Severus breathed a sigh of relief as he reached his quarters, then tensed again almost as soon as he stepped over the threshold. There was someone in his rooms.
"What are you doing here, brat?" the professor asked, relaxing at the cloak he recognised thrown haphazardly at the stand, only for his breath to catch when he rounded the corner.
Draco Malfoy was sitting huddled on the floor with his head buried in his knees in the opposite corner of the room, not lounging on the sitee as expected.
"What happened?" he asked, resigning himself to having to deal with some kind of teenage angst before he could relax properly.
Draco just whimpered and seemed to withdraw even more into himself.
"Draco?" This behaviour was most unlike the proud boy he knew, and he was beginning to get a little concerned something serious had happened.
"I couldn't watch Uncle, I just couldn't," he mumbled into his knees.
"I'll ask again, Draco, what happened?"
Instead of answering, Draco merely asked, "He's okay?"
Severus sighed, he had no patience for dramatics or histrionics, and the boy knew it.
"Who?"
"Harry! He's okay, isn't he?" the boy cried.
Severus chose not to express his surprise at Draco's use of Harry's given name, having never heard either refer to the other by anything other than their Family name, and chose to instead answer the question in as direct a fashion as he could. "The boy is fine, Madame Pomfrey is looking after him."
"What!?" Draco cried, lifting his head for the first time.
"He has a nasty gash on his shoulder but is otherwise fine," Severus reiterated.
Draco twitched momentarily like he was about to get up but then thought better of it.
"What are you doing here, Draco?" Severus asked again. The boy was a mess, his usually pale skin was red and blotchy, his perfectly coiffed hair was sticking up in all directions like someone had repeatedly run their hands through it, his clothes were rumpled like he'd slept in them, and his eyes were bleary and bloodshot.
"I told you," he mumbled, "I couldn't watch."
"And here I thought watching Potter be eaten by a dragon would be right up your alley," Severus drawled.
Draco jumped to his feet; "Don't!" he cried, before turning away and adding in a pained whisper, "Please…"
Severus was perplexed, which didn't happen often. "What's going on here Draco?" he asked.
Still facing the wall, the blond responded in a petulant mutter, "I don't know what you mean."
"If I didn't know better I have guessed you left the tournament to hide in here crying about your lot in life, you certainly look like you've spent the last few hours bawling," Snape never was one for gentleness and Draco winced at the blunt statement.
"Uncle," Draco was debating just how much he should tell the man, when he spoke again.
"Someone dump you?" he asked sarcastically.
The young teenager crumpled to the floor whimpering in pain.
"Draco?" Severus looked at him in askance, before pulling him up and sitting him on the sofa and going to sit himself in his favourite armchair.
"Tell me," he commanded.
"My mate," Draco wailed.
"What of her?"
"Him," the young Slytherin automatically corrected.
"Ah," Severus commented, now fairly sure he had a good grasp on what the problem was, "And you're worried about your father's reaction?"
"No… Yes!" Draco paused, "He'll kill me."
"I wouldn't be so sure."
"He will though," he said with certainty.
"Draco, he's your father, I doubt he'll want to hurt you," the elder tried to reason, "I'm sure he loves you."
"Never stopped him before," was the muttered response.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing, doesn't matter." Draco tried to wave the regrettable comment away.
"You will explain that later as I don't think it was as throw away as you mean it to be, but for now tell me; you know your mate is male, does this mean you have met him?"
"Yes," Draco murmured.
"Don't mutter," the professor chided without thinking, before adding, "When?"
"Three years ago," the response surprised his uncle enough that he struggled to hide it.
"When you were eleven?" It was rare but not completely unheard of for one to meet their mate at such a young age.
"I'm guessing this visit was prompted by your working this out?"
"I've known since we first met," Draco told him.
"So why the sudden crisis?"
"I couldn't watch," he said repeating his earlier statement.
"You said," Snape drawled, "Couldn't watch wh-" he trailed off and Draco sat watching as his uncle worked out his deepest secret.
"Potter," he breathed, "No!" The man stood to warm his hands anxiously by the fire; this the closest Severus Snape would get to outwardly showing what he was thinking.
"Harry Potter is your mate." he stated, not really all that surprised when he thought about it, what with the way the two boys were constantly circling each other.
Draco had never admitted it to anyone before and he found squeezing the word "yes," through the lump in his throat quite difficult.
"Oh Draco!" Severus sat next to the boy and pulled him into his arms, offering a rare moment of comfort.
"Does he know?"
"Who, Father, or Potter?"
"Potter, or, well, either actually."
"No, neither know," Draco breathed then added, "And I'd like to keep it that way."
"But your mate," Severus immediately responded, "You need to tell him."
Still not sure to whom his uncle was referring, Draco responded, "My mate rejected me, and Father will kill me – or more accurately he will use me to get to Potter, and then kill us both."
Deciding to leave conversation until later about what Lucius Malfoy may, or may not, do with regards to his own son and the boy's mate, Severus chose to instead focus on the boy's first statement. "I'm quite certain Potter hasn't rejected you."
"The first time I met him was the day Mother had taken me to get my Hogwarts things. I was so excited to be going to Hogwarts, to be leaving the Manor, to get to see you more often," Draco started with a far off look in his eyes, like he was reliving the memory as he told his story, "But I was scared too; scared to be leaving Mother, scared to meet all these new people, scared I wouldn't make any friends, scared I wouldn't do well in class, scared I'd disappoint Father…" he trailed off.
"This tiny little runt of a boy walked into the shop while I was being fitted for robes, and I think I knew who he was right away. I was so nervous, I just started babbling, mostly all that stuff Father believes, I think, but he wouldn't respond to me, in fact he ran away first opportunity he got, and all I could think afterwards was 'I just met my mate and I don't even know his name!'. Then it kind of hit me I just met my mate!"
"That doesn't mean he rejected you," Severus speculated, not surprised Harry didn't speak to him if he was sprouting his father's nonsense. Draco just looked at him.
"We didn't meet again until we were on the Express. I told him who I was and Weasley just laughed at me, Weasley laughed at me!" Draco seemed momentarily baffled before he resumed his story.
"I held out my hand to him and he wouldn't take it, actually he told me to get lost," He turned to Severus with tears shimmering in his eyes. "Tell me again how my mate hasn't rejected me," he said.
"You're telling me your mate rejected you," Severus asked, to which Draco nodded miserably, "Yet you are still able to sit here and tell me the tale years later."
"I know it should have killed me and believe me it felt like it was going to, still does sometimes," he responded, wrapping his arms around himself like they could protect him from the pain coursing through his body, through his very blood. "But the truth is: if I die, he dies."
Severus hummed at that having temporarily forgotten that his brat isn't an alpha, no matter how much he sometimes acts like one.
"He rejects me, and it kills him," he wailed, "I wasn't about to do that to him, I couldn't…" Draco trailed off again.
"I just couldn't" he muttered.
"So, you survived being rejected by your alpha to save his life," Severus surmised, wearily impressed despite himself.
"Something like that."
"That still doesn't explain why you don't want him to know," he prompted.
"He'd feel trapped," Draco declared, "He'll feel like he has no choice but to stay with me and I want him to have all the choices in the world."
Severus found he couldn't dispute that
"What's the point of being a Malfoy if I can't give my mate everything he's ever wanted?"
"Speaking of Malfoy's," Severus started, "That quip about your father?" He deliberately left his question open ended to see how the boy would respond.
"What about it?" he responded somewhat morosely.
"You seemed quite certain he would kill you."
"Hmm," was all the reaction he got.
"Care to elaborate?"
"Not really."
"Draco," Severus warned. The older Slytherin knew the boy's father had never treated his son, or his wife for that matter, favourably and he was worried the problem was much worse than he feared.
"He doesn't want me around other than for the continuance of his name," Draco eventually relented, unable to look his uncle in the eye.
"So why the certainty?" Severus paused, "Draco, has he ever done anything to you?"
Draco squirmed before he got up and started to pace.
"Draco?"
The blond sighed before finally admitting, "He beats me with his cane."
Severus shot to his feet at that halted admission, "He what!?" he roared, though he managed to calm himself when he saw the boy shrink back towards the wall. He sighed; "I'm sorry, come over here," and took the boy into his arms for the second time that day.
"I will personally make sure he never touches you again, my little brat," he vowed with vengeance on his mind.