Title: The Secret's In The Telling

Authoress: Sakuri

Rating: T

Summary: Draco Malfoy, pureblood and Slytherin prince, suffers the unthinkable when he is attacked and bitten by Remus Lupin. How is he supposed to live any kind of life afterwards, especially when Potter continues to stick his unwanted nose into things? HPDM, SSRL

Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one

Chapter 34: The Truth Comes Out

xxx

Classes finally resumed on Monday, and Harry felt almost thankful. He'd endured more drama during the holiday than he felt was fair, and welcomed lessons as a respite.

That wasn't to say they were remotely relaxing, even in comparison to the stress of the last week. Since Ron was in almost every class he had, and their seats usually next to each other, it looked as if the tension hovering between them wasn't about to lesson any time soon. Hermione found herself hopelessly trying to mediate for the pair of them, not daring to try and defend Malfoy to Ron, and knowing it useless to even suggest that Harry distance himself from the Slytherin. She was amazed that the boy could cause so much trouble between them even when he was being friendly.

Perhaps the worst part of the day came during Potions. She should have expected it, really; tactfully averted the situation before it got too bad. But she'd just been so exhausted from a whole morning of passing terse messages between the boys, as they refused to speak directly to each other ever since whatever argument had taken place during Saturday night.

They'd been sat at their usual places, Hermione in the middle, when Slughorn gave the instruction to divide into pairs. She hesitated, looking between the two and wanting to cringe. Whichever one she chose to work with would only make the other resent her. Ron had glared at her expectantly, while Harry, on her other side, had stared resolutely ahead, his chin lifted in that stubborn, defiant way; both of them demanding in their own way that she side with them.

It had come almost as a relief to hear the cold, drawling voice start up behind her, and turn to see the blonde sidling up to them. It hadn't been intentional but, thinking back, she was pretty sure she'd cast a pathetically pleading look at him, which he'd glanced away from quickly.

"Don't tell me," Malfoy had said in mock astonishment. "Trouble in paradise? Surely not..." Smirking, he'd folded his arms and leaned his hip against the edge of the desk, closest to Harry, who had watched him with an expression that suggested he had no idea what the Slytherin was up to. That, Hermione had thought, could not bode well.

Ron, predictably, had looked as if he was about to lunge at the mere sight of the other boy, the current cause of his unhappiness and anger. She'd laid a hand on his arm, willing him to stay calm through Malfoy's taunts.

But for once, the blond didn't seem all that interested in beginning an argument. He seemed to lose interest in her and Ron swiftly enough, instead cocking his head at Harry, who regarded him curiously. "C'mon, Potter. Why don't you try working with someone competent for a change? Maybe we can get you a passing grade this time." And with that, he turned and sauntered over to the Slytherin side of the classroom, ignoring the poleaxed expressions worn by most of his housemates.

Harry had blinked, glanced at her, then grabbed his bag and followed the retreating blond. She'd watched the surreal sight of her friend and Malfoy setting up equipment and going about their assignment with a civility she'd never thought possible. Even during the few times she'd seen them together, the pair had bickered and sniped to some extent. It had never really occurred to her that maybe they actually could act like friends – normal friends – rather than reluctant allies. She'd tended to assume, as had Ron, that Harry felt sorry for the Slytherin, and was defending him because he had to. But now, she wondered–

She'd been startled from her revelations by Ron slamming down his Potions textbook on the tabletop with unnecessary force.

"I don't get it," he'd muttered sullenly. "I don't get what the fuck is going on! They can't be serious with this stunt. Harry has no reason to –"

She'd sighed and turned to him, sick of the same rant she'd hear innumerable times since the redhead's return. "I think it's getting to the point where you have to accept that they're friends, Ron. They just are. I don't know why, but it's true."

He'd stared at her for a few seconds, before continuing as if she hadn't said a word. "Do you know I had to find out if Remus was okay for myself?"

Tired, she'd closed her eyes for a moment. "Yes. I went with you. But considering you stormed off this morning when Harry tried to –"

"Hermione! Whose side are you on?"

And there was no end to the arguments, the tension, the stubborn refusal to see eye to eye. It was driving her insane. Harry didn't so much mind her talking to Ron, especially since he had Malfoy now – something that was starting to worry her in a new way, as she watched them together, and knowing what she did about the werewolf – but if she exchanged an amiable word with Harry, it made Ron look at her like a traitor. It was fourth year all over again, and she'd hated it just as much then.

xxx

"I'm terrified he's never going to forgive me, Severus."

"I'm not your councillor, Lupin. You must realise I don't care."

Remus, who was used to this manner of response, ignored him. He sat in one of the squishy armchairs – he was forever surprised at the comfort of the Potion Master's rooms – near the fireplace. Since the dungeons were freezing this time of year, it was almost permanently lit and the werewolf relaxed in the heat.

They'd just finished another session of Legilimency, during which Severus had scoured the defences he'd built, searching for some sign they'd been bypassed by the Dark Lord. Eventually, after what felt like hours – and he had the headache to prove it – the man had announced that all seemed fine. Of course, his task was now more difficult than ever, since he'd had to compensate for the Mark Remus now wore, and its magical signature. The Legilimens had to be careful not to trigger the small link that now existed between werewolf and Dark Lord, but he worked around it with the same amount of skill as ever. It helped that he knew what the Mark felt like from personal experience...

Currently, the Potions Master absently paced the room, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to dispel the dull ache that was a result of prolonged mental magic. He cast glances at Lupin every now and then, wondering why the man was lingering, and curious enough to let him stay, for the moment.

"He blames you," the werewolf commented at length.

"My heart bleeds." With a sigh, he turned to regard the other man. "I've never had time for this teenage angst of Potter's. You're coddling him, you know. And you're letting him insult you."

"How –?"

"Lupin, I don't say this lightly, or easily, but doing... what you did was possibly the only respectable act I've known you to commit. This... sulking of Potter's is cheapening it." Rolling his eyes, he continued his pacing.

Remus fell silent, feeling slightly puzzled. He suspected, somewhere amidst the scorn for Harry, Severus had just complimented him. "Respectable?" he probed, raising his eyebrows.

The Potions Master paused, considering. "...Yes," he admitted at last, as if the word was dragged from him. He wasn't looking at the other man, instead staring into the flames. "Potter, though he whines and rails against the unfairness of it all, will never understand the sacrifice you made at that meeting. One day, he will have to get used to what we must do in the name of this war."

Remus thought about denying the words, defending Harry, as he felt he should, but he couldn't summon the resolve. Instead, he found himself slumping backwards, closing his eyes and feeling, ridiculously, as if he'd just been vindicated. "Thank you, Severus," he murmured, and was rewarded only with some unintelligible grunt of acknowledgement.

xxx

Narcissa glanced idly around her surroundings, examining the room she'd been given to live in while she made arrangements elsewhere. The Black property she'd chosen was smaller than the Manor, but perfectly adequate. It had previously belonged to Bella, but had reverted to her when her sister had been sentenced. Currently, she had House Elves tidying the place in preparation for her arrival.

However, before she left Hogwarts, there was one final thing she needed to sort out.

As if her thoughts had been a summons, there was a knock at the door, and she rose to gracefully cross the room and greet her son. Draco waited outside her rooms with the same hesitancy he seemed to have developed in her presence these days. She stepped aside and, after a brief pause, he entered.

"You wanted to see me?"

She smiled and gestured to the chairs near the fireplace. "Sit down, dear. We need to talk."

He obeyed slowly, body language positively screaming wariness.

She rolled her eyes and lowered herself opposite him, picking up a cup of dainty china and sipping her tea. For a moment, she was reminded of the afternoons they'd spent like this when Draco was a child, and they'd sat in the study as she tutored him in simple maths and reading, the gentle chink of cup and saucer the pleasant backing track of her memory. Those had been calmer times than these.

"Mother...?"

Returning to the present, she gave a little shake of her head, refocusing her attention on the boy. He was frowning in confusion, but beneath that, she saw his nerves. So he really did fear her finding out whatever secret he kept.

"It has come to my attention –" she began rather formally, before stopping with a sigh. "Draco, what is going on?"

Her son, she decided, would never be able to look innocent. Instead, he resembled a deer caught in wandlight. "Going on?" he repeated, wide eyed and ridiculously clueless. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean! Ever since I arrived here, the Headmaster had been urging me to talk to you and find out what this... this change is!"

"Change –?"

"You thought I wouldn't notice?" Quickly, before her voice reached unflattering pitches, she calmed herself. "I am your mother. What did you expect? That I'd blithely ignore the fact that something has altered?"

"Nothing's –"

"Draco Lucius Malfoy!" Setting down her cup with a harsh rattle, she leaned forward and pinned him with a glare. "Not only have you attached yourself to Harry Potter – I may add that I found him in your room that first night – you've avoided all contact with me for months, even when I wrote to you –"

Finally, the Slytherin found his voice. "What, when you wrote with the hope of coaxing me back to the Manor, where father would have... would..." He shook his head disgustedly and looked away.

Narcissa opened her mouth to retort, then paused. "...I never wrote you any such thing. Draco, I was proud that you'd made the same choice as I had; not to bow to that madman."

Grey eyes, the mirror of her own, grudgingly drifted back towards her. "It was your handwriting," he protested feebly, even as he realised that handwriting was hardly difficult to forge for someone like Lucius. "I never got any other letters."

"Probably the Headmaster's doing. No doubt he was intercepting anything that came from me or your father. I suspected as much, when you never answered..." She trailed off, thinking of the pages she'd penned over the last few months, asking him what had happened to change his mind, begging him to respond, convinced he'd cut all ties forever for some unfathomable reason. "Draco..."

Stubborn, he looked at the table between them, examining the china patterns with determined interest. He would not answer. He couldn't. And yet he could feel her beginning to pry in that insistent voice of hers, all sugar-sweet and warm, the one that always dragged the information from him whether he wanted to give it or not. It was the voice she'd used when he was seven, and he'd finally admitted to breaking the priceless vase in the front room; it was the same concerned, attentive expression she wore whenever she wanted him to confess to something, usually something she already knew about.

But no, this time he would resist, because this was not some trivial broken ornament he'd be admitting to. This was an entire upheaval of his life. And yes, he could try to explain to her that not... everything had changed, even though he himself had raged against that very idea in the beginning. In vain, he could try to defend himself and what he'd become – but Narcissa Malfoy, in her own way, was every bit as proud and pureblood as her husband.

No, he couldn't take the risk of telling her, because he couldn't take her horror.

"Mother, I have no idea what you're talking about," he said at last, sliding his well-worn expressionless mask into place.

She stared at him for long moments, waiting for him to break. He always had before, whenever she wanted to know something, but not now. They'd never faced anything of this import before, and Draco was ready to prove he could stand up to the woman, when necessary.

Finally, with a little noise of disappointment, she picked up the delicate teapot that sat between them and poured out another cup of the liquid, pushing it towards him. Out of politeness, and resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he took the drink and sipped at it absently.

"Very well," she went on, still a little put out. "Shall we engage in small talk, then? Since you so obviously don't trust me with anything real –"

"Oh, mother..."

"How was your day? You're keeping up in classes, I assume. Merlin knows that no son of mind will..."

He tuned her out as she continued on about her expectations of him, rubbing his eyes and fighting a yawn. God he was tired. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, with all the excitement – as well as certain... dreams that had somehow slipped into his subconscious, curtest of bloody Potter – and it seemed suddenly as if his exhaustion was catching up to him.

"Draco?"

He snapped to attention, shaking his head to clear the fuzziness. "Yes?"

His mother frowned gently, a pretty little pucker of her eyebrows. "What are you hiding from me?" she asked again, watching him intently and a little sadly.

He sighed, shook his head, and promptly opened his mouth to say blankly, "I'm a werewolf."

Immediately, the world crashed down. So it seemed, anyway. He sat bolt upright, hand clapped stupidly to his mouth as if he could take the words and cram them back inside, erasing the look of dumbstruck shock on his mother's face.

What...?

Why...?

...the hell?

Some distant section of his brain must have been functioning beyond incoherent astonishment, thankfully, as suddenly he found his gaze drifting down to the tea cup still held tightly in his hand.

"You drugged me..." he murmured, disbelieving and incredulous. "You gave me Veritaserum..."

Narcissa had not yet gathered herself enough to respond with any kind of grace, and so could only hiss, "You're a what?"

"A werewolf," he said again, and closed his eyes in horror. "Stop it."

"How?" Her voice had hardened now, urgent.

"At the start of the y-year..." he muttered through gritted teeth, trying desperately to hold back the words, even as she absorbed them hungrily, leaning forward. His fingers dug into the soft arm of the chair as he fought the potion that urged the truth from him, and the haziness that made it harder to resist. "Lu... Lupin bit me."

"What?" Abruptly, she was on her feet, her countenance radiating fury in a way he'd never known before. Fists clenched at her sides, fingers crushing the soft folds of her dress. Her face had gone pale with anger, and she visibly shook.

"Don't –" he tried to interrupt her, but was cut across.

"How could you not tell me this? You should have – I should have been here! I should have known! Why did no one contact me?"

Compelled to honesty, the Slytherin answered without meeting her eyes. "I didn't want you to know. Ever. And no one contacted you because they were sworn to silence in the hopes that father wouldn't find out and publically disown me." He snorted humourlessly. "That worked well..."

At a loss, his mother started at him, motionless. Eventually, she managed to whisper, "Was that it? Was that the deal they let you make? The reason Lupin is still here, free from consequences?"

Oh, Merlin, no. Not this. He bit his lip until he felt sure it would bleed, but even that couldn't stop the answer from rising in his throat like bile. "...Yes," he spat out at last. "Yes, but you can't –"

"How dare they do this?" Narcissa fairly shrieked, all traces of the fey and aristocratic witch gone, leaving behind the scorned mother. "How can they justify –? How can he –? I'll kill him for this –"

And then the situation worsened, if possible. Draco had a brief second to realise the wolf in him was rising to the sound of the threat before his features shifted slightly and he felt its instincts take over.

"Mother, no!"

Narcissa stopped dead at the sound of the voice that emerged from her son's mouth. It was not the cool, refined tone she'd always nurtured. Far from it, it was the growl of something that was no longer human. She flinched despite herself, both at the sound and the sight the boy presented her with.

Slightly disorientated to find himself standing, Draco ignored the cut that had appeared on his lip where one fang had punctured the skin, quickly flicking his tongue out to remove the trace of blood. He was barely in control of his own actions anymore. With the combination of Veritaserum making him lightheaded, his own panic surging away beneath the surface, and the wolf's anger snarling incoherently, it was all he could do to cling desperately to some shred of rational thought.

Still compelled to truthfulness, when usually he might have found some other excuse for what he was about to say, Draco shook his head adamantly. "You can't touch Lupin for this," he said firmly, knowing her well enough to imagine how thoroughly she would destroy the man if given the motivation.

"Why? Surely you want him punished –"

"He has been," he responded automatically, thinking of the man's own guilt, and the Mark he'd taken mere nights ago. "But, mother, I can't let you do anything more to him."

She shook her head incredulously, and Draco could hear the question she wanted to scream at him.

Well, here came another embarrassing admission. He didn't try to fight it, knowing it useless, even as that shred of rational thought cringed. "He's part of my... pack."

And there was something he'd never thought he'd have to acknowledge. Good God, he had a pack. He had a pack.

Narcissa blinked. "Your...?"

With as much dignity as he could still muster, he lifted his chin defiantly. "Pack. Yes. You can't tell, you can't have him arrested, you can't curse him, because he's... he's... Well, you heard me the first time."

Slowly, the wolf features were retreating as her son's temper calmed again. She watched, horrified and fascinated, as fangs retracted and eyed darkened and voice became smooth and human once more.

And finally it seemed to hit her what exactly had been done to him. She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, not knowing, for once in her life, what else to do.

Draco stared at her helplessly, with the odd feeling that he should be comforting her, or at least apologising. He turned away from her instead, so she wouldn't see the look of terror that had entered his eyes. He hadn't wanted her to know. He hadn't wanted her to know any of it...

"Potter knows, doesn't he?"

He wondered whether he'd have heard her barely audible question without the aid of heightened werewolf senses. "Yes. He saved my life when it happened."

"Is that the cause of this friendship?"

He considered for a moment, before shaking his head, still without turning to face her. "No. Not really." And she would have to drag the other details of that from him, if she could.

But no more questions were forthcoming. He could feel her eyes on him, but didn't dare turn and see for himself what expression she was wearing. So much for her perfect, pureblooded prize and joy. All that was gone, now, because he wasn't even a wizard anymore, was he? He was a god damn werewolf, and one so twisted he was even defending the person responsible for inflicting this fucking curse.

The silence went on and on, relentless, until it was a struggle to remain still. Giving in, he turned around haltingly.

Narcissa stood directly behind him, and he looked down at her in surprise, wondering how she'd moved without him noticing.

"You should have told me..." she whispered again, making that strange surge of guilt return.

And then she hugged him.

He was so astonished he froze up completely, vaguely wondering what she thought she was doing. Hadn't she heard all of that? Hadn't she been listening...?

And yet his mother continued to cling to him as if she'd never let go, making him just as uncomfortable as ever, despite the little voice in the back of his head that was shouting in relief and reassurance. Awkward, he patted her shoulder and muttered the only thing that was, unhelpfully, coming to mind.

"I can't believe you drugged me..."