Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Author's Note: So much for things moving faster. Anyway, thanks again for the reviews, please find responses at the end of this chapter. Keep your thoughts coming, positive or not, they bring joy to my heart…
And Tears
Chapter Four
A buzz of chatter filled the Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom as the seventh-years gossiped whilst scribbling away or bouncing ideas between them about their assignment. Tonks (incognito as 'Professor Turpin') slowly walked around the third-floor classroom, bending over desks as she went to see how her students were progressing. She had immediately become a favourite amongst the Hogwarts students, the boys in particular were enamoured by her good looks.
Draco Malfoy sat away from the rest of his classmates refusing to look up from his work. He could feel the eyes of a certain Gryffindor trying to win the attention of his own, but was concentrating on ignoring them. It seemed that since the encounter in the Room of Requirement, Harry Potter was constantly trying to catch his eye whilst Draco was more intent on avoiding the bespectacled boy altogether. Unfortunately this was rather difficult when the two boys shared a number of classes.
Draco yawned and allowed his eyes to wander away from the textbook and his own scribbled notes that lay before him on the table. His focus finally came to rest on the view outside the window. He could see the tall tower that housed the Owlery from where he was seated and couldn't help shuddering at the memories it provoked. Scowling at the brief spasm that had wracked his body, he forced himself to sit rigid with a closed expression on his face and once again trained his eyes on the tower. 'Take your punishment,' a voice growled in his mind.
The grey-eyed youth wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting like this when he was interrupted by a crumpled ball of parchment bouncing against the knuckles of his right hand, knuckles that were bone white from clenching the edge of the desk tightly. Draco sat unmoving a second longer before releasing the table and grasping the parchment ball instead. He slowly smoothed out the missive, all the while breathing heavily through his nostrils with somewhat anxious anticipation. His eyes quickly skimmed over the three words scrawled therein.
Are you OK?
Draco lifted his head and chanced a glance around the room.
Well, who else? Draco thought as his eyes rested on those of the note's author. Unsurprisingly they were a green pair, slightly obscured by round glasses and already focussed on him. Potter was actually sat twisted around in his chair so that he could stare at him, apparently oblivious to the attention he was attracting from his red-haired friend. The Weasel was alternating furtive, curious glances between Draco and Harry. The Mudblood was, predictably, too absorbed in her studies to pay attention to what was going on around her. Draco looked away just as the redhead seemed about to say something. Instead he focussed on the creased parchment in front of him again.
Are you OK?
Draco did not need to look up to know that Potter still had his eyes set on him. He knew there was no point in hoping for any respite from the penetrating glare until he responded to the note. Picking up his quill, he simply wrote the word 'yes' next to the scrawl already on the parchment. He balled it up and swiftly threw it back to the staring boy and made a point of leaning down low over the table and returning to work. His face was so close to the table top that the scratching of his quill sounded almost painfully loud in his ears and his hot breath hit the parchment he was writing on and came back, warm and almost moist, upon his cheeks. The blond had no idea what he was writing. In fact, he wasn't concentrating at all. Rather, he was waiting for…
The sphere of abused parchment had returned.
Draco pushed it pointedly off the edge of the table, making sure that Potter couldn't help but notice him not reading whatever was written inside. He tried to ignore the exasperated movements that he could see the Gryffindor making out of the corner of his eye, and was finally saved the effort by a loud, invasive voice.
"OK, seventh-years. I need you to LISTEN, please," Professor Turpin shouted, clapping her hands loudly to ensure the attention of the class, whilst tripping over the strap of a carelessly placed satchel. "You all seem to be getting really stuck in here. Now, I am going to ask you not to lose that enthusiasm because I will be splitting you up into pairs to study one of these topics in depth for the next few weeks…"
The class groaned loudly, albeit half-heartedly. The seventh-years were actually enjoying their work, but felt it was their duty as students to keep this under wraps from their teacher.
"Hmm, let's see. I would like… Gryffindors paired with Slytherins." The groans in response to this order were anything but half-hearted. Professor Turpin sighed. "It is your last year at Hogwarts! Don't you think you are all getting just a little too old for this petty house rivalry?" Hearing no response, she added, "I will leave the actual pairing up to you. Once you have gotten yourself a partner, you are free to go."
Ron turned to Harry, ready to complain loudly about the predicament that they had been placed in, only to be greeted with his best friend's back as Harry approached Draco Malfoy. Ron gaped, and then spun in his seat towards Hermione, fully intending to share his incredulous response to Harry's actions. Instead he found himself facing another empty chair. Glancing around the room he spotted the Head Girl, tentatively asking Millicent Bulstrode to partner her.
With a look of disgust, the redhead leaned back in his chair and muttered to himself, "There's no way I'm going to beg a Slytherin. Never." He regretted these sentiments when he left the classroom last, partnered with Gregory Goyle.
"Goyle? GOYLE?" Ron raged, pacing back and forth before the hearth in the Gryffindor common room later that evening. Harry stifled a snigger whilst Hermione attempted to soothe her friend.
"Well, it isn't as if Slytherin have much better to offer," Hermione said in a consoling tone, following the path that Ron was tearing into the faded, crimson carpet.
"Zabini or that utter twat, Nott, would have been better. Hell, even Crabbe would have been better. But no…" He chuckled in a way that held no enjoyment. "Oh, no, no, no… I get lumbered with GOYLE!"
"It could have been worse. Poor Harry's been partnered with Malfoy…"
"Poor Harry? He was practically legging it over there! You should have seen him begging that idiot to be his partner!" Ron ceased his pacing and turned on the blushing, dark-haired boy. "Weren't you?" It was more an accusation than a question.
"No," Harry said quietly, avoiding Ron's harsh, cold look and a rather penetrating and inquisitive stare from Hermione. He allowed the silence to swell around him while he traced his fingers lightly over the patterns on the arm of the overstuffed sofa he occupied. Shrugging, he added with a cheeky grin, "I just didn't want to be the one to end up with Goyle."
Ron growled and flung himself down beside Harry on the sofa, Hermione perching next to him. Ron eyed Harry and then grunted, "Wizards' chess?"
Harry accepted the challenge and sat quietly while Ron slid onto his knees in front of the low coffee table and began to set up. Thankful that they had now moved off the topic of Malfoy, Harry moved to kneel opposite Ron. He realised how stupid it had been of him not to think that his friends would notice how eagerly he had partnered the Slytherin. He was willing to accept the possibility that bounding up to the boy in front of all and sundry hadn't been the wisest move, but it had been an opportunity too good to miss. Weeks had now passed since the whole Room of Requirement episode and Harry was less than satisfied with how that had ended. Malfoy's abrupt departure had left things feeling somewhat… unfinished.
"C'mon, Harry. It's your move already," Hermione prompted from where she still sat on the sofa.
"You know what," Harry said, getting to his feet. "I've just remembered that I have stuff to attend to. Why don't you play instead, Hermione?"
Before Hermione could open her mouth to answer, Harry had headed to the portrait hole and clambered out.
Draco watched the school owl grow smaller and finally melt into the darkening sky. He wondered how long it would take to reach his mother in Malfoy Manor. He also wondered whether she'd reply, or if she'd even bother to read it. Draco leaned forward with a sigh, his shoulders hunched. He stood with his elbows resting on the windowsill, hands clasped and lightly pressed to his lips, eyes still intent on where he had last seen the owl. With another heavy exhalation, he dropped his head and allowed his arms to fall straight so that they jutted out from the building.
It wasn't so much a window he stood before as a large rectangle of missing wall. When stood facing it from the opposite side of the room, it appeared as if a vast painting of a landscape was obscuring the dark grey stone. A sloping green carpet could be seen there, disappearing under the feet of a forest, a many-legged beast whose colouring was such a dark green it almost looked a blue-black. Beyond the back of this crouching monster, mountains could only just be observed. They were pale and distant, making it questionable whether they were really there and piercing the heavily clouded sky.
The young Slytherin turned his back on the scenery and hoisted himself up so that he sat where his elbows had just vacated. He felt the skin on his back tingle underneath his robes at the potential fall it was being presented with. A corner of his mouth twitched.
"Maybe, if you're lucky…" Draco began to mutter before trailing away at the sound of the silence being broken. He came here for the quiet, the space to think undisturbed, and was not willing to jeopardise that with the sound of his own voice. The only sound he welcomed here was the occasional 'twit-twoo'ing of the owls that inhabited this chilly room in the tower.
Draco carefully swung a leg out of the 'window' and shuffled his bottom backwards, settling in a position where he could lean his back against the wall where the window frame would have been if this were, indeed, a window. Sat like this, straddling the wall so that half of him was safely inside the tower and the other half rather perilously out of it, Draco allowed his thoughts to drift over the events of the day.
What a day it had been: mundanely unnoticeable, and yet profoundly exceptional. He had acquired a partner for a DADA project and spoken to a friend. Well, nothing remarkable about that. However, viewed from a slightly different perspective, he had somehow ended up caving in and allowing Potter to muscle his way in where Draco had worked so hard to seal him out these past few weeks and been harangued by a murderer.
Without sparing a thought for his actions, the seventeen-year-old Slytherin removed a dagger from a scabbard concealed beneath his robes. The hilt was heavy due to being solid silver and bedecked with many jewels, mainly emeralds. In addition, intricate carvings enhanced the hilt's immense beauty. Draco's hands mechanically began to use the blade of his dagger to lever up and play with the dried bird shit surrounded him. His grey eyes didn't give the dagger so much as a glance, however. As well as feeling no desire to reencounter the 'Malfoy'etched onto the blade and being so familiar with the family heirloom that he was somewhat desensitised to its artistry, the boy's actions were going unnoticed as his mind continued to process his thoughts without allowing any interruption.
As far as Draco was concerned, avoiding Potter these past few weeks had not been optional. There was no way to deny that he had laid himself alarmingly bare in the strange darkness of that seventh floor room. That realisation had come with the sudden bright light that plundered the previously gloom-filled Room of Requirement. Scared of what else he might say if he stayed, Draco fled.
Once safely ensconced behind the heavy curtains of his four-poster in the Slytherin seventh-year dormitory, the young Malfoy had vowed that he would keep a distance between himself and the Gryffindor. Draco was rather pleased that he had managed to achieve this with little difficulty. Sure, Potter had gone out of his way to try and scupper his plans by trailing the Slytherin and occasionally even managing to corner the boy. However, a simple side step here and a duck under an outstretched arm there and all conversation had been avoided. No more secrets spilled, no more confessions, mission accomplished.
So why was Harry Potter now his Defence Against The Dark Arts partner?
Bloody annoying, Draco thought with an unimpressed sniff. Bloody Gryffindors; always have to be the hero. OK, so maybe I was the one to seek him out originally. So maybe I as good as asked him to save me… Well, I'm not asking anymore. I don't need saving and I definitely don't need him to do it. I'm the head of the Malfoy estate.
Draco gave a single firm nod. He was right and he knew it. After all, wasn't that what Professor Snape had told him?
Severus…
Draco's mind replayed a particular encounter and conversation that had taken place just before he had sent the owl to his mother.
-x-
"Professor Snape…" Draco gasped, surprised to see his ex-Head of House walk into the Owlery, bold as brass. In fact, he was completely shocked at seeing the man in Hogwarts. Wasn't returning to the scene of your own crime supposed to be a big 'no-no'?
"I think we both know that I am no longer your teacher." The man's sooty eyes were hard and cold, much like his tone.
Draco nodded in a rather bewildered fashion, not quite knowing how to respond. He let his eyes slide away from the sallow face before him, that sallow face with eyes like wet chips of coal, and study the floor beneath his feet. The silence began to swell in a crescendo that slowly gripped and squeezed Draco's heart whilst creeping down his throat to settle in a blockade that prevented any further inhalation. A sense of panic sprung up within Draco and steadily began to rise along with the pressure in his body.
A sigh (barely masking irritation) and then in a slightly less acerbic tone…
"Call me 'Severus'."
Draco's eyes flicked back to meet Severus', his lungs filling once more, almost to bursting, with relief and oxygen. He felt the familiar prickling sensation that never seemed to be too far away these days. As he begged himself not to cry before this man, ('Please… please not in front of him of all people'), he felt the warm droplets splash onto his cheeks. The young man fought not to sob, but felt all control disappear like a thick duvet that is slipped off you by a miscreant, creeping slowly down your chest, your stomach, your hips, your thighs… down, down, down… to leave you shivering, alone and uncovered, on a cold night.
Severus stood still throughout, observing keenly with a blank face that revealed nothing. Suddenly coming to life, it appeared that he had now had his fill of the show.
"Pull your self together," Severus snapped at his ex-pupil. He waved his wand, conjuring a hard wooden chair, then motioned for Draco to occupy the seat with a jerk of his hand. He studied the near hysterical boy who had moved towards the chair with shaky steps and collapsed there. "Pathetic."
Draco seemed not to register the word, as there was no obvious link between his babbled response and the insult that had gone before. "Why are you here? How can you be here? You said… Severus… Does this mean that I am forgiven?"
Severus' upper lip curled back in a silent snarl, revealing his uneven yellow teeth. Draco shrunk back slightly. That particular curling of the lip was something that the Potions Master had mainly reserved for Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Admittedly it had also occasionally been directed at a member of his own house in cases of extreme stupidity (usually due to Crabbe, Goyle or both), but never Draco Malfoy, never Snape's favourite student, the Slytherin Prince who could do no wrong.
"A Malfoy asking forgiveness? The idea of a Malfoy even craving forgiveness, let alone asking for it, is simply laughable. Who are you? I mean, look at you." Snape emphasised the last three words with a thrust of his arm in Draco's direction, then leaned forward to breathe into the youth's face, "A snivelling wreck of a child. God, you're barely even a Slytherin."
Draco gasped at the harshness of the venom-laced words, then felt his shock turn into something else.
"What do you know of it?" Draco growled, propelling himself forward to further lessen the gap between himself and the other man's face in his anger. "I've got a father who is as good as dead and a mother who is slowly going insane. I've got fucking nobody in this world. Sorry if I disappoint you with my 'snivelling' but I reckon I've earned the right. Who are you to judge me?"
The junior of the pair straightened his back so that he could look down his nose at the other man, who was still bending from where he had earlier leant into the face of the juvenile. Severus retaliated by standing straight so that he once again towered over the young man. Draco lifted his face to his former teacher, his grey eyes blazing, refusing to be intimidated despite the dried tracks of tears that adorned his cheeks.
A slight smirk played on Severus' thin, pale lips.
"Angry, proud defiance; a much more Malfoy-like reaction." Severus intoned with something close to reverence. Noticing the narrowed-eyed confusion of his counterpart, Severus sighed and elaborated. "Draco, no-one can deny that you've suffered a loss and an upheaval, to put it mildly. No-one can deny the terrible experiences you have had to endure. However, it is not our experiences that make us weak but the way in which we deal with them."
Severus stopped here to search Draco's eyes for understanding. He found none. Instead Draco used the interlude as an opportunity to defend himself against what he perceived as an attack.
"So I am weak for shedding a tear for my father who is now no more than mere anatomy, a worthless husk? I am weak for crying over the neglect and the abuse that man made my mother and I suffer through before he was so abruptly taken away? I am weak for deigning to weep over the waning of my mother's sanity..?"
"NO!" Snape ejaculated with a heavy dose of exasperation at how long Draco was taking to grasp what he was saying. "Those things do not make you weak. You are entitled to your grief. Yet I ask you this: is it necessary to have the whole world as your audience? Cry your tears, Draco, but do not drown in them and do not drown in them where people may see."
Draco turned his head to look at the hazy sky outside, then nodded almost imperceptibly, and lowered his head to examine the floor for the second time in this exchange.
"You're the head of a great estate now. You have many responsibilities and many more yet to come. These are things you cannot allow yourself to forget. They are things your father forgot when he put service of the Dark Lord before all else." Severus steamed on despite Draco's head snapping up to look at him. "He followed the Dark Lord blindly. He put everything on the line for a being that was willing to put nothing on the line for him. He neglected his duties as a businessman, a husband, a father… in short, he was a fool. Will you make the same mistakes?"
"How can you speak this way? How dare you speak this way of my father, of the Dark Lord..?" Draco spluttered, then stopped. His eyes widened with understanding. "But, of course…"
Severus nodded, unashamed. Draco released a mirthless chuckle.
"All this time? All this time you were secretly sabotaging and working against the Dark Lord. You were on the side of the Light! Why else would Hogwarts permit you to enter?" The question hung in the air. It needed no response as the answer had come before the question itself.
"Well done, Draco."
"So, Dumbledore is in hiding…" Draco began feverishly, excited at all this new information he could use to put the Malfoys back into the Dark Lord's good graces.
"He is dead," Severus said tonelessly and in somewhat of a rush, as if the words burnt his tongue as they tripped out.
"But…"
"You were there. You saw it. Look…" Severus interjected, only to be interrupted himself in turn.
"You want me to turn my back on the Dark Lord?"
Severus shrewdly eyed the lithe youth before him. The air of the question had been filled with incredulity and the young man's facial expression echoed the disbelief. Clearly the Potion Master had stepped into unsafe waters by allowing the Slytherin to know so much. Yet…
"I think you know enough to draw your own conclusions with regards to that. Your father allowed himself to become lost in the Dark, becoming nothing more than a minion to the Dark Lord, and then eventually nothing. I came here to speak to you of the Dark you have created: your grief. Face up to your responsibilities and face up to yourself, who you are, otherwise you have only the rather bleak prospect of becoming lost in and a minion to your own wretchedness."
-x-
Draco finally noticed how his hands were engaging themselves and quickly put the dagger away, wrinkling his nose at the bird shit around him. He jumped down from his perch and busied himself with inspecting his robes and waving his wand at any dirt he could spot.
"Malfoy!"
Draco looked up and frowned.
"Potter."
Potter paused, looking slightly nervous, then smiled broadly at the Slytherin.
"I was just coming to send you an owl." The green-eyed boy waved a scrap of parchment in a manner that Draco found cheerful to an offensive degree. "To arrange a meeting for Defence…"
"What fun," Draco snarled, and made a move to walk past the Gryffindor and out of the Owlery. A hand on his upper arm thwarted all plans of escape.
Draco shivered slightly at the touch. He remembered when this boy had last touched him, when he had held and comforted him on their first night back at Hogwarts. This boy, Harry Potter, had been the only person in the whole school to bother. 'I have fucking nobody in this world.' The words revisited Draco, prompting the familiar pressure to build behind his eyes at the thought that this boy was somebody. Grey eyes shakily lifted upwards to desperately search for strength, but found it elsewhere. The aid Draco called on did not come from a deity seated amongst the birds that slept along the white-streaked rafters.
Severus…
Draco slowly turned to face the other boy with his Malfoy mask in place, eyes steely and glistening. He registered the brief flit of fear that dashed across the features of the darker boy. He lifted a single eyebrow, feeling much relish at being handed the opportunity to do so. Surely the eyebrow raise was a Malfoy patent.
"I suggest you remove that hand," Draco leaned forward, "if you wish to keep it." He had whispered that last part directly into Potter's ear, delighting (just a little) in the other boy's widening eyes and lowering hand.
Author's Notes: Ugh, I'm not a fan of this chapter and I clearly can't write Snape. Apologies for any OOC-ness. Responses to reviewers as promised:
randomlymoist: cackles …loser!
trisha: slightly missing the point, but thank you muchly! LoL
finalliberation: cheers, ma dear! i hope to see some of your stuff available to the public soon. Also, it might interest you to know that i wrote Tonks with Irena from NG in mind… at least i think that was her name, i forget. (:s) (She always wore black..?)
Clive: my, my… Thanks! gushes
You mentioned the pairing. i think that hp/dm is a pairing that all slash lovers should appreciate; i mean… how could you not? (Also hp/rl, mmm…)
Anyhoo, i feel it is only right that i point out that this fic isn't really slash. i have tried to inject a little bit of Snape (with horrific results), but mark my words: this WILL NOT become a hp/ss. Sorry…
animegirl9001: Ach, sorry about the delay! Please, please, please… let the devastation end!
Also, more 'thank you's to tuesday night, Silverness, Touya4me, Lina, Duncan, LoLo and ECCHie!
