Chapter 55

He wasn't ready.

He would be ashamed of it later, but that was Draco's first thought when he spotted his father lying unconscious on one of the ornate sofas in the main receiving room at Malfoy Manor bleeding from...everywhere, as far as Draco could tell. He wasn't certain he'd ever seen a person even sit on that piece of furniture and now the Master of the Manor was leaking his life force into the expensive fabric. His father looked small, and his mother who was kneeling at his side with her hands pressed against one of his thighs, looked lost. Draco was no better: frozen in place, heart in his throat, terror crawling up his spine.

Because he wasn't ready.

For all the years he'd been training to become a Head of House with his father and Sirius, and for war alongside Hermione and later Harry. All the time he'd spent making plans with Hermione, he had really just been playing at being an adult.

He still had so much to learn before he was ready to be a man- the kind of husband and father that he had grown up admiring. He was supposed to have time to do that. It was suddenly, painfully clear that in many ways he'd been in denial about the reality of their situation.

His parents had been very honest with him starting with the day they'd sat him and Hermione down, showed them Lucius' Dark Mark, and discussed his past as a Death Eater with them. But even after that they'd also continued to shield and spoil him as best they could. He knew they hadn't wanted him to miss out on an authentic adolescent experience. It was a luxury he had appreciated but could no longer afford.

He continued to watch the scene in front of him in mute horror and he barely noticed as Harry tossed the invisibility cloak off, revealing the three of them. Or when Hermione released his hand and rushed forward, reaching into the small satchel hanging at her hip to remove the antivenom and practically shoving it into Professor Snape's hands.

She turned and looked at him with so much love, but also a question in her eyes. As if on cue Harry nudged him gently. Draco glanced at him to see a similar question in his eyes, but also an untold amount of understanding from a boy who'd never even had the privilege of knowing his own parents.

He saw Hermione move in his peripheral vision and then she was there huddled against him and Harry both and it hit him that they had been waiting for him to process the situation, and that snapped him right out of it.

Ready or not, it was time.

"What do you need us to do?" He barked.

"Where did the three of you come from?" Sirius asked instead of answering Draco's question.

"You called us to come here and you just saw us come out from under the cloak," Hermione answered.

Draco listened to this exchange but he was also watching Snape prepare what looked like an intravenous drip. Draco had never seen one in real life and he wondered vaguely and rather inanely- given the situation- where the man had gotten the materials. As far as he was aware his parents didn't keep any muggle medical supplies. They certainly could have gotten them from the Grangers, but he couldn't imagine that they would have. While his future inlaws had insisted that both he and Hermione be trained in basic first aid, neither of his parents had participated, so he suspected some kind of transfiguration was probably at play.

What Professor Snape knew about muggle medicine, though, was the real mystery. Unfortunately, he didn't have any choice at the moment but to trust that the man knew what he was doing. Neither his mother or Sirius appeared alarmed and he had faith in the idea that his father must have allowed Snape through the Manor wards and by extension had trusted him to help.

"But I didn't hear your portkey arrive, or you come into the room," Sirius was arguing.

"I don't know Sirius, we were just being careful," said Harry, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Draco kept his face carefully blank. Harry was lying. He was sure of it and he was also sure that Hermione knew it too, but she too remained quiet. Yes, they had been careful since the moment Hermione had answered her mirror, but it was more than that. Magic was providing for them.

"There is nothing more to be done," Snape intoned, unsurprisingly ignoring Sirius and Harry and finally answering Draco. "I've healed his more superficial injuries. There is nothing to be done for the cruciatus damage or the broken leg in his current state. We can only wait and hope the antivenom works as intended. It will be several hours," he gestured vaguely to the IV he had just inserted into Lucius' arm.

"You don't know if it will work?!" Draco snapped as he watched his mother wilt at this pronouncement.

Snape gave him a sharp look. "It will, in theory, but I've never had the opportunity to test it on a human being."

Draco almost asked why they'd all been called there if there was nothing they could do to help, it wouldn't have taken all three of them to deliver the antivenom, but as soon as the thought entered his head, he knew the answer. They weren't there because they were needed, but simply to be present with Lucius, in case there wasn't a later.

"What happened? How did he get like this?" He asked, in an attempt to derail his train of thought from any idea that his father may not survive this.

"I'd actually like to know the answer to that too," said Sirius, the hostility in his voice was barely disguised and Draco wondered what had kept him from attacking Snape the moment he spotted him entering the Manor. Or what had been said that made Snape look so very unsurprised to see Harry along with them.

Snape paused and eyed them like he used to when they'd produced a particularly disappointing potion. "I don't think that this is a discussion to be had in front of children."

"We're not," Harry contradicted immediately. His voice was strong and sure, nothing like the petulance or the angry defensiveness he usually expressed when he addressed Snape.

"No," Hermione agreed quietly, "we're not."

And while Draco didn't know exactly what had been going on in their heads, he was certain they'd reached the same conclusion he had. Their days of standing on the sidelines watching this war and waiting to be put into the action were over.

"Just tell us Severus," his mother sighed, never looking away from her husband.

"May I assume that they are aware of the prophecy then?" He sneered.

"Everybody in this room knows about the prophecy and exactly what it says," snapped Sirius, rather predictably running out of patience.

Snape sighed- all the fight seemed to go out of him, he looked exhausted. "Then I suppose you were all better informed than I was until tonight. The Dark Lord summoned a group to accompany him to the Ministry to fetch the prophecy."

Draco noticed that neither his mother nor Sirius were surprised by this news, while both Hermione and Harry were radiating discomfort. He knew that neither of them had known this was happening beforehand, they would have told him, but he could imagine they were both thinking along the same lines as he was: the Dark Lord would have been infuriated by the second half of the prophecy.

"The plan was Lucius.' It was clear that he had made all the preparations, except for one. He obviously did not intend for the group to include Bellatrix."

"Bellatrix did this?" His mother hissed.

"No, but her presence apparently made the entire excursion tumultuous. However, it is amusing that it seems for once the Order is correct about something. Though they are obviously completely wrong about why Lucius would be trying to kill a fellow Death Eater."

Draco was shocked to see Sirius' lips twitch.

"What?!" He demanded.

Sirius looked at Draco and smirked. It was completely incongruous to the situation. "The Order have convinced themselves that you're Voldemort's heir apparent and that your father is trying to clear the way for you by getting rid of Bellatrix."

Hermoine made a gagging sound and Harry let out a little snort.

Draco huffed a frustrated breath. "So, what? Something went wrong because of Bellatrix?" He asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Not exactly. From what I understand the retrieval went smoothly."

Draco opened his mouth to ask the question that immediately sprung to mind, but Hermione beat him to it. "From what you understand? What does that mean? Weren't you there?"

There was a long pause and for the first time in all the years that he'd known the man, which was Draco's entire life, as far as he could remember, Snape looked uncomfortable. "I was only summoned to bear witness to the hearing of the prophecy, my knowledge of the retrieval is second hand."

Draco frowned. What he was describing sounded very formal, almost ceremonial.

"Because you witnessed the original telling, right?" Harry spoke suddenly. "At least the first part, since you're the one who told Voldemort about it. So he wanted you to hear the whole thing, it would suit his sense of…" he trailed off, searching for the word.

"Gravitas," Hermione provided immediately and Draco found himself nodding in agreement.

"I suppose you're expecting an apology from me?" Snape intoned looking unblinkingly at Harry.

Harry sniffed. "I don't want an apology from you and I'm certainly not expecting one. Nor would I accept it if you were to offer one. You've never even attempted to treat me with anything less than hostility, even when I was just a little kid. I don't believe that you would have cared if I had died that night." Harry took a deep breath. "Sirius tells me you were friends with my mother once, so perhaps you do regret her death. If you ever get the chance, perhaps you should try apologizing to her, but considering that she died protecting me, I doubt she would accept it either."

Snape's lip curled but he looked away.

"Heal Lucius and then we'll figure out how to deal with you."

Snape's head snapped around to look at Harry again and he shifted his stance, his whole demeanor turned threatening. Automatically, Draco shifted closer to Harry and he knew that Hermione was doing the same. It was only then that he realized that they had all drawn their wands and were holding them steadily directed at Snape.

"You think rather highly of yourself, don't you Potter?"

"See that's the thing, Professor, you've always seemed so convinced that I think I'm special. But all I ever wanted was to be normal. None of this had to have anything to do with me. Merlin knows I wish it didn't. But you decided that the prophecy was important. You trotted off and reported it to your master. He chose me, and then he marked me," Harry tapped his hated scar with his free hand, "so here we are. He's going to keep coming after me, for the people I love, for this world that I love. You have all the information now. I don't care if you hate me, all I need to know is if that will stop you from fighting beside me? Which side are you on, really?"

For a moment Draco thought the man was going to attack Harry, but all he felt was peace, as if he had finally completely settled into his own skin and he knew that whatever happened, they would handle it.

"I decided a long time ago, why do you think Dumbledore trusts me?" Snape said, but his words sounded rehearsed and everything about him seemed to slump in resignation.

"I have a great deal of respect for Professor Dumbledore's magical abilities and I trust that he acts under the best of intentions, but the muggles say that the path to hell is paved with good intentions for a reason. He's been offering us," Harry motioned to Draco and Hermione, "private tuition for the better part of a year now, and we are not blind to the way he operates. I'm getting rather sick of second and third hand reassurances and I'm asking you to please make your intentions clear."

Snape seemed to look right through Harry and let out a shuddering breath. "Any remaining loyalty I had for the Dark Lord died with Lily."

With that, as one, the three of them lowered their wands.

0000000000

"All hail the next dark lord," Harry quipped when Draco and Hermione entered the secret library room that evening following what was either the longest or the shortest day of Draco's life. Once they'd returned to school, just in time for breakfast, he'd gone through the day operating on some kind of automated mode. Any peace that he'd found while at the Manor had evaporated and now he just felt like he'd been awake for days and had too many doses of pepper up potion in an attempt to make up for it. He could only marvel that the people around him seemed oblivious to what had happened to the three of them in the early hours of the morning.

Whatever that was.

It took him several seconds to process and then understand what his friend was even talking about and he had to make a concerted effort to laugh and respond accordingly. "Jealous, Potter?"

"Right, like you really have it in you."

"Please, two years ago you would have bought that hook, line, and sinker." Draco's lips twitched with real amusement this time.

Harry rolled his eyes. "That was before I spent basically all my free time watching you moon over Hermione. You're a decent actor, I'll give you that, but that's all it is, you aren't evil."

"Your tone says insult but your words say compliment," murmured Draco.

"Boys," Hermione interrupted, trying to sound stern but she rolled her eyes fondly.

"You aren't upset that you aren't going to be some kind of dark princess?" Draco asked his betrothed, jostling their joined hands.

She let out an exaggerated sigh. "I think I'm content with my lot in life."

There was a long silence. Not uncomfortable exactly, it was just that none of them could find anything appropriate to say as the magnitude of what had happened in the past 18 hours began to sink in now that they were back together.

"Are we going to talk about it?" Hermione finally ventured, plopping down on the rug in front of the fire and pulling him along with her.

"Right," Harry said, sliding from the armchair where he had been perched, onto the floor so that they were seated in a small triangle, each of them facing the other two. "It," he repeated. "I would, if I had any idea what 'it,' was."

"Were you scared?" Hermione asked quickly, her words nearly running together while she glanced between them.

Harry just looked at him, clearly expecting him to answer first.

Draco shrugged. "For my father, yes, I was terrified. Of all the other weird fuckery that happened this morning, for some reason, no."

Instead of the scolding he expected, Hermione laughed. "Weird fuckery," she repeated with a snicker.

Personally, Draco thought his chosen term was a downright benign way to describe what had happened, he just couldn't think of a better one. "When we first got to the Manor I remember thinking that magic was providing for us and that made sense to me. But watching Harry basically take Snape to task and then assert his authority over him, without so much as a hex flying, was something else entirely."

Harry eyed him. "I spoke, but you were both right there with me."

Draco knew he wasn't merely referring to the way they'd been standing at his side.

"Most of it was just a feeling," Hermione began and paused as she searched for the right description, "a feeling of synchronization, of being able to act without thinking or discussing it first." Draco felt himself nodding in agreement and saw Harry doing the same thing. "But the cloak is a thing that we can see and touch and it's always worked the same way until this morning."

"It worked better," he said.

"A lot better," Harry agreed.

Draco had been determined to stay at the Manor as long as it took to see that his father was going to recover and neither of the other two had disagreed- not that they had discussed it. He hadn't known how they would explain their absence from Hogwarts and he hadn't cared. The three adults had deferred to their silent wishes entirely.

While they waited Snape had finished relaying his tale about the night's events. As he told it Voldemort had, predictably, lost his temper over the contents of the prophecy. He'd directed most of his ire at Lucius, mostly on his own, but then in response to Bellatrix's pleading since she hadn't had any fun herself lately. Finally, as a gift to his other favored female, Voldemort had allowed Nagini to bite Lucius.

Usually, Snape had explained, Voldemort used Nagini as an executioner. But for reasons that Snape could not begin to understand, Voldemort seemed to immediately regret his order and, knowing that Snape had created an antivenom, instructed him to see to Lucius. With the last of his strength Lucius had portkeyed them both to the Manor and stayed conscious long enough to tell Sirius that he needed Snape's help. It all seemed like a tremendous stroke of luck.

Terrible luck.

Suspicious luck.

Lucius regained consciousness and was coherent enough to wish Hermione a happy birthday and then try to be stern enough to order them back to school. They listened, but none of them could pretend that they hadn't noticed him looking at them like he'd never truly seen them before.

The cloak had covered all three of them again with no trouble, and once they reentered Hogwarts they were able to navigate the halls, which had begun to bustle with activity, with no real effort or any hint that their presence was detected in any way.

"There are two things that I can think of that are different about today, though I don't know how either of them would have changed the cloak," Hermione continued in a clear attempt to do her usual thing and logic her way through this problem.

"What are the two things?" Harry asked.

"The first is that today is my birthday, and it's my coming of age. It's normal for a witch or wizard to experience changes in their magic as they approach their maturity. I can even see how that might affect Draco given the myriad of ways our magic is connected. But I've never heard of there being a sudden shift happening exactly on a person's birthday. And I can't begin to imagine how it would affect you, Harry, or especially an object that you own."

"Right," Draco agreed. Throughout it all he'd never forgotten that it was Hermione's birthday, but he'd also never thought that it was significant, and even now that she'd said it, he remained of that opinion. Given her tone of voice, she didn't believe it either. "What else?" He encouraged, though he was entirely certain that he didn't want to hear what she had to say next.

"Well." She broke off suddenly, looking between them and swallowing. Her emotions were closed off from him, but her reticence to voice her thoughts was written all over her face.

"It's okay Hermione, you can say it. I know it's terrible," Harry reached out and grabbed her hand as he spoke and Draco reached for them both.

They all clung to each other for a long moment.

"Voldemort knows the whole prophecy now."

Author's Note: More questions than answers? This is probably the most ambiguous chapter I've ever written, I respectfully ask for your patience. I have every intention of posting the next chapter Halloween night (which is already tonight where I am) as it will also be Halloween in our story. But I might not be able to deliver because: baseball. And that's literally all I'm going to say because as of about twenty minutes ago I'm one of the most superstitious people on Earth. Send me good thoughts and I'll do my best to make my brain do what it needs to do. I'm usually not this weird, I promise. I'm sorry, but also thanks for putting up with me! xoxo