Chapter Six: Queen of Slytherin

The dungeons were unusually cold, even over the heat of simmering cauldrons. She drew her robes closer, cursing herself for not bringing a cloak.

"A pinch of orchid leaf."

Snape didn't seem bothered by the cold. He looked over her shoulder on occasion, suggesting something, but otherwise went on as if everything was as it should be.

She turned to grab a bottle of orchid leaf, and her ankle protested. She allowed herself only a brief hiss before squeezing the bottle and returning to her work.

"Your ankle?" A question, no concern.

"Yes."

"I have some Pain-relieving Potion in the second cabinet there—"

"No, I'll be fine."

The pain rushed up her leg, biting. The brace they had given her was healing the sprain but did little to assuage the hurt.

All the better. You deserve to feel it. Think of Hermione, still lying in the hospital wing, still recovering because you—

Because you weren't strong enough to take a little bit of humiliation.

She put all of her weight on the ankle, feeling the pain and contrition tremble up her bones. If Dumbledore wasn't willing to punish her adequately, she'd do it to herself.

McGonagall had been the only one with her head on straight, really. She'd wanted Lili expelled--demanded it. But Flitwick and Dumbledore managed to calm her, with a lot of twinkling eyes and beard stroking. No permanent harm had been done. Miss Granger would recover within two weeks. Punishment was in order, yes, but not expulsion.

Lili looked up at Snape, bent over a cauldron across the dungeon from her.

Let me take care of her, he had whispered to Dumbledore, eyes stuck in her, full of venom. She is, after all, in my house. This sent McGonagall back into fits.

But Snape had dealt with her. Her "extra-credit" had become detention, and he was certain to make it as painful as he could. He kept her unbelievably long hours, snapped at and cursed her, threatened to replace her with Hermione as soon as possible. But, what was worse, his eyes--now completely walls. He had seen a part of her that made her ashamed. She'd lost his confidence. And her own.

And why shouldn't he lose confidence in her? Her father and Artibius had been right: she couldn't handle Hac Dao. It had waited for a moment of weakness…and it had used her. Or she had used it. She couldn't yet decide which.

And still, whatever punishment Snape could offer, was not enough. Only she knew the severity of the spell she had used. If she had used it at Zhong Mo Xue, expulsion would have been a foregone conclusion. She was lucky no one here knew much about Chinese magic.

"Miss Lee, you're going to let your cauldron boil over if you don't pay attention."

Letting her mind wander, she had neglected to stir the Exploding Elixir. "Sorry, Professor."

"Do you have any newt livers over there?"

"Uh—yes, I do. Two jars."

"Bring them over here."

She leaned down and lowered the fire on her cauldron long enough to take him the jars and help him open and stir them in.

"I hear, Miss Lee, that you visited Miss Granger this morning."

It was the first real comment he'd made to her since the incident. She plunged the spoon back into her own potion, turning up the fire once more. "Yes."

Silence.

"I did." Adding this sounded pathetic, but she was desperate for him to say something more.

"Why, pray tell, did you do that, Miss Lee?" He did not look up.

"I don't know. I guess to apologize."

"And did you—" he spat the last word, "apologize?"

The disgust in his voice forced her to turn back to the potion, grinding weight into her ankle. "Yes, I did. We actually had a bit of a talk about it. And then her friends decided to—interrupt."

"Mister Potter?"

"Yes. He had a few things to say about my heritage, my habits, my intelligence, looks, and a few names to call me." Every bit of her concentration strained to focus on the potion instead of the knot in her chest. "As did Mister Weasley."

"Yes, I imagine Mister Weasley did." This seemed to amuse him. He stirred for a few more moments before asking, "And what did you tell them, Miss Lee?"

He looked up and, through the rising steam of the cauldrons, only the severe wall of his eyes glittered clear.

"I told them—they were—right." All she would allow herself to see was the bubbling liquid. Her stomach bubbled the same.

She had looked them straight in the eyes and told them she agreed: worthless, corrupt, malicious…any number of things. She was skin pulled over something rotten, and, though it was difficult to hear from Potter and Weasley, she couldn't deny it. The proof, as she'd heard her father say so many times before, is in the pudding.

A thin-fingered hand grazed her arm. She jumped.

Snape was beside her, looking down his hooked nose at the Exploding Elixir. For the first time since the incident, she saw that pinprick of light couched in the black of his eyes.

He extinguished it, but it had been unmistakable.

"You're stirring this the wrong way, Miss Lee." It was less of an accusation than she had become accustomed to. He kept his hand on her arm and directed her movements. "You need practice with your stirring. Most people overlook it, trivialize it, but it's quite important. It can change the texture, the combination of already volatile ingredients. Stirring technique shows the difference between an professional and an inept amateur." He turned away, disentangling the spoon. Sweat was beading on his brow and his colorless skin reflected bright red from the cauldron. "But you seem to have managed adequately."

And suddenly she saw it there. He had done something too. He had done something he regretted and hated himself afterwards. And he…understood. She felt a weight lift from her chest and words huff out dry. "Thank you—Professor."

"No need to thank me, Miss Lee, it was your work." His left sleeve mopped his brow and pushed back a stray, limp hair without seeming guided by his body. "I think you've done enough work for the evening, and I have been keeping you rather late."

"Actually, Professor, I have a couple of Revitalizing Tonics here I thought I could finish." It was the first time she hadn't wanted to leave.

"Well, if you've already started."

She felt the corners of her mouth turn for the first time since the Dueling Club.

Yanjing hei, linian hei: Hui had been right. Something inside Snape was casting those shadows on his eyes, eating at him until his cheeks grew sunken and his body gaunt. She allowed herself only several glances in his direction while she thought, pinching fairywing half-heartedly. She wondered if he would ever tell her: if he had told anyone at all.

She worked at least another hour in silence, adding an ever-increasing amount of fairywing, stirring gently and watching the liquid bubble into a delicate lilac color. The smell overcame her, clotting in her throat.

"It smells as though you've finished the tonics."

His voice startled her. "Y--yes. Just finished."

"They look fine. Bottle them before you go."

She complied, bottling and scouring her cauldrons before, uncertainly, she looked up at Snape, searching for some further response. He continued to stir his concoction which, from the look of it, was Veritaserum. She waited several minutes while he added a few ingredients as Veritaserum was a difficult potion: she could only imagine the wrath of a potions master disturbed.

"You may go, Miss Lee," he said, adding a bit more tincture of denny toad, "if you answer just one question for me."

"Sir?" It was her turn to mop her brow automatically.

"Tell me, Miss Lee." He paused, stirring a few seconds more, letting her squirm. "If you had used the Stone-heart Hex at your old school, what would have become of you?"

It was like looking down the end of a wand. "S—sir? How did—you--?"

"I'll admit, Miss Lee, I don't know much about Eastern magic," he sighed, eyes still turned down in concentration. "But if there is one thing I know, it's the after effects of a dark curse. I looked it up. I think it must be quite a serious spell."

Her own heart felt like stone. "It is, sir. I—I should never have even considered uttering it."

"And where would a Lee learn such dark magic?"

"Sir, that's two questions."

He did not seem amused, and she certainly wasn't in any position to keep the information secret. Her eyes found the floor as if by instinct. "A Lee learned that sort of magic in places she wasn't strong or intelligent enough to have been looking," she muttered, remembering late nights at Zhong Mo Xue, reading books on Hac Dao from the restricted section.

He pursed his lips, intent on the clear liquid bubbling beneath his hand. He seemed to be looking through it, at something far away. "Well, at least you've that much sense, Miss Lee." He sighed. "Good night."

But she stayed, rutted in place. She wanted to know: she wanted to lift something from him as he had from her.

He glanced up at her, cheeks shadowed and drenched in condensation. "Good night, Miss Lee."

"Professor?"

His gaze encouraged only caution.

"Did you know Harry Potter's mother?"

He dropped his spoon, causing Veritaserum to splash dangerously. Cursing, he reached down into the cauldron, searching for it, eyes madly avoiding hers. Even when the spoon was recovered and the mess cleaned, he did not look up again. "What was that, Miss Lee?"

He was trying to discourage her. Silly Slytherin. This, of course, merely intrigued her more. "I asked if you knew Harry Potter's mother? I—I think her name was Lily."

Snape's eyes followed the roiling surface of the cauldron a long while before he sighed, shaking his head. "I think, Miss Lee, Slytherin has had some negative influences on you."

Lili allowed herself a small grin. "Hermione told me her name was Lily. She also said I—I looked a bit like her."

"More than a bit," Snape said, removing his dragonhide gloves as if resigned to answering. "You do bear a good resemblance to her, yes."

"So you did know her?" Lili pressed, charting his every move, expression. His lips twitched, his eyes sunk to the floor, just as hers had minutes before: his dexterous hands grew, suddenly, more rigid and still.

"Yes, I did. She and Harry's father were the same year as I. Gryffindors of course. Lily and I were partners in Potions for a short time. It was my only contact with her."

Lili found this somewhat unlikely and let him know so without a word.

To her surprise, a wan smile stretched across the Potion Master's face, a smile she found as disconcerting as it was thin. "She was quite hopeless in Potions. I tutored her a bit, that's all. And then, when I saw you, it reminded me. It struck me as an interesting irony, you in Slytherin, she a Gryffindor. That's all."

Lili started to scoff, but Snape crossed his arms in a way that brooked no response.

"I see."

"Now, Miss Lee, I think we've both had enough of the Inquisition for this evening. I would be more than glad to bid you good night."

Her heart was beating in a slow, deliberate effort to keep herself composed. She had pushed him, and he had given way, if even just for a moment. She had the upper hand.

Turning to leave, she couldn't resist just one more thing. "Professor Snape?"

He was no longer watching the potion, his eyes fixed, unfocused, on a particularly uninteresting wall. "What?" A tone that welcomed nothing.

"You're going to let your cauldron boil over if you don't pay attention." She let her voice rise and fall, mocking his.

He stared back at her, refusing to smile or scowl, as he waved her away.

As it turned out, the incident at the Dueling Club did nothing but improve Lili's time in Slytherin. Word traveled with its usual quick stealth that the spell she'd used was some Eastern equivalent of an Unforgivable—an entertaining but apocryphal rumor—and, almost instantly, Lili was given a wide berth. Gryffindors bristled at the sight of her, Ravenclaws wisely averted their eyes: even some of the professors occasionally offered their sideways looks. Her marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts wavered. But, once within the confines of Slytherin, people side-stepped as if she were royalty, deferring to her opinion, nodding thoughtfully after any word she spoke. She found herself surrounded by first-years eager only, it seemed, to hear her voice. It was unnecessary to prove herself anymore. She had done it with one curse hurled in a moment of weakness. Slytherins seemed inexplicably drawn to the exercise of power without reservation: and at that moment, Lili had let everyone know that, without regard for anything else, she was powerful.

And she hated herself for it. She hated every minute of reverence, every doe-eyed first year asking for an explanation of this curse, that hex. More than anything, she hated that --for the one reason she couldn't enjoy-- everyone now loved her.

That at least, Hui had pointed out, was a very good sign.

Only one place afforded her even the least bit of privacy and freedom from awed whispers. She spent increasingly long hours in the dungeons, helping Snape with several of the easier Ministry requests. After that night of questioning in the dungeon, he forced a truce, never mentioning the Dueling Club or the Stone Heart Hex again. Provided (though the stipulation was never spoken) that she, in return, not delve any deeper into any issues of his past.

So it was only with Snape that the praise she received felt fully justified: when she did well, he told her so, if only in a pure Slytherin way. And, of course, when she did poorly, he didn't neglect to draw her attention to it.

So she went on, taking any excuse she could to get to the dungeons earlier and stay later, avoiding prying eyes, or, what was worse, obsequious ones.

After several months, however, the scandal mellowed. While Lili remained the newly dubbed "Queen of Slytherin," the respect paid her became more out of habit than fear. Millicent forgot about the Dueling Club and found time to insult Lili now and again. Artibius even seemed to forgive and forget, becoming his old self, accepting suan mei as fast as she could dish them out.

But not everything was falling into place. Slytherin was only second in line for the Quidditch Cup. It was the sort of thing that made Draco particularly irritable: the sort of thing that gave rise to a fresh wave of enmity in Slytherin—most especially towards the Gryffindors who, as chance had it, would be the likely victors. Lili, keeping with the loyalty she held for her house, respected the discontent though she cared little for the sport itself. Beyond that, she just felt sorry for Draco, who, it seemed, would never get a fair shake against Harry Potter. The Potter boy was beginning to appear blessed, and, after the final match between Slytherin and Gryffindor, Draco had sustained more than a broken wrist.

A week later, Draco cast aside the wrist brace but continued nursing his other wounds. He had taken to late night flying sessions, alone, to "practice" he said. Just in case Gryffindor lost to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, Slytherin won against Hufflepuff, and they would have to play a tie-breaker. No one, not even Lili, felt it right to point out just how unlikely this would be.

And then Gryffindor won against Hufflepuff. But the late night flying continued.

"When someone has something to prove to himself," Hui had said, perched under inky bamboo, "they don't understand the word 'no.'"

Lili considered this, squinting upwards, trying to pick out Draco's form from among the clouds. The Quidditch pitch was thick with shadow and silence.

"Draco!" she shouted up at the sky, still searching. It was almost midnight. She shouldn't have been out of bed, but she was getting worried, even if she didn't want to admit it. Snape had given her a pass allowing her in the corridors after hours, and she was, she told herself, merely using it for a necessary errand.

A figure zoomed behind the clouds, but she was unable to tell if it was Draco or merely an owl off on delivery. "Draco!"

The figure zoomed past again, and, squinting, she realized it was, after all, an owl.

"Damn." She drew her cloak tighter, slipping on the gloves she had brought just in case. It was almost December, and tiny dots of white fell like stars from the cloud-blanketed sky.

"Lili?"

There was a slight rustling from behind one of the goal posts. Draco's pale form shifted, ghostly, in the shadows. "Lili is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

There was a long silence. He didn't emerge any farther.

"Look, Draco, it's late. You gotta come in. If McGonagall catches you, she'll take points."

He shifted, letting half his face emerge from the shadow of the goal post, eyes glittering. "McGonagall doesn't stop the Queen of Slytherin?"

Finally, she thought, relieved. That was the normal, suave-yet-snide Draco. She almost feared she'd interrupted a inappropriately introspective Slytherin moment.

"Snape gave me a pass. If you come back with me, no one can stop us."

"I don't wanna go back. Not tired. Still some flying to do."

Not knowing what to say, she tried moving towards him gingerly. The black of the goal post nestled atop her, hiding her from the glaring eye of the moon.

Draco sat, back pressed against the goal post, broom at his feet. His face was turned upwards, dots of clouds bouncing off his gray eyes. "Besides, it's not a bad evening."

"Are you kidding? It's bloody freezing. And it's about to really snow. You ought to come in."

He didn't respond, keeping his eyes turned up, fingers laced over his knees. Lili was overcome with the feeling he was both a little boy and an old man all at once: it was a battle between innocence and weariness she had never seen in him before. She didn't have to ask what was wrong.

"So, Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff."

His eyes remained fixed.

"Heard it was a dreadfully dull game."

Only a half-mumbled "Mmmm. Lucky twits. Lot of Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers."

There was a dense and cold silence, the clouds slowing until they seemed frozen to the sky. The snow was falling harder now, melting in a burst as it touched the bare, warm skin of her face.

"You must really love flying to come out in this." It seemed one of few safe areas of conversation available.

"Yeah. I don't know why, but I love it. Especially at night. You can see the stars so close and clear you almost think you can reach out and pop 'em right in your mouth like candy." A sneer. "And once and a while, I'll fly by the East Tower and get a ripping funny view of Trelawney in her cucumber mask and frillies."

Lili chuckled. An excellent Slytherin maneuver: hide something poetic and deeply personal inside something irreverent and humorous. "Well, you're good at it. Flying, I mean." It was true. For all the bribing Draco had apparently done to get his position as Seeker, he had worked since at improving his skill. --And not without result.

His face took on an entirely different light, pale skin souring. "Not as good as Potter." It was an ugly face.

Her heart skipped. She had not expected something so forthright. Never before had she heard him admit that Potter was good. At anything.

She opened her mouth but found herself unable to decide the most tactful response.

"It's okay; I know it's true." He glanced over at her with a drawn disgust, letting his eyes fall to the ground as slow and cold as the snow. "It's just…That game—it was my chance."

Anger was bubbling on the surface, but beneath she sensed something else. "Chance to what?"

"To show Potter up."

He said it so simply, so easily, Lili couldn't believe it.

"I mean, it was my last chance to prove to everyone that I could do it. I could beat him and beat him good. And I failed. He still beat me." He grabbed his wrist, whether purposely or without thought, Lili couldn't tell. "And he managed to make me look like a moron in the process, knocking me into the stands like that." The anger waxed. "He always does. Somehow, I always end up on the downside of everything with him." His eyes met hers, sharp as she'd seen them a hundred times when he faced Potter. "But I suppose you wouldn't know much about being on the downside. You've got a lot of stuff going for you and everyone knows you're the best at this, at that. Queen of Slytherin, eh?" His voice had become ambivalent, and she couldn't tell if the anger was directed at her, Potter, or the universe-at-large .

"I don't see why you compare yourself to Potter in the first place."

He looked away, saying nothing.

"I mean, sure he's good at flying. He's not bad in his classes. And what's he famous for? Well, as far as I can see, he's famous for his bleeding dumb luck." This, at least, made Draco snort in agreement. "Maybe you're not as good a flyer. Maybe you are. Potter may win again and again. Maybe this time his bravery doesn't get him killed. Maybe this time his rule-breaking turns out for the best. But luck, now that's a double-edged sword. Hui—er, a friend of mine-- taught me a saying: 'Luck will carry you half way across the river. If you have nothing else, you'll drown.' So, let the baby have his bottle. Eventually, people will figure out that his dumb luck is no match for skill. And, half-way across the river, he'll have to find someone to help him out." She forced a strong grin, feeling a little weaker with this than she wanted Draco to know. "So, just wait. And, in the mean time, ignore him. He's not worth anyone's attention anyway. The more you worry about him, the more you help make him famous for being in the wrong place at the right time."

Draco was quiet for a long time, fiddling absently with the twig-end of his broom. She didn't know why in the world she was saying any of this. She wasn't sure she believed what she had said: Harry Potter probably had more skill than that. They said he'd survived an attack by You-Know-Who himself. But that wasn't what Draco needed to hear. And, for some strange reason, deep in her gut, she really hoped that, someday, Draco would, through luck or skill of his own, give Harry Potter a good wallop. Physically, mentally, she didn't care. As long as, someday, somehow, Draco could satisfy himself that, besides a scar and an odd past, Harry Potter was no better than anyone else—not even a Slytherin.

"Lili?"

He was looking at her again, snow falling light on his gold-white hair.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you'd go to the Yule Ball with me this year?"

Another jolt of her heart, this time bouncing down to the bottom of her stomach. He must be joking. Sure, he had spent some time practicing dueling with her. And he had tried to talk to her the night she'd been so upset about her father. But…the Yule Ball?

"Oh, well, don't answer all at once." He seemed, for a moment, to retreat behind his sneer.

She realized that her face was drawn up in a sort of surprised terror, and did her best to shake it off. "Oh, no—no. I was just, surprised, that's all." Her cold skin suddenly flushed with warmth.

"Well I understand if the Queen of Slytherin doesn't want to—"

She balked.

"I usually go with Pansy, but she's a right twit. You're a much stronger witch: one my dad might not be ashamed to see me make an alliance with. We're just more—fitting—as far as what we want, don't you think?"

"Yeah." The words tumbled out, strangely, against her better judgment. What part of her had said that? Fitting?

It was true, he had understood her better than anyone. After all, he, too, had something to prove. But a date? A formal? Her entire body tingled, half giddy with surprise, half disgusted at the prospect. Friendship was comfortable: anything beyond that wasn't. Especially, for some reason, with Draco. The idea of--

Making an alliance with. Okay, so he wasn't the next Casanova. But maybe he was right. Maybe they were…fitting. In a way. That night, by the fire, he sure had seemed to understand…

"I…yeah. I'll go with you."

Wait, what did he mean by fitting?

But she couldn't take the words back now. He was already standing, brushing his robes, offering her a hand up from the cold and increasingly wet ground. His face was hard and pleased, like someone who had just closed a particularly lucrative deal.

It would be okay. It was just the Yule Ball. She wasn't signing a contract or pledging an oath. Hell, they were at least friends. "Fitting" friends.

"Well," he said, picking his broom up from the snow-dusted ground with a flourish. "If you're the Queen of Slytherin, I suppose that makes me the King?" The crooked grin returned.

Her face warmed with the smile. He was still Draco, Yule Ball or no. "Your majesty," she said, curtseying deeply.

He chuckled, and, for the first time since she'd met him, it was without a hint of anything biting or nasty. He straightened his broom parallel from the ground and gestured to it simply. "Let me escort you back to the castle?"

She was unsure if the ink of the night would blot over the pink in her cheeks or the tremor of her hands. As strong as she normally felt, the weakness was unnerving enough to make her fumble slightly—not with lovesickness but genuine uncertainty.

Cautious, she mounted the broomstick, laying a hand awkwardly on Draco's shoulder for support.

He pushed off with a jolt, spiraling up into the dark, spotted night. Her already churning stomach flopped. Snow flew like static into her eyes.

For a moment, the anxiety melted away into exhilaration. The world was far away, and she was above, apart, looking down at her own pinprick footprints.

And, half shrouded in dark, half glowing with moonlight, Lili suddenly found herself in no particular rush to return to the castle.