Disclaimer – I don't own any of the canon characters or concepts. This was not written for profit. Don't sue.

Chapter 17

Midnight.

The cold white moonlight crept across the stone floor of the Infirmary, illuminating the shadows and the indeterminate grey spaces – here, in this place, long after the echoes of the Quidditch match had faded, there remained only ghosts of old injuries, and ashes of old grievances.

Kate lay in the limbo between awareness and true unconsciousness, the clamouring pain drawing her back from the coma. She was partly aware of her surroundings, but the soporifics in the potions they'd force-fed her blurred her senses, turned the light supernova-bright and the shadows terrifyingly dark.

She knew that Luc was no longer with her, but there was someone else in the room –

Alarm sparked, adrenaline tried and failed to penetrate the drug-induced fog.

"It's only me," Snape said dryly, his rich voice pragmatic and matter-of-fact. "Pomfrey sent Luc back to his own bed."

She let out an unconscious sigh of relief. Normally so careful in controlling her reactions, she was incredibly easy to read now. It had been a very long time since Snape had seen her display real emotion – idly, he noted her vulnerability, and wondered at the dosage that it had taken to create it.

She was lucky that Nott and the other die-hard muggle haters weren't here to see her like this. They could do her real harm.

"Did we…win?" she asked, her voice low, hoarse and slurred.

He laughed. "No. Black knocked you off your broom before you could catch the Snitch. For what it's worth, Potter caught it."

She tried to smile.

"…what…doing here…Snape?"

"I have a proposition for you."

Those clouded green eyes turned vaguely in his direction, her every thought laid bare for him to see. The sense of power was incredible.

"Luc almost killed Black today. His actions were seen and noted – they will be dissected in drawing rooms and secret meetings across Britain. They will show a boy who was far too vehement in his defense of his mudblood whore, and who lacks the proper control to conceal how important to him you are. He has revealed his one and only weakness and has displayed qualities that would severely displease the Dark Lord…"

She closed her eyes and turned her head away. But he continued on, using his voice, her confusion, and subtle tendrils of magical influence to weave a powerful deception, one that would have to last for the rest of her life.

"You understand, of course, that he cannot afford to displease the Dark Lord. His very survival depends on proving his worthiness to join the Death Eaters, and he cannot be worthy if he has a mudblood following at his heels. You are a serious liability to him, Kate; if you want him to live you have to let him go…"

"What do you mean, you're fucking sorry?" His voice cracked as it had not done since an excruciating fortnight when he was fourteen. "She died in your care. Why didn't you do something?"

Madame Pomfrey stiffened at the furious accusations, shocked, hurt and more than a little afraid of Luc Malfoy's uncontrolled rage. "I did everything I could. But I can't work miracles, and I can't save everyone; quite simply, Mr. Malfoy, sometimes even the best healers can't do anything." And that was the harsh, brutal truth that lay behind her decision to leave the emergency unit at St. Mungo's and take up the far less demanding position at Hogwarts.

However, at seventeen Luc had yet to come up against the limitations of harsh reality. Flushed with the glorious, arrogance of youth, he had believed, even up until ten minutes ago, that his determination was enough to change the world, and reshape it to his own desires.

Now he knew better.

You can't save everyone. However, she had at least thought that she could save Kate – when she had last checked on the girl just after midnight, she'd been sleeping soundly, no sign of the deep, dangerous sleep that led to death…

What had gone wrong? What had she missed?

"…Liar…" Kate whispered, fighting to keep her eyes open and fixed on her tormentor.

"You know I do not lie. You are Slytherin; you understand the reality of the situation. Luc is no fool, and yet, knowing the risk, he chose you over caution, over even his dreams and ambitions – unlike his father, I thought he would be reasonable. But he will never willingly abandon you, Kate, not even if it means his death. You must be the one to sever the connection…"

"Dead?" Snape's voice hesitated, wavered, before he forced it steady. "But she was doing so well…"

"Yes," Luc said with deliberate, forced nonchalance. He fought desperately to conceal the cold, shocked numbness that had come over him when he realized that Kate was well and truly lost to him. "It seems she had some sort of a relapse, and simply slipped away while no one was watching." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm told that there was no pain, that she simply never regained consciousness."

Conscious of Snape's watching eyes, of the cool understanding, so different from others' cloying sympathy, he laughed roughly. "You must think me a complete fool," he said with deliberate humour.

Snape said nothing.

"You can leave the country, disappear, and start another life far away from Voldemort and pureblood prejudice."

"He'll…follow…"

"No," Snape smiled triumphantly. "We'll fake your death. He'll grieve for a time, but then he'll move on and there will be nothing in this world that will ever stop him. He'll become everything that he was ever meant to be, because there'll be nothing holding him back…"

She watched him, trying to judge him with cloudy, failing eyes that still, despite everything, held that essential spark of determination that had allowed her to survive so long in Slytherin. But the drugs and the spell of his voice were too much – he could see it coming, see the capitulation in her eyes and the surrender of seven years of stubborn pride and loyalty –

"Very…well…"

Lily was devastated. All her life, she had been one of two, Lily and Kate, united against anything and everything. Their years at Hogwarts had diluted that bond slightly, but the entry of others into their lives had not changed the fundamental bond between them – not even ancient, pureblooded Slytherin had been able to divide them.

No, it had taken Sirius Black and a moment of shocking, negligent recklessness to do that.

"Don't tell me that it was just a joke, James," she argued, her voice strained and her eyes fierce. "Don't say that it was just high spirits, a prank, an accident – I've stood by and said nothing all these years, but this time he's gone too far!"

"Merlin's Balls, Lily," Sirius said, his voice aggrieved. "I said I was sorry."

Incredulous, she turned on him, but the look in Remus' eyes stopped her. Suddenly deflated, stripped of all her hollow anger, all that was left was grief, and despair, and an empty space where Kate had always been.

"We're all sorry," Remus said, his voice compassionate. "You know we'll always be here for you."

"I know," she said wearily. "I know."

Snape's contacts had responded incredibly quickly to his unconventional request, delivering the newly dead body of a young dark-haired girl-woman – he knew better than to ask who she was, and how she died – within three hours of his asking for it.

It was the work of some thirty minutes to transfigure it to an exact replica of Kate, down to the reluctantly displayed birthmark – having made her mind up, she did not hesitate in the execution of her flight. Then he lay the dead girl in Kate's place on the bed, and helped Kate walk out of Hogwarts, and into the arms of those who would take her far, far away.

She had asked him, retaining at least some of her hard-won caution, whether he truly intended to help her, or whether he would hand her over to be killed. Snape had paused, thinking on this – but truly, it had not occurred to him. As much as he wanted to make Luc pay, to watch him suffer, he would not take that revenge out on Kate – he approved of her, perhaps even liked her a little.

He did not truly wish to see her die, if it could be at all avoided.

No, he would remove her influence from Luc's life. As long as she was gone, never to return, he would let her live…

Lucius looked at his brother, fiercely composed, his face rigidly impassive and his eyes hooded and dead. There was no joy in him anymore, no innocence – the set of his mouth was almost grim.

Lucius remembered a long ago conversation, an attempt to bring home to Luc the true risk of investing too much of himself into something so fragile as a mudblood.

"Do you remember when we were younger, how we spoke of ruling the High Clan between us?"

"Yes…" A laugh. "We could have dominated them all…"

"Could have. Would have. Is it not so important to you anymore, then?"

A shrug. A sigh. "Perhaps the driving ambition has lost a little of its urgency…"

"You've lost your focus." An accusation.

"No. I've found other priorities…"

Don't give so much of yourself, brother. She will take everything you are, and then what will you have left when she is gone?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

They were standing before a small, discreet grave sheltered by a green, leafy tree. A simple tombstone:

Katherine Evans
1960-1977

Beloved daughter and sister

Rest in peace

And nothing more.

"Do you know the true irony, Lucius?" Luc asked, his eyes focused on the sky, on the earth, on the trees, anywhere but on the grave. "Voldemort would have accepted my oath of neutrality. I could have kept Kate by removing myself from the fight completely. I was going to tell her, after the match –" His mouth twisted.

"And now?"

"Now no one will believe me if I refuse to take sides. I no longer have any excuses…"

Lucius was silent.

"When will you take the Mark, Lucius?"

"After we've finished Hogwarts. Snape will stand sponsor." Bleakly, Lucius smiled. "Fitting, is it not? Voldemort has an excellent sense of irony."

"I will stand with you."

Lucius turned to meet his brother's eyes. "Why?"

"Why not? There is nothing more to hold me back. It will be an immense advantage, when I begin my campaign to take over the de Sauvigny. If I stay clean enough publicly, then no suspicion will fall on me. They will remember the boy who once loved and lost a mudblood…"

A/N – Thanks to my reviewers. We are now very, very close to the end.