Again, all the parts you recognize belong to JKR.
Chapter 1 The Refuge
The footsteps stopped right outside the door, and the cold fear in the pit of my stomach began twisting like a snake. I could feel the beads of cold sweat as they broke out of my pores and began traveling down my skin, trickling down my back.
The door creaked open slowly, and a thin beam of light penetrated the darkness of the small room where I had been trapped. Slowly, the crack grew until I saw the tall figure robed in black. Cringing, I noticed the dour expression on the pale face of my old potions master.
"Draco, get up, and be silent" Snape's voice whispered to me.
Following his directions, I rose as quickly as I could, shivering in fear and cold. He walked over to me and pulled a sheet of silvery fabric from his robes which he swirled over my shoulders and drew the hood up.
I had never known that Snape had an invisibility cloak, but it didn't really surprise me, either. In fact, it explained how he could sneak about the school so well, scaring the hell out students in other houses. He put a hand on my head to determine if I was still where I had been standing.
"Don't move." And then he hit me on top of the head with his wand. I didn't hear what he said, nor even if he did say the spell aloud, since he is a master of silent magic, but it felt as if an egg, a really cold one, had been broken on top of my head, and was now seeping down my body in the same paths as my earlier outbreak of sweat.
"We need to get past the wards before we can apparate, so put a hand on my back or shoulder and don't remove it. I can't see or hear you, so I need to know where you are. Now follow me."
We went back through the door into the relatively bright hallway. It actually was fairly dim, but after the tiny, unlit, windowless room it seemed like a bright noon day.
I saw Wormtail slumped on the ground, and almost felt bad for him, knowing the torture he'd receive from the Dark Lord when it was found out that I was missing.
Snape tapped himself on the head then, and he also seemed to shimmer out of focus. Now I could see (or not see) why he wanted me to maintain physical contact.
We hurried down the steps as silently as we could and out a side door. Once outside, we set off as quickly as we could for the tree line in the distance which marked the edge of the wards. Feeling the tingle that meant we had pasted the boundaries of the wards, Snape turned around, facing me.
"All right, Draco, come close." I moved until I was standing next to him, at which point, Snape encircled my shoulders with an arm. "The home of Severus Snape can be found at 42 Spinner's End in Muggle London, across from the old textile factory," he whispered in my ear.
Before I knew what was happening, Snape's arm tightened around my should, and the sick squeezing feeling of side-along apparition began. After a moment of discomfort, the two of us arrived, stumbling, in a dark living room lined with shelf upon shelf of books.
Before I could move, Snape again tapped me on the head, and this time, it felt like a warm egg was broken and leaking down my body. He repeated the movement on himself, coming back into clear focus, before leaning over and pulling the cloak off me.
"Draco, take your wand. We have much to discuss, and not much time."
Snape was giving me my wand back, which I thought had been lost to me forever. I felt a lot safer once my wand was again resting in my pocket.
"Now, you can't stay here. I was to come here to get some books, but though it is Secret-Kept, the Dark Lord knows where it is. He will be looking for you. I don't think he'll suspect me, but he will check out all of the Inner Circle's properties that he knows of that are kept this way. You can't return to a Malfoy property, either."
Snape was pacing, clearly thinking hard. As he turned to pace the other direction, he chanced a glance out the window. Quickly, he hurried to the window, a small smile lighting his features. I had never seen that look on my Head of House before. "Perfect," he said.
Joining him at the window, I saw that not too far away was an old, run down building with boarded up windows. It looked like a good gust of wind would knock it over. It also had a sign in the front yard that said "For Sale."
It was certainly a measure of how desperate I was to escape the atrocities of last night that I agreed with him.
"Do you know how to perform the Fidelius Charm, Draco?"
"Yes, Professor, my father taught me some time ago. Many of the Malfoy ventures are protected by it."
"Good. Draco, I want you to perform it on me, for that property next door. I will then arrange for it to be purchased. You are to go there, and not leave. You are good at transfiguration; make it livable."
"Professor, what about food, and clothing, and things like that?"
"Nena!" With Snape's shout, a small house-elf popped into view. "Nena was a gift from your father, when I joined the Death Eaters," Snape said, looking at me, "and she has been a very good servant."
Turning to the elf, he continued, "Nena, I want you to accompany Draco here and help him. He is going to need a lot of help. He is going to be moving to that house, next door," here, Snape pointed through the window and the house-elf drew a deep and scared looking breath, "and he is going to be staying there for quite some time. You need to help him with the cooking and cleaning, and helping him make the place livable. He is not going to be leaving that house, so you, Nena, will be doing all the shopping. I trust you, Nena, with his life."
"Master, Nena will do what you asks. Nena will not be letting her Master down. Nena is a good elf!"
"I know, Nena, that's why I trusting you with this." Turning again to me, Snape looked at me sharply. "All right, Draco, cast the charm. That houses address is 44 Spinner's End. I believe we shall call it The Refuge."
Taking a deep breath, much as the elf had done, I proceeded to make Severus Snape my Secret-Keeper.
"Good. Now, take this," here Snape handed me a box of Muggle tissues, "and get over there. Use those to transfigure what you need. When I have the ability to come here, I will summon Nena, and if it's safe, she will summon you. Nena, for the time being, I think you should also maintain your presence at Hogwarts."
"Yes, Master. I will be doing what you asks."
And with that, Snape grabbed a couple of books from a shelf and a bag of potions ingredients and apparated away.
"Come along then, Nena; let's see what we have to work with."
The place, The Refuge, was as decrepit on the inside as I had feared based on the outside.
Cobwebs and dust were abundant, but there was no furniture. Nena and I took a walk around, finding in the process the restroom, the kitchen, several bedrooms, an old fashioned parlor or library with empty shelves built into the walls, a dining room, and a pantry. They were all empty.
"Well, Nena, you are the expert on cleaning. How shall we proceed?" While I didn't usually treat house-elves as my equal, I hadn't missed the tone that Snape used with Nena. She wasn't my elf, and I was willing to admit, at least to myself, that I would be lost without her. So…nice it was.
"Master, I will be doing the cleaning. It won't take long to get the dust and cobwebs clean, sir, since there is no furniture to clean around."
"Alright, then, you clean. I'll wait until you finish and start turning these," here I shook the box of tissues, "into furnishings."
I developed a whole new appreciation for House-Elves that day, watching Nena clean.
It took a surprisingly short time for us to make the Refuge livable. While not, by any stretch, up to the standards of the Manor, or even of Hogwarts, my idea of livable had been affected by my time locked in a room with a pile of moldy blankets, and so, I was much easier to please than I would normally have been.
After a few days of hard work, Nena and I settled in to wait and see what the future would hold.