Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews guys. Here's another chapter to wet your appetites. This is the start of the true angst. And it mostly get's worse from here on out.

Black and Blue

Draco stood outside Professor Snape's office, still not sure if he really should do what he was thinking. It could cost him dearly but it would help Val in the long run. He took a deep breath and then reached up to knock.

The office door swung open and Snape stared down at Draco, with a look of anger on his face. "Malfoy, what are you doing here?"

"We need to talk." Draco said simply making sure not to let any of his anger slip into his voice.

"If it's about your sister, I'm not interested." Snape began to shut the door, but Draco put his hand against it.

"Yes I want to talk about my sister, but I also want to talk about other things." Draco said casually.

Snape so dearly wanted to shut the door in his face, but Dumbledore had ordered him to continue to try to get information from the boy about Death Eater families. So he opened the door instead and ushered him inside.

Snape sat at his desk, and motioned Draco to a seat across from him. Draco sat lounging, attempting to look as casual as possible, when really his insides felt as if they were turning inside out.

"Yes." Snape hissed.

"I want you to lay off my sister. If you'd let her do her work without distraction, you'd see that she's a damn good Potions student." Draco started, but was cut off by Snape.

"Mr. Malfoy, I told you if this is about your sister, I'm not interested in talking." Snape said through gritted teeth.

"Didn't I say there were other things?" Malfoy said in a falsely arrogant tone.

Snape stared at him seeing the tense way Draco's lips were pursed, even as he tried to fool the professor into believing that this was just a simple conversation. "Continue." Severus said in a softer tone.

At that moment Draco lost all pretense of casual attitude as he sat forward. "Tit for tat, Professor."

Snape saw the unspoken agreement that Draco was suggesting in his eyes, but he could not help his curiosity. "Why does she mean so much to you?"

Draco had anticipated this question though. "You knew Helena." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

It had been several yeas since Severus had heard that name, and for a moment his smirk slipped. But then just as quickly a scowl replaced it. "What does that have to do with it?"

"If she had allowed you to, would you have protected her?" Draco asked.

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" Snape asked, a little too coldly.

"You know exactly what I am talking about." Draco said. "I have her journal."

Snape looked stricken for a moment. He had not known that such a thing existed.

"Should I quote it word for word for you?" Draco asked angrily, and then his voice took on a slightly higher pitch as he said the words he had only read a few nights before, but were burned into his memory. "I know in my soul what is happening to me. I see it every day. I have no control anymore. Severus has seen it also. He has begged me to let him be my protector, but how can I accept? He does not know what they would do to my precious Val if I allowed that. I cannot fight them. I am lost to this world, but am secure in the notion that they will not hurt her, as long as I give in to what they want. The Vow was made. I insisted. My life for hers. If she comes to harm he will lose his precious mistress." Draco's voice broke at the last few words. "You know what those words mean. You know what they did."

Severus' eyes closed for a moment and he felt an inner trembling that he had not felt in the years since her death. It was fierce blinding anger that had driven him away from the Malfoy family at that time, and again the anger had returned. He took several deep breaths knowing that if he opened his eyes in this state of mind, he would see the face of Lucius Malfoy instead of Draco before him. If he did that, he would not be able to control his rage. After several moments of long steady breathing he felt his anger was under enough control to open his eyes. "I suspected as much, but she would never completely confide in me. There was only one person she would have confided in, but that just was not possible."

For a moment Draco's expression turned to confusion, and Snape saw it. "You haven't read the entire journal have you?"

"Not yet." Draco admitted.

"You will, and when you do, you might better understand your father's rash choices." Snape said letting his normal demeanor slip back into place.

"I would never condone what they did to her." Draco said with white-hot anger coursing through his veins.

"Condone them, no. But you will understand." Snape assured him. "Now, back to why you are here."

Draco wasn't sure of what to make of the cryptic words, but he remembered why he was there. "Do we have an agreement, then?"

"If you insist, Mr. Malfoy." Snape said smirking.

Days went by as an uneasy peace settled among Val's friends and Draco. There were no snide comments, no vicious remarks and certainly no dueling in the halls.

Val sat in the Dinning Hall with the other Gryffindors. But Draco, as usual, had chosen to eat in the Slytherin common room alone. It was breakfast and the owls had just entered with the daily mail. Hermione reached up to retrieve her copy of the Daily Profit and immediately started reading. A shocked gasp was heard from her throat, and hers was not the only one as several people around the Great Hall did likewise as they opened their papers.

"What is it, Mione?" Ron asked immediately.

"Listen to this. There was a wide scale sweep of over twenty suspected Death Eater residences last night. It is reported that twelve Death Eaters were taken into custody last night and transported to Azkaban Prison, while eight more were taken to St. Mungos, to be held in the High Security wing after sustaining serious injuries. Luckily no one was killed in their apprehension." Hermione paused to skim the rest of the article. "Oh my, these names. They all have children here at Hogwarts." They all immediately turned to the Slytherin table, where angry whispers were flying around the table, and in some cases becoming much louder than whispers.

"I wonder who tipped them off?" Harry said casually.

"It doesn't say of course, but the Slytherin house would not be a place I'd choose to reside right about now." Hermione said thoughtfully.

"Hey, that's just twenty less Death Eaters trying to kill Harry." Ron piped up enjoying watching the frantic looks at the Slytherin table.

They all broke into laughter at the statement and the day did seem a little brighter too.

But it was not bright for one person. Draco had received his copy of the Profit in the common room also. He had skimmed the article, but threw the paper down after the first few sentences. "Well, now it begins."

Days went by and Val had not seen any sign of Draco anywhere. She wondered why he would be avoiding her. She hadn't done anything to provoke him this time, not that she knew of, at least. It was a Saturday, and the students were being allowed to go to Hogsmeade that day. Val smiled brightly at her friends. It was her first trip into Hogsmeade and her friends had promised her an experience she would never forget.

The day had been almost perfect. They had visited Honeydukes, Madame Pudifoots, Zonko's Joke Shop, and had finally ended up at The Three Broomsticks where Val tasted her first butter beer. It was definitely a day to remember.

They decided to swing by the Shrieking Shack to show Val the most haunted dwelling in Britain, which they all three knew more about than most. But as they approached it, they could see a figure sitting on a large boulder staring towards the shack. He had his hood pulled up so they were not sure whom it was, but Val sensed something familiar about the figure before her. "Draco, is that you?"

He did not seem to hear her, so she moved closer, and could barely see his white blond hair inside the hood. She held her hand up to her friends asking them for a moment, which they gave her. Then she walked the final few feet to where he sat. She kneeled beside him. "Draco." She whispered.

He heard her, but it was if she had slapped him. He immediately moved around behind the boulder, and his hood fell down to his shoulders. She gasped at the site before her. His eye was swollen shut and turning a deep shade of blue. His lip was busted and blood was running down his chin from the open wound. She could also see mud caked in his once immaculate blonde hair. When he realized whom he was facing he looked away almost as if in shame. "Val, um…." His words were cut off though.

"What the hell happened to you? Who did this, Draco?" She said as anger started to boil inside her.

"No one, Val. Don't worry. I just had an accident." He said but not convincingly enough for her.

"Yeah, an accident. You just accidentally ran into someone's fist several times." She said sarcastically.

"It's my problem, Val. Stay out of it." He said in a harsh voice.

She could see that he would not supply her with the information she wanted, but all the same her anger did not cool for several moments, until she saw the way he looked away from her, at the shack, at the village, at the forest, anywhere but at her. "At least let me help you get cleaned up." She said in a low voice full of emotion.

He looked at her then, and could see the need in her eyes to do something, anything for him. He could tell that she would have taken on his attackers single-handed and wandless if necessary. But she would settle for patching him up, if that were all he would allow.

He looked over to her friends nervously. She turned and saw that they were all attempting to ignore the conversation, but she also knew they had heard the entire thing. "You guys go ahead. Draco will walk me back when we are done here." She called out. She could see the reluctant look in both Harry and Ron's eyes. They still were not sure if they trusted Draco alone with her. Hermione on the other hand, understood exactly what was going on, and started pulling the boys towards the castle.

"See you later." Hermione called out.

Val had forgotten them completely as she walked around the boulder and pushed Draco to a sitting position. She looked at his face and the pain shot through her heart as she used a handkerchief to wipe some of the blood away from his face, and she saw him flinch. She used the Episkey charm to seal his busted lip, and then started brushing the drying mud from his hair with her fingers. When she was done she surveyed her work. "The blood and most of the mud is gone, but I can't do anything for the black eye and bruises. You'll need a potion for that. We can take you up to the school and see Snape or Pomfrey." She suggested knowing he would flat out refuse.

He scowled deeply.

"Well I heard Hermione say something about there being an apothecary shop in Hogsmeade, if you preferred. But she also said their potions were never as effective as Snape's were." She said hoping he would choose the school.

He stood and pulled his hood up hiding his face and headed towards the Village. "Of course, you'll do it the hard way. Why would I think otherwise?" She said under her breath. They entered the two-room shop and asked the small woman behind the counter for what they needed. Draco paid and before long they were back in the clearing near the shack. She rubbed the potion into the skin around his eye and was pleased to see the swelling go down almost immediately and she could see his icy-blue eye once again. Then she used the potion on his other bruises and watched them fade. But she wasn't happy to see that the bruises did not fade completely. Instead of being black and blue they held a yellowish tint that was easy to see against his pale skin.

"You look better, but they are not gone completely." She said biting her bottom lip in concentration. "Muggles use something that I heard about called make-up to cover blemishes…." She began to say but the scowl deepened.

"I will not." Was all he said.

"Well you'll just have to be satisfied to let them fade the rest of the way on their own then." She said a little bitterly. "Now do you have bruises anywhere else that need attending to?" She asked sure, that he was hiding more beneath his robes, considering the stiff way he had walked into the village.

"Nowhere that I'm going to show you." He answered indignantly.

"Draco, I didn't do this to you. My friends did not do this to you. Why are you taking it out on me?" She asked in a defeated voice. She had been so happy that they had been close to getting that old sibling affection back again, but the cold look in those eyes made her shiver.

But the look melted at her words. "I don't mean to. I don't want to hurt you again, Val. I'm just angry right now." He said looking down in shame.

"I know that. But don't push me away, not when we were so close to healing all the hurts between us." Val said leaning towards him and wrapping her arms around his neck stroking his hair wanting to stroke the pain away. He was sitting on the boulder again, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his head into her stomach accepting the comfort she offered as he had done long ago with her mother. At that moment he thought she was more like Helena than she had ever been before. He felt so guilty knowing what he knew about her mother's death, but still would not turn away her affection. He needed it and knew he would need it even more in the days to come, if he survived the days to come.