Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling, except Graces Malfoy and Thomas Higgs who are my own. I do not claim ownership of the characters or the settings within. This story is for entertainment only and is not part of the official story.

Author's notes: Huge thank you to my beta Denarii for editing and my best friend Aleah for reading it over.

Special thanks to bridget237, blacklightningwolf, omgitsfranklin, walkergirl13, GoingClassic, char170217, guest, noone297, snowflake2410, Sabertooth's-frisky-kitten, infinateconstellations, Blue Luver5000, Lizzy B, AnnyJackson19, Lil Miss Sunshine14, bageltiger, Dragomir7 and orangezauber for the reviews and messages!

Chapter 68

Graces could barely breathe as she felt Snape's arms tighten around her. The wizard wasn't preventing her from breathing, but she felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her, only she wasn't able to recover like after a blow. It felt as though there was no air left in the room, like it was sucked out and gone much like her hope. Her chest was tight and she was vibrating from head to toe as she stared at her mother's ice blue eyes and she knew even without a word that her mother felt the same.

"Release my daughter," Narcissa whispered, each word laced with poison.

"Do not do this," Snape warned, pulling Graces closer to his chest. "Narcissa, I beg of you do not do this."

"Release my daughter!" Narcissa repeated, her features resembling her sister's.

"No! I will not allow you to kill your children!" Snape bellowed, the calm collectedness in his voice abandoned. Draco took a step forward, but Narcissa stopped him before he took out his wand. It was her fight and she clearly was not going to allow anyone else to take Snape down.

"Kill my children," she echoed, moving from where she was standing and stalking the Potions professor like a feral cat. "Don't you dare act like you care for the welfare of my children. How dare you even look me in the eye after what you allowed to happen to my child!"

Graces felt him tense at her mother's words and she too realized what it meant.

"You left her there," Narcissa hissed, her hand so tight on her wand that her knuckles were white. "Then you brought her here so some muggle could open her up and put his filthy hands inside her!"

"I had no choice," Snape growled, angling Graces so she was kept between her mother and himself.

"Is that what you tell yourself?" Narcissa challenged, the rage in her eyes flickering dangerously.

"I tried to prevent her from coming. I told her she was a fool for coming. I—"

"SHE IS A CHILD!" Narcissa screeched. "SHE IS MY CHILD! I TRUSTED YOU TO PROTECT HER! YOU SWORE TO ME TO PROTECT HER!"

"I have protected her!" Snape roared, his hands now so tight on Graces' that she gasped with pain.

Narcissa bared her teeth and Snape's robes burst into flames. For years Graces had seen her mother light the torches in the halls without a wand. She would be engrossed in a letter, a book, conversation and just pass by lighting the flames in a darkened area with what seemed like no thought. She had never seen it for what it was, power and skill. Graces felt the heat on her back and jumped to get away, but Snape was just as talented it seemed and soon the flames were gone and he yanked her back by her hair and there was no longer a wand at her back, but a dagger at her throat.

"You say you don't want her to die and yet you hold a dagger to her throat."

"Better her to die at my hands then die at our Lord's as a traitor!" Snape snarled dragging her down to her knees so she looked even more helpless than she already was. Snape's chest was rising rapidly and though his hand was steady on the dagger she could feel the rest of him vibrating. "If you leave they will find you," Snape whispered, his voice pleading. "They will find you like they have found so many others and they will do to your daughter the same things they did to them. Maybe even worse."

A flicker of doubt came into the older woman's eyes and Snape pounced on it.

"She's beautiful," he continued, tilting Graces' face up and ignoring her tears. He kept the dagger close to her throat, so close her vein pulsated against it. "She's beautiful and talented and Nott is not the only one who has had his eyes on her. Think Narcissa, think for one moment what they would do to a pretty thing like her before they let her die."

"I refuse to watch that," Snape shook. "I won't see that. I didn't help bring her into the world to watch and be a part of her torture and death. I would rather slit her throat now and know it was a thousand times better than the pain she would have endured!"

"She's doomed to that fate if we stay," Narcissa argued, her voice trembling with emotion.

"Draco has not failed yet," Snape persisted. "He has not failed! He is closer now than ever before! He has help now. You're not thinking about this rationally."

"My daughter was butchered!"

"Your daughter is alive! She is alive and thriving! She has a proposal of marriage that she can take at any moment and secure her safety! She does not need to run! Running is putting her at risk! Draco—" Snape turned to younger boy "—don't listen to her. Don't go. I have sworn to do the task myself should you fail. I have vowed to ensure this task is carried out. I am just as intertwined in your fates. We're so close. Dumbledore will be dead before you leave for summer, I swear on my own life it will be so."

"His life is at risk if we go," Narcissa pointed out, moving so that she was blocking Snape's view of her son. "He doesn't care about you, Draco, or about Graces. He's just desperate. If we escape on his watch the Dark Lord will punish him, possibly even kill him depending on his mood."

Graces winced and ground her teeth to keep from whimpering as Snape's grip hardened on her. She didn't see a way out now, not with Snape holding a dagger to her throat and blocking his body with her own.

"You would be wise to release my child, Severus," Narcissa whispered, her wand eerily steady in her hand. "Just because I have spent the past 16 years raising children doesn't mean I've gone soft. If anything I am more hardened now." Narcissa took a small step forward and Snape in response dug the dagger so a few drops of blood pooled out of Graces' neck. Narcissa's eyes were at once drawn to the blood and the ice blue irises seemed to have turned to coal.

"Do you remember the first time we ever fought, Severus?" Narcissa smirked. "I do. And I distinctly remember that as smart and quick as you were I was still able to take you down."

"Things have changed since then," Snape countered, his cheeks reddening.

"Clearly," Narcissa deadpanned. "But not in the ways you are thinking. I'm still far more powerful than you, Severus."

"Blood status has no affect on power."

Narcissa scoffed. "Even if we pretend that is true, I still had more years training with magic, the better of private tutors, more strength, more agility and more experience dueling than you. Potions is your strength Severus, potions and planning, not dueling. While dueling does require tactical thinking it also requires force and you Severus have never possessed the strength you would need to fight me."

"I've grown up defending myself against the Black temper and if I can best my sister in dueling, I can best you."

"I do not want to fight you," Snape hissed. "Put your wand down, Narcissa, and listen to me! You want to leave? You want to leave now? When your son has better chances of succeeding, when he is getting help? After I have vowed an unbreakable vow to carry the task out myself should he not succeed? You want to leave when your daughter has a way out, when plans are brewing in the inner circle to free your husband from Azkaban?"

"What?" Draco asked, taking a step forward.

"He lies," Narcissa whispered, her face going white.

"I'm not lying," Snape seethed. "I'm telling the truth. Your husband is going to be free before summer comes."

"Mum, if fath—"

"It doesn't matter," Narcissa interjected. "Your father would not want us to wait. He wouldn't—"

"I'm not going," Draco declared, moving and standing behind Snape. "I won't go."

"We're not going, Snape," Draco growled, taking his wand out and pressing it against the professor's back. "You've made your point. Now release my sister."

Snape removed the dagger from Graces' throat and the blonde dropped to floor and sobbed uncontrollably. She watched her mother's feet move towards her, but before she could even lay a hand on her Snape was between them.

"You need to leave," Snape informed coldly. Narcissa opened her mouth to say something scathing, but Snape continued. "Do you have any idea what I am giving you by not telling what you were planning? I am giving you and your family your lives, but if you continue to stand there wasting time so that someone will notice your absence I won't be able to save you all. It will be out of my hands."

"Mum," Graces pleaded, holding the small cut of her neck and looking up from the floor.

"You need to leave," Snape repeated.

Graces had never seen her mother look so defeated. She stared up at her brother who refused to look at either of them. She had the key, if her mother could just get close enough for her to touch she could take her and Draco to the safe house.

And what about Thomas and Octavian?

Graces wracked her mind for some way they could go. There had to be something she could do, but slowly her hope began to leave her. With every tear that rolled down her mother's cheek she watched as hope left.

"Draco," Narcissa whispered looking over Snape's shoulder at her son.

Draco met her eyes for a brief moment before turning away and leaving down the stairs. Graces wanted to scream at Draco for abandoning them. For turning his back on them when they were so close. He had no trust for them, none at all. It was one thing for him to not listen to her about the safe house, but to turn his back on their mother. She looked up into her mother's face and she could tell that Draco had just taken something from her, what fire she had left. She imagined her mother had used the last of her strength to come here, to take them. She was like an animal that had clawed its way out of an abyss only to be knocked back in.

"Leave," Snape repeated sharply.

"Let me at least say goodbye," Narcissa requested.

Snape grabbed her arm forcefully and prevented her from taking another step.

"No."

"I just want to say goodbye to my child, Severus," Narcissa insisted, ripping her arm away and moving forward.

"Take another step," Snape dared, his body practically vibrating with fury. "Do it. Do it and see what will happen. Take another step and I swear on my magic you will not only not see your daughter before summer, but I will take her away. You can spend the next few months wondering where she is."

Narcissa paused and stared at the man standing next to her. It was now a battle of wills. Snape just wanted to hurt her and wield his dominance over her.

"Don't think for one moment I won't do it. I'll take her to the ends of the earth. I'll potion her so she won't be able to even think. I'll snap her wand in two. I will make her as helpless as possible to ensure she won't be able to escape or call for help. You will never find her and she will not even know what is happening." Narcissa's lip trembled and she moved for her wand, but Snape grabbed for her hand preventing her from bringing it up. "Go ahead and hate me," he whispered, his quiet words filling the room. "Hate me all you want; hate me for saving your children."

"You are not saving them," Narcissa proclaimed bitterly. "You are sealing their tombs."

"Make your decision, Narcissa," Snape ordered coldly.

Narcissa's lower lip began to vibrate and Graces knew her mother's decision well before she turned her back to leave. She didn't know what snapped inside her, but she lunged towards her mother like a wounded animal, screaming for her to come back. Snape held her tightly preventing her from descending the stairs after her mother who wouldn't even look at her as she screamed again and again.

She knew with each cry she was twisting a dagger in her mother's gut and she didn't care. She wanted her to feel that pain. She wanted the pain to be so unbearable that she would run up those stairs and kill Severus Snape. Once he was dead they would find Draco, get Thomas and Octavian and leave. So she continued sounding like a poor pathetic child. She wailed "Mother, Mother..." again and again, mixing in "don't leave me, mother help me, please..." and even "mummy" as many times as she possibly could before she left. She wanted each cry sounding in her bones, she wanted it piercing her heart and prayed it would be so horrific it would take away the fear and bring back the lioness.

But it didn't work. Her mother never came back. Snape didn't release his hold on her after she left either. The Potions master kept his arms tightly around her even after she slumped down to the ground, he still held her. Graces gritted her teeth and growled at his touch, at his presence, at the rancid smell that surrounded her that was his.

"I hate you." Silence, just his ever present arms holding her. "I HATE YOU!" she shrieked, the glass on the pictures shattering.

Still nothing.

Graces could feel all her hatred and hurt boiling up in her. She felt like her magical core was igniting in her chest and she was going to burn alive with rage.

"I meant what I said," Snape whispered, his hot breath tickling her ear. "I will take you away. I will chain you, body and mind. No one will know where you are and I will give you so many potions you won't remember who you are. And I won't just do this if your mother becomes foolish again. I am willing to do this should you, your brother, Thomas or anyone else who dares to think escape is an option."

"You have no idea what they would do to you," Snape whispered. "When you were beaten they still held respect for you. You are a Malfoy, and your father's name and previous work for our Lord still protects you. The moment you taint that name with traitorous behavior there will be no salvation for you. What they will do to you will be nothing compared to what you have endured."

"Stop acting like you care," Graces seethed. "I know whose skin you want to save and it isn't mine."

There was a tension in the air at her words, but Snape didn't say anything more. She slumped to the ground as he released her and refused to look up at him as he left. She hated him, with everything that she was she hated him. She let that hate give her the energy she needed to stand up off the ground and go back to her room. As she entered it, though, she felt more empty. She looked over to the fireplace where she had fed Neville's letters and poems and regret began to mix with the hate she harvested.

She wished she could take it back, but she also knew that if she were back in the moment she would have done the exact same thing. Still, she couldn't bear to look at the fire any longer, because when she looked at the fire she hated herself. Not for throwing away the letters, that was smart, but for how easily she had been willing to throw him away.

I wasn't throwing him away. I was surviving.

Graces knew that was the truth. She was surviving. And she wasn't even leaving him, in the end she was going to convince her mother to use his safe house.

That was only after you realized mother's plan was flawed. You were going to leave, disappear without a trace.

"He would have understood," Graces whispered. "He would have understood and been happy I was safe."

He wouldn't have known if you were safe and it would have driven him mad.

Graces tried to tell herself it wouldn't have, that Neville would have assumed the best, but the more she kept trying to convince herself the more she knew it wasn't true.

It doesn't matter anymore, Graces realized, sitting down on the cold floor of her dorm and tucking her knees close to her chest. I'm not going anywhere. There is no chance of escape anymore. There is no safe house. And with that last thought she let her heart shatter and she wailed out from the pain of it all.

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