Chapter five: 'Veritaserum'
"Sit down, Draco."
I glance back to her, my mother, her cheeks flushed and her eyes steady and serious. She looks like aunt Bella, but the light side of darkness, impossibly bright with the misleading appearance of fragility, as Bella is the dark side of light with the misleading appearance of brutality.
Slowly and deliberately, I pull up my chair and sit down. A house elf appears to my mother's silent call and tidies the mess on the table and vanishes again. I am bored. I think about Bella and the kisses she gave me at the party. I think fleetingly about Pansy, and return to my thoughts of Bella again. A whisper of cloth distracts me: mother is walking the room. She passes the sideboard where I first saw her with Snape. I banish the memory with an image of my own, of me, and Bella. I wonder how I can bring this into being.
Finally, she says, "Severus is a guest in our house –"
" – showing him the best hospitality?" I grimace at the whining pitch in my voice.
She stops pacing and looks at me with almost a look of disgust. I return it. She says, "He is an esteemed guest. We owe him much, more than you can imagine in your immaturity, Draco. You will show him the respect he is due."
"You don't expect me to have sex with him, do you?" I ask, with mock horror.
Her nostrils flare. She regards me in freezing silence. It makes me uncomfortable that she hasn't shouted or hit me. I think, somehow, I deserve it, even though I know I'm in the right to feel as I do.
"My relationship with Severus is none of your business," she says, quietly.
"What about dad?"
"These are grown-up affairs that you can know nothing of."
"Does he know?"
She sighs. "Yes."
I turn this over and examine it. Dad must be gutted. Cuckolded by a greasy, beak-faced, arrogant teacher.
Merlin.
I hazard a guess. "I suppose the only reason Snape is still alive is because of the Dark Lord."
She takes a moment to consider this. "You assume that your father minds," she murmurs. She sits down again and we both take a drink of wine.
"Why shouldn't he mind?"
"Because he –" she stops herself, takes a deep breath and meets my eyes. "He has his own relationships." When I open my mouth to ask, she adds, quickly, "And they are his business, so I won't discuss them with you."
I close my mouth. She toys with the stem of her wine glass. She says, "I realise, Draco, that this makes you very uncomfortable, upset. You feel betrayed. Possibly, you feel that we don't love you, or one another. We do love you, and we do love each other."
I am shocked to see a tear roll down her cheek. It splatters darkly onto her dress. She dabs once at her cheek with a napkin. My guts clench. I ask, in a tone harsher than I mean, "Is Snape forcing you?"
She looks briefly amazed, then actually laughs, and for a moment I see the Bella in her, which makes me uncomfortable though I can't think why. "Alright," she says, in a different tone, "alright, Draco. You want to be a man. You want to talk with the grown-ups. Obviously, yes you do. You had delusions that you could kill, and found you couldn't, then found that you might be able to. So you think you're now a man." She slams her palm onto the table and the cutlery rattles. "Wrong! Wrong, Draco! Killing does not make you a man, or f-fucking, or lying or being arrogant!"
I sneer, "You're describing your lover, I believe."
She is furious now, still and furious. She struggles as if she can't trust herself to speak, so she drinks again, lifting her glass with a shaking hand. The sight of her makes me hate her. I lower my eyes.
Her voice is barely more than a whisper. "Does it interest you at all that, in the present climate, I trust him possibly more than I trust any other person?"
I shake my head, then ask, "More than dad?"
She gives me a bitter smile. "Your dad isn't here, is he?"
"He's in –"
"A prison with practically an open door. Ask yourself why he has not escaped yet."
I brush that aside. "We don't know what it's like in –"
"I have visited him," she says, softly.
I've had enough now and push my chair back. "Is that all, mother?"
Her gaze is level. A house elf appears and she bends to whisper in its ear, and it pops off again. "Remain in your seat."
"Have you summoned Snape?" I demand, uneasily.
"I think Professor Snape might be stretching things a bit," she says, "but a mister would show willing, Draco."
"No way," I murmur.
"I thought so," she sighs. The house elf appears and she accepts something small into her hand. I hear soft footfalls on the carpet in the hallway and cast around for my wand. It is unreachable unless I get up. Mother moves around the table and refills all our glasses. Snape pauses in the doorway.
"Come in, please, Severus," she says. She has my wand in her hand with her own. She holds out her free hand and Snape looks sceptically at it, noting the others. I expect him to tell her where to go but to my surprise he disarms himself to her. Immediately, a house elf appears, takes all three wands, and leaves on foot, closing the door behind it.
Mother sits down and Snape, with a cool glance in my direction, does the same.
"I'm sorry, Severus," she says.
He arches a brow. "It happens often," he dismisses, "at some dinner tables."
She raises her drink to toast, and he clinks his glass and drinks deeply. I ignore their offers and drink anyway.
"I was hoping," mother says, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with the napkin, "that I could change Draco's mind about you, Severus."
He looks wary and yet amused. "I've never imagined that Draco had any other opinion of me than the correct one, Narcissa," he says. He nauseates me.
"Nevertheless," she says, refolding the napkin and laying her hands over it on the table, "there are facets to you he can't possibly know. And I would like him to."
He is instantly alert, shown only in the sudden tightness of his shoulders and the tautness of his slight sneer. I realise that I've come to read him like a book, but there is something mother is hinting at that I obviously don't know.
Despite myself, I'm interested. New information might be useful.
"I can't imagine what Draco would find in me to change his mind," Snape says, with the faintest of edges.
Mother is absently fidgeting with a corner of her napkin. "I would very much like to change his mind," she says, very softly, and I detect a tremor in her voice.
Snape is staring at her very hard, then it seems he feels my gaze upon him and turns his cold, pitiless eyes on me. I find I drop mine first. "What is it?" I joke in an embarrassed splutter. "Is this where you tell me he's really my dad?"
Snape hisses between his teeth and takes another drink. I shoot a quick look at mother to make quite sure that this is not what she was going to say, but she looks unhappy and nervous.
Oh. No. No.
"I wish it were so simple," she says, not looking at either of us.
Snape stands up, suddenly. "I'll collect my wand later," he says, striding to the door.
"Severus –"
But something has happened to Snape. He lurches towards the door and stumbles against the woodwork. He raises a hand to his eyes.
Mother gets to her feet, but does not go to him.
His hand falls from his eyes and he turns to look at her with the oddest expression. He tries to grasp the doorknob, and again, but it will not turn. He bangs the door with his fist, with fury, and turns back to her, staggering slightly. "You foolish woman," he almost spits, his face thunderous.
"Sit down," she whispers.
"What is it?" he hisses. "Veritaserum?"
She nods, slightly, moving to help him as he sways. His arm lashes out and she stumbles to the floor. I jump to my feet, grasping the nearest weapon, a knife.
"No, Draco!" she cries, getting to her feet as Snape sinks to his knees. "He doesn't know what he's doing. He's had a large dose. I had to give him a lot, because he's probably built up immunity to it. Give him time!"
Snape, disorientated, without his wand. I advance upon him around the table, but my mother stands between us, her expression pleading.
And I remember the night upon the Astronomy tower, when I had faced a powerless wizard, and not been able to do it.
But this is a man I hate. I hadn't quite hated Dumbledore, just despised his naivety.
The knife slides from my hand. I glance at the table: all the cutlery has disappeared. Mother has great control over her elves. I stare from her face to the weak, sweating man on the floor. I still have my fists and my feet, perhaps even my teeth. There are heavy objects in the room. I don't care that mother likes him or that dad doesn't care he is shagging her, or that the Dark Lord thinks he is the dog's bollocks.
Mother crouches beside him and moves a hank of hair to see his face. He murmurs something unintelligible. She glances up at me. "Help me, Draco. He can't stay on the floor."
Ultimately I must, because she is my mother. For a thin man, he is remarkably heavy. We heave him into the armchair in a corner near the French windows. He says nothing, other than a grunt, but I can feel the fury pouring off him. When mother and I stand back to look at him, he glares back at us with eyes like black fire.
What mother has done to him sinks in. I begin to laugh.
"Do grow up, Draco," she snaps. "This is serious."
"Don't do this," Snape whispers. Sweat shines on his face.
"I'm sorry," she says, gently.
"You might end up being a lot sorrier," he says through his teeth. "No good will come of this."
She looks very sad, I think. "I can't think of another way to save him, Severus."
"What are we going to ask him, then?" I ask, rubbing my hands together. "How about, has the Dark Lord ever shagged you up the arse, Severus?"
"No, he has not." Snape looks slightly baffled and sounds scornful. "For pity's sake, Draco, haven't you got anything better than that?"
"Tell me who your master is," orders my mother.
He clamps his jaw and shakes his head from side to side, but the words come tumbling out anyway. "Dumbledore."
I stare.
"Is the Dark Lord your master?" she whispers.
"No."
"Do you work against the Dark Lord from within his ranks?"
"Yes. Don't ask me any more!"
I simply stare.
Snape, a spy?
"But you killed Dumbledore," I say. "I was there. You killed him to save me from doing it, like you agreed with mother."
Mother looks surprised. Snape says, "I think Bellatrix told him." Mother purses her lips.
But I can't fathom why he killed his master. Mother asks for me before I can pull myself together to ask.
Snape says, in a voice thick with emotion, "Because he ordered it."
The scale of this … I find a seat and a glass of wine, not Snape's. Questions whirl in my head, but I can't separate them from each other.
Mother kneels at his feet and taken one of his limp hands in hers. He stares at her with naked grief and hopelessness.
I say, "You're on Potter's side, then?"
He laughs, thinly, as he says that he is.
"Why?"
"Because of Lily."
"Who is Lily?"
"Potter's mother."
"And why because of her?"
He struggles against the potion again, but it is futile. "She died because of my betrayal. Because I was a foolish, power-seeking, selfish bastard."
"And why should it matter to you if she lived or died?" mother asks, quietly.
"Because I loved her."
My mother squeezes his hand ever so slightly. "It makes sense," she whispers.
"Don't you dare pity me," he sneers, and pulls his hand away. She looks hurt.
"Don't you love my mother?" I blurt.
"Explain your notion of love to me," he says with narrowed eyes, "so I may be more precise."
"Of course he doesn't," Mother says, her cheeks aflame.
"The potion is wearing off," I warn.
"I assure you it is not."
"Do you intend to kill the Dark Lord?" I whisper.
"I intend to be there when he dies and assist all I can."
A thought occurs to me. It stings. "When Potter cast that curse … Sectumsempra … you saved me. Was that to save Potter from expulsion?"
He looks hard at me. "It was to save your life, you silly boy."
"What will you do when the potion wears off?"
He smiles, showing his teeth. "Throttle you, Draco. After I have beaten in your mother's head with a poker."
"Severus," she murmurs, frightened.
"Why do you think my mother has done this?"
He smiles again, broadly. "She wants to show you what a hero looks like," he replies. "Take a long look. Then look in the mirror, and ask yourself the question."
"What question?"
"Am I a hero?"
I take another drink, my mind whirling. There is another question. "My life," I murmur.
"Yes, the one I saved."
I meet his eyes. He looks like he will smile again, but does not. His eyes look bright and clearer, he is sitting straighter, but still sweating. He knows that I know: I owe him a Wizard's Debt.
"It's time for you to go now, Draco," Mother says. "To your room, please. Don't attempt to contact anyone just yet."
I am worried for her. She knows and still pleads with me with her eyes to leave. This time the door opens and I walk part way down the hallway before I stop and listen. I can hear nothing, then a ripping sound and the clatter of china and glass. I tiptoe back peer through the crack in the door.
I feel like an icy hand has gripped my guts. She's on her back on the table with her legs over his shoulders and he's standing between them. His violence rocks the table. Her beautiful dress is ripped. He's pinning her hands to the table and staring down into her face.
"I'm sorry," she says, with a small sob.
"I know," he replies, his voice cracking, and I think that he is crying too.
I don't understand, and I'm acutely aware of this now. I back away and tear up to my room, throwing myself on my bed. I feel ashamed. Angry. Betrayed. Cheated. I have wasted a lot of energy to beat him at his own game, when he wasn't even playing the game. I have hated him for being a double-agent, without realising that it wasn't to our favour.
Our favour.
I never asked him about my father, whether or not dad knew he was a spy. But I already know the answer to this.
My mother is on the wrong side. I owe Snape a Debt.
I am lost.
In the absence of knowing what else to do, I begin to weep into my pillow.
To be continued.
Notes and Nods
Thanks to Miranda Macondo for the beta :-)