direction. Rolling his eyes, Draco made his way downstairs for the Slytherin Common room. Severus caught up with him well short of the entranceway.
"If you keep quiet about my supposed future career, I won't mention your sexual experience, or lack thereof," he stated quietly.
Draco smirked. "You're such a sweetheart, Sev," he replied sarcastically.
"Of course I am. I'm a Slytherin."
"Heh," Draco sniffed as he continued walking to the door. "You know," he said suddenly, and stopped his stride, "I could have had any girl I wanted. It's just that I don't drop my pants for just anybody, like some people I know..."
"And so," Severus grinned and said just as softly, "you never dropped them at all."
"Oh, I'm sure that's just fine with you, Sev. You can keep them all happy, I reckon," Draco sneered.
"But that's just the thing. I'm only one person, Malfoy. Sooner or later, you're going to have to pitch in and help out."
"Oh you poor dear! Getting too overworked are you? Well, you should have thought of that before you unbuttoned your pants last week. I certainly can't help you with Aunt Andi."
"Well, of course not! I don't know what we're going to do about her..." Severus frowned.
"I have a suggestion. Remember how your pants were last night? Well, pretend that they are like that all the time, Severus," Draco advised him. Severus looked like he'd just bitten into a rotted melon. "And don't sulk! It's very unbecoming in someone who's mature enough to go cavorting around like you've been."
"I'll be sixteen in about a month!" Severus protested.
"I'll be seventeen in December, I think," Draco announced as he shook his head and finally entered Slytherin House. "Can't be too sure anymore. I was born, or will be born, or I'm supposed to be born, on the 29th of December. So, that makes me older."
"Older, but still, er, pure as newly driven snow..." Severus whispered.
"Whatever," Draco growled. He caught sight of Lestrange. Now he had more important things to worry about than his aunt's honor. Lestrange was nothing short of murderous. "Here comes trouble..." he muttered as Lestrange got himself in Severus' face.
"What do you want?" Severus asked Lestrange in a very quiet, deadly sort of tone. Evan Rosier got up from one of the highbacks and scurried off, right out of the House.
"That was a very low-class stunt you pulled at dinner. You don't talk about my sister that way," Lestrange ranted.
Severus snorted derisively. "Oh please! You can talk about her however you want, but no one else is allowed to? You should have thought of that before you started spreading rumors about me and Malfoy." Lestrange backed off a bit, but Severus continued talking. "If I find out that you're shooting your big mouth off anymore about things you know nothing about, I'm going to have to teach you a lesson, Lestrange. And trust me, you don't want that to happen, do you? Do you remember that Finger-Twister curse I put on you in second-year? Well, I know how to twist any other part of your body in the same way, do you get my drift?" Draco watched Severus all the while he was speaking, and he radiated with an angry spark while Lestrange wilted. Obviously, Severus had more strength with magic than did Lestrange. That, and only that, was why Lestrange finally sat down and nodded.
It was not a subject touched upon very often in the Wizarding world, but there definitely were wizards and witches that were stronger than others. Many people said it doesn't matter how strong one's powers are, as long as they are used well. That might be true to an extent, but then again, in a situation like tonight's, Severus' strength was definitely handy. Lestrange knew that he would not win in any sort of duel with Severus, and so he backed down.
Draco had heard things said about himself, things like how he had power enough to rival even someone like Albus Dumbledore or Voldemort. He personally had his doubts. He was just sure that Harry Potter must have been the more powerful; how else had he survived the curse that no other wizard or witch had ever survived? One thing was for sure; he certainly wasn't powerful without knowledge. And he obviously had some major problems if someone who is as powerful as he allegedly was had to throw books at a werewolf to get it to leave him alone! Draco eyed Lestrange, who, though cowed for the moment, was seething. He wouldn't dare attack Severus, but if he ever sensed Draco's vulnerability, he would be easy meat for Lestrange. He shivered slightly as he left for the dormitory. And when he checked his trunk and found his dagger cleverly hidden inside, he let out a breath of relief.