Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
I'm calling this a chapterlette because, technically, all the Intermissions are supposed to be Snape's dreams.
Chapterlette: A Collection of Glimpses
Lucius sat before his hearth in the study of Malfoy Manor and turned his cup of cold wine this way and that. He could have had the house elves mull it, or Transfigure it so that it retained all the alcohol of wine while having a considerably sweeter taste. But at this moment, he thought what he wanted, or should want, was harsh and unaltered reality.
He had failed.
He drank the wine, a long gulp that did not yield until the liquid threatened to choke him. Then he held the glass out in front of him and watched the fire spark through it, catching delicate, glorious colors in it that he did not deserve.
He had been wrong.
Another swallow of wine, this time nearly enough to finish the cup. Lucius felt his lip twitching, his head spinning with the advent of drunkenness. He would normally never do something like this, but he was within heavily warded walls, and a room where even the house elves knew better than to disturb him. But this was punishment, punishment for failing to recognize when he had made a mistake. He had kept plunging forward, able to justify every error, able to say that, in truth, what he had done was not so very great a problem. It might even weave more opportunities for him. If the scheme with the Unspeakables failed, he would turn to Scrimgeour. If that one failed—but it would not, could not, when Unbreakable Vows bound them both—he would work his way back into Harry's good graces. He would tame his son to hand again. Each failure to do so only meant another chance to move forward. He might have to alter his tactics, but that did not mean he had been wrong.
He saw now that he had.
He had committed the worst possible sin, one for which he had would have despised his own father if Abraxas had been either weak or foolish enough to do it. He had made Draco see him as unnecessary. There might have been moments when his son would be glad to rely on him, lean on his strength, but Lucius had taught him he couldn't. So Draco had looked within and found his own strength instead.
He was dependent no longer. He was someone who had faced the Justification and survived it.
Lucius did not know what had led his son to make that decision. Oh, he could guess. It might be a matter of proving his worth to his partner, or wanting to demonstrate his courage. Or he could have wanted a Declaration ritual that Lucius absolutely could not tamper with. But there were other Declaration rituals that were beyond parental influence and still less risky. Lucius thought the risk was an inherent reason Draco had chosen the Justification.
But he could not imagine, still, what the compensation of it might have been.
Draco had become a person Lucius did not know, and that was dangerous.
Worse, he had seen Harry's eyes shining as he watched him. At the time, Lucius had simply thought that meant Harry was infatuated with his son, and if he could gain Draco back, then he could win Harry back, too.
Now he recognized it for what it was. Harry admired Draco's strength, and a man who did that would have no need for Lucius's strength.
He was in a trap, a binding he could not get out of. And he had woven that trap of his own making. He would never be safe again. Even if he courted Harry and Draco back, and preserved the secrets the Unspeakables had blackmailed him on, he could not imagine what would happen if Harry and Draco found out that he had been the one to betray Hawthorn Parkinson's condition to the Department of Mysteries.
Lucius drank more wine.
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Narcissa could have been walking about Silver-Mirror, making preparations for their guests. It was not so very many more days before they would all arrive. And she knew her son was safe, so had no reason to worry over him.
She was not. Instead, she sat before the fire of the reading room where she liked to spend the most time and gazed into the flames, and smiled.
She had done it.
It had taken years and years of effort, years of maneuvering and arranging and yielding on less important matters and, rarely, outright confrontation. But she had done it. She had raised Draco as a wizard who could take his place on his own in wizarding society, and who could do it well enough to choose a ritual both his father and his partner would have disapproved of, did they know all the details. Draco was not relying on their approval. He had broken free of the chains that Narcissa had feared might bind him when she first saw how obsessed he was with Harry, the chains of doing nothing that went against Harry's good opinion.
And now he had his father to serve as an example, perhaps even an example of failure, if Lucius pushed hard enough. He did not live to worship him as he had when he was eleven.
Narcissa could count her work done.
Oh, she would love seeing what happened in the future years, how Draco, and Harry too, continued their upward spiral, where it led them and what great things they would achieve. But if someone had cast the Killing Curse at her the moment Draco's successful Justification was finished, she could have died with a smile on her lips.
She found that she did not want to sit still after all. She stood and went to fetch herself wine, glorying in the sound of her own footsteps. Often, in Silver-Mirror, Narcissa found herself listening for ghosts, the ghosts of her sisters and cousins and younger childhood self.
For tonight, there were only her own.
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Snape slowly tapped his glass stirring rod against the side of the cauldron, the final step in brewing the Sunflower Potion. A shimmer, and the potion bubbled and burbled, and then quieted. Snape stepped away from the cauldron and drew off the heavy gloves that had protected his hands against stray droplets.
Somewhere in the midst of Hogwarts at this moment, or perhaps even just down the dungeon corridors in the middle of the Slytherin common room, his son was probably getting the fucking of his life.
Snape dropped the thought into an Occlumency pool. He had no wish to think it.
And he had no reason to think that this was bad, he told himself. He had seen the look on Harry's face throughout the day, the expression of self-discovery and absorption in a miracle. Though the Justification might have been what began Harry's intense attention to Draco, Snape did not think the end of the ritual would make it cease. This was a necessary chapter in his son's life, one that the woman who bore him would have denied him when his only commitment was serving his brother. That it had happened was a triumph for all of them. Snape could think that way, even if he did not wish to think of the details.
But his thoughts ranged beyond that, as they had a tendency to do. Snape knew it was a tendency that exasperated Joseph. His mind had worked this way for too many years for him to shut it off, however.
He had seen Draco, today, pierce through a barrier he did not think Harry had a name for. It was the barrier that kept Harry at least able to retreat from the problems of others, to make decisions like the one he had to kill the children under the Life-Web, to push ahead with sacrifices of himself that might cause others emotional suffering because it was the right thing to do.
Draco, if no one else, was inside that barrier now. Harry was twined with him. He would find emotional retreat from him very hard. And if Draco raised an objection against a sacrifice, Snape knew Harry would at least consider it.
Narcissa might approve of that, seeing that Draco's dependence on Harry was at last equally returned.
Snape did not know if he did.
He feared what might happen if Draco died in the war. He would have been concerned even in a time of peace, but this, with the emotional destruction of Harry that would follow in its wake…
Harry could easily forget about everything else in his life if Draco died, including the other people who loved him. He might seek to follow his partner, instead of doing as he had told Snape last year, and trying to detach himself enough from the deaths of those he loved that he could go on, and function, and fight.
That entwining with one another would only grow fiercer from this moment forward. Snape feared it was another mistake that he must allow his son to make.
It was dangerous in another way, too. Snape thought Draco might one day decide to detach himself and find another partner. No, it was not likely, but unlikelier things had happened. And that would destroy Harry as thoroughly as his death.
Love during wartime was never easy. Snape had reason to know. If it turned out that the ending of love during wartime happened—
Snape's gaze strayed across the room and locked on the cauldron full of purple potion he sometimes toyed with, adding more ingredients and seeing how potent he could make it without its boiling over or being utterly ruined.
It was now one of the deadliest poisons he has ever brewed, unlikely to be cured by anything short of a bezoar. Snape had at first imagined it applied to werewolves, but he would and could apply it elsewhere if Draco were ever…unwise.
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Connor looked up curiously when Harry and Draco came into breakfast at the Great Hall the next morning. He hadn't been invited to the Justification, of course, since he was Declared Light; even Harry's presence, as undeclared, had tested the boundaries, apparently. But Peter had told him he would be able to sense Draco's Declaration after the successful completion of the ritual. Connor had wondered what it felt like.
Now he knew. It felt like a thousand irritating hands scratching at his skin, like the light flick of beetles' legs climbing up and down his arms. Connor grimaced and scratched, then forced his hand to still as Harry smiled and walked towards him. Draco followed. His gaze was too smug already. Connor would not show him any signs of discomfort.
"Good morning, brother."
Connor could feel his eyebrows rising in spite of himself. Harry sounded half-exuberant, as if he would break out into laughter any moment, and he never sounded like that. Even his greetings in the midst of joy were reserved, as if he didn't want to tempt evil by being too happy. But now his cheeks were flushed and his eyes shone.
Draco folded his arms and leaned one elbow on Harry's right shoulder. Harry leaned into him with a luxurious roll of his neck that made Connor stare. Did Draco put some kind of spell on him? He just never does this!
Then Draco caught his eye, smirking a little, coolly, and leaned forward more possessively on Harry, and Connor saw his expression past the swarming itch of the new Declaration.
He fucked Harry last night.
Connor sat there, blinking. He was not sure what stunned him more: what had happened, that Harry had allowed it, or that the effect still lingered afterward, when the ritual was over. He could see Harry going a bit wild in the presence of great magic. He tended to do that, since the magic called to his own. But this? This scene with Harry acting so much like a new lover, as if he were giddy, as if just—
As if just being around Draco makes him happy.
Draco makes him happy.
Connor stifled an enormous sigh. He had lost the right to play games with Draco, then, and try to antagonize him. He wasn't going to bow to the prat, and if he spouted stupid shit about purity of blood Connor was still going to let him know it was stupid shit. But Draco was a part of Harry's life, and he made him damn happy, and there weren't enough people who did that for Connor to have the right to drive one away.
Besides, he thought, he would get at least one funny moment out of this.
He stood and held out his hand to Draco. "Congratulations," he said solemnly.
Draco's eyes widened most gratifyingly. Connor let only a tiny smile out onto his face. He didn't expect me to be the bigger man. He expected me to throw some fit about this. That means that if he reacts badly to this, he's the one at fault.
Slowly, as if expecting something from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to be hidden in his palm, Draco clasped his hand. Connor wrung his, never looking away from his eyes, trying to convey that he knew exactly what Draco had done with his brother last night—well, if not exactly, enough not to need any more details—and didn't hate it.
Draco looked extremely put out. Connor smiled at him one more time and sat down. "Congratulations to the both of you," he added to Harry.
Harry beamed at him and dragged Draco away to the Slytherin table. Draco looked over his shoulder a few times, as if he expected Connor to be sticking his tongue out at him.
Connor wasn't going to. He had better things to think about, given the new role Draco Malfoy was going to play in his life and the new role he was going to play in Draco's. There was what would have to happen if Draco ever hurt Harry, for instance. He recalled Hermione saying once that she'd found a spell that would tie someone's bollocks together behind their ears, and that she'd considered using it on Zacharias.
Connor thought he would owl her and ask to know the spell.
Just in case.
