Harry pushed himself to his feet, then had to hold himself still against the wall as he waited for the nausea to abate and the room to stop spinning. Once steady on his feet, he headed for the doorway, determined to chase down his friend. Only to be stopped by a tone he knew very well.

He only hesitated for a moment, before turning towards the potion. He dipped his hand in the sterilization potion before picking up the stirrer. They'd worked too long and hard on this to ruin it because of his inattentiveness or carelessness. Getting his blood into the potion would ruin it even more surely than missing a stirring.

With the potion stirred, he headed out once more. After exiting the room he stopped. He had fifteen minutes to find Draco, and absolutely no idea where he might be. He did know that Draco was unlikely to go back to the Slytherin dorms. Still, it was the best place for him to start.

He got turned around twice on the way to the opening he'd only been through once before; he could literally feel the time slipping away from him, but he finally made it. It was far too late at night to find someone to follow into the rooms, so he went with his gut.

::Hello?:: He thought for a long moment that his gamble wouldn't work, but just as he was ready to leave and try something else, he saw a moving shadow upon the door.

::Hello?:: he hissed again.

::Who speaks?:: the shadow hissed back. ::You do not belong here. You might speak, but you are not one of the young snakes.::

::I'm a friend to one, the silver one. He is hurting and I need one to track him down.::

::The silver prince?:: the snake sounded thoughtful. ::You will need the quiet jester then.::

Before Harry could ask who that was, the snake had vanished into the stones once more.

Three long minutes later, the stones opened and the very person Harry was looking for stepped out. Harry straightened up from where he'd been leaning against the wall, and once more had to steady himself.

"What happened?" Blaise asked. Then his eyes narrowed as he looked at something on the wall behind Harry. "Just a moment." Blaise turned and vanished into the common room, leaving Harry blinking after him in confusion. Harry turned to look at the wall and noticed the torchlight glinting upon fresh blood.

When the wall opened again, Thyme Scarborough, Neville's girlfriend, followed her fellow Slytherin through the opening. "What happened?" she asked quietly, even as she pulled Harry's head around so she could look at the back of it. "The back of your robe is soaked," she scolded. "You shouldn't be walking around."

"It doesn't really hurt," Harry tried to explain. "It shouldn't have bled that much. It was just a punch."

"On the back of your head?" Blaise scoffed.

"No," Harry replied absently. "That's from when my head hit the wall when he punched me. It's not important right now, though."

"It's very important," Thyme disagreed. "Head injuries are serious. This looks like it's just a small cut, though," she admitted as she moved hair out of the way, "and head wounds always bleed more than others do, but what if you have a concussion?"

"I'm fine," Harry tried to tell them. "I didn't ask you out here for me, you know."

"You can tell us on the way to the infirmary."

Harry shook his head, before stopping and groaning softly. "I can't. I've got to get back to the potion, and we've got to find Draco."

"Is he the one who punched you?" Blaise frowned.

"Yeah," Harry admitted. "He'd just gotten some really bad news and he lashed out, and then I went and said something *really* stupid, and he ran away. We need to find him, soon." He used his wand to check the time. "And I've got to get back to the potion."

"I assume this is what the three of you have been working on for so long?" Thyme said. "Come on then, I'll clean you up there, but if I see any signs of a concussion, you're heading straight to Madam Pomfrey. Understand?"

Harry looked at her strangely. "Do you by any chance want to be a mediwitch when you grow up?"

"Just like my grandmother," Thyme agreed.

"Well, you've got the bedside manner down," Harry remarked. He led the way towards their workroom. "Now about Draco..."

"Tell me where you last saw him and I'll track him down," Blaise told him.

Harry stopped in front of the door. "He left here about twelve minutes ago."

Blaise nodded and concentrated. In a moment, where he had stood was now a small grey fox. He sniffed around for a moment, then yipped and bounded away. They watched him go, then headed into the room.

"I didn't know you had managed your Animagus forms," Harry pouted.

"Hmm," Thyme hummed ignoring his words as she forced Harry down onto a stool under the brightest source of light. She pulled out her wand and with a quick flick, he was clean. "It looks like it's stopped bleeding," she finally admitted, "but I'd still like to put something on it. Do you know where Severus keeps his salve?"

Harry shook his head carefully, still mindful of the dizziness. "I don't go into his stores without permission. I know he has some specifically for me, but I don't have a clue where they would be."

"I still think you should go see Madam Pomfrey," Thyme fretted. "You might have a concussion."

"And how would he have received that?" a silky voice asked from the shadows.

"Severus!"

Severus watched as one of his Slytherins, Thyme Scarborough, looked through Harry's hair. "What happened?" he demanded.

"He hit his head," Thyme informed him. "It doesn't look like it's any worse than a fairly small cut, but it did bleed fairly extensively. I also saw him clutch the wall as if he was dizzy on the way back here."

"I wasn't dizzy," Harry disagreed petulantly. "My head just hurt when I moved and I needed to stop until it quit."

Severus briskly but gently took his chin in his hand and lifted it so he could see Harry's eyes, his own eyes narrowing as he noticed the red skin of a forming bruise. He raised his wand and chanted out a different spell than the last diagnostic Harry had seen him use. Something about cassettes?

"Your brain is slightly shaken, but I'm sure you're used to that," Severus murmured cuttingly. He moved into his office and returned with a vial of potion which Harry quickly drank. By the time Severus moved to the back of his head to check the cut, it was already completely healed. Severus, however, frowned, as he saw the blood matted in Harry's black hair. A careful 'scourgify' cleared it off.

Severus was about to dismiss Thyme so he could ask what had happened, when a grey fox scrambled through the door. His form shimmered and then flowed into Blaise's. "I found him."

Harry surged to his feet and would have headed to the door if a hard hand hadn't clamped down on his shoulder. "You are going nowhere until you tell me what is going on and who hit you!"

Harry sighed. He knew there was no getting out of this when the Potion professor used that tone of voice. Still, it made him feel warm inside that the older man was angry on his behalf rather than angry with him. "Ron and I came down, and found Draco already here."

"And Weasley was involved for what reason?"

"My vision woke the whole dorm," Harry explained. "Ron followed me out because I was obviously freaked. Then he saw me jump and really got worried. There was no way he'd leave me alone after that. Of course, he didn't take too well to Draco being here, but we got over that and were actually having a civil conversation, talking about the reason people feared the name Voldemort. And some comment might have been made about his mother." All joking left his tone and he started talking faster. "I didn't mean to tell him, but I had to because he knew something was wrong.

"So I told Ron to leave and told Draco about her, but he didn't believe me and hit me for lying to him. Then I... um... said something and he ran off. I got Blaise to find him and now he has, so I'm going to go talk to him."

Severus blinked. "I will go talk to him. You are obviously more rattled than we had believed if you are babbling to such an extent."

Harry frowned. "I need to..."

"You need to do as you're told," Severus said severely. He didn't give him another chance to argue, sweeping out of the room with Blaise trailing along behind him. The last word the two left behind heard was "And don't pout, Potter."

Harry pulled in his lower lip quickly before muttering mutinously, "I wasn't pouting."

Thyme laughed. "Of course you weren't, Potter."

Severus held back a sigh. He'd expected to come back to his rooms, reassure Harry that all was well and send him back to bed. Regardless of his last order as he had left, he really hadn't expected the boy to go off to bed. He hadn't, however, expected Draco to be awake, much less aware of what had happened. He'd thought Draco would still be asleep, and nothing would need to be said until Lucius showed up the next morning. So much for those plans.

"He's in there," Blaise's voice interrupted his thoughts as they stopped in front of a doorway.

"Thank you, Blaise." Severus said quietly but sincerely. "You may go back to your dorm."

"Yes, sir."

Once Blaise was gone, Severus still stood for a moment outside the door. He was exhausted and honestly not sure he was up to dealing with an emotional teenager, though he knew he didn't have a choice. He couldn't just leave him here. Still, what to Draco and Harry had been an excitable half hour or so, had been the culmination of several very full hours for himself.

The meeting had gone about as expected. Lucius had done a wonderful acting job on being surprised and dismayed. Voldemort had been extremely annoyed that Severus hadn't shown up, and had taken a good deal of that annoyance out on Lucius. That did have one good result though; they had found out that a shadow phoenix's tears could cure as well as a fire phoenix's. No, the official meeting had not been too much of a surprise. The gathering after it had been the startling one.

Lucius had made quiet plans with several of the Death Eaters to rendezvous at Malfoy Manor after the official meeting. However, when people started arriving, *far* more came than expected. It seemed that many others took exception to the death - for no good reason - of Narcissa Black Malfoy, a pureblood and wife of an Inner Circle member. After all, she should have been protected by both her blood and her husband's rank. If Malfoy's wife could be killed so easily, so could their own.

When Lucius heard that comment, he looked blandly at the speaker. "If I were you, Smith, I would be far more worried about my child. After all, the day we will be commanded to bring our children in front of him to be Marked is coming up quickly."

"You don't seem to be very worried about your son," Smith sneered.

"Draco is sixteen years old. As such, except for those things necessary for Initiation, he is not in much danger. Your own Marguerite however, is but three."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Bigley asked.

Lucius looked around at the uncomprehending expressions on the other men's faces and held back a sigh. "Did none of you bother to research the Dark Mark?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Obviously you have not, so let me enlighten you. If the Dark Lord Marks a child under the age of four, the child will be a slave, having no free will of his or her own. Also, a child whose power is unfocused, in other words, one who has not developed the ability to channel their magic using a true wand, will find their power drained away very quickly. To put it in simpler words, if your child is under four, they will be made into a mindless automaton, and if they are under eleven, they will be drained to the point of Squibs or beyond."

That caused an explosion of outrage, especially among those who had children not yet in school. Lucius soon put a stop to that. "Oh, I wouldn't be so calm if I were you, Parkinson. We still haven't gotten to the worst part."

"There's something worse?" Bigley squawked.

"The Dark Mark can not be given to someone totally pure. And I am not talking about blood purity. Considering the way he has been acting lately, I would not be surprised if he would expect you to take your own child's - or children's - purity."

"Surely you are mistaken!" One of the newer recruits blurted. "Carter is only nine months old!"

"Do you believe he would care?" Lucius asked silkily.

The explosion this time was much longer and far more out of control. Lucius looked on in disgust as these, among the best of the purebloods of the wizarding world, scions of respectability, and most of all, Slytherins who had been taught better than this, ranted and raved, shouted and screamed as they fully understood what his words had meant.

It took almost twenty minutes, during which Lucius sat watch with a firewhiskey in his hand that he occasionally sipped, before they calmed down enough to talk rationally. Parkinson spoke up once again. "You have a plan to get Draco out of this, do you not?"

"And if I did, why should I tell you?"

There was silence from the dozen men gathered around. Before, finally, one spoke. "Because I want out. And I know I'm not the only one. This might have been fun when I was a teenager, but I'm a family man now, a pillar of the community, and I do not want a youthful indiscretion to haunt me and my family for the rest of our lives, or bring us to ruin."

Slowly, many others in the room began to nod. Fourteen years without the Dark Lord's charismatic presence had given them the time to mature on their own and take a long hard look at the choices they'd made. While many did not truly regret what they had been, they had changed, and what they wanted out of life had changed as well. Not to mention that the Dark Lord's sanity seemed to have very much deteriorated in the interim, along with his plans for the wizarding world. By the time he did finally come back, there were very, very few Death Eaters who truly wanted Voldemort to return, and after they experienced his new persona, there were even fewer.

Lucius looked at them thoughtfully for a long moment, then nodded. "Come here on Tuesday at eight in the evening and we will discuss this."

Knowing a dismissal when they heard one, the others slowly began to gather their cloaks and leave, whilst talking quietly to one another. Only when a house elf came forward to announce that they were all gone, did Severus descend from the shadowy corner from which he had watched the entire meeting.

"What do you have planned?"

Lucius took a large sip of his drink. "I believe we can at least get their promise to stay out of the fight. Although we hope that Voldemort will not know what is happening until too late, there is still the possibility that he will manage to call for help. All we truly need is their promise to stay away from the mansion on the day we take him down."

"And how many of them will now, immediately, run to the Dark Lord, hoping that telling of your treachery will buy them immunity for their children?"

"That is why I did not tell them anything of our plans, today. By Tuesday, there will hopefully be a way to make them tell the truth."

"You know there is no way they will take a truth potion in front of everyone, or even just yourself."

"That's not what I was considering."

Severus' eyes suddenly went wide. "You are *not* thinking..."

"I *am* known for having quite a menagerie."

"Absolutely not!"

"No one would think twice about my having a gryphon, and since gryphons cannot force truth, they should have no trouble swearing in front of him."

"The idea is utterly ridiculous! I will not allow you to place Harry in such danger!"

"No one will know it is him, and I will not allow anyone to harm him."

"I. Said. NO!" Severus hissed. "Find a different way, because you will not use him like that."

"Think logically, Severus! Everyone we can keep away from the mansion is one less we have to fight. You three will need to devote all of your power to the spell and I am the only protection you will have while you are casting it! If it fails, it is unlikely you will get another chance. If you can think of another way to test their trustworthiness, then tell me. Otherwise, we go with my plan. No one would dare attack one of my animals; you know that. Harry will not be harmed. I expect many more people here on Tuesday than were even at today's meeting, and getting that many people out of the fight is worth him leaving school for a couple hours. "

Severus recognized the logic is Lucius' statements, but that did not overcome his own purely emotional response. There was no way he would allow Harry to be put in danger like that.

"Fine," Lucius murmured. "I will simply ask him myself. I believe *he* will be able to understand the benefits of this action."

"No, you won't," Severus disagreed.

"Yes, I do believe I will," Lucius answered evenly. "I do believe you're becoming as protective of that boy as I am of Draco. Will he be calling you 'Daddy', next?"

Severus brought himself back to the present with a sneer. Honestly, what was the man thinking? He did not think of Harry like that, and Harry certainly didn't consider him any type of father figure... right?

He shook those thoughts away. There was another child who needed him right now. He opened the door of the unused classroom and took in the destruction surrounding him. He quickly cast privacy charms.

"I didn't do it," Draco's voice, quiet and sad, came out of a darkened corner. He shuffled forward, his head hanging, dejection in his bearing.

Severus moved quickly to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder, unsure for once if such a personal gesture would be appreciated. Draco eliminated any uncertainty as he threw his arms around Severus and held on tight for one long moment. Before the older wizard could even begin to hug back, Draco suddenly moved away and pushed Severus towards the door.

"You need to go check on Harry. I'm fine," Draco said frantically.

"Harry's fine," Severus tried to soothe.

"No, he's not!" Draco disagreed. "I hit him and he was bleeding. He was right, I'm just like V...Voldemort."

Severus froze. "You are nothing like that bloodthirsty madman," he bit out. "Yes, you hit Harry, but there were extenuating circumstances and he understands that."

Draco shook his head, arguing silently.

"If he did blame you, do you think he would have traveled all the way to the Slytherin Common Room just to get help tracking you down?"

"He did that?"

"Yes, he did. Blaise is the one that came to find you while Thyme was checking Harry over."

Draco's face clouded once more at the reminder.

"He's fine," Severus forcefully repeated. "He's worried about you." Severus was watching him carefully. He knew that although Draco was truly worried about his friend, it was not what was most on his mind. He seemed to be trying to distract himself from his main grief. Narcissa might not have been much of a mother, but that did not change the fact that she *was* his mother and her death must have been devastating for him.

Finally, Draco closed his eyes and blurted out the question. "Was he telling the truth?"

"About what?"

"Is Mother dead? And... did... did she really tell *Him* that you're a spy?"

Severus sighed and conjured a couch, pulling Draco down to sit next to him. "Yes," he said carefully. "She is and she did."

"Why?" Draco wailed, tears finally coming to his eyes.

"Because Voldemort was already angry and she was convenient." Severus answered the easier of the two questions.

"Not that," Draco angrily dashed the tears away before they could roll down his cheeks. "Why did she tell about you and how did she know?"

"We don't know," Severus admitted. He lied of course, but there was no reason Draco needed to know. He didn't need his image of his mother tarnished any more than it already was.

"She..." Draco sniffed, "she probably did something to deserve it."

"No," Severus disagreed quietly, but adamant. "No one deserves that. No matter what they've done or not done, no matter who they are or are not, no one ever deserves that." Severus reached over and pulled his godson fully into his embrace. That gesture broke through the dam Draco had been striving to keep on his emotions, and throwing his arms around Severus' neck, he burst into sobs.

Severus just held him close and let him cry, knowing there was nothing else he could do. Internally, he cursed the woman and her greed. To denounce himself was one thing, but to denounce her son? And why! Because Lucius was using her diamonds for the focus! Even worse, though, was the reason she had gone after Draco and not Lucius.

It seems that the Malfoy prenuptial agreement was truly messed up… or maybe, it was just that Cissa's soul was unbelievably twisted If Narcissa did not bear Lucius an heir, or the heir did not make it to sixteen (a milestone Draco had reached a week ago), and Lucius had died or divorced her, she would have been left with nothing. If Lucius died before Draco, she would have lost the Malfoy name, and become a Black with a generous allowance. But one contingency had been left out. In case of divorce, the only way she could keep the Malfoy name and money was if Draco died after he reached sixteen but before Lucius.

It was this rationale that Lucius had used to explain his wife's actions, to convince his Master it was all a lie on her part, and perhaps vengeance combined with greed. That was something Voldemort was able to completely understand and it had kept Draco out of his bad graces, especially considering how soon it was after Draco's sixteenth birthday. It would not, however, have helped if Severus had shown up. Voldemort would have used whatever means necessary to make sure Severus had not betrayed him, and it was unlikely the spy would have survived the interrogation.

After almost fifteen minutes of nearly hysterical crying, Draco finally started to calm down. Severus had done nothing during that time but hold him close and stroke the boy's back as he tried to give what comfort he could. Once Draco was quiet for a few minutes, Severus tried to pull away so he could look down at him and speak, however strong hands had his robes in a death grip and he wasn't able to move. He looked down anyway, and smiled softly. Draco might have been holding on too tightly for him to get away, but he was also fast asleep. Severus pressed a kiss against his forehead and just held him close, waiting for enough time to pass that he could take him to his father. Those two needed each other fiercely now, whether or not that fact was acknowledged.